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tardisgirlepic · 7 years ago

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Ch. 1: “The Pyramid at the End of the World” Analysis Doctor Who S10.7: Big Payoff Coming, Don’t Trust What You See & Love Is Slavery Theme

My apologies. I was hoping to get this up here on Tumblr before the next episode aired, but I went out of town. I did get it posted on AO3 before "The Lie of the Land” aired, as I post there first and then cross-post with photos here. Because I posted whatever I had on AO3 before I left and hadn’t finished, I went back making some changes to make things clearer before the airing. At the same time, I had some revelations. I updated AO3 2 times with the revelations. [See AO3]

Update: As I was working on some changes, I had a major revelation about a Star Trek reference. I added a bunch of sections talking about the Doctor blowing up the lab and what it references. Also, I didn't get to finish the part about what was coming up, so I added some more things at the bottom of the chapter.

Update 2x: Another Star Trek reference connects to the Wolf. (Search for UPDATE.)

All links to my other analyses referenced in this chapter go to AO3. I apologize for that, but I just don’t have time to do lengthy analyses and update the links here. Check out my Meta Archive on Tumblr for the chapters with photos here.

Note: TPEW = “The Pyramid at the End of the World,” the episode with the incredibly long name that I’m not going to spell out again, unless I have to. Yikes!

So Much to Say, So Little Time

Sadly, there just isn’t enough time to cover TPEW. There are tons wrong with the episode and tons to say. However, I want to get out the main points. TPEW is very important, and tells me a lot about what is really happening, which is basically the opposite of how it looks. I’m going to forego most images, except where absolutely necessary, due to time restrictions.

This whole pyramid ploy and impending disaster are part of an engineered plot, not a mistake as the Doctor says. Most everything in this episode is a lie. And you may be surprised at what the subtext says about who is part of this plan. Before we get to the lie and how to tell, let’s look at a few other things, including the purpose of what is happening.

Tips on Learning to Read Subtext

I’m trying to break down what I do, so you can understand how I do it. Therefore, a situation a couple of days after TPEW aired, where my husband questioned me about how I connected 2 pieces of information, prompts me to explain something.

I had the pleasure of sitting down and re-watching TPEW with my daughter, who is an excellent subtext reader, and my husband, who is learning the basics and applying what he knows to other shows. When he’s motivated, he actually does a little research to look up something the dialogue or subtext suggests. If you want to read subtext at more than a basic level, you have to research stuff.

As an example, before we sat down to re-watch the episode, I saw that the actor who plays the UN Secretary-General was in the movie Eyes Wide Shut. Many times, actors bring with them subtext from what they’ve previously done, and this doesn’t just apply to DW. Because I had no idea what the movie was about, I looked it up. Nothing in the description jumped out at me as making a big subtext statement for DW.

Surprisingly, I came across something in the episode with my newfound understanding. Now, I had a new appreciation for the line

DOCTOR: Hello, I'm the Doctor, saving the world with my eyes shut.

He questioned how I arrived at this connection between the line and the movie title. Going with the principle of no coincidences, the line was too close to the movie title to ignore.

This made me realize I need to show you, at times, how I think in other ways than I already do.

After we finished the episode, I went back to the Wikipedia page on the movie because there was a link that I hadn’t followed. The movie is based on a 1926 novella by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. It is called Rhapsody: A Dream Novel, also known as Dream Story (German: Traumnovelle).

It’s absolutely connected to what is happening in this episode and the others. Based on this and some other new information in the episode, I believe I know where people are.

BTW, 1926 is an important year because this brings in more subtext, too, whether it’s coincidental to the novella and DW or not. It refers to the 3rd Doctor story “Carnival of Monsters” and brings in the idea of miniaturization of people, as well as a device called the miniscope, which the 12th Doctor mentions as a possibility that he and Clara could be in during “Robot of Sherwood.”

The miniscope allows the operator to change the emotions of the creatures inside, even making them forget that they have done something multiple times. We’ve already seen these ideas used in nuWho but in a different way.

The idea of changing people’s emotions is what happens in “The Bells of St. John,” where Clara and others get uploaded to the Wi-fi. Miss Kizlet, who works for the Great Intelligence, changes her employees’ emotions from a computer tablet.

Also, this also brings in a connection to Amy.

The novella, BTW, very much pertains to the Doctor, River, Clara, and others. That’s for a future chapter.

Ploy to Possess the Doctor: The Eagle Abducts Ganymede

The big payoff is coming! Here we see Ganymede getting abducted by the UN and Colonel Brabbit. Where is UNIT, BTW?

The Eagle

Colonel Brabbit represents the eagle. In the image below, there is an eagle on his uniform sleeve (red arrow). It’s true an eagle represents a colonel in the US Army. This, however, is not a real army uniform, nor is it a real colonel’s eagle. This is all a lie. Besides, no colonel would be making unilateral decisions for the entire nation.

Brabbit has 4 stars in 2 different places (white and yellow arrows) on his uniform. The 4 stars represent the Library, so this is taking place in the Library metaphor. He also has 13 stars on his hat. The number 13 represents a Doctor. Here is where the Doctor is both Ganymede and an eagle.

The 12th Doctor in the subtext in seasons 8 and 9, because he has multiple faces, can be labeled 0, 1, 2, and 3, or he is 12, 13, 14, and 15. He can also be some multiple of 12 in a series of numbers, such as 24, 25, 26, and 27. Season 10 is running a bit different, but that will have to be topic for another chapter.

Brabbit, then, would represent the Doctor. Also, Brabbit = “rabbit” with an added “B.” Rabbits, as of “Thin Ice,” are associated with redemption. Unless I missed the horse, there wasn’t any this week for once in many weeks. This is about the Doctor’s abduction and how it happened. The rabbit would suggest this is part of getting redemption. Abduction is opposite of rescue, which goes along with how basically everything in this episode is a lie.

This capture may come back to several things, one of which is the Doctor’s words from “Robot of Sherwood.”

DOCTOR: Quickest way to find out anybody's plans, get yourself captured.

I’m expecting the Doctor to be one step ahead, even if it doesn’t look like it.

Ganymede

Both Bill and the Doctor represent Ganymede. They are abducted and flown to the proverbial Mount Olympus with the pyramid and the Monks. But this all has to do with the Library metaphor.

Bill can represent the Doctor because she is one of his faces.

Bill’s Cyan Jacket & “The Fires of Pompeii”

Bill is wearing a really interesting jacket. It’s cyan (a theme color of this episode) with black highlights. However, before I get to that, the back of her jacket is very important and gives us a lot of information.

The white arrow points to Okinawa. The red arrow points to a volcano, a symbol of Lobus Caecilius, Capaldi’s character from “The Fires of Pompeii.” (Caecilius means blind, which is another reason the Doctor most likely had to be blind.) However, that’s not all…

The volcano isn’t just a volcano, and that was the shocking part to me. Okinawa didn’t make sense when I first saw this. The volcano looked like Mount Fuji, a sacred symbol in Japan. When Mount Fuji is stylized like this, I’ve frequently seen a sun and flowers, like cherry blossoms, with it. Japan is known as the Land of the Rising Sun, so the sun represents it.

Wow, this also tells me why in TRODM, Nardole and the Doctor go to the Harmony Shoal office in Tokyo! Mount Fuji is near Tokyo. Before TPEW, I had no clue why Tokyo was important.

Harmony Shoal hasn’t gone away. They are truly part of this war with the Doctor.

Anyway, I really doubted this volcano represented Okinawa, so I looked up volcanoes on Okinawa, which is at the southern tip of the Japanese islands. There aren’t any volcanoes there. The volcano on Bill’s jacket is Mount Fuji.

Why Okinawa?

Names, as well as places on Earth, are always important.

I knew several things that Okinawa was famous for: the longest lived people in the world, who aren’t vegetarians; Okinawan martial arts; and the Battle of Okinawa from WWII. None of these explains why Okinawa is so important.

So I looked up Okinawa and read about the history. Something important related to the Doctor’s subtext story jumped out at me. Things will start jumping out at you once you understand the basic story and can connect the dots. However, you first have to build the context into which to put the details. This is what I’ve intensively done for the past 4 years and beyond. I may look like I pull things out of a hat, but I don’t. So I want to show you how I do this. It’s all based on research that I’ve done, as well as recognizing patterns, seeing things that tend to hide in plain sight, and connecting the dots. Everyone can do this too.

I am writing more about this than I planned, but this part is really key and is another example of how I piece together the parts of the puzzle.

Anyway, the importance of Okinawa is about usurpation. And we just saw in previous analyses that usurpation had to be important.

A Hungarian-born, Jewish man named Bernard Jean Bettelheim converted to Christianity and became rather zealous about preaching the Gospel. He became, according to Wikipedia, “a naturalized British subject sometime later, married the daughter of a prominent thread producer, and, in 1844, his first child was born; she was named Victoria Rose.”

Wow, there are a couple of things here, as well! Conversion is important because the Doctor is going through the Great Work. In fact, TPEW had a reference to “My Fair Lady” where the Doctor says, “She's got it. By George, she's got it!” My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, where Eliza is given speech lessons so she can pass as a lady. In the 7th Doctor story “Ghostlight,” the Doctor referred to Ace as Eliza. This is a conversion of sorts.

Also, Victoria Rose is another link. Rose is linked to Victoria in “Tooth and Claw,” which is a story of usurpation where the Scottish boy is stolen by Monks and then possessed by the werewolf! In Chapter 14 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, we saw how the 10th Doctor, playing the 12th Doctor in the subtext, is half him and half werewolf. The usurpation story in DW is very old, so many of these references were set up long ago, actually going back to Classic Who.

BTW, if you can go back to most DW stories, classic or nuWho, and tell something of how at least parts of any episode fit into the main subtext story, you then know every episode of DW is connected. I want you to know what is possible, depending on how motivated you are. I would understand more of the details, I’m sure, if I had watched all the Classic Who episodes that still survive.

So my advice is to go back to Classic Who and watch some of the episodes, if you haven’t already, especially ones that I might point out that are relevant to what we are watching at the time. However, concentrate mostly on nuWho to begin with, especially seasons 8 and 9, which don’t have all the timey-whimey bits of the 11th Doctor stories.

Anyway, Bettelheim, as a missionary, went to Okinawa with “his wife, Elizabeth M., their infant daughter, Victoria Rose (born 1844), their infant son, Bernard James (born November 1845).… The local officials offered the family shelter in the Gokoku-ji temple for the night, and the priests in residence there left, out of respect for the women's privacy. The following morning, the Bettelheims refused to leave. They would remain in the Gokoku-ji for seven years.”

Wow, he and his family usurped the temple for 7 years! Temple is a term DW uses for the Doctor’s body, which may come with a number, corresponding to the number of the Doctor. So in “Oxygen,” we saw “He’s in Section 12,” which felt like it had a lot more meaning beyond the episode, and now I see why. It was, indeed, foreshadowing to find the Doctor. They linked Bill to the Doctor, and found him through her.

So Bill’s jacket is saying the sacred volcano is usurped, meaning Caecilius is the Doctor. We’ll see how his body is appropriated/possessed/mind controlled. And that is exactly what we’ve been examining in multiple chapters. He puts on the beetle, just like Donna, in “The Fires of Pompeii.” Donna’s beetle spins off a parallel world for her, so we should expect the same with the Doctor. However, he’s a happy slave before he even puts the beetle on.

How cool is it that the Land of the Rising Sun becomes a symbol of the Doctor? And how it ties into the amazing subtext stories that surround the symbol? The Sun metaphor didn’t even occur to me when TRODM Harmony Shoal office was in Tokyo. This is another example of how DW repeats things in multiple ways, so if you miss it in one context, there will be others.

So this is a subtext reference, too, showing us Harmony Shoal is involved. The Doctor is in a psychological war with himself, which we already saw in a different context.

We know we are reading the subtext correctly when all kinds of pieces start falling into place. Things move from hypotheses to conclusions, waiting to be shown in canon. This is the really exciting thing for me, seeing how this all comes together.

BTW, Clara, too, is connected to Japanese things since she had various Japanese items in her apartment, as well as the house in “Last Christmas.”

Bill’s Red Jacket & “The Return of Doctor Mysterio”

In the opening scenes of the episode, Bill isn’t wearing a cyan jacket. The 2 birds on the front look similar to those on the cyan jacket, but her jacket is more of a pinkish hue with red highlights, shown below. The really interesting things about the birds are that they are phoenixes. They also look like a forward “C” and a backward “C.” That’s significant and refers back to TRODM, Harmony Shoal, and the Eye of Harmony, which I’ll talk about more in a few minutes.

Why does Bill have 2 jackets?

I believe part of the answer to why Bill has 2 jackets can be derived from looking at the 6 elephants in Moira’s house, shown below, from “Extremis.”

In the second image, shown below, of the elephants, there is a mirror with 2 elephant images on the right. However, those images do not match the ones we see in the elephants on the left. The two in the mirror are ghosts. So we, most likely, are dealing with 3 people as One and a duplicate 3 people as One. Perhaps this is a real timeline and an altered timeline.

Both Bills can be real like Donna and alternate-Donna. From what happens at the beginning with Penny, they are most likely in a shared dream.

The Phoenix

Because Bill’s jacket is about Japan, at least on the back, we not only need to look at the phoenix of Greek mythology, but also we need to examine its meaning in Japan. Then, we need to try and decide from context which version we are meant to use. Or maybe we need to use both.

The Phoenix in Greek Mythology

According to Wikipedia:

Associated with the Sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. According to some sources, the phoenix dies in a show of flames and combustion, although there are other sources that claim that the legendary bird dies and simply decomposes before being born again. According to some texts, the phoenix could live over 1,400 years before rebirth. Herodotus, Lucan, Pliny the Elder, Pope Clement I, Lactantius, Ovid, and Isidore of Seville are among those who have contributed to the retelling and transmission of the phoenix motif.

In the historical record, the phoenix "could symbolize renewal in general as well as the sun, time, the Empire, metempsychosis, consecration, resurrection, life in the heavenly Paradise, Christ, Mary, virginity, the exceptional man, and certain aspects of Christian life".

Certainly, the phoenix’s long life, death, and rebirth describes the Doctor. It’s associated with the Sun, which again is the Doctor. And we come back to the Christian connection and the Trinity. It’s a symbol of transformation, which, of course, we see over and over, from the normal Doctor definitions to usurpation and “My Fair Lady.”

However, Donna’s “Turn Left” alternate universe was a living hell. Therefore, instead of paradise, the Doctor will most likely be a slave in a living hell. CAL, too, was enslaved in a living hell until the end. She didn’t see it that way while the dreams were her “real life.” The Doctor probably will be very mind controlled at first, believing he’s in paradise, so he won’t see the living hell, either.

The Sacred Phoenix in Japanese Mythology

The sacred Japanese phoenix originated in China and has different origins from the Greek phoenix.

According to Japanese Buddhist Statuary:

Chn. = Fèng Huáng, Feng Huang 鳳凰 Jp. = Hō-ō 鳳凰 or Hou-ou, Ho-o, Hoo-oo Feng 鳳 represents male phoenix, yang, solar Huang 凰 represents female phoenix, yin, lunar

Often depicted together with the Dragon, either as mortal enemies or as blissful lovers.

One of Four Celestial Guardians of Four Directions Considered equivalent to the Red Bird | Big Bird

In Japan, as earlier in China, the mythical Phoenix was adopted as a symbol of the imperial household, particularly the empress. This mythical bird represents fire, the sun, justice, obedience, fidelity, and the southern star constellations.

According to legend (mostly from China), the Hō-ō appears very rarely, and only to mark the beginning of a new era -- the birth of a virtuous ruler, for example. In other traditions, the Hō-ō appears only in peaceful and prosperous times (nesting, it is said, in paulownia trees), and hides itself when there is trouble. As the herald of a new age, the Hō-ō decends from heaven to earth to do good deeds, and then it returns to its celestial abode to await a new era. It is both a symbol of peace (when the bird appears) and a symbol of disharmony (when the bird disappears). In China, early artifacts show the Phoenix (female) as intimately associated with the Dragon (male) -- the two are portrayed either as mortal enemies or as blissful lovers. When shown together, the two symbolize both conflict and wedded bliss, and are a common design motif even today in many parts of Asia (see below).

All of this is important, too. Interestingly, the Chinese and Japanese phoenix ties into the concepts of yin and yang, lunar and solar, which ties back into what we looked at with the taijitu in the 2nd chapter of my analysis on “Extremis.” The lunar and solar aspects also tie back into what we’ve looked at with the Great Work and the Moon and Sun metaphors.

The “One of Four Celestial Guardians of Four Directions” probably relates to the Library, which is represented by four directions.

Once again, we have a reference to a royal bloodline related to the Doctor, especially the empress. The Doctor was associated with the Mother of God in “Extremis.” While empress doesn’t necessarily mean “Mother of God,” the meanings in the context of DW are very similar, and the genders are the same. Certainly, Bill and Nardole could also be of the royal bloodline. I’m expecting it.

The Doctor has been abducted, so symbolically he has disappeared. Disharmony or harmony, all of this isn’t so simple because of the lies, like with CAL in the Library.

The dragon is interesting because Peter Harness co-wrote this episode. He also wrote “The Zygon Invasion” and “The Zygon Inversion,” as well as “Kill the Moon,” where the dragon hatched from the moon. The dragon represented the Doctor.

Wedded bliss turns into mortal enemies, so this all makes sense because the altered timeline represents a threat to the main timeline if we go by “Turn Left.”

Interestingly, in southern China, regarding the Red Bird:

Its plumage is of the five mystical colours - black, white, red, green and yellow, and it has twelve tail feathers, execept in years when there is an extra month, when there are thirteen. It feeds on bamboo seeds, lives in the branches of the dryandera tree, and drinks from fountains of fresh water.

This is really interesting because 4 of the 5 colors relate to the Great Work. Also of interest are the 12 tail feathers, which relate to the 12th Doctor, and so do the 13. However, 13 here could also relate to Brabbit.

One more interesting thing from Wikipedia:

Phoenix talons (S:凤爪 T:鳳爪) is a Chinese term for chicken claws in any Chinese dish cooked with them.

Therefore, a chicken can substitute for a phoenix in certain cases. Rory is associated with chickens. He certainly is a phoenix, dying multiple times and being resurrected. However, Bill and Penny are both associated with the chicken dish in Moira’s kitchen. Bill is a phoenix in that she flatlined according to the audio in “Oxygen,” so she died and got resurrected. Penny is associated with the 12th Doctor.

Usage of Colors in TPEW

One of the really interesting things about TPEW is how color is used. I’ll have to go back and reevaluate previous episodes with these new concepts in mind.

The Story of One Bottle, 2 Images

Douglas in the lab is hung over and talks about breakages. However, we only see one breakage the first time, which made me question that. Not only that, the first time we see a green bottle, I thought it would be empty. However, when it breaks, brown liquid spills out. That’s even odder, given the bottle isn’t darker.

Later, we see a brown bottle until the camera shows the green top. This bottle looks odd too. I’m not going to post more photos here. If you watch the episode again, watch the bottles break exactly the same both times, which is impossible. (Keep an eye on the cracks of the largest piece of glass.) No two bottles will break exactly the same. There is a point DW is trying to make, which I’ll get to below. The bottles are the same but colored digitally incorrectly on purpose for a reason.

DW wants us to notice there is one bottle but 2 flavors, so to speak. This relates back to the Trinity where 3 people are One. And then we have 2 versions of Bill. Could there be something else, too?

Bill’s Jackets: Cyan and Red

Red and cyan are both complementary colors, or in photography they are the negative of each other. Both of those concepts give us some information.

In modern color theory, complementary colors are pairs of colors that cancel each other out when combined, producing a grey-scale color like white or black. Modern color theory uses red/cyan, green/magenta, and blue/yellow.

The traditional color model says that complementary colors are pairs of colors that are opposite one another on a color wheel, like red/green, purple/yellow, and blue/orange. When they are combined, they produce brown.

So cyan and red are part of the modern color theory. It’s the terminology with the colors that I find interesting. Negative and cancelling each other out seem quite significant, especially when talking about CERN, particle physics, and Dan Brown’s novel Angels and Demons with an antimatter bomb. This is especially relevant, too, when talking about Ragnarök and the destruction of the world.

The symbology may be that one set of people is like matter and another like antimatter. When both are brought together, they annihilate each other, which is mostly what happened in Ragnarök.

Interestingly, Nardole is wearing cyan and red; Bill most of the time is wearing cyan and black with gray and a red stripe; and the Doctor is wearing red and black. Since when does he go around with his button-down shirt not tucked in?

Since complementary colors cancel each other out, producing a gray-scale color, it’s possible the Doctor’s calling card is meant for 6 people as One. The TARDIS, after all, is meant to have 6 pilots.

Colors & the First Aid Kit

There’s a green first aid kit on the wall (yellow arrow) in the lab. However, it’s not the normal color. Maybe it’s a European thing, but most first aid kits that I’ve seen in the US, if the cross is not within a circle, are red with a white cross. Regardless, this may have additional meaning.

Both Erica and Douglas are not who they seem to be. Erica has a hidden face. She, Douglas, and the Doctor are all associated with the first aid kit, which may have something to do with the color. It’s a fact that they are associated with the cross.

The Greek Cross is associated with the church or temple, which comes back to the Doctor’s body, regardless of a number. Erica and Douglas are both faces of the Doctor.

Since modern color theory is used with Bill’s jackets, green becomes suspicious because it is used with the traditional color model and opposite the red of a first aid kit. Modern and traditional could be used to describe the duplicate sets of 3 people, where traditional is meant as the originals. I’m thinking aloud here to show you that DW does get quite obscure like this.

Also, I’m spelling out my thinking process here, so you can see how I connect ideas. If you want to read subtext, you have to be able to do that and think outside the box.

Duplicates & Truth or Consequences

The Zygons metaphorically are showing up again here; however, the references, writer, and the setting of the Zygon episodes may be as close as we get since Capaldi is leaving. Zygon references had to return because of the duplication of the Doctor.

Like “The Zygon Invasion” and “The Zygon Inversion,” TPEW has similar weird dialogue and plenty of wrongness, which we’ll look at in a bit. However, there are some other very important references. First of all, the setting of Turmezistan is the same, so that brings in the Zygon training camp and splinter revolt. Second, it brings in Truth or Consequences from New Mexico and the Doctor’s war speech with the boxes.

Another reason for revisiting Zygon references, which TPEW pointed out, was how the Doctor should have received Consequences and died in TPEW. Instead, it looks like we will get Truth, which is a lie because Bill sold Earth’s soul to the devil, so to speak. This looks like it might be like the Doctor Faustus contract.

Bill signed the contract without fully understanding the terms. She asked questions that were not answered or fully disclosed.

Also, there’s the idea in the Zygon episodes of usurping someone’s identity, which, of course, is the point of the duplicate, but once again here’s the usurping theme.

So modern and traditional could be related to the original person being kept prisoner in dreams, like Clara was, while the duplicate assumes the original’s role.

Is Rassilon Back & Taking Prisoners?

In a previous chapter, we looked at an image from “The Five Doctors,” which showed Rassilon’s insignia. According to the Doctor’s calling card, Rassilon may be a face of the Doctor.

It looks like Rassilon will be back because the insignia shows up below on the lab, but in the opposite direction, like the backward “C” on Bill’s jacket. Not only that, but check out the 6-spoked pattern to the left of Rassilon’s insignia at the bottom, which I forgot to mark. This building is a prison, referring back to Prisoner 6 from The Prisoner.

So it’s not surprising at all when 2 chains show up in the lab (red arrows). I would have been surprised if there weren’t any.

Here’s a close up of a chain, which is odd, although the Monk’s round camera is there, which could have meaing. This photo is odd because it’s a close up without a person near it. This may mean The Ghost is a prisoner, which would make sense, or it could mean something else. This is the 1st time I’ve seen something like this, which is why I am questioning its meaning.

It’s a little hard to tell here, but there is a chain behind Douglas, shown below (red arrow). He is a prisoner and is being controlled. The whole impending disaster/non-disaster was engineered.

Not surprisingly, the Doctor has a chain behind him, which has nothing to do with him being locked in the lab. There would be no need to use a chain for something obvious. He is a prisoner before Bill sell’s his soul to the devil. Caecilius was a happy slave before he put on the beetle. Why? I expect that we’ll find out.

Most likely, the best thing to do is to think of the Doctor as CAL in the Library with Doctor Moon brainwashing him into thinking the real world is a lie and the dream world is real.

OMG, That Lab & the Silliest Dialogue!

OMG that lab dialogue, imagery, etc.! Quick, someone call the regulatory agency in Yorkshire for, well… I’ll go over a few highlights

Most of the intentional wrongness in the episode shows up in the lab. If you’ve ever been in a lab or have knowledge of lab practices, you may have been cringing, or maybe you played spot-the-problems like my daughter and me. It’s a textbook case for how not to build or run a lab. Students, don’t try these things in the lab! There are so many wrong things in the lab, but I’ll just call out a few.

Initially, I was cringing when Erica came in with coffee (red arrow), which then started the spot-the-problems game. Douglas calls her an angel. Um… no! He looks poisoned when he dies frothing at the mouth, and his blurriness starts right after he drinks the coffee. Where’s the big sign that says, “No food or drink in the lab!”? Health and safety violation.

Also, why are they testing bacteria on live plants? The plants should already be harvested.

Then, Erica and Douglas are not even looking at bacteria on the monitor. The little creatures are more complex than bacteria and much bigger. I recognized a paramecium, the big slipper-shaped thing zooming by. Bacteria are tiny and come in specific shapes. This is when Erica says the silliest dialogue:

ERICA: It's gone crazy. It's much too strong. It's not just breaking the root system down, it's killing the whole thing. We have to seal off the lab, the greenhouse, everything. This can't be allowed to get into the atmosphere.

Wow! What exactly has gone crazy? Um… why is a scientist who works with plants surprised that if you kill the roots of the plant, the whole plant dies? How can she even tell what’s happening since there are no plant parts there? This, most likely, is a slide of pond life since paramecium are quite abundant in ponds. Is that a clue to Amy?

And why is a biohazard lab venting hazardous materials into the atmosphere? Where is regulatory when you need them?

Douglas running out of the biohazard lab with a sample was not a mistake. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway because the airlocks weren’t designed properly. They are supposed to use pressure to force pathogens back into the lab. People can’t run in and out of the doors like they did.

And not wearing a biohazard suit…

I could go on and on.

One more thing, the butterfly effect comes up again with small things having a big effect. The butterfly is a symbol of transformation.

The Lab, the Doctor, Star Trek & the Legend of the Changeling

Blowing up the lab is an absurd move by the Doctor, but he, too, is being controlled. I feel like he is the Nomad probe from the original Star Trek. It got damaged and had its programming changed. Sterilize…sterilize. It tried to sterilize everything, destroying whatever was imperfect. (The Doctor tries to destroy non-human Heather in “The Pilot” by sterilizing her in Dalek gunfire, which doesn’t make sense.) Sterilizing things in fire, requires a certain amount of time in the heat. There is no way a bomb blast will do anything good, except spread the plague faster through the high-speed blast.

*** I’ve added the sections below ***

Wow, OK, I’ve had a major revelation about this whole sterilization thing. I was going to go back and put in the Star Trek episode title “The Changeling” in the paragraph above when it dawned on me why the Doctor wants to sterilize things in ways that don’t make sense.

Spock, Rose & the Doctor

DW really is making a reference to the title of the episode “The Changeling,” which is based on an Earth legend. Before I get to that, I forgot to mention that there is a very important original series Star Trek reference in the 9th Doctor episode “The Empty Child.” Rose tells Captain Jack Harkness that the Doctor’s name is Spock.

If you don’t follow Star Trek, First Officer Spock is a half-human, half-Vulcan science officer on the starship Enterprise, and he is brilliant and telepathic, like the Doctor.

Spock’s name comes up 5 times in “The Empty Child.” Here is one of the conversations:

JACK: Good evening. Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over. ROSE: He knows. I had to tell him about us being Time Agents. JACK: And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mister Spock. (Jack walks forward to the ward.) DOCTOR: Mister Spock? ROSE: What was I supposed to say? You don't have a name. Don't you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who?

So Spock, a hybrid, is associated with the Doctor.

The Changeling: A Legend of Usurpation

Captain Kirk in the episode tells Spock about the changeling legend:

KIRK: An ancient Earth legend, Mister Spock. A changeling was a fairy child that was left in place of a human baby. The changeling assumed the identity of the human child. So, it is to sterilise, and for sterilise read kill.

Wow, here is yet another reference to someone being usurped!

In this case, the changeling is the probe, which the Doctor is, at times, emulating. Initially, the Nomad space probe was launched from Earth during the early 21st century, and its mission was to explore the galaxy. Clearly, something has changed in its mission, so Spock mind melds with the probe to find out what its purpose is.

SPOCK: Fascinating, Captain. The knowledge. The depth. KIRK: What does it mean, we are Nomad? SPOCK: It was, it was damaged in deep space. Undoubtedly, the meteor collision. Its memory banks were destroyed, or most of them. It wandered without purpose, and then it met the other. The other was an alien probe of great power. Somehow they merged, repaired each other, became one. KIRK: Then it isn't Nomad? SPOCK: Not the Nomad we lost from Earth. It took from the other a new directive to replace its own. The other was originally programmed to secure and sterilise soil samples from other planets, probably as a prelude to colonisation. KIRK: A changeling. SPOCK: I beg your pardon?

SPOCK And it has the power and sophistication to do it. KIRK: Yes, it's powerful, it's sophisticated, but it's not infallible. It's space-happy. It thinks I'm its mother.

This sounds suspiciously like what has happened to the Doctor or will happen. Nomad gets reprogrammed and seeks out biological infestations to destroy them. Um… this sounds ominous, but we know the Doctor has killed a lot of people. In fact, that was certainly made clear in “Extremis” on the execution planet.

Purpose of a Changeling

This might explain why the Doctor is in an orphanage as a child.

According to Wikipedia:

One belief is that trolls thought that it was more respectable to be raised by humans and that they wanted to give their own children a human upbringing. Some people believed that trolls would take unbaptized children. Once children had been baptized and therefore become part of the Church, the trolls could not take them.

Beauty in human children and young women, particularly blond hair, was said to attract the fairies.

In Scottish folklore, the children might be replacements for fairy children in the tithe to Hell; this is best known from the ballad of Tam Lin. According to common Scottish myths, a child born with a caul (head helmet) across his or her face is a changeling, and of fey birth.

“Night Terrors” & Another Type of Changeling

In “Night Terrors,” 8-year-old George, a mirror of the Doctor, contacts the Doctor via psychic paper, asking to be saved from the monsters. George has very strong powers, such as the ability to use perception filters. Also, he has telekinetic powers, among other things, and sends all the things he is afraid of to the dollhouse.

His adoptive/foster parents didn’t remember they couldn’t have kids because George made them forget with the perception filter. The Doctor talks to his adoptive/foster father, Alex.

DOCTOR: George is a Tenza. Of course he is. ALEX: He's a what? (Peg dolls are approaching from all directions.) DOCTOR: A cuckoo. A cuckoo in the nest. A Tenza. He's a Tenza. Millions of them hatch in space and then whoomph, off they drift, looking for a nest. The Tenza young can sense exactly what their foster parents want and then they assimilate perfectly.

Cuckoo birds lay their eggs in another bird’s nest, letting the young be raised by foster parents. Certainly, the foster parent sounds like Moira with Bill. And Bill is a face of the Doctor.

Interestingly, Wikipedia says

In Greek mythology, the god Zeus transformed himself into a cuckoo so that he could seduce the goddess Hera; the bird was sacred to her. In England, William Shakespeare alludes to the common cuckoo's association with spring, and with cuckoldry, in the courtly springtime song in his play Love's Labours Lost. In India, cuckoos are sacred to Kamadeva, the god of desire and longing, whereas in Japan, the cuckoo symbolises unrequited love.

We have 3 connections here: Zeus turning himself into another bird (Zeus or his proxy is the Doctor), Love’s Labours Lost in “The Shakespeare Code,” and the cuckoo in Japan with the Harmony Shoal connection with Bill’s jacket.

The Lab, Pi, Star Trek & “Wolf in the Fold”

*** This is a whole new section UPDATE 2x ***

Wow, this has just blown my mind how Star Trek is being used! I had another revelation of something in the lab that didn’t make sense. On one of the monitors, there is the Greek letter pi, which my daughter caught. It was very out of place because it wasn’t part of the screen, which was blank, except for a big white pi, like more as a reflection-type thing. Obviously, it had been digitally added. However, it didn’t make sense at the time.

Now, I get it. With the Star Trek reference above for “The Changeling,” I see how DW is using Star Trek. I need to modify my thinking to include Star Trek episodes and titles.

Star Trek was my favorite TV show growing up here in America, so I'm geeking out about the Star Trek references in DW. Not having watched the episodes in a long time, I couldn't remember which Star Trek episode had the computer calculate pi, so I looked it up.

It’s an episode called “Wolf in the Fold,”where Scotty, the engineer on the Enterprise, is suspected of murder. Memory Alpha says,

However, a more sinister force may provide a connection between this murder and many previous around the galaxy, including a rampage on ancient Earth.

The sinister entity can possess people, so here is yet another reference to usurpation. The Doctor has to get usurped. This theme is just coming up all over the place, and it’s an example of why my hypotheses get moved to conclusions, which are head canon, waiting to show up in real canon. When a theme or topic from the subtext keeps hitting you over the head, you know it has to happen.

Check out the connection to fear and usurpation, which we’ve seen in previous chapters, and I talked about it below before adding this new section.

SPOCK: An entity which feeds on fear and terror would find a perfect hunting ground on Argelius, a planet without violence, where the inhabitants are as peaceful as sheep. The entity would be as a hungry wolf in that fold.

People who were afraid were easily taken over. The Doctor is very afraid right now.

The entity entered the computer, and Spock told it to calculate the value of pi, which is never ending. The crew ended up getting rid of the entity

So here is a connection to the Wolf, which goes with the werewolf and the Doctor from “Tooth and Claw.”

References to “Oxygen”

There are quite a few references in the lab that relate to “Oxygen,” although the first thing I recognized was something in the command center.

Duct Pattern

The pattern on this duct (red arrow) was on the space base in “Oxygen.”

We see the same pattern on the duct in “Oxygen.” They are reused to draw a comparison.

Hazardous Similarities

The biohazard lab was very similar to the dangers on the space station. Both require special suits; both have airlocks; both have deadly environments; both are engineered to fail. Douglas and the Doctor go without full biohazard suits, like Bill and the Doctor in “Oxygen.” People in the lab are being watched, like the “Oxygen” suits. The deaths were engineered just like in the lab.

Plague & Pyramid References

Both TPEW and “Oxygen” refer to plagues. The TPEW plague is obvious, although there is also a plague cross on the plane. However, the plague in “Oxygen” is only in the subtext. Check out the photo of the Doctor’s suit (red arrow). There is also a pentagon, meaning a weapon of mass destruction.

However, also notice the triangle (yellow arrow). I had wondered about this. Of course, it can refer to The Ghost with 3 sides, which I assumed. However, I figured it might have some connection to a pyramid because of the shape being the side of a pyramid and because of what the pyramid shape means. “The Wedding of River Song” took place in a pyramid in an alternate timeline. The Bank of Karabraxos in “Time Heist” was the shape of a pyramid, where the Doctor metaphor is a slave. Pyramids also have a connection to the 4th Doctor story “Pyramids of Mars,” where the Doctor’s body gets usurped.

So here’s how these pyramid stories are tied into the 12th Doctor through TPEW. It was inevitable that we had to come back to a pyramid, especially because the subtext shows the Bank of Karabraxos is on a rift, which ties in the Sisterhood of Karn and the Sybilline Sisterhood in “The Fires of Pompeii.”

As far as triangles go, the Monks monitor has triangular sides, so they can easily be related to the problems in “Oxygen.”

One more thing about the plague and TPEW: when connected to the volcano on Bill’s jacket, that connects to “The Empty Child,” “The Doctor Dances,” and “The Fires of Pompeii.”

Health & Safety Violations

Then, there are the health and safety violations in the lab. This was also mentioned in “Oxygen” when people try to pick up Bill in her suit. The suit complains.

VELMA: Warning. This is an illegal manoeuvre. ABBY: The suit won't let us. Health and safety. NARDOLE: Health and safety?

More to Come from “Oxygen”?

This all makes me wonder if part of this dreaming is damage from lack of oxygen, like hallucinations. Or did the Doctor make a bargain with the devil to save Bill. Regardless, it feels like there must be some other connection here that we haven’t seen that goes back to “Oxygen.”

The Lie of the Engineered Impending Disaster

If you didn’t catch all the images that flash by when people are looking at the Monks’ simulation, life still exists on Earth. For lack of time, I’m not going to post them. It’s a lie that everything is dead. All the images are of natural disasters, except possibly 1 where there is a fire coming out of a building. This is not about the plague at all. Here are the images shown:

· Forest fire with many burned trees

· Flood and damage

· Storm clouds

· Huge flood where houses get submerged, except for the roofs.

· Tornado/hurricane damage with a car turned over

· Fire coming out of a building

· Hurricane with palm trees bending severely

BTW, I have a really hard time believing the Monks have modeled every event in human history. The amount of computing power needed would be staggering, unless we are using all the dead Time Lord brains in the Matrix and all the knowledge of human history on the Library planet.

Those threads on the simulation machine are interesting. The first thing I thought of was string theory, but I also thought of weaving a tapestry, which reminds me of the Moirai from Greek mythology or in English the Fates. We examined fate in a different way with the Magic Haddock story from “Smile.”

The Fates & Moira

The Fates, according to Wikipedia,

were the white-robed incarnations of destiny; their Roman equivalent was the Parcae (euphemistically the "sparing ones"). Their number became fixed at three: Clotho (spinner), Lachesis (allotter) and Atropos (unturnable).

They controlled the mother thread of life of every mortal from birth to death. They were independent, at the helm of necessity, directed fate, and watched that the fate assigned to every being by eternal laws might take its course without obstruction. The gods and men had to submit to them, although Zeus's relationship with them is a matter of debate: some sources say he is the only one who can command them (the Zeus Moiragetes), yet others suggest he was also bound to the Moirai's dictates. In the Homeric poems Moira or Aisa, is related with the limit and end of life, and Zeus appears as the guider of destiny.

…

The ancient Greek word moira (μοῖρα) means a portion or lot of the whole, and is related to meros, "part, lot" and moros, "fate, doom",[6] Latin meritum, "dessert, reward", English merit, derived from the PIE root *(s)mer, "to allot, assign".

…

Moira is a power acting in parallel with the gods, and even they could not change the destiny which was predetermined.

This also reminds me of the 3 witches in “The Shakespeare Code.”

Since it’s the Monks who have threads that simulate Earth’s events, they seem to be playing the Fates’ roles. Interestingly, Bill’s foster mother is Moira, so it seems there may be more to her than it appears. In fact, this all may suggest the Doctor’s entire life has been controlled by those represented by the Monks. Certainly, the 12th Doctor has been a prisoner for his entire life, so this makes sense. We know someone is controlling him. Part of it, obviously is love, but why was Caecilius a happy slave in “The Fires of Pompeii” before he put on the beetle?

BTW, the actress who plays Moira played a woman in “Grid Lock,” who was married to the cat man named Brannigan, and they literally had a litter of kittens together in their Motorway car.

The Love Is Slavery Theme

In TPEW, the Monks must be loved

MONK: We must be wanted. We must be loved. To rule through fear is inefficient.

DOCTOR: Of course. Fear is temporary. Love is slavery.

Love is slavery has been a long-time theme. Here are a few examples.

“Human Nature” & “The Family of Blood”

We’ve examined this very metaphorical image, shown below, multiple times from “Human Nature” where the 24th Doctor (Roman Doctor) is trapped in the Library metaphor. It really is one of my favorites because it tells us so much.

If you missed it, my lengthy examination is in Chapter 13 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who. Here’s an excerpt:

The gyroscope, which is centered on the Doctor’s heart at the bottom center, has an arrow through it. Gyroscopes balance themselves and provide stability or maintain a reference direction in navigational systems, automatic pilots, and stabilizers, and gyroscopes are part of an inertial guidance system.

However, this gyroscope has an arrow through it, so the system can’t balance itself. It represents Cupid’s arrow shooting through the Doctor’s heart, causing him to lose his sense of stabilization and direction.

Love has unbalanced him, which very much matches up with what we saw in the episode and its second part “The Family of Blood.

He’s trapped and framed in, meaning he is being used against his will, and he has strong fears. He is a slave to love.

“The Shakespeare Code” & the Number 57

In “The Shakespeare Code,” the 3 witches (Carrionites, who are yet another species from the Dark Times) cast a spell on Shakespeare, enslaving him to write his lost play Loves Labour's Won, which is possibly a sequel to his play Love's Labour's Lost. Through the power of his words and a string of numbers, a code, spoken in the Globe Theater, a gate opens allowing other Carrionites to come through.

This episode not only specifies how important words are, especially Shakespeare’s, it tells us how important numbers and shapes are, too. Additionally, there is a hint given to us to help decipher some DW numbers, including the number 57, which comes up quite a bit. The 10th Doctor uses it in “The Shakespeare Code.”

DOCTOR: Come on. We can all have a good flirt later.

SHAKESPEARE: Is that a promise, Doctor?

DOCTOR: Oh, fifty seven academics just punched the air. Now move!

Some numbers in DW refer to Shakespeare’s sonnets. In fact, Sonnet 57 is about being a slave to love:

Sonnet 57

Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour When you have bid your servant once adieu; Nor dare I question with my jealous thought Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought Save, where you are how happy you make those. So true a fool is love that in your will, Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

When I hear this poem, I can’t help but think of the original Star Trek. Captain Kirk spoke the first few lines in “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Interestingly, I’ve thought of this Star Trek episode several times lately in regards to DW, but for other reasons. Star Trek may have a broader significance to the current events than I’ve realized so far. Update: Once I wrote this, I started thinking about it. Yes, it does have a broader significance, as my updates suggest, but I’m betting I’m missing a whole bunch of Star Trek connections because I haven’t thought of this previously. This is how these things happen with subtext references. Something can radically change how you view things. Then, you have to rethink a bunch of episodes. The color scheme I’ve showed you in this chapter is another example of this.

Back in my analysis on “The Pilot,” I talked about “The Shakespeare Code,” as well as how the Doctor and River are stuck in looped time because the 12th Doctor wasn’t there with River in the Library to help her, so the 10th Doctor comes. River enslaves the Doctor with knowledge of the future. He is a slave to love and can’t get past this point until something changes.

This is a canon problem that has to be resolved, which is another reason why River has to come back or at least we need to hear another resolution to the story with how it affects her and the Doctor.

“The Wedding of River Song” & 57 & 22

In “The Wedding of River Song,” River doesn’t want to kill the Doctor, so time is stuck in a loop at 2 minutes past 5 in the afternoon on April 22. We don’t see the seconds until later. All of time is happening at once, and the clock won’t move. Once the Doctor grabs River’s arm, we see the clock advance, starting from 05:02:57. Everyone is a slave to an alternate timeline because of River’s love of the Doctor.

The number 22 is also another reference to Shakespeare and Sonnet 22:

Sonnet 22

My glass shall not persuade me I am old

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will,

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;

Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.

“The Pyramid at the End of the World” & 57

OK, I had to spell out the darn title again. The Doctor touches his sonic shades, which then show the time as 11:57. Everyone's phones ring, showing a time of 23:57:00. Time is caught in a similar type loop as in “The Wedding of River Song,” although time isn’t happening all at once in TPEW. I’ll call this the Doomsday Loop for the Doomsday Clock reference.

This episode draws heavily from the 5th Doctor story “Kinda,” which I’ll talk about in a few minutes.

“Last Christmas” & 57

In “Last Christmas,” the Doctor and Clara are trying to figure out if they are dreaming. The Doctor passes out 4 manuals.

DOCTOR: These books should be identical in the real world. But as they don't exist in your memory, in a dream, they can't be. Agreed? Clara. Give me any two digit number.

CLARA: Fifty seven.

DOCTOR: All right, all of you, turn to page fifty seven and look at the very first word. Right, when I point at you.

So 57 gets mentioned twice here. The Doctor, in fact, puts himself in another layer of a dream to save Clara. The Dream Crabs found Clara through the Doctor. In TPEW, the Doctor is mirroring Clara, having been found through Bill.

“Heaven Sent” & 57

We know the Doctor kept going for 4.5 billion years in “Heaven Sent” because of thoughts of Clara, so it’s not surprising that the number 57 comes up.

(A clock ticks, but it is actually the Doctor tapping a finger against the arm of his chair.)

DOCTOR [OC]: It's funny, the day you lose someone isn't the worst. At least you've got something to do. It's all the days they stay dead.

(The flies arrive.)

DOCTOR: Fifty-seven minutes?

(He gets up and leaves just ahead of the Veil's arrival.)

It’s significant that he talks about losing Clara while sitting near her portrait. Then, he mentions 57 minutes.

“Time Heist”

The male Teller, being the last of its kind, is a metaphor for the Doctor. It’s enslaved and doing terrible things in the Bank of Karabraxos. Later, we find out that it was because of love. A female teller is held hostage to enslave the male Teller and make it do Karabraxos’ bidding. The relationship between the Tellers is never mentioned, so I’m just calling them kin.

From this, we know the Doctor has to be a slave to love, whether romantic or not. Someone he cares about and loves is being held hostage.

Bill is the one who is the face of the Doctor here. She enslaves everyone to save him, and that mirrors River.

“The Curse of Fenric”

While the term “slavery” isn’t used in the 7th Doctor story “The Curse of Fenric,” love is used as a weapon of mass destruction. It’s part of the curse to win the war. Drop the love bomb on one side and wipe out lots of people. I talked a little bit about this in Chapter 16 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who. It sounds a lot like Davros’ reality bomb.

Ace is beginning to have feelings of love, which is canon. However, the subtext says her love is for the Doctor. He ends up saying some cruel things to her to break her confidence in him, exactly like what the 11th Doctor had to do to break Amy’s confidence in “The God Complex.”

I expect this may happen with the 12th Doctor and Bill. In fact, does he intentionally provoke her, so she tries to kill him? He will sacrifice himself at some point because it occurs numerous times in the subtext. That may also be part of what the Monks have been alluding to when they said they killed him many times in the simulation.

The curse also comes back to Rose and Bad Wolf, besides Ace, Clara, and Martha.

Enslaved by Love & the Memory Block/Mind Wipe

While 57 doesn’t come up in the dialogue in “Hell Bent,” Clara and the Doctor (like River and the Doctor) are slaves to love, whether it’s romantic or not. The subtext shows it is romantic. Clearly, they love each other in whatever capacity that is. And they are alchemically married. In “Before the Flood,” Clara mentions love.

CLARA: No. Doctor, I don't care about your rules or your bloody survivor's guilt. If you love me in any way, you'll come back. Doctor, are you?

He comes back. And she programmed him to always come back, which he does in “Hell Bent.” This programming is also a problem.

He wants to block her memory to block any thought of him, so the Time Lords don’t find her.

DOCTOR: Because it's the only way. That stuff in your head, the image of me, they could use it to find you.

However, we see in TPEW why the memory block or mind wipe is needed. They used Bill’s knowledge of the Doctor to find him and abduct him. Not only that, it was Bill’s love of him that has now enslaved the Earth (the Doctor) and humanity. According to the subtext, he will be the Teller, made to do terrible things.

Enslavement & Death of the Earth

No doubt from the clips of the upcoming episode “The Lie of the Land,” we see an altered timeline, and it looks like humanity is enslaved. It’s probably because of the enslaved Doctor’s words, since the Doctor is the Shakespeare mirror. I imagine he becomes like Doctor Moon, who brainwashes people.

In TPEW, we see a visual of the Earth as a metaphor of the Doctor. After the opening credits, we get a look at the Earth (yellow arrow) from space, which fades out simultaneously as the top of the Doctor’s bent head (red arrow) fades in. While the Earth is the Doctor, it’s his head, not his face, which is associated with the Earth. That tells us that the metaphor applies to all Doctors.

Controlling Earth means controlling the Doctor’s mind. The actual death of the Doctor would be the death of Earth, which needs to happen in an alternate timeline. However, what if he is like CAL and there are living minds there? Just thinking aloud here. We always have to consider the bigger subtext story and how this fits in.

Tip: Ask yourself lots of questions and try to piece together as many data points as you can.

Since we are dealing with Harmony Shoal, he would get possessed like what Harmony Shoal tried with Grant. Of course, the Doctor is a mirror of Grant, the most powerful person on Earth. Harmony Shoal (the Monks) possesses him. We don’t see a brain swap in the same way because that was metaphorical silliness for the Christmas specials.

If we go by what happened in the Library, River prevented CAL from self-destructing by integrating with her. River’s and the Doctor’s actions reactualized most of the living minds like Donna’s. Since we are dealing with the Library, I think something like this may happen at some point.

The Doctor may, indeed, be hurt more than we have been told. He knows his death is coming shortly. And his speech at the beginning very much reminds me of the beginning of “Heaven Sent.”

[Tardis]

(After the titles, we get a look at our blue marble hanging in space, then at the Doctor picking a melancholy tune on his electric guitar.) DOCTOR: The end of your life has already begun. There is a last place you will ever go, a last door you will ever walk through, a last sight you will ever see, and every step you ever take is moving you closer. The end of the world

[Ordinary street]

(A little woman comes out of her front door and puts her handbag down to stop it closing.) DOCTOR [OC]: Is a billion, billion tiny moments. (Her husband is following, staring at his smart phone.) ERICA: Don't shut the door! (But he does, smashing her glasses which are inside the handbag.) DOCTOR [OC]: And somewhere, unnoticed MAN: Sorry. DOCTOR [OC]: In silence or in darkness (She hold up the ruined glasses.) ERICA: Damn it! (And gives her other half a Look.) DOCTOR [OC]: It has already begun.

[Tardis]

BILL [OC]: You talking to yourself in there? DOCTOR: I'm meditating. BILL [OC]: You've been in there for hours. I've been trying to talk to you. Have you double-locked this thing?

Interestingly, he mentions silence and darkness. Silence is another metaphor associated with River, Amy, Rory, and the 11th Doctor. Did you notice the 11th Doctor’s theme playing in this episode? Darkness most likely refers to his blindness.

Meditation is a reference to the Season 9 episode “The Magician’s Apprentice” and its humorous minisode prequel, “The Doctor’s Meditation.” In “The Magician’s Apprentice,” Clara asks Missy a question:

CLARA: How's a Time Lord supposed to die?

MISSY: Meditation. Repentance and acceptance.

When I think of the Doctor’s death, while there are many episodes showing that he sacrifices his life, 5 episodes stick out: “Dark Water” & “Death in Heaven” with Danny Pink, who dies being hit by a car, like Rose’s father, but sends back his younger self because he promised; “Turn Left,” where alternate-Donna has to sacrifice her life; “Father’s Day,” where we see Rose save her father and then how he sacrifices his life; and “The Unquiet Dead,” where Gwyneth volunteers to be a gateway for what she believes are angels, but she sacrifices her life to stop them when they turn out to be malevolent, ghostly creatures.

We’ve examined all of these, except “Father’s Day,” which has some important additional subtext, suggesting who Bill might be.

“Father’s Day,” Bill & the Doctor’s Sacrifice

In “Father’s Day,” Rose and the 9th Doctor go back in time because she was a baby when her father died, and she wants to see him. They tragically watch her father step out in front of a car.

On an impulse, seeing this about to happen a 2nd time, she runs out, against the Doctor’s orders, and saves her father from being hit. It changes the timeline, and people start disappearing at a wedding. Reapers come to the church to take people away, or people are there one minute and not the next. One Reaper is shown below, which looks really clunky on purpose. This image of a giant bat-like creature is not really what one looks like.

Scientifically, a different timeline would spin off, and people would just not be there. Or other people would show up. A good example is the first Star Trek movie of the reboot, directed by J.J. Abrams.

So the Reapers are metaphorical, but important. They show us that things change when the timeline is damaged.

The Doctor, over the years, has damaged the timeline seemingly without consequences. If he’s in a simulation, there may not be any consequences.

BTW, below is an image of Rose and the Doctor with a horse picture. They are part of the rescue plan.

Rose’s Father

Rose, the 9th Doctor, her mom, baby Rose, and dad, along with others take cover in the church that the Reapers attack. Below, the Doctor and Rose’s father are going to look out the window.

When I first saw this scene in the church and recognized the metaphor of the crucifix (red arrow), shown below, the scene shocked me. Both the 9th Doctor and Rose’s father are associated with the crucifix in this scene, meaning they are the crucified 12th Doctor. This equates Rose’s father with the Doctor, so here Rose metaphorically is the Doctor’s daughter. What this means is that the Doctor’s daughter, whomever she is, saves the Doctor and spins off an alternate timeline.

While this all really was shocking to me when I first saw it, there is an image, which confirmed this for me. We see a scene below from the viewpoint of one of the Reapers, where the 9th Doctor is walking down the sidewalk. Surprisingly, the Doctor is 2 different people, 2 heads (red and white arrows) with a blurry body. Scientifically, there would be the mainline Doctor and an alternate timeline version in 2 different universes.

We’ve got dreams, illusions, simulations, etc. going, so anything is possible. They, most likely, are in the Matrix.

Anyway, this duplication comes back to the 12th Doctor, and the 2 versions of him, Bill, etc. that we are seeing in “Extremis” and TPEW.

To set the timeline straight, Rose’s father sacrifices his life by stepping out in front of the car. We don’t see people return when he does that. Scientifically, Rose’s father’s death wouldn’t fix the timeline because they are 2 separate universes, like the Star Trek reboot and the original series.

In “Turn Left,” alternate-Donna’s fix of the timeline by sacrificing her life suggests other things are going on.

Is Bill the Doctor’s Daughter?

Bill saved the 12th Doctor from dying, which mirrors both River and Rose, where we see alternative timelines created because the Doctor and Rose’s father survive.

Bill also mirrors many other companions, but can one be the Doctor’s daughter?

There is something in “Oxygen” that lends support to that. When Bill and Nardole are trying to hurry the blind Doctor away from the zombies, Bill’s suit locks up and refuses to move. The Doctor has to leave her behind.

DOCTOR: You will go through hell, but you will come through it. And I will be waiting on the other side. BILL: But what if I was going to die DOCTOR: You're not going to die! BILL: Would you just say exactly the same? DOCTOR: I will see you soon. BILL: Just tell me a joke before you go. (They all leave her.) BILL: Just tell me a joke! He didn't tell me a joke. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Mum! Answer me! (A zombie touches Velma.) VELMA: Instruction received. Complying. BILL: Mum!

We see images of Bill’s mother flash by.

VELMA: Please remain calm while your central nervous system is disabled. Your life is in our hands. (As electricity plays over Bill, her last thoughts are of the photo of her mother. Then she joins the back of the train of zombies.)

The really odd thing here is that Bill calls out to her mother twice, which doesn’t make sense for what we think we know. Bill doesn’t know her mom, who died when Bill was a baby. Under duress, most people are not going to call out to someone who is dead to answer about not telling a joke. It would be natural to call out to Nardole and the Doctor. Nardole, shown below, has a really pained look when Bill does call out, and the Doctor looks distressed, too, in the scene.

The Doctor is the one who took the photos of Bill’s Mum, but what if the Doctor is trying to protect Bill to keep her identity secret. What if she is his daughter?

Rose spun off an alternate timeline when she saved her father. It looks like Bill does something similar with the 12th Doctor. Shooting the Doctor, however, would be like River or Amy, where Amy shot at the little girl in the astronaut suit in “The Impossible Astronaut.”

Also, shooting the Doctor could mirror the Master’s wife shooting him. With people playing all kinds of mirrors, many things are possible.

Where Are They?

The title of the 10th Doctor episode “The Family of Blood” suggests that it’s the Doctor’s own people who are after him. Given who all is involved, like Rassilon, the Monks most likely are Time Lords.

Since Bill has a forward “C” and a backward “C” on her jacket, this has to do with the Eye of Harmony. Most likely they are part of the Matrix, so for right now, I’ll refer to the Matrix as a metaphor that includes virtual reality, dreams, and illusions, like the 4th Doctor said about being in the Matrix.

A Similar Episode from Classic Who: “Kinda”

TPEW draws heavily from the 5th Doctor episode “Kinda,” which is pronounced with a short “i.” I made the mistake of using a long “i." A few months ago, I watched about 6 minutes of the first episode and stopped, so I went back and watched the whole thing the day after TPEW aired. It draws heavily from The Prisoner. Also, there is a Doomsday Clock, although it is not labeled as such, which is also at 11:57.

The Kinda are telepathic, but most don’t speak. However, there is a wise old blind woman, Panna, who can speak, along with a girl, Karuna, who speaks and is telepathic. Women have a gift that men don’t, and they can look into a Jhana box without going mad. Men, however, go mad or else are idiots. The Doctor got labeled an idiot.

There are a lot of mind-bending things going on, especially with Tegan, one of the companions. She gets duplicated, where one copy is an illusion, turning into 9 other copies of her. An evil being wants her to become him. He has a snake tattoo that transfers to her after she is worn down by psychological warfare. The Mara possessed Tegan, but later transferred to a Kinda male. He somehow ends up making all the Kinda obedient to him.

The Doctor experiences many mind-bending things, too

What to Expect Coming Up

Based on various episodes, we can get an idea of some of the things that might happen.

Fear, Possession & Hostage Situation

Fear and a weakened condition invite possession, and we know the Doctor is very scared about his blindness, which he talks about in TPEW. Depending on the hostage situation, he might submit willingly to a possession or a situation where he has to choose the lessor of 2 evils, so to speak.

“Tooth and Claw”

In “Tooth and Claw,” set in Scotland, the werewolf talks to Rose:

ROSE: Where are you from? You're not from Earth. What planet are you from? WEREWOLF: Oh, intelligence. ROSE: Where were you born?

WEREWOLF: This body? Ten miles away. A weakling, heartsick boy, stolen away at night by the brethren for my cultivation. I carved out his soul and sat in his heart.

So the Doctor is abducted by Brabbit and the Monks and most likely gets possessed.

“Midnight”

In the 10th Doctor story “Midnight,” we see Skye (who most fears an invisible entity) getting possessed. Her possession passes into the Doctor, so this supports the possession hypothesis.

“Time Heist”

There’s the hostage situation we looked at above in “Time Heist.” In it, 3 Doctors are implied. The one who is a hostage, the 12th Doctor that we see, and the Architect from the future.

Wealth & Empire

We know the Doctor would never pursue wealth and power if he is in his right mind, but a possessed Doctor or a Doctor-turned-human might.

“The Fires of Pompeii”

In “The Fires of Pompeii,” Caecilius, as a human, wanted to get rich, so the Doctor will most likely get rich.

“Rise of the Cybermen” & “The Age of Steel”

In “Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel,” John Lumic builds an empire. He is CEO, director and co-founder of Cybus Industries, which creates Cybermen. Lumic is responsible for a lot of deaths.

The Man Who Fell to Earth

In The Man Who Fell to Earth, Newton builds an empire. He really is trying to do good things with his businesses, unlike Lumic, but he is also psychically affecting people in not so good ways, which he probably doesn’t realize. Much of what we see is not reliable since it looks like he is caught up in hallucinations, illusions, and other altered realities. He is being controlled.

Some Master Episodes, Like “The End of Time,” Parts 1 & 2

We’ll most likely see the Doctor mirroring the Master in more ways, since we’ve already seen a lot of mirroring.

Eye of Harmony

At some point, we’ll have to see the Eye of Harmony, like we did in “The Impossible Planet.” That would be the black hole and another planet, unless we see only something like what was in the DW movie.

Rescue of the Doctor

Of course, the whole rescue plan is about rescuing the Doctor, so we have to see that. “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” will play a large part to stop the plague that we’ve examined across many chapters. If you haven’t read about the rescue plan or the plague cross and what it means, check out Chapter 17 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who plus the next 2 chapters. We examined how there had to be a plague somewhere before Season 10 even started.

The Doctor’s Family

I expect that we will learn who the Doctor’s family is. I’m expecting several people to come back.

Self-sacrifice

At some point, the subtext says the Doctor will sacrifice himself.

One thing is for sure: it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

#doctor who #twelfth doctor #bill potts #nardole #the pyramid at the end of the world #river song #clara oswald #amy pond #rory williams #seventh doctor #ace #third doctor

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faunusrights · 8 years ago

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THE ART OF IMMOLATION - To Follow in Her Footsteps (Short I/?)

Okay, so I’ve been going on and on and on about this AU for aeons and even though I’ve been writing a ton of short fics for it, they all have spoilers! So now this one doesn’t. It’s Velvet/Cinder, and expands a bit on a headcanon as to what Velvet’s semblance actually is. Also I wrote this at 3am.

(Crossposted on AO3 and FF.net)

Velvet’s deep in the middle of training, performing an onslaught on some invisible opponent in the middle of the church floor, when Cinder glances up from what she’s reading. She’d been that way for a while, curled up on some great crimson cushion she’d propped against a single stone altar near the back of the church. Save for the occasional crisp turn of a page and the rasp of bare feet against the stone floor as the Faunus worked through the motions, it’d been peaceful. That was, of course, until Velvet could feel Cinder’s curious gaze land right between her shoulder blades, slowing her punches until she dropped her guard completely. With a pant for air, Velvet rolled her shoulders and turned on her heel, looking at Cinder just in time for the woman to ask what her semblance was.

It makes her pause. It’s not a new question, of course - from the very moment Velvet’s Aura had been unlocked not days after joining the White Fang, rookies and veterans alike had all had the same question on the tips of their tongues. Just like the surety of a sunrise or the inevitable fall of rain, her semblance was sure to develop, manifesting along the crackle of a new yet familiar energy that ran under her skin. It had been a rite of passage, the Fang giving her the gift to go toe-to-toe with Hunters and Grimm alike if she so chose, and for days afterwards every pair of eyes had looked to her with wonder.

Not all had been pleased to hear how it had manifested.

“Mimicry.”

Cinder’s brow rises, and for a moment Velvet feels like she needs to defend herself, but instead all that falls out of her mouth is, “Blake calls it a copycat semblance when we spar together.”

It was meant as a joke but instead Cinder’s head just tilts to one side, eyebrows lowering to knit into a frown. It’s an adorable motion, not that Velvet would say it out loud at any time other than the dead of night. “Mimicry? How does that work?”

Velvet had wondered the same thing the day she’d figured it out, sparring with Blake in the early hours of the morning at a White Fang hideaway. She was the rookie recruit still, newly initiated and unproven as of yet, and Blake had been considered enough of a veteran to show her the ropes. Back then, fighting was all Velvet could do - her skin still itched where she’d felt her parent’s blood splatter onto her face, and something had gnawed at her marrow and granted her no reprieve from nightmares. But feeling the rush of victory made her feel useful, like she was taking the first wobbly steps into an new, untested future. So it’d been then, blocking blow after blow, when suddenly something had just clicked. She’d thought of Blake, thinking of how artfully they dodged her heavy swings, dancing across the mat like they walked on air, and just like stepping off the edge of some great chasm Velvet just knew. Like it’d been there all along.

Trust Cinder to ask the difficult questions first. “Uh, it’s… it’s complicated.”

There’s a pause, and Velvet takes the chance to wipe at a damp forehead with the back of her hand, looking up to watch Cinder’s expression fall into a smile. She huffs out a laugh, closing the book on her lap with a thud, and judging from the ancient leather cover it’s one of the holy books that’s scattered around the church still. Reclining back on the cushion, Cinder lets herself sink into the depths before she speaks leisurely, lazily, with half-lidded eyes. “Try me.”

Velvet’s tongue tastes salt as she licks her lips, hands flexing into fists at her sides. She thinks for a minute, trying to order her words before she speaks. Thinks about it a little longer. Decides to go for it anyway. “Well, it’s a memory thing. Mostly. Whatever I see, I can just… copy. Just like that.” Velvet snaps a finger on ‘that’, and Cinder’s eyes open wider in curiosity.

“Connected to your memory? How so?”

There’s not a whole lot Velvet can say here, so she shrugs. “It’s like I can just… well, I’ve always thought of it as something to do with muscle memory? So long as I can remember it, I can copy it exactly how they did it. Like- okay, say I watch Blake fight, yeah?” Cinder nods once. “If I remember that fight pretty clearly, I can do what Blake did. Or their opponent. All I have to do is watch.”

“And if you can’t remember?”

Another shrug. “Then I can’t copy it. Or, at least, not as well.”

Velvet can remember that spar with Blake, though. Facing down a barrage of hits, Velvet had been thinking of how Blake could avoid her punches like the Faunus was made of water rather than flesh and blood, and for that moment she’d wanted to be able to do the same so badly, to move just like they did.

And then, she could. Suddenly, no matter how hard Blake tried, they couldn’t catch up to her anymore. She’d been gloriously, wondrously untouchable, copying Blake step for step like they’d fought together all their lives.

Meanwhile, as Velvet’s turning the memory over in her mind, Cinder’s mulling something over with a deeply furrowed brow, sitting upright to cradle her chin in her hands. “Shame. Seems the memory is the only major drawback. Would be nice to store up all the knowledge forever, wouldn’t it?”

Velvet blinks, and then she jabs a thumb over one shoulder, pointing to her Scroll on the far table near the church doors. “Well, that’s why I take photos, actually. I’m a pretty visual person, so the photos help jog my memory, y’know?” Velvet knows Cinder’s always wondered about that, watching with a bemused look as Velvet took photos of everything from bar fights to dancers, but when she offers that final puzzle piece Cinder’s entire face lights up with a glowing realisation.

“How clever! Supplementing your own memory!”

The praise makes Velvet blush all the way up to the base of her ears and down the back of her neck. “Y-yeah, well. Eventually, if I practise the motions enough, I can do them from memory anyway. My memory, I mean.”

That was the part of her semblance people liked a whole lot less. Being able to copy years’ worth of work in a matter of seconds tended to rub people wrong even in the Fang, although Velvet had never really seen reason for it. She’d never remember all their styles forever, photos or not, and another downside to her mimicry is that she copies the imperfections, too. Once Velvet’s learnt the styles for herself she can start ironing out the flaws and missteps, but until then there’s always the risk that the style she’s copying is more of a misfiring gun than the efficient weapon she needs. Then again, no semblance is ever really perfect.

Orange eyes are analysing Velvet all over, as if Cinder’s seeing her for the first time all over again, face set like she’s trying to figure out a complicated mathematical problem. “Is there anything you can’t copy at all?”

“Videos.” Velvet’s never been sure why. “There’s something about having to physically see it, I guess. But if I see it in person, I can do it.” She pauses, and then adds, “Which is why the Fang had me making detonators and bombs and stuff, ‘cause I never made a mistake if I copied from a master.”

The look on Cinder’s face is nothing short of ecstatic. “You really are a jack of all trades. How fascinating.”

Cinder’s gaze isn’t so curious anymore, and now Velvet can feel it roam across her freckled skin, focusing on the sweat-soaked hollow of her throat. She places the book aside, careful with its fragile state, and then she stands, brushing off her dress and plucking at neck of her loose cardigan to secure it around her shoulders. She’s shorter than both Blake and Velvet by a considerable margin, so it takes quite a few step to cross over to the open space where the Faunus stands. Still, when she stands before Velvet it doesn’t stop her from feeling a touch intimidated. Short or not, Cinder has always had an aura around her that demands your absolute attention, so when she puts a hand on Velvet’s rounded shoulder to slowly pull her closer, Velvet’s quick to obey, stooping down until their noses are barely touching.

“So tell me.” Cinder’s breath is warm and smoky against Velvet’s face, like her very lungs are the bellows of a forge, and Velvet has to swallow thickly when her eyes meet Cinder’s. “What else can you copy? Truly everything?”

It’s hard to speak, hard to think when all Velvet can see is twin pools of magma, inviting her to topple in headfirst and find out if she can touch the bottom. “Y-yeah. Just about.”

All Cinder whispers is show me before she pulls Velvet down for a kiss, hungry and warm and wanting and although Velvet’s never copied a kiss before, has never really needed to, Cinder offers enough of a demonstration that she soon gets the idea.

Rest assured, though, that when she trails kisses down the length of Cinder’s naked back later that night, every single one is her own.

#rwby #cinder fall #velvet scarlatina #cinder/velvet #the art of immolation #taoi #my writing #HOLY SHIT i actually wrote something??? because guess who finished their uni work! me!#carnage au

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bibliosexxual · 8 years ago

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a fluffy thing I was thinking about tonight.

...that morphed into a fic.

(now also on ao3)

They meet in Biology 101. Stiles is a freshman, and he's in this class mostly because Scott is pre-vet and Stiles signed up for all the same classes because he has no earthly idea what he wants to do, career-wise. Derek is a junior Spanish lit major taking this because he needs the gen. ed., and he's terrible. He's the only person in the class who's not a freshman. He's always a few minutes late—that's how he ended up sitting at the table by the door with Stiles and Scott the first day—and he's so gloomy, and he always lugs around this backpack full of Pablo Neruda books because he has a Spanish poetry class right before this one, and he takes the neatest, most meticulous class notes Stiles has ever seen. (Stiles, meanwhile, doesn't take any notes. He takes photos of every slide with his phone as the professor talks and then spends the rest of the time goofing off quietly, doodling dumb stuff on Scott's arm and working on five different assignments at once on his laptop.)

The class meets one hour three times a week for lecture sessions and once a week, practically all afternoon, for lab. It's basic stuff, learning things like lab safety and how to use pipettes, and then they're divided up for their semester-long partner projects, growing and monitoring various strains of bacteria in petri dishes. Stiles tries to get Scott as a partner, of course, but their professor separates them, probably because she's seen how they act in class and suspects (correctly) that they'll be a hazard to themselves and others if left together in a lab.

She matches Stiles with Derek instead. It's not so bad. One day they have to put on gloves and rubber boots and wade into the creek behind the science center to gather samples, and Stiles nearly falls on his ass before Derek catches him with a surprisingly strong hand around his waist. Stiles hadn't really noticed before just how built Derek was under all the cardigans. He's like Superman, hiding out in plain sight behind old-man sweaters and nerd glasses.

Sometimes they study together before a big test, all three of them, until Scott inevitably bows out early. Scott's a natural at science; he barely needs to study to make A's. Also, he’s sussed out just how much Stiles likes being left alone with Derek. He keeps sending Stiles pep talks about it over text.

Derek is brilliant, sure, but not in any way that helps him with this class, where he doesn't have to spout off any Spanish or write any literary analyses. He's frankly terrible at Biology. Stiles can see why he put off taking the class for so much of his college career. Stiles doesn't mind helping him, though. Working through it all with Derek helps him remember it all better for the test.

Not to mention, he just plain likes Derek. He looks so somber all the time that when he says a joke or snarks about something, Stiles is always pleasantly surprised. He can tell Derek is lonely; he comes from a big family, he tells Stiles, and he's used to having lots of people around him, in his life, nosing in his business and dragging him to social events. But here he doesn't know anyone except Stiles and Scott, really, since he just transferred here from another college. (He hasn't said why, except that a girl was involved. It didn't end well, apparently. Stiles doesn't press.)

Stiles doesn't hang out with Derek out of pity, though, and he tries to make that clear. He likes Derek's company and finding out about little pieces of Derek's life, music he likes and what other classes he's taking and all the little minutiae of his day. He likes hearing Derek's opinions and making fun of him a little and getting made fun of right back.

One Friday night Stiles texts him something silly from the book he's reading. It's like 3 a.m., and he's surprised when Derek texts back only a minute later.

Stiles calls him. "What are you still doing up, man?"

Turns out Derek can't sleep; he got sexiled from his room. Erica, he says euphemistically, "is having a really nice night." (Stiles snorts.) The library is closed. All the academic buildings are locked. The common area on his hall is still trashed from a party last weekend that no one has cleaned up yet. Derek has taken refuge out by the little student garden at the bottom of the hill near his building; there's a pond there with some benches. Stiles has nothing better to do, and it's not like he's going to sleep any time soon—he'd loaded up on caffeine while writing a paper, then finished it a ton sooner than he'd expected in a whirlwind mix of brilliance and bullshitting. Now he's wired.

So he pulls on a hoodie and shoves his feet in the nearest pair of sneakers and jogs down the stairs and outside, where it's cool but not freezing out, a nice night really. He finds Derek and they just sit there together on the edge of the pond and talk. It's almost five a.m. before the conversation fades out to a comfortable silence and Stiles starts to feel his caffeine buzz wearing off. Derek stifles a huge yawn in his sleeve; it's pretty adorable.

"Hey," Stiles says on impulse, "if you want, you can totally come back to my room."

Derek's eyes widen, and Stiles realizes what it sounds like he's said.

"Whoa, not what I meant. Not that I wouldn't— I mean, no lie, you're really attractive," Derek looks down at his feet at that, like no one's ever told him he's hot before, "but I just meant to sleep. Scott's staying over at his girlfriend Kira's apartment, so you could crash on his bed. He wouldn't mind as long as I changed the sheets before he got back."

So Derek agrees, and together they gather up the books he'd spread out to study before Stiles showed up. Stiles carries an armload for him since Derek looks dead on his feet. It's weird how intimate it feels, just walking together, not saying anything, Stiles carrying Derek's stuff for him.

Stiles and Scott's dorm is tiny and windowless, practically a closet, with barely any room to walk around the furniture, the one rickety desk and the little bookcase and the bunk bed in the corner. Stiles can tell Derek's surprised. Being an upperclassman and all, he probably has a room about three times this size. Still, he doesn't say anything except to compliment Stiles' The Force Awakens poster on the closet door as he tiredly kicks off his shoes.

Stiles goes down the hall to the bathroom to brush his teeth and take out his contacts. When he gets back he remembers to ask, "Hey, dude, do you need to borrow anything?"

When there's no response, he belatedly glances over at Scott's bottom bunk. Derek is lying on his stomach on top of the comforter, one foot sticking out from the bed, so deeply asleep he's practically unconscious. Stiles stares down at him for longer than is probably appropriate, feeling something warm and affectionate swelling just under his breastbone. Then he pulls down the extra blanket from the closet, covers Derek as best he can, and climbs up to his own bunk in the darkness. He falls asleep listening to the soft sound of Derek breathing.

He doesn't wake up until almost noon. Back home, he never needed an alarm clock, always just woke up gradually as the sun lit up his room. Here, though, without a window in the room, it always feels like the middle of the night, no source of light but the weak 60-watt bulb of Scott's desk lamp.

He's halfway through checking all the notifications on his phone when he remembers he didn't come home alone last night. He raises his head to look over the railing of his bed. Derek is awake and apparently has been for some time now, camped out at Stiles' desk with a brick-sized tome of what looks like poetry.

"When did you get up?" Stiles groans blearily.

"Eight a.m.," Derek answers, and god, Stiles knew Derek was a morning person but he didn't realize it was that bad. "I'll probably take a nap later," he adds, seeing Stiles' expression.

Stiles laughs. "Me too, but not because I need the sleep. Just because it's Saturday and I like naps. Naps are the best."

He has just enough sense not to suggest they take a nap together, but he does add that to his mental list of things to daydream about extensively later, right alongside inventing a cure for cancer and finding out what Derek's tattoo looks like. Derek let it slip once that he had one, right between his shoulderblades. It's been one of the great obsessions of Stiles' life ever since.

They eventually wander over to the dining hall together. They've finished their food (Derek eats almost as much as Stiles, which is truly impressive) and they're in the middle of a pretty in-depth conversation about Don Quixote, based on the fact that Derek is thinking of doing his senior thesis on it and Stiles read it once in high school, when Erica wanders over.

"Looks like I wasn't the only one getting lucky last night." She winks.

Stiles splutters and Derek sinks down in his seat like he wants to disappear.

Erica bursts out laughing. "Oh my god, your faces. I was just kidding. I know Derek's too lame to have any fun on a Friday night. Anyway," she says, "if it's okay with you, I was wondering if I could have the room today, too? I'm not quite done having my wicked way with Boyd. We've got some pretty extensive plans involving fruit and—"

"Please god, stop talking," Derek says. "You can have the room."

So that's how Stiles ends up inviting Derek back to his dorm again for the afternoon. They’ve hung out a lot over the last few months, but never for this long before. He kind of expects Derek to say no now that the library's open, but instead he says sure.

So they go back to Stiles' dorm after Derek ducks by his room first for a change of clothes and some books he needs. As Stiles is fumbling to unlock his door, Greenberg from across the hall wolf-whistles at them obnoxiously on his way past to the bathroom. Stiles flips him off. Derek looks awkward.

"Do you usually, um… Did he think..." Derek starts when they're in the room. He looks away. "Never mind."

"Nah, it's fine. Greenberg is always hooking up with people, so I guess he assumes everyone else must be, too, but I'm not. I mean, I'm not really a casual kind of guy."

Actually, he might be down for casual stuff, theoretically—in fact, he kind of expected he would be, and he'd even started down that path by making out with a random girl during orientation and then a different random girl later that same night at the freshman bonfire—except that then he walked into Biology on the first day of classes and there was Derek, and suddenly no one else looked half as interesting.

"Anyway," he adds, obviously not wanting to get into all of that, "I've never had a hook-up, if that's what you're asking."

Derek volunteers, "Me neither. I'm way too possessive."

Stiles imagines, fleetingly, what it would be like to have Derek be possessive over him. It would be nice, he thinks. No one's ever really gotten possessive over him before; no one's ever really wanted to keep him. Fool around with him, sure, but not keep him. He doesn't say anything.

Derek sits at Stiles' desk again after Stiles assures him he doesn't mind, and Stiles spreads out his biology notes on Scott's bed because he doesn't feel like making his own bed. Derek has to sit sideways in the chair because Scott's using the space under the desk for storing everything that couldn't fit under the bed or in the closet, and the desk is so close to the bed that Stiles' knees keep knocking Derek's.

The fifth time their knees bump and Derek apologizes again, Stiles flippantly says, "If you'd rather, I could just sit in your lap. Problem solved."

He's used to saying that kind of thing around Scott because they have this habit of aimlessly flirting with each other as a joke. Stiles doesn't think anything of it now, doesn't even look up; he's in the middle of highlighting a passage about cell division. He's halfway through the paragraph before he realizes Derek has gone weirdly quiet. He looks up. Derek is staring at him like Stiles just said he had herpes or something. He's got a smudge of ink on his chin and he's taken off his glasses; he doesn't need them to read, and Stiles can't for the life of him remember where he learned this about Derek.

Stiles actually has to think for a few seconds to remember what he even said and connect that to the way Derek's shoulders have gone so tense under his cardigan. "Oh," he says when he realizes. "I was just kidding, you know."

"So you don't like me like that," Derek says, not a question.

Stiles slowly puts down his highlighter. "I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I'm not going to ambush-straddle you in your chair."

"But do you..." Derek shakes his head. "Never mind."

"Wait." Stiles blinks, sits up a little straighter. "Do you like me like that?"

Instead of answering, Derek bites his lip and looks cornered, which is answer enough.

Stiles feels suddenly giddy. "Hey, can I kiss you?"

Derek's hands spasm where he's clutching his knees. "You want to kiss me?"

"No, I just asked you that hypothetically." Stiles rolls his eyes. "Duh, I wanna kiss you."

Derek looks endearingly flustered. He tries to push his glasses up his nose like he always does when he's nervous before he seems to remember he's taken them off. "Um. If you want. Okay."

Stiles scoots forward eagerly on the bed and hits his forehead on the edge of the top bunk. "Ow. Sorry, that was supposed to be a lot more suave."

"Nothing about you is suave," Derek says, and it should be insulting but it's really, really not.

Stiles ducks forward, avoiding hitting his head this time, and Derek leans down a little, and Stiles gets the impression Derek doesn't do this kind of thing very often because he just pauses there, uncertain, waiting, not touching Stiles at all. Stiles grins and guides him down by the ears into a soft kiss, like a hello.

Derek is actually really, really good at kissing. Stiles cups Derek's face in his hands, just to feel the way his jaw moves as he deepens the kiss, and moans.

"Wait, um," Derek pants, and Stiles reluctantly pulls back. "Is this just because I'm convenient?"

"No. If I wanted convenient I could've been hooking up with fucking Greenberg from across the hall all semester." Stiles shudders a little at the thought. "Is this just because you're lonely and I was nice to you?"

"No."

"Oh, good. Then... carry on?"

"Yeah," Derek nods, and sets about biting a mark into Stiles' neck.

Scott comes back from Kira's right about the time Stiles is saying rather loudly, "Shit, where are my pants," from the top bunk. Beside him, Derek's eyes widen, and he hastily ducks down behind Stiles' naked torso.

Scott turns around and walks right back out again.

There's a moment of silence.

"Oops," Stiles laughs. Then he sees how hard Derek is blushing and he laughs even harder, until Derek reluctantly starts to smile, too.

When he finally gets control of himself, he wiggles around to straddle Derek and says, with as much seriousness as he can muster, "I really like you, you know. Like, really really."

"I know," Derek says, settling his hands warm and possessive on Stiles' bare hips. "Me too."

"We should date."

"Yeah," Derek agrees. "Okay."

#eternalsterek #my fic #a college au because i haven't done one in a while!#this is basically just a drabble i sat down and wrote tonight while listening to copious amounts of cello music #i don't even know

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chetdurack3823-blog · 7 years ago

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Real Instagram Followers

There are tons of ladies on social media which can be being actual and weak, which can be posting make-up-less selfies, which are displaying their true, unbelievable, beautiful our bodies for the world to see with no editing," she provides. Set up your self as being educated in your business. Check out what the highest hashtags in your area of interest are and see if you'll be able to establish any specific account that constantly appears in the "top" or "trending" posts. Instagram have embraced hashtags with a fury the place Fb nonetheless lags at bringing this function into mainstream usage. For example you probably have a work-at-house-Mom Fb web page, posting a story about potty training suggestions is somewhat off base. Please do not forget that the advantages are actually limitless and these are just a few major aspects we're touching base on. All of our social marketing strategies are one hundred% appropriate with Social Networks terms of service.

The versatility of social media and the variety of platforms makes it simple to include throughout your business’s digital strategy. Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each social websites platform and choose which just one will allow you to reach your predefined organization plans and suppose about that. The following article will assist get your small business the place you need it to be. While these following 5 strategies will undoubtedly take you extra time than a way of getting "quantity" followers, they hold the promise of giving your enterprise more qualified followers who will likely be in it for the lengthy haul. Moreover, a consultant will reap appreciable edges for the enterprise. Due to the understood undeniable undeniable fact that the enterprise world could be vastly although for brand spanking new organizations, you might want to consider a way that may assist yours succeed and keep sustaining its place within the market. Deciding to buy actual Instagram folowers will assist you to in this matter.

They each work, but doing all the things just by yourself will take loads of time and effort. Earlier than you bounce into any of the methods below, you should first spend a while sprucing up your profile a bit. Thus, you'll want to dedicate a part of your time posting essential topics in addition to photographs in your web page or you may as well offer freebies to your purchasers to maintain them interested. Instagram has over 500 million active customers with over 300 million lively customers every day, eighty% of these customers are exterior the USA, 4.2 billion likes every single day and over 95 million photographs and videos uploaded each day. For these followers, I can only 12,000 likes MAX per instagram photo. We do our best to ship as quick as potential because we know the way necessary having the Real Followers On Instagram (Https://Brandbuilders.Online/Instagram-Growth-Service) and especially likes is to you. Should you treasured this text and also you additionally want to receive extra info pertaining to how to increase my vertical jump for basketball quick kindly visit the internet site.

How do I get extra followers on Instagram? Marketers additionally follow on the trending hashtags and try to post as per the trending topics to get extra exposure. Having a strong Instagram presence isn’t just about using the proper hashtags and posting regularly. Instagram lets you make footage taken by cell phone cameras look brighter and sharper and you may add special results to make them look appealing. We even go one step forward and provide you data on learn how to get followers on Instagram without cost by displaying you methods to market on Instagram effectively. Be warned, although, that even in the uncommon occasion that your work may get picked up, this is not a profitable means of income by a protracted shot. There are four important issues with utilizing CPLOC for evaluating work or using it as a valuation technique. Write about what your workers are doing or submit footage of them at work.

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dailykhaleej · 5 years ago

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Covid-19 putting Singapore on global deeptech radar, Garage

Singapore

ARMBAND screens. Speedy take a look at kits. Vaccines. Synthetic intelligence (AI) that may analyse hundreds of CT scans in a flash.

Singapore’s pioneering capabilities in such areas of deeptech have come to mild within the global warfare to comprise – and beat – the novel coronavirus.

This nation has invested billions on nurturing analysis institutes, constructing top-class medical labs and creating deeptech ecosystems, with the purpose of harnessing the ability of tech for good – and now the pandemic is putting these ecosystems to the take a look at.

“Deeptech” refers particularly to applied sciences that develop out of considerable scientific advances and engineering innovation, in fields akin to synthetic intelligence, medtech, biotech and the “Internet of Things”.

Get the most recent on startups and enterprise information

Corporations in Singapore’s deeptech ecosystem have been abuzz within the final couple of months, as they search to craft variations of present applied sciences to assist buttress the global response to the virus.

Native medtech agency Mirxes, for instance, has been mass-producing diagnostic take a look at kits that had been developed in a matter of simply three weeks by the Company for Science, Expertise and Analysis (A*Star) and Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).

The equipment has 100 per cent medical sensitivity, in that it has to this point been in a position to detect all of the constructive samples examined at TTSH. It could actually yield leads to about 90 minutes.

Mirxes co-chief government Isaac Ho, calling the equipment the gold commonplace amongst exams, instructed The Enterprise Instances that the agency can churn out 100,000 exams every week, and is scaling up manufacturing to surpass 300,000 exams every week.

The exams exit to greater than 10 nations, and to 80 per cent of hospitals in Singapore.

The important thing behind Mirxes’ means to scale up manufacturing this shortly for the wants of Singapore and past lies in its possession of one of many world’s largest PCR (polymerase chain response) labs, in addition to numerous manufacturing amenities.

Different Singapore corporations which have stepped as much as the plate throughout this global disaster embody Veredus Labs, Biolidics and Acumen Analysis Laboratories; there’s additionally a group of researchers at Duke-NUS Medical Faculty, which has developed numerous variations of kits to check for the virus.

Chik Wai Chiew, chief government and government director of Heritas Capital Administration, which invests in deeptech ventures, stated this reveals that Singapore’s infrastructure was already in place to have the ability to scale deeptech options shortly.

Labs had been constructed, and the tools to quickly prototype, manufacture and scale options had been already in hand, he stated.

Furthermore, ecosystems are actually mature sufficient to carry each personal and public sectors to work collectively.

Mr Chik identified that analysis institutes have lengthy adopted multi-disciplinary collaborations, powered by funding, to unravel real-world issues.

Singapore-based AI startup 6Estates, for instance, has provide you with an AI-powered assistive CT-scan analysis platform.

The startup is a spin-off of NExT, a joint analysis centre of the Nationwide College of Singapore and Tsinghua College of China.

With the assistance of a group led by alumni at Tsinghua College – who offered medical information and key area experience – 6Estates tailored its deep-learning and neural community fashions in just below two months to coach the AI-assistive platform to recognise indicators of the viral an infection in sufferers’ lungs.

Chest CT scans should not a brand new diagnostic software for the novel coronavirus, however the leap supplied by the AI platform is that it may learn and course of one scan – comprising 200 photos – in 10 seconds, or 30 occasions quicker than an skilled radiologist, stated chief government Luan Huanbo. The platform has a median accuracy fee of 84.7 per cent.

“This solution is particularly useful for countries and health facilities which face issues of test-kit availability or reliability, but have CT scanners readily available,” stated Dr Luan.

The fast tempo of innovation on this local weather is underscored by the pressing have to “flatten the curve”. Within the examine and evaluation of the distribution, patterns and elements behind well being and illness situations, the curve depicts the projected variety of new instances over a time interval. The thought of flattening the curve is to unfold out the variety of new instances over an extended interval, so that folks have higher entry to care, and healthcare techniques should not overwhelmed.

Trade gamers famous that regulatory processes that used to take years are actually being accelerated, and businesses are extra accepting of latest developments.

Singapore-based Esco Aster is co-developing a chimeric vaccine for the novel coronavirus with different corporations in Singapore and the US.

Chief government Lin Xiangliang stated that with the help of assorted governments, it hopes to speed up its improvement, which might in any other case run into years.

The contract improvement and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) arm of life-science firm Esco Group can also be working intently with collaborators to offer easy and efficient take a look at kits that can be utilized at residence, identical to being pregnant take a look at kits are, stated Mr Lin.

Inside a month, the corporate developed and constructed take a look at cubicles, cellular diagnostic labs and associated containment units akin to makeshift isolation rooms for the novel coronavirus.

Digital therapeutics startup Biofourmis customised its Biovitals Sentinel platform to detect signs of degradation in Covid-19 sufferers in simply 10 days.

Sufferers want solely to put on a biosensor on their arms, which is able to establish physiological adjustments that might level to an an infection. This, in flip, permits medical professionals step in early with remedy.

The healthtech startup based in Singapore rolled this out in lower than three weeks, and it did so throughout the US, Australia, Hong Kong, and the UK.

Chu Swee Yeok, chief government and president of EDB Investments, an investor in Biofourmis, stated: “The way deeptech companies are adapting and mobilising technology during this crisis is heartening, and encourages us to invest in more such of promising companies in anticipation of eventual recovery.”

Deeptech at its core usually requires particular tools, specialised expertise, and infrastructure. Expertise and skill-sets throughout totally different fields in deeptech itself are disparate and distinct, business gamers famous.

However some gamers in adjoining fields, as evidenced by the examples right here, have been in a position to modify and adapt their core applied sciences to be used towards the present frequent enemy, the novel coronavirus.

These are founders who’ve needed to put in a ton of hustle to get issues accomplished so shortly, in service of the group, stated Bernadette Cho, normal supervisor for expertise investor Entrepreneur First Singapore.

“Their generosity of spirit and service is something we should amplify.”

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bishal-06 · 5 years ago

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15 Online Advertising And Social Media Solutions İn 2020

1) Wask

Wask has created to maximize your ads’ efficiency for you. You can connect all your different accounts into one platform. You can make special ads for your needs with the help of our experienced advisors. Always updated unique AI program that Wask use to manage your ads is provide you to manage your budget and time in the most efficient way. Compare your results, control your ads automatically daily/weekly/monthly, start/stop/delete your ads at any time with Performance Comparison, AutoPilot and Scheduler to increase your efficiency.

https://www.wask.co/

2) Sharekit

ShareKit lets you easily customize how your link will appear when sharing it on social media, without the need to get your IT team involved. When using ShareKit, we'll provide you with a new link to share on social media. This link redirects to your original link, but you're able to customize the link's title, description, and image

https://www.sharekit.io

3) Linkmy.photos

Link My Photos helps you monetize your Instagram by getting your followers from your photo feed to your awesome content. Get started today for free. Instagram photos and captions are currently not linkable. The only place where you can add a link to your website is through the URL in your Instagram bio. Link My Photos has created the ultimate destination for your Instagram bio. Your personalized Link My Photos page displays all of your clickable photos to help your followers get to the content and products that you post on Instagram.

https://linkmy.photos/

4) PromoRepublic

Thus AI for small business social media is now a thing, in the shape of PromoRepublic , a startup which has now raised a investment round. It competes with visual design companies like Canva, Stencil, Adobe Spark, and DIFM companies like Main Street Hub, Boostability and RevLocal who do custom social content for SMBs. So, when to post, how often, what copy, design, call to actions and hashtags to use on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. PromoRepublic will post automatically at the right time and frequency, thus doing the heavy lifting for business owners who really wouldnt know where to begin in terms of creating and sharing content about their business

https://promorepublic.com/en/

5) Meet Edgar

One of the most frustrating aspects of any social media update is how quickly they get buried under new social media updates. Add the fact that your followers, fans and connections check their social media accounts irregularly and it’s actually amazing that your updates are seen by anyone at all: Meet the “disappearing updates” dilemma. One solution to this “disappearing updates” dilemma is to each of your social media updates multiple times, upping the odds that it will be seen by your targeted prospects. Unfortunately, adopting this tactic can be very time consuming, even if you use a social media management solution to schedule your updates. If you’re frustrated by the fact that few people see your social media updates and you’re too busy to schedule those updates to up the chance that they’ll be seen, it’s time to meet Edgar . When it comes to automation however, Edgar leaves the rest of the pack behind. Using an library, update categories, and scheduling, Edgar helps your social media updates, as well as any content to which they may link, get the attention they deserve. Edgar’s setup process is an easy way to become familiar with the tool.

https://meetedgar.com/

6) Everypost

Everypost is a critically acclaimed social media tool utilized by digital agencies, SMBs, content professionals, and firms. The app makes it simple for a user to construct, schedule, customize, and post content on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and others. Social media marketers and content professionals have made Everypost a priority tool for getting content out in the internet across social media platforms. It also facilitates media content upload via One of its biggest strengths is its capacity to deal with a wide range of social media networks as a standalone tool. It can reverse its role by limiting Twitter texts and giving a user the option to choose which social media platforms to blast to. It comes with a support for extracting videos from YouTube, audio from Grooveshark, and images from Flickr. A user will be highlighted with social media networks at the top of the screen, a middle area for inputting text, and list of media format to import from the bottom. Clicking on any social media network will prompt the user to sign in, and if the login is successful, the button will light up.

http://everypost.me/

7) Social Flow

SocialFlow stretches across our business touching both the editorial and the ad sales sides. It's been a solution that allows us to scale what we do from an organic social publishing perspective, but also has allowed us to unlock incremental revenue.SocialFlow allows us to work from one central platform for multiple teams, across the world. For me, it meant no more sleepless.

http://www.socialflow.com/

8) Kenshoo

Kenshoo is the technology platform looking to plan, activate and amplify effective marketing across the most engaging digital channels. Kenshoo offers the only marketing solution that provides data-driven insights and optimization technology to help make informed decisions and scale performance across critical publishers, including: Kenshoo’s machine-learning algorithms and cutting-edge AI enable companies to predict and keep in-step.

Kenshoo provides a variety of different products: Kenshoo Social (for search engine marketing campaigns), Kenshoo Local (for individual stores, dealers, or franchisees), Kenshoo Search (for social media marketing campaigns), and SmartPath (for analyzing your campaign from the consumer interactions point of view). For each of those services, you can request a demo trial.

https://kenshoo.com/

9) OPTMYZR

Optmyzr motto is "PPC Management Made Smarter." When you launch an ad on the platform, you instantly get alerts and suggestions based on your goals and previous campaigns. The automated report delivers you to share it with your team and bosses.

This tool also supplies the clients with pre-written AdWords scripts, forecast about budget usage, and customised workflow. They have trademarked some of their unique software:

One-Click Optimisation™, it's based on automation. Your keywords and goals are only 1 click away;

Enhanced Scripts™ (it works just for AdWords) supplies the tool to write and store for you the Google AppScripts code.

It's possible to request a demo and start a free trial.

10) AdEspresso

One platform, multiple channels. You can create campaigns on Facebook, Instagram or Google using AdEspresso. The multivariant technology from AdEspresso makes it simple to test and optimize ads increasing ROI of your campaigns. You can test multiple variations of your Facebook Ads based on your targeted audience and find out which one is generating the best result. On top of that, you can generate fully customized PDF reports of your Facebook Ads.

https://adespresso.com/

11) Contently

In November Contently was named by Advertising Age as one of the best places to work in media and. Contently has a lot of clients , and we rely on freelancers like yourself to staff projects for them. We have an algorithm that combs through users’ portfolios and pushes forward relevant candidates. So when you’re setting up your portfolio, make sure you focus on the kind of things algorithms like: namely, keywords that highlight your expertise and skills. In the headline section, be sure to specify whether you’re a writer, videographer, designer, and so on. We’d love to provide assignments for

12) Keyhole

Keyhole is a real-time hashtag tracker for Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Its visual dashboard is simple, beautiful and shareable! Keyhole's real-time dashboard shows how many people posted with your hashtag, along with the number of Retweets, Likes and Impressions your campaign is generating. Keyhole tracks the most influential people engaging with your brand. Reach out to them to promote your content and increase your brand's reach.

http://keyhole.co/

13) Sprinklr

Sprinklr provides a unified platform for customer experience management (cxm). Our customer experience & social media management software guides enterprise businesses through and digital transformation.

https://www.sprinklr.com/

14) AdNabu

AdNabu is an AdWords optimiser in partnership with Google. On this platform you can create an ad or a campaign (using customised templates) and correct your bid in real time (following the tool suggestions), AdNabu supports different types of ads:

Regular search ads (aka text ads);

Shopping ads (the useful resource for e-commerce sites);

Call only ads;

App install ads, for promoting an application on Google Play or Apple Store.

https://www.adnabu.com/

15) Invoca

is a tool that offers a variety of solution for marketers and sales reps who need to know more about people calling to them. The platform is not geared only towards the paid advertisement, but it has an extension for Google AdWords.

Indeed Invoca gives you tons of insight into which of your paid search efforts are driving people to call. The platform allows you to track and analyse billions of calls and understand how to spend your budget more effectively.

https://www.invoca.com/integrations/google-ads/

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davidrsmithlove · 5 years ago

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PPC & SEO Synergy: Landing Page Testing, PPC & SEO Efficiencies

This post is the second of a series of three articles: we intend to cover a series of synergies between SEO and PPC that could help your business/clients run the two channels more efficiently and optimise the overall spending.

Part 2 includes two more synergy ideas which will be focused on the following subjects:

Landing page testing: we recommend testing the SEO landing page for instances where SEO & PPC landing pages differ, for the same keyword/s.

Strategy when both organic & paid results appear at the same time: we re-create a series of scenarios and recommend what tests to implement in instances where your site appears for organic and paid results for the same keyword/s.

Before reading the post below, I recommend you check part one here.

Landing page testing

As you might all know, while in PPC the advertiser can pick the landing page that will be shown for a specific keyword, in the SEO world this is not possible as the search engine does the decision making.

SEOs can obviously work towards the desired outcome, mapping and optimising landing pages for specific keyword groups, making sure a search engine is able to pick the page we want - but in reality, with larger sites (e-commerce in particular) with tons of pages, this process is not as easy and straightforward as we would like.

Another difference between PPC and SEO lies in the diversity of intent between the two results:

Generally speaking, PPC ads tend to aim for conversion - so when the landing page is picked, this happens with a site conversion in mind.

On the other hand, Google picks organic pages based on how well they think such pages could respond to a user query: this is an important difference we have to understand.

Have a look at the example below to picture this [note: this is a very simplified example for a brand query, picked for the purpose of this post - the landing page testing synergy is applicable to a multitude of queries, not just brand ones]

Type of Page URL Difference PPC Page (chosen by the advertiser) /book/25DR-lion-king/ It sends the user to the booking page of Lion King, asking to choose a date - upper photo. SEO Page (chosen by Google) /Disney-Presents-The-Lion-King-tickets/artist/975016 Editorial Lion King’s page which presents the musical (About section) and shows which events are taking place (Events section) - bottom photo

When looking at some of my clients’ account, I used to run into this discrepancy a lot, which is sort of normal considering the differences between the two channels.

PPC vs SEO results

Based on what was discussed above and the example provided, does this mean Google ‘likes’ the SEO page better than the PPC page for the queries such as “ticketmaster lion king”?

For an organic result: yes, because for informative or more generic queries, Google assumes that users are still at the top of the marketing funnel, where they are probably still browsing results - the average user wants to check the price and description of the lion king musical on Ticketmaster.

For a paid result: no, because the main objective of this activity is a conversion, which generates money to Ticketmaster and Google: win-win.

What would happen if PPC picked the SEO informative page for their ads instead of the transactional page? Would the Quality Score be impacted as a result?

My suggestion is the following:

For keywords whose Quality Score is low, it is worth testing the SEO landing page instead of the PPC one, when there is a discrepancy between the two.

And here is why:

A lot of times, PPC ‘lazily’ picks the destination URL without thinking too much about landing page experience (remember post one?), which is a crucial contributor to the final score, which then impacts CPC.

Other times, PPC picks the most transactional page to help their case: SEO pages are often too far from the conversion point, which is what PPC ultimately cares about.

However, not all keywords might require a transactional page: it is important to consider the user intent and act accordingly. If we are willing to bid on some top-of-the-funnel keywords, landing page experience and user intent should be the priority.

Testing whether landing page experience could be easily improved by switching to the SEO page is easy and is worth trying.

How to get started

To get started, these seven steps need to happen:

Pick keywords with a low QS (lower than 7 is a good start)

Find out if the landing pages between the SEO & PPC results are different

Analyse the type of keyword and intent behind it. This step is crucial: depending on the type of keyword and intent that Google associates for that particular keyword, the outcome of this test could be very different.

Check how different the SEO & PPC pages are: how far off a conversion is the SEO page? If the SEO page is far from the conversion point, then I would expect my conversion data to be noticeably impacted if I were to use it for my PPC ads.

Implement the SEO page in the PPC ad and keep monitoring the quality score for the keywords where the changes have been applied to.

Keep the SEO landing page where changes have been positive, revert back if not.

Start the process over and check your QS frequently.

Quick recap: why is this worth it?

In some instances where the landing pages between SEO and PPC results differ, it is worth experimenting with SEO landing pages for PPC ads as this change can help you increase quality and lower your CPC.

Organic and Paid listing appearing at the same time: what to do?

I am sure you all had this conversation at some point in your SEO-SEM career: should we bid on this X set of keywords, for which we have already good organic visibility? Is there any point in having PPC ads if my SEO results are strong already?

Let me start with a clear statement: I do not have the answer and beware of the people who say that do! What I learnt in 5+ years of experience in digital marketing is that most of the time all you need to do to prove a point is to test things/assumptions: what works for one site might not work for another and so on. That’s why we built ODN at Distilled, testing, testing and more testing!

I am going to re-create a series of scenarios and share my thoughts on the differences of approach that you could take when discussed what to do when organic and paid listings appear at the same time.

Scenario 1: Brand keywords, good organic positioning

Imagine the following situation:

Keyword: brand type

SEO situation: ranking in position 1

The key question here is the following:

Should I or should I not bid on my brand terms, using precious PPC spend if I am already ranking 1 organically?

Reasons to do bid on your brand terms:

Brand defence: especially for highly competitive markets, you want to occupy as much search space as possible, so it makes sense. Also, for certain markets and situations your competitors (or retailers or partners) are allowed to use your brand terms in their ads, so in these situations, definitely do defend your name!

Brand awareness: a lot of people I talk to in the industry want to see their brand bid on these terms from a credibility and brand awareness point of view. If you think that is important, then do so.

See an example where it is worth bidding on your brand keyword:

For the query ‘halifax mortgage’ Halifax is appearing with a text ad and a couple of SEO results. It is worth noticing that there is competition for this term and that the destination URLs between the PPC ad and the first organic results are different.

My opinion here: keep bidding on your term.

Reason to NOT bid on your brand terms:

Save that cash: self-explanatory right? If there is no competition on that keyword and you think your SEO listing will absorb the traffic that a potential PPC ad would have attracted, then definitely consider a SEO-only approach.

Before going for it, I recommend building a testing framework that eliminates seasonality, takes into account all the other marketing channels you are running (they could skew the analysis otherwise) and then test if this is true. I have experienced tests where not bidding on brand terms makes absolute sense and the savings are quite substantial when applied to a large number of keywords: so why not explore the opportunity? It is worth reiterating that this would only work for brand terms where no other competitors are bidding on.

See an example where it might be worth NOT bidding on your brand keyword:

For the query ‘halifax mortgage calculator’ Halifax is appearing with a text ad and a couple of SEO results. In this instance, there is no competition for this term and the destination URLs between the PPC ad and the first organic results are the same.

My opinion here: consider an SEO-only approach.

Scenario 2: Non-brand, good organic position

Imagine the following situation:

Keyword: non-product type, non-brand type

SEO situation: ranking in position 1

There are a lot of considerations to keep in mind here, I will mention the most important ones in my opinion:

Volatility: are organic rankings too volatile?

Competition: Is the competition very tough for this keyword/cluster?

If you answer is yes to any of the above, then you clearly cannot rely on SEO to consistently be at the top of the SERP. Consider PPC to hold a position at the very top instead.

But the real key question is this:

How important is this keyword to your business?

If it is very important, you want to try and use both PPC and SEO at the same time: it will guarantee more space on the SERP (especially on mobile, where space is even more precious), therefore higher CTR. If it is not as important and you are confident that your organic result is better than the competition, then you may want to use that PPC spend on something else.

See an example below where a site occupying the organic position 1 decides not to bid on PPC: fantasticcleaners.com has no ads showing for the keyword ‘find cleaner’ despite being a high volume and high competition type of term.

Scenario 3: Product keyword, good organic position

Imagine this hypothetical situation:

Keyword: product type, non-brand

SEO situation: ranking in position 1

Google Shopping Ads: appearing for that keyword

As most of you know, Shopping Ads tend to appear for product-related searches where the likelihood of intent for a user is a conversion. This scenario is similar to scenario 2 and will involve the same questions: answer them with Shopping Ads in mind instead of text ads.

See an example below where a site ranks at position 1 organically and has Shopping Ad showing:

notonthehighstreet.com is appearing both on Google Shopping for ‘birthday gifts for family’ and as the top SEO result.

Scenario 4: Informative keyword, featured snippets

Imagine this fourth scenario:

Keyword: informative/generic keyword (non-product), non-brand

SEO situation: ranking in the answer box (featured snippets)

As most of you might know, you do not have to rank first organically to be eligible in the answer box (read this post to know more), so it is a very appealing opportunity for a lot of sites with less established organic results. As featured snippets occupy such a large portion of the SERP, it is quite evident that the user’s attention will be dragged there - the key question here is the following:

Do you think it is worth appearing for generic/informative terms where chances of conversions might be low (very top of the funnel activity)?

If you are trying to generate traffic and interest in your brand, why not consider it? The price of these keywords might be very cheap and not a lot of companies are interested in bidding in that space, so, as a result, it might be an opportunity worth exploring.

See an example below where a site ranks in the answer box and there are PPC ads appearing for the query:

Despite the fact that getyourguide.co.uk appears in the featured snippet, Airbnb still decides to bid on that particular query.

Always audit your landing pages: a must step before testing

Another key consideration relates to the major differences between PPC and SEO landing pages (refer to the previous paragraph about Landing page testing to understand this point).

When considering whether to ‘switch off’ PPC, always think about how well the SEO page/s could pick up that traffic.

Follow these steps to have a better idea:

If PPC and SEO use the same page for a particular keyword, then this applies:

we expect the user journey to remain the same in case the paid ads were removed, as the page between the two channels does not vary

by removing the PPC results (same landing page), we expect SEO to absorb most of the PPC traffic and conversions

If PPC and SEO use a different page for a particular keyword, then do the following:

Analyse the type of keyword and intent behind it - top vs bottom of the funnel

Check how different the SEO & PPC pages are: how far off a conversion is the SEO page? How much information and content does the PPC page display?

If the SEO page is significantly different (more informative or further to a conversion) than the PPC page, our expectations should be adjusted accordingly: for example, it is likely the SEO page will absorb the PPC traffic but not conversions, as the path to conversion is not comparable. So, it is likely that switching off PPC in these instances will save money, but my overall number conversions will be impacted - hence, a slightly riskier approach that should be tested.

Make sure to account for the above considerations when conducting this type of testing.

Creating a table like this in Excel/Google Sheets can really help you: see my table below, using Distilled’s SearchLove conference as a fictitious example.

Keyword PPC Landing page SEO Landing page Type of keyword PPC - Steps to conversions SEO - Steps to conversions distilled upcoming event distilled.net/events/searchlove-london/ distilled.net/events/ Informative 1 2 book distilled event london distilled.net/events/searchlove-london/ distilled.net/events/ Transactional 1 2 distilled searchlove distilled.net/events/searchlove-london/ distilled.net/events/searchlove-london/ Not clear - generic 1 1

Quick recap: why is this worth it?

It is worth experimenting with your paid & organic listings for multiple reasons: from brand defence to awareness to saving you a lot of money (if applied on a large portfolio of keywords).

Doing so will help you understand more about your market and your audience, with the ultimate goal of improving your PPC spend and take advantage of your SEO presence.

Part 2 of our SEO & PPC synergy series terminates here. Stay tuned to read the last article on the subject, which will include two more synergy ideas and a downloadable checklist.

Don’t forget to check out Part 1 here.

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heavenwheel · 5 years ago

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PPC & SEO Synergy: Landing Page Testing, PPC & SEO Efficiencies

This post is the second of a series of 3 articles: we intend to cover a series of synergies between SEO and PPC that could help your business/clients run the two channels more efficiently and optimise the overall spending.