#meanwhile the Narn are like

[mostcursedofpastas]

Babylon 5, Season 1, Episode 6, Mind War

(Sorry about the low volume, I wasn't able to figure out how to fix it.)

[carlandrea]

@outofangband asked me how i'd do the narn in the warrior cats au, so—I'm making it A Post.

The thing about this au is that only the elves are warrior cats? So for stories like the narn which are not elf-focused are not particularly warrior cats. (this is, I think, a bit of a departure from the warrior cats canon, but. so it goes)

I like the idea of Morwen and Hurin's family being a flock of ravens? Certainly some kind of bird. Their names don't change for the au, since they aren't warrior cats or twolegs, so their names can be whatever.

Hurin is shot down by Morgoth, breaking his wing, but he survives, and is kept in his home mostly out of like. spite? Again Morgoth is very silly in this au. And is spending a lot of his time monologuing at this poor bird he keeps in a tupperware with holes poked in it.

The occupation of Dor-Lomin is hmm....actually considering that this is warrior cats (which is. very silly) It can just be Bird Politics. There's a new flock of ravens oppressing our flock.

In the meanwhile—Turin Becomes a Warrior Cat.

How does a bird get fostered by Greystar? Look man—his clan is weird. At the gathering he's like this is our new apprentice and it's this fucking goth bird and everyone else is like sure Greystar. Whatever. Who cares at this point. Anyways, in keeping with our dear Turin's habit of getting new names wherever he goes, he's given a warrior name.

Darkpaw is apprenticed to Greystar himself, and eventually given his warrior name, Darkthorn

most shenanigans after that proceed similarly—(In Nargothrond, Turin is given a different warrior cat name, Bloodslash) a lot of people (woodland creatures) die. Turin little meow meows around for a while. Marries his sister and then they both kill themselves. etc.

Glaurung is. hm. I'm taking suggestions.

When Morgoth eventually releases Hurin he still can't fly—so the poor thing just has to hop around the forest floor until he finds Morwen.

[halfelven]

2022 has been i just want to make it out of this year alive (it's only january)

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Ooh for the character ask game, celeborn and/or thingol?

Oh, thank you, I have so many thoughts about Thingol!

One aspect about them I love: There’s a lot of moments in the Silm that, added together, indicate that he likes it when people stand up to him and aren’t intimidated. Haleth’s blunt line “if the King of Doriath fears friendship between Haleth and those who have devoured her kin, then the thoughts of the Eldar are strange to Men” doesn’t appear to bother him at all, and may well be a plus (especially if it brings up thoughts related to the Kinslaying). Beren’s “the Silmaril is in my hand….look, no hand!” gag also draws a positive response. In the scene with Nellas in the Narn, he’s actively teasing her and trying to put her at ease. His usual place for giving decisions and holding council isn’t Menegroth, it’s sitting under a tree. When not dealing with his daughter’s unwanted fiancé, Doriath seems markedly informal as a kingdom. (Which suits its people’s way of life: based on NoME the Sindar are seminomadic, rarely building permanent houses, with no described cities. Menegroth is a stronghold in case of danger, albeit a very beautuful one; it’s not a city.)

Another is that he’s got a degree of self-awareness: his line to Finrod after he finds out they were concealing the Kinslaying from him is basically: you can come back later, but for the moment, leave before I do something I’ll regret. Knowing that he needs time to cools down and that he’s not going to cut off this relationship permanently shows the ability to thing clearly even while feeling stunned and betrayed.

And, from NoME, I really love his reaction to the summons of the Valar being “hey, even if we decide we don’t want to go all to the way to Valinor - free trip! Let’s go see the rest of Middle-earth!” and that that’s the pitch that connects with the rest of his people. (Meanwhile Oromë is going no, no, no, that is not what we were offering!”)

One aspect I wish more people understood about them them: I wish people had a more balanced understanding about the extent of Doriath’s interactions with the other peoples of Beleriand, because they’re not nearly as isolationist as common characterizations would have them. In both the the Ages of Stars and the Ages of the Sun, they were close with the Falathrim and later with the Laiquendi, and had strong trade relations with the dwarves. People freely immigrate to Doriath from other places: Galadriel moves there and marries Thingol’s nephew, some Laiquendi move there (Saeros is one), and many of the Sindar in Hithlum move there after the Bragollach. Their initial agreement wuth the Haladin doesn’t cover anything beyond permission for the Haladin to live there provided they guard the northern frontier against Morgoth, but in fact there’s close enough contact between the two groups that Thingol quickly sends reinforcements to protect the Haladin during the Bragollach. From the Bragollach through to the Narn, at minimum, Doriath and the Haladin are successfully holding much of the northwestern passes against the armies of Angband. So the existence of the Girdle of Melian emphatically does not mean “no one gets in” (in contrast to, say, Gondolin).

One (or more) headcanons I have about them: I see a clear and tragic character trajectory from the Leithian to the Narn and through to his death. I read his decision to foster Túrin as being driven in part by guilt over his treatment of Beren, and the desire to atone for it. And he loves Túrin dearly, and he does everything to protect him - even to the point of sending his best warrior away from the from lines to look after him despite that seriously harming Doriath’s efforts to defend the northern passages against Morgoth - and despite that, it all turns out so horribly and Húrin throws that in his face. Along with a cursed and dragon-incubated necklace.

And to my reading, that’s what precipitates his obsession with the Silmaril and Nauglamir - before that, during the Narn i Hîn Húrin, the Silmaril doesn’t seem to be on his mind at all. He made a lot of wrong decisions in the Leithian, and he lost his daughter because of them, and he knows it; and he tried to foster Túrin in part as a kind of atonement for his former attitude towards Men, and the failure of that feels like an apology that’s bern rejected by the universe. The Silmaril has to be inestimably valuable, because he’s lost everything for it (despite the Quest really just being a way to get rid of Beren, not about wanting the Silmaril); and when you add to that the Nauglamír being cursed and dragon-gold, his mind latches onto them.

Honestly, I feel like it’s a similar trajectory to Maedhros, though condensed in time: doing wrong, trying to make up for it and do right, having an attempt to do right blow up in your face spectacularly (the Nirnaeth and the Narn i Hîn Húrin), and a combination of that misery and regret and malign outside influences pushing them towards a fall. Except Maedhros kills thousands of people whereas Thingol behaves like an ass - and the fandom decides that the former is sympathetic and the latter is not!

One character I love seeing them interact with: I’ve already said quite a bit about Túrin above, so here I’ll say Finrod. Finrod seems to have a very good understanding of Thingol and stands out from all the other Noldor in the rapport he builds with him. Thingol tells him about the location of Nargothrond and has no issues with Finrod using it as the base for the largest Noldor realm in Beleriand (and the size of that realm is definitely due to being on good terms with the Sindar, since it was IIRC not on Thingol’s initial list of places the Noldor could settle), Thingol is comfortable working with him on decisions about the Edain because Finrod is the only one of the Noldor who treats Thingol’s views on that as relevant, Finrod talks him into letting the Haladin settle in Brethil.

And then Thingol’s stupid Quest gets Finrod killed, and Thingol really has no excuse for not anticipating that after Beren literally waved the Ring of Barahir in his face.

One character I wish they would interact with / interact with more: I wish he’d been willing to meet Fingolfin during the First Age, and I’d like him to meet Finarfin and Fingolfin in Valinor after he returns from the Halls. They’re Finwë’s kids, he and Finwë were best friends, it feels like the opportunity for a relationship there was really missed.

One (or more) headcanons I have about them and another character:

I headcanon that Thingol is very eager to meet Elrond when Elrond first arrives in Valinor, and has a lot of respect for him. He’d be eager to meet him anyway, as family - Thingol has so little living family, especially in Valinor, that he’s very attached to Elwing and Elrond as grandkids. But on top of that, he admires Elrond. There’s a certain type of parallelism between certain characters in LOTR and the Silm: Gandalf says he is “Saruman as he should have been”; Galadriel, in certain elements (especially the star-glass) is who Fëanor could have been. And Elrond reflects in many aspects who Thingol could/should have been: welcome and community (Last Homely House) rather than suspicion and barriers (against many of the Edain, and the non-Finarfinian Noldor); a place where men can be fostered that respects and preserves and teaches their heritage rather than feeling isolated as Túrin did; and, of course, acceptance of his daughter’s choice of who to love. And I think Thingol, post-Mandos, recognizes that and admires it and understands just how hard Elrond’s decisions were, from having made different ones himself.

A second headcanon is that Thingol and Treebeard were close friends (it really stands out that the only time the Ents appear in the Silm is to avenge Thingol’s death; and Treebeard does specifically mention Neldoreth as one of the places in Beleriand that he misses, in his song!) and when Legolas and Gimli show up in Valinor he’s delighted to learn that they know his old friend!

[fuck-customers]

More of a fuck managers here but honestly I hate this one manager we have. I've complained about her here a few times, shes always dress coding people for the dumbest shit like tshirts meanwhile her comanager is in a t shirt and yago leggings (which are also not allowed). But today was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back and made me decide to put in my notice. I work receiving at Narnes and Boble, two of my fellow receivers quit recently so it was just me. We had a clip board where we left notes for eachother about what happened that day, what to expect etc. Of course there was some swearing we're all buddies and grownups who gives a shit. She came back here today and decided to snoop around for no discernable reason, read the notes, decided they were "inappropriate" and took them all. My coworkers goodbye messages to me were on there. I'm livid and frankly fucking done.

[jenniferstolzer]

Babylon 5 Rewatch Season 3 Ep 03 A Day in the Strife

The Centauri/Narn peace continues to be one-sided as the current government sends Na'Far, a Narn dignitary, to Babylon 5 to fetch back G'Kar who is the last free member of the Kha'Ri. Meanwhile a Star Trek episode happens when a probe appears to give the command staff a pop quiz. Also Garibaldi challenges Franklin on his substance abuse. They eat Italian.

ALSO! DEVELOPMENT! For those of you out there who don't have HBO Max, all of Babylon 5 is now on IMDBtv! Watch the original series before they start putting out the remake for maximum in-joke appreciation! Straczynski said the new show is going to be a brand new take on the material, so you won't be spoiling yourself for the new one to watch the old one. Maybe I'll Pic an Episode the new series when it drops, too! Guess I better get this rewatch a-goin'

Things I liked and Didn't like about A Day in the Strife Below:

Things I like about A Day in the Strife

Ta'Lon is one of my favorite characters in this show. He doesn't show up often, but when he does he brings such a warmth and gentle strength it really leaves an impact. It was great seeing him get a drink with Sheridan after their escape together in the last season. It's a great handshake to the past to have this character come back and it feels like the two of them actually did forge a friendship that survived Freind of the Day status. Seeing Ta'Lon standing behind Na'Far feels wrong on a deep level, since it's obvious that Na'Far is short for Nafarious, but following him around means that Ta'Lon is inside all these political dealings. He is able to give G'Kar some well-informed advice, and explains the meaning of the K'Tok! Aka the sword JMS handed him to make him look different than other Narns. I kid Ta'Lon. Marry me.

I love G'Kar. I love how brave all the Narns are. I love how much it both heartens and hurts G'Kar to see the faith his people have in him. It's quite a burden to put not only the fate of their people on his shoulders, but the blood of all their families.

Finally confronting the drug abuse storyline that's been simmering under the surface is a good thing. I appreciate that Garibaldi had the hard talk with Franklin and that we got to see it. It felt very authentic to the twos' relationship as friends, and esp with Garibaldi's own substance issues... its a shame this wasn't the end of it, but a nice talk and a promise rarely is the end of a dependency, so even in that it's better storytelling. Also Franklin having a Stim problem makes sense within his story and his position. It's not just a drug problem for the sake of a drug problem, we as an audience can see how it would arise. Makes it a better representation of such a thing than other shows sometimes do.

Londo demonstrates to Vir what he considers "good politics." Which is to do what he must do as best as he can... and he's real good at it, too. Him talking to Na'Far about the executions is chilling. He can be a real monster when he wants, and Vir is appalled to watch it. This is what convinces Londo to send him to Minbar, to protect him. To save that little light of good inside Vir that Londo, himself, used to have. These characters are so goddamn complex you all. They love each other, they think things that are different than their behavior, ugh this goddamn /show/. And that scene with Delenn where she's convinced and Londo is evil now, but sees a little crack in the mask herself when he seeks her out in order to send Vir to Minbar. Londo loses two more friends. He really is alone and has no one to blame but himself.

Things I don't like about A Day In the Strife

The space probe plot really aches of "The Earth Force folk need something to do" syndrome. I made the joke that it's a Star Trek episode, and that wasn't to call it bad, but it's very in tone with the high-minded syndicated space show. Such a plot would make an excellent TOS episode without changing the twist or anything... but this isn't TOS. This is B5. This is 1995. It feels a little derivative and unexplored. That's a small complaint in a good episode, though. On to the next!

[hildorien]

Yeah exactly, Morgoth we know from The Wanderings of Húrin tries to hide any triumphs of Húrin’s family from him but I imagine that this happens too quickly for Melkor to intervene

Even without the AU murder though I find it very amusing how Melkor sends these people to invade Dor-lómin and is like haha your family sure is in danger NOW, aren’t they, Húrin and then meanwhile Brodda won’t go within one hundred feet/thirty meters of Morwen’s house because she looked at him really intently one time and so apparently that means she’s a witch

I hope this ask makes sense, I’m like half asleep but I just love your Narn posts

-@outofangband

Morgoth: I will send a bunch of bad people to attack dom lomin! Yes I am a evil genius!

Morgoth: WHY HAVENT YOU KILLED Her??? YETT???

Brodda: I would, but she is scary….

Morgoth, seeing a heavily pregnant and slowly starving women:

[marveldc-imagines-hub]

Being Friends With Bucky Barnes Includes:

Having to convince him at the beginning of said friendship that he is, in fact, “worthy” of your friendship

You are not taking his “I’m a monster” bullshit

Straight up telling him “no, you’re not a monster, you’re like a sweet cinnamon roll that’s been stepped on.”

“Still sweet and perfect but some bitch tried to fuck you up. Didn’t work but you do need a little cleaning up”

Having to explain to him why “cinnamon roll” is an endearment trend, along with other slang (”I’m trash for (insert thing),” “They could step on me and I would thank them,” etc)

In the end he finds them hilarious

Sometimes he’ll even try to use this weird modern age slang

It’s really awkward to hear coming from this “dirty cinnamon roll” but he’s trying and happy and that’s all that matters

Bucky giving you piggyback rides, especially when you’re tired and don’t want to walk somewhere

Whether that somewhere is the next room over or the mall across town

He’ll walk around with you clinging to his back like a koala

When he’s around other people they give him weird looks but he makes absolutely no comment

When they try to ask he deadass is like “I have no idea what you’re talking about”

What a surprise, he actually has a sense of humor; you just have to break it out of him first

Loves dirty jokes

He also really likes shitty jokes

Like the ones that are so bad and poorly executed that you would normally groan and roll your eyes so far back into your head you’re blind for a few minutes

Those turn him into a snickering mess if you do it right

Rescues you from every bad/sketchy date/wedding of a family member expecting you to bring a romantic partner/creep at the bar/etc ever and go right up to a catcaller and rip them a new one

He’s terrifying to everybody else but he’s a teddy bear to you

Soft pet names

Sweetheart, sugar cube, doll, his smol (once you inform him of the term), (insert shorthand of your name here), etc

Meanwhile you’re calling him things like dirty cinnamon roll, raccoon eyes, human garbage fire, trash man, Bicky Narnes, your tol, etc

You just overall help him transform from cold and weird to a human being that is slightly less weird

When you introduce him to the world on online friends challenges/questionnaires, he wants to do them all

With you, Steve, Sam (once; he said no the first time Bucky asked and Bucky has never asked him again), whoever’s interested in doing so

You’re generally the only person interested

It’s a fun mess of a time though

He’s a surprisingly good cook and loves to cook/make snacks for you when the two of you hang out

Movie nights

Basic combat training so you can protect yourself even when he’s not around

Him teaching you to dance then swing dancing around the living room to weird music like Barbie Girl by Aqua

He really loves animals; when the two of you are out and about he’ll often stop and eye the furry creature being walked or scurrying up a tree nearby

Him being old fashioned and gentlemanly to you

You teasing him for doing so but always ending by thanking him

[absynthe--minded]

13, 19, 30

13. A character you don’t like and why.

I could go with the obvious choices here (Eöl, Sauron, Morgoth, Maeglin, etc) but I’m actually going to go with kind of an unusual one in terms of Common Fandom Hate and that’s Daeron. Mostly because Daeron is the embodiment of every piece of shit man on the Internet ever and probably invented the concept of the friendzone. His response to Lúthien not being interested in him is essentially to sell her boyfriend out to the cops, and, when that’s not enough to convince her to love him, he breaks her confidence by going to her parents when she plots to escape. She’s literally locked up in a prison because of him. You’d think he’d be more generally unpopular.

19. Who do you think had the worse destiny: Húrin or Túrin?

At first I thought that would be a really hard answer, but no, I actually have to go with Húrin, no contest. Túrin honestly had a lot of agency, and a lot of choices in his life, and I pretty firmly believe that Morgoth’s curse wasn’t the only thing running his life into the ground, because while mind control in Arda is kind of vague the canonical evidence we do have (both here in the Narn and in LotR/the Hobbit) is this: without direct sustained contact with an evil intelligence, you have quite a lot of control over your actions. Even with that direct sustained contact, you still have some limited amount of control (see: Denethor and Pippin and the palantir, every bearer of the One Ring, Nienor and Túrin after their meetings with Glaurung) and you can still be held responsible for what you’ve done while mind-controlled/influenced. Túrin was never in direct sustained contact with Morgoth, nor did Glaurung utterly fuck him over like Nienor. Most of the choices that went bad are his own responsibility, and he has no one else to blame for their outcomes. If there was really a curse on him and it wasn’t just a trick by Morgoth to torment Húrin, it was probably a curse of impulsivity or poor anger management, not a micromanaging Jerkass Genie kind of curse. Meanwhile, poor Húrin was fated to sit and watch all the things he loved most go down in flames while he was quite literally powerless to stop them. Túrin genuinely enjoyed his years of happiness thanks to not knowing the future; Húrin was forced to endure them knowing that it would all go horribly wrong before too long.

30. What do you think of the fact that Tolkien created in 360-ish pages something so perfect and complex?

I, um... I seriously wonder, person-who-wrote-this-ask, have you read The History of Middle-Earth? All twelve volumes of it? There’s. There’s way more than 360 pages. There are drafts, and drafts, and more drafts, and linguistic essays, and sociological studies, and revisions, and story fragments that got written down when JRRT was bored. It’s complex because there are six different renditions of the same event and they all have wildly conflicting details, and it’s readable thanks to the heroic efforts of Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay (iirc).

Basically my response is [long sustained laughter] for that last one

[nicnacsnonsense]

This is some great insight into why Zuko’s redemption arc worked so well, and I am going to love him even harder, but I have to disagree with the assertion that you have to make the bad guy sympathetic from the very beginning to redeem him.

Meet G’Kar

G’Kar is from Babylon 5, where he is the Narn Ambassador on the titular space station. G’Kar is introduced as a straight up mustache-twirling villain. To quote series creator J Michael Straczynski “We've all seen the SF standard of The Villain Who Chews Scenery.” G’Kar is an self-serving political schemer who doesn’t care who he has to hurt to achieve his political ends, plus it’s kind of implied he killed his first assistant just for being annoying. (Behind the scenes the actress had a bad reaction to the Narn makeup and had to leave the show, but they chose to write that in the show as G’Kar telling people there was an airlock malfunction while acting shifty.) At one point G’Kar is asked what he wants, meaning what is his deepest desire, and his answer is “The Centauri stripped my world. I want justice. [I want] to suck the marrow from their bones... and grind their skulls to powder. To tear down their cities, blacken their sky, sow their ground with salt! To completely and utter erase them!” Classy.

Mind, we are aware that the Centauri colonized the Narn homeworld and oppressed the Narn people in the past, but as viewers our main experience with the Centauri come in the form of Vir, a bumbling cinnamon roll, and G’Kar’s counterpart Londo. Londo comes off a little like your one uncle who drinks and gambles too much and is perpetually asking to borrow five bucks, I swear I’ll pay you back, even though he already owes you twenty, but you’re not mad about it because you know he’s been through some stuff and is just trying to deal with it as best he can, and if you ever really needed him, he’d have your back. So you keep hoping things will turn around for poor Londo and meanwhile G’Kar keeps showing up to kick his dog out of petty spite (metaphorically).

That’s where their characterization starts and with a few hints here and there to some of the deeper aspects of each of their characters, that’s pretty much where it stays for almost the entire first season. But by the end of the show in season 5, you as the viewer are reluctantly deciding to forgive Londo for his manifold cruel and morally-bankrupt actions, but only because G’Kar — G’Kar, a deeply wise spiritual leader who is arguably one of the most morally upright characters in the entire show — says he’s cool.

There’s a whole long separate essay (multiple essays probably) about how G’Kar was redeemed and why it worked, but for the moment I just want to point to him as an alternative example of a redemption arc that was done very well, but very differently than Zuko’s.

When Zuko apologized to uncle Iroh in the tent cause he was so ashamed of his actions and what he’d done to the only person who unconditionally believed in his ability to do good >>>>>

[mathes0n]

More camp au more camp au more camp au

U HAVE REAWAKENED MY LOVE FOR CAMP AU

- Firi and Ashe’s first interaction was.... interesting. See once/twice a week the two camps meet up for a competition of sorts, and one of the first competitions was Capture the Flag. Ashe’s competitive ass punched a kid in the face to get the flag and was running back to her team’s base when she nearly runs into Firi. Firi gasps softly and apologizes for getting in Ashe’s way, expressing that she’s not a fan of violent games and was trying to sneak off to read or smth. Ashe’s gay ass stands there staring and blushing until she gets tackled by Colvin

- There’s a yearly tradition that on a specific day out of the year, campers sneak into the enemy camps to prank the everloving hell out of them in the middle of the night. Markus and Kyr catch Narn crossing to the Meadshire side as they’re crossing to the Ohnorant side, and they just nod in respect to each other. Thog defaces Camp Counselor Karen’s office. Ashe reminds him that he’s pranking his own camp. “I know,” says Thog.

- Charoth is a stray cat that just kind of lives on Meadshire and Ashe keeps feeding him scraps and he follows her around everywhere and she loves her new son (at the end of summer she successfully manages to smuggle him out of camp and bring him home)

- Moren used to go to Meadshire, and he and Thog were incredibly close. However, his family decided that Meadshire wasn’t good enough for their son and sent him to Ohnorant, and he and Thog had this super dramatic Romeo and Juliet romance when they were 15 that they both try to repress because neither of them were in any way ready for a relationship

- I imagine that at the end of every summer, each camp puts on a performance for friends/family to see before they go home (I imagine, like, the Ohnorant campers are required to watch the Meadshire camper’s performance every year, much to their chagrin, and vice versa). I think that Meadshire spends their summer putting together this big play that they write themselves (Thog always gets a lead role; even though his family never comes to watch the performance, he acts his heart out). Meanwhile, Ohnorant does a more typical Talent Show where each kid has the chance to show off a skill. Gregor and Zalvetta always do a performance together and its really cute (also important note that Zalvetta has been crushing on Gregor for a thousand years but will never confess Ever)

IDK im just rambling at this point but HE’LL YEA i love camp au

[jenniferstolzer]

Babylon 5 Rewatch ep 2.20 The Long, Twilight Struggle

Sheridan and Delenn receive an invitation to Epsilon III where Draal pledges the Great Machine to the campaign against the Shadows. Meanwhile Londo commits his Shadow allies to one more attack against the Narn, allowing the Centauri to commit war crimes and end the Narn conflict.

Things I like about The Long Twilight Struggle

1, An energy fluctuation happens on the planet and Corwin turns to his coworkers like “There’s something happening. Contact Commander Ivanova” then the camera drifts to a private quarters. A shower is running. We see the steam as we coast slowly toward the bathroom for a tasteful near nude shot of Claudia Chris—NOPE Bruce Boxleitner. I CACKLED.

2, Draal is great and I love him. It worked out that Sheridan is new here to get a refresher on who Draal is and what’s going on with the Great Machine. Also the Great Machine making him younger is a good way to explain why he’s Herman Munster now. I’m guessing he’ll stay young and vibrant until he disintegrates like the last guy.

3, I appreciate seeing Londo’s true colors in his conversation with Refa. He’s tired, both from the trip to Centauri Prime and of all the war and darkness he’s involved himself in. He’s also still mourning Ursa Jaddo from Knives which was a nice callback considering he had a significant moment of doubt and regret in that episode, and it’s good to be reminded that he’s not totally sold on what’s going on right now. It’s also nice that he’s against the mass drivers at the outset but is convinced to go with Refa’s plan because he considers the glorification of his people more important than himself or anything else. He talks himself into doing something truly horrendous, but it’s wrong and his face knows its wrong. And then Refa makes him watch, when he fully intended to hide from what he’s done. Gguhh the pain is wonderful.

4, Watching this in a rewatch hurts so bad. Like Franklin gives G’Kar a warning about the Centauri’s interest in homeworld. There’s the possibility he can stop it.

5, Delenn and Sheridan go down to Epsilon III she is acting super cocky and in control because she wants to impress her crush, even using clever colorful English phrases. Everyone remembers Abasfrigginlutely Damnit. Oh Delenn….

6, Sheridan looks at the inside of the Great Machine and is like  “Lord, I may not go home” and I laughed b/c it looks like Tron in there.

7. The jump-kicking Centauri.

8, The mass drivers really are the most disgusting move. To devastate a civilian population from space is the ultimate ranged weapon. What could they possibly do? Watching Londo watch it happen is peak drama because as disgusted as he is watching, you know he’s as disgusted with himself in facilitating it. The drama is there but also horror on a level few shows can communicate, that of self-horror. The moment earlier where it was established and Londo still had a concept of right and wrong even as he was dealing with the Shadows is pulling full weight here. At the beginning of this season he was a buffoon struggling to stay afloat, in the middle of the season he finds the power and respect he wanted but loses the trust and friendship of the station in the process, and here at the culmination of his choices he sees what he was really willing to sell his soul for. He could have remained powerless and kept his sense of self, but instead he chose advancement and learned to hate what he’s become. It’s just staggering.

9, G’Kar is also pulling full weight in this episode. He’s prepared to go back to Narn, be with his family, and die among his people but he is the only member of the Kha’Ri not on homeworld and being so, he is an in credibly valuable asset for the race now that surrender is unavoidable. The tears in his eyes when asking for sanctuary are soul crushing, and the horror and shame he’s feeling is an inversion of Londo’s… powerlessness and being suppressed despite knowing he could do more verses being powerful and regretting it.

10, The Centauri terms of surrender are so cruel. It’s the turn of a knife that’s already been plunged to the hilt and Sheridan coming in to yank the dagger back an inch like a badass is extremely galvanizing and give Delenn grounds to commit the Rangers to him later in the episode. Also something I want to note about this scene that I think is even more important than Sheridan being a hero, it’s G’Kar sitting in his normal spot in complete despair, enduring Londo’s terms. Londo is dressed in every decoration and medal he’s ever owned, screaming at the top of his lungs like being the loudest makes him the rightest, yet G’Kar is silent. Londo demands G’Kar be removed from the council chambers like an invader. Sheridan replies by recounting the request for sanctuary, resulting on the two fighting over G’Kar’s head, but no one calls the bailiff to come get him. No one except Londo tells him he needs to go. They give G’Kar the chance to move. Even Kosh waits to see what he’s going to do. Will he attack? Will he scream and cry? No. He stands and with every ounce of self control he contains, delivers one of the greatest axefalls in television history.

“No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once, we will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.”

11, AND THATS NOT EVEN THE END OF THE EPISODE! I can’t believe this wasn’t a two-parter with everything that’s happened in this one half an hour of screentime. Sheridan essentially tells G’Kar he’s on his side in this war. He offers G’Kar his hand as an ally, and G’Kar considers it saying; “The last time I offered someone my hand, we were at war 24 hrs later” He pauses to make you wonder if he’s lost the ability to trust, then shakes with Sheridan and the look on his face tells something completely different. He still believes he’ll be at war very shortly, but he’s hoping for it. He’s counting on it.

12, Finally we get the introduction of the Rangers and the only thing that can kind of fit on my “Liked less” list. I like this just fine, but there’s something about Delenn who is in charge of a secret sect of warrior monks pledged to side with the Vorlons against the Shadows, turning the control of those monks over to Sheridan without fully introducing him to their existence. To be fair, she gives him partial control and doesn’t hand it over to him, removing herself from the field and I know having watched the rest of the show that she still is the sole figure in charge of the Rangers and is more accurately pledging herself and those in her service to Sheridan’s cause… but the way they read in this episode it looks like she’s giving Sheridan the reins. The next episode is KIND OF dealing with this with the inquisitor, but in general I think we could have avoided a lot of nonsense if she just phrased her pledge more accurately.

13, And this leads me to a theory… that Babylon5 was labeled their best hope for piece, but really it was built specifically as a neutral ground for the staging of the Shadow war. It really is Babylon 5, as in a replacement for Babylon 4 which was used as a warbase. This is why the Minbari co-founded the station, this is why it ends in fire at the end of everything. It’s existence is specifically tied to the the return of the shadows and the drama and diplomacy of the Narns, Centauri, Telepaths, Earthdome, etc etc are events of the universe that happen to occur there. Wihtout the Shadow War, there’d be no Babylon 5, and without Babylon 5 the universe would not continue.

14.

Finally.

The ARMY OF LIGHT

I got teary-eyed

Things I liked Less about The Long Twilight Struggle

The Delenn thing. But we’ll get back to that next episode. And that’s it.

This episode is truly one of the greatest and most emotionally wrenching pieces of television ever created. It’s a silly scifi show with rubber masks that dares to delve deeper beneath the skin than anything else I’ve seen. We see the horror and depravity of war, but we also see the people turned inside out by it and what colors they are within. Ten out of ten. Thanks for breaking my heart. This is why I had to take pause on my rewatch to prepare.

oh by the way @gin-007 and I are resuming our rewatch from 2019.

and I’m putting all these eps up on @b5picanep as well if you want to go back to see previous episodes. 

[jenniferstolzer]

Babylon 5 Rewatch Season 2 episode 21: Comes the Inquisitor

The Vorlons send an inquisitor to investigate Delenn. Meanwhile, G’Kar must do his own investigation in order to restore the faith and morale of the defeated Narns on Babylon 5

Things I liked about Inquisitor:

I’ll state right up front that this is not my favorite episode, but I am definitely a fan of G’Kar’s storyline. He was told not to speak in the council so he’s taken to the streets becoming a curbside prophet even before he acquires the title. I love his vigor and refusal to give up. Throughout this episode he wheels and deals pulling every string he has. He buys weapons on the black market, he plies Sheridan for favors, he makes promises he doesn’t know if he can keep and the whole time he’s fighting like a cornered dog. Vicious boy. Very very good. 

Same storyline, this episode has his “Dead, Dead, Dead” speech to Vir which is such an important moment for both characters. 1, it sets a firm boundary in G’Kar that he is not willing or able to forgive a Centauri, something that comes back into play in Season 5 in the just best most heartbreaking way. 2, it shows Vir that good intentions and apologies aren’t enough in the face of such a blow. Vir apologizes for what’s happened and tries to excuse himself from the events and G’Kar is like “Nope, no reassurance for you, today” This moment isn’t worthless, though. The fact that Vir didn’t ignore G’Kar in the lift, that he was brave enough to say something and acknowlege that this people had done wrong is the birth of Abrahamo Lincolni

Garibaldi working within the boundaries of his job to help G’Kar is also great.The moment feeds Garibaldi’s storyline by emphasizing his suspicious nature. Like Morden before him, Garibaldi gave G’Kar a test. Tell the truth or get your wrist slapped. The fact is that Garibaldi doesn’t fully trust anybody. You can see why the events later in his story happen... I wonder if in another life he’d be asking “What do you want?”

Unless I misheard, one of the Narns on homeworld say “Thank G’Kar!” the same way G’Kar says “Thank G’Quan.” The first instance of G’Kar being venerated as a prophet maybe? 

Sebastian was snatched off planet earth by the Vorlons back in Earth’s History which proves that theyv’e visited us before, they’ve messed with our history before, and they have very odd taste in servants for creatures that are supposed to be pinnacles of good. Its an interesting thought experiment I guess. You’ll read more below about why I’m not sure it /quite/ worked? But the message that Earth was not immune from past meddling and the Vorlons are secretly kinda bad maybe is firmly stated in this episode.

Things I liked less

Sebastian always struck me as a weird choice of storyline. I get the idea -- the Vorlons are not the beacons of good we’ve been led to believe, watch them torture their most loyal soldier to test her loyalty. I get that idea, but I never thought it really worked. First of all, Sebastian is Jack the Ripper. That’s a weird choice. Giving Jack the Ripper a redemption arc is a weird choice. It’s a weird choice for //delenn//. if we were looking for someone from history to torment Delenn i guarantee the vorlons could have found someone from Minbari history whose cruelty would strike fear in her, or whose piety would test her, or whose disapproval would tempt her heart. Not only does she not know who Sebastian is, he’s going by a name he’s not even famous for. So who he is doesn’t matter except to us, the audience, and in that way this episode felt kind of pandering to the audience. Shocking the 20th century butts on the other side of the fourth wall with a “that’s neat” reveal at the end. That woudl have played better around Episode 2.10... but after the stakes established in the last episode, hopping out of the timeline only makes the inquisitor feel less important than the G’Kar stuff. 

Also, and this is a personal take, the torture itself felt self-gratifying to me? I have a hard time watching the Sheridan torture episode, too. Misery for misery’s sake doesn’t move me the way the scripts want it to, especially when it’s done just for the sake of showing torture on screen. The Vorlons could have gotten the answer they wanted out of her with telepathy something if the goal was to see her true thoughts, then they erase her memory of the event to boot! So if it was a punishment  for pledging the Rangers to Sheridan’s service, she didn’t learn anything about that. She hasn’t learned what might happen to her if she goes off-script. She doesn’t have the emotional investment of having endured a trial and come out victorious... they just electrocuted her until she wept because they could and they wanted to. And what did they learn? That she’s sacrifice herself for her loved ones. I mean, we knew that already didn’t we? Sebastian peeled off her rind to expose her heart, but the circumstances that got her there were erased from her head. Even if we didn’t know Delenn’s capacity for self-sacrifice, what if she decided after enduring torture that she’d rather die than see Sheridan dead and the day before when she hadn’t experienced torture she would have let him die? She went on an emotional journey then got rewound! 

In the end, Sebastian quotes Jesus and says “you guys are finally the right people in the right place at the right time”  Yeah okay, asshole. I guess that was the goal? To see if they were the right people at the right place? I hate to break it to the Vorlons but they gotta work with what they have at this point the Shadow war is starting RIGHT NOW. They wanted to make sure Delenn was the right person? You’ve been GROOMING her for THIS VERY REASON for DECADES. The right place? You facilitated the BUILDING OF BABYLON 5 AS A BASTION OF WAR. What. Are. You. Doing?????

All this said, the torture scenes do show us, the audience, more about our characters. Lennier shows up, offers to help, then runs and gets Sheridan. Sheridan is the linchpin that makes Delenn finally say “I’ll die for others” when I assume she thought that was an unspoken truth to this point. We and the Vorlons both get proof she’s a selfless saint ready to die for our sins. We see that the Vorlons are cruel and unusual and maybe there’s no pure good in the galaxy. And also G’Kar is trying his very best to fight a war with real stakes and I’d rather be watching that. Theoretical reasons for the torture aren’t lost on me, I just feel like it could have been done better with a more in-universe situation and that the reveal that Sebastian is Jack the Ripper didn’t pay off for this one viewer like I know it does with others. 

The next ep ends the season! Let’s go!

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Doriath and Men

This is a follow-up to my previous post on Doriathrin relations with other elves, because there’s several interesting aspects to be examined here.

Doriathrin Policy

The first thing that will come to most people’s minds regarding Doriath and the Edain is Thingol sending Beren on a suicide quest to prevent him and Lúthien from getting married, but there’s a lot more going with between Doriath and humans than just that.

Their relations with the Haladin are unique in being the only situation in the history of Beleriand where Men have an independent community without an elven liege-lord. The Beorings and Hadorians have their own kings, but they’re liegemen to the the House of Finarfin and the House of Fingolfin respectively. In the agreement mediated beyween the Haladin and Doriath by Finrod Felagund, the Haladin live in the Forest of Brethil with complete independence, and agree for their part to defend Brethil and the Crossings of Teiglin from the forces of Morgoth (of which Haleth says - in essence and very bluntly - “Morgoth killed my family; we were obviously going to do that anyway”).

Despite this committment, Doraith doesn’t expect the Haladin to defend Brethil on their own, nor is Doriath uninvolved in the wars of Beleriand. Halmir, lord of the Haladin, is friends with the Sindar who defend Doriath, and during the Battle of Sudden Flame, when the Haladin are attacked by orcs, he rapidly sends to Thingol for assisstance, which Thingol provides in the form of a for e led by Beleg and including a large number of Sindar armed with axes (they’re not solely archers!), who fight alongside the Haladin and destroy the orcs. (This is the battle in which Húrin and Huor are separated from their army, and are rescued by Thorondor and taken to Gondolin.) The Doriathrim continue to assist in the defense of Brethil after the Nirnaeth - the region of Dimbar where Beleg is stationed on the border defense (and where he urges to Túrin to return, when Túrin is with the outlaws) is directly on the northeast border of Brethil.

This connection of Húrin to the Edain allies of Doriath was likely part of why Thingol chose to foster Túrin. A larger part, to my mind, was Thingol realizing that he had bern wrong in his treatment of Beren and attempting to atone for it in his treatment of Túrin. And Thingol and Melian clearly came to care for Túrin a great deal and went very far out of his way to look after him, even when Túrin was being his stubbornnest. They sent messengers on the very dangerous road to Dor-lomin so that Túrin could have news of his family. They sent Beleg to look for him invite him back even after Túrin had humiliated and murdered one of Thingol’s top advisors; when Túrin refused, Thingol again sent Beleg - one of his leading soldiers - away from the front lines where he was needed, to look after Túrin instead. And Melian sent lembas to Túrin’s band of brigands, which was practically unheard of.

So on the whole, I would say that Doriath’s relations with the Edain were good, and the primary negative point in that relationship, is the Leithian, was the result of Thingol being an overprotective father rather than directly related to foreign policy. Their relationship with tne Edain was not a close as that of the Noldor and Edain in Hithlum or Dorthonion, but it was, interestingly, a more equal one. However, very few Men ever entered Doriath prior to the fall of the Girdle of Melian - only Beren, Túrin, Morwen, Nienor, and Húrin, and that ties into a second element.

Doriath as Faerie

Doriath’s role in both the Leithian and the Narn i Hîn Húrin is, from the outside, human perspective, very much the role of the Fae in folklore. In the Leithian, it’s even referred to a Faerie. In folklore, men who go to Faerie meet strange fates; the might get strange powers as well, but they pay for them. Faerie is unknown, and the Fair Folk are an uncanny and dangerous people.

Likewise, men who go into Doriath meet strange fates and strange dooms. Beren is enchanted and walks first into Tol-in-Gaurhoth and then directly into Angband for the sake of the Faerie princess he loves; it’s said that he returns from the dead, though none among Men ever see him again and cannot say if this is truth or legend. Not many years later, young Túrin is sent to the elves - on purpose, in an inversion of myths around changelings - and when he comes out he has a strange doom and strange powers, seems unlike the rest of his people, and brings disaster on all whom he encounters; and his mother and sister, who also go to Doriath, likewise meet terrible fates. Yes, we know that’s due to Morgoth’s curse (and Túrin’s own lack of impulse control), but to an average Man in Beleriand the implications are clear: getting involved in Faerie is dangerous, and the powers aren’t worth the cost.

(Similarly the elves of Doriath, the easiest conclusion to reach from their direct interactions with Edain is that Doriath’s problem was not being isolationist enough. Beren comes, and their princess leaves and dies. Túrin comes, kills one of the king’s counsellors, leaves, goes to Nargothrond - Doriath’s strongest remaining ally - usurps rule, and gets it destroyed. Húrin brings the Nauglamír, leading to the death of the King and the departure of the Queen. If no Edain ever came to Doriath, none of this would have happened. What I’m saying is, Morgoth got a lot of mileage out of his curse on Húrin’s family - not only the destruction of the family itself, but the destruction of Doriath and Nargothrond, and a foundation for distrust between Edain and Sindar.)

The Successor of Doriath - The Woodland Realm

Given this strange history, one might expect that the elves who identify most closely as the successors of Doriath in the Second and Third Age - those who leave Lindon for Greenwood the Great and set up a new forest kingdom whose halls are modelled on Menegroth - might have poor relations with Men. But as of the late Third Age, that’s not the case at all. The Wood-elves of what is by then Mirkwood are the only group of elves we seen who have close relations with non-Edain Men. (Or that’s my u derstabding of the heritage of the men of Lake-town - they’re dustant relations of the Bree-men, the men of Rhovanion, and perhaps even more distantly the Rohirrim, not of the Númenoreans.) They’ve got a regular, mundane, commercial relationship with them, and regular, everyday, working elves (the raft-men of the king) are a commonplace sight in Esgaroth. (Is this the only time we see elves with a regular, non-security, non-military day job? I think it might be.) The Wood-elves provide assistance to the men of Esgaroth after it’s destroyed, amd are its allies in the subsequent mess/battle.

Compare this to the relationship of literally any other Third Age elf-kingdom with regular, everyday, non-Númenorean-descended men. Rivendell is the Last Homely House for adventurous travellers, yes, and it fosters the heirs of Elendil, yes, but you wouldn’t see an average Bree-lander heading out there for a drink and a chat. The Rohirrim think Galadriel is a dangerous sorceress, and even Faramir thinks that Lórien, though good, is also eldritch and better avoided out of prudence. That’s how men think of Elves in most of Middle-earth. And meanwhile the Lake-men are going, “Oh, elves? Yeah, that’s the folks who buy wine from us! And at a good price too! They grow some fine apples!”

Which, as legacies go, is a pretty nice one, unexpected as it might be.

[mathes0n]

HEY DID SOMEONE SAY UUUUUH THRILLING INTENT WARRIORS CATS AU

Black cat with white markings is Thog, white cat w grey is Ashe (Ashwing), golden kitty is Markus (warriors name pending), the big tabby friend markus is cuddling is Kyr (warriors name pending) and the brown kitty with the heart is Gregor (Heartpaw)

more details under the cut im so sorry mobile users njdsfjkndsfjndsf

Ok so like...... there r 3 Clans, right?? There’s RustClan, led by Kyrlos (Russetstar or smth im not sure yet), there’s LilyClan that’s led by Zeke (Flowerstar) and theres GoldClan led by Dao (Digstar). These clans have lived like this for generations; however, they’re currently in deep danger. A group of rogue cats led by a kitty named Xin have been harassing and murdering and disturbing the Clan cats, to the point where many are too scared to even go into the forest to hunt in fear that they won’t make it back alive. The fate of the clans is very, very uncertain

Meanwhile, a young kittypet receives a dream from StarClan themselves; many ancestors of the Clan give this cat a warrior ceremony, dubbing her the ‘savior’ of their Clans. In particular, she is named by LilyClan’s previous leader, Flamestar (Kyl’il). This young kittypet is given the name Ashwing, and her first duty as a warrior is to find the clans, as a prophecy says she can save the clans from being completely wiped out

With help from a grumpy rogue named Thog, they find the clans together, and end up recruiting Markus, Gregor, and many other friends in their cause. The end result is that Ashe manages to win many of the rogues to her side, other friends find other allies, a big war breaks out, and a fourth clan, ShroudedClan, ends up being formed alongside the other three Clans (I’m not sure who’d become the leader of ShroudedClan. maybe ashe?? maybe markus???? dont???? idk im so tired but i love this au sm)

anyways heres some other trivia 

- Thog, Inien, and Colvin are all littermates. They were born to a housecat named Karen, who had a thing with the GoldClan deputy. Thog was a very small and sickly kit, while Inien and Colvin were healthy and strong as far as kittens go. As soon as the kittens could walk, Karen tried to pawn them off on their dad. The dad only wanted to bring back kits that he thought would be powerful warriors, so he only took Inien and Colvin, who are now warriors of GoldClan (though join ShroudedClan when it’s founded). Thog grew up a rogue with an unloving mother and an unloving world, and always harbored a strong resentment towards the Clans because of this (until he goes and joins them, that is; he still keeps his name though)

- Gregor was a kitten found on RustClan land; Kyrlos didn’t particularly care for cats without Clan blood, but he found himself drawn to Gregor; despite being so young, he seemed to have the eyes of an experienced warrior. Kyrlos decided to introduce the kit into RustClan, and then mentoring him personally. Gregor also had a close bond with fellow RustClan apprentice Zalvetta

- Markus is the deputy of LilyClan, though he’s not quite sure if that’s his calling

- Kyr and Dont are also members of LilyClan, and are actually Kyl’il’s kits. They both feel the pressure of having to live up to the memory of their amazing leader mother; especially Kyr. He feels like he doesn’t belong in such a graceful clan such as LilyClan, and if it wasn’t for his best friend Markus, he would’ve run away by now

- I didn’t get the chance to draw her yet, but Firi is a really pretty tortoiseshell cat with multicolor eyes. She was once a rogue wandering the land with her bff Narn, but eventually becomes the medicine cat of ShroudedClan

- im not sure how Narns gotta fit into all of this but i am SO for the idea that they’re like. One of those really fucking big cats?? With the long legs??? So they walk in and everyones like “jesus christ what the fuck is that” yknow a typical reaction to Narn

- harlock still ends up being a kitten that Thog and Ashe have

uuuh idk im slepy lol