#also because of the crystals she was holding she can now produce fog from her sleeves and her arms

[hauntingmiser]

MERMAY DAY XXX

( ayyy today's the last day of this lore it's going to come into a close here so let's get it!!!! Also I tried to make her face look decrepit cuz idk)

And as our heroes swim many miles into the fog they found the main core

the entrance to the underworld.....

the door was locked in near right in front of it was a torii gate was made with sacred wood with a crimson red, while being covered in seaweed & barnacles due to a long time of abandonment

The rocks feel like they're watching the crystals grow as one

The fog is mixing with the rocks as it flows and flows

And then standing at the middle of it all it's the culprit themselves

The almighty goddess of the dead

Izanami

"ah." Izanami looks in awe "so you finally came here to seal my doom by eradicating me-" "OF COURSE WE ARE!"

"that's we came here for."

izanami gets interrupted by yosuke and yu by yelling at her

"of course that we came here to prevent you!"

"from killing innocent lives to pretending to be mother nature and cursing this sea of radioactive crystals, you izanami. are a phony to poseidon"

Naoto said after yukiko and Chile both said first

"you fools! trolling poseidon as mother nature was only just the beginning! so I'm not pho-" "SHUT UP" izanami gets her mouth shut by kanji but also him yelling "TROLLING AS MOTHER NATURE WILL NOT HELP YOU WITH YOUR DAMN SITUATIONS!"

"you make me sick! what's wrong with you! you almost contaminated the water we breathe, you let several shadows kidnap us, transformed a mermaid into a merzombie and made the bottom of the sea lethal and killed dojima's wife!"

Rise said aggressively, as she feels like she needs to throw hands with izanami really bad

"....and that's why we need to seal your ignorant self, it's the reason why we came here in the first place. with the power of friendship, I shall beat you to silicon so freshwater Inaba can thrive again"

Yu says, determined to save his not so forever home

"and not rise up again?"

Yu nods

"very well....prove to me your strength is more than me..."

The fog moves closer and grows deeper into the sky and transform into a spiral-like tornado

"because I will not be holding back"

{ THERE IS NO FUN FACT ONLY LORE }

teddie however did not say a word... He however is waiting for the time they attack and he can do the final strike

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

Stereogum:

ACTOR TURNS 10

Ryan Leas May 3, 2019 1:59 pm

When revisiting the major albums of 2009, the year begins to look like an inflection point. A simultaneous culmination of a burgeoning scene while still only a prologue of the unforeseen dominance some of these artists would later achieve. Whether in revisiting the ’09 albums that hold up, crucial moments like the compilation Dark Was The Night, or albums that seemed to be instant classics in their time, you get a portrait of artists rising and establishing their scene, but in hindsight also glimpses of artists who had only just begun. Artists who would transcend those circumstances, go beyond being an indie luminary and become of the definitive names of their time. There are only a couple in that latter category. St. Vincent is one of them.

Ten years ago this Sunday, Annie Clark released her second album under the moniker. Actor was, in many ways, very much of its time and place, the late ‘00s stretch of baroque-pop Brooklyn indie. Clark excelled within that milieu, and the album solidified her as one of the emergent names at the tail end of last decade. And within its DNA, you can already see the blueprints for where St. Vincent would go. It’s a moment that both represents Clark’s talent crystallizing and still feels rooted in another era, prefiguring how far behind she would leave those origins.

Just under two years beforehand, St. Vincent had debuted with Marry Me. When Clark first started making a name for herself, people would mention how she cut her teeth touring with the Polyphonic Spree. They’d talk about her playing in Sufjan Stevens’ band. It is disorienting, foreign, to look back on those times and recall this is how people used to introduce St. Vincent’s backstory.

And in turn, the Annie Clark that appeared in those interviews, discussing the making of Actor, comes across as a totally different version of herself. The press, already growing fervent about this artist, dug into the album’s conception with her, and she often answered straightforwardly enough. Ten years later, she’s on the far side of an arc that begins here, removed and steely and inscrutable, trolling the press, almost directly throwing back all the things that were written about her in those Actor days, when people would go on and on about this “demure brunette guitar genius.”

Of course, even with the initial embrace of St. Vincent’s work, few could have predicted how her star would ascend and morph — likely herself included. As would be the case with many of these late ‘00s indie artists on the cusp of some kind of mainstream penetration, Actor first came from humbler circumstances. Before teaming with producer John Congleton, Clark worked on it in her New York apartment, recording into a computer, the gentle vocals partially a byproduct of noise complaints from neighbors.

The whole nature of the album was also rooted in being at home, trying to reset after a lengthy spate of touring. Clark began revisiting old movies, favorites from earlier in her life, and writing music along to them as they unfolded on mute. The ones most often-cited in Actor’s rollout were of a particular nature — childhood fairytales with just a bit of eeriness or something sinister lurking underneath. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs informed the orchestration and tonal shifts of opener “The Strangers,” while “Marrow” resulted from The Wizard Of Oz.

“I felt like I wanted to create something that was Technicolor, was visual as much as musical,” Clark told NPR at the time, speaking specifically about “Marrow.” “And also lyrically — this person wishing they had a spine made of iron — it’s sort of along the thematic lines of The Wizard Of Oz.”

From the unnerving placidity of Actor’s cover to its lush and bright instrumentation, you can still hear what Clark was setting out to achieve. Written to those old movies, Actor is burst after burst of primary colors. But that’s not to say it sounds, or ever sounded, like a happy or precious affair the way some of her peers’ work might have when tackling the same concept. That brightness suggested something sickly, something haunting festering just below the surface.

That, too, was by design. “I wanted to make something that had the whimsy and the sweet of something very pure, like the Disney films, but also something that was kind of bloody and gory and disgusting,” Clark told The New York Times. “I tried to combine those two things, both things that I love in equal parts, and see what happened.”

This is what made Actor seem special in its moment. By 2009, it wasn’t uncommon for the young generation of indie artists to be experimenting with chamber-pop affectations or with layers of strings and woodwinds. And while a lot of that material seems fussy all these years removed, Clark had somewhat insulated herself from the same criticisms. Actor shares a prettiness, an immaculate and composed veneer, with what was happening at the time. But it had a darkness growing, threatening to overtake it.

It was a juxtaposition Clark had toyed with previously, on Marry Me, where poppy indie confections like “Now Now” and “Jesus Saves, I Spend” were countered with freakouts like “Your Lips Are Red” and “Paris Is Burning.” And there were still songs on Actor — perhaps the ones that don’t loom as large, that feel more 2009 when you hear them today — that don’t represent the tension Clark was baking into the album overall. As memorable as “The Party” is, it feels like refuse from a less-complicated St. Vincent, one that would soon disappear entirely. (Ironically, as a counter-argument, you could see the feint of “New York” being MASSEDUCTION’s lead single working partially because it almost hearkened back to early St. Vincent, a misleading intro to an album that represented her biggest departure yet.)

Perhaps one reason Actor garnered Clark so much positive buzz was in how it improved upon Marry Me in every way — the songwriting sharpened and focused throughout, and that conflict of dark and light woven tighter together, so that you never knew when individual songs might rupture. “Black Rainbow” begins pillowy, then pulls you inexorably into the shadows its name suggests; “The Bed” swings jarringly from lullabies to strings that sound like dying birds falling from the sky. The whole thing begins with “The Strangers,” featuring a lilting melody in which Clark keeps promising to “Paint the black hole blacker” until distorted guitars raze the seeming calm that preceded.

The album’s success was in its cohesion, the way it kept these themes going to provide some kind of skewed, poisonous interpretation, an early example of Clark taking what surrounded her and bending and twisting it into her own funhouse vision of the world. This tendency set up a fruitful career, and here it also resulted in some songs that still rank amongst her best. “Actor Out Of Work,” the pseudo-title-track, is throbbing, caustic, and infectious — a gliding melody atop frothing distortion. Perhaps the album’s most gorgeous song is called, of all things, “Laughing With A Mouth Full Of Blood.” One of her more underrated compositions, “Just The Same But Brand New” is a striking dreamscape of semi-renewal at the album’s conclusion. “Marrow,” as clear-cut a St. Vincent classic as anything here, made the polarities the most severe, fluttering woodwinds and airy-but-foreboding verses and an off-kilter chorus of fear and guitars warped almost beyond recognition.

There was a specificity to what Clark was doing on Actor, but it also set up what would prove to be a career in contrasts. Back then, it was the tranquility vs. violence, the quiet and peaceful vs. eruptions of rage. This is what defined St. Vincent’s earlier work: She would build pristine architecture, then set fire to it. Later on, it would take different forms: earnestness and blood vs. artifice and manipulated images. In its way, Actor is the conclusion to the first era of St. Vincent, that indie singer-songwriter who used to play with Sufjan, at the same time as it’s the prologue for the journey that would unfold over the next 10 years and three albums. Anything that could loosely be described as twee or whimsical from those early records, anything that could signify Clark’s roots in a particular era of New York indie music, would soon be burned away entirely.

In that same 2009 New York Times interview, Clark explains the meaning behind the title Actor. “It’s about just the general sense of feeling like a fraud, because I think anyone who is creative or self-aware in any way, there’s like a humility to it, or I should say a humiliation to it,” she explained. “But there’s also a self-delusion … The self-delusion is the thing that makes you go, ‘Oh you know what, all the music I’ve ever loved in the world, I want to be a part of that — hey, listen to what I have to say, it’s really important, it’s going to matter.’”

On some level, Clark was talking about the very endeavor and anxiety of creation; that fraudulence, the fake it until you make it, proving to people you deserve to be there. But on some other level, you know her ideas were good. That they were better than a lot of other people’s. In that sense, her follow-up quote is more prescient: “You can’t apologize your way into people’s hearts. You have to go full force.” Soon after Actor, that fear of self-delusion, that trepidation, seemed to evaporate from the work of St. Vincent. The name and concept behind her sophomore album became less an existential musing and more of a key into her following chapters.

This idea of St. Vincent we saw on Marry Me and Actor is almost quaint, primitive despite its intricacy, in comparison to what came next: the pharmaceutical fog and synthetics of 2011’s Strange Mercy, leaning directly into a retro-futuristic space age queen aesthetic in the coronation of 2014’s self-titled, the dense entanglement of heartache and lust and vivid Pop Art on 2017’s MASSEDUCTION. As the years went on, Clark continued to modulate her identity and push her instrument into its outer limits. She had gone as far as she could within the original context of her career and sound, and instead took a thesis, not sonic cues, from Actor forward. There, it was the gore and whimsy against one another. Afterward, it was constant transformation, the entire project of St. Vincent becoming an exercise in different tensions musically and thematically, the entire persona of St. Vincent becoming a war in which what was performance and what was reality could often be questioned.

Consider the Annie Clark we now know. The one who had a high-profile relationship with Cara Delevingne. The one who worked with David Byrne, and the one who worked with Jack Antonoff. The one who has perfected a distance from the usual machinery of indie star interviews, trying to provoke reactions out of those who speak with her or producing videos mocking the whole enterprise. The one who performs with Dua Lipa at the Grammys. When was the last time you thought about the Polyphonic Spree at all, let alone could imagine it being listed as some kind of pivotal resume builder in Annie Clark’s career? That was still the case when Actor came out 10 years ago. Now, she’s eclipsed almost everything about where she came from. She has become an art-rock star capable of sliding between worlds, dancing towards pop to then turn and produce a Sleater-Kinney album.

Without the rest of the story, Actor might feel like more of a relic of last decade; you could imagine an alternate history in which Annie Clark continued on in a similar vein and was a respected if not visionary force. But after crafting the perfect realization of one version of herself on her sophomore album, she imploded it on her third. The forces fighting within Actor, those hints of stranger shapes and pathways, would drive her career forward. After the first implosion, there was another, and then another — each time, destruction of the old St. Vincent yielding some vibrant new creation. Actor lives on as an innovative indie album from an era littered with them, a lingering document of who St. Vincent was and a harbinger of who she would be. She had already changed here, and would do it again and again. This was just the beginning of Annie Clark proving herself the David Bowie for a new era of rock music, able to shed skin after skin, sliding into new ones repeatedly and with ease. It was the beginning of her remaking herself constantly — just like an actor.

[rhiannon-a-christy]

If Tomorrow Never Comes ::: Part 1

 The world around Darcy was silent but for the chirping of birds and the distant roar of cars traveling down the old dirt road. There was a chill in the air that wasn’t just from the dense fog hanging heavy over the field. Darcy pulled her jacket tighter around herself, hoping that the old leather would somehow block out the cold and despair filling her up.

  Jane watched from the car, her back pressed against the rusted metal. She sighed as her friend trudged through the tall weeds in a pair of worn blue jeans.

   “You don’t have to do this, you know.” Jane had tried to talk the younger woman out of coming, but Darcy would hear nothing of it.

   “I have to see it… I… Jane you don’t understand, I just have to.” Darcy had spent weeks trying to explain this to her friend after she had returned, but how could Jane ever understand? She hadn’t been the one to go, she hadn’t been the one to lose her heart… and lose everything.

   Ignoring Jane, Darcy walked the last few yards. The toe of her boot tapped against the edge of a stone sticking up from out of the weeds. She swallowed down the lump forming in her throat and crouched down to run her fingers over the stone. It had once been swept clean, the weeds curling around it plucked away. But over a hundred years had whittled away at the rock, now she could barely make out the two names that had been roughly carved into it.

   Forcing away the tears she stood and walked around the house. The years had not been kind to it, the roof had fallen in long ago and the thick wood walls had pitted and splintered with age. What windows were still intact, were encrusted with a thick layer of grime. She desired nothing more than to step beyond the threshold and walk the steps of a life long ago, but she knew the floorboards would be just as rotted as the roof.

   Rounding the side of the house she came to a stop. The window, built a bit lower down than the others, led into the kitchen. It had been one of the busiest rooms in the house, always filled with the aroma of fresh baked pie and bread. He used to come in after a long day on the ranch, make teasing comments about the heat and the lack of a need for clothing, steal a biscuit and plop himself down at the table.

   Darcy pressed her hands into her eyes, willing the images to stop. Maybe Jane had been right, maybe this had been a bad idea. Instead of hightailing it back to the car as she should have, Darcy leaned into the wall and ran the sleeve over the window.

   Through the now dirt smeared glass she could make out several bundles of roses hanging from the ceiling. It had been a habit that had formed during the years. He would bring her flowers from the sparse garden and she would hang them in front of the window to dry. Her favorite blooms would be cut from the brittle stems and placed inside a crystal cut glass box he had brought back from a trip to Boston. She figured the box was probably still sitting on the vanity top in their room. It was where she had left it when… when…

   Darcy pushed away from the wall and rushed back to Jane. After rounding the house her foot caught on the marker stone and she went tumbling to the ground. She stayed in the dirt, her knees burning from the fall. But any pain it caused was nothing to the one she felt in her chest. She took in huge breaths, tears falling without her permission. For the world it had been over a hundred years, but for her it had only been three months.

   What had been the point of it all? Why had this happened to her, why when this was the outcome?

   Since she returned she had often wished that none of it had ever happened. Over and over she had tried to think on how she could have avoided it all. The pain, the heartache.

 --------------------------------------------

   It had all started when she had agreed to spend the holidays with Jane’s family. Of course, Jane hadn’t told her that meant staying in an almost two-hundred-year-old house in the middle of nowhere. The woman conveniently left out her uncle’s old family estate.

   Darcy had been left to her devices for much of the time, what with Jane trying to deal with all her cousins. To alleviate some of her boredom she had gone exploring. This was her first mistake. In the movies wasn’t it always the people that explored old houses on their own that disappeared?

   Her exploring brought her to the upper most room. It had been closed off, everything inside covered in dust and cobwebs. She had marveled at the pretty little trinkets laid out atop an old dresser. The place looked like it hadn’t been touched since the Victorian ages.

   She had run her fingers through the dust, taking time to pick up one item or another. Finally, she came to the closet. Slowly she opened the door, expecting to find old clothes. Instead there was only a lone bundle of dried roses. Behind the brittle flowers was another door. This one bolted shut. For a moment she felt like she had been transported inside one of her favorite books. There was the insane thought that if she stepped through that door she would find herself in Narnia.

   Laughing at the absurdity of it, she reached for the lock. The rusted metal broke apart and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. She had no idea what she expected on the other side, but she was disappointed when all it revealed was a dark, empty storage area.

   She took a step back, turned, and nearly fell on her ass when she noticed the room around her. Everything looked the same as before, only every speck of dust and grime was gone. The whole room looked fresh, as though it had just been cleaned. Impossible of course, or at least that was what Darcy kept saying to herself whenever a new thought rushed through her head.

   From downstairs she could hear laughter and the faint sound of a piano. She blinked. She had remembered an old piano stuffed in the corner of the drawing room, but Jane had said that it hadn’t worked in years. Actually, her uncle had gone off into a story about the damned thing. According to him the last time the piano had been played was back in 1885. It had been at the wedding of a family friend that the piano had been broken, or really shot. The groom had made some rather dangerous enemies, ones that didn’t care about hurting innocents as long as they got their man. Darcy remembered seeing the bullet holes, she had even made an inappropriate joke about holy music.

   The piano music grew louder as the door opened. Darcy blinked as Jane appeared… dressed in a rather frilly dress with her hair piled up in curls atop her head.

   “Oh Darcy, what are you doing hiding away up here? I know you dislike dances, but Papa went out of his way. The least you can do is show up for your own birthday party.” Jane stood in the doorway, gloved hands pressed against her hips.

   Darcy blinked again. Nothing about what just came out of Jane’s mouth made sense. Her father had died years ago, and Darcy’s birthday was months off.

   “And what are you wearing?” Jane looked Darcy up and down, her mouth thin. “You have got to stop stealing the farmhand’s clothes. People will talk. Come on, I’ll help you get ready.”

   Darcy remained silent as Jane dressed and groomed her. She was quiet as the other woman pulled her out of the room and down the stairs. She said nothing as Jane maneuvered her from room to room. But when she was finally pushed into a room filled with various dancing couples she found she could no longer hold her tongue.

  “What the fuck?!”

  -------------------------------------------------------------------

   Author’s Note: So, like I really needed to do this. I have so many work in progresses it isn’t funny. But I’ve had a been several weeks and I needed a western au. And so here it is, a different kind of western au. I also might be stuck on the whole Darcy gets transported back in time thing, so have one where she gets sent back to the old west.

   This will not be a long story, maybe three or four parts, and I’m thinking it will be Wintershock, mainly cause I just really want some Wintershock right now. Plus, Cowboy!Bucky! Come on!

   And the part at the beginning with the old house and roses is inspired by a story my grandfather told me. When he was younger, back during the Depression, his family lived with an aunt and uncle of his on their farm. It had been his favorite place, and his favorite aunt. Because of different things they were forced to move. Years later after he was married he returned to the old farm house and looked in the kitchen window. Hanging from the ceiling were two bunches of tea roses. Every year his aunt would gather a bunch of tea roses from the bushes outside the house and hang them in the kitchen and let them dry. They would stay there all year and she would replace them in the summer. The house was all worn down and falling apart as no one cared for it after his aunt and uncle died, but years later those roses still remained in the window. I admit, I cried when he told me the story. I still do.

 This is also inspired by the scary doors in the back of my closet that leads to a creepy dark storage area. Too bad all they actually lead to is lots of wolf spiders and not Cowboy Bucky.

 Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #151: Dragonfire

New Post has been published on https://esopodcast.com/timestamp-151-dragonfire/

Timestamp #151: Dragonfire

Doctor Who: Dragonfire (3 episodes, s24e12-e14, 1987)

  Iceworld: A vacation spot where cliffhangers are literal but dragons are not.

We get our introduction to this planetary freezer section through fog machines, plastic icicles, and frost burns. A group of conscripted men is being processed as foot soldiers for the villain Kane and his reign of terror. One of the men attacks a guard and shoots his way into the facility’s restricted zone. He stumbles, drops his weapon in a vat of liquid nitrogen, and dies at the hands of Kane. Quite literally, in fact, since one touch from the man can kill.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor and Mel approach the colony. They arrive at what could double as the local Costco – anyone who is familiar with that particular warehouse store understands the giant refrigerated rooms where you pay for the “pleasure” of freezing while hunting for good produce, milk, and eggs – and visit a diner where they find Sabalom Glitz. It’s a given that Glitz owes Kane money, but he gambled away his money and ends up with his ship impounded. A waitress named Ace (who uses her pseudonym as an exclamation of pleasure) tells Mel and Glitz of a dragon in the passages beneath Iceworld, and Mel puts the pieces together: The Doctor wanted to stop here to see the dragon.

Ace volunteers to tag along since she’s tired of her job. She calls the Doctor “Professor,” which the Time Lord doesn’t seem to mind. It’s endearing. So is her strong character.

Ace mentions the dragon’s treasure, which piques Glitz’s interest since he has a map that he won in the card game where he lost his shirt. Said card game was fixed by Kane to force Glitz to find the treasure so Kane could steal it. Glitz is old-fashioned (read: sexist) and won’t allow women on the journey, so Mel remains with Ace. The ladies are soon ejected from the diner – Ace gets fired for pouring a milkshake on a rude customer who totally deserved what she got – and retire to Ace’s quarters. Ace shares her story: She’s a student from Earth who was swept up in a time storm and deposited on Iceworld. The women gather up Ace’s homemade explosives and help dislodge an ice jam on the docks.

One of Kane’s lieutenants, Officer Belazs, asks Kane for Glitz’s ship. Kane denies her desire to leave and orders the ship destroyed. When Kane goes into a brief hibernation to recharge, she reverses the order without his knowledge before being dispatched to the ice jam disturbance. When she arrives, she arrests Mel and Ace. Kane takes a liking to Ace and offers her a place in his army, but she and Mel escape into the caverns instead. They encounter the dragon and Mel screams.

Goodness does she… you know.

The Doctor and Glitz explore the caverns and get separated. The Doctor, for reasons better left as an exercise for the blooper reels, climbs over a handrail and slowly slips toward his doom while dangling from his umbrella. Glitz saves the Doctor from death, but not from our eternal laughter at this literal cliffhanger, perhaps one of the worst in Doctor Who history.

The ladies discover that the dragon is not a real dragon since it shoots lasers from its eyes. They find the cliffhangering cliff and use a ladder in Ace’s bag of holding to follow the Doctor’s umbrella as a clue. Meanwhile, Kane dispatches his new soldiers – essentially ice zombies at this point – to deal with Glitz; the conscripted men from the opening are Glitz’s former crewmen whom he sold for seventeen crowns apiece. Belazs also overhears Glitz’s plan to hijack his own ship, a plan that the Doctor reluctantly supports. Glitz gets into the cockpit, but he’s ambushed by Belazs. The Doctor and Glitz learn her backstory and turn the tables, but the Doctor expresses remorse for her situation. They continue their quest.

In Kane’s restricted area, the sculptor who was working on an ice statue finishes his work and is rewarded with death. No one will be allowed to look upon the artwork for it’s supposedly too magnificent for the universe to behold. We, as viewers, are left to assume that it is significant to his backstory. (Spoiler: It is.) When Kane retreats to his chamber to cool off, Belazs and Officer Kracauer attempt to assassinate him and gain their freedom. The plot fails, although it does destroy the statue, and Kane kills both of the traitors in anger.

The Doctor and Glitz encounter the dragon, but it spares them after the Doctor stops Glitz from killing it. Elsewhere, Mel and Ace encounter the ice zombies, escaping after a brief battle while Ace wisely stops Mel from screaming. They bond over a cup of camp coffee and we find out that Ace’s real name is Dorothy, a name of which she’s not fond. They later reunite with the Doctor and Glitz and are saved from one of the zombified crewmen by the dragon. The creature trusts them and leads the explorers into a side cavern and shows them a holographic record. Kane is half of the Kane-Xana criminal organization that was headquartered on Proamon. When security forces found them, Xana – see above, re: ice sculpture – killed herself and Kane was exiled to the permanently frozen world. The Doctor deduces that the dragon, or rather the power source within the mechanical creature, is the treasure. Thanks to the tracker his musings are no secret to Kane, who plans to use the dragonfire crystal to leave the colony and his frozen prison.

The Doctor and the dragon research Proamon while Mel, Ace, and Glitz wait in the control cavern. Two of Kane’s officers ambush the dragon and eventually kill it, but when they attempt to remove the head they are killed by an energy discharge. In the upper levels, Kane dispatches his troops to drive everyone toward Glitz’s ship, the Nosferatu. Once everyone (save a little girl and her mother) are aboard, Kane destroys the ship.

We get it. He’s evil.

The Doctor, Mel, and Ace return to the TARDIS to consult the star charts. Ace goes to her quarters and is captured by Kane while the Doctor and Mel go after the dragon. They find the head and retrieve the crystal, but Kane demands an exchange for Ace. When Mel, Glitz, and the Doctor arrive, Kane confirms that the dragon was his jailer and that he has been on the colony for millennia. The Doctor surrenders the crystal and Kane uses it to power the hidden stardrive in the colony. Unfortunately for Kane, the Doctor confirms that Proamon is long dead after its star went supernova. Distraught, Kane opens a viewport and commits suicide by sunlight, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style.

With the threat over, Glitz takes command of the colony ship and Mel decides to stay in an effort to keep the rogue out of trouble. In her final act on the TARDIS, Mel puts in a good word for Ace. The Doctor offers her a space on the TARDIS and she accepts.

  Kane’s motivations make little sense here. Sure, he wants to escape and exact revenge on his jailors, but his suicide doesn’t ring true. Sure, he’s a psychopath, but he was a careful and meticulous planner. Unless personal vengeance was so important to him, I would have thought that he’d scratch Proamon off the list with the supernova and go off to conquer another planet without his rap sheet hanging over his head. This plot glitch aside, I really liked him as a villain, even as a Doctor Who knockoff of Mr. Freeze.

Another part that doesn’t make a lot of sense is Mel’s final decision. So, yes, she and Glitz worked together in The Ultimate Foe, but Mel has expressed displeasure at every turn with the scoundrel’s actions, ranging from sexism and selling his crew into slavery all the way up to his illegal activities. I’d say that Glitz is a knockoff of Han Solo, but Solo was far more developed. The Leia/Han dynamic doesn’t work here and I don’t think Mel is strong enough to change Glitz, particularly since he now owns a portable freezer section with only two shoppers.

I won’t miss Mel much. From her timey-wimey intro in Terror of the Vervoids to this departure, she’s been a decent enough companion but, by far, nowhere near the best. A lot of that has to do with her role as a personality foil for the Doctor rather than as an assistant/companion. She was smart and strong-willed, but just not a great fit for the position.

I also won’t miss the dramatic screaming. Because – and this might be the last time that I can make this joke – goodness, can she scream.

So, with all of that heaped on this story, why did I actually like it?

First, we have Ace, who seems like she might be a pretty fun companion once she settles in. I do hope that the “Ace!” exclamation dies off soon because that’s going to get tiresome, but I’m looking forward to what she brings to the table.

Second, Sylvester McCoy continues to sell me with his portrayal of the Doctor. He has a latent darkness lurking behind his goofy exterior, reminding me of the Second and Fourth Doctors quite often.

Third, this story brought Doctor Who right back to its roots with tight shots, minimal bailing-wire-and-chewing-gum sets, and actors selling even the zaniest and loosest of plots with unwavering confidence. That point alone, hearkening back to the low-budget stageplay-style days of the black and white serials, deserves some credit.

  Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”

    UP NEXT – Twenty-Fourth Series Summary

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

[robertmcangusgroup]

The Daily Thistle

The Daily Thistle – News From Scotland

Thursday 22nd June 2017

"Madainn Mhath” …Fellow Scot, I hope the day brings joy to you…. well its Wednesday, the day after “Summer Solstice” so it’s all downhill from here with only 185 days to Christmas….. Beautiful weather on the Costa del Sol 30c anticipated today and for the next seven days, with crystal blue skies, I hope where ever you are reading this from the weather is equally as good, Bella has had her walk and relaxing at my feet, the coffee is steaming in the cup, I'm ready, so let’s take a look at the news...

FLYING SCOTSMAN DESIGNER HONOURED IN EDINBURGH…. He was born by chance in Edinburgh but his creations will be forever associated with Scotland. Now Sir Nigel Gresley’s birthplace in the capital will be marked with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque tomorrow on the 141st anniversary of his arrival. Gresley is renowned as one of Britain’s greatest railway engineers, whose locomotives included the record-breaking Flying Scotsman and Mallard, which helped revolutionise cross-Border travel. Flying Scotsman hauled the first non-stop train between London and Edinburgh in 1928, while Mallard still holds the 126mph steam record. Gresley was born in Edinburgh only because his mother had travelled from the family home in England to consult a specialist gynaecologist. He was the youngest of five children, his father a church rector in Netherseal, Derbyshire. The bronze plaque, produced by Historic Environment Scotland in conjunction with the Gresley Society, will be dedicated at 32 Dublin Street in the New Town by Transport Scotland rail director Bill Reeve. The occasion promises to be less controversial than the society’s unveiling of a statue to Gresley at King’s Cross Station in London last year. A mallard duck was removed from the design after his family said it would detract from the monument’s dignity. Libby Ranzetta, who campaigned for the duck’s reinstatement, said: “It’s good to see a second Edinburgh plaque to Sir Nigel [the first was erected at Waverley Station in 2001]. Hopefully it will bring the great man to more people’s notice. “Unfortunately, when the people responsible for the statue at King’s Cross chose to axe the mallard from its final design, they may as well have commissioned a standalone plaque.” John Cameron, the society’s Fife-based president, said the plaque was “a reminder of the close connection Sir Nigel had with Scotland throughout his working life”. Reeve said: “I sincerely hope Sir Nigel’s achievements will stimulate young people to pursue the rewarding career of railway engineering.”

EXPERTS URGE NEW BREASTFEEDING 'CONVERSATION'….  The experts said woman needed the right support, at the right time, in the right place. New mothers need to be offered better support with breastfeeding, according to some of Scotland's leading experts in maternal and infant health. A statement, signed by 30 of them, said women can feel pressured to breastfeed and often find it difficult. They have called for a change in culture to provide all women with the right support, at the right time, in the right place. The experts want to see improved training for health professionals. They have also argued for better legal protection against the misleading promotion and marketing of formula milk. Their call for a "change in the conversation" around breastfeeding comes at the start of National Breastfeeding in Scotland Week. Mary Renfrew, professor of mother and infant health at Dundee University and one of the authors of the document, said: "National Breastfeeding Week is an important opportunity to reflect on whether we are all doing enough to enable women to breastfeed and what we could do better."There are significant and substantive differences between breastfeeding and not breastfeeding in regard to health and development outcomes, for both the baby and the mother. "However, we know breastfeeding can be hard for women to do. A new way of enabling breastfeeding is needed - one that tackles the societal barriers that individual women cannot tackle alone and creates a shift in the prevailing culture and attitudes to breastfeeding." The statement said some woman struggled and efforts to help them could be seen as "pressure" She added: "This should be put in place in a planned and co-ordinated way by decision-makers with funding, influence, authority and accountability, rather than relying on women's own determination, the motivation of health professionals, and the work of voluntary organisations alone. This will require a co-ordinated cross-sectoral strategy that engages everyone in the conversations needed to create a positive environment for women, babies and families in Scotland."

DAUGHTER OF FIRST BABY BORN ON LOGANAIR PLANE NOW CABIN CREW….  A teenager whose mother was the first baby born on a Loganair plane has become a member of the cabin crew. Chloe Stott, 18, is the daughter of Katy Stott, who was born 2,000ft above Orkney in 1973 on a special air ambulance flight from the island of Stronsay to Kirkwall. The aircraft was only a few minutes into the short flight when Katy's mother Freida Devin gave birth. Chloe said she has always wanted to be a cabin crew attendant. Thick fog prevented the aircraft from landing in Kirkwall, and Captain Jamie Bayley had to divert to Aberdeen. The baby was christened Katy Ferguson Leynair Devin, adopting the surname of the late doctor who helped, while inheriting Ley after Captain Bayley and nair from Loganair. Chloe, who has just moved from Orkney to Aberdeen, said: "I've wanted to be a cabin crew attendant for as long as I can remember. "It's probably linked to the unusual circumstances in which my mum was born but both of us share this interest. "My family is originally from Orkney, so it's wonderful to be working for an airline which holds such established roots with the islands and I'm looking forward to working on some of the services operating to Kirkwall."

NEW ABBEY CORN MILL CELEBRATED WITH STAMP…. Recently-elected MP Alister Jack launched the stamp at the New Abbey corn mill. A corn mill in southern Scotland is one of six UK windmills and watermills to feature in a new set of stamps. The New Abbey site stopped working in the middle of the 20th Century but, after repair and restoration, opened to visitors in 1983. It is now maintained and cared for by Historic Scotland. The Royal Mail said the new stamps were a tribute to "iconic and endearing structures" dotted around the United Kingdom. The other mills featured are Nutley Windmill in East Sussex, Ballycopeland Windmill in County Down, Cheddleton Flint Mill in Staffordshire, Woodchurch Windmill in Kent and Felin Cochwillan Mill in Gwynedd. New Dumfries and Galloway MP Alister Jack launched the south of Scotland stamp at the corn mill. He said: "The watermill at New Abbey is well known by locals and tourists to Dumfries and Galloway. "I am delighted that it now features on this brilliant set of stamps." Royal Mail's stamp strategy manager Philip Parker added: "The windmills and watermills of the UK are much-loved landmarks and reminders of our rich agricultural and industrial heritage. "We celebrate six of these fascinating structures with new stamps."

COMMUNITIES AFFECTED BY IOLAIRE DISASTER COULD HAVE MEMORIAL…. A planned new memorial in Stornoway would direct people to the scene of the disaster in 1919. Every community that suffered losses in the Iolaire disaster nearly 100 years ago could have a sculpture remembering the 205 men who died. The yacht Iolaire was wrecked on a reef called the Beasts of Holm just off the Isle of Lewis in the early hours of 1 January 1919. The boat was carrying home hundreds of sailors after the end of World War One. The memorials are planned as part of events commemorating the centenary of the tragedy. A number of communities in the Western Isles that were affected by the disaster have requested a memorial. Most of those who died were from Lewis or Harris. Organisers said the sculptures would be modelled on one planned for Stornoway on Lewis. That memorial would act as a marker and have information boards about loss of the Iolaire and directions to the memorial site overlooking where the yacht was wrecked.

On that note I will say that I hope you have enjoyed the news from Scotland today,

Our look at Scotland today is of course.. Sir Nigel Gresley.. The steam engine that is.....

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Thursday 22nd June 2017 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus