#christmas armistice

[jotun-philosopher]

I was watching Twice Upon A Time today, and had the thought that this episode in particular highlights that Doctor Who and Good Omens have a lot of mutual thematic sympathy.

First off, there's the whole thing about the Christmas Armistice of 1914 -- a thoroughly human miracle of people on opposite sides of a war choosing to lay down their weapons, find their common humanity and lack of deep-down differences, and above all be kind.

And parts of Twelve's farewell speech, too:

"Never be cruel, never be cowardly. [...] Remember, hate is always foolish and love is always wise. [...] Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind. [...]"

That's kind of the fundamental moral backbone of DW, and the Ineffable Husbands would be pretty sympathetic to those sentiments, no? (One wonders how they reacted to the Christmas Truce, too)

Just some random late-night ramblings of mine XD

(The fact that One's costume resembles the outfit worn by Derek Jacobi's character in TF15 is one of those genuine coincidences, for all that there's probably an off-the-wall meta in analysing the thematic wossnames XD)

[madnessofmen]

why was im westen nichts neues translated as all quiet on the western front. it's kind of the opposite of that innit

[hellenhighwater]

okay I know it's spooky season still and I would NEVER trespass across the celebratory armistice line between halloween and christmas, but also I do like to do my gift shopping year round.

And as someone who 1. loves gifts, both giving and receiving, and 2. loves kits, advent calendars are the exact shape of my absolute kryptonite. Except I rarely find ones I actually want to own beyond the brief woo! of opening the item? Like, there's lots of beauty product ones out there but that's not my thing. Where are my werido advent calendars.

[vidavalor]

Fraternizing

There is some historical context to the 1862 scene that I think might be of interest to quite a few of you, if it's not something you already know. It deals with the evolution in meaning of the word fraternizing.

In 1862, the word fraternizing did not have any sexual connotation whatsoever. Like the words fraternal and fraternity, fraternizing comes from the Latin fraternus, which means brotherly. It was, originally, a very specifically non-sexual word that meant to bond as brothers, either by blood or by choice.

It is from this that it developed its definition as a military term meaning to be on friendly terms with enemy soldiers. The first known use of fraternizing in that way, though, was as a then-apparently-relatively new term that was first recorded in 1897, some 35 years after the 1862 scene. Fraternizing apparently didn't really fully come into common use as a military term until during and after WW1, though, when it was used to describe actions by soldiers during the Christmas Armistice of 1914.

It isn't until after World War II that the word fraternizing developed a sexual connotation. Then, it had evolved across several Allied armies to mean to have sex with women in enemy countries. No one is entirely sure how this word that was so absolutely about brotherhood and nothing else came to refer to sex across enemy lines but the most common theory is that it began amongst the soldiers as sarcasm over the military definition of fraternizing being condemning soldiers for viewing those of the opposing armies as human. The idea is that they were probably using the same word because of the military frowning on relationships with people in enemy countries in a general way, whether that was a sexual relationship or a non-sexual one. It's off of this connotation that we get the other, modern one, where the word fraternizing is sometimes used with relationship to company policies regarding social interaction, both in a general way and with regards to sexual relationships, in workplace environments.

Anyway, the point is that, in 1862, when Crowley is asking Aziraphale for holy water in the park where they could be overheard, it causes Aziraphale to need to reply in such a way that he needs to find a word to describe his relationship with Crowley that could be overheard by people working for Heaven/Hell. Aziraphale is worried then that Heaven/Hell will find out about them. He knows that, if they get caught, they'd have a far better chance of surviving it if they could play their relationship off as sibling-like because Aziraphale thinks (and likely isn't wrong) that they are as good as dead if Heaven/Hell finds out that they're lovers.

In 1862, the fact that fraternizing only meant brotherly was why Aziraphale landed on that choice of word, even if his tone of voice doesn't quite successfully sell it.

Crowley being upset with that choice of words is because he knows that they both know that 'brotherly' is a wildly inaccurate description of their relationship. Crowley is in a low place in 1862 and other dialogue in the scene suggests that they're struggling a bit with that relationship, which is probably why Crowley is vulnerable enough to challenge that word choice in the open park. The inaccurate description is the reason for the sarcastic way Crowley uses fraternizing in his reply. He's angry because they are not brothers, they are lovers.

[george-the-good]

QUEEN ELIZABETH II makes her first televised Christmas Broadcast in 1957.

In the background can be seen a 1951 photograph of her parents and sister:

The Queen often had a variety of personal family photos on display during her Christmas Broadcasts. Below are a few of the times photos of her beloved father were visible:

---

1992

The Queen with photos of her father and grandfather. In 1992 she reflected on her first Christmas message, broadcast over the radio 40 years ago. She also acknowledged that the Christmas message was a tradition started by George V and carried on by George VI.

---

1995

The Queen commemorated the 50th anniversary of VE Day earlier in the year. Behind is a photograph of the Queen with her parents and sister, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during VE Day celebrations.

---

1996

Photos of her father’s last Christmas, taken at Sandringham in 1951.

---

2001

A photograph of George VI by Dorothy Wilding, taken in 1937, the year of his Coronation.

---

2002

Photos of George VI, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. 2002 was the year the Queen lost her mother and sister.

---

2004

The same photos of her parents featured in the 2002 broadcast can be seen in the background.

---

2007

Three photos of George VI in uniform, taken during the early stages of World War II.

---

2013

A 1946 photograph of George VI by Dorothy Wilding.

---

2018

A 1917 photo of George VI (then Prince Albert) as a Midshipman in the Royal Navy. The Queen noted the centenary of the Armistice, and spoke of her father’s participation in the Battle of Jutland.

---

2019

A photo of George VI delivering a broadcast in 1944.

---

[cetaitlaverite]

Anything to Anywhere

Masters of the Air - John Egan x OC

seemed appropriate to post to commemorate armistice day <3 masterlist is here

22. Just Like We Are

Tangmere Cottage was warm and homely, decorated for Christmas like it was any normal cottage belonging to any normal family. There was a Christmas tree in the living room, strung with tinsel and covered in baubles, and a fire in the fireplace.

When Stella was led through the front door by a man named Bill, one of the two flight sergeants who took care of everything which went on at the cottage, there were already three pilots sitting on the sofas in the lounge, mugs in their hands and Christmas jumpers on over the tops of their uniform shirts.

“Alright, Bambi, lass?” Daisy called when he saw her. “Welcome to Tangmere.”

Stella gave him a smile, shifting her hold on her bag. “Thanks.” She took another look around, at the wood panelling and the line of beer bottles on top of the fireplace and the books on the bookshelf beside it, at the framed paintings on the walls and the patterned rug beneath her feet. “It’s nice,” she said idly.

Across from Daisy, one of the other 161 pilots, a man Stella didn���t know all that well named Sparky, gave her a grin. “Home sweet home,” he replied.

Bill led Stella up the stairs and to the room at the end of the hall. “Right beside the bathroom,” he said with a wink, as though he thought all women were on their menstrual cycles all the time. Nonetheless, he was a nice man, probably around the age her father must have been by now, and he waited for her to put her things down in the bedroom she’d been assigned before taking her on a short tour of the cottage. There were six bedrooms upstairs, all of which were now currently being inhabited, and a bathroom, and downstairs boasted an operations room, a dining room, a kitchen, and two living rooms.

The tour didn’t take long and then Stella was left to unpack her belongings upstairs. She wouldn’t be here for long, true, but her flight wasn’t until tomorrow night and she didn’t want to live out of her bag until then.

Downstairs, the pilots’ idle chatter continued and Stella was swept up in it easily when she came down to sit with them. The conversation raged on fast, veering from films to music to sports to the last time they hadn’t had to work over Christmas. Stella sat and listened, drumming her fingers on her thighs, before her eyes found the bookshelf in the corner and her legs were leading her over to it before she had consciously told them to do so.

There were a variety of titles on the shelf, nonfiction and fiction alike. Some books were about aviation, others were thriller novels - Stella was delighted to discover a romance novel amongst the selection, considering she was the first female pilot to billet here. She withdrew it from its perch and read the back, smiling to herself at the description of a whirlwind romance set against the backdrop of Victorian London. She wondered who had brought it here with them and left it behind to share, wondered whether that pilot was still around.

Replacing the book, Stella kept looking, skimming her fingers gently over the spines, until a voice calling her name had her turning around, one of her hands still resting against the books.

“Nervous for your first flight with 161?” Sparky wanted to know, one hand resting atop the ankle he had resting on his opposite knee, the other holding his mug to his lips.

Stella shrugged, letting her hand fall and turning fully to face him and the rest of the room. “Of course,” she admitted, “but only because it’s my first. Once I’ve got it out of the way I’ll be fine.”

Daisy grinned at her, because it was a sentiment he’d given her before her first flight with 138.

“Where have they got you landing, lass?” Daisy asked before sipping from his mug. “France? Belgium? Holland?”

“France,” Stella said. “I think they’re starting me off easy.”

“Oh, none of it’s easy,” he dismissed her, chuckling under his breath. “Something’s always bound to go wrong. But it’s important work and the Resistance laddies work hard to get us down in one piece, so as long as we remember our training it’s all alright in the end.”

“Hear hear,” Sparky agreed, raising his mug as though in toast. “My first flight I transmitted my morse code identification wrong so everyone on the ground thought I was a Jerry. I had to circle and try again and transmit it right the next time, cost us ten minutes because I was an idiot.”

Stella laughed.

Daisy was grinning. “My first flight they had me landing in a field so waterlogged it was like trying to land in the fucking Channel. Managed to get the Lizzie to stop about a metre away from a forest. No idea how I got the fucking thing to take off again after.”

“I’ll do you one better,” chimed in the other pilot, a man nicknamed Romeo because he’d tried to chat up every single one of the wireless operators when he’d first arrived, Stella had been informed. “On my first flight - landing in the Netherlands, mind you - the field they’d picked wasn’t nearly big enough. The Resistance girl who’d picked it didn’t have an idea about aviation. Not her fault, really, but did they have to saddle her with the responsibility of locating the landing area?” He shook his head, barking a laugh at the memory. “Anyway, I circled four times before realising I couldn’t land, so I made my Joe parachute out the back, holding on to as many of the supplies we were delivering as he could fit in his arms.” He was grinning at them all in turn as he told the story. “Dead dangerous, in hindsight, making him parachute from that low with that much stuff in his arms, but it all worked out in the end. Just lucky that I didn’t have to take anything back home with me. That would’ve been an unlucky refugee who’d been assigned to go home that day otherwise.”

“You picking anyone up tomorrow, Bambi, or just dropping off?” Daisy asked, tapping his mug against his thigh in a steady rhythm.

“Just dropping off,” Stella answered. “But I’ve got some radios to pick up, so I have to land whether I like it or not.”

Romeo whistled and raised his mug to her in cheers. “Godspeed, Bambi. Godspeed.”

Daisy rolled his eyes. “Silly bastard, scaring the lassie like that.” To Stella, he said, “You’ll be fine. You’ve done your training, wouldn’t have been picked for the job if you couldn’t do it.”

Stella hummed her agreement, heading back across the room and resuming her place on the sofa. “I’ll be fine,” she agreed, and realised as she said it that she believed it, too. “First one’s just the worst, but I’ll get it done and dusted no trouble.”

This turned out to only be a slight overestimation; ‘no trouble’ may have been a tad optimistic.

While Stella had practised taking off and landing her Lysander in tiny patches of grass countless times to prepare her for her first deployment with 161, trying to do it with only the light of the moon and a shoddy flare path, and the knowledge that she may be caught by the Germans at any second, was an entirely different ball game.

A small group of Resistance operatives were waiting for her on the ground with bicycles and an old car, staring up at her as she circled and tried again, circled and tried again, well aware that her time was running out. The Gestapo didn’t stop patrolling at night; any second now she could be caught in a searchlight or the Resistance operatives could be caught on the ground or a German reconnaissance plane could fly over and catch her, or any number of other dangers.

Stella tried not to think about it. She circled for the third time and pulled on the yoke with all of her might, forcing the plane to land in this tiny strip of greenery on the outskirts of a French village whether it wanted to or not.

The turnaround was rapid. The spy she’d been ferrying climbed out of the back of the Lysander the instant the wheels hit the ground, before Stella had finished taxiing, and then there were Resistance ops in the back, shoving in old radios which were either broken or had been compromised for one reason or another.

“Allez!” called one of them, giving a firm pat to the floor of the plane before he climbed out of it.

Stella knew very little French but she’d been briefed enough to know what that meant. She turned the plane around as best she could in the limited space, then had to try four times before she eventually got it in the air.

She sped back to England faster than she had been briefed to but her heart was in her throat, the stress the adrenaline had been keeping at bay flooding her veins. Lizzies couldn’t go very fast, anyway, she comforted herself; no one would even notice she’d been speeding. She was deep in French airspace by now and half expecting a Messerschmitt to jump out at her at any moment - either that or anti-aircraft fire. With only the light of the moon to fly by and a whole country’s worth of Nazis below her, Stella accelerated back towards England like she really was being chased.

Never had she been more relieved to land. She arrived safely back at RAF Tangmere in the early hours of the morning on the 28th December and slumped back in her seat, reassuring the wireless operators over the radio that she was fine, that she hadn’t run into any trouble, that she had dropped her Joe off and retrieved the radios and, aside from some delays, everything had gone according to plan.

She filed her flight report with eyelids drooping, the adrenaline all long-since worn off, and dragged her feet behind her on the way back to the cottage. She was slow and sluggish with every movement, took much too long in the shower but at least she was the only one using it, and when she found herself tucked up in bed the first few rays of morning sunshine were peering in around the edges of the window.

Stella groaned and rolled over, burying her face into her pillow, and fell into a deep, restful sleep.

It became almost monotonous after a while. After three landings in various locations in occupied France she’d worked out the details in her routine, and as time wore on she got better and better at ironing out the kinks. She found that she should start to come in for the landing earlier than she might have guessed when her landing strip was too small, had started to be able to navigate using French towns and forests and lakes she often flew over regardless of where she was going. Sometimes she saw the same Resistance operatives as she’d seen before and became familiar with them - she never learned their names and they never learned hers, but she could greet them with their code names and they could greet her with her call sign, which, in fairness, was all anyone called her these days anyway, and it was almost like they were friends.

She started to become numb, even, to the reality of what she was doing. Months passed and she no longer batted an eye when her next assignment would come through. She’d ferried spies into the outskirts of Paris, of Bordeaux, had gone as far as Monaco to deliver Joes and supplies. She flew in the dead of night, landed in the tiniest airstrips known to man by sheer force of will - Lysanders formally need a five hundred yard long airstrip to land at the very least; Stella had gotten used to landing hers in one hundred and fifty - and she made idle chatter with the Joe she was dropping as the Resistance agents swapped out supplies, then turned around and flew back to England. She rarely got fired on, but when she did she didn’t think all that much of it; so late at night, the gunners couldn’t see her anyway. Their aim was always miles off.

“What’s it like, Babs?” the other Hut 6 girls wanted to know. Their resentment of her promotion had fizzled away, replaced by hope that it would be them next who were promoted now that women were allowed to fly for 161.

Stella laughed softly, removing her shoes and socks and tucking her frozen feet beneath her, digging her toes into her blanket. “It’s not all that different from what I was doing before,” she replied.

Lucky scoffed. “You stay in the cottage. You land in occupied territory. You meet the Resistance and you pick up refugees. It is very different.”

“What’s it like on the ground?” Houds asked.

Stella shrugged. “I hardly experience it. The turnaround is so fast. I land in dark fields and exchange hellos with Resistance operatives and then I take off again. All I can really tell you is that it’s dead quiet, like the grave, and that everyone’s looking over their shoulder every five seconds. I don’t see much but you can feel the fear in the air.” She shook her head. “What it must be like to live that way all the time.”

“What are the Joes like?” Donny asked. “We meet them briefly, of course, but not properly. What are they really like?”

Formally, even 161 pilots weren’t supposed to get friendly with the spies, but in practice it was only natural that they did. Stella had dropped off and picked up the same spies on a few occasions and, besides, she had to train her Joes every time she ferried them to assist in the moonlight landings in preparation for their pick up.

She didn’t know any of their real names, much like with the Resistance operatives, but she knew most of their code names - the ones she’d ferried, anyway. And she liked most of them, how they immediately respected her and held such reverence for her job, how they acknowledged the importance of her role in the entire clandestine affair. To Stella, the spies were at the top of the food chain; to the spies, the pilots were. No one was going anywhere or doing anything without pilots mad enough to want to fly them over there.

“I don’t like any of them better than I like you, don’t worry,” Stella teased, picking up her teddy bear and sitting him in her lap. “But they’re nice. They respect pilots a lot. I don’t know much about any of them but they make the trips over feel shorter because a lot of them like to crack jokes.”

Lucky fell back on her bed and sighed. “I cannot wait to be a 161 pilot.”

Donny scoffed. “I’ve been here the longest, if anyone gets the call up next it should be me.”

Stella laughed. “Just remember that whenever anyone gets the call up it’s because someone else has been stood down, either dead, caught, or missing. So don’t go wishing too hard for it. I might be the pilot you replace.”

Donny frowned. “Don’t say things like that.” She shook her head, worrying at her bottom lip. “You shouldn’t talk like that. You’re not ever going to have any issues - they wouldn’t have called you up if they thought you would.”

Stella shrugged, smiling softly at her. “It’s not so predictable as that. Any number of things could go wrong.”

“Is it scary?” Houds asked. She was hugging her pillow to her chest, gazing at Stella over the top of it.

Stella took a moment to consider the question. Was it? She didn’t think so. It should have been, but after all the many flights she’d flown for 138 - almost thirty before she’d gotten promoted - and after all the many flights she’d now made for 161, she’d become desensitised. It always felt like she was landing behind enemy lines but the meaning of those words had become lost, faded, like the hem of a pair of pyjamas worn too often, once scratchy and stiff and now soft and covered in loose thread.

“No,” she decided. “It’s not.”

March arrived with drizzle and a chill in the air. Stella was still wearing John’s jacket everyday. Even when summer arrived she thought she’d still wear it. It no longer smelled like him but it reminded her of him all the same, made her feel like he was still close enough to touch.

She still hadn’t heard anything of him but she knew she wouldn’t for a while even if he was alive and a prisoner of war; there were continuous reports in the newspapers that the Germans were being lazy with POW correspondence, deliberately taking months on end to send out their letters, and even if John was alive and was a prisoner of war, by the time his letter got sent out and made it to Thorpe Abbotts, and then by the time the mail clerk at Thorpe Abbotts sent it on to the RAF head office in London, and by the time the RAF head office got it delivered to Tempsford, it would have been months and months and months. Stella comforted herself with the thought that his words might already be on their way to her, lost in the postal system somewhere but on their way all the same.

The next time Stella was bound for Tangmere, being sent out on her fifteenth flight for 161 Squadron, she was being sent out with the promise of a party in her honour upon her return.

Fifteen flights with 161 was, apparently, a big deal. If you managed fifteen successful missions then, statistically, you were fifty percent more likely to never get caught at all, or so the other pilots said. Secretly, Stella wondered whether this was all just an excuse to hold another party; no one had had a birthday in a while.

“We are going to get wine, Babs,” Lucky was gushing as Stella packed her bag to head off. “And cake! Coffee cake, because it is your favourite.”

Stella tipped her head back as she laughed. “Coffee cake is your favourite, Lucky.”

Lucky rolled her eyes and hit her gently on the shoulder. “Is your favourite too. You told me so.”

“I don’t have a favourite,” Stella objected. “I like all cake.”

“You have only tried two flavours,” Lucky pointed out.

Stella shot her a grin. “And I like them both equally.”

Stella seemed to have acquired many, many more belongings since coming to Tempsford. What with her birthday and then Christmas and the outings the other girls had taken her on to go shopping, she’d arrived with barely anything and now had to pick and choose what she took with her to Tangmere. Her bag was full to bursting by the time she’d loaded it up, but as she reached for Ralph, ready to lay him on top of her pile of clothes and toiletries before she zipped the bag up, Lucky grabbed her arm to halt her.

“Wait,” she said, then hurried off to her bed. When she returned to Stella’s side, Lucky had her childhood stuffed bunny in her hand. She was holding it by one of its paws as she held it out to Stella. “You take Królik. I will look after Ralph.”

With raised eyebrows and a confused smile, Stella accepted the bunny and held it carefully to her chest. “Why?”

“For good luck,” Lucky explained, as though this should have been obvious. “It is your fifteenth 161 flight. Is special. You always fly with your John’s lucky jacket and now I would like you to fly with my lucky rabbit. This way, you will have all of the luck in the world, from the two people who love you the most.”

Stella’s smile became strained.

Lucky noticed and rolled her eyes before tugging her into a hug. “Babs,” she said, “you have got to stop crying every time someone is nice to you. Is embarrassing.”

Stella laughed and gave her a shove as she pulled out of the hug. “Shut up. I’m not even crying.” But there were tears in her eyes, and she had to fight hard to hold them in.

“Now, you take care of Królik for me,” Lucky said, electing to ignore Stella. “He will bring you luck but you must be nice to him.”

“I will,” Stella vowed, hugging the bunny to her chest.

“I will take good care of Ralph,” Lucky promised in return.

“I know you will,” Stella assured her, smiling.

Looking between the two stuffed animals, Lucky smiled warmly. “They are best friends,” she asserted, sharing her smile with Stella. “Just like we are.”

“Then we have to make sure we reunite them,” Stella replied, grinning. She laughed as she reached for Ralph and handed him over to Lucky.

Stella was careful as she tucked Królik into her bag. She took care to ensure none of his fur was caught in the zip before she zipped it up.

Fully packed and ready to go, Stella turned to Lucky with a smile. “I’ll see you in a few days,” she said, leaning down for a hug.

Lucky squeezed Stella tightly, scruffing her hair as they pulled apart. “See you in a few days,” she returned. “With yourself and my rabbit all in one piece. And lots of cake.”

“Lots,” Stella agreed with a laugh. She picked up her bag and headed for the door, blowing a kiss over her shoulder.

Lucky pretended to catch it and stamp on it, which made Stella laugh.

“Fly safe, Babs!” Lucky called as Stella reached the door. “I will miss you too much if you do not.”

[wonderlanddreamer]

[Armistice Day] Birmingham.

Lydia Shelby only has one wish for Christmas.

[Part of The Lydia Saga]

The gypsy fair was alive with vibrant laughter and cheerful shouts, a racket of joy echoing from the rides and bustling stalls. The colours of the late afternoon sun painted a lively picture, but little Lydia Shelby found solace in a quieter corner, away from the hustle and bustle. She perched on a wooden bench, her small hands folded in her lap as she stared down at the ground.

Johnny Dogs, ever watchful, had followed her retreat from the noise. His face softened into a gentle smile as he crouched before her. "What's troubling ya, Lil'?" he asked tenderly, his accent a comforting melody to Lydia's ears.

Lydia lifted her eyes to meet his, her gaze filled with thoughts too profound for someone so young. "Johnny, do you believe in Santa?" she whispered.

Johnny moved to sit beside her, pondering her question. "Well, Lil', Santa's as real as the magic we create, y'know? But what's got ya askin'?"

Lydia sighed, her small shoulders bearing the weight of her hopes. "I asked Santa for something," she admitted, her voice quivering. "I wrote it all down, like you and Aunt Pol showed me."

Johnny nodded, recalling the list they had crafted together. "Aye, and what did ya ask for?"

She hesitated, then spoke with the pure innocence of a young child. "I only asked for one thing... for Tommy, John, and Arthur to come home from the war. Do you think Santa can do that, Johnny?"

Johnny felt a pang in his heart at her earnest wish. He gently placed a comforting hand on her back. "Ah, Lil', that's a mighty wish, it is. But your brothers, they're strong and brave. They love ya more than anything. And while Santa might be busy, they're fightin' hard to come back to ya."

Lydia nodded slowly, absorbing his words. "I just miss them," she confessed, her voice small and sad.

Johnny gave her a reassuring smile. "We'll all be here waitin', Lil'. And when they do come back, we'll have the grandest celebration, bigger than this fair, I promise ya that."

A small smile graced Lydia's face, the first he'd seen all day. She leaned against him, comforted by his presence. "Thank you, Johnny," she whispered.

The next morning, the sun shone brightly over Watery Lane. Lydia played joyfully outside her house, her small feet dancing over the stones as she imagined herself in a world of her own creation.

Johnny Dogs strolled down the street, a familiar figure in his cap and coat. He carried with him the news of the day, a hope that had been missing for far too long. As he approached, Lydia spotted him and broke into a run, her little shoes tapping eagerly against the ground.

"Johnny! Johnny!" she called, her voice brimming with excitement.

Johnny bent down to greet her, his eyes twinkling with warmth. "Well, look at ya, Lil! What's got ya all excited today?"

Lydia stopped in front of him, her cheeks flushed with the thrill of her news. "The war's finished, Johnny! The guns have stopped! We heard it on the radio! It's really over!"

Johnny felt a wave of joy at her announcement, it somehow sounding even better coming from her. "Aye, is that so, Lil'? Oh, that's the best news I've heard in ages!"

She nodded vigorously, her smile radiant. "It means Tommy, John, and Arthur can come home now, right? They'll come back to us?"

Johnny knelt to her level, his heart swelling with happiness. "That's right, little Shelby. They'll be comin' home, back to ya and the family. Your wish is comin' true."

Lydia clapped her hands together, her joy uncontainable. "I knew it, Johnny! I knew Santa got my wish! He really did!"

Johnny chuckled, touched by her innocent belief. "Aye, Lil', looks like Santa was listenin' after all, eh? Sometimes, the magic's real, just like we talked about."

As they stood there, basking in newfound hope, the street seemed brighter, the air lighter. The promise of reunion and happiness filled the air like the magic of Lydia's Christmas wish.

[doctorkinktraveller]

When William Hartnell was pushed into retirement in the early days of Doctor Who, the BBC had considered simply having Patrick Troughton take over, with no explanation.

The producers argued that this was too 'cold', and wanted to make the transition special and fantastical.

After much deliberation, they decided that a Time Lord could change their face upon death, and be granted another life. At the time, it was not yet called "regeneration".

According to news sources back then, many families stared at the screen in dumbfounded shock after the change, as nothing like it had ever been done before.

Here's David Bradley in the role of 1st Doctor in 'Twice Upon a time' where he meets his future incarnation 12th [Peter Capaldi] and the further meeting of Alistair's father - Captain Archibald Lethbridge-Stewart .. and the beginning of a promise that would span multiple incarnations to come. All in the midst of the 1914 Christmas armistice

[againaweasel]

How to tell people that I'm obsessed with WW1 but not in the guns-tanks-planes- battles-generals kind of way but more in the 'in all my dreams before my helpless sight' - trench foot-' They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old'--white feathers- 'If I should die, think only this of me'- Christmas armistice 1914- 230 gay soldiers imprisoned kind of way.

[hummingbirdspark]

Feel free to use these ideas if you want! You do not need to credit me, but just let me know you did so I can read it.

Details for the story ideas under the cut

Kidnapped and forced to do maths

Pretty self-explanatory, they get locked in cells equipped with digital blackboards and stuff and can’t leave until they answer enough questions right. Penalties for wrong answers is death. Perhaps opportunities for teamwork?

Kipo and the age of Wonderbeasts au

Might not make sense if you haven’t seen Kipo but Carmilla uses megamute dna to try and make humans able to live on the surface, but after getting kicked out of her burrow, she has to wander the surface, looking for humans desperate enough to accept her ‘help’. I already have a bulletfic for how each of them gets found and mutated

Steven Universe au

Mechanisms as the Off-Colors. Gems thst either rebelled against or were thrown out by the diamonds. They wander the galaxy, and sometimes assist gem rebellions. The moon war was fought over earth’s moon base, between the crystal gems and those loyal to the Diamonds.

Doctor who TMA au

Jon and Jonny were brothers on Gallifrey, and while Jon excelled in timelord school and became The Archivist, Jonny was distracted by paying off his father’s debts and failed, never to receive the title of “the Captain” or 12 regenerations. He didn’t stay mortal for long, as Carmilla found him like in cannon and mechanized both of his hearts. They stole a TARDIS called Aurora and fled to the stars. Many many years later, The Archivist finds his long lost brother when taking his companions, Martin, Tim, and Sasha to the Steamworld Intergalactic Music Festival

False domestic psychological prison

An enterprising young member of an intergalactic authority comes up with a new idea for these immortal criminals’ containment: the only prison the Mechanisms can’t escape is the one they don’t know they’re in. They capture the mechanisms and through a combination of the sedative effects of the Lotus, and some memory altering microchips, they get the Mechanisms to think they are just (mostly) normal people on a normal planet. To make them less likely to escape, they gave them something they never could have had before. Jonny gets respect as the owner of a tailor shop, with workers who call him sir, and trust and obey his judgement. Brian, as a priest is listened to in all his advice and praised for his wise moral decisions. Will they realize it’s a trick? Or stay living this lie forever?

Spaceteam fic

The Aurora gets stuck in a strange wormhole (bifrost?) and she can’t operate anything but basic piloting. Suddenly strange new controls are on the bridge, as well as whole other consoles of controls. Instructions for what to do are provided on screens, but they don’t match the control each mechanism sees on their console. Luckily they’re all within shouting distance, but they will have to learn to work together… as a spaceteam. Set Sigmaclapper to 5! Soak Ferrous Holospectrum! Baste the Emergency Whittler!

Summer Camp Councilors

Human au where the mechanisms are councilors at Camp Cosmo, with wacky hijinks, camp names, and songs. Several units of cabins inspired by the 4 story albums, a great spot on a canal with sea kayaking, regular kayaking, sailing, and canoeing. A high ropes and low ropes course, an archery range, and an arts and crafts area are also present for those who aren’t water crazy. Pack up your sense of adventure and extra flashlight batteries! Hopefully the campers won’t get into any drama…

Kofi rat from Small Saga meets Marius

This is for the KofiAssam fans out there! Our very own rat-tailed rover finds themself on a massive metal god dwelling and encounters The Metal Armed God!

Or

Marius Von Raum finds a rat wearing clothing that seems to be able to play the mandolin. Good thing he learned to speak rat when he and Toy Soldier went to that candy planet where Toy Soldier somehow became a prince…

Steam Powered Giraffe roleswap

What if Doctor Carmilla lived on earth and created nine singing automatons that could self repair?

What if Colonel P. A. Walter mechanized 6 humans with blue matter to create a force of galactic heroes, that then forgot their original names?

1920s American speakeasy

Probably heavily based on Lackadaisy. Carmilla’s Speakeasy is a great place to get illegal alcohol, and its secret entrance is inside the Cafe Aurora. The owner, Carmilla herself is illusive at best, and her seeming to only show her face at night has lead to rumors of her being a vampire or witch. Rumors that are only worsened when she gave each of her employees a strange new gift: pins, that she insists are a new part of their uniform to be worn at all times. The purpose of the pins is made clear when Jonny is shot by a rival rumrunner while on a job and comes back from the dead.

SCP contains Brian and Toy Soldier

Brian was on MJE and Toy Soldier was under direct orders from a researcher to not escape. The only question is would Doctor Bright be an expert on immortality, or would letting him know about The Mechanisms be a terrible idea?

Marius backstory oneshot based on the christmas armistice

There are many things Byron Marius expected to hear in the middle of a war. The pound of bullets, the screams of other soldiers, and crash of giant robot mechas overhead. What he didn’t expect to hear was singing.

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht

That’s all, folks

I have way too many ideas.

[justahumblememefarmer]

Ultimate Doctor Who Poll Round 2 - Matchup 18

Episode Summaries under the cut

23: The Doctor's Wife - Season 6, Episode 4: After receiving a message from another Time Lord, the Doctor takes Amy and Rory to a sentient asteroid outside the universe. When they land the TARDIS malfunctions and they are approached by some strange people that live on the asteroid. As the Doctor investigates, he finds that the asteroid has lured many Time Lords there to eat their TARDIS's. He finds that one strange woman has had the TARDIS consciousness implanted inside her, so that the asteroid can feast off the remaining Artron energy. The Doctor reveals that the Time Lords are gone, as are their TARDIS's so no more will be coming.

The asteroid then transfers it's consciousness to the TARDIS shell with Amy and Rory inside, where it messes with them for it's amusement. The Doctor and the TARDIS delight in the chance to talk, but she begins to die. They try to reconstruct a TARDIS console from the bits of broken TARDIS's scattered around. They send Amy and Rory instructions to an old console room where they can lower the TARDIS shields, allowing the Doctor and TARDIS to land aboard.

The asteroid threatens to kill them, but the Doctor says that it needs them alive to tell them how to get back to their universe. He shares that the asteroid must delete 30% of TARDIS rooms to generate enough thrust. It deletes the console room they are in, but the safeguards teleport living things in deleted rooms to the main console room. Once back inside there, the TARDIS is able to escape her human body and reenter the TARDIS shell, destroying the asteroid's consciousness, and using her last moments of being able to talk to finally say "Hello" to the Doctor.

106: Twice Upon a Time - Season 10 Christmas Special: The Doctor, refusing to regenerate, is taken by the TARDIS to meet his first incarnation, who is also conflicted about regenerating. They encounter a Captain from World War I being hunted by a group called Testimony. Testimony offers to return the Doctor's deceased companion, Bill, to him in exchange for the captain. The Doctor takes her and escapes with Bill, the Captain, and his younger self.

To learn more about Testimony, the Doctor travels to a huge galactic database, run by a Dalek the Doctor had encountered before. In the database, he learns that Testimony extracts people from their timelines at the moment of their death and archive their memories. The Bill that's with them is an avatar created from her memories.

Realizing that there is no evil to fight, the Doctor returns everybody to their timelines, returning the Captain to the Christmas Armistice, allowing him to live. The First Doctor returns to his TARDIS to regenerate. The Twelfth Doctor's memories of Clara are restored and he is bid farewell by avatars of her, Nardole, and Bill before reentering his TARDIS to regenerate into the Thirteenth Doctor.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically 30

Okay OKAY so we have just watched the Christmas Armistice of 1914, but now we move on to one of my favourite episodes of ALL TIME. In fact, full disclosure, this is one of my favourite TV episodes of anything ever. This is one of my go-to options for comfort TV. If I’m ill and sad and cwtched up on the sofa, this is in the Emergency Elanor First Aid Kit. I love it. I love it so much that I will not be quoting any of it, because if I do, I will be posting the whole script. You cannot imagine the extent to which I had to sit on my hands so I wouldn’t do a full episode review accidentally.

It is 1926, my friends, and this is the Unicorn and the Wasp.

Tennant and Donna are back!!!! DREAM TEAM. We haven’t seen them since they were running around Pompei in episode one, my lord that was a while back now. And Jesus, what a return to quality. The companions have been failing the Sexy Lamp Test for so long. The only break was Martha in the Human Nature two-parter, and that was an emotional wringer. But here!!! Donna!!! You could NEVER replace her with a sexy lamp. She is 1000% the co-protagonist. She and Tennant are best friends and they love each other intensely and platonically and they travel through time and SOLVE CRIME while being, at all moments and seconds of every single scene, two halves of a whole idiot, and it is joyful and wonderful and amazing.

Okay okay so

They land in a country manor in England, a part expertly played by Llansannor Court in Wales if I’m not much mistaken, and the interiors are 1000% Tredegar House because I know my Welsh country manors. The Doctor and Donna get ludicrously excited about going to a garden party in 1926, all giggly. They even go and get dressed up, by which I mean Donna does – she exits the TARDIS and gives a twirl.

“What do you think?” she teases. “Flapper, or slapper?”

“Flapper, definitely,” the Doctor beams. “You look lovely.”

… I am having violent flashbacks to Capaldi calling Clara ugly.

Anyway they meet Agatha Christie in time for an honest-to-god murder mystery. It’s fucking phenomenal. It’s silly and camp and the murderer is a giant wasp, except in true Agatha Christie style, there’s a complicated twist involving a secret pregnancy, an expensive gem, the hot young woman (played by her from Rogue One) actually being an accomplished jewel thief impersonating a socialite, and a prodigal reverend. One of these people is the aforementioned giant wasp, except the joyful sci-fi plot is really running around a playground with a balloon and giggling, so it has been primed to kill people in libraries with lead piping like a Cluedo game.

I literally cannot list every moment I love. It’s just too many. So I shall try to name check some top moments:

“MAIDEN”

“It was a good once”

“I am Inspector Smith from Scotland Yard, and Miss Noble is the plucky young girl who helps me”

“Copyright Donna Noble”

“Major snap out of it. No, right out of it –“

“HOW IS HARVEY WALLBANGER ONE WORD”

The ENITRE reveal scene holy shit

“Ah, let’s see, it’s filed under C” *box contains a Cyberman part, a Carrionite egg, a bust of Caesar, and cables*

Fuck. I just. *clenches fist* I love this episode so damn much

Okay so plot threads. Well! No new info about Donna’s back, unfortunately, so nothing to tick off there. Only, as ever, things to add. There’s a scene where Donna is comforting Agatha (and finding vital clues), and she explains that her last partner ran off with a giant spider. That’s a hell of a thing. Oh, also Donna made her second reference to bees disappearing. But that’s it.

Fuck me but I would burn so much Capaldi for so much more Tennant/Donna.

Anyway the list of plot threads is now going under a read more, Christ on wheels

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest.)

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (unless she’s Missy)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

What has happened to all these companions and where are the new ones coming from?

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

What’s With The Silence?

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Who is Captain Jack Harkness? (Is he the one who gave the companions a warning about the lone cyberman?)

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window?

What’s with the Doctor’s future involving getting shot by an astronaut?

Is Amy pregnant and why is it inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

Who did the Doctor lose to Cyber Conversion?

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What’s with the Weeping Angel statues, and why can’t you blink at them?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

What happened with Amy’s pregnancy?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory?

Is Rory plastic or not?

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras?

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name?

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

Who was the Doctor’s wife?

What's happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna's ex and a giant spider?

[portuguesedisaster]

This scene

*slaps table*

THIS FUCKING SCENE

Me be watching Twice Upon a Time. Likely to cry at the end.

[vidavalor]

How do you think the Ineffable Husbands reacted to the 1914 Christmas Armistice?

Also, it is autumn now and very cloudy and soggy, so here is a seasonally-appropriate recipe: https://www.hairybikers.com/recipes/view/caramelised-apple-cheesecake

Aw, a recipe! You're lovely. 😊 That looks amazing!

I envy you being in one firm season over there. September is a transition month here in New England. Half-summer, half-fall. It's very strange, though, not terrible. One day is lemonade and watermelon and the next is where's my blanket? and I need an apple something and looking up what day Bake Off starts to air over here. Another week, though, and it'll be pretty much fall from here on out. Definitely going to make that cheesecake. 😊

I think they probably reacted to the Christmas Armistice the same way many of us do when we learn about it-- that it's both beautiful and morbidly depressing at once. It showed people coming together to express a sense of shared humanity but then they went back to killing one another afterwards. It wasn't a new story for Crowley and Aziraphale because they had seen that in people all throughout history but I'm sure they found the same mix of hopefulness and sadness in it that a lot of people do.

The one who understands what it takes to bring about peace now best in the series is actually Gabriel, imho. It's because he understood the deeper meaning of Sandalphon's words that Sandalphon didn't actually understand himself: "you can't have a war without war."

Some short thoughts on ties between war, frozen peas, and one of my favorite of Agnes Nutter's prophecies beneath the cut.

When Sandalphon said: "you can't have a war without war", what he meant was: "Look how clever I think I am to use this word twice in two ways in one sentence! You can't have a war without War: The Character! Mirelle Enos is playing a character that shares a name with large-scale killing and destruction and I pointed it out! I'm so smart!"

Gabriel, though, heard the potential of bigger ideas: "You can't have a war (a large-scale military conflict) without war (people willing to fight in a war and, also, a person's inner struggle leading them to be willing to fight in war)."

Meaning: A war can only happen if people are willing to fight the war.

Meaning: No soldiers, no war.

Gabriel knew Aziraphale heard it like that, too, and was like lol Aziraphale, this guy thinks he's a poet omg let me flatter him enough that he won't notice that I just tried to help you sell more erotica and didn't murder you for having a lover and then we'll get out of here...

Gabriel saying that he "might use that one day" about what Sandalphon says is a line that-- delightfully-- ages quite differently the more we get to know Gabriel.

We know he said it in that moment to make it sound like he was telling Sandalphon that what Sandalphon had said was just so profound that Gabriel was tempted to use it himself... but we also know that Gabriel is neither as dumb nor as vapid as he strategically lets people think he is and that he understood the deeper way of looking at what Sandalphon said more than Sandalphon did.

Looking back on it, it's Gabriel actually joking about mutinying in front of Heaven's most fervent Metatron-worshipping fascist in a way that is very much going over Sandalphon's head. Gabriel is all can't have a war without war-- yeah, true dat, Stasi a Fond. I'm slowly losing it over here and my favorite fantasy is just peacing out entirely of this whole 'Commander of The Heavenly Host' shit and wouldn't that really completely eff up The Ineffable Plan? Oh, my secret daydream... if only I could...

Then, what happens, though, by the end of S1?

Gabriel sees a kid do just that.

The eleven year old spawn of Satan is all yeah, no, you can't have a war without war. I don't want to start a war. I like the world. I've got enough on my plate dealing with my own life-- I don't want to rule over everyone. I want everyone to feel at peace and be happy and take care of each other.

Gabriel was freaked out because of the consequences of this and the fact that he, at the the time, thought The Metatron might kill him for failing to start Armageddon but, after the day was over and Gabriel had a moment to breathe and think about it, you can't tell me he didn't hear Adam saying that it was too much pressure to be in charge of every other living being in existence and he just wanted to chill with the people he liked and live his own life in peace and let everyone else do that, too and think to himself:

Yeah, kid. Me too.

The dude who is told he's responsible for everyone in Heaven and who sees angels falling as partly his fault and whom the humans deify and to whom they make statues was like fucking hell, the little antichrist brat was right.

He realized that it's not about Armageddon, it's about living and building a life until you have all the world you need. It's about what Crowley and Aziraphale have been trying to do and about what he and Beez were as well. Gabriel's proposal to Beez is a simple one:

What if, instead of Armageddon, there was no Armageddon?

What if, instead of war, there's no war?

So, he ended up fulfilling his own prophecy a bit when the one day came when he used what Sandalphon said-- just not in the way that Sandalphon meant it but in the way that Gabriel himself and Aziraphale heard it: you can't have a war without war... no war exists if enough people refuse to fight it.

That's the way to stop Armageddon.

Gabriel came to realize that the best thing he could do as a leader in Heaven and commander of its armed forces was to refuse to fight, come what may. He quits the army and defects to the embassy of the only independent country that exists in the supernatural world: the United States of Crowley and Aziraphale.

As Agnes said:

...the calm cometh when Redde and Whyte and Black and Pale approache to Peas is Our Professioune.

In this case: Redde/Red (Crowley), Whyte/White (Aziraphale), Black (Beez), Pale (Gabriel). To profess: to state. Peas = the talking of frozen peas because homophone: peace.

The calm cometh when Crowley, Aziraphale, Beez and Gabriel talk and each get closer to their own peace and to peace with one another and help each other to spread that mentality throughout all those willing in Heaven and Hell and Earth.

That's what you feed the other ducks-- your frozen peas. Your own stuff that is disturbing your own inner peace and creating inner wars and small-scale conflicts that, if left unchecked, can build into larger-scale ones.

If you break that shit down and talk about it, there needn't be any war.

Sometimes, it means shedding some armor, keeping an open mind, and admitting that you were wrong-- all things that can be difficult...

...especially for those are secretly tender-hearted but put up that armor to survive in worlds steeped in toxic masculinity...

...and, sometimes, it's maddening because people are scared and get set in their ways and do dumb shit and you have to upend power structures and reinforce more positive behaviors to get them to shut up long enough to start listening to one another...

...but the more who learn to unlearn the harmful stuff at the core of their own struggles and who open their minds up to listening to others, the more we're professing our peas to our fellow ducks and getting closer to peace within ourselves and within the world as a whole and that's what it's all about. It might always be approaching Peas is Our Professioune rather than a perfectly peaceful world but the point is the effort of the approach and to just keep making steady progress as much as we can while we're walking the Earth. After all...

[maypoleman1]

11th November

Martinmas

Source: The Enchanted World, The Book of Christmas, Time-Life Books

Today is Martinmas or St Martin’s Day. Martin was a fourth century saint allocated to the traditional feast day of the Roman god of wine, a debauched character called Bacchus. This probably explains the copious amount of ale and wine traditionally drunk at Martinmas and the legend that Martin could cure drunkenness. He was also the patron saint of vintners. Martin also became associated with the transition from autumn to winter. At Martinmas, in commemoration of Martin’s alleged death after being gored by a bull, cattle were slaughtered in large numbers, which in actual fact was probably a holy connection with the necessary practice of laying down salted beef to help the peasantry survive the hard medieval winters. Martin was also supposed to have given away his cloak to a beggar shivering in the winter cold. This tradition is behind the belief that on his feast day, St Martin can be seen on horseback riding across the fields and meadows bringing the first snow of winter billowing out from the folds of his cloak.

Most Martinmas traditions have been replaced by the sombre commemoration of Armistice Day in the U.K., when wreaths are laid at the Cenotaph in memory of the British dead of the two World Wars and later conflicts. The Last Post is sounded at the ceremony and a two minute silence is observed from 11am. The Armistice that effectively ended the First World War was signed at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.

[spacevzn]

Anyone else every notice in the Christmas armistice scene in Twice Upon A Time, that the shot of the dirt above where Lethbridge-Stewart is face to face with a German soldier, that trench beside it perfectly shapes out the number 10? If that isn't a coincidence, what a FUCKING FORESHADOW to Tennant coming back as 14 even before 13 was on screen!