Things that make me happy (SGA vid and story recs)

- I have tickets for MirrorMask tomorrow! It's opening the Amsterdam festival for fantastic (as in fantasy and horror) film. I'm really looking forward to it.

- Rache and Sandy's SGA vid "Stress". You've probably seen it already, but I managed to hold out until I got my hands on the Escapade DVD, so it was all new to me. It's a very funny, clever vid that encapsulates Rodney perfectly, and it just fills me with glee.

- pentapus's story Planet Megalodon Wraith Defense Force. SGA, gen, adventure story with a focus on John, Rodney and Teyla in particular. I adore this story - it's got exploration of fascinating alien worlds, terrific character voices, hurt/comfort, snark, rescues and wild escapes aplenty, plus my all time favorite plot element of 'OMG he's dead?! No, wait'. All this by a new author! And she can draw, too. We should clone her.

“Yes, yes, fine, the handheld version is designed to be more easily navigable than the stationary versions,” Rodney said and poked helpfully at one bubble in the web diagram labeled “Cool! Puddlejumper controls!” in Ancient which was when Sheppard suddenly got interested and tried to poke a bubble of his own. He got an immediate response. Sort of.

“John?” Elizabeth sounded worried, leaping out of her seat to peer across the table. Rodney might admit, later, to an instant of coldness in the chest region, but he'd probably caught a cold bug somewhere.

“Oh my,” said Zelenka.

“Huh,” Rodney said, taking back the square. “That’s funny.”

Sheppard was blinking slowly up at him from the floor, his chair rolling sedately away from where he had fallen out of it. “The hell?” Sheppard said, grabbing the edge of the table. The effects, it seemed, were extremely fleeting.

“You fainted,” Rodney said and, as an afterthought, beamed. “Try again.”

- ltlj's Retrograde series. SGA/SG-1 crossover. AU, gen. ltlj is one of my favorite authors in any fandom, and she is on such a roll with her SGA fic. I want to jump up and down and cheer her on. Wheee!

These stories are incredibly satisfying, plotty and rich and fun, and I'm going to be rereading them a lot, snickering to myself at all the snarky bits and angsting over the plot twists. She manages to give all the various SG-1 and SGA characters their due in a way familiar to anyone who's read When Hellmouths Collide - I haven't watched SG-1 at all, but I particularly enjoyed seeing the SGA people from Jack's and Cameron's point of view. (I didn't have a clue who this Cameron guy was, but after reading these stories he acquired a distinct, likeable personality for me.)

"Hey." O'Neill popped into the doorway suddenly. The Athosians all flinched. "You got a pair of scissors?"

John stared. "General?"

O'Neill winced and waved a hand vaguely around his head. "I gave a little girl some gum, she put it in her hair...."

"Right." John looked at Elizabeth's ransacked desk. "I...have no idea."

"I will find the girl and take care of it," Teyla said hastily.

"Oh. Good. She's the one with the--" O'Neill made another vague gesture. "You'll be able to tell."

As he headed off down the gallery, Teyla stared after him. She said, "I begin to believe that he is not doing this to disarm us."