Rat Creature's Journal

Recs page maintenance is a nightmare these days with all the moving, and worse, f-locking of stories. Just between the last update about a month ago and today several stories have been yanked, actually almost as many as I'm adding in this update. :(

Farscape

Unrealized Peacekeeper, by OneEye. Het, John/Gilina, John/Aeryn. (over 175,000 words) WIP
This AU is inspired by the scene in the Farscape episode Unrealized Reality in which we glimpse the possibility of Crichton as a Peacekeeper captain. It's a very plausible background for how that could have come to pass through just a small change, i.e. what if the wormhole that brought him to the UTs deposited him about ten feet to the right of his original exit point. And this works actually without making Crichton not like himself in any way, nor does the story gloss over the Peacekeeper's ideology and actions we see in canon. Besides it is a great action-adventure that incorporates a lot of elements and events from the episodes.

Stargate: Atlantis

Wild Nest, No Prison (ca. 2,000 words), Sharp and Sided Hail (ca. 2,375 words), and I Am Not the Thing I Was (ca.2,500 words), by Brat Farrar. Gen, John Sheppard. The individual stories are finished, but the universe (with some more bits and fragments already posted here) is still a WIP.
These are set in version of the SGA universe where magic works and is as commonplace as science, and I really enjoy how parts of the larger mythology shine through, but then I adore world-building.

Splinters and Stones, by Kat Reitz and Perryvic. Slash, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay/Carson Beckett, Rodney McKay/Other, John Sheppard/Other. (ca. 100,800 words)
For the purposes of full disclosure, a big part of why I enjoyed this so much is that I have a slavefic and non-con kink, which is also why I liked the CSI story set in this universe by the same authors, which however was more focused on the kink aspects than this one. One of the main points of difference in this AU is that it has some kind of feudalistic structure with an imperial government and feudal houses, and people can be subject to certain kinds of slavery that works like debt bondage or indentured servitude. Anyway, even if you aren't into slavefic in particular, the world-building is very cool, and there is lots of plot and plenty h/c.

Theory of Evolution, by Lavvyan. Slash, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay. (ca. 42,000 words)
It's another Conversion AU in which John's transformation isn't fully reversed. This one is long and has a nice amount of angst. Also, I just have a soft spot for Bug!John in general.

Aegis, by Leah and Springwoof. Slash, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay. (ca. 90,700 words)
The ATA gene in this AU is somewhat more common than in canon and doesn't just enable people to interface with Ancient technology, but gives them special abilities.

Out into the real world, by Mithreon. Slash, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay. (ca. 20,000 words)
It's a fusion of the SGA characters with The Matrix. I didn't quite get all of The Matrix context, because I've only seen the first movie, and I think this takes place in the future after the third or something, but I could follow it well enough.

Five Ways They Weren't Pirates (or: Scenes from Five SGA Pirate AUs), by Sholio. Gen, Het, Slash, team, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Rodney McKay/Teyla Emmagan. (ca. 6,000 words)
So I'm not actually all that fond of pirates, and I am a bit frustrated with "five things" stories that kind of tease you with cool AU possibilities, and make you want to learn the whole story behind them, but the snippet is far too short. Still, the scenarios for various kinds of pirates were cool, and made me want to know more, in particular was there no way I could resist a Steampunk AU with them as air pirates.

Mirror Dance, by Trinityofone. Slash, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay. (ca. 45,000 words)
I guess technically this one could count as not-AU because they meet their canon universe counterparts later on in the story through a quantum mirror, so it's more along the line of multiverse fic, but most of this is about an SGA universe in which the gene therapy Rodney underwent had the side effect to transform his body to look like a twin to Sheppard's, and it was a lot of fun to read, with some angst as well.

Supernatural

Clangs, by Vehemently. Gen, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester. (ca. 14,800 words)
This was a rather creepy and bleak AU. At first I was confused about what exactly was the premise leading into this (which I won't spoil for you), but then when it became clear, it was even more horrible and hopeless than I expected. But it's a really effective, though tragic, "what if" scenario.

AU recs

Stargate: Atlantis

Mnemonic, or Four Ways John Sheppard Didn't Lose His Mind, by cupidsbow. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard. (ca. 7,250 words)
I recently reread this story, and was surprised to find that I never recced it. It's four brief AUs all with cool worldbuilding, and all dealing with a different kind of amnesia or altered mind.

Junk Cheap, by devildoll. (ca. 13,000 words)
This AU is just sweet and fun, and John as a junk shop owner was kind of awesome.

Harvest Festival, by ras_fic. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard. (ca. 6,800 words)
This is a cool twist on the "AMTDI because of some backward fertility ritual" cliche, because in this AU the expedition members are Pegasus natives, and Rodney is a disgruntled priest, who's annoyed with the tradition of fertility rituals he doesn't believe in.

The One Where They're Antiglobalization Protestors, by sapote3. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, team. (ca. 8,200 words)
Besides being biased in favor of this setting for meta reasons, I liked that the whole team was brought into this AU in a convincing way, and the vivid descriptions and worldbuilding.

Wide Open Ocean, by setissma. Slash, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay. (ca. 10,600 words)
John and Rodney work at an aquarium, and I don't actually remember many more specifics, except that it was a nice, entertaining romance story.

Thule-Gesellschaft, by valderys. Slash, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay. (ca. 7,600 words)
This look at how the alternate universe from the episode McKay & Mrs. Miller might be was creepy and kind of depressing, but full of cool wordbuilding too.

Supernatural

Physiologus, by imogenics. Gen, Sam, Dean. (ca. 5,630 words)
In this AU Sam was pre-med instead of pre-law and tries to find a scientific order in the supernatural phenomena they encounter.

The Sunless Land by lyra_wing. Slash, Sam/Dean, Meg, John. (ca. 11,700 words)
It's kind of rare for me to read Wincest fic, but that they didn't grow up together in this AU made it much easier for me to buy that they'd be attracted to each other, and I have a soft spot for stories in which Sam is kidnapped by the YED and grows up with him and Meg, especially when they are not OTT dark fic, but the demon is still creepy, like in this one.

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crossover recs

Chicago, by ficwriter1966. Gen, Carol Hathaway, Dean, Sam, John. (ca. 4,900 words)
ER/Supernatural
I like outsider viewpoints, so looking at the pre-series Winchesters from Carol Hathaway's POV was really neat.

Knight's Gambit, by killabeez. Slash, Methos/Alva Keel, Duncan/Methos implied. (ca. 4,000 words)
Highlander/Miracles
I admit that I was a little bit lost with the demon plot in this story, because I know very little about Highlander (I've only watched a handful of the first season ages ago and a couple of xovers), but I couldn't resist the allure of Miracles fic. Even missing some of the Highlander context, this was still a very cool x-over premise, not least because Alva as an immortal would not just fit with him knowing all those languages, but explain why that investigation firm of his apparently doesn't really needs to earn money, yet he can still pay his employees.