#Jaffa Gate

[postcard-from-the-past]

Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, Palestine

British vintage postcard

[witekspicsoldpostcards]

JERUZALEM / ISRAEL - Jaffa gate.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

What did Jerusalem’s main road look like about 1,500 years ago?

An archaeological excavation conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2010 near the Old City’s Jaffa Gate brought to life a 1,500 year-old map.

The Madaba Map is an ancient mosaic map that paves the floor of Saint George’s Church in the city of Madaba, Jordan.

The map, created in 6th-7th centuries CE, depicts the Land of Israel during the Byzantine period.

It clearly shows the entrance into Jerusalem from the west via a central single gate that led to the main street of the city.

In the past, the reliability of the map, which, among other buildings, provides the earliest visual description of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, has been questioned.

The excavation, located near David Street known to tourists as the terraced shopping street exposed for the first time, archaeological evidence of Jerusalem’s central street from about 1,500 years ago.

The salvage excavation, carried out in the wake of infrastructure works undertaken in the area and funded by the Jerusalem Development Authority, gave the archaeologists and the public a rare glimpse into archaeological remains underlying the asphalt and the paving stones.

Familiar with the Madaba Map, Dr. Ofer Sion, Director of the Excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, suspected that the ancient main street underlay the modern road.

"After removing a several archaeological layers, about 4.5m below modern street level, we were excited to discover the large stone slabs, each about one meter long, that were part of the ancient street.

It’s great to see that today’s bustling David Street preserves the route of the Byzantine-period busy street from 1,500 years ago.”

The Madaba Map, whose extant part measures 16x5m, depicts the land of Israel as known to the mosaic artist.

Map encompasses the entire country, with emphasis on Jerusalem and its Christian sites.

It shows that many churches were first constructed in Jerusalem during this period, when city underwent a religious transformation from a pagan to a Christian city.

The churches can be identified by their red tiled roofs illustrated on the map.

© Israel Antiquities Authority

[jontycrane]

Jerusalem Old City

One of the holiest and most contentious places on earth, the Old City of Jerusalem is a hugely historic area, significant to Christians, Jews and Muslims. Visiting it can be overwhelming, in terms of the maze of streets and number of people, including many tour groups. There are four main gates into the Old City, and a number of smaller gates. The Damascus Gate was the original entrance to the…

[almondemotion]

My towel, your towel, our towel. A story of The Land. Israel & Palestine.

A hopefully not too insensitive incursion into the history. Today in Israel, a General Strike is threatened. Some people are not happy. Hard to disentangle what is what. Certain i've not helped.

I am thinking of the Germans. Not, of World War Two, nor of modern times welcoming of Syrian and Ukranian refugees, love of the environment and general industriousness, more the caricatured German on holiday. You know the trope. Up, before breakfast, towels on the lounger. Possession nine tenths of the law. Later they strip-off, in the all-together and swim in the lake. That is another…

[ruminativerabbi]

Yom Yerushalayim 2023

Today, Friday the 19th of May, is Yom Yerushalayim, the 56th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967. Like many of you, I’m sure, I remember the events of those days in June, if not quite as though they were yesterday, then at least not as though they were more than half a century ago. But our sense of what Yom Yerushalayim is about has changed over the years, and not so much for the better: in 1967, when the Old City of Jerusalem had been in Jordanian hands for less than two decades (i.e., from when it was lost to the Jordanian Army in 1948 until it was recaptured from that same army in 1967), it felt like a momentary wrong was being righted, like something bad that happened within almost every adult-at-the-time’s lifetime had been fixed and made right. But as the years have passed, we have lost control of that narrative. And, indeed, to read in the press and in the blogosphere about what Yom Yerushalayim really means, the fact that there had been a Jewish presence in the Old City since Ottoman times—and for millennia before that as well—has been forgotten and been replaced with a narrative of conquest and taking-while-the-taking-was-good adventurism. In this narrative, Israel was at war with Jordan, Syria, and Egypt in 1967 and won an incredible victory over all three foes simultaneously, which led to seizing treasures from them: the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai from Egypt, and—best and most sacred and important of all—the traditional Jewish heartland of Judah and Samaria from Jordan…including the jewel in that specific crown, the Old City of Jerusalem.

That narrative, which makes Yom Yerushalayim more about the spoils of war and hardly at all about the justification of a wrong that had been perpetrated by the Kingdom of Jordan against the Jewish people for all nineteen years of Israeli independence, is the one I see featured on the pages of the world’s newspapers and on the websites I generally visit to gain as balanced a picture of the world as I can.

I’d like to remember out loud my first visit to Jerusalem, a story I haven’t actually written about before.

It was 1966, the year of my bar-mitzvah. I was a little boy on the cusp of adolescence. As it happened, the summer camp I had been attending in Connecticut on the verdant shores of Lake Oxoboxo closed permanently just the year before. My parents, therefore, had to find some new place for me to spend the summer and, somehow, my mother came across something called the Bar-Mitzvah Pilgrimage that was being offered to the public by the American Zionist Youth Foundation, headquartered in those days at 515 Park Avenue. This was highly uncharacteristic of my parents even to consider: I was not yet allowed to go into Manhattan on the subway by myself (when this was being considered, I was still twelve years old), and here they were considering sending me to the other side of the world in the company of people neither of my parents knew or had ever met. Given the level of protectiveness my parents brought to parenting, it was—to say the very least—uncharacteristic for them even to consider, let alone agree, that I sign on to such an adventure.

And yet they pursued it. I remember the interview I had at 515 Park. A nice man whose name I can’t remember gently probed our reasons for wanting to sign me on. He seemed sympathetic, interested primarily in determining if this was a good idea for as untried and untested a lad a myself. I must have made a good impression because he approved me to sign on. And then, far more amazingly, my parents did sign me on. And off I went. I don’t believe I had ever been in an airplane until that summer. And I certainly hadn’t ever left the United States. This was, and in a dozen different ways, terra totally incognita for me. And for them too, I suppose.

There’s a lot to say about that whole summer, about the youth village near Pardes Hanna that served as our base, about the friendships I made that summer, about the encounter—my first, as far as I can recall—with actual Israelis (i.e., the kind that actually live in Israel, not the Forest Hills version), about our visit to Yad Vashem (a story I’ll write about on a different occasion), about the strange journey I made all on my own to Ashkelon to spend a weekend with a  family of recent Moroccan immigrants chosen (by whom I have no idea) as a reasonable host family for kids like myself despite the fact that no one in the household knew a word of English and my Hebrew-School Hebrew was, to say the very least, limited.

The high point of the journey was our trip to Jerusalem. They waited a week or so—perhaps for jetlag to fade and for us acclimate ourselves to the heat of an Israeli summer—and then we were off. Approaching the city from the west along a road still dotted with blown-up armored vehicles and tanks left in place as a kind of on-site memorial to the men and women who died in 1948 defending the city that the nascent State of Israel had chosen as its capital, I was enthralled even before we got there. And the emotional level of the whole experience only increased once we actually entered the city.

For readers who have been to Jerusalem recently, it would probably be hard to conjure up the correct picture of the city in 1966. Jaffa Road, the main street leading through downtown to the Old City was paved. But there were unpaved streets all over the place. There was no light rail, just the bus. There were public telephones, but you needed special tokens called asimonim to operate them and it was rare to find one that was in working order. The bus station was more like an oriental bazaar than the Port Authority. I’m sure groups that take teenagers abroad these days protect them much more carefully and seriously, but we were permitted to go off on our own all the time. Nor were we required to go off with others; anyone inclined to explore on his or her own was permitted to go off alone. (This was, of course, long before cell phones so there actually was no way to contact any of us once we were all dispersed; the system—to the best of my recollection—was simply to wait at the bus until everybody showed up and then to depart. I don’t recall anyone ever not showing up or getting into trouble while off on his or her own. But I don’t see that being permitted today. (If I remember correctly, I attempted to smoke my first cigarette, a Time, when I was off with some of the other lads on our own wandering the city. Fortunately for my future health, it did not go well at all. We were staying at the Hotel Vienna, a fleabag that I remember thinking my parents wouldn’t set foot in, let alone take a room for the night. But that, of course, only made it more alluring to us boys. This truly was my first great adventure, my first foray into the world beyond Queens. And I was totally sold on the whole thing from the first moment we set foot on Israeli soil.)

But wandering around what was then called the “New City,” came after our first experience of the Old City.

Of course, we could not enter Old Jerusalem, which was in a different country at the time. Or at least under the control of a different country. (One interesting detail I do recall clearly, is that the word “Palestinians” was never used to describe anyone at all; our counselors and teachers referred to the people on the other side of the border as Jordanians or, more generally, as Arabs. The thought that the Arabs of Palestine were anything other than Jordanians I don’t recall anyone expressing ever.)

Our first encounter with the Old City was a visit to the Mandelbaum Gate, the sole access point from Israel to Old Jerusalem. It lives in our collective memory as a symbol of the divided city and that is not at all wrong—but the reality was that it wasn’t much of anything: just a ramshackle link fence with a gate set into it under some tin roofing. There were IDF soldiers on the Israeli side, but you could look through the gate—which was open when we were there—to see Jordanian soldiers and, beyond them, the walls of the Old City. So that was exciting too—I hadn’t ever been at a land border between nations.

To see into the Old City was a different experience, however. We were brought to the top of a six- or seven-story building at the bottom of Jaffa Road, now called Kikar Tzahal, and taken up in an elevator to the roof. And there, for a few coins, you could operate long-distance telescopes like the ones they used to have atop the Empire State Building and so look at the Jaffa Gate in the distance and, slightly, what lay beyond it.

There wasn’t much to see. The famous honey-colored walls looked more white than yellow in the strong sunshine. The gate, the famous Jaffa Gate, was visible, but you could only see a sliver of anything on its other side. There were, I think I recall, some vendors hawking their wares on the outside of the gate and those people we could see almost clearly. It feels as though it should have been a huge disappointment to me, that whole experience: a wall, a big gate, some people selling snacks, the occasional Jordanian soldier. And you didn’t get much time for your coin either: maybe a minute or two. Maybe three. Not more.

So you probably expect me to say how disappointing the whole experience was, especially after having had it hyped so intensely on our way into the city. But it wasn’t disappointing at all. Something within me changed at that specific moment in the trajectory of my adolescence, something that at the time I doubt I could possibly have understood or even identified. My connection to that place—and specifically to the Old City of Jerusalem—was somehow set in stone on that rooftop in 1966. I can’t say how I could have known, but I somehow did know that my life was destined to revolve around that city and that gate, around that place. We weren’t there long. We ended up, if I recall, me and my friends, eating felafel in the Machane Yehudah open-air market, a nice walk straight down Jaffa Road. But some switch had been flicked on, something within me had been permanently and irrevocably altered. I couldn’t have said it in so many words as a lad of thirteen. But when I think back on the story of my life to date, I believe that my destiny to spend the years of my life as a rabbi, as someone to whom Zionism and Judaism would be such allied concepts that neither could possibly exist without the other, as someone whom destiny led to acquire the home in Jerusalem that Joan and I proudly own—the first step on that path I took then and in that place.

I remember that whole summer very fondly. And I look forward to getting back to Jerusalem in just a month and a half. A lifetime has passed since my first visit to Jerusalem. No one today has the kind of experience I had then. But I am richer for having had it. And so I share it with you today as a kind of Yom Yerushalayim gift to you all.

[galderthefuzzy]

The Shol'va

I had a recent rush of inspiration to start painting portraits of characters from one of my all time favorite series. I started with the Shol'Va, Teal'c!

Do you have a suggestion for another Star Gate character you'd like me to paint? Share! If you have another series in mind, share too!

[girlactionfigure]

[redclaysoil]

some examples of palestinian women's dress c.1900-1920s, primarily ramallah and bethlehem. sourced from palestine remembered.

captions t-b, l-r:

ramallah women in traditional costume, c.1920s

woman from bethlehem, 1927

woman from bethlehem, c.1900-1910s

woman picking olives from tree, ramallah area, early 20th century

ramallah woman at gate, early 20th century

two bedouin women from beersheba-gaza-jaffa region, early 20th century

[manhandlingmayhem]

Daniel Jackson Whump List: Stargate (1994), Stargate Sg-1, The Ark of Truth, Continuum, & Atlantis

The other whump lists I’ve found for Daniel have been quite minimal so I decided to make my own since he is my latest hyper fixation.

This is a work in progress. I’ll add seasons as I watch them.

Stargate (1994)

Dragged by his foot through the dessert by an alien horse, manhandled, captured by Jaffa, forced to kneel, shot and killed by staff weapon protecting Jack, brought back to life by sarcophagus, threatened, non-con face touching, shot at throughout ending battle

Season 1

1x01 - distressed, guilty, crying, thrown against a wall, imprisoned, held back, forced to kneel, held down, shot at by staff weapons

1x02 - emotional about losing Char’e

1x03 - threatened with a knife

1x04 - beat up by Jack, attacked by The Touched and infected, carried by Teal’c

1x05 - gun held to kneck

1x07 - shot and killed with staff weapon, brought back by the Knox

1x12 - kidnapped, pushed against wall, general intimidation, strapped to a table, memory searched painfully

1x13 - brainwashed/manipulated by Hathor and implied rape

1x15 - manhandled

1x16 - goes rogue, threatened with court martial

1x17 - violently thrown through gate, head injury, comatose

1x18 - knocked out with scanning device, duplicated, weak, falls through gate

1x19 - gun point, handcuffed, manhandled, sedated, detained, interrogated, shot with staff weapon

1x21 - injured by ribbon device

Season 2

2x01 - knocked out and blinded by stun grenade, imprisoned, shot with staff weapon, presumed dead, revived in sarcophagus

2x02 - gun to head, shot with zat gun

2x03 - violently thrown through gate, choked, passed out

2x04 - taken by an alien devices and put into a coma, repeatedly forced to watch his parents die, tries to stop it but his parents perceive him as a child so they won’t listen to him, distressed and angry, held back, handcuffed, confined

2x05 - captured by Jaffa, chained, forced to kneel, manhandled, forced labor, limping, crushed under rockslide, healed by sarcophagus, addicted to sarcophagus, strapped to bed, extreme withdrawal, escapes infirmary and gets into a pretty violent fight with Jack, emotional breakdown

2x06 - surrenders

2x08 - emotional throughout, forced to kneel

2x13 - knocked out with dart, confined

2x17 - body swapped into old man, in hospital bed near death, emotional (the old man as Daniel gets handcuffed and confined)

2x19 - emotional, angry/vengeful

2x20 - gun point, hands on head kneeling, detained

2x21 - wakes up in kryo tube, caught trying to escape, threatened with becoming Ga’ould host

Season 3

3x01 - threatened (Hathor brings up when she r*ped him) gash on leg from staff weapon, kneeling, hands tied, threatend with zat gun, generally looks very tired this whole episode

3x02 - gun point, forced to kneel, brainwashed by Seth, thrown by ribbon device

3x04 - hallucinations which get worse until he is institutionalized, passes out, forced sedation, general manhandling

3x06 - bloody scrape on his cheek, surrounded by Jaffa, kneeling, shot with zat gun

3x07 - runs face first into force shield, forced to surrender, gun point for most of the episode

3x08 - struck by zat lightning, caged, shackled, chained and left as sacrifice to the Unas

3x09 - shot by stun gun, threatened with stun gun

3x10- tortured with ribbon device, emotional, nightmares

3x11 - emotional from the death of Shar’e

3x12 - captured, kneeling, imprisoned

3x13 - imprisoned, kneeling, slapped, punched, knocked to the ground, interrogated

3x14 - drugged, gun point

3x19 - zapped unconscious by force field, hands tied, kneeling, blood sample taken, caged, interrogated, tazed with staff weapon multiple times, manhandled, Jack and Sam tortured to get information out of Daniel

3x20 - surrenders to Jaffa as a ploy

3x21 - sent out of phase by crystal skull, not really whump but I love to see Daniel frustrated and helpless

3x22 - Michael Shanks had an appendectomy so Daniel had one too

Season 4

4x02 - gun point

4x03 - alien device stuck on his arm, passed out, weak, falls through gate

4x05 - hit in the face and knocked over

4x06 - knocked out and captured by unas, wrists tied for entire episode, pulled along by rope, dragged, knocked over, cut on cheek, threatened, lots of flinching

4x08 - memory loss

4x09 - gun point, zip tied to chair, interrogated

4x13 - manhandled, choked, thrown to the ground, tortured with ribbon device, extreme headache

4x14 - laying under a floating bomb trying to disarm it

4x16 - shot and killed by laser weapons in the future

4x17 - passes out, in a coma

4x18 - suicidal, Jack talks him off his balcony, coma, flatlines, Jack fireman carries him through the gate, headache,

4x21 - duplicate Daniel captured, hands tied, kneeling, manhandled, head shot off by staff weapon

Season 5

5x01 - gun point , imprisoned

5x04 - gun point and disarmed, shot with zat gun

5x07 - shot with zat gun, imprisoned, chained by ankle, electrocuted

5x09 - captured, thrown by ribbon device

5x13 - shot by zat multiple times

5x15 - undercover as Goa’uld slave, manhandled, kneeling

5x16 - undercover as Goa’ould slave, knife to throat, punched and knocked to the ground, grabbed by the throat and threatened with knife, thrown to the ground

5x19 - thrown into bookshelf, arm twisted/injured, thrown to the ground, kneeling, emotional, crying

5x20 - burned hands, slowing dying of radiation poisoning, jumps through glass windows, emotional, ascends

Season 7

7x01 - wakes up in a field naked and with no memories

7x02 - captured by Jaffa, tackled by Jonas to keep him from being shot

7x06 - passes out, wakes up with multiple people in his mind, collapses, medical restraints (belt with cuffs that attach to it), lots of emotions in this one, angry, terrified, sad, etc.

7x07 - kneeling, intimidated

7x10 - woken up with a staff weapon in his face

7x11 - almost drowns in a tunnel complex, captured by guerrillas, hands zip tied, blindfolded, manhandled, locked in a shed,

7x12 - manhandled, food and water deprivation, interrogated, tortured (off screen unfortunately), dragged, weak/unable to walk, zip tied to chair, punched in the face, bloody mouth and cheek, shot in the leg, slams into tree, limping, on crutches

7x15 - Osiris manipulating his dreams, tortured with ribbon device

7x17/18 - if you like emotional Daniel you’ll like this, one of the best war drama story lines of the entire show

7x19 - wakes up on the ground after being knocked out

7x21 - Jack grabs him and pushes him against a wall

Season 8

8x03 - shot in the arm, arm in sling, shot with zat gun

8x05 - arm in a sling and shrapnel cuts on his face, grabbed by the collar and threatened with gun

8x06 - shot in a simulation multiple times

8x07 - threatened with sniper fire, kidnapped, handcuffed, manhandled, interrogated, forced to give up information to save a friend, shot with zat gun

8x10 - shot by zat gun, punched in the face and knocked to the ground

8x12 - shot with zat gun, zip tied to chair, interrogated, slapped, shot in the shoulder, punched in the face several times, kicked in the stomach, kneed in the face, head butted

8x13 - disarmed, held at gun point, hit in the stomach, choked

8x14 - manhandled, detained by the Russians, blood sample taken

8x16 - captured by Replicarter, pinned to the wall, mind searched

8x17 - interrogated by Replicarter, stabbed through the chest, dies again lol

8x18 - accended and the sent back to earth

8x20 - alternate timeline Daniel knocked out by stun grenade, punched in the face, manhandled, forced to kneel, tortured with ribbon device, implanted with Goa’uld off screen, killed by T’ealc

Season 9

(a lot of whump gets moved to Cam this season)

9x01 - gets alien bracelet stuck on his wrist, passes out

9x02 - manhandled, held back

9x03 - thrown and held against a wall, manhandled, punched in the stomach, chained, almost burns to death

9x04 - passes out, handcuffed as part of a ruse

9x06 - collapses

9x10 - manhandled, knife held to throat

9x15 - imprisoned, manhandled

9x16 - captured, tied up, tortured mostly off screen, cuts on his face, almost shot (I greatly dislike this episode because the whump potential was great but the terrible writing ruins it with plot holes and time skips, boooo)

9x19 - ‘possessed’ by Vala using the Ancient communicator device

Season 10

10x01 - captured at gun point

10x02 - infected with a sleep inducing parasite

10x07 - captured by Jaffa, hands on head, choked by Adria, kneeling, mind searched

10x08 - gun point, talks Vala down

10x09 - shot by zat off screen, hands tied behind back, hostage

10x10 - threatened by Adria

10x11 - uses Ancient downloading device, head aches, weak (this is a nice long scene) falls to his knees after trying to fight Adria, non-con face touching, thrown to the ground, cuts and bruises on his face, uses Merlin’s powers to let the team get away and is captured by Adria

10x14 - turns up as a Prior, shot by zat, strapped to a chair, weak from use of powers

10x15 - shot at by assassin, held at gun point

10x16 - tazed, unconscious

10x19 - thrown across the room, trapped in a room with toxic coolant leak, falls to the floor

Stargate: The Ark of Truth

Captured by Ori soldiers, captured again, dragged by guards, thrown into cell, cuts on his face, mentally tortured by Ori priest, shaking in pain, so weak he can’t sit up, crying/begging while speaking with Morgan Le Faye, thrown against a wall, holding his arm in pain (this movie also has plenty of Cam Mitchell whump if you like that kind of thing)

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚨

BEATINGS AND BULLETS: ZIONIST COLONISTS AND OCCUPATION FORCES CONTINUE ABUSING AND ASSAULTING PALESTINIAN RESIDENTS OF "ISRAEL"

📹 Scenes from the Old City of Jersusalem today, Wednesday, June 12th, detailing the abuse inflicted on Palestinian citizens of the Israeli entity, including women, by the Israeli occupation army.

Meanwhile, in another example of the apartheid violence in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, a Palestinian civilian and his son were injured today following a shooting by an Israeli colonist in the Old City of Jersusalem (occupied Al-Quds).

According to local reporting, a group of armed Zionist colonists attacked a Palestinian-owned commercial store in the Bazaar market of the Old City of Jersusalem, one of whom fired live-bullets towards the store owner and his son, striking and wounding them before transporting the pair to a local hospital.

Witnesses told media correspondants that, following the attack, the Israeli occupation forces closed the store and further abused local residents, while the colonists continued attacking the shop, along with its owner, his family, and passers-by.

Similarly, in another attack, Zionist colonists smashed the windows of a Palestinian-owned civilian vehicle while a child was inside, also in occupied Jersusalem.

Residents told local reporters that the Israeli colonists tossed stones towards Palestinian civilian vehicles near Bab Al-Khalil (Jaffa Gate) in the Old City.

#source1

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[whumpzone]

Please give us Col waking up to Jaffa snuggled up against him in the middle of the night and having lots of FEELINGS about how Linden treats both of them. They both have struggles that others might not, both need extra help and compassion sometimes. Both don’t serve a defined “purpose” but are loved and cared for and valued anyway. Also, lots and lots of snuggles.

enjoyyy :-)

-

Col's first coherent thought upon being woken was I must have left the door open.

On another day he might have jumped straight to fear, and the absence of it was like a soothing balm. Some things were benign. Not everything was because he had messed up. Jaffa just wanted to visit.

He could indeed see a sliver of light coming through his door, which he had closed but not latched, and that Jaffa had made short work of pushing open with all the determination of a lonely cat.

Col always slept curled up, and Jaffa was currently kneading his thighs through the duvet, turning him into a pillow. He liked it. It made him feel special, even though he was sure she'd have gone into Master's room if his door was open.

Once she was satisfied, she flopped against him with a small smushing noise.

The weight of her small body was like a furry anchor, complete with body heat and a heartbeat, all keeping him safe in his dog bed.

Ahh, Jaffa. She wasn't the perfect pet- well, she was, without a doubt, but there were plenty of things she had trouble with. Col had seen her miss a step while going down the stairs, and thank goodness it hadn't been a terrible fall. She had skidded and caught herself quickly enough, but Master was still pleased when Col told him. Her bad eyes again, he said. Hopefully that had taught her to take extra care, or else he might need to put in a stair gate. The thought of Jaffa being locked downstairs made Col's chest feel tight.

Col didn't have bad eyes, but there was plenty of him that didn't quite work as intended. Just like Master helped Jaffa get up on the couch if she was struggling, Master helped Col come back out when his memories started taking him away. He helped Col pick up his cutlery and walk on two legs. God, Col was lucky that his owner was good to animals.

Even though it was self-indulgent, Col liked comparing himself with Jaffa. She was a creature on the receiving end of so much love.

He slowly pushed a hand from the safety of his cocoon and let it sink into her fur. Her purring was so loud, he would have given anything to bottle it and keep it with him forever. It was something he could pin his mind on, so it wouldn't run wild in the long hours of the night.

As he fell back asleep, his stream of consciousness turned from a heavy rainfall to staccato drops. Jaffa, imperfect, damaged, I'm damaged, and she's loved, and I'm, I'm, I'm...

The next morning, Col woke up before his Master. He could tell, since there was no sound of the kettle boiling or the radio playing. On his way to the bathroom he paused, noticing that Master's door was half-open.

Huh. Jaffa had wanted Colton after all.

[jadelotusflower]

Stargate Rewatch: 1x01 Children of the Gods

After rewatching the original film I'm kicking off with the show's pilot - I actually watched both the original version and the "final cut" because there are aspects I enjoy of both. The final cut removes a few problematic elements and adds in some new material, but also cuts a few lines I really enjoy and the original version is really where my nostalgia lies, so... as always, my feelings, they are mixed.

Cold open with some redshirts - four men and one woman, sadly representative of the gender ratio the show will have going forward.

The unlucky Smurfette is Sgt Carol Weterings, not that I think she's ever mentioned by name in the episode.

"Probably the only thing it ever did was cost money." Heh.

I will say that Teal'c turning against Apophis at the end of the episode is nicely built - starting here where he examines the gun and identifies it as technology far advanced beyond the humans they’re used to dealing with.

When your name is above the title, you get introduced with an extreme close up.

The differences between the film and the show don't really bother me - I view the show as taking place in a very similar but alternate universe to the film rather than trying to squeeze them together - so O'Neil becomes O'Neill, Sha'uri becomes Sha're, Tyler becomes Charlie, Abydos is the closest planet to Earth, not the other side of the known universe, etc etc. But I consider the events of the film to be canon to the show universe unless directly contradicted.

But otherwise the pilot tries very hard to stick as close as possible to the film, to the point that Major Samuels states that General Hammond replaced General West.

Hammond says it’s been “over a year” since the events of the film, unclear exactly how much over.

The final cut has a longer version of the dead Jaffa, revealing one of them was a woman, and with all the changes to eliminate plot holes I don't know why Brad Wright put one back in. While we do see Jaffa women in the series, Goa'uld and Jaffa society is depicted as highly patriarchal and female Jaffa soliders are rare - we never see them in Apophis's ranks. It's an odd inclusion.

"What if the aliens get it?" "Well, they could be blowing their noses right now." hee!

"THANKS SEND MORE" Remember when Daniel had allergies? Give it a few episodes and the show sure won’t!

Amanda Tapping, doing her absolute best with some terrible dialogue. Brad Wright blames the "reproductive organs" speech on Jonathan Glassner, and it is terrible and thankfully removed from the final cut version, along with some other 90's era sexism from the bros. However there is one great moment, where Kawalsky asks "Have you ever pulled out of a simulated bombing run in an F16 at eight plus Gs?" and without missing a beat, Sam deadpans: "Yes." I love Sam.

"I'll give you exactly 24 hours to either return or send a message through - no Kleenex boxes, please." Hee, Hammond isn't quite the cuddly commander we know and love yet, but he has his moments.

It's very cute that Sam has a very similar reaction to the one Daniel had in the film just before going through the gate, although his was based in the wonder of something incredible and unknown, and hers is based in the physical manifestation of knowledge - says a lot about each of them and their similarities yet different perspectives - the marrying of these two points of view is what makes them such a good duo.

Michael Shanks, doing the James Spader impression that won him the role. He was only 26!

And of course Alexis Cruz, the only holdover from the movie (other than Erick Avari, who won't appear until season 2).

The original team sure did leave a bunch of weapons with the Abydonians, didn't they? I presume they taught them how to fire the guns because there's no way Daniel could/would have. He did however teach them very good English.

"Greetings from Earth, Doctor Jackson" - very cute, it's sad that Ferretti disappears into the ether by season 2.

Not the face of a woman who is shy, but a woman who knows how to make An Entrance. She even smirks a little as she walks over.

There is however a weird little moment where Sha're is reluctant to shake Jack's hand and looks to Daniel first - maybe she wasn't impressed about his little joke brushing by her husband? Both of these beats are removed from the final cut version which is probably for the best.

It's criminal Sha're doesn't actually get to speak in this scene, and in fact how few lines she has in the episode altogether.

It's disappointing, because Sha'uri was such an integral part of the film, and yet the show tries to get rid of her as quickly as possible to get Daniel on SG-1 and give him a core drive for the next three seasons. Her abduction is the precipitating event of Daniel's ten-year character arc and defining moment of transition from film!Daniel to show!Daniel, and yet she doesn't get a character arc of her own.

However I do think Shanks and Vaitiare Hirshon sell the relationship in the few scenes they have - they're very physically connected/protective of one another, perhaps concerned that Jack's there to take Daniel back with him (which is in fact the case). And of course Sha're, annoyed at being left behind while Daniel shows the others his discovery, gives him a very proprietary kiss to show everyone what’s what.

I think show!Sha're gets a bad rap, she's spunky and I love her. I just wish there was more of her.

Sam and Daniel insta-bonding. Daniel making an intuitive leap to solve the puzzle and Sam filling in the gaps with science to make it work, they really are kindred spirits.

The issue with the cartouche though is that the symbols look like hierogyphs, not star constellations/Stargate glyphs.

Back in the pyramid, there's a scene sorely missing here - imagine if rather than ogling Sha're, Ferretti had a conversation with her, giving us more of a chance to know Sha're on her own terms rather than just Daniel's wife and the object of others desire. Especially when Ferretti was on the original mission so knows she's more than a "beautiful woman" - it would also give additional weight to him being the one to remember the gate address where she's taken later on.

Teal'c clocks Skaara's gun as the same tech he saw on Earth in breadcrumb no. 2.

"Nothing good can ever come through this gate!" "You came through it , Daniel" I mean...I realise there are a lot of problematic white savior-y aspects to the show, but idk, this scene and the Abydonians all petting Daniel to say goodbye gets me. Sean Amsing as Tobay also returns in Full Circle which is a nice callback to this scene.

The final cut removes a reaction shot from Jack which I have mixed feelings about - I get that the focus probably needs to be on Daniel at that moment, but I do think it's important for Jack to appreciate how Daniel really found a home with the Abydonians and was appreciated and loved by them, and it's nicely played by RDA.

LOL, watch out for how many times Jack pats Daniel on the shoulder. Apparently that annoyed Shanks so RDA kept doing it, but it's also a nice little setup of their relationship going forward.

There's a second shoulder pat in the hallway.

Just two dudes, drinking beer, (not) talking about their feelings.

“She was the complete opposite of everyone else, she practically fell on the floor laughing every time I tried to do some kind of chore they all took for granted.” Underrated line, because it gives important context to Daniel and Sha’re’s relationship, and perhaps more importantly, how Daniel characterises her - she is the one who keeps him grounded, who teases him, there is balance to their relationship. There’s potentially an interesting parallel there to Vala in the later seasons, although it manifests in a very different way.

“I think she forgave me for what happened to our kid, she just couldn’t forget…I’m the opposite, I can never forgive myself, but sometimes I can forget.” This is a great scene.

The Final Cut removes all the “harem scenes” and while I can see why, we do lose a bit of context to Teal'c's involvement in the process as he is the one who chooses the women from the holding cell to go into the harem, and then from the harem to be presented to Apophis.

There was another missed opportunity to actually see Sha're interact with the other prisoners - she could have had a conversation with Weterings at least, find out she was from Earth, perhaps assure her that the others would be coming to rescue them.

To the surprise of no one I’m sure, this episode does not pass the Bechdel test.

But there is a hint of solidarity among the prisoners - first in the holding cell where the others hold Skaara back, and here in the harem Sha're squeezes the hand of another woman.

Weterings is killed by the hand device which keeps the electrical current aesthetic from the movie the show will later abandon - as Teal'c looks perturbed.

Daniel back on Earth immediately getting stuck into the coffee even though no one else is drinking, lol.

"Ra played a god, the sun god, he borrowed the religion and culture of the ancient Egyptians he brought through the gate and used it to enslave them." A bit of a change from the movie here, where it was the other way around - slightly less problematic!

Everyone is in dress blues except Kawalsky who is in camo, and Daniel, who is wearing Jack's clothes.

"Colonel I'd like to remind you that rescuing Dr Jackson's wife is a secondary objective." This line was removed in the final cut and I don't know why? It adds to Samuels’s bastardry.

Has everyone forgotten about Weterings?

Shoulder pat no. 3!

In the second harem scene, Sha're is now sitting isolated from the other women - did she argue with them? Just trying not to be noticed? What happened offscreen?

Also what's going on in the top left corner - it looks like the healing device! Maybe Sha're did throw down with one of the others and that's why she's on her own. I have to read into things, because the show gives us so very little of Sha're and it's a real shame.

She does get a good moment fighting against the guards though - earlier she was defiant and told them she wasn't afraid of them, here she bites one of them on the arm.

I understand from a narrative perspective why Sha're is the one who gets taken over, but it really is Schrodinger’s fridging - until she’s found Sha’re is both alive and dead for the purpose of the narrative, both Daniel’s primary drive and source of inner conflict.

Christopher Judge does so much with so little. Master of the cheek twitch!

Oof, the nudity. In isolation from everything else, it doesn’t bother me - it’s intended to be horrifying, not titillating, and is effective in conveying objectification and dehumanisation by the Goa'uld.

However, it was a studio request, Wright/Glassner regretted doing it, it doesn’t fit the tone of the show going forward, but most importantly Hirshon was pressured into the full frontal when she only agreed to topless, and for that alone it should be excised.

The puppet symbiotes are so much more effective than the cgi they use later. I don’t think there’s another scene in the show that really captures the menace of the Goa’uld like this one - the symbiote (who we'll later learn is Amaunet) slithering around on Sha're's body is just so visceral and horrifying. The glowing eyes before implantation is an effective touch.

Jack sticking Daniel in it with Sam by saying Sha're was a gift could be amusing, except the conversation gets cut off before Daniel can explain. It annoys me, because Daniel not "accepting" Sha're was actually the point? It's kind of important! I assume he does tell Sam the whole story later.

"Unless we want to get ourselves a really bad reputation, I just think we should avoid shooting the first people we meet on a new planet" is a nice follow up to Daniel's sarcastic "well that would have been an excellent reason to shoot everyone" from the film. At this point, Daniel doesn't appear to be carrying a weapon other than a knife. Oh, how that will change!

The Chulak priests speak "a derivation of Arabic" and something else - the Goa'uld language is meant to be similar to Abydonian, which is based on Ancient Egyptian. Of course modern Egyptian is an Arabic dialect that came much later, but perhaps we are to assume Goa'uld - or at least the Chulak vernacular - evolved along similar lines.

Jack unable to shoot Sha're when she stands in front of Apophis is a nice movie callback.

The final cut has a good extra scene between Sam and Daniel where he is quite delusional thinking Sha're might just be drugged, and Sam tries to talk sense into him. Daniel's blind optimism against Sam's pragmatic realism will be an important aspect of their relationshio going forward.

Shoulder pat no. 4!

Teal'c P.I. sees Skaara talking to Jack and starts putting pieces together - the weapons from the opening scene, the weapons on Abydos + Jack's watch, and Daniel helpfully supplying the Earth glyph.

Alexis Cruz is committed to the film pronunciation of Sha’uri, bless him.

“But you are a great warrior, we defeated Ra together!” Skaara’s faith in Jack is so pure.

Skaara gets a shoulder pat too.

"Another fine day on planet Kawalsky" - This line was removed from the final cut! What a tragedy. I get the sense Brad Wright feels a bit cringe about the campier aspects of the show, but it's part of the charm! To be fair Ferretti was more of the wisecracker in the movie rather than Kawalsky, but I love that show Kawalsky is a little goofy.

I'm sorry, what is this silver monstrosity? I guess a sliver of credit that after the nudity not going for a sexy alien outfit, but this is a hate crime. I also have a very high tolerance, and even affection for, silly Stargate headgear, but there's camp and then there's ugly.

Peter Williams as Apophis though: 10/10, no notes.

"They're going to choose...who will be the children of the gods." I do love it when they say the title of the thing in the thing.

The subtle moment where Teal'c motions that Jack should kneel is a nice setup - Skaara being very reluctant and angry about kneeling, and being the last to do so, is nice movie continuity. Skaara really gets shortchanged by the show after this episode.

"How much would I remember if you chose me?" I wonder if Daniel ever thinks that maybe him drawing the attention of the Goa'uld contributed to Skaara getting chosen. You know, just to really lay on the angst and guilt.

So the premise is that these Apophis underlings are choosing hosts for their children who are symbiotes ready for implantation, which doesn't really fit with what we learn about Goa'uld queens/reproduction later. We also learn later that Skaara is taken as a host for Apophis's son Klorel which doesn't sqaure with these two choosing him.

Headcanon time! This is actually Zipacna who we meet later arguing for Klorel at Triad - different actor, of course, but he wears a similarly silly hat. So Amaunet now has access to all of Sha're's memories of Skaara and she and Apophis decide that he will make a good host - maybe she also likes the idea of a family resemblance between herself and Klorel (I think we can assume he is also Amaunet's son?). But Apophis doesn't want anyone to know he's choosing a host for his offspring, so sends Zipacna out to do it for him.

This makes sense of Klorel later claiming that Apophis chose his host, and also gives backstory to Zipacna showing up in Pretense. And in the scene, the Goa'uld make a very quick decision to take Skaara, while the rest get very grossly examined people before choosing.

Shoulder pat no. 5!

"I have nowhere to go." Teal'c turning on his brother Jaffa to save a roomful of people, not expecting to survive himself, really hits.

"For this, you can stay at my place." hee!

Jack not wanting to hear it when Teal'c tells him Skaara is no longer himself is a turnabout of the earlier scene with Daniel. Not so flip now it's your Emotional Support Abydonian, are you Jack?

Kawalsky getting Goa'ulded doesn't seem to hurt as much as Sha're's - because the symbiote isn't mature, or because Amaunet is particularly sadistic?

Soon to be SG-1 posing for their album cover.

It was the late 90's when tvs were tiny, so everyone had to stand uncomfortably close.

And we end with shoulder pat no. 6!

[existence-is-useless]

I abandoned and deleted my fanfic where the the Jaffa nation are requested to help with the Wraith and, thanks to updating the hyper-drive engines, a fleet of Jaffa ships wage war on the Wraith. There would be scenes of Jaffa helping, what they assumed would be weak humans but, seeing their strength of will, even after most of their people were wiped out and being forced to flee their planet, they still resist the Wraith.

But the Jaffa realize just how strong the human spirit is, and the people of Pegasus began to have hope that just maybe the Wraith could be stopped. But things get worse when the Genii, who made a deal with the Travellers to help fix their ships, end up betraying them and stealing their ships. Their full plan is truly revealed. The reason they were building nukes and had so many spies over the galaxy, and built their cities underground, wasn't because they wanted to blow up Wraith ships. Their true plan was to send the nukes to every known planet, which their spies would be able to learn all of them. Then they would fake it to make it look like their world was also bombed. With the complete extinction of every world (or so they thought but nobody knew about the space gates until the Atlantis Expedition showed up) the Wraith would have starved to extinction.

Now that they have the Traveller ships, they can implement their plans as well as launch attacks on planets with space gates. So the Jaffa now have to face a war on two fronts, stopping the Wraith and the Genii. With the possibility of extinction, the Wraith would be more open to Dr. Keller's attempt to stop the Wraiths need to feed on humans and instead survive on regular food, but that gets problematic when a Goa'uld takes possession of a Wraith queen and, with her increased mental abilities, takes over a Jaffa ship as well as several Wraith hive ships. Which starts a three-way civil war with the new Wraith, who's trying to create peace with the humans and the Jaffa, the old fashioned Wraith who are doing everything they can to take control of a Jaffa ship that could fly them to the milky way, and the new Goa'uld, who wants to bring their race back into true power using the Wraith as their new hosts.

All of which resulted in a massive space battle over a planet with Wraith, Jaffa, Genii, and Goa'uld, all fighting each other for the fate of the universe hanging in the balance.

[eretzyisrael]

GUARD YOUR GATES

"You shall set up judges and law enforcement officials for yourself in all your cities that the Lord, your God, is giving you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people [with] righteous judgment.” (Deut. 16:18)

In this week’s Torah portion Shoftim (lit. Judges), Moses instructs the Israelites to appoint judges and law enforcement officers in every city. One word in this verse seems redundant: yourself. Why doesn’t it just say “You shall set up judges… in all your cities”? Every single word and even letter in the Torah has deep significance, so what is the meaning of yourself in this verse?

Rabbi Moshe Kormornick explains that "the Jewish people not only had to set up physical protection around their cities, but each individual must place personal safeguards upon himself.” Every orifice in the body can be used by our yetzer hara (evil inclination) to commit transgressions. For example, we can use our eyes to view inappropriate material, our ears to hear malicious gossip, our mouth to speak angrily to others. Just as we physically guard our cities with strong gates, so we must spiritually guard our bodies with self-control and proper intentionality in everything we do.

Image: Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem, c. 1900

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I have an idea that instead of very fast spaceships in my story, the spaceships are kinda slow and the main way to get places is via teleports. However there is also max range for these teleports so they have to have a relay of them, especially the oens in deep space that stretch between galaxies. Installation is slow of course - they had to wait many years between dropping each teleport off as the spaceship had to use the previous teleports to the latest location and travel slowly in the spaceship to drop a new one off. Then here's the question of objects in space moving all the time, so these teleports are obviously moving. What exactly is keeping them where they are supposed to be? Or can we say that doesn't matter as much as long they are still in range and these teleport systems are on platforms that have an engine and can get arranged properly? You might think there is a big hole here since the spaceships are so slow, how did they know what's out so far, and why is there even a need to build quicker travel. That's because there is someone else with even better technology that initally got them there, and they now know about it but they had to design their own system to get there themselves without the help of that someone else. Note that my story starts after the teleport systems are in place and there is regular transportation via these teleport systems across several galaxies so this is basically history.

Tex: Stargate stargate stargate- ahem. There is a very well-known set of TV series about this exact subject (with some occasional plot, of course): Stargate. The three main series are Stargate SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and Stargate Universe, and each deal with a different environment of technology created by a group of people known in-universe as the Ancients (later known as the Alterans) as they are used in different galaxies.

The eponymous technology that features most prominently in all of these shows are stargate, which stabilize wormholes generated between two gates and can be connected to via a series of addresses based upon celestial constellations. These addresses are dialed via something nicknamed DHDs (Dial Home Devices - yes, jokingly after the movie E.T.), and the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies (the latter of which is the setting of Stargate: Atlantis) have different gate systems that cannot connect to each other - the protagonists were only able to do so with a huge boost of energy from a device called a ZPM (Zero Point Module) that draws power from subspace.

The gates themselves are relatively stable, and can - through a lot of legwork - be operated without a DHD; Samantha Carter in SG-1 figured out how to do so via an Earth program to use Earth computers, whereas in contrast the puddle jumpers in Atlantis (a type of ship small enough to fly through the gates) have their own dedicated versions of DHDs in the pilot’s console.

Although it’s not explicitly stated in canon, each galaxy’s gate system seems to be manufactured differently from each other, given the differences in their appearances. Realistically speaking, since these connect via wormholes, there should be no issue connecting any gate to any other gate, but it’s possible that each gate has a hardwired address array paired with its DHD that’s specific to a given range of its position in spacetime, thus giving a self-limiting range.

In SG-1, the Jaffa and Goa’uld would be of most interest to you, and in Atlantis, everyone not from the expedition would be of interest to you, as these groups of people have used their stargate networks for thousands of years on a regular basis.