#i know sylvia cares about donna but she has a not so great way of showing it

[ninemelodies]

had a thought about how i relate to donna by way of feeling trapped and useless in your own life and how awful it must’ve been for her to realize that’s what she was going back to when ten took her memories

the worst part? she doesn’t even realize what it is she’s lost

[thetorturedlovergirl]

Today my classes got canceled bc public transport isn’t working (buses, subways, trains, etc) as drivers are on strike so I finally had the time to watch The Chuch On Ruby Road !!

Here are some of my opinions:

Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor? AMAZING. MARVELOUS. OUTSTANDING.

I know we get to see him in The Giggle, but that's just a fraction of what we get to see in this episode. I love his energy, his voice, and how nice and approachable he seems as The Doctor. You can see that he loves his job and that he loves being The Doctor, and that he will crush this job.

ALSO ALL OF HIS CLOTHES !! HE COULD USE A TRASH BAG AND STILL MAKE IT LOOK CLASSY AND STYLISH I SWEAR. I WANT TO SEE ALL OF THE OUTFITS HE WILL WEAR IN THIS SEASON.

AND MILLIE GIBSON? LOVE HER. LOOOOVE HER. Her accent is magnificent, her personality, her EVERYTHING. I know I’ll love Ruby Sunday very much (I already do, I can’t hate companions).

HER OUTFITS ARE ALSO GORGEOUS !! I know they’ll be fighting for their lives with cunty outfits this new season and I’m all here for it.

It’s funny how she just roll with everything like she wasnt that shocked as I’d have expected. It was like “oh this alien who had a hot wet summer with Harry Houdini is helping me save the foster baby that just came to my home from this coincidence-eating goblings? yeah ok valid.”

I’m so excited to know her origins. I don’t know if I really care who her biological mother is, BECAUSE CARLA IS HER MOTHER AND SHES WONDERFUL. But I want to know what RTD has in mind for her and where she comes from. I have my theories but they’re like… trashy and stupid so I want to know what the real deal will be.

The thing I love most about RTD episodes are how he shows that companions still have families outside of their TARDIS life. Like with some other companions I felt like it was like, three episodes where their family appeared and then they were just gone forever.

Rose and Jackie, Martha and Francine, Donna and Sylvia. I loved these interactions and how much it affected the companions and the whole plot. So Carla being present in Ruby’s life and the series is something important for me and I’m really looking forward to see how her interactions will affect.

Now, to the goblings…

Look, the whole gobling situation was really bizarre and funny. It made me really uncomfortable when the camera zoomed to their faces and I couldn’t stop thinking “why are they doing that? It looks like when my friends took really bad zoomed pictures”. It didn’t happened like, one time, IT WAS EVERY TIME. Also, when they jumped and danced was really funny and so strange they looked like Mii characters.

WHEN JANICE GLOBING STARTED SINGING!! THAT IS CINEMA!!. Her saying the many ways they could eat Lulubelle (I agree with the doctor, that is a great name), I was shocked, I couldn’t stop laughing and how silly the whole scene was.

Idk why people hate The Doctor and Ruby’s song. I heard many people criticizing the lyrics but the song was actually good. It was improvised by The Doctor and Ruby so it couldn’t be majestic (not like the gobling song lol), but they did great with what they had. I would have made a mess and just start singing something cringy just to annoy them, so Ruby really killed it with those lyrics. And the vocals? GOD THE VOCALS. I LOVE HOW MILLIE AND NCUTI SING!! IM REALLY EXCITED FOR THAT BEATLES EPISODE NOW (I was before watching TCORR bc im a huge Beatles fan but now that I heard them sing? ohh I can’t wait).

The resolution was meh but I was more interested in the characters so I didn’t rally cared tbh I wasn’t expecting it to be something astounding.

Overall, I loved the episode as as a whole (4/5) and I think is a good first episode for Ncuti and Millie.

WELL NOW WE JUST HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW !! NEW EPISODES AAAA

[trashboatprince]

SO!

The Star Beast!

Let's talk about it!

(Major spoilers under the cut)

-First off, I fucking love Fourteen, absolutely a delight, I wanna hug them (Okay, technically I HAVE hugged them when I got to hug David at the con this year, but still!). Also, 'male-presenting Time Lord', bah! Still gonna use they/them when I refer to them because please just let me have this, I don't care, the Doctor canonically doesn't give two shits about gender and even refers to going by the article Doctor over a pronoun in this special anyway.

-Second, DONNA! OH DONNA! I love her, I love her so much, just- oh, she hasn't changed a damn bit! Including missing the fucking alien spacecraft because that was exactly what I expected from her. <3

-Also, most supportive mom, love that.

-Rose~! Oh, oh Rose, how I love you! No notes, she's amazing! It did hurt to hear her dead name being used, but considering that it was done by a bunch of dickheaded kids, it makes sense. But we will never use that name for her here, nope, she's just Rose. <3

-Shaun is a delight, Donna got herself the most excellent of malewives ever

-Sylvia, ah, exactly as I expected, though she is trying to be better for her daughter and granddaughter, so points to her.

-Meep! So much to say on the meep but I'll keep it brief: transphobic little shit.

-UNIT is always fun to see, but how well known are they nowadays because the BBC report actually referred to them. I dunno, I've still working my way through the Third Doctor's era where UNIT was a major plot point and I haven't... finished watching Thirteen's era yet (only because I want to watch it with my gf the next time we see each other).

-Fourteen interacting with the Noble family was great, especially with them trying to see the Meep and Sylvia panicking and wow, this face cannot escape being slapped I wonder if Donna will get to do one herself.

-The action stuff is so much fun, exactly what I expect from this series.

-Being on the Meep's ship, the fact that Donna went to help the Doctor and just... oh, oh, them freaking out and crying because they were scared she'd die when she remembered. I started sobbing.

-Hell, I was crying when they held her in their arms and said he didn't care if the grunts shot them... uuuuhhhhhggggg... Fourteen cares about her so much! That's his best friend!

-Rose! Rose and Donna, Time Ladies! Lord, Lady, and neither! Don't care what anyone says, I loved this. I didn't voice it, but I had a very strong feeling that Rose would inherit the DoctorDonna.

-Was a little confused about them 'letting go' but... yeah, alright, okay. Still, I wonder if there is still a bit of Time Lord left in them.

-Is there any chance that they can sell Rose's plushies. I really want the Ood one.

-THE TARDIS!

-Oooooh, she's beautiful and big and very classic and yet so very nuwho at the same time, a perfect blend, and just so gorgeous! And Fourteen freaking out in excitement, running around like a child, being so happy about a coffee maker in the TARDIS! <3<3<3

-And Donna's reaction! She was so happy too!

-But then the 'killed me' scene... oh, oh honey, you've been holding onto that for centuries, those memories and the guilt. It's honestly heartbreaking to know that the Doctor, through all their new faces, still held onto those feelings about what happened to Donna.

-I'm excited, don't know what the fuck is gonna happen in the next episode since we didn't get a preview and I think it's the least known of the episodes so far.

-I saved this for last, but I wanna talk about the sonic screwdriver cause I know some people are gonna be all 'oh, it's too OP!'

First off, the sonic has always been, it always will be, it's a fucking sci-fi tool, sci-fi series always have some sort of tool that does everything.

Second, whatever the hell it did to make the shields was awesome, that's such a cool trick and I love it. I bet it's done using sound and light waves, which makes for a very interesting concept and something I'd love to explore in one of my sci-fi aus. Not sure how it made that cool schematics things, but whatever.

Also, leave me alone! I love the new sonic! I need to get my hands on one, but they're always sold out or too expensive!

(Okay, not really last, just a bonus, but damn, no offense to Ten, but Fourteen is a bit more attractive to me. I dunno, I mean, I was crushing hard on the DT at 15, but at 31, it's like, oh. Oh no. He's aged so well, he's so pretty. This is probably Crowley's fault.)

[awigglycultist]

Okay hatchetfield zombie apocalypse au bc why not ("but tgwdlm is a zombie apocalypse" shh no that's an alien musical apotheosis and also this is won't be the exact same as tgwdlm)

This ended up being way longer than I thought it would and also kinda ramblely (is that a word??) oops. So read the rest under the cut

Okay this takes place in 2019

Emma and Paul are together, emam ofc suggests they going to her cooky reclusive biology professor

This isn't the apocalypse Henry excepted and he doesn't like that, but hey he still prepped for an apocalypse so he's safe

Since this isn't a musical apocalypse and it'd probably be pretty hard to get money off of someone during a zombie apocalypse, so he's currently not trying to murder anyone

He let's Emma and Paul stay with him

But then Emma is like "hey you have room do you think my nephew, brother in law and his gf could stay with us? The gf's a nurse she could be helpful!!"

He eventually agrees

Then Paul's like "hey my coworkers are kid dumb asses there's know way they're surviving an apocalypse on their own can they stay with us? And also one of them has daughter and the other has a little brother (cough cough HCB) them too?"

And then Hidgens ends up agreeing to that, and then Alice and HCB are ofc both like "wait hold on our friends-" (ie: Deb, Ziggs, Grace Chasity (this would be HCB's friends not Alice's ofc), Cineplex kid (because I said so) Ethan (also Tony, my beloved) Lex and Hannah (once again, because I said so, do we seem them interact? No, but they're friends now)

And Hidgens at this point is like "well fucking fine I guess so! Bring em here we have a bunch of ppl already so why not!!"

All of these people, living under one roof (albeit a very big roof) is ofc chaos!

I'd imagine ppl kinda stay in groups a bit tho. Like the teens stay with each other for the most part. CCRP gang hangs out together most. Ect.

Still, very chaotic. The teens (really mostly Deb, Ethan and Lex) causing plenty of trouble. The adults all being dumb asses. Plenty of arguments between Bill and Ted ofc. And probably several arguments between the nerdy prudes (grace, hcb and cineplex) and the other teens. Probably one fight between Alice and Ziggs but it gets settled quickly and they figure everything out and clear the air and become good friends.

I mean you think this amount of ppl, particularly this certain group of ppl, are going to be well organized durning the apocalypse? Hell no!

Hidgens is the only one that actually understands shit about apocalypse, he's the one who prepared! (once again: although for the wrong one) so he's constantly having to be like "no we can't do that that's dangerous!!" Emma, Alice and Lex are the only other really competent ones.

Hidgens ofc spends his time trying to find a cure, Emma helps him. If life ever goes back to normal she has an automatic A in his class for the rest of college just for going through this shit and helping him.

Tom, Bill, and Tony are the dads. They're obviously dealing with the kids. But the do mainly try and focus on their own kid because... That their kid ofc they care about them the most. But they try to take care of the other kids too.

Bill has a rough time connecting with anyone besides Alice. But Grace was always nice to him church so there's that. And ofc Alice has gf, a gf he doesn't like a ton but now he's very much stuck with so he might as well try and get along with. They eventually do.

Tom ofc like I said cares most about Tim. But after him the next he cares most about are CaliforMIA gang. Lex and Ethan were his students (I know it's not confirmed that Ethan was one of students but he is now bc I want him to be), probably his favorite students, and that Lex's little sister who's only a few years older than Tim, ofc he's also gonna care a lot about them.

Tony also cares alot about Lex and Hannah, that's his son's gf and her little sister, once again, ofc he'll care about them alot too.

Becky absolutely cares about all the kids a ton!! She's a nurse who works with kids, she's very nurturing and mother like. She cares for and about them all fairly equally but Tim is her favorite because... Well that's her bf's son and she's known him the longest out of any of the kids ofc. Lex and Hannah end up loving Becky alot because she's so much kinder and sweet than their biological mother.

Before the apocalypse Ted took care of HCB, now he's still taking care of him ofc. Ted doesn't want to be taking care of any of the kids besides his brother. He wants to drink and party and stuff. I mean it's the apocalypse so why not? But he ends up taking care of Grace and Cineplex quite a bit too. This happens not bc others aren't taking care of them, they are being taken by the other plenty well (like I said the dads and Becky all care for all the kids they just have favorites) but because they see HCB going to Ted for almost everything and Ted doing stuff for/helping out HCB so they're like "well okay guess we'll go to him too" He's not happy about it. He already has to deal with his obnoxious little nerdy prude bother and now there's two more? But part of them reminds him a lot of himself when he was younger. Maybe that's why he doesn't like them, or also maybe that's why secretly likes them a ton?

Hidgens, Emma, Ted, Tom and Lex are the ones that go out most often because they're the only who are really able to fight off the zombies and stay safe a stuff (okay Ted not so much as the others but they bring him anwyay cause Henry's like "he looks like he can use gun or something" and Emma, Paul, Bill and Charlotte are all like "this is a horrible idea don't bring him" but they do anwyay. He doesn't kill any of the others so hey why not keep bringing him? Besides if something goes wrong they can use him as bait or throw him to the zombies to get them off the rest of the group /hj)

Other ppl in Hatchetfield exist of course and are out they're trying to survive. Sam and Pamela are some of the first to die that's karma bitch

Lex and Hannah were living with Pamela ofc when the apocalypse hit, the girls wanted to go somewhere safer but Pam wouldn't let them, then one day she went out and got turned into a Zombie, the girls quickly took that as their chance to escape and they went to Tony and Ethan and then ofc ended up at Hidgens'

Charlotte was with Sam before he turned into a Zombie and then when he did she ran to Ted & HCB and stayed with them before they ended up at Hidgens'

Gary and MIAH are together and trying to survive on they're own. Sylvia, Melissa, and Greenpeace Girl end up meeting each other and decide to gang up together and they're badasses. Dan and Donna are two focused on the news and finding out if Peanuts is surving (which yes, Peanuts, (as well as Papa Ed.. At least for a while) are doing fine) and they die pretty quickly. Holloway and Duke are doing great, Holloway's a witch so yeah she's good and ofc Duke is with her so he's good too.

Lucy is in Hatchetfield and she's already in the woods vibing with Chumby before the apocalypse hits (THAM doesn't happen in this universe and instead Lucy ends up finding Chumby own her own because uh??? Reasons??? Idk bc I said so) the two of them have no idea there's a zombie apocalypse. The Paul clones take this apocalypse as they're chance to escape, Paul23 leading the uprising ofc, they don't kill Paul and take his place tho, instead it's more like "there's a zombie apocalypse? Oh fuck yeah!" *escapes* "oh theres a zombie apocalypse oh no-" some try to stay in a group and live together, some try to go out their own. There's now a bunch of random Pauls and Paul zombies around town. The main gang do end up seeing the clones and they're all just kind like "uhhh wtf???" except Paul, he's absolutely freaking out, the clones kinda are just "uhh haha how do we explain this".

Spoiler alert: the world isn't destroyed. How? Not totally sure yet but probably through Hidgens managing to find a cure and time travel. Emdriod has traveled back in time to replace Emma, but oopsie she didn't travel back far enough so she can't kill Emma in Guatemala, so she goes to Hatchetfield in hopes she can kill Emma when no ones looking and just replace her then, but oh no there's apocalypse so thats a much bigger issue. She survives easily, she's strong af, doesn't need food, all that jazz. She and Emma do meet each other and it's another "wtf?" "how do I explain this?" situation. But Emdriod lies ofc and kinda explains what happened but said that she accidentally time travelled and leaves out the whole wanted to kill her part. Now the Emdriod has found Emma she does try to kill her, that's awfully hard to do tho considering Emma is literally always with a group of people, and Emdriod doesn't want to just kill Emma right in front of everyone bc then they'll all hate her and her goal isn't to just kill Emma it's too replace her. She end up giving up and she runs into Paul 23 and they bond of my doubles of someone and wanted to kill that somoen at first and then fall in love and kill zombies together :)

Ohh uhh other ships: Paulkins, Lexthan, Barneston, Potseed (Alice x Deb) ofc. Charted, Obnoxious Teens (HCB x Cineplex Kid) oh and ofc Holloduke. Uhh Bill x being okay for once, Ted x probably not dying for once (not too sure about that one yet) Hidgens x not actually trying to murder someone for once

Wait wait I just got idea: the zombie apocalypse occurs BECAUSE of Hidgens, he tries too bring back the working boys (remember his original backstory with accidentally killing them and stuff??)

Okay I think that's all I got for now

[deathly-shipper]

Yes absolutely I want to hear about your Hogwarts au

why, my dear sirs, madams and variations thereupon, thank you for your interest!

(fair warning, this is going to be a long ass post because I have FEELINGS about this ship and this au okay??)

- Donna is muggleborn, but you'd be dead wrong if you think she's going to let anyone make fun of her because of that.

-When she was six her mother told her they weren't going on holiday that year, so off she went to the nearest bus stop and got on the Knight Bus. As if anyone involved in that mad acid trip of a bus would bat an eye to a child climbing on the bus alone, so they merely asked where she wanted to go and little Donna just went "Strathclyde!". Her family found her hours later with the help of the muggle police.

- Her first big show of accidental magic was when she was seven. The other kids at school were making fun of her hair, she got so mad that she turned all the other kids ginger too. Trust her to make others see the other side of things.

- So! Fast forwarding to when she's eleven, one ordinary morning Donna and her family are having breakfast, as you do, and someone knocks at the door. Lo and behold it's Professor McGonagall (seriously considered Snape, just because it would be so entertaining to see him explain the magic world to Donna's family, imagine Sylvia Noble talking to Snape.)

-She explains everything to the family; yes Donna is a witch, she has a place in Hogwarts, no Mrs Noble, tuition is free, etc etc.

- Sylvia is obviously the sceptic "magic isn't real!", Wilf may or may have not done a little dance of happiness, Geoffrey is a little too stunned to speak and Eileen (Donna's Nan) is the only sensible mind in this, bless her.

- The first thing that comes to Donna's mind when she is told she can go to Hogwarts is "So I won't have to go to school with Nerys anymore?" After being told that no, you won't have to, she's just a little bundle of joy, I mean, who wouldn't be when discovering you can do magic?

- Moving on, everything is explained, magic is real and a trip to Diagon Alley is scheduled for the next week!

- Now Ten! Ten is from a pureblood family, but currently the only members of said family are him and his older brother, Braxiatel. Their parents died in the first war against Voldemort.

- Ten spent the majority of his life inside the family's property, so he turned to books for his escape. He particularly likes astronomy, history and magical creatures.

- He hasn't got any friends, the only children his age he ever met are the other pureblood kids, and let's be honest, they aren't much like him, poor lad.

- He meets Donna in Diagon Alley when shopping for books, and when I say meet I mean he almost fell on top of her. She gives him hell for it of course, but they manage to get a conversation going about Hogwarts.

- They go their separate ways and both spend the rest of the summer holidays thinking about that weird kid they met on Diagon Alley.

- September the First arrives and they meet again at King's Cross. Donna's whole family has come to drop her off, of course, and Ten and Brax meet them at the platform.

- Brax explains to them how to get to platform nine and three quarters and goes first to demonstrate. Donna is scared, what if it doesn't work for her? Ten senses it and ask Mr Noble if he can take his trolley for him, so he can push Donna's with her. "Together?" "Together."

- They say goodbye to their families and get on the train, and, like Harry and Ron, manage to get a compartment all to themselves. Conversation goes on about all sorts of topics, the magic world, the muggle world, Hogwarts, the houses, what do they do for fun, you know, a bit of everything.

- They arrive at the station and have to get to school by the little boats, Ten does not like the idea. Donna holds his hand to reassure him. She likes this weird boy who talks about stars and creatures so fantastical she almost doesn't believe him.

- Sorting then. They're both nervous, it is all very intimidating after all, even if the idea of a talking hat is kind of funny to Donna.

-She goes first, sits there for about four minutes. After careful deliberations the hat places her on Hufflepuff. Yes, she could have been a Gryffindor, she is very brave, BUT, she's hard working and kind and compassionate, and I feel like her bravery stems more from her wish to help others you know? and more importantly, she's loyal. so, so much, and that's what seals the deal for me.

- Ten. Now Ten, like Donna, could've been a Gryffindor, but the hat decided on Ravenclaw. STILL, that's not where he went. No, my precious boi Ten argued with the hat. He looked at Donna and saw his only friend, the fiery girl who yelled at him when they met and later held his hand when he was afraid. "I want to go with her" he said to the hat, and so he went.

- Yes, they are both in Hufflepuff. No, I don't take criticism on this. This is my au and I make the rules, Hufflepuff is a great house and anybody who thinks otherwise can get the fuck out.

- Hogwarts is not ready for this duo.

- Regarding classes; Donna loves Charms, she's best in class, Flitwick loves her. Ten likes History of Magic, but Bins is terribly boring so he and Donna study on their own. They always pair up in Potions, not the best in class, but have yet to explode a cauldron. Transfiguration is Ten's area, his family is particularly gifted in this subject. Herbology is more Donna's scene, she used to help her nan with her garden so she likes working in the greenhouses. DADA is anyone's game really, with changing professors like that. Now, they both really like flying and they are good at it. Donna joins the house team as chaser in her third year.

- Ten is the second coming of Newt Scamander. He always drags Donna down to Hagrid's hut to see what creature he has most recently acquired. Has been given detention for wandering in the Forbidden Forest. He's also probably friends with the centaurs.

- A couple years pass, the friendship grows and life is good.

- Third year, Donna "I'm good with numbers" Noble tottaly takes Arithmancy and aces it, Ten too of course. They also take Care for Magical Creatures, to Ten's absolute delight, and Divination. But they take one class with Trelawney and decide to take Ancient Runes instead.

- On their fourth year Harry Potter comes to Hogwarts.

- Donna is one second away from screaming bloody murder at Dumbledore's blatant favouritism.

- Fifth year has all that business with the Chamber of Secrets, Ten and Donna are among the few that don't think Harry is the heir.

- But then Donna gets attacked too. Ten is inconsolable, he spends every moment he can with her in hospital wing. Fortunately she is saved by the mandragora potion with the others.

- Now, in sixth year things start getting Interesting. There's this boy who is interested in Donna and she kind of is too, but she's nervous because she hasn't had her first kiss yet. She tells Ten this. He also hasn't kissed anyone yet and he has one of his Ideas. He suggests to Donna that they can be each other's first kiss. That nearly earns him a slap, but he manages to convince her before she takes action. He says that they're best friends and what are best friends for if not helping each other? So she agrees and he goes all out to make it special for her. He takes her to the Astronomy Tower one night when the stars are out and they sit looking at the sky and hold hands. They see a falling star and he tells her to close her eyes and make a wish, he kisses her then. And that my friends, is when the Pinning starts.

- Sirius Black whom???? All they can think about is that kiss.

- Not that they let that ruin their friendship.

- Also, they love Hagrid teaching, he absolutely let them fly on Buckbeak. And Buckbeak is a strong boi, he took the both of them (cue Ten holding onto to Donna's waist and she going "Hands!" but secretly liking it)

- Seventh year, this is a good one folks. This year we continue with the Pinning, yes, but we also have the Triwizard Tournament!

- They tottaly go to the Quidditch World Cup, but manage to leave before the madness start.

- Meanwhile Harry Potter is dreaming about a slightly older version of Ten and freaking the fuck out.

- Back to Hogwarts and the Tournament. Donna speaks French so she makes friends with some of the Beauxbatons girls. Also, tottaly talks well of Hagrid to Madame Maxime.

- They both put their names on the goblet.

- "And the Hogwarts Champion is Donna Noble!"

- Yep, you read that right, my girl Donna is Hogwarts Champion instead of Cedric.

- The goblet inevitably spews out Harry's name and chaos ensues. BUT, we have something different this time, we have the brilliant Donna Noble. She asks if it really is binding if Harry didn't write his own name, and not his full name at that. And it is also against the rules for a fourth school to compete, and as someone had charm the goblet into allowing a fourth school competitor it is not really valid. The teachers are convinced and Harry doesn't participate. He is eternally grateful to Donna.

- The Weasleys are the first to know about the first task, and Ron tells Harry who in turn tells Donna. He takes her to see the dragons with the invisibility cloak.

- Donna asks Magical Creature Enthusiast Ten for help and they study the dragons they have seen.

- On the actual day Donna gets the Hungarian Horntail, but she uses a spell for it to understand her instead of tricking it. She manages to tell it one of it's eggs is false and convince the dragon to give it to her. Full points for spellwork and pacific solutions.

- Magical Creature Enthusiast Ten also immediately recognises the merpeople sound from the egg, so Donna is the first to figure out her clue.

- What she doesn't know is what it is that she has to recover, but she has a plan as to how. She uses gillyweed and practices the BubbleHead spell just in case.

- But first, Yule Ball. Our continued Pinning is going on full force, but Ten realizes that if he wants to go to the Ball with Donna he has to ask NOW.

- And so he does, with more blood on his face than anywhere else. Donna is a confused but secretly hopeful. "You want to go as friends?" "No Donna, I want you to be my date." "Oh" "If you don't want to that's fine-" "I would love to" cue more blushing.

- Donna is a vision on her Ball dress, Ten is so in love.

- So they dance and laugh and generally have fun. Then Ten takes her to the Astronomy Tower again, and they kiss under the starry sky.

- Back to the tasks then.

- Of course it is Ten waiting to be rescued at the bottom of the lake.

- Donna is the first to get there, but, like Harry, she helps the others too. Still first place though, my girl is efficient like that.

- Ten and Donna cuddle for warmth after getting out of the lake, of course.

- Third Task, the maze. Donna ends up saving Fleur and having to fight Krum. She almost doesn't make it to the cup.

- Moody had to change plans and kidnap Harry since he wouldn't be competing in the Tournament. So Harry is in the graveyard, Voldemort returns, yada yada.

- But they didn't account for Donna getting there too. She arrives during the fight and saves Harry.

- So Donna is Triwizard Champion!

- and Voldemort is back, which is a bummer.

- Ten and Donna graduate and start travelling the world with a blue suitcase that is bigger on the inside and that's all I have for now, thank you for reading!

[penniesforthestorm]

“There’s something wrong here”: Twin Peaks Recap, Season 2, Episodes 20, 21, and 22

Well, here we are. (Long strange trip, etc....) Below are the annotations for the final three episodes of the original run of Twin Peaks, along with some additional theories and observations. This has been a tremendously fun exercise; if you’ve been following along, pop on over to my inbox any time--I’m always up for more discussion. Stay tuned for my rundown on Fire Walk With Me, and very soon we’ll move onto The Return. Until then, I’ll see you in the trees...

Episode Twenty: “The Path to the Black Lodge”

-Windom Earle’s “pawn” was named Rusty Tomawski, and he was traveling with a band when their van’s tires broke down. Hope he made it to that great gig in the sky...

-Deputy Andy Brennan, on the environment: “Styrofoam never dies as long as you live.”

-Doc Heyward, to Ben Horne: “It’s what’s in your heart you should be worried about.”

-Wheeler’s business partner in Brazil has been murdered, so he’s trying to make tracks. Buddy, we hardly knew ye...

-Briggs shows Coop and Truman the Project Blue Book files on Windom Earle, including a tape of him discussing “dark sorcerers called Dukhpas” that inhabit the Black Lodge. Coop realizes he has mistaken Earle’s reason for coming to Twin Peaks in the first place.

-At the RR, Bobby Briggs and Shelley Johnson have about as much of a serious discussion as we’ve seen them have. This is the thing about Bobby--he might be a brat, but deep down, he truly loves Shelley. I believe he wanted to love Laura, too.

-Coop and Truman talk with Audrey, Donna, and Shelley, and confirm that they have all encountered Earle in various disguises, and that Leo Johnson wrote out the poem.

-Ben talks with Audrey at the Great Northern- when she leaves to chase after Jack, Ben is alone in the office, but he suddenly jerks around as if he hears something. Cut to Pete Martell in the lobby, crooning a lament for Josie Packard: “Josie, I see your face...”

-Earle captures Major Briggs. “Garland, what do you fear most in the world?” “The possibility that love is not enough.”

-At the Roadhouse, Coop teaches Annie how to dance, calling her a ‘queen’. The Giant appears, waving his hands and mouthing “No”, in warning.

-OK, as much as I would go fishing with Major Briggs, that goes double for good ol’ Pete Martell. Up around Seeley Lake, right at the end of July so we could get some huckleberries, too.

-In this episode, we see repeated instances of people’s hands trembling: a woman at the RR, Coop, and Pete as he waits for Audrey...oh, and whose arm is that, reaching out of the blackness in the woods?...

Episode Twenty-One: “Miss Twin Peaks”

-another directed by Tim Hunter

-Leo frees Major Briggs, whispering “Save Shelley”

-Norma was the first winner of the Miss Twin Peaks Pageant (quelle surprise...); in the discussion, Annie mentions Laura Palmer.

-Cooper makes the connection between BOB and the Black Lodge, and also with Josie’s death

-Donna confronts Doc and Eileen Heyward about Ben Horne; what I’m wondering is, where are the other two Heyward girls? (Also, it pleases me that Donna and I have the same middle name; it’s a common one, but still.)

-Major Briggs is in bad shape at the sheriff’s office, but he manages to tell Coop and Harry: “Fear and Love open the doors” to the Lodges. He also mumbles “Judy Garland”...

-And the pageant begins! I guess one of Annie’s convent sisters must’ve been a Rockette at some point; her form in the kickline is impeccable. And how about Lucy Moran, pregnant and still knocking out fouettes, pirouettes, and landing a split?!

-Audrey Horne: “When something you care about is in danger, you must fight to save it or lose it forever.” Annie’s speech is, of course, perfect. Donna confronts Ben Horne, and Lucy chooses Andy. Exit Richard Tremayne, to the collective relief of us all...

-And Annie is our queen. Really, who could begrudge her? I’m glad she gets her moment with her crown, her roses, and the adoring crowd, before the darkness falls.

Episode Twenty-Two: “Beyond Life and Death”

-Andy, reassuring Lucy: “I’d help you have that baby right there in the elevator, in front of God and everybody.” I love them so! much!

-Coop and Truman confirm the entrance to the Lodges at Glastonbury Grove, among the sycamores. I do love Pete’s interruption: “King Arthur is buried in England! ...Last I heard...”

-The Log Lady brings the oil from her husband, and Hawk brings in Ronette Pulaski to confirm the scent. This is one of my favorite details: way back at the beginning, it was Hawk that kept watch over Ronette in the hospital. Who knows what she remembers from that time, but I love it that she instinctively turns to him for refuge when the scent scares her.

-Annie officially meets Windom Earle; she is quite reasonably terrified, but strong enough to maintain a little skepticism, like, what is this dude’s problem?

-Some loose ends, tied (sorta): Nadine fully regains consciousness (I still don’t know what to make of the Mike business); Donna, with her bags packed, confronts Ben Horne and her mother, Doc and Sylvia Horne show up. Congrats, Ben, you’ve infuriated two families...

-I had forgotten how much this cuts back and forth once Coop enters the Lodge; worth mentioning that Gordon Cole described Shelley Johnson as ‘looking like the babe without the arms’, and in the hallway of the Lodge, there’s a replica of the Venus de Milo

-The business at the bank, Audrey crossing paths with Andrew Packard and Pete Martell-- I’ve brought up before that the Eckhardt/Packard intrigue storyline never quite meshed for me, but I do like Packard quoting Marcus Aurelius like the pompous s.o.b. he is...

-Bobby, on the subject of Leo: “He’s probably up in the woods having the time of his life.” Well, in a manner of speaking, that’s not wholly inaccurate...

-OK, Theory Time (tm)!: Sarah Palmer, seen here delivering a message to Major Briggs. I believe that “Sarah” is a Lodge denizen, or intermediary of some kind, similar to the Giant or the One-Armed Man-- she is able to perceive BOB and the others, and to give warning, but cannot directly effect the outcome of a situation. Whether she always was, or whether, at some point, she was overtaken, I’m not sure, but I think this plays into her arc in The Return, and may explain some of FWWM.

-And into the Lodge we go. The Man from Another Place says, “The next time you see me, it won’t be me.” The Giant reveals that he and the waiter are “One and the same.” Coop meets: Laura (”See you again in twenty-five years”); Maddy (”Watch out for my cousin”), Caroline/Annie (”I saw the face of the man who killed me”/ “You’re mistaken, I’m alive”), and Leland Palmer (”I never killed anyone”). Windom Earle offers to take Coop’s soul in exchange for letting Annie live, and Coop accepts, but BOB intervenes.

-Cooper, regaining consciousness at the Great Northern: “I wasn’t sleeping.” And the mirror shows us the awful truth: a Return, of someone we hoped we’d never see, riding along with the last person we’d hope to see him with.

...Whew!! That’s all for now, though, of course, this is only a stop on the journey. Keep your owls close and your donuts closer, and...meanwhile...

[noctuprofugit]

meet rory!

“And what is beauty?” “Terror.”

At a glance SHE may look like KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, but in reality they’re just UNKNOWN year old LORELEI CAVENDISH, a FAERIE here in Barton Hallow. They are a COURT MEMBER in the DARKNESS SECTOR. They work as a CLASSICS/LITERATURE PROFESSOR here in town and are known for being ERUDITE and INTIMIDATING. I’d watch my back if I were you.

BASICS

Full Name: Lorelei Selene Cavendish

Nicknames / Monikers: Rory, Lori (first name) + Cel, Lena (given name)

Current Titles: Faerie Court Member (darkness sector) & senior lecturer in Classics & Literature at Hollow College

Former Titles: Duchess of Devonshire (circa 18th century) & lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth of York (c. late 15th century to early 16th century) amongst others; she’s been around an incredibly long time, to say the least.

Gender & Pronouns: cis female & she/her

Date of Birth: 31st October, unknown year

Place of Birth: Believed to be what is modern-day Norfolk, England.

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual ( with a preference for women )

Romantic Orientation: Panromantic

APPEARANCE

Faceclaim: Keira Knightley

Height: 5 ft 7 in (170cm) in human form.

Eye Colour: Brown & “deep-set”

Favoured Expression: Rory calls it “neutral,” others would almost certainly call it “resting bitch face.”

Accent: Decidedly high-society, “received-pronunciation” or ‘stereotypical’ English. She can, however, still do a very good imitation of the Essex accent, as she keeps going back to Colchester, a place with... interesting memories for her.

Clothing Style: Increasingly variant and mood-dependent, swinging between formal and comfortable at her own whim.

TRIVIA

MBTI Type: ENTJ-A

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Theme Song: Which Witch by Florence + The Machine

Favourite Movie: Dead Poets Society

Preferred Weather: The cool dampness of approaching rain, just before dawn, when the world is perfectly silent and dark; the sun has not come yet, and her strength is at its finest. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” 

Favourite Food: In Rory’s opinion ( alternatively known as the right opinion, as she has been known to say ) you just can’t beat a medium-rare ribeye steak.

Favourite Drink: A perfectly paired wine with the above steak. Existence & time-related monetary inflation has made her rich enough to be a “connoisseur,” though she doesn’t necessarily flaunt this all of the time. It can, however, be a quite excellent card to have in her hand when it comes to deal-making.

Favourite Book: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

BIOGRAPHY

Why is Dr. Lorelei Cavendish ( doctorate in classics and literature from Girton College, Cambridge ) so knowledgeable in her field? Well, she crossed paths with a great many of the writers and scholars discussed.

The house you drive by and absently say to your companion, “if I had the money, I’d live there?” She lives in that house. It’s the envy of the town and she wouldn’t take any less. It’s just worthy of her and her first edition books.

Don’t ask her how old she is; she won’t tell you. It’s not like she can: she doesn’t remember when or where she was born herself, which is naught but an unfortunate side-effect of time stretching out unerringly behind you. She has a tight connection to the places she does remember; times she’s dabbled in English nobility, years she’s spent living in Colchester, for example. If she had to give herself an identity based on what she does know of herself, she’d say she was English.

She sounds it, after all.

Her head is so loud, the sound of her own heart and her own thoughts so deafening that it takes effort to place herself in the world.

“Lorelei Cavendish” is not her birth name, and thusly not her real name. Giving her real name to people decreases her power over them: Rory knows this, and she’s not “actually that stupid.” If she believes you are stupid, don’t take it personally — or do, she doesn’t much care — her threshold to consider people learned and intelligent is about as high as the Empire State, at least.

Rory came across Barton Hollow quite by accident, and the irresistible allure of a fresh civilisation appealed to her. New things tend to be the most mould-able, where the traditional ( from whence she came ) are, in her experience, staunch in their ways. So if — from that alone — you’ve come to the conclusion that Lorelei Cavendish is a cunning and silver-tongued piece of work driven by her own machinations: you’re absolutely right.

( She has always picked her occupations to gain power over people: occupations in which people would thoughtlessly break rule number one: never give your name to the Fae. Her position as a teacher, in which students readily give their names, is no exception. )

CONNECTIONS

Best Friend (taken by @freya-frost): The only person in the world Rory wouldn’t stab in the back for her own ends, and likewise the only person she has told her true name. If the darkness faerie’s dreams come to life, then this muse definitely stands to benefit handsomely as her right hand. 

Best Enemy: Okay, so think the Doctor and the Master from Doctor Who. Rory is the Master. They were best friends, once, but it went sour once this character worked out the sort of person Rory really was. ‘Sour’ is loose, because this muse is really hopeful of remedying her. It won’t work.

Victims: People she’s tricked and now holds... some degree of influence over. We can plot this out more ( the exact degree ) if you’re interested in it.

Unrequited Love: Someone who has a crush on Rory, but it’s like she doesn’t see them. She does, but she prefers to ignore them apart from the satisfaction they bring to her... considerable ego. She’ll give them brief moments of attention when she wants to feel a little ego boost.

Requited Love: Open to anyone, but she leans to women. I’d love an angsty element. I apologise that I’m only able to express things through song, but something like Visions of Gideon by Sufjan Stevens, or Amsterdam by Daughter, because real love hurts and she needs to feel something.

Reluctant Ward: A muse who is lost, and so Rory’s reluctantly taken them under her wing. Who knows how they’ve wormed their way into her cold, dead, heart — but they’re there now, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

Mentee: Someone with an intense interest in classics and/or literature who she’s taken an interest in.

Burgundian Wine Club aka Drinking Buddy: Self-explanatory, I think. Everyone needs their vices, right?

The Icarus Union: Think of it as a dark-academia aligned grouping that meets in an abandoned building. It’s almost a cult but not quite. It feeds into Rory’s desire for power: to have begun this herself. They are very much like The Secret History by Donna Tartt: wishful for all things grand and beautiful, drinking and wistfully smoking and staring out of windows. Writing their feelings and reading what truly touches their souls. And most of all, hungering for all things beautiful: and beauty is terror, and gifts come with their due prices.

Ex-Lovers: She’s certainly had them.

Cavendish Family: Siblings, half-siblings, cousins, heck even a child or two, or a grandchild. I’m down for whatever.

[tenroseforeverandever]

The Perfect Blend Chapter 2

Characters: Tenth Doctor (aka James Noble); Rose Tyler; Clara Oswald; Amy Pond; Jeanne Poisson; Donna Noble; Sylvia Noble; Wilfred Mott

Tags: Human AU; fake relationship AU; coffee shop AU; stalkerish!Reinette; hurt/comfort; angst; romance; fluff; Christmas; New Year; New Year’s kiss

Story Summary:

Trying to escape from an predatory ex-girlfriend who will not accept their break-up, James Noble (aka The Doctor) finds himself in a coffee shop where he meets a barista (aka Rose Tyler) who makes him the perfect cup of tea and lends a sympathetic ear to his tale of woe.

Chapter Summary: James successfully manages to avoid Jeanne in the days leading up to Christmas, but when he arrives at his family’s home for Christmas dinner, as surprise awaits him.

Chapter Notes: My love for my betas knows no bounds. @rose--nebula and mrsbertucci, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy holiday schedule to help me make this chapter better.

In addition, this chapter needed a wee bit of help from my fantastic French-speaking Fangirls… just to make things sound more natural: @melusine0811 kindly read over this story and gave me some brilliant suggestions; and @elialys also gave me some advice through the grapevine. Merci, mes chéries!

Finally, many thanks to a bunch of the Fangirls for brainstorming with me! I am surrounded by brilliant women!

Read also at: AO3; Tsp; FF

CHAPTER 2

James was unreasonably proud of himself. Somehow over the last few days, he had managed to avoid Jeanne almost completely. Weeell, after all, he was a genius and one of the hallmarks of a genius was being able to think outside the proverbial box. In order to avoid run-ins with his rapacious ex-girlfriend, he had determined he simply needed to be outside his box.

In short, he needed to be where he was least expected to be.

James Noble had gone Christmas shopping.

As much as he hated navigating the throngs of humanity and the capitalist over-commercialization that was an unfortunate feature of the Christmas season in the 21st Century, shopping not only hid him from Jeanne Poisson, but it meant that his family would actually receive proper gifts from him this year, and not just ‘gifts-in-kind’.

Aunt Sylvia had not been impressed with his in-kind gift of the previous year, improvements to her old blender. Although to be honest, he couldn’t really blame her. It had leaped off the counter, spewing her (disgusting) pea soup everywhere and nearly taking Donna’s toes off when the blades, in a bid for freedom, had rushed across the kitchen floor and torn through her slippers. This year, Aunt Sylvia would receive a brand new, state-of-the-art blender (completely unimproved by him), and Donna was getting a new pair of steel-toed slippers (extensively improved by him) as an extra precaution against rogue blenders, and with the added benefit of protecting his cousin from stubbing her toes.

Gramps was the only one in the family who truly appreciated James’ attempts at tinkering, but this year, instead of making him a cobbled-together gadget, James had bought him an ultra-high-tech, backyard telescope. No tinkering required. His old spyglass had taken a beating over the years, and while James had (mostly) managed to repair (and enhance) it multiple times, there was no doubt it needed replacing. James saw it as his familial duty to provide the dear old man with a means to escape the constant harping from his daughter and get lost among the stars whenever he needed to.

On James’ first day of hiding, after responding tersely to a text message from Jeanne, hoping she would finally cotton-on to the idea that he was no longer interested in pursuing any sort of relationship with her, he had gone into tech-silent mode, keeping his phone turned off, and only occasionally responding to emails from his Grandad and Donna.

Despite trying hard to stay hidden in plain sight, James had still managed to find time to return to his usual habitat, working in his lab (improving Donna’s slippers, among other things,) but he had always slunk in by the service hallways, after hours, and made very sure that no one had seen him coming or going. He even slept on the sofa in his office at the back of the lab to avoid detection.

All in all, he had had a rather productive few days.  

He had only two regrets: one, that he hadn’t had the guts to confront Jeanne in person; and, two, that he had also been too cowardly to return to Pete’s Coffee Dimension, even though there had been plenty of times over the days of his seclusion that a good cuppa (and a smile from the pretty barista) would have gone down a treat.  

That was him, though: a coward every time.

His mind had been drawn to the girl from the coffee shop more times than he would like to admit. But despite the lovely blonde barista’s friendly demeanor, he was quite certain she would never want to see him again, after the way he had practically vomited his tale of woe at her. He was frankly embarrassed by the entire event, despite how much better he’d felt having had someone to share his frustrations with. It had not been the best first impression, all told. She must have thought he was nothing short of a spineless catastrophe.

She wouldn’t have been wrong.

Not that it mattered. He was not interested in getting involved with any girl at the moment, no matter how kind and smart and lovely she was. He was still reeling from his experiences with Jeanne, and he’d be doing the barista a favour by not getting to know her any better. With his emotions running high at the time, he hadn’t even bothered to find out her name. Clearly, he was utterly useless at initiating (never mind maintaining) a healthy, romantic relationship with any woman.

And yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about her: how easy she was to talk to; how her bright, brown eyes had gazed at him with compassion and understanding; and in that brief moment, when she had covered his hand with hers, he’d felt as though her soul had touched his.

But then she’d withdrawn her hand, and there’d been a moment of emptiness and awkwardness before he’d resumed telling her about his early infatuation with Jeanne. But she’d still listened to him and it seemed she’d understood him in a way no one else had ever been able to.

… It felt like she could read into my soul and see how lonely I was… The memory of the words he had spoken to her about Jeanne’s effect on him flared in his mind.

He bolted upright from his place on the lab office sofa, mental alarms thrashing against the inside of his skull. It was all so frighteningly familiar, the draw he had to the barista. He couldn’t allow himself to be sucked into another toxic, infatuation-driven relationship. No, he would stay away from Pete’s Coffee Dimension and the pretty barista at all costs.

He dragged a hand through his hair and glanced at the clock on the wall. Eleven o’clock in the morning. December 25th. He hauled himself off the sofa. He needed to get back to his flat for a proper shower and some fresh clothes before heading over to his family for Christmas tea.

 A few hours later, he was staggering up the front walk of his family home under the weight of several brightly wrapped parcels and a pretty Christmas bouquet he had picked up for Aunt Sylvia. He was under no illusion that she would be furious at him for his unnotified disappearance over the last few days and would be hell-bent on making his life miserable while he was trapped under her roof. He understood it was just her rather unique way of showing how much she cared but he still hoped the flowers (and the new blender) would help to blunt her sharp tongue a little.

The front door flew open just as he was juggling his packages so he could reach the doorbell. “Oh, you owe me big time, Space-dunce,” Donna snapped, standing before him, red hair crackling around her face, hands on her hips. “I’ve had to entertain that psychopath all day.”

“Happy Christmas to you too, Donna.” He offered his cousin a bemused, sarcastic smile as he tried to sort out what she’d meant by her strange declaration.

Aunt Sylvia’s severe face appeared in the doorway from behind Donna’s left shoulder. “Oh, he’s bothered to show up, has he? After days of us not knowing where he was, bearing actual gifts, no less. No doubt they’ll all kill us in our sleep.”

“Oi!” James shifted his weight to balance the pile of gifts more effectively, “they will not kill you or even maim you. And I’m sorry about my radio silence, but I was trying to avoid–”

“Mon cheri! James! T’es arrivé!”

“–Jeanne…” He blinked in disbelief at the face that appeared over Donna’s other shoulder. (Presumably Donna’s aforementioned psychopath.)

“Oh, and you brought to me des fleurs,” she exclaimed, pushing past Donna and plucking the bouquet off the top of his pile. “They are magnifique! Merci!”

“Wait! No! Urrrrghh…”

 “Oh, they are lovely!” Sylvia remarked. “It would be nice if someone brought me flowers once in a while…” She shot James a pointed look.

“But… I… urrrrghh…”

“Oh, I have missed you so much, James!” Jeanne leaned over the top of the gifts and planted her mouth over James’ in an impassioned kiss. He recoiled and sputtered as she finally broke away, desperate to wipe the taste of her from his lips.

“How about we let him come in?” Sylvia suggested. “Come dear,” she led Jeanne away, “let’s put these flowers in some water, shall we? James, hurry up, then!”

Jeanne tossed James a coy smile over her shoulder as she disappeared into the house with Sylvia, her eyes smoldering. “See you soon, mon cheri. I cannot wait to get my hands on you properly…”

Donna fixed him with a rather frightening gleam in her eye, then leaned toward him, jostling the packages in his arms, nearly causing him to drop them. As she wiped Jeanne’s lipstick from the side of his mouth with her thumb, she whispered in his ear, “Great. Outer space. Dunce.”

“But…”

“Oh, just get in here,” she hissed, “you bloody idiot! Gramps is waiting for you!”

“I am trying, but someone seems to be blocking my way.” He made a show of shoving past her, down the hallway and into the lounge. “You gonna help me, or what?” he called back to her.

“There he is! There’s our boy!” Gramps stood up from his armchair next to the fireplace, arms outstretched, to greet James. He was wearing two mismatched sets of reindeer antler headbands.

“Thought you’d be happy, Dad, now that he’s here,” Sylvia snarked, coming into the room from the kitchen with a vase full of flowers and Jeanne in tow.

“Too right, I am!”

“James, you should have heard him moaning, wondering when you’d turn up.” She rolled her eyes and glanced over at her father, who was helping divest James of some of his parcels. She huffed, “And, Dad, would you take those bloody things off your head?”

“No, I shan’t! It’s Christmas.”

“And maybe put on some nicer clothes. Honestly! We have company; you’d think you could dress up a bit.”

James opened his mouth, ready to leap to his Grandad’s defense, but the old man beat him to it. He straightened up from where he was stuffing one of James’ gifts under the tree and fixed his gaze on Sylvia. “Well, this is my house, young lady, and the company,” he nodded toward Jeanne, “will have to be content with me dressed as I am. It’s Christmas and I’m comfortable. So there!”

James glanced at Jeanne who was observing Gramps with a critical eye. “Oui,” she conceded in her typical condescending tone, “it is your home, I suppose. Of course, you can wear what you like.”

James glared at her as she pursed her lips in distaste and felt his heart wrench when he saw the hurt on his dear Gramps’ face at her contempt. “Quite right too!” James declared, smiling fondly at Gramps as the older man took another armload of gifts from him. He was wearing his traditional Christmas berry-red cardigan over a checked, red and green shirt, and his usual brown trousers. The outfit was a bit shabby, but familiar and comfortable, a Christmas day staple.

“Oh, I should say,” Donna piped up, entering the room and taking the last of the gifts from James. “Christmas is supposed to be about family and giving and tradition, yeah, and anyone who thinks otherwise can stuff it.”

Jeanne gasped and uttered a French oath under her breath, and Sylvia barked, “Donna Noble!”

Gramps mollified Donna, “Oh, sweetheart, that’s enough. Nothing to get fussed about. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.”

“Their wrong opinion…” Donna grumbled just loud enough for James to hear.

“Let’s all just try to get along, yeah. How about we open some pressies and open a bottle of Christmas cheer?”

James took the opportunity to pull a Santa hat from the deep pockets of his coat. He arranged it on his head with a broad (if forced) grin. “Sounds perfect! I’ll be Santa, then, shall I?”

He looked pointedly at Donna, who grudgingly got the message. “And I’ll be barkeep!”

“Try not to poison Aunt Sylvia or Jeanne, hmmm?” James muttered privately to her.

“Oh, I’ll let Mum live… this year. That French bint, though… no guarantees. And let’s face it, it would solve any number of problems.”

James choked back a chuckle and situated himself on the floor by the unusually posh-looking Christmas tree.

“A fine plan,” Jeanne sniffed as she promenaded toward the sofa. There she stopped and swept off one of the seats with a disdainful hand, before perching herself coquettishly on the edge.

James had to bite his tongue to keep himself from scolding the blonde upstart and a low rumble emanated from Donna.

“James, come ‘ere and sit with me,” Jeanne demanded, patting the cushion beside her. “I’ve been so lonely without you by my side, and it’s unseemly to sit on the floor like that.”

“No thanks,” he replied with a forced smile, “I’m fine right where I am.”

“You are playing (… ‘ow you say?) ‘ard-to-get, comme d’hab. T’es filou!” she simpered, making James feel as though he might vomit. He had just opened his mouth to contradict her, when she spoke again in an imperious tone to Donna. “And I will have a Kir Royale.”

Donna’s eyes narrowed, shooting daggers at Jeanne. “Oh, I’ll just go fetch the champagne and Cassis, then, shall I?” Sarcasm dripped from her words. “It should be right next to the caviar and quails’ eggs. Try again, Blondie.”

“I’ll have a martini, Donna,” Sylvia quickly interjected, her gaze darting between the two fiery young women. “You know how I like it.”

“Oh, I suppose, if you do not ‘ave the Cassis, a martini could be refreshing,” Jeanne conceded. “Very dry. Shaken, not stirred, with two small olives, exactement. And don’t use one of those ‘orrible wooden picks. They change the flavour of the drink. Plastic only for me.”

“I’ll give you a wooden pick, right through the heart,” James heard Donna mumble as she turned to the sideboard to mix the drinks, and he stifled another laugh. “Gramps, a scotch, neat, for you?”

“Right you are, my darling!”

“What about you, Spaceman?”

“I’ll just grab a beer from the fridge,” he said, jumping up and moving to the kitchen. “Want one?”

“Yeah, please.”

As he cracked the two bottles open, he asked, “Glass?”

“Nah, the bottle’s fine, ta!” Donna’s response elicited a pair of identical haughty sighs from Jeanne and Sylvia. James and Donna smirked at each other when he reappeared from the kitchen, and they clinked their bottles together in triumph.

“Right then! Time for presents!” James returned to his place by the tree, took a swig from his bottle, and adjusting his Santa hat, pulled a present toward him. “Aunt Sylvia! This one’s for you!”

 James was living his worst nightmare, trapped in the same house as Jeanne, who believed he was still her boyfriend, and Aunt Sylvia, who was determined to make it so. Jeanne had pouted once the gifts were all opened that she’d received no present from him, but (in her clearly delusional state) had concluded that he intended to give her something privately, later. “Une bague, peut-être?” she had teased with a cheeky conspiratorial wink. “Quel allumeur!”

Donna had groaned in response. James was sure he’d caught the words “stupid bitch” from under her breath as she rolled her eyes aggressively. He was in full agreement with the sentiment. A ring? Seriously? He could not fathom under what circumstances Jeanne could ever suspect he would be planning on asking for her hand in marriage.

Tea was (impossibly) even more excruciating than the gift exchange had been, filled with many failed attempts at awkward conversation and Jeanne playing footsie with James under the table, her silk-stockinged foot, creeping up the right leg of his trousers. He eventually resorted to squirming into a cross-legged position, which resulted in his knees hanging over the edge of his chair, his left one continually poking Donna, who shot him murderous glances from the corners of her eyes. The only bright spots throughout the entire meal were that Jeanne had brought a rather superior wine to the table, so there was no complaining from her about the quality of the drink, and that Aunt Sylvia had truly outdone herself with a sumptuous meal.

James frowned. When he thought about it, Aunt Sylvia had outdone herself in many ways this year. Looking around the house, he noticed that the Christmas décor had been transformed from the usual naff but homey selection. The posh-looking, designer-decorated Christmas tree sported none of the usual cherished ornaments from his childhood; the staircase and mantel were festooned with garland matching the tree; and there were numerous other, similar changes throughout the house, some subtle, some grandiose, all of them impersonal. She was trying to impress someone, and James had a sinking feeling that someone was Jeanne Poisson.

He was jostled from his musings by Aunt Sylvia’s voice from the end of the table, “…the University’s New Year’s Gala. What do you plan to wear, Jeanne? Not that it matters. You’ll look so beautiful on James’ arm, no matter what.”

“No, she will not!” James blurted.

“How could she not? Look at her. Lovely.”

“I don’t think anyone is denying that she’s beautiful, Aunt Sylvia. But she will not be beautiful on my arm. She will not be attending the Gala with me!” He felt his cheeks flush, and from the heat of his ears, he knew they must have been burning red. But even though it had been embarrassing, his outburst had at least been cathartic, and he no longer felt quite so cowardly. The words were out there for everyone to hear, and they just seemed to keep coming. “You are no longer my girlfriend, Jeanne. You haven’t been for a very long time. I do not love you. I don’t know how many other ways I can convince you. Why do you think I didn’t get you a gift? Why do you think I didn’t want to see you the minute you got into town? Why do you think I’ve been basically ghosting you? Hmmm?”

“Oh, such nonsense!” Sylvia retorted. “Don’t be so stupid, James. Of course, she’s your girlfriend, and you’ll be taking her to the gala.”

“I will not!”

“Oh my God, Mum!” Donna shouted.

“Oh, don’t worry, Donna,” Jeanne said. “’E likes to play these little games. ‘E knows, deep inside, we are perfect for one another, don’t you, James?”

Donna sputtered.

James was dumbfounded. He sat looking across the table at Jeanne, his mouth opening and closing stupidly, trying to find the words to express the turmoil of emotion inside him.

Donna elbowed him in the ribs. “Say something, Dumbo,” she gritted out. “Anything!”

The silence clamoured in his ears as all eyes turned on him, and he looked at everyone in turn, lastly at his Grandad who offered him a silent, sympathetic gaze.

“I cannot take you to the gala, Jeanne.”

"N'importe quoi! Mais pourquoi pas?"

Everyone’s gaze was fastened on him, anticipating his response.

“Erm… erm…” he stammered.

“Well?”

“I already have a date.” The words (pure fiction) spewed from his mouth, bypassing his brain entirely. “My girlfriend. I’m taking my girlfriend.”

The silence crashed down around him again, for several long, strained breaths.

“Well, right then…” Gramps stood up suddenly, pushing his chair back. “I’ll be up on the hill, assembling my new telescope, if anyone should need me.” He nodded significantly at James. Then, he retreated at an unreasonable speed for a man of his age, gathering up his parcels and throwing on his coat and hat. Within seconds, the slam of the back door resounded through the house.

And, all around James, there erupted a barrage of astonished cries and screeches of anger.

[thyevilqueen]

Fic recs : Doctor/Rose fics (2017)

I’ve been rather busy most of the year, but now I have some time to add Doctor/Rose fics to my calibre library, so I’m compiling a list as I pick & download them via calibre. 

These are fics posted/finished/updated on Ao3′s Doctor/Rose tag from 15th January 2017 until present 10 May 2017 hat I have read and loved; and I want to keep these fics forever.

The cut-off date of 15th January 2017 is because apparently that’s the last time I downloaded fics to my calibre library properly (yeah it’s been awhile).

Anyway, here’s the list !

- - - - - - - - - 

In Between by justbygrace - (and everything else by justbygrace) - historical AU based on true story

A Fight for Love and Glory by Chocolatequeen - "They keep trying to split us up, but they never, ever will." That's what the Doctor had said a few weeks ago, during the Olympics. Now they were going to find out if his words were a prophetic claim, or a dare the universe couldn't ignore.

Perfectly Matched series by HiddenTreasures -  There's a universe where people can find their soulmates through writing messages to each other on their arms. This is how James McCrimmon and Rose Tyler find each other and fall in love.

Your Touch by ofhopesanddreams -  (WIP) - The Void doesn’t pull Rose through, but something comes out. Rose is trapped in her mind with a creature intent on consuming her, and the Doctor’s touch may be the key to stopping it.

blinking by Lvslie - (WIP) - In the middle of investigating the case of Will Byers, the Doctor and Donna make contact with ... Well, exactly, what?

A Sexuality by Cherazor - Tonight is the night. The Doctor prepares himself for his first night -together- with Rose.

Kallisti* by JessaLRynn - The Doctor assures her this is the weirdest planet they will ever set foot on. A truer statement has never been made, as Rose soon finds out.

*Kallisti is actually an old fic and I already have a copy of it, but since it was posted for the first time on ao3 on 6th February, I’m adding it to this list anyway. It is excellent, and includes a Doctor x Rose wedding.

Taking Time by Chocolatequeen - in fact, the entire “Being To Timelessness” series is my personal favourite series re-write with Rose. 

Anywhere You Are by Chocolatequeen -  If home is where the heart is, then...

An Ever-fixed Mark by Chocolatequeen - The Doctor had had plans, once. Plans that had been derailed in a barren room in Canary Wharf. But Time has plans of her own, and has brought Rose home. Now, after the slightest deviation from the timelines, it’s time for the Doctor to carry out his plans.

The Same Old Story by Chocolatequeen - Together, the Doctor and Rose have defeated the Cybermen and Daleks. They’re ready to go home and celebrate their close call, but then Rose remembers that they still have a few things they need to tell her mum.

Ain't No Vunos High Enough by gingergallifreyan -  Rose wanders through the woods one day when she happens upon a strange cave. She doesn't expect to find another world - or a handsome man - within.

The Magic Teapot by mountaingirlheidi -  Rose makes a new friend in an alien market while the Doctor takes care of some business, and this chance meeting has the potential to change her future. Will she let it?

Lab Mates by WhoInWhoville -  Rose has this gorgeous physics professor. But he’s also her psych partner. And he has her tied up in knots.

That Fruit & Veg Fic by WhoInWhoville -  It's been said that the produce aisle is a great place to meet new friends.

Death Cannot Stop True Love by Chocolatequeen -  It's a familiar scene. Cybermen and Daleks, and a lever that won't stay locked. But this time, Rose holds on just a little bit longer. This time, she does something no one expects. This time, he'll discover that she made her choice a long time ago, and she's never going to leave him.

The Doctor, the Face, and the Bad Wolf by WhoInWhoville * -  France, 1940, and three Allied operatives are stuck deep behind enemy lines, pursued by the notorious Master. Will the Doctor be able to get himself, his friends and the game-changing secret they are keeping safely back to England before the Master gets to them first?

* another old fic that I already have a copy of, but worth a re-read

The Rogue and the Rose by WhoInWhoville -  He comes to her by moonlight, and they rendezvous in secret, away from the all-seeing eyes of her fiancé.

Child of Earth by Lumendea -  Rose Tyler is in her final year of uni. but the universe isn't going to make it easy for her. Too many enemies know that this is their last chance to destroy her before she vanishes with the Doctor and have plans in motion that threaten not only Rose but her entire planet. Thirteen full episodes and seventh in the Guardians of the Universe series.

The Thing About Pears in Agadoo by mountaingirlheidi, SelenaTerna - The Doctor takes Rose to Black Lace for a special concert, and there's a situation with a pear. Because of course there is.

ain't no sunshine by Lvslie -  “I’m not a hallucination,” she repeated, eyebrows drawn together. “I built a dimension cannon and ripped my way through a rift. I came back.”

Old Friends, New Promises by Chocolatequeen -  Two weeks after Rome, the Doctor and Rose are just settling into their newly confessed love when a phone call from Mickey pulls them back to London. When they run into an old friend of the Doctor's, the reunion sparks a promise to Rose that will bring them even closer together.

Precious by naturalblues - (WIP) -  It's the high Sixties, and Ronald Laing has made a mistake -- his loneliness and fear make him cling to a loveless relationship that's about to go too far. Suddenly, the only woman he has ever been in love with comes back into his life. Somehow, he's got to set things straight for himself; especially if he hopes to continue to help others.

That Mother-of-The-Bridezilla Fic by WhoInWhoville -  Sylvia Noble: Mother-of-the-Bridezilla. But Donna, Rose, and Jonathan Smith are quite adept at standing up for themselves.

Frustrated Inspiration by SelenaTerna -  Rose and the Doctor try to find a missing prince, but Inspiration seems to get in the way.

- - - - - - 

Up to 10th May 2017. To be continued.

As I went through ao3, I realised that I have missed out on many fics by brilliant writers that I haven’t yet read, so I’ve bookmarked those too! And suddenly I have a long to-read list again :)

[tenthdxctxr]

So, after reading an AMAZINGLY detailed analysis on Tenth, I decided to contribute and do the same! So, here’s my take on him (under the cut I mean)

Born from love

When we first meet the Tenth Doctor it’s just after a crucial juncture in the overall characterization, particularly the defining guilt that he’s been carrying in his Ninth incarnation about destroying Gallifrey for the sake of all creation. Nine had finally absolved himself from the mass murder he (thought) he committed by choosing to be a coward, and not to kill so many lives again. It was at this point he absorbed the Time Vortex from Rose, to save her life, and regenerated. It’s said that the Tenth Doctor was born out of love, and I believe that’s true. The Doctor did love Rose, and it was her love and care for him which directly aided him in recovering from the hardened, vengeful soul he had grown into because of the Time War. It was her love and her humanity that changed his worldview on the human race, from “stupid apes” (Nine) to people “full of potential” (Ten). And it’s this very love the also defines him. Tenth is very vulnerable and malleable by the people he cares about. Rose made him human, and that trend would continue with each companion he meets until that very vulnerability opens his heart so much that it is hurt almost irreversibly after he loses everyone he loves at “Journey’s End.”

Forged from pain and his responsibility 

After losing Rose in Doomsday, he realizes keenly the consequences to his lifestyle and in a very real sense grows up after losing her. He’s more responsible but grows somewhat reckless with his life, an exaggerated selflessness born out of a subconscious, impulsive desire to end the life that had grown painful because of the loss of his Rose. But the Doctor has a responsibility, to live. He tells the Face of Boe that they both have to live precisely because they are the last of their kinds. It’s in honour of his people, to keep their name and heritage alive through the universe, to enable the intelligence and abilities that race allows to help others, to infamously “interfere” with the worlds below that Time Lords thought so abase.

This sense of responsibility extends not only to himself but to circumstances and people around him. If a person gets close to him, as a companion or just a team member, he takes it personally if that person is hurt. The way he screams after losing Frank in “Daleks in Manhattan” always strikes me, because Frank is someone the Doctor barely knows, and yet Solomon, Frank’s friend, is more afraid and willing to leave Frank to die to save the rest of them. The Doctor is shocked and clearly unnerved. In “Voyage of the Damned,” he takes the survivors of the Titanic under his wing, specifically one woman whom he makes pointed effort to comfort in the midst of her grief. Related to this sentiment is one of the Tenth Doctor’s common refrains, “I promise.” If he says that to someone, it means the Doctor is putting himself on a contract to do everything in his power to help that person. “Girl in the Fireplace” has him recklessly put aside his own identity and relationships to save the life of a woman who trusts him and who he has promised to help. He tries to reassure Jackie Tyler that he will get them safe in “Doomsday” and gives the same reassuring promise to the people in the starship Titanic, to Donna against the Sontarans, to Jackson Lake and to many others. It’s somehow as if willing himself to another’s protection he guards himself against that impulse in his Time Lord nature to let things go and run away, to stop caring or become indifferent to the plight of life. It’s as if by chalking up a promise to someone, he disciplines himself into becoming more human and even more morally responsible.

But The Doctor values life. All life, villain and friend alike or even just creatures just out to survive, inadvertently harming others in its innocent goal. He sees life as incredible, brilliant, and he’s always in awe of the world.  He wants to understand a creature before he condemns it, and as often as he can, he gives any villain a choice, one chance to turn from their ways and go free (“Partners in Crime,” “Poison Sky”). The Doctor has killed so often and already has so much blood on his hands that he wants no more, even if he must kill. He’s a pacifist who hates weapons, and takes great pride that his sonic screwdriver “doesn’t kill, doesn’t wound, doesn’t maim”

The humanity and heroism of ten

The Doctor holds himself to a VERY high moral standard, one intensified by circumstances, the epic scale of his choices, his own Time Lord nature, the natural authority he holds himself to. But it’s not unlike a statement from the man who plays the Doctor: “I’m a good person, I hope. But I’m never as good as I want to be, never as nice as I want to be, never as generous as I want to be” (David Tennant). He’s tempted to relish in danger (“Tooth and Claw”, “Planet of the Dead,” and as Donna points out to him in “Runaway Bride”), to reach for more power than what is good for him, mostly to enable him to help others (“Waters of Mars,” “School Reunion”). He’s a genius and he throws that idea around, and yet his core is very humble, very human. Humility’s a complex subject and one with many facets. It’s not the denial of one’s abilities but an honest admittance to the limitations of one’s talents and intelligence. Arrogance has a person believe too much about himself, while humility is honest. Humility is not demanding a reward for action but giving credit where credit is due. It’s not putting one’s own life above another’s, it’s not putting one’s own impulses and pleasures above the needs and happiness of others. It’s about believing in a principle over a pleasure, it’s about knowing where one’s limits are in the world and keeping them. Humility is about learning from others, it’s about admitting to one’s faults and trying to be a better person. It’s about NOT abusing one’s power, but rather, raising others up and seeing past oneself to the wonder and importance of things beyond you. The Doctor has all these and more.

And yet... The Doctor’s humility is in some ways, unquantifiable. One sees it in his lifestyle. The constant refrain in his life is GIVING, giving up his home, his happiness, HIS LOVE, and ultimately his life for the better of others and the world. He gives up Rose, the love of his life, to an unreachable world where he knows she would be happier. He lets his friends go to better lives, lives apart from him because he knows that ultimately, he scars them and they are better without him. At the end of his life, he made his very last acts towards them ones of GIVING: he saved Mickey and Martha’s life, he saved the life of Sarah Jane’s son, he gave lonely Jack a friend, he gave Sylvia a message from her late husband, he gave Donna a comfortable financial future, he asked if Joan Redford lived a happy life. He gives up his innocence for the better of the world — the Time War and Pompeii. He would and did become the guilty one in order to save the universe. He’s willing to do something that would harm him emotionally or physically for others’ benefit. “Smith and Jones,” “Evolution of the Daleks,” “Family of Blood,” “Fires of Pompeii,” “Poison Sky,” “End of Time” all find him willing to lose his life to protect the innocent.

TL;DR: The Doctor grew from rejecting anyone in his life (“Rose”) to admitting tearfully that he desperately needed someone to keep him from the demons in his soul (“End of Time”). He went from a playful adventurer gallivanting the world with the love of his life to a man plagued with loss and guilt, and yet capable still of hope, optimism, heroism and most of all, love. He’s a hero who gives the best of himself to others and asks for nothing in return.

[whoinwhoville]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Lee McAvoy/Donna Noble, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Characters: Donna Noble, Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Sylvia Noble Additional Tags: Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Fluff, it's so fluffy I'm gonna die, Crack, maybe? - Freeform, Wedding, wedding florist and photographer au, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, mean sylvia, rude sylvia, over-the-top sylvia, pre-romance ten x rose Series: Part 14 of I love AUs Summary:

Sylvia Noble: Mother-of-the-Bridezilla. But Donna, Rose, and Jonathan Smith are quite adept at standing up for themselves.

Response to this fic prompt: I’m the caterer and you’re the florist on a huge expensive wedding and we bond over what an awful person the mother of the bride is AU (with a few adjustments to the prompt).

“That dress does nothing for your figure. You look like a wedding cake topper. What do you need pockets for, anyway? Frosted coral lipstick? I don’t know why you even need a new dress. The one you wore to your first wedding was gorgeous.”

 *

“Purple and lavender? You know I don’t wear purple. I simply won’t. It is the colour of mourning. But then again, I am in mourning over this marriage.” (sniff sniff)

 *

“Cupcakes? Really Donna. I know money is tight, but that’s going too far.”

 *

“This reception hall is in a very rough part of town. No one is going to dare to go to the reception! Afraid their cars will get nicked. Pick someplace else.”

 *

“You can afford an open bar, but you are serving frozen starters from Tesco. You haven’t even hired a proper caterer.”

 *

“You are going to need more fairy lights to brighten up this dismal reception hall. At least you found a location in a safe part of town. But I can’t see my hand in front of my—“

“I. Have. Had. ENOUGH! I don’t want your help. And I certainly don’t need it!“

“But darling, it’s only three months away! And I have so much to do!”

“I am taking care of everything, and am doing a bloody good job of it, too.”

oOo

“Donna Noble, you will not sign that contract. She has no experience! The flowers will be a disgrace. I will not have my garden club friends gossiping because you carried a bouquet of food-colouring-dyed pink carnations! If you choose Rosie’s Posie’s, I’m withdrawing my support of your marriage.”

“Your support? What do you mean by support? You’re not the one shelling out the money for my wedding! Lee and I are paying for it! And as for support, you supported Lance. Even after you found out that he was a two-timing, cheating arse! You got angry with me after he left me at the altar! Support my third foot.”

“Lance has ambition! He’s going places! I saw him at the market the other day. No ring on his finger, Donna. There’s still a chance. Call him. Apologise.”

“Apologise for what? For not inviting him to the reception?”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. You’re making the mistake of your life. Lee owns a fishing tackle shop. No one goes fishing anymore. Do you really think there is a future in tying flies?”

“Lee is a good man and we love each other, and I’m getting married whether you support me or not!”

Donna squinted at her mother, and with a toss of her glorious ginger hair, signed the florist’s contract, even adding a smiley-face at the end of her name.

Sylvia stood slowly. “Goodbye Donna.” She sniffed. “Come and see me sometime, maybe when you’ve decided to stop being so hurtful.” The blonde woman gathered her things, wiped an imaginary tear from her eye, and quietly left her daughter’s flat.

Rose Tyler, the forgotten third person in the room, cleared her throat. “Right. Um, thanks. We can go over the details when you’re ready. Why don’t you call me—“

“No. We’ll do it now, Rose. Your designs are exquisite. First thing I want to order: a food-colouring-dyed Carnation corsage for my mother-of-the-bridezilla.”

Rose’s eyes went wide, and then she snorted a laugh.

oOo

“I forbid you to hire that person, Donna Noble. That man is a farce! He isn’t even a professional photographer! He’s a professor! You’ll regret it every time you open your wedding album and all you see are 1970’s starbursts on the candle flames and out of focus pictures with half of your face cut off. And his idea of creativity is probably photoshopping you with angel wings in a field of stars, being he’s an astronomy teacher. What a useless degree that is. If you hire Professor Smyth, I’m withdrawing my support of your marriage.”

“Again with the support. Jonathan is brilliant. He’s a genius. He’s photographed the weddings of royalty!”

“Ha! Queen Victoria’s great-great grandniece twice removed doesn’t count as royalty. You’ve only chosen him because he’s your employer. He’s told you he’ll fire you if you don’t hire him, hasn’t he?”

“No! And I’m not hiring him. It’s his wedding gift.”

“Well, you’d be better off if he bought you towels.”

oOo

“So, what do you think, then?” Rose asked. “Is this what you were thinking of?”

“Rose, these designs are perfect! It’s like you can read my mind. And you’re sure you can do this for the contracted price?”

“Yeah. I have a great supplier. Now, it’s possible that I won’t be able to get the Lily of the Valley. Sometimes it’s scarce, but I have a backup plan. I’m going to force Paperwhite Narcissus. They’ll be gorgeous with the purple crocus and lavender hyacinth. But the purple and white tulips will be the centerpiece of your bouquet. Would you like any iris?”

“Whatever you come up with will be perfect.”

Rose blushed and bit her lip. “Thanks for giving me a chance, Donna, this being my first wedding job and all. Who recommended me?”

“My boss bought me an arrangement a while back. I remembered it.”

“What did it look like?”

“Yellow roses, daisies, and chrysanthemums in a yellow smiley-face mug.”

“I remember that order. The mug was delivered to my shop with instructions to make an arrangement that matched. That he had a friend that needed a cheer-up.”

Donna smiled wistfully. “That was right after the Lance… thing. And yeah, it did cheer me up. It’s my favourite mug.”

Rose gently squeezed Donna’s arm. “From what you’ve said, good riddance, yeah? Lee is just about perfect.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

oOo

“Anything special you’d like? Any particular shots?”

“I have a list of all of the standard group shots, but mainly we want to remember our day in a more casual way. Candids.”

“Good. That’s what I like to shoot best. Well, stars are my favourite thing to photograph, of course. How about a few pictures outside? There’s going to be a full moon that night.”

“Sounds perfect.”

oOo

Rose parked as close to the church as she could manage, but it was still several hundred feet away. Her boot, the back seat, and the front of her red VW Beetle were jam-packed with flowers. She wasn’t wearing her usual work clothes — jeans, trainers, and a t-shirt. She and Donna had struck up a friendship, and Donna had invited her to the wedding. Rose almost lost her balance as the heels of her precarious stilettos dug into the gravel of the church yard. “Shoulda brought trainers,” she grumbled as she picked up the first flat of arrangements — the boutonnieres and corsages.

“Oh! Let me help!” called a friendly voice.

“Thanks. I’m running a bit late. Got stuck behind a crash on the way and traffic was backed up for miles. How do you know Donna?”

“She’s my assistant. You know, I ordered flowers from you for Donna a while back.”

“Thanks for that. Donna hired me because of you. What’s your name again?”

“Jonathan Smyth.”

“Hello Jonathan. I’m Rose Tyler. Since you offered, I’m going to put you to work.”

oOo

“Donna, I take back everything I said about Rosie’s Posies. She did a lovely job. Now where’s my corsage.”

She presented her mother with a white box.

“Why’s this box so big?” Sylvia asked as she lifted the lid. “What in blazes is this abomination?”

“You did say you were expecting dyed carnations. Rose’s assistant left the flowers in the purple dye too long and they’re almost black. We’ll call it aubergine.”

“I refuse to wear this hideous thing! It’s six inches across! It’ll block my face!”

“No no no! You don’t pin it to your dress. It’s a wristlet! See?”

“It looks like a ruffled Frisbee. Ridiculous.” Sylvia sneered as she pinched the enormous corsage with her fingertips as if it were a dirty nappy.

“Go on then, put it on. I want to see how it looks. I designed it myself.” Donna grinned.

“No. I refuse.” Sylvia tipped her nose into the air.

“It’s my wedding, and you’ll wear the bloody wristlet.”

“I’m withdrawing my support.”

“Support or no support, it’s my wedding. Put the thing on.”

Sylvia hissed as she slipped the enormous floral accessory onto her wrist.

oOo

Jonathan hid outside of the doorway, trying to contain his laughter as he set the camera to slow burst, taking shot after shot. He heard someone else laughing behind him.

“Did Donna really ask for that flower thing for her mother?”

“Donna’s takin’ the mick. I have the real one. She’s gonna give it to her mum right before Sylvia’s ushered to her seat. Isn’t it hideous?”

He grinned at her. “I think it’s absolutely brilliant.” He made a funny little happy noise. “Has Sylvia been difficult to work with?”

“Difficult? There’s no word that describes how difficult. She’s the mother-of-the-bride version of a bridezilla.”

“She gave me a list of about 500 formal family photo configurations. Mother with daughter, mother in chair. Mother with bride and bride in chair. Father and mother with bride, bride in chair holding her flowers in her lap. And then without flowers in her lap. Mother with bride’s flowers. Bride sitting on the steps with bridesmaid’s flowers ‘pillowed’ around her feet. Pillowed. How do you pillow flowers. Wouldn’t be very comfortable to sleep on,” he whinged. “And don’t get me started on the cousins, aunts, uncles, step uncles, step aunts, half cousins, and then Lee’s family and all of those iterations.” He pinched the bridge his nose.

Rose picked at her already-chipped pink nail polish. “I’m done with the flowers. I could, I don’t know, help round up and arrange the people? You did help me set up the flowers, after all.”

“I’d love that. Thank you, Rose Tyler.”

oOo

Jonathan’s pointer finger was sore. It was ten pm, and the dancing was still going in full force, thanks to the unlimited drinks being pouring liberally by the bartender.

“Jonathan, I think you’ve taken enough photos,” Donna said kindly.

“Can never be too thorough. I don’t want you to miss a single moment.”

“Oh, believe me, I won’t forget one thing about this wedding.” She snorted a laugh. “Don’t know that my mum is ever going to forgive me for that corsage. It was pretty awful, wasn’t it?”

“Donna, it was perfect.”

“Ha! Serves her right, saying all of those awful things about you and Rose.” She took a sip of champagne. “She did like the real one though. Doubt she’ll ever forgive me.” Donna took another sip of champagne. “So, what do you think of Rose?”

“She’s very talented.”

“Bloody right, she is. Started that florist business all on her own. You know how much I loved those flowers you gave me. How’d you find her, anyway?”

“Yelp. Read the reviews. One review stood out, though. Can’t go wrong with the username Old-Man-With-a-Telescope.”

“Hold on. That’s Grandad’s email address. I set it up for him so he could email those star pictures he takes through his telescope. What a coincidence.”

“There are no coincidences, Donna Noble.”

“Come to think of it, he brought me a bouquet of flowers after Lance,” she mused. “Must’ve bought ‘em from Rose.”

Jonathan squinted and looked off in the distance. “His name is Wilf, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew I recognized him from somewhere. It’s been niggling at me all night. He’s been coming to my planetarium shows for years! Always asks the best questions! Emails me his pictures from that email address.”

“That seals it. You were destined to meet Rose. Now why don’t you go and ask her for a dance.”

“I think that is a brilliant idea.”

She yawned. “Oh, Lee is back from saying goodbye to his family. Time to head out. Please. No pictures. I want to sneak away. Would rather avoid another confrontation with Sylvia.” She snorted.

“That won’t do, Donna! You want to remember your clandestine getaway, don’t you?”

Donna pulled her friend into a hug. “Jonathan, thank you. For everything. For putting up with my mother, for the gift. For being a great friend. And for being a great boss.”

“Donna Noble. You are brilliant. Now go. I’ll create a diversion. See you in two weeks.”

“Two? I only scheduled help for one week.”

“I’ve already arranged a temp. And the break is paid.”

oOo

It was the last dance, and Jonathan and Rose were the only couple left. Her shoes were off, she was leaning on his shoulder, almost asleep. They weren’t really dancing so much as swaying in place to a slow song — Frank Sinatra singing The Way You Look Tonight. It wasn’t really a romantic moment — more a mutual sigh of relief.

“You really do have a way with flowers,” Jonathan complimented.

“I suppose I was destined to work with flowers, given my name and all.”

“You could do anything and be fantastic at it, I think. And speaking of destiny, how’s this… Donna’s grandfather, Wilf, bought Donna flowers from your shop after her fortuitous breakup with that wholly unacceptable Lance bloke. I wanted to buy her flowers, too, so I Yelped, and found your shop. I read a frankly glorious review — and it turns out it was written by Donna’s Grandad. So I sent Donna flowers, and she was so impressed that she hired you to do her wedding. And here I am. And here you are.”

“Mmmm hmmm. Here we are,” she said contentedly. Beginning of a beautiful friendship, I think. I think we should collaborate again.”

“Oh, I do believe that’ll happen sooner than you think.”

oOo

“Donna Noble-McAvoy! These pictures are completely unacceptable! How in the world did that amateur photographer think it was even remotely appropriate to include that florist in almost every single picture! And look at this album! It’s absolutely hideous! It’s for a five year old! My Little Pony…” She slammed the album shut. “I demand that you ask for your money back!”

Donna snorted a laugh. “Mother, you are just too easy. You really need to learn how to take a joke. Here.” She handed an elegant white leather album to her mother. “Here’s the real one.”

Sylvia opened the book with a disdainful sniff. But then her face softened. “Donna… You’re beautiful. Oh, my baby girl.” She pulled her daughter in a hug, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m so proud of you.”

[thereareangels]

Doctor Who AU - Casanova      As if on cue, the cell started ringing.      “Oh no”, Donna panicked, dropping the pile of clothes on The TARDIS floor, and backing away.      “Oh no. N-n-n-no! No, you don’t! That's not fair! You're not doing this to me now! Not after I just- I just- ... oh god..”      Donna knew the voice mail would pick up any second now, but should she let it? Take the coward's way out?      Donna let out one last angry squeak, then flipped open the phone and pressed the 'talk' button.      “Hello?”, she snapped, tugging the sheet closer to herself, as if that would help.      “No need to get snippy with me, your highness!”, retorted a voice that definitely didn't belong to The Doctor, sounding thoroughly affronted. “I only wanted to see if my only daughter was still alive! Begging your bloody pardon, I'm sure!”      “Oh mum”, Donna sighed, relieved for once to hear her mother's voice. “It's you.”      “Well, of course it's me!”, Sylvia sniffed. “Who else would it be? A rich auntie?”      “No, I was just worried it was The Doctor”, Donna said, only realizing exactly what she'd said once it was far too late.      “Worried it was The Doctor?!”, her mother blustered. “You mean he isn't with you?! I thought he was supposed to be looking after you?! Run off, has he? Well, I told you, didn't I? I knew he was no good the minute I laid eyes on him! You just wait until I see you again, missy-!”      “Mum, I told him to go”, Donna interrupted. A lie, but it at least shut her up.      “D-did.. did something- happen?”      The timid question sounded so strange coming from Sylvia Noble. Donna almost could have mistaken her for another person.      “No, mum”, Donna sighed wearly. “I just- needed some time to myself- Look.. Is grand dad there?”      “No, he's out”, Sylvia answered simply, before adding. “Is everything alright, sweetheart? You sound.. I dunno, different.”      “I'm fine, mum”, she promised, although she was already breaking that promise. “Can you have gramps call as soon as he gets in?”      “You can talk to me, you know”, her mother growled, put out. “I know you two have your little secrets, but I care about you, despite what you might think, and I just want what's best for you.”      “I know, mum”, Donna sighed again, running a hand through her hair. “I just.. have something I need to ask him about stars.” Donna congratulated her brain on that one. It wasn't even technically a lie. Gramps might actually be able to help her out with the engine.      “Alright”, Sylvia relented. “As long as you're safe, I guess I'll let you go then.”      “Thanks, though- For calling, I mean”, Donna offered awkwardly, just before the dial tone sounded in her ear. “...great...”      Donna knew her next call would be difficult, but also knew she couldn't hesitate. She dialed and waited.      “You found her!”, cried the jubilant voice on the other end. “Oh, clever, clever, Donna! Never doubted you for a second! Mind, took you long enough..”      Donna's blood boiled.      “Took me..? Took me long enough?!”, she bellowed. “I've been stuck here near a year, and you wanna take shots at me?! Look here, you useless overgrown lump of-!”      “A year?! Blimey, Donna-!”      “-Space pus! What? Yes, a flippin' year! -Wait, how long has it been for you? -Nevermind, I'm still furious with you!”      “Donna- Donna- D-”      “- I was kidnapped and taken over by The TARDIS -Which almost killed me, by they way!-”      “The TARDIS? Why would The TARDIS-..? Unless..”      “I got ill and- Wait, 'unless'? 'Unless' what?”      “Unless I was.. dead”, The Doctor breathed. “The TARDIS only initiates protocols that extreme in the event of my death..”      All of Donna's bluster melted away. She knew what The Doctor was feeling. She'd felt it all too keenly and all too recently.      “I'm sorry..”      “Still, not a bad way to go- I hope”, The Doctor sniffed with false bravado. “Anyway, never mind about that! You were about to zip back home, weren't you?”      “No, I wasn't”, Donna sighed.      “Really?”, The Doctor frowned. “Why not?”      “Well, for one thing, the console room is missing chucks of it's self”, Donna enumerated. “The engine seems to be burnt out, and-...”      “And?”, The Doctor prompted.      She'd almost spilled the beans about Giacomo!      “And.. it's, um, complicated”, she floundered, adjusting the bedsheet/dress.      The Doctor broke out into a smug little grin.      “But 'complicated' sounds interesting. I want to hear more about 'complicated'.”      “It's none of your damn business!”, Donna blushed self consciously.      “What's 'complicated's name, then?”, The Doctor teased. “Are they hansom?”      “Argh!”, she shrieked, running a hand through her hair in frustration. “You're just as bad as him!”      “Ooohh! So there is a 'complicated' him!”, The Doctor cooed. “Well done, you! I bet it's that Casanova fella, isn't it?”      “Doctor, Drop. It.”, she warned.      The Doctor snickered jubilantly.      “Oh, no way! Really? It really is? You've met THE Casanova?”      “There are more pressing matters to attend to at the moment!”, she barked, switching the cell to her other ear and heading back towards the console room. “Like where the bloody hell half The fucking TARDIS went?”      “Yes, that is troubling”, The Doctor agreed, forgetting his game for the moment. “What all is missing?”      “How the blazes am I supposed to know?”, Donna griped.      “The console monitor should have a 'status update' button somewhere on the side of the screen”, he explained.      “Hang on..”, she said, finally reaching the control room and circling the console. “Monitor's missing.”      “Monitor's missing..?”, he repeated, muttering to himself. “Monitor's miss-? But why would anyone need-? Well, the logs are in there.. Maybe.. If I made any.. Wonder what they-”      “Earth girl to space man”, Donna interrupted.      “Right, okay”, The Doctor nodded, getting back on track. “So, the monitor's missing- What else? Describe the room to me.”      “Um”, Donna considered, working her way steadily around the silent console. “That leaver you yank on all the time is gone..”      “The throttle”, The Doctor corrected. “What else?”      “A few dials and buttons- Don't ask what for, I've no clue. There's just holes here and there that are the proper size and shape for that sort of thing.”     “Probably the spacial shift dampeners and the time dilation switches”, The Doctor reasoned. “It sounds like your time's version of me really, really didn't want anyone flying The TARDIS. That shouldn't be a problem for you, though. I always program the companions' home locations into the emergency protocols. You said the engine was burnt out? How'd your cell charge, then?”      “Not sure”, Donna shrugged. “It just beeped at me when I came in looking for my- Ah, ha, um.. When I went back to my room on The TARDIS.”      “Did you check the engines?”      “Of course I bloody did!”, Donna scowled. “It's one of the first things I looked for! The star's burnt out.”      “It's gone, you mean?”, he frowned.      “No, it's just.. all, sort of, small and blue”, she answered.      “Oh”, he laughed. “No, it's just dormant. Running background energy. I've done that before. It can be reignited. I can walk you through it. It's not rocket science. well- sort of, it is. well, it involves rocket fuel. And when I say rocket fuel, of course I mean hypo class 15 star ship fuel from the trexcilius quadrant-”      A sleepy Giacomo yawned and peered into The TARDIS.      “Lady Noble? Are you speaking with someone?”      Donna froze.      “Ahhh...”      “Who's there with you?”, The Doctor wondered. Then he smirked. “Is it 'complicated'?”      “I'll'call'you'back'later'K?Bye!”, Donna blurted in one breath before ending her call with The Doctor abruptly.      “Hello”, she laughed nervously, turning to Giacomo, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear, and hiding her cell in an empty socket of the time rotor behind her back.      “Good morning, mi'lady”, Giacomo murmured, gently enfolding Donna in his arms and kissing her forehead. “Do not think you can avoid my question.”      “What question?”, Donna asked with false innocence.      Giacomo raised a wry eyebrow at her.      “Oh, just myself”, Donna lied, cuddling up to Giacomo's chest, hoping to distract him.      There was no need to tell him she had a way home yet. It would only upset him, and besides, now that she could leave whenever she liked, she wasn't in such a rush to do so. Especially now that she'd seen what all the fuss was about concerning Giacomo and his.. 'talents'.      “I was just thinking there might be a way to re-ignite the star in the engine.”      Giacomo didn't quite believe her story, but he let it go for now. It didn't seem as important as the fact that she was pressing into him and he could feel all of her wonderful curves through the sheet she wore.      “Can the engine wait until after breakfast?”      “Oh yes, of course”, Donna giggled, grinning for real. “What are we having?”      Giacomo pretended to consider the options, before leaning in and nibbling on her neck.      “Each other?”, he suggested.      Donna blushed and nodded coyly, entwining their fingers as they made their way back out of The TARDIS together. [previous] [next]

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #198: The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-198-the-sontaran-stratagem-and-the-poison-sky/

Timestamp #198: The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky

Doctor Who: The Sontaran Stratagem Doctor Who: The Poison Sky (2 episodes, s04e04-e05, 2008)

  The Undefeated meets his match on Earth.

  The Sontaran Strategem

Reporter Jo Nakashima is physically thrown out of Rattigan Academy by Luke Rattigan and his students. Jo threatens to find someone who will listen to her about the threat posed by the ATMOS system, which is installed on her car and others around the globe. As she drives to UNIT Headquarters, Rattigan recommends to a hidden boss that she be terminated.

Sure enough, the ATMOS system leads Jo to her final destination: A body of water where her sealed car drives itself into the depths.

Meanwhile, in the depths of space and time, Donna is driving the TARDIS and trying to avoid putting a dent in the 1980s. The Doctor receives a call on a special mobile phone only to find Martha Jones on the other end. She’s bringing him back to Earth.

The TARDIS materializes in an alley near Martha. The Doctor and Martha embrace each other, check in on her family, and discuss her engagement to Tom Milligan. Martha and Donna hit things off right away, and Marth introduces the Doctor to her new job at UNIT as they storm an ATMOS during Operation Blue Sky.

A familiar three-fingered figure watches the festivities from a remote location.

Martha takes the Doctor and Donna to meet her boss, Colonel Mace. Mace salutes the Doctor, impressed by what he’s read in the files of the Time Lord’s service in the ’70s – or was it the ’80s? – but Donna likens it to how the Americans run the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Mace tells the Doctor of fifty-two simultaneous deaths worldwide, all linked to ATMOS. Since UNIT can’t figure out how the system killed so many people at once, they called in their expert scientific adviser on the hunch that it might be alien tech.

In the depths of the factory, two UNIT soldiers find themselves in a restricted area. When they investigate further, they find mysterious technology and a humanoid creature in a crypt-like box. The soldiers investigate the embryonic form before being introduced to a Sontaran.

The cordolaine signal in the room renders their weapons useless. The soldiers are disabled and sent for processing. Their assailant is General Staal of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet, better known as Staal the Undefeated.

Well, there’s a bit of foreshadowing if I ever saw one.

The Doctor takes the ATMOS system apart and investigates it piece by piece, impressed by Martha Jones but warning off the UNIT troops and their guns. Donna finds the HR files on ATMOS personnel sick leave, or rather specifically how none of the workers ever take time off.

While Donna and Martha look into the personnel issues, the Doctor learns about Luke Rattigan, the child prodigy developer of the ATMOS system. Martha talks to Donna about family matters and how she needs to be careful with them and her travels.

The Doctor gears up to visit Luke Rattigan, but Donna wants to go visit her family. The Doctor misunderstands, thinking that she’s leaving him forever, giving her a good laugh. As they depart with a UNIT escort named Ross Jenkins, Martha examines a factory worker named Trepper with strange results.

The UNIT soldiers, Privates Harris and Gray, are hypnotically programmed to further the Sontaran stratagem before Staal returns to his ship via transmat. Harris and Gray watch the Doctor and Donna leave before escorting Martha to what she thinks is a meeting with Colonel Mace. Instead, she’s locked away in one of the Sontaran cloning vats.

Donna returns home, thinking over her adventures so far with the Doctor, before sharing an embrace with her grandfather Wilfred. Donna tells him all about the Doctor, but she refuses to tell her mother about the experiences.

The Doctor and Jenkins arrive at Rattigan Academy, scoffing at ATMOS the whole way there. Rattigan gives them a tour, and while the Doctor is impressed at the science lab he is skeptical about the technology’s origins. He recognizes that it’s been a long time since anyone has told the boy no, but he also recognizes the teleport pod in Rattigan’s office. It takes him to the Sontaran ship and back, and he’s followed by Staal before he disables the teleport with a wave of the sonic.

Jenkins refers to the general as a baked potato in armor, but the Doctor displays the Sontaran’s weakness by ricocheting a racquetball into the armor’s probic vent. While the Doctor and Jenkins run, Skaal and Rattigan repair the teleport and return to the ship. Skaal orders Commander Skorr to begin the invasion of Earth, which involves visiting Martha Jones and the cloning vat.

Sure enough, he’s breeding a clone of Martha.

Rattigan suggests using ATMOS to kill the Doctor, and Skaal links the name to the survivor of the Last Great Time War. He relishes the thought of killing the last of the Time Lords. Sure enough, the UNIT jeep drives itself to the river, but the Doctor uses a logic trap to stop the jeep and blow the UNIT in a not-so-spectacular pop of sparks.

The Doctor finds himself on Donna’s doorstep. As he examines Donna’s car, he meets Wilf for the second time (but the first time proper) and tries to warn Martha, unknowingly calling the clone instead. Martha’s mother, Sylvia, recognizes the Doctor from Donna’s wedding as he unlocks the ATMOS unit. This triggers a Sontaran battle group to head for Earth as the travelers figure out that ATMOS means to poison everyone on Earth.

Wilf ends up locked in the car as every ATMOS vehicle starts gassing the planet. The car is sonic-proof, the planet is choking, and the Sontarans are chanting.

It’s a perfect place for a cliffhanger.

  The Poison Sky

Sylvia saves Wilf using a totally low-tech option: An axe through the windshield!

UNIT is on high alert, unaware of the mole in their midst as the Martha clone accesses the NATO defense system. She transmits the information to the Sontaran ship as Donna rushes off with the Doctor and Jenkins to fight the Sontarans.

The travelers return to the UNIT mobile headquarters, and the Doctor hands Donna a key to the TARDIS as he rushes off. Donna finds fresh air in the time ship, the Doctor beckons Clone-Martha to follow him, and the mole dispatches Harris and Gray to steal the TARDIS and transmat it to the Sontaran ship.

Donna figures out her predicament as Rattigan returns to Earth and the Doctor figures out that his TARDIS has been stolen. He laments being trapped on Earth (again) before returning to the command center. The UNIT forces find the Sontaran ship and the Doctor makes contact with them. Donna rushes to the monitor, just missing Rose, to catch the transmission as the Doctor handles the Sontarans and ruffles their feathers about the war with the Rutan Host. He also sends a secret message to Donna, asking her to contact him, but she doesn’t know how yet.

She calls home instead to check in with her family. She promises that the Doctor will save them. The Doctor has his own problems as he puzzles over the gas and UNIT spools up the world’s nuclear arsenal to attack the Sontarans. Even though the nuclear missiles wouldn’t even dent the ship, they stop the launch, and the Doctor begins putting the pieces together about Martha’s identity.

The Sontarans storm the factory, killing the UNIT troops in their path including Ross Jenkins. The Doctor is downright furious and Colonel Mace finally starts listening to him. The Time Lord wishes that the Brigadier was there, but Mace states that Sir Alistair is stranded in Peru.

He’s been knighted! Good for him.

Rattigan outlines his plan to take his students off-world and restart the human race. His students are unimpressed with his plan, including his mating program, and they abandon him. He reports back to Staal and finds out that the students would have been sacrificed. Rattigan’s plan was a Sontaran ruse, and the boy returns to Earth to avoid being shot down. The Sontarans lock down the teleport system.

The Doctor borrows a mobile phone and calls Donna, calling her his secret weapon and asking her to go into the ship and re-open the teleport link. He walks her through how to disable a Sontaran with the probic vent and open the ship’s doors before he’s interrupted by Mace’s battle plan.

The Doctor heads outside with a gas mask – “Are you my mummy?” – while ignoring Mace’s briefing. He’s sure that it will not work, after all, but still marvels at the Valiant‘s arrival. After all, he remembers it from a year that never happened even if no one else does.

The UNIT “helicarrier” clears the air with its powerful turbines before attacking the factory. The UNIT troops storm the facility as the Doctor and Clone-Martha follow the signals to the cloning facility. He finds Martha’s body and reveals that he’s known about Clone-Martha all along by her off smell. He removes the memory transfer device from Martha’s head, which disables the clone, and opens communications with Donna again.

While Martha consoles her clone, the Doctor with Donna to fix the teleport. The clone tells Martha that the gas is clone feed, set to convert the planet to a massive cloning facility. Remarking on Martha’s soul brimming with life as the character’s theme takes on a military air, the clone dies.

The Doctor saves Donna by teleporting her and the TARDIS back to Earth. He then teleports Donna and Marth to the Rattigan Academy, throws Luke’s gun from his hands, and uses the boy’s colonization tech to build a device to ignite the planet’s atmosphere.

As the atmosphere burns, the Doctor begs for the plan to work. It’s quite the parallel as his planet burned to death, but the Earth burns to life. The air is clean again and the world rejoices, but the Doctor’s job is not done.

The Sontarans level their weapons on the planet below. The Doctor runs to the teleport and bids farewell to his companions, planning to sacrifice himself to end the Sontaran threat. He heads to the ship to give them a choice: Leave or be destroyed.

The Sontarans refuse to yield. Staal is eager to end the Time Lords and humans once and for all. But the humans get the last laugh as Rattigan swaps places with the Doctor, yells “Sontar-HA!”, and presses the button.

The Sontaran ship is destroyed and the threat is done. Donna heads home to share the moment with her family, and Wilf tearfully tells her to go see the stars. She kisses him goodbye and returns to the TARDIS. Martha is there to say goodbye, but before she can leave the TARDIS slams the doors and takes flight on her own accord.

As the TARDIS rocks, the Doctor’s hand bubbles away happily in the jar.

  As I write this in the year 2020, Doctor Who fandom is beset by complaints that the show has become too political and too obsessed with “social justice”. One thing that I’ve learned over the course of the Timestamps Project is just how much Doctor Who has been political and socially conscious since 1963:

Unchecked capitalism’s effect on ecology (Planet of the Giants);

The rights of indigenous peoples (any story with the Silurians and/or Sea Devils, starting with Doctor Who and the Silurians);

The debate over nuclear energy (most notably Inferno) and nuclear war (starting with The Daleks);

Peace and war (permeates the entire series, once again starting with The Daleks, but especially The War Games and The Caves of Androzani);

The role of the military and the threat of the military-industrial complex (any episode with UNIT, particularly Robot and Battlefield, and while we’re at it, anything to do with the Sontarans);

Environmentalism, destruction of resources, and ignoring scientific warnings for personal gain (most notably, Inferno and The Green Death);

Membership of the European Economic Community and labor strikes (The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon);

Sexism and feminism (particularly Jo Grant’s and Sarah Jane Smith’s tenures);

Genocide (most notably, Genesis of the Daleks);

The responsibility and power of the media (The Long Game);

Taxation (The Sun Makers);

Margaret Thatcher (The Happiness Patrol and The Christmas Invasion);

LGBTQIA+ representation (the revival era gets quite a few props for this, but (despite the classic era’s hands-off approach to the topic) give some deep consideration to the queer-coding with The Rani, Ace and Kara in Survival, The Happiness Patrol, and The Curse of Fenric)

Racism and xenophobia (the entire series as the Doctor relates to every alien species he/she encounters);

The threat of technology overtaking humanity (any episode featuring the Cybermen);

Nazis, including intolerance, xenophobia, genocide, racial purity, racial supremacy, totalitarianism, and everything that evil regime stands for (literally any episode featuring the Daleks).

And that, without the slightest hint of hyperbole, is just barely scratching the surface. After all, we just tackled assimilation and slavery last week. Let’s face facts: The Doctor has been what is disparagingly known today as a “social justice warrior” since 1963.

And here we are again, tackling ozone depletion, air pollution, and technology to reduce both. Tangentially, this story also hits on carbon emissions and the environment, as well as the social justice implications of detainees and unchecked military power. I mean, Donna’s mention of the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay is square on the nose.

Doctor Who has been politically and socially conscious from day one. The show was even co-created and helmed by a woman, and directed from day one by a gay man of Indian descent. Come for the monsters, stay for the moral at the end of fable.

[Inadvertently (but equally) right in the snout is my watching this end-of-the-world pandemic during the COVID-19 crisis, but I digress.]

  On top of all of that – and by the gods, it is a lot to digest – I deeply enjoyed the return of both Martha Jones and the Sontarans. Freema Agyeman is a delight, and the Sontarans are a force of nature. Add to that the emotional depths of Donna’s relationship with Wilf – one of my absolute favorite family members and the embodiment of every child who’s ever looked at the stars and wanted to fly among them – and this story just rocks.

    Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

  UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Doctor’s Daughter

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

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Lavender Quotes

Official Website: Lavender Quotes

  • A rhododendron bud lavender-tipped. Soon a glory of blooms to clash with the cardinals and gladden the hummingbirds! – Dave Beard • Add a drop of lavender to milk, leave town with an orange, and pretend you’re laughing at it. – Bill Bailey • As a kid I’d play with homemade recipes, like putting pineapple on my face to exfoliate my skin and doing facial steams with lavender or peppermint oils. I just loved doing stuff like that. It’s what motivated me to launch my skin care line. – Demi Lovato • As far as what I do love, I love birds; I love lavender. – Michael Moore • Avoid men who call you Baby, and women who have no friends, and dogs that scratch at their bellies and refuse to lie down at your feet. Wear dark glasses; bathe with lavender oil and cool fresh water. Seek shelter from the sun at noon. – Alice Hoffman

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Lavender', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_lavender').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_lavender img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Before bed, I read a book or flip on the radio – I’m not picky, I’ll just turn it on and see what comes up. I burn a yummy lavender- scented candle. – Carrie Underwood • Blue is the insides of something mysterious and lonely. I’d look at fish and birds, thinking the sky and water colored them. The first abyss is blue. An artist must go beyond the mercy of satin or water-from a gutty hue to that which is close to royal purple. All seasons and blossoms inbetween. Lavender. Theatrical and outrageous electric. Almost gray. True and false blue. Water and oil. The gas jet breathing in oblivion. The unstruck match. The blue of absence. The blue of deep presence. The insides of something perfect. – Yusef Komunyakaa • Both Matilda and Lavender were enthralled. It was quite clear to them that they were at this moment standing in the presence of a master. Here was somebody who had brought the art of skulduggery to the highest point of perfection, somebody, moreover, who was willing to risk life and limb in pursuit of her calling. They gazed in wonder at this goddess, and suddenly even the boil on her nose was no longer a blemish but a badge of courage. – Roald Dahl • Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It’s the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist. – Mia Kirshner • But you, you foolish girl, you have gone home to a leaky castle across the sea to lie awake in linen smelling of lavender, and hear the nightingale, and long for me. – Edna St. Vincent Millay

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender? – J. K. Rowling • Day after day we looked for rain, and day after day we saw nothing but the sun. Lavender that we had planted in the spring died. The patch of grass in front of the house abandoned its ambitions to become a lawn and turned into the dirty yellow of poor straw. The earth shrank, revealing its knuckles and bones, rocks and roots that had been invisible before. – Peter Mayle • Even talking, I’m super-loud. I could never have that kind of meek, little wispy whimsical lavender and lace voice. It comes from my body. There’s no way I can fight it. – Beth Ditto • Gay people do not fight for freedom to live in a lavender bubble, but in a more just society. – Urvashi Vaid • He domesticated and developed the native wild flowers. He had one hill-side solidly clad with that low-growing purple verbena which mats over the hills of New Mexico. It was like a great violet velvet mantle thrown down in the sun; all the shades that the dyers and weavers of Italy and France strove for through centuries, the violet that is full of rose colour and is yet not lavender; the blue that becomes almost pink and then retreats again into sea-dark purple—the true Episcopal colour and countless variations of it. – Willa Cather • Here’s flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. – William Shakespeare • Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, and with him rise weeping. – William Shakespeare • I love Thieves, it is therapeutic, if you’re not feeling well. It has a very strong scent but is quite wonderful. I also use lavender. Peppermint, when my stomach is upset. – Donna Karan • I love you, Hermione,” said Ron, sinking back, rubbing his eyes wearily. Hermione turned faintly pink, but merely said, “Don’t let Lavender hear you saying that.” “I won’t,” said Ron into his hands. “Or maybe I will . . . then she’ll ditch me . . . – J. K. Rowling • I put a drop of lavender essential oil on my pillow before I go to sleep. – Melissa Joan Hart • I saw Chungking for the first time more than 40 years ago – a city of hills and mists, of grays and lavenders, two rivers shaping it to a point and the cliff rising above me like a challenge. – Theodore White • I turned over, and those big hands got to work on my back. I stifled a whimper in the pillow, because Marco’s idea of a massage bore no resemblance whatsoever to the relaxing spa variety. There was no lavender oil, no soothing music, no hot towels. Just an all-out assault on cramped muscles, until they cowered in surrender and turned to Jell-O. – Karen Chance • If feeling anxious about anything Dr Bachs night time rescue remedy is great. Sometimes a bath before bed helps. Burning Lavender or Clary Sage in the room before retiring. Try not to work on my computer very late and then bed straight after. Getting enough exercise definitely helps sleep. – Rachel Ryan • If you had to choose an oil…it would have to be lavender essential oil, because it is antibacterial and antiviral. So, it’s great to have when people around you are sick; it can also be used to relax. – Karen Rose • it always seems to me as if the lavender was a little woman in a green dress, with a lavender bonnet and a white kerchief. She’s one of those strong, sweet, wholesome people, who always rest you, and her sweetness lingers long after she goes away. – Myrtle Reed • It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove; the laughter in the night air; the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become so heroically tall. Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles, among other joys that are in short supply these days. And so I will try to tell you, while I still remember, how it was then, before everything changed-that final season of the era that roared. – Anna Godbersen • It was our favorite part of the day, this in-between time, and it always seemed to last longer than it should–a magic and lavender space unpinned from the hours around it, between worlds. – Paula McLain • Lavender is the new pink. I’ll never stop wearing pink but I wanted to venture out. – Nicki Minaj • London life was very full and exciting […] But in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray. – Sylvia Townsend Warner • Look, why don’t you go talk to Ron about all this?” Harry asked. “Well, I would, but he’s always asleep when I go and see him!” said Lavender fretfully. “Is he?” said Harry, surprised, for he had found Ron perfectly alert every time he had been up to the hospital wing. – J. K. Rowling • My favorite name for a color is “puce.” It’s kind of a dried blood color. It’s a hideous color. But I love the word. It’s so euphonic. But my favorite colors are lavender, purple, periwinkle blue, and white. – Elizabeth Taylor • Oils of cinnamon and eucalyptus are as powerful against some microorganisms as conventional antibiotics, and are especially effective against flus. Sandalwood oil from Mysore, India, is not only a classic perfume oil but is also a traditional remedy for sore throats and laryngitis. Lavender oil, so often used in toilet waters and scented sachets, has a dramatic healing action on burns. – Robert Tisserand • One trick I swear by: I pour a little neroli or lavender oil onto a hot towel and use it to wipe off my makeup. It opens up my pores, and then my face cream sinks in better. – Courteney Cox • The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows. – William C. Bryant • The raindrops played across the coast all through the night, until the soft new day shrugged itself awake, tried on amethyst and lavender for a while, and finally decided on pale yellow. – Gary D. Schmidt • The scent organ was playing a delightfully refreshing Herbal Capriccio – rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender, of rosemary, basil, myrtle, tarragon; a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris; and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar and newmown hay (with occasional subtle touches of discord – a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig’s dung) back to the simple aromatics with which the piece began. The final blast of thyme died away; there was a round of applause; the lights went up. – Aldous Huxley • There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can. – Alice Hoffman • To make a perfume, take some rose water and wash your hands in it, then take a lavender flower and rub it with your palms, and you will achieve the desired effect. – Leonardo da Vinci • Valentine’s Day money-saving tips: Break up on February 13th, get back together on the 15th. In place of bubble bath, use lavender-scented dish-washing liquid. Forget rose petals. Sprinkle the bed with sliced beets! – David Letterman • We lavender folk spray up, spontaneously flowering in the color we had learned as an identifying mark of our culture when it was subterranean and secret. – Judy Grahn • What a turnaround in sentiment ‘Glee’ exemplifies. It was only a few years ago that pursuing the dream of a Broadway career or cabaret stardom relegated some poor yearning dope to a lavender ghetto of losers, self-deluders, and social rejects. – James Wolcott • What woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart? – William Makepeace Thackeray • When hope is fleeting, stop for a moment and visualize, in a sky of silver, the crescent of a lavender moon. Imagine it — delicate, slim, precise, like a paper-thin slice from a cabochon jewel. It may not be very useful, but it is beautiful. And sometimes it is enough. – Vera Nazarian • When the light turns green, you go. When the light turns red, you stop. But what do you do when the light turns blue with orange and lavender spots? – Shel Silverstein • With this recitation of paraphernalia and detritus, O’Brien manages to encapsulate the experience of an army and of a particular war, of a mined and booby-trapped landscape, of cold nights and hot days, of soaking monsoons and rice paddies, and of the possibility of being shot, like Ted Lavender, suddenly and out of nowhere: not only in the middle of a sentence but in the midst of a subordinate clause. – Francine Prose • Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. – Alice Walker • Yours is… il sent comme lavande.” Is that French for ‘You stink’?” It means ‘lavender’.” Huh.” She sniffed at her wrist. “I thought I smelled more like a grape Popsicle. – Lynn Viehl

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

Lavender Quotes

Official Website: Lavender Quotes

  • A rhododendron bud lavender-tipped. Soon a glory of blooms to clash with the cardinals and gladden the hummingbirds! – Dave Beard • Add a drop of lavender to milk, leave town with an orange, and pretend you’re laughing at it. – Bill Bailey • As a kid I’d play with homemade recipes, like putting pineapple on my face to exfoliate my skin and doing facial steams with lavender or peppermint oils. I just loved doing stuff like that. It’s what motivated me to launch my skin care line. – Demi Lovato • As far as what I do love, I love birds; I love lavender. – Michael Moore • Avoid men who call you Baby, and women who have no friends, and dogs that scratch at their bellies and refuse to lie down at your feet. Wear dark glasses; bathe with lavender oil and cool fresh water. Seek shelter from the sun at noon. – Alice Hoffman

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Lavender', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_lavender').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_lavender img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Before bed, I read a book or flip on the radio – I’m not picky, I’ll just turn it on and see what comes up. I burn a yummy lavender- scented candle. – Carrie Underwood • Blue is the insides of something mysterious and lonely. I’d look at fish and birds, thinking the sky and water colored them. The first abyss is blue. An artist must go beyond the mercy of satin or water-from a gutty hue to that which is close to royal purple. All seasons and blossoms inbetween. Lavender. Theatrical and outrageous electric. Almost gray. True and false blue. Water and oil. The gas jet breathing in oblivion. The unstruck match. The blue of absence. The blue of deep presence. The insides of something perfect. – Yusef Komunyakaa • Both Matilda and Lavender were enthralled. It was quite clear to them that they were at this moment standing in the presence of a master. Here was somebody who had brought the art of skulduggery to the highest point of perfection, somebody, moreover, who was willing to risk life and limb in pursuit of her calling. They gazed in wonder at this goddess, and suddenly even the boil on her nose was no longer a blemish but a badge of courage. – Roald Dahl • Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It’s the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist. – Mia Kirshner • But you, you foolish girl, you have gone home to a leaky castle across the sea to lie awake in linen smelling of lavender, and hear the nightingale, and long for me. – Edna St. Vincent Millay

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender? – J. K. Rowling • Day after day we looked for rain, and day after day we saw nothing but the sun. Lavender that we had planted in the spring died. The patch of grass in front of the house abandoned its ambitions to become a lawn and turned into the dirty yellow of poor straw. The earth shrank, revealing its knuckles and bones, rocks and roots that had been invisible before. – Peter Mayle • Even talking, I’m super-loud. I could never have that kind of meek, little wispy whimsical lavender and lace voice. It comes from my body. There’s no way I can fight it. – Beth Ditto • Gay people do not fight for freedom to live in a lavender bubble, but in a more just society. – Urvashi Vaid • He domesticated and developed the native wild flowers. He had one hill-side solidly clad with that low-growing purple verbena which mats over the hills of New Mexico. It was like a great violet velvet mantle thrown down in the sun; all the shades that the dyers and weavers of Italy and France strove for through centuries, the violet that is full of rose colour and is yet not lavender; the blue that becomes almost pink and then retreats again into sea-dark purple—the true Episcopal colour and countless variations of it. – Willa Cather • Here’s flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. – William Shakespeare • Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, and with him rise weeping. – William Shakespeare • I love Thieves, it is therapeutic, if you’re not feeling well. It has a very strong scent but is quite wonderful. I also use lavender. Peppermint, when my stomach is upset. – Donna Karan • I love you, Hermione,” said Ron, sinking back, rubbing his eyes wearily. Hermione turned faintly pink, but merely said, “Don’t let Lavender hear you saying that.” “I won’t,” said Ron into his hands. “Or maybe I will . . . then she’ll ditch me . . . – J. K. Rowling • I put a drop of lavender essential oil on my pillow before I go to sleep. – Melissa Joan Hart • I saw Chungking for the first time more than 40 years ago – a city of hills and mists, of grays and lavenders, two rivers shaping it to a point and the cliff rising above me like a challenge. – Theodore White • I turned over, and those big hands got to work on my back. I stifled a whimper in the pillow, because Marco’s idea of a massage bore no resemblance whatsoever to the relaxing spa variety. There was no lavender oil, no soothing music, no hot towels. Just an all-out assault on cramped muscles, until they cowered in surrender and turned to Jell-O. – Karen Chance • If feeling anxious about anything Dr Bachs night time rescue remedy is great. Sometimes a bath before bed helps. Burning Lavender or Clary Sage in the room before retiring. Try not to work on my computer very late and then bed straight after. Getting enough exercise definitely helps sleep. – Rachel Ryan • If you had to choose an oil…it would have to be lavender essential oil, because it is antibacterial and antiviral. So, it’s great to have when people around you are sick; it can also be used to relax. – Karen Rose • it always seems to me as if the lavender was a little woman in a green dress, with a lavender bonnet and a white kerchief. She’s one of those strong, sweet, wholesome people, who always rest you, and her sweetness lingers long after she goes away. – Myrtle Reed • It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove; the laughter in the night air; the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become so heroically tall. Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles, among other joys that are in short supply these days. And so I will try to tell you, while I still remember, how it was then, before everything changed-that final season of the era that roared. – Anna Godbersen • It was our favorite part of the day, this in-between time, and it always seemed to last longer than it should–a magic and lavender space unpinned from the hours around it, between worlds. – Paula McLain • Lavender is the new pink. I’ll never stop wearing pink but I wanted to venture out. – Nicki Minaj • London life was very full and exciting […] But in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray. – Sylvia Townsend Warner • Look, why don’t you go talk to Ron about all this?” Harry asked. “Well, I would, but he’s always asleep when I go and see him!” said Lavender fretfully. “Is he?” said Harry, surprised, for he had found Ron perfectly alert every time he had been up to the hospital wing. – J. K. Rowling • My favorite name for a color is “puce.” It’s kind of a dried blood color. It’s a hideous color. But I love the word. It’s so euphonic. But my favorite colors are lavender, purple, periwinkle blue, and white. – Elizabeth Taylor • Oils of cinnamon and eucalyptus are as powerful against some microorganisms as conventional antibiotics, and are especially effective against flus. Sandalwood oil from Mysore, India, is not only a classic perfume oil but is also a traditional remedy for sore throats and laryngitis. Lavender oil, so often used in toilet waters and scented sachets, has a dramatic healing action on burns. – Robert Tisserand • One trick I swear by: I pour a little neroli or lavender oil onto a hot towel and use it to wipe off my makeup. It opens up my pores, and then my face cream sinks in better. – Courteney Cox • The air was fragrant with a thousand trodden aromatic herbs, with fields of lavender, and with the brightest roses blushing in tufts all over the meadows. – William C. Bryant • The raindrops played across the coast all through the night, until the soft new day shrugged itself awake, tried on amethyst and lavender for a while, and finally decided on pale yellow. – Gary D. Schmidt • The scent organ was playing a delightfully refreshing Herbal Capriccio – rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender, of rosemary, basil, myrtle, tarragon; a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris; and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar and newmown hay (with occasional subtle touches of discord – a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig’s dung) back to the simple aromatics with which the piece began. The final blast of thyme died away; there was a round of applause; the lights went up. – Aldous Huxley • There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can. – Alice Hoffman • To make a perfume, take some rose water and wash your hands in it, then take a lavender flower and rub it with your palms, and you will achieve the desired effect. – Leonardo da Vinci • Valentine’s Day money-saving tips: Break up on February 13th, get back together on the 15th. In place of bubble bath, use lavender-scented dish-washing liquid. Forget rose petals. Sprinkle the bed with sliced beets! – David Letterman • We lavender folk spray up, spontaneously flowering in the color we had learned as an identifying mark of our culture when it was subterranean and secret. – Judy Grahn • What a turnaround in sentiment ‘Glee’ exemplifies. It was only a few years ago that pursuing the dream of a Broadway career or cabaret stardom relegated some poor yearning dope to a lavender ghetto of losers, self-deluders, and social rejects. – James Wolcott • What woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart? – William Makepeace Thackeray • When hope is fleeting, stop for a moment and visualize, in a sky of silver, the crescent of a lavender moon. Imagine it — delicate, slim, precise, like a paper-thin slice from a cabochon jewel. It may not be very useful, but it is beautiful. And sometimes it is enough. – Vera Nazarian • When the light turns green, you go. When the light turns red, you stop. But what do you do when the light turns blue with orange and lavender spots? – Shel Silverstein • With this recitation of paraphernalia and detritus, O’Brien manages to encapsulate the experience of an army and of a particular war, of a mined and booby-trapped landscape, of cold nights and hot days, of soaking monsoons and rice paddies, and of the possibility of being shot, like Ted Lavender, suddenly and out of nowhere: not only in the middle of a sentence but in the midst of a subordinate clause. – Francine Prose • Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. – Alice Walker • Yours is… il sent comme lavande.” Is that French for ‘You stink’?” It means ‘lavender’.” Huh.” She sniffed at her wrist. “I thought I smelled more like a grape Popsicle. – Lynn Viehl

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

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[teritcrawfordca]

Balancing a Business and Single Parenthood

Mom guilt. It’s what many single working mothers carry with them when they head out the door in the morning. This guilt blooms from thinking that they are not raising their children in the best way possible, perhaps even berating themselves for running a business full-time instead of being a stay-at-home mom. But for single mothers, staying home simply isn’t an option. There is no one coming to the rescue, so you must provide for yourself and your children. This is why balance is so important when it comes to running a business and raising children.

Single parenthood isn’t easy, especially when you’re trying to run a business, co-parent, and have a life of your own. But, the lack of a partner shouldn’t stop moms from kicking butt at home AND in their businesses. Here are 5 secrets that successful moms have shared for balancing a business and single parenthood.

5 Tips for Balancing a Business and Single Parenthood

1. Leave Work at the Office

Even if you work from home, do your best work when you’re actually ‘at’ work or in your home office. But, unless it’s absolutely pressing, avoid taking work ‘home’ with you. Teach your children that when the door is closed, mommy is working, but also try not to do too much work when your kids are home with you. This will prevent your children from feeling neglected and will give you more of an opportunity to spend quality time with them.

“I work from home running an online sticker shop. Because I have the luxury to work from my home, it makes it difficult to know when I’m ‘off the clock.’ I continually have to remind myself to stick to a schedule and leave work at the proverbial door.” -Sylvia D, 32.

2. Set a Family “Date-Night”

One slice of parenting advice for balancing a business and single parenthood is to set a regular family night each week. Stick to your personal schedule as though it were your work schedule. Doing so will help your children see time with you as a reliable, sure thing.

“My children know that every Wednesday night is family night. They take turns picking an activity to do and then we do it. Sometimes we just spend the evening talking. It’s really important for all of us to stay connected this way.” Donna N, 30.

3. Be Emotionally Available

Children thrive when there are boundaries and communication in the household. They need to know that you are there for them emotionally as well as physically and financially. Maintaining open communication with your little ones is essential for balancing a business and single parenthood.

“I love my work, but so did my dad. I remember wishing he was around more often for me and I don’t want my daughters to feel that way about me. I remind them constantly that I am there whenever they need me. Am I at the office? Call me! If I’m sleeping? Wake me up!” -Natasha M, 37.

4. Take Time for Yourself

Single parenthood is no joke, especially when you’re running your own business. It may seem impossible to carve out some time for yourself in your already-hectic schedule, but you need to make time. You’ll be able to work harder and mother better when you are feeling fulfilled and happy with yourself.

Even taking 30-minutes in the morning or before bed to exercise, read a book, listen to music, or take a bubble bath can be incredibly helpful. If you have a weekend off from your kids as they are spending time with their other parent, do something you enjoy: go to a yoga class, go to the movies, go out to dinner with friends or sleep-in. Just do something for yourself, so you can feel rejuvenated.

“Definitely to take care of yourself. You can’t be a good mom or worker-bee if you have nothing left of yourself to give.” -Shannon K, 50.

5. Utilize Your Support System

Don’t be too proud to ask for help. When it comes to running a business and tackling single parenthood, utilize your support system for carpooling, babysitting and running errands. You can even ask friends and family to attend your child’s school activities or plan play dates for the times when you can’t be there.

“The person who came up with the phrase ‘it takes a village’ is a genius, because yeah, it takes a village. A country, actually, to raise a baby. If you’ve got friends, use them!” -Patrice O, 34.

Being a great mom while balancing a business takes practice, but you can get there. Moms must learn to teach their children that mom works hard so we can all play hard. Just remember to treat your kids like your #1 customer, lean of your village for help, prioritize family-time, be a good listener, and be present when you spend time with your children. Most importantly, don’t let mom guilt rob you of the hard work you put into your business or the wonderful times you share with your children. By following these parenting tips, it will enable you to balance a business and single parenthood like a pro.

  About the Author: Rachael Pace is a relationship expert with years of experience in training and helping couples. She has helped countless individuals and organizations around the world, offering effective and efficient solutions for healthy and successful relationships. She is a featured writer for Marriage.com, a reliable resource to support healthy happy marriages.

The post Balancing a Business and Single Parenthood appeared first on Succeed As Your Own Boss.

from Teri Crawford Business Tips https://succeedasyourownboss.com/balancing-a-business-and-single-parenthood/