natural resource, national treasure, etc etc
I got a text two days ago from my buddy jillkins that said, "I feel like the new Picspammy challenge was made for you." At this point, I didn't even know the new challenge had been posted (although I'd only been checking for the past 5 days~), so I was pretty excited to see what could possibly be so perfect for me.
There's something that you need to know about me: I surf TV Tropes constantly. It's the one thing I do when I need to kill time at school and I have nothing else to do. I've read so many articles, have determined what my favorite ones are (Unwinnable, So Bad It's Horrible, Crowning Moment of Awesome/Heartwarming, and, of course, Narm), and I feel like I can reference an atrocious number of them ad nausem. So you can imagine how absolutely over-the-moon thrilled I was to see that the newest picspammy is ALL ABOUT THESE THINGS THAT I HOLD MOST DEAR.
You also have to know that back in April, I got really hardcore into Stargate SG-1. Like, my love, it is so pure and intense and cannot be measured with pithy human numbers. I think it's the raddest and the bestest and guess what, I just think Samantha fucking Carter is the coolest thing since sliced bread. The night that the ~love switch~ was flipped, I said to myself, "Okay. My next picspammy will be about this show. It just will." I've been waiting these past few months for the perfect challenge to come along, one with which I could properly encapsulate even a fraction of my love, but the perfect challenge did not come. Not only that, but it was a bit of a double-whammy of disappointment, since my next spam would be my 10th. Being that close to a personal tag, almost tasting the damn thing, oy! It's brutal!
But then this gloooorious challenge happened to all of our lives, and I knew within seconds exactly what I was going to do.
Therefore, it is with earth-shattering pleasure that I present to you... this.
huge spoilers for the whole series, but it's mostly concentrated in seasons 1 through 8. and I MEAN IT; the whole thing is oozing spoilers.
caps from GateWorld and Stargate Caps
Moe Badass Adorable
A catch-all term for characters who, while being absolutely adorable, are also extremely badass. Underneath the irrepressibly cheerful demeanor, behind the innocent wide-eyed gaze, lies an astonishing capacity for kicking your ass, leveling a city, or why not, leveling an entire country.
It is a long-held and irrefutable fact among me and my circle of friends that Sam is moe. We call her this constantly even though we recognize that she's not technically moe, and we know we're merely using it as a synonym for "cute". But this is why Badass Adorable exists, because that's exactly what Sam is. She is one of the very few examples on the page, and there's a pretty good reason for that. LOOK AT HER. LOOK AT HER FACE. LOOK AT HER MOE LITTLE FACE. THIS IS THE FACE OF A WOMAN WHO'S KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE AND BLOWN UP A LOT OF SHIT.
Action Girl
The Action Girl is, essentially, Badassitude molded into a sleek female frame: a female character who is spunky, agile, and can take you down with an array of kicks, punches, or diverse Weapons Of Choice. She is not a Distressed Damsel. She doesn't sit around waiting to be rescued. She doesn't only plan how to rescue herself. She doesn't talk/manipulate/charm her way out of problems. She's got physical moves of her own to make.
BEHOLD, the badass half of Badass Adorable. Don't worry, it's okay to cheer. Nobody's going to judge you here; this is a safe space. Just let those "fuck yeah"s out. Just let them right out.
Nerds Are Sexy
Despite however many typically-sexy female characters are in a series, a common gag is to have the male characters fixate instead on some inconsequential minor female character. The character may only be cute in a "plain" way, but the men will all happen to find her uniquely charming.
Okay, let's be real here for a minute: Sam is vvvvveeeeerrrrrryyyyyy very attractive. She is also a geek of immense proportions. It's precious how alien the concept of a social life is to her sometimes; can't she just stay here and do science? And yet everyone wants her. Everyone. Regular humans, nerdy humans, all of the aliens, probably those plants that made noise, I don't know. e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. Even in the Moebius universe, where she really was a full-on stereotypical nerd, Jack wanted her so bad. And can you blame him? Nope. Nope, you sure can't.
Cartwright Curse
Any woman whom the hero meets is either wormfood or otherwise removed forever from his life by the end of the episode or arc. [...] Puts the "Temporary" in Temporary Love Interest and serves as the "Yank" in Yank The Dogs Chain.
I've always really enjoyed the fact that Sam has the page quote on this trope. Here's another good one from Amanda Tapping herself:
"I'm getting a really bad reputation in the galaxy. Like guys won't even phone me anymore. It's an interesting thing, and I actually talked to Brad Wright and Rob Cooper about it a couple of weeks ago - we were talking about the next season and I said 'Can I just have a boyfriend that doesn’t die?'. Most of my boyfriends have been aliens. Or hybrids. And they’ve all died. And the one guy that, you know, I really want, I can’t have. So, what up? I had a husband. Who knows what happened to him. God, it sucks. I feel like the black widow of sci-fi."
Demonic Possession
You see, my pretty, Kelvek the Seducer has taken Demonic Possession of this fragile and beautiful body from its rightful owner. How did she do this? Oh, there are so many delectable ways!
Sort of subverted the first two times and pretty blatant in the third. But, okay, let's talk about the fact that this lady's been possessed by alien forces three fucking times. And are there more that I'm failing to remember? Shoot, how does she even get out of bed every day, how does she even function? Jolinar left Sam with tons of memories and feelings that weren't her own and ~magic Goa'uld powers~ that didn't make her feel too good, just Cursed With Awesome. The thing from "Entity" got her killed (well, her... I mean, not... look okay, you know what I mean if you've watched it) and then shoved her into a computer. And then she was possessed by Anubis's ghost and made to kick everyone's ass. Granted, she wasn't the only one, but IT'S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. I'll say it again: HOW DOES SHE EVEN FUNCTION.
Break The Cutie
A series introduces a character as sweet and lovable [...] who likes nothing more than to pet little puppies. They make you adore them, root for them and love them. Then they proceed to slowly break them in front of your very eyes. They destroy everything important to them, kill everyone they love and make them suffer from horrible accidents, diseases and acts of violence. They beat the character with one cruel stroke of fate after another until they are just a shell of their former cheerful, carefree self.
All right, let's run down the list:
1.) Her mother died when she was young because of something her father failed to do.
2.) She forgave him for this, which caused her brother to hate her guts.
3.) Even though she forgave her father, he was still distant so that relationship still sucked.
4.) It did get better, though. I mean, really better. Crowning Moment of Heartwarming better. And then he died four years later.
5.) Her AU selves go through some horrible shit (the entire world being under attack with the last line of defense rapidly crumbling away, being a widow, infertility...)
6.) We've already covered the Jolinar thing, but clearly it's worth mentioning again.
7.) There's also the aforementioned Cartwright Curse, and we haven't even gone into the fact that she was actually forced to kill one of them herself.
8.) She's been mind raped zillions of times, with at least three of them being fairly dramatic and excruciatingly painful.
9.) Her best friend died horribly.
10.) She had to watch Daniel die a hideous death and thought he was really gone for months.
11.) Well, I think I've proved my point. She's been through hell. A lot. Oh, which reminds me, there was the time she went to Hell...
Iron Woobie
A woobie (named for a child's security blanket) is that character you want to give a big hug, wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when he or she suffers so very beautifully. [...] Then there is the Iron Woobie. An Iron Woobie is a character who has something noble about his Woobie nature. Maybe they became a Woobie of their own free will from a Heroic Sacrifice for the sake of The Power of Friendship. Maybe just their passive powers of endurance show a Heroic Spirit. But in any case there is something about their Woobie nature that you admire.
Look at everything I listed on the previous trope. Fucking look at that list of unbridled agony. And yet, despite all of that and more, she survives. Every single time, mostly on nothing but sheer force of will. Not only does she survive, she grows even stronger and fights even harder the next time. If she's an AU Sam, then she goes down in a blaze of self-sacrificial glory, making damn well sure to either get shit done or take as many bad guys down as possible in the process. And, and? Even after all this, she's still a nice person. She somehow keeps her idealism fairly intact and manages to stay considerably calm under pressure. And by "pressure" I mean "the weight of ten universes on her shoulders". Awe-inspiring doesn't even begin to cover it.
Evil Twin
Take a popular character and introduce us to the evil version of this character.
brb shivering. Oh, Replicarter, what havoc didn't you wreak. Everything about her creeps me out, from the reason she was created in the first place to her sword arm to the fact that she heavily implies that she is truly what Sam would be if she ever decided flip the finger to the side of good. But the real kicker is that assuming that the memories she showed Sam were real, then she clearly possessed the capability to care about other people at first, before Fifth screwed her up beyond repair. And I can't even tell you how much I think about the fact that it all could've been avoided if Jack didn't give that one fucking order. The entire situation's just incredibly depressing to me; I can't even handle it.
Everyone Can See It
This trope happens when two characters are just perfect for each other, but neither realizes it (or only one realizes it). However, everyone around them - such as their friends, family, and enemies - can see their obvious feelings for each other.
Please. You think I'd go this whole spam without a mention of these two? Nooooot likely. Nobody can deny how important Jack is to Sam (and vice versa), not even all of the universes. All of them. All people ever can see it written all over their cute little faces, which is hilarious because it took armbands and force fields and friggin' alien lie detectors for them to finally see it themselves. I've said this before in other places, but for a couple of kids who can't be together, they sure do get a lot of action. Not to mention that this makes Jack 100% immune to the Cartwright Curse. And, look. Sam just needs him so much and Jack just needs her so much and nnn they are perfect. My fragile little heart, how it doth swell ten sizes.
Remember When You Blew Up a Sun
A sub-trope of Continuity Nod, where a character acknowledges a past Crowning Moment Of Awesome, either their own or that of another character. Can be used to attempt to intimidate an opponent, or even just a minor character that is being a nuisance. If the opponent is impressive enough, this may even qualify as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome in its own right.
YES, I HAVE THAT MEMORY. AND IT IS SO VERY VERY GOOD.
Trope Namer, ladies and gentlemen. This simple fact makes my heart do little bunny hops. And what a trope to spawn.
So this one time, Sam and her dad got this bright idea to do something that would destroy most, if not all of Apophis's fleet, which was huge. Seriously, it was ridiculous, there were so many fucking ships. Sam was the one who had to carry out the plan, and let me assure you, it was 100% craycray. It was like Diet Coke and Mentos, but with space and stars and lots and lots of fire.
And it worked. Apophis's army was decimated in incredibly grand fashion. How? Why, that's simple: Samantha Carter blew up a sun. She launched a Stargate connected to a black hole into the center of a sun, which sucked in enough of its mass to cause it to supernova. oh my god just typing these words is sending the giddiest shivers up my spine. SHE BLEW UP A SUN, YOU GUYS. ALL ARGUMENTS ARE INVALID FOREVER AND EVER.
WHEW, I feel like I've just run a mile, ~the most awesome mile of life~. This seems like a pretty good place to call it; how are we gonna do better than sun detonation, I mean, honestly.
I sure hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed making it. Fuck yeah, TV Tropes. Fuck yeah, picspammy. FUCK YEAH, SAMANTHA FUCKING CARTER.
There's something that you need to know about me: I surf TV Tropes constantly. It's the one thing I do when I need to kill time at school and I have nothing else to do. I've read so many articles, have determined what my favorite ones are (Unwinnable, So Bad It's Horrible, Crowning Moment of Awesome/Heartwarming, and, of course, Narm), and I feel like I can reference an atrocious number of them ad nausem. So you can imagine how absolutely over-the-moon thrilled I was to see that the newest picspammy is ALL ABOUT THESE THINGS THAT I HOLD MOST DEAR.
You also have to know that back in April, I got really hardcore into Stargate SG-1. Like, my love, it is so pure and intense and cannot be measured with pithy human numbers. I think it's the raddest and the bestest and guess what, I just think Samantha fucking Carter is the coolest thing since sliced bread. The night that the ~love switch~ was flipped, I said to myself, "Okay. My next picspammy will be about this show. It just will." I've been waiting these past few months for the perfect challenge to come along, one with which I could properly encapsulate even a fraction of my love, but the perfect challenge did not come. Not only that, but it was a bit of a double-whammy of disappointment, since my next spam would be my 10th. Being that close to a personal tag, almost tasting the damn thing, oy! It's brutal!
But then this gloooorious challenge happened to all of our lives, and I knew within seconds exactly what I was going to do.
Therefore, it is with earth-shattering pleasure that I present to you... this.
huge spoilers for the whole series, but it's mostly concentrated in seasons 1 through 8. and I MEAN IT; the whole thing is oozing spoilers.
caps from GateWorld and Stargate Caps
Moe Badass Adorable
A catch-all term for characters who, while being absolutely adorable, are also extremely badass. Underneath the irrepressibly cheerful demeanor, behind the innocent wide-eyed gaze, lies an astonishing capacity for kicking your ass, leveling a city, or why not, leveling an entire country.
It is a long-held and irrefutable fact among me and my circle of friends that Sam is moe. We call her this constantly even though we recognize that she's not technically moe, and we know we're merely using it as a synonym for "cute". But this is why Badass Adorable exists, because that's exactly what Sam is. She is one of the very few examples on the page, and there's a pretty good reason for that. LOOK AT HER. LOOK AT HER FACE. LOOK AT HER MOE LITTLE FACE. THIS IS THE FACE OF A WOMAN WHO'S KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE AND BLOWN UP A LOT OF SHIT.
Action Girl
The Action Girl is, essentially, Badassitude molded into a sleek female frame: a female character who is spunky, agile, and can take you down with an array of kicks, punches, or diverse Weapons Of Choice. She is not a Distressed Damsel. She doesn't sit around waiting to be rescued. She doesn't only plan how to rescue herself. She doesn't talk/manipulate/charm her way out of problems. She's got physical moves of her own to make.
BEHOLD, the badass half of Badass Adorable. Don't worry, it's okay to cheer. Nobody's going to judge you here; this is a safe space. Just let those "fuck yeah"s out. Just let them right out.
Nerds Are Sexy
Despite however many typically-sexy female characters are in a series, a common gag is to have the male characters fixate instead on some inconsequential minor female character. The character may only be cute in a "plain" way, but the men will all happen to find her uniquely charming.
Okay, let's be real here for a minute: Sam is vvvvveeeeerrrrrryyyyyy very attractive. She is also a geek of immense proportions. It's precious how alien the concept of a social life is to her sometimes; can't she just stay here and do science? And yet everyone wants her. Everyone. Regular humans, nerdy humans, all of the aliens, probably those plants that made noise, I don't know. e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. Even in the Moebius universe, where she really was a full-on stereotypical nerd, Jack wanted her so bad. And can you blame him? Nope. Nope, you sure can't.
Cartwright Curse
Any woman whom the hero meets is either wormfood or otherwise removed forever from his life by the end of the episode or arc. [...] Puts the "Temporary" in Temporary Love Interest and serves as the "Yank" in Yank The Dogs Chain.
I've always really enjoyed the fact that Sam has the page quote on this trope. Here's another good one from Amanda Tapping herself:
"I'm getting a really bad reputation in the galaxy. Like guys won't even phone me anymore. It's an interesting thing, and I actually talked to Brad Wright and Rob Cooper about it a couple of weeks ago - we were talking about the next season and I said 'Can I just have a boyfriend that doesn’t die?'. Most of my boyfriends have been aliens. Or hybrids. And they’ve all died. And the one guy that, you know, I really want, I can’t have. So, what up? I had a husband. Who knows what happened to him. God, it sucks. I feel like the black widow of sci-fi."
Demonic Possession
You see, my pretty, Kelvek the Seducer has taken Demonic Possession of this fragile and beautiful body from its rightful owner. How did she do this? Oh, there are so many delectable ways!
Sort of subverted the first two times and pretty blatant in the third. But, okay, let's talk about the fact that this lady's been possessed by alien forces three fucking times. And are there more that I'm failing to remember? Shoot, how does she even get out of bed every day, how does she even function? Jolinar left Sam with tons of memories and feelings that weren't her own and ~magic Goa'uld powers~ that didn't make her feel too good, just Cursed With Awesome. The thing from "Entity" got her killed (well, her... I mean, not... look okay, you know what I mean if you've watched it) and then shoved her into a computer. And then she was possessed by Anubis's ghost and made to kick everyone's ass. Granted, she wasn't the only one, but IT'S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. I'll say it again: HOW DOES SHE EVEN FUNCTION.
Break The Cutie
A series introduces a character as sweet and lovable [...] who likes nothing more than to pet little puppies. They make you adore them, root for them and love them. Then they proceed to slowly break them in front of your very eyes. They destroy everything important to them, kill everyone they love and make them suffer from horrible accidents, diseases and acts of violence. They beat the character with one cruel stroke of fate after another until they are just a shell of their former cheerful, carefree self.
All right, let's run down the list:
1.) Her mother died when she was young because of something her father failed to do.
2.) She forgave him for this, which caused her brother to hate her guts.
3.) Even though she forgave her father, he was still distant so that relationship still sucked.
4.) It did get better, though. I mean, really better. Crowning Moment of Heartwarming better. And then he died four years later.
5.) Her AU selves go through some horrible shit (the entire world being under attack with the last line of defense rapidly crumbling away, being a widow, infertility...)
6.) We've already covered the Jolinar thing, but clearly it's worth mentioning again.
7.) There's also the aforementioned Cartwright Curse, and we haven't even gone into the fact that she was actually forced to kill one of them herself.
8.) She's been mind raped zillions of times, with at least three of them being fairly dramatic and excruciatingly painful.
9.) Her best friend died horribly.
10.) She had to watch Daniel die a hideous death and thought he was really gone for months.
11.) Well, I think I've proved my point. She's been through hell. A lot. Oh, which reminds me, there was the time she went to Hell...
Iron Woobie
A woobie (named for a child's security blanket) is that character you want to give a big hug, wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when he or she suffers so very beautifully. [...] Then there is the Iron Woobie. An Iron Woobie is a character who has something noble about his Woobie nature. Maybe they became a Woobie of their own free will from a Heroic Sacrifice for the sake of The Power of Friendship. Maybe just their passive powers of endurance show a Heroic Spirit. But in any case there is something about their Woobie nature that you admire.
Look at everything I listed on the previous trope. Fucking look at that list of unbridled agony. And yet, despite all of that and more, she survives. Every single time, mostly on nothing but sheer force of will. Not only does she survive, she grows even stronger and fights even harder the next time. If she's an AU Sam, then she goes down in a blaze of self-sacrificial glory, making damn well sure to either get shit done or take as many bad guys down as possible in the process. And, and? Even after all this, she's still a nice person. She somehow keeps her idealism fairly intact and manages to stay considerably calm under pressure. And by "pressure" I mean "the weight of ten universes on her shoulders". Awe-inspiring doesn't even begin to cover it.
Evil Twin
Take a popular character and introduce us to the evil version of this character.
brb shivering. Oh, Replicarter, what havoc didn't you wreak. Everything about her creeps me out, from the reason she was created in the first place to her sword arm to the fact that she heavily implies that she is truly what Sam would be if she ever decided flip the finger to the side of good. But the real kicker is that assuming that the memories she showed Sam were real, then she clearly possessed the capability to care about other people at first, before Fifth screwed her up beyond repair. And I can't even tell you how much I think about the fact that it all could've been avoided if Jack didn't give that one fucking order. The entire situation's just incredibly depressing to me; I can't even handle it.
Everyone Can See It
This trope happens when two characters are just perfect for each other, but neither realizes it (or only one realizes it). However, everyone around them - such as their friends, family, and enemies - can see their obvious feelings for each other.
Please. You think I'd go this whole spam without a mention of these two? Nooooot likely. Nobody can deny how important Jack is to Sam (and vice versa), not even all of the universes. All of them. All people ever can see it written all over their cute little faces, which is hilarious because it took armbands and force fields and friggin' alien lie detectors for them to finally see it themselves. I've said this before in other places, but for a couple of kids who can't be together, they sure do get a lot of action. Not to mention that this makes Jack 100% immune to the Cartwright Curse. And, look. Sam just needs him so much and Jack just needs her so much and nnn they are perfect. My fragile little heart, how it doth swell ten sizes.
Remember When You Blew Up a Sun
A sub-trope of Continuity Nod, where a character acknowledges a past Crowning Moment Of Awesome, either their own or that of another character. Can be used to attempt to intimidate an opponent, or even just a minor character that is being a nuisance. If the opponent is impressive enough, this may even qualify as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome in its own right.
YES, I HAVE THAT MEMORY. AND IT IS SO VERY VERY GOOD.
Trope Namer, ladies and gentlemen. This simple fact makes my heart do little bunny hops. And what a trope to spawn.
So this one time, Sam and her dad got this bright idea to do something that would destroy most, if not all of Apophis's fleet, which was huge. Seriously, it was ridiculous, there were so many fucking ships. Sam was the one who had to carry out the plan, and let me assure you, it was 100% craycray. It was like Diet Coke and Mentos, but with space and stars and lots and lots of fire.
And it worked. Apophis's army was decimated in incredibly grand fashion. How? Why, that's simple: Samantha Carter blew up a sun. She launched a Stargate connected to a black hole into the center of a sun, which sucked in enough of its mass to cause it to supernova. oh my god just typing these words is sending the giddiest shivers up my spine. SHE BLEW UP A SUN, YOU GUYS. ALL ARGUMENTS ARE INVALID FOREVER AND EVER.
WHEW, I feel like I've just run a mile, ~the most awesome mile of life~. This seems like a pretty good place to call it; how are we gonna do better than sun detonation, I mean, honestly.
I sure hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed making it. Fuck yeah, TV Tropes. Fuck yeah, picspammy. FUCK YEAH, SAMANTHA FUCKING CARTER.