Ran across the "Describe yourself in 3 Television Characters" meme and it made me laugh.

I have...too many ideas, which is the same as no idea. I was initially going to say 'I don't watch that much television,' but we all know that's a lie, so:

on my best days? Alexis Castle, Dr. Beverley Crusher, Martha Jones

on my geekier days? Stiles Stilinski, Dr. Daniel Jackson, Abby Sciuto

on my angrier days? (today, especially, due to extended family things that I don't need to bring here but am having trouble avoiding) MacGyver, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Kate Beckett


[And, of course, it's not actually a fair question, because the best choices aren't from TV but books and movies: Princess Leia, Jo March, Hermione Granger.]

So tell me, what 3 characters suit you today?

I pretty much liveblogged this one, because "Broca Divide" is one of my early season ridiculous favorites. Probably because, much like in "The Doctor Dances," Everybody Lives. (2 nameless Marines who maybe mashed their heads open got saved by Janet, I maintain)

1) Team Snark: Daniel and Sam, Co-Captains. God, I love these two, Daniel sassing the Marines ("I was more worried about my front.") and Sam's commentary about "I was going to decorate my living room like this..."

2) Daniel in his black turtleneck, with the hair and the glasses--oy. I may have rewound that section right before the falling Marines a few times. I don't have any idea why he's helping Sam wave a tricorder at the Stargate, but I will watch him do it gladly.

3) "I want you." "Why? I mean, no!" Jaaaaack, I can't decide if that's funny or painful. I may have found an episode-fill snippet I want to write. Because if you've been busy watching Daniel in his turtleneck too, it's a little funny, and if you're dealing with internalized ick over Sarah and Charlie, it's really really not.

4) By the way, the camera angles in that scene are amazing and dizzying.

5) JANET! The first three episodes languished without you, and so did I. Look how much you care already.

6) Eeek, when Jack loses it, it freaks me out every time. Daniel looks pretty shaken too, poor guy was only trying to be nice about Sam. Though after the weirdness that was last week's episode in Emancipation, the 'gee poor you' reaction Jack's line about 'she tried to seduce me' which is pretty clearly a euphemism, plus the whole 'anthropologist studies primitive man' bit with Milosha in the beginning makes 2 eps in a row where Daniel's a little tone deaf. Definitely not the uber-perfect liberated sensitive soul which one sometimes sees in fic--Daniel can definitely be a bit of an ass.

7)Hey, four episodes in, and we've got our first plague lockdown. Everybody pull out your bingo cards. :)

8) Daniel and Teal'c on a solo mission through the gate--Daniel's trepidation is hilarious and justified and Teal'c is also bringing the sass this episode.

9) Ooh, I forgot that Daniel actually gets lost/left behind by Teal'c here, and also that Teal'c already calls him 'friend.' I find their dynamic so interesting, especially so early on.

10) Tupelo's lampshade headdress is really distracting. As are the high-top and skirt wearing guys with tree trunk thighs. What on earth were the costumers copying to come up with these costumes?

11) Oh, Daniel's getting beat up again. That's three times in one episode already. And Sam's been stabbed and Jack looks like a prize fighter. Poor team.

12) Allergies as a plot point! Oh my god, show, you are the best when you are *absolutely ridiculous*

13) Jack's got a very Kirk-esque role this episode, with the whole 'keeping humanity while wild, protecting people through self-sacrifice' thing. Very old school.

14) "I am not Lucy." Is this the first time we get repeated 'for cryin' out loud's in an episode? I think so, and I am grinning like an idiot.

15) "Are we going to try to tranq all the touched?" "Just the ones that get between us and Daniel." ....and then they shoot everyone. Because no one even better *try* getting between Daniel and his team.

16) Those gymbaby guards really hate Teal'c now. I love that look he gives them and then sits himself right down next to Daniel to wait.

17) Teal'c gives Daniel his glasses. AAAaaaaawwww.

18) "I thought we were going to give it a better name." "He's back." Double awww.

19) Jack and the tank top comment. Are you pulling pigtails, or what, here? Good thing Sam's got him figured out enough already to scoff at him a little.

also variously titled, "My Mother is an Enabler."

Which is to say, she emailed me today to say Orlando Bloom is playing in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway this fall, and did I therefore have a trip to NYC in my future?

At which point I flailed around like an idiot and wished I wasn't at work and surrounded by people who do not do fandom.

But the answer to my mother's question is

Yes, yes I do.

...I really find it galling to deal with those who clearly are NOT actually "my" friends, but that love having me there for their convenience.

I've always gone into friendships really happy to share things, do things, talk about things, etc. and I'm a very supportive friend....and yet over the past decade or so, I've also discovered I really actually SUCK at choosing people who CARE for ME. I think they do when we first become friends, but eventually it's pretty clear I'm a convenience and even a source of something that they want for themselves. I must be totally gormless.

Hence, the 'best friend' who put up all my creative writing on websites under HER name. Because I was a better writer than she was.

Hence also, the series of friends who are always late, always stand me (and others) up, who think nothing of calling in the middle of the night if they NEED SOMETHING, but otherwise I'm just a name on a list to them.

This past weekend was like a series of the Golden (Rotten) Oldies as far as sucky friends go. For ME, they're all now PAST tense, often having actually been TOLD DIRECTLY that they're selfish, self-obessessed, inconsiderate, and not really a friend TO me, but just USE me. I really do not have much or anything to do with them.

G(R)O# 1 was never really a FRIEND per se, but a wife-of-a-coworker at a place I left back in 1991. Yes, that's over TWENTY years ago. And she was incredibly tedious back then, too. Unable to take a breath, much less listen to anyone else, she was this rabidly-ramped-up chatterbox that WOULD NOT SHUT UP no matter what one did. She often dropped by the office to see her husband and she just sort of GLOMMED onto me. (I was the only woman at Serigraphics and she evidently thought that gave us a kinship.) I never returned the calls, responded to the invitations, nor included her in ANY activity, but I would see her at every coworker's birthday (because she REALLYWANTEDTOPARTY!!! Uh...at work?). In fact, she was one of the reasons I stopped going to art openings, because her husband was an artist and he wanted to go...and I wanted to go...and G(R)O# 1 would naturally tag along BECAUSEOMGICANSEEGREYSON!!!! . Perhaps you can already see the problem! *laughs* And there was no escaping her once she rushed over to you and super-glued herself to your side.

I thought I was rid of her when I left Serigraphics, but no, she kept calling for at least the next decade. I would let the machine take her calls. (There was no point in talking to her to tell her you weren't interested; you'd never be able to get that many words out before she'd have chattered at you for well over TWO HOURS.) When I took a job at the Hoosier State Press Association, imagine my horror when I walked into her at the Concierge desk at Nordstrom's. Despite the fact I was just walking THROUGH the store on my way to the food court at Circle Centre Mall, and despite my telling her I didn't have time to stop, she waylaid me for almost 45 minutes. I had to stop getting my lunch from the food court or else make a big, big detour through the far end of the Mall and avoiding her floor as much as I could, although she still tagged me a few times. I felt like a deer during deer hunting season.

G(R)O# 1 finally either LOST my phone number (that she'd gotten from her husband back in the Nineties) or else figured I must have moved or changed it...and I haven't. But she hasn't called the house. However, whenever she runs into ANY of our past coworkers, she drills them with demands for my phone number, because she "has" to talk to me. This includes Chicken Nugget Boy who lives three streets over, who has kept his friendship with her husband all these years.

Chicken Nugget Boy kept telling her "Greyson is very private and would not appreciate ANYONE giving out her phone number", but evidently G(R)O# 1 has been nagging him consistently for the past TWO YEARS. I feel sorry for him, but despite his usual inability to NOT TALK ABOUT GREYSON TO ANYONE (something I keep demanding, because since he finds MY life more interesting than his own, he actually tells people "What's going on with Greyson" instead of his own 'news'. Usually to people who don't even KNOW me, but they've come to expect the "Greyson Stories". In fact, I was chagrined to also find out this weekend that Chicken Nugget Boy's BROTHER-IN-LAW not only finds the story about my having an SFCon run-in with The Spanish Inquisition SOOOOOOoooo funny, that HE tells further strangers about me! He shared this story with a class of high schoolers this week! What is it about PRIVACY that these idiots do not understand?!?!)

Evidently, G(R)O# 1 wants me to give her my praise/feedback/whatever on the fact that her CLOSET was featured in a small-town newspaper. OMG, where do these people COME FROM?!?!?

G(R)O# 2 is the Kellie of Kellie&Andrea groupie wannabe infamy. Because she DID know Rhyo and at one point they WERE friends, I went ahead and relayed G(R)O# 1 information about Rhyo's condition. Back at the beginning of January, when they shipped Rhyo back to Indiana. I was told she couldn't talk then, but she dutifully promised to call me back the next evening.

She called me this past Friday, demanding to know why I hadn't called her. I told her I had presumed SHE DIDN'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT RHYO because she said she'd call back "the next day" and then disappeared up her own arse. I mean, it's the middle of MAY!!! (This is the woman who was always HOURS AND DAYS late to everything, because no one matters but HER.) She "suddenly" remembers this is the truth and never apologises, but insists upon trying to continue the conversation as if we were still friends. OMG.

G(R)O# 3 I have tried to keep on relatively 'nice' basis, because he's my next-door neighbour and I don't want trouble from him. However, he never returns phone calls, never shows up when he says he will, and mostly acts like he know everything about everything over anyone else. However, THIS weekend he got a big, new sword and he acted like the fact I was juggling phone calls with Rhyo's family/friends (and he KNOWS Rhyo from back in the SCA days we all shared in the Eighties) and the fact that her condition is so sad was really disappointing--because he wanted me to see his big new sword NAOW!!! He could care less about Rhyo or even the fact I explained I was too exhausted to see it right 'naow' (because that also means a 6+ hour non-stop soliloquy on what he thinks he knows while he plants himself in my living room and will not leave short of being tire-ironed out of the chair...) and I begged could we do this NEXT Saturday. Sounds of huffy baby-man pouting on the phone.

Really, what ARE these creatures? Why are they so self-obsessed?

I could be terminally ill and they'd go, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that--but now let's get your mind off that by TALKING ABOUT MEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Grey :(

Eurgh. Okay, so, disclaimer: I was maybe not in a great headspace to watch this episode this week, but my reactions didn't jive with my expectations, so apologies if this is really disjointed and/or bizarre.

It's been a while since I've watched this episode, probably the last time was when redial_the_gate watched it, and I would point anyone and everyone to the recap/meta/awesome that went on over there at the time. That said, I was expecting a fun episode of wacky hijinks with SG1 and some cool feminist stuff from BAMFSam, because, hey, after the last two episodes, no one dies, no one gets turned into a Goa'uld, we just get old-school style Star Trek-like taking on of social issues thinly disguised in an alien culture. (Does anybody remember that TNG episode where the planet of Amazonian women has very little use for most of the Enterprise crew, except for the one who's super taken with Riker because he's so much taller and beardier than the males on their planet? That episode bugged me long before I could articulate why. Anyway.)

So yeah, 'wacky fun' to mix universes a little more--not what I got out of it this time at all. Yes, there were some entertaining teamy moments that I have always loved, like the reference to some other mission where Sam got extra happy on some alien party juice, and the moment between Jack and Daniel where Daniel wants to know why Jack always comes up with the worst case scenario and Jack just says 'I practice.'

However, mostly I found this episode difficult to watch. Maybe it's because I've got a different kind of identification with Sam now that I'm in a different place myself in my personal and professional life. Maybe it's the repoliticization of women's bodies and consent issues in the last national election, the "war on women" and the sense that things are moving backwards in so many ways even as we make progress in others. Maybe I've just hit that point where I can no longer see fictional depictions of violence against women without having some serious thoughts about the depiction of women in the media in general. I don't know.

But I was really focused on Sam's real danger, her relative powerlessness despite her military preparation and intense intelligence, and the way her worth was minimized to her appearance for so much of the episode, even to some extent by the reactions of her teammates when she's first forced into local clothing. I used to find their trio of dumbfounded faces entertaining, and maybe I will again, but the whole patronizing 'it's you' thing bugged the bejeezus out of me this time. Because the whole point is, of course, that it isn't--and it isn't for any of the women forced into those clothes and that set of behaviors--and for all that Daniel tries to literally give Sam back her power and authority later ("She is a shaman, a woman of power for our people...she's a chieftain, we need her"), it's pretty clear that a) Daniel's been living for the last year in a traditional patriarchal culture himself ("May you have many sons." Really, Daniel? You deserved that elbow from Sam) and b) Jack's not totally immune to the 'good old boy' culture either. They didn't give Teal'c much to do this episode, so I don't have a read on him in this situation very well. And I don't quite know what to do with the battle scene at the end, will have to think on that later.

Wow, that was a run-on. So anyway, tl;dr : Had issues with what was going on within the team and in their interactions with the culture regarding the treatment of women, to their faces and behind their backs and in the assumptions made about them. In that way, I guess I feel like it's a better episode than I used to give it credit for, in that it has the potential to be more thought-provoking, but is not so much the light hearted progressive Trekkian social issues romp I remembered and was kind of more in the mood for at the time. Here's to better luck in later episodes!

[[On the other hand, I did end up watching an original Trek episode tonight as well ("The Balance of Terror," I think it was called, ep 15 anyway) which was SO CS Forester in Space I couldn't stop chuckling about all the Hornblower parallels. Gene Rodenberry, your fanboy was showing in that ep. Two honorable, clever captains firing at each other in the fog and playing elaborate games of chicken, with a bonding moment and discussion of duty and friendship at the end? I feel like I read that book before...]]

PoG and JDJunkie made me do it. :)

Also, my knees are all swollen and bruised and this is a good distraction.


1) Stargate: Movie

There is sand in his hair, down his pants, in his socks, up his shirt, under every finger and toenail, between his teeth and probably in his ears, and he has the desert equivalent of rugburn over most of his back. Probably treating the big alien-yak thing with the casual familiarity of a camel was a bad idea (even treating camels familiarly invites danger, frankly), but Daniel can't stop grinning inside anyway, though the grit in his mouth makes actual smiling difficult. It was an uncomfortable drag over the dunes, to be sure, but the destination was so worth it. A living alien culture! A human alien culture! With obvious Egyptian influences!

Plus there's a remarkably pretty girl heading his way with a bowl of what he desperately hopes is water.

Daniel's day is looking up.


2) Children of the Gods

Kawalsky watches O'Neill watch Jackson and Captain Carter in the chart room, words flying fast and ideas even faster, and he has a hard time reining in the laughter. The colonel warmed to Jackson that first time 'round, they all did, so it's possible that bemused fondness on Jack's face is all for the Doc, especially given that pissing contest the colonel and the captain got into in the briefing room. On the other hand, Kawalsky knew the colonel better than probably anyone at the Cheyenne Mountain base, and some part of Jack was enjoying the way Captain Carter took him on. He could tell.

Now, the colonel was looking like a man who was staring into the faces of his doom and finding it hard to be completely upset about it. Kawalsky would lay down good money that he was looking at the beginnings of something out of this world. (Pun intended, 'cause he's totally okay with being that guy, in the privacy of his own head.) He grins, and O'Neill shoots him a dirty look. He shrugs and keeps on grinning.


3) Enemy Within

Teal'c finds the speech patterns and behavior of these people unsettling. He is brought before the General Hammond, who is clearly a First Prime like himself, but there is a struggle for power and influence going on with this lower ranking Colonel Kennedy that Teal'c does not understand. Perhaps this President that O'Neill has spoken of is more accepting of divisive ideas in his ranks than are the Goa'uld. O'Neill has made it seem so.

But O'Neill could, perhaps, have misrepresented, as these two before him are doing now? Teal'c offers to swear his honor to the survival and protection of this world and is dismissed in favor of what they call an 'informal conversation,' though their faces are in shadow and they sit in opposition to him across the length of what is clearly a banquet table. The questions they are asking are as 'informal' as their posturing, as well.

Teal'c is relieved when O'Neill arrives, his particular form of blustering honesty refreshing. He would have been disappointed to have judged the man wrongly, but it seems that for once, his faith is not misplaced.

Okay, so I got partway through this episode and thought, "I really should not have watched this tonight." There's a reason I don't watch hospital dramas, and that is the same reason why I have serious trouble with Kawalsky's operation scene. My imagination is a bit too vivid and my empathy too strong to deal with things involving pain and blood and medical issues.

That said, I stuck it out to the end, and was rewarded by that awesome OT4 shot at the end, with all of them lined up before the Gate, and it was freakin' glorious. So that made the cringing earlier worth it.

Other thoughts:
1) Daniel and the not-sleeping scene with Sam--there's more of that early sympathy between them that I was looking for.

2) The way Jack goes to bat for Teal'c--and the way he is scrupulously honest with him--makes him so very easy a character to love, even when he's being obnoxious to those in authority. It's so cool to see him and Hammond getting along with such understanding so early, given the memoir joke misfire in the first episode.

3) Nobody named Kennedy should be that much of a jerk. ...And yes, I am from Massachusetts. My point, frivolous as it is, stands. (I miss Teddy, okay?)

4) "If you don't make it...can I have your stereo?" Jaaaaaack. There you are. This, plus your pesky insistence on not leaving people behind and informing everyone how people, even not born on this planet, have rights, etc. is why your people follow you into hell. And also asteroids called Hell. And eventually into politics and the upper echelons of the military, which, ditto.

5) Bless Sam for giving Daniel hope for Sha're (and Skaara). Though that is one more thing for Daniel to lose sleep over, because we know, even if you do not yet, that Daniel overthinks stuff, and the implications are not all rosy.

6) "This iris will hold, right?" Not absolutely the first time we get the Daniel/Jack synchronous statement or echo, but I think the first in the tv series, and such a great example of one of those team patterns they follow for ages afterwards: Daniel or Sam questions, Daniel or Sam gives reasoned, nuanced answer, Jack requests forcefully a clarification or definitive statement, Daniel or Sam resist certainty with all the force of their polite and scientific hearts. Jack rolls his eyes.

7) Teal'c actually crosses his fingers when the doctor tells him to. Not sure I ever noticed that before.

8) TEAM!

(And now sleep, because I'm tired enough I keep trying to use my laptop like my tablet (nope, still not a touch screen) and soon the rest of me will hate me as much as my knees do, ice notwithstanding. G'night all!)

Oh man, this show. How I have missed it! (And man, a lot happens in this first episode, sheesh!)

Today was rotten on a couple of levels, including a serious shortage of tea and an overabundance of clumsiness and doozies of bruises, but Stargate makes it better. (Mostly, my knees still hate me and I'm not feeling too kindly towards them either. PT is gonna *suck* for the next few days.)

However, on with the show! In no particular order:

1) I admire that female sargeant for being the most observant and first up the ramp. She deserved a better fate.

2) Jack on that rooftop is one of those images that stuck with me from the first time I saw this episode and I still love it. Samuels can go jump, though.

3) I forgot Hammond was such a hardass for the first 30 seconds you meet him, and how rude he is to Daniel at first, yet by the end of the episode you root for him the way you can tell he's already rooting for his new teams.

4) Exhausted, grief-stricken, slightly tipsy Daniel is still amazing in his startling awareness of his own potential for arrogance and his willingness to share the things that he finds full of wonder, even in the middle of loss.

5) Jack is so good at reading Daniel and Teal'c so early in their respective relationships, it makes me wonder all over again what's going on with him and Sam in that briefing room introduction. It still feels weird to me, because neither of them really show to great advantage in that interaction. Especially after Jack has defended Daniel to Hammond and Samuels, to turn around and do the 'I just don't like scientists' thing has always seemed bizarre, and makes me wonder how much of a part he was playing for the other people in the room? Sam's overreactions and defensiveness are a lot easier to understand in that situation.

6) Wow, Teal'c's face is a lot like Spock's--once you get used to it, you see so much happening there, even from the beginning.

7) "How much will I remember if you choose me?" Jesus, Daniel, I still can't figure out if that was semi-suicide attempt or a really dangerous way of getting information. But it puts my heart in my throat every time.

8) Jack's a jerk for throwing Daniel to Sam's not so tender mercies regarding Sha're as a gift from the Abydonian elders. I forget, does he get a chance to give that context later, or is that only in the special edition whatsit I don't own? I want so much more early Sam and Daniel interaction, I'm really looking forward to the next handful of episodes. All the Wonder Twins, all the time.

9) Sam at the event horizon is so much like Daniel from the movie, but without the time given to allow her to wonder. (Again, thanks, Jack) I feel like that's the sort of thing I want to watch for, this time around, because I have this impression that especially early on she's not given the same kind of indulgence for her passions that Daniel is, because she's military and he's civilian. I feel like it evens out, and even ends up going the other way, later, but I'm not sure it's the sort of thing I picked up on the first several times I saw these early episodes. I don't write Sam often, but I kind of want to, now, and I don't know why that is, but I'm going to blame the kind of meta I've been reading in other fandoms.

10) Daniel and the tongue and the notebook and the floppy hair and the jumping out of the bushes to accost traveling priests. D'awwwwwww.

11) That scene between Kawalsky and Jack at the beginning does a really good job bridging between movie-Jack and the slowly-healing RDA-Jack. It's a little strange to see the Jack whose later levity we all enjoy still so tamped down here at the beginning.

12) The kleenex box will never not be awesome.

13) I'm going to regret what happens to Kawalsky all over again, very soon. What a bummer.

14) Daniel and his 'one year' promise--a) sweetheart, you read too much folklore. If it had been a year and a day or three years, you could not have shown off your literary habits more. b) the tears and the hugging always get to me c) my heart breaks for you knowing what's coming.

And I think that's it for now. I'm serious about wanting to write more Sam. I kind of want to write more *everybody.* I can't commit to drabbling for every episode I rewatch, but it'd be fun to try.

Now, on to "Enemy Within."