I was also expecting the Sinclair/Garibaldi!! (which I still hope will grace us at some point) what a treat this was instead :D
I really love all the little touches of ritual among them, and the hinted-at Otherness that Delenn now is (like how she still feels strange being in a flat bed). I love that Mayan is really not bothered by it and is in fact intrigued. Open-minded Mayan is just so great!! It's maybe an anthropocentric assumption to make but I feel like the artistic creators and visionaries among us are always the more eager to expand their horizons. So it really suits her character, being such a poet and being such a creative spirit, to not shy away from getting her feet wet but rather plunge right in without even an explicit invitation (but certainly one that is welcome!). I just love it. In fact there's a lot of fantastic little Mayan Moments here for her characterisation, like how she comes prepared with oils (because of course she does, this is literally the reason she came, for this express purpose), how she's been to earth and *ahem* already sampled its pleasures (bless). You do her voice (and Delenn's, ofc!) real justice in this piece, I can hear them both really clearly in the dialogue.
"Is it not meant to follow a change from one way of being to another?" -- ahah when you boil it down everything is a rebirth ceremony. EVERYTHING! I joke but the detail about this particular ritual is really great, how you frame it as like a foil to the shan-fall in specific. I'll admit that to read 'flower' is difficult but the thing is, it really seems like there's no other better way to describe the Minbari genitalia, and I love that you go into such detail about it (nine petals, where precisely they become slick, that the petals have some kind of proprioception/muscular motions of their own, etc). The anatomy is really cool and I'd love to read more about it :D
Delenn stood naked before Mayan as she had stood before no other since her transformation, not even Lennier. While her aide had clothed her when she emerged huddled and unsure, for Mayan, she could show herself with perhaps even a hint of that old brazenness. Delenn stood with her legs apart and her hands at her sides, and waiting while Mayan studied her from toe to crest. Mayan circled her for a moment, not touching her, but the intensity of Mayan's gaze felt like fingers on skin, and Delenn shivered and felt too warm at the same moment. so after some (lots) of deliberation I think this is my favourite paragraph. It was such a great paragraph for so many reasons. my god. I am slain. help me. it's the perfect intimacy for them and you really nailed it. I like that Mayan has seen this side of her before anyone else, and that Mayan helps bring out that old brazenness. It's a lot of new stuff, mingled with a lot of old stuff, and it works well as a microcosm of the whole work's meaning. (Plus it's super sexy to have Mayan eye her like a feast.)
I also love the imagery of Delenn with season 2 hair, with her hair up, and then down over Mayan's back. <3333 just beautiful
And everything after that was so lush and lovely. thank you so much for writing this and sharing it!!
(btw I hope it's ok to leave this comment here, I wasn't sure if you would prefer to have comments at this comm, or on your personal, or on ao3, in case you like to keep track of them, say. ao3 does such a good job of that, too. just let me know if you'd prefer that I move it and I will!)
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Date: 2019-02-12 06:29 pm (UTC)I really love all the little touches of ritual among them, and the hinted-at Otherness that Delenn now is (like how she still feels strange being in a flat bed). I love that Mayan is really not bothered by it and is in fact intrigued. Open-minded Mayan is just so great!! It's maybe an anthropocentric assumption to make but I feel like the artistic creators and visionaries among us are always the more eager to expand their horizons. So it really suits her character, being such a poet and being such a creative spirit, to not shy away from getting her feet wet but rather plunge right in without even an explicit invitation (but certainly one that is welcome!). I just love it. In fact there's a lot of fantastic little Mayan Moments here for her characterisation, like how she comes prepared with oils (because of course she does, this is literally the reason she came, for this express purpose), how she's been to earth and *ahem* already sampled its pleasures (bless). You do her voice (and Delenn's, ofc!) real justice in this piece, I can hear them both really clearly in the dialogue.
"Is it not meant to follow a change from one way of being to another?" -- ahah when you boil it down everything is a rebirth ceremony. EVERYTHING! I joke but the detail about this particular ritual is really great, how you frame it as like a foil to the shan-fall in specific. I'll admit that to read 'flower' is difficult but the thing is, it really seems like there's no other better way to describe the Minbari genitalia, and I love that you go into such detail about it (nine petals, where precisely they become slick, that the petals have some kind of proprioception/muscular motions of their own, etc). The anatomy is really cool and I'd love to read more about it :D
Delenn stood naked before Mayan as she had stood before no other since her transformation, not even Lennier. While her aide had clothed her when she emerged huddled and unsure, for Mayan, she could show herself with perhaps even a hint of that old brazenness. Delenn stood with her legs apart and her hands at her sides, and waiting while Mayan studied her from toe to crest. Mayan circled her for a moment, not touching her, but the intensity of Mayan's gaze felt like fingers on skin, and Delenn shivered and felt too warm at the same moment. so after some (lots) of deliberation I think this is my favourite paragraph. It was such a great paragraph for so many reasons. my god. I am slain. help me. it's the perfect intimacy for them and you really nailed it. I like that Mayan has seen this side of her before anyone else, and that Mayan helps bring out that old brazenness. It's a lot of new stuff, mingled with a lot of old stuff, and it works well as a microcosm of the whole work's meaning. (Plus it's super sexy to have Mayan eye her like a feast.)
I also love the imagery of Delenn with season 2 hair, with her hair up, and then down over Mayan's back. <3333 just beautiful
And everything after that was so lush and lovely. thank you so much for writing this and sharing it!!
(btw I hope it's ok to leave this comment here, I wasn't sure if you would prefer to have comments at this comm, or on your personal, or on ao3, in case you like to keep track of them, say. ao3 does such a good job of that, too. just let me know if you'd prefer that I move it and I will!)