I finished Stargate: SG-1. I watched 214 episodes in something like three or four months. And now it's over.

The Stargate universe tells us that everything we believe about our planet's history is wrong: it dismisses the notion of the 6,000-year-old Earth and evolution at the same time. The Stargate universe tells us that death is only the beginning, that some die and some ascend, to move on to another plane where they spend all day contemplating their own enlightenment. The Stargate universe tells us this is a good thing. They have little positive to say about religion and much good to say about science. They have a lot to say about the intersection of the two. Stargate's politics are hard to define -- pro-military and yet pro-peace, anti-nuke and anti-government openness.

The Stargate universe is about second chances, about trying to do right and not always making it, and about trying again. It's about trying to be heroes, and not always living up to that (except when you do). It's about the best and worst humans are capable of -- humans, and Jaffa, and Asgard, and even Gou'ald. The Stargate universe is about one more trip through the gate.

When I started watching SG-1, I knew how the story ended (I thought): I knew the secrets of the gate, I knew the technology we were going to gain. I was amazed at the first season -- to walk through the gate knowing so little about it, to use this technology without knowing where it came from or how it works. The sheer fucking hubris of stepping through the gate without really having a clue -- I can't get over it.

When I started watching, I didn't like Sam Carter; I'd never heard of General Hammond, Cameron Mitchell, or Vala Mal Doran; and I had only the vaguest awareness of who Daniel Jackson, Jack O'Neill, and Teal'c were. Now these people are my friends: I know them back and front, I know what they've been doing for the last ten years, I know what they are capable of when the world needs saving, I know what makes them break, and I know what puts them back together again.

Ten years, four different versions of SG-1, thousands of trips through the gate, three big bads, and too many last-second heroics to count. Ten years. Life is too short.

[01-24] Stargate SG-1, early seasons
[25-31] Sports Night

As usual: Comment, credit, no hotlinking, textless icons are not bases.

Stargate: SG-1


( I want to live! I want to experience the universe! I want to eat pie! )

+ + +

Sports Night


( so stick around. )

For cashewdani, ( Angela Martin. )

For sophia_helix, ( Luna Lovegood post-DH. )

So I'm slowly chugging along on my paper (and by "slowly," I mean that continents drift together and back apart faster than I am writing this damn thing; I WANTED to be done today so I could wander off to my friend's hometown with her, but that's not gonna happen) and I could use the occasional distraction, so you know that meme where people talk about their personal canons? I've always wanted to try that. So name a character or an episode or even just a canon, and I'll tell you what *I* know is really going on there.

This has had me laughing all day.

Paper writing cat is paper writing. :(

(I chose this icon because the keywords are so apt!)

So like, on SG-1 they're always saying there are infinite universes splitting off from every decision. But seriously, every decision? Is there an alternate universe where I chose to wear a different shirt today? Also, they always talk about these choices as if they were binary, but most choices are not; are there universes in which I wore every shirt I own today (or maybe only the seasonally appropriate ones)? Or is it only big decisions, like, there's a universe where I went to A&M for college? (GOD, I want to meet that Allie. I bet she's a lesbian.)

Or do MY choices only create new universes when they have large-scale impacts -- so, most choices I made would NOT create new universes, because I am not an important figure. That's not to say I couldn't do something with lots of impact, but generally I don't.

Seriously, I don't get it. I love the IDEA of the multiverse, I'm just all confused about the details. Also, I turned in all my grading (\o/), so now I am procrastinating from writing this effing paper.

Meme, seen around.

1. What do you think of _____________ ?

2. When did you last ____________?

3. __________ or ___________ and why?

4. What did you ______________?

5. What's your favorite ______________?

6. How would you ______________?

7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

-----

In other news, have a cold; I am a huge baby about being sick, because it doesn't happen very often and I am a huge baby anyway. :(

Robin Sparkles -- Sandcastles in the Sand

Robin Sparkles -- Let's Go to the Mall

Both mp3s of the complete songs. Enjoy!

Last week I thought, you know, I haven't read Anne of Green Gables in awhile; I should read that. This was a TERRIBLE IDEA for two reasons: 1) once I reread Green Gables, I want to reread the whole series and b) once I start reading, I don't want to do anything else. This is the second-to-last week of school. Now is not the time for laying around reading L.M. Montgomery. *sigh*

I'm up to Windy Poplars, which is... not one of my favorites. In order from best to worst, it goes: Green Gables, Rilla of Ingleside, Island, Avonlea, Rainbow Valley, Windy Poplars, House of Dreams, and Anne of Ingleside, with the first five being total joys to read and the last three the ones you have to slog through. After I'm done I'm going to read the Chronicles of Avonlea, which I never have! For some reason I always thought they were by someone else, part of the LMM merch rather than actually by her. Now that I know she actually wrote them I can't wait to read them. And irinaauthor says I need to read the Emily books, so I'll tackle those this summer.

I've read the Anne books all tons of times, but it's been years -- I don't think I reread them at all during college, although I did stay up all night the night before I left to move into my dorm to reread Anne of the Island, which I will always feel was the right choice. This time around I'm noticing what a great voice the narrator has, and how distinct it is, and how much love the narrator has for all the characters, even as she (because the narrator is a woman, no question) pokes fun at them. I'm also noticing that the books are reasonably progressive, that women are smart and capable and hardworking and recognized as such.

Gilbert still totally bores me, Davy's "I want to know" still owns me, and Anne and Diana being little girls forever is still my OTP.

Who wants to run away to turn-of-the-century Canada with me? We'll knit cotton warp quilts and always remember to put flour in our cakes and spend all day frolicking in the woods and then we'll make cushions filled with dying fir. Who wants to go?

There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves -- so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful.

Watching other people type stuff into search engines (or navigate the Internet at all) drives me batshit.

Meme seen around: Quote a bit of my fic at me? Find that one story of mine that you really like, and find a sentence or a paragraph that presses your prose-buttons in the right way, and comment here with it? Don't care how long or short.

So I'm trying to finish write a paper before I leave town AGAIN, at like, ten tonight (boom_queen, I'll be seeing you, y/n?) and I could use a distraction. :)

1. New Office tonight! I feel bad for how, in its absence, I totally replaced it in my heart with SGA and SG-1. Hopefully tonight will rekindle my love. <33333333

2. My favorite song today: "Snow Is Gone," Josh Ritter. I'm wearing shorts for the first time this year, so I thought it was a good time to share.

Today, everyone keeps asking me if I'm OK. It's that kind of day.

Taken from anoel.

Originated by dsudis.

So I was adding some new interests to my LJ profile (because I, uh... have some new interests. Yes.) and found myself feeling defensive every time I typed a female name, thinking, basically, FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME, because I felt as if someone somewhere was going to be criticizing my love for them.

So, anyway, then I made a list of women who make me want to say FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME. They are far from the only women who are awesome, or the only women people need to be told to step off of, but they are the top ten I feel that way about, right now, off the top of my head.

If you want to argue with me about the awesomeness of any of these women, I am afraid I will simply be referring you to the subject line. THAT IS ALL.

( my list. )

This is here to remind myself -- and for longtimegone to have a place to comment once she watches ( last night's Colbert Report. )

We now return you to your regularly scheduled un less crazy.

"Part of Eve's Discussion" -- Marie Howe

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand
and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still
and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when
a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop,
very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you
your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like
the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say,
it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only
all the time.

"The God Who Loves You" -- Carl Dennis

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week--
Three fine houses sold to deserving families--
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.