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random re-read recs - stargate atlantis and smallville

Due to work related overtime--every day but Sunday for the last week, including today, I am logging a terrifying number of hours, but it helps that Duckling keeps me entertained--I'm in a comfort-fic zone and my Kindle makes it ridic convenient to do so. Especially if one happens to--due to pure absentmindedness, not kidding--get on the bus going north toward home but the wrong bus going north and end up going to Techridge when one lives--well, nearer to Rundberg?--yeah, if you are in Austin, you're laughing at me, but it was a nice drive! Got in lots of reading.

Including the following this last week:

Qui Habitat by domarzione - both unfinished novel and series, an AU in which the Ori conquered the Milky Way and are on their way to Pegasus. It helps to have some SG1 basics, but it's not necessary, context will be given. The novel that starts teh series is the WIP, but it has nine related short stories as well.

This story has the distinction of being the only one I've recced no less than five times--I just checked--and the reasons for this are multitude. It's politically complex, with high worldbuilding--and I do mean high--and a stunning range of characters both primary pov and secondary. It has backstory not just for plot purposes but to flesh out the world, some short, some longer, all riveting. The style is very spare--I think I told her once that she wrote the most ruthlessly unemotional prose in history and more than that, for all the right reasons and for the most effective reasons--the horrors are more horrific and the heroics are more heroic when they're laid out so baldly and so precisely. Jonah's story, Huma, is the most emotionally exhausting of them, and the precision is devastating to read and worse when you re-read--which seems impossible, but there's no end to the way Jonah's slow breakdown hits you no matter how you come at it--Jeannie Miller's story, Loyaulte Me Lie comes from a place where utter exhaustion of everything takes the place of logic when there's nothing left of hope, so you'll hope for anything, anything at all.

It's extremely re-readable as well, which puts it in my top ten. I come back to it about once a year and every time, I somehow forget something and get caught up in it again. I think sometimes it works best on re-read because of that--you read for what you know more closely and hit everything you missed.

The Retrograde Series by ltlj - I did a long rec here of it, but have recced various parts of the both original story and the series itself more than ten times, and it's still one of my favorites to re-read because like the above, it's complicated worldbuilding, it's political and complex adn fascinating, and it's a completely different view of Atlantis as it was and as it should have been.

Fireball by celli - John/Rodney - the NASCAR AU of Stargate Atlantis, and from this I learned more than I ever thought I wanted to know about racing cars, NASCAR politics, and monkeys on a track at the wrong place at the wrong time. Again, worldbuilding, hell yes, and good characterization and a monkey which right there just makes everything magic.

The Identical Series by lanning - Smallville - I recced it here nad probably some other times too. I wish I could say something I haven't said before other than wheee! But it's kind of like that. Smallville AU of the best kind, with nothing that broke our hearts--or our suspension of disbelief, which I want to point out, to even be a Smallville fan you walked into that willing to pretty much believe black was white if told to in a firm enough voice, or that anyone gets junk mail delivered to the hospital--YES THAT STILL GETS TO ME OKAY--or everything fell apart with the destiny of a rain of blood (and potentially toads).

But this is like, everything I wanted Smallville not to be because they woudl really do it badly if they tried but Lanning did it well! Imposters, clones, awesome OC's, plottiness, Lex angst, Jonathan not a dick--no, seriously, he's awesome and you love him, it's insane, lions lie with lambs and whatnot--meteor rocks, and jumping from balconies because you're not afraid. And issues with the Whoville Who's and their Christmas shenanigans with special mention of the manpain of the Grinch.

If anything's gonna get me through one more week of this, it's gonna be these fic, just saying.

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