#if it is not ‘both these groups are cosplaying’ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rowanthestrange · 1 year ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-He calls himself Rogue:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dice Bag propoganda post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Rogue approaches, step by step.*

“So can you do it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Find me.” *click*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His ship IS A FUCKING BIRD. OWL HOOTS.

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

“I’m The Bad Guy. Duh.”

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

Assorted later Additions:

Pantheon!Rogue: Why the bird ship?

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

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

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

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

#meta #mine #rogue #pantheon rogue #cosplaying til death do we part #longpost #i mean it #you won’t open it twice #this is a full episode breakdown barring what i missed or forgot #your rebuttal papers on why he’s not a bad guy will only be accepted with:#-a paragraph on “I’m A Bad Guy” and your position on its relevance #-full explanation for his bird ship and d&d equipment in need of a group #and why it does not relate to the roleplaying bird group #or rogue himself roleplaying #-an alternative and whole-episode spanning reasoning #of what the ‘real’ link between both halves of the plot are #if it is not ‘both these groups are cosplaying’#‘in pursuit of a wedding’#-and a short creative writing piece where you detail #rogue’s thoughts during the entire torture scene from fireman’s lift to *click*#-and most importantly the esquivalienced misspelled codeword #in the ‘i’m the bad guy’ lyric video

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emperordinozenmon · 5 months ago

Text

Celebration

A little something for y'all

Cube’s end-of-the-year party was a bizarre event shrouded in mystery, a legend whispered about in hushed voices among trainees and industry insiders. No one outside its invite list had ever confirmed what went on inside, but that didn’t stop the rumors from spreading like wildfire.

Your friend group had spent years speculating, each person pitching their own wildly different theory. You leaned toward the idea that it was some kind of exclusive, over-the-top karaoke party where idols got blackout drunk and embarrassed themselves in front of their seniors. Nathan suggested a big aphrodisiac induced orgy where idols and staff let off steam and fucked rapaciously. Danny swore up and down that it was a cosplay event, where the biggest names in K-pop dressed up as anime characters and took part in elaborate skits. And Q—well, Q liked to claim it was an annual ritual sacrifice, though whether he actually believed that or was just being Q was anyone’s guess.

It had always been harmless fun, something to gossip about late at night when you were all exhausted from work and just hanging out and needed a distraction. Until now.

The door burst open, and Nate strode in, looking equal parts exhilarated and overwhelmed. He ran a hand through his hair as he shut the door behind him, as if he needed to physically close himself off from whatever whirlwind had just hit him.

“Guys,” he started, breathless, his eyes flicking between you. “You’ll never believe what I got invites for.”

Q scoffed, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. “What, the Cube end-of-the-year party?” he said, grinning. “Nice try, Nate.”

The air in the room shifted when Nate didn’t immediately laugh or roll his eyes. Instead, his face went completely still, his hands tightening around the strap of his bag.

“Wait…” he said slowly, voice deadly serious. “How did you know?”

A silence settled over the room, thick and unnatural. You felt your pulse pick up as you and the others exchanged glances.

Dani leaned forward. “Nate,” she said carefully, as if afraid of spooking him, “you’re joking, right?”

But he wasn’t. You could see it in his face.

He swallowed hard. “No,” he said. “I got us invites. All of us.”

The words sat heavy in the air. For years, the Cube party had been nothing more than an untouchable myth, a fun mystery to poke at from a safe distance. But now, the distance was gone.

“How did you nail that?” you ask.

Nathan blushed and said, “well there's been thig girl I have been Nailing,” he stammered before he said. “Her name is Nayoung.” the name reminds you of something buy you can't place why. Regardless you were excited to go.

Here’s an expanded version of your scene, adding more detail, atmosphere, and character moments:

Over the next few days, Nate drip-fed information about the party to the rest of you, each new detail adding another layer to the mystery. The most surprising revelation came from Nayoung—apparently, the party was both costume and karaoke-themed. That, at least, explained the secrecy. If a single photo of top idols drunkenly belting out power ballads while dressed in ridiculous outfits got out, it would be chaos.

With that in mind, you and Dani wasted no time in deciding on your costumes: Persona protagonists. The moment Q heard, he took it upon himself to make sure your outfits were perfect.

“Alright, if we’re doing this, we’re doing it right,” he declared, cracking his knuckles like a man preparing for battle.

You hadn’t expected him to be so skilled at costuming, but over the next few days, he guided you and Dani through every step of the process—choosing fabrics, cutting out patterns, even distressing certain parts to make them look more authentic. Watching him work, you realized he had a real talent for it.

“You’re scarily good at this, Q,” Dani said one evening, watching as he sewed intricate silver buttons onto your jacket with precise, practiced hands.

Q shrugged, eyes focused on his work. “I used to help my sister with cosplay when we were younger. And, y’know, I have to live vicariously through you two since my costume options are limited.”

Neither of you missed the way his tone dipped slightly at the end. It was an unspoken reality—Q’s darker complexion and broad frame meant that many of the characters he admired weren’t ones he could easily portray, at least not without running into criticism. But instead of letting it get to him, he poured his enthusiasm into helping you and Dani.

By the time the night of the party arrived, you, Dani, Nate, and Eraqus were ready.

The four of you stood outside the venue, a sleek, high-end building that didn’t look like the kind of place where chaotic karaoke and costumed idols would be running around. You adjusted your jacket, trying to shake off the nerves, while Dani smoothed down her gloves. Nate was already bouncing on his heels, the anticipation buzzing off him in waves, while Eraqus stood a little more stiffly, scanning the entrance like he half-expected security to turn you all away.

Then, the doors swung open, and a tiny blonde woman stepped out. You barely had time to process her sharp eyes and confident stance before she grabbed Nate by the collar and kissed him, right there in front of all of you.

Your jaw dropped. “Oh.”

It all made sense in an instant.

When she finally pulled away, Nayoung turned her attention to the rest of you, a smirk playing on her lips. “You guys look great,” she said, giving you all a quick once-over. “Now get in. Before someone sees you.”

She stepped aside, motioning for you to follow, and just like that, the four of you were stepping into the legendary Cube end-of-the-year party—where, for better or worse, the mystery was about to unravel.

The party was already in full swing by the time you stepped inside. The air buzzed with energy—idols in elaborate costumes laughing over drinks, half-shouted conversations competing with the pounding bass of a remix that someone had taken too seriously. Neon lights flickered in hypnotic patterns against the walls, casting shifting shadows over the chaotic mix of people.

Eraqus (Q) quickly found himself enmeshed between a couple of well known idols praising his zombie costume.

“Wow those exposed ribs are so good how did you do that?” Chowon from Lightsum asked asked.

“How did you find glowing contacts?” Sakura of le Sserafim asked.

“Ah well you know…” Eraqus stammered not used to all the attention. While this was going on you couldn't sense the encroaching presence behind you

You barely had time to take it all in before someone appeared beside you, slipping into your personal space so smoothly you almost didn’t notice until she spoke.

“You clean up well.”

You turned your head and found yourself face-to-face with Karina.

She looked effortlessly cool, dressed in a sleek, all-black ensemble that could have been a costume or just an excuse to look devastatingly good. The sharp contrast of dark fabric against her fair skin made her seem even more striking under the shifting lights.

You blinked, caught off guard. “Uh—”

Her lips quirked up at the corner, amused at your hesitation. “Yu Narakami the Persona protagonist, right?” She reached out, barely brushing the lapel of your jacket between her fingers before letting go. “Nice choice. Thought I was the only one who cared about good taste.”

Your brain scrambled to keep up. You had never really spoken to her before—at most, you’d been in the same rooms during fan events, maybe exchanged a polite nod in passing. But now, here she was, looking at you like you were the only person worth talking to in the room.

“Thanks,” you finally managed, fighting to sound casual. “Didn’t think anyone here would notice.”

Karina hummed, tilting her head slightly. “Oh, I notice a lot of things.”

Before you could figure out what that meant, she took a step closer, her voice dropping just enough to send a shiver down your spine. “How about you ditch your friends for a bit?”

You hesitated, glancing over your shoulder where Dani and Ersque were deep in conversation, completely oblivious. Nate was off somewhere with Nayoung. No one was paying attention to you.

Karina smirked, reading your hesitation like an open book. She leaned in, just close enough that you could smell the faint trace of perfume clinging to her skin.

“Come on,” she murmured, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Let’s have some real fun.”

Then, before you even had a chance to agree—or process what was happening—she took your hand, lacing her fingers through yours, and tugged you deeper into the party.

And just like that, you were gone.

Here’s an expanded version of your scene, adding more emotion, tension, and atmosphere:

Karina led you through the maze of hallways until she found an empty practice room, slipping inside without hesitation. The moment the door shut behind you, the noise of the party outside became a distant hum, leaving just the two of you in the dimly lit space.

She turned to face you, her expression unreadable for a moment, before a small, playful smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

“So,” she said, leaning against the mirror with her arms crossed, studying you with open curiosity. “Which Persona is your favorite?”

Her eyes gleamed, pupils slightly dilated—not just from intrigue but something deeper, something hungrier.

You hesitated for half a second before answering, “Persona 4. I had a similar experience when I was younger.”

Karina arched a perfectly shaped brow. “Oh? You fought demons and gods in a shadow world?” she teased, tilting her head slightly.

You huffed out a small laugh, shaking your head. “That’s not what I meant… I had to spend a full school year with extended family because my parents were having issues.”

Her teasing expression softened, her gaze turning more thoughtful. “Where at?”

You shrugged, answering offhandedly, “Oh, [redacted].”

The reaction was immediate. Karina’s eyes went wide—wider than before, not with curiosity but with something bordering on shock. Her posture stiffened, her body leaning forward slightly, as if she needed to be closer to confirm what she was hearing.

“No way,” she breathed, searching your face with sudden urgency. “I went to [redacted] too. What year?”

Your brows furrowed, a flicker of confusion passing over you. “Uh… 20XX.”

Karina gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “Wait—” Her voice caught, her breath hitching as realization dawned in her expression. “Ace?”

Your entire body locked up. Your pulse pounded in your ears as your brain scrambled to catch up.

She knew.

Your eyes widened, the breath stolen from your lungs as everything snapped into place.

“Yu???”

The name tumbled from your lips before you could stop it, the childhood memory flooding back in full force.

The long afternoons spent wandering the quiet town, the laughter shared over convenience store snacks, the whispered conversations about dreams and fears, the silent understanding that had always existed between you—until life had pulled you apart.

Karina—Yu—stood there, her face a perfect mix of shock, nostalgia, and something even deeper, something raw.

Neither of you moved for a moment. The air in the room was thick with tension, an electric charge crackling between you like a live wire.

Then, before you could second-guess yourself, you reached for her.

She met you halfway, surging forward as your lips crashed together in a desperate, almost frantic kiss. Karina made a soft, breathy noise against your mouth, her hands gripping the front of your jacket as if she was afraid you might disappear again.

You felt her hunger, her longing, the years of separation dissolving in the heat between you.

“I missed you so much,” she whimpered against your lips, her voice trembling with emotion.

You pulled back just enough to look at her, your forehead resting against hers, trying to ground yourself in the reality of the moment.

“Holy hell, Yu,” you murmured, your hands cupping her face, your thumbs brushing against her flushed cheeks. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

She swallowed hard, her fingers tightening against you as if she was afraid to let go.

Here’s an expanded version with more romance, affection, and warmth:

“Well,” she whispered, her breath fanning against your lips, her voice barely above a murmur, “you found me.”

Her eyes shimmered with something between teasing amusement and deep, unfiltered joy. The kind of joy that only came from reconnecting with someone who had once been your whole world. Her fingers traced light, ghosting touches along your jaw, as if she were memorizing the feel of you all over again.

A slow smile spread across your face before you leaned in, capturing her lips once more. The second kiss was softer, more intentional—less of a desperate reunion and more of a lingering promise. Her lips felt just as you remembered, warm and inviting, but now there was a sweetness to them that hadn’t been there before. Maybe it was her lipstick, or maybe it was just her.

Emboldened, you gently nipped at her bottom lip, earning a surprised, breathy laugh against your mouth.

“Okay,” she murmured, her forehead resting against yours, “as much as I love this, I gotta ask… what are you doing now?”

You exhaled a small chuckle, still a little lost in her touch, before pulling back slightly. “I’m a stuntman and stunt coordinator now. Director too, for some projects. The last one we worked on was Train to Busan III.”

Karina’s eyes widened so much you were worried they might pop out of her skull.

“No way!” she gasped, pushing against your chest lightly as if to confirm you were real. “You—what?! That’s amazing!”

Her excitement was contagious, and you felt heat creep up your neck at the way she looked at you—like she was genuinely proud.

“I remember how obsessed you were with Taekwondo when we were kids,” she continued, her fingers now absentmindedly tracing patterns on your sleeve. “You were always practicing, always trying to perfect your form… and now you’re actually doing something huge with it. I love that.”

You shrugged, trying to play it off, but her enthusiasm made your chest feel light.

Then, with a cheeky glint in her eye, she smirked and nudged you. “So, think you could get me a role as an action heroine? I am a rocket puncher, after all.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “I don’t know, Yu… I haven’t seen you in six years. Might be a little rusty.”

Karina let out an exaggerated gasp, her hand flying to her chest as if you had wounded her. “Wow. Abandon me for six years and then insult my skills? Unbelievable.”

Her pout was devastating, and you immediately felt bad—not that you weren’t enjoying the way she was hamming it up.

You sighed dramatically, then softened. “Alright, alright. I might be able to pull some strings,” you conceded, and she grinned victoriously.

“But enough about me,” you added, giving her a look. “You’re, like, a world-famous idol now. That’s insane.”

Karina smirked, tossing her hair over her shoulder in mock arrogance. “Yeah, I’m pretty savage, right?”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help the smile that tugged at your lips. Without thinking, you leaned in and kissed her nose.

Karina blinked, stunned for half a second before a warm, slightly bashful smile took over her features. Her hands curled against your chest as she tilted her head, gazing up at you.

“So…” she murmured, quieter now, her voice holding something a little more vulnerable. “Are you back forever? Or is this just a visit?”

The weight of her question settled between you, the unspoken hope lingering in her eyes.

You reached up, gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, your thumb brushing against her cheek.

“I don’t know yet,” you admitted honestly, watching as something flickered across her expression.

Karina studied you for a moment before exhaling softly, then resting her head against your chest. “Well… I hope you stay,” she whispered.

You wrapped your arms around her, holding her close, breathing her in.

“Me too,” you murmured, meaning every word.

While you and Karina were lost in your own world, elsewhere in the building, Eraqus was being dragged through the dimly lit hallways by none other than Magenta from QWER, whose mischievous grin practically glowed in the dark.

“Magenta,” Eraqus hissed, glancing around as they weaved between corners, avoiding wandering partygoers. “Why are we sneaking? You do realize you’re famous, right? You literally can just walk places.”

Magenta turned, still moving backward like some kind of rogue in a heist film. “Shhh, Eraqus, you’ve gotta commit to the bit.”

“What bit?”

“The vibe of sneaking! It makes things more exciting.”

Eraqus pinched the bridge of his nose but followed anyway, resigned to the fact that Magenta operated on a wavelength no one else did.

“Why are we even looking for a practice room?” he asked.

Magenta shrugged. “To talk.”

“You dragged me through this whole building like we’re infiltrating a government facility just to talk?”

“Exactly,” Magenta replied, completely unbothered.

Eventually, they stopped in front of a practice room door, and Magenta leaned in dramatically, pressing an ear against the wood. Eraqus, arms crossed, raised an eyebrow.

“Magenta, I swear if someone is in there—”

Ignoring him, Magenta slowly—oh-so-slowly—turned the doorknob and peeked inside. Then, with all the grace of a cartoon character, Magenta took a single step in, turned to Eraqus, and whispered, “Oh, yeah, someone’s in there.”

Eraqus groaned. “I told you—”

Before he could finish, Karina’s sharp voice cut through the room.

“…Are you two gonna stand there and gawk, or do you wanna come in?”

Eraqus grimaced and finally stepped into the room to see Karina still nestled comfortably against you, both of you staring at the intruders with varying degrees of amusement.

Magenta blinked, then grinned. “Ohhh, we totally interrupted something, huh?”

Karina sighed dramatically but didn’t move from your side. “A little, yeah.”

“We’re so sorry,” Magenta continued, not looking sorry at all. “Should we leave? I feel like we should leave. Eraqus, should we leave?”

Eraqus, who was already turning to walk out, nodded. “Yeah, I think we should.”

Before they could escape, you waved them off. “Nah, it’s fine. You guys can stay.”

Eraqus hesitated. “…Are you sure? We really don’t wanna intrude.”

Karina rolled her eyes but smiled. “Just sit down before Magenta gets another idea to sneak into someone else’s room.”

Magenta gasped in mock offense. “I would never—okay, I would. But that’s beside the point.”

With that, the four of you settled onto the floor, forming a loose circle. There was a beat of silence before Magenta, ever the instigator, grinned and leaned forward.

“So… you two childhood lovers reunited by fate or something?”

Karina scoffed, but her cheeks warmed slightly. “Would you believe me if I said yes?”

Eraqus, who had taken one glance at the way you two had been sitting when they walked in, deadpanned, “Yes.”

You chuckled, wrapping an arm around Karina’s shoulders as she nestled in a little closer. “Yeah, turns out we knew each other as kids.”

Magenta gasped, hands clutched over their chest. “That’s adorable.”

For a moment, the conversation drifted, with Karina and Magenta comparing industry horror stories, Eraqus chiming in with his usual dry wit, and you just sitting there, enjoying the moment. The tension from earlier melted away, replaced by something lighter, easier.

Eventually, Magenta stretched dramatically, flopping against Eraqus, who let out a long-suffering sigh but didn’t push them off.

“This is kinda nice,” Magenta mused. “Just… sitting and talking.”

Karina hummed in agreement, her fingers lazily tracing patterns against your knee. “Yeah, it is.”

Eraqus, always the pragmatic one, muttered, “I still don’t know why we had to sneak here.”

Magenta cackled. “Because it made for a way better story, obviously.”

Everyone laughed, the room filled with an easy warmth. And for the first time that night, it felt like the world outside didn’t matter—just the four of you, lost in the comfort of old and new friendships, in a quiet little room where, for a moment, time didn’t exist.

As the conversation lulled, Eraqus stretched his arms over his head, letting out a dramatic sigh. “You know, for all the mystery and hype, this party is… kinda cute,” he mused. “I was fully expecting chanting, ritual sacrifices—maybe even a secret underground fight club or something.”

Magenta snorted. “Right? With the way people talk about it, I thought we’d at least have to swear an oath of secrecy.”

Karina, who had been lazily tracing circles on your knee, perked up at that, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Oh no, that’s SM’s flow,” she said, her tone casual but far too knowing. “They bring in a bunch of boys for the female idols to pick from so they can blow off steam the whole night.”

Eraqus and Magenta froze.

A long, stunned silence filled the room as their expressions contorted into a mix of horror and disbelief. Magenta’s jaw practically hit the floor, while Eraqus blinked rapidly as if trying to reboot his entire thought process.

“…You’re joking,” Eraqus finally said, voice wary.

Karina held his gaze for a beat longer, face completely serious—then she cracked, bursting into laughter. “Oh my God, the look on your faces!” She clutched her stomach as she doubled over, shaking with laughter.

Magenta smacked Eraqus’s arm. “Dude, I believed her! My soul left my body for a second!”

Eraqus, still recovering, rubbed his face. “You can’t just say things like that, Karina!”

Watching them lose their minds, you couldn’t help but chuckle, shaking your head fondly before turning to Karina. “God, I missed you.”

She tilted her head up at you, her laughter softening into something more tender. Her fingers curled lightly around your wrist as she murmured, “Well, I missed you more.”

The teasing bickering between Magenta and Eraqus faded into the background for a moment as you and Karina just sat there, basking in the warmth of familiarity.

Eraqus, regaining his composure, finally exhaled. “Alright, I think I’ve had enough emotional whiplash for one night.”

Magenta, still fanning themselves dramatically, nodded. “Same. But I gotta admit, this is way better than a ritual sacrifice.”

Karina grinned. “Glad I could keep things entertaining.”

You squeezed her hand gently, meeting her gaze. “You always do.”

And just like that, the four of you fell back into easy conversation, laughter echoing through the practice room, turning what was supposed to be a legendary, mysterious party into something even better—something simple, warm, and unforgettable.

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