Buffy fic, and random B5 thought

[rivendellrose]

Okay... fic-link-spam, intended mostly for maymargaret, but perhaps of interest to others as well!



This Innocent - Giles attempts to deal with the events of S3 "Helpless," and gets a little... 'help' on the subject from Angel.

When I Was Your Age - Short little bit; Giles and Jenny have a bit of fun with Willow and Buffy.

Cold Day in a Cruel World - Short-ish; Giles and Jenny after finding Jenny's uncle. Can't remember which episode that was exactly... "Passions?" Anyway, relatively simple little thing, but nice.

Illogical - Set before "Lie to Me, which I don't think I've seen. Hmm... Anyway, just a little conversation between Giles and Jenny. Cute, light, and fluffy, with good characterization for both of them.

The Way the World Ends - Just when I thnk I'm over the trauma of That Scene in "Passions"... this fic comes along, and I'm wibbling all over again. Well-written, and gets bonus points for use of one of my favorite poems.

A Pleasant Impression - Again with the "somewhat before "Lie to Me" time-setting... clearly, I missed something interesting there. This is a really cute little thing, and cuteness always wins points, for me. A little weird, but amusing.

Bad Karma - Jenny's thoughts, end of "Passions." Enough said. Angst and introspection, but not badly done, and a nice companion/answer to "The Way the World Ends."

Reprimand - Snyder-POV in part, and very amusingly so! This one gives me the giggles... and delights in other ways, as well.

Impassioned - Rewrite of "Passions," with a significant shift. Once it gets through the episode content and up to the point of divergence, this is a really interesting look at what 'might have been.' And with the exception of a notable OFC that I could've done without, and some rather disruptive formatting issues in the latter half, I liked it. Warning: multi-chapter, rather long.

Et In Arcadia Ego - Day of the Dead fic! I really really like this one. Another multi-chapter.

Oops - Highlander/Buffy crossover, very short and humorous. There are Watchers... and then there are Watchers.

Double Date - Giles and Jenny run into Spike and Drusilla while out on a date. Lovely capture of Drusilla's dialogue, here - had me trying to say the lines with her accent. *g*

Fire - Another "Passions"-oriented fic. That's all I'm saying about this one, aside from that it's worthwhile.



And, because this post isn't quite random enough, I have to say that I watched "Legacies" from S1 B5 tonight, while knitting. Despite the horrible acting of the girl who plays the young telepath (and, honestly, could anyone believe that girl was only 13?), I love that episode. It's more fun now that I know Neroon better, granted, but it's got lovely Talia/Susan tension, Na'Toth being adorably brusque ("good idea about the teeth"), and Delenn being downright scary in her bloody-minded focus and, in the end, the terrifying way she wields her power once the humans are gone and she drops the "humble, pious ambassador" act. I remember that this was the first episode where I really started to wonder about her, as a character. Even after causing a nearly-genocidal war over Dukhat's death and then bringing it to a stop, she's willing to risk the whole peace just to make a point about Branmer.

Is it bad that the vicious, cold-bloodedly calculating way she does things really makes me love her? That woman is scary. But also so damned wonderful. >

Comments

[zinjadu.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you braved the Pit of Voles. o_O

Will totally be reading these at work. :D

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Desperation. There's only one non-Buffy/Giles LJ comm for Giles stuff, and it was a one-season kind of deals, so... I had to go elsewhere to find fic.

I hope you enjoy!

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I'm rewatching Season 5, and I miss Season 1 Delenn. I think that estrogen has a deterimental effect on the Minbari brain.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

*Laughs* Yeah, that's kind of my impression as well - I was so thrilled to see Delenn as I remembered her, and first started loving her. I think all of that is still under the surface in S5, but she's certainly not nearly as... overtly vicious? More fulfilled, in some ways, and thus less obviously cut-throat, I guess.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that the vicious, cold-bloodedly calculating way she does things really makes me love her?

Hopefully not! Much love for S1!Delenn over here, too. She really is just scary in that episode, even without how close she and Neroon come to starting a war between them.

I do wonder how much of it she planned, though - Neroon wasn't going to shrug and go home without finding out what happened to Branmer's body, and it's not like Sinclair could have dropped it, and Neroon wasn't ever going to believe in that miraculous-transformation story when he could have blamed humans, so... what ws she planning to do? Wait a while and then blackmail him into going along with her story anyway? Either she was so affected by Branmer's death that she came close to starting another war just by accident, or she let things get to that level so she could really slap Neroon down. I'm not sure which is scarier, there.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you understand. ;) I wish JMS hadn't dropped so much of that side of her...

I'd been wondering the same thing. It's possible, I suppose, that in the heat of the moment she really did expect Neroon to just go along with the miraculous-transformation dealie, but that just seems way too far-fetched and silly. And yet, as you said, the idea that she would let things go that far intentionally is just... yikes.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Her deal with Neroon was that if he went along with her, she'd make sure his clan didn't get into any trouble over what happened, wasn't it? (Well, 'deal' - more of a 'this is not negotiable, but here's something to make it a bit more palatable for you' thing.) And if it hadn't escalated to that level, and Neroon hadn't attacked Sinclair and threatened to restart the war, there wouldn't have been anything for them to get into trouble about, so...

She seemed pretty angry with Neroon and the Warrior caste for giving Branmer that kind of funeral. I'm wondering if the whole thing was a way to translate that anger into being mad at something else, something less personal to her and more obviously wrong on the Warrior caste's part, so that she could make 'Say sorry, NOW!' an official order from the Grey Council. Or something. I do wish we'd heard more about Branmer - there's definite implied backstory there!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, basically she was going to see him personally and the Star-riders as a clan dishonored for refusing to follow Branmer's express wishes, and also because their claim on Branmer broke normal practices about caste and clan - Neroon points out that Branmer was warrior caste by his father, and Delenn answers that he was religious caste by his mother, and that that takes precedence. Also because he'd been taking actions that could be construed as his caste making decisions for all of Minbar (not that Delenn herself ever does that...)

The thing that bothered me most about that order to Neroon was that I doubt she ever even told the rest of the council what was going on. She made it sound to Neroon like it was the will of all the Grey, when in reality... just her.

And, as an aside, I don't know how you manage to accomplish all you do in fic from her POV. I've been working on one, and with all this in my mind I'd really like to make clear how messed up her methods are sometimes... but nobody around her would ever think of it, and I don't think even she's aware of what she's doing. It'd never occur to her that she wasn't in the right on pretty much anything, I don't think.

[eye-of-a-cat.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much of the 'not respecting Branmer's wishes' stuff had to do with the circumstances of his funeral, and how much of it was what looked like a more general gripe Delenn had with the warrior caste treating him as warrior caste in the first place? I'm sure that mother/father thing works for determining what caste you're in by default, but if he actively converted to the warrior caste...

Re: Delenn's POV - I think I find it easier to write her from that perspective, rather than trying to describe what she's doing from someone else's point of view (especially when it's Lennier, who just isn't going to think anything bad of her no matter what she does ("why, yes, she DID start a genocidal war, but she was upset!")). And thank you for the compliment if it worked! Like you said, though, she's not very reflective in that aspect. See, this is why I think there should be a lot more fic about Neroon out there, because he does object to what she's doing.