Pleaaaasseee continue the poly!141 x enemy!m!reader
Where pretty boy slowly grows comfortable with the new environment + the team and new found affection he gets from them that he never got with his own crime lord father.
They dress him well and support his high needs he’s used to having.
Pt.1 // Pt.2 //
This has been rotting in m' drafts since December.
It's been four weeks since reader was taken from his apartment. His hand has healed, mostly, though it's still tender and there's an x-marks-the-spot scar where the glass of his shattered phone cut open his pale, formerly flawless skin.
He's being kept in a flat somewhere near Devonshire, though he only knows because when Ghost brought him some food, it included a cup of clotted cream that is a local brand, unable to be bought anywhere else.
Reader is kept comfortable, though the flat is nowhere near as fine as the things he's used to. The fridge isn't even a SmartFridge! And the thermostat has to be hand-controlled! How do people live like this? The inconvenience of it all astounds reader.
When he was first brought to the flat, he spent days in his room, crying inconsolably. He ate nothing, drank very little, and slept even less. He wailed at the slightest touches from the team, startling them into keeping their distance.
Price was hardly patient with Reader's theatrics. He's too rough from decades of service to entertain Reader's performances. Gaz becomes the primary spokesman for the team, bringing Reader food and water, trying to retain composure when Reader tears up his room in an unhappy rage.
Slowly, though, Reader settles. He takes the offered morsels of good food that Gaz offers, sometimes straight from the sergeant's hand, like some kind of pet. In return for Reader's compliance, there were soft touches, and a gift here and there if Reader was especially good. There were new clothes, though not the designer brands that Reader would have preferred, and candies and chocolates that were the best the team could afford on their combined salaries. Reader began to get used to having less finery. He could even call himself comfortable in the flat, though it occasionally got rather lonely. The team rotated their time there, with Price and Ghost the most often away because of them being officers and needed for important matters.
One day, Reader found himself alone in the flat for the first time. He was locked in, but could roam the rooms as he liked-- the kitchen, the three bedrooms, the study, and the living room. There was a television with cable and a selection of streaming services, some puzzles and cards, and a bookcase for Reader to amuse himself in his solitude. There was also a phone, with heavy parental controls on it so that no calls could be placed except for those to the team's own phones. There were no socials downloaded, and the app store was locked so that they could not be.
Still, though, the fridge, pantry, and cupboards were full of staples and treats alike, and several recipe books so that Reader could make himself whatever he was craving, though there were also plenty of frozen meals, too.
Reader looked out the window, his gaze affixed on the street outside. He found himself pining for the hour when at least one of the team would return. He paused, blinking, his brow furrowing in confusion.
When had he started looking forward to their visits?
YOU! Delenn enjoyer!!! Yes, you!! Tell me your favorite episode of Babylon 5.
asking me to pick just one is difficult 😭
I have so many, all for different reasons, but I’m going to stick with the one that makes the English major in me the happiest: The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari (S05E02). S5 was sabotaged by network cancellation, but it does have some amazing episodes.
It’s mostly about Londo (as the name implies), but I do really think it’s also about Delenn in more than just the B-plot.
Firstly, Delenn is betrayed by Lennier. He’s leaving and wanted to tell Delenn at the last possible moment. The betrayal isn’t in his going so much as it is withholding information.
———
The scene immediately switches to Londo feeling betrayed by Zack when he tells him his brivari has to be impounded. Ironically, Londo winds up betraying himself by drinking the brivari in an act of defiance/revenge.
Self-sabotaging revenge, Satai Delenn’s favorite.
Londo, despite being unconscious, immediately gets the help he needs from the people around him and is taken to MedBay ASAP. Meanwhile, Delenn is losing a key figure in her life, a massive support.
The ambassadors are on parallel lines that are moving in opposing directions.
———
The next scene is Lennier entering Delenn’s quarters and immediately going over the day’s itinerary. He tries to go on like nothing is out-of-the-ordinary. She lets him, but only for a few seconds. Lennier plays dumb before Delenn expresses her disappointment in his choices and especially his communication thereof. Lennier says he doesn’t feel needed anymore, and eventually Delenn shows some attempt of outward understanding. That understanding doesn’t stop her from putting up at least a little bit of a fight. She says, “You swore yourself to my side.” Lennier recognizes this, but still promises his words to be true. Knowing this, Delenn cedes, albeit reluctantly.
Delenn is immediately curious, if not suspicious, of his choice in becoming a Ranger. He knows just as well as she does that being a Ranger is dangerous.
She knows she can’t change his mind, and it’s killing her. In Delenn’s mind, the title would be laid to rest, and so would a key part of her identity. Delenn died when John died, she doesn’t want to die (in part) again.
Lennier says, “This is the calling of my heart, Delenn. I have to follow it. You, above all, should understand that.”
And she does. She does. It’s killing her, yet she does. She knows she’s being selfish, she does. But it’s still going to kill her, even if only a little bit.
———
Then, Garibaldi tells Vir that Londo is in critical condition. Vir crashes out a bit, until Garibaldi tells him Londo wasn’t poisoned.
A heart attack.
Londo’s heart is broken, dangerously so, and so is Delenn’s.
———
In the medlab, Franklin explains Centauri biology to Sheridan, a man more familiar with death than most.
Delenn is standing over Londo. Sheridan expresses how weird it is to see Londo silent. Delenn says, “In the five years since I arrived I have felt pity for him, anger, he has made me laugh. I have even liked him from time to time, as much as I haven’t wanted to, but I have never felt sorry for him… until now. I would miss him, uh, if he left us, John.”
She’s losing a constant, she doesn’t want to lose another, even if the constant is obnoxious.
They talk about Lennier’s departure. Sheridan asks if his presence in Delenn’s life is a driving factor, to which she (hesitantly) agrees. She knows he can’t be talked out of it. The men in her life can never be talked out of suicide missions. Sheridan doubts it’s truly the calling of Lennier’s heart, but rather Lennier trying to run from the problem. Delenn tells him, “The universe will teach him what he needs to know.”
Sheridan says they need to go to bed and that it’s become Londo’s fight to make it through the night, that medical science can only do so much. Delenn’s parting words for the night are, “Good luck, Mollari. Good luck.”
———
Londo hears her. Delenn is his starting point as he tries to make it through the night. He keeps calling out for her, trying to find her. He meets her as a seer, a prophetess– shrouded in darkness, only visible where it’s darkest.
Delenn invites him to sit with her. He obliges. Her face is covered with a veil. There is a variation of tarot cards on the table, all with images that depict his face. Upon seeing this, Londo asks, “My future?” to which Delenn replies, “Your past.”
This moment gets me every time because they’re foils. They’re foils. They get such little time together, but they’re foils. The only one aware of the blood on his hands is Delenn, even if he doesn’t know it on a conscious level. G’Kar knows a lot, but he doesn’t know everything, and he definitely doesn’t know it as intimately as Delenn. No one else could, and they definitely wouldn’t want to.
The deck begins to bleed.
Delenn says: “You’re dying, Londo. Do you want to live?”
Londo tells her he’s been dreaming of his death for two decades, and that it may be better for him to die now, to “spite fate.”
She asks him again, “Do you want to live?”
He says, “What difference does it make? Is there anyone back home who truly cares… if I live or die?”
Delenn knows what it’s like to be rejected by your own people, she’s basically the queen of it. She’s intimately familiar with the pain of being alone in a crowd, and even more familiar with blatant rejection.
She says, “Almost certainly not.” (Note that this is exactly what she said to Sheridan about his capability to change Lennier’s mind about leaving, that this is her response to changing one’s mind.) She’s the start of the cold, hard truth Londo’s subconscious is throwing at him through the entire dream. Delenn started the Earth-Minbari War, and she set off Londo’s subconscious into an analysis of his guilt.
It’s at this point that she lifts the veil. The conversation continues:
“Do you want to live? I’m not allowed to ask again.”
“Yes. Yes, I want to live.”
She takes a card from the deck and asks him, “Can you see this card?”
“No, there’s too much blood.”
She sets it down and says, “Yes.”
“You said wanting to live was not enough. What more is there?”
“A word.”
“What word?”
Delenn’s only response is to put the veil back over her face.
Londo asks, “Why won’t you tell me? If that is all I need, just a word, why won’t you tell me?”
She remains silent, so he continues, “If you will not tell me, why am I here? What is this place?”
All Delenn does in response is point. She points to a grate with a glowing, throbbing, red light that carries the sound of a heartbeat. Upon touching the heartbeat, he stands up and says, “I don’t understand.”
Delenn replies, “Yes. You do.” Those are Dream Delenn’s last words to Londo.
———
In the next scene, their respective attachés sit next to each other on barstools. Both are restless. They part on good terms.
And that’s just the first 19.5 minutes.
———
Around 36:32 (when Londo finally gets to the point where he interacts with G’Kar), Londo asks, “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
G’Kar says: “You want to believe you’ve changed. You want to feel good about yourself. You’re not sorry for what you did! You’re just sorry you got caught, that you almost destroyed your homeworld because of it.”
He’s accumulating the growth Delenn has gone through over years in one night.
Londo denies that to be the case, and G’Kar tells him to “prove it.” G’Kar says, “Just a word, Mollari. That’s all it takes.”
Londo finally knows the word, something he’s been struggling to find since talking to Dream Delenn.
“I’ve never apologized for anything in my life.”
“Yes, I see. It’s your life, Mollari. Make of it what you will.”
Through the Rangers, though the Alliance– that’s exactly what Delenn has done, and what she continues to do. She doesn’t define herself by past mistakes (most of the time), unless it’s relevant. She doesn’t lie to herself about her actions. She doesn’t tell herself it was in the best interest of her people, even if that’s what she thought at the time. She now knows “her people” is everyone, and uses those mistakes to try and do better.
Londo cries, pounding on his heart, repeatedly shouting “I’M SORRY!”
It’s a scene that’s less than two minutes. It’s still so impactful. It’s a catharsis that’s long overdue– five years at the least and centuries at the most.
———
At 41:17, Lennier is waiting to depart the station. 26 seconds later, Delenn turns the corner.
“Not even a goodbye, Lennier?”
Lennier puts his things down and bows. “No. Never goodbye. I’m yours forever, Delenn, heart, body, and soul. I will see you again in a little while. And with luck, I will perhaps be a better person.”
“That is not possible, Lennier… but you’re welcome to try. Be well… my good and dear friend.”
My good and dear friend. My good and dear friend, the Centauri’s “Bless your heart.”
As Delenn watched Lennier leave, John appears, leading her back away from customs. With his help, she withdraws. She takes a step back from her desire of comfort, just like Londo does with G’Kar’s help.
Shjhdfhfxvfc SIMON IN LITTLE BABY MITTENS PAWING AT THE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS???😭 SO ADORABLEEEEE AGHHHHHHH chewing on his paci in consternation belly full of milk from a recent feeding while johnny and gaz are arguing about the cartoon they're watching and dada price and daddy nikolai are washin up the dishes- 🐑
See, lad. You see th’ vision.
Liddle Simon curling up under the Christmas tree an’ lookin’ up at th’ bright twinklin’ lights ‘n cooing around his paci until Johnny stomps his way under the tree to roughhouse.
disclaimer: none of m’ works are created by generative artificial intelligence
Nothing Permanent But Change
[ synopsis: Millen Coelho-Grey, a socially neutral alpha who is half-Príncipean and half-British, is placed with the 141 several years after a paratrooping accident left him with chronic pain and undiagnosed OSDD and PTSD. The 141 are a tightly-knit pack, all of them bonded to one another, but Millen isn't keen on being integrated with them. He has his own problems, as well as crippling self-doubt and self-esteem that's non-existent. But as his health worsens and relationships start to go sideways, new evidence begins to slowly come to light that maybe Millen was never supposed to be in the SAS after all. ]
what are ur thoughts on generative AI like c.ai and stuff?
(also help someone who uses c.ai followed my oc blog- blocked em but yk D:>) also might remake my oc blog bc i dont have an email hooked up to it
-🎭
That was one of m’ moots that y’ just blocked. I told them about your blog an’ they wanted to be nice by following.
They use C.AI for th’ mental health benefits and have multiple posts explainin’ why they use it.
AI is never good when used to replace creativity or to further human laziness. AI-made art is not art. AI-made fanfiction is not fanfiction. Getting the answers for all of y’ homework with AI is just dooming y’ to fail on the exams.
But in some cases, AI could be used for good, like C.AI. Because there’s a lot of people who don’t have th’ opportunity or ability t’ go out and socialize, and f’ them, being able to “talk” t’ their favorite characters is a lifeline. And plenty ‘f C.AI writers are writing 1,000–2,000-word starts to their posts, and making paragraphs of character analysis to put into the bot’s algorithm. They’re still writing all ‘f that, not AI.
Just somethin’ t’ think about. I’m not here t’ quibble.
Not one of the anons that usually sends you asks, I'm a brand new one. But I wanted to ask about your AO3 username. There's 2 ships there. What's ghoap? Is it also a ship?
It’s three ships, actually.
Jayvik is Jayce Talis x Viktor from Arcane League of Legends.
Johnlock is any version of Sherlock Holmes x John Watson.
Ghoap is Simon “Ghost” Riley x Johnny “Soap” MacTavish from Call of Duty.
They’re m’ three favorite ships, so that’s why I chose them.
Also. Thinking of classification/littles-are-know au and kinda losing my mind cuz. Baby si gets to be a baby without judgment or being ashamed or scared🥺 his papa price can take si around in his stroller while price runs errands or anything else and lil si can just doze off safe and sound in his cute lil ghost romper AGHHHHHERRRRRRRR - 🐑
Until middle!Gaz and teen-middle!Johnny run in and wake him up being too loud. Naughty lads.
