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violettelueur · 3 years

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— JUJUTSU KAISEN EPISODE ELEVEN || NARROW-MINDED

↳ featuring : fushiguro megumi + nanami kento + ieiri shoko (mention of itadori yuji + kugisaki nobara + gojo satoru + roymen sukuna + zenin maki + inumaki toge + panda + mahito) from jujutsu kaisen

↳ warnings : EXTREME grammar issues

↳ form : story

↳ published : 12 march

↳ pronouns : she/her

↳ word count : 2.0k

↳ synopsis : within the jujutsu world, there were three famous clans to be aware of, the Kamo clan, Zenin clan and the Gojo clan. However, unknown to many sorcerers there was one last family that was known to be apart of the three, only for them to disappear after the golden era leading some to speculate that they had died in battle after the sealing of ryomen sukuna, but....

↳ previous episode : idle transfiguration

↳ next episode : to you, someday

↳ barista’s notes : welcome nanamin kento to the series everyone ╲ʕ·ᴥ·　╲ʔ he’s finally in the series and i am so excited to write about him again since it has been a while ʕ￫ᴥ￩　ʔ i hope you enjoy today’s episode and for the fushiguro x y/n shippers, enjoy this little interaction between them...

BEFORE READING, I NEED YOU TO BE AWARE OF THIS:

1. the whole story belongs to Gege Akutami and the credits go to them and them only.

2. the spell curses used belong to Tite Kubo due to them being the ‘Kidos’ being used on the manga and anime ‘Bleach’ - but none is mentioned in this chapter.

2.5 for the ‘cursed spells’/kidos (bleach) i will link this video here and tell you the time stamp to check out what i am intending to show - remember i add a few twist here and there by adding the katana to link with Y/N’s cursed technique

no cursed spells used this episode..

3. if you are confused on anything, please don’t hesitate to message me since i know this whole thing is so confusing.

“No reason, just worried about you,” Fushiguro mentioned, hiding his real intention of why he questioned your wellbeing, as continued to look at what was in front of him to avoid making eye contact with you since he could feel your eyes peering at him with curiosity filling them.

Sighing once again, you slap the back of his head causing him to groan since you put more strength than you intended to. “You shouldn’t worry about me Fushiguro, be selfish,” you commented before walking faster to be ahead of him, leaving him confused about what you had just mentioned to him.

“Be selfish?” Fushiguro muttered in confusion leading you to turn back to look over your shoulder before smiling at him.

“You were going to take me there right?” you asked, as you halted your movement causing the shikigami user to finally catch up to you while you had a lingering question in the back of your mind.

‘What was that dream?’

ꕥ

“Didn’t I say you can head back to the track field, we’re literally a few steps away?” you asked, as you stood in front of the metal door leading inside to the infirmary while looking at your classmate with a fed-up look since he wasn’t listening to you once again.

“I said, I was going to take you here and now I’m going to wait for you here,” Fushiguro mentioned as he processed to lean against the wall, causing you to let out a sigh of frustration since you didn’t have the slightest clue on his sudden behaviour of him keeping an eye on you.

“If you’re still worried about my wellbeing, I’m okay Fushiguro,” you voice out trying to ease his worries, before turning your head to look at the door in front of you as you then entered the infirmary room the second the metal door slid open. “Thank you for waiting for me,” you quietly muttered to the shikigami sorcerer as the entrance that was going to block you both, slowly began to close leaving him on the other side, no knowing what was going on inside of where you were now.

Once you had entered the room, you quickly noticed that Ieiri was there twirling a strand of her brown lock with her ibex finger as she greeted you with a small smile, while another person - who you assumed was another sorcerer - who was beside her sitting on the metal bench while holding the side of his hip to lessen the blood loss from his wound.

From what you could observe, the male that was currently injured right now had bright blonde locks, which was strange since it was rare or uncommon for a Japanese person to have naturally light hair (since it didn’t seem dyed) causing you to assume the man had some European heritage. He also seemed to be on the older side compared to Gojo since he had somewhat of a more mature look to the strongest sorcerer that you had come to know but his outfit consisted of a blue dress-shirt with beige suit trousers as well as the professional dress shoes - what seemed to be missing was a blazer to complete the outfit.

“So you're the daughter that Gojo has been talking about lately,” the man mentioned, causing you to tilt your head in confusion since you had no idea who the man was, but he seemed to know who you were.

“Pardon?” you questioned politely since you were still in a state of perplexion, causing your mentor to giggle slightly before informing you that your teacher has been running around announcing his daughter after “keeping it a secret for 5 years” leading you to turn your head to the side and sigh once again in annoyance since you weren’t surprised that the playful sorcerer was parading your name around the facility but still it seemed a little creepy to you - just imagine him skipping around while telling everyone about you just seemed off...weirdly off.

‘What a drag…’

“Ah! I’ll heal you now since we don’t want to leave the wound open any longer,” you mentioned, as you made your way towards the sorcerer before placing your hands just above his wound while concentrating to allow your negative cursed energy to become positive which became easier over time as you kept practising leading Ieiri to be surprised on how much you had improved for the past few weeks.

“Gojo Y/N correct? I’m Nanami Kento, I would bow to be polite but that’s a bit difficult to do right now,” Nanami introduced himself, causing you to smile slightly before greeting him back.

‘So this is Nanami Kento? Shoko-san wasn’t kidding when she said he was a grade one, he does seem to be extremely skilled’

“Y/N, your theory was right about the technique used on those bodies, Kento mentioned that the technique reshapes the soul rather than the body of what we first thought,” Ieiri revealed to you, leading you to look up at the doctor with widen eyes as you hands managed to continue the healing process of Nanami’s wounds.

“Is there any way to stop the transfiguration of any sorts? Is there some kind of weakness to it?” you questioned, as you turned to the grade one sorcerer, leading him to nod as he turned to look at you.

“The use of cursed energy to protect your body is one way, but it will still cause some damage, besides that’s just a temporary solution since if we get hit more by this special grade curse, then that’s when our soul gets hit no matter how much cursed energy you put to protect yourself,” Nanami explained which lead you to look at him with a deadpan expression before you looked down to think of a solution to avoid any more casualties from this curse.

‘The only thing I can think of is Ryomen Sukuna...but Itadori is dead and there is no way that Sukuna can be inhibiting his body now anyways…my cursed spell could be a way to protect myself if it comes to the day I have to face him’

“Do you have a description of what the curse looked like?” you asked curiously since you didn’t know if you were even allowed to have any information on his mission - but you knew you had a chance since you and Ieiri examined the transfigured bodies from Kinema Cinema.

“The curse was human looking like, had patchwork around his face like it he was sewed together, he can transfigure is own body to how he likes to give him an advantage in battle,” Nanami explained leading a shiver to go up to your spine as you didn’t expect the curse’s description to be so human-like after Sukuna since you were completely used to other curses you had faced in the past, looking like what people feared - like the ocean animals, mountains, volcanos or even nature itself.

Steadily, you moved your hands away before asking Nanami to lift his shirt so you could examine his wound leading Ieiri to observe as well since she needed to make sure that your technique had been perfected as well as to make sure his wound was healed properly.

“Good job, I think you have nearly perfected it,” the doctor stated with a smile, leading you to turn to her with a bright smile on your face as you were delighted to have her approval leading her to mention that she will report your progress to Gojo since he wanted to know how you were doing with your training.

“You don’t call Gojo your father?” Nanami questioned since he had come to know from his senior that you have been his daughter for approximately five years now leading him to question why you didn’t call him as his parental figure position.

“I refuse,” you looked at him with a straight face as a slight hint of a ‘fed-up’ tone could be heard in your speech, leading Nanami to internally find the comment funny.

“Thank you for the treatment, but I must quickly head off to resume work,” Nanami declared as he slowly got up from his seat causing him to be surprised at how much your technique had actually repaired not only his wound by somewhat his whole body as well leaning him to peer at you for a second before walking out to head whatever he needed to be.

“Y/N, you can go now, if I need you, I’ll call you next time okay?” Ieiri stated to you, leading you to nod your head before announcing your departure as you processed to stand in front of the metal door, waiting for it to open as you then walked across the gap once it revealed the other side to you.

“You’re done?” someone asked, causing you to look to the side to notice that Fushiguro was still leading against the wall that he was waiting before you had entered into the infirmary to which you were surprised about since you thought he didn’t have the patience to even wait for you.

“You’re still here? Did you wait long?” you questioned, as you both began to walk back to the track field where Kugisaki and the second-years were waiting for you.

“Not really, it was actually quicker than I thought it was going to be,” Fushiguro mentioned causing you to nod along and you both became silent as you both didn’t know what else to say to each other.

However, that didn’t really bother you right now, what was bothering you was what happened before you even came here.

‘Why? Why was I dreaming that in the first place?’ you thought, as you looked down to the ground as if the answer was there for you to collect. However, you knew you would never get the answer if you didn’t make the effort to find it yourself, yet you didn’t want to.

You didn’t want to know the meaning behind it. You just wanted to forget everything that happened in that dream.

‘There’s no point in holding on to it, it would never happen’

“You okay?” Fushiguro asked, causing you to snap out of your thoughts before realising the shikigami user was no longer beside you but rather in front of you with a stern look on his face as if he was confronting you for somewhat giving him a white-lie.

‘He’s not going to let that question go huh?’

“I’m okay Fushiguro, how many times I got to answer,” you commented before moving to the side to continue walking, only for the erratic-haired sorcerer to block your pathway once again leading a flame of annoyance to be lit up in your stomach. “What’s wrong?” you asked, as you looked up to meet him eye to eye, only to discover a worried look on his face.

“There’s something bothering you,” Fushiguro muttered causing you to scoff internally before moving to the other side again, only for him to block you once again.

“Fushiguro, I’m fine, it was just something silly that happened with Gojo-sensei that annoyed me, I’m genuinely fine,” you answered before suddenly grabbing his wrist - catching him by surprise - to pull him towards the direction needed to go back to the track field for training, as you didn’t want a full-blown argument happening between you and him. Also, you weren’t bothered to shout at him since you were still trying to comprehend what you had just experienced.

However, before you could pull Fushiguro further to where you both needed to be, you felt him halt his movement causing you to stagger back slightly since it was really unexpected. Turning your head, you looked at the sorcerer with slight confusion displayed on your face before noticing a hand coming towards you as a small flick made a light impact on your forehead leaving you frozen in shock.

“You can rely on me anytime L/N,” Fushiguro mentioned to you nonchalantly as he retreated his hand back.

“Dear, rely on me a bit more, I’ll always be here with you and sorry for flicking your forehead, does it hurt?”

“You drag, don’t copy me!” you argued, before slapping his forehead causing him to groan in pain while you continued to pull him along to get back to training.

‘I want to, but I don’t want to be lied to again Fushiguro…’

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gifted-burnout-archive · 4 years

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Let’s Go to War

Requested?: Jack Ryan, Season One, Episode One, the army base scene. Lotta angst, basically.

Word Count: 6.7K+

Author’s Note: First, I’ve tagged a few people that might enjoy, just a one off thing. I have missed writing angst, and I think this is exactly what I needed. Had a think about how I wanted to do this, and thought ex-lovers added some extra spice. Get out the tissues, put on some sad music if you wanna. (DOD = Department of Defense)

Warning: Death, discussion of terrorism, gory detail, angsty.

Jack never thought he’d see her face again, but, fucking hell, was he pleased to.

As the helicopter flew over Joe Mueller’s estate and landed on his back lawn, Jack was drawn from a conversation to look over in shock. Why had the coastguard landed in his old boss’ country house yard? A part of him speculated for a moment that maybe this was some kind of arrest, or raid, that someone at the party was in some deep shit, but those thoughts quickly disappeared when a young woman emerged from the transport with a team of the coastguard’s finest.

She was beautiful, the sort of woman that left an imprint anywhere she went. She wore heels and a pant suit that complimented her skin tone, a black blouse underneath that left just enough to the imagination, and held a file in between her manicured fingers. The rotors of the helicopter, still spinning as if about to leave again, did little to disturb the bun in her hair, the wind that was causing teary eyes around him didn’t seem to touch her features.

Her eyes were still as bright as he remembered, even if it had been years.

“Doctor Ryan?” Her voice rang out over the sound of the chopper, and Jack raised his hand to indicate his whereabouts. Officers ran towards him, decked out in gear that would suggest a sea search and rescue mission rather than interrupting a birthday party.

“Doctor Ryan, I’m Petty Officer Second Class Dillard with the United States Coast Guard. I need you to come with me.” The first officer, a man, explained to Jack, who leaned his head forward just a touch to see if he had heard him right. Come with them? With her? What for?

“Sir, I need your keys.” The second officer, a younger woman, held out her hand, and Jack sat down his beer.

“For what?” Jack asked, now a little worried he had done something wrong. He wouldn’t put it past Greer to send the Coast Guard to arrest him after he froze the Suleiman account… That guy kept proving himself to be an asshole.

“I have orders to drive your car back to your apartment.” She said simply, like Jack was meant to know what was happening. He handed over his keys quickly, Officer Dillard taking him by the arm and leading him towards the aircraft, the pair a few steps behind the woman Jack just couldn’t quite believe was there.

She walked back onto the helicopter without changing her posture, unafraid of the spinning blades above her, and sat herself down in the back, fastening herself in like she hadn’t just crashed a party with the Coast Guard.

“Keep your head down sir.” Dillard instructed, Jack bowing his head and clambering into the transport with Dillard at his heels, the pair fastening up as the heli lifted off the ground and flew back the way it came.

“Well, you sure look nice, Ryan.” The voice came over the headphones, and after sorting himself out, Jack looked up at the woman across from him, who watched his actions with a smirk on her lips. “You started rowing again, I can see. You’ve put on muscle. It suits you.” The words didn’t throw Jack off-guard like her presence had, he remembered the tone, the pronunciation, hearing them again was like second nature, like they never really left.

“You are the last person I expected to see today.” He admitted, taking a second to glance out the window as they flew towards, Jack was quite sure, the Langley airstrip.

“Reminds you of old times, doesn’t it?” She asked, and Jack nodded instinctively, knowing she was right. Sitting in a helicopter with her was far too familiar, the trip reminding him of the first time the two had met. “You’ve garnered attention with Yemen, and I’ve been tasked with accompanying you. Don’t ask why, I really don’t have a clue why they need me here, but I follow orders.” She continued, handing him over the manila folder that was stamped with a bloody red ‘TOP SECRET’ on the cover. Before Jack opened it, he looked back at her, a small smile on his face.

“It’s good to see you too, Y/N.”

The helicopter landed on the airstrip about thirty minutes later, Y/N taking it upon herself to slide open the door once they hit ground and make her way towards a jet sat on the strip. Jack hurried out with Dillard after her, and once he was clear of the rotors and any immediate danger he bid adieu to the coast guard officer and headed after Y/N. She gestured with a quick wave to a set of awaiting cars, Jim Greer sat in one of them avoiding the rain for as long as possible. Jack and Greer fell into step behind Y/N, who was now chatting on her phone as she entered the jet.

“What’s the matter? Don’t like flying?” The older man welcomed Jim to the airfield with a smirk, a young officer hurrying past them to take bags of some sort onto the plane.

“What the hell is going on?” Jim replied, visibly confused. The manila folder had only explained a little to him, and he had actually laughed audibly when he saw how much was blacked out. Y/N told him Greer would tell him the rest of what he needed, and their conversation on the flight over ended there. By the look on Greer’s face though, Y/N was right: Jack was about to get the rundown.

“That account you froze: S.A.D and Yemeni PSO picked up somebody.” Greer explained, the pair coming at a stop by the plane steps. Jack glanced up in surprise.

“Suleiman?” He asked, a little too optimistic for a season CIA officer, but Greer liked his enthusiasm.

“No, a couple of couriers, they think.” Greer quickly set Jack’s expectations in check, the taller of the pair pausing.

“Wait, you said S.A.D but I didn’t order any surveillance.” What Jack made was more a statement than a question, but Greer was happy to answer it anyway.

“I did.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t there yet.” The revelation was certainly not what Jack expected, but he had spent the day being surprised by people.

“You weren’t, but that doesn’t mean you were wrong.”

“Well, how come you couldn’t have said that instead of throwing me out your office?” Jack continued his questioning, a scornful laugh mixing into his speech. The rain had begun to pick up, the shoulders of Jack’s blazer now a dark grey from water.

“Because I don’t know you. And I don’t answer to you.” Greer stated quite simply, and put a foot onto the staircase. “Now, S.A.D and the Yemenis are gonna run the interrogation. But you’re the one that knows all this financial shit, so I need you there to make sure they know what questions to ask.” Jack’s eyes widened; his throat went dry. Had he heard Greer right? Yemen?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What? N-no. I… I can’t go to Yemen.” He refused quickly, taking a step back.

“Why not?” a new voice entered the conversation, Y/N stood at the top of the plane steps with her arms folded, an eyebrow raised at Jack’s reluctance.

“I’m an analyst. I don’t interrogate people, I write reports.” Jack tried to reason with the pair, Greer and Y/N both sharing the same look of disbelief at Jack’s adamance that he should not be on the plane.

“Wow… It’s like you were never in the Marines, Ryan…” Y/N said with a breezy laugh, rolling her eyes and turning her back to the pair. “Get on the fucking plane.” She ordered, walking back into the jet’s warm interior, her words earning a slight chuckle from Greer.

“I’d listen to her.” He suggested to Jack, though it seemed the analyst had come to the same conclusion, letting out a heavy sigh before following Greer up the plane steps, into the unknown.

The plane and subsequent helicopter ride wasn’t particularly interesting for Greer, who slept most of the way, but for Jack and Y/N it was a reunion, a catch up over case files and coffee. Each was aware the other’s company made travelling easier, the casual back and forth they shared made it feel like they hadn’t parted ways all those years ago. There was no tension, no awkward moments: they were adults and, to the passer-by, friends. And Jack wasn’t blind to the beauty of her either, it looked like she had barely aged a day, and yet held the air of someone with authority and class.

Her eyes shone in the cabin light, like stars in the cosmos, and Jack couldn’t help but be mesmerised by her despite the job that was clearly more important than his daydreams.

The landing and transporting of Jack, Greer, and Y/N to the US Army black site named ‘Cobalt’ in the Yemen Sarawat Mountains was far from comfortable, the chopper that flew them in lacking any sort of shielding from the sand the wind and blades had picked up, but once the three were on the ground everything became slightly more bearable. Apart from the heat, both Jack and Greer had sweat through the clothes on their backs, the sun shining down like its only mission was to burn Yemen to a crisp. Greer took lead, approaching a scruffy haired soldier adorned by a scarf and sunglasses: Jack made a note that the sand draft here was worse than most places.

“Jim. Good to see you brother.” The man welcomed Greer with a smirk and a handshake, Greer quickly moving aside for his co-workers to meet.

“Matice, this is Dr Ryan.” Greer said with a nod, Jack quickly shaking hands with the solider, greeting him with a quick ‘how you doing?’ before Y/N stepped forward and nudged Jack.

“Not going to introduce?” She teased, and the solider, now known to be Matice, chuckled. Like Greer, it seemed that Y/N was friendly with the base.

“Why have they dragged you out of DOD?” Matice asked, and Y/N shrugged, sending a smile back at Jack as she walked across camp like she ran the place. Jack realised there was a possibility she could, in their catch up on the flight he had never found out exactly what she did at the Department of Defence.

“What you a doctor of?” Matice turned the conversation back to Jack, whose eyes quickly averted themselves from Y/N and back to the men around him.

“Economics.” Matice and Greer shared a look.

“Cool.” The former replied, turning to lead them in the direction Y/N had left for. “Man, I thought you were in Pakistan.” Jack walked alongside as Greer and Matice struck up their own reunion, his boss sighing at the thought of his old posting.

“No. Back at Langley.” He replied, and Jack found himself looking around at the impressive size of the camp. Turrets at all corners, tents and barracks set up around a clearing large enough to land a helicopter, their helicopter. Before them, flat top buildings came closer with each step, and Jack’s subconscious hope for air-con was quickly foiled.

“What about you? What’s your story, Doctor?” Jack tuned back into the conversation after a moment, taking the time to find his words and he fidgeted with the blazer in his arms.

“Oh, I’m an analyst.” Jack said quickly, making it very clear he wasn’t meant to be in a war zone.

“No shit? What do you analyse?” Matice seemed intrigued, and Jack licked his lips to ready himself for explaining his work, though not much needed said. Every breath here seemed to leave one parched.

“Global markets, mostly. Financial aberrations, stuff like that.” He managed to say through the heat, each syllable becoming easier as he acclimatised.

“You got any tips?” Matice questioned, and when looking over to find Jack confused, he continued. “Stocks and shit. Trying to expand my portfolio.” Jack thought for a moment, not quite sure how to explain that he hadn’t worked with stocks since his time on Wall Street, but luckily he didn’t need to. Their walking came to a stop as Matice stood outside a doorway, gesturing to the soldier in front of him. “Gentleman, this is Captain Ackhmed. He’ll be leading the interrogation.” He said, Jack and Greer taking turns to shake hands with the Captain before all of the entered the building.

Y/N stood on the door’s other side, her quick departure earlier seeming to have been a chance to change into lighter, more environment suited clothes. Her heels had been swapped out for a pair of black boots, her pant suit for linen trousers, her black blouse for a white top. Around her head sat a scarf, covering most of her hair and shoulders. Despite the change of clothes, she still looked professional, like her presence in the building was important. Maybe it was, Jack was still to find out.

With a nod shared between Y/N and Matice, the formed group walked down the dusty corridors, stopping only for Privates to open doors and locks, each one passed through bringing them closer and closer to the sounds of what could only be described as American country music. Jack found his eyes wandering around the space the second time they stopped, unable to block out the amount of panicked noise that seemed to be coming from his left. His gaze fell down, a pair of bare feet visible from under the door.

“Matice, you go ahead. I need to speak to Dr Ryan for a second, run through protocol.” Y/N spoke up, dragging Jack’s eyes from the floor. She had been watching him as codes were entered onto keypads and keys were fumbled through to match locks. Greer gave Jack a pat on the shoulder before going ahead, the door closing behind the rest of the team to the sound Matice offering Fanta over the din of Toby Keith.

“We did protocol on the plane, Y/N.” Jak said once they were alone, unsure of why she had kept him back.

“Stop thinking it.” She said, arms folded over her chest like she disapproved of him. Jack didn’t quite understand what he had done wrong exactly. “This isn’t home… This isn’t the Marines we were in. This is a war zone and you leave your merit badges at the door.” She explained, and Jack smirked at her scolding of him. “I’m serious Jack. This place isn’t friendly territory. I don’t want you underestimating people and getting hurt for being nice.”

“I thought you liked my boyish charm, Y/N.” Jack managed to crack a joke back, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. “You seem to have a lot of experience in places like this. If you can manage, I’ll be just fine.”

“Jack.” She warned again.

“Y/N, I’ll be fine. Why are you pressing this?” He asked, and Y/N took a step forward, straightening out his collar. It flashed him back years, the action so reminiscent of a time he had started to forget. Her hands rested on his chest for a moment, a smile on her face.

“I’d like to take you out for drinks back home with you in one piece.” She explained with a smile, and Jack felt himself nodding in agreement.

“Drinks sound great.” He agreed, and Y/N gestured towards the doorway, where Matice and Greer had gone through, where their couriers waited.

“You have a job to do, I have a base commander to speak with.”

“You’re that high up, huh?” He quizzed, and she rolled her eyes playfully at him as she headed the opposite directions.

“I’ll tell you all about my job on our date, Doctor.” It was a promise that spurred Jack into the room, eager to find out the information that they needed to get this whole thing over with. He didn’t particularly like being in Yemen anyway, but now he had a reason to get himself home as quickly as possible.

“You know, if you keep this up Ryan, you’ll be late to your own party.” The voice called from out in the hall, the voice warm and cheerful and no doubt already a drink or two into the night. Jack glanced at himself once more in his tiny New York apartment’s bathroom mirror, straightening his bow tie and letting out a held breath: it was hard to believe that it was happening, that he had had really managed to do it.

“Just a minute.” He called back, dabbing on a spot of cologne and running a hand through his hair, messing up the hairdo he had perfected, but it made him feel better. With one last sigh, he grabbed the dinner jacket from the back of the door and exited the bathroom into the one bedroom, stopping dead in his tracks once he caught sight of her. “Wow…”

There she stood, a smile as warm as the sunset outside and eyes just as bright. Her hair was up in a bun, a few curls falling down to frame her face, a sleek black dress to match his own suit hugging her figure tight, the satin fabric accentuating all the features he had spent the past eighteen months memorising. In her hands, delicate despite what they had been through over a four year tour, held a gift box, decorated with a white ribbon and note card.

“You look amazing, Jack.” She rushed forward, catching him in a kiss before he had a chance to respond. Their lips together were gentle, sweet, strong, and his hands landed on her waist as his nose was filled with the perfume he had bought her for their anniversary.

“This old thing? I’m nothing compared to you.” He smiled as they broke away, pressing another kiss to her forehead for good measure. “I thought I told you not to get me anything.” He feigned reprimand, but the grin on her face was too contagious, and his façade broke quickly.

“It’s not every day you become a doctor, Jack… Dr Jack Ryan…” She let the words sit on her tongue for a moment before handing over the gift, and marching back him in her heels to fetch her jacket and open the front door. “Open it in the car, you can wear it tonight if you like it, but we’re already late to your party.” She urged with a laugh, Jack nodding and following after her, stopping to press a kiss to her cheek, and whisper in her ear.

“You know, I like the sound of it too… Dr Jack and Mrs Y/N Ryan doesn’t sound like a bad pairing, does it?” He said with a cocky smirk, the type that made her blush red and playfully slap his arm to counteract the swelling of her heart.

In that moment, the words rang true.

The hours passed, and despite not speaking very much Arabic, Jack was growing bored of the repetitiveness of the interrogation.

They had moved the bodyguard to another room to wait, focused one their young businessman with the phone, but he seemed quite confident he knew nothing. In fact, Jack was sure the soldiers around him might have been tempted to use more… frown upon methods, had he and Greer not been present, had Y/N not been on base. From what he could gather, she was somewhat high up in the DOD now, what with the way the comrades on base treated her like she was the Command in Chief.

He stood from his chair after he registered the same words being used for the sixth time now, another time that question would go unanswered, and made his way to the door. He wiped a layer of sweat from his brow, the dust and heat doing him and his shirt no major favours.

“Where you going?” Greer asked in a low tone, the closest thing the man could manage to a whisper.

“I’ve been at this for hours.” Jack said with a sigh, stopping before he knocked on the door to be let out. “I need some air.” He added, rapping his fist twice on the metal and letting his shoulders slump a little. He didn’t wait for Greer to hold him back or say something to stop him, stepping out as Captain Ackhmed started shouting again.

The door closed with a slam, Jack taking a breath and running a hand through his hair to focus himself. He glanced up, a private waiting by the door, the outside world just seconds away. He thought for a moment about possibly finding Y/N, though she was no doubt busy with something Jack didn’t need to know or care about. That’s when his gaze shifted to look down the hall, at the room that hosted their bodyguard… The bodyguard who looked up when he mentioned the transfers hours ago.

“Can I help you with something, sir?” The private asked, and Jack nodded, a plan forming in his head.

“Where do I get something to eat?” He asked, the private giving him the directions to set off into the evening heat across the base, collecting two meals and starting his route back to the bunker building, with the intent of sharing a meal with one of their captured.

As Jack made his way for the bodyguard’s cell, Y/N finished up a meeting on the far side of the black site with the Base Commander, pleased with the information given to her to pass on. A part of her felt bad for not being completely truthful with Jack; of course, that was their work, not everything could be shared. He didn’t need to know she was there to collect information on possible locations for drone strikes by the US, and she didn’t need to know the ins and outs of his terrorist theory.

She made he way across the sand with conviction, her few bags stored in the barracks for safety, a manila folder in hand and ideas of home in her head. She wondered where she might take Jack once they got back: perhaps the bar on F Street, or the seafood place on 17th. What would she wear if it was clear this was a date rather than a reunion? A chance to talk as more than friends than just… whatever they were now.

The thoughts took her straight to her bags in the barracks, and right back out into the dark night after she had dropped the file in her locked briefcase, the cold of the night suddenly hitting her. She had forgotten how quickly the temperature in the mountains could change, how you could go from sweating through clothes to clambering for the extra layers.

Her mind now set on warmth, she begun her way to the mess hall, hoping to grab something warm to eat before having to catch up with Greer on their interrogation progress before she had to question Jack on how sure he was about this new terror plot against the free world.

The first rumble occurred on her way into the mess hall, a few off-duty soldiers saluting as she entered, quick to serve herself some cold meats and bread before taking a seat alone, sipping away at a bottle of water. It was weak, it sent a ripple through the bottle on her table, nothing more. Had she an all-seeing eye, Y/N would have known the rumble was the car bomb approaching the entrance gate, to the right of where she sat, through only a single layer of concrete.

The second sound was not a rumble, it was an explosion.

The first sensation Y/N felt was not the falling, nor the taste of dust in her mouth from the wall that had fallen to her right; instead, it was the ringing in her ears that remained her of the thud chopper blades made. It was whirring more than white noise, the same consistent thud that made her close her eyes to block out the light, made her breath in and promptly cough out the debris surrounding her.

“… move out now. Ma’am? Ma’am!” Through the thudding came a voice, deep and urgent in it’s pleas. It took Y/N a moment to come around, already being pulled to her feet by some of the soldiers who had been dining nearby, one pouring something cold over her face to allow her the privilege of sight once more.

Through the haze, she managed to make out two soldiers, both a dust covered as she was, urging her towards the south exit of the mess hall. She let her feet followed without complaint or resistance, still not quite sure what was happening, but more focused on managing the pain covering the right side of her face and temple.

“What… What happened?” She managed to ask once the three of them had exited the mess hall, now surrounded by the black night and the carnage of battle behind them: even from a distance, Y/N could feel the heat of explosions, the ringing in her ears did little to reduce the echoing gunfire.

“It seems we’re at war…” The second officer replied. Amidst the chaos, they were severely low on weapons or protective equipment, and as her vision and focus finally came back to working levels, Y/N quickly realised they were headed for the armoury.

“Won’t they attack there first?” She hissed, slowing as they came to a corner. Another loud bang forced her to cover her mouth and watch the incineration of one of the watchtowers. “Good-” Her blasphemy was cut off by a different noise: the sound of close gunshots.

She turned to the soldiers, hoping for backup, and instead met the barrel of a gun. At the man’s feet lay the pair who had tried to help her.

“Move.” He ordered, gesturing towards the interrogation bunker, and Y/N simply nodded, trying her best not to focus on the putrid smell of dead flesh sticking to the blood-soaked man.

Her steps were solid and quick, lucky she hadn’t hurt a limb in the explosion, much to the content of her captor. The last thing he needed was a damaged hostage, regardless of how important they looked. It wasn’t often you found women on bases, he was betting he had struck gold with grabbing her when he could.

By the look of worry on the first private’s face, he decided she was, and promptly shot him dead. Before the private had hit the floor, Y/N was being pulled along by her captor now, one hand gripping her shirt at the shoulder, the other aiming the gun into her side.

“Take me to him.” The captor demanded of the second private, who turned to find the face of a DOD representative. His eyes quickly travelled down to the gun in her side. “Now.” The captor demanded again, and the private nodded quickly, much to Y/N’s relief. The three started down a hallway, stopping at a door that the private quickly unbolted and opened for them, coming face to face with the businessman who had been brought in a few hours ago.

Bang.

“The other one.” Her captor demanded, prompting the private and Y/N to share a glance of confusion, then realisation: perhaps their team had been interrogating the wrong person.

With the gunshots close by, Jack shot to his feet and rushed to the door of the room he had been instructed to stay inside, taking a moment to listen for movement, and with the sound of footsteps approaching, he pressed himself to the wall behind the door, taking a deep breath and holding it.

The noise of it swinging open sounded more like a creaky garden gate than a cell door in a war zone, and for a moment Jack as hopeful to see uniform, to see linen…

“Run!” The soldier shouted as the bodyguard warned someone Jack couldn’t see in Arabic, prompting two gunshots to be fired as Jack came from behind the door and started to wrestle the gun off the attacker: a man who looked quite like the bodyguard, despite the blood that covered him.

Jack managed to throw the gun across the room, but his opponent had the advantage of the door, using it to throw Jack into the wall as the two hostages fell to the floor: the soldier in the centre of the room dead, the second tucked into the opposite corner, holding her hands over a growing patch of red as her eyes fluttered closed.

Jack was a trained marine by nature, quickly throwing punches into his opponent’s side from below as the other man tried to tackle him to the floor. He succeeded: he and Jack fell to the ground with a loud thud as the brawl continued, the bodyguard inching round the table as punches were thrown to try and reach for the gun with his foot, his hands still cuffed to the table’s central bar. The attacker managed to get on top of Jack, the CIA officer taking punch after punch to the face with little display of pain shown: he had been trained well enough to know never to show weakness.

Jack let his eyes lose focus for a moment, convincing the attacker he was out for the count, and let the man stand to reach for the gun before grabbing his leg and pulling him back down to the ground atop the soldier. It allowed Jack to get on his feet, ready for a second round, when a flash of silver and a sudden searing pain in his side sent him stumbling into the wall.

His opponent had taken the soldier’s knife, and Jack had been slashed.

When he had managed to process the situation, Jack’s opponent was already hot on him with knife in hand, this time aiming for Jack’s neck. He was quick to block, the pair battling over strength, over whether Jack died or escaped: but Jack had height and weight on the attacker, and after a moment of struggled, he had pushed him to the side, the knife falling to the ground, and then proceeded to bash his head against the wall twice.

“قام!!” The bodyguard shouted as Jack stumbled his way towards the gun, towards a sure win in this battle. Just as he leaned down to grab it, his opponent was back and tackling him onto the metal table, placing Jack in a fight of two against one.

The bodyguard and Jack’s opponent held him down, doing their best to get a grip on his neck, to choke him out and end it there, but Jack was a stubborn fighter, and seemed quite set on staying alive. He writhed and pushed, every time he was almost away they grabbed him once more.

Until, silence.

For a moment, everything stopped, and Y/N let her eyes flutter open to watch, to figure out just what was happening. The two attackers, the bodyguard and his rescuer, they were frozen by something in Jack’s hand she couldn’t quite make out despite the close distance and harsh lighting overhead.

“He’s bluffing.” She heard the rescuer, who held a gun pointed at Jack, say to his brother in Arabic. It seemed like she wasn’t the only one who knew a spattering of the language, because Jack responded instead of the bodyguard, lifting his opposite hand as he spoke, a ring of metal that looked like a key dangling from a finger. It didn’t take the ex-combat soldier very long to piece it together.

A grenade.

“No, I’m not.” Jack replied, Y/N’s eyes dropping shut at the words. The attackers shared a glance, the bodyguard giving a sigh.

“Don’t shoot.” He ordered in Arabic. “Get the keys from the soldier.” It was quick, a few seconds at most, but as the pair unlocked the bodyguard and Jack held that grenade in the air, he could’ve sworn an hour had passed. The gun was still trained on him, the pair moving to the door as the bodyguard finally switched to English. “I thought you were an analyst.” He remarked to Jack, who kept his grip firm and his gaze steady on the ground.

“I thought you were a bodyguard…” He replied, and took the moment for the men to reach the door to figure it all out. To piece it all together. “It’s you…” He said with a grimace, prompting him and the bodyguard to lock eyes. “Suleiman…”

No further words were exchanged, but the look he received told Jack he was right on the money: he had faced off against the man he had been following ghost stories of for weeks. No more words, just Suleiman and his saviour closing the door on Jack in that tiny interrogation room.

It was only once the door had swung shut that Jack could collect himself, letting out a slow and shaky exhale as he slotted the pin back into the grenade, his whole body collapsing after the fact. It took him a second to remember he wasn’t alone, to remember what had happened only a few minutes before.

Y/N.

He managed to scramble over, abandoning his own pain to focus on the sight before him, his hands immediately clamping down over Y/N’s stomach and causing her eyes to flutter open again.

“Hey, hey.” She croaked, a weak smile on her lips as her left hand, soaked in her blood that had pooled to the floor around her, coming up to rest on the firm grip Jack had on her intestines. “Jack…” She spoke again, and was met with the frantic eyes of a scared man.

The wound was bad, the blood loss was worse: and they both knew it.

Jack couldn’t help but notice the grey that had already settled into her skin, her lips losing colour. Her clothes, those brown linen pants and the white blouse to compliment were now deep shades of red, some of the blood already beginning to dry it had left her system so long ago. The bruises she arrived with, no doubt from the explosion that had rocked the ground beneath their feet ten minutes ago, had begun to show colour, turning her cheek into a mixture of browns and blues and purples and greys.

“You know,” She began again, pulling Jack’s attention away from her injuries. “It’s a real shame we won’t get that date. I was hoping to pay you back.” She let out a laugh, followed swiftly by a groan of pain that had Jack shushing her.

“Don’t… Don’t talk. You need to save your strength.” He said decidedly. “Medics will be here soon; they’ll sort you out and then you can take me out. To the bar on 19th in D.C, you used to love that one.” Jack smiled at the thought, looking back at the door. “MEDIC!” He called out. “WE NEED A MEDIC!!” He yelled the second time, a hand gripping his forearm in response.

“Stop.” Y/N begged, the smile never leaving her lips. “This is ok. Just us… This is alright…” Her hand moved from his arm to his chest, over his heart, and Jack couldn’t stop his lip trembling, his body shaking.

“Y/N please…”

“You know that girl from the party was really gorgeous.” Y/N cut him off, taking a laboured breath before continuing, “You should ask her out, take her to 19th Street for me.” She suggested, and Jack shook his head quickly.

“Why would I take her when I’m taking you? I’m not going to ruin a chance with you again by dating someone else Y/N.” He was stubborn, glancing around the room for something to stem the bleeding for just a little longer. “MEDIC?!” He called out once more, the desperation in his voice more than evident, and prompted another action from the woman he was trying to save.

“Hold my hand, Jack…” Y/N asked, the tears welling up in her eyes as she watched his frantic pleas. “I don’t want to die without you holding my hand.”

“You’re not going to die, Y/N!” Jack called through his frustration, tears of his own hitting against her linen trouser leg. He couldn’t believe what she was asking of him, how she could ask it of him, but that smile told him everything he didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to know. Y/N hands slipped over his own, lifting them slowly away from her abdomen, and bringing him closer to her as the blood flowed freely once more.

“I feel better already…” Y/N breathed out, a cold laugh coming from the man by her side, gripping her hands like it was the most important task in history: maybe it was. “Do you remember the first time we met? The helicopter flight out?” The word’s evoked memories to flash in front of Jack’s eyes: his nerves had got the better of him that day, and when the chopper took off he had gone to grab the seat edge. Instead, he had grabbed onto Y/N’s knee. Her laugh had echoed in his head for days after the event.

“You, you can’t talk like that, Y/N. You’re not…” He lost his words, the blood was now staining everything withing a metre of the pair, the white Y/N had chosen to battle the heat now completely red, Jack’s trousers bearing patterns from the liquid.

“I am, Jack…” Y/N corrected him, the tears now freely streaming down her cheeks, the smile she had feigned turning to a grimace of pain. “I shouldn’t have left New York… I’m so sorry I did… That I broke us off.” She admitted, letting out a gasp of pain, or relief, Jack couldn’t tell, after she let the confession slip.

“Hey, hey… You don’t need to apologise for anything…” Jack countered, and she let out a little laugh, strained and tired: but it was still hers.

“It’s my fault though… The past few years, I… I should have held on tighter to you.” A red hand came up to wipe away tears, decorating her cheeks with the blood. Jack leaned forward, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a napkin he had stored in there and wiped away the mess from her cheeks, a lump clumping in his throat.

“Y/N, please… If you just hold on for me now, we can get another shot.” He whispered, clasping her hands back in his and pressing his lips to her knuckles. Y/N giggled at that, the words brining a light to her eyes and a smile back to her face, though it was quickly interrupted by a cough. Blood edged the corners of her mouth. “Hold on for me…” She shook her head, and Jack let out a sob, unable to hold it back any longer.

“When they told us to go to war, I was ready to die for my country, Jack… I… I guess I’m lucky. I got more time than some, and I got to see you again.” She whispered, followed by another cough. “I’m so, so lucky Jack… We’re lucky. We got this… Didn’t we?” she asked, Jack looking back up at her with tear-stained cheeks.

“Please… Please I just got you back…”

“Promise that when you get those bastards, you’ll kill them. Shoot them dead for me.” She gripped onto his hands tighter. “It’s… It’s numb now… I…” She paused, letting the tears subside. “You did good Jack; you’ve always been so good…” Another cough, another wheeze. “You’ll have a drink for me when you get the chance, yeah?” The words were heavily laboured over, Y/N working past a film of blood that coated her mouth, against the pain that had turned to numbness. Jack pressed his lips to her forehead, her hands still enclosed in his own, trying to stop the tears that flowed so freely onto her linen trousers.

“I didn’t stop loving you Y/N, I never stopped.” The words, the truth, finally left him, and he looked up to see a smile on Y/N’s face, as weak as it was.

“Neither did I.” The words were more a whisper, but he heard them. What followed was a gasping breath, shaky and jarring amongst the quiet that had settled in the absence of gunfire. Her eyes dimmed, losing that brightness that Jack had always managed to catch sight of, had always adored.

Her eyes dimmed, and Jack knew she was dead.

Tags: @lullabieswrappedinlies @hiqhways @professorkrasinski @gingeraleluke @im-a-writer-right @random-thoughts-003

#jack ryan #tom clancy's jack ryan #jack ryan x reader #jack ryan x y/n #fanfiction #angst #fanfic #death

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esonetwork · 3 years

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Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-226-lets-kill-hitler/

Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

Doctor Who: Let’s Kill Hitler (1 episode, s06e08, 2011)

Hello, sweetie.

Prequel

A phone rings as the TARDIS is in flight. The answering machine picks up and Amy leaves a message.

As the camera pans across the console and the dark control room, Amy asks if the Doctor will fulfill his promise to find Melody Pond. Even though she knows that everything turns out okay, she doesn’t want to miss Melody’s childhood.

The Doctor listens intently, but doesn’t pick up the phone. He’s clearly wracked with regret and sadness.

Let’s Kill Hitler

It was once a nice wheat field. Then the Ponds plowed through it, scrawling the word “Doctor” into the crop. They stop in the middle of the O – a giant crop circle – to find the TARDIS and the Doctor in his new pea green double-breasted coat. The Doctor shows them a newspaper article chronicling the event.

It turns out that this was the only way Amy and Rory could figure out to get the Doctor’s attention. He consoles Amy: He will find Melody because River lives. The moment is shattered by police sirens, a speeding red car, and a woman named Mels. The new arrival holds the Doctor at gunpoint and demands to be taken in the TARDIS. It seems that she wants to kill Adolf Hitler.

Flash back to a long time ago in Leadworth as young Amelia, your Rory, and young heretofore-unknown Mels grow up together. Apparently, Mels knows all about Amelia’s “imaginary” friend, the Doctor, and that knowledge gets her in trouble. A lot. Including stealing a bus. She’s also present when Amy finally figures out that Rory loves her.

In the present, Mels, Amy, and Rory take a trip in the TARDIS. Mels actually shoots the TARDIS console while in transit to Nazi Germany. In Berlin, 1938, those same Nazis are being observed by a team with future technology as a machine (posing as a custodian) shapeshifts into a Nazi officer. That team is inside the machine, a highly advanced ship called the Teselecta, which shrinks the Nazi officer and draws him inside. Since the officer is responsible for a series of hate crimes – after all, what Nazi wasn’t? – he is disposed of by a series of “antibodies”.

The Teselecta then goes to Adolf Hitler’s office and activates Justice Mode, but two things interfere in the plan. First, they are too early in Hitler’s time stream. Second, the TARDIS crashes through the wall into the office.

The Doctor evacuates everyone from the TARDIS as it smokes away, then stashes Mels’s handgun in a bowl of fruit. The travelers are beside themselves for actually saving Hitler. The Teselecta tries to attack Hitler again, but he shoots the ship before being stashed in a nearby cupboard by the Doctor and Rory. The Teselecta feigns a fainting spell while the crew analyzes the TARDIS and determines that the most wanted war criminal in history has arrived.

Also, Mels has been shot by Hitler.

Mels, short for Melody, regenerates into a very familiar form. Mission complete. Well… sort of. This new woman has no idea who any of her traveling companions are, she is incredibly self-centered, and has maintained her programming that demands murdering the Doctor. She tries multiple times with every weapon in the room, but the Doctor is several steps ahead of her, but he misses the poison lipstick.

Melody jumps out of window and takes on a squad of Nazis. The soldiers try to shoot her, but she survives due to her regenerative state and uses the discharged energy as a weapon. She picks up their guns and drives away on a motorcycle. Rory and Amy give chase with the sonic screwdriver, followed by the Teselecta disguised as a Nazi soldier.

The Doctor enters the TARDIS and extracts the smoke. He consults with the TARDIS voice interface – the sequence of trying to find a face that doesn’t remind him of his failures is hilarious – and determines that regeneration is impossible due to the poison extracted from the Judas tree. The interface mentions “fish fingers and custard,” inspiring the Doctor to set a course in the TARDIS.

Melody storms a restaurant and demands that the patrons give her their clothes. Outside, the Teselecta takes Amy’s form and miniaturizes Amy and Rory. Just before being killed by the antibodies, the Ponds are given clearance privileges and taken to the control room.

The Teselecta nearly passes judgment on Melody for killing the Doctor, but the Doctor arrives in a tuxedo and top hat. He uses a sonic cane to scan the ship. He also verifies that the Ponds are okay. The Teselecta places Melody in stasis before the crew explains that the mete out justice to war criminals at the ends of their respective timelines. Amy convinces the crew to offer any help they can to the Doctor.

The Silence, a religious cult who believe “silence will fall” when the oldest question in the universe is asked, are behind the plot to kill the Doctor. When the Teselecta crew reveals that they don’t know what the question is, the crew resumes their torture of Melody.

The Doctor asks Amy to save her daughter, so Amy disables the crew’s privileges so that they will all be attacked by the antibodies. The Teselecta releases Melody and the crew is teleported away to a mother ship. As the antibodies descend on Amy and Rory, the Doctor tells Melody to save her parents.

As the Doctor faces his imminent demise, he begs Melody to help him. She talks to the TARDIS and learns to fly the ship, rescuing Amy and Rory before returning everyone to the Doctor’s side. Melody Pond, a child of the TARDIS, wonders who she is. The Doctor asks her to find River Song and pass on a message.

As the Doctor falls unconscious, Melody asks who River Song is. Amy uses the Teselecta to show Melody her own face. Melody decides to pass on her regeneration energy – all her remaining lives – to the Doctor with a kiss, thus becoming River Song.

River wakes up in a hospital with the travelers looking on. The Doctor’s message was that no one could save him, which made her think that she could. This is how she learns Rule #1: The Doctor lies. The travelers leave her with the Sisters of the Infinite Schism to recover, complete with an empty TARDIS-shaped diary. She’ll find her way back to them in time.

As the Doctor ponders the data he downloaded from the Teselecta, River Song enrolls at the Luna University in 5123. Her motivations are simple: She’s looking for a good man.

There are a couple of items working against this fun ride: First, the introduction of the previously unknown Mels. Second, the crux of the assassination of the Doctor relies on him being the smartest man in the room again.

The first can be explained if we’re looking at the events of this season through Amy and Rory’s perspective, therefore seeing a low-impact change in the timeline after Melody’s birth and abduction. The second, while an annoying feature of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who, adds a lot of humor and hangs a lampshade on the Doctor’s blind spot for River Song. Especially considering the fact that she is the person who kills the Doctor, an act for which she is imprisoned and is now revealed to be a fixed point. The second also hearkens back to the Ninth Doctor in Boom Town, but it worked there because it wasn’t as much of a storytelling crutch for Russell T. Davies.

That humor, coupled with the character development for River and the Doctor, really makes this story work. The origin story for River Song helps tie off her story and could have provided a convenient story terminus if not for the character’s immense popularity.

The humor also worked because it was self-deprecating. The scene with the TARDIS voice interface poked at the ongoing theme with companion departures and shame, invoking Rose, Martha, and Donna in the process. The scene also point us back to a moment of combined shame and innocence by invoking Amelia Pond, whom the Doctor had not yet screwed up but did leave hanging for her childhood years.

Going back to Rule #1, we find out in this story that temporal grace – the state in which the TARDIS interior exists – houses a “clever lie”. The Fourth Doctor claimed that weapons could not be used inside the TARDIS in order to stop Eldrad in The Hand of Fear. Of course, we already knew that it wasn’t absolute from Arc of Infinity – “Nobody’s perfect,” claimed the Fifth Doctor when challenged by Nyssa about a Cyberman shooting in the console room – as well as The Invasion of Time, Earthshock, Attack of the Cybermen, The Visitation, and The Parting of the Ways.

With all of the discussions about Doctor Who canon/continuity in fandom, it’s a good reminder that Doctor Who canon/continuity has never been consistent.

This story also presents a fascinating parallel to The Caves of Androzani, during which the Doctor was poisoned by could survive by regenerating. The Doctor had several lives to spare at that point, but this encounter comes at the supposed end of the Doctor’s regeneration cycle due to the events of Journey’s End and The Night of the Doctor.

There are also several other franchise callbacks: We’ve seen “justice machines” in the past, though they were in the form of the Megara; We’ve previously seen the TARDIS materialize in a micro environment, courtesy of Carnival of Monsters, and materialize in a micro state, courtesy of Planet of Giants; We’ve seen the TARDIS materialize around people and objects before in Logopolis, Time-Flight, The Parting of the Ways, and The Waters of Mars; We’ve also heard about transferring regeneration energy in previous adventures like Mawdryn Undead, the TV movie, and The Ultimate Foe.

I’m also a sucker for the “Doctor who?” title drop gag, which has been around since the beginning. It makes me snicker every time.

All told, I really enjoy the action, the spirit, and the heart of this story. It takes a tired time-travel trope (“Let’s kill Hitler!”) and turns it on its ear to both develop characters and move a story along. Well done.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Torchwood: The Gathering

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

#Doctor Who #Eleventh Doctor #Timestamps Project

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Loki: How Sylvie’s Decision Could Reshape the MCU

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This article contains Loki spoilers.

Marvel’s Loki is many things at various points over the course of its six-episode run: A Philosophy 101 debate about determinism, a rumination on the existence of free will, a Doctor Who-style meditation on the interconnected messiness of time, a buddy cop romp through all of known reality, and the most bizarre love story that Marvel has yet told on screen.

Tom Hiddleston remains as charming as ever as Loki, playing an earlier version of the God of Mischief with much of the pathos that ultimately made his original take on the character so compelling to watch. Plus, thanks to the introduction of Variants – different versions of familiar characters whose lives have diverged from their predetermined timeline in some way – he got to act opposite a CGI alligator version of himself.

But it’s the introduction of the female Loki variant Sylvie that has not only rewritten our understanding of Loki as a character but who has also essentially charted a new course for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Her decision to kill He Who Remains (or Immortus or Kang the Conqueror or however you want to refer to the being who lives in the castle at the end of time) is crucial to setting up the world of the MCU post-Thanos, but it also establishes a new role for herself within it – and for Loki as well.

What Makes a Loki a Loki?

Much of Loki has been about our titular former villain’s transformation into something like a hero, and his final confrontation with He Who Remains underlines the multiple dramatic ways in which he has changed thanks to his relationships with both Sylvie and Mobius. In the face-off that ultimately decides the literal future of reality, Loki insists he no longer wants to rule the way he once did, that he is capable of putting his ambition and anger aside for the greater good.

Loki’s goals are much smaller and more intimate now: Not galactic conquest or domination, but stability and a life with the woman he loves (his assertion that he actually doesn’t want to rule, just make sure Sylvie’s okay is a massive perspective shift for a man who’s only ever otherwise cared about himself). We’ve seen how Loki’s growing feelings for Sylvie have impacted him as a character, with his complicated appreciation for her helping him to understand and, to some extent, combat his own rampant feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.

Gone is the rebel who wanted to overthrow the Time Variance Authority as soon as he arrived within its halls. And in its place is a man who understands that while the TVA is a despicable organization, it may very well be a necessary one – if only because the alternative is likely a great deal worse.

Instead, it is Sylvie who steps forward to fill the void Loki’s embrace of a more traditional hero’s arc has left behind, a new Queen of Chaos who ultimately chooses freedom, free will, and, yes, mischief, over the rigid rules of a world whose order is predetermined. Her betrayal of Loki stings emotionally, of course; Loki has done a remarkable job making their connection feel less bizarre and off-putting than it has any right to be. But it is also a perfectly in-character choice for her. Sylvie is who she has always said she was, the product of a universe that craves chaos, a variant who was essentially created to do exactly as she does here.

What makes a Loki a Loki? In short: This.

For better or worse, Sylvie remains irrevocably tied to the identity she forged before Loki ever existed, a lost girl seeking revenge for the destruction of a life she never got to live. What she’ll do now that she’s achieved her goal, how she’ll live without the animating force that’s single-mindedly driven her since she was just a child, is unclear and remains a major unknown heading into the show’s just-confirmed second season.

Obviously, Sylvie’s decision to kill He Who Remains will have far-reaching consequences for everyone else in the universe (or multiverse, as it stands now). Her actions have freed reality from the concept of a Sacred Timeline, allowing seemingly infinite numbers of Variants and alternate branches of existence to flourish in a way that they haven’t since the TVA was first created.

She has literally changed the face of reality itself, restoring free will to billions of people and finally achieving the revenge she’s spent the bulk of her life seeking. This is no small feat, but it does beg the question of what could possibly come next for her as a character.

What’s Next for Sylvie in Loki Season 2?

Perhaps Season 2 of Loki will serve as Sylvie’s emotional crucible, a story in which she’ll have to wrestle with many of the same introspective sorts of questions that Loki did in its first (for example, I’m still waiting to find out precisely what her Nexus Event was, as well as how she came to change her name so drastically). It seems likely that she’ll come to regret the decision she made beyond the Void or at least realize that the chaos she has unleashed upon reality has caused more harm than good.

This would put a new twist on Loki’s traditional failed ambition and painful comeuppance narrative cycle, in much the same way that Loki has consistently seemed to view Sylvie’s journey as a parallel to his story rather than a direct copy of it.

Viewed in that light, what does it mean that Sylvie chose vengeance for herself and freedom for others rather than a future with Loki? And what does her decision mean for their obvious emotional connection: Is their love more or less real because Sylvie didn’t prioritize it? Was the kiss that finishes off their climactic swordfight a genuine expression of care? Pure manipulation? Somewhere in between?

Or will Sylvie simply emerge as Phase 4’s “new” Loki, a Goddess of Mischief who takes up the mantle of untrustworthy trickster and troublemaker just as Loki himself embraces his new heroic mission to try and fix the timeline his other half broke?

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Perhaps Loki Season 2 will do what its protagonists could not, and chart a new, third path through the existing binary of bad and worse options. But whatever happens next – either on this show or in the Marvel feature films that follow – it’s all only happening because of Sylvie. No matter what her future holds, at least for this moment she’s the most important person in any and every reality.

The post Loki: How Sylvie’s Decision Could Reshape the MCU appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hJCS8c

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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trensu · 4 years

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Episode 28: The One where LXC Loses his Title as Greatest Wingman

THAT’S RIGHT GUYS

WE’RE HERE

THE ONE THAT HOLDS ONE OF THE MOST PRECIOUS, CLASSIC WANGXIAN SCENES IN THE WHOLE SHOW

THE SCENE THAT JUST BURSTS WITH WANGXIAN DOMESTICITY AND WE DIE FROM THE SHEER FLUFFINESS OF IT ALL

Shockingly this VERY IMPORTANT wangxian moment doesn’t start until the 34min mark.

So we’re gonna power through those first 34min to get to the parts that actually matter

We’re still at the burial mounds

Emotional Yungmeng Bro Drama happens

It’s very upsetting

There’s a lot of feelings everywhere.

I can’t defend you if you keep this path, jc protests

You can’t defend me? Then Leave me, wwx says, tell the world i defected, he says, my actions are no longer associated with the jiang clan he says

WHO KNEW BROTHERLY LOVE COULD BE SO PAINFUL, AMIRITE GUYS? HAHA *CHOKES BACK SOBS*

LET’S SKIP AHEAD!

Jc’s gone, maybe it’ll get better now??

A-YUAN TIME!!

Oh no, little a-yuan is hungry!!

Wen qing gives him the last of the fruit because a-yuan activated her Good Big Sister instincts

Ah, look at his happy face as he takes the fruit!

The wwx shows up with MORE fruit and a-yuan does the leg-grabby thing!!

ADORABLE

Great, now we get Emotional WWX and WQ Bonding Time

SHE TRIES TO GIVE HIM AN OUT

SHE TRIES TO GET HIM BACK TO HIS FAMILY

Wwx is not having it so instead he acts all charming and teases her until the matter is dropped

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

Other stuff happens, boring boring boring

Moving forward

Yunmeng bro fight scene!

The first half was pretty neat and then they did a bunch of funky flying moves that had me like, why, why must you do this, please stop and give me wangxiantics instead

They did not stop

But they did do some wonderful Twirling, so I guess i can forgive them a little

Oh, sadface, a paperman gets viciously slaughtered by jc

(@theuntamednarrator pointed out that this fight scene PARALLELS a future fight scene on a moonlit rooftop THAT WE’RE NOT GONNA THINK ABOUT BECAUSE IT MAKES ME SAD)

Wwx, at some point in this fight is all: oh look, i’ve been impaled

(what’s a little light stabbing between siblings, amirite?)

More stuff happens that we don’t care about

But we’ll take a moment to laugh at wwx here

Wwx is like, imma hide this gaping stab wound from the world’s greatest doctor by distracting her with potatoes

It doesn’t quite work bc wen qing immediately makes a grab for him

Wwx is scandalized!

Wwx: Men and women shouldn’t be improperly intimate!!

Wwx: you suddenly doing this makes me scared for my virtue which i’m obviously saving for lan zhan!

She backs off for half a second; then wwx winces but he recovers quickly by being all i’m totally fine, look at how fine i am, i’m flinching because of HUNGER PAINS, NOTHING ELSE

If he weren't so charming and adorable none of this would've worked

Other non-wangxian nonsense occurs

Some more non-wangxian stuff

A scene featuring Disaster Het Jin Zixuan and our Perfect Elder Sister Jiang Yanli

Jzx is all, i know carp tower isn’t your home but i’m willing to build another lotus pier here for you

...ugh, fine, okay, maybe you’ve grown on me a little by now, you huge Disaster Het BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE MAKING JYL HAPPY, YOU HEAR ME?? ALL BETS ARE OFF IF YOU MAKE HER CRY AGAIN

We’ve made it through the 34 minutes!!

GET READY GUYS

We’re at a tea house in Yiling! There’s lots of people! AND THEY’RE ALL TRASH-TALKING MY BEAUTIFUL SUNSHINE BOY WTF

But hey, look in the background is lwj, (angrily) listening to people trash-talk our sunshine boy.

God, he sits so straight, it looks almost painful

I mean, in terms of posture

We know he’s not straight in any other way lol

The only time we get full body shots of him in this scene is when he’s blurred and out of focus in the background, which is interesting

When he’s at the forefront of the scene, it’s all close-ups of his (angry) face

But even with the close ups, we only see parts of his face. One half of his face at a time, close-ups on the eyes (or one eye) specifically at times

It’s not until the end of that teahouse scene that we get to see a full shot of him and that’s only when he’s had Enough of people slandering his soulmate and slams his (poor innocent) tea cup onto the table and (viciously) glares at the gossipers

He leaves the teahouse (angrily)

Lwj is (angrily) walking through the marketplace

He walks past some random lady and the lady turns the hell around so fast and BLATANTLY CHECKS HIM OUT, oh god, that’s HILARIOUS

(you are not alone in this, lady, YOU ARE NOT ALONE)

Then, we have one of the best tropes of all, ACCIDENTAL CHILD ACQUISITION

THERE IS A CHILD CLINGING TO HIS LEG

IT’S A-YUAN

A-YUAN HAS SURGICALLY ATTACHED HIMSELF TO LWJ

WE ALL LOVE HIM FOR IT

Wwx does not notice his child is missing bc he is haggling, which is important but maybe not as important as missing a child.

Omg the look of panic on his face when he finally realizes a-yuan is gone gutted me for half a second.

REALIZING YOU’VE LOST A CHILD IN A CROWDED PLACE IS THE WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD, OKAY

But i get over this quickly bc WWX FINDS A-YUAN CLINGING TO LWJ’S LEG.

GUYS

THIS SCENE

THIS SCENE MAKES ME SO HAPPY

IT’S MADE OF RAINBOWS AND BUTTERFLIES AND ITTY BITTY KITTIES

Okay, let's break it down because there’s JUST SO MUCH GOOD STUFF HERE WE NEED TO PROPERLY APPRECIATE ALL OF IT

FIRSTLY, lwj’s face.

There is a loudly crying child clinging to his leg

He is surrounded by nosy talkative strangers (PARENT strangers!!) all Judging™ him for his (lack of) parenting skills

And lwj’s face is about as External Panic as lwj can make it bc our boy is FREAKING OUT

THERE IS A CRYING CHILD

LATCHED ON TO HIS LEG

STRANGERS ARE ASSUMING HE’S THE FATHER

BUT HE ISN’T

THEY DON’T LISTEN WHEN HE TELLS THEM HE ISN’T

THEY SAY THEY HAVE THE SAME NOSE?? THEY SAY HE RESEMBLES THIS STRANGE UNKNOWN CRYING CHILD SOMEHOW??

AND WORSE STILL, THEY’RE SAYING HE’S A BAD FATHER

THEY’RE ALL LIKE, OH LOOK HE SCOLDED HIS POOR KID AND NOW WON’T EVEN HUG HIS KID TO MAKE HIM FEEL BETTER??

HIS FACE, OMG

HIS FACE SCREAMS: DEAR GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING HOW DO I MAKE IT STOP

LWJ IS DYING INSIDE

AND HE KIND OF WANTS TO DIE OUTSIDE

(There’s one guy who kinda takes pity on him and was like, ah, he’s your first kid, huh? I was like that with MY first kid but now i know everything after my wife gave a few more births. It’s a learning process!)

And ohoho, boy, does lwj learn (later, after horrible horrible things happen)

Secondly, WWX IS HAVING THE TIME OF HIS LIFE WATCHING ALL OF THIS UNFOLD BEFORE HIM

HIS SMILE IS HEART-STOPPINGLY BEAUTIFUL

HE’S STIFLING GIGGLES

IT’S SO CUTE I WANNA DIE

Finally, wwx takes pity on poor lan zhan

I would like to point out that he takes pity on lan zhan only after the crowd of Judgy Parents start asking A-Yuan where his mother is

And like, i don’t want to fall into the pit of heteronormativity and stereotypical gender roles, BUT THAT’S HILARIOUS

Wwx: Lan zhan!

Lwj looks up and the world fades away when he sees wwx, with his cute little smile, making his way towards him in slo-mo

Like, literally slow motion and literally the world fades away until basically only wwx is in focus, THIS IS HOW LWJ SEES WWX ALL THE TIME, OMG IT’S AMAZING

AND OF COURSE ~THEIR SONG~ IS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND

I’M SCREAMING, EVERYTHING IS GREAT

LWJ STARES AT HIM WITH SUCH YEARNING

And even when they’re right in front of each other, they KEEP STARING AT EACH OTHER, SOAKING UP EACH OTHER’S PRESENCE

WHICH I LOVE, but also there’s a crying child right there maybe take care of him??

Wwx: lan zhan, what a coincidence! What are you doing i yiling?

WHAT DO YOU THINK HE’S DOING IN YILING, WWX

IT’S NOT LIKE HIS SOULMATE LIVES AROUND THAT AREA OR ANYTHING

Lwj: night hunt. Passing by.

Short and sweet and to the point

I’m convinced it’s because his brain has short-circuited from the double whammy of Accidental Child Acquisition and OMG My Beautiful Soulmate is With Me and Smiling

Lwj: ....this child

Wwx: ah, yes, this is MY son

I read a post on tumblr that says the actual translation of that line was more like “ah, yes, i gave birth to this child”

Which would explain lwj’s absolutely stunned and confused expression

I mean, the fact that he doesn’t immediately dismiss this as the nonsense that it is, is absolutely HILARIOUS to me

Like, for a split second there he honestly believed wwx??

He must’ve been like, wait, is this a side effect of demonic cultivation??!?!?

That doesn’t sound right but i don’t know enough about demonic cultivation to dispute it

But then wwx starts giggling at him which gives away the game

Wwx: hey, lan zhan, what did you do? Why is a-yuan crying?

Lwj: I didn’t do anything

Wwx: ah, i see what happened. Lan zhan, as pretty as you look, you still have resting bitch face.

(no for real, wwx called him pretty, i died a little when i heard him say it and i’m pretty sure lwj did too)

Wwx: a-yuan doesn’t know any better so of course he’d look at you and start crying!!

Lwj stares at a-yuan (who is now clinging adorably to wwx) and you can see in his face that his New Life Mission is to get A-Yuan to Like Him.

It is IMPERATIVE that this small child Like Him. Not for any particular reason, of course. But this Must happen.

Even if it means having to go to an Ancient Fantasy China plastic surgeon to get his resting bitch face problem resolved

THANK GOD WE DON’T HAVE TO RESORT TO THAT

Wwx kneels down to comfort a-yuan and lwj watches him interact with this small child and VISIBLY SWALLOWS before looking away

Like it was too much cute to handle

Like oh shit, i want wwx’s children

Like oh shit, i want to be a dad???

GUYS WE SEE THE EXACT MOMENT LWJ REALIZES HE WANTS KIDS

THANK YOU WORLD FOR BLESSING US WITH THIS MOMENT

Okay, quiz time!

How do we make a small child stop crying?

Answer - Distraction!

What is the best distraction for a small child?

Answer - TOYS

Wwx pulls a-yuan to a toy stall

The music here gets all upbeat and playful. (In fact, it’s the same music that played in the ‘flower petals rain on LWJ’ scene in The One where NHS is Total Cockblock omg i just had to reference my own guide to make sure that was the right episode lol this is exactly why i’m making this). I love this music!!

So they admire the toys and wwx picks up one of them and is like, do you like this one?

A-yuan of course says yes bc all kids love toys

Then wwx is like, cool, and proceeds to drag a-yuan away from the toy stall without the toy

SAD FACE A-YUAN :(

Lwj sees Sad Face A-Yuan and does the Lan Clan version of running (aka lengthening his strides and quickening his steps slightly)

Lwj: wei ying, why didn’t you buy it for him?

Dude, he sounds almost accusatory here, it’s GREAT

Wwx: ??? why should I???

Lwj: you asked him if he wanted it, doesn’t that mean you’re going to buy it?

Wwx: asking is asking, buying is buying. Who says i have to buy something just because i asked about it?

Wwx, lwj has a point tho. It’s kinda mean to lead a kid on like that

And here lwj sounds all hesitant (and shy?? maybe??) like he doesn’t want to scare a-yuan again. He looks at him briefly

Lwj: which one...do you want.

Then when a-yuan doesn’t immediately burst into tears, he speaks more confidently.

Lwj: among those, which one did you want?

And a-yuan points to the toy he wants with all the confidence small children have when they know they’re about to get exactly what they want

Omg, lwj looks at wwx as soon as he sees which toy a-yuan wants

It’s a look that says I’M GETTING THIS CHILD A TOY AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME

And wwx just beams at him like a ray of sunshine!! HE’S MELTING INSIDE, YOU CAN TELL

HE’S ALL LIKE, OMG LAN ZHAN IS SO SWEET WITH CHILDREN

OMG LAN ZHAN WOULD BE A GREAT DAD

OMG I WANT LAN ZHAN TO CO-DAD A-YUAN WITH ME

Cut to a-yuan gleefully playing with his new toys

He and wwx are play fighting with cute little wooden swords and it’s SO ADORABLE I’M GONNA DIE

And lwj watches them for moment with the FONDEST LOOK ON HIS FACE

A-yuan notices that lwj is there again and immediately ditches wwx to cling to lwj’s leg

Smart, kid, smart

Butter up the rich guy who makes wwx smile

Wwx laughs: lan zhan, congrats! My kid likes you! He only hugs the legs of his favorite people and then never lets go

Lwj: *internally probably* i wish YOU’D hug me and never let me go

Also

YES! LIFE MISSION COMPLETE. WWX’S CHILD LIKES ME

Wwx: you should ditch your night hunt and have a meal with me

Lwj: a meal?

Lwj: *internally probably* OMG DID HE JUST ASK ME OUT ON A DATE?? AND HE CALLED ME PRETTY EARLIER??? TODAY IS THE BEST DAY

He then pretends to hesitate bc YOU GOTTA PLAY IT COOL

CAN’T CLUE HIM IN ON HOW DESPERATELY YOU WANT TO KEEP HIM WITH YOU FOREVER

BE COOL, LWJ, BE COOL, BE COOL

Wwx: c’mon, we hardly see each other! We can reminisce about the old days! It’ll be my treat~!

Wwx what, YOU HAVE NO MONEY WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING

Wwx grabs lwj’s arm and drags him away

Lwj’s brain rn: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But they run off WITHOUT A-YUAN??

Good thing a-yuan is quick on his feet, god damn

AND THAT’S THE END OF ONE OF THE BESTEST EPISODES OF THE SHOW

GOD I NEEDED THIS AFTER THE HELLSCAPE OF LAST EPISODE WHERE EVERYONE MADE ME ANGRY

And lets give a round of applause to our precious adorable A-Yuan who somehow managed to latch on to the one person in the entire town that is completely head over heels in love with wwx and who wwx has been pining for since their sad separation in the rain.

FOUR FOR YOU, A-YUAN. YOU GO, A-YUAN!!

Return to Masterpost

#WangXiantics #wangxian #the untamed #cql

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shinygoku · 3 years

Text

Top 10 CSatM Episodes (1/2)

Ahhh, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons...! Probably only Second to Thunderbirds when it comes to the most popular and beloved Supermarination programme, with only Stingray able to compete for that coveted Silver Medal. But for me, it’s my Favourite!

I could go on and on about it, but for now I’ll go over my personal picks for a Top 10, which may give some insight into what about the way the series ticks makes it so enthralling.

Without further ado, let’s jump in! I’m not ordering them by preference, but rather the Episode order as I watched them on my DVDs (tediously the ep listings never seem to be consistent :T) Spoilers for all eps covered! ✂

Winged Assassin

Starting off my Favourites is the 2nd episode of the whole show, featuring a good condensed version of the events of Ep 1 if ya missed it and probably the best explanation on the workings of Retrometabolism that canon media is ever gonna grant us. The plot is fairly straightforward, but what elevates this is the aforementioned Exposition, which feels more organic than it did last episode, the interactions between Scarlet and Blue, and even the shocking twist at the ending, where the mission that had been going so well falls at the very last hurdle, in spite of Spectrum’s best efforts.

One of the most chilling visuals in the series is a surfaced shard of a downed passenger plane floating up from the sea, before the camera pans out to show the duplicated plane flying through the air, and another dark shot later on, of Scarlet’s limp hand with blood running down after he died in the effort to prevent the massive explosion that occurs regardless.

Winged Assassin sets a lot of standards of things to follow; traits like massive collateral damage just as part of the Mysteron’s grander scheme, the close partnership of Scarlet and Blue, Scarlet’s seldom used Sixth Sense and even the occasional downer ending, where the Mysterons manage to sneak a victory in and actually kill or destroy their stated target.

White as Snow

This episode shines a very interesting light on the dynamics between Col. White and Scarlet. It’s obviously one of a superior giving orders most of the time, but in a twist from the somewhat strict nature of Jeff Tracy over his sons who show respect to their father by not arguing back, with these two there’s actually the occassional spark of friction, that Scarlet will voice when he doesn’t like the commands and will only reluctantly go through the motions in the situation. I’m referring mostly to the first Mysteron attack, where a satellite is on a collision course with Cloudbase, but Scarlet unsubtly opposes the plan as there’s the possibility of innocent people on board who would get killed if Spectrum shot it down first. However, he’s overruled... and it turns out that it was indeed a trap, the people on board had been exploded hours ago and what was shot down was a Replicant copy. And that’s just the first half of the episode! But I find it interesting that again, back in Thunderbirds, the call to not remotely destroy something like that on the offchance it was populated would be the Correct course of action, but in this show pragmatism is needed, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Anyway, the episode has another Mysteron attack aboard a submarine, with plenty of tension... but yet, there’s something of a comedic bend to the episode, such as a furious White shouting at the currently dead Scarlet, much to the Naval crew’s confusion, and the scene at the end which I’ve taken the picture from. The weakest part of the episode is probably Blue in charge of Cloudbase, as he doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing and I feel they coulda done more with him. Oh well! At least we got the fantastic music insert, which is also titled White as Snow.

Operation Time

Probably ranking in my Top 3, Operation Time is pretty remarkably both one of the most tension filled... yet an extremely funny episode. I guess some of that’s just due to my own odd sense of humour, though some moments are clearly intentional. Both the operation scenes, the Mysteron’s pursuit of the Doctor, and finally Spectrum chasing the Mysteron!Doctor are all played very suspensefully, and I find myself holding my breath. But then the funny scenes, like everything with Magenta and how hilariously pissy and unsubtle the Fake!Doctor gets leave me in stitches! [pun unintended lol]

I dunno, maybe some of the amusement effect is enhanced by the strong contrast between the scenes. Also we get a very grisly death for the Fake!Doctor and this episode establishes weaknesses for the Mysterons that will come up in future instalments. There’s a lot this ep has to offer, even something of an insight into 60′s medicine (though the series is set in 2068). While an extremely minor point, both the scenes with operations have the pssssshh.....fsssssshhhh sound that I associate with ventilators even though they ain’t being used, what’s up with that? But it’s another thing to add to the Atmosphere so s’all good, man.

Odd that I can’t think of much else to put here, I love it so much but maybe it’s so solid in the couple of things it does that’s all there really is to say? I’m feeling frustrated at how I don’t seem to have written enough for it, but trust me when I say it’s excellent and that it’s absolutely a Must Watch if you’re giving the series a look. (Though again, I’m spoiling each ep covered so uhh... read at your own risk if you’re using this to judge it!)

The Heart of New York

An interesting tale that I’ve actually Heard more than I’ve watched, as the audio adaptation is a free sample on the official Gerry Anderson site! [At least at the time of writing lmao, it’s worth a look anyway. This message was not paid for.]

This story is somewhat unique in that the Mysterons’ plan is pretty tame by their standards. They want to blow up... a Bank. Sure, it contributes to the long game they play, causing disruption and destruction, but compared to the casual massive collateral damage they inflict as part of a more focused murder attempt (again, see Winged Assassin and the passenger plane) this is small potatoes. But still, they end up feeling more moral in this episode than the actual ne’er do wells, a trio of would-be Robbers. These guys are pretty assholish, deliberately using the horrible cosmic war that’s already taken lives in the triple digits to hide behind while they take their pickings from a vault. Captain Black locking these morons in with the explosives feels like poetic justice, that they really did get what they wanted and are punished in kind.

Maybe this feeds the Mysteron’s point, that humans are aggressive, corrupt and selfish... though Colonel White challenges this view at the end of the episode, stating the robbers aren’t indicative of humanity as a whole. The whole shebang is a lot like The Twilight Zone, honestly. All we need is Rod Serling to open and close the episode...

Point 783

This episode is a bit harder to go into depth on, to be honest, it’s not one with a particular gimmic that makes it more memorable, but it’s a very solid ep all the same. There’s still a fair few layers that keep me thinking, like how it seems one of the Methane Trunk drivers had seemingly been Mysterionised offscreen to enable the Mysteron’s main pawns to me made. Then the first attempt to kill the Supreme Commander is thwarted by Scarlet’s (somewhat inconsistant) Mysteron Sense and perspex tubes that take their sweet time to descend and don’t even prioritise the actual target lol

Anyway, the meat of the episode is focused on the guest vehicle, the Unitron implacable unmanned Tank that can be controlled remotely by human operator or programmed to destroy something particular, and it will not stop or slow down no matter what’s thrown at it. Something something Proto-Drone Warfare commentary. The Mysterons’ last big attempt to assassinate today’s dude has one of their Mysterionised guys from earlier become the target, unknown to everyone else until he draws his gun inside the SPV (who even points out the 6th sense didn’t activate!). Scarlet gets shot 3 times but manages to eject himself and the Supreme Commander, which leads to the above scene, which offers a nice, human response.

Mr Supreme Commander later chews Blue out as it emerges instead of Scarlet going to a Hospital within 10 minutes, Spectrum insisted on waiting for one of their Helicopters to pick him up, which took 3 hours. Poor Blue has to try reassuring the army guys that Scarlet will be fine, truuuuust hiiiim. It makes me wonder if Spectrum is making things easier or harder overall by keeping his Retrometabolism under their hats, though I can understand they’d have reservations, but just trying to gloss over it with a ‘no no, it’s fine, he’ll get better.’ type answer doesn’t seem all that convincing. But I enjoy that it’s semi challenged here. And this episode summary ended up longer than expected cause all the Thinking I’ve done, haha!

=======

This has gotten a lot longer than expected and will be Two Parts! Find the second half here~

#Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons #Captain Scarlet #Supermarionation #Gerry Anderson #CutCat Top Lists

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xerohourcheese · 5 years

Video

youtube

Mission to the Unknown Recreation | FULL EPISODE | Doctor Who

A recreation of of the precursor to The Dalek Master Plan, the only story not to feature The Doctor, The Tardis, of any companions. It was released on YouTube at 17:45 BST 9th October 2019, exactly 54 years after it was first broadcast.

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llpodcast · 5 months

Link

Season 7: Episode 341 - DOCTOR WHO: Mission into the Unknown/The Myth Makers

Mission To The Unknown 9 October 1965

The only standalone regular episode of the show's original run, it serves as an introduction to the 12-part story The Daleks' Master Plan. It is notable for the complete absence of the regular cast and the TARDIS; it is the only serial in the show's history not to feature the Doctor at all, although William Hartnell was still credited on-screen. The story focuses on Space Security Agent Marc Cory (Edward de Souza) and his attempts to warn Earth of the Daleks' plan to take over the Solar System.

The Myth Makers 16 October - 6 November 1965

Based on Homer's Iliad, the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his travelling companions Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) and Steven (Peter Purves) land in Troy during the Trojan War. The Doctor is captured by the Greeks and forced to formulate a plan for taking the city, while Steven and Vicki are captured by the Trojans and forced to devise a means of banishing the Greeks; the latter duo meet...

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timeagainreviews · 5 years

Text

Fury from the Deepfake

Earlier this year, Doctor Who fans were treated to some rather exciting, yet strange news. Students at the University of Central Lancashire had started a film project re-creating the lost First Doctor episode "Mission to the Unknown." I say "First Doctor," lightly, as it's the only televised story of Doctor Who to never feature the Doctor. Because of this, and it being only a single episode, it seems an obvious candidate for re-creation. Not to badmouth any of the actors involved in the episode, but none of them are irreplaceable. Even without Nicolas Briggs giving the project some weight, no sacred cows would be in jeopardy. Nobody has to fill the shoes of William Hartnell or his two lovely companions.

When I covered the new animated version of "The Macra Terror," I discussed the importance of re-creations. While a small portion of the fandom dislikes the practice, most fans agree that they're a good thing. The re-creation has taken on many different forms throughout the years. Classic Comics compiled the tele-snaps of lost episodes with captions allowing readers to follow the story. The Target novelisation is a sort of re-creation. For some, they act as the only way to experience lost episodes. There are the unofficial reconstructions from videographers like Loose Cannon. YouTuber Josh Snares has been working on some rather promising reconstructions of his own as well. Many of the narrated TV soundtracks have recently been pressed to vinyl. While it seems as though BBC is really pushing their animations, are those the final form of the reconstruction?

If you'd have asked me before the UCLAN students' project, I may have said yes. Now, I'm not so sure. The BBC seems to have sanctioned the project. Doctor Who actors Peter Purves and Edward de Souza even showed up on set to give their blessing. There's not a lot known as to exactly what sort of release the project will receive. Perhaps the BBC will release it on the Doctor Who YouTube channel. Or maybe it will be a blu-ray extra in the near future. But which blu-ray? An animation of "The Dalek's Masterplan," perhaps? Regardless, I believe it opens the door for an entirely new kind of re-creation. Enter deepfake.

For those of you not in the know, deepfake is a somewhat new form of cgi that uses facial recognition software to swap out a person's face for another, to varying degrees of success. You may remember it from the uncanny video of Jennifer Lawrence with Steve Buscemi's face. While many people fear deepfake's impact on identity theft and national security, there's also an undeniable artistic implication. Facial swap technology has been around for years in various forms. As a concept, it cropped up in places like the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie "The Running Man." In 1994's "The Crow," Brandon Lee's face was swapped in after his tragic on-set death. With deepfake technology becoming more and more refined, it's also becoming cheaper and cheaper. Which is the point I'm here to make to the BBC- it doesn't cost much!

If you follow my logic, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. What if we employed the methods of both the animations and the student film? What if the only thing an actor has to do is actually fill William Hartnell's shoes? Nobody has to recite his dialogue, they only need to be his body double. Deepfake can then follow the faces of actors mouthing the lines to the original soundtracks. With the same faithfulness to set design and filming that the students of UCLAN gave us, these episodes could see the light of day once more. Mind you, the sets would cost something, but weighed against the cost of animation, probably fairly comparable when you consider the budget of classic Who.

Let's face it, nothing will ever be as satisfying as the originals, but that's part of the fun of re-creating classic Doctor Who. It's a chance to be creative with the source material. But what about modern Doctor Who? How could deepfake impact the current series? There's no more obvious example than the 50th Anniversary special. While "The Day of the Doctor," was a critical success and loved by many (myself included) there is a glaring omission of the surviving Doctors. As I said in my article about older companions, the War Doctor was used as a sort of filler classic Doctor. Ironically, one of the show's biggest setbacks is time.

When they wheeled out DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, and William Shatner for six Star Trek films, there were no issues. But if you want to make a Voyager or Next Gen movie several years later, you have to explain why a hologram or an android got fat and old. Sure, Data could have upgraded with old age to feel more human, but we all know it's a dumb idea. While the Doctor is not an android or a hologram, they all regenerate. If Six regenerates with curly blonde hair (and Sylvester McCoy's face) then you can't see him with Colin Baker's wispy white hair. Though poor Peter Davison's weight and hair loss were explained by "time differentials" in "Time Crash."

In typical Doctor Who fashion, this multiple Doctor episode came with a caveat. Someone is always missing. It's funny then that the very technology I'm suggesting was used in the advert for "The Day of the Doctor." In a rather impressive sequence, we see several Doctors' faces on body doubles. We even get the closing shot of the episode where Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor joins his past incarnations to stand on a cloud. Sadly, the body doubles stood so still, I originally thought they were mannequins. (Gasp! Autons!)

It's inspiring to think that by 2023, Doctor Who will be celebrating 60 years in time and space. By then, it's entirely plausible that deepfake technology could get to a point where an episode like "The Fourteen Doctors," could happen. If we can replace William Hartnell with Richard Hurndall and David Bradley, or Matt Smith with Jacob Dudman, we can certainly replace Jon Pertwee with his son while a deepfake Second Doctor runs around with Fraiser Hines doing the lines. Doctor Who is a show that lends itself to these kinds of innovations. The very essence of this concept was instilled with the inspired concept of regeneration, or "renewal," as they called it back then.

I'll admit it, deepfake still looks pretty ropey, but so did most of the CGI in the Ninth Doctor's run. There are so many reasons why something like deepfake is perfect for Doctor Who. It's a chance outside of the comic books to see Jodie Whittaker running alongside Tom Baker and K9! We can create lost episodes. We can update missing scenes. There are multiple precedents within the show to look into the technology. We can finally do one better than ghoulishly sticking the Brigadier into a Cyberman suit. And if nothing else, we could finally get Christopher Eccleston back, sort of.

Well friends, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this quick little article. It's something to think on if nothing else. On a personal note, we finally finished building K-9! (Pics below) We're very proud of our accomplishment. The one we built is my friend Gerry's to keep at his house. We will be building a second K9 for me, however, so expect to see pics of K9 Mk II very soon! I may post a video as he does talk, but for now, enjoy these pictures!

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Doctor Who - ‘An Unearthly Child’ Review

(aka 100,000 B.C., The Tribe of Gum, The Stone Age, or The Paleolithic Age)

Two teachers follow a mysterious student into a junkyard, spawning multiple generations of sci-fi geeks.

Season 1, Serial A Starring William Hartnell as the Doctor With William Russell (Ian), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara) and Carole Ann Ford (Susan) Written by Anthony Coburn and C.E. Webber Directed by Waris Hussein Produced by Verity Lambert

Episodes and Broadcast Dates:

An Unearthly Child – 23 Nov 1963

The Cave Of Skulls – 30 Nov 1963

The Forest Of Fear – 7 Dec 1963

The Firemakers – 14 Dec 1963

Plot Summary

At the end of another day at London’s Coal Hill School, history teacher Barbara Wright and science teacher Ian Chesterton compare notes about an enigmatic student, Susan Foreman. Her knowledge of history and science surpasses their own, but is also awkwardly unaware of the ins-and-outs of contemporary life. They trail her to her given address, 76 Totters Lane, only to find a scrapyard wherein sits a rather incongruous Police Box emitting an eerie hum. They encounter Susan’s grandfather, who brusquely shoos them away. But when Susan’s voice is heard from inside, they push past him into the Police Box and find themselves in a vast futuristic chamber, much larger on the inside. The old man is furious at their intrusion. Susan explains that they are exiles from another world and another time, and the Police Box is their ship, the TARDIS. The old man is paranoid and irascible, certain that the teachers will expose their secret, and despite Susan’s panicked pleas he activates the TARDIS, leaving 60’s London behind.

The quartet find themselves in the Stone Age, and are soon abducted by a tribe of primitive humans. There is a power struggle for control of the tribe between Za, son of the late elder, and the outsider Kal, focused on the secret of making fire. When the old man announces he can make fire, they become pawns in the struggle. Along the way, Ian and Barbara introduce the tribe to concepts of mercy and helpfulness, that in ‘their tribe,’ the firemaker is the least powerful person, and that one tyrant is not as strong as a unified collective. This lesson is lost on the old man; when Za pursues them through the forest and is attacked by a wild beast, he is perfectly willing to kill the wounded man to help them escape. Ultimately they make fire for the tribe, Za kills Kal, and the travelers escape to the TARDIS.

It is made clear that Susan’s grandfather, who is known as the Doctor, cannot control the navigational systems of the TARDIS, and may never be able to return Ian and Barbara home. They arrive at their next destination and go out to explore. They do not notice the TARDIS’s radiation meter inching into the danger zone...

Analysis and Notes

-- Episode One’s viewership was quite low – possibly due to news coverage of President Kennedy’s assassination the day before, possibly due to a number of regional power cuts – so the BBC granted a virtually unprecedented re-broadcast immediately prior to Episode Two. More people saw the repeat broadcast than the initial one.

-- Episode One was a re-write and re-shoot of the un-broadcast pilot episode, which was beset by technical difficulties and featured an even harsher characterization of the Doctor.

--Most of the principle guest cast would appear in future serials: Derek Newark (Za) in Inferno, Althea Charleton (Hur) in The Time Meddler, Jeremy Young (Kal) in Mission to the Unknown, and Eileen Way (Old Woman) in The Creature from the Pit.

Okay, all you Smith-heads, Tennant worshipers and Capaldians (all three of you, myself included), listen up. The sci-fi institution you know and love originated over a half century ago, right here. Before the action figures, the magazines, the thousands of fansites, the DVD’s, the convention circuit, the minisodes, and all the flood of BBC Enterprises swag, there was An Unearthly Child. And in some cases, it looks and feels very much like the show you’re watching now; there’s a big blue (well, dark gray) box called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, and it makes the same wheezy noise as it takes off and lands. There’s a mysterious central character called the Doctor and a handful of travelling companions. But there are also enormous differences.

In the current series, the TARDIS can land anywhere it wants to. But initially the central concept of the Classic Era was the TARDIS’s unreliability. This meant that when the Doctor takes off with Barbara and Ian on board at the end of episode one, there’s virtually no chance of getting them home again. In future serials where the Doctor and crew need to get to a specific place, they have to hitch a ride.

The early days of the show were a sharp contrast from the ethos displayed in the upcoming Series Nine catchphrase, “I’m the Doctor. I save people.” In most cases, they landed in a certain place or time, got separated from the TARDIS, and spent the rest of the series more focused on Not Dying and/or Not Changing History than they were about liberating oppressed humanoids or saving Earth from alien invasion. And especially in this opening serial, the only person the Doctor feels obliged to save is himself.

Having never been companions by choice, Barbara and Ian’s primary goal throughout their time on the TARDIS was to get home again. Even when they weren’t so much traveling companions as kidnapping victims, this meant getting back to the TARDIS whenever they were separated from it, and keeping the Doctor – their kidnapper – safe at all times since he was the only person who could operate it. Ultimately they do get home again, but end up using a slightly more reliable Dalek time capsule to do it, and we never quite learn how they explain their two-year absence to the Coal Hill headmaster.

And we have to assume they left no significant others behind. Because if there’s one consistent theme amongst the TARDIS’s early classic era companions, it’s that they have no backstories or families or home life that’s disrupted when they meet the Doctor. They’re orphans, bachelors, and free agents. No room for outside domestic drama on the TARDIS.

As for the actual story:

I can’t help but fall in step with the Received Wisdom that the first episode is classic and the remaining three are comparatively mediocre. That said, the Stone Age episodes are very noteworthy. The initial concept for the series was that science fiction and historical stories would balance each other – thus the need for a history teacher and a science teacher. The historical stories would follow the format established here; the TARDIS crew gets separated from the ship, and after a few cycles of capture-escape-recapture where they encounter historical figures or crucial historical events, manage to escape to the TARDIS without getting killed or dramatically changing history.

And the Doctor couldn’t be further removed from how we come to know him now. Selfish, paranoid, and bad-tempered, over-protective of Susan, a kidnapper, a would-be murderer, a refugee rather than a traveler, he’s a quintessential anti-hero, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was the only one who could pilot the TARDIS, odds are they’d boot him out. It’s his dealing with Barbara and Ian that over time gives him a moral compass, either making him a heroic figure, or re-making him one after whatever as-yet-undetermined incident caused him to flee.

The Stone Age tribe is surprisingly multi-dimensional. They’re not ignorant, just uneducated. The oldest among them are fearful of new technology (i.e. fire). The savage conditions in which they live, where death lurks around every corner, render concepts like tenderness, kindness, and democracy as luxuries. You may just have to grit your teeth as the social liberalism is delivered with a side of colonialism; the well-dressed white bourgeois travelers drop into the jungle like the Galactic Peace Corps to teach the dirty savages how to live better. Also a dash of sexism as the girl – named, appropriately enough, Hur – exists as the prize to be awarded to either Kal or Za.

It’s evident that the BBC wanted this program to succeed. Even though they put the show in the young and relatively inexperienced hands of producer Verity Lambert and director Waris Hussein, possibly so they could be scapegoats for the program’s potential failure, they allowed the pilot episode to be re-tooled and re-filmed, and they re-broadcast Episode One immediately prior to Episode Two.

As this is the very first serial, it’s worthy to note which concepts have stayed etched in granite over a half-century and which have been more malleable (if not rejected entirely):

The Doctor’s Name – Susan only refers to him as “Grandfather.” Ian recalls, before they meet, that Susan’s grandfather is “a Doctor or something.” Since the junkyard’s front door reads I.M. FOREMAN, SCRAP MERCHANT, and Susan’s given surname is Foreman, he calls him “Dr. Foreman” in episode two, to which the old man replies, “Huh? Doctor Who? What is he talking about?” strongly suggesting that “Foreman” was never their name. Does one require a PhD to run a junkyard? Or are they squatters, with Susan adopting the name on the door? If so, whatever happened to I.M. Foreman? He never explicitly instructs Ian or Barbara as to how he wishes to be addressed, and basically adopts the title “The Doctor” by default.

The TARDIS – Susan claims to have made up the name of the TARDIS as an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space, as if this TARDIS was the only one in existence. For most of the first season, they refer to the TARDIS simply as “The Ship.” In episode two, the Doctor notes that the external appearance of the ship is supposed to blend in with its surroundings (though the term “Chameleon Circuit” would not be coined for over a decade), suggesting this is the first time it has failed; with rare exceptions, it would never function again. And the most pivotal concept about the TARDIS is that the Doctor cannot navigate it properly. Either he never learned, or he forgot, or the mechanism is faulty; it’s never explicitly stated, but once they leave London 1963, there’s no guarantee they’ll ever get back.

Their Origins – No Time Lords, no Gallifrey, these terms don’t appear for years to come. The details they give in the first episode are sketchy. They’re exiles, wanderers in time, cut off from their own planet. No mention is ever given of Susan’s parents (i.e. the Doctor’s offspring, presumably). They’re hiding on Earth, and have lived incognito for several months; from what and why are never stated.

Been Here Before – Barbara lends Susan a very thick book about the French Revolution, which Susan reads in a split second and remarks, “That’s not how it happened!” Though no mention of a prior visit was ever made later in Season One when they land in Robespierre’s post-revolutionary Paris. The gift of superhuman speed-reading appears again in the New Series’ reboot, Rose.

In Summation

You could be forgiven if you only watch the first episode, but what an episode it is! It’s as noteworthy and epoch-shifting a debut as the Beatles’ Please Please Me eight months earlier (or their follow-up, With The Beatles, issued the day before). Yet despite creator Sydney Newman’s directive of “No Bug Eyed Monsters!”, the program’s watershed moment was yet to come, and British popular culture would never be the same.

Rating: 3 out of 4 epoch-shifting moments in British pop culture.

John Geoffrion balances a career in hospital fundraising with semi-pro theatre gigs, and watches way too much Doctor Who and Britcoms in between. He'll create an author page after he puts up a few more reviews.

#Doctor Who #Classic Who #The Doctor #First Doctor #Susan Foreman #Barbara Wright #Ian Chesterton #Doctor Who Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive

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lushscreamqueen · 3 years

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THE KILLER SHREWS on the Schlocky Horror Picture Show

August 03, 2008

OPENING: Hello, good evening, and welcome to the Schlocky Horror Picture Show. I'm your host, Nigel Honeybone. As the 1950's grew to a close so did the era of the giant radioactive beast. Spawned from the nuclear fears stemming from World War II, the movies saw dozens of animals super-sized due to one of the popular catch words of the time: Radiation! By decades end, just about every manner of giant beastie had been seen. Lizards, spiders, ants, grasshoppers, the list goes on. The major studios had lost the inclination to finance such projects, and gradually re-focused their attention on new trends like nudies, bikies and gothic horror. That is not to say that movies with ginogorous critters didn't exist. It's just that, more often than not, it was left to the little guy, the independent producer or filmmaking rookie to unleash such monsters. Witness tonight, if you dare, as a group of people trapped on an island during a storm must contend with a bunch of whippets in wigs, in the 1959 anti-classic, Attack Of The Killer Shrews! BREAK: Don't go away, we'll be right back with more dogs In drag, and then after the ads we'll get back to the movie. MIDDLE: Welcome back to the Schlocky Horror Picture Show. Attack Of The Killer Shrews, also known as just Killer Shrews, was the brainchild of Texas millionaire Gordon McLendon. Born in Paris, Texas in 1921 he would go on to win a nationwide political-essay contest, attend Yale University where he studied Far Eastern languages, work for the campus radio station, and served as business manager for the Yale Literary Magazine, all before the U.S. got involved in World War Two. After the war he bought an interest in a radio station and built up a following for his live baseball game broadcasts. Having built up quite a name for himself as a pioneer in the radio field, McLendon now turned his attention to film...a regrettable decision for producer and audience alike. He and his family owned several drive-ins and theatres. Like many drive-in owners discovered, their outlets for screening films were considered the bottom of the barrel by the pretentious lot in Hollywood and many in tinseltown tried their darndest to keep their films out of the drive-in chains. This only led to the drive-in owners taking the next logical step, they financed their own films. In 1959 McLendon financed three films: The Killer Shrews, The Giant Gila Monster, and My Dog Buddy, none of which are remembered as sterling examples of cinematic skill, if they're remembered at all. James Best, known far and wide as Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane on television's original Dukes of Hazzard, plays Thorne Sherman and captains his own ship. Sounds cool, but sadly it isn't any bigger than the SS Minnow, and the only person he has to boss around is Rook. He's a glorified gopher, delivering supplies out to Doctor Craigis on his island. Sherman is a man's man, which by 1950s terms means he drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, has an appreciative eye for the ladies and is ready for a fistfight on a moment's notice, the kind of simplistic brute we are gradually evolving away from, a little too slowly if you ask me. His Honour Judge Henry Dupree plays Rook Griswold and looks like he could have played the title role in that live action Fat Albert movie: Hey, hey, hey! He's Sherman's sole crewman, although the two seem to share a real friendship rather than just bossy Captain/abused crew dynamic. Poor Rook is the first person to bite it in The Killer Shrews, or more accurately, the first to get bitten. Repeatedly, as a matter of fact. In this way this film helped start the stereotype of the token black character becoming the first victim in horror films. You may think films like Night Of The Living Dead and Alien were breakthroughs for the token black character in American horror, but a pessimist might say they simply get more screen-time before being killed-off. Baruch Lumet plays Doctor Marlowe Craigis. He may not seem like much, but he fathered one of Hollywoods greatest producer/directors, Sidney Lumet, famous for

Twelve Angry Men, Failsafe, The Pawnbroker and Dog Day Afternoon. Speaking of dogs, he also directed the all-black musical The Wiz starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. Nobody's perfect. Anyway, Craigis says he hails from Sweden, and has come to the island of The Killer Shrews to further his scientific work, but you and I both know it was to keep his sexy daughter out of the Swedish porn industry. Craigis wants to shrink people, or at least slow down our metabolisms so the Earth's resources will last longer when overpopulation becomes a big problem. I think a bigger problem might be smarmy foreign scientists who screw around with Mother Nature... Swedish-born Ingrid Goude, a former Miss Universe, plays Ann Craigis, Doctor Craigis sexy daughter. She claims to be a zoologist, which is about as convincing as Nicole Kidman playing a brain surgeon. Though to be honest, I wouldn't mind checking-out her knowledge of biology, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Ann serves no purpose here other than to scream on occasion, and to provide Captain Sherman with a new First Mate, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Ken Curtis, another famous redneck, plays Jerry Farrell, part of Doctor Craigis research team. Curtis was inducted into the Hall Of Great Western Performers in 1981 for his performance as Festus in almost 300 episodes of Gunsmoke. Jerry's vital role in the mission is whining, cowering, boozing it up and generally being a waste of skin. He despises Sherman from the start, probably because he recognises that Sherman is much more of a man than he ever will be. I wouldn't get attached to Jerry if I were you. Played by Gordon McLendon, the Texas millionaire responsible for this mess Doctor Radford Baines is another one of the scientists helping Doctor Craigis with his work. This guy is really devoted to his work. In fact, he can hardly think of anything else and walks around muttering things like "Hematoxic Syndrome." His last moments on Earth are spent in devotion to science and furthering the understanding of mankind, instead of doing something really important like trying to get laid or run away. Unknown Alfredo DeSoto plays Mario. Despite the Italian name, Mario is apparently Mexican. He's most likely a servant of some kind, though his main duty seems to be as a device to advance the plot. Whatever he does, it doesn't involve too much physical labor, as Mario's mid section is expanding faster than a balloon. He isn't around much. Just long enough to say things like "Si, senor," "No, senor" and "Aaaahhhh!". It also explains why the shrews ran out of food. Mario doesn't look like he was missing any meals... Attack Of The Killer Shrews gives real meaning to the phrase Low Budget. Filmed on a mere handful of sets and featuring scene after scene of people talking, often with their back to the camera, with little in the way of action, and one could easily dismiss this as pure manure. The fact that the giant shrews are played by dogs in drag when they're not being represented by clumsy puppets, and one could not be blamed for turning up their nose at this movie. If there is a saving grace, it's the short running time. So yes, there's lots of boring talk, but there is also enough monster action to satisfy fans of such schlocky goodness. Besides, I shouldn't have to explain how funny it is to watch somebody scream in terror at a Collie wearing carpet remnants, when the dog is rolling over on his back obviously expecting a belly rub! And it's with that thought in mind we now return you to the carnivorous canine creepiness that is Attack Of The Killer Shrews! CLOSING: It's alright, you can open your eyes now. How exactly do Killer Shrews assimilate poison into their systems, anyway? For instance, I love to drink Absinthe, and I do mean Absinthe, not that over-the-counter swill. I've consumed hundreds if not thousands of litres of it over the years, over three thousand litres just in the last fifteen years, but I still haven't started frothing with green poison yet. If I can't assimilate my own favourite

beverage after drinking thousands of bottles, how can the shrews do so with poison after just one sampling of it? Anyway, please join me next week so I can poke you in the eye with another frightful excursion to the backside of the Public Domain, filmed in glorious 2-D black & white Regularscope on...The Schlocky Horror Picture Show. Toodles!

by Lushscreamqueen

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esonetwork · 6 years

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Star Wars legends: ESO Network chats with author Timothy Zahn

New Post has been published on https://esopodcast.com/star-wars-legends-eso-network-chats-with-author-timothy-zahn/

Star Wars legends: ESO Network chats with author Timothy Zahn

He may not be the “Chosen One,” use Force powers, or wield a lightsaber, but Timothy Zahn is most definitely still a Star Wars legend.

Back in the early ’90s, the author played a key role in the establishment of the Star Wars series of novels called the “Expanded Universe” — now known as “Star Wars Legends” — and created such well-loved characters as ex-Imperial agent Mara Jade and Grand Admiral Thrawn. Zahn recently started writing for the new Star Wars canon with the book “Thrawn” and its sequel, “Thrawn: Alliances.” “Alliances” was released in July 2018 and features two separate timelines: one set in the Clone Wars era with Thrawn/Anakin teaming up on a mission, and one set in the original trilogy era with the Emperor deploying Thrawn/Vader to the unknown regions of the galaxy.

At Dragon Con 2018, ESO Network reporters Mary Ogle and Ashley Pauls had a chance to sit down with Zahn and chat about Star Wars, the art of writing, and just who might make a good Thrawn if the character ever appears in one of the live action films. Read an excerpt from our interview below, and listen to the full interview on Earth Station One Podcast Episode 437: https://esopodcast.com/the-earth-station-one-podcast-437-the-big-lebowski-live-from-dragon-con/

ESO: What has been your experience getting to work for the new canon? You kind of have an interesting perspective — you wrote for the old Expanded Universe and now you’re writing for the new. What’s that transition been like and what have you enjoyed about that?

Zahn: Just as a side note, it’s canon and Legends. They’re trying to train us to [use], not “new canon,” not EU — canon, Legends.

It’s tricky to get used to that.

It is very much, and I’m told [Lucasfilm’s] Story Group occasionally goofs up on that as well. (laughter) They’re trying to get us to talk that way. The big difference with writing in canon is that there’s so much less established at the moment. There were over 200 books in Legends that you had to work around and make sure you weren’t double-booking characters, having them be two places at the same time. Because we’ve just started up the last few years with canon, there aren’t nearly as many diggings in the field, as it were, finding/mining the ore and all that. So it’s easier to find a place and a time where you can put your story. Story Group also is much more efficient than the old days, when we were all trying to keep track of things ourselves, because they have a finger on the pulse of everything that’s being done at Lucasfilm.

I don’t have to worry about continuity or stepping on somebody else’s toes, especially somebody I don’t even know what they’re working on. Story Group will pick up on all of that. So there’s a freedom to, okay, I will put TIE fighters in this era; if there’s something wrong with that, Story Group will pick up on that and will get it changed so I don’t have to worry nearly as much about what I’m doing in continuity.

Aside from that it’s pretty much the same as it’s always been. We’ve got the extra layer of Disney on top, but I never see that.

So do you find that freeing or constraining?

Oh, pretty much freeing, because again I don’t have to worry about things. With my first canon book, “Thrawn,” somebody asked me after it was published if Tarkin was a Grand Moff at the time I’ve got him in that story, and I can unequivocally say yes because Story Group didn’t bat an eye on that. If that was the wrong rank for him at that time, they would have caught it. The fact they didn’t change it means yes, that is correct.

In “Thrawn: Alliances,” Anakin and later Darth Vader team up with Thrawn. Was that an idea that you came up with, or was that something Lucasfilm approached you to say, we’d like this book with these two characters together?

Well, I left the hook in the “Thrawn” novel of Anakin and Thrawn having met, and so when it came time to pitch another book that’s what I suggested, “I’d like to do the Thrawn and Anakin [story].” They wanted a Thrawn/Vader. So we compromised and did both.

Is it usually you approaching them or do they approach you?

Typically, I mean almost always in the past, it has been them approaching me. I think with “Thrawn: Alliances,” it was more or less a general yes, we’re going to do a second book because the first one has done so well. Clearly the audience is out there for Thrawn; what else can we do?

One of the things that was interesting in reading “Thrawn: Alliances” is that Vader/Anakin and Thrawn have such different perspectives and means of responding to situations. What was it like digging into both those two characters and then contrasting the way they approach the world?

One of the fun things about adding new characters to the Star Wars universe is seeing how other established characters interact with them. And you’ve got the contrast with Vader, who’s been sent out on a mission with Thrawn, and Anakin, who has more or less been thrown into the situation with Thrawn, not exactly of his own choosing or of his own volition. In that one, Anakin and Thrawn are largely reacting to other things rather than being proactive; they’re having to react to what the enemy throws at them.

You also have to be careful that Vader is not stupid; Vader is very smart, Anakin is smart, they’re both tactically knowledgeable, you know good pilots, etc. So you have to balance, it’s not just a “Thrawn is the smart one, Vader is the powerful one.” You do have to change off back and forth. And you also have to be aware that Vader, if he is displeased with somebody, may just choke him. To balance that is [the idea] that the Emperor still has use of Thrawn, and Vader’s knowledge that he’s seen this guy in action before and he knows he can deliver. So when Thrawn says, trust me, a lesser person might find themselves kind of floating off the floor; Vader will be a little more patient with Thrawn because “I’ve seen he can deliver, so let’s watch and see what happens.” I did get a couple of concerns from some of the people at Lucasfilm about that. So I added in bits of okay, Vader is not only being constrained by the Emperor’s will but he’s also curious. I can see Vader and Anakin having a certain amount of curiosity: “All right, let’s see how this plays out…I can always choke him later.”

It’s been really cool to see Thrawn come into the “Rebels” TV show; would you ever like to see a live action Thrawn? And if so, if you could cast anybody, who would you like to see in that role?

People ask me that one all the time; the problem is that I see characters in terms of attitude and personality, not necessarily face or voice. I have heard several suggestions that I think I could easily go with. One is Benedict Cumberbatch. Second would be Jason Isaacs from Harry Potter and so many other things. Lars Mikkelsen who does the voice on “Rebels” is an accomplished actor in his own right; he could certainly play the character. And I think I lean a little towards Jeremy Irons. He could pull it off. But again, any actor who could capture the presence, the global awareness of the character, the calm demeanor. The makeup and the contact lenses are easy. It’s the pulling off the attitude.

Would I like to see him in a live action? If they did him right. I do not want to see him messed up by somebody who didn’t understand the character. The “Rebels” team understood him very well, and they knew how to write for him.

Do you have a favorite fan encounter that stands out to you? Or maybe it’s difficult to pick one.

I think what mostly jumps out at me with fan encounters is, I’m always grateful people like the books, of course. I mean, that’s my job to entertain, and to give them their money’s and time’s worth. But there’s an extra bonus when someone says “this book helped me through a really bad time in my life.” Or, you know, “this book taught me reading could be fun. I never read a book for fun until this one. Now, I read all the time.” Or “this book helped me through my deployment in Iraq,” or something like that. I’m writing to entertain, but I’m affecting people’s lives, some people’s lives much deeper than I ever anticipated. And that’s just a bonus.

I had one woman last convention who told me she was autistic and had a problem with not filtering out the truth from what people wanted to hear and got in trouble. And she really understood and felt Thrawn was like her, that he doesn’t understand why people don’t want to hear the truth. And she said, this is the first fictional character she’d read who she can identify with. Not at all anything I would have ever anticipated. But she grabbed onto him as somebody that “I understand him. He’s like me in many ways, and that makes me feel better.” So just things like that. No way to anticipate that — I’m just an old country entertainer, but it’s affecting some people in very good ways.

Is writing something you always wanted to do?

Oh no, I was on track getting a doctorate in physics, and saw bad TV shows [and thought], “I can write better than that.” Wrote a story that wasn’t very good, but I enjoyed it, started as a hobby for a couple of years. My adviser died of a heart attack, left me with a project that was never going to work; it was fundamentally flawed. So decided, after a semester of working with a new professor and a new project, you know, I’m having more fun writing, I’ve sold two stories — let’s give this a shot.

I really appreciated what you said in the Star Wars authors panel at Dragon Con. I liked how you commented on the Legends stories — they may not be canon technically, but they’re still out there. They’re still enjoyable. So it’s still very much a part of the fandom and the overall fabric of the Star Wars universe.

You’re sitting around the campfire, Coruscant’s a long way away, the HoloNet breaks down a lot. You don’t get much news out here. And while you’re working on your s’mores, somebody says “hey, have you guys ever heard the story of Luke Skywalker and Grand Admiral Thrawn?” And by the time you’re in your sleeping bag, you don’t know if that was true or not, but it was fun. You enjoyed it. And that’s what a legend is, and maybe based somewhat in truth, it may not be. There probably was somebody that Robin Hood was based on; probably nothing like what we’ve come up with in stories from the 1600s or maybe earlier, but he’s an intriguing character. And you’ve got all these legends: Robin Hood, King Arthur, William Tell. Every culture has got their own legends and they’re still fun to read.

#canon #Darth Vader #Dragon Con #interview #novel #Star Wars #Thrawn #Timothy Zahn

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Best New Movies on Netflix in March 2021

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The month of March signals a grim milestone with it being roughly one year since COVID-19 shut movie theaters down around the world. And 12 months later, going to a cinema remains a risky proposition. However, the comfort of Netflix is still providing a safe alternative for the quarantine-bound.

Here’s a handful of new cinematic gems coming to a streaming service near you.

Batman Begins (2005)

March 1

Christopher Nolan‘s Batman origin story breathed new life into the Dark Knight in 2005 after Batman & Robin killed the movie franchise eight years earlier. Christian Bale, who gained more muscle than he probably needed for the role, turns in an excellent performance as both the troubled billionaire and the Caped Crusader. Along for the ride are Michael Caine as the definitive version of Alfred Pennyworth on the big screen, as well as Liam Neeson as Ra’s al Ghul, Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, and Katie Holmes as love interest Rachel Dawes. Featuring plenty of twists and turns, a few spooky scenes with the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), and a deep-dive into the mind of a haunted man on a mission to save his decaying city, Batman Begins plants many of the seeds of brilliance that would fully bloom in its follow-up.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

March 1

Hitting its 10-year anniversary in a few months, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s Crazy, Stupid, Love. still feels like a rom-com from a different era. With its laid back demeanor, and generally laconic grooving on a plot about a player (Ryan Gosling) helping a middle-aged divorced schmuck (Steve Carell) get back on his feet, this goes down more like a star vehicle from five decades ago. Yet the piece is as effortlessly appealing as Gosling’s too-cool-for-school energy, elevating the movie over screenwriter Dan Fogelman’s more recent dramedies, such as This is Us. Plus, hey, it’s also the first movie to realize Gosling and Emma Stone have like crazy good chemistry.

Dances with Wolves (1990)

March 1

Kevin Costner’s Oscar winner is somewhat haunted by its little gold statues for Best Picture and Director, which it won over Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. However, there is still an excellent Western here that captured audiences’ imaginations in 1990 for a reason. The story of a U.S. Cavalry officer who becomes enamored with and then assimilated by a community of Lakota Native Americans, Dances with Wolves has a sweeping majesty that’s as immersive as John Barry’s score. It can be rightly criticized for embracing “white savior” tropes, but Costner’s movie still has the good grace to put performances like Graham Greene’s front and center.

The Dark Knight (2008)

March 1

Fans critical of Heath Ledger’s casting as the Joker quickly switched to praising the late actor when The Dark Knight hit theaters in 2008. A true agent of chaos, this Joker puts Bale’s Batman and his allies through a gauntlet of capers, assassination attempts, and pain. Even district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the city’s very own white knight, can’t resist the Joker’s corrupting influence as the clown lays siege to Gotham. A story about how far you’ll go to get justice, and how long a functioning society can withstand that pressure, The Dark Knight plays more like a serious crime drama (with Batman flying off rooftops on occasion, of course) than a traditional superhero romp. At a time when superhero movies were still better known for punching and tights, Nolan sought to say something more with the genre.

Rain Man (1988)

March 1

Barry Levinson’s 1988 road trip drama cleaned up at the Oscars when it was released, bagging Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman. It’s often held up as creating the stereotype of the “autistic savant,” but this drama which sees selfish douchebag Charlie (Tom Cruise) travel across America with Raymond (Hoffman), the brother he didn’t know he had but who is now unexpectedly the sole inheritor of their father’s fortune, still stands up as a character piece that tugs at the heartstrings. If nothing else, it’s a highly quotable cultural phenomenon and a showcase of actors at the top of their game.

Training Day (2001)

March 1

Here is a film so good that its influence still lingers over pop culture to this day, even if no one quite remembers why Denzel Washington is saying King Kong ain’t got shit on him. Back in 2001, it catapulted Washington to his second Oscar, this time in the leading man category thanks to the role of Alonzo, a crooked cop who takes rookie Jake (Ethan Hawke) under his wing and (seemingly) into his vices. It’s a gritty crime thriller anchored by two strong performances, including Washington at his showiest. In fact, he’s so good at elevating this movie that it sometimes feels like director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter David Ayer have been unsuccessfully trying to duplicate it ever since.

Audrey (2020)

March 14

Audrey Hepburn so effortlessly inhabits the screen that for generations of movie lovers, she seemed unreal—a symbol of style and glamour whose feet were never meant to touch earthly clay. This, however, misses the remarkableness of her life’s journey, from starving conditions under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands during her adolescence—informing her unique frame for the rest of her life—to eventually using those unspoken memories of atrocity as the foundation to become a human rights activist late in life. In between, she had a brief Hollywood career stacked with high fashion and a shockingly high quotient of classics. In fact, she became a new image for femininity in the mid-20th century. Audrey is a somewhat rose-tinted documentary about all of this, but for those who would like to know more, it’s a lovely place to start.

Philomena (2013)

March 22

A sweet, powerful, and decidedly underrated gem, Stephen Frears’ Philomena provides a gentle touch to the true life story of Philomena Lee, a woman who spent 50 years looking for the child she was forced to give up to adoption. But even “forced” is perhaps too easy a word since in her native Ireland, she was more or less incarcerated at a convent after becoming pregnant at the age of 18, with nuns sending the child away to parts unknown without her consent. Philomena now tracks the final months of her search as an older woman through the prism of a two-hander between Judi Dench as Philomena and Steve Coogan as Martin Sixsmith, the journalist who told her story and inspired the film. It makes for a surprisingly warm and affectionate road movie.

At Eternity’s Gate (2018)

March 31

At Eternity’s Gate is far from the only film about the life of Vincent van Gogh and it isn’t the best (shout out to Lust For Life, Loving Vincent, and that one episode of Doctor Who), but it’s still worth a watch—especially for fans of the Dutch painter. With Willem Dafoe as van Gogh, Oscar Isaac as Paul Gaugin, and Mads Mikkelsen as “The Priest,” the 2018 biopic would be worth it for the performances alone. But director and artist Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Basquiat) further elevates what is a pretty straight-forward story (albeit with a controversial ending) about the painter’s final, prolific days in the French countryside into a visually vivid and emotionally affecting tale about the joys and struggles of creative compulsion.

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