#sga s5

[stargatesource]

STARGATE ATLANTIS || “Brain Storm” 5.16

[sheppardsmckay]

I’ve finally finished the incredible show that is Stargate Atlantis and I. Have. Thoughts.

I watched Vegas and Enemy at the Gates together (on the advice of my sga leader @lightthewaybackhome) and I’m so happy I did.

So Vegas feels like a different show entirely, from the filming to the characters. Sheppard does not seem like Sheppard nor does anyone else. They’re all darker, more broken versions. My heart was just broken the whole time, but I didn’t cry until I saw Rodney though. This is the Rodney without his Sheppard to guide him and help him. This is the Rodney who lets Keller pass him by. This is the Rodney that lets Sheppard go alone. This is Rodney without a Sheppard that lit up Atlantis (this is honestly worse than last man but it’s a good parallel).

This is the Sheppard that goes alone on yet another suicide mission because he’s lost everything anyway…and then he dies. While Johnny Cash’s “Solitary Man” plays. Because that’s who Sheppard is, not the man in black saving the world with his people, but the solitary man who is alone without a home and no chance to be healed. And yet still he sacrifices himself and is brave and dies saving the world. Sheppard becomes the action hero at the end of the movie that goes out guns blazing and, while it’s usually cool to see, this one just breaks our hearts.

And then we move to the finale and…oh! Sheppard is Sheppard again, and Rodney is Rodney and everyone is okay.

And we see the parallels between the Vegas world and ours throughout the episode. Sheppard about to go on a suicide mission stops right at the last moment because Rodney’s voice breaks through the radio. The team is about to die blowing up the hive ship but stops because Atlantis is there in time to save them. Atlantis is lit up because of Sheppard. And then we see them all at the end. They’re happy, and alive and not broken.

And even though they aren’t fully healed, cause who ever is in this life, they’re on the path to healing. There’s hope, there’s light that has broken through the darkness (the way the show ends with the light piercing through the clouds is so beautiful in a literal and metaphorical sense like I’m sobbing).

There’s a couple lines from songs that my Sheppard told me about that is forever linked with SGA now. Ghosts That We Knew has a beautiful line, “So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light”. Throughout the show there’s so much darkness and pain, but we stick through it with the team because there’s hope that it’ll be okay. There’s hope because John is there, because they’re all there right where they should be. It’s a beautiful metaphor for life.

And then there’s a song called Hospital for Souls. It’s mainly a Sheppard song, as he lets himself burn for his family, but it’s also how Atlantis is a hospital for all the broken souls and brings them together. It’s why Sam didn’t stay there long and Woolsey came on board. It’s why Ronon says at the end that he is home. It’s why Teyla chooses to stay and raise her son in Atlantis instead of her home world. Why Rodney waits 48000 years for Sheppard and why Sheppard realizes finally that he doesn’t have to die to be redeemed, that living and healing is possible for even him.

It’s been a wonderful journey watching this show, it’s changed me, helped me grow and made me realize that healing is possible for even me. That a family is what you make it and they can be your hospital for your soul no matter how weary, broken or hurt.

I just love this show. I’m immediately gonna start rewatching it from the beginning because this. This is my family, my home. I’ve found myself in the darkness of Sheppard and the outlierness of Rodney. In the fierce love of Ronon and sisterly bond of Teyla.

I’m ever so grateful my friend got me to watch this, so happy that I went through the darkness into the light with my team, through tears and shouts of joy. I always said Supernatural would be the only show with this kind of life-changing, life-saving impact. But Stargate Atlantis now holds that honor too, this little, cheesy, ridiculously funny and terribly sad series has changed my life, helped me be the person I wanted to be for so many years but always struggled with (yeah I’m louder, complain more and am maybe a bit more annoying but gosh it’s more fun) and just generally helped me with so many endless things. And I’ve found some great friends and got closer to one of my best friends, aka my Sheppard lol.

Anyway, all this to say that this show is beautiful and incredible and please do yourself the honor of watching it but definitely bring tissues. Don’t worry too much about why they wear sneakers for like two seasons or their military tactics are off, but just enjoy the friendship, the humor, and how wonderful it shows that it doesn’t matter how messed up you are. How dark you’ve gotten or how many pieces of your soul you’ve sacrificed for others. You can be redeemed and healed and made whole. You can find people who love you despite your flaws and shortcomings. And you can find the light no matter how dark the world has become. You too can be home.

[lightthewaybackhome]

The Seed, AKA, welcome to the Pegasus Galaxy Mr. Woolsey.

I compromised the safety of this base to rescue someone who may well have been beyond our help anyway.

Now Woolsey knows why Sheppard doesn't play by the rules.

I enjoy this episode because we get to see Woolsey taken down a few notches, but also made to better understand what life is actually like in Atlantis. I love that Sheppard basically goes into leader/older brother/dad mode for his whole team because Woolsey isn't really inspiring confidence. I love that when Sheppard is quarantined, Teyla steps up right up. I love that Sheppard is in full Lieutenant Colonel Suicide Mission mode, taking the drug first and then administering it to Keller. I love that he was ready to shoot Keller, but even gut-stabbed he didn't. I love Carson. (Why is his hair so dark??? It always bothers me. Looks fake.)

At the start of the episode when they're gathered around Woolsey's new conference room table, Rodney says, "The fact that Sheppard's here makes all the difference, right?" He's referencing The Last Man, and it just made me happy because Rodney basically spoke for us, the viewer. Sheppard is here. So, no matter how bad it gets, Sheppard will make the difference. That how they feel and how Atlantis feels, and how we feel. Sheppard will see everyone through the dark times and back into the light of home.

Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”

— Heraclitus

[lightthewaybackhome]

I love this moment because Sheppard doesn't flinch.

SGA MEME → [¼] Quotes ↳ Todd & John in 5x17 Infection

At least do me the courtesy of being honest. This is not about you not wanting to risk a jump to hyperspace in a damaged ship. You do not want me to go because I’ll be restoring the lives of hundreds of unhealthy Wraith including myself. - Well, I’ve gotta admit – that did cross my mind.

[orion-kenobi]

can we talk about the absolutely amazing job stargate sg1 does with jack and daniel’s dynamic? they’re so different and yet so similar. their perspectives and moralities are completely different, but i think they have the same flaws: they both believe their perspectives are correct, and they both let their emotions get the best of them. because of that they’re capable of being so mean to each other. and i love the fact that their morals are the source of most of their conflicts, because i don’t think i’ve ever seen a show where two characters major difference is because of their morality. and it makes the audience think, because in most situations where they disagree neither of their approaches are really wrong.

[talkativelock]

Sometimes I think about the fact that the SGA writers genuinely thought that an episode where the main emotional core is "Rodney gets sick and starts losing his memory and the only thing he remembers is John while John rushes to prepare for Rodney's death, find some way to save him, and keep him calm and comforted all at the same time" was a whole ass heterosexual episode leading into a heterosexual romance with a character whose screen time in the episode is very limited in favor of the above emotional roller coaster with John and I wonder like..... how they thought that???

[acrowbyanyothername]

jennifer rodney romance WHY

[lightthewaybackhome]

And then I started crying. Wait. Started? And then I started crying harder.

@mournerofcrows

"It's okay. I'll go first."

[spockvarietyhour]

All your faves are here. well sorta. Maybe they're written a bit differently now....

[schimmelspore]

So SGU ends with the show literally put on ice, huh?

[beeherself]

Watching the SGA episode where they are put on trial and John is inSUFFerable. Just. The worst. Guess we know who got given the conflict ball for this episode.

[lightthewaybackhome]

This was the episode I just watched! Really great!

“Turn over these outsiders and your lives will be spared. Resist, and you will all die together.”

[lightthewaybackhome]

Stargate-Atlantis S5: E17 Infection

Our last Todd episode. I'm so glad they did one final Todd episode.

Sheppard: Look, I'm flattered you think Todd would go to so much trouble to kill me.

🤣

I love that one they get on the ship Keller talks about how overwhelmed she is and how comfortable Rodney and Sheppard are making these huge decisions. I love having the outside perspective from Keller that gives us a glimpse of how epic they are to everyone else. We don't want them being aware of how cool they are, but we do think they're experienced in handling these situations and it's nice to see it acknowledged.

Lorne!!!

I like the creepy overtone to this episode.

Sheppard getting his people off the ship: the IOA can sue me.

Keller: Colonel Sheppard is a soldier. I'm a doctor.

Todd: Ah yes, his job is to take lives. Yours is to save them.

Keller: No. His job is also to save them. He just has a different set of tools.

This might be one of my favorite lines in the show. Sheppard's job is to save lives, but not like a doctor. Even as Keller said this Sheppard had just approved a plan to kill a bunch of hibernating Wraith who couldn't feed. Because he's saving lives. He's saving the lives of his team and trying to end a war.

Sheppard basically tells Todd that he'd be more willing to help him if he hadn't put his people in danger last time. Todd flies at him in desperate rage. Sheppard doesn't even flinch.

Todd: You owe me Sheppard.

Sheppard: I don't owe you anything.

Sheppard saves Todd when it will save his people. I love that Todd is uninterested until Sheppard gives his word. Todd knows he can trust him if he's given his word.

In the end, Sheppard owed Todd his life and the life of his people. He kept his word and let Todd go.

Sheppard is such a great character because he shouldered the burden of ordering the death of Todd's crew, but then he saved Todd. He's always this mix of reckless, ruthless, honorable, and good, with a side of dork and snark.

I'm really glad they had one more Todd episode, and it ended with them continuing this quasi-frendship they have.

[wideeyedloner]

Wraith Thoughts

In SGA S1 the Wraith were pretty much unbeatable monsters that had even the Ancients fleeing Pegasus to escape them. S3-S5 made two significant changes to how the Wraith were portrayed:

They were severely weakened

They were humanized, but not by the Tau’ri

In S1E02 Rising Part 2, Teyla told Sheppard that the Wraith could make people hallucinate. That basically stopped happening except to Teyla.

In S3E04 Sateda, Ronon was shown to kill several Wraith on his own as a runner, but it took time and work. In S5E09 Tracker, the runner has set many traps in the forest to slow or kill the Wraith, so presumably Wraiths used human runners to improve their hunting skills and were consequently proficient.

However, in S4E17 Midway, Ronon and Teal’c were able to subdue most of Todd’s crew on their own. Even keeping in mind that they were both formidable warriors, they were way outnumbered (the same issue the Ancients faced), and we’d seen Ronon subdued by greater numbers before.

The humanization of the Wraith was something I wish had been explored more. Todd established himself as a warrior poet and unexpected friend to Sheppard in S3E7 Common Ground. He gave Sheppard back the life he drained in captivity when he didn’t have to. This proved that, like humans, Wraith were individuals capable of empathy. I had hoped this would be the start of an amazing friendship spanning species and galaxies, but TPTB had different ideas.

Sheppard and the Tau’ri would prove themselves terrible friends and allies to Todd through the rest of the series (S4E08 The Seer, S4E09 Miller’s Crossing, S4E11 Be All My Sins Remember’d, S4E12 Spoils of War, S4E17 Midway, S5E11 The Lost Tribe, S5E20 Enemy at the Gate), treating him as an enemy combatant/prisoner whether he approached them as a friend/ally or not.

I’m disappointed in the lack of curiosity the expedition demonstrated about other cultures in general, and in the Wraith specifically once Todd was introduced as a friend/ally—especially since they had Todd say, “There is much about Wraith that you do not know, Sheppard (S3E7 Common Ground). In S4E09 Miller’s Crossing, McKay asked if Wraith have siblings, but this question was never answered.

Speaking of McKay, he ended up having the best relationship with Todd. He seemed comfortable working together and didn’t mind Todd touching him (S4E11 Be All My Sins Remember’d). He seemed to have no issue with Hermiod (S2E02 Intruder), either; conversely, Sheppard was extremely rude. Considering his personal debt to Todd, his consistent one-sided hostility and death threats were baffling.

Even in the finale, poor Todd spent the episode in captivity even though he gave the Tau’ri two ZPMs. Justice for Todd!

[dedkake]

For the numbered ask meme: SGA (optional anime of choice if already answered), McShep, John Sheppard, annnnnd The Mummy/SG-1, please?

<333 thank you!!

001 | SGA

Favorite character: john sheppard

Least Favorite character: elizabeth weir am i allowed to say that? landry. get that guy outta here.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): john/rodney, ar1 ot4, carson/john, john/ronon, john/teyla

Character I find most attractive: not the question for me.

Character I would marry: carson? jennifer? lorne?

Character I would be best friends with: prrrrooobbably jennifer lol i'm not a very adventurous person.

a random thought: what happened to the "large, particularly venomous snake-like creature that inhabits the mainland" on new lantea?

An unpopular opinion: season 4 has the tightest plot

my canon OTP: i like that ships are not the focus of this show actually

Non-canon OTP: john is my fandom bicycle. get that boy with everyone.

most badass character: they're all kinda badasses, aren't they?

pairing I am not a fan of: i'm not terribly interested in ships that don't involve john, altho i see the logic behind most of them. so i'm probably not going out of my way to read them. or read longfic of them. or sparky sorry.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): jjjjjjennifer. she was done so dirty by s5 and canon mckeller.

favourite friendship: john and teyla. teyla and rodney. teyla and ronon. ronon and john. john and rodney. radek and rodney. idk all of them. they are all such good friends and i love it.

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: please no. they are all my children, but i don't want the responsibility of any of that.

002 | mcshep

when of if I started shipping it: ngl i fought this one. when i started watching the show for real in early 2019, i told myself rodney didn't deserve to be redeemed from sg1 and that i wasn't going to fall into the Big Ship Trap. but dang i really did fall lmao. i love them.

my thoughts: friends to lovers, my beloved. they are so silly dorky and devoted.

What makes me happy about them: the friendship! the saving each other! the talking to each other on the comm! the bickering! all the things!!

What makes me sad about them: as i said before. i love angst. so i'm not really sad about the sad things. they can pine away in repression forever and i will be delighted.

things done in fanfic that annoys me: woobie rodney.

things I look for in fanfic: hurt/comfort. subby john. idk. pining. friends to lovers. quiet realizations. the inevitability of it all. domesticity. shepwhump.

My kinks: they can be so kinky together. d/s is good with them.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: john: anybody. rodney: uhhhh

My happily ever after for them: they retire as together civilians, but maybe not on atlantis.

003 | john sheppard

How I feel about this character: he's my sweet space disaster child

All the people I ship romantically with this character: everyone .. ..

My non-romantic OTP for this character: also everyone.

My unpopular opinion about this character: i'm not sure i have any lol. he looks good in every hat, i'm not picky. maybe--don't put him in charge of anything?

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: omg i wanted at least one episode where he was captured/stranded/in peril and the team actually saved him without him doing 90% of the work himself. i want it SO BADLY. show this boy he's loved and cared for please. (istg i thought the team was going to kill kolya for john in irresponsible on my first watch and i'm still disappointed)

my het ship: john/teyla or john/sam fwb

my fem/slash ship: mcshep, john/ronon

my OTP: mcshep

my OT34: ar1

my cross over ship: no thank you (unless you count sg1 as a crossover, in which case, john/everyone over there too)

my kink: he just wants to be used a little bit.

a head cannon: he would've let jeannie die if wallace hadn't volunteered.

my gender bend: yes please.

004 | the mummy/sg1

hmm. so i hate to admit this on tumblr dot com, but i only saw the mummy once when it first came out and the bugs freaked me out and i never watched it again. i keep meaning to revisit, but i haven't gotten around to it 😂

i'm sure that any of the characters would make delightful matches with anyone from sg1. i can See The Potential.

[go-to-autistic-crypt1d]

God I love stargate analysis so much. Something this episode really brings to the series is something we've never seen before, they fail. I mean, we've seen them have failures but we've never seen them fail. When you're alive you can always keep trying to make thing right, keep fighting for a better galaxy. Obviously if the main 4 died we'd stop having a show so we'd never see that in any permanent way, but seeing it like this provied us with a refresh in something easy to forget, they're not invincible. We see these characters cheat death in a range from spectacularly skilled to unbelievably lucky fashions, but they beat it nonetheless. Seeing even a version of them (which appears to be a remarkably similar version of them at that), be unable to get out of this alive really pushes the fear factor of this episode. They're stuck on a ship blipping through realities and they know that they've lost to it before.

-(@autistic-crypt1d)

so like out of all of the episodes of sga, the deadalus variations got me the most fucked up? because of this team? because of what it means?

like? did ronon and john go first? to give teyla and rodney more time? what happens then? bc teyla might have torren and then if she does what does rodney do? does he still try or does he just look at his dead family and just...give up?!?! or does he keep fighting to try and bring them back for closure until the food runs out, and he cna feel the hypoglycemica kick in and he goes and lays down with his team?!!?

or maybe, rodney and teyla take their weapons before they know what their teammates are like and its all or nothing, but they keep giving rodney their food to try and make him work and time keeps passing.

how many universes did they jump through before they ran out of time?

how many times did they call out to other atlantis's "hey, don't come on the ship its dangerous?"

how many times did one or more of them have to go and rage as they got further and further from their own world?

did they cry for what was lost? debate if they want to get off if only they get the chance to live?

was there an atlantis that told them to come, it was okay, they'd be safe there?

did they run into an atlantis that never had an expedition and so the city wasn't there at all because it had never been moved?

was there a point where they gave up? are these people capable of giving up, especially when they can look at their teammates and think to themselves "if I give up they might die so I can't give up"

who died first? did one of them go and the others just went...i can't do this anymore and they joined the first?

how did they go gently into the good night knowing they'd never be able to go home? how did john feel knowing he'd failed his team? failed atlantis by not getting back? how does teyla deal with another loss for the athosians? or knowing torren would grow up without her? or maybe she's comforted with the fact that in pegasus the wraith have made it common and so she knows torren will be raised on stories of her? how does ronon lay down and go to sleep knowing he's one of the last member of sateda and the already dying world has lost one more warrior?

how does rodney lay down knowing he failed everyone?