#and his 60th win but whatever | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

evita-shelby · 16 days

Text

Odds

or a one shot where Hunger Games!Eva and Jack meet and become infatuated with each other before she wins her games

au one shot for They Didn't Know They Were Seeds

@justrainandcoffee @emotionalcadaver @peakyswritings

cw: past trauma, teenagers being teenagers, consensual kissing, implied fondling/heavy petting, mwntioned recreational weed use

The bad part of the games ---besides the whole killing kids thing--- is that sometimes the girl tributes are hot.

Like if the girl from 10 had been from his district Jack would have hit that, but she’s been reaped and will die in Laurie’s games. Hopefully Laurie won’t be the one to kill her or at least go easy on her if he has to.

“10’s a 10.” He winks for effect making his twin roll his eyes at his dumb joke.

Laurie had a girlfriend he had to be serious about when she got pregnant from their fling last year when he had been pissed about the Escort choosing Jack at the Reaping.

If Jack had known picking fights would’ve landed him as the Victor for the 60th Games, he would’ve done it all over again. In fact, he talked Laurie into getting arrested for something dumb to get picked this year.

Katie had reamed him for it thinking Laurie could lose.

If, no, when Laurie wins, they’ll be the first twins in history to win consecutive games. He and Laurie were genetically made to win games, Laurie more than him because the doctors removed every flaw their sperm donor and their mom could’ve had to craft the perfect victor.

Nothing would go wrong and sure the nightmares and the guilt are a bitch to have after, it was worth the glory you get as a Victor.

His mother as an engineer inside the Mountain made good money and they never lacked for anything except adventure thanks to her, but they are meant for more than some 9 to 5 job they’ll hate or worse as a peacekeeper in fuck knows where for the next 20 years.

Baby Gina’s grandparents refuse to let him see her thinking Laurie’s too irresponsible for their daughter, but once he wins, he can tell them to shove it.

No one says no to a Victor.

He gets the house next door, has his own fame and money and, if he wants, a Capitol girlfriend like he’s heard some victors do.

And while Laurie is paraded about and trained for the Games, Jack finds himself bored out of his fucking mind. So bored he sneaks out of his floor and explores the other ones.

Mentors are given free access to everything in the towers, he can go anywhere even the pool outside and the terrace upstairs. But Lyme’s adamant about not leaving him with Brutus and ordered him to go to 10’s floor while she and Clemens Whimsiwick ---the Escort for 10--- talk in the balcony.

It’s not so bad, the escort is the only person here ballsy enough to have weed on him. Not all escorts are part of the Whimsiwick Dairy Dynasty and friends with Snow’s own niece. Helps that weed originated in 10 and the best one is sourced from there.

Jack’s tried to quit his habit, but after his games he needed it to keep himself together.

No one tells you that after you win you get nightmares and strange triggers for the rest of your life. Jack hadn’t been able to sleep after the parade yesterday, the roaring crowds and the fireworks had him covering his ears and even given him a tremor in his sword hand.

While training with Laurie he got flashbacks to all the kids he killed and called him by the name of the kid from 7.

Clemens smoked recreationally like most Capitol citizens. Only he didn’t balk at it and didn’t mind sharing when asked like his new Escort who panicked. Great guy, very unlike his Escort, Charis.

Jack isn’t sure how to ask him, he was not his friend or any guy his age and while he wouldn’t rat him out, he’d chew him out for assuming he’d be dealing drugs because he’s black and assigned to 10. The 18-year-old had seen Clem do it to Brutus who warned Jack about him at the Parade.

If whatever he has to talk to Lyme about ends early, he might ask him. Or better yet, he could snoop around and find his stash.

“You’re on the wrong floor, bud.” The girl from 10 lounges on the couch flipping through the channels and eating popcorn with her Avox.

The Avox upon seeing they have a visitor leaves the sofa and leaves with a scared look in her face. She was from 10, the woman had the same dark hair and dark eyes and feeling everyone in their district has.

Jack wouldn’t have cared if she was breaking protocol, he’s never been like that. Granny and his mom had raised him better than that.

“I thought training was mandatory.” He threw back knowing she wouldn’t rat him out.

She was prettier up close, not even wearing makeup and had her hair up in a messy bun and she looked like the other pretty girls in his district.

“Not if you strained your ankle. Trainer said I get the day off; I’m thinking of saying it still hurts tomorrow so I can spend the rest of the week here on this couch.” The girl points at the bandaged foot propped up on pillows. “Name’s Eva, by the way.”

“Jack.” Jack knows he is Iacobus, the Golden Boy from 2, but he fucking hates his name.

Just the Capitol way of saying Jacob. It wouldn’t have killed his mom to name him fucking Jacob instead of naming him after the man who is technically his dad.

The sperm donor had been Iacobus, winner of the 12th Hunger Games who died of a brain tumor at age forty. He had been the first Career Tribute, spent his entire life training for his big moment and won with a sword just like Jack did.

And because he had been born first, Jack received his name even though Laurie was the one engineered to be the next Iacobus. Luckily, the man had a half-brother named Laurentius.

“I know, you told Ceasar to call you that in your interview last September.” The girl says as if he was some acquaintance and not the Capitol’s newest golden boy.

He had a fan club, girls who thought him hot in school but never worked the courage to ask him out or got rejected by him or that rejected him in favor of Laurie had started the first one. There were more, in the Capitol and in the career districts.

To have this girl here act like he’s just some fucking guy was interesting.

“Are you just gonna stand there until your babysitter comes back or are you gonna sit your ass down and smell the roses?” she asks, returning her attention to the television where she settles on a morning show doing a cooking segment with a recipe from her district.

“So that’s what you’re doing?” Jack takes the place beside her. “Smelling the roses?”

“I’m shit at fighting and won’t have a mentor to get me gifts, I’ll be lucky to survive the bloodbath.” she answered bluntly.

“Your mentor survived like that, running and hiding.” Jack points out. He doesn’t know if he should mention that Laurie claims she’s an expert at foraging and basic first aid.

“My brothers didn’t.” Eva looks straight ahead with a gone expression. “At least, my mamá won’t see me die, she’s dead too.”

Jack has not a fucking clue what to respond to that except with ‘sorry for your loss.’

“Laurie says you’re good with healing and foraging, if I asked him and Tullia, they could save you a spot in the career pack.” And because now he feels bad and wished shit could be different, he suggests that.

“I’d rather you didn’t, with all the attention he’s giving me at the training center it would make it worse.” Because he may have to kill me or me him, he can guess that is what she is thinking.

Why did the games have to be a fight to the death? Why did he have to make friends with people he --- and now Laurie--- have to kill?

“Some even started to call him my boyfriend.” Eva adds with embarrassment and Jack makes a face.

“He has a girl back home, and a kid, Gina.” Leave it to Laurie to romance a girl Jack found hot.

Sometimes he thought his twin did it on purpose, jealous that Jack was the one always winning first place in every contest, that he and Katie got along better, you know dumb petty normal sibling shit. Everyone always pitted them against each other no matter how close they were.

Especially the girls back home.

“Don’t worry, I don’t like him that way. I think getting romantically involved with the guy who’s most likely to kill you is probably the worst idea ever.” Her somberness leaves and she relaxed enough to joke about it.

“Please, he wouldn’t do it. Tullia would, has a crush on the two of us and designated you as enemy number one ‘cause I said you were hot when we were watching the reapings.” Jack has never cared about minding his words and now that he’s untouchable, Katie’s said he’s worse.

Eva doesn’t look at him, but her pout turns to a tiny cat-like smile as she rolls her brown eyes at his words.

“If you’re one of those girls who don’t know they’re hot, I wouldn’t buy it, Evie.” He’s studied her a little, seen the similarities between her and other girls back home and concluded that she is one of those cool chicks who have the self-esteem high enough to know they are pretty and smart but aren’t bitches about it. You know, unlike the girls who torment his sister and run his fanclub.

“First you tell me your girl tribute’s gonna kill me because the wonder twins find me hot and now, you’re giving me a nickname.” She finally turns to look at him with a playful look in her eyes.

“C’mon like every guy you’ve dated hasn’t called you that.” If he didn’t know any better, they’d gone from normal talking to half-assed flirting.

What he wouldn’t give to have met her at home. Then he’d have a chance.

“Nope, they’ve all called me Evita just like my girlfriends also have.” The dark-haired girl leans closer causing their hands to touch when they reach for the popcorn at the same time.

“You should say that in your interview, they fucking love seeing diversity or whatever they call it. Juno said she was a lesbian with a girlfriend at home and a bunch of rich lesbians sent her shit.” There’s nothing wrong with giving her pointers, he is a mentor.

“You speak nicely about the girl who tried to gut you like a fish.” The girl points out, still wary about him. That would help her, be too trusting and you’re dead in seconds.

“Wasn’t personal.” He shrugs off the nightmares he has when Juno still hunts him down in the flooded subway and wins.

She had tried to corner him, wait until he was tired from killing the others and woozy from blood loss and whatever diseases were in the bugs and swamp water, but Jack was stronger, born to kill and trained for it since he was ten.

He hadn’t wanted to, but it had to be done. As June had said as she swung the poleaxe at him, “It isn’t personal.”

“I suppose at the end of the day it isn’t.” Evie likely doesn’t mean to look at him like that, leaning on his shoulder as it sinks in how dire her situation is.

He wants to kiss her.

And he does, she doesn’t pull away or stop him as he leans down kiss her like he’d kiss a girl back home.

“Sorry, probably the last thing you wanted.” Jack pulls away even if he can tell she doesn’t want him to stop either.

“You don’t know that.” The girl says softly and this time she’s the one kissing him. It’s sad and sweet, desperate to feel anything other than dread and doom.

Neither want to stop, neither do.

By the time Clemens and Lyme returned from the balcony, they’d managed to get all the way to second base. They would’ve gone all the way had they been allowed the time, she seemed to want it as badly as he did.

For a moment they’d been two horny teenagers trying to get each other off instead of the guy who’s mentoring the person who might have to kill her.

They’d be in more trouble if it had been his escort and someone who wasn’t Lyme, but all they get is the usual scolding he’d get at home for this sort of thing. A small blessing, Jack didn’t want his mother hearing of this or being sentenced to die of boredom at 2’s floor.

But unless Lyme chains him to a chair, there was nothing going to stop him from seeing Eva again.

#jack nelson fanfic #hunger games au #eva smith #jack x eva #they didn't know we were seeds

6 notes · View notes

denimbex1986 · 10 months

Text

'GamesRadar+ verdict: 4.5 stars

A near-perfect end to the Doctor's 60th anniversary adventures. David Tennant and Catherine Tate bow out of the series in an often jaw-dropping episode that points the way to a bright new future for Doctor Who. Allons-y!

Doctor Who's trilogy of 60th anniversary specials comes to an end with The Giggle, the biggest and, by quite some way, the boldest episode of this show for many years. There's a returning enemy, a global threat, and a long-awaited regeneration - but that's just the half of it.

In some ways these episodes have mimicked the structure of returning showrunner Russell T Davies' seasons past. The Star Beast was a fun and frothy family adventure reminiscent of season-openers like Rose or Partners In Crime. Last week's Wild Blue Yonder recalled the show's mid-season turns to the weird in episodes like Midnight. The Giggle, then, is a classic RTD season finale, epic in scale, with wild swings of tone and mood, big ideas, UNIT battles - and a dance.

Wild Blue Yonder ended with a touching reunion with Bernard Cribbins' Wilfred Mott. It was, sadly, the only scene the Doctor Who production team were able to film with the beloved actor, though he does make a brief audio cameo this week (in a dialogue sample snatched from season 4 episode The Poison Sky). The Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna (Catherine Tate) have returned to Earth, only to find the planet in chaos caused by the arrival of the Toymaker - played by Neil Patrick Harris with malicious glee. A sinister laugh transmitted through every screen on planet Earth has caused everyone to become convinced that they are always correct, leading to a wave of violence that UNIT are desperately trying to keep in check. To put things right the Doctor and Donna must enter the Toymaker's realm and, quite literally, beat him at his own game.

That's the initial premise, anyway. The Giggle takes many bizarre and surprising twists and turns across its 61 minute run-time, including a visit to Soho in 1925 (which provides the episode with a distinctly creepy image in the laughing form of ventriloquist dummy Stooky Bill) and a memorable raid on the huge new UNIT headquarters (which has strong Avengers Tower vibes and will surely be an easy target in the next alien invasion). It's all leading up to a moment that we've known has been coming for the last 19 months: the regeneration of David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor into Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth incarnation.

As most of you reading this by now will know, there's a lot to talk about there (and if you need a handy recap, we have an in-depth ending explainer right here). For now though, and with our spoiler-free remit in mind, we'll simply say that Gatwa makes an immediately winning first impression: charismatic, funny, and with an edge of unpredictable danger. I can't wait to see where this Doctor goes and what they do next. Thankfully it won't be a long gap, with the show returning on Christmas Day with another special, The Church On Ruby Road.

But let's not forget David Tennant. His reprisal of the role caused many a raised eyebrow in the admittedly easy to wind up world of hardcore Doctor Who fandom, but it may yet prove to be showrunner Davies' canniest choice on returning to the show that he revived all those years ago.

Whatever your thoughts on the quality of the last few years of the show, there's little doubt that it had fallen out of the public imagination somewhat, even if the rumors of its imminent demise from the worst sections of the internet were undoubtedly overblown. Bringing back the most popular actor to ever play the part before handing over to a brand new Doctor, played by a rapidly rising talent, was both a smart headline-grabbing action and a chance to find new shades in both Tennant and Tate's performances.

Because, while the Fourteenth Doctor is, in many ways, simply an older version of the Tenth, that difference in age and experience is important, as The Giggle makes clear. This Doctor runs as fast as ever, but they're sadder and more care-worn. They've been bruised by the events of the Flux, which left half the universe destroyed (what seemed at the time to be a dangling loose thread, now beautifully woven into the Doctor's character), and by everything else that has happened to them over the course of, for Donna, 15 years and for the Doctor, literal aeons. Crucially, they're willing to give up everything to protect their companion. OK, so the Doctor was never afraid of self-sacrifice, but there's something more than that here. "It's not about me," Donna says at one point, and Tennant's "Oh yes it is!" is said with desperate conviction. This was never simply a lap of glory for Tennant, but a chance to round out the character that made him a household name in the UK.

Tate, too, is fantastic. Donna has also aged, but she's only grown warmer, wiser, and more determined. A scene where she faces off against one of the Toymaker's traps is laugh out loud funny as she unflappably deals with a monster in a wonderfully straightforward way.

Elsewhere, Neil Patrick Harris makes for a wonderfully sinister villain - by turns camp, silly, and genuinely terrifying. A handful of throwaway lines may hint at bigger threats to come (and perhaps the return of another old enemy), but there's something unknowable, strange, and - as the Doctor puts it - "elemental" about this character. They invoked superstition in last week's episode and now here they are, tussling with what is effectively a god. This is Doctor Who played on a grand and mythic scale.

Not everything works perfectly. The Vlinx, a surprising new bit of UNIT tech, is left unexplained for now and strikes an oddly goofy note in the episode. The nature of the giggle itself offers Davies the chance to make some pointed statements about the state of our world, but fades into the background as soon as the Doctor and the Toymaker meet. And while the episode looks generally pretty amazing, there are some spotty VFX in places. But so it always was with Doctor Who, a show that never let a lack of time or money stop it from going to places much bigger shows would never dare.

These are small quibbles in an instalment that marks a near-perfect cap on a trilogy of episodes that have been simply a joy to watch these last three weeks, and which point to a blazing future for Doctor Who, one that feels genuinely unpredictable and unmissable again. Farewell David and Catherine. Welcome Ncuti! Next stop: everywhere.'

5 notes · View notes

bopinion · 2 years

Text

2023 / 04

Aperçu of the Week:

“The person who says it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person doing it.”

(Chinese proverb)

Bad News of the Week:

Two of the most serious terrorist attacks in Europe in recent times happened in France. On November 13, 2015, 130 people died in Paris, and on July 14, 2016, 86 died in Nice. In the first case, the perpetrators were about a dozen terrorists heavily armed with automatic rifles and well prepared. In the second case, a single man with a truck. What I'm getting at is that it's not just the U.S. stereotype of easy access to firearms that is dangerous to the population. With the appropriate criminal or extremist energy, even a vehicle can become a deadly weapon. Or a knife, as everyone has in their kitchen.

That's exactly what happened in Europe this week. Twice. In northern Germany near Hamburg, two young people were killed Wednesday on a regional train, and five others were injured. In southern Spain on Thursday, one was killed and three injured in front of a church. What makes the whole thing more horrific than the comparatively low number of victims are two backgrounds that are virtually identical for both perpetrators - of course they were men.

Both have a migration background, originating from Palestine and Morocco respectively. Neither of them succeeded in integrating into society, and a variety of difficulties are on record. And both were under police surveillance. The terrorist in Germany had been released from prison only six days earlier; his record in this country includes numerous violent crimes; nothing is known about him before that. The offender in Spain is said to be increasingly radicalized; his deportation proceedings have been underway for six months. This is grist to the mill of all those who take to the streets and shout cheap slogans against migration. After all, both acts seem to prove their pseudo-arguments right.

Hardly anyone in this world should have as much experience with "collective guilt" as we Germans. And this is exactly what people from the Middle East know here as well as those from the Maghreb in Spain. If in any public bus in Europe there is a seat free next to a visibly "not from here" passenger and one next to a compatriot, statistically 95% will sit next to the latter, even if the seat is further away. And most of them would describe themselves as tolerant and open-minded and reject prejudice with honest indignation. The nasty term "latent racism" is unpopular but widely spread.

And that is precisely the point about migration. This can only be successful if both sides work at it. Integration is a debt to be discharged by those who, for whatever reason, are looking for a new home. And likewise for the environment that takes him in. It has to accept them, because without migration nothing would work anymore. Anyone who doubts this should take a look at those who work, for example, in garbage collection, cleaning crews or nursing services. These are precisely the jobs that are never on the list when children are asked what they want to exercise as profession as adults.

Successful integration is therefore a win-win situation. And it is especially important for the survival of an aging society. I wish so much for more curiosity than reservations. Tea and coffee, apples and cherries, jazz and tango, pepper and parsley, cotton and silk, potatoes and rice, pizza and kebab would all be unknown to us if we were not open to new and foreign things.

Good News of the Week:

60 years of the Élysée Treaty. Even if the Franco-German engine sometimes sputters a little, it still runs quite well. Or as Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire says: "It's running very well. Contrary to what I hear here and there, the engine is working!" Or to stay with the metaphor, Renault and Volkswagen's platform strategy is a functional basis for the European mobility project.

At the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron called on Germany to become "pioneers of the refoundation of our Europe" together with France. This role belongs to the two neighboring states, he said, because they walked the path of reconciliation together after World War II. Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, François Mitterand and Helmut Kohl, Jacques Chirac and Angela Merkel - without the hand of the two largest countries on the European continent, there would be neither the European Union nor the Euro.

This must never be forgotten in the minutiae of everyday political life: Europe can only do well if the Franco-German partnership does well. Especially when the British have decided - once again - to take their island status literally. This is an appeal that I would particularly like to make to Olaf Scholz. Because Emmanuel Macron has long since understood what his German counterpart is still struggling with: positioning himself between U.S. expectations and Russian detachment as the only thing that objectively makes sense. Namely, to lead Europe together.

It fits into the picture that Henri will be joining us next week. A French exchange student from near Paris. This reminds me of the background of my own youthful experience abroad. It even lasted a year, took me to French Canada three and a half decades ago, and still shapes me today. The organization was and is called the American Field Service. A charity that cared for the wounded on the battlefield in both world wars - whether friend or foe. Then they had the idea, as simple as it was brilliant, that it would be easier for everyone involved if there were no wars at all.

How to do that? By promoting intercultural understanding. Those who know and understand other peoples will probably think twice before they want to fight them. Works. Really. "It's not better or worse. It's just different." was our motto back then. Or just in French, "Ce n'est pas mieux ou pire. C'est juste different." If you look benevolently at the other, you will always find more things that unite you than divide you. If the former hereditary enemies France and Germany can manage that, nothing is impossible.

Personal happy moment of the week:

Okay, I'll try: I figured out why our clothes dryer stopped working properly. My daughter narrowly avoided a more serious accident with her bike on the slick road the day before yesterday. Defrosting the freezer succeeded without flooding. My son's last five grades at school are A's four times and a B once. At work, I finally finished a pesky major project... I suspect that I need to eat more chocolate, that one of these aspects will manage to make me truly happy.

I couldn't care less...

...that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is facing opposition to her idea of a tribunal under Ukrainian law with international judges. After all, she is the highest-ranking politician who is thinking aloud about how Vladimir Putin could also be held criminally accountable for his war of aggression, which violates international law. What else would remain? There is the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, but that court, by statute, can only hear cases in which the plaintiff and defendant are members of the court or a case is referred by the United Nations Security Council. Russia is not part of the Court and, as a permanent member with veto power in the UN Security Council, can and will block a referral to the Court. Alternatively, we can only hope for biology: Putin is 70 years old. The life expectancy of Russian men is currently 68.

As I write this...

...I already have a suggestion for the misname of the year: "Panzerwende". Meaning "tank turnaround". Meaning the western allies, who after long hesitation now want to deliver so-called battle tanks to Ukraine. I don't see a turnaround. Just another step on the way to give an innocent country the equipment it needs to defend itself more effectively against the aggressor.

Post Scriptum

This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the "Doomsday Clock" forward. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight - the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been. Mainly though not exclusively because of the rising dangers of the war over Ukraine. Since the scientists base their assessment not only on the nuclear issue, but also on other negative factors mankind is confronted with. So the omnipresent polycrisis. The clock is ticking.

4 notes · View notes

anotheruserwithnoname · 2 years

Text

I got a PM asking my opinions on the Who finale tonight. Didn’t watch it; preferred to play Grand Theft Auto Online with my dad who lives by himself 700 km away, and one of the cable nets is running an Austin Powers marathon. Both those were of more interest to me, tbh. I have read detailed spoiler synopses and the like, so I do have a few comments (naturally after a spoiler break, and it’s wordy):

* Many of us predicted the outcome of the regeneration, including Tennant doing his signature “What what what?”

* Gatwa gets a brief appearance in the trailer for an episode that may not air for more than a year. I stand by my Matt Smith vibes assessment.

* There’s quite a bit of buzz about the return of Tennant, especially those who never saw all the media reports in the spring and were caught by surprise. Or assumed it would be Gatwa, with Tennant’s ep being a flashback or something. Not all of it is positive, but whatever. I’d prefer to have seen this announced as the Christmas 2022 special, rather than in November 2023.

* Some people are outraged over an apparent retcon in the episode (The Timeless Children stands in the corner, pointing at itself and grinning like Jerry Lewis on speed; oh, we will get to you in a moment, Skippy). The retcon is allegedly that there was a romance between Tegan and Nyssa. Uh ... it’s only a retcon really if it actually happened on screen. I remember the Peter Davison era vividly and there was nothing of the sort; if anything, it more strongly implied that Nyssa and Five were soft on each other (something I think was reflected in some Big Finish audios). Maybe something happened in a novel or a Big Finish I’m unaware of, but TV canon still takes precedence so I really can’t see people being worked up about something that didn’t happen on screen. Especially given Nyssa doesn’t even appear (and they apparently never bother explaining how Ace and Tegan teamed up, and they probably had forgotten about A Charitable Earth from Sarah Jane Adventures).

* Apparently a bunch of old companions and even Classic Era Doctors (but notably, not modern era - Tennant notwithstanding) appeared in cameos, including 97-year-old William Russell reprising Ian (unavoidably in the process retconning another Sarah Jane Adventures story that said he hadn’t aged a day since the 60s, assuming they didn’t de-age William). That’s all cool, but it should have been saved for the 60th. I’ve seen a few people say now that it smacked of dangling memberberries to try and win people back, and I can’t disagree. Mind you, the exact same thing can be said for the return of Tennant, so...

* Apparently at one point in the special the Master (played again by Sacha Dhawan) does something that results in him briefly becoming the Doctor. There’s apparently a charged moment between him and one of the outgoing companions that had some folks saying HE should have played the actual Doctor. I’ve been saying that since he played pioneering DW director Waris Hussein in An Adventure in Space and Time.

* As a result of that plot twist, it’ll be interesting to see how the numbering works out - is the Master!Doctor the true 14th? Is Tennant playing the 14th, making Gatwa the 15th? Or will he be the 16th? Or because of Timeless Children (I see you still grinning in the corner, Skippy) will RTD abandon the notion of counting altogether and every Doctor going forward will be officially unnumbered like the War Doctor (and the Journey’s End-regenerated 10th Doctor who technically was the 11th but has never been called that)?

* Not sure where they’re getting it from but I’ve heard some people suggest there are clues within the Next Time trailer hinting at some sort of retcon of The Timeless Child (which is still standing in a corner, but with its grin fast fading, now; run along now, Skippy; if an official retcon doesn’t get you, fanon will). There will never be consensus on the 2017 casting decision, and if the stories of the now-ended era sucked, well, other eras had stories that did, too (Season 22 nearly killed DW back in 1985, and Series 10 in 2017 was far from Moffat at his best either). Timeless Children is one of only a few things of this era that cannot be left to stand. Apparently they screwed around with how regeneration works too in this episode.

Anyway, I hear there are a lot of people upset tonight, either because certain agenda items were skipped over on the to-do list, or they aren’t fond of the 2022 casting decision (Tennant and/or Gatwa), or because the story was just ... there. Fact is, the era has ended. Some fans will exit now, and others will join or rejoin. That’s how it always happens, though the sense was the quit/join ratio was a bit out of whack this past era, with substantial attrition. The challenge Russell T Davies faces now is winning back those who jumped ship in 2017 or (more profoundly) after the Timeless Children episode, which marked the point where the show’s ratings really fell into a sinkhole, while also trying to keep as many fans as possible who came on for the now-ended era. That may be a bit of a trick; I saw a tweet from someone calling the casting of Tennant “misogyny.” It’s funny, if people had used terms like “misandry” back in July 2017, they’d have been run off the Internet on a rail.

Whatever, it’s done and over with. I remain undecided if I will be among those who RTD is able to win back. The return of Tennant has piqued interest, but I really don’t want to just nibble on the memberberries only to get indigestion later. I want to see a) what Gatwa brings to the table; b) how RTD handles the Doctor - does he still have the touch or will he crash and burn? (Note I’m talking RTD here; Gatwa, as with his predecessors, will work with what he’s given to work with - far as we know he’s not writing for the show); c) and the quality of the stories RTD and his team come up with. It may be a case of me watching the season after it airs. (So it could be 2 years before I get around to seeing it.) Lots can happen in 2 years.

But the memories I take away from the past 5 years are pretty negative. I went from loving the Who franchise to the point where I compiled a 2,000-page chronology of the show’s history and wrote some 75 fanfics, to the point where I had no interest in watching an era’s finale, have saved thousands of dollars in merch I have not bought over the past half-decade (not a negative - that money had other uses), and even the fanfic writing has become something I’m less enthused about than I used to be. Maybe RTD and Tennant/Gatwa will be able to rekindle that spirit (even if Timeless Child - who right now has left that corner and is running down the block at a cheetah’s pace - isn’t retconned away). Time will tell, a wise man once said. It always does.

#doctor who 60th speculation #doctor who future speculation #doctor who bbc centenery spoilers #doctor who spoilers #certain names and episode titles are omitted from these tags per blog policy

1 note · View note

nutellablues · 2 years

Text

Ayato + Haran Haver!

I have previously shared my savings for ayato's banner (and the untouched schips in tears of themis bcs the anniv has yet to come) here:

For genshin, here we are folks! After saving 160+ fates and from my 11 pity I was able to make my Jean C3, get 1 copy of Ayato (wow March celebrants) and Ayato's weapon which is the Haran Geppaku Futsu.

So here how the pulls went:

I started from 11 pity then tried to do 2 multis and got an early 5 star, unfortunately I didn't win the 50/50 and got Jean which made her C3 (wow this girl really loves me) well that's an early and I have more for Ayato. This man got me disappointed because he came home at the 79th pull (or 80 I cannot really remember) which is pain pain.

I pulled Ayato on his release day, then on April fools (Hi hello its today~ but this post ain't a joke ok) I contemplated on pulling for the Haran because my crit rate/dmg ratio is meh for Ayato and I don't wan to use Harbinger of Dawn for him (because that wep has a sub stat of crit rate) and I need more crit rate for this man!

So.. I gambled all that's left and I'm like okay.. I am going to accept whatever is gonna come home (because hoyoverse lowkey gives me only the skyward series painnn) may it be the WGS or the Aquila Favonia or the Amos Bow etc. Then at the 50th - 60th ish it glowed gold I'm like welp its the Elegy bow again low hopes lesgo.

but then... FINALLY ITS A SWORD ITS HARAN

In Summary:

I got an Early Jean, Ayato and Haran (plus a Mona on the standard but I aint proud of that because I rarely use Mona) with all of the 100+ worth of primogems

anw

I Hope Ayato Wanters Will Be Ayato Havers!

ps I seriously didn't expect the haran to come home because that weapon banner is a trap and I got scammed during homa summoning session.

pps. I am free to play and I hope that f2p players will make a wise decision when pulling especially on the weapon banner. I just did pull because I will not be pulling on 2.7 update (its a skip) so primos will be left untouched and I just want ayato's signa wep so bad.

#genshin #genshin impact #ayato #kamisato ayato #jean #mona #mihoyo #hoyoverse #hydro #ayato kamisato #xiangling #haran

3 notes · View notes

allihearisradiogaga · 3 years

Text

I posted 251 times in 2021

9 posts created (4%)

242 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 26.9 posts.

I added 99 tags in 2021

#re - 35 posts

#hades - 13 posts

#gpoy - 10 posts

#haikyuu - 9 posts

#pokemon - 9 posts

#i love - 7 posts

#ffxv - 4 posts

#dnd - 4 posts

#infected au - 4 posts

#voltron - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 75 characters

#but i watched the start of the show and i forgot how much i love invincible

My Top Posts in 2021

here's how alive steve burnside can stil win

2 notes • Posted 2021-05-10 23:03:31 GMT

I love the fall

6 notes • Posted 2021-09-26 17:32:30 GMT

Zinnia - [Haikyuu!!] Iwaizumi/Oikawa (T) - alien!Oikawa AU

CHAPTER 7 (6.8k)

Iwaizumi takes Oikawa to the beach for a day of summer fun.

See the full post

9 notes • Posted 2021-06-27 03:22:28 GMT

I remembered I can wear whatever I want in my own house so

See the full post

15 notes • Posted 2021-03-03 01:48:31 GMT

I Never Knew You Could Hold Moonlight

Lunafreya/Noctis fake dating AU

Noctis is returning home from college for his father's 60th birthday party, and he's afraid of disappointing him. So in a panic, he says he'll bring his girlfriend back with him, which only leads to one problem: he does not have a girlfriend. His childhood friend Lunafreya agrees to accompany him and pretend to be his girlfriend for the weekend, but as they navigate their time together, both begin to wonder how much they really are pretending.

Words: 19,117

Rating: T (language, minor character death)

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31244807

illustration by mirisprouts on twitter

Created as a part of the LuNoct Big Bang 2021.

21 notes • Posted 2021-05-12 19:59:49 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #Long post

1 note · View note

tabloidtoc · 3 years

Text

Entertainment Weekly, May

Cover 1 of 3: The 2021 Oscars Issue -- Viola Davis

Page 2: Contents, the other covers with Chloe Zhao and Regina King

Page 6: Cold Open -- a bunch of random jibberish I can't even begin to classify

Page 16: The Must List -- The Underground Railroad

Page 18: The Department of Truth, The Mosquito Coast

Page 19: The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, Together Together

Page 20: Jakob's Wife, Frank of Ireland Q&A with Brian and Domhnall Gleeson

Page 22: Role Call -- Josh Duhamel

Page 23: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, Resident Evil Village

Page 24: My Must List -- Brian Tyree Henry

Page 27: Oscars 2021

Page 28: The Race Is On

Page 29: Dick Johnson Is Dead

Page 30: The Powerhouse -- with her record-breaking best actress nod for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Viola Davis proves she's Oscar royalty

Page 33: Riz Ahmed -- the Sound of Metal star on inhabiting a demanding role, and how the film uses sound to take the audience on his character's harrowing journey

Page 34: The Revelation -- Right after winning an Academy Award for her acting, Regina King directed her debut feature film, One Night in Miami to three Oscar nominations. Is there anything this woman can't do?

Page 38: The Front-Runner -- Chloe Zhao has already made Oscars history, now the Nomadland director is poised for a triumphant finish

Page 41: Carey Mulligan -- the Promising Young Woman nominee reveals how she broke the film's tension with costar Bo Burnham by singing a rendition of Paris Hilton's Stars Are Blind

Page 43: Original Screenplay -- The Trial of the Chicago 7

Page 44: Around the Table -- Making History -- how four of this year's Oscar-nominated films radically confront and reframe Black history in America -- Judas and the Black Messiah, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, One Night in Miami and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Page 45: Maria Bakalova -- how the Bulgarian breakout unleashed her inner wild child and found her character's heart during a pivotal scene in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Page 46: 5-Minute Oral History -- West Side Story -- in honor of its 60th anniversary, stars Rita Moreno and George Chakiris look back on their 1962 Oscar wins

Page 49: Daniel Kaluuya -- the two-time Oscar nominee on the power and responsibility of taking on revolutionary icon Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah

Page 52: Fire Starter -- how Angelina Jolie blazed a trail with Taylor Sheridan for the upcoming firefighting film Those Who Wish Me Dead, her first action film in more than a decade

Page 56: Romancing the Screen -- record breaker Bridgerton proved the power that love could have on the small screen. By satisfying audiences' pent-up lust, it became a cultural phenomenon: spawning a TikTok musical, landing star Rene-Jean Page an SNL hosting gig, and catapulting Julia Quinn's 20-year-old source material to the top of the New York Times best-seller list for the very first time, but will the Bridgerton Effect make Hollywood finally fall in love with romance novels?

Page 60: Demi's New Groove -- after detailing her harrowing 2018 overdose in a recent documentary, Demi Lovato returns with a newfound sense of stability and her first album of new material in four years

Page 66: Stand Up & Step Up -- For EW's Around the Table, Chloe Bennet, Dianne Doan, Daniel Dae Kim, Hari Kondabolu, Olivia Munn and George Takei discuss the rise violence against Asians, their experience as Asian artists, and how Hollywood can help crush stereotypes and be more inclusive

Page 70: News + Reviews

Page 71: TV -- whatever happened to the Men of Tomorrow? Everywhere you look there are supermen behaving badly. Is this a bold new era in superhero storytelling or cheap cynicism on steroids?

Page 77: Movies -- Bad Romance -- Amanda Seyfried and James Norton talk about their tragically doomed marriage in Things Heard and Seen

Page 78: Women Who Kick Ass -- Jodie Turner-Smith -- she's got a juicy role opposite Michael B. Jordan in Without Remorse and will lead Netflix's upcoming The Witcher prequel. Meet Hollywood's most exciting new action star

Page 79: Childlike Wonder -- David Oyelowo goes behind the camera for his mystical directorial debut The Water Man

Page 80: Three provocative new indies explore the beauty and pain of contemporary romance -- Monday, Hope, The Killing of Two Lovers

Page 81: My Favorite Shot, Oscars edition -- Tom Hooper in The King's Speech -- the filmmaker revisits a scene on the tenth anniversary of Speech's four Oscar wins, including Best Picture and Director

Page 82: Parental Guidance -- your crib sheet on the best entertainment for kids, from toddlers to tweens -- Q&A with Danny McBride -- the Righteous Gemstone shines in The Mitchells vs. the Machines as a luddite dad trying to save the world and his family

Page 84: TV -- First Look -- Never Have I Ever -- the comedy's second season is bringing in the big guns, casting Common as Nalini's love interest

Page 85: License to Thrill -- after smashing the charts with Drivers License, Olivia Rodrigo is ready for her High School Musical: The Musical: The Series character to follow in her footsteps in season 2

Page 86: Cruel Summer

Page 87: The Transformation -- Oh, Boy! It took five years, but Nasim Pedrad's new TBS comedy Chad has finally made it to TV. Here, Pedrad details her transformation into an awkward 14-year-old boy

Page 88: The Nevers

Page 89: First Look -- Solos -- from creator David Weil, this futuristic anthology series explores the depths of human connection through the lens of eight remote characters

Page 90: First Look -- Hacks -- after four decades in showbiz, Jean Smart is living out some Hollywood dreams in her new series

* Strike a Final Pose -- FX is about to say goodbye to its her-story-making Pose. Here's why season 3 offered a proper ending

Page 91: Global Viewing -- these three series all debuting on Earth Day offer new insights into nature and science, with a little help from David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg and Sigourney Weaver: Life in Color with David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World, Secrets of Whales

Page 94: What to Watch

Page 98: Music -- Hungry Heart -- after a devastating 2018, Eric Church left Nashville and made his favorite project ever which is the three-part Heart & Soul in a restaurant

Page 100: Bebe Rexha

* My Hometown -- Saweetie by the Bay -- the My Type rapper makes hella sure to add a little bit of California into everything she makes

Page 101: Greta Van Fleet

Page 102: Jhay Cortez -- meet the 28-year-old who co-wrote Cardi B's I Like It, and whose sophomore album Timelezz drops later this year

Page 104: Books -- Seoul Food -- singer-turned-author Michelle Zauner, who goes by the moniker Japanese Breakfast, paints a vivid portrait of identity, loss, and a mother's love in her memoir Crying in H Mart

Page 106: Pop Culture of My Life -- Leslie Jordan -- the actor and Instagram star is releasing a new essay, How Y'all Doing? Here, he divulges his own Southern charm

Page 108: The Air Up There -- with Great Circle, best-selling novelist Maggie Shipstead puts a smartly feminist spin on the old-fashioned adventure tale

Page 109: A Lot Like Love -- in the short-story collection Love in Color, British-Nigerian author Bolu Babalola smashes the patriarchy of the classic folktale

Page 111: Broken Horses: A Memoir by Brandi Carlile

Page 112: The Bullseye

15 notes · View notes

lifesabe-ch · 4 years

Text

this means war - billy r. and frank c. (part 6)

summary: this is a spin off from a movie (can anyone find the title? ;) starring Billy Russo and Frank Castle. In this AU, Billy isn’t a psycho, Frank’s family is alive, and they both really like coffee. And, y’know, Y/N.

pairings: Frank Castle x Reader, Billy Russo x Reader (actually both of them, i promise)

warnings: fragile male ego and sass

a/n: hi i’m admin A, aka @pitaparka, and this is my first post on this blog! we’ve been co-writing this for a while so it just seemed logical for me to hop on here as an admin! I probably won’t be doing any individual writing here (i write independently on my above blog, so if you like this blog, you should check that one out too ;), but if we’re doing any co-writing, it’ll probably be here. that’s all for now. later!

PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4, PART 5

Billy accidentally locked the door to his apartment trying to get in from work. Which was concerning, considering he locked it this morning. If he could bet money on whether or not Frank was sitting on his couch—

He would have been wrong. Frank was sitting at his breakfast counter. Eating pizza.

Billy sighed loudly, “Did you at least save me some?”

Frank doesn’t even look over his shoulder as he slides the pizza box over to the empty seat next to him.

Billy drops his keys on the counter, tosses his suit jacket there too, and loosens his tie before sitting down next to Frank.

“Mushroom and sausage,” he says, his eyes trained on the news playing on Billy’s television.

They sit there silently eating pizza together.

“I saw Y/N today.” Billy says. He can almost see Frank’s ears perk up.

“At work?”

“No. The coffee shop. I dropped by, you know, to see her.”

Frank nodded.

Grinning, Billy nodded, “We’re going on date. Our first date, already.” He gets up from the breakfast bar to wipe off his hands.

Quirking a brow, Frank chuckled, “Good for you man. Good for you.”

“Yeah. How are you two doing?”

“We already had a date.”

Watching as the grin immediately fell from Billy’s face, he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What? When?”

“Last night.”

“No… you went on my date?”

“Your date?” Frank scoffed, sipping the beer he had in his hand, as he watched Billy pace. “It was my date, asshole. One too many hits to the head today?”

“I—You… That was my date!” Billy says, leaning on the breakfast bar.

“So why weren’t you on it?”

“W-what?” Billy asked. He takes a second to process it. “I was… at a meeting.”

“Sure. At eight o’clock at night?”

“Yes, at eight o’clock at night.”

Frank shot him a look.

“Some people have businesses.” He defends.

Frank scoffed, “You have one business, Billy.”

“And you’re getting into my business, so watch it.”

“Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it, Russo? You gonna—”

“We need some rules.”

“Huh?” Frank asks. He gives Billy a look like Billy’s seen many times before. It basically slaps him upside the head and asks him how much he’s had to drink already. He retreats to the fridge to grab a beer. Get an early start on the night ahead of him.

“What the hell are you on about, man?” Frank asks. He leans over the box and grabs another slice of pizza.

“I don’t think we should tell her that we know each other.” Billy says. Frank looks at him.

“What, like, stay out of each other’s way?” Frank takes the remote and turns the volume down on the TV.

“Yeah. Just let her decide.”

“We’re already letting her decide,” Frank clarifies.

“No, I mean… no interruptions.”

Billy watches as Frank contemplates this whole thing.

“Billy, you know you’re like a brother to me, man.”

He rolls his eyes, “Don’t do this—”

“No no no, I mean, I don’t want this… whatever this is to mess us up, okay?”

“Listen,” Billy starts, “have we ever let a girl come between us before?”

“We’ve never liked the same girl before.”

“I’m just saying… If things get too tense, we can both back off, okay?”

Frank shakes his head. He lets out a sigh.

“So we’re not getting in each other’s way.”

“No, Billy, we aren’t.”

“That pretty much settles it?”

“Yeah.”

Frank closed the pizza box, signifying the end of the conversation.

“How was my date?” Billy asked, taking a drink from his beer.

“You mean my date.” Frank clarified, turning up the TV a little bit.

“Well, I was the one who asked her. And I picked the restaurant. And the time.”

“The restaurant? What restaurant?”

Billy stared at Frank in confusion. “Did you not… wait, where did you go?”

“We went to Tina's Place. Off of 60th. The midnight one.”

“Oh. Why?” Billy picks at the label on his beer bottle that’s already starting to peel with condensation.

“Because we were at the bar down the street.”

“You picked her up at a bar?”

“What does it matter, Russo? You’re losing anyway.”

“Frank, you’re this close to getting kicked out of my apartment. Did you do anything?”

“No, Bill, we sat there and we stared at each other. All night.”

“You know what I’m asking.” Billy deadpanned.

“We kissed.”

“And?”

“And nothin’.” Frank huffed.

“You went on my date and all you did was kiss?” Billy asked, incredulously.

“More than you did,” Frank muttered, loud enough for Billy to understand the mischievous grin on his features.

“Just wait until I get to go on my date, Frankie.” Bill declared, moving to toss the empty pizza box in the trash.

“If you even make it. Maybe I’ll get to go on that one too,” Frank said, chuckling. He gets up and grabs his phone off the kitchen counter. He doesn’t even check it before he slips it into his pocket and makes his way to the door.

“Oh I’m going on this date, Frank. It’s gonna be the best damn date of her life. She’s not even gonna remember who you are.”

“Whatever you say. I’ll see ya tomorrow, Billy,” Frank yells over his shoulder on his way out.

Billy sat, only the company of the TV to keep his apartment from complete silence. As much as he hated coming home to other people in his house, he didn't mind Frank all that much. Especially when he cleaned up after himself. Billy let his own beer bottle clank softly into the trash. He got to work on the dishes that were starting to pile up in his sink. He hated a messy apartment.

With most of his household chores done, he broods on the couch over Frank’s dinner. His dinner, really. A missed opportunity. He wasn’t upset with her. He wasn’t even upset with Frank. He was more upset with himself, getting caught up like that. He fiddled with the remote.

“Dinner. Saturday night. Eight o’clock.”

This was shaping up to be just like the situation he got himself in. He needed to do something else. Something drastic. If this was a race, Frank was winning. But that’s okay. Only for now. Slow and steady, Billy. Slow and steady.

He takes out his phone and sends a text.

Hey, you free Saturday morning instead?

He doesn’t know what to do, so he stares at his phone. He imagines her, rolling her eyes and ignoring him. He cycles through some apps before he gets the notification from her.

uhhhh why?

Billy is awestruck. Why? He doesn’t know how to respond. Everything he comes up with sounds wrong. That’s not how he expected her to respond.

“Because I want to take you for breakfast instead.” He types, but deletes it. That sounds too forward, like he has plans late on he doesn’t want to cancel for her.

“I just want to see you sooner.” Ugh. That’s the wrong side of creepy, not sweet.

He panics. He’s been typing and deleting for almost a minute.

Why not?

He sends.

I’m a coffee man, you know that

He sends again. He stares, and his messages pop up as having been read by her. He lets his fingers do a little dance over the keyboard, waiting to type out a reply.

you got me there

She sends, and Billy smiles at his phone.

Sweet

He sends back, and at the same time, she sends him,

still my place?

Billy ponders for a second. The ball is in his court.

Yeah. 9:30 sound good? He asks.

yup

She shoots back immediately. He locks his phone and tosses it to the side, running his hands over his gelled hair. All is right in the world. But he needed to shower. Just then, he gets one more text.

He thinks it’s Y/N, but it’s not. It’s Frank.

i left my hat at ur house

Billy ignores the message.

“Even when he’s not here, he’s here,” Billy mumbles to himself. He sees Frank’s blue baseball cap sitting lonely under the chair where Frank sat. He ignores that too, in favor of a hot, steamy shower before bed. Frank will come get it eventually. Just not tonight.

tag list (respond to post or send ask to be added!):

@full-of-sins-not-tragedies, @harrysthiccthighss, @constellation---me, @editboutique, @achesiresmile, @ghastlygray, @muddleofmarvel , @starxdame

129 notes · View notes

arcticdementor · 3 years

Link

I’ve been keeping an eye on Europe lately, and on France in particular. As I’ve tried to articulate here previously, the era of general upheaval underway is hardly a phenomenon limited to the United States. Instead, propelled everywhere by the same fundamental forces, it appears to be playing out in a more or less similar fashion all across the Western world, and perhaps beyond. In this regard France serves as an especially instructive example, as recent events have served to highlight in striking fashion.

In short, recent national controversy over a pair of open letters directed to the government by a collection of retired and active-duty military officers has not only spawned a month of political controversy in France, but revealed deeper dynamics at work in the country that may help provide a clearer picture of what’s happening everywhere.

On April 21, twenty retired French generals published an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron and the French government in the right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles (Today’s Values) denouncing “the disintegration that is affecting our country,” and explaining they were speaking out because “the hour is late, France is in peril, and many mortal dangers threaten her.”

…

Initially, the letter was dismissed as mere “eccentric nationalist nostalgia by octogenarian retirees,” as the British Financial Times put it, and the government appeared content to ignore it. The then head of France’s General Directorate for Internal Security, Patrick Calvar, had already warned that France was “on the edge of a civil war” as early as 2016, so this kind of thing was old news. But that changed as soon as Marine Le Pen – the leader of the right-wing Rassemblement National (National Rally) party who polls show is likely to again be Macron’s top rival in presidential elections next year – endorsed the letter, saying “it was the duty of all French patriots, wherever they are from, to rise up to restore – and indeed save – the country.”

Public conversation in France turned to politicization of the armed forces and whether the letter’s final lines were a call for a military coup d'état (the fact that the letter was published on the 60th anniversary of a failed generals’ putsch against President Charles de Gaulle in 1961 providing evidence for this in the view of many). General François Lecointre, armed forces chief of staff, stated that while “at first I said to myself that it wasn’t very significant,” at least 18 active military personnel had been found to have been among the more than 1,500 people who also signed the letter. “That I cannot accept,” he said, because “the neutrality of the armed forces is essential.” They would all be punished, while any of the generals still in the reserves would be forced into full retirement as part of “an exceptional measure, that we will launch immediately at the request of the defense minister.” Still, the government’s ministers emphasized that the signatories were nothing more than an isolated and irrelevant minority in the military.

But soon enough, on May 10, a second letter appeared, again published in Valeurs Actuelles, this time by more than 2,000 serving soldiers writing in support of the first letter’s retired generals, accusing the government of having sullied their reputations when “their only fault is to love their country and to mourn its visible decline.”

…

The second letter, this time open to the public to sign, attracted (as of the end of last week) more than 287,000 signatures.

Again came exasperated reactions from many ministers and observers. But what is most remarkable, in my view, is how little enthusiasm most seemed to have for challenging the basic premises of the letters: that France is in a state of growing fracture and even dissolution. Instead, the focus of controversy was once again on the military taking a political position.

…

But perhaps my favorite example was that of (retired) General Jérôme Pellistrandi, chief editor at the magazine Revue Défense Nationale, who prefaced his otherwise sharp criticism of the outspoken soldiers with: “Everyone agrees that society is breaking up, it’s a known fact, but…”

What was going on here? Since when do government officials reflexively agree that their country is falling apart? Well, it turns out that a rather shockingly high proportion of the French public seems to agree with the sentiments the letters expressed. The following chart, created from the results of a Harris Interactive opinion poll taken April 29, after the first letter, is in my view one of the most striking statements about the political mood in a Western country that you’re likely to see for some time:

…

So, to break this down, not only do 58% of the French public agree with the first letter’s sentiments about the country facing disintegration, but so do nearly half of Macron’s own governing party, the centrist En Marche. Awkward. Nor are those sentiments limited to any one part of the political spectrum, even if the right is more sympathetic overall. Far-left party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon may have quickly declared that the “mutinous and cowardly” soldiers who signed the letter would all be purged from the army if he were elected, but 43% of his party seem to share their concerns.

But that’s not even the whole of it – an amazing 74% of poll respondents said they thought French society was collapsing, while no less than 45% agreed that France “will soon have a civil war.”

…

And, in short, both countries are clearly facing at least one of the defining characteristics of the Upheaval: the collapse of any agreed upon and consistently accepted authority. It is notable that, in both countries (at least until recently) there is only one institution that still garners relatively widespread respect: the military. (And French generals aren’t the only ones trying to capitalize on this with controversial open letters.)

Second, there is the key detail – almost entirely skipped over in the English-language press in favor of focusing on the anti-immigration angle, as far as I’ve seen – of the “anti-racism,” “decolonialism,” and “communitarianism” decried in the two letters as contributing to national dissolution. This is rather unmistakably a reference to the amalgamated, zealously anti-traditional and anti-liberal ideology of the “New Faith” – alternately referred to as Anti-Racism, the Social Justice movement, Critical Theory, identity politics, neo-Marxism, or Wokeness, among other synonymous infamies – that I’ve previously identified as one of the key revolutionary dynamics of our present era.

Let me repeat this proposition again: no revolution has ever remained contained by national borders. The New Faith is a trans-national ideological movement, which can no more remain confined to the United States than it remained confined within the American academy where it matured (it was arguably born in, well… France). And it is more than capable of rapidly adapting itself to and flourishing within whatever national context it penetrates. But, wherever it goes, it’s just as disruptive to the foundations of social and political order.

…

Finally, what’s striking about the situation in France is that every driving factor appears set to only get worse. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the divide between rich and poor; Europe’s economic recovery has been shaky; the ideology of the New Faith is likely to prove more difficult for the French to combat than they expect (the foundation of the established order having been hollowed out over a very long period of time); and the identitarian culture war is likely to only heat up, especially with elections approaching in which Le Pen appears to have a decent chance of actually winning (an outcome that could accelerate political and cultural fracturing, as Donald Trump’s election did in the United States).

…

It is notable that every one of these trends, including climate-induced migration, is featured in the U.S. Intelligence Community’s rather ominous recent report evaluating where the world is headed over the next five years, which I’ve written on previously. (Several readers have written to me to criticize my lack of discussion of climate change as a factor in both that post and my essay introducing the Upheaval – well fair enough, though I am uncertain about how much the climate issue has actually driven the turmoil we’re already seeing so far today, as opposed to what we may see in the future.)

France thus seems set to function as an ahead-of-the-curve epicenter for the Upheaval in Europe. No wonder the French are so pessimistic…

#n. s. lyons #substack #france

5 notes · View notes

javier-djarin · 4 years

Text

Feels Like Yesterday: Chapter 1

Ship: Frankie Morales x Elena Bohannon (OC)

Rating: M

Word Count: 5,035 Words

Warnings: Language

Masterlist

Summary: It’s been 10 years since Frankie and Elena have seen each other. But everyone is coming into town for Elena’s brother’s wedding, and Santiago has a few plans up his sleeve.

A/N: The moon and sun story that I used can be found here. I’ve really enjoyed writing this fic so far, so I hope you like this part! As always, translations for any Spanish phrases will be at the bottom. Please let me know what you think and if you want to be in my tag list!!

“There once was a moon, as beautiful as can be, only the stars could fathom, but the sun could not see.”

10 years later

The sun shone through the curtains in her apartment, beams dancing across her face and kissing her awake. She could almost feel the warmth of the early August morning. Her eyes fluttered open and she rolled over to look away from the sun as she stretched across her bed. It was empty. Lazily, she reached out farther across her expensive Egyptian Cotton sheets looking for him, but he'd obviously left. Elena sat up and stretched, running her hand through her messy locks and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She grabbed her glasses off the nightstand before slipping out of bed. Her master bedroom was a disaster from the night before. Clothes thrown everywhere, blankets on the floor. She smiled at the memory; no wonder she was still so tired.

Wrapped in her robe, she walked on to her balcony that was littered with box gardens and plant pots, the flowery aroma overpowering the smell of the city below. After years of hard work, she finally was able to afford the apartment that overlooked Central Park. Well, it also helped that her boyfriend had such a stable and high paying job as an executive for HarperCollins. But she was able to afford this apartment before they moved in together. She did it all on her own. “You’d be proud of me, Papa,” she said looking up at the sky, pretending he was looking down at her, smiling.

She felt a pair of muscular arms wrap around her, pulling her close against his body as he peppered her with kisses on the back of her neck. “I love waking up to this,” he said.

Elena turned around in his arms, wrapping her own around his neck. His dark hair was still unruly from the night before. She looked into his green eyes and kissed him lightly. “Good morning to you too,” she said, “I thought you already left for work to finish some expense reports.”

He shook his head. “I decided not to go in today. I can work from here. But,” he smiled, “I did make us breakfast.”

She groaned. “How did I get so lucky?”

He kissed her. “I think I should be asking that.” He kissed her again, burying his face into her neck. “Breakfast is ready, but I think I would much rather try that thing we did last night again.”

Elena chuckled. “Can I get some food in my system first, before we satisfy your appetite, Liam?”

He growled. “As always, you win.” He led her back into the apartment to the small breakfast he’d made. He handed her a plate. “Your mother called this morning. She wanted to know what time our flight landed tomorrow.”

Elena sighed. “I sent her our inventory.”

Liam laughed. “I think she just misses us and was looking for an excuse to call. Now that your brother is getting married, I think she’s getting empty nest syndrome.”

She agreed. After her father died, her mother devoted her entire time to her kids. It wasn’t until after she graduated college did her mother finally remarry, Mr. Garcia at that. At the wedding, she and Santi joked about how they always felt like siblings anyway, so why not make it official. There was one person she’d hoped to see there, but he never showed. Apparently, he was off on assignment, whatever that meant. Since then, she, Santiago, and her two siblings, David and María, had moved on with their lives. Her childhood house was completely empty except for her mother and stepfather.

Elena took a bite. “I’ll call her when I get home tonight,” she said. Liam looked at her confused. “It is Sunday, dear,” she added, “Cal and I go shopping and get lunch every Sunday.”

He nodded. “I completely forgot.”

There was a knock at the door. “That’ll be him,” she said. She took another bite before getting up. She opened the door. “You’re early,” she said, hugging him.

“No, you slept in.” He looked at her and then to Liam with a raised eyebrow. “Late night?”

She slapped his shoulder. “I’ll go get ready. Can you two behave while I’m gone?”

Liam turned in his chair to watch her run down the hallway. “Only if he plays nice.”

She scoffed and ran off to get dressed.

***

Santiago drove to the airport, waiting for his brothers to get off the plane. He could hear them before he could see them. “Oh, fuck you, Benny,” he heard Ironhead say. Benny ran ahead of them away from his brother laughing. Redfly was right behind them shaking his head. Santiago was looking past them for Cat, but he was clearly taking his time. He hadn’t been back to San Antonio for close to a decade, and he knew Frankie was feeling every emotion he left behind all at once.

“Pope!” Benny exclaimed as he ran to him. “We didn’t think you’d make it. Figured you were still down in South America hooking up with hot ‘informants’.”

He laughed. “Fuck you, Benny.”

Benny held his hands up in surrender. “Man, what have I done to get such love from my brothers.”

They each took their turns giving Santi a brotherly hug before heading to baggage claim. He grabbed Will by the arm to stop him. “Where is he?”

Will looked back the direction they came. “He’s in the bathroom. He has been a wreck the entire trip home.”

“I expected half as much,” Santi added.

“What happened here?”

He sighed and saw Frankie coming, still wearing that baseball cap she gave him years ago. “He fucked everything up, and he’s about to face it all this week.”

“He was talking in his sleep on the plane,” Will said, “he kept talking to someone named Luna.”

Santiago let out a soft laugh. “Those fuckin’ nicknames.” He looked up at Ironhead, who was confused. “Don’t tell him he did that.”

“You got it, man.” He slapped him on the shoulder and walked off.

Frankie slowly walked over to Santi and gave him a long brotherly hug. “It’s about time I get you back here,” he laughed.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said, “and I sure as hell shouldn’t be going to David’s wedding.” He looked like he was about to lose his lunch.

Santiago sighed. “She’s moved on,” he said, “I told you that. She’s happy in Manhattan with her boyfriend. Honestly, they’re probably going to get married before too long. She’s done hating you...probably.” He knew deep down that she was going to be pissed off that Frankie was back, but he was tired of seeing both of them hurting. Every time she came home, she’d walk around her mother’s house and turn down photos of her and Frankie. She hardly ever addressed him by name. Even after all these years, no matter how much she would deny it, Santiago knew she was still in love with Frankie, as he was with her.

Frankie nodded, wanting to believe him. But he knew better. The minute they would see each other, she would come over to him and give him a piece of her mind. “Even if you told me in a letter, I would be pissed, but at least I knew. Besides, I’d see you again, because you’re not just going to abandon me.” That’s what she had said, not knowing the truth. And he did exactly that. He left and once he heard she was dating some guy from her college, and it had gotten pretty serious, he never came back. He couldn’t handle the thought of losing her. Now, he was going to have to face it, because the whole gang was back together and going to her brother’s wedding. “When was the last time you saw her?” He asked, his voice cracking.

“I came home for Dad’s 60th last fall, and she was down here for the whole week.”

“How - how was she?”

Santi looked at him, and slung his arm around his shoulder. “She’s good. Really good. And she’s happier than I’d seen her in years. For a while, I thought you’d broken her for good. But…” he caught himself, not wanting to bring up Liam just yet. “You’ll see on Saturday.”

Frankie shook his head. “I don’t know if I’m going to go. I don’t think seeing her for the first time in a decade at her brother’s wedding is a good idea.”

“Then, I’ll set up something at the house. A bonfire or something, like old times.”

He shook his head again. Frankie looked over to Benny, Will, and Tom. “Maybe just sticking with them for the week will help.”

Santiago shook his head. “You can’t avoid her forever.”

“No, but I can try.”

***

Elena was sitting with Cal at a little cafe, looking through her bags. “Thanks for helping me find a dress for the rehearsal dinner,” she said, “I was about to just show up in my slip.”

He smiled at her and laughed. “Oh, of course. So, now that David is getting married, I guess that leaves you,” he smiled.

She blushed. “You would think, but he hasn’t even acted like he has plans.”

He sipped on his glass of Merlot. “Girl, if the two of you have known each other for as long as you say, I’m sure he’s just trying to find the right moment to propose. Maybe he will take you to an old childhood spot when you’re home and pop the question.”

Cal was suddenly lost in his fantasy, planning out her life, when her phone rang. They both looked at the caller ID photo and saw Santiago’s face. Cal swooned. He’d had the biggest crush on him when he went home with her as her date to her mother’s wedding. The same weekend Elena and Liam reconnected. “Please answer so I can hear his voice.”

She laughed and answered the phone. “Hey, Santi, ¿qué pasa?”

“Hola, ‘lena. Mama says you’re coming in tomorrow?”

“Sí. Liam and I are taking a morning flight.” She could hear his breathing start to pick up. “Santi, ¿qué pasa con usted?”

“I think it’s better if you hear from me.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t have much time, because they’ll start to wonder where I am.”

“Hey, Pope! Hurry up. Cat is taking us fishing and we are waiting on you,” She heard a family voice of one of his army buddies exclaim in the background. Cat-Catfish. Frankie was home.

Elena froze and looked through Cal with tears in her eyes. She could see Frankie sitting across from her in that diner telling her how he felt without ever actually saying anything, and then suddenly her heart broke again. She gasped. “Santi…”

“It’s my fault,” he said, “I told him to come. It’ll be good for both of you.”

“You know I never want to see him again, and so you told him to come to David’s wedding?”

Santiago sighed. “That’s why I called. To warn you. Look, he’s just as terrified as you are.”

“I’m not terrified. I’m pissed. What kind of nerve does he have thinking he could come to my brother’s wedding?”

“Elena, I love you. You’re my sister in every sense of the word. This was bound to happen eventually. Besides, David invited him.”

She refused to respond to him.

“Look, my old Squad is here. David invited them all too, since he got to know them over the years. They’ll help me keep Frankie preoccupied, if you really don’t want to see him.”

She could feel herself about to lose control. All she could muster was, “I’ll see you at the rehearsal, Santi. Love you.”

Elena slammed the phone down and buried her face in her hands. Cal sat in silence, waiting for her to say something. Instead, she grabbed her phone and dialed Rae. “Hello!” Her voice sang over the phone.

“Did you know?” She asked dryly.

“Well, hello to you too, Sunshine.”

“Rae. Did you know Santi told Frankie to come to David’s wedding?”

She gasped and didn’t speak for a minute. “He did what? I swear I didn’t know, and we had lunch the other day! Why the fuck would he do that?”

Elena let out a few tears. “Why the fuck is he home? Ten years. I have gone ten fucking years without having to deal with him, and so he chooses now to come back?”

Rae waited for her to calm down. “Does he know about you and Liam?”

She let out an exasperated sigh. He was the last person she wanted to see. “We land tomorrow afternoon. As soon as we drop our stuff off, meet me at the usual.”

“Do you want me to kick Santiago’s ass for being a moron?”

Elena stifled a laugh. “No,” she said, “I want that privilege.”

***

Rae looked at her phone, contemplating on calling Santiago and bitching him out. But she knew he was smart. He did this for a reason. She opened her contacts and clicked on his icon. It rang several times before going to voicemail. “Santi, fucking answer your phone. You’ll never guess who just called me,” she said.

He felt the phone vibrate in his pocket as he looked over to Frankie and Benny in the boat. Will and Tom were sitting up front cracking open beers while the other two prepared the bait. With Santi at the helm, and everyone distracted, he could easily answer the phone. He slid it out of his pocket and saw five missed calls from Rae. “Shit,” he whispered. He looked back at the guys again to make sure they were all preoccupied as he called her back.

“It’s about fucking time you call me,” she said.

He instantly hit the volume on his phone to turn down the sound. “Not so loud,” he whispered.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind, Santi? This week?”

“Rae, I need to call you back. How about I stop by tonight and explain everything?” he quickly whispered over her yelling.

“Who are you whispering to over there, Pope?” Benny yelled, drawing attention to him.

“Rae, I gotta go.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Garcia!”

He ended the call and turned to Benny and grinned. “That piece of Colombian tail I was chasing before I came home.”

Benny whooped and high fived Santi before sitting back down next to Frankie. “I knew it.”

Pope smiled and turned his attention back to his phone. He quickly sent Rae a text:

I promise we will talk when I get back. The guys wanted to go fishing. I can’t talk with them right next to me.

She instantly replied:

You better have a good reason why you brought him here.

***

Cal looked at Elena as she tried to catch her breath. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. He reached across the table and grabbed her hands. “Do you want to tell me what all that was about?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. It’s something from my past I wish would stay buried.”

Cal inhaled and leaned back in his chair. “Obviously it’s not. Whoever this Frankie guy is…” he paused and watched her demeanor instantly change at the mention of his name. “He has you in all sorts of knots.”

A few tears slid down her cheek before she looked up at Cal. “I want to stay mad at him,” she said, “but I know the moment I see him, everything will be forgiven.” She cried into her hands. “I was finally able to move on. I am finally happy with my life. Why does he have to come home and fuck everything up?”

“Who is he?” He motioned for the waitress to bring another bottle.

“Fransisco Morales.” She breathed his name. It had been years since she talked about him to anyone, and saying his name like that made her heart skip several beats. “He was my best friend. He, Liam, and I all grew up together. We were thick as thieves; practically lived with us through middle and high school. We went everywhere and did everything together. Honestly, there was...no is no one that knows me better than Frankie.”

“Not even Liam?” He asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow at her.

She let several more tears slide down her cheek as she drank from her wine glass. “It’s complicated.”

“No, it’s really not.”

Elena took in several deep breaths. “I love Liam. I have my whole life. He’s a good man that I know will never do anything to hurt me. He’s been there for me when others abandoned me.”

“Others meaning this Frankie guy.” Cal crossed his arms and looked at her.

“Frankie,” she took in another deep breath, trying to calm herself, “he hurt me. Bad. Like, cut me deep to the bone, and it took me forever to heal from it.” She grabbed her wallet out of her purse and pulled out a wrinkled, aged envelope that had been folded in half and shoved into the cash section. “The last night I saw him, we had this serious talk about long distance relationships. The entire time, I thought he was talking about someone else, but when I got this in the mail the following week, I realized how dumb I really was.”

Elena handed Cal the letter to read. “And you carry it with you?”

“It’s stupid, I know,” she said, wiping her eyes with her napkin, “but Frankie was the most important person in my life for thirteen years. When my dad died, he was the only one who could keep me together; keep me going. This letter told me everything I ever wanted to know, and it destroyed me. So I carry it around as a reminder of my lowest point. A reminder to never let myself be this weak again.”

Cal read through the letter and gazed back up at her. “Oh, sweetie,” he said, gently folding it back into the envelope. “Do Liam know any of this?”

She shook her head. “He knows that Frankie hurt me, but that’s it. He has no idea about the letter, his feelings for me, or anything.”

He sighed. “Elena,” he began, “you clearly have some unresolved feelings for him as well.”

She vehemently shook her head. “If anything, it’s the hurt and anger I harbored over the better part of a decade.”

“Are you going to tell Liam?” he asked.

“He’s going to see him anyway,” she said, sipping her wine, “but the last time we talked about Frankie…” she trailed off and tried to forget the biggest fight she and Liam ever had. She was sure they would have ended right then and there if it hadn’t been for Rae calling in the middle of it. After that, they never finished that discussion. Never revisited that topic. Frankie was a forbidden name in their house. “Well, we don’t talk about Frankie.”

“I thought the three of you grew up ‘thick as thieves’,” Cal added.

Elena nodded. “That was until about high school. Then everything became a competition. They would only hang out together in our group. Never just the three of us or just the two of them. I knew what was happening, but I never knew how to put a stop to it. I couldn’t choose sides, because they both meant so much to me. That was, until one day when Liam and I had plans. Frankie’s truck stalled in the middle of an intersection, and he was rushed to the hospital after a car struck him. He called me and told me he was fine. Just a broken arm, but I left Liam without a second thought. I burned him, bad. Ever since then, whenever we bring up Frankie, it turns into a huge fight.”

Cal sighed. “Look, if you and Liam really love each other, Frankie won’t come between you at all.”

She started to space out, dissociating from the conversation. She knew what Cal didn’t. Liam was jealous of Frankie. He always was, and he knew that Elena and Frankie had a deep, unspoken bond that couldn’t simply be swept under the rug after ten years.

***

The sun was starting to set, creating beautiful purple and orange clouds across the sky. She stood just outside her apartment complex and looked up with a large smile on her face. “Have you heard the story about the moon and the sun?” she asked Cal, who was starting to wave for a cab.

“What?”

“The sun loved the moon so much that he died every night to let her breathe,” she recited.

Cal looked at her look at the sky while she continued her story:

“During the time when Earth was simple, the Sun shone brighter than anything in the sky. He brought everything joy and warmth, but he was lonely in the sky. Then there was the Moon. When the sun would grow tired, she would rise into the sky with her beautiful stars, but her beauty went unnoticed by everything on the earth. As she only shined while they slept. The Stars hoped that one day they could get closer to her so she wouldn’t feel so empty, but they could not. She was untouchable, surrounding herself with a blanket of darkness through the cold nights. One day, the Sun was sliding out of the heavens, and he caught a glimpse of her. She was peeking up, a rare side of her being exposed to the light. So, just as the Stars were wandering into the night, the Sun fell in love like a snowball hurtling down a mountain. How he wished to see her more than the fleeting moments he shared with her at both dawn and dusk. ‘Go,’ she whispered to him one of these nights, her voice as sweet and sorrowful as the last light of morning, ‘Go and let me breathe, for you and I have decided fates. You illuminate the day, and I cast a glow on the night. We will never be. Our connection would go against what all people believe, all they know.’ During the summer he would stay a little longer, just in case she would change her mind. But she would say ‘Don’t you dare abandon your blessing of light for my darkness.’ Those were the last words the Moon was strong enough to speak to the Sun.”

They both stood in silence while she smiled up at the sky, seeing the Moon making her appearance early, and the sun staying just a little longer so he could see her one last time before he disappeared. Cal broke the silence by clearing his throat. “Is that you and Frankie?” he asked.

She blinked her eyes and glanced over to him. “It was our favorite myth my mother used to tell us when we were kids. We joked that he was the Sun and I was the Moon, because he would do everything to make sure I wasn’t alone in my darkness, and I would always try to lift him up so the world never missed out on all the light he could give.”

Cal placed his hand over his heart. “You’re killing me with this,” he said, “be careful this week at home. Call me if you need anything.”

She hugged him. “I will. Love you, dear.”

“Love you, kid.”

She made her way back up to her apartment, where she found Liam sitting in the office working on his expense reports. Elena leaned against the doorframe watching him. She smiled at the sight. His left eye would squint a little every time he’d get frustrated with his work, and she thought it was the most adorable thing she’d ever seen. Her heart soared as she looked at him. Elena wasn’t lying to Cal when she told him how happy Liam made her. After all, they’d been friends their entire lives, and he had been there for her when she needed him most. But, then her mind drifted to Frankie. She’d been in love with Frankie for as long as she could remember. He was her Sol. But the Sun and Moon are not destined to be together. I have to let him go, for good. She thought to herself.

Cal looked over and saw her standing there. “You’re back early,” he smiled, reaching for her to join him.

She dropped the bags by the door and slid onto his lap, kissing him passionately. He smiled against her lips and returned the favor. “Miss me that much?” he said.

Elena pulled away and looked down at him, with sadness in her eyes. “We need to talk about this week.”

He tensed up. “What’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath. “Santiago called me today,” she began, “and he wanted to warn me that Frankie was going to be there.”

She felt Liam go rigid. He sat there for several seconds, looking past her, with anger in his eyes. When she’d picked Frankie over Liam that fateful day, he’d never forgiven Frankie. Their friendship had ended right then and there. Ever since then, his hatred for Frankie grew, especially when he crushed Elena the way he did. “How do you feel?”

Elena ran her hands down Liam’s chest. “Hurt. Angry. The same emotions I’ve had for the last ten years.”

“I thought you’d moved past this,” Liam said.

“I have, Liam,” she retorted, standing up, “but I never got closure. I deserve that. I have questions that deserve to be answered.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose before answering. “Why does that matter if you’ve moved on?”

She felt her hands start to shake. “Because, he was such an important part of my life for so long, and losing him the way I did hurt. I want to know why, and if we can still be friends after all this time.”

Liam shook his head and laughed. “It’s never been about ‘being friends,’ Elena. Look, I don’t know what happened between the two of you before he left for bootcamp, because for some reason you won’t tell me, and I have respected that. But we both know that Frankie has been in love with you since the first day you met, and sometimes I think that you loved him too.”

“Liam, whether or not I had feelings for him back then doesn’t matter. Why? Because I love you. I am here now, telling you that he’s back home. I could have hid this from you, but instead I decided to tell you so we could talk about him like reasonable adults.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I know that you hate Frankie, for reasons I can’t understand. But, please, for me just set that aside. I’m not going anywhere. Put faith in me. Just because Frankie is home doesn’t mean anything.”

He reached out for her hands and held them. He rubbed his thumbs over her knuckles and sighed. “I have faith in you, always,” he said, “but not when Frankie is involved. It’s like you forget everything that doesn’t concern him. He has some sort of hold over you, and you’ll drop everything for him the minute he needs you.”

She didn’t try to argue that, because she knew that Liam was right. It pained her to see Liam suffering the way he was. He was actually afraid that this week, he would lose her. He loved her more than anything, and he knew that with Frankie back in their lives, he would lose the one person he held dear.

***

Rae rolled over and looked at the clock on her night stand. 1:00 AM. The doorbell was constantly being rung at random intervals, and it was driving her nuts. She grabbed an old army hoodie that Santiago let her have when he returned from bootcamp and marched down the stairs. Yanking open the door, she saw Santi standing there with a grin on his face. “You look good in that hoodie,” he chided.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she asked, obviously annoyed. He let himself into her house and made his way to the kitchen. “Please, come in. Have a drink.”

Santi laughed and made himself a quick drink. “First off, I’m sorry I hung up like I did,” he said, “but Benny was getting suspicious.”

She leaned against the door jam and rolled her eyes. “Why the fuck is Frankie here?”

He took a sip of his whisky and sighed. “You know why,” he added, “Liam isn’t going to make her happy. Frankie is a miserable fuck. They belong together.”

Rae grabbed his drink and took a sip. “She won’t ever trust him again,” she said.

He wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer and set the glass on the counter. “You and I both know she will hate herself if she stays with Liam. He’s a good man, but she’s not in love with him.”

“You seriously invited Frankie home to break up Elena and Liam?” Rae laughed and wrapped her arms around Santi’s neck.

He shrugged and smiled at her. “We both wanted to see this for years. Why are you fighting it now?”

“Because,” she said, “Elena is my best friend, and if she says he’s happy, then I refuse to ruin that.”

Santi kissed her deeply. “What can I do to convince you otherwise?” He grinned and kissed her jaw. “Because she’ll be happier in the long run.”

Rae stopped him, forcing him to look at her. “You’ve done enough,” she said, “we just need to let them settle this on their own, mi amor.”

He laughed at her. “Fine. Whatever you say.”

She shook her head and turned to walk away, but he stopped her. “¿Puedo pasar la noche?” He asked.

“Si esto termina bien, puedes quedarte a pasar la noche. Hasta entonces, buenas noches, Santiago,” she smiled at him as she left him in the kitchen. “Lock the door on your way out.”

Translations

¿Qué pasa (con usted)? - What’s up (with you)?

¿Puedo pasar la noche? - Can I stay the night?

Si esto termina bien, puedes quedarte a pasar la noche. Hasta entonces, buenas noches, Santiago. - If this ends well, you can stay the night. Until then, good night, Santiago.

Tag List

@magneticbucky @wickedfrsgrl @wander-lustbabe @pedropascalownsmyheart @frietiemeloen @larakasser

#Frankie Morales #frankie catfish morales #Frankie Morale x OC #Feels Like Yesterday #Triple Frontier #fransisco morales

40 notes · View notes

denimbex1986 · 10 months

Text

'The Giggle

We begin The Giggle in Soho 1925, with a man walking into a toyshop. The man behind the counter is charismatic and rather creepy, especially as he talks about his various dolls up on the wall. Apparently it has real hair and the Toymaker’s German accent slips a little as they talk.

The man, Charlie, takes “Stooky Bill”, the doll in the toyshop, and takes it to his employer, John Logie Baird. He’s been testing his new invention, the TV, and wishes this doll could speak.

We then cut to the present where we left off last week. The whole place is compete chaos. Two days ago, everyone had suddenly decided that they’re right and they won’t change their mind. If you try to argue with the infected, they go mad. The only one who stands out is the Toymaker, who tries to dance with the Doctor in the street. The Doctor recognizes him, especially when UNIT show up and take the Doctor away to HQ with Donna.

Shirley and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart are there to greet him… along with a surprise guest too. It’s Melanie, the companion for the sixth and seventh doctors! After, we hear the same exposition we just got from the man in the street. Apparently this issue is worldwide, but those inside UNIT are being subdued by something called the Zeedex, which keeps them under control and not going mad. Whatever this thing is, it’s been generated from inside the brain… but some people aren’t affected like Donna and Mel.

Donna believes it could be a tune, just like in The Sound of Drums. But instead of four repetitive notes, they quickly realize it’s actually closer to a laugh. That same laugh jingle from the doll. This image has been put inside every single screen in the world, and with the Korean satellite allowing every single person across the world to be online at the same time.

The Doctor soon learns the exact location and time that Stooky Bill was broadcast on TV, so off Donna and The Doctor go to 1925 to figure it out. They instead find the Toymaker, and The Doctor immediately recognizes him. Despite telling Donna that she needs to go to the TARDIS, they both end up inside the Toymaker’s little domain.

The Doctor starts to doubt himself, and then the pair are separated. Again. Remember Charlie from the shop? The Doctor finds that he’s been turned into a puppet after losing a game to the Toymaker. And now he’s stuck on strings to do what the Toymaker wants. As for Donna, she finds herself attacked by the other dolls in the shop, until she destroys Sooky, the mum, and leaves the three babies as orphans.

The Toymaker taunts the Doctor, showing him all the companions that have passed and bringing up the Flux again. Please RTD, let’s not bring up that travesty of a series. Again. Anyway, The Doctor challenges him to a game, and the Toymaker boasts that he’s beaten everyone there is to beat. Even The Master, whom he’s turned into a gold tooth.

The only one he won’t play against is “The One Who Waits” but he won’t elaborate, claiming that’s someone else’s game. The pair decide to play Highest Card Wins… but the Toymaker wins. However, this just makes it 1-1 given the Doctor played and won all those years ago. The Toymaker decides they need to play in 2023 next, and the toyshop turns into a jack-in-a-box. As it does, The Doctor and Donna return to the present.

UNIT destroys the satellite but The Doctor is quick to point out this is only a link in the chain. There’s more to this than they realized and they’re about to step it up a gear. The Toymaker shows up at UNIT itself and a big dance number breaks out.

When he disappears outside, The Doctor realizes he has the Galvanic Beam. The Doctor’s pleas to have the Toymaker join him and leave together, play games across the cosmos, falls on deaf ears. The Toymaker has realized that Earth is the ultimate battleground and besides, hasn’t most of the Universe been utterly obliterated from the Flux?

The Toymaker eventually plunges a laser-beam straight into The Doctor, telling him he needs to play this game with the next Doctor. As The Doctor regenerates, he utters “Here we go again, Allons-y” and the regeneration becomes a bi-generation. Donna and Mel both pull from either side and one Doctor becomes two.

The pair of them decide to challenge The Toymaker together. They decide to play Catch, and the Doctors win. Their prize is to banish the Toymaker forever. “My legions are coming,” He says, as the box he’s kept in is banished to the vaults. His gold tooth however, holding the essence of The Master, is picked up by someone.

Meanwhile, the Doctor shows the New Doctor (Ncuti) to the TARDIS and both he and Donna agree that Tennant’s Doctor needs to chill out and stay in one place forever. The new Doctor, after winning the gae, smacks the outside the TARDIS and decides to create a second TARDIS, which has wheelchair access and a jukebox.

The pair say their goodbyes, and Tennant decides to join Donna noble’s family (and Mel) to sit down and chill on Earth with his family. Apparently he fought all those battles to settle down with a family, and Tennant has never been happier than he is now.

The Episode Review

So Doctor Who’s run with the Toymaker ends in crazy fashion with the very first Bi-generation and honestly? it’s a bit of a disappointment. The decision to keep Tennant around feels like having your cake and eating it too. On the one hand, we have a brand new Doctor running around and trying to slip into the role which should be the number 1 focus.

But then on the other hand, it shows a distinct lack of confidence that Ncuti Gatwa can do it alone, knowing that Tennant can just pick up the mantle should this Doctor fail to bring back viewers, which this show continues to leak. The Christmas Special is going to be the real tell though and it’ll be interesting to see what the views are like for that one.

On the positive side though, Ncuti’s Doctor is pretty good and it’ll be interesting to see exactly how he slips into the role in his own adventure on Christmas Day.

The episode itself is actually not bad either, and some of that stems from the charisma of Neil Patrick Harris and David Tennant, who both chew up the screen. Ncuti Gatwa holds his own too, which is a nice touch, but it’s far too early to tell how he’ll slip into the role of Timelord.

For now, this third special bows out with a decent episode but is this really a spectacular celebration of 60 years for Doctor Who? Especially when it borrows ideas from the past like The Sound of Drums, complete with the pop music number. Regardless, we’ll have to wait and see what’s in store for us next.'

0 notes