#sga asks

[dedkake]

i would love to hear your thinky thoughts about john in Letters from Pegasus (because i always forget about that episode and only remember it as a clipshow)

hi! hello!

i think i've always liked letters from pegasus--because it's an ep that doesn't really have a bad guy, and those are my favorites lol. and, while being partially a clip episode, it also gives so much backstory and even fleshes out some side characters.

but also, the theme of the episode seems to be: family.

all the characters are talking to their families. they have the opportunity for the first time since leaving earth to connect with Family. even teyla is trying to save people she describes as family.

and then there's john sheppard.

john sheppard who basically becomes a different person in this episode. not entirely, but definitely not quite the same man he is for the previous episodes.

as soon as they mention getting in contact with earth--as soon as it is possible that earth has any sway over them at all, or that they have any duty towards earth, as soon as everyone else is thinking of their families--john just . changes. he shuts down.

he loses that john sheppard spark. he becomes this flat military kind of guy who's all about defense and saving the expedition and no one else. and that's just not who he's shown himself to be since arriving on atlantis!!!

earth is like an anchor--in a bad way. it's weighing him down. that man was free for the first time in his life and even a hint of earth locks him all up again.

john didn't fit in on earth. he's got no one left on earth---no family. his whole family is on atlantis--which is about to be wiped out. and being reconnected to earth likely means he'll be forced to go back to earth. he might not be allowed to come back.

the fact that throughout the episode we get the clips of rodney, who eventually, on his own, comes to the conclusion that his family on atlantis! is the most important thing!!! while john is stuck in his own head and teyla is hitting him repeatedly with family family we can save people who are our family!!! we should save people who are family!!!

ugh. rodney gets it. being reconnected to earth makes rodney get it. and admit it. while it shuts john down. reconnecting with earth means reconnecting with family for everyone, but for john it means losing his family.

just losing my mind a little bit.

[dedkake]

do we think Beer on the Pier started as John and Rodney's whale watching date? 🥺

what a lovely idea, anon!! have a first date drabble as payment for my delay in response:

Despite the brilliance of the ocean in the late afternoon sun, some things are always awkward. Rodney should have anticipated the first date tension; John hasn’t looked him in the eye since agreeing to meet him on the pier. It doesn’t help that they haven’t seen any wildlife—just the two of them and the beer and uncomfortable silence. “This barely counts as beer.” Rodney winces. That’s not how he’d meant to break the ice. John shrugs. “Next time, you bring the beer.” “Next time?” Gently, unmistakably, John presses his knee against Rodney’s. “Well, we haven’t seen any whales yet.”

[dedkake]

HELLO it's SGA headcannon time:

i saw someone comment once (idk if it was tumblr or youtube) that "they gave john so little backstory i thought they were setting up that he was secretly an ancient" SO i know there are already amazing ancient!john fics out there but i have this idea that like

he doesn't know it because he was an ascended ancient kicked out and had his memory wiped like Daniel. because he couldn't stand the whole 'watch and do nothing' bs.

SO this is my question like if they dumped him back on earth as a human was his whole earth-childhood a false memory or can they restart him as a baby?

OOORRRRR they pulled a Dawn and Buffy thing and he just shows up a fully formed adult (however old he was when he died as an Ancient) and the false memory of him always existing is planted in his family's heads ... BUT THEY ALWAYS FEEL SOMETHING IS OFF AND THAT'S WHY THEY HATE HIM SO MUCH????

oooo these are such interesting ideas, anon.

we do know the ascended ancients can mess with human growth from sg1. so both are possible.

what my angst-loving self is thinking about now though is that this alienation for john wouldn't stop after going to atlantis. and definitely wouldn't stop after people figure things out. it would maybe. intensify.

[dedkake]

jack gets Thor as his alien buddy who admires him so much he names a ship after him, meanwhile john is stuck with a clingy wraith who would rather walk him around on a leash...

john: at least todd wears pants jack: didn't he eat your life force john: ... he gave it back.

i have never thought to compare todd and thor before but you are so right, anon! too bad jack and john never taught their alien buddies how to play golf!

[dedkake]

Who would you choose?

Elizabeth or Sam

TIA

[dedkake]

every time I see your blog: “I am going to rewatch SGA.”

every time I turn on the TV: “What should I watch? I don’t knooooooow.”

kj;dflskajf; i'm living the opposite problem. whenever i sit down to watch something new it inevitably turns into an sga rewatch 😂

highly recommend a rewatch!! we're having an excellent time over here!!

[dedkake]

Unpopular SGA-1 team opinions?

Oh man what counts as unpopular here??

Let’s see…

1. John and Rodney shouldn’t be on the same team. Given their positions in the base chain of command, they shouldn’t be off base at the same time. They probably shouldn’t be on teams at all after season 1, just consultants.

2. Ronon and Teyla also shouldn’t be on the same team. Their knowledge of Pegasus and its citizens would be more effective if spread out.

3. Teyla should be the leader, not John. The job of this team isn’t military and John isn’t that good at negotiating (sometimes he likes to pretend it’s not his job at all!!)

4. Their particular brand of cliquiness could be kind of toxic in the larger work environment.

[dedkake]

mcshep as cherik? who is which?

aaaah hello, anon! and thank you! for dropping this thought on me slkdfja

okay so this is HARD and idk if this is the answer you were hoping for but

at a very basic level, i would say john and erik are both more emotionally motivated while rodney and charles are more motivated by logic (of their own design) HOWEVER

neither john nor rodney could ever ever ever be either charles or erik because my sga babies are fundamentally too selfish. they are never motivated by causes and ideals beyond loyalty to their (found) family.

like if you ever gave them a dilemma of "you can achieve x OR you can save your bff's life, but not both" they would always say screw it and save their team (or break physics to do both!), whereas charles and erik would drop each other in a heartbeat (not that they wouldn’t feel bad about it).

also, major motivations for john are making up for his (real and perceived) mistakes, while major motivations for rodney revolve around proving himself worthy of his found family. both of these things involve a degree of humility that charles and erik majorly lack. charles and erik think they have been Right their entire lives, even if it has hurt those they care about. and even when they admit they were wrong they aren’t motived by making amends for it. (and usually they are more remorseful about the consequences of their actions rather than the actions themselves)

so when you get down to the core of the charles / erik dynamic -- a fundamental difference of righteous ideals, john and rodney just. don't have it. they are just idiots bffs in love, living off in their own little corner of the universe.

sidenote of which i am only minorly ashamed:

way back in 2019 which feels yknow like 100000 years ago, not two, when i was writing for the cherikzine, i was seriously blocked on what to do. i feel so bad for what i put the mods through lmao. every check-in i handed them a different story idea that wasn’t even hashed out and in the end i turned in something completely different that i’d written at the last minute.

now. i was blocked because i was very caught up in the extreme fic writing joy of creating better without olives and couldn’t get john (and rodney) out of my head for enough time to actually write charles and erik. 

on the eve of deadline, i said fuck it and wrote the first draft of gone fishing without fighting the john voice that kept demanding to be put on paper (and sometimes the rodney voice too). 

of course i revised it and shoved the characters back into charles and erik. but if you ever wanna give yourself a headache, you can try to puzzle out which pieces of john and rodney made their way into that charles and erik <3<3