this is my prize-winning photo of a black hole, taken with the lens cap on.

[walkingshadow]

in which i ramble on and on and ON about stargate: atlantis, conveniently cut-tagged and labeled for your skimming and skipping pleasure!

so much less bad than we'd expected!

in two marathon bursts silentfire and i watched the entire run of stargate: atlantis to date, the twenty episodes of last season and the seven episodes of this season, one great big orgy of sci-fi science and john sheppard LOVE. call us card-carrying members of the "i <3 john! ask me how!" fanclub, because we adore him so, so much. we adore him, and rodney and ford (who is cute as a BUTTON) and carson (erika admitted she loves carson more than ford; me: "what are you, a communist?") and we nurse a great dislike of elizabeth, who is just so damn patronizing. among other things.

we kept marveling at how good the show was. it's a cheesy sci-fi show on the sci-fi network*, okay, but if you close your eyes and gloss over their science, and accept the plots they develop on the basis of that science, it's a lot tighter than we expected: well-arced, well-plotted, well-developed (in terms of both characterization and the direction of the show overall), and well-acted. joe flanigan and david hewlett take home our personal acting emmys for line delivery and deployment of facial expressions to convey meaning, emotion, and subtext above and beyond the call of the dialogue; and maintaining their core characterizations while performing amazing feats of bravery, idiocy, genius, and cowardice (sometimes all at the very same time). the only time anyone's popped out of character is when john threw himself at chaya, which is still so bizarre. erika was convinced "sanctuary" was one long nightmare sequence, and kept insisting that rodney woke up in a cold sweat, screaming, just after the credits rolled.

hell, even everett, who was onscreen for what, an episode and a half? managed to 1) piss us off with his arrogance and treatment of john, 2) win our respect when he changed his mind and acknowledged elizabeth's importance and skill (one of the only times i've liked and respected something elizabeth has done), and 3) seriously affected us when he absolved john in the infirmary, weak and old and sick. we have never seen john salute before, or since.

* speaking of cheesy sci-fi shows on the sci-fi network, erika and i caught an episode of sg-1 in the middle of their marathon, and oh god. cheese. tastic. they stepped through the stargate in the middle of a solar flare and went BACK IN TIME, ending up on a cross-country roadtrip complete with hippies in a vw van, a fake afro for teal'c, a red line on a map tracing their progress, and a soundtrack worthy of full house. and the official color of the air force was purple: their berets were purple, their *trucks* were purple, even the stargate's event horizon was purple! it was 1969 and they were SUPER-FABULOUS.

fanfic, locus of characterization, and fanon vs. canon

i came into this fandom backward: all last year i'd seen the early adopters (merryish especially) swooning over this show, but it never piqued my interest, and i wasn't going looking for new source at the time. then one night in early may, soon after i'd gotten home from school, cesperanza posted such a rhapsodic and insistent insta-rec of shalott's a beautiful lifetime event that i said, okay! i will read this story! and it turned out to be, as you all know, possibly the best story ever in the world: five paragraphs in i checked out the fandom overview at crack_van to get the premise of the show and to see what everybody looked like, and by the end of the story john and rodney pretty much pwned me. it was another three months before i got a glimpse of the actual show, and during that time i consumed just about every story ever recced in the fandom.

i've done this before, the fic-before-canon thing, with due south and the sentinel and popslash. it's possible to piece the source together based on what emerges as constant across stories and authors, and i formed impressions of the characters, fully-fleshed composites from hundreds and hundreds of stories, that were matched up against the actual characters when i finally met them in person. since inhaling the canon i've gone back and re-read all the stories i've saved (the episode-related ones make so much more sense now!) and it's remarkable how well some of them slide right into the source, how easily i can hear the characters actually speaking their lines and acting out their scenes. a beautiful lifetime event is one of them.

there were characterizations that didn't match up; and beyond that, there were constants that emerged across stories that i couldn't find support for in the actual show: the definition of fanon. at the height of our involvement in popslash gjstruthseeker and i talked a lot about what we were willing to accept in the way of characterization, and it turned out i was okay with a much wider range than she was. sometimes the actual canon of popslash showed a wide range of characterization (real people aren't under the internal, conventional constraints of fiction to be consistent), and it was still easily possible to write someone out-of-character, but as long as i could recognize them, as long as i could consider them a possible incarnation of themselves, it would work for me. but this is all predicated on my having a baseline for the character from which their other iterations will spring, and the problem with fanon is that it actually shifts the locus of characterization. i have an image of the process in my head: it involves data points, and outlying points gather clusters around themselves, skewing the graph. fanon encompasses the little things as well, e.g. someone calls the asian scientist "miko" and the fandom adopts it, because it works, and why not?

some things i was led to expect and subsequently had to conclude are not so:

1. john as mathematician. do people not remember high-school math? because nothing we have seen john do has been genius/prodigy/human-calculator level. i kept waiting for john to be drawn into a game of prime-not-prime and win; i kept waiting for equations to be instantly solved or angles intuitively calculated; there's a fic where rodney says john is "always pulling that numbers trick," and i was ready for it, but it never came. silentfire brought to my attention that there's something on the official website specifically about john hiding his ability to do math, is that what everyone's going off of? because that's extra-canon, and the problem with taking it into account when considering characterization is that i haven't seen it. maybe the writers don't remember high school math. so far what i've seen is that john is a very smart man who's very good at playing to people's low expectations and hiding his general intelligence and depth—or, he allows people to draw their snap stereotypical conclusions (pretty, lightweight flyboy type) and never bothers to correct them by word or deed. i've never seen him actually play dumb.

it's interesting that people fix on the math, because we have so many other—canonical—examples of john's general intelligence: his idea to bury the flashbangs was more impressive than figuring out the magic square in "the brotherhood"—and would have saved them if he hadn't figured it out; he comes up with idea after idea in "the siege," boom boom boom, he comes up with ideas all the time, he's endlessly resourceful. carson has his number probably better than rodney: he and john have exchanged two historical/literary allusions on camera (churchill's "victory at all costs" and androcles and the lion**); i bet they talk about the russian authors during all that infirmary time, i bet john admits he drew a family tree to keep track of everyone in war and peace, because he's anal like that, and because it made the book last longer.

. . . all that said, i would love nothing better than if john were the next andrew wiles, because it would make fic like this one entirely plausible and oh. my. god.

** yeah, i had to look that one up: androcles and the lion is a play by george bernard shaw, based on a story told by aulus gellius: a christian slave (androcles) runs away from his cruel roman master and finds shelter in a cave; in comes a lion, roaring not in anger or hunger, but in pain. androcles finds the cause of the pain—a thorn in his paw—and removes it. the two become fast friends. one day roman soldiers re-capture androcles and throw him, as was the custom, to the lions. it is, of course, the very same lion androcles saved and befriended, and the lion licks his face instead of eating him. john's implicit recasting of the fable seems pretty seamless (not to mention incredibly astute) and would make the romans unambiguously the wraith, so why does beckett question that part?

2. john as rodney's personal on/off switch. there is no evidence of rodney ever asking john to touch a piece of ancient technology for him, let alone hounding john through the corridors of atlantis. there are, what, half a dozen people with the gene, and by the *third* episode (the second in terms of events) rodney has the gene himself. i suppose it's possible that there was a flurry of activity between the time john sat down in the chair in antarctica and the time rodney got the gene therapy in which a variety of ancient tech was paraded before john and their secrets demanded of him, but based on the way he and everyone else is totally bemused by and unprepared for the lights coming on for him during their first cautious exploration of the city after stepping through the wormhole, even that doesn't seem very likely. basically any scenario where rodney chains john to a lab stool and cows him into catering to his every scientific whim doesn't ring true to either of the characters, their relationship, or the tone of the show. they're more professional, more respectful, and less close than all that.

about that lack of closeness: one of the vagaries of being in a live fandom is having to constantly accept the new canon. you can get john and rodney together after every episode, build a progression on the basis of episodes past and the projection of how their friendship could deepen and escalate, but it's so hard then to reconcile their distance in the next episode; it's like constantly starting over new. we think we see them getting closer and closer, we think that's john letting rodney in, letting rodney see, and then we get to rodney in trinity, completely underestimating john. it left me a little gobsmacked, that smug "and that means absolutely nothing to you," because it implies not only that rodney hasn't totaled up the evidence of john's intelligence the way the viewing audience has (he's already been side-swiped by the mensa thing, but that didn't seem to take), but he can't have been spending the time with john that we'd like to think he has. though it does in turn reveal two other things about rodney: that he's even more oblivious than i thought one person could be, and that he leapt to the pretty, lightweight flyboy conclusion early on and has been strangely reluctant to let it go, even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. zelenka certainly wasn't surprised that john understood what they were talking about; carson would have expected it.

3. rodney as cruel, cruel taskmaster who makes his minions cry. in a lot of ways rodney is socially stunted, oblivious and uninhibited, but he's a self-aware asshole if he's an asshole at all: he knows how big his ego is. we see him admit it to kolya ("i'm an extremely arrogant man who thinks all his plans will work"), we see him yell at john, et al. for thinking he's superman, and he's all the time capable of self-deprecation, e.g. when zelenka tells him "you're not pleasant when you're like this, mckay," and rodney sighs, "i'm always like this." he knows he's human: he's not kavanaugh—and i'm so glad we never saw much of kavanaugh. someone should break that man's knees.

(then came "trinity" and it looked like rodney's ego had reached critical mass, preface to the mighty falling, but that didn't exactly happen. *scratches head*)

rodney points out when people are making mistakes—and at this level, people make HUGE mistakes (look at rodney himself)—and pulls no punches while doing it; but he also immediately and ungrudgingly concedes when someone else has a good idea. i can understand the asian scientist we met in "letters from pegasus" working so hard to please him, because she could be sure that praise from rodney would always be fairly won and freely given—it would mean everything. i have to think that her video clip was included in the episode for a reason, to give a hint to mckay's character that the writers felt we were missing. i would think that among his peers rodney would be dreaded and even mocked, but his work respected: his personality lands heavily on the temperamental, abrasive side, but his genius is undeniable.

plus there's also that thing where i think any scientist who went on this mission should 1) have been working with mckay long enough to know what he's about, and 2) be smart enough and tough enough to either be right, or suck it up when they're wrong and he goes off on them. but that's just me.

4. john opening up to anyone, ever. okay, that can't be entirely true, and the purpose of fanfic is to get the characters to that point, but after seeing the show it turns out no one was exaggerating when it came to what a cypher john really is. john sheppard is not an onion: he's a fortress. he is russia. behind the stone wall is a brick wall, and behind the brick wall is a steel wall, and beyond that is a safe inside a vault. as silentfire says, none of them are malicious—no attack dogs or booby traps—they just are: i don't know if he constructed them as much as he just lives in them. and the thing is, if and when you ever manage to break through all of those defenses, you'll find an empty room. john won't even be there. his ultimate defense is what ciderpress calls hiding in plain sight: the relentless politeness, the blankness, the detachment, the snark, and the easy, casual intimacy that's all about being charming enough for people to like him without realizing they know absolutely nothing about him. trinityofone put these words in john's mouth in her story down from mt. olympus: John learned early on that as long as you keep people looking, they’re never going to bother looking all that closely.

there are pockets of fat the human body will never lose, even when dying of starvation, e.g. above the kidneys and around a pregnant woman's belly. john guards his privacy like a pregnant woman protects the baby she's carrying: instinctively and to the death. silentfire wanted to know what could have possibly happened to him to make him this way, but i think john was probably just born like this.

episode 206: trinity: trust issues, internal consistency, and who gets to be right and wrong in the pegasus galaxy

yeah, not that anyone's had anything to say about this episode or anything.

before i descend into hysterical john-and-rodney blither, why does everybody—still—treat the ancients as the gold standard? every time we've gotten more insight into them they've revealed themselves as a little more sinister: the nanovirus; the way they abandoned the universe in ascension and left chaya to her greekly fate; and i'm pretty sure they encouraged the human races in pegasus to worship them. the human race currently inhabiting atlantis isn't so far from worship themselves, though you'd think by now that they'd start considering the possiblity of, i don't know, fallibility? we keep hearing that the wraith are the race that defeated the ancients, wow, but nobody extrapolates that evidence of weakness into the possibility of weakness elsewhere, or everywhere. rodney seems to be the only one trying to argue against them—"we know they're not perfect, because they're all DEAD." and yet, and yet—rodney's the only one to doubt them, and rodney's wrong here, disastrously, hubrically wrong, which on some level does make the ancients into gods that an uppity mortal tried to get too close to, which means we're still supposed to think, don't fuck with the ancients, they're way beyond our ken. personally, i wouldn't trust an ancient farther than i could see him. [eta: caldwell also pointed out their fangirling of the ancients, right?]

as for the hysterical blither: JOHN. RODNEY. the JOHN AND RODNEY SHOW. every scene they were in was the BEST SCENE EVER until the NEXT scene they were in, right up until the final scene, at which i hyperventilated and DIED. john's "cool!" and the way he lights up at the mention of an ancillary power supply for the weapons systems! and the way rodney notices and points out the way he lights up! and john is so much smarter than rodney expects, and zelenka looks reprovingly at rodney, as if to say "give your boyfriend some credit"! and basically acting like they're kids and friends again! followed by things going so very, very badly, but slowly, so first there's that meeting with caldwell and elizabeth where john has to set himself apart from rodney and be military for a while; followed not long after by rodney going to john—and not being allowed in, not that that's symbolic of anything larger or anything—and saying, "i'm asking this of you, i think i've earned it," oh god oh god. I WON'T LET YOU DOWN. and then the nuclear-event-plus-hubris-and-some-explicit-trust-issues scene of DOOM, and then—then the final confrontation, where john first tries ducking and running, and then crosses his arms to close rodney out, rodney's APOLOGY, john's self-deprecating admission of WOUNDEDNESS, and that little quirk of a smile to hide behind until the transporter doors close. the way the episode closes on rodney's face, rodney's broken little face! seriously, erika and i watched that final scene like three times before we had to stop or spontaneously combust.

okay, i think—i think that's all the hysteria out of the way. there's been some excellent discussion about this episode, first and foremost by goluxexmachina talking about the episode title and background, and the parallels between the manhattan project and its scientists with rodney et al.; she and mimesere have noticed mckay's propensity for nonproductive self-awareness, which i think is the best observation ever. then there's cimorene111 on trust in the a vs. b plots; eretria, who is incredulous that nobody is giving rodney hell for destroying a solar system; wax_jism on the gut-twisting ANGST; and jennyo spawned a fascinating discussion about race in the pegasus galaxy.

for myself, i'm kind of conflicted about how successful the episode was, both at what i think it was trying to accomplish and at the things i'm never sure they mean to do but show up anyway. mckay was wrong here, and not only wrong but HUGELY, disastrously wrong, which rightly led to a huge, disastrous consequence, e.g. the destruction of five-sixths of a solar system (five-sixths is *more* than three-fourths, and the fact that mckay corrects elizabeth while digging himself a deeper hole is so *stupid* and so beautifully in character), but where are the consequences of that? getting chewed out by elizabeth before making what i'm sure was a perfunctory apology (no more blowing up planets, thank you, i think i've got it now) is not exactly getting taken to task. on the other hand, i'm with cimorene111 in saying elizabeth et al. were complicit in rodney's actions and aren't quite justified in apoplectically placing all blame squarely on his shoulders. yes, he was the one who wanted to do it, who pushed to do it, who thought he was smart enough to do it; but there were others who had the power to stop him from doing it, and they made a lot of disapproving noises, but they were happy to let him go ahead when he assured them he could pull it off. they bought his press, and when it turned out he was wrong they wanted to punish him for their own bad judgment as well as his.

now is the time on sprockets when i go off on a rambly tangent about who gets to be right and wrong in the pegasus galaxy. my first thought was that the alpha characters are always right: with very little evidence, if any, john suspected earth wasn't real in "home"; rodney thought chaya wasn't what she said she was in "sanctuary"; elizabeth was sure john's team was going to need rescuing in "the defiant one"; and john categorically trusted all of the athosians and particularly teyla in "suspicion" and "the gift"—what if they'd been wrong? it would have come out that john was paranoid, rodney jealous, elizabeth skeptical, and john blinded. it would have been an interesting thing to do, but then they would have failed as the plots of an hour-long television show, so i can understand and accept them. so that's not exactly it.

one of ciderpress's problems with the show is that teyla is never wrong, that teyla never has to pay an emotional price for her decisions, e.g. in "letters from pegasus" when she insists on waiting for warren/orrin's family, and they end up taking a whole mess of people on board. i have a lot of frustration with television writers who set up their characters better than they think they have, and then go about trying to highlight character growth and flaws with swat team searchlights, and do it very, very badly; i feel they proved the wrong point there. john was right in that people will die, and that it's their job (his and ford's), their *skill* to determine who they absolutely must save, and who they'll save if they have the time and resources. it wasn't like he'd dismissed them outright and left them to die; he told her from the beginning, and repeated himself four or five times, that he'd come back if they had time. but ultimately their own survival was more important, as they and the information they would bring back were intrinsic to the survival of the population of atlantis. and yet—she gets to be right: they do get to save people and still get away in time. elizabeth does the same thing, first in "the hot zone," where she doesn't seem to recognize peterson as the imminent threat he is or take definitive action to shut him down (i.e. kill him if she has to), and then in "the siege," when zelenka tells her she can save maybe 7-9% of the ancient database. zelenka says explicitly that they're at war, and that there are casualties; elizabeth refuses to accept it, and in the end she doesn't have to. elizabeth and teyla get to push the sacrificial decisions off on other people—usually john—and then blame him for them. which is *exactly* what elizabeth does in "trinity", allowing rodney to go ahead with the project but telling john to "save rodney from himself," covering herself both ways and leaving her free to be righteous and furious at the end of the day.

all other episode-related thoughts:

117: letters from pegasus

john has no family. or, no one on earth he would let know whether he was living or dead. what an incredible surprise! i think i'm going to have a heart attack and die from that surprise. aside from the massive deflection from any talk of family and friends in "home", and the fact that everyone who shows up at his impromptu nightmare party is either dead or unattainable, john has always thrown himself head-first into suicide runs like someone with nothing to lose and no one to live for.

poor elizabeth and all those personal messages, though you know, even then i was annoyed by her, because nobody wants to hear her sympathetic, diplomatic i feel your pain. in lamardeuse's the space between john personally visits the family of every one of his men who died, and that i can totally see happen.

118: the gift

hello heightmeyer! you feature so prominently in fic for someone who was introduced eighteen episodes into the season, but i suppose you serve an important role. if only you fulfilled that role in a competent, satisfying way, instead of asking, "and how does that make you feel?"

and hello psycho!john! to your left you can spot a glimpse of john going gently around the bend. when the ask-me-what-i-think-of-any-character meme went around, ciderpress was asked about john sheppard, and her response was so perfect and squeeful and on-target, especially the part where she said john keeps himself very tightly controlled because he knows what he's capable of when he loses control. john with steve in "suspicion" and "poisoning the well" was so cold and detached it was like he wasn't in the same room with himself. it's like, you know, wesley being tortured by count rugen in the princess bride—you've been taking your brain away—except it's his emotions, of course, not his brain, which is a fine and wondrous thing, always working.

teyla actually decks bates! i like that john yells at her about it, tells bates to walk away because he's not at fault yet, and then asks teyla what the fuck she thinks she's doing. she almost gets in trouble! almost. and how much do i love john taking care of his team. because that is what john does. "i suggest you take a nap" was cute, though i thought it would get her back up—but no, she concedes and actually goes to do just that. he knows the magic words to keep his people focused and running smoothly, especially mckay: mckay when he's in a panic will respond to sharpness not by returning it and escalating it, but by snapping out of the panic and getting on with what needs to be done.

119, 120, & 201: the siege, parts i-iii

so exciting!!! the sgc! everett, as mentioned above, was totally perfect, and we remember this john, right? john must have been like this his entire *life*, let alone his career, and it kinda makes you wonder how he even got as far as he did, how he managed to acquire only one black mark. he has to be both very good at what he does (i.e. flying and commanding), and very good at keeping his mouth shut and his head down at the right times. and lucky enough not to have said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.

omgwtf SUICIDE RUN. poor rodney, so tired and over-stimulated and not realizing what john is doing until john is already gone. JOHN. RODNEY. *bites nails*

rodney and zelenka are amazing, and i want to give them medals and cookies and hang do-not-disturb! signs on their doors so they can sleep for a week.

we were sad about peter, man. we fucking loved peter.

fifteen episodes or so ago i called john the great compartmentalizer, because in his head are two categories of people: 1) his people, who he will protect to the death, and 2) potential deadly enemies. i wondered how badly he would handle betrayal. you can watch a little bit of john die as ford takes off at the end of part iii, and ford's movement from one category to the other is made explicit by caldwell in "runner": he used to be your friend, but now he's the enemy. but john doesn't leave people behind.

202: intruder

john mentioning his promotion in every conversation for a month = so cute omg. people thinking he'd never make it past captain is so not surprising! between, you know, his seeming lack of ambition and his breathtaking insubordination.

ford's cousin's reprimands are john's worst nightmares and everything he thinks to himself, every day, made verbal and hurled at him by ford's representative.

john and rodney! together they fight crime fix everything and save the day! what was with rodney covering this crotch before being beamed? out-of-character and playing the laugh-at-the-geek card, why? and john telling rodney not to talk—at all—i can't tell if that's ooc also (for john and their relationship) or just part of the way john always knows how to handle rodney.

rodney's all, there's no navigational computer! and john's like, what? i'm going to fly the plane now. so hot.

blah blah elizabeth blah blah. so boring and so useless and i do not CARE about simon and his selfishness and bad, bad hair. she was awesome standing up for john against beau bridges and agent skinner. of course, it's in her own best interest to keep john in command, as we saw how she can expect to be treated by caldwell, i.e. exactly the way she was brushed aside by sumner and everett.

203: runner

okay, what is up with john and rodney? i sense a rift, starting with the last episode. i sense actually that john is pissed at rodney for something, and that rodney might not actually know what it is. john pawns mckay off on lorne, and mckay is so bizarrely ooc with his wussiness and whininess. how come nobody cares about the radiation? how come *no* precautions are taken?

from certain angles, ronon looks distractingly like karl urban. it's not quite as bad as sora, the genii twit who looked distractingly like sabrina lloyd from *all* angles.

204: duet

again! people making the right point at the wrong time! suggesting that somebody give over control of their mind, body, and all faculties to another person, an interloper inside them, is NOT good counsel. jesus, what an idiot.

JOHN. LEANING.

rodney has a date! with a woman! ahaha! and oh god, it goes so badly, it's such an awkward little foursome with cadman and carson and the botanist, whatever her name was. cadman was a real bitch: taking over rodney's body without permission and impersonating him was so incredibly out of line, and something i don't think she's properly remorseful about or chastised for.

it feels like john is still a little pissy toward rodney at the beginning of the episode, and the john-apologizes-to-rodney scene, the uncertain "so we're cool?" feels like an apology for something else, something bigger. it's a mirror too, the "you're up late", going back to rodney tracking john down in "sanctuary." i don't know what to make of it all, that's just the way it feels.

205: condemned

my first notes for this episode say "omg it's star trek," because they lifted all the city scenes, from landing and being greeted by a female emmissary to getting jerked around by the sinister governor, straight from tos. heh.

john smiles the cutest damn smile when he says he's partial to the electric chair, call him a romantic. ordering!john is so fucking hot; and ronon thinks so too. but isn't "threatening your friends" the way to threaten anyone? "naturally lazy, but i'll [fight] if i have to." eee!

elizabeth goes offworld and is actually useful!

i hear that this episode was supposed to air after "trinity," and that makes a lot of sense, with rodney so reluctant to put john in the position of having to trust his (rodney's) ability to produce a miracle again. which is interesting, because as early as "the storm/the" eye john had unswerving faith in rodney's ability; the problem in "trinity" was that rodney took all those unspoken bonds and made them explicit: he used them, waving them in john's face one by one, and apparently the first rule of your friendship with john is you don't talk about your friendship with john. well, you can talk about it, but john certainly doesn't like it, is not comfortable doing it; and the problem with cashing in all your chips at once is that if your sure bet lets you down, you're left with no credit at the bank of john. except right away in "condemned" john is like, "but i do trust you to produce miracles, i expect it, that's the problem": it's not something he can turn on and off, he can't use it objectively, it's an all-or-nothing phenomenon that he long ago allowed to trip the threshold; he can't just disallow it now. but god, i do wish there had been *some* kind of lasting fallout.

207: instinct

john thwapping rodney on the head makes me sit up and notice; john willingly initiating physical contact will always make me sit up and take notice. it feels like rodney's on probation here, being deliberately left out, left behind, like punishment, separated from the three warriors on his team. it's a sad little moment, when medical research isn't really his thing, and neither is wraith hunting; and yet he ends up wraith-hunting anyway in the end, so i don't know what that proves.

john: "don't make me do this." yeah, that. that's about par for the tear-john's-heart-out course.

personally, i think the retrovirus is a sketchy, creepy idea. somehow i'm more comfortable with genocide. really interesting discussion from daughtershade on beckett the mad scientist and cricketk who asks, where do baby wraiths come from?

and to clear my plate of everything (for the moment), here is a list of my favorite episode-related fic, including tags, missing scenes, and any story centered around the possible fallout of any episode:

rising
finding his place by kageygirl
a million miles away by misspamela
relative positions by merryish

hide and seek
theory of everything by aithine
invulnerable by kylielee1000

thirty-eight minutes
kings of infinite space by kageygirl
being brave by leah
upir by z_rayne
owl eyes by troyswann

suspicion

childhood's end

poisoning the well
my soul from out that shadow by frostfire_17

underground

home
not quite right by spubba
the once and future goon by koschka

the storm & the eye
shield by kylielee1000
aftershocks by astolat

the defiant one
off the map by kageygirl

the hot zone

sanctuary
letters by kylielee1000
down from mt. olympus by trinityofone

before i sleep
vigil by kageygirl

the brotherhood
inductive reasoning by kageygirl

letters from pegasus
immovable force by nel

the gift

the siege, parts i-iii
ceasefire by basingstoke
detox by 3jane

intruder
the reverse of fascination by shrift
the space between by lamardeuse

runner

duet
double occupancy by isiscolo (this isn't exactly related to the episode, it just has the same premise as the episode; most of the fic i've seen has put elizabeth and john in the same body, for reasons that pass my understanding)

condemned
bruises by coreopsis

trinity
in return by tigs
at sea by docmichelle

instinct
eight days, distraction, protection, and an epilogue to protection by thisisbone

Comments

[marythefan.livejournal.com]

I haven't finished reading yet but I had to come down here already - because I'm metaphorically jumping in my seat with my hand in the air, going "oooh! ooooh!" :g: - to point out that Teyla is pretty horribly wrong about the Genii. Also, re: Letters to Pegasus, I didn't find her expectations of Sheppard to be strange given what she knows of him - why would she not expect him to do the same thing he did at a moment's notice for the Athosians? I wonder how much Teyla has to adjust her image of who John is in that episode because up 'til then, it's been built on those actions from Rising.

[walkingshadow.livejournal.com]

ooh, the genii! though, hmm. i've never thought of the genii as being teyla's fault, mostly because i think of it as john and rodney's fault for stumbling on the secret underground hatch and then, you know, exploring it. though the genii were going to build a nuclear bomb with their c4—or try to—so i suppose their evil plans for galactic domination survival against the wraith who threaten us all would have come out sooner or later. do you remember if teyla seems to take responsibility for it at any point? i'll have to go back and watch.

i think it's also that teyla can't fathom leaving anyone behind, whereas john can't fathom leaving any of *his people* behind. john has a deep set of loyalties even on top of his official responsibilities, but his "greater good" is defined pretty narrowly. your point about teyla basing her image of john on what he did (and continues to do) for her people is a really good one. but my biggest problem with that entire scene wasn't that teyla wanted to save everyone, but that in the end she *did* get to save everyone, that she didn't have to confront any issues of who gets left behind so others can live, especially when "the others" includes teyla herself. i came away with the message that teyla was right and john was wrong, and you can save everybody without sacrificing anybody. which is . . . not what happens at any point during the siege, and which does not reflect the decisions that we've seen john make and expect him to have to make again.

[erilyn.livejournal.com]

The only problem with this post is that there are so many different things I want to agree with.

I actually came at the fandom at almost the opposite way. I too was resisting watching for quite a while (friends who were downloading loved it), but started watching when it started on tv here. I gradually fell for it, and then for the Sheppard/McKay too, and devoured the rest of season 1 on the computer, the rush partially so I could take a lot of fanfic away on holidays with me. So I'd read virtually no fanfic until I'd seen all of season 1.

But that obviously makes little difference, because my only problem with this post is that there are so many different things I want to agree with.

1. john as mathematician

Yes! As much as I enjoy it in some stories, it puzzles me.

2. john as rodney's personal on/off switch.

I've wondered about this in fanfic, and do you think it be that people want to make more use of Sheppard's 'greater connection to Ancient tech' than the show actually has? But still, yes, gets more than a little repetitive and annoying.

Your comments about Sheppard are very interesting. I love how he's all surface charm and geniality, but he makes some of fandom's most beloved 'tough guys' look incredibly open and in touch with their feelings in comparison.

Regarding Runner - why is wanting to take precautions against incredibly dangerous radiation so scornworthy? For a show that elevates the geeks to hero position often (SG1 too), they do love to fall back on the mocking cliches about scaredy scientists. And did McKay steal Sheppard's cookies before the episode began? The unexplained rampant pissiness intrigues me.

I really wish there'd be any indication in the show that Cadman's actions were supposed to be seen as incredibly out-of-line. You know that if the genders were reversed, and it was a male character inhabiting a female character and messed with her life, used her body to kiss people and stripped her while she was unconscious it'd be unforgivable.

And thank you for putting into words some of the problems I had with Trinity. I really liked the episode, but at the same time so many things have been bugging me about it.

Speaking of the Sora (who's likeness to Sabrina Lloyd is incredibly distracting *g*), whatever happened to her? Locked in the same closet as the wormy guy they brought back in Condemned?

[erilyn.livejournal.com]

Let's pretend I didn't put the same sentence into this reply twice, ok?

[walkingshadow.livejournal.com]

i think the john-as-mathematician thing would be very, very cool (and in stories, it IS very cool), but i just do not see it on the show. and in that case it is puzzling, because there are so many other ways authors could dazzle us with john's smartness, but they choose math; i can only assume they're going on what his website bio says.

I've wondered about this in fanfic, and do you think it be that people want to make more use of Sheppard's 'greater connection to Ancient tech' than the show actually has?

huh, that's a distinct possibility. i know i love what people call john/atlantis fic, where he and the city bond, the city speaks to him, etc. it's a fascinating concept that i wish the writers of the show explored a little more, because i think some of the things we've seen regarding john and the tech could be interpreted that way, with a connection that john feels in new and possibly creepy or satisfying ways. but having mckay shove devices at him and demand he activate them? i just don't see it.

I love how he's all surface charm and geniality, but he makes some of fandom's most beloved 'tough guys' look incredibly open and in touch with their feelings in comparison.

yes! he comes off as such a lightweight, but then you realize just how determined he is never to talk about himself EVER. we don't even know if he's in touch with his own feelings, we just know that if john has his way, no one else will ever be in *range* of touching distance.

"runner" was so weird in so many ways. sheppard was totally pissed at mckay! i have no idea what happened! and maybe i'm imagining it, but it felt like rodney was just as confused as we were, like he didn't even know he'd done anything wrong. i have no idea why nobody took the radiation danger seriously. it sounded like a serious, legitimate threat to me. between that and playing him for laughs in "intruder" it's such a departure from s1 mckay, where he grew so much. why would they want to undo all that?

cadman just. can you imagine if it had been john's body she'd taken over? i can't believe rodney just lets her get away with it, and as soon as heightmeyer opened her mouth the first time, i couldn't *believe* she suggested it. why does nobody on the show see that as a sinister thing, as a violation?

dude, i forgot about sora (just like sabrina lloyd! i'm so glad you see it!). last i heard we were going to let her languish in the atlantean brig for a while, so . . . i guess she's still there? rodney offered to give her back in "the brotherhood", but kolya declined. heh.

"trinity" was super-ambitious, and i like what they were trying to do, but at the same time they got so much *wrong*, like they got in their own way. or possibly the writers don't even register their own inconsistencies, which is disheartening to say the least.

thanks so much for commenting with all this! i could talk about this stuff forever, which i think is immediately apparent. *g*

[erilyn.livejournal.com]

but having mckay shove devices at him and demand he activate them? i just don't see it.

Yeah, as with most things, there are stories that have scenes like that which the author makes work, but in a lot of stuff it comes across as lazy fanon.

why would they want to undo all that?

The inconsistent way they bounce McKay back and forth drives me nuts. I don't mind him being the butt of some jokes, that's been his role all along, but the way they sacrifice any character development for it makes me sad.

why does nobody on the show see that as a sinister thing, as a violation?

I really don't know. I didn't want to hate the character, but damn her actions bothered me, as did the way the show made light of them.

"trinity" was super-ambitious, and i like what they were trying to do, but at the same time they got so much *wrong*, like they got in their own way. or possibly the writers don't even register their own inconsistencies, which is disheartening to say the least.

Yes, that's so it. I give them major points for trying (and for the sheer amount of McKay/Sheppard-ness in the episode), but it just didn't quite work.

[charlidos.livejournal.com]

What a fantastic write-up and description of everything SGA! I've read and enjoyed every word. Your "portrait" of John, in particular, rings very true and it makes me want to crack him open, even more. Because me, I do believe there are secrets to be found there. He's probably been like this for while, yes, but I don't believe he has been forever. Then again, people who hide like that too long tend to lose themselves.

I thought the last episode Conversion even more accentuated how controlled John is. Not even turning into a bug made him lose (much) control or open up. He didn't even show any real distress. Just a very deep-seated sadness that made my heart break. He's just so alone.

I could comment on so much, but I'll spare you. Me being a complete stranger and all.

[walkingshadow.livejournal.com]

thank you! and dude, please feel free to comment on anything at all.

oh god, i love john sheppard *so much* and there is so much going on inside his little head that he would like us never, ever to even get close to approaching. i just watched "conversion" and wow. WOW. it reminded me of "home", a situation where you expect to finally see something of him revealed, and instead he goes into lock-down mode and he's a thousand times more tightly controlled than ever.

He's probably been like this for while, yes, but I don't believe he has been forever. Then again, people who hide like that too long tend to lose themselves.

hmm, probably not forever. but i don't think there was some catastrophic event in early childhood that convinced him to never share his heart with anyone. necessarily. that's such a good point about people like that losing themselves; i think that's what makes me skeptical of stories where rodney pokes a little and pokes a little, and then boom! floodgates open, john can share again, he's a real boy. not only *wouldn't* it ever happen that way, i think you're right in saying that it *couldn't*.

[charlidos.livejournal.com]

No, there's no catastrophical event, I don't think so either. I think he's learned - most likely from his family (one common fanfic "explanation" is of course the stern military father, demanding strict control of feelings from his son) and the military - to be in control. He probably thinks it's his duty - particularly in Atlantis - to keep himself under wraps. That he as a leader shouldn't let anything distract him from his duties. At least, I think that contributes to the way he acts.

But still, he's human, he has feelings. The question is, can he bring them out? And when? I'm a rather big fan of the h/c-scenario, myself, where John - maybe drugged, in serious pain - just HAS to be vulnerable. And it's not about letting things hidden deep down out, it's just about being able to be weak and unguarded. I think that scenario IS possible. I just read this story (http://www.livejournal.com/users/seperis/264894.html) which I think is a great example of how that could work. Rodney would just have to know to take advantage of the situation. :)

[walkingshadow.livejournal.com]

He probably thinks it's his duty - particularly in Atlantis - to keep himself under wraps. That he as a leader shouldn't let anything distract him from his duties. At least, I think that contributes to the way he acts.

i think you put your finger on it there, with the military (and possibly a military father demonstrating and demanding closed-off emotions) and john's interpretation of what it means to be in the military, in command of troops (and now civilians), all contributing—exaggerating what i think was always a private personality. all that, *plus* whatever relationships went wrong, and whatever went down with his parents, and all the friends who died, created the uber-controlled john sheppard we see today. in my head it's always about nature + nurture.

i am a huge sucker for h/c fic. also for any fic that forces john outside of his control, e.g. under the influence of drugs/alien tech/telepathy. this story made me a little nervous though: i get sympathetically uncomfortable when we creep up on the line between making john vulnerable and making him helpless; and between rodney taking advantage of the situation and taking advantage of *john*. john's so clear in warning people off that anyone who seizes an opportunity to open him up a little when they know they wouldn't ever be allowed to otherwise is running the risk of violating a whole lot of trust. i can see john opening up in these situations, and i can also see him being a little horrified, or ashamed, or just uncomfortable and exposed when it's all over; i can see john having a lot of "we will never speak of this again" conversations (like the one he had with teyla at the end of "conversion"). there's also the matter of whether it would ever occur to rodney to take advantage of a situation like that, if he'd ever *notice*, and then actually decide to act on it.

[charlidos.livejournal.com]

john's so clear in warning people off that anyone who seizes an opportunity to open him up a little when they know they wouldn't ever be allowed to otherwise is running the risk of violating a whole lot of trust.

Yes, absolutely. Rodney would very much be taking advantage in such a situation and it could indeed be a very fatal choice and end up pushing him away forever. But I also think that it may be the only way in. John doesn't seem like he'd let him in voluntarily and Rodney can be clumsy enough and oblivious to social niceties in a way that could leave John open for attack. Rodney probably wouldn't do it on purpose, though. Because like you say, I'm not sure he'd notice... And John probably WOULD be horribly ashamed and humiliated - but I think he'd get over it.

This is one reason why I love Oblivious by shalott so much. Because it's a scenario that I can actually believe, even though it's wild.

Could be I've been completely brain washed by fanon, though...