SGA Gen Rec

One of my biggest, bullet-proof fic kinks is the outside, peripheral POV. Difficult to write well, but when a talented author pulls it off it can be a thing of showing-not-telling beauty, providing subjective but dynamic insights into a character sometimes more effectively than if we were actually placed inside their head.

I especially enjoy this device when it's turned on a romantic relationship, like in trinityofone's Eight Ways John and Rodney Gave Themselves Away, or, from back in due South, rustler's The Delivery. These kinds of stories manage to be far more emotionally satisfying to me than a schmaltz fest with declarations of eternal love. Of course, it works equally well for gen (though slashy if your brain is already wired that way) pieces, like rivier's Exigencies, which has one of my favorite takes on John Sheppard ever.

That being said, my rec today is a actually a purely gen story. It's from Zelenka's POV, about Team Sheppard. (Zelenka + Team fic = brillance already.) The Zelenka voice is excellent and very affecting. What is really interesting, though, is the way this story captures the team dynamic with Radek's shifting perspective. Because on the surface, yeah, the're a pretty disfunctional group- they shouldn't work together, logically, but when push comes to shove they so do. It's easy to forget that SGA-1 isn't just the slacker, screw-up version of SG-1, and that they do have their moments, when it comes down to it, of Big Damn Hero-ness. Just aww. *heart bursts*

So go read it: Posthumous Part of the Scene by cybersyd