Fic reviews: McShep Match Days 17 & 18
Day 17: Line in the Sand

Saving Sheppard by ldyanne 1/5
10,200 words. Rodney was eight the first time he met Death.

The summary intrigued me, but the fic really let me down. I thought John would be Death, and that would be interesting, but he isn't and...it isn't. It's not very well-written and Rodney is super woobified. He has deathly allergies (as do all woobie Rodneys) but his parents blame it on him and no one loves him and they're all mean and he's going to run off to China and eat lemon chicken just to show them. (Not literally with the China, but he does eat lemon chicken!)

And here Rodney's blood sugar crashes: This time had been bad because his parents hadn’t been at home when it happened. They’d returned home to find Rodney wandering the house in a confused haze and Jeannie crying in her crib. The sitter had been frantic, but that was because she couldn’t get Jeannie to stop crying.

That last line literally made me laugh out loud. NO ONE LOVES HIM. It's just so over-the-top and yet done in a way that makes me think the author thinks they're being really ~*~subtle~*~.

And then of course to go along with woobie!Rodney, we have even-more-special-than-canon!Rodney. Like, I really don't understand this phenomenon. He's already super speshul in canon! XD But then you get fics where he's not just a genius at science, but also speaks twelve languages fluently! Or whatever. In this case, he's not just a genius, but a genius with a photographic memory! *headdesk*

And on top of all that, it could really use an edit. Among other things, the author couldn't keep track of a minor character's name and kept changing the spelling from paragraph to paragraph...

Day 18: Down to Earth

Like Gravity (It Doesn't Matter if You Believe in It) by pogrebin 4/5 Recommended
5000 words. What's left after the war is over; a series of snapshots in a life.

I liked this a lot. It could use a little editing, and there were some whole sections that felt unnecessary, but I really liked it overall.

It's so rare to find fics like this. I love the quiet realness of it. There's no fairytale happy ending (both after Atlantis and for John and Rodney themselves), but neither is it all death and destruction. Someone guessed me for this, and I can see why. It's the sort of not-happy/not-sad thing I like. Though my first thought upon seeing someone guess me was "I would never use smartquotes! DDD:"

Grounded by kassrachel 2/5
6500 words. "Good news," John said, apparently ignoring his question. "Atlantis is returning to Pegasus!"

I thought I would like this a lot less than I did. When I went in to get the word count, I saw the last line (In John's arms, Rodney felt grounded. Cherished. At peace.) and rolled my eyes at the sappiness. But thankfully the rest of the fic was not that sappy and was really quite enjoyable. I could have done without yet another "straight except for some youthful experimentation"!Rodney (the third in this fest alone!), but whatever. Overall it was still not really my thing, but it's one of the better Team Peace fics so far.