#did i know i have a thing for david tennant? sure

[aceingonthecake]

Finally started Rivals.

David Tennant as Tony has me doubting my asexuality.

(also, no spoilers please)

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Neil, my name is Zalean. If you have a few minutes, I wanted to tell you a little story. Not really a question and I’m not sure how to use tumblr but I wanted to say thanks so much for coming to Florida a few months back and talking with Art Spiegelman. It was my first time ever figuring out how to buy tickets for something. I lived in, middle of nowhere, Vermont for most my life and had no idea what I was doing, I had never been to anything before, nothing had made me excited enough to do the 5 hour drive. And then you just appeared 20 minutes away from where I am living now.

See, I was just starting to get to know your books and work because I fell in love with Good Omens so deeply when I discovered it during season twos release. Funny thing is, I knew of you all along without even realizing it, Stardust has been my favorite book and movie since I was a kid because it was my dad’s favorite story. Finding out my two favorite things were actually connected, I started trying to get hands on as many of your books as I could. I hadn’t read in years before finding your books. It was eye opening.

The talk event at the Dr.Phillips Center was sold out by the time I knew about it, someone had asked me if I knew of the event when they saw my Good Omens keychains my mom had made me. I called the box office because there is no harm in asking. I explained how I’m an art student at UCF and desperately wanted to be inspired and learn from you both. The customer service people were amazing and ended up calling me back to get me a seat in the orchestra pit before they were released to the public. I drove alone, I walked there alone, I sat alone, and it was worth it. I was so thankful to get a seat and grateful to my professor who was a bit jealous he didn’t know about it but let me leave class early to go because of course the art professor would be understanding for any learning opportunities in the arts. And it was truly wonderful, it seemed real and that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want a show. I just wanted to hear, in some sense, that you were like everybody else. I brought a notebook and pen for any information or story’s that I thought made a difference to my little life. The other people around were wonderful, you inspire kind people.

Like I said, I had never been to anything like this and I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know you would have signed books and I only found out because the people next to me came in late. I asked them why they brought the books after it was over and the lights turned on. They did look at me like I had three heads for a moment until they realized I didn’t know there were books to buy, they looked kinda sorry for me but they were so nice. I had never really thought about the importance of someone’s scribble before this but it’s something that proves you were there. It says “Remember when this person made you happy? Remember when they changed your life? Remember when they gave you hope? Look at this and remember.” I hope to see David Tennant and Michael Sheen to get an autograph now that I understand the meaning behind it a bit more but honestly I just love diving into everyone’s projects, the wonder you all create. Oh what fun it is to live a life full of stories!

The people that were sitting next to me let me look at their signed books and hold them. I flipped through some of the big ones, handed them back and expressed my gratitude just to be in the theater. I showed them all my little quotes I wrote down, I never want to forget why I create things and you say so much about never stopping, always creating. Then the women handed me a different book, a smaller book, but when I tried to hand it back, a bit confused, she softly placed it back in my open hands and said “I want you to have it, we have plenty and I want you to love these stories just as much as we do. It’s just starting for you, I want you to remember who started it”. The book she handed me being“The Ocean at the End of the Lane”. The first book I decided to read by you and had just finished a week before. The women had no idea she given me a signed copy of the book that made me want to read again. Your books make the world better. For such a big theater and such a big stage, I just wanted to tell you my little point of view.

The story you told about wishing you enjoyed the past more than you did, I hope you get to enjoy it now, and I hope you want to. And thank you, to you and to Terry Pratchett for creating something special. I convinced my dad to watch Good Omens with me over December break, he loved it.

I forget sometimes that everything is someone's first time, and then I read something like this and feel like I need to remember that better. I'm glad the people beside you were kind.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Hey, Good Omens fandom and maggots, it's your mascot Asmi here. I don't need to explain why I'm making this post, I'm sure you already know the situation and have read the articles about Neil Gaiman.

Thank you to the kind people who asked me how I am and how I'm dealing with the whole thing. I am, as I'm sure a lot of you are, overwhelmed, sad, and sick to the stomach. My life IRL is messy at the moment, and this news is not something I'm able to fully process.

I'm sure there were be more emotions, anger, betrayal, the whole thing, in time. Right now, there's just sadness and exhaustion.

Some of you have asked me for my opinion. I don't think I'm qualified to give one, since right now I'm lost and overwhelmed and could be wrong about a lot of things.

But I will say, though, that there is no good way to look at this. At the very least, there were relationships with extreme power imbalance, with an employee and a fan, and with large age gaps. Whatever you may speculate about the SA, you cannot deny those facts. It's not a question of whether or not Neil did anything wrong, the only thing we are getting updated on is exactly how much he did wrong. By wrong I don't mean just illegal. Not all unhealthy relationships are illegal.

I'm not going into more detail on the subject because, first, I don't have the energy to get the details. I've never bothered actively keeping up with the real lives of any celebrity, and as some of you remember, I didn't even know Neil or Michael Sheen or David Tennant existed at the start of January. And right now, I don't have a lot of information and I don't have the emotional energy to go searching through the internet for it. If you're feeling that too, I want to tell you that's okay. Take a step back. Take care of yourself first.

Secondly, I have my own trauma regarding SA, and I'm trying to avoid spiraling. I'm sending all the love and support to victims of SA, it was never your fault and you are valid in all your emotions.

As for the fandom. I hope you support each other in the sadness and anger and all the emotions, as you always have. This is going to be rough journey, but the community is there for you. Disregard people who use this horrible situation as a way to justify transphobia and general queerphobia and hate speech. Those are never okay. Disregard people who attack you for feeling hurt or betrayed. Those emotions are valid, and this is a sickening situation, there is no way to pretend otherwise.

There are going to be a lot of people saying a lot of things now, and I suppose by writing this I'm one of them, but above all, I'm sending you love and support, we're in this together. Be there for each other, step away from the internet if you need a break, and take your time to process.

If I've said anything wrong, I'm really sorry, I'm writing this post in an absolute haze, but I knew I couldn't stay silent. Feel free to correct me or to speak your mind, but remember, be kind. Be kind to each other.

I love you.

[artyphex]

I’ve said before that my mom, while pretty okay with queer stuff overall, sometimes has trouble grasping that straight actors can play non-straight characters. And seeing her go through this with David Tennant as Crowley has sure been something

I think the funniest thing my mom ever said in her scandalization that David Tennant was playing (I know not technically but in her mind) a gay man was when I told her Crowley was in love with Aziraphale and she straight up responded

“No that can’t be true! Crowley did things with women that proved he was straight!”

And I am still. Trying to solve the mystery of what the fuck she meant by that because I can only remember Crowley having three meaningful interactions with women in the show

One he put in a catatonic trance

One he hit with his car

One was possessed by Aziraphale

[beerok23]

D: And then he came to offer you the part in Good Omens? M: Yeah, well, we became friends and we would, you know, whenever he was in town, we would meet up. And then eventually he started. He said, you know, I'm working on an adaptation of Good Omens. I remember at one point Terry Gilliam was going to maybe make a film of it. And I remember being there with Neil and Terry when they were talking about it. D: Were you involved at that point? M: No, I wasn't involved. I just happened to have met up with Neil that day. D: Right.

M: And then Terry Gilliam came along and that was the day they were talking about that or whatever. And then eventually he sent me one of the scripts for an early draft of, like, the first episode of Good Omens. And he said, we started talking about me being involved in doing it. He said, 'Would you be interested?' I was like, 'Yeah, of course I would. Oh, my God.' And he said, 'Well, I'll send you the scripts when they come.' And I would read them and we talk about them a little bit. So I sort of was involved. But it was always at that point with the idea, because he'd always said about playing Crowley in it. And as time went on, as I was reading the scripts, I was thinking, I don't think I can play Crowley. I don't think I'm going to be able to do. And I started to get a bit nervous because I thought, 'I don't want to tell Neil that I don't think I can do this'. But I just felt like, I don't think I can play Crowley. D: Of course you could play Crowley. M: Well, just on a sort of - on a gut level, you know, sometimes you have on a gut level, you go - D: Sure, sure. M: I can do this. D: Yeah. M: Or I can't do this. M: And I just thought, you know what? This is not the part for me. The other part is better for me. I think. I think I can do that. I don't think I could do that. But I was scared to tell Neil because I thought, well, he wants me to play Crowley. And then it turned out he had been feeling the same way as well, and he hadn't wanted to mention it to me. But he was like, 'I think Michael should really play Aziraphale'. And neither of us would bring it up. And then eventually we did. And it was one of those things where you go, 'Oh, thank God you said that. Oh, I feel exactly the same way'. D: Yeah. M: And then I think within a fairly short space of time, he said, 'I think we've got David Tennant for Crowley.' D: *Chuckles* M: And we both got very excited about that. And then all these extraordinary people started to joining up. And then off we went. D: The other thing about Neil, he collects people, doesn't he? So he'll just go, oh, yeah, I phoned up Francis McDormand. She's up for it. Yeah. And you're 'What-Wait-What?' M: I emailed John Hamm. D: Yeah. M: And you realize how beloved he is and how beloved his work is. And I think we would both recognize that Good Omens is one of the most beloved of all of Neil's stuff. D: Yes. M: And had never been turned into anything. D: Yeah. M: And so the kind of responsibility of that, I mean, for me, for someone who has been a fan of him and a fan of the book for so long, I can empathize with all the fans out there who are like, oh, they better not fuck this up and this better be good. And I have that part of me, but then, of course, the other part of me is like, but I'm the one who might be fucking it up. So I feel that responsibility as well.

D: But we have Neil on site. M: Yes. Well, Neil being the showrunner - D: Yeah. M: I think it takes a massive difference. You feel like you're in safe hands. D: Well, we think. Not that the world has seen it yet. M: No, I know. D: But it's been a joy to work with you on it. M: Oh, my goodness. D: I can't wait for the world to see it. M: Well, I mean, I've done a few things where there are two people. It's a bit of a double act, like Frost-Nixon some more, and The Queen, I suppose in some ways, and I've done - Amadeus or whatever. This is the only thing I've done where I really don't think of it as my character or my performance as that character. I think of it totally as us, the two of us. D: Yes! M: What I do is defined by what you do. That was such a joy to have that experience. And it made it so much easier in a way as well, I found, because you don't feel like you're on your own in it. Like it's totally us together doing this. And the two characters totally complement each other. And the experience of doing it was just a real joy. D: Well, I hope the world is as excited to see it as we are to talk about it, frankly.

M: You know. Having talked about T. S. Elliott earlier, there's another bit from The Waste Land where there's a line which goes, "These fragments I have shored against my ruin". And this is how I think about life now. There is so much in life, no matter what your circumstances, no matter where you've got, what you've done, how much money you got, all that. Life's hard. It can take you down at any point. You have to find this stuff. You have to find things that will. These fragments that you hold yourself, they become like a life raft. And especially as time goes on. I think as I've got older, I've realized it is a thin line between being surviving this life and going under and the things that keep you afloat are these fragments, these things that are meaningful to you. And what's meaningful to you will be not meaningful to someone else. But whatever it is that matters to you, it doesn't matter what it was you were into when you were a teenager, a kid. Doesn't matter what it is. Go and find them and find some way to hold them close to you. Make it go and get it. Because those are the things that keep you afloat. They really are, like doing that with him or whatever it is. These are the fragments that have shored against my ruin. Absolutely. D: That's lovely. Michael, thank you so much. M: Thank you. D: For talking today and for being here. M: It's a pleasure. D: Thank you.

This podcast is so underrated. I heard it tonight for the first time, and it blew my mind. The episode was published back in April 2019 (recorded after a photoshoot for Good Omens season 1). Listen to these babies, starting to knowing and respecting each other *_* Of course, Michael Sheen was probably the greatest fan of Neil and Good Omens out there, but the joy and the excitement was already there to feel, from both of them!

And Michael saying "The Two of Us" 4 years before July 2023... My heart - just - can't.

[prentissluvr]

just an observation — sam winchester

cw : gn!reader, fluff, a little cliche hehe, reader is shorter than sam, poor editing as always, 1.3K words. requested !

prompt : one being shorter and it being a source of great enjoyment for the other.

sam really tries not to tease you about your height; he’s supposed to be a gentleman, and it’s not your fault that he’s so tall. but he just finds it so completely endearing that you’re shorter than him, and sometimes he just can’t help it.

you’re rambling about some movie that you watched last night, wandering the kitchen as you grab everything you need to make something to drink for the both of you. he leans against the counter, eyes trailing your sweet form.

“i don’t normally watch rom-coms, and it was sort of really bad, but it’s hard to resist anything with david tennant,” you say, coming to stand right next to him and open the cabinet by his head. instinctually, you put your hand on the corner to make sure it doesn’t hit him and reach up to grab your favorite mug. only someone (sam) has put it on the top shelf.

it’s not as if you can’t reach the cup. with a stretch and maybe some help from getting up on your tip-toes, you absolutely can. but sam is right there, willing and far more able. he doesn’t hesitate, turning a little and grabbing the cup with ease. you get a full, close-up view of his arm as it reaches right in front of your face and holds the cup out for you with a smile on his mouth that’s both sweet and teasing all at once. 

you narrow your eyes at him but let your own mouth curve into a little smile. it’s difficult to react properly to him when he’s being a teasing asshole and genuinely just trying to be helpful.

“thanks,” you grumble, taking the cup from him and grabbing his own mug from the lower shelf. he just hums an affirmation in response, seeming unnecessarily pleased with himself. you brush it off with a small laugh under your breath, then move to fill your cup with your choice beverage and sam’s with coffee from the half-empty pot. just to be close to him, you return to the spot at the counter next to him, preparing each drink the way they’re most well liked. sam lets you do it, only because he knows you like to do little things like this for him. 

that, and he loves watching you do anything at all. he loves to pour his undivided attention into you, sometimes so lovestruck that he doesn’t even care if you notice that he’s totally in love with you, despite the fact that he probably shouldn’t be. fuck being friends, he thinks sometimes.

so he watches and notices as you take extra care and precision to prepare his drink than yours, and he watches your lips move as you continue talking about the movie. it sounds like a bad movie, but you smile when you describe it to him, so he couldn’t care less.

“despite it being a pretty bad movie, the leads made it fun to watch,” you admit without hesitation. “it was horribly cliche and unoriginal, but there were some really sweet moments with her mom, and i don’t know anything much about cinematography, but i thought it was just gorgeous.” you slide his cup over to him and begin to work on your own.

he takes it with a sweet, “thank you,” and you just nod as you keep on blabbing, carefree and casual as sam looks at you like he’s in love with you.

“the setting was so beautiful, and the way they did the colors was just so pretty. so of course, that made it feel all romantic and shit,” you say, turning around with your own mug in hand to lean against the counter the same as sam. you take a sip of your drink and hum a little in satisfaction, and if your eyes weren’t trailing along the cabinet across the room, you might catch the adoration in his eyes. he schools his features to look more neutral when you look at him with this sort of longing that catches him off guard. “it was filmed in scotland, and sam, i have to go to scotland someday. it’s unbelievably beautiful to me.”

he smiles at you all soft. “we can try,” he says, not even thinking as he says those words. he just wants to please you.

you laugh a little. “well, that’s wishful thinking,” you sigh playfully. though, it’s completely true that the chances of you getting a break, much less an international one, are quite slim. you like the idea anyway. and you love that he said “we.” he’d go with you, that means. he’d try because he wants to make just about anything you want into a reality. a minute in silence slips away, like the coffee in his cup. you make it so perfect, he can’t keep his lips from the rim of the mug.

and while he’s content watching you sip away at your own drink, he likes hearing your voice so much that he’d like to fill the air with words rather than rustling clothes.

“you look extra short today,” he comments, a smirk splayed across his face. a screw must be loose in his mouth, because things that he’s not meaning to say keep falling from his lips. but he keeps thinking about the way your mouth tilted down just a little when you saw that your mug was higher up then usual, or the halfway annoyed smile you gave when he pulled it down for you. so this is the part where he just can’t help but tease, only because he loves you and doesn’t know how to show it.

“well, you must have grown in your sleep then,” you tease back, rolling your eyes. “what a rude thing to say,” you joke, “and here i was, thinking you were a gentleman.”

he shrugs, the smile on his face stretching wider. “i was just stating an observation.”

you tilt your head to the side and look at him with the hint of a smirk in your grin. “you know, you try to hide it, but i think you like that i’m shorter than you, don’t you, sam? which is silly, because most everybody is.”

he’s taken aback by that. he never expected you to call him out on it, to notice just how much he really enjoys being taller than specifically you.

“just stating an observation,” you quip when it takes him more than a moment to reply.

“and you like that i’m taller than you, so i guess that makes us even,” he grins. he pays plenty enough attention to you to know that it’s true.

you bite the inside of your cheek, already knowing you don’t have a better response to that. you raise an eyebrow at him. “fine. we’re even then,” you acquiesce, both begrudging and holding back a smile at the same time.

he tilts his head and looks at you with a glint in his eyes. “not that even,” he teases, clearly alluding to the difference in height between the two of you.

you roll your eyes again and scoff out a little laugh. “very funny,” you deadpan, unimpressed by the joke. you can feel him shifting closer to you, like he can resist it. his arm brushes against yours as he takes another sip of coffee. god, he’s flirty today. sam keeps you on your toes, he keeps you guessing and wondering and you know that he’s too nice to be sending mixed signals on purpose, but you just can’t tell.

you feel like you’re sitting on the bank of a river, dressed in white with a handful of daisies by your side and picking petals reciting “he loves me… he loves me not,” over and over again. today it feels like “he loves me.”

[what-gs-watching]

“You’re getting the fuck of a lifetime, tonight.”

OKAY friends. As we all well know by now, I am, and have been, utterly devoted to David Tennant in all forms for a long time. The man is incredible. He’s everything. He can do no wrong. 

So I was obviously out of my mind excited about Rivals. Have I read the book? No. Should I probably have joined the GOAD subreddit book club to understand what I was getting into? Yeah, absolutely. But I did not.

Y’all. Does anyone else feel personally victimized by this show? Show of hands? No? Am I just a sensitive bitch right now? Fair.

I should have expected that David Tennant’s character was a true creep because I know he likes to mix it up, that’s on me, but I did not expect to feel so many WAYS about things. Wasn’t this supposed to be like a fun, sexy romp set in the 80’s wherein I could just shake my head at British people being british?

I really came into this show knowing basically nothing. I definitely need to stop doing that.

AKA, wherein a bunch of pompous Brits living in the Cotswolds fuck each other’s wives or husbands or neighbors or WHOEVER and fight over who should control the local television rights - David Tennant’s insanely charismatic and crazy manipulative Lord Tony Baddingham, or intrepid Irish interviewer Declan O’Hara and unlikely ally MP and former olympian Rupert Campbell-Black.

LISTEN, TV, don’t make comments on the difficulties of marriage and love and other things, directly into my face. I don’t like it. It makes me squirmy, and I hate you. 

In the beginning, I really did not like Rupert and was yelling about him being a fucking creep, and I was letting Lord B off the hook for some of his weirder behavior but wooooof, what a journey those eight episodes take you on. I do appreciate character growth, or also, I guess, character…descent? Because Tony absolutely fucking unravels. 

Something about absolute power corrupting absolutely?

Also, there are a ton of characters in this thing. And I’m obviously gonna fixate on Lord B but I have to be honest, Lizzie, neighbor to the O’Hara’s and wife of one of the tv personalities at Tony’s station, is my favorite part of this entire tapestry. She writes saucy novels and she’s underappreciated in her little life and she raises her kids and has an adorable best friend relationship with Rupert (which definitely helped me soften to him) and I connected with her way more than I should have.

She tries so hard to get her husband to pay her attention. She really wants to feel like he cares about her, that he thinks she’s worthy, and he never gives it to her. BUT then she meets Freddie, awkward tech magnate, and y’all. Their adorable, bumbling interactions are everything. He runs after a train when she leaves the chapters of her new book the train! He appreciates the hell out of her, and she does the same for him, because his wife is equally neglectful. 

I don’t think I’ve ever rooted so hard for someone to have an affair in my life. She deserved to get absolutely everything she wanted. We all do. And I don’t appreciate being EXPOSED like that. 

Anyway. We obviously can’t get into every single random storyline here, so we’re gonna hit the highlights, lightning round style.

I do really like Declan, and his relationship with his wife was interesting - she’s an actress so she’s always going to be dramatic but he seemed like he knew how to handle her, and I appreciated the passion they had together. I don’t love how they ended up, you can see he really does love her, but she doesn’t want to compete against his work for his affections. I get it. But like girl, you gotta give a little? But also, that shit is hard. Their relationship seemed like one of the realest, for sure. 

What I could not bring myself to be okay with, was Taggie’s (Declan’s 20 year old daughter) feelings for Rupert. I’m sorry y’all, no. Like, sure, Rupert becomes more of a person throughout the show and I appreciate that and I get that he maybe hasn’t ever really loved anyone but I’m not gonna sign up for the love story between the two of them. And usually I’ll sign up for anything. But I just can’t, I’m not sure why. It just still feels predatory to me. 

Will I eat those words if they make a season two? I suppose we shall see.

And now, Lord B. Tony-fucking-Baddingham. Foolishly at the start I was like, maybe he does care about his very typical, dowdy english wife. She looks very salt of the earth and sure it’s surprising she’s not young and hot but man, they seem to work well together, they get each other. What’s gonna go down here? 

And then just kidding, he’s fucking Cameron Cook, the American female producer he hired to create amazing television for Corinium. Because of course he is. He does seem to think she really is brilliant, but he wants to control that and own it and he somehow convinces himself he loves her? But the man is a sociopath. And I spent like, the final three episodes yelling “GIRL, he’s gonna try to murder you, like for real tho…”

But then he does shit like dancing with her at a restaurant while crooning along to a stripped down version of “Love is a Battlefield” and I’m like, maybe he contains multitudes? But he doesn’t! There’s no fucking hesitation in any of the terrible shit he gets up to. That sweetness is purposeful. It’s gross and it’s mesmerizing. 

Bless Georgia Tennant for convincing him to take this role. I hate it, and it’s wonderful.

Also, big fucking props to the way his proper wife lays down the law in the last episode. (Side rant: early on I was like ‘does he ever fuck his wife?’ and he does, and it’s so awkward, bless her. I get it babe, I really do). But she met her fucking limit and she didn’t shy away from it. We need more women standing up for themselves. Cameron does to a degree, but Monica is the true MVP in this mess. 

I think the worst part about this show is that it ends abruptly, honestly. You don’t get a lot of closure, everything is still up in the air and there’s a serious fucking cliffhanger and now I’m just mad and weirdly turned on and again, feeling a lot of ways about things. It’s very “thanks, I hate it.” 

Let’s be real, I showed up to this thing so I could ogle David Tennant in a new way. And I definitely got that - those fucking cigars! And the suits! That gorgeous, predatory smile! But I also got a lot more. I’m infuriated and confused and I need season two immediately. 

After all, Lord B did promise that he’d continue to make television we want. And even if he’s a horrible, terrible bastard, I’m gonna believe that.

Bonkbuster indeed.

[greyyson-but-no]

Six Years Waiting

PAIRING; tangerine x spy!oc (easy to switch in reader)

UNIVERSE; bullet train but tangerine doesn't ‼️

WARNINGS; canon-typical violence, mentions of kidnap, torture, bad flirting, they're both idiots that want each other but don't know etc, no spoilers for bullet train plot

GENRE; fluff, tad-angst

WORD COUNT; 2.9K

A/N; im back to writing? I know, insane right? hope you enjoy, I'm gonna be rejigging this account completely so here's this as a waiting gift. aaron taylor johnson what a man you are.

It was a large plaza, filled to the brim with rich American businessmen that had nothing better to do with their time then host an auction, then a party, then get drunk and coincidentally lose the prize of the auction. Her name had been spreading around the city slowly, the more auctions that ended in chaos. Brioches, treasured coins, ancient weapons and vintage prizes just… slipping out of the hands of whoever had bid the most. She hadn’t always completed stretches of thievery — it used to be far, far worse. The company she worked after had taken her down after the news of the Segovia job had reached them at HQ. Just a couple too many spare bodies. She was now in therapy.

Descending the curved staircase, black flowing from her shoulders, a prize necklace she had stolen just last week hanging from the skin of her neck. It wouldn’t be the only thing hanging from her neck in a couple hours, though. Light bounced off of the glass chandeliers, alighting this night’s prize, sitting all grandiose at the far end of the room.

She kept a sharp eye on it.

But as she got to the bottom of the staircase, the red carpet moving out into the rest of the room, another person caught her eye. One she recognized, and knew better than she knew anybody else she’d ever met.

Tangerine donned a blue suit, his classic striped one that she always compared to David Tennant’s rendition of Doctor Who. He never understood it. He had just come in through the back entrance, and had made it very obvious he wasn’t supposed to be here tonight. It was a given. Otherwise, he would have told her he would be here, when, in fact, that hadn’t happened. She assumed he had been sent on this mission last minute, to fill in for someone. Because not only had he told her tonight was his free night, but his brother, Lemon wasn’t standing by his side.

Those weren’t their real names, of course. Just the names they went by to keep their real lives hidden. Over the years, their trust grew and eventually, after she had nearly died to an assassin from another company and the two of them had to carry her back to their house to let her get better, Aaron and Brian had trusted her with their real names. In response, she had done the same. Angel, became Ophelia, to the twins.

But there was always something more special about Tangerine.

When forced to explain it to her co-workers, all Angel could come up with was, “he’s just pretty, isn’t he?”, and she couldn’t help but think he had taken this job just because she was there, too. Bullshit, she was aware, but one could always hope.

Unless… Because as she looked back up at him after answering something urgent of her watch, he had his eyes skirting down her body, and quickly made a b-line towards where she was standing. There was this look in his eyes, that she hadn’t seen before, as well. Alas, the place was so damn big, this could have just been something she was imagining, since he was still so far away.

Something in her brain was telling her to run, and it wasn’t her handler shouting in her ear, that was for sure. Instead, the voice of logic, of reason, was screaming at her to not let him speak to her tonight. Was there really any harm in it though? It wasn’t like she was attached, or anything.

When he reached her, that smile, the cunning smirk, fed its way onto his lips as he took her hand and lent down to kiss the back of her palm. Words she never thought she would ever hear him say left his lips as he did so. “Ma’am, it’s lovely to see you here, you look incredible, as always.”

Okay, maybe she was a little attached.

Angel let a laugh fall from her lips as he stood up straight again. “Tan, shut up.”

“Never, my dear.” God, he was going to be the end of her. “I’m assuming you’re here for the necklace on auction tonight?”

She nodded, searching the crowd as he moved to stand to the left of her instead. “Yes. I can assume you aren’t? You’d never take a steal like this, even if it meant you would see me again. And especially without Lemon.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not that special.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Then a pause. Angel couldn’t get the smirk to leave her face as he continued on with his reasoning of being here tonight. Moving his arm, he pointed towards one of the women sitting up in the glass balcony above where he had entered the plaza just a couple minutes ago. “Lady Francis De Marco. Owes a client a superfluous amount of money and she’s late by a couple weeks. Harsh client, let’s say. It really was just coincidence you’re here too, love.”

Angel blinked, spotting the pearl necklace falling from this women’s neck. “She’s the one selling the necklace, no?”

“Her husband.”

“So, what?” She took in a deep breath as his hand brushed up against hers. “You’re here to kill her? Or just get some answers.”

Tangerine laughed heartily. “What do you think, doll? I am an assassin.”

Angel shook her head. “Careful, don’t say it too loud, someone might be listening.”

“Nobody cares about our conversation, sweetheart, don’t worry. They aren’t listening, to us.” He calmed, looking over the crowds just as she was. The conversation came to a simple ending, a comfortable silence waving over the two… friends.

Tangerine had now known Angel for six years, and each year he struggled more and more to understand how and why she could make him feel the way he felt about her. It started in New York, they had met at something similar to this evening, and had gotten along well, much to Lemon’s dismay. A couple months later, they were both sent out to kill the same person, by different clients. They took a finger each as proof for their individual clients. Every couple months, they would bump into each other, and after the first few times, the sight of her dressed up at the party, or clad in a tight black suit while fighting some prick had him head over heels. Literally once he had nearly died because he was too busy staring at her. He had started to worry he couldn’t work around her.

Then two years ago, she had nearly been ran over by a bike while on the run from someone trying to kill her. She had been kidnapped, tortured by this guy who only wanted her because of a small job from 15 years ago. When she escaped, she found herself finding Lemon and Tangerine. That night he had found out her real name. Ophelia. He thought no name could ever be better.

Don’t worry, Lemon had told him many a time that this was an issue. He knew it very well. It didn’t mean he had to do anything about it, but it was defiantly an issue.

Tangerine coughed, clearing his throat. “What’s your plan then?”

Angel shook her head. “Was gonna figure it out as I went, personally. What about y-”

“Same.” He dropped his head, looking down at the carpeted floor. “I was only put on this job last night, so, I didn’t really have time to come up with a plan. They didn’t even tell me that it was gonna be in a place this big.”

She sighed, allowing herself to look over to him for just a second, seeing his tired cheeks and bloodshot eyes. “I keep telling you to leave your company, they’re shit.”

He shrugged, grunting. “Could be way worse, sweetheart.”

Angel was well aware there was no point in even trying to convince him to move company. He defiantly wouldn’t without Lemon, too, and a long time ago that man had gotten himself into some trouble with the CEO of said company, he hadn’t been allowed to leave since that day.

“I s’pose we better get to work then, aye?” Tangerine murmured.

Angel coughed. “Yeah. See you in a bit, Tan.”

And while Tangerine was fully convinced they were going to complete both their tasks together, he again, mumbled a small sinnabit, sweetheart as she wandered off. God, what was his problem? Why could he not just do something about this stupid infatuation with her? He constantly just let it sit, murmuring in his stomach for years and years. Was anything ever going to change? He couldn’t ever imagine it.

Only two hours later, she was dead. Tangerine had cornered her in her office nearing the end of the party, and once she had understood what the assassin was there for, she simply let it happen. Her family didn’t have the money, it was as simple as that.

Angel was the issue. Tangerine had found her outside the office, clutching the necklace in her hands, shouting at him to hurry up because they needed to leave. She really had figured it out as she went, and it had turned out for the worst. This is why she was assassin, that’s what she was trained for, not stealing.

The two were running, and fast. Down the stairs and into a storage cupboard somewhere, Tangerine was following her, and from a rucksack behind a shelving unit, she pulled out spare clothes.

“I haven’t go anything spare for you, sorry.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, I’ll just take my jacket and vest off, that should do.” And he paused for a moment, spotting her struggle to unzip her dress at the back. It was probably just because they were in a rush, but then again, they were definitely in a rush, any help would do. “C’mere, love.”

Angel coughed a thanks, turning around as he took a hold of the zip, tugging it downward. She brushed away the thoughts of his knuckles running down her back, her bra strap appearing behind the black fabric. This was far too intimate for her liking, and the second he reached the bottom, she turned back around, telling him to turn around so as to not see her while she changed. Just a couple seconds later, she was clad in a white shirt and dress skirt, looking as if she was a waitress. Her hair was done up this time, a neat bun at the back that to her, wasn’t neat. It would do. “We’ll leave as staff.”

“Sure. Lead the way.”

They left the closet, turning left and joining the crowd again, the necklace neatly tucked in her pocket still. Luckily they didn’t scan in and out, so they could easily just slip away from the plaza, out the front door, and no one would look none the wiser. People were even acting as if the necklace hadn’t been stolen.

But as they joined the escalator that was leading them down to the final floor, a very obvious security guard was eyeing everyone up and down. While everyone on the top floor was made to act as if nothing had gone wrong, the De Marco family had sent out more security to see if anyone was acting suspicious. Staff members that didn’t have key cards and had seemingly spawned in from nowhere? Suspicious.

Angel turned to face Tangerine again, who looked nervous having also spotted the security guard. “I could just kill him?”

“Making ourselves even more suspicious and draw attention to us? No. We need to deflect them. Making them not want to look at us.” This wasn’t the first time Angel had needed to get herself out of a situation similar to this. Tangerine, though, hadn’t.

Tangerine frowned. “And how do you expect we do that?”

She grimaced. “I’m sorry. People hate public displays of affection.”

“Public what—”

Hands around his neck, she pulled him in, lips against his own, letting it get a little too intimate for public. They just fell into it. As his tongue brushed up against her bottom lip and her knees nearly gave in, a thought occurred to her. With his hand on her waist and her arms around neck, playing with the length of his hair. This felt natural. It felt… right.

They reached the bottom of the escalator, the security guard long gone. Tangerine cleared his throat as they made their way to the exit. His car was parked just a couple blocks away, so they walked in tandem to find it. There was a silence between them that wasn’t like the one before. Somehow, they were thinking the exact same thing, without even knowing it. How do I get rid of these feelings? And yet, neither of them wanted to.

Tangerine got in the car when they found it. It was an old Rolls-Royce he refused to get rid of, which she had been in many a time. Just, this time was different. Part of her just wanted to walk home. Her company would kill her if they found out she just took a stroll home with the necklace just tucked in a pocket somewhere, but the only other option was to get in a car with him.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. “You getting in or what?”

On a whim, she got in the car, sitting alongside him as he started driving off. There wasn’t a mention of who’s place they were going to, but they lived on the other side of town, and he was going in the direction of her apartment. Driving there from any point in the city was just automatic to him now. He knew how to get there from anywhere.

It wasn’t a long drive. Soon enough, they were parked in the blocks car park, and were heading up the elevator to the 12th floor, where her flat was. When the door was swung open, Angel flicked the low lights on, kicking her heels off as Tangerine helped himself to a cup of tea. He was good at telling whether she wanted to be alone or not, and from her relaxed form she had taken on the sofa, he gathered he could stay for a bit. Not too long, he wouldn’t overstay his welcome, but just for a little bit while they both recharged. Just a couple minutes later, he found himself next to her on the sofa, she automatically leant her feet on his legs as he grabbed the remote to scroll through the channels. The silence became comforting again as she watched him flick between late night shows, comedic dramas and general news channels.

Angel yawned, starting to speak as she finished. “You should probably text Lemon you’re here, he’ll worry if you don’t.”

“He’ll worry any way.” Was all he wanted to say, but the words came natural to him as he furthered. “You should go to sleep, sweetheart, you’re clearly exhausted, I can show myself out when I need to.”

She sat up, removing her feet from his lap and letting herself get that little bit closer to him. He cared. She could see it in his eyes, and it was genuine. The most genuine emotion she had ever seen him show, really. But it truly was there. Slowly, as his eyes scanned over the details and features of her face, now just as close to him again as she had been earlier when they had kissed, she reached a hand up to stroke at his cheek, seeing the dark circles around his eyes and that tired looked that seemed to follow him around everywhere. She felt his breath get heavier as he tried to avoid looking down at her lips. This was happening.

Angel sighed. “You need to take better care of yourself, Tan.”

His eyebrow twitched at her words, and he gulped. “What’s the point? I’m never going to find anyone that cares enough to force me to care about myself, and with my job I could die any day.”

“Oh, Tan…” Her thumb dragged across his chin.

He let out a breathy laugh. “What, sweetheart?”

It was only that little bit further that she had to move in order to press her lips up against his. It felt the same as last time, her hands resting against his jaw, his arms naturally, as if done a thousand times, curling around her waist, pulling her that little but closer. But this time they were doing this for themselves. They weren’t doing it for a quick escape, or to distract people, this was for them. Because for six years, these two idiots have pined for each other, and only now had something been done about it.

While all Tangerine wanted to do was ravage her, give in to all the temptations from six years of falling for this woman, he let her lead, let her keep it slow. They were both tired, they both just needed this.

As she went to pull away, he chased her lips with a couple small pecks, as if he never wanted to stop kissing her ever. Angel chuckled. “I care, so much.”

“I know.” He mumbled, looking up at her as he resting his hands on her waist tightly to pull her over onto his lap, letting her fall around him, resting his face against her neck, breathing her in and repeating the words thank you in his head, for anything to listen, grateful that he had her.

It would take a lot of work, but they were both now confidence they could maybe work together and juggle everything else. There was hope now; a reason to live.

[sammyluvr]

just an observation — sam winchester

cw :gn!reader, fluff, a little cliche hehe, reader is shorter than sam, poor editing as always, 1.3K words. requested !

prompt : one being shorter and it being a source of great enjoyment for the other.

sam really tries not to tease you about your height; he’s supposed to be a gentleman, and it’s not your fault that he’s so tall. but he just finds it so completely endearing that you’re shorter than him, and sometimes he just can’t help it.

you’re rambling about some movie that you watched last night, wandering the kitchen as you grab everything you need to make something to drink for the both of you. he leans against the counter, eyes trailing your sweet form.

“i don’t normally watch rom-coms, and it was sort of really bad, but it’s hard to resist anything with david tennant,” you say, coming to stand right next to him and open the cabinet by his head. instinctually, you put your hand on the corner to make sure it doesn’t hit him and reach up to grab your favorite mug. only someone (sam) has put it on the top shelf.

it’s not as if you can’t reach the cup. with a stretch and maybe some help from getting up on your tip-toes, you absolutely can. but sam is right there, willing and far more able. he doesn’t hesitate, turning a little and grabbing the cup with ease. you get a full, close-up view of his arm as it reaches right in front of your face and holds the cup out for you with a smile on his mouth that’s both sweet and teasing all at once. 

you narrow your eyes at him but let your own mouth curve into a little smile. it’s difficult to react properly to him when he’s being a teasing asshole and genuinely just trying to be helpful.

“thanks,” you grumble, taking the cup from him and grabbing his own mug from the lower shelf. he just hums an affirmation in response, seeming unnecessarily pleased with himself. you brush it off with a small laugh under your breath, then move to fill your cup with your choice beverage and sam’s with coffee from the half-empty pot. just to be close to him, you return to the spot at the counter next to him, preparing each drink the way they’re most well liked. sam lets you do it, only because he knows you like to do little things like this for him. 

that, and he loves watching you do anything at all. he loves to pour his undivided attention into you, sometimes so lovestruck that he doesn’t even care if you notice that he’s totally in love with you, despite the fact that he probably shouldn’t be. fuck being friends, he thinks sometimes.

so he watches and notices as you take extra care and precision to prepare his drink than yours, and he watches your lips move as you continue talking about the movie. it sounds like a bad movie, but you smile when you describe it to him, so he couldn’t care less.

“despite it being a pretty bad movie, the leads made it fun to watch,” you admit without hesitation. “it was horribly cliche and unoriginal, but there were some really sweet moments with her mom, and i don’t know anything much about cinematography, but i thought it was just gorgeous.” you slide his cup over to him and begin to work on your own.

he takes it with a sweet, “thank you,” and you just nod as you keep on blabbing, carefree and casual as sam looks at you like he’s in love with you.

“the setting was so beautiful, and the way they did the colors was just so pretty. so of course, that made it feel all romantic and shit,” you say, turning around with your own mug in hand to lean against the counter the same as sam. you take a sip of your drink and hum a little in satisfaction, and if your eyes weren’t trailing along the cabinet across the room, you might catch the adoration in his eyes. he schools his features to look more neutral when you look at him with this sort of longing that catches him off guard. “it was filmed in scotland, and sam, i have to go to scotland someday. it’s unbelievably beautiful to me.”

he smiles at you all soft. “we can try,” he says, not even thinking as he says those words. he just wants to please you.

you laugh a little. “well, that’s wishful thinking,” you sigh playfully. though, it’s completely true that the chances of you getting a break, much less an international one, are quite slim. you like the idea anyway. and you love that he said “we.” he’d go with you, that means. he’d try because he wants to make just about anything you want into a reality. a minute in silence slips away, like the coffee in his cup. you make it so perfect, he can’t keep his lips from the rim of the mug.

and while he’s content watching you sip away at your own drink, he likes hearing your voice so much that he’d like to fill the air with words rather than rustling clothes.

“you look extra short today,” he comments, a smirk splayed across his face. a screw must be loose in his mouth, because things that he’s not meaning to say keep falling from his lips. but he keeps thinking about the way your mouth tilted down just a little when you saw that your mug was higher up then usual, or the halfway annoyed smile you gave when he pulled it down for you. so this is the part where he just can’t help but tease, only because he loves you and doesn’t know how to show it.

“well, you must have grown in your sleep then,” you tease back, rolling your eyes. “what a rude thing to say,” you joke, “and here i was, thinking you were a gentleman.”

he shrugs, the smile on his face stretching wider. “i was just stating an observation.”

you tilt your head to the side and look at him with the hint of a smirk in your grin. “you know, you try to hide it, but i think you like that i’m shorter than you, don’t you, sam? which is silly, because most everybody is.”

he’s taken aback by that. he never expected you to call him out on it, to notice just how much he really enjoys being taller than specifically you.

“just stating an observation,” you quip when it takes him more than a moment to reply.

“and you like that i’m taller than you, so i guess that makes us even,” he grins. he pays plenty enough attention to you to know that it’s true.

you bite the inside of your cheek, already knowing you don’t have a better response to that. you raise an eyebrow at him. “fine. we’re even then,” you acquiesce, both begrudging and holding back a smile at the same time.

he tilts his head and looks at you with a glint in his eyes. “not that even,” he teases, clearly alluding to the difference in height between the two of you.

you roll your eyes again and scoff out a little laugh. “very funny,” you deadpan, unimpressed by the joke. you can feel him shifting closer to you, like he can resist it. his arm brushes against yours as he takes another sip of coffee. god, he’s flirty today. sam keeps you on your toes, he keeps you guessing and wondering and you know that he’s too nice to be sending mixed signals on purpose, but you just can’t tell.

you feel like you’re sitting on the bank of a river, dressed in white with a handful of daisies by your side and picking petals reciting “he loves me… he loves me not,” over and over again. today it feels like “he loves me.”

[petercapaldi-press]

Peter Capaldi: 'You don't just play the Doctor, you represent him' The Telegraph

INTERVIEW

12 September 2015 6:00am BST

Chloe Fox

'What do you say we have dinner in the Tardis?’ Peter Capaldi, aka the 12th Doctor, is looking at me from over the top of his Wayfarer sunglasses with a bird-like intensity; head cocked to the side, a mischievous light in his beady blue eyes.

Fresh from the set (a nearby solar-panel factory in Cardiff that has been dressed up as the kitchen of a spaceship where a monster has been trying to eat everyone in his path), dressed in skinny black jeans and a T-shirt, with his trademark Dr Martens boots, Capaldi crackles with exactly the same combination of fierce intelligence and nervous energy as his Doctor – a darker, edgier, slightly more unpredictable version of what has come before.

This will be Capaldi’s second season at the helm of a sci-fi television show that, now in its 52nd year (with a 16-year hiatus from 1989 to 2005), is the longest-running in history. Distributed to more than 200 territories worldwide, viewed in the UK alone by an average of six million per episode, adored by its legions of obsessive ‘Whovian’ fans, Doctor Who is nothing short of a global phenomenon.

Capaldi, 56 at the time of casting (he’s 57 now), was the oldest Doctor to debut since the very first doctor, William Hartnell, did so aged 55 in 1963. To some, his was a slightly left-field casting. His immediate predecessors, David Tennant and Matt Smith – 34 and 26 respectively when they got the job – were younger, twinklier, more user-friendly versions of the Time Lord. And yet, Capaldi’s older, more volatile incarnation – who shows zero tolerance towards all things romantic – very quickly won his way into Whovian hearts across the spectrum. ‘A class act’, declared The Daily Telegraph. ‘A fantastic, fascinating lead performance,’ said Digital Spy.

By the time series eight (his first) ended – with a thrilling denouement in which the Doctor was made President of the World and his arch-nemesis, the Master, was reincarnated as a woman (brilliantly played by Michelle Gomez as a sort of malevolent Mary Poppins) – Capaldi’s rightness for the role was established.

‘What I wanted to do, I suppose, was remind people of the alien-ness of the Doctor,’ Capaldi says. ‘Doctor Who isn’t a human being, you see. He’s a creature of the cosmos. His social skills aren’t great. He doesn’t care very much if people like or dislike him, because people aren’t his thing, you know?’

We are now sitting in the Tardis – surely the most thrilling interview location of all time – where Capaldi, who is nearing the end of nine months of filming series nine, looks touchingly at home. Often, between thoughts, he gazes reverentially up at the ceiling as if it were the vaults of a church. Long legs crossed, jacket off, vampirically pale, thin hands wrapped around the pot of Wagamama noodle soup that is his supper, you can see glimpses of the boy who penned endless fan letters to the show’s producers and who applied for presidency of the Doctor Who Fan Club aged 14.

In person, Capaldi is a much gentler, more rarefied presence than you might expect, especially if you were a fan of his brutally funny spin doctor, Malcolm Tucker, in Armando Iannucci’s Bafta-winning political satire The Thick of It. He speaks quietly, with an elegant Glaswegian drawl. Questions are answered thoughtfully and with a real interest, even though they are probably questions he has been asked dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. ‘Am I enjoying myself? Hmm, let me see… Am I enjoying myself?’ he says, looking around a set that has been specifically customised to suit the personality of his more retro, 1960s-style Doctor – a glass table here, a hexagonal window effect there. ‘Well, just look at this place,’ he says, with a sweep of a long arm. ‘How on earth can I not be enjoying myself?’

Capaldi concedes, however, that the first season was ‘terribly nerve-racking for me because not only was the job new, but I was also getting a level of attention that I simply wasn’t used to’. And in filming the second series, the challenges, he admits, have morphed – in true Doctor Who style – into something else.

‘I don’t feel I’ve nailed it yet – from an acting point of view, I mean,’ he says. ‘I don’t yet feel that I know how to do this. Quite who the Doctor is remains mysterious to me – which is of course as it should be – but one of the biggest challenges that I’ve found, and am finding, is that you have to sort of be able to spin on a penny. You have to be able to go from pantomime to tragedy, from domestic to epic, within a single scene. You have to keep the ball in the air, and you have to remember,’ – and here he grins wryly – ‘that The X Factor is on the other channel. You have to remember that there are people watching in America, you have to remember that, as much as you want to apply your mature acting instincts, there are actually lots of children watching. You’ve got to cover all these bases, and make it exciting and interesting too. It’s a great challenge – and, by the way, I really don’t say that lightly – and one which I care very much about getting right. Because it’s big, isn’t it? It’s really big.’

When Capaldi speaks of the weight of responsibility that comes with such an iconic role, he shifts imperceptibly into the second person, as if distancing himself from its magnitude. ‘It can be quite intimidating when you look down, do you know what I mean? Because Doctor Who exists on quite a big scale, in terms of its importance to the BBC and to its fans. You don’t just play Doctor Who; you represent him. You represent the 50 years in which he has meant an awful lot to an awful lot of people. And the weight of it – and I really would never want to seem ungrateful – is that it is continual. It is very, very nice because people always greet you with a certain affection, but it is basically every day, everywhere you go.’

When Capaldi got the job, one of his first actions was to pick the brains of his predecessors. ‘I knew David a little bit but I didn’t know Matt at all,’ he explains. ‘They were both very kind, very generous and refreshingly honest. They both made it quite clear to me that the role would bring, shall we say, a greater visibility, and they gave me very good advice as to how to handle it.’

First and foremost, retain a sense of humour at all times. ‘It’s all showbiz silliness really,’ he says, laughing. (On the day his casting was announced on a prime-time BBC special hosted by Zoë Ball, he was given a codename – Houdini – and bundled, gangster-style, into a chauffeur-driven car with a blanket over his head.)

‘Peter has a large anti-bullshit-ometer inside him,’ says his friend, the actor Richard E Grant (who starred in the short film Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life, which Capaldi wrote and directed and for which he won an Oscar). ‘And because his fame and recognition have come relatively late in his career, his hilarious cynicism about the yo-yo nature of showbusiness abides.’

Take Comic-Con, for instance. A couple of weeks before our meeting, Capaldi – along with his co-stars and the Doctor Who writer Steven Moffat – flew out to the convention in San Diego for a promotional event. For the two days before the convention started, Capaldi was doing press in his hotel. Wherever he went, he was accompanied by six security guards. ‘Six! Can you believe it?! And they all kept telling me that I couldn’t leave the hotel because, if I did, I’d be mobbed. And then I’d look out of the window and all I’d see would be this little Yoda walking down the street. So eventually I’d had enough and I said, “Come on, guys, you’ve got to let me go,” So they did – although the heavies came with me, of course. And, do you know what? Not a single person recognised me. Not one.’

Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t to last. The group sat down for dinner and, before long, queues were forming for selfies. Which was when Capaldi’s second code for coping came into play: ‘Just enjoy it.’

He understands the obsessed fans, because he himself was one of them. Teased at school for being a sci-fi geek – he was given the derogatory nickname Moon Man because of his obsession with the moon landings – the young Capaldi was far from cool. Not that he cared too much, because he was also very loved. ‘It was very safe, full of delights,’ he says of his early childhood in a tenement block in the Springburn region of Glasgow. His parents – Italian-born Gerry and Irish-born Nancy – ran a cafe in the bottom of the tenement, from which they operated an ice-cream-delivery business.

Family were everywhere: both grandmothers, plus uncles, aunts and cousins all lived in the same block. There was lots of noise, laughter, spaghetti, a Beatles soundtrack and, of course, Doctor Who. ‘To me, it was like a fairytale,’ he explains of his childhood obsession. ‘It had that quality of darkness that you find in a Grimm’s fairy tale: this strange creature of a man who takes you on all these adventures, but who always keeps you safe. That’s absolutely what I want the children who watch my version to feel.’

For Capaldi, Doctor Who is inextricably linked to his childhood. ‘It will always be a part of me,’ he says. Earlier this year, just before he was due to start filming the current series, Capaldi’s beloved mother – who had sent him the Doctor Who annual every year, well into his adulthood – died. It was a source of great pride to her that his visits to her hospital bedside were always accompanied by the happy squeals of just about every nurse in the hospital, coming to catch a glimpse.

Growing up, he didn’t really know what he wanted to be; he just knew he didn’t want to join the grey ranks of ‘depressed-looking souls standing at the bus stop in the rain every morning’. In those days there was only one place to go if you didn’t want to be like everybody else: the Glasgow School of Art.

Submerged in an ethos of creativity, Capaldi embraced the beginnings of punk. He was lead singer of a band called the Dreamboys – who mercifully changed their name from the Bastards From Hell (and whose members included Craig Ferguson, of The Late Late Show fame) – and he also began to harbour dreams of becoming an actor. One night, in 1983, he got home drunk to his Glasgow flat to find his costume-designer landlady chatting to the film director Bill Forsyth, who saw enough promise in Capaldi’s innocent charm to cast the 25-year-old opposite Burt Lancaster in his Scottish seaside fable Local Hero.

A decade, and a few bit parts later – most notably as John Malkovich’s manservant in Dangerous Liaisons – Capaldi wrote and directed the aforementioned short (in which his actress wife, Elaine Collins, co-starred with Richard E Grant) and, totally unexpectedly, won an Oscar.

For a brief, glittering moment, Hollywood beckoned (the couple bought a house in Crouch End, London, with the proceeds from a Miramax option on a feature-film idea) but then, as so often happens in Hollywood, the lights went off again.

When, after the best part of 15 years spent taking whatever hand-to-mouth acting jobs he could get – a Ruth Rendell Mysteries here, a Foyle’s War there – Capaldi got the call to audition for Armando Iannucci, he didn’t get his hopes up. In fact, the whole audition experience was so turgid and long-winded that, by the time he actually met Iannucci himself, Capaldi was simmering with rage; a rage that was to change his life by landing him the part of Malcolm Tucker.

Contrary to common belief, Malcolm Tucker was not based on Alastair Campbell. He came instead from Hollywood, from the American agents and producers – ‘malevolent forces in Armani suits’ – that Capaldi had witnessed, first-hand, barking foul obscenities down the phone at people. His ‘failure’, it turned out, had not been for nothing.

If the success of The Thick of It was a door opening for Capaldi, Doctor Who has been a floodgate from which there is no going back. ‘Would I have appreciated it as much if it had happened 20 years ago?’ he muses. ‘Almost definitely not.’

Happily, the timing of his success suits Capaldi’s life. With his wife now working as a television producer (she gave up acting for a more financially reliable line of work) and their daughter, Cecily, at university, Capaldi can be based in Cardiff from Monday to Friday and return to family life at weekends. ‘And it’s a shock when I do,’ he jokes. ‘Because I’m certainly not allowed to be number one on the cast list there. Here I spend all week with people taking me everywhere I need to go, checking I have everything I need, driving me the three minutes to and from my lovely waterside apartment to the studio, making me endless cups of coffee, loving me wherever I go; and there I am expected to have my feet on the ground. But I don’t want my feet on the ground, goddammit!’

He is too gracious to say it, but Capaldi is definitely tired and homesick. With 13 episodes a year, not to mention the promotional whirl, being the Doctor is more than a full-time job. He has even developed the same knee complaint that had Matt Smith – ‘who is about 12, for God’s sake!’ – on crutches at their first meeting. ‘It’s something to do with running down corridors and turning round very quickly to deliver lines,’ he says, laughing.

Nevertheless Capaldi is uncomplaining. ‘All this will come to an end, you see,’ he says, looking around him at the Tardis. ‘It might just be my Scottish melancholia, but the very first day I found out I’d got the job, I started to feel sad that one day I would not have it; that there would come a day, in the not too distant future, that I wouldn’t be Doctor Who any more. And that is why I try really hard to get as much out of it as possible. Because one day I’ll just be an overweight has-been, trying to get a meeting with Jenna Coleman [Clara, the Doctor’s companion] and being ejected from a Doctor Who Convention in Bolton for being drunk and disorderly. I mean, this is surely my high point, isn’t it?’

Doctor Who returns to BBC One on September 19

[sspookyspoonss]

I know nothing about Doctor Who except what friends occasionally excitedly tell me. I am also bored. Here is an undoubtably factual explanation of each of the ‘new?’ Doctors:

Doctor…. Who??????:

I know nothing about this guy. Nobody I know talks about Christopher Eccleston nor have I caught wind of any internet discussion. My conclusion is there is a conspiracy to not talk about him for no reason other than the fandom got bored and thought it would be funny. I think this Doctor would like to go to football matches and would get very upset if the team he likes doesn’t win. You would probably randomly meet him at a pub and would have a nice chat with him, however, he’d take you back to the Tardis and you would most likely die via Dalek plunger (a thing I am informed they can kill you with). I also think he would like watching reality TV, he gives of that vibe.

Tumblr Doctor:

The internet likes this guy. David Tennant is cool, so I understand. I think this is ‘wibbly wobbly timey wimey’ guy so I am inclined to think that he also says things like ‘milkys’ and ‘dindins’ to his friends. Even if he is not ‘timey wimey’ guy I still think he still would say ‘milkys’ and the like, gives off that vibe.

He has some angst to do with a woman. I’m not sure why but I’m guessing it’s to do with Thomas Edison. The Doctor knows he stole most of his inventions because he can time travel and saw it happen, not stopping him is one of the Doctor’s greatest failures, however, his lady friend is a victim of the British Education system and thinks otherwise. They break up over it, angst ensues, Thomas Edison has ruined someone else’s life even after he’s dead.

‘I don’t like this guy’ Doctor:

I do not like this Doctor, worst one. Nothing against Matt Smith or his performance, I’m sure it was brilliant, I’ve seen that Van Gough clip and it made me cry 10/10. More importantly than that however, my supposed childhood best friend who was actually just bullying and manipulating me said he was her favourite so I look at him and remember I wasted my childhood with her. He can make it up to me if he time travels and gets child me a better friend. Then he will be the best Doctor.

He or Tumblr Doctor has a wife????? I think???? I’m not sure but which one it is but because of my bias I’m saying it’s this guy. I know it’s dodgy because of time travel so he needs to go to space jail (or as Tumblr Doctor probably calls it, the ‘Naughty Step’). I’m assuming they also have a child, making every reincarnation of the Doctor from here on out a deadbeat who needs to pay A LOT of child support. That is why he regenerated, so he could avoid paying it, ‘Court can’t prove I’m the Dad if I don’t have his face.’ Arsehole.

Screwdriver scandal TM Doctor:

He looks like a nice guy. This Doctor would sit you down and give you a therapy session after you nearly get killed by a Weeping Angel. I would like having a talk with him, it would be nice. I feel like he is the most well adjusted Doctor, although that could just be Peter Capaldi’s immaculate vibes. This Doctor pays his taxes. He doesn’t like Paddington Bear for some reason. Due to his well adjustedness, I am lead to believe the twist in Paddington 3 is that Paddington is The Master (who I think is a villain) and will go on a rampage across London, turning people into Marmalade. It will be up to the Doctor and the family I’ve forgotten the name of, to stop him. This would also provide an explanation for why the Mum’s actor has changed, to fix Paddingtons mess they had to time travel which led to the Dad marrying a different woman.

He threw away the Sonic Screwdriver apparently. Previously mentioned childhood best friend complained to no end about it to me. Knowing fanbases other people were also likely very upset, I’m guessing it felt like it did to me when Luke Skywalker chucked his lightsaber over his shoulder in The Last Jedi. I also think Screwdrivergate is a tragedy because they didn’t take the opportunity to replace the Screwdriver with another, even sillier, Sonic _______. I suggest either a Sonic Scented Candle or a Sonic Keyring. Alas, it was not to be.

‘WOMAN AAAAAAAAAAAAA’ Doctor:

People don’t like her because woman. People also don’t like her because of bad writing. Last time I checked, neither of these are Jodie Whittaker’s fault. I don’t have much to say about her except my new, (actually great this time) friend who likes Doctor Who has an emotional reaction every time she is brought up. Genuine sadness and disappointment in my friends eyes. I suggest that this means this is a fantastic Doctor, to the point it is art. A sign of good art is something that garners a strong emotional reaction. Despair at the state of the franchise and societies misogyny may not have been the intention, but a strong reaction is incurred nonetheless, so success, this is art now.

‘Guess Who’s back!’ Doctor:

Erm, not sure how in canon this works but David Tennant seems to be having a nice time so it’s good. The alternative name for this Doctor is ‘Production Budget Doctor’ because from the ends of episodes I’ve seen (I watch Strictly Come Dancing because ooo pretty dresses and it’s on after) the Tardis looks very fancy and like it’s from a big budget film. Coffee also got spilled on it which is funny because it messed the Tardis up, meaning not even the technology of a near God can withstand dumbass humans with liquids. Hilarious. Also, an apt metaphor for many things.

In conclusion: I’m sorry for any brain damage caused to the good members of the Doctor Who fanbase who read this. Have a nice day.



[noushienoushnoush]

Once again, I sit here in absolute awe of David Tennant and Michael Sheen's acting. (And also the writing for this show.)

Let's talk about S1 E6 of Good Omens, shall we? (spoilers incoming, *in Crowley's mocking tone* obviously.)

Something that absolutely went over my head the first time I watched this episode was how masterfully they fooled us about the body swap. It's a wonderful surprise the first time around, but when you re-watch the episode, certain things makes you question why Crowley acted the way he did at the trial, and same with Azirophale in Heaven. Something seemed off the whole time. And during my first watch, I took it as "oh, they're probably both nervous about what's to come." But noooo, I was dead wrong.

Here's some amazing hints that conveyed, in the most subtle way, that maybe these two supernatural beings were not in their usual bodies.

The Ice Cream Stand

From the moment they go to the ice cream stand, Aziraphale's face looks rather stressed and serious. It's rather out of the ordinary for Aziraphale, there's always a sense of emotional vulnerability in his eyes, but in this scene, there's none of that. He looks around and scans the surrounding, the way Crowley always does. He walks around Crowley, the way Crowley always does around Aziraphale.

In fact, what would be expected of the real Aziraphale would be a stiff stand and some kind of nervous smile, and at least a bit of anticipation for eating ice cream. But who do we smiling instead? "Crowley". (Putting the quotations there because of course they have switched bodies before going to the ice cream stand.) And look at how David smiles here. It's a tight smile after receiving the ice cream cone, the kind that Aziraphale would give in appreciation if he was interacting with the ice cream person (which, he technically is, in Crowley's body.) If David was acting as the real Crowley, we would have had more of grin and maybe a slight tilt of the head even.

It's such a subtle thing but my god does it makes such a big difference and shows how much David and Michael know about each other's characters and I can't even-

Reaction to Gabriel Entering the Scene

Firstly, we have a close up of Aziraphale's hand and Crowley still adjusting to how the angel's body moves and functions (which can be easily taken as adjusting to the tight grip of the rope. Honestly, it's probably a bit of both).

Then Gabriel enters and what we would naturally expect is Aziraphale losing his shit by adjusting in his seat nervously, checking to make sure he looks okay, and loads of anxiety in his voice. But we get none of that. He doesn't even nervously laugh at Gabriel's joke, just gives the slightest little twitch, the kind Crowley would give when he's stressed. There's not a hint of nervousness in his eyes, as if his emotions are tucked away, something Crowley is quite good at.

Holy Water/ Eternal Fire

When Eric shows up from Hell with the eternal fire, the real Aziraphale would've been utterly surprised, but the one sitting down just watches Eric come in as if he was expecting the demon. In fact, if you look closely, everyone reacts to the fire EXCEPT Eric and "Aziraphale".

And when Michael looks at the fire in his subtle (and brilliant) way, the look can be read as both our angel looking reflectively at the very thing that could destroy him AND as our demon in the angel's body holding back the anger that he feels when he sees that this is what they were going to do to his best friend had they not switched bodies.

And can't forget the iconic scene of the roar with the fire spitting out. That is such a Crowley move and so out of character for Aziraphale!!

And we can see the sheer joy as his eyes glow in a shade of yellow awfully similar to Crowley's. I mean that grin is also literally Crowley?!

Lastly, we have the moment where Gabriel says "shut up and die already" and rewatching the show with context of how angry Crowley was at this statement, I can literally feel Crowley's anger in Aziraphale's body here. Michael how do you this? My two brain cells are literally going brrr.

Meanwhile, in Hell, when Archangel Michael enters the scene with the holy water, Crowley looks back and is genuinely surprised, but really it's Azirophale, in Crowley's body, who's like "wait a minute, Michael?!" The real Crowley wouldn't have been surprised even one bit. He'd probably make a snarky remark in fact about something like how Heaven and Hell are not that different after all.

Tone of Voice & Dialogue

It's just all so perfect. I remember reading on Neil's Tumblr that Aziraphale generally speaks with every word in every sentence pronounced perfectly and in an almost bookish way. Crowley, on the other hand, mumbles a lot of his words. They role off the tongue very quickly. There's a peculiar snake-like vibe to the way he speaks.

But during the trial? Crowley doesn't make a single super snarky remark or mumble his words. He stands quite straight (no putting his weight on one knee or slithering around) and the way he speaks is awfully similar to Aziraphale.

"Well, yes, um..." (87.5% of Aziraphale's sentences start like this lol)

"I don't suppose in the nine circles of Hell, there's such a thing as a rubber duck?" (Crowley level snarky yes but Crowley already knows that it doesn't exist, so he would've framed it differently if it was really him speaking. This is very much peak "unexpectedly funny" Aziraphale humor.)

Also, I think the very first hint we have about the body swap, as far as dialogue goes, is when "Crowley" is knocked to the ground and says "It's not a problem. It's a tickety-boo." Just cracks me up cause again, that's something our southern pansy Aziraphale would say.

And then there's the whole scene at the park after the fact, but this post is already long enough as is lol.

I hope I'm not repeating something that another person has already mentioned. I'm just mesmerized by David and Michael's acting and Neil's writing is all. Honestly, there so many other micro moments I didn't cover. And my 2 am brain doesn't have energy for making GIFs, I hope the still images will do. Alt Text will be added soon as well.

[glassiskies]

no bc im thinking about it and I don't see any season 3 where aziraphale and crowley are separated for more than an episode at most.

I was listening to David Tennant's podcast episode with Neil Gaiman (released Oct 2020) and Neil started talking about something secret he is working on that is, in hindsight, so obviously about good omens.

The exact quote:

"There's a project that I can't talk about right now that I'm writing with somebody I can't identify right now- this is a terrible way of going into a thing- where we'd been working on it for months and months, and we've been building everything up, but we didn't know how it ended. And, finally, we were in the same physical space, actually having a conversation that wasn't on the phone, and all of the sudden we had the ending. And having the ending, knowing beat by beat just what the emotional ending of the thing was, opened up the entire thing like a door. Because we had the plot, and we'd had the plot for a while, and we just weren't sure why we should care. Everything turned, and I immediately knew what the opening scene had to be. And what's lovely is nothing sort of really changes in the plot, but it now allows us to go, okay, that's important, that thing that we didn't know was gonna be important, that's important. It gives us a feeling of, or at least it gives me a feeling of bubbly excitement. Which means that anybody I can take on this journey is going to get to that place and be just as excited as I was."

(And then he immediately cites an example where he was writing Good Omens LOL. The signs were all there!)

ANYWAY, I think it's so interesting that the emotional beat of Aziraphale and Crowley being separated was not figured out until well into the writing process. It leads me to think that Aziraphale was never promoted in the unwritten sequel, right? So if they're following the plot of this unwritten sequel closely, I don't see how Aziraphale and Crowley could be separated for longer than an episode. We only have six episodes, and Season 3 has more plot beats to hit than Season 2 did.

It also makes me think about how Aziraphale leaving for Heaven really is just meant to be more of an emotional moment to plant the seeds for development in him and Crowley's relationship. I mean, obviously it is, but I don't know much significance it'll actually have in the plot of Season 3? If that makes sense? This is just me throwing out thoughts here, feel free to add anything!!

[nipuni]

Doctor Who status report: we finished watching S3, the special, and are half way into S4! The last 7 episodes of S3 were incredible and so far S4 is going strong and we are sure it will get even better as we get closer to the end as all previous seasons did, we have been ranking each episode and special since S1 so I'll probably share that eventually too and you can compare and judge 😆

We are getting more and more anxious as we get closer to the end of this season because we don't want to see David Tennant go 😭 We are confident we are going to love all the next doctors too but also going to miss him so much. We already made a list of movies and series he is in so we can watch those once he gets replaced lmao we are both so smitten!!

I can't wait to have some free time to draw about this show!! it's become our favourite thing really fast and is single handedly sustaining me, I'm the busiest and the most stressed I've been since last year and it will only get worse until January but everyday I look forward to watching it and talking about it with Nicolas and it's such a joy 😭

Oh I also wanted to say I'm so sorry for the lack of art lately! I know apologizing for it is weird but bear with me I still feel bad about it 😆 I've been drawing for work a lot so everything I make is under NDA and the rest of my time I'm spending hosting family and friends that are visiting for the holidays until the end of the year so all I have to share are photos 😫 but I'll try to squeeze in some art and get back to it as soon as I can!I hope you are all doing well! ❤️

[paulrobinsonshotel]

I love RTD's writing, and it was his era that made me fall in love with the show as a kid. When it was announced he was coming back, my reaction was nothing short of ecstasy.

When the rumours began to swirl that we'd be getting a Tennant-centric special with the Doctor regenerating BACK into him, I was very much "please no", but also thinking "surely, RTD wouldn't actually do this. There's NO WAY he'd actually do this".

Then Ncuti Gatwa was announced, amazing, wonderful. He'll be fantastic, no doubt about it.

Then we got the Tennant and Tate 60th announcement. At that point, the cracks began to show. Yes, my favourite companion and one of my favourite Doctors. I was excited, but I was waiting for more. We've already seen David Tennant's Doctor and Donna Noble written by Russell T Davies, and it was great. But for an anniversary special, the things that bring different eras of the show together in celebration of its history... pretty underwhelming.

Then the thing I was dreading most, the Doctor regenerating back into Tennant - something that had been the refuge of obsessives making badly edited fan videos from 2010 onwards - actually happened. And not only that, but he regenerated straight out of Whittaker's outfit into a Tennant-esque one. Ostensibly because RTD didn't want the image of Tennant in Whittaker's outfit to be used to whip up anti-drag or transphobic hate. Despite the fact that 1) Whittaker went out of her way to make her outfit gender neutral, so that all fans would be able to dress up as her Doctor and feel included and 2) surely it's more important to broadcast the message that anyone of any gender can wear any clothes they want, and there's nothing wrong with it?

The initial Tennant/Tate announcement was in May 2022. My initial dissatisfaction was met with responses like "The episodes are ages away, just wait and see". We're fifteen months on, and no further returning characters have been announced. As far as we know, these specials will still be primarily focused on Tennant, Tate and Donna's supporting cast (that said, the one thing in all this I'm happy about is seeing Bernard Cribbins again).

Of course, that doesn't mean there's been no announcements about the episodes at all. Segun Akinola's decided to leave, so we're getting a new composer. That's exciting, I wonder who it'll be? Oh, brilliant, it's Murray Gold. Again. In RTD's own words, "is anyone surprised?". Surprised? No. But fair to say my enthusiasm went from very low to absolute zero.

Gold is great as what he does, but we just had Akinola, an incredibly skilled composer who poured his heart and soul into the show, but was never given a chance by a chunk of the fandom because he tried something different to Gold or just because they didn't like the Chibnall era as a whole. So RTD could've brought in some new talent, with a completely fresh take, but instead chose to bring back yet another person from his era, who did 10 seasons on the show, and the one person the fandom needs to move the fuck on from the most.

So that's a special meant to celebrate 60 years of the show, but specifically focused on one era of it? Coincidentally, the era of the guy writing it?

And for those who dismiss any criticism of this being RTD centric with "But Beep the Meep/The Toymaker!!!", ask yourselves this: If Chibnall stayed on and did the 60th as nothing but a Thirteen and Yaz story, but with Beep/Toymaker, or if Moffat come back and done the same with his characters, would there be anything other than across the board outrage? Classic villains do not an anniversary special make, since we've had them in every season since the revival.

I'm sure the episodes will be genuinely good, and I'll certainly be watching. Any DW is better than no DW, but of all the things they could've done for an anniversary special, this is practically an insult to the show's history.

I'll be patiently waiting for Ncuti Gatwa's era, which looks genuinely new and exciting.

Rant over.

[ghost-bison]

why i don't like moffat's writing?

with rtd we had rose and martha and donna who were all amazing and by the end of their run (especially rose's and donna's cause martha's ending was satisfactory and somehow wholesome) you were left wanting more and being sad it was already over. amy and clara both outlived their welcome (especially clara even though i very much prefer her to amy).

like idk what moffat was trying to do with the amy/rory situation cause it could have been tied up in 1 series, and as for clara... well let's just say by the end (or beginning or middle if we're being honest) he was forcing her and her regurgitated storylines (stolen from both rose and donna) down our throats like a ripe lemon.

except there was no deep foreshadowing well embedded into the storyline like with donna and rose. no. just a constant reminder of "don't worry, the doctor will figure that out at some point" by the doctor himself which is not how the doctor is supposed to work. the doctor is thick and daft and too caught up in the chaos of his life to notice anything and that's what's so good about it.

and i mean yeah, he did do some mild foreshadowing thing with amy and the silence and all (how good it actually was, it's up to you to decide i guess), but bro i'd forgotten all of it by the time we knew what was going on cause it happened over two series and they had to use a flashback i think so that people would see how clever it was.

also this exchange in forest of the dead between ten and river:

"doesn't work like that"

"it does for the doctor"

"i am the doctor"

"yeah. someday"

brother, what were you trying to pull? what's this five-year-old behaviour? "my doctor is better than your doctor" literally how old are we. what a way to tell us the writing of the future series will suck. like i'm sorry but by this point we don't know river, there is no attachment to that character, we have never seen her in our lives. we don't gaf. by this point she's just an annoying lady telling one of the most epic, well-written, consistent versions of the doctor that he is no match to a future doctor written by a dude who's not like other dudes and whose self-insert is a little too on-the-nose. as well as his misogyny. (i love eleven he was hilarious, i just think he's a victim of bad writing and inconsistency)

every tenth doctor episode written by moffat, the only recognizable thing about ten is david tennant's acting. ten goes and falls for madame de pompadour over what? her boobies? even in classic who which was peak misogyny, the doctor wasn't like that. ten spent less than five minutes with reinette and you're gonna tell me that small minute was enough to make him fall for her? half of which she was a child, moreover? sure.

we can add to that donna's "if i had a face like yours i wouldn't hide it" to miss evangelista in forest of the dead yet again. why? how tf was that necessary??? i don't remember donna ever saying anything positive or negative about her own features apart from that. that was never the point. this isn't fanfiction. or how in that same episode miss evangelista became ugly in order to become clever. there's a real fkin pattern there.

how i miss the time women in doctor who didn't need to assault their men in order to be badass. a time when the doctor would have never forcefully kissed a married lesbian and made a sex joke after she rightfully slapped him. when bisexuality was taken seriously and not as a selling point. when doctor who was still doctor who