Locus Classicus

Etrangere, or, The Last Last Remake of Beau Geste

Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: R to NC-17
Warnings: No major ones needed. [For those who've read or seen Beau Geste, that one thing you're concerned about doesn't happen.]
Disclaimer: Clearly neither Stargate: Atlantis nor Beau Geste were created by me. This combination of the two, however, was. Full credits and story notes to follow.

( Chapter Two (of three) )

For a long, long time Yellow Means Slow (SV) by rageprufrock was the saddest, most moving thing I'd ever read online. I remember vividly, like it was yesterday, cursing the fact that I'd gotten up early and checked flist before heading out to work. I arrived fifteen minutes late, red eyed and congested, and my boss took one look at me and forbore to ask where I'd been. I felt dishonest, but at the same time I really did feel like I'd been bereaved.

I've just finished Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose (SGA) by synechdochic. I wanted to leave a comment, but I couldn't. I'm not sure I could come up with more than "You broke me". It's quite possibly not just the saddest, but the best, online fic I've ever read. I don't say that lightly.

There's a card at Post Secret (or there was six months ago) that says something to the effect: "I cried for Anakin Skywalker, but not for the tsunami victims". It upset me, because it reminded me of when I was in the Fifth Form (sophomore year?) and I read Beau Geste for the first time. I remember walking into class the next day, still shell shocked and weepy, and one of my friends assured me it'd all be okay, to which I was very much "Huh?", and it turned out there'd been horrendous flooding in Bangladesh and 20,000 people were dead and the rest were standing on their roofs hoping to be rescued. And I still couldn't stop thinking about a single, fictional, English boy. My friend was disgusted with me, but I didn't have any emotion left to spare.

I read a lot, I've read a hell of a lot, and I'm still amazed by the power of fictional characters to get inside you, to become more real than real people. It's one of the things I love most about fan fiction, I think - how well we get to know our characters, how real they seem, how they can be our friends, our heroes, our honest, true companions. And sometimes authors get it horribly wrong, sometimes the *show* lets us down... But sometimes, sometimes the writers get it gloriously, triumphantly right.

I'm going to go and have a shower now, so I can cry without my flatmate hearing me.