Elizabeth Weir/John Sheppard Appreciation/Ship/Discussion Thread

[Southern Red]

Ficlet present!!!

Again, this takes place during what could be S7 of SGA-R. Basic premise: they found Elizabeth. She got IOA'd on Earth for six months. She just came home to Atlantis.

Spoiler:

Although she was glad to be home, Elizabeth Weir didn’t want to be overwhelmed with the entire population of Atlantis welcoming her back at once. She was sure that, by now, news of her arrival had spread already.

So when Jennifer Keller had finished her examination, Elizabeth asked John to take her to her quarters. He had readily agreed and ushered her out of the infirmary.

He guided her around a familiar corridor and she was shocked, pleasantly, to find that her quarters were not a spare set of VIP quarters that had been reassigned to her.

It was her old room. Her old bed. Her old desk. Her old tapestries that she had received after a fruitful trading mission.

And her old Athosian pot, sitting on her night stand.

She turned to John, a bewildered smile on her face. “How did you--?”

He shrugged, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door frame. “Teyla cleared out your office and your quarters. Most of your stuff that you had brought from Earth was sent back to your mother. Other objects that you’d gotten here in the neighborhood were put in storage. And I never put your room back on the lodgings roster. Just didn’t seem right for anyone else to have it.”

Elizabeth nodded as she slowly paced around her room. Considering how neatly everything had been put back in its place, she assumed that Teyla had done it.

John cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, leave you to get reacquainted.”

“Actually, John,” she said, turning around slowly, “there’s one more place I would like to go before I settle in.”

“Where?”

She smiled.

-------------

“I’ve missed this.”

They were standing on the balcony just outside the control room. Elizabeth leaned forward against the railing, and John lifted his foot to the first rung. The breeze blew across her face, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sunshine on her skin which was a little pale for her taste.

“Yeah,” John agreed, narrowing his eyes at some storm clouds on the horizon. “Weather’s great this time of year.”

“We’re floating near the planet’s equator. When is the weather not nice?” she asked with a laugh.

He glanced sideways at her, then went back to inspecting the view. “I imagine you didn’t make it outside that much when you were on Earth.”

She shook her head. “Most of the time was spent determining if the nanites were really gone. Once they realized that there was no trace of them, I was allowed a little time out.”

“Again, not much?”

She shook her head. “Not enough. That’s for sure. So what’s this planet like?”

“Average, run-of-the-mill Pegasus planet. Mostly water. No Stargate on the mainland.”

“And none of our enemies know about it, right?”

John smirked. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

Elizabeth smiled as she sighed. “It’s good to be back.”

John nodded and glanced her way. “It’s good to have you back,” he agreed.

She chuckled, dipping her head to the side. “Even if I don’t get my old office back.”

He tried to repress a smirk, ultimately failing. “As much as I would like for you to be the boss again, Woolsey’s been doing a really good job. The IOA’s actually been staying off our backs.”

“For once,” she muttered.

As they stood there, exchanging occasional words, and staring off into the distance, Elizabeth began to feel that John was coming back too. The person he had been ever since they found her had been a far cry from the young major that she had managed to recruit all those years ago.

Granted, she understood why. Life in this part of the galaxy was stressful.

And having reincarnations of your dead friend popping up every so often did not help matters.

But this was her. And she was home.

John spoke again, breaking the silence. “So Woolsey suggested -- and General O’Neill agreed -- that we might be able to create a position of ‘first contact specialist’, or something along those lines.”

“I thought that was Teyla’s job,” she joked wryly.

John shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, Teyla’s great at bonding with the locals. And she’ll continue to be a part of my team. Unless she gets pregnant again.” He looked slightly worried, but before Elizabeth could say anything he continued. “The first contact specialist would probably be off world with us as well.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “So no more desk job for me? Drats. I really enjoyed only seeing anyone when something was about to go catastrophically wrong.”

John saw the humor behind her words and couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re serious about this?” she asked, pulling away from the railing.

“Yeah.” He imitated her, drawing back as well.

“What if I say no?”

John stuffed his hands in his pockets and scoffed in amusement. “You won’t. Besides, you’re the only person we’re offering the job to.”

She nodded in a manner that conveyed touché.

“You don’t have to say yes immediately. Take some time to settle back in, and find me when you’re ready.”

Elizabeth looked up. Green eyes met hazel for the first time in what felt like years, but the trust and understanding was still there. She was glad for it; if it had permanently been removed, she didn’t think it would be possible to come home.

She nodded at him, and he began to make his way towards the sliding doors that led back into the control room.

“John?”

“Yeah?” he asked, turning back around just as the doors opened.

She paused for a moment, biting her lip. “If I say yes … will I have to carry a weapon?”

John nodded, gritting his teeth. “If you’re going off world, yeah.”

Elizabeth groaned in consternation.

“Maybe Ronon will let you borrow his stunner. That way, you can shut McKay up.” And with something that looked suspiciously like a wink, he left her on the balcony.

A smile crept along her lips as she turned back to face the ocean.

Maybe a little change was a good thing.

Love it. This line, But this was her. And she was home. killed me.

And this one, “You won’t. Besides, you’re the only person we’re offering the job to.” made me LOL. It's a government "set aside" which you'll only get if you understand the US government contract system.

[ShipperWriter]

Love it. This line, But this was her. And she was home. killed me.

And this one, “You won’t. Besides, you’re the only person we’re offering the job to.” made me LOL. It's a government "set aside" which you'll only get if you understand the US government contract system.

Thank you, Auntie. I think my writer's spark has finally come back. For the first time in a long time, I enjoyed writing and actually wanted to write. I think the new episode has inspired me.

And I kinda but don't get that last line. But I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[Scary Kitty]

Good morning, Sparkies! Happy Fluffy Thursday!

So you know what happens when the students are doing their final exams and the interpreter is sitting in the back of the room with her laptop, Microsoft Works, and GIMP?

1) Fics.

2) Sigs.

Spoiler:

God help me. *laughs maniacally*

HAHAHAHA! I LOVE that! I may have to snerch that sig...

And I love the ficlet! Ah, feels so good to have Elizabeth home. *snuggles up with the ficlet like it's a warm fuzzy blanket*

Love it. This line, But this was her. And she was home. killed me.

And this one, “You won’t. Besides, you’re the only person we’re offering the job to.” made me LOL. It's a government "set aside" which you'll only get if you understand the US government contract system.

There was a lot of time (it's two years past now, but who's counting? ) spent on development of SGAR, trying to work in how canon would do it. I completely get that how someone perceives fandom would be different, especially shippers, since they tend to skew things to their purposes more than most.

Our writers agreed to go as much to the center as we could. We involved shippers of many different angles as well as non-shippers in the discussions to try and make sure we weren't missing something with our rose colored glasses. What we ended up with:

HEAVY spoilers through PM Part IV:

Spoiler:

1) Do not Enter Elizabeth: Despite (obviously) being Liz fans, she would not make an appearance until midway through the season. It was too important to us that we spend time with the other characters before slamming Elizabeth back into the story.

2) McKeller stayed: we did have some push and pull on this, but ultimately, because so much time was spent on them by the end of S5, we did not want to do the show a disservice by pulling it, even if many fans were not fans of the coupling. I think the reasons why were sort of spread out (it wasn't believable/ it took away from McShep/ Jennifer was too whiny, etc, etc) so rather than pull a Katie/Rodney storyline, we opted to try and make it more appealing by giving it a little more time and devotion. It also helps, of course, that we can see 'inside' the character's heads, which is extremely difficult in a show. By being omniscient, we get some more depth much more easily than can be conveyed onscreen.

3) Teyla needed to be shaken up and Ronon needed to feel: the terms 'wallpaper' and Teyla and Ronon seemed to coincide--despite Teyla's family development in Season 4/5, we felt like many fans wanted to see more of her. And so evolved the ostracism from the Athosians and having to relearn her place amongst her tribe. Unfortunately, trying to centralize a character when we only have 8 episodes to work with is hard, so there will be some wallpapering (I think, personally, of all the wallpapered characters I feel like we haven't had too much development from Rodney at all in SGA:R, but for some reason no one yells 'McKay wallpaper!') For Ronon his role is smaller--SGA, though they squeezed his story into a few token episodes, did actually delve into his feelings of loyalty and devotion to Sateda. Bringing 'Romelia' into the picture here, most particularly in "Adoremus" was doing what we could to give him some time. Again, as an ensemble character and only 8 episodes to work with, it's hard to really give him some good character development, but we're trying. We have a Ronon episode planned for the back half of SGA:R that I hope gets developed and written, because it has the potential to be awesome.

4) John gets a girlfriend: I think if anyone came at us and said 'y'all are shippery shippers writing shippy stuff' I'd be like 'have you MET Mayel?'

Mayel was someone that had a few people gnashing their teeth, because our team was born out of this thread. So when SR came back and said JF had mentioned he would have liked John to have had a girlfriend, though we immediately started brainstorming, not everyone was pleased. But we were determined to balance this out. I mean, this was a main directive from Joe. The message posted above our door has always read: all fanon to be left outside the room. Period. It was the reminder to us to keep our shippery hands out of SGA:R. Naturally, we didn't fight what we saw was the strong friendship between Liz&John, and for other parts of the fandom how strong that is remains open to interpretation. But we tried our very best to be middle of the road.

Anyways, given our sticky note, so enter Mayel. The opportunity to give John a love interest who was captivating, mysterious, potentially backstabbing and strong intrigued at least me to no end. And we tried as much as we could to make her a good character, not just pretty alien wallpaper. A real girlfriend. Her Genii origins, her role as a commander, her personal relationship with Ladon and her past with Kolya--all of these seemingly small details were of the absolute most importance in developing her into a character who could command John's attention.

The funny thing was, by about Box of Dreams, I think the whole staff was about as in love with Mayel as John was. I remember physically asking the question in a brainstorming/beta session 'do we have to do this?' as regarding the betrayal. She was a fun, great character and we all love her. And we're not done with her; obviously her impact on John and the rest of Atlantis is far reaching. But in series development terms, we needed John about as bitter as he could be by the time the Replicator storyline re-emerged. So we had to let her go the way of the storyline plans, but I personally was loathe to have to turn her and we did discuss whether she knew or not. We felt it would be more emotional for everyone if she was forced to choose between John and the Genii rather than just be a typical Genii. That was where, BTW, her sort of emotionally driven 'goodbye' scene came from at the end of Adoremus.

Nothing you'll do will please everyone--early into the series we heard some critiques from Wraith fans who disliked our Wraith and our take on Todd. There wasn't much we could do--TPTW wrote most of the Wraith as throwaway enemies except Todd. We embraced Todd as a semi-ally, but we weren't planning on humanizing the Wraith. So there we met with an impasse--we can't please everyone. But we've tried to be as mainstream as we can.

And for me, the thought process, and seeing how many people are paying attention to detail during the beta process--it's AMAZING. We have such dedicated staffers here. This past week, we spent a couple of hours and spanned about 12 time zones hashing out the functionality of the City's Inertial Dampeners, which involves about one or two lines of text total in the 38 page conclusion to PM Part I. (What, why are we talking about stuff like that, huh? *haha tease*). That's our devotion. We're fandom geeks, natch.

On watching 4/5--I honestly thought I wasn't going to enjoy it. I had to watch it for SGA:R. And I have never hedged on the fact that Elizabeth was my favorite character hands down, so I was NOT looking forward to watching. However, when I did watch, I can honestly say, even as a Liz fan, the back half of 4 and most of Season 5 was enjoyable. There are a few throwaway episodes, but most of the characters, especially John, maintain a darker, more muted attitude, so it feels like they've been through the ringer and they've never forgotten about it. In other words, it's not developed like a, say 'Season 3-redux-without-Elizabeth'. It's a world without Elizabeth. The levity and the casual nature of people is gone. I respected that. And it makes the appearance of Elizabeth in GITM have even more meaning once you see the episodes surrounding it and how everyone has already gone through a lot.

Personally, I really enjoyed "The Seed" "The Shrine (darn good Rodney stuff there)" "First Contact/The Lost Tribe" "Remnants" And the end of "Prodigal" has a moment that makes all the Michael stuff worth it.

I know I'm leaving out Vegas but I'm not a super die hard John fan so I thought it was pretty good for an AU...

*high-fives Eri* Gah, sometimes I think we overthink these stories. But it's just so much fun to discuss these characters and where we're taking them, all the worldbuilding...we are totally fandom geeks.

I adore Mayel, I just love her to bits. I love how she's her own character far beyond being a mere love interest; that was really important to us, that she be so well-rounded and could hold her own with the entire cast of characters, unlike the TV series' string of "Kirkettes." I'm so glad that some readers did pick up on that and didn't just dismiss her out of hand.

And speaking of enjoying something more than you imagined, it was much the same for me when I watched SGU for the SGA-R timeline research. (there's that fandom geek again! ) There were definitely episodes that dragged, but the second season in particular was quite engaging with all the ongoing storylines and mysteries that were introduced. It's kind of a shame it got cut when it did, it looked like it was finally figuring out where it wanted to go.

[Southern Red]

Thank you, Auntie. I think my writer's spark has finally come back. For the first time in a long time, I enjoyed writing and actually wanted to write. I think the new episode has inspired me.

And I kinda but don't get that last line. But I'm glad you enjoyed it.

It's pretty much common sense. A set aside is targeted toward one individual or company, usually because they are the only ones who can do the job. Sometimes it's cronyism, which leads to big Trouble.

I want to thank Eri also for taking the time to post all that. It really helps to know how the process works or maybe it's like watching sausage being made. LOL

I was one of those who wasn't crazy about Mayel and am still not in love with her, but

Spoiler:

I agree that she beats all the Kirkettes and showed us that John is capable of being happy. He just needs the right woman. Now, though, after she broke him, it's going to be a long time before he trusts anyone again.

[Luz]

I think I can safely speak for my fellow SGA-R teammates when I say that we totally understand this. When we first set out to bring Atlantis Rising to life, it was with the intent to create a story that retained the spirit of the TV series at its best, to appeal to a wide variety of fans. That meant a focus on the characters and their friendships and working relationships with each other, within the established setting of the TV series.

I can't speak for everyone but as far as I'm concerned you've succeeded. Of course, some people would be perfectly happy pretending Elizabeth never existed and if she was never mentioned. And certain fans were always trying to minimize her impact on the show, and her relationships with other characters. So, you'll always find people who are going to talk about how her absence was no big deal. But I'm not one of those fans, so I can only offer my very Elizabeth-focused input.

I can tell there has been a concerted effort to give every character a significant amount of development (something they couldn't be bothered with on the show). And I've been loving the relationships. Something that made SGA so special to me was how well these characters meshed with each other. And I can see the team working on this project have invested a lot of effort into working with all the different relationships.

There was a lot of time (it's two years past now, but who's counting? ) spent on development of SGAR, trying to work in how canon would do it. I completely get that how someone perceives fandom would be different, especially shippers, since they tend to skew things to their purposes more than most.

Our writers agreed to go as much to the center as we could. We involved shippers of many different angles as well as non-shippers in the discussions to try and make sure we weren't missing something with our rose colored glasses. What we ended up with:

HEAVY spoilers through PM Part IV:

Spoiler:

1) Do not Enter Elizabeth: Despite (obviously) being Liz fans, she would not make an appearance until midway through the season. It was too important to us that we spend time with the other characters before slamming Elizabeth back into the story.

2) McKeller stayed: we did have some push and pull on this, but ultimately, because so much time was spent on them by the end of S5, we did not want to do the show a disservice by pulling it, even if many fans were not fans of the coupling. I think the reasons why were sort of spread out (it wasn't believable/ it took away from McShep/ Jennifer was too whiny, etc, etc) so rather than pull a Katie/Rodney storyline, we opted to try and make it more appealing by giving it a little more time and devotion. It also helps, of course, that we can see 'inside' the character's heads, which is extremely difficult in a show. By being omniscient, we get some more depth much more easily than can be conveyed onscreen.

3) Teyla needed to be shaken up and Ronon needed to feel: the terms 'wallpaper' and Teyla and Ronon seemed to coincide--despite Teyla's family development in Season 4/5, we felt like many fans wanted to see more of her. And so evolved the ostracism from the Athosians and having to relearn her place amongst her tribe. Unfortunately, trying to centralize a character when we only have 8 episodes to work with is hard, so there will be some wallpapering (I think, personally, of all the wallpapered characters I feel like we haven't had too much development from Rodney at all in SGA:R, but for some reason no one yells 'McKay wallpaper!') For Ronon his role is smaller--SGA, though they squeezed his story into a few token episodes, did actually delve into his feelings of loyalty and devotion to Sateda. Bringing 'Romelia' into the picture here, most particularly in "Adoremus" was doing what we could to give him some time. Again, as an ensemble character and only 8 episodes to work with, it's hard to really give him some good character development, but we're trying. We have a Ronon episode planned for the back half of SGA:R that I hope gets developed and written, because it has the potential to be awesome.

4) John gets a girlfriend: I think if anyone came at us and said 'y'all are shippery shippers writing shippy stuff' I'd be like 'have you MET Mayel?'

Mayel was someone that had a few people gnashing their teeth, because our team was born out of this thread. So when SR came back and said JF had mentioned he would have liked John to have had a girlfriend, though we immediately started brainstorming, not everyone was pleased. But we were determined to balance this out. I mean, this was a main directive from Joe. The message posted above our door has always read: all fanon to be left outside the room. Period. It was the reminder to us to keep our shippery hands out of SGA:R. Naturally, we didn't fight what we saw was the strong friendship between Liz&John, and for other parts of the fandom how strong that is remains open to interpretation. But we tried our very best to be middle of the road.

Anyways, given our sticky note, so enter Mayel. The opportunity to give John a love interest who was captivating, mysterious, potentially backstabbing and strong intrigued at least me to no end. And we tried as much as we could to make her a good character, not just pretty alien wallpaper. A real girlfriend. Her Genii origins, her role as a commander, her personal relationship with Ladon and her past with Kolya--all of these seemingly small details were of the absolute most importance in developing her into a character who could command John's attention.

The funny thing was, by about Box of Dreams, I think the whole staff was about as in love with Mayel as John was. I remember physically asking the question in a brainstorming/beta session 'do we have to do this?' as regarding the betrayal. She was a fun, great character and we all love her. And we're not done with her; obviously her impact on John and the rest of Atlantis is far reaching. But in series development terms, we needed John about as bitter as he could be by the time the Replicator storyline re-emerged. So we had to let her go the way of the storyline plans, but I personally was loathe to have to turn her and we did discuss whether she knew or not. We felt it would be more emotional for everyone if she was forced to choose between John and the Genii rather than just be a typical Genii. That was where, BTW, her sort of emotionally driven 'goodbye' scene came from at the end of Adoremus.

Nothing you'll do will please everyone--early into the series we heard some critiques from Wraith fans who disliked our Wraith and our take on Todd. There wasn't much we could do--TPTW wrote most of the Wraith as throwaway enemies except Todd. We embraced Todd as a semi-ally, but we weren't planning on humanizing the Wraith. So there we met with an impasse--we can't please everyone. But we've tried to be as mainstream as we can.

And for me, the thought process, and seeing how many people are paying attention to detail during the beta process--it's AMAZING. We have such dedicated staffers here. This past week, we spent a couple of hours and spanned about 12 time zones hashing out the functionality of the City's Inertial Dampeners, which involves about one or two lines of text total in the 38 page conclusion to PM Part I. (What, why are we talking about stuff like that, huh? *haha tease*). That's our devotion. We're fandom geeks, natch.

On watching 4/5--I honestly thought I wasn't going to enjoy it. I had to watch it for SGA:R. And I have never hedged on the fact that Elizabeth was my favorite character hands down, so I was NOT looking forward to watching. However, when I did watch, I can honestly say, even as a Liz fan, the back half of 4 and most of Season 5 was enjoyable. There are a few throwaway episodes, but most of the characters, especially John, maintain a darker, more muted attitude, so it feels like they've been through the ringer and they've never forgotten about it. In other words, it's not developed like a, say 'Season 3-redux-without-Elizabeth'. It's a world without Elizabeth. The levity and the casual nature of people is gone. I respected that. And it makes the appearance of Elizabeth in GITM have even more meaning once you see the episodes surrounding it and how everyone has already gone through a lot.

Personally, I really enjoyed "The Seed" "The Shrine (darn good Rodney stuff there)" "First Contact/The Lost Tribe" "Remnants" And the end of "Prodigal" has a moment that makes all the Michael stuff worth it.

I know I'm leaving out Vegas but I'm not a super die hard John fan so I thought it was pretty good for an AU...

I love LOVE learning about the creative process. The amount of time you have dedicated this is amazing and it can be felt when you are reading the results, that you didn't rush into this.

Spoiler:

It was great that you took your time to bring Elizabeth back. I'm a fan of build-up, I'm all for it. I'm also very into angst, so I'm always like, make me suffer for it, a bit of a masochist. So, when I'm reading fix-it fic (though, as I may have mentioned in another post, to me a virtual season goes beyond fix-it fic) I like when authors wait before bringing Elizabeth back.

Because there are so many issues with her disappearance, things have changed, so it's not as easy as Elizabeth comes back, sparky sex, Weir is in charge of Atlantis again, everyone is happy-happy. The End.

That's not satisfying at all.

About Mayel, it never bothered me to see John with other women on the show, so when she was introduced and I could tell she was a romantic interest I took it in stride. You accomplished a far more developed love interest than what they did on the show, that's for sure. But I liked Chaya and Teer, so Mayel being a love interest wasn't going to predispose me against her.

I actually feel for her and understand why she did what she did. And even thought I felt for poor John, her loyalties were with the Genii and she did what she felt she had to do.

[ShipperWriter]

It's pretty much common sense. A set aside is targeted toward one individual or company, usually because they are the only ones who can do the job. Sometimes it's cronyism, which leads to big Trouble.

*Gibbs slaps self* Do'h. I knew that. It just didn't filter through my brain the right way.

And yes, thanks to Eri for explaining all of that. Learning what you all have done for the sake of SGA-R makes us appreciate it even more. Thank you all.

[ShipperWriter]

HAHAHAHA! I LOVE that! I may have to snerch that sig...

And I love the ficlet! Ah, feels so good to have Elizabeth home. *snuggles up with the ficlet like it's a warm fuzzy blanket*

Hey, go for it!

I know, I loved writing it. Made me wanna go on a cruise, for some inexplicable reason.

*high-fives Eri* Gah, sometimes I think we overthink these stories. But it's just so much fun to discuss these characters and where we're taking them, all the worldbuilding...we are totally fandom geeks.

I adore Mayel, I just love her to bits. I love how she's her own character far beyond being a mere love interest; that was really important to us, that she be so well-rounded and could hold her own with the entire cast of characters, unlike the TV series' string of "Kirkettes." I'm so glad that some readers did pick up on that and didn't just dismiss her out of hand.

And speaking of enjoying something more than you imagined, it was much the same for me when I watched SGU for the SGA-R timeline research. (there's that fandom geek again! ) There were definitely episodes that dragged, but the second season in particular was quite engaging with all the ongoing storylines and mysteries that were introduced. It's kind of a shame it got cut when it did, it looked like it was finally figuring out where it wanted to go.

The world needs more fandom geeks.

[Pearl of Atlantis76]

Part 4 of "Primum Movens" is up at SGA-R!!!
*runs off to read*
Ten minutes later...
*runs back in*
ETA:

Spoiler:

OMGOMGOMGOMG
That is all.

Spoiler:

I know what you mean!!!
Now I must say that I am confused with both Elizabeth. I mean the both of them sound so much like the real Elizabeth that I don’t know anymore. I mean I feel the Real Real one () is the real one, but at the same time, when both John and Teyla talk to Franibeth I feel she can also be the real one. Oh, but I am so enjoying all this!!! More please!!! Oh and I also felt that we are probably on the verge of having our John back. Elizabeth’s presence is already having some kind of an influence on him. I wonder if he realises that?

AHAHAHAH! You think that's good? Wait'll you see Part 5! *evil grin*

There is much more in part five!!!?? Oh my gosh!!! *Squeeeeeee*

Heh heh heh. Looks like while I was out getting my hair dyed done, we birthed another baby at SGA-R. The excitement is building. Can't you feel it?

Oh yes!!! I can definitely feel it!!! *Squeeeee*

And just because most of us are Sparky shippers doesn't mean we jumped in and got them together in the first chapter.

Spoiler:

This way is being so much better, I can assure you. I mean I am loving them, in a way, they are getting reacquainted again, and it is so great, so beautiful!!! What else can I say but *squeeee*

Spoiler:

One question: Are either of the Elizabeth's aware that Carson's alive, albeit a copy of him? I'm not sure if this was ever mentioned. I don't think Carson was present in "Ghost in the Machine," so Franibeth probably doesn't know. But I'm kind of unclear on this.

Spoiler:

I also wonder about that, but I think they are not. And if that is the case, I can hardly wait to see “their” reactions! Carson was not present in “Ghost in the Machine”.

Ficlet present!!!
Again, this takes place during what could be S7 of SGA-R. Basic premise: they found Elizabeth. She got IOA'd on Earth for six months. She just came home to Atlantis.

Spoiler:

Although she was glad to be home, Elizabeth Weir didn’t want to be overwhelmed with the entire population of Atlantis welcoming her back at once. She was sure that, by now, news of her arrival had spread already.
So when Jennifer Keller had finished her examination, Elizabeth asked John to take her to her quarters. He had readily agreed and ushered her out of the infirmary.
He guided her around a familiar corridor and she was shocked, pleasantly, to find that her quarters were not a spare set of VIP quarters that had been reassigned to her.
It was her old room. Her old bed. Her old desk. Her old tapestries that she had received after a fruitful trading mission.
And her old Athosian pot, sitting on her night stand.
She turned to John, a bewildered smile on her face. “How did you--?”
He shrugged, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door frame. “Teyla cleared out your office and your quarters. Most of your stuff that you had brought from Earth was sent back to your mother. Other objects that you’d gotten here in the neighborhood were put in storage. And I never put your room back on the lodgings roster. Just didn’t seem right for anyone else to have it.”
Elizabeth nodded as she slowly paced around her room. Considering how neatly everything had been put back in its place, she assumed that Teyla had done it.
John cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, leave you to get reacquainted.”
“Actually, John,” she said, turning around slowly, “there’s one more place I would like to go before I settle in.”
“Where?”
She smiled.
-------------
“I’ve missed this.”
They were standing on the balcony just outside the control room. Elizabeth leaned forward against the railing, and John lifted his foot to the first rung. The breeze blew across her face, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sunshine on her skin which was a little pale for her taste.
“Yeah,” John agreed, narrowing his eyes at some storm clouds on the horizon. “Weather’s great this time of year.”
“We’re floating near the planet’s equator. When is the weather not nice?” she asked with a laugh.
He glanced sideways at her, then went back to inspecting the view. “I imagine you didn’t make it outside that much when you were on Earth.”
She shook her head. “Most of the time was spent determining if the nanites were really gone. Once they realized that there was no trace of them, I was allowed a little time out.”
“Again, not much?”
She shook her head. “Not enough. That’s for sure. So what’s this planet like?”
“Average, run-of-the-mill Pegasus planet. Mostly water. No Stargate on the mainland.”
“And none of our enemies know about it, right?”
John smirked. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”
Elizabeth smiled as she sighed. “It’s good to be back.”
John nodded and glanced her way. “It’s good to have you back,” he agreed.
She chuckled, dipping her head to the side. “Even if I don’t get my old office back.”
He tried to repress a smirk, ultimately failing. “As much as I would like for you to be the boss again, Woolsey’s been doing a really good job. The IOA’s actually been staying off our backs.”
“For once,” she muttered.
As they stood there, exchanging occasional words, and staring off into the distance, Elizabeth began to feel that John was coming back too. The person he had been ever since they found her had been a far cry from the young major that she had managed to recruit all those years ago.
Granted, she understood why. Life in this part of the galaxy was stressful.
And having reincarnations of your dead friend popping up every so often did not help matters.
But this was her. And she was home.
John spoke again, breaking the silence. “So Woolsey suggested -- and General O’Neill agreed -- that we might be able to create a position of ‘first contact specialist’, or something along those lines.”
“I thought that was Teyla’s job,” she joked wryly.
John shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, Teyla’s great at bonding with the locals. And she’ll continue to be a part of my team. Unless she gets pregnant again.” He looked slightly worried, but before Elizabeth could say anything he continued. “The first contact specialist would probably be off world with us as well.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “So no more desk job for me? Drats. I really enjoyed only seeing anyone when something was about to go catastrophically wrong.”
John saw the humor behind her words and couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re serious about this?” she asked, pulling away from the railing.
“Yeah.” He imitated her, drawing back as well.
“What if I say no?”
John stuffed his hands in his pockets and scoffed in amusement. “You won’t. Besides, you’re the only person we’re offering the job to.”
She nodded in a manner that conveyed touché.
“You don’t have to say yes immediately. Take some time to settle back in, and find me when you’re ready.”
Elizabeth looked up. Green eyes met hazel for the first time in what felt like years, but the trust and understanding was still there. She was glad for it; if it had permanently been removed, she didn’t think it would be possible to come home.
She nodded at him, and he began to make his way towards the sliding doors that led back into the control room.
“John?”
“Yeah?” he asked, turning back around just as the doors opened.
She paused for a moment, biting her lip. “If I say yes … will I have to carry a weapon?”
John nodded, gritting his teeth. “If you’re going off world, yeah.”
Elizabeth groaned in consternation.
“Maybe Ronon will let you borrow his stunner. That way, you can shut McKay up.” And with something that looked suspiciously like a wink, he left her on the balcony.
A smile crept along her lips as she turned back to face the ocean.
Maybe a little change was a good thing.

Lovely! Oh and I loved the sig you made too!

[Pearl of Atlantis76]

There was a lot of time (it's two years past now, but who's counting? ) spent on development of SGAR, trying to work in how canon would do it. I completely get that how someone perceives fandom would be different, especially shippers, since they tend to skew things to their purposes more than most.

Our writers agreed to go as much to the center as we could. We involved shippers of many different angles as well as non-shippers in the discussions to try and make sure we weren't missing something with our rose colored glasses. What we ended up with:

HEAVY spoilers through PM Part IV:

Spoiler:

1) Do not Enter Elizabeth: Despite (obviously) being Liz fans, she would not make an appearance until midway through the season. It was too important to us that we spend time with the other characters before slamming Elizabeth back into the story.

2) McKeller stayed: we did have some push and pull on this, but ultimately, because so much time was spent on them by the end of S5, we did not want to do the show a disservice by pulling it, even if many fans were not fans of the coupling. I think the reasons why were sort of spread out (it wasn't believable/ it took away from McShep/ Jennifer was too whiny, etc, etc) so rather than pull a Katie/Rodney storyline, we opted to try and make it more appealing by giving it a little more time and devotion. It also helps, of course, that we can see 'inside' the character's heads, which is extremely difficult in a show. By being omniscient, we get some more depth much more easily than can be conveyed onscreen.

3) Teyla needed to be shaken up and Ronon needed to feel: the terms 'wallpaper' and Teyla and Ronon seemed to coincide--despite Teyla's family development in Season 4/5, we felt like many fans wanted to see more of her. And so evolved the ostracism from the Athosians and having to relearn her place amongst her tribe. Unfortunately, trying to centralize a character when we only have 8 episodes to work with is hard, so there will be some wallpapering (I think, personally, of all the wallpapered characters I feel like we haven't had too much development from Rodney at all in SGA:R, but for some reason no one yells 'McKay wallpaper!') For Ronon his role is smaller--SGA, though they squeezed his story into a few token episodes, did actually delve into his feelings of loyalty and devotion to Sateda. Bringing 'Romelia' into the picture here, most particularly in "Adoremus" was doing what we could to give him some time. Again, as an ensemble character and only 8 episodes to work with, it's hard to really give him some good character development, but we're trying. We have a Ronon episode planned for the back half of SGA:R that I hope gets developed and written, because it has the potential to be awesome.

4) John gets a girlfriend: I think if anyone came at us and said 'y'all are shippery shippers writing shippy stuff' I'd be like 'have you MET Mayel?'

Mayel was someone that had a few people gnashing their teeth, because our team was born out of this thread. So when SR came back and said JF had mentioned he would have liked John to have had a girlfriend, though we immediately started brainstorming, not everyone was pleased. But we were determined to balance this out. I mean, this was a main directive from Joe. The message posted above our door has always read: all fanon to be left outside the room. Period. It was the reminder to us to keep our shippery hands out of SGA:R. Naturally, we didn't fight what we saw was the strong friendship between Liz&John, and for other parts of the fandom how strong that is remains open to interpretation. But we tried our very best to be middle of the road.

Anyways, given our sticky note, so enter Mayel. The opportunity to give John a love interest who was captivating, mysterious, potentially backstabbing and strong intrigued at least me to no end. And we tried as much as we could to make her a good character, not just pretty alien wallpaper. A real girlfriend. Her Genii origins, her role as a commander, her personal relationship with Ladon and her past with Kolya--all of these seemingly small details were of the absolute most importance in developing her into a character who could command John's attention.

The funny thing was, by about Box of Dreams, I think the whole staff was about as in love with Mayel as John was. I remember physically asking the question in a brainstorming/beta session 'do we have to do this?' as regarding the betrayal. She was a fun, great character and we all love her. And we're not done with her; obviously her impact on John and the rest of Atlantis is far reaching. But in series development terms, we needed John about as bitter as he could be by the time the Replicator storyline re-emerged. So we had to let her go the way of the storyline plans, but I personally was loathe to have to turn her and we did discuss whether she knew or not. We felt it would be more emotional for everyone if she was forced to choose between John and the Genii rather than just be a typical Genii. That was where, BTW, her sort of emotionally driven 'goodbye' scene came from at the end of Adoremus.

Nothing you'll do will please everyone--early into the series we heard some critiques from Wraith fans who disliked our Wraith and our take on Todd. There wasn't much we could do--TPTW wrote most of the Wraith as throwaway enemies except Todd. We embraced Todd as a semi-ally, but we weren't planning on humanizing the Wraith. So there we met with an impasse--we can't please everyone. But we've tried to be as mainstream as we can.

And for me, the thought process, and seeing how many people are paying attention to detail during the beta process--it's AMAZING. We have such dedicated staffers here. This past week, we spent a couple of hours and spanned about 12 time zones hashing out the functionality of the City's Inertial Dampeners, which involves about one or two lines of text total in the 38 page conclusion to PM Part I. (What, why are we talking about stuff like that, huh? *haha tease*). That's our devotion. We're fandom geeks, natch.

On watching 4/5--I honestly thought I wasn't going to enjoy it. I had to watch it for SGA:R. And I have never hedged on the fact that Elizabeth was my favorite character hands down, so I was NOT looking forward to watching. However, when I did watch, I can honestly say, even as a Liz fan, the back half of 4 and most of Season 5 was enjoyable. There are a few throwaway episodes, but most of the characters, especially John, maintain a darker, more muted attitude, so it feels like they've been through the ringer and they've never forgotten about it. In other words, it's not developed like a, say 'Season 3-redux-without-Elizabeth'. It's a world without Elizabeth. The levity and the casual nature of people is gone. I respected that. And it makes the appearance of Elizabeth in GITM have even more meaning once you see the episodes surrounding it and how everyone has already gone through a lot.

Personally, I really enjoyed "The Seed" "The Shrine (darn good Rodney stuff there)" "First Contact/The Lost Tribe" "Remnants" And the end of "Prodigal" has a moment that makes all the Michael stuff worth it.

I know I'm leaving out Vegas but I'm not a super die hard John fan so I thought it was pretty good for an AU...

Thank you, Eri and to all the ones involved in the SGA Rising project that have been posting about it here, for all your words, and for talking about what is going on behind this great project, that it is indeed, Atlantis Rising. I truly red what you all have been saying with great interest. Once again I would like to congratulate everyone involved in this project, you are all amazing, and I truly admire your work, thank you!!!!

[Sparky She-Demon]

I love the most recent update of SGAR!

[Southern Red]

I love the most recent update of SGAR!

Thank you. We appreciate all our fans. Wait until you read PM Act V. Exciting doesn't begin to describe it.

[mandogater]

Ficlet present!!!

Again, this takes place during what could be S7 of SGA-R. Basic premise: they found Elizabeth. She got IOA'd on Earth for six months. She just came home to Atlantis.

Spoiler:

Although she was glad to be home, Elizabeth Weir didn’t want to be overwhelmed with the entire population of Atlantis welcoming her back at once. She was sure that, by now, news of her arrival had spread already.

So when Jennifer Keller had finished her examination, Elizabeth asked John to take her to her quarters. He had readily agreed and ushered her out of the infirmary.

He guided her around a familiar corridor and she was shocked, pleasantly, to find that her quarters were not a spare set of VIP quarters that had been reassigned to her.

It was her old room. Her old bed. Her old desk. Her old tapestries that she had received after a fruitful trading mission.

And her old Athosian pot, sitting on her night stand.

She turned to John, a bewildered smile on her face. “How did you--?”

He shrugged, crossing his arms as he leaned against the door frame. “Teyla cleared out your office and your quarters. Most of your stuff that you had brought from Earth was sent back to your mother. Other objects that you’d gotten here in the neighborhood were put in storage. And I never put your room back on the lodgings roster. Just didn’t seem right for anyone else to have it.”

Elizabeth nodded as she slowly paced around her room. Considering how neatly everything had been put back in its place, she assumed that Teyla had done it.

John cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, leave you to get reacquainted.”

“Actually, John,” she said, turning around slowly, “there’s one more place I would like to go before I settle in.”

“Where?”

She smiled.

-------------

“I’ve missed this.”

They were standing on the balcony just outside the control room. Elizabeth leaned forward against the railing, and John lifted his foot to the first rung. The breeze blew across her face, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sunshine on her skin which was a little pale for her taste.

“Yeah,” John agreed, narrowing his eyes at some storm clouds on the horizon. “Weather’s great this time of year.”

“We’re floating near the planet’s equator. When is the weather not nice?” she asked with a laugh.

He glanced sideways at her, then went back to inspecting the view. “I imagine you didn’t make it outside that much when you were on Earth.”

She shook her head. “Most of the time was spent determining if the nanites were really gone. Once they realized that there was no trace of them, I was allowed a little time out.”

“Again, not much?”

She shook her head. “Not enough. That’s for sure. So what’s this planet like?”

“Average, run-of-the-mill Pegasus planet. Mostly water. No Stargate on the mainland.”

“And none of our enemies know about it, right?”

John smirked. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

Elizabeth smiled as she sighed. “It’s good to be back.”

John nodded and glanced her way. “It’s good to have you back,” he agreed.

She chuckled, dipping her head to the side. “Even if I don’t get my old office back.”

He tried to repress a smirk, ultimately failing. “As much as I would like for you to be the boss again, Woolsey’s been doing a really good job. The IOA’s actually been staying off our backs.”

“For once,” she muttered.

As they stood there, exchanging occasional words, and staring off into the distance, Elizabeth began to feel that John was coming back too. The person he had been ever since they found her had been a far cry from the young major that she had managed to recruit all those years ago.

Granted, she understood why. Life in this part of the galaxy was stressful.

And having reincarnations of your dead friend popping up every so often did not help matters.

But this was her. And she was home.

John spoke again, breaking the silence. “So Woolsey suggested -- and General O’Neill agreed -- that we might be able to create a position of ‘first contact specialist’, or something along those lines.”

“I thought that was Teyla’s job,” she joked wryly.

John shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, Teyla’s great at bonding with the locals. And she’ll continue to be a part of my team. Unless she gets pregnant again.” He looked slightly worried, but before Elizabeth could say anything he continued. “The first contact specialist would probably be off world with us as well.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “So no more desk job for me? Drats. I really enjoyed only seeing anyone when something was about to go catastrophically wrong.”

John saw the humor behind her words and couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re serious about this?” she asked, pulling away from the railing.

“Yeah.” He imitated her, drawing back as well.

“What if I say no?”

John stuffed his hands in his pockets and scoffed in amusement. “You won’t. Besides, you’re the only person we’re offering the job to.”

She nodded in a manner that conveyed touché.

“You don’t have to say yes immediately. Take some time to settle back in, and find me when you’re ready.”

Elizabeth looked up. Green eyes met hazel for the first time in what felt like years, but the trust and understanding was still there. She was glad for it; if it had permanently been removed, she didn’t think it would be possible to come home.

She nodded at him, and he began to make his way towards the sliding doors that led back into the control room.

“John?”

“Yeah?” he asked, turning back around just as the doors opened.

She paused for a moment, biting her lip. “If I say yes … will I have to carry a weapon?”

John nodded, gritting his teeth. “If you’re going off world, yeah.”

Elizabeth groaned in consternation.

“Maybe Ronon will let you borrow his stunner. That way, you can shut McKay up.” And with something that looked suspiciously like a wink, he left her on the balcony.

A smile crept along her lips as she turned back to face the ocean.

Maybe a little change was a good thing.

I'm loving this story, SW!!!

Please tell me there is still much more to come. *Does best impression of John's puppy dog eyes*

[drewandian]

There was a lot of time (it's two years past now, but who's counting? ) spent on development of SGAR, trying to work in how canon would do it. I completely get that how someone perceives fandom would be different, especially shippers, since they tend to skew things to their purposes more than most.

Our writers agreed to go as much to the center as we could. We involved shippers of many different angles as well as non-shippers in the discussions to try and make sure we weren't missing something with our rose colored glasses. What we ended up with:

HEAVY spoilers through PM Part IV:

Spoiler:

1) Do not Enter Elizabeth: Despite (obviously) being Liz fans, she would not make an appearance until midway through the season. It was too important to us that we spend time with the other characters before slamming Elizabeth back into the story.

2) McKeller stayed: we did have some push and pull on this, but ultimately, because so much time was spent on them by the end of S5, we did not want to do the show a disservice by pulling it, even if many fans were not fans of the coupling. I think the reasons why were sort of spread out (it wasn't believable/ it took away from McShep/ Jennifer was too whiny, etc, etc) so rather than pull a Katie/Rodney storyline, we opted to try and make it more appealing by giving it a little more time and devotion. It also helps, of course, that we can see 'inside' the character's heads, which is extremely difficult in a show. By being omniscient, we get some more depth much more easily than can be conveyed onscreen.

3) Teyla needed to be shaken up and Ronon needed to feel: the terms 'wallpaper' and Teyla and Ronon seemed to coincide--despite Teyla's family development in Season 4/5, we felt like many fans wanted to see more of her. And so evolved the ostracism from the Athosians and having to relearn her place amongst her tribe. Unfortunately, trying to centralize a character when we only have 8 episodes to work with is hard, so there will be some wallpapering (I think, personally, of all the wallpapered characters I feel like we haven't had too much development from Rodney at all in SGA:R, but for some reason no one yells 'McKay wallpaper!') For Ronon his role is smaller--SGA, though they squeezed his story into a few token episodes, did actually delve into his feelings of loyalty and devotion to Sateda. Bringing 'Romelia' into the picture here, most particularly in "Adoremus" was doing what we could to give him some time. Again, as an ensemble character and only 8 episodes to work with, it's hard to really give him some good character development, but we're trying. We have a Ronon episode planned for the back half of SGA:R that I hope gets developed and written, because it has the potential to be awesome.

4) John gets a girlfriend: I think if anyone came at us and said 'y'all are shippery shippers writing shippy stuff' I'd be like 'have you MET Mayel?'

Mayel was someone that had a few people gnashing their teeth, because our team was born out of this thread. So when SR came back and said JF had mentioned he would have liked John to have had a girlfriend, though we immediately started brainstorming, not everyone was pleased. But we were determined to balance this out. I mean, this was a main directive from Joe. The message posted above our door has always read: all fanon to be left outside the room. Period. It was the reminder to us to keep our shippery hands out of SGA:R. Naturally, we didn't fight what we saw was the strong friendship between Liz&John, and for other parts of the fandom how strong that is remains open to interpretation. But we tried our very best to be middle of the road.

Anyways, given our sticky note, so enter Mayel. The opportunity to give John a love interest who was captivating, mysterious, potentially backstabbing and strong intrigued at least me to no end. And we tried as much as we could to make her a good character, not just pretty alien wallpaper. A real girlfriend. Her Genii origins, her role as a commander, her personal relationship with Ladon and her past with Kolya--all of these seemingly small details were of the absolute most importance in developing her into a character who could command John's attention.

The funny thing was, by about Box of Dreams, I think the whole staff was about as in love with Mayel as John was. I remember physically asking the question in a brainstorming/beta session 'do we have to do this?' as regarding the betrayal. She was a fun, great character and we all love her. And we're not done with her; obviously her impact on John and the rest of Atlantis is far reaching. But in series development terms, we needed John about as bitter as he could be by the time the Replicator storyline re-emerged. So we had to let her go the way of the storyline plans, but I personally was loathe to have to turn her and we did discuss whether she knew or not. We felt it would be more emotional for everyone if she was forced to choose between John and the Genii rather than just be a typical Genii. That was where, BTW, her sort of emotionally driven 'goodbye' scene came from at the end of Adoremus.

Nothing you'll do will please everyone--early into the series we heard some critiques from Wraith fans who disliked our Wraith and our take on Todd. There wasn't much we could do--TPTW wrote most of the Wraith as throwaway enemies except Todd. We embraced Todd as a semi-ally, but we weren't planning on humanizing the Wraith. So there we met with an impasse--we can't please everyone. But we've tried to be as mainstream as we can.

And for me, the thought process, and seeing how many people are paying attention to detail during the beta process--it's AMAZING. We have such dedicated staffers here. This past week, we spent a couple of hours and spanned about 12 time zones hashing out the functionality of the City's Inertial Dampeners, which involves about one or two lines of text total in the 38 page conclusion to PM Part I. (What, why are we talking about stuff like that, huh? *haha tease*). That's our devotion. We're fandom geeks, natch.

On watching 4/5--I honestly thought I wasn't going to enjoy it. I had to watch it for SGA:R. And I have never hedged on the fact that Elizabeth was my favorite character hands down, so I was NOT looking forward to watching. However, when I did watch, I can honestly say, even as a Liz fan, the back half of 4 and most of Season 5 was enjoyable. There are a few throwaway episodes, but most of the characters, especially John, maintain a darker, more muted attitude, so it feels like they've been through the ringer and they've never forgotten about it. In other words, it's not developed like a, say 'Season 3-redux-without-Elizabeth'. It's a world without Elizabeth. The levity and the casual nature of people is gone. I respected that. And it makes the appearance of Elizabeth in GITM have even more meaning once you see the episodes surrounding it and how everyone has already gone through a lot.

Personally, I really enjoyed "The Seed" "The Shrine (darn good Rodney stuff there)" "First Contact/The Lost Tribe" "Remnants" And the end of "Prodigal" has a moment that makes all the Michael stuff worth it.

I know I'm leaving out Vegas but I'm not a super die hard John fan so I thought it was pretty good for an AU...

Ok see now *this* kinda makes me want to watch those seasons that I like to pretend don't exist (as I too am a die-hard Elizabeth (and Torri) fan)...maybe I'll start S4 this weekend. *nods*

and I have to admit...I haven't started reading SGA-R yet *hangs head* I want to be able to sit and read it through without interruption and my life doesn't offer me that luxury right now. It's bookmarked though and I *WILL* get there soon! (and it's funny b/c i was part of the very initial discussing and planning for it...and then RL got stupid and I stopped all things fandom for three years )

SW Love the sig!!!!

[Luz]

So... uh... I should probably try watching the episodes in order instead of using tumblr as a guide and watching the ones where John wears a suit, huh?

BTW, I loved Outcast and Vegas. And right now I'm pondering whether I should watch that episode from the previouslies on Outcast (John in a suit. Coincidence? I don't think so ) or really start watching them properly.

[Sequoia Hope]

Just found this Sparky vid. Thought I'd share.

Spoiler: