Andraste

Signa Ex Diris (1742 words) by Andraste
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Babylon 5 (TV 1993)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Londo Mollari, Cartagia (Babylon 5)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes
Series: Part 3 of Transpositions


Summary: Cartagia has many tedious things to attend to before he can ascend to power. Perhaps this visit to the prophetess of Tuwain will prove more interesting than he expected.

(More things from Andraste's hard drive! I wrote the first two parts of this all the way back in 2004, and then stalled out because I could not work out an interesting place for Londo to be in a genderswap AU. And then I felt very stupid for not realising much sooner where she would logically be located ...)

Stuff that has happened over the past week:

1. Local anti-vaxxer riots that involved people spitting on healthcare workers and pissing on the Shrine of Remembrance.

2. An actual earthquake.

3. RTD is returning to Doctor Who.

4. Plague continues, da capo al fine.

5. JMS is rebooting Babylon 5 on the CW?????????

I think that I am going back to bed before something else happens.

Publish or Perish (3468 words) by Andraste
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Babylon 5
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: G'Kar/Londo Mollari
Characters: G'Kar (Babylon 5), Londo Mollari, Original Characters
Additional Tags: POV Outsider

Summary: A future historian discovers documents G'Kar left behind on Babylon 5, and gets rather more than she bargained for. This is a problem for Narn-Centauri relations.

(Has it really been eight years since I posted B5 fanfic? That seems absurd. Almost as absurd as this story.)

The whole internet seems to be watching Babylon 5 right now, either because it's streaming on HBO in the U.S. or because they bought the shiny remastered version on iTunes, and I am not an exception.

First thought inspired thereby: it really is shiny and remastered! You can see the actual textures of the fabrics and everyone's fillings and even the nineties CGI looks much nicer. JMS is right when he says it looks better than the DVDs, so I'm thinking I dodged a bullet by not actually finishing that Brothers In Arms remaster before now because I'd just have to do it all over again again and that would have sucked.

Second thought: JMS has been posting lots of B5 thoughts on his twitter, which is always delightful. Favourite story so far is about THAT scene in Parliament of Dreams:

Neither the director nor Peter warned the rest of the cast that he was going to climb up on the table in order to get their authentic reactions. Watch Claudia in particular as she loses it. (They also didn't warn set dec which is why the table threatens to collapse.)

To which I can only say: <3 <3 <3.

Third thought, brought about by Midnight On the Firing Line - there are so many tiny events that change everything that happens after them, and one of them is Londo running straight into Talia when he's getting into the lift and she's getting out. If he'd just been watching where he was going, maybe he'd have actually made it to G'Kar and shot him.

I mean, not that he'd necessarily have succeeded in killing him - G'Kar was the revolutionary guerrilla here, after all, while Londo was busy being a hotshot pilot and presumably spending a limited amount of time shooting people with handheld weapons. Either way, though, Londo's ambassadorial career would have come to an abrupt end, and the Centauri-Narn war would probably have kicked off without Mr. Morden even needing to do anything.

Fourth thought: gee, Kosh, how did that 'leave the Centauri and Narn alone and let them die out' thing work out for the Vorlons when the Shadows decided to start a war? (I mean, it seems like he changes his mind a bit later when he inspires G'Kar's new career choice, but still. He is not always right about this stuff.)

I don't really have any interest in Game of Thrones - I never watched an episode of the show, and after reading an from one of the books decided that A Song of Ice and Fire was very much not for me. (It wasn't all the rape. It was the thing with the puppies.) This week I found that I have been pronouncing 'Arya' wrong for years.

However, it turns out that I am still forced to have some kind of opinion about it this week, to whit: I don't know if I am more annoyed with a) the people claiming no show with a big ensemble and lots of ongoing story threads has ever pulled off a satisfying ending, thus indicating they've never heard of Babylon 5, or b) the people responding to the question 'but what about Babylon 5???' by saying that the fifth season sucked so it doesn't count.

I don't even know where to begin with the first argument - Babylon 5 might be my favourite novel on TV, but it's hardly the only show that's pulled it off at this point even if it's the earliest live action example I've watched. I know we were all disappointed with The X-Files, but not every show runner is Chris Carter. I mean, never mind B5 or its cousin DS9, Transformers: Beast Wars managed to do it! But also I just cannot cope with genre fans who don't acknowledge how important B5 was. (People who don't like it? Fine. People who don't want to watch it for whatever reason? Also fine! There are lots of things that are important that I don't want to read/watch/listen to. But you will not catch me walking around claiming that Sons and Lovers isn't a significant book because I hated it, or that Last Year at Marienbad doesn't matter because I haven't seen it.)

As to the second group - I find them even more baffling. Yes, the pacing of the first half of B5's fifth season sucks because of the whole cancelled-then-uncancelled drama, and I won't argue that there aren't a bunch of other problems with the telepath arc. But then it course-corrects once JMS gets back to the original outline and the second half is as good as any other part of the show. (Frankly better than some. I would definitely rank it higher than the first half of Season One.) I mean, I know I am biased because the second half of Season Five has a lot of my favourite elements brought to the fore, but how does anyone watch the war the entire show has actually been leading up to and then tell people they shouldn't bother watching the season because there was a stupid song in it???

I do sympathise with the people who hate the ending because of Lennier, though. (I mean, I disagree with them entirely - I think what he does is entirely in character and the logical end of the story of his life on the station. But I do sympathise.)

So, I finally finished updating those notes.

*falls over and becomes one with inner self*

Confessions & Lamentations: A Babylon 5 Soundtrack (13216 words) by Andraste

Fandom: Babylon 5
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary: The story of thirteen prophecies, eleven tragic romances, eight wars, and one very special space station.

A fandom soundtrack for Babylon 5, originally made for the Fandom Soundtrack Project in 2005. Now 'remastered' and available on 8tracks.

Irony alert: the notes for this FST are almost twice as long as the longest story I have ever posted to the AO3. But hey, you try explaining all of Babylon 5 in less than 13,000 words with musical accompaniment. Especially when you've made a net addition of twenty-three tracks since the first time you did this.

I have no idea if anyone will ever read any of it, but I restrained myself from making notes like UGH, LORIEN and LONDO AND G'KAR HAVE A DRINK AND IT IS THE GREATEST THING EVER and LONDO IS SAD AND IT'S JUST AS WELL BABYLON 5 DOESN'T HAVE KARAOKE NIGHT anyway.

So obviously more tracks for the great Babylon 5 soundtrack project means even more notes and quotes, which means some selective rewatching. So I saw A Voice in the Wilderness today for the first time in I can't remember how long. I had somehow managed to forget that this was the episode where Londo Mollari spends seven days trying to work out the deeper meaning of the Hokey Pokey. I had also forgotten that it's the episode where he says this:

"As a young and foolish Centauri I swore I would die on my feet doing something noble and brave and futile. Perhaps it was not so wild a dream as I thought. Or as foolish."

Oh, Londo. More proof that you should be careful what you wish for on this show, since he achieves three out of four in the end. (And is probably quite pleased that his death is not futile after all.)

It occurs to me that somewhere in the multiverse, there is a reality where Londo ended up in the machine. Had Draal not been conveniently on the station at the time, it would apparently have come down to him or Sinclair. (We don't know for sure that the dying guardian didn't talk to other people, but if he did then it seems none of them were in a position to go down there and do anything about it.) While I'm sure Delenn is right when she says that Sinclair would have tried to throw himself in, he might not have got the chance in between all the shooting going on. While I doubt Londo would have gone to his destiny as eagerly as Draal does, that would have been a much happier fate him personally that what eventually happens to him, if not necessarily for the universe at large.

How to tell I am back in Babylon 5 space: last night I dreamed that Londo and G'Kar travelled in time from Season Five back to Season One, pre-Signs and Portents. Naturally they set off to stop either of their past selves having anything to do with a certain Mr. Morden. I suspect the major question there would be 'how long will it tale Post-Enlightenment G'Kar to punch Pre-Enlightenment G'Kar in the face?'

(Not that Season One Londo wouldn't also drive both of them up the wall, but I suspect that they'd have a much easier time getting him to listen to their crazy story. Londo has three magic words that would force him to pay attention: 'Adira is dead.')

Having finished my Vividcon premiere a while ago, I have been back working on the remaster of Brothers in Arms. This is taking far longer than I expected, for three reasons.

1) It's a more technically complex vid than it appears to be. I think I can do a better job of the insets this time, but I'm not happy with the effect yet. (This is actually the part that I knew would take forever.)

2) I kept terrible notes back when I made it, and finding some of the clips in five whole seasons of show has proved challenging. For example, apparently the clip of the Battle of the Line that I thought was from And the Sky Full of Stars is actually from The Beginning, and my DVD of that hasn't worked in several years. (I guess it's time to buy the movie collection ...) And Google doesn't always help as much as you'd expect. At one point, I searched for 'G'Kar, writing, prison' to figure out exactly what episode something was from, and the top result was my own tentacle pr0n. Which was amusing, but not very useful.

Also, I have not the faintest idea where the external shot of the station I used is from. I mean, I guess I can use any shot, but it irritates me that I lost it. I liked the angle.

3) It is really hard to vid and cry at the same time. You would think that having stared at the thing for hours and hours when I first made it would have rendered me immune, but no.

For selenak because this got far too long to be a comment.

who cooks normally?

Vir.

Oh, you mean it has to be one of them? G'Kar, obviously. Because I cannot imagine Londo has ever had reason to learn, and he could probably burn water. G'Kar, on the other hand, seems to like cooking. I think Londo would really prefer it if Vir did it, given what Narn food is like.

how often do they fight?

Ahahaha. I think a better question would be 'how many conversation do they manage to have that aren't fights?' And they wouldn't have it any other way.

what do they do when they’re away from each other?

Well, Londo becomes Emperor and is miserable for a couple of decades. G'Kar roams the universe and is happy but has to appear in Legend of the Rangers. Clearly they are better off together.

( This is also too long for a post. Rest of the questions below the cut. )

... aaaaaaaaand insomnia is the perfect excuse to write another thing for Porn Battle before the deadline. At least I have used the time productively, if not wisely. (I am going to blame G'Kar for my sleeplessness and he can blame me for his.)

Contents: Alas, not actually very porny. There are tentacles, though, so if that is not your cup of brivari you should probably go elsewhere.

Pairing: Londo/G'Kar

Summary: G'Kar's dreams about Londo are not the same as Londo's dreams about him.

Continuity: Set at some indeterminate point in Season One.

( Read on ... )