#being like clara has its perils

[chipsandcoffee]

Chibnall has Clara-fied Yaz by about 90% this year, and I am Here For It.

[daydreaming-in-letters]

In a week

Chapter 4

07/23/2022

Pairing: Andrew (Hozier) x Clara (OFC)

Word Count: 2,346

Warnings: rpf, au, language, angst, talk of infidelity, idiots in love

Summary: The morning after her tiny breakdown, Clara gives Andrew quite the scare and he finally realises what she has come to mean to him.

A/N: The magic of watching Andrew in this. How could I not...

Picture by Autumn Studio via Unsplash (cropped and text added)

If you like my story, you are very welcome to like, comment or reblog. No permission is given to copy, repost or share my work on other platforms.

Hozier - Sunlight

Andrew’s notebook I’m such a fecking eejit. Why can I not keep my bloody mouth shut just once? She must think I’m a humungous hypocrite, or, even worse, doesn’t have the slightest clue everything that’s left of me after the wreckage of the past days is entirely hers. 

The sweet taste of her lips and tongue still fresh on my own has rendered my brain completely inoperative. Void of words, me, who usually sings of love in a million different ways so easily, has at last been muted, my whole being in awe of a kiss that turned this heretic into a pious devotee. And so I lie here, my faith restored, yet I’m unable to practise it, staring up into the starlit night in the preposterous hope of sunlight.

In the wake of the morning, when I still mused about the events of last night, my heart floating in restorative unconsciousness, I could never have foreseen the abrupt awakening that was about to stir its strings before the sun even dreamed about reaching its zenith. And so I went about my morning as usual, ending with a cup of tea and my guitar in the expansive shade of the parasol right next to the pool. 

My head filled with ideas after last night’s conversation, I was intent on writing a new song, something about perilous love maybe. Images of Icarus flying too close to the sun came to mind, a metaphor too powerful in its imagery not to use. And just when I thought my train of thought might actually get me somewhere, my ears picked up the soft tapping of bare feet on the wooden deck. She was probably heading out for her morning walk. In a moment she would wish me a good morning before she would head to the far end of the property and take the narrow path through the dunes that led straight to the beach.  I may have flinched a little, I don’t remember clearly anymore, my attention fully occupied by the warm fingertips that found my shoulder, gently gliding along my neck all the way to the other side. She didn’t need to say a single word to derail my concentration, her touch was all it took to abandon my muse like an unwanted kitten and focus solely on her presence. 

But I had been wrong. She wouldn’t go for a walk today, that much was clear when she came into view, her lush curves only covered by that cobalt bikini and a flimsy robe which actually revealed more than it hid. She didn’t have a single word for me, much less did she spare me a look, her whole attention solely focussed on the water that glistened invitingly in the morning sun. I must have stopped maltreating those strings at some point, probably the second her robe hit the deck boards and my last bit of sense was gone with the wind.

I had seen her in nothing but her bikini every day since we came here, so why did it get to me the way it did? Was it the faint bronze her skin had taken on? Or the golden shimmer of her hair in the sunlight? Was it the way she carried herself today? Like a goddess inside her temple, about to descend into her bath to cleanse herself from the earthly sorrows her worshippers troubled her with and that still stuck to her skin like scum.

But she didn’t leave me much time to figure out what had caused that beckoning lure before she vanished underneath the surface, a few ripples and popping bubbles the only proof that she had actually been there in the first place. I couldn’t see her from where I was seated, a fact that wouldn’t have bothered me at all if the bubbles hadn’t stopped rising to the surface ages ago. 

“Clara?” I shouted like the gobshite I am as I rose to my feet. I did not actually expect to get an answer, did I? And there probably wasn’t anything to worry about anyway, right? Every second now her head would break through the surface, her pretty mouth gasping for air and then sporting one of that amused smiles upon seeing my concerned face. Right? RIGHT?

My body acted quicker than my mind could catch up, dumping my guitar and rushing over to the edge of the pool. I could see her clearly, lying at the bottom, eyes closed, no motion, no bubbles, no signs of life whatsoever. And I just jumped.

The pool wasn’t very deep, the water reaching up to just around my chest, but the way down to the ground felt like an eternity. My pulse hammering in my ears, one arm wrapped around her waist, and my feet pushed down onto the tiles with all their might to catapult us both back to safety. Memories of every first aid course I had ever taken racing through my head, spinning into an incomprehensible jumble of instructions, panic was all I felt when I realised I couldn’t recall a single piece of information on CPR at all. She was going to die. I would lose her. I couldn’t lose her.

Wild coughing greeted me as soon as we had escaped the lethal claws of water, determined fingers digging into my shoulders while she shook and trembled in my arms. I couldn’t see a thing, my hair plastered all over my face, but on instinct I tightened my grip while I cleared my sight. Obviously, my frenzied brain still hadn’t managed to comprehend that she was very much not dead until I opened my eyes and was met with a look of unadulterated fury. She…she was…alive? What the…? How could she scare me like that? I thought she was… Bloody woman.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I shouted right into her face and it was only when she seized her resistance that I grasped she had resisted my hold on her in the first place.

"Wh—? Me? That’s funny,” she spat, her voice just as agitated as my own. “I thought it was you who jumped in here and hauled me from the bottom of the pool like a maniac.”

“Because you were going to kill yourself!” 

For a second there I regretted my tone, but it finally seemed to have done the trick. Clara fell silent, at least for a moment, and for the first time since she had vanished into this godforsaken water, I could hear my own thoughts again. She wasn’t lost for words for long though.

“What? And why on earth would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know? Because you almost cried yourself to sleep in my arms last night, thinking you would never find true love?”

She jerked upon that crude attack, her palms pressing against my chest on instinct, but I refused to let go of her after just getting her back.

“That was one moment of weakness!”

“So? That doesn’t make your despair any less serious.”

“I don’t say I wasn’t deeply distraught in that moment. But I would never— And certainly not because that arsehole managed to make me feel like a worthless piece of shit.”

Was that how she truly felt about herself, what his ill treatment had done to her? In that moment I hated Chad more than I could ever hate him for riding my…for riding Catherine.

“Clara, you’re not—“

“I know.” She averted her gaze, her voice falling to a mere whisper. “But the night sometimes gives way to the demons.”

I forced myself to smile, not because I thought her words were funny in any way. They weren’t, not at all. But because I hoped she would look up and it would be enough to convince her that she wasn’t at all what Chad had made her believe she was. But she didn’t.

“Anyways, if you didn’t want to kill yourself, then what the hell were you doing down there?”

I had hoped that might distract her, and it sure did. Just not exactly the way I had planned, that much was clear as the defensiveness returned to her eyes almost instantly.

“I…that’s none of your business,” she spat.

Only this time, I didn’t rise to her anger. After all, it hadn’t gotten us anywhere the first time round. Instead my fingers found her cheek, thumb brushing along that divine cheekbone of hers.

“You know, I think it kind of is, seeing that you almost gave me a heart attack with your wee stunt.”

I could see that she was about to tell me, but something made her hesitate and avert her eyes again. I let her, and after a moment a deep sigh announced that she was ready to share her thoughts with me.

“I need that sometimes. Being underwater, I mean. Drowning out the world around me and feel nothing but the rays of sunshine dancing across my face. Helps me to stay sane.”

I knew that feeling only too well. That’s what music usually did for me. Soothe my mind, like the warmth of her eyes did now. The warmth of her eyes and body that was still pressed to mine, moulding to my form smoothly now that she wasn’t fighting my hold on her anymore. There was such pure energy surging from her, flowing freely to me, possessing me until I yielded and let myself reel in the life she radiated. 

“Fuck, honey, you really scared me there for a moment.“

It was only later that I realised part of me was actually a little dejected that I didn’t really rescue her. Not because I wished her any harm, oh god no. My heart still stops for a second whenever the image of her lifeless body on the ground of that pool returns to me. No, I just wish I would have had a chance to rescue her in order to repay her for the way she rescued me. It was true that I had never felt more alone than in the past few days, but she had been with me in my loneliness. And that had made all the difference. And even in my loneliest moments, I had never known peace of mind like I did here, at the beach house, with her. 

It was in this fleeting moment of clarity I finally realised everything she had come to mean to me. I had been such an eejit, hiding myself away in the darkness of night, shunning the light, denying that her blinding brightness was everything I had ever wanted. I had been drawn to her from our first drunk encounter months ago, like a moth to a flame. And everything had led me right here, had led up to this one moment inevitably, the moment I carried the very flame that thawed my frozen soul right here in my arms. And I vowed to myself I would keep her close, no matter the burn I might suffer eventually, if she just kept on shining for me, just for me. 

Needy fingers dug into her soft flesh, reassuring myself once more that she was truly here, that I hadn’t lost her, when suddenly her eyes flickered with regret.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

My voice was but a mere whisper as I already leaned in, my eyes falling shut the second my lips found hers. With the sweet taste of her mouth memories resurfaced, and my heart began to soar on the wings of life she breathed into me. She had always known how to do that, how to revive my spirits and make my soul hum in tune with the melody of her own. It was addictive and I needed more.

I could have stayed like this forever, but all too soon she pulled away and my heart fell into my feet as I realised the look of utter confusion in her eyes. I couldn’t blame her. How could she not be confused after all the mixed signals I had been sending her these past few days? My first instinct was to apologise and tell her I hadn’t meant to kiss her, but the truth is, I’d had every intention of kissing her and I wasn’t sorry in the least. After last night, I wouldn’t let my tongue get the better of me, not this time. I had learned my lesson and I would never lie to her again. So I kept my big mouth shut. And boy was I glad I did.

I could see it well up in her eyes again, the same passion that had set me alight on that cold March night, and then she pulled me close again. Her arms snaked around my neck, holding on to me for dear life, but that didn’t seem enough and so her legs followed, locking around my hips while her lips crashed down on mine again. A heated, impassioned moan broke from deep within. I was afire, burning brightly in her flames and it was all I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

“Andrew?” she gasped at my lips and it took me a while to process that she had put a question mark at the end of my name.

“Yeah?”

My eyes were still closed, refusing to leave the heavenly place her kiss had taken me to just yet. It was only when I felt the weight of her head against my shoulder, her shallow breaths drifting over my neck that I knew it was time to return to the real world. 

“Would you mind just holding me for a while?”

The neediness in her voice brought a tender smile to my lips, just as much as the wariness it carried made my heart heavy. How could she ever think I’d deny her a wish like that? Without even a second of hesitation, my arms wrapped her up in a snug embrace, one hand tenderly cradling her head.

“Not at all, love. Not at all.”

Chapter 5

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hi! do you know of any fics that are like spare change by emerness with posh/rich Sherlock? thank you :))

Hi Nonny!!

AHHH Spare Change is legit one of my top fave fics ever, and I can think of a few other fics, but none beyond what I got for you :) … So I’ll share them with you below, along with the list Alexx has!

Here’s my sad list of Rich Sherlock fics, sorry I don’t have many!! And, as always, this is also a call out for anyone who has some fics they would like to add!!

RICH SHERLOCK

See also: Alexx’s List

Spare Change by Ermerness (E, 51,966 w., 14 Ch. || Rich Holmeses AU || First Kiss / Time, Holmes Family, Virgin Sherlock, Anal, First Meetings, Bossy Bottomlock) – The Holmes family is one of the richest and most powerful in England. Sherlock spends his time flying around the world on the family’s private jet drinking a lot and shopping at expensive boutiques as a way of trying to alleviate his endless boredom. His mother decides it’s time he settles down with someone powerful, wealthy and well connected. John Watson happens to be none of those things.

floating through a dark blue sky by Lediona (M, 58,966 w., 15 Ch. || Notting Hill AU || POV John, Celebrity Sherlock, First Date / Time / Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending) – Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant – but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

This Thing All Things Devours by cypress_tree (E, 63,844 w., 15 Ch. || In Time AU || Science Fiction, Dystopian Universe, First Meetings, Action / Adventure, Romance) – In 2169, time is money—literally. Humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, when the numbers on their arm start counting down from one year. When that time is up, they die. The only way to get more time is to earn it, borrow it, or steal it.John Watson lives day-to-day in the crowded slums of Zone 13. He never imagined living any differently—until he meets the practically-immortal Sherlock, and helps him on a case to track a local time-thief…

Performance In a Leading Role by Mad_Lori (E, 156,714 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Hollywood / Actor AU, Secret Relationship, Falling in Love, Slow Burn, Romance, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Pining) – Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world? Part 1 of Performance in a Leading Role

Mise en Place by azriona (M, 161,004 w., 28 Ch. || Restaurant (Kitchen Nightmares) AU || Sherlock is Gordon Ramsay / Celebrity Sherlock, Restauranteur John, Harry Plays Prominent Role, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, Cranky Sherlock, Bed Sharing, Slow Burn) – John Watson had no intentions of taking over the family business, but when he returns from Afghanistan, battered and bruised, and discovers that his sister Harry has run their restaurant into the ground, he doesn’t have much choice. There’s only one thing that can save the Empire from closing for good – the celebrity star of the BBC series Restaurant Reconstructed, Chef Sherlock Holmes. Part 1 of Mise en Place

WEALTH IS IMPLIED

Winter’s Delights by Kate_Lear (E, 21,173 w., 1 Ch. || Holmes Family, Christmas, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Bed Sharing, Domestics) – Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family. Part 1 of Winter’s Delights (his family is wealthy)

Classified(s) by blueink3 (E, 36,153 w., 4 Ch. || Wedding Date AU || Fake Relationship, Jealous, PIning, H/C, Idiots in Love, Happy Ending, Mary is not Nice, Escort Service) – Clara’s American father is the ambassador to some such territory that Great Britain probably used to own, but she (and Harry’s undying love for her) is the reason John is getting on a flight at 12:30pm, flying across the second largest ocean in the world, and pretending to be in a perfectly happy, healthy relationship with an undoubtedly perfectly coiffed stranger. See, Clara is not only American (and wealthy to boot), she’s also best friends with John’s ex-fiancée. Whom she’s placed in the wedding party. As Maid of Honor. And John just happens to be Best Man. Bloody brilliant. (implied he makes lots of money being essentially an escort)

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he’s a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover’s trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world’s highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute? (implied by his expensive equipment and celebrity status)

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John “Five Oceans” Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out? (implied by his expensive equipment)

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE ||  Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court. (implied by the care and aides he has)

[architectuul]

Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales: Our Acts Make the City

The exhibition at Matadero Madrid, Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales, brings a fresh look into the (im)possible urban futures. It prompts us to wonder about individual actions – mundane or extraordinary, planned or accidental – and the ways in which they contribute towards building the city of tomorrow. 

Celine Baumann’s Parliament of Plants; imagining a democracy based on the principle of mutual care and support. | Photo © Lukasz Michalak  

It is interesting to write about it at this moment when, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, our urban experience is turned upside down. Right now most of us can do the most by completely retreating from city life and staying physically away from each other. And still, as we try to do this from afar but in unison, in solidarity, we already lay the groundwork for our shared future city. What could that city be? Take a look at the exhibition to delve into the cautionary tales.

The first of twelve tales: Inverted Tents by Aristide Antonas, telling about a city fragmented into autonomous pieces | Photo © Lukasz Michalak

Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales, curated by Ethel Baraona Pohl, was opened on February 13 at Matadero Madrid. It consists of twelve cities – that is, twelve stories of cities – asking and teasing and urging us to think about the urban futures. Who do we really live with, in this big city, in this cyberspace, in this tiny room? How children play, and why is that important? Would plants make better parliamentarians than we do? What if we actually listened to the sound of injustice we keep imposing upon Earth? Is our first city in outer space going to reproduce the capitalist mode of production? Did you learn or do anything interesting yesterday?

Are the producers of happiness rankings the new designers of our cities? Our Happy Life: Architecture and Well-being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism curated by Francesco Garutti CCA. | Photo © Lukasz Michalak  

Queering the City is a sound installation with a range of works by artists invited by Katayoun Arian. Its content and connections are subject to rhythmic formations and deformations. | Photo © Lukasz Michalak

With the project 3 Wanders and 2 Strolls, Clara Nubiola explain the Madrid and its infrastructures that has grown from junctions, bridges, informal paths, illegal camps, and glass office buildings. | Photo © Lukasz Michalak

To make us stop and think about all of this and more, Ethel Baraona Pohl, the curator, critic, and the co-founder of dpr-barcelona publishing house, has brought together a variety of practices, from different fields and generations. Their artistic installations compose an exhibition inspired by Superstudio’s famous piece Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas, published in 1971 in Architectural Design. With these “twelve visions of ideal cities”, Superstudio gave an enduring lesson on the perils of modernist utopias, the dangers of perfectionism, and the illusion of happiness found in blissful ignorance and blind fate in technology.

Superstudio’s  ideal cities “free from contradiction, equivocation and indecision.” | Illustrations via  arqueologiadelfuturo.blogspot.com

The influence of Superstudio’s radical work cannot be overstated, and the work itself should be studied and analyzed in the context of the critical debate of the 1960s and ‘70s. But it might be interesting to briefly remember some of the Superstudio’s sharp, unexpected, science-fiction inspired visions. Their first city might give you eternal life on a grid of perfect equality, but it will also crush you with a 2,000 tons panel if you so much as consider rebelling against the system. The eighth city, with its perfect proportions and terraces narrowing as they go up all the way to the mysterious top, is the embodiment of class exploitation. The tenth city solved the problem of democracy and public participation by reprogramming anyone who’d ever questioned any of the mayor’s decisions. And the sixth city, the one where you can pay to go in and be whoever you choose to be and do whatever you want to do, might have inspired the TV series Westworld. The issues at the center of Superstudio’s tales have not faded, and their provocative message still warns us, and rightfully so, about the limits of a mechanic, technological perfection which anesthetizes human imagination, and about the values of human action and contradiction.

Cosmorama is a version of one previously exhibited in 2018 at the US Pavilion at the 16th Venice Biennale by Design Earth. | Photo ©  Lukasz Michalak

The Atom People by Traumnovelle, based on the machine-city, questions the paradox of contradictory relations that occur in nature when it is born from the search of ecology through technological means  | Photo © Lukasz Michalak

Exhibition Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales furthers the conversation by putting human action front and center, to be either criticized, admired – or simply induced. These tales have grown into installations, which bring forward a set of questions about our relationship with nature, with each other, with architecture, with political and physical spaces we inhabit, and with those we (still) don’t. And we must come up with some answers: there’s no sleeping through the urban challenges we face today, there’s no one to take over the control panel of our joint existence. We are building our messy cities together, and look, hear, feel – this is where we might end up!

Guerrera video, filmed at the Automotive Museum by Eduardo Barreiros, is one of the works featured in the audiovisual archiving project Selling Bricks.

It addresses the relationship between urban music and an architectural object, the role of popular culture in the dissemination of architectural heritage. 

Unsettled Urbanism by Merve Bedir, Chong Suen, Sampson Wong is a call to understand how collective spatial intelligence is produced and the other ways of living the city that emerge. | Photo ©  Lukasz Michalak

The storytellers bringing their cautionary tales forward are Aristide Antonas with Inverted Tents, Katayoun Arian with Queering the City: A Sono-orientation (with artists Angela Anderson, Irene Cassarini, Karachi Beach Radio, and Gayatri Kodikal), MAIO Architects with The Grand Interior: Towards the Diffuse Home, Clara Nubiola with 3 Wanders and 2 Strolls, Traumnovelle with The Atom People, Celine Baumann with The Parliament of Plants, Chloé Rutzerveld with The Politics of Food: a Radical New Food System for the Anthropocene City, Bartlebooth with Selling Bricks (with Alberto de Miguel), Merve Bedir, Chong Suen and Sampson Wong with Unsettled Urbanism, Design Earth with Cosmorama, Assemble with The Voice of Children and Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) with Our Happy Life: Architecture and Well-being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism curated by Francesco Garutti. 

Exhibition closes with a final call back to Superstudio. We’re still working out the same questions! | Photo © Lukasz Michalak

Exhibition at Matadero Madrid shall be set until July 19, 2020. Although Matadero is, like the museums and galleries all over the world, currently closed, the exhibition can still be viewed online.

- by Sonja Dragović 

---

Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales  Matadero Madrid, Center for Contemporary Creation Plaza de Legazpi 8, Madrid

From 13 of February to 19 of July 19 2020

Curator: Ethel Baraona Pohl Curatorial advisor: César Reyes Exhibition design: Taller de Casquería Graphic design: Naranjo-Etxeberría

[timeagainreviews]

My Series 10 Rewatch: The Husbands of River Song

One of the beautiful aspects of starting this blog has been the opportunity to revisit old episodes. The title of this blog "Time and Time Again," isn’t just a reference both to Twin Peaks and Doctor Who, but also a raison d'être. The hope is that repeat viewings will bring forth new insights. Things I loathed previously may seem charming in hindsight. Things I initially adored may begin to show cracks in their facade. Some records take a few listens until we discover their greatness. Sometimes art requires consideration.

I mention this because our first review for the series 10 retrospective is for "The Husbands of River Song," an episode of which I detested. It's important to give this context as my opinion of it has indeed mellowed over time. I will endeavour to highlight this shift in perspective as memory permits. Before the other day, I hadn't watched this episode since it first aired on Christmas of 2015. What then can nearly half a decade add to the experience?

It should be noted that I have never been a big fan of Doctor Who Christmas specials. It would be quicker to count the reasons I like them, or in this case, the reason. That being, it's more Doctor Who. Other than that, I find the whole Christmas theme to be hokey. Growing up, I was a Halloween kid. I really don't like Christmas all that much, so an entire episode themed around it is not my idea of a good time. Even worse is when the villains themselves have Christmassy gimmicks like Santa robots or evil snowmen. I suppose in some ways, it's in the Christmas spirit for the Doctor to die and regenerate on Christmas, as they so often do. The concept of birth and renewal are a big part of the holiday. But if I was known to die a lot on Christmas, I might use my time machine to skip it every year.

Landing his TARDIS on Christmas Day, in the year 5343 is Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. The planet, Mendorax Dellora, is one of Steven Moffat's usual Christmas village planets, stuck somewhere in a vortex of quaint sentiment. The Doctor appears to have about as much Christmas spirit as I do. Having just lost Clara both in spirit and memory, he's reverted to the Doctor's most worrisome state- hermitic and bitter. Not even the TARDIS' holographically generated reindeer antlers can bring out the holiday cheer. It's a visit from Nardole, a nebbish sort of man, that brings the Doctor out of his slump. Mistaking him for a surgeon, he leads the Doctor to what appears to be a crash-landed saucer. The obscene redness of its exterior against the plain backdrop gave me the strangest pangs of the circus tent from "Killer Klowns from Outer Space." Just throwing that out there.

From the outset, Peter Capaldi is at his most charming. I've never actually covered a Twelfth Doctor story before now, so I would like to mention how much I adore his performance as the Doctor. I know he gets a lot of flack from certain fans (see: dipshit morons with no class), but I think he's brilliant. Right away his banter with Nardole is apparent. It's easy to see why someone may have watched Capaldi and Matt Lucas interacting and thought "There's something here." Lucas' history in comedy gives him great timing as the foil to the Twelfth Doctor's eccentricity.

However, it won't be Nardole filling the role of co-star for long. As the Doctor enters the ship of King Hydroflax, he is greeted by the familiar face of River Song. As I have mentioned previously, I have issues with the way River's story plays out, but by this point in the show, I had grown to love her. Which is why this episode pains me so much. The problems inherent in having the Doctor and River's relationship play out like two ships in the night are at their worst in this episode, but I'll get to that in due time.

The King Hydroflax, played with great relish by Greg Davies is a mere head atop a giant robot body, painted in the same garish red as the flying saucer. River, acting very unlike herself, is practically prostrating herself in front of the vain king. Furthermore, she doesn't seem to recognise the Doctor's new face at all. Even more disturbing to the Doctor is the fact that River appears to be married to the king tyrant, talking about him as some sort of cherished lover. After analysing his new patient, the Doctor discovers a foreign body lodged into Hydroflax's skull. All the while, the king's loyal subjects watch a live feed of the operation, booing the Doctor when he refuses to placate the ego of their leader. It's an idea that has become painfully more believable in the years since airing.

The Doctor and River go into another room of the ship where River explains that the foreign body is, in fact, the most valuable diamond in the universe known as the Halassi Androvar. Somewhat to the Doctor's relief, he discovers that River's love for the king has been a ruse to recover the diamond for the Halassi people, from whom it was stolen. Much like the Doctor has turned into a bitter hermit, loneliness has brought out River's more sadistic nature as she takes to the idea of killing Hyrdroflax for the diamond in stride. Less enthusiastic of the idea than even the Doctor is the emperor himself, who has somehow managed to eavesdrop on two Time Lords while walking around in a massive robotic body. This kind of logic will continue throughout the night.

The king is much displeased with learning that his new wife is some renegade archaeologist with a sonic trowel. Taunting the pair, he removes his head from his robot body, leading River to improvise. Holding his head hostage at trowelpoint, River improvises and takes the entire head in a duffel bag. River's other husband, a beautiful but submissive man named Ramone, teleports her and the Doctor to safety with the head in tow. Meanwhile, Hyrdoflax's body sets about taking on a new head in the form of poor Nardole. It’s worth noting that River wiping Ramone’s mind of any knowledge that they were married is a bit creepy. There are implications involved that kind of gross me out.

The Doctor, having just met Ramone, is taken aback after having met yet another of River's husbands. Beginning to feel like a bit of an afterthought the Doctor takes small potshots at River's sense of loyalty, while also fishing for clues that he may or may not have ever meant something to her. For all this episode does to highlight the Doctor and River's secret feelings for one another, it does a piss poor job of actually staying true to River's character in one key manner. Throughout a majority of the episode, River fails repeatedly to recognise the Doctor for who he is.

Moffat tries somewhat to cover his tracks by making it look as though River only knows of twelve previous regenerations, including the War Doctor. In what looks like one of the cheapest props of the episode, she even has a little fold-out wallet with all of the Doctors' pictures. Knowing that the Eleventh Doctor was the end of his regeneration cycle, she never even considers the idea that the Doctor may have lived on. Even though toward the end of the episode, she remarks that the Doctor always finds a way to cheat fate, she wholeheartedly buys into the idea that the Doctor would just never regenerate beyond the Eleventh Doctor. In a single episode, not even River's own logic believes River's own logic.

Learning that River sometimes shows up to places he's been long enough to take the TARDIS for a joyride, the Doctor is given a chance to act as a bit of a spectator in his own life. There is a definite bit of glee to be found in the Twelfth Doctor's over the top reaction to his own TARDIS. Finally being able to say "It's bigger on the inside," the Doctor savours the moment to great comical effect. Ramone parts ways to he and River's pre-established rendezvous point. However, he is cut short by the giant robot body holding a gun to Nardole's head. Poor Nardole, he's having such a rough go of things. First, he brings the wrong surgeon, then he loses his body, and now he's being held hostage by his new body. The robot’s only demand is that Ramone send a message to River.

River, as always, is quite at home in the TARDIS, even taking a moment to raid the liquor cabinet of which not even the Doctor was aware. However, her flawless piloting of the TARDIS is thrown out of whack by unforeseen circumstances. Even after the Doctor deduces that the TARDIS won't fly while it senses the King's head and body are both inside and outside the TARDIS, River still doesn't grasp the fact that he is the Doctor. I would also like mention that while I found the TARDIS' failsafe to be a rather creative invention, it did immediately make me wonder about the Cyberhead Handles' body. What constitutes a body the TARDIS recognises? Could the Face of Boe fly in the TARDIS? Could Dorium Maldovar? Oh well, it doesn't really matter.

A knock on the TARDIS door from Ramone, now part of the robot, quickly reunites the head and body. However, for the third time in this episode, any action is immediately sidestepped by yet another person taking a disembodied head hostage. This time it's the Doctor threatening to throw Hydroflax's head down the garbage chute. Every chance this episode gets, it bravely avoids the perils of forming some sort of plot. The stakes have never been lower. The Doctor and River take the TARDIS to a restaurant aboard the starship Harmony and Redemption. Everyone onboard is some sort of war criminal or seedy individual, including the Maître d', a bug faced man named Flemming. After taking a seat in the restaurant, River reveals that she never planned on returning the diamond to the people of Halassi. Instead, she plans on selling it to the highest bidder.

The Doctor uses this moment to probe River for further information. River reads silently from her TARDIS diary. She reveals to the Doctor that the person who gave her the diary was the type of man who would know just how long a diary she would need. It's at this moment that the Doctor begins to see traces that River is very much still in love with him and that she may be a little lost without him. I would say this scene was touching if it weren't for the fact that it was undercut by River's inability to recognise the man sitting directly in front of her. It's so out of character for River to be this myopic. By this point in my initial watch through, I was so annoyed by this betrayal of her character that it took me out of the story completely. The second time around was only a little less irritating due to the fact that at least now I expected it.

River's buyer turns out to be Scratch, a very Moffatty body horror bad guy, in the vein of characters like Colony Sarff or the Headless Monks. After accepting River's price, Scratch opens his head like a coin purse and pulls out a little orb that connects to any bank in the universe. By this point, I've grown accustomed to Moffat's over the top exploits like this. It's feasible to imagine that Scratch's cruel master may have torn his head open to store money. It's like in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," when Humma Kavula removes a servant's nose to reveal a control pad that opens a series of draws tucked into his chest. However, it gets a bit far fetched when it is revealed that many other diners in the restaurant are the same species as Scratch and they all have the same scar across their faces. Is this some evolutionary trait? Are they a species so greedy that they evolved a place to squirrel away their money? Do they keep other stuff like car keys or bags of space weed? Not every bad guy needs to be a toy, Moffat!

The reason the patrons suddenly turn on the Doctor and River is that they discover the diamond is lodged within the head of their great leader. This brings up even more questions about their heads. Why doesn't Hydroflax’s head have the same scar? Are they the same species? How did this asshole even get so much power in the first place? There seems to be neither anything likable nor competent about him... oh right. Once again, the events of the years since have made this episode more believable. Dinner is even further interrupted by the King's body barging in, demanding its proper head. Only now it deems King Hydroflax's head unsuitable. Having been detached from his body for too long, the King's head is now dying. The body disintegrates the King's head, leaving behind the diamond. Flemming uses this opportunity to alert the patrons of the restaurant to the fact that River knows the perfect person to become the next head of state, so to speak. Of course, it's the Doctor.

Why Flemming knows River knows a Time Lord, but doesn't know she herself is a Time Lord is anyone's guess. Or maybe he knows and is just throwing shade by implying that the Doctor is a better Time Lord. It's at this moment that Alex Kingston is given one of her finest moments as River Song in the form of an emotional monologue. After arguing that the Doctor wouldn't be there with her because he doesn't care, it finally dons on her that the Doctor has been standing next to her the entire time. Despite the fact that Moffat sacrificed River's intelligence for the sake of a big reveal, the moment still resonates. Capaldi's warm gaze meeting River's expression of shock followed by his soft utterance of "Hello sweetie," is genuinely touching. No cynical sensationalism can undo the beautiful performances given by Capaldi and Kingston, who bring more gravity to the scene than the script.

For all of the hand-wavey tripe this episode heaps upon us, the way in which the Doctor and River escape this sticky situation is actually rather brilliant. In any other show, the appearance of a sudden freak meteor collision with the ship would seem convenient. But River is an archaeologist and a time traveller. She picked her meeting location perfectly- a starship about to be destroyed by meteors. Her line of "I'm an archaeologist from the future, I dug you up," is easily one of the best River Song lines ever written for Doctor Who. If this is truly her final episode, that's one hell of a line to go out on.

In another convenient moment, the diamond lands in River's dress as they're making their escape. I guess she planned that too. The Doctor uses Scratch's money orb to short circuit the robot body with its firewall. River and the Doctor run to the TARDIS while the ship crashes into the planet Darillium, knocking River unconscious. While River is out, the Doctor uses the opportunity to do a bit of time travelling. First, the Doctor gives the diamond to one of the crash's first responders, telling him to build a restaurant in front of the singing towers of Darillium. Then he jumps forward to a time when the restaurant has been built to make reservations. Then he jumps forward to the day of the reservation. River wakes up to find herself wandering into a beautiful restaurant on Christmas Day. Even Ramone and Nardole have survived due to some trickery on the Doctor’s behalf. Nardole is having a bit of “alone time,” which River remarks must be difficult as a head. That one goes up there with Ursula becoming a blowjob dispensing pavement stone at the end of “Love and Monsters.” The Doctor is waiting for River in a First Doctor style bow tie and coat. He treats her to a romantic meal and the gift of her own sonic screwdriver, the same sonic screwdriver she has when we met her in "Silence in the Library."

There's a nice little cap on the entire River storyline here that feels a bit more final than the one between her and the Eleventh Doctor. Perhaps it's the fact that it's the last time Moffat wrote her character, or perhaps it's because even River seems to know something is up. Having heard the legends of her own romance with the Doctor, River knows that her last night was spent with the Doctor on the planet Darillium. This is a bit of retconning that you often find in Doctor Who. River doesn't really know in her first appearance that she's headed toward her own demise, yet here she's all too aware of it. It's compounded by the fact that the Doctor reveals that a night on Darillium lasts 24 years. It's meant to be a sweet line that implies they got to spend a lot of time coupling together for 24 years, but it's really just 24 years for River to know, for certain, that she's going to her inevitable doom.

Retcons like these don't necessarily ruin the show. Storytellers shouldn't be forced to sacrifice the current narrative all for the sake of creating tidy bookends. Should Big Finish not put Peri and the Fifth Doctor in more adventures for fear that it may dilute the Doctor's sacrificing his own life for a woman he barely knows? Does him knowing her better make his sacrifice any less admirable? How about the many times River meets the Doctor in his previous forms even though the Tenth Doctor clearly had never met her in his life? I'm not going to answer these questions because they should be open-ended. It is a thing to consider in Doctor Who. If time is a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff, then maybe the storylines are allowed to be as malleable.

As I've demonstrated above, our own experiences with the stories can be malleable. I watched this episode with my boyfriend because I wanted to gauge his initial reaction. A lot of his reactions mirrored my own. We both found ourselves enjoying it as a light romp afforded by the air of a Christmas episode, while also deriding it for its lack of plot. Like myself, he too felt that the big reveal was detrimental to River's intelligence and went on past the point of acceptability. It's one of the oddest things about Steven Moffat as a writer, no matter how clever his ideas actually may be, he doesn't ever seem to know when his audience has caught on. Perhaps it's the suits at the BBC underestimating the audience. Or perhaps this is because he spent a lot of his life as a Doctor Who nerd, oftentimes feeling out of place when talking about Doctor Who to casuals. But the modern Doctor Who audience has been raised on science fiction and intricate narratives. No hand-holding necessary.

Regardless of how attuned he perceives his audience to be, River's realisation seems more slavishly timed to the climax of the story than anything else. One can't help but wonder if Moffat hadn't been so insistent on making this moment the crux of the episode, we may have actually gotten a more serviceable plot. Instead of heads held hostage and hand waving, we could have gotten a stronger villain. Scratch could have represented more than just some guy with a coin purse head. There are lots of fantastical elements on display, but none of them is ever given any gravity. Moffat's fixation on character relationships is so single-minded that it comes not only at the sake of plot, but character as well. It's unfortunate that despite Alex Kingston's greatest efforts, River's goodbye is undercut by one writer's need to be clever.

[hphm-etched-engraved-everlasting]

20. Em

Author’s Note/Table of Contents

Being at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry meant that hearing things out of the ordinary was the norm. But never did I come to think that I'd hear that Filch was rudely woken up by my sister and seen, for the first time by any student, in his pyjamas--and here I thought that Fred and George implanting active Dungbombs in the Gryffindor Common Room would have been the major highlight circulating around the student population.

Well, maybe it was. After all, when I came down for breakfast the next morning, fresh from my visit to the duelling club with Diego just the night before, I caught sight of the Weasley twins being bombarded with questions about their clever prank that drove most of their house mates away from the common area. I'd assume that after this kind of stunt would get them in trouble by Filch, but surprisingly they didn't get caught. Maybe because Clara gave them the blind eye, or took the blame for herself? Either way, the fact that neither of them got detention baffled me slightly.

As I sat down at the Hufflepuff table, reaching out to help myself to a piece of toast, I noticed my dorm mate, Dawn Everett, give me one look from across the table and erupt into giggles.

"Okay, what is it?" I asked her with a slight huff. "Is it the rose in my hair? Yes, one of Clara's friends gave it to me. So what? Wearing flowers in my hair is my norm."

"No, no!" Dawn shook her head. "Well, yes it is--but not in the way you expect. I actually like the way you incorporate flowers in your everyday style, Em. Just...seeing them makes me feel happy."

"It seems like you're about one of the only ones who thinks so," I murmured, shrugging. "You remember how Yvonne from Ravenclaw thought that wearing sunflowers in my hair made me look ridiculous the other day."

"And I think you should do it more often! This is your style, Em, and you've actually become quite the inspiration for some of us." Dawn grinned and glanced at the scarlet rose embedded with my hair tie, securing the braid that Penny helped me fix this morning. "What kind of flower do you think would go well with blonde hair?" she suddenly asked.

"Hmm..." I tapped my chin and tilted my head in thought. Dawn's hair was actually a brilliant blonde, gleaming brilliantly with the early morning sun--on its own, it glowed with a sheen like a torch light. "I'd say daisies? Or lilies? I think any flower works well for your hair, Dawn."

Dawn nodded and flashed a quick smile at me before grabbing a few pieces of toast and shovelling scrambled eggs into her plate.

That was when the doors to the Great Hall burst open, and in strode Filch, wrapping his usual grey jacket tightly around his skinny shuffling figure donned otherwise in baby powder blue cotton. A white sleeping cap hung lopsided and crooked over his head, the pom-pom dangling over his shoulder as he ran.

"What in the--" Dawn took one look at Filch and burst into giggles again. "Looks like this is the first time we've ever seen the Hogwarts caretaker wearing pyjamas! At breakfast, no less!"

Dawn wasn't the only one laughing at the strange phenomenon. All around me, I saw other students from different houses erupting into cackles and wheezes at the sight--most notably, Tonks and Tulip who looked so red in the face they practically looked like they swallowed a bottle of Firewhiskey too many. Up at the staff table, I noticed Professor McGonagall crack a small smile, while Professor Flitwick and Kettleburn exchanged a glance and chuckled.

I suppose this caretaker didn't really get much respect after all.

"Em!"

I turned suddenly at the sound of my sister's voice calling for me, and I waved to her as she approached. "Over here."

"What in the world is happening here?" Clara glanced up at the staff table to see Filch fuming at the teachers, and she immediately turned pale. "Oh Merlin. Em, can I talk to you alone, please?"

Without waiting for an answer, she quickly beckoned me to follow her out of the Great Hall, and so I did, the sounds of roaring laughter dying away.

"I swear there's a good reason I had to call Filch up so early--" Clara began, but I held a hand up.

"I'm not saying you're being unreasonable, Clara, but you notice that you're still wearing pyjamas, right? At least, they look like pyjamas," I pointed out, gesturing to her red and gold lion-print ensemble complete with lion slippers on her feet. I'd assume that was what she'd wear going to bed at Hogwarts, because I've never seen her wear this set of pyjamas at home.

At this, Clara glanced down at her outfit and cringed. "Whoops. Yup, I know, I'm wearing pyjamas too, but this couldn't wait. You heard about the Gryffindor Common Room going up in stink last night, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Three of the Gryffindor first-years came by the Hufflepuff Common Room just last night so they could get their desired shower, and I heard the story then. Why?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure why Fred and George would do that, but eventually when I tracked them down with Charlie, they revealed that they were chasing after someone familiar--though I'd think you'd have a hard time believing me if you hear about who it was."

"Spill the beans, then. Who was it they were after?"

Clara took a deep breath--and then said the name I honestly thought I'd never hear her say for a long time.

"Jacob."

So our brother was spotted on or near Hogwarts grounds. At the sound of that, my jaw practically fell to the floor. "No way," I murmured. "Jacob Pan-Hui Lin in the flesh?"

"So it seemed--the one and only," Clara confirmed. "Though why he would drop by, I wouldn't know. I just asked Filch about it and he said that he got a report from Madam Pince about his presence in the library just last night."

"Probably explained why it closed so early," I said thoughtfully with a nod. "Madam Pince probably didn't want anyone else to worry so much about the potential mess he'd make--let alone the chaos he'd ensue if anyone saw him. Besides the people we know who know him, that is. And that would probably explain why Filch was angry," I added with a laugh.

"Hey. To be fair, it's not like anyone to willingly wake up to satisfy a student's query so early in the morning. I would probably ask them to just go away and wait till I was actually up and ready to answer their question," Clara interjected. "But he was also up all night trying to rid our Common Room of the Dungbomb stink. He even went as far as thinking that I was the one who committed that crime--and I had to cover for the twins."

"A prefect, covering for trouble-making first-years? I'm impressed," I said with another nod. "But let's not try to stray away from the point. What are you going to do about Jacob?"

Clara's jaw tightened as she pondered this, and I swore I saw a storm gather in her eyes as her brows narrowed.

"I'm going to find him, and I think you should stay here."

"What?! But he's my brother too, whether you like it or not!" I argued, stomping my foot. "Clara, aren't we in this together?"

"Of course, Em. But I don't want you to end up in danger the same way--"

"I'm with you, Clara, what could possibly go wrong when I'm with you?"

Clara tensed at this question, muscles freezing rigidly. For a minute, I thought she would reprimand me for being so stubborn--though part of me thought she was being unfair anyway for wanting me to stay at Hogwarts while she pursued all these perilous things--but then she sighed and nodded.

"You're right, Em. I'm sorry," Clara eventually relented. "I just...I don't know. If the circumstances are dangerous--"

"But this could be the only time."

I wasn't a child anymore. I wasn't a baby anymore. Merula could label me as the baby all she wants, but I couldn't care less about my age when I have family to find. Besides, who knew if I would ever get to see Jacob again after this one time?

"Alright. You can come with me. Besides, it's not like the professors could do anything. It's the weekend, after all."

"Exactly. Just let me come."

"Fine."

"Best change into actual clothes first, though."

"Hey!"

But eventually Clara relented, and as she left, I felt like maybe we could truly become close after all.

---

The search for Jacob wasn't easy, to say the least. He wasn't in the library, as the inquiry with Madam Pince revealed--though the both of us ended up having to clear her shelves up afterwards as a result of the mess Jacob made the night before. It turned out that indeed, he was searching through her shelves to find out about something, but Madam Pince didn't even know what it was he was looking for. It went about as far as her telling him she'd report him to Dumbledore when he'd left.

"Your brother seemed determined to find the books he needed," was all she could tell us.

After lunch, Clara and I went to the Gryffindor Common Room to take the Floo down to Diagon Alley, and the first place Clara immediately made a beeline to as we got out of the fireplace was Flourish and Blotts.

"Madam Villanelle!" she called out, running to the shopkeeper. "Has my brother passed by here looking for books?"

"Clara! And...is this your little sister?" Madam Villanelle asked me, giving me a wary look.

I nodded. "Youngest sister of Jacob Lin here, ma'am."

"Yes, he was just here moments ago!" Madam Villanelle eventually answered my sister's question. "I was about to send you an owl telling you as much. I could tell that you wanted to see him again at the end of last year.”

"And let me guess--he left when you brought me up?" Clara asked.

"Yes. I'm sorry," Madam Villanelle apologized.

"It's fine. Thank you for keeping your word to notify me if Jacob visited Flourish and Blotts."

"Do you know what he came here for?" I asked her then. "Madam Pince, the librarian at Hogwarts, told us he was looking through her shelves but couldn't find what he wanted."

"He was looking for books on the Mahoutokoro School of Magic," Madam Villanelle explained.

"Mahoutokoro? That's where our father went to school!" I exclaimed. "But why would he want to look into that?"

I may have been absolutely clueless and behind, but Clara's eyes automatically widened at the revelation. "Madam Villanelle, remember the wizard in white robes that you told me Mundungus Fletcher fought last year? He was spotted again in Knockturn Alley just recently--and when I told Dumbledore, he thought that the wizard might be a Dark Arts practitioner from Mahoutokoro."

"Dark Arts practitioner? You don't think that there are dark wizards beyond..." I trailed off as I tried to comprehend the impossible. My father wasn't a crook, but then again he never mentioned this part of the protocol to any of us.

"Well, now that I think of it, Mahoutokoro students' robes do turn white when they practice the Dark Arts," Madam Villanelle said thoughtfully. "It's hard to say what your brother's intentions were, though. He just bought every book he could on the subject matter and then left."

And indeed, as I glanced over at one portion of the shelves, there was a huge gap present where books should have been stacked as other books began to keel over in their row. It almost looked like the same scene when my mother's books were pulled out of the shelves all those years ago.

Clara didn't seem fazed at the sight, though. She immediately began to pore over some of the older dustier volumes from the bookshelves, fingers flicking fervently over the pages, and after a while she eventually slammed down the last volume she found.

"Nothing! At least last year Jacob was kind enough to leave a message--now he's left no trace of his visit!" Clara growled. "What was he thinking? He didn't try to see us at Hogwarts, and now he didn't wait for us to get here despite knowing we were on his trail..."

"Do you think he's intentionally doing this?" I asked. "I mean, if he's gone all this way and never thought to see us..."

"He wouldn't. There must be a good reason for whatever it is he's doing," Clara said, shaking her head. "I'm sure whatever it is, it's in our best interests."

"Rest assured, if I see your brother here again I'll be sure to send another owl," Madam Villanelle promised. "To both of you," she added, nodding in my direction.

"Thank you, ma'am. We'll let you get back to work now," I said with a smile.

As the two of us turned to leave, I turned back to Madam Villanelle for a moment. "One more question, Madam Villanelle. Have you reached out to my mother recently about..."

"Your mother? Oh." Madam Villanelle nodded in recollection. "Renee Lin, right? it was always a joy to see her published books on these shelves. I remember wanting to take one off the shelves myself to read." She chuckled and shook her head. "No, your sister warned me not to tell her anything about his return. I did consider putting her books back on the shelves, but who knows what controversies could spark among the critics who gave her negative reviews?"

"I just...I was hoping my mom would continue to pursue her career as a writer," I simply mumbled. "You know, despite all that's happened."

"I can drop a word with her, let her know that her youngest daughter is thinking the best for her," Madam Villanelle offered. "But no worries. Your reasons for coming here would be safe with me."

"Thank you." I smiled and offered her a hand. "I'm Emily, by the way."

"Emily. I'll keep you in mind," Madam Villanelle said, shaking my hand. "But you better catch up with your sister. I don't think she's prepared to return to Hogwarts without knowing where your brother is."

I nodded and waved in farewell as I exited the shop, turning to find that, indeed, Clara had already left the shop. As I turned, I thought I saw the heel of her boot disappearing down Knockturn Alley.

So much for her trying to protect me. Neither of our parents wanted us to even travel down Knockturn Alley, and last summer when we came here to get my supplies they made these restrictions very clear. Yet if Clara was already going down that alley...

I quickly ran after her, not even knowing what consequences either of us would face in the alley forbidden by our parents.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Supergirl 4x10 invokes ... Whouffaldi feels?

Supergirl began the second half of its 4th season tonight with an episode titled Suspicious Minds - which totally unexpectedly invoked memories of Whouffaldi. No, Jenna and Peter weren’t in the episode. There wasn’t even a Doctor Who reference. But to explain requires me to spoil the episode’s cliffhanger ending, so read past the break at your peril if you’re avoiding spoilers. (EDIT: In case anyone spotted it before I fixed it, I agree that if you’re going to protect spoilers it’s not a good idea to include the spoilers in the tags. Sorry about that!)

A subplot in Season 4 of Supergirl is how the US government has turned against her with suspicion, due to ongoing paranoia about refugees from other worlds settling on earth. Supergirl has been ordered by the president to divulge her secret identity, which she refuses to do. As a result, she’s been fired from the secret organization she works where her adopted sister, Alex, is the director.

Tonight’s episode saw the president’s liaison to the DEO go to great lengths to find out Supergirl’s identity, a secret that would put Kara and everyone else she knows and loves in danger. I won’t recap the entire episode, but basically at the end the secret is in danger of being divulged due to the recruitment of a truth-seeking alien who cannot be defeated. So in order to keep Kara safe (and her family and loved ones), J’onn J’onzz (aka Martian Manhunter, who recently became a private eye - not making this up and it’s really cool) has to perform a mindwipe on everyone who knows the secret of Kara’s identity. Including Kara’s sister. Although Alex Danvers won’t forget that she has a sister, she will lose the memory of Kara being Supergirl (something that leaves a Supergirl-sized hole in her memory, according to the trailer for next episode).

If all of this invokes memories of a diner in the desert ... it’s in many ways a non-romantic version of the memory wipe Twelve undertakes in Hell Bent in order to protect the now-immortal Clara Oswald from the Time Lords. And if the trailer for 4x11 is any indication, Alex is going to be left with gaps much as Twelve was after losing Clara.

All this of course is coincidental. Shows have similar plots all the time. And it’s not an apples to apples comparison because there was no romance, no one died, no one was leaving the show, and odds are this won’t be permanent anyway.

But the fact Rachel Talalay directed both Hell Bent and Suspicious Minds really brought home the similarities. It’s hard to believe that the same person who directed Hell Bent and Heaven Sent has been behind the camera for a number of the CW DC superhero shows. They feel so different. But as I watched Kara say goodbye - to an extent - to her sister as she prepared to submit to J’onn’s mindwipe (and I should mention that J’onn is a very Doctor-like figure and is played by David Harewood, who was a favourite of many to succeed Capaldi), I can’t imagine that Talalay didn’t call upon her prior experience with Hell Bent to make the Supergirl episode happen.

[tillthenexttimedoctor]

Of Engine Oil, Tears and Happiness

”No, it’s an actual tear, but it shouldn’t be...”

Gentle, sometimes violent, but always trying to get to the heart of things, there is an emotional pull to the episodes of series 10. It’s found in Bill’s openness, as her emotions and thoughts spill across her face, her words, her imagination. Rarely has there even been a companion so vibrantly, uncompromisingly and genuinely herself, in every way, no matter what happens.

But it also carries us through story about story, calling for empathy and understanding. It’s getting true the true nature of robots and wishes. It’s believing the best of those held in chains and recognising true monsters. It’s realising the truth about a scary house and about a family. It’s about knowing yourself, holding on to who you are even as falsehoods claw at your mind. It’s about finding your fate, even if it’s portals to other worlds or far away from home on Mars. It’s trusting that even evil is capable of goodness, as long as she wants to.

There’ is beauty in reaching out, even when it is scary. Even when the world has been broken and twisted beyond recognition. There is kindness in everyone. There is hope in tears. And that is why Heather’s story could never end with only a mournful goodbye.

Heather’s story begins with open questions and suspicious behaviour. On a show like Doctor Who, strangeness is the sign of a threat or the beginning of an invasion often enough. From her first appearance on, Heather comes across as a dubious figure. In a crowded lecture hall, she stares straight ahead, no sign that she is even registering the content. Encountering Bill at the bar, no words are spoken, just an enigmatic smile. And through it all, a the bright star in her iris, a curious feature on a show on which being human is optional.

And yet, these moments are undeniably framed as romantic. “The day you fall in love”, the Doctor exclaims as the camera rests on Heather’s face. And there, eyes are meeting, two people drawn to each other across a crowded room by a force that seems bigger than themselves. When Bill meets Heather again, our trust in this set up is tested once more, with an odd request that lures Bill to what is clearly a source of danger. A puddle without rain, a reflection that isn’t quite right, and a girl who first beckons Bill to look and then flees the scene.

Heather she sits in an odd spot between different different expectations. It may look like she is leading our heroine into peril, but she makes a poor evil seductress, too rough around the edges. Every revealed detail make her less suitable for a cute romance, drawn out over small encounters. Although even her last name remains unknown, we are given emotional glimpses. Alienation and discontent. She hates her surroundings and rejects who she is. A star is a defect. Something to be fixed.

Still, the very second Heather catches the glimpse of understanding, she begins to reach out, reach back. One moment, she is rude and dismissive, but an “Are you freaking out about something?” is enough to start confiding in Bill, to show her what she is preoccupied with, to admit that she wants to leave wherever she goes. To grant Bill a “maybe” when she asks to come along. These are the tentative beginnings of a romance, with all its unfulfilled promises, built on just one small moment of human connection.

It takes Heather’s transformation into the Pilot for the puzzle pieces of her isolation to truly fall into place. Stripped down to to her wishes and thoughts, she isn’t pushing the outside world away. Where Where Bill complained that her face betrayed her emotions, Heather’s showed detachment and hostility but hid her unhappiness and longing, those other fragments of her depression. Now she is reaching out, through all of time and space, longing for love. Bill is brave enough to reach back, but does not dare to hold on too long.

Mirrors, reflections, echoes, are a defining and essential theme in the Moffat era, from at least the moment on in which Prisoner Zero tries to hide behind an image created from Amy Pond’s mind. Heather is woven from the same thread that send fragments of Clara Oswald through all of space and time, had the Twelfth Doctor wonder about the familiarity of the face he was wearing, or let the ways in which these two characters were the same threaten the universe in the hybrid arc. Plot, monster, characterisation and theme often come together in one cohesive, beautiful whole.

And so the sad young woman finds a single droplet of engine oil left behind by a spaceship and it consumes her until she too is shaped from flowing tears. But among her handful of scenes and a small number of lines, Heather does not only have her physical nature altered. She does not merely shift her shape. Heather changes genre. As a mirror image, as a perfect reflection caught in a pudde, she responds to context, her purpose in the story, her meaning in a scene.

Heather appears as a monster when people believe her to be one. Met with careful trepidation, there barely seems any life in her. “You’re dead,” Bill says and in that moment, Heather might as well be. Emotionless and relentless in her pursuit, the young woman Bill had a crush on seems to have disappeared for good. When feared, this new creature is full of rage. The Doctor, Bill and Nardole run from her and what follows them is a screeching creature of water and fury.

But as that tone shifts, so does our perception of Heather. The Doctor tells a story about looking for connection the image rising from the water softens. When Bill looks upon her rising face with yearning, it is yearning that reflects back. And when she finally realises the truth, it is that overwhelming sadness that we are left with. It’s a goodbye made out of mirrors, until Heather dissolves into tragedy and leaves behind a single tear. And a joyous smile on Bill’s face, later, reminiscing, a quiet promise that this will not be the final chapter in this story.

“World Enough and Time” and “The Doctor Falls” set a stage that could not be bleaker, years of waiting whittling down bones, the violation of cyberconversion stripping away the flesh. And yet, the reponse could not be louder. Bill, impossibly, holds on to who she is even through her horrific ordeal and claims her soul, her face, her freedom to be herself. Missy proves herself to be capable of goodness in extremis, in a way only Missy could. Nardole proves his strength and wit more than once. The Doctor makes his stand, no matter how hopeless, because it’s right and decent.

There is hope in kindness. There is hope found within us. There is hope in tears. There is hope in humanity, in vulnerability, in the ability to feel pain, in the ability to grieve. In the barren wasteland of a battle, Bill cries, wails, and reality itself holds its breath. Magic is needed and so magic is given. Heather could be a source of suspicion, a romantic interest, a monster, a tragedy. And she can be a fairytale when the world screams for one.

Maybe this version of Heather that we meet now is able to speak to Bill because they now share the same nature. Maybe it is because Heather has learned a thing or two on her travels through all of space and time, too. Or maybe the person she is she kisses Bill, when she pilots the TARDIS, is just who she is when someone is actually willing to see her. Someone who accepts her as the sad, alienated woman and the being of immense cosmic power.

As she steps into the starlight to explore all of time and space with Bill, there is a star in Heather’s eye. It used to be a defect that she wanted to get fixed, a fault she found in herself, a taint. Allowed to be anything, to rearrange the atoms of the universe, it remains untouched. The smile on her face, however, is new.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Ranking the Dalek Stories – Which is the Best?

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“… hideous, machine-like creatures. They are legless, moving on a round base. They have no human features. A lens on a flexible shaft acts as an eye, arms with mechanical grips for hands.” Terry Nation’s script for ‘The Survivors’ (aka ‘The Daleks’ Part Two)

The Daleks, along with Judge Dredd, are fictional fascists beloved by a wide audience. At their heart is a combination of terrifying concept – Nazis who always return (imagine) – with a triumph of design. The greatest Dalek stories tap into this uneasy alliance.

A quick summary of the thinking behind this article:

A. We thought people would enjoy it.

B. If a story features the Daleks in a small cameo role, I’ve not included it (for example, ‘Frontier in Space’, ‘The Wedding of River Song’, ‘The Pilot’). I’ve removed ‘The Day of the Doctor’ and ‘The Time of the Doctor’: it seems silly to rate them based on their Dalek content.

The rankings are not based purely on how entertaining I find the stories, but also on how the Daleks are used and developed, the Doctor’s response to them and what that says (within both the larger context of the show’s history and the stories surrounding it). As this only covers television stories, I should mention that I think the best Dalek story of all time is the Big Finish audioplay ‘Jubilee’ by Rob Shearman, which you should know as little as possible about before listening to.

24. Planet of the Daleks

Having not seen this until its DVD release, I don’t have any residual affection for this story from childhood (unlike other stories on this list; I thought ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ was great when I was nine).

‘Planet’comes across as lazy now. To be fair to Terry Nation, no one could rewatch episodes in 1972, and so his first script for the show since 1965 drew heavily on his old stories. The result is a rote traipse through the familiar.

It’s not without positives: The Doctor’s grief and rage when he thinks Jo is dead is very well acted, although the oft quoted “Courage isn’t just a matter of not being frightened” line works better in isolation than in the actual scene, which feels like HR has invited Jon Pertwee in to do a motivational seminar.

23. Destiny of the Daleks

Terry Nation’s final script for Doctor Who clashed with Script Editor Douglas Adams. Adams tried to zest up what he regarded as tired Nation standards (including radiation poisoning, overambitious monsters, a rare mineral, a quest, things named after their primary characteristic, invisible monsters, jungle planets, aggressive vegetation, flaky Daleks, unfortunate comedy episodes and plagues). The lack of budget is obvious, with knackered Dalek props and an ill-fitting Davros mask (actor David Gooderson also cannot lift Davros’ generic villain dialogue).

Some jokes land (‘Ooh look! Rocks!’) as does some of the Mild Peril (Episode 3’s cliff-hanger especially), but the story about inertia reflects its subject. K9 doesn’t appear because Nation didn’t want him to distract from the Daleks, then reduces them to impotent robots in thrall to their creator anyway.

22. Daleks in Manhattan/ Evolution of the Daleks

It’s not that this re-treads ideas from ‘Evil of the Daleks’, or that the science strains credulity even by Doctor Who standards, it’s that this story feels strangely perfunctory despite its ambitions. This is a shame because there are some great moments in the first episode where the Daleks plot, skulk and lament. It feels salvageable, but Russell T. Davies was ill and unable to perform his usual rewrites on the scripts, and the result feels like ticking off items on a Tenth Doctor Bingo card.

We do get the mental image of the Cult of Skaro sneaking around 1920s New York trying to kidnap a pig though, so you can’t say that it’s all bad.

21. The Chase

‘The Chase’ starts off well and cosy. Terry Nation sets the initial action on a desert planet called Aridius where some aliens from RADA are menaced by a giant ballbag. The regulars are all enjoying themselves. Then we getawkward comedy skits, a poorly judged trip to the Marie Celeste, and a sequence in a haunted house where everyone is stupid for some reason. The momentum never fully recovers from this.

Giving the Daleks time travel to pursue the TARDIS is an important development, and it’s a fantastic set for the interior, but the middle of this story lets it down.

20. Resurrection of the Daleks

From this point on, using the Daleks required approval by Terry Nation or his estate. Nation had been unsatisfied by other writers’ version of the Daleks, which is quite the take, and refused to allow another writer to tackle them until a convention appearance changed his mind. Nation’s feedback on an Eric Saward script meant that the story was revised and became overfull to satisfy both writers’ visions.

A delay in production gave time for streamlining, but nonetheless ‘Resurrection’ is messy and ultimately doesn’t seem very interested in the Daleks (focussing again on Davros and Saward’s mercenary characters). Indeed, the Daleks here seem even weaker than in ‘Destiny’, relying on mercenaries to take over Davros’ prison ship and being insecure enough to give them little Dalek decorations on their helmets.

In its defence, Matthew Robinson directs it with gusto, somewhere in there is a critique of its own violence, and Tegan’s departure is excellent.

19. Revolution of the Daleks

This is not a story that uses the Daleks on more than one level, and yet also possibly the nearest thing its era gets to political satire. We have someone using the remains of a Dalek to build security drones, associating a representation of fascism with law enforcement and connecting it to government, but the story moves away from this idea into cloned Dalek mutants hijack the drones and kill people, and then the original Daleks turn up to kill them because they’re not genetically pure. The Doctor’s solution to the remaining Daleks is good, but while this one doesn’t do anything outrageously wrong, it doesn’t do anything especially right either.

18. Resolution

Likewise, this story is just sort of there, like Shed Seven or thrush. The Daleks have a new form of controlling people, with the mutant wearing them like the title creatures from ‘Planet of the Spiders’ (as strong an image as it was in 1975) and the DIY Dalek shell mirrors the Doctor’s rebuilding of the sonic screwdriver.

The Dalek also demonstrates its firepower quite impressively, but contrasting this with ‘Dalek’ shows what’s missing: this doesn’t have anything like the personal stakes of that story, and so we have some pulpy and familiar thrills but little depth.

17. Into the Dalek

The main job of ‘Into the Dalek’ isn’t getting under the skin of the Daleks, but setting up the Series 8 arcs. We have a good Dalek, which turns out to have a damaged inhibitor allowing it to feel compassion, and a Fantastic Voyage-style journey through its interior. This lacks existential dread (in contrast to Clara being trapped inside a Dalek during ‘The Witch’s Familiar’), but Ben Wheatley directs the Daleks in combat extremely well.

It’s very busy, ambitious and patchy: the gag where the Doctor keeps finding Clara unattractive gets old quickly, the dialogue is of variable quality, and everyone has to be stupid for the plot to happen. There’s an interesting story to be had about a broken Dalek and the Doctor’s response to it, but this isn’t it.

16. Victory of the Daleks

Another riff on a Troughton-era story, in this case ‘Power of the Daleks’, this is easier to criticise now separate from the outcry over the New Paradigm design.

And it is… okay. The twist that the Doctor’s hatred of Daleks is what progresses their plan is a better use of this than the usual abyss-gazing. The Daleks win, but this doesn’t land with sufficient weight as the meat of the ending is given over to the ongoing series arc.

It’s a hybrid of Dalek event story and Companion Proves Themselves (with all the iconography of Churchill, World War Two and the Daleks) and is so by necessity somewhat pat in its resolution. Also, by Printing the Legend of Churchill a more interesting story is compressed into the line “If Hitler invaded hell I would give a favourable reference to the Devil”.

Putting aside the Dalek designs, which didn’t work for most people, this story fulfils a function and attempts to disguise this amiably enough.

15. Death to the Daleks

This is a story that, thanks to it being four parts rather than six, we could afford on video. I can’t say for sure how much this impacts my preferring it to ‘Planet of the Daleks’, but I do think it stands out slightlyfrom other Terry Nation stories despite the familiar elements (rare minerals, quests, a first episode featuring just the regulars). 

Carey Blyton’s score, along with Arnold Yarrow’s performance as Bellal, has an endearing quirkiness. There are little flourishes like the Daleks using a model TARDIS for target practice, and the Doctor’s melancholy at the destruction of the city. Its oddness occasionally overcomes the quaintness of Nation’s approach to Doctor Who, which doesn’t seem to have changed since 1965.

14. Army of Ghosts/ Doomsday

Having successfully brought the Daleks back, Russell T. Davies held off on using them again until the Series 2 finale. We have the Daleks versus the Doctor and – for the first time – the Cybermen. The Dalek threat is resolved fairly swiftly as a mechanism to separate the Doctor and Rose, but what we do get is the Cult of Skaro (the return of the Black Dalek! Daleks with names! I don’t know why these are exciting but they are!) and the joy of subverting the two biggest monsters finally meeting by – instead of a huge space battle – having four of them read each other in a corridor with sassy putdowns.

13. Revelation of the Daleks

Eric Saward’s second Dalek story features Davros turning humans into a new race of Daleks leading to the stirrings of a civil war with the originals.

There are always garish edges to Saward’s writing, but the sequence where a character discovers her father’s body inside a glass Dalek – and he alternates between ranting about genetic purity and begging him to kill her – is at its core such a terrifying idea that it succeeds where the horrors of ‘Resurrection’ seem shallow. It does share that story’s lack of interest in the Daleks for the most part though, but this scene makes them scary for the first time since ‘Genesis’.

This also features Alexei Sayle fighting Daleks with a ray gun that fires rock’n’roll. If you don’t like that then we’re probably not going to agree on much about Doctor Who.

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12. Day of the Daleks

This is an example of the Daleks’ importance to Doctor Who. After talking to Huw Weldon, who had been responsible for the length of ‘The Dalek Master Plan’, producer Barry Letts decided to bring the Daleks back for the Season 9 finale, with Terry Nation’s permission, only to decide that the show instead needed a hook for the opening story of Season 10. As a result, the Daleks were inserted into the story planned for that slot. This is a common feature of Dalek stories: it’s hard to write something original that they’re intrinsic to.

The production suffers from the small number of Dalek props available, and director Paul Bernard not using the ring modulator effect for their voices. This is a good story (though maybe not a good Dalek Story) with a then novel time paradox plot and Aubrey Woods’ Controller is a really strong performance. Viewing figures broke the 10 million mark for the first time since ‘The Dalek Master Plan’, so the decision to bring the Daleks back was absolutely vindicated.

11. Mission to the Unknown/The Daleks’ Master Plan

Essentially a longer and darker version of ‘The Chase’ with higher stakes – it’s not simply that the Daleks want to kill the Doctor, it’s that the Doctor stole part of their superweapon – with a subpar comedy episode and lots of hostile planets (deadly plants, invisible monsters, a rare mineral: such familiarity!). Extended to twelve episodes, it loses its way but commits to its scale with an incredibly downbeat ending that uses jungle planet cliché for contrast: Kembel is reduced to sand and dust.

A highlight of this story is the alliance of Outer Galaxy emissaries who join with the Daleks, a group of Doctor Who villains who inevitably bicker and betray each other. This, rather than the Space Security Service, is what Terry Nation should have focussed on for his spin-offs.

10. Asylum of the Daleks

Steven Moffat’s first proper Dalek story was part of Series 7A, an attempt at weekly blockbusters driven by high concepts. Here, then was the promise of a Dalek asylum with old and replica props, while also attempting to unify both the New Paradigm designsand the lack of emotional fallout to Amy and Rory Pond’s baby being kidnapped. Moffat also threw in a surprise new companion appearance and it’s this, combined with a nano cloud weapon that turns people into Daleks.

It’s not that the others don’t get resolved, but it’s done swiftly in another busy story. While the Daleks have previously controlled people, the idea of actually being turned into Daleks is both macabre and slightly jarring. It feels like, considering their last story involved a plotline about genetic purity, this isn’t the right fit. What does work better is the concept that the Daleks have a concept of beauty, and it’s based around hatred. While this episode does fulfil its blockbuster ambitions it also feels like it needs more room to breathe in order to do justice to all its concepts.

9. The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End

This is the logical conclusion of the Daleks’ return to the show: invading present-day Earth with a huge fleet (complete with Davros backseat driving). Also here, on top of the scale and sheer pace of the storytelling, is the logical conclusion of the Daleks: they attempt to destroy all other life in the universe in one go.

However, there’s also a sense of their ‘Day of the Daleks’role. They’re the Big Guns, so out they come for Doctor Who’s version of Infinity War. They’re developed here by virtue of Davies giving some of them distinct characters (Hello Dalek Caan, hello another stellar Nick Briggs performance). The Daleks here are aggressive and powerful (until Donna finds the off-switch in their basement), but the Doctor’s storyline is more tied up with the companions’ fates than the Daleks.

Davros is also here, trying to suggest to the Doctor that his friends trying to kill Daleks – the most evil race in the universe who are currently trying to obliterate all other sentient life – is bad (this idea worked once in a specific context and no one else has managed it before or since). On the other hand, Davros recognising Sarah Jane again is a thrilling way to bind Doctor Who to its past.

8. The Daleks

On the one hand, I find this story drags towards the end after a strong and uneasy start, but on the other Doctor Who doesn’t exist as we know it without ‘The Daleks’.

It’s hard to imagine the impact of this story on a 1963 audience, especially as we’re so familiar with what the Daleks and Doctor Who were to become. Consider, then, a story with the fear of the bomb writ large (broadcast a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis) and the Daleks in that context. That’s the existential fear angle for the adults covered, which meant they were happy to watch along, but more important was the response from children: love.

Many people contributed to the story and to the Daleks. Nation’s desire to avoid a Man-In-A-Suit monster is important, but key is the work of designer Raymond Cusick, voice actor Peter Hawkins and the Radiophonic Workshop’s Brian Hodgson. What the initially sceptical BBC found was that by the third episode, children who had watched the show were impersonating the Daleks.

There’s a lot to be written about the ageing geek audience who take their childhood toys with them into adulthood, and this article is written by a 35-year-old man who grew up when Doctor Who was off-air. However it’s worth stressing: next time you complain about the show reaching out to primary school aged children, remember that without kids in the playground, Doctor Who would simply not have survived.

7. The Evil of the Daleks

This is an excellent four-part story. Unfortunately it’s seven episodes long.

After a ludicrously convoluted scheme to get the Doctor into the actual plot, amid subplots that go nowhere, there are great parts of David Whittaker’s tale: The Daleks have kidnapped the Doctor and Jamie in order to isolate the Human Factor – the quality humans possess that enables them to regularly defeat the Daleks – to enable them to finally overcome humanity.

Firstly, if Russell T. Davies had written this the forums would never stop complaining about its scientific accuracy. Secondly, what this concept does is allow Whittaker to put the Doctor and Jamie into conflict, with the Doctor’s trickery leading to the unnerving scene of Daleks acting like children and then ultimately a Dalek civil war. We also see the first appearance of the Dalek Emperor, with a huge prop built for the story. When ‘Evil of the Daleks’ is good, it’s electric. You can see this in the surviving episode when the Doctor realises just before they appear that the Daleks are involved.

It’s a shame that the superfluous padding significantly detracts from the rest.

6. The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar

A story which is primarily about the relationship between the Doctor, Davros, Missy and Clara, but which also casually drops in several new concepts which get under the skin of the Daleks more successfully than anything since ‘Dalek’. The focus is on Davros, but as the Doctor observes ‘Everything you are, they are.’

Firstly, there’s an elegant piece of writing from Steve Moffat where Davros narrates the moments before a Dalek fires, explaining they are waiting for Clara to run. Not only does this explain the Daleks not immediately shooting people, it offers a glimpse into their sadism and malice (as exemplified by Davros). Similarly, the idea that the creature inside the Dalek clings on outside of their life-support system, as they cling onto their home planet, ties into what we’ve seen on screen before.

Finally, anything in a Dalek casing trying to express individuality will have those words and thoughts twisted into the opposite meaning. This returns to the idea that original voice artist Peter Hawkins had for the Daleks – that the creatures inside were trapped. It’s an insidiously nasty idea, perhaps explaining behaviour such as the Dalek that commits suicide in ‘Death to the Daleks’when it sees its prisoners have escaped.

5. The Dalek Invasion of Earth

This and ‘Genesis’ confirm that Terry Nation’s strengths were in war stories rather than the pulp science-fiction adventure story he relied on. ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’ is a thriller full of post-war fears that forever intertwined the Daleks and The Doctor.The production team pull out all the stops to show a conquered Earth with harrowing matter-of-factness, but the Doctor takes delight in opposing them (Hartnell is great here, taking the edge off with a twinkle but playing Susan’s leaving scene with great pathos too). The last episode is little rushed but overall this is well balanced.

The Daleks here are more mobile and powerful, their regime oppressive, their plans for turning the Earth into a spaceship bizarre and ineffable. As Nation puts it ‘They dare to tamper with the forces of creation’, the sort of boldness that would seep out of his own storytelling in future stories.

4. Genesis of the Daleks

‘Genesis of the Daleks’is another war story realised extremely well. The production does not pull many punches, and is atypically grim for Doctor Who: The Doctor loses but clings on to the slim hope that he hasn’t.

This is clearly Terry Nation’s best script, and is still clearly a Terry Nation script: radiation poisoning, over-ambitious creature requests – I don’t think Doctor Who could ever do a giant clam well, even now – and the endearingly-crap naming conventions (the mutants in the wastelands are called ‘Mutos’ and their dialogue could slot effortlessly into The Mighty Boosh).

Outgoing producer Barry Letts called Nation on his bullshit when he attempted to hand in a similar script for the second time, and suggested an origin story. From here Nation developed the war of attrition, Nazi parallels and the character of Davros (created to have a Dalek-like character who could be given interesting dialogue). Nation commits to making the origins of the Daleks plausibly horrifying. Contrast the halfway stage of ‘The Chase’ – with its misplaced comedy episodes that sap the momentum of the story – with the halfway point here: Davros willingly destroys his entire race to ensure the survival of the Daleks.

Where it feels lesser in comparison is that it is neither connected to an everyday, material reality (unlike ‘Spare Parts’, the story exploring the Cybermen’s origins) and its famous scene where the Doctor asks if he has the right to commit genocide, which looms large in later stories.

And yet, this scene only works in isolation. In context it’s jarring. In surrounding stories, the Doctor kills a sentient robot, a Sontaran, and some Zygons; he will later poison someone with cyanide, all without any qualms. Here, though, he compares destroying Dalek mutants – which are already attacking people – to killing Hitler as a baby. The Doctor worries he’d be as bad as the Daleks if he wipes them out. A few scenes later he has changed his mind, trying and failing to kill them. If it was linked to Davros’ aspirations of godhood, fine, but it’s neither written nor played that way.

It’s not as if the Doctor hasn’t already instigated attacks that seem to wipe the Daleks out, but there other people did the dirty work. It’s this, going forward, that becomes the key aspect of the scene for future writers.

3. Remembrance of the Daleks

‘Remembrance’takes the brewing civil war situation of ‘Revelation’ and connects it simultaneously to Doctor Who and British history. The Doctor is trying to trick the Daleks into using a superweapon hidden in 1963 London, knowing it could result in people dying. The Doctor’s trap feels like a response to ‘Have I the right?’ – clearly he feels he has but doesn’t want to directly press the trigger. It’s both a significant change and logical development in the series and the character, with Sylvester McCoy wanting to play both the weight of the character’s years and actions.

The Daleks are here because it’s an anniversary series but also because if you want a demonstration of power then potentially defeating the Daleks is a clear statement. Writer Ben Aaronovitch doesn’t just involve Daleks with a view to blowing them up, but addresses the reasons for their civil war: the hatred for the unlike that has defined the Daleks but also been part of British culture the entire time Doctor Who has been on screen and beyond, explicitly linked to the most evil creatures in the universe. Not only that, he places that hatred in the supporting cast: the ostensible good guys, the UNIT precursor, the family home.

This has scale, depth and feels important on different levels. This is Doctor Who back to its playground-influencing best.

2. The Power of the Daleks

As Terry Nation was unavailable, David Whitaker wrote the initial scripts before Dennis Spooner’s uncredited rewrites. The Daleks are in this story to bring viewers back on board after the first regeneration, and they also legitimise the new Doctor in contrast to the Daleks. The Mercury swamps that bookend the story also evoke Terry Nation in terms of putting the characters into a hostile alien environment.

The action takes places on a human colony, Vulcan. The Daleks are introduced as a potential solution to their problems, with an insurrectionist faction interested in using them as weapons and the scientist restoring them obsessed with his discoveries. The Doctor’s lone voice of dissent comes across as lunatic ravings, but the audience know the Daleks are manipulating everyone else.

Daleks obviously have the power to kill, but ubiquity had already removed their uncanniness until this story. The suggestion of deeper thought and intelligence builds, and this story gives the lie to the notion that you can’t give the Daleks good dialogue: “Why do human beings kill other human beings?” is full of chilling curiosity, “Yes, you gave us life” a future echo of their capacity for destroying father figures, the almost mocking repetition of “I am your servant”, and the cacophony of “Daleks conquer and destroy” that becomes a disorientating swirl of hatred.

This culminates in a final episode of mass slaughter. The release of tension is colossal. The very end suggests this is not over. The Daleks will never be more unnerving.

1. Dalek/Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways

This isn’t a three-parter in the usual sense, but these episodes are inextricably linked, with Russell T. Davies using a series arc to delay and distract the audience from their connection.

What’s key to all three episodes is Christopher Eccleston. He sells the threat of the Daleks better than any other Doctor, elevating the already strong scripts. These are the best performances against the Daleks there will ever be.

If you’re reading this website there’s a strong chance you know that the Daleks were seen going upstairs in the 1980s, but for most viewers ‘Dalek’ was the one that took all the jokes and weaponised them (Indeed Rob Shearman asked his partner what she thought was silly about the Daleks before writing his script): they not only go upstairs but crack skulls with their sucker arm, with added revolving weaponry and force field.

The carnage is well-realised, with director Joe Ahearne letting the Dalek take its time to build the tension, Shearman’s script taps into Russell T. Davies’ new Time War mythology and companion dynamic to allow the Dalek more intelligence in terms of dialogue and emotional manipulation. This Dalek has the threat of those in ‘Genesis’and the intelligence of the ones in ‘Power of the Daleks’.

Their redesign is a microcosm of why ‘Dalek’ works so well: it doesn’t change much, rather it takes what already works and improves upon it. I can’t imagine the return of the Daleks being handled better, while stealthily setting up the stakes of the previously unimaginable series finale.

Over this article I’ve talked about different aspects of the Daleks’ appeal. Children love them and fear them. They tap into adult fears of death, fascism and the uncanny (exemplified by the cacophonic chanting of ‘Exterminate’). That they can appear comical can be weaponised, as can the fact their hatred is not unique to them. Their reach extends into the mundane.

The reasons these episodes work so well is partly because they tap into these strengths, but also that they tell more than anything tell the story of the Ninth Doctor. He’s already committed a double-genocide, as far as he’s concerned, and is barely keeping it together without the prospect of having to commit another one. This is contrasted with the fact of one Dalek being demonstrably dangerous, and now there are hundreds of them. We know what they can, what they will do, and the only way to stop it is for the Doctor to kill Daleks and humans alike. It’s a much more effectively constructed and persuasive dilemma than the one the Doctor proposes in ‘Genesis’.

This story also puts in work with the supporting characters, and rather than being soldiers the staff of the satellite are office workers put into a desperate situation, or people who just wanted to be on telly. While ‘Bad Wolf’isn’t as Dalek-heavy, its satire is subtly devastating. If you look back at clips of The Weakest Link now you can see casual and sadistic cruelty meted out, so connecting this to the Daleks is a stroke of genius (especially with celebrity voices unwittingly joining in their own condemnation), bringing their evil to the everyday.

The Doctor’s closest friends here are merely the people who die last; he knows they’re going to die, and he hears it happen. It becomes increasingly personal, while also satiating that morbid fannish desire to see the Daleks kill someone. Here they seem sadistic, devious, and unstoppable. The need to stop them is obvious, as is the cost.

So rather than an unearned moment of moralising here we have a situation where the Doctor’s decision makes sense, is not abstract to him. This also, in the first series back, makes an important statement: Doctor Who can be dark, and nice people can die horribly, but it is not a series where the grimness becomes overwhelming. Here the Doctor’s decision not to kill is one he knows will also cost him his life, and then his ideals inspire his salvation: it is Rose, not Davros or the Doctor, who is set up among the gods, and her instinct is not – to paraphrase another franchise – to destroy what she hates.

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The reason I love this one is because it delivers on so many fronts: these stories define this Doctor. The story is epic but steeped in the everyday. The Daleks are terrified and terrifying, silent and shrieking, devious and brutal. They feel unstoppable here in a way they simply haven’t since. For a story to do this many things is impressive, but to do them all well is astonishing.

The post Doctor Who: Ranking the Dalek Stories – Which is the Best? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[the-desolated-quill]

Under The Lake - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

After the truly awful opening two parter with Davros, seeing Toby Whithouse’s name show up came as a blessed relief. While not all his stories have been great, he’s by far the most consistently entertaining of New Who’s writers. Even his weaker episodes like The God Complex and A Town Called Mercy had a lot of good things to offer. And now he’s writing a two parter? Even better! 

So what’s Under The Lake like? Well I have to admit I’m very disappointed by the lack of original thinking here. Not only is this yet another base under siege story, it also bears a striking resemblance to another Who story from about 9 years prior. The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit two parter. Yes this base is underwater rather than orbiting a black hole and the crew are being threatened by ghosts rather than the Devil, but it’s basically the same. A military/scientific base that make a mysterious discovery. Writing on a wall that the TARDIS can’t translate. A distinctly ragtag bunch of misfits trying to survive. There’s even a bit where one of the characters gets sucked out of the base and we see their corpse bobbing about outside. The amount of recycling being done here is utterly shameful.

That being said, it’s execution that counts, and while Under The Lake isn’t particularly original or creative, it’s still quite enjoyable to watch. I really like the ghosts. It’s nice to have monsters that actually pose a genuine threat for once. The scene where one of them traps translator guy in an airlock was unbelievably tense. A lot of it is to do with the pacing and the atmosphere. Unlike The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, which seemed to keep changing settings and plot points so fast it looked as though Moffat was suffering from some form of ADHD, Under The Lake slows right down and actually explores the setting. There’s a very compelling mystery at the heart the story with the ghosts and the mysterious transmission, and Whithouse really takes his time unveiling it over the course of the episode. It’s legitimately intriguing and keeps you engaged in a way the previous two parter didn’t. Under The Lake may be many things, but it certainly isn’t boring by any stretch of the imagination.

Characters are a bit of a mixed bag. I liked O’Donnell, played by Morven Christie. She seems like a less grating version of Osgood, with her fangasms toward the Doctor being mercifully kept to tolerant levels. Both Whithouse and Christie seem to be putting more effort into actually having her be a likeable and believable character rather than just an obsessive fangirl with a Time Lord fixation (Moffat, perhaps you should take notes). I also liked Cass, played by Sophie Stone. She’s intelligent and level-headed, plus it’s nice to see Doctor Who include a deaf character into one of their stories, specifically a deaf character who isn’t portrayed as an innocent or naive victim. Although, considering this story is set in the early 22nd Century, you’d think deaf people would have better means of support other than relying on another person to translate for them (I mean for Christ sake, the hearing impaired have better tech to help them here in the present day). The other characters however are a bit bland. Cass’ translator has no character other than just being Cass’ translator, Colin MacFarlane’s character gets killed off just minutes into the episode (what a waste of a great actor) followed by the stereotypical Evil Capitalist, and finally you have a Arsher Ali as Bennett who’s just your generic nerdy nice guy who may or may not have a crush on O’Donnell (I don’t know. It’s hard to tell) and doesn’t really have any good material to work with. It’s a two parter so maybe he’ll get more stuff to do in the next episode, so I won’t dismiss him just yet.

Then of course there’s the Doctor and Clara, and I can’t say I’m very happy with what’s happening with them. Clara is once again getting on my nerves, but Moffat and co seem to be trying to spin her behaviour into some kind of character arc. Apparently she’s becoming more and more like the Doctor, yearning for monsters and adventure, presumably as a form of escape from her unhappy home life and to distract herself about Danny. This could be interesting except for a few problems. The most obvious being I don’t care about Clara in the slightest. She’s never really had any real agency of her own, her character almost entirely revolving around the men in her life. Even with Danny dead, her life still utterly revolves around him, and her solution is to become more like another male character in her life; the Doctor. And I’m sure you all know how I feel about Clara becoming more like the Doctor.

Its the smugness I really can’t stand, and I fail to see what the writers are trying to accomplish with this. One bit that really got me was when she and the Doctor come across a room where clearly some kind of fight had taken place, and her first reaction is to press the Doctor for a high five. It just makes her come across like a callous bitch. How about showing a little bit of concern? The crew could be injured or dead for all they know. Flatline had the same problem with Clara being more concerned with how good she was at being the Doctor rather than the lives that she failed to save, which I think any normal person in her position would be more concerned with. I especially don’t like the implication that this is how the Doctor acts because it simply isn’t. I’ve never liked the idea of the Doctor actively looking for trouble because I feel it makes him slightly less endearing. In the classic series, he was just a traveller who would occasionally help people out should they require his aid. I’ve always found New Who’s take of the Doctor being some kind of thrill seeker who craves danger and excitement to be an over-simplification (same with the Doctor’s knee-jerk reaction to guns and the military).

Speaking of the Doctor, I’m glad to see we’ve shifted away from the forced and awkward goofiness in the previous two parter (although sadly the sonic sunglasses are still with us). This is the kind of material Peter Capaldi is good at. This darkly sarcastic humour suits him so much better and I wish they’d stick to it. However, believe it or not, I feel Whithouse may have taken the Doctor slightly too far with it. I’m sorry, I know quite a few people like the gag, but I HATE the whole bit with the cue cards. The Doctor wouldn’t be this clueless about human empathy and it twists this Doctor’s character too far in an unnatural direction. Think back to episodes like Time Heist and Mummy On The Orient Express. Twelve is not incapable of caring or showing empathy. He’s clearly able to. He just doesn’t see it as a priority during moments of peril. You can see on his face brief flashes of concern, but unlike Ten and Eleven, he chooses not to express it so he can focus solely on the task at hand. So the whole idea of him needing cue cards to console someone just doesn’t ring true for me, plus after Series 8 with Twelve constantly seeking Clara’s validation for every little thing, the last thing I want to see is a repeat performance of that.

Under The Lake isn’t a bad episode by any means. Granted it’s not very creative or imaginative, and most of the characterisation is quite weak, but it’s still watchable and at times quite engaging. I was tentatively looking forward to Part 2, but then the episode ended with the Doctor’s ghost showing up as a cliffhanger, which caused me to groan. Not only am I getting so sick to death of the Doctor’s impending doom being teased over and over again like a broken record, it also completely strips the story of any potential threat because we know there’s no way the Doctor is really dead. Either the ghost isn’t real or Clara is going to find some miraculous way of bringing the Doctor back to life, and possibly everyone else too.

Sigh. We’ll just have to wait and see.

[babyglynncarney]

Title: Rescued And Requited                                                                                 Pairing: Alex/Reader                                                                                               Requested: yes                                                                                                      Word Count: 1,808

*Disclaimer: the name of the ship isn’t real in case anyone really needed that info idk enjoy 

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You were a nurse aboard the ship Rosemary, you had been for about a month. You were quite good at your job, and the ship you worked on in particular had had a rather calm life in the war thus far.  However, the gears quickly started turning in the other direction when it was announced your ship was headed to Dunkirk to rescue some soldiers. 

You were helping your friend Clara, who was also a nurse, to set up some trays of food and water for the soldiers when they come aboard. 

“How many soldiers do ye think there are? On Dunkirk, I mean,” she blurted suddenly, as you two were finishing up. 

“Dunno. Heard some of the crew talking, saying that there are at least a couple more ships heading to Dunkirk, so I’m assuming a couple thousand, maybe more,” you responded, and she nodded. The only thing left for the two of you to do now, was to wait for arrival. 

“I’m going to go up on deck to help Marie when we dock,” Clara called and you nodded, settling into your spot by the food and water as you waited. Eventually, heavy footsteps could be heard above you, and a crowd of soldiers began filing into the room. 

“Over here, boys, we’ve got food and water. Come on, eat up,” you called, passing out food to the tired and scared looking soldiers.  Once the belly of the boat was full with soldiers, and there was no food or water left at your station, you moved through the crowd, checking on some soldiers and trying to lighten the mood. 

You came across two soldiers who seemed to be looking around for someone. Both boys had the same look of hardly disguised fear in their eyes. 

“Did ye boys get enough to drink?” you asked, noticing they had food, but no water. The taller one looked at you and smiled slightly.

“Yes, Miss, we’re alright,” he responded through a mouthful of food, “what’s your name?”

“Er, my name is [Y/N], I’m a nurse,if you couldn’t tell,” you laughed shyly, hoping this conversation was relieving some of the soldier’s fear. 

“M’Alex,” he responded, and you smiled, nodding. 

“Nice to meet you, Alex. Thank you for what you’ve done,” you responded, referring to his time on Dunkirk and anywhere else. You moved on to observe the other soldiers, making sure everyone had at least a little to eat or drink, though you stayed in the same general area of Alex and his friend. 

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the boat, nearly knocking you right off your feet. Before you could even blink an eye, ocean water came shooting through the belly of the ship, crashing around you on all sides. You had just enough time to take one final breath before you were completely submerged. 

You tried swimming towards the direction of the door, but it was hard in the mass of frantic bodies trying to get out. You were beginning to struggle to hold your breath, and black dots were swimming in your vision. 

This is it. This is how I die, you thought, though you continued to struggle. Suddenly, you felt an arm around your waist pulling you upwards. Just as you were about to pass out, your head was above water and you were gasping for air, revitalized. You looked to your side to see who your savior was, and found none other than Alex, the soldier from before. 

“Thank you,” you gasped, and once you regained a little bit of strength, you were turning to try to swim on your own. However, Alex’s arm remained securely around your waist as he swam forward. Instead of trying to get away from him, you just used your arm to help the two of you swim because one of his arms was not able to. 

You saw Alex’s friend up ahead, going for one of the lifeboats bobbing along in the water. You and Alex quickly caught up to him, and were begging the soldiers in the boat to help you up. 

“I’m sorry, but we’ll capsize if we let anymore aboard. Just keep swimming we’re not too far off shore,” one man aboard said, preventing the three of you from getting in. 

“At least take her, please, whatever happened to women and children first?” Alex pleaded, to no avail. Eventually, the three of you gave up and just clung to the side of the boat, allowing it to help you to shore. 

Eventually you all made it to the sand, spent and exhausted, hardly having the energy to bring yourselves up and out of the waves. As soon as you were at an okay distance from the ocean depths, you all collapsed on the ground, Alex nearly collapsing on top of you. You didn't have the energy to move him, nor did you really care that he was on you, so you just followed the boys suit and fell asleep right on the sand. 

The next morning, you woke up only when you felt Alex rolling off you of you. Blinking at the brightness of the gray sky, you sat up, stretching your sore limbs. 

“Sorry for falling asleep on ye,” Alex apologized sheepishly, looking anywhere but you. You could see his friend snicker next to him. 

“It’s fine, really. I owe ye my life, ye know,” you responded, waving him off. Your body was beginning to feel more sore by the minute, no doubt from the amount of swimming you had to do the night before.You moved over to sit next to Alex and his friend, gathering your thoughts. 

---

You found yourself in the belly of yet another ship. You couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy, as this was definitely not a safe and foolproof plan. It was the quite the opposite, really. The plan was to sit and wait in this beached boat, and wait for the tide to come up and bring us out to sea. 

There were many soldiers you didn’t recognize, seeing as you only knew Alex, his friend who you now knew as Tommy, and Tommy’s friend Gibson. Everyone was silent, squished against each other along the sides of the boat. You were practically on top of Alex, with Tommy pressed into your other side. Alex had his arm around your waist again, looking warily at the unfamiliar soldiers. You didn’t know it at the time, but having you new Alex had quickly begun to put him at ease, ever since he met you. 

Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot ricocheted through the boat, startling everyone. The gunshot was followed by a couple more, throwing the soldiers into panic. 

---

You’ve nearly drowned twice in a handful of days, and now here you were on yet another boat. It seemed to you like you were never going to get out of Dunkirk. The only thing keeping you from going insane was Alex.  He’d clung to you just as much as you’d clung to him in the last days. Even now, he was holding your hand.

He didn’t think you could tell, but he was nervous and you knew. From the way he was squeezing your hand, to the way his eyes darted around the place, never resting. 

“Hey,” you said gently, bringing your other hand up to his arm to catch his attention, “I know this has been a scary couple of days, but right now its calm so take advantage of that.” He nodded slightly, keeping his eyes trained on you. 

“Thank you [Y/N]. For staying with me since we first met,” he said honestly, and you ignored the feeling that he was trying to say what he felt before he dies. 

“Thank you for saving my life! And for not getting tired of me in the last couple of days,” you responded, mustering a reassuring grin. He gave you a small smile, squeezing your hand comfortingly. 

And then the bombs came. 

There was frantic yelling, and running, and you were frozen to your spot, not knowing where to go. Alex’s hand was still grasped in yours, but you hardly recognized it. You didn’t know if you even had the emotional, let alone physical energy to go through another sinking. This was it. You were really going to die this time. 

You were thrown out of your shock by the freezing water, as you were tossed like a rag doll from the boat and into the ocean. You began splashing, fighting to keep yourself above the water. Alex was gone, and you couldn’t see him anywhere. It didn’t help that everyone was covered in oil, which was disguising their faces beyond quick recognition. 

“Alex! Alex please,” you yelled, over and over, trying to swim as far away from the sinking ship as you could, for fear of being sucked down under the surface with it. 

“M’here love, come on,” panted a voice beside you, as an arm went around your waist. You nearly cried at the sight of Alex, who as saving you yet again from imminent peril. Alex caught sight of a civilian boat and began swimming over to it.

Once you made it to the boat, a young blonde boy could be seen hanging over the side, hand outstretched and ready to help the soldiers out of the water. The blonde boy caught sight of the two of you, and motioned for you to reach out for him to grab your hand. Alex thrust you as best he could up towards the boy, who hauled you up onto the deck. You immediately turned and helped the boy pull Alex out of the water. 

He fell on the deck, panting and coughing up water, before turning to you. You sat next to him in more or less the same shape, a worried expression pointed towards him. 

In one swift movement, Alex reached over and cupped your face in his large hands, capturing your lips in a desperate kiss. Even in a time like this, you could feel your knees go weak. 

“When I thought I was going to die, ye were the only thing on my mind. I had to do that before I lost the chance,” Alex explained, face only inches away from yours. You smiled, leaning in to kiss him again.  “Your not going to lose your chance. We’re getting out of here alive, and you’re going to be stuck with me for a long, long time,” you laughed breathily, making him smile. He wrapped you up in a comforting hug and sat right there on the deck with you, ignoring the command to go below deck. You felt him breathe easy when he saw Tommy pulled aboard. 

The two of you might’ve been freezing, half drowned, and exhausted beyond belief, but you had each other. 

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: MOVIE REVIEW: Run This Town

(Image courtesy of Oscilloscope and Quiver Distribution)

RUN THIS TOWN— 3 STARS

Behind every political monster has a staff of underlings who have stories to tell and permanent stains on their resumes. More often than not, unless they are a featured mouthpiece or the eventual public whistle-blower, we don’t really see these people, even when we know they are there. Across the guarded podiums, pushy microphones, and invasive cameras are also the faceless by-lines of cub reporters trying to break stories and make a name for themselves. They too are dependent on the grinding political machine. Run This Town, an alum of the 2019 SXSW Film Festival, gives faces and voices to unfortunate minions and nobodies tied to the late and former mayor of Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

This shrewdly movie leaves the monster in the background and highlights the eager and opportunistic help. After a quick primer of archival footage, we meet a cadre of subordinates filling the council chamber seats of their political bosses after hours. They are crushing beers and challenging each other with practice lobs of schemes to spin. The king of this court is Kamal, the special assistant to the mayor, played by Aladdin discovery Mena Massoud. Rapid-fire Sorkin-esque dialogue framed by split-screen shooting and editing shows the smoothly acidic, yet pragmatic guile of Kamal and this crew, none of which are likely over the age of 30.

With a braggadocios “they don’t call us special assistants for nothing,” what was done in mock here becomes their day-to-day livelihood in public trailing the rotund, sweaty, and explosive Rob Ford. Looming in the wild and clueless periphery, the mayor is played an unrecognizable Damian Lewis of Homeland. Outstanding prosthetic makeup from department head and It makeup artist Emily O’Quinn and designers Steve Newburn and Neil Morrill (Shazam! And Suicide Squad) molds the actor into the rough-edged sinner who sees himself as a man-of-the-people do-gooder when he’s actually a raging addict and philanderer. 

But that’s the boss, and you don’t cross the boss. Smashing opposition, combating scandal, and dodging social media pursuits has become the livelihood of all in Ford’s inner circle of handlers. It’s a choice paycheck, but one that costs integrity, as noted when a jaded law degree holder named Ashley (Nina Dobrev) is brought in as a new hire to swim in these murky waters.

Parallel to Kamal’s cynicism of misinformation is another twenty-something trying to squeeze virtue and confidence from the truth instead. Bram (Ben Platt of Pitch Perfect) is a mossy green journalism grad who earns a job with The Record writing bottom-of-the-roster list pieces for his tired desk editor David (Scott Speedman) and to the disapproval of his pushy parents. Idealist to a fault, Bram is a squirmy, dithering bumbler, and Platt overplays those wussy nerves every chance he gets as a foil to the Massoud’s suave slants. When he chases a possibly incendiary story of Ford’s recorded crack cocaine use, entangled sources from the mayor’s office and a pair of detectives (Hamza Haq and long-lost Ally McBeal star Gil Bellows) come sniffing around.

LESSON #1: THE DESPERATION CONNECTED TO EARNING AND KEEPING A PROMINENT JOB— Two halves between Kamal and Bram are both struggling. The reporter is at the bottom looking up and the political puppeteer is on top peering down. Working for a powerful mayor at this level is quite the springboard for a young person, as is getting the chance to hop up the ladder to pitch and scoop a legitimate journalism assignment for a name publication. However, the height of career failure is high for both sides in Run This Town. Keeping your job overshadows the CYA of “cover your ass” and that potential calamity is even higher for a woman like Ashley.

LESSON #2: WHEN YOU HAVE A STORY— For Bram, the question is validating all of the rumors and misinformation for what is being presented. For Kamal and his office, the same possible incident is measured for any needed damage control. One is untangling, the other is twisting, and the yarn in question is the worthiness and clarity of the truth. This chase slots Run This Town as an highly off-beat and intriguing scandal and journalism flick.

LESSON #3: WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A STORY— The rub of it all becomes the words used, between both spoken statements and printed copy. Those stabbing and snappy words come from debuting writer-director Ricky Tollman. Free speech, lacking facts, and slanted coverage allow spin which can flush a bad thing away, leaving the pursuer with nothing to corroborate or publish. Poor moves and bumbling the channels of reporting will cost stories as well. What destroys spin is when the victimizing and crossed lines add up or go too far, even against the aforementioned desperation of forced career loyalty.

The style is present in Run This Town to be a modern homage to the slow-boil political thrillers of the 1970s. The punchy music from debuting Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge (Black Dynamite) creates a sharp tone to the kitschy visual motifs that include clever screen-filled hidden letters of the opening and closing credits. The multi-point cinematography by Nick Haight (Clara) is top-notch. Lit often and appropriately by fluorescent isolation or bar-lit seediness, Haight’s rotating establishing shots and pinching zooms pump the peril fueled by kinetic editing by emerging talent Sandy Pereira. Their combined split-screen effect creates an energetic film experience, but that approach is slowed and eventually abandoned by the end.  That pacing and presentation would have done wonders if kept the entire film.

The narrative impact of Run This Town veers closer to Lesson #3 than Lesson #2. Taking this background route is a far more unique approach to an expose than documenting the main man himself and all of the deplorable behavior connected to him. The professional high-wire creates and includes more character opportunities than a single focus. That said, there’s a loosey-goosey grip on this because, no matter what, the story is still Rob Ford. As compelling as Massoud and Dobrov are, the business of true suspense and menace picks up when Lewis makes his appearances. A film wanting to be heavy needed more of its heavy.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#864)

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[selia707]

Spin-Offs / Continuations I would LOVE to actually happen (in TV)

Putting aside my complete and utter excitement for the unexpected turn of events in the upcoming season of Doctor Who (this is going to be AWESOME):

 A Rose Tyler & The Human Doctor in the other dimension spin-off.  I mean... this is one STRONG wish for a spin-off I had for forever now - basically since I watched Doctor Who for the first time a few years ago, was heart-broken about the whole thing with Rose, and then was heart-mended again when she got the best happily ever after any companion ever got, but still bittersweet we couldn’t see more of her and The Human Doctor bonding/romance/having fun/getting into trouble/fighting evil. Since it’s been years since that conclusion, these spin-off dreams are very much diminished. That being said, it could have been one FANTASTIC spin-off, huh? A girl can dream 😍

Clara Oswald & Ashildr adventures throughout time! I can already see it: The Impossible Girl & The Girl Who Never Dies running against the clock of death.  That could be a really good spin-off. Not AS anticipated by me as the Rose & The Doctor spin-off, but very much anticipated nonetheless! It was also kind of sort of said it could be a possibility in the future, so... :D

I’m definitely not over this show being canceled far-far-far-far-far-far before its time. 

This is such a unique show. You do not see shows like this often. You simply do not.

It seems like most shows these days centre around drama-comedy (that doesn’t make me laugh nor interested), detective-crime (which I love but how much can I take of this same old-same old stuff, honestly?) and superheroes (which is really great and all but might be getting just a tad... tad... tad... bit tiring). 

I want more unique shows like Dark Matter.  Shows that take place in a unique setting, unique plot, unique cast of characters.

I want shows that center more around a unique fantasy/sci-fi setting.  And unfortunately... I just don't feel like there are much of those at all.  Even those who come close or try to aspire to be like those, end up being the same-old-same-old with maybe a smudge of something new. 

Take for example the show Lucifer. SO MUCH potential. And while I do love it, I can’t help but feel... disappointed that a show with such a unique setting and such amazing characters is taking after an episodic crime show.  Like... WHY?

Dark Matter captured my heart, made me laugh, made me happy, and made me anticipate each and every new episode immensely.  I just really wish that at the very least we would have gotten a more conclusive ending to this wonderful show, instead of being left hanging. 

They say there’s still the possibility that this show will be picked up again in the future - which I really hope will happen. 

Also, I know that this show was canceled because of budget problems *sigh*.

Don’t worry, Sherlock - the awesome BBC television series - isn’t canceled or anything.  As far as I know, it’s somewhere between the state of “yes” and “no”.  They want to do a fifth season, the question is when and how. There has been no news of a continuation nor a cancellation. 

It’s not a secret that I absolutely LOVE Sherlock. Everything to do with this detective, really, but especially with this specific show. It really is, in my opinion, the best Sherlock Holmes representation that I’ve seen thus far. And I also love the movies (the ones from 2009 & 2011), but I still love the BBC show so much more. 

A huge part of the reason is the actors. The one who plays Sherlock is just... darn. He’s amazing.  I’ve seen him in Dr. Strange and I was convinced he can play anything and make it great.  He’s especially fit to play the genuis types.  The one who plays Watson is also amazing. As well as the one who plays Irene Adler and Molly. And, of course, the rest of the cast. 

The reasons I so desperately want *at least* one more season of Sherlock is: 

Because It’s amazing and I honestly just need more O_O More Sherlock, more Watson, more awesomeness, more humor, more of everything. 

The latest season was good but not AS amazing as the previous ones. Naturally, due to its concept, this season was extremely dark. It was fantastically done, but it was definitely missing the beloved rhythm of our characters. 

Irene Adler! No WAY we’re leaving them at that. We haven’t seen her in forever on the show. She was mentioned in the latest season and it gave me hope that she may finally make another appearance in the future. She and Sherlock are definitely not done. I need to see more of those two. 

And, well... I really just need more (:

Another GREAT, UNIQUE and AMAZING series canceled after two fantastic seasons.  Another show you don’t see often going away. *screaming internally*

I can’t even begin to describe how original and how fantastically done this show is. Just... watch it. You’ll see. 

LUCKILY, due to the fans, we are getting a two-hour series finale in 2018. So they don’t leave us with that crazy cliff-hanger and none-conclusion. 

I’m still so terribly sad we don’t get to have one more full season (or a few more, for that matter) but it’s not as bad as with what happened to Dark Matter. 

Can’t wait for the finale! 

One of the bests of the bests.  Darn, was it an AWESOME show. 

A show like that I have not seen since. Dark Matter would come close by.  It was unique, it was original, it was fantastic. The cast, the plot, the characters. Everything about it. 

I was 13 when I first saw it on television and I completely and utterly fell for it.  I mean, I was 13! And there were Dinosaurs! And time - more like dimension - travel! I mean... I mean... how could a teenager resist, right?  It was seriously amazing. 

I also think it was the first show I ever really loved the got canceled on me. Which made me pretty angry and depressed at the time ‘^^ . Every time I re-watch it or think about it, I smile. It gives me fond memories. 

It may have just one season, but I still HIGHLY-HIGHLY-HIGHLY-HIGHLY recommend for anyone out there who loves sci-fi and fantasy to watch this show. 

It came out in 2011, and there are still not shows like it. I’m still waiting for the one to surpass it. 

Imagnie: Arthur - the one and future king - rising from the sort-of dead in modern life time. Merlin, who is still around - because he’s immortal - along with Arthur, need to navigate the perilous world of... the 21st century! A world in much need of saving, but whom has rejected magic for so long it has forgotten all about it. 

Everyone Arthur and Merlin ever known are dead and gone - except, maybe, for one white dragon. But they still have each other. They’ll make new friends, new and old allies, as they fight a new battle they must win. 

WOULDN’T YOU WANT THAT?  I know, I know... this is never going to happen. But this is the dream, right?  I remember how much I cried at the ending of the show. This is the scenario I conjured in my head to deal with it. And based on the scene at the very end of the last episode.  I still wish it to be true, as much as I know it’s just a dream of mine. 

At the very least, I would love for there to be some kind of spin-off/continuation to the show. 

                                                               & 

True Calling & Dollhouse - two shows, featuring the same actress, that ended way before their time. 

Their concept itself was probably before its time,  too. 

It would have been totally awesome to see those shows reborn in TV of today.  I loved them both. They were truly fantastic, and I just wished they didn’t end so unexpectedly. 

I wonder if it’s possibly to bring them back - even as a reboot - someday. 

Oh, The Vampire Diaries.  This show will forever be in my heart (and on my re-watch list).  I’ve been following it for what seemed like... forever. I think it’s been 6 years? (for me, not the show).  I remember my friend recommending it to me and I was like “oh, well”.  This “oh well” quickly turned to “THIS IS SO AMAZING”.  Damon and Elena... <3__<3

I’m glad the show gave us a conclusion and didn’t leave us guessing.  The fans definitely deserved that.  I just wish... it was different. I don’t know... I was happy but also disappointed.  I remember how much I cried when seeing the farewell video of the cast and realizing this journey was really over. 

We still have The Originals - this show’s spin-off - but even that is ending with this coming season.  *so frustrated* 

I want - no, I demand - another spin-off.  Whether of characters we know or a new cast, this Vampire world is so vast and rich it’s not out of the question to make more of it. 

I really-really-really-really-really want another show in this wold! 

Two more shows worth mentioning: Heart of Dixie & Grimm (it would be lovely to see more of those in any form possibly).

Aaaaand, that’s my take on the shows I want more of (as of 2017).  What do you think? Do you agree with me? Do you have more to add? I’d love to hear your thoughts <__< 

[jessknightintrouble-blog]

Captives Of The Cartel (4)

Chapter Four: ‘Mighty’ Megan Woods

  The hours went by; two miserable, bound up bodies shrugged and wriggled to get free. Between them, all they managed to move was their heads and fingers; to little or no positive effect. Hannah had fancied herself as an escape artist ever since her previous boyfriend had tied her up one night for a bet they’d made after a few two many glasses of Shiraz. He was no boy scout though, and within minutes she had successfully managed to free herself from his amateurish knots.

 Alas, the experience had given Hannah such a thrill that subsequently, at random intervals, she had tied herself up and tried to get free. She’d ordered all manner of bondage gear from a rather discreet website online and took no shortage of glee from the experimentation. Most times, she managed to free herself very quickly. However, this current situation was somewhat different. As much as she used her tried and tested techniques, as much as she writhed and twisted and turned her hands every which way, she always found tight rope holding them firmly together. There was no slack in the ropes at all and the tight gag filling her mouth made Hannah desperately short of breath almost the whole time.

Hannah looked over at Jordan but she had – for some time – given up the fight to get free and was now merely hunched uncomfortably in her bonds, sobbing uncontrollably. She was a year or so younger than Hannah, and the slightly elder sleuth suspected that Jordan had joined for the romantic side rather than the hard slog. Their current predicament of calculated peril was quite the wake up call.

  Still, Hannah had faith. Megan was still on the outside; she knew the basic whereabouts of both her Agents, and surely next on the agenda would be a call to the police. Even a basic search of the house would be enough to find the young pair of captives. Surely, justice would prevail; and Lady McCrystal and her rotten henchwoman would get their just desserts in jail, and Hannah and Jordan would be freed.

*

  Back at the ‘Woods Detective Agency’ Office in downtown Eschar City, Megan Woods paced the floor, mobile phone in hand. “Why the hell have I not heard anything back from either Hannah or Jordan?” She cursed to herself.

 Megan: the founder of the Agency was a stunning blonde in her early thirties with piercing blue eyes that could usually get answers out of even the most unwilling of sources. She had an attractively svelte and athletic figure which usually was – as was the case today – poured into a fitted business skirt-suit and heels. Her multiple tattoos – she had an uncommon love of animated ‘villainess’ characters – were usually hidden under such formal, day-to-day attire but occasionally, and enticingly, were exposed to the public. She’d formed the ‘Woods Detective Agency’ after a few unhappy years in the Eschar City Police Department, primarily to counter specific crimes against women in the City and its outlying district; issues which she didn’t think were being dealt with by the official authorities. Her maverick techniques – while grabbing some headlines and getting much positive notice from feminist activists - didn’t always sit too well with the (predominantly male) powers that be in the city.

 Megan had a small, close-knit squad, and was beginning to fear the worst for her two missing operatives; her newest recruits. She was savvy enough to realise the worst-case-scenario had happened: both of them had been caught by her nemesis and whatever goons she had working for her. But what the hell was she going to do about it? With what she’d uncovered on the Lady over the years, Megan severely doubted McCrystal would contact the Police. That was most certainly not in her M.O. Her investigations showed that the Lady worked in the grey, shadowy land between the criminal and legal, never too far over the boundaries on either side.

  “I will have to go in myself, and rescue them.” Megan played the scenario out in her head, and kept coming to the same worrying conclusion. “The Police won’t do anything with the evidence I’ve got. Besides, the EPD aren’t exactly best buddies with me and Lady McBitchall still holds a hell of a lot of sway with them. No, I’ve got to go it alone. I had better wait until dark, though. I’ve got that heads-up that she is having a sick soiree tonight with a bunch of dubious business visitors from all over the place. The commotion could make it slightly easier and they may be off their guard a bit. I’m pretty sure I can blag my way in as an uninvited guest.”

  Megan sighed heavily, still looking at her phone, which still wouldn’t humour her. She wished Jenny Masters was still in town; the pair of them together could’ve handled this problem. Meg immediately cursed the thought. When did she become so reliant on Jenny? True, Miss Masters was as good as a partner for her in the agency these days, but Meg rankled at the thought that her friend was establishing herself as the brains of the operation. The trip to Hawaii was Jen’s first vacation for years, and in the two weeks she’d gone, Meg had managed to let things slide, not to mention go too far in her McCrystal investigation and endanger her two youngest agents.

  Still, Jenny was due back in a couple of days, and Meg – however it stung – was very glad of that particular fact.

  She sat down at her cluttered desk amongst screeds of unfiled paperwork and at least three half-drunk cups of coffee. Phone still in hand, she bit the bullet and composed a message to Jenny.

  “Jenny… I know I said I wouldn’t bother you in Hawaii but we’ve got a problem back at the ranch. I think McCrystal has kidnapped Hannah and Jordan. I don’t know what else to do. Going in solo, hopefully see you on the other side. Meg x”

  Megan silently cursed herself again. She eventually closed and locked up the office and went home to change and prepare for the evening.

At least she had the jump on McCrystal with the insider knowledge of this elite party. The files provided by Jenny’s contacts at the clandestine SOLARIS organization had been typically thorough; she knew many of the guests names and their backgrounds. She had no doubt that if she dressed up to the nines, she could get in as a girlfriend of one of the guests. She knew it would be that kind of party; no wives allowed. The kind of debauched scene disgusted Megan almost as much as the thought of Jordan and Hannah held captive in that den of inequity.

  Megan looked at herself in the mirror. She looked tired, true, but she was still pretty. Indeed, she knew that pretty women at these grotesque shindigs would be duly provided for the guests who did not have ‘friends’. Tonight, as much as she hated the idea, Megan Woods would be one of those girls.

*

  At the McCrystal Mansion, preparations were getting underway for the evening’s events. Elliott had moved both Hannah and Jordan upstairs to a seldom-used spare bedroom on the top floor of the West Wing. Formerly, the room used to be the servant's quarters, Sophia mused. Appropriate for these two young beauties. In time, they themselves would make lovely servants. Slaves, even.

  The room had a large, old style mahogany bed with thick wooden ends high off the ground and strong carved legs. As the girls would now be closer together, Elliott tied them back to the bed legs. She smiled as she did so, observing that they looked like wonderful figure heads at the each end of the bed. She used metres and metres of rope around their bodies to almost weld them to the wood. Finally, cruelly, Elliott strung out a length of tape over both of their foreheads and round the wood. They were each joined in uncomfortable silence to the bed, and there was no way they could ever get enough movement to actually move such a monumentally heavy object around and create any unwelcome noise.

  Elliott also knew that the room was remote enough, so that no-one would accidentally stumble upon it whilst the party was in full flow. If any bedroom action was going to happen, and it would,  the guests would use the myriad bedrooms already made up on the lower floors.

  Soon after securing her captives once more, the caterers began arriving, and Sophia went into hyperdrive; rushing and fussing around, making sure everything at the mansion was perfect. In her flurry of activity, she almost bumped into Lady McCrystal rushing down the hall.

  “Careful, Ms. Elliott! You’ll do one of us some damage...”

  “Sorry, Ma’am. It’s just, you know, zero hour.”

  “Quite. But everything is going swimmingly as usual. Just one thing; Are you aware of what Ms. Megan Woods looks like?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Mmm. I wasn’t certain either but I have been able to get this from a ‘friend’ in the Eschar Police Force.” Elliott was drawn to an A4 sized sheet of paper the Lady was holding in her right hand. “She has to give her photo in to get an investigators license to use electronic spy tools. Our friend faxed this down, this afternoon. Do keep your eyes peeled for me, there’s a good girl. This meddling vixen is bound to try and get in somehow. And I suspect it will be tonight.”

The Lady passed over the thin slip of paper, which was emblazoned with a fuzzy black and white photograph of what was, despite the lack of quality in the picture, an undeniably sexy woman; blonde, and possibly early-thirties.

  “Very good my Lady. If she shows up, I am certain I will find her. I took the liberty of getting in my friend, Mr. Shields, to keep a close check on the back doors of the West Wing, where that Masters kid got in. I suggested you would be happy to compensate him for his time. I trust this will not cause a problem.”

  “Ah, Ross Shields. A grand idea, Ms. Elliott. No problem at all. Make certain he has some refreshments whilst he is there, but perhaps no alcohol. I do recall an unsavoury incident a couple of years back.” The Lady smiled and made to leave. “Very good, Ms. Elliott. I can see you’re on top form as always.” Lady Clara grinned again and headed off to ready herself for the evening.

  Elliott took another long, lingering look at the picture of Megan Woods to fix that lovely face firmly in her mind, then moved back through to the kitchen. She gave the picture to Shields, who was by now lounging on a chair by the main kitchen table, gurning and joshing with the two young waitresses who were working in there.

  “Whoah, who’s the hottie?” Shields said, admiring the lacklustre photo.

  “Ross, no pissing about. This is serious.” Elliott gripped him firmly by the arm and took him to one side, out of earshot of the workers. “This woman must be caught if she tries to get in, and there’s a good chance that she will, tonight. Not sent back or refused entry, you understand. I want her in and kept safe: out of sight and sound – get the picture? It might not be easy. She’s good. Real good, my Lady says. I know you’re as good as it gets too, when you’re on your game. So don’t mess this up or its shit creek for you. Got it?”

  “Okay Soph. No problem. For the money your Lady is paying I’d lock up my own granny.”

  “Good. And no booze tonight, at least not until later. We don’t want a repeat of the Golf Club incident.”

  Shields held out his hands in front of him and smiled up at Sophia.

  “Clean as a whistle.” He said cheerfully.

*

  Seven Thirty duly arrived at the McCrystal mansion, and sure enough, the guests began to make their way up the driveway.

  Up in their eyrie,  Hannah Masters and Jordan Nerlinger heard little of the gathering and were merely left in their painful cocoons as the sweat trickled down their young bodies. Downstairs, the smart and tuxedo-clad Sophia Elliott was in her element as she greeted and welcomed a constant flow of people in through the front double-doors. Loud, large Texans in expensive suits with glamorous, loud girls hanging giggling on their arms. Some selected girls came along separately and were able to choose their partner for the night from the throng of millionaires and billionaires.

  On the street outside, in a car under the cover of overhanging foliage from the adjacent park, Megan Woods bided her time. She knew the guest of honour would arrive bang on eight o’clock with his entourage, and she hoped to sneak in then with the inevitable rush. Ortega’s crew was generally on a par with a Hip-Hop superstar, and there would no doubt be plenty of cover in amongst the minders, officials, girls and hangers-on.

  Sure enough, As Meg’s digital car clock clicked over to 8.00, a large, silver limousine drew up followed by two Mercedes saloons and headed through the opening gates, stopping just in front of the mansion itself. Quickly, Megan was out and sauntering down the road to mix seamlessly with the small crowd of people extrapolating themselves from the cars. The doors of the limo stayed closed until five large, suited men had got out of both Mercedes’ and fanned out across the pavement, looking intently at all the passers by, some of whom stopped to watch the spectacle.

  Also getting out were four elaborately dressed young women who chattered loudly, giggling to each other as they waited. Megan moved up to stand behind them as the door to the Rolls was eventually opened and out stepped a stocky latino in an expensive, shiny double-breasted suit.

  “Emiliano Ortega.” Megan mused to herself. “And, of course, his extensive entourage.” Two more gorgeous girls – a blonde and a brunette – clambered out of the limo followed by a thin, rather weedy looking man in a pricey but ill-fitting suit who clasped a black leather briefcase tight under his arm.

  Ortega marched up to the double-doors of the McCrystal Mansion, which Sophia Elliott held open in greeting as the gaggle of girls followed, covered by the bodyguards. Megan was glad she had correctly overdressed for the occasion to suitably change her appearance; a slinky tight black Lycra micro dress, black hold-up stockings and four inch black patent heels. She had blown her jet-black wig into a halo around her face with ringlets cascading over her tattooed shoulders.

  Megan went with the flow. As she passed Elliott she giggled, grinned and nodded in greeting, sensing ignoring her would leave her suspicious. For now, Meg’s tried-and-tested bimbo act seemed to be working. Soon enough, the entourage were congregated in the hall as Lady McCrystal, drawing gasps in a spectacular caramel-coloured ballgown, paraded down the stairs to meet Ortega.

  “Mr. Ortega. Welcome to my humble dwelling. I am so glad you accepted my invitation and were able to attend tonight. My home is yours for the evening.”

  “How nice to see you Lady Clara. And looking so utterly radiant.” Ortega spoke not as he looked; but in the strangely clipped accent of the British Public school system with only a hint of his Hispanic roots. “I was truly honoured to receive your invitation, and to be here tonight. I trust you have met my associate, Mr. Morley.” Ortega gestured to the thin man, who bobbed his head in acknowledgement and clutched his briefcase tighter to his arm. Truly, Morley didn’t look the partying type. “Not to mix business with pleasure, but Morley has some papers that we need to run through sometime this evening.”

  “Of course, Sir. That will be duly taken care of. But a surely little pleasure before business?” Lady Clara smiled winningly, her immaculate white teeth in full view. “Come and have a drink first; meet the others and then we can move off to my study to be in peace before dinner. I see, Mr. Ortega, that you have brought some friends as well.” Lady Clara performed a strange, theatrical curtsy on the stairs to the gathered women. “Welcome, Ladies. Come on through to the main rooms of my mansion and enjoy yourselves. Copious drinks await you. Elliott, please do see to my guests. Make sure they are well looked after.”

  “At once, my Lady.” Elliott chirped, the cheeriness sitting somewhat incorrectly with her. “Please follow me, Mr. Ortega. And would you care for your usual aperitif?”

*

  The party moved on, chattering away, to the spectacular, gold hued, high-ceilinged drawing room where the other guests were already enjoying the luxurious hospitality of Lady Clara. Megan followed suit for a while, but eventually dawdled in the corridor to try and sneak away. She was caught by a firm arm around her waist and Lady McCrystal’s voice close at her side. The incognito detective froze on the spot.

  “Come my dear.” The lush voice whispered in her ear, making the hairs on Megan’s neck stand up and take notice. “I shall take you on a guided tour later, and you can see all my treasures. But first, do come and meet the others. I haven’t seen you before. You are…?”

  “Oh... Catriona Archer, my Lady.” Megan recovered quickly. “You do have an extremely beautiful home. I was just admiring that watercolour over there. Sisley, isn’t it?”

  Lady McCrystal smiled, at once admiring the painting and her newfound favourite guest. Megan saw the lust on the Lady’s face, and in her voice, realising it was something she could play on. All she had to do was resist driving a fist into that pretty face.

  “Indeed, my dear.” Lady McCrystal grinned, impressed. “You certainly seem to know your art. Yes, I acquired that piece instead of a business debt just after the Gulf War; the first one, that is. Some of my Arab partners were having understandable trouble with their cash flow and I had always admired it. There are four pieces in all; the others are spread around upstairs. I would be happy to reveal them to you later, if it would please you?”

  “Sure!”

  Skilfully, the Lady steered the smiling Megan into the main, bustling room of the function, after the other guests. Elliott appeared shortly afterwards with a huge silver tray bearing multiple flutes of champagne; and Megan gladly took one and looked around, tentatively as the Lady Clara reluctantly excused herself to wander off to mingle with the retinue. Fortunately, Megan spotted no-one she knew that could feasibly reveal her, but she realised the clock was ticking. She had to get out of the main throb of the party and into the darker reaches of the mansion very soon, to find Hannah and Jordan. In her heart, she knew they had to be here somewhere.

    In the kitchen, Sophia Elliott deposited the now empty silver tray into a dishwasher rack; all the while browbeating various members of the catering staff about ‘speed of service’ and ‘pride and efficiency’.

  Instead of moving back to the drawing room and the main party, she took a detour; heading to the back door of the west wing.

  Looking out the door, she could see that Ross Shields was pacing the back patio, smoking a cigarette but remaining impressively true to his promise of sobriety. He looked elegant in his well-fitted suit, which complemented his lithe but muscled frame. His blonde hair was well-coiffed for the occasion and his trim beard was evidently recently groomed. He nodded as he spotted Elliott coming through the door.

  “Any joy?” Sophia said, slightly red cheeked and with hints of fluster in her words.

  “Nada.”

  Sophia sighed, the stress of the evening starting to show itself on her face.

  “She’ll be here, I know it. Just keep your eyes peeled, okay?” She said.

  “My eyes are peeled, Ms. Elliott.” Shields said, firmly. “Not to say anything out of place, but I think you should be more concerned with what’s going on at your end.”

  “What?! How dare you! I...”

  “The chick in black with the tats and the too-pasty-skin to have jet black hair?”

  “Uh?”

  “Came in with – but not quite with – Ortega’s party? I got a squizz at her on the CCTV unit back there. She’s not kosher, Soph, I can tell. You should definitely trail that one.”

  Sophia relented, closing her eyes as she recalled the girl at the door that Shields was describing. She tried to build a photofit in her mind combining that image and the fuzzy photograph of Megan Woods. A possibility. A definite possibility.

  “I… I will. Thanks Ross.” She said softly, almost drifting back inside towards the escalating noise of chatter and laughter.

  “De Nada...” Shields said smiling, taking another puff of his cigarette and going back to his vigil.

*

  The minutes rolled by in the lavishly furnished drawing room – each one feeling like an eternity for Megan and making her feel more edgy. She was locked in conversation with an idiotic Texan in a beige suit and Stetson who was boasting that everything in Dallas was bigger and better than anywhere else. Whilst trying not to act too bored or to arouse any suspicion, Megan noticed Lady McCrystal and Emiliano Ortega move from the throng towards the door.

  “Now’s my chance.” Megan thought, excusing herself, moving after the dubious pair and leaving the Texan mid-boast. She was so fixed on following the pair quietly out of the room she didn’t notice Elliott watching her from the corner; a concentrated yet puzzled expression forming on her face. Out of the main room of the function and into the hallway corridor, Ortega and McCrystal went left, arm-in-arm in deep conversation, presumably to the study and to go forth with their planned business meeting. Megan saw no-one else around and decided to go for broke. She went the opposite way, at pace, towards the main staircase. Elliott sneered, watching intently from a guarded position in the doorway. The bodyguard crept from the drawing room behind her, and made to follow her upstairs.

[ravivalleti]

‘Naturalization’ - A Mother’s Day 2017 Tribute

Limited Exclusive Preview from the upcoming debut book:

Rocket Scientist: The Posthuman Memoir of a Futurist Artist

by Ravi Valleti

Before the Oath Ceremony began, eagerly we called out, “Amma? Amma?! Amma!” Several faces, various shades of Citizens-elect, turned toward us. Apparently “Amma” means mother not only in our language, Telugu, but also in some other ones! From the mezzanine balcony, we smiled back towards their hopeful, nervous, curious eyes. Perched were we, above an entire floor of patient new citizens of these United States of America, in a time of dramatically new political energy, quizzical not merely to the rest of the world but to many of us Stateside.

Relief. Pride. Sadness. Deep sorrow. Confusion and anger mixed with twinges of what the abyss might feel like. This wasn’t the jubilatory celebration we had hoped for Amma’s Certificate of Naturalization as a newly admitted Citizen of our United States of America.

45. Not 44.

I’ve lived a story of your Amma – your mother. I wish to better understand the concept of Nation-States. Of that United States of America. And of you. Please ancestor, tell me in your own words. January 26th, 2017, an Oath Ceremony at the Heritage Center in Campbell in what was called…Silicon Valley? I’ve lived your memories for so long, but wasn’t prepared to speak directly to you. The Singularity technicians didn’t think this was possible. In college, though, my Intro Epistemology professor theorized that being in a state of coma might somehow allow for an interaction like ours. She was dismissed by the scientific community as an outlier. Was she right? Or, is this just a glitch?

A brilliant glitch then, dear descendant. I thought I’d died so long ago. Yet, here I am. This might be the only chance we get. So, let’s make this a good story!

We have advanced some since your days. I imagine kids of my time could write the textbooks used in your time. I’ll grant you that, dearest descendent. Believe it or not, I’m not jealous. I’m relieved that your generation is better off, and so grateful that your world is more evolved than ours. That’s how it should be. We have our problems, ancestor. Don’t get me started. I can tell, descendant. Perhaps not my place yet to say that you’re privileged to have problems we in 2017 would have dreamed of having. To your Amma’s Oath Ceremony please, ancestor!

Okay. I’ll take you back to how it was then, in the first 100 hundred days of 45…45, not 44.

My Amma has spent more than half of her life outside her hometown Hyderabad, India, by way of almost three years with me in Canada in the era of Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre. Then to the Ronald Reagan United States in that remote northeastern corner of Orono and Bangor, Maine. That was where my sister Rajani was born. To some locals, we were Black, the other kind of Indian, Middle Eastern, even the term tricky for many Latinxs: Hispanic. The very few other minorities and a handful of white allies helped us feel less isolated. We persisted in Maine by watching reruns of the Original Star Trek on our first color TV and by reading stories of proud Black Americans who made it possible for a brown family like mine to survive in those United States. MLK and Gandhi, together. 5 years later, 30 years before 2017, we Indian-Americans settled on another coast of stolen American Indian land as we began to proudly contribute to the diverse Santa Clara, California in that imbalanced cradle of disruptive technological and social innovation that is Silicon Valley, yet not immune to prejudices nor lacking in haters of its own.

She is my Amma. A mother from India who graciously encouraged both her children, socialized as different genders, to pursue whichever careers they wished, to make lives with loves of any backgrounds, to believe in and challenge science. An immigrant mother granting me, her loving son, permission to tell her story now amidst my own. To create art as resistance. Your model minority, my Amma is not.  Her daughter (my beloved sister Rajani), the love of my life Nima, our friends and I would learn more about Amma over those next few days in late January 2017.

7 days since 45’s Inauguration. Tension in the air could not stifle a sunny day with blue skies in a pause between frequent rainstorms. For this Oath Ceremony was set in that beacon, the diverse Bay Area. Shades and origin stories, tapestries from all over the globe. Relatives and friends, perhaps sponsors and colleagues. Who knows, maybe a guest recently plucked from Match, Tinder, or Grindr. This is the Bay Area. Our hella Yay Area! Rising housing costs, liberal privilege, and all!

Did 45 appear on screen during one of the video presentations? No. Too Soon? Might there be additional requests for allegiances of loyalty to the State? Yes. Awkward, natural-born Americans didn’t have to make such extra pledges, right? No, they didn’t. Leftover videos produced under 44’s compassionate watch? Yes. Thank goodness!

Dr. Martin Luther King speaking at Selma. Dr. King pronouncing that he had a dream at DC’s National Mall. Good choices. RFK. Nice one. Didn’t expect a clip of him. Me neither.

Then warm, thoughtful introductory speeches by officers of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to those who had recently succeeded in passing their Interviews and Tests. People on the verge of being deemed full American citizens when so many were under threat of being ripped away from their families simply over national status documentation, disregarding positive contributions to society. American: a term I use sparingly as people throughout the Americas rightfully are Americans. Yet a term that does require less time to state than Citizens of our United States of America. I suppose U.S. Citizens works too.

I feel your confusion, descendant. Sorry, ancestor, we didn’t get such details in our lectures on the 45 era. I’m trying my best to keep up! As was I, dear descendant!

So were your Amma and her fellow inductees called by name?

It wasn’t quite that simple. Each new American citizen was called by their country of origin. After disavowing allegiance to their former homelands and their respective leaders, varied emotions in the crowd, they made the pledge of allegiance to the United States of America under its Constitution. The wonderful names of approximately 60 sovereign, United Nations-recognized countries would next uplift the acoustics of the Heritage Theater in the heart of Silicon Valley. Names of nations that outside the Heritage Theater were facing constant ridicule and mistrust in the new yet already tumultuous era of 45.

Names of nations vying to compete with the United States on the global stage. China! Names of nations borne of ancient civilizations sharing painfully colonial histories, peoples ripped from their natural courses by greed and fear, while teaching the world how to meditate. India! That’s my Amma! There she is! Names of nations scarred by exploitation and indoctrination into the clutches of internalized racism, internalized sexism, yet managing to remain vibrant and creative. Myanmar! Names of nations yearning to feel secure not only in their intellectual and health spheres, but in their very dignity to simply be who they are. Mexico! Names of nations pronounced hesitantly for lack of understanding their ways. Russia! Names of nations that sparked heartbreaking love from an audience, no, a tapestry of humanity cheering with all their trauma and hope for an existence all on this world deserve. Syria! Names of nations, some of which were assigned to borders shaped by former colonial masters, now fractured by the perils of Climate Change. Somalia! Names of nations we in the audience wished with our vigorous clapping would continue to remain names of nations in the decades to come. Ukraine! Names of nations, old friends of this one undergoing similar paradigm shifts. The United Kingdom!

When the announcer finished, she respectfully asked the newly welcomed citizens of our United States whether she had forgotten to declare any other country of origin. As if from a deleted scene from one of our family’s favorite movies, “Coming to America,” a proud black citizen of America stood from their seat, tall, spine poised while radiating gratitude and love – Zambia! Yes, I felt too! Yes, we in the balcony felt it too! A moment of lightness and profundity the likes of which we could not have dreamed when we entered the Heritage Theater. 45, not 44. In spite of that, a truly serendipitous close to the roll call of countries of origin.

Next, the United States Passport application presentation. Then, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters presentation. Armed & Intelligence Services recruitment? No. Peace Corps? No. But yes, a Human Trafficking info line presentation. “As new Americans, you are the front lines against human trafficking.“ Say what? Are natural born United States citizens asked to participate in such front lines?

That must have shifted the mood a bit, eh, ancestor? Somewhat, my dear descendant, but the palpably growing anticipation for the handing out of Certificates of Naturalization of the early 45-era United States of America drove us forward. Row by row. Person by person. My Amma patient, smiling. Calm yet increasingly concerned in expression. An immigration officer directed her outside. Rajani, Nima, our friends with balloons atop the balcony eagerly waited to greet my Amma downstairs with hugs. Me however, a feeling returning from 2001 during my own United States Naturalization process creeping back into focus. Ancestor, please tell me!  One thing at a time, Beti. My own Amma calls me that, ancestor. I know, dear descendant.

Down to the lobby of the Heritage Theater, awaited a small handful of other new citizens yet to receive their Certificates of Naturalization of the United States. Okay, my Amma wasn’t the only one in limbo. Pulses of chill and tension moved from the muscle fibers closest to the bones up toward the very limits of my skin. All mind and shoulders. Tense, tense shoulders. Of course, by chance, Amma was called last. Meanwhile, I related to our young guest, an elementary school student of rare brilliance, on her first attendance of a United States Citizenship Oath Ceremony, the truth of our feelings, of our brown feelings. A rare young being, one who could adapt to the realities of society. No need to have hidden her from our nerves. Her amazing sociologist mother, was standing by our side. Many children her age would be trapped inside airports worldwide during the coming weekend, in war zones, in drought-stricken legacies of Climate Change. Many, many more children in dire limbo everyday – simply wanting to be children, to become the humans they deserve to become.

At last. The Heritage Center nearly emptied. My Amma then heard that she needed to make an appearance at the Santa Clara County Immigration Office in San Jose the following Tuesday morning between 9am and 11am. 9-11, really, twisted joke of some sort?! I read about 9-11 in History class, ancestor. Good you studied such a critical event, another day that much changed in our world.

Although being told that Amma’s Certificate hadn’t been prepared during a recent push to get a few more applicants through the process – 44, thank you? – being under 45 meant not wanting to rest on our laurels. We brown folks knew how to salve hope with pragmatic patience until such a feat as the Certificate of Naturalization of those United States of America were to be in the wise hands of my Amma. Guess who were the very last ones to leave the Heritage Theater lobby? Ancestor, oh no. Not a prestigious honor after such an illustrious ceremony, but one that we bore. We had our balloons. A vibrant elementary school prodigy in our crew. My sister in town for the weekend all the way from her racial equity work in Baltimore. And two allies, leaders among women. A lovely fountain pool with an approximately 7-foot-tall United States flagpole temporarily stationed in front of the Heritage Theater.

I say, “Okay everybody, let’s take pictures as if we have the Certificate in hand! The same poses and smiles we would have next Tuesday, but we won’t be together like this next Tuesday!” Artists, we all. That day was our day. That flag- red stripes the blood of those not asked permission to shape our nation, blue box of our sadness over their still underappreciated sacrifices, white stripes and stars for those most privileged to lead and continue to extract most from our nation- that flag was our flag for that day. Certificate or no Certificate in Amma’s new United States envelope. Families didn’t get to have days like that often enough. Momentous celebrations. Simply time together.

Hugs. Hugs. Sighs. Sighs. Pose. Pose.

“Psycho Donuts, everyone?” Okay! Ancestor, really? A great Silicon Valley donut chain, real Bay Area – vegan options for Nima and me. Ooh - nice! So, we walked across Winchester Blvd to the other side of Campbell Ave. Oreo Madness donut for me. Fitting- black and white, dark and light. Race in America. Oath Ceremony Day. Giant plastic eyeballs hanging from the ceiling watching us eat donuts and drink coffee. The eve of 45’s Muslim Travel and Refugee Ban. An Executive Order to “protect our nation’s security.” Ancestor, that sounded like a bunch of… Stop! Descendant, let’s not grant 45 the gift of our more…savory vocabulary, shall we? My bad, ancestor. I can’t help it. That Executive Order was so racist, so Islamophobic! Agreed. More brown people, yearning for freedom and that American dream. Many of them not as fortunate as we were to even face the problem we were fortunate to be facing.

4 days of no Green Card in hand for my Amma. Why, ancestor? You see, dearest descendant, in order for my Amma to have been allowed entrance to participate in that day’s Oath Ceremony she was ordered to hand over her United States Permanent Resident Green Card to U.S. Immigration officers. When Amma did this, as everyone else in line with her had to, she had understandably trusted that she would, by ceremony’s end, be holding the more permanent and prized Certificate of Naturalization of those United States of America. Instead -  a piece of Immigration and Naturalization Services letterhead with red ink scribbled on it. Ancestor, why didn’t they return her Green Card to your Amma?! Beti, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Only a week into 45, we just couldn’t assume anything as brown Americans. Even when some friends of ours would say that Amma must be “in the system.” That “at least we weren’t Muslims.” Not nice of others to say such things, ancestor. As allies of Muslim-Americans, ourselves often targets of terrible Islamophobia, we would agree with you, dear descendant. Day by day into the infancy of the 45 administration, uncertainty the likes of which our United States wasn’t accustomed to, perhaps since the days of Japanese-American internment camps in World War II.

Wow, ancestor.

A marathon, not a sprint, Beti. 45, not 44. Hence, the next day and a half my family and I reconnected with our larger universe. Recalibration.

The next day while Amma was back at her work, Rajani and I took a drive together from Sunnyvale to San Jose to visit our Dad. Through our hometown Santa Clara, passing near our old apartments and condo, Little League Baseball fields, by our alma maters- Sutter Elementary, Buchser Middle, and Santa Clara High. Ancestor, your Dad, the Professor, brought you to Canada then to the United States! Descendant, my Dad would be honored by you right now. Thanks for recalling him!

The morning after that, my sister and I reunited with Amma, who needed a fun diversion - as did we. Ancestor, Take me out to the ballgame? Which game was that? America’s pastime, my dear descendant. Baseball. A special event called Oakland A’s FanFest. It was hosted by our favorite team, the Oakland Athletics to boost excitement for the 2017 season. Delicious, complimentary food from well-rated, East Bay food trucks. Talks by players, coaches, and the visionary new team president. Games for children. Green and Gold, the best colors in Major League Baseball. My Amma and her daughter, Rajani looked so relaxed, appreciating our intermission from politics, from identity, sitting alongside the marina at Jack London Square next to our glistening San Francisco Bay. A marathon, not a sprint.

Our intermission was nice, but we were getting excited to pick up lost pieces of our heritage. A short journey to nearby Berkeley for Rajani, Amma, and me to meet Nima for a timely excursion to further commemorate the imminent Certificate of Naturalization of those United States for Amma. A privilege for us to join that afternoon’s Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour. Our hosts, Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee, compassionate purveyors of uncommonly told stories and philosophies, humans whose knowledge of and solidarity with North American West Coast South Asian history would guide us through important parts of Berkeley, including through part of the lovely University of California campus. Streets we had walked many times before, restaurants and shops of so many niches and cultures, eclectic architecture with organically interspersed natural elements, street art, reminders of vast possibility that walking past hopeful undergrad and grad students brings. Breathing in the atmosphere of a city at the heart of California, a state that could be a nation unto itself yet even more now than ever a leader of resistance within our United States of America.

That’s wonderful, Ancestor! You and your family learned so much in that tour. South Asians in California in the late 1800s? The first true free speech movement in the United States? By Indian immigrants in Berkeley advocating for their fellow Indians in British-occupied India? Decades before the free speech breakthroughs of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement? Advocates for LGBTQIA rights who were South Asian, before 1990? Labor, feminist, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian & Pacific Islander solidarity too?

Dear descendant, not often in our American history textbooks. Not your model minorities. Absolutely remarkable. Toward the end of our tour, some people checked their social media to see that while we were connecting with little known pasts and reattaching our lost tapestries of being Desi, of being South Asian, protests were trending on social media at San Francisco International Airport and at many other airports around the United States.  

We ended the grand tour in front of Berkeley High School, a place where students had learned how to stand more compassionately for classmates who had faced threats in the weeks and months after 9/11. Inspired by those stories, we Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour participants coalesced our own stories. We shared our feelings that quickly and necessarily launched from reclaimed pasts to first attempts at grasping a future that seemed to be rewriting as hopes into fears. Executive Order-  hour by hour on this day of the implementation of 45’s Refugee and Muslim Travel Ban. Executive Order. For some, a first and now unavoidable chance to publicly process complex emotions bubbling since before Election Day 2016.

Ancestor, did your Amma get up and speak in front of the group?! Why yes, descendant, she did. This woman raised in India not to speak up for fear of male reprisal, forced to wield a more subtle and relatively unseen resistance to patriarchy from her earliest memories in India. In her 20s to the white winters of Maine where she had to keep her head down amidst largely monochromatic local populations. Later to work hard for years in a Valley whose Silicon riches were not for all, in which challenging family, financial, and medical dynamics shaped a necessary stoicism that brought forth for Amma millennia of ancient Indian duty and patience. This woman, this nervously soon-to-be holder of her well-earned Certificate of Naturalization of those United States of America. This mother in front of her adult Indian-American children. This human being who had yearned for greater opportunities in a land to which, at that very moment, many around the world trapped in airports expected to enter with similar hopes of their own. Safety and opportunity. My Amma indeed spoke.

She started by graciously owning her nerves, soon easing into how keenly she sensed that her largely younger audience needed an elder mother’s optimism and faith in our diverse strength – strength to sustain the moral arc of history we shall be the authors of. My Amma had earned every right to publicly air her grievances and root her trauma. Instead, she gifted us that day with her love and faith. The commemoration of my Amma as a beloved #ResistanceAuntie. Proud children we were. We are. And given the largely younger group of undergrads and 20-40 somethings, a needed motherly love to all of that day’s tour participants. Rajani, Nima, me, Amma – group hug afterward. Then, camaraderie with fellow tour goers in a way we hadn’t anticipated. Gratitude.

Shortly after, my sister packed for her flight back to Baltimore, back to another beautiful city of diversity and resistance.

Then, quiet dread. 2 more days of Amma with no Green Card in hand nor her Certificate of Naturalization of those United States. 2 more days of 45 and his administration claiming fake news. 2 more days with growing protests at airports to support fully vetted and wonderful human beings seeking the same amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty that were promised to us. 2 more days of fear from ICE deportation raids of fellow Americans. 2 more days of women fighting for equal pay. 2 more days of Jewish and Muslim Americans alike receiving hateful threats. 2 more days of disabled folks not able to consistently have access to their society at large. 2 more days of LGBTQIA people introducing themselves to those who had only seen a Queer or Transgender person as a television character.

2 more days of Rust Belt voters pining for jobs in dying industries and industries being overtaken by robots, longing for maintenance of their Affordable Care Act aka “Obamacare.” 2 more days of opioid addiction. 2 more days of artists, laborers, doctors and nurses, teachers. 2 more days of global challenges, environmental damage. 2 more days of extinction of species worldwide by human impacts. 2 more days of Executive Orders and Senate Cabinet confirmations.

2 more days of joy, brilliance, suffering, injustice, and invisibility for Black and Inidgenous (Native) Americans - not dissimilar to the many tens of thousands of days that had come before on this land after the first European colonists fled religious persecution and economic disadvantage. All the while, with their fellow European diaspora, led by aristocrats and generals carving North America into those United States of America and that Canada.

2 days in the life of #MarginSci. 2 days pondering the new call to March for Science.

2 days in a series of weeks of too many murders of vibrant Black Trangender American women.

2 days closer to the apparent hate killing in Olathe, Kansas of my fellow Hyderabad-born engineer, the late Srinivas Kuchibhotla. A man like many of us, contributing and dreaming in the United States. “Go back to your country!” would be among final words Srinivas would hear, uttered by his white American-born murderer. Dare I say, by a terrorist?

2 days checked off the 2017 calendar before 45 would fire the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey. Ancestor, wasn’t Mr. Comey investigating 45’s ties to Russia? Yep.

That’s another story. Back to January 31, 2017. Back to the palpable fear we felt in those first 100 hundred days of 45. Our family’s 2 days wait were over. 9-11 in the morning. The Tuesday after Amma’s Oath Ceremony had arrived. At last. Logic would dictate to remain calm, not to make assumptions. However, as citizens of the United States well-versed in the nuances, connoisseurs of the intricacies of immigration, as humans experienced in the rigors of generational trauma, we deeply felt the increased confusion, stress, and fear only 10 days into the 45 era. In periodic flights of panic with hopes of relief, Amma and I made the drive to San Jose. That was home for Amma. Where she had worked for many years, made community, raised children. Her land of birth foreign to her when she visited there. Her heritage with her no matter where she was.

Descendant, I really want you to feel what we did. Real-time. Ready? Yes please, ancestor.

We park. We exit the car. I ask Amma to take a breath. I take one myself as I feel nervous ghosts from my own visits as a young man in 2000 and 2001 to U.S. Immigration offices in Orange and Santa Clara Counties. Back when I was stressed over midterms and finals in Engineering School at UC Irvine. We enter the building.

Intimidation. Intensity. The U.S.A. The Bald Eagle. Probably a good, young man just doing his job at the front desk. But these are 45 times, not 44. “Do you have an appointment?” he tests us. Then, Amma starts to nervously say something, as if to express guilt for having courageously passed her U.S. Citizenship Interview and Test, eager to please because so many had ridiculed her, had looked down on her, had thrown slurs at her. That generational trauma, that fear we brown folks caress so closely. Quickly, as I had done many times since I was a child of this immigrant mother for whom English is a third language, I intervened as the fluent, charming leader of my family, “Sir, thank you. My mom had her wonderful Oath Ceremony last Thursday in Campbell. She was told to come here today between 9 and 11 A.M.” Silent beat. Silent beat. Hearts flutter. Silent beat. Cold sweat inching towards pores. The periphery of eyesight closing in. Hopes. Hopes. “Ok, then. Proceed through security check, then to the officer over there.” This first officer points behind and to his right.

Airport travel had more than prepared my brown Amma and the browner me for security check. Shoes off quickly, etc. Retrieve items from the bins. Go to the side seats to put items back in pockets and purse. Shoes and jackets back on. Oh yeah, my belt. Can’t have my pants slip down, here of all places! No pat-down, ancestor? You’re funny, descendant. Another attendant’s desk. This officer relaxed, benign in expression. “Go to the waiting room over there, place your documents in a box at Window X.”

Final round, ancestor? Anticipation as butterflies, my Amma the Madame but only of her own Butterflies on this precipice of momentous moments in her more than six decades of life on this planet. That feeling of hesitation, not to presume the finish line too far in advance. We arrive at said window and see a currently unattended bin. Amma excitedly places into said bin her critical red-pen marked papers from last Thursday’s Oath Ceremony. Then she moves to a lobby seat. I. Don’t. Move. One. Step. Away. From. Amma’s. Papers. From. That. Crucial. Bin. Amma immediately returns to my side as we await.

The same immigration officer from the Heritage Center. Friendly, steady. She looks over her own red-pen handwriting from last Thursday following that Oath Ceremony. The officer goes to a file to her side. We see the framework for a Certificate of Naturalization of our United States of America. Looks very similar to my own. Yet, lacking a picture of my Amma in the appropriate box in the middle of the left side of the Certificate. Where is the picture of my Amma? Is this like when Immigration had lost the initial fingerprints they themselves had taken of me in my own Naturalization process during the transition from 42 to 43? Here I am again, yet 45, not 44.

“We got a few more people through the process on this recent batch, including you. Forgive the delay.” My Amma smiles. I want to smile. Generational trauma is a fierce locking mechanism to the heart though. An adhesive appears from a desk drawer of the officer. This valued representative of our United States of America applies the adhesive to the back of Amma’s small picture. Then she affixes Amma’s picture to the middle of the side of her Certificate of Naturalization of those United States. A pen. The officer signs her portion. Now I wink at Amma. Then I smile with deepest gratitude and relief into the eyes of the immigration officer of those United States of America. (And 44, a fist bump to you). She tells Amma, “Sign it, upon returning home, in black ink your portion.” Voila! Amma’s brand-new Certificate of Naturalization of the U.S. of A.

The officer reminds Amma about soon obtaining Amma’s U.S. Passport. A passport of which, by that morning, we knew had become more and more critical for world travelers into our United States of America, if they were so fortunate to have them. Mind you, 45’s folks had started questioning and, in many cases barring at airports, humans with not only Entry Visas (travel, work, student, and spousal) but also humans with U.S. Permanent Resident Green Cards. 45 had also started prying for social media passwords of many more crossing Stateside. It was with extra appreciation and solidarity, that Amma finally placed between her thumbs and her fingertips for the first time that which had almost become a myth in the preceding few days. Her Certificate of Naturalization of her United States of America!

“Amma let’s get outta here.”

Google Maps. Oh, wow, another branch of Psycho Donuts nearby. Yes! The lack of sleep the night before, nerves over obtaining Amma’s long-awaited Certificate, and stress while watching the news about the experiences of good humans wrongfully blocked around the world from entering these same United States. This lack of sleep after such an emotional roller coaster required fair trade, local Northern California blend coffee. And our crossing the finish line demanded more donuts. And yes, Vegan ones for a very proud and very grateful son of an Amma who was now his fellow U.S. Citizen. “I will vote!” she exclaims. Cheers and congratulations on your newly enhanced Resistance powers, Amma. I love you.

A most fitting notification then flashes across my phone as we finish our late victory breakfast. “Amma, check it, the new teaser for the start of shooting for the pilot of Star Trek: Discovery!” Amma smiled in that way that told me she knew that the step she had just taken was an initiative to further help heal our society. On a day in a week of such social and political upheaval, not just as a new American Citizen, but as a human being aiming towards that utopian Final Frontier. That one day our descendants would, in peace, boldly go where no one has gone before.

That’s me, ancestor! Thanks for gifting family! Your memories make much more sense to me now. So we better get you out of your coma and back to deep space flight training, eh dearest descendant? Yes, please! It’s amazing, ancestor, how much weight and pressure your society placed on national citizenship. I’m a citizen of the Earth, passport not needed. Rest and recovery are your passports now, descendant, so that you soon take your rightful place as a Citizen of the Stars. You won’t need me out there. You got this! Amma would be proud of a young woman like you.

Copyright © 2017 Ravi Valleti. All Rights Reserved.

[vkwickedreads]

Buns by Alice Clayton

The third in the hilarious yet sizzling hot Hudson Valley series from New York Time and USA TODAY bestselling author Alice Clayton. Clara Morgan is living the dream, if you can call rebranding hotels that are desperate for a new life and running any kind of marathon a dream. Which she does. But the career she loves and the endurance races that keep her adrenaline pumping have kept her too busy to put down any roots. Growing up in foster care, she’s never been able to establish traditions of her own, which may be why she’s fascinated by the rituals that generations-old family resorts are known for. She’s especially interested in the Bryant Mountain House, and not just for their secret recipe for the yummy, gooey, can’t-get-enough-of Hot Cross Buns… Archie Bryant, the man with the Buns, is fifth generation and one-day-owner of the charming yet run-down Bryant Mountain House in Bailey Falls, New York. He’s determined to save his family’s legacy from the wrecking ball the old-fashioned way—by gritting his teeth and doing what needs to be done. There’s no way Archie will be influenced by the new hotel branding expert his father brought in to turn one hundred and fifty years of tradition on its head just to attract a faster, younger, slicker crowd. But when some of Clara’s ideas start bringing in new, paying customers, Archie can’t deny that she may have just given him a shot at keeping his resort open. It’s sticky, it’s messy, it’s sweet, it’s Buns.

Book 3 Buy Links Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Angela – ☆☆☆☆☆ I’ll begin by saying that Alice Clayton is one of my top two go-to authors when it comes to romantic comedies, and with Buns, she has shown once again why my faith in her comedic talents is well-placed. Not only did she bring her A-game when it came to ripping out my heart with Clara’s and Archie’s pasts, making me fall in love with each of them and them as a couple, and giving my abdominal muscles a workout, but she also included cameos from her other series that will make Claytonites squee in excitement. The third book in the Hudson Valley series gives us Clara’s story – the last of the three BFFs who met in cooking school and one of the two who discovered that she had no future as a chef. Fortunately for Clara, she did discover that she had a flair for breathing life back into failing hotels and resorts and, surprise, surprise, there just happens to be a family-owned resort perilously close to wheezing its last breath located in Bailey Falls. As far as Roxie and Natalie are concerned, it’s kismet and only a matter of time before Clara is joining her besties in calling Bailey Falls her new home. But Clara knows better. She doesn’t put down roots and she doesn’t make connections because the fewer people in her life to depend on, the fewer people there are who can walk away from her – especially as she prefers to do the walking away, something her job requires. And yet, Archie Bryant proves to be a challenge, both in getting him to be open-minded about the changes she’s proposing for his family’s resort and in resisting the pull she feels when they’re together. While Archie has his own baggage, when he finally stops fighting their chemistry, Clara has no hope but to hang on for the ride and hope for the best. Of course, life’s not fair – especially with Clayton at the helm – and an unexpected twist gives Clara the chance to do what she does best – RUN! This time around, though, Clara’s running doesn’t give her the clean break she needs and she has to decide what kind of future she wants and figure out what she has to do to get her happily ever after with the one man who has finally made her believe in them. I absolutely loved Buns. Bailey Falls is a wonderful town inhabited by an endearing collection of residents who keep popping up in each of the books of the series. This gives the books that tight-knit community feel that makes you happy to revisit Hudson Valley, all while getting to know Clara and Archie better. Like the previous couples, Clara and Archie ooze chemistry and are well-versed in the double entendre, which had me laughing out loud more times than I can remember. Their banter and my need to know more about their pasts had me glued to my Kindle, not wanting to put it down until I knew why Clara was the way she was and whether or not Archie could make it past her defenses. Without spoiling it, I love, Love, LOVED the scene in which Clara makes her play to win Archie back. It was fabulous, it was exciting, and it was exactly the kind of thing I would expect from Clara. It certainly had me grinning from ear to ear. I am assuming that with Clara being the last of the three friends, that Buns marks the end of the Hudson Valley series; however, I would happily read another installment in the series just so I could spend more time with this great cast of characters. Until then, I’ll keep my eyes out for whatever Clayton writes next.

Also Available in the Hudson Valley Series

Book 2 Buy Links Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo For reviews & more info, check out our Cream of the Crop post.

ALICE CLAYTON worked in the cosmetics industry for over a decade before picking up a pen (read: laptop). She enjoys gardening but not weeding, baking but not cleaning up, and finally convinced her long-time boyfriend to marry her. And she finally got her Bernese Mountain Dog. Connect with Alice Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Buns (Hudson Valley #3) by Alice Clayton to read and review.