Danny Can't Dance by Martha, PG-13

[avidrosette.livejournal.com]

Danny Can't Dance by Martha, PG-13

Rec Category: Jack O'Neill
Pairing: Jack and Daniel friendship
Characters: Jack, Daniel
Category: Jack O'Neill, gen, Jack and Daniel, episode tag (Hathor), hurt/comfort
Warnings: none
Author on LJ: saffronhouse
Author's Website: Good Morning, Sunshine
Link: Danny Can't Dance

Why This Must Be Read:

Jack takes Daniel out clubbing to help his friend recover from the traumatic events of Hathor. But that bare-bones summary doesn't begin to do justice to this complex and thought-provoking piece. Operating on several fronts at once, the story provides a satisfying denouement to Hathor, explores the bonds of friendship between Jack and Daniel, and above all, examines Jack's character, looking especially at how it might have been affected by the collision Jack would have experienced between middle American belief systems and the wider view afforded by contact with societies on other planets. The story beautifully integrates these three purposes, making every image, every association, every event carry multiple levels of meaning.

One of the many things I love about this ambitious fic is Martha's attention to the texture of off-base Colorado Springs neighborhood life. Her Jack doesn't live in isolation, but rather in the midst of a richly evoked social fabric, one whose positives and negatives the author captures with a sharp and knowing eye. This three-dimensional portrait of residential Colorado Springs balances what the reader already knows of life on the other side of the wormhole to show the tremendous dissonance between the two worlds. The challenge for Jack of navigating that divide forms one of the main complications of the story. The author crystallizes the way Jack is stranded between the two worlds in one memorable image: a frightening hallucination where he momentarily sees his fellow human beings as literal aliens. A beautiful example of the thematic integration that this author does so well, the hallucination reveals not only that Jack shares Daniel's post-traumatic suffering after Hathor, but also that, to some extent, ordinary, human society has been rendered as alien to Jack as the societies he visits across the galaxy.

Without ever pausing in its fast pace, the story manages to ask big questions: how might Jack reconcile a belief in any deity with the experience of seeing so many gods proven false? How can he connect to people he's essentially left behind, whose sensibility he no longer truly shares? How can he distinguish between good and evil even in his own backyard, when everyone harbors extreme contradictions? What is left to believe in in a frighteningly ambiguous world? The story's elegant structure lets it appear to range with associative freedom through Jack's stream of consciousness, while in fact always circling back to its main themes. It leaves no thematic threads hanging, ties everything tightly together, and introduces nothing without a purpose. In full control of her material, the author makes some lovely observations along the way: the beauty of ordinariness in contrast to the high-gloss glamour of the Goa'uld courts, and the strength of friendship as one of the few truths in a mixed up universe.

( Fic Excerpt )

The 'Three John/Rodney AUs I'm Totally Not Writing' series by Yin (NC-17)

[hooloovoo-too.livejournal.com]

Rec Category: Slash
Pairing: John/Rodney
Category: Slash, AU
Warning: Slash, Crack!fic
Author on LJ: yin_again
Link: True Colors; Rub You the Right Way; and What [Who] I Did on My Summer Vacation.
Summary: So, what if John and Rodney were hairdressers? Or John was a lifeguard and Rodney was a scientist studying algae? What if Rodney was a masseuse and John was a guy with a sore back? What if I was insane? (uh, that last one is a rhetorical question.)

Why This Must Be Read:

Sometimes you don't want angst. Sometimes you don't want to think deeply. Sometimes you just get the urge to sit down with a happy little PWP where Rodney unleashes his inner bitchy colorist, and John is a specialist in hair cuts.

What, you mean you don't get that urge?

Huh.

At any rate, these are three wonderful little fics to add to the madness that the SGA fandom ocassionally produces (penguins and unicorns, anyone?). They come as a loose series, though any one could act as a stand-alone. And they're for the times when a long day has wiped you out, and something light sounds perfect. The crack goes beyond just the funny premise, though. These fics understand that sometimes you just want porn, darn it, and they deliver (complete with Scooby-doo style segues for those of us who just want to skip to the sex). It's not life-changing philosophy or high science-fiction, but I can guarantee that these three fics really brightened my day, and I've read them several times since, and laughed every time. Sometimes, that blend of lighthearted fun and hot porn is just perfect.