Things I wonder about on my way to work

[pepper]

Does Jack know how to dance? Formal sort of dance, I mean - not getting down on the disco floor (god help us all). I've read fics where he does, and they're not all badfics - okay, the majority were, but not all. He's the same generation as my parents, who took themselves to dance classes at one point, as a sort of... thing that people do. But. I'm still having problems picturing it.

I wonder if the others know how to dance. Are there Jaffa formal dances?

Yoga fic appears to be a Thing, particularly in the LoTR fandom, if the brief glimpse I've seen is anything to go by. Huh. Interesting. Nothing against it, but it's just never occurred to me. I've maybe thought about my characters when I'm doing yoga (turns that's a bad idea when trying to balance, and is no help at all for staying awake in Corpse Pose), but I don't picture them doing it. Perhaps because my brain defaults to Jack, and I think if he tried Lotus, he'd never walk again.

Is it unethical for a vegetarian to eat barbequed kangaroo flavour crisps? The crisps themselves are vegetarian, but presumably someone had to kill and eat some kangaroos in order to determine what the crisps should taste like. But following that path, it's probably unethical to like veggie bacon and ham and chicken and mock duck, too, and I think I might starve to death if cut off from all that. Plus I've just discovered veggie sweet and sour pork balls in my local Chinese restaurant, and omg the real thing was my favourite when I ate meat, and I've not had it or a substitute in about twenty years.

Looking forward to trying out my new swimsuit when I go river swimming this weekend (pending weather). It's sort of 40s style, navy with big white spots, which suits my figure better than sportswear. I want one of those Questionable Content Aerodynamically Curvaceous T-shirts to go on top.

I don't know what people think of my taste in music, but I want to play 'Snow Is Gone' and 'To The Dogs Or Whoever' by Josh Ritter very loudly to everyone I know. I never know about playing folk/country type music, people often hate it with unreasonable passion. I have trouble understanding how anyone could hate Josh Ritter, but apparently he's not to everyone's taste. I once tried to play (the admittedly very long) 'Thin Blue Flame' to A, and when it got to the music outro, which I thought was kind of mind-blowing and crescendo-ish, he started talking, obviously feeling it was pretty much over and he could go and do something else at last. I'm not trying again to open his mind to the experience. His loss.

I need to figure out the end of this damn fic. What does Sara say to Jack when encountering him unexpectedly in another odd - but much less traumatic - situation? Does Jack offer to let her know what's going on, this time (maybe three or four years after Cold Lazarus)? And if so, would she say 'fuck this situation, I want to know what happened with not-Charlie, you bastard'.

NB, I went back to redial_the_gate's Cold Lazarus recap the other day, and someone pointed out in comments that Jack never actually does promise to let Sara know what's going on. He reassures her that he's him, says "I want to hear all about it", and later says that it's not Charlie, and agrees they were great together - and that's it. No promises whatsoever. Sara doesn't ask, either. Perhaps, as a military wife, she wasn't expecting to find out. Perhaps Jack didn't want to make a promise he couldn't be sure to keep (because at this point they were still being discreet about the Stargate).

Okay, I think I've run out of steam for today.

Comments

[erda]

Of course Jack knows how to dance!

[pepper]

But why? I mean, RDA, sure - but Jack has no ear for music, for a start.

ETA: Are we talking about the same Jack, btw? :) I mean Jack O'Neill. Just checkin'...

[erda]

Haha, yes we are talking about the same Jack. In my personal canon Jack took dancing lessons as a young man. Its all part of his generation and being an officer and a gentleman and all that. I just want him to be able to dance, okay? It makes me happy.

[pepper]

Heh. I'm cool with that. :D

I could definitely see it as something his generation were more likely to have learned, and something he might have needed in the odd formal thing he couldn't escape - not something he'd enjoy, per se, but something he could do if required.

[thothmes]

I'm 8 years younger than RDA, which makes me 6 years younger than Jack, and many in my generation had to go to Dance Class and learn ballroom dancing and deportment, but it was more popular with the well-to-do, whose daughters could expect to be debutantes, and whose sons would be expected to squire them about. Young men of more modest means often acquired scholarships because it was harder to get young men to attend, and mothers who had ambitions for their sons often forced their unhappy male offspring to attend. I can just see Jack's mother telling him that if he wants her to pay for the ice time and hockey equipment, he'd better stop playing hookey at Mrs. Neilsen's Dance Academy!

Aside from that, I believe that the Military Academies and Officer Candidate School all required to officers to learn the basics of ballroom dancing, because it was considered part of the "gentleman" portion of being an officer and a gentleman. As I understand it, it was made part of the curriculum because there was a feeling in our new nation that we wanted to be able to show that our officers had all the social graces of the European officers that they might interact with, whatever station they rose to the rank from. I don't know for certain that the requirement has continued to the present day, but I'm pretty sure that Jack would have been exposed.

[pepper]

Okay, interesting. Yeah, I had a vague notion that it had been a requirement (same here, at the right sort of officer schools, I believe). I must look into whether it would still have been seriously applied when Jack was at the Academy.

I have a soft spot for the whole formal dance thing, but I've seen it applied in all sorts of ridiculous ways across pretty much every fandom I've been involved in (oh, the X-Files fandom was obsessed with it), so I'm always wary of believing it fits with real life until I see it done by people who I know do their research. :)