Gosh. Search and Rescue is making my shipper’s heart flutter with delight. The anguish Sheppard exudes throughout the episode is just incredible. The way he begs Jennifer to drug him up so he can be on his feet for a few hours even if he’s bleeding internally because he wants to go and save Teyla…
Then it’s Sam’s turn to try and stop him but he’s having none of it. “Just court-martial me when I’m back byyyye.”
And then Rodney also wants to have a go, pushed by Ronon because they’re both worried. Nothing for it. One look and Rodney clams up.
Yeah okay. I’m officially “back on my bullshit” as the saying goes.. I talk about these two like it’s 2008 all over again.
Phantoms is so important actually because it reveals precisely what defined Sheppard as a character. This episode exhibits vividly that John feels immensely guilty for having failed to save a teammate in Afghanistan. Losing Ford takes a whole other dimension when we take that into account. His worst nightmare happening once again, even if Aiden did not actually die. It’s safe to say that he considers himself a marked man whose impending death will be fate’s retribution, as I mentioned in a previous post. His tendency to sacrifice himself without a second thought suddenly makes sense. You know what else makes sense? The fact that Teyla, of all people, is the one who bears witness to both his revisited traumatic rescue attempt and the admission of his perceived failure.
That he chose to sit next to her at the end speaks of his desire both to offer safety and comfort (she’s injured and in a vulnerable position) and to perhaps speak of what transpired and finally broach the subject, the elephant in the room. He opens up to her in a way that is unprecedented, albeit brief and stunted. And though she probably sees him in a new light, not for a second does he lose any shine in her eyes.
As a result, I think this moment changed everything. She saw all of him, just then. She became a spectator to what he considers his very worst. His shameful past. The roots of his guilt and self-disgust. And all she sees is the truth of it: his love and loyalty. His fear of losing the people that are under his care. I think this moment altered their bond in a way that cemented the fact that they were meant to be each other’s safe place, even if it took a few more years to get there.
Ronon: What do you think Sheppard will do for a distraction? Rodney: He’ll probably make a noise or throw a rock. That’s what I would do. *Building explodes and several alarms go off* Teyla: …or he could do that.
i know sheppard only survived the climb up the tower in quarantine bc he has plot armor but i also choose to believe that the city recognizes that he has the ancient gene and is responding to his deeply held desire to not fall to his death
Stuck on the idea of vampires as a kind of reverse fae, or like someone’s twisted, perverse attempt at moulding humans into fae.
They’re repelled by liminal spaces.
A vampire could never enter fairyland, not just because they’d never be welcomed, but because most of the usual entry-ways are naturally barred to them.
They can’t cross running water. They can’t be seen in mirrors. They will wait forever at a crossroads, unable to pick a direction to go in. They can’t even step over a thresh-hold unless there is absolutely no ambiguity about whether they are welcome inside.
They crave human blood, iron and salt, but are repelled by herbs and plants. They are supernaturally prevented from harming you unless the rules of hospitality have been invoked.
A fairy may replace your newborn child with something unnatural and ever-hungry. A vampire will do the same, but with your grandmother’s corpse.
The fae are typically associated, even in stories where they’re the bad guys, with flourishing and purity. Vampires, even in stories where they’re the good guys, are typically associated with decay and corruption.
The fae turn ancient human burial mounds into fancy halls for their courts. Vampires take ancient human castles and let them grow mildewed and cobwebbed, exchanging the beds for coffins, turning them into burial places.
Fae don’t tend to live among humans, but can generally pass for them with relative ease if they so choose. Vampires nearly always live among humans, but tend to find not revealing themselves a huge struggle.
I can’t think of many stories I’ve read where fae and vampires even exist in the same universe, let alone ones where they actively interact. I feel like their enmity is almost more inevitable than that between vampires and werewolves, however.
The rivalry between vampires and werewolves is, essentially, the rivalry between two apex predator species who share a territory. (Even in stories where the werewolves aren’t actually hunting humans.)
The vampires hate the werewolves because the werewolves interfere with their access to prey. The werewolves hate the vampires either because they consider themselves aligned with humans (the prey species), or because they are also predators and the vampires are competing with them.
By comparison, I think there’s some story potential in the fae finding something genuinely creepy and uncanny valley about vampires.
They’re immortal, like them, but also dead. They can be beautiful, like them, but that beauty is something they actively require humans to sustain. They like to inhabit beautiful and ancient ex-human dwellings, like them, but they actively work to make those places dark, damp and empty.
Fairies who are unflappable in the face of all sorts of Otherworldly monsters, can look an eldritch horror in the eye(s) without blinking, and have never been phased yet by any human, but will recoil from even the weakest vampire.
Vampires who hate fairies just as much, but in a more envious way. The way that the creature for whom immortality is a curse is bound to hate the creatures for whom immortality is an eternity of sunlight and laughter.
Maybe their touches burn each other. Maybe vampires can’t stand physical contact with anything so alive and vital. Maybe immortal fairies become ill from too much exposure to the undead.
Maybe they fight over the human population when their territories overlap. The fairy need for servants and people to make deals with, competing with the vampire need for thralls and blood to drink.
Just… fairies and vampires. We need more stories about them interacting.
“Every day you will receive one thousand dollars in your bank account. But every time you lift a glass to your lips to take a drink, you will hit your front teeth on the first try. Every. Time. Do you accept this deal?”
Yes. Quite easily so.
You see, making deals with the Fae is down to very specific word choices. They shot themselves in the foot with their own words here while making this deal, even though they thought their word choice was so very, very clever.
The Fae specifically uses the word “glass”. This, in turn, limits the person that agrees to the deal to the “hit your front teeth on the first try every time” to only be hitting their teeth on the first try every time if they drink out of a glass.
If the person decides to drink out of a container that isn’t made out of glass, like, say for example… A paper cup. Or a soda can. A plastic bottle. Styrofoam cup. Yeti Tumbler. Their own hand. A bowl. Who knows, a person can get hella creative when they realize there are ways to get around the rules without actually breaking them.
So.
A Fae being stands before me, and offers me this deal.
I smile, wide and unassuming, offer my hand to shake. “I accept this deal and all of it’s terms unconditionally.”
I was in a swing accident as a child and lost my front teeth, the ones in my head are implants. That glass is gonna WORK to hit some Mound of medical waste in Tacoma, Washington
Also like. It says lift a glass. What if you leave it on the table and use a straw? I feel like that’s a work-around if you’re like at a fancier restaurant that only uses glasses too. Which you might be a lot if you’re getting $1000 a day.
Also, straws exist. That glass never needs to touch your lips in the first place.
Either that fae is new at this, or they really want you to get $1000 per day. I wonder what they think you’ll do with it.
The Fae saw you struggling with your student loans, so they invented deals with semi truck sized loopholes to help.
Because the Fae are actually in a war, with the elder being known as Sally Mae, who grows weaker whenever a debt is paid or forgiven.
ALT
ALT
