Painty Girl

It lives!

2008-07-25T00:48:02Z

It's not remotely Weekly, but it's still Geekly. Spoilers for Search and Rescue.

With massive thanks to Rollina for posting a
wicked large pile of screencaps.

Given where we last left Our Heroes, we know this is somebody's crack fantasy. Good grief. Only Sheppard could be that awkward in his own head.

Fortunately for him, Dream!Teyla finds it charming. (Though I suspect that Actual!Teyla does, too.)

Nothing ruins a romantic candlelight dinner like a creepified Ford…

…a puncture wound…

… and 100,000 tons of rubble.

But never fear, for the main characters have all survived. So Rodney is around to panic, and Lorne is around to give him shit for it.

Cue the Incredibly Long Pullback Shot.

Meanwhile, on the Ship of Eeeeeevil, Michael is grumpy and ~~Kanaan~~ Kardboard, as usual, is about as interesting as a sheet of drywall. Turns out Michael had ADT Home Security installed at his Base of Evil Evilness and they just called to inform him that there's been a break-in.

To be honest, I've been at the "get it over with" stage of the whole Teyla/Michael/Kanaan thing since the moment it started. I understand that the writers needed to fit Rachel's pregnancy into the season, and given the fact that woman things and woman parts seem to frighten them, I suppose they did all right. I can't really fault them for Teyla's relationship with Kardboard feeling like a tacked-on afterthought, because it's nothing more than a reason for her to be pregnant. The fact that they decided it was a fling with an old friend instead of Something Weird makes me optimistic that they might be better able to handle grownup things in the future. (Of course, they did follow it up with turning Kardboard into a bug and all kinds of weird messiah talk about their kid.)

That said, they could have found a guy with an ounce of charisma. Maybe Teyla likes her men boring. Granted, he's been a zombiebug since we were introduced to him. Maybe after he's been cured he'll be bubbling over with personality. Or, you know, will have one. As for folks insisting that Teyla couldn't possibly ever be with [insert ship here] because of this man: "Reconnecting" with an old friend and doing the nasty does not immediately cause True Love Forever and Ever. But omg! They have a kid together! Please. If anything, it's an opportunity for a look at dating and mating and social customs in the Pegasus galaxy, which haven't made much of an appearance. An opportunity that will likely be ignored. Bummer.

Moving on!

Lone Escapee Guy explains that things have gone pearshaped everyone is most likely screwed.

"I'm trying to keep my mind busy. Which is hard, 'cause, you know, it's my mind."

So…as they were searching for Teyla, then panicking and dodging debris and being nearly crushed by a huge warehouse, Rodney happened to grab something containing All the Information Needed to Wreck Michael's Shit. Something that also happens to tell them that Michael has had ADT installed (because they missed the sign on the front lawn). Of course he did.

I gotta say, they did a great job with the rubble. It was huge. And …rubbly.

Sam hears a who.

And Lorne, who has suddenly become a whiny butt, gripes about his leg when Rodney says they're okay. If a huge building falls on you and all you've got is a broken leg, you're frelling okay.

Rodney informs them of the calls ADT has placed to the police, fire department and the Evil Homeowner.

New Hot Marine Lady says they should be able to dig them out before they all get busted for breaking, entering and imploding.

Sam does her take-chargy thing (sadly lacking during most of her time on Atlantis) and sends someone up in a jumper to watch for Michael. Keller contributes by asking questions in a whiny voice.

"I should have seen that coming."
"Yeah, well, none of us did."
"Yeah, but, I'm the guy. You know, like, the guy."

Not sure if the eyeroll is "I sound like an idiot" or "I am an idiot", or both, but it's hilarious.

John spends most of the time trapped under the rubble trying to talk Ronon into leaving him. Ronon spends most of the time being Ronon, ignoring him and trying to dig him out.

"If we get this beam off you, we get you free, we dig ourselves out together. Deal?"
"You ain't gonna listen to me one way or the other, are you?"
"Great, deal."

Meanwhile, back on the Ship of Eeeeeevil, Michael stands in front of his slimy wraith ultrasound machine (that shows nothing resembling a child on the screen) and speechifies at Teyla in standard issue villainous fashion.

Teyla brings up the fact that he talks about her kid a lot, but doesn't really mention her much. Michael consults the Evil Overlord's Phrasebook and comes back with "I had hoped that you would understand". Weak, dude.

They are interrupted by Kardboard, who for some reason Michael trusts with Teyla. Maybe he's got good reason, though, because apparently Kardboard is a great big whuss. Putting his behavior here together with Teyla's description of him in Missing, I'm going to assume that his being a whuss doesn't have all that much to do with Michael. Why was she attracted to him again?

Rodney demonstrates that he is better at the whole triage thing than Keller is by insisting that she take care of the guy with the broken leg first. Apparently Sam's Take-Chargeness and Teyla's WTFaboutmeasshole?ness have taken up all the female competence in the area.

Lookout Guy informs them that the cops have arrived, and while Rodney is still making woobie-face about his Possibly All Dead and/or Imprisoned By Evil Overlord team, Sam tells everybody to run before they get shot for looting.

New Hot Marine Lady pauses to shoot at a dart and to let Michael know that there's someone down there and that they're armed. This leads me to believe that said shooting was an effort on the part of the writers to let us know that This Chick Means Business. She must, because she's able to fire that BFG with no sign of recoil whatsoever.

Rodney explains the classic wraith battle technique of dialing in to prevent anyone from escaping via that gate. Shouldn't she know about that? Just sayin'.

Ship of Eeeeeevil!

Not only did Michael's experiment turn Athosians into half-bug people, but it also made them proficient with wraith tech! Amazing! Granted, this fits with the idea that everyone in Pegasus seems to be able to pick up unfamiliar alien tech and instantly understand how it works. Seriously, though. It's like a French-speaking PC user logging onto a Japanese guy's Mac and making it go. Without icons.

"Is that Michael's cruiser?"

No, it's a fucking Winnebago.

"Would you leave me if I was stuck under there?"

"Yes."

Blatant bullshit, sure, but I've seen posts screeching "OMG!!111eleventy!!! John is such an asshole!". Seriously.

Caldwell! Caldwell wants to kill people and break things, but Sam tells him he has to wait.

Michael says "let's get the hell out of here", and in a token moment in which I imagine we're supposed to find something sympathetic about Kardboard, he expresses concern for his fellow bug-people still flying around in darts. You would think that this moment would lead to an actual change of heart rescue attempty bit of goodness on Kardboard's part, but it doesn't, really. And I guess that's okay, because the fact that he remains a whuss until Teyla is standing in front of him with their child (and three armed men) is actually a nice change from the sudden urge to do the right thing that is often written into these situations. I don't know if that was the intention, but I like it and I'm going to pretend it was. So there.

John, unlike everyone else, doesn't assume that the people digging them out are good guys and takes time out of wincing and looking miserable to make a Simpsons reference.
"They don't watch The Simpsons or drink beer."

John says he can't reach his gun, and Ronon gets it for him without a word. * sniffle * Ah love yew gahz.

Once again, someone talks Caldwell into doing something he knows is a bad idea. I think he was put into place purely for the purpose of letting the other characters know that what they're planning is incredibly stupid.

John and Ronon have a Butch and Sundance moment…

…which fortunately ends better than that whole thing did.

Because they had to drop their shields to beam up Ronon and John, the Daedalus sustains huge amounts of serious damage that will be fixed in fifteen minutes.

"Don't touch me."
Maybe he saw the blue gloves.

What's wrong with this picture?

Now, most scenes in which the Flan Man is fully dressed are a crime against nature, but this one's a crime against medicine, too. They've bothered to hook up a heart monitor and other miscellaneous wiring, but for some reason they've left the guy with the gnarly abdominal wound in his filthy uniform. All buttoned up. I understand actors not wanting to whip off their kit in every other scene, but this just looks…stupid.

John looks all surprised that Rodney is still alive. Also, he looks hot, even all mussed up like that. It's funny that the moment he hears McKay made it out, he's all inspired to haul himself up and go running to Teyla's rescue. Awww. Superman needs his Supergeek.

Lady, just give me the good shit and turn me loose.

And despite the fact that a building fell on him and poked holes in his innards, she lets him go.

"She revised her diagnosis."
Shut up, Ronon.

"We need to take out the cruiser's main weapons."

What you need is to stop coming up with this crazy shit and asking me to do it. Srslykthxbai.

Thanks, and sorry for the emasculation.

Sam calls shenanigans but John pulls the same thing on her that she just pulled on Caldwell. Instant Karma.

Yes, it is 100% ridiculous that Keller let him go, or that Sam let him go. Or that anyone let him go. That he wanted to go is entirely in character. I suppose they could have solved the problem by having Michael's hybrids dig John and Ronon out of the rubble and take them to the hive ship, thereby giving John no choice but to stagger heroically to Teyla's rescue (and, you know, his own). Add McKay and a jumper full of marines and it's a party. (A party that I, incidentally, would totally go to.)

"You know, Ronon and I could probably handle this."

What part of The Guy don't you people understand?

~~Han Solo~~ John flies through the hive's bay doors just as they close while ~~C-3PO~~ Rodney panics about not making it and ~~Chewie~~ Ronon chills in the background.

You fly good.

Our Heroes sneak around the hive ship and discover that despite massive genetic tweaking, Michael has been unable to create a more observant minion.

They also discover that like the Daedalus, the hive can make repairs to systems that recently erupted in huge balls of fire in about fifteen minutes or less. (Or your pizza is free.)

They make their way to Teyla's handily labeled cell to discover that, in a shocking plot development, she's in labor.

(You've got to love the fact that Teyla hears automatic weapons fire and yells "John?!" Ship or no ship, it's kind of sweet.)

Also sweet.

But omgwtfpolarbear, the hyperdrive is powering up. So Ronon and John dash off to break shit and kill people, leaving Teyla with Rodney.

Who immediately begins to babble.

Fucking die, babbleboy!

John completely forgets that he just had, you know, metal stuff sticking him in the soft and squishy places and stretches to set the C4. Prompting Ronon to take away his toys.

The boys blow stuff up…

And Rodney tries to deliver a baby entirely without looking, while making more faces and more noise than Teyla does.

Yes, babies actually can be born that quickly. That cleanly? Only on TV.

"Wow."

"It didn't hit the floor or anything." Too funny.

Again with the sweet.

Dammit, I knew we shouldn't have parked in this neighborhood.

Rodney gives John an "I told you so" about the whole "staying in the jumper" thing. Not mentioned is the fact that if John had stayed behind, there's a good chance he'd be dead.

On the way to find another ride home, Our Heroes run into none other than Kardboard, who no doubt was on his way to affect his own daring rescue. (Sarcasm. Feel it, love it, be crushed beneath its weight.)

Shoot, boys, shoot! John, for one, looks like he'd very much like to pull the trigger.

Oh yeah, sure, he's willing to help when Teyla's got three well ~~hung~~ armed guys standing behind her.

Observe as Teyla uses the baby in a blatant attempt to tug at your nonexistent heartstrings, oh man with the personality of a grapefruit!

As they should have done in the first place, Our Heroes boost a dart and GTFO of Dodge.

"Sir, we've got a dart trying to hail us."

Why that's a surprise to anyone at this point, I have no idea.

"You beamed a baby into wraith storage?"

And thus occurred the Great Ovary Explosion of '08.

With aftershocks…

"Major Marks, please make that ship go away."
Mitch Pileggi, I love you. Seriously.

How awesome is that shot?

Sam teasing Rodney was mean. But hilarious.

Teyla's got the MommyFace. Rachel's gorgeous, anyway, but motherhood clearly agrees with her.

John likes his toy better. It has an off-switch.

It's a little creepy that Teyla says the same thing to John at the end as she did in his semi-conscious whacked-out fantasy. But hey, she's got the big mental whammy. Maybe it doesn't apply only to wraith.

He promptly focuses his attention elsewhere when she thanks him. Maybe he's creeped out by what she said. Or by the fact that she's suddenly gotten all serious on him. Or it's just a standard Sheppard "aw shucks" thing.

The moment is quickly broken up by Keller, who has the Kaywinnit turned up just a little too high. Gosh, I'm just gonna poke around in there with a stick until things scooch back to where they belong!

(Somebody. Help. Me.) O o .

Much hubbub has been hubbubbed over Teyla's choice to give the baby John's name instead of Rodney's. After all, he whined and panicked and scrunchy-faced his way through delivering her child, whereas all John did was take her people to Atlantis, rescue her from the wraith and show her it was possible to fight back, all after knowing her for what, a day? Just for starters. They have a thing. Shippy or not, it's a thing. And they have it.

Welcome home, you're fired!

It wasn't classy, or respectful, or well-handled, but tell me you can't see the IOA doing it exactly like that.

Next up, The Seed, hopefully sometime before Christmas.

gigajules @ 2008-04-01T16:08:00

2008-04-01T21:13:39Z

Took me long enough to put this up...

The nominated story is Touched, which is here. (Spoilers for Common Ground.) If the person who nominated it happens to be someone who peeks at this journal now and then, thank you very much!

The Geekly that is no longer Weekly.

2007-12-09T23:59:22Z

It's not like I didn't know already, but I've finally acknowledged the reason that there haven't been many Weekly Geeklies this season, and aren't likely to be many more. The sudden lack of the usual crapload of screencaps is one thing, but not The Thing, because while the pictures make it more fun, I can smartass just fine without visual aids. Nope, The Thing is kind of a spoiler, I guess, for folks who live under rocks, so I'll put it behind a cut.

The Thing is that I've been thrown clear out of every episode by the effort of stretching an already overused suspension of disbelief to cover the fact that no one has noticed that Teyla is clearly pregnant. I know we're supposed to pretend not to notice. And I know we're supposed to pretend not to notice the characters pretending not to notice. It's just. Not. Working. And the fact that they chose to wait so long for a reveal that resulted in a resounding DUH from the audience - and that they continue to make it ambiguous as to whether or not Teyla's actually told anyone else - has begun to make the characters and TPTB look ridiculous.

I will ignore that every alien in the universe speaks English. I will ignore that in the real world none of these people would still have their jobs. I will even ignore the fact that just because a person has an excellent working knowledge of aircraft does not in fact mean that they can fly anything. I'm easy that way. Asking me to buy that no one has noticed that Teyla has suddenly started wearing more clothes and gained a cup size or two (the other team members are men and they have eyes ferfuxache) and an obvious (though adorable) gut, is a little much. Seriously, she's been waddling. It's gotten beyond distracting. Maybe they all think she's been hitting the mess hall too hard and they're afraid she'll beat the shit out of them if they suggest she might want to lay off the snacks. At this point, if I were writing the show (I'm sure everyone's thankful that I'm not), her no doubt supposed-to-be-dramatic reveal to the rest of her teammates would be greeted with "Uh, yeah, we kind of worked it out on our own".

So, in short, any Weekly Geeklies to come out of the rest of the season will probably end up just as distracted from the stories as my viewing of the show. Should I happen on someplace that has numerous caps from the episodes (or even just one of them, I'll take what I can get), I might give it another shot. But I'm inclined to think that most of the smartassery will revolve around wondering if the people of Atlantis could find their asses with both hands and a flashlight.

Why I Love Fridays

2007-11-02T22:04:09Z

(X-posted because it's fangirly crap and really belongs over here...)

Because I have absolutely nothing helpful, meaningful, or deep to say, here are a bunch of people who look good when they do stuff, say stuff, or hell, just stand around. In case the subject doesn't clue you, there are a crapload of pictures behind the cut. Sadly, all are work-safe.

Is it wrong that this look does it for me? Probably.

There are other reasons to watch Moonlight (9pm et/pt on CBS kthxbai), but the scenery doesn't hurt.

Hot people in space:

And a reason to love this particular Friday:

Apologies in advance...

2007-10-28T08:30:28Z

...for the amount of fang-girling (oh Jules, you're so funny) that's going ensue over this damn show. I don't really have anyone to talk about it with, so now and then it's probably going to spill out here.

While it occasionally brings the silly (it's a vampire show, so that's bound to happen), Moonlight has these flashes of brilliance that make it impossible to look away. (Along with Alex O'Loughlin's extreme easiness on the eyes. 'Cause dayum.) It's turned out to be far less like Forever Knight or Angel than I thought it might be, and I mean that in a good way. Mick isn't so much old and brooding as young and smartassed. His issues are, for the most part, human ones, and he's very much just a guy. With fangs and a blood condition. And an outrageously well-formed backside.

One of the best things about the show so far is that they're not ducking or dodging the usual issues. For instance, it's only the second episode when Beth finds out that Mick is a vampire.

Her first clue...

"I'm a vampire."

Yeah. Hard to miss. By the fourth episode, she's offered to feed him (since he was dying and all). And it was hot. (Alex O'Loughlin could have good chemistry with lawn furniture. Between him and Sophia Myles I'm surprised my TV hasn't burst into flames.)

The result? Mick avoids her (for her own good, he says, but I get the feeling that's not all) and ends up looking just like a guy who's slept with a woman and then not returned her calls. The resulting conversation resembles the sort that would happen in just that situation and it's pretty damn funny.

See?

Never mind that they've both got a really bad habit of using the word "vampire" in public.

Fifth episode (if you watch the show, you know exactly what's coming)... She plants one on him. Sure she's got a boyfriend, but hey, she's suddenly got her very own ridiculously hot vampire who she does adventurey stuff with and who is clearly sweet on her. Also for some reason I think Beth seems like the sort who finds it attractive that he's not at all likely to make a move on her. Don't ask. I have no idea.

That's got to be one of the sweetest smiles I've ever seen on a grown man. And while I'm shamelessly fangirling...the way he does that goofy little finger-walk trying to reach his keys under the car cracks me the hell up. He's not always graceful, and definitely not always smooth and sure he's a vampire but he's a punk-assed one and he gets the shit kicked out of him all the time. Okay, so maybe he is a little like Angel, lol.

Also good, the show has a naughty sense of humor. In the latst episode, Mick brings Beth to his buddy Josef's place so she can call a bunch of numbers and make with the naughty phone sex in case the number happens to belong to the guy who's killing escorts (if you followed that, congratulations). All three men present look like their pants just got a little tighter. Hi-larious. A previous scene has Mick and Josef pining for the good old days of regular cathouses and "four girls on a streetcorner". As they flip through a website, Josef lists off the categories of available escorts. "Blonde, asian, busty..." A picture of a woman with a horse comes up and they glance at each other: "...equestrian..."

My point? For the love of all that's holy, watch it, people, so I have someone to talk about it with.

Weekly Geekly - Reunion

2007-10-19T19:27:24Z

First, a note to the Sci Fi Channel:

This crap with the two-minute shift needs to stop. If you can't drop a few ads for your crappy made-for-Sci Fi movies in order to show those Battlestar Galactica: Razor shorts, then edit the two minutes out of Flash Gordon. Trust me, no one will notice, even if they are watching. Kthx.

As usual, there are SPOILERS, a little cussing, and the occasional off-color remark. I also had a hell of a time being anything but snarky about this episode. Keep in mind, however, I wouldn't sit and write these things if I didn't love the show. This one's a little short (that's what she said!) because it's not my favorite ever and because I didn't have that many screencaps to write silly words under. (If someone can point me to some good and numerous screencaps of "Doppelganger", I'd be all kinds of grateful.) That said, I still probably went on for way too long.

As I mentioned once, twice, who the hell knows how many times before, I liked Samantha Carter on SG-1. On Atlantis, she's already proven to be a major disturbance and a darling of the writers to the detriment of the regulars' characterization. If you just love her to pieces (or if you are Joe Mallozzi) you might want to give this one a miss.

Moving on.

An Athosian and a Satedan walk into a village…stop me if you've heard this one.

Random Villager approaches Teyla and Ronon, assuming that Teyla is there for an arranged marriage. From his tone and demeanor, I'm pretty sure he should have been talking to Ronon instead.

"Oh, you mean the three loudmouthed drunkards who spend their days carousing at the tavern?"
"Sounds like my people."

He says that like it's a good thing. This is our first clue as to how the rest of the episode is going to go.

Ronon chases off Persistent Weasely Arranged Marriage Guy by Being Imposing.

Let's split up. We can do more damage that way.

Finding herself confronted with yet another pushy bastard, Teyla begins to understand the need for arranged marriages in this town.

Side note: Marc Dacascos is way better than what he was given to work with here. If you haven't seen Brotherhood of the Wolf, do. He's fantastic. And he runs around kicking ass in a loincloth. It's a beautiful thing.

Our first hint that something is awry: the fact that there's no way these morons wouldn't have been busted by now if their idea of low profile is a three-on-one beating of everyone who asks after them. And seriously, how badassed can they be if they don't think they can take tiny little Teyla without ganging up? It's not like they know she beats the crap out of Ronon all the time.

Shoot now, Ronon! Stop this cliché before it goes out of control!

Satedan dogpile.

I'm fine, by the way. Jerk.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Rodney is stoked because he thinks he's going to be the boss. Zelenka...isn't.

Hmm…Rodney's turned into a stammering moron, so it must be Sam on the Sooper Ginormous Widescreen Videophone. And of course she's going to be the boss, because why the hell would they pick someone who's actually got experience with the city, the people, and the Pegasus galaxy when they can have Sam Marvelous Sam?

And the boys look thrilled.

There goes half our screen time.

Back at Ye Olde Exposition Tavern…

Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit…

"The only reason you survived is because they made you a runner."
"You heard about that?"

Three seasons and a bit and Ronon is the only one we've ever seen. Of course they knew it was him. And, you know, that whole hanging out with wraith thing.

Meanwhile, back at the NORAD stock footage...

"Undomesticated equines could not keep me away."
"Nice callback."

Very sweet, yet oddly forced. Might have been the jammed in summary of The Life of Sam for the folks who are fans of SGA but never watched the other show. The scene was clearly written by someone who misses writing for SG-1. I miss SG-1, too, but I'm not keen on the idea of its ghost taking up residence on Atlantis.

Ah, the Fruit Basket Incident. It's possible that John is just being a shit. Or might have forgotten to bring something and he was just thinking on his feet.

"Here, take this. And…go."

A brief flash of The Real Rodney. I think we're going to be missing him a lot while Sam's around. He totally checked her ass out when she walked away. I'm not sure whether to interpret that as a good sign or not. He's a man, she's attractive, and he's had the hots for her for a long time, so it's only logical. On the other hand, a later scene makes him look a bit like a deranged pervert, so...

We finally get a look at what's been hiding under those cleverly placed bandages and unusually long sleeves. For those who didn't already know, Jason went and got himself a big honking tattoo in the off season, in a very obvious place. I have no idea if it was discussed first or not, but if it wasn't, he needs his ass spanked red. I volunteer.

Ronon slaps his buddy upside the head.

And Teyla continues to make realizations as to why Sateda fell. Because it was defended by people who act like a bunch of poo-flinging monkeys.

"What the hell have the three of you been doing all these years?"

Yes, we know they've been sitting there for a while due to the HOURS it would take to do just part of that tat. But shhh, it's TV, they have to explain this stuff.

"We've hit 'em more times than I can count."

So that's got to be what...at least five?

Back at ~~Weir's~~ Sam's office...

The thing with the fruit basket is mildly funny. The rest of the scene is...mortifying I guess is a good word. Rodney is reduced to a stammering idiot, and Ronon becomes Big Looming Guy (Mallozzi doesn't seem to like him very much). Since I frequently feel the need to add more in my head than I see onscreen, I'm going to be charitable and choose to think that Ronon's just testing the new boss. Hey, some people watch through Shippy Glasses, I watch through the Goggles of Story and Character Depth.

"And secondly, I'm not Dr. Weir."

Ow! The Sam Club! It hurts us!

"Not everybody gets an invitation to Atlantis."

At this point Ronon, like the audience, has to be wondering if there's a billboard up somewhere. And then his buddy launches into the whole "you belong with us" talk. It sounds like a time-share sales pitch, not a heartfelt plea to get a buddy to join them on their awesome wraith-killing adventures. Sure he's full of crap, but still.

It also would have been nice if, for even an instant, we could have believed that Ronon might run off with these people.

"You know, John, your name was on the short list."
~~"Don't patronize me, lady."~~
"Yeah, I know. I saw what they did to Elizabeth. The politics and the red tape, I didn't envy her."

We know there was no way they were going to give it to him. We also know he probably didn't want it. It's still annoying.

What's up with the Rising Redux? It's almost the same conversation, only this time he doesn't have a cloaked jumper to whip out and say HA! Weir was not remotely my favorite character. I do not miss her terribly. I'm glad, though, that they didn't sweep her under the rug. *cough*Carson*cough* Given John's issues with leaving people behind, I hope something actually comes of all this. We haven't heard squat about Ford for a good long while, though, so I'm not holding my breath.

Ronon in a skirt and ~~Rachel's stunt double~~ Teyla in a blindfold, kicking his ass four ways from Sunday (whatever the hell that means). Ironically, this is probably one of the least painful scenes in the entire episode.

"We've always been there for each other. You wouldn't understand."

Are you impaired?

Huh what now? In addition to forgetting any previous character development or, you know, social skills, Ronon has also blocked out everything he knows about these people and everything that's happened since he's been around them.

Yay for Teyla actually mentioning the Athosians and, you know, talking about her life.

John sits down to Not Have a Talk with Ronon. I swear, only Flanigan could manage to be sexy while talking with his mouth full.

"I'm the one that took care of them. Got them home alive whenever we went into battle."

Sheppard is kind and doesn't mention that they've been doing just fine without him for years now. Or the writers just didn't think of it.

"You're one man, Ronon, you can't expect to protect them forever."

One thing redeems this slightly stilted conversation, and it has nothing to do with Ronon. Because that sentence right there is entirely about John.

In another "the writer wants us to think Ronon is a total prick" moment, he withholds information about the op his buddies want to run.

"I see, we're your designated drivers."

Apparently he's heard about the drinking.

"One of the things they're working on right now in the labs is a way to switch off the Replicator attack code."

That bit made me want to give Ronon a swift kick in the danglies. Why no one tore him a new one for not mentioning that earlier is beyond me.

"This isn't the first time doing this job."
"Would be the first time doing it with company, though, and I don't want it turning into a big pissing match."

Spoken like an Air Force pilot who's had to transport Marines.

"You keep your group in line and I'll do the same for mine."
"Last time I checked, it was your group, too."

And here's the part where Joe is awesome. It's obvious, at least through my Goggles (see above...somewhere) that John asked the question as a kind of prompt. Then he keeps his back to Ronon and chews on his lip waiting for the answer. It's just a nice subtle...thing. And it's kind of hot.

Of course Ronon says he's leaving. The natural choice, because keggers with your frat buddies are way better than being grounded by your evil stepmom.

Hearing that Ronon's decided to leave, Sam decides to go ~~threaten~~ have a talk with him.

What the hell happened to "I don’t have much stuff"? Good grief that man's got a lot of crap in his room.

Let the pissing contest begin!

"If you are unsure, would it not be counter-productive for us to follow you?"

People can say what they want about Teyla being underwritten, at least most of the writers seem to agree that she can cut through the bullshit.

"This isn't exactly our first op, you know."
"Really, how many wraith have you killed in hand-to-hand combat."

And there you have it, folks, the reason Sateda was destroyed by the Wraith: because they're the kind of people who would bring a knife to a nuke-fight.

So help me I will pull this jumper over and come back there if you kids don't quiet down!

Our Heroes and...those other guys...sneak into the very red, very gooey Wraith lab.

Remember when the Wraith were tough and it was hard to one-shot them? Nice entrance, though.

"Good luck."

Yeah, uh, bite me.

"What do you think, test subjects?"
"Probably the Wraith version of a vending machine."

I love you, Rodney. Seriously.

"This thing's been way too quiet and way too easy."
"I like quiet and easy."

I will not make jokes about Katie Brown...I will not make jokes about Katie Brown...

Unsurprisingly, all hell breaks loose. Ronon's almost Pavlovian reaction to gunfire is kind of cute. No drooling, but he does tend to run toward it. I knew the character was in there somewhere. He was just hiding and waiting for violence to erupt.

Teyla's down, Sheppard's down, and Rodney…wait, how is Rodney the last one ~~hiding~~ standing? And how did he get in there? Never mind.

He runs into the Satedans, who zap his ass, thus revealing themselves as the bad guys the audience has long since figured out they are.

Yes, Our Heroes have been fooled. This isn't the lab where they're working on the Replicator attack code, it's the lab where they're trying to develop a new shampoo to combat really bad split ends.

Someone installed a Slip n Slide in Atlantis while they were gone.

"I ran into them while I was trying to es—while I was affecting a strategic retreat. They stunned me."
"Are you sure?"
"It's pretty hard to misinterpret something like that."

Poor Shep, he's lucky he's not brain-damaged as many times as he's hit the ground. Miss Super-Strength standing right there could have, you know, caught him or something. These people are always letting each other fall on their faces.

"Stay strong, Rodney."
"I'll try."

Obviously that split-end research isn't going well.

The sciencey Wraith – we will call him Badwig – shows Rodney the Replicator he's got hung up in the lab. We will call him Art.

You! You screwed these guys up and made them disrupt the hair product supply lines! Fix it!

You know, now that I've had a few hours to think about it, and since your friends have turned out to be total screw-ups, I'm cool with you leaving. Really.

One jumper lures the darts away. Because when you're hitting a laboratory, the one thing you've got to look out for is an aerial assault. What?

Well, the head of the science department has been captured. Let's bring the next guy down the chain to try and spring him. What?

So, Team Sheppard is attacked by zillions of Wraith on their way in, but Sooper Seekrit Sam and Co. walk right through just because the power's out. Obviously Shep and Teyla are resentful of this because they choose not to mention to the others that the Satedans are the ones who set them up. Need to know info here, people.

Go ahead, do it! I can't go on with this dry, frizzy hair! Oh yeah, and your friends are evil.

While Our Heroes are in the process of retrieving Rodney, our pal Art gets out of his force field. Because the Replicators can't possibly have more than one thought in their heads at once, Art ignores them and goes after the Wraith. I'm fairly certain that the command in the base code doesn't say "kill wraith, and if you see anyone who's nuked the shit out of us, just walk right by".

"You're Wraith-worshippers?"

Duh!

I'll give the Overly Expository (not to be confused with suppository) Why We're Evil Now speech one thing: it actually mentions the "gift of life", which we got a look at in "Common Ground". It serves a purpose. And there was, like, continuity. *wipes tear* I know it's tough keeping track of all the stuff that goes on in the show. I know it's not always feasible for everything to come up again and for it all to mean something. But it is possible. One word: LOST. I know, I know. If that much shit was going on in Atlantis, heads would explode.

"Rakai, no!"
They'll worship Wraith, they'll gang up on tiny women in bars, they'll lead people into ambushes, but hell if they'll pull a knife in a fistfight.

Ah, apparently Tyre was already aware of his buddy's problem with accidentally slitting his fellow soldiers' throats. Thus the warning.

Nice move. I was surprised, in a good way, at how bloody this fight was.

Now piss off, dude. We might need another recurring villain someday.

Mad love for the use of Marc Dacascos and his fabulous flying limbs. Bam Bam is a choreographing stud. And Jason did a good job of keeping up. Such a pisser that they surrounded such a badass, bloody piece of stuntwork with a considerably less badass episode.

"Where are your friends?"
"They're right here."

Everybody now. Awwwww.

No wonder they're always low on power. For crying out loud. If they're trying so hard to hide, why the hell is the place always lit up like frelling Las Vegas?

Sometimes I am unbelievably shallow. Right now would be one of those times.

I brought your tacky painting back.

It looks like the Satedan equivalent of a heavy metal poster.

So --

Not my favorite episode ever, but also far from the worst thing I've ever seen on TV. What would have been great is if instead of taking the decision away from Ronon by having his Satedan friends turn out to be Big Evil Phonies is if he'd made the decision to stay on his own. It's as simple as the realization that his new buddies need him a whole lot more than his old buddies. (I guess if you squint he kind of did make that decision when he heard gunfire and ran to help, but since they did in fact turn out to be bad guys, it doesn't count.)

See, then he could have just, say, gone and saved the team, thus saving us having to watch Sam get shoehorned into a rescue mission her first day on the job, because she's Sooper Seekrit Sam! Please for the love of all that's holy let this be the last deballing of Sheppard and his team in order to let Sam Be Heroic. Honestly. I seem to recall reading something wherein TPTB said her presence wouldn't be overpowering. Liars, the lot of them.

Next week: "Doppelganger", which, I'm happy to say, is a whole lot better than "Reunion".

Screencaps courtesy of sgafreak.

Weekly Geekly - Lifeline

2007-10-13T00:50:45Z

It's weekly, it's geekly. It's not remotely dial-up friendly.

John drops in on Timmy Torture and Dr. Grumbles McEverythingsucks to see how they’re doing on that hyperdriven Jumper that we’re all going to pretend we remember being mentioned sometime last season.

Rodney explains how incredibly complicated it all is…

…while Sheppard puts on his "waiting for Rodney to shut up" face.

Rodney counters with the Head Tilt of Stop Being an Ass.

So what are we going to do if when we get there? (And why is all this crap hanging all over the place?)

I have the perfect idea. Remember when you were infected by something that could have potentially caused you to go batshit and kill us all and we took you on a mission..?

(I've seen a lot of folks compare this to Sheppard's Great Big Bug experience, but I think it's closer to Super!Ford. You know, where they finally make a character interesting and then get rid of them. Yeah, that. For Ford we got Ronon, though, so you won't hear a lot of bitching about it from me.)

Rodney's idea? For everyone to stare at Weir until she agrees to go. If I'd written this bit, John would have gone in there alone to talk to her because a) he's in charge and it's his responsibility and b) it's less tacky than bulldozing her. But I didn't, so there ya go.

The boys inform Weir that they've built a kill switch in case her nano-cooties go batshit and try to kill them all.

Seriously, John, if they take over, throw the switch. They already did Evil Repli-Carter. The bitch is getting my office, but I'll be damned if I'll take her second-hand storylines.

~~The writers~~ John asks Teyla to stay behind because ~~Rachel did a Gillian Anderson~~ the city needs a leader and ~~there will be actiony bits~~ in case the entire senior staff bites the big one on this mission, he thinks she's a good choice. I bet whoever set up Teyla as part of the chain of command last season is extremely pleased with themselves about now.

Meanwhile, back at the Jumper…

Holy crap, this might work!

Weir gets the Perp Walk through Atlantis.

"Remember, no wild parties while we’re gone."

Still whipping out those silly jokes because he knows the woman from another galaxy has never heard them before. Oh John.

Nothing phallic whatsoever about the tiny white thing shooting out of the end of the Giant Glowing Space Dildo. Nope.

"Rodney, you ready?"
"Did I mention that this might not work? And that we could either drop out of hyperspace prematurely and end up stranded in the middle of deep space or quite possibly be vaporized the moment I touch that—"
"Just answer the damn question."
"Yeah, I’m ready."

Very cool seeing a jumper open a hyperspace window. I hope they don't park this thing in the bay and forget about it until the next time they need its experimental Plot Device Capacitor.

Meanwhile, somewhere really really green…

"It’s like Elwynn Forest."

All my love for Dr. Lee and his World of Warcraft habit went flying out the window right there. Because if Elwynn Forest is the first place that came to mind, that means he probably plays Alliance and I am Horde, baby! To the core.

I love that the picture he got was just a big blob of white light from the transporter. Nice detail.

Tear important equipment to pieces in order to implement your idea? No problem! If Sam says "If they could, they would have done it" one more time I'm going to snap.

That's just bitchin'.

"What are you saying, we can't get back?"
"No, no, what I'm saying is that the…actually that's exactly what I'm saying."

Apparently Shep isn't the only one with a "waiting for Rodney to shut up" face.

We will now navigate through Replicator Land through the magic of Weir-O-Vision.

Sheppard, to his credit – or possibly my imagination, who knows – appears to look at least a little worried about following Weir's directions. Or possibly he ate something for lunch that didn't agree with him.

The boys do the sneaky sneak.

Sheppard unplugs the ZPM while Ronon tosses a "should that be glowing?" look over his shoulder.

Wait, we can't leave, we have to do something stupid.
More stupid than this?
Amazingly enough…

While sitting in the Jumper supposedly trying not to be noticed, Rodney went digging through base code and while sifting through miles and miles of it he managed to find the one that should get the Replicators off their lazy nanite asses to go attack the Wraith. All in the five minutes it took John and Ronon to run from the Jumper to the ZPM and back. Wow, he is good.

Not a horrible idea, really, getting the two groups that want to melt and/or eat their faces to fight each other instead. But this is Atlantis, people. You know it's going to backfire.

Sheppard hits Rodney repeatedly with the cluebat to no effect until Elizabeth blurts out that duh, he wants Rodney to stay and make sure she doesn't go batshit and kill them all.

Live at the Apollo…

"Space is quite vast."

Oh yeah. That's going well.

Is it me or are the HUD graphics extra spiffy this season?

Our Heroes turn the cloak/shield into an Anti-Replicator Field. Nifty idea. I can just imagine some little Repli-Pigeon trying to land on the roof and getting turned into little Repli-Pigeon droppings.

"It’s working."
"Damn right it’s working."

Yep.

"What, you don’t believe me, but you believe her?"
"No offense."
"Offense taken!"

"Just plug it in?"
And with one sentence, Joe Flanigan sends slashers everywhere into paroxysms of joy.

Somewhere on Not Atlantis…

No wonder Im lagging! The neighbors must be using our wireless connection again!

I told you to password it, dammit.

And now, a moment of hot men with guns.........and I'm back.

"All right, we’re here, assuming the big glowy thing is the core."

It's always the big glowy thing.

"It's plugged in."
"It is? Why am I not reading anything? Are you sure you plugged it in the right slot?"
"There's only one slot, Rodney."

Oh stop it. I hear you giggling.

"Okay, you need to implement adjustments to the negotiation protocol to exploit parallelism at the device interface."
"What?"

Exactly. Joe and Jason have a great synchronized WTF? going on right there.

"They’re trapped."
"Which means they’re as good as dead."

"We can hear you, you know."

"Elizabeth!"
"What’s going on Rodney?"
Oh, Elizabeth just went batshit and she’s going to kill us all. Or maybe she just really really had to pee.

"She said to hit the kill switch if she did anything suspicious."
"I know, but…"
"Sheppard. Make the call."

I love you, Ronon. You hardass mother. And yay Sheppard for giving the order. And Rodney for at least trying to carry it out. Sometimes folks twitch and waffle on this show and it makes me nuts. This season so far, it's been much better.

Go go Gadget Elizabeth! See, they made her all cool and actiony and decisive just in time to trade her out for the pushy blond. The hell?

While Elizabeth keeps Oberroth occupied, Ronon takes a sec to play some Red Light, Green Light. If any Replicator with access to the mainframe has the ability to freeze the others, do you think they play jokes on each other? Freeze! Haha, unfreeze! Freeze!

"Almost there, just a few more seconds."
"How many seconds?"
"Don’t start with that again!"

Just because. Damn. That's tasty.

Dude, not on the first date!

Out of the way, sucker!

Busted.

Or not. I love that in Elizabeth's view, they'd all be grinning like smug little bastards.

You just got punked!

And now that she's finally become the extremely cool Nanoliz, Weir tells the boys to get the hell out of Dodge and leave her.

You can't really see it in the stills, but Ronon has John by the back of the tac vest and is dragging his ass away. Because Ronon is a practical dude. Love him, yes I do.

Our Heroes make a mad dash away from the city and are met with the heretofore unseen Badass-Looking Replicator Ship.

"Oh crap."
Probably not the kind of reassurance the others were hoping for.

Sure it's a little reminiscent of Daedalus-ex-machina, but at least this time they set it up from the start. And it looked cool as hell.

Park it, bitches.

Jason. Because I'm shallow.

"We lost Dr. Weir on the Replicator planet. Can you lock on her locator beacon and beam her up?"

*shuts it off* Sorry, not working!

We need to find a new planet to live on.
Can we maybe find something with a Hooters on it?

"I'll just jump in the chair and ease us down."

Liar.

"A city this size will create considerable friction. We come in too fast or too steep and the shield could attenuate under the stress and the whole place could be torn to shreds or burn up, or both--"
"It never ends with you, you know?"
(Read: Shut the hell up, Rodney.)

Kicking back in the Ancient La-Z-Boy. Leave it to the Ancients to put the driver's seat where there's no window. Not that it matters much in space, mind.

"Ease up on the angle."
"I heard you the first time, Rodney."
"And yet we’re still coming in too steep."
Rodney McKay, insterstellar backseat driver.

"You want to touch down gently, like a leaf kissing the surface of a pond."

Or, you know, like an enormous city falling out of the sky.

"Nice kissing!"

I give up.

I've read a lot of deep thinking talk about this look. You know what this look is? It's "waiting for the other shoe", that's what it is.

Poor Teyla, she gets all the shit jobs. I can see her volunteering for this one, though. And Ronon, he's such a big softie. You know, until you piss him off.

I was kind of bummed to see Atlantis reestablish contact with Earth. I like them in the middle of nowhere, fending for themselves.

"Two moons."
"Actually there are five."
Shut up, Sam. Seriously.

"So, you sticking around?"
"No."

Liar!

"If she's still alive, we'll find her.”
And knowing the writers, she'll go batshit crazy and kill them all.

Writey Thing - Last

2007-10-11T19:09:02Z

For polgaramalfoy, because she loves The Dex. ;)

It's been a while (no shit, Jules) but I finally dug this thing out and finished it. It's a short tag for Progeny. Spoilers for all kinds of stuff. Nothing past the episode, though. PG because somehow I forgot to put a bunch of cussing in there this time.

Last
by Jules

Sheppard doesn't move when the door to the balcony slides open. He looks relaxed from a distance but up close it goes away. Back straight, hands flat on the railing. Jaw working and face tilted toward the sky.

Ronon squints in the same direction. Finds stars and broad patches of cloud. A gust of wind tugs at his clothing and slips damp, cool fingers underneath. It'll probably rain tonight. But he suspects that's not what has Sheppard's attention. "What are you looking at?"

"Not a damn thing. And I'm fine with that."

Preoccupied, like the others. Sheppard doesn't ask for privacy, so Ronon shuffles to the edge and rests his elbows on the railing. He watches waves smash themselves white against the piers. Makes patterns out of the lights in the other towers in a long stretch of quiet. He doesn't expect Sheppard to say anything else. They've had shorter conversations.

"What's up?"

Ronon shrugs. "Nothing."

"Lot of that going around tonight."

No one's in a rush to share specifics. Too personal. Unnerving. Embarrassing. Or all of that. It makes him grateful to be uncomplicated.

"Was it bad, what they did to you?" He doesn't know why he asked and for a moment he isn't sure Sheppard’s going to answer.

"It wasn't good. You?"

"I was sore, after. Like it was real. Besides that…" He shrugs. "It was like a dream. I woke up and it faded."

Mostly true. It isn't the worst thing that ever happened to him. Just busy work. Distraction to keep him occupied once they realized he didn't know anything worth digging for. He imagines all they got out of it was the knowledge that he wouldn't stop, ever. And that doesn't bother him in the least.

"Good."

More drawn-out silence. Ronon relaxes into it and watches as Sheppard doesn't. The other man kicks at the floor with a boot and taps out an uneven rhythm with his fingertips.

"Guess that makes me the lucky one."

The corner of Sheppard’s mouth twitches up. "That obvious, huh?"

"Yeah."

“Not sure why it bothers me so much. It's nothing I haven't imagined a hundred times already. Well…” He shrugs, rolls his eyes back toward the door. "Except everyone did what I told them to."

"So we were there?"

"Yep."

"At least you weren't alone."

That hits something tender. Sheppard frowns. Finds something interesting on the next tower over and stares hard at it. "I was at the end."

"We left you?"

"You had to."

"But we went? Should have been the first clue that it was all in your head."

Soft, nervous burst of laughter. "Good point. It's not like this is the first time that crap has been pulled on me. I should have known."

"Probably couldn't have done anything about it if you did."

"I don't know. Maybe I could have just sat down and shoved my fingers in my ears and yelled 'lalala' until they quit. Hell, last time I was able to manipulate my surroundings. Ended up with less fiery death and more pizza, beer and Teyla in a short skirt."

Ronon raises an eyebrow. Feels a twinge of guilt for trying so hard to picture it.

"Don't ask." Sheppard shifts his feet and stops tapping. Lays his hands flat, fingertips pressed white against the metal.

"It wasn't real, Sheppard."

The easy explanation. It works well enough for Ronon, but—

"Part of it was."

"Your part."

Sheppard nods. Sucks in his bottom lip and chews on it.

"They messed with your head. You shouldn't let it reflect on you."

"Uh-uh. I've offered myself up for this place more than once already and I jumped to do it again. They didn't make that up."

"You take care of your people. It's not a fault."

"It's just—It's not as selfless as it sounds." Sheppard glances at him. Works his mouth around nothing for a while before he gets words out. When he does, they creak like they've been rusted in his throat. "I've screwed up a lot of things. And at some point I got this idea in the back of my head that if I go out that way, people will remember it and let it color everything else. It's not the only reason, but it's there and it bothers the hell out of me."

He breathes deep and lets it out in a short, humorless laugh.

"Probably not the kind of thing you want to hear from someone you go out in the field with."

“There’s a difference between wanting to die and wanting to make sure your death has a purpose. On Sateda, there were men in command willing to put thousands of people between themselves and the enemy to ensure their survival." Ronon blows out a breath and lets the breeze carry the rest of that story out over the water, where it can't do any damage. "You would put yourself between thousands and any one of us. Everyone wants to be remembered well, Sheppard. I don't think that'll be a problem for you. Not here, anyway."

Sheppard blinks at him. Swallows loud enough for Ronon to hear.

"Besides, most people don't care why you put yourself in harm's way for them." He shrugs. Slaps Sheppard on the shoulder hard enough to rock him back on his heels. "If you decide to take a hit for me, I promise I won't ask why."

The tired wariness is still there, but a smile threatens. Catches. Spreads and draws a soft chuckle in its wake. Sheppard leans out over the rail and stares straight down. An improvement, Ronon decides, over looking up and waiting.

"Ever try to see how far out you can spit from up here?"

Conversation over, then. Ronon shakes his head and cracks a smile. "Spit? No."

The Weekly Geekly Lives! - Adrift

2007-10-05T17:42:37Z

Between real life, pixilated life, and some really annoying fandom harpies, I haven't messed with the Weekly Geeklies for a while. But since the season 4 premiere was so groovy, I figured I'd shirk my responsibilities, unplug from WoW and say "frell the screeching fandom harpies" for just a little while. So here's "Adrift".

Previously on Stargate: Atlantis…

Some of the best writing ever done for Weir.

Things are completely screwed, but don't worry, Chuck's on it!

So, still screwed.

"This can't be right. We're losing massive amounts of power." The Ancients should have invested in solar or something, because their stuff, it's always losing power. They didn't lose the war because there were too many Wraith, they lost because they couldn't fire drones at the same time someone was running a blender.

Meanwhile, back at the infirmary, Ronon is being manly…

"Yeah, I get it, you're a tough guy. If you want to pull it out, go ahead." Must be a new guy.

Dr. ~~Kaylee~~ Keller seems like a decent character so far, but it's hard to get around the fact that she looks about fifteen and sounds like she's working at a gas station in Wisconsin instead of as head of the medical department. I gotta tell ya, that fuel pump won't be in 'til Tuesday!

Some more great writing for Weir.

Yep, we're screwed.

The parallel stories of the city being in trouble and Weir being in trouble is in theory a nifty idea. It switches back and forth far too often, though, and like the scenes with Carter and Lee, it slows things down. Yes, they need the setup, but they really didn't need to flip back and forth half a dozen times before the starting credits. Speaking of which…

Wow, that was fast. Torri Higginson is already a guest star and Amanda Tapping is second in the credits. I'm sure it's a) in her contract and b) an attempt to get Sg-1 fans to watch Atlantis, but it's still kind of tacky. Don't get me wrong, I like her. On Sg-1. Giving her other actors' ~~salaries~~ space and placing her in the credits before folks who have been on the show longer and who ~~please for the love of all that's holy~~ are likely to have more screen time…Well, let's just hope they write better for her than they did for Weir.

John reminds Rodney that while Mom's incapacitated, he's in charge and Rodney might, you know, want to tell him stuff.

"I’ll give you the Cole’s Notes."
"The what?"
"Uh, the Cliff Notes?"
"Why didn’t you just say that?"

Those kooky Canadians with their different names for stuff.

And then - Rodney launches into the Technical Explanation of the Week….

"Imagine them as leaky pipes, okay?"
"Okay."
"So, you pump water through them, they leak."
"Dumb this down any more and you’re gonna get hit."

He explains that the city is cranking up the ZPM to make sure enough power gets past the leaky spots in the power conduits. So not only can't you run your blender and fire drones at the same time, there are no backup generators on the super advanced flying city of Atlantis.

Everyone watches the totally not-phallic-looking display as the city makes the shield smaller to save power and folks get caught on the wrong side of it. No blenders, no backups, and hey! no warning when the place is going to shut your ass out in the cold. Go Ancients!

Just because they're hot.

Meanwhile, at the Midway ~~model~~ Station…

…we receive a reminder that Sam Carter is going to be on this show as she enters ~~boobs~~ name-tag first into her first scene.

Poor Dr. Lee. He'd rather be playing WoW.

Hey, we lost an entire city. In space.

Oh, kthxbai.

In an almost totally pointless moment, a medtech explains to ~~the audience~~ Ronon what's wrong with Weir and what they might have to do to fix it. Almost totally pointless, because Jason is wearing that tiny little shirt.

Rodney proposes that to save power, they collapse the shield to just around the tower. Thus creating – The Giant Glowing Space Dildo!

And we're back to Weir. We get it. Not doing well. One more of these bits and I'm going to have brain damage.

More fine writing for…aw screw it.

In about an hour, we will be here.

Dr. Keller explains to John that Weir isn't doing well, in case all the tubes and wires and brain surgery hadn't clued him in. And seriously…"Her head got knocked around pretty good"? That's the kind of professional demeanor that'll give folks confidence. How come she doesn't get hit for dumbing it down? Yeesh.

Oh crap. I'm gonna be stuck in charge forever. Good thing forever's only going to be about 24 hours or so.

Because lost in space and losing power isn't bad enough, we're going to hit an asteroid belt in ten minutes! Thanks for pointing that out at the last minute, Not Chuck!

The big plan: Get everyone with an ATA gene to fly a jumper, in formation, through an asteroid belt and shoot enough stuff to clear a path. Where's Lorne when we need him? Oh yeah, on The 4400. I love that John has a special Speaking Calmly So as Not to Alarm the Civlians voice. If you notice he generally has a completely different tone when he's talking to the marines and airmen than when he's talking to scientists.

"It's like the old video game, asteroids."
"Whatever works for you."
"I was terrible at asteroids. I actually scored zero once."

Oh Rodney.

Geeeeeeeeks innnnnn spaaaaaace!

Flying in an almost-straight line.

Of course they miss a few. And of course those hit something to do with the hyper drive.

Larry, Moe and Curly discuss how to fix it.

Whoo! Spacewalk!

Does this suit make my ass look big?

Oh, hey, there you are, Dr. McKay, I’ve been trying to reach you so I could interrupt your efforts to save the city to pose a solution to Elizabeth's problem that will endanger us all.

The reason I wasn't all that fond of Carson is that he was a scientific lunatic with severely flexible ethics who didn't think through to the consequences part of his pet projects. Just a couple weeks on the job and we've already got Miss Hey Let's Do Some Shit That Will Get Us All Screwed Just to Save One Person. I know it's all ~~to get Weir out of the way so Carter can move into her office~~ set-up for the next episode, but hopefully it won't be a trend.

Weve got this idea...

No.

. o O (Neener neener, gonna do it anyway.)

Zelenka agrees that turning on Elizabeth's nanites is a bad idea. This is why I love him.

Meanwhile, back at Midway…

Ms. Been There Done That Smarter Than You rolls her eyes at Dr. Lee's suggestions and reminds me why I'm not excited about her addition to the cast.

"The damage in this area seems to be quite minimal."
Well, you know, except for that.

Sheppard does some dwarf-tossing and gets them both across the gap.

Radek Zelenka, Danger Geek.

Rodney and Keller continue to discuss their Very Bad Idea.

Ever the ~~Anti-Rodney~~ brave little toaster, Zelenka gets hit with a micro-asteroid and continues working. Without whining. Go Radek.

Ronon gets all mushy and thanks Weir for letting him stay. Yay for letting Jason act. (And thanks to the wardrobe dept for that shirt. Seriously. Love you guys.)

Hey, remember that ~~plot device~~ really bad idea we had? We need to do that now.

Even when I have a really stupid idea, I still get to be right! I love being me!

Yay, we fixed it!

Crap it doesn't matter.

I see hot people.

Busted. Uh, yeah, remember that thing you explicitly told us not to do…?

I liked a lot of things about this scene. The argument was awesome. McKay was uncertain and he even flinches as he says he's sure it's going to work. And John being all in-chargey (I know it's not a word, shut up) is way groovy. And let's face it, he hot when he's angry. If you think John's being an asshole about the whole thing, just think back to when Rodney said "trust me I can do this" and then blew up 5/6ths of a solar system.

You can't see it well in the stills, but I love that the first thing John does when he walks into the room with Weir is draw his gun. Everyone else may have lost their minds, but at least he's still got his shit together.

I'm not just the president of the Nanite Hair Club, I'm a member.

For what it's worth (if you're keeping score at home, that's "nothing"), Rodney apologizes. Angrily. I really wanted John to punch him right in the damn face a couple of times this episode. This would be one of those times.

Even Weir thinks it was a bad idea, but Teyla, in one of those squishy-touchy-feely moments that reminds me how much the show needs a female writer on staff, says "it was worth the risk". And somewhere the Athosian people breathe a sigh of relief that she's no longer in charge.

Hey, remember that ~~plot device~~ experimental jumper ~~that the audience may or may not remember being mentioned ever~~ that I was working on when I was super-smart?

Uhhhh…

Since I'm all about bad ideas today, let's take it and rip off some ZPMs from the Replicator homeworld!

Random note: This is the first episode in which Rodney refers to Sheppard as "John". Blink and you'll miss it (which is a dumb thing to say considering it's heard and not seen but shut up, you know what I mean) because they just kind of threw it in there.

10pm tonight on Sci-Fi and next week in the Weekly Geekly – "Lifeline". Be there or be octagonal.

Screencaps courtesy of tehshroom.

Fan Vid of Awesomeness

2006-12-19T05:10:17Z

Because I love it with a fiery passion and feel the need to flail it at everyone:

Best fanmade video ever. Right here, from Kitakatzz. It's black and white, it's gorgeous, check it out. Even if you've never seen the show, it works very well on its own - which is something most fanly endeavors seem to be lacking. Contains spoilers for SGA seasons 1, 2 & 3. (Right-click on picture and save target as.)

The Weekly Geeklies

2006-09-22T15:32:26Z

I figured I might as well collect all of these in one place. Not that it'll show up on f-lists, but I intend to add a link to each one as it gets done. In like...twenty years, I might even have them all.

Spoilers abounding. Not dial-up friendly. Some (read: a lot of) harsh language. And they're all way too long.

SEASON TWO
Runner

SEASON THREE
No Man's Land
Misbegotten
Irresistible (With a wee bit of "The Pegasus Project".)
Sateda
Progeny
The Real World (With a side-order of "200".)
Common Ground
McKay and Mrs. Miller
Phantoms
The Return, Pt. One

SEASON FOUR
Adrift
Lifeline
Reunion

SEASON FIVE
Search and Rescue

Thing that's writey - Touched

2006-09-06T03:27:45Z

Missing scene for "Common Ground". Spoilers. PG-13 for a little cussing. Thanks as always to ~~those people who put up with me~~ cinnabari and aeryn_dex for all the help.

None of these folks are mine, I just play around with them now and then.

Touched

The others don't touch him at first. Don't get within arm's reach. There's dirt and sweat and something stale that followed him from underground. And worse, his bladder cut loose sometime during the first feeding. He's got the traditional pre-mission whiz to thank for the fact that there hadn't been much in it. John stinks. He knows he does.

But it's not the smell that keeps them at a distance and he knows that, too.

He understands the feeling. He's gone after guys he was sure were dead or fucked beyond recognition and had them turn up neither. It's like seeing a ghost, even if you haven't witnessed the carnage beforehand. It's just weird. John glances at Ronon, who hasn't said a word to him since they started walking. They'll get over it.

The rest is harder to explain and it's got less to do with him and more to do with what the marines are lugging. That feeling he doesn't understand at all. And he's pretty sure no one else does, either.

But please God, they'll get over that, too. He's not proud of everything he's done, but he's not sorry. He'll think about it

later

and put things in perspective

much later

and deal with it

maybe

the way he does all the other things that will drive him directly out of his fucking mind if he thinks about it too hard. Right now, though: "Anybody have something to eat?"

And just like that, McKay breaks orbit and falls into step with him, almost close enough to brush shoulders. He's got on his determined face, like he's doing something brave. A weak smile filters through as he fishes a PowerBar out of his vest and hands it over.

"Of course you'd look at me when you asked that."

John hadn't been looking anywhere in particular, but it doesn't matter. He knows what this is. He tears open the wrapper and crams half the bar into his mouth. Doesn't care even a little that it tastes like apple cinnamon-flavored cardboard.

"Didn't they feed you?"

Around a mouthful: "No."

"You've been gone for over a day! How could they..?"

John chokes out a burst of laughter and Beckett makes a sharp, flustered sound.

"Rodney, honestly!"

"What? Oh."

Teyla drifts up on his right, still watching him with wide, suspicious eyes. He can't blame her. Generations worth of knowledge about the wraith among her people and no one knew about this. He's in no hurry to tell her the rest. She holds out her canteen without a word. John takes it with a quiet "thanks" and focuses to keep his hand from shaking as he lifts it to his mouth. Three long swallows before water goes down the wrong way and he coughs half of it back up.

"Are you all right?"

Not remotely.

"I'm fine."

She looks skeptical. She should. John is wound. So tight he's damn near vibrating. He feels better than he has any right to, and that doesn't help. Because he knows where it came from and he has no idea how long it'll last and he's waiting for the other shoe. And Christ, if the crash that comes with it is as serious as the high, they’ll have to clean him off the deck with a wet-vac.

"Fine." She says the word slowly, like she's trying to taste it on the way out. They all move in just a little closer. Maybe taking in the odor of his complete and utter bullshit. Because it's got to smell better than he does.

The marines keep their eyes on their charge, while the others alternate between staring at John and pointedly Not Looking. He wonders if they saw. If they watched it all. And if the Earth-based personnel had seen the irony of a guy who'd flown in Afghanistan coming all the way to another galaxy to wind up bound and gagged on camera while some terrorist asshole ranted in the foreground.

"Fine" turns into a knot in his stomach, twists and tightens and doubles him over as the cinnamon apple-flavored cardboard comes back. Acid burns its way up. Recalls a ghost of pain that blooms in his chest and traces hot trails over each nerve before it fades. He coughs hard, sucks in air and leans into the hands that steady him.

Small favor; he managed to miss his boots.

He wipes his mouth with the back of one sleeve and straightens. Beckett hovers, but it's Teyla who has a hold of him. She lets go and hands back the canteen. Waits patiently while he swishes water around his mouth and spits.

"Better?" Teyla watches him. Gives him a tight smile, polite and curious. It makes his chest hurt in a whole new way.

"Yeah. Sorry."

She nudges him gently toward the jumper. "It is understandable."

"I’m glad something is."

John shuffles up the ramp and drops onto the bench in the rear compartment. He leans his head against the wall. Closes his eyes and listens to his heart hammer and waits for the others to pass. He cracks an eyelid too soon and catches what looks like concern. And confusion. And pity. He knows there’ll be more of all of it when they get home. He's not sure if that bothers him more or less than the look of bald curiosity Beckett fixes on him as he makes his way to the cockpit.

Ronon pauses to glare down at the wraith that John has decided not to call Sue. He drums his fingers on the butt of his weapon and John wonders which one of them he's thinking about ventilating. Then Ronon takes the hand away from the pistol and claps him on the shoulder. Softly, like he might break.

“Good to have you back.”

The engines fire up as the rest of his team retreats to the forward section. At least they don't close the bulkhead door.

Writey thing - Crazy

2006-08-25T14:43:56Z

A tag for "The Real World". Spoilers as usual. Rated PG, believe it or not. Thanks as always to aeryn_dex and cinnabari. (I know I skipped one. The tag for "Progeny" will be up sometime next week. I'm sure y'all will be holding your breath. ;p )

None of these folks are mine, I just borrow them sometimes.

Crazy

"You picked a fine time to leeeeave me, Lucille..."

They stare and John smiles. He waves. He goes on singing. Badly and loudly.

"How soon can he--?"

"I don't know, Rodney."

He frowns through the plastic sheet and winces at Sheppard's caterwauling.
"How about before he goes completely around the bend?"

"Seriously, Rodney, he's only been in there for a few hours."

"Six, Carson. And I don't think the bend was all that far away to begin with."

Beckett pretends to ignore him. Or actually ignores him, it's hard to tell. Rodney glares and when it doesn't do any good he throws up his hands moves closer to the quarantine barrier.

"Soon," he says. Big smile and a thumbs up. If it's true, great. If it's not, then God help them, Sheppard will probably keep singing until their ears bleed.

He stops for the time being, though, and fixes Rodney with a look that says in no uncertain terms that his claim of "soon" is a great steaming mound. Then he heaves a sigh and sits up on the gurney. Dangles his feet over the side and swings them and looks suspiciously thoughtful.

"I think the next one should be Sue."

"The next what?"

"Wraith."

"A wraith named Sue?"

Sheppard smirks, and it spreads into a grin and Rodney knows what's coming and that there's not a thing he can do to stop it.

"Now I don't blame him 'cause he run and hid, but the meanest thing that he ever did was before he left he went and…sucked the damn life right out of me and left me all shriveled up and…gross…" He mutters and meanders and finally comes back with: "How much longer is it gonna be, Doc? I'd like to take a pee without an audience sometime soon."

"You should have thought about that before you broke quarantine, Colonel. I thought you military types were accustomed to sitting and waiting for indefinite periods of time."

Rodney blinks at the sharp edges in Beckett's tone. "'You military types', Carson? Did I miss something?"

"He's pissed at me and my potential nanocooties for making him set up another quarantine cell." Sheppard slides off the gurney and saunters up to the barrier. "Can I at least get some food in here?"

Beckett twitches a glance over his shoulder but doesn't respond. Rodney frowns at him. Steps over and tugs at a white sleeve. "Carson? Can I feed him?"

"I'm not in the damn zoo, Rodney."

"Yes, you can feed him," says Beckett. "But stick to the protocols or you'll be in there with him."

"Where the singing is much louder, yes. I'll be careful."

"Funny, McKay."

"I'll be right back." Rodney flashes a quick, close-mouthed smile. Turns on his heel and flees the opening lines of Patsy Cline's "Crazy".

The mess is almost empty. A few insomniacs. Graveyard shift staff on their meal break. And Biro. She nods at him and goes back to poking at the cake on her tray. Rodney wanders through the line alone. Avoids the stuff that looks dodgy and takes a bunch of what doesn't and fails to resist the urge to grab an extra piece of cake for himself. On the way out, he swerves toward Biro's table.

"McKay."

"Biro."

She raises her fork. "Midnight cake run. You?"

"Mission of mercy. Colonel Sheppard's still in quarantine."

"Ooh, I'll take it to him."

"Oh, seriously..." Rodney rolls his eyes and peels away from the table.

"Tell him I said 'hi'!"

He shifts the tray to one hand and sketches a wave as he retreats from the mess. "Will do."

Rodney glances down, picks up a frosted brown square with two fingers. He bites off a corner and nods his approval to no one in particular. Biro's onto something with the midnight cake runs. He eyes the other piece and figures that the last thing Sheppard needs right now is sugar.

Most of the infirmary is empty. Not many patients, which he supposes is a good thing. Closer to quarantine, he sees no one at all and wonders if they stepped out on their own or if Carson sent them away. Sheppard amusing himself is bad enough. With an audience it might turn into a full-blown floor show.

"My ding-a-ling...my ding-a-ling...I want you to play with my—"

"Colonel!"

Rodney laughs out loud. Through a mouthful of cake, he says: "Going well, Carson?"

Beckett presses his mouth into a straight line and glares. "I think he's trying to see if I can stay annoyed as long as he can stay off-key. I could never be that annoyed. Ever in my life."

"So how long—?"

"If this is negative, he can go." Beckett spins the chair around to face the quarantine cell. Crosses his arms over his chest and speaks loudly and slowly, as if to a dim child. "Forty-five minutes of peace, Colonel. Can you manage?"

"This'll help." Rodney passes Beckett the tray. Shrugs at the look it earns him and gestures at himself. "No suit."

"Aye." Beckett hauls himself out his seat and shuffles to the curtain. As he passes the tray through: "Eat slowly, please."

"Thanks, Doc."

"Hey, I—"

Sheppard smirks. "Thank you, Rodney."

"You're welcome." He grabs the back of a chair and pulls it up to the barrier. Drops into it and pops the last of the cake into his mouth. "Doctor Biro says 'hi'."

"I think she likes me."

"She's also interested in abnormality, illness and dysfunction. Ah, well. There you go."

He watches Sheppard eat. Sometimes fingers, sometimes fork and all enthusiasm. As if at any moment someone is going to come and snatch the food away. Something most of the military personnel he knows have in common, regardless of their planet of origin. It's not the only thing.

"That was stupid."

Sheppard raises an eyebrow. "Eating the green beans first?"

He ignores the response. The first ones usually aren't worth much, anyway. Warning shots and diversions and he's used to it by now.

"It was dangerous."

"I already got the lecture, McKay."

Rodney snorts. "Oh, like that'll make a difference. There's no good reason why what you did worked in the first place, and I can't begin to imagine what possessed you. I can't begin to list how many things could go wrong, either. Granted, the version of the nanovirus we found here didn't kill anyone who possesses the ATA gene, but these could be different in so many ways. The Asurans have evolved independently and while they can't change certain specific aspects of their programming—"

"Rodney."

"—there's no reason they couldn't have changed others. I mean, they obviously have a serious beef with the Ancients. If the nanites were effected by the changes I made to the base code then anything derived from Niam's system could be capable of overriding those directives the same way it ignored the freeze command—"

"Rodney."

"—which means that instead of sparing anyone with the gene it's possible that they could have just gone straight after them and done all sorts of damage. Not that you were counting on the original programming to start with because that would require some sort of forethought and you never—"

"Rodney!"

"What?"

"You ate my cake, didn't you?"

Rodney blinks at Sheppard, at the absurdity of the question. He lets out a short, loud burst of involuntary laughter and gets a broad smile for it. With teeth, which hardly ever happens. Rodney is suddenly struck by the stray notion that maybe Sheppard wore braces as a child, which has nothing to do with anything and dammit—

"How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

The Jedi Mind Trick, he wants to say. This is not the panic you're looking for.

"Nothing."

Sheppard chews and watches him and has the nerve to look puzzled. "Look, I'll be fine. Why don't you go get some sleep?"

He's not going to sleep. Not without chemical help. "No, no. I'll stick around and...keep you from throwing yourself between any kittens and oncoming trains."

"My limit on that sort of thing is once per day."

"You just don't care, do you?"

"That you ate my cake?"

Sigh. "Never mind."

Writey thing - Anything

2006-08-11T04:20:39Z

I didn't have a whole lot of time this week to do the writing thing, so instead of the usual, I decided to snag an idea from a challenge on GateWorld. Yet again with the no sex or violence (sorry, folks) but a wee bit of cussing and spoilers for "Sateda".

Anything
by Jules

He dumps the tray and wanders away from the mess and kicks himself in the ass enough times that it ought to be right up between his shoulder blades by now and fucking hell if he can tell whether or not he just made as big a jackass of himself as he thinks he might have. People don't scare him. Even the ones that should. But it's not that. Scared is not the problem it's…what the hell is it? It's not directness. He can do direct.

Nice shoes, wanna fuck?

But that's different. Why? Because it is. He can say what's on his mind so long as it isn't attached to so much other stuff that it gets all heavy and awkward and hard to spit out. He can tell people to fuck off in no uncertain terms. And has. He's slept, showered and taken a piss in front of people and it still feels more like being naked when he's trying to say

I love you guys

the sort of things that normal folks say all the time. He's

almost certain that he's

not emotionally stunted or incapable of expressing

feeeeelings

himself, it's just that opening up isn't one of those things he's

wanted to

had to do very often and now that he's actually got the urge there's too much rust on the machinery and it kind of creaks and groans and doesn't make the sounds he means it to. And Christ isn't he just handy with the metaphors when he's wandering circles in his own head?

Shit. At least he didn't say too much instead of too little while she was looking at him with something between patience and confusion and he was tripping over his own tongue and liable to land on his face at any moment. But he did it. Mostly. Came close enough. With help. And he meant it.

Anything.

Writey thing: Gratitude

2006-08-04T19:06:26Z

A tag for "Irresistible". Chock full o'spoilers. Rated R-ish for language (though not as much as usual). A kinda sorta sequel to LETTERS and Sleepless. Thanks as always to aeryn_dex and cinnabari (and everyone else who's listened to me gripe in the wee hours).

Gratitude
by Jules

It started about a week after the Genii tried to take the city. Details of the attempted takeover were withheld from the general populace, but Atlantis was like a small town. People talked, news got around. And the gifts began to appear. Small things left beside the door to his room. Piled on the corner of his usual table in the mess, or the desk he hardly ever used. He's been the subject of the ritual a few times since. His favorite offering so far is the Ka-Bar he got from Ford, pressed into his hands with a quiet "thank you, sir". He doesn't take it out in the field, anymore. He's afraid he'll lose it.

John has no idea how it all started, and the whole thing makes him uncomfortable as hell. But he accepts gracefully even as he hopes that whatever he did, he doesn’t have to do it again anytime soon.

This time is different. This time the gifts are as much apology as thanks and he's the only one not embarrassed. He's not smug about it. Mostly. He keeps his head down. Pretends to be paying too much attention to what's on his tray to notice the fly-bys of his table. They leave behind mostly junk food. He chuckles to himself. Saving the day's going to go straight to his ass.

It only fell to him because he had a head full of concrete that made him cranky and let him stay Not Nuts when everyone else lost their damn minds. No heroics involved. A minimum of violence. On his part, anyway. He glances across the mess. Watches Ronon go through the line and make the "keep it coming" gesture more than once.

I never make them do anything they didn't want to do.

Bullshit. He's sure of it. Either that or his team's been harboring a secret desire to beat the crap out of him. Beckett helped curb their enthusiasm when they stopped thinking of John as misguided and decided he was the enemy. Still, they hadn't been gentle.

Whiner.

He thinks about asking. But then they might actually tell him. And asking would mean talking about things. Something he's been meticulously avoiding since long before he came to Atlantis. Let it slide. Water off a duck's back and all that crap. No shrinks, no group therapy, no finding "someone who understands". Just…no. Except things aren't rolling off and instead he's dragging them along in his wake and if he thinks too hard about them, they start to drag him under.

Boating metaphors? Who the fuck are you?

They turned on him. All of them. The whole expedition, his own team. And Rodney, Jesus...Rodney turned on him fast. Worse.

Thinking. too. hard.

Teyla sets a small object wrapped in yellow plastic on the table and sits down beside him. John flashes her a smile and gets a tight-lipped one in return. He hasn't teased her. Much. Unlike most everyone else, she hasn't settled for exchanging guilty glances and otherwise doing her best to ignore what happened. She apologized for the manhandling and the kicking in places both soft and crunchy and she didn't seem the least bit surprised when he'd smiled at her and shrugged the whole thing off. The surprise would be if she actually bought it.

He glances at the offering and wonders how the hell she got her hands on a Flake bar. He should tell her to keep it. A gift for talking him out of homicide.

He spots Rodney drifting their way. Teyla must see him, too, because she puts a hand over John's silverware and eyes him warily. McKay comes within a few yards of them before he slows and looks hopefully in their direction. Closer than he's gotten yet. Though, John notices, still out of arm's reach.

"I have a gun, McKay."

He stares. He pouts. He gets the picture. "Right. Moving on."

Ronon glares after him. Drops into a seat on the other side of the table and gives a quick nod as he pushes escaping food back onto his tray with his fingers.

"Is there anything left up there?"

"Some."

John risks drawing back a stump and snatches a cookie off Ronon’s tray.

"You shot me." He takes a bite and talks through a mouthful. "You owe me a cookie."

The big guy just watches it go and sighs. His eyes flash briefly with something John can’t identify and isn’t sure he wants to. Then it’s gone and Ronon scowls good-naturedly, as only he can.

"Keep that up and it might be worth the price."

They smirk at each other across the table and John feels stupid for wondering. If the man really wanted to beat the snot out of him, he'd probably just do it. Hell, he has done it. So has Teyla. All with the implied permission granted by his being in the gym and uttering the magic words "Okay, I'll give it a shot". Outstanding idea, filling his team with people who can beat him like a rented mule.

"Do you plan to forgive him?" Teyla's expression says she doesn't care one way or the other, but he knows better. She's reasonable in a way few people are. Right now, he doesn't feel like being one of those people.

"Not anytime soon."

She nods thoughtfully and goes back to her food. John stuffs the rest of the cookie into his mouth and watches her very carefully not watching him.

Finally: "What?"

"You have every right to be angry."

But...here it comes...

"Yes, I do."

"But--"

Ah ha!

"—this cannot continue forever."

"Watch me."

"Doctor McKay has apologized many times."

He glances at Ronon. Help.

"Don't look at me. I'd have thrown him off a balcony already."

"See?" John stands, picks the offerings off the table and tucks them in his pockets. "I gotta...do work things."

He walks past McKay's table on his way out. Bumps the back of his chair and watches him jump. Juvenile, sure. But it makes him feel better. He drops his tray in the bin by the door. Wanders toward his room no particular hurry, noting the way people either smile too brightly or swerve to avoid him altogether. John rounds the corner. Spots another pile of stuff gathered outside his door. One thing stands out…He picks it up. A box with a picture of a familiar pair of guys who wear their underwear on the outside. He slides a thinner box out of it and breaks into a lopsided grin at the big green KAPOW!!! on the back.

"That's just not fair."

Another Writey Thing

2006-07-27T18:29:04Z

Tag for Misbegotten (and a sequel of sorts for LETTERS). No sex or violence (boooo!) but as usual, a little bit of cussing. Once again, many thanks to cinnabari and aeryn_dex for their help (of which there's been a lot). None of these folks belong to me, I just play with them when no one's looking.

SLEEPLESS
by Jules

It's hard to tell sea from sky until pink fingers of dawn start to stretch over the horizon. John checks his watch. He's been out here for hours, tearing up the sky. The inertial dampeners take away some of the fun. He misses feeling it. The pressure in his chest. The weightlessness at the top of an arc, just before the dive. Not a thing he's been able to do anywhere else: take a bird out and put on an all-night aerobatic show for no one just to clear his head.

If anyone asks, it's research. Bullshit, but he's learned things about the jumper he didn't know before. Like how it fights him a little when he does something monumentally stupid. No coherent thoughts. He just feels it, like someone scratching at the back of his brain. It should bother him. Or bother him that it doesn't bother him. Or...something.

He pulls the nose up. Climbs until it pokes a hole in the gathering clouds and then he cuts the engine. The jumper continues to float upward for a five-count, hangs briefly and then starts to fall. Barely a sound in the cockpit. Just the low hum in his head that tells him he's still got a connection. It grows louder as the ship rolls over and goes nose down. Clouds outside, and then the lightening sky as the horizon comes around. And the water, starting to shine as the sun touches the tops of the waves. So much nothing out here. Not empty miles of sand or snow this time, but farther from civilization than he figured he'd ever get.

Not for lack of wishing.

He almost misses the days when they were cut off from Earth. Almost. There's less clutter out here. Orders don't filter through ten different committees before they reach him and the only opinions he's subjected to are the ones that matter. Protecting his people doesn't have the same abstract feeling because they're right here with him, aware of the threats – most of the time -- and they're trying to protect him, too.

He glances at his watch again. He should get back, because he's on in three hours and he hasn't slept more than two of the last thirty-six and he’s in no shape to be flying like he's trying to spell something in the sky.

SURRENDER DOROTHY!

The last few weeks he's dozed in fits. It started on the Hive. First because he needed to work and then because it didn't matter if they were human or comatose or stuffed and mounted - the ship was full of Wraith and they gave him the fucking willies. They should have gone out the airlock at the start. He doesn't give a shit what anyone says. They weren't people, they were Wraith. Wraith that were headed for Earth to suck the life out of everyone's friends and neighbors before he got lucky and the cavalry came along and they got lucky, too. He tries not to think too hard about the rest because it's still a bitch to reconcile doing what he knows he had to do with feeling like a first-rate prick for what happened to Michael.

See, this is why you're not sleeping, asshole.

When he does sleep it's for twenty minutes in a row tops. In between he stares at the ceiling or roams the halls or scares the crap out of the control room graveyard crew by wandering in unannounced. They're getting used to it. They've stopped checking their watches. The lack of sleep didn't get to him at first but he's too old to keep combat hours for weeks at a time and he's beginning to feel it.

By the time he starts to brake, the HUD is flashing at him and the jumper is tugging at his brain like a kid that wants attention. John draws the nose up just a few yards above the water and cuts loose with the engines, kicking up a cloud of spray. He half-expects a call. Wonders if anyone's been keeping track of him and hopes to hell not because "Colonel's gone crazy" is not how he wants to start the day.

"Tower, this is jumper three on approach."

"We have you, jumper three. You are cleared to land."

Crap. That was a big "yes".

He stays low to the water and watches it rush past. The closest he's going to get to feeling the speed. Half a mile out, he pulls up and does a lazy circle of the city before he drops the jumper through the open roof. As the ship settles, the HUD bloops at him. Tells him there's someone outside. What it doesn't tell him is whether or not it's someone he wants to talk to. Short damn list.

Open up and power down.

The lights dim to nothing and the tickle in his brain subsides as he hauls himself out of the pilot's seat. He shuffles to the back. Leans on the wall and waits to see who's loitering in the jumper bay at oh-dark-thirty.

She smiles just a little, like she knows he's in a mood or that blatant displays of happiness are inappropriate at this hour.

"Hi, Teyla."

"Colonel."

He misses "John". "Were you, uh, were you waiting for me?"

Teyla raises an eyebrow. She doesn't need to say it out loud. Of course. Idiot.

"Right." He chuckles softly and steps off the ramp. Runs a hand through his hair and rubs at his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm just...tired."

"You have not been sleeping."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yes." She starts for the exit. Pauses after a few steps and looks at him until he moves to follow. "There are many things you can take to help you sleep."

"Yeah..." Lame excuses offer themselves up, but none make it anywhere near his mouth. "It's probably a good idea if I avoid the infirmary for a while."

If he was missing a limb and a bucket of blood, he'd still have to think about it real hard.

She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a dimpled silver square and offers it to him. "Take one of these half an hour before you intend to go to sleep."

"I've intended to go to sleep a bunch of times." He slips the packet out of her fingers and turns it over in his hands. He smiles. He can't help it. God, she knows him. "Thank you."

She holds out another packet. Similar, only the little spots of color on the foil are black instead of green. "And take one of these before your shift. So you do not fall asleep."

"I won't," he says. He has no idea if it's true or not. He's never fallen asleep on the job before, but after everything that's happened the last few years any damn thing is possible. He never thought he'd see another galaxy or fly a spaceship or be in charge. He didn't figure there'd be humans who would try to screw them over or a Wraith who would try to help them, even if it was to save his own ass. And that was his own stupid fault because he knew a long time before he came here that sometimes the enemy looks just like you and sometimes help comes from the places you least expect it.

Fuck, but he is the kind of tired that has nothing to do with insomnia.

Teyla's looking at him like he's an idiot again and he wonders if he said something out loud. Or it could be because she's still holding out the second set of pills, waiting for him to take it.

So he does. "Thanks. Again."

"You are welcome." Tentative and awkward. Two things Teyla has never been with him before. She's not the only one who's been a little tender around him lately, but...Shit. Since they brought back the Hive there's been running

constantly

and planning

poorly

and most of his time has been devoted to things that are important and immediate but sure as hell not personal. He hasn't checked for the goddamned letter. Hasn't even thought about it until now. It's not the lack of sleep that's making his hands tingle, or his heart hammer in his chest.

He clears his throat. "So, I was wondering..."

Teyla walks with her head lowered. No prompting. No curious glance. He's about ready to take a dive off the nearest balcony when she looks up and shows him the gleam in her eyes.

"I did not read it."

"Oh thank God."

A writey thing.

2006-07-19T21:11:46Z

A tag for "Michael" and "No Man's Land". Spoilers for both. No naughtiness and no violence. But there is a little cussing, which shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me even a little bit. Thanks big time to cinnabari and aeryn_dex for all the help! Oh, and none of these folks are mine, I just play with them when no one's looking.

LETTERS
by Jules

Teyla stands just inside the door, hands at her sides. She waits for her eyes adjust to the dim light and takes in the room. Not just clean, but tidy, which has always surprised her. It smells like the scrubbed sterile air of Atlantis, but it smells like him, too. And the idea that his scent will eventually fade leaves a hollow in the pit of her stomach.

It is strange to be here alone. She knows she has always been welcome

anytime

but this is not her place and these are not her things and it seems wrong to disturb them. Leaving them alone, though…that feels too much like she is visiting a shrine. Or a tomb. Her eyes drift to the bed. To the sheet that dips slightly in the middle of the mattress, taking the shape of the body that usually occupies it. The one they may never recover. Just gone. Like so many people she has known.

She makes a slow circuit of the room. Hands hover over each object and descend to touch a few. She runs her fingers over the handles of the fighting clubs she gave him. Thinks of him sprawled flat on his backside and her lips twitch into a short-lived smile. She spins a fat rubber wheel, rolls the football beneath her palm.

Toys for the big kid.

She wonders if it will all be packed up and sent back to Earth like the possessions of the other fallen members of the expedition. If there is even anyone there to receive it. He has always talked of things he left behind, but rarely of people. And when he says “home”, he means Atlantis. Says. Said.

The hollow in her stomach becomes an ache. Grows to fill her chest. She glances at the desk. At the collection of fake insects and objects bearing the likeness of a creature called Spider-man. A joke, he had explained to her.

I hate bugs.

So they gave you…bugs.

Exactly.

She smiles, tight-lipped and unsteady. The Atlanteans have a sense of humor about the oddest things. John has tried to explain. Has said that sometimes they need to laugh at the absurdity of their situation. To her, little of it seems absurd. But he has often assured her that a good percentage of what he has seen in the Pegasus galaxy can be charitably called

extremely fucked up

extraordinarily unusual.

Teyla blows out a breath and makes her way to the desk. Sits gingerly on the chair and pauses with her fingers on the drawer for a long moment. She considers leaving it closed and fleeing the room. Instead she pulls it open and takes out the small stack of envelopes pushed up against the back of the drawer. Names on each of them in neat block print. Elizabeth. Rodney. Ronon.

The last one is for her. The only one she can deliver, because the others have all gone. She has made her pleas and prayers to the Ancestors for their safe return but she expects nothing. Her time on Atlantis has slowly wrung the superstition from her, but part of her fears that tampering the way they have has brought this upon them. That perhaps allowing the Wraith to enter the city unchallenged has angered its old masters. And sometimes there is no appeasing them or making it right. She tried to bargain with them when her father was taken. If only the Ancestors would return him, she would gladly take his place. But they did not take her, and in the end she had nothing else to offer.

She replaces the other envelopes in the drawer and stares at the one that bears her name. For all the time she has spent with John Sheppard, Teyla cannot imagine his final words to her. The knowledge that he would never know her response might have made him bold. She smiles. Bolder. The day they met, he smiled at her as if he was going to ask her for a dance. Or better. It was amusing and endearing and she chuckles softly to herself, because that is likely not what he was hoping for.

Even absent, he has made her smile. And laugh. And he never did ask her for anything but her trust and her patience.

Patience.

She smoothes her fingers over the letters of her name. He had told her to come here if something happened. To read these words and not to feel bad because

hopefully there’ll be a blaze of glory involved

he was lucky it had not happened sooner. Something they had in common, outliving their expectations. Before she came to this place, Teyla had not considered that those taken by the Wraith could ever return. Gone was Gone. The lost were mourned and missed and the living moved on without them.

But they have come back. More than once. And so now hope exists where before there was none. She turns the envelope over in her hands, blinks the sting out of her eyes and gently tucks it back in the drawer beside the others.

Perhaps she will read it later.