Rat Creature's Journal

Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard
Media used: pencil drawing
Rating/warnings: G, none
Notes/comments: I did this for the Painted Spires Halloween challenge. While it isn't Halloween anymore where I am, it still is elsewhere, so I hope this still counts as October posting too...

Maybe I've just watched the Peanuts Halloween special too often, but I couldn't help but think that at some point John must have dressed up as WW I Flying Ace for Halloween just like Snoopy. So here's a pencil sketch of John Sheppard on Halloween 1975, as he's going trick-or-treating.
Preview:
( the image and a high resolution detail are behind the cut )

First, some art comm linkage (even though I suspect most interested people will already know of these):

Yuletart, a multi-fandom art exchange, has started with the nomination process for this year's fandoms. For the next couple of days only the participants from last year can suggest fandoms for this year, but soon it'll open up to new participants. Since I suggested fandoms I guess that'll mean I'm going to do a holiday exchange again this year. Meep.

Also, Paintedspires recently got an overhaul and reopened as an SGA flash art community. The first challenge has been posted, and you should all join or at least watch.

In less happy news ( rat health update )

( spoilers )

Rewind, Reboot, Restore by Rheanna (Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, 24,000 words) is an awesome amnesia story. It's funny and heartwrenching, and you should go and read it right now.

In my search for stories where the expedition is stranded in Pegasus, I noticed that there is apparently a whole subgenre where they form communes on Earth.

I've decided to start a new thematic list for another one of my favorite SGA fic tropes, an Atlantis that either by necessity or choice has to fend for itself in the Pegasus galaxy.

For a story to be included in this thematic list the Atlantis expedition has to loose contact with Earth permanently, or at least for a significantly longer time than in canon, declare independence from Earth, or be stranded as a colony in Pegasus after Atlantis is lost. I've divided the list in the following subsections:

1. Atlantis is involuntarily cut off from Earth, e.g. it's on its own because Earth has been lost or is too occupied in the Milky Way (overrun by Ori, Replicators or Goa'uld, blown up, hit by a natural disaster...), or has never (or only much later) reestablished contact in the first place; contact with Earth may or may not happen eventually, but the separation has had a lasting impact, and is somewhat central to the story.
2. Atlantis intentionally secedes from Earth, i.e. declares its independence, or its allegiance to one or more Pegasus cultures/alliances or develops into a colony city in the (far) future.
3. The Atlantis expedition members (i.e. more than just the team) settle as a colony somewhere else in Pegasus, e.g. because Atlantis the city has been lost to some enemy or disaster, or taken over by Earth officials the original expedition can't support in their goals leading to mass desertion, or similar scenarios.

I've listed about thirty stories so far, but there are probably more, so if you know of any I missed please comment with a title and a link.

Indelible, by Shaenie. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard. (ca. 131,000 words)
I was a bit wary at the start, because encounters with Pegasus aliens somehow resulting in ritual spankings as punishment are not among my kinks, however this gave the aliens at least enough depth that it made sense somewhat, and they weren't just "wacky plot device aliens". It also helps that while this acted as a catalyst it is not an AMTDI story. Anyway, what I loved about this story was what happens after this, with a lot of Atlantis exploration, cool Ancient tech, and them forming connections through both. Also there is a great space battle. Atlantis is not sentient here, but it is John/Atlantis/Rodney in a way.

I've updated my SGA thematic list for alien cultures, which lists SGA fic that features human Pegasus cultures prominently or even in an interesting plot-device way, i.e. basically anything that isn't the "aliens make them do it" genre (unless the focus were very much the culture and its reasons to require visitors to engage in sexual relations, rather the "there was a random, irrational fertility ritual *hand-wave*, so John and Rodney have sex" kind) or standard plot-device usage (meaning things like "randomly violent natives attack the team for h/c purposes" and such, but we never really learn about the aliens in-depth) or merely token appearances, but shows Pegasus aliens as having a culture in their own right.

I hadn't updated in a couple of months, so there's a number of new links, also as always I'm happy if anyone points me to stories I missed. The same goes for my two other thematic lists for Wraith/Iratus bug transformations and for stories with John Sheppard as Ancient, Ori or Ascended.

( spoilers for SGA 5x02 )

Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis / Avatar: The Last Airbender Fusion
Characters/Pairings: Teyla as Waterbender
Media used: pencil, fine liner pen with waterproof indian ink, acrylic paint
Rating/warnings: G
Notes/comments: I did this for the prompt "SGA/Avatar the Last Airbender crossover" for the SGA fanart fest Painted Spires, as additional fanart for the Amnesty Week. This is more a fusion than a crossover, but I think it's still within the prompt's parameters. Originally this was supposed to be a series of portraits with each of the team matched with an element from Avatar (I thought after Teyla I'd do Rodney as Earthbender, Ronon as Firebender, and John as Airbender), but I only managed to finish Teyla in time to still post (just barely) during Amnesty Week.

Preview:

( the image and a high resolution detail are behind the cut )

Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard & Steampunk!Puddlejumper
Media used: pencil, fine liner pen with waterproof indian ink, acrylic paint
Rating/warnings: G
Notes/comments: I did this for the prompt "Victorian steampunk AU" for the SGA fanart fest Painted Spires. Admittedly mechanical pterodactyls aren't the most efficient way for a flying machine, Steampunk or otherwise, and not a very likely or even possible path technology would take from an SF standpoint, but this way was much cooler visually than merely changing the puddlejumpers with pipes or gauges or whatever. I mean, they more or less look like flying lunch boxes. Not really realistic technology, but this is Stargate after all, and I'm pretty sure John would think that mechanical, flying dinosaurs were cool.

The original is 30x40cm, so unfortunately I had to scan it in two parts, and you can see a slight line where I merged, because I fail at digital manipulation and didn't know how to make the two parts fit completely seamless.

Preview:
( The image and a higher resolution detail are behind the cut. )

To My Destiny, by Kodiak Bear. Gen. (ca. 8,800 words)
In this AU Janus convinced the Ancients to allow the use of his time travelling technology and they took Atlantis into the future, to present day Earth, when they continue the fight. It's an interesting premise and the Ancients here are just the right mix of ruthless and creepy but not actually bad guys.

Guardians of a rare thing, by Livia Penn. Het, Ronon Dex/Samantha Carter. (ca. 6,200 words)
This goes AU from Return I: Ronon comes to Earth rather than stay in Pegasus. Ireally like this take on Ronon at the SGC, and his perspective of Earth.

The Great Pegasus Train Robbery, by Sholio. Gen, team. (ca. 10,500 words)
This humor story casts the team as train robbers in the Old West, and they aren't very good at being bandits, but their efforts are very entertaining.

Knights Errant, by Sholio. Gen. (ca. 5,300 words)
So this is a Knight Rider fusion, with Rodney as the car, John as the driver. And okay, the story doesn't really have much of a plot beyond the setup of John meeting the car, but well, I think the scenario is awesome. (Don't judge me, okay? I liked the series as a kid...)

Bright Wings, by Snarkydame. Gen. (ca. 7,000 words)
In this AU Pegasus cultures are squatting in Atlantis, rather than it lying abandoned. It goes further AU than that because the expedition members are among the residents too, with the team running a salvaging operation looking for bits of Ancient tech in the older, submerged parts of the city, but the story still mixes in enough elements from canon Pegasus cultures and Ancient and Atlantis tech that the scenario isn't just some generic fantasy type of city.

Mona Lisa Box, by Tzzz. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard. (ca. 14,000 words).
This is a fusion between Terminator: The Sarah Conor Chronicles and SGA, and it is a rather creepy love story, with a great twist on the origin of Skynet. I was a bit bothered by the implications the ending had for Rodney's characterization (I don't want to spoil it by being more specific), but apart from that I enjoyed it.

Almost All Grown Up, by Xparrot. Gen, team. (ca. 5,900 words)
I really like AUs with John as a Pegasus native, and making John a Genii, but tell the story from Teyla's Athosian POV, when we as readers know there is more to the Genii, was a narrative ploy I really enjoyed.

Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis / His Dark Materials
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, the team's dæmons Nioke, Keho, Tykallita, and Imara
Media used: pencil, fine liner pen with waterproof indian ink, acrylic paint, a little bit colored pencils
Rating/warnings: G, none
Notes/comments: This is an illustration for Trinityofone's SGA/HDM story Dæmonology, John and Teyla and their respective dæmons are sparring with each other, while Ronon's and Rodney's dæmons watch (these two themselves are somehow offscreen). The story itself is McKay/Sheppard slash, but the picture is very much gen.

The faint, yet still annoying line in the middle where the colors don't quite match is there because the paper of the original is of a larger format than my scanner, so I had to scan it in two parts, and didn't manage to make them fit perfectly.

Astrid helped me fix some perspective and relative size and positioning problems in an earlier pencils sketch of this. The illustration is much better for it. Any remaining problems however are my fault.

Preview:
( the image and high resolution details are behind the cut )

( spoilers for SGA 4x20 )

Totally unrelated to SGA I learned a new piece of trivia today: I've always been vaguely puzzled by the color name "ivory black" because it seemed contradictory (ivory not being black and all). Then today I happened to look at the label on the back of a tube of acrylic ivory black, one that went into all kinds of technical detail that I have no idea what it means (it has some kind of numbers for hue, value, chroma and codes for the pigments and symbols for opaqueness and lightfastness and so on) but also had a list of ingredients and apparently that black is made from charred animal bones. Hence the name "ivory black".

And I get that historically, though I'd have thought that by now the color would be synthetic. I mean, it's not they are still grinding up lapis lazuli for ultramarine (well, I guess there might be people who are into restoration and such and make their colors themselves from scratch with pigments or specialty producers who still do that, but usually it's synthetic these days). So it's kind of gross that they still use animal bones, but that what the tube says in its ingredient list under the "vehicle: acrylic polymer emulsion" there's "pigment: amorphous carbon produced by charring animal bones". So I'm using the same pigment as my prehistoric ancestors, I guess, only in a prepared polymer solution rather than charring some hunted mammoth's bone myself. Still in my mind "gross" kind of wins out over "artistic connection across millennia of history".

( a small spoiler for Kindred, part one )

I just read an awesome SGA story posted for the Second Verse challenge on SGA Flashfic:

Games of Chance, by xparrot. Gen, Rodney McKay. (ca. 12,000 words)
It's a great take on precognition/multiple universes/timetravel in the SG universe, and I loved the frantic, desperate pace of it. I was slightly confused at the beginning, but that turned out to be a very deliberate story telling choice, because it starts right in the action, and it all came together in a very cool plot.

Because it is such a common, recurring request on the SGA genrefinders comm (and because I love Bug!John stories), I decided to compile a proper thematic list for stories relating to Wraith/Iratus bug transformations. The majority is Bug!John, but I have included sections for stories in which another human character is transformed into a Wraith or Iratus bug hybrid, as well as a section for stories dealing with the reverse, i.e. Wraith transformed into humans. Currently it lists about forty stories, but I'd love add any fitting story that I missed. I did not include those Conversion tags that are set completely after John reverted, unless there were at least some remaining transformation related aftereffects.

To avoid having to update the list in multiple journals I maintain it on my website, like with my other thematic list:

SGA thematic list: Wraith/Iratus bug transformations

( spoilers for 4x18 Kindred, part one )

( sorry that the rec is inconveniently behind a cut, but the title and description have significant spoilers for the most recent SGA ep Outcast, even though it is not really an episode tag )

Does anyone know what happened to the reversathon.com domain? I just tried to reread a McShep Match story (for those interested, Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by ras_elased) and was cruelly thwarted by a link leading from the community into the ether of an expired domain. Did that site move? *hopeful* Or just vanish? :(