#6 EPISODES. JUST. 6. WHAT THE FUCK DISNEY

[dolinemae-but-its-shitpost]

i'm so normal about tales of the empire oh my fucking god

[yourockthebeatofmyheart]

I was gonna comment on how little sense this episode actually makes but now I'm more focused on how I was somehow able to screencap disney plus on my laptop?????

[kittenscookie]

Okay I've been thinking about Owl House a lot lately and...Guys I'm just so damn angry. Because I rewatched the first episode of the finale and realized something. That first episode is a season finale—That whole episode is one season's worth of content crammed into a single episode. That's at LEAST 12 episodes in 60 minutes—five minutes for each damn episode. But remember the first season of toh was nineteen, the second was twenty-one. If we assume the team would have continued with around that many episodes the average is around twenty. Twenty fucking episodes is sixty minutes—THREE MINUTES AN EPISODE.

This then led me to thinking about my other cancelled show with LGBTQ+ representation—Steven Universe. It's basically the same shit, except somehow fucking worst. The diamond arc should have been it's own fucking season, curing the corrupted gems and them having to get reintroduced to gem/human society should have been a damn season too! The two year time skip makes sense when you really think about it—that's the least amount of time it would have taken to get all that shit done in universe! A year to get the gems readjusted, a year to dismantle the diamond empire—plus episodes filling in gaps/unanswered questions. No wonder Rebecca fought so damn hard for SU Future and the movie! It was a desperate attempt to give herself and the fans some kind of closure! And don't forget! Steven universe seasons were LONG—the median amount of episodes was twenty-four.

This shit wasn't bad writing, it was rushed writing. Desperate attempts to cram what should have been at LEAST two seasons into a few short episodes. Can you imagine this? Sitting with your coworkers and trying to figure out how to make at least forty episodes only 3–6? What can be kept and what has to be left to the imagination? Think of what we fucking lost at those tables—Spinel could have been teased and had a better build up, we could have gotten a Wittebane Brothers flashback, we could have explored the characters in both shows trauma. I'm not just mad—I'm livid and not even for us. For Dana Terrace, for Rebecca Sugar. To have something you created thrown away without a care. I'd be in fucking tears.

Fuck Disney, fuck Warner Brothers.

[pianostarinwonderland]

book 8 foreshadow ⁉️ in MY halloween ?!?! 🤯 more likely than u think ! 😳

When I saw Jack Skellington in the last trailer before the Abema stream for this Halloween, I thought, "Oh. Oh this is going to be good. This is going to be so good for the main story."

I've always had a feeling that we were going to meet the Great Seven somehow, where the characters realize the revisions made in the stories they heard of them vs. what actually happened. After all, Twst brings up more than once the idea of history being revised (especially through Lilia's dialogue). And when the first Lost in the Book event with Stitch came out, that possibility has been made even more open. And now with the way this Halloween is written, it feels like a setup for main story.

Halloween, being Twst's biggest event, is the one event that the Twst writers like to use to foreshadow the main story. Halloween 2/Endless Halloween and Glorious Masquerade have been used as foreshadow to Book 7's events. The latter was also used as a kind of reflection of Book 6's story, so in some ways, GloMas was also a transitory period between Book 6 and 7 (and notably, the GloMas stream was also the same stream where they put out the last trailer for Book 7). However, more importantly, in the context of this post, it is worth noting that Halloween 2 came out when Book 6 was still in its first part. Hence, this Nightmare Before Christmas event foreshadowing a Book 8 while we're far from done with Book 7 is very much plausible and that's why I fully believe this.

Here in the Lost in the Book with Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas event, we have Skully J. Graves, a character whose aesthetic not only matches most with Jack Skellington but also idolizes him, who meets his Halloween idol. This is the first time we see any Twst character meeting not only their idol but the Disney character they are twisted from. This is huge! Considering how distant that Twst is set from the time of the villains and heroes, it had always seemed impossible that such a meetup could occur. But slowly, Twst is revealing to us that there are ways that this could happen.

But here's the truly delicious part: We witness Skully learning what kind of person Jack Skellington really is. To Skully (and the community that he grew up in), Jack is a feared Pumpkin King who values the solemn kind of Halloween. However, the real Jack is someone who wants to celebrate Halloween together with people and—at least in the setting of the event—leans towards a Halloween that is more festive and jolly, akin to his wonder for Christmas in the movie. And this shakes Skully to the core, so much so that we see him lose it in Episode 3. We watch him continuously push for his ideas, to the point that he puts his idol to sleep.

If this is foreshadow to Book 8, will we see our characters face that same disillusion? Is that why we have all 7 Overblot characters in this event? Because let's be real, while everyone has a form of admiration for the villains, those 7 are the ones who idolize the Great Seven the most. For fuck's sake, their OB phantoms are the Great Seven in some form. And more importantly: How will they feel learning that everything they've learned is wrong? Will they be like Skully and start fiascos as they cope with the knowledge that has been unfortunately bestowed on them? Or will they grieve for a bit before recovering quickly? Will they, like Skully, start aligning with the opposite side (Skully aligning with Lock, Shock, and Barrel and consequently, Oogie Boogie)? Or will they stay on the same camp, just with more wariness?

But once they get past that, what then will they do? What measures will they take to learn more deeply about the huge historical revisionism that occurs? Will they even do something about it? Where do we play in as the MC that receives these dreams about the stories that did happen?

Something that I do want to bring up is, how do they even meet the Great Seven? One could say, oh they could get sucked into another book, but for characters so grand and worshipped, it feels too little to do something like that. Besides, unless they do something different for the ending of this event, they will come out of the book, not remembering a single thing. Book 7 allowed us to peer into Lilia's past—which felt unreachable—through his dream. Is there a possibility that Malleus might use his unique magic? To peer into someone's dreams about the Great Seven?

... To peer into our dreams?

But imagine if somehow, the Great Seven were alive again and about to wreak havoc in modern Twisted Wonderland. How would they even be revived? I have an old theory about this where the 7 Overblots are used for it. Of course they are just theories made 4 years ago, but it remains as something that haunts me, especially when Idia outright states that someone has to be behind the OBs. We have yet to learn either what occurred between Crowley and Idia's parents in Book 6.

As an end note, it is very intriguing to see where Twst is going. I'm very excited how the main story will turn out from here, and what will happen once we get past the last dorm's arc.

[mortuarywriting]

Falling into Place

Ao3 Link - [First] - [Next Chapter ->]

All things considered this isn't what you were expecting to wake up to when you went to bed. One minute you're on your phone, trying to pass out, and the next? You're here. You've had some interesting greetings in your life, but dropping about six feet and having twelve guns leveled at your face? That takes the cake

Warnings:

Reader Insert, Plus-Size Reader, The Author Regrets Everything, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Isekai, canon divergence Look we're gonna dig into the implications of omegasverse changing bits and pieces of history as well as addressing whatever the FUCK is happening as CoD's history. Idk man Godzilla is canon and nobody bats an eye at that fact and you think I'm gonna be normal about that? No

You could be having a worse day, you think, as you stare at the interrogation table you're cuffed to. They could've shot you the second you fell the six feet from the sky into a random army base. That's a very real thing that could've happened.

But no, you just had a dozen guns pointed at you in one moment and a slew of questions you didn't have satisfying answers for.

No, you had no idea how you got there. You'd been in bed tooling around on your phone and then you were falling.

They asked who you worked for, and were not impressed by your mundane answer. You didn't work for some pmc or intelligence organization. You asked them to their faces if they thought you could pass a PT test if you tried. Not that they answered or appreciated your point, mind.

It was only after you gave them whatever identifying information you had that things got… spicy.

"I would love to tell you what this designation of yours is if you tell me what you mean. Is it like a classification of civilian versus enlisted? Is it physical? Is it your horoscope? I don't know what I don't know," you explain again for the Nth time. You didn't wanna play twenty questions but here you fuckin were, captive audience and all.

The man asking you questions had lost his charming good cop look. He was getting more and more annoyed on this one, "your designation," a demand, not a question and sure as shit not an answer.

"Again, would love to tell you! I don't know what you mean! Feels like some kinda Star Wars thing," you grumble the last bit to yourself but the man cocks his head.

His eyes narrow, "what are… Star Wars, you said?"

You blink owlishly, "beg pardon?"

"Star War. Clarify."

It's your turn for your brow to furrow, and furrow it does, "Star Wars? As in the multi-billion dollar franchise created by George Lucas and eventually sold to Disney," your tone is questioning, just shy of asking if the guy lived under a rock but his expression didn't let up and the last thing you needed was bad cop, so you continued, "the story of what happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? The political space series of movies versus Star Trek's more scientific and discovery based longstanding TV show? Nine major movies and the Clone Wars before Disney sunk their talons in. Like yeah we got more shows and movies that expanded the universe but they also cut out decades of book contributions in their acquisition and that kinda sucked. But yeah, that Star Wars?"

"Nine movies," his tone is disbelieving, and now it's your turn for your eyebrows to raise, "can you name them?"

You nod, "well yeah. Do you want them in episode order or release?"

His brows furrow, "did they not release in order?"

"In a sense? Three trilogies, 4-5-6 back in the late 70s early 80s, then 1-2-3 in the late 90s early 00s, and 7-8-9 through the teens. So order, yes, just… not a cohesive one."

"Release, then," he leaned back and crossed his arms, a position you'd love to mimic if you weren't cuffed to the table for… an indeterminate period of time now, actually.

"A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi-"

"Woah now, empire? What's a jeddy?"

You give him a blank look, trying very hard to mask your disbelief as you look between him and the mirror behind him. You look at your reflection, take a deep breath, and- "sir would it be easier for you to maybe check the internet?"

He seemed to bristle, nose flaring and looking at you expectantly.

You just… kinda sat there. You tapped your fingers together on the desk and kept the eye contact he was intent on. It took a good minute and him getting progressively pissier before you simply ask, "would you like the other movies now?"

You didn't expect an explosion of movement from the man. He downright snarled and slammed his hands on the table as he burst to his feet, the sudden change sending his chair screeching back before falling with a clatter. You leaned as far back as your cuffed hands would allow, eyes wide and a panic rising.

Both of you turned to look at the door when it slammed open with a barked, "Williams!" 

The man who opened it reared back a bit, "Christ, layin' it on a bit thick," he groused, his tone sounding more like someone chastising a teenager for using too much Axe body spray. He smoothed his posture back into something casual as he fanned the air dismissively with a hand, "cap wants you to take a walk."

Your interrogator- Williams, apparently- stares at the man in the door, the two locking eyes before the one in the door straightens from his purposely relaxed posture. You watch the both of them, noting the shoulders tensing as the two just. Staring at each other? Eventually the guy who'd been grilling you looked away and stormed out, the man in the doorway letting him slip out easily enough before turning a charming look back to you.

He took a minute to fan the door a few times to get newer, blissfully cool air in before he entered the room, "sorry 'bout him. He really did a number in here," the new guy tsked before closing the door quietly behind himself.

Your brow furrowed even as you slowly relaxed a bit, had this Williams guy like… farted or something? A nice quirk of ventilation keeping you from smelling something abhorrent? Either way you simply shrug as he walks in and tips the chair back up, sitting and giving another reassuring smile, "how you doing, love?"

You opened and closed your mouth a few times before simply settling on, "I'm a bit… whelmed? This has been," you give as vague a rolling gesture as you can without your cuffs rattling too badly, "a lot? And I have no idea what just set him off either?"

It's the man before you's turn to quirk a brow, "no idea?"

"If I knew the answers to his questions I'd've given 'em by now. I don't, though, and then he just started staring? And hell I just thought it was some kinda macho 'I can stare the truth out of you,'" you pitched your voice lower and pushed your shoulders out for a second to mimic the douchebag behavior before settling, "so I kept eye contact because I'm so out of my depth I have no reason to lie at all and now…" you trail off, gesturing around the room, "all that."

The man nods slowly, "alright love, could you tell me about the last five years?"

Your brows furrow, "oh fuck, 2019 was five years ago wasn't it. God, time is an illusion. Anyway, you want what I was doing leading up to and through the pandemic?"

You think he might've startled for a second but he simply moved to scratch his chin, "mhmm. Just your thoughts on the last five years is all."

So… you ramble. Because he was nice and not prodding or asking weird questions. You talk to him about your job before the pandemic, how people thought covid was just a flu until the death tolls kept climbing, how tons of governments dropped the ball on a local or country-wide level and how that kicked back onto your life, and then the absolute crapshoot of the last election cycle, the shitty 'oh no this is the new normal everything is fine' behavior that has lead to surges and cycles of a fucking plague and so on. He simply nodded, gave some sympathetic hums and winces appropriately at your experiences.

"And did you go back and watch Star Wars through that? Or other things Disney owned?"

And, well, that was a weird way to phrase it but you shrugged, "the mouse is just shy of a monopoly and not one that anybody can take that down so… yeah, I guess? They kept putting shows out and expanding their Star Wars universe so that's been kinda neat to watch but not just them, no. Couple other games and stuff like that to keep me busy, too," you kinda handwave and shut up because panic rambling to MILITARY PERSONNEL is probably not your smartest move in hindsight. Especially when you don't know his name. A+, self.

You tap your fingers against the metal table as he looks at you, "and you said covid has a long term effect of ruining people's senses of smell and taste?"

You nod slowly, "yeah, dude? It's one of the biggest warning signs for most people? Like if everything starts tasting like it was made by a middle class white mom who keeps shoving random letters in her kids names you should swab? That kinda shit?"

What rock has this guy been living under? You were pretty sure the military were supposed to be way more familiar with this shit all things considered, but you've been wrong before.

It was his turn to give you a bit of a wide eyed look before he poorly covers a laugh, "alright, that's fair. I need to go talk with my captain," he hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the window, which didn't surprise you that there had been people back there. He offers a reassuring smile as he stands, humming idly as he pushes the chair back in. He pauses mid-step, "you mentioned that there were cards…?"

You find yourself nodding slowly, "yeah it was important and you couldn't fly or go to certain places if you didn't have one for a while. Should still have a picture of mine buried on my phone," you really didn't wanna get another first-round of covid shots, you REALLY didn't wanna repeat the 24 hours of suck for no reason.

"Cool, thanks," he flashes another charming grin before he slides out of the room.

You lean back in your chair, what an odd guy. Nice though.

-------

"Right," Gaz says as he opens the door to Price and Ghost, "either our mystery guest is off her nut or she's legitimately from somewhere and somewhen else."

Ghost and Price look at each other before turning back to Gaz, this… complicated matters.

Well, it's not like you hadn't given them information to identify yourself. They'd dig up who you were one way or another.

-------

You stare blankly as the nice man from before gives you a sympathetic look, "what do you mean I'm dead?"

Behind him is a guy you're not sure if he's just fuckoff huge or if he's just moderately huge and it's forced perspective.

You don't think it's forced perspective.

You are absolutely trying not to panic spiral.

You are absolutely doing a horrible job at that.

"Well," he opens the file before him and there's a news article, proudly proclaiming "Locals Die in Horrible Freak Accident" like that's not some form of you that was looking like some smear on the pavement, "there's this. Fingerprints match up. Can check for dental if you're really curious."

"Were there even any teeth left after that," you mumble as you take and read the offered article. Seven people were involved, the pictures used are mostly flattering. Hell, you almost don't mind what pic they used for an alternate you but… "that's certainly not the pic I would've wanted. Maybe this me had different tastes?"

You take the time to actually read through the article. It's not helping because for as much as you stare at the page you're not absorbing any information. Some form of detachment, if this was really you? You'd died. A different you but a you nonetheless. You died and you're reading how it happened. There was a lot to unpack in all this and you just needed to put the suitcase away for now. You'd much rather throw it away at this rate.

You were rapidly coming to the understanding that you and Toto were not in Kansas anymore, and there wasn't a convenient yellow brick road to get yourself back home. No easy way to get the hell out of Dodge either. Was it Dodge or the O.K. Corral that was in Kansas? No the O.K. Corral wasn't in Kansas- Dodge was though, that's right. 

This analogy was getting away from you and some part of you figured this was just your brain trying to protect yourself but… wait, wasn't this a metaphor? There wasn't 'like' or 'as' or goddammit not again.

You recognize some names here and there but largely everyone involved were perfect strangers. The article doesn't cover if it would've been slow or quick. You hope for the smear that it was quick. Smears like that don't happen slowly, right? Well, not unless it's like a dramatic slide down a window, but not usually across pavement like that.

Still not sure how you feel about all of it. Bit morbid being confronted with your mortality like that.

Certainly answered a lot of questions about your theoretical passing you never thought about. Like if the obituary for you in what you know to be your own home and world is just as… really kinda just mediocre as this. Have you really done nothing of note for an obituary? Damn.

You kept pouring over the article, each pass bringing new words into focus that help connect the picture a little bit, but… Something repeated in the article made you pause, "two alphas, four betas, and an omega?" 

There was no decent way to ask about that. Any questions invoked from here would border into dangerous territory better kept between yourself and a private browser history. You knew what you were about but there was no fucking way.

"Their designations," the nice man whose name you still hadn't caught explains, "mostly explaining their secondary gender."

You look at him owlishly. You pray to whatever God might be listening that you wake up shortly. Or that the earth below your feet opens up and swallows you. Whichever comes first, the mortification will snipe you otherwise.

"Please tell me this is an elaborate joke at my expense," you are very quiet as you are trying to get really cool with a lot of things really quickly.

"Negative," the big fucker in the back practically growled and you knew that voice would do things to you if you weren't half stepped out of your own body. 

You missed whatever his followup was but your brow furrowed when you checked the date on the article, "I've been dead for months? That…" you let the paper fall from your hands. Everything about this is wild at best and very overwhelming at worst. 

A lot of this qualified as worst.

You look up at the two, missing the odd look they shot at each other as you try to pull yourself back together, "so now what? You've got a not-a-smear of me that fell from the sky onto a secure military base, and where I'm from we didn't have," you paused to gesture between the paper and the two soldiers, "dynamics was it? That was just a fanfiction special."

"Fanfiction."

The way he said it was so carefully neutral you paused, "oh my god without Star Trek to popularize fanfiction and the fan community, how has fandom evolved? Is fanfiction a thing- well, yes, it does fanfics have been a thing since Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy and even before- well, the question is more if it's still popularized? Are there still the wattpad fics of- I am getting so off track. What exactly is the next step?"

You look from the nice man to the big fucker and back, neither saying anything but looking at you with careful blankness.

You felt like you were being weighed and measured in their eyes.

You hoped to anyone listening that you weren't found wanting at least. Not when you're in the shit situation it looks like you ever so increasingly fell into.

"Considering I'm. Not smear. And very much not from here? Are blanks a thing? Or is that what a beta is I'm," you trail off, brow furrowing, "fuzzy. On the whole thing. The flavor of understanding, dynamics, and population skew tended to be dependant on the author's level of horny."

The did get a bit of a snort from the pretty one before you, the one in the back tilting his head just so as the pretty one spurred you on, "okay please don't take this the wrong way, you have given me nothing to go on but A/B/O and-" a finger was raised in question to that, you quickly explaining, "the fanfic shorthand for the universe without being a mouthful. Anyway- I've seen population numbers being roughly the same across the board, I've seen alphas and omegas at roughly 1% of the population of society on either end, I've seen alphas at about 5% and omegas at 1%- those ones are usually the most horny I swear.

"And it's all over the board, no consistency- sometimes it's betas are infertile, sometimes they're the straightman to the comedy that's an alpha and omega trying to woo each other without being too horny to function. Sometimes it's a sliding scale where being beta just means you're more the more middle-ground regulated hormonally with alphas and omegas being the opposing ends of a spectrum. Can you please say something and give me a fucking break because my panic rambles are probably like. Some kinda prejudiced. I'm still not over the 'I'm supposed to be a smear on the ground we don't even have dental images of to confirm who it is anymore' nugget you dropped on me. I think I'm doing well for this"

You would rather not tell them that as soon as you're out of this box of a room you were gonna be curled up in a ball and unabashedly weeping. That was none of their business.

The pretty one gave you what you're sure was supposed to be a reassuring smile but the quiet stretched just a bit too long. You looked from one to the other before leaning forward, "is this supposed to be soothing in some way? Because it's just a bit of an extended awkward silence and that's uh-"

It was the big one in the back's turn to give an amused snort, the pretty one looking bashful, "right, sorry, we uh-"

You jerk a bit, "wait, was that supposed to be some scent thing," you really didn't wanna say pheromones and potentially dig yourself into a deeper, more awkward hole based on Horny Pseudoscience.

Pretty rubbed the back of his neck, "something like that. You really couldn't smell anything?"

You know the exact Face you're making. It's very much your 'I have told you this and I'm getting tired of having to repeat it' face. You can tell he clocks it but for the record, because to your mortification this has to be recorded, you simply give a succinct, "no, I haven't smelled anything. Not from you, not from him," you jerk your head towards the big fucker, "and not from douchebag from be- Williams! His name was Williams. Nothing. Really had no clue why you were fanning the door when you came in."

You sigh, rubbing the heels of your palms into your eyes, "okay. Assuming I'm not about to be put into past tense a second time. Do we have any idea what popped me out here?"

The sentences are stilted, you know you're getting more rattled the longer you're here but sue you alright it's been the worst six hours of your life here.

They just continue to look at you, pretty keeping a polite almost customer service look as big one just stares unceasingly.

"Right. Okay. Am I going to be reintegrated to society or is this," you gesture around the little room as much as you can, "looking like my home for the foreseeable future."

No change in what you can see of either's expression, and you just sag. Deep breath in, deep breath out, "cool. Alright. Well. I know nothing of how biology is altered here, I'm not sure how that has impacted changes throughout history, and frankly I don't know what your pop culture has done. I'm assuming math and written languages are largely the same but in all fairness I don't know what I don't know."

You just stare quietly at the table for a bit longer before looking back at the two of them, "is there anything else you need because I can feel the freakout creeping up and while I know there's no real privacy, uh…"

The pretty one looked back to the big one, at some point you're sure you'll get some sort of names but for now? Now you watch the big one nod, the pretty one give you a polite smile and some vaguely polite bullshit your brain is swiftly going too far out to hear.

You only hope that whoever is behind the mirror is polite enough to look away as you put your head down on the table and give yourself the opportunity to, just this once, cry. As a treat.

[Next Chapter -> ]

[rowanthestrange]

The Media Overanalysis (O)Mega Essay: Why Rogue Is The Bad Guy. Duh.

Code Mauve. Sorry, you’re a mutual and directly responded, so now you get The Post. It was bound to be someone eventually, and it was you. It’s nothing personal. You were just the first to dare my parapet.

@icantleave replied: rogue definitely isn't the master because the master is simply incapable of cosplaying someone this genuine and unlike himself, his disguises are always essentially very him with a few traits hidden or amplified.

Either there is a psy-op and Disney aired a different version of this or a solid quarter of you got brain broken by American Mr Darcy- no don’t try and run, get back here. The only running you’re doing is this essay equivalent of a 10k.

You are intelligent. All of you. And yet what the hell does this mean? “rogue definitely isn't the master because the master is simply incapable of cosplaying someone this genuine and unlike himself”

We’re going through this episode. All of it. This is not actually an ‘it is the Master’ post, it is a ‘but at the very least he sure acts like the Master would’ post, which is the above premise. But also just in general that Rogue is The Bad Guy.

Take it as the Master cosplaying Jack; a Pantheon member whose theme is Roleplay who like the others has watched the show and is deliberately filling the void daddy created and getting in by cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack (has to be doing both to be skilled at Roleplay ala Maestro and the Toymaker’s skills in their areas, else he’d just be shittily cosplaying Jack); or literally he is just baddie Chuldur #6 fanboy who wants to bang the Doctor he saw on TV cus he’s sexy and they get Doctor Who out there as well as Bridgerton. All the concepts are adjacent:

Baddie fanboy roleplaying as Jack to fuck-slash-fuck-with the Doctor.

Places people. Let’s take it from the top:

-We start with a scene showing someone (Chuldur #2) who wants to roleplay as the bad guy because that would be fun.

-(Bonus: the writers talking about themselves - “Wonderful party, your Grace.” “Some are saying best of the season. A triumph. A new standard set. And I, of course, could not comment. But I think the real estimation of an evening is in the matches made.” I quite agree.)

-(We are also in Tredegar House, which you may recognise from The End Of Time, Spyfall, and other times in New Who. We like this place.

-There is electronic interference in Ruby’s earpiece. The Doctor scans this and finds it’s coming from Rogue. The Master is a frequent user of manipulative electronics both towards other people and to disguise himself. Put a pin in this, it’ll come up at the end. ✅

-The Doctor meets Rogue to the backing of hit pop song, Billie Eilish’s “I’m The Bad Guy”. The Master is a famous lover of fun pop, and being obvious to an oblivious Doctor. ✅✅

I wrestled with iMovie at midnight to put the lyric subtitles to this video and you are going to watch and appreciate it:

[If at any point you want out of this essay, all you have to do is come back to here and watch this video again while singing in your head along with the lyrics to receive a passing grade.]

-They deliberately work the lines around the music, not just thematically but so you can clearly hear what the backing song is. And made sure they kept the scene going long enough all the way into the next section just so they could keep the line: “I like it when you take control, even if you know that you don't, own me, I'll let you play the role, I'll be your animal.” Fuck’s sake. Most Thoschei song. Interchangeable freaks.

-Rogue is critiqued by the Doctor for not acting appropriately broody enough. The Master well known for being a fairly shit actor. ✅

-That is an American accent. This is a red flag for either being a Pantheon member, or the Master Dressing For The Occasion (which Rogue certainly has).

-“Do you practise in a mirror?” - him roleplaying would mean literally yes.

-“I didn’t know the Duchess employs a court jester.” - Alexa please search every time the Master has called the Doctor some derivation of clown. ✅

-“O…Kay…Rude. Lord-?” “Not a Lord.” Our last outing with the Master was all about his psyche-destroying discovery of being made from the Not-A-Time Lord Doctor; and if he is Pantheon The Rogue roleplaying as the Master, then just chef’s kiss line. But I will be magnanimous this early in proceedings, and let you go ‘technically a valid meta read is saying that conforms he’s not a Time Lord’. But the paragraph stands.

-He calls himself Rogue:

1. noun: a dishonest or unprincipled person. "You are a rogue and an embezzler" Similar: scoundrel, villain, reprobate. 2. noun: an elephant or other large wild animal living apart from the herd and having savage or destructive tendencies. "a rogue elephant"

If it’s the Master then straight up naming himself “The Bad Guy” is on brand. The Master is a Rogue Time Lord. That is what fandom has long called them - ‘Rogues and Renegades’. The Master is shite at names, if you haven’t had the pleasure of the Third Doctor’s company yet. Shitty anagrams, tenuous links to goals and character aspects, and crappy puns are the standard ✅. If Pantheon, then his choice in lifestyle that’s more about personally having fun (ultimately still Doctor compatible), with a group, in a non-competitive game which has no win condition other than enjoying the game, though rip to the NPC’s being played with as character, would definitely put him somewhat apart from the wreaking havoc on the universe others. If a Pantheon member, he literally did choose his own name from D&D.

-Just generalised throughout: Rogue is not actually suave. Some people find his secret awkwardness under the posh gear charming. The Master is not suave and is awkward, but desperately tries to style it out like he is anyway, that’s just his character. ✅

-We kinda feel like we’re going into some Karny Shobogony kind of cave area, we’re not, but just for the hitting home that this is another Upper Class Gallifrey mirror for the season. You don’t need to think the Master’s involved for this, don’t worry, wasn’t in Dot And Bubble was he, but that was a clear enough mirror. A person appearing as a servant forces their way up the social ladder. If you like some mirror play and are really deep in your TC ‘what kind of person would name themselves Master’, you’re having fun. Also I can’t see that type of death lightning without thinking of Simm!Master. Costly effect, but we went with it, and it does add some panache.

-Chuldur #5 is roleplaying Emily (this is used both in her disguise and out - potentially playing the same ‘character’. We’ll come back to this too, explore more later), who will be something of our Master this evening in the Gallifrey mirror if you’re going in for it. Also coincidentally is half the mirror pair with Ruby to the Doctor and Rogue. “Emily, please-” “But you consume me sir. I think of you every waking hour and I hate myself for it!” yeah we know babe… Anyone else hearing Dhawan!Master’s “I cannot bear that”?

-“I love these old skies” - all the stars makes it arguably sound more like a Flux reference rather than just light pollution. And we all know what event by who triggered that off.

-Finally we get more lines from Rogue, this has all been very one-sided. “Do you never stop chattering?” - a frequent refrain of the Master, who, fun fact has told the Doctor to shut up in every incarnation in New Who (and probably Old but this is the trivia I have) ✅

-If Rogue is supposedly wanting to stop the bad birdies, real weird he doesn’t give an appropriately flying fuck about the mysterious lone shoe. And simply says “I suggest look for the other shoe” like it doesn’t matter with a shrug. Because the Master is stupid and shite at keeping in-character. ✅ Makes sense if he’s on the bad guy’s team though. Also Cinderella. Noticing themes in today’s mirror subtext.

-They find it plus corpse. “And you knew. You didn’t even flinch.” Actually wrong, the Doctor can’t see behind him but we can. Rogue doesn’t flinch at the shoe, or coming up to the body, but when the Doctor says it’s the Duchess, Rogue does a slight ‘oh’ lean back, and then a sigh with a bit of a slump. To me this reads as a ‘oh you fucking idiots’ for doing it this blatantly, but I won’t mark it, cus you could argue that ultimately maybe a bounty hunter might care more about the death of the duchess in particular and sigh about it etc. (Or he is Pantheon roleplayer getting annoyed his gang can’t stick to a character and risking the outline going off-track and more bodycounty). “And you knew” - Rogue doesn’t keep eye contact but closes his eyes, opens them immediately up and a little to the side, thinking of what to say next style. ((This specific circumstance he couldn’t have known about prior, cus the murder happens while he’s inside))

-“This is a murder far beyond the technologies of planet Earth. It could only be done by someone brilliant.” “And monstrous.” [-horny flirting tone looking him up and down] “And ruthless.” “And contemptible.” Both: “You.” He is the Master and in with the bird gang. No bounty hunter with a heart of gold is calling the murderer brilliant because also, may have been easy to miss, but the Doctor hasn’t done anything brilliant yet unless you include owning a scanner and briefly infodumping about constellations. That is a Master talking about himself kinda line. ✅

-The Doctor thought Rogue was a murderer who was calling himself brilliant, and it only made him more horny, and proceeded to dance along with that little two-step. If I’m Master-brained, what’s he? Cus he’s usually only into one murderer. If that guy had snogged him instead of pulling the gun they’d have fucked right then and there, that scene has so much sexual tension that should not be there.

-Edit - courtesy of @katoska: “#though dimensionally transcendental pockets would explain where he'd hidden that big gun in that form fitting outfit.” - And why wouldn’t you have given him one of Jack’s guns, they’re all smaller? But they made Rogue a huge one.

-“So who do you think I am?” “I know you’re a Chuldur.” “The shapeshifters? Ha, I’ve heard of them. I’ve never met one,” *tilting head back towards Rogue and smiling* “Unless I have.” Please, if nothing else, come out of this thinking at minimum he is bad birdie Chuldur #6. Maybe we’re rewriting Frobisher. Heavily, heavily rewriting.

-“[his ship] cloaked behind that shed.” Calling the TARDIS a shed. It was Three that technically said it but the Master has repeatedly expressed his disdain for our beautiful police box before so that’s a Master-fitting line, be it intentional disdain or not yet. ✅

-Won’t call it a point, but he tells us he is a bounty hunter sent here to find them for the money. (Note: not kill - at the very least a bounty hunter would be bringing back the body to get, you know, the bounty). Aside from being a cheap and easy backstory it’s evidently morally bad, for all the Doctor literally goes ‘that is so…cool’ - which is absolutely not his usual position on bounty hunters.

-The thing he uncloaks the ship with? Same thing that controls the traps. How multitool. How sonic screwdriver. Or Laser screwdriver TCE as you prefer.

-His ship is a bird. It has wings, two eyes, and a beak. He is with the birds. He is The Bad Guy ✅. He is using and familiar with the bird ship; or at the insane alternative a TARDIS that completely disguised itself both outside and inside as neighbouring bird ship. There is no good guy answer for why he is in a bird ship. We never ask how the birds got here. But it was probably the bird ship. Bird ship.

-Meta so I can’t give it a point cus it’s beyond our scope but: “Oh you’re the Duchess! Of course, I should have scented you.” Not immediately recognising one of your own species when you should have sensed them thank god that’s not a mirror.

-His ship has an angular console in the middle of it with mirroring angular shape above it, the same taste in decor as the Master does with a TARDIS, like it’s almost designed to put you in mind of one, cute. ✅

-“This place is a mess.” Dhawan!Master’s TARDIS house and console room proper were a massive mess, these guys share housekeeping habits too. ✅

-“I live alone.” The Doctor notes this sort of ship would be piloted by two. Aw sad. Except he’s lying, he’s obviously lying, because he has dice on the table and he’s not playing D&D in his bird-shaped ship alone or with only two fucking people, is he? You need a group. Maybe of Bird roleplaying enthusiasts. Liar. Bad conduct. And failed to remove the evidence that contradicted the lie - dumbass Master behaviour. ✅

-Rogue declares “You’re a killer.” And the Doctor goes “Oh well,” before trying to sonic himself out of the situation, without actually defending himself against the charges. Maybe doesn’t feel the need to. For some reason.

-“What do those things do?” “It’s a trap. Triform on.” Now that could easily be a Master when he’s being sexier line, complete with his classic dumbass behaviour of declaring to the Doctor that something’s a trap before actually springing it. ✅

-He says he is going to send the Doctor to the incinerator. Why? ‘Uh he’s a bounty hunter’ Yeah. So why would he burn the evidence that would get him the money? Can’t just rock up and say ‘I dealt with it I pinkie-promise’.

-The Doctor attempts to sonic his way out of the trap before it finishes charging. Rogue says immediately that it’s deadlocked. The one thing that stops a sonic screwdriver. You can’t deny, that is the level of forethought the Master would manage to scrounge together. ✅

-Rogue scans the Doctor’s gadget, allowed in cus it doesn’t recognise it as dangerous device (oh the old ‘temporal grace field’ in the TARDIS, that’s a nice little mirror), and apparently the scans say it’s a screwdriver. I can’t prove this is a lie, but even we don’t think it’s a screwdriver, the last one with 14 literally was so much not a screwdriver it couldn’t unscrew screws, so unless it connects to the system with the name 15_screwdriver_1 again, feels too convenient. But a toxic Doctor fanboy would be able to identify what it was.

-I don’t know why we have a Sonic Monocular scene that cost us money and effort to produce when we could have just glanced across the table, but since all things that cost money in production have a reason, maybe the laser screwdriver style object we pan over? Point of interest but not a countable one, and either way the main argument is aligning character traits not convincing you he literally is the Master.

-“Roll for insight”, he cracked a smile, so surprising it uncloaked the Doctor’s full Scottish accent. This is the first positive character trait we have seen. We are just shy of halfway through the story.

-Telling the Doctor to “Roll for insight” after he sees the dice, is a dungeon Master’s instruction.

-of course he likes D&D, he plays it with the birds on the bird ship, he’s sent the birds he plays it with off out to continue the game in Bridgerton, he’s being their dungeon Master in real life too

-Seriously if you think Rogue is genuinely just a good guy bounty hunter and we should believe that uncritically, why would they tell us he likes roleplaying in D&D so much he picked his name from it? He roleplays. That’s one of the very few things we know about him. Why not chess? Or Minecraft? He could have liked Tetris? Why would he like roleplaying in the episode about roleplaying if him roleplaying isn’t relevant?

-The Master too adores roleplaying while also not being that great at it. Just putting that out there.

-“And it says that you’re wired for sound!” *sonics* ‘I Just Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue plays. *Rogue looks up in full wide-eyed uh-oh then turns to the Doctor* “Now this is a surprise.” - I mean, yeah, it is actually. I mean why would there be such anachronistic music playing in a ship owned by a guy from…well funny I guess he never said and the Doctor never asked. Well from a species like…well alright uh guess we didn’t do that either. Said ‘planet Earth’ that’s a pretty alien way of phrasing it. “Hey but in the Whoniverse Britney Spears’ Toxic is a traditional Earth ballad”, and maybe usually I’d let it go, but this is the second anachronistic bit of music we’ve heard, and the third we hear later is even more pointed to draw your attention to it. No. It’s weird. You know who it wouldn’t be weird to though? Our pop loving Master! And that’s the most Thoschei Thesis Statement song in Kylie’s repertoire! ✅ (Or Pantheon sharing daddy’s Spice Girls thing for 90’s pop). The Master would also absolutely have forgotten to delete his playback history before all this and pull an ‘oh shit’ face not from embarrassment but cus he knows this looks fucky because he doesn’t have a poker face he’s an idiot that panics the second anything in his plans ever goes wrong. ✅

-The Doctor mouthing: “Boy your loving is all I think about.” A sentiment that’s cropped up multiple times now this episode. Also in a Master mirror. Mhm. It’s a sickness babes.

-But hey we’re up to two positive character traits for Rogue so far - likes D&D and Kylie (both anachronisticly).The Doctor was willing to follow him out and blow him in the shrubbery for less, and honestly, respectable. “I just have a crush on prettyboy American Mr Darcy” is a defence, not a good one, but still.

-The Doctor and Master with one turning the music on and the other trying to turn it off would be a scene, you can imagine it, don’t lie, you’re imagining Missy and Twelve right now. (I think for annoyer-and-annoyed Three and Delgado could go either way depending on the episode. How appropriate for them.) ✅

-Also Rogue attempting to snatch the sonic screwdriver from the taller Doctor’s hand as he plays keep-away. Bitchy, gay, very character-breaking with the rest of the episode, deeply funny. The Master would. ✅ Then gathering himself, putting on the I’m In Charge voice and holding out his hand for the Doctor to hand it over and he does. (Huh, have you guys as a whole watched Delgado? Is this what creates the ‘the Master would never’? Cus actually if you’ve not seen these two just be a bit silly with each other and think that’s just fan characterisation that would actually explain a lot. Eh, but Missy and Twelve(/Clara) have some silly too, if not Three and Delgado level. Hm, to ponder).

-Psychic paper would also not work on the Master and he would say “it says ‘you’re hot’” to fluster the Doctor. Also we know he’s lying about it saying that, because he’s the one saying he’s seen it written, yet immediately follows up as the Doctor babbles with, Rogue: “Is it ‘you’re hot’, or I’m hot’?” Rogue would know which word was written the funny ambiguity is only from the non-seer’s side on hearing the other person say ‘you’re’. ✅

-“Suits you, flustered, it’s a good look for you.” Finally we get some fun confidence - which only appears the second he actually gets an upper hand with the Doctor on the back foot. Like someone else we know. Also yet again we have the phrase “a good look” for you in this episode all about shapeshifting. The phrase is applied to Rogue by the Doctor, to the Doctor from Rogue, and among the birds to each other. It establishes an equivalence between them, which is odd if Rogue is supposedly the only one not shapeshifting and roleplaying.

-The boss thing, callback to the Meep. Again this isn’t a ‘convince you it really is the Master’ thing, it’s character analysis that their traits overlap and he is a bad guy. But since we’re here, the Master is often technically working for someone else he intends to double-cross while thinking he’s ahead of them (nearly every time incorrectly), and we know he is/will be involved with the Pantheon — given this guy is a dice rolling gameplayer, the Master gambling and losing to the Toymaker, just vibes like it’d be out of order and future toothening imo — while there’s nothing to say our hidden ‘The Boss’ is Pantheon, I’m gonna Occam’s Razor and assume both those plot threads tie together, and for now that’s a reasonable way to explain how the Master got involved with the Toymaker at all.

-“I’m just so trigger happy.” Literally a Master line, and one we just had: “Oh, shoot. I should've said, somebody needs to cut you down to size, then zapped you. I was just trigger-happy. I'll use it next time.” ✅

-Floating Doctor heads literally the Master’s nightmare. Literally literally but I can’t remember where from and ‘master nightmare floating head doctor who’ gets you about as useless information as you’d imagine.

-Look. Rogue goes from confidently being about to kill the Doctor. The Doctor forces the scanner to show some other of his faces with the psychic paper, does his whole speech saying he’s “not a Chuldur. I’m something much older and far more powerful. A Lord of Time from the lost and fallen planet of Gallifrey” (this is a special surprise that will help us later) “Now, let me go, bounty hunter. We have work to do.” It is cringe, it is up himself and lording over others which is nearly always punished, the Doctor uses his special Deep And Majestic voice, and our stoic confident Rogue is suddenly wide-and-starry-eyed and breathily says, “Wow.” In the fakest response I have ever seen. Sadly I am not allowed more than one video. But oh my God, if you need a refresher it’s 18:14. And if you think it isn’t fake, yes you need the refresher.

You can’t be buying that OwO “Wow”. You think that was the turning point? I know I’m supposed to provide better analysis, but the writing is cringe, the acting is completely counter to what it was a moment ago for both parties, is over the top, and you think a bounty hunter would do a 180 from that?? Why?? ‘Oh you’re showing me the faces you’ve been before, yeah, I know, you’re a shapeshifter’. Nothing in the scanner says he’s a Time Lord, just the words from his mouth, why would he not be lying to save his own skin? And again, what would a Time Lord mean in the universe now? Who gives a shit, if you know what they are you know they’re all dead and reasonable shot you’re happy about that. Failing even that, Rogue is working for the same Boss as the Meep - if the word Time Lord rang a bell it’d be cus Fourteen caused problems last time ‘bring him to me’, surely. “Wow” uwu so cool! Really??? Nothing, not a thing Rogue has done so far, indicates he would be “Wow” to that. Not a damn thing.

Fakest response I’ve ever seen - Groff is actually a good actor so it’s supposed to be fake, at least one of the writers is award winning and may well be both, and Ncuti went out of his way to make it look like unnatural arrogance that doesn’t fit with the previous acting choices either in this scene or the whole show so far. So either all these people were crap at their jobs, or, it’s supposed to smell like bullshit. Would the Master look exactly as fake going “wow” because his character needs to have the heel-turn now? Yes ✅. And that you pulled this speech in front of him would complete its vast circle of cringe and roleplaying.

And what happens next? We cut straight to Ruby and Cosplaying Chuldur #5: [Giggling] “We can’t keep hiding like this!” You guys are smart, don’t pretend you’re not smart, if you follow me you know how good writing works, and are choosing to ignore the meta and mirrors and themes of the episode in a way you wouldn’t with a normal Rusty-written one that you’d sit and deeply analyse. Different writers yes, but smart and capable and award winning ones. These aren’t two disparate stories smushed together, they’re the same story in different keys, that’s the Rule One here.

Continuing, Ruby tries to convince High Society Lord- Lady that she doesn’t have to marry another Lord but could be a normal person, and then the Lady says “I’ll marry someone lesser, and smaller…it may not be love but perhaps a kindly smile at dinner…and then a shared grave” cus she doesn’t want a normal person, that’s what Ruby wants her to want, she wants to marry her kinda shitty Lord. Because that’s what this fantasy roleplay is all about.

Okay essay portion over we got out of hand, bullet points, re-engage.

-A motherfucking owl hoots, with the subtitle “owl hoots”, while Rogue recloaks the giant bird ship, giving us a second look at it again, making sure we get the full distance shot and shimmery cloaking effect to highlight the wings if they get lost in the shadows. Rogue. Is with. The birds. It’s a bird ship. There is no good guy explanation for the bird ship and its D&D equipment that can only be used by multiple people in our episode about obsessive-roleplaying birds.

-Rogue has now packed. ‘What?’ Rogue has now packed. He is now carrying a small bag, cross-body strap over his shoulder. We will not use anything from this bag or see him access it or acknowledge it at all. He’s just brought it with him. Perhaps like he knows he’s not going to be going back to the ship again. Curious.

Dice Bag propoganda post

-“You ready for this?” [low tone] “It’s not my first shed.” - woah woah woah, where’s all the sparkle of a minute ago babes, I thought you were ‘OwO wow’, if you know what a Time Lord is you know what a TARDIS is, but you’re not excited no mo? Or he’s doing it to deliberately make the TARDIS inside reveal cooler in contrast because he knows how much the Doctor likes this moment.

-“O my God” - haha namedrop. This happens to be Mastery behaviour cus this is just the Dhawan!Master pretending to be O entering the TARDIS scene. You were catfished by this before, come on babes. ✅

-“Come with me, and we’ll be, in a world of pure imagination…” - what are you imagining babes? Are ya roleplaying son? Cosplaying? Engaging in a bit of the old fantasy right now. No? He’s just feeling in a chocolatey kind of mood? Uhuh.

-“I’m in love!” - Now isn’t this a 180 on the character? From so reticent and ‘most serious man on earth’ to loudly declaring his love for the ship. Which just so happens to be the Doctor’s number one kink. And what does the TARDIS do in response? She growls. Rule one basic storytelling - the new boyfriend is evil, we knew cus the beloved dog growls at him. Rogue said he was in love and she growled. Gave Jack a bar, an ensuite, and let him tinker with her insides. But to Rogue she growls. Baddie. ✅

-The TARDIS lights are in a red-and-white checkerboard pattern. Our dimensionally transcendental TARDIS is literally a 5d chessboard. I won’t count it, but come on.

-Speaking of dimensionally transcendental, that’s exactly what Rogue called her. Yet didn’t anticipate a TARDIS thirty seconds ago. It takes work to argue he knows about dimensionally transcendental spacetime ships but not know of TARDISes that Time Lords travel in, but does know enough about Time Lords to be dazzled by them when he clearly isn’t of earthly Lords. Much easier to go ‘eh’ keeping the story straight when you’ve got extra knowledge you’re pretending you don’t have, but also need to come across as intelligent, is hard. We’ve all played D&D or at least Let’s Pretend. It’s hard. Lying is hard.

-After a quick “and so clean” back-and-forth, Rogue runs up the stairs, hand on the bannister and leans on the railing. The TARDIS growls again, louder, like a whale. Like she did in the episode with the Not-Things, and with The Maestro. (Arguably her ‘Pantheon’ noise?) Both of them notice. Rogue’s expression immediately turns from an awed open-mouthed smile to blankness, with a head tilt and turn, slowly coming back. “What was that?” The Doctor claims indigestion and she doesn’t like bounty hunters. Not true of the ones with hearts of gold. We’ve seen her with Jack, and River, and she adores them. “It’s the moral void - no offence.” So you’re admitting it. Stating it directly. He’s not got a heart of gold, the omnipotent spacetime ship can see that he’s a moral void. That is what you have said. ✅

-“And this, from the ancient and fallen world of Gallifrey…Where the hell is that?” *buzzer* Wrong. You tried to be clever and aren’t - that wasn’t the line. The line was ‘lost and fallen’ not ‘ancient and fallen’. Oh but Gallifrey is ancient though- *buzzer* He says in the same sentence he doesn’t know of Gallifrey. And yet, he got all wide and starry-eyed over a Time Lord, when he is saying he knows nothing about them. Why? Because he can’t keep his character straight pun intended, which is a character trait of another undercover ex-agent we know. ✅

-“Well I might take you one day.” - bananas response by the Doctor for multiple reasons. ‘I’ll take you to my lost and fallen homeworld’ ok what? Second, Fifteen has for once been very open about his loss in this regard, said repeatedly that it’s gone, and how much it hurts him. Said it to Ruby, to Carla, to complete strangers. But here he’s out of character. Why? Maybe he’s roleplaying one that doesn’t hurt. Maybe because he thinks it’s the Master and is fucking with him. But I’m going with the roleplaying and saying what this character feels. Fucky from the Doctor rather than Rogue.

-“In a few minutes it will no longer be a deathtrap, you are welcome.” [Rogue casually] “Why, what does it do now?” This is all important but also pause to reflect for a moment on whether the character we saw up to this point would have handed his essential survival and work gear to a shapeshifter who claimed to be a Time Lord with zero proof and let him just modify it however. ‘He’s just a very trusting bounty hunter, is all.’ I mean he wasn’t at the start of all this though, was he.

-Doctor boundaries: I can’t let you kill it, “So instead we will transport it to a random barren dimension, no-one to hurt, no way back.” Passing over the obvious, the Doctor is the one programming this. We agree we’re probably not literally installing a randomiser onto the device, we’re just randomly picking one and assigning those coordinates. How do you know it’s barren? Oh the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental we just reminded people, so she can probably see, she’s picking it. Ok. …So there’s no reason she wouldn’t have a record of what she set it to. That’s information we should have. Ok. Which are the letters Rogue says. Ok. What about your bounty job? Not even a response to the no-killing? Or that this seems worse if anything? No. Just ok. We’re saying that a lot in this episode. Ok. Just going along with things. Ok. I know what that word means. Ok.

-“Who did you lose?” “How do you know?” “Cus I know.” Cus we covered this earlier actually when he mentioned the usually two-person’s for captaining an asteroid hopper. Forgot? No worries Rogue, been a long ten minutes. No attempt to make a proper backstory just stares at the Doctor like a cow looking at an oncoming train and goes, “There was- …Yeah. We travelled together, we had fun, you know. And then a day came along, and at the end of that day…I lost them.” Now if this was the Master you’d be saying no shit he can’t provide details and only parrot what the Doctor always says in these situations, he is a moral void, bro has one friend and only knows what it’s like to love that one friend obsessively, he can’t even empathise enough to improvise a backstory that feels realistic. Maybe only lies have details but you can argue my guy didn’t even commit to a gender. It’s also a valid read to assume he’s just short on words at losing his fellow they/them bounty-hunter crook friend. Maybe the OwO Time Lord thing is enough to make him open up a little even if the Doctor’s done nothing to earn that trust yet. But both work just fine, if it was the Master it’d be how he’d do it. ✅

-“What about you?” The Doctor’s expression hardens here. Maybe cus it just hurts. Maybe for other reasons. [coldly, we linger on him] “I lost everyone.” Rogue still with too-wide-cow-train eyes . “But at the party I saw you with that woman...” That tone. And how we immediately wave his ‘Best Friend’ aside. Look, again it’s a watch the scene. These two are good actors, they’re excellent. And down to the ‘huh’ head tilt before Groff’s line with every microexpression he is radiating a guy playing a role while still trying to poke his roleplaymate in his open wound with a stick. There has never been just one layer in anything in the show so far why would it start now in the episode about cosplaying people to death do you part, why? Why?? The one mirror everyone can accept is Captain Jack and he was literally a con man. This is a con man you are being conned. If you look at his face and think he’s being earnest you are extra weak to con men do not give strangers your credit card details. Didn’t you have jerk friends? We all had jerk friends. That is the expression the jerk friend made when they were just asking questions *blink* *blink* don’t get upset. Or Groff is a garbage actor. But he isn’t. Just the character he’s playing is crap at acting. Go back and watch O, the cow-eyes are textbook liar, any liar, but especially the Master ✅. They’re doing a scene, it is diegetic. The acting is diegetic.

-“You don’t have to stay a bounty hunter, [beat pause] Rogue.” You can say it’s just cus he knows Rogue isn’t his real name but the Doctor’s usually fine with that sort of thing. “You could travel with me[…]the worlds I could show you…” “And what if I like what I do? Would you travel with me?” “That is quite an argument. ((No it isn’t he doesn’t like bounty hunters)) I’ll tell you what, when we both get out of this, let’s argue across the stars.” This is the Doctor and Master scene, we do these scenes every incarnation all the way since half-share in the universe, you don’t have to think he’s the Master but we know these lines damn well are. ✅

-They nearly kiss but the TARDIS cockblocks them with a beep of being finished with the rewiring, because again, she doesn’t like the moral void, and does not want the Doctor to stick his dick in it. And what does the Doctor say as he steps back from their almost kiss? “The trap is ready.”

-[Rogue is sans new bag for the indoor scenes here, I believe this is just a costuming error that happened from them probably reshooting the dancing a bajillion times, it will come back when they’re back outside again and in every subsequent scene onwards]

-They meet back up with Rubes and Roleplaying Chuldur #5. Ruby asks a very good question. “Ok, but what does anyone get out of killing these people? I mean I know they’re posh nobs and all that, but we found the housekeeper dead. I mean why would anybody do that?” And the Doctor, instead of saying ‘it’s how they steal their bodies they’re shapeshifters’ says the meta-important answer first. “The dance. The drama. The emotion.” THIS IS ABOUT GALLIFREY. High society here is a mirror for the aforementioned fallen Gallifrey. The Master didn’t just genocide the Time Lords, he killed every Shobogon/lay-Gallifreyan without Child-stolen regenerations, he killed every TARDIS, every living thing on the planet. Why? The drama.

-“It’s cosplay. All of this is cosplay.”

-The Doctor turns to a non-plussed looking Rogue and says: “You said that a Chuldur comes to a planet and tries on people like outfits just for the fun of it.” …Wh- when? When did he say that?? (I’m being facetious - he doesn’t). Also does that seem rich coming from the ‘multiple costume changes per episode’ Doctor? Mirrors.

-(If the background music here is Vitamin String Quartet I don’t recognise it unfortunately. Fun Fact, I used them exclusively as background music for my own wedding, cus I thought it’d be fun for people to try and guess the songs if things got boring and it’d be a conversation starter. Ate my wedding cake to Poker Face. We like resonating with the universe here.)

-“Those TV signals beam out across the stars.” “What are these T-V signals?” I can’t add more than one video, so if you’re not willing to take the description on faith it’s 24:45. But watch Rogue here. He slightly turns to her with a little glare and that exact same frustrated little sigh he did with the Duchess corpse earlier. Dungeon Master’s stupidest soldier? Cus you’d think if he was annoyed she was being anachronismatised (real word), he’d have given the Doctor the shut up glare but doesn’t give him bother for it at all. Maybe he’s just a conflict averse bounty hunter. But that’s what the Master would have done, he has low lackey/idiot friend tolerance. Both reads valid. ✅

-The Doctor dances, we know what that’s a metaphor for and what episode it’s from. Good thing Rogue knows all the moves ahead of time.

-Just putting the reminder here cus there’s no clear place - I go with Master because Dungeon Master, I’m A Bad Guy, the mirrors *gestures at everything above* etc. but mostly because this is a deliberate attempt to cosplay Jack. Thus it requires someone who has watched the show. The Pantheon, the Master seems like a good bet, however, could admittedly be Chulder #6 (and they’re just supposed to be a very strong but purely mirror for the Master) and because of their different dimension-ness has watched the show on TV and has figured out how their self-insert is gonna bang the Doctor. But one way or the other, our baddie here has seen Doctor Who The TV Show in the same way the birds watched Bridgerton and this is an intrinsic part of this that shouldn’t be separated. That we have a fanboy who is deliberately cosplaying Jack and invoking him and references to that episode is important.

-Rogue: “So what is this ancient Earth tradition of cosplay?” No-one said it was ancient (twice now), no-one said it was Earth, no-one said it was tradition, even Ruby had to clarify ‘so you mean it’s literally dressing up and playing at Bridgerton?’ Rogue almost certainly already knows what it means. And we know the birds do. This is our baddie having fun. Because as the Doctor says next: “Oh, Rogue. It’s when fans dress up as characters that they like.” (Point to Pantheon, because roleplaying the Master would be dressing up as a character from Doctor Who that they like).

-General note again: both prior to but especially 13’s era really spent some subtext time building up the whole ‘The Doctor’ and ‘The Master’ are roles they play. If you know you know. We’ve been continuing on Chibs’s themes. Just reminding.

-The Doctor takes the male i.e. leading position judging by the other couples visible. As per traditional Thoschei.

-Lights dim in our usual diegetic/non-diegetic playing that we’ve been doing. Soft point to Pantheon - remember if The Rogue’s theme is Roleplaying it must be a double bluff for him to actually be being skilled at it, and he is cosplaying the Master cosplaying the Doctor, with the conceit that the Doctor gets this but not that it’s someone cosplaying the Master, thus he’s winning. If he is Pantheon this is the only potential evidence of fuckery besides having brought non-native-dimensional creatures into ours, which we do have other explanations for.

-“We need to have a big fight so one of us can storm out and the Duchess follow us.” “The Chuldur cosplay, not me.” Mhmm. You had D&D dice. But regardless if you buy that, we have now spontaneously swapped from engaging starry-eyed Personality B, back to Personality A: strong and silent.

-“How dare you my Lord! You would ask me to give up my title? My fortune? But what future can you promise me? *Rogue shaking his head, not good at deviations from the script, nor is the Master fwiw* ✅ “You cad! Tell me what your heart wants, or I shall turn my back forever!” “I…” Fifteen whispers, “Say anything.” If you are not internally writing the pre-show Doctor/Master fanfiction I cannot help you. Jo describing the Master like a jilted lover or whatever the hell it was. But at least here, with admittedly a little open-mouthed smirky smile, Rogue gets down on one knee and offers his ring. (From non-marriage hand, 4th finger, don’t completely see him pull it off but he was wearing it in the dance scene). If we are re-writing history with this cosplay, which given the Doctor’s reaction he certainly seems to consider it meaningful, that’s definitely what the Master would do here. ‘This is what I wanted you to do back then.’ ✅

-Obviously the Master has used that sort of flat-topped large round ring before, we’ve had the callback to it with the red-nailed woman and the tooth just recently. The insignia is not entirely decipherable. Most default I’ve seen is an angel (Master coding, especially if we’re wearing it upside-down hoo), I’ve also seen a ‘rod of asclepius with 3d coiling tails’ (A Doctor fanboy who has come prepared for this moment), and just plain bird of some kind given the little wings.

-The Doctor says a very genuine “Sorry I can’t- …I ca-” and runs off. (Which definitely happened the first time). This almost certainly isn’t River trauma, Twelve wore the implied wedding ring until it fell off when he regenerated. And we’re just supposed to be making a scene and this is an obvious way to do it - he’s already nearly kissed him and invited him, the Doctor put relationship on the cards, and could easily still be haha fun joke but you are still coming right? If it was just Yaz Making Everything Feel Like Touching A Hot Mind Stove then the near kiss feels like that would have been included in the trauma reaction. So presumably engagement based triggering specifically. Probably not from Cameca either. That had cocoa involved.

-Rogue seems a little surprised at this reaction. Fair all round, the Master might not have expected it either, but also the sort of thing a fanboy might not have been able to pre-empt - it wasn’t in the show after all.

-They actually join back together almost immediately and they run outside, so it wasn’t that overwhelming.

-“Oh, we must play them!” - no ‘aha’s’ from the peanut gallery, we already saw the birds can potentially not recognise each other in costume, and in the baddie camp (bird ship, he’s in a bird ship) we can be pretty sure that Rogue didn’t arrive here looking like Mr Darcy since none of the others were pre-costumed and just nicked people when they got here. (number 2 shows they didn’t pre-organise characters - “nice costume”). If Chulder #6 - nicked a guy. If Pantheon - conjured himself a bespoke Darcy form. If the Master potentially still body-stealing or simply we’re cloaked - remember the electronic interference from the start that pointed the Doctor to him specifically rather than the Chuldur? Dhawan!Master previously cloaked himself, plenty of scope there. (Why would the Master need to cloak? If the Doctor’s already familiar with his form. Either from other plans or the fact that, well, there’s a world where this could literally still be Dhawan!Master.)

-The Master nicks bodies by the way, for New Who-onlys. We haven’t actually done it for a while, and for earring interference reasons I don’t believe we’re doing it now, but it’s actually a Classic Who staple.

-“Now keep the Duchess talking, a Chuldur is strong, and if she starts to change you it won’t stop.” First, now that’s a meta, second, do we want to add a sketchy point for the gendering of the Chuldur? Cus we’ve seen one of them explicitly say they’re fine with different bodies (‘oh I wanted to be the Duchess’)? Hm. It’s an assumption on thin ice but I’ll allow it. We don’t ask Rogue why he knows so much about the Chuldurs considering they’re different dimension beings. There are non-problematic options there to be sure. But will say that Dhawan!Master was previously messing around with different dimension beings hoping to find out if they were what the Doctor was, got trapped in their dimension at the end, and these ones are literal shapeshifters. If it is the Master, he has plenty of reason to be here with them and know a lot about them. ✅ If he is a Chuldur, well, obvious reason.

-[Rogue now has his bag back on. This is why I believe it’s a costuming error it wasn’t on indoors just then - the TARDIS and real outdoor areas were obviously filmed in very different times and places, the fact the bag travelled to both is suggestive that it was clearly supposed to be a part of his outfit at this point. BTS: the indoor and outdoor scenes were obviously filmed at different times, (3 weeks of night shoots oof) they’re not actually walking in and out of the building. But it’s also a deliberate costuming addition after the ship because he wasn’t wearing it in the night scenes where he’s holding the Doctor at gunpoint or anything. Tl;dr - no bag before the “Wow” heelturn in the ship, carries bag after.]

-There’s not one but multiple of the Chuldur shapeshifters. A ‘family’ according to Rogue. (Who are playing two characters that are getting married. Oh Doctor-Master mirrors, never change). Something you’d think would be on the bounty hunter note - are you just getting paid for the first one? Can you claim extra if you make multiple runs? These are important questions. Or not.

-“I want to be the Doctor.” …How does she know it’s the Doctor? ‘Uh, the Duchess was introduced to him earlier.’ Yeah. The Duchess. Who died. Childur 1 was still the housekeeper when that happened. She knows who the Doctor is.

-Doctor-Master inverting with the “Run.” “I’m the one who usually says that.” Our beloved theme returns to us. Of course maybe it’s just the cosplaying self-inserting whatever could be any baddie by which i mean really only Pantheon or Chulder #6. Bird ship. The Master was literally cosplaying as the Doctor the last time we saw him, like physically in the Doctors clothes. And probably underwear. Does anyone in this essay smoke weed?

-“Breaking spines! Removing tonsils! Live vivisection!” Gallifrey Time Lords mirror previously engaged, re-engage plus Timeless Child. But we uh haven’t had them do any of that stuff yet and they already suck people dry (don’t. I think it’s meant to be a kind of bolus, if you know your birds of prey) so I don’t know why this line is here. Actually maybe I do - now they’re roleplaying playing scary beasts hunting prey, doesn’t mean they’re actually going to do any of those things. Removing tonsils stands out. …We have a rogue (can’t say that now. Odd?) line from Ruby at the beginning about falling over in front of a fit dentist, the Master’s in the Toymaker’s gold tooth, tonsils feel adjacent, it’s almost certainly just funny, and it is, but if that bangs any bricks together in someone’s head go to town.

-I think the “breaking spines! removing tonsils! live vivisection” line is there to showcase that they are roleplaying Baddies. Because while murdering, they have done literally nothing like that, and it’s the sort of silly thing a child would say when playing a monster trying to think of the nastiest things a monster could do). “We still have the big finale wedding to come. And then… London. We can play our games on a magnificent scale. Parliament first, then royalty. I can be King. And we can start wars with the French and the Spanish and the Portuguese, and everyone who doesn’t look British.” This is their spitballing Season Two. As another point to all being one character and that them being Secret Monsters may be accounted for in the game - Emily is always called Emily whether humanning or in bird form.

-The Doctor and Rogue hide in the carriages. (Matilda style). If you’re building that pre-show Thoschei story, hiding from Time Lords in a TARDIS was probably already there, but if it wasn’t, now it is. Or hurr durr hiding in a carriage is funny I don’t know.

-“Back to the house. We must advance with the wedding! That should get them out of hiding.” …Bestie? What does that mean? Why would that get what we were led to believe that you believe are ‘two random interesting people one introduced to you earlier as the Doctor’ out of hiding? They have skedaddled so as not to be eaten by birds, right? They’re gone, lassie, why would they come back? …Unless she already knew who a character called the Doctor was before they were introduced? And that the Doctor’s M.O. will bring him back? Cus they’ve been watching more than one show.

-We modify the transporter: “I can make this transport gate carry four.” “What if there’s more?” “Right…Six. Six maximum.” How convenient. Personally don’t feel that worry is realistic for the character to have (while acceptable to write), and that if Rogue was as he was originally portrayed, he would be saying “Worst comes to worst, I could always…” *lifts jacket* *Doctor has brief moment of distracted horniness* “Nobody is going to be shooting anybody.” But he’s so perfect pacifist for the Doctor so quickly, I guess he just never would. Of course if he’s on their side, especially if also a Chuldur, he’s not wanting to kill any of them.

-Also feels like a Dungeon Master-whisper in the ear the Doctor just goes with: What if there’s more birds? *sets it to 4* What if there were more. *immediately sets it to 6 skipping 5 entirely*. (We talked about Missy’s comment of there always being a way out being potentially meaningful re: the Master’s traps for the Doctor; and counterbalancing the Doctor giving them a way out ‘come with me don’t be evil’. This would be a fun thing to do with that. Trying to create and order a good story and satisfying conclusion based on the Doctor and other players’ choices - pure DMing work at its finest.).

-“And I thought I was interesting. A bookish little wallflower risking it all for a secret love… But you. You are wild, and brave, and rude, living a life of adventure” again you don’t have to be team Master to enjoy the Gallifrey mirror. The potential in these mirrors for the Master is mmm gorgeous and I’m so here for it. Going back in time to when One ran away with Susan and slapping him for not proposing because he would have come with you, we could fix the universe, we-

-Question, cus I’m bored and this has become sort of a general analysis essay: When the birds transformed there were at least some people inside who screamed, you hear them. …Why is the party still here and going on and everyone’s chilling. Eh maybe Dot And Bubble explained that. Or maybe it was delayed screaming at seeing the gays. That’d be a Time Lord mirror. A marriage proposal probably gets you arrested for public indecency.

-The birds speak English, French, and German. Or at least a few words thereof. Multidimensional telly and I’m surprised it’s got foreign channels? How anglocentric of me. *shakes head*.

-“This is the endgame, Chuldur’s leave no witnesses ((yes they do they just abandoned bodies everywhere)), they’ll slaughter everyone.” If he’s not a bad guy then why, why the fuck, did he spend about fifteen minutes fucking around and not shouting “If we don’t stop the Chuldur they’re going to massacre everybody the second they stop having fun! Yeah, I’m bringing the gun!” like you mention this now??? Of course he mentions it now, he’s building dramatic tension because he is like our favourite dramatic bitch. ✅

-R:“I’m sorry.” 15:“They got her.” Ruby cosplaying as a Chuldur cosplaying as Ruby (see you thought my Pantheon cosplaying as the Master cosplaying as Jack was too much - we did double-layering in the episode itself) enters the room. Rogue gives his line but immediately turns away and watches only the Doctor and his reaction (who stares for a moment then gets up and walks away). Autism collective that we all are, this:

is not an expression of someone whose heart is breaking for his new friend. Just so we’re clear. Which is an odd choice for a new love interest - no sympathetic pain, eyes closing, not even a pat on the arm. He’s just observing what the Doctor does, and then gets up and follows the Doctor out. ✅ If he’s a good guy (he’s not, bird ship) you’re not selling him well. And if he’s a bad guy turning noble, he doesn’t have that part down yet. (Also Rogue said he’d tried looking for Ruby but they’d locked the doors. They manage to get through the section they’re in just fine. YMMV. Not enough on its own imo).

-“Madam. Your Grace …Your Birdiness. I cannot sanction wedlocke…between creatures from Hell.” They let the vicar be the one with the banger line, damn. Only one with a spine. Dead obviously but getting a high-five from some angel out there. (Me turning that into a vicar’s reaction to being asked to wed the Doctor and Master, whatever the fuck they are.)

-Speaking of which, here we explicitly see a Chuldur kill a man and copy his outfit but not his face. The Chuldur. Have no difference. Between body. And clothing. *flashback the Not-Things, and Fourteen regenerating* If you weren’t sure they were mirrors, you should be now.

-“How long do they live for?” “Chuldur?” “Mhm.” *Rogue comes up from behind to stand alongside him where he can see him.* “They have a lifespan of about six-hundred years.” “Good, good. That’s a long time to suffer.” A slight negative in ‘this can be validly read as the Master’ behaviour, because this yields only a tiny expression change of a slight raise of eyebrows, not a wild-eyed smile, and I don’t think the Master’s been able to restrain himself that well since he was Delgado. God what that man could convey with an eyebrow. Also we’ve all agreed that the funniest thing is that the plan doesn’t even change, he just knows how long their torment will last now and is happy about it, and if you ever need to explain the horror underpinning the Doctor it’s that.

-Now this is a hell of a thing to reveal about yourself to your brand new love interest and companion. That you’re down for some serious torture. Thirteen went well out of her way to be a monster only when they couldn’t see her. (Works nicely as a soft threat though. ‘If you’re involved with killing mine, I will torture you til you die or the sun does’. Good to have boundaries in a relationship.)

-“Taste his inhuman scent.” - A) Nice double-meaning line considering *gestures above*, B) Confirmation she knew earlier the Doctor wasn’t human, and so combining that with the belief he would come back if they started the wedding…

-“And I am one of a kind.” “He is quite unique…” Hold this in your mind we’ll be back to it in just a minute. *

-The birds immediately recognise the transport trap, by name, and that there’s only one third of it. Which would make a lot of sense if Rogue and the birds’ ship are the same bird ship so they’ve seen it before. Can’t be that they’ve encountered Just A Bounty Hunter Rogue before - he ‘didn’t know’ there was more than one, there’s no visual recognition, and previously it led to an incinerator not something escapable from.

-That we don’t see presumably Rogue placing the other traps, not even a glimpse of someone shuffling in the background, is to me extremely interesting. Not only like with the Carla flashback scene, playing with the unseen, but perhaps critically that this certain someone might know where the cameras are…

-Were you going “why don’t they just take their shoes off” when they got stuck in the triform? Well makes sense that they didn’t now, right?! Cus we know now there’s no difference to them between their clothing and their skin! …Admittedly Ruby…hopefully is fine and as human…well maybe not human…hopefully she’s whatever she was at the start of the episode. I, uh, maybe would mark that down as a concern though.

-Ruby’s chemistry with Lady roleplaying #5 was rewarded by attempted murder as Emily sought to turn into her. That happens a lot here. Let’s not worry about them as the partner mirror for Doctor-Rogue. Or what just happened with Dhawan!Master and 13. If you consider ‘Poker Face’ to be obviously meta-relevant here but ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ not earlier, question yourself.

-* I told you we’d be back. “She smells like a Chuldur.” “Idiot! It’s a false scent from that cheap psychic jewellery!” - The Doctor smells unique but this doesn’t mean they aren’t palling around with the Master. We’re specifically given a reason for this to not be an issue and well, I guess that would explain why she gets earring interference when Rogue’s around huh? If they’re using the same technology. (Same goes for a Chuldur faking being a human etc.)

-Do I believe the Master could perform a fireman’s lift to yeet #5, yes surprisingly, he is actually physically strong, a fencer, rower, and it’s been noted before. (Ainley’s six pack haunts me still). Dhawan!Master in particular has lugged corpses. It’s only running he doesn’t do/have stamina for. However, do I think he would risk it in-situ just for cool points? Don’t know. However, for this free bit of mental torture to work, the final bird has got to be in the enclosure. If it’s not all or nothing, then of course the Doctor would release Ruby. To get the Doctor to have to choose either to kill his companion or the world? He would carry the earth like Atlas. ✅

And that’s what he immediately proceeds to do with no hesitation. ✅

“Doctor, press send. We’ve only got one chance.” “I can’t.” “Press. The button.” *The Doctor openly, loudly panicking* “It will send Ruby!” “No, Doctor, it’s fine.” “NO! No! No! No!” “If you don’t press send, the Chuldur will escape and Ruby dies anyway.”

The Rogue that you think is real is not doing this. Is not convincing the Doctor to kill his companion. He is taking out his gun, and shooting the struggling birds while they are still stuck to the glue trap. It’s not a nice thing. But it is the Heart Of Gold thing. But he’s not that. He’s just The Bad Guy. ✅

“They’ll kill us. Then this house. Then London. Then the world. You know that. You absolutely know it.”

He doesn’t. The Doctor doesn’t know a thing about the Chuldur other than that they are shapeshifters and what he’s seen. How does he even know what London is?? And he wasn’t there for the scene where the Chuldur said it themselves.

He can’t have logicked that out. There were a few deaths sure, but one housekeeper and a duchess not only isn’t ‘these are extremely dangerous and fast killing machines’-worthy, that leap doesn’t make sense.

It’s not even true in their possibly-just-roleplay Baddie Plan. ‘And we’ll start wars with x y and z and everyone who isn’t British! Bloodshed, cannons, gunpowder!’, like that is a lonnnnnnng plan. Like I said before this situation is no ‘we don’t have time to run away and regroup’ thing, they’re slow killers, and especially with Ruby with battle mode engaged she at least would be fine. But it’s that taking over London bit. Very specifically. He claims he hasn’t met them, doesn’t know how many there are, he’s not admitting to any prior knowledge of these guys. So the only way he comes up with that line is if he already knew what they wanted out of their campaign in the first place.

They have not yet proven any more dangerous than any human gunman, in fact less, they clearly can’t spray bullets, they kill one at a time and so far only people they’ve wanted the appearance of in some way. They have been in rooms crammed with people who survived the encounter. Are you going to have to leg it to the TARDIS to regroup? Yes. Would people die? Sure. But probably not her, she’s fast and has a battle bot controlling her movements. Multiple posh nobs have died already and we only got a little sad over the housekeeper. Our hearts will survive. The one putting the pressure on the situation is not the Chuldur. It’s Rogue. There is no time limit. No rush. It’s waiting for you to press the button on the Laser TCE- I mean control stick. But Rogue is not giving him a second to think. ✅

*Rogue approaches, step by step.*

“So can you do it?”

GUYS, your supposed hero is TORTURING the Doctor, who is fucking ugly crying his two broken little hearts out. ✅

“Can you lose your friend to save the world.”

‘I am very sane and staring at you in a normal way the normal amount. Choose to kill your friend yourself, or choose to allow the genocide of every person on this planet including her. I want to see you choose, choose, choose.’

“Ok, but what does anyone get out of killing these people? I mean I know they’re posh nobs and all that, but we found the housekeeper dead. I mean why would anybody do that?”

“Remember how we used to run through those streets as children? The alleys where we'd hide from Borusa as we skipped classes? All gone now. Come on, ask me why I did this.”

*Sobbing Doctor shakes his head, making his decision* [quietly] “No.”

*Rogue with hitherto unseen tenderness, wiping one of his tear away* “I know.”

No, he doesn’t! If he is a random fucking bounty hunter he does not in fact know that. He knows because he already knows the Doctor. From real life or from being a bad guy who just kind of likes to watch TV - which actually I guess does describe the Master✅✅

*Rogue kisses him. Because a tortured ugly crying Doctor is hot to him.* ✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅

(If I need to explain why the Master snogging the Doctor here, or the fact that he genuinely loves him in his own twisted way, you can’t be helped, or maybe were just a Ten viewer when you were 8 so missed stuff, and have watched nothing else in the show and just stumbled back in here - go watch Twelve there’s Simm!Master in it for you, and Thirteen’s second series onwards).

Live ‘About To Be Ripped Apart By Murderous Birds In Another Dimension If She Even Physically Survives The Trip’ Slug Reaction. Ruby straight up like ‘well at least he won’t be alone’, babes we’re gonna get you some sertraline, a psychologist, it’s gonna be ok, you’re worthy of life, we’re gonna get you help, we have a therapy circle.

The grin and hoppidy-skip jump Rogue does here when they break for air and he’s holding the Laser TCE/controller is a level of happiness we have yet to see from Rogue. A still cannot do it justice. (40:17 - though if you’re going, may as well watch the whole torturing scene from 39:00). It’s a bit more than a wee smile.

Then Rogue leaps over and knocks Ruby out of the triangle! Something he could apparently have done at literally any time before or during torturing the Doctor to his breaking point!

Why can he do this when she is molecularly bonded to the floor? We don’t know! It’s not explained! But he clearly knows his fucking device doesn’t he?! Why didn’t he tell the Doctor at any point that it would be possible to get Ruby out with a thing called a matter exchange? Who knows?! Maybe it slipped his mind til the last moment? The Doctor being the one to take her place would sure have been an answer, but oh well!

‘Maybe he didn’t want to risk his life for Ruby’s unless he really had to.’ - Then that’s shit hero and love interest behaviour isn’t it! But since it says “Matter Exchange” I’m pretty sure he could also have knocked Ruby out of the triangle using that vicar corpse on the floor a few feet away, then neither would have to die! So he must be real sure he’s gonna be ok! ✅

He’s so happy and chill. The music is happy too. Rogue jauntily throws the bouquet - ahh look who’s next to be married *wink*. This is the happiest and funnest and most genuine he’s looked the entire episode. Almost like he got exactly what he wanted! ✅

“Find me.” *click*

Ruby you’re such a dick, why couldn’t you be as happy as him? If you’d trusted the Doctor to find you instead of you die by bird and/or dimensional anomaly before he got there this could have been such a peppy scene the whole time. It’s almost like Rogue is absolutely certain he’s not going to die doing this. You know I know a character who’s been transported to a different dimension at the end of his episode before and got out of that just fine! ✅

Almost like this was the end of a live D&D session he was hosting. That’s a wrap everyone, great job. Just imagine what I’ve got in store for us next week. Good thing the car transports all six of us together! Well done for not panicking, screaming, or interrupting what I had going on with the Doctor at the end, and trusting this wasn’t going to teleport you into an incinerator. Thanks for playing along, excellent improv as always, I’ll be marking your RP points highly.

And then the Doctor screamed “I’ll find you! I promise I’ll find you!” it was very romantic, and then he got out the sonic and started scanning everything for traces, anything, he was still upset and panicky of course, I mean his new love interest had just snogged him and given his own life to save Ruby’s. But Rogue had believed in him to do this impossible impossible task so he would. So he and Ruby ran back to the TARDIS as fast as they could, maybe she’d picked something up or *gasp* she was the one who configured the trap in the first place so maybe there would be a record of what random dimension she chose! Except she wouldn’t let them access it for some reason and she kept growling and the Doctor was crying with anger and-

No wait, none of that happened, sorry, not sure why I thought it did.

Actually the Doctor went to comfort Ruby and her comfort him, sombrely put the bouquet down where Rogue was. (And left the trap technology behind. So got engaged and invented a glue/tarmac trap.) The Doctor remotely sent the Bird Ship to orbit around the moon, “so it can wait…as long as it takes”. In the 19th century. …Babe, you know they can see the moon, right? They have telescopes. This is a mavity waiting to happen.

(Genuinely choosing not to think about how we last left Dhawan!Master messing about with the two moons in the 1900’s, I’mma be real, I don’t know what was going on and when there, hope it doesn’t fit in actually because I’m not gonna get it. If he’s the Master he turns up, that’s all I ever need to know.)

-“Can’t we use the TARDIS and go find him?” Ruby asks. Good question. If the TARDIS can determine whether a dimension is uninhabited or not that’s definitely gonna narrow it down. Maybe she could outright search for him? If she, you know, didn’t hate his moral void.

-“There are as many dimensions as there are atoms in the universe.” *Ruby arm cuddles* “Anyway! It is what it is, so onwards, fine, next.” So is it ‘as long as it takes’ or are you not even going to try and find him? That and the bouquet really feels like you’re giving him up for dead and just hoping he finds his way back himself some day. It’s not what you were told to do. You can wear that ring and salute the sky with a smile all you like. He said “Find him.” Bad fiancé behaviour.

Cus the thing is, here is the ‘uwu small bean Rogue’ paradox. If this is just a normal guy, he’s not making it back on his own. He’s dying to the birds. The Doctor isn’t looking for him, and Rogue clearly didn’t think he could return on his own - he says “Find me” not “I’ll be back”. So if you believe we’re going to see Rogue again…he’s going to not be a normal guy, but be the type who can survive and make his own way back from a wrong dimension surrounded by free murderous birds. *piano rendition of The Cat Came Back starts playing* ✅

But luckily he’s not normal. He’s a man/bird with so much forethought he knew he wasn’t going to be coming back to his bird ship and took whatever it was that can save him from a teleport trap from the spaceship with him in that bag. Always have a getaway plan. That’s Masterful thinking. Unless you just think he wanted his wallet and keys on him ✅ (Point against Pantheon though - pretty sure being able to move reality around doesn’t require props. But then D&D. Maybe he just likes props.)

-“Doctor, you don’t have to be like this.” “I have to be like this because this is what I’m like.” And in our story about roleplaying, shouting out our longtime theme of the most important roleplaying of all, that we follow a character who’d rather be called Lulubelle playing The Doctor™. Doctor Who is a show.

-The fires whole and reflected and internal everywhere, like our Gallifrey mirror is on fire.

-Final additional literal-meta that may be of interest: the costume designer said Ncuti’s outfit is designed as a nod to Three - the original Thoschei pairing origin. We canonise Shalka!Doctor - famously and frankly exclusively known as ‘that animated one who made a robot boyfriend Master to be his Companion’, with lines in the episode Cornell said was indeed intended to suggest a relationship there and would have continued had that pilot been picked up. Relevant or not we’ll see.

And to all those who read that and yet still think that I am just very cynical and mean, and he really does have a single heart of gold, he’s just got flat affect and is socially awkward and autistic maybe and-

His ship IS A FUCKING BIRD. OWL HOOTS.

🎉 You did it! You read the full analysis! Great job! You passed Media Overanalysis, Rogue Edition. I told you it was a 10K. Look at how much you just read that had already been effectively covered in the first minute with just one thing.

“I’m The Bad Guy. Duh.”

(‘I am now convinced, but do you have a blessedly far shorter essay about why a Chuldur/Pantheon The Rogue perfectly cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack would be the way to go?’ Why yes I do, strawman.)

Assorted later Additions:

Pantheon!Rogue: Why the bird ship?

Maybe that’s why the ship’s so fucky actually, DM’s love their props, this is about playing D&D In The Real World, so maybe he got one originally, short hop standard Asteroid Hopper. but now they’ve just kept (perhaps Pantheon-magically) editing it over time as the campaign and rule of cool needed. Appearance, better space travel, time travel etc. “It should look like a bird!” “…Yeah! It should look like a bird! Great idea Emily, we’ll work that in!” Of course if he’s a Chuldur this is just…their ship. Maybe classicly upgraded.

What might Rogue’s original plan for the Chuldur’s live D&D Session supposed to have been:

We know they were going to have a big wedding, but maybe that they’re also Baddies going to take over the world muhahaha! Cus they went into that monster-playing real quick and also they said that the panicking and screaming is their favourite bit - so there must have been a plan to include that after the wedding part of the game! They thought the wedding would lure The Doctor out so there must have been nefariousness in it or else why would The Doctor be drawn out? They were playing Baddies! So, thinking like what our lead bird would want for a moment, if you were to DM that, maybe he’s both playing the bounty hunter sent to catch them …But maybe also was going to do an “I Object!” scene too. Their faces in that scene, they’re so excited. Let’s say Rogue doesn’t know the Doctor was coming in advance. He’s already got ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ playing if this wasn’t a live magical edit on seeing him. Oh, maybe that’s why he chose to look like Mr Darcy. Maybe he was going to woo one of them - a good reason to already have the ring. Cus a big wedding can’t go right, that’s not drama, that’s boring. We know he’s probably cloaked - not only do they not recognise him but we have Ruby’s earring interference pointed directly at him (same tech frequency problems?) and even mention the psychic jewellery’s ability to mask a scent with a false one. So he was an NPC just meant to turn up and add some of their beloved drama. So he’d woo a Chuldur, he’ll object and then he would reveal himself as a bounty hunter with his Big Glowy Gun and trap! It was a dastardly trick! You knew he was a Rogue and a cad all along, you just let yourself fall for his deceit! *teleports to ship rather than incinerator* BRO. Even the bird’s D&D plot would naturally be the ‘I was tricking you and am actually your enemy’ twist!

Post-Empire, The case for the Chuldur Phoenix: Rogue being (unbeknownst to himself) the Master cosplaying a Chuldur cosplaying the Master.

[thedyingwriter]

somethings that i needed to get out regarding today's episode:

9-1-1 live airs in the US around 7 am Friday in my country and i get to watch it at 10:30 am on disney hotstar.

I couldn't wait so i was awake all night and was literally on twt since 6:30 am to get some clips.

that's where i find out that bucktommy break up.

i have been devastated all day. i have cried multiple times and i have literally lost count atp. it hurts like an actual breakup and i have absolutely no one irl to share this grief with.

the Abby being the ex-fiance wasn't even a major issue. i have been seen it done so well in so many fics.

Josh's speech was so beautiful and important but then to pull a breakup like that makes no fucking sense.

after what we saw in 8x5 breaking them made absolutely zero sense.

i was too overwhelmed so i tried to sleep and actually watched the entire episode around 11 am. I wanted to keep and open mind and analyse the episode.

twt is literally so toxic rn. I'm not even opening it.

after watching the entire episode i was even more confused as the breakup made zero sense.

we have had 8 seasons of character growth for buck, if they end up making him go back to casual relationships it just feels a complete wastage of 8 seasons of growth.

and from what we've seen in the past episodes the breakup was completely uncharacteristic to both buck and tommy.

it made no sense. why would tommy put so much effort if he knew it wouldn't last.

him constantly showing up for evan and talking about family just made zero sense for him to break up like that.

also it kinda felt weird to bring moving in together before saying i love yous.

and the way he said "the parking spot was too good to be true". this breakup doesn't feel good at all. he was obviously in pain and so was buck. this isn't doing any of them any good.

utter bullshit.

plus the "I'll see you around buck" broke me. like why the fuck would you do that to me and to buck.

it felt like someone put fucking alcohol all over a stab wound and then rubbed salt all over it.

LOW BLOW.

now coming to the post ep interviews which btw made it worse.

i was still under the impression that the way the breakup happened there was still hope for reconciliation because remember even tarlos went through breakups.

but then lou confirmed he might not be back and that this is it. specially that buck line. UGH.

and that #letbuckfuck interview with oliver really triggered me. I'm a bisexual woman and the reason i really loved buck's discovery of his sexuality was bcs Oliver was very determined in Givin a good bi rep.

but this doesn't feel that way. he could have said that he wants to see buck explore his sexuality more with both men and woman but the whole "girl, girl, guy. guy, girl, guy" montage was a very disturbing image.

it feels very stereotypical and biphobic.

it just hurts me so much. idk why i expected so much from a network tv show who has been queerbating for years.

i am gonna be watching this season just to see how they salvage buck's relationship and sexuality. it feels incomplete.

but if it goes in the buck 1.0 direction that's it for me.

i watch 911 as an escape from reality and if it goes so bad i am not continuing with the show.

it has already tested my limits and mental health enough.

also i need to point out that there are a lot of people who enjoy watching sports a lot more than they enjoy playing it. buck is a watcher. he would have loved seeing the Lakers match. just bcs he doesn't like to play doesn't mean he hates basketball.

a little extra side notes-

really excited for another buckley han kid. hope they don't ruin it. want to see how they deal with ppd this time.

also happy for eddie and really hoping he gets chris back soon.

ya'll need to understand how platonic friendship buddie is also so important rn then them getting together bcs eddie is def not ready to date.

if he starts dating he'll feel super guilty for putting his desire above chris all over again.

ALSO FOR PEOPLE IN THE BACK- EDMUNDO DIAZ IS CANON STRAIGHT.

[animentality]

How many times are y'all gonna fawn and gush and fall for Disney dragging yet another actor back to the franchise in a desperate attempt to keep people subscribed to their streaming service?

Hayden Christiansen was even already on a new Star Wars show.

What next, they drag on Alex Guinness's corpse?

Are you going to piss yourselves with ecstasy when they pull back Natalie Portman for a five second cameo that she filmed on her phone?

Are you going to cut off your fingers and toes and mail them to Bob Iger when Carrie Fisher's corpse is tied to strings and danced like a marionette in the newest episode of The Return of the Death Star Star Death: Returning Actor of the Week: Anthony Daniels?

It's always been eye roll inducing but now it's just sad.

How many times can they do this, and still have you weirdos clapping and screaming and frothing at the mouth?

I normally just don't care about other people's entertainment choices, because God knows you have the right to be a fucking idiot, but I really wonder how long Star Wars and Marvel can continue to parade corpses before a rapt-eyed slack jawed audience of buffoons who love a little necrophilia.

I also despise what Marvel and Star Wars have done to entertainment. Multiverses as an excuse to shoehorn in old actors and dead actors and overdose you on memberberries. Endless cameos that rely entirely on older, more original stories that have already been told before. Interconnected universes with none of the narrative consistency that could make them interesting, used primarily so that you can ooh and ahh as you see actors from the 90s reprising roles, for the sole purpose of nostalgia baiting.

I'm so sick of Disney. I'm so sick of star wars products. I'm so sick of marvel drivel.

I'm so sick of blockbusters like Indiana Jones 6 and Transformers Rise of Beasts and endless sequels and remakes and retools.

Make. New. Fucking. Things.

Ahsoka was already bad enough for existing purely to satisfy Dave Filoni's fetish for his own character. Giving her a solo show was banking entirely on your love for the clone wars.

Bring back Hayden...how bad was ahsoka doing?

Book of Boba Fett must've been doing far worse, because that random episode of the mandalorian plopped inside of it was Disney desperately trying to backpedal and bring back its audience.

Maybe if the ratings don't improve they'll bring back Jango Fett or something so you can go make your gifs and your tiktoks and your gushing posts about how exciting it was for you.

And before you even ask or start drafting something, no.

I was not soliciting opinions on this.

[halfhissandwich]

What your favorite Sanders Sides episode says about you because I’m binging the series rn and I wanna do this. All of this is a joke, I’m just being silly

My True Identity: Wow look at the fun little identity crisis series! Would be a shame if this goes downhill, right? Yeah, that’s what denial of the inevitable sounds like.

Way Too Adult: I’m willing to bet you’re a fan of the Unsympathetic Patton stuff. Just the vibe I get.

Taking on Anxiety!: I’m so sorry for the atrocities that have occurred in this fandom regarding Virgil. All you wanted was a sassy little emo boy and the fandom made him the embodiment of uwu, I’M SO SORRY-

A New Year of Lying to Myself… In Song!: You just like the song. I feel you, I like the song too.

The Dark Side of Disney!: We meet again, prinxiety shippers. :)

I’m in a Disney show!: Your favorite character is C!Thomas.

The Mind vs. The Heart: I won’t say you’re a logicality shipper… but if they got married, you definitely wouldn’t complain.

Dad’s Big Game Day Tips: … Daddy issues. I’m sorry, it needed to be said.

Alone on Valentines Day: I don’t have a joke here, but I’ll just say that my first thought was “aromantic”, so take that as you will.

Losing My Motivation: Oh my gosh. We get it. Logan is wonderful. That’s the 5th PowerPoint you’ve made today. Please just let me go home.

Q&A: You want an updated one. Me too, buddy, me too.

Am I Original: Going back and rewatching this video after POF makes you cry every single time.

My Negative Thinking: Hey analogical shippers, how are you doing? Still starving? … anyway let’s do some more logicality and prinxiety, shall we? :)

Growing Up: You’re everything that the people who’s favorite episode is “Losing My Motivation” are, but for Patton, and you don’t understand why the fandom thinks he’s kind of problematic.

Making Some Changes: *obnoxious chanting* LAMP LAMP LAMP LAMP LAMP LAMP LAMP LAMP LAM-

Becoming A Cartoon: … I won’t say anything. I won’t crush your dreams. I’ll just observe, smile, nod and just move on.

Accepting Anxiety: I don’t blame you, a lot of work was put into that episode. By the way you know you can ship prinxiety platonically, right? You can like it platonically without liking it romantically, I-I hope you know that-

Fitting In: You’re actively choosing to ignore drama online and I’m impressed with that, also you are aware that it’s messed up to bash Thomas for making a Harry Potter video 6 years ago, IT WAS SIX YEARS AGO AND HE LIKED HARRY POTTER, DON’T YOU DARE CANCEL THOMAS FOR THAT-

Moving On: Sorry, I’d write a joke for this one but I’m too busy crying-

12 Days Of Christmas: holy wow- no thoughts, head empty. You saw the colorful and festive little Christmas special and you actually said “:D” out loud.

Can Lying be Good: THEATER KIDS, ASSEMBLE!

Why do we get out of bed in the morning?: You probably said one thing in support of logince at one point in your entire life and you got chased with pitchforks by the prinxiety shippers and then Roman started bullying Logan, I am so sorry for this fandom’s sins :(

Crofters the musical: You’re basically Roman in this episode. “But look at him now! (Cue Logan chugging jam like a fucking madman) He’s just so COOL!”

Learning New Things About Ourselves: Your motto is “angst doesn’t exist if I can’t see it.”

Embarrassing Phases: I… completely forgot this episode existed. This is your favorite? I’m not judging your taste or anything, but what’s with your taste?

Selfishness v. Selflessness: Your favorite design? Janus. Your favorite personality? Janus. Your favorite ship? A Janus ship. Your favorite side? … Logan.

Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts: Remus’ abandonment issues aren’t canon. But if I say that too loud, then you people might stab me, so nevermind.

Are There Healthy Distractions: Apparently this episode’s plot of Thomas forgiving his previously homophobic friend is an analogy for Thomas forgiving Virgil for having been a dark side. That’s the connection! I missed it too! I thought it was a silly Frozen episode too! IT’S ABOUT VIRGIL!

Putting Others First: … guys, you can stop fighting the moceit vs roceit war, neither of them will ever be canon. ALSO HOLY WOW PATTON IS A FROG AND HE’S RIPPED FOR SOME REASON, WHAT THE FU-

Flirting With Social Anxiety: Your number one headcanon for the season 2 finale is a direct Frozen quote where Patton is like “Thomas you can’t marry a man you just met” and Roman is like “you can if it’s true love! >:0” (also hi again prinxiety shippers!)

Working Through Intrusive Thoughts: You have anger issues and you relate to Logan. Or you’re just happy to see the silly, goofy, demented Duke with fandom-inflicted abandonment issues!

[sludgewolf]

We need to talk about the lack of "filler" in series that're been released recently

I just watched a video about ATLA and it's filler or lack there of and, they're right, ATLA doesn't have filler episodes as we define "filler episodes" now. Our understanding of filler is closer to what's used for anime that is, non canon episodes that are made so the anime doesn't catch up with the manga. Applying this to western animation (I say animation bc I graduated in it thus a better understanding and I don't really watch many live action series so I don't have much of a say) we ended up with the impression that it means "episodes that don't move the plot forward"

Which, doesn't make sense with Western animation since most of it isn't a adaptation of something else, or with comic adaptations for ex, they're mostly adaptations of various arcs coming together as a single story. Smt very different from the manga to anime adaptation process

Comparing ATLA who positively doesn't have "filler" and X-men 97 who negatively doesn't have "filler" is a good example of what I'm trying to say.

Not all of ATLA episodes move the "learn the elements and defeat the firelord" plot forward and that's good thank fuck not all episodes are rushing ahead to throwing this 12yo we barely know into a battle with a full grown adult who's perpetrating a war against the rest of the world. Instead we actually get to know the characters, we see them traveling from the South to the North Pole instead of spawning where the plot demands, we see Aang adapt to the world post iceberg nap and learn to be the avatar, we see the effect the 100 year war had in this world. And most of all, the more "filler" episodes contributed to the pacing of the series, when binging the series now I still feel like the Gaang traveled across the whole world and didn't just teleport to the plot.

Opposed to X-men 97, don't get me wrong I'm absolutely loving it but the story is always being racing forward at a breakneck speed. They did try to pace it better inter cutting the main plot with Scott, Jean, Madelyne, Wolverine's whole deal and the "LifeDeath " plot, but if there wasn't the weekly wait for the next episode we would not have any time to breathe and digest what happened in the episodes.

I'm still confused on how Madelyne went from trying to have a normal life outside the x-men to being in Genosha's council. Still on Madelyne, I didn't care that they had to part ways with Nathan, ik he's their baby and all that, but as soon as they named the baby Nathan I knew they were throwing that baby to the future to complete the time loop of him being in the original series. And that's because they never got the chance to try to make us care, the writing team couldn't waste time with that since they only had 8 episodes to tell all these stories, the speed that the plot is being taken makes me believe that when writing this season Disney still hadn't signed on the second season and when they did it was too late to rework the script.

This whole thing is reminding me of Hazbin Hotel's pacing problems, analyzing it as if I didn't watch the pilot, we just met the characters and suddenly had to care that they were going to die in six months, we don't really know Charlie other than 1. she's Lucifer's daughter, 2. daddy issues that aren't rly addressed besides jokes, 3. she's with Vaggie (other character we didn't get to know) and 4. she's the owner of the hotel and wants to rehabilitate the sinners. The worst part of it is, we teleported from the start of the season to 6 months later out of nowhere and suddenly we're at the finale with the big boss battle. Of course HuskDust is a more popular ship than Charlie and Vaggie, we never got the chance to see them being together other than in episodes when the characters are being dragged by the plot while Angel and Husk had an episode where we met them and got the time to see them interact without being pushed by the extermination plot

This is exactly why "filler episodes" are important, we should actually know who these characters are before the big fight at the end so we can actually care about what happens to them. X-men 97 may not suffer that much from it but it's because we already knew most of the characters, but we never got to meet this version of Madelyne, see her going out alone to a world that hates her existence, see her morn having been forced to send her baby off to the future and maybe not being able to see him ever again and finally see never see how did she even end up in Genosha.

Or Storm, sure we got a two parter, but how did she get to fuck knows where to meet Forge in that bar, what did she go through during the time she was traveling alone, it's not as if people wouldn't recognize her as a x-men even if she'd left the team, maybe see more of how the relationship between her and Forge developed, cuz I didn't get why she still wants to be with him even after he basically created the tec that was turned into the weapons used to kill mutants, that's smt one can't just forgive, and yes I'd like to see her as she struggles with not having her powers, smt other than she feeling lonely without the wind (this would work even as just a montage with sad music as she travels to the fuckall haunted desert)

On a rly quick note on Invincible I do think they did a good job with their pacing and character development with the time they had, I'd like to have seen a bit more of Rex's development from complete douche to Lizard Leader homemade lobotomy to where we are now, but on the Grayson family whole thing they did an amazing job at showing how they're dealing with the aftermath of season 1, there was just a little jump from Debbie downing a bottle of wine every day to full bug mom mode but I do think she'd step up to it no doubt.

Maybe just some scenes of her still working through s1 trauma and questioning wtf is wrong w Nolan bc from her perspective he just killed hundreds of ppl on Earth, almost killed Mark, fucked off to space and suddenly there's a purple half bug baby living in her house calling her mom. But I don't think that's strictly necessary since there's always fanfiction to bridge this gap and it's just a minor thing that bothered me

TLDR: Filler in western cartoons isn't really filler, these are just episodes to help develop the world or characters without having to rush with the plot and also episodes that help with the pacing of the story, thus showing the passage of time or great distances being crossed without having the characters spawn at the next plot point. And we do need it specially for shows that are intended for binging, such as most shows now. What determines good filler from bad filler here is good writing

[crowehorte]

*inhales, holds it, then exhales* Okay, so.

Yesterday, I realized that hey, I could ~stream~ Loki Season 2, and boy did I gorge myself on that while working on art for an event. Now, I will be among the first to say that Marvel's Loki is not The Loki, but man. That climax. You should have seen my face as Loki brought all the threads of time together and sculpted them into a tree.

Yggdrasil

*inhales again* God, that is some good shit.

I'm not gonna lie, that entire final episode just. For the first time, it felt like someone at Disney/Marvel read the myths and understood them. Marvel's Loki may not be The Loki, but as a variant, as a representation of that myth, he finally hits home.

Loki is known as the god of mischief, chaos, and trickery, but he is so, so much more than that. He's the god of Consequences, of Fuck Around and Find Out. He is the god who knows his own fate. If Victor Timely is He Who Remains, then Loki is He Who Endures. He who endures loss, grief, anger, pain and agony.

Loki is He Who Endures the destruction of self, again and again and again. First when he is bound in the roots of Yggdrasil, poison dripping into his face for countless years, then again at Ragnarok, when he sails with the giants, knowing he will meet his death at Heimdall's hands.

Unlike the Aesir, Loki never runs from his fate. He never tries to avert Ragnarok. He knows that it must come, and that he must be the sacrificial lamb to slaughter. In the hope of building something new, something better than before. In the hope that this time, they'll get it right.

There are a lot of different interpretations of Ragnarok out there. Some say it's a singular event that has already happened, others say it is yet to come. Personally speaking, I like the idea of Ragnarok being cyclical, of being a metaphor for failure and self-improvement.

Loki Season 2 Episode 6: Glorious Purpose is a time loop. One where Loki goes through numerous centuries worth of repetitions trying to find a way to prevent the Temporal Loom's destruction - in other words, Ragnarok. Yes, in this retelling of the Ragnarok myth, Loki does try to evade his fate, but the important factor is that he doesn't give up. He never declares it hopeless, and he watches his friends, his sister-self, everyone in the world not just die, but cease to exist, over and over and over again.

Until finally he realizes that he cannot avert Ragnarok. That the Temporal Loom must be destroyed. There is no way around it.

But that destruction doesn't have to mean the end of everything.

"I know what kind of god I want to be."

And in that moment, he becomes the sacrificial lamb, willingly walking into his own imprisonment because this is the way it must be. Because he must give everything, he must destroy himself, and he must endure the pain of loss, of grief, of isolation.

For love. For hope. For a chance to build something better.

For all time.

Always.

[dealingdreams]

So here is the thing...

The Clone Wars, Rebels, Bad Batch, and The Acolyte mean the world to me. I'm so genuinely thankful that I was gifted these stories...

I've loved Star Wars since before I even knew what Star Wars was. it was just a part of my household growing up because my mom loves star wars. However, I don't think I can willingly support a future Star Wars project if only because there is no guarantee they will follow thru with their promises.

The Acolyte was pitched as a multi season show, they've actively referred to the show as first season or season one which implies more seasons...they brought Manny to cons, there are books and fucking Funko pops etc etc...

I think they quiet canceled Obi Wan Kenobi. Tho I think that ended okay as a single season.

Andor was also supposed to get 5 seasons but now it's only two and the second season is going to have a bunch of time jumps.

I saw someone mention that Ashoka is only getting a second season cause it was written in the contract. Not sure how true that is but still...

Idk I just...I could never trust them to actually effectively finish their projects properly. Especially new and fresh stories that don't cater to the worst types of people. Idk what is going on...I feel like this isn't even just solely a star wars Lucasfilm or Disney oversight issue this is an across the board...every streaming service issue. We are max getting like 4 seasons all with 6-10 ish episodes or they get cancelled within the first or second season. It's maddening...no its fucking infuriating.

As someone who loves visual storytelling specifically television visual storytelling this time period for media is the worst.

[idkwhatever580]

Agatha All Along Commentary

⚠️WARNING⚠️ AGATHA ALL ALONG 1x6 SPOILERS AHEAD

you’ve been warned

Im late again guys 😣 alright. Here goes nothing. I’m seriously considering taking my anxiety meds before these episodes because atp that might help.

Started watching at 3:00 pm

I stg I stg I stg I stg if this turns out bad I’m gonna throw up. And that says a lot considering I have emetophobia

Ooh fancy he’s Jewish

I’m not familiar with the Jewish religion but seems pretty cool.

Okay so we have established that this is Billy Kaplan which idk how y’all dug so deep to figure it out but I guess it was common knowledge and I do not have common knowledge so it adds up

Ooh now there’s a party funnn lol

I wish I had parents that were proud of me

Lmaooooo “you’re both disgusting” is so fucking real

4:25

ARIANA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE???

She’s kinda hot guys. I have daddy issues but I’m a lesbian lmaoooo

5:14

WTFFFF I CANT DO THIS SHIT I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT IT MEANS BUT SHES TOTALLY LYING TO HIM IN THIS

5:42

wtf does the tower reversed mean bitch

6:14

Hearing her say baby is so fucking hot I’m gonna nut everywhere

Oh lord guys I seriously have problems… but don’t say you weren’t thinking it too 😏

6:51

WTF IS THAT THING A PROTECTION SPELL OR WHAT?!?!

DID SHE PLACE THE SIGIL?!?!

Omg if she placed the sigil on him that would be insane

7:46

If y’all out there with the theories about Billy maximoff’s soul taking over Billy kaplan’s body im kms because that’s so valid

——id like to let y’all know that I know nothing about the marvel comics and I do not intend on learning or digging that deep kk? I also don’t know what Wiccan is but I guess it’s Billy maximoff? Not looking for someone to explain it tho lol——

IM SCARED J DONT WANNA SEE MY BABY

NO WANDA NO WANDA I DIDNT NEED TO HEAR HER VOICE

8:34

Holy shit.

8:39

Watching it disappear is so sad. Like I know she’s hurting and saving the rest of them

9:00

OH MY GOD THE PARENTS STAYED ALIVE I THOUGHT YALL SAID THEY ALL DIED OR LIKE TWO DEATHS

9:33

NO FUCKING WAY THIS SHIT IS ACTUALLY TRUE

Y’all playing too hard

9:52

No fucking way. I’m actually so done right now. I’m so fucking done I need to scream at someone and it needs to be the fucking producer

10:15

That must be so fucking scary to go to “sleep” as Billy Maximoff and wake up in someone else’s body. Like in Disney shows when they switch and shit they have a moment where they look in the mirror and scream but this is def more realistic

Also I thought someone said there were two deaths. I don’t see no dead people up in this bitch

10:55

wtf is this?? inside out?

11:06

Noooohohohoooooo I forgot that Billy M can mind read and shit

12:33

That dog knows

Why is it always the dog that knows?

13:44

Having to call her mom must have sucked balls

15:22

Damn he already trying to fit the part bro. Moving on too damn fast

Him and his mom with the lying bro ✋🙄

Stop I sound like Agatha 😭

16:02

SHE DID PLACE THE SIGIL ON HIM WTFFFF

16:26

Okay I see you little emo gay kid having more piercings than me and having kissed more people than me and I’m older than you 🙄

17:26

Damn that’s crazy. He actually is telling this dude his shit

18:40

Damn that’s so fucking crazy his smile is creeping me out bro

Also I totally knew little Billy M was meant to be a little gay baby

19:24

Damnit all of these hoes have connection with him. Of some kind

19:57

You found a guy on Reddit. And you’re meeting him? That sounds like you’re getting killed.

OMG WHO IS IT TELL ME WHO IT IS

ITS RALPH NO ITS RALPH POOR RANDALL SORRY RANDALL ITS JUST WE KNOW YOU AS RALPH

21:06

Damn he went kinda crazy from being with Agatha all that time huh? That means the only one that can handle her is rioooooo

21:42

Don’t take my wife’s name in vain hoe

lol I’m kidding

I also apparently have multiple wives

Lmaoooo please ask about Agatha harkness

24:06

YOU FUCKING MURDERED SPARKY I WILL NEVER EVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS I DONT CARE IF SHE MADE YOU DO THAT SHIT I HATE YOU

24:19

Omg I can’t do this shit

Does this mean that Tommy is also in someone’s body?

25:27

I seriously do wanna know what kind of crazy that lady eats for breakfast. And I hope it’s me 😏

26:24

Yeaaaahhhh this song eats me up.

27:20

HOHOHOHHHHH THAT PICTURE IS THE IMAGE OF A FA- a gay woman. A gay witchy woman…. 👀

27:36

OH YEAH THEY BROUGHT MY GIRL DOLLY INTO IT

DOLLY PARTON FOR PRESIDENT 2024

Ahem… excuse my political views ✋😭

28:20

Omg omg omg he’s going on the road to find Tommy I’m gonna cryyyyy

29:43

Oh he’s so emo with his eyeliner and his black heart boyfriend and his belt chain and his witchy witchyness

…okay maybe im jealous

29:55

Ugh mommy. They’re both so hot. I know we only see Agatha in this part but I’ll nut to the thought of Aubrey Plaza

30:06

You’re seriously using a fucking house lamp you idiot ✋😭

30:29

You tell me to stop I’ll do it mommy

OH LAWD I HAVE ISSUES

I have to shit bro 😭

31:07

Hooligan is so fucking funny 😭

31:33

Guys I’m nutting everywhere from her sitting like that she’s soooo gayyyyyy

The producer really said “gay” and Kathryn Hahn said “yes”

32:16

I think if I was in that situation as teen, I’d say I want to. I want to poke that damn bear and see if she’ll throw me on the desk and- oh. Right right. Not the point ✋😭😏

I ALSO JUST REALIZED THAT SHE IS WEARING A SHIRT THAT IS RALPHS RANDALLS? Idk anymore bro

32:59

Wait… this is so fucking funny bro 😭😭😭

33:45

OMG SHES LIKE IN THE INTERROGATION TABLE AND ITS ACTUALLY HER HOUSE BRO

I NEVER MADE THAT CONNECTION 😭😭😭

34:21

HOT HOOOTTTTT SHES SO HOT RIPPING THAT TAPE IS SO HOT

34:28

THATS SO FUCKING FUNNY BRO

34:46

Hold on these side swipe things are going too fast I’m so lost. 😭 I hate having a horrible memory that makes me not be able to remember every single detail when we’re going back to something from a different pov

35:10

STFU SHE COULDNT HEAR EITHER TIME AND BOTH TIMES HE SAID SOMETHING DIFFERENT I WONDER WHAT HE SAID ON THE ROAD WITH THE OTHER WITCHES

35:19

YEEESSSSS IM SK GLAD WERE BACK TO THE ROAD

35:28

Yes! Pull yourself out of that mystery goop!!!

36:11

FUCK YOU BITCH FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU DONT BREAK THE SIGIL PIECE FUCK YOU

37:53

Wait. I am so gullible I like her being nice bro ✋😭

38:00

COVERED IN MYSTERIOUS ROAD GOOP OR NOT THAT POSE IS FUCKIGN HOT

38:09

I can’t tell if she’s crying because she’s happy the SIGIL is broken and she’s right or if she’s crying because she actually liked the kid

38:33

FUCK SHES BEING EVIL AGAIN I NEED A GOOD AGATHA AND I KNOW IM NOT GETTING THAT BUT A GIRL CAN DREAM

38:45

I’ll kill someone for you Agatha

39:05

Wait when she’s like don’t feel guilty about your talent I feel like she’s trying to be evil but it’s kind of endearing. Like. Shes so strong about it which means so many witches have felt guilty about their talents before and she doesn’t want that to hinder him. Even if she is evil that’s pretty sweet.

39:53

OH FUCK YOU BITCH KYS KYS HAHA THATS WHY YOU CANT USE YOUR POWERS BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD GOOD NOT DECENT GOOD

40:43

Stfu Agatha. Don’t mess with our bitch.

Robo papa? BAHAHAHAHAHAAA

she knowsssss

41:34

BAHAHAHHAAHAAAAA

42:02

“Got it” not her being serious for once ✋😭

42:25

DONT I KNOW IT BITCH YOU DIDNT HAVE TO TELL ME IM WATXHING YOU LITTLE MAXIMOFF BITCH

Post watching notes:

I seriously needed some Agathario shit and I didn’t get that and I’m mad. IM SO MAD THAT THE INTIMACY COORDINATOR WAS FOR TEO LITTLE BOYS I NEEDED MY MIDDLE AGE WOMEN TO MAKE TF OUT THEY ARE TEASING ME 😖😖😖

[rockermazy]

Alastor might have a thing about "cashing in on favors". When Alastor and Charlie make their deal, Alastor gives info in exchange for "a favor, at the time of his choosing". In the pilot, Alastor uses the word "favor" when summoning Niffty. In this universe, one might not even need to sell their soul to fuck themselves over - just a blank check. This time next year, Charlie could be scrubbing toilets (although I doubt that's what Alistor is going to ask for) I'm starting to wonder if Niffty is even chained at all, or if she's just fulfilling a "favor" with an undefined end-date. Whether intended or not, Charlie is definitely an "insurance baby", much like Octavia is to Stolas. Hell forbid something happens to Lucifer, Alistor could just ask Charlie for the throne.

Also, what is up with Alastor messing with Charlie's hair? I mean, this could be nothing more than a Disney villain putting on the rizz trope... theatre... visual cue type... thingy... I'm starting to wonder: if the throne is what Alastor actually wants and he finds out it isn't "transferable"... .... and yeeesss I know Alistor is ace, buuut.... .... is Alistar actually above doing a "paper marriage" or something similar? As long as this universe doesn't work like fairytales and consummation isn't required for a marriage to be binding, Alastor might only need the title of"King" to get whatever magical power this universe will bless him with just for having said title. Up until episode 8, it was safe to assume that Alistor only sought to have his soul chain broken and that was his purpose for getting close to Charlie. However, Alistor's singing lines in said episode make clear that freedom is only one of his goals. He also wants total control in this realm as soon as he gets said freedom.

And... Alastor has zero problems with being called "Papa". Also, I dunno how to say this, but like... Asexual =/= Aromantic. Alistor's warmer interactions with Mimzy and Rosie indicate that he is fully capable of affection - at least on a platonic level. Maybe he just wants to brush a 6-foot dolly's hair? Tuck her in at night... Make her wear pastel Victorian-inspired dresses around the palace that end just below her knee... The only thing I put past this deer-demon is getting his cock sucked.

[violetganache42]

Be sure to watch the season 2 premiere of Moon girl and Devil Dinosaur because the show is in danger of being cancelled

Yeah, everyone at the Disney Beat server and I saw a couple of nights ago, and we've all been so fucking ANGRY at Disney. 14 episodes getting dropped all at once on Disney+?! What the fuck were they thinking?!

(Rant under the cut.)

It's bad enough they release batches of episodes at once like what Netflix did with Sonic Prime, but they plan to drop around half a season there to where they're making the main channel do two episodes per week?! You seriously couldn't do weekly premieres on TV and have the new episodes get released the next day on streaming, like what HBO Max did with Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and My Adventures with Superman?! The fact they reveal this on the MGDD Crew TikTok and paint it as a good thing does not help either. "How could you not celebrate" HOW COULD YOU NOT REALIZE YOU'RE BEING SO FUCKING DENSE RIGHT NOW?! LOOK AT THIS SHIT!

You cannot make this up! Streaming as a whole has seriously fucked over entertainment. Netflix made the binge format the new norm, and it's not working anymore. If you thought shows getting shorter-lived hype through binging compared to a weekly release was an issue, the quantity is a-whole-nother problem. If it was 5 or 6 episodes getting added at a time, that would be less infuriating, but this is 14 half-hour episodes we're talking about! That's 308 minutes of straight-up binging Disney expects us to do! No one is gonna binge this many episodes in a timeframe like that! And keep in mind, this isn't an earlier season from a finished or ongoing show; this is a whole new season we're talking about. People who haven't watched MGADD yet or don't have Disney+ and/or cable are gonna get exposed to a fuck ton of spoilers. Not to mention Disney Channel is gonna have to spend 7 weeks catching up to Disney+ with the episodes they air on TV. That will do a serious number on the TV views! And don't get me started on the international releases because I was told MGADD has been delayed so much to where S2 of dubbing is done (hence the promos in Japan), but considering the company's crapass handling of international releases, people won't be able to watch it until a much later date. Oh, and there are also countries that don't have the show despite it being dubbed in their language. Right off the bat, that's international views down the drain and the strong possibility of people in the other countries being exposed to spoilers depending on what they come across and who they're following.

You know what the absolute kicker is? They had the fucking audacity to reveal this shortly after they treated The Ghost and Molly McGee like garbage. No joke! The very minimal reruns they gave it throughout its run, its cancellation as season 3 was being drafted, the shitty promotions, them releasing "Jinx vs. the Human World" on iTunes and "The End" on YouTube ahead of their TV and Disney+ releases. I am not kidding about the last part; because Disney didn't temporarily remove them, SpoilerTV reported both episodes received only 63K and 56K TV views! Now compare that to the 375K views "Watching and Dreaming" got; all three TOH specials weren't released on YouTube or Disney+ until after the DC/XD simulcast premiere! And this is the same show that got shortened by the now retired Gary Marsh! The upsetting part is Bill Motz is blaming himself for putting too much pressure on the fans for watching TGAMM and appointing ambassadors to help promote it. No, it's not your fault, Bill. It's the Disney executives and their shitty marketing strategy's fault your show got cancelled. You care about the show you and Bob Roth created, and you wanted it to do well. The higher ups didn't bother to continue promoting the show after it premiered, and that alone just forced you, the ambassadors, and the audience to do their job for them. They're the reason why it underperformed on D+ and DC. Now, it may potentially happen again with MGADD thanks to them!

Why did they pulling any of this shit was a good idea?! The show got ample marketing, from an advertisement outside the Days of Christmas store in Disney Springs and Moon Girl herself appearing in Disney California Adventure to merchandise such as a Moon Girl Funko, a couple of books, and even a graphic novel! It has received nominations and won awards, and the current lead executive Ayo Davis said season 1 performed well in ratings! Yet they turn around and pull all of this bullshit as season 2 approaches! Seriously, what is preventing you from doing next-day weekly releases and continuing your marketing, Disney?! All your other Marvel shows have gotten weekly releases and so much promoting, and regardless of the reception of each show, they all get high ratings! That even includes What If…?, the MCU's first animated show! Just because MGADD is adjacent/not entirely connected to the MCU and is a Disney TVA show doesn't give you the excuse to treat it like crap post-season 1!

I'm sorry for the ranting, but this multi-whammy has been so fucking frustrating. I have been a big fan of MGADD since the beginning, and like I previously said, it helped fill the DuckTales-shaped hole in my heart. I'm glad that it has such a strong start, and I want it to continue doing well, but the upcoming 14-episode release was such a fucking gut punch. The more the active Disney Beat server memebrs and I ranted and vented about it, the more furious we grew to where a few of us—myself included—were in tears; it is such a horrendous decision the Disney executives made! I'm at least glad the past week has gotten people to talk about how shows are getting treated nowadays thanks to streaming, and Disney Beat tweeting about the 14-episode bomb release announcement got deleted. Unfortunately, the higher ups most likely deleted it just to save face and won't reverse the decision in the end. Regardless, more people are catching onto the pitfalls with streaming and are noticing how shows no longer have the opportunities to build audiences over time. They are treated as nothing more as a means of gaining views and instant gratification rather than a medium made for one's enjoyment. With the Animation Guild's contract having been expired for around a few months, I hope one of their demands is to stop the shows' mistreatments and lack of sufficient marketing because streaming left a devastating and worsening impact on the entertainment and animation industries.

[agentem]

Marvel Television Ranking (Disney+ era)

Someone asked me which Marvel shows are worth watching and I made a whole post about it. I watched all of them so you don't have to!

You Should Watch:

WandaVision - This show suffers from Marvel's need to have a final CGI battle (the final episode is let down from the previous). But it's Marvel's best use of the TV format. The emotions of it are so strong and it is genuinely a watchable sitcom in places. And it makes you believe that young girl would fuck that robot in a way Infinity War didn't really do.

2. Loki Season One -- There are a few middle episodes that feel slow in this series, but overall this is probably the best one in terms of consistency. Also high concept, with a strong ensemble. Season Two is fine but would be in a lower tier.

3. Ms Marvel - It's a good stand alone show and Marvel does not seem to be backing down on Iman Vellani being central to the MCU going forward (even though the Marvels was poorly received). So you need to know Kamala and also you're welcome because she's adorable.

These Are Good Shows If You Have Time:

4. Hawkeye - It's not as good as the Fraction run in the comics it is based on and it starts a bit slow, but once Echo shows up it's fun. Plus it's a Christmas theme!

5. Avengers 97 - It was my jam as a kid. It's still my jam as an adult. Not really for children though. I am bummed I can't show it to my nephews (character death, genocide, oddly sexualized Magneto, the whole comics shebang).

6. Moon Knight - If you like hippo goddesses and watching Oscar Isaac act with himself, this is the show for you. So far this series has not connected to the wider MCU in any way. The stand-alone-ness of this series is both a strength and a weakness. You can just watch it! But if you are looking to advance the "overall" plot of the MCU then this could feel "pointless" to some. (I'd argue the hippo is the point.)

These Shows Have Issues

7. She Hulk: Attorney at Law: Dudebros on the internet will make you think this is the worst thing Marvel has ever done and that is not the case. But it is hit or miss, and the comedy is women-centric. I actually prefer the more comedic sitcom moments (like the episode in the yurt). You also have to be able to watch bad CGI a lot; it's like they didn't have time to finish it which is probably what really happened. I grew up in the 90s so I have no problem with wonky CGI.

8. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - I really wanted to like this because Red, White and Black was one of those comics that you read and thought, "of course. This is what would've happened." But mostly it's a let down. Plot points were changed due to the pandemic and it is... noticeable. Anyway, Carl Lumbly is great and if you just want to watch his scenes, then I wouldn't judge you.

9. What If...? I like this one but it feels super skippable. It's like the thing for people who want more Marvel all the time when the culture is dealing with Marvel overload. (Yes, I watched all of it.) I do want to see Jeffrey Wright in live action soon though.

Just NO.

10. Echo -- Very sad to say this because I think the impulse to give Alaqua Cox (she is a disabled, indigenous actress who had never been on TV before) more to do after her debut in Hawkeye was a generous one. But this wasn't thought out enough as it needed to be.

11. Secret Invasion -- It hurts me that this was bad. Luckily Samuel L. Jackson is a pro at being good in bad projects. Simply watching Olivia Coleman's scenes on YouTube would be more satisfying than the show.