xakara | Thursday Thirteen 17th Edition

Greetings Kittens,

I know that this is late in the day when you're used to a bit to look at some twelve hours ago or more, but as you'll see this entry is full of commentary and linkalisciousness like TT's of old. You'll be glad I waited until I had some rest before I dove in to take you on a trip through my mind.

Now, I've been thinking more and more about my character crushes these last days, having even given in to them these past two Crush Of The Week posts on Fridays. The latest conversation has been on what my Sweetie has deemed my "Geek Crushes", but hey, Geek Love is True Love. So this Thursday I bring to you 13 Of My Favorite Character Geek Crushes. They come with commentary that as always tells you as much about me as what I'm commenting on.

Enjoy.

13 Geek Crushes...Cuz Geek Love is True Love

1. Dr. Daniel Jackson: Stargate SG1, Sci-Fi Channel. He was last Friday's Crush of the Week and rightly so as he made smart and compassionate look sexy, as well as bulked up and looked as dangerous as he was brilliant in the last seasons. Fluent in over twenty-three languages, Daniel holds PhD's in Archeology, Anthropology and Philology(which explains all the languages).

Orphaned as a young child, Daniel was placed in foster care and left to visit his only living relative in a mental institution as he grew up. The love instilled in him for the past and culture by his parents--both archeologist themselves--allows Daniel to have a connection to them for his entire life. It leaves him with the classic abandonment issues of any child that's lost a close family member, but without the disconnection many feel when brought up in the foster care system but never adopted.

In fact, rather than his youth, brilliance, and loss causing social isolation and timidness, Dr. Jackson is forward, demanding when he knows he's right, confident in his skills when given time to use them, and always ready to listen when a better idea comes along. Rather than refusing to trust those around him who are less smart or unknown, he craves interaction and connection and is willing to jump feet first into any social situation that allows him to soak up the attention, culture, and affections of new people and places.

He is at heart a diplomat, adventurer, child and leader. And even with the weakness of scripts here and there, Michael Shanks played him beautifully.

Mmm...Daniel.

2. Dr. Spencer Reid: Criminal Minds, CBS Wednesday. ~ Maybe I have a thing for doctors but I love the Reid character in Criminal Minds. He's what Daniel Jackson would have become in a world without aliens and stargates.

Reid graduated high school at age 12 and lived a sheltered, book-oriented life with his schizophrenic mother after his father left. At 18 he bore the responsibility of having her institutionalized when he could no longer take care of her. The burdern of being brilliant but socially inexperienced, along with being afraid of what his own future holds for him, makes Reid a deeper character than most "young genius" cut-outs on other series.

Brilliant intellect cannot protect him against the genetic hand Fate dealt and Reid knows that his mind could become something to fear if he's inherited his mother's condition. His desire to understand the workings of the mind and the actions of those around him led him to the BAU where he both struggles and triumphs to be understood and to belong.

The interaction between Matthew Gray Gubler who plays Reid and Shemar Moore who plays Special Agent Derek Morgan, is one of the highlights of the show. There's true affection there and no doubt that Morgan would beat down anyone who tried to hurt Reid as he would for his own flesh and blood. It's beautifully displayed in the brotherly terms of Morgan's own threats of violence against Reid anytime the young doctor get's too far afield in his encyclopedic knowledge of the mundane.

3. Penelope Garcia: Criminal Minds, CBS Wednesday. ~ An Audio/Visual Technician for the FBI, Garcia is at the heart of the show, bridging the gap between civilian and FBI agent for the viewer. She is still moved by the horror because she's not in the field with it day in and day out. But she does her job and does it well despite the images and detials she's bombarded with on every case.

Absolutely brilliant and a goddess of all things computer/tech, Garcia's interactions with the team and ongoing banter with Special Agent Morgan are priceless moments of heart and smile that make the character irreplaceable. She's is also a wondeful dichotomy of confidence and self-doubt. She knows her skills are off the charts, but her weight and larger-than-life style are things that give her the same pause as so many American women. It makes her real and relateable, and even if I think they need to do more with her, I LOVE the fact that she's represented on television and Kirsten Vangsness plays her with grace. Garcia is my girl!

4. Dr. Zach Addy: Bones, Fox. ~ Yes, I do have a thing about doctors as yet another one is coming up on the list, but let's focus in on Zach for now. Played by Eric Millegan, Zach is the youngest member of Dr. Brennan's team at the Jeffersonian. He holds a doctorate in Forensics and waits to complete another in engineering. As Brilliant and socially inept as the Spencer Reid character, Zach is also just as three-dimentional.

Unlike Reid, whose social issues come from his isolation, Zack hails from a large family and has once more been taken in by the family structure of his team at the Jeffersonian. He's never lacked for social interaction but has an inability to process social cues due to Asperger Syndrome, a form of high functioning autism. This has never been declared in the show, but the creator has spoken to it and the writer's have been consistant in keeping Zach aware of what is socially expected of him through his intellect, but unable to fully bridge the gap of expectation and understanding as to why it's expected of him.

Despite his inability to always display and relate his empathy and full spectrum emotion to his friends, Zach is loving, loyal, dedicated, and courageous beyond his own understanding. Like many, I love to side with the underdog, and Zach personifies the "Socially Walking Wounded", that I can't help but root for and seem to often attract in my personal life. (The socially awkward can sense patience and sincerity the way sharks scent blood--and I'm grateful for it.)

5. Dr. Jack Hodgins: Bones, FOX. ~ Mmm...doctors. Hodgins is an entomologist at the Jeffersonian and Zach's best friend. I love character driven shows and again, here's an interaction that is priceless. Both characters delight in their repspective fields and the place where they overlap, often working on projects together and complementing one another in a way that only long time friends and co-workers can.

Hodgins breaks the mold by being brilliant at what he does and socially adept while still being "fringe" material. He's hails from an affluent family and is the largest monetary contributer to the Jeffersonian. Having been raised for high society, Hodgins is a social chameleon able to blend into any social scene he's forced to interact with--a direct contrast to Zach's awkwardness. Yet their friendship is easily understood as Hodgins defaults to a T-shirt and jeans/pizza and conspiracy theory Thursdays, kind of lifestyle that makes him as accepting of Zach's behavior as he is of the nefarious Illuminati's existence.

Where I love every character on the show, Jack and I would have the most fun hanging out because I can spin a series of conspiracy theories that will have you paranoid for a lifetime. I'm just fun that way, *grin*, and Hodgins is a character that could appreciate it.

6. Dr. Temperance Brennan: Bones, FOX. ~ (Yes, I'm getting all the play I can from the show because it's relevent and who knows when that'll happen again.) Temperance is the also the title character of Bones and the center around which the Jeffersonian team is built. A forensic anthropologist and successful author, she gives yet a third outlook into the concept of brilliant abundance paired with social poverty.

Born into a loving but secret-hoarding family, Temperance loses her parents at fifteen after they simply vanish one day and are presumed dead. Her brother Russ, nineteen at the time, doesn't feel able to take care of her and she is left to go through the foster care system. It's an ordeal that leaves her emotionally isolated as she is unable to relate to the families that take her in and unable to find a permanent home because she's not the "cute baby everyone wants".

Despite the ability to maintain friends and lovers, Temperance is socially bankrupt on several levels by her own choosing. Diving into the cultures and pasts of other people to fulfill the void of her own unknown history, Temperance has self-shielded against nearly all American popular culture, leaving her woefully lost in every day references among her friends. It also leaves her having to overcome an intellectual snobbishness as she begins to see merit in all the things she missed through the eyes of her partner FBI Agent Seely Booth and her best friend, forensic artist Angela Montenegro.

The interaction between Temperance and Booth, as played by Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, carries all of the classic sexual tension and romantic overtones,that has come to exemplify the platonic female/male buddy pairings from Moonlighting to X-Files. But unlike those shows, Bones goes farther with a friends-turned-family affection that is spread among the entire core cast and leaves well more character revelation rather than mere sexual tention titilation. (Which is why, in my opinion, it could actually survive the relationship between them being taken to the next level because the show is so much more than the tension, and breaking it wouldn't break the show as long as the writers didn't panic. But that's not really relevant to the list so I'll move on.)

That said, despite getting incite into Temperance through her contrast with Booth, it's her interaction with the characters most like her that really show her full range and how much of her difference is self-inflicted versus where her intelligence would have set her apart.

Her ability to be friends with Angela Montenegro, played by Michaela Conlin, lets me know Temperance and I could hang out and have a fabulous time. She might be confused by alot of what I said, but I could translate enough that she'd appreciate it in her own way. *wink*

7.Chuck Bartowski: from NBC's new comedy Chuck airing Monday's at 7 central. ~ (Look, not a doctor)This is one of my favorite new shows of the season. Sent an email from the best-friend-turned-rogue-agent that betrayed him and got him kicked out of Stanford, Chuck is exposed to all of the embedded information in a CSI and NSA supercomputer that has been destroyed; leaving Chuck the only link to an untold number of national secrets.

Chuck's charm and awkwardness are the standard smart-guy-living-below-his-potential self-consciousness. Still devastated by Bryce's betrayal in college and the opportunities ripped from under him at being expelled from Standford, Chuck works as the lead associate for the Nerd Heard at the Buy More, (a play on Best Buy's Geek Squad). It's an easy, undemanding job that allows him to safely stay cocooned from other possible disappointment in life. When the email shows up, his former best friend once more throws his present and future into a tailspin and Chuck has to step up to fulfill a potential he'd forgotten he'd possessed beneath the anger and self-pity.

I love that Zachary Levi portrays Chuck with just the right amount of computer geek cuteness, comic bitterness, low-key love of friends and family, and all around good-guyness, that makes you root for Chuck and want him to get the girl and the life he could have had. His interactions with Adam Baldwin as NSA Agent John Casey, are priceless as Adam plays Casey as the straightman for all he's worth. It's directly contrasted by Joshua Gomez as Chuck's slacker best friend Morgan Grimes who is also not living up to his potential but whose comedy is found in the fact that Morgan might not have a great deal of potential to begin with.

Watching Levi's character taken from living-below-his-potential to in-over-his-head makes Chuck a sympathetic character and favorite underdog. I'd spend a weekend watching LoTRs with him and Morgan any time. (And if the letters confused you, you are obviously not geek enough to be on this list, but I like you anyway *grin*)

8. Jake Foley: Jake 2.0. ~ If Chuck's sudden every day guy turned super agent transformation seems familiar, that's because it was done before in the too-short-lived UPN series Jake 2.0. Loveable NSA tech support geek, Jake Folely, is accidently infected with experimental nanobot that augment his abilities to superhero status, making him the ultimate human upgrade.

This was a great show that went futher than Chuck because Jake was thrust into undercover situations and had to face down danger on his own rather than be rescued by his protectors. It had its awkward moments as freshman series will, but I agreed with the loyal fanbase that campaigned to save it. It was a show worthy of finishing it's story arc and Jake was a character played beautifully by Christopher Gorham who navigated the "sci-fi dramedy" with a sense of fun that stayed just this side of over the top.

I was in Jake's cheerleading section from day one and the crush translated into an actor crush on Christopher, which made me thrilled to see him as...

9. Henry Grubstick: from ABC's comedy Ugly Betty. ~ Henry is an accountant at MODE the magazine where the title character of Betty also works. He's a secondary character who became Betty's love interests in the last season, and I was immediately thrilled to see him.

Henry is not so much awkward, as unhip and unworried about it. He's confident in his accounting abilities, loves his job, is a genuine good guy in an unfair situation, and you can't help but want him and Betty together no matter the odds.

That the writers manage to make Henry sympathetic despite having possibly fathered a child with his cheating ex has me bow to their ability and to Christopher's physical characterization of Henry. A double-date with him and Betty to see Wicked and play some pictionary would be right up my alley for a peaceful night.

10. The Doctor: Doctor Who, The Sci-Fi Channel and BBC America. ~ I couldn't resist another doctor on the list. Though a doctor of what exactly is up to debate. I was raised on Doctor Who as a sci-fi staple and for the first 8 or my 9 years of life that was the one and only Tom Baker. I was young enough in watching the reruns that Baker's take on The Doctor came across as this great uncle character I would have loved to show up and take me on some adventure to alien worlds as long as he had me back in time for school on Monday.

Puberty came early and I was just old enough when the series switched to have a crush on Peter Davidson when he took up the mantle from 81-84. As young girls with crushes will do, I abandoned the series when Davidson left because Colin Baker just didn't do it for me, colorful though he was. That means I missed Doctors 6, 7, and 8 outright and had no interest in Doctor 9 when the series was revived, despite how well I feel Christopher Eccleston did.

It wasn't until the 10th incarnation played by David Tennant that I was drawn back in against my will. It took the entire second season of half watching while on the computer to lure me more and more into the show. But in truth it was the introduction of Freema Agyeman as Companion Martha Jones (whose a medical student so I guess two docs was just too much to resist) that firmly geared me toward giving David a chance to dazzle me as The Doctor and I'm certainly glad I did.

For me, he harkens back to everything I loved in Tom Baker as a child and all the things that caused a crush on Peter Davidson as a pre-teen. All while bringing his own light to the lonely traveler moving through the universe as the last of his kind.

I flat out admit I'm a sucker for lonely heroes. Everybody deserves somebody and I can't help but want to be that somebody when there's nobody else up for the job. Between being lonely, brilliant, full of inappropriate humor, socially misaligned with the present and even the past at times, and always ready to save the world with a manic smile and techobabble-geek speak, Tennant's portrayal of The Doctor was a must have on the list of Geek Love.

I'd companion with him any day.

11. Captain Jack Harkness: Torchwood. BBC America. ~I already had a lovely ramble on John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harnkess since he got to be a Crush of the Week, but he's relevant to this list so like Daniel, here he is again. :)

Captain Jack is a time traveller and former con-man from the 51st century. He's a darker character than The Doctor, having seen too much and been called to do too much in his own time line and while stuck in Earth's past. It's his time with the 9th incarnation of The Doctor and Companion Rose that Jack transforms from con-man to hero; but his time as a prison of war in his own century and a soldier several times over, including in Earth's past, leave their scars on Jack.

After parting ways with The Doctor and Rose we find Jack later running a new variation of the orginization Torchwood to protect the world from alien threats. He has a diligence of duty to the greater good that leaves him cold at times and willing to be cruel if the outcome if kinder in the end. He has no qualms when it comes to the death of his enemies as he knows they wouldn't hesitate if they could kill him in turn.

Despite the darkness, Jack has shown a great capacity for compassion and an unparalled willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. From holding the hand of a dying man so that he didn't have to be alone, to standing in the path of the one thing that could possibly kill him in order to save Cardiff and the world, Jack proves that heroes don't have to be sunshine and light to be on the side of right.

I could go into his bisexual/pansexual grooviness, and the fact that after thorough advanced alien medical screening, isolation, and rescreening, I'd happily embark on the adventure of sleeping with Jack to put those centuries of skill to use, but we've run out of time. Sufficient to say, I'd serve under Captain Jack at the first call to duty. *wink*

12. Ianto Jones: Torchwood. BBC America. ~ There hasn't been anywhere near enough episodes revealing the inner workings of Ianto, but what they have shown has completely sucked me in. I would have been captured just by Ianto's pain as revealed in "Cyberwoman" and the brief glimpse into his thoughts to Toshiko in "Greeks Bearing Gifts". But combined with his quiet effeciency, the increasing glimpses into the depth of his intellect, and the implied threat of inner lethalness with the fact that he's Torchwood's "clean-up crew", I'm left thoroughly intrigued with the Ianto character.

His pain and desperate need for approval from Jack and others only highlights his underdog status on the crew and is an interesting contrast to his geek-turned-assassin overtones given when his position is stated as "I clean up your shit, no questions asked." He's the one you call when evidence needs to disappear and no earthly government can be allowed to find it. He's also an unwavering good guy, willing to shoot a friend rather than let him endanger the world. That my friends is sexy-scary right there. I can't wait until January to see if the second season takes us deeper into his head.

And as I know at least one of you is atwitter with wonder, yes, his bisexuality and his relationship with Jack are also part of the intrigue. The poly in me approves and would love to see a female love interest introduced to bring the part-time pair into a triad.

But all of that aside, the fact that Ianto needs a friend or lover who could take his pain and bear all he's had to do along side him was more than enough all its own.

(Did you catch my own inner geekness with the name of the episodes and links there. It went by so fast you could have missed it so I thought I'd point it out)

13. Kyle Trager: Kyle XY. ABC/ABC Family. ~ This will be my shortest entry because the Kyle character isn't yet legal, and at 16 could be the product of a scandalous teen pregnancy, (which, for those lost, is my way of saying I'm old enough to be his mother). Matt Dallas who plays him on the other hand is only 9 years my junior so I can reconcile the hot factor with the sweet factor without feeling criminal about it.

With this character it's the child-like innocence and earnestness combined with the uber-cool intellect and social awkwardness of inexperience. With his abilities and looks, Kyle could be a spoiled and pampered brat, breaking hearts and hurting feelings on a whim. But the inherent child-like goodness of heart, the true confusion at the fact that anyone would want to hurt another person, and his sheltered (understatement) beginnings, keep him firmly in that loyal and loveable catergory.

He's a puppy you want to take home and erase any memory of having ever been a stray. A brilliant puppy that can do advanced mathematics in his head, decipher vibration based code, draw with photographic intensity, heighten his senses to hone in on a single voice in a crowded room, and pick up impressions from places and things. But a puppy all the same. *grin*

So there you have it everyone. Take what you will from it.

Geek Love Ramble Done

~X

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From: (Anonymous)

You had me at Chuck Bartowski.

*sigh* Yummy! :)

~Morgan

www.myplaceofbeauty.blogspot.com

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Writing From the Middle: Tales From the Bi Side

Thursday Thirteen 17th Edition

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