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sineala · 4 years

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I was going through an 2009 era livejournal post where it was mentioned that most of Tony's relationship were 'sexual form of self-flagellation'. With that out I love Whitney/Tony in a relationship, is there any way you can see that working out?

Oh, man, anon. This makes me regret that I have not yet posted the story that was going to be my Cap-IM RBB last year, because I literally have a 150,000-word answer to this question in the form of fanfiction. The short answer to this question is: no.

(The longer answer: HELL NO.)

If you want me to get more complicated than that, I will say that, in all fairness, there is an era of canon in which I could have seen Whitney/Tony actually working out. But that eventually ended, and for me there's a point of no return after which any chance of this being a good, healthy, or lasting relationship becomes impossible. And since then, Whitney's grasp on reality has gradually declined to the point where I don't think that she's currently mentally capable of seeing Tony as anything other than someone who could be a personal possession of hers, a thing, an object, a prize, rather than as a living human being with his own agency. (Basically, Marvel seems to have taken a look at her and thought, "Wow, she's crazy," and it's... kept getting worse. And worse.)

Let me now provide a brief summary of the Whitney/Tony relationship, because I went and read at least fifty issues so I could write the story that none of you have read yet. Anyway. This got long enough that I think I will use a Read More.

So Whitney first appears in comics way way back in Tales of Suspense v1 #97, and continues appearing in early Iron Man v1, where she meets Tony for the first time, but also has a bunch of feelings for Jasper Sitwell. (Note to MCU fans: Sitwell is not secretly Hydra. He is a big nerd, though.)

The Whitney/Tony relationship really kicks off in Iron Man v1 #17-19, one of my personal favorite arcs, in which a LMD Tony builds attempts to become Iron Man (this is always a good plot) and Whitney kidnaps Tony because she initially thinks he's the LMD, and she's working with Midas, who wants to use the LMD to infiltrate SI. It's great.

By this point Whitney has incurred her Tragic Facial Scars and has her mask, but Tony doesn't care about the scars and, as we see in #19, is clearly interested in her anyway. He's very sweet.

She appears a few times after that, basically leaves him for Sitwell, and then comes back in a big way in Iron Man v1 #91, posing as Krissy Longfellow, his new secretary. Whom he asks out, yes. Eventually Tony finds out who she is, and by Iron Man v1 #104 or thereabouts, they are definitely in love, Tony takes her to a house he grew up in, and also Whitney reveals that she knows that Tony is Iron Man. Which she is fine with.

Then they kiss very dramatically, and it is the most unintentionally-hilarious kiss I have ever seen, because neither of them take off their masks:

I like to yell CLANK CLANK whenever I read this.

By the next issue, #105, they are very seriously together:

They are together for about ten more issues, and this is the era of canon where I think it honestly could have worked out for them. Sure, Tony is contemplating abandoning being Iron Man and an Avenger, so he'd have to come around on that, but this is when they were at their healthiest, generally speaking. They were in love. They were happy. They were happy right up until #116, when Count Nefaria (Whitney's father) died, and she blamed Tony for her father's death and left him:

So I think that was pretty much it for their shot at having a stable, healthy relationship. Because after that Whitney basically... is evil. And I think there could be, as you say, an element of "sexual self-flagellation" in there, because Tony does still care for her as a person, although I don't see that he's necessarily interested in a romantic relationship with her again. He just wants her to be good again. He wants to help her be the good person he thinks she can be, but after this point she pretty much starts to lose her grip on reality, and I don't think she's capable of being that person.

Every subsequent appearance of Whitney in volume 1 was later retconned as being a clone (because comics gonna comics), but every time she shows up in it it's basically to seek revenge for the death of her father (who of course comes back to life, but that's comics for you) and also to get Tony back, because no one else could possibly love him as much as she does. She tries to kidnap Bethany Cabe. She works with Obadiah Stane against Tony. She tries to bodyswap herself into Bethany to get close to Tony. You get the idea. These are not the actions of a particularly stable person.

But one of the more agonizing things about Whitney -- at least, one of the things that I assume is most agonizing to Tony -- is that she could have been good. Maybe she can't be now, but at one point the capacity existed in her, and we know that because one of her clones, Masque, is in fact a very good person. Toward the end of volume 1, Masque actually ends up joining the Avengers. And I would think it's very hard for Tony to know about Masque and not think that Whitney could have been her, that there's some way he could have helped Whitney become that person, if only he'd known how, whether or not that is actually possible for him to do. (Hint: it's not.) I think he blames himself for not being able to save her. Maybe that's more of the same self-flagellation.

Meanwhile, Whitney does things like lock herself in a bunker in Nevada with a bunch of her clones, which does not strike me as a great move, sanity-wise. In The Nefaria Protocols in v3 (Avengers v3 #32-34, Thunderbolts v1 #43-44), she teams up with the Avengers to fight her father, but she's not sure whether she can trust them at first.

Avengers v3 #33 is actually really sympathetic toward her; the whole thing is narrated from her POV:

Eventually she ends up attempting to betray the Avengers and get them all killed, and she is stopped only when Masque shows up and sacrifices herself to prevent her doing so, at which point Whitney decides maybe she should save the Avengers after all before leaving. I think this is probably the nicest that canon has been to her in years, and she still nearly murders all the Avengers in the process.

After that she has a few other appearances, the most salient of which is probably World's Most Wanted (Invincible Iron Man v1 #8-19), in which, as we all know, she kidnaps Tony and is generally obsessed with him. Here in Invincible Iron Man v1 #16, Tony is in the middle of having his brain deleted and yet he still remembers that Whitney is not the best person, and she would really like to run away together with him because she apparently thinks that's a thing that's going to happen:

She shows up again in Bendis' run and as far as I can remember she's portrayed pretty similarly there. She's trying to steal magical artifacts. She and Tony meet up. She tries to kill him. The usual. There's a nice splash page in Invincible Iron Man v2 #2:

Her most recent relevant appearance is actually, if you can believe it, a few months ago, in Doctor Strange: Surgeon Supreme #5 and #6. Someone has been stealing magical weapons from Strange and selling them on the black market and -- surprise surprise -- it's Whitney.

(I was actually very surprised, yes. She is, uh, not typically one of Strange's villains.)

Whitney, you see, wants to be loved:

So she's selling all these weapons because, yes, she wants to be loved. By Tony.

What the hell, Whitney? How exactly is that going to work?

Anyway, Strange needs to neutralize the magical weapons, and to do that he needs to enter Whitney's mind to find the code that will do that, and, well, this is what the inside of Whitney's mind is like:

Her mind is one hundred percent made up of her obsession with Tony. This is it. This is her brain. She is a mess. She is out of touch with reality.

And you'll never guess what the code is. Or maybe you will.

She thinks that she's in love with Tony. And she thinks that this is what love is. And she is very clearly not okay.

Because Strange is a doctor and is determined to try to help people, he offers her a new mask that will heal her:

Whitney declines:

She runs away. And that's the last we have seen of her.

So, yeah. Based on all of this, I am of the opinion that Whitney/Tony cannot possibly work out at this point in canon, because -- although she still believes she loves him -- she is very obviously no longer mentally capable of understanding what love actually is, and she's not looking to change that. We have literally seen inside her mind, so we can in fact know what she thinks. She just wants to possess Tony. And that's not going to be good for anyone.

Would she have been better than this if she'd stayed with Tony instead of leaving him when her father died? Maybe. We can't know. A lot of her instability seems to revolve around her inability to possess Tony, and, well... she would have had Tony, so maybe that wouldn't have happened. Or maybe she would have become consumed by possessing him even more. There's no way to know. And given that she's capable of this kind of break with reality, it's also possible that if it hadn't been Tony, it might have been something else entirely as a focus for her delusional thinking, and at any rate she's clearly not interested in receiving the psychological help that she definitely needs.

Man, do I love reading about her, though. And someday I swear I will post this 150,000-word fic about why they should never, ever, ever get back together.

#Anonymous #replies

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countdown-to-destruction · 4 years

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Inuyasha Sequel: a rant

Put this up this earlier on a post I re-blogged, tried to edit a part or two where I didn’t like the way I had phrased it, and ended up messing up the whole format I wrote this in. Luckily I wrote this as a draft earlier anyways! So I did a some fixing and now I’m just copy-pasting it again and making it a text post instead. This will be very long and a little nit-picky but I wanted to make a post ever since I heard about the upcoming sequel to Inuyasha, Hanyō no Yashahime. I did put a TLDR at the end for those who don’t want to read everything. Not sure how many people in the fandom still follow me and will see this, as it's been a long time since I was actually active in the fandom, but it's hands-down both my favorite manga and anime of all time and I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately so I had to post something. Before reading this be sure to read all of the translated character bios for Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha so that this makes sense.

When I first heard that Inuyasha would be getting a sequel I was excited! But after reading up on it, to be completely honest I'm not feeling this sequel anymore. I know it’s an unpopular opinion but hear me out. Firstly, it seems like Rumiko is mostly involved in the character design aspect and the writing is up to Katsuyuki Sumisawa. The music will be produced by Kaoru Wada which is great! And from what I’ve seen and read online a number of others who worked on the original series will reunite so hopefully the story will go well. However, knowing Rumiko isn't personally writing and not knowing how much input she has or will give makes me unsure about watching. The original Inuyasha anime followed and was based off of the events in the manga, and there was no manga prior to this for it to be based on. Depending on what happens this could be an alright sequel or a total miss. Unfortunately sequels in general are known to be disappointing in some way.

Secondly, if I hear anything about Rin being the mother of Sesshomaru's twin daughters I'm out. This part will be a SUPER long and in depth explanation on why I think this way, feel free to skip if you're not interested. Please don't come for me on this, I'm here to explain my thoughts and feelings on the sequel and the theories around it so far, not start an argument. I'm more than aware that there's plenty of controversy out there on this pairing and personally I do not support it. I never saw their relationship as more than a friendship, or something akin to child and guardian as Sesshomaru and Jaken are basically Rin's caretakers up until she goes to live in the village with Kaede. He definitely cares for her deeply but I can't see it in a romantic way, being that Sesshomaru isn't even a character focused on romance to begin with. He learns compassion through Rin's second death but that doesn't mean he loves her romantically. As a reminder his main goal is to seek power and be powerful, and it's stated that he needed to learn compassion and grief in order to mature. It's what helped him learn to wield the Tenseiga at its full potential. In addition, she was really young when they first met and still was when she went to live with Kaede. The idea of Sesshomaru (an adult) having romantic feelings for a kid under ten years old (around eleven at the end of the series, and still a literal child in all ways) and waiting for her to age with the intention of marrying her sits totally wrong with me. Age wise I realize that Inuyasha is decades older than Kagome and that his father was much older than his mother, Izayoi, as well. The difference here is that Kagome was a teen when she met Inuyasha (who not just physically, but more importantly mentally was also a teen) and clearly Izayoi was old enough to conceive Inuyasha and give birth. As far as the audio dramas (more specifically "Asatte") go they're generally considered as an outtake reel and are essentially parodies, or a form of satire. Some will debate on this but realistically there’s plenty of reasons this is true, and those who take the time to properly check them out understand that. For me I've always had a headcanon that at some point in her teen years Rin would inevitably develop a one-sided crush on Sesshomaru and that he would ultimately set boundaries and reject her, seeing her as more of a close companion than a love interest and wanting her to live with someone she can grow old with. He gave her the choice to follow him and it's most likely that she would, but I think that once she began aging he would want her to have somewhere to settle, given that he enjoys roaming and seeking out other powerful beings to battle. It's strange to me that they decided to give Sesshomaru hanyō/half-demon children in general but based on the artwork we've seen it's fair to guess that they might have made Sesshomaru and Rin a pairing in this sequel.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to clarify that if you ship them together I'm not writing this here because I want to hate on your ship for no reason, or in order to create an argument on if the pairing makes sense, these are my thoughts and opinions on the matter and I’m voicing them because it’s what I believe. I already know that somebody won’t like this and will take it personally. People usually say that once Rin is an adult the pairing is acceptable but I disagree. I find it quite creepy that someone would think it would be alright for an adult to wait around for a kid to grow up with the intention to marry and/or sleep with them. Watching from a distance is the same exact thing, after making an impression on the child... let’s not normalize this. In this situation it would be grooming. We all have our own opinions when it comes to our ships and fandoms and I try to respect that but I can’t get behind this one.

Next we have the apparent lack of parental figures for the heroines. Where are the original Inuyasha characters at? Moroha's character bio says she barely knows her parents (Inuyasha and Kagome, our former main protagonists) and has been alone since she was young! It makes me think either something has happened to them or some kind of bizarre event separated them. And sorry, not related, but why does she transform by PUTTING LIPSTICK ON?? That part threw me for a loop.

When it comes to Setsuna and Towa their parents are absent too. I find it difficult to believe that Sesshomaru wouldn't keep track of his children given how he treats Rin and reacts to her going missing in any capacity. Especially if he happened to be fond of whoever their mother is. One daughter works as a taijiya/demon slayer for Kohaku and the other mysteriously transports to Kagome's era and is raised by Sota (I thought we had finished with the time jumps when the well closed but apparently not. When the Bone Eater's Well closed after Kagome's return it gave a sense of finality and closure to the story, and showed that Kagome had chosen where she was most happy and felt she belonged. I think that bringing the theme of time travel back into the sequel makes it feel repetitive, like something right out of a predictable fanfic. Props to Sota for taking in and raising a child who showed up out of nowhere though).

Another thing that came to mind when I read these character bios was why Inuyasha and Kagome's daughter and Sesshomaru's daughters are the exact same age. Of course there's nothing wrong with that. It only struck me as odd because suddenly everyone is having kids at the same time. And so far there's no mention of other characters like Sango, Miroku, Shippo, Jaken, Kaede, or Miroku or Sango's three children or where they are. One might expect that a story focused on the children of some of the original Inuyasha's main characters would feature appearances from those who had important roles in the previous series and their children. Which brings me around to wondering what made twin daughters a trend? Two sets of twin girls is a unique choice (Sango and Miroku's twin daughters. For such a small group of parental characters, what are the odds of two sets of twin girls? Where is the creativity and again why the repetition?).

Lastly, Sesshomaru's daughters lack some of the common yōkai/demon characteristics we see on Inuyasha and other characters. Their ears are human, and they have no markings or otherwise (that I noticed) with the exception of Setsuna's mokomoko/fur which is similar to Sesshomaru's. So perhaps they take more after their human mother? Given that Inuyasha seemed to inherit strong genes from his father it's interesting that they did not. Their ages also interest me as they appear to age the same way as humans do. Yōkai/demons are known to have a longer lifespan than humans and appear to slow down or almost stop aging at some point. Perhaps this confirms that the slowdown in aging occurs once they reach the equivalent of a human teen?

Overall Inuyasha was a fantastic manga and great anime on its own, and I never got the feeling that it needed a sequel. As a stand-alone it was everything it needed to be. I thoroughly enjoyed both formats of the original, though I do have a tendency to disregard certain parts of the anime. I always preferred the manga more when the anime dragged out certain scenes (Shichinintai/Band of Seven arc for example) or straight-up excluded, changed, and added others. Taking that into consideration the sequel might end up being the same for me in that way, but rather than one scene that plays out for too long or an excluded, altered, or unnecessary added scene, if it’s not any good I’ll simply disregard it altogether. When the anime comes out I certainly plan to try watching it out of loyalty to the fandom, and due to the fact that it's "technically" canon (without Rumiko being the writer I don't necessarily consider it canon, much like how some folks do or do not consider the movies canon) but I get the feeling that I'll wind up giving up on it in disappointment.

TLDR; Overall I'm left questioning if the sequel is worth watching (for me) given what I've read and heard so far, but nonetheless I will give it an optimistic try! I'm currently wondering how much we'll see of the original Inuyasha characters, if we get to find out what happened to them, if the number one pairing I'm not fond of will make an appearance (and cause me to drop the whole thing), and questioning parts of the character backstories and designs (why is there a repetitive and recurring theme of time travel and does it end up hindering or ruining the story, why do the protagonists all lack parents, and why do the hanyō/half-demon characters lack common yōkai/demon traits and does it make them more human than demon?).

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #sesshomaru #please don't be sessrin #kagome #a feudal fairytale #internal screeching #my thoughts #my opinions #unpopular opinion

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britesparc · 5 years

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Weekend Top Ten #388

Top Ten Things Tim Burton’s Batman Films Did Right

Thirty years ago, give or take, the first Tim Burton Batman movie was released in cinemas (according to Google, its UK release date was 11th August 1989). Everyone knows the story; it was a phenomenon, a marketing juggernaut, a hit probably beyond what anyone was reasonably expecting. I was too young to understand or appreciate what was going on, but for twenty years or more the image of Batman in the public consciousness was intertwined with Adam West and pop-art frivolity. Suddenly superheroes were “dark” and “grown-up”; suddenly we had multi-million-dollar-grossing properties, franchises, and studios rummaging through their back catalogues of acquired IPs to land the next four-quadrant hit. Throughout the rest of the nineties we got a slew of pulp comic adaptations – The Spirit, The Phantom, Dick Tracy – before the tangled web of Marvel licenses became slightly easier to unpick, and we segued into the millennium on the backs of Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man. Flash-forward to a super-successful Batman reboot, then we hit the MCU with Iron Man, and we all know where that goes. And it all began with Batman!

Except, of course, that’s not quite the whole story. Studios were trying to adapt superheroes and comic books for a number of years, not least because Richard Donner’s Superman had been such a huge hit a decade before Batman. And the Batman films themselves began to deteriorate in quality pretty rapidly. Plus, when viewed from the distance of a couple of decades or more, the supposed dark, gritty, adult storytelling in Burton’s films quickly evaporates. They’re just as camp, silly, and nonsensical as the 1960s show, they’re just visually darker and with more dry ice. Characters strut around in PVC bodysuits; the plots make little to no sense; characterisation is secondary to archetype; and Batman himself is quite divorced from his comic incarnation, killing enemies often capriciously and being much less of a martial artist or detective than he appeared on the page (in fact, Adam West’s Batman does a lot more old-school deducing than any of the cinematic Batmen).

I think a lot of people of my generation, who grew up with Adam West, went through a period of disowning the series because it was light, bright, campy and, essentially, for children; then we grow up and appreciate it all the more for being those things, and also for being a pure and delightful distillation of one aspect of the comics (seriously, there’s nothing in the series that’s not plausibly from a 1950s Batman comic). And I think the same is true of Burton’s films. for all their importance in terms of “legitimising” superhero movies, they have come in for a lot of legitimate criticism, and in the aftermath of Christopher Nolan’s superlative trilogy they began to look very old-fashioned and a much poorer representation of the character. But then, again, we all grow up a little bit and can look back on them as a version of Batman that’s just as valid; they don’t have to be perfect, they don’t have to be definitive, but we can enjoy them for what they are: macabre delights, camp gothic comedies, delightfully stylised adventure stories. They might lack the visual pizazz of a Nolan fight scene or, well, anything in any MCU movie, but they’re very much of a type, even if that type was aped, imitated, and parodied for a full decade following Batman’s release. There’s much to love about Burton’s two bites of the Bat-cherry, and here – at last – I will list my ten favourite aspects of the films (that’s both films, Batman and Batman Returns).

Tim Burton’s Batman isn’t quite my Batman (but, for the record, neither is Christopher Nolan’s), but whatever other criticisms I may have of the films, here are ten things that Burton and his collaborators got absolutely right.

Great Design: seriously, from an aesthetic point of view, they’re gorgeous. The beautiful Anton Furst Gotham, all gothic towers and industrial pipework, is a thing of beauty, and in terms of live-action the design of all of Batman’s vehicles and gadgets has never been bettered. It gives Batman, and his world, a gorgeously distinctive style all its own.

Wonderful Toys: it’s not just the design of the Batmobile and Batwing that impresses (big, bulbous round bits, sweeping curves, spiky wings); its how they’re used. Burton really revels in the gadgets, making Batman a serious tech-head with all manner of grappling hooks, hidden bombs, and secret doo-dahs to give him an upper hand in a fight. It makes up for the wooden combat (a ninja Michael Keaton is not), suggesting this Batman is a smarter fighter than a physical one. Plus all those gadgets could get turned into literal wonderful toys. Ker-ching.

He is the Night: Adam West’s Batman ran around during the day, in light grey spandex with a bright blue cape. Michael Keaton’s Batman only ever came out at night, dressed entirely in thick black body armour, and usually managed to be enveloped in smoke. From his first appearance, beating up two muggers on a Gotham rooftop, he is a threatening, scary, sinister presence. It totally sold the idea of Batman as part-urban legend, part-monster. Burton is fascinated with freaks, and in making his Batman freaky, he made him iconic.

You Wanna Get Nuts?: added to this was Michael Keaton’s performance as Bruce Wayne. Controversial casting due to his comedy background and, frankly, lack of an intimidating physique, he nevertheless utterly convinced. Grimly robotic as Batman, he presented a charming but secretive Bruce Wayne, one who was kind and heartfelt in private, but also serious, determined, and very, very smart. But he also excellently portrayed a dark anger beneath the surface, a mania that Bruce clearly had under control, but which he used to fuel his campaign, and which he allowed out in the divisive but (in my opinion) utterly brilliant “Let’s get nuts!” scene. To this date, the definitive screen Bruce Wayne.

Dance with the Devil: The counterpoint to this was Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Cashing a phenomenal cheque for his troubles, he nevertheless delivered; his Joker is wild, over-the-top, cartoonish but also terrifying. In my late teens I was turned off by the performance, feeling it a pantomime and not reflective of the quiet menace and casual cruelty of, say, Mark Hamill’s Joker; but now I see the majesty of it. You need someone this big to be a believable threat to Batman. No wonder that, with Joker dead, they essentially had to have three villains to replace him in the sequel.

Family: Bruce’s relationship with Alfred is one of the cornerstones of the comic, but really only existed in that capacity since the mid-80s and Year One (which established Alfred as having raised Bruce following his parents’ deaths). So in many ways the very close familial relationship in Batman is a watershed, and certainly the first time many people would have seen that depicted. Michael Gough’s Alfred is benign, charming, very witty, and utterly capable as a co-conspirator. One of the few people to stick around through the Schumacher years, he maintained stability even when everything else was going (rubber) tits up.

Meow: I’ve mostly focussed on Batman here, but by jeebies Batman Returns has a lot going for it too. Max Shreck, the Penguin, “mistletoe is deadly if you eat it”… but pride of place goes to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. An utterly bonkers origin but a perfectly pitched character, she was a credible threat, a believable love interest, and an anti-hero worth rooting for, in a tour-de-force performance. Also came along at just the right time for me to experience puberty. If you’re interested. Plus – and this can’t be overstated – she put a live bird into her mouth. For real. I mean, Christ.

Believably Unreal: I used to criticise Batman for being unrealistic, just as campy in its own way as the ‘60s show. But that’s missing the point. It’s a stylised world, clearly not our own thanks to the Furst-stylings. And Burton uses that to his advantage. The gothic stylings help sell the idea of a retro-futuristic rocket-car barrelling through city streets; the mishmash of 80s technology and 40s aesthetics gives us carte blanche for a zoot-suited Joker and his tracksuited henchmen to tear up a museum to a Prince soundtrack. It’s a world where Max Shreck, looking like Christopher Walken was electrocuted in a flour factory, can believably run a campaign to get Penguin elected mayor, even after he nearly bites someone’s nose off. It’s crazy but it works.

Believably Corrupt: despite the craziness and unreality, the first Batman at least does have a strong dose of realism running through it. The gangsters may be straight out of the 40s but they’ve adopted the gritty grimness of the intervening decades, with slobby cop Eckhart representing corrupt law enforcement. Basically, despite the surrealism on display, the sense of Gotham as a criminal cesspool is very well realised, and extends to such a high level that the only realistic way to combat any of it is for a sad rich man to dress up as Dracula and drive a rocket-car at a clown.

The Score: I’ve saved this for last because, despite everything, Danny Elfman’s Batman theme is clearly the greatest and strongest legacy of the Burton era. Don’t come at me with your “dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-Batman” nonsense. Elfman’s Batman score is sublime. Like John Williams’ Superman theme, it’s iconic, it’s distinctive, and as far as I’m concerned it’s what the character should sound like. I have absolutely no time for directors who think you should ever make a Batman film with different music. It’s as intrinsically linked with the character as the Star Wars theme is with, well, Star Wars. It’s perfect and beautiful and the love-love-love the fact that they stuck it in the Animated Series too.

Whelp, there we are. The ten best things about Burton’s two Batman movies. I barely spoke about the subsequent films because, well, they’re both crap. No, seriously, they’re bad films. Even Batman Forever. Don’t start.

#top ten #batman #1989 #tim burton #Michael Keaton #batman returns #comics #movies

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paigenotblank · 5 years

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The Age of the Wolf (7/9)

Rating: Mature overall, this chapter is teen

Pairing: Eighth Doctor x Rose Tyler; Eleventh x Rose; Ten x Rose

Written for @doctorroseprompts and Eight x Rose August. Prompt: Dimension hopping!Rose meets Eight / What if Rose was with Eight or met Eight during the Time War? 50th Anniversary Re-Write/Fix-It

Read it on Tumblr: Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9

AO3 TSP

The Doctor set aside his copy of Advanced Quantum Mechanics, removed his glasses, and rubbed at his temples. He was having trouble concentrating, a feeling of unease had been plaguing him for hours.

For a moment he was surprised and disoriented by the silence around him. It was eerie, like the calm before a storm. Dread sat like lead in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to think of the last time he felt a storm sitting on the horizon, back when he’d lost…

He jumped to his feet and paced in front of the time rotor. I’m forgetting something important. What is it? He tugged on his hair in a move more reminiscent of his tenth self and stopped abruptly. Maybe he should jump ahead so he didn’t have to wait any longer. But it had been too long since he’d last seen Clara. He needed a distraction right now and an adventure with a dear friend sounded like just the thing to do it.

He looked at his watch and was startled to realize school was almost out. But...I...I never lose track of time.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and leaned up against the door with his arms crossed. He watched as students at the Coal Hill Secondary School began pouring out of the doors, eager to meet up with friends or to get to jobs or just go home and watch telly.

A small smile pulled at his lips as he remembered another young girl who had gone to this very school so, so long ago. He could remember her clutching a stack of books to her chest and dancing to the pop music of the era as she made her way back to TARDIS. She’d chatter to him about her day and the silly ideas that were prevalent among the humans of that time. She’d say, ‘Grandfather, can you believe that they treat the fourth dimension as if it’s a joke and they’ve never even heard of the fifth dimension! Why it’s just so primitive. Oh, but I do love it here!’

Thoughts of Susan were not as painful as they once were, now only causing a small twinge in the regions of his hearts. He wasn’t sure if that was better or not.

He let out a sigh and felt a tap on his shoulder. “Hello, Doctor.”

Shaking aside his maudlin thoughts, he grinned brightly. “Clara!” The Doctor opened the door for her to proceed him inside. “Fancy a trip to ancient Mesopotamia followed by future Mars?”

“Will there be cocktails?”

“On the Moon.”

Clara pretended to think it over. “The Moon'll do.”

Both of them burst out laughing. Clara removed her coat and tossed it over the railing before turning back to the Doctor.

He gave her a big hug. “How's the new job? Teach anything good?”

Laughly, she pulled away from their embrace. “No. Learn anything?”

He shook his head. “Not a thing.”

The TARDIS jerked and alarms began to ring.

Clara grabbed hold of the console. “What's happening?”

“What? We're taking off, but...the engines aren't going.”

The Doctor ran down the ramp and pulled open the front door. He swayed and leaned back inside when he saw that the TARDIS was being flown over East London toward the city center. With a grimace, he reached out the door and pulled open the phone cubby. Shaking his head, he dialed his U.N.I.T. contact.

“Hello? Kate Stewart’s phone.”

“I want to talk to Kate, right now.”

“Erm, hold on.”

The Doctor stood tapping his foot to the sound of wind, running, and gasping breaths.

“Excuse me, Ma’am. Ma’am!”

There was a murmured conversation, before a familiar voice came through. “Doctor, hello. We found the TARDIS near a junkyard. I’m having it brought in.”

“No kidding.”

“Where are you?”

The Doctor held up the phone so that the sound of the helicopter was unmistakable.

“Oh, my god! Oh, Doctor! I’m so sorry. We had no idea you were still in there.”

“Next time, will it kill you to knock?”

The helicopter changed direction and the Doctor tumbled out the door dropping the phone. He managed to grab hold of the threshold just in time.

“Doctor!” Clara ran over to help him.

The Doctor dangled from the TARDIS at it flew over the cityscape toward the Tower of London. When the TARDIS was close enough to the ground, he hopped down and approached Kate Stewart.

“Doctor, as Chief Scientific Officer, may I extend the official apologies of U.N.I.T.”

“Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, a word to the wise, as I'm sure your father would have told you, I don't like being picked up.”

Clara walked up behind him. “That probably sounded better in his head. And besides, I know for a fact-”

The Doctor glared at Clara and she left that thought unfinished.

“I'm acting on instructions direct from the throne. Sealed orders from her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the First. Her credentials are inside.” The Doctor was about to break the seal on the missive, when Kate stopped him. “No.” She pointed to the National Gallery. “Inside.”

The Doctor nodded and as he passed Kate’s assistant did a double take. The young woman was dressed in a lab coat, but it was her striped scarf that caught his attention. It was reminiscent of the one he’d fancied in his fourth body. “Are you the one who answered the phone earlier?”

The young woman flushed and looked as if she’d forgotten how to breathe. After the moment stretched to become almost uncomfortable, she nodded.

“Nice to meet you...do you have a name?”

Her eyes widened and she peeped, “Yes.”

“Good, I’ve always wanted to meet someone called ‘Yes.’”

“No.”

“No?”

She looked bemused. “Name’s Osgood, sir.”

“Oh...Brilliant! Nice scarf.”

Osgood took a wheezing breath. As Kate passed she reminded her, “Inhaler.”

The Doctor and Clara walked into the National Gallery followed by Kate and Osgood. “So Elizabeth the First? You knew her?”

“Hmmm? May have met her a time or two.”

“A time or two? And she’s sending you love letters? Does-”

The Doctor’s ears turned red. “Oi, ’s not a love letter!”

They arrived at a covered painting, and Kate nodded for it to be revealed. “Elizabeth's credentials, Doctor.“

When the sheet fell away, Clara gasped. “But, how is it doing that? How is that possible?”

The Doctor’s face fell and he whispered, “No More.”

“That's the title.”

The Doctor sighed. “I know the title.”

“Also known as, ‘Gallifrey Falls.’”

The Doctor spun to confront Kate. “This painting doesn't belong here, not in this time or place.”

Clara moved closer to the painting. “Obviously.” She reached out as if to touch it. “An oil painting in 3D?”

“It’s Time Lord art. Bigger on the inside. A slice of real time, frozen...It's the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city.”

Clara spun toward the Doctor. “What? Seriously?”

The Doctor was lost to his memories for a moment. Clara approached him and touched his arm. “You okay?”

“He was there.”

“Who was?”

“Me. The other me. The one I don't talk about.”

Clara tilted her head. “I don't understand.”

“I've had many faces, many lives. You know that. But there's one life I've tried very hard to not think about. The Doctor who fought in the Time War. Only, now I can’t quite... I think...it all feels hazy.” The Doctor walked closer to the painting and sighed. “The last day of the Time War. The war to end all wars between my people and the Daleks. That was the day he did it. The day I did it. The day he killed them all and silenced the universe.” The Doctor turned angrily to Kate. “Why today? I’ve had this...this...feeling all day. And some of my memories are fuzzy. I remember or I’m almost remembering. Why bring me that message today?”

“It came with written instructions in which Elizabeth told us when to deliver it and where to find the painting and its significance. I believe it’s better explained in the letter.”

The Doctor had done his best to lock away the memories of the War, if only to be able to sleep on occasion. But now he couldn’t shake that persistent feeling of forgetting something important. Something about today, something about his past. What is it? What does it have to do with Queen Elizabeth I and why this painting?

Clara brought him back to himself with her question to Kate. “But the Time War's over. Why bring us here to look at a painting?”

“The painting only serves as Elizabeth's credentials, proof that the letter is from her. It's not why you're here.”

The Doctor turned the letter over a few times before breaking the seal and unfolding the message. Dearest Doctor, I hope the painting known as “Gallifrey Falls” will serve as proof that it is your queen, Elizabeth, who writes to you now. You will recall that you pledged yourself to the safety of my kingdom. In this capacity, I have appointed you as curator of the Under Gallery, where deadly danger to England is locked away. Should any disturbance occur within its walls, it is my wish that you be summoned. Godspeed.

The Doctor folded the note and slipped it into his pocket. “What happened?”

“Easier to show you.”

Kate and Osgood led the Doctor and Clara to the entrance of the Under Gallery. Clara looked up to see a painting of Queen Elizabeth the First and a stoic Doctor in his Tenth form. She smirked and was about to comment on the ruffled collar when she noticed his face. The words died on her tongue at the tension on his face. He caught her looking and forced a big smile.

The Doctor, resplendent in pinstripes, was laid out next to a young Queen Elizabeth on a pile of cushions with a feast spread around them. He popped a grape in his mouth and then fed one to her.

“Tell me, Doctor, why I'm wasting my time on you. I have wars to plan.”

“You have a picnic to eat.”

“You could help me.”

“I am helping.” The Doctor waggled his eyebrows before biting into a crisp apple.

“Not the picnic. You have a stomach for war.” She caressed his cheek. “These eyes have seen conflict, it's as clear as day.”

The Doctor sighed. “Oh, you’ve no idea.” He then jumped up in a swirl of excitement. “Up on your feet. Up, up.”

The Queen was taken aback. “How dare you? I’m the Queen of England.”

“I'm not English.” The Doctor fell to one knee. “Elizabeth, will you marry me?”

“Oh, my dear sweet love. Of course I will.”

“Ah, gotcha!”

“My love?”

“The real Elizabeth would never have accepted my marriage proposal. But then the real Elizabeth isn't a shape-shifting alien from outer space. And…” The Doctor holds up a cobbled together machine that made a chiming noise. “...ding.”

“What's that?”

The Doctor looked at her as if she’d dribbled on her bodice. “It's a machine that goes ‘ding.’ Made it myself. Lights up in the presence of shape-shifter DNA. Oooh. Also it can microwave frozen dinners from up to twenty feet and download comics from the future. I never know when to stop.”

“My love, I do not understand.”

“I'm not your love, and yes you do. You're a Zygon.”

“A Zygon?”

“Oh, stop it. It's over. A Zygon, yes. Big red rubbery thing covered in suckers. Think the real Queen of England would just decide to share her throne with any old handsome bloke in a tight suit, just ‘cos he's got amazing hair and a nice horse?” The Doctor looked over his shoulder at the horse. “Oh.”

Standing where the horse had been just moments ago was a Zygon.

He held out his hand to the Queen. “It was the horse. I'm going to be King. Run!”

“What's happening?”

“We're being attacked by a shape-shifting alien from outer space, formerly disguised as my horse.”

The Doctor led her into an old ruin.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m gonna need a new horse. Quick, I'll hold it off. You run. Your people need you.”

“And I need you alive for our wedding day.” Elizabeth kissed him before running off.

The Doctor ruffled his hair. “Oh, good work, Doctor. Nice one. The Virgin Queen? So much for history. You’ve really stepped in it this time.”

The Doctor took off in another direction following the dinging of his Zygon finder. At the sound of a feminine scream, the Doctor turned and ran into a small clearing.

“Elizabeth!”

The Queen was laying on the ground and the Doctor helped her stand. Another Elizabeth walked into the clearing.

“Step away from her, Doctor. That's not me. That's the creature.”

“How is that possible? She's me. Doctor, she's me!”

The Doctor pointed his machine at both women as they bickered. He slapped the side of it, before shaking it.

“It's not working.”

“One might surmise that the creature would learn quickly to protect itself from any simple means of detection.”

“Clearly you understand the creature better than I. But then, you have the advantage.”

Just when the Doctor was ready to throttle both women, history be damned, a swirling portal appeared above him.

“Back, both of you. Now! That's a time fissure. A tear in the fabric of reality.”

Kate walked through the hidden doorway behind the painting of Elizabeth and the Doctor into an antechamber. “Welcome to the Under Gallery. This is where the Royal Family keeps all art deemed too dangerous for public consumption.”

The Doctor paused and scooped up a handful of sand from the floor. “Stone dust.”

Kate tilted her head. “Is it important?”

“In twelve hundred years I've never stepped in anything that wasn't.” The Doctor spun to face Osgood. “ Oi! Are you sciency?”

“Oh, erm, well, erm, yes.”

“Good. I want this stone dust analyzed. And I want a report in triplicate, with lots of graphs and diagrams and complicated sums on my desk, tomorrow morning, ASAP, pronto…” He turned to Kate. “Do I have a desk?”

Kate shook her head. “No.”

The Doctor turned back to Osgood. “And I want a desk.”

“Get a team. Analyze the stone dust,” Kate instructed before she continued on toward the larger gallery.

The Doctor and Clara followed behind, and the Doctor noticed a fez in a display case. He looked around and slid the fez out, popping it on his head.

Clara rolled her eyes. “Someday, you could just walk past a fez.”

“Never gonna happen.”

They entered a long, open room lined with Gallifreyan 3D art along the wall. Glass covered much of the floor.

Kate gestured to the debris. “This is why we called you in.”

“Interesting.”

Clara leaned down to inspect the floor. “The broken glass?”

“No, where it's broken from. Look at the shatter pattern. The glass on all these paintings has been broken from the inside.”

“As you can see, all the paintings are landscapes. No figures of any kind.”

Clara walked back over to the others. “So?”

“There used to be.” Kate handed them a tablet with photos of the original paintings on it.

Clara looked up in surprise. “Something's got out the paintings?”

“Lots of somethings. Dangerous somethings.”

“This whole place has been searched. There's nothing here that shouldn't be, and nothing's got out.”

A swirling of air began to coalesce above them.

“Oh, no, not now.”

“Doctor, what is it?”

“Not now. I'm busy.”

“Is it to do with the paintings?”

“No, no. This is different. I remember this. Almost remember.” He removed the fez from his head and looked from it to the time fissure. “Oh! Of course. This is where I come in.”

He threw the fez into the vortex before running and leaping into it himself. “Geronimo!”

“Doctor!” Clara moved to follow the Doctor.

Kate held her back. “Wait.”

The Doctor in pinstripes stood between the two versions of Elizabeth and the time fissure, his arms wide in a protective gesture. “Anything could happen.”

All three watched as a fez fell from the swirling vortex.

He tugged his ear. “For instance...a fez.” The Doctor picked up the fez and placed it on his head, just as the other Doctor came crashing down.

“Oof.”

“Who is this man?” One of the Elizabeths asked the Doctor.

He watched the other man curiously. “That's just what I was wondering.”

The older Doctor inspected his younger self. “Oh, that is skinny. That is proper skinny. I've never seen it from the outside. It's like a special effect. Oi!” He knocked the fez from his counterpart’s head. “Ha! Matchstick man.”

The younger Doctor looked like he’d been forced to eat a pear, realization coloring his features. “Oh, you're not…”

Both men took out their respective sonic screwdrivers and compared them. The older Doctor’s was bigger with add-ons missing from the previous model.

The younger Doctor asked with a lift of his eyebrow, “Compensating?”

“For what?”

“Regeneration. It's a lottery.”

The older Doctor narrowed his eyes and huffed. “Oh, he's cool. Isn't he cool? I'm the Doctor and I'm all cool. Oops, I'm wearing sandshoes.”

The younger Doctor hissed at his older self, “What are you doing here? I'm busy.”

“Oh, busy? I see. Is that what we're calling it, eh? Eh?” The older Doctor leaned down, picked up the fez, and put it on his head. With a flourish, he spun around and bowed to the two Elizabeths. “Hello, ladies.”

“Don't start.”

“You should talk.”

“One of them is a Zygon.”

“Eww…” The older Doctor put up his hands. “I'm not judging you. Who am I kidding? Yes, I am.”

Another time fissure appeared. Both Doctors reached into their pockets and put on their respective glasses.

The older Doctor glanced over his shoulder. “Your Majesties. Probably a good time to run.”

Both women asked simultaneously, “But what about the creature?”

The younger Doctor instructed, “Elizabeth, whichever one of you is the real one, turn and run in the opposite direction to the other one.”

“Of course, my love.”

The other Elizabeth said, “Stay alive, my love. I am not done with you yet,” before kissing him and running off.

“Thanks. Lovely.”

“I understand. Live for me, my darling. We shall be together again.” Then the remaining Elizabeth kissed him and ran off in the other direction.

The Doctor wiped his mouth and nervously met his counterpart’s eyes. “Well, won't that be nice?”

“One of those was a Zygon.”

“Yeah.”

“Big red rubbery thing covered in suckers.”

“Yeah. And a surprisingly good kisser.”

“Venom sacs in the tongue.”

“Yeah, I'm getting the point, thank you.”

“Nice.”

From the time fissure, the Doctors heard Clara calling out, “Doctor, is that you?”

“Ah, hello, Clara. Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, it's me. We can hear you. Where are you?”

The older Doctor looked to his younger self. “Where are we?”

“England, 1562.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“Myself.”

“Can you come back through?”

“Physical passage may not be possible in both directions. It’s...Ah! Hang on.” The Doctor removed the fez from his head and threw it into the whirling eddy. “Fez incoming!”

After a pause, Clara asked, “Was something supposed to happen?”

The younger Doctor scratched the back of his neck. “If not there, where did it go?”

The Doctor and Rose entered an empty barn that had been a part of his childhood homestead. He put the sack down and gingerly removed a box with exposed gears and brass inlay. He turned it over in his hands a few times. “How...how do you work? Hmmm. Why is there never a big, red button?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “You and your big, red buttons.”

Both froze when they heard a rustling at the door. The Doctor made his way over and peeked outside. “Hello? Is somebody there?” Shaking his head, he closed the door. “It was nothing.”

A wolf’s howl could be heard in the distance. “Did you hear that? It sounded like a wolf.”

“Couldn’t have been. There are no wolves on Gallifrey.”

“But did you hear that?”

He whooshed out a breath and nodded. “Yeah.”

Rose walked over to the innocuous looking box, and crouched down in front of it. She reached out to examine it.

“Don't touch it!”

She pulled her hand back. “Why not?”

“Because it's the most dangerous weapon in the universe, and we don’t know how it works.”

“You touched it an’ it was fine.” Rose reached for it once again and the moment she placed her hand on it, the box began to emit a noise, like gears shifting into place, and her eyes began to glow gold.

“It's activating. Watch out.”

He knelt and tried to take the box from her hands, but when he touched it, it burned him.

“Ow!” He shook his hand.

“What's wrong?” Rose asked with a tilt of her head.

“The interface is hot.”

“Well, I do my best. Still after a century of marriage it’s nice to hear.”

The Doctor was only half paying attention while he continued to inspect the device. “There's definitely a power source inside…” He suddenly turned to Rose. “Wait, did you just say you're the interface?”

Her eyes faded back to amber. “Bad Wolf. When I touched it, it got inside my head. I can hear it talking to me. I...I know how to use it.”

The Doctor ran one hand over his face and he sat back on his heels.

Rose laid a hand on his thigh. “What’s wrong?”

“It...it just hit me that this is happening...not in the future or as a theoretical option, but right now.”

Rose took his hand and was hit with a telepathic onslaught of the Doctor’s emotions. His shields only failed like that when he was close to his breaking point. She did her best to send back waves of calm and love.

He pulled back from her touch. “How can you love me? Knowing that I’d kill them all, Daleks and Time Lords alike?” He looked at his hands as if they were already covered in blood.

“I’ve seen what you’ve seen. The suffering. Every moment in time and space is burning. It must end, and there’s only one way.”

“But when you first met me, you were innocent to all that.”

“I’ve always seen you. Not what you were forced to do, but who you are...the brave man who had to make the impossible choice. The man who saved the universe at the biggest personal cost to himself.”

“I don’t know how I’m expected to survive this.”

Rose opened her mouth to answer, but then tilted her head as if listening. Tears pooled in her eyes. “I...oh, god. It’s your punishment.” Her eyes glowed and her voice took on an ethereal quality, “Nothing is without consequence, Time Lord. If you do this, if you kill them all, then that is the consequence. You live. You carry the burden of being the last of your kind, of carrying on, of remembering…” Rose dropped the box and sagged as she returned to herself. She crawled over to where the Doctor sat staring at the ground and embraced him. “I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m a monster for even considering this.”

Rose picked up the box and closed her eyes. A time fissure rippled open above them.

“Rose! What are you doing?”

“I’m opening a window on your future, to the man today will make of you. The choice is still yours.”

A fez dropped out of the portal and rolled to a stop at Rose’s feet.

“Er, okay, I wasn’t expecting that.”

The Doctor looked at the swirling gateway. “Ready?”

She slipped the box into her pocket and nodded.

Rassilon walked past two Time Lords, both of whom had their hands covering their faces, to address the rest of the Council. “The vote is taken. Only two went against, and as a monument to their shame, the dissenters will stand like the Weeping Angels of old. The vanguard stands prepared, as the children of Gallifrey return to the universe. To Earth.”

Rassilon raised his staff and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

As the Doctor and Rose jump through the time fissure into the Doctor’s future, Gallifrey was pulled across the universe.

The pinstriped Doctor gestured between himself and his older self. “Okay, you used to be me, you've done all this before. What happens next?”

“I don't remember.”

“How can you forget this?”

“Hey, hang on. It's not my fault. You're obviously not paying enough attention...Oh! Try reversing the polarity!”

Both Doctors pulled out their sonics and pointed them at the time fissure.

The older Doctor scratched his head. “It's not working.”

“We're both reversing the polarity.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“There's two of us. I'm reversing it, you're reversing it back again. We're confusing the polarity.”

As they argued, their predecessor walked out from the the whirling portal. “Anyone lose a fez?”

“You! How can you be here? More to the point, why are you here?”

“Hello. I'm looking for the Doctor.”

The pinstriped Doctor mumbled, “Well, you've certainly come to the right place.”

“Good. Who are you boys? Oh, of course. Are you both companions?” The wartime Doctor smiled fondly. “Rose and her pretty boys...”

“Rose?” The pinstriped Doctor’s jaw dropped.

“...They seem to get younger all the time.”

“Oi!”

The oldest Doctor turned to the man at his side. “Well, he’s not wrong.” He gestured between the three of them.

“You too?” The pinstriped wearing Doctor gaped at the bowtie wearing Doctor. “How can you even joke about that?”

“Right.” The youngest Doctor interrupted the squabble before they could really get into it. “Could you point me in the general direction of the Doctor?”

Both of the older Doctors pulled out their sonic screwdrivers. The youngest Doctor looked from one to the other. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Really.”

“You’re me? Both of you?”

“Yep.”

“Even that one?” The Doctor pointed to the one in the bowtie.

The Doctor in question replied with an affronted squeak, “Yes!”

“You're my future selves?”

Both other men yelled, “Yes!”

The younger Doctor scanned the glade. “Then where’s Rose?”

“That’s the second time…How do you know Rose?”

The bowtie wearing Doctor narrowed his eyes. “You shouldn’t know Rose.”

The Doctor shifted to the side, and Rose hesitantly walked out of the time fissure. She walked up to the Doctor she’d spent the last century with and gripped his hand. She waved at the others. “Hello.”

The Doctor in pinstripes dropped his sonic and stared wide-eyed at her. The wartime Doctor glanced worriedly back and forth between his wife and his future self. “Looks like you've seen a ghost.”

Rose bit her lip until she noticed the oldest Doctor, the one she’d yet to meet, smiling warmly at her. His eyes dropped to her ring finger and she could see his curiosity was piqued, but his demeanor was that of easy affection. That more than anything had her releasing the pent up breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding.

As nonchalantly as possible, she slipped her wedding band from her finger and tucked it into a pocket. The oldest Doctor smirked, causing her to blush, but the pinstriped Doctor hadn’t seemed to notice. He was staring at her as if he wasn’t quite sure she was real, eyes wide, freckles stark on his pale face, and swaying like a stiff wind could knock him over.

She gave him a small smile and he swallowed hard. She couldn’t bear to see him hurting, and her eyes slid over to the oldest of the Doctors.

Good Lord, there’s three of ‘em! As if he knew what she was thinking, the bowtie wearing Doctor grinned widely, eyes crinkling, which sent a swoop through her belly. She squeezed her Doctor’s hand and braced herself in preparation of properly introducing herself to this unknown Doctor, when several horsemen rode into the clearing.

Bentham, a nobleman and the apparent leader of the troop of men, dismounted from his horse. “Encircle them,” he ordered his men. “Which of you is the Doctor? The Queen of England is bewitched. I would have the Doctor's head.”

The youngest Doctor blew out a breath. “Well, this has all the makings of your lucky day.”

Bentham noticed the time fissure and moved closer to the quartet. “What is that?”

The pinstriped wearing Doctor picked his sonic off the ground and moved with the other two to step between the nobleman and Rose. The oldest Doctor raised his sonic as well.

“What are you pointing them for? They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do, assemble a cabinet at them?”

Bentham raised his voice and asked again, “That thing, what witchcraft is it?”

The oldest Doctor tucked his sonic into his breast pocket and stepped forward. “Ah, yes. Now that you mention it, that is witchcraft. Yes, yes, yes. Witchy witchcraft. Hello? Hello in there. Excuse me. Hello! Am I talking to the wicked witch of the well?”

A feminine voice could be heard coming from the swirling vortex. “He means you.”

“Why am I the witch?”

“Clara? Hello? Clara, hi, hello. Hello. Would you mind telling these prattling mortals to get themselves begone?”

They could almost hear her rolling her eyes. “What he said.”

“Yes, tiny bit more color.”

“Right. Prattling mortals, off you pop, or I'll turn you all into frogs.”

“Oooh, frogs. Nice. You heard her.”

“Doctor, what's going on?”

“It's a timey-wimey thing.”

The youngest Doctor looked at Rose. “Timey what? Timey-wimey?”

The pinstriped Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “I've no idea where he picks that stuff up.”

Rose, knew that tell, and pressed her lips together to stop the laugh that wanted to bubble forth. She fluttered her lashes at him and asked, “Oh, really?”

Before he could reply, and with a dramatic swirl of skirts, Queen Elizabeth entered the clearing sending all the soldiers to their knees. She looked at the standing foursome. “You don't seem to be kneeling. How tremendously brave of you.”

Rose’s pinstriped Doctor asked, “Which one are you? What happened to the other one?”

“Indisposed. Long live the Queen.”

The soldiers chanted, “Long live the Queen!”

“Arrest these four. Take them to the Tower.”

“That is not the Queen of England, that's an alien duplicate.”

The oldest Doctor bumped Rose’s shoulder. “And you can take it from him, ‘cos he's really checked.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Venom sacs in the tongue.”

The pinstriped Doctor saw the hurt on Rose’s face. “Seriously, stop it. Rose, I...”

Rose shook her head and wiped at her eyes. “Don’t.”

The oldest Doctor turned to Rose. “I’m sorry, I forgot how much-”

“Stop it! Both of you. I don’t want to talk about it.” She made her way back to the youngest Doctor and rested her head on his shoulder. He glanced in surprise at the other two trying to figure out what had just happened.

The oldest Doctor ran his hands through his hair and walked over to the Queen. “Hang on. The Tower? Did you say the Tower?” She nodded. “Ah, yes, brilliant. Love the Tower. Breakfast at eight, please. Will there be Wi-Fi?”

The youngest Doctor glared. “Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?”

“Yes. No. I demand to be incarcerated in the Tower immediately with my co-conspirators Sandshoes, Velvet, and....” His voice softened, “Rose.”

“Velvet? I haven’t worn velvet in ages!”

“They're not sandshoes.”

The youngest Doctor looked down at the other man’s feet. “Yes, they are.”

“Silence! The Tower is not to be taken lightly. Very few emerge again.”

The Master stood in a room full of men identical to himself and hit his head. “We listen. All of us, across the world, just listen.” All of them stopped what they were doing and listened. “Concentrate. Find the signal. There! The sound is tangible. Someone could only have designed this. But who?”

A Master copy turns to the original. “The sound. It's coming from above.”

“It's coming from the sky!” The Master looks out a nearby window and sees a star falling to Earth. “There! Find it. Get out there and find it!”

“Yes, sir.”

Kate smiled at Clara. “Dear God, that man's clever. Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“My office, otherwise known as the Tower of London.”

In a field, two Land Rovers pulled up to a smoldering crater. A uniformed Master copy slid to the bottom and found the diamond previously taken from Rassilon’s staff. The soldier pressed a button on him com-link and said, “It's a diamond, sir. Oh, the most impossible diamond. You won't believe this. It’s a White Point Star.”

The pinstriped Doctor was sitting on a silent space ship with Donna’s grandfather, Wilf, and two green spiked Vinvocci. There was a heaviness in the air around the four of them. Suddenly a radio crackled to life and the Master’s voice blared out, “A star fell from the sky. Don't you want to know where from? Because now it makes sense, Doctor. The whole of my life. My destiny. The star was a diamond. And the diamond is a White Point Star. And I have worked all night to sanctify that gift. Now the star is mine. I can increase the signal and use it as a lifeline. Do you get it now? Do you see? Keep watching, Doctor. This should be spectacular. Over and out.”

An eerie quiet fell over the room, while the Doctor sat thinking. Wilf was the first to break the silence. “What's he on about? What's he doing? Doctor, what does that mean?”

The Doctor jumped up from his seat and began examining the controls of the ship. “A White Point Star is only found on one planet. Gallifrey. Which means it's the Time Lords. The Time Lords are returning.”

“Well, I mean, that's good, isn't it? I mean, that's your people...But I thought...you said your people were dead. Past tense.”

The Doctor pulled out his sonic and began mending frayed wires. “Inside the Time War. And the whole War was Time Locked. Like, sealed inside a bubble. It's not a bubble but just think of a bubble. Nothing can get in or get out of the Time Lock. Don't you see? Nothing can get in or get out, except something that was already there.”

Wilf looked confused, but then his eyes lit with a thought. “The signal. From since he was a kid.”

The Doctor nodded and moved onto another part of the control panel. “If they can follow the signal, they can escape before they die. And who knows what will try to follow.”

“But you’ll still have your people back. I've heard you talk about them like they're wonderful.”

“That's how I choose to remember them, the Time Lords of old. But then they went to war. An endless war, and it changed them right to the core. You've seen my enemies, Wilf. The Time Lords are more dangerous than any of them.” The Doctor flipped a large switch and powered up the ship. “England. Naismith Mansion. Allons-y.”

The Master stood in a large atrium, arms outstretched. “We have contact. They are coming. Closer! And closer! And closer!”

A bright white light filled the space, and when it dimmed the Lord President, his Chancellery Guards, and the two dissenters, faces covered, stood before the Master.

The sound of shattering of glass was the only precursor to the Doctor falling through the glass ceiling into the space between the Master and the other Time Lords. Cut up and bleeding, he held an old revolver in his hand.

Rassilon smirking took two steps toward the struggling Doctor. “My Lord Doctor. My Lord Master. We are gathered for the end.”

The Doctor pushed to his knees. “Listen to me. You can't…”

“It is a fitting paradox that our salvation comes at the hands of our most infamous child.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Oh, he's not saving you. Don't you realise what he's doing?”

The Master glared at the Doctor. “Hey, no, hey! That's mine. Hush. Look around you. I've transplanted myself into every single human being. But who wants a mongrel little species like them, because now I can transplant myself into every single Time Lord. Oh, yes, Mister President, sir, standing there all noble and resplendent and decrepit. Think how much better you're going to look as me.”

Rassilon raised the fist wearing his metal gauntlet. It pulsed blue with energy. All the Master copies around the room began to shake their heads.

“No, no, don't. No, no, stop it! No, no, no, don't!”

When all the humans had regained their original forms, Rassilon addressed them. “On your knees, mankind.”

All of the people look confused and scared, but soon dropped to their knees.

“No, that's fine, that's good, because you said, ‘salvation.’ I still saved you. Don't forget that.”

Rassilon raised his staff. “The approach begins.”

“Approach of what?”

The Doctor looked in disgust at the Master. “Something is returning. Don't you ever listen? That was the prophecy. Not someone, something.”

“What is it?”

“They're not just bringing back the species. It's Gallifrey. Right here, right now.”

A large, orange planet pulsed into existence alongside the Earth, blocking out the sun and darkening the streets.

The Master turned to Rassilon. “But, I did this. I get the credit. I'm on your side.”

#eight x rose #eleven x rose #ten x rose #50th re-write/fix it #queen elizabeth #clara oswald #kate lethbridge-stewart #petronella osgood #zygons #the master (simm)#rassilon

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Sunday, December 6, 2020

Biden officially secures enough electors to become president (AP) California certified its presidential election Friday and appointed 55 electors pledged to vote for Democrat Joe Biden, officially handing him the Electoral College majority needed to win the White House. Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of Biden’s win in the state brought his tally of pledged electors so far to 279, according to a tally by The Associated Press. That’s just over the 270 threshold for victory. Although it’s been apparent for weeks that Biden won the presidential election, his accrual of more than 270 electors is the first step toward the White House, said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University. “It is a legal milestone and the first milestone that has that status,” Foley said. “Everything prior to that was premised on what we call projections.” The electors named Friday will meet Dec. 14, along with counterparts in each state, to formally vote for the next president. Most states have laws binding their electors to the winner of the popular vote in their state, measures that were upheld by a Supreme Court decision this year. There have been no suggestions that any of Biden’s pledged electors would contemplate not voting for him.

Further Slowdown in Job Creation Sets Off Economic Alarms (NYT) The American job engine has slowed significantly, stranding millions who have yet to find work after being idled by the pandemic, and offering fresh evidence that the recovery is faltering. The Labor Department reported Friday that employers added 245,000 jobs in November, fewer than half the number created in October. The pace of hiring has now diminished for five straight months. While many of those knocked out of a job early in the pandemic have been rehired, there are roughly 10 million fewer jobs than there were in February. Many of the unemployed are weeks away from losing benefits that have sustained them, with emergency assistance approved by Congress last spring set to expire at the end of the year. The latest sign of economic headwinds arrived as members of Congress struggled to reach agreement on a new aid package. A bipartisan group of legislators has put forward a $900 billion proposal, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said the disappointing jobs report should add momentum to negotiations.

Southern California, San Joaquin Valley under restrictions (AP) Faced with a dire shortage of hospital beds, health officials announced Saturday the vast region of Southern California and a large swath of the Central Valley will be placed under a sweeping new lockdown in an urgent attempt to slow the rapid rise of coronavirus cases. he new measures will take effect Sunday evening and remain in place for at least three weeks, meaning the lockdown will cover the Christmas holiday. Much of the state is on the brink of the same restrictions. Some counties have opted to impose them even before the mandate kicks in, including five San Francisco Bay Area counties where the measures also take effect starting Sunday. With a new lockdown looming, many rushed out to supermarkets Saturday and lined up outside salons to squeeze in a haircut before the orders kicked in. The measures bar all on-site restaurant dining and close hair and nail salons, movie theaters and many other businesses, as well as museums and playgrounds. It says people may not congregate with anyone outside their household and must always wear masks when they go outside.

Honduras president seeks assistance, warns of increased migration in wake of devastating hurricanes (Washington Post) Weeks after Hurricanes Eta and Iota struck Central America in quick succession, nearly 100,000 Hondurans are living in shelters, many of which have become coronavirus hotspots. The country’s economy has been paralyzed. It is an unprecedented crisis, Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández said in an interview with The Washington Post on Friday. Hernández warned that in the absence of a coordinated international response, migration from Honduras to the United States could surge. “Imagine someone who lost everything, his house, his source of income, who feels hopeless and believes that there’s nothing left for him,” Hernández said. “And then he has a relative (in the United States) who says: ‘Come here.’ “ On Friday, Honduras filed a request with the Trump administration for temporary protected status (TPS) for Honduran citizens who are already in the United States. Guatemala, which was also affected by the two hurricanes, filed its own request last month. The Trump administration has tried to end existing TPS programs, which protect migrants from deportation while their countries manage crises.

The coronavirus has come roaring back into Brazil (Washington Post) RIO DE JANEIRO—For weeks, it has seemed that the pandemic was on the way out. The beaches, bars and restaurants had filled. The message: Rio de Janeiro was back. Now the city—and much of Brazil—is grappling with the sudden realization that the coronavirus has suddenly roared back. In Rio de Janeiro, where the virus has already killed tens of thousands, upturned the economy and sent rates of homelessness soaring, moments that recall the darkest days of the pandemic are once more appearing in the news. Sick people, unable to get help in the medical system, are again being found dead at home. Lines stretching into the hundreds are forming for intensive care beds. Hospital officials are warning of supply shortages and an imminent collapse in medical services. Even the vaunted private heath-care system reached 98 percent capacity in its intensive care units this past week, officials said. In states across the country, the situation wasn’t much better. Public health officials are increasingly worried.

Black Man Is Beaten on Camera, Thrusting French Police Into Spotlight (NYT) Without the video, Michel Zecler believes his case would have been reduced, at most, to a brief news item. Maybe something like this: “A young man, Black, wearing a sweatshirt and a hood, a shoulder bag, assaulted police officers, attempted to seize their weapons,” Mr. Zecler said in an interview on Thursday. “If I didn’t have my cameras, I’d be in prison today,” he added, referring to the security cameras in the vestibule of the building where he keeps his music studio. The footage from those cameras, showing police officers gratuitously beating Mr. Zecler, 41, a producer well known in the world of French rap, has instead helped fuel a political crisis in France and once again turned a spotlight on the issue of police brutality, especially against the country’s minority citizens. Mr. Zecler became the focus of a national uproar that has forced President Emmanuel Macron’s government to scrap and rewrite part of a security bill that would have restricted the filming of police. Critics say a provision in the security bill was aimed at snuffing out precisely the kinds of cellphone videos of the police roughing up demonstrators that have brought them under intense new scrutiny.

Swiss slopes buzz as those of neighbors sit idle in pandemic (AP) Two weeks after beating COVID-19, Thierry Salamin huffs as his ski boots crunch through Swiss snow near the Matterhorn peak, readying for a downhill run with his mood as bright as his blue and fluorescent yellow ski getup and the sun overhead. The 31-year-old real estate agent from the southwestern Swiss region of Wallis can’t believe he is skiing during a pandemic, let alone one that he personally endured—and which has driven a wedge between his country and its Alpine neighbors over where people can ski, and where they can’t. While the coronavirus resurgence has led Austria, France, and Italy to shut or severely restrict access to their ski stations this holiday season, Switzerland has kept its slopes open—a move that has fanned grumbling about an unlevel playing field when it comes to Alpine fun. The Swiss say they’re taking reasonable action to fight the coronavirus. Authorities require masks in ski lifts and queues, and recommend hand hygiene and physical distancing measures.

Diplomacy was the real loser (Christian Science Monitor) This autumn’s intense six-week war between Armenia and Azerbaijan offers a stark lesson in the costs of diplomatic failure: An unresolved territorial dispute suddenly erupted in violence that took thousands of lives and left a vastly changed landscape in its wake. Azerbaijan won the war with arms and advice from Turkey, dramatically reversing Armenia’s decisive victory a quarter century ago that had been frozen in place since 1994. The nub of the conflict is the Armenian-populated exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a Soviet-era autonomous region inside Azerbaijan that declared independence in 1988 as the USSR began to crumble. In the long and bloody war that ensued, Armenian forces not only secured the region, they occupied a huge swath of additional territory and expelled around 800,000 ethnic Azeris from it. The new armistice, which Russia imposed last month, restores all of those illegally seized lands to Azerbaijan and inserts 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops into the area to enforce the deal. This dramatic outcome has triggered mass jubilation in Azerbaijan, plunged Armenia into a storm of national anguish, and left international diplomacy licking its wounds. The cease-fire lines brokered by Moscow almost exactly follow the diplomatic settlement that the international community had advocated for almost 30 years, but they were achieved by force of arms. The Minsk Group, comprising the United States, France, and Russia, which had been charged with resolving the conflict, proved irrelevant as the crisis climaxed; it was two regional powers, Russia and Turkey, that brought the warring parties to heel.

Trump restricts U.S. visas for Chinese Communist Party members and families (Washington Post) The State Department imposed tighter visa regulations for Chinese Communist Party members Thursday in a move that puts limits on U.S. travel for tens of millions of Chinese working in government and other prominent roles—and further stokes tensions with Beijing ahead of the Biden administration. The new rules would affect members of China’s ruling party, who number around 92 million, and their close relatives. The impact could be sweeping in a country where party members dominate the upper echelons not only in government but also in business, media, academia and other areas. The restrictions would limit visas for party members and their relatives to a single entry, with the visa duration lasting one month. Previously, Chinese nationals were eligible to apply for tourism or business visas, for instance, that are valid for 10 years and for unlimited entries. The new rules for party members could be disruptive for trade, academic and cultural exchanges between the two countries and the personal lives of the elite. Communist Party membership is not explicitly required but is often a de facto requisite for career advancement to top positions in China from the government to most major industries and academia. Many rank-and-file corporate employees and low-level civil servants are also dues-paying members.

Trump orders most American troops to leave Somalia (AP) The Pentagon said Friday it is pulling most U.S. troops out of Somalia on President Donald Trump’s orders, continuing a post-election push by Trump to shrink U.S. involvement in counterterrorism missions abroad. Without providing details, the Pentagon said in a short statement that “a majority” of U.S. troops and assets in Somalia will be withdrawn in early 2021. There are currently about 700 troops in that Horn of Africa nation, training and advising local forces in an extended fight against the extremist group al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida. Trump recently ordered troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he was expected to withdraw some or all troops from Somalia. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said on Wednesday that the future structure of the U.S. military presence in Somalia was still in debate.

Ethiopia’s war in Tigray shows no signs of abating, despite government’s victory claims (Washington Post) Clashes continued across Ethiopia’s Tigray region and humanitarian aid remained paused at its border Friday, despite government claims that military operations had ceased and pledges to allow U.N. agencies access to hundreds of thousands of people who rely on them for food. Diplomats, aid workers and analysts said in interviews that the war in Tigray, Ethiopia’s northernmost region, was far from over even with government troops in effective control of the region’s main city, Mekele. The fighting has shifted to Tigray’s many craggy mountain ranges—difficult terrain where TPLF leaders and militia hold the advantage of familiarity and have been able to regroup. The TPLF’s leadership remains largely intact despite abandoning Mekele last week. On Thursday, in a message aired on a regional television network, one prominent leader called on supporters to “rise and deploy to battle in tens of thousands.”

#headlines #news

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ohmypreciousgirl · 6 years

Text

Drarry Rec List

cause my beautiful @mycatismyreligion asked for one and whatever my lady wants, she gets. Especially one as pretty as she is ♥ And also cause she’s one of my best friends.

Bold are the ones you should read ASAP

The Fandom Classics(tm)

Calling Classic(tm) the ones that appeared on gossymer compilation fic list. One day, I’m gonna read every single one of them. I’ve been saying this since 2007 tho.

The Marriage Arc by RurouniHime 19,475 words

What's to be done when Harry wants more from his relationship?

A Slytherin in Gryffindor Clothing by mahaliem 38,228 words

Draco hits his head and wakes up in a world where he's a Gyffindor and Harry is a Slytherin.

Left My Heart by emmagrant01 85,031 words

Auror Draco Malfoy has disappeared, and Harry Potter has been sent to San Francisco to find him.

The Depths of Winter by Cosmic 104,000 words

Four years after getting out of Hogwarts, Harry lives alone in the Muggle world. He has turned his back on the magical world - until one day, when Draco Malfoy gets into a car crash before Harry's eyes and ends up paralysed in a wheelchair.

Bond by AnnaFugazzi 173,499 words

Yet another one of those Harry And Draco Are Forced To Be Together By Something Beyond Their Control And Then Stuff Happens Leading To Twoo Wuv stories. Because every HD writer has to write at least one.

The Veela Enigma by jennavere 187,794 words

What if some of Draco's ancestors, pretending to be purebloods, concealed the truth about their veela heritage? You'd end up with one very confused Draco Malfoy, who's fallen head over heels in love with Harry Potter and has no idea why.

Hogwarts Era

Denude by Faith Wood (faithwood) 4,172 words

It's set a few days after the Sectumsempra scene and takes the story in another direction, asking the question: "What if the Sectumsempra scene had a greater impact on Harry and Draco?" Harry and Draco are sixteen. In medias res beginning.

hello goodbye ('twas nice to know you) by tamerofdarkstars 4,807 words

Draco Malfoy thinks he might know whose thoughts are scrawling themselves on his skin, but that's crazy. Impossible, even. It has to be a mistake.

Storm in a Teacup by Faith Wood (faithwood) 7,954 words

For reasons he'd rather not think about, Draco is obsessed with Potter's hair. This cannot end well.

Eight Days in November by emmagrant01 8,292 words

Harry hides Draco form Death Eaters during the war. A lot can happen in eight days.

Marginal Notes by blamebrampton 9,398 words

When you’re 18, and nothing is as it was meant to be, sometimes it can be hard to let the right people know what you are thinking.

In the Interest of Interhouse Cooperation byfirethesound 11,817 words

Organizing a Dueling Club was supposed to be a fun extracurricular activity for Harry’s 8th year. But add in Draco Malfoy and a malfunctioning Room of Requirement, and things can’t help but get complicated.

An Act of Simple Devotion by blamebrampton 13,373 words

It's a age-old story. You fancy a boy and you think he fancies you. Sure there are problems – attacks on former Death Eaters, crazed tabloid journalists, evangelical references, and your girlfriend – but you have a cunning plan…

such a softer sin by thoughtswhilstdrinkingtea 15,784 words

After Draco meets Harry Potter, he's left with two tattoos, one on each wrist. One for a soul mate, one for his enemy.

He's never known any one else who has the same name on both wrists.

Hey, Potter by SunseticMonster 16,024 words

Harry returns to Hogwarts for his 8th year, determined not to let Malfoy get to him. But when the snarky teasing starts up again, Harry finds that returning the jibes with compliments has a far more interesting outcome.

Something I Don't Want to Stop by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill), traintracks 16,228 words

It's Harry and Draco's eighth year, the Houses have been all but demolished in favor of unity, and they're being forced to room together. How ever will they cope?

Valentine's Day Repeated by Cosmic 16,700 words

It’s not a happy Valentine’s Day for Draco. Then again, he might get a chance to do it over…

Twice as Much as an Earthquake by firethesound 18,609 words

Accidental bonding. Breaking and entering. Conspiring, however unwillingly, in the strange one-man war Malfoy's waging against detention. This isn't the normal school year Harry anticipated having, but at least it's not boring.

An Issue of Consequence by Faith Wood (faithwood) 20,798 words

Draco has woken up in an alternate universe. Or he has woken up utterly insane. Nothing else can possibly explain why Harry Potter suddenly seems to think he's Draco's boyfriend.

Then Comes a Mist and a Weeping Rain by Faith Wood (faithwood) 21,139 words

It always rains for Draco Malfoy. Metaphorically. And literally. Ever since he had accidentally Conjured a cloud. A cloud that's ever so cross.

Love Comes Tumbling by taradiane 22,221 words

'Harry's thoughts were of how much he would have done differently with Malfoy over the years, and of Dumbledore's final words to the other boy . . . "It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now." Maybe, Harry wondered, he could find some mercy, too, and give Malfoy the second chance that Dumbledore had believed him worthy of.'

'Twixt the Sun and Sward by November Snowflake 30,370 words

A potions mishap has Harry and Draco meeting on entirely new—or is it old?—ground.

Unexpected Consequences by lauren3210 39,192 words

Harry was going back to school. He was going to play Quidditch, sleep in lessons, hang out with his friends, and generally just enjoy being a kid for a change. And he was also going to do it while being bonded with Malfoy, because apparently life was just going to continue throwing curveballs at him. Harry didn't know why he expected anything different.

Boom Clap (The Sound of My Heart) by Femme (femmequixotic), noeon (noe) 39,547 words

Post-war Hogwarts has been energized by its new teaching fellows program. Where once bitter enmity divided the wizarding community, Malfoy and Potter chummily patrol hallways together whilst Granger and Zabini seek lost parts of the castle at McGonagall’s behest and Chang supervises Quidditch when not lecturing in Charms. It’s a veritable wizarding utopia and life is predictable for the first time in years. Which is, of course, when everything blows apart as the result of a drunken dare and Malfoy’s life is ruined beyond his capacity to repair it. Ever. In a million years.

Earthbound Spook by cest_what 57,550 words

Two months after Draco Malfoy was reported dead, Harry and Ron found him tangled in Strangler Ivy on the grounds of Hogwarts.

Right Hand Red by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill) 73,173 words

Harry felt Malfoy's breath on his lips as they came together over the bottle, hands firmly planted on the floor as though they each needed their familiar soil, refusing to cross into enemy territory.

Except that Malfoy no longer felt like his enemy.

Malfoy felt inevitable.

Starts With a Spin by Maxine 119,851 words

It started with the spin of a bottle, and now Harry and Draco have gotten themselves so far into their own game there's almost no way out again. Except to keep playing.

Master Work by mahaliem

Harry's eighth-year at Hogwarts is going about as well as all the others. Someone is out to get him, Aurors keep questioning him about the final battle and, worst of all, Draco is determined to repay his life debt to Harry.

The Face of His Enemy by mahaliem

On the train to Hogwarts, Draco is hit with a curse that results in him reassessing who he is and who his true enemies are.

Post-Hogwarts

Just Go With It by keeprunning 1,004 words

"No one before me, then? I thought, with Ginevera at least-"

"I'm in bed with you and you're asking if I've slept with a woman?" Harry thunders, unable filter himself, as usual.

Malfoy makes a hushing noise and rubs soothingly at Harry's biceps in a way he has learned means peace. "I am merely mature enough to consider that you might be interested in both - or any - of the genders, even though you are presently interested in me.”

A Fountain of Unspoken Words by Astardanced77 2,132 words

Draco has a plan. He just needs one perfect moment.

Would You? by emmagrant01 4,521 words

MLE officer Draco Malfoy just spent a month working with Auror Harry Potter to catch a criminal. Now that the case is closed, Potter keeps following him about, for some reason.

Watch time fall apart by Ischa 5,182 words

It's like this: Harry is waiting, because a few years ago Draco travelled back in time and messed up Harry's life by sleeping with him. So Harry is waiting.

Special Magic by lauren3210 7,914 words

Harry was seriously considering the fact that his partner might be completely insane.

A Few Brief Moments by disapparater 8,248 words

Draco remembers his life with Harry, until he forgets.

Little Talks by Femme (femmequixotic), noeon (noe) 11,351 words

Draco's been shagging the Head Auror for months now, and he's sure it's just a fling. Until Harry asks him to a Quidditch match, that is, and things go horribly wrong.

Rumor Has It by emmagrant01 12,446 words

Auror trainee Harry Potter does not have a crush on Draco Malfoy. He's just curious about why a former Death Eater is working for the Wizengamot, and that's all. Really.

Ward My Heart (And Pull Me to You) by alpha_exodus 12,876 words

It's an inexplicable pull that starts bringing Malfoy to Harry, but it's the endless rounds of tea and a quickly blooming friendship that bring him back.

Where your heart is set by hazel_wand 13,370 words

Draco comes home from school to find that his mother has decided to rebuild their family to include Andromeda, Teddy … and Harry Potter.

The Rewards of Bravery by lauren3210 13,797 words

During an Auror mission gone wrong, Harry finds himself with an unexpected new power: he can tell when people are lying. It’s incredibly annoying, except for when Draco’s around...

Newts by astolat 13,926 words

“I’m twenty-eight!” Harry said. “I’ve been an Auror for ten years! You want me to go back to Hogwarts now?"

Timeshare by astolat 14,156 words

“It’s not for long,” Hermione said. “By the time we get back to Hogwarts, the Unfettering Brew will be ready.”

“Listen to you!” Ron said. “He’s got to get through a month with the Dursleys and a month at Malfoy Manor. With Draco Malfoy.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Harry said, because he hadn’t just spent the last week contemplating just how much more horrible his summer holidays were about to be than they’d ever been before.

Fifty-Two Weeks by sonata_de_morte 14,163 words

The sentence, for all it was not the outcome Draco would have preferred, was hardly something he could complain about.

All Roads Lead Home by dracogotgame 14,991 words

Draco is strong-armed into spending the first Christmas after the War with the Weasleys. And Harry Potter.

And Back Again (Where You Belong) by eidheann 15,956 words

He thought back on their previous handshakes, and smiled faintly at the fact they always seemed to mean so much more to him than they did to Potter.

Reparatio by astolat 17,363 words

Draco snorted. “I’m not reduced to penury. I want something considerably beyond money, and I rather think you’re the only one can give it to me.”

“You want the Invisibility Cloak,” Harry said, flatly. He’d half expected as much; it was the only thing he had that Draco could want—

“Don’t be stupid, Potter,” Draco said. “I want my reputation back.”

Five Times Draco Malfoy Got Sacked (And One Time He Didn't) by emmagrant01 18,389 words

After the Dark Lord was destroyed, Draco Malfoy had to start all over. He had no idea it would be quite so difficult.

Side-Along by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill) 22,058 words

If this wasn't a curse then it was Hell. Because surely, in Hell, all roads would lead to Harry Potter's living room.

Life is a Twice Written Scroll by lauren3210 22,517 words

The new world order hasn't been kind to Draco and his family, and he wishes it could all be different. So does Harry, although not for the same reasons. But as Draco works to fix the mistakes he made in the past, he finds his reasons for doing so changing in a way he never expected.

House Proud by astolat 23,112 words

His house liked Draco Malfoy more than him.

Slithering by astolat 27,355 words

Draco found the nest down in the Manor’s cellars, while he was clearing them out.

Make My Demons Run by lauren3210 28,072 words

After giving evidence in defence of Draco at his trial, suddenly Potter is everywhere he turns as he completes his community service. Draco hadn't expected any of it, nor had he expected those long buried feelings he'd once had to come rising back to the surface. He definitely didn't expect what happened next. Sequel: New Dawn's Light

Seizing Second Chances by momatu 28,146 words

Five years after Draco lost his infant son to complications following his premature birth, he sees a happy, healthy dark-haired child the same age his own little boy would have been playing on the swings in a Muggle play park. One year after the sudden loss of his wife, Harry sees Draco quietly watching children play in a Muggle play park. If they can put the past behind them, can they be each other's second chance at happiness?

Somebody to Love by khasael 31,274 words

Draco's life after the war is quite different than it used to be. When he finds himself cursed, with little hope for lifting the spell, he sets out to make the most of the time he has left. Getting to know his Aunt Andromeda and his young cousin Teddy feels like a good thing to do, even if it can't help him in the long run...or can it?

Fast Forward, Two Steps Back by emmagrant01 36,065 words

Everyone knows that Draco Malfoy died in the Room of Requirement ten years ago. So when he suddenly reappears at Hogwarts ten years later, still seventeen years old, Professor Harry Potter's life gets very complicated.

Fidelius by coffeejunkii

The person sitting in front of Harry looks like someone he hated for years, but the memories don't fit anymore. Perhaps he knew Malfoy at one point, but he has no idea who this man is, aside from a familiar name and a familiar face.

Post-Deathly Hallows

First and Last by abusing_sarcasm 2,080 words [feat. Albus Severus/Scorpius]

First times and where they lead.

Psychometry by Lomonaaeren 3,749 words

Objects tell a story.

Surviving Summer by dracogotgame 15,343 words

It wasn't going to be easy managing four teenagers over the summer hols. But it was definitely going to be worth it.

Written in the Stars by November Snowflake 16,335 words

Draco watches as his son grows up--and maybe does a little growing up of his own.

In the Same Boat by tomatoe18 21,406 words

Officially, Draco just wants Hogsmeade to have a bookstore. Unofficially, his son is giving him heart palpitations, so he has to resort to a drastic measure. Unfortunately, Draco's drastic measure is also Harry Potter's.

Take A Sad Song (And Make It Better) by Femme (femmequixotic) 46,356 words

The last thing Harry wants is to lose his kids.

How Do You Mend a Broken Heart? by mahaliem 26,532 words

In order to keep custody of his children, Draco needs to find a spouse that will shore up the Malfoy family's tattered reputation. But what starts off as a means to an end gets more complicated when Draco's target reawakens feelings in him that he hasn't had in a long while, and Draco starts to feel alive for the first time since his wife's death.

Fathers Who Could Do With A Spot of Sinning by blamebrampton 65,117 [feat. Albus Severus/Scorpius]

After their sons fall in large amounts of teenaged love at school, Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter decide it's finally time to talk like adults about their own ties to each other. If only they could. Meanwhile, events of national importance conspire to distract them. Prequel: Sins of the Fathers

The Slytherin Gryffindor by Cheryl Dyson [feat. Albus Severus/Scorpius]

Draco flipped through the book idly and then returned it to the shelf. He perused the nearby titles and scowled in annoyance. Why did he even bother looking here? He would most likely have to put in a special order.

#drarry #draco malfoy #harry potter #drarry fic #rec time

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thunder-the-ranger-wolf · 4 years

Text

Possible snippet from Brothers in Arms: The Iron Man Dilemma

Summary, One

Tony hated looking back. It was painful and it threw all your mistakes in your face. He read somewhere that humans were wired to learn from their mistakes rather than their successes, and he could believe that. Torturous as it was.

He hated looking back, but he should have. He should have seen more weapons going out than he originally accounted for. He should have seen entire shipments disappearing. He should have seen the bomb going off in his face before it did. Before the ambush killed those kids and whoever was behind it ripped him from the van.

Not for the first time in his life, Tony wished he could teleport. Sometimes, according to his mother and the clan’s previous Healer, a god latched onto a particular soul in the Before and those souls displayed power when they were born, an obvious sign of the god’s favor. Tony’s was foresight. Times like this, he desperately wished otherwise.

Where are you?

The first thought to enter his head was not his own. He was used to that, in a sense. Now that Howard and Maria were gone, only the clan’s Healer could communicate telepathically and vise versa. They talked maybe once a year in real life and maybe five times that through the link. It wasn’t as often as the daily conversations regular Packs would have, but it helped him in cases where he seriously needed to keep his head. Like now. There was something heavy on his chest. There was some foreign substance permeating the air. Metallic in nature.

I’m fine, don’t worry about me. He said quickly.

The last thing he needed was for Loki to go batshit trying to find out what happened to him.

Bullshit. I woke up from the weirdest nightmare ever. With bombs and sand and blood everywhere… what the fuck is going on?!

I’m playing a game. It ended badly.

How badly? Where are you?

Those weren’t bombs you saw, I fell off a fucking perch into some sand. It was high.

Will you let me see?

No! It’s embarrassing. It’s bad enough I tumbled ass-over-teakettle in the first place. We’re playing laser tag before we pack up, I’ll find you when I get home.

That should get her out of his head long enough for him to gather himself and figure out an escape plan. But that depended on what these people wanted.

“Don’t sit up too fast,” someone said in heavily accented English. “You will want to lay back on your arms first. Get your wits about you.”

“And who are you to say so?”

“Ho Yinsen. Among other things, I am the man who saved your life with that thing. It keeps metal from getting to your heart.”

“What… why would… why would you do this? You made it worse.”

“No, I saved your life. They want you alive. If not for the battery, the metal would pierce your heart in a matter of weeks, if not days.”

“Then you should have just let it!” Tony snapped, not quite sure how much he meant it.

“You don’t mean that.” The man, Yinsen, insisted. “You can’t.”

“You don’t know who I am or what I’m capable of,” Tony muttered darkly.

“I know who you are. They call you a soldier, a man from another era who lived long enough to see this one. You do not age and you do not get hurt. That is what this group wants from you.”

“What group? I assume you’re a hostage too. Who are they?”

“The Ten Rings.”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut to ease the itch he got from keeping them open too long.

The next time he woke up, Yinsen was eating in a different spot than where he previously stood.

“Welcome back, Mr. Stark.” He said. Tony grumbled a greeting and tried to look around.

“Let me-.” Yinsen began as he put down his bowl and got to his feet. “You’re going to want to be careful with this, Mr. Stark. You need it to live.”

“You… you did this,” Tony rasped.

“Yes. I had to.”

“No, no I could have healed from shrapnel, I can’t fix this, it’s too much-.”

“The shrapnel is trapped inside your body, Mr. Stark. There was no way for me to remove it without puncturing your heart.”

“Are you saying that in your capacity as a doctor?” Tony huffed out weakly. “Or because you don’t want me to kill you?”

“Both would be nice, Mr. Stark. I am telling the truth.”

“Fuck you, then.” Tony spat. “And fuck this. What the hell is this, anyway?”

“An electromagnet powered by a car battery,” Yinsen offered patiently. “It keeps the shrapnel in place.”

“Right,” Tony panted, lifting himself up with Yinsen’s help. “Alright. This is still bullshit. But… I can’t kill you yet. What is going on?”

What’s going on is that he’s been kidnapped by terrorists who want him to build them the shiny new product he just announced. They call him the most famous killing machine in the world. He doesn’t correct them by saying they’re thinking of his brother, but he knows that they are. He got longevity. Socren got strength and speed and all of the things he didn’t have as a sickly child with too little mass to ever properly Shift.

But they want him to build the Jericho mission and they want him to fight for them once they have that, which gives Tony pause.

He wants to say no, but he’s done this before. Every prisoner had a use with Hydra. They transported things and fixed things and passed out food and perhaps even gave information if they were broken enough. And if they weren’t, if they could still refuse, Hydra broke them. They were all expendable. If the prisoners refused to cooperate, they were easily replaced. Tony got the feeling things were different here. Somehow. He wasn’t quite sure how, aside from the environment, but he was determined to get out of here. So he did what any sane prisoner of war would do and complied.

#brothers in arms: the werewolf avengers fic #mcu au #thunder attempts to write

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thebibliomancer · 6 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #158: When Avengers Clash!

April, 1977

What is not immediately evident is that we are facing another change in the creative team.

Steve Englehart was kicked off the book after #150. After that, Gerry Conway took over with an assist by Jim Shooter in #151 and #156. With this issue, Jim Shooter takes over until #177, a little after he becomes Editor-in-Chief.

And its another rough transition.

I don’t actually remember being a huge fan of Shooter’s Avengers on my first read through so I’ll see if that holds up. But in this issue at least, we get off to a semi-rocky start.

Last time: Wonder Man came back to life, causing non-ending angsts in the Vision right when he was feeling good about himself and his capacity for emotions. Also, a metaphor in the shape of a stone statue of Black Knight beat up the team but punched itself to death against Vision.

This time: Some continuity hiccups.

We start off with the Vision staring moodily, as he is wont to do, but specifically at the broken statue of Black Knight.

The heap of broken statue is a lot more recognizable as specific body parts then it was last time but it does make for a more striking visual. Also, Statue Knight is staring into my soul and its not okay.

Wonder Man walks into the room supporting Scarlet Witch, both in costume. Which is one of those continuity hiccups because they were both already in the room in a pile of defeated heroes and also not in costume.

So I have to believe that they left while Vision was ‘fighting’ Statue Knight specifically to get changed and then came back, instead of helping.

But seeing Wonder Man supporting Wanda is just too much for Vision. He angrily announces that because of Wonder Man he has already relinquished his foolish delusions of humanity and will soon relinquish his wife BECAUSE A ROBOT HAS NO RIGHT TO ONE but hey until he does, hands off.

And then he punches Wonder Man for copping a friendly demeanor.

Also, I notice he hasn’t consulted Wanda with this. Which just goes to show that maybe he’s the most human of all because real human men similarly disregard her emotions and wants and needs.

Its a wonder she didn’t murder them all sooner.

Anyway, so now they’re fight.

Even though Wonder Man was knocked out by a mailbox last time, it will take more than a single punch and also SOLAR BEAM to take him down this time. He’s apparently getting his strength back and also he’s tired of getting knocked out by cheap shots so much.

He tries to tackle Vision but, y’know, intangible.

Except Vision apparently has the human emotion of shit talking because he decides that he’ll humble Wonder Man on his own terms instead of just remaining untouchably intangible.

Of course, even if he’s diamond hard, Wonder Man can just knock him off his feet by attacking the ground.

Its fine, Tony will pay for it.

Speaking of the cool exec with a heart of steel, he comes to underneath the computer bank that Black Knight tipped over on top of him.

Because apparently Shooter skimmed the previous issue?

Because Iron Man was one of the heap of heroes that should already be in the room where Wonder Man and Vision are fighting.

But I’ll try not to harp on it too much.

Back to the fight where Vision continues to ignore Wanda’s desires by exchanging blows with Wonder Man even as she insists that they cut it out.

I guess he gets tired of punching a fellow tough customer about the chest because he tries to go for his insta-win sure fire finishing move and fists Wonder Man through the chest.

But Wonder Man is able to resist the pain and punches Vision in the face.

He’s not the only one that the sure fire fizzled on but I think it usually just doesn’t work at all rather than ‘I say that hurts like the dickens -pawnch-’

The rest of the heroes that should already be in the room show up and Scarlet Witch begs one of them to stop this nonsense.

But Iron Man goes “Let’s just let them fight it out!” but stops just short of suggesting they bet on the outcome.

Tony. Geez. I know they have to work out their issues but a) this is probably not the most productive way? and b) they’re liable to cause a lot of damage to your home before they finish.

Okay. I know the theory is that they have to get it out of their system but guess what? IT DOES NOT WORK. They have this exact same fight again during the Busiek era and eventually have to use their words to clearly express what their thoughts and feelings are, instead of their fists. Because frequently, words work better than fists in the very specific field of robo-angst.

In one of the few times its a disadvantage to be a robot instead of an ionically enhanced human, Vision’s solar batteries are running low while Wonder Man is just getting fired up.

In desperation, Vision drains his solar batteries even faster by using SOLAR BEAM right at Wonder Man’s face.

It’s SUPER EFFECTIVE!

But even though this apparently hurt worse than anybody ever hurt him before (even worse than dying!), Wonder Man has enough juice to BWA-AM Vision.

And now that both heroes have knocked the shit out of each other and are too shaky on their feet to continue, now Iron Man tells them to cut it out.

And now that he has only now decided it was a problem, he scolds Wonder Man for breaking the mansion even though he’s a guest.

Oh and he also tells Vision to act like a man or man-shaped robot instead of a child. Or you’re grounded, mister.

And now that the fight is over, Jarvis shows up to make them all feel bad. He also took the time after waking up from a stone cold beating to put on some fresh clothes but also he fielded an emergency call and told them they were shit out of luck because the Avengers were dealing with personal biz.

Also, are they expecting him to sweep up the stone gentleman or should he call a morgue?

Jarvis’ ploy, if it were that and I’m not simply making up motives, works. Because Iron Man can’t believe that they’ve gotten to the point where they’re turning people away to wallow in their own troubles.

Which might but then again might not be fair. How long did you watch Vision and Wonder Man punch each other?

Before that they were unconscious because a statue beat them up and before that it was Christmas damnit. Can’t they have just one quiet day?? Also, is it still Christmas? They never mention it again. I think they were unconscious through the entire holiday.

But, yeah, obviously just sitting back and watching Vision and Wonder Man beat each other up instead of literally any other thing was a bad decision and you should feel bad, Iron Man.

Meanwhile, we finally get to the plot of the issue.

Because apparently! Vision and Wonder Man’s tension coming to a head? Wasn’t enough of a plot!?

I’d usually discuss this at the end but here goes:

This issue, if it was going to have Vision and Wonder Man punching each other in the head because of Vision’s poor ability to both communicate and deal effectively with his emotions, should have been just about that.

And if the fight was only going to be part of the issue before moving onto something else, that something else should have been thematically connected. As it is, this issue feels disjointed.

It feels like Shooter felt obliged to wrap up this plot thread before moving onto stuff he’d rather write about.

And dang will I have small, mostly neutral comments to say about the stuff Shooter would rather write about. Later. After we’ve seen a couple examples.

So the plot happens in Canada because Marvel Canada is a fascinatingly terrible den of evil, worse than a thousand Mos Eisleys. Specifically a research community in the Canadian Rockies called Research City because scientists are bad at naming the things, some of the times.

And the worst scientist has taken over this research hamlet (it has fewer than ten buildings, it is not a city).

Frank Hall.

And he is nettled because one of the other scientists has disobeyed orders and tried to contact the outside world and request the Avengers’ help.

That is not how we do in Research Commonwealth, JOSEPH.

Just for that, Frank Hall is taking the entire community off the map. TRY TO SNEAK OUT NOW, JOSEPH.

And then he crushes Joseph with kirby krackle.

Not to death but enough that Joseph’s wife Judy begs Frank Hall to stop hurting him.

Frank does not take it well. He gets some real squinty eye face going on for reasons that will be revealed later. But he doesn’t kill Joseph. Just has him taken away and locked up.

Because he just had a wonderful, awful idea.

Which is him beating up the Avengers.

He just now realized that he could become a supervillain instead of being a tinpot bully dictator of a small research community.

...

Frank Hall has sort of limited ambitions considering his scope of power.

Also, he forces Judy to make him a supervillain suit.

Its not specified whether she made it to his exact specifications or spitefully made it to make him look like a prat but he kinda does.

Oh also his backstory: It is every backstory ever about a scientist fucking up science so hard that he becomes a supervillain.

Except slower.

He was working on a teleport beam, doubled the power to see what would happen, and accidentally gave himself gravity powers.

Instead of immediately going megalomaniacal, he at first used his powers to throw stuff at people’s heads. Because, as mentioned, Frank Hall is a petty prick.

But then people started to shun him, because he kept throwing stuff at their heads.

So he proved their impressions of him correct by seizing control over the entire not-city and pushing people around.

And that’s why Frank Hall, Graviton, is the worst.

Also, he’s an entitled, harassing bastard.

Remember how he got angry that Judy didn’t want Joseph to be hurt? It was because he decided that he deserves her. Because she’s his fave.

She’s a bit distracted even though he’s all touching up on her face though because behind his back she noticed the Avengers standing outside the window watching this whole thing with evident disgust.

So she does the thing that everyone does in such a situation and unconvincingly goes “tell me more” but Frank Hall is an entitled idiot bastard and falls for it.

Not that it matters.

Because another woman, Raquel, who was jealous of Judy, bursts in and announces that the Avengers are RIGHT BEHIND YOU.

And the gig is up so the Avengers dramatically fly through the window.

(Attack instead of Assemble? Whats the deeeeeal??)

Things immediately go to hell.

Graviton smashes Vision into the ground with gravity and then blows the rest of the Avengers away with anti-gravity. Because sure.

Vision increases his mass to max mass to max his muscles but Graviton just makes him weightless and flings him through the roof.

Clearly, it is time to pull out the big gun.

Cap readies his mighty shield because he knows that when he flings his mighty shield all who oppose his shield must yield. But Graviton saw through that ploy and increase the mass of the shield.

Now Cap is opposing the mighty shield and must yield. By getting crushed.

Although what kind of posture were you in, Cap, where your shield getting super heavy all of a sudden made you fall backwards with it on top of you instead of just dropping it?

Meanwhile, Judy tries to run away because honestly, wouldn’t you? And Raquel beans her in the back of the head with a vase maybe. Because Raquel is not a great person. Also, this will be important later.

Iron Man and Scarlet Witch attempt to blast Graviton but he just... gravities the floor up so that it blocks the... attack...

I don’t think Graviton knows what gravity is.

He says he made the section of the floor lighter than helium so that it would rise up to protect him but. It was still connected to other floor that was not lighter than helium.

Also, remember when Scarlet Witch’s powers had evolved so she had control over natural forces.

Bet those would come in handy here instead of just shooting generic energy. Alas. The thread has been lost.

Anyway, Graviton condenses some floor fragments into a super-dense sphere and hucks it at the two heroes.

Because armor is better than not armor in this scenario, Iron Man shields Scarlet Witch from the sphere but they both get knocked out anyway.

Although at least her head is still head shaped and not salsa.

Wasp and Yellowjacket try their patented and recently useless Fly Around While Tiny And Annoy Someone battle technique but Graviton knocks them out with a pencil.

It sure is exciting watching those two consistently be useless. =\

Finally, since its just the two of them left, Beast and Wonder Man rush Graviton together but he just drops the ceiling on them. While boasting about how he wishes there were more Avengers because of how easy this is. Womp womp.

Anyway the Avengers are now all defeated. Even Vision. Who we last saw crashing through the ceiling while weightless and also at his maximum density so something like that shouldn’t be enough to knock him out?

Maybe the ceiling was made of mailbox.

And okay. This kind of stomp happens to the Avengers sometimes and with increasing frequency in the near future. But at least Graviton’s backstory had him dicking with his powers for a while before using them in a fight.

Imagine how embarrassing it would be if he were pulling off this kind of nonsense after having just woken up from a coma and never practicing his powers.

Anyway, now nothing can stop him probably and he’ll rule the world possibly.

And Raquel smugly thinks that she’ll rule it at his side because she has some issues she needs to work though.

Next time: More of this. YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE HOW GRAVITON IS DEFEATED probably.

Hey, you should follow @essential-avengers. Why? When I get twenty followers, I’ll do a bonus post where I look at some Alternate Avengers. Avengers from the future? From when mangas roamed the Earth? Or from an alternate universe? Up to you!

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vapormaison · 4 years

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Best of 2019 Vaporwave Release 1/4: Constant by Hotel Pools

There’s an argument present in more ideologically-possessed, Boston-Brahmin administered art history circles that goes something a little like this: for a work of art to be truly great, it must innovate. All other attempts ultimately function at best as imitation, objects d’art meant to be consumed, then disposed, forgotten. “Good art” must always be in a savage competition to experiment and challenge for these galaxy-brained individuals. I won’t expound on this theory too much as it could land me in some hot water with these very university art departments my day-job is occupied with consulting. I merely mention this to preface the review by stating that I’m fundamentally opposed to any totalizing view of art and it’s worth.

In short, looking at creativity in this way takes an axe to aesthetics in lieu of novelty. And while I I can find novelty intriguing, I cannot enjoy it without an accompanying aesthetic appeal. On the contrary, I can enjoy pure aesthetics without novelty. I can enjoy them a lot, in fact. And what we have in Hotel Pools is pure, unadulterated sonic aesthetic.

Constant stays consistent — it doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel, and I say this as complimentary as one can — as it does what knows with aplomb. What it does, which surprisingly few vaporwave LP releases do nowadays, is provide a sonically sound and unapologetically focused LP that slaps from start to finish. From track one to track ten, we get strong, full, repayable compositions that string together a solid sonic narrative from beginning to end.

I’m never left questioning arrangement, as a quick test in tractor studio 3 confirms my suspicion that one could play each track in a live set and mix them seamlessly in sequence with minimum effort. We’re not just looking at a set of singles. What we have is a real LP crafted with a classic artisan’s eye. Again, it’s that attention to detail that makes this album so remarkable in its polished-ness. Each of these tracks is — to use a culinary analogy — a plate of magnificently cooked tapas plates that combine to create a sequentially perfect Manhattan brunch in a pricey, Hell’s Kitchen restaurant like Sevilla. They exist as great individual dishes and in a carefully curated sequence. And that must be enjoyed — and moreover, appreciated for what it is: great.

PART 1: THE MUSIC

Accelerate gets the show on the road with a synth-heavy, late 80s analog sort of sonic space. Perhaps it even ventures into lo-fi. A timely drum loop does the work of progressing the track to more complex layers of added synths, which, coming over the really full midrange of my KEFs, did a lot to create a feeling of acceleration that’s only enhanced when you hear a purring engine and the sound of tires burning out on asphalt. It wouldn’t feel out of place somewhere in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, or a new-wave remake of Two Lane Blacktop.

Stardust transitions seamlessly from the closing snares of Accelerate and brings the album into a very well-trodden synthwave/futurewave arena. The layering of light percussions on each hook is done expertly, and Hotel Pools doesn’t let them sit for too long, allowing the synths to bear the weight of progression.

s o l o brings the energy of Stardust down a notch and opens by veering more onto the lo-fi end of the scale by presenting us with a sonic array that wouldn’t be out of place in an old IBM or AOL infomercial for the first half of the track — and then seems to pick up with the space, grace and pace of an Jaguar XJR of mid-90s vintage once we pass the minute mark. This peppy sonic landscape seems to exit as abruptly as it enters, however.

Flare does exactly what you’d expect it do sonically with its array of distortion-driven percussions and synths that seem to fade in and out in a procession that seems almost elegiac. This is probably the track that sounded the plainest in my digital listen. Luckily, vinyl adds just enough warmth into Flare to make it really sizzle. You get richer, fuller vibes from the low-end of the spectrum, and each percussion hit seems fuller and more robust — complimenting the synth array instead of seeming in opposition to it, bringing analog harmony where there is compression-fueled digital dissonance.

Vega is the most vibe-worthy of all the tracks. By building a very ambient soundspace and then developing it with a playful chord progression, we get something really unique. I’m tempted to use that phrase from the state of Rhode Island’s disastrous marketing campaign that made its appearance on the New York City metro in 2016: “cooler but warmer”. That phrase manages to capture the energy of Vega. It does very little to represent the moribund, decline-managed, means-tested myopic dystopia that calls itself Rhode Island.

Disconnect definitely feels the most “synthesized” in a synth heavy album, giving us a vintage array that would be very much at home in a sci-fi flick like THX 1138 or Videodrome. The song’s title is intriguing, because I didn’t detect much in the way in discordance or manipulation — this is more reminiscent of vapor-synth in its younger form — before the great proliferation of the genre that took place around 2014/5 or so. If anything, it’s more aptly titled re-connect, considering that it brings us back to a simpler era of the genre — and, at the risk of becoming political — our lives.

Melt exists in a formless state somewhere between mall-wave, synth-wave, and that traditional vapor sound. It is also another track I was initially rather cool on during my initial digital listen. But this is where I have to give a firm, firm, recommendation for the physical. Melt’s simultaneously playful but methodical sound sounds compressed to hell on Spotify, Youtube, etc. You get the full-breadth and depth of the piece with the vinyl in a way that goes beyond my capacity for expression. If you want to confirm for yourself, buy the album and enjoy the lossless. That’s near-on what you’re getting with the press.

Hover is a damn good composition — but in album with great pieces throughout, you have to like one the least. Hover is that for me. I think this may be because Hotel Pools gives us a really polished, layered composition from beginning to end — and while progression is not a necessity, for me, at this stage in the album — it is welcome. But as a penultimate piece, it still performs well.

Return closes on a strong note. With a smattering of blaring synths, lo-fi loops and light drum hit, we’re gently faded out of this record as the track glides along a well-planned denouement. The soft note it ends on actually gave me a sort-of ASMR experience — which while not my intent when going into a dedicated listen, is appreciated nonetheless!

PART 2: VINYL LISTENING EXPERIENCE

My previous experiences with Stratford Ct. built in a bit of bias going in. While their Cassette releases have always kept me satisfied and been kind to both my eyes and my aging deck, I had almost resolved to stop buying vinyls from them altogether. My “Strawberry Banana” edition of Fall ’18 was received brutally by my system. Tinny highs, unimpressive muddy lows. My first assumption is to never blame the release. I make every effort to readjust my equalization, switch speakers (to SX-50s, which reproduced even more of that sound profile, albeit with the bass even more diluted). I even brought the LP with me to flex on a friend and coerced him to run it on his Technics system — a SL-1200 (a DJ, obviously) run through a mid-fi rack of Black-Box gear from the early 90s accompanied by a pair of JBL studios (230s I believe) for what could approximate a real reference listen. They sounded marginally better there — but I still can’t say I was impressed enough for it to regularly feature in my regular listening lineup.

This difference can probably be chalked up to a difference in analog amp technology at the time: because the Japanese systems are brighter — where my amps designed by Dr. Matti Otala from the early 80s carry on that tradition of funky, 70s warmth in a lower TIM package. This naturally means that the 90s Japanese systems are going to clean up more imperfections on a press but provide a slightly less warm and comfy listening experience.

All that said, I’m perfectly willing to accept that I might own a dud, or an mis-press, who knows. This happens with vinyl — as contrary to hipster opinion, it’s not actually a precision medium. At a certain stage of audiophilia, you learn to accept it. I took that one on the chin. You have to with this hobby — given the low production runs.

This release, however, is solid. It comes through with energy and vigor in my system, with tracks like the heavily layered Vega, mid-melodic Melt, and the synths of Return gently guiding your exit from the sonic space built so masterfully by Hotel Pools. There is also a certain crispness to the vinyl which is reminiscent of some of the newer digital manufacture of coming out of china recently. The technological sounds of this profile actually gets just enough warmth from my system to make the whole project a joy to consume on vinyl hi-fi.

Whatever pressing or manufacture issues happened with my copy of Fall ’18 were not present here, and redeemed Stratford Ct. enough where I’ll definitely be picking up their vinyl releases in the future without hesitation. All in all, an impressive release from both artist and label.

#vaporwave #bestof

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shervonfakhimi · 4 years

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The Questions Regarding the NBA’s Return

Thank God that ESPN gifted us something riveting to watch on Sundays during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the form of ‘The Last Dance,’ the exhilarating ten-part documentary series regarding Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls. As fun as it was to watch, and as great as it is to curiously gaze upon the archival footage of the NBA’s yesteryears, it doesn’t quite match the feeling of watching live basketball from the present. That isn’t to say today’s game is better than any other era or vice versa, but that I really miss the NBA. I really want it back. As more and more states begin to open up (whether that’s the best and smartest option is a discussion for another day), optimism for a return to the hardwood abounds. But I still have my questions.

Part 1: The Logistics

I’ve got three questions regarding this aspect of the potential return of the NBA: 1) When will the NBA resume play? 2) Where will the NBA resume play? 3) How will the NBA resume play? It would seem prudent to allow every team to be able to enter their own facility before even thinking about a potential resumption of play (as of now, only 16 of 30 teams have opened facilities), and even with that, facilities have only opened in the form of individual players getting shots up with a coach or lifting weights. That’s it. It seems like a far way away from even being able to practice or conduct a mini training camp, let alone getting back to games. Before the games do take place, a training camp will take place. Would that take a month? More than that? Once that is over, where will the games take place? Will the NBA adopt the bubble idea and sequester the league in one or two locations, such as Orlando or Las Vegas? The Bundesliga (Germany’s predominant soccer league) had teams play in their own separate stadiums without fans. Is there a chance the NBA could pull that off? And once games do resume, will the NBA go straight to the postseason or finish off, at least a portion, of the regular season? The Los Angeles Lakers get paid on a per-game basis with their regional TV deal with Spectrum Sports-Net, but the overwhelming majority of NBA teams are required to reach 70 games for them to get the money from their regional sports network partners. Is the league going to allow teams to get to that threshold? Will the playoff structure be modified in any way, such as shortening series from best-of-7 to best-of-5? I feel like the first round of the playoffs should go back to a best-of-5, but that won’t happen for money purposes. Since they are in a time crunch of sorts, I think it would be prudent to go back to this format this postseason.

Part 2: The Ambiance

Is there any way we can get fans into the arenas virtually? Seeing as though the two most likely destinations for a ‘bubble’ style of seclusion are Las Vegas and Walt Disney World in Orlando, the gyms the players will be playing in will be fairly small, similar to the capacity of a mid-major college basketball program. The gathering will be intimate, meaning that instead of roars from the crowd we’ll likely hear a profound squeak of the shoes, pounding of the ball or clank off the rim. While that does leave room for juicy trash talk (seriously, don’t bleep that out, production teams. The world is on the edge, here. We can stomach a couple of ‘fuck yous!’ from the players or something of the sort), perhaps these games will feel more like awkward exhibitions rather than intense NBA playoff games (after watching the Bundesliga matches from this weekend, I can attest that those games felt more like the former rather than the latter). What if there was a way to get stands to hold cameras in front of the empty seats? Not only could this make games feel more normal, but also serves as an additional revenue stream the NBA desperately needs (more on this in a bit). Several media outlets have speculated that roughly 40% of the NBA’s revenue splits come from in-stadium services, such as ticket purchases, food, and drinks, in-arena store purchases, etc. While the NBA probably won’t be able to recoup all of that, maybe they can get sponsorship deals from smartphone suppliers such as Apple or Google or Samsung and video chat services like Skype or Zoom. It would be weird, but hey, they pulled it off for the NFL Draft. It seems like a win-win for all involved to me, at least.

Also, if these games are to be televised, where are the announcers going to be placed? They surely can’t be courtside, right? Same for other media personnel, such as reporters, camera people, photographers, etc. It would be less than optimal to scrunch them up along the stanchions (they’re already too close to the floor as it is). Would the announcers broadcast from a box suite? Would the media be spread out sporadically around the stands? Because it isn’t just the players the NBA needs to protect. Speaking of which...

Part 3: The Structure

How many players and coaches will choose to not play? While many players are not of the age where many have fallen from this insidious disease, many, like Larry Nance Jr. of the Cleveland Cavaliers, for one, have a pre-existing condition and, in the case of Nance, have expressed concern regarding the potential NBA return. How is the NBA going to handle players and coaching who elect not to play? Will they still get paid if they say no? How many coaches would even be allowed to make the trip from each team? Coaching staffs and their benches are about as big as the roster they’re inhibited to instruct. Does the amount of coaches allowed to come to games get cut, say, in half? Would teams be granted a special additional roster spot to fill ones vacated by players?

These are even the least of the NBA’s concerns. What if a player contracts the virus? Does the NBA shut down again? Does just the player who contracted the virus get quarantined for 14 days or just those who test positive? What if this happens in the crucible of an intense, close playoff series?

Part 4: The Risk

What is the risk of games resuming? Death. Not just for the players, but their families, the coaches, and their families and all the other workers that would be associated with this gathering. It seems a bit peculiar that the NBA would effectively blackball Chris Bosh for his own good and well-being for the sake of his safety rather than risk him dying on the floor via blood clots the same way Hank Gathers did in the NCAA Tournament for Loyola Marymount in the early 1990s but risk its constituents getting fatally sick. But drastic times call for drastic measures, I suppose. Remember the whole thing about the NBA’s expenses? Well, they’re losing a lot of it, so much so that they may be forced to function differently for the next year(s) after this one. The CBA was not designed to take this hit, meaning the players and owners will likely have to restructure and renegotiate the CBA, hopefully avoiding the mess the MLB is in right now. We’ve gone through some ways the NBA can recoup and possibly gain some revenue back, but they need to get back as much as they possibly can get back. But the risk is literally life or death.

Look, I want the league back as bad as anybody, but I go back and forth on whether the league should even return. I want it. I want my Lakers to win the championship this year. Shit, I want *someone* to win the championship this year. I don’t believe there would be an asterisk should a team win the championship this year with all the turmoil they’ve faced through this pandemic and the hard work they’ve put in over the course of the regular season before it came to a screeching halt. But safety has to be the overwhelming priority. If players feel queasy about coming back, they should be given the choice to not come back. The players and owners have to reach an agreement on a renegotiated CBA. States need to see progress regarding the status of its constituents shielding off the virus. Hopefully, a vaccine will come into existence and a vast majority of these concerns would be rendered mute. But until then, it is of the utmost importance that the CDC gives the league the go-ahead to resume and teams are able to gobble up testing kits with the public able to do so as well to avoid a PR hit. There is about no chance the NBA can resume until that happens, and even once that happens, it isn’t without risk.

If the NBA resumes again, I’ll be right there watching with the rest of us. But considering the risks and numerous questions I laid over the course of this piece, it begs one more question that I’m not sure how I or the league or anybody else can answer: is re-starting the league even worth it?

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truesportsfan · 4 years

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Greg Schiano carries big regret into his Rutgers ‘second chance’

For his band name, prefers “Second Chances” to “Unfinished Business.”

Schiano traveled through a wormhole in December and turned back time eight years to the end of his beginnings as a head coach. He brought home with him a band of more than a dozen coaches, trainers and administrators who once made Rutgers football prideful to New Jersey, relevant in New York City and pesky to national powers — but never fulfilled its championship goals.

“I left,” Schiano told The Post, “and I shouldn’t have left.”

Schiano, 53, is sitting in a black leather chair in the same (mostly empty) Hale Center corner office once filled with his memories. He is repurchasing a house he built in 2007. He is just back from a familiar coffee run to the QuickChek on River Road in Piscataway.

CEOs like Schiano — hands in marketing, budgeting, maintenance and all aspects of athletics, not just football — don’t deal in the wasted energy of hypotheticals.

But Schiano can’t resist here: If Rutgers was invited to leave the crumbling Big East for the Big Ten in January 2012 — instead of 10 months later — would he have turned down a five-year, $15 million contract from the NFL’s Buccaneers, as he did offers from college football titans Miami and Michigan?

“Yes,” Schiano said.

This answer is emphatic. Others, over the course of an hour-long conversation, are deliberate, marked by long pauses and thoughtful creases on his face.

“I ran from something, not to something,” he continued. “That wasn’t my dream to be the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I didn’t like the way the horizon looked for us here.”

The Schiano era (2001-11) produced bowl berths in five of the final six years and an NFL pipeline anchored by Ray Rice and the McCourty twins, but he left behind what might have been his best team and best recruiting class.

In the time since, Schiano was fired after going 11-21 with the Buccaneers; spent two seasons as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator; landed a head-coaching job and lost it in one day to a Tennessee fan mob ill-informed about unsubstantiated hearsay he knew of Jerry Sandusky’s child sexual abuse at Penn State; resigned for family reasons as the New England Patriots defensive coordinator after two months; and sat out three football seasons.

In the time since, Rutgers is 35-56 and bowl-less since 2014. So, it’s not all picking up where he left off.

What Schiano built to last instead crumbled for many reasons, starting with the university’s refusal to give another coach the same power he wielded. Spring practice opens in two weeks and the depth chart has no cemented starters.

“The last eight years has been, ‘Get your dukes up,’ ” Schiano said. “Nothing surprises me anymore. Maybe that’s a bad place to be, but life teaches you. I feel like this isn’t a coincidence. But, man, did a lot of crazy stuff have to happen to get me back here.”

The Empire State Building was lit red Nov. 9, 2006, when Rutgers beat Louisville in a battle of unbeatens and climbed to No. 6 in the BCS rankings.

Thursday night games at Rutgers brought New York’s pro athletes across the bridges. A streak of 18 straight sellouts ended in 2009, after the stadium’s capacity was expanded from 41,500 to 52,454.

Rutgers’ average attendance in 2018 was 20,071, and eyeballed crowds looked smaller last season.

“Ultimately, you have to win,” Schiano said. “This is an event-driven area. When your games become events, it was a Who’s Who? on the sideline. It might take a while, but we will do that again.”

In Schiano’s first day back, Rutgers sold more new season tickets (excluding renewals) than it did the rest of 2019 combined, according to the athletic department. The number tripled over the next three months.

Rutgers AD Pat Hobbs (l.) and Greg Schiano.Robert Sabo

Six months before kickoff, there are midnight office huddles and Saturday morning staff meetings.

“I feel like I never left,” said recently returned Kevin MacConnell, who worked at Rutgers from 1986 until leaving for the Buccaneers with Schiano. “It’s 11 p.m. and he’s holding conversations with five of us, jumping back and forth, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is the way it was. This is when we get our best stuff done.” ’

Except it almost never happened.

Rutgers fired Chris Ash in September, slow-walked its replacement search and tried to spin the narrative when scared off just before Thanksgiving by Schiano’s honest assessment of needs.

Then a crazy thing happened: Tortured fans united and bombarded the email accounts of university president Robert Barchi, athletics director Pat Hobbs, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and other VIPs, threatening to cut off allegiance and revenue — some six-figure donors — if Schiano wasn’t rehired.

“I am not sure that I will be able to maintain my enthusiasm,” wrote a 36-year season-ticket holder with a prominent position at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

The Post obtained signed emails through an Open Public Records Act request:

“We are sick and tired of being the laughingstock of not only the Big Ten, but of all of college athletics.”

“We have been all-in for a long time, but today our confidence is shaken.”

“Fire Pat Hobbs. Hire Greg Schiano. Save Rutgers Football.”

Negotiations resumed.

Schiano signed a record eight-year, $32 million contract with pledges to upgrade facilities and $7.7 million (a 155 percent increase over 2019) to spend on assistant coaches. The Wyckoff, N.J., native vows this “incredible staff” will help Version 2.0 be more efficient, understanding and content.

“Part of my insecurity as a coach was I felt like I had to do everything,” Schiano said. “Some of the things I felt I had to do, quite frankly, I had to — or they wouldn’t have gotten done at the level we wanted. Maybe that’s because we had a 25-year-old doing a 35-year-old man’s job, but that’s what we could afford.

“I feel like we’re close to getting things into systems that will allow us to be not such a Greg-centric program.”

MacConnell, now Schiano’s chief of staff, helped prepare Rutgers’ first pitch for expansion to the Big Ten and ACC in the 1990s. It fell on deaf ears.

Schiano privately laid out his vision to join the Big Ten as early as 2002 and chirped in the ear of commissioner Jim Delaney when possible.

“Eight years, a lot has changed,” MacConnell said. “But I walked in the building today and video of the [2006] Louisville game was on. That is still my greatest night ever. If you had said this [reunion] to me a year ago, I would’ve said, ‘How is that remotely possible?’ It’s because we all trust him.”

Hobbs is fundraising at unprecedented levels to benefit other sports, but Schiano says a football-only field house with an indoor practice facility rolling onto its state-of-the-art grass outdoor complex is needed to recruit in the Big Ten. Estimated price tag: $150 million, at least half of which has to be privately fundraised, per his contract.

“It’s not a little thing we’re fixing to do,” Schiano said. “I only would have come back if I believed the same thing I believed when I took it the first time: We can be the very best. I know people think I’m cuckoo.”

Greg Schiano waves as he is mentioned by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy during the State of the State address.AP

It’s enough if the local high school players and coaches think he is sane. He already changed his pro-style offensive philosophy to incorporate elements of the spread and entice top quarterbacks.

“If we could recruit a top class at Rutgers back then, why can’t we do it now?” Schiano said. “I hope I don’t have to prove that we did then was real. We should be in that ballpark, and then go flying past it.”

New Jersey is the recruiting lifeline, but Rutgers has more scholarship players from New York — “the high school football in New York City has gotten so much better,” he says — than any other Power Five conference team.

“In that way, we already are New York’s team,” Schiano said. “I’m sure the people up north [Syracuse] won’t like that, but I don’t particularly care.”

College football’s 150th anniversary just passed with Rutgers — hosts of the first game — mired in irrelevancy.

“My goal hasn’t changed one bit. My purpose has changed a little bit with age,” Schiano said. “I want to get there, but I want to get there while we are building into people. I was so driven that it probably had an adverse effect on reaching that goal.”

But the climb is more challenging now with annual games against Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, right?

“I hear all the arguments,” Schiano said. “If you are from here, like I am, then it appeals to you. If you are not, it may not appeal to you.”

Those same fans who rallied for his hire carry accelerated expectations. Scrap the usual grace period — incremental improvements — given to a new coach.

This is Schiano’s 12th season at Rutgers. Or is it his first?

“We decided we were going to spend the rest of our careers here. Then things changed,” Schiano said. “That’s why I call it a ‘second chance’ to do my dream job. Usually, you don’t get that.”

source https://truesportsfan.com/sport-today/greg-schiano-carries-big-regret-into-his-rutgers-second-chance/

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auburnfamilynews · 4 years

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Let me start by laying out a few important things before heading down the dark path I am about to take you on: Auburn now has two losses, both to Top Ten teams,one of which was a mere three-point loss to the number one team in the country. Both games were on the road, which is hard for any quarterback, especially a true freshman. Both games were extremely winnable. The Tigers are still No. 11 and have a chance to finish in the Top Ten with two huge games remaining, both inside Jordan-Hare. If we Auburn fans know anything, it’s frustration, and the only way this season might be more frustrating would be to beat both Georgia and Alabama, which means that winning either the Florida or LSU contests likely would have resulted in a trip to the College Football Playoff. It’s almost destiny that Auburn will do just that. The Tigers certainly could do it, if nothing else, because of the Tigers’ defense.

If you still believe in Gus Malzahn, you might want to quit reading this article. Although some may think he can’t beat either Bama or Georgia, we know he can because he has.

However, the point of this post is the entirety of the Malzahn era in which 2019 is just another chapter of the book on Gus.

Let’s begin with this weekend’s loss. We are aware that Auburn’s magnificent defense, perhaps the best we’ve ever seen, stifled an LSU offense that was averaging 50 points per game and, yes, did it against holds, hands to the face, and refs that wouldn’t call either. If the refs throw just one flag, perhaps on the touchdown that gave LSU its first lead of the game, Auburn wins despite its offensive struggles. But the flag wasn’t thrown, and despite two fourth-down stops, an interception on the goal line, and a muffed punt in the red zone, Auburn lost the game. A frustrated Marlon Davidson, one of Auburn’s defensive leaders, offered a “no comment” on whether or not Auburn’s offensive ineptitude was responsible for the loss. Auburn fans are saying that Auburn’s best defense in a generation is being squandered by a bogged-down offense.

But, wait a second. Isn’t offense what Malzahn was brought to Auburn to deliver? Once again, however, Auburn’s play calling and execution against an elite team was beyond mystifying. Consider that Auburn’s best offensive play of the first half was a delay draw to D. J. Williams meant to run out the clock. Instead, Williams ripped a massive run that put Auburn in position to take the lead going into halftime. But, with seconds left, Bo Nix tossed up a terrible wounded-duck pass that was picked off. While one might applaud his willingness to “take a shot,” the fact is he was running for his life and simply threw the ball across his body in the general direction of a receiver.

Auburn’s best play of the second half was almost identical to the play that ended the half except, somehow, Seth Williams caught the ball. Yes, it was an outstanding catch. Yes, it led to an Auburn touchdown, but that’s not the point. That pass play, with mere minutes left in the game, finally put Bo Nix over 100 yards passing. But otherwise, Auburn’s offense had five false starts, two intentional groundings (neither anywhere close to being arguable), and a snap over and to the right of Nix by center Caleb Kim. Anthony Schwartz had only three touches, just one in the first half. This is another head-scratcher just weeks after Malzahn admitted to not using the speedster enough against Florida.

Bo Nix threw at least three passes out of the back of the end zone. D. J, Williams’s two big runs accounted for almost all of Auburn’s rushing yards. To cap things off, despite the trick plays, the screens, and other typical “Gusist” plays, Malzahn looked to Boobee Whitlow, two weeks out of knee surgery, to provide a spark from the Wildcat.This may be the worst and most irresponsible coaching move since riding an injured Sean White into battle for the duration of the 2015 Georgia game.

Sound familiar? Auburn fans around the country are wondering just how bad QB backup Joey Gatewood can be in order to warrant sticking around under a QB completing 42% of his passes while throwing more INT’s than TD’s in Auburn’s two losses. Certainly, Bo Nix is young, and that these are vital teaching moments for the true freshman that are important to his future development.

But, hold up. Let’s break that down for a moment.

First of all, the age of true freshmen being tossed into the fire, taking their lumps, and developing over time is over. Just look at Auburn’s biggest rivals: Alabama and Georgia have both played for national championships with freshman quarterbacks. Clemson beat Alabama for a national title with a freshman QB.

The list of successful freshman QB’s is long and speaks to the ability of SEC and other premier programs to recruit and develop young talent. Furthermore, they do it so well that backups from those teams have gone on to be successful starters at other programs. Jalen Hurts may win a Heisman at Oklahoma. Justin Fields didn’t win the job in Athens, but he may be a Heisman finalist for Ohio State. Jacob Eason couldn’t take the job back from Jake Fromm at UGA but is now starting in Seattle for Washington and finding a lot of success.

That brings us to our final point: what is Gus Malzahn doing differently than the rest of these successful programs? Is he recruiting and developing on the same level as his counterparts?

The answer is emphatically, no, at least on the development front. His innovative, fast-paced offense brought him to Auburn in 2009 as a coordinator and, then, as head coach in 2013. Since then, Auburn has had three ten-win seasons, all carried on the back of the offense led by transfer QB’s Cam Newton, Nick Marshall, and Jarrett Stidham. (Although the latter two seemed to regress in their second seasons.) Meanwhile, a Malzhan-recruited kid has never won more than eight games in a season.

One thing Auburn and Malzahn have done better than any one else is land freshmen recruits who don’t pan out. But while Barrett Trotter, Jeremy Johnson, and Sean White are easy to point at, the discussion should really be about all of the quarterbacks along who never saw the field in any real capacity under Malzahn: Kiehl Frazier in 2011, Zeke Pike in 2012, Tyler Queen and Jason Smith in 2015, Woody Barrett and John Franklin, III in 2016, and Malik Willis in 2017. While several of these quarterbacks were three stars, the vast majority of them were four- or five-star recruits. None made any impact at Auburn.

In today’s football, transfers are common, especially among highly-recruited players who don’t win jobs early in their career. This is exacerbated at the QB position as can be seen by the list from Clemson, Alabama, and UGA. The difference is, not only can Auburn not field a top-notch QB or develop them over the course of a career, it can’t even keep them on campus. Perhaps the most scathing aspect of all this is that these recruits haven’t been able to start at other schools. Woody Barrett was a four-star recruit and the sixth best in the nation in high school when he came to Auburn and sat behind Jarrett Stidham. Queen and Pike wound up changing positions at other schools. Smith played WR at Auburn in a limited capacity. White gave up the game. Johnson has become a punchline. Franklin couldn’t crack the QB spot at FAU and ended up getting NFL work as a corner. Currently, Barrett doesn’t even start for Kent State.

There can be no legitimate argument that Nix is on the same path as Jake Fromm or Tua Tagovialoa, and the lone point in his favor is that his offensive line hasn’t done its job in either pass or run blocking, even though Auburn is playing an all senior line. The future here is not bright, because it’s unlikely that Malzahn will develop Nix in the offseason, and it’s unlikely that he will have a competent line in front of him to start 2020. Meanwhile, Auburn’s 2019 running game has struggled mightily against good competition. Many believe Gatewood could give Auburn a chance to run to set up the pass to a good set of receivers. Yet, playing Gatewood during Nix’s struggles was never a thought in the coach’s mind, based on post-game interviews.

After another dreadful performance by Auburn’s young QB, one has to wonder if Gus can develop a quarterback? Following a second disappointing loss, fans are left with three possibilities: Gus is showing favoritism to Nix, Gus is too bullheaded, or Gus believes that Gatewood has no chance of being any more successful than Nix. Regardless of which it is, all three are on Gus.

The post Does Loss at LSU Expose Gus’ Inability to Develop QB’s? appeared first on Track 'Em Tigers, Auburn's oldest and most read independent blog.

from Track 'Em Tigers, Auburn's oldest and most read independent blog http://trackemtigers.com/does-loss-at-lsu-expose-gus-inability-to-develop-qbs/

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