Memes and Babylon 5
I'm feeling lethargic and irritable, so let's have a meme.
(I finally finished responses to the last one, btw; links (sorta, multi-comments screw everything up) under the cut for the curious:
ASOIAF: Jaime/Brienne
Amber: Corwin/Random
BtVS: Giles/Spike
Dragaera: Vlad/Morrolan (scroll down)
Dresden Files: Harry/Murphy, Harry/Molly, and Thomas/Molly, plus Thomas/Justine dark!fic
Firefly: Jayne/Simon (scroll down)
Korra: Korra/Asami
LotR: Aragorn/Eowyn (scroll down) -- this was really hard!
Lyburn Legacy: Jared/Ash
RoL: Peter/Nightingale and Nightingale/Seawoll
Epic crossover of awesome betweein AtLA and Seraphina: Uncle Iroh/Uncle Orma
*
I stole this from qwentoozla ages and ages ago, started filling it out, got distracted for, like, a year, then felt like it again a little while ago and finished selecting the clues. So, let's play?
Go to Better Than It Sounds at TV Tropes and find some shows/books/whatever that you like. List 20 a bunch, let people guess.
ETA: Crossed out the ones that have been guessed so far, with answers under a spoiler-tag, but definitely feel free to keep guessing them still if you haven't yet had a go. I just wanted to make the entirely-unguessed ones easier to pick out :)
ETA #2: Only 3 clues remain unguessed (now outside the cut). Hint/clarification added. I'll add more hints if they're still unguessed in another 12 hours or so.
ETA #3: Only one remains unguessed! ETA #4: All guessed! Whee, thanks for playing! :D
1) Semi-retired super spy attempts to apply his covert operations skills to courtship. The operative term is attempts. -- guessed by fallingtowers. [Answer]Answer: A Civil Campaign
2) Young man fights in the Second World War, goes home, gets married, is abducted by aliens, goes home, dies. Not necessarily in that order. -- guessed by asthenie_vd, gehayi, pax_athena. [Answer]Answer: Slaughterhouse-Five
3) Machines malfunction time and time again, and experts try to fix them. [Hint: sci-fi] -- guessed by avanti_90. [Answer]Answer: I, Robot / Asimov's Robots stories
4) A woman's fetish makes a national heroine. [Hint: fantasy series] -- guessed by ambyr, gehayi, housecreepy. [Answer]Answer: Kushiel books
5) Holocaust survivor uses a rusted statue to make a point. Other people stop him. -- guessed by bearshorty [Answer]Answer: X-Men (the first movie, from 2000)
6) An angry British hotelier hates his guests, lies to his wife, and physically assaults the hotel waiter. The underpaid maid is the only competent person. It's a comedy. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Fawlty Towers
7) Three women and a cat travel, argue and subvert happy endings. -- guessed by gehayi, semi-guessed by asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: Witches Abroad
8) A cheerful and brightly-colored children's show about child abuse and genocide. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Avatar: the Last Airbender
9) Man arrives home very late after commute from hell and murders unwanted houseguests. And half the staff. -- guessed by asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: The Odyssey
10) Magicians who work for the British government regulate magic, travel to parallel universes, and die. A lot. -- guessed by philomytha. [Answer]Answer: Chronicles of Chrestomanci.
11) Mad-Eye Moody, Fleur Delacour and Lord Voldemort hang out in a small Belgian town with Colin Farrell and a midget. They all try to kill each other. -- guessed by bearshorty, meathiel, _profiterole_, nutmeg3, a_phoenixdragon. [Answer]Answer: In Bruges
12) Young man goes to a summer camp for other unusual teenagers like him while making friends, falling in love with his cousin and resolving issues with his new-found family using a magic pen. -- guessed by sephystabbity, _profiterole_, a_phoenixdragon. [Answer]Answer: Percy Jackson
13) Two guys look for some furniture. -- guessed by nutmeg3 [Answer]Answer: Twelve Chairs
14) A homeless guy with a split personality answers the phone and returns a girl's hat. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Midnight Mayor (Matthew Swift #2)
15) Two former celebrities and their children fight a wannabe ex-fan. -- guessed by travels_in_time, sephystabbity, a_phoenixdragon. [Answer]Answer: The Incredibles
16) A group of heroes try to stop a supervillain from enacting his plan to save the world and fail. [Clarification: that's 'supervillain's plan to save the world'] -- guessed by pax_athena [Answer]Answer: Watchmen
17) Ancient Rome with Pokemon, based on a The Bet made in a bar. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Codex Alera
18) Thanks to a discontinued sports car, a boy nearly commits incest with his mother after teaching his father how to use violence. All their lives improve as a result. -- guessed by asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: Back to the Future
19) A pizza delivery boy goes on a one-way trip. He meets and befriends a physically deformed orphan and an alcohol-fueled criminal. They all quit their jobs to work for the delivery boy's senile nephew. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Futurama
20) Prisoners concoct elaborate escape plan with help from American circus acrobat after learning that their captors intend to turn them into pies. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Chicken Run
21) An Officer and a Gentleman throws away his Naval career for his new pet. -- guessed by asthenie_vd, gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Temeraire
22) Police officer ruins village inspection. -- guessed by Asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: Hot Fuzz
23) Laser tag is Serious Business, Real-Time Strategy games even more so. And let's not even get started on blogging. -- guessed by gehayi, pax_athena. [Answer]Answer: Ender's Game
24) A naive blonde who lives in the middle of nowhere ignores the wishes of her overprotective mother and leaves home, blackmailing a burglar into acting as her chaperon. -- guessed by bearshorty, travels_in_time, fallingtowers. [Answer]Answer: Tangled
25) In The Future, there's no crime, poverty, war, disease or old age, and everyone gets to have lots and lots of sex. But the Noble Savage says it's bad. Two other people, who are among the smartest people on earth, go on a quest to stop being happy. -- guessed by gehayi, gillo. [Answer]Answer: Brave New World
26) A man attempts to tell his life story but keeps getting distracted. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Tristram Shandy
27) A guy produces a heavily-abridged version of his favorite book from when he was a kid. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: The Princess Bride
28) A Jewish teen and his wisecracking friend go on a road trip through Asia so the first teen can find his purpose in life. -- guessed by nutmeg3. [Answer]Answer: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
I'm leaving comments unscreened, honor system all the way. Books, movies, cartoons, TV shows. Have at it! (I'll post hints for any that prove too hard to guess from these alone.)
*
Also, rodents and I have started watching Babylon 5 season 4: spoilers!
So, at the end of the s3 finale, rodents were clamoring for me to tell them whether Sheridan was alive or not. I refused, and O went and got the season 4 DVD set and pointed to Sheridan on the cover and was like, yeah, he's not dead. Which, OK, point. XP
Hour of the Wolf (4x01) -- Cartagia! I've been waiting to see his crazy decadent Phoenix self ever since his name was first mentioned. And the rodents are suitably impressed by the crazy: while he was delivering his monologue about becoming elevated to godhood, O was doing the "cuckoo" gesture. O was also, weirdly, able to predict that Catagia would say "big picture" when he was looking for a word, that it was Morden who'd asked for Londo, and that we would see Cartagia's gallery of headsin the appropriate scene; "It's like I watched this already," O said. I noticed, this time around, that Cartagia says pretty much the same thing that was G'Kar's revelation -- some must be sacrificed for the greater good -- but, of course, meaning it in a very different way. Also, they've picked up that the minister is kind of nuts, too, which loses itself on me against the backdrop of Cartagia's madness (which is like a supernova). L, meanwhile, was deeply grossed out by irradiated Morden and his skin flakes, which, yeah, that scene makes me cringe too. Londo and Vir's conversation on Centauri Prime was marvelous -- so very Londo, even while he tells Vir he's the closest thing to a friend he has and the only person he can trust. Meanwhile, Kosh 2.0 is being a jerk, Ivanova's face when Vir tells her his Shadow info is really painful to watch, and Lennier is the most sensible person in the would-be-rescuer bunch with his fails-safe jump sequence and "initiating 'getting the hell out of here' maneuver". Also, the Eye, with flaming-looking Shadow eyes, yes... your LotR homage is ever so subtle XD
Also, reading Lurker's Guide, LOL, I had forgotten about this bit:
Discerning fan; [about Cartagia looking up women's dresses when he was 15]"best I can tell from my (admittedly limited) knowledge of Centauri physiology, he would have been looking in the wrong place - kinda like looking down a human woman's socks, or something."
JMS: Tell that to a foot fetishist.
Whatever Happened to Mr Garibaldi (4x02) -- Rodents are appalled by Marcus's new haircut, and I have to admit I also like his s3 look better than this. Glad to see him back, though. He makes a surprisingly fun duo with G'Kar, too. "You're just jealous you don't have one. Bad case of pikal envy, if you ask me." and "Wakey-wakey" and the weather prognosis were fun scenes. I don't know that I buy Delenn really contemplating starving herself to death, even if fasting is Minbari tradition for dealing with grief. I mean, obviously, Sheridan's recorded diary thing that Franklin finds for her snaps her out of it, but I don't feel like that would be required. Even if she does feel guilty that she "withheld" information from Sheridan by choosing not to know/ask about Anna. Londo and G'Kar have some amazing scenes together (though I keep thinking how Londo can be sure the room isn't bugged; somebody asked JMS that, and his answer was that Londo paid off the guards, or maybe it wasn't bugged to begin with because why bother bugging a Narn's cell when he's not going to have any allies on Centauri Prime. Which was my handwaving for it, but still... Seems like a lot to take on faith, in Londo's position...) And Londo's scene with Cartagia was also really great (god, Cartagia is such a crazy.
Random note: in this JMS speaks, JMS mentions that "the Cassandra character [...] is at the center of G'Kar's character". I mean, I got there on my own, but it's neat to see Word of God confirm it explicitly that it's intentional.
The Summoning (4x03) -- Yay Marcus and Ivanova fun times again. "If you're going to have delusions, might as well go for the really satisfying ones." is one of my favorite Marcus quotes, and Ivanova's face during the "first time" discussion with Marcus and subsequent quip about unicorns made L laugh really hard. (She also asked about Ivanova's single earring; I know it's explained... somewhere, but I couldn't remember if we'd already watched it, or if it's coming in one of the later seasons, or if I only know about it from JMS speaks...) Lyta *sigh* -- why can none of the telepaths except Bester act? At least L was amused by her conversation with Kosh 2.0: "You didn't have to pull out of me so fast -- you hurt me." (L: "That's what she said") "You felt so cold and hard." (L: "That's what she said."). From some of JMS's comments in the Lurker's Guides, it sounds like that's not exactly unintentional :P Of course, my main interest in this part of the season are the events on Centauri Prime. The scene in the garden, Cartagia in the red gloves, Vir finally going "kill him!", and then the torture scene with the whipping (and Vir looking like he's about to throw up) -- I...'m not sure I really should be watching these episodes with the rodents, but to olate now, I guess. G'Kar holding out for 39 strokes, damn. And the garden walk was the point at which O figured out Centauri torture is how G'Kar will lose his eye.
Oh yeah, and Sheridan came back. My favorite thing about that was Ivanova giving him a hug, and my second-favorite thing was Garibaldi throwing on his uniform to join the security team meeting the strange ship right out of sickbed and arguing that Zach couldn't spare the people to send him back. The speech doesn't really do it for me, but big stirring speeches in B5 pretty much never do... Also, at the beginning, Delenn says everyone dear to her is gone and starts listing everyone -- but doesn't mention Lennier, who is presumably still with her because she told Ivanova she needed him with her. (L actually said, "What about Lennier?" before Delenn even started listing names. Lurker's Guide asked the same thing; it's an odd omission...
Falling Towards Apotheosis (4x04) -- one of my very favorite titles in the series! Cartagia continues to be a crazy, crazy delight -- I'm actually really impressed with how he manages to combine being funny with being terrifying, like in the last scene where he doesn't like the way G'Kar is looking at him. Everything about Centauri Prime continues to be riveting. Back on the station, I really feel sorry for Garibaldi during this part of the arc, because he has a good point, but also he is starting to sound a bit unhinged, and of course he doesn't know what happened to him, and the viewer doesn't really know. But I did like his little scene with Franklin, complete with lame doctor jokes. During the scene where Sheridan proposes (and I love that he had to explain that it was a human custom), O complained that even in Babylon 5 there was a sappy love story, heh. And there was a Vorlon fight, yay; I remember the scene before Kosh emerges as a really tense one, but this time around, I was mostly noticing the epilepsy-inducing strobing... L liked the Vorlons' true energy-squid appearance. Vorlon planet killer is pretty impressive, and L has announced that she wants one. When I asked her what for, she said she'd use it to destroy Pluto. When I went aww, she said, no, she would use it to destroy all the other planets in the solar system so Pluto could be an honorary planet. OK then!
Oh, right, and I've been meaning to post this cute link for a while and forgetting: animals and their young
(I finally finished responses to the last one, btw; links (sorta, multi-comments screw everything up) under the cut for the curious:
ASOIAF: Jaime/Brienne
Amber: Corwin/Random
BtVS: Giles/Spike
Dragaera: Vlad/Morrolan (scroll down)
Dresden Files: Harry/Murphy, Harry/Molly, and Thomas/Molly, plus Thomas/Justine dark!fic
Firefly: Jayne/Simon (scroll down)
Korra: Korra/Asami
LotR: Aragorn/Eowyn (scroll down) -- this was really hard!
Lyburn Legacy: Jared/Ash
RoL: Peter/Nightingale and Nightingale/Seawoll
Epic crossover of awesome betweein AtLA and Seraphina: Uncle Iroh/Uncle Orma
*
I stole this from qwentoozla ages and ages ago, started filling it out, got distracted for, like, a year, then felt like it again a little while ago and finished selecting the clues. So, let's play?
Go to Better Than It Sounds at TV Tropes and find some shows/books/whatever that you like. List 20 a bunch, let people guess.
ETA: Crossed out the ones that have been guessed so far, with answers under a spoiler-tag, but definitely feel free to keep guessing them still if you haven't yet had a go. I just wanted to make the entirely-unguessed ones easier to pick out :)
ETA #2: Only 3 clues remain unguessed (now outside the cut). Hint/clarification added. I'll add more hints if they're still unguessed in another 12 hours or so.
ETA #3: Only one remains unguessed! ETA #4: All guessed! Whee, thanks for playing! :D
1) Semi-retired super spy attempts to apply his covert operations skills to courtship. The operative term is attempts. -- guessed by fallingtowers. [Answer]Answer: A Civil Campaign
2) Young man fights in the Second World War, goes home, gets married, is abducted by aliens, goes home, dies. Not necessarily in that order. -- guessed by asthenie_vd, gehayi, pax_athena. [Answer]Answer: Slaughterhouse-Five
3) Machines malfunction time and time again, and experts try to fix them. [Hint: sci-fi] -- guessed by avanti_90. [Answer]Answer: I, Robot / Asimov's Robots stories
4) A woman's fetish makes a national heroine. [Hint: fantasy series] -- guessed by ambyr, gehayi, housecreepy. [Answer]Answer: Kushiel books
5) Holocaust survivor uses a rusted statue to make a point. Other people stop him. -- guessed by bearshorty [Answer]Answer: X-Men (the first movie, from 2000)
6) An angry British hotelier hates his guests, lies to his wife, and physically assaults the hotel waiter. The underpaid maid is the only competent person. It's a comedy. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Fawlty Towers
7) Three women and a cat travel, argue and subvert happy endings. -- guessed by gehayi, semi-guessed by asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: Witches Abroad
8) A cheerful and brightly-colored children's show about child abuse and genocide. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Avatar: the Last Airbender
9) Man arrives home very late after commute from hell and murders unwanted houseguests. And half the staff. -- guessed by asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: The Odyssey
10) Magicians who work for the British government regulate magic, travel to parallel universes, and die. A lot. -- guessed by philomytha. [Answer]Answer: Chronicles of Chrestomanci.
11) Mad-Eye Moody, Fleur Delacour and Lord Voldemort hang out in a small Belgian town with Colin Farrell and a midget. They all try to kill each other. -- guessed by bearshorty, meathiel, _profiterole_, nutmeg3, a_phoenixdragon. [Answer]Answer: In Bruges
12) Young man goes to a summer camp for other unusual teenagers like him while making friends, falling in love with his cousin and resolving issues with his new-found family using a magic pen. -- guessed by sephystabbity, _profiterole_, a_phoenixdragon. [Answer]Answer: Percy Jackson
13) Two guys look for some furniture. -- guessed by nutmeg3 [Answer]Answer: Twelve Chairs
14) A homeless guy with a split personality answers the phone and returns a girl's hat. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Midnight Mayor (Matthew Swift #2)
15) Two former celebrities and their children fight a wannabe ex-fan. -- guessed by travels_in_time, sephystabbity, a_phoenixdragon. [Answer]Answer: The Incredibles
16) A group of heroes try to stop a supervillain from enacting his plan to save the world and fail. [Clarification: that's 'supervillain's plan to save the world'] -- guessed by pax_athena [Answer]Answer: Watchmen
17) Ancient Rome with Pokemon, based on a The Bet made in a bar. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Codex Alera
18) Thanks to a discontinued sports car, a boy nearly commits incest with his mother after teaching his father how to use violence. All their lives improve as a result. -- guessed by asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: Back to the Future
19) A pizza delivery boy goes on a one-way trip. He meets and befriends a physically deformed orphan and an alcohol-fueled criminal. They all quit their jobs to work for the delivery boy's senile nephew. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Futurama
20) Prisoners concoct elaborate escape plan with help from American circus acrobat after learning that their captors intend to turn them into pies. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Chicken Run
21) An Officer and a Gentleman throws away his Naval career for his new pet. -- guessed by asthenie_vd, gehayi. [Answer]Answer: Temeraire
22) Police officer ruins village inspection. -- guessed by Asthenie_vd. [Answer]Answer: Hot Fuzz
23) Laser tag is Serious Business, Real-Time Strategy games even more so. And let's not even get started on blogging. -- guessed by gehayi, pax_athena. [Answer]Answer: Ender's Game
24) A naive blonde who lives in the middle of nowhere ignores the wishes of her overprotective mother and leaves home, blackmailing a burglar into acting as her chaperon. -- guessed by bearshorty, travels_in_time, fallingtowers. [Answer]Answer: Tangled
25) In The Future, there's no crime, poverty, war, disease or old age, and everyone gets to have lots and lots of sex. But the Noble Savage says it's bad. Two other people, who are among the smartest people on earth, go on a quest to stop being happy. -- guessed by gehayi, gillo. [Answer]Answer: Brave New World
26) A man attempts to tell his life story but keeps getting distracted. -- guessed by gillo. [Answer]Answer: Tristram Shandy
27) A guy produces a heavily-abridged version of his favorite book from when he was a kid. -- guessed by gehayi. [Answer]Answer: The Princess Bride
28) A Jewish teen and his wisecracking friend go on a road trip through Asia so the first teen can find his purpose in life. -- guessed by nutmeg3. [Answer]Answer: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
I'm leaving comments unscreened, honor system all the way. Books, movies, cartoons, TV shows. Have at it! (I'll post hints for any that prove too hard to guess from these alone.)
*
Also, rodents and I have started watching Babylon 5 season 4: spoilers!
So, at the end of the s3 finale, rodents were clamoring for me to tell them whether Sheridan was alive or not. I refused, and O went and got the season 4 DVD set and pointed to Sheridan on the cover and was like, yeah, he's not dead. Which, OK, point. XP
Hour of the Wolf (4x01) -- Cartagia! I've been waiting to see his crazy decadent Phoenix self ever since his name was first mentioned. And the rodents are suitably impressed by the crazy: while he was delivering his monologue about becoming elevated to godhood, O was doing the "cuckoo" gesture. O was also, weirdly, able to predict that Catagia would say "big picture" when he was looking for a word, that it was Morden who'd asked for Londo, and that we would see Cartagia's gallery of headsin the appropriate scene; "It's like I watched this already," O said. I noticed, this time around, that Cartagia says pretty much the same thing that was G'Kar's revelation -- some must be sacrificed for the greater good -- but, of course, meaning it in a very different way. Also, they've picked up that the minister is kind of nuts, too, which loses itself on me against the backdrop of Cartagia's madness (which is like a supernova). L, meanwhile, was deeply grossed out by irradiated Morden and his skin flakes, which, yeah, that scene makes me cringe too. Londo and Vir's conversation on Centauri Prime was marvelous -- so very Londo, even while he tells Vir he's the closest thing to a friend he has and the only person he can trust. Meanwhile, Kosh 2.0 is being a jerk, Ivanova's face when Vir tells her his Shadow info is really painful to watch, and Lennier is the most sensible person in the would-be-rescuer bunch with his fails-safe jump sequence and "initiating 'getting the hell out of here' maneuver". Also, the Eye, with flaming-looking Shadow eyes, yes... your LotR homage is ever so subtle XD
Also, reading Lurker's Guide, LOL, I had forgotten about this bit:
Discerning fan; [about Cartagia looking up women's dresses when he was 15]"best I can tell from my (admittedly limited) knowledge of Centauri physiology, he would have been looking in the wrong place - kinda like looking down a human woman's socks, or something."
JMS: Tell that to a foot fetishist.
Whatever Happened to Mr Garibaldi (4x02) -- Rodents are appalled by Marcus's new haircut, and I have to admit I also like his s3 look better than this. Glad to see him back, though. He makes a surprisingly fun duo with G'Kar, too. "You're just jealous you don't have one. Bad case of pikal envy, if you ask me." and "Wakey-wakey" and the weather prognosis were fun scenes. I don't know that I buy Delenn really contemplating starving herself to death, even if fasting is Minbari tradition for dealing with grief. I mean, obviously, Sheridan's recorded diary thing that Franklin finds for her snaps her out of it, but I don't feel like that would be required. Even if she does feel guilty that she "withheld" information from Sheridan by choosing not to know/ask about Anna. Londo and G'Kar have some amazing scenes together (though I keep thinking how Londo can be sure the room isn't bugged; somebody asked JMS that, and his answer was that Londo paid off the guards, or maybe it wasn't bugged to begin with because why bother bugging a Narn's cell when he's not going to have any allies on Centauri Prime. Which was my handwaving for it, but still... Seems like a lot to take on faith, in Londo's position...) And Londo's scene with Cartagia was also really great (god, Cartagia is such a crazy.
Random note: in this JMS speaks, JMS mentions that "the Cassandra character [...] is at the center of G'Kar's character". I mean, I got there on my own, but it's neat to see Word of God confirm it explicitly that it's intentional.
The Summoning (4x03) -- Yay Marcus and Ivanova fun times again. "If you're going to have delusions, might as well go for the really satisfying ones." is one of my favorite Marcus quotes, and Ivanova's face during the "first time" discussion with Marcus and subsequent quip about unicorns made L laugh really hard. (She also asked about Ivanova's single earring; I know it's explained... somewhere, but I couldn't remember if we'd already watched it, or if it's coming in one of the later seasons, or if I only know about it from JMS speaks...) Lyta *sigh* -- why can none of the telepaths except Bester act? At least L was amused by her conversation with Kosh 2.0: "You didn't have to pull out of me so fast -- you hurt me." (L: "That's what she said") "You felt so cold and hard." (L: "That's what she said."). From some of JMS's comments in the Lurker's Guides, it sounds like that's not exactly unintentional :P Of course, my main interest in this part of the season are the events on Centauri Prime. The scene in the garden, Cartagia in the red gloves, Vir finally going "kill him!", and then the torture scene with the whipping (and Vir looking like he's about to throw up) -- I...'m not sure I really should be watching these episodes with the rodents, but to olate now, I guess. G'Kar holding out for 39 strokes, damn. And the garden walk was the point at which O figured out Centauri torture is how G'Kar will lose his eye.
Oh yeah, and Sheridan came back. My favorite thing about that was Ivanova giving him a hug, and my second-favorite thing was Garibaldi throwing on his uniform to join the security team meeting the strange ship right out of sickbed and arguing that Zach couldn't spare the people to send him back. The speech doesn't really do it for me, but big stirring speeches in B5 pretty much never do... Also, at the beginning, Delenn says everyone dear to her is gone and starts listing everyone -- but doesn't mention Lennier, who is presumably still with her because she told Ivanova she needed him with her. (L actually said, "What about Lennier?" before Delenn even started listing names. Lurker's Guide asked the same thing; it's an odd omission...
Falling Towards Apotheosis (4x04) -- one of my very favorite titles in the series! Cartagia continues to be a crazy, crazy delight -- I'm actually really impressed with how he manages to combine being funny with being terrifying, like in the last scene where he doesn't like the way G'Kar is looking at him. Everything about Centauri Prime continues to be riveting. Back on the station, I really feel sorry for Garibaldi during this part of the arc, because he has a good point, but also he is starting to sound a bit unhinged, and of course he doesn't know what happened to him, and the viewer doesn't really know. But I did like his little scene with Franklin, complete with lame doctor jokes. During the scene where Sheridan proposes (and I love that he had to explain that it was a human custom), O complained that even in Babylon 5 there was a sappy love story, heh. And there was a Vorlon fight, yay; I remember the scene before Kosh emerges as a really tense one, but this time around, I was mostly noticing the epilepsy-inducing strobing... L liked the Vorlons' true energy-squid appearance. Vorlon planet killer is pretty impressive, and L has announced that she wants one. When I asked her what for, she said she'd use it to destroy Pluto. When I went aww, she said, no, she would use it to destroy all the other planets in the solar system so Pluto could be an honorary planet. OK then!
Oh, right, and I've been meaning to post this cute link for a while and forgetting: animals and their young