In which I am so very grateful to gblvr and a small explanation for why.

I don't have a much to say about The Water Grinds the Stone at this point.

When I finish and post a story, I go through my files and purge everything but the final product. The only thing that gets saved are cut scenes, which are put away to be cannibalized for other stories. It's sort of a psychological ceremony necessary to free my brain for the next thing. It means I'm utterly worthless at writing introductions, summaries, blurbs or DVD commentaries.

gblvr has been kind enough to do a commentary for me, however, as well as creating the lovely artwork that goes with the story. That's more interesting than me telling you to read it anyway. Because I'm rather biased, after all.

The story covers events in two galaxies spanning fourteen years. Told from the point of views of John Sheppard and Rodney McKay, it tells their personal stories in all their flawed glory after the Stargate Program is disclosed to the public on Earth, along with the story of what happens to Atlantis and Earth afterward, and crosses over with SG-1 in a big way.

Inspirations for The Water Grinds the Stone were dossier's story Te Domum, Venit Hesperus, Ita Canus Filla, two songs, Indigo Girls' Left Me a Fool and Star's Your Ex-Lover Is Dead. That much I remember, but it isn't the story I thought I was going to write.

It's definitely a better story than I started out to write,though, thanks to the beta efforts of dossier, rez_lo, and mirabile_dictu and they have my everlasting thanks.

In case you want to test the waters:

Excerpt

If that doesn't persuade you, do check out gblvr's art and tell her how fantastic it is. Because it is.

Artwork

The first part of gblvr's commentary. (Clocking in at approximately 240,000 words means there will be two posts. eta The story is that long, not the commentary! Ooops.)

Commentary

Intrigued?

The Water Grinds the Stone


*I was supposed to post this yesterday, but luckily tielan posted instead, so I'm usurping her spot in the line-up guiltlessly. Thanks tielan!

I wrote The Astonishing Persistence Of Memory: Past Time for this year's Big Bang. The prompt was "Forks In The Road: Common Ground – Todd doesn’t give John his life back. Or gives too little life. Or gives too much life."

tli, liviapenn, and almostnever were the wonderful vidders/artists who offered to create an accompaniment to the story (you should definitely check out their work, even if you don't read the story - I had myself a small squee when I saw their names), and renisanz, azure_horizon, and sjhw_tolerance have been unbelievably gracious in helping me set up for this 'bonus features' gig! Thank you so much for your help!



The Astonishing Persistence Of Memory: Past Time
by Tielan

Artwork by:
tli | Promo Video
liviapenn | Story Art
almostnever | Cover Art
renisanz | Bonus Features Banner

Teaser

Reviews by:
sjhw_tolerance | Review
azure_horizon | Review

Q&A and story discussion

--

I had a spectacularly fun time writing The Patriot Act. Below you'll see the full preview of my fic, as well as some Q & A that my flist and some reviewers tossed my way. I did my best to keep them fairly spoiler-light, while still talking about the fic. ;) Artist's work is displayed throughout this post, as wow, I had a lot of fantastic work done by three separate individuals: ed_84, justhere1971 and spacemaori. I'll leave individual links to all their feedback posts, as well as doing pic previews. ;)

Secret Service AU. Sheppard/Weir. NC-17. 74,184 words.

The Patriot Act by irony_rocks Premise: The Patriot Act places the entire SGA cast into an alternate reality where Sheppard's team is a group of Secret Service agents assigned to protect Dr. Elizabeth Weir. What unravels is a global conspiracy perpetrated by a group of powerful and mysterious men, and Agent John Sheppard quickly realizes that conventional protocol is only going to get his charge killed. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and in this game it's only the fate of a nation that hangs in the balance. With the regular cast of SGA, as well as Jack O'Neill, Marshall Sumner, Radek Zelenka and Steven Caldwell. The sgabigbang preview for this fic is here, with excerpts from the story. Leave feedback to ed_84's artwork here: Secret Service Cast Promo artwork, Agent Teyla Emmagan and State Dinner Weir.

( Question #1 - What attracts you to the premise of total AUs so much? AND Question #2 - What about John and Elizabeth, specifically? )

( Question #3 - What was your favorite scene or character to write? AND Question #4 - The toughest thing to write about this fic was...? )

( Question #5: How the heck did you stay with it and actually finish the darn thing? No, seriously. )

The Prompt: A political shift on Earth has repercussions in Pegasus

We saw in canon what could happen when Earth tried to interfere too much in Atlantis. It wasn't good. But Mother Country takes place in the timeline we know, the one where John Sheppard came back - and then what happens later. What would Atlantis do if a political shift on Earth started having an impact in Pegasus? Rebel? Argue? Go quietly home? Or would they try and compromise? How far would our heroes be willing to go to protect what they have?

Highlights: Drama, snark, frustration, more snark, explosions visible from space, introspection, dysfunctional families, and kissing on a balcony. :)


The Preview: This wasn't exactly the preview I wanted to give, because I had trouble choosing what to show. I wanted to have a moment from each member of the Team, near the beginning of the story, a sort of scene-setting. There wasn't room for it all, but I think I got across an idea of it, at any rate.

Clickety.


The Art: Embarrassment of riches! I got two pieces of art! thisissirius made me a book cover that I want to print out and use (and may do), and leyna55 made a painting that actually manages to show the entire progression of the story for John and Rodney, all tied up in one moment. Go and look and tell them how wonderful they are.

Novel Cover by thisissirius | This Thing Between Us by leyna55


The Q & A: By artemisiabrisol, who could not escape the enormous story because her room's right next to mine ;)

Seriously, though, she engaged me in this huge sprawling discussion like a literature seminar, like it was a real book or something, and it spanned three days, on LJ and in e-mail, and I just finished coding it last night. You can read the whole thing on my site, here, or check out some excerpts below:

( Question: Do you think Ronon and Teyla make the distinction between Earth culture and the culture of the humans on Atlantis? )

( Question: Why did you feel that depicting the cultural part of Teyla's character was important to the story? )


And finally...


The Story: Betaed by calantha42 and mik100. This got... okay, I admit it, I am my own cliche: a whole lot longer than I intended. Things kept exploding on me. In the beginning this was a pretty straightforward, linear plot (at least as linear as my plots ever get): The IOA moves in, Atlantis resists, and it's harder because of their desire to keep peace. I had a nice little bottle-story about silent rebellion. But the way they rescue each other at the beginning suggested it was also about creating family, and the way Atlantis reacts when the orders come down meant that it was also about the meaning of home, and identity as it shifts based on circumstance - and thus it grew and grew and grew.

And now I'm going to stop giving away the plot for those of you who haven't read it.

You can read it on my site in four acts (this version has undergone some final tweaking), or on the official page, which is much prettier.

Enjoy!

See No Evil clocks in at a little over 89,000 words, and answers the prompt "the Stargate Program never happened".

When I signed up to write something for sgabigbang, I decided that it was going to do a simple gen adventure featuring John and Rodney that would involve lots of snark, probably be ridiculously over-the-top and exciting, somehow involve ninjas, time travel, and would likely barely squeak in to the 40,000 minimum word limit if I even finished.

So, I was quite surprised that not only did I finish -- but I finished a story that was incredibly long, complex, and was more of a corporate thriller than an adventure. Sadly, there were no real ninjas, not even a whiff of time travel, and while it was still gen... it could also be read as pre-slash.

...oops?

At least it still had John and Rodney. (And snark.)

See No Evil is a story that looks at the world where the American military never discovered the Stargate, and the impact this has on the lives of our favorite dynamic duo -- with a big twist.

I was lucky enough to be picked by mapsandlegends as my artist, who went above and beyond when creating this gorgeous piece of cover art for the story. The amount of detail in this is amazing, and every single thing ties back into the story in one way or the other. I'm still staring at it and finding new things to squee about. So go look at it, let it suck you in. After you read the story, go look at it again and see what else you pick up on -- and make sure to let her know what you think.

My good friend, naye, was kind enough to write up an awesome review that makes me squee and wriggle with happiness. You can read the whole thing here, but first, a small excerpt:

Without going into spoilers, one of the most appealing things about this story is how greyias keeps both characters entirely true to themselves, even as the circumstances around them are completely different from what we're used to. And a central part of being Rodney and John is that they are both different and the same - so different that there is no logical reason for them to develop a friendship, but so similar that they can't help gravitating toward each other.

As I approached writing this story in the style of a summer blockbuster, I thought it would be fun to style the preview in the fashion of a movie trailer. For those curious, you can check it out here, in all of its glorious, over-the-top sensationalism.

For those still curious and not-yet-reading, I talk at length about the story back on my journal. Here you can find some some self-indulgent authorial monlogues, a short Q&A session, and, because I am indeed cracked, a few cat macros I made with leesa_perrie's encouragement during the writing process. Be warned, there are some big story spoilers discussed in the post, so tread with care.

And finally, I would like to thank everyone who has read and left such wonderful comments. You guys are way too good to me. (And I promise to catch up on my review replies shortly.)

If you haven't read ZEN AND THE ART OF JUMPER MAINTENANCE yet, well, you know, do it. *coughs*

Because we have sheep.

Time dilation fields, chess, Ascension groupies, almost-kissing in the snow, The Beast.

Art by _kiden.

Mainly sheep though.

Oh, and John and Rodney being ridiculously in love, of course *g*

darsynia was kind enough to write me a review ( here ) (And if that doesn't convince you that you should totally read this and leave me a nice review, well, feel free to let me know what will. I am not above sexual favors, ladies! *g*)

Turned Upside Down was not the story I had in mind when I started working on this challenge. Literally. In the middle of June I happened to be buying a present for a young cousin at the American Girl store, and after ogling the Felicity collection a bit (she was always my favorite of the characters, and was the doll I got as a little girl), I came out of the store with an idea to write a story set in colonial Virginia, with John and Elizabeth on opposite sides of the political conflict. After a couple of months of struggling with my original idea, I switched gears.

Thirty-two days later, I finished a draft. I don't think I'd ever written a story of its length that quickly, and certainly not of its depth – before the end, I'd taken on a complicated and delicate subplot involving Teyla, and had done so much research on the clothing of the period that I kind of wanted to scream at the sight of clothes. (Which is, you know, kind of ubiquitous.)

I can't say enough about the amazing beta job that miera_c did for me, taking that draft and insisting that I make it better when what I really wanted to do was hide it away somewhere and never let it see the light of day. sache8, my other beta and perennial sounding board, was wonderful too, getting the job done in the midst of getting ready for a semester abroad and working on a big project of her own.

medie did two beautiful pieces for me – cover art and a larger version which contains one of the most stunning images of Teyla I've ever seen.



( But as I said... )

Never As Bad As Anticipated (Until It Is) wasn’t what I had in mind when I signed up for the Big Bang. I signed up to write gen, but then I saw the prompt for ‘someone other than Sam is chosen as expedition leader’ and it just screamed ‘send Cam Mitchell’. And, of course, my friends list are a lot of evil enablers, which didn’t help.

I had a page of notes for a Cam in Atlantis story on my hard-drive, but sadly the vast majority of these only applied if he came out at the start of season 2 (with him leading the military there instead of John, who went back to being second in command, and probably bonding with Lorne). My original plan was that, since I didn’t think Cam’s reaction to most events would be much different to Sam’s, and therefore retelling the season would be kind of dull, there would be some kind of over-arching plot, a sub-plot about Cam and John’s relationship, and then season 4 going on in the background. Also, that there would be a scene where Rodney tried to kiss John and they fought about John’s feelings for him, John accidentally told Rodney about his relationship with Cam, and then John threw Rodney out of his room.

So there I was, sitting on the train, staring at a list of episodes in my notebook and trying to figure out what the plot would be, and a little voice in my ear said, “What if they meet Davos the seer really early on in the season?” And it all went from there – the rescue mission for Elizabeth, the Athosians being rescued, everything. It was almost like having an actual plot, if you can call this page of scribbles a plot:

( The Notes - with capital letters of DOOM )

Never As Bad… is also incredibly anti-fanon/pro-my fanon: there’s a pointed comment about the lemon thing from Pegasus Project (John canonically eats oranges in front of Rodney, that was never going to hurt him), a bit about everyone being high during the siege, a lot of Cadman-Lorne friendship. There’s a couple of secret crossover characters (Sergeant Gutierrez is borrowed from E-Ring, in which, for information, both Cadman and Woolsey’s actors appeared) and Lorne is mentioned to be dating an FBI agent in LA, who is Colby Granger from Numb3rs (points to the one person who mentioned this in comments!). Oh yeah, and Carson v2 gets blown up. Sorry, Carson fans (though you can pretend it’s not him if you like, since the characters never know).

I don’t know how I got lucky enough to have three artists work on this, but I did, and they produced some fantastic stuff:

sian1359 made a fantastic Replicator-themed cover, which I’ve been showing off to everyone I know;

cala_jane also made a really cool cover, without ever reading the story, which features Cam doing his best don’t-even-think-of-messing-with-me face;

And clayeer made courting gifts, an illustration for the final scene which is so, so sweet.

Go, look, tell them all how wonderful they are!

camshaft22, who is apparently a glutton for punishment, did a dvd commentary for the story (Part One & Part Two), for which she should get extra credit since I utterly confused her on when this post was going up, so she thought it was the 29th and not the 22nd.

Finally, because the second half of the story was originally very different from how it is now, in that it was more episode related and less battle against the Replicators, I have two deleted sections, which I’ve been waiting for something to do with, so figured I’d inflict them on you:

The first one is an au version of Doppelganger in which Cam gets infected instead of John and then things go about as badly as they did in the real version. In the original version of Never As Bad… it fitted a little after Woolsey’s visit, but that got pushed…um, back, I think (I no longer have any idea what order things happen in the final version, which makes finding a particular scene a total nightmare, particularly if it’s not a main plot scene), so I don’t know where it would go in the final version.

The second one is based around Outcast, but mainly set in the city, with a chunk of Teyla, Cam and the Athosians, bracketed on either side by John and Cam, when Cam breaks the news to John, and then when he comforts him after he gets back. In the original, this happened right before the epilogue, which I guess it probably would in this version as well, just not on screen.

And finally, finally, a word of thanks for my four fab betas, who went amazingly above and beyond the call of beta duty, particularly when I scrapped and rewrote 40,000 words after already sending the story to them: domtheknight, dossier, chase_acow and mf_luder_xf.

And that’s all I’ve got (for which I’m sure you’re glad!). I hope you enjoyed the story, and please feedback the artists and camshaft.

My Story for this year's BigBang is “Circle of the sun” done for the prompt Tao of McKay - John's the one accidentally caught in the machine. It’s my second year in this gigantic event, my third Mcshep story and my 14^th completely finished English SGA story (For those who don’t know yet, yes, I’m German so you may stop guessing now.) and a true labour of love. It ate most of my freetime from the first drabble on the sign up day right down to handing chunk after chunk of the growing story over to my wonderful betas oriolegirl and </lj> mairi_ .

I started many stories for several prompts, stopped, gave up whined and complained and started all over again (after more than 20k at one point) at least three times, but in the end it came back down to the "Floating below the rafters" and "Saying goodbye to Elizabeth" scenes I wrote in the very first hand full of days. How I ended up with almost something like a social study on space Vinking Wraith Worshippers? Well, quite frankly I don't know what made me do it, but the following mix between DVD commentary and Q&A will help to find out.

</lj>

Let's start with the Wraith Worshippers and antares04a's Questions.

How did you chose the names? You explain at the end of the story that they are most Swedish or Icelandic but how or where did you find them?

( Read more... )
Why did you take "Mies" for John?
I know, the English readers will have no connotation with this word but for a German reader it's a bit ... strange. I mean it's the same like Johnny Depp. His last name makes a German smile whereas an English speaking person has no problems with this name.
( Read more... )
And on a more general level: Did this story start out with a certain fascination for the Wraith worshippers? Or was your starting point John losing his memory?
( Read more... )

lavvyan's Question and the whole cruel Ancients thing:

I liked how John put loyalty over "this is wrong" even as an amnesiac, and how hard it hit him to realise he was being loyal to the wrong people. How did you come up with that part of the plot, this really perverse punishment the Ancients thought up?

( Read more... )

And what made you choose Teer as the one to temper that punishment?
( Read more... )

le_mot_mo , my main beta </lj>oriolegirl </lj> and my brother (cheerleader) Woodstock who is to blame for a good part of the plot, which can all be found HERE.

And don't forget to go and have a look at the wonderful stuff of my Artist!

EDIT: Sorry if this appeared more than once in the Tracker but Lj swallowed part of the cut codes.

Find it on the SGA Big Bang Website or go to the Master Post on my LJ (where it's been through one final polish).
Pairing/Characters: John/Rodney, Parrish/Lorne, Dex/Keller, hints of Teyla/Kanaan and pairings amongst OCs
Rating/Word Count: NC-17 / 93,000
Summary: Somewhere in the unexplored regions of Atlantis, a blast rips through the city. When Sheppard and his team go to investigate, they discover a group of ragged young refugees, transported from an apocalyptic parallel future Atlantis into this one. The expedition struggles with their identity and what makes a family when they realize the children are the progeny of an Atlantis that became a thriving colony. The kids struggle to come to terms with their ordeal, people that seem familiar but aren't, the IOA kicking them out of the only home they've ever known, and the secrets they're keeping.



Read the preview.



.:.The Journey.:.
This fic is the most ambitious project I've undertake to date. I thought it would be 50, maybe 60,000 words. Instead it caps out at 93,000. I can honestly say I wasn't prepared for that, though in retrospect I should have known.

I started out asking myself a question:

What would happen if the John and Rodney we all know and love, the ones we tune in to every Friday, suddenly had a fully grown McSheplette with hang ups and issues...and scary kid-insights into John and Rodney themselves?

And then my brain went...what if the McSheplette had friends? And they were all kind of fucked up, and had secrets, and came to live on the Atlantis we know after something really bad happened on their Atlantis? What would everyone do?

Basically, I wanted a fic with grown up, developed offspring--complete with issues--dealing with John, Rodney and an Atlantis expedition emphatically unprepared to be parents or parental figures (for the most part).

I ended up with lots of kids alright--18 of them, ranging from 20 to 3. Not all of them are as developed as others, but they each have a backstory. That's why I've started the Next Gen Dossiers. These are short stories that tell of the circumstances surrounding each Next Gen's birth. They were done as an exercise for me to really dig into the characters living in my head. I didn't want 18 flat, perfect Mary and Bobby Sues running around; I wanted genuine people as fleshed out as the Atlantis gang who had serious issues after being left to fend for themselves for two years. And they all have issues. Big, hokin' issues. And I love each and everyone of them to death!

cathliu wrote a fantastic review about my OCs, who are not your average kid!fic characters. ( Be warned, it contains spoilers for the story! )

I worked on this story from the second the challenge opened to the second it closed. Not kidding. It kept growing and growing and I kept writing and writing and my betas kept up and pushed me to make it better. Along the way, I wrote scenes that didn't fit, made a flow chart of my scenes and story lines so I could keep track, and a couple of 'past snippets' from before the kid's world went all to hell. You can see these DVD Extras/Deleted Scenes for yourself.



.:.The Keeper.:.
( Big Fic Spoiler Herein )



.:.The Artwork.:.
I was lucky enough to have artwork done by TWO uber fantastic artists. Their talent amazes me. (Pictures link to their Big Bang Website pages.)

I can honestly say that newkidfan's cover blew me away. The colors, the tattoos, the text, the images, the smallest details...they capture the essence of a Keeper beautifully.  The amount of care and detail that went into this is more
than apparent, and I can't thank newkidfan enough for this spectacular peice of artwork.



I keep coming back to look at it and find new things.  And I liked it so much, I made an icon (I hope she doesn't mind).

Leave a Comment for newkidfan.

Oh wow, berlinghoff79's artwork made me grin SO BIG.  I loved writing this scene, and to see it visually rendered fills me with ridiculous glee.  What are my favorite parts, you ask?

Zelenka.  And his Atlantis computer.

The equations scrawled on the whitboard.

Rodney's boxes under the table.

The random Ancient tree in the background.

Rodney and his Patch of Supreme Canadian Pride.

Alex and the toy.

THIS ENTIRE PICTURE.

Leave a Comment for Berlinghoff.

I'd like to take another moment to thank the mods for all their hard work; this challenge rocks and consistently puts out awesome artwork and enjoyable stories. And huge thanks to the people who helped this story along: alabandical, usomitai, emptybackpack, gemmi999, and inocciduous.

Feel free to ask any questions, post any opinions, start any discussion you want. I'm open to it all.

Welcome to the promo post for naye and friendshipper's Big Bang offering, A Clear and Different Light. The story is McKay/Sheppard, rated PG-13, and clocked in at 88,000 words. We used the prompt "encounters with alternate universes", although somewhat to our surprise, it ended up being pure AU. (We call our AU the "Whaleverse", for reasons that will be abundantly clear as soon as you start reading the story!)

This story was a first in many ways for both of us -- our first Big Bang story, our first co-written story, and, as we are both primarily gen writers, our first slash story of any length. We originally plotted it as team gen, and we still think there's a lot of teaminess in it; whether you like McKay/Sheppard, or prefer team but don't mind a pairing on the side, we hope you'll give it a try!

We owe a huge debt of thanks to our betas xparrot and gnine, who eagerly (some might say gleefully) aided and abetted our cautious foray into slash, and went above and beyond the call of beta duty with an astonishing 10,000 words (!) of corrections. We were also gifted beyond our wildest hopes with two wonderful artists, bellewhan and cynicatlantis, who did a glorious job of bringing our story to life. You can see bellewhan's beautiful cover here and the full gallery at the ACaDL story page; please be sure and feed the artists at sgabigbangfb, too!

For this promotional post, we chose to do a question-and-answer at our journals. Several people left us questions (for which we're very grateful!) and you can read our answers here, in which we talk about the writing and collaborating process, the fall of Sateda, how the story turned from gen into slash, and more!

greyias was kind enough to write us a wonderful review which you can read here! (And we swear we didn't pay her to write it!) An excerpt:

There is an enormous amount of very subtle, but very beautiful world building that takes place over the course of the plot. The Pegasus Galaxy is a living, breathing place with a distinct culture of its own. It's a society that is woven from the threads of a multitude of worlds – but it’s also a tapestry that is slowly fraying even before the Atlantis Expedition arrives. Of course, in the grand Stargate tradition, the Expedition treads this shaky ground with all of the care and grace of bull in a china shop. For the reader, this not only treats us to a very unique and utterly believable view of Pegasus, but we also get an in-depth look at the culture of an Earth that has grown up with magic -– and the inevitable culture clash that happens when these two very different societies come together.

Sound intriguing? But wait, there's more! If you've already read and enjoyed the story, or if you're merely sampling before you dive into the whole thing, we invite you to check out whaleverse, a community that we created for side stories and artwork taking place in the Whaleverse. We already have several stories and pieces of artwork hosted there, created by ourselves and our betas, as well as the promotional posts linked above, and we have an "open door" policy for anyone else who would like to create art, stories, fanvids or other fanworks in the ACaDL universe. We would be honored and delighted if you want to join us in our sandbox!

In closing, we'd like to thank everyone who commented and offered support and encouragement, both during and after the writing process -- and of course, to the mods for making it all possible! We hope you enjoy the above links, and of course, the story itself! We welcome any additional questions or comments that you have, and we hope you'll join us over at whaleverse for more Whaleverse stories, possibly including a possible sequel that we may or may not be plotting. *looks shifty*

My contribution to this year's BigBang (my first! *twirls*) was The Axis of Pythia based on the prompt Forks in the Road: Tao of Rodney - John's the one accidentally caught in the machine.

It's essentially the story of both John and Rodney dealing (and not dealing) with John's ascension and the aftermath. There's a lot of angst, miscommunication, headaches, and Greek mythology involved.

crysothemis provided some seriously awesome artwork here of John ascending. Which you should go look at. Yes.

For anyone looking for a non-spoilery breakdown, the post I made before the site went live is over here.

From here on, there be spoilers.

( In which the author rambles about the process. )


And, just because the first link I click on IMDb pages is to the Trivia page...

( In which the author reveals some random facts about the story in bullet point form. )

Resonance has a rather odd writing history, which is probably worth mentioning, if only as a 'how not to do it' guide.

( How to write an epic in six days without really trying )

My wonderful artist, in_the_bottle seemed to read my mind, producing not only a beautiful collage, but also a cover that absolutely hits the central theme of the story, as well as being stunning to look at.

Special thanks should go to rustydog, who not only cheered me along every step of the way, but wrote the thoughtful and insightful review under the cut. I swear that no money changed hands, although I suspect her of rifling through my brain when I wasn't looking, since she seems to have an even better handle on the story than I do.

( Review by rustydog )

I was also asked some questions about the writing process, the use (and abuse) of Latin through the story, and how I went about writing John Sheppard's connection to Atlantis. Since this post is quite long enough already, I've put the answers in my journal here. As I say there, I'm always up for more discussion - positive and critical - and would love to hear what people thought. I'd be particularly intrigued to know what people who usually only read slash made of a gen story, if you tackled it at all. Thanks to everyone who did read, and left me wonderfully thinky comments to get stuck into.

So my Big Bang was Providing the Flame. It's the story of what would happen if the Stargate program was declassified and its reception wasn't all joy and light.

I got an awesome piece of artwork by Elli here. Even if you decide not to read the story, definitely check it out and leave her fb.

When I saw the list of prompts, I knew right away that I wanted to do the declassification one, but I didn't want to do it where everyone just accepted the program. In my experience, things rarely go that smoothly or that easily. Instead, people are afraid, and they lash out, looking for a target. In Providing the Flame, the target just happens to be John.

The secondary plot line is the relationship between Rodney and John. Even though large chunks of the story are told from Rodney's point of view, his focus is always on John, as he moves through the story, trying to make things better to the best of his ability. He doesn't always succeed, but at least he tries.

There's a lot of sex in the story (it's by me, of course there's sex) but I stepped outside of the kink box for this one. It made things a little strange as I had to remember that there wasn't a D/s or BDSM dynamic at play. I know it bleeds through a little, but I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the sex mostly vanilla :D

The tertiary plot was NID trying to get their sticky fingers on John. It was relatively minor, but in some ways, the climactic scene for this plotline is also fairly climactic for the whole story. In it, Rodney demonstrates how much he's learned, not only from John but from the whole team. And the team shows us that they really are a family - and no one fucks with family.

I got to meet several very awesome people when I was writing this story - people who read early versions of it and told me that it didn't suck and that I should definitely keep writing. This helped a LOT, since several characters (Donald Wray, for instance) were repulsive to write, and having to write his positively venomous attitude made me want to quit entirely.

My most sincere thanks to everyone who helped me - by reading, betaing, holding my hand, or just listening to me bitch!

And now with bonus review - gblvr wrote a review for me! Here it is!

Hey all! I took on the rather daunting task of doing a dvd commentary on my Big Bang Fic, all 70k of it!

Conflicts of Interest is an epic John/Elizabeth romance with action and adventure, set in a total AU of Stargate. The world is an alternate history version of our own with a few radical changes. The first is that magic is real and works. The second is the presence of supernatural races that live, work, love and fight with normal humans. Most notable of these are the Werewolves and the Vampires. The third is that it is a Steampunk setting - The technology of this world is at once far ahead of modern technology as we know it and yet far behind. There are airships and huge steam-powered mechs, lots of steel and brass and, of course, goggles.

The dvd commentary of the fic includes deleted scenes, snippets of some prequel material and links to references and inspirations. My co-commentators and I discuss the extensive worldbuilding of the fic in detail as well as how I constructed the fic and what my goals and aims were as I was writing it. The commentary was posted in eleven sections to my writing comm, The links are below.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six
Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven

Big thanks to hariboo_smriks and pixilove66 who looked over the first few bits of commentary for me.

My 2008 contribution to SGA Big Bang is the John/Rodney story Life After.

anna_luna beautifully illustrated one of my favorite scenes, the kiss after their first date. Take a look and tell her how wonderful she is!

I've written a teaser for the fic and neevebrody, one of my betas, was kind enough to write a review.

What I'd like to do now is talk a bit about the process of writing "Life After". This will be spoilery for the fic and in fact if you're planning to read the fic, it might make more sense to do that first and then come back and read my thoughts.

( Writing Life After )

I do love to talk about my fic and writing though, so if you have any questions or things you'd like to discuss please post them.

I'm a little bit nervous about attempting this post.  Ever since I upgraded my LJ account, I have had nothing but problems with posting (and I'm doing this from work--shhhh!) so my apologies if you get stuck with a long post and nothing behind any cuts!

I've been playing around with alternative universes for a while now, and when the_cephalopod</lj> talked me into participating in the sgabigbang</lj>  this year, I saw the AU prompt and immediately an idea that had been simmering on the back burner for a while sprang to mind and thus Second Chance was born.  It continues the theme of exploring the characters of Rodney and John through a different lens, supposition of 'what if?'.  Indeed, sometimes I think my stories are simply long drawn-out affairs in which I pound a single idea to death, but I digress.  In Second Chance, I decided to examine how John's life might have been different if he'd never gone on the expedition to Atlantis, if his father had experienced a non-fatal heart attack and requested that John come home.  From the beginning, I intended for this decision to have disastrous consequences, both for John and the expedition itself.  It was very important to me that by choosing to inflict a spinal cord injury on AU John, that I portray this disability with honor, dignity and accuracy and that it never be merely a plot device.  It wasn't until much later that I realized what an incredibly cocky decision it was to try and depict such an injury without any real knowledge of what it's like to life with one.  Any errors on my part I hope will be perceived as being made out of ignorance rather than insensitivity.

I owe so much to both of my phenomenal betas.  the_cephalopod</lj> kept me honest and true to the characters, encouraging me when I was convinced everything was utter crap and I'd written myself into a corner.  She is directly responsible for my joining LJ and diving into a ridiculous number of challenges...*points finger and assigns blame*  lisas_secret</lj> kept me from indulging in excessive wordiness, trimming the fat from my sentences and showing me how to express myself in leaner, crisper lines.  Thank you guys!  You're the greatest!

Season 4 of SGA had just come out when the previews were due, and everyone was talking about the bonus features, so I based my preview of Second Chance on that format:
http://community.livejournal.com/sgabigbang/27947.html#cutid1

The story itself is posted here on the sgabigbang site.   The moderators did such a lovely job that you really should go to the site directly to read all the fabulous stories there.
http://sgabigbang.talkoncorners.net/?view=fic&id=23

It is also posted on wraithbait here:
http://www.wraithbait.com/viewstory.php?sid=14125

I can't begin to say enough about the gorgeous artwork that was created to accompany this story by lenya</lj>  and lilbreck</lj> .  Until I joined LJ, I had never even heard of the concept of pairing art and fic.  Shortly thereafter I began to *crave* artwork for my very own.  These artist outdid themselves on my behalf.  To view these phenomenal pieces, go here for Lenya's Mirror Image:
http://sgabigbang.talkoncorners.net/?view=art&id=92

and here for lilbreck's Second Chance:
http://sgabigbang.talkoncorners.net/?view=art&id=103

Please be sure to tell them how amazing their pieces are (and that I'm utterly besotted with them)!

Through the writing of this story, I've created at least one new friend and I'm so very glad of that fact.  vida_boheme</lj> wrote the most lovely feedback to the story that staggered and humbled me at the same time.  I was so thrilled when she volunteered to write a review for Second Chance--I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have undertake such a task and am honored that she did so, despite RL throwing some curveballs in her direction lately.  Please check out her forthright review here:
http://vida-boheme.livejournal.com/101137.html

As always, I welcome any comments or questions.

Written by myself and little_giddy, Lost In The Veins Of This City was written for the AU prompt in the John/Elizabeth section of the sgabigbang. In the story we gave the characters new lives, new settings, bad cars, and (almost) the same relationships. The story's preview can be found here, a mishmash of notes some of the characters write during the fic and maybe after you read it you can tell when and where they're written.

Our story also has some fabulous artwork done by ed_84 found here, here, here, and here, where she makes a banner that encompasses so much of the story that it is so wonderful.

She also wrote a review for the fic, which you can find over at her journal.

And last but not least, as me and Kay are extreme audiophiles, as any of our friends know, we'd like to present to you a fanmix that we did for the fic.

( Lost In The Veins Of This City, fanmix )

We hope you enjoy! Fic and music!

Review of Draconian Measures by Tarlan

1. The preview for this story can be found at:

http://community.livejournal.com/sgabigbang/36231.html

The preview consists of a set of digital manips that I created specifically to showcase the story. I do hope you enjoy the teasers.

2. The link to the story is at: http://sgabigbang.talkoncorners.net/?view=fic&id=27

Many thanks to my wonderful betas aqualegia and taibhrigh

3. I was very lucky to have two excellent artists assigned to create artwork for my story. Both artists took a moment from the story and managed to convey that moment beautifully.

By berlinghoff79

http://sgabigbang.talkoncorners.net/?view=art&id=56
http://sgabigbang.talkoncorners.net/?view=art&id=57

B79's art and book cover depicts the final moments as the damaged Daedalus and Prometheus flee Earth, entering hyperspace just as the Goa'uld motherships (Ha'tak) and Al'Kesh appear above the stricken planet. On board they are carrying as many refugees as they can hold - far too many to cross the void between the galaxies in one shot! On the book cover, we see John in full military mode to protect his civilians and men, and Rodney, as those left in the besieged SGC prepare to evacuate to the only place safe from the Ori - another galaxy - placing all their trust in Rodney to raise the city from the depths of the Lantean ocean.

By taliosi_x

http://sgabigbang.talkoncorners.net/?view=art&id=113

Osi has created a beautiful John/Rodney manip to illustrate that first true moment of peace and togetherness after all the trauma and tension in the story; the action-packed escape from Earth, the raising of the city, Rodney's desperate race back to the Milky Way to save the refugees left behind before they are discovered by the Ori, and his fight to save John from facing execution at the hands of a power-crazed Kinsey.

Please take some time to look at their wonderful contributions to this story and to let them know how much you enjoyed their work!

4. I'm supposed to use