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RatCreature ([personal profile] ratcreature) wrote2008-07-14 05:40 pm
Entry tags:

AU recs

Stargate: Atlantis

Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology, by Anonymous. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard. (ca. 24,100 words)
It's a magic AU, and I really liked how the magic works here, and how it was mixed with science and Stargate mythology bits.

Little By Little To the Truth; or a Narrative of the Atlantis Expedition, by Anonymous. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard. (ca. 5,800 words)
This is a Steampunk!SGA AU, and beyond the inherent coolness of that, I also really enjoyed the detail and glimpses of their backstories we got here.

Promises of Return (ca. 3,155 words), Reflections on Return (ca. 3,500 words) and This Mortal Coil (ca. 6,630 words), by Azure_Horizon. Het, John Sheppard/Teyla Emmagan.
In this series Teyla didn't join the expedition, but stayed with the Athosians, and just has intermittent contact with John though they are allies. It's a bit bleak, but I enjoyed the John/Teyla relationship here.

Engineering the Fall, by Layton Colt. Slash, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard. (ca. 4,300 words)
This is a sequel to Gods that Slumber, which I have recced before, an AU in which John is an Ancient.

Pegasus Ascendant (part two, three), by Tielan. Gen, Teyla Emmagan, John Sheppard. WIP
The Wraith never subjugated Pegasus, so the Atlantis expedition makes contact with a city that has been settled by various Pegasus cultures and has to try to fit in. I've actually recced this before when the first part was posted as a flashfic on its own, but now it has grown into a longer WIP and I thought it worth pointing out again in case you missed the second and third bit being posted (I linked all the parts because last I checked they were not interlinked from the first).

The Year of Jubilee, by vain_glorious. Gen, Ronon Dex, John Sheppard. (ca. 20,750 words)
Ronon never joins the expedition because the IOA objected, but helps to fight the Wraith on his own by trading weapons he builds from a base in the ruined Sateda. He crosses paths with them again when he rescues Sheppard from slavery by buying him, and tries to return him to Atlantis, and things go kind of downhill from there. Part of why I enjoyed this is that I have a slavefic as well as a humiliation and mindcontrol kink, all of which are quite prominent here even though it is a gen story and Ronon doesn't want Sheppard humiliated or enslaved. So I think if either of those squicks you, you might want to skip this, though probably the story will also work for you if you just like h/c and Sheppard whumping.

Supernatural

But Deadly series, by Bella Temple. Gen and het, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, some Sam/Jess. The individual stories are finished, but the universe is still a WIP.
So far I find the setup of this AU really intriguing. Here John was killed by the YED, Sam and Dean grow up with adoptive parents because Mary left their home right before the demon attacked for a reason that has not been revealed yet, though there are hints, and there is other stuff going on too... anyway, there's three stories so far and the universe has me hooked.

Steam, by Bella Temple. Gen, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, some Dean/Steampunk!Impala bonding. (ca. 30,000 words)
In a post-apocalyptic world Sam and Dean try to figure out what happened, to find other survivors and to make the impala run on steampower. I enjoyed the mystery and the plot twists here, and of course a Steampunk!Impala with Dean as its engineer is awesome.

And Won The Soul's Rest, by Concernedlily. Gen, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester. (ca. 31,000 words)
This is a medieval AU with Sam as a monk and Dean as a mercenary, and the plot parallels to canon with the demon worked very well. As a Big Bang story it also came with art by Glockgal and Reallycorking that complemented the story nicely.

Scheduled for Termination, by Dolimir. Gen, Mary, Dean, Sam. (ca. 20,945 words) This is a fusion between Supernatural and the Terminator universe. Here Mary survived the demon to become a hunter, which in turn equipped Dean to become part of the resistance. Then of course there's the Terminator kind of time travel, so in the end poor Mary has demons after her one son and robots after the other.

Older Than The Days He Had Seen, by Kellifer_fic. Gen, Dean Winchester. (ca. 3,700 words)
This AU is rather sad. It explores how the Winchester family would have been different and yet the same if Sam and Dean had had an older brother.

The Crow on the Cradle, by Kroki_refur. Gen, some Sam/Jess. (ca. 98,200 words)
The starting point here is that one day Sam walks out on Jess, who then searches for him together with John and Dean, and learns about hunting. Not just has this story Jess as a hunter, but Sam is kind of broken in an interesting way that I don't want to spoil too much.

Berserker!verse, by Leonidaslion. Gen, Dean Winchester, John Winchester, Sam Winchester, Bobby Singer, also some het, Dean/Cassie. The individual stories are finished, but the universe is still a WIP.
During Sam's Stanford days Dean has an unfortunate encounter with a berserker (in the context of this universe someone sharing their body with an animal spirit which more or less grants various superpowers), which leads to a wolf spirit choosing Dean as a host. Much angst and complications follow. The series eventually progresses through the first season episodes. (The above link goes to the verse's tag, but you can also go right to the first story Heart of a Wolf, as all following stories are interlinked.)

There is also a rather epic slash continuation of this universe, Fetters of Fenrir (mostly Sam/Dean, ca. 200,300 words), and even though I'm not much into Sam/Dean as a pairing the universe interested me enough to want to read all stories in it. And I enjoyed that novel for the plot which had me hooked, for Dean being hurt in various ways, and also for the supernatural mythology bits about the demons and the berserkers here, even though incest soulbonds are not one of my kinks. However if you are squicked by that pairing, the author's notes mentioned that the regular Berserker!verse will be continued as gen, so you should be able to just skip the slash spin-off novel without being left hanging once the next story of the regular verse gets posted.

Revelations, by Marina Rusalka. Gen, Victor Hendricksen, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester. (ca. 24,200 words)
Here, Dean is an ATF agent who works with Victor Hendricksen on the serial arson case of the demonkids' ceiling fires. I enjoyed that we were led into this AU through Hendricksen's POV, and how Dean and Sam's backstory was revealed gradually. Also it has great art by Ileliberte.

Daylight Refracted, by Pix. Het, Sam/Jess, Dean. (ca. 7,585 words)
This is a really happy making AU in which Jess comes from a family of hunters, survives the YED's attack, and hunts together with Sam and Dean.

Show me a hero and I'll show you a tragedy, by Unperfectwolf. Gen, Dean Winchester. (ca. 2,575 words)
The premise here is the basic "what if Sam and Dean grew up 'normal'?" that is they haven't been raised by John but by other relatives, though John is alive. What it made it stand out to me was that the reality of the demon and John's hunting of supernatural monsters remains ambiguous throughout.