gtfo - geek the fuck out

fic: at the bottom of the well

gingasaur — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:47:13 GMT

title: At the Bottom of the Well
series: Stargate SG-1
rating: R
warnings: non-con, suicide, character death
word count: 1,350
notes: Five unhappy endings for SG-1.

1.

There isn’t much for Sam to do anymore but count. She hasn’t had a moment alone in two years, four months, and minutes of hours that no longer matter. What was once “days since capture” has become “time lost”.

He weaves his tired fairy tales out of thin, tattered threads. “Let’s go out,” he says, and Pete links his arm through hers and leads her through the town with no people. “Let’s stay in,” he says, and Pete smiles beside her on the couch, nudging her with his shoulder each time she dozes off to the same fragmented pieces of Singin’ in the Rain. When Sam says, “I’m tired,” she tries to sleep, but the bed shifts and Pete’s weight settles on top of her. His fingers slide down her body, her blood runs cold.

If she’s feeling cynical enough after he’s done, she whispers, “I want to go home,” and watches Pete’s lip curl into a scowl. The bones in her wrists crunch beneath his grip, but the pain breaks the fantasy. This isn’t real, and it never will be.

Somewhere, in another galaxy, her Pete has moved on. Her SG-1 have stopped looking, and even if they haven’t, they’ll never find the Sam they lost. Fifth keeps them moving, ensconced inside his growing army, as he drugs her up on lies and illusions. They’re so far away from the stars she knew; her blurred memories of Cassiopeia and Orion feel more foreign to her now than the frigid metal she senses at her back.

She’s jumped at every chance to slit her wrists, but when she does, no blood seeps out. It’s just a black, hollow void under her skin.

There’s nothing more to try.

Pete kisses her as the sun comes up. His lips are cold.

Sam crawls out of bed, numb, for day 851.

2.

Amaunet died because her host was strong.

Lies, Qetesh spits, but Vala knows better. She tastes the bile at the back of her throat each time Qetesh thinks of it, feels the spike of panic at the idea of Vala taking back what’s hers.

Amaunet was weak, Qetesh calmly asserts. You would be foolish to place me at her level.

Vala has never been able to look away from the years of iron-fisted rule, can never tune out the sound of her own voice calling for the razing of villages and the torture of slaves. Her hands have crushed the throats of men. There isn’t anything about Qetesh that doesn’t horrify her.

You are nothing, the snake reminds her every day. You are my shell.

But this shell is still alive, and for the first time, she has hope.

She learns to steel herself against the screams of mass slaughters and the crying of starving children. She memorizes the names of every System Lord who strikes terror into the heart of her captor. She detaches herself from the smell of sweat and too-sweet incense, from her hips grinding against the hard muscles of men whose names Qetesh does not care to know.

Vala watches and learns and rebuilds, quietly waiting in the dark.

One day, Qetesh locates a stockpile of weapons on a deserted planet and rings down, intent on claiming every one. In the center is a large mine, hovering in restraints and humming with activity.

“You will inspect it,” she tells her lo'taur, still so young. She puts on a show for him and for the guards at her back, striding up to the mine with no hesitation, because she has a personal shield with her and gods need not fear manmade explosives.

So afraid, she croons to Vala, taunting her with her hand, hovering near the mine’s surface.

Fear is not what Vala feels.

She can see the sheen of sweat on the lo’taur’s forehead as he works his way around the mine. She wishes peace for them both. She pictures the woman stolen by Amaunet.

It takes every ounce of her strength to make Qetesh’s hand twitch, and then everything burns and goes black all at once, right up until the glorious moment when Vala doesn’t feel much of anything anymore.

It’s not long before she sees white, before her chest rises and falls with breath.

Before she realizes her failure.

Helmeted guards lift her from the sarcophagus (she thinks, as if it will change things, that there couldn’t have been anything left of her to put inside of it) and she feels her eyes flash.

My shell, Qetesh declares, and Vala never moves again.

3.

The Grand Canyon truly is grand.

Jack stands at the edge, looking down into the vast, golden gorge below. The wind blows hard enough to ruffle his hair and he squints against the sun. Families with kids mill around behind him, little giggles and “get in close now”s accompanied by the incessant clicking and winding of convenience store cameras. Jack just focuses on the roar of the air.

He reaches into the pocket of his jeans, fingers brushing against the tight threads of a faded round patch.

They would have loved it here.

“Excuse me, sir. Would you mind taking our picture?”

He turns around to find a father, a mother, two boys and a girl, each one smiling hopefully.

“Sure,” Jack says, and takes the camera.

He takes five pictures of other people’s families before the day is over. When the sun begins to set, he gets in his car and drives back alone.

4.

Cam’s physical therapist is cute, a redhead named Cynthia who’s bright and funny and doesn’t patronize him. That’s why he knows it’s not good when she looks at his chart and her smile falters.

“We’re not out of options yet,” Cynthia tells him, and Cam believes her.

He feels sore all the time, sore and tired and a little bit helpless. He’s in a wheelchair more often than not, and he wishes the crutches weren’t so excruciating if only so people opening doors for him would look him in the eye instead of at his legs.

Cam tries and tries and tries again. Cynthia smiles less and the doctors spend more time scribbling on their clipboards than they do talking to him.

“Why?” Cam asks one day, teeth clenched, arms shaking with the effort of holding himself up on the bars.

Cynthia sighs quietly. “Sometimes the body just doesn’t respond.”

They knew going in that his chances were low, but it still doesn’t make him feel any less angry or any less like he’s failed.

Appointments with Cynthia vanish from his schedule. The doctors give him their condolences. The Air Force gives him medals, but no jobs.

His parents help him home, keeping the crutches in the trunk of the car and standing them up against the wall by his bed. He doesn’t know why they bothered. His father can't seem to stop looking down at his own braces.

“You’ll be okay,” his mother says, but every night Cam dreams of Antarctica, and every morning he wakes up bitter and unfulfilled.

5.

“This sucks.” Hundreds of thousands of words in Daniel’s vocabulary, and that’s all he can think to say.

Teal’c keeps his gaze focused ahead of him and replies, somberly, “It does indeed ‘suck’.”

They have thirty seconds, give or take. Jack and Sam are nowhere to be found (dead, probably) and Daniel hears staff blasts down the corridor. This is very much the end.

“I hope it’s enough,” Daniel murmurs. “The self-destruct, I mean.”

The staff blasts get louder.

“We could have done so much for this planet.” And others that they’ll never know. It hurts, sharp and hot in his chest, to think about the things they’ll never get to see, the people they will never meet.

“Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c says, turning to face him. He is determined, standing straight and proud, almost regal in their final moments. “We die free.”

An amber flame slams into the open door, leaving a charred gash in its wake.

“We die free,” Daniel says, and the vibrations of the first explosion travel up through his legs.

fic: v is for video games

gingasaur — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:20:33 GMT

title: V is for Video Games
series: Stargate SG-1
characters: Cam, everybody
rating: PG
word count: 953
notes: gosh, I just love Cam so much. Written for sg_fignewton's Cam Alphabet Soup.

It is by no means a difficult game. Cute, cuddly animals ripping each other’s throats out in crimson showers of pixelated blood is bizarre, but it doesn’t take an engineer to play it.

So why does Cam keep watching his fuzzy boxing hare get pummeled by unblockable kicks to his sweet little face?

It isn’t simply loss at this point: it’s a systematic disassembling of all his hard-earned credibility. How is he supposed to get any kind of respect around here when he can’t even coordinate the proper punches to take the evil Mr. Bunnykins’ head off?

“You’re supposed to play Teal’c when?”

“Thursday.”

Siler laughs, perhaps louder than he meant to. He clears his throat. “Sorry, sir.”

Cam waves a dismissive hand. “No, I deserve it after that thrashing. How the hell did you make those energy beams-”

But Siler just shrugs helplessly; he’ll be overdue for a scheduled maintenance if he stays any longer.

“Good luck, Colonel,” he says on his way out.

Cam rubs a hand over his face. Time to go back to training mode.

---

He hones his skills against fluffy computerized combatants, but these battles against artificial intelligence just don’t compare to human unpredictability. He needs another person to play with him or the precious remnants of his ego will be smeared across the floor come Thursday.

Luckily, he knows two surefire ways to get Sam out of her lab: by dragging her, or by simply pushing her buttons.

“I’m not afraid you’ll beat me.”

Bingo.

“Well then,” Cam taunts. “Come play.”

Sam glares at him. “If I do, you have to leave me alone for the rest of the day.”

“Done.”

“I mean it. I’ll eat dinner when I’m ready.”

“You got it,” Cam assures her. “Let’s go.”

He’s practiced his heart out. He’s ready for this. Sam’s declaration that she hasn’t played in a long time is comforting, too.

“Ready?” Cam asks.

“Ready,” Sam sighs.

They begin.

And then they end, within ten seconds of starting, because Sam’s big-eyed, bushy-tailed bunny beats the stuffing out of Cam’s with a dazzling flurry of punches that not only activates that energy beam thing, but knocks his rabbit clear across the stage and back again. He settles in a smoking heap in the center of the screen while Sam’s rabbit wiggles her nose triumphantly.

He’s half-joking when he asks her if she hacked the game, but when her cheeks flush, his mouth drops.

“You hacked the game?!”

“I didn’t hack it,” Sam insists. “I just… peeked at the programming code.” When Cam doesn’t respond, she adds, “To determine which moves are most effective against which bunnies.”

Cam groans.

“It’s pretty transparent when you take a look at it,” Sam continues, only a little bashfully. “The variations are subtle, but they’re actually-”

“Go away from me,” Cam says, throwing up his hands.

Sam gives him two firm pats on the shoulder and leaves him to his loss.

---

He stares at the screen in disbelief.

“You cheated.”

“I did no such thing!”

Cam rests his forehead in his hands. “You can’t just spam the same move over and over again. That’s cheating.”

“If it was cheating, wouldn’t the game have stopped me?”

“No, but-”

“There, you see?” Vala says with a huff. “I did nothing wrong.”

“No, listen to me.” Cam can really feel that headache now. He sets his controller down carefully. “You can’t just use the same exact move ten times in a row. It’s bad form.”

“Why does it matter how I won? I beat you fair and sphere.”

Once upon a time, Cam was a sane man, but now the rational parts of his brain slowly ooze out of his ears. “It’s fair and square,” he corrects through clenched teeth. “And no, nothing about that was fair.”

Vala looks at him, her lips pursed.

“Jealousy’s an ugly color on you, Cameron.”

Maybe he can just hide the Xbox before Thursday.

---

“Hey, Jackson. You play that fighting game of Teal’c’s?”

Daniel looks up from an old, tattered book. “The one with the bunnies?”

“That’s the one.”

He grimaces and returns to the dusty pages. “No.”

Cam counts that as a win.

---

“Are you ready, Colonel Mitchell?”

Oh, he’s ready. Ready and standing tall to face his fate, whatever that may be. If he’s going down, it’s going to be with the fight of the century.

Teal’c handles his Xbox with great care, something that makes Cam grateful he didn’t throw any controllers around in fits of frustration. It’s almost like watching a sacred ritual, and Teal’c has clearly done this enough that it’s practically become one: he wipes some dust from the top of the console with a soft cloth, turns the system on, then the TV, and hands a controller to Cam as he sits beside him.

Teal’c is silent, and it’s enough to freak Cam out just a little bit.

“This is one weird game you’ve got here,” he says. “I kind of thought we’d be playing some Madden.”

Teal’c smiles. “The rabbits’ unassuming faces mask their hidden ferocity. They are capable of killing despite their harmless appearances. Is this not a valuable lesson to remember, that one should never underestimate the strength of their opponents?”

That’s a startling amount of depth to attach to a game about maiming bunny rabbits. Cam doesn’t ask any more questions, though. He just holds his controller and waits.

“Are you aware,” Teal’c says eventually, “of the reason Colonel Carter delved into the game’s programming?”

Uh oh.

“No,” Cam responds hesitantly.

Teal’c’s smile grows. “She was infuriated by her inability to win against me.”

Shit.

Before Cam can do anything to stop him, Teal’c presses Start.

flash! crash! bang!

gingasaur — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:31:36 GMT

I'm having a bit of a situation (this Tumblr post may have tipped you off about it) where suddenly all I want to do is watch Power Rangers all day. Since Netflix still hasn't quite entered my life yet, I've done the next best thing: experiment with Super Sentai shows. And by experiment I mean watch random openings, cackle at their mind-blowing absurdity, and dive headfirst into the shallow end of the first show I manage to find subbed.

That show was Choujuu Sentai Liveman, hailing from the glorious golden year of 1988. Maybe in spite of the hysterically bad everything, I keep watching it out of unironic love. Maybe that's a possibility. I can't imagine why I would do such a thing, though. It's not like it's about an OT3 employing the power of burning courage, shouted attacks, and blood-forged friendship to save the Earth and avenge their dead. And why would I like a show about people coming together on rainbows of feelings to save the universe as a family team? That just sounds silly and nope I can't make this joke, I can't do it.

Anyway, I have a basket of emotions about terrible Japanese television that I have to dump all over the floor in picspam form (I haven't done a picspam like this since December 2010, and that's crazy.) Maybe you'd like to sort through them with me.

Get a load of this opening. You should listen to it, it's neat. But it will be in your head forever, like most Sentai openings (don't listen to Fiveman if you know what's good for you.)

When a show begins with the murder of butterflies, you know you're in for a treat. Actually, the butterflies are meant to represent the Liveman team's classmates who were shot to death by the bad guys in the first episode. It's... a complicated situation, I'm not going to to lie to you, especially because the bad guys ran onto a spaceship after they did it.

Well, at least two people in this picture look horrified.

BOOM, divide between friends. Or it's more like divide between heroes and smug, superior assholes who ran off to join a mysterious alien syndicate. I do not yet know why they sold their souls to the devil, but they make a lot of noise about wiping out humanity with their new and better half-alien bodies. Whatever makes you happy, I guess.

I just think it's relevant that this was subbed by a group calling themselves Grown Ups In Spandex.

I'm perpetually concerned for all the stunt people, to the extent that I throw silent but impassioned fits over their welfare. Here it looks like they're just careening off into nowhere and in episode 5, there's this crazy backflip over a speeding car and I'm like, what? That's not even remotely safe. Even for stunt people. I hope they got paid a lot.

There are some things about the opening that don't make a whole lot of sense. The moonwalking robot is actually a character; her name is Colon and she's just super despite being named after an unflattering body part. I want her to come to my house and be my friend, but maybe she can refrain from handing me things through the little storage space inside her breast.

This doofus is Yuusuke, and because he's the red one, that automatically makes him the leader. Pff, whatever. How this moron got into a place as prestigious as Academia Island, I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and you would definitely want him in your corner, but he tries so hard to be a cool hotblooded dude, and it all comes out in an endless stream of 8U 8U 8U.

Here's Joh, who might as well be Daniel himself. He likes puppies, food, and believing in the goodness of others. Unfortunately re: the goodness of others, he's gotten his heart stepped on pretty good already. I anticipate more pain and suffering for him as the series progresses.

And here's the one and only Megumi Misaki, sweet bike-riding angel. Like all other nations making TV, sometimes Japan is not as good to its lady characters as it could be, and Sentai shows are a little funny about how they group their women (why are they always the pink/yellow/white one?) So I had a few preconceived notions about ladies in Sentai, maybe, and Megumi SMASHED THEM ALL TO PIECES. She's smart, she's sassy, and she wears a huge blue suit jacket that puts Murphy Brown to shame. She charges into battle every time with a cool head and quick moves and is so totally cool I can hardly stand it. Without Megumi, those two idiots up there would be absolutely screwed. She's basically Japanese Sam Carter. My love rushes like a river.

Here are their mechs; hope you're ready for them to constantly look like the plastic toys they are.

Sentai shows have rules, and one of them is that everything explodes. No exceptions.

The bad guys hang out in a big black space station, which you'd think NASA would at least pick up on a radar. On this space station, Professor Bias (on the left, looks like David Bowie at certain angles) and his once-human cohorts plot how best to make Earth a paradise for evil geniuses. The underlings perform experiments all day, and the most promising one gets Professor Bias's approval and whatever monsters are needed to carry said experiment out. It's a essentially a middle school science fair.

As for the guy on the right, that's Dr. Obler, who was once a regular flesh and bones dude. Now he's flesh and bones and some other stuff, but I think he can go back and forth anytime he wants. He doesn't ever want to, though, because humans are stupid!!!

On the left, we have Dr. Mazenda, who has some sort of Lady Gaga metal peacock thing going on, and Dr. Kemp is on the right. He can turn himself into a big blue furry Gremlin with an eye in the center of his chest, and I hope we get to see him in that form in this episode because it's ridiculous.

They have huge armies of these robot guys with little plastic mohawks, and their names are escaping me. Mazenda has modified one to make it different.

Uh oh, it can disguise itself as a human! Mazenda also gives it what she thinks is a good name, bless her heart.

With Professor Bias's blessing, she and Dummyman travel to a base in a seaside cliff where what mostly happens is they talk about perfume.

The great thing about Mazenda is that she's fabulous and knows it.

Mazenda squirts Dummyman with her perfume (i m p o r t a n t) and calls upon the monster of the day, Densouzunou, to transport him to his destination so that he may appropriately wreck havoc.

In case you were baffled as to where Dummyman was going, the show helpfully supplies you with that information. The narrator is very thoughtful that way.

He drops an evil bar of soap right into Tokyo's gas lines, ruh roh.

The sinister soap begins spreading nasty fumes all over the city. aaahhh!

Meanwhile, the Livemen are enjoying some quality bro time together over lunch. Yuusuke and Joh ordered beef stew that still isn't ready, and they're being really whiny about it as Megumi eats the sensible and delicious curry she ordered.

Then she gets a lemon for dessert and Yuusuke tries to snag some, but Megumi is like, do not even mess with me, you guys are suckers for getting beef stew.

TOO BAD; she is better than you. She is better than all of us. She says that they never know when shit's going to go down, so they have to be ready for anything instead of waiting around for meals that take too long to prepare.

At that moment, they hear laughter in the kitchen, aaand Yuusuke's face. Might I remind you this guy is a genius who built his mech from scratch.

Everybody in the kitchen is falling over themselves laughing; that gross green gas was laughing gas. Because if your goal is to wipe out humans and you have an opportunity to kill hundreds to thousands of them in one go, what you're going to want to do is make them laugh.

Yuusuke and Joh get a little caught up in the kitchen antics. I WONDER WHO WILL SAVE THEM.

Honestly, does Megumi have to do everything around here? She holds her breath and shoves her giggling compatriots out of the kitchen.

And not only does she do that, she drags them back to their table, sits them down, and throws water in their faces.

That sobers 'em up real quick. I really enjoy how agitated Joh gets about everything all the time. He's so jumpy.

Megumi's all, "UGH YOU MORONS, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT," and she gets on her bike and races toward the gas company.

No sir, they are not. You have a monster running around your facility and you should probably be concerned about it.

Okay, and then he says this WHILE DUMMYMAN WALKS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. Sleuth alert! Where's this guy's raise?

But Megumi knows what's up because she (drumroll please) catches the scent of Mazenda's perfume!

So she marches up to Dummyman and smells him. Totally normal. Not at all weird. Dummyman insists it's "eau de cologne", by the way.

Megumi follows Dummyman, who stops to help an old woman hobbling up the stairs.

Hmmmm.

NOPE. Dummyman takes one look at Megumi starting to walk away before he dashes up the stairs, dragging poor grandma with him.

I DON'T THINK SO, CRIMINAL.

I don't know why this makes me laugh every time, but it does.

Looks like your goose is cooked!

Here's a cool thing that happens: Dummyman immediately moves to punch Megumi in the face, BUT.

But like I said, she is fierce and can take care of her own shit. She blocks him, punches him in the face, and sends him rolling down the stairs.

Blarg, you're not human! Dummyman hauls ass and Megumi tears after him.

And by Dummyman hauling ass, I mean he runs like he's trying to be an airplane.

Mazenda teleports in, and she's got a bone or five to pick with Megumi about messing up her experiment.

Megumi, on the other hand, is ready to kick more ass.

"How closely your work resembles a human," she says, and of course this is like the ultimate insult because of the doctor trio's bizarre hatred of mankind. "A Dummyman can never mimic the human heart!"

But that's not all!

sssss, gonna need some ice for that burn.

OH BITCH, IT IS ON NOW.

Megumi takes an impossible Olympic leap onto the platform above, where she transforms into, da da dadaaaa, the Liveman warrior Blue Dolphin!

Sentai ladies tend to use bows and arrows, I guess because they're ~ladies~, and it's all Megumi ever used up to this point. Imagine my extremely pleasant surprise when she went and pulled this sword out.

They have a pretty good fight, Megumi gets knocked around a bit (well, thrown over the railing and onto the path below, but who's keeping track,) and then she manages to get a solid shot in at Mazenda.

Yuusuke and Joh show up, and Mazenda calls forth a whole row of Dummymen.

To which their response is:

This is like that episode of Sailor Moon with Dai Heart, and when she calls up all the handsome boys who shout, "LET'S DANCING," the Sailor Senshi are like, "Oh, yeah, okay," even though it is BLAZINGLY CLEAR THAT DAI HEART CREATED THOSE MEN. Ughhh, you guysss. Remember how you're geniuses who attended a genius school? REMEMBER?

Megumi soars into action, literally, and kicks one Dummyman over. Then they all fall down like dominoes! 50 points!

Densouzunou appears, ready to join the party. Isn't he attractive? Don't you love his big droopy stoner eyes?

I just realized Mazenda isn't wearing her peacock thing. I guess it's too awkward for fighting.

She uncoils a whip while the Dummymen cleverly disguise themselves as a line of idiots with their arms out, and...

...she gets Megumi by the throat and yanks her over so hard, she flies toward Densouzunou, who...

...teleports them both away. NOOOOOO. Densouzunou also envelops Mazenda and the Dummymen, and then they're all gone.

YEAH, MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE. GOOD GOING, GUYS.

What a place for a commercial break!

Oh, that's not good. Things that are also not good: Mazenda's pile of bombs on the table. Her perfume is also there, which, lol.

More things that are not good: Mazenda's live video feed of Yuusuke and Joh coming to rescue Megumi, which has her very worried because of course they don't know they're walking into a trap. To be fair, though, I'm pretty sure that even if there were ten neon signs blinking "TRAP", those two would still have doubts.

Children's television.

Mazenda commands Densouzunou to teleport some bombs into our heroes' path, which he does. Eep! I sure hope they can avoid those explosions that are flaring up behind them as opposed to in front of them!

Colon keeps tabs on things back at the base, and truthfully, I don't even know how they have a base. How was it just built? And underwater, for that matter? There are a lot of things about the Sentai world I haven't quite puzzled out yet. Anyway, Colon says she's found the source of the bombs. Hooray!

Megumi is forced to watch as her dear friends disappear behind another explosion, and Mazenda continues to gloat while she orders Densouzunou to wrestle Megumi into a chair.

Dude, what? They're going to electrocute her to death? That is brutal! Children's television!!!

HEY IM MAZENDA AND IM SO GR9
I WRITE SICK BEATS AND I MAKE EM RHYME
PUT UR PAWS UP LADEEZ CUZ I AIN'T NO HACK
I WAS ~*~BORN THIS WAY~*~ AND IM ON THE RITE TRACK

hang on, da fuq is this

Two, uh, Dummymen drunkenly stagger in. "We are broken," they say.

Waaait a minute, those aren't Dummymen!

I realized just now that Yuusuke and Joh wore gigantic MOHAWKS on their heads to complete their Dummymen disguises. Like, thank you, that was extremely vindicating.

Megumi is overjoyed to see her bros. "You can't do such a thing to our Megumi-chan!" Joh declares. They tear off their disguises and all three of them shove Densouzunou away. Mazenda is shocked at their true identities, because those costumes weren't as transparent as an x-ray image or anything.

Yeah, man, this was when my little stone heart started to crumble at the edges. BABIES, let me hold you and squish you together in love and friendship.

FIIIGHT. They do this for a while and then run outside, Mazenda and the Dummymen following close behind. Our team finds themselves cornered at the edge, and things look dire!

UGHHHHHH.

You remember that part of I Love the 80's where Wil Wheaton talks about Voltron and how excited he always used to get as a kid when all the mechs combined to actually form Voltron? He was jumping in his chair squealing, "OH MY GOD THEY'RE GONNA TURN INTO VOLTRON!!" and that's basically me every time the watches come out. "OH MY GOD THEY'RE GONNA TURN INTO LIVEMAN!!"

YEEEEAAAAH

There's more fighting, and eventually they all go up against Densouzunou. They rush him by leaping toward him, but Densouzunou being a teleportation monster and everything, he just brings them to some dark place with bombs. I love these guys, but sometimes they just do not think things through.

They need to cripple Densouzunou's abilities, so Megumi pulls out her badass bow and gets the fuck to work.

I believe she's made her POINT... HA HA HA...

They escape, but Densouzunou is still alive. Time to pull out the big guns.

THIS IS MY FAVORITE WHEN THEY DO THIS. I don't know where this gun comes from or how they can just decide to pull it out of Tron verse, but I love it and its psychedelic kaleidoscope action.

Densouzunou explodes in a burst of flame. Yesss, so it's over, right?

WRONG. This jackass always waltzes out after they've finally defeated the monster, and do you know what he does? HE MAKES A HUGE VERSION OF THE MONSTER THEY JUST BEAT. RUDE.

Even ruder is how Giga Densouzunou shoots them all with eye beams, sending Megumi plunging into the sea. YIKES, she just cannot catch a break.

Yuusuke calls up Machine Buffalo, their mech delivery system. Which, again, how do they have such a thing? How does it just come out of the ocean at the drop of a hat to dump giant robots onto the battlefield? How do they even get into these mechs? Remember how on Power Rangers, they at least were shown leaping up into the Zords? That doesn't really happen here. Their weapons appear out of nowhere, and so do their mechs, and they just sort of... are in them, suddenly. Would it have killed them to thrown in a small teleport effect or something.

Colon launches Aqua Dolphin right away so it can ensconce Megumi in sweet dry oxygen. But there's some bad news trailing along behind it!

Megumi manages to get inside; I'm not even going to speculate how. And then she makes her vows and gets ready to rumble.

She makes short work of those little sharpedoes and heads back to the surface for the real battle.

oh boy oh boy oh boy. I think it's odd that out of all the things I'm baffled about, I've never once been concerned about them having a giant robot. Of course they would have one; why would they not? It's the most realistic thing happening here anyway.

oh my god I'm not even going to try to draw this out. They win, and it's awesome. What else is supposed to happen? It's only episode 4.

Everyone is reunited back at the base, and...

...Yuusuke and Joh finally get their beef stew! I know, you were really worried about that.

ugh that's moe. Where's my fic about Megumi and Colon making this food and being cute? Not on AO3, I guess.

BEEEEEF STEEEEEEEW

"So, let me get this straight here, Major: you're an officer in your home world's military, you're a scientist, an explorer, and apparently you're a pretty fair mechanic."

"And I make a mean soufflé."

BOOM, I'm gone.

COLON APPRECIATION LIFE. Like her face should be totally uncanny valley creepy, right? Except it's not, she's just so precious. If anything bad ever happens to her, I swear to God I will flip tables.

YEAH NO I'LL JUST BE OVER HERE WITH MY TEARS, IT'S OKAY. I'm sure I'll keep you apprised of my emotions as I continue watching the adventures of Japanese Jack, Sam, and Daniel and their robot friend. I'm sure they'll continue to poke and prod and punch at my heart as they protect us from Giga Phantoms and the bad guys' bad fashion statements. Too bad they can't protect my face from hot salty eye water.

fic: we won't need silk

gingasaur — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 06:31:16 GMT

Remember that year we were all surprised by me getting hyped up for Porn Battle? Look at me now! I'm a true and proper adult.

title: We Won't Need Silk
series: Stargate SG-1
pairing: Sam/Jack
rating: NC-17
word count: 2,038
notes: Written for Porn Battle XII; the prompt was 'bondage'. missparker was a very patient and soothing beta.

Jack hadn’t ever considered she might enjoy something like this, not after all the times they’d been captured and bound and beaten until they passed out. He wasn’t going to try to delve into the psychology of it now, though, because the words Sam murmured in his ear still echoed in his head: “I want you to tie me up.”

He certainly wasn’t a stranger to Sam’s desire to indulge in the rougher edges. There were plenty of nights where she wanted nothing less than him pushing her down and clamping his hands around her wrists, holding her still until she inevitably squirmed and arched up beneath him. In that regard, this wasn’t really a surprise, but Jack still felt like a guy running into a maze without a map.

By now, he thought he had a good grasp on what was and wasn’t too much for her, but he still assumed she’d lay out a whole mess of ground rules for him. Instead, she just shrugged and said, “It’s not about pain.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Feel free to reel in that dissertation.”

She laughed and lightly smacked his arm. “You don’t want to have free reign?” And then she turned her big eyes up toward him, smiled coyly, and suddenly free reign sounded pretty great.

The scarves were black and made of thick, tightly-woven cloth. They both knew she was strong enough to tear those little wispy kinds to shreds should she feel compelled to yank on them in the throes of passion (and he could only hope she would feel very compelled.) He wrapped one around each wrist, spreading her arms to loop the remaining cloth around the headboard posts. She watched him the entire time and when he tied the final knot, her eyelids had slipped half-closed.

Her chest rose and fell with a slow sigh.

“They good?” Jack asked, gesturing toward her bindings.

She tugged at them a little, then pulled hard enough that her muscles flexed. The cloth stayed in place.

She gave him a satisfied smile. “Looks good to me.” Nodding toward the remaining scarves in his hand, she shifted her legs and asked, “You gonna let those go to waste?”

He felt the corner of his mouth turn up. “They won’t go to waste.” He dropped the scarves off the side of the bed and just sat for a moment, taking in her appearance. The path of her outstretched arms was easy to follow, and he felt her eyes on him as his gaze traveled down her neck. He skipped ahead to her legs, long and golden in the lamplight, before he finally settled on the subtle rise and fall of her breasts.

And he thought this was going to be weird. He must have been out of his mind.

Slowly, he crawled to her, listening to her breaths come a little faster and a little shorter. He hovered above her and looked, really looked, at her wrists bound by those scarves. It was almost intoxicating, the thought that he had to be the one to move things forward.

Fingers brushed against her cheek, her lips parted as she breathed out and leaned into the touch, and that was all he needed. He lowered his head to kiss her, slow and soft and lingering. Her mouth opened under his, already warm, and she moaned softly into his mouth.

If he listened hard enough, he could hear the sound of cloth tightening against wood.

He cupped one breast, let his thumb brush over a stiff nipple. She shifted under him, trying to better angle herself and his hand, but there was only so far she could go. She smiled against his lips and he smiled against hers.

Exploring her skin suddenly felt very important, so he left her to put his mouth on the curve of her neck, to kiss her collarbone, to work his lips down her chest until he found her other breast. He tweaked one nipple with one hand while his teeth grazed the other, and there was an audible, “Oh,” before she shuddered beneath him.

His hand came to rest on her hip, and she, anticipating his next move, began to open her legs.

“Ah,” he said softly, touching her knee. “Don’t move.”

When he looked up at her, there was an almost wicked smile on her face.

“Are you that sure of yourself?” She pulled on her restraints and lifted her hips. With that predatory look and her deliberate teasing, Jack was struck, momentarily, by the idea that he might not have actually been the one in charge here.

He let his hand move across her stomach and down, and he watched her face as he found her curls. Watched her eyelids flutter shut as he ran a finger along wet heat, watched her pull her bottom lip through her teeth as he dipped inside, just a little. She breathed hard and thrust her hips forward, trying to find more of him to take in.

There was a tiny part of him that was tempted to drive her completely crazy, to draw this out until she breathlessly begged him, or to pull the classic get her all keyed up and then leave her on the bed gambit. But he wouldn’t give in to that yet. It’s not about pain. It wasn’t about pain, and she had spread herself out before him, all trust and no secrets. He wanted to make certain that all he gave her was pleasure.

He finally parted her legs, wrapping his arms around them to hold her open. Her head hit the pillows and he heard her breathe out a sigh, low and harsh. He teased a little at first to keep it interesting and as soon as his tongue touched her clit, her thighs clenched and she arched up off the bed. His hold on her was tight and he made it even tighter so he could give her exactly what she was looking for.

It didn’t take much; he felt like he’d only just started, but soon he felt and heard her coming, thighs shaking as she gave voice to her orgasm.

They were both still for a few moments as she came back down with shaky breaths. He half-expected to hear her do something like happily hum her satisfaction, but when he lifted his head, her face was flushed and her eyes were wild, completely focused on him. Her expression was difficult to decipher: it was every bit a challenge, daring him to continue, but there was something else. He had given her pleasure and he had given her tenderness, but now her breaths were erratic and her hands fidgeted in their bindings.

“That’s not all you’ve got, is it?” she asked, voice wavering slightly.

It wasn’t so much a challenge, he realized then, as it was her assurance that she trusted him. She was urging him to the darker areas because she knew, after so much time spent fighting and dying together, he would never use them to hurt her. Their trust had always been absolute.

“Nope,” he finally responded, and sat up.

The scarves came undone with ease and she watched him as he freed her, brain working to analyze every one of his movements, attempting to puzzle out Jack’s plans before he even thought them up. She moved her free hand toward him while he untied the second scarf, and his fingers closed around her wrist almost automatically, pushing her back down.

If that was a test, then he definitely passed, because her eyes brightened while he pinned her and her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

She lay still as he finished untying her.

Jack remembered the leftover scarves on the floor but then decided, on his way to grab them, that they wouldn’t need them. All he needed to do was turn her over onto her stomach, which he did, just roughly enough to get a gasp out of her.

“Hands behind your back.” His voice was low, fast approaching primal, as the impatience crept up on him. He was only human, after all, and there was only so long he could last under the influence of naked Carter. She obeyed his command without question and he held her forearms on top of each other to hastily tie them together.

After shoving some pillows out of the way, he hoisted her up and planted them both against the headboard – his back against it and her back against him. Her ragged breaths suddenly sounded very loud in the quiet of the room.

“Comfy?” he asked.

She shoved herself back into his chest. “How are you still capable of being a smartass right now?”

He smirked and hooked her legs over his knees, spreading her open for him. His hands snaked to her breasts and he admitted, “Hanging on by the barest of threads,” before he finally buried himself inside her.

“Oh, God,” she breathed, and everything after that was little grunts and gasps as Jack started to move his hips. Sam’s back arched and her hands balled into fists behind her as she tried to move, tried to meet his thrusts, but she couldn’t. There was no leverage for her at this angle; she was essentially relegated to twisting and squirming as he pumped into her. Judging from the way her voice ratcheted up a few octaves, she seemed to be well aware of the futility of her struggles.

His mouth sucked at her neck and her head instantly fell to the side, giving him better access. She moaned aloud when he squeezed her breasts, when he nipped at the edge of her jaw and the shell of her ear. He was so deep inside her and she was so hot, so wet, that all he could do was groan her name and hold on.

“Jack,” she whimpered, body shaking as she teetered on the edge. She gave a particularly ragged cry through clenched teeth and tried once more to get what she needed, but it was still impossible. It had to be him who gave it to her. The very thought made his head spin.

He buried his face in her neck again as his palm slid down her stomach, and when he brushed against her clit, she let him know with a hard gasp. His fingers rubbed tighter circles the more she tensed and he felt her losing it rapidly.

The sound she made when she came was just short of being a scream. He wasn’t far behind her, heat spiking through him as Sam bucked and shivered in his arms.

His brain was so out of order that he barely felt them easing them down to the pillows, so sated and boneless that Jack wondered if they would ever move again. It was a little frightening to know to that even off the battlefield, Sam was still a wellspring of crazy ideas that could kill him dead.

He was all right, however, with the idea of dying a very contented man.

It wasn’t until Sam nuzzled his shoulder with her head that he realized her arms were still bound. As soon as he slipped the cloth away from her skin, her hands went straight to the back of his head, pulling him in. Her kiss was deep and unhurried.

She cupped his face in her hands, running her thumbs in slow circles on his cheeks. The corners of her eyes crinkled with her drowsy smile.

“Maybe next time,” she murmured, “we do you.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Assuming I’d be able to survive the experience.”

She laughed. “You survived this, didn’t you?”

He certainly did. It was something to think about, anyway: the thought of him sprawled out under her, completely at her mercy as she moved above him. He couldn’t say it wasn’t a tempting image.

“Nah,” he decided, lowering his lips to her hair. “This is your thing.”

She curled into him, smiling. “It is.”

He rubbed her arm lightly while her hand slid up his back and her face pressed into his shoulder. He let his eyes close and just held her, wordlessly drifting toward sleep.

fic: wherever we go

gingasaur — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:06:08 GMT

title: Wherever We Go
series: Stargate SG-1
characters: Jonas, Vala
rating: PG
word count: ~2,700
notes: There I was, stalled like a semi on a hot desert road, scrambling to force more words out of my fingers for this sg1friendathon fic (the prompt was 89. Jonas, Vala. Rescue from the Ori.) It was due in two weeks, I hated what I had going, and opening Word was a painful exercise in self-flagellation. Then missparker (without whom this story would have been horse shit) descended from the heavens and said, "You should just write about Jonas and Vala going on a picnic." She was joking. And yet here we are.

Jonas is well enough now that he can get out of bed without assistance and without Dr. Lam’s exclamations of protest. (He knows Janet’s long dead, knows this because it was one of the last consistent communications he received from Earth, but it’s still jarring for him to wake up beside concrete walls and the steady beep-beep-beep of his heart and look into a stranger’s face.) He’s still sore, still limping a little when he pushes his leg too hard, but he’s finally strong enough to trade the gray ceiling and stale air conditioning for green grass and blue sky.

He doesn’t expect anyone to accompany him, but Vala bounds up to him on his way out the door with a grin on her face and a gleam in her eye.

“I’m always hearing about this Tau’ri ritual,” she says. “It’s called a ‘pik-nik’. Did you ever try it while you were here?”

---

She is an enigma, this Vala Mal Doran - someone he will never figure out by sitting back and reading old mission reports. Her hair was in pigtails the day he met her, pulled back in a ponytail the day after that. Today, as he follows her up a grassy knoll on the surface, she’s donned little hair clips that glitter in the sunlight.

Technically, Jonas has been on many picnics, as has Vala. A meal eaten outdoors, as on an excursion. He’s certainly had plenty of excursions with SG-1: plenty of venturing out into the stars, plenty of soaring to new worlds and eating by firelight, all the while drinking in the sheer cosmic wonder of the universe.

They feel distant now, those ghosts of memories floating just beyond his reach. He tries not to dwell on them. Sometimes, he even succeeds.

“Isn’t that from the commissary?” Jonas asks, because the big blue tablecloth folded and draped over Vala’s arm looks so familiar and only now has he managed to connect it to the place from which it’s come.

She just looks at him over her shoulder and shrugs.

“I told them I was borrowing it.” She keeps walking with no further explanation.

It’s not really much of a picnic when they get right down to it. Vala claims a flat, sunny spot looking out onto the horizon, and they spread out their “blanket” and their lunch. The food is far from Dr. Lam-approved – the margin of cake slices to sandwich halves seems rather unbalanced. At least there are a few bananas tucked into their armfuls of snacks.

Jonas is eager to ease himself down onto the ground; his leg’s killing him from the walk up, muscles burning under his skin, and he feels a little winded. Vala stands at the edge of the tablecloth, staring blankly.

“Now what?” she asks.

Jonas pauses to look at her. “‘Now what’ what?”

She blinks at him. “What do we do?”

He can never tell how much of this is just acting, how much of it is just playing around with him. “Eat, I’m pretty sure,” he tells her. “Unless you want the apples to get mushy.”

“It’s the grapes I’m worried about,” Vala says, snatching a bunch of them as she flops down onto the tablecloth.

It’s warm up here, but it’s not humid. It had been about the same on Langara before… well, before something. He remembers two things and two things only about his journey back to Earth: artificial gravity pulling at his body, and his head in Kianna’s lap, her fingers brushing against his cheek. Dr. Lam surmises he was just knocked out for most of it rather than it being some horrific, mind-numbing event from which his brain is trying to shield him. Jonas has to hope it’s the former; there is no more Kianna otherwise.

It should startle him that he can so effortlessly consider such a hideous scenario. It should, and yet. And yet he didn’t spend the past year desperately trying to put the crumbled pieces of a rebellion back together for nothing.

“I don’t know about that Weather Channel of yours,” Vala suddenly says, shoving him out of his head. “They seem to talk about everything but the weather. I’ve learned fifteen ways I can die in a natural disaster in the past three days alone.” She chews thoughtfully on an apple slice. “When you’re better, I’ll have to introduce you to SOAPnet.”

If there’s one thing he’s managed to learn about Vala, it’s that she’s able to initiate a staggering amount of meandering small talk (and he’s dealt with his fair share of politicians since he left Earth.) It’s not unpleasant, but he does find it bizarre. Most of the time he doesn’t even know what to say, but that doesn’t seem to matter to her. She’s always talking, regardless of how well he may or may not be listening.

It sparks an odd, aching nostalgia in him every once in a while.

“Are you finished with those grapes?” he asks her. Vala nods and moves to hand them over, but yanks them back at the last second.

“I could feed them to you, if you want.” She grins while her eyes twinkle suggestively. Subtlety does not seem to be her best skill.

“I think I can handle it,” Jonas replies, leaning over to pluck the bunch from her hands.

She frowns and leans on her elbow. “You and Daniel have an awful lot in common.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Vala sighs dramatically and helps herself to a forkful of cake.

---

After a while, Jonas has to lay back and just breathe. It’s not a lot of food that he’s eaten; he hasn’t managed to work himself back up to full meals in one sitting just yet. Being left to wither away on a dais with an entire city as witnesses does that to a person.

Vala continues to chatter away beside him. He has no idea what she’s talking about anymore – something about an Erica Kane, whom he has never met and doubts he ever will.

He almost doesn’t realize she’s addressing him again when he hears her ask, “What was it like?”

His brow furrows in confusion. “What?”

The look on her face her is unlike anything he’s seen from her thus far: it’s serious and it’s pensive, but there’s also a hint of openness and (maybe he’s seeing things) vulnerability.

Her voice is low when she speaks. “The Ori had you for quite a while.”

Jonas is so dumbstruck by this observation that he can only stare back at her. He feels his mouth start to open, but no words come out.

“I guess you like reading mission reports as much as I did,” he answers vacantly.

She rolls her eyes. “No, ugh, mission reports. Always so boring and sterile. No,” she repeats. “I was with the Ori for a while, too; a couple of times, actually, and they saw fit to impregnate me and burn me alive.”

Jonas knows his mouth is open now.

“Oh,” Vala adds upon seeing his slack-jawed expression. “Not in that order, obviously.”

He hasn’t struggled this hard for words since he came to Earth the first time. “And I thought my situation was bad,” he remarks, an attempt to keep his voice passive.

Something sparks alight in Vala’s eyes and she leans in closer. “What did they do to you?”

Jonas stalls completely, thrown off not only by Vala’s totally nonchalant description of her own ordeal, but by the intensity with which she holds his gaze.

He only met her three weeks ago. The wounds are still so fresh. But everything’s bubbling under the surface now and she’s still staring at him and he can only guess that she’s desperate for him to say something, to confirm that being aliens on this world is not the only connection they share.

“They, uh.” He swallows to keep himself from clearing his throat instead. He’s worked so hard to push this aside, to stop dreaming about it every single night, to be a soldier, and now- “They chained me to a bench in the middle of our most densely populated city and just… just left me there. For weeks.”

“Oh, they did that to me, too,” Vala says. She sits up and crosses her legs as she turns toward him. “Well, not for weeks, but the whole no food for three days thing was really uncomfortable.” She grimaces and scratches absently at her side.

Jonas lets the back of his head come to rest on the tablecloth and stares up at the sky. Watching the clouds is about all he can do at this point. Vala does the same, silently settling down beside him.

His mind races despite his best efforts, so many things he’d like to forget now shored up to burn at the forefront of his thoughts. He sees the Prior glaring at him with contempt as his staff pulses with blinding light, remembers hunger and thirst and unbelievable pain. The dread spikes in his stomach as he thinks of all the people milling about the city, trying to hold on to the fragile remnants of their daily lives and trying their hardest not to see his suffering. And he will never forget Dreylock’s quivering hands each morning as the Prior showed him what happens to those who take up arms against Origin.

“Sam thinks you don’t want to see her,” Vala says after a while.

Jonas shuts his eyes. Yes, that would be because he said horrible things to Sam, things like, “I don’t want your pity,” and, “We heard nothing from any of you,” and, the one he really regrets, the one that made Sam’s face turn the slightest shade of white, “I guess I’m no different to you than that Replicator we stranded in the time dilation field.”

He really doesn’t blame her for not coming back after that.

“Honestly, you’d have to be crazy to want to avoid seeing Samantha’s lovely face,” Vala continues. “And you, Mr. Quinn, do not strike me as crazy.”

She turns over onto her side, studying him again with that same intense gaze. He’s starting to feel a bit like a rodent caught in a feline’s sights, and whatever he's been struggling to hold on to falls out of place inside him.

“They left me,” he blurts out. His voice is hoarse and bitter and he feels incapable of stopping it. “They just let Langara fall.”

Concern flashes over Vala’s face while Jonas sits up. “We had nothing. We had nothing we could defend ourselves with. We were hanging on by our fingernails just trying to-” He has to take a breath; the sudden surge of energy into every limb makes him dizzy.

Vala sits up, too, and says, “They tried to contact you. They tried to contact you a lot, in fact, and I think they made some sort of high-up government official very angry with how much money and energy they put into it.” She then adds, rather defensively, “Not to mention your own government was far from forthcoming before they stopped responding completely.”

The Ori’s possession of the Stargate had been swift. There wouldn’t have been much of a window for the SGC to contact them, but still.

“They could have come back, somehow.” He levels an accusatory gaze at her, like she, the woman who hadn’t even touched the Earth until last year, could change what happened.

“They were very worried about you,” Vala answers, heat simmering around her words. “Still are! And you’d know that if you hadn’t driven them all away with your venom and self-pity!”

Jonas’s chest burns, and suddenly his crumbling restraint doesn’t seem so important to salvage. “I already lost my home once!”

His words catch up with him quickly. When he really hears what he’s just yelled, he feels an icy mix of horror and humiliation curl deep in his gut.

Even though he tries to look away, Vala doesn’t take her eyes off him. Her expression is not one of sadness or pity, but of real and harsh knowing, like she is painfully familiar with what he’s living.

He’s about to mutter an apology when Vala puts her hands on his shoulders, pulling him towards her so she can see his face.

“Do you honestly think you’re the only person in this place who’s lost their home?” she quietly asks. “You’re here now and you’re alive. And it’s thanks to your friends that you’re alive, because when you flopped out of that Stargate, you were half-dead and nobody knew whether you were going to make it or not.”

Jonas is struck by a fuzzy memory: his back cushioned by a soft mattress, wires and tubes all around him and in him, and someone by his side, squeezing his hand.

The chair by his bed had rarely been vacant.

“They can’t save everyone,” Vala continues. “Sam and Daniel and Teal’c, they can’t do it, because there are only so many miracles they can pull off in a day. And you know that.” She shakes him a little. “You know that because you’re one of them.”

He does know it. He does, because he’s lived through bloody battles and harbored guilt and second-guessed his actions, all under the bright blue Tau’ri sky. Because he still keeps his SG-1 patch in his jacket pocket to remind him, right above his heart.

“You’re here now,” Vala says again, “and they’ve given us a second chance to live.”

They’ve given us a second chance to live. The use of the word does not go unnoticed by either of them, and for a moment, Vala looks as if she’s going to edit it out of existence with a joke or a hasty subject change. But she doesn’t, and her hands eventually relax against his shoulders. She slips away to rest her back against the tablecloth again and Jonas quietly follows her lead.

Earth’s sky is as beautiful as he remembers it, Jonas realizes then. And he is the one who chose to leave it behind, not the other way around.

“How did I become this person?” he murmurs.

Without missing a beat, Vala answers, “You became that person to survive.” He can hear her smile when she adds, “And it worked.”

They watch a cluster of huge, puffy clouds amble by before they pack up their picnic and head back.

---

Jonas moves into guest quarters that night.

"Well, you came back from time with Vala in one piece," Dr. Lam tells him, smirking. "You're practically cleared for spaceflight at this point."

The room is almost identical to the one he’d inhabited four years ago. He inhales the clean, tidy smell, and his heartbeat is as steady as his mind is quiet.

Vala makes no reference to their time on the surface, having lapsed back into flirting and teasing and shamelessly stealing grapes from his lunch tray.

“You know,” she tells him one afternoon, eyeing him mischievously, “for a bookworm, you’re painfully attractive.”

He swats at her hand before she can steal any more of his food.

It takes him a few days to work up the guts to go to Sam’s lab. She’s in the middle of fiddling with some machine (just like always) when he gets there, and she stops what she’s doing and puts her tools aside as soon as she sees him.

He’s honestly not sure who goes to whom, but they end up somewhere between her desk and the doorway, arms locked around each other. He can feel her take in a breath against his chest and he whispers, “I’m sorry,” before she can.

Teal’c finally comes to see him again after that, and Daniel after him. They all tell him stories about Colonel O’Neill – General now, and that sounds surreal, and they all silently nod in agreement. He’s even getting to know Colonel Mitchell, and there are times he swears he sees himself in Cam’s bursts of energy.

Jonas has no idea when (or – he hates to say it – if) he may get the chance to go back home, but for now, he thinks it might just be all right to worry about that later. There’s a certain patch tucked firmly in his pocket, and both his worlds still turn.

fic: five times jack sees sam out of uniform

gingasaur — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 03:34:28 GMT

title: Five Times Jack Sees Sam Out Of Uniform
series: Stargate SG-1
pairing: Sam/Jack
rating: R, but not all of them are. arrr.
word count: 4,486
notes: mmm, delicious otp. I don't come up with the fancy five things titles; that's missparker's job. You can also read this on AO3 if you'd like.

1.

Jack doesn’t really do Halloween anymore. There’s the obvious reason why, but there aren’t a whole lot of kids in his neighborhood and what kids are around probably only know him as the weird old guy who sits on his roof. Or maybe just the weird guy. Regardless, he usually keeps the outside lights off and coasts through the night like any other.

It’s a bit of a surprise to him, then, when he hears the doorbell ring. What he finds when he opens the door is even more of a surprise.

“Trick or treat!”

The visor on Cassie’s helmet drops down over her face with a thunk. She pushes it out of the way and grins as Janet leans down and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“We’re not here for any candy, remember?” she chides, pointing at the nearly overflowing plastic pumpkin at Cassie’s side.

“I know,” Cassie replies. “I just wanted to say it.”

Cassie’s dressed head to toe in plastic medieval armor, which Jack thinks is awfully fitting. Janet’s donned a tall starry wizard’s hat and…

“Hope we’re not intruding, sir. Cassie really wanted to come over and wish you a happy Halloween.”

…and are those little green alien heads dangling atop Carter’s headband?

“Not intruding at all,” Jack responds with a grin.

He invites them all inside and Cassie wastes no time talking a mile a minute about her very first trick-or-treating adventure. Janet looks tired and so does Sam, but they’re happy.

Jack’s happy, too: happy that Cassie had such a good time with something so new to her and happy that they’re all here sharing this with him.

He lets Cassie dump her haul out all over the kitchen table, and they spend a good fifteen minutes going through her candy. Most of it is completely foreign to her, so he takes her through all the different names and is quick to point out the ones he likes. She listens with rapt attention and even lets him have one of her Butterfingers.

When she yawns and gives him a few drowsy blinks, he pats her on her armored head and lets Janet take her back to the car. Carter stays behind to help pack up the candy.

She’s very quiet, and out of the corner of his eye, he catches her glancing at him periodically.

“Carter?” he finally asks. “Something on your mind?”

She looks a little startled at being caught staring and her cheeks flush a bit.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, no, it’s nothing.”

But it’s clearly something and she continues to look a little embarrassed, so he patiently waits for her to relent.

“It’s just that…” She shakes her head, pops a few more pieces of candy into the pumpkin. The little aliens on her headband wobble around with the movement, and he hates to say it, but it’s weirdly distracting.

“She seems happy with Janet,” Sam says, “but sometimes I wonder if… I don’t know.”

She trails off into silence after that, and Jack gives her a few moments to find her words.

“I just didn’t think I’d be a very good mother,” she continues, voice soft, gaze averted. “And I still don’t, but after all we went through…”

She shakes her head again and focuses back on the candy. “I can’t believe I’m still worrying about this.” She chuckles softly. “She’s happy with Janet.”

They load the rest of the candy back up into the pumpkin, and when it’s all cleared from the table, Jack just puts a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re there for her when she needs you,” he tells her. “That’s enough.”

A few expressions pass over Carter’s face all at once. She finally settles on something really, truly grateful, maybe even a little misty-eyed.

“Thank you, sir,” she says, and already her voice sounds as if she’s been freed from a massive weight.

He smiles back and follows her to the front door.

“Hey, Carter.”

She turns to face him, and he reaches up, poking one of the little headband aliens. It bumps into the other one, making them both gently sway back and forth.

“Nice costume,” he says.

She laughs and reaches up herself to flick an alien with her finger. “I keep forgetting I’m wearing these.”

He opens the door for her, and as soon as she steps out, she looks over her shoulder.

“Good night, sir,” she says with a smile. “Happy Halloween.”

Happy Halloween indeed.

2.

They are so unbelievably screwed.

Daniel sucks in a breath through clenched teeth as another one of the gigantic hell bats descends upon him. There’s really no other way to describe them: huge fangs, piercing screeches, and a wingspan that would put the Spruce Goose to shame.

All right, maybe not that big. But Jack’s shooting blind and fangs sink into his flesh and he can smell blood, their blood, and he’d hate to think that after all they’ve been through, they’re going to meet their end here, getting torn apart by Batman’s demonic cousins.

And the worst part is, they’re already down by one.

“Where the hell is Carter?!” Jack yells over the screeching, taking a quick shot at a bat’s head. He can’t tell if he misses or not.

“She was behind us!” Teal’c yells back between hard swings with his staff weapon. “She is not here now!”

Well, yeah. She would never abandon them, especially not under the extremely imminent threat of death, so Jack hopes this doesn’t mean she’s already lying in a pool of blood behind a rock. He winces half at the thought, half at the teeth in his arm.

Long claws sink into his shoulder and he can’t help crying out, it hurts so much. It’s hard to see under the shadows of rapidly fading twilight, but he catches Teal’c’s knee buckling out of the corner of his eye and Daniel takes a few consecutive hits to the face that threaten to throw him completely off balance.

It’s too much. The three of them, they won’t last like this.

Just as Jack’s about to think this might really be it, there comes a high-pitched whine from atop the nearby plateau. The bats freeze in place. Shrieks turn into frantic chirps and they fly up to hover above them, transfixed by the noise and its accompanying blue light.

He sees it standing at the edge of the plateau: plates and plates of sleek black armor in the shape of a person. Tall metal legs, shining solid arms, and massive round shoulder pads as big as a human head, all illuminated by the crackling blue orb growing from the end of the right arm.

The orb keeps growing and so does the light, until they can finally make out short blond hair.

Carter’s arm shakes with the effort of holding the giant ball of energy just before she lets it fly. It slams into the flock of bats, dispersing them and sending them tumbling into dizzying loops. Distracted by this new threat, they zoom toward Carter, too fast for Jack to have a clear shot.

But Carter’s one step ahead of the bats, already charging up another blast, and it hits the bats with such force that they scream and flail and a few of them crash right into the side of the plateau. The remaining creatures beat a hasty retreat, wings flapping weakly as blue energy sizzles around their bodies.

Carter sprints down the rocky path, taking a leg-breaking jump onto the ground that the metal suit seems to absorb easily.

“Are you all right?” she asks them, but they’re all a little too dumbfounded to answer.

“They let you use the-” Daniel begins, but Sam cuts him off with a hard shake of her head.

“No.” She glances back toward the plateau. “And they’re not too happy about it.”

They can see wisps of black smoke and a faint orange glow, although it’s quickly becoming not so faint. There’s also an awful lot of yelling, and it sure isn’t the panicked kind.

She turns to Jack, eyes wide. “We really need to-”

“Run,” he finishes quickly. “Got it.”

Maybe they can worry about how to return the villagers’ sacred suit if they make it back home in one piece.

3.

Nudity isn’t a taboo on this world. These are people who have grown up with daily decontamination showers, so stripping down in front of a crowd is about the same as taking the dog for a walk.

If only the same could be said for SG-1.

The city officials take pity on them and lead them to the private showers, the ones that, as far as Daniel can decipher, are either reserved for dignitaries or the state bird. Jack really doesn’t care one way or the other; he just wants to get this over with and go home.

They head through some big doors and end up in a room with two little doors. The officials talk at the speed of light and Daniel struggles to keep up.

“Okay, well,” he says. “Apparently there’s an entryway inside where we’re supposed to, ah, disrobe. And…” His expression veers toward deer in the headlights. “…I’m pretty sure we have to be in there at the same-”

The officials turn him around, turn them all around, and usher them inside, two to each door. They’re pretty strong for scrawny politicians and there’s no time to protest, and because the universe really likes to screw around with him, it doesn’t take a genius to guess who Jack ends up standing beside in the entryway.

The door shuts and clicks behind them. Now it’s Carter’s turn to be the deer in the headlights.

“It’s locked,” she says, yanking the doorknob a little harder than necessary.

Jack peeks into the shower area and it’s a little cramped, like it wasn’t really built with two people in mind. At least it’s clean, so clean, in fact, that it shines and the walls are- …Well. The walls are a little reflective. A lot reflective. They’re going to be seeing every last bit of each other.

He bites back a curse and foregoes weighing their options because they don’t have any. It has to be done and it has to be done this way and they just have to deal with it.

When he turns around, Carter’s standing there like she’s ready for a mission: back straight, eyes hard, all business.

“It’s fine, sir,” she says, and then she turns around and he hears the sound of the zipper on her jacket.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since P3R-118 and they had the zatarc thing before that, and the universe truly is a grade-A bitch. But then, Jack’s not really sure he has the right to blame it on the universe, because the universe doesn’t create the dreams he still has of her leaning against him, soft and warm.

The floor is cold beneath his bare feet. They’re standing shoulder to shoulder as they step into the shower, so close that he can feel the heat radiating off her skin. He keeps his eyes focused on the reflection of his shins because if he looks anywhere else, he’ll get a full view of them both and he’s already gotten a glimpse of her neck, smattered with freckles and flushed pink.

They stand back to back as the water hits them. It’s hot and it stings and the edges of the mirrored walls cloud over with steam. There’s only one bar of soap and they keep having to pass it back and forth to each other, hands bumping against hands, fingers brushing against thighs.

After the water shuts off, they’re blasted with warm air for a few minutes and when that’s done, they’re completely dry. They stand very still. Jack hears the door click.

He’s about to make the first move when Carter just goes, leaving a rush of cool air against his back. He stays in the shower while she gets dressed and they’re both silent. Then the door opens and shuts and he makes sure that she’s gone before finally going to get his clothes.

Back outside, they all look fine, if slightly rumpled. Daniel thanks the officials as best he can and they all start the trek back towards the center of the city.

While they’re standing in front of the gate waiting for it to fire up, Jack steals a quick glance at Sam out of the corner of his eye. She looks fine, but stares straight ahead.

When he looks a little closer, he sees her fingertip tucked under the collar of her shirt, tracing a slow line along the chain of her dog tags.

4.

They don’t know where she is, and they haven’t known for 21 hours.

Jack and Daniel sit at the table while Teal’c waits by the door. They’re all tense and none of them meet each other’s gazes for too long lest they all get dragged down by their encroaching hopelessness.

They’d been welcomed to this world, but the welcome was short-lived. Never have they seen a planet so blatantly hostile toward the Goa’uld, which would normally be fantastic and a one-way ticket to Earth’s list of allies. The trouble is that they’ve never heard of the Tok’ra, nor have they ever seen anyone survive being a host.

It took one pass under the mandatory scanners for the prime minister to go apeshit and order Teal’c’s and Carter’s arrest.

There was yelling first, then thick white smoke suddenly billowing into the room from out of nowhere, and then came the hand on Jack’s shoulder and the woman’s voice that said, “Come with us. We will hide you.”

And they were hidden, in some rebel safe house in a skeezy part of town, except Carter never made it out of the smoke so it’s just the three of them, clueless and completely on edge.

“They will have taken her underground by now,” the woman had said to them, this shady mystery woman who never gave them a name. Jack doesn’t trust her when she says they’re all better off this way but they’re not exactly overflowing with options. “By this time,” she continued, “they have already begun to torture her.”

Jack could feel it: their collective twitch, their burning need to go get her instead of standing around talking about it, but the woman just gave them a dark grin, like she’d seen this dozens of times before.

“It is a labyrinth down there,” she’d told them. “You newcomers will never find her on your own.”

So they were here, alone in the safe house, sitting in the dark and waiting. God knows how much Jack hates waiting.

He leans back in his chair, toying with the idea of forcing some Power Bar into his stomach, and then the door opens. Teal’c steps back and the woman’s team comes into the room, the woman herself not far behind. She heads straight for Jack and pushes something into his palm. It looks like a computer chip, pathways and circuits glowing yellow in his hand, and it feels warm.

“It is a map,” the woman tells him. She reaches out, pushes it with her finger, and a little beam of light shoots out and blossoms into a golden holographic array of corridors and passageways. She pushes it again and it all collapses into itself in an instant. “Easy to activate, even easier to conceal. With that,” she says, gesturing toward the chip, “you will find her.”

“Not coming with us, I take it,” Jack says as he passes the chip to Daniel, who takes it without a word.

The woman chuckles. “After what it took to get you that?” She shakes her head. “Besides, you will be fine. The government continues to assume we common folk could never navigate the underground. It is not a well-guarded place.”

She doesn’t offer them much else as she sends them on their way, but they find an entrance pretty easily with help from the map and dive into the maze undetected.

The hallways are long and blackened, dimly lit by lamps hanging from the ceiling. Jack lets Daniel puzzle over the map while he and Teal’c zat any guards who get in their way. The woman had been right about the sloppy security, but it grows less and less benign as they get deeper inside.

He knows they’re close before Daniel says it; the three of them pinned down under heavy fire from guards big enough to be wrestlers is a great indication.

“She’s right around the corner!” Daniel yells over his shoulder before firing off another shot. “Third cell from the left!”

So close, and none of them can move. Getting an opening in this mess is no small task, but they’re relentless and soon the guards are running out of ammo and dropping like flies. It’s an opening if Jack’s ever seen one.

Teal’c nods at him and gives him a little bit of cover as he darts toward Carter’s cell. There’s a guard there that’s so persistent he has to take him out with two shots, but he makes it to the door without a scratch. The door is rusted but solid and it takes him a few seconds longer than he’d like to force it open.

The cell is empty except for Carter, passed out on her side in dirty rags that barely constitute as clothing. There’s a sizeable smear of blood on the floor nearby.

The weapons fire starts to die down outside and Jack finds no traps waiting for him. There’s a moment when he gets down on his good knee and sees her up close, so beaten and bruised, that he thinks for the shortest of seconds that she might not even move when he touches her.

He’s never been so glad to get kicked in the stomach (although his stomach begs to differ.)

“Carter!” He tries to still her as she thrashes. “Carter, it’s me! We’re here!”

She doesn’t stop until he cups her face in his hands, careful to avoid the dark bruise on her cheek. Her eyes are bloodshot and glossy and he’s not even sure she can see him with the way her gaze keeps slipping away from his face. She mumbles something around the cloth in her mouth and breathes hard.

“Okay,” he says, removing her gag. “You’re all right; just stay with me.” He puts a hand against her back to steady her, but she cries out and when he manages to turn her over, he finds a red, shredded mess. She clenches her teeth and shivers as he cuts the rope off her wrists.

“Cold,” she chokes out. She’s so pale and it’s clear they’re going to have to carry her out of here.

He pulls her against him as best he can as Daniel and Teal’c finally make it into the cell. They rush to Carter’s side, offering her warm hands and soothing words. She’s still too out of it to respond coherently, but her shivering is already subsiding.

Jack feels her breathing even out just before she reaches up to grab his sleeve, gripping it so hard her entire arm shakes.

5.

He likes the dress. It’s smooth and silky, a deep and vivid blue, and it hugs her body in all the right places.

Yeah. He likes the dress a lot.

She looks over her shoulder in the middle of fiddling with an earring.

“What?” she asks, smirking at him.

He smirks back. “Nothing,” he says, and turns on his heel. He thinks he’s being sly, but with the way her snickers follow him out of the bathroom, he guesses he’s bordering more on insufferable dork. That’s just fine with him; he’s discovered that he’ll eagerly do the stupidest shit just to hear her laugh.

It’s his birthday and he doesn’t usually do fancy dinners to mark the occasion (especially since he’s marked enough of them that the joy of party hats is long gone) but he wants great steak and smooth wine and Carter in a hip-hugging dress is always a plus.

If he’s going to be serious for a fraction of a second, though, what he really wants is for the two of them to have this one nice thing. One night where they go out and blend into some crowds together is the only gift he needs. It’s not that he wants them to be normal, it’s just that he could do with a little less stress. A little less of the Ori kicking their asses, a little less of Sam’s voice coming through tired and worn over the phone, and a little less of the dark circles under both their eyes.

One good night. One reminder of why they keep doing what they do. He keeps his fingers crossed.

When Sam finally emerges from the bathroom all polished and sparkling, linking her arm through his with no hesitation, he knows they’re going to be just fine.

---

Dinner is a rush of laughter and candlelight. They’ve eaten their weight in incredible steak and Jack settles back against his chair, slowly swirling the remaining wine around in his glass. Sam appears almost drowsy as she looks at him across the tiny flames.

Their waiter returns to clear their plates and deposits a small dessert menu between them. Jack thinks that’s pretty crazy, dessert after all that food, but Sam just plucks it from the table and starts reading. She always seems to have to room for cake, which is just one reason out of many that he’s totally crazy about her. Not that he keeps a mental list or anything.

“Chocolate raspberry torte,” she murmurs, glancing at him over the top of the menu. There’s a challenge in that gaze. It just wouldn’t be dessert with Sam Carter if it wasn’t somehow a contest.

“Well, when you put it like that.” He slips the menu out of her fingers and scans it himself. “Think they give any of this away for free on your birthday?”

She snorts. Right at that moment, the waiter comes back again, and Jack immediately asks him, “If I were to tell you that I’m another year older today, would it get us a free slice of this raspberry chocolate torte?”

The waiter stares back, and whether he’s baffled or amused, Jack can’t really tell. “I’m sorry, sir,” he says. “We don’t have any birthday specials at this establishment.”

Yes, even Jack’s been here enough to know full well that this is an establishment. Sam tries to be subtle about hiding her grin behind her fingers.

“Well, we’ll take a slice anyway,” Jack replies, folding his hands in front of him as Sam so utterly fails to hide her amusement.

The cake is a revelation, all lined in drizzle and chilly on his tongue. He gets into a fork duel with Sam only once, which he thinks is rather mature for both of them.

There comes a point where they split the final sliver of cake, and when Jack looks up at Sam, she’s pulling the fork out of her mouth in slow motion, eyes closed as she savors every last bit of chocolate raspberry bliss. She doesn’t notice him staring at first, and when she finally does, she has this moment where she looks from right to left, apparently baffled that he’d be mesmerized by her eating cake. But then she gets this impish glimmer in her eyes, and she leads the fork right back into her mouth, drawing it out at that same slow pace with her eyes locked right on him. She even licks her lips when she’s done.

“Very good cake,” she says as the corners of her mouth threaten to turn up, like she’s just realized she’s done this totally stereotypical romantic comedy thing and can’t believe she’s sunk so low.

It takes every ounce of self-control Jack has to not lean across the table and kiss her right there.

He has to admit he doesn’t really know how they make it back to his place, but Sam’s mouth tasting ever so slightly of raspberry in the car is the one thing that’s perfectly clear. Her dress ripples onto the carpet in his room while his suit falls away and they slide onto his bed with soft sighs. His hands smooth over her skin, her fingers run through his hair, and there’s no rush, no all-consuming need: just slow, simmering warmth that spreads to every corner of his body.

Sam eventually looks up at him with a smile so gradual and deliberate that his breath catches just long enough for her to place her hands against his chest and ease him onto his back. He hears himself groan as his head settles against the pillows and he watches her while she settles herself against his hips. His eyelids slide shut as her mouth descends on his neck, breath hot against his skin, and she cradles his head in her hands. Always supporting him, always centering him. Always keeping him safe.

He gasps when she finally sinks down onto him and his hands automatically move to her hips to steady her. She finds her balance easily, which never surprises him, and when she starts to rock against him he has to close his eyes again.

Somehow he manages to hold out through her grinding, through the heavy breaths and little sounds that slip out of her mouth, and when she tightens around him he exhales her name as the flood washes over him.

When he floats back down to Earth, he feels her lips against his, soft and gentle, and he’s grateful for the little wellspring of energy that allows him to kiss her in return. She slides down to settle her head against his chest and he feels her hand move up his arm, her fingers threading through his. He plays with her hair a little and listens to their breaths.

“Are you happy?” he asks her. He’s surprised by how quiet his voice sounds.

She doesn’t respond right away, but he can feel her thinking. She tenses slightly, her fingers twitching, and he’s pretty sure their thoughts are about the same: her bleeding out on P9C-882, Daniel’s face covered in Prior markings, Teal’c possessed by his bloody rampage of revenge.

Eventually, she relaxes and squeezes his hand.

“Yes.” Her voice sounds steady. “I’m happy.”

He squeezes back, lets his eyelids drift shut, and then he hears her say, “Are you?”

He opens his eyes. She’s not looking up at him, but he can see her staring at their hands.

“As a clam,” he answers.

She grins against him and laughs softly.

“Seafood tomorrow, then,” she teases.

He hums approvingly.

Their fingers stay linked even as they fall asleep.

fic: some days you're the hydrant (for real this time)

gingasaur — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 08:20:18 GMT

Remember how I said I wanted to put this on LJ, but LJ was being a nut at the time so it only went on AO3? It's bothering me now in an obsessive-compulsive kind of way. It's a sequence-breaker waiting to happen and if I don't just put it here, I'll go cuckoo.

title: Some Days You're The Hydrant
series: Stargate SG-1
rating: G
word count: ~10,200
notes: adventurepants's birthday was a pretty great birthday and I promised her our popsicle joke fic. "Because he was a hound dog"? I don't think so.

Sam shot a stern look at Daniel and Teal’c.

“Remember,” she warned. “Calm.”

Daniel’s eyes wandered. Teal’c raised an eyebrow. They weren’t going to be much help.

Turning back toward the event horizon, Sam let out a puff of air.

“Let’s get this over with,” she mumbled, and they all stepped through.

They didn’t bother strolling off the ramp; just moved away from the Stargate, listened to the wormhole disengage, and then waited. Sam tried not to wince as she watched General Hammond’s eyes scanning them from inside the control room. Then came that look of controlled alarm on his face, and he leaned into the microphone.

“SG-1,” he said, “where is Colonel O’Neill?”

And there it was. Sam breathed deep. Beside her, Daniel made a weird, slightly high-pitched noise under his breath that she was going to assume was concern instead of laughter. Teal’c, thankfully, said nothing and stayed very still on her left.

Right as she opened her mouth to speak, Sam saw movement out of the corner of her eye and froze. He was going to do it. He was going to do one of the measly two things she specifically asked him not to do. She and Daniel and Teal’c could only watch as he trotted out from behind them and planted himself directly in front of them.

He glanced over his shoulder, stared Sam straight in the eye, and huffed once. Oh, she was going to kill him.

General Hammond’s voice drifted down from the control room again. “Major Carter, what is that?”

She couldn’t help but wince this time. Daniel coughed.

The dog in front of them wagged his tail before barking loudly. There was the second thing she asked him not to do.

“That, sir,” she finally answered, “is Colonel O’Neill.”

He barked again. Sam shut her eyes.

---

A dog in the briefing room. It wasn’t like it was the strangest thing to ever happen in there, but he’d taken a seat beside her like it was totally normal, like there was nothing weird at all about Sam Carter sitting next to a border collie at the conference table.

Except everything was weird about it, and remembering it as she stood in the infirmary now was giving her a headache.

“So?” Sam asked. “How is he? Is he okay?”

Janet shrugged as she eyed an x-ray for the sixth time.

“As far as I can tell, he’s fine. All the tests came back clean.” She glanced over at the colonel, draped lazily over a pillow he’d pulled from the other end of the bed with his teeth. At least he looked comfortable. “And even without the DNA test,” Janet added with a smirk, “it’s not exactly hard to tell it’s him.”

The colonel’s tail twitched and his head came up, eyebrows furrowed as he stared, clearly miffed, at Janet. Maybe that was kind of funny. Maybe.

“So,” Janet said, ignoring him tossing her folder onto another bed. “What’s the plan?”

Sam sighed softly and rubbed lightly at her temples. “To think of a plan.” Going back to P3X-992 would just be a waste of time; they’d probably never find their new “friends” again. With their giggly little voices and their bright pink hair and their utterly incomprehensible language that even Daniel could barely make heads or tails of, they’d quickly proven to be some of the most annoying aliens they’d ever met. And Sam didn’t say that lightly, but God, they were really, truly annoying. And of course, the colonel hadn’t been shy about letting them know that, but they’d just giggled and squealed and jumped around like kindergarteners at recess. Sam still didn’t know whether or not their little good-bye gift to the colonel was meant to be a punishment or not. They probably didn’t have an angry bone in their gangly green bodies.

“Well,” Janet said, back straightened with the utmost confidence, “we’ll do our best to figure something out.”

“We will,” Sam replied. They always did.

They both turned to the colonel, now rolled over onto his back and pawing at the air in time with his swishing tail. He seemed blissfully unaware of his tongue poking out of his mouth.

Sam turned back to Janet and frowned. “We’d better.”

---

Getting to Sam’s lab should have been simple, “should have” being the operative words. It was truly astounding the number of professional Air Force officers reduced to gibbering teenagers at the sight of one energetic dog (and it’s not like they didn’t know it was Colonel O’Neill, meaning everyone from Reynolds to Siler was just messing with him.) The colonel, too, was practically possessed by the urge to stop and sniff everything. Sam tried to have sympathy for him, she really did, but after their seventh pause to allow the colonel to put his nose in some nondescript hallway corner, Sam pretty much dragged him the rest of the way.

She started running tests as soon as they made it inside. Exactly zero of them provided new information and only one nearly scorched his tail off. She thought that had to count for something, but judging from the way he would look at her and then slowly bring the charred tip of his tail into view, Colonel O’Neill didn’t share her opinion.

Despite the failures, two things did become clear during the course of the day: one, that not even Daniel’s morning dose of Benadryl could withstand two furry paws planted on his chest and a drooly tongue in his face, and two, that there was nowhere inside the base for a dog to relieve himself. No matter how hard they all tried, those stories about toilet-trained canines didn’t quite hold up in these admittedly unique circumstances, which was how SG-1 found themselves topside for the rest of the afternoon.

“Sam.”

She watched Daniel and the colonel’s bizarre, almost comical dance around each other. If the colonel so much as twitched in Daniel’s direction (which he did, frequently) Daniel’s whole body flinched and he jumped away.

“Sam,” Daniel said again, right on the cusp of another sneeze.

“He’s probably antsy, Daniel,” Sam told him. “I’m sure it’ll be good for him to get some of that energy out.” She could use some of that energy herself, really; she was already exhausted and it wasn’t even 1700.

“He’s gonna kill me!” Daniel exclaimed. “Why can’t you do this?”

Colonel O’Neill started hopping, all four paws leaving the ground in short jumps. Daniel took a good five steps in the opposite direction.

“O’Neill will not kill you, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c said. “He is a dog.” There was that slight deviation in his tone, the one that - accompanied by the subtle twitching of the corners of his mouth - meant he was secretly laughing his ass off.

Daniel threw his hands up in the air. “Dogs kill people every single day!”

The colonel took this as his cue to start barking and tear after Daniel, who bolted across the grass, yelping and swearing as the colonel gleefully darted around his legs.

“Daniel Jackson’s running speed has become quite impressive,” Teal’c remarked with a smile.

Sam sighed, a little louder than she’d meant to. The smile faded from Teal’c’s face and he shifted to look at her. There was an awkward moment where Sam thought that maybe she could just continue watching Daniel flail around and try to keep his balance, but Teal’c’s eyes on her couldn’t be ignored.

“I just feel like I should have done more,” she finally said. “Back on 992, I mean.”

She heard crunching grass as Teal’c shifted further. “The people of that planet vanished before our eyes with no sign they had ever been there,” he said. “There was nothing you could have done, nor was there anything you could have ordered Daniel Jackson or myself to do.”

He was right, of course, but that did nothing to assuage the hefty amount of uncertainty she felt about it.

“We should have stayed longer,” Sam continued. “Should have looked around more, should have…” She put a stop to the dangerous amount of “should have”s coming out of her mouth. Finally looking up at Teal’c, she smiled a little regretfully. “It just seems like I had us leave without really doing anything, and now he’s stuck like this.”

Somehow, the colonel managed to leap paws-first onto Daniel’s back and he toppled face down into the grass. The colonel barked triumphantly, running in a circle around a very peevish and slightly muddy Daniel.

“You do not believe we will find a way to reverse O’Neill’s transformation?” Teal’c asked, concerned.

“No, we will,” Sam replied. “We will.” They had to.

Teal’c seemed to consider this for a moment before turning back to the rather circus-esque scene before them.

“You succeeded in keeping the rest of us from harm,” he said softly. “There was nothing unwise about leaving as quickly as we did.”

Nothing unwise about it aside from their complete lack of a solution.

Daniel - disheveled and with glasses slightly askew - hobbled toward them. Colonel O’Neill was right on his heels, looking very pleased with himself. He barked his victory and settled onto his haunches.

Daniel scowled. “He can’t stay here, and I’m not taking him home.” His nose crinkled in the seconds before his next powerful sneeze.

All three of their gazes eventually settled on Sam. “What?” she asked, before realizing, “Oh. Right.” Teal’c couldn’t take him, seeing as how he lived on base, and Daniel’s allergies barred him from doing it even before his refusal. “Guess you’re coming home with me, sir,” she said to the colonel.

She really wasn’t sure about the noise he made then, but she was going to assume it was some form of gratitude.

---

The sun was setting when they finally piled into her car. Colonel O’Neill hopped into the passenger seat and reached out with his paw for the seatbelt until he evidently remembered he was a dog and wasn’t going to get that belt around him without fingers. He growled deeply.

“Should I put the window down for you?” Sam realized a beat too late how insensitive it sounded. Luckily, he just looked at her and nodded towards the front of the car. Drive, she imagined him saying, so she turned the key in the ignition without another word.

Most of the rush hour traffic had fizzled out, so the roads were clear enough for Sam to start getting antsy and crave speed and warm wind whipping at her hair. But if she was going to open her window, she should open his, too, and now that was way too awkward to even think about. She sighed, settled back into her seat, and the engine hummed as she pressed the accelerator down a little harder.

She never did buckle him in, so she stole a glance at him to see how he was doing. His paws were planted firmly on the seat, his nose inches away from the window (she could tell him not to leave greasy little nose prints, but that would be awkward, too.) He seemed entranced by the greens and grays and browns rushing by them and she wondered if they looked dull and desaturated to him now. Maybe he was just trying to save her from having to talk to him, or trying to save himself from having to listen when he couldn’t say anything in return.

She was about to fiddle with the air conditioning when she heard a small scraping sound and she glanced back at him. He pawed persistently at the control panel on the door, nails clicking against the hard plastic as he tried to… do something. It was a little hard to tell which button he was trying to push while attempting to keep her eyes on the road, but he eventually abandoned it and let out a short, deliberate ruff.

He stared at her and ruffed again, so she said, “What? Do we need to pull over?” Lord knew the last thing she wanted in this car was the fragrant aroma of dog pee.

Two woofs were his reply as he scraped anew at the mystery button.

“I can’t tell which one that is.”

He turned and bumped the top of his head against the window once, twice, three times.

“You do want the window down,” she guessed.

Three ruffs, each more energetic than the last. She chuckled a bit, relieved and encouraged by their successful communication, and hit the button on her side.

He put his paws up on the window frame – tentatively at first – and stuck out his snout, sniffing lightly at the air. It didn’t take long for him to scoot forward, inching his head out into the wind. Fur ruffling and ears flapping, he squinted against the air and licked his nose until his jaw fell open, and as he panted into the breeze, it almost looked like he was smiling.

Sam grinned, brought down her window, and inhaled the sweet rush of air.

---

In a way, it was like he was here for team night: he trotted down the hallway and into the kitchen, she tossed her keys onto the counter, and then she looked down to see him sniffing things again. Team night this wasn’t.

“Just don’t mark any territory,” she told him, grimacing. His ears shot up and he gave her the most affronted, wide-eyed look she’d seen from him yet. “Well, we don’t know how much control you have over…” She gestured hopelessly as she struggled for words. “I don’t know. Random dog compulsions.”

The colonel turned back to the side of the couch he’d so eagerly shoved his nose into and slowly, slowly backed away from it. He shook his head as if trying to work himself out of a daze, which, all things considered, he probably was. That was weird to think about. On so very many levels.

“You hungry?” Sam asked, a deliberate change of subject. The colonel’s ears shot up again and he closed the distance between them awfully fast, so she was going to take that as a “yes.”

Except, she looked in the fridge and immediately realized, “Oh. But. You can’t eat any of this stuff.”

His ears fell and he grunted, actually tilting his head to the side in confusion.

“Well, come on, all the crap you eat? You’d die from that now.”

He grunted again, although it sounded a lot more like a growl this time.

“Okay, you can still get away with chicken and beef, I’m sure, but I’m gonna go grab some dog food.” Sam snatched up her keys and the sound she heard behind her was nothing short of a snarl from the fiery depths of hell. He capped it off with one loud, deep bark.

She whirled around and the look she gave him made him blink and straighten, at least.

“First of all, sir, please don’t snarl at me. Second of all, we have no idea how your body will react to anything now. Dog food is the safest bet.”

He opened his mouth, but she stopped him with another, even stronger, “Sir.” He deflated, and she sighed. “Please. Just… don’t touch anything. I’ll be back.”

Even though she drove to the nearest supermarket at speeds that broke a few laws of nature, not to mention the speed limit, she figured she could breathe easy; there wasn’t really any food for him to get into - and he would get into it, no matter what she told him, because this was the same man who did nothing but cheat on easy crossword puzzles. However, a few recent all-nighters on base meant she hadn’t stocked the pantry in a while and there wasn’t any chocolate lying around anywhere, so she gave herself some time to calmly sort through the swarm of choices. There were certainly a lot of choices. Dry, wet, Iams, Purina and everything in between; it had never been this bad buying for Schrodinger.

It was halfway through her decision between chicken in gravy or turkey and rice that she remembered the brown bag on the counter, tucked into the corner near the fridge. The brown bag full of four raspberry bars, ten peanut butter cookies, and one banana nut muffin: all the treats Cassie talked her into buying at her school’s bake sale last weekend.

All the treats that were in grave, imminent danger.

Sam grabbed a couple of cans, barely taking the time to check that she was actually picking up dog food, and bolted back home.

She could already see it when she walked in the door: a bit of crumpled plastic near one of the counter chairs. That could mean anything, she insisted, anything at all. Maybe she’d dropped something on her way out the door. Maybe the colonel found it and played around with it in a fit of boredom. Maybe-

She stopped when she saw the crumbs, the brown shreds of paper bag, the little smears of red on the floor. There was a trail. Dear God, there was a trail. As she slowly followed it around the island, the volume of crumbs and streaks increased, varying in size and color and sending any hope she may have harbored about this situation crashing to the pit of her stomach.

She found the muffin at the division between the kitchen and the den. He hadn’t liked the muffin, apparently, since it remained mostly intact aside from the large chunk missing from its top. He’d certainly enjoyed the cookies, though.

A fuzzy black tail poked out from behind the couch. She wet her lips and took a deep breath.

“I see you helped yourself to some snacks, sir.”

He looked absolutely pitiful, sprawled out on his side between the couch and the coffee table. He barely twitched at the sound of her voice and whined pathetically in short little bursts.

She placed her hands on her hips. “You couldn’t hit a button to put down your window, but you found a way to tear open that bag?”

He whined louder. She resisted rolling her eyes and moved to sit on the couch, but stopped when his whines became a little… stranger. Deeper. Like he was groaning, like he was about to-

“Oh, God. Get up,” she said. “Get up, sir; don’t do this all over the carpet, please.”

The colonel staggered to his feet and his head did a hideous lurching thing and holy crap, she needed to get him out of the house right now. She made a beeline for the door to the backyard and opened it, and he wobbled toward her on shaky legs and she hoped and prayed that she wasn’t going to have to carry him the rest of the way out.

He just barely made it onto the grass when his little feast returned to the world from whence it came. Sam sighed with relief and cringed simultaneously.

She gave him a few minutes, trying not to concentrate on the sound of him retching all over the backyard. When it seemed to die down and the only things she could hear were the rustling of leaves and the tweeting of birds, she carefully stepped outside.

He was lying on his stomach near the fence at the back of the yard. Already he looked a little healthier, although his breathing was hard and he still let out the occasional low whine. She gingerly sat down next to him and he watched her, eyes sharp, like he expected her to scold him. She couldn’t say she wasn’t tempted.

Instead, Sam just quietly sighed and reached out, hand hovering over him for a few moments before she gave him a few light pats.

“Nnnf,” he said, and she began to rub his back. His eyelids fluttered shut and he exhaled as if a detonator just stopped ticking.

“Bet that dog food’s sounding better and better,” Sam said.

“Nnnnnnf,” the colonel replied, rolling over onto his side.

---

There wasn’t anything for him to do here.

Sam had settled down with some innocuous paperwork while the colonel continued to wander around the house, but it didn’t take long for him to come back to the couch and fire off a short groan. His tail drooped, his head was low, and his pent-up frustration was blazingly clear.

Sam dropped her notes onto the coffee table. “Do you want to go anywhere?” she offered.

He made that same humdrum sound and shook his head.

“Want to read some old reports?” She gestured toward the papers on the table, and he shook his head emphatically at that.

Before she could make another suggestion, he went up to the table and eyed the television remotes. He pushed against one with his nose for a bit, clearly struggling with it, but he kept it up until he managed to angle his head so he could clamp his teeth down onto the plastic.

He came back around to the couch, the remote held firmly in his mouth, and gave Sam an expectant look as he dumped it into her lap, slobber and all.

She carefully plucked the dry end of the remote off of her jeans.

“Okay,” she said. “You could have just… pointed to it.” She wiped the drool away with her sleeve.

He hopped up onto the other side of the couch, settling in and kneading the cushions a little as Sam flipped through some channels. She came across a hockey game eventually, and Colonel O’Neill was quite vocal about his desire to watch it, so she left it on for him and took her papers to the kitchen.

At first she thought something was wrong, seriously wrong, what with the horrifically pained growls and moans coming out of his mouth. The periodic audience cheering and the droning of the buzzer were masked only by the colonel’s deathly howls, and when she darted back to the couch, she found him lying down with his paws over his eyes.

It wasn’t until she glanced at the TV and saw the very wide point margin that she finally understood.

“Not going so well, I take it,” she said.

His bizarre, drawn-out, “Aaaroooof,” almost made her laugh right there.

She left him alone for the rest of the game and when the final buzzer went off (accompanied, of course, by one last miserable groan,) Sam returned to the couch. The colonel was on his back now, tongue half-heartedly flopping out of his mouth while he sighed dramatically. Holding back a snort of laughter was impossible.

It felt late, but that probably spoke more to how tired she was than to the actual time. After turning the TV off and depositing the remote back into its usual spot, Sam let her head flop against the back of the couch and shut her eyes.

Just before she could mentally unload the semi truck of worry she’d lugged home with her, she heard the colonel shifting and then, suddenly, there was a hint of weight on her thigh. Looking down, she found his head in her lap and big puppy eyes staring back at her. Weird, funny, then straight back to weird.

“Wow,” she said, immediately wishing she could take it back.

His breath tickled the back of her hand as he huffed dejectedly.

He was tired, too; she could see that now, and he averted his gaze, staring ahead at a pillow as he huffed again. His ear was twitching, she noticed, and that was a little odd.

“Are you all right, sir?” she asked. The twitching increased to more of a flapping, and Sam stilled it with her fingers.

“Sir?” she asked again.

He was angling his head now, moving it just enough so that her fingertips rubbed against his ear, and then he subtly shifted to get her nails.

She frowned. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

He stopped. His head came up and he stared at her again with those big eyes.

“I am not going to scratch behind your ears,” Sam declared. “No way.”

He whimpered, a decidedly grumpy sound. He laid his head back down, huffed for a third time, and then had the gall to edge his head a little closer to her hands.

She drew in a breath, held it for a moment, and let her sigh be as long and inconvenienced as possible. “Does it really itch?”

Again with the eyes. Anyone else would find this insulting.

She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and surrendered to this utterly pathetic display of blatant begging. “Stay still,” she told him, and he settled in with a pleased grunt as she began to lightly scratch behind his right ear.

“You’re enjoying being a dog, aren’t you?” She scratched a little harder. “You’re actually enjoying it.”

He licked his nose. How very shameless of him.

She scratched and scratched and he lay there, languid and lazy, as she fell into a rather comforting rhythm with it. It seemed to calm him further until his leg twitched and his tail floated down like a feather to the cushion and eventually, he wasn’t moving at all.

He wasn’t moving, and he’d actually fallen asleep. Incredible.

“Well, then, sir,” Sam whispered. “If you don’t mind…” She carefully lifted his head enough for her to slip out from under him and then smoothly deposited him back onto the couch without a sound. He didn’t stir, just continued to breathe heavily and evenly, and she took the blanket from the back of the couch.

As she draped it over him, she murmured, “It won’t be like this forever,” and hoped that she was right.

---

The first time he woke her up, she had no idea what was going on and groped in the darkness for her gun until those ears and that tail finally came into focus.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, and the colonel replied with a whine so high-pitched it sounded like an alarm. It may as well have been an alarm, since he was teetering back and forth and fidgeting like a little boy who really needed to go to the-

She swore under her breath and threw off the covers.

Sam opened the backyard door and he scampered out, no hesitation. Not that she really blamed him. It started to settle in then, the sense of how truly aggravating and unsettling this must be for a man who thrived on being in control. She quietly leaned against the door frame as she waited for him.

He plunked himself in the middle of the yard and looked at her over his shoulder. She stared back at him.

He barked suddenly, low and growly and a little bit indignant.

Sam jumped as she realized she was standing there watching him, watching him try to pee, and she swore under her breath a few more times as she quickly apologized and turned around.

She ran a hand over her face and tried not to look at the clock.

The second time he woke her up, she groaned openly and muttered, “Again?”

He just whined, and off to the backyard they went. She remembered to turn around this time.

The third time, she let him out and then immediately rummaged through some kitchen drawers and a few containers in the garage. When he strolled back inside and found her, she already had a wrench in her mouth and some string looped around her wrist.

“We won’t have to do this again,” she said, eyes bright with swirling ideas and running calculations.

He tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. She got to work.

It only took her 20 minutes to rig together a pulley system that would allow him to open the door on his own. A little weight here, some string there, and they hopefully had a foolproof solution to their problem.

“Try it,” she said.

He did, and the door opened and closed easily. They both breathed out in unison.

“I’m going back to bed,” Sam said, and the colonel wandered back to the couch with an acknowledging woof.

As she approached the end of the kitchen, the colonel barked once, and she swiveled back around. He had his paws up on the back of the couch, tail wagging as he looked at her. He ruffed softly two times.

The way he did it, there was a small “oo” sound at the end of the second ruff. It almost, almost sounded like he said, “Thank you.”

Sam smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said, and turned off the lights. “Good night, sir.”

She waited until the sounds of him settling back down onto the couch subsided before she left.

---

“You look like hell.”

Had Daniel neglected to push a steaming cup of coffee toward her while he said that, Sam might have punched him. Hard. But the coffee smelled lovely and her irritation melted at the sight of Daniel’s soft, supporting smile.

“Long night,” Sam replied, bringing the cup to her lips and inhaling the scent of pure, powerful caffeine. “Have you and Teal’c found anything?”

Daniel looked down and that told her all she needed to know. “Nope,” he confirmed, “and before you ask, we still haven’t heard back from Thor yet, either.”

Sam nodded and set the coffee down. They all knew trying to get in touch with Thor would be a long shot right now, but she was really starting to hope for an answer from him, if only because she wasn’t finding any herself.

“How’s he doing?” Daniel motioned toward the colonel, who had picked the seats of two rolling chairs locked in place next to each other as his lounging spot of choice today.

Sam frowned. “Don’t talk about him like he’s not here.”

Daniel’s mouth fell open slightly. “What?” He shrugged, affronted. “I’m just- It’s not like he can-”

He quickly relented, pursed his lips together, and faced the colonel’s direction. “How you doing, Jack?”

“Rrrrnf.” He didn’t even lift his head to look at him.

Daniel turned back to Sam and shrugged.

“He’s bored,” she said.

“Ah, don’t talk about him like he’s not here,” Daniel teased. Sam smacked him lightly on the arm.

“So,” Daniel began as Sam fixed her attention on her laptop again. She’d been staring at the same graphs and diagrams and page-long calculations for hours and it was all starting to blur.

She pushed off and out of her chair without preamble, lightly grabbing Daniel’s sleeve. “Come on,” she said, suddenly seized by the urge to just… not be here. To not be getting headaches from staring at problems that weren’t coughing up solutions, to not be putting the colonel through tedious tests she already suspected wouldn’t succeed.

Daniel didn’t question his suddenly being dragged from the room, just said, “Oh,” and went with it. Behind them, Colonel O’Neill grumbled what sounded like a question.

“We’ll be right back, sir,” Sam told him, and Daniel snickered. “What?”

Daniel shook his head. “There’s just something really goofy about you calling a dog ‘sir’.”

The colonel, still draped across the chairs, barked sharply and growled while Sam glared daggers. Daniel at least had the decency to clear his throat.

Sam didn’t stop walking when they left the lab, just kept going and going until they reached her quarters. She very nearly shoved Daniel inside and closed the door, leaning against it and exhaling.

“Sam?” The concern was already clear in Daniel’s voice, the beginnings of fear evident on his face. “What happened? Is there something wrong with him?”

“No, no, he’s fine.” Sam sighed again, then laughed and ran a hand through her hair. “I just don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” Daniel said with a smile, and it was contagious.

“It’s just that there’s no data to go on,” Sam continued, feeling her smile waver already. “We have nothing, Daniel. We have nothing and I’m running out of things to try and he hates having to sit through every single test, he hates it.”

“He’d hate it no matter what,” Daniel said. “He’s Jack.”

That much was absolutely certain. Sam allowed herself a calming breath.

“I really want to get this figured out,” she said.

“Me, too,” Daniel replied, entirely serious.

The built-up tension seeped out of her shoulders slowly, not leaving completely, but lessening at the very least.

“Sam,” Daniel said gently. She looked up, and he was smiling softly again. “It’s only day two. Give yourself a break.”

She chuckled. “Because I’ve always been good at that.”

“Eh,” Daniel said mid-shrug. “We’ll keep working on it.”

Sam ducked her head and smiled wider. Just as she was about to turn around, there were two firm knocks at the door, which could only mean…

“Major Carter,” Teal’c said after she’d opened the door. “Daniel Jackson.” Colonel O’Neill stood by his feet and announced his presence with a small ruff. In Teal’c’s hands was a smattering of what appeared to be brightly-colored and oddly-shaped plastic toys. He took one in his hand and squeezed it, causing it to emit a high-pitched squeal that made the colonel’s ears jerk.

“Doctor Fraiser believes these will prove beneficial for O’Neill,” Teal’c stated. He paused, contemplating the polka-dotted ball in his hand. “Although I suspect she simply wants to watch him chase the ‘squeaky ball’.”

The colonel ruffed twice, eyebrows furrowed in a grumpy glare. Sam and Daniel both couldn’t help snickering at that and grinned at each other.

“Well, then,” Sam said to all three of them. “Shall we?”

The colonel’s three woofs accompanied them down the hall.

---

They fell into routines quickly: tests in the morning and right after lunch, topside “adventures” in the afternoon (and they were adventures: the colonel’s tendency to tackle Daniel to the ground over and over again made sure of that,) and then back to Sam’s house at night.

She insisted on keeping him on the dog food even though she knew he was going to the commissary to get some real chow. He’d stroll out of the lab around noon and return about half an hour later licking his chops. It was really quite brazen of him and he made no attempt to hide it. He probably didn’t even have to beg, either; she entertained visions of him waiting in line with everyone else and scoring a few hot dogs for his trouble, and staring up at Walter until he got freaked out enough to pass down little pieces of pie.

The backyard door pulley worked well and they both slept better for it. The colonel also seemed to be comfortable on the couch and took to dragging the blanket over himself as much as he could before settling down and dozing off. Sam would adjust it for him a bit before she went to bed and in the morning, her alarm would go off and the colonel would be right there, ready and willing to start another day without complaint.

Sam ran out of tests to perform in the middle of day four. It was a rather abrupt realization and her face paled as it occurred to her that she and the rest of the science team had nothing more to try.

The colonel noticed, and a long moment went by where they did nothing except stare at each other. He eventually put his head back down and looked away, and she wasn’t sure what that meant.

Daniel said, “We’ll try contacting Thor again,” when Sam told him, and Teal’c just put a hand on her shoulder.

“There is still time,” he said, and she nodded in return.

Colonel O’Neill was silent on the ride home and so was Sam, and when they walked in the door, she turned on the TV and left him alone for most of the night. When she put out his usual serving of dog food, he just sniffed it once, silently ate it, and returned to the couch.

Sam slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning and getting up for water and finding notepads to jot down the occasional farfetched idea. Somewhere in the middle of all that, she managed to conk out for a few hours and when she awoke - long before sunrise - she heard something that sounded like a pillow being fluffed, along with a small sigh.

She found the colonel curled up on both of the couch pillows at the foot of her bed. He stopped mid-fidget and looked up at her.

Something caught in her chest, aching and just a little raw.

“We’ll fix this,” she said.

She wanted to promise it, she really did, but they both knew better than to make promises.

---

It wasn’t simple anxiety that plagued her anymore, not just a strained eagerness to find the missing piece to the puzzle so they could all move on with their lives. It was more like fear now, sharp and cold and ever-present. She’d become highly aware of a little black marble of doubt rolling around in the pit of her stomach, telling her to hurry up, mocking her, becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Getting called to General Hammond’s office wasn’t making it roll around any less.

“How’s it coming, Major?”

She’d seen the look on his face dozens of times before: quiet, ever-so-slightly detached, already resigned to words he didn’t want to say.

She didn’t mean to hesitate, but it happened anyway. “We, um. We’re still working.” It felt flat and useless and did nothing to take that resigned expression off the general’s face.

Hammond nodded slowly. Sam straightened, watching him not look at her, watching the wheels turning in his head.

She knew what was coming. She knew.

“Major,” he finally said, “you know what I’m about to say doesn’t come lightly.”

Sam nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“It’s been almost six days without any signs of improvement.”

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been counting to the minute, to the second. “Yes, sir,” she said again.

Hammond exhaled slowly and met her eyes. “I trust you’re thinking about a replacement.”

She was thinking about it: thinking about how much she didn’t want to have to pick one. “Yes, sir.” She thought she sounded like a machine by now, just parroting the same programmed answer.

“It’s just that with the Replicators running around, and now Anubis, not to mention the rest of the Goa’uld, I need every team functioning at peak efficiency.”

“I understand,” Sam said.

Hammond unclasped his hands from across his stomach and sat forward. “There’s no rule that says an SG team has to have four people. If you feel ready to take command, I’ll have no trouble authorizing it.”

This was never, ever the way she wanted to be in command of anything.

The general’s gaze softened. “I want Colonel O’Neill back to normal just as much as you do.”

Of that she had no doubt.

“I’ll give you as much time as I possibly can on this.” Sam had no doubt about that, either, but it wasn’t easing the tight squeeze in her chest. “Dismissed.”

She thanked him and left, and immediately decided to grab Daniel and Teal’c early.

Their time topside went too quickly, the sun zooming through the sky as if to spite her. Teal’c stood with her, both of them watching Colonel O’Neill relish his almost carefree pursuit of Daniel, and Sam said nothing, just watched them and toyed with fleeting thoughts about what this might be like if it were permanent.

By the time she and the colonel made it home, she was so nauseous that she could barely look at her dinner, let alone eat it. She rested her chin against her hand and absentmindedly fed little pieces of pasta to the colonel under the table.

The fact that she fed him real food was a dead giveaway, and he stared at her and didn’t stop staring until she looked at him. He held his head a little higher tonight and his tail wagged less, and she had a feeling he knew, somehow.

“I’m not giving up,” she told him.

He looked back at her like he knew that, too.

---

She woke up gasping for breath that night, startled into consciousness by nightmares that hadn’t haunted her for months. It took her a little longer than it usually did to remember she was fine, that Jolinar didn’t live here anymore, and she ran a hand over her face to try to even out her shaking breaths.

Her blood buzzed in her veins, still high from the rush of putting out her palm and forcing out the power to rip men in half. She shut her eyes against the memory - her memory, not Jolinar’s. Her stomach flipped and she turned over.

She was startled to find Colonel O’Neill right there near the edge of her bed, far enough away to provide some respectable distance, but still close enough that she could see his eyes, shining in the little streaks of moonlight coming through the blinds.

“Did I wake you up?” His ears stood at attention; she must have made quite the racket for his newly sensitive hearing. “Sorry,” she murmured.

He made a sound, a cross between a grunt and a whimper, and stepped a little closer.

“It’s okay,” Sam said. “Go back to sleep.” It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d seen her awaken from a nightmare. But then, it was different in a tent off-world.

The colonel quietly continued to stare at her. She shifted and let her hand hang over the side of the bed.

“Jolinar,” she finally admitted. “Sometimes I still…” She licked her lips, trying to form words when she knew full well there were none. Eventually, she stopped pushing and breathed out lightly before she said, “Really, I’m okay. Go back to sleep.”

She watched him watching her for a few moments and he didn’t move. She was about to turn over again when he cautiously approached, lightly bumping his nose against her hand. When she didn’t respond, he did it again, harder this time, and she felt his tongue dart out to lick her fingers.

Sam’s throat tightened. She tried to laugh as she reached out to ruffle his fur, but her smile wavered and her breath shuddered. He looked alarmed and stopped and she shook her head.

“This is just…” She took a few slow breaths, shutting her eyes for a moment to regain some composure. It wouldn’t do any good for her to cry about it and she certainly wasn’t going to do it in front of him. “I thought we’d have found something by now.”

She smoothed out the fur on the colonel’s head and he kept his eyes on her in silence. “I mean, this should have been a joke, but… Now I’m just afraid we’re not going to-”

The colonel stepped back, giving her a moment to take another breath and run a hand over her face.

“We need to sleep,” she finally said, but when she opened her eyes and took her hand away from her face, the colonel was gone. Then, behind her, the bed dipped slightly and when she turned her head, she was surprised to suddenly find him on the bed.

Sam blinked. “Sir.”

She was about to make a quip about dog hair all over the sheets, but the colonel just settled himself down, curling up with his side pressed up against her legs. There were no whimpers, no puppy eyes, no nothing: just him being right there, solid and steady and warm.

Sam reached down and gave him a few gentle scratches behind the ears before she allowed her eyelids to slip shut.

---

“No. I’m not doing it today.” Daniel stood with his arms folded across his chest. “I’m done being the chew toy; it’s someone else’s turn.”

The colonel approached him, puppy eyes at full strength.

“Oh, that’s just pathetic,” Daniel said.

The colonel’s expression became decidedly less innocent. His tail wagged impishly.

“No! I’m serious; I’m not doing this!” The colonel took a few steps toward him, and he backed off with an, “Ah!” on each step. He then gestured toward Teal’c and Sam. “Anytime you want to help me out here.”

“Very well,” Teal’c said. “I will be the one to entertain O’Neill.” He bent down and lifted the colonel completely off the ground, one arm supporting his stomach while the other rested on his back to keep him still. He yelped in surprise and started wiggling, legs flailing like he was trying to paddle through water.

“Do not worry, O’Neill.” Teal’c smiled, and there was a pretty good chance it was entirely mischievous. “We will have fun.”

The colonel looked from Sam to Daniel, eyes full of nothing but terror.

Daniel waved, smiling as he did. “Have a good time.”

Sam just sighed as Teal’c carried her struggling CO away.

It was a nice day. Sun warmed their faces, a few puffy clouds floated in the sky, and a light breeze rustled the grass and whisked some of the heat away.

It was hard not to get wistful on a day like this. She was fully aware of how she stared at Teal’c and the colonel like she was losing something, but she couldn’t stop it and didn’t really try.

Daniel nudging her lightly with his shoulder finally snapped her out of it. “Earth to Sam,” he said, and she smiled.

He continued to watch her, clearly waiting for her to say what was on her mind, but there were a lot of things on her mind and although she knew it would be useless and cruel to try to hide them from him, she didn’t quite know where to start.

Sam reached over, lightly curling her fingers around Daniel’s, and he gently took her hand into his own and squeezed it. He didn’t say anything after that, which was nice, but she felt the press of urgent words against her chest and took in a breath.

“How would you feel about me leading the team?” The words reverberated a bit; it was so, so surreal to actually be saying them to another person.

She felt him looking at her again, thought she spied his mouth opening and closing out of the corner of her eye. Finally, he said, “You can’t be telling me it’s come to that already. It’s only been six days.”

“I’m just… considering all the possibilities.”

“And how likely is this one?”

Sam let go of his hand and looked down at the grass.

“Sam,” Daniel said, sounding just the slightest bit desperate.

She cut him off with a, “Daniel, please,” and turned her gaze skyward. “Don’t.”

They lapsed into uncomfortable silence. Daniel fidgeted quite a bit, but he refrained from saying anything and Sam was grateful for it. She watched as Teal’c picked up one of the yellow rubber balls and studied it for a moment before throwing it hard. It seemed to be a little too hard, since it shrunk into a tiny speck as it disappeared behind a cluster of distant trees. Colonel O’Neill’s tail froze, and he turned to stare at Teal’c before barking his displeasure.

“We have to keep looking,” Daniel said eventually.

“I know,” Sam replied. “We will. We are.”

Teal’c bent down to pick up another ball, the big squishy red one, but the colonel bounded toward it, clamping his jaws down on it and dragging it backwards with a growl.

Daniel stepped closer to Sam, just enough so that their sleeves brushed a bit.

“If it’s a choice between you or somebody else,” he began, “then that’s not even a choice.”

When she looked at him, he was smiling, and she breathed out what felt like a mountain of anxiety. She grabbed his hand again, squeezed tightly, and listened to the rustling of the grass.

---

She sat with the colonel on the couch that night. There was another hockey game on, but it didn’t appear to be holding his interest, so he edged over and settled his chin onto her lap. She scratched behind his ears without question.

After a few minutes of absent-minded scratching, she muted the game and looked down at him.

“General Hammond wants me to start thinking about a replacement,” she quietly said. “Just in case.”

He met her gaze for a few moments, blinking a couple of times before looking away.

“I just thought you should know,” she said. The colonel didn’t make a sound. Her fingertips had gotten a little tingly from all the scratching, so she started gently petting the top of his head instead. She couldn’t really tell how he felt about it, but he didn’t move.

“I have no idea who I’d pick,” Sam mused, more to herself than to him. There was an unspoken because no one could replace you lurking underneath, but she was pretty sure he knew that already, knew that Daniel and Teal’c felt the same way.

It was just so unfair, every last bit of it.

As she continued petting him, she said, “General Hammond also said I could just take the team, but…” But she could be totally unqualified for it, but they could be at a total disadvantage as a trio, but, but, but. She tried not to dwell too much on her ongoing list of doubts.

The colonel twitched under her hand and raised his head before coming to a sitting position. He quickly, almost frantically, climbed up onto her lap, all four paws planted against her legs as his tail wagged with an odd amount of strength and he stared very deliberately into her face.

“What?” she asked, leaning back a little.

The colonel ruffed quietly. This was going to be one hell of a guessing game.

“I don’t... Is this about picking someone else?”

He ruffed twice, a little louder this time, and shook his head.

“Not picking someone else?” Sam guessed next, and the colonel ruffed three times as he nodded. He shifted, trying to keep his balance on her as his tail wagged wildly.

“You don’t want us to pick someone else?”

His tail wagged even faster, and then he simply leaned forward, bonking the top of his head against her chin. It caught her off guard at first, and then he did it again and again and was about to do it a fourth time, except it was so bizarre that Sam just stopped him with her hand.

“Okay, okay, that’s not working; I have no idea what that means.”

He seemed to be thinking hard, licking his nose as he contemplated his next move.

“So you don’t want us to pick someone else,” Sam began, trying to help him out, and then as soon as she said the words, everything clicked.

He was pawing lightly at her sleeve now, getting about halfway up her arm before he just left his paw there for as long as he could. When he would slip, he’d put it right back up again and stare at her intently.

“Sir,” Sam said, her voice coming out far softer than she’d intended. “Are you handing command of SG-1 over to me?”

He barked many, many times, and even bumped his head against her chin one last time for extra clarity.

She swallowed hard.

“This is weird,” she eventually said.

He shook his head.

“Not weird?”

He pawed at her sleeve a little more. She grinned.

When they were tired enough for sleep, the colonel clambered back up onto her bed, nestled himself against her legs again, and she let him. She also let him scoot a little closer, just enough to reach out with his paw, nails brushing against her fingers.

The last thing Sam remembered before the weight of her eyelids became too much to bear was her palm coming to rest above the colonel’s paw.

---

She dreamed of waking up in the morning to a very cramped bed. The colonel was still pressed up against her, dozing peacefully, and her own back was jammed against a tiger. It should have been cause for quite a bit of concern, the fact that a fully grown tiger was taking up more than half of her bed, but he licked his huge paw indifferently and sported a bald spot in the middle of his forehead that looked an awful lot like the symbol of Apophis. Add to that the little green parakeet fluttering around the room with black circles resembling a pair of glasses around his eyes, and Sam was fairly certain she was the only human member of SG-1 left.

“I need to get up,” she tried to say, but it came out as a meow and when she looked down at her hands, she was shocked to find they’d become little orange and white paws.

She jerked awake (for real, this time) and immediately checked her hands for fingers. Even through bleary post-dream vision, she could see that all ten were there and sighed gratefully.

Her alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but the sun was already up. Her senses stirred at the presence of warm, golden light breaking through the blinds and that was all it took to bring an end to sleep. She stretched cautiously, being careful not to disturb the colonel, whose breaths remained heavy with slumber behind her. He must have shifted around during the night, maybe stretched himself out on his side of the bed, because the weight felt different and it almost felt like there was more of him.

But that would be silly, she thought as she started to turn toward him, because that would mean that in the middle of the night, he’d just up and turned back into a-

She stopped mid-turn and swallowed a startled cough.

He mumbled something in his sleep and shifted, his hand (hand, not paw) coming to rest mere inches from her arm.

She must have lost a vital circuit somewhere in the depths of her brain, because she was just staring open-mouthed at him, all six very human feet of him, and was caught between shock and relief and confusion and joy at seeing him whole again.

But unfortunately, as her gaze traveled south, she discovered that even though he’d returned to normal sometime during the night, he’d done so sans clothing.

“Oh,” Sam muttered. “Oh, boy.” It wasn’t as if SG-1 weren’t fully acquainted with one another’s bodies after years of wacky outfits and even wackier civilization rituals, but waking up to her completely naked commanding officer sleeping on her bed was another matter entirely.

She tried her best to slide away soundlessly, because there were just so many ways this was going to be uncomfortable if she didn’t at least drape a sheet over him before he woke up, but she’d barely made it out from under the covers when he stirred.

“Mmmf,” he mumbled (was he even aware he’d changed back?) and then she heard a few joints pop as he stretched. “Morning, Carter.”

Okay. She had to turn around now. If she didn’t, it’d be even weirder.

“Good morning, sir,” she replied, being very careful to keep her eyes on his face. He still looked half-asleep.

“Think today’ll be the day?” he asked her.

“The… day for what?”

“The day where I get to stop having this damn tail following me around every-”

Sam bit her lip and watched his face as it sank in. He looked excited at first, and then he looked down at himself, confused. Then he looked back up at her… and then back down at himself.

He grabbed the end of the comforter closest to her and flipped it over the lower half of his body.

“I’m just gonna…” Sam motioned toward the door. The colonel nodded rather vehemently.

She made it out only to realize that any clothes she had to give him were in her room, but then, nothing she had would fit him, so what did it matter anyway?

There was only one option here, and he wasn’t going to like it.

She pressed the phone to her ear and kept her voice low. “Daniel.”

He made a drowsy sound. “S’early.”

“I know, but Daniel, listen. I need you to do something for me.”

“Mmm.”

Sam frowned. “Are you really listening?”

“Yes, yes, geez!”

“Okay.” She looked back down the hall toward her bedroom. There were shuffling noises coming from inside. “I need you to go to Colonel O’Neill’s house, get him some clothes, and then come over here.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Daniel.”

“Okay,” he said warily. “But why?”

She didn’t have to explain it to him, but she did have to listen to him go through the stages of jubilation, bafflement, and then, ultimately, he ended up snickering.

Sam frowned again. “It’s not funny.”

“Right, yeah,” Daniel said between chuckles. “Not funny.”

He was still laughing when they hung up. Maybe that wasn’t the best plan after all.

When she turned around, the colonel was exiting the hallway, a towel wrapped around his waist, and she watched him head straight for the backyard door. He seemed antsy.

“Sir?” she asked.

He grimaced. “I gotta-”

Thank God he realized what he was doing before he’d even grabbed the door handle.

“Don’t…” He held up a finger in her direction. “Don’t. Say. Anything.”

Sam cleared her throat. “Never crossed my mind, sir.”

He darted back into her room and shut the door.

---

“So how did it happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did it happen?”

“No idea.”

“What did you do?”

“Not a clue.”

Daniel’s skeptical gaze flitted between Sam and Colonel O’Neill. “So you just went to bed and he woke up human. You didn’t have to do anything at all.”

“Nope,” Sam replied.

Beside her, Teal’c raised an eyebrow, because of course Daniel couldn’t resist taking a detour to grab Teal’c on the way over. Sam was just glad the colonel wasn’t running around the house in a towel anymore.

“Huh,” Daniel finally said. “Well, it’s been seven days. I guess the people of 992 find significance in the number 7.”

No one in the room really cared about the hows or the whys. They’d figure it out later and their relief, while restrained, was palpable.

“God, it feels good to have hands again.” The colonel stretched his arms out and flexed his fingers energetically.

“I’m just glad there won’t be any more paws digging into my back,” Daniel crankily mused. He scowled at the colonel, but the colonel just smiled.

“You loved it,” he teased.

“I did not,” Daniel shot back. “Those afternoons sucked.”

“Yeah, but now that I have arms and hands and legs again, that means I get to do… this.” The colonel jumped to Daniel’s side and slung an arm around his neck, getting him into a flawless headlock. Daniel yelled and flailed in frustration as the colonel ruffled his hair mercilessly.

Sam rolled her eyes, unsuccessfully hiding a smile. “I’m gonna go get ready,” she said, leaving Teal’c to deal with the colonel’s temporary descent into adolescence. Teal’c seemed very content just standing back and watching it, however.

When she reemerged, Daniel and Teal’c had already gone ahead. She found the colonel in the kitchen, studying a can of dog food.

“I thought this tasted like lamb,” he said. “Fancy.”

Sam smiled, then winced. “Was it any good, though?”

The colonel seemed to consider this seriously. “Yeah,” he admitted after a moment’s hesitation. “It was pretty good.” He had a look on his face not unlike the one he had any time somebody mentioned Hathor. “We really spoil dogs.”

She certainly spoiled him, but she’d have plenty of time to lord it over him later.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked.

He looked down at his shoes - his mismatched shoes. She suspected Daniel had done that deliberately, not out of carelessness.

“If you’re ready, I’m ready,” the colonel replied.

Scooping her keys from the counter, she headed into the foyer with him not far behind.

“Carter,” he said, just as she was about to open the door.

She turned around. He was standing there with his hands in his pockets, a small smile on his lips, and a look in his eyes that let her know he was just as thankful as she was that he was back. She smiled in return.

“I guess this means I’m no longer in command of SG-1.” All things considered, it was a statement Sam was nothing but relieved to be making.

The colonel shrugged. “You’ll get it back one of these days.” He said it with such conviction that her cheeks warmed, just a little, and she couldn’t help but duck her head in a lousy attempt to hide her smile.

“I’m gonna miss getting my ears scratched, though,” the colonel suddenly said. That moment didn’t last long.

Sam made a big show of rolling her eyes. “I think you owe me for that. For a very long time.”

To his credit, he looked a little panicked at the thought, and Sam waited until they were halfway down the walk to exact her revenge.

“Want me to put the window down for you?” She made no attempt to hide her smirk.

The colonel’s eyes narrowed, but he looked away like he was actually thinking about it.

“Halfway down,” he decided, and then looked up at the sky. “Gonna be a nice day.”

Sam grinned. It certainly was.

fic: magnificent starlight

gingasaur — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 04:31:31 GMT

I wasn't ever going to post this here, but then it was crossover gen fic day and I just... Look, I stand by this. And so do the 30 people on Tumblr who liked and reblogged and keymashed all over that post. So there.

title: Magnificent Starlight
series: Stargate SG-1/Robot Unicorn Attack
rating: PG
word count: 761
notes: I know Robot Unicorn Attack (as well as the heavy metal version) is old news, but I was a little late to the party. I really really liked it, and then, you know. Things happened and suddenly Sam had a unicorn friend. What are you gonna do.
Also presented for your enjoyment: the accompanying graphic.

"Your friends are gone," she said. "You're galaxies away from home." The Replicator sneered at her, cold and unforgiving. "You’ve lost everything.”

The robot beside her, draped in black terror and sizzling with dangerous sparks, huffed ferociously and shook its fiery mane. They fixed their piercing gazes on Sam and waited.

"They're not gone," Sam quietly replied, her voice barely above a whisper as she kept her eyes on the ground. She wouldn’t look at them. She couldn’t look at them. If she did, she might just lose everything.

A soft whinny reached her ears, and something nudged her shoulder. It was the unicorn. It was still with her. This absolutely incredible creature, running on unimaginable power and crafted in the universe’s finest metal, never left her side throughout this entire horrific ordeal. She remembered now how fiercely it guarded her each time she was driven to screams and how gently it licked away her tears. She couldn’t imagine what she had done to deserve its devotion.

Slowly, Sam pushed herself up off of the cold stone, shivering slightly against the icy breeze. Where were they now? She’d lost track some time ago, and realizing they were standing on a cliff so high up that not even a speck of ground could be seen below did nothing to assuage her fears.

The other mechanical unicorn – the evil one – stamped its hoof and she couldn’t stop herself from jumping at the sound. She was so tired. At least she wasn’t bleeding anymore, but her head still pounded and every place her Replicator double had slashed into her throbbed relentlessly.

She was so tired. And the Replicator was right: they were so far away from Earth that she’d probably never see it again. And she would die out here alone.

Her unicorn nudged her again. Looking up, Sam saw it had placed itself directly between her and the Replicator. It was still protecting her even now. She reached for it with a shaking hand, petting it gently on its warm snout. She thought briefly that it didn’t make sense for it to be warm, but then again, everything about this creature didn’t make sense.

Maybe, then, it was just enough to believe.

As if reading her mind (and perhaps she was), the Replicator asked, “What do you have left, Sam?” She spit out her name like a slur. “What could you possibly have left to believe in?”

Sam gazed out into the wide expanse of endless cliffs. They seemed ugly and barren, hopelessly gray and shrouded in fog. Something popped into her mind then, a vision of Daniel standing with her, assuring her that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She felt Teal’c at her side, and the Colonel, too, and for that briefest of moments, she was no longer alone.

She looked over at her unicorn again. Its prismatic mane shone brightly, and its eyes glittered with hope and determination.

She smiled.

“Love,” Sam said simply. “I have love.”

The Replicator’s cruel gaze shot at her like flying needles. “Love?” she taunted. “Love is pathetic. You’re going to cling to a pitiful human emotion in your final hour?” She made no attempt to hide the viciousness of the smirk that spread across her lips. “Love is nothing.”

Sam shook her head, still smiling. “No,” she calmly said. “You’re wrong. And if you really believe that, then I can’t tell you how sorry I feel for you.”

The Replicator’s expression faltered. Her eyes narrowed.

The rainbow unicorn bowed its head as if paying deference to a queen. It knelt beside Sam, allowing her to jump onto its back.

“What are you doing?” the Replicator asked. Her gaze was hard as stone, eyes alight with her attempts to calculate her next move.

“I’m going to find them,” Sam answered.

The Replicator mounted her own unicorn quickly. “With love?” She was sneering again, but it was nowhere near as confident as it was before.

Sam glanced at her over her shoulder. “What else?”

The evil unicorn neighed viciously, as if repulsed by her optimism. The Replicator’s eyes blazed.

Sam’s unicorn scraped its hoof against the ground in anticipation. She breathed in, letting its renewed vigor pour into her soul. “I think we’ve got one wish left,” she told it, and it let out a small, approving neigh.

Sam leaned down, gently placed her hand against the creature’s neck and whispered, “Let’s go get our team.”

The unicorns raced to the edge of the cliff, each transformed into magnificent blurs of light.

They jumped.

fic: arborvitae

gingasaur — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:58:27 GMT

title: Arborvitae
series: Stargate SG-1
rating: PG
word count: ~7,500
notes: for missparker, who is lovely and let me play with this line from Desperation: or Carter’s being a woman set into motion some asinine chain of events that ended with Teal’c having to carry her around a sacred tree nine times before they could gate home.
Thanks to adventurepants for what I would call an above-and-beyond beta, nighttones for equally above-and-beyond cheerleading, and everyone who enjoyed the #sacredtrees tag despite not really knowing what it meant. Now you'll know! :)

They will discover later that the sparkling pink field directly in front of the gate - the one the MALP failed to detect - was a DNA scanner. The slight tingling of their muscles as they passed through it will make sense then, as will Major Carter’s rather casual remarks that she felt “a little strange”. It will no longer be surprising to recall the way her legs crumpled beneath her like wet clay, leaving her face down and deathly still in the grass.

These things will just be pieces already added to the completed puzzle, but Major Carter’s deadpan declaration of, “I can’t move,” will always be the one that doesn’t quite fit, jutting out just enough to unsettle even Teal’c for some time to come.

---

When it starts, it’s just one leg. They take turns slinging her arms over their shoulders as they trek across empty pastures, searching the mountains in the distance for any signs of civilization. The glittering pink field persisted when they tried to turn around and dial out, preventing them from simply heading back through the gate as Colonel O’Neill demanded. There was no other choice but to move forward.

O’Neill and Daniel Jackson remain unaffected, as does Teal’c himself. It’s a fact that doesn’t go unnoticed by any of them, least of all by Major Carter. To her credit, she seems unfazed by the situation thus far, facing her sudden affliction with the same calm rationality and cautious optimism Teal’c has grown to admire in her over the years.

“Really, guys, it’s fine,” she insists yet again, methodically massaging her leg in an attempt to ease it back to life. She’s been doing this each time they pause to catch their breath, and so far it’s accomplished nothing.

In his silence, Teal’c keeps a close eye on his teammates. He has a running tally of everything subtle: the tension in O’Neill’s muscles, his tendency to both keep vigilant watch of everything ahead of and behind them while simultaneously hovering around Major Carter. He notes Daniel Jackson’s restlessness, his concern and his yearning to solve this mystery punctuated by the rapid drumming of his fingers against his knee.

As for Major Carter, she discourages O’Neill’s hovering with pointed looks, smirks, and rolls of her eyes. She covers Daniel Jackson’s hand with her own and offers him a smile.

She also makes jokes, frequently. Any other person unfamiliar with her would say she’s taking this in stride (which she is) and leave it at that. But Teal’c knows better: this is what she does when she’s nervous. When she isn’t talking, her thoughts are elsewhere, as far away as her gaze. She appears confident that they will find a way to reverse what the field has done, but he can see her thinking already of what will happen if they don’t, if there is no scientific fact behind these apparently mystical forces.

“We’ll find something,” she says, and Teal’c knows it’s more to reassure herself than anyone else. She flashes him a grin and adds, “Otherwise, I’ll have to sell my bike.”

Their journey continues like this for almost two hours, starting and stopping and starting again, always focused on the mountains for any twitch of humanity. Finally, Daniel Jackson points to a plateau below a huge tree at the peak of one of the smallest mountains, a plateau with a wispy plume of smoke rising from it.

It’s an easy hike up; the rocks are well-worn and flattened into a clear path, and they appreciate this sign that people have lived here for many years. They reach a village in record time and express relief to find it both inhabited and lively. They smell the aromas of cooking meals, hear the laughter of children and do not linger waiting for anything else.

They’re not even past the entrance when Major Carter stumbles, dragging O’Neill down with her for a moment before he catches her. She looks down at her legs, both limp and unmoving behind her, and says, “Guess I lost the other one.” O’Neill swears under his breath and lifts her over his shoulder.

She looks up at Daniel and Teal’c as she bounces against O’Neill’s back and seems entertained by her own remark about a “royal escort”. She smiles just like before, but the corners of her mouth quiver slightly.

Teal’c adds it to his list as he watches the sun’s descent redden the sky.

---

“I am truly, truly sorry for what this has done.”

The head of the village bows deep at the waist. He bears no formal title to indicate his leadership, only introducing himself by his given name: Relkar. Relkar is a strong man with visible, but not overbearing muscles. His hair is white but his bearded chin is hard, and there’s something odd about a man of his stature freely gesturing with such humility.

Every so often he glances at Major Carter, eyeing her warily as if she is an active detonator. The other men in the village (and as far as they can tell, there are no women) do the same as they mill about. Most of the younger ones whisper to each other. Some stop and stare.

Major Carter has long since stopped staring back.

“All right, fine.” O’Neill’s voice is firm, anger vibrating at the edges. “Now tell us how we fix this.”

Relkar straightens, his gaze flitting momentarily to Major Carter again, and he sighs quietly. His is a society wracked by cold war, a cold war completely defined by gender, and his discomfort at gazing into the face of someone who should be his enemy is obvious. His people suffered through years of males versus females, divided only by the space that separated their planets, space easily traversed by the Stargate. Each side was supposed to be in the midst of a truce, but a few years and plenty of bubbling tensions had turned it into more of a stalemate. Each planet now possesses the strange field, effectively forbidding travel between the two worlds. The other planet’s field scans for XY chromosomes, this one’s scans for XX, and they both release a series of electronic pulses into the offending gender’s body, pulses designed to gradually suppress motor neuron activity. It’s a quick way to see through disguises and halt intruders, but it’s just dirty enough to make Teal’c’s jaw tense. Not to mention the implications of a woman as an utterly immobile prisoner in a sea of men is not lost on him.

“The time it takes the paralysis to spread varies,” Relkar says. “But there is a way to reverse the process.”

He points behind them to the tree towering over the village. It is a truly massive testament to nature’s power, its trunk very likely as big around as a small building in a Tau’ri city. It’s as if the whole mountain shaped itself around this one tree, holding it up and letting it grow for thousands of years.

“Not all women are our enemies,” Relkar states, and Teal’c is pleased to see Major Carter look up at this, her expression something between annoyed and half-interested. They’ve certainly been through this before on plenty of other worlds.

“If a man wishes to live in peace with a woman, he must prove their mutual strength of spirit by bringing her here and taking her through the Sacred Triad of Three.”

Daniel Jackson’s brows furrow in puzzlement. “Sacred Triad of Three?”

“Isn’t that a little redundant?” O’Neill asks flatly.

Relkar ignores their remarks and continues. “There are three fields stationed around the tree that must be entered nine times. The man carries his woman through each field, essentially taking her burden onto himself.” He pauses, looking from O’Neill to Daniel Jackson, and then finally Teal’c. “It is not an easy task. It is, in fact, quite painful for the man. You will want to choose wisely.”

“‘Choose?’” O’Neill repeats. “Choose what?”

Relkar looks down at Major Carter. “Choose which one of you will take her through the Sacred Triad.”

O’Neill’s reply is immediate. “We’re all going.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible; only one man is allowed to traverse the fields.”

“I don’t care.”

“Jack.” Daniel Jackson steps forward and turns to Relkar. “What he means to say is, we’d really prefer to stick together on this. We’re a team, that’s what we do.”

“I understand,” Relkar concedes, “but believe me when I say this has been attempted. It has always failed. The fields only allow one man and one woman to pass through.”

“Couldn’t we just take turns? Trade off?”

“There is a field that guards the entrance to the Triad. The four of you together would never make it through that field.” Relkar turns his gaze toward the sky, now dotted with stars in the twilight. “As it is, it will not let you pass until the dawning of the sun. The women are not usually brought through the Stargate until the sun sets so as to prevent… unnecessary risk.”

His hesitation before those last words does not go unnoticed. Daniel Jackson’s eyebrows shoot up just before he asks, “Unnecessary risk?”

Relkar does not immediately meet his gaze. “As I said, the time it takes the paralysis to spread varies.” He steps back, spreading his arms to gesture toward the rest of the village. “The two who will not be going through the Triad are welcome to stay here for the night.” He eyes the group of them seriously before he adds, “You should make your choice as soon as possible.” He bows again. “Good luck.”

Relkar turns to leave, but is stopped by the sound of Major Carter’s voice calling his name. It’s the first word she’s spoken since they arrived.

“You keep talking about the time it takes for the paralysis to spread,” she says once he has turned to face her. “How complete does it get?”

Relkar looks away.

“Complete,” he replies. “If left untreated, it will lead to death.” He finally looks Major Carter in the eye, says, “I’m sorry,” and then he walks away, leaving the four of them alone to stare at each other. The information is icy as it sinks in.

Teal’c breaks the silence along with O’Neill and Daniel Jackson. They say, “I’ll go,” he says, “I will go,” and it all means the same thing. Their eyes lock, almost as if they seek to size each other up.

“I’m going,” O’Neill says, the finality in his voice quite clear.

“Jack-”

“Oh, come on, Daniel. You’re not going.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You really think you’re capable of carrying Carter around a sacred tree nine times?”

“I think I’m just as capable as you are! Bad knees ringing any bells?”

From below, Major Carter lets slip a somewhat derisive snort.

Before their argument can get any pettier (and it’s well on its way), Teal’c calmly interrupts. “I will go.”

O’Neill and Daniel Jackson turn to him as if they’d forgotten he was there.

“I believe I am at an advantage when it comes to physical strength. I will escort Major Carter through the Triad.”

Their silence stretches on longer than is probably necessary. O’Neill stares at him for a moment before turning to Daniel Jackson. “‘An advantage,’ he says.”

“Teal’c would be at an advantage, yes. Quite an advantage.”

“Yes. But let’s not rub it in.”

Another beat of silence passes before Major Carter chimes in. “Sir, I think the choice is pretty clear.”

O’Neill remains silent, drawing in a quiet breath as his eyes pass between Teal’c and Major Carter. They can all see the wheels spinning in his head, see him already working through the frustration of having to stay behind and let them to do this alone. “Yeah, all right,” he finally says. “Just be back at dawn.” He sounds like a parent telling his children to follow a curfew.

“Yes, sir.” Major Carter tosses another tiny smirk in his direction.

Teal’c moves to lift her from the ground and she extends a hand to him, but she does this with her left arm. Her right hangs loosely at her side, fingers half-curled into her palm and alarmingly still.

Their collective pause is inevitable. Major Carter shuts her eyes for a fraction of a second before giving O’Neill a warning look, pleading for his silence.

He nods once, and the only thing he says is, “Go.”

Teal’c easily slings her over his shoulder, gently yet efficiently. He finds himself a little startled by how limp she already feels, like dead weight pressing down upon him.

As he begins to leave, Major Carter lifts her head.

“See you in the morning,” she says, and doesn’t spare another look back.

---

The path to the tree is less traveled than the one into the village. The stones are sharper and more plentiful, little diamond traps just waiting to send clumsier people sprawling. The ground is steeper and more uneven and yet Teal’c’s stride is long as he walks, but his steps are measured and careful. He wants to get to the tree, now a dark shadow towering against the stars, as soon as possible. Even if it’s true that they can’t complete the Triad until dawn, he wants to be ready the moment the first sunbeams peek over the horizon.

For the most part, their journey is quiet. Major Carter remains silent, speaking only when Teal’c prompts her, which makes the first twinges of anxiety bubble within in his chest. He respects her silence and doesn’t pester her with questions, but he wants to keep her talking, keep her mind as far away from her current state as possible. It seems to work: she eventually pipes up with an idea about a generator, and there must be one for the shields near wherever they’re supposed to wait, and if they can find it and she can just look at it, she can probably figure out how to disable it and talk Teal’c through it.

“I’d do it myself,” she says, “but somehow I don’t think trying to pick up control crystals with my teeth is such a good idea.” The sound she makes bears more resemblance to a sigh than it does a laugh.

Teal’c tightens his hold on the backs of her legs and marches on.

The mountain summit grows ever closer. When the tree’s leaves are distinguishable from one another and the trunk appears tall enough to topple right over and crush them both, Teal’c spies a large hole in the rock wall on the side of the path. It looks like a small cavern carved into the mountain, but he doesn’t give it much pause since they’re a stone’s throw away from the tree; just past this one final rise and they’ll be standing under the looming shadow of the dense canopy.

However, it appears the cave wants to be noticed. He takes one step past it and instantly feels as if he’s stepped on the blade of a sword. Grunting in surprise, the searing shot of pain spreads throughout his body like fire and he feels an odd sensation of something pushing against his chest. He attempts to fight it, to break through it and continue on, but the forces are too much and the agony too great. He staggers backwards and as he does, he sees the remnants of sizzling pink veins fading into the darkness.

“Teal’c!” Major Carter exclaims, and what little of her can still move squirms frantically against him. “Teal’c, what happened? Are you all right?”

“I am fine,” he asserts, his thighs still shaking slightly against echoes of pain. “Are you injured?”

“No, I’m fine, I-” She stops, as if searching for words. Finally, she says, “I didn’t really feel anything.”

Teal’c acknowledges this, all too aware of what it probably means, but he puts it aside for the moment. Instead, he glares at the space before him. “It appears Relkar was quite serious about his warnings concerning the shield. We will not be able to pass.”

“Are we close?” Major Carter strains to look around from her awkward vantage point at Teal’c’s back.

“Extremely.” Teal’c gazes up at the tree somewhat bitterly.

“Well, maybe that means a generator’s nearby, too,” Major Carter offers. “Why don’t we try to find it?”

Teal’c agrees and immediately reverses course. Once he makes it past the cavern in the opposite direction, he jerks against another painful onslaught, stepping back a little quicker this time so as to not extend the torment.

“Teal’c,” Major Carter says, her voice tense.

“I do not believe we will be successful in finding a generator.” Teal’c suppresses a frustrated growl, looking from one end of the path to the other. Another rock wall is at their right, making it impossible to find another route to bypass the shields. There’s nowhere else for them to go.

“It appears we are meant to wait inside this cavern.” He pauses for a moment. “Even if it is against our will.”

Major Carter does not reply as Teal’c heads inside the cave.

It’s somewhat bigger on the inside than it initially appeared, and it’s clearly been used before: there are small alcoves in the walls bearing what look to be old candles, the wax now nothing more than pitiful, hardened lumps. Enough light from the planet’s full moon filters in through the entrance, leaving the cave at least slightly illuminated by dim white light. The floor, for the most part, is smooth and clean, although there are a few twigs and scattered patches of dirt that Teal’c brushes away with his foot. All in all, it is a suitable enclosure and as good a place as any to await the sunrise.

Teal’c softly lowers Major Carter to the floor, propping her back up against the wall. She still appears alert and balances herself for a moment with her left hand, and Teal’c takes both these things as good signs.

“You have not eaten since we arrived on this planet,” he says as he procures two Power Bars from a vest pocket, “and I believe we have one Double Chocolate Crisp.”

Major Carter smiles, genuine but somewhat fatigued. “You’re really going to let me have that?”

His lips quirk into a smile as he begins to unwrap it. When he offers it to her, she chuckles softly.

“Okay, but no more special treatment.” She smirks teasingly at him as she lets him hand the bar to her, taking a very measured bite out of it once she has it within her grasp. Teal’c rises from the floor, pocketing the other bar and listening to the quiet thump of the back of Major Carter’s head resting against the wall. She chews slowly and looks off to the side, distracted.

Teal’c knows he can’t stop her from thinking about her current condition, but it is upsetting to see her so tired and discouraged. Again, he pushes his frustration away and focuses on the task before him. He places a hand against the cavern wall; it’s smooth in places, rough in others, but the entire area is cool against his palm. It sounds like a farfetched idea even as he thinks it, but there isn’t anything else to do and it’s entirely possible that a hidden generator switch may exist in some tiny crack in the wall. He has enough faith in his sense of touch that he won’t waste a flashlight battery on this, so he presses his fingers into the stone and gets to work.

He moves slowly, carefully running his hand up and down the wall. The cave is silent aside from his footsteps and the occasional rustle of the Power Bar wrapper.

It doesn’t take long for Major Carter to notice him meandering around the cave. “What are you doing?”

“Attempting to locate a generator,” Teal’c answers, keeping up his steady pace.

“Secret wall panels?” she asks, a hint of amusement in her voice.

He nods. “Although there are none yet.”

Major Carter lets out another soft chuckle, immediately followed by a quiet sigh. “You know, it was probably a stupid idea in the first place.” She shrugs slightly with her good shoulder. “I mean, who’s to say it would even be obvious which crystal powers each shield? We’d probably end up deactivating one of the ones we need instead.”

Teal’c pauses when his fingers brush over a particularly jagged section, but unfortunately, pressing into it does nothing other than leave tiny dents in his fingers. “Is it not more productive to try anyway?” he asks.

He looks back at Major Carter for a moment, and is relieved to find her smiling. “Yeah,” she responds. “Yeah, I guess it is.” She takes another bite of the Power Bar and adds, “But I think this situation is probably-”

She stops abruptly, and a few seconds after she does, Teal’c hears the wrapper rustle. The sound is a bit louder than it previously has been, and it’s accompanied by a small thump. When he turns to Major Carter, he sees her staring at the Power Bar, half-finished and lying on the floor next to her hand. She doesn’t move to grab it, and the way she’s staring blankly at it tells him she can’t.

“A little different,” she finishes, her voice much quieter than it was before.

He knew this was inevitable, knew they both did, and yet Teal’c cannot hold back the icy wave that washes over him. He closes the distance between them quickly and kneels down beside Major Carter, supporting her as she slips sideways down the wall.

“Wow,” she mutters as a disbelieving laugh escapes her. “This is actually… even more humiliating than I thought it would be.”

Teal’c remains silent for now, concentrating on maneuvering them both into positions that might be able to pass as comfortable. Eventually, he settles himself back against the wall and gently lays Major Carter’s head in his lap.

“What did I say about special treatment?” she asks him.

He starts to arrange her immobile limbs into less awkward positions. “Would you prefer to lie with your head against the cold floor?” There is a teasing challenge in his voice.

She is silent for a moment, and Teal’c wonders if she’s seriously considering it. “No,” she finally says, looking up at him with a somewhat grim smile.

Neither of them says anything for quite a while, which Teal’c thinks is just as well: he spends the time listening carefully for any changes in Major Carter’s breathing. There isn't much of her left to paralyze, so it’s only a matter of time before her more vital muscles start to succumb. The idea of her withering away all night right next to him is… disturbing, at best.

“Hey, Teal’c,” Major Carter murmurs, breaking the silence and, thankfully, his train of thought. She looks up at him again, and yet can’t quite meet his eyes as she says, “I’m really sorry about all this.”

He studies her expression for a moment and is struck by what he finds there: it’s not simply sadness, but instead a more complex mixture of guilt and shame.

“There is no need for apologies,” he says, his voice soft. “You are not at fault.”

Her gaze darts away from him again, like she doesn’t quite believe him. She shakes her head slightly. “The MALP should’ve detected that field. We shouldn’t even be here.”

“The MALP is not a flawless machine,” Teal’c replies. “It cannot be expected to know all things.”

“No,” Major Carter acknowledges quietly. “I guess it can’t.”

They fall silent again. Teal’c observes the moonlight for a while, studying the angle at which it filters into the cave. It’s sharp and straight, and the light is bright. He pictures the moon high in the sky, hovering tauntingly with the stars. There are still many hours ahead of them.

“It really hurt you, didn’t it?”

The question isn’t even a question so much as it is a statement. Teal’c finds it rather puzzling, and he looks down at Major Carter.

“The field, I mean,” she finishes. She’s thinking so much that she appears to be looking through him instead of at him.

Teal’c chooses his words carefully as he returns his attention to the moonlight. “My discomfort is of no concern. You should not trouble yourself on my account.”

“Too late.”

When he looks down at Major Carter again, her expression is so serious, so fraught with inner conflict that he is overcome momentarily by despair. He gently lays his palm against her cheek, turning her to face him, and he stares at her so intently that she does not look away. She seems surprised by the gesture, perhaps frightened by the fact that she cannot break from it, and her widened eyes study him, waiting.

“I will do everything in my power,” he quietly declares, “to ensure you are able to walk through the Stargate tomorrow.” He can’t stop his gaze from softening as he adds, “I can bear no other option.”

Major Carter says nothing, but she swallows hard and nods slowly.

Teal’c’s hand slips away from her face, and he adjusts her arm so that her hand rests in his own. He doesn’t know if she can even feel it, but her eyes don’t leave the spot where her hand is safely enclosed in his.

He squeezes gently, and hears her softly mutter, “Thanks.”

---

He shifts her every so often in the hopes of assisting her blood flow. It becomes comfortably routine after a few hours: he eases her into a new position, asks her if it’s acceptable, and she smiles thankfully and nods.

During hour three, she begins answering verbally, the subtle movements of her head gone. When he looks into her eyes, he sees quiet resignation. She silently stares past him at the ceiling.

It’s in hour four that Teal’c’s question goes unanswered. He waits, and when Major Carter still makes no sound, he repeats himself. He then feels something wet make contact with his skin, and in the dim light, it takes him longer than it should to realize what’s happening.

Her face is streaked by tears, her eyes shining with fear so painfully specific that he could never think to blame her for it. It intertwines randomly with absolutely loathsome anger, and she looks as if she wants to scream and perhaps is already screaming inside her own head, and it wouldn’t be the first time. She knows all too well the horror of being trapped inside herself and Teal’c thinks, just for a fraction of a second and despite everything he knows to be true, that if ever there were a punishment more likely to have been inflicted by the gods themselves, it would surely be this one.

Her face is warm when he touches it, and she refuses to look at him, shutting her eyes tightly as fresh tears spill down her cheeks. Her breaths are short and her chest shudders under the weight of her anguish.

Very slowly and with great care, Teal’c runs his thumbs across her cheeks to dry her tears. He gathers her in his arms, lifting the upper half of her body to bring her closer to him. His fingers thread through her hair as he lets her head rest against his shoulder.

When he speaks, his voice is such a soft, low rumble that were anyone else in the room, Major Carter would still be the only one who could hear him.

“This fear is not yours alone to bear,” he tells her. “I, too, am burdened by distress.”

The quivering of her chest comes to a slow stop. Her breaths grow quieter against his ear.

“However difficult your current state is for you,” he continues, his voice heavy, “know that it is equally difficult for me to be unable to help you.”

He thinks his voice sounds so odd, so nearly broken in his ears. The muscles in his arms tense as he continues to hold her.

“We must endure. We have overcome far too many trials to be defeated by this one.” He pauses, allowing himself a few moments for strength to build in his voice. “We will endure.”

His declaration hangs in the air, an ultimatum against fate. He keeps his arms secure around Major Carter, listening as she draws in a breath.

She exhales shakily against him, but her subsequent breaths are strong and exude determination.

She does not descend into panic again.

---

By the time small hints of orange peek out over the horizon, the only sound echoing off the cavern walls is strained, ragged breathing.

They’re so close, and Major Carter struggles valiantly against her failing lungs, but her breaths are far too short to sustain her. The blank look of exhaustion in her eyes tells Teal’c that she’s hanging on by a thread, a thread now frayed and moments away from snapping.

He attempts to keep her with him for a few more moments, trying to draw out any extra time for her that he possibly can, but her chest rattles and her face pales as her slow suffocation truly takes its hold. She tries so hard to focus on him so she can stay conscious and keep fighting, but her eyes slide away from him with increasing frequency.

Her eyelids flutter shut once, but she forces them open. Twice, and it’s harder.

The third time, not even Teal’c yelling her name can bring her back.

She slips away into unconsciousness just as the dawn finally breaks forth. Teal’c lifts her onto his shoulders again, blinks against the brilliant sunlight as he exits the cave, and runs.

He is more than prepared for the pain of the entrance shield, but it does not come, and he bolts over the rise effortlessly. The morning sunlight filters through the leaves of the gigantic tree, and though it is a small price to pay in exchange for Major Carter’s life, Teal’c steels himself for the agony ahead.

Three stone archways stand equidistant around the tree, tall and gray and draped in dark green moss. Teal’c does not observe them for long and powers through all three of them in a straight run. He notices no pain, just a small burst of pink light and a low hum as he darts through the shields. A dangerous sense of foreboding lurks in his chest; the next eight times will not be so easy.

The dull ache in his muscles begins slowly, like tiny embers blossoming into bright flames. He keeps running and doesn’t stop, counting two, three, four, five passes through all three shields before the pain is enough to slow him. When he exits the third archway for the sixth time, he stumbles. His free hand finds the tree’s massive trunk and he presses his palm hard against the rough bark to steady himself. The only sound he hears is the rustling of leaves in the soft breeze. That, and his own breathing, which sounds much louder and more labored in his ears than it did a few minutes ago.

Major Carter makes no sound. Teal’c does not feel her chest move against his shoulders, nor does he hear even the quietest wisp of air pass her lips.

His jaw tightens, and he pushes himself forward again.

The seventh pass makes his knees buckle and drives a harsh grunt through clenched teeth. He holds onto Major Carter’s body with both hands now, his arms and legs quivering with what is rapidly becoming an unbearable strain. Scorching flame shoots through his legs, up his spine, into his arms, and his symbiote thrashes and jerks within him, completely overwhelmed by the shield’s pulses and suffering helplessly under the constant onslaught. He’s not sure what that means for him, whether it means he’ll be able to make it without his symbiote to fall back on.

But he is sure of one thing: he will not allow Major Carter to die here.

He launches himself forward again and the shields threaten to tear him to shreds. Each step he takes is punctuated by a hard slam of pain, like stepping on a bed of nails while knives stab into his thighs. The sheer force of these hideous sensations makes him sway under a fog of dizziness. He continues to will himself forward, his whole world moments away from spinning out of control.

Teal’c just barely makes it through the third shield for the eighth time, and he cries out in agony as he falls to his knees. His vision swims and his entire body, symbiote pouch and all, is raw and throbbing. He’s so close and he knows it, but his muscles scream in protest every time he tries to move. Any other man surely would have lost consciousness by now.

The growl leaves his throat without his knowledge, growing into an impassioned roar by the time he finally rises up and regains his balance. One more to go. He did not come this far just to fail now.

The shields are relentless, ripping into him like blades carving out his skin. They sizzle ominously in his wake and he unleashes pained yells despite all efforts to force them down and away.

He all but falls through the final shield. There is a flash all around him, and warm, bright pink light seems to spill from the leaves of the trees.

It’s the last thing Teal’c remembers before darkness overtakes him.

---

He is startled and disoriented when he wakes, pain surging through him like lightning as he tries to sit up. Voices reach him and hands find him, and he is gently eased back onto a bed that feels unnaturally soft against his aching muscles.

His memory is a fog, and he struggles against the hands trying to hold him down.

“Whoa, easy.” The voice is familiar, almost sweet when compared to the pain. It takes him far too long to recognize it as Doctor Fraiser’s.

“It’s us, Teal’c,” Daniel Jackson tells him. “We’re home.”

Home. He breathes in, smells clean sheets and fresh gauze. The infirmary.

He opens his eyes slowly, and three shapes hover around him on both sides.

“‘Bout time.” O’Neill’s voice seems quieter than it should be, and he’s smiling softly when he finally comes into focus, the slight slump of his shoulders radiating relief. Daniel Jackson looks much the same.

And Major Carter… should be here, but isn’t, and Teal’c starts, everything coming back to him in a rush. Again he tries to sit up, his throat raw as he chokes out her name.

“It’s okay.” Doctor Fraiser urges him back to the bed with steady hands against his shoulders. “Sam’s fine. As you will be, just as soon as you stop moving.”

He stops. Three sets of hands drift away from him.

“Where?” is the next word he manages to get out, but then it occurs to him that there’s a bed right next to his. He feels like he has to crane his neck to turn his head, but he sees a flash of golden hair, and tension he didn’t know he was harboring leaves him.

Major Carter appears almost peaceful beside him, her chest rising and falling at a strong, healthy rate as she sleeps. The others have turned to watch her as well, their gazes tired but relieved.

“We were beginning to think you two were just throwing a party up there,” O’Neill remarks. Doctor Fraiser smirks and moves to fiddle with Teal’c’s IVs.

Teal’c searches his memory for any hint of how they came to be here, but finds nothing. He can’t even remember how they descended the mountain. “How did we return to the village?” he asks.

Daniel Jackson’s eyebrows shoot up, then furrow. “You don’t remember?”

“I do not,” he admits. He looks from O’Neill to Daniel Jackson, who both stare at him expectantly, but he still remembers nothing.

“You, uh, carried Sam all the way back to the village,” Daniel Jackson finishes, his tone peppered with hints of astonishment. “Nobody has any idea how you did it, seeing as how you looked like you’d just had the utter living shit beaten out of you.”

A vague memory of passing Major Carter’s limp form to O’Neill pops into Teal’c’s mind, as does a strange feeling of being lifted himself. Everything after that remains dark.

“Relkar was decent enough to give us some kind of cart thing to put you both on before he shooed us all away.” O’Neill scowls at the thought, and Teal’c surmises that it might actually be better that he doesn’t remember any of this.

“The paralysis,” he inquires next.

Doctor Fraiser scribbles on a clipboard and smiles, pleased. “There’s no trace of it in either of you,” she says. “Sam was awake just a few hours ago, actually. She’s pretty sore, but other than that, everything responded like it was supposed to.”

Teal’c is pretty sore himself, to say the least. He looks over at Major Carter again and finds it strangely comforting to be sharing her pain.

He asks a few more questions and gets answers to all of them. He is relieved to hear they will not ever be returning to Relkar’s planet. He greatly enjoys O’Neill’s story of Major Carter regaining consciousness and the “very colorful language” she apparently used upon doing so (“Some of those words weren’t even real,” Daniel Jackson tells him. “She was just making up curses after a while.”)

It’s all more than enough to lull him into a very pleasant fatigue (although he suspects Doctor Fraiser to have given him something to accelerate this process) and finally, he feels as if it’s safe to relax.

He drops off into something resembling sleep without realizing it.

---

The candles in Teal’c’s quarters flicker softly, their flames casting a warm, golden glow on the walls. He breathes in and out in a slow, steady rhythm and his symbiote stills, almost as if it’s curling up to sleep like a Tau’ri feline.

He opens his eyes, a pleased smile on his lips. In the past few days of recovery, he hadn’t realized just how much he missed his usual Kelno’reem environment. He finally feels centered again.

It’s when he stands to extinguish the candles’ flames that he hears three soft knocks at his door. It opens just enough to let a crack of light from the hallway into his room, and then Major Carter pokes her head inside.

“Hey,” she says with a smile. She spots the candles and hesitates slightly. “Am I interrupting?”

Teal’c smiles in return. “You are not,” he replies. “I am finished.” He invites her inside with a slight bow of his head and she enters, softly shutting the door behind her.

“You are looking well,” he tells her when she steps farther into the candlelight, and she does: even in the dimmer light, he can see the color has returned to her face and she stands before him radiating her usual vitality.

“Thanks,” she says, stretching her arms a bit as she releases a relieved sigh. “I’m glad to finally be out of there.”

“As am I.” Teal’c is patient, but even he was beginning to find their stay in the infirmary taxing.

“I don’t know about you,” she continues, “but I feel like I could run five miles without stopping, I’m so restless.” She places a hand on her right shoulder and slowly rolls it.

“I do not doubt your ability to do so,” Teal’c replies, and she grins at him.

He crosses over to his bed and sits, but Major Carter only follows him enough to stand in front of him. She looks down at her hands clasped in front of her and fidgets slightly.

“Got any plans for the weekend?” she asks.

Teal’c considers her question for a moment. The only thing he’s given thought to is more proper Kelno’reem. “I do not,” he finally replies. “Do you have plans?”

She chuckles softly, shrugs and shifts her weight. “Anything involving as much movement as humanly possible. I’ll probably take my bike out for a while. A long while.”

“A pleasant use of two days’ time.”

“Yeah.”

She hasn’t looked up at him since she started speaking, and Teal’c notes that she still makes no move to sit beside him. Her thumbs roll over each other absently and she seems lost in their movement.

“Is there something troubling you, Major Carter?”

She finally looks at him like she’s been caught off-guard. “Oh, uh.” She pauses for a moment, mouth half open with a breath in her chest and words on her tongue, but ultimately she just smiles and shakes her head. “No, I’m fine.”

Teal’c considers pressing her about it for a moment, but she is the one who came to him. Whatever her concerns, she will reveal them in time. He stands from the bed and walks past her, intent on storing a few excess candles. While Major Carter does not move, Teal’c can feel her watching him.

“We didn’t get to see too much of each other in the infirmary,” she says.

“We did not.” Somehow, their schedules of rest hadn’t matched up; when she was asleep, he was awake, and vice-versa. After a while, it became quite frustrating.

Teal’c extinguishes three flames with his candle snuffer. The glow of the other candles continues to illuminate the room. “Have you been able to return home since-”

“I think I woke up.”

Teal’c stops, slightly startled, and turns to face Major Carter. Her interruption is at best odd, but she meets his gaze.

“In fact, I know I did,” she continues. “At some point during the Triad, I woke up.” She takes a breath as if steeling herself for some unseen challenge. “I don’t really remember a lot, so I think I must have passed out again right afterward, but I heard you-…”

She flinches slightly and swallows, and then her eyes dart away and she straightens.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Her words hang in the air between them, and she swallows again.

Teal’c approaches her slowly, afraid, perhaps, that she might scurry away. He suddenly finds it difficult to think of something to say, and can’t seem to decide how upset he is that she still feels guilty about this.

He waits until she looks him in the eye to place his hands on her shoulders, and then he speaks. His voice is softer and more serious than it has been in quite a while.

“I am not,” he tells her. “You are here.”

Major Carter’s shoulders slump under his hands. She breathes out, and Teal’c can almost feel the weight lifting off of her. She shifts hesitantly, stops, then shifts again, and her arms slip around his waist as she buries her face in his shoulder. He returns the gesture, carefully enveloping her just as he had in the cave.

After a while, Teal’c murmurs, “I am glad the Triad worked as we were told.”

Major Carter laughs and more tension leaves her body. “God, me too,” she says, and tightens her hold on him.

They stand still, embracing for what feels like a very long time. Eventually, Major Carter sniffs and pulls away, wiping quickly under her eyes before giving Teal’c a slightly watery smile.

“I should go,” she tells him. “I haven’t been home yet, actually. Hope my plants aren’t dead.”

She turns to leave. Teal’c watches as she opens the door, but she stalls in the doorway.

“I don’t think I feel like going home yet.” She runs her hand along the side of the door before turning back to Teal’c. “And I’m hungry.”

Teal’c allows himself a small smile. He, too, feels as if he could eat what the Tau’ri would consider to be a full meal.

“I think I’m in the mood for pizza,” Major Carter declares. “Want to come with me?”

He comes to stand beside her, gazing out into the hallway before them. “Will we be consuming the pizza at our usual location?”

“Yep.”

They exit his quarters and he shuts the door behind them. “Then I shall accompany you.”

Major Carter grins broadly, and they begin to make their way down the hall.

“Do you possess a sufficient amount of quarters?” Teal’c asks.

“Always.” She glances playfully at him as she answers, already knowing full well what Teal’c will say next.

“Excellent,” he responds. “I believe I am owed a rematch in Cruisin’ USA.” He throws his own playful glance in her direction before adding, “A rematch I am sure to win.”

She gasps in mock offense. “Oh, we’ll just see about that.”

Her hand finds his, and it feels warm as she lightly squeezes his fingers.

Teal’c squeezes back. They continue to walk.

you can kung my fu any day

gingasaur — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 02:37:51 GMT

Ahhh, I remember it like it was just yesterday: my mom and I were playing our very favorite game in the entire world, aka WB Scene It. Now, if you've played this one, you know it's not exactly the most quality of Scene It games. Its question pool is pitifully small, you can go through almost the entire DVD in about 2 hours, and the questions are so painfully basic that if you've so much as heard of the shows in question and know the names of the people in the main cast, then you have at least a 75% chance of getting it right. It's basically an exercise in how many simplistic trivia questions about Dallas you can cram into your brain.

Every so often, though, between the Night Court clips and the mind-blowingly difficult pictograms that give you a growling dog and an egg and expect you to get "C.J. Cregg" out of it, there are these straggler questions. They pop out of goddamn nowhere and utterly ruin my your Murphy Brown-based winning streak with their mystery theme songs and their who-the-fuck-has-ever-heard-of-this answers. It's a reminder that this easy as pie game is still incredibly capable of fucking with you, and it's how I ultimately learned of the existence of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. "Gee, Mom," I said. "You're telling me there was an actual show about a Shaolin monk who wasn't even from China because he was David Carradine and he went around martial artsing everybody and people liked it enough to give it a sequel?" Of course, the answer was yes. Hell, I'm not judging; I'm the kid who willingly watched more than one clip from Street Hawk. If anything, it sounded like a rousing good time and I put it on my mental list of Odd Syndicated Programs I Would Watch If Nothing Else Was On.

And what do you know. Here we are, about to power through an entire episode of that very show thanks to the presence of one NOTABLE GUEST STAR (thanks, Wikipedia!) Honestly, though, with a show that apparently has an episode titled "A Shaolin Christmas", what could possibly go wrong?

Many thanks to insanitywritten for providing this wonder in full on YouTube, and to at least 14 people on Tumblr who are very very excited about this post. I can only hope you're all adequately prepared with the proper amount of alcohol and also narcotics.

One of the first things insanitywritten said to me concerning this episode was that it was all about hockey and... it does in fact appear to be all about hockey so far. Oh, Canada.

Amanda's already here, which means I've stopped paying attention to anything remotely important. Her moe little face, look at it, etc. Seriously omg, she is so tinyyy, I just want to gather her up and all that jazz. And pinch her adorable little cheeks.

ALSO, she is wearing almost the exact same coat my hero for life Murphy Brown wore to FYI's 1994 Lillehammer Olympics Extravaganza. I'm... really not making this up; look at it! This is a working hockey game, not a vacation.

Apparently these guys really suck at hockey.

ARGHLBARGHL YELLING

"Hey, Constantine! You do that in a regular season game and it's five minute major!"

...Constantine?

So, let's see. A-Tapps is Annie and that other guy is Bob, and I think if we just took Constantine over there and added one Alf-like puppet to the mix, we'd have an amazing sitcom. Annie & Bob, coming this spring to The WB. ohhhh, burn. It can even be the lead-in to Unhappily Ever After. ohhhhhh, double-burn.

Anyway, Annie's afraid she's going to be homeless because their team sucks so bad. Well, Annie, I hate to break it to you, but WE'RE ALL HOMELESS NOW. (thank you, homeless person! thank you!)

Annie laments the awful status of this awful team that is apparently her dead father's legacy. Dude, her dad left her a shitty hockey team? Annie's Dead Dad, didn't you ever hear of savings bonds?

Having had enough of this shit, she departs, grumbling that she needs a scotch, straight up. Well, Annie, we all want some things we can't have. For example, I'd like a sledgehammer to the head every time I talk myself into doing another one of these spams, but alas. That harrowing blow never comes.

I have no earthly idea who these people are. I can only assume they're going to end up being important. I don't know, though, they could just be here to yell. I won't hold it against them.

OH, stick to the face! Or in the stomach! Or something! I can't tell!

Uh oh. Somebody's not gettin' out of the penalty box.

ohhhh shoot. Shit is real now.

OH, oh shit! lolomg I paused it and then I hit play and then she said, "Oh my God, not again." D R A M A !

Oh, so, I guess the screaming people were his parents? Or I think she just said, "HE'S MY BROTHERRRR," but it really sounded like she said, "He's my problem". Well, something tells me he's not your problem anymore! Ohhhh man, that was low even for me. Damn.

Well, whatever. Cue theme song! This opening is hilarious, by the way, and I love it.

MONKS! And one of them is David Carradine!

TIGERS!

DRAGONS!

INHALING POSSIBLE HALLUCINOGENS!

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON!

Aw, man. That guy just crashed through that window. I don't know, guys. This might too intense for me.

"I am Caine. I will help you."

It is so cruel that we are living in a world without this man.

Notable guest star, there she is! Aaaand also prostitutes. Okay.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the fucking phone. There's a guy in this episode whose name is Boss? I... can't even fathom the amount of pussy that guy must get. I just can't.

Okay, well, I guess... I guess that guy's name is actually Ross, but. I WANT TO BELIEVE.

I guess this guy's sort of important since he was in the main credits and stuff. And his name is Pete. thiswillendwell.jpg

As if this guy strolling out with his shades on and his gray hair streak working ten kinds of magic wasn't enough, he shouts, "Keep this down to a dull roar! I'm studying Mayan culture AND I'M GETTING A HEADACHE!"

I think it's possible I underestimated just how good this is going to be. dhskfsldhf.

Two guys non-sequetorially roll in and start man-handling the prostitutes. One of them actually fights back pretty well and punches one of the guys in the stomach. You go, fierce prostitute. Four for you, fierce prostitute.

AND THEN. And then:

AND THEN SHADES BRO JUST CASUALLY SLIDES OVER A COUNTER LIKE A BLUES BROTHER. YEAH, SHIT, I DON'T KNOW, BUT THIS IS AWESOME.

Shades Bro heroically declares, "Well, that's one less pimp on the street!" and then that prostitute is so taken by his macho nature that she touches his face. Fuck, is this show for real?

Pete is just as mystified by this turn of events as I am. And then he, like, ambles around apologizing for not busting his ass over a counter, too.

Okay, this is the worst police station ever. Pimps can just waltz in and beat up ladies, and we got suspicious characters running around all over the place. Security? Hello? You guys are a police station?

Well, I don't know what happened to Annie & Bob and hockey, because I guess this episode is about hookers now and getting them off the streets.

What! Mystery men tearing through the darkness! Maybe they want a refund on their Red Wings tickets.

And then there's a fight. You know, at this point, whatever. There's clearly some sort of overarching story arc happening here (or at least half of one) and I'll just go ahead and surrender early to the fact that I'm going to have no idea what half the crap in this episode is supposed to mean.

Although I have this funny feeling I would have that problem even without the story arc.

The fight goes on... for a while, but Caine pops in and kicks some serious tail without breaking a sweat. He also saves Pete's ass, who proceeds to be the most ungrateful little bastard on Earth. Yeah, you just got saved by Bill, SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT.

Caine says something mystical about masters and enemies and Pete shouts, in a bout of self-pitying rage, "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW MY ENEMIES! I WANT TO KNOW MYSELF!"

Pete just feels so inadequate. He couldn't even help a hooker. And then Caine says, "I will leave you alone." WHAT NO. NOOO CAINE COME BACK. CAAAAAAAAAAINE.

Wait, what? Now we're in a bar? With more hookers? Where is Amanda I came here for Amanda where did Amanda goooooooooooo. At the very least, I want to know what's going on with the awful hockey team and its curse of the dead.

Oh, maybe that lady isn't a hooker. She starts talking about her brother, Gary, aka the dead hockey player, so wait, is this that woman from before? lol I'm so confused. Maybe he has more than one sister.

Sister says Gary got "trashed on the ice three days ago," and PETE over here, FUCKING PETE, says, "Kelly, that's part of the game." WHAT. OH MY GOD. BE MORE OF AN UNSYMPATHETIC DOUCHEBAG, I DARE YOU.

Also just kidding, hockey player isn't dead, he's in the ICU. Cool.

Then there's some relationship drama I don't care about, more things I don't care about, I think Caine's going on a metaphysical spirit trip, and then Pete admits he needs his pops. awwww.

But Caine basically cockblocks him and is all, "cya." lol. That's what you get for dissing David Carradine.

YEAHHHH, ANNIEEEE. WELCOME BACK, GURL. There's some pretty dramatic eye roll action happening here, so I'm guessing this guy who just sat down in her personal space is bad news.

I drew a curly handlebar mustache on him just because.

"Your father was a very close friend of mine," he says all sinister-like. "I'm just trying to look after his little girl."

Yeah, whatever, man. Annie doesn't need your shit. Sheeeee is also flawless and has just about the prettiest face, so.

Eye Roll #2. Handlebar Mustache Personal Space Invader Man tries to make her an offer she can't refuse,

except then she does, WITH SASS. He offers her an assload of money for the team or something, and says the offer isn't "gonna stay on the table for long."

And SHE says, "Especially not if I kick it onto the floor where you'll be sure to find it!" HELLLLLLLLLL YES.

I made it purple this time. Artistic license.

"No one's gonna be skating for this team, you hear me? No one."

"We'll see!" ahaha this is so great, these truckloads of pre-Sam sass. I could get used to this.

AND THAT IS ONE HELL OF A BITCHFACE. I can feel the lasers coming out of her eyes.

Here was the point where insanitywritten reuploaded for higher quality, so now the dimensions are a lottttt different. I think this is gonna be okay, though; the width is the same. Now they're just a lot taller, so. Enjoy!

AND LOOK WHO IT IS, IT'S MY FAVORITE DUDE: SHADES BRO. DRINK THAT COFFEE, SHADES BRO. UNNNNFFFF GET IT.

Oh, and I guess Pete got an undercover spot on the hockey team. Well, let me just drop absolutely everything so I can run to get you a motherfucking gold medal there, Wayne Gretzky.

Some ancient Chinese guy shows up and berates Pete for being a totally unpleasant asshole, and also for hurting Caine's feelings.

"I didn't meant to hurt his feelings."

^ actual dialogue.

Ancient Chinese Guy throws some Shaolin gobbledygook at Pete, but I guess Pete's cool with it when it's not coming from his dad because he says, "I never thought I'd use this phrase... play Shaolin hockey?"

ANCIENT CHINESE SECRET, HUH?

I resisted that one for as long as I could. I really did.

Dude. Dude. I think Shades Bro's name is Kermit. Oh. my. god. I- I can't, I just can't even deal. I'm dying and I can't even deal.

Pete outlines some wacko plan to I think impersonate a French-Canadian hockey player, and then he demonstrates his French-Canadian accent which is basically just him saying, "EET EEZ, HOW YOU SAAAAY, HOKAY." ho-kay. Good luck on your bake sale.

KERMIT is all, "Yeah, what are you gonna do to get into the bigger leagues?"

"I got a secret weapon," Pete says.

Aaaaand cut back to the hockey arena where Ancient Chinese Guy is sailing along the ice on the wings of flippy classical Chinese music. This plan is obviously foolproof; I don't see how anything could possibly go awry.

Yeah, you know what? I don't think they use that move in hockey.

gpoyyyyyyyyy

Then I think an actual hockey player comes in to show Pete some moves, but I just don't even know. You know those parts of SG-1 where Vala and/or Teal'c don't understand Earth humor? That, I think, is an accurate representation of how I feel during this episode. I think there are things that are supposed to be important, I think there are things that are supposed to be funny, but shoot, it's all Goa'uld to me.

Pete and Probably Actual Hockey Player run around the ice for a while, and then, oh god. Then there's this gut-bustingly hilarious slow-mo montage of Pete trying to ~slow the puck down with his Shaolin training~. I just... I started laughing out loud, I really really did.

Guess who's lurking in the shadows, evidently dressed for a trip to Amish country?

"You can do it, my son."

^ ACTUAL DIALOGUE

Then there's this kind of legitimately funny scene with Pete asking his lady cop friend or whatever who looks like a poor man's Edie Falco to go undercover with him.

"Let me make sure I'm tracking this: You want me to do something to help your old ex-girlfriend Kelly, your new girlfriend Jordan happens to be out of town, and then you want me to join you undercover in this life-threatening situation AND pretend to be in love with you?!"

"...That pretty much sums it up."

"Sure."

lmao.

SWEATERRRRRR. Oh, boy, what was that made out of? Cotton candy and magic fibers from the rainbow land of sugar lumps? I feel like some Care Bears were harmed in the making of that thing

Oh my GOD, does he wear those shades all the time? Seriously, who is Kermit and why is he so incredible?

I guess he's trying to convince Annie to let Pete onto her team, but he's doing this as his "manager".

And she's not buyin' it, 'cause sheee's a smart one, that Annie. must've inherited a gene from somewhere or something. ~can't imagine where~.

fuck yeah, look at me, I'm Kermit, and I ain't no frog. BUT I CAN MAKE YOU RIBBIT, BABY.

BITCH, PLEASE. Both Annie and her sweater spirit animal do not have time for this bull. Honestly, Kermit. You think Grumpy Bear put his blood, sweat, and fur into that sweater for shits and giggles? I don't think so, son.

I don't think it's possible that I'll ever get over the sheer amount of cranky-ass faces happening right now. PLEASE MAKE THEM FOREVER ANNIE THEY ARE THE BEST.

oh. OH. LOOK WHO IT IS. Sinister Mustache Man! I couldn't draw one this time because the other half of it couldn't just go over the phone; that would defy basic physics. Maybe next time. I'm sure he'll be back, after all, because he's plotting something suspiciously suspicious. Like, I don't know, a hit on Pete. ooooh, what a tragedy that would be; allow me to valiantly sprint to the kitchen for a box of Kleenex.

Um. Wow, Pete. Wow. Nice digs there. I thought you were supposed to be impersonating a famous hockey player, not a Fonz/Steve Urkel hybrid.

So they go to this cocktail party shindig and for reasons I cannot even begin to pin down, Pete's supposed to act like even more of a total awkward jackass than usual. He knocks glasses over into people, stumbles backwards into waitresses, and asks where the poutine is. I- God, what?

heeeeeen, cocktail parties are soooooo funnnnn!

ohhhh, but this guy showing up is not. Annie wastes no time shooting more eye lasers at him...

...which I have helpfully illustrated for you in this picture. Note the menacing sound effects and the dotted line of unmitigated vengeance.

Then there's some drunken awkward falling because I need even more reasons to punch Pete in the face.

yyyyyeah. Having fun yet?

Under the heading of, "I am not making this up," everything - all plot, all sense of time, all general episode cohesion - suddenly stops dead to give fake Edie Falco time to sing a musical number. She looks just about as thrilled at this turn of events as I am.

As you might expect, it goes on for a while.

Well, at least Annie's happy, and I tell you what, I would move the stars to make Annie happy. And I bet if you're reading this right now, you would, too.

Still going, by the way. And you know what? They laud her as some sort of godsend to the musical world and it's not even that good. It's the kind of singing that is not good enough to be Bird York but still reminds me of her, so it's like if Bird York rolled out of bed one day without coffee and then decided, "Eh, my heart's just not in it right now. Time to record some crap."

stopppppppp. you're done. we're done. aaaggghhh.

All right, it's done. But then what's-her-face (have they even said her name at any point during this?) tries to shack up with Pete to ride that charade all the way to the end, but he's all, "lolno."

And then, the question for the ages:

"I wonder if this happens to Madonna."

don't

just don't

ask any more questions

I'm talking to myself, I'm- just- stop. stop. you'll only hurt yourself.

wheeee more hockeyyyy. Annie asks Kelly how Gary's doing and she's like, "pff, shit's shit, what else is new."

Then she introduces Annie to ~The Ancient~. That's... that's seriously what they call the ancient Chinese dude. I was just calling him ancient for laughs.

"Because I'm so old!"

This is my face right now, but the difference is that she's smiling because she thinks it's funny, whereas I'm smiling because my IQ points are spilling out of my ears.

Pete gets the shit kicked out of him on the ice because the team is like Mean Girls personified. They're pretty much the cliquiest clique to have ever cliqued and now they have it out for Pete.

They have it out for him so much that they decide to kick the shit out of him in the locker room, too. arrrrr I are frakenstein! No, just kidding, this is Pete about to get his intestines rearranged.

Amazingly, though, amazingly, Pete really gives these guys what for. I guess he ~remembered his Shaolin training~. God, that won't ever stop sounding like the punchline to an awful joke.

Oh, hey, then Annie shows up, and Pete looks like he's ready to go to a hoedown.

Annie, already proven to not be one to mince words, cuts right to the chase and asks, "I'd like to talk to you; can I buy you dinner tonight? Just you?"

>just you
>just you
>just you

WHAT.

IS THIS GOING WHERE I THINK IT'S GOING

THIS BETTER NOT BE GOING WHERE I THINK IT'S GOING I WILL BE SO FLIPPIN' MAD

christ. Well, here we are at dinner, and the first words out of Annie's mouth are, "You don't seem very surprised to find a woman owning a team like the Carlsberg Sonics."

oh, cheese. and. rice. No, I can't make that joke. I won't make that joke. I won't say anything like, "Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside doesn't mean I can't own this hockey team." I would never make a joke like that. That would be too easy.

Remember how Annie's dead dad left her the hockey team instead of anything remotely practical? Well, listen up, 'cause she's about to tell the story of how he died. I'm sure it's gonna be a real tear-jerker.

"He was killed two years ago in Paris crossing the street.

He looked the wrong way."

...

...

...

PFFFFFFHAHAHAHAHAHA

OH GOD I CAN'T, I CAN'T. MY STOMACH HURTS.

"Eye yam sorrie."

Yeah, you look it.

They talk about Sinister Mustache Man for a while and how he wants control of the team, and then they talk about how the team in jinxed. "No playah want to come." lmfao wow.

"Except you." lololol well, let's not ever discuss Pete and coming because these are two things that do not belong in the same sentence ever.

"I know that you're someone special," Annie says. "I don't just mean as a player. I mean as a person."

OH, GOD. ARE YOU- IS THIS- G O D.

you smarmy. fucking. buttmunch. THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR HOW MUCH I LOATHE YOU.

Annie then says she's "frightened" that someone on this team "is a killer". dun dun dunnnnnnn. Honestly? I don't think it's that much of a stretch seeing as how pretty much everyone on this team doesn't play well with others, to say the least. It's not like you'd need Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.

Meanwhile at the arena, Kermit and what's-her-name are snooping around looking for evidence of sabotage. And the evidence comes, I believe, in the form of...

"The Sonics' diary. That should prove interesting."

A diary? A diary? Jesus titty-fucking Christ, what did these writers do? Get stoned at 3 AM and then make an episode out of all the pretty colors they saw? A DIARY? COME ON. YOU GUYS ARE NOT EVEN TRYING.

Annie and Pete arrive back at the arena, and she thanks him for dinner and giggles and makes this utterly bizarre remark about "crying on a stranger's shoulder, kind of a new twist to my social behavior." To your social behavior? Were these writers on drugs? Were they. on actual. drugs.

And then Pete kisses Annie's hand, again, as he vows to sniff out the Sonics' killer. eesh. Stop that you fiend you are not even close to worthy.

Thennnnn, Annie calls Pete by his fake famous hockey player name, Bertrand something-or-other which I have NO hope of being able to spell correctly so I'm not even going to try, and he says, "Yes?"

"Broke his leg three days ago in Stockholm."

OHHHHH

SNAP

LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY JUST GOT FOUND THE HECK OUT. OH MAN, ANNIEEEE. YOU HERO, YOU LITTLE HERO. YOU ARE 100% SMARTER THAN YOUR AWFUL DIALOGUE MAKES YOU LOOK, SHOOT. I, for one, just feel like I got played like a violin, and I'm a-okay with that.

"Your accent could use a little work."

FUCK YEAH ANNIEEEEEEE.

heeeerpderpderpderpderpderpderp. And yet, Annie still has faith in this king of all derps, because ~ancient Shaolin magic~ and ai yai yai.

I'm sure no one will hold it against me if I just take a moment to appreciate Annie's darling face.

SUDDENLY BAD MEN IN BRIGHTLY-COLORED HOCKEY MASKS. I promise you that even in context, there is almost no proper segue into this.

BUT BITCHES DON'T KNOW 'BOUT WHAT'S-HER-NAME

Unfortunately, she can't hit the broad side of a barn. That guy was right in front of you! Where the blinding bloody hell were you even aiming?

Annie moseys down a hall, laaaaaaaadeedahdeedah~♪

and she's totally oblivious TO THAT MOTHERFUCKER RIGHT BEHIND HER HOLY SHIT

nnnnooooooooo annieeeee

And one of them comes for what's-her-name, too. Great. Is it the same dude? I think it would be hilarious if it was the exact same dude. He must have some Shaolin magic of his own.

"herper hotline, how can I derp you today"

"IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR GIRLFRIEND OR NEW BOSS ALIVE AGAIN, COME TO THE RINK IN ONE HOUR.

SUIT UP,

AND SKATE ONTO THE ICE.

WE'LL BE WAITING."

As usual, I have no words.

The way you know shit is serious is because Pete rips off his nerd glasses in grand Clark Kent style and looks ultra pensive.

Eep! This situation looks fairly threatening. Is that a knife in Sinister Mustache Man's hands? Oh, no, it's just a pen. Why? Because Sinister Mustache Man wants this team real bad.

I know the writers obviously haven't stopped to consider any logic of any sort, but I'm going to for a minute.

a.) Why on Earth does Sinister Mustache Man want this fucking shitty hockey team?
b.) Why does anyone?
c.) He can't be serious when he says a Japanese conglomerate is willing to pay five times its worth. In order to do what? Purchase a bunch of kindergartners trapped in 30-year-olds' bodies?
d.) Why doesn't Annie just sell the thing herself and retire to the Bahamas? Your dad couldn't even pay basic attention at a crosswalk! What the hell do you owe him?

Oh, Sinister Mustache Man, how festive! You got yourself some very nice ornaments there.

He makes some threats that aren't even very threatening, but are any of us even near the point of caring anymore? No? Didn't think so.

I'm tellin' ya, Annie. This crap's more trouble than its worth. To the Bahamas with you!

Meanwhile at the arena, THIS IS A THROWDOWN, A SHOWDOWN.

HELL NO I CAN'T SLOW DOWN, IT'S GONNA is that fog all over the ice? what in god's motherfucking name.

"hey man, don't make fun of our awesome fog. there was a sale on dry ice at Freddy's; what else were we supposed to do?"

"good shopping, dude. it's hard to catch those sales on time. let's battle."

And they do.

Back at the ranch: "SIGN IT."

Are you kidding? This is Annie we're talking about, she would never

oh crap oh crap ANNIE NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING. DIDN'T YOU SEE THE LITTLE MERMAID, DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WHEN ARIEL SIGNED SHIT WITHOUT READING THE FINE PRINT.

What ho! What's-her-name just untied herself from those pesky ropes...

...which ends up serving no purpose whatsoever because then Kermit barges in and steals her thunder.

"Don't sign it! Your manager has to read it first!"

"You are worth your 15 percent!"

that's it, guys. I'm done. I quit.

argh! thwarted again! my mustache even went back to its original color!

I just want to point out Pete's been over at the rink doing battle with the Mighty Ducks over there the entire time. Is this a completely separate location from wherever Annie and what's-her-name were? If so, then Peter Caine, you are officially the worst cop ever.

Our buddy Caine lurks around in the shadows again, and judging by the look on his face, not even he can believe this shit. They're using the hockey sticks as swords right now, for cryin' out loud.

Then he puts his hands up for no reason, or at least no reasons that I can figure out.

Excuse me, sir, I believe that's cheating.

But then Peter just whacks a hockey puck at his head, so whatever.

Now the mystery is solved, I guess, and those scallywags are all apprehended because here we are once again at the rink enjoying our sitcom-y happy ending. oh boy.

hey Kelly, 'sup.

"I just heard from the hospital; Gary is out of his coma! He's gonna be all right!"

yaaaaaaaaaaaaay

"Thank you, Peter!"

oy. why don't you just go get a room.

wow. what an exciting game. look at me on the edge of my seat.

Thumbs up if you can't believe Peter Caine is apparently God's gift to the hockey world!

oh, what, kissing? whatever, I said I quit and I meant it.

"oh, it's over, this episode is over! I'm so glad!"

I guess the team loves Pete now. And I guess that guy's name was Cosantine, not Constantine. Still including him in my Annie & Bob pilot, though.

Peter and Caine get to have ~a moment~ where they don't quite hug and make up but they do apologize for hurt feelings to tinny piano music.

And then Caine trolls him with Sonics tickets. Center ice! There's that Shaolin magic again.

They depart, Pete asking his dear old dad what he thought of his skating, because he figures out he's been hanging around watching him for the past 48 hours.

And the room is empty, exactly as empty as my current will to live.

And there you have it, folks. That, I can only surmise, is your average episode of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

My list of picspam-related regrets grows ever longer.

Thanks for stopping by, and see you next time. And you know there'll be a next time, because like a dog that just can't seem to learn that the spritzer means "no", I'll just keep coming back, every single time.

god.

fic: faith in royalty (or lack thereof) - 2/2

gingasaur — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 23:56:21 GMT

“Is it getting hotter?”

Sam wipes the back of her hand against her forehead; she thought she was just getting exhausted. It does, in fact, feel worlds hotter than it felt three or four floors ago. Heat rises, of course, and there are plenty of torches lined along the walls to illuminate the hallways, but this is different. This is hot enough to wonder about, hot enough to sweat. This is really hot.

“It must have something to do with the ceremony,” Sam guesses. She was sort of hoping “flame god” wasn’t going to mean “actual fire”, but it felt like a long shot from the start.

“Major Carter, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c calls to them. He stands beside a tall set of double doors, his hand pressed lightly against the dark stone. “This door’s temperature is much greater than the others we have recently passed.”

Daniel puts the tips of his fingers on the door and immediately pulls them away with a hiss. “Geez, you’re right.”

Teal’c raises his eyebrow just a bit. “I would not have lied about it.” The smallest hint of a smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth.

Sam lets herself enjoy the moment for a second before placing her hand near the door, stopping just short of actually touching it. It’s radiating heat. Whatever’s in here, it must be important. An odd sense of foreboding creeps up her spine as she nods to Teal’c, who slowly pushes one of the doors open. A burst of hot air rushes out, but thankfully, no open flames snake after it. From what she can see so far, the air inside ripples slightly with the elevated temperature. All three of them glance cautiously around the hallway before slipping into the room, lightly shutting the door behind them.

The place is a veritable sauna, and they find themselves on a sort of balcony high above the rest of the room. Ducking down, they lay their staffs on the floor in front of them as they creep toward the edge, poking their heads up one by one to peer over the side. Sam hears Daniel mutter a faint, “Oh my God,” and it doesn’t take her long to see why.

They’re looking at, among other things, a massive pit of boiling lava right in the center of the room. It has to at least be the size of half a football field, bright orange and bubbling, and it might actually be beautiful if it weren’t a huge vat of scorching liquid in a castle on another world. There are more balconies around the room, making it feel more like an arena than anything else. Only a few people mill about down below, mostly guards, it appears. Some carry things, some don’t, but they all look to be preparing the space. This is obviously where the ceremony is meant to be held, and they all suppress shivers at the sight.

The things that hold their attention the most, however, are the two stone slabs positioned right against the edge of the lava pit. They’re upright when they first see them, but slowly ease back into a horizontal position when a guard, off to the side, pushes a large stone atop a pedestal. He motions for something to be brought over, and Sam’s eyes widen when it comes into view.

Two guards haul a body in the direction of the slabs, and it’s not hard to see whose it is: they’re carrying Jack, limp as a rag in their arms, his feet dragging on the floor as they haul him over. He wears a white suit with golden epaulettes adorning his shoulders – a prince if they ever saw one – and Sam’s heart sinks as they lower him onto one of the slabs, strapping him to it with large metal bars. She’d really been hoping he was just faking it, but he doesn’t spring to life and then it’s too late, and the guards back away, leaving him trapped there.

Now it’s her turn to mutter, “Oh my God.”

Daniel runs a hand over his mouth, still staring wide-eyed at the lava pit. “They’re gonna throw both of you in there.” He’s slightly breathless with disbelief. “And- and I’m assuming us, too,” he says, gesturing to Teal’c, unable to tear his eyes away from the slabs. “That’s the ceremony. That’s how we appease the flame god. We’re sacrifices.”

The three of them continue to stare down below, this simple, yet jarring fact slowly sinking in. These crazy people actually want to off them via molten lava for no reason at all

It’s Teal’c who eventually breaks the silence. “I do not wish to participate in such a ceremony.” It might be funny under any other circumstances. He looks about as disturbed as they’ve ever seen him.

“We have to get him out of there,” Sam says, half to herself and half to them. Daniel and Teal’c retrieve their staffs at the same time she does, and they work their way back toward the doors, keeping themselves low.

They’ve only just reached them when they begin to creak, and with mounting horror, they realize that nobody has a hand on either door. They’re forced to step back as they swing open, and they’re immediately greeted by a horde of staffs pointed directly at their heads. The pack of soldiers has the doorway completely blocked, and there’s nowhere to go.

“Well, well, well.” The voice is unmistakable, and all three of them tense at the realization that they are officially screwed. The group of guards parts in the middle, allowing none other than the magistrate to calmly work his way through. His hands are joined in front him, and the smirk on his face lets them all know just how pleased he is with himself in this moment.

He stops as soon as he’s in front of them, taking his time to study them with silent satisfaction. “Get our weapons,” he snaps, and the soldiers beside him comply without hesitation. Once the staffs are wrenched out of their hands, the guards grab them roughly, and Sam winces slightly as her arms are pinned painfully behind her back.

The magistrate approaches her, chuckling softly to himself. “So,” he begins rather smugly, coming to a stop right inside Sam’s personal space. “It appears the princess wanted to rescue her prince. You know, I seem to remember him trying that with you earlier this evening. It doesn’t seem like he got very far, does it?”

He tosses one last smirk in her direction before he swivels around, announcing, “Cease all preparations immediately. Whatever’s finished is finished. We will begin the ceremony now.”

Sam, Daniel, and Teal’c all toss horrified glances at each other as the soldiers holding them shove them forward, and they start to struggle against them. The magistrate must sense it, because he turns around, his superior expression gone and replaced by a hard glare. “If any of you so much as twitch in the wrong direction, I’ll have you pumped so full of this-” he curls his fingers around the handle of a nearby staff before shaking it slightly, “-that you’ll never wake up.”

For just a second, they hesitate. The guards shove them forward again.

---

The heat in the ceremony room feels even more unbearable than before. The guards seem just fine, though, and so does the magistrate, and Sam curses their apparently incredible heat resistance as a trickle of sweat makes its way down the side of her forehead. Antarctica really wouldn’t be so bad right now, and that’s saying something.

They stop about halfway to the pit. Sam spies a familiar group of packs out of the corner of her eye near the wall: their gear is all here, and it looks amazingly intact. It’s a shame they can’t just waltz over to it. Jack still lies motionless in front of them on one of the stone slabs, and the other beside him sends a shiver up Sam’s spine. The metal bars hang open and it looks a bit like a giant spider, the space between its claw-like legs gaping and empty, waiting to seize her. She’s jealous, momentarily, of Colonel O’Neill’s unconsciousness. How long does one stay alive having their flesh seared off by boiling lava before it’s all over? She shouldn’t be thinking about it. She really shouldn’t be thinking about it.

The magistrate has his back to them, but he snaps his fingers once, and the guards shove them to their knees. Sam winces; that’s going to hurt in the morning. Which assumes they’ll ever see the morning.

“I knew,” the magistrate begins, turning to face them with an expression that looks something like self-righteous adoration, “the moment you four came through our magnificent Ancient Ring… I knew our legends were finally going to be fulfilled. Destiny has brought you here, you see.”

“If Destiny wanted me to die by flaming pit, I think it would’ve done something about that already,” Daniel quips. The magistrate whirls to face him, glaring harshly.

“Silence, servant.” He flashes all three of them a malevolent grin. “Your noble sacrifice will be remembered for all eternity. This is the greatest honor anyone can ever have.”

“You mean the greatest honor you can ever have,” Sam says, recalling the young guards’ words from before.

The magistrate’s eyes narrow. “There is no honor for me.” He tries to soak his words with self-pity, but all he accomplishes is narcissism. “I merely carry out the ceremony.”

“A ceremony that’s supposed to protect every single person you hold authority over. There aren’t any perks in that for you?”

The magistrate scoffs. “I… suppose some individuals will think I’ve personally brought them protection and salvation. But there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that. People will believe whatever they want to believe about what happens here tonight.”

Teal’c regards him with nothing short of utter disgust. “And you will let them.”

“I will. I’m in charge of the people’s welfare, after all. They require hope. And this will give them more hope than they’ve ever known.”

God, this guy’s even more deluded than they thought. Sam looks at Daniel and Teal’c, deliberately holding their gazes. I’m going to try something, she thinks. Sorry if it doesn’t work. She can only hope they get the message.

“We won’t deny the importance of your legends,” she says. “But we’re not your saviors.” She raises her voice, declaring it for everyone to hear. The magistrate stiffens visibly, while the guards don’t move an inch, and she honestly can’t tell if they’re even listening.

“The Ancient Ring is called a Stargate,” she continues. “It’s one of many. They form a network that spans many planets.” She pauses, watching as the magistrate’s face grows ever redder, and she’s sure it’s not from the heat. “We come from one of those planets.”

“It’s very far away from here,” Daniel jumps in. He glances at Sam and nods slightly. He got the message. “And we go through our Stargate every day to visit worlds like yours, to meet people we don’t know, to learn more about our universe. We’re just explorers.”

“And there are more of us,” Sam adds, “and I’m sure you’ve already guessed that we’re considerably more advanced than you.”

“So help me,” the magistrate growls, “if you do not cease your lies-”

“We are not lying,” Teal’c says. “If you were to kill us, it would be construed as an act of war. Many more would come through your gate. They would decimate you and your people.”

Sam actually feels her guard’s hands tense against her for a fraction of a second. She glances at the other soldiers’ faces, and sees that some of them are looking increasingly fearful.

The magistrate definitely notices. “Enough! This ends now!” He thrusts a finger at Sam. “Bring the princess to the pit!”

Her guard hauls her up, but his grip on her arms has weakened considerably since this started, and she breaks off, whirling around to smash him in the head. Her hit sends him staggering, but more guards jump on her. She hears Daniel yell her name, and she can feel the guards trying to drag her to the stone slabs.

“We’re not your saviors!” Sam repeats, more to the guards now than to anyone else.

The magistrate’s face is pure scarlet. “Of course you’re not!” he hollers. “Do you think me absolutely vapid?!”

The guards holding Sam stall. A collective murmuring begins behind her.

The magistrate now directs the flames in his eyes toward the soldiers. “Oh, stop standing around, you idiots! Don’t you see what these people mean for all of us?!” He raises his fist in the air, shaking it passionately. “This is our time for glory! Never again will our power be doubted, and we will have that power for the rest of our lives! I’m securing all of our futures!”

The murmuring grows.

“The legends are just that: legends!” The volume of the magistrate’s tirade increases further. “You’re all smart enough to know that! And anyone who plays a part in completing this ceremony will be rewarded beyond all measure! You will never know powerlessness again!”

To say that all hell broke loose in that moment would be an incredible understatement. The murmuring erupts into full-tilt yelling, and staffs clatter to the floor at an alarming rate. Sam’s guards can’t seem to decide what they want to do, and half of them pull her forward while the other half drops their hold on her altogether. With considerably less limbs to deal with, Sam begins the arduous task of taking the remaining guards out, the sounds of fighting becoming stronger behind her.

As she struggles against the rest of her guards, she spies the magistrate, his face looking decidedly paler as he takes hesitant steps backwards. He glances behind him at Jack, takes one last look at the melee before him, and then tears toward the pedestal. He rams a fist onto the button, the stone slabs begin to rise from the floor, and Sam’s breath catches in her throat. No. It’s the only word she can think, and it starts to repeat itself endlessly in her mind.

She glances behind her; Daniel and Teal’c see it, too, and their expressions mirror hers. The magistrate meets their gazes, his eyes caught somewhere between determination and wicked pleasure. He runs to the slabs, both fully upright with absolutely nothing but lava beneath them. He takes hold of one of the metal bars holding Jack in place and tears it open, and then another, and time stalls so suddenly for all three of them. As they're trapped in this horrible bubble of lagging moments and crawling seconds, the world is about to shatter, and someone has to stop it. Someone has to break free.

It's Sam by a mile. Her vision tunnels as she races forward, the guards behind her distracted by a very sudden surge of strength from Daniel and Teal'c. Somehow, some way, they morph into a wall, two protectors holding this wave of soldiers back with nothing more than the power of their wills. Sam assumes she'll never know how they manage to do it, but as the sounds of the battle behind her fade to a dull hum in her head, she recognizes the force propelling them, the same force planted so firmly in her chest.

She'll never forgive herself if she lets him fall.

The magistrate yelps as she crashes down upon him, hands wound tightly in his robes, ripping him away from Jack's prone form. He's surprisingly quick to shake off his disorientation and doubles back, snarling as he grabs her necklace and pulls it tightly. She gasps hard against it as the distance between herself and Jack grows again, and she's overwhelmed for a fraction of a second by a frigid wave of sheer helplessness. She reaches for him and can't, tries to take a breath and can't, and God, no, he's slipping, and suddenly this is about to be, by far, the worst day Sam has ever known.

An inferno ignites within her and she jerks forward, taking the magistrate with her. He stumbles, leaving his stomach completely exposed, and she drives her elbow into him so hard that it sucks the air from his lungs and leaves him hunching in agony. She swings around immediately, hearing a very clear crunch as her knuckles make contact with his nose and she thinks it might be one of the hardest backhands she's ever given anyone. So fueled is she by boiling adrenaline that she finishes off by kicking him squarely in the chest, and her ruthlessness against this weak, wispy little man with no real fighting skill will disturb her later. In this moment, however, there's not a second she can devote to worrying about it, because this is not going to be her worst day, this lake of lava will not be swallowing anyone, and this fucking scum of a magistrate will not be the one to end their leader's life.

He topples to the floor with a high-pitched whimper, and Sam sprints to the pedestal, slamming her palm onto the stone. The slabs crawl back down, and she thinks there’s no possible way that they could move any slower. She ignores the magistrate’s pained cries below her and heads straight for Jack, holding him in place as best she can. As soon as the stone hits the floor, she begins to rip the metal bars away. Each one cracks loudly as she forces it to give way, so it’s clearly not supposed to work like this and there’s probably a much easier way to get it done. She doesn’t care.

“Sir?” she asks him, her voice sounding oddly frantic in her head. “Sir, can you hear me?” He’s still not moving and beads of sweat dot his face. She places her palm against his forehead and her chest clenches: he’s burning up, and hopes it has more to do with the heat in the room than the number of rose bombs they detonated over him.

As she eases him off of the slab, she feels something bump against her shoe and looks down to find a zat right next to her. For a moment, she swears she’s seeing things, but then she hears two zats spring to life and looks up to see Daniel and Teal’c, their weapons trained on the entire group of guards. She won’t ask how they got to that point, won’t ask how they reclaimed their gear, but her heart soars and she grabs the zat beside her.

The magistrate glances up weakly from his position on the floor as he holds his chest and his stomach, takes one look at Daniel and Teal’c and the guards, and lurches to his feet in an attempt to run for the hills.

Oh, I don’t think so, Sam thinks, and aims her zat, reveling in the sight of the magistrate stopping in his tracks at the sound of its activation.

“Don’t. Move.”

He whirls around to face her, hand still on his stomach. His legs are shaking slightly, whether from fear or anger, she could care less. She’s just about to ask him (quite politely under the circumstances, she thinks) to get out of the way and let them leave, when he darts away. And for a scrawny son of a bitch, he sure can run.

Sam fires. Electricity ripples through the magistrate’s body and he drops like a stone.

The room is silent, save for the sounds of bubbling lava. Aside from a few nervous glances and fidgets here and there, the guards stay very still.

Sam spares a quick glance down at Jack, limp and unmoving as she holds him with her other arm.

“I want to know the fastest way out of here,” she yells to the guards.

A moment passes, and then one soldier begins to speak. The entire time, his eyes stay focused on the magistrate’s still form, and when he’s finished, the briefest smile flashes across his lips.

---

The sun is just peeking out over the horizon when they exit into the cool morning air, a welcome blessing after an entire night in heatstroke hell. The sky is alight with soft oranges and blues, but right now, everyone trudging toward the Stargate would much rather be seeing those colors on Earth.

Sam resists grimacing with every step. Her shoulders are killing her, as is her neck and her arms and her legs, and her ankles feel like they’re sawing themselves right off of her body. If she never wears another pair of heels again, there’s a very good chance it might actually be too soon.

She never really let go of the zat as they left, taking up the rear to keep an eye on their six as they descended an atrocious number of lengthy staircases. Now that they’re finally free of the castle walls, the village seems unusually quiet. There’s no rustling of curtains as people peek out the windows, no creaking of doors, and no footsteps except for their own. It’s just as well; if she sees so much as one more person from this godforsaken planet, she honestly feels like she has it in her to scream.

Daniel sets a slow but steady pace for all of them at the front. He looks positively ragged, and an exhausted exhalation is the only sound he makes as they walk. Teal’c marches along behind him, and while he’s in better shape, Sam’s still eager to have that head wound of his checked out. Colonel O’Neill lies motionless on his shoulders, still out cold. It’s more than a little nerve-wracking at this point, and Sam’s eager to have him checked out, too. She tries to tell herself that all things considered, it could be worse, but then decides she’d really rather not think about that at all. They’re intact, and that’s all that matters.

As they arrive at the DHD, they hear a low moan. Sam feels ten weights lift off her shoulders in the span of about two seconds.

“Oh, geez,” Jack mumbles, his speech only slightly less slurred than Sam’s had been.

Sam exchanges very pleased looks with Daniel and Teal’c. “Hey, sir,” she says, her relief clear in her voice. “How are you feeling?”

Jack grumbles something incomprehensible before replying, “Like I got run over by a semi truck. Twice.” He pauses before asking, “What’s going on?”

“Well, we’re going home.”

There’s a beat of silence. “For real this time?”

Sam chuckles softly. “For real this time.”

He lets his head drop back down with another groan. “Thank God.”

Daniel already looks to be in better spirits as he approaches the DHD and wastes no time dialing home. A hint of a smile lies on Teal’c’s lips as well, and for the first time in 24 hours, things finally feel right again.

Jack grunts and tries to adjust himself, but Teal’c continues to hold him firmly. “Where’s Carter?” Jack finally asks.

“I’m right here, sir,” she responds.

Jack tries to beat a fist against Teal’c’s arm, but it comes out more like a pathetic slap. “Teal’c, c’mon, put me down.”

“I cannot,” is Teal’c’s simple reply. Jack struggles for a few more seconds before surrendering, sighing audibly as his body slackens.

“Carter,” he says.

“Yes, sir, I’m right here,” Sam repeats.

“Isn’t it me who’s supposed to be carrying you?”

She smiles. “No, not today.”

Daniel completes the dialing sequence, and each one of them has never been so glad to see and hear the wormhole spring to life.

“Shall we?” Daniel extends an arm in mock invitation, but they’re all too happy to accept it just the same.

They stride toward the wormhole, and Jack again says, “Carter.”

“Yes, sir?”

He lifts his head ever so slightly, blinking groggily at her. “You’ve still got that thing on your head.”

She blinks. “Oh.” She’s actually a little startled by the realization that her little princess crown is, in fact, still pinned to her head; she could’ve sworn it fell off a long time ago.

As her fingers brush its edges again, Jack adds, “I gotta tell you… it’s freaking me out a little bit.”

Sam can’t help but laugh at that. “You and me both.”

The wormhole slurps as Daniel steps through, and Teal’c and the colonel aren’t far behind. Sam pauses for a moment on the steps, reaching up to remove the pins from her hair and bring the crown down to her eye level. It really is tiny, easily fitting in the palm of her hand. Its bright, polished edges are smudged slightly now with dirt and scratches, but it still catches light beautifully, and Sam can see herself clearly in the reflection.

She turns it over in her hand as she pivots to gaze up at the castle one last time. She stares at one of the thin windows near the top, wondering if maybe, just maybe, the magistrate is watching.

Her eyes sweep over the cobblestones, gauging the distance between the gate and the main door of the castle. It’s a bit of a stretch, but she could probably make it. Without a word, she reaches back and, as hard as she possibly can, flings the crown at the door.

She doesn’t wait to hear it hit the ground before she smirks and lets the wormhole envelop her.

-fin-

fic: faith in royalty (or lack thereof) - 1/2

gingasaur — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 23:52:14 GMT

This got so long that I have to post it in two parts, WHAT? So much for not having ideas!

Um, so, I don't know if you know this about me, it might come as a bit of a shock, but. I like Sam! I like stories about Sam! I like stories about Sam being UHMAYZING, kickin' ass and takin' names like there's no tomorrow! I know, I know, you're reeling. What will you even do with this brand new information!!

Well, you could always put your little eyes all over this story I wrote about Sam being a badass motherfucker. Thaaat is one thing you could do.

title: Faith in Royalty (or Lack Thereof)
series: Stargate SG-1
rating: PG-13 for PUNCHAN and KICKAN and A LITTLE BIT O' SWEARAN
word count: 11,682
spoilers: Passing mentions of little details you wouldn't know without seasons 2, 4 and 6 under your belt. Takes place in season 7 (although I couldn't stop imagining it as 8?)
notes: ohhhh boy! Written for girlsavesboyfic, aka the very first real ficathon I've ever participated in! I have a lot of people to thank and they are: adventurepants, for beta-ing and patting me on the head when I got nervous, soaked_in_stars and peekadora, for encouraging me (prodding me? shoving me?) to do this in the first place, cheapmetaphor, joie_de_vivre, janneys and vivrebarefoot, for being really good pom-pom wavers, even if they didn't know it, and ME, for performing inception on myself, because this is basically an embellished and real-world-logic'd dream that I had after going to bed one night worrying that I wouldn't come up with a good idea for this in time. I almost wish I was kidding.

Sam awakens to the sweet smell of roses and the sound of somebody shushing her. And nobody shushes Samantha Carter.

It takes her a moment to realize she’s saying something, but the words don’t sound so much like words as they sound like unintelligible rambling, tumbling out of her mouth at a volume that she thinks might be uncharacteristically loud for her. She really wishes she could tell, but that rose smell seems to be permanently lodged up her nostrils and the only thing she can see is the floor, and no matter how many times she blinks, she can’t get it to stop swirling.

“Uh, Jack? I think she’s awake.”

“Yeah, I can hear that, Daniel.” Jack’s voice vibrates right through her stomach, and she feels her whole body bouncing in time with footfalls. She wriggles a little and hands clamp down on her harder in response. It’s when she finally realizes she’s looking at the floor from mid-air that she comes to the conclusion that she’s draped like a sack of potatoes across Jack’s shoulders. He’s carrying her. Why on Earth is he carrying her? It’s not like she doesn’t have two legs of her own.

“Put me down, sir,” she tries to say, but the clear request she thinks in her head and the slurred, muddled mess she ends up hearing in her ears are just so painfully different.

“Major Carter.” Teal’c’s voice is close to her ear, low and soothing. Had his voice always been so soothing? Gosh, it was soothing. “You must remain silent,” he continues. “We are attempting to escape and return to the Stargate.”

Escape? Escape from where? She tries to ask as much, but the only reply she gets is an awfully cranky, “Carter,” and she doesn’t think that’s a very good answer.

“I don’t care,” Jack hisses, “just stop talking so damn loud.” Oh. Did she say that last part out loud?

She lifts her head to get a better look at their surroundings, but a particularly hideous wave of nausea slams into her and she quickly decides to settle for looking at the floor. She hears herself let out a fairly undignified moan as she lowers her head, followed by Jack and Daniel shushing her again.

“Does anybody have any idea where we’re going?” Jack whispers. God, where are they? They have to be off-world, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to escape from somewhere. Hopefully. She tries to sift through the thick fog that is her memory, but all she comes up with is roses. Roses, roses, that freaking smell of roses. Why is it so strong? It feels like it’s all over her, soaked into her entire body for all eternity, and the charm of the scent is beginning to wear off very quickly.

Stinging bursts of pain suddenly flare up like fire across her skin. “Did I get hit?” she mumbles, hoping her efforts to be quieter actually worked. Nobody makes any agitated noises, so she figures she succeeded.

“Yeah, Sam,” Daniel responds. “You got hit. We all did.”

A vague memory of something the size of a softball smacking her in the face pops into her head. It was black and round, like a giant grenade, except there had been no explosion, only… roses. And all hell breaking loose, but that was mostly Colonel O’Neill’s doing. But why? Where in the world are they and what in the world happened?

“And just where do you think you‘re going?”

They screech to a halt and Jack curses under his breath. “Oh, just… going for an evening stroll,” he says through his teeth.

“What are you doing with the princess?” a voice asks, the tone flat and annoyed. It’s male, whoever it is, and there’s a certain grating snootiness in the sound that suggests he holds some kind of authority, and did he just call one of them a princess? Oh, he’d better be talking about Daniel.

She feels Jack tighten his hold on her. “Well, she’d be kind of pissed if we went without her.” Crap. Definitely not talking about Daniel.

“You are trying to leave us,” the voice says. Sam hears a whole slew of shuffling and clicking and Jack takes a step backwards. Weapons.

“Look,” Jack replies loudly, sternly, “we’re taking a pass on this whole prince and princess thing. You let us go, and we won’t kick your asses.”

The voice chuckles. It might sound sinister if it didn’t sound so amused. “You are staying, and you will save our world. The ceremony can’t be completed without you, after all.”

A flurry of deep thumping and poofing noises ring out. Sam doesn’t have much time to wonder why that sounds so familiar, or what kind of weapons sound like fluffy fairy tale magic, before Jack quickly deposits her on the floor. The last thing she remembers before passing out again is the sensation of his body covering hers.

That, and the smell of those damned roses.

---

She’s just decided, in the confines of her barely conscious mind, that everything had been a crazy little dream after all when her stomach rolls under the weight of a sickly sweet odor and she sits up, tense and sweating and sporting a headache the size of the sun. It feels like the sun, too, and she blinks hard to shoo away the throbbing pain and the relentless blurriness clouding her vision. It accomplishes absolutely nothing, and she presses her palm against her forehead as she slides back down. Her back comes to rest on something hard and cold, and her other arm flops down and hangs over the side of whatever it is that she’s laying on. She’ll look at it in a minute, or whenever the world stops spinning, whichever happens first.

Sam can feel her arms and legs tingling, almost as if the naquadah coursing through her veins is furious that it was beaten down by mere sedatives. But, boy, those were some sedatives. The memories of how she and the rest of the team had gotten into this fine mess finally come back to her in a rush, and she exhales quietly as she resists the urge to lie there and sort through them all. There are more important things to worry about at the moment: she has no idea where she is or if she’s alone, and that doesn’t tend to be the sort of information she likes to go without.

She pushes herself up again, slower this time but wincing anyway. She inhales slowly, each breath coated with that nasty rose scent. When her breathing finally evens out a bit and her stomach stops flipping around like a fish on dry land, she opens her eyes and finds herself staring ahead at black metal bars. A cool breeze makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and she looks behind her to find a red stone wall with a thin, tiny window looking out into the black night. It’s too bad that it’s impossible to fit through, let alone fit an arm through. She turns back to the entrance to her cell, her gaze quickly sweeping over the ceiling and the walls on either side along the way. No cracks, no vents, just solid dark red stone. Fantastic.

She deliberately takes it slow when she finally stands, willing her knees to stop shaking and glancing at the stone bed beside her. She’ll call it a bed for simplicity’s sake, but it’s nothing more than a long stone slab sticking up out of the floor. And they certainly didn’t have the decency to give her a pillow, as the mild crick in her neck is quick to point out. But, then again, this is a cell, so she’s clearly a prisoner. A pillow is probably out of the question.

Her boots click against the stones as she makes her way toward the bars, and it takes her a few more steps than it normally should for her to realize that boots don’t click. When she looks down at herself, her stomach sinks as she suddenly sees what all that princess talk was all about: she’s definitely dressed to fit the part. Instead of BDUs, she finds a little light pink dress, so light that it’s almost white and with heels to match, plastered to her body. It’s smooth as silk and very… form-fitting, to say the least (she’s fairly certain she walked onto this world with two times less cleavage.) The dress begins just below her shoulders and ends in the middle of her thighs, and there’s a long train trailing out behind her. It swishes against the floor every time she moves and makes her feel positively ridiculous, like some sort of bizarre pink peacock. That feeling is only intensified when she reaches up to her hair, shoulders sagging as her fingers graze along the edges of a pointy little crown, pinned neatly to the center of her head.

And the guys saw her in this. They’d never let her live it down.

There’s some kind of massive golden necklace draped over her collarbone and there seem to be some tiny dangly earrings involved, too, but she’s officially had it with this world. She strides toward the bars of her cell with every intention of getting the hell out.

No sooner does she do so, however, than she hears voices coming in her direction and sees shadows moving along the wall. There hadn’t been any guards here the entire time, and she takes a second to mentally berate herself for wasting time being mystified by the damn dress before she darts back onto the stone slab. She lays flat, shuts her eyes, and stays as still as humanly possible. With any luck, these guys will keep talking and tell her something useful.

As the voices move closer to her cell, she hears, “…and they have weapons shaped like serpents that can call spirits of lightning!” The guard sounds young, eager, and innocently excited by what must be his first real assignment.

“I’m still not so sure,” the other guard says. His voice is a little deeper, a little older, but still fairly young; he can’t be much more than 30. Both their voices are close now and Sam cracks one eye open, watching as the two position themselves on either side of the cell. They both appear to be holding long staffs with two prongs on either side of a black sphere.

“Oh, come on!” the younger guard exclaims. “They came through the Ancient Ring! And the legends say that-”

“I know what the legends say,” the older guard grumbles. “I just think this is all a little too convenient. These so-called messiahs appear just as the magistrate’s term is about to conclude? It’s too easy. He might be looking for a way to earn another one, and he must think these people are going to be able give it to him.”

The younger guard scoffs. “The magistrate would do no such thing; he is an honorable man!”

“He would do exactly this sort of thing. He adores his power; can’t you see it in his eyes?”

The younger guard doesn’t respond to that, so the older one continues speaking. “Legendary saviors coming through the Ancient Ring, completing the long-lost ceremony, appeasing the flame god… it’s the perfect way to placate the populace. They’ll love him for this. He’ll probably even get two more terms out of it!”

Flame god? That’s a new one. Sam remembers the magistrate (and his snooty voice) from their initial meeting, and remembers all the hubbub about ceremony this, Ancient Ring that, but she hadn’t heard anything about a flame god. She grimaces inwardly; given the way she’s dressed, they probably want her to marry it.

The younger guard sighs and falls silent for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice echoes against the walls of the cell; he must be facing it. “Even if that were true, this is still supposed to protect our world from all evils, and…” He trails off, making a series of quiet stuttering noises like he’s searching for words, and then finally says, “Well, just look at the princess! I’ve never seen anyone like her, she’s… she’s so beautiful.” God, he almost sounds like he’s getting emotional. He pauses, then adds almost regretfully, “It seems a shame to just… let them go through with the ceremony.”

The older guard seems to notice his current state. “Your face is red.” The younger guard begins stuttering again, and the older one chuckles. “Keep this up, and I’ll tell your wife.”

As the younger guard pleads frantically, “Oh, don’t tell her, please! She’ll have my head!” and the older guard taunts him with more playful threats, Sam decides it’s now or never. She really hates having to resort to this kind of thing (she’d roll her eyes if they weren’t still closed,) but she has to get these two to open the door, if only for a second.

She coughs once, twice, and immediately winces at how overdramatic they sound. Still, it gets the guards’ attention, and their talking stops abruptly. Their light armor shuffles and shifts as they turn to peer at her through the bars, and she sits up slowly, meeting their gaze with what she hopes is something like dazed innocence. If they’re so insistent on calling her a princess, then she might as well play the part.

“Oh…” she softly mutters, the back of her hand traveling to her forehead. “Where am I?”

The guards gape at each other, as if they never expected her to actually wake up while they were there. The older one is the first to regain his senses and he shakes his head momentarily. “Uh, greetings, Princess!” The younger guard gives him a look at the sudden disappearance of his skepticism, and the older one shrugs. “It’s all right,” he continues. “You’re in the castle.”

“And there’s good news!” The younger guard stands up a little straighter and puffs his chest out. “The ceremony preparations have been accelerated. It’s going to occur in just a few hours, so you won’t have to wait much longer.”

Sam stares at them blankly. The older guard takes the opening and speaks again. “I, uh. I know you must be frightened.”

“Ah, yes,” Sam replies, and thinks it was probably a little too quick. She nods as she says, “Absolutely. Frightened. Completely.” A somewhat awkward silence stretches out between all of them, so she tosses in a, “Help?”

“It’s all right,” the older guard reassures her again. “I know the ceremony must seem a little… barbaric. Honestly, I’m not so sure how I feel about it myself, but…”

The young guard picks up where he leaves off. “But the legends say you’ll be fine! And, and your prince will be there with you, and so will your servants.”

“And were anyone to assist you in, say, an escape,” the older guard says with a wince, “surely they would be punished by death.” The younger guard nods beside him. “We have families we need to take care of, you see. So if the ceremony does go forward, then… well, I’m sorry.”

Sam nods again, a little slower this time. The more they talk about this ceremony, the more upset they look. Whatever it is, it can’t be too pleasant.

“Where is… my prince?” she asks somewhat tentatively. “And my servants?” She has a guess as to who they might have classified as the prince, but she certainly doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

“Your servants are being held in the cells above us,” the younger guard answers. “But don’t worry; this is all for your own protection.” Oh yeah, Sam’s heard that one before.

“To be honest, though, I’m not sure where they’ve taken the prince,” the older guard muses. “They may have begun to prepare him for the ceremony. As you will eventually be prepared, of course.”

“Of course,” Sam responds. She does her best to inject some excitement into it, but it still comes out rather flat.

The younger guard does that chest-puffing thing again. “You will see your prince and your servants again at the ceremony, so there’s nothing to worry about. We shall keep you company until the appointed time.” He looks so proud; it might be adorable were he not standing directly between Sam and her freedom.

“Oh, well. That’s, um. That’s very nice. Thank you.” Sam clasps her hands together as she rises from the stone slab, offering them a smile as she slowly makes her way toward the bars. “You know what might be even nicer?”

The guard’s eyes widen with child-like awe as she comes closer to them. They shake their heads in response to her question, but stay utterly enraptured by her presence in their almost personal space.

Sam leans in close until her bangs brush against the bars. The guards do the same, not even aware that they’re doing it.

“It would be even nicer,” she half-whispers to them, “if you both kept me company for, oh, I don’t know.” She shrugs innocently. “Some fresh air. It’s awfully stuffy in here. I mean, the little window’s great, but it’s not all that conducive to good air flow.”

The guards give each other uncertain glances, but Sam presses on. “So, what do you say? Let’s go for a walk.”

The younger guard’s brow furrows. “Er, well. That would require… letting you out of here.”

Sam nods. “That… would be the general idea, yes.”

“That would be constituted as escape,” the older guard remarks. “We would die.”

“Escape? Oh. Oh, no, I- I wouldn’t dream of-” She stops. Their faces are blank as blank can be. They’re not buying it.

“We really cannot open this door,” the older guard continues. “It’s best for all us if we don’t open it.”

“Not even for a few minutes?”

“Listen, Princess, you…” The younger guard shifts slightly and looks at the floor. He swallows hard as he looks up again, and Sam swears she sees a teeny tiny bead of sweat working its way down the side of his head. “You became quite violent when you were first brought here. It was… frightening.”

“They told us you had been possessed by an evil spirit attempting to defeat you before the ceremony.” The older guard shrugs helplessly. “We do not wish to see that spirit.”

“Ever again,” the younger guard adds, his eyes widening slightly as if he’s plagued by some horrible, traumatic ghost of a memory.

Sam lets her head drop with a sigh. There’s no use mincing words anymore, and she’s always been better with the direct approach anyway. “Look,” she says, studying their faces with an expression she hopes will make her ever-increasing desire to go home known and appreciated, “I know everyone here thinks we’re destined to somehow save your planet because we came through the ‘Ancient Ring’, but number one: your planet is at peace. I don’t have any idea what we’re saving you from.”

The two men exchange puzzled glances. “Evil,” they say in unison like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Sam sighs again. “Okay. Well, number two: we’re really not that special. See, we’re explorers. We go through the Stargate – that’s what we call the Ancient Ring back on our world – every day. I know the gate is very important to your legends, but it’s also not something that’s unique to your planet.”

On the plus side, the guards’ worlds don’t appear to be flipping upside down with the introduction of this information. On the other hand, they also don’t appear to be totally plugged into her speech. She stares at them intently, hoping to reel them back in. “We’ve been through hundreds of gates. We come from another world, yes, but we’re human, just like you are. We’re not world-savers.” As soon as the words come out of her mouth, she’s struck by the hopeless inaccuracy of her statement and shuts her eyes. “Well, I guess we’ve saved some worlds before. But not-” She gestures to her currently royal attire. “Not like this.”

The guards glance at each other again. “The magistrate has made his declarations clear,” the younger one states.

“And, like it or not, his word is law.”

They observe her with something that looks like regret, like they’re genuinely disappointed that they can’t help her. She licks her lips slowly, thoughtfully, and draws in a measured breath through her teeth. She lets it go all at once in a huge rush of air.

“Okay,” she simply says before she takes a few steps backwards, turns around, and promptly collapses onto the floor.

It takes a moment for the whole thing to sink in for the guards. They stare at her, at each other, and then back again, jaws gradually becoming more and more agape.

“Princess?” the younger one asks. Sam offers no response whatsoever, not even a twitch. “Oh, sweet fires of- is she all right? Can you tell?”

“I…” The older guard shakes his head as if to clear it. “Yes! Yes, of course she’s all right. She was just talking to us!”

“Then why isn’t she moving?”

“I don’t know!”

The younger guard moves toward the big black lock on the bars, but the older one smacks his hand away.

“What in the world do you think you’re doing?!”

“I’m going to check on her! She might be injured!”

“She’s not injured! This is clearly a ruse; weren’t you listening when she just said she wants to leave?” The younger guard ignores him, goes for the lock, and promptly gets his hand smacked again. “Do not open this door!”

The younger guard’s tone ratchets itself up an octave. “What if she dies?! I’m fairly certain the saviors need to be alive for the ceremony; do you really want to be held responsible for its failure because the princess is dead?!”

There’s a thought that gets the older guard’s blood chilling. The color drains from his face as his imagination runs wild. After a few agonizing moments of self-inflicted mental torture, he shuts his eyes very tightly and grimaces. “All right,” he says. “Just make sure she’s breathing, and then get back out here.” He brings his staff in front of him and readies it, pointing it directly at the spot where Sam lies. He backs out of the way only to let the younger guard venture inside, and plants himself right in the middle of the cell’s new possible exit.

The younger guard approaches Sam with a great deal of caution, circling her for a moment before leaning forward slightly and lightly prodding her arm with one of the prongs of his staff. She doesn’t move. He looks back to the older guard, who rolls his eyes, but urges him on. He steps even closer, kneels down, leans in a little more, and then…

And then Sam grabs the bottom of his staff, wrenches it out of his hands, and bashes him right in the side of the head with it. He goes down as she leaps up, but the older guard gives an aggravated cry of, “Oh, I told you!” and lets fly with a barrage of the poofing black things, materializing one right after the other from the sphere in the middle of the prongs. Sam dives behind the stone slab and swoons a bit at the return of the rose stench. Wispy pink smoke rapidly fills the cell and she covers her mouth and nose with her hand; there is no way she’s going to let that stuff knock her out again.

The older guard’s footsteps thump farther into the cell, and Sam knows there can’t be much distance now between her and him, so she picks up the younger guard’s staff again and swings it hard in a large, sweeping motion as she quickly rises from the floor. It clangs against the older guard’s weapon, knocking it out of the way and sending him a little off-balance. Sam doesn’t waste his mere seconds of distraction: she immediately darts toward him, grabs him by the shoulders, and rams her knee into his stomach. His staff drops to the floor with a clatter, and she shoves him out of her way and into the wall as she sprints out the door.

Once she’s out, however, she glances at the open lock on the bars and figures there had to be a key that opened it, so she silently swears and doubles back into the cell. The older guard is totally dazed, too dazed to do anything about her pouncing on the younger guy and patting him down in an effort to locate the keys. Something clinks in his pants pocket, and sure enough, the keys are there. Sam gratefully snatches them up and bounds back outside, prizes firmly in hand. She rests her staff against the wall beside her, pulls the bars closed and clamps the lock shut.

She’s mid-dash in another direction when she hears the faint swish of her train behind her and stops, rolling her eyes and dropping to one knee. Yanking the whole thing toward her, she finds the place just below where it meets the back of the dress and promptly spears a prong of the staff into it. It goes through easily, like a knife through butter, and she quickly saws the train right off without hesitation. She almost leaves it behind, but changes her mind at the last second and wraps it around her wrist.

A quiet, aggravated exhalation leaves her as she stands again, and she glances back into the cell. The guards aren’t moving.

“Sorry,” she mutters, and runs off without another look back.

---

They’d been looking forward to P4X-777. They really had been. “Lucky sevens,” Colonel O’Neill said brightly, sporting a rather infectious smirk as they all stepped through the wormhole. So where was the point, exactly, that things started to go awry? Was it when they emerged on the other side to a swarm of staffs pointed directly at their stomachs? Or perhaps it was when they were just getting ready to leave and that magistrate spread his arms wide, saying something about a ritual, and oh, would you please be so kind as to participate before you depart?

No, it had to have been, Sam thinks as she hears footsteps and presses her back flat against another wall, the point when she’d done her usual blabbering to some of the villagers about, “This is how the Stargate works,” and, “Wormholes are cool,” and she’d had an utterly captive audience the entire time. And if there’s one thing Sam almost never has when she starts talking science, it’s a captive audience. They didn’t understand a word of what she was saying, and she knew that, and they knew that, and yet they’d listened anyway, eyes wide and astonished as she prattled through the basics. It was kind of nice at first, but then some of the older, gray-haired women started gesturing toward the sky and muttering under their breaths and possibly crying to themselves, and that, Sam decides, is when things got weird. Looking back on it now, she realizes she must’ve done or said something that made them think she was their mystical, sparkly princess of yore. She certainly doesn’t feel very princess-like as she sneaks through this ridiculous maze of a castle that’s apparently a lot bigger on the inside than it originally appeared on the outside. The impossibly long hallways and the even longer sets of stairs are, unfortunately, giving her a lot of time to finally think about what got them here.

The Pyreneans (“Like the dogs?” the colonel had mused) were paranoid. Really, really paranoid. This was understandable, perhaps, since not one single person had come through their gate for hundreds, possibly thousands of years, and they’d gotten quite used to it being their greatest religious icon (otherwise known as, “Their big lawn ornament,” if the colonel’s never ending witticisms were to be taken with anything other than a grain of salt.) So when SG-1 waltzed through their gate, they panicked. Screams were uttered, women and children were hidden, and soldiers poured out of the castle in droves to “greet” them. It took a lot of forced smiling and a lot of Daniel’s usual verbal magic to convince them that they weren’t evil spirits hell bent on leveling their planet.

The magistrate, tall and thin with a hooked nose and a voice like a buzz saw, eventually appeared to call the soldiers off. He was positively hospitable after that, inviting one and all to come and meet their otherworldly visitors. What with the Stargate being in the middle of the village, and the village being situated right outside the castle, there were plenty of people poking their heads out of windows and doors, hoping to catch a glimpse of these strange new guests.

Things grew considerably more relaxed from there: suddenly there was a feast in their honor (otherwise known as the ritual, and hey, rituals involving food couldn’t be that bad) and Jack was muttering through his teeth that, “We should probably quit while we’re ahead,” and Daniel was muttering back, “Well, we definitely don’t want to be rude now,” and so they stayed, but only for the feast, and then they’d high-tail it home. It was clear that the Pyreneans weren’t likely to have any new or interesting technology since they were planted firmly in the medieval stages of life, and all four of them were far from averse to the idea of cutting their losses on this one.

Sam holds her breath as the shadow of another guard passes by her. When he’s gone, she glances down at the staff still firmly in her grip. They might’ve been wrong about new and interesting technology after all, what with these things having a clear ability to conceal large ammunition in a very small space, but it’s way past the point where anyone would care. And, Sam notes with an inward grumble, she still hasn’t been able to figure out how to make it work. Right now, it’s just a heavy stick, and that really bugs her.

But she digresses. As she peers around a corner, looking both ways before darting down another hallway, she recalls the feast. The magistrate had taken quite an interest in them by that point, and she assumed (And you know what they say about assuming, she thinks to herself rather bitterly) he was just trying to dispel any remaining concerns his people may have harbored. He asked a lot of questions, but none of them had really been all that personal. In fact, most of them were actually kind of bizarre: “Have you ever slain a rampaging beast?” (“Sure, we’ve done that. Right? We’ve slain some beasts?”) “Have you ever embarked into the clouds?” (“You mean like… flying? Yeah, we’ve done that.”) “Have you ever performed a miracle with your own two hands?” (“Carter blew up a sun once.”)

Of course, Sam sees now that it was a cleverly disguised test, a list of legendary savior criteria. The gleam in the magistrate’s eye as he excused himself temporarily was unmistakable, and not one of them missed it. She and the colonel had a clear view of him as he left and watched him converse with some soldiers a few yards away. He looked back at them, and he did this a lot, his eyes passing over each one of them in measured increments. It was more than suspicious, and it set off every mental alarm bell they had. By the time he returned to their table, they were already out of their seats.

The magistrate only eyed them greedily, an almost ravenous smirk appearing on his face as he snapped his fingers. Soldiers surrounded them again, closing them into a tight circle, and the magistrate declared in full proclamatory volume that “the promised time has come to us all.”

And then Sam got a face full of poofing grenade and somebody fired a zat and the sounds of punching and kicking gradually grew weaker as they were peppered over and over by the rose bombs. That’s the last thing she clearly remembers; ever since the guards mentioned it, she has a vague memory of waking up groggy and kicking somebody in the head, which must have caused them to chuck even more grenades at her, which would explain why she was the only one high as a kite when they’d tried to make their grand escape.

She hears a voice as she rounds the next corner, dropping in and out as it reverberates against the high walls, but clearly… singing?

“When you wish upon a star… makes no difference who you-”

“Stop! Stop your chanting right now! You are a prisoner!”

Sam grins and swallows a chuckle. Leave it to Daniel to figure out how to bug the crap out of his guards without even lifting a finger.

“This isn’t chanting,” she hears him say as she creeps closer to his cell. “It’s singing. There’s really a big difference.”

“I don’t care! You will cease it immediately!” One of the guards has his back to her, and they’re so focused on Daniel and standing so close to his cell that they don’t have the slightest idea that she’s there. And that’s good, because it gives her enough time to sneak up right behind them, slowly raise her staff, and nail one of the guards right in the back of the head. He drops like a stone, leaving a very stunned guard and an equally stunned Daniel in his wake.

The other guard has himself planted so close to the bars of the cell that he doesn’t realize his staff is right within Daniel’s reach. Daniel jumps on his distraction and lunges forward, threading his arms through the bars and gripping the staff tightly. The guard attempts to wrench it from his grip, but Daniel’s a lot stronger than he gives him credit for, and he growls in frustration as he lets it go and charges at Sam.

This guard’s quite a bit bigger and stronger than the guys stationed at Sam’s cell, and he clearly has a much better idea of what he’s doing as he hurtles his body into her, slamming her hard against the wall. Stars swarm her vision and strong arms clamp around her as the guard drags her toward the cell. Still blinking away spots, she struggles against him, her shoes leaving the floor as she tries to twist herself out of his grip. It slows him down just enough, and she’s able to drive her heel into his boot before breaking free and slamming her fist into his face. He staggers backwards, hands against his nose, and she uses his momentum to steer him toward the wall, which she drives his head into, just in case. The guard finally goes down and Sam descends on his pockets, patting them down until she finds the keys she seeks. At this rate, she’s going to have quite a collection going.

“You all right?” Daniel asks her as she thrusts key after key into the bars’ lock.

“Yeah,” she nods. “Are you?”

Daniel nods back. “Yeah, although I was getting pretty bored there.”

She smirks at him as the lock finally clicks open. “So I heard.”

They take a few cautious glances around as Daniel slides out from behind the bars, and they immediately go about dragging the guards’ limp bodies into the cell. Once it’s closed and locked again, Sam snatches both staffs off the floor, tossing one to Daniel as he comes to stand beside her.

“Do you have any idea where they took Teal’c and Colonel O’Neill?” she asks him.

“Nope. I was sort of hoping you did.”

“Nope.”

They both take one last look inside the cell before breezing out of the room.

As another lengthy hall stretches out before them, Daniel asks, “Still stuck in that getup, huh?”

Sam groans and rolls her eyes. “I have never missed my uniform as much as I do right now.”

---

The two of them run around aimlessly for God knows how long, and that combined with periodically catching a nauseating whiff of rose starts to get the better of them. They find a small alcove, well-shaded by a row of pillars, in which to momentarily catch their breath.

As they crouch in the shadows, Sam fiddles with her staff, pangs of frustration gradually sinking in. If these stupid guards can fire off a volley without a second thought, why can’t she figure out how to do it? It cannot possibly be rocket science. She’s starting to suspect some kind of weird Pyrenean gene when Daniel, thankfully, interrupts her train of thought that’s well on its way to involving gratuitous use of expletives.

“Do you have any idea what these people expect us to be able to do for them?” he asks.

Sam sighs. “Apparently we have the ability to appease a flame god and banish all evil.”

“Ah. Well, that would make sense.” Sam gives him a skeptical sidelong glance, and he quickly adds, “In terms of language, I mean. ‘Pyrenean’. In this case, it’s probably an extension of the Greek root ‘pyr’.” Sam looks at him again. “Fire,” he confirms.

“Ah,” she says, and turns to her attention back to the staff.

After a moment’s silence, Daniel mutters, “Or, I guess it could also be for Pyrene.”

“Pyrene?”

“A figure in Greek mythology,” he explains. “Basically, Hercules forced himself upon her in a drunken stupor, she got pregnant and gave birth to a snake, and then she ran into the woods where she poured her heart out to the trees before she was torn to shreds by wild beasts.”

Sam stops what she’s doing and turns her head very, very slowly to stare incredulously at Daniel, whose gaze drifts up to the little crown still perched atop Sam’s head.

“And,” he continues, “she was a princess, so…”

Sam actually feels some of the color drain from her face, and suddenly finds herself uncomfortably aware of her dress.

“So we’ll hope it’s not that,” she says.

Daniel nods slowly and methodically. “Yeah.”

An odd bang startles them to attention, and they snap up their staffs and press themselves farther into the shadows. The sounds of some sort of commotion reach their ears, and they hear another muffled bang. Voices drift their way, all tense and shouting, but there’s one in particular that they recognize immediately. They don’t even have to look at each other before they hurry out of the alcove.

They cautiously peer around the corner, both relieved and anxious at the sight of Teal’c. He’s surrounded by about five or six different guards, all struggling to wrestle him into submission, and it looks like they might actually succeed. Sam feels Daniel twitch beside her as Teal’c roars in frustration.

Very quickly, she looks behind them. No guards. There aren’t any more leaping into the fray, either, so they might actually have a shot at knocking them all out together. Anything’s better than sitting here watching these guys wail on Teal’c, and when Sam glances at Daniel, he’s already looking to her for an answer to his unspoken question: “Are we just gonna sit here, or are we gonna go help him?” All it takes is one affirmative nod, and they’re off.

One by one, Sam and Daniel manage to peel a few of the guards away, giving Teal’c enough room to clobber the rest of them. They go down quickly, but when the three of them have finally sent the last one careening, Teal’c stumbles. Sam is the first to catch him, sinking down to the floor with him and noticing a spot of red trickling down the side of his head. Daniel comes to his side and latches onto his other arm, and together they guide him back to their alcove.

“Thought this might come in handy,” Sam mutters half to herself as she unwraps the former train from her wrist, tearing off a chunk of the cloth with her teeth. She presses it to the wound on Teal’c’s head, but he grunts in pain and jerks away from her. Daniel tries to hold him steady, tries to reassure him, but his eyes look so unfocused and disoriented and he reeks of rose.

“Teal’c, it’s us, look at me.” Sam presses her palm to the side of his face and he stills somewhat. “Look at me,” she says again, easing the cloth back onto his head. This time he doesn’t resist, and he eventually makes eye contact with her.

“Major Carter,” he mumbles, his voice thick and gravelly. “Daniel Jackson.”

“Yeah, Teal’c, it’s us,” Daniel tells him, positioning him so he can lean against the wall. Sam passes the cloth to him and he takes it, dabbing lightly at some of the red spots.

Teal’c’s eyes regain some of their luster, and he shifts his gaze to Sam, a small smile appearing on his lips. “It appears I did not need to retrieve you after all.”

She grins. “Yeah, we did all right.”

“Sam did all right,” Daniel corrects her. “I might’ve been stuck singing to guards for the rest of my life if she didn’t break me out.”

Sam tosses a smirk in his direction before turning her attention back to Teal’c. “Are you gonna be all right?” she asks. “How’s your tretonin?”

Teal’c rests the back of his head against the wall and places his hand against Daniel’s arm, gently leading it down and away from him. “I will be fine,” he says, directing it at both of them. “The soldiers merely attempted to incapacitate me with their sedatives.”

“Oh, we know how that goes,” Daniel muses.

“As for my tretonin,” Teal’c continues, “it was taken from me. But as I have said, I will be all right.”

Damn. Teal’c minus tretonin dramatically cuts down their available time, no matter how much he’d try to endure without it. Sam sighs, the wheels in her head turning at full speed as she tries to formulate a plan. “Do you know where they might’ve taken it?”

“Or the rest of our gear?” Daniel asks, not voicing the concern they’re all thinking: even if they manage to make it back to the gate, they’ll be stuck between a rock and a hard place without the GDO.

“Or Colonel O’Neill?” Sam finishes.

Teal’c responds exactly the way she thought he would: “I do not.”

Sam sighs again and stands, leaning her back against the wall as she thinks. They have to find Colonel O’Neill, and they have to do it soon. But that had always been true even before now, so nothing about the situation has changed, really. Still, the castle is huge, and the colonel could be anywhere. God knows how many stairs they’d have to climb and how many rooms they’d have to sneak into before they found him. And that assumes they don’t get caught and rose bombed along the way.

She supposes he could already be running around the place trying to get to them, but she has a funny feeling that’s not the case. Daniel and Teal’c still have their uniforms, meaning there’s only one person left to be the prince. He’s probably heavily sedated and heavily guarded, wherever he is. Not like she’d been heavily guarded, but that’s a whole new can of worms she doesn’t have time to open right now.

After a few moments, she notices the silence between them and finds it glaring enough to distract her from her thoughts. When she looks over at Teal’c and Daniel again, they’ve both risen to their feet, standing quietly beside her and, she realizes, patiently waiting. Waiting for her to announce their next move.

Of course. Command automatically defers to her in a situation like this; of course they would be expecting her to make the call. There’s a small part of her that thinks it should be a little intimidating, but it’s not. Not right now, not with them. Implicit trust radiates from both of them, filling her with confidence and a determined fervor.

Sam holds their gazes steadily as she declares, “Let’s go get him.”

---

on to part 2

the void, part 2 - ye olde throwdown

gingasaur — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 00:53:04 GMT

All right, fellows. Who's ready for another night aboard the funtrain?!

Hello and welcome to part deux of Void spam. You've been through a lot to get here. You've listened to all manner of silly dialogue and bizarre scientific analogies involving soap suds that don't make a whole lot of sense. You've met Eva and Steven, whose utterly dysfunctional relationship is only rivaled by Dr. Soran's utterly dysfunctional plans for world domination. And you've seen a lottttt of legs. I know, you must be totally traumatized by that last one. mmmrrrahem.

Anyway, bottom line: you ain't seen nothin' yet. Now we're gonna have ourselves some fun.

When we last left our heroine, she was throwing phones in killers' faces and running for her life. But that guy's dead now, so poor Eva has seen not one but two dead bodies today.

Yeah, I'd be crying like a little girl, too.

As you can see, Eva has a phone in her hands, so she must finally be telling her sordid tale to the police, right? No, because in a situation such as this, the very first thing you want to do is bawl at 10¢ a minute to your on-again-off-again boyfriend. Hi, Steven!!!

A very odd exchange takes place between Dr. Soran and his hitman-arranging executive secretary, Oscar. Osssscaaaar. Love it. Anyway, I think Soran has cancer all of a sudden? And I think he was bullied in school as a child. But, look, today he's the head physicist of this multi-million dollar science extravaganza. What exactly does he have to complain about now?

He declares that this is his last chance to finally get the scientific community to pay attention to him, so he has the black hole activation date moved up to the day after tomorrow?! SAY WHAT?

Back at Lazarus the Deceased's house, there's some hand-holding going on so I guess they're back together? I don't know. Don't play the Ross and Rachel game if you're gonna be vague; someone has to scream about breaks and there has to be hitting with rolled-up newspapers. It's just a rule.

They go into the house where a detective immediately asks, "Are you sure this is the house?" Ahaha, um. I think you'd be pretty sure of the place where you saw BLOOD and SLIT THROATS and CORPSES HANGING FROM DOORS. So Eva says yes, of course this is the place.

The detective then tells her that there's no evidence of a struggle. What?! But the blood! The- the probably rotting flesh smell!

"This isn't possible," Eva says, "I hit the guy in the face with the phone!" YEAH, oh boy yeah you sure did. You sure did do that.

The detective asks Eva what the guy looked like, and she, evidently possessing the memory of a goldfish, can't remember the honkin' huge scar splayed across the side of the killer's head.

This screenshot also looks identical to the last one, whoops. They're actually different, I promise. I'm trickin' ya.

I gotta tell ya, that sure looks like a whole lot of nothing in there.

THE PLOT THICKENS! THE SUSPENSE BUILDS! How can this be?! We all saw him, right? Dead? Dead as a doornail? Y/N?

"hahaha, okay, you two jokers! why don't you just run on home and start picking out your Halloween costumes?"

That went well.

The detective watches them go, and I have to say, I was convinced that he was going to end up working for Soran and this was going to be some cool kind of "everybody's out to get you, literally!" kind of thing. But nope. Not really. I guess he was just a douchebag cop. Whatever.

oh.

it's time for this scene already.

wow, man. that's deep. whew. I don't even know what to say. The water, slowly dripping from the lonely white faucet, clearly a representation of the futility of human existence in this huge black cosmos.

Or, perhaps, a signal that Amanda is no longer wearing clothes.

Steven breaks out the wine, and I have to say I could really use some of that right now. I could really use something like a whole bottle. Or two.

"Gonna look like a prune if you stay in there any longer," Steven says. We have a word for this situation, it's called "lamow".

"I don't care," Eva replies, so quietly that you can barely hear her. It's legitimately depressing.

yeaaaah, drink deep there, Eva. It's gonna be a long night.

a very very l- oh.

ohh.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

golly.

Then Eva talks about snowflakes for a while and how her dad showed her one once and she cried when it melted. But mostly I want to do a little crying because her voice is so sad and, as usual, Amanda just tears this shit up with how great she is, idgaf. This lady can do no wrong, I am tellin' you. Well, except maybe agreeing to do this movie. Maybe that. Perhaps that was one life decision that could have been better evaluated.

Yeah, Steven's got the right idea. Sit on the side of the tub, do a little hair-petting... one-way ticket to funkytown if ever I saw one.

"Steven," Eva tearfully (tearfully! ;_;) says, "all I wanted was to find out what happened to my father." Man, yeah, how'd you like to be in this situation? Your old man croaks, nobody tells you how, so you do a little digging and suddenly people are gettin' murdered and the fate of the world hangs in the balance! WHAT.

Eva gives Steven a big opening to discuss his father, but he takes a pass. Wouldn't want him to be more of a character, now.

oooo, here it goes. Gettin' ever closer to that funkytown trip.

unf.

The music starts to get really special.

and so does the kissing.

and they're gonna do it.

aaaaallllll

niiiiiiiight

loooooooong

Who can blame them, though? World's gonna end day after tomorrow; better get some while you still can.

oh man, yeah. Looking at it like this, that is absolutely a body double. How silly.

After all that talk of "the boob, the boob!" though, I realized I don't actually have any place to host the boob. I mean, I'm not gonna upload one breast that's not even Amanda's to my LJ scrapbook. So. This is about as far as we go today, sorry.

alalala sexsexsex

The music is so out of control with near-operatic "ooh"s and "aah"s at this point that I don't even know what to do. I mean, is it a Lifetime movie?

Well, that's enough of that. THE NEXT DAY.

Steven tells Eva that Dr. Soran called him to his office the other day. He wanted to know about her. oooooh.

Did he, now? I hope he politely informed him that in another life, Eva eats chumps like Soran for breakfast.

Steven says, "I told him you were great in bed." pffdksgls.

"Yeah, well, the entire faculty knows that."

WHOAAAA, WHOA WHOA WHOA

WHAT? LMAO

"That's charming," Steven replies. THE CHARMINGEST, OBVIOUSLY.

We flash back to Soran and Steven's little chit-chat, where he basically tells him to ditch the girl, or else. Because this is high school, Soran is the disapproving father, and Steven is the rebellious teenager. Obviously.

"boohoohoo, it was so trauma, I need a hug!"

okay, there's your hug. we're moving on.

Eva and Steven talk about this for a hot second, which, for those of us ~in the know~, we're aware that this was really caused by some timey-wimey past-meddly stuff instigated by a certain bamfy general-who's-not-yet-a-general. from the future.

Anyway, so, SCIENCE time. Here we go: so. okay. There's something with the weight of the black hole, and basically, it cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to drop.

If it drops, it will break free from the fancy-shmancy containment vessel and draw a giant Spirograph all over the Earth's insides. And we can't have that.

Actually, then they make a joke about it being no great loss if the black hole consumes Texas, and I like that. I like that very much. No great loss indeed.

What the hell is that crap on Steven's shirt? Did he spill something?

Anyway, Steven breaks the news to Eva that black hole is happening tomorrow morning OHHHHHHHHH SNAPPPPPP. So they dart back to Eva's place to get some "computer disks" she left there. computer. disks.

HAY CHRISTINE WHAT UP GURL.

Willard's here, too, but then again, where else does he really have to go?

Where else does he really have to go, indeed.

"You and I have a lot in common, you know, Willard?

We both live in cages."

awwwww bb ;_; GET INTO MY HUG, GET INTO IT RIGHT THIS INSTANT. You are going to be enveloped in love and kindness, from one Christine to another. Let's go.

Christine decides to take Willard home with her until Eva returns.

She hears the door shut. Ah! That must be her! Hi, Eva, hi!

"Who's Willard," A VOICE THAT IS DECIDEDLY NOT EVA'S SAYS.

OH NO CHRISTINE GET OUT

GET OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Eva and Steven arrive, and Steven decides to play Secret Agent Man with the door. lmfao, and he says, "It's just like in the movies," to which Eva replies by smacking him playfully and it's actually real cute.

uh oh. a phone off a hook. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: somebody ordered a pizza and forgot to hang up!

sweet merciful shit. that must've been some pizza.

"WILLARD. WILLARD ARE YOU OKAY."

"shoot, yeah, it's all good. thems pepperonis are wreakin' havoc with my bowels, though. christ on a cracker, I haven't been in this much pain since taco night.

oh, by the way, I kept your shit safe." See, what did I tell you? Important animals. I don't even.

I know all of you must be on pins and needles wondering about Christine. I was on pins and needles wondering about Christine; I didn't want anything bad to happen to her!

I remember thinking to myself, "Okay, honestly, they- they can't kill the blind girl. They just can't do that. I mean, how horrible would that be? How horrible and vaguely politically incorrect would that be? They cannot kill the blind girl!"

Well, guess what?

THEY KILLED THE BLIND GIRL

nnnnnnoooooooooo

OH GOD IN HEAVEN WHAT THE HELL IS THAT GUY DOING CREEPING IN THE SHADOWS OVER THERE

"Oh, you must be Eva," Oscar says sinisterly. "Do you know I really should've checked the surveillance cameras?" No, actually, I don't know; why don't you tell us a little more about that.

Like any fine upstanding gentleman looking to defend his lady, Steven proceeds to throw paper at Oscar. And also something that looks like half a box. Boy, Steven. You sure showed him. Evil clearly shudders in your presence.

And then he shoves him up against the wall rrreeeaaaarrrrggghhhh! That's a little better.

Steven gets bonked on the head while Eva lunges for the gun that was knocked out of Oscar's hands in all this kerfuffle. It does not quite go the way she planned.

She then hollers, "STEEEEVEEEEEEEN!" and this is not the last time she will be doing so. I don't actually mean that sexually.

Oop, I smell another chase scene. Also, out of all the things that are currently broken and thrown into disarray in this room, I like how that lovely vase full of pretty pretty flowers still stands. Oscar, don't you know anything about being a proper criminal? You have to knock over everything and go out of your way to break all of the plants and make the absolute biggest mess known to man and beast alike. What the hell are you even doing, you useless asshole. Don't do this if you're not gonna do it right.

OH DON'T TAKE THE ELEVATOR, COME ON. YOU'RE THE MAIN CHARACTER, CAN YOU AT LEAST TRY TO ACT LIKE YOU'RE NOT LAYERED IN PLOT ARMOR

Stairs, yes, thank you.

"eva, where are you going, eva? come back, I just want to order some nice calzones with you. eeeeeeevaaaaaaaaa"

duhhhh, which way did they go, george, which way did they go

Eva and Steven make it to the car and tear out of there like bats outta hell. Steven curses and spits while Eva laments, "They killed Christiiiiineeeee!" and then they take a pause to buckle their seat belts. Nice to know that even while being pursued by a murderous madman, this responsible duo doesn't take a pause for safety!

DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA

"NOW DO YOU BELIEVE ME?!" Eva screams.

"ALL RIGHT, I BELIEVE YOU!" About time, Steven! About fucking time.

Steven says they have to go to the police, but Eva thinks that's crazy talk and immediately ups the ante by yelling at Steven to take her to Filadyne. "Steven, we have got to stop tomorrow's test!" she insists, but Steven's all, NO WAY, NO HOW, WE CAN'T STOP THAT SNATCH BY OURSELVES.

Eva looks like she's going to be sick as she says, "Oh my God, Christine." I KNOW! Dude, I know! How could they kill the blind girl?!

AND THEN THE WINDOW CRACKS LIKE MY PSYCHE AS I CONTINUE TO WATCH THIS AND THERE'S SCREAMING AND PULLING OVER AND ASKLGLKGHLSKDA

and then Eva bleeds, BLEEDS, I TELL YOU. the drama is simply overwhelming!

OH BOY

HERE WE GO AGAIN

"So you're saying the head guy from Filadyne is trying to kill you because you found out he was gonna blow up Lasker County in an experiment. Have I got that right?"

lmfao I love this guy so much, shoot. WHAT A DICK.

"Look at my car!" Steven exclaims. lol yeah it is kinda messed up right now, whoops.

Douchebag Cop is all, "look. I can't just waltz in there and cuff the head guy of Filadyne," TO WHICH STEVEN REPLIES,

"Well, you can if I file a complaint!"

LMAO WHAT. EXCUSE ME, SIR, I DON'T BELIEVE LAW WORKS THAT WAY.

lmfao look at this smug motherfucker. He just gets more awesome the more I look at him.

He and Eva and Steven argue a little bit more before they storm off in a huff, and as they drive off, Douchebag Cop shakes his head and says, "Scientists." LMAO. lmao lmao lmao oh my god.

hmm, what have we here? um. It sure looks like Eva and Steven just waltzing up to Filadyne right through the front. That's definitely what it looks like, so. I guess Eva's hiding under some blankets in the trunk or something. Either that, or this guard's really really stupid.

this is the dark. we're sneaking around in it.

and here we have some guards, diligently checking the security cameras for, you know, intruders. obviously.

la la la la laaaa

just walkin' along

messin' with security cameras

wheeeeeeee

Eva and Steven sneaky sneak into Steven's office, where they "hack" into "the network" to be accessed through "the Internet". TECHNOLOGY.

"You're gonna owe me, baby, and then some!"

Wait a minute, back up. He's going to owe you for sneaking you into his office in the middle of the night to tamper with really important files? He's going to owe you. ALL RIGHT. Just as long as we've got that straight.

"What, for saving the world?"

"Yeeeep."

And then she calls him an ingrate. I don't know.

HOW ABOUT YOU JUST TRIGGERED THE ALARM AND I'D THROTTLE YOU FOR YOUR STUPIDITY IF YOU WEREN'T SO GOSH DARN CUTE

OH GOD WHAT DID I DO HOW DID THIS GET HERE I AM NOT GOOD WITH COMPUTER

OH NO THEY CAN'T GO OUT THE SAME WAY THEY CAME IN WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO

Well, nothing can go wrong with this plan. You'll have to excuse me, X-Files implanted into me, from a terribly young age, an irrational fear of air duct escapes. Remember that time Scully had to fight a fan? Yeah, I do.

ergh.

Luckily, there's nothing to get in their way but a light, pleasant breeze.

And Steven's claustrophobia. WHOOPS!

well, you know, they walk around the underbelly (or the bowels, as Eva earlier referred to them) of Filadyne for a while. There's a lot of talking and arguing and Steven suggesting that they maybe stop off at the cafeteria for a ham sandwich. Count me in, count Liz Lemon in, count us all in. Actually, I hate ham, wait.

OH. OHHHH YES YES YES WE'RE HERE WE'RE HERE WE'RE AT THIS MOST MAGICAL OF SCENES. OKAY. OH BOY. OH GOLLY.

Eva calls for tools, my good man! And Steven thinks she's nuts, as per usual.

YAY TOOLS

Eva kind of tries to painstakingly arrange them, and for what reason she does this as death creeps down upon them, I have no idea, but Steven shuts that down pretty quick.

Hey, there's my main man, Oscar. "Okay, where are you." He doesn't add, "you little rats" but it's allll there in his tone. oh yeah.

These shots have gotta be a metaphor for something. Probably a cervix.

Wow, it's almost like I'm watching Mission: Impossible! It feels so real!

Gasp! There's Soran! What's that scoundrel up to?!

"yeesh! look at that hairline! ever heard of Rogaine, jackass?"

As Eva makes a fuss about some control panels, Steven says, "I think you should know, I'm not really having a good time in here!"

Well, nobody cares, Steven! Suck it up and shut your trap; do you want to be able to get any pussy ever again? Yeah, I'm pretty sure you do, so you're gonna want to live to, oh, I don't know, see tomorrow.

Our heroes happen upon this room which contains, dun dun dunnnn, the control panel! So they crack that hatch open and stare at it.

Wait, what? That's the lauded control panel? That little box thing that thinks it can make itself look cooler with a lightning bolt tattoo?

Well, all right. If that's the control panel, then Eva's gotta get to it to upload a virus or something, I don't know.

But how will she get there?

"Jump," is Steven's well-thought-out suggestion.

"What, are you nuts?" Eva asks. "I'll kill myself."

"It's only 10 or 12 feet from the ground!" Man, that still sounds kinda high. Why don't you jump, Steven?

"Do we have rope?" Eva asks. lmfao, yeah, just let Steven pull it out of his boxers.

"No, it's not on the shopping list, I'm sorry!" Yeah, I'll bet it's not. Rope chafes.

Steven agrees to "hold Eva's weight", so they Three Stooges struggle over this for a little while. Now, why couldn't she, like, hang onto that pipe thing? I don't understand. But I've been watching this movie for 16 hours, I'm quite accustomed to not things not following basic logic progression by now.

He kinda drops her the last three feet, whoops! Nice job, idiot.

Eva has to do this whole song and dance to avoid a security camera (the same one from the DVD menu, wow! now that's foreshadowing!) but believe me, you haven't experienced tedium until you've witnessed Eva's camera avoidance dance. I'm almost positive that no one will mind if I skip the bulk of it, and by that I mean, if I have to spend more than one screenshot on Steven loud-whispering, "GO GO HURRY UP!" and Eva ducking away like a nervous rabbit, I will either end my own life or the lives of others.

Oh, camera, you so silly!

Eva breaks out her Floppy Disks of Truth and Justice and uploads those bad boys into the system.

Then she cuts some wires,

plays a little peekaboo,

aaand they're outta there!

oop, wait, not yet. I guess there has to be a valiant struggle first.

OHO, AND HE DROPS HER AGAIN! That's two!

oh, beans! I just can't reach you even though this is clearly not 10 to 12 feet from the ground!

RUH-ROH!

"Stop, or I'll shoot!" oh no oh no oh no

ahhhh, Oscarrrr. OSSSSCAAAAAAAAAAR. What? Maybe I just wanted a screenshot of Oscar; don't judge me. I'm at the point where I'm rooting for him now, anyway. Just kill 'em all and let the black hole devour existence, bro. Make it happen.

Our heroes, such as they are, go back to that tool room and make "oh shit" faces at each other. And I don't even know why; they're cornered by guards, but the guards haven't found them yet, and they probably won't if they just zip their lips and stay quiet. This is not hard.

BUT EVA, EEEEVVVVAAAAA, FUCKING KNOCKS SHIT DOWN BY, I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW, BUT I'M GOING TO GUESS BREATHING ON IT WRONG. OHHHHH, I HATE YOU.

The knowledge that Steven picked a real winner slowly begins to sink in.

The guards close in, and remember how I said earlier that the best scene ever was going to happen in this very room? GET READY.

Quick! Maybe if you close your eyes, they won't be able to see you!

Aw, tough luck there, Eva. Maybe next time you can be born into a movie where you're not a moron.

whoa, Steven, whoa. What do you have planned there, buddy?

IIIINCOMINGGGGGG

BAM! That's guy's on the floor!

As Steven wrestles with the guard, Eva prepares to channel another 80's cartoon hero.

LEAPFROG

LEAPFROG

LEAPFROG ATTACK

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"STEEEVEEEEEEEEEN!" Eva hollers. "STEVENNNNNNN! HIT HIM!"

I really, really hate how she orders him around, lmgdao. It's happened a couple of other times, and I'm just like, lay off! I'm pretty sure he's a smart guy and can figure this shit out for himself.

So he hits him. That's great. Now what?

Steven, what-

are you-

Are you limping?

What did you-

DID YOU-

DID YOU BREAK YOUR FUCKING ANKLE?

"I think my ankle's broken!"

OH YOU HAVE GOT TO BE-

FUCKING-

I-

HHHHH-

[RAGE BLACKOUT]

Then they do a whole, "You have to go on without me/I'm not leaving you!" deal and, just, somebody go already. You've got catastrophic science to prevent.

OSCAAAAAAR. OSCAR, MY MANNNNNN.

Oscar hauls them off to some little room and ties them to plastic chairs so Soran can properly gloat. And call Eva "a busy and naughty girl". Hey, you forgot "stupid".

They make a lot of angry faces at each other and talk about how the containment thing wasn't meant for, you know, black holes.

But Soran hums and hos and does the whole, "you'll nevah defeat me!" routine.

To celebrate his impending victory, Soran takes a little side-trip to the bathroom, which is totally relevant information right now and I'm very glad they included it. I guess even evil has to empty their bladders once in a while. Either that, or it's a metaphor for how much this movie is currently taking a piss on my life.

My main man Oscar also takes a little time to fix his hair. He knows that you can't go around taking over the world with a messy mane.

WHAT AN UTTERLY FABULOUS DUO OF VILLAINY

Some high-profile mucky-mucks are here to witness the festivities, and they wave a little at Soran and generally look excited to witness all-consuming horror.

Soran delivers a speech about faith, passion, and sacrifice. Very subtle.

Meanwhile.

"How are you feeling?"

Like I want to drive a knife through my skull. Oh, wait, you weren't asking me.

"Oh, peachy."

Yeah, you look about as excited as I feel.

OHH. OHHH MOVIE, NOW YOU'RE PLAYING DIRTY. You know how I feel about- you know- fffffffffffff

Sure that their deaths are fast approaching, Eva and Steven can do little more than stare at each other and be scared shitless.

And then Eva says,

"I've always wondered, um...

do you like the theater?"

WHAT? What the hell kind of deathbed question is that? Oh, man, you guys don't even understand how hard I was laughing from that point forward, okay. I was crying.

"Yeah. I love the theater."

yay!

"I'm surprised."

"Why? Engineers not supposed to love the theater?"

"That's not what I said.

It's just...

...you're so outdoorsy."

sdkhfaklslasd

"Yeah, well. I always did like open spaces."

god, what. lmao. I just.

lmfao and then Eva: "I noticed." WHAT?

oh, and now, NOW Steven chooses to reveal some stuff about his father. Who apparently got drunk a lot and beat him and put him in a closet and that's why he's claustrophobic. Look, you had your chance earlier, you missed the boat.

And then he changes the subject.

"So why don't you like Chinese food?" lkadga god.

"I love Chinese food!"

"Well, we never had Chinese food."

"I guess that happens when you build a relationship on sex."

WHAT A FINE PLACE TO INSERT SOME LESSONS IN MORALITY. DON'T BUILD A RELATIONSHIP ON SEX, OR ELSE YOU WILL NEVER HAVE CHINESE FOOD. AND THEN YOU WILL DIE VIA BLACK HOLE.

weeeeeelp, here we go. no turning back now.

Surely this time everything will go according to plan, right?

Surely these two just need to get a room already.

ooh, what's that? a Star Trek Shake? huh. who could've seen that one coming?

The containment cell begins to heat up like a microwave roasting aluminum foil.

Wisely, Soran sends in two guys in shiny hazmat suits to scope out the situation. This is after he's recognized this as being the same thing that happened 8 years ago, so. Obviously they'll be fine.

"Get Steven and that girl up here right now," Soran commands. Oh, sure now that everything's goin' down the crapper, now you want their help! I see how this is.

hmm. that doesn't look good. A poor, helpless screwdriver gets sucked into oblivion.

And a poor helpless hazmat guy does, too! Don't worry, he's just... going to a party.

In the sky.

There, there, Soran. It's not like you were warned, repeatedly, about the dangers of attempting the very thing that failed catastrophically 8 years ago. It's not like that happened. You just didn't know! How could you have known when it's not like you watched the same thing occur with your very own eyes all that time ago?

That other poor hazmat sap bites it, too, and I just have to say that the animation of them getting sucked up like spaghetti is really kind of gross.

Haha, guess what? Now Eva gets to be smarter than you again. I guess all that raging idiocy was just for show before. Maybe it's like her secret power and it only comes out in times of great distress, of which this may or may not classify as one.

Eva, now armed to the teeth with this sudden onslaught of ferocity, declares that they cannot cannot cannot cut the power, or else the black hole will drop. They need to get some auxiliary stuff going, so Steven, hilariously wheelchair bound because of his broken ankle, volunteers to go.

And she lets him go, even though not even 20 minutes prior, she made that huge fucking deal about not wanting to leave without him and yadda yadda yadda. Well, she's back in her rightful place as the hero now, so tough shit, I guess! World's gotta be saved, so send your half-crippled boyfriend to do the dirty work!

wheeeeeee! Soran gives the evacuation order, while Oscar and Steven demonstrate that you, too, can have some fun with only two people and a wheelchair.

Soran straps in for the long haul, and so does Eva, and lol, he tries to shoo her with a wave of his hand.

"BITCH, ARE YOU SERIOUS. I DID NOT GET CHASED, STALKED, SHOT AT, AND TIED TO A GODDAMN PLASTIC CHAIR AFTER CRAWLING AROUND A BUNCH OF AIR VENTS FOR YOU TO TAKE MY QUEST FOR GLORY AWAY FROM ME. THIS SHIT ENDS NOW AND I'M GONNA BE THE ONE TO END IT, SO SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE AND LET ME WORK."

wwwwwwell, okay, then!

Soran has a little bit of an emotional moment where he estimates just how fucking big the explosion will be, all while proving that maybe he's not such a bad guy after all.

"YOOOOOU MOTHERFUCKER! YOU SENT HITMEN AFTER ME, AND KILLED MY BLIND FRIEND, AND THAT OTHER GUY, TOO, AND ALL HE WANTED WAS A FUCKING VACATION! AND I'M SUPPOSED TO HATE YOU A LITTLE LESS, BECAUSE YOU'RE ONLY HUMAN, TOO? NO! FUCK YOU, AND FUCK YOU VERY VERY MUCH!"

"sigh."

Oscar and Steven careen into ~~the warehouse from "Space Race"~~ ~~the Cabal facility from "Revelations"~~ this place, and run to some more control panels.

But predictably enough, they're locked.

SO IT'S TIME FOR OSCAR TO BRING THE MOTHERLOAD OF PAIN, OHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHH. YOU BEAST, YOU. GET IT, UNF.

He opens that sucker right up with nothing more than that force of his raw manliness, but uh, then he accidentally slips the crowbar inside and I guess it touches something it shouldn't because he suddenly fries like an egg on a hot summer sidewalk.

And then shoots up and away like fireworks on the 4th of friggin' July.

And then gets sucked up into the black hole that really, truly, randomly appeared in the middle of the floor. Wow. Wow. Well, if that guy was gonna have a death, it might as well have been that one, because it was really quite impressive in its utterly mindblowing insanity. WOW.

With the black hole from out of fucking nowhere roaring down upon him, Steven takes some time to chill in his wheelchair and study the catalyst of Oscar's gruesome death.

Eva, like myself, does not understand how Steven can be hopping around this black hole when it should, at the very least, be exerting horrible gravitational forces upon him. Not to mention turning him into Jell-o within its gaping maw.

Steven, despite his broken ankle that he got a wheelchair over, manages to clamber up this thingymabob and do some stuff.

What a glorious portrait of a hero.

The Filadyne building begins to crack and crumble into itself while Soran makes some noise about letting the black hole drop into the Earth's crust, which was something that I thought they were trying their damnedest to not have happen. But I think it's pretty clear that by this point, everybody writing this movie's script had just stopped caring and started making up whatever shit they pleased.

Iiii know, Eva. I know. Don't worry. We're almost done. It's aaalmost over.

Lights come back on, so I guess Steven was successful in doing whatever he was doing.

However, he then topples off that thing and hits his head on the floor. Okay.

Soran doesn't quite give up the goat on cementing his status as the poor, misunderstood softie, so he tells Eva to go get Steven and get the hell out.

The room shakes and sparks fly and that big door comes down.

Looks like death is something that Soran...

8(

...just can't aVOID.

YEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Eva valiantly races toward her boyfriend, who really should've kicked the bucket by now. I mean, really.

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO VANCOUVER!

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!

Meanwhile, in the thingamabobbie control panel place, Steven finally regains consciousness, but tells Eva that he's fallen and he can't get up. That's not even a joke, he literally says that. And also he apparently is paralyzed from the waist-down now. HA HA HAAAAA.

Eva makes it down there, and then fire just sort of happens. I really have a lot of questions at this point, but I know that not a single one of them will be answered, so I'm just gonna reel 'em back in and breathe deep.

Steven moans and groans on the floor and says, "We're screwed," while Eva wrestles him into his wheelchair. "We are NOT SCREWED!" she declares.

And then there's more fire! You guys, I wish I could make this make sense, but it just doesn't. I have no idea why there is fire. I have no idea where the fire even came from. I have no idea how it's supposed to be able to exist in such close proximity to a black hole. I have no idea how the black hole even- no, no, stop. save yourself the pain and stop. just reeeeel it in.

OH. BUT WAIT. ARE YOU EVEN READY FOR WHAT'S ABOUT TO HAPPEN NEXT?

they run straight through the fucking fire

the fire that's right next to the black hole

i have no words

I really don't know if Soran ever accomplished whatever his task was or not, but he's had enough of this shit, too. Kind of hilariously, he just lets the black hole pull him along... in his rolly chair. And then he's gone, off to the Nexus once again. Maybe this time he'll be the one who gets to ride horses with Captain Kirk, and then maybe he won't be so angry.

The Filadyne lab explodes fantastically in a pillar of light,

and absolutely wastes the surrounding area. lol cool.

And what of our heroes? Did they- did they make it out and drive 20 miles away, which is evidently the distance they would've needed to survive, in the span of about 5 minutes?

yyyyyeah, of course they did. And I guess Steven wasn't totally paralyzed after all, but he does have to limp around on a cane for the rest of his sorry life. haaaaaa haaaaaaaa.

At least they had the decency to come visit Christine. ohhh, Christine. Your cruel and untimely death will not be forgotten. ;_;

There's a hokey little "news report" voiceovering in the background, and it says:

"The names of two heroic figures believed pivotal in saving many lives at Filadyne will never be revealed."

haha, wow. Sucks to be you two. After all that, and no one will ever have a damn clue what you did!

Well, at least there's an upside: now they can finally go have some Chinese food.

Lots and looooooooooots of Chinese food.

And I can go forth into paradise, the paradise where I am done with this spam and do not have to take this movie out of its case again for a very long time.

man. It's like I think these things are going to get better and they can't possibly be as bad as I originally thought, and then they just get worse and worse and worse. Forever.

whatever, ya'll. I'm outta here.

the void, part 1 - this ain't the nexus, bitch

gingasaur — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:54:42 GMT

Black holes scare the utter living shit out of me. The mere thought that something exists in this universe that can draw in any damn thing it wants and totally wipe it from existence is horrifying at best, nightmarishly nauseating at worst. It's like a kid drinking a milkshake through a straw, and we are the milkshake, and there's nothing we can do to stop ourselves from being sucked into some whiny little bastard's stomach.

Stargate, of course, did nothing to relieve this fear, and in fact, only made it ten times worse. Because now, not only can black holes fuck your shit up, they can fuck time's shit up. Good God, what? Being The Decider of Matter, Energy and Light wasn't enough for these fuckers, so now they've gotta branch out into time as well? Shit, that's it, guys. Love is over. Everybody go home.

Luckily for me and anyone else suffering from trypoblackaphobia, we have The Void, which I am almost certain is a stealth lesson, an educational video on black hole survival, if you will. In these 90 exciting and pulse-pounding minutes, you too will learn just what it takes to look nature's garbage disposal in the face and say, "Fuck you, sir! I renounce your bullshit and I'm outta here!"

Of course, I think you can only get to this point by letting go of absolutely everything you know to be true about science and fine-tuning the mechanics of your life so that hand-waves actually work in practice. And you also have to walk around your house without pants as much as humanly possible. Look, do you want to be able to survive black holes or not? Take 'em off, g.

Before we go anywhere, I think we have to take a moment to appreciate this DVD menu. I don't know about you, but there's a lot going on here that peaks my interest. Take, for instance, the gratuitous use of filters all over the screen. Motion blurs here, computer-looking things there, and the silhouette of a security camera, perched high above it all, as if to say, "Don't think I don't know why you're here. You're here because you want to see Amanda Tapping naked, but tough luck, kid, because that breast you're going to see later is 100% not hers."

Lionsgate, apparently so enamored with this production that they could spit, has their logo plastered near the top. The menu itself is an adventure just waiting to happen, proudly displaying one of its listed-on-the-case special features: scene selection. Because it's not something that's present on almost every single DVD imaginable, and because I know how much easier things are going to be when I can skip to scenes titled things like, "Busy & Naughty", "Not Screwed", and "Just Hury [sic] Up".

But this is a movie whose tagline is, "It will swallow you ~hole~!" so. I don't really know what else I expected.

And awaaaay we go! Here we are at the glorious Filadyne Research Center in beautiful Luxembourg! I know this information because I'm psychic, not because the movie has chosen to take the X-Files exposition route.

oh, boy. Science. The first of many shining examples. Also, check it out: particle accelerators that are going to be creating black holes? Where have I heard this story before? Movie, did you predict the future?

Letters! Numbers! Colors! It's Kindergarten, only cooler!

Oh, look, it's Malcolm McDowell. I wonder if he is going to be this film's villain, because he never plays villains. I don't even remember his character's name, to be perfectly honest, even though it was literally just spoken, but that's okay because that means I get to call him Dr. Soran for the rest of the movie. Aim for the Nexus, 'cause even if you miss, you'll still land among the stars! Ha Ha Ha HA!

Soran gives the go ahead to start some proton and anti-proton... things, and then this fellow shows up.

"Who authorized a ring experiment for this lab?!" random old dude wants to know.

Soran says he did, but random old dude is all, "You best be jokin', son; this facility is not ready for that!"

"It most assuredly is," Soran asserts. Well, I feel totally at ease now.

Then he calls security on random old dude because he's head physicist of this place and he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Old dude says that this is his lab and that everyone is at risk, things haven't even been tested yet, ablablabla cockblock cockblock! Why don't you sit back and chill the hell out, man? History is clearly in the making here, and Crazy Uncle Nikola didn't invent radio for us without taking a few risks along the way! And inhaling a lot of wine!

Old dude looks on in horror as his scientists bend to the will of Dr. Soran, and a countdown begins.

BAM, BITCHES!

OH YEAH

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS IS

BUT IT SURE LOOKS COOL

YEAH, WE PUSHED A BUTTON! LAY THAT HIGH FIVE ON ME, BRO

Ahhh, Soran could not be more pleased. But what everyone in this room fails to notice is that the music is still totally ominous.

SUDDENLY, STAR TREK SHAKE! UH OHHHH.

Uh, ya'll, we got some problems here, including but not limited to a.) unresponsive systems, b.) rising temperatures, c.) shit hitting fans. This guy knows what's up.

Oh, lmao, he even says, "Oh, shit." Yep, basically!

Alarms blare, doors begin to shut,

and bookshelves topple over while people scream and cry and run around being generally useless.

Why, hello, Mr. Hole. You're looking awfully black today. Too much coffee again, sir?

Long story short: EVERYBODY DIES. Dag. What a way to go.

WELL, ANYWHO. We got places to go, people to see.

College lectures to attend, attractive professors to meet.

Even more attractive professors to meet.

Okay, so here we have Eva, pronounced just like in Wall-e, and what's-his-face who, in his spare time, works forrrr... *drum roll, please*... FILADYNE!

Eva apparently has a little bit of a grudge against Filadyne, and proceeds to pepper what's-his-face (oh, right, Steven! Honestly, how did I forget that, what with the iconic line that comes later?) with loaded questions about his ethics or perhaps lack thereof. And what's his reaction? Does he storm out of the room, does he tell Eva to leave him be, does he try to stare her down menacingly?

No. He gets incredibly turned on.

And so does she.

gosh, lady, you're so purdy. can we just sit back and admire for a moment? okay. yeah.

And then they hop in the sack. All right, then. Man, it's only 6 minutes in; you guys couldn't wait a little while? geez.

But I'm not going to lie to you: it's really cute and there's a lot of giggling and HHHHNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG.

kalhg;lhdlfh and then Steven, foreplay expert, says (god I swear to you I'm not making this up), "You will tell me you love me and I will give you a thousand donkeys!" OHHHHHHHHH YEAH! THAT IS SO HOT. OH GODDDDD, YES!

ohhh gee. ohhhhhhhhhh gee.

Lines I missed the first time around: "So, Professor~. Is that a structured or mechanical advance I'm feeling?" HAHAHAHA HOLY SHIT.

I- I could really screenshot this for all eternity, but we have to move on.

AHA! SEE?

Black Hole Survival Rule #1:

NO PANTS ALLOWED

Eva wanders around the house for a while while Steven catches some Z's. I wonder what she is up to? I wonder if perhaps...

...she's going to do something like sneak into his computer?

with no pants on?

oh. hello steven. fancy seeing you here. in your own house.

"Aw, gee, Steven! You scared the crap out of me! I was just- you know- not... sexing you up so I could get access to your Filadyne files or anything! I'd never do anything like that!"

And in fact, the excuse Eva actually uses is, "I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd ~log on the Internet~." You know, I thought that by 2003, we had kind of given up on the term "logging on."

UGH OMG STOP I CANNOT HANDLE THIS (EXCEPT DON'T STOP EVER AND ALL THAT JAZZ)

Eva tells a nice little story about being stuck on a project and says, hey, maybe your Filadyne stuff can help me out! Steven's all, oh gee oh golly but my access is just so restricted and it probably won't be much help to you.

But, people who could resist that moe little face: n o b o d y. So he gets her in and tells her that Filadyne isn't the ~creepy~ place that she thinks it is, and that they're actually developing new energy sources right now. That... that sounds nice, I guess.

She waits until Steven stops rambling about kerosene to dart out of the room.

And just in case anyone forgot: still not wearing any pants.

She copies some files (onto a FLOPPY DISK, natch) of Dr. Soran and where he's been recently directing Filadyne finances...

...and then heads back to bed to feel bad about, you know, being a FILTHY LYING WHORE.

The next day at Eva's place, she feeds her lizard, and I assure you, that's not a euphemism.

Also, these pictures happen, and gee! That old guy sure looks familiar! So does the rest of that picture; I have no idea where else I might have seen it before. I mean, it's not like I've looked at it a thousand times or anything; what do you take me for?

She's on the computer again, this time with pants. There's some really girly flighty half-pop-half-folky music in the background, and I get this funny feeling that Amanda probably had everything to do with that and that just makes my heart do some stuff.

ENERGY.

wait a minute, "the void project"? What?

There's a knock at the door, and it's one of Eva's gal-pals, I guess. She comes bearing donuts. Eva insists that she's busy but simply cannot resist the allure of glazed sugary goodness.

IT'S DONUT TIME

um, so, a couple of things. Can you tell that she's blind? She's totally blind. Now-Carol-fences-other-blind-people blind. Blind blind blind blind blind as a goddamn bat. She's also, apparently, the woman who would go on to play Will's Dead Mommy on The Helen Magnus Show.

And her name? Ohhhhh, her name. Because out of all the names in the entire world, out of the millions upon billions of choices,

the one they would pick for the blind girl

would be Christine.

sonofabitch

For all the blind jokes I just made, I actually grew surprisingly attached to Christine, and not just because we share a name. She's smart and funny and pokes fun at herself in a way that makes me just want to reach right in and envelop her in the world's biggest hug. Apparently, she applied for a job, but nobody wants to hire the blind girl. ;_;

They take a little time to stand around feeling bad about it. It's legitimately depressing.

They don't take too much time, though, because it's time to get down to business. The business of DONUTS. FUCK YEAH. But actually that's an eclair, so. I don't know.

Eva lets fly that she got into some Filadyne files, and reveals her reason for doing so: namely, the ~mysterious death~ of her father, aka, RANDOM OLD DUDE! WHOAAAAA WHAAAAAT.

Christine correctly deduces that Steven gave her access, and is all, "You told him!" but Eva is all, "ahem ahem ahem, shifty eyes shifty eyes"

"What am I supposed to say?" Eva asks. "HEY, STEVEN, your boss at Filadyne killed my father, and with your help, I intend to prove it! OR, you can have the box that Carol's showing you on the floor?"

lmao what does that even mean. I don't- I don't get it. The more I think about it, the more I don't get it. Who's Carol? What box? What floor? You know how I feel about not getting jokes. I don't like it.

It must be pretty funny, though, because they both collapse into some pretty hardcore giggles. All right, fine, be that way. You can have your little jokes, WHY DON'T I JUST GET MY GOGGLES TO PROTECT MY EYES FROM CHEMISTRY ACID.

wait a minute.

carol? carol. CAROL WHO NOW FENCES OTHER BLIND PEOPL CA- okay, I know it cannot be that, but um, how hilar. how. hilar. is that name choice right there.

Well, then Christine is all, "You told me you were crazy about this guy."

"I am, Chris."

aw omg just like on Cagney & Lacey.

"I don't know what to do."

SIGH, MORAL DILEMMAS.

Allow me to introduce you to Filadyne, evil gray and metal land of scientific horror...

...where Steven talks to Soran about some science testing stuff. And can we just talk about those glasses for a moment? Those glasses. Before you know it, they're gonna leap off his face and then perch themselves back on his nose ala DEAL WITH IT shades.

"Well, Steven," Soran says. "We're a week away from making history."

OH NO. WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE.

Meanwhile, Eva works tirelessly into the night to figure out just how Soran offed her old man and why.

Some utterly ridiculous math appears on screen and I make this face irl.

ENERGY.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT ANY OF THIS MEANS.

ENERGY? NO WAY.

I guess Eva knows what all that crap means, because she's a smrtysmrtsmrt lady. boy. that evokes a... certain sense of nostalgia in me and I don't know... where I might have witnessed something like ten seasons of that before. I just... don't... know............

ARGHBLKGLKFHBLBB GET IT AWAY

Eva does math all night and then dreams about it, and WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT GIANT BLURRY HEAD IN THE FOREGROUND THAT I ONLY SAW AFTER UPPING THE CONTRAST, WHAT

Hello, Eva, it's me, your dead father. Did you figure out who fucked me up yet?

Figure it out, Eva.

OR HOUSES WILL EXPLODE

Don't listen to him, Eva. Only, I, Soran, know the truth, and will therefore extend my hand to you all sinister-like.

corn on the fucking cob, that is red.

JESUS TITTY-FUCKING CHRIST EVA, WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS

man, this picture. never not gonna be funny to me.

and let me remind you how much the man evidently loved fishing, so. I'll let you read into that what you will.

"Oh, computer! I miss my dad! What should I do?"

"Holy shit, computer. Are you showing me... what I think you're showing me?"

Apparently whatever computer was showing her was some pretty real shit, because she goes right over to Steven's house and starts asking things like, "DO YOU THINK I'M MAKING THIS UP. DO YOU THINK I WOULD COME HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND CONFESS SOMETHING LIKE THIS JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT."

honestly, though? I think Steven's a little more concerned about the fact that you filthy lying whore'd him.

"Steven, this is bigger than you and me!"

Oh, sure, use the whole "we're all gonna die" tactic to get yourself outta trouble. but oh, face, stop making making that face. you know what things like this to do me.

lookin' kinda cool there, steven.

"So you're telling me you were using me?"

why yes, yes she was.

"To hack into my computer?"

Well, is it really considered hacking if you, you know, gave her your password?

"And now you want me to risk my job, my reputation, because you think ~~Abernathy~~ Soran's gonna blow up the world?"

Hey, it's not like it's his first time trying.

okay, no. somebody better get in here and take this woman's sads away, stat.

um, so then, awkward: she admits that yeah, she originally sexed him up as a way to get to Soran, but then oh, tragedy, things changed, and she really does love him now! she really really does!

and then Steven asks if she still would've sexed him up had he not worked for Filadyne.

AND SHE DOESN'T ANSWER! OHOOOOOOOOOOO DAMN. geez, girl, at least make something up!

"...I guess I wasted your time."

"Yeah."

ohhhhhhhhhh

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh

hear that? It's the sound of hearts everywhere shattering to pieces.

she may be a filthy lying whore, but she's a cute and lovable filthy lying whore WHO JUST WANTS TO FIGURE OUT WHY HER DAD IS DEAD. and you just made her cry. nice job. hope you're proud of yourself.

The next day, Eva goes to some dude's house.

This is the dude. Go inside, totally legit, don't be a pussy, etc.

Actually, he's the one who doesn't want her to come inside.

BUT SHE WILL NOT HAVE ANY OF THAT TOMFOOLERY AND SHE IS GOING INSIDE THAT FUCKING HOUSE WHETHER HE LIKES IT OR NOT

nice shoes, by the way, those are cute. I can feel my inner gay man coming out as I type.

Eva's all, "dude. let me in. I think Soran's gonna make another black hole and that's no good!"

Dr. Lazarus (that's his name) doesn't want to let her in, but he eventually relents. Hey, man, it's okay. I'm sure everything's going to be fine. No harm will come to you from a little 10 minute conversation. COUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH

that was, uh. that was my foreshadowing coughing. I hope it wasn't too subtle for you or anything.

Lazarus wants to know how she found him, and she says (lol), "...Let's just say I'm good with computers."

yyyyyeeeessss. I'm sure you're quite good with the... ball of a mouse, if you catch my drift.

"oh gurrrrrrl. you for real?"

ooh, bags.

"Going somewhere?" Eva asks. Yeah, off Earth before it's swallowed into Soran's black hole, take 2, I'd imagine.

"heehee! you're funny!"

and you're gorgeous, the end, by me.

Who's ready for some revelations? I am, I am! Turns out Dr. Lazarus over here didn't so much leave Filadyne as he was kicked out of Filadyne. Soran got funding for Filadyne from the Atomic Energy Comission and is very enthusiastic about using alternative energy as a cover for, you know, creating black holes.

And then Eva breaks out her "hacked" information. on ZIP drives. oy, zip drives. you know, I had a bunch of files on zip drives once, back when they were all the rage, and those little fuckers got corrupted so fast, it was absolutely unreal. I took such painstaking care of them, too. So many animu clips I will never see again.

I guess she must've showed him that world-rending black hole thing, because then he up and calls Soran, which doesn't immediately strike me as a good idea. But Soran's all, "Tell him I'm busy, I've got a big fancy office to sit in. Look at this fucking carpet, for God's sake."

Well, Soran gets quite an earful from Lazarus, and he's like, "seriously? bitch, you tryin' to play me? I can have you killed anytime I want 'cause I'm head physicist and I do what I want."

Lazarus gets invited to Soran's office first thing tomorrow morning so they can ~go over the findings~. hmmmmmm. eh, that sounds legit, too. Go for it, buddy.

Have I mentioned yet that the lizard, whose name is Willard, is actually going to end up being an important character later? What is it with animals being key plot elements in these things, anyway? Firs it was the dog in Mary & Tim, the dead dog in Footsteps, and now a lizard. What's next, a pet turtle that saves the planet?

Oh, and Christine's here, too. Doing what she does best, I guess. Actually, though, she bumps into something and tells Willard, "And stop moving the furniture on me." ;_; aw, chris.

"whatevah, ho, I move what I want."

Eva comes home and she and Christine scare the crap out of each other, and evidently scare the crap out of the music, too, because it suddenly lets loose with a DRAMATIC CUE!! AAAHHH!

Eva asks Christine what she's doing (every time my name comes out of a-tapps's mouth, it does funny things to my insides) and Christine says she came over to feed Willard. But Eva says, "No, what are you doing now?"

"I don't know, practicing my juggling act, why?"

dkhhjkljdla OH, CHRISTINE. ilu.

"Before you do that, can you stay for a while?"

You guys want some more revelations? I sure do. Let's get some.

So, this is what happens when black hole science goes the right way, ie, black hole doesn't happen.

Eva asks the iconic silly trailer question: "Do you know what a black hole is?"

"Yeah," Christine replies, "I'm living in one." skdhflksdf YOU GUYS, I THINK WE'RE LOOKING AT THE REAL HERO OF THIS MOVIE.

"You know what it's like? It's like putting too much soap into a load of laundry."

lmao oh. okay.

So, big explanation basically amounts to three things:

a.) The black hole will either expand and suck up the entire planet.
b.) Or the black hole will evaporate, but explode.
c.) Either way, it's like an atomic bomb.

it's pretty

~intense~

I feel like this has to be the convention center place they used on Stargate a lot. You know, the one where it was this year and everybody was sterile AND THEN THEY DIED. I've got a good feeling about this locale, then.

EXCUSE ME WHERE'S THAT LITTLE LAZARUS WEASEL, I'VE GOT A WORLD TO SAVE.

Dr. Lazarus hasn't shown up for their little shindig with Soran (I WONDER WHY...?) and Eva insists that she go in and talk to him anyway. It is vital that she go in, VITAL!

This zenith of snootiness strolls out and does the whole, "[laughinggirls.jpg] she thinks she's getting in to see soran!" routine, but mostly what she does is try to pull a runaround on Eva, directing her to ~public relations~ and blahblahblah.

WELL, EVA DOESN'T WANT TO GO TO PUBLIC FUCKING RELATIONS AND SHE DOESN'T HAVE A DAMN CARD! SO YOU BETTER LET HER IN IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU. THIS BITCH BLEW UP SUNS IN ANOTHER LIFE, SO DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT MESSIN'.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAH I'M GOING IN THERE IF IT'S THE LAST THING I-"

"MMMPHFFFFFF."

Suddenly, Steven is there, and he's all, "eva what the flying fuck are you doing!!!" to which she screams, "GOD, THAT MANIAC IN THERE IS GONNA BLOW HIMSELF, YOU, AND THIS ENTIRE DAMN COUNTY TO KINGDOM COME, THAT'S WHAT GOING ON!" Okay, that is true, but right now youuu aaare acting mentally unhinged, so maybe slow your roll a bit.

Steven tells the guards that he knows her and they're like, "She just went nuts here." He says she's just been under a lotttt of stress lately, and she says, "YEAH, AND FOR GOOD REASON!!1one!"

"Man! If only I had level 3 advanced military combat training, I coulda kicked these motherfuckers in the teeth before they even touched me!"

Steven classifies this whole ordeal as "a prank", and Eva promptly freaks the fuck out, because THE WORLD IS GOING TO END AND NOBODY WILL LISTENNNNN.

Steven is JUST TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHY SHE IS SO UPSET.

"um, I told you what has me riled, but I seem to remember you saying something about a filthy lying whore and then kicking me out."

OOPS. yeah, that did happen, I remember it well.

HMMMMM, PLOTTING FACE.

Some guy walks into Soran's office and tells him that the little ~security breach~ has been taken care of.

To which he replies, "Not completely." HMMMMMMMM. PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT.

Eva rolls on up to Lazarus's house to see just where the fuck he was for their utterly botched meeting.

And what does she find?

The door.

AJAR.

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

Where on Earth is Jason Lazarus???

"Jasoooon! You better have a good excuse!"

hahaha. oh, gosh. yeah, I'm... I'm pretty he does. Iiiii'm pretty darn sure he does.

hhhhmmmmmm. remember how Lazarus was going on a trip? Then why are his plane tickets still heeeeere?

and look! He was leaving through Portland! Pooooooortlaaaaaaand! *snuggles forever*

No, but seriously. Where is he? This is gettin' spookyyyyyyyy.

uh oh. uh oh what is that. it- it just must be a leaking bottle of cranberry juice, right? right?

...right?

WRONG

Now, as I think we're all aware, Sam Carter's reaction to a dead body hanging on the inside of the pantry door would most likely be a small, "Oh my God," and perhaps a little flinch at the cruel waste of human life. But she's a trooper, that one, so she'd get over it pretty quick and embark with her bros on a quest to track down the bastard who did it.

Therefore, you all must be quite curious as to what Eva's reaction might be. And it is...

...to scream at the top of her lungs and run headfirst into the nearest wall. marvelous.

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD CALL THE COPS CALL THE COPS

WHY CAN'T I

HOLD THIS PHONE

OH MY GOD AND IS THAT A FUCKING SHADOW COMING DOWN THE STAIRS WHAT THE FUCK

BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL,

RECEIVER THROW ATTACK!!

oh my god I am crying laughing capping this, I really am.

RUN, EVA, RRRRRRRUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNN

wait up a minute, is that- did she- did she throw the phone hard enough at this guy's head to make him bleed? Or is that just a really big scar? I think that's actually blood. I think she did that with the phone. Shoot, maybe there is a little Sam in her after all.

hahaha ohhh skirt, what are you doing right now? nnnnfhdklgsd.

but anyway this is sewious so RUNNNNNN FFFFAAASSSSTTTTERRRR

"wait eva where are you going? I just want to play hide and seek! you didn't count to ten, you cheater"

okay, really, huge-ass scar or blood? I really cannot tell.

"I DON'T WANT TO PLAY YOUR SHITTY GAME GET AWAY FROM MEEEEE. YOU ALWAYS HIDE IN THE TREE FORT AND YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT HEEEEEIGHTS"

SUDDENLY, A VEHICULAR FUCKING MISSILE

WHABAM

yeeeeep. stick a fork in him, he's done.

Congratulations, Eva, and welcome to your new life. I know what just happened to you was shitacularly scary, but trust me: it can and will only go down from here.

we, uh. we stay on this shot for quite a while. 15 fucking seconds, in fact. I counted. which begs the question: did they do this for dramatic effect, or are you telling me that in a movie about black fucking holes, nobody could come up with a few more minutes of harrowing danger and they were forced to fill it in with stuff like this?

One of life's many conundrums, I guess. I, for one, have had my fill of danger and excitement for the night, so I'm going to take a break here. Come back tomorrow for shit hitting the fan even harder than usual, and more SCIENCE than you can shake a stick at. Gooood night!

and by the way, fraiser's spelled with an 's', not a 'z'.

gingasaur — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:58:08 GMT

oh man, just so I don't lose this or anything:

weird havin' to link somewhere else, man.

and Kristen's is here and you should also view it IMMEDIATELY.

gosh, I justtt. SUCH A GOOD CHALLENGE, I CAN'T GET OVER IT. HIIIIVEMIIIIND.

stuck, part 2 - I couldn't make the delorean work, marty

gingasaur — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:27:59 GMT

OH GOD. If Sam Carter had been on that elevator this movie would have been 300 times better. And 3 minutes long because she would have fixed the elevator or hauled them all to safety with her fucking teeth or something in three seconds flat.

- cheapmetaphor

goooooooood morning, friends. Ready for another dose of sanity-eroding cinema? Brace yourselves for round 2, 'cause it's coming up right now. Hopefully I can push through and finish the whole movie without us needing a round 3, because that would be cruel and unusual punishment for all of us. Especially me.

The same warnings apply: things that can never be unread, things that can never be unseen, etc. etc. But luckily, we already passed the blatantly nsfw part. That doesn't mean we're anywhere near out of the woods yet, though. Far from it, in fact.

so far from it.

hold my hand.

hooooooo boy. Everybody remembers what happened last time, right? As if anyone could ever forget.

Right, so. Here we are, fresh from that... scene. they're disgusting, Gordon's a very unhappy man, inappropriate placement of moemoe chipmunk laughter, yaddayaddayadda.

Gordon grumbles that he just wants to get out of here and get on with his day, and I get that. I'm feeling that right now, in fact. Fancy that.

Bernie remembers that ah, yes, Gordon's here to visit his son. Lizzie asks, "What's his name?"

And Gordon crankily replies, "Robert."

DUN

DUN

DUNNNNNNNN

~REVELATION TIME~

ROBERT

IS

CINDY'S BOYFRIEND!! OH MY GOSH

MEANING

THAT

those two sex demons over there have already figured it out, have you?

MEANING THAT CINDY'S BOYFRIEND'S DAD JUST MADE A MOVE ON HER.

YOU MAY BEGIN YOUR APPLAUSE... NOW.

okay, lmao, something that's actually legitimately funny: There's a really awkward pause as Gordon and Cindy stare at each other, and then Gordon says, "...Hi, I'm Gordon." Bernie and Lizzie cannot even contain themselves and they absolutely erupt in laughter.

They get cozy and shit starts getting ~deep~ again, this time concerning marriage. Whatever, though, I think the most important thing to note is that Bernie ends up barking like a dog.

And Lizzie ends up doing... this.

she doesn't actually give him a blowjob, but, as they say, the sentiment was genuine.

Bernie asks Cindy what Robert has to say about his old man, and Cindy says, "...not much." Lizzie and Bernie make some good, "ooooh, ya BURNT" noises and things just keep on truckin' toward Awkward City.

They keep pressuring Cindy to tell them what Robert says about his dear old dad, but Gordon says it's okay, she doesn't have to explain anything. "Robert and I have been estranged for some time," he admits. I can't imagine why, though. I mean, Gordon, you're just such a stand-up guy. What is there not to like about you, I mean, honestly.

Then he says that "He's been very angry since the divorce, blamed the whole thing on me." and then lmao, "He doesn't realize that his mother wasn't exactly a saint." ohoho man. See what I mean? Stand. up. guy.

And THEN he says, "I'm not exactly sure we're meant to be monogamous, you know?" No, Gordon, I don't know, why don't you talk about it some more while making out with your son's girlfriend?

oh, Cindy, I feel ya.

Gordon waxes eloquent some more about how it takes two to make a divorce, but he does it by bashing his wife which personally does not encourage me to think he's anything but a total douchebag.

Cindy brings out a good question, though: ~wasn't there another woman~?

AW DAG, THERE SURE WAS. But you know them bitches, always ~thinking with their hearts~ and all that jazz! And shoot, I can't be assed to ~work at love~ or anything like that, "you either feel it or you don't," so I figured it was more than past time for me to go bone some hot piece of ass. All those years in a loveless marriage, I deserved it!

you might think I'm exaggerating, but this is exactly what Gordon says, just not in so many... words. goddamnit, what a fucking prick. THIS IS AN ENVIRONMENT OF WELCOMING, GORDON. GO STAND IN THE CORNER WITH FIFTH.

mte, gurl. mte.

Even these two aren't buyin' this shit.

lmao well, then Bernie calls him a socialist and Gordon scoffs. "Not on your fucking life. I'm a ~free enterprise capitalist~." oh, Gordon. Just keeeep diggin' yourself into that hole of unlikeability. You have a while to go before you hit solid rock, so why not just go the whole nine yards?

well, then we get another fun revelation in the fact that Bernie doesn't actually do drugs. He just supplies them. For Lizzie. Which is... mildly upsetting to think about. and so begins our descent. you thought we couldn't go any farther down but you would be wrong.

Everybody hears a noise and realizes it's somebody in the other elevator, so they all get up and start yelling and pounding on the walls in unison. That's actually quite a step up for these people.

The moment passes pretty quickly, though.

aw, dag.

yeah, I don't think they heard you guys.

buuuuut I suppose we could stand here wondering about it for a while.

with our eyes.

(I just have to say a.) this makes me laugh until I cry, b.) I REALLY HOPE THIS WAS A LEGITIMATE DIRECTION. Like, "Hey, Amanda, listen. I know I just made you do this totally awkward sex scene and everything, but if you wouldn't mind, could you just stand there and let me film your eyes doing a 360? Great. Thanks.")

OH HELL, let's do one more for good measure. CAN'T HURT.

After a moment's silence, it becomes pretty clear to everyone that that didn't work.

baaaaawwwwhawwwhawwww

aaand back to our regularly scheduled programming. Gordon asks Cindy how she and Robert met, and she's all, "oh, teehee, well, he asked me out at the gym where I work. I mean, he didn't actually join the gym, but he did ask me out~"

Verdict?

hiiiiilaaaaar.

super hilar, even.

AND GUESS

WHAT

REVELATION #2: LIZZIE AND BERNIE KNOW ROBERT. the world cannot possibly get any smaller in this moment!

Gordon remains unconvinced that ~these people~ could ever be friends with ~his son~.

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR SON, MR. GENTLE-MAN?

"As well as any father knows their child." Gordon says. He then asserts, rather smugly, that he is a good father.

yyyeeeeeaaaahhhhhnope, I don't think so.

Things get ~deep~ again about children, the art of raising them, blahblahblah. Gordon's all, "U DON'T NOE NETHING ABOUT KIDS" but Bernie and Lizzie are like "whatever man, we can tell you're basically the shittiest father ever."

you know, for a couple of sex-crazed assholes, they're really pretty smart. and cute. uguuuu~

deepdeepdeepdeepdeep

Gordon: Yeah, well, look. You try raising a child. It isn't easy. It's a tough world we live in. You can't always say what you think and feel; that can get you into trouble, big time.
Bernie: And that's what you taught your son?
Gordon: You're damn right!
Bernie: Same thing your father taught you?
Gordon: ...Yes.
Bernie: And look where we all end up, huh. Well-intentioned messes! So shut down and closed off, we wouldn't know a genuine feeling if it came up and bit us in the ass! We have thoughts about our feelings, we think we know what we should be feeling... but do you?
What are you feeling right now, Gordon?
[hahaha oh boy]
Gordon: ...Stuck.
[RIMSHOT]

Lizzie gets in on all the ~deep~ action, too.

Gordon: My family are none of your business.
Lizzie: "None of your business". God, that's a funny phrase, don't you think? I think it was invented to hide something. Keep people from discovering some deep, dark little secret.

"Whatcha hidin', Gordon~?"

dfksdhlfk oh geez.

erm, ah, well, y'see, that's uh- that's none of your-! oh. oh, you got me, you got me, you little scamp!

oh god

OH GOD

EVERYBODY DUCK AND COVEEEEEEEEEEEER

YEAH OKAY WHOA

WH- NO THAT'S- THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT BY DUCK AND COVER

OMG

GUESS WHAT, SHE'S NOT DONE

oh, but that Lizzie, what a card. That was all just one big j/k! Time to cuddle again! And to reveal that Gordon and Cindy don't know as much about Robert as they think they do, ooooohhhh. Looks like he dabbles in a little drugs, a little sex, a little rock 'n roll.

Everyone takes this opportunity to have a little bit of an intermission (lol I accidentally typed "intervention", please can they have that instead.)

aaaaand we're intermissioning, we're intermissioning...

zzzzzzzzzz

"Let's play a game."

NO OH GOD PLEASE NO DON'T PLAY THE GAME

DON'T PLAY THE GAME

seriously, you guys. you don't even know how much you do not want them to play the game.

Cindy CANNOT TAKE THIS SHIT ANYMORE and finally finally finally has a bit of an outburst:

"You know something, I can't believe you! You attack him, you almost strangle him, you attack us, your ridicule us, then you SCREW LIKE ANIMALS and now you want us to sit there all buddy-buddy and play a game!"

wow.

AAAA-PPLAUSE! It's about time!

"Yes!" Bernie triumphantly declares. "There is someone home! Finally, a spark, some fire, some passion! God, I was afraid that you were just like a stone-cold plastic bitch, but... yay!"

YAY

Bernie says some, you guessed it, ~deep~ things about life, and it's real preachy and I'm going to skip typing it out olol.

and I'll skip over to Cindy getting ready to talk about her mother and Lizzie being all, "TELL ME ABOUT YOUR MOTHER, LITTLE GIRL."

aw, well. Cindy adores her mother! Cindy admires her mother! Cindy thinks her mother's just about the greatest thing since sliced bread!

But, actually, Cindy secretly hates her mother! Cindy's super jealous of her mother because she's always in her shadow!

Also, love and hate coexist at the same time, this has been a PSA from our pal Lizzie.

And also Lizzie's mother is the same way and she fuckin' hates her for it.

uh oh uh oh, ~deep~ alert:

"Is it them? Or is it us? I mean, do we- do we make ourselves feel what we feel or do others do it to us?"

dang, that's some heavy shit, man.

time to bring it right back down with some good old-fashioned groping. hoorah!

AHAHA ohhhh gee, this little gem coming up right here. Cindy thinks that sex is private and that it's very inappropriate to do things like, you know, have it in an elevator in front of two other people, because it just should be o-okay. and Lizzie disagrees.

I'll just... I'll just leave this here.

"It's great. It's sexy, it's fun, it's erotic, it's the best. Why would you want to deprive other people of one of the best things about being alive? There is no single act I have yet discovered that compares with the sheer joy and exhilaration... of fucking."

PUH-REACH IT, SISTAH

"Oh, for Christ's sakes."

oh gordon. always the optimist, that one! what are we gonna do with him?

and then Lizzie only semi-randomly shouts, "FUCKING FOR THE RAINFOREST!" I mean, there's context, but we don't need no stinkin' context.

Gordon, quick, you're Roger Ebert. What's your review on Fucking For the Rainforest?

"I'm offended and disgusted by your thing, as you call it!"

ooh! That sounds like a no star-er.

Lizzie and Bernie ask some more pretentious questions and then Gordon says "new age gobbledygook" in a completely hilarious way. He puts all the emphasis on the "oo" in "gook" and I just die; brb saying that this way forever. Then he says some things about being annoyed that his ex-wife always used to make everything ~mean something~. THINKING! WHOAAAA MAN WHAT A CONCEPT.

AAAGGGHHH I CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS

Bernie and Gordon have a debate about "the majority" and ooh, if the majority says it's wrong does that really make it wrong and omg just shut up, everyone.

Gordon insists that the majority rules, and that you either have to be part of the majority or live as an ootcast (lest we forget everyone in this film speaks fluent Canada.) THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS! Man, Texas would looove you, Gordon.

um, and then he calls Lizzie a fuck-up and a disgrace. In those exact words. To her face. Right to her cute little face.

GORDON I SWEAR TO GOD I'M GONNA PUNCH YOU IN THE GODDAMN DICK. not like that would be new for you by this point.

ugh. ugh.

"You're too much," he tells Bernie. "You shoot her up with drugs, you fuck her in front of us, and then you sexually assault this young woman. And then you sit there like a righteous, pompous asshole and look down at me; you're too fucking much!"

"You ever notice you swear an awful lot, Gordon?" rofl.

"I only swear when I have to deal with fucking assholes who irritate the shit out of me, and this is definitely one of those times." thx 4 clarification.

oh man, and then the gloves. come. off! and Gordon unleashes with a horrible tirade at poor Cindy because, seriously, he's the biggest goddamn dick.

yo dawg you don't gotta yell at me I mean I've already been fuckin' molested in this movie; I think I've had more than my fair share of punishment.

Gordon is adamant that he is NOT FUCKING YELLING!!1 but I'm pretty sure I would call this yelling. He also says his EX-WIFE ALWAYS USED TO DO THIS, SAY HE WAS YELLING WHEN HE'S JUST FUCKING FRUSTRATED!! so. I don't know, guys, you think maybe his ex-wife is important to the continued deconstruction of his psyche?

"JESUS, WHAT IS IT WITH YOU WOMEN?! ARE YOU ALL CUT FROM THE SAME FUCKING MOLD?! DON'T ANY OF YOU HAVE A FUCKING BRAIN?! I'M NOT YELLING!!!11!!11"

dude.

dude.

you done? you want some fuckin' midol or something? geeeeeez.

Cindy says that they're all the same, that they yell and threaten and bully people, and then there's a super awkward and, again, mildly upsetting for real moment where Bernie's all, "lizzie do I bully people? are you lumping me in the same group as Gordon? I'm not a we or a they, Liz, I don't like being called that!"

omg he's not a we or a they, Liz! HE'S A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE

um. I'm sensing some sads in this elevator. and you know what's not okay? People making Lizzie feel sads. That's pretty much the most unokay thing to ever be unokay.

oh god no you can't start crying because- because witch emotions. if you start, then I start, and we all start.

WHY, WHY IS THIS HAPPEN RIGHT NOW. WHYYYYYY.

noooooooooooooo ;_;

So, now they are fight. because Bernie absolutely cannot take being called a bully and thinking that Lizzie thinks he's a bully sometimes and hnnnng, bad feels all around, man.

peekaboo!

okay guys, seriously, is it time to hug this out yet?

LOOK AT HERRRRRR

LOOK AT HER FAAAAACE

THIS STOPS NOW. NO MORE SADS. YOU TWO HUG THIS OUT RIGHT NOW.

oh or kiss it out. whatever works.

nnnnnnn

lmfao butttttt I suppose that could only last for so long. lizzie get your head out of there, that's not where it goes.

oh god but: "Do you... do you guys wanna play the game now?"

so, for those who don't know about The Game, Bernie, please explain:

"Okay. This is how it goes: We each take turns telling a story about the most disturbing moment of our childhood. And, uh, when one person is done telling their story, we then go around and everybody takes a turn guessing whether or not the story is true or false."

oh. oh, this sounds great, let's play this for sure.

honestly, what could go wrong?

"What's the point of the game?" Gordon asks.

GORDON, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT THE POINT OF THE GAME IS: TO TRAUMATIZE EVERY SINGLE DAMN ONE OF US AND MAKE US WISH WE'D NEVER BEEN BORN.

"Whatever you want it to be," Bernie replies. "It can be about who's the best judge of character, who's the best liar, or it can simply be just about getting to know each other better."

YEAH, NO, IT'S ABOUT NONE OF THESE THINGS, I'M TELLIN' YOU.

CINDY DON'T DO IT

DON'T DO IT

GGGOOORRRDDDOOONNN DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE

All right, guys. Start strapping the fuck in, 'cause shit's about to get so goddamn real. Kristen kept asking me, "WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END DO THEY ALL DIE?" no, they don't all die. BUT I DO. I DIE INSIDE SO HARD AND SO FAST AND IT'S PAINFUL AND HORRIBLE.

and you will, too, I guarantee it. We're not quite there yet, but... BE READY. LOOK AT MY FACE IT IS SO FUCKING SERIOUS. THIS IS PRETTY MUCH THE MOST SERIOUS ABOUT ANYTHING THAT I HAVE EVER BEEN.

anyway, everybody's all ready and raring to go to Game Land, but nobody wants to go first. So Bernie goes first. And he tells us a tale of when he was 6, and he decided he was going to be an actor when he grew up.

I had just watched Great Expectations with my mother on TV, you know the old black and white one? She cried almost the whole way through it. Those movies didn't have a lot in special effects, but WOW, they were powerful! And I'd never seen anything like it. I mean, the way it moved my mother...

So I decided right then and there, I was gonna be an actor when I grew up. And I was so thrilled! I mean, I knew I was only 6, but I knew that's what I wanted to do. That's what I wanted to be. And I was excited, I couldn't wait for my father to come home so I could tell him! I knew he'd be so proud of me and I'd get to see him smile that big smile he'd get whenever I did something that pleased him, you know?

He was a businessman. A very successful businessman, still is. You know the type, Gordon. Many nights he'd come home late because he'd be working and we'd already be in bed so we'd hardly get to see him.

This particular night? The longest night of my life. It took forever for him to come home. It was the first time I realized how cruel time can be, you know? Like it has a mind of its own and it plays with us. When you want the moment to fly by and it drags out forever and when you want the moment to last, it's like... over before you know it.

Anyhow, I spent the time in bed imagining our conversation. My father smiling and hugging me... something he rarely ever did, but... I knew for sure he would this night. My little heart was pounding and beating so fast, I swear it was just gonna rip right through my chest! You ever feel that way? You know, like, so certain about something... so exciting that the waiting is almost more fun than the doing? That's how I felt.

And then I heard it. The garage door opening, and his car pulling in, and him getting out and shutting the door. He drove a Jag; it had this really distinctive, classy, solid sound. And there I am, standing breathless in the hallway in anticipation. And I hear his key in the door, and then there he is! He's larger than life and just standing over me with this peculiar knit to his brow and he's looking down at me and he says, "Well, young man, what's that look for?"

And without hesitation I just blurted it out with, like, I was so sure of myself, "I'm gonna be an actor when I grow up, Daddy!"

And he looked at me square in the eye and he said, "Over my dead body."

And then, he, uh, he walked off in the dining room for his supper.

And, uh. I just stood there. I couldn't move for the longest time. And my heart felt like it had stopped.

And I wondered why I wasn't dead.

dag.

dag.

Legitimately sad. Legitimately makes me feel things. And we're only just getting started.

Oh, ps, was it true or false? Cindy said it was true because that was waaay too heartfelt to be false, and Gordon said it was false because, as we've already established, he's a goddamn dick. oh, and Lizzie obvs says it's true. And it was true. So congrats, Gordon, not only are you a dick, but you're also wrong, too.

Cindy guessed right first, so now it's her turn, yayayay! Except nonono, she's gonna take a pass.

BUT THIS IS THE MOTHERFUCKING STUCK GAME, CINDY. NOBODY GETS TO TAKE A PASS.

ho hum, look at me, I'm Gordon, and I don't need therapy and I'm too good for everyone, I'm just the goddamn king of the world.

oh man. Cindy's story. Okay, here we go.

When I was young, up until the age of 12, I was the apple of my father's eye. He praised me for everything I did. He came to all my recitals, and my games, and he drove me to band practice and figure skating practice, and those were really early mornings, but... he never complained. Not once. He was always there for me. He would buy me new clothes whenever I wanted, and he took the family and me on trips. God, he was just the best father any girl could ask for.

And I'm sure he would've continued to be if he and my mom hadn't broken up and she... forbid him to see me or have any contact with me. Anyway, I- I just tell you that because it helps explain what was the worst moment of my childhood.

One day, my sister came into my room and closed the door. I was 7 at the time, and she and my father had just had a fight. They never really got along. She was... she was always bugging him to buy her things and then he'd refuse and then they'd fight and yell and then eventually he'd give in and buy it for her.

Well, on this particular day, he wasn't gonna give in. He yelled and just stormed out of the house. And that's when she came into my room and closed the door and sat on my bed.

She told me that our father was a bad man and had done bad things to her. She said that she'd never want me to be alone with him and that she wanted to tell Mom, but she was afraid.

I told her to stop. I screamed at her that she was lying and that my father would never do anything bad. And she said that she was afraid I'd react that way and that's why she hadn't said anything sooner, but that she couldn't keep it to herself any longer.

I just screamed at her again, and then I threw myself down on the bed and I covered my head with a pillow and I just hummed really loud.

She takes this time to hum what she hummed. It goes on for a while. It's actually quite a disturbing moment.

And after a long, long time of me doing that, my sister just yelling at me and shaking at me and trying to get me to hear her... it was just quiet.

And I lifted my head from the pillow and I turned around... and she was gone. She'd gone into her room, and... packed some things... and left. Just like that.

ohhhh my stomach. I can't even type the rest, I'm just done. She says she never came back, that she thinks a friend saw her once a couple of years ago on the strip, and "she looked really rough." jfc, movie, what the hell is this. You torture us for so long and then you fuckin' bring out the real guns? like, oh, j/k, everything before was just nothing, the real pain begins now. JUST KILL ME AND GET IT OVER WITH, I CAN'T. TAKE. THIS.

"So," she asks. "What do you think? True or false?"

UM, THIS SHIT BETTER... you better not have made that shit up, man. that'd be sick.

"Well, you're all wrong! It was false!"

WAT

HAHAHA OH GUESS WHAT?

NOT FUNNY

"Well... most of it.

...Some of it was true.

You know, it was... it was a really long time ago, and..."

aw, Cindy. :(

Now we have Gordon's story, which, my fingers are getting tired and I'm not even to... ngggggh. So I'm just gonna summarize his:

Basically, Gordon's story is A Christmas Story, complete with wanting a Red Rider BB Gun, except instead of his dad being the asshole, it's his mom, and his mom isn't all secretly warm and fuzzy inside like Ralphie's dad, but is actually a real honest-to-god prick. He said he didn't want gifts for Christmas because he thought he could trick his mom into not figuring out just how much he wanted the bb gun, but come Christmas, his mom was all, "Oh. But you said you didn't want presents~" and his dad tried to get it for him but agaksdfhglkahl.

And it actually makes me feel a little bad for Gordon. Just a little bit. He went so long trying to hide his emotions because his mom would get mad at him every time he was happy, so it's obvious why he is the way he is now. This is a guy that's repressed everything for so long that he's actually incapable of comprehending how truly miserable he is.

And that's the most depressing thing I've ever heard of.

Even more depressing? He tries to pass it off as fake. But it's really really obvious that he's lying.

oh god. oh god heeeeere we go. heeeeere we fucking go.

This is it, guys. The realest of the real. god, I don't even know if I can do this a second time.

No more wisecracks. No more witty comments. No nothing, this is it. This right here is the moment I mentioned in the very beginning, the one that actually succeeds, and it's all thanks to the fact a.) it is heinously nauseating b.) a-tapps knocks it right out of the park. Right out of the goddamn park. I just- It's just impossible to deal, it's absolutely impossible to deal with these words coming out of her mouth, and she just nails every single bit of it to a soul-crushing degree, because she is a-tapps, and she can quite literally do no wrong.

all right.

Lizzie's story.

here we go.

Well, my father fucked me when I was a kid.

He'd single me out from my older sister who he treated like a queen. He'd make me do stupid things like clean the kitchen with a toothbrush. I mean, not just the counter. The entire fucking kitchen. I wasn't allowed to eat or go to sleep until I had finished to his satisfaction. I was exhausted and starving and so humiliated. And then I'd have to call him in for inspection. And he'd take his time coming. And no matter what room we were in or how many times he had done this to me, he would always find something wrong. If all else failed, he'd reach his hand up above the door sill and run it along. I was too short to reach it, even on a chair.

So then he'd have his excuse to beat me. And he just fucking wailed on me.

My mother would be God knows where in her own little world... grateful, I guess, later that it wasn't happening to her. My sister... [laughs] My sister, would always come up with these great ideas for how I could avoid his wrath. But it never worked. He wanted me. And no matter what I did, he would always find an excuse to punish me.

And when the beating was over? The real punishment would begin. He'd have sex with me. Rough, brutal, violent sex. And when he was finished, he'd lay on top of me, and whisper into my ear that he was making me into the perfect whore for other men to enjoy. I can still hear his voice to this day. Heavy, post-sex breath as he'd whisper those words. He'd squeeze my nipples so tight, God. I didn't have breasts when he started doing this, and even when I developed them, he'd only ever squeeze my nipples.

Kinda like the way I like you to do it to this day, baby. Isn't that sick?

"It's not your fault, sweetheart," Bernie tells her.

It's not? Whose is it? Huh? My mother? My sister? He didn't do it to them, he only ever did it to me. Which is why, to this day, they still don't believe me. They think I am some very sick, twisted person for making it all up.

The day I ran away from home, I confronted him in front of them. And he denied, denied, denied. And they turned on me in such a rage. Man, I left in fear of them as much as him. And the friends, and the neighbors, a lot of them knew. And they chose to say nothing.

One day, he had some friends over for beer and barbecue in the backyard. And the drunker he got, the bolder he got.

He ordered me to come outside and meet his friends.

I was just a little kid.

He held me upside down over the railing, and he stuck his fingers inside me.

No one did anything. No one said anything, nothing happened. There I was, upside down, half-naked, in front of a group of grown men with my father's fingers inside me and nobody did anything; now, do you realize how easy it is to assume that it's your fault when no one in the world does anything?!

That makes it normal, doesn't it? By your definition, Gordon? If nobody does anything, isn't my father's behavior "normal"?

He forbid me to wear underwear. He said it was for grown women only, not little girls. he used to inspect me every day before I went to school; he'd reach his hand up underneath my skirt to make sure that I was naked. My mother, standing only a few feet away. When I confronted her about it as an adult, she said she simply had no idea that that was going on. How convenient, huh?

You wanna know the sick part of the story?

Many years later, I decided to confront my father. It was supposed to help me find "closure". I decided to meet him in a restaurant downtown. We met and I told him everything and surprisingly, he listened, and more surprisingly, he admitted to everything. And he smiled at me... and told me to come on into the back laneway and suck his dick.

Here's the sick part: I wanted to suck his dick.

But it took everything I had to get out of that restaurant. And I ran to my car and I... I masturbated right there in the parking lot.

And then he died. And I was finally free of him.

There is a very long pause.

"That's insane! Why didn't you go to the police?!"

"I did."

"And what did they do?"

"Nothing."

"That's impossible; they must've done something!"

"They did nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was a small town and they knew my father. They liked him. Staff sergeant actually patted me on the ass and told me to go home and stop making trouble."

"Why didn't you go to another city, another police department?! They would've done something!"

"You know... asshole, that's not how it feels when it's happening to you! It feels like no one will ever believe you!"

"God, it drives me crazy how people give up so quickly!"

GIVE UP?! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! I did not give up! I have spent my entire fucking life trying to get people to believe me! Social workers, therapists, yes, even police and prosecuters. You know, some of them actually said they believed me, but there wasn't much they could do after all this time. Not much of a case, especially with all the backlash from the false memory syndromes.

But I did not give up.

Your precious fucking system just didn't listen. Seems it was too much for your great majority to handle! So they just pushed it away and me along with it!

You know, not a day has gone by where I didn't want to die. I almost succeeded a few times. Paramedics and my... my meddling friends were too quick to find me.

But one day, you son of a bitch... I guarantee you I'm gonna get it right.

She flips him off and collapses back against the wall.

Cindy silently cries.

And then there's a voice that doesn't belong to any of them.

"Hello? Is anybody there?"

"Yes!" Gordon responds. "Hello! We're here in the elevator!"

The voice says it's the fire department; they'll have them out in a few minutes.

"Thank God," Gordon says.

"Yeah," says Bernie. "He played a big part in it, all right, couldn'ta done it without him. Too bad he didn't hear the cries of a little girl who was brutalized repeatedly by her father."

"Look," Gordon says as he pulls on his jacket. "We're gonna be out of here soon. I'm not gonna get into that discussion with you. God works-"

"Yeah, in mysterious ways!"

"Yes. He does."

"So does the Devil.

I personally find it hard to tell them apart."

"Well, I think you've just gotta have faith. It's about having faith."

"Oh," Bernie says, "that's real easy to say unless you've had all your faith sucked out of you."

"You think I'd be here today," Lizzie asks, "if I didn't have faith?" She laughs. "Jesus, I honestly believe it's gonna get better!

But it never does.

Fuck, if I didn't have faith, I'd try to off myself 24/7. Not just once in a while."

"Well, I think it's about having faith in something more than just believing it's gonna get better," Gordon says.

"Faith in what, Gordon?" Bernie asks. "Which one of the many gods is the right one this week, huh? Or is it faith in power? Drugs? Sex? Rock 'n roll? Government? Money? Which one are we supposed to have faith in? Don't you dare speak to me about some abstract Sunday school version of God as a white man with a white beard."

Gordon hesitates. "Well, it's... faith in yourself."

Now Bernie hesitates. "I can accept that."

And that's it.

That's the end of the movie.

Cindy wipes her skirt off, curses, laments that it's filthy.

Bernie and Lizzie kiss, gather up their things, and level one last glare in Gordon's direction.

And Gordon adjusts his tie and says, "Well. It's been an interesting time."

And then it cuts to black.

The end.

Das fin.

Bet you're glad you came on this journey with me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go vomit.

have a nice day

stuck, part 1 - somewhere between heaven and hell, but MUCH closer to hell (nsfw whaaat?!)

gingasaur — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:04:29 GMT

I'd like to think that I'm somewhat of a shitty media pro by this point. I've been watching truly awful movies and sometimes truly awful television all for the sake of just one person that I adore for six years now. That's a lot of time to be willingly inflicting pain upon oneself. Why, it almost feels like yesterday that I watched Throw Momma From the Train on Comcast On Demand. If only the Internet had come through for me when I was ready to expose myself to Mrs. Columbo. I think I've seen more than enough to make up for it, though: I've had Sometimes They Come Back... For More, those few harrowing minutes of The Sand Pebbles, those equally harrowing minutes of Beethoven's 5th, The Wind and the Lion (which wasn't necessarily horrible, just... narmy), motherfucking Mayflower Madam, A Kiss at Midnight, Sorority Wars, The Women, oh god, and how could I forget North?

And remember that time I DVR'd Touched By An Angel? How about Two and a Half Men? Ah, and the time I rented The Object of My Affection, so wildly offensive in its implications about homosexuality. And there was Celebrity, which wasn't bad, but I was in it for someone who appeared for all of ten seconds. And How to Deal, which I watched, watched more than once, and probably watched one more time for good measure. Sweet Home Alabama. Bride Wars. The ultimate classic, Mary & Tim. And the granddaddy of them all, the mind-numbing, vomit-inducing Footsteps.

My point is, I've been around the bad media block, and then some. Sure, there have been some good ones smattered in between (Starting Over, he-llo, not to mention most Allison Janney movies, and I don't know what my life would be without Boston Legal), but for the most part, I have had the displeasure of witnessing some truly heinous crap during my fannish career. And I kind of thought it wasn't ever going to get worse than Daisy Lowendahl and her dead sweater-wearing dog.

And then.... and then. And then there was Stuck. Leave it to Amanda Tapping to take my journey beyond the impossible.

The thing about this, uh, ~movie~ is that it's... it tries. Which, I suppose is about all it can do when it's filmed in an elevator with what appears to be somebody's camcorder. It tries, and there is a moment where it actually succeeds. That moment, however, is alllll the way at the end, meaning that you have to endure 80 minutes of positively brain-breaking scenes. I mean it, brain. breaking. I don't think I'm fully recovered yet.

This is in a whole league of its own, all right? You have to understand the very real risks to your health and sanity on this one. If you choose to lay eyes on this spam, you're coming out the other side a changed person. You will read things that you will never be able to unread. You will see things that you will never be able to unsee. Your life will be forever altered, and not necessarily for the better. It's a dangerous specimen. It makes everything I listed above look like a Saturday afternoon in the park.

If you're willing to take the leap, then pat yourself on the back for your bravery and strap yourself in. Tight. We won't have a chance to turn back once we begin, so make sure you really want to do this. I MEAN IT.

Okay. Deep cleansing breaths.

Ready?

Oh, on second thought, what was I even saying? This looks completely legit.

See? Legit! I don't know what I was so worried about.

It's important to know that here begins a lovely medley of 1995 Geocities Sailor Moon fanpage MIDI music. It's bright and it's a little bit peppy and it NEVER FUCKING STOPS. EVER.

Say hello to Gordon, your new best friend. And by "new best friend", I mean "guy whose head you're gonna want to beat in with a shovel by the time this thing is done."

Gordon is a cranky upper middle class white dude who thinks he's too good for this shitty den of shit that he's traipsing through right now. Join him as he gazes in disgust upon evidence of its shittiness, like this random hole in the wall.

Or these lovely works of art and uplifting messages left by the residents.

So inspiring.

Oh, and this girl. I don't remember her name, was it Cindy? I think it was Cindy. Even if it wasn't Cindy, it's Cindy now.

Cindy presses the elevator button, which Gordon has already pressed, and immediately smiles. She looks embarrassed and giggles nervously. "Sorry~," she says. "I always do that~. I'm sure you already pushed it, right~?"

Gordon, gives a quiet, indignant sigh and replies, "Yes." Oh, Gordon. You're such a charmer.

Then he says something that I guess he thinks is witty or deep or clever about traffic lights, and this guy's performance is just so Oscar-worthy that I always know exactly what his motivations are. Really.

OH BUT HELLO FRIENDS HELLOOOOOOO. Say hello to Lizzie (which... SOB. WHY DID HER NAME HAVE TO BE LIZZIE, WHYYYYYY) andddddd fuck I can't remember his name at. all. But that's the guy who played Martouf on Stargreat, which, as some of you will know, makes this 100% more hilar. Martouf's a little hard to explain to those ~not in the know~, but long story short, he was a very sweet, mild-mannered dude who had the hots for Sam big time. So please take this knowledge and keep it close at hand for the rest of the movie; you will need it to numb your pain.

ELEVATOR TIME YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Lizzie and Bernie (lol THAT was his name. that. was his name.) immediately go about making themselves comfy. very very comfy. rrrrrr.

Which I guess is good because CONGRATULATIONS, THE ELEVATOR'S... eeeugh, don't make me say it. It's... halted.

OHHHHHHHHH

SNAP

Lizzie promptly freaks out, but Bernie assures her everything will be fine while his hand rests in a very strategic position. The first of many strategic positions, by the way, but we'll get to that later.

Bernie starts cursing and swearing at the elevator, which is so uncalled for. Elevators have feelings, too, man. What did it ever do to you except try to transport you downstairs? ;_;

Our main man Gordon takes GREAT OFFENSE to Bernie's language, and actually, you know what, the dialogue here is just so good that I think it needs sharing. It's not only great but an excellent preview of things to come:

Bernie: FUCKIN' PIECE OF SHIT I FUCKIN' TOLD THAT DWEEB (?? I can't really hear this but I think it's dweeb? aw man I want it to be dweeb, I want it to be dweeb so bad) THIS ELEVATOR'S A PIECE OF CRAP
Gordon: Excuse me, would you watch your language, please, there's a- there are ladies present.
[Please note that Gordon did not automatically acknowledge Lizzie as a lady, which is hiiis mistake because, as she will so kindly prove to us later, she is all lady. ohhhhh boy is she ever.]
[ahem. moving on.]
Bernie: EXCUSE ME I'LL WATCH MY FUCKIN' LANGUAGE WHEN YOU FIND A FUCKIN' WAY OUTTA HERE OKAY ASSHOLE
Gordon: Look, there's no reason to yell; I'm simply requesting that you not swear in the presence of ladies.
Bernie: KAY WELL I'M SIMPLY REQUESTING THAT YOU SHUT YOUR FUCKIN' MOUTH AND KEEP IT SHUT WE'RE STUCK IN A FUCKIN' ELEVATOR I THINK THAT'S GROUNDS FOR A LITTLE SWEARING

actually, I would have to agree. Swear on, Bernie. Swear on.

Lizzie and Bernie resume their shenanigans in the background while Gordon says that they should be spending their time yelling for help until someone hears them. Cindy agrees and starts to "yell".

"Help~? Help, can somebody please help us~? We're stuck~!"

OH, SO FUNNY OLOLOLOL

"What is that?" Bernie asks as Lizzie collapses into him with alllll of the super cute laughter (look, it's the little things that keep you sane; you're gonna thank me later for pointing them out). "That's yelling, huh?"

omg and then this. and then he says this.

"If you ever get attacked, you're gonna get raped for sure!"

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

yeah, so, that happened.

OHHHHHHHH THE HUMANITYYYYYYYYY. BEING STUCK IN AN ELEVATOR FOR TWO MINUTES IS SOOOOOO HAAAAAAARD

gurl, you know what stuck is? stuck is stranded on the prometheus for four days with only hallucinations and little girls blowing bubbles to keep you company. stuck is limping around all bloody on god knows where while some dickwad super soldier hunts your ass. stuck is floatin' around in fuckin' space thinking that everybody you know and love might've just gotten totally curbstomped in front of your very eyes.

SO SUCK IT UP, BITCH. THIS IS FUCKING NOTHING.

Gordon and Bernie proceed to have a FIGHT over BUTTONS. It is VERY INTENSE.

THAT HOOLIGAN, I'LL GIVE HIM WHAT FOR.

Lizzie freaks out some more and says that SHE CAN'T DO THIS SHE CAN'T BERNIE HAS TO GET HER OUT OF THERE PPPLLLEEEEEAAASSSSEEEE. Meanwhile, Gordon kicks the wall. That's not a euphemism or anything, he's really doing that.

"YOU GOTTA POUND WITH SOMETHING HARDER, ASSHOLE."

hear that, asshole? you gotta pound. with something harder.

and just take a look at this beautiful camera work. marvelous, just marvelous. *golf clap*

The quest for something harder starts and ends in Cindy's purse, where Bernie steals her bottle of ~~water~~ wine.

Which Lizzie takes and downs faster than you can say "what the flying fuck".

and poor Cindy, poor poor Cindy. She just stands there and says, "Um. Um, excuse me. I-I would like to have that back."

AND THEN THERE'S MORE FIGHTING OH NO!!

There's not much time for that, though, because then Lizzie starts moaning and groaning in pain and says that Bernie's GOTTA HELP HER HE'S GOTTA HELP HER.

So he rubs her stomach. all righty.

This goes on for... a while. Bernie takes the time to ask, "What brings you ~fine folks~ to our humble home, huh?" to which Cindy replies that she's here visiting her boyfriend, who is very desirable and does in fact live here, so there. Believe it or not, this is important information so file that sucker away for later.

Bernie keeps telling Lizzie that everything's going to be okay, but she gets up and screams that "IT'S NOT GONNA FUCKING BE OKAY, BERNIE!" and keeps begging him vaguely.

So then he says, "Okay, we'll do it here."

uh

wait

WHAT

oh, whew. he just meant hard drugs. jay kay, everybody!

HOLY HANNAH ON A BICYCLE, THAT'S SOME GOOD HEROIN

aaawwwkkkwwwaaarrrddd

well, it's okay, she's just gonna chill for a while.

but it's still awkward. Especially because Bernie invites Cindy and Gordon to get high, too. And also, as Zowie put it last night, to ~bang~ Lizzie.

DUDE SHE'S LIKE IN A COMA

Gordon calls Bernie sick and disgusting while making his best sick and disgusted face AND THENNNN OH MY GOD LOL I FORGOT THAT THIS HAPPENED. OH MY GOD. AND THEN, DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BERNIE DOES NEXT. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA.

HE GRABS GORDON BY THE DICK

We get a really good view of Gordon's fillings while he screams in agony and Bernie screams at him about not being his fucking father and I cannot even begin to tell you how hilarious it is.

Then shit goes straight from hilarious to WHOA WHOA WHOA as Bernie begins to hit on Cindy.

I mean really hit on her.

I mean WHOA SHE IS NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES UNDER THERE!!

HOLY SHIT

lol I'm sure we've had enough shots of this (or maybe not...?) but look, I just have to point out that this is most strategic and calculated nipple censoring I have ever seen. We seriously never see it! Ever! IT'S RIGHT THERE and we never see anything! Sorcery, I tell you. motherfucking' sorcery.

As Bernie continues his upsetting foray into Cindy's clothes, SUDDENLY, GORDON TO THE RESCUE! "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE HER ALONE! You're not fit to be on this Earth! You're an animal!"

Understandably, Bernie finds this incredibly amusing.

Oh, right, and then shit gets ~deep~.

Bernie: If I'm an animal, then what are you, huh?
Gordon: I'm a human being! And a gentleman!
Bernie: [laughs] Oh, so you're a gentleman, huh? Wow, I never thought I'd get to meet one. You're what they look like?
Gordon: Yeah, I'm what they look like! They don't look like your type!
Bernie: My type? Well, what exactly is "my type", Mr. Gentle-man?
Gordon: Your type are the reason we decent people need laws and policemen! You show no respect for anything! Not for people, not for God, nothing!
Bernie: Oh, is that it, is that the end of the description?
Gordon: No, I'm not done; you dress like slobs! You show no respect for your own appearance!
Bernie: You keep using the word "respect", but you can't even define it.
Gordon: Respect is... it's- it's an act-

You can wake up anytime here, Liz.

These two roughhousers go back and forth about respect for a while. Bernie starts quoting Socrates which really gets Gordon's goat!

Things get pretty gay pretty fast. Gordon/Bernie!!1 u ship it dun lie

Mostly, though, Bernie's not done pervin', so he uses this opportunity to take a good long look up Cindy's skirt. We're, uh, treated to the view, as you can see.

Gordon proceeds to tackle Bernie to the floor (no homo tho) because right now, HE'S A PROTECTOR!! and so Bernie asks him if he's ever looked up a woman's skirt lol.

Remember, though, Gordon is a gentleman, and gentlemen do not look up ladies' skirts. Which is why he's busy leering at Lizzie right now.

The music is pretty true right now, I might add.

WHAT UP BROSSSS, guess who's back in the land of the wakin'?! I guess for Lizzie, leering is the equivalent of true love's kiss; she's like the pseudo-porn version of Sleeping Beauty (went there~!!)

Gordon thinks he's hot shit when he reveals that Bernie was making ~advances~ at Cindy.

And Lizzie really couldn't give two shits, lmao. also omg SO MOE even in this fucking movie, I just.

Bernie asks what Gordon and Cindy are doing here in their lovely lovely building ("are you ~slummin' it?~"), and Cindy replies that she came to visit her boyfriend. Lizzie awww's and asks her how many years they've been together. 6 months, replies dear innocent Cindy.

lmao. well, Lizzie just thinks it's so hilar that people call 6 months an anniversary. And Cindy has to stand there feeling awkward, but what else is new for that poor kid right now?

also hey, see what I mean? no homo.

Gordon says he's here visiting his son, calls him a healthy red-blooded male when Bernie tries to call him a queen, lmao. "A bit of a skirt-chaser, in fact," Gordon proudly adds. The gender stereotype force is strong with this one. Smells like testosterone and repressed urges.

"Gee," Lizzie purrs. "I wonder where he gets that from. What's his name; maybe he's chased mine~." dkhflsdkfsdgksdhgl

then okay omg. omg. Lizzie swats Bernie on the leg and says, "Hey! You were comin' onto her?"

"She's got great tits, what can I say?"

omg okay I'm dying okay, gimme a minute to compose myself.

so. are you ready for just about the most legit thing you are ever going to witness? because it's coming up right now.

"Oh, yeah, she does," Lizzie breathes.

AND THEN SHE GOES TO HAVE A LOOK

AND THEN SHE GOES

TO HAVE

A LOOK

That doesn't last long, though, because then there's name-calling and more fighting and then Lizzie decides to get a piece of all this wrastlin' action. And it's actually pretty hardcore lmao, it's like this sordid chain of strangulation and Lizzie's all, "HE DIES, YOU DIE, FUCKER!" just in case you had any doubt as to whether or not this was indeed the best bad movie ever.

Well, not unlike our dearest Sam (who I miss so much right now ;_;, which if I remember correctly is exactly what I said re: Murphy during the Daisy Lowendahl Genius Hour) Lizzie doesn't do shit halfway so she really goes to town with this whole choking business. Things get a little srs and she and Bernie have to hug it out.

oh

ohhhhhhhh my god are we at this scene already? oh jesus fucking christ.

okay, um. so. this is about to happen. uhhhh.

well, you know, I think I'll just have to forge ahead here. no going back, that's what I said. nooooo going back.

ffffuuuuccckkkk

They are just so happy that Bernie didn't get strangled and Lizzie saved him and yaddayaddayadda that the happiness turns into other things real fast.

real

fuckin'

fast

emphasis

on

the fuckin'

and... and there's chipmunk laughter and I just

that's not

don't put that laugh in here!

don't do that!

because my innocence won't... ;_______;

UH YEAH I KNOW RIGHT? CAN YOU EVEN FUCKING BELIEVE THIS SHIT?

WELL THERE'S A LOT OF GROPING AND STRADDLING AND NOISES AND MOANS (DEAR GOD THE MOANS)

AND THIS IS A LOT OF STIMULI FOR ONE PERSON TO BE TAKING IN ALL AT ONCE AND ALALALALA

~I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEE-EEEEEL~

pfksdhfldshf and also there is buttcrack. IT'S MAGIC I AIN'T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT

there's never actually any nudity during this but

it's just very

very

very very clear what is transpiring. as if you couldn't tell.

Gordon (hey yeah remember how there were other characters in this movie? I, uh, forgot for a second) crawls away from this thing occurring right here in front of him and says, "STOP IT, YOU'RE BEHAVING LIKE ANIMALS." well yeah that is pretty true right now.

DON'T WORRY I'LL PROTECT YOU

not much protection goin' on down here, though. ba-dump-tsssshhhhh~

don't look, my sweet!

don't...

AHAHAHAHAHA

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

RIGHT NOW

OH MY GOD

But Cindy shoves him away and says, "No, please don't!" Guess what, though, CAN'T TAKE BACK THE FACT THAT THAT HAPPENED FOR FIVE SECONDS.

In case you were wondering, these two are still going strong. and I'm still feeling feelings that are very very complicated.

lol me irl, except I can't tear my eyes away from the screen and my mouth is agape.

aaand success was had!

and awkwardness was felt!

and afterglow was basked in.

and Gordon was all, "you're disgusting!" because he's just a walking thesaurus, this one.

and Bernie said, "I think you're a really unhappy man."

and you?

you just watched Sam and Martouf bang each other in an elevator.

you just watched moemoe a-tapps have a sex scene.

and you can never unwatch it.

ever.

so.

break, anyone? let's take a break. reconvene here tomorrow, same time, same place? and we'll have ourselves the exciting conclusion to this sordid little tale of elevator coitus and intellectual discussions.

or maybe I could ~casually mention~ that we're only 28 minutes in

and we could all just kill ourselves instead.

everybody hit the deeeeeeck!

gingasaur — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 04:06:42 GMT

I got a new friend in the mail today.

And by friend I mean harbinger of death and terrible destruction.

aaaahhhh!

h-hello replicarter...

Look, I know you're excited, but can you... maybe put that away or something? It's really freakin' me out.

Oh my God! Two Sams!! How will I ever be able to tell which one is which!!!

As we are all aware, there are many many Sams in many many universes. Good Sams, evil Sams, awkward frumpy nerd Sams. There are so many Sams that you, dear reader, may not always be able to tell the differences between them. It's very important to know if you're dealing with a good Sam or an evil Sam before it's too late!

So, how does one tell the difference between a good Sam and an evil Sam? Perhaps I can assist you in your endeavors to distinguish between the two with these handy tips.

A good Sam will be sweet, kind, and friendly, possessing nothing less than a gigantic golden heart filled to the brim with rainbows and happiness. She will enjoy activities such as motorcycle riding, blue Jell-o eating, and playing Treasure Mathstorm until the wee hours of the morning. When she determines that you are a trustworthy person, she will waste no time talking to you for hours and hours about things that you more than likely will not understand. If you're not careful, she may commandeer your television and burn away an entire afternoon with nothing but Bill Nye reruns.

She will have nice friends who will protect your world with love and friendship and invite you to all of their parties. They will be eager to tell you about how badass they are and may end up doing so more than once.

On the other hand, an evil Sam will be mean, pushy, and will only act friendly in order to deceive you. She will enjoy activities such as kidnapping, torture, and shanking. Most of the time, she will be happy to wax eloquent about how much better she is than you. Other times, she'll skip right to stabbing you in the gut. She will have not-so-nice friends who will overtake your computers and invite you to die.

When confronted with creatures of the cute and cuddly variety, she will kill them, brutally and without mercy. She may laugh about it afterward, but she will always eat whatever technology they leave behind for dinner.

When in doubt, sit back and obverse how the two Sams interact with each other. If they end up smiling and laughing and building some sort of fantastical science machine together, then congratulations! You're dealing with two good Sams.

If, however, your Sams appear to lack the ability to play nice with each other, then beware! You have an evil Sam in your midst. Exercise extreme caution and separate them if at all possible. Otherwise, grab the nearest Ancient superweapon and prepare yourself for a very long night.

This has been a friendly neighborhood PSA from the Alternate Universe League: touching Quantum Mirrors so you don't have to.

fic: not from around here, but here just the same (sg-1/sanctuary)

gingasaur — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:25:08 GMT

Still workin' through my Continuum feelings. A couple of nights ago, I decided that during a certain decade-long interim in the movie, somebody met Helen Magnus instead of being lonely for ten years. And then I wrote about it! I'll admit I'm unsure as to all the logistics of many many things here, but I really wanted to write this, SO. Also, I haven't posted anything at galaxy_cauldron in eons, and I'm fairly sure I don't want to put fics there anymore, at the very least. It just seems kind of counter-intuitive now that I have plenty of posts here that are public.

title: Not From Around Here, But Here Just the Same
series: Stargate SG-1/Sanctuary
rating: a light PG-13, perhaps.
word count: 3,509
notes: It took him three months to get out of the habit of calling her Sam. spoilers for Stargate: Continuum, obviously. For adventurepants, who ~needs~ this in her life. Her words, not mine! But in all honesty, this probably would not even have been written if not for her. I'm always so blown away by her enthusiasm for my little ideas~ Hell, it's for joie_de_vivre and cheapmetaphor, too. Get in here, business ladies. We have some hugs we need to file properly.

1930

She meets him on a cold night in March. Although, “meet” isn’t quite the word she would use; they don’t so much meet as stumble into each other. He’s teetering his way out of a crowded bar, drunk out of his mind and blathering incoherently. No one pursues him, but it’s clear that he’s just been in quite a fight; the blood dripping out of a gash on his cheek tells her that much. The fact that he takes a thankfully weak and misaimed swing at her before collapsing into her arms is a fairly good clue, too.

“My name is Helen Magnus,” she tells him as they sink toward the ground. “I’m a doctor; will you let me help you?”

The man seems to be delirious and the pungent aroma of cheap alcohol is all over him. There’s a full and scruffy beard on his face, but his eyes, blue and bright, seem painfully young. Not youthful young, but not old enough to be alone and smashed on a chilly spring night, either.

He’s mumbling again, but it’s nothing she can make out. She places a hand on his forehead and silently curses to herself; he’s radiating heat, and she can tell he’s not going to be conscious for much longer.

Just before he passes out, his eyes finally manage to meet hers.

“Good God, Sam,” he says to her. “What the hell did you do to your hair?”

---

1931

Cam’s never really had a taste for tea. He always liked to think of himself as a strictly coffee-drinking kind of guy, which made it all the more ironic that he managed to end up with the only woman in this city who downs nothing but Earl Grey like it’s going out of style.

Still, he’d never be so rude as to refuse it, especially not from the woman who saved his life in more ways than one.

It took him three months to get out of the habit of calling her Sam. Her name is Helen, Helen Magnus, and he had to tell this to himself over and over again. She just looks so much like her, though he wonders if his mind’s merely playing tricks on him, showing him similarities that aren’t really there. It’s all in the smile, he thinks. The eyes and the smile. Sometimes, despite his better judgment, he just stares at her, and thoughts of staff blasts and Arctic ice creep into his mind. Not a day goes by where this doesn’t happen. Not a day goes by where his heart doesn’t ache for his team.

He knew this would be hard. Ten years is an awfully long time, especially when it’s ten years in a time he doesn’t know, ten years in a time that doesn’t know him. He knew he would have to lay low and keep out of trouble, and he’s already failed on the keeping out of trouble front. But this is why he feels all the more lucky to have found Helen; she’s incredibly kind, incredibly generous, and incredibly not inclined to take any of his crap. She’s managed to keep him grounded, level-headed, and focused on enduring just by letting him stay with her. She even agreed to let him do odd jobs for her in lieu of paying rent, and he’s sure he’d be forever grateful if not for the fact that he won’t remember her after this is all over.

He takes a sip of his tea and before he knows it, he’s staring at her again, and she catches him in the act. It’s always fairly embarrassing, not to mention awkward. It’s not like he can tell her anything. What would he even say? “Gee, Helen, you’re not gonna believe this, but you are just the spittin’ image of my dead friend. My dead friend from 77 years in the future.” Right. Helen’s a smart lady, and there’s no way she’d ever believe anything like that. Besides, he has a timeline to keep intact. Or… as intact as humanly possible, anyway.

“Cameron,” Helen says, smiling gently and snapping him out of his little stupor. “There’s something I’d like to show you tonight.”

It takes him a minute for it to sink in. Tonight. His eyebrows raise. No, this couldn’t possibly… He certainly can’t deny that she’s painfully attractive, but- but he could never-

“Tonight?” he asks suspiciously.

Helen chuckles softly. “That’s not a proposition, thank you very much.” Cam’s shoulders sag with his exhalation, and she laughs harder. “Well, don’t be so relieved!”

He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

She shakes her head, an amused grin still on her face. “You must wonder by now what it is that I do for a living.”

His brows furrow with confusion. “You’re a doctor. I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but give me a little credit here.”

“Yes, I am a doctor. But there’s a little more to it than that.”

“A little more to it,” he repeats. “What, you… deal on the black market? Buy and sell other people’s organs?”

She rolls her eyes. “Good heavens, no.”

“You’re a fugitive,” he guesses.

“Cameron.”

“You killed somebody and I’ve been staying with a fugitive.”

“Cameron.” She gives him a look, and it shuts him up. Placing her teacup on the table in front of them, she rises out of her chair and pulls a small slip of paper from the pocket of her jacket. She crosses over to him and places it in the palm of his hand, keeping her fingers there until she’s sure he’s paying proper attention.

“Come to this address tonight,” she says. “I’m sure this won’t do anything to allay your growing paranoia, but do make sure to come alone.”

“Well,” Cam replies, slowly unfolding the paper, “you’re right about the growing paranoia part…” He trails off as he looks at the address. “This is down by the docks,” he remarks. “There’s nothing down there.”

Helen merely smiles at him as she turns and leaves the room.

---

1933

What he wouldn’t give for P-90’s to exist right about now.

“MAGNUS!” he screams as he fires into the shadows with this clumsy little pistol they apparently called a gun. “Where the hell did you go?!”

He doesn’t get an answer, but he does hear a very loud, hellish screech. A loud, hellish screech that sounds like it’s right on top of him.

He’s on the floor in a matter of seconds, landing hard on his stomach and knocking the wind right out of him. His fingers grope aimlessly in the darkness as he attempts to grab his gun, but he feels a whoosh of air next to his face, and then there’s a skittering sound. The bastard must’ve knocked it away with what he’s going to assume is his tail, although with that sharp little scythe on the end of it, it really seems like “vicious weapon of maiming and killing” would be a better title for it.

The creature screeches again, and the full moon up in the clouds provides just enough light for Cam to be able to make out two pincers, two pincers that are way way way too close to his face. He grabs them with both hands, struggling to keep them from doing something nasty like gouging out his eyes, and the creature responds by hissing and slicing his tail blade into Cam’s cheek.

Two shots ring out and something splatters onto his face. The creature unleashes a pained, ragged cry before it slumps forward. Cam curses under his breath and shoves it off of him, scrambling to his feet and spitting what he really hopes is not creature guts out of his mouth.

He hears heels clicking across the pavement, and never has he been so glad to see Helen. She cautiously makes her way out of the shadows, her gun aimed at the creature’s still form.

“Are you all right?” she asks him, not taking her eyes off her target.

“NO!” he shouts. “No, I am not all right!” He points rather dramatically at the creature. “He nearly made me his very cut up dinner, and you want to tag him and bring him home?!” If this kind of thing were standard protocol at the SGC, he swears he would’ve been dead a long time ago.

“Assuming I haven’t just unceremoniously ended his life, yes.” She kneels down next to it, eyeing it carefully. Cam backs away very quickly.

It’s silent for a few moments, save for the sounds of Helen’s voice as she periodically asks him to pass her supplies. The creature stays down the entire time, and Cam’s awfully grateful to watch Helen binding its pincers like it’s a lobster at the supermarket. He sighs and runs a hand across his face.

“You have a real aptitude for this, you know,” Helen tells him. “You realize you don’t even flinch when these fellows come out of the woodwork.”

He chuckles weakly. “Yeah, well. Believe it or not, I’ve seen my share of wacky things.” He really has to resist the urge to say “wonko”.

“Oh, I believe it. Why do you think I invited you to do this with me in the first place?”

He glances at her for a moment, and she’s smiling at him.

“I don’t know,” Cam says. “Why did you?”

Her smile grows. “Just a feeling, that’s all.”

She ties off the last of the creature’s bindings and motions in the direction of the crate they’d brought with them. Cam’s never sure how these things are supposed to hold these guys, but somehow, it works. He’s glad this one’s out cold so he won’t have to listen to it rattling around the whole way back.

“Listen,” he says as he plops the crate down next to Helen. “There’s something I gotta tell you.”

“What is it?” Together, they hoist the creature up and lower it into the box as gently as possible.

Cam hesitates. He trusts Helen – a lot – but he’s still not sure how far he can go with this. “I’m not gonna be able to do this forever,” he finally declares. “In fact, I really need to avoid injury as much as possible. I really need to avoid it for…”

Helen watches him as she wipes dirt from her hands. She looks vaguely concerned, and he presses on. “…for about six more years.”

She says nothing, but her expression shifts to something softer.

“There’s something really important that I have to do,” Cam continues. “I… I really can’t talk about it, but come 1939, I won’t be able to do this anymore.”

He watches her standing there, silently studying him, and swallows. He figures he was vague enough that it won’t screw things up even more than they already are.

After a few moments, Helen speaks again. Her voice seems awfully quiet. “You’re really not from around here, are you, Mr. Mitchell?”

Christ. She hasn’t called him “Mr. Mitchell” since 1930.

“Well,” Helen finally says, lifting their supply pack off the ground, “if it’s injury you need to avoid until the end of the decade, then I suppose I’ll just have to do my best to protect you until then.” He spies a hint of a smirk on her face, and breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

“Great,” Cam says, and he really means it. “So this guy’s going to the Shoe tonight for sure.”

Helen laughs, full of mirth. “For sure.”

---

1936

He figures it’s about time to start reading up on seafaring ships. He starts with a Navy recruitment pamphlet and ends with Moby Dick. By the time he and Helen are ringing in 1937, he’s paced the halls of the Sanctuary dozens of times with dozens of books in tow.

Helen doesn’t ask any questions, but his seemingly newfound interest in nautical vessels doesn’t go unnoticed. Every so often, she brings a new book home for him, and when he’s finished with it, she files it away in the library. He thinks his research has to be responsible for filling up at least two rows of shelves in there.

Other things happen around his thoughts swimming out into open water: they catch tons of new abnormals, for one. Most of them are friendly, only a handful are potentially deadly, and he can count on one hand the number who had to go to the Shoe.

It’s a good year. It’s the year that he drinks Earl Grey without inwardly wincing.

It’s also the year that Helen finally calls him Cam.

---

1938

The closer he gets, the rougher the nights become. He dreams of the most horrific failures, where he misses the boat by just one second or he gets on the boat and it sinks on the way back from Africa or he just drops dead for no reason the day before it’s all supposed to go down.

These are the nights where he’ll wander his way through the halls and travel up, up, up to the roof. It’s nice up here, nice and quiet. The view of the city lights, small and bright as they reflect off of the river in the darkness, is exquisite. He can see why Helen likes it up here so much, although he’d never stand right on the parapets like she does (he’s not that crazy.)

Instead, he looks out into the night, feels the cool breeze on his face, and just breathes. Somehow, it brings everything back into perspective. When he closes his eyes, he swears the others are standing here with him, and he treasures these little gifts his imagination gives him. Teal’c’s off to his right, standing with his chin raised and his hands behind his back, smiling softly as he gazes up at the sky. Carter’s next to him, and some nights she just can’t resist the opportunity to rattle off dozens of tidbits about the few constellations they can make out. Jackson and Vala are on his left, and she’s always teasing him, and he’s always rolling his eyes, and Cam’s always chuckling softly to himself at the two of them bickering, as usual, like an old married couple.

Some nights, he eases out of the illusion like it was a pleasant dream. Other nights, Landry’s voice breaks through, abruptly slicing the whole thing in two: “You don’t have the right!”

Helen explained her longevity thing to him a few years ago, not long after he’d sort-of-vaguely-confessed that he’s not exactly from this time period. He recalls what she said to him then, remembers how he thought it sounded just like something Carter would say: “Fate is not pre-determined, Cameron. Every decision we make and every action we pursue, that is our fate. We are all the masters of our own destinies, for better or for worse.” She’d taken a long sip of tea then and looked him straight in the eye. “Fate is not pre-determined,” she’d repeated, “and I should know that better than anyone.”

He repeats her words to himself as he takes a final glance up at the sky. Landry may have been correct, they may not have the right. Cam, however, would move the stars, every single one, to put everything back the way it was. He’d move entire constellations by hand to bring his friends back from their untimely and, quite frankly, wrong deaths.

He thanks Helen silently, taps a palm against the parapet and turns to leave without a word.

---

1939

They stand shoulder to shoulder at the dock, gazing up at the ship. His ship. Not literally his, but it might as well be. He’s been waiting for it for ten years, after all.

“Achilles,” Helen reads aloud. She raises an eyebrow. “Is that really such a wise name for a ship?”

Cam smiles. He takes a deep breath, inhaling the salty air. Every so often a foghorn roars throughout the harbor, rattling the planks beneath their feet.

He really thought this would be a lot easier.

“Cam.” He turns to look at her, and she’s smiling at him with that same gentle smile, but there’s something different in her eyes this time. Something lonely. Something sad. She clearly has something she wants to say, but she blinks rapidly and looks away from him, casting her eyes downward.

She really doesn’t have to say anything to him, though. Spending every day together for the past decade – nine years, if he wants to get that exact – that’s got to count for something. He takes a step forward and puts his arms around her, embracing her tightly. She reciprocates.

“Thank you,” Cam murmurs into her ear. “For everything.”

“Same to you, my dear friend,” she quietly says. “Same to you.”

They stay like that for a few moments, probably a few more moments than necessary, and break their hug very slowly only when the Achilles’s foghorn booms. It’s probably time to go, and Cam thinks that maybe he can get away without actually saying goodbye. He moves to lift his bag from the dock, but Helen gives his arms a gentle squeeze and locks her gaze with his.

“Whatever it is you’re going to do,” she says, “I have no doubt your cause is noble. Good luck.”

He has no idea what to say to that. This whole thing is quickly becoming a lot more emotional than he ever thought possible.

“Oh, uh, before I forget…” he begins. “Give Billy a few extra treats for me today, would you?”

Helen regards him with an expression caught somewhere between amusement and bafflement. “Billy? You named our dragon Billy?”

Cam shrugs. “Would you rather I named him Daryl?”

Her laughter bubbles up from deep inside her chest, and she sighs. “Oh, how I’m going to miss you.”

He smiles warmly, maybe a little regretfully. “Well, with any luck, hopefully you won’t.”

Taking a small step back, he straightens and brings his hand up in a salute.

“It’s been an honor, Helen,” he says.

She swallows hard and returns the gesture. “It certainly has.”

---

2008

She meets him on a warm afternoon in July.

She came to Colorado with Henry to investigate reports of a particularly vicious brand of pine tree-dwelling abnormal. So far, nothing had turned up. Frustrated and growing increasingly weary, she decided to give them a day off, one day of leisurely exploration before they’d try again and head home. Maybe in their travels, they’d see something worth noting, or maybe they’d just find some interesting things to read on their return trip.

It’s in a little bookstore nestled in the middle of a row of local shops that they bump into each other, literally. The impact sends both of their potential purchases tumbling to the floor, and they both laugh, embarrassed at their carelessness.

As they bend down to scoop up their dropped books, they get a good look at each other’s faces, and without realizing it, they both pause.

Helen’s the first to break their silence. “A pyramid pop-up book?” she asks, gingerly handing it to him.

His cheeks flush slightly pink and he mentally berates himself for staring. “Uh, yeah,” Cam replies. “It’s, uh, it’s for my friend. It’s supposed to be kind of a joke; it’s his birthday next week, and he’s a huge archaeology nerd.” He looks down at Helen’s book. “Moby Dick,” he says as he passes it to her.

She nods. “My copy’s awfully worn. If I don’t get a new one, it’s bound to fall apart for good.”

“That good, huh?” Cam asks. “I’ve never read it. I mean, I know the story, but I’ve never gotten around to actually reading it.”

“Oh, it’s really quite lovely,” she replies. “Truly a masterpiece.”

“So I’ve heard.”

They exchange pleasant smiles and turn in opposite directions, but Cam stops to look back at Helen. Something compels him to go after her, so he does.

“Hey, uh… hi again,” he says, feeling somewhat idiotic. He’s going to cross his fingers that the look on Helen’s face is one of amusement. “This is gonna sound ridiculous, and I promise it’s not some kind of weird pick-up line, but… you just look really familiar to me and I…” He feels himself sinking deeper and deeper into this silly hole he’s dug for himself. Just spit it out, you idiot. “Have we met before?”

Helen smirks. “Not a pick-up line, is it?”

Cam’s ears feel awfully warm. “I promise. Really. But, you know, now that I’ve said it, I don’t know. We… we clearly haven’t. I’m really sorry, this was incredibly stupid.” He motions behind him. “I think I’m just gonna go look like a moron over here now.”

She chuckles. “It’s quite all right,” she tells him. “In another life, perhaps our paths had crossed.”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “Maybe in another life.”

Cam gives her a quick wave as he leaves. Her eyes stay glued to him until he disappears behind the shelves.

She smiles.

-fin-

natural resource, national treasure, etc etc

gingasaur — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 05:56:40 GMT

I got a text two days ago from my buddy jillkins that said, "I feel like the new Picspammy challenge was made for you." At this point, I didn't even know the new challenge had been posted (although I'd only been checking for the past 5 days~), so I was pretty excited to see what could possibly be so perfect for me.

There's something that you need to know about me: I surf TV Tropes constantly. It's the one thing I do when I need to kill time at school and I have nothing else to do. I've read so many articles, have determined what my favorite ones are (Unwinnable, So Bad It's Horrible, Crowning Moment of Awesome/Heartwarming, and, of course, Narm), and I feel like I can reference an atrocious number of them ad nausem. So you can imagine how absolutely over-the-moon thrilled I was to see that the newest picspammy is ALL ABOUT THESE THINGS THAT I HOLD MOST DEAR.

You also have to know that back in April, I got really hardcore into Stargate SG-1. Like, my love, it is so pure and intense and cannot be measured with pithy human numbers. I think it's the raddest and the bestest and guess what, I just think Samantha fucking Carter is the coolest thing since sliced bread. The night that the ~love switch~ was flipped, I said to myself, "Okay. My next picspammy will be about this show. It just will." I've been waiting these past few months for the perfect challenge to come along, one with which I could properly encapsulate even a fraction of my love, but the perfect challenge did not come. Not only that, but it was a bit of a double-whammy of disappointment, since my next spam would be my 10th. Being that close to a personal tag, almost tasting the damn thing, oy! It's brutal!

But then this gloooorious challenge happened to all of our lives, and I knew within seconds exactly what I was going to do.

Therefore, it is with earth-shattering pleasure that I present to you... this.

huge spoilers for the whole series, but it's mostly concentrated in seasons 1 through 8. and I MEAN IT; the whole thing is oozing spoilers.
caps from GateWorld and Stargate Caps

~~Moe~~ Badass Adorable

A catch-all term for characters who, while being absolutely adorable, are also extremely badass. Underneath the irrepressibly cheerful demeanor, behind the innocent wide-eyed gaze, lies an astonishing capacity for kicking your ass, leveling a city, or why not, leveling an entire country.

It is a long-held and irrefutable fact among me and my circle of friends that Sam is moe. We call her this constantly even though we recognize that she's not technically moe, and we know we're merely using it as a synonym for "cute". But this is why Badass Adorable exists, because that's exactly what Sam is. She is one of the very few examples on the page, and there's a pretty good reason for that. LOOK AT HER. LOOK AT HER FACE. LOOK AT HER MOE LITTLE FACE. THIS IS THE FACE OF A WOMAN WHO'S KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE AND BLOWN UP A LOT OF SHIT.

Action Girl

The Action Girl is, essentially, Badassitude molded into a sleek female frame: a female character who is spunky, agile, and can take you down with an array of kicks, punches, or diverse Weapons Of Choice. She is not a Distressed Damsel. She doesn't sit around waiting to be rescued. She doesn't only plan how to rescue herself. She doesn't talk/manipulate/charm her way out of problems. She's got physical moves of her own to make.

BEHOLD, the badass half of Badass Adorable. Don't worry, it's okay to cheer. Nobody's going to judge you here; this is a safe space. Just let those "fuck yeah"s out. Just let them right out.

Nerds Are Sexy

Despite however many typically-sexy female characters are in a series, a common gag is to have the male characters fixate instead on some inconsequential minor female character. The character may only be cute in a "plain" way, but the men will all happen to find her uniquely charming.

Okay, let's be real here for a minute: Sam is vvvvveeeeerrrrrryyyyyy very attractive. She is also a geek of immense proportions. It's precious how alien the concept of a social life is to her sometimes; can't she just stay here and do science? And yet everyone wants her. Everyone. Regular humans, nerdy humans, all of the aliens, probably those plants that made noise, I don't know. e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. Even in the Moebius universe, where she really was a full-on stereotypical nerd, Jack wanted her so bad. And can you blame him? Nope. Nope, you sure can't.

Cartwright Curse

Any woman whom the hero meets is either wormfood or otherwise removed forever from his life by the end of the episode or arc. [...] Puts the "Temporary" in Temporary Love Interest and serves as the "Yank" in Yank The Dogs Chain.

I've always really enjoyed the fact that Sam has the page quote on this trope. Here's another good one from Amanda Tapping herself:
"I'm getting a really bad reputation in the galaxy. Like guys won't even phone me anymore. It's an interesting thing, and I actually talked to Brad Wright and Rob Cooper about it a couple of weeks ago - we were talking about the next season and I said 'Can I just have a boyfriend that doesn’t die?'. Most of my boyfriends have been aliens. Or hybrids. And they’ve all died. And the one guy that, you know, I really want, I can’t have. So, what up? I had a husband. Who knows what happened to him. God, it sucks. I feel like the black widow of sci-fi."

Demonic Possession

You see, my pretty, Kelvek the Seducer has taken Demonic Possession of this fragile and beautiful body from its rightful owner. How did she do this? Oh, there are so many delectable ways!

Sort of subverted the first two times and pretty blatant in the third. But, okay, let's talk about the fact that this lady's been possessed by alien forces three fucking times. And are there more that I'm failing to remember? Shoot, how does she even get out of bed every day, how does she even function? Jolinar left Sam with tons of memories and feelings that weren't her own and ~magic Goa'uld powers~ that didn't make her feel too good, just Cursed With Awesome. The thing from "Entity" got her killed (well, her... I mean, not... look okay, you know what I mean if you've watched it) and then shoved her into a computer. And then she was possessed by Anubis's ghost and made to kick everyone's ass. Granted, she wasn't the only one, but IT'S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. I'll say it again: HOW DOES SHE EVEN FUNCTION.

Break The Cutie

A series introduces a character as sweet and lovable [...] who likes nothing more than to pet little puppies. They make you adore them, root for them and love them. Then they proceed to slowly break them in front of your very eyes. They destroy everything important to them, kill everyone they love and make them suffer from horrible accidents, diseases and acts of violence. They beat the character with one cruel stroke of fate after another until they are just a shell of their former cheerful, carefree self.

All right, let's run down the list:
1.) Her mother died when she was young because of something her father failed to do.
2.) She forgave him for this, which caused her brother to hate her guts.
3.) Even though she forgave her father, he was still distant so that relationship still sucked.
4.) It did get better, though. I mean, really better. Crowning Moment of Heartwarming better. And then he died four years later.
5.) Her AU selves go through some horrible shit (the entire world being under attack with the last line of defense rapidly crumbling away, being a widow, infertility...)
6.) We've already covered the Jolinar thing, but clearly it's worth mentioning again.
7.) There's also the aforementioned Cartwright Curse, and we haven't even gone into the fact that she was actually forced to kill one of them herself.
8.) She's been mind raped zillions of times, with at least three of them being fairly dramatic and excruciatingly painful.
9.) Her best friend died horribly.
10.) She had to watch Daniel die a hideous death and thought he was really gone for months.
11.) Well, I think I've proved my point. She's been through hell. A lot. Oh, which reminds me, there was the time she went to Hell...

Iron Woobie

A woobie (named for a child's security blanket) is that character you want to give a big hug, wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when he or she suffers so very beautifully. [...] Then there is the Iron Woobie. An Iron Woobie is a character who has something noble about his Woobie nature. Maybe they became a Woobie of their own free will from a Heroic Sacrifice for the sake of The Power of Friendship. Maybe just their passive powers of endurance show a Heroic Spirit. But in any case there is something about their Woobie nature that you admire.

Look at everything I listed on the previous trope. Fucking look at that list of unbridled agony. And yet, despite all of that and more, she survives. Every single time, mostly on nothing but sheer force of will. Not only does she survive, she grows even stronger and fights even harder the next time. If she's an AU Sam, then she goes down in a blaze of self-sacrificial glory, making damn well sure to either get shit done or take as many bad guys down as possible in the process. And, and? Even after all this, she's still a nice person. She somehow keeps her idealism fairly intact and manages to stay considerably calm under pressure. And by "pressure" I mean "the weight of ten universes on her shoulders". Awe-inspiring doesn't even begin to cover it.

Evil Twin

Take a popular character and introduce us to the evil version of this character.

brb shivering. Oh, Replicarter, what havoc didn't you wreak. Everything about her creeps me out, from the reason she was created in the first place to her sword arm to the fact that she heavily implies that she is truly what Sam would be if she ever decided flip the finger to the side of good. But the real kicker is that assuming that the memories she showed Sam were real, then she clearly possessed the capability to care about other people at first, before Fifth screwed her up beyond repair. And I can't even tell you how much I think about the fact that it all could've been avoided if Jack didn't give that one fucking order. The entire situation's just incredibly depressing to me; I can't even handle it.

Everyone Can See It

This trope happens when two characters are just perfect for each other, but neither realizes it (or only one realizes it). However, everyone around them — such as their friends, family, and enemies — can see their obvious feelings for each other.

Please. You think I'd go this whole spam without a mention of these two? Nooooot likely. Nobody can deny how important Jack is to Sam (and vice versa), not even all of the universes. All of them. All people ever can see it written all over their cute little faces, which is hilarious because it took armbands and force fields and friggin' alien lie detectors for them to finally see it themselves. I've said this before in other places, but for a couple of kids who can't be together, they sure do get a lot of action. Not to mention that this makes Jack 100% immune to the Cartwright Curse. And, look. Sam just needs him so much and Jack just needs her so much and nnn they are perfect. My fragile little heart, how it doth swell ten sizes.

Remember When You Blew Up a Sun

A sub-trope of Continuity Nod, where a character acknowledges a past Crowning Moment Of Awesome, either their own or that of another character. Can be used to attempt to intimidate an opponent, or even just a minor character that is being a nuisance. If the opponent is impressive enough, this may even qualify as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome in its own right.

YES, I HAVE THAT MEMORY. AND IT IS SO VERY VERY GOOD.
Trope Namer, ladies and gentlemen. This simple fact makes my heart do little bunny hops. And what a trope to spawn.
So this one time, Sam and her dad got this bright idea to do something that would destroy most, if not all of Apophis's fleet, which was huge. Seriously, it was ridiculous, there were so many fucking ships. Sam was the one who had to carry out the plan, and let me assure you, it was 100% craycray. It was like Diet Coke and Mentos, but with space and stars and lots and lots of fire.
And it worked. Apophis's army was decimated in incredibly grand fashion. How? Why, that's simple: Samantha Carter blew up a sun. She launched a Stargate connected to a black hole into the center of a sun, which sucked in enough of its mass to cause it to supernova. oh my god just typing these words is sending the giddiest shivers up my spine. SHE BLEW UP A SUN, YOU GUYS. ALL ARGUMENTS ARE INVALID FOREVER AND EVER.

WHEW, I feel like I've just run a mile, ~the most awesome mile of life~. This seems like a pretty good place to call it; how are we gonna do better than sun detonation, I mean, honestly.

I sure hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed making it. Fuck yeah, TV Tropes. Fuck yeah, picspammy. FUCK YEAH, SAMANTHA FUCKING CARTER.

I AM A BIG NERD

gingasaur — Tue, 04 May 2010 07:33:25 GMT

So, did you know there's an entire community for action figure photo stories? YEP. Uh, clearly posting this on LJ, too. I mean, I was going to originally. It was Facebook I wasn't going to post it to. But look how that turned out.

I AM GOING TO BE P. CRANKYFACE IF EBAY DOESN'T SPIT OUT A REASONABLY PRICED JACK OR DANIEL REALLY SOON. because oh geez oh geez. Sam needs her bros, she needs them with her so bad. Right here, right now, I'm calling it: I will have all four of them eventually. I mean, I would kind of like to not pay $35 for a Jack??? BUT CAN YOU REALLY PUT A PRICE ON NEVERENDING ACTION FIGURE UST...? correct answer is NO, reality answer is I'm gonna wait it out for a little bit, clearly. nngh. I just hope I don't have to wait too long. MY BIRTHDAY IS COMING AND THIS IS WHAT I DESIRE IN THE REAL WORLD. asdkfslkfladskhf.

anyway so photo storie photo storie because I am big nerd. ready set GOGOGO.

"Arrived on P4X-123. The transport vessel held up, although I seem to have acquired a bit of a hat along the way. Other than the one I'm already wearing, I mean. Maybe I should bring one home for Teal'c."

"Exiting the vessel was quick and painless. There were absolutely no problems. None whatsoever."

"Supplies all check out; everything I left with is here."

"But what am I going to do with this crystal? Who knows, maybe there'll be an Al'kesh I can steal."

"May as well start to scope out the area. With my, uh... trusty 'Carter Special'. The big gun. I can't believe Colonel O'Neill got everyone to call it that; it's kind of embarrassing. I mean, advanced alien races are going to see it. 'Gee, Dr. Jackson, what's that?' 'Wow, I'm so glad you asked; we call it a Carter Special! Why don't we show you how it works and then figure out how to translate it into your native tongue?' Yeah, that'll be fun."

"There's certainly no shortage of plant life here. Trees as far as the eye can see, a fair amount of cloud cover, moderate-to-cool temperature... it's almost like I've been here hundreds of times before. I wonder why I feel that way...?"

"It's a very nice planet, though."

"I could really get used to this. Unfortunately, I think the sun's starting to set. I should probably head back inside to try to find the-"

"?!"

"Oh, this can't seriously be...

Well, crap.

A one-way transport vessel and a planet with about a fourth of a Stargate. And it doesn't even look very stab-"

"Um.

Ow!"

"Well, so much for this. Yikes."

"Oh, never mind, here's one. Looks a little small, though. I'm sure it'll be fine."

"Nothing to do now but keep exploring, I guess. Boy, if only Daniel were here; he'd love this."

"And I think I can venture a guess as to who'd love this one."

"I have to admit, it's a little... lonely without anyone else here."

"But... it appears I'm not entirely alone after all."

"The Puffies evidently inhabit this planet, and these two were the first to come out to say hello. Needless to say, our first meeting wasn't quite as smooth as it could've been. I think they were much more scared of me than I was of them, though."

"I told them I was an explorer from a planet called Earth, and they thought that was pretty 'neat'. Then they asked me what I like to do for fun, and I'm sure if Colonel O'Neill had been there, he'd be making fun of me right now for my answers.

Regardless, the Puffies showed this to me because they thought I would enjoy it. It appears to be a pretty basic surge protector, but I have to admit, I think it was sweet that they thought I would like it."

"Look at this diplomacy! Daniel would be so proud."

"If there's one thing I learned about the Puffies, it's that they're a very friendly race."

"A very friendly race."

"...Maybe a little too friendly.

Their 'dogpile' ritual is apparently their way of 'spreading joy,' as they said, and showing affection. I really wish Teal'c had been here for this one."

"After all that excitement, they brought me to a computer. Thank God! As you can see, I made sure to take a little time to relax. See, Colonel? I know how to have fun, too.

...Oh, who am I kidding. He'll never let me live it down if he sees this one."

"The Puffies told me this is one of their favorite songs. It wasn't bad. In fact, it was really pretty catchy. Don't call me, don't call me, Alejandroooo~

What? What do you mean, those aren't the words?"

"Excellent words to live by, if I do say so myself!"

"That's P4X-123 as of right now. No Goa'uld to speak of, nice inhabitants, and plenty of time for science. I think I'm going to like it here!

...Whoa, Lt. Colonel? Wow. Am I due for a promotion soon?"

-fin-

Here are some fun facts: a.) This is what I did all afternoon instead of actual work. b.) the Puffies are excellent actors, but I assure you, they're really that sweet and cute irl. c.) The badge in the last photo is my dad's! FANDOMFAMILY FANDOMFAMILY.

oh and d.) I don't know how to take Sam's vest off 8( I feel like I'll tear it if I pull it too hard!

"Because I care about her... a lot more than I'm supposed to."

gingasaur — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 08:37:27 GMT

HI HI HELLO. cheapmetaphor and I have been having a Stargate party ALL DAY, and we would like to invite everyone to join us plzthx. Also we're in love with SAMANTHA FUCKING CARTER and her hair (and her fierceness and her smrtness and the fact that she is completely and utterly moe). This is not news. But we feel very very compelled to spread the joy, and so we've teamworked hardcore to create a little spam of Sam and her amazing beginning of season 4 hair ~~and maybe a little sam/jack thrown in there for good measure~~

I had my doubts, I had my misgivings, and I don't think I really believed that I was getting into the ~amazing show~ that everyone claims SG-1 to be. BUT I WAS WRONG. I was so so unbelievably wrong. I... I JUST DON'T HAVE WORDS. This is a Pretty Big Thing for me now and I want everyone to know, lmgdao. I feel like that Lucille gif every time I watch it, okay, that's how much I adore the hell out of it. And I definitely had my doubts about Sam/Jack BUT GUESS WHAT I WAS WRONG THERE TOO OH BOY WAS I EVER. in the words of clr, I'm actually shipping something! omg.

Mostly, though, I'm just so sorry that it's taken me this long. I've known about this show for years and I never gave it a chance. I guess I never really had a reason to; I didn't really know anyone watching it and I didn't know enough about it to know when it was on. But look at what I've been missing this whole time. Look at what the fuck I've been fucking missing. And now it's been over for 3 years and once again, I gotta catch up. I don't think I've ever felt so truly disappointed about missing out on a fandom before.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY. THAT GOT PRETTY DEEP FOR A SECOND UP THERE, BUT MAKING THIS WAS A LOT A LOT A LOT OF FUN. IT WAS LIKE DRINKING WITHOUT ANY ALCOHOL. I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.

we also like Janet. we want her to captain our cruise ship.

lmao that guy standing beside her calls Daniel a nerd and gets his ass kicked, jsyk. at least, I think that was the guy. pretty sure he got his ass kicked regardless.

sometimes life is hard in the SGC.

but sometimes it's totally awesome!

"can we have a moment alone?" ummmm YES, you can have all of the moments alone with Jack.

THIS NEXT PART IS SPOILERTOWN, if you don't want that, then just look at the pictures, I guess. but lmao at the same time, I kind of think... you should read it. it's just so good~!

so okay, this one time, Sam and Jack and Daniel put on these funky armband things 'cause this lady we really don't like wanted to see if they would give them super speed and super strength. and they did! and it was p. cool, except then Janet was like, "guys, seriously. these things are not only having an addictive effect on them, but their organs are gonna fail if this keeps up. TAKE THAT SHIT OFF." so they tried to do that, but they couldn't! and then they got real antsy and decided to go fuck up a goa'uld mothership that was unlike anything they'd seen before.

they got in there and had a lot of fun kickin' ass and takin' names, but then as they tried to leave, their armbands started to come off! that was really good because now it meant they wouldn't die. but actually it was really bad because they rigged explosives on the ship and if they didn't get out in about 10 minutes, they'd die anyway! ruh-roh! not only that, but force fields were coming up as a defense mechanism, and without the armbands, they wouldn't have the speed to pass through them. ruh-roh x2!

of course Sam's armband fails at the worst possible moment, and she's stuck behind a force field. Jack tries to zoom in to get her, but then his armband fails and down he goes. and now they're stuck on opposite sides of the force field, with Jack having the option to get out and Sam... not so much having that. she tells him to go because clearly, his death would be needless since he can leave. he vehemently declines, to say the least. even so, he still can't get her out. they try to be brave little soldiers about it, but hearts are breaking and you can tell.

OH MAN AND HOW COULD YOU EVEN LEAVE HER BEHIND WHEN SHE LOOKS LIKE THAT; YOU'D HAVE TO BE AN ABSOLUTE MONSTER.

now these guys have been working together for about 4 years now, so they're pretty much hardcore bros through and through. but Jack was getting a little more agitated than usual about having to leave Sam behind. this wasn't just being devastated because you have to abandon a teammate. this was ~something else~.

long story short, Jack has to admit later for this funky life-or-death lie detector thing that he would've ~rather died himself~ than leave Sam behind, because he cares about her. a lot more than he's supposed to. OHHHHHHHH YEAAAAAAAAAAH~ very satisfying given the fact that in practically every AU we've seen so far, they've been paired up. and not even paired up, they went the motherfucking distance and got married. that's hardcore. after a couple of times of that, one can't help but feel like they're destined to get a relationship upgrade in their universe.

it hasn't happened quite yet, but they're gettin' closer. when Jack's stuck in a time loop, and therefore able to do aaanything he wants every single time with no repercussions, what does he decide to do? aside from learning pottery, translating Latin, juggling with Teal'c, playing golf with the Stargate, and riding a bike around the base?

OHHHHHHHH

YEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH~

and she kissed back. feels good, man.

anyway, so this is the newest show I've let into the deepest depths of my heart. this is the newest lady I want to be when I grow up. and I have to say, it's pretty refreshing to have something give you so many feeeeeeelings that you can't help but ship it all the way to Australia. fuck yeah stargates. fuck yeah sg-1.

FUCK YEAH
SAMANTHA FUCKING CARTER

KILLING ME WON'T BRING BACK YOUR GODDAMN HONEY!

gingasaur — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:25:17 GMT

It's been a couple of months since I've done a picspammy challenge. It's actually been a while since I've done a picspam in general, so I'm pretty excited about this one. I've got my snark hat on and I'm ready to roll, motherfuckers.

It's no secret that I love Sailor Moon and have loved it for a very long time. I've certainly done enough picspammy spams for it, and in those spams, you ~may have seen~ my tendency to spot, embrace, and ridicule the show's faults, in that order.

Well, let me tell you something: the Sailor Moon anime has some pretty glaring faults. Actually, what it really has is some stuff that is neither feasible nor rational, and I'm not talking about those twirly transformation sequences. Oh, no. If you're going to do something, you'd better do it well, and Sailor Moon often did lack of logic and reason very well. Herein I will present to you five moments from the series that really stand out for me as being particularly bizarre, incredibly silly, and just plain stupid.

(caps from the oracle / me!)

5.) What to Do if Some Bitch Be Stealin' Your Man, by Tsukino Usagi
(episode 42)

When I was a kid, episode 42 was one of the best episodes ever, thanks mostly to its status as a "lost episode". Nobody could quite understand why this one was cut, since it contained previously unheard back story for Minako, and therefore one would think it was kind of important. Watching it as an adult, however, sheds light on a possible theory: could it have been cut for the simple reason that's it's really fucking dumb from beginning to end?

Or I suppose it could've just been those butterflies.

ahem, but that's not why we're here.

Minako's (anime) back story is a tragic (ie: narmy) tale of her past in England, where she gallivanted around as Sailor V and fell in love with a handsome English boy (with a flawless Japanese accent) named Alan. Oh, their love was so perfect and they had so much fun, and they had even more fun when Minako met Katarina.

An Interpol officer, Katarina immediately proved herself to be completely useless in the field of crime-fighting, leaving Sailor V to swoop in and do her job for her. This paved the way for a beautiful friendship in which Katarina (another Londoner equipped with a masterful Japanese accent) taught Minako English, acted as her big sister... and STOLE HER MAN.

Yes, little did poor Minako know that not only had her love with Alan been completely one-sided the entire time, but that Katarina and Alan had fallen in love right under her nose. This culminated one fateful night where some dumb shit happened and an egregious lack of basic communication was had by all. All except for Alan and Katarina.

Minako heads into some old abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of nowhere, leaving Katarina to stand around outside. A mysterious figure in the background chucks a grenade into the middle of the room, and what does Minako do? Does she pop off a Crescent Beam on that sucker? Maybe let loose a Sailor V Kick to send it flying through the roof and off to detonate peacefully above the building? Perhaps she whips out a Crescent Boomerang and harmlessly hacks the grenade into tiny pieces?

No, she does none of these things. She's a friggin' superhero, and all she can think to do is gasp in surprise and let herself get blown up.

The building collapses, Katarina screams for Minako (look at her eye, JUST LOOK AT IT)... and then suddenly Alan is there! He wonders what the hell just happened, but why is he even there to begin with? That's a question I know I just shouldn't ask, because this is the world where all Sailor Senshi ever just so happen to be in the right place at the right time, all the time.

But I digress.

Katarina collapses into Alan's arms and sobs that Minako is... MINAKO IS...! And Alan, being the manly English man he is, immediately forgets all about her and goes to get himself some poontang. "Be strong!" he says, embracing Katarina. "I'm here for you!"

*DRAMATIC MUSIC CUE*

And that's when Minako, who actually made it out of the building alive and has been hearing this the entire time, realizes her love has been for naught, and that her two best friends are most likely going to celebrate her "death" by getting it on. She decides then and there to dump their asses and head back to Japan. I previously wondered HOW CAN SHE LET THEM THINK SHE'S DEAD OVER SOMETHING SO DUMB, but then I realized that she's leaving behind two friends that we're never going to hear about again except in some clip shows. Too bad for them!

Back to the present, where Minako has been telling Usagi this story, and Usagi has been bawling her eyes out over it. Not only that, but Katarina has been turned into a youma, and she's out for blood. Now we've reached the original point of this.

For a while now, everybody and their mother has been turned into a youma, so it's a good thing Usagi has the Moon Stick so she can heal those poor bastards. Equipped with the knowledge that the youma in front of them is Katarina - a human - and Usagi being a person who is so incredibly against the killinf\g of any human, so much so that she'd rather sacrifice herself for people she barely knows, clearly her only option is to prepare to...

...murder Katarina.

only a "wat" could possibly suffice here.

Usagi: the Messiah, the Light of Hope, the Champion of Justice, the sacrificer of Holy Grails for little sick girls possessed by unholy demons, she is ready and raring to kill Katarina. She actually fires off a Moon Tiara Action and immediately gets ready for more.

When Minako protests, understandably, Usagi is stunned. "BUT SHE STOLE YOUR BOYFRIEND!" she screams, like it's the end of the goddamn world. Eventually, she somewhat grudgingly agrees to heal Katarina, and does so posthaste.

Bitch got off easy, I... guess.

Honestly, what the fuck was that? It's just so wildly out of character for a kid who loves everybody and constantly overexerts herself for the good of others. There's writers not giving a shit, and then there's whatever the hell this was, which is obviously in a league of its own. Nothing like this ever happens again, at least not that I can remember. And thank goodness, because I guess you really shouldn't be so unlucky as to appear that you've "stolen" someone else's boyfriend in front of Usagi. She'll apparently end your ass faster than you can say "odango atama".

4.) Kunzite: Taking Hints From the Acme Corporation Since 1992
(episode 36, 37, 38, and 39)

The Shitennou had some really bizarre ways to get things done. Jadeite tried to use airplanes to kill the Senshi. Nephrite talked to the stars all the time. Zoisite was... well, Zoisite was Zoisite. And Kunzite had, by far, the most inane, cockamamie plans to locate Princess Serenity that I have ever heard of.

See, Kunzite had this bright idea to look for Sailor Moon's civilian identity directly, which was fine. It's just that he overthought the whole thing a little bit. And by a little bit, I mean, "what the hell are you smoking and why aren't you sharing it?"

Plan one involved hair follicles, as in he somehow managed to procure a strand of Sailor Moon's hair in battle (which doesn't make sense because I don't believe he was ever close enough to touch her; did he take a magnifying glass after every skirmish and scour the ground?), and he was gonna go all CSI on it and find its DNA match out of every single young girl's hair in Japan.

And he actually finds it, except he finds it on Minako because she had been brushing Usagi's hair and somehow that meant that Usagi's hair wouldn't get on her clothes but instead magnetically attach itself to Minako's scalp. OOPS!

I know, Mina-P, I know. What are the fucking chances? Were you Riverdancing when you brushed Usagi's hair?

The youma itself had a huge fucking power razor that made lawnmower noises for an arm. She also let out this weird "TOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" scream and yelled about shaving heads.

Kunzite, you had yourself a real winner here. I don't know how she lost.

Plan two was the princess seminar, which I guess was a little better conceived. Except it, too, relied on something so incredibly specific, and that was Frisbees. Frisbees.

Kunzite noticed that Sailor Moon liked to use Moon Tiara Action a lot, which we all know is a very Frisbee-esque attack. Instead of noticing something a little simpler like the two fucking balls on her head and looking for someone with an identical hairstyle, Kunzite noticed Frisbee tricks. How does Kunzite even know what a Frisbee is? He comes from some dark, seedy underworld where they have to explain the Japanese education system to each other in great detail.

In the grand tradition of silly youma, this one was made of seashells in strategic places, and they all squirted a mysterious green substance that turned girls into wax figures. uhhhhh-huh.

Plan three was a skiing competition. I don't even remember why. I'm watching the episode right now and still don't have a clue what skiing had to do with the Moon Princess.

That sign says "Moon Princess Contest", by the way. The Dark Kingdom prides itself on its subtlety.

Long story short, they end up thinking it's Rei, who revels in the attention.

Your hero of the planet of war, ladies and gentlemen.

Again with the stupid youma: this one has little angry snowmen on her. LITTLE ANGRY SNOWMEN! for the love of god, WHY.

Which brings us to the mother of all plans: ice skating. Apparently ice skating was a very popular sport on the moon, and Princess Serenity loved that shit like Usagi loves cake. It only seems natural that Kunzite would start searching for someone gifted in the art of skating. All this instead of, I don't know, just sending a youma out to kill some bitches and luring Sailor Moon out that way.

Anyway, they think it's Makoto this time. Not only do they think it's Mako-chan, but there's this amazing sequence where Janelyn is looking for all of the Sailor Senshi among the girls at the rink. She even has their pictures right there in front of her and misses every single one of them (aside from Jupiter.)

"Sailor Moon is known to be a superb soldier," she says. "They say she has a clumsy side, but this is out of the question."

JANELYN HOW ARE YOU SUCH A GOOD DETECTIVE. TEACH ME YOUR SLEUTHING WAYS!

3.) "Our plan is foolproof. We just need to kill you."

"Oh, that sounds perfect. Go right ahead."
(episode 197 and 198)

Uranus and Neptune are an interesting pair. In the manga, they start off as complete enigmas and total assholes. They make (arguable) passes at both Usagi and Mamoru, respectively, try to kill an innocent girl because they think she'll destroy the world, and attack the other Senshi. By the end of the S arc, though, they've learned their lessons for the most part, and from the point they return in SuperS, they're always shown as working with and blending well with their fellow Senshi whether transformed or not.

The anime, naturally, throws all of this way and keeps them as pretentious assholes until the very end. None of their shit compares to their "plan" to deceive Galaxia, and that plan consists of killing Pluto and Saturn. It's debatable whether or not Pluto and Saturn knew about it all along, but it still doesn't change the fact that Uranus and Neptune offed two of their partners for a plan that doesn't even work.

Maybe it'll make more sense if we break it down (probably not!):

STEP 1:
Accept Galaxia's offer to switch Star Seeds for bracelets.

STEP 2:
Beat the shit out of Pluto and Saturn.

STEP 3:
Kill Pluto and Saturn.

STEP 4:
Beat the shit out of Sailor Moon and the Starlights.

STEP 5:
Turn against Galaxia at the last possible minute.

STEP 6:
GALAXIA HAS NO STAR SEED, YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

Yes. The deaths of Pluto and Saturn are all for nothing, because Uranus and Neptune failed to see the connection between Star Seeds and bracelets: aka, if you've got some bracelets, you have no Star Seed. Galaxia wears bracelets. Assessment: ????

The icing on the cake is both of them handwaving it all as being "their way". OH OKAY. next time I grandstand and off two of my friends, I'll be sure to tell the police that it's just "my way". that will make it all better.

They die horribly, accomplishing absolutely nothing. good job.

2.) Sweet Dreams Are Made of Bullshit
(episode 61)

A classic; how could I get through a list of dumb Sailor Moon moments without this gem right here?

Drama is great. Relationship drama is heartwrenching. If it's not pulled off correctly, though, then you get a girl pining for an abusive boyfriend.

One day, Mamoru dreamt of his wedding to Usagi! d'awww. But the wedding ends with Usagi dying a gruesome death and Mamoru hearing a voice that tells him to avoid Usagi lest she die. Now, Mamoru and Usagi have been through some rough shit before, like brainwashing, amnesia, and, you know, death. Logic dictates that Mamoru just say, "FUCK YOU," and go running to Usagi to protect her from this awful fate.

So instead, he breaks up with her.

And says horrible things to her and makes her cry.

Careful, remember what she does to unfaithful people? This is the look of a killer!

Although it does give us an iconic and relentlessly soul-crushing shot of Usagi sobbing alone in a phone booth, it doesn't excuse Mamoru's stupid behavior. How long does this little plot development go on, you ask? Oh, for seventeen episodes. And who was responsible for these awful dreams that started all of this crap in the first place?

WHY, IT WAS NONE OTHER THAN MAMORU HIMSELF. IN THE FUTURE. NNNNNGGGGHHHHH THE STUPID, IT BURNSSSSS.

No wonder everyone hates you, Mamo-chan. You're kind of a jerk sometimes, in every timeline.

1.) "The volcano, it's too strong! ABORT, ABORT!"
(episode 67)

OHO, EPISODE 67. WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT YOU?! In a much happier place, I'd surmise.

Episode 67 was lost to English-speaking audiences for a very long time, as it wasn't even included on the ADV set that was finally released after too many years. When pressed for a reason, ADV stated that it wasn't included because "the creator didn't like it." Now, what exactly did that mean, we wondered? What an awful reason to be denied an episode!

Well, it turned out that if this is true, Naoko was merely trying to protect us from the hands down worst episode of Sailor Moon out of the entire series.

Everything about this episode, from start to finish, is terrible. The animation is bad for an episode that hinges on a fanservice setting (aka, the beach). The plot depends on Chibiusa acting like a total brat. And at the very end, the Sailor Senshi fight a volcano.

Let me repeat myself: THE SAILOR SENSHI FIGHT A VOLCANO.

So, situation: you have this huge fucking lava flow rolling toward you, threatening to boil you under its molten grip any minute now.

DO YOU:

a.) run like hell
b.) dump some water on that shit
c.) proceed to blast it with a metric ton of fire rings

honestly... do I even have to say what the answer is.

god.

The Senshi bravely assault the lava flow with their attacks. They do this a grand total of one time, and then they get tired. No, I'm not making this up; they launch their attacks once, and then claim that their powers are exhausted. I'm pretty sure they're just sick of being in a vomitously awful episode and want to get it over with, but that might just be me.

When Sailor Moon comes in to deliver the finishing blow, she performs it on a rock. she attacks a rock. she performs her ultimate attack on A FUCKING ROCK.

Back the fun bus up; this is SO AWESOME! What would we do without Sailor Moon's infinite bravery against militant geological formations?

And then it's all over and Chibiusa is saved and the worst part is that this episode actually provides a little character development for her. and by that I mean we're reminded again that she really misses her mommy and then she comes to the realization that she can eat fish. HOORAY!

Did I mention that there were dinosaurs present throughout all of this?

yeah, well. that's clearly another spam for another time.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go cleanse my palate with the manga.

murphy spam 14 - come little children, the time's come to plaaay, here in my garden of maaagiiiic~

gingasaur — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:20:48 GMT

Four days ago, we had the Dumb Dinosaur post. Three days ago, we had the GIF post. IT COMES IN THREES.

When I say "The Novel", you say...

okay for those who don't know, this episode is pretty much one of the all-time greats in terms of Murphy episodes. Especially for people like me and cheapmetaphor, because this is very much a "Jim Warms Hearts ~~and other areas~~, Remains GQ While Doing So" episode. ohhh YEAAAAHHHH.

ahaha it's also about some other stuff, but clearly, we'll get to that soon.

shall we?

DUN DUN DUNNNN. It is night. The only people in the bullpen at this time are the TV PG box and... an unknown fellow in a hat and a trench coat.

Oh, why, how silly, getting all worked up like that over nothing! It's just Jim! Hello, Jim! Everybody say hello!

But wait.

Why is he looking around so suspiciously...?

oooooh.

a briefcase.

omglol JIM. dude, it's like, really late, like ~midnight~ or something, and nobody is in the building to give a shit whether or not you remove your hat. I just... sdkflskdfkl. see, here we go, this is going to be a trend throughout this one.

WHAT A COPY MACHINE?! THIS IS SO-O-O-O-O MYSTEEEE-E-E-E-ERIOUS!

awww yeah

it's big pimpin', baby

~big pimpin' up in District C.~

oh, but of course, we can't get too excited, we're ~sneaking~. Which, I think we are all aware that it's impossible to try to sneak around while a copier is going, I'm sorry. Even in this day and age, those things still sound like screeching banshees escaped from hell.

OH GREAT, it's the next morning and FRANK'S AT THE COPIER. I THINK WE ALL KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING.

OOP THERE IT IS

"Brock Wilder sat gazing at his captors... knowing full well if he divulged the information, his life would be valueless to them."

unf omg I think I just got pregnant. already. IT'S ONLY 43 SECONDS IN.

Jim successfully wrests control of his precious document from Frank, and bashfully (BASHFULLY!) admits that it is his. Frank is instantly intrigued. "What is it?" he asks.

"Just... something I've been working on, that's all," Jim responds. And then, he finally says it: "...A novel."

"A NOVEL?!" Frank practically leaps into the air with excitement. Then he snatches the paper back again while Jim cries that he "just started writing it as a lark." as a lark, you guys! dkhflsdf.

lmao lmao. "Well, what's it about, who's this... -BROCK WILDER- guy?"

Jim sighs. "He's a CIA agent caught up in foiling an attempt by terrorists to seize control of nuclear arms MAY I HAVE THAT PLEASE." He makes grabby hands, but to no avail.

Frank begins to read again. "He was tall, lanky, a man of few words, Brock would not let his facial expression betray the emotions churning within him."

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah. pregnant. with twins.

Frank pauses. "Gee..." he muses. "Now who does that sound like?"

ohhhohoho JIMMMMM! You wrote a fanfic! But not just ANY fanfic, noooo sir! An AU! A self-insert AU!! be still, my heart!!

"I'm not quite ready to show it around," Jim tells Frank. "I finished it last night and I came to the office to make a copy for Doris." fkdfklsdflsdf.

"Oh, sure!" Frank exclaims. "You let your wife read it, but not me! Your friend! Someone who once shared with you a poem he wrote for Darlene in Research! A very personal poem."

"You showed it to me because you needed a word that rhymed with 'stamina'!" OH YEAH. oh boy.

~*~And now, it's time for The Poetry Corner, with Frank Fontana. Today, we'll hear a limerick extolling the virtues of Italian cuisine, followed by the epic ballad of Bungee Man, The Bridge-Jumping, Lady-Loving Superhero. Stay tuned, we'll be back right after these messages...~*~

Regardless, Jim reluctantly agrees to let Frank read it. Frank is VERY EXCITED.

and uh, then suddenly there was fire. An omen of things to come, I might add.

Murphy ignores that mess for the time being and moseys over to the water cooler. She asks Jim if he got the memo Miles sent about the annual sponsor's meeting-

sdhkfslf

wait

wait wait. A memo sent by Miles. It's too good to let go.

To: FYI
From: Miles Silverberg
Subject: ANNUAL SPONSOR'S MEETING - DO NOT THROW AWAY!!

Guys,

I know we're all still... laughing... about the events of last year's meeting, but please. Please. Please. I'm begging you. Just go to it this year. Go to it and smile and shake hands, if only to spare your poor, haggard executive producer the joy of another colonoscopy. Please do this for me, just this once. I won't even ask next year if you can all just manage to behave this time.

Murphy, if I see one hint of rubber vomit, there will be consequences. There will be BIG consequences.

Thanks,
Miles

Anyway, this year, it's evidently Murphy and Jim's turn to make the keynote address at the sponsor's meeting. Woohoo! He says he has time to work on it with her that evening if she's free, she says it's a date. Murphy then compliments Frank on his shirt, and Frank says, "THANKS JIM WROTE A NOVEL"

WHAT A NOVEL AWWWWW

"You wrote a novel, Jim, get outta here! How come you never mentioned it?" YEAH WHY JIM WHY.

"Ohhhh, I don't knowww, I'm not sure it's very good, I just finished it, it needs some polishing..."

Murphy stops him with her hand. "Say no more, writing a novel must be a very private thing, but when you're ready to have your friends read it, I'd be honored to."

"Thank you for understanding, Murphy." yeah aww how mature was that?! so niiiiice!

"Hey, Murph, it's about this CIA agent: -BROCK WILDER-, kind of the strong, silent type...?" He wiggles his eyebrows a bit.

"Oh. You let Frank read it?" hahaha ohhhh, well, there goes that nice mature moment.

Jim insists that Frank offered up his opinion, counting Doris (hkshldk), that makes two, he just wouldn't be comfortable showing it to more people than that right now GOSHHH. He hopes she understands.

Ohhh yeah. Pff, understand? Please, this is Murphy we're talking about here. Of course she'd understand, why wouldn't she?

"Hey, you know what I'm thinking now?" she asks. "That time you checked me into the Betty Ford Center, and I told you about my deepest fears of failure, which I guess is nothing compared to the time Frank gave you the name of a good car wash, but if you prefer Frank to read your novel, then I'll-"

TEEHEE, this is my favorite Jim expression, second only to any and all times that he smiles.

"Are you going to make me guilt-ridden and miserable until I show it to you?!"

"Yoooou bet."

HEYOOOO, I SPY CORKY!

Jim finally relents and agrees to let Murphy read it, too.

"Read what?" asks the one in whose veins flow sugar.

"Jim's written a novel," Murphy tells her, "but he's really not ready to show it yet; he said we could read it."

"WE CAN~?!" dskdfhlsdhf GREAT. Now I'm packing diabeetus along with these twins. What are you doing to me, show, what are you doing?!

Jim also agrees to let Corky read it, and begs all three of them not to tell anyone else.

Then Miles arrives, greets everyone with his usual, "Morning, people!" and Jim launches up and declares, "OH, ALL RIGHT, MILES! There'll be a copy on your desk tonight!" HAHA, NOW IT'S A PARTY!

It is now the next day. You can't really tell from this shot but if you squint you can see that Bitchin' Glasses are GO, and idk what this particular pose is of Frank's right now but I'm enjoying it.

and Frank, man, what are you doing? If I didn't know better, I'd say you were looking to write an AU fic of your own. Which, NO!

"What are you doing?" Murphy asks the question that we are allllll thinking.

"Just looking at your hair.

...Your 'smoky blond shoulder-length tresses, which smell like the warm summer nights of lost youth.'"

OH GEEZ- FUCK IT I'M THE NEXT OCTOMOM NOW. BITCHES DON'T KNOW 'BOUT MY GIGANTIC UTERUS.

"Stand up!" Frank says. "I want to look at those legs 'that go on endlessly and look as though they've been carved on a lathe in heaven.'"

ohgodmyvagina!

"Frank, what are you talking about?!"

"Jim's novel! Did you read it?"

"Oh, yeah!" Murphy says with a laugh. "Geez, all that intrigue and sex! I didn't know Jim had it in him!"

> all that intrigue and sex
> intrigue and sex
> sex

"The writing wasn't bad," she continues, "although I thought the pacing could've-"

"Hey, Murph, I'm not looking for a literary review here, I'm talking about the woman Jim's character meets skin-diving in Rio?"

Murphy nods. Frank gleefully continues. "The foreign correspondent named 'Monique', the one he has the hot, passionate affair with?"

Murphy laughs, Frank laughs, they're both nodding and nodding and then...

"It's you!"

KSHDFALSKDFSLFKHLDF SO YEAH THIS EPISODE IS ACTUALLY ABOUT JIM HAVING THE HOTS FOR MURPHY. I WOULD JUST LIKE TO TAKE THIS MOMENT TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT HE IS TEN, MAYBE FIFTEEN YEARS HER SENIOR AND HER SURROGATE FATHER FIGURE. PUTS A NEW TWIST ON THIS SHIT DOESN'T IT MOTHERFUCKERSSSSSSS

even if it's kind of incestuous to people like me who over-analyze character relationships, I assure you that I'm still pregnant with octuplets that will inherit my diabetes. LET'S CONTINUE...

Murphy is SHOCKED AND APPALLED BY THIS ACCUSATION, SIR, SHOCKED AND APPALLED!

"Oh, come on!" Frank exclaims. "Don't tell me you didn't notice! Monique is a successful, outspoken journalist with a fiery temper who always plays to win!"

"Frank, you've been starting up your car with the garage door closed again, haven't you?" ROFLLLLL.

"I just think it's interesting that all these years Jim has had a secret attraction towards you and I missed it!"

Murphy still doesn't want to buy it, so Frank laughs and says, "Hey, Murph, uh, what about that elevator scene, *whiiistle* I never thought two people could actually make-"

yo yo it's Miles time. he looks kind of cranky, though, doesn't he?

"Oh, hi, Miles!" Murphy says. "Frank's gone insane. Let's watch!"

"This isn't a social call," Miles tells her.

"I have something important to discuss with you, MONIQUE."

AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA. Frank also laughs veeeery very gleefully like a kid who just unwrapped a Basic Holo Charizard.

"Murphy," Miles continues, "I see the potential for a certain amount of awkwardness that could disrupt the synergistic balance among certain people who must work here together side-by-side, day-after-day. So I hope no one would do anything to encourage anything or anything... Am I making myself clear?"

"NO!" Murphy screams. "What kind of language is that? Encourage what?!"

"Goings on and such. ...I read the elevator scene." lfmaosdlasd WHY DOESN'T THAT LINE GET LAUGHS... it still puzzles me to this day. audienceeee, you're so baffling sometimes.

"Look, you guys, you're just reading things into this that simply aren't there! But if you don't believe me, why don't you go talk to Jim about it?!"

Frank shoots that down pre-etty quickly. "Talk to Jim about something as personal as this?!"

Miles agrees wholeheartedly. "You've gotta be kidding me; that'd be like talking to my father about sex! Look, Jim's obviously had certain thoughts about you buried in the back of his head. ...Only now they've come to the front of his head! And out his hand and onto paper! If we don't nip this thing in the bud, something bad is gonna happen!"

"I'm not gonna listen to this anymore! You know, you guys are both crazy!"

And Murphy begins to walk out of her office...

...when the Peanut Gallery pipes in.

"The Walk!"

Murphy resists the urge to cap some bitches.

uhhh, I guess today's secretary won't be joining us anymore.

HEEEEEY THERE JIM. good ollll platonic buddy-pal.

"Did, um, everyone have a pleasant evening last night? Anything of interest or note to occupy your time?" dskfhsldhl so moe.

Murphy tells Jim that she sees his name right at the top of the best-seller list, and in today's age I guess it wouldn't be hard because Twilight is a thing, so. I don't know, man, if Jim's still got the manuscript today, he might want to get on that.

Murphy and Miles also say that they liked it, couldn't put it down, but it's clear that Frank at least is dying to ask The Burning Question.

BUT BEFORE HE CAN...

"Oh, Jim!" Corky exclaims. "I just finished reading your book, and it was really really good!"

"Why, thank you, Corky," Jim says. "I'm very flattered!"

"But there's something I want to ask you," she says. "About the blond woman, the one Brock has the affair with? In the elevator?"

RUH-ROH!

SSSHHHHHH!

But Corky keeps going, totally oblivious. "The aggressive, overbearing, pushy one who always steps all over people to get what she wants?"

"Yes?" Jim. so cheerful and unaware...

"Did you realize you were writing about Murphy at the time, or was it just an accident?"

DKFHLSDHFLSDHFLSDHLFHKLDSF LOLLLLLLLLLLL

"Murphy? You think Monique is Murphy?" He laaaughs. "That's preposterous!"

"HA! I told you!" Murphy is v. v. pleased with this outcome. Jim is baffled; they all thought Monique was Murphy? OHHHH THIS IS RICH! (my ovaries jump every time he says "this is rich" ok just fyi)

"How could any rational person entertain such a notion?" Jim wonders.

And then the elevator dings.

AW SHIT!

GET YOUR TOWELS READY, IT'S ABOUT TO GO DOWN!

EVERYBODY IN THE PLACE HIT THE FUCKIN' DECK

BUT STAY ON YOUR MOTHERFUCKIN' TOES!

DORIS IS RUNNIN' THIS, LET'S GO.

Corky: "Doris!"

Miles: "Doris!"

Frank: "Doris!"

Murphy: "Doris!"

Jim: "It's Doris!"

lmaooooooooo.

"How lovely to see you here!" Jim continues, STILLLLLL BLISSFULLY UNAWARE. "I didn't expect a visit from you, but it's always welcomed! Always!"

"Well, actually," she says, "I stopped by to see Murphy."

LMAOOOOO.

Jim: Murphy?

Frank: Murphy?

Miles: Murphy?!

Corky: Murphy?

Murphy: Oh?

Well, GUESS WHAT, Doris wants to have lunch with Murphy today!

She really wants to have lunch.

AAAAWWWWKKKKKWWWWAAAAARRRRDDDDD

Murphy reluctantly agrees to Phil's at 1, and Doris says that's perfect; it'll give her time to run a few errands.

"Well, good seeing all of you!" she cheerfully says as she makes for the elevator. "Murphy..."

"...SEE YOU AT ONE."

sdfksdlfhldfdd

You see, kids, on the hierarchy of gqmfs, Murphy is surpassed by Jim, and there is only one individual with enough power to surpass him... and I think it's pretty clear who that individual is.

pretty. clear. in. deed.

So here we are at Phil's, yayayay, and things are not awkward hooray!

until, you know, they are.

Murphy notices Doris's shopping bag and asks if she had success. Doris ever-so-cheerfully says yes, yes she did, there are some lovely shops on Connecticut Avenue and she found a luggage store she just knows Jim will love!

"Although he certainly isn't on the road as much as he was when we were first married. Thirty years ago."

ohhhh yeah. This is off to a great start.

"A different person might've worried about her husband being gone so much... but not me!

Of course, some woman might cast her spell over him, and draw that sweet, unsuspecting man into her clutches."

dksfldl

"But I know I could invite that woman, whoever she is... to the hardware store that's next to the luggage store and put her head in a vice."

god I CAN'T. KEYMASH. ENOUGH. I LOVE DORISSSSSSS.

Murphy takes this opportunity to speechify: "Doris, I know what this is about, and all I can say is... Monique is just a character that Jim made up!"

"Impossible," Doris says. "Jim simply does not have that kind of an imagination!" lmfao awwww. THAT'S NOT VERY NICE... but it's kind of true. lmao.

"A man who owns 17 pairs of brown socks does not suddenly wake up one morning and think, 'Now there's something I'd like to try in an elevator!'"

"Doris," Murphy continues, "I want you to listen to me because I value our friendship very very much. Now, there are things I'll never know about Jim that you do, and there are things I know about Jim that you never will. I know how he taps his knee under the anchor desk three times for luck before every broadcast. And I know that he didn't want anyone to see him cry when we did our piece on Vietnam veterans."

nnnnnnnnnnnn! jiiiiiiiiiiiiim. why are you THE BESTTTT

"And I know he always orders lemon shrimp and fried rice from Wo-Ping's on show night, and I know something else: I know Jim Dial loves Doris Dial very much. And he loves me, too, as a friend. The Jim we both know isn't going to jeopardize either of these relationships."

awwwww.

"...I feel more than a little foolish," Doris admits, "like some jealous housewife!" oh man, if I had enough energy I would do a Desperate Housewives shoop lololol. maybe another time.

Doris tries to apologize but Murphy says there's no need.

lmao and then Jim shows up.

Just to drive her point home, Doris leaps to the occasion to prove that there are no hard feelings... between her and Jim, anyway.

nooooo hard feelings whatsoever.

"And I'm happy to see you, too, Doris!" HAHAHAHAHA.

"Ah! You've done some shopping! What have we here?"

"Oh, good heavens." dskflsdlfs

All right, long story short, Murphy and Doris tell Jim that everything is fine, he insists dohoho of course it is why wouldn't it be, he just came down to see Doris's lovely face, and he's seen it now so he'll just be on his way. Then Doris asks him when she can expect him home tonight.

"Oh, you shouldn't wait up; Murphy and I have to finish a project together, it could go pretty late."

NIIIIIIICE JOB, GENIUS.

After some awkward glances between the three, Doris seems okay. "Well, don't work too hard, dear." awhawhaw.

"And Murphy, after lunch, perhaps we'll stroll by that hardware store, just so you know where it is!" hahahahaha pooooor murphy. and don't think Doris wouldn't stick her head in a vice, either; she'd fucking do it and laugh the whole way through.

Well, here we are, working working working yay. Things seem all right so far, just two buddies workin' away.

errr.

well.

maybe... not.

Jim insists that Murphy be the one to pick up the paper, so she does and probably smartly gets up and walks away from the table. But probably not-so-smartly decides to plunk down on the desk. And sit like that.

"Maybe we should just begin by talking about the great tradition of legs in broadcasting."

There's our first Freudian slip of the evening. Appropriate expressions, please:

yes. beautiful, thank you both.

And we will scooch ourselves into chairs now, with our legs placed under the desk. ok.

ahaha I wish there was a good screenshot for this, but there really isn't, but Murphy then immediately gets up after Jim rambles for a bit and declares, "I'm just going to get a cup of sex- COFFEE!"

WELL, forget that, let's just mess with the papers some more.

"What's this card; I can't read this one."

"It's the Orderly Report of Incremental Ratings Expansion"

ohhhhhh. holy technobabble, Batman!

but that doesn't really matter right now because this next thing is going to happen right. now.

oh.

mygod.

"Jim, did you just smell my hair?"

"Oh-Oh dear Lord, no, I was merely... clearing some dust from my nasal passages."

so, o-k-a-y, they decide to go to Phil's. should help to ease things up a little bit.

OR

NOT

oh hey, Corky's still here, awesome. "I know you two are busy," she says, "but I thought I could just tiptoe in for a fresh cup of coffee."

lmao okay, let's throw papers on the floor!

"Oh, you did?" Jim exclaims. "Well, now my train of thought is shot to hell! Blast it, I can't work like this!"

"ENJOY YOUR EVENING."

I believe the only appropriate response to this is, "oy."

In the grand tradition of "bros before hos", Jim heads over to Phil's, where Frank and Miles are already chilling.

"Oh my God, it's Murphy!" he cries.

"What's Murphy?" Frank asks.

"Monique! Monique is Murphy and Murphy is Monique!"

Let's talk real quick about "Monique" and why THAT of all names? Next thing you know, he'll pen a tale about Corky and call her "Shaniqua".

"I was right!" Frank declares. "You wrote about Murphy; I-I don't want to hear any more." ahahaha. true bros. him and murphy I mean, teehee. But he changes his mind a second later and wants to know what happened.

"There I was, in the office with good ol' Murphy"

dkfhskldf okay PAUSE. WITH GOOD OL' MURPHY. I just lol'd/d'awwwed so hard I hurt my neck.

"then suddenly... she began to look different to me!"

NOT SURE IF WANT

BUT BY GOD MAN TELL US MORE

"And I found myself with certain feelings."

I'm finding myself with certain feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings, too. I've been finding myself with them for the past 13 minutes.

"And?" Miles asks.

"I smelled her hair!"

Miles screams. You guys, he fucking screams like a little girl. He goes, "OH GOD, NO!" and practically falls out of his chair backwards. lmfao lmfao l m f a o.

"THAT'S IT! Starting tomorrow, nobody writes anything down, and all the women are wearing hairnets!" lmfao WAT.

Frank tries to calm everybody down but just ends up grossing himself out at the thought of thinking ~that way~ about Murphy. skdlsdlf SEE THIS IS WHY I LOVE THEM, they are of the opposite genders and are physically revolted at the thought of sleeping together, I just... DKSLDHFKSLDHF. it's never not totally fucking cool to me.

Frank once again tries to reassure Jim by telling him that fantasizing about pretty ladies is just a fun game between the ears that men get to play. Jim's not convinced, so he asks Miles if this has ever happened to him before.

And I...

have no words

for what happens next.

"Well... remember the time Murphy chewed me out in front of the crew for not approving her travel expenses?

...That night, I dreamed we were on American Gladiators. She was wearing my bathrobe and... beating me with the pugil stick.

And I liked it."

*bites

fist*

After a moment's silence, Frank turns to Jim. "And you're worried?" EXACTLY.

"Don't you see, the situation is different with me! I put my thoughts about Murphy in print!" well also in my head it's incest but yours is good too I guess.

"Men!" Miles says. "We're nothing but animals! Do you think women sit around and talk about us this way?!"

"Are you kidding?" Frank says. "It's not in their nature!"

well, we've all seen Tip of the Silverberg, or at least we read the spam, so we all know what happens now.

"And on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give Frank's butt a 7."

YOU WOULD?

You would.

you would.

*bites

fist!*

Murphy reminisces about her first encounter with Frank, you know the one. But if you don't it's okay, I'll explain: They met at Phil's in '77, Murphy sporting gnarly hair and Frank sporting some kind of funky disco attire, complete with mustache and frizzy hair. And bellbottom-looking things. Frank being Frank immediately hit on Murphy, but Murphy being Murphy immediately opened her big mouth and the rest was sexual tension-less history. Now in the present, Murphy complains about the pants Frank was wearing and that they were too baggy in the seat, lmao, and that killed it for her. What, it wasn't the Mr. Kotter mustache that turned you off?

"Do you think Jim has hair on his chest?"

oh GOD. that's a thought that's gonna fester. if you... if you know what I... ffffffuuuuuuuu zowie help me

Murphy says they should quit stalling, Corky says that Murphy has to get Jim's fantasy right out of his head.

"I didn't ask for this!" Murphy complains. "Men have always been attracted to me! It's a curse!" dsklkd and women...

"Murphy, let's deal with one fantasy at a time." LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

"Now, you respect Jim. But, he's a man. He has no control over himself!" ahaha oh Corky, your Southern-fried mentality about men and women is just so... well, let's just say I missed hearing about it during Mass! Please, do continue.

"You're a woman. It's your responsibility to try to heal the relationship!" yesssssssss it's all coming back to me now... oh, what's that? ah, flashes of the anti-abortion video they showed us. the memories, they're just so sweet.

Anyway, Corky does have a point: somebody's gotta take the initiative here, or else things will be awkward forever!

"I know! We're supposed to work together tomorrow night," Murphy says. "How am I going to do that, what am I gonna say to him? 'Hey, Jim, pass me a pencil and try to ignore my ripe, inviting lips that make a man want to forget his own name'?"

Corky's solution, therefore, is CONFRONT CONFRONT CONFRONT.

Meanwhile, Frank's is AVOID AVOID AVOID. This should be fun!

wow, gnarly outfits there, kids! Yikes! Normally they're not as offensive to me as other people seem to think, but what is this? How tall is Corky's hair right now? Six, seven feet? And of course, the Bitchin' Glasses are here. Just... barf! Was this ever actually fashionable? I mean, really? *shudder*

Murphy says those fateful words, aka "we have to talk", and everyone high-tails it outta there.

Jim rambles on for a while about Chinese food, from Wo-Ping's no less, and Murphy tries to get him to simmer down but it doesn't work. So she, in pure Murphy style, just blurts out, "Jim, you want me, and we have to talk about it!" RIGHT to the point, woohoohoo.

"We can't just ignore what's going on between us! We have to talk about it because it's not going to just go away!

Now... I think you have a little crush on me."

OH PLEASE who doesn't. you'd have to be blind and deaf and even THEN it'd be a toss-up.

"I think you'll feel better if you admit it."

yeah, I'm gonna take that as a NO.

well, two can play at that game! CHAIR SWITCH!

"I want you to look at me. Come on. Look at me."

"no."

"Jim, please! You know how important this is! Now, come on! Look at me! Tell me what's going through your mind."

aw yay, PROGRESS.

"Good!" Murphy happily says. "Good. Now, what are you thinking?"

"I... was thinking... how attractive those glasses look on you."

ahaha NO? because those glasses are atrocious? boy, the 90's. I don't know anymore.

yeah, take those suckers off, dude.

"Now, let's go a little deeper." ahaha, should we? "In fact, why don't I start? You know... once I was sitting next to you at the anchor desk and, just for a flash, I wondered what kind of underwear you were wearing." lmao this is so, like, 4th grade sleepover. AND THEN YOU TRIPPED I SAW YOUR PANTIES AND THEY HAD FLOWERS ON THEM! I WENT HOME AND TOLD MY MOM AND SHE MADE ME RECITE THE LORD'S PRAYER 15 TIMES.

"Now it's your turn," Murphy says. "Have you ever imagined anything about me?" ahaha oh dear.

"Well... actually..." Jim looks down and shyly shuffles in his seat a bit. Murphy coaxes him on. "I was... just now... thinking about something."

"Yes, go on."

"About you and me..."

"Right."

Then Jim's eyes get positively wild. "Making wild, crazy love" He bounces in his chair "in this chair!"

ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Jim just steams ahead. "Or maybe on the Xerox machine!! While Ernie- Ernie the janitor is in the next room!!!" OH MY GOD LMAO.

"OKAY, THIS HAS BEEN VERY HELPFUL, NOW WHY DON'T WE GET BACK TO WORK?"

"Oh, dear LORD! What was I saying? Where did that come from?!"

well I think it's pretty clear to tell that it came from your p-

"THERE'S TOO MUCH TALKING HERE, LET'S GET BACK TO WORK."

well actually I was going to say your pretty amazing imagination, but I was so rudely interrupted.

"No, no! No, no, there's no going back now, Murphy! We have to work this out, we have to talk this through!"

"NO NO NO," Murphy says as she staples things at the speed of sound. "WE JUST IGNORE IT, IT'LL GO AWAY."

"I've obviously been carrying around a lot of very strong feeling for you! Buried so deep I wasn't even aware I had it! When did it start?"

"Probably... in Rome... when we found that little café when we were researching the Vatican bank scandal, remember that?"

"Rome? Little café? NOPE, DOESN'T RING A BELL! *STAPLE*"

"Oh," Jim says with a grin, "I remember it so vivdly!"

"I watched the way you ate your pasta primavera with such... passion." hahaha geeeeez, this is venturing into Pedobear territory now.

LMFAO GOD, EW! there are a lot of things I want from Jim Dial but watching him practically have an orgasm in front of Murphy is NOT ONE OF THEM! aaaauuuughhh no no no!! mind-breaker, mind-breaker!

"And then, we walked outside... into the... into the hard rain. Your hair all... wet and... tousled..."

oh god, I think I'm gonna barf! How did this do such a sharp and complete 180 to Uncanny Valley so quickly?! I think this might be a world record!

"...Then you got into a fight with that cab driver." hahahaha okay, whew, this is something I can handle.

"Oh, yeah! He tried to overcharge us! I got out of the cab and cracked his headlights with my umbrella! Oh, that was fun!" dskldlskl SO MOE. ahahaha and Iii can see the boom mic moving all over the place via shadow on the back wall and it's really really entertaining the hell out of me.

"Fun?!" Jim is clearly not as entertained. "The man was only slightly smaller than a refrigerator! He punched me! My nose was bleeding all over my new custom-made shirt! You have a way of antagonizing people, Murphy! Every time we travel, I have to defend you every five minutes; imagine an entire life like that!"

"...Could be exciting! The blood always racing! Like that time in Paris!"

"WHAT time in Paris?!" kshd no MORE STORIES, MOOOOOORE

"We'd just finished our story on Miteran. We were exhilarated! We went to that little cinema to see Après l'amour... I remember sitting there in the dark with you... the smell of your perfume enveloped me!"

"...Then you started yelling things at the screen!" ahahaha saved again!

"Hey, the picture stank, okay?! A bunch of people smearing each other with brie isn't my idea of good storytelling! I had to get out of there!"

"Oh, yes, I remember you driving us back to the hotel; my whole life flashed before me! Hurtling through traffic, driving up on the sidewalk in front of the Louvre! Men don't like that, Murphy! That and your never letting people finish a sentence when they're-"

"THAT'S NOT TRUE!"

"AH! YOU SEE? GOD! YOU AND ME? I can just see myself in ten years, talking to strangers in the park just to hear the sound of my own voice once in a while!" hahaha man, this is brutal! "And I can forget about buying furniture I like! Maybe if I were lucky I could keep one of my Peggy Lee albums!"

"God, what was I thinking?! I must've been insane!"

Ah, but then...

"Oh, Lord. I'm feeling much better! Like some awful fever has broken! You were right, Murphy! Oh, I'm so glad we talked! Aren't you?"

"Ohhh, yeah. I feel really great about myself now. Maaaybe I'll just top off the night by trying on a bathing suit under fluorescent light." lmfaooo.

But Jim is eager to get back to work... so he can get back to work on his NOVEL?!

"YOUR NOVEL?! Wait a minute, isn't that how all this trouble started?!"

"Oh, don't worry, Murphy, it's just a little re-write."

"Monique is going to be a lovely, and I hope, forgiving redhead that Brock's been married to for 30 years."

"I like it. I like it a lot."

awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

ps: I went the whole time without making any Pokémon jokes, WHO'S PROUD?! ~~AIM FOR THE HORN!~~

"Thank you, Murphy," Jim says. "...It's so nice to know I can count on you even after I've made a complete ass of myself."

"Hey, you've always been there for me," Murphy replies.

"I love you, Jim."

"I love you, Murphy."

D'AWWWWWHAWWHAWWWWW. remember that diabeetus I had? I think it just got upgraded to type 2.

"So, should we get some work done, Slugger?" dkdsfls if there was a type 3...

"You're on!"

dkfsdflkshlkfhskl

"Oh, by the way," Jim says, "Miles told me something at Phil's last night"

uh-oh

"about a dream he had."

UH-OH.

"You were in it, and, well..."

"...you may want to have this same conversation with him!"

...

...

...

*BITES

FIST*

GOO-HOOOOOOD NIGHT, EVERYBODY.

look at these gqmfs in their big-screen, surround sound ships

gingasaur — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:20:18 GMT

When I was in 2nd grade, our class went on a field trip to the Movie Studios at Las Colinas. Everyone was excited because we were going to ~movie studios~, but I knew that the real studios weren't anywhere near Texas. They were all in California, so how could we be going to a movie studio that was worth anything here?

As soon as we arrived and our teachers checked us in, we were all herded into a room by our tour guide. It was awfully dark, but soon, things started to look clear. I started to see lights. And my eyes began to widen and my mouth began to drop and I suddenly knew that in this room was my proof positive that I was really going to enjoy this field trip after all.

We were standing inside a replica of a Star Trek: TNG set. We were standing next to computers. We were in a shuttle. I couldn't believe it. Was this really happening? Was it real life? There's never been another time in my life when the line between fiction and reality was so stunningly and delightfully blurred. There were smatterings of moments where I really was convinced that we had stepped into the 24th century, and any minute now our tour guide would lead us through another door to go to meet Captain Picard.

We didn't get to meet Picard, but we did get attacked by Klingons.

The lights flashed. The room shook. Everyone screamed, mostly in delight. But oh, there was a little fear in my heart. Unlike all of these uncultured little heathens that were my classmates, I knew that Klingons were serious business. If they were attacking us, then we might really die! Right here, right now, our short lives could all be over because a bunch of dumb kids didn't know how truly dangerous the Klingons were!

Our tour guide was frantic. "Someone has to fire a torpedo!" she shouted. "I need someone to fire a torpedo!" My hand shot up like a rocket. Unfortunately, even though they had no way of understanding the gravity of our situation, so did more than half of my classmate's hands, including my then-best friend's. I felt a mixture of frustration and relief, then, when the tour guide pointed to my friend. If anyone can get us out of this alive, I thought, it's her!

The tour guide led her to one of the computers and told her where the magic button resided. She said that all she had to do was put her finger on it.

And she did. And I watched as a photon torpedo sped through space and rammed itself into the Bird of Prey. We were saved! My best friend saved our lives!

The lights returned to normal, and suddenly the 20th century was calling. The tour guide opened a door in front of us and led us out, much to my dismay. But even though we had to come back to the present, I couldn't wait to go home and inform my parents that I, their darling daughter, got to come this close to the Enterprise! The real Enterprise! In the 24th century and everything!

I turned to my friend with a huge grin plastered on my face. "So?!" I asked her. "You got to fire the torpedo! How was it?!"

"What?" she asked. "Oh, I don't know. It was okay, I guess. I didn't even do anything."

Didn't do anything? It was okay?! OH, the curse of being a kid who loved Star Trek! Nobody my age understood, not even my best friend! My best friend had no idea what she'd just had the privilege of doing! My best friend had no idea that she'd just saved all our butts with one push of a button!

But I knew what really happened that day. I saw what no one else could see. I loved every minute of that memory.

And there's no way I could have were it not for these movies. Some of them didn't even exist yet (we saw a stand-up poster for First Contact later on in the tour; who do you think was the only one who was excited?) but the fact remained that I knew my Vulcans from my Romulans, my Klingons from my tribbles. And it was all because of these movies.

So I'd say it's high time that I gave them some love.

Here are some tunes for your listening pleasure as you peruse the spam:

Epilogue/End Title (II)
Home Again/End Credits (IV)
Star Trek VI Suite
First Contact End Credits

and, in no particular order (other than the order that I've chosen) we shall... mmm, am I really gonna say it? Yes, I am. Because we shall, in fact, ~boldly go~.

(all credit for caps goes to the fabulous TrekCore.com.)

Music is blasting at the bar, to the point that it's deafening. Riker wanders inside, spots Troi, and has to scream her name three times to get her attention. After that, he bends down and reaches for the plug.
Troi: No, Will, don't turn off the-!

A bottle suddenly flies out of nowhere, right toward Riker's head. It misses, but just barely.
Zephram Cochrane: Who is this jerk? And who told him he could turn off my music?
Troi: Will Riker... Zephram Cochrane.
Cochrane: He a friend of yours?
Troi: Yes.
Cochrane: Husband?
Troi: No.
Cochrane: Gooood.
He picks up another glass, empties its contents, and pours something else in.
Cochrane: Now this, Dena...
Troi: Deanna!
Cochrane: This... is the good stuff.
Riker: Dr. Cochrane-
The, er, good doctor shushes Riker and clinks his glass against Troi's.
Cochrane: To the Phoenix. May she rest in peace.

They down their shots... and promptly choke on them. They hack and cough loudly.
Cochrane: Okay... that wasn't so good.
He tosses the bottle over his head. It shatters on the floor.

Troi: Will... I think we have to tell him the truth.
Riker: If we tell him the truth, the timeline-
Troi: TIMELINE?! This is no time to argue about time! We don't have the time!
[beat]
...what was I saying?
Riker: You're drunk.
Troi: I am not!
Riker: [chuckling] Yes you are.
Troi: Look. He wouldn't even talk to me unless I had a drink with him. And then it took three shots of something called 'tequila' just to find out he was the one we're looking for! And I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to keep his hands off me! So don't go criticizing my counseling technique!
Riker: [laughs] Sorry!
Troi: It's a primitive culture! I'm just trying to blend in!
Riker: You're blending, all right.
Troi: I already told him our cover story; he didn't believe me!
Riker: We are running out of time! Now if we tell him the truth, do you think he'll be able to handle it?
Troi: ...If you're looking for my professional opinion as ship's counselor... he's nuts!
Riker: I'll be sure to note that in my log.
Cochrane slaps a hand against the jukebox. It powers up and blasts his music again. He begins to dance. Riker sighs and there's a loud "thunk" as Troi passes out on the table.

Gillian: The songs change every year, and we still don't know what purpose they serve. Are they some kind of navigational signal? Could they be part of the mating ritual? Or... is it pure communication beyond our comprehension? Frankly, we just don't know yet.
Old Woman: Maybe he's singing to that man!
Gillian turns around and sees Spock in the tank.
Gillian: What the hell?!

Gillian: All right, who the hell are you and what were you doing in there?!
Kirk: Yeah, speak up, fella!
Spock: ...Attempting the hell to communicate.
Gillian: COMMUNICATE?! Communicate what?! You have no right to be here!
Kirk: You heard the lady!
Spock: Admiral, if we were to assume that these whales were ours to do with as we please, we would be as guilty as those who caused their extinction.
Gillian: Okay, I don't know what this is all about, but I want you guys outta here right now, or I call the cops.
Kirk: I assure you, that won't be necessary, we're only trying to help.
Gillian: The hell you were, buster. Your friend was messing up my tanks and messing up my whales.
Spock: They like you very much, but they are not the hell 'your' whales.
Gillian: I- I suppose they told you that, huh?
Spock: The hell they did.
Gillian: ...Right.

Uhura: Did you find it?
Chekov: Yes, under the U.S. Government. Now we need directions!
Uhura spots a cop and points him out to Chekov. They both walk over to him.
Chekov: Excuse me, sir! Can you direct me to the navel base in A-la-me-da? It's where they keep the nuclear wessels.
The cop says nothing. Chekov glances back at Uhura and tries again.
Chekov: NU-CLE-AR. WESSELS.
The cop still fails to respond. People continue to pass by, so the two of them attempt to get someone else's attention.

Uhura: Excuse me, can you help us?
Chekov: Excuse me! Uh, we are looking for nuclear wessels. Can you tell me where the navel base in- in Alame- We are looking for nuc-
[beat]
Hello! We are looking for the nuclear wessels in Alameda; could you tell me where- please, we are looking for the navel base in Alameda, could you tell me where the nuclear wessels are?
Woman: Ooh, I don't know if I know the answer to that. I think it's across the Bay, in Alameda!
Chekov: ...That's what I said, Alameda, I know that.
Uhura: Alameda! But where is Alameda?!

McCoy: Perhaps the professor could use your computer.
Dr. Nichols: [gestures toward the computer] Please.
Scotty heads toward it, and as he takes a seat in front of it, he says...
Scotty: Computer!
Clearly, the 1986 Macintosh can give no response.
Scotty: Computer.
Still nothing. McCoy spies the mouse, picks it up, and hands it to Scotty.
Scotty: Ah! [into the mouse] Hello, Computer!
Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard.
Scotty: ...The keyboard. How quaint!

Scotty cracks his knuckles before settling in with the classic hunt-and-peck typing style. Windows begin to pop up on the screen, filling up quickly with data. The hunt-and-peck evolves into more of a hyperactive firestorm of keystrokes, until finally it slows down again and comes to a stop. Dr. Nichols is in awe of what he sees on the screen.
Dr. Nichols: Transparent aluminum?!
Scotty: That's the ticket, laddie.

Riker: Computer! Remove the plank!

Picard: Number One, that's "retract" plank, not "remove" plank.
Riker: Of course, sir.

Data: I must confess, I am uncertain as to why someone falling into freezing water is amusing.
Crusher: Oh, it's all in good fun, Data!
Data: Fun?
Crusher: Fun!
Data: ...I do not understand.
Crusher: You've gotta get into the spirit of things, learn to be spontaneous. Live in the moment, do something unexpected! Get it?
Data: Got it.
He pushes her overboard.

Geordi: Data.
Data: That was-
Geordi: Not funny!

Data: Ohhhhhh SHIT!

Kirk: Captain of the Enterprise, huh?
Picard: That's right.
Kirk: Close to retirement?
Picard: I'm not planning on it.
Kirk: Let me tell you something: don't. Don't let them promote you, don't let them transfer you, don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship 'cause while you're there... you can make a difference.
Picard: Come back with me. Help me stop Soren, make a difference again.
Kirk: ...Who am I to argue with the Captain of the Enterprise? What's the name of that planet? Meridian 3?
Picard: Yes.
Kirk: I take it the odds are against us and the situation is grim.
Picard: You could say that.
Kirk: You know, if Spock were here, he'd say that I was an irrational, illogical human being for taking on a mission like that.
[beat]
Sounds like fun!

Lieutenant: You amaze me, Commander.
Uhura: How is that...?
Lieutenant: A twenty year space veteran, and you ask for the worst duty station in town. I mean, look at this place! This is the hind end of space.
Uhura: Peace and quiet appeals to me, Lieutenant.
Lieutenant: Yeah, well maybe that's okay for someone like you whose career is winding down, but me... I need some challenge in my life, some adventure! Maybe even just a surprise or two!
Uhura: Well, you know what they say, Lieutenant: 'Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.'
At that moment, Kirk, McCoy and Sulu walk through the doors and head to the transporter pads.

Lieutenant: That's Admiral Kirk; my God!
Uhura: Very good for you, Lieutenant.
Lieutenant: But it's damn irregular! No destination orders, no encoded IDs!
Uhura: All true.
Lieutenant: Well, what are we gonna do about it?
Uhura: I'm not gonna do anything about it. But you're gonna sit in the closet.
Lieutenant: The closet? What, have you lost all your sense of reality?
Uhura: This isn't reality.
She reaches down and whips out a phaser gun.
Uhura: This is fantasy! You want an adventure? How's this? The old adrenaline going, huh? Good boy. Now get in the closet.

Lieutenant: Okay. Uh...
Uhura: Go on. Go on!
Lieutenant: I'll just get in the closet! Okay!
He does in fact get in the closet. The door closes in front of him as soon as he sits down.
McCoy: ...I'm glad you're on our side.
Kirk: Can you handle that, uh...
Uhura: Oh, I'll have Mr. Adventure eating out of my hand, sir. And I'll see all of you at the rendezvous.
Oh, and Admiral?
All my hopes.

Scotty: As promised, she's all yours, sir. All systems automated and ready. A chimpanzee and two trainees could run her.
Kirk: [chuckles] Thank you, Mr. Scott, I'll try not to take that personally.
[beat]
My friends, I can't ask you to go any further. Dr. McCoy and I have to do this, the rest of you do not.
Chekov: Admiral, we're losing precious time!
Sulu: What course, please, Admiral?
Kirk: Mr. Scott?
Scotty: I'd be grateful, Admiral, if you'd give the word.
[beat]
Kirk: Gentlemen... may the wind be at our backs. Stations please.
They take their stations, orders are given, and the Enterprise slowly begins to creep away from the dock in reverse.
Chekov: Sir, Commander Starfleet on emergency channel. He orders you to surrender this vessel.
Kirk: No reply, Chekov.
Chekov: Aye, sir.
Kirk: Steady as she goes, Sulu.

First Officer: Yellow Alert! Captain to the bridge! Yellow Alert!
Styles: Bridge, this is the Captain. How can you have a Yellow Alert in Spacedock?
First Officer: Sir, someone is stealing the Enterprise!
[beat]
Styles: I'm on my way.

Sulu: One minute to space doors.
McCoy: Are you just gonna walk through?
Kirk: Calm yourself, Doctor.
Chekov: Sir, Excelsior powering up with orders to pursue.

Styles: Status?
First Officer: All automates ready and functioning. Automatic moorings retracted, all speeds available through transwarp drive.
Styles: [cocky huff] Incredible machine. Helm, one-quarter impulse power.

Sulu: Thirty seconds to space doors.
Spacedock Computer: Warning, secure space doors. Warning, secure space doors.
Kirk: And... now, Mr. Scott.
Scotty: Sir?
Kirk: The doors, Mr. Scott!
Scotty: Aye, sir! I'm working on it!
The Enterprise inches ever closer. The doors are still closed, as the Spacedock Computer is quick to point out.
But then...!

Sulu: We have cleared space doors.
The Excelsior is still following behind them.
Kirk: Full impulse power.
Sulu: Aye, sir.
And on the Excelsior...
Styles: Stand by, tractor beam.
First Officer: Tractor beam, aye.
Styles: If he tries to get away with Warp Drive... heh, he's really in for a shock.

Chekov: Excelsior closing to 4,000 meters, sir.
Kirk: Scotty, we'll need everything you have.
Scotty: Aye, sir. Warp Drive standing by.
Styles: Kirk, if you do this, you'll never sit in the Captain's chair again.
Kirk: Warp Speed.
Sulu: Aye, sir. Warp Speed!
They warp away.

Styles: Prepare for Warp Speed, stand by Transwarp Drive!
First Officer: Transwarp at your command, sir.
Styles: Execute.
There is a loud buildup of noise that grows ever louder by the second, but then... there comes a very sudden wind-down, with some bangs and bumps thrown in. Styles looks around, rightly confused. The Excelsior's computer's voice slows down as well, some lights begin to turn off, and then the whole thing sputters to a complete stop.

Kirk: Keep nodding as though I'm still giving orders.
Mr. Saavik, punch up the data charts of Reliant's command codes.
Saavik: Reliant's command?
Kirk: Hurry.
Khan: 45 seconds.
Spock: The prefix code?
Kirk: It's all we've got.
Saavik: Chart's up, sir.
Khan: Admiral?
Kirk: We're finding it!
Khan: Admiral.
Kirk: Please. Please, you've gotta give us time. The bridge is smashed, the computers inoperative...
Khan: Time is a luxury you don't have, Admiral.

Kirk removes his spectacles from their case, looks a little embarrassed while doing so.
Kirk: [under his breath] Damn.
Khan: Admiral?
Kirk: It's coming through now, Khan.
Spock stands by Kirk and discreetly turns his back to the screen.
Spock: Reliant's prefix number is 16309.
Saavik: I don't understand.
Kirk: You've got to learn why things work on a Starship.
Spock: Each ship has its own combination code...
Kirk: ...to prevent an enemy from doing what we're attempting: using our console to order Reliant to lower its shields.
Spock: Assuming he hasn't changed the combination; he's quite intelligent.
Khan 15 seconds, Admiral!

Kirk: Khan? How do we know you'll keep your word?
Khan: Oh, I've given you no word to keep, Admiral. In my judgment, you simply have no alternative.
Kirk: ...I see your point. Stand by to receive our transmission.
He turns around and mutters,
Kirk: Mr. Sulu, lock phasers on target and await my command.
Sulu: [quietly] Phasers locked.
Khan: Time's up, Admiral!
Kirk: Here it comes... now, Mr. Spock.

Joachim: Sir! Our shields are dropping!
Khan: Raise them!
Joachin: I can't!
Khan: Where's the override?! The override!
Kirk: Fire!

Khan: FIRE! FIRE!
Joachim: We can't fire, sir!
Khan: WHY CAN'T YOU?!
Joachim: They've damaged the photon controls and the warp drive! We must withdraw!
Khan: NO! NO!
Joachim: No, we must! Enterprise will wait; she's not going anywhere!
And on the Enterprise...
Sulu: Sir, you did it.
Kirk: I did nothing! Except get caught with my britches down. I must be senile.

Troi: Captain... I think I may have a way to find them.

Shinzon: Prepare for a lateral run. Full starboard disruptors.
Behind him, Shinzon's Viceroy suddenly gasps sharply. After a small pause, he does it again.
Shinzon: What is it?
The Viceroy's agitation seems to be growing quickly. He looks afraid.
Shinzon: What is it?!
Viceroy: ...She's here.

Troi: He's resisting me...!

After some very tense moments, the indicator on the screen finally comes to a stop. There's nothing inside of it, but...
Viceroy: NO!
Troi: [darkly] Remember... me?
[beat]
...now!

Lily: So what do we do now?
Crusher: Carry out his orders. Dyson, Kaplan, start working on a way to modify the weapons system-
Lily: Wait, this is stupid! If we can get off this ship and then blow it up, let's do it!
Crusher: Once the Captain's made up his mind, the discussion is over!
Lily scoffs and charges into Picard's ready room.
Crusher: Lily!

Lily: You son of a bitch.
Picard: This really isn't the time.
Lily: Okay, I don't know jack about the 24th century, but everybody out there thinks that staying here and fighting the Borg is suicide! They're just afraid to come in here and say it!
Picard: The crew is accustomed to following my orders.
Lily: They're probably accustomed to your orders making sense!
Picard: None of them understand the Borg as I do! No one does. No one can.
Lily: What is that supposed to mean?

Picard: Six years ago, they assimilated me into their Collective. I had their cybernetic devices implanted throughout my body. I was linked to the Hive mind, every trace of individuality erased. I was one of them. So you can imagine, my dear, I have a somewhat unique perspective on the Borg, and I know how to fight them. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.
Lily: I am such an idiot. It's so simple. The Borg hurt you, and now you're going to hurt them back.
Picard: In my century, we don't succumb to revenge. We have a more evolved sensibility.
Lily: BULLSHIT! I saw the look on your face when you shot those Borg on the Holodeck. You were almost enjoying it!
Picard: How dare you.
Lily: Oh, come on, Captain, you're not the first man to get a thrill from murdering someone! I see it all the time!
Picard: GET OUT!
Lily: OR WHAT? You'll kill me?! Like you killed Ensign Lynch?!
Picard: There was no way to save him!
Lily: You didn't even try! WHERE WAS YOUR EVOLVED SENSIBILITY THEN?!
Picard: I don't have time for this!
Lily: Oh, hey, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt your little quest! Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale!
Picard: What?
Lily: You do have books in the 24th century?

Picard: This is not about revenge.
Lily: LIAR!
Picard: This is about saving the future of humanity!
Lily: JEAN-LUC, BLOW UP THE DAMN SHIP!
Picard: NO! NO!
He takes his phaser rifle and rams it into the glass. It shatters loudly.
Picard: I will not sacrifice the Enterprise. We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn HERE! This far, NO FARTHER! And I will make them pay for what they've done!

Khan: I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me... as you left her, marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet... buried alive. Buried alive...
Kirk: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Kirk: [quietly] Klingon bastards, you've killed my son.
[beat]
[louder, tearfully] Klingon bastards, you've killed my son!
[beat]
Klingon bastards.

Kruge: ...There are two more prisoners, Admiral. Do you want them killed, too?
[beat]
Surrender your vessel.
Kirk: ...All right. All right, damn you. All right. ...Give me a minute to inform my crew.
Kruge: I give two minutes. For you and your gallant crew.

Kirk: Mr. Sulu, what is the crew compliment of a Bird of Prey?
Sulu: About a dozen officers and men.
Kirk: We'll summon them on the planet.
[beat]
I swear to you we're not finished yet.
[beat]
Bones, you and Sulu to the transporter room. The rest of you with me. We have a job to do.
[beat]
Commander Klingon vessel! Prepare to board this ship on my next signal!
Kruge: No tricks, Kirk! You have one minute!
Kirk: ...No tricks. I'm looking forward to meeting you.

Kirk: Computer, this is Admiral James T. Kirk requesting security access.
The computer beeps its approval.
Computer, Destruct Sequence One. Code 1, 1A.
[beat]
Scotty: Computer, Commander Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineering Officer. Destruct Sequence Two. Code 1, 1A, 2B.
[beat]
Chekov: Computer, this is Commander Pavel Chekov, acting Science Officer. Destruct Sequence Three. Code 1B, 2B, 3.

Kirk: Code 0, 0, 0... Destruct... 0.
Computer: Destruct sequence is activated.

Kruge: Kirk! Your time runs out!
Kirk: All set?
Sulu: Aye, sir.
Kirk: Commander Klingon vessel, we are energizing transporter beam... now.

Torg: My Lord, the ship appears to be deserted.
Kruge: How can that be? They're hiding!
Torg: Yes, sir. But the bridge seems to be run by computer. It is the only thing speaking.
Kruge: Speaking? Let me hear.
Torg holds his communicator close to a console.
Computer: Nine, eight, seven, six, five...
Kruge: GET OUT! GET OUT OF THERE! GET OUT!
Computer: One.

Kirk: My God, Bones.
What have I done?
Bones: What you had to do. What you always do: turn death into a fighting chance to live.

McCoy: NO! You'll flood the whole compartment!
Kirk: He'll die!
Scotty: He's dead already.
McCoy: It's too late.

Kirk: [inaudible] Spock.
[anguished] Spock!
Spock picks himself up very slowly, straightens his uniform, and walks over to the glass. He weakly bumps into it.
Spock: Ship... out of danger?
Kirk: Yes.
Spock: ...Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh...
Kirk: ...the needs of the few?
Spock nods.
Spock: Or the one.
He begins to slide down. Kirk follows him.
Spock: I never took... the Kobayashi Maru test. Until now. What do you think... of my solution?
Kirk: Spock.

Spock: I have been... and always shall be... your friend.
Live long... and prosper.

Kirk: No...

Chang: I can see you, Kirk!
Kirk: Chang.
Chang: Can you see me? Oh, now, be honest, Captain. Warrior to warrior. You do prefer it this way, don't you? As it was meant to be. No peace in our time. 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends.'

Kirk: Reverse engines! All astern, one half impulse power! Back off, back off!
Chang: (in Klingon) What's she doing...?
Kirk: What's she waiting for?
Spock: Probably attempting to ascertain why we are reversing. Wondering whether we detect her.
Meanwhile on the Bird of Prey, Chang motions for another torpedo.
Chekov: Incoming!

(Captain!) Sulu: In range?
Excelsior Helmsman: Not yet, sir.
Sulu: Come on, come on!
Helmsman: She'll fly apart!
Sulu: Fly her apart, then!

Kirk: Go to auxiliary power!
Spock: Auxiliary circuits destroyed, Captain!
Chang: 'Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us... shall we not revenge?'

Spock: Gas.
There is a pause. Kirk looks perturbed, to say the least.
Spock: Gas, Captain. Under impulse power, she expends fuel like any other vessel. We call it plasma. But whatever the Klingon designation, it is merely ionized gas.
Uhura: Well, what about all of that equipment we're carrying to catalogue gaseous anomalies?
Another pause.
Uhura: Well, the thing's gotta have a tailpipe!
Spock turns to McCoy.
Spock: Doctor, would you care to assist me in performing surgery on a torpedo?
McCoy: Fascinating.

Sulu: Shields up! All right, now we've given them something else to shoot at.
Chang: Ahhh... the game's afoot, huh?
He motions for another torpedo.

Kirk: Bones! Where's my torpedo?!
McCoy: Bet you wish you'd stood in bed.

Spock: The hull has been compromised.
McCoy: Wonder how bad?

Chang: 'I am constant as the northern star!'
McCoy: I'd give real money if he'd shut up.

McCoy: We've got a heartbeat!
Kirk: Where's that damn torpedo?!
McCoy: She's ready, Jim! Lock and load!
Kirk: Fire!

Chang: 'To be, or not... to be.'

Sulu: Target that explosion and fire!
Kirk: FIRE!

McCoy: The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. We'll get a freighter.
Sulu: With all respect, Doctor, I'm counting on Excelsior.
Scotty: Excelsior? Why in God's name would you want that bucket of bolts?
Kirk: A ship is a ship.
Scotty: [sigh] Whatever you say, sir. Thy will be done.

Kirk: My friends... we've come home.

Sulu: Helm ready, Captain!
Kirk: All right, Mr. Sulu...

Let's see what she's got.