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no6secretsanta · 4 years

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Bittersweet Awakening

TO: @happykawaiicinnamonroll FROM: @glorifiedscapegoat

Happy Holidays and an amazing New Year to you, KawaiiCinnamonroll! Here’s some post-reunion fluff for your Secret Santa gift. In the spirit of the New Year, having a nice moment between Nezumi and Shion, in which Shion is being a bit of a dumb-ass and Nezumi takes care of him, seemed appropriate.

I hope you enjoy it! <3

***

Nezumi woke to the smell of coffee beans.

He stretched out his spine with a satisfied groan. In his sleep, he’d managed to curl himself into a tight ball, long limbs wrapped around his pillow and clutching it to his chest. He unearthed his face from the plush cushion―pulling himself from the aroma of drowsy lavender fabric softener―and looked over at his sleeping companion.

Shion’s side of the bed was empty.

Nezumi bolted upright.

Panic lanced through the synapses in his brain, tension jolting through his muscles until every inch of him ached. His eyes picked through the darkness of their shared bedroom, searching the dresser tucked in the corner, the slotted solar shades revealing the still-dark morning sky, and the bedroom door left ajar.

Yellow light spilled in through the gap in the door frame, and Nezumi’s shoulders relaxed.

He dragged a hand over his face and then pushed his bangs aside. His hair was tangled, and Nezumi worked a few of them out with his fingers, wincing when he encountered a knot.

Shion’s awake. He’s here. Nezumi carded his fingers through his hair until there were no more gnarls. The primal terror spiking through his veins cooled until Nezumi felt weightless.

Four years had passed since the day Nezumi had almost lost Shion, four years since Nezumi had breezed back into Shion’s life, for good this time. Nezumi’s gut-reaction to waking without Shion at his side was anxiety and terror, but it was a bit better each time. One step at a time. We’ll get there. Someday.

Nezumi’s brow furrowed. It was strange that Shion climbing into bed hadn’t woken him. Nezumi had gone to bed around ten o’clock, leaving Shion to work on his proposal for the committee. Shion had been agonizing about it most of the day, and Nezumi had opted to give him some space to work.

Nezumi was a notoriously light sleeper. The slightest shifts on the mattress were usually enough to jar him awake. He was getting used to having Shion sleeping at his side again―no longer at his back, but in his arms, limbs tangled together in a heap.

But I didn’t wake up this time. Nezumi gnawed on his lower lip. Weird.

And then his eyes flickered to the nightstand.

The digital clock announced 03:14 AM in neon green numbers.

Nezumi’s brows shot up.

He scrambled out of bed, tossing the comforter aside. The sheets caught around his ankles, and Nezumi nearly went sprawling to the ground. He caught himself with a sharp curse and kicked the sheets onto the floor.

The cool Autumn air sent prickles across the bare skin of his legs and arms. Nezumi wore a dark gray tee shirt and boxer shorts to bed, needing no other warmth than the thick blankets and Shion pinned against him.

He grabbed the thin black robe hanging off the back of the door―a welcome-back gift from Karan―and threw it on. The hem brushed his ankles as he clutched it around his middle and bustled out into the kitchen.

Nezumi found Shion in the kitchen, rooting through the cupboards. The concern welling in the pit of his stomach like a fat serpent steadily began to uncoil.

Shion was dressed in the white button-down and slacks he’d been wearing when Nezumi went off to bed. His hair was wild, sticking up in all directions like a brilliant star. He had his back to Nezumi, his long fingers nudging aside various mugs in the cupboard. He moved quickly, a man on a mission.

Nezumi stepped into the kitchen. He pressed his weight on the squeaky floorboard―the same one he’d been irritated by on those mornings after a particularly terrible rehearsal―to announce his presence.

Shion’s shoulders shot to his ears. His hands stilled.

“You’re still awake?” Nezumi asked.

Shion looked over his shoulder. His glassy red eyes settled on Nezumi’s face, and after a few moments, comprehension flitted across his features. “Oh. Nezumi.” He lowered his arms from the cupboard, leaving the two doors open, and turned around. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“It’s three in the morning,” Nezumi said, leaving the question unanswered in the air between them. “Why are you still up?”

Shion lowered his gaze. His eyelashes dusted his cheekbones like a thick frost. He was beautiful, otherworldly in a way that made Nezumi weak-kneed every time he saw him. Even after all these years, Nezumi’s heart still skipped a beat at the thought of the young man standing before him. Even when said young man picked at Nezumi’s nerves.

“I have to finish my proposal,” Shion explained.

“Your meeting’s on Tuesday.”

“And I’m behind.” Shion turned back to the cupboard and reached inside. “I need to finish it.”

Nezumi’s eyes shifted to the coffee pot. A gentle vapor of steam drifted from the boxy black container, the eight-cup pot filled halfway with the dark, steaming liquid. The aroma of light-roast coffee beans danced beneath Nezumi’s nose. It would have been a welcomed scent at a reasonable hour.

“And so you’re brewing coffee?”

“More coffee,” Shion corrected. “This is my second pot.”

“That’s healthy.” Nezumi strode across the kitchen and yanked one of the chairs back from the little table. Its wooden legs screeched across the tile. Nezumi flopped into the chair. “You look exhausted. You sure you want to keep working?”

“I have to, Nezumi.” Shion found the mug he wanted and set it on the counter. He closed the cupboards and hurried to the fridge.

“Why didn’t you reuse your cup?” Nezumi asked.

“What?”

“Your cup,” Nezumi repeated, as if he were speaking to a child. “If this is your second pot, then you must have had another cup. Why not just reuse it?”

“Because it was―” Shion paused, and Nezumi could see the gears working in his head. Shion looked at the sink, where his previous mug must have resided. “Huh.” He pressed his lips into a thin, calculating line. “I… I don’t know.”

Nezumi exhaled through his nose. “Shion.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Shion interjected.

“Then enlighten me.”

“You’re going to say I should come to bed.”

“Give the man a prize, ladies and gentlemen.”

“I have to finish it, Nezumi.” Shion opened the fridge, took the creamer, and poured some into his mug. It was the pretty white one Nezumi had gotten for him a month ago; a watercolor image of a purple flower, not technically an aster but close enough, spread across the bottom of the mug, the green leaves twisting up the handle.

Despite the frustration prickling through him, Nezumi felt a small sliver of warmth at the sight of the mug. It had been a gift to Shion. A gift from him. Nezumi had never given anyone a gift before. It had seemed like such a small, pathetic thing at the time. And yet the moment he’d given it to Shion, those bright crimson eyes had lit up as if someone had set a fire in Shion’s core. Those lips had drawn back in a wide smile, and Shion had thrown his arms around Nezumi. “I love it! Thank you!”

It was amazing, Nezumi thought―how something so small could ground him. We’ve come so far, haven’t we? So much had changed in four years. Like tightly-coiled bugs in a garden, Shion and Nezumi had finally, finally, finally bloomed, their petals brushing against each other and their stems intertwining.

“We’re discussing the new proposal for the West District,” Shion went on. He placed the cream back in the fridge.

After Nezumi left, West Block was evacuated, the citizens ushered into the remains of No.6 with Shion taking on the role of ambassador. The Manhunt had drastically lowered the number of West Block’s citizens, and Shion’s primary focus became finding suitable housing for them. The birth of the Committee―compiled of people from West Block, Kronos, and Lost Town―opened new possibilities for plans regarding the destroyed quarters.

“Some of the Committee members want to turn it into a junkyard,” Shion went on. “Most of the buildings are ruined, and even though we’ve removed all the bodies…”

And given them proper burials, Nezumi thought. Shion had personally led the search to find the bodies buried beneath the rubble. Inukashi’s hounds had lent a hand, their reluctant owner offering their services as a favor to Shion. Shion had also found jobs for the displaced Disposers, tasking them with transferring the corpses safely and respectfully from the destruction and to a patch of land just outside the up-heaved city.

Most of the Disposers had become the Clean-Up Committee, paid a livable wage by the city for their services. Nezumi had been surprised to find so many of the Disposers he recognized trudging through the remnants of No.6 as law-abiding citizens who prided themselves on their work rather than the thugs West Block had feared.

“It’s still dangerous to keep all that rubble just laying around,” Shion said, jolting Nezumi from his reminiscing. “What if kids play there? The wall is gone, and children are curious by nature. Not to mention how hazardous it is for the environment. If we removed it, put the scrap wood to good use and salvaged the metal, we could expand the living quarters and use that land to farm. That would create job opportunities, as well as save money on imported goods.

“We could grow most of our own crops, and once we’ve managed to create a sustainable system, we can work on exporting some of our goods and bringing some money back into the city! That way we can actually pay our workers and make sure people can survive.”

Nezumi rested his head on his hands and listened. He didn’t understand the politics of the Committee as well as Shion did, but he admired the passion in Shion’s voice. That had always drawn Nezumi to Shion, he supposed. He was so dedicated to everything he set his focus on.

Shion was trying his best to make good on his promise to Elyurias, and Nezumi as well, even though it was running him ragged.

“An admirable feat,” Nezumi allowed. “But I doubt the whole ship will sink if you take a few hours to rest.”

Something flickered across Shion’s face that might have been acceptance―and then the coffee pot chimed.

“Coffee’s done,” Shion announced.

Nezumi’s shoulders dropped in defeat.

Shion picked up the pot. The dark liquid inside sloshed within. Shion’s fingers trembled on the handle as he navigated his way to his mug.

Nezumi changed his tactic. “Have you made any progress with it? When I went to bed, you were stuck on your introductory paragraph.”

Shion paused.

“Talking it out is one thing,” Nezumi went on, “but it’s translating it into political jargon that’s stressing you out, right?”

Shion shifted from one foot to the other. “It’s not that. It’s just…” He sighed. “I know what I want to say. But it’s just like… the longer I stare at the page, the less sense my thoughts make.” His red eyes lost focus as Shion stared down at the coffee pot in his hands. “Everything that comes to mind just doesn’t sound right.”

Nezumi felt a pang of sympathy dance through him. “Then maybe you need to take some time away from it.”

Shion gnawed on his lower lip, considering Nezumi’s suggestion. Nezumi played with the sleeve of the robe, the warmth of the kitchen seeping in through the thin fabric. It was too soon to turn the heat in their small, two-bedroom apartment on.

Shion poured some coffee into the mug, and Nezumi’s stomach dropped to his feet.

“You want any?” Shion asked.

“No,” Nezumi said with a dry smile. “I actually want to sleep.”

“Suit yourself.” Shion set the coffee pot back on the burner. He shuffled over to the table, set the mug down opposite Nezumi, and turned back to the counters. “Where’s the sugar?”

“Where it always is,” Nezumi said. As Shion meandered back toward the sink, Nezumi exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache forming. “Look, Shion. No one’s going to blame you if you take a break from it. You’ve been working on that thing all day. If you’re not thinking straight, it’s a universal sign that you need to get some sleep.”

“Found the sugar,” Shion piped up.

“You know,” Nezumi snapped, “for someone so intelligent, you can be amazingly dense.”

Shion sat down in the chair and muttered a retort.

“Didn’t catch that. Care to try again when you’re not sleep-deprived?”

Shion rolled his eyes. He tipped the small canister of sugar upside down and dumped half of it into his coffee.

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. Shion liked sugar in his coffee. Nezumi had lived with him long enough to know that. But Shion didn’t usually take that much sugar.

“You want any coffee with that?”

“Hush,” Shion said. “I need to finish this proposal, Nezumi. I need all the energy I can get.”

Shion held the mug in both hands and took a long gulp.

“Shion―,” Nezumi said.

Shion’s eyes widened. He slammed the cup onto the table and spat his mouthful of coffee back into it.

Nezumi reeled back. “What?”

Shion looked at the mug, then to the canister of sugar. Horror twisted into disbelief on his face. His scarlet eyes glistened and, to Nezumi’s utter confusion, filled with tears. Shion shoved his mug away from himself, folded his arms, and buried his face in the crook of his elbows.

“What’s wrong?” Nezumi snatched the canister of sugar up. He scanned the white label, the brand name scrawled in black and red letters, spelling out the words coarse salt rather than cane sugar.

Nezumi’s lips quirked at the corners. “Oh.”

“It’s salt,” Shion whined.

Nezumi bit back laughter as he stood and set the offending condiment back on the counter. He took Shion’s mug and dumped it into the sink.

“And that,” he said, “would be a sign from the Powers That Be that it’s time for bed.”

Shion’s voice was muffled as he said, “It’s not funny.”

It was pretty funny, but Nezumi would avoid saying so until Shion was in a better state of mind. Once Shion had calmed down, and slept an acceptable number of hours, Nezumi would tease him mercilessly.

For now, Nezumi stood behind Shion and rubbed comforting circles on his back.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Time for bed. You’re probably not making as much progress as you’d like, anyway.”

Shion grumbled.

“You have all day Monday,” Nezumi added. “You’re not going to be much help to anyone if you’re passed out on the table.”

His thumbs continued to rub shapes into Shion’s shoulder blades until Shion turned his face to the side and managed a shaky, “OK.”

Nezumi celebrated silently as he helped Shion up from the table. He clicked the coffee pot off, making a mental note to clean the bean dispenser and empty the pot when he woke up again. He placed his hands on Shion’s shoulders and guided him through the kitchen and into their shared bedroom.

“Change into your pajamas,” Nezumi instructed.

Shion eased through the darkness, toward the dresser. Nezumi kept the door open, allowing the kitchen light to illuminate the room just enough for Shion to find his way. Shion knew the bedroom like the back of his hand―but Nezumi couldn’t count on Shion’s sleep-deprived mind to remember where he kept his boxers if he couldn’t even tell salt from sugar.

Shion dropped his button-down and slacks besides the hamper. Close enough, Nezumi thought. Shion dug through the top drawer, found a black tee-shirt, and pulled it over his head. He fought with the hole before yanking it down.

Nezumi smirked. Hopefully, Shion hadn’t put it on backward. He supposed they’d find out in the morning.

“To bed with you,” Nezumi said. “It’s well past your bedtime.”

Shion’s retort barely made it past his lips. Shion slumped to the bed and flopped down on his stomach.

Nezumi shook his head. He flicked the kitchen light off, plunging the room into darkness. The faint light filtering in through the slats in the window allowed Nezumi a quick look at Shion. He’d curled into the side of the bed where Nezumi had woken up, instinctively drawn to the warmth.

Nezumi crawled onto the bed and lay beside Shion. He wrestled the blankets out from under Shion and tucked them around him.

“Comfortable?” Nezumi asked.

Shion didn’t answer.

Right to sleep, then. Nezumi couldn’t help but laugh. He eased down beside Shion, tucking their legs together. His arms slipped around Shion’s thin frame and pulled him against his chest. The neon green alarm clock announced 03:38 AM. Shion and Nezumi kept the alarm off on the weekends. Nezumi would likely doze for a few hours. If he was lucky, Shion would sleep well into the late morning. Nezumi didn’t mind spending a lazy day in bed. If it kept Shion asleep for more than a few minutes, it was worth it.

Nezumi pressed his nose into Shion’s soft, silver hair. He smelled like the geranium shampoo Karan had given them as a move-in gift. Shion worked it through his hair every other day, and Nezumi had begun to associate the scent with the beautiful young man tucked in his arms.

Nezumi exhaled, content. The warmth from Shion’s body radiated through him. Sleep began to tug at the corners of his mind. Nezumi rested his chin on Shion’s shoulder. He listened to the thump of their hearts, the echo reminding him that fate had granted them a chance to start over. A new beginning.

Nezumi had wandered the world to find himself―and his journey had brought him right back to Shion.

He pressed a long, lingering kiss to Shion’s shoulder. The deep breathing from his sleeping companion soothed him, erased the tension in his shoulders and chased away the nightmares. In the warmth of their shared bedroom, Nezumi closed his eyes, breathed the same air as the boy he loved, and fell asleep.

#glorifiedscapegoat #happykawaiicinnamonroll #no6 #no 6 #no.6 #no. 6 #submission

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brittanafanfichelp · 5 years

Note

Hi do you have any of the author Talks old fics?

Hi! I do have a few of their older, deleted fics. I’m not sure which ones you are looking for so I’m just gonna list the ones I have. If you want to I can send you any or all of them.

COMING SOON

4 women from different walks of life and across the country meet on Twitter before hitting New York to create a film company and start working on movies. Friendships are formed, love is blossoming, egos swell, and chaos ensues.13k

Grenade

“Don’t get too close to me…I’m a grenade. I might explode when handled the wrong way.” AUBrittana* 32k

Heartbeat

Santana is celebrating the anniversary of one of the biggest days of her life when she meets Brittany and her life changes forever from the bond they both soon discover they have. 10k

Hollywood Living: A Very Lima Christmas Carole

AU Christmas where the LP family travels to Lima for the holidays. 4k

Hollywood Living: Battle of the Birds

Thanksgiving themed one shot from the Hollywood Living verse where Santana and Brittany take on their friends in a friendly competition of who can make the best turkey for Thanksgiving. *Brittana*Love*Humor*Friendship 4k

Hollywood Living: The Easter Egg Hunt

Celebrate Easter Sunday with the Lopez Pierce family. - A Easter one shot chapter that is from the Hollywood Living verse-so the kids are their ages in the story before the time jumps at the end, meaning Noah is 16, Ashton is 10, Carter is 8, and Mackenzi 4k

Our Love

“What they lack in money, they make up for with love” - Brittana family story. Santana and Brittany are raising their 2.5 kids when they fall on hard times and have to rely on their love to make it through. 32k

Prompts

Compilation of the prompts I posted on Tumblr 24k

Single Ladies

Best friends Mercedes and Santana own a boutique in Atlanta, where they are set on enjoying life as young single successful women breaking into the demanding fashion world. Santana meets Brittany at her boutique but contiunually turns down her advances since she is dead set on remaining single and enjoying her random hookups. 18k

Summer Madness

My Wife and Kids companion piece - Brittany and Santana spend the summer in New York reconnecting with one another without the distractions of work, friends, or their kids. Cooking lessons and wine tastings, beach days and thunderstorm movie dates bring the best friends and wives back together while strengthening their marriage. 5k

This Christmas

HL/MWAK AU Set 10 years in the future from MWAK, The four Lopez-Pierce family is finally all together after 5 years of spending Christmas spread around the country. As the family catches up around the holiday, secrets and truths are revealed. 12k

This Is Us

Fresh off of her victory on Master Chef, Chef Santana takes Aunty Snixx to the level while Brittany focuses on her writing career as they raise their 4 young kids. Trilogy to A Dollar and A Dream, and Marriage, Motherhood, and Mischief 22k

Unexpected Guest

After being brutally attacked Brittany shows up to Santana’s door unexpectedly after being estranged for years. Can Santana save the former love of her life and rekindle their relationship. SuspenseDrama*Romance*Thriller* 44k

Vacation Love

Santana and Quinn decide to take their friendship to the next level during a New Directions reunion trip HumorQuinntana*Smut*Laughs*Friendship* 61k

#brittana #fic help

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thegizka · 5 years

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It’s a Date (fic)

Just a few dudes having lunch and reminiscing on the good old days.

Written for Shikamaru Week Day 6: Bonds.

Read it on Ao3.

“Hey Shikamaru, you wanna grab lunch?”

He glanced up from the mission report he was reading. The newest Hokage was sticking his head through the door to his office, beaming expectantly. Naruto always stopped by around this time with the same question. It was a good way to keep track of how long he had been working.

As far as passing the torch events went, the transition between Kakashi and Naruto in the Hokage’s office had been incredibly smooth. That didn’t mean there hadn’t been an influx of additional work accompanying the process. Records had to be transferred, countless meetings arranged and attended, numerous ambassadorial letters of welcome responded to, and, of course, the ceremony itself had to be planned, all of this on top of the regular activities of the village. Luckily Naruto had begun his tenure with a diligence he had rarely shown in their academy days.

“Yeah okay,” Shikamaru sighed, setting aside the report and stretching as he stood.

“Alright! Want to go to-”

“Ichiraku?”

“You read my mind,” Naruto grinned. His friend rolled his eyes as they headed out the door and down the stairs.

“Don’t you ever eat anywhere else?”

“Sometimes, but there’s nothing as good as Ichiraku Ramen!”

“Don’t you think you might be exploiting this free-ramen-for-the-Hokage thing a little bit?”

“Of course not!” He looked a offended. “I still pay when Hinata and I go there for date nights.”

“Do you pay for both of you or just her?”

“Both, actually.”

“Are you going to pay for me today?”

“Shikamaru, I appreciate your interest, but I am happily married and would never cheat on my incredible wife.”

“But you’re the one who asked me to lunch.”

“But this isn’t a date.”

“But friends can pay for each others’ meals.”

“Sure, for special occasions, but there’s nothing special about today. It’s just lunch.”

“I’m only saying that it’s a little weird that we’ve known each other for so long and you’ve never bought me lunch.”

“Oh yeah? And when have you ever bought me lunch?”

“I haven’t,” Shikamaru admitted, “but I did pay for your share of barbeque last time we had a guys’ night.”

“When even was that? Two months ago?”

“Four, actually, and you still haven’t paid me back.”

“It couldn’t have been that long ago,” Naruto said, face scrunching up as he tried thinking back on it. Shikamaru noted that he had ignored the last part about owing him for dinner.

“It was. Lee was wearing those new leg weights he was super excited about, remember? And Sai and Ino had just celebrated their anniversary.”

“Huh, I guess you’re right.” He gave him a quizzical look. “How do you keep all of that stuff straight? That seems like a lot of unnecessary information to remember.”

“And that’s why I’m considered the smart one out of the two of us. You never know when information like that might come in handy.”

“Knowing Bushy Brows’s leg weights might come in handy?” he asked skeptically.

Shikamaru just rolled his eyes. They had reached Ichiraku. He ducked inside and away from such a stupid question.

“Naruto! It’s good to see ya,” Teuchi greeted happily from behind the counter. “And Shikamaru! You haven’t stopped by in a while.”

“Been busy,” he explained as they slid into seats.

“What can I get you? The usual?”

They placed their orders and chatted with Teuchi as he prepared the dishes, asking after his family and sharing in the general gossip of the village. Naruto was keenly interested in hearing everything he had to say. Shikamaru was always curious to see him interact with villagers when he was off-duty. He gave people his full attention, listening carefully to what they had to say even if they were complaining. For a guy who enjoyed rushing into things, he could be incredibly patient with people.

“Mind if I join?”

“Chouji, hey! It’s been a while.”

He slid into the seat next to them, grinning.

“I didn’t expect to see you two here.”

“Really?” Naruto laughed.

“Okay, maybe you, but not Shikamaru.”

“We’re on a date, and he’s paying.”

“I didn’t agree to that!”

They continued arguing the point jokingly until their food arrived. Shikamaru had been hungrier than he thought, and Ichiraku Ramen was the best in the village. Conversation didn’t even cross his mind during the first few delicious bites.

“Hey, guess who I just ran into?” Chouji asked suddenly. The others shot him curious looks and shrugged. “Genma! I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Yeah, I see him once in a while in passing but haven’t really talked to him. What’s he been up to?”

“Who’s Genma?”

Shikamaru paused and stared at Naruto.

“Genma Shiranui. He’s a jonin. He used to be one of the Hokage’s bodyguards, but now he works in the records department, I think.”

Naruto still looked at them with a blank expression.

“Brown hair, wears his headband like a bandanna, keeps a senbon in his mouth because he thinks it looks cool,” Chouji offered, but it didn’t seem to help. Shikamaru sighed. For someone who was so attentive when listening to others, the new Hokage was pretty bad at remembering people.

“He was one of the proctors of our chunin exam, the one who oversaw the one-on-one fights.”

“Oh him!” Finally recognition dawned on him. “Man, that was a long time ago.”

The others exchanged a wry glance. Of course the memory of battle would spark his recollection.

“Man, that was a good time,” he sighed, signalling for another bowl of ramen.

“The chunin exams?” Chouji asked skeptically.

“Yeah. It was fun to finally be able to go all out and not have anyone yell at you.”

“You realize some people actually died during those exams,” Shikamaru reminded him.

“And they ended in Orochimaru attacking the village.”

“Of course I didn’t mean that part of it,” Naruto explained, enthusiasm momentarily replaced by the pain of the memories. “I suppose when you look at it from that angle, they were a bit terrifying.” He took a thoughtful bite of ramen. Shikamaru was almost sorry they had brought it up and dampened his mood.

“You know what?” Naruto suddenly exclaimed. “We should hold a do-over!”

“What?”

“Well we never finished the exams, right? So we should hold the rest of the fights and complete the tournament! It’d be a great excuse to get everyone together, and someone would walk away with bragging rights of being the best shinobi of our class!” He grinned brightly.

“That’s a terrible idea,” Shikamaru said with a frown.

“Why?”

“Because some of us going all out in a fight would decimate the village faster and worse than Orochimaru’s invasion.” He gave Naruto a pointed look.

“I’m not sure we could have the Kazekage and a former rogue ninja fight and prevent it from becoming an international incident, either,” Chouji mused.

“I suppose you make a good point.” Naruto looked crestfallen. He pushed a piece of pork around his bowl with his chopsticks. “I guess I just miss having everyone around and not having to care about anything super important. It feels like the only time I see some of our friends is during mission briefs or meetings.”

“It has been a while since we all got together,” Chouji agreed. “Maybe we can plan something, like a reunion. Or a picnic!”

“Yes! I like the sound of that.”

Shikamaru tried not to grimace as his brain quickly compiled a long list of logistics they would need to sort out--the venue, the food (A LOT of food), invitations (open to spouses and children? senseis and students?), tables and chairs, decorations (Ino would insist on decorations), activites (that preferably wouldn’t damage people or property), and a host of other considerations. He had to admit, though, he did miss their friends. Jobs and families kept them all busy, and he wasn’t in the habit of scheduling social time with anyone. (How strange that socializing would need to be scheduled, as though it were an appointment or part of one’s job.) The last time they had all been together might have been Naruto’s inauguration, and he had been too busy supervising the event to really enjoy anyone’s company. They were a rowdy bunch when they did get together, and he wouldn’t mind the chance to cut loose with people he liked.

Of course, finding a date that would fit everyone’s schedules would be the biggest challenge if they were actually going to go through with this.

Chouji and Naruto were still excitedly discussing this hypothetical picnic when a white and black bird burst into the shop and circled their heads. When he saw it, Shikamaru’s heart sank, but he nudged the Hokage to draw his attention.

“It’s one of Sai’s.” Why hadn’t it gone straight to the office like most messages and reports? This couldn’t be good.

“Anyone have an empty scroll?” When his companions shook their heads, Naruto grabbed a napkin and spread it out. The bird nosedived and splashed onto the open space, the ink reshaping into words that all three of them read quickly.

A moment later they were all rushing out of Ichiraku, shouting promises to come back and pay when they were done.

“His return route should have taken him through the western edge of the forest,” Shikamaru relayed. Without a word, they adjusted their course, running through the village.

“Should we tell Ino?” Chouji asked.

“I can send a shadow clone.”

“No, she’d just end up worrying over the worst possible scenario. With luck, we’ll get there before there’s anything to actually worry about.”

Shikamaru didn’t like keeping his teammate in the dark, but he also knew her incredibly well. If she heard Sai had been jumped by a group of rogue ninja on what should have been an easy recon mission, she’d freak out and either burst into tears or insist on coming with them. He was not going to allow both of Inojin’s parents to be in danger at the same time, not until they had a better idea of the situation.

If Sai needed help, these rogues likely had an unexpected power or overwhelming numbers. He trusted Sai to fend them off long enough for backup to arrive, but red flags were popping up in his mind over the fact that they weren’t geared for battle and had only the bare minimum of ninja tools with them. But Sai was a comrade. He was practically family. Shikamaru wasn’t going to spare a second to detour and collect his gear.

Besides, he had Chouji and Naruto with him, two of the people he trusted most, both of whom he knew were excellently skilled ninja. He was already formulating plans to play to their strengths and end this quickly.

“Come on,” he cried. They sped ahead.

XXX

Shikamaru was bone tired as he trudged home that night. His instincts had been right. They had reached Sai quickly and easily defeated the rogues, capturing a few for questioning. Their friend had suffered mostly minor injuries, though a gash on his leg needed stitches. As expected, Ino had freaked out when she met him at the hospital, but the fact that her husband was alive and in one piece was a huge relief and tempered some of her emotions.

When he and Naruto finally made it back to the office, they had missed two meetings, received four urgent messages that needed replies ASAP, and lost several hours of work time. It would take a few days to catch up again, which was a drag. Shikamaru had stayed later than usual to do what he could, but he had had difficulty focusing after the excitement of the afternoon. He was looking forward to getting home and relaxing the rest of the night.

But first he had something to take care of.

When he pushed his way into Ichiraku, it was buzzing with customers and warmth. His stomach growled. Having arrived during the peak of the dinner rush, it took a few minutes to catch Teuchi’s eye.

“Shikamaru! What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to pay for my lunch. Sorry for rushing out like that.”

“Don’t worry about it. Naruto stopped by and explained everything. I’m glad your friend is alright.”

“Thanks. How much do I owe you?”

“Naruto already paid for everything.”

“He did?”

The ramen chef nodded. “Your food and Chouji’s. We’re all squared away.”

“Thanks,” he said, repocketing his money.

“Don’t thank me, thank Naruto.”

“I will,” he promised. “Have a good night.”

As Shikamaru ducked back out into the street and resumed his walk home, he couldn’t help grinning cheekily to himself. “And he insisted it wasn’t a date…”

#shikamaruweek2019 #gizka #my words #nara shikamaru #uzumaki naruto #akimichi chouji #bros #naruto

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paralleljulieverse · 5 years

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Silver Silver STAR! or, the 25th Anniversary of the 25th Anniversary!

Twenty five years ago this week, the 1968 Julie Andrews musical Star! made its long overdue return to the screens of the world –– at least, the small screens –– when the film was finally released to home video on 17 November 1993. Billed as “the return of a lost classic,” the heavily-promoted 25th Anniversary release was the first time in decades that the complete version of Star! had been widely available and it marked a watershed in the film’s latter-day recuperation (Edwards, 1993).

Director Robert Wise long remained haunted by the commercial and critical failure of Star!. "I’ve had films that haven’t paid off,” he lamented, “but Star! was my biggest disappointment because I think it’s a better film and more of an achievement than was acknowledged by the mass audience” (Leeman: 195). The film had cultivated a small but devoted band of fans over the years, many of whom sent appreciative letters to the director, but Wise continued to hope that Star! might yet find broader vindication and shake off its unjust reputation as “the H-bomb of musicals” (Kanfer: 78).

In 1984, amidst a growth in popularity of classic film revivals, Twentieth Century-Fox struck a new print of Star! for release to the repertory house circuit (Edwards 1990). It was the first time the full roadshow version of Star! had been seen in North America since 1968 and, while it mainly screened in niche metropolitan revival houses, it played to hugely enthusiastic audiences. Attending a New York screening in August 1990, Robert Wise recalled that Star! “went over like gangbusters...The audience applauded after every number and gave me and the film such a hand” (Thompson: 96). Meanwhile, general interest in Star! continued to grow. In 1990, an article on the history of the film appeared in Movie Collector’s World (Edwards 1990). And in May 1992, Premiere magazine nominated Star! as its “most wanted” title on home video (”Widescreen”: 85).

Emboldened by the groundswell of support, Robert Wise approached Fox about remastering a version of Star! for home video and all agreed the time was ripe. The director personally supervised a new transfer from the original 65mm negative and six-track magnetic soundtrack source materials which had happily remained intact in the Fox vaults. The remastered version of Star! screened for the first time on the respected cable network, American Movie Classics in early-1993 (Edwards 1993). Reviewing the AMC broadcast for the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas called Star! “one of the most under appreciated of all Hollywood major productions,” praising the film as "engrossing...and played stunningly by Julie Andrews” (6).

Throughout 1993, Wise and Fox continued to finalise preparations for the film’s video release. The deluxe two-tape set was officially launched on 16 November 1993 (’street date’: 17 November) with a special Silver Anniversary screening of Star! at the DGA Theatre in Hollywood. Attended by many of the original cast and crew –– including Julie Andrews, Richard Crenna, Robert Wise, Saul Chaplin, and Michael Kidd –– the screening was a happy reunion cum symbolic homecoming for the film. Star! is “finally back where it belongs” said Julie in a warm interview at the event (“Silver Star!”).

The film’s soundtrack, which had also been long out of print, was given a companion release to CD and cassette by Fox Records on 23 November. With the inclusion of two previously unreleased tracks –– the extended version of the title song by Julie and Daniel Massey’s “Forbidden Fruit” –– and featuring a handsome booklet with liner notes by T.J. Edwards –– a veritable one-man cheer squad for Star! during these years –– the CD soundtrack re-release further cemented the aura of rediscovery around the film and the sense that, after decades of neglect, Star! could finally be seen and heard in its original splendour (Sanello: D5; Thomas, B: 14).

And this time round US critics were much more receptive than most had been back in 1968. Reviewing the video release for the Los Angeles Times, Sue Martin called it “a handsome period production [that] holds up with Andrews in a tour de force portrayal as the earthy, tenacious Lawrence” (44). Martie Zad of The Washington Post dubbed it “one of filmdom’s grandest musicals”, saying “[i]t is a treat to watch and listen to Andrews whose voice at this point in her career was simply pure and magical” (N5). Dave Staten of the Daily News enthused:

“Star! is bouncy and fast-paced and much better that I expected. You see, I was one of this people who was scared away in 1968 by the bad notices. This grand movie deserves a new life on video” (26).

In response to the fulsome reception, Fox green-lighted an even more ambitious ‘special edition’ release of Star! on laserdisc, a kind of top-end precursor to DVD and the home cinephile’s medium of choice in the 90s. An impressively weighty package –– literally, as those big old discs were heavy as rocks –– the laserdisc edition was spread over two discs presented in a lavish gatefold album. It was jam-packed with special features, including a detailed production history, rare behind-the scenes images, a lively audio commentary by Wise and other members of the production team, and a charming featurette about the film’s 25th anniversary screening at the DGA. Indeed, the compilation of supplementals was so dense and involved that it delayed the disc’s release by many months. The Star! laserdisc finally hit the shelves on August 16, 1995 with a USD$80.00 price tag, not exactly cheap today let alone 25 years ago, and it quickly established a new benchmark for special edition film releases to the home video market (“Be Glad”: 2; “Widescreen Special Edition”: 85)

Now, if only we could get Fox to play ball again 25 years later and authorise that long-awaited BluRay release of Star! for the 50th anniversary!

Sources:

“Be Glad They Still Make Discs Like This.” The Laser Disc Newsletter. 133, September 1995: 2.

Edwards, T.J. “The Saga of ‘Star!’”. Movie Collector’s World. 357, 7 December 1990: 60-75.

Edwards, T.J. “Rare Julie: After 25 Years, A Lost Classic Returns.” American Movie Classics, 6: 7, July 1993: 4-5.

Kanfer, Stefan. “Cinema: Quarter Chance.” Time. 96: 4. 27 July 1970: 78.

Leeman, Sergio. Robert Wise on His Films: From Editing Room to Director’s Chair. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1995.

Martin, Sue. “New on Video.” Los Angeles Times Calendar. 3 November 1993: 44.

Saltzmann, Barbara. “‘Star!’ Gets Back Original Luster on Laser.” Los Angeles Times. 16 January 1994: F25.

Sanello, Frank. “The Hills are Alive Again with the Songs of Julie Andrews.” The Sun. 15 December 1993: D5.

Thompson, Frank T. Robert Wise: A Bio-bibliography. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995.

Silver Star 25th Anniversary Featurette. Film produced by T.J. Edwards. Los Angeles: FoxVideo, 1994.

Staten, Vince. “Hollywood Rolls Out Its ‘Classics’”. Daily News. 21 November 1993: 26.

Thomas, Bob. “1968 Flop ‘Star!’ Reborn on Video.” News Press. 17 December 1993: 14.

Thomas, Kevin. “Movies to Tape.” Los Angeles Times - TV Times. 7 February 1993: 6.

“Widescreen Special Edition Laserdisc of Julie Andrews Lost Classic Musical.” Movie Collector’s World. 483, 6 October 1995: 85.

Zad, Martie. “Andrews's 'Star!' Revives Hit Songs Of Lost Musical.” Washington Post. 21 November 1993: N5.

#julie andrews #Star!#star!50 #gertrude lawrence #robert wise #Twentieth Century Fox #musical #classic film #old hollywood #foxvideo #laserdisc #tj edwards

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eccacia · 7 years

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Favorite Snowbarry Fics

So I have a bit of free time before things get busy again, and being Snowbarry Trash™ I thought, What better way to spend it than rereading my favorite SB fics????? At first I compiled all the links in one place as a reference for myself, but what the heck, it won’t hurt to put these fics out there again and send the writers some love.

Before anything, a caveat: this is by no means a comprehensive list of all the best SB fics. There are a lot of other great fics out there. Also “favorite” here probably more accurately means “fics I reach for when I’m having a bad day,” lol. So to these writers here, THANK YOU. Your fics really get me going again. (And to other fanfic writers out there, keep writing! You’ll never know when a fic will make someone’s day a little better, as these did for me.)

The fics are below the cut, arranged alphabetically. I put in the summary and a brief gushing of what I liked about them. Happy reading, everyone! Don’t forget to give the ones you like some love!

& If It Never Ends then When Do We Start, by @ttinycourageous

Far too soon, a common occurrence for them, their time together is up. Looking up at him Caitlin wonders how long they’ll be able to keep this going; Barry gone on a mission, she back to the lab ignoring Jay’s advances, both of them under the scrutiny of the agency they work for. How long before her heart gets broken?

“Can you keep a secret?” Barry asks.

[00Q au in which Barry's the spy, and Caitlin one of the scientists providing the gadgets. The two grow closer over the course of several months, mostly due to Barry's insistent inquiring after her real name.]

Spy AU? Secret Identities?? Forbidden Relationship?????? Uh, count me in. What really gets to me about this, though, is that unlike other spy AUs, the language isn’t punchy and action-packed; instead the story’s told with restraint, and the language pulses with quiet longing. Tension and suspense aren’t so much in the external circumstances as in the internal conflict, so the moment that they finally come together is the climax in both external and internal tension. It’s just brilliant. Also I live for coded affectionate exchanges, that whole saying one thing but meaning something else, and it was so well done in this fic.

at first sight, by @tinytendril

College Pride & Prejudice AU. Literature student Barry swears he hates everything about the privileged side of Central City, including one leggy, doe-eyed, bon-mot tossing, label-worshiping vortex of girly vapidness Caitlin Snow. Until, as these things go, he doesn’t, not even by a small measure, and not at all.

I’ve read this so many times I’ve lost count. But really, wow. Barry as Lizzy and Caitlin as Darcy just makes so much sense, and the rest of the cast were slotted so naturally into their P&P counterparts that I couldn’t imagine it any other way. The dialogue’s also very witty. I love how Caitlin calls Barry out for his pretentiousness. (The pretentiousness is so well-done, by the way. I mean, just look at the summary. It’s a mini-adventure into the dictionary.) I always get this sense of vindictive joy when Barry realizes that Caitlin can match him line for line. Ha, you show him, girl. Serves him right for underestimating you. Anywaaay, I could go on, but in short, I love this fic to bits.

Blind Date, by @chasingblue57

Iris just knows that Barry & her TA are perfect for each other, she just needs to get them in the same room [college au].

Iris as a matchmaker, Barry and Caitlin being set up on an awkward blind date, them talking about awkwardness during said blind date... It’s the most adorable thing, I tell you. Even if the same can be said of nearly all of Blue’s fics, this one’s close to my heart.

cold and paperskin, by @briarsrosie

You're Killer Frost. Caitlin Snow is dead. You deserve to die, too. / Trigger warning.

This technically isn’t SB or even romance. It’s Snowbarisco friendship, and I’m glad it is. It’s also a great rendering of Caitlin’s disjointed, fractured consciousness following her rampage as Killer Frost, and the obsessive repetition of that “you-deserve-to-die” reveals the destructive quality of her guilt. But what really got me was the friendship. I mean, friendship’s usually light and fluffy, but their friendship here is tenacious and stubborn and hopeful, and it’s what saves Caitlin in the end. It’s so precious.

Could End in Burning Flames or Paradise, by NeoNails

Or 5 Times Caitlin Had Sex with Barry & the 1 Time It Meant Something. "She didn't know what series of events culminated in Barry's mood that night, but she did know it began with him pulling the bottle out of her hand and taking a long swig for himself."

This one needs little explanation. I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I did as a new SB fan was to look for good smut, and this one was the first one I came across. It definitely did not disappoint. It was written way back, but it remains my favorite smutty fic.

here is my heart (your love is everything i need), by @roastytoastyprincesss

AU: In a world where soulmates exist, when your first touch with them shall brand you for life, Barry Allen gets marked. By who he's not quite certain, but he's determined to find out. Caitlin Snow however, she knows... she's just not ready to deal with it's repercussions. Snowbarry.

The angst almost killed me in this one. It’s a masterful prolonging of a misunderstanding, with every opportunity to right it consistently thwarted; and when the truth is finally revealed, it’s in the worst circumstances possible. It’s what makes their reunion so cathartic, and their hot make-out scene towards the end so satisfying.

(i know that) we’re cool, by Lint

She hasn't smiled much because there hasn't been anything worth smiling about. But all of a sudden some string bean of a police scientist wakes up from a lightning induced coma, and her facial muscles magically remember how?

Probably the first SB fluff I’ve read. Whenever I reread it my facial muscles still ache from smiling. Also, I’m pretty wordy as a writer, so it amazes me to see how much happens and how much is conveyed through short sentences and succinct dialogue.

If summer is for lovers then consider me in love, by gustin puckerman

When Barry finds out about the kiss.―Barry/Caitlin. Post 1x19 "Who is Harrison Wells". Oneshot.

This has the most adorable SB conversation ever. Barry and Caitlin tiptoe around the elephant in the room in the most endearing, awkward way, but what really gets to me is that behind the innocence of their words, their verbal dancing around each other feels like a strip tease, a slow revelation of the truth one line of dialogue at a time. It ends in the purest way possible, though: not with a kiss, because that would have been a decisive gesture, one that doesn’t quite fit with the atmosphere of the story, but with tentative hand-holding and a walk home. What’s not to love?

Knowing the Flows of Time, by @christinafalls

There is no greater pain than knowing. Barry travels back in time to save his mum, that single event is the catalyst that allows him to have a life with Caitlin he never expected he'd want. But could he truly fight destiny when he knows they were never meant to be?

I was an emotional wreck after reading this fic. I was in tears by the end. Everything hurt. I was in a daze for the rest of the day. This story, I remember thinking to myself then, is one that knows how to end. The storytelling was beautiful, with not one scene out of order. I still reread this from time to time just to marvel at how seamlessly everything unfolds.

Lifeguards’ Summer, by @destianac

This was going to be the longest summer of her life. First, she had to work instead of travelling with her best friend. Second, she was paired with that tall brown-haired guy and his cocky grin. Snowbarry AU one-shot. Summer Lovin' 16 - Day 2 - Lifeguards AU

My favorite SB summer read. Destiana pulls off a Barry with boyish charm, cocky and goofy at the same time. The dialogue is light and funny, and there’s a ton of fluff. Not just any fluff, too — it’s sexy fluff. Destiana practically invented that genre for SB. I read this on bad days to cheer up, and it always does the trick.

Swimming Lessons, by chasingblue57

The gang heads to the beach so Barry can teach Caitlin to swim, things get a bit handsy.

This is one of my favorite tropes of all time, and Blue just nails it. The moment when he first sees her in the bikini. The tickling. The not-so-accidental, lingering touches over bare skin. The “Don’t Worry, I Won’t Let You Drown” speech. The innocent flirting contrasted with the fact that they’re both half-naked and, well, wet. I grin like a fool every time I read this, especially when I reach the last line, because it recasts everything in a different light. Read it if you haven’t yet and you’ll see what I mean. It’s just delightful.

somebody sweet to talk to, by tinytendril

Isolated and jaded, executive assistant Caitlin finds an unexpected companion with a stranger, or her IT specialist, Barry. Except, they’ve only got a single phone line to connect them.

AUs are usually more difficult to ease into, but in this case I’m in awe of how I already have a feel of the setting and the characters from just the first paragraph. I also love how Caitlin and Barry’s relationship progresses through dialogue, how they initially get in touch because of professional necessity, and how that professional necessity soon (d)evolves into a sly ruse for another kind of necessity altogether. I’m a sucker for those things, and this one was beautifully done.

text me a heart attack, by @shyesplease

Caitlin texts Barry because she needs a little bit of saving, but Barry might be the one having a heart attack.

One of the best things about reading drunk!Caitlin is watching how she (and the author) comes up with ways to reduce Barry into a flustered, tongue-tied mess, and in this fic it’s done so deliciously: drunk!Caitlin sends Barry a hot pic of herself that he receives during a nice, wholesome family dinner... and, well, you can read on to enjoy the hilarity that ensues. I also love the devious twist at the end, during the post-drunk!Caitlin conversation in the morning. Barry’s teasing her mercilessly, as expected, and Caitlin endures it... until she turns the entire conversation on its head with a single line, and then saunters away leaving Barry simultaneously confused and turned on in her wake. Poor Barry. Good thing there’s a sexting sequel...

Untitled, by @snow-bellarke-barry

Barry sneaks into Caitlin’s house at night & asks for her help.

My favorite Caitlin-nurses-Barry-back-to-health fic. I just keep going back to the scene where Barry, after two days of being knocked out by an injury, finally wakes up to see Caitlin dozing off, and then he correctly surmises that she hardly slept for the entirety of those two days while keeping watch over him. It just seemed so Caitlin to worry to the point of forgetting to care for herself, but at the same time not exactly revealing or broadcasting the extent of her worry (except probably in the form of a warning, or in this case in eliciting a promise from Barry). And the scene at the end when they kiss after the culmination of all the anxiety was definitely a wonderful bonus.

wanna be around, girl, by tinytendril

1960s Snowbarry AU - Marrying into wealth isn’t Caitlin Snow’s idea. It takes an annulment and a pool boy with a smart mouth to break out of her perfectly colourless suburban lifestyle.

Oh my God, I live for this fic. I have a soft spot for heroines who go through their lives having everything externally but feeling a diffuse, unnameable restlessness inside, and then meeting someone who finally, really sees her behind all the glamor. I’d like to think it goes beyond just romance, this seeing; it’s like being acknowledged and respected and accepted as an individual... Or is that what romance is? Lol anyway, I love how the choice of setting further emphasizes the importance of appearances. It makes Caitlin’s developing relationship with Barry all the more deviant, and it becomes an important stepping-stone to her questioning of societal expectations and finally breaking free of them; it enables her to not only choose whom she wants to be with but also what she wants to do with her interests and talents. Other than that, I also love the progression of their relationship: how rigid their interactions first seem, marked by the obligatory proprieties; how they slowly shed those proprieties; and then how, during the climax, they just throw all caution to the wind. A really wonderful, engrossing read. I always feel so content after reading this.

Well, that’s it for now. I might add more in the future when I’ve read more fics or if I’ll suddenly remember one that I’ve missed. If you liked anything, don’t forget to let the writers know, or reblog with your comfort fics if you like :)

#snowbarry #snowbarry fanfiction #snowbarry fic recs #barry allen #caitlin snow #barry x caitlin #fanfic appreciation #favorite snowbarry fics #fic recs

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timeflies1007-blog · 5 years

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Doctor Who Reviews by a Female Doctor, Season 5, part I

Please note: these reviews contain spoilers for this season as well as other seasons of the reboot, and contain occasional references to the classic series.

Previously on Doctor Who: Russell T. Davies presided over the rebirth of the show, starting with Rose Tyler’s escape from mannequins in a shop and ending with the Tenth Doctor’s sad exit. Lots of glorious things happened, we met some fabulous new monsters, we were introduced to an unprecedented amount of information about companions’ homes and families, and if there were occasional detours into deeply annoying pieces of plot and characterization, there were also many triumphant forays into charming and highly emotional stories. Once Steven Moffat takes over as showrunner, the show gets more complicated; people usually mean by this that the plot becomes convoluted, which I think is only intermittently true, but the approach that the show takes to its characters is, to me, the much bigger leap in terms of complexity. In the Davies era, we had a lot of very emotionally demonstrative characters, who often verbalized their thoughts directly, and who had such expressive faces and body language that they were usually legible to us immediately even if they were refusing to speak about certain feelings. With Moffat in charge, I don’t think that the characters’ emotions are less deeply felt, but I do think that they are less directly expressed, to the point that elements of plot, music, and imagery are far more thoroughly burdened with conveying—sometimes with extreme subtlety, sometimes with banging-you-over-the-head obviousness—the feelings that the characters conceal from each other and occasionally from themselves. This season is not quite as subtext-heavy as the next one, but I do think that, while you can turn your brain off and enjoy much of this season as a compilation of lots of good jokes and some entertaining running around, it does seem like a very different kind of storytelling that fundamentally involves more work for the audience, at least if you want to grasp what’s going on with these characters. I don’t think that this is necessarily a qualitative difference—more directly visible characterization can be brilliant and can be terrible, and the same is true of more subtext-driven work. Sometimes, the Moffat era is smarter, in its indirect character-building, than the Davies era was, and sometimes it is clumsier, but regardless of the result, I do think that the approach is extremely different. With that said, plenty remains the same: the show is fun, the monsters are scary, and, as we start this new season, the Doctor is about to make an endearing new human friend.

The Eleventh Hour: There are two high-stakes situations unfolding very quickly in this episode: the Doctor has twenty minutes to save the Earth from incineration, and the show has about an hour to prove that it can survive without David Tennant. The combined pressures exerted on both the show and its characters result in a frenzied, often breathtaking episode that feels a bit like inhaling five shots of espresso, but it finds just enough moments to slow down and let us appreciate this new array of characters.

Smith is immediately good, but Doctor himself takes a few minutes to win me over. While the initial meeting between the Doctor and tiny Amelia is cute, the long sequence in which the Doctor tries and spits out various foods quickly gets annoying; making a little girl cook what seems like most of the contents of her fridge for him seems like an awfully pushy thing for the Doctor to do in his opening minutes, and the scene puts the Doctor right on the line between quirky and exasperating. At the end of the scene, though, we get the first piece of magic in this fairytaleish season, appearing in the unlikely form of fish fingers and custard. There are quite a few things on Doctor Who that work for reasons that are difficult to articulate—murdery trashcans really shouldn’t be some of the most engaging villains in television history, but somehow they are. Smith, until the end of this scene, has been a mostly likeable presence without quite being able to shake the little voice saying “He seems pretty good, but why did they cast someone so young?” This was my initial reaction to his casting, and continued to be my reaction to his first few minutes, but then he dips bits of fish into a bowl of yellow gloop and why this works is entirely beyond me but suddenly he’s the Doctor. Hi, Eleven.

The Doctor, whose tendency to show off becomes especially troublesome in this regeneration, gets plenty of opportunity to do so here. He gets the attention of world leaders by sending them a proof of Fermat’s theorem and several elaborate pieces of knowledge, he practically revels in the chance to save the world with no TARDIS and a twenty-minute countdown, and his warning to the Atraxi, in which all of the previous Doctors appear, is both a terrific moment and a huge display of vanity. The Doctor refers to his confrontation with the Atraxi as “showtime,” but he’s putting on a show the whole time, and enjoying the performance quite a bit. Even his pep talk to Jeff—“First, you have to be magnificent. You have to make them trust you and get them working…This is when you fly”—seems like something he is saying to himself as much as to the bewildered young man he is addressing. The Tenth Doctor was often a huge spectacle, but he was rarely as self-aware of it or as intentional in building it as this Doctor so immediately is. This means that there is even more potential for aggravation here than in his previous incarnation, but the Eleventh Doctor’s tendency to indulge in performance is so clearly-defined and so easily-perceived by other characters that it plays a slightly different role here than it did before—most notably, it produces problems more often than it solves them. This is one of the rare moments in which his self-glorification really does straightforwardly solve the problem, but it’s just so nice to see glimpses of the previous Doctors just as we’re starting with a new one that I still really like the sequence.

There were a lot of complaints about Amy Pond being introduced to us as a short-skirt-wearing kissogram, which is a reasonable objection. On the one hand, her outfit allows her reunion with the Doctor to take the form of hitting him with a cricket bat, handcuffing him to a radiator, dressing up as a police officer, and communicating with fake police on a fake radio, which is sort of fabulous in itself; I appreciate people who have a proper respect for costumes and props. On the other hand, it really is just an unnecessarily objectifying first look at grown-up Amy, and it invites the audience to sexualize her in a way that hadn’t really happened with the reboot’s previous companions. The decision to have her let her hair down just as she reveals that she’s a kiss-o-gram makes the scene look even more sexualized, and the return to the subject later on at Jeff’s house is just cringeworthy. We really, really didn’t need the Doctor making a judgmental face about Amy’s choice of profession, nor did we need a list of the different people she dresses up as—apparently, she’s been a police officer, a nurse, and a nun. It’s a brief scene, but it really does feel sexist, and it’s an unfortunate distraction from the much more interesting elements of Amy’s personality that we encounter in this episode. (On the subject of gender, it’s also worth pointing out that if you’re on a laptop talking to a group of world leaders, at least one of whom appears to be female, you might want to refer to them by a less gender-specific term than “fellas.”)

Other than the questionable choice of occupation, though, we get a marvelous introduction to Amy here. I particularly like that the companion who’s going to go through pretty much every imaginable faith-related psychological issue over the next couple of seasons is introduced praying to Santa Claus (in April!) It’s a silly moment, but one that shows that her tendency to resort to belief that some sort of miraculous intervention will solve problems is exacerbated by the Doctor but doesn’t originate with him. She’s had many years to obsess about the Doctor, and her long period of disillusionment with him before she even sets foot in the TARDIS means that she reacts very differently from what we’ve seen in other companions. I really like the scene in which she traps him by locking his tie in a car door in spite of the fact that the apocalypse is looming, and I love that there’s no “bigger on the inside” moment when she first enters the TARDIS, just wide-eyed silence. The presence of the Doctor and his time machine is as much a validation of her stubbornness as anything else, and the “Scottish girl in the English village” who clung to her accent in spite of the geographic change already has a complicated relationship to the man whose existence she spent so much time defending. There’s some interesting thematic work connected with her as well: the act of carefully looking is an important element throughout Amy’s time on the show, and the Doctor’s promptings to look for what’s in the corner of her eye create a nice beginning to this, as does the fact that the Atraxi is basically just a giant eyeball.

Amy’s world—a small town with a post office, a hospital, and a duck pond with no ducks—doesn’t look as endearing as Davies-era London often did, but it’s very pleasant and I sort of wish that future episodes had let us spend a bit more time there. I particularly like the Doctor’s frustrated remark that in their current possibly apocalyptic scenario, “We’ve got a post office. And it’s shut!” Rory isn’t especially memorable here, but we get a solid introduction to him. While everyone else is busy filming whatever is happening with the sun, Rory is calmly trying to do the useful thing by recording the inexplicable phenomenon of a walking coma patient, and the impression of Rory as quietly and unostentatiously helpful is a pretty accurate first glimpse of him.

In addition to Amy, Rory, and the Doctor, we’re also introduced to the new TARDIS, who gets possibly the best debut of the four. Debates about who has the best TARDIS entrance generally center on companions, but my answer would be the Eleventh Doctor. I’m really glad that he’s the Doctor who eventually gets to talk to the human TARDIS (in next season’s “The Doctor’s Wife”) because he and the TARDIS somehow manage to have off-the-charts chemistry even while she’s still a machine. His awed “What have you got for me this time?” as he first enters his newly-redecorated TARDIS is my favorite moment of the entire episode, because he delivers the line with such a palpable sense of love that I suddenly get their relationship more than I ever have before. The TARDIS has always been fabulous—I mean, she’s what makes the show possible—and there have been plenty of moments that showcase the Doctor’s emotional connection to his time-space machine, but the end of this episode is the first time that she genuinely seems to me like a real character with a personality. This is partly due to Smith’s reaction, but the camera also shows an unprecedented level of excitement about the buttons and switches, and there’s a spinny thing that made me really want to poke it when I first saw it. (It should be pointed out that Amy does so almost as soon as she enters. Well done, Pond.) It’s like the camera, after years of taking it for granted, suddenly noticed how amazing the control room was, and while I have often wanted to travel on the TARDIS, this episode made me feel much more connected to the TARDIS herself than ever before.

There is so much attention to new characters and spaces here that it’s easy to lose sight of the plot, but it’s a solid one—the Atraxi’s broadcasts to the entire Earth are quite frightening, and Prisoner Zero’s ability to change form is used to good effect. I wish that Olivia Colman had gotten a bit more to do, but she makes the most of a tiny role, looking and sounding tremendously intimidating as one of Prisoner Zero’s bodies. We also get a number of references to upcoming plot points, including the first appearance of the eerie cracks in time and the first mentions of the Silence. As a shift in tone and an introduction to new characters, storylines, and themes, this is a phenomenal piece of writing, and if Moffat had managed to come up with a different job for Amy, this would probably be in my top ten episodes of the reboot. The kissogram nonsense brings the quality down a bit, but it’s still easily the best debut episode for a Doctor in the reboot, and “Spearhead from Space” is really the only episode in the history of the show to compete with it as an introduction to a new Doctor. “Spearhead from Space” is an important predecessor here, in that it, too, marked a huge departure in tone from what had come before. The change here is not as drastic as the shift between “War Games” and “Spearhead,” but it does feel like we’re in a quite different world from the one of the Davies era. It definitely requires some adjustment, but for the most part, the new world looks absolutely stunning. A/A-

The Beast Below: I really disliked this episode the first time I watched it, but there are only a couple of episodes that have grown on me more over time. The Starship UK isn’t among the best worlds this show has portrayed—it’s a bit too wrapped up in generic Police State Surveillance things to be completely enjoyable. (The logic doesn’t really hold up either. Having children fed to the whale because they perform badly in school is horrifying to an extent that doesn’t really gel with the idea that the leaders here are trying to do the least terrible thing possible in an awful ethical dilemma. It’s also pretty stupid that the Starwhale clearly doesn’t eat children, and yet they keep getting sent to it.) The episode manages not to fall too badly into the trap of dystopian dullness, however, in large part because it features a queen wearing a giant, awesome cape who has strewn water glasses all over the floor and is secretly investigating her kingdom. It’s too bad that we only got one episode (and then a tiny cameo at the end of the season) of the marvelous Sophie Okonedo, but she really sells both the Queen’s enjoyment of trying to take down her own government and her eventual guilt when she realizes what she has allowed to happen. She looks, at first, like she’s going to be fabulous and fun but sort of lacking in depth, but by the end I’m really intrigued by her role in the Starship’s moral dilemma. She makes the Starship a much more interesting space, and some very nice direction allows the camera to find some really beautiful moments in the generally pretty drab world. I tend to get annoyed with episodes that take a general approach of “It’s the future, and everything’s terrible! And technology, in particular, is terrible! Look at all the terribleness!!” because it’s just a boring way of creating a new place. Unlike some other episodes, though, the episode mixes a simplistically grim-looking future with some whimsical features and some much more compelling and creative darkness, and so the world of the Starship winds up with a varied enough atmosphere that it mostly works.

The plot itself is solid without being especially original—basically “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” with a whale in it—but it’s a surprisingly hopeful version of this story in several respects. The choice between the agony of the whale and the destruction of the Starship is taken entirely seriously, and the reveal that Liz 10 was behind this all along manages to avoid making her look straightforwardly evil. (Non-misanthropic dystopias are my favorite kind of dystopia.) There are also more options here than there are in “Omelas,” as we see in both the Doctor’s attempted plan and Amy’s actual solution. The absence of the binary decision between tormenting an innocent victim and harming the rest of society means that this isn’t as good as “Omelas” in terms of serving as a thought experiment, but this does allow for a more character-driven story. Smith is not quite as memorable in this episode as he was in the previous one, but he gets both some fun moments of physical comedy and some interesting moments of darkness, particularly in his grief over thinking that he has to murder an innocent creature. He starts to get unnecessarily condescending—he clearly sees that the choice between protecting the whale and protecting the Starship is an impossibly difficult one, so his insistence that he’s taking Amy home after this trip and his infuriated “Nobody human has anything to say to me today!” seem a little bit unjustified. Interestingly, though, he is shown to be wrong almost immediately. He and Liz 10 have sort of the same problem here, in that they both see themselves as the hero, and so the whale is placed into the role of victim, either to be saved or to be abandoned to his continuing misery.

Enter Amy Pond, whose continuing state of awe renders her far more capable of understanding that in this narrative, the Starwhale is, well, the star. Amy gets a huge amount to do in this episode, from cheerfully picking a lock to leaving herself messages about how to rescue the Doctor from having to make a difficult choice. Her delighted reaction to being listed as 1306 years old is adorable, and the scene in which she floats just outside the TARDIS is a beautiful image—so lovely that I’m not even particularly bothered by the unnecessary voiceover. Her resolution to the whale dilemma partly relies on her observational skills, the importance of which is highlighted by the Doctor as soon as they land. “Use your eyes. Notice everything,” he tells her, and her effort to do this definitely helps her to figure out the whale’s actual motives. Mixed in with her observational abilities is her somewhat idolizing view of the Doctor, which shapes her actions in a number of ways. You don’t want your childhood imaginary friend to become morally compromised, and her immediate response to the information about the Starwhale is to leave herself a message to get the Doctor away from the ship, where he would be forced into doing something that might tarnish his image as the perfect hero. Amy eventually does create a compassionate ending, but she was entirely willing to run away and leave the whale there in order to remove the Doctor from a morally ambiguous context. Amy is a character who is defined by her ability to believe—she puts her faith in the Doctor to an extent that allows them to develop a wonderful sense of trust, but that also can become dangerous because of how fervent that faith is. Her belief in the Doctor shapes her reading of the Starwhale here; she is so committed to her vision of a perfect Doctor that she sees the whale through that lens, and is willing to take a huge, possibly catastrophic leap as a result. As it turns out, she’s right—the whale really is too kind to let down the Starship passengers. If she’d been wrong, though, she would not only have killed herself and the Doctor but also the entire population of the Starship. It’s a great introduction to the mind of Amy Pond—fundamentally good and kind and trusting, but in a way that carries quite a lot of risk with it. What I really like about this is that the Doctor doesn’t just need a human perspective, he needs Amy’s in particular; what she does here is so specific to her personality and mentality that it really does seem unique to her, and I don’t think we’ve ever had quite this much information about a companion’s mindset by her second episode before.

The problem with this episode is that Moffat doesn’t quite seem to be able to trust the intelligence of his audience. In fairness, there are some pretty subtle things here, including the first reference to silence in relation to emotional pain, but there’s also a tendency to over-repeat important points to a ridiculous extent. We spend too much time watching Amy flash back to the clues that help her put together the real nature of the whale, and then once she’s figured it out, she goes on about kind, lonely creatures who are the last of their species for about five years. The notion of Starwhale=Doctor isn’t a very complicated one, even for a show with lots of children watching, so the decision to keep the dialogue one tiny hop away from “The cast of Schoolhouse Rock shows up and sings a song called Metaphors Are Your Friend Also Do You Get How the Whale Represents the Doctor” is just completely unnecessary, as is the poem that Amy recites at the end.

Other than the poem and the belaboring of the point, the ending has some lovely moments. The hug really solidifies the connection between Amy and the Doctor, and the final scene on the TARDIS, in which Amy answers a phone call from Winston Churchill, is an absolute joy. On the whole, the episode does a stellar job of conveying the nuances of Amy’s emotional state, and it gives us one of the season’s best guest characters in Liz 10. If the details and logic of this world had been ironed out a bit more, and Moffat had written the ending with anything approaching subtlety, restraint, or basic faith in his audience’s intellect, this could have been a great episode, but even with these errors, it’s still a very enjoyable one. B

Victory of the Daleks: For a while, until disaster strikes and everything collapses into multi-colored nonsense, this episode seems like a return to form for the Daleks. The show’s most famous villains had a mixed run in the Davies era: they’re brilliant and terrifying in Season One, kind of fun but shoehorned into the plot in Season Two, an absolute mess in Season Three, and even in Season Four, when they improve a bit, they get slightly buried under the avalanche of plot and character things happening in the finale. In the first twenty minutes of this episode, the Daleks are sensational: terrifying, visually fascinating, and deeply unsettling in their uncharacteristic subservience. (This isn’t the first time that the Daleks have masqueraded as servants, as this was a thing in “The Power of the Daleks” as well. We only have that in animated form, though, since it was erased, and so it’s nice to have the creepy visual of tea-serving Daleks here.) I love having the Daleks fight Nazis, on whom they were initially based, and the hidden threat contained in their stated ambition of “win[ning] the war” is fantastic, although slightly diminished by having the Doctor explain the double meaning a few minutes later. The reveal that Bracewell is a robot that they constructed in order to explain their presence is terrific, and they have a solid plan for getting the Doctor to inadvertently help them. (I mean, if you’re a Dalek and your plan relies on the Doctor’s tendency to grandstand about his longstanding rivalry with your species, you can feel pretty confident about your chances of success.) Even after they have stopped pretending to be Ironsides, the Daleks do some intensely creepy stuff, like turning all the lights on during an air raid.

The triumphant portrayal of Daleks in the early scenes of the episode makes it even more disappointing that the climax of their plan involves intimidating the world by…changing color. Moffat has said in interviews that he was too focused on the first block of filming, and didn’t shift his attention soon enough to the second block, which included this episode, and so he didn’t put enough thought into evaluating how these new Daleks looked on camera. This is a plausible enough thing, particularly for someone in his first season as showrunner, but I can’t imagine what even prompted the initial idea to do this to the Daleks in the first place. There was nothing wrong with the existing appearance of the Daleks, and this redesign just makes me think of the song in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat where they list all the colors. (“It was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn etc.” and then in the film version there are eventually multi-colored sheep.) There has been some variety in the Daleks’ appearance across the history of the show, but this is easily the silliest and least frightening that they have ever looked.

Other than the Daleks themselves, the episode is uneven in terms of quality. The portrayal of Churchill is pretty one-dimensional and doesn’t acknowledge the many ways in which he was a quite problematic figure, but he’s entertaining and the World War II-era atmosphere is nicely established. This is probably Smith’s weakest outing among the early episodes of this season, perhaps due to some awkward writing of his initial rage against the Daleks. He does, however, try to confuse the Daleks by pretending that a jammy dodger is a self-destruct device, which is awesome. I’m pretty tired, at this point, of “The Doctor must choose between destroying the Daleks and preserving the Earth” as a plot point, though, even as a fairly minor one. Enough with this for a while. Amy continues to be an appealing presence, but she doesn’t get anywhere near the kind of depth that she had in the previous episode. She is pretty heavily involved in the resolution of the plot, but her ability to talk Bracewell through his feelings really just reveals that she is developing a crush on the Doctor—not an aspect of this season that I enjoy. Bracewell is an intriguing character, and the notion that having human memories makes him a real person accords nicely with the focus on memories as soul throughout the Moffat era, but the ending doesn’t make sense. It’s not unreasonable to say that a robot capable of deep emotion might philosophically be considered human, but in this case it would still be a human with considerable physical differences, including a bomb inside. There’s just no reason for the character’s emotional awakening to disrupt the physical process that the Daleks have set in motion, so the last-minute escape from destruction seems unearned. The decision to let him run off and carry on being human makes for a cute scene, though, and the episode concludes with a nicely-done reappearance of the crack from Amy’s wall, as well as the intriguing realization that Amy ought to remember who the Daleks are but clearly doesn’t.

This episode is often offered as evidence that Mark Gatiss isn’t a good Doctor Who writer, which honestly I think is a bit unjustified. As I said in my review of “Idiot’s Lantern,” I do tend to like Gatiss’s writing of more realistic stories, like Sherlock and An Adventure in Space and Time, much more than I like his work on sci-fi stories. That being said, if the Dalek redesign didn’t look so idiotic, I would think of this as a pretty good episode, slightly let down by an illogical ending. While there are other flaws, there really is quite a lot that I enjoy here, and the one thing that completely capsizes the episode is the appearance of the Daleks, which Gatiss presumably wasn’t responsible for. It’s difficult to grade this episode, because it involves balancing a lot of good moments against some incredibly stupid decisions; on the whole, I think of this as a weak episode, but I don’t think I dislike it as much as some fans do. C+/C

The Time of Angels: This episode probably features more terrifying things than any other episode of the reboot. The Angel’s slow emergence from the television screen is creepy enough, but the gravel pouring out of Amy’s eye is the stuff of absolute nightmares. The Angel’s use of Bob’s voice is also enormously chilling—I would not want to hear an actual Angel’s voice, as that would take away from the mysteriousness of the species, but having it use a human’s voice and even make use of some of his thoughts means that the Angel conveys a lot of malice while retaining its elusive nature. The conversation is nicely structured too, so that we initially think it’s really Bob talking until we hear “I didn’t escape, sir. It killed me too.” The very best moment, though, is the reveal that they have inadvertently surrounded themselves with Angels; the Doctor introduces the two-headed nature of the Applans so casually that it just didn’t register to me, and I audibly gasped when the Angels’ presence became clear. (I am usually a very, very silent TV-watcher, so it takes a lot to get a vocal reaction from me.) It’s a perfect example of how easy it is to endanger oneself by simple misinterpretation—the notion that an Angel would hide amongst statues seemed so plausible that the possibility of another way of looking at the scenario just never occurred to me.

While this is an extremely plot-twist-heavy episode, it does some interesting work with the characters. I really like the army of clerics, especially the Bishop in charge, who is beautifully played by Iain Glen. There are plenty of reasons to be dubious about a church that has evolved into a military, but what I like about the portrayal of these figures here is that the Doctor basically treats them like he does any other slightly odd civilization by just sort of getting on with the work that he’s trying to do. The idea of an overtly militant church is allowed to be unsettling without the Doctor doing an entire production number about how terrible they are, and the episode goes along with this by making the Bishop a figure of considerable integrity. It’s also a nice touch that we get both a religious army and a mass of angel statues in a season that largely deals with the (over)development of Amy’s faith.

River makes quite an entrance, burning a message into an artifact and then, once she lands on the TARDIS, being much better at actually flying her than the Doctor is and provoking a hilarious TARDIS-landing-noise imitation from him. I do think that her exchange with the men on the spaceship at the beginning gets a bit over-sexualized, both in the dialogue and in the closeup on her stilettos, but once we get past that scene she’s terrific, especially in her interactions with Amy. There’s an easy sense of connection between the two, which makes sense given later revelations, and I like that Amy seems intrigued by River’s relationship with the Doctor without appearing jealous. Amy herself also really impresses me by figuring out how to neutralize the TV Angel by pausing the clip on an Angel-free moment, and her brief spell of believing that her arm has turned to stone is a chilling scene that ends in hilarity as she questions whether the Doctor has “space teeth.”

The end of the episode allows the Doctor to do his usual yelling at monsters about how scared of him they should be, but it also gives some attention to his relationship with Amy. The revelation that Bob’s voice is actually an Angel is a scary plot twist in itself, but what’s even more interesting about this conversation is that it plays very precisely upon Amy’s fears. It’s unsettling to hear Angel Bob use the Doctor’s words about fear against him, saying that his fear did nothing for him and that the Doctor obtained his trust and then let him down. Amy has had more occasion than most companions to think about her level of trust in the Doctor, given his long abandonment of her, and the camera occasionally cuts back to her nervous expression as the Angel continues to taunt the Doctor about his betrayal of that trust. As the episode draws to a close, the Doctor gets everyone to reaffirm their faith in him—to take, in fact, a very literal leap of faith—but while the characters make this leap willingly, there remains a persistent sense of doubt about whether or not their faith is warranted. A/A-

Flesh and Stone: The Dalek episode was difficult to grade, but this one is nearly impossible, as most of it is amazing but the last scene is absolutely dreadful. I’m not sure if any other episode of the show has ever collapsed in on itself in its final moments quite as much as this one does; I mean, I had a huge problem with the end of “Love and Monsters,” but while the last scene is the worst part of that episode, it started to decline in quality about two-thirds of the way through, while this one is generally terrific until its very last minute.

Until the final scene, there is a great deal to love here. A lot of absolutely terrifying things happen in this two-parter, but Amy’s slow countdown from ten is probably what scares me the most. It doesn’t lose any of its impact on rewatch, even though I know that it’s coming and what it means. The subsequent need to keep her eyes shut also makes for a lot of good drama, although her ability to avoid being sent back in time by the Angels by pretending she can see, even with her eyes closed, requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. As far-fetched as it is, though, I can’t watch it without holding my breath, and having to walk through danger without being able to see creates yet another test of her trust in the Doctor. (It reminded me a bit of those trust exercises they made us do in school, where you put on a blindfold and had to wander around the hallway guided by your partner’s voice. I have painful memories of almost falling down the stairs.) In fact, for a while, so many great things are happening that it takes a bit of an effort to properly appreciate them as they whiz by: the clerics use their guns to create short bursts of light so that they can see the Angels with the lights off! There’s a forest on a spaceship! With tree borgs! The Doctor gets Angel Bob to say “comfy chairs!” The clerics keep disappearing and only Amy can remember that they ever existed! The Doctor finds out part of River’s background! The Angels show up in a big scary tableau! The Doctor enters in a slightly altered costume, looking very mysterious while telling Amy to believe in him and to remember what he told her as a child! My favorite, though, is probably the scene in which the Doctor and River try to figure out how to stop Amy’s ominous countdown. The Doctor and Amy don’t know it yet, but River knows that she’s with her husband and her mother, and looking back on it with knowledge from future seasons I just think it’s a beautiful interaction between their family. River and Amy continue to have a lovely connection, and they work so well together that the episode leaves us not only with the usual questions about who River is to the Doctor but also with new questions about who she is to Amy.

As in the last episode, there are a lot of terrifying moments with the Angels, but there are also slightly too many new developments. The worst of these is the moment in which we watch them actually turn their heads, which is the one total miscalculation that Moffat makes with the Angels in this two-parter. Part of the creepy charm of these characters is that we see where they were and then how far they’ve progressed in the blink of an eye, and I like that “Blink” left open the possibility that they essentially became something utterly different when no one was looking. Having the Angels just kill people instead of sending them back in time also isn’t as interesting, but it does lead to Bishop Octavian getting one of my very favorite death scenes of a single-story character in the whole reboot. Smith does some really beautiful work in this last exchange with Octavian, and their final words—“I wish I had known you better” and “I think, sir, you know me at my best” make for a really moving end to the character. He returns to his faith at the end, as well, saying that he thanks God for his own courage and for the Doctor’s safety, and for all that I think a militant church is all kinds of bad ideas, I really like how sincerely devoted Octavian is to his work and beliefs.

The time crack could have benefited from just a little bit more explanation—it’s not entirely clear to me exactly what it means to never have existed, and whether this involves people’s memories being erased or the actual erasure of all of the effects that they had. (It seems to mostly be the former, but it could definitely be a lot clearer.) The clerics disappearing into it one by one is genuinely frightening, though, and it’s good continuity that the Doctor realizes that throwing a major time event (like himself) into the time energy would seal things up, as this becomes important later on. The resolution to the Angel plot also stretches plausibility a bit—it’s not the first time that the show has suggested that holding on really tight can completely offset exceedingly strong gravitational forces, and my science knowledge is limited but it always seems questionable to me. Still, I appreciate that the previous episode established the gravity turning off as a real possibility, which makes the moment more believable than it would otherwise be.

And then there’s that last scene. Introducing a sort of love triangle between the Doctor, Amy, and Rory is a stupid enough idea to begin with, but the details of the scene make it even worse than necessary. I get that trauma can make people lose their judgment a bit, but Amy’s efforts to seduce the Doctor don’t read like someone who is shaken up and making questionable decisions, they just come across as a male fantasy of an attractive woman suddenly becoming desperate for sex. She’s so aggressive in trying to get with the Doctor—even persisting in her attempts to kiss him after he has resisted—that the whole thing is just exploitative and objectifying to a ridiculous extent. Sexual attraction between a Doctor and companion generally isn’t my favorite thing in the first place, but creating a love triangle between Amy, the Doctor, and Rory is even worse, especially with the added drama of Amy trying to seduce the Doctor on the night before her wedding. Her connection to the Doctor has so far been fascinating and unique, and this just rewrites it as something much, much less interesting. It makes this episode difficult to evaluate, because in spite of a couple of unnecessary new details about the Angels, there is so much loveliness before this scene, but this ridiculous ending is enough to bring my opinion of the episode way down. B-

#doctor who #female doctor #reviews #season 5 #steven moffat #matt smith #karen gillan #eleventh doctor #amy pond

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andrewrosswatson1987 · 5 years

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REVIEW: IT’S MAYONNAISE FOR DEER TICK ON NEW COMPILATION ALBUM

Deer Tick have now released a new compilation album. This brand new album, Mayonnaise, out today (February 1), is released via label, Partisan Records. This a thirteen-track companion piece to last year’s full-length albums, Deer Tick Vol. 1 and Deer Tick Vol. 2, from the Rhode Island four-piece. The first described as delving into folk, and the second more garage-rock. The band explains: “On ‘Mayonnaise,’ you’ll find alternate versions of songs from ‘Vol. 1’ & ‘Vol. 2’ that we feel have their own merit and wanted to share. We also decided to record some of the cover songs that ‘Vol. 1’ & ‘Vol. 2’ inspired us to play on our Twice Is Nice Tour. We had such a good time playing these covers live that it felt appropriate to document them here. And, lastly, if we are going into the studio, why not write a few new songs, record them, and give the fans something new to round everything out? So, here you go, this is ‘Mayonnaise.’” Lead singer, John McCauley, also recently joined the Nirvana reunion onstage with Foo Fighters, as they brought members of the band back together to play several hits. John sang, along with Joan Jett, in a full set celebrating the seminal band. The singles for the new album are, so far, “Hey! Yeah!/Run Of The Mill”, “Strange, Awful Feeling/White City” and “Bluesboy/Too Sensitive For This World”. The whirling “Bluesboy” strums in off kilter before giving way to blasts of equally unhinged instrumentation. “Spirals in the palm of my hand” equally leaves you nonplussed. Subsequent lead lines wail before chugging with somewhat purpose gives way to gutsy, swaggering rock. Rude bass clamours for the attention afforded to that wild lead guitar. “Limp Right Back (Alternate Version)” is an entirely different vibe, altogether. Shuffling along quite nicely, actually. “Put things back together” like the constrictive, something less evident on the previous track. Saxophone lends a sense of freedom without quite being akin to a wildcat let free. Expressive but eloquent. Lines “…we’ve become untethered” solidifying this tangent of thought. Next, the power of “White City”, a cover of The Pogues, skips niceties and gets straight to the point. Immediate, with the power of a punk spirit. The Celtic spirit certainly lives strong in this one, too. It rings out with equal attitude. “Old Lady” is despondent, trudging and slow. That wistful country feel, too. “Be a man for my old lady” a snippet of diligence and duty, despite being in the, perhaps, autumnal of years. Emphatic piano embellishing this old time feel. The drudgery of “Run Of The Mill”, a cover of George Harrison, straddles the line between inanimate and more lively, like a run of the mill day whereby you don’t know where you stand. Procrastination. “Strange, Awful Feeling” is ponderous with guitar strum matching the narrative of the track. “I see you when you’re sleeping, I know when you’re awake” and you know that maybe there’s a sense of resentment perhaps laying somewhere. “End Of The World (Alternate Version)” plays earnest of melodic bass, strum of guitar and sparse of drum. Latter just thump of bass and occasional other embellishment of percussion. “Meditation/Aggravation makes it all come undone” telling you for sure if you only suspected it before. “Hey! Yeah!” is rocking, positive and world away from those previous misgivings. Ebullient bass matched with locomotive drum and joyously wayward guitar. “Just give me the word, I’ll be your runaway/Hey/What you say?/Can you take me to a higher plain?” an element of danger, the thrill of the chase. The middle section explores pastures new; a higher plain, even. The guitar builds and builds, crying out for freedom before leaping headlong into wild, scintillating passion. The tribute of “Pale Blue Eyes”, a cover of The Velvet Underground, is reflective and evocative of the rural and, perhaps, dirt poor. “Sometimes I feel so happy, sometimes I feel so sad/Sometimes I feel so happy, but mostly you just make me mad” putting the whole bent of the track within one couplet of the lyrics. “Thought of you as mountaintop, I thought of you as my peak/Thought of you as everything I had, but couldn’t keep” like an admission of what, perhaps, he’s let go. Midway comes a plucked solo dainty and true, not remarkable for its aural power but for its fragility and eloquence. A vocal refrain is only adjoined with the strum of guitar, and even that’s sedate enough to let the lyrics, as profound as they are in dedication to the one that seemingly got away, sink in. Things come to a shimmering close, ending as delicately as the dedication. “Memphis Chair” swings wistfully from side to side, piano ringing alongside to saxophone brooding and quite calm. Hazy and washing over you like sunbathing in calming heat. The album seems to shiver from the cold in “Too Sensitive For This World”, a cover of Ben Vaughn. This fades in and out intermittently like a life force not enough, too sensitive for this world. Seeming accordion like the funereal, the nod to those who could go no further. Indeed, a subsequent guitar solo like tears in its expression. Next song, “Doomed From The Start (Alternate Version) [bonus track]”, starts without suggesting that of the ominous is on the horizon. “Can’t sweep it under the rug” like having come to the end of the Earth, no turning back. Closer, “Cocktail [bonus track]”, featuring Spencer Collum Jr. (Steelism), is evocative of downtime and good times. It’s actually quite jazzy and relaxed. Piano takes hold, seemingly trading licks with the guitar. “I could be slipping off the wing of a dove, or tied up unto the train tracks/Either way, I’m not coming back” like pleasure or pain achieving the same end result. Picks from the album are “Bluesboy”, “Limp Right Back (Alternate Version)”, “White City”, “Hey! Yeah!”, “Pale Blue Eyes”, “Too Sensitive For This World”, “Doomed From The Start (Alternate Version)” and “Cocktail”. There’s some degree of aesthetic symmetry looking at this selected track list. First are the three highlights both start and end of this album, then there’s the additional two highlights during the album’s approximate middle. Deer Tick have put together something which you could reasonably argue that’s eclectic, something that gives you a taste of their artistic range. Supreme diversity of sound. There appears to be some experimentation with all sorts of genres, and that makes for a rich experience. They even breathe new life into some songs that are actually decades old. Deer Tick’s Mayonnaise can be bought on iTunes, here.

#Deer Tick #Mayonnaise #Deer Tick Vol. 1 #Deer Tick Vol. 2 #John McCauley #Nirvana #Foo Fighters #Joan Jett #The Pogues #George Harrison #The Velvet Underground #Ben Vaughn #Spencer Collum Jr.#Spencer Collum #Steelism

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sadyeriddell74-blog · 6 years

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Five Tips To Enjoy Your Family members Reunions.

Recently I would certainly as if discuss any one of you which may be in their 30's or even 40's and also have actually never been actually wed and also are yearning to settle and receive married and also start a loved ones. Bear in mind: everyone needs to have 12 caress a time, therefore ensure to give them all the caress they require for a wonderful sensation everyday just before night time. I knew exactly what that took to make me capable to regurgitate, and also was actually making on my own therefore total relevant where I believed likeI was actually going to vomit anyway. If you do it in a method that praises their wish to create you satisfied, male will not assume you are actually self-indulgent. Despite the fact that, it could think unusual for some time, once you perform it, that doesn't create you experience thus. This words would be the right one if you really want to make your aficionado experience incredibly vital. 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