#even if it has to be dialed back in terms of technology and stuff

[raidergamerspice]

I typed out a giant thread on Twitter about why I think it's baffling that being a Twiyor can get you funny looks in the Spy x Family fandom, that Nightfall could ever be a likeable character, topped off with how much I hate her. I would bring that over here as well, but honestly, I don't want to. If you wanna read the thread, it's on Twitter.

As for this post, I'd rather talk about something that makes me happy, like Twiyor twins!

Yes, I'm finally talking about them like I said I would. I mean, I feel like I don't have much to say about them, but let's see what spills out of my brain lmao.

First, their names. I'm probably being unoriginal, but I headcanon the Twiyor twins' names being Rose and James. Other fans have had this idea for their kids too, so that just proves how perfect they are. Rose is obvious because of Yor being Thorn Princess. As for James, it goes back to what I said in a previous post about all the James Bond references in Spy x Family, including it possibly being Twilight's real name. Well, I think James would be a better name for their son than Twilight himself (though I do like the idea of James being Twilight's middle name, meaning his full name according to yours truly would be Lukas James Rosenfeld; see my post about Twilight's name for my reasons behind Lukas and Rosenfeld if you haven't already).

Oh, and if you didn't pick up on it yet, I also headcanon Rose being the first born twin. Most fans that headcanon Twiyor having twins usually have the son born before the daughter. But here's me simply going "But what if the daughter was born first instead?" It may also tie in to a relatively popular headcanon among Twiyors that Twilight is very much a daughter's father, or something along those lines.

And maybe as they grow up, they can go by nicknames Rosie and Jimmy 🤔

As for their genetics, I'm kinda torn. I've seen fan artists draw Twiyor twins as blonde and red-eyed for the daughter, and black-haired and blue-eyed for the son. That's a neat idea, but what if it was the reverse? That's just an idea, though. I'm not exactly sure on how I picture them looking just yet 💀

Regarding Big Sister Anya: personally, she would just love having younger siblings no matter what. I've seen some fans interpret Anya wanting a sister, others interpret her wanting a brother, so here's me in the middle once again being like "She would love both!" She would just be happy that their family is growing, and she would make it her mission to be the best big sister in the world.

Finally, I've seen a few fans write Twiyor baby fics where they would have lots of children, both bio and adopted, because they would be great parents and would happily foster more children if it meant less lonely, parentless children in the world. That's a really sweet idea, but personally, I feel like Anya and the twins would be enough for them. Even if they eventually moved into a bigger house for them all to live comfortably in, they would be content with having three children and a dog 🥰

(Oh, and speaking of them moving into a house, I did try playing a Sims 4 household with the Forgers, and I just had them live in a Sim made version of the house from Mr. & Mrs. Smith because that movie walked so Spy x Family could run 😂 Plus, it's a perfect size for them, especially if they did have twins)

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Twiyor twins! What do you think? Agree or disagree? Oh, and if you're interested in that Sim house I mentioned, here's a video of the Simmer making it:

#spy x family #twiyor #twiyor babies #headcanons #james forger #yes it's a real tag lol #rose forger #I want a house like the Smiths' to exist in Spy x Family so bad #even if it has to be dialed back in terms of technology and stuff #it would be the perfect house for the Forgers #especially once the secrets are let out #Youtube

[downeypike7]

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[the-blind-geisha]

Going back to the ask about about Dems finding Mc’s nudes, got me thinking, what if he found out she did porn or stuff like that? Whether she did it for money or just pleasure (I guess that might be hard considering Dems is still kinda old fashioned when it comes to tech which I think is cuteness)

Haha, for me, personally—I see Modern!Demi as being very 'eh, I just have this phone for texting out and sending quick calls to family and friends while also updating people on their orders'. XD So he has a phone that's not really the latest, because he doesn't want to put his money on something he's not that interested in. (Cue scene where Demi's children gift him a recent tech phone, and he's just 'oh god, how do I work this?')

Does he have a retro/ tube TV? Mm, he probably keeps his old technology items out of nostalgia, but I don't think he uses them anymore. I'd like to think his mom's old dial TV is in the basement somewhere like a set piece.

The one item in his house that would be the latest and great is or would be his PC since the net kind of rules the world by this point. His TV would be under that in terms of being maybe a 5-year-old model and then his phone would be very retro, always being 10 or so years behind the date of its release.

As far as him finding out about the money or pleasure thing:

To say he didn't go out of his way to hunt down porn online was a bit silly. Demiurge would frequent the net from time to time looking at such things to release any sexual frustrations he had built up. In doing so, he found her quite easily.

He was shocked... He wasn't appalled, he was just... shocked.

Did she not understand this was dangerous? Demiurge could recall all the moments of horror stories regarding men tracking down women they had built up a fantasy over and doing horrible things to her. But, what was he saying? Was he saying this because he was scared for her or was he saying it because he was jealous?

It was her body. She was allowed to do what she wished with it. It wasn't his right to shackle her to his lusts, wants, and needs.

But, dammit. Nearly a million different people had seen these erotic photos and videos. Demiurge just felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to be the special one who got that privilege, but now all these nobodies got it too.

He looked at his phone, hovering his finger over the very thought of calling her... but what could he say? Any direction he could even take this wouldn't be pleasant. No doubt she would be angry he even would have this talk with her in the first place.

She wasn't his and he wasn't hers... much to his own dismay.

Was she doing it for money? He could give her money if she needed it. Was she doing it for attention? He could give her that validation and love any day if she just asked for it.

“I'm being selfish,” Demiurge sighed, looking away with a furrow of his brow. He put his phone off to the side. Even he had to admit the truth in the quietness of his room: he too needed validation and love given his own negative look at himself.

He just wanted y/n to give it to him.

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[saiilorstars]

The Beginning of Everything

Ch. 25:  Stolen Planets  

// Story Masterlist //

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: 10th Doctor x Female OC

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Chapter summary: Renata, the Doctor and Gabby travel to the Shadow Proclamation to find out where Earth has been taken to and discover that it's not the only planet missing. Meanwhile, Donna meets the one and only Rose Tyler.

Donna felt a wicked headache when she finally came to. The hard ground was underneath her, explaining the headache, and though she wasn't fully aware yet, she could feel someone shaking her.

"Donna! Wake up! Donna!" Her mother, Sylvia, was getting more frantic as the seconds passed by.

"What? What happened?" Donna groaned and sat up, soon realizing she was on her kitchen floor. Her eyes found the window and saw the sunlight was gone - it was night. It had been daytime last time she remembered. But lots of weird things had happened to her in the past day. One thing she was sure of, though, was that she would never visit UNIT again. Some weird alien fortune teller had thrown her into a parallel world just for fun! As soon as Martha and UNIT had pulled her out of that world, Donna had demanded to go home to be as far away as possible from the building.

The parallel world, as scary as Donna was sure that it was, seemed to fade away as the hours passed by. She could barely remember it now but she knew that things had been terrible, far more terrible than what she'd already seen in her travels. Even now it gave her chills trying to remember it, but actually...

Her eyes widened suddenly. One huge detail had just come back to mind.

"I gotta call the Doctor!" She jumped from the floor, ignoring her mother's shouts for her to stay. She was just about to call when she passed the open doorway and saw something that caught her eyes.

She backtracked and slowly emerged from the house, first seeing her grandfather shouting at nothing in particular with a bat in hand, but then she saw the sky. Her mouth went dry.

There was no sun, no stars, only big planets accommodated around each other.

"It's them aliens, I'll bet my pension!" Her grandfather, Wild, raged. "You get back inside, Donna. They always want the women!"

Donna shook her head and ran back into the house. She needed to get ahold of the Doctor and Renata now!

~0~

Inside the TARDIS, each of its inhabitants were in the same state of shock and terrible confusion. The Doctor had stopped running around the console now and was immersed in the monitor in hopes of making contact with somebody on Earth. At this point, he'd settle for anyone in order to figure out what happened.

Gabby was still by the doors, staring into space - the spot where planet Earth used to be - and still couldn't believe it was gone. She did think of something that pulled her into reality after a moment. "But... if the Earth's been moved... they've lost the sun! What about my family? Cindy! Donna! They're dead!? Aren't they? They're all dead..."

Renata hurried over, her night robe flowing with her quick strides, to pull the girl away from the open doors. She shut them behind them and turned Gabby back for the console. "We don't really know what's happened…"

"But that's my whole world - it's just gone," Gabby felt like her world was spinning - well, her world was gone but she was sure it was the feeling.

"There's no readings, nothing. Not a trace," the Doctor was getting frustrated by the monitor. "Not even a whisper. Oh, that is fearsome technology. And good technology."

"Doctor, let's focus less on the quality of the technology and more on the reason someone would even build that type of technology in the first place," Renata brought Gabby to the Captain's chair in hopes that sitting her down would prevent the girl from collapsing straight to the floor.

"What are we going to do?" Gabby still held a little hope that not everything was lost. Her eyes flickered from the Doctor to Renata and vice versa. They had to know how to do something that could help them. Yes, they were still arguing but when things were this bad, they would surely put everything aside to solve the problem.

"We've...got to get help."

Renata did a double take at the Doctor, unsure if she had heard him right.

"From where?" Gabby feebly wondered. He was the Doctor - who could he ask to help him out?

"You don't actually mean…?" Renata walked over to him, her face still shocked he was openly admitting that this time - just this time - they would need to go to…

"Well Renata, seems like we're finally going to the Shadow Proclamation."

"I don't like being right this time," Renata had just enough time to say before the Doctor started the TARDIS.

~0~

Donna helplessly dialed for the TARDIS number the Doctor had given her, but it just wouldn't work! She'd tried at least a dozen times but the call wouldn't go through.

"Have you gotten ahold of him, dear?" Wilf came into the kitchen.

"No! There's no signal. This number is supposed to call anywhere in the universe! Something must be blocking it!"

"Dad! Donna!" Sylvia cried from the living room. The two ran to see if she was alright (in what fit) and saw the television on.

'Unidentified spacecraft heading for Earth' was flashing across the screen.

'We're now getting confirmed reports of spaceships. The Pentagon has issued an emergency report…'

"They're saying spaceships," Sylvia shook her head, eyes closed to tears.

"C'mon Doctor," Donna dialed her phone with new hope that maybe this time things would work out.

"Who are you calling?" Sylvia demanded when she caught Donna putting the phone over her ear.

Donna only waved her off as she turned away, walking out of the living room. She returned to the kitchen and peered out the window again. This time she saw the huge spacecraft flying over them, looking pretty menacing.

'Exterminate!'

Donna froze. Had that…?

'Exterminate!'

Donna's eyes widened in horror. She had never seen them but the Doctor and Renata had done a good job of explaining to her how monstrous a Dalek could be. They were part of the reason why their entire world was gone...and it seemed like it was Earth's turn now.

~0~

"So...so we're actually going to the police?" Gabby was holding onto the Captain's chair as the TARDIS continued jerking every which way. The Shadow Proclamation seemed to be on a bumpy road. "You mean all this time there has actually been a space police!?"

"Yes!" Renata exclaimed. She was gripping the underneath of the console so she wouldn't slip.

"So how come we never met them!?"

"Doctor, you want to take that one?"

The Doctor's face went momentarily flat at Renata. "No. I just never thought I would need them!"

When the TARDIS finally came to a stop, the Doctor was careful as he led the two women out. He warned them they might not be so welcomed considering the messes he'd made in the past. As soon as they came out of the TARDIS - or rather slid out, one by one - they were greeted by a group of armed Judoon. Each gun soon took aim on them and one by one, the trio raised their hands to show they were on neutral terms.

"Sco po tro no flow jo ko fo to to," one of the Judoon began to say. Gabby watched in terror, wondering if they were truly dead now.

"No bo ho so ko ro toe so," the Doctor responded in the same manner. It definitely grabbed Gabby's attention. "Bo-ko-do-zo-go-bo-fo-po-jo!" Whatever he said had made the Judoon lower their guns. "Ma ho." Once the Judoon began filing out, the Doctor turned to Renata and Gabby. "They know why we're here. They're getting the Shadow Architect."

"I'm in the Shadow Proclamation...in my nightie…" Renata had just realized that detail and looked terribly embarrassed. "This is not the place to be in my nightie."

"There's no time, c'mon," he made a motion for her and Gabby to follow. Gabby kept quite close to Renata as they passed several Judoons.

The Shadow Architect turned out to be a tall, Albino woman. She seemed a bit condescending and very much in disbelief of their very presence.

"Time Lords are the stuff of legend. They belong in the myths and whispers of the Higher Species," she said, eyes flickering between the pair in front of her. "You cannot possibly exist."

"And yet here we are," Renata waved one hand while the other arm kept around her waist. She'd become very self conscious now that she realized how terribly under-dressed she was.

"We've got a missing planet," the Doctor rushed to get things moving along, but the Shadow Architect sighed in annoyance.

"Then, you're not as wise as the stories would say. The picture is far bigger than you imagine. The whole universe is in outrage, Doctor - twenty-four worlds have been taken from the sky."

Gabby nearly keeled over. "How many!?" So not only was her world gone, but there were 23 others!?

"And you never thought to make this information public!?" Renata seemed almost outraged. If they had made the information known then perhaps each planet would've had a chance at surviving whatever pulled them from their orbit. "It could have given people a chance! At the very least the knowledge that they needed to be on red alert!"

The Shadow Architect did not like her actions being questioned, but Renata had a glare that nobody could win against. "I...did not think they would believe us."

"If 24 planets are missing I'm sure somebody would've believed you if you had just said something!" Renata couldn't help that her tone had turned into a loud shout. There were too many peoples' lives at stake and nobody had done a damn thing about it so far.

"Show me which planets are missing," the Doctor instructed and since the Shadow Architect had already crossed one Time Lord, she obeyed without a fight.

The group were brought to a high tech computer that held a list of all the planets they had recorded as vanished.

"The locations range far and wide. They all disappeared, leaving no trace," the Shadow Architect explained while the Doctor studied the list. The more he read, the less he understood.

"Callufrax Minor, Jahoo, Shallacatop, Woman Wept, Clom - Clom's gone?! Who'd want Clom?"

"That's rude," Renata remarked beside him. "Whole planet's gone, Doctor!"

"Right," he mumbled and went on.

"All different sizes. Some populated, some not, but all unconnected," the Shadow Architect added.

"Wait, what about Pyrovilia?" Renata found herself asking. "Remember-" she looked at the Doctor briefly, "-way back when we were in Pompeii, Lucius said Pyrovillia had gone missing. Bet nobody batted an eye at it."

"Is that an ancient planet?" Gabby wondered, but in asking she garnered a condescending response from the Shadow Architect.

"Who is the female?"

Gabby scrunched her nose. "Excuse you! I might not be 'the stuff of legends' but I'm every bit as important as Time Lords, so give me some respect. Also, my world just vanished so I demand some sympathy."

Both Renata and the Doctor smiled proudly at Gabby. They'd never seen her act so authoritative and much less that confident.

"Pyrovillia is cold case. Not relevant," one of the Judoon in the room replied.

"How do you mean, 'cold case'?" Gabby asked him.

"The planet Pyrovilia cannot be part of this, it disappeared over two-thousand years ago," the Shadow Architect said.

"Like I said, nobody batted an eye at it," Renata motioned the Doctor to scoot out of the computer's way. "I wonder how many other planets just 'disappeared' without anyone wondering why?"

"What are you doing?" the Doctor saw her switch tabs on the computer.

"Going through the planets that disappeared long ago - aha look!" she pointed suddenly. "Remember the Adipose and Miss Foster? She said their breeding planet had disappeared a long time ago!"

"Oh, brilliant! You're brilliant!" the Doctor started exclaiming once he understood the true gravity of the situation. "The planets have been taken out of time as well as space! Scoot!" He scooted her away just like she had done earlier. He re-organized the list of planets into a hologram set in the center of the room for the others to see. "There's something missing. Where else, where else, where else, lost, lost, lost, lost...? OH! The Lost Moon of Poosh!"

"The Lost Moon of what?" Gabby raised a finger and watched as a very small planet - a moon - appeared last in the string of hologram planets.

"This moon, lost ago, - Donna and I heard about it on Midnight," the Doctor said dismissively. He was arranging the planets in a specific way in the air.

"What? When you went to that luxury planet?"

"Yes, now shush!"

Gabby scrunched her face and glanced at Renata, wearing an expression akin to 'we should've gone'. Renata rolled her eyes but let it be. It wasn't her fault that neither of them got to visit the spa planet. That was the day she and Gabby had visited 52st century China in order to see a new art gallery that was having their grand opening. It had been loads of fun for Gabby to meet with current popular artists and see their creations.

But on the other hand, she and Renata had missed the whole ordeal on 'Midnight', the planet where the Doctor and Donna had nearly died. They'd found some strange alien that was so intelligent it almost managed to get the Doctor thrown out of their train by some scared, manipulated humans. Renata had been outraged to hear what happened to the Doctor and demanded that they all go to whoever was in charge of the spa to get it shut down.

"Well…" the Doctor's new arrangement of the planets was interrupted when the stolen planets literally re-arranged themselves into an optimum pattern. "Look at that. Twenty-seven planets in perfect balance. Come on, that is gorgeous!"

"I'm getting tired of saying this, but...Doctor? Stolen planets!? Focus!?" Renata waved a hand at the holographic planets between them.

"Why'd the planets arrange themselves like that?" Gabby went around the hologram, eyeing each of the planets.

"Like pieces of an engine…" the Doctor mumbled in a half-thought. "It's like a power house. But what for?"

"Who could design such a thing?" The Shadow Architect breathed in awe and yet fear. Someone who could design a power tool like that was strong and fear-worthy.

"Wait…" Renata froze but she felt the wave of dreariness begin to wash over her. "It can't be...it can't be…"

"No, no…" the Doctor said rather fast but as he turned back for the computer, Renata swore she saw a look of panic flash across his face for a second.

"Ren?" Gabby feebly moved towards the Time Lady. "What's going to happen? Are-are we going to get them back?"

Renata had no idea what to say and it showed. Her eyes flickered to the Doctor and the Shadow Architect, both huddled by the computer again. None of them had the answers Gabby wanted to know and it killed Renata. "Why don't we go back to the TARDIS so I can get changed?"

Gabby knew the attempt of distraction and what it meant...and it scared her to pieces. Because if neither the Doctor nor Renata didn't know what was happening, then things were truly bad. "I-I want to sit down." Her legs felt like puddy the more she thought of her family and what they must be going through.

"Okay, we can do that," Renata quickly ushered the girl towards a staircase and sat her down on the first step. "You sit here and I'll be back in a bit." She closed her robe tighter and hurried off.

Gabby exhaled heavily. She felt so useless just sitting there with nothing to offer to the table. Her world was gone! She had to do something but...what?

In her distant thinking, she didn't notice an Albino servant coming by with a glass of water. "You need sustenance. Take the water, it purifies."

"...thanks," Gabby whispered and took the glass.

"There's a fluttering around you."

Gabby looked up at the man questionably. "Excuse me?"

"The same fluttering that's around your friend - the Time Lady? Only she is golden, and you are lavender."

Gabby's eyes instinctively flickered to the Doctor as if by extension it was the same thing looking at Renata.

"You are each something new."

"I really doubt it," Gabby took a long drink of water.

"Such a nice group of travelers...I am sorry for your loss."

Gabby lowered her glass to her lap and studied the servant for a second. For a brief moment she thought he might be playing with her feelings but...he looked earnest enough. "Yeah, thanks, I guess. No real words to tell someone when their world is gone."

"No, I mean the loss that is yet to come. I'm very sorry for you all," the servant lowered himself just enough to whisper. "But the butterflies could perhaps save you."

"Excuse me?" Gabby blinked. The servant was grim as he went on his way.

A short moment later, Renata returned wearing much more appropriate clothing. A nice, white buttoned-up blouse tucked under camel-colored pants. She went with the camel-colored flats thinking there would be some running ahead.

"Have we learned anything new?" She went over to the Doctor by the computer, but judging by his lost face there was nothing.

"Gabby?" He called to the girl by the stairs who was still trying to process what the servant's words meant. "Just think for a minute, please? There must've been some sort of warning. Was there anything happening back in your day, like... electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky?"

"Other than the freaky stuff when I met you two?"

"She got you there," Renata whispered to the Doctor, something he was fast to wave her off for.

"Well, Donna did mention that she heard the bees were disappearing…"

"The bees disappearing," the Doctor sarcastically said, shaking his head. "The bees disappearing."

"You don't need to be rude - you asked me!" Gabby frowned.

"Oh...the bees disappearing!" The Doctor realized Gabby (and Donna) were very right in the matter and he was just about to brush it off. He returned to the computer with a new hope that, in turn, pulled Gabby and Renata.

"How is that significant?" The Shadow Architect studied each of the trio to understand what was so important about the insects she had only read about.

"Well, on Earth we have these insects - annoying but very useful - and according to our friend, Donna, a lot of them have been disappearing," Gabby explained.

"Or... they were going back home!" the Doctor exclaimed.

Gabby raised an eyebrow. "Back home? What do you mean…?"

"The planet Melissa Majoria."

"Bees are aliens!?"

Renata put a calming hand over Gabby's shoulder. "Your Earth is just full of surprises, isn't it?"

"You're telling me we have alien bees!?"

"Don't be so daft," the Doctor told her. "Not all of them. But, if the migrant bees felt something, some sort of danger, and escaped... Tandocca!"

"The Tandocca Scale," the Shadow Architect was beginning to understand by the looks of it.

And that's when the Doctor took off in a rambling speed that absolutely no creature should be able to master. "The Tandocca Scale is a series of wavelengths used as carrier signals by migrant bees. Infinitely small, no wonder we didn't see it. It's like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara!"

Gabby's face was a mixture of bemusement and horror, so she glanced at Renata for a better version of that and some plain answers on how the Doctor could possibly do that.

"Centuries have passed and I still have no idea," Renata exhaleed tiredly. The Doctor seemed to know exactly what she was talking about because he rolled his eyes at her.

"Just look!" He grabbed both Renata and Gabby and brought them to the computer screen. "There it is! The Tandocca trail!" There was a trail of blue light almost glittering on the screen. "The transmat that moved that planets was using the same wavelength! We can follow the path!"

"And get to Earth!" Gabby excitedly jumped. "Well let's go!" Now she grabbed the Doctor and Renata and yanked them for the TARDIS. Earth was at the tip of their fingers!

The Doctor somehow got in the lead and went straight for the console's monitor to pull up what they were looking for. "We're a bit late. The signal's scattered, but it's a start!"

"Uh, Doctor?"

He stopped to see Renata was at the doorway, pointing outside. He hurried back to see the Judoon all gathered behind the Shadow Architect. "I've got a blip! It's just a blip, but it's definitely a blip!" He told them.

"Then according to the strictures of the Shadow Proclamation, I will have to seize your transport and your technology," the Shadow Architect's words made him pause.

"Oh, really? What for?"

"The planets were stolen with hostile intent. We are declaring war, Doctor! Right across the universe! And you will lead us into battle!"

The Doctor wanted to be surprised...but he just couldn't be. It was such a predictable thing the Shadow Proclamation would pull. It was why it was far more fun when he glanced at Renata with a smirk. For one moment, they weren't arguing at all. They were just themselves again. "You want to take that one?"

The Time Lady was not remotely amused with his smugness. Of course he'd be smug. She was always on his case about never going to the Shadow Proclamation when things were bad, and much less let them handle things. Now that they were here, doing what she always said they should do, it turned out to be very bad.

"I…" she sighed, "Dammit." She had to admit defeat. "Let us go get you a key," she told the Shadow Architect with a polite smile then yanked the grinning Doctor behind her. He gladly let the doors close and immediately began to laugh as he trailed after her. "It's not funny!" She stalked over to the console. "I just lied to the Shadow Proclamation!" For her, that was blasphemy!

"Yeah you did!"

Renata stopped once she was at the console and glared at the Doctor. "I just lied...to one of the biggest, most official, departments."

"I told you-"

"-shut up!"

Gabby secretly smiled on the side. If they were bickering, making fun of each other, then it meant they couldn't be angry with each other, right?

~ 0 ~

Donna didn't know what was worse: having the Daleks roaming their world and kidnapping humans or having to explain just how terribly dangerous they were to her mother and grandfather. Her mother was scared beyond belief but that didn't stop her from disbelieving every word Donna was saying.

"I'm telling you, Mum! They're aliens from-" Donna pointed a finger above her head, "-space! The Doctor and Renata told me all about them!"

Sylvia would shake her head and mumble that they were going crazy and that if she was going to die, she would have some tea in hand. Donna groaned and let her head fall to the kitchen table in a loud thud. Her forehead would definitely hurt later.

"You couldn't get ahold of them, sweetheart?" Wilf sat right beside her.

Donna raised her head only to shake it. "They must have blocked the phone signals or something. I don't know what else to do. Martha's not picking up either and she's the only other one I had around here…"

Something peculiar happened that froze everyone in their spots. A knock on the door. And then two. And then three.

"The...whatever they're called? Is that them?" Sylvia huddled by the sink, but Donna shook her head again.

"Daleks don't knock, mother."

"No, you stay here," Wilf told her once she started heading out of the kitchen. "There's a lot of crazies right now."

"Yes, but no crazy banging nor shouts," Donna pointed out. She had hope that maybe it was Martha coming to help or at the very least to keep each other company. But when she opened the door she found a blonde on the other side with a massive gun in hand.

She was no stranger.

"I met you," Donna blinked in realization. "In-in that...that parallel world thing the fortune teller put me in! But Martha said it was all gone-"

"Hi Donna, I'd love to talk but can we do that inside where there's no Daleks lurking?" Rose Tyler had a big smile on her face despite the chaos around them. Donna wasn't sure what the hell was going on, but she nodded and stepped aside. Rose was happy to come in and leave behind the darkness, at least for a moment.

"Hold on!" Donna went after her. "Parallel worlds - the Doctor told me about that! You're not supposed to be here!"

Rose removed the hangar from her gun and set it on the couch. "Well, I was trapped...and then...things happened…" It had taken a lot for her to finally get to the right world and she wasn't going to let anything get in her way.

"You were in my world!" Donna reiterated in a frantic shout, almost begging Rose to agree so that Donna knew she wasn't crazy.

"I was," the blonde nodded her head. "I've been travelling from world to world, trying to find this Earth."

"But I don't...the Doctor said parallel worlds are sealed off. That's why…" Donna trailed off awkwardly. Reminding Rose of the terrible parting with the Doctor 2 years ago was probably something Rose didn't want to remember.

"Donna, who the hell is that?" Sylvia had come out of the kitchen with Wilf. The first thing Sylvia noticed was the massive gun on her couch.

"She's a friend of the Doctor's," Donna said with a light smile. Well, there was no Martha but they had Rose now. One for one.

"Rose Tyler," the blonde waved a nervous hand at them. Last thing she was thinking of was going through a proper greeting. Time was their only weapon, after all. "Donna, can you call the Doctor?"

"I've been trying but he's not picking up!"

That sentence alone seemed to rip through Rose. "What…?"

Donna sighed wearily. "I've been trying like mad but the signal doesn't go through. Wherever they are in space...it's not getting the signal."

"In space?" Sylvia repeated condescendingly.

"Oh mother, hush!" Donna unexpectedly snap. "It's all real, you know? Just take a look at the sky, for God's sake!"

The yelling between the two didn't seem to break through Rose. She dejectedly leaned against the couch as she processed that her only plan was on a halt. "You're my last hope. If we can't find the Doctor…"

There went the universe...universes.

~ 0 ~

The TARDIS had gone through a series of violent jerks until it suddenly stopped and threw everyone to the ground.

"Are we here!?" Gabby peeled her face off the floor and quickly laid eyes on the door.

"It's...stopped…?" the Doctor sounded confused and if he was confused then things were bad again.

"N-n-n-n-no don't say it like that, please!"

Renata got up first then helped Gabby. She was thinking like the Doctor that they couldn't have stopped. He was already at the monitor to see exactly where they had stopped.

"The Medusa Cascade," he said quietly. "I came here when I was just a kid. Ninety years old. It was the center of a rift in time and space."

"So...are the twenty-seven planets here?" Gabby left Renata's hold to see the monitor for herself. The space was beautiful with colors of blue and yellow and red all swirled together...but she didn't see her home planet. "Where...where are they?" She looked to see the Doctor was once again wearing that expression she hardly saw, because he never showed it. Hopelessness.

"The Tandocca Trail stops dead," he stepped away from the monitor, perhaps to hide his hopelessness. "...end of the line."

Gabby watched him like he was crazy. She'd never heard him say something like that, much less appear like he believed that. Her head turned to Renata in a snap to see what she would say.

She wasn't like the Doctor, but Renata had learned long ago how to hide her true feelings. Yet another gift from her family. Even if she was upset, if she was helpless, or hopeless, she should always wear a smile for everyone.

"We'll find it," Renata said. Her eyes blinked rapidly - she was thinking about Martha on Earth - and Gabby could hear the heavy inhales she was taking. "I don't know how but...we'll find it."

In any other situation, Gabby would've loved to point out how Renata and the Doctor had taken each other's roles. Renata, who was used to reality, was now daring to believe in the impossible like the Doctor and he was taking her perspective of reality to the last point. The irony.

~0~

Without Donna's working phone, Rose resorted to a computer. She didn't expect much from it but at the very least it could help with something.

"The thing is…" Donna was sitting right next to Rose in the kitchen, "In that parallel world...how did you know me?"

An amused smile spread across Rose's face while she went through the computer. "I told you that already: you're the most important woman in the universe."

"Oh come off it," Donna waved her off. "There were plenty of people connected to the Doctor after you. There was Martha-"

"Heard about her, lovely but she wasn't the one I needed."

"Alright, what about Gabby? She's young but she's definitely added something, right?"

"Gabby Gonzalez is not my domain persay."

"What do you mean?"

Rose visibly swallowed hard. "You have to remember, Donna, that I visited a lot of parallel worlds before coming to yours. I've seen versions of Gabby that...don't end so nicely."

Donna was quick to be horrified. "She dies?"

"No…" Rose tilted her head, wondering if this was even an appropriate conversation to have. With a sigh, she pulled her gaze from the screen to look at Donna. "There were a couple parallel worlds where something - I think a space art gallery of some sort - would contaminate Gabby and then she would end up as this…huge-" she made the gesture of something large with her hands, "-cosmic butterfly. And she wasn't a very nice cosmic butterfly."

"But that can't be. Our Gabby went to a space gallery too and-and nothing happened to her."

"Different world, different results. Maybe it just wasn't her."

Donna was sure the Doctor examined Gabby after Zhe's gallery, finding that Gabby was also exposed to the same toxins now hurting Renata. Maybe Gabby just wasn't hit with the same amount? Or because she's human? But then if it wasn't Gabby…

"Maybe it was someone else…" Donna whispered when it donned on her who'd been taking the worst hit from that space gallery. "Oh God, if it's Renata…"

Rose once again stopped on the computer and side-glanced Donna with a sharp look. "Renata? A Time Lady? Don't tell me you have one of her too." Donna met Rose's eyes, suddenly nervous when she remembered the whole ordeal between Renata and the Doctor. Rose presumed that was Donna's way of saying 'yes' and groaned. "Not her!"

"What? You know Renata?"

"Unfortunately. She's a Time Lady in the other worlds I crossed to but she was no help at all. She didn't care about the stars dying, nor that the Doctor didn't exist in her worlds or that he was dead."

"Well that can't be Renée," Donna used the Doctor's nickname for her as if she was trying to say that couldn't be his Renata. "You know, our Renata, she's very good at hiding her true feelings. I'm willing to bet that she was lying to you. She kind of does that." Rose didn't seem so sure. She went back to work instead, but Donna still had one more thing to say. "Our Renata here, she was contaminated badly and she's been having health issues…the Doctor's told me that he thinks she might be regenerating soon, or at least her body will try to." Donna remembered how terribly grim the Doctor was when he shared that detail with him. He was truly terrified of what could happen to Renata and there was nothing that he could do about it. Renata had been contaminated with something that nobody else had. And before the Doctor even knew who she was, he had already fallen for her. With all those feelings the situation had to be even more terrifying. Who'd want to lose someone they loved?

"Then I'm betting she's going to become the not-so-nice cosmic butterfly," Rose murmured, not particularly concerned for that bit.

Donna was worried, though, very worried. Could this have been the prediction Gabby told her about? Is that how Renata was supposed to die? And was that here? At this moment? They really needed to find the Doctor.

'You will obey Dalek instructions without question. You will obey your Dalek ma-'

Rose froze when the computer went pitch white. She blinked several times at it, wondering if they were about to catch a break.

'Can anyone hear me? The subwave network is open, you should be able to hear my voice…'

"Yes! Yes! I can hear you!" Rose was quick to say. Even Donna had leaned closer to see who was trying to talk to them. "

"Is there anyone there?"

Rose gasped. "I know that voice...!"

"This message is of the utmost importance. We haven't much time. Can anyone hear me?"

The screen cleared up a few seconds later and had Harriet Jones on the other end, flashing her ID at anyone who watched. "Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister!"

"Harriet! It's me, it's me!" Rose soon realized that Harriet couldn't hear her at all. She looked at Donna who shook her head.

"It's my grandad's computer!"

"Have you got a webcam?".

"No," Wilf answered from the couch. "She-" he nodded at Sylvia beside him, "-won't let me. She said they're naughty."

Rose sighed and looked at the screen again. "Well, I can't speak to her then, can I?"

So close and so far.

~0~

Renata had opened the TARDIS doors to the empty Medusa Cascade. She wasn't sure what she was doing, but at least she was doing something. She extended her hand, focusing on that sneaky energy that had caught her off guard far too many times. Now it was her turn to control it and maybe, just maybe, it would do something good for them. There were quiet wisps of energy that would emanate from her fingertips, but nothing too significant.

"Don't hurt yourself," the Doctor came up behind her. "We still don't know what that energy can do to you."

"If it'll get us somewhere, then I don't care." She closed her eyes to try again, but this time the Doctor lowered her. With a sigh of annoyance, she opened her eyes and turned around. "Stop that. I need to try again."

"But what's the point?"

Renata simply couldn't believe that those words were actually coming out of his mouth. He even looked the part of someone with zero faith. "The point is that I'm trying to do something! Just like...just like you would."

"Well who taught you that?"

Renata's expression went full-on incredulous. "You!" She frantically gestured to him. "In your annoying, talented way. It's the thing I've never been good at but you... you've always done that. I wish I could've been like that from the start."

The Doctor gave a light shake of his head. He moved around her to close the TARDIS doors. "Maybe you've been right this whole time. It's best to see reality." If he had seen reality before, way back on Gallifrey, then maybe he would've avoided all the pain he'd carried since then.

"Don't say that, please," Renata whispered. She felt terrible thinking that her words had finally cut through the Doctor. That's never what she wanted to do. "Because the day you start thinking like me...then it's really over."

That's how badly she thinks of herself, the Doctor concluded. He wasn't that surprised, though. Zuriah usually wasn't very confident, even when she had the ability to make anyone smile. She was always so good at making everyone - anyone - feel welcomed, feel at home and Renata was just as good. As soon as she was finally settled in her new traveling life with him, she made him feel at home in his own TARDIS. She was a warm, kind woman…

He forgot how he used to feel around her.

"Doctor, it's Zuriah. She's here. She's alive and she's here. The universe is giving you a second chance to be happy."

"She has a point," Donna's input made the Doctor turn his head at her. "You've told me how much it hurt to leave her behind, especially when...when your war was over. But she's alive."

She was alive and yet he was still so scared of what would happen. He still felt the anger towards Renata even when he knew - when he accepted - that he was still in love with her, but maybe this is what Martha meant. There wasn't time to waste but it was difficult to move on right now. Maybe it was just 'right now'. He'd have to come back to that when all this mess was over...

"I know you must not value my words right now - or ever again - but I have to tell you how much you've...changed me." Renata stepped closer to him but was a bit afraid that he wouldn't want to be in such close proximity to her. "I never really got the jist of planet Earth and much less the humans...but you've changed that this past year. I finally get why you're always there to help them. They're amazing - albeit a little narcissistic sometimes - but they're people worth getting to know. And I thank you for that. Now I just want to help however I can and make that girl over there-" she nodded over to Gabby who was blankly staring at the ground, "-happy again. So, yes, my energy might not do a damn thing but I will keep trying even if it kills me."

It was impossible for the Doctor not to feel at least a little bit special. Time was, he always tries to show Zuriah the best of the world through his words. She would always question his obsession with the humans, commenting on how he should redirect that attention to their home instead. But here she was, thinking almost like him.

There came a beeping noise from the console, startling the trio inside. It was hard to tell what it was for a few seconds, until…

"PHONE!" Gabby actually fell out of the Captain's chair in her shock. The Doctor dashed for the console with Renata hot on his trail.

"That's Martha's phone! It's Martha's!" Renata was too excited when she saw the Doctor picking up the ringing phone.

"Martha, is that you?!" the Doctor called but there was nothing on the other end. He pulled the phone from his ear to see the screen. "It's a signal…"

"Can we follow it?" Gabby jumped back to her feet, albeit a little wobbly from her fall. "Like back to Earth?"

The Doctor had a stethoscope on the phone and the phone in front of the monitor, with no intention of letting the trace go. "Oh just watch me!" Renata beamed at him. He couldn't just give up - it wasn't him. "Got it! Locking on!" he cheered. He didn't warn the other two that the TARDIS was about to once again shake them - he just pulled the lever and started her up.

Renata shrieked at the sparks that flew from the console and nearly hit her face. Her arms flew over her face and in doing so, the TARDIS had an easier time throwing her back.

"Renata!" Gabby yelped from her spot.

"I'm fine, just keep going!"

But a moment later, the console went up in flames and forced Gabby to let go. She shrieked as well when she went down.

"Sorry! We're travelling through time! One second in the future!" the Doctor explained in a loud shout. "The phone call's pulling us through!"

"Just get us there!" Renata, again, yelled from the floor.

"THREE! TWO! ONE!" The Doctor yelled at the top of his lungs whilst the TARDIS shook like it never had before.

The TARDIS hurtled towards something new, exactly to where Earth and the other lost planets truly were. The fire, soon, started going out on its own.

Renata eventually climbed her way back up using the dry parts of the console for support. Her back ached and that warmth was coming back to her skin. "Please tell me we're here?"

The Doctor's grin was answer enough. He helped Gabby stand up while Renata hurriedly moved to the computer.

"The twenty-seven planets!" she beamed. "And there's the Earth, Gabby, very much present!"

"Let me see!" Gabby left the Doctor's hold to see for herself that the planets were all there. "But why couldn't we see it before?"

"The entire Medusa Cascade has been put a second out of sync with the rest of the universe. Perfect hiding place, tiny little pocket of time. But we found them!" The Doctor had come to the monitor in time to see the screen blurring. "Oh, oh... what's that?"

"Someone's trying to reach us," Renata really hoped it was Martha and Donna. She needed to know they were okay.

"Some sort of... subwave network!" The Doctor anxiously waited for the screen to completely clear up. He did his best from his end to help the network come through, but it was mostly up to their luck.

Jack Harkness was the first to appear in a square of four, followed by Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones and then their own square.

"Martha!" Renata beamed at the sight of her best friend. Martha grinned in relief to see their network had finally reached them.

Jack Harkness laughed in the same relief but it was followed by an angry, "Where the hell have you been!?" It made the trio blink in collective surprise.

"Well, rude," Renata muttered but she couldn't stop smiling. They were alive right now and that's all she cared for. "Wait - who's that?" She pointed a finger at Sarah Jane.

"Oh, Sarah Jane!" The Doctor was the next to beam. "An old friend! Who's the boy?" He spotted the brunette teenager standing next to Sarah Jane.

"Is Donna around there?" Gabby squirmed her way in-between the Doctor and Renata, momentarily looking like their curious child trying to see what was going on.

"Donna!" Renata gasped. Her eyes laid on Martha but it was only her.

"She's at home, I'm assuming safe? All communication is down."

The trio's hearts stopped at the questionable fate of Donna.

"You picked up another one?" Jack raised an eyebrow at Gabby.

"She's mine," Renata answered with a proud smile, truly looking the part of a mother.

"I'm Gabby Gonzalez," Gabby gave a meek wave of her hand at the screen. "And I'm not a child, no matter how Renata makes it seem."

"Doctor, it's the Daleks!" Jack exclaimed.

"They're taking people to their spaceship!" Sarah Jane added and was followed by Martha's input.

"But it's not just Dalek Caan!"

~ 0 ~

In Donna's living room, there was an equal relief to see the Doctor and Renata on their computer screen, although Rose paid more attention to the former than the latter.

"They're alive," Donna was grinning from ear to ear. "And that means we can still win this!"

"Win what? The world's ending," Sylvia said from behind.

"Mum, not now!" Donna sighed as she watched everyone jabber along on the computer. They were unable to join.

"So you do have the cosmic butterfly and the Time Lady?" Rose didn't seem too sure about them when she glanced at Donna.

"They're incredibly kind women, I swear," Donna assured her.

"She-" Rose tapped her finger over Renata, "-didn't care for humanity in your world. She was in hiding...and she knew the Doctor, but...she didn't care that he was dead."

"To be fair, that's also a version of Renata that never met the Doctor again so...she never got attached to any human like Martha...me...and Gabby," Donna said sadly. She wondered what that other version of Renata felt like being alone. She remembered how scary the Doctor had been the first time she met him. He had no control of himself, no care for his own life because he felt so utterly alone. She presumed the other Renata had to been similar.

"And she-" Rose moved her finger to Gabby, "-can be very dangerous. She was a fixed point in time in a lot of the other worlds. She was dangerous, Donna, I swear."

"I believe you," Donna promised. Rose looked very sincere in her worries and Donna couldn't just wash them away when Rose had seen things with her own eyes. "But please trust me when I tell you that these versions are not who you think they are. They're here to help."

Rose bit her lower lip and turned her gaze back to the computer. All this time she hadn't felt her stomach churn the way it was right now - despite the Dalek situation and the universes crashing - but now looking at Renata and Gabby made things feel a lot worse. It scared her even more.

~ 0 ~

The Doctor was fondly watching all of his previous companions jabber over one another, trying to explain the situation. He had no idea what they were saying but he didn't care. He was so happy to see all of them. "Look at you all, you clever people!"

"These are all previous companions?" Gabby asked him with a growing smile on her face. People just like her who would understand all of her stories!?

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded. "That's Captain Jack-" and just before the man in question was about to open his mouth, the Doctor pointed a warning finger at him, "Don't you dare!" Gabby blinked but smiled at the brunette man on the screen. He was kind of cute. "That's Sarah Jane - we go way back."

"Centuries," Sarah Jane agreed. "Now I must ask who is that?" She was talking about Renata who'd been pretty quiet but nonetheless looking just as happy as everyone else.

"Renata," the woman answered. "Nice to meet you...even though I wish it was under better circumstances."

"This is like an outer-space Facebook!" Gabby laughed once she realized the comparison. "Can we make this a daily thing? You know, when the world isn't ending."

"Oh Gabby," Renata laughed and side hugged her.

"Everyone except Rose," the Doctor distantly commented after a moment.

~ 0 ~

"I'm here, Doctor. I'm here," Rose whispered with an urgency that Donna could practically see radiating from her.

~ 0 ~

The screen in the TARDIS turned into white noise all of a sudden.

"No, no get them back!" Gabby frantically said, even banging the side of the monitor to get ahead of the Doctor.

"There's another signal coming through, there's someone else out there!" The Doctor did indeed follow Gabby's plan and banged the other side of the monitor.

"Would you two stop banging the monitor!?" Renata yanked their two hands off the poor screen. "Maybe it's Donna."

But the voice that followed was definitely not Donna. It was a raspy, almost ugly, voice that froze the two Time Lords in their places. "Your voice is different, and yet, its arrogance is unchanged."

Gabby wasn't sure who it was but judging by the looks on the pair's faces, she knew it could not be good.

"No, but he's dead…" Sarah Jane was the only companion who seemed to share the Time Lord's horror.

"Welcome to my new empire, Doctor," Davros - creator of the Daleks - emerged from the darkness to reveal a rather unappealing appearance.

"Ugh…" Gabby found herself retracting a few steps, repulsed at the terrible creature on the screen.

"I've never actually seen him…" Renata sucked in a breath of terror. Flashes of the war came back to her mind suddenly.

"It is only fitting that you should bear witness to the resurrection and the triumph of Davros, Lord and Creator of the Dalek Race," Davros said, but the Doctor only stared in silence. "Have you nothing to say?"

Gabby took the Doctor's silence as a very good reason to be afraid. "We're-we're in the TARDIS. We're...we're supposed to be safe, right?"

"But you were destroyed," the Doctor finally found some words to say. "In the very first year of the Time War, at the Gates of Elysiem. I saw your command ship flying into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. I tried to save you…"

Renata's double-take on him nearly hurt her neck from how fast she'd done it. "You did what?" Never in her lives would she ever try to save someone like Davros...but of course the Doctor would.

"It took one stronger than you," Davros told him. "Dalek Caan himself."

The Dalek himself flashed in the background, singing his words with an insane undertone. "I flew into the wild and fire. I danced and died a thousand times!"

"Emergency temporal shift took him back into the Time War itself," Davros further explained, or explained better since the other Dalek was deliriously laughing.

"But the entire War is time locked!" Renata, outraged, yelled. How could a creature like that be able to penetrate the most sealed event in history?

"And yet, he succeeded. Oh, it cost him his mind, but imagine - a single, simple Dalek succeeded where Emperors and Time Lords have failed. A testament, don't you think, to my remarkable creations?"

"And you made a new race of Daleks," the Doctor could only assume.

"I gave myself to them. Quite literally. Each one grown from a cell of my own body." Davros revealed his rotten form underneath his suit. His ribs and heart were almost entirely visible. "New Daleks. True Daleks. I have my children, Doctor. What do you have, now?"

The Doctor was still pretty shaken from the fact that Davros was there so Renata felt like it was appropriate to answer for him. "I am Renata and you ruined our world! So the only thing we're going to do is say goodbye you horrible, ugly monster!" She reached for the lever across and yanked it down with all her might, sending both the Doctor and Gabby to the floor.

The TARDIS began its descent towards Earth, never the smooth ride.

Author's Note:

Ah, so it's all coming now. Donna still went through the paralell world but now she's back on Earth helping Rose out where she can. And Rose started foreshadowing what could/might happen to Renata...or Gabby...or Renata...

And guys...they finally went to the Shadow Proclamation! But poor Renata, in her nightie, and it all blew up in her face. They were NOT helpful at all and the Doctor finally got to show it. This moment will come up later on too xD.

Can you guys believe that there's only like 6 chapters left in this story (if I don't decide to split up a few chapters). I'm so excited for the next story that I thought I'd leave behind another snippet of it. Actually, this is quite literally the beginning of the next story if anyone's curious!

P. S: As always, I have a tumblr account dedicated to my fanfic works! It's a place where anyone can comment about a story or even just talk to me! I often drop aesthetic work belonging to my stories too! Feel free to check it out, my URL is "noble-crescent" and the tag I created for any posts having to do with my work is # noblecrescentedit.

#ocappreciation #doctor who fics #10th doctor fics #10th doctor imagines #doctor who imagines #dw imagine #10th doctor imagine #dw imagines #oc: Renata Cartwright #fic: the beginning of everything #gabby gonzalez

[sundropscribbles]

Spoken For | Thirteen x Reader | 4.8K

Hello, my dears!! I’m back from the hustle and bustle of FanX with a brand new request, this time for a lovely anon! I’m going to try and get another one finished up tonight (fingers crossed!), but for now, I hope you enjoy this one. 🥰

You wouldn’t have called yourself a flirt.  Not in general terms, anyways, and certainly not if anyone had asked you directly. 

In fact, you’d have corrected anyone who forwardly presumed you to be flirtatious, because a much better word to describe you would have been kind.  You were warm and genuine and open with people and all manner of alien creatures alike, and it was something that you preferred people knew about you. You had never cared to withhold your kindness and compassion from anyone — not even folks that you had only just met — and it was always much nicer when those you interacted with weren’t put off by it. 

You had never associated this particular characteristic with flirting of any kind. However — unfortunately for you — your opinion on the matter definitely wasn’t a universal one. Your welcoming demeanor was often misinterpreted, and it often led you to conflict. Mistaking genuine kindness for flirtation wasn’t a habit exclusive to Earth, you had found, because it had continued to be an issue for you throughout your time traveling through space. 

It wasn’t a problem terribly often — or, rather, not many of the people you encountered pushed it to the point of being a problem.  Most of those your presence had an effect on would soften significantly in your presence, maybe even shoot you a wink or make a suggestive comment, but it didn’t typically progress beyond that. 

Typically. 

There was, of course, the occasional individual (read: the occasional egotistical drunkard, or high-and-mighty authority figure, or otherwise) who just couldn’t seem to take a hint.  

In most of these situations, The Doctor was at your side, ready to step in at a moment’s notice. Whenever someone got a little too comfortable or too forward she was there, happy to take your hand and kiss your cheek and run the person making insistent passes at you off.  

If you were honest, you had always found it just a little bit funny how much honest pleasure she took in giving out these blatant reminders.  Not that you didn’t appreciate it, it was just... The Doctor herself was quite the affectionate character, when it came right down to it, and if there was truth to any of the stories that you had heard both from her and from other people, she had a history of being quite the flirt — particularly when she had still been a man. It was because of this that you found it somewhat ironic that she was so enthusiastic in reminding others that you were, in fact, spoken for. 

Regardless, you appreciated her protective streak when all was said and done, because it  had saved you from confrontation on more than one occasion.

Today, though, she was rather preoccupied saving the ship that the pair of you had wound up traveling onboard from going up in flames, which meant that you were going to have to handle the, er — situation at hand on your own.  The whole thing was incredibly inappropriate in itself, and the fact that it was your significant other who was currently saving the lives of everyone onboard this bloke’s ship only made it even more so. 

“Feels a bit like doomsday, doesn’t it?” he says to you, with a smile on his face that alludes to something entirely unrelated to any sort of impending doom. 

“I s’pose it does,” you respond. You avoid looking at him directly; you’ve been dodging his passes for hours, now, and you can see where this conversation is going a mile away.  You have to have a laugh at your own expense, too, because sure — it probably did feel like doomsday to him, and to everyone else onboard the ship. To you, though? To you and The Doctor, who not more than a week ago had been diffusing a much more alarming situation involving a planet about to implode on itself, and cyborgs who had threatened to kill the both of you for interfering? A crashing ship was a walk in the park. “I wouldn’t worry, though — not really. The Doctor knows her stuff. She’ll have us sorted in no time.” 

The comment about The Doctor is a deliberate attempt on your part to discourage him. It’s not as though the pair of you are ever very subtle in your affections toward one another, after all, and there’s absolutely no way that he hasn’t noticed you holding her hand and kissing her cheek and tucking yourself in close to her side whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Quite unfortunately for you, though, he doesn’t seem to care.  He doesn’t even give a second thought to your comment, obviously, because he takes a blatant step closer to you and gently brushes his knuckles against your shoulder.  You know for a fact that no one onboard this ship has had anything to drink — at least nothing of an Earthly nature — but you can picture this man in a dive-bar with ease, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, hitting on anything in his immediate vicinity with the help of his tonic and gin. 

“I’m sure you’re right,” he says, doing all he can to keep up his air of nonchalance. “Still, though… systems failing, lives in the balance… makes you think, doesn’t it?” 

You sigh. “Doesn’t it just,” you mutter, and shuffle to the side (read: away from any further unwelcome touching) as subtly as you can. 

You try, again, to tune him out, this time by watching The Doctor from across the room. She’s flitting from person to person, giving them concise instructions and stopping at opportune moments to take care of the things that she can manage on her own.  It’s not very long before the shuddering of the ship has all but stopped, and you can’t help but smile. Even though you probably couldn’t even begin to explain what had been done to aid the situation, you always felt a satisfied warmth when you saw her in her element; helping whoever she was able to help, righting all of the wrongs in the universe she could without crossing any cosmic lines, etcetera etcetera. 

She’s just finished up adjusting one of a number of dials, tweaking one thing or another in the ship’s functionality, and in the next moment she looks away from the monitor that she’s had her focus on and glances your way.  She smiles as she meets your eyes, that warm, kind, “don’t you worry, love” smile, and you readily smile back at her, doing all you can to let her know that the last thing you’re worried about is the technological who’s-its and what’s-it’s that she’s busied herself with.  

It just so happens that in the same moment, the man you’ve been doing everything within reason to avoid decides to take his persistent flirtation a step further by wrapping one of his arms around your shoulders and effectively stopping you moving away from him. 

“And I was thinking,” he begins in a low voice, and you’re so taken aback by the forwardness of his actions that you actively lean away from him. “Perhaps you and I could take advantage of the situation… of whatever time we might have left, anyhow. What’dya say, hmm?”  

You scowl, certainly much more forwardly than you normally would, and take a pointed step away from him.  He drags his hand across your shoulders as you shake his grip, clearly not having thrown in the towel yet, and you do your best not to snap at him too harshly as you respond. 

“No,” you say bluntly. “I mean, thank you for the, er — compliment, but no thank you.” 

A sour expression crosses his face as he takes in what you’ve said, and he crosses his arms over his chest as he eyes you. 

“Can I ask why not?” he asks, as though he means to give any thought to what you might say on the matter. 

You’re about a minute away from bursting at the seams — from telling him exactly where he can shove his cheesy “doomsday” speech — when The Doctor pipes up from across the room. 

“Y/N, love,” she calls out, and you can plainly hear the hard edge in her voice. If you had been looking at her rather than at the pushy bloke beside you, you’d have seen the poorly-concealed scowl on her face, too, as she had watched you brush him off. “Could you come over here and help me with this for a quick mo’?” 

You stifle a smile, and turn her way without an ounce of hesitation.  While you aren’t exactly happy that she’s less than pleased, you’re more than grateful for her obvious annoyance.  Perhaps if your irritation at this bloke’s unwanted advances won’t get your point across, The Doctor’s will. 

“Of course,” you call back to her, and you don’t even spare your pouting suitor a glance as you turn and make a beeline toward your companion. You make a show of looking at one monitor and then another as you come to stand beside her; you know full-well that there likely isn’t very much you can actually do to improve the situation, and you know that The Doctor much more than likely doesn’t need your assistance at all, but the last thing you want to do is give the facade away to Mr. Quite-Literally-Couldn’t-Take-a-Hint-To-Save-His-Life.

“What can I do?” you ask her, regardless of what you already know.  The question is both to help keep your front up and an attempt to offer some real assistance (since standing uselessly at the center of a crowd of people who are busy saving the lives of all of those surrounding them isn’t exactly ideal). 

The Doctor smiles at you warmly. Even though she’s clearly still bothered at the entire situation, she certainly looks much more content with you at her side. 

“Just stay close, will you?” she says under her breath, and smiles at you as she goes back to what she’d been doing before she’d caught onto your predicament. You feel one of her hands brush along the dip of your waist as she steps away, and the touch is so soft and deliberate and visible that  your cheeks warm.  You continue to look over the data reading out on the monitors anyhow, for show if nothing else, but you’d have been lying through your teeth if you’d said that you hadn’t snuck a glance or two back toward the man who had been hassling you, smiling a very self-satisfied smile the entire time. 

————————

In the end, it doesn’t even take The Doctor an hour to get the ship’s engines sorted and her flight path back on track. You hadn’t expected anything less of her, obviously, but it still makes you unbelievably proud to see the looks of joy and relief on each and every passenger’s face when she announces that they’re all set to make it to their destination safely — and in perfect time, nonetheless. 

There’s a hug here, of course, and a kiss to her cheek there, but you don’t let it bother you. You’re certainly used to the outpouring of love that surrounds The Doctor, and generally speaking, she has such a presence that most are a bit too caught up in it all to even consider making any sort of romantic advance on her.  And besides, as cheesy as it had all been in context, Doomsday-Boy’s speech hadn’t been very far off; people staring impending doom in the face (and people suddenly rescued from that impending doom) could be... overly grateful, to say the least. 

And anyways, seeing The Doctor showered in so much love and adoration only made you more grateful that of all of the people she got to meet and save and care for every day, she had chosen to give the (much) better part of her love and adoration to you. 

Once she’s finished explaining to the pilot and co-pilot what exactly she’s done, and what they’ll both  need to do to keep it all on track she turns and makes her way back to your side, looking equal parts exhausted and pleased with the way that the whole situation had turned out.  There’s a smile on her face as she comes to stand at your side, one hand reaching out instinctively for yours. 

“Y’alright, love?” she asks, and you flash her a grin and give her hand a squeeze.  

“Perfectly,” you reassure her. You thread your fingers through hers and take another half a step closer to her, nuzzling your cheek against her shoulder. You’re well aware that your touchy-feely nature can be somewhat excessive, at times, but so long as she doesn’t mind (and she doesn’t — she never, ever has) you can’t truly bring yourself to care. She spends a great deal of time with other people, sure, but at the end of the day, you were the only one she invited to invade her personal space in this way, and you’d be damned if you took even a moment of it for granted.  

She’s just pressed her lips against your temple and begun to say something about the pair of you packing up and heading home, and you’re just getting ready to express your agreement by means of a sweet kiss when Doomsday Boy makes a reappearance — because, apparently, he sees it fit to intrude upon your warm, happy space for, oh, about the thousandth time in a handful of hours. 

“Well, it was lovely to meet you both,” he says, hands tucked into the pockets of his jumper and eyes blatantly fixed upon you. “Thanks for saving our hides, and all, Doc. And Y/N, it’s a bleedin’ shame we couldn’t — ah. Get to know one another any better. Next time, perhaps. Cheers.” 

He’s gone after that, but the interaction leaves a sour taste in your mouth nonetheless. You’re well aware that you’re scowling after him as he turns to walk away, because fuck — what an arse.

“I s’pose he just had to get the last word in, didn’t he,” you mutter, well and truly surprised that he hadn’t used The Doctor — or rather, your obviously affectionate attitude toward her — to continue flirting grossly. You could almost hear his whole schpeel in your head, and it made you a touch nauseous. “We’re so lucky to be alive — don’t you think the three of us should celebrate?”

God. 

You turn your attention back to your partner, then, ready to pick up where the two of you had left off. That doesn’t quite happen, though, because you find rather immediately that your scowl had been nothing compared to hers. 

She continues to stare after the bloke even after he’s tucked back into the small crowd of people still lingering about, and for a moment you weren’t entirely sure that she’s not about to stomp after him and give him a piece of her mind.  It wasn’t terribly often that you saw The Doctor angry — especially not at some random fellow who’d chosen to make a fuss — so it rather shocked you to see her looking so positively livid. 

“Doctor?” you said, soft, in an attempt to draw her attention back your way. Doomsday Boy wasn’t even close to worth making a scene over, surely, even if he did rather deserve The Doctor’s wrath in exchange for all of his ignorant behavior. 

She blinked upon hearing your voice, and though you had managed to keep her from giving anyone a good shout for the moment, she didn’t look any less annoyed when she turned to meet your gaze. 

“Yeah, sorry,” she murmured, and gave your hand a tight squeeze. “It’s just — blimey, they never stop, do they?” 

The frustration in her voice was clear as day, and the laughter that embellished her words was clearly forced out through her teeth.  You managed a gentle smile at her, shrugging your shoulders as you considered it. 

“I guess not, eh?” you muse. She makes an irritated sound, something between a grumble and a groan. You laugh despite yourself, bringing her hand to your lips and planting a warm kiss to the back of her palm. 

You can see her beginning to wallow in it, just a bit, so you take it upon yourself to distract her by any means possible. After all, if events have turned so that you’re allowed to be quite finished thinking about crashing ships and pushy arseholes, then it’s only fair that The Doctor has the same luxury. 

“C’mon, then — we don’t have to go back to the TARDIS just yet, do we?” you suggest, and The Doctor blinks. 

“I suppose not,” she says, looking rather surprised. “I mean, this wasn’t exactly the place I planned to bring you, because, well, you know — shoot for the Glistening Forests of Parishe and occasionally you’ll land onboard a commuter ship between here and there. And it is just a commuter ship, so there’s not terribly a lot to see, unfortunately.” 

You watch her closely as she talks, smiling a private smile the entire time. Her mood is already bouncing back and it’s delightful to see, so you go ahead and continue egging it on. 

“Maybe not, but most commuter ships have view decks, don’t they? That’d be rather stunning. We might even be able to see the forests from above,” you say, giving her a gentle nudge. “I know it’s not the entire forest, but we’ve already saved the day once, and it’ll be a fantastic view with easy access to the TARDIS, yeah?” 

You’ve not even finished speaking before you see the agreement settle over her, and the moment she nods her head, you lean in close to her and kiss the corner of her mouth, just as you’d been about to do when you’d been interrupted. 

“Let’s go, then,” you say, and it’s then that she smiles, too. You’re on you’re way soon after, and you can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief the moment you’re out of the room and away from the noisy crowd of passengers.  It’s never not a relief, you think, to be able to step away from the hustle and bustle at the end of the day and have a nice, quiet moment with The Doctor — especially as rare as quiet moments with her tended to be. 

The view deck that you had asked about is just a few doors away, as it turns out, and to improve upon the idea even more, there‘s a small seating area just near the paneled windows.  Its couches are soft and white and cushiony, and you hurry toward them, pulling The Doctor along with you as you go.  You fall into the cushions happily, and you’re still grinning as you gesture for her to follow suit.  She laughs softly, bending to your will (as she often does) and falling in beside you. She presses in close to your side and you loop an arm around her shoulders, more than happy to have her snuggled up against you. 

Both of you are quiet for a time after that, and by the time The Doctor speaks again, you’ve closed your eyes. The view is absolutely astounding, all shimmering purples and silvers and cascades of stars, but the day has been long, and the cozy nature of it all isn’t lost on you. 

“I’m sorry for being so cross,” she says suddenly. You open your eyes with a sleepy blink and shift just enough to look at her. There’s a concerned crease in your brow as you take in her expression, which is a genuinely sheepish thing. “I didn’t mean to get so embarrassingly green in the face, it was just — that man—” 

You cut her off with a shake of your head, smiling warmly as you brush a strand of blonde hair back from her eyes. 

“Oh, don’t apologize, love,” you tell her, and she blinks. “I understand, and honestly? That man was a complete prat. I probably should have let you smack him around a bit.” 

She snorts and rolls her eyes at that, sitting up a bit straighter in favor of looking at you more directly. 

“I wouldn’t have smacked him around. You know me — violence really isn’t my thing,” she argues, and you acknowledge her with a purse of your lips and a shrug. “I might’ve just — shouted at him a bit.” 

“Or a lot,” you tease, and she barks out a laugh. 

“Alright, yeah, a lot,” she admits, and you giggle. She retaliates by giving your hip a playful pinch, which makes you squeak softly. “It just — it makes me absolutely bloody crazy, these people who think it’s perfectly alright to walk all over you, right? You’re so kind, Y/N, too kind for your own good sometimes, and they just — they just use it! I can’t stand it.” 

You watch her closely as she rants, unable to help but feel incredibly warm and soft inside as you watch the protective side of her burst out hotly, like so many of the shooting stars zipping past the ship. 

“—and the ones like him, who you’re obviously, actively pushing away, who know that you’re spoken for, they just — they just! Ooh,” she grumbles, obviously still fired up. You swallow hard, and as she meets your gaze, all flush-cheeked and wild-eyed and just a little jealous, you bite back a soft noise. You don’t think you can be blamed for the fiery swell of attraction bursting from within your ribcage — not a bit.  It’s just — she’s just — 

“They just..?” you urge her on once you’ve caught your breath. Her eyelashes flutter, then, and she seems to catch your flustered expression, because her eyes go just a bit darker. 

“They make me want to show them exactly how spoken for you are,” she says, low, and you lose your breath all over again. 

It’s not another second before her arms encircle your waist, gripping you like a vice as she ducks forward and catches your lips with hers. The fire that you had seen in her eyes while she had spoken comes through in her kiss, and you can hardly help but whimper into it as she pulls you impossibly closer. 

You swing one of your legs across her lap as you lean into it, straddling her thighs while she busies herself biting and mouthing at your bottom lip. You brace yourself with one hand on either side of her, but you’re quick to melt against her the moment she tucks her hands into the back pockets of your trousers. Another handful of seconds later she’s pressing her body up against yours, and you’re more than pliant when she turns the tables, scooping you up and laying you back against one arm of the sofa.  You take ahold of her coat at either side and give it a determined shove backwards, and she grins as you do so, letting it fall from her shoulders as she settles atop you. You kick it aside as you wrap your legs around her waist, and you hear it hit the floor with a soft thump just as you tangle your hands up in her soft hair and drag her into another lusty kiss. 

She’s just broken away and leaned to one side so that she can effectively place a love bite just behind your ear, and you’ve just  begun to tug at her braces when there’s a peculiar sound from the back of the room, near the doorway. 

You ignore it for a short time, and The Doctor seems to do the same, so you don’t bother to stop what you’re doing (which, at the current moment, consists of breathing a shaky sigh and doing your damndest not to groan while The Doctor leaves a little trail of bruises along your pulse point.) It’s not until the sound gets more persistent that you even pay it any mind, and even then, you make the conscious decision to focus your attention on tugging The Doctor’s tee-shirt free from her high-waisted trousers rather than the squeaky-wheel-esc noise.  You’ve managed to pull both tee and under-shirt about halfway up her midriff (and accidentally dislodged her braces entirely in the process) when you hear the sound again, much louder this time, followed by an irritatingly familiar voice. 

“Do you mind?” asks none other than Doomsday-Boy, and the moment you realize what it is going on you let your head fall back against the arm of the couch let loose a groan of an entirely different nature.  You’re just about ready to lay into him, but before you can say anything The Doctor jumps at the chance. She rights herself (and you let her), and the look on her face is like ice. 

“Well, you certainly didn’t mind, did you?” she says, and you watch with interest as he shrinks in his place. “I definitely don’t recall you minding, oh, an hour or so ago, when Y/N told you they weren’t interested in what you were offering, and you decided it was alright to go ahead and keep on making them uncomfortable.”

Doomsday Boy’s face goes as red as an apple at that, and you can’t help but snicker at the sight of it.  You had been right on every account, earlier, when you had decided that it could be rather amusing to see The Doctor knock this bloke down a peg. 

“I didn’t mean anythin’ by it,” he argues weakly, and The Doctor scoffs. 

“S’not the point, though, is it? Point is, you didn’t bother thinking about anyone but yourself just then.  So unless you can make a bloody compelling argument for yourself, I don’t see why either of us should be bothered by your discomfort,” she points out, and chooses that particular moment to cast a glance your way, as if encouraging your input.  As your gaze shifts from her face to that of one very embarrassed Doomsday Boy, and you find that he’s looked your way as well, you cock one eyebrow and nod his way. 

“You heard her,” you say, and he becomes visibly uncomfortable at that.  He scratches at the back of his neck, shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and averts his gaze. There’s something terribly gratifying about all of it, and you’re more than happy to take advantage of his humiliation. “I think the least you can do give us is the room.” 

He doesn’t actually say anything in response to your suggestion, but the sheepish way that he nods and turns on his heel to hightail it out of the room is more than enough to have you collapsing into a brief fit of laughter.  You’re positive that he probably hears you loud and clear, but you can’t bring yourself to care; especially not once The Doctor turns a surprised gaze on you. She only waits a moment before she leans in close once more, laughing brightly as well as she presses a kiss to your shoulder. 

“What’re you so chipper about?” she asks, and you bite your lip as you stifle your laughter against the back of your hand.  It takes you a moment to collect yourself, you’ll admit, but you shake your head once you’ve managed to stop giggling, smiling delightedly as you rest your head back against the sofa once more.  

“Oh, nothing. It’s nothing,” you muse, though it’s not another second before another bit of soft laughter betrays you. “It’s just — well, you sort of did exactly what you said you fancied doing, didn’t you?” 

The Doctor brightens at that, breathing a quiet sigh as she lowers herself to her elbows once again and rests atop you warmly.

“Yeah, well. He had it coming, didn’t he?” she insists, and you snort as you brush a hand through her hair. “And if m’honest, it was a bit intentional on my part. I might have caught a glimpse of him walking into the room well before he chose to interrupt. And I might have chosen not to care.” 

Her confession surprises a laugh out of you, and you tickle her side in a playful manner.  It causes her to jump, and you narrow your eyes as you meet her gaze. 

“You’re scandalous, you are,” you tease, and she levels you with a wonderfully mischievous smile. 

“Oh, you love it,” she says, and leans over the edge of the couch in favor of reaching into the pocket of her coat, which still lies in a heap on the floor. 

“Of course I do,” you agree, watching fondly as she rights herself once more, this time so that she can point her sonic at the door that Doomsday Boy had (quite rudely) left wide open. 

With one quick buzz the door swings shut and locks.  The Doctor tosses her sonic aside, then, and neither of you hesitate to pick up exactly where you left off, any previous interruptions be damned. 

#lfv fic #doctor who #dw #thirteenth doctor x reader #13 x reader #thirteenth doctor #13th doctor #13 #the doctor x reader #new who #dw fanfic #imagines #doctor who imagines #the doctor x y/n #reader insert fics #doctor who reader insert #jodie whittaker #thirteenth x reader #fic #lfv requests

[elained1]

Skywalkers: and the lack of support for the Mother/child in the SW universe

So I guess I’m writing a meta? Is that what this is called?

Let’s think back to 2012 when Disney purchased Lucasfilm. If I were to put myself in the shoes of someone who had a say in how to continue the Skywalker saga, or to wrap it up, here’s my take on what I would do based on what has been done. And this is taking into account just one of the overarching themes we’ve been presented thus far in the Star Wars movies (and I’m kinda going from movies alone here because that is what I’m most familiar with); that is, the failure of the mother/child relationship.

Example 1: Anakin/Shmi.

The prequels were the tale of Anakins’ i.e. the Chosen Ones’ fall to the dark side. I love how this story was executed, if not all of the dialogue and plot points (insert cheesy/awful romantic dialogue here). His major turning point is the death of his mother (slaughter of the sand people including non-combatants) and I think most would agree in the saying that if Anakin had his mother around, or at least kept in touch with her, he probably would have been able to keep a better handle on his life. She encourages him, comforts him, wants the best for him, all that good mother stuff. Even to the point of relinquishing him to Qui-Gon, a dude she barely knows who ends up being killed like 3 days later, and a Jedi Order of which she probably knows little about save for the fact that they are the “good guys” who can give him a better life. So this was definitely a failing of the Jedi order I think. When thinking about the “chosen one” and how much importance Qui-Gon and later Obi-Wan seems to put on it, one would think that the “mother of the chosen one” would accord you at least some status. Or some impetus to rescue from a backwater planet, from the control a literal nobody slaver (Watto), himself who is a complete side note to the larger universe. Why leave here there, practically presumably to die, when she is the one with the most key insight into Anakin as a person and the one most invested in his future? I digress. Jedi Order/SW universe gets -100 points for this.

Example 2: Padme/Luke/Leia.

Here is our second example of how this universe fails mothers, and their children. Padme/Queen Amidala was my absolute FAVORITE character in Ep. 1. She is BADASS. She has AGENCY. She does shit, fools everyone, isn’t afraid to make waves, and goes against the advice of practically every male character in the movie in order to accomplish her goals. She humbles herself, self-sacrifices, and uses all the tools at her disposal to save her people. And she’s like supposedly 14 (eye roll but whatever I don’t know why they couldn’t have made Anakin and Padme both like 18 in this movie and it still would’ve worked) The people of Naboo wanted her to stay as queen for as many terms as possible and wanted to change the constitution to keep her in power, but she refused that and became a badass senator. Now AoTC rolls around, and yes she still has agency, and I wish someone had talked George into writing better dialogue for those two because all the elements of a good love story were in the plot, but she still kicks ass and takes charge, making her own decisions and entering into a “forbidden” marriage (at least from the jedi standpoint) of her own free will. Then RoTS rolls around, and she’s pregnant.

This is when everything falls apart. For practically the whole movie, she sits around and waits for Anakin, and is a literally plot device for his fall. SIGH. Why on earth would the current queen of Naboo care if Padme was pregnant out of wedlock (from their point of view)? Is this the pre-1950s? Why couldn’t she keep being a senator if she wanted? She can’t have a nursery built next to her senatorial office and some nannies if she wants? For heaven’s sake the lady liberated Naboo and is a heroine she should be able to have her cake and eat it too if she wants, and retire to Lake Country. And yet her pregnancy is viewed as such a negative thing for her career-wise/in general in that movie. Let’s not mention the fact that apparently sonography is also not around cause she somehow doesn’t know she’s carrying twins? Were any women/medical professionals consulted at all during the writing/directing of this film? Anyway. Then we reach her death due to a “broken heart” I guess even I think we all know this mama bear fierce lady would fight tooth and nail for her children, just as she did her planet. I really wish they would make it canon that Palpatine somehow transferred her life essence out of her with the force, because really that’s the only plausible reason I can accept for her death. So: SW Universe -1000 for this one.

Example 3: Leia/Ben

Third time is the charm right? Not. Man this poor family. So your dad is Darth Vader, and you’ve got the force yourself, you’re rebellion icon/leader, Princess, Huttslayer, basically all around Badass that is Princess Leia. Post fall of the Empire, which is accomplished in your, what? Twenties? You’re interested in a political career and the future of the galaxy. Your man is usually pretty reliable when it counts. And here again you have a brother indoctrinated into all those Jedi ways and you would think would be able to help you if you have a force sensitive kid and yet, the SW universe fails you again. I mean, obviously these movies wouldn’t exist if these relationships weren’t tragic.

But how freaking tragic is it that this badass powerful woman falls pregnant, and then has her poor baby is TARGETED in the womb (what I’ve gathered from tumblr since I haven’t read the books), and no one can figure this out/sufficiently protect this kid??? To be honest I never really thought the Han/Leia pairing would work out that well, and I wasn’t a huge fan of her being made Luke’s sister in ROTJ. I wanted Luke to get the princess when I was 6, shoot me. Anyway. Regardless. The SW Universe fails again to provide this mom what she needs to have a supportive relationship with her son. He was left with droids a lot. Didn’t one try to freaking murder him once? Wtf? He couldn’t come with her to senate meetings? He didn’t have a non-hackable non-human nanny to keep him close to his mom when she was embroiled in debates? Dad couldn’t have dialed in more via skype/hologram? You would think she’d have a freaking staff entourage that would travel with her all the time and keep him close like the royal she is. Han couldn’t take him out on the Falcon with Chewie when she had a particularly busy week? Sigh. Again. No balance between career/being a mother seems achievable, despite this being some super advanced technologically universe. I guess that’s why it’s a long time ago in a galaxy far far away? SW Universe -10000 for this failure.

So this brings me to how I would really love how this Skywalker family to end up. First off I want happiness for Leia. Familial happiness, which means either Ben redeems himself and comes home to her (good lord if this happens somehow I will be a sobbing mess). She could also practically adopt Rey, which I hope does happen. The best way for this to happen? As I have said, Ben redeems himself (hopefully not as a last ditch thing ala vader) and then LIVES, in order to atone and rebuild. I hope Leia knows this or witnesses this, and that she doesn’t die without knowing it which would reduce me to tears even more. Rey,is adopted as Leia’s daughter, and welcomed into the family BEFORE any whiff of relationship between her and Ben which I think has already happened. Anyway this becomes even more solidified due to her either implied will happen or does in the movie happen marriage to Ben. Honestly folks I know Rey is an amazing female character and a strong person but she is also flawed too and the one who has caused her to grow and face her flaws? Ben. The one who is her opposite but ideally suited for her future life as a force user? Ben. The one ideally placed to understand her and her trials? Ben. He is her helpmeet people. Through them, the legacy of a POSITIVE Jedi Order can continue. Ben knows the hypocrisy and flaws of the old ways, and Rey does too. They can make a new order/legacy. And you had better BET that the man who felt abandoned by his family as a youth, and the woman who was literally abandoned by hers, would be taking good care of their children and finding a balance between work/life. If Lucasfilm is really putting forward a strong female protagonist, which I have to believe they are, they can show her as flawed as well (they have), they can show her as being powerful and having agency in and of herself, they can show her choosing to have a romantic relationship (if she chooses) without weakening her character and for ONCE I would also like it if they could show that you can have your own life path and also blend that with motherhood/family if you so choose. C’mon Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy!!! I’ll have been waiting 27 years for this!!!! Anyway that is all for my Sunday morning rambling.

#reylo #star wars #bendemption #prequel #sequel trilogy #tros speculation

[br0ken-writes]

Neo Culture Technology

Ask: i would KILL for some vampire male reader/vampire taeyong content. anything. anything you have

Part 1

Word count: 2321 (Part 2)

You sigh and sit on the couch again, next to Doyoung and try to study again. “What are you doing?” He asks after a few minutes, making you jump at the sudden sound cut through the silence “I’m studying” You mumble and start to nibble on your nails while you read through the words sitting in your lap “You’re still in school?” He asks and you can feel him sit up and lean towards you to look at your textbook “I’m in my last year of college, finals are next week” You tells him, still not looking at him. You hear him sigh and fall back into the couch again “You shouldn’t bite your nails, it’s a bad habit” Was the last thing he said while the two of you were left alone.

Hours later, Doyoung suddenly stands from the couch and looks at the window through the blinds, you watch him look around outside before switching from looking at you and out the window “We need to leave” He said, walking towards you and grabbing your arm to make you stand “What? Why?” You say, struggling against his grip “I can’t just leave, I need to study” You tell him and he still has a strong grip you “Then bring your stuff with, it’s not safe for you here” He says, now letting you go and collecting your books from the coffee table “Go grab a heavy coat, do you have any cologne?” Doyoung rushes to say and you hand him your backpack that was nearby for him to put your stuff into “Yeah, but-” You start to tell him something but he starts to direct you towards the stairs and takes out his phone “Put on your thickest coat and drench it with your cologne, you need to cover your scent” He says and dials someone on the phone before putting it up to his ear “Taeyong? Yeah, someone’s staking out the house, I’m taking y/n to your place” You hear him say as you climb the stairs.

You grab your fleece-lined coat that was super heavy and thick and put it on before spaying a bunch of your cologne all over you and grabbing a spare few things you might need to take with you before going back downstairs where Doyoung was waiting and looking out the window again “How could you tell someone was here?” You asked, scared “I just can; let’s go,” He says, tossing you your backpack. You brag your keys before following Doyoung out the front door and locking it behind you “Get on,” He says and hands you a helmet and getting on a motorcycle “You expect me to ride that?” You ask and point at his motorcycle as he puts on his helmet “If you don’t want to be left alone with a vampire hunting your brother, you will” He jokes with you but it only made you throw on your backpack before putting on the helmet and sitting behind him “Better hold on tight” He says and you hesitate before wrapping your arms around Doyoung’s torso and squeezing him as tightly as you could. He starts the motorcycle and reves it up a few times before skidding off down the street of your neighborhood at high speeds.

You close your eyes tightly and hug him tighter before feeling him laugh through his chest “Did you never ride on your brothers’ bike!?” He yells over the wind and you just bearly hear him “No!” Was all you were able to respond with before getting scared again by how fast he was going and you buried your face into the middle of his back, feeling him laugh again. After a while, you finally feel him slow down and come to a stop “We’re here” He says and you raise your head from where it was buried and look around to see a massive house, you sit there in shock “You can let me go now,” You hear Doyoung say and snapback life “Sorry,” You mumble and let go of him before getting off his bike and taking off the helmet “I need to put my bike away, help yourself inside, the code is 21127″ Doyoung tells you, you simply nod and hand him his helmet before making your way to the front door and punching in the number, a bell rings and the door unlocks letting you step inside the vast home.

You slip off your shoes before taking a few steps on the cold floor and wandering the front entrance of the house, taking in everything you could and noting how cold it was even though you were wearing your thickest coat “Put these on, otherwise your toes will freeze off” You suddenly hear Doyoung voice behind you and he sets some slippers on the floor for you “Thanks,” You mumble before looking around the house again “This is Taeyong’s house so make yourself comfortable, you can study here, for now, right?” He asks and you just nod before going over the to giant couch and claiming a small part of it before getting back to work on studying, Doyoung disappears and later returns with a glass of water that he sits in front of you before going to another part of the couch and lying down and closing his eyes while crossing his arms like he did at your house “Is this for me?” You ask and he just hums a ‘yes’ before turning on his side so his face is towards the back of the couch “Thanks,” You mumble again.

A couple more hours go by before you feel yourself falling asleep, you close your textbooks and place them on the coffee table in front of you before drinking the water Doyoung got for you and lying down on the couch along with him, the couch was big enough that you had bet to yourself that at least two more people could be lying on the couch and no one would be touching each other. You wrap yourself in your coat to try and warm yourself a little more before closing your eyes and falling into a deep sleep.

You’re woken up later by Doyoung shaking you awake “Y/n, get up” You hear him calling out to you and you shake him off “What now?” You groan and sit up while rubbing your eyes “I need you to lock yourself in the house, someone’s here” He says and you’re fully awake now “Aren’t we safe here though?” You ask and he nods “I’m going to go out and see who it is but I need you to lock yourself in behind me,” He says and goes to walk away but you stop him from walking away by grabbing his hand “Don’t, I’m scared” You tell him, voice small and hanging your head, not looking at him “It’s better if I go out and see who’s ever there rather than let them be, don’t worry, you’ll be safe locked in here” He says, placing a hand on your shoulder which makes you look up at him and he gives you a small smile. You give him a small nod and follow him to the front door where he unlocks it and opens it slowly before stepping outside “Don’t open-” He starts to tell you something but someone comes and hits him in the chest, sending him flying into the house and hitting a pillar, making it crack.

You try to slam the door close and lock it but a hand grabs onto the door and pushes it fully open, making up jump back so you wouldn’t be crushed behind it. “Get back, y/n!” Doyoung yells and you turn to run towards Doyoung but the man grabs you by the back of your hair and holds you in the air, you scream at the top of your lungs and thrash around trying to get out of the mans’ grip. He throws you to the side and you smash into the wall, hitting your head hard and passing out when you fall to the floor. Doyoung finds his strength again and takes on the man, getting into a fight of the strengths when two other guys show up to back up the other one. Doyoung was now trying to fight off three guys while protecting you and he finally gets the best of one of them but the other two attack him at once and finally back up comes in.

Jaehyun, Taeyong, Ten and Jungwoo come through the door and help Doyoung take down and kill the intruders before Jaehyun rushes to your side and holds you in his arms “Y/n, can you hear me?!” He calls out to you but gets no response and it’s then that he notices the gashing wound on your head “We have to get him to the hospital,” Jaehyun freaks out and picks you up in his arms “He’s lost too much blood Jaehyun,” Jungwoo says and tries to stop him from leaving “And there are going to be others hunting us, it’s not safe” Ten adds on but Jaehyun shakes his head “I can’t just let my little brother bleed to death! He’s all I have left!” Jaehyun bursts and tears stream down his face “There is one way to save him, Jaehyun” Taeyong says calmly with sad eyes as he watches your brother “You don’t mean?” Jaehyun asks Taeyong quietly and he nods his head slowly “No, he’d be in even more danger” Jaehyun says, head shaking again and his voice getting shaky “I don’t think there’s much of an option, Jaehyun” Doyoung says.

Jaehyun stares between everyone before looking at you in his arms, face going pale and breathing slowing “If we turn him then we can keep him close, he won’t be vulnerable alone anymore either” Taeyong says and Jaehyun falls to his knees, you still in his arms “What if this ruins his life? Y/n has dreams” Jaehyun says, voice choked with tears and he looks at you while crying “We’ll help him adjust Jaehyun, it’ll be okay,” Taeyong says, getting on the ground with Jaehyun and putting a hand on his shoulder “What if he hates me?” He asks, voice barely audible “You need to make a decision Jaehyun, he doesn’t have much longer,” Ten says, voice quiet “Jae,” You whimper out, slightly waking up and he looks back at you “Don’t worry y/n, you’re going to be okay,” Jaehyun chokes out before looking at Taeyong and nodding, giving him permission.

Taeyong nods back and takes you into his arms, bringing him to the couch and lying you down gently. He uses one of his nails to cut his wrist, drawing blood and letting some of it drop into your mouth, Jaehyun looks away not being able to come to terms with what was happening right in front of him to his own little brother.

A couple days later you wake up in a bed that wasn’t yours and stare at the ceiling, your entire body was sore and you try to sit up but it hurt too much to move so you lay back down and sigh deeply “Are you awake?” You hear a voice and look in the direction it came from, unable to see who it was before they move into view and you see that it’s Taeyong “What happened?” You ask him and he sits next to the bed “You were badly hurt when you and Doyoung were attacked a few days ago” He tells you and you try to sit up again “Why do I feel so cold?” You ask him, finally being able to sit up now as the soreness was fading away “And why is my heartbeat so slow?” You say, holding your chest you were able to hear your heartbeat in your head “I’m so thirsty too” You tell him and he looks at you with a bit of sorrow on his face “There’s something you need to know, y/n” He says which makes you scared.

“Is something wrong with Jaehyun?” You ask quickly, trying to get out of the bed but he keeps you there “No, he’s fine, it’s about you” He says and you comply, sitting back on the hard bed “That night, you were badly hurt and not some broken bones or anything, you hurt year head” He tells you and you look at him confused “What are you trying to say?” You ask him “You were bleeding to death, there was no time to get you to the hospital,” He says “What? Are you trying to tell me I’m dead?” You joke and laugh but he shakes his head, still, serious “Jaehyun didn’t want to because he thought you’d hate him but,” He says and takes a deep breath “We had to change you to save you” He finally says and you scrunch your eyebrows together “What? You mean I’m a vampire now?” You ask and he just nods.

“But don’t worry, we’ll take care of you and help you adjust; you can still chase your dreams,” He says quickly “And if it turns out that you aren’t able to chase your dreams, I can help you find new ones” He says and holds one of your hands in both of his, looking you in the eyes and you feel like you’re about to cry “I know this might not be the right time but I really like you and I know we haven’t even really known each other for a day, but I just really have a good feeling about this” He says and you now laugh while turning your head away from him “That was really cheesy but also really cute” You tell him and he laughs now too and you take this moment to give him a quick kiss.

A/N: Lmao, the ending was pretty weird but I had to change it because I reread the ask and they wanted a vampire reader and vampire Taeyong and I didn’t want to completely change what I already wrote lol. I have another vampire idea that is vamp on vamp so if there’s ever a request like this again, I have an idea lol. This was also v Blood inspired so if you see relations, that's why lmao

#request #taeyong #nct #nct taeyong #vampire au #vampire #taeyong vampire au #vampire taeyong #lee taeyong #taeyong lee #vampire nct #vamp au #taeyong vamp au #nct vampire au #nct vamp au #nct 127 #nct u #taeyong imagine #imagine #taeyong one shot #one shot

[pennywaltzy]

All Screwed To Hell And Eternity And Space And Back (8/11 - An “intersections” Story) - NEW CHAPTER

::singsong voice:: Carol has a seeeecret...

All Screwed To Hell And Eternity And Space And Back - Everyone has a countdown on their wrist to when they will find their soulmate. If they don’t, they die. Even Steve Rogers’s ran in one direction, though it took him ninety years to meet his. But Bucky’s has never run normally, not in the 40s, not when he was the Winter Soldier, and not now that the whole mess with the Infinity Gauntlet has been fixed. But now it’s stuck and he has no idea why. Meanwhile, Clara’s is still running despite being taken out of the timeline, though never in any way that makes sense or has ever made sense. Not to her, not to the Doctor, not to Ashildr. She’d expected it to disappear. But it’s simply counting down to her inevitable demise. And yet? Fate has it ways to make these two meet…even if it takes a TARDIS and the Avengers to make it happen.

READ CHAPTER 1 | READ CHAPTER 8 | SERIES PAGE | HELP ME SURVIVE? | COMMISSION ME? | BUY ME A KOFI?

Carol whipped the towel from around her neck and leaned against Clara. Clara was sitting against one wall of the gymnasium, her head tilted back and her eyes shut. While Loki and Carol had been fighting each other with muted strength to be somewhat equal, she and Ashildr had had their own sparring session, and Clara was trying to catch her breath. “Okay, that was a nice workout,” Carol said, shutting her eyes before opening them and turning to face Loki, who was on the floor opposite them on his back with his head in Ashildr’s lap. “Are we even until next time?”

“I still didn’t win,” he grumbled, but he nodded nonetheless.

“The day you beat me in a fair fight, Loki, is the day I’ll retire and let Kamala take my name,” Carol said.

“She’ll be waiting a long time, then,” Clara said. “I wish I could get to the right time on Earth to meet all of them. They sound like fantastic people.”

“Most of them are,” Carol said. “Things got changed up a lot with fixing the snap, but I think that the teams are the best of the best, not just in taking care of the problems that creep up, but...I guess in terms of humanity?”

“I’m so used to seeing your lives play out on screen, at least until the movie where he snapped and half the population turned to ash. I was brought here before the other one came out, and then here, you’d solved the problem and everything was now similar and still different,” Clara said. “And I’m sure it must be strange knowing I’m fictional here. I mean, I know the actress who looks like me has moved on to other projects, but for a time, you could have easily known everything I had done at home. I mean, it doesn’t seem too different from my reality, you know?”

Carol nodded and before she spoke Loki did instead. “It’s taken some adjusting, but you are more flesh and blood than a fairy tale to me now,” he said. “And I’m sure the same goes for Carol.”

“Absolutely,” Carol said with another nod. “Though I’d pretty much missed the entire run of the show, or at least the new version since sci-fi shows aren’t really my thing. I have enough of that in space, thanks.”

Loki laughed and looked up at Ashildr. “I should introduce you to my brother. If I’m to properly court you, at least.”

“You do realize that you’re going to be stuck with me for a long long time, right?” Ashildr told him. “With the technology that’s part of me I’m effectively going to be the last person standing in my universe. It could be the same here.”

“Then will you put up with me until the end of my existence?” Loki asked, sitting up. “You have done something no one else has managed. You’ve tamed the beast in me and proven that my mother was right, that there was somebody in the world for me. It just so happened to be someone from an alternate world.”

“I suppose I could,” Ashildr said, giving him a smile.

“Guess I’m losing a traveling companion,” Clara said to Carol.

“Or gaining one,” Carol pointed out as her pager went off. She frowned and then went to check it, not seeing her normal signal, and then her eyes widening. “Are we in the future or the past?”

“Future, for us. Not for you, maybe?” Clara said, nudging Carol off of her and then standing up. “Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, as my friend used to say. Let’s go check.”

The four of them left the gymnasium and went to the console, Clara flipping switches and turning dials once they got there. Her eyes widened. “January 23rd, 2023,” she said. “I...” She glanced at her wrist. “I didn’t set these time coordinates.”

“Maybe the TARDIS did itself,” Loki said. “Your ship seems to have a mind of her own, it seems.”

“She does,” Clara murmured. “We could--”

“Maybe try New York again?” Ashildr finished for her, and Clara nodded. She set the coordinates on her wrist, and once again the Cloister bells went off, but there was no violent jolt of them being sent elsewhere. “Strange.”

“He’s the one who sent the message,” Carol said. “Stephen. This is his symbol.” She showed the pager to Clara. “Are we near Earth?”

“Hovering above,” Clara said.

“Pull him up.” Clara went to the phone on her console and used that to plug in the phone number Carol gave her. Carol took the phone and as soon as Stephen answered, the two of them had an increasingly more excited conversation, at least on Carol’s end. After she hung up, there was a familiar twinkle in Carol’s eye that Clara had gotten to know well. “Your soulmate is alive and waiting for you. If the TARDIS won’t let us go to him, we’ll figure out another way with Stephen and Heimdall’s help.”

“The Bifrost?” Loki asked, and Carol nodded. “I can help.”

“Good.” Carol turned to Clara. “You’ll get to meet him soon.”

“Carol. Who is it?” she asked, but Carol just grinned wider. “Carol!”

“Nope. Lips are zipped,” Carol said, mimicking running a zipper across her lips. “This is just going to be too good to spoil.”

“You sound like River, dammit,” Clara said, giving her friend a glare. But she shook her head. She knew she’d get nothing out of Carol. When the woman wanted to keep a secret, nothing could pry it from her. So she'd have to wait a few hours, but maybe...maybe this would have a happy ending after all.

#doctor who #mcu #bucky x clara #loki x ashildr #fanfic #fanfiction #clara oswald #carol danvers #loki laufeyson #ashildr #my au: intersections #multipart: all screwed to hell and eternity and space and back

[ayearofpike]

Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil

Simon Pulse, 2013 441 pages, 17 chapters + prologue and epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-6731-6 LOC: PZ7.P626 Thb 2013 OCLC: 795175747 Released March 5, 2013 (per B&N)

With all the bad guys destroyed, Sita and her friends should be safe, right? Not so fast — there’s still a nationwide manhunt going on, enhanced by the computer program that’s already told authorities about Team Vampire. On top of this, the now-headless devil’s advocate had a photo in her suitcase implying that the evils are after a sacred artifact that Sita came into contact with during World War II. To beat them to it, she’ll have to trace a past that she can’t remember in order to cancel a deal she didn’t make.

With this book, it feels like Pike is finding his stride with the modern YA genre. It’s more pages than we strictly need to tell the story, the group is given reasons for existence beyond “Sita likes us,” and the vampires finally fuck. That said, it does use some of Pike’s favorite tropes: flashbacks, Hinduism, the consistent timeline, jumping from high places, muthafuckin lizard aliens. You’re not going to mistake this for someone else’s work, especially if you’ve already read The Wicked Heart.

Yep! Pike is reusing his old assets again! This time, it’s the evil descendant of Heinrich Himmler ... well, sort of. We’ll get there. I guess it was only a matter of time before Sita had an Adventure With Nazis, considering how the Holocaust is a monster of a humanitarian travesty, relatively prominent in American minds, and it’s natural that Pike would want to explore how she might have tried to fight it. Plus it’s kind of a get-deep-quick card in terms of how your story is going to be received, and it does sell books. (I was recently at my kid’s book fair — at an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — and was alarmed by the number of books about WWII and the Holocaust.) 

Whatever it is, I am really not into white dudes fictionalizing Nazi Germany. But I read this anyway, because I’m dedicated or something. 

I might as well jump in with the summary, and I’m going to try to be quick about it, even though I pretty much need to re-read the book. But as I said, there’s a lot less action in this story, and we already know Sita and her backstory from the last eight, so I don’t have to be quite as worried about leaving stuff out. Still, this book kind of comes from nowhere, so I’ll do my best to be fast yet thorough.

We pick up where The Shadow of Death left off, with Sita deciding whether or not to return to Earth. Of course she does, because she’s got friends to take care of and a headless demon channeler to bury. But in going through the kid’s effects, she finds a picture of a couple, the woman looking familiar for some reason. When she looks closer at the picture, she sees why: there’s another photo on their table of another couple, and these ones were friends and confidants to Sita in Paris in the 1940s. There are two reasons why the devil might have a picture of these people, and Sita isn’t buying the first, that it’s a link to her. It must be the other: the woman is the most likely owner of the Veil of Veronica, a sacred cloth used to wash Jesus’s face as he carried the cross and now containing some of his essence.

Sita and Immortal Boyfriend want to follow the trail, but CEO is less inclined. She feels that hiding out is going to be better for them, because sooner or later the national law enforcement search for them is going to at least shift to the back burner and it will be safer to move around the country. But when Sita calls the last number dialed on Demon Girl’s phone and gets Satan himself on the line, the decision is made: they have to get the veil before the evil does. So they drive to Vegas (again, fuckin’ Vegas), where CEO has a stash of cash and some fake IDs for everybody, which ... weird. But she buys a jet and they take off for North Carolina, where they’ve traced this couple in the picture.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Sita book if they could just travel unencumbered. They’re targeted by a couple of military jets, which Sita dispatches by jumping out of the plane and forcing one pilot to eject before using his missiles to blow up the other. Everybody parachutes to safety (well, not the military pilots) and hitchhikes with a trucker to Chapel Hill, en route to which Sita has to hypnotize a couple more cops at a roadblock (though the trucker is cool). Then they set the humans up at a hotel while she and Immortal Boyfriend go scope out the address. Right away it’s clear they’re too late: there are two dudes with critical injuries on the floor. One is the husband, and Sita manages to hypnotize him into describing the attackers and what they’ve done with his wife, only she doesn’t understand how they took her into the sky. He doesn’t know where the veil is, but they find a book written in code across four different languages. Sita also finds footprints leading away from the house ... to a charred circle in the grass, glowing with radioactivity.

The other dude on the floor showed up and tried to help, the husband says before he dies, so they decide to take him back to the hotel and see if he has more intel. Back at the hotel, Sita heals his head injury, enough that he wakes up and tells her he knows a little bit about what they’re doing but he can’t explain why or how he got the information. He does maintain that he can disable the tracking program that’s made them wanted criminals, using a mishmash of technology in a bag that they found in what was obviously his watch nest, but Sita insists that he needs to sleep first. She’s not gonna sleep, though: she’s gonna flash back to her experience in Nazi-occupied Paris, breaking a resistance leader out of a torture cell and bringing him to her friends, who are both doctors, for a little underground treatment. This is a prominent memory of the veil and how it can help soothe and calm fears, and maybe even ward off evil, which Sita needed after a long night of infiltrating a Gestapo headquarters and soaking up the terrors within.

She tells this story to Seymour and Immortal Boyfriend the next day, as they fly their new plane to New York. It's the home base of the phone number Sita dialed on their deceased spy's phone, after all, and they've traced it to a monster of a law firm that CEO can tell is shady through her own experience. How did they get the clearance to fly? Well, it seems that our mysterious new spy wasn't lying about his ability to throw a snarl at the Internet program and slow it down long enough to free up Team Vampire to slip through security. Our immortals kidnap the lawyer and get him to admit that his firm was working with the Indian girl on background checks, and also that they funnel dark money to the Pentagon for what is rumored to be military spacecraft. He doesn't get a chance to say more, though — armed mercenaries blow up the entire side of the hotel, taking him out, though Sita and Immortal Boyfriend escape over the roof and down the back stairs.

They did manage to make off with the lawyer's laptop, though, and while New Spy hacks it Sita traces him through his fingerprints, because of course there's a missing persons report out on him. In talking to the dude's wife and son, though, she's confused to learn that he's just, like, some guy. No particular skills, talents, or intelligence, just a decent dude who withdrew ten grand from his bank account and disappeared. Oh, but he did have a passion for astronomy, and in the last month before he took off he could be found staring at one star through a telescope for hours on end.

When she returns, New Spy has news: the military is definitely developing spacecraft, out at Nellis Air Force Base in, yep, fuckin' Vegas again. Seymour makes a connection from this development to the number of early NASA scientists who were reformed Nazis, but Sita warns him to shut the fuck up before he reveals too much. She tells him a little more of the story on the flight out: how she learned about changes in the Germans' military movement plans and swam across the English Channel to inform Allied forces (including a one-on-one meeting with George S. Patton, who insisted he knew her from a past life) but returned to Paris to find her SS informant murdered, her friends taken into custody, and a cold-blooded major waiting with a weird piece of tech that incapacitated her and allowed him to round her up as well. Related to the Telar torture device? Maybe. Seymour is seeing connections all over the place — not just that, but also from Sita's experiences as a prisoner of war to her interactions with the demon duke of Italy, way back when this series was still called The Last Vampire. Both times there was an artifact that supposedly had Christ's blood on it, both times she was tortured and taken prisoner, and both times she couldn't quite remember the end of the story. He might have a plan to help her remember, but we're going to have to wait to find out what it is.

There's a more pressing problem: New Spy is becoming incapacitated by swelling in his cranium. Sita takes him to a hospital as soon as they land, and he makes her swear that as soon as he's done with the procedure she'll take him wherever they go next. Yeah, Vegas isn't it, apparently, though if New Spy knows where is he ain't saying. While he's undergoing brain surgery she reads what he's managed to translate of the coded diary they found. It's a story narrated by Veronica herself, about meeting a Master (you know, one of Pike's favorite enlightened humans) and learning how to step outside both of our own thoughts and of society's restrictions and expectations. Then she goes back to the hotel to see what Seymour has planned and figure out their next steps.

Only first she has to fuck Immortal Boyfriend. Yeah, they talk about lost love and painful loneliness first, and how angry they’ve been at each other, and then they realize they might only have each other for eternity, and so it's time to hop on the meat train to Bone Town. I don't know — maybe it makes more sense than I'm painting here. I was, after all, always the dude who didn't see the intense horniness in Pike books when I read them as a teen. Still, it's felt for a while like neither of them is ready to move past Teri. Besides, Sita herself has become progressively more connected and enlightened through her various absorption of higher-level immortals and maybe gods, so what does she need a boyfriend for? The whole thing doesn't actually feel like love, necessarily ... more like a deep and abiding connection that they've decided must inevitably lead to Naked Time. And maybe I'm OK with a physical and emotional relationship that isn't the be-all and end-all of the storyline, but it still feels a little forced here.

Anyway, they go find Seymour and learn that his plan is to try to go into a mutual hypnotic trance with Sita to help her remember just what happened in that concentration camp. And it works like whoa: she starts flashbacking hardcore, to being kept in a basement cell for forty days without food or water. At the end of it the major shows up with a familiar-looking woman, and they know about her past. Like, a lot of her past, including her role in the battle described in the Mahabharata, where Arjuna called down a divine fire that obliterated a seemingly overwhelming enemy. They want her to tell them what she knows and what she saw during the battle, and torture her when it's not what they want to hear. She's chained to a pole in the courtyard, either to humiliate her or warn the other prisoners, but of course her friends from Paris find her and try to break her out. There's a mass gassing, a visit from Himmler himself, a failed attempt to unlock her shackles, and a promise to hide the improved key in her cell before the next torture session, but this time they're going psychological on her ass: they've captured her resistance leader friend and actually start flaying off his skin before she finally cracks.

As with the Nazi capture, as with the Duke of Death, it's like this part of her memory has been walled off somehow, and it took this pain to unlock it. How inconvenient that Pike took pains way back in 1994 to make it clear that Sita remembered everything that ever happened to her. But anyway, she tells the military dudes about finding Krishna during the battle and hearing him talk about alien observers watching the battle, maybe even having their own that echoes what's happening on Earth. He warns the soldiers to leave it alone, but a couple of them know what Sita is and coerce her into entering a large dome that is not safe for any human, because of an energy source that gives off a glowing heat. That's all the dudes can get out of her with this hypnosis session: she comes to all the way back to present day out of this flashback-within-a-flashback. It's easy to see, though, that the Nazis figured they could win the war with this technology, but how were they going to recreate it? Unless they somehow already had it. Unless they'd found an actual ship in India, on an artifact hunt like the ones ol’ Indiana Jones likes to thwart, and were trying to activate it using the knowledge from their literal link to the past.

Immortal Boyfriend knows where to go now: Joshua Tree National Park. You remember, where Miracle Baby was conceived, where Sita fought off the muthafuckin lizard aliens to get him back. Apparently it's in the video game that they were warned about, which IB has kept playing and recently beaten but won't describe because he doesn't want to influence Sita's genuine reaction to what he expects to happen. They bust New Spy out of the hospital and steal an ambulance to drive there, and along the way he starts dropping hints that it's not exactly the veil that these folks are after. He makes a phone call, supposedly to his superiors, but somehow Sita knows it's to whoever is trying to find them and is now pissed at this sudden but inevitable betrayal. But there's nothing for it: they have to know this meeting is happening tonight in order to get the veil-keeper back.

Seymour suggests another trance session now that they're in a spiritually powerful place, and they get some more of Sita's past. Using the female doctor friend (the one who had the veil at the time) the Nazis torture Sita into remembering the inside of the ship: the dead men who tried to enter and perished before they could exit, the exposed radioactive power source that she manages to snap back into place. She remembers blacking out and being partially rescued by Original Vampire, only to be taken hostage thanks to the same torture box and reawakening as the craft flies over the battlefield. They broke free and Sita destroyed most of what she now realizes were nuclear weapons (though one fell and incinerated Arjuna's enemies, giving a white person credit for an ancient Indian doctrinal miracle) while Original Vampire killed their captors and somehow shot the ship up above the sky. But when this is all she remembers, the Nazis go to burn her friend alive. It's enough motivation for Sita to strain for the hidden key right in front of everyone and free herself, brutally murdering the major but failing to stop the female torturer from drenching her in gasoline. Her friend smothers the flames with — you got it — the Veil of Veronica. The artifact heals Sita and gives her the strength to break them out, but when she tries to find her resistance leader lover, she's frightened away by the way the female torturer is standing outside the door, soaking up the pain of so many prisoners in bliss. 

I know! It's President Coroner! Enough with the same-same, Pike! This one is even happening NOW!

So that was Sita's mistake: leaving the pain-sucker alive and running away from her fear. And here she comes, walking up the hill toward Team Vampire with her captive and a young man that looks like Himmler fucked this devil woman. Or he might be reanimated or reincarnated; Pike never deigns to explain this dude. He does explain that the evil torturing lady is the same wife of the Demon Duke from way back, even though now she’s fair instead of dark (and, y’know, had her heart ripped out). She explains that they (the Nazis) already know what happened: Sita and Original Vampire flew off into space somehow, were rescued by beings of a higher plane, and found being returned to Earth so mundane and unsatisfying that they asked to have all memories of the spaceships erased. And the ship is still here, disguised as one of the giant trees. However, the damn thing is locked and will only open for someone who's been in it before. And Sita’s the only one alive who’s done so. You see the Nazis' problem. But it doesn't matter what Sita does or tries — she can't get the sumbitch to open. And this is a problem, the woman points out, because they made a deal. And now Sita sees through her dark, evil eyes, and realizes that the devil can probably possess and direct more than one measly human.

If she can't open the thing, Devil Lady says, Sita will have to go with them, or else they'll start killing her friends. She agrees, and in saying her goodbyes learns that New Spy has managed to translate the end of Veronica's journal. It was finished by her brother, it turns out, because she was crucified as a heretic and a woman taking credit for a man's job, but in her final moments she successfully stepped outside her mind and was enlightened, and that hers is the face on the veil. So Sita figures we can all become one with the universal consciousness that drives our higher powers — the same one powering Krishna, Jesus, Miracle Teen — and so maybe she'll be OK. And this is what it takes for the spaceship to appear to everyone. She goes to it, and sure enough it opens, meaning she has control and can save her friends. But before she can go in, Devil Lady shoots her in the inferior vena cava and bails with Young Himmler. And they are never seen again. (See what I meant by "sort of" at the beginning of this article? Dude's role is so small he could have been anyone. He literally doesn’t even have a LINE.)

But now Sita is dying, and New Spy takes charge. If she gets on the ship, he explains, she can transcend time and have as much as she needs to heal. How the shit does he know this? Well, it turns out that our regular dude has been possessed by his ten-thousand-years-in-the-future self, with technological knowledge beyond anyone in the present. He’s grown up in a timeline where Germany won the war, and so there is no mysticism left, only hard science. So when he discovered a loophole through this ancient technique of viewing the past, an ability to alter his own world and bring some magic to it, he leapt at the chance. This moment — Devil Lady and Baby Himmler escaping — was his fork in the road, the way he could alter his own future. And while he’s explaining, this magical ship does all the work, healing Sita and chasing the bad guys and blowing them up. Or at least that’s what he says. We don’t see it, because we know how much Pike readers hate action sequences (good.thing the entire first half of the book wasn’t one). And now they can set back down in the timeline, wherever they want to be.

So Sita ... 

goddamn, this is infuriating ...

Sita goes BACK TO ANCIENT INDIA TO KILL THE ORIGINAL VAMPIRE AGAIN. Only this time she’s gonna do it when he’s an adult, when he comes to whisk her away from her family.

Only he somehow knows about it. He knows everything. He knows about her plans, her ideas, her potential future. But he also knows that Sita’s greatest regret is that she was never able to live her normal human life with her truest love and her child, and is willing to accept his own death if she carries it out. And she realizes: Immortal Boyfriend came back too. And he’s inside his father, somehow. And she’s not sure she can kill him.

And that is where this mother fucking vampire saga, spanning eight books and almost twenty years, leaves us hanging.

According to Wikipedia (which, take it with a grain of salt; there’s no citation and I’ve already deleted two entries for books that don’t exist), Pike is working on three more Sita books, and plans to self-publish when they are done. He said that two and a half years ago. Are we ever going to see such a thing? Is the eleventh book in this series, as promised, the actual DEFINITIVE END of the Sita saga? Will we ever find out? Is he just gonna George Martin us until he dies? I say don’t hold your breath for another Thirst book. But I also thought Pike was done with YA when Alosha trailed off, and I thought he was done with YA when The Blind Mirror came out after a three-year absence, AND I thought he was done with Sita when she stabbed her dead best friend in the uterus and killed the unborn demon. So how much does what I say matter?

[nuttydefendoryouth]

Best smart bulbs for your connected home

Smart LED bulbs that can be controlled by a hub or smartphone app are no longer a new idea. What is new is how far this technology has come since its advent just a few years ago. Also new: Products like the Nanoleaf Light Panels—a system of interlocking LED panels that let you decorate with light—fundamentally change the light-bulb concept.

Smart LED bulbs aren’t quite a commodity, but they are getting close to maturity as far as the market goes. Today’s bulbs are more compact, much brighter, have better color representation, and, for the most part, feature control apps that do more than ever and are easier to set up. Prices have also come down, with some no-name color-tunable bulbs now available for less than $10 each. (Buyer beware: You get what you pay for.)

With their rainbow of hues and myriad party tricks, color LEDs get all the press in the world of smart lighting. It’s fun stuff, but the reality is that most of us will rarely find much of a need to turn all the lights in the house blue or red—unless it’s time to celebrate our team winning the World Series. Even then, you’ll probably want to turn them all back to white after the celebration.

White light is also important in its own right, as today there is plenty of science to show how various shades of white—with variations in color temperature—impact our psychological state. Cool light that’s closer to blue has an energizing effect, and is best in the morning. Warm light is relaxing, and is best after the sun goes down. Note, however, that not every white smart LED light is color-temperature-tunable. Check out the specs before you buy.

White smart bulbs downplay the party features that are a staple of color-tunable bulbs. On the other hand, white smart bulbs are less expensive than color bulbs, making it more affordable to roll them out in multiple rooms.

We’ve tested just about every color and white smart LED bulb on the market. You’ll find links to all our reviews at the bottom of the page, and we’ll update this story as new models are introduced.

Philips was one of the first players in this market, and the company’s experience shows. Physically, its Hue Color and Ambiance bulbs haven’t changed much since their introduction in late 2012, but the latest generation lasts a lot longer and the company has added a Bluetooth radio that obviates the need for the Philips Hue Bridge (but most smart home denizens will want the Bridge anyway). The Philips Hue ecosystem is the industry’s deepest and broadest, including not only bulbs of every shape and size imaginable, but also indoor and outdoor fixtures as well, including the Philips Hue Calla pathway light and the Philips Hue Lily outdoor spotlight, both of which we like very much.

LIFX is a very strong competitor in the smart lighting space and comes a very close second place in our roundup. LIFX no longer has just A19 and BR30 form factors to offer, and we really like its unique  LIFX+ (which has an array of infrared LEDs that will help your home security camera see in the dark), but Philips still delivers much more diversity in its ecosystem and universe of third-party support.

Our choice won’t surprise anyone who’s been following this market. Philips dominates this space and is also our top pick for best color LED smart bulb. The latest Hue bulbs can be controlled via Bluetooth or Zigbee (the latter requires the Philips Hue Bridge), they deliver high-quality light, and are backed by a strong warranty. We received the BR30 form factor for our review, but the bulb is also available in A19, candelabra, and even with vintage-style LED filaments.

The new Cree Connected Max line of smart bulbs is agressively priced and available in all the most popular form factors: A19, A21, BR30, and PAR38. The A19 Tunable White + Color Changing bulb we reviewed costs just $10, and it supports both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so you don’t need to factor in the added cost of a hub to integrate it into your smart home. It’s a very good product.

Most home security cameras are equipped with infrared LEDs to deliver a semblance of night vision. the LIFX+ is equipped with infrared LEDs of its own, which are active even when the bulb is turned off via software. Infrared light is invisible to the naked eye, but the LIFX+ can bathe a room in it so that your security camera can see more of the room and in more detail than it can with its own infrared LEDs.

The 2020 version of the Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus LED is the only strip light to support both Bluetooth and the more robust Zigbee protocol (if you’re willing to pay for the required bridge to connect it to your Wi-Fi network, that is). The very nature of LED light strips renders them delicate devices, and the first review product we received broke after a short amount of time (the second one is holding up just fine). But we haven’t encountered a competing device that’s as versatile as this one.

Smart light bulb protocols and features

Three control technologies continue to vie for leadership in the smart downlight market (Z-Wave is a major contender in smart lighting, but you won’t encounter it in bulbs—just in switches, plug-in modules, control panels, and smart-home hubs).

Zigbee: Bulbs that use the popular smart-home networking protocol require a bridge to communicate with your home Wi-Fi network. This is the technology Philips has adopted for its Hue lineup, but it’s not the only one.

Wi-Fi: This class of bulb talks directly to your Wi-Fi router, no hub or bridge required. LIFX and TP-Link both manufacture excellent Wi-Fi smart bulbs, but neither company comes close to Signify’s Philips Hue lineup in terms of the depth and breadth of the Hue ecosystem.

Bluetooth: These bulbs skip your home network altogether and pair directly with your smartphone or tablet. As such, they can’t be controlled from outside your home. GE and a number of other manufacturers make Bluetooth bulbs, some of better quality than others. Signify has recently added Bluetooth radios to its Philips Hue line of smart GU10 spotlight, which eliminates the need to deploy the Philips Hue Bridge. Taking the bridge out of the equation reduces the overall cost of deployment, but adds some limitations. You can read more in our review of the new Philips Hue bulbs.

Each of these technologies has pros and cons, so before you attempt to settle on a specific bulb, first try to determine which tech is right for you. If you want to hook your bulbs into a broader smart-home system—such as SmartThings or Nest—Bluetooth bulbs are out. You can control more than one bulb with your phone, but you can’t connect it to sensors or other systems inside your home. Don’t like the idea of pairing a bulb to your phone? A Wi-Fi bulb will work best for you, though you won’t have quite as many options as you’ll find with a Zigbee product.

Smart bulb, or smart switch?

There’s a significant argument about the best way to install smart lighting, and two approaches present themselves. You can either go with expensive smart bulbs and control them all individually, or you can use cheap dumb bulbs and install smart switches to control all the lights on that circuit. Both approaches make sense: With smart bulbs, the biggest issue is cost, but there’s also complexity to deal with. While bulbs can usually be grouped based on location, this is only as intuitive to manage as the bulb control app.

Smart switches, on the other hand, are far more complicated to install—to the point where some users might be uncomfortable dealing with exposed wiring and would prefer to hire an electrician. Smart switches, however, provide more flexibility in many installations.

Habituated from years of flipping hard-wired switches, many users (or their children) will instinctively use the wall switch to turn the lights out when they leave a room. Once that happens, all the apps in the world won’t be able to turn the light back on until the switch is returned to the on position. While this won’t be an issue if you install smart switches, they can’t change a bulb’s color or color temperature.

That said, smart bulbs, no matter what the technology, still won’t be right for everyone. Notably, most of these bulbs cannot be dimmed via a hardwired wall switch (it messes with the power going to the radio, rendering them useless). Some will fail even if a dimmer is present on the circuit and dialed up to full power. The quality of light from an LED bulb is likely to be much, much better.

The good news is that bulb prices are going down, so it’s easier to get started with 2.4G/IR LED bulb and less punishing should you find that a product doesn’t work for you. That said, we want to get you started on the right foot. So without further ado, here are deep dives into the most worthwhile color and white LED smart bulbs on the market.

[perfectirishgifts]

For Higher Ed Technology Leaders: What To Expect This Spring 2021

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/for-higher-ed-technology-leaders-what-to-expect-this-spring-2021/

For Higher Ed Technology Leaders: What To Expect This Spring 2021

Loading new year 2020 to 2021 – it’s coming!

The Herculean pivot that occurred in higher education in the spring of 2020 required technology – at its very core – to facilitate all business. While the fear deep within technology leaders – not unlike the entire world – was tied to the unknown, for many it surely felt eerily familiar.

The pivot itself was very much like the old hat task of testing a disaster recovery and business continuity plan. However, in the case of last spring, there was zero room for any piece of that plan to not work. Success was a requirement. Immediately; and, in some instances, overnight.

That said, we now know pieces in fact didn’t work. So, rather than toil, we remedied gaps, stood up new technologies, ramped up services and continuously improved for tomorrow’s needs, and the day after that, and so on.

To date, we’ve survived spring 2020, improved over summer 2020 and, as a result, here’s to hoping most IT shops rocked the fall of 2020.

Next up? For the spring 2021 semester, thankfully the technology promises to remain mostly the same: a strong core (infrastructure, systems and wifi), collaboration tools (email, telephony, messaging, video), learning management systems, accessible software, classroom technology (lecture capture, hybrid delivery), tracking (personal safety, emergency response, Covid-19 reporting), contactless services (mobile ordering, door entry, process automations) and robust business systems (automations, security, workflow management).

As IT leadership, however, we know the challenges are rarely about the technology itself. What should we be thinking about in anticipation of spring 2021 in higher education? The answer appears to be a nice mélange of old challenges, each with a daunting new twist.

Onslaught of new devices

‘Tis the season in IT to recognize that the new year will come laden with a barrage of new technology devices. The first couple of weeks managing new gadgets is always a bear. While connecting new devices is hardly a fresh challenge on any college campus, the immediacy dial has been turned all the way up given the virtual nature of life and instruction.

In addition, IT support used to be able to prioritize devices; focusing first on computing tech, and then folding in the ‘fun’ stuff later. Covid-19 has put an end to that. All devices are top priority now.

Our students living on campus, during this pandemic, already feel isolated and disconnected. If gaming systems, wifi-ready televisions and Echo Dots bring even one bit of joy and connectedness, we will prioritize them all as urgent.

A drive for business as usual

In order to compete mid- and post-pandemic, universities are flexing differentiating muscle, while, at the same time, tightening financial belts. This translates into a variety of efforts focused on elevating academic efforts – research, marketing, reimagining interdisciplinary programs – that will all rely in some way on technology.

New secure network connections and environments, pop-up website shops and seamlessly connecting curriculum dots will all need to be created, accessible and learnable by faculty and students alike.

In addition to academic efforts, administrative work will be mid-flight in the spring based on endless lessons learned over the past year. Automation improvements, business system integrations and gap technologies are moving from acquisition-to-implementation phases as comprehensive campus process and procedure reviews wind down. We’ve learned so much.

Clear expectations will be set for technology leaders that feel very much like business as usual. The reactive times, though absolutely justified, are behind us. We’ve been the glue, now we need to switch that gear back to forward-thinking and long-term effectiveness.

While we should never pretend that we won’t be here again, crisis-response simply needs to be folded into planning now. Build and develop for a standard world, a fully remote world and – like today’s reality – everything in between.

We all know that if we haven’t been designing for these realities all along, we certainly are now.

Technology exhaustion and pushback

Watch for frustration. And pushback. And high emotions. With a looming vaccine on the horizon, students, faculty and staff are feeling hope and impending normalcy for the first time in months. The spring semester will bring us a slew of exhausted human beings, annoyed by technology and eager to do the things the way they did them a year ago. We’re not there yet.

While maintaining virtual requirements, users will push back with ‘why?’ Planning for future semesters will include ‘back to the way we’ve always done it’ speech and, if we are dedicated to improvement, we need to recognize the positives that came from today’s pandemic realities.

In the face of Covid-19, students now have more options, staff have experienced better work/life balance, faculty played with new classroom technologies and raved about the experience. Of course these examples don’t encompass the experience for all, but the new options were received as positives by many. Imagine if we keep those options available during non-pandemic times. Be the headwind if needed to ensure we don’t lose what we’ve gained.

The transition is coming

While higher education technology teams ultimately flipped a giant switch to go remote in spring 2020, spring 2021 is the time to began planning for the future state. This will require time, thought and input from the entire campus. In addition, there could be one-to-many forks in our future path and, as chief information officers and technology leaders, we are skilled at ideating and finalizing plans for a multi-level forecast.

Technology leaders need to start thinking about all the ‘what’s next’ scenarios sooner rather than later. Mapping out possibilities is a first step.

Bottom line

Spring 2021 in higher education will be a tough semester. The months will involve change, anticipation and, likely, the straddling of mid- and post-pandemic worlds. However, the oft second definition of education is, “an enlightening experience.” And what better industry to swirl around in than higher education where we continue to battle issues with grace, resilience, hope and utter determination.

So much to expect in spring 2021; all of which higher ed technology teams should lean into and tackle with gusto.

From CIO Network in Perfectirishgifts

[gamebazu]

The Correlation Between Authoritative Links and Ranking [SEO Study]

Posted by EricEnge

Over the past five years, our team at Perficient has conducted continuous studies to evaluate the lasting impact of links on rankings. These studies consistently show that links matter as a ranking factor, but they also show that Google is dialing up their emphasis on the quality/authority of those links. We can say this because of the strong correlation our most recent studies show between the Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) of linking pages and the rankings of pages receiving the links.

Each year, Moz has graciously provided us with access to their Link Explorer index, where we obtain the raw data to perform our analysis. In these studies, we perform Spearman Correlation analyses to show how the following variables correlate with ranking:

Number of links to the ranking page

DA of links to the ranking page

PA of links to the ranking page

Please note that Moz has never compensated us for including, or asked us to include, the DA and PA calculations — we have chosen to do that of our own volition. In fact, Moz staff only learned that we had done so in early October of 2020, even though we published the post with our findings on April 16, 2020 (to be honest, I was too busy to catch up with the Moz team and let them know). In short, there is no quid pro quo here.

Study methodology

Go ahead and jump down to the study results section if you just want to see how things turned out!

We have been conducting this study on a nearly annual basis since May of 2016. In 2016, we started with an initial query set of 6K queries, but have expanded to 32K queries over time. The queries were obtained by pulling keyword ranking reports for web sites in three different target market sectors, and then manually reviewed to remove any queries that were poorly formed or not relevant to that sector. The market sectors we looked at were technology, healthcare, and finance.

Here is the breakout of the size of the query sets across the five studies we have done so far:

May 2016: 6K queries

Aug 2016: 16K queries

May 2017: 16K queries

August 2018: 27K queries

December 2019: 32K queries

Each of the expanded query sets includes all of the queries from the prior studies, which allows us to track the results on a consistent basis all the way back to 2016.

In putting together this study, I also consulted with two experts in statistics: Paul Berger of Bentley University, and Per Enge, formerly of Stanford University. Because of the nature and structure of the data set, it was decided that the best approach was to calculate the quadratic mean of the Spearman Correlation for all the queries in the study.

I went with this approach because it uses the square of the correlation variables (where the correlation value is R, the quadratic mean uses R squared). This is important because the correlation variable R is useful to know, perhaps, but it does not allow you to make a specific statement about what it means in real world terms.

The R squared value, however, is more interesting. If you have an R squared value of 0.56, for example, we can say that 56% of the variability of the observed behavior Y (in our case, rankings) is caused by the test variable X (in our study, count of links, or DA/PA).

Here’s a visual on how this calculation process works:

Summary of the results

As part of the study, we pulled data on the growth of the Link Explorer index over time. Since we have data on the index size over three years for our 16K query set, we looked at this snapshot of the data to show how the Link Explorer index has expanded:

One of the core purposes of the study was finding the correlation between the number of links a page has and its ranking. Of course, the relevance and quality of the content are the most important factors in ranking — they have to be. That noted, here is the quadratic mean calculation result for how the quantity of links a page has correlates to its ranking:

This score is a bit down from past years (the August 2018 score was 0.293, but still indicates that the number of links to a page correlates in a meaningful way with the ranking of that page).

However, we also took a close look at the correlation of Moz DA and PA with the ranking of a page. Here are the results that we saw for that evaluation:



This shows that Moz DA and PA are both better predictors of ranking position than the total link count. The scores of 0.328 and 0.307 are both very strong correlation scores in an environment as complex as organic search.

This is an important finding, as it lines up with what many of us in the SEO community have believed for a long time: that the sites you get links from matters more than the sheer number of links. In addition, it's likely that most of the pages ranking in our query set that had a large number of links likely had a significant number of higher authority links as well.

Please note that the Moz team has let me know they are working on an update to the algorithm that powers PA, which will be released in the near future, and they believe that this will improve these results.

Conclusion

This data confirms that obtaining links from more authoritative sites has more value than obtaining a large quantity of links. Google's perspective of what makes better links is likely more nuanced than a simple metric like PageRank (the Google metric that DA and PA are most similar to). This may include evaluation of relevance to the topic, and the overall quality perception of the linking site.

As SEO professionals, increasing our own site quality and authority remains one of our core responsibilities in helping our sites, or our client's sites, grow.

You can see the full original Links as a Ranking Factor study here.

Important Note: Google does not have access to Moz's DA and PA metric data and Google does not use Moz DA or Moz PA as a ranking factor.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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[epackingvietnam]

The Correlation Between Authoritative Links and Ranking [SEO Study]

Posted by EricEnge

Over the past five years, our team at Perficient has conducted continuous studies to evaluate the lasting impact of links on rankings. These studies consistently show that links matter as a ranking factor, but they also show that Google is dialing up their emphasis on the quality/authority of those links. We can say this because of the strong correlation our most recent studies show between the Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) of linking pages and the rankings of pages receiving the links.

Each year, Moz has graciously provided us with access to their Link Explorer index, where we obtain the raw data to perform our analysis. In these studies, we perform Spearman Correlation analyses to show how the following variables correlate with ranking:

Number of links to the ranking page

DA of links to the ranking page

PA of links to the ranking page

Please note that Moz has never compensated us for including, or asked us to include, the DA and PA calculations — we have chosen to do that of our own volition. In fact, Moz staff only learned that we had done so in early October of 2020, even though we published the post with our findings on April 16, 2020 (to be honest, I was too busy to catch up with the Moz team and let them know). In short, there is no quid pro quo here.

Study methodology

Go ahead and jump down to the study results section if you just want to see how things turned out!

We have been conducting this study on a nearly annual basis since May of 2016. In 2016, we started with an initial query set of 6K queries, but have expanded to 32K queries over time. The queries were obtained by pulling keyword ranking reports for web sites in three different target market sectors, and then manually reviewed to remove any queries that were poorly formed or not relevant to that sector. The market sectors we looked at were technology, healthcare, and finance.

Here is the breakout of the size of the query sets across the five studies we have done so far:

May 2016: 6K queries

Aug 2016: 16K queries

May 2017: 16K queries

August 2018: 27K queries

December 2019: 32K queries

Each of the expanded query sets includes all of the queries from the prior studies, which allows us to track the results on a consistent basis all the way back to 2016.

In putting together this study, I also consulted with two experts in statistics: Paul Berger of Bentley University, and Per Enge, formerly of Stanford University. Because of the nature and structure of the data set, it was decided that the best approach was to calculate the quadratic mean of the Spearman Correlation for all the queries in the study.

I went with this approach because it uses the square of the correlation variables (where the correlation value is R, the quadratic mean uses R squared). This is important because the correlation variable R is useful to know, perhaps, but it does not allow you to make a specific statement about what it means in real world terms.

The R squared value, however, is more interesting. If you have an R squared value of 0.56, for example, we can say that 56% of the variability of the observed behavior Y (in our case, rankings) is caused by the test variable X (in our study, count of links, or DA/PA).

Here’s a visual on how this calculation process works:

Summary of the results

As part of the study, we pulled data on the growth of the Link Explorer index over time. Since we have data on the index size over three years for our 16K query set, we looked at this snapshot of the data to show how the Link Explorer index has expanded:

One of the core purposes of the study was finding the correlation between the number of links a page has and its ranking. Of course, the relevance and quality of the content are the most important factors in ranking — they have to be. That noted, here is the quadratic mean calculation result for how the quantity of links a page has correlates to its ranking:

This score is a bit down from past years (the August 2018 score was 0.293, but still indicates that the number of links to a page correlates in a meaningful way with the ranking of that page).

However, we also took a close look at the correlation of Moz DA and PA with the ranking of a page. Here are the results that we saw for that evaluation:



This shows that Moz DA and PA are both better predictors of ranking position than the total link count. The scores of 0.328 and 0.307 are both very strong correlation scores in an environment as complex as organic search.

This is an important finding, as it lines up with what many of us in the SEO community have believed for a long time: that the sites you get links from matters more than the sheer number of links. In addition, it's likely that most of the pages ranking in our query set that had a large number of links likely had a significant number of higher authority links as well.

Please note that the Moz team has let me know they are working on an update to the algorithm that powers PA, which will be released in the near future, and they believe that this will improve these results.

Conclusion

This data confirms that obtaining links from more authoritative sites has more value than obtaining a large quantity of links. Google's perspective of what makes better links is likely more nuanced than a simple metric like PageRank (the Google metric that DA and PA are most similar to). This may include evaluation of relevance to the topic, and the overall quality perception of the linking site.

As SEO professionals, increasing our own site quality and authority remains one of our core responsibilities in helping our sites, or our client's sites, grow.

You can see the full original Links as a Ranking Factor study here.

Important Note: Google does not have access to Moz's DA and PA metric data and Google does not use Moz DA or Moz PA as a ranking factor.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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The Correlation Between Authoritative Links and Ranking [SEO Study]

Posted by EricEnge

Over the past five years, our team at Perficient has conducted continuous studies to evaluate the lasting impact of links on rankings. These studies consistently show that links matter as a ranking factor, but they also show that Google is dialing up their emphasis on the quality/authority of those links. We can say this because of the strong correlation our most recent studies show between the Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) of linking pages and the rankings of pages receiving the links.

Each year, Moz has graciously provided us with access to their Link Explorer index, where we obtain the raw data to perform our analysis. In these studies, we perform Spearman Correlation analyses to show how the following variables correlate with ranking:

Number of links to the ranking page

DA of links to the ranking page

PA of links to the ranking page

Please note that Moz has never compensated us for including, or asked us to include, the DA and PA calculations — we have chosen to do that of our own volition. In fact, Moz staff only learned that we had done so in early October of 2020, even though we published the post with our findings on April 16, 2020 (to be honest, I was too busy to catch up with the Moz team and let them know). In short, there is no quid pro quo here.

Study methodology

Go ahead and jump down to the study results section if you just want to see how things turned out!

We have been conducting this study on a nearly annual basis since May of 2016. In 2016, we started with an initial query set of 6K queries, but have expanded to 32K queries over time. The queries were obtained by pulling keyword ranking reports for web sites in three different target market sectors, and then manually reviewed to remove any queries that were poorly formed or not relevant to that sector. The market sectors we looked at were technology, healthcare, and finance.

Here is the breakout of the size of the query sets across the five studies we have done so far:

May 2016: 6K queries

Aug 2016: 16K queries

May 2017: 16K queries

August 2018: 27K queries

December 2019: 32K queries

Each of the expanded query sets includes all of the queries from the prior studies, which allows us to track the results on a consistent basis all the way back to 2016.

In putting together this study, I also consulted with two experts in statistics: Paul Berger of Bentley University, and Per Enge, formerly of Stanford University. Because of the nature and structure of the data set, it was decided that the best approach was to calculate the quadratic mean of the Spearman Correlation for all the queries in the study.

I went with this approach because it uses the square of the correlation variables (where the correlation value is R, the quadratic mean uses R squared). This is important because the correlation variable R is useful to know, perhaps, but it does not allow you to make a specific statement about what it means in real world terms.

The R squared value, however, is more interesting. If you have an R squared value of 0.56, for example, we can say that 56% of the variability of the observed behavior Y (in our case, rankings) is caused by the test variable X (in our study, count of links, or DA/PA).

Here’s a visual on how this calculation process works:

Summary of the results

As part of the study, we pulled data on the growth of the Link Explorer index over time. Since we have data on the index size over three years for our 16K query set, we looked at this snapshot of the data to show how the Link Explorer index has expanded:

One of the core purposes of the study was finding the correlation between the number of links a page has and its ranking. Of course, the relevance and quality of the content are the most important factors in ranking — they have to be. That noted, here is the quadratic mean calculation result for how the quantity of links a page has correlates to its ranking:

This score is a bit down from past years (the August 2018 score was 0.293, but still indicates that the number of links to a page correlates in a meaningful way with the ranking of that page).

However, we also took a close look at the correlation of Moz DA and PA with the ranking of a page. Here are the results that we saw for that evaluation:



This shows that Moz DA and PA are both better predictors of ranking position than the total link count. The scores of 0.328 and 0.307 are both very strong correlation scores in an environment as complex as organic search.

This is an important finding, as it lines up with what many of us in the SEO community have believed for a long time: that the sites you get links from matters more than the sheer number of links. In addition, it's likely that most of the pages ranking in our query set that had a large number of links likely had a significant number of higher authority links as well.

Please note that the Moz team has let me know they are working on an update to the algorithm that powers PA, which will be released in the near future, and they believe that this will improve these results.

Conclusion

This data confirms that obtaining links from more authoritative sites has more value than obtaining a large quantity of links. Google's perspective of what makes better links is likely more nuanced than a simple metric like PageRank (the Google metric that DA and PA are most similar to). This may include evaluation of relevance to the topic, and the overall quality perception of the linking site.

As SEO professionals, increasing our own site quality and authority remains one of our core responsibilities in helping our sites, or our client's sites, grow.

You can see the full original Links as a Ranking Factor study here.

Important Note: Google does not have access to Moz's DA and PA metric data and Google does not use Moz DA or Moz PA as a ranking factor.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!