- The spite of the spirits opened a door better left untouched. On the other hand, with Fire and Earth as one's allies, sometimes escaping is the easy part.The story summary
A Stargate SG-1/Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover in which Sam and Janet find themselves in an unexpected encounter with a group of Jaffa and make their escape with the help of two misplaced kids, one which has some literal firepower and one which can manipulate the ground itself.
Needless to say, Toph and Zuko make things easier, although more confusing. How are they doing that?
Read it at Fanfiction.net
or AO3.
Examples of Tropes:
- The Ace: Zuko was a somewhat subtle version in the show, generally being competent-to-highly-skilled in everything not involving interacting with other people. It's just downplayed in the original show, because he tends to take on threats on their own terms, like facing more powerful benders in open combat rather than utilizing his stealth and weapon skills to take them out. Here, when put beside trained soldiers and special forces, Zuko's vast array of skills gets much more spotlight, to the point that he is considered a bigger threat than Toph, because he can do a lot more than simply break stuff. Also, the nature of the main threat within the storyline makes fire its natural enemy, meaning Zuko's the most effective fighter against it until the Avatar shows up for a direct confrontation.
- Agony of the Feet: The group escapes the ship in the beginning to discover they are on an ice planet. Toph hurts her bare feet on the ice and Zuko is forced to carry her.
- Alien Food Is Edible: Downplayed. Asyuntians and humans can eat each other's foods, but Asyuntians start suffering mineral deprivation if fed exclusively on naquadah-less human foodstuffs, while humans have to be very careful to avoid getting heavy metal poisoning from the naquadah-laced Asyuntian food web.
- Aliens Speaking English: Justified by the Stargate having a built-in translation function. Lampshaded by Daniel:
- "Did you think that every long-lost splinter of humanity somehow magically spoke English, then?"
- And actually Inverted in sections from Zuko and Toph's point of view, where English is phonetically transliterated according to Asyuntian pronunciation rules to reflect the fact that Zuko and Toph don't speak it.
- Anadiplosis: Chapter 5: "You healed her" repetition cut off by a phrase change, to emphasis it:Speaking of skepticism – Toph threw her hands in the air, nearly clipping his nose in passing and forcing his attention back from its wandering path. “Sparky, you healed her! You healed her using firebending! Why didn’t anyone say anything? Uncle didn’t tell you, the Sages didn’t tell you, even your stupid dragons didn’t tell you!”
- And I Must Scream: Implied to be the fate of the yukiuso's victims. Frozen to death and trapped in the Spirit World/ascended plane for the rest of eternity while the yukiuso plays with them.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Ancients. Some of them. Agni, Tui, La, Oma and Shu are all ascended Ancients. The Avatar Spirit is implied to be one as well.
- Backup from Otherworld: Khenut, Sanura's predessor as First Prime, appears to Zuko, Toph and Sam after they accidentally free her spirit from the yukiuso and are trapped in the Spirit World. She returns the favour by helping them return to the physical world.
- Badass Adorable: Toph, naturally. Lampshaded by Sanura.
- Badass and Child Duo: Does it count if the child (Toph) is also a badass?
- Batman Gambit: Toph and Zuko figure that when Iroh used firebending to heat up his tea back when they were acting like refugees, it was either a) a brilliant move to get Zuko away from Jet, who Iroh saw as a bad influence who would lead Zuko down a darker path, or b) he honestly loves tea so much that he didn't think about it. Toph and Zuko, rather tellingly, give both theories equal weight.
- Blow You Away: Aang, of course.
- Brick Joke: Janet's first thoughts in chapter one is a desire to find whoever invented zats and murder them in the name of the Hippocratic Oath. At the beginning of chapter twelve... she finds him....he raised [his] hands, palms forward in the universal I am unarmed, please don't hurt me gesture...
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Sergeant Heather Dyne. Completely obsessed with science and her thoughts are all over the place in the middle of a fight. However she carries flash powder around with her at work, stores fireworks in her lab at the SGC and is the first member of the SGC to injure the yukiuso by observing Toph throwing salt at it.
- Call-Back: "Isn't it obvious? Zuko finally coughed up my life-changing field trip!"
- Cast from Hit Points: Without access to the sun, Zuko's firebending rapidly becomes this to the point where at the end of Chapter 8 he collapses into convulsions.
- Enforcing a threshold against spirits or banishing them seems to be this as Janet felt incredibly tired after ejecting the yukiuso from the Infirmary
- Cataclysm Backstory: The Avatar world. Maybe.
- Chekhov's Gun: Several.
- The naquadah battery that Toph crystallises in Chapter 8 makes a reappearance in Chapter 11 as a makeshift grenade.
- Averted with Toph's ability to utilise earth-healing to 'bone-bend' offensively. As the author specifically notes:
"...the Blind Bandit plain doesn't roll that way. She wants to deal with someone, she chucks rocks at 'em. So Chekhov can take that gun off the mantelpiece and fire it somewhere else." - Child Soldiers: Sam realized Zuko is one when she thinks about his actions while escaping and when he confirms that he has killed before.
- Sam: Note to self, walk him home through the Gate. I have some parents to pound.
- Cliffhanger: The end of Chapter 4 certainly counts, but Chapter 5 blows it out of the water. See Wham Line below. Chapter 8, too.
- In Chapter 10 Toph, Zuko and Sam have been taken into the spirit world with Toph and Zuko trying to prevent Sam from being killed in the crossing; the rest of SG-1 and their allies are in the midst of the yukiuso's storm; and on Asunyti the Avatar Spirit starts to dial the Stargate.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Jack invokes this with the bender's eye colours reflecting their abilities.
- Collateral Damage: Firing guns in an enclosed space from multiple directions in a crowded room never ends well. Trying to shoot the yukiuso when it attacks the SGC canteen leaves multiple bystanders injured.
- Comically Inept Healing: The Stargate command refuses to let Zuko outside, despite Toph's repeated pleas to "let them see sunlight", because they think she's just using a metaphor for wanting fresh air and they are afraid of exposing Zuko to Terran diseases with his immune system weakened by naquadah depletion, not to mention rogue groups attempting to kidnap these children to use as living weapons, or dissect them. What they don't realize is that Toph isn't being metaphorical— Zuko literally needs to be exposed to sunlight in order to biosynthesize naquadah.
- Composite Character: While the text does say that it's General Hammond in charge, his mannerisms (and the fact that he apparently has hair) seem more in line with General Landry, his successor.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Sanura.
- Toph and Zuko for the SG-1. Being a Child Soldier is not a Terran-approved choice of occupation.
- Deconstruction: Turns out that not everyone was happy with the ATLA series finale. Multiple Earth Kingdom units and Southern Water Tribe fleets went rogue to continue their own actions against the Fire Nation.
- It turns out that Aang really is just a kid, and doesn't think about the consequences of his actions too much. For example, Zuko points out that his habit of trying to ride every animal he sees could technically be counted as animal abuse, and Toph is furious at how Aang raised the sea level to stop the fires caused by Ozai's attack on the Earth Kingdom during the Comet. Not because of some bender pride thing... but because he just swamped vast amounts of land with salt water, making the land unusable for a long time.
- Toph realizes that despite her trying not to break bones, she's probably killed several people through internal injuries. Throwing rocks fast enough to launch people into the air is not something that someone shrugs off, despite the PG nature of the show.
- Despite the PG nature of the show showing children having fun with magical powers and having an adventure to defeat the Fire Lord, the fact of the matter is that the war has turned these ordinary children- the oldest of whom is still in their teenage years- into child soldiers, who have seen the front lines of the battlefield, taken lives, and done things that no one their age has any right to do.
- Defector from Decadence: Djehuty is this to the Goa'uld,though they ignore him believing him to be senile and only useful for inventing stuff.
- The group of Ancients called the Renegades who would go on to inhabit Asunyti and become the Elemental Nations left the rest of their race due to opposing ideologies.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Daniel heavily insists on this when they discover Toph and Zuko's status as child soldiers, pointing that their world could consider them as legally adult and fit for military service, while Teal'c sees their age as no big deal because Jaffa start their training young. It doesn't abate in the slightest Jack's anger about two kids flung into war.
- Determinator: Several, but par for the course, Jack O'Neill powers through the crippling despair that the yukiuso has used to stop every other human and Jaffa thus far. Also par for the course is Zuko, who just won't stop until he's comatose.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Toph! The greatest earthbender on three worlds!
- Dude, Not Funny!: In-universe. Sanura makes a comment that Djehuty would want to snap up someone as brilliant as Sam "So fast you'd leave your shoes behind," leaving Sam and her assistant looking horrified. Teal'c points out that while Sanura jokes about such things, they're a lot less funny when that exact thing has happened before.
- Eldritch Abomination: The yukiuso. A massless, intangible being that cannot be seen in the visible spectrum and feeds by sucking the heat from living creatures. When it can be seen, it looks like a glowing blue thunderstorm or a mist made of diamond dust. Oh, and it can also inflict Mind Rape at will and thrives on fear.
- Judging by Jack's thoughts upon seeing the various spirits in the Ancient database on "Hoth", there are MANY of them that would be classified as this.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Zuko's fire can harm the yukiuso's, but the opposite is also true. However, it's blocked by Katara's ice.
- You can't freeze ice, spirit!
- Entertainingly Wrong: Janet thinks a little girl was zatted from the front because she didn't even get a chance to run away. Then Toph wakes up.
- Similarly, many of the conclusions Daniel draws about Avatar-verse culture and Zuko and Toph's relative social standings are ridiculously inaccurate, but he simply doesn't have enough information to get any closer to the truth.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: The yukiuso, which is literally "killing cold". And it laughs.
- Exact Words: When Toph repeatedly asked for "let [her and Zuko] see the sunlight", Daniel thought it was some metaphor for going outside. Zuko actually needed to see the sun because of medical complications.
- Finger-Snap Lighter: Zuko helps Carter with her repairs by making a hand-held flame to light her workspace.
- For Science!: Heather Dyne seems to like this trope, even though Toph cannot understand what she is saying.
- So does Sokka. This was his exact reason for dismantling a fire lock and the resulting explosion.
- Djehuty is a milder, older example.
- Godzilla Threshold: The Renegades entered Asunyti as a next-to-last resort, to save what would become the Avatar Spirit.
- Graceful Loser: Sanura isn't terribly upset about losing to "a pair of kids", noting that they were skilled fighters with magic powers or as close to magic as makes no difference. Also, she found Toph's victory dance adorable.
- Guardian Entity: Chapter 12 reveals that the Ancient that would become the Avatar Spirit released the yukiuso from its containment in order to (unknowingly) act as this to Asunyti by killing anybody who tried to follow.
- It is also heavily implied that the original purpose of the Avatar himself was to protect the people of Asunyti from off-world threats.
- Healing Hands: Zuko (and later Toph) experiments, leading to:
- Heal It With Fire:
- Zuko tries to save Heather Dyne's arm. He succeeds. And overdoes it. He later uses it to heal his injured arm in Chapter 5. Apparently it hurts.
- In Chapter 5 Toph uses what Zuko has told her and figures out how to bend bone. She is promptly horrified when she figures out just how close it was to Hama's bloodbending."I wonder if all healing-bending is linked to the scariest part of that bending style? Waterbending healing has to be related to bloodbending. Fire is related to lightning. Earth and bone..."
- Healing Magic Is the Hardest: It is pointed out just how complicated the human or Ancient body is and Janet is worried that Zuko could have caused irreparable harm by playing around with his nervous system. It also seems to exhaust the healer, as Zuko was knocked out by his first use of fire-healing to save Heather's frozen arm and Toph developed a headache after her first healing attempt.
- Here There Be Dragons: SGC originally knows the Avatar world as Dur'Asada, which translates to "Danger, do not enter".
- Human Weapon: The team thinks that Zuko and Toph may be an example of this.
- Jack O'Neill: "They're weapons. Someone took a couple of kids and raised them as living weapons."
Daniel Jackson: "[...] these abilities may simply be common in their cultures. If the children are weapons — well, maybe everyone is."
- Hurl It into the Sun: The ultimate fate of the yukiuso.
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Janet would like to remind Jack O'Neill that she is a pathologist, not a neurologist, or a trained forensic surgeon. Jack lampshaded this in the past by calling her Mini-Bones.
- It Makes Sense in Context: Near the end, Toph and Zuko are perplexed when hearing a quote from Ghostbusters out of context.
- Hypocrite: Toph notes that for all their talk about not killing, both Aang and Katara have killed numerous people, they just did so from a distance (such as destroying airships) and didn't have to see them die. However, the author also admits that, "Fighting enemy soldiers in battle is very different than a deliberate, focused assassination attempt."
- Just a Kid: A rather heartwrenching example when Jack shows surprise that Zuko isn't goofing around with his flames, because he's a teen and teens love showing their cool tricks. Janet's answer is that a teen wouldn't carelessly use a potentially lethal trick, and Zuko knows his flames can kill people because he already used them for this. Jack doesn't take it well.
- Kill It with Fire: Something Zuko can and will do if he has to. When the SG-1 crew realizes he has done this before, they are not happy, since to them, Zuko is still a child.
- This actually causes problems for Zuko, since his bending is Cast from Hit Points without access to his world's native foodstuffs or access to the sun.
- Jack and Sam both make notes to ask for flamethrowers due not only to the Yukiuso, but also because this sort of thing keeps happening.
- Language Barrier: A central focus of the story, as the Stargates failed to translate Toph and Zuko's language to the SGC.
- Last of His Kind: Djehuty is the last remnant of what the Goa'uld were before they degenerated into the System Lords.
- Literal Metaphor: Over the course of the first several chapters, Toph and Zuko repeatedly and increasingly urgently ask to be allowed to "see sunlight". The SGC assumes that they're just using a metaphor for feeling confined (like "wanting some fresh air" in English), and refuse to let them out. It isn't until after Zuko collapses and Toph is forced to bust the two of them out of the SGC facility that they realize Toph was trying to explain that Zuko actually needs to be exposed to sunlight or he will get sick and die (as sunlight is necessary for his body to metabolize Naquadah).
- Made of Iron: Initially the SCG's thoughts on how Zuko and Toph are so tough, it is revealed to be Super-Toughness, related to the high amounts of naquadah causing increased resistance to damage.The fact they are both Ancients doesn't hurt either.
- The Mad Hatter: The exact term is used near the end by Janet (in its original meaning of "heavy metal poisoning in the brain") when talking to Djehuty about why there are no "Mad Hatter" System Lords: it's because they're all Mad Hatters due to the naquadah they've been exposing themselves to. Djehuty himself regulates his intake very carefully and tries to avoid naquadah-based technology.
- Making a Splash: Katara.
- Mama Bear:
- Sam's knee-jerk reaction when she learns Zuko had killed people before his abduction can be summed in "going through the Stargate when bringing the kid home and tearing some parents a new arsehole".
- Janet also qualifies, especially when her patients are threatened. Discharged with prejudice, anyone?
- Mental Fusion: Blending between a Gou'ald and an Unas turns out to be an example of this trope, in contrast with the Demonic Possession that is a Gou'ald blending with a human.
- Mind Rape: The yukiuso raises in its victims the crippling feelings of loneliness, hopelessness and fear, until they stop resisting.
- Mistaken for Related: After seeing them bantering and watching each other's backs, Teal'c assumes Zuko and Toph are brother and sister and is quite surprised when Daniel expresses his doubt about a blood relation between the children.
- Mundane Utility: Toph's magnetic sense means she always knows where the North is, so she can't get lost. Also, Zuko's firebending attunes him to the sun's progression through the sky, letting him tell the time - the children use it to sleep in shifts.
- Must Be Invited: Apparently a characteristic of jashin. The yukiuso cannot cross a threshold that belongs to somebody. It is for this reason that it cannot penetrate the SGC Infirmary, Janet's space,until it is accidentally invited in. This invitation can be withdrawn by sheer willpower and the yukiuso was immediately banished from the threshold.
- Must Have Caffeine: A Running Gag about the SGC staff; especially Sam, Janet and Daniel. Toph tries coffee in order to understand what all the fuss is about.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Toph had one when she realized Jet was dying from his injuries. She'd injured people like that before, including fellow Earthbenders at the Rumble matches, meaning she'd also killed people.
- No Biochemical Barriers: Averted. The differences between human, Asyuntian, Gou'ald, and Unas biochemistry and physiology are key to several plot arcs.
- Not Now, Kiddo: At the climax of Chapter 9, Zuko is on the brink of death from using firebending while already suffering from elemental deprivation, and Toph is screaming at the SG-1 staff to get him outside and under Sun right this minute. Unfortunately, none of the SG-1 staff pay any attention to her.
- Not the Intended Use: The neurotoxin the System Lords use to kill their human hosts was originally intended to allow a Gou'ald blended with an Unas to separate from its host without harming either party.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Jack tries to pull this off on Toph and Zuko in order to appear harmless. It doesn't work.
- Oh, Crap!:
- When Zuko realizes how far from home they are. Which is expressed via swearing.
- The moment Sam realizes that the yukiuso has been free and growing for thousands of years, and is now coming after her, Toph, and Zuko.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- The new group of Jaffa don't use the same tactics as the others. Which means the team can't predict them based on past experience.
- Aang, in chapter 6 after hearing that Zuko and Toph have gone missing, gets serious. Sokka admits he has only seen Aang like this three times: The Siege of the North, the Day of the Black Sun and when Appa was captured by the sandbenders.
- Only Sane Man: Djehuty is heavily implied to the last surviving sane Goa'uld in the universe.
- Outside-Context Problem: Generally invisible, intangible monsters that are immune to bullets are not part of the things that soldiers have to deal with, and were justifiably unprepared for this. Jack still reams them out about this, but not as harshly as he would have.
- Papa Wolf: Jack isn't very happy about Toph and Zuko being used to kill -
which makes sense when you remember he lost his son. When he see Aang fighting the yukioso and realizes the kid is a Living Weapon, he mentally swears he will go on a hunt for those who thought it was a good idea, Ancients or not. - Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements: Jack, as per canon, has the ATA gene. Toph and Zuko also have it due to the fact that they are descendants of the Renegade Ancients.
- Phlebotinum Muncher: Zuko and Toph (and by implication, all descendants of the Renegades) have incorporated naquadah into their basic biology, using it to fuel their bending abilities as well as for passive strength and toughness boosts. Unfortunately, this also means that if deprived of naquadah, they suffer symptoms similar to mineral deficiency in humans. They can somehow biosynthesize more if exposed to their respective element, but it apparently isn't enough to fully replace getting it from the environment, at least if they're bending heavily.
- Playing with Fire: Zuko.
- Poor Communication Kills: Daniel puzzled out Toph's repeated demands that she and Zuko "see sunlight" as her companion grew weaker, but dismissed it as merely wanting some fresh air rather than awareness of life-threatening medical complications.
- Power Incontinence: The reason why "only fools and masters bend in the Comet's light." Sozin's Comet increases a firebender's power a hundredfold... and does absolutely nothing to improve their ability to control that power.
- Precision F-Strike: Sam, when she realizes that the yukiuso is coming for her in the massive blizzard.
- Precursors: The Ancients. Whose renegade group colonized the Avatar world.
- Abusive Precursors: The Ancients conducted genetic experimentation on the Goa'uld which gave them their genetic memory, their biological reliance on naquadah and insanity. This group would go on to become the System Lords. The "failed experiment" Djehuty was released into the wild to die, but was saved by an Unas who became his host.
- Required Secondary Powers:
- Janet notes that Zuko and Toph's bodies are capable of safely handling massive amounts of naquadah without suffering the usual effects of heavy metal poisoning.
- Although the inhabitants of the Avatar world need naquadah in a similar way to us needing copper, they seem to have a limited ability to generate it biologically when exposed to their corresponding element, though apparently not enough to completely counter the need to take it in from the environment. Toph manages relatively fine on Earth because she's inside a mountain, while Zuko deteriorates over time because he's underground and hasn't been exposed to sunlight.
- It's later revealed that the Gou'ald lack this immunity, despite having been altered to require dangerously high levels of naquadah in their systems. Effectively the entire species is suffering from severe brain damage as a result.
- Zuko notes that while Sozin's Comet gives a massive boost to firebending power, it does nothing for your ability to control that power. That's part of why Iroh and the rest of the White Lotus retook Ba Sing Se when the comet passed, the firebenders among them did have the skill and control needed to handle the comet's power without accidentally frying themselves, while the Fire Nation soldiers in the city were actually hindered by the extra power.
- It's also implied that the Stargate may not be all that good for your mind either, as part of it is a system that copies languages and downloads the local ones into your brain. This, coupled with the Goa'uld genetic memory, has had a few less-than-healthy side effects. Humans, being similar to Ancients, and obviously Ancients themselves, were okay with this process.
- The individuals of each bending nation, even the non-benders, seem to have an increased resilience to their element, particularly for Fire and Earth. For example, Zuko remembers Aang and Katara experimenting with ice guantlets, and while that was a failure, they were still able to resist the cold better than Zuko could have, though apparently even non-benders of the Fire Nation are capable of withstanding cold better than an Earth human could, hence why Katara's freezing of the soldiers on the ship she attacked looking for her mother's killer wasn't something Zuko was worried about.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Zuko's Agni Kai against Azula, with both of them benefiting from the power-boosting effects of the Comet. When he issued that challenge, he'd fully expected both of them to die.
- Salt the Earth: Toph points out that the aftermath of the canon finale - where Aang put out the fires Ozai and his airship fleet started with the help of Sozin's Comet by raising the ocean for a few seconds - saturated the land with salt.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Jack invokes this trope by name after Jack, Sam, Toph and Zuko manage to seal the yukiuso in a thermomagnetic freezer. Jack triumphantly states that "It's officially Sealed Evil in a Can now, Carter. Fifty, one hundred, or a thousand years. There are traditions you know." He forgets the tradition of, "Who Would Be Stupid Enough?" The guy they called in who thinks they're all idiots ignores all the warning labels, walks right up to it and opens it himself.
- And in fairness to Nekht, SGC also forgot to lock the door, something Sam especially beats up on herself for.
- In Chapter 10, we learn that the Ancients were studying the yukiuso on Hoth. How did it escape? Same reason as above - someone purposefully turned the containment unit off. That time, though, it wasn't an act of stupidity, but of desperation.
- Self-Duplication: The yukiuso. Turns out the one they were fighting at SGC was only a fragment of the thing.
- Serial Escalation: The cliffhangers and wham lines at the end of each chapter.
- Shave And A Haircut: Toph and Zuko knock it on the walls to communicate.
- Shock and Awe: Zuko demonstrates lightning redirection after being shot at by a zat, but also figures out how to manipulate the electricity inside his body when healing. Seeing as it travels through the nerves, this hurts a whole lot.
- Shout-Out: Several. Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia, Ghostbusters, several by Mercedes Lackey...
- Sam snarkily refrences Tom Lehrer while talking about Djehuty, when they don't yet know what his game is.
Don't say that he's hypocritical\Say rather that he's a-political! - Shown Their Work: Everything from physics and the effects of trace elements in the body to the intricacies of language.
- Single-Biome Planet: Hoth. It's ice, ice, ice, some rocks and ice.
- Sneeze of Doom: Zuko scorches the floor and lights Jack's shoelaces on fire with a sneeze after Jack uses pepper on him to snap him out of a meditation trance. It's mentioned that Aang can have these, as Zuko brings up a time when Aang sneezed on a campfire, sending burning shrapnel everywhere.
- Stealth Pun: Without the P, X and hyphen the planet code of P 4X-684, an ice covered wasteland, is telephone numerals for "HOTH". Colonel O'Neill happily points this out by referring to the facility there as "the Rebel Outpost on Hoth". Which turns out to be literal, as it was a base for renegade Ancients.
- Sanura gives her registration number as 2 aka the first prime number.
- Stronger with Age: The yukiuso. Unfortunately for our heroes, the yukiuso has spent the last few thousand years growing stronger. It is so ancient it can go toe to toe with the Avatar Spirit itself.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Where to start? Dyne's explosives are used to combat the yukiuso, Zuko accidentally blows up a staff weapon when fighting Sanura and Toph destroys an MRI machine. This is excluding the explosion the crystallized naquadah causes. It also seems to be the Fire Nation's attitude towards a problem which Toph points out to Zuko.
- "Sparky, the Fire Nation thinks blowing stuff up solves everything!"
"You mean it doesn't?"
- Tempting Fate: Jack. See You Just Had to Say It. And Sealed Evil in a Can.
- "Dammit, Teal'c, what have we told you about tempting Murphy..."
- The Power of the Sun: A ha'tak has its shields modified to reflect these rays against the super-yukiuso.
- Similarly, Zuko needs to be exposed to sunlight to replenish his naquadah reserves. And it does specifically need to be sunlight, the full-spectrum lamps in the botany lab do nothing.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: For all intents and purposes, the yukiuso in SGC if it wasn't disintigrated by the kawoosh.
- Time Abyss: Djehuty "I am very, very old, and I remember."
- Translation Convention: In the parts of the story told from the POV of the members of the SGC, Toph and Zuko's speech is written as phonetically spelled Japanese. This is not because "real" Asunytian is Japanese or even related to it in way, but because the author knew Japanese, wanted their language to something more than nonsense syllables, and lacked the time and talent needed to create a Conlang out of whole cloth.
- Translator Microbes: The Stargates have a function that can basically beam a language into the head of someone who goes through them. But while humans and Ancients are close enough that there's not an issue, the Gou'ald's brains are different enough that it might be a significant factor behind why they're so psychotic. Played Straight in that the Stargates themselves act as translators by implanting the basics of the local language, or a "language pack" into the minds of Gate travelers after tapping into the language centres. Averted in that they cannot translate if the "Home Gate" has not been used enough recently to figure out the language or does not have the information.
- Also has a bit of realistic consequences. The Gate translates by planting a version of the planet's language into those who travel through it's brains. The Ancients designed this system with their brains in mind. This is all right for humans, who are... well, nearly identical to Ancients. Goa'uld... well, they're sapient cranial parasites. Getting stuff meant for a human brain uploaded into a worm-like creature does not do their mentality favors, and Djehuty points out that getting this stuff beamed into their brains may be why so many Goa'uld are nuts.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If Nekht didn't get trigger-happy when his squad found two psychokinetics, Sanura wouldn't have had to deal with Zuko and Toph by placing them with captured Sam and Janet, and they wouldn't have escaped together and taken the yukioso with them. Well done, Nekht.
- Weakened by the Light: The yukiuso. Because of this it only attacks at night and retreats when the sun appears, even when it is under a mountain.
- Weirdness Magnet: O'Neill describes SG-1 as Murphy's favorite punching-ball. It's gone so far that he wouldn't be surprised if Sam and Janet were kidnapped by Santa Claus.
- Team Avatar. There is a reason why Sam calls them "the junior version of SG-1".
- Wham Line: At the end of Chapter 5: "On the biochemical and genetic level? Zuko and Toph are not human."
- You think that's a Wham Line? Wait til you read chapter 10: "...they are Ancients."
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Every bender of the Gaang killed over the course of the series. While Toph realized eventually that some of the people she fought didn't survive their injuries and Zuko always knew (having killed before the series even started), Aang and Katara remain apparently oblivious, not realizing that by knocking an airship out of the sky or sinking a battleship, they killed just about everyone on board.
- World of Snark: It has Toph, Zuko and Jack O'Neill in it. 'Nuff said. Everybody else snarks, too - Sanura is particularly good.
- Victory Dance: When Toph captures the Jaffa. Accompanied by an Evil Laugh.
- You Just Had to Say It : O'Neill: "so long as the radiators keep blasting" indeed.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The fate of Sanura's homeworld, of the infection variety.
