#god being a fan of dw who loves the show (not just 1 part of it...) is ... so tiring sdlkfjds
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#god being a fan of dw who loves the show (not just 1 part of it...) is ... so tiring sdlkfjds#i just saw a complaint that was like... 'ruby's story is 2 similar to clara's!!! but without the Conflict!!!'#and im like... yeah?? isnt that super neat??#that this show can do similar thing / repeat itself in slightly different ways#and that way it can be constantly subverting / talking 2 itself#like 'she feels like a clara repeat' is a compliment not a diss#bc by the time this story is finished. it can give u a different look at a *different* story that already happened#and seemed to be 'finished' and 'complete' (ie. with nothing left in it to tell)#but the Fun about dw is that it is never linear. it is never 'complete'#the story never Ends#anyway sdlkfjsdf#tagged- >#fanwank
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MY FIRST AND LAST
LINES
MY FIRST AND LAST
책에 적힌 글자들이 현실이 돼
가슴이 곧 터져 버릴 것 같아 [ 0:39 — 0:46 ]
Let me talk about love [ 1:14 ]
Yeah I’m talking to you [ 1:16 ]
알딸딸한 게 뭔지 난 아직 모르지만
너에게 취한 것 같아 [ 1:50 — 1:56 ]
(HAECHAN/MISUN] 넌 나의 나의 마지막 [ 3:04 — 3:05 ]
(HAECHAN/MISUN] 넌 나의 나의 마지막 [ 3:14 — 3:15 ]
DUNK SHOT
덩크슛 한 번 할 수 있다면
내 평생 단 한 번만이라도 [ 0:59 — 1:07 ]
덩크슛 한 번 할 수 있다면
내 평생 단 한 번만이라도
얼마나 짜릿한 [ 2:07 — 2:18 ]
It’s a dunk shot [ 2:42 ]
덩크슛 한 번 할 수 있다면
내 평생 단 한 번만이라도
얼마나 짜릿한 그 기분을 느낄까 [ 2:59 — 3:18 ]
LOOKBOOK
PHOTOCARD
Misun
thank you for the support. I appreciate all of you.
HIGHLIGHTS
oh GOD
this was the WORST era for rory
actually second worst right after we go up but we'll get into that later
she absolutely hated it for one reason:
jaemin wasn't there
she was absolutely heartbroken when they told the group he had to go on hiatus for his herniated disc
they obviously didnt show it on camera but her and jaemin were very close
he would always cheer her up
she was just not feeling this era
she talked probably even less than chewing gum
at least in chewing gum, jaemin would encourage her to speak up
the other members tried too, but it was always him who made her feel best
she’d catch herself playing with the boys and being happy and then she remembers and gets sad
she feels bad that shes enjoying herself when jaemin cant be there
she’s down for most of this era :( jaemin had to end up talking to her to reassure her (and himself) that he would come back and they’d be eight again
okay anyways .. besides the hurt and empty feeling she felt all this time
she grew an inch so she was happy abt that
her hair was still dirty blonde, not much change but she had forehead bangs this time
umm 2 fansites opened up for her this era! 'B' and 'SUGAR CREAM' !!
once again, red velvet and nct dream's promotions clashed again!!
when rookie won, joy gave a huge kiss on rory's cheeks and rory blushing was all over twitter
once again the fucking SKIRTS
this was especially bad because they had to get on the floor multiple times during the choreo
thank god for her safety shorts
actually most of the time though, luckily, she was in the back of the choreo
even though she was literally .. one of the main dancers but anyway still grateful since she mostly wore skirts during this era
also she probably had the most almost wardrobe accidents this era
so many times there was a lot of wind and her skirt would almost blow up but either she'd notice or the other members would and would quickly cover her
that happens almost every era though but like it was bad because all they wore were their fucking uniforms to perform mfal
for ppl who wanted to put her in the back to make her one of the guys and not stand out,, u werent helping with making her wear a skirt
or yknow. the only girl in a group full of boys
okay right
so she still got major hate this era. it didn’t help that her character on the mfal mv was clingy
nothing new with that
intl fans and korean fans alike were angry at the fact that she had to wear a skirt while being on the floor
but sm never changed the choreo so :/
(dw it gets better now she never wears skirts or dresses whenever they have to get on the floor for choreos)
in chewing gum era, she stuck the most to mark and jaemin
however this time, she was closest to mark and jisung
one fav moment from this era is when misun said she thought renjun's snaggletooth was cute and for him to never get it fixed to which he promptly began blushing
yeah she lowkey got cocky after that LMAO
oh during the mv
at the start she was walking with jeno and when he turned to look at the teacher, she was still talking and when she noticed he wasnt paying attention she hit him in the arm
the whole mv is just her being annoyed by the boys not paying attention to her and focusing on the teacher more
during her part w/ mark she follows and tugs on mark's arm for his attention but he doesnt give it to her
when they run for the teacher's mug and almost drop it, she's the one who quickly grabs it from smashing on the floor
the camera pans to her with a disgusted look on her face
either from how the boys were acting or the fact that the teacher left her lipstick mark on it
oh during the car thing .. she's literally just shaking her head in disappointment but helps them anyway
when they get outside and she sees the boys' disappointment to the teacher having a child and husband .. she's literally just sitting there laughing
.. until she sees the husband's face and is in awe
and then the boys make fun of her
and the end
actually her character in the mfal mv makes knetz think she’s even more of a brat and in love with the boys bc of how annoyed she acts
which sucks and she emphasizes in lives that it was just a character
for dunk shot she's pretty much neutral on this song
but she does like that she got to wear either jeans or shorts for performing it :D
when renjun throws the ball and like then haechan is supposed to catch it,,
misun is in the middle and jumps to hit the ball to haechan
her fits for dunk shot, similar to the boys she’s wearing jerseys/sport shirts with actual shorts underneath 😭 sometimes they’d be long jerseys and cover her shorts but she was always wearing shorts
sporty misun >>
#⁽ ⠀ ҉ ⠀ ⁾ ⠀ ⠀ misun ⠀ / ⠀ * ⠀ discography.#fictional idol community#nct dream 8th member#ficnetfairy#idol oc#nct 27th member#nct female addition#nct female member#nct female unit#nct imagines#fictional idol oc#nct oc#nct reactions#kpop female oc#kpop female member#kpop idol oc#fake kpop idol#kpop female idol oc#nct female oc#fake kpop oc#kpop oc#fake idol oc#nct 27th addition#fictional idol addition#nct addition#nct added member#bts 8th member#bts addition#bts female member#kpop imagines
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ROWAN I wanna start watching Old Who, where should I start
Doctors 1 thru 7 are on tubi but they don't seem to have 8 for some reason :( I could also dig up the TV movie or something, i remember watching at least 1 doctor who movie on vhs at my grandma's but I don't know which one it was
OKAY SO the first rule of watching Classic Who is having fun and being yourself
Further than that:
First Doctor - Start at the start!
Classic move! Put on An Unearthly Child and watch them all in the order that God, or at least the BBC*, intended
(*disregarding the ones, all from the First or Second Doctor's runs, that were purged from the archives as part of due process back then. Some have been reconstructed in a variety of ways, others remain entirely lost)
Pros of starting here: Easy! You get to watch the show develop into what it is today and you don't have to piece together context in ways you might have to to be willing to starting elsewhere
Cons of starting here: The show started very differently to what it is today. The pacing is sometimes slower, sometimes just by the nature of the story, sometimes because they had 2 episodes worth of plot they had to fit into 6 parts
Seventh Doctor - Start at the... end?
The Seventh Doctor, particularly when he's joined by Ace McShane at the end of s24, is arguably the most similar to modern DW. The first Classic Who episodes I ever watched were Dragonfire and The Happiness Patrol after I was given them on DVD as a gift
Pros of starting here: we've got drama we've got a Doctor who's a little bit fucked up with his schemes we've got a teenager willing (for better or for worse) to jump into the fight, it's often familiar to a modern DW watcher and as good a place as any to start. Also has a incredibly high proportion of banger serials, something I realised later down this post when trying to pick a few to recommend
Cons of starting here: plot threads that never develop into what they promise, due to the show getting cancelled in series 25. You may also be left with the reasonable question of "okay so I've watched the end bit of DW, now what?"
Eighth Doctor - Why is my tumblr mutual abnormal about this man
Never got a TV series :(. He has like three televised appearances: a minisode made for the show's 50th anniversary, a cameo in an episode made for the BBC's 100th anniversary, and the TV movie Doctor Who (1996), which was an attempt at bringing the show back after it got cancelled in 1989
Pros of starting here: doesn't directly follow on from any previous stories and since you already know who these guys (the Doctor and the Master) are, you know all the relevant backstories (other than a few new pieces of lore they throw in just for this film, to really piss off a certain kind of diehard DW fan)
Cons of starting here: as much as I love it dearly, and regard it as a masterpiece of cinema, I do acknowledge it would be massively improved by, for example, a coherent plot. There's a reason it took until 2005 for the show to come back properly and it wasn't because everybody at the time loved this film
Addendum - Watching orders are overrated
The order I've been watching Classic Who in has gone 7 -> 5 -> 3, excluding the odd single serials I've watched from 1, 4, and 6. The world can be your oyster if you're willing to sometimes skim some character's wiki page to find out who they're supposed to be. Some ones I recommend(*) and ones I haven't seen but have been reliably recommended by friends(+) are:
First Doctor
The Romans (+)
The Gunfighters (+)
-> DW's first musical serial!
Second Doctor
The Tomb of the Cybermen (+)
Fury from the Deep (+)
The War Games (+)
Third Doctor
Spearhead from Space (*)
Inferno (*)
The Curse of Peladon (*)
-> Really this is because I am just so delighted by Alpha Centauri whenever it appears
The Green Death (*)
Fourth Doctor
The Ark in Space (+)
Horror of Fang Rock (+)
City of Death (*)
-> Co-written by Douglas Adams this one, and is one of those stories that's pretty much as good as everyone says it is
Fifth Doctor
Castrovalva (*)
-> Does follow directly on from the previous serial Logopolis, featuring companions introduced throughout s18, but at the time of writing I still haven't watched Logopolis so you're probably fine? Good serial for fans of fucked up architecture and blonde men in distress
Earthshock (*)
The Caves of Androzani (*)
Sixth Doctor
Vengeance on Varos (+)
Revelation of the Daleks (+)
Seventh Doctor
Remembrance of the Daleks (*)
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (*)
-> Occupies an interesting place in DW history as it is in pretty much direct response to fans at the time, to the extent they kill off a parody of an obsessive DW fan who may or may not be Chris Chibnall. Mostly I'm recommending it because it has really really good clown costuming
The Curse of Fenric (*)
Survival (*)
-> Lesbian furry serial
#i have by no means watched all or even most of classic who but im pretty good at having opinions nevertheless#other films are Dr Who and the Daleks and Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD ft Peter Cushing as the Doctor but ive not seen those either#doctor who#ask
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are you going to do a 'when the haikyuu boys make you insecure' part with Iwaizumi / could I request that?
When they make you insecure part 6 (Iwaizumi,Matsukawa)
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Word Count: 2.8K
Genre: Angst, Fluff
masterlist
AN: Did I embedd myself in this story? Yes, yes i did. :3 (it’s only a small part dw loool)
Iwaizumi
One day when you were walking to the gym to go see your boyfriend
You overhear him and the team talking about some instagram girl
“She’s hot” you hear Boktuo yell doing a hoot as he fawns over a picture, with the rest of the guys agreeing.
“What do you think Iwaizumi?” Hinata ask
“She’s cute... I guess?” the rest of the guys, grunt in disagreement at Iwa’s lack of drooling over the girl.
“Well I see why you wouldn’t want her Haji-kun,” says Atsumu “you are into the more simple girls bro”
“Simple?” Iwaizumi questions, and the rest of the guys agree
“Yeah simple, you know Y/N... she’s simple” says one of the guys, with the word ‘simple’ rolling off their tounge with a tone of disgust.
“I guess your right guys...” Iwaizumi says “Y/N is pretty basic and simple but-”
You leave the gym before you hear what the rest of them had to say. When you got to your house you bolt straight to the mirror, you look at your outfit and frown. You never thought your style was ‘basic,’ to be fair you wouldn’t describe anybodys style as basic or simple. Of course, you weren’t like those instagram influencers, that wasn’t your thing. But Iwa has known that about you for years... but I guess that’s not what he truly likes.
You go to your closet and take out all the contents, just tossing all your clothes (even some of your favourite items ever) and dashing them in a black trash bag putting them to the side. You were already on a mission to buy a whole new wardrobe, going through all different stores and looking on pinterest for inspo.
You didn’t really talk to Iwa for the rest of the week, since you wanted him to see you in your ‘new form,’ you weren’t being radiosilent but you didn’t initiate any hang outs with him or face time calls (which he did find slightly odd, but didn’t think that much by it.)
Finally, the clothes came and you were kind of shocked at how much you ordered you spent over £200 on clothes from all different places. When you were trying them on, you liked some of them the ones that were kind of similar to your past style but not so ‘simple,’ the others you kind of frowned at since it definitely didn’t feel like ‘you’ at all. ‘This is for Iwa,’ you reminded yourself as your forced a smile on your face analysing yourself in the mirror.
You had everything sorted, your wardrobe was now changed and done the colours and styles you once wore before is now the complete opposite. You invited Iwa over, hesistantly waiting to see how would he react.
When you hear your door knock, you rush over to open it and model a pose you saw one of those girl do trying to look as natural as possible.
“Hey babe ho-” he says, with his eyes widening seeing your new look “Woah Y/N!”
“Hey Haji..come in!” you exclaim with a beaming smile pulling him inside to the couch. “So, are we going to continue watching the crown, I watched the previous episode and god prince phillip is such a dick.”
You look over your shoulder and see Iwa still standing in your entranceway a bit awkwardly, looking a bit stunned. “Come sit down then, we’ve got an episode to watch.”
“uh oh yeah, sure” he says blinking, following you to the couch.
You got through atleast 4 episodes together, you barely talked as you were really engrossed in the show. Iwa was barely paying attention, he was too busy questioning how you were acting. This definitely wasn’t the girl he knew, even the way you were acting whilst watch the show was odd. The way you’d cutely giggle and ‘sublty’ look over to him whilst laughing at a funny part of the show instead of just doing your usual obnoxious laugh that he loved to hear.
“Oh Y/N, I’m going to go to the bathroom.” he says standing up, you don’t reply you just wave your hand in acknowledgement.
On his way to the bathroom, Iwa nearly trips on a black bag left outside your bedroom door. He opens it, and mildly gasped when he saw all your old stuff jumbled up in there. He picks up the back and goes straight back to the living room and stands in front of you.
“Haji, what are you doing you’re blocking the TV” you complaining trying to see what’s happening behind him.
He drops the black bag infront of you and you internally curse yourself for not moving. You stare at him waiting for him to say something.
“Well whats this then.” he says looking down at you, almost like a disapproving dad.
“Clothes.” you say smartly, knowing what he was asking.
“You know what I meant Y/N, why are all your clothes in a garbage bag.”
“Because I wanted to put them there,” you wanted to seem as nochalant about it as possible as if putting all your clothes in a garbage bag doesn’t make you feel sad.
“Yeah but why?” he says sitting down next to you.
“Just because I wanted to” you reiterate “what else do you want me to say?”
“Well this isn’t like you, its just a bit random Y/N” he says
“I know this isnt like me you” you spat, standing up “Isn’t this what you wanted anyways.” You head to your bedroom picking up the bag with you, with Iwa hot on your heels.
“What do you mean this is what I wanted?” he says in disbelief “When did I ever say that?”
“It doesn’t matter” you mumble, you start to aggressively take our your old clothes and shove them back into your wardrobe whilst Iwa is just talking. You’re not really listening to him your just putting the clothes back.
“Y/N Stop!” he yells kind of knocking you out of your ‘trance,’ “what is going on with you?” he grabs you hands and pulls them down stopping you from what you were doing and he winced at seeing your tear stricken face.
He gently pulls you into his arms sitting you both on your bed, waiting for you to speak. “I don’t know what you want from me Iwa..” you start your voice slightly breaking “it’s just I did this all for you and you don’t even appreciate it.”
“I don’t know what you mean Y/N?” he says sounding genuinely confused.
“Y/N is simple and basic.” you say repeating words that you heard your boyfriend say about you, you feel him tense as you say it and you slowly get out of his hug.
“Y/N I-”
“That really hurt Hajime, I know now that I'm not your ‘type’ but I-”
“No Y/N, you are my type of course you are!” he says gulping in nervousness “I love you, and your style. I’ve always being enamored by how you dress and present yourself and I don’t know why I even said you’re basic and simple I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Really?” you say sniffling looking down
“Yes really you idiot,” he says lifting your head up “To be fair I don’t care what you wear, since you look great in anthing I just want you to be happy Y/N and especially not dress for anyone including me. Okay?”
“Okay,” you agree slightly nodding your head.
“Good, so can we go and finish the crown and then burn all these clothes?” Iwa jokes as he stands up.
“Burn them!” you exclaim “These cost £200, you muppet.”
“£200! Gosh Y/N, next time you go shopping im definitely coming with you.” he says shaking his head “can’t have you blowing out your bank account for clothes you don’t even like that much.”
You spend the rest of the day finishing of The Crown and you and Iwa eventually both sort out your wardrobe. Your style and aethetic changes a lot more through the times you were together and Iwa was very supportive and helpful of every single change. Especially *insert your favourite dress aesthetic here.*
Matsukawa
You were walking with your friends; Iwa, Tooru, Maki and your boyfriend Matsun. Walking to school as you did every morning, today the topic of conversation was Tooru’s bad taste in women.
“Gosh yesterday was horrible, she didn’t want to talk to me at all,” he complained “all she wanted to do was to come straight to my place, I didn’t even have the chance to tell her my hair routine.”
“That’s why you don’t find dates off of Tinder shittykawa” grunted Iwaizumi
“Well I know that now!” he exclaimed.
“Y/N,” said Makki grasping your attention “Would you ever use Tinder?”
“Well I-”
“Of course she wouldn’t” your boyfriend interrupted wrapping his arm round your shoulder “she’s got me”
“Yeah, but if you two weren’t together, would you use it.”
“Well may-”
“Y/N definitely wouldn’t” he said interrupting you AGAIN “she’s way to frigid for that shit”
Frigid? You thought to yourself, ouch. Their was a quick awkward silence and all you could hear was Matsukawa laughing with the others laughing after awkwardly in pursuit. After sensing your uncomfortability (is that a word?) Oikawa decides to change the subject to make things less awkward,
“I need a woman who understands me!” he rants “One that can listen to me and appreciate my awesome hair.”
“Goodluck with that Shittykawa.”
Oikawa rambles on as you walk to school with the other guys chiming in. You on the other hand, were lost in thought. Your sex life wasn’t something you would want to publicly talk about let alone to you and your boyfriends' male friends. Also, with Matsun describing you as ‘frigid’ struck a nerve. You weren’t frigid, well at least to you, you weren’t.
When you got to school you immediately rushed straight to your lesson claiming that you teacher really needed to talk to you. Which was odd to Matsukawa as you usually all hung around each other until the bell rang, the other boys gave each other knowing looks all assuming the reasons for your odd behaviour.
At lunch time, you stayed in your class instead of going up to the roof where you and your friends usually end up. In the class room you hear one of the girls in your class, Empress having one of her usual gossip conversations with her group of friends.
“Hajime is so hot!” she said, fanning her face being dramatic
“Of course he is! You should totally go for him.” her friend said and the rest of the friends agreed.
“What do you think Y/N?” she says to you catching your attention “you’re close friends with him right?”
“Yeah, I am” you say a bit sadly “You should definitely go for him, I think you’d be perfect together.”
“Okay! I think I might later” she says smiling. Her and friends leave, but then Empress returns and walks straight to you.
“Are you alright doll?” she asks softly smiling
“I guess so..” you say hesitantly “It’s just something my boyfriend said to me this morning.”
“Matsun?” she asks and you nod in reply “What did he say?”
After you rehash the situation from this morning Empress scowls in annoyance, “Boys can be such pigs sometimes, such a dick thing to say.”
“I know right!” you respond “Even if I was frigid, which im totally not it’s not even a bad thing nor is it something to reveal to people in public in a ‘jokey’ way.”
“Yeah!” she agrees “I think you should go and give him a piece of your mind.”
“I mean...” your voice falters, when it comes to Matsun you’ve never really given him a ‘piece of your mind,’ even when he makes jokes that you’re not so fond of.
“Come on!” she encourages “I’ll come with you and cheer you on.”
“You just want to come to see Iwa Empress” you say pointedly “But fine let’s go.”
You both power walk to the roof where you see the four seijoh boys sitting down and eating. “Oh hi Y/N/-chan and look Iwa its Emp-chan... isn’t that a surprise!” Iwa blushes and the rest of the guys laugh.
You walk straight up to Matsun and stand right infront of him. “Matsukawa I need to talk to you,” you say folding your arms. “Why whats up babe?” he says, still sitting down with a cheeky grin on his face.
“Alone.” you say turning around walking to a secluded spot. Behind you, you hear Matsun get up and the rest of the boys saying “oooh Matsukawa your in trouble” as they laugh.
“What’s wrong with you today Y/N?” he asks slightly accusatorily.
“I didn’t appreciate the comment you made today on the way to school,” you say with your arms folded.
“Oh that little comment about you being frigid, come on it was just a joke I wasn’t being serious.” he says lightly laughing but he stops once he sees the glare you give him ”you knew it was a joke right?”
“Matsun, some are your jokes just aren’t funny,” you say “especially when they're about me and our sex life in front of our friends too.”
“Y/N I didn’t mea-”
“You just come off as a huge dick sometimes, and I can’t do this anymore if you keep on making these comments anymore I don’t think I can do this.”
“Woah Y/N, are you threatening to break up with me?” he asks “Over a few little comments?”
“These aren’t a few little comments, sometimes what you say is just unnecessary and rude.”
“Okay well...”
“Well...” you repeat staring at him waiting for to apologise or atleast say something, “fuck you Matsukawa.”
You storm away and walk bout to the group saying “Empress lets go.” She jumps of Iwa’s lap and waves by to them following you back down to the school. You walk into the bathroom and just start to cry, “Y/N whats wrong?” Empress says pulling you into a hug
“H-He doesn’t care,” you cry “He pretty much excused his stupid comments, passing them off as little ‘jokes,’ that didn’t apparently mean anything.”
“Oh dear,” Empress says consoling you “he’s not worth your time right now.”
“B-but but I love him.” you wail fat tears streaming down your face.
“I know sweetheart, I know,” she says letting go of the hug “so what do you wanna do about him?”
“I don’t know,” you say “I don’t want to break up with him or anything, but is there a point in staying if he’s just going to make these comments again.”
“I don’t know Y/N, but whatever you wanna do I’ll support. Wether it’s keying his car or reading shitty fanfiction and crying.” Empress says making you laugh.
The final bell rings and now it's time to go home, of course you don’t walk with the guys so you just enjoy your own company walking home.
“Y/N! Y/N!” you hear from behind you and of course the only person it can be is Matsukawa.
“What do you want?” you mumbled
“I..I want too” he says heaving out of breath from the running he had to do “I want to apologise. I need do.”
“Okay...” you respond
“Im sorry, Im so so sorry,” he says “those jokes and comments were stupid and I agree I can be a dick sometimes. Well a lot of the time, but I never wanted to be a dick to you.”
“Well you were.”
“I know I was, and I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse what I said and what I have said before I just hope I can make it up to you.”
“Okay then.”
“So are we not broken up?”
“No we’re not broken up, but it’ll take a lot of making up to do for me to fully forgive you.”
“Great! And I'll spend every day to get you to forgive me.”
Which he did, he spent every day showering you with love and affection. He was way better than he was before, you even went on double dates with Oikawa and his flavour of the week and triple dates with Iwa and his girlfriend. Matsukawa, although he still made jokes, he never targeted them and centered them around you in an insulting way.
AN: I didn’t really like the matsukawa one since i couldn’t really write for him properyl sooo sorry bout that one kids.
#haikyuu x reader comfort#haikyu angst#haikyu x reader#haikyuu fluff#haikyu scenarios#haikyu headcanons#haikyu#iwaizumi x reader#iwaizumi angst#iwaizumi scenarios#iwaizumi hajime#iwaizumi fluff#matsukawa x reader#matsukawa angst#matsukawa fluff#matsukawa oneshot#signedwithane😌
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i’m still landing in two different minds about the finale re: thasmin:
1) sometimes the most true ending for characters isn’t the happiest, and i can say with full confidence that thirteen/yaz completed their arcs exquisitely. yaz became all she wanted to become when she met thirteen, and parted ways knowing she loved and was loved. she also refused to say goodbye, giving their parting such a tragic edge. if she stayed with thirteen, it would be goodbye. it would break them both, so yaz allows thirteen to leave her her once more, knowing it’s incomplete, but not abandoned—not like before. she’s alive, well, as strong as she knows, and surrounded by friends who will always understand.
meanwhile, (and this is more-so an interpretation of events) thirteen thinks with her very stupid hearts that sparing yaz her regeneration will spare her pain. same with not consummating a romantic relationship in any way. it’s so deeply tragic because thirteen was there, she was ready to open herself up again, but now her story is over. but god, is she loved. god, did she love. she didn’t want her parting with yaz to hurt. she didn’t want the next doctor to be born in heartache, like she was. and of course, she’s stupid! just communicate, doctor! come on, kiss the girl. god it’s tragic. i love it so much.
2) we all know that mainstream tv (like the bbc) has a terrible habit of queerbaiting. i still wouldn’t call thasmin a cut-and-dry case, but i’m aware that certain parties hold a vested interest in appealing to cishet fans of dw and keeping the show child-friendly. thasmin smooching would not make the show any less child-friendly, but likely some analyst crunched homophobic numbers and decided well, don’t make it too explicit. toe the line.
i am conjecturing, but i also know how these things go. it’s so tired, and i’m tired. i want the story above to be the true story, but likely all the glorious tragedy i enjoy about thasmin is also a weird vestige of ye olde censorship. i want to enjoy the unspoken, tender nature of thasmin, but i think they needed a strong verbal confirmation and some smooching. there is still doubt, and in this landscape, there shouldn’t be any.
the least lgbt people can have is some smooching on television, and even that’s a battle. i’m tired of vague salutes and dancing around terms. i love yaz’s coming out arc and feel its authenticity in my very bones, but i want more words said out loud about it. all that being said, thasmin will always be a fan product and fan-loved. (and loved by jodie/mandip + chosen by chibnall, which is no small thing.) anyway tl;dr i’m going to keep making characters smooch whether networks want me to or not, it’s my god given right, etc
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Sleepy Bois Inc x FranBow!Reader
In-game AU
Part 2/? PT.1
Plantonic!SBI x Young!Reader
(10/11 years old)
Headcanons
Genderneutral reader (they/them) 💜
INFO; If you haven't played or seen game play of Fran Bow then you can skip this if you'd like. If you don't care then go ahead.
Summary; Basically if you've seen/played the game you should know how this goes, you take place of Fran. So you go/went through the same things she did and you still have Mr. Midnight. This takes place while Fran is still in the mental hospital and then got teleported near the SBI.
If I get any info wrong, I'm sorry! I rewatched Markiplier's game play so it shouldn't be way off.
P.s not everything is described the same.
(^ art by sunquids on twt)
CW/TW: mentions/includes of cussing, food/not eating properly, screaming, murder, death threats(?)
First Impressions
Philza
Was terrified honestly-
Thought you were dead at first
Mans was just walking around with his son when he heard a thud
Was 1000% not expecting a kid and a cat
Even worse when he tried to get closer the cat got defensive and swatted it’s claws at him
And when you woke up-
Oh boy-
You barely acknowledged him and picked up the cat
Which btw, the damn cat changed so quickly- it perked up and was all happy and shit
The sudden anger to happiness gave him whiplash the poor guy
Then when you started crying which that scared him to
But either way he wanted to help you
Blame the father instincts ig-
He saw the way you looked thinner and not in the way as in ‘I was born with a fast metabolism/naturally like that’ but in the way of ‘I haven’t gotten proper food in a while’
(Btw if you are a plus-sized reader, the same goes for you. I don’t want to specify anything, especially body types. But he could tell you haven’t eaten actual food :) bc we all know that asylum food is shit)
He also saw the way you lowkey gaped at his wings but shh-
^ Lowkey feels prideful about it but you didn't hear it from me-
He really tried to approach you as calmly as possible to not scare you
Can I also mention that when he saw how dull your eyes were he felt his heart shatter
He also physically winced when he heard you speak for the first time
Honestly got lost in thought with a bunch of concerns, worries and shit
Final Thoughts;
Thinks you're absolutely adorable
Wants to punt whoever left you here
Lowkey scared of your cat
Technoblade
At first did not care
Like at all
Also thought you were dead at first
Still didn’t care
But the more he examined you when you first met
There’s something about you that kinda…
Clicked?
Idk
But yeah
Was ticked off when you talked back but also impressed
Like he’s Technoblade, The Blood God.
Usually whenever he makes eye contact with people- especially kids
They cower, scream, panic and ect.
But you didn’t waver
But either way, he’s still very skeptical.
Will absolutely stay on guard with you around
Unless you don’t give him reason to
If the some of the voices are right
He will dropkick murder you
So just keep quiet about it for now, okay?
He actually kinda finds you interesting
He doesn’t know why, he just does
Maybe it’s your mannerisms but eh
Just watch yourself around him
He’s so stiff and stern around you to the point that you think you won’t wake up the next morning
Final Thoughts;
Still really iffy about you
Get's the most ill vibe from you
Wants the voices to stfu about how 'cute' you were
TommyInnit
Ima be completely honest with you-
He screamed.
Like as soon as he made eye contact with your bloodshot eyes
He just full on screamed
You don’t know what you did to scare the poor teen
But I guess you’ll never know
And ima be honest with you again
He doesn’t either.
Maybe it was the way your eyes bore into his when he first saw you
Lowkey thought you were half dead or a zombie or some shit
You just looked so…
Dead…?
You kinda looked like a doll to him
He’s not a fan of dolls
Will he apologize for screaming the first time ya’ll met?
Because that is lowkey rude to do-
Yes but actually no-
He feels bad but he’s got to much of a stick up his ass to apologize directly
But he’ll make it up to you one day
I hope-
But other than that
He’s happy to not be the youngest one around tho
Final Thoughts;
Still thinks you look like a creepy doll
Gets this vibe from you but can’t put his finger on it
Lowkey wants to take you out on an adventure and maybe introduce you to Tubbo
Wilbur;
He was actually in his room chilling
Practising his guitar for a new song he wrote
He was vibing
Then he heard a scream
Thought a cat or smt was being murdered
So he rushed downstairs expecting a dead animal or shit
Turns out it was just his younger brother
Was gonna scold him but he saw you and your cat
That btw, you were holding him in such a cute way and looked at him with these doe eyes
Mentally, emotionally and physically awed
Your farming his aw’s hold on a sec-
He’s in love omg-
Please he’s already thinking about doing sibling shit with you
He knows his dad will adopt you even if he said ‘They're staying here for a while before they go back home.'
Wil knows that’s a lie and you’ll be staying here for a lot longer
With your consent ofc
Either way finds you adorable, smol and just
You’re baby
To him, you’re baby
Final Thoughts;
You're baby
Wonders if you like music
But also gets a weird vibe from you
Bonus;
The Voices
Oh boy-
So many different opinions
Some want you dead
Some want to hug you
Some want your cat
Some hate your cat
It’s all a mess
But let’s focus on the positive ones-
A lot of them are still chanting ‘protecc tiny bean’
Some are talking about you, others the cat
‘protecc tiny beans’
Is now what they decided to chant
They love you bby dw
Even the harsher ones, they love you
They just don’t show it
For the ones who really want you dead and shit
They’ll warm up
At least I hope so
But they don’t get the chance to say more mean shit like wanting you dead
Because those voices are getting attacked by your fans
Yes, your fans
They’ve nominated themselves as your fans
Yes, they do fight for who’s the number one fan
Final Thoughts;
If Philza likes you then they do (for the most part-)
Protecc tiny beans?
Protecc tiny beans.
Feel free to submit suggestions for this series! Could just be headcanons, reactions to ___, or anything!
Taglist;
@killermich-blog | @cl0udy-grey | @roxy3457 @itsberrydreemurstuff | @shuriosansshitposts @frowningsmiles | @muchrooomm | @novelist2 | @xx-smiley-xx
Lmk if you want to be added!
#mcyt x reader#mcyt#platonic x reader#philza x reader#technoblade x reader#tommyinnit x reader#wilbur x reader#mr. midnight#sleepy bois inc headcanons#sbi x reader#sleepy bois inc x reader#fluff#mcyt fluff#cat#fran bow#franbow!reader
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rank the new who doctors?
i would very much like to YAY thank u!!! i’m gonna uh.... ramble. because i am excited to be asked. my personal list don’t take it too seriously
1. capaldi. i love him So Much. it breaks my heart so many ppl gave up before his run, or while it was still in its early stages. among dw fans who still watch the show he’s generally already considered an iconic doctor. you hear a lot of people saying they regret not appreciating him until he was gone which i 100% feel. he was a who fan his entire life (the fanmail he wrote as a teen is so cute) and he poured so much love into the role!!! maybe didn’t have the best writing at the start but he more than makes up for it with his fucking phenomenal acting ability and pure LOVE for the doctor’s character! his arc too is the most touching for me.... he’s the doctor who finally heals. he starts off so jaded and almost seems cruel. i think that’s why so many people were turned off from him initially. but, after watching his entire run, you realise that was set up for a masterful arc abt healing and kindness and learning to laugh again. the pure love between him and bill, his unrelenting faith in missy..... “laugh hard, run fast, be kind” is the best fucking dw quote don’t even LOOK at me
2. tennant. sad man runs around being sad, stands in rain, grieves over all that genocide he committed, generally looks like a kicked puppy at every given chance. we love to see it! his relationships with his companions make him so damn real, maybe the realest of all the new who doctors. i love him dearly. my favourite thing about him is that he does have terrible moments of arrogance and they’re called out and his arc is about acknowledging that he’s not all-powerful (waters of mars i loooove yoooouuu). i love to make fun of him and i also want to hug him
3. smith. funny, tumblr hates him lmao. most people i ask irl here in br*tain will either say tennant or smith as their fave in a 50/50 split (maybe favouring tennant slightly). matt was the first doctor that made me want to watch the show, age 7 and sitting down for his first ever ep :’) so he’s special to me i can’t help it!!! his first series, s5, is the most cohesive series in the whole of new who imo. it’s the series i always rec to ppl who wanna start the show bc it knows what it wants to do and generally all the episodes are mid to high tier doctor who (except the winston churchill daleks one, good fucking god). when i learnt that tennant is “the man who regrets” while smith is “the man who forgets” it helped me understand him much better.... he desperately wants to bury that past but he can’t run forever. his final episodes lose it a bit but i don’t think he deserves the distaste so many on here seem to have for him. his writing suffers from feeling a bit contrived so that’s probably part of it
4. eccelston. important thing to keep in mind is that he got only one series and in that time he made such an impression as his own doctor!!! if he had more time he’d probably be higher on my list. “just this once, everybody lives” stays in my mind RENT FREE... it sums up how painfully tired he is—the post-time war doctor, fresh with hopelessness and loss and he’s so elated to save everyone, just once, even if it never ever happens again. his hearts are so big and so are his ears :]
5. whittaker. she’s on the bottom of my list but that doesn’t mean i dislike her! i love her, actually! her first series however is the worst in the whole of new who because of its disaster writing, imo. worse than series 7, yes, bc at least series 7 had some fun episodes at the start. i seriously don’t believe that chibnall has a vision for the show, just a mish-mash of done before ideas he doesn’t know how to string together into a plot or characters that actually feel like family. but enough of chibnall, whittaker is so FUN as the doctor!!! she’s everything i wanted from a post-capaldi doctor, who ended his run choosing to be kind. whittaker continues that legacy by smiling and being a Literal Ball of Sunshine <333 although i was worried at first she wouldn’t get much depth beyond that, series 12 made my desire for her as the certified repression doctor CANON!!!! i have my issues with s12 but im so so excited for the upcoming series!
#ask#doctor who#im so sorry.. no one should ask me abt doctor who bc this always happens. every time.#dw crit#yeah it’s a lil critical... ain’t that just the dw fan experience#dw
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The racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and cruel tropes in Voltron
So, it’s the anniversary of the ending of Voltron. And I’m getting really, really tired of people saying that only shippers hated the ending. There were many issues with Voltron, and they were neither limited to shipping nor to S8.
So, I’ve decided to compile a list.
It gets LONG. Turns out there was a hell of a lot of racist, sexist, ableist and cruel tropes in VLD.
In fact, I had originally planned on writing a list of both the terrible tropes and the plot holes. But there just wasn’t enough room for both. The post is huge as it is, and with the plot holes, it would have been twice as long, so I had to focus on only one thing.
Salt, obviously. So, so, so much salt. I could turn a lake into a sea here. You’ve been warned.
RACISM:
1) The Alteans are genocide survivors. Out of all the Alteans, only the black Altean was used for a Reverse Racism story where she resents a teammate for belonging to the race that exterminated hers. The white Alteans are totally cool with him, and with his race in general, and only hate the bad people. But the black one had to be taught that hating people because of their race is wrong.
2) VLD Allura is also the only version of Allura who is black. In every other Voltron media (several different cartoons and comics), Allura is blond with blue eyes. All the white versions of the character get a happy ending, while only the black version ends up dying to save the world.
While "hero sacrifices their life to save the world" is not a bad trope in and of itself, it becomes bad when it kills off one of the extremely few black female characters in leading roles. You kill off a white male hero, there are 463278462387 more. You kill off the black female hero, you are kinda screwed. Making it worse, Allura had been portrayed as suffering from depression throughout the latest seasons, so that her death comes across less as heroic sacrifice and more as suicide.
3) The brown Cuban kid who dreamed of being a pilot, and never once in 78 episodes ever expressed anything but sheer love for an exciting life, in the final two minutes of the final episode ends up realizing that the place for him is a farm.
4) As told in interviews, Lotor was meant to be a bad example of mixed-race person, to contrast him with Keith as good example of mixed race person. Do I even have to point out how messed up this is?
5) Even before they became Space Nazis, back when they were still on the side of the angels, the Galra invaded and conquered planets. This is portrayed as totally cool when they happily name the prince after a "hero" who invaded and conquered a lot of worlds, and the peaceful Alteans think the guy is just as heroic as one of their greatest scientists. Apparently there is such a thing as ethically killing people to steal their land.
6) They whitewashed Keith, a character who is poc in every other iteration of Voltron.
I’m sure a lot of people are going to get angry here, claiming that I hate Keith. Let me assure you, I don’t. I love Keith, and I hate what was done to him. I hate that they took a traditionally poc character and went to frankly ridiculous lengths to erase that part of his character. Keith should be Asian, and it would be incredibly easy to make him so in VLD (seriously, all they’d have to do is update the freaking bios, an intern could do it right now in 5 minutes). But they refuse to do it.
A lot of people don’t realise that the surname “Kogane” in VLD is fanon.
I’m serious. Check his official bios page. Keith is not actually called Keith Kogane in VLD. Fans started calling him that in fanfiction, and it stuck, but it’s not canon.
In every other Voltron media, Keith is an Asian guy. But in VLD, they:
- went out of their way to always avoid giving him an Asian surname
- gave him a Texan father
- refused to confirm his race, even when every other character had a specific race. Again, check his official bios. All the other characters got a race, Keith gets “human.” It got so ridiculous it would be funny if it weren’t sad. It pretty much went like this:
Fans: Keith is half alien, but about his human half, what is his ethnicity? EPs: oh, we couldn't possibly say, because the story takes place in the future, and in the future, everybody is mixed up! So, Keith is HUMAN, we can't give him a specific race because there are no specific races in the future! Fans: ok. And what are the races of the other characters? EPs: Pidge is Italian, Lance is Cuban, Hunk is half-black half- Samoan, Shiro is Japanese. Fans: but Keith...? EPs: HUMAN! There is no such thing as race in the future!
Some people at least hoped that Keith's Texan father had Asian ancestry because he kinda looked like Shiro, who is Japanese. But the EPs confirmed that the resemblance was just a coincidence, they never meant for the dad to look Japanese.
At this point pretty much the only evidence that Keith is Asian is that he is voiced by an Asian person. But then, Josh Keaton is not Japanese, is he?
7) After whitewashing Keith, they claimed he is the best leader of Voltron, better than his poc predecessor, because he has Galra blood.
So, instead of bringing up any sort of legit reason to justify why Keith should be in charge (like his empathy or pilot skills), they go with "the half-white guy is also half space-nazi and that's why he should give the orders instead of the poc guy."
If you think I’m bashing Keith here, please ask yourself why you are getting angry at the person pointing out the whitewashing instead of getting angry at the whitewashing. Especially when, again, making VLD Keith canonically poc could be done anytime with zero cost and zero effort, and DW just doesn’t want to.
- Hunk, the half-black half-Samoan guy, was going to be killed and replaced as Paladin by a blue alien. The EPs were pissed when DW forbade them to, and complained in the interview about it.
SEXISM:
Every single woman who is ever put in charge ends up going insane, making terrible decisions that endanger her planet, or losing all of her authority.
Allura starts out as co-leader of Voltron and leader of the Coalition. Ends up as a foot soldier who takes orders from the new leader and his right-hand man, and is treated as a cadet by the Earth military.
HOMOPHOBIA:
1) Dreamworks, Netflix and the EPs very, very, very heavily promoted S7 as GLBT-friendly. The EPs gave whole interviews about the past relationship between Shiro and new character Adam, retweeted a ton of posts celebrating Shiro’s homosexuality, and enthusiastically sent tweets like "you are going to see more of Adam in S7! :D" from their personal accounts after they showed the episode that introduced him.
In S7:
- Shiro's homosexuality is so ambiguous that even the Brazilian voice actor didn't realize that he was supposed to be gay. Just by watching the show, without knowing the World Of God, you can’t tell he and the other guy were engaged.
- Adam gets about 30 seconds of screentime after that one episode they had already shown. Then he dies screaming in pain and terror in a fire.
A lot of people claimed that it was okay to kill Adam because Shiro was supposed to be our rep, not Adam, who was a brand new character we knew little about. And, out of context, that would be true. Adam was pretty much a NPC, why would his death matter?
But the problem here is the context:
- Shiro is closeted in S7, you need to read interviews to know he is gay. So, if only Shiro is meant to be the rep, they couldn’t even do that right.
- They very heavily marketed both Shiro and Adam as gay rep, and specifically talked at length about Adam in several interviews.
In THAT context, REGARDLESS of what you ship, killing off Adam revealed a complete willingness to manipulate the audience to the point of outright lying. Even if you hated Adam, even if Adashi is your NOTP, the clear evidence that the creators had absolutely no problem making empty promises was NOT a good sign.
2) The moment Shiro is revealed to be gay in interviews, he is practically quarantined from the Team.
3) Shiro is also given a Totally Not AIDS deadly disease.
Making it even worse, Shiro never actually gets cured in canon. We are told he is cured in interviews, but the show itself drops the topic entirely. Depending on where you lean in the Word Of God VS Death Of The Author debate, Shiro may be doomed to die.
4) A female villain is revealed to be a lesbian. 30 seconds later she gleefully tortures a little girl. Then she, too, dies in a fire.
(Fan outrage about pulling two Bury Your Gays in the Season that had been very heavily promoted as GLBT-friendly caused DW to retcon her death and bring her back in S8, but she was originally meant to die in the explosion)
5) Shiro ends up marrying a random character who doesn’t even get a name in the show.
ABLEISM:
1) Shiro's PTSD magically disappears offscreen. In interviews, the EPs claimed that he "got over it" between S6 and S7 because "he is a professional." Wow! Who knew being a professional magically cures mental illnesses!
2) Shiro is an amputee. The EPs admitted that they never put any thought into his status as disabled rep, they just wanted a character with a cool-looking arm. It literally didn't occur to them that making him lose his arm (TWICE! First up to the biceps, then up to the shoulder) meant anything. Also worth noting that Shiro’s new arm makes him look like the guy who tormented him.
3) Shiro is systematically robbed of his agency.
- He is the only Paladin who never gets to use his bayard.
- He loses his bond with Black for no given canon reason (and the reason they give in interviews makes no sense, they basically say that transferring his soul out of the Black Lion makes her stop loving him. But she still lets Zarkon fly her!).
I know that Keith is traditionally Black’s pilot in Voltron media (although that shouldn’t matter, because VLD made a lot of huge changes to the traditional status quo). But if they wanted Black Paladin Keith that badly, they could have given some non-insulting reason for it. For example, say “because Shiro has spent so much time within Black, their bond is now so strong that he will get absorbed again if he flies her again.” Or co-pilots in Black (if Pidge can co-pilot with Matt, why can’t Shiro co-pilot with Keith?).
- He is defeated not only by Sendak, but also by a bunch of random Alteans. He basically can’t win a fight anymore unless it’s played for laughs.
- His new robot Atlas is bigger than Voltron, but also much weaker, and can only buy a few minutes for Voltron to come save the day.
- Every single enemy he ever defeated comes back to be finished off by somebody else (even the friggin' Gladiator from S1 comes back in S8). In the epilogue, he retires in his twenties.
4) Narti, the disabled General, is fridged shortly after her introduction. For a while at least it seemed like her death had affected the remaining three Generals, but then it turns out that the "For Narti" line was a trick and they never actually planned on avenging her.
CRUEL TROPES:
1) They intentionally baited the fans by pushing the plot thread that Lotor would be redeemed. They named the episode where he defects "A New Defender," they kept saying in interviews that they come from Avatar and they are very familiar with Zuko *hint hint*, they showed his family as incredibly abusive and Lotor himself as desperate, they showed that Lotor was a victim of severe racism (he is mixed race, and as stated above, the Galra are Space Nazis and are pretty obsessed with blood purity).
Then, after revealing him to be a villain, they gave an interview where they practically dislocated their shoulders by patting themselves on the back as they gleefully bragged that "we made them think we would give them a Zuko, but we gave them an Azula!"
(Nevermind the fact that Azula herself was a 14-year-old child, not a monster, and that Aaron Ehasz himself confirmed that he always wanted her to be redeemed).
When fans who are survivors of child abuse told them that the bait-and-switch was really hurtful, they laughed it off, and claimed that Lotor was just beyond redemption. Then they proceeded to redeem Lotor's abusive parents, who were objectively much worse.
2) Shiro’s clone, who sincerely believed he was Shiro and always meant well, was dehumanised, demonised and discarded like his life meant nothing. His short existence was full of pain from literally the moment he first opened his eyes, as Haggar kept torturing him with migraines to manipulate him. In the end, she brutally violates him body and mind, and brainwashes him to force him to turn on the family he was so desperate to find in The Journey. He dies in incredibly questionable circumstances, without ever getting to learn that his family survived Haggar’s plans. He is victim-blamed for the things she forced him to do against his will with mind-control, and is never mourned because the only family he ever had writes him off as a “thing” and “evil.”
In fact, the horrific treatment of Kuron foreshadowed S8. The Medium article “It never stops at one - Why Voltron: Legendary Defender's tragic ending wasn't a surprise and why more DreamWorks' series will follow suit” explains how.
The tl;dr version is that, when a story posits that the circumstances of your birth determine the value of your life, so that good intentions and hard work mean nothing, and long-established bonds can be discarded with zero thought and care, and your very humanity can be revoked over something you have absolutely no control over, and the whole sociopathic disaster is celebrated as a happy ending... it really, really can’t end well. Not just for you, but for the entire cast.
#voltron critical#vld shiro#vld keith#vld lance#vld allura#vld lotor#voltron#voltron salt#takashi shirogane
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Doctor Who Tag
yes im a nerd...
CHILDHOOD
1. Did you like DW as a child?
I was 10 when it came back on telly with Eccleston and the first episode with the autons scared me so much my mom wouldn't let me watch it again until a couple years later, but yeah my teens I was obsessed with DW... still am at age 25
2. Your age at the time of the revival?
10
3. First DW episode you ever saw?
‘Rose’
4. Did you have any of the toys?
I still have the eleventh doctor’s screwdriver... I used to have some of the figures but there in storage now somewhere
5. Which DW character did you play on the playground?
didn't play it on the playground
6. Monster(s) that scared you most as a child?
all of them! the ones that still scare me now are the Cybermen and the Autons... genuinely cant walk past a shop mannequin without being suspicious
7. Joke/story you didn’t get as a kid?
as a kid, any of the innuendo type jokes
8. DW opinion that has changed since you were a kid?
idk I think I still have the same opinions
9. Who introduced you to DW?
parents
10. Did you like Sarah Jane Adventures as a child?
I LOVED SJA!! I miss that show, and Elizabeth Slade :(
DOCTOR
11. Who is your Doctor?
Ten was the doctor that made me fall in love with Doctor Who
12. Your favourite Doctor?
omg why not just ask me who my favourite child is... (I don't have kids but you know what I mean) if I had to chose my top three are ten, eleven and thirteen
13. Least favourite Doctor?
purely just because he doesn't have enough episodes... nine...
14. Best regeneration?
none of them I hate regenerations :( they make me sad, im too emotionally invested in every single one
15. Do you like “Doctor-Lite” episodes?
they're not my faves
16. Who is the most human Doctor?
I think nine maybe? or twelve?
17. Best multi-Doctor story?
the 50th anniversary special
18. Best Doctor monologue?
“Hello Stonehenge! who takes the pandorica, takes the universe. but bad news everyone, cause guess who? HA! You lot you're all whizzing about- its really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING. Question of the hour is, who's got the pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question, who's coming to take it from me? Come on, look at me! No plan. No backup. No weapons worth a damn. oh and something else, I don't have anything to lose. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the pandorica tonight... just remember who's standing in your way. remember ever black day I ever stopped you and then- AND THEN- do the smart thing... let somebody else try first.”
not copied and pasted, remember that from the top of my head... its always there waiting in my mind incase I ever need an epic monologue :’)
19, What do you think TenToo/MetaCrisis Doctor is doing now?
hopefully living his best life with Rose
20. Best Doctor/companion pairing?
ten and donna
COMPANIONS
21. Favourite companion?
Donna, Clara, Amy
22. Favourite secondary companion?
is Mickey classed as secondary? idk
23. Least favourite companion?
Ryan
24. Best TARDIS Team?
Doctor, Amy and Rory
25. Most underrated companion?
Graham, but that may just be cause I love Bradders
26. Most overrated companion?
Rose... I like her but idk, I think she gets more hype than she deserves.. don't @ me
27. Favourite companion’s family?
Rose’s mom
28. Who should have been a companion but wasn’t?
idk I cant think of anyone
29. Favourite (canon or non-canon) DW universe relationship?
Amy and Rory
30. Who did you not used to like, but really like now?
wasn't keen on Bill at first but by the end I really liked her, same with Rory
EPISODES
31. Favourite episode ever?
girl in the fireplace
32. Least favourite episode?
most of Chibnall’s episodes tbh sorry not sorry
33. Which episodes do you skip?
the regeneration episodes
34. Best two-parter?
Human Nature - Family of Blood
35. Historical, present day or futuristic episodes?
I like them all in there own way but I think present is fave, then historical, then future
36. Episode that will always make you smile?
all of them
37. Episode that will always make you cry?
Rory and Amy’s last episode :’(
38. Best run of episodes?
ugh I cant answer this theres too many
39. Best cliffhanger?
the end of Spyfall part one when the Master reveals who he is... I was SHOOK
40. Favourite Christmas special?
Voyage of the Damned
SERIES
41. Classic Who or New Who?
new who
42. Favourite series?
four or five
43. Least favourite series?
eleven, I just cant with the writing
44. Which series do you skip?
none
45. Favourite series opening?
eleventh hour
46. Favourite series finale?
Doomsday
47. Best series arc?
Bad Wolf
48. Thoughts on series 11/12?
I adore Jodie Whittaker and her doctor, and although I think 3 companions is too many I do love Yaz and Graham (Ryan is hit & miss). I just think theyve been massively let down by the stories/writing... they’ve tried to hard to tick certain boxes and completely missed what Doctor Who is about for a lot of people.. an escape from the real world into these outrageous unbelievable but lovable fun alien adventures
49. How much of Classic Who have you seen?
not a lot
50. Who should have had another series?
NINE NINE NINE NINE NINE
MONSTERS
51. Favourite monster/villain?
the master
52. Most creative monster?
Weeping Angels, whoever came up with monsters that look like statues and only move when you're not looking at them is genius
53. Monster(s) that scares you most?
Autons, Cybermen, the creepy dolls from Night Terrors, the ones from Waters of Mars, Weeping Angels
54. Monster you think is too easy to defeat?
idk
55. Least favourite monster/villain?
absorbaloff
56. Monster you want to return?
The Master, I really hope that isn't the last we see of Dhawan
57. In your opinion, what makes a monster good?
being genuinely scary,
58. Daleks, Cybermen or Weeping Angels?
Weeping Angels
59. Best Dalek story?
Daleks in Manhatten
60. Best one time villain/monster?
my brain has gone blank I cant think of an answer right now
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
61. Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures?
SJA
62. Favourite Torchwood Team member?
I haven't watched it all so I couldn't say
63. Which Torchwood death made you saddest?
again, not watched it all
64. Do you rewatch COE or MD?
huh
65. Favourite SJA Team member?
Sarah Jane
66. Mr Smith or K-9?
K-9
67. Maria or Rani?
Rani
68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish?
Nope
69. If you do, your favourite additional stories?
n/a
70. Do you like DW analysis (video essays, fan theories, etc)?
yes
DESIGN/PRODUCTION
71. Favourite piece of alien tech?
the sonic, I love how it is so multipurpose except for when it comes to wood
72. Favourite piece of Murray Gold music?
I am the Doctor - gets me pumped every time
73. Favourite TARDIS design?
Ten’s Tardis
74. Has the 2005 era CGI aged well?
actually yeah, I was rewatching the ‘are you my mummy’ episodes the other day and my God when the gas masks emerged from the faces... ooooooof I was like omg how
75. Favourite Doctor outfit?
eleven or thirteen
76. Monster with the best design?
not really a design more of a costume.. I live Dhawan master’s costume. that shade of purple, oof he so stylish
77. Best show runner?
idk
78. Best writer?
Gatiss
79. Best opening titles?
eleven’s titles where the Tardis is flying and being zapped is cool but thirteens music hits different
80. Will DW age well/stay popular in the future?
I hope so, I feel like its lasted this long surely it can last forever.. if the writers don't fuck it up...
IF YOU WERE IN THE SHOW
81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor?
whatever time means Id get to wear the most beautiful costumes
82. Planet/place you’d want to go with the Doctor?
Galifrey, pre-desctruction
83. Doctor you’d most like to travel with?
any of them, please and thank you
84. Companion you’d most like to travel with?
donna, sceso a good laugh but also I feel like she’d look after me
85. Monster you’d like to defeat/fight?
The Master
86. If you could go back on your own history (like Father’s Day), where would you go?
back to when I was a toddler, I wanna see what I was like
87. If you could ask the Doctor anything, what would you ask?
theres too many to ask
88. Historical figure you’d like to meet?
Shakespeare
89. How do you think you’d meet the Doctor?
id probably be rescued from doing something stupid and then the doc would be like you know what the bitch clearly needs supervision she's coming with me
90. Would you travel forwards or backwards in time first?
backwards
IF YOU MADE THE SHOW
91. Historical event would you like to see in DW?
Hamilton
92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW?
idk
93. Who would you completely erase from the DW universe?
Ruth
94. One unanswered DW question you’d love to know the answer to?
where is Clara now?
95. Actor/actress you’d like to see play the Doctor?
Phoebe Waller Bridge (or Lin Manuel Miranda)
96. Actor/actress you’d like to see play a companion?
Andrew Scott (yes I did just basically recast fleabag and hot priest)
97. Is DW “too political”?
series 11 got a bit like that
98. Which characters fate would you changed?
Danny Pink
99. What about DW could be improved?
I think ive made my options about Chibnall pretty clear...
100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do
bring back Jenny, the Doctor / Daughter adventures they would have. I’m actually writing a fic about it if you wanna read.... here
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Now that I (finally) finished watching the newest season of Doctor Who, I want to give my thoughts. This review includes spoilers, by the way.
Spyfall Part 1: 8/10. I had low expectations going into season 12, but this episode was great compared to all of last season. I loved the mystery and the monster and, of course, the big reveal. I was shocked! I absolutely adore the Master, he’s so goddamn childish. and did you know that O sent the doctor a pic of a catfish, bc he was one??
Spyfall Part 2: 9/10. After the first episode, I was excited going into this. (Since I watched this season after it all came out, I didn’t have to wait a week, fortunately.) I loved it, especially the reference to the four knocks/drums and the Master’s tissue compressor from classic Who. I think Dhawan’s Master has now become my favourite incarnation, although to be fair, I’ve only seen two other incarnations on screen. The only thing is they dropped Ryan, Yaz and Graham being fugitives of the law immediately by the end of the episode, and everyone who was present for Bartman’s presentation I guess just forgot that he has/had control over all their phones?
Orphan 55: 5/10. It started off strong. I got Midnight vibes at first, but the monster really wasn’t that good. The fact that they were all humans affected by global warming made me feel kind of pessimistic about the future, and most of the side character’s arcs ended poorly. I like the girl (I forget her name) who Ryan got a crush on, I wish she was around for more than one episode. I also like the furry girl with the tail... don’t judge pls.
Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror: 9.5/10. I love this episode so much and I’m not even sure why. The guy who played Nikola Tesla was such an amazing actor and after the episode I just wanted to know more about the real person behind him. And the Doctor’s chemistry with Tesla was so nice to watch. It really made me like Whittaker’s Doctor more, since I felt pretty iffy about her after season 11. Also the monster was good, reminded me of the spider woman from season 4.
Fugitive of the Judoon: 7/10. I thought bringing back the judoon was a weird decision, since I didn’t enjoy them during Tennant’s era very much. However, I surprisingly enjoyed their presence. Jack definitely brought the rating up for me, he’s just an extremely likeable character, but why didn’t he get to meet the Doctor? I would have loved to see her reaction (or disappointment) to seeing him again. Overall, this episode was very confusing. I liked Ruth as the forgotten doctor, but I don’t know how to feel about the Doctor having other incarnations than the ones we already know. It almost feels like Chibnall tried to create as much mystery as possible since people didn’t enjoy the lack of a storyline last season. Basically, idk.
Praxeus: 4.5/10. I kind of liked it, I guess. The mystery was intriguing, but I think there was too much here. And the girl whose friend died should definitely had more of a reaction to her FRIEND DYING IN FRONT OF HER. But, I thought the ex-officer and the astronaut (sorry, I forget their names) relationship was sad and cute. I’m so glad they didn’t kill off the astronaut, I’m tired of people dying.
Can You Hear Me?: 5/10. I would have put this at a 4, but I actually liked the story of the two gods. I would say they’re trying to fit too much story in a single episode, but I think DW is just like that in general. I’m glad the companions are finally getting some character development, that was probably the highlight of the episode.
The Haunting of Villa Diodati: 6/10. The idea of ghosts in DW is pretty cool, but I found most of the episode boring? I guess? I didn’t pay very close attention until the cyberman came on screen. It was an interesting concept, but I’ve never been super invested in ghost stories. I thought they would incorporate Mary Shelly into the story a bit more, too.
Ascension of the Cybermen: 7/10. It wasn’t bad. I’m glad they brought the cybermen back, but now I’m just confused about where they fit into the timelime? Why does the head cyberman feel emotion? Maybe it was explained in the episode but... I didn’t care much for the side characters, though I was interested in how Brendan fit into the storyline. Of course, my favourite part was the Master showing up at the end.
The Timeless Children: 8/10. This finale is leagues better than the season 11 finale, even if it retconned all of the Doctor’s past. I love seeing the Doctor and the Master together, you can just tell they had a deep connection with each other when they were children from the way they act. I thought the whole Timeless Child storyline would ruin my experience as a DW fan, but it really hasn’t changed all that much, besides making the Doctor even more of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character than she already is. I just have one question: if the Doctor was Brendan in the past, then why was he on Earth? Maybe it will be answered next season. I guess the Master is dead now, but he’s like a cockroach, you can never kill him, so I expect he’ll be back at some point.
Overall: Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched old seasons of DW in years, but I would say this is one of the better seasons. I know I’m probably in the minority here, though. I always try to go into new seasons with an open mind because DW changes all the time and most people are not open to big changes. Whittaker is a good Doctor (and actor in general) and I feel bad that she has to deal with a lot of hate because she’s the first female Doctor. Also, all the diversity is a good thing, shut up. There literally cannot be too much diversity, that’s literally how the world is in real life. I’m looking forward for season 13. I heard Graham and Ryan might not be in the next season, sadly. And I have a strong suspicion the Captain Jack will be back (lol) to meet Thirteen.
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Hahahaaaa we back at it again with another god damn AU Spreadsheet. Dw I’m not gonna throw dialogue on it this time I don’t need it lol. This took me like two days my hands and arms all hurt like really bad guys like seriously ;w;
Btw yes I didn’t bother putting patterns on Hau’s shorts sue me
So then, been talking with my friend and dearly appreciated noodle @the-kawaiifan about headcanons and AUs and all that and I realized that somehow despite being a huge fan of the Gladion/Lycanroc PokeBurst I never thought of a Haudion AU as classic as this. It’s a tad inspired by Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki (AKA Wolf Children) since it’s one of my favorite anime movies. But it’s mostly one of those Beauty & The Beast motifs.
Context: Gladion and his sister Lillie are born with Pokethropy, specifically Lycanthropy inherited from their father who unfortunately passed away just a couple months after Lillie was born. Lusamine is hence a single human mother who obviously struggles to keep her children under wraps. Especially her rowdy son, Gladion.
1.) First Impressions
One day, tiny Gladion is bored and sick of being cooped up on the island and in the mansion. He sneaks aboard a cargo ship headed to Melemele and escapes into the woods. He spends all day playing and mucking about all into the night. Then, out of the blue, he encounters an odd boy with green hair and dark eyes. At first, Gladion is spooked by the sudden light in his face, until little Hau coaxes him and proves he's harmless by showing his flashlight and a backpack of food is all he has. The boys play together and get to talking. It seemed Gladion was not the only child to run away from home that night. Hau messed up, big time, and his grandpa got so scary and angry, and his mother seemed really disappointed in him. He had never made grandpa so mad before. So, he was sure that they didn't need him anymore since he was such a screw-up. Gladion tells him that his mother yells at him all the time for getting into trouble, and that sometimes the people you love get mad, but they never stop loving you. Of course, the boys are eventually found, separated, and talked to: Hau reassured by his mother and grandfather they still love him and aren't mad just as Gladion said, and Gladion scolded by his mother for dashing off and recklessly allowing someone to see him while he's "Wilding out".
2.) Fated Meeting
Fast forward to current day. Hau is out in the woods looking for something to do, he often comes there to hang out for some reason he can’t quite remember. That’s when he spots a rather familiar ahoge poking out of one of the bushes. Where has he seen something like that before? He approaches, calling out to them. Surely enough, he startles them and they turned around wide eyed and...with floppy ears? Suddenly the old forgotten memory from his childhood came rushing back to him. But before he could reconcile with his old friend, Gladion ran off in a fright. Hau pursues him of course, and eventually Gladion gives up and decides to take the aggressive approach. “Are you trying to make me kill you?” he snaps. At first Hau is nervous but it doesn’t take him long to figure out that Gladion is bluffing. Gladion grumbles grumpily, stating that Hau had interrupted his hunting. Hau decides to make up for it by giving him a bag of malasadas he had bought earlier that day for a snack. Gladion takes it, devouring it violently and making a complete mess. Maybe this boy wasn’t as annoying as he thought he was, humph.
3-4.) Sweet Spot
Hau found a particular "Sweet spot” for Gladion when they were younger, scratching behind his left ear. As a more grown teenager, this spot is highly sensitive and while at the very least it yields a constant thumping of one of his forelegs, it can also be a tingly sort of pleasurable sensation for him if done correctly. It also totally doesn’t turn him on during mating season >w>
5.) RockGlad and LycanGlad
Did a full body doodle of little RockGlad since he never went full feral when he was younger. However, as a teenager he is now fully capable of transforming completely into a Midnight Lycanroc. Of course he can still maintain a somewhat human form sometimes and be halfway through transformation, but it's rare for him to be fully feral. It's normally only triggered by extreme stress or emotional turmoil. However, he usually goes full feral on full moons (In this case he has no control over the transformation) or when it is time for him to hunt. When he transforms, it’s revealed the tears on his clothes are actual scars he’s gotten from being attacked in the wild. Also his piercings break off. I decided not to just go for a normal Lycanroc design and tie his clothes into it way more, which is why you can see his hoodie is actually also part of his fur. I didn’t have room for Lillie on this sheet, but she can transform into a Midday Lycanroc. Her transformation is also only triggered by emotional turmoil, but unlike Gladion, there is no forceful trigger. She appears to have more control over her Pokethropy than he does, which could be a result of her form or her reserved personality in general. Nobody knows since Lusamine doesn’t want to perform tests on her children and Mohn is no longer around to tell them.
6.) Perfect The Way You Are
Pretty much like my "You're beautiful" scene from my other AU but like a more Beauty And The Beast sort of aesthetic? Like obviously at one point or another Gladion has insecurities about how he's not normal and that he's a hideous beast. Why just look at him, he's practically a monster. But of course, Hau, being the sweet cinnamon bun that he is, says that's just not true and that Gladion is perfect the way he is. In fact, he'd say Gladion was just as beautiful when he's furry and feral as he is when he's not. He’s perfect just the way he is. Oh dear, why is Glad’s heart suddenly so fuzzy? ◕////◕
7.) Food Chain
So like, most of these doodles haven't really touched a more romantic aspect of the AU. Well this doodle right here is a scene I've played around with in my head for a hot minute. Gladion flees to the mountains of Lanakila to distance himself from Hau after accidentally hurting him in one of his feral states. Hau obviously goes after him and finds Gladion caught in a Pokemon trap that's snared his back foreleg. Hau frees him but is suddenly tackled by a Midday Lycanroc that proceeds to try to bite his face off. Gladion takes action immediately and defends his mate, standing off with the opposing Lycanroc in direct battle while Hau just sorta...panics over in the corner. Gladion is victorious but is horrifically wounded and utterly exhausted. As soon as it's over, he flops onto his side and passes out. Afterwards Hau brings him to the nearest shelter he can find in a small cabin and treats his wounds. When Gladion wakes up he's obviously still upset that Hau follow him. After all, he shouldn't follow Gladion into danger. "Then don't run into danger!" Hau yells, distressed and stubborn as ever. Gladion just can't help but be confused. Why is he doing this? It's just not logical to put himself at risk all the time just to be around Gladion. And of course, Hau confesses that he's in love with Gladion. Yet still the poor Wereroc is confused. How could Hau ever love a hideous beast like him? But Hau reminds him again, he's beautiful the way he is. What's some fangs and some fur matter when Gladion's kind and caring enough to save his life like that? Commence kissus and cuddling throughout the night with sweet whispers to do their best and not act recklessly.
Christ alive I’m tired. Btw not writing a full fanfic for this so don’t ask but y’all can take it and use it if you want. Altho I might make another one for Lillie if y’all really wanna see it .w.
#haudion#cuteboneshipping#sunandcloudshipping#pokemon#pokemon sun and moon#alternate universe#doodle dump#fan art#Hau you sure are irresponsible#also yes btw Lusamine is actually an ok mom in this AU#prolly should've clarified that#Glad stop stressin her out#she just wants u safe -w-
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DW SEASON 12 RANT!!!
i’m gonna be very honest here, and if you disagree with me feel free to either discuss or move on but...
i am really disappointed with what chris chibnall has done with doctor who. here is my reasoning:
1. most of the episodes don’t flow well together.
chibnall has really cool ideas, but he doesn’t seem to be able to incorporate them smoothly into one episode.
for example, on episode 7 (can you hear me?) there was a great opportunity to overlap the characters feelings and fears on earth and the doctors encounter with the weird fucking finger god. jumping between perspectives of the god and the characters emotions would’ve been a great way to shed light on the gods opinion and contrast them with the characters. instead we get a great divide - the gods are defeated in about two seconds flat, and it instantly jumps to the characters lives.
overall, his episodes are really jumpy and the switching between scenes is very uncomfortable to watch. he also makes it very unclear about what’s going on and what ideas he is trying to get across.
2. there is little to no conflict involving the characters.
again, chibnall has good ideas for these characters, but the way they are portrayed on screen makes them seem very bland.
during the previous doctors, companions have been used to add humanity to the doctor’s travels. the plot generally moved forward when the companions asserted their opinions and human morals, which contrasted with the doctors, as they are an old time lord who has different views on life.
graham, ryan and yaz act like they’re on a happy space tour. they almost always jump into every situation without caring about the consequences they could possibly face. the doctor is never argued with, nor does she really argue with her companions. this also adds to the overall flow of the episode, as the lack of conflict makes the it very fast paced and confusing.
meanwhile, there are perfect opportunities for this conflict, based on chibnall’s idea of the characters.
yaz is a police woman. she should be more likely to argue with the doctor’s choices, as she would have very strong opinions of right and wrong, seeing as she was practically trained on the law.
ryan is kinda dumb, which makes for comedic relief. but all he does other than that is flirt with girls (his flaw in riding a bike and balancing and what not has completely disappeared btw). on the episode in which he is introduced, he is shown to have a youtube channel. although this was obviously just used as a medium for narration to modern audiences, that was a perfect opportunity to make ryan a creative character. he could be into photography, music, anything. he comes off as dumb, but really, he could just have a different way of thinking to the other characters, one that is more visual and creative.
graham is like a grandad to ryan. but knowing this, you’d think he’d be a bit more worried about his safety. ryan is the closest thing he has left to his deceased wife, and i’m sure he would do anything to protect him. but i have never seen any concerns from graham about ryan, when they are tasked with the usual mission of jumping straight into danger.
when the doctor is confronted with a villain or a bad situation, she stays dead silent. she seems powerless. this sucks as the doctors transition to being a woman could be so much more exciting. i have seen many strong female characters in shows, and she is not one of them. embrace the femininity! start using her gender as an opportunity to show a different side of the doctor (just like moffat did with the masters transition to missy). another thing i realised just now is that 13 is a very social doctor, which is entirely different to the “lone wolf” kinda doctor we’re used to seeing. she seems dependant on people, and i like that idea. but once again, the ideas there, but it is not consistent or properly explored.
3. 13 is an earth nerd.
of course, the doctor has always been facisnated by humans and earth, but almost every episode is set on this damn planet. there are so many history episodes, and advocates for our environment.
and, look. i’m sure chris is a nice guy and all. we appreciate him shedding light on these things. but it is just way too repetitive.
there should be a good balance between humans and aliens. that’s why i love this damn show. it allows us to compare ourselves to made up species and dystopias, and to explore new ideas.
4. we want more timey wimey stuff.
one of my favourite parts about doctor who are the damn paradoxes and long running storylines throughout each season. bad wolf, 4 knocks, river song - the closest thing to that we’ve gotten is episode 5 (fugitive of judoon). I LOVED THIS DAMN EPISODE. it gave me hope for the future of chibnall’s series. and then in the next episode, what do we get? microplastics. and at some point in episode 6, the doctor says “there’s no time”, and then runs into her FUCKING TIME MACHINE.
thank you for reading, if you did.
overall, i am just never satisfied with what chibnall has given us. when it gets to the point where fans think they can write it better, you know the writers must be doing something wrong.
i really needed to get this out. if people disagree with me, i am curious to see their side of things, so give me all you’ve got!!
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1D Day, Hour Two
The file I’m watching on YouTube is much shorter than an hour (44 minutes!!), but that’s because the poster kindly removed the “VT” (shudder) from random countries (it always boils down to [insert country’s name’s] fans wilding, and there’s only so much of that I can take).
Still, hour 2 is fucking ICONIC for many reasons, the biggest being Harry’s barely constrained rage. Yes, Louis’s “done with it all” demeanor on 1D Day is (justifiably) legendary, but Harry’s right there with him (twin flames, y’all). I can’t tell if he’s coked up, genuinely angry, or just passive-aggressively petty because someone told him he had to speak more quickly, much more loudly, and with some enthusiasm, for chrissakes. Oh, he delivers, all right, so much maniacal shouting. Deets under the cut.
Hour 2 is all Lirry, and I, for one, love Lirry, so it’s 44 minutes well spent. Liam tells us, “We’re kicking it off with VT from France, give it up for France!” (“FRANCAIS!” Harry yells), and after the missing bit of French VT, we’re back to Lirry, with Harry vacillating between murdering the French language (“Mercy boo coo to France”) and shouting “I ATE SNAILS” as his contribution to what they did in France last time they were there (Liam played football with some guys near the Eiffel Tower, fwiw).
The first guest is Dynamo (or, “DYNAMO, EVERYBODY” if you’re Harry), and he’s here for card tricks and more (“OH, SNAP” is Harry’s response to Dynamo nearly twisting his own finger off, and god, it’s horrifying). Harry’s fairly manic through the entirety of the card tricks, but I love Liam because he’s me in every card trick (“I’m glad mine’s easy to remember because I’d probably forget,” which is true of any card you take, like, ever???):
“WHO LOVES MAGIC!” Harry shouts, and there’s a needlessly complicated special interactive trick that gets introduced here, with Dynamo saying that he wrote a prediction on a piece of paper and sealed it in a box at the beginning of the day, so he needs to Harry to keep the key safe. Points if you correctly assumed that Harry will stuff that key right in next to his dick as a joke.
Because nobody rehearsed or prepared for this epic full-day live event, there are all kinds of problems with the cameras, and if you want a fun drinking game to get you hammered within 45 minutes, take a shot every time you see a variation of this (Liam looking vaguely concerned while Harry aggressively points at the sky or the camera while shouting):
A horrifically bad segment that’s a poorly disguised advert for Google Hangouts (lmaoaoaoaooaoaoa) kicks off questions from all over the world (the audio is bad, none of the visuals syncs), but we get some iconic answers to deeply important questions, like, “If you were in the Hunger Games, who would survive the longest?” Liam says he’d hide and then kill passersby (yikes), and Harry says he’s more of a lover than a fighter, so he’d hide in a tree until it all blew over. Liam: “Oh, yeah, you’re definitely more of a lover.” Harry: “Easy there, Piers Morgan.”
The next question is from a group of girls wearing Christmas sweaters, which annoys Harry because “it’s a whole month and two days early,” but I think his issues are bigger than jumping the gun on holidays (and honestly, the UK doesn’t have the twin buffers of T’day and H’ween, so you KNOW this is just part of his general rage). Anyway, they want to know what other careers these two would be involved with, sans the D, and because they’re five, Liam says spaceman and Harry says baker.
After a series of horrible glitches, the next question is about which superhero they’d be, and me as Harry, blowing a giant raspberry as he ponders this important question with the level of exhaustion he surely must feel, three years into this band/interview technique. Liam can read the room, so he picks this one up and says he’d be Kung-Fu Panda, which makes it easy for Harry to say Hong Kong Fuey (!!!) or Top Cat.
With that mess done, it’s time to “ROLL THE VT!” (according to Harry) for Switzerland, and because the producers here are nothing if not cliché lovers, that means tiny cowbells for Harry to play with when we come back. He quickly tires of this, throws the cowbells off stage, yells “WE NEED A CAMERA,” and walks straight into the call box with the overwhelmed girls from hour 1. These girls are still weeping, but Harry says, “Thank you for listening to the album, you’re getting kicked out, sorry,” in the flattest voice possible, so good cop Liam hurries over to ask the weeping girls which song they liked and usher in two new people.
“Happily” is debuted, but we don’t get to see it, boo, but we do get ushered over to a theater with some contest winners. Or as Harry says, “We’re here backstage to meet some fans who have won a chance to be here…SHUT UP…in our VIP cinema,” and then, “You’re crying…is that because I told you to shut up? I didn’t mean it.” Liam is there again to save the day, but there are lots of sound problems, so it’s hard to tell what’s happening, tbh.
Anyway, these fans get to ask some iconic questions, such as, “What would we find in your fridge?” which gives us this classic from Harry: “I DON’T LIVE ANYWHERE, SO NO FOOD,” as the audience says, “awwwwww” in the background.
There’s a question from a lady on the screen, saying that she’s in front of the X Factor studios, and she wants to know what they would change their audition song to, if they could go back in time, and because Harry’s well aware of his various stalkers, he says, “I saw her the other day at the X Factor studios, 100 percent” (fwiw, Harry would do “Wrecking Ball” with props, and Liam would do “Mirrors”).
The last question is what they would change if they could go back in time, and Liam says probably his older haircuts, and Harry says that one day in April (and he mentions April again later in the hour, so someone investigate), he had a dodgy breakfast burrito, so he’d probably change that (he also had a dodgy batch of prawns one time, too, but that’s a different story, and god, he’s an underrated comedian). The sound is for shit, but Liam doubts this, prompting Harry to scream, “DON’T JUDGE ME, LIAM, I’M TRYING MY BEST,” and whyyyyyy is he so on fire (and why do I love it so much):
We get back to the studio with an inexplicably breathless Scott Mills (he says he ran…but from where, lmao) and do another spin to figure out who the official 1D account (????) will follow on twitter. Harry starts cheating before people start yelling at him to stop, which is a shame, really, just follow all of these poor bastards, honestly!
We don’t get to see the VT from Germany, but we do get to see Lirry bickering about camera problems and stolen lines, plus an exhaustive rundown of all the thrilling things to come, and I’m so thankful to the person who made this moment a Dua Lipa meme all those months ago:
One of my favorite segments has a really awkward setup, but tl/dr/dw, Harry brags, “I’m a bit of a chef myself, and if I’m honest, Liam, I’m pretty damned good at it,” so we get a “ROLL VT!” and an aggressive finger point, both from Harry, and a silly but charming cook off with the tour chef, who seems like a lovely lady (p.s. look at how glorious his hair was under all those tablecloths…also, he’s chewing gum in a gross way, but this whole bit is worth watching in full):
The cook off is genuinely funny and results in a beautiful pavlova from Sarah and a basic sandwich (with pickle and paprika) from Harry, judged by Mark Jarvis, Gemma Styles, and Lou Teasdale, all of whom Harry bribes. I’m more fascinated with this ring, and my head canon has it either saying ILY or JEN (both of which make me smile):
With that bit over, we move on to more rapping of random tweets, and it’s embarrassing, so I won’t get into that. But the VT of Liam surfing is something special, not only because he looks so obviously happy while he’s doing it, but also because he says some very profound things in the interview around it: “I get followed a lot, so it’s quite nice to get out in the sea where nobody can follow you […] it’s so nice and peaceful […] it doesn’t matter what you look like, you can just have a good time, it’s a bit of an escape,” and ouchhhhhh, that’s some real talk.
We head back to the studio for a fashion segment with Louise someone; a handful of lucky fans in Sweden won a t-shirt design contest, and Lirry are gonna do some modeling. Louise is happy that Harry knows where Sweden is (Harry: “I got a B in geography…might have been a C, can’t remember”), and some poor shlub working on this trainwreck in the shadow gets dragged out on camera because he’s wearing green jeans, but he’s not there for long (Harry: “GET OUT” *shove*). Louise describes the fashion show to come, and Harry says that he’s quite good at walking in straight lines, but Liam reminds him that he tends to fall over a lot on stage and that the tiny catwalk is actually pretty shiny (god bless Liam for being so responsible).
Luckily for all of us, professional model Cindy Crawford is there to help with some tips (she’s introduced as “IT’S ONLY BLOODY CINDY CRAWFORD” by Harry, and I die with Cindy’s “Hello, boys,” and Harry’s “Hello, Mrs. Crawford”…followed swiftly by Cindy’s, “Please don’t call me Mrs. Crawford”). There’s some sexi modeling, and even though he only wears two shirts to Harry’s three (*and* Harry gets down on the ground to pose), Liam wins, according to the Swedes. He requests a model off with Cindy as his prize, and he’s surprisingly good?
The last segment is with Dynamo, the magic man, and for some reason, Harry’s weirdly agro about his own shirt mic, like, unnecessarily so, ripping it off to speak with Dynamo before gently putting it back where it belongs. Maybe he’s just frustrated about how they have to use Google+ (lololololol) for a totally convoluted imaginary concert that ultimately doesn’t work (me as him, tbh).
While Liam does tech support live on air (!!), Harry asks Dynamo to do some card tricks to stall for time after literally nobody says a word when he monotones, “We’re having a technical difficulty…does anybody know any jokes.” Harry pulls a card as directed, but then, for seemingly no reason, he suddenly starts yelling, “THIS ISN’T WORKING, SHALL WE SEE SOME HIGHLIGHTS? HIGHLIGHTS!!! ROLL HIGHLIGHTS [aggressive pointing]!!” and the highlights are truly awful, and I hope he’s enjoying his smoke break for hour 3, jfc.
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Ch. 1: “The Empress of Mars” Analysis Doctor Who S10.9: Fastballs, Mars-Not-Mars, Rassilon References, Etc.
Apologies for getting these 3 chapters for “The Empress of Mars” out after the airing of “The Eaters of Light.” I post first on Archive Of Our Own, which I did before the 10th episode. With photos, it takes more time to post here.
NOTE: TPEW = “The Pyramid at the End of the World” TRODM = “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” THORS = “The Husbands of River Song” CAL = Charlotte Abigail Lux, the little girl from the Library TOS = The Original Series of Star Trek TNG = Star Trek: The Next Generation
Wow, So Much to Say and So Little Time!
It’s going to be impossible to cover all the main points of “The Empress of Mars” because of the huge data dump of subtext. DW has run out of time to tell the story in a slower manner. Even though the subtext has been coming at a fast pace all season, this episode crams more subtext into it than probably any I’ve ever seen. It must have taken Mark Gatiss awhile to figure out how to get all the references into the episode.
These week-to-week analyses are just the start, too, of how I read subtext. The one thing they lack is to place them in the broader context after several weeks and months, seeing how they fit in the subsequent story. For the most part, I don’t have that luxury of doing that here in a weekly format. That’s something for a post mortem, so to speak, after Season 10 is over.
Due to lack of time, I’m going to show only necessary photos.
The previous analysis was really long. My apologies. This analysis will be in multiple chapters.
Big Classic Who Connection
“The Empress of Mars” has a very Classic Who feel to it. It’s clear to me that Mark Gatiss is a fan of the Ice Warriors since this is the second story he’s written with them. His first one was “Cold War,” an 11th Doctor story.
However, the really big Classic Who connection comes at the end with the Alpha Centauri character, shown below. Alpha Centauri is an ambassador, or was, at least, in Classic Who.
The woman, Ysanne Churchman, who voices this character in “The Empress of Mars” is the same person who voiced the original Alpha Centauri in the 3rd Doctor story “The Curse of Peladon.” I had never heard of this character before. But now I’m geeking out with the Classic Who connection of getting the original actress.
Ysanne Churchman was born May 14, 1925, and according to the TARDIS Wikia, she has “voiced Alpha Centauri in the Doctor Who stories The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon and Empress of Mars, and an Eight Legs in the Doctor Who story Planet of the Spiders.”
Usurpation of a Different Type, Cowardice & Leadership
This story has a lot of themes. And one of them is usurpation. It’s not possession as we’ve seen but the situation where young Captain Catchlove in the British army is blackmailing older Colonel Godsacre with the colonel’s secret. Godsacre is a figurehead of sorts, and at any moment of the captain’s choosing, the captain can take command, and he does.
Interestingly, this theme is connected to another, which is people grappling with cowardice in the face of leadership. The colonel had a crisis of leadership sometime back, which led to his desertion. However, Catchlove fairs no better once he usurps control.
In fact, he is even more of a coward than Godsacre. Even though we see Godsacre run again from leadership once he, the Doctor, and Bill escape the brig, it’s Catchlove who throws Vincey in front of Ice Warror fire to save himself. And a little later, Catchlove takes Queen Iraxxa hostage to save himself again. In fact, he’s planning to desert his men and strand everyone on Mars.
In the end, Godsacre finds redemption when he pledges his life to die bravely in battle.
GODSACRE: God save the Queen. SOLDIERS: God save the Queen! IRAXXA: You will die with honour, with bravery, and in the service of those you swore to protect. GODSACRE: Thank you. You don't know what that means. Thank you. IRAXXA: But not today. In battle, soldier. To die in battle is the way of the warrior. Pledge your allegiance to me and my world, and I will ensure you have the opportunity. GODSACRE: My life and my service are yours. (kneels) To the end. IRAXXA: To the death, my friend. To the death.
It’s a good day to die, a warrior’s hope to die well in battle. While this phrase does come up in TNG with Klingons, like Worf, who is living on the Enterprise, among humans, I first heard this phrase as a child. It comes up in the movie Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman, a white man who was raised among a group of Cheyenne in the Old West after his parents were killed by another tribe.
I mention this because redemption and dying well have become themes for the 12th Doctor. Dying well is implicit in the whole idea of Norse culture and Ragnarök. And we’ll examine this more in the next chapter.
Anyway, Godsacre and Catchlove aren’t the only ones grappling with leadership in the episode. Iraxxa admonishes Friday, telling him his duty, as an Ice Warrior, is to command.
DOCTOR: His cryogenic cell was damaged. They saved him.
IRAXXA: And made him their pet!
FRIDAY: It was necessary to dissemble, Majesty. I thought only of your resurrection. It was a tactical decision.
IRAXXA: An Ice Warrior's duty is to command!
She doesn’t accept his excuse.
Cowardice & Leadership in a Broader Sense
Cowardice has long been a theme. The Doctor has been running all his life, according to the 10th Doctor in “The Sound of Drums,” ever since he looked into the Untempered Schism at the age of eight. In “Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent,” we find out he’s been running from himself. He’s scared of the prophecy that he is the Hybrid, who will destroy the universe for love.
GENERAL: All Matrix prophecies concur that this creature will one day stand in the ruins of Gallifrey. It will unravel the Web of Time and destroy a billion billion hearts to heal its own.
Cowardly in Love
As a result, the Doctor knows he is not supposed to fall in love with anyone. Love is a curse, which comes back to the 7th Doctor story “The Curse of Fenric.” He then becomes cowardly in love, too, not telling people how he feels. We saw those results, for example, in River’s outpouring of anguish in THORS.
Cowardice in the Face of Leadership
In “Dark Water,” Danny Pink dies. Later, he has a chance to delete his emotions in the Nethersphere, but he can’t bring himself to do it. In “Death in Heaven,” the 2nd part of the finale to Season 8, Danny becomes a Cyberman with emotions.
He wants Clara to turn off his emotions because he can’t bring himself to do it. He’s a coward here. Yet Danny admonishes the Doctor for the Doctor’s cowardice of not wanting to turn off Danny’s emotions, either, and allowing Clara to do it. Danny is being hypocritical, but then Danny is a mirror of the Doctor.
DOCTOR: Danny, Danny, I need you to tell me. What are the clouds going to do? What is the plan? CYBER-DANNY: How would I know? DOCTOR: You're part of a hive mind now. Presumably that's how you found Clara. Just look. CYBER-DANNY: I can't see much. DOCTOR: Look harder. CYBER-DANNY: Clara, watch this. This is who the Doctor is. Watch the blood-soaked old general in action. I can't see properly, sir, because this needs activating. If you want to know what's coming, you have to switch it on. And didn't all of those beautiful speeches just disappear in the face of a tactical advantage? Sir. DOCTOR: (sighs) I need to know. I need to know. CYBER-DANNY: (sotto) Yes. (normal) Yes, you do. CLARA: Give me the screwdriver. DOCTOR: No. CLARA: Just do it, Doctor. Do as you are told. (The Doctor meets Cyber-Danny's gaze then gives Clara the sonic screwdriver.) CYBER-DANNY: Typical officer. Got to keep those hands clean.
In the end, it’s the women who step up. Clara turns off Danny’s emotions, and Bill, to help stop a slaughter, confronts Iraxxa in an irreverent way that even the Doctor wouldn’t or couldn’t consider.
Fear & Usurpation
Has the Doctor been usurped because of his fear when he was blind?
Interestingly, the Master talks about his own fear in the 10th Doctor episode “The Sound of Drums.”
MASTER: The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a
[Underpass]
MASTER [OC]: Time War. I was there when the
[Cabinet room]
MASTER: Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. I saw it. I ran. I ran so far. Made myself human so they would never find me, because I was so scared.
Turning human is a form of usurpation of a sort, where the human part takes full control of the Doctor’s body. In “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood,” we saw how different the Doctor was when he was human. He did things he would never do as a Time Lord, like having children beaten or sending them into battle.
Both the Master and Doctor turned themselves human out of fear. Is this how all the problems started? There is subtext in “The Empress of Mars” that suggests, not for the first time, that events are all the Doctor’s fault. We’ll look at this in the next chapter.
Imperialism: Another Type of Exploitation
Exploitation of beings is one of the main themes in Season 10 within different types of governments, economic systems, and government actions. We’ve seen it in a totalitarian government in “The Lie of the Land.” Before that, we’ve seen capitalism gone amok in multiple episodes. And now imperialism rears its ugly head in “The Empress of Mars.”
According to Wikipedia:
Imperialism is an action that involves a country (usually an empire or kingdom) extending its power by the acquisition of territories. It may also include the exploitation of these territories, an action that is linked to colonialism. Colonialism is generally regarded as an expression of imperialism.
It is different from New Imperialism, as the term imperialism is usually applied to the colonization of the Americas between the 15th and 19th centuries, as opposed to the expansion of Western Powers (and Japan) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, both are examples of imperialism.
Since exploitation of groups of people, racism, and species-ism are heavily referenced, especially this season, I expect this has to be at the heart of the story with the Doctor. It comes back to the question: why is Caecilius a slave in Pompeii to begin with? Is it because he is a Janus of sorts but turned himself human? The Janus could also possibly relate to Missy and the Master, where Missy represents the future and the Master the past.
Imperialism, Robinson Crusoe, Friday & Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe, a 1719 novel by Englishman Daniel Defoe, is important to look at since Friday, the Ice Warrior, is specifically mentioned as being named for the character in the book.
In the novel, Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman whose father wants him to study law. Initially, Crusoe is committed to obeying, but he eventually capitulates to the temptation of the sea and embarks on a ship with a friend. They nearly die in a storm. On his second voyage, Moorish pirates seize the ship, and Crusoe gets enslaved. Later, he and a slave boy break free, and Crusoe sells the slave boy.
Years later, he gets involved in the slave trade when he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he gets shipwrecked in a storm, along with 3 animals. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, so here is another religious conversion event, similar to the Doctor going through the Great Work.
Wikipedia says
More years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.
Friday, too, wants to eat the people they kill, but Crusoe forbids it. Crusoe spends 28 years marooned, the last 4 with his servant, Friday, according to Wikipedia, “on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has since been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966, but various literary sources have also been suggested.”
The expression "Man Friday," comes from the novel and describes a male personal assistant or servant, especially one who is particularly competent or loyal. "Girl Friday" is the female equivalent. (Nardole is, at times, playing the Doctor’s Man Friday.)
It’s the interpretations of the novel that I find very important because they symbolize themes, especially in Season 10. It’s James Joyce’s that I find particularly interesting. According to Wikipedia:
Novelist James Joyce noted that the true symbol of the British Empire is Robinson Crusoe, to whom he ascribed stereotypical and somewhat hostile English racial characteristics: "He is the true prototype of the British colonist. ... The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity." In a sense Crusoe attempts to replicate his society on the island. This is achieved through the use of European technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the "king" of the island, whilst the captain describes him as the "governor" to the mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is explicitly referred to as a "colony". The idealised master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural imperialism. Crusoe represents the "enlightened" European whilst Friday is the "savage" who can only be redeemed from his barbarous way of life through assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nonetheless Defoe also takes the opportunity to criticise the historic Spanish conquest of South America.
According to Wikipedia, Defoe’s “most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1701), defended the [King of England William III, who was Dutch-born] against the perceived xenophobia of his enemies, satirising the English claim to racial purity.”
Interestingly, racism was not overt in “The Empress of Mars,” and at least from what we saw, there was tolerance of both Vincey and Bill, at least race-wise. We did see sexism, which added realism for the time period. On top of that, Vincey had a picture of Alice, the white woman he wanted to marry. So I found the message of human toleration hopeful from the start, except for Godsacre’s initial reaction to the Doctor. Most likely, there’s more going on here with the Doctor than what it appears.
Instead of racism, species-ism is a problem with both the humans and the Ice Warriors. The humans have made Friday a servant, just like Robinson Crusoe did, and they want to claim another planet as their own. On the other hand, Iraxxa calls humans pink things and worms.
I see this episode as hopeful in the end, where the 2 sides show tolerance and cooperation, overcoming whatever prejudices they have to live, work, and die together.
While the themes are sound, we can’t trust the setting.
They’re in the Library Matrix
From the start, the Matrix makes its presence known. Things aren’t happening the way they appear.
NASA
At the beginning of the episode, the shot of NASA looks very digitized, so we know right away this is in the Matrix. Also, there’s a reflection line (red arrow) to tell us this isn’t real.
Inside NASA, there’s another reflection line (red arrow). Also, there are at least 3 types of computers (yellow arrows) in the mission control room. While I’m not an expert on working at NASA, I’ve been in a similar environment. The computers would most likely all be the same in this type of environment. Maintaining multiple types of computers (one is a laptop) costs more money and can create potential problems.
Doctor Fades into the Clockwork
Interestingly, right at the end of the NASA scene, the Doctor smiles at the “God Save the Queen” message, which seems odd once again. Then, a mist of sorts starts to superimpose itself over the Doctor, and the color mutes before he starts to fade into the clockwork, as shown in the image below. He becomes part of the machinery.
Mars Is Not Mars
We know the Doctor, Bill, and Nardole can’t be on Mars for multiple reasons. The Doctor while on Mars said, “Mind you, there's a lot here that doesn't make sense.” So true! These are just a few of the problems:
Martian Gravity
Since Mars has a lot less mass than Earth, the surface gravity on Mars, according to NASA, is only 37.5% of the surface gravity on Earth. Therefore, if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 37.5 pounds on Mars. The moon’s mass is about 1/6 of Earth, so 100 pounds on Earth weighs only 16.7 pounds on the moon.
While people on Mars wouldn’t be bouncing as much as on the moon when they walked, there would still be a noticeable difference in how people moved.
Martian Oxygen
To prove there was oxygen on the Mars-not-Mars, there was a fire. That didn’t preclude any harmful elements or compounds, though. Nardole, the Doctor, and Bill could still have died when they took off their helmets.
On Earth, our atmosphere is mostly made of nitrogen, 78%, while oxygen accounts for about 21% Argon, carbon dioxide, and smaller amounts of other gases make up the rest.
On Mars, according to the Universe Today, the atmosphere is composed of 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water. The atmosphere is not breathable without a spacesuit or an artificial environment. Even if the Ice Warriors had created an artificial environment, that doesn’t account for the gravity issues, unless this is a spaceship with artificial gravity.
There’s also less atmospheric pressure on Mars.
It’s interesting that oxygen is once again a subject and that there would be a lack thereof. I’m betting “Oxygen” will be referenced again in at least one subsequent episode.
Spacesuits Are Fake
The helmets wouldn’t have helped anyway because the spacesuits are the 2-piece variety. Therefore, they can’t be airtight the way they should be. There’s no way the steam punk spacesuits of the Victorians are airtight. I do love the ear horns. Nice touch. Why does Catchlove’s helmet have all those viewing holes? How many eyes does he have?
Helmet Lights
Most of the time, we can see 4 lights in the helmets, a sign they are in the Library. A few times, we can see 5, which is a weapon of mass destruction. This episode is very much foreshadowing the Doctor’s fate, which we’ll examine in the subtext references.
Martian Ice Cap Obscuring “God Save the Queen”
There’s no way the Martian ice cap wasn’t there in Victorian times. Therefore, the whole “God Save the Queen” message couldn’t possibly be written the way it appears.
Pitching Fastballs: Astounding Number of Internal & External References
Wow, there are an astounding number of internal and external references in the subtext! On the whole, “The Empress of Mars” possibly has more internal and external references to movies, TV shows, books, short stories, songs, British terminology, mythology, and other DW episodes than any other episode so far that I’ve seen in DW. Also, I believe Season 10 has more of these internal and external references than any other season of DW.
“The Empress of Mars” is a great example of fastballs: the copious subtext references that we have to deal with in one week before the next episode airs. Because I had to look up most of the references, it’s taken time just to understand all of this before I get to write anything, which cut into my writing time. There are several references to Classic Who episodes, but I only had seen a few of them before this episode.
On top of this, some of the external references are actually indirect allusions to other DW episodes. So there is a big bowl of spaghetti to look at.
“The Empress of Mars,” The Princess of Mars & Star Wars
Right from the start, the title of the episode, “The Empress of Mars,” is an external reference to a classic science fantasy novel A Princess of Mars by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs. It’s the first book of his Barsoom series.
The Princess of Mars and the Barsoom series is what Star Wars is based on. In 2012, Disney put out the John Carter movie but horribly marketed it. Many people didn’t realize this John Carter story started it all. The original story really is remarkable given Burroughs wrote it in 1912.
The Doctor even made a reference, too, to Star Wars, when he said, “I have a bad feeling about this.” That quote is said in every Star Wars movie at least once.
Here’s what StarWars.com has to say about Burroughs’ story The Princess of Mars and subsequent books and the John Carter film.
John Carter is a film directed by Pixar alum Andrew Stanton that follows Civil War veteran John Carter on his astounding trip to the planet Barsoom, which we know as Mars. There he meets a princess leading a rebellion, fights against an evil empire, and meets a variety of strange aliens on a desert wasteland of a planet, gets powers far beyond the abilities of normal men, and encounters a strange religion. There are times where he’s captured, thrown into an arena to fight bizarre monsters, and other times where he’s forced to rescue a princess.
It sounds like I could be talking about Star Wars just as easily as John Carter. And since John Carter came out in 2012, you might be thinking, “No! You’ve got it the other way around! John Carter was influenced by Star Wars.”
But you’d be surprised.
Here’s a quote from George Lucas in a 1977 issue of Science Fiction Review: “Originally, I wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, with all the trimmings, but I couldn’t obtain all the rights. So I began researching and found where [Flash Gordon creator] Alex Raymond got his idea: The works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially his John Carter series of books.”
We examined many chapters ago how the Doctor was going to be involved in a rebellion. We’ve seen the evil empire in “The Lie of the Land.” Also, we’ve even seen much of the rest of it, including a strange religion – the Church of the Papal Mainframe, the Silence, and the Monks.
Mars Has Significant Ties to Previous Episodes
When I think of Mars references in DW, I think of “The Waters of Mars,” which “The Pilot” alluded to with all the water coming off of Heather. However, there are other episodes that are very important, too. BTW, this isn’t an exhaustive list:
“The Pyramids of Mars”
In “The Pyramids of Mars,” a 4th Doctor story, Sutekh, according to the TARDIS Wikia, is a powerful extraterrestrial, also known as Sutekh the Destroyer. He was an Osiran who planned to destroy all life in the universe. Afraid of all forms of life which might one day challenge his hegemony, he became the destroyer of all living things. The Osiran inspired Egyptian mythology.
At one point, he usurped the Doctor’s body.
“The Ambassadors of Death”
“The Ambassadors of Death” is an early 3rd Doctor story with Liz Shaw as his companion. I had never seen this story before. It can possibly explain a bit about what is happening in Season 10.
The Doctor joins UNIT's investigation of the mystery surrounding Mars Probe 7. The Recovery 7, on a rescue mission, runs into problems once it comes back to Earth. The 3 astronauts are kidnapped. It turns out these astronauts are a triad of radiation-dependent alien ambassadors, who swapped places with the 3 human astronauts.
According to the TARDIS Wikia, the Doctor finds that Mars Probe 7 is still orbiting in space. Intercepted by a huge, alien spaceship and taken aboard, the Doctor finds the real astronauts unharmed, but mind controlled. The aliens' captain threatens to destroy the Earth unless the 3 ambassadors are released.
The Doctor returns to Earth and discovers that the kidnapping of the ambassadors is part of a plot devised by xenophobic ex-astronaut General Carrington to frame the aliens. The general has a machine built to mind control them, forcing them to kill humans, so he can convince the world's authorities to wage war against the extraterrestrials.
The 3 ambassadors act like robots, very similar to the zombies in “Oxygen.” In fact, like the zombies, the aliens can kill with their touch. Once the aliens aren’t being mind controlled, they want to know why they have been made to kill when they came in peace. The Doctor and UNIT thwart the general’s plans and arrange an exchange of the ambassadors for the astronauts.
Interestingly, right at the end, there is a big structure overhead made of hexagons, symbolic of imprisonment. The Doctor walks out, representing his freedom as one of the astronauts.
In the 10th Doctor episode “Smith and Jones,” the Doctor talked about roentgen radiation after using an X-ray machine to kill a Slab, a slave drone, who was trying to kill them.
MARTHA: What did you do? DOCTOR: Increased the radiation by five thousand per cent. Killed him dead. MARTHA: But isn't that going to kill you? DOCTOR: Nah, it's only roentgen radiation. We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. It's safe for you to come out. I've absorbed it all. All I need to do is expel it.
Why would the Doctor or any Time Lord be playing with roentgen bricks in a nursery?
Interestingly, in the very 1st Dalek story called “The Daleks,” the Daleks talk about needing radiation:
DALEK 2: We need radiation to survive. So we must increase our supply of radiation.
DALEK 1: But there is only one way to do that.
DALEK 2: Exactly. We may have to explode another neutron bomb.
There’s a possible theme here of needing radiation to survive in 2 of 3 episodes.
Tip: When reading subtext, always look for patterns (at least 3 occurrences). Or what could be the beginning of a pattern (2 occurrences). Themes that keep coming up are foreshadowing the coming canon. Patience is typically required because it’s rare for foreshadowing to become canon in the next episode. Usually, things take years to become canon. However, Season 10 and the 12th Doctor are different.
There are several key points here, making patterns that we’ve encountered.
1. There is a triad involved.
2. There is usurpation, not of possessing a body, but of mind controlling the aliens to kill, something they normally wouldn’t do; they came in peace.
3. Their touch kills, like the zombies in “Oxygen.” (This isn’t a pattern with 3 occurrences that I know of, but with everything else matching it becomes part of the pattern.)
4. We know the subtext shows in “Deep Breath” that the Doctor is a cyborg. Is he really a cyborg? Is it that he is just mind controlled to look that way, or is he really that way? If so, how did he get that way?
5. The aliens are being framed, which is something we examined as a possibility in my analysis of “The Lie of the Land,” relating back to how the Valeyard, the Master, and the Time Lords were working to frame the 6th Doctor.
Therefore, “The Ambassadors of Death” does help substantiate my hypothesis that the Doctor is being framed and being used to kill against his will. And this also goes along with the image we keep taking a look at, shown below, from “Human Nature” that has said all along the 24th Doctor (the Roman Doctor) is in the Library metaphor being framed and used against his will. And it’s because he’s unbalanced by love. For the extensive examination, take a look at Chapter 10 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.
There’s a similar photo of the 12th Doctor that we looked at from TRODM in Lucy’s kitchen in the pre-airing analysis of the episode in Chapter 9 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.
A cyborg assassin and time travel are themes of The Terminator, which Bill mentioned in “The Empress of Mars.” The Terminator goes back in time to kill someone to prevent a revolt. Not only does this have similarities to using the ambassadors as cyborg-type killing machines, but also the movie’s concept of an assassin relates to the 4th Doctor story, “The Deadly Assassin,” which we examined in my analysis of “Extremis.” In it, the Master frames the Doctor.
“The Christmas Invasion”
While the first 10th Doctor story “The Christmas Invasion” has just a small reference to Mars, it is very significant. Britain sends the Guinevere One space probe on a mission to the red planet and loses touch with it, which is a call back to “The Ambassadors of Death.” While, the signal loss is only for a short time, unlike the Classic Who episode, we see a triad of assassin Santas. Also, Mickey and the others talk of the Santas being pilot fish, a reference to the 12th Doctor. Santa, for that matter, is also a reference to the Doctor. Therefore, there is quite a bit of similarities to “The Ambassadors of Death.”
Guinevere is also a character in the King Arthur legend.
“The Waters of Mars,” “The Five Doctors,” the Ice Queen’s & Rassilon’s Tombs
Back in Chapter 19 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, I posed a question. “Did the 10th Doctor bring a curse upon himself when he announced he was Time Lord Victorious” in “The Waters of Mars”?
Here’s what I said
I believe he is either a version of Rassilon or a slave of Rassilon, since this most likely comes with a curse of immortality, just like with the Ring of Rassilon.
Rassilon, in the past, has slept eternally in his tomb while his mind lived on in the Matrix. Putting on the ring grants the wearer immortality. However, it imprisons the wearer in the stone of Rassilon, watching over him forever. In “The Five Doctors,” a Time Lord puts on the ring and gets petrified as a relief on the side of Rassilon’s sarcophagus. The ring comes with the warning:
To lose is to win And he who wins shall lose
So Time Lord Victorious loses.
Weeping Angels are probably involved in this.
We’ve actually looked at “The Five Doctors” multiple times in recent chapters because Rassilon’s insignia keeps coming up in Season 10. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the Ice Queen’s tomb in “The Empress of Mars” looks similar to Rassilon’s tomb, shown below, in “The Five Doctors.”
Rassilon is sleeping eternally (red arrow). However, we see his projection from the Matrix (yellow arrow) of his head. The Time Lord on the right will end up in the blank area (white arrow) as a stone relief because he puts on Rassilon’s ring and gets immortality at a price of being a sentinel to Rassilon. This relief is one reason why I believe the Weeping Angels may have something to do with all of this.
In comparison, here’s the Ice Queen’s tomb, shown below. Like Rassilon’s tomb, the items underneath the body, in this case gems, have an effect on the body above.
In fact, both Rassilon and Iraxxa claim themselves as resurrected.
In “Hell Bent,” after Rassilon tries to have the Doctor executed, gunships show up
RASSILON: Excellent, General. You sent for reinforcements. DOCTOR: No, he didn't. (He puts on his sonic sunglasses.) DOCTOR: I did.
(The final troopers join the Doctor as the gunships train their weapons on Rassilon.)
RASSILON: What? I am Rassilon the redeemer! Rassilon, the resurrected! Gallifrey is mine!
In “The Empress of Mars,” Iraxxa talks to Friday, who is here sentinel:
IRAXXA: My Sentinel. You have fulfilled your pledge. I am resurrected!
Mars, the Roman God of War, and the Janus Connection
Mars is significant for multiple reasons. Not only is it the setting of multiple Martian episodes that have a bearing on what is happening, but also Mars was the Roman god of war. According to Wikipedia, he was also “an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army.”
Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, “Mars was a part of the Archaic Triad along with Jupiter and Quirinus, the latter of whom as a guardian of the Roman people had no Greek equivalent.” And Quirinus: “In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was also an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus.”
Regarding Janus: In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.
This is significant because not only is there a triad, which we’ve examined in my analysis in “Extremis,” although not in the same context, but also we’ve examined the Janus connection, which shows up in “Face the Raven,” where Clara is killed. We also saw it in “The Pilot,” where Heather is shown as a Janus in a puddle. Since I never got to finish “The Pilot” analysis, I ended up talking about the Janus concept and mistaken identity in my analysis of “Oxygen.”
The Doctor is a mirror of the 2 Janus in “Face the Raven” as well as Heather. Interestingly, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. We know the Doctor is connected to time, and we’ve examined the Door/Doughnut metaphor (which would also cover passages and gateways) in Chapter 17 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, along with the Doctor’s struggle with duality in my analysis of “Oxygen.”
Therefore, it’s fitting that “The Empress of Mars” takes place on Mars-not-Mars for multiple reasons.
I’ve arrived at the symbology of duality and the Door/Doughnut metaphor (which includes gates, doorways, and passages) independently from the symbolism of Janus. Because everything connects, it verifies we are on the right track of reading the subtext.
Tip: When reading subtext in DW, just about all subtext will have multiple connections, so it should link up from various, independent directions. Once it does, you know these things are important and will become part of the canon in some form.
Alpha Centauri & Ice Warrior References
As we saw above, Alpha Centauri shows up in 2 stories, neither of which I had seen.
“The Curse of Peladon” & TOS: “Journey to Babel”
“The Curse of Peladon,” a 3rd Doctor episode, is very interesting, especially because DW obviously based this episode on parts of TOS: “Journey to Babel” and Spock’s background. Now, I understand better why Spock’s name comes up 5 times in “The Empty Child.”
Anyway, in “The Curse of Peladon,” according to the TARDIS Wikia:
The Doctor and Jo make a test flight in the TARDIS and arrive on the planet Peladon. Seeking shelter, they enter the citadel of the soon-to-be-crowned King Peladon, where the Doctor is mistaken for a human dignitary summoned to act as chairman of a committee assessing an application by the planet to join the Galactic Federation.
Here’s a case of mistaken identity. Only men of rank and women of royal blood are allowed in the royal throne room of Peladon. The Doctor and Jo become imposter Federation delegates – Jo impersonating a princess.
Every time the term “Federation” came up, I kept thinking of Star Trek. At first, I didn’t think anything of the soon-to-be king’s pedigree that he was half-human on his mother’s side. However, when characters started talking about the delegates voting on Peladon’s application to join the Federation and mining rights were involved, along with a strange murder, I suddenly realized this was based on parts of the TOS episode “Journey to Babel.” And the soon-to-be king was a mirror of Spock, who is the Doctor in DW, as “The Empty Child” makes clear.
According to Memory Alpha regarding “Journey to Babel”:
The delegates will be attending a conference on the neutral planetoid named Babel to decide the admission of the planet Coridan to the Federation, which is rich in dilithium but is poorly defended.
As the Enterprise comes under attack on the way to a diplomatic conference on Babel, one of the alien dignitaries is murdered, and Spock's estranged father Sarek is the prime suspect – but he is also deathly ill, and only Spock can save him.
In this Star Trek episode, we find out Spock broke tradition against the wishes of his father and joined Starfleet, an instrument of the Federation. In comparison, one of King Peladon’s trusted advisors is accused by another trusted advisor of abandoning “the ancient ways of our people.” And he says that this will bring the curse of Aggedor upon everyone. To avoid the curse, the advisor kills the other. The king wants to join the Federation, which would abandon the ancient ways.
The Doctor, as Spock, is a mirror of soon-to-be King Peladon. The prince wants to marry Jo, the Doctor’s companion.
In comparison to the Doctor-as-a-prince mirror in “The Curse of Peledon,” in “The Lie of the Land” the 12th Doctor is associated with Prince Charles (red arrow), shown behind the Doctor, and Lady Diana in her wedding dress (on the other side of his head). This happens inside the pyramid just before he touches the seated Monk’s head.
Then, in “The Curse of Peladon” both Alpha Centauri and Ice Warriors show up. The Ice Warriors are not the villains. In fact, one of the Ice Warriors saves the Doctor’s life.
Even more interesting is that there are emblems of Aggedor, the beast, shown below, whom people are afraid of. It looks like a pig or boar, which is reminiscent of the sheriff’s boar emblem in the 12th Doctor episode also penned by Mark Gatiss, “The Robot of Sherwood.”
“The Robot of Sherwood”
Here’s the Sheriff’s shield and emblem in “Robot of Sherwood.” This shield also shows up in THORS.
Surprisingly, Ice Warriors and Mars are also mentioned in “The Robot of Sherwood” in a conversation between the Doctor and Clara.
CLARA: Yeah, you. You stop bad things happening every minute of every day. That sounds pretty heroic to me.
(The Doctor licks something from a large metal spoon. Custard?)
DOCTOR: Just passing the time. Hey, what about Mars?
CLARA: What?!
DOCTOR: The Ice Warrior Hives.
CLARA: You said it was my choice.
The sheriff (a cyborg) was supposed to lose his head in the episode. However, it was to air just after journalists were decapitated, so the BBC, thinking better than to show a decapitation, edited it out.
“The Monster of Peladon” & TOS: “The Cloud Minders”
“The Monster of Peladon” is a sequel to “The Curse of Peladon.” However, it’s not that good. Both Alpha Centauri and Ice Warriors show up again, but this time the Ice Warriors are villains. This episode is based on the same premise as the TOS episode “The Cloud Minders.” In both the DW and TOS episodes, miners are at odds with the leadership on the planets.
The main thing I came away with from this sequel is that 50 years later, King Peladon was dead, and his daughter is now queen.
Another Master Reference
One of the internal references in “The Empress of Mars,” has the Doctor mirroring the Master again. At NASA, Knibbs starts counting down to the reception of the probe’s signal.
KNIBBS: I got everything crossed. Okay, people. Transmission arriving in ten, nine, eight, seven, six. (The big screen is now counting down to Download Commences with them.) DOCTOR: Five, four, three, two, one! Sorry, I could never resist a countdown.
In “Last of the Time Lords,” the Master says
MASTER: Three minutes to align the black hole converters. Counting down. I never could resist a ticking clock. My children, are you ready?
Additionally, the Doctor’s smile at “God Save the Queen” before the opening credits just seems really odd and out of character.
In the Next Chapters
There are so many references left to look at, so I’m planning on 2 more chapters to show you the meaning of at least part of them. For example, Friday is a lot more important than he might appear, so we’ll examine him in connection to more than just Robinson Crusoe. In another example, ravens show up in the subtext in multiple ways, which comes back to Clara. We’ll begin to look at some of the raven references in the next chapter. Then, there’s more to the Victorians than it appears, and I’ll show you examples of what I call collective symbology vs. individual symbology in relation to the troops. Additionally, we’ll look at how the subtext is coming together for Ragnarök and more.
Go to next chapter => Ch. 2: Friday, Odin & the Doctor; Missy’s 2 Faces; Etc.
#doctor who#twelfth doctor#bill potts#nardole#clara oswald#river song#eleventh doctor#amy pond#rory williams#tenth doctor#the empress of mars#meta#analysis
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Random sh*t and Ariana
Yesterday I made my come back post, and let’s just say it wasn’t nearly as successful as Adele’s comeback “Hello” or Ed Sheeran’s comeback “Shape of You”. Let me jst say something, why on earth do artists do their comebacks, and everyone reports it on the media like, “Adele, the queen of universe, the reason the world goes around, the sunshine that keep us alive, finally released another song, or should i say, a magical mixture of notes, rhythm and vocals, after everyone in the world praying six times a day for this to happen since she decided to take a pause in her career.” Don’t take me wrong, “Hello” was a great music before being basically on repeat on the radio everyday, in the middle of annoying adds for magic pills that will get you skinny in 1 month, and awful “comedians’” radio shows (ohhh god, I just want to kill myself instead of listening to those). Anyway, as I was saying, “Hello” was a great song, it even won Song of the Year on the Grammy’s and all, just like “Thinking Out Loud” (another one ruined by the constant repeat on spotify - just admit, you did it - and on the radio). But none of these artists were seen as the media makes it seem like they were. People kind of liked them, and, obviously, they loved their songs, at the end of the day, they are Grammy winners, so I guess that gives them something. But no one remebers the problems Adele had with alchool. Or the fact she was canceling shows on her tour in aMerica to spend time with this new guy... Moving on, speaking about Grammy winners comebacks, where the hell is Sam Smith? Probably just eating and praying...Not a big fan here, to be honest. I wanna address that acceptance speech Adele gave this year at the Grammy's. Like, it was sweet and all, but why? I know why, becase she didn't want Beyoncé's fans all over her. Well, yeah, maybe she really likes Beyoncé. I like Adele, even though it doesn't seem like it. I like the way she is honest and doesn't wear a mask, but that was what I questioned at this point of the ceremony. But congrats to her, and I wish her all the good.
And by the way, I could be here talking abot the iHeart Radio Music Awards, but I am so done with the award season, I seriously can't! No one cares about who wins the awards, because we all know they don't say anything about the actual art that music is. Even in the Academy Awards (yap, I am using that fancy name for Oscars), we all know that a lot of great movies don't even get nominated for such awards, but whatever. All I care nowadays are dresses, and performances. As there were no exciting performances (Shawn Mendes performed, and his voice sounded amazingly, but I will count his performance as an exciting performance when he starts sing more than 4 square feats in his performances) and the little I saw of the red carpet made me wanna throw up, I don't want to waste anyone's time on that little ceremony. Like seriously, it was either horrendous or simply trashy.
But I want to talk a bit about Ari, and what has happened to her for this past few months. I haven't heard much on a personal leval, she is still dating that "raper" (...) and I know she got a new dog a few days ago. In terms of music, a few things have popped up here and there. I haven't made a post only about DW, and I probably won't, since it has been almost an year, but you have heard my opinion on my last post. I had very high expectations, so you may think I am a little hard on her, bt it wasn't as good as I expected. "Into You" was my favorite from the moment it came out, which was a few weeks before the actual album. But I got a bit tired of it, as the time went on. I loved the video, but I also hated it, because I had in mind something a little more matre, and a little more fashionable. Basically, my idea for the video was on New York Fashion Week, Ariana with shoulder lenght hair, wearing white, really classy, really different. Then a hot fashionable guy would show up, they would see each other on a show, and then they would meet in the bathoom, really intense stuff, you know... I don't understand anything about photography or video, but it would be something less cheap than the video that actual came out. I still liked it though, and it surprised me. But damn, nothing as good as Side to Side video. That one is amazing, and I haven't stopped liking the song. Dangeros Woman, the song was great, but it was obvious it wouldn't be as big as this other two. Everyday was on the bottom at first, and I never gave it a second chance, untill Ari anounced it would be a single, and then, I felt in love. Well, not that it is my favorite song, but I really like it. The video made me laugh, but it is nothing special. "Be Alright", "Greedy" and "Leave me Lonely" are quite good ones, I really like that part in "Sometimes" before she explodes and there is something about "Touch It" and "Thinking Bout You" that captures my attention. The rest is not special at all. That's the thing, the album was just average, and I expected mind blowing. Moving on, she started in February her DW Tour, and I hope I am able to go see her, that would be awesome. I want to go see Ariana live for a long time, and I'd definetly have so much fun. She also released a few songs for movies' soundtracks. "Faith" with Stevie Wonder and a remake of "Beauty and the Beast". I loved the musci video for "Fade" because I felt in love with that hair, simply amazing. Also, they performed on The Voice and it was really cool too. The fact that she was choosen to sing with Stevie Wonder is already such an honor. What is alsoan honor, is to be part of the remix of "Beauty and the Beast", one of the most successful Disney musics. She sounds amazingly, and so does John Legend, and the music that came out almost a day ago is enjoyable, I'd say. Basically, I think she is headed to the right direction. The only thing I ask from her, is a bit more of Ariana in everything, in her songs, lyrics, performances, etc. She needs to stop doing what her manager tells her that is going to work. By the way, a song that I believe has a lot of Ariana's personality is "Jason's Song (Gave it away)" and it is a shame it is only part of the Target and japanese versions of the abum, because it is such a great song. So, this is the end of one more post, a huge one, let's say, but it is what it is. Bye
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