laylainalaska

[laylainalaska]

fanfic writing culture isn’t “oh dang! I wanted to write about this prompt with this character but someone else already wrote it, so now I can’t”.

fanfic writing culture is always “two cakes is better than one. the more the merrier. there can ever be enough fics of this character with this prompt!”

[laylainalaska]

Babylon 5 - Shake It Out

A song for redemption and faith

My first attempt at making a fanvid! It’s a long and time-consuming endeavor but hopefully worth it. I’ve always thought this song fit the show so well that I had to make this a thing. Although I may still remaster it later.

*All video and audio copyright by respective owners.

[laylainalaska]

The goofs

[laylainalaska]

This is probably slightly outside of the job description of bodyguard. I had a lot of ideas about this, actually. It wasn’t just ‘lol, sleeping’. It’s mostly to do with the extended adventures on Centauri Prime stuff that I’ve been so enchanted with since it’s mostly clothes and shenanigans. But with the still-intact fear and unsettling background going ons, this is like blurring some lines between bodyguard and psychological wellness and eventually things are hostile and weird enough that this arrangement is the least weird shit going on for either of them.

[laylainalaska]

Where you go, I go.

[laylainalaska]

the only thing jms ever gave me were these goddamn curtains and also pain

[laylainalaska]

[laylainalaska]

Ive come up with the phrase "blorbo-in-law" which is a fictional character who isn't, like, YOUR blorbo from YOUR shows but it is your mutual's blorbo who you nevertheless have developed strong opinions about due to long term dash exposure

[laylainalaska]

prev tags (where's the lie tho): #gurathin#dr ratthi#dr arada#i'm putting respect on their names#gugu? i'm microwaving him

Murderbot 1.02 · Eye Contact

[laylainalaska]

@peregrineroad's tags: #consider the h/c possibilities of running cold#torpor. clinging to heat sources

Although I tend to think of them running a bit hotter (for no particular reason), you make an excellent argument.

Incredibly random poll for the B5 fandom

Please reblog for more results!

[laylainalaska]

Incredibly random poll for the B5 fandom

Please reblog for more results!

[laylainalaska]

I was looking forward to seeing your reactions to these episodes! (And I've been reading and enjoying the other reaction posts, I've just had too much going on to actually respond ...)

There might be a fun fixit AU in something bringing those memories back post series (assuming that they're gone, which seems to be the only thing that makes sense).

There are times when I wish the show would give viewers a little LESS credit for figuring things out on their own! Just tell us things now and then! (I assume he has to have forgotten, because nothing else makes sense - not just with Londo, but he also seems to have forgotten key details re: his future relationship with Delenn - but it would be nice have been told this and not spend the entire last two seasons wondering when his future memories were going to start mattering.)

I believe there was some bts stuff leading to Garibaldi not getting to see Sinclair again,

Oh?? Do you remember any details? (I did find that kind of unfair to Garibaldi, even though I liked the whole thing with the video goodbye.)

re: the death scene: T______T

I feel like they had a difficult line to walk with that scene, because it has to make sense with the characters' mid-season-three characterization without giving too much away, but as it turns out, it also needs to be a satisfying sendoff for the characters after all their later-seasons development. I think that's probably why G'Kar doesn't really say anything, which as you say is out of character for him, and especially in his very last opportunity to talk to Londo at all - anything he could have said here would probably either be a massive spoiler, or would track more with his season 3 characterization and/or suggest they've drifted apart since the end of the show's main timeline.

From a Watsonian perspective I can read it as G'Kar having his emotions locked down because of what he knows he's going to have to do. It's a really fraught situation, and I can think of other situations where his reaction to something emotionally fraught is to completely lock down (in *future spoiler* 5x02 in the medbay is another example). But Doylistically I think it's just because anything he could have said would have been too much of a spoiler and/or too restrictive for future seasons.

In a way I'm glad that the show didn't tie itself down too much to a particular interpretation of them here - whether or not it was intended, it's very easy to read their season five closeness into that last exchange of meaningful looks, and if there had been more dialogue based on the season 3 characterization, it might have undermined that, so I'm pretty happy with what we got. I do really like how the show plays with expectations throughout this scene - as of season three, you could easily see Londo going Full Villain, so it's a genuine surprise when it turns out that he hasn't, and similarly, we don't know whether G'Kar's character growth sticks yet, either.

Does he expect G'Kar to survive after all? Is it understood between them that if the Keeper kills Londo, G'Kar's death is assured too? Or does he just know that G'Kar is ready, devoted enough to the greater good or to Londo personally that they can take it as read that he's willing to do this?

Yeah ... At the time that I originally watched the episode, my general read on Londo's "I am as tired of my life as you are" line - even though it can be read in a dual-meaning way in the same way as the "I hate my life"/"Me too" exchange in the elevator episode - was that G'Kar ALSO looks like ten miles of bad road and whatever's happened to him in the meantime is as rough on him as Londo's life was on him, so they're both basically on the same page that it's time to go and they may as well go in a way that has meaning for both of them.

But having seen the whole show, I'm not sure that tracks, actually? At which point I guess I just have to fall back on .... they do know each other really well by this point, presumably they don't have to discuss every detail of the plan to both get it, and G'Kar has the option of walking away and has decided not to take it. He pretty clearly isn't being forced, and I do think that G'Kar is enough of a idealist that he would want to go out doing something like this. At the very least, Londo has no way to make him do it, so even if Londo is leaning on their friendship without prior negotiation, it's evidently something G'Kar is willing to do for him ...

I do wonder if they both assumed G'Kar had a decent shot at survival if they were fast enough. I'm not sure how much G'Kar saw of his own death in Londo's mind, but even so he probably doesn't put a lot of faith in Centauri prophesies, and Londo does believe in it but he also might be hoping he's wrong about the G'Kar part of it.

(Actually thinking about this leads to the amusing thought that they did negotiate beforehand and Londo had to talk him into strangling him and can't explain why ...

G'Kar: what if I stab you Londo: nope, gotta be strangulation. bare hands. G'Kar: I can think of two dozen other ways to kill you that would be faster and less painful! Londo: choking is the only one I want! G'Kar: *brings a knife from the kitchen just in case*)

re: the rest of it: I genuinely did like Grey 17 as an episode, at least in general theory - too bad the actual monster was such a letdown and the cult was just ehhhhh, but Garibaldi's resourcefulness and having to MacGyver his way out of a space horror situation was great. I totally agree I would read allllll the space horror set on B5; it's such a good location for it!

B5: 3: 16-19

Sheridan's irritation at being caught up in these events is wonderful. Fighting a great cosmic war, sure, he's on board, but time loops? Grand theft space station? The fact that he's a bit of a conspiracy buff and presumably has spent time wondering about what happened to B4 makes his discovery that he stole it funnier.

It's a bit of a shame he doesn't get to do more active plot-relevant stuff here, actually, especially since *spoilers* either he doesn't properly remember the flash-forward or we end up in a plothole zone re:Londo. There might be a fun fixit AU in something bringing those memories back post series (assuming that they're gone, which seems to be the only thing that makes sense).

But this is Sinclair's last ride, really. I believe there was some bts stuff leading to Garibaldi not getting to see Sinclair again, but it was moving anyway--the figuring out the password stuff was an effective little character device.

Londo stuff! His villain speech was very believable--first-time watchers would presumably have no reason NOT to believe it--and very in-line with his angry/defensive attitudes of the last few seasons. Which makes the switch to openness once the Keeper is asleep so striking! He's recognizably himself, but he's clearly come a long way in the time he's had. And while he's pained and sorrowful, he's not broken or hopeless. Sheridan's horror for him, even though they've been at odds almost the whole time they've known each other, is sweet.

The death scene...T_T. G'Kar looking down at him, so steady, so grave, and the look of relief on Londo's face...Also, that Londo gave a whole speech about why he has to die now and why it's for the best, which comes across as a kind of reassurance...

It's interesting that everything he says is basically about his death and why it's inevitable and necessary, though. The 'unfinished business' and Sheridan and Delenn's survival are the only tacit reasons he gives for G'Kar sacrificing himself. Does he expect G'Kar to survive after all? Is it understood between them that if the Keeper kills Londo, G'Kar's death is assured too? Or does he just know that G'Kar is ready, devoted enough to the greater good or to Londo personally that they can take it as read that he's willing to do this? G'Kar is a talky guy, so his silence here is striking.

I'm not sure when the Vorlons got there for 'Valen's' introduction. Must have missed something there.

Walkabout: I see what @laylainalaska means about the show not really knowing what to do with characters not active in the A plot this season, both with Stephen here and Garibaldi next ep. I'm never very invested in romance-of-the-week subplots, but I thought this would have worked fine in a different episode in a different, slower part of the season. Stephen and the lady had reasonable chemistry and Stephen's 'finding himself on walkabout' is reasonably interesting. The doppelganger metaphor even fits thematically with the doubling of Kosh, 'Kosh', and Sheridan. But it's just so much less tense than the A-plot that momentum instantly vanishes.

However, I still loved the episode. G'Kar seems to be struggling to balance his new openness to various perspectives with his old brash authority. It's almost a shame his marshaling of the League isn't shown on screen, but it's so awesome. Big damn heroes! And THIS was a perfect use of Garibaldi.

Grey 17 is Missing: I believe this is notoriously one of the weaker episodes, and...yes. I actually really liked the set-up--it's a bit implausible, but I love the idea of a spooky missing floor and I loved how Garibaldi found it. The little cult and the random monster didn't really live up to that, which makes me wonder what would? I'd be delighted by a mini-horror story set on Babylon 5, although at this point I think it would need to either be related to the myth arc in SOME way, or have multiple characters involved and progress their relationships. Random events plots don't really work at this stage in the season.

The politics and resolution of the Neroon stuff was all fine, though. I liked that even though he was clearly over the line, his concerns really did make sense.

[laylainalaska]

Roman Huber

[laylainalaska]

"I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist"

Something I love about this show is that it made me emotionally attached to a space station in the same way that I am emotionally attached to the characters who roam its corridors.

[laylainalaska]

Still feral about Babylon 5, in case anyone was wondering.

I rewatched the shared death scene in "War Without End" in season three, and noticed G'Kar's little head-jerk at Londo's "And I will die soon after" when he's talking about the Keeper killing Delenn and Sheridan. Hard to know how much of this they talked about beforehand, but that's probably the moment when he fully understands that his friend is dead either way. It's just a matter of how he dies and how much pain he's in when it happens.

The way they hold each other's gaze before G'Kar takes him by the throat! It feels like a reflection on some level of the long eye-lock in their goodbye scene in 5x18, where they know it might be the last time they see each other, and neither of them wants it to end. In this case of course it is the last time and they both know it. (And also the slight pauses when Londo is speaking to him - again, it made me think of the season five goodbye scene where he has so much to say that he might never get the chance to say again, and he's awkwardly working his way through how much of it he actually wants to say, or can bring himself to say ... it's that, but more - directed, I guess.)

I also can't really get over that when you first see the strangling scene flash-forward earlier in the show, the swiftness of G'Kar taking him by the neck looks like he's trying to take him by surprise, obviously - it's a fight! And once you see the entire scene, it's just that G'Kar has to steel himself to do it - the long pause and then he suddenly goes for it because he knows he has to do it now and get it over with.

And Londo just relaxing with G'Kar's hands around his throat ...

AUGH.

[laylainalaska]

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