#am I skipping through the episode rewrite to get to the parts I'm most excited for

[twotales]

Jump

Chapter Two: Disappear

Ch1: Lifeline |

Read on AO3

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis

Characters: Radek Zelenka, Rodney McKay, John Sheppard, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Chuck, Evan Lorne, Laura Cadman, Sam Carter, Bill Lee, More to add

Rating: T

Word Count: 2,223

Tags: AU - Canon Divergence, Episode Rewrite

Note: I've labeled locations because of what happens in the actual episode. I may drop it after this chapter.

Location: Atlantis

Radek toweled the grease off his hands. “I don’t think it’s a spare hyperdrive, Rodney.”

“Oh yeah, and why’s that?”

Radek pushed his glasses up his nose. “It isn’t connected to the central engine,” he threw his hands up, “it isn’t connected to anything.” He leaned forward, “What if it was another ancient experiment?”

Rodney wiped the sweat off his brow. “Well, we don’t really have much of a choice now do we?”

Radek nodded sadly. “This is true.”

Rodney pulled open the hatch, “Shit.” he rubbed a hand over his face and tapped his communicator, “Alright, start dismantling sublight, only one at a time.” he grimaced, “We could deal with one missing.”

Radek frowned; he knew as well as Rodney that it would take at least two.

Location: Apollo

“Damn,” Sam said as the puddle jumper went into hyperdrive. “We missed them.”

“We’ll deal with that later,” Ellis said, “power weapons.”

“Powering weapons,”

The replicator ships came into view. “Fire,” he said.

They started breaking up from the impact. “Replicator ships destroyed.”

“Hurry,” Sam said, “follow their trail.”

They opened up a hyperspace window.

Location: Atlantis

Seven non-essential areas stripped.

Five teleporters.

One holo-room.

And three sublight engines.

“It’s done,” Rodney said relieved. It was short-lived as the billions of other problems flooded in. The first being the replicators on their tail. He tapped his communicator, “All ready to go on this end, Radek.”

“Thirty minutes till everything is connected together.”

“Thirty minutes!?” He held a hand over his forehead. Fuck. “I’m coming.” Rodney barreled into the room and shoved a scientist out of the way. He slid under the conduit Radek was wedged under. “Let’s make it five.”

Radek snorted, “Oh yes, because this is possible.”

“Fine,” Rodney rolled his eyes, “fifteen.”

They smiled despite the situation.

Ten minutes later they were both headed toward the gate room. Rodney explained the details of the cobbled-together hyperdrive to the technicians, “You got it?”

The group nodded and ran to their specific stations. Chuck turned in his chair and entered in the estimated coordinates, hand hovering over the button.

A hyperspace window opened close to their proximity.

“Sergent!” John yelled.

“Yes, sir.”

Chuck hit the button.

Location: Apollo

“Where’d they go?” Bill stammered.

“There was no hyperspace window.” Sam blinked. “They just disappeared.”

Ellis tilted his head. “I’m going to guess that this isn’t normal.”

Sam shook her head, “No, it’s not.”

Bill raised a finger, “You see, nothing we know is capable of making a ship-,” Bill smiled, “Well anything really,” he nodded, “-disappear without any traces left behind,” he pushed his glasses up, “it’s actually one of the more-”

“Bill,” Sam said, shooting him a look.

Bill visibly swallowed back the words, “Right.”

-

“Report,” Ellis said as he stepped onto the bridge.

Sam frowned, “Thirty-six hours and nothing.”

“They want us back.” He said.

Sam sighed and looked over at the place where they had disappeared. It had to be powerful to send them away in such a manner. No energy signature, no window. It was like nothing they had ever witnessed before.

“Understood sir.” She tilted her head. “Let’s drop a probe, keep tabs on this section of space. It’s quite possible they could return.” She shrugged, “Who knows.”

Ellis nodded, Sam left the bridge and made her way over to a window. She stared at the same patch of empty space. Bill came up to her side and patted her shoulder.

“I feel like they're out there somewhere,” he said, “I won't give up hope.”

“I think you’re right.” Sam smiled at him and bumped her shoulder against his, “and that makes two of us.”

#sga #stargate atlantis #rodney mckay #radek zelenka #sam carter #john sheppard #abraham ellis #bill lee #stargate fanfic #twotalesff #fanfic #chuck the technician #jump #am I skipping through the episode rewrite to get to the parts I'm most excited for #yes #yes i am

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of making any progress on the end of the semester

9:30pm, sunday, dec 5, 2021

i swear i spend so much time thinking about what to say in these and i get very excited to spill all my thoughts and secrets, and then completely run out of time every week. i'm doing this instead of other Necessary and More Important things bc i simply cannot skip again, i have to get this stuff off my chest and close the tabs so here we go...!

reading since the last one of these i wrote, i've finished the book of three by lloyd alexander, all systems red by martha wells, and have tried *so* *hard* to finish the sunne in splendour by sharon kay penman. quick thoughts here include how much the book of three reminded me of narnia in that mid-century, post-war jolly uk children's fantasy, though of course i did enjoy the welsh dimension. fascinating to think about alexander's decision to use gwydion as he does, fascinating to know more about the actual stories and some of the names being played on than i would have if i'd read this as a youth--i wonder how hard it would have been to shake my first impressions of some of these characters if i'd come to this first, rather than the actual PKM? e.g. Arawn, who is much spookier in this book than in pwyll.

my murderbot take is going to disappoint the murberbot fans in the audience because i really zoomed through this first novella, listening to the audiobook, which-- i don't know that this novella worked for me as an audio book! the sci-fi terms and jargon, which is so satisfyingly done in general, was hard to parse and a lot of the world-building was hard to keep track of only listening (and i could rewind to relisten to parts when needed, but i was also lazy). but on the other hand, having a real live voice to bring murderbot itself to life was sort of perfect, given its own ruminations on being a sec unit and what that means re: personhood. it shaped my understanding of the character, sure, but in a way that immediately reinforced all of the empathy i already felt building for this narrator. the only things i have to say about the sunne in splendour are that a) this is clearly not shakespeare's richard iii and i can accept that, finally, b) i really want to know how penman's suggestion of the actual culprit behind the princes in the tower mystery stacks up against the other historical theories out there, and c) all the good things i might say about the experience of reading this book pall before how bloody long it's taken me. i would like to be over now.

watching continued with succession by finishing season 1 and watching the first to episodes of season 2. i spend a lot of this show talking back to the characters, telling them "i don't...think that's true?" when they say things to each other, and avoiding watching decisions that lead to inevitable second-hand embarrassment. currently convinced that kendall is dissociating most of the time, shiv and logan are going to turn on each other asap, corporate espionage and verbal abuse are just love languages for these people. greg is going to be the nhs/sleeper mastermind somehow, i say not having avoided spoilers all that well but having mostly avoided spoilers, and tom is manages to combine being so incredibly self-conscious and also so un self-aware? it's mesmerizing but sometimes i can't actually watch.

also started watching prime's wheel of time, which is a good time since i've read the first three +/- books, ages ago, but don't remember much at all, and so am really well-positioned to have vaguely fond reminiscences stirred up while simultaneously not giving much of a shit at whatever they've changed. i'd like to take this magic system apart with a really fine-toothed comb and rewrite/reinvent everything about it that smacks of gender essentialism, i'd like to queer and/or trans the one power's genders, but mainly as i watch right now i like seeing the pretty people in the pretty landscapes. this show's aesthetic is the opposite of grim-dark, they've turned up the color-saturation and it's just...fun. lan and moiraine are very attractive and their whole Thing is very attractive; it's the intimacy and devotion for me. haven't seen episode 5 yet but excited to keep up.

i finally finished word of honor but this is a long-ass post already so the hot-takes are: my interest in this ended up being solely based on the charisma of individual actors' performances, and in that, i really enjoyed it. shout-out to gong jun and everything he brought to this. put your leading men in eye-shadow, say i! let them be a little feral!

listening bouncing around through lots of different musical tones and styles lately, but the noteworthy stuff of the last week or so was me introducing myself to sunday in the park with george, in order to better appreciate sondheim, and also dipping my toe into patti smith's oeuvre. it's been a time.

playing (and also a bit more listening here) i don't know what level of stress and/or burn-out leads you to getting completely distracted by once-beloved classical music, but i hit it on thursday this week. i stumbled, delighted, onto the fact that the new york philharmonic has scanned and uploaded a bunch of scores to their digital archives, and it was a sudden rush to realize that i had the house to myself and could use the scan of the flute I/II-piccolo parts to play along with a recording of aaron copland's appalachian spring. the recording i was listening to, aurora orchestra, helpfully split it up into the separate dances, which made it easier to follow along in the score--and it turns out, the piece was scored for a 13-piece ballet pit orchestra at first anyway. while i personally do like it from a full orchestra, lush and shimmery, and prefer to treat it as a tone poem without a definite narrative (landscapes/abstract imagery a la fantasia is what i've always heard in it, rather than specific characters), it does dance. those time signature changes are a nightmare, but i feel mostly fond and satisfied by their quirks and misdirections after having just listened to the piece for years, and it was a rush to see them in print for the first time.

https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/294a07e6-51fe-41e7-9543-5160b7443296-0.1/fullview#page/1/mode/2up

to my absolute delight, the music librarians apparently do not erase previous musicians' marks in this archive-- breaths, counting, the proof of other hands on these pages. on the last few lines of the flute ii part, there are a series of notes from previous players, the first one mostly scribbled out but still recognizable as some form of 'god help us all', with subsequent notes from the 1970s and 80s with later players agreeing or disagreeing (because of the counting? lol), and...god. loved to stumble on that. between that and getting to try my hand at the solo bits, and experience even this distantly the way those chords come together, sweet never saccharine, occasionally ecstatic but always sincere-- it really salvaged that afternoon.

making yardwork, mostly. is that generative, or just maintenance? it was cathartic, anyway. began to snow just as i was finishing.

working on i'm going to have to submit this diss proposal without written feedback from a couple of these clowns, won't i. fuck.

#in lieu of a commonplace book #ilcb #*slaps the side of this post* this baby can fit so much stream of consciousness in it #weekly roundup