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A sad McShep post
MermaidMayonnaise posted this last night and it makes me so very sad. Our little fandom really has grown quiet. That makes sense, what with canon being closed and all new Stargate content about new characters. Maybe I should read the comics and post about those? They're supposed to be a continuation...
Anyway, in the link I provided, I mentioned how fun it'd be if we suggested changes to episodes and discussed what would happen. Maybe we could give that a try? It's okay if nobody's interested, but I miss connected with my McShep friends and feeling the excitement and love. It's lonely out here.
So: what do YOU think would have happened if John's mother had been alive when he went to his father's funeral?
A lot of fics have John's mother's death a point of contention between John and his father. It's possible to say that John had a falling out with his father over being gay, and/or joining the military. But we could always twist things further. John's mother lives. She forces her husband and her son to find common ground. John keeps in sporadic contact. He decides to go on the Atlantis mission because he's always been a geek at heart, daydreaming about living in Star Trek. And spacehips exist! Aliens are a thing!
Maybe he flips a coin on whether to tell his family that this particular mission is a bit more dangerous than his usual.
Maybe he doesn't send a video home in Letters From Pegasus because he's worried about how his family will react. Because saying goodbye is even more difficult when you care.
It's even more fun to think about John returning for his father's funeral with Rodney in tow. What would Mama Sheppard make of Rodney McKay? Rodney doesn't make a good first impression. It could go terrible. Or she could see right through Rodney's prickly exterior to the soft center. Maybe she's like John and finds him funny. Oh my gosh, imagine the boys on vacation and they have to split their time between Jeannie's house and John's childhood home. Rodney gleefully going through photo albums, bright eyed at the thought of embarrassing childhood stories.
Maybe when things go wrong and John desperately needs a break, he has someplace earthside to go. With John gone the whole team goes on standdown, and maybe they go with.
Maybe John gets to keep his family, all of it.
Anyway, in the link I provided, I mentioned how fun it'd be if we suggested changes to episodes and discussed what would happen. Maybe we could give that a try? It's okay if nobody's interested, but I miss connected with my McShep friends and feeling the excitement and love. It's lonely out here.
So: what do YOU think would have happened if John's mother had been alive when he went to his father's funeral?
A lot of fics have John's mother's death a point of contention between John and his father. It's possible to say that John had a falling out with his father over being gay, and/or joining the military. But we could always twist things further. John's mother lives. She forces her husband and her son to find common ground. John keeps in sporadic contact. He decides to go on the Atlantis mission because he's always been a geek at heart, daydreaming about living in Star Trek. And spacehips exist! Aliens are a thing!
Maybe he flips a coin on whether to tell his family that this particular mission is a bit more dangerous than his usual.
Maybe he doesn't send a video home in Letters From Pegasus because he's worried about how his family will react. Because saying goodbye is even more difficult when you care.
It's even more fun to think about John returning for his father's funeral with Rodney in tow. What would Mama Sheppard make of Rodney McKay? Rodney doesn't make a good first impression. It could go terrible. Or she could see right through Rodney's prickly exterior to the soft center. Maybe she's like John and finds him funny. Oh my gosh, imagine the boys on vacation and they have to split their time between Jeannie's house and John's childhood home. Rodney gleefully going through photo albums, bright eyed at the thought of embarrassing childhood stories.
Maybe when things go wrong and John desperately needs a break, he has someplace earthside to go. With John gone the whole team goes on standdown, and maybe they go with.
Maybe John gets to keep his family, all of it.
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I also have a notion of her as leaving when John was very young, when she was very young herself, to get away from Patrick. It's a tragic idea, having to leave her child behind, but without Patrick's money, and with no skills, she couldn't support herself let alone John. So she goes off to college, gets her degrees in math!!! and ends up teaching a budding young Canadian genius at Northwestern. Rodney figures it out years later ("I knew you looked familiar!"), reunites John and his mom, some angst, but happy endings. (Pods, I need to write this story!)
I read the Tumblr post and I'm terribly sorry you all weren't here for the Fandom That Ate Fandom. I got into SGA in '06, I think, just as it peaked. Tons of new stories everyday, so many you just couldn't keep up, new art, new meta, picspam, the works. It was wonderfully exciting to come home every day and find fantastic new stories to read. I'm still finding them, all these years later, the ones I missed the first time around. I guess it's why I'm something of an archivist; I want to save it all to read as I have time.
If there's one moment I wish you all could have experienced, it was the day "Written by the Victors" by Spenanza was posted. It was, frankly, the watershed moment of SGA. If you go to her DW or LJ and read the comments, maybe you can capture a little of the excitement and amazement that work engendered.
I too wish it was still as big as it used to be, but I'm enjoying all the new faces of fandom as the years go by. I'm glad you're all here, keeping the fun going.
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One thing I find interesting is that even in AU's, John's mother tends to be dead or absent. I can only think of one AU fic where she's still around...
I hear about how so many stories were being posted you couldn't keep up and it sounds like HEAVEN. You know, I'm not sure I've read every mcshep-match story, or every John/Rodney sga-santa story. So there's still old stuff to explore. And there's enough fic to continuously cycle through. It's the discussions and meta that I long for.
I confess I'm not a big fan of Written By The Victors. Oops?
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Re: John's Mom, yeah, Aphorism is about it for her being around in any way. If there's anything else out there, I don't recall it. I really need to get back to writing. The ideas are there; the motivation not so much.
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I didn't really like Victors, kind of slugged through it. I'm probably the only person in the fandom that isn't into it. I totally see how it's an exceptional piece of literature, I just didn't enjoy reading it.
I'm enjoying reading through the AO3 McShep fics chronologically. I've only gotten to May 2007, it's probably going to take me years. There's so much talent there.
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As for Victors, as I said above, it was a love it/hate it fic but such a game changer! Speranza really is one of the best writers in any fandom.
What a fantastic idea, reading the McShep fics chronologically. I should go back and do that, even knowing how many just aren't up on AO3, which is a shame. And yes, I've been here for 14 years and still haven't read everything. What a great way to spend a little time every day. :D
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The works by Speranza that I do like are some of the best pieces of ff I've ever read.