I'm glad you chose this story - someone else on my flist asked me to read it the other day, because she had some reservations and wanted to triangulate her concerns.
It's interesting: I definitely agree with your first comment - that an AU works if the characters are true to themselves, so that no matter what the background, the people in the foreground will need to be recognisably the John Sheppard and Rodney McKay of Stargate: Atlantis.
And I absolutely didn't think this story managed that at all.
For me, the Sheppard of Hindsight is less dissimilar to the Sheppard of Atlantis than the two Rodneys. But in part, that's because both Sheppards are cyphers. So the lazy, superficial all-purpose charm made sense, but I didn't understand why Sheppard would have chosen this career - one that forces him both to see the worst of humankind, to empathise with it, and to be left largely impotent much of the time, to right society's wrongs. He also seemed extremely passive about Rodney's encroachment into his life. The Sheppard of the show seems very able to set his own boudaries, keep people at arms-length - in short, be less of a girl, frankly.
I didn't recognise this Rodney at all. Worse, it seemed to me that this was an absolute distillation of a certain fanon cliche version of McKay. The McKay of Hindsight never, ever stops loudly and pathetically complaining, or whining, or bragging, or bitching the world out. He pretty much hates or despises everyone, and they hate and despise him back with equal ferocity.
I couldn't understand why a man so consumed with anger and contempt would try and force his way into a relationship with a total stranger - and worse, why Sheppard would let himself be played into that relationship, especially when the story sets out with him ostensibly heterosexual. This McKay was something of an obsessive bunny-boiler: I absolutely can't think of anything from the show that supports the idea of McKay calling Sheppard up umpteen times a day, inviting himself into someone else's life, trying to comandeer them. He's way more self-contained than that, by necessity.
part I
It's interesting: I definitely agree with your first comment - that an AU works if the characters are true to themselves, so that no matter what the background, the people in the foreground will need to be recognisably the John Sheppard and Rodney McKay of Stargate: Atlantis.
And I absolutely didn't think this story managed that at all.
For me, the Sheppard of Hindsight is less dissimilar to the Sheppard of Atlantis than the two Rodneys. But in part, that's because both Sheppards are cyphers. So the lazy, superficial all-purpose charm made sense, but I didn't understand why Sheppard would have chosen this career - one that forces him both to see the worst of humankind, to empathise with it, and to be left largely impotent much of the time, to right society's wrongs. He also seemed extremely passive about Rodney's encroachment into his life. The Sheppard of the show seems very able to set his own boudaries, keep people at arms-length - in short, be less of a girl, frankly.
I didn't recognise this Rodney at all. Worse, it seemed to me that this was an absolute distillation of a certain fanon cliche version of McKay. The McKay of Hindsight never, ever stops loudly and pathetically complaining, or whining, or bragging, or bitching the world out. He pretty much hates or despises everyone, and they hate and despise him back with equal ferocity.
I couldn't understand why a man so consumed with anger and contempt would try and force his way into a relationship with a total stranger - and worse, why Sheppard would let himself be played into that relationship, especially when the story sets out with him ostensibly heterosexual. This McKay was something of an obsessive bunny-boiler: I absolutely can't think of anything from the show that supports the idea of McKay calling Sheppard up umpteen times a day, inviting himself into someone else's life, trying to comandeer them. He's way more self-contained than that, by necessity.