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saiilorstars · 4 years ago

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Falling Temptation

Previous chapters • Sequel to Stars Dance • Fairy Tale Memoirs (Companion story)

Ch. 21: Orphan

Fandom: Doctor Who // Pairing: 11th Doctor x Female OC

Chapter summary: The travelers have landed in a planet the Doctor can't quite remember (but thankfully the Sapling can) and possibly find another Time Lord...a Time Child?

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel [If you’d like to be added to this specific OC’s stories/edits, send me a message!]

"Where's a prefrontal cortex when you need one!?" The Doctor grumbled as he tirelessly rubbed his temples. This was not working. If anything, he felt his mind more jumbled than when he first started.

"Nice tiara," he suddenly heard Avalon remark. The Doctor cracked his eyes open to see her and the Sapling standing in front of him. "How come you get a tiara and I can't?"

The Doctor's face fell flat at the question. "First, this-" he pointed to the Chameleon Arch helmet over his head, "-is not a tiara. And second of all, the last time you saw a crown was Queen Mary's and you tried stealing it!"

Avalon folded her arms, about to make a better argument when the Sapling giggled beside her. "You were trying to borrow it," he said.

"I was?" She blinked suddenly, as if realizing something. "Wait, how come I can't remember that?"

"Because the Sapling remembers it," the Doctor sighed. "Remember, whatever he remembers of our memories we-" he gestured at himself and her, "-can't. He has our memories."

"Right…" Avalon brought a hand to her forehead. Her mind was already conflicted with her memory wipe from Kovarian and other torture mechanisms that it was a lost cause trying to remember what the Sapling could and couldn't remember. In lamens terms, her brain was tired.

"Don't worry Ava," the Doctor got a sense of where her thoughts were running to. Lately, he'd been getting the feeling like his and her memories were just a tad fuzzier than the normal amount caused by the Sapling. It was, admittedly, a long time since the Sapling was created and it meant that he had kept the Doctor's and Avalon's memories for a much longer period than either expected.

The Doctor was getting the feeling that his brain was beginning to try and compensate for the missing memories. He presumed it was the same for Avalon but because of Kovarian's interference, the feelings had to be heightened.

"So what is that thing anyways?" Avalon motioned to the metal helmet again.

"It's the Chameleon Arch," the Doctor let the device rise back into its spot above the console. "It's exactly what it sounds like. Helps a Time Lord disguise them self into anything. Last time I used it, I made myself human!"

"You could do that?" Avalon gaped, her eyes widening at the thought.

"Yup!"

"Were you trying to switch again, then?" The Sapling cocked his head to the side curiously.

"Not exactly. I've been noticing there's some gaps in my head. I've, uh, been forgetting things…"

Avalon stiffened. "The Silence?" It was fairly quick how the color in her face drained. Had they found a way to continue messing with them after all? They'd been so careful not to let their guard down but the fact the Silence made you forget would always be the weakening point.

"No, no, Ava, don't worry," the Doctor brought her into a hug. He definitely knew where her thoughts went to now. "No one's touching you, I swear."

Despite her efforts to appear brave, Avalon let herself be wrapped in his arms. She felt so small whenever she thought about the Silence and what they did, what Kovarian did. She still had a long way before she truly recovered.

The Sapling moved on over to hug them as well. He took every chance he got to hug them, much to his parents' amusement. "You're safe, Mother," he assured her just like the Doctor.

"Can I be honest, though?" Avalon's question came in the form of a whisper.

"Of course," the Doctor nodded and pulled away from her.

"You say...that you've forgotten things?" She watched him nod again. "I-I kind of feel the same and it's not just because of the things Kovarian wiped. I feel...like there's something before Demons Run that I've forgotten. And then...I don't know, I feel like there's something kind of...watching us."

"Yes!" The Doctor snapped his fingers at her, regretting it the moment she flinched. "Sorry. I meant to say that I feel the same way."

"Do you think it's still the Silence? Some lingering effects?"

"It's been a long time," the Doctor mumbled in thought. "But I get the feeling that whatever is watching us will be revealing itself to us very soon."

"Just as long as it's not Kovarian," Avalon felt her skin crawl at the image of seeing the woman again. "When I see her again I want to do it with all my brains so I can shoot her dead."

The Doctor watched her silently, sadly, knowing that she had to be that afraid to truly want to kill someone. He wanted to kill Kovarian and all her Silence for hurting Avalon. He wasn't scared, he was angry, but Avalon was afraid. She was so afraid.

Before he could try to comfort Avalon, Amy and Rory joined them from the corridors. They were eager to see where they would be heading out for today. Each day, they'd been exposing Avalon to new environments to see how her immunity system would take it. They were so grateful to see their granddaughter reacting fine to each trip. It was almost as if she was completely normal.

"Now that's interesting…" the Doctor said just as Rory wondered out loud where they would be taking Avalon. He drifted towards the monitor, prompting Avalon to do the same and eventually the Sapling. They were like a little domino effect and they didn't even realize it.

"What are we looking at?" Avalon cocked her head to the side when she saw the odd readings on the monitor. She was sure that they weren't even in their language!

"Time Vortex energy!" the Doctor gawked.

"Oh my God!" They heard Amy yelp and when they followed her gaze, they all did the same.

The Sapling's neck had elongated to do a semi-curl and move his face closer to the monitor.

"Sapling, stop doing that!" Avalon screeched with the same horror she usually did when the Sapling pulled that stunt. Lately, it'd been happening more and more. He would stretch parts of his body for whatever reason that presented itself.

The Doctor theorized it meant the Sapling was beginning to mature, an act that prompted Avalon to joke and tell him he had to give the Sapling 'the talk'. While the Doctor stammered for a good ten minutes, he also made Avalon realize that the closer the Sapling got to maturing the more danger they could all be in if he decided to follow into his ancestors' primal instinct.

Destroy worlds.

"Time Vortex energy?" Rory moved over with Amy to the monitor. "Isn't that where we are right now?"

"It's coming from a planet in the Ligotti Tract," the Doctor read off from the monitor.

"Zoline, perhaps?" The Sapling asked.

There was a funny look on the Doctor's face when he tried to think of the place. "Zoline...excellent. Um…can't quite remember it."

"But I can!" The Sapling cheered. "Because I have the memories!"

That was great.

"Don't worry! I love that place!" The Doctor zipped to the other side of the console, working fervently to get them to the planet. "Least I think it was!"

"That doesn't sound very promising," Amy made a face but the Doctor was already bringing them to Zoline.

"I'm sure it is! Come along Ponds!" the Doctor exclaimed, internally laughing with his joke. He could truly say it now and mean all of his companions, if only Avalon would know.

"And me!" Avalon rushed to his side, taking his hand. She chuckled at the blush that sprouted on the Doctor's face. Their relationship was still a secret from Amy and Rory and since the Doctor was so worried about what they would say, Avalon thought that 'easing them' into the idea of a relationship would help out when the time came to say the truth. Although she secretly thought that maybe Amy and Rory already had some idea because sometimes they acted just a bit nonchalant about their hand holding and closeness.

"Let's go!" The Sapling zoomed by all of them, heading straight for the doors.

The rest followed and stepped out of the TARDIS to find a gray city full of smoke.

"This, uh, this doesn't look very pre…" Amy started to feel a funny tickle in her throat. Beside her, Rory was bringing a hand to his throat because of the same tickle.

"This can't be ri…" the Doctor cleared his throat several times. Even the Sapling was having trouble breathing.

Avalon reacted worse than all of them. She went into a full coughing fit. The Doctor could see her from the corner of his eye. He reached over for her, intending on practically shoving her into the TARDIS. The air was terrible.

"Doctor! Nothing to worry about, just a slight air quality!" A male dressed in green robes (and wearing a funny tall green hat that seemed to have pipes sticking out from it) ran towards the group. He also wore a transparent green face mask.

Two more robed men came behind him and strapped the same masks to each of the travelers.

"Price of progress I'm afraid!" The same male continued as the travelers got their normal air back.

The Doctor immediately checked Avalon with the sonic to make sure the bad air quality hadn't left effects that would hinder the progress she was making. Her lungs were clear of permanent danger and, thankfully, she was breathing normally again.

"I'm fine," she mumbled to him. The Doctor wished he could kiss her but now there were masks between them apart from, well, other people.

"What kind of place is this!?" Rory was outraged after he could properly breathe again. This was not the place to bring Avalon around!

"I'm Pfortner," one of the men dressed in gray introduced himself. "His excellency imperator Bax's chief Sycophant. Sorry about the informality of the welcome but we only had minutes to prepare once the TARDIS' energy signature was detected."

"It's so good to see you old friend," the man in green looked specifically at the Doctor, but the Time Lord was having trouble placing him. "Well...surely you remember me Doctor. I'm Bax! Imperator of Zoline and her Moons! We seduced Quantum Kelp together off the coast of Revok!"

"Seduced who now?" Avalon shot a sharp look at the Doctor, one that genuinely sparked a bit of fear in him.

"You survived a cage match with my first born son's placenta!"

"He did what!?" Both Amy and Rory chorused together, shooting the Doctor the same wide-eyed look.

The Doctor didn't like being the center of attention for once. He had no idea what the green robed man was talking about and it seemed to be getting him into trouble with Avalon. He needed to put a stop to it before she smacked him. "That all sounds very me but the thing is, that handsome little chap over there-" he pointed to the Sapling who was busy staring up at the smoky skies, "-is currently in possession of a couple of my memories. I don't remember being here."

Knowing he was being talked about, the Sapling moved over to properly greet the green robed man. He knelt down on one knee, amusing the travelers for a moment, as he properly introduced himself. "Greetings Imperator Bax. May your fronds shoulder the sky."

"May your fronds shoulder the sky - have we met?" Bax looked at the Sapling with bemusement, still not understanding what was going on.

"No your excellency. But I remember meeting you all the same. My father is sadly diminished-"

The Doctor's face scrunched into offence, much more when Avalon, Amy and Rory snickered around him. "Rude!"

"-but I can recall his time here perfectly," the Sapling finished and raised his head to reveal a grin.

"Father?" Bax's eyes widened in surprise. "I was not aware you had a child, Doctor."

"And my Mother," the Sapling gestured to the curly-haired ginger beside the Doctor.

"It's not what you think," Avalon quickly shook her head before any presumptions were spoken.

But before any comments could be made about the situation, there was a rumble in the sky. Everyone looked up to see something green coming down on them.

"Quickrain!" one of the gray robed men exclaimed. "Run, your excellency!"

"What? What the heck is 'quickrain'?" Amy made a face when the man took Bax away in a hasty run.

"OW!" Rory suddenly flinched when the green rain dropped on him. It was rain….but with acid. "That hurt!"

"Ow!" Avalon was next on the list and the final one before the Doctor pulled them into a run.

This was definitely the wrong place for his Ava! They followed Bax and his men into a building but they'd still suffered sustainable acid over their skin.

"Earth's acid rain doesn't get anywhere near this corrosive until the mid-21st century," the Doctor remarked as he turned his palms over to see the reddened blotches on his skin.

"Rory, I'm fine! Stop it!" Avalon was fighting off both him and Amy trying to see if her skin was reacting worse than theirs. "Seriously!"

"Mother…?" the Sapling squeezed himself through his grandparents to see Avalon's reddened skin, but he also allowed Avalon to see his.

"Oh my God," she shooed Amy and Rory away and cupped the Sapling's head. "Look at you! Your skin is all red!"

"I will heal, mother," the Sapling assured her but Avalon still called for the Doctor.

"Is he really going to be okay?" She asked while the Doctor let the sonic scan him. Like everyone else, the Sapling's skin was only irritated.

"Just fine," he assured her. He was relieved to know it too.

"But it shouldn't be like this!" The Sapling exclaimed. He pointed an aggressive finger towards Bax. "We must know what has transpired here! The Zoline are not an industrialized people! They're tree dwellers!"

Didn't look like there were much trees out there," Rory mumbled to Amy who nodded in agreement. The city barely looked like it had a sun. Actually, they weren't sure if they saw one now that they thought about it. It was all so gray and smoky!

"Primitives!" Bax huffed. "We left all that behind years ago, creature!"

"Hey!" Avalon snapped at him. "You watch how you address my son!"

"Behold my Imperial Palace! A miracle of engineering and leak management!" Bax gestured to the building they were in. He raised his hands up, making the group realized it was several, several floors high.

But it was all gray.

And slimy green.

It all looked icky like they were in a rundown factory.

"Every expense was spared in its construction!" Bax exclaimed with a proud smile and yet the Sapling looked sO so sad, and terrified.

The Doctor noted it and turned the Sapling to him. "What is it, Sapling?" he crouched in front of the child.

The Sapling's eyes glistened. "I remember Imperator Bax. He was a wise ruler. This was not how the place looked like before." He could vividly remember the Zoline his father visited before. It was all so bright and green and...natural. It was nature. Such an abundance of nature that peace was just one of the common effects one would feel when visiting it. "It was like a beautiful fairy tale forest that Mother would like. The Zoline you met were barely past the hunter-gatherer stage. That was less than 30 years ago."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Fourth dimensional skulduggery may be afoot there."

"Would it really kill you to speak in English?" Avalon frowned at him. "I mean-"

The building shook like an earthquake was striking. The same green liquid that the acid rain was made of came so rushing down like a waterfall.

"Relax everyone!" Bax raised his hands to calm them down. "Everything's fine! It's just the Golden Triangle conducting one of their experiments!"

"Watch out!" Rory lunged to get Bax out of the way before the green waterfall fell over him.

"Avalon!" The Doctor did the same with the ginger who'd been second on the list of accidental contamination. He shrouded her with his body but somewhere along the way Avalon started feeling like he was the one in need of protecting. His body was shaking and he groaned in pain.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Avalon wiggled out of his arms, not that he noticed because as soon as she was free he clutched his head and chest.

"Father!" the Sapling rushed to help him as well.

"I'm not...feeling too clever, truth be told!" The Doctor raised his head to reveal a strong golden glow in his eyes that seemed to pour out of him. At first instinct, Avalon pulled the Sapling away.

"What is going on!?" Amy turned on Bax for a full explanation of what was causing this.

The Doctor lost his balance and fell to his knees. The golden energy around him got stronger, blinding the others for a moment.

"Fairy Tale Man!" Avalon cried and rushed towards him only for Rory to pull her back.

"T-th-the Time V-Vortex energies!" The Doctor managed to say in-between his groans. "My b-b-body's saturated with it, so…" He sucked in multiple sharp breaths, "Temporal t-tremors tend to-to- shake it all up like a can of pop!" He raised his head to meet Bax's terrified face. "Where are you keeping it!?" Everyone turned on the Imperator. "Where are you keeping the Time Lord technology!?"

"I have no idea what you're…" Bax was in the middle of denying it when the Doctor collapsed completely.

"LET GO!" Avalon shouted and shoved Rory to the side to hurry up to the Doctor. She dropped to her knees beside his body and listened for a heartbeat. Thankfully, she heard the two but he was completely out cold. "We need to get him somewhere so he can rest!"

"I'll get my personal physician for him," Bax offered and while the group was thankful for it, it didn't save him from the stand off with Avalon.

She had gotten up and stormed right up to him. "You better hope that he wakes up fine because if not I'll make sure you wish you were still a primitive as you said."

"Ava," Rory pulled her away but he honestly knew that there was no making her back down. He only wanted her to calm down and not hurt herself.

~ 0 ~

The next time the Doctor woke up, he found himself in a lovely room and a soft bed under him. He sat up with a groan, only getting a minute before someone gently stroked the tips of his hair. He knew that hand anywhere! A big grin came to his face even though his head was hurting like mad.

"Fairy Tale Man, are you alright?" Avalon was sitting beside him on the bed, her eyes full of concern for him.

"Who stuffed my skull with socks from the lost and found?"

"That's a weird thing to say, father," the Sapling giggled from the foot of his bed.

"Where am I?" The Doctor said after gaining a bit more lucidity.

"In some fancy guest room of the Imperial palace," Avalon explained with a mutter. Bax could give them all the fanciest things he had but it wouldn't make her like him.

"The Imperator put you in here because there's air filtration on the whole floor," the Sapling added.

"Amy...Rory…?" The Doctor soon noticed the couple was missing and panicked until Avalon shushed him.

"They just went to see if they could get Bax to talk about whatever is causing this to you. I really didn't like what I saw, what was that?"

"I need to find it first," the Doctor said as he moved to get out of the bed.

"You can't!" Avalon hurried to keep him down.

"Ava, I have to! Something Time Lord is out there! It's my responsibility to find it!"

Avalon bit her lower lip and watched him continue his efforts to get up despite his body being too weak to do it on his own right now. She was scared that this would turn into another House moment. It could all be a trick that would end up hurting the Doctor. But she knew that no matter what the Doctor would be doing it anyways. She would have to ready herself for whatever was going on.

With a sigh, she got up and helped the Doctor stand up with the Sapling doing the same. Together, they brought the Doctor out of the room where they met Amy and Rory, along with another man, Pfortner, from earlier.

"Did you get anything?" Avalon asked the pair.

"Just this guy," Rory pointed at the man then winced. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Pfortner said. He didn't look too pleased either. It was why Amy and Rory were able to convince him to come talk to the Doctor. Bax wasn't letting anything slip. "Look, I'd be lying if I told you that most of us didn't find the recent tremors a tad discombobulating. Still the Golden Triangle insist that they're perfectly normal. No 'Time Lord' energy is involved."

"That's the…" the Doctor groaned again, "...second time you've mentioned this 'Golden Triangle', Pfortner. What are they? Or...who are they?"

Pfortner smiled kindly, and genuinely. "Oh, they're simply divine. Their genius rivals even yours, Doctor. Three inventors whose break-throughs - so revolutionary, so numerous...led us out of the timeless forest into an age of industry. Nobody knows where they came from or who they were before, but to us they became known as 'the Golden Triangle'. His excellency would never admit it but they are the real power on this world."

"Hmm, I don't suppose anybody ever conducted a medical examination of these chappies, did they?" The Doctor muttered. He didn't want to get that hopeful but all the signs were there. Maybe this time wasn't a trick. Just maybe...

"Not that I know of, why?"

"Well, to ascertain how many hearts they have for starts. Ponds, we're we're leaving!"

"Doctor, we agree but you still need to - GET BACK HERE!" Avalon screamed when the Doctor raced away from them.

"Where is he going!?" Pfortner asked but none of the group seemed to know. Still, they chased after him.

The Doctor snagged a facemask off the first person he met in his run, and with an apology, he went on outside. He had to go out there and find...find whatever Time Lords were out there. It was fairly easy for the rest of the travelers to catch up to him. He wasn't that fast yet but it didn't save him from the smack Avalon gave him.

"You shouldn't be out here!" She angrily said, grabbing his arm but still letting him lead to wherever it was he needed to go.

"You shouldn't be!" He argued. Despite her wearing the mask again, he wasn't comfortable with her exposure to such a horrendous city.

"We're all doing this," Avalon looked back at Amy and Rory. They agreed and helped the Doctor on his other side. The Sapling came beside his mother.

They walked together until they saw a building with a strange golden design on its front. It was a circle with dozens of lines inside it. It was also the building that lost a good chunk of its top after getting struck by a big pink blob.

"Don't you see?" The Doctor swallowed hard, willing the others to keep going straight for it. "There's only one rational explanation for what we're seeing. The Gallifreyan symbol clinches it! If this 'golden triangle' have Time Lord technology, then that means one of them might be…"

They walked into the building only to be targeted by multiple red dots.

"Oh c'mon," Amy sighed. They had just walked in and there were five people already waiting to shoot them!?

"This is as far as you go, Doctor," one of the guards said. "Pfortner warned us you were en route. The Golden Triangle were very explicit: they're not to be disturbed during their experiments."

"Look, I'm feeling a bit peaky so I'll keep it short," the Doctor shuffled a bit to find his sonic. "It may have escaped your notice, but the top of your building just fell off!"

Their response was to point more red dots on him and the others.

"Keep talking, it's going great," Rory shot him a look.

"C'mon, it's a diagnostic thingummy see!" The Doctor waved his sonic in the air. "It's harmless!" He scanned the immediate area for show but did get some interesting results along the way. "Except it's telling me you're going to have to worry about a lot more than this building if you don't let me talk to this Golden Triangle! How would you like to not die in the very near future?"

"Don't be idiots please," Avalon added with a flat face. Thankfully, they spared them the more dramatic parts of the standoff and stepped aside. They were brought into the elevator to finally meet the Golden Triangle.

"It may be temporal bends talking but...is that Kenny G I can hear?" the Doctor mumbled to the group on their way up.

"Yeah, actually," Amy made a face when she heard the familiar tune.

"Thirty billion light years from Earth and I still can't escape smooth...jazz," he blinked though when he started to wonder how nice it would be to have a nice jazz date with Avalon. They would have such a lovely time together, dancing to the jazz music. She was all about the music, after all.

The elevator dinged open like a regular Earth elevator. As it slid open its doors, a soft, warm golden glow slipped in. The Doctor's mouth fell open at the sight before them. Little by little, the same happened to the others.

"I'm not allowed visitors. Are you here to watch the end of the world with us?" A young female Time Lady sat across from them with three robed people behind her. She wore the red robes and golden armor that the Doctor recognized so well.

Everyone behind the Doctor was frozen in their spots. The Time Lady wasn't just a Time Lady...she was child. She appeared to be like a ten year old in Earth terms. Still, there were noticeable differences between her and a human child. For starters, there was something funny going on with one of her eyes. The right eye was completely white and the more the group stared, the clearer the scars on the right side of her face got. A chunk of her hair was missing on the same side as well.

"Go get the TARDIS," the Doctor immediately ordered, startling the group of their thoughts.

"What? No! We're not...we're not leaving you," Avalon frowned at him. Yes, the Time Lady turned out to be a child but who's to say it wasn't a trap? The Doctor was in no condition to be on his own.

"I'll be fine. But I'm gonna need my TARDIS." The Doctor wasn't sure what was going on but something warned him that he would require his TARDIS for whatever reason.

Amy and Rory suspected that beyond the TARDIS, the Doctor wanted a moment alone with the child. No matter what, she still looked like a Time Lord. And the Doctor was still the Doctor.

"We'll be back," Rory said while Amy reached over for Avalon and the Sapling.

Avalon still resisted Amy's pull but she stopped when the Doctor held out his sonic to her. "Why are you giving me that?"

"So you can follow the signal back to the TARDIS and because it gives you a reason to come back to me," the Doctor offered her a knowing smile that, even though she didn't want to, got her to smile for him. He wasn't leaving her nor sending her away like he tried to do to Amy and Rory when they were in the pocket universe.

"Please be careful," she whispered as she took the sonic from him. He nodded at her, at least silently promising he would do his best. These were one of the moments she wished she could kiss and hug him. One of these days she might just skip over the 'easing Amy and Rory into the idea' thing and kiss her Doctor whenever she wanted. But for now, she gripped his sonic in her hand and let Amy pull her back towards the elevator.

Despite her reluctance, Avalon let Amy take her away.

~0~

"I'm not sure that was a good idea," Avalon huffed on their way into the TARDIS. The Doctor's sonic was lead them right to the blue box.

"Either way, he didn't want us in there," Amy said, keeping a tight hold around Avalon's arm despite knowing that if she really wanted to, Avalon could rip away with ease. They truly understood now that Avalon's 'freakish' strength wasn't freaky at all. It's a natural part of her unique DNA.

"I'm sure Father can handle it," the Sapling chimed in to cheer his Mother up. "The Time Lady is a child."

"Doesn't mean she's not a weapon," Avalon muttered before it truly hit her. Her eyes widened as she looked over to Amy and Rory. "I'm sorry! I meant…"

"We know what you meant, Ava," Rory assured her. Their daughter was part Time Lady and it was used as means to weaponize her.

"I'm just scared that it's still going to happen," Avalon admitted. She found it easier to share with them than the Doctor. He didn't know what they had seen at Lake Silencio. "The Silence are still out there and since they don't have neither me or River, who's to say they didn't come up with something else?"

"I think this is something completely different," Amy said. They were picking up their speed and could already see their blue box from a distance. "If this had been the Silence, they would've done something on the spot. I think we've angered them all a bit too much for them to be patient again."

"Let's just get the TARDIS back to the Doctor and hopefully clear all this mess up so we can go!" Rory was on the urgent plan that they really needed to leave. This was a terrible place for his granddaughter who was only just healing. He didn't want to see her have a setback.

"Right," Avalon bit her lip and turned to the console, her eyes lingering on the Time Rotor. She handed the Sapling the sonic, once she made sure he understood he was not to play with it, and started working the controls.

Her grandparents had the time of their lives watching her hands smoothly glide over the controls like she practically owned the TARDIS. Of course the TARDIS was letting her work like she was a pilot, because Avalon practically was. Amy and Rory wondered if Avalon truly realized just how much the TARDIS had bonded with her in these last months. It was touching, really.

The TARDIS had separated all of Avalon's favorite rooms again since there was no need to keep her in bed all day, but she still only put them in separate rooms in the same hallway as Avalon's bedroom. Her piano room, the media room and the library were all just seconds from her bedroom. Avalon had no idea why the TARDIS was that involved in making her life easier but she loved the attention. She took it as 'I'm the TARDIS' favorite' and she was.

She just didn't know how much deeper it went.

~ 0 ~

The Doctor felt his head pounding as if someone was actually hitting him with bricks. Little by little, it got stronger and he had a pretty good idea of why it was.

The Time child, who had introduced herself as Orphan, stopped talking when she heard the Doctor mumble something under his breath. Even she knew he wasn't looking well. "Are you okay, Doctor?" She leaned forwards on her seat.

The Doctor seemed to be sinking away in his chair. He brought a hand to his forehead and rubbed circles over it. "Yes, yes, I'm fine. Nothing to worry about. Just a...very minor anoxic seizure. Where were we, Orphan?"

"You were asking me about my memories."

"Ah, yes! What's the very first thing you remember?"

"War," the child said distantly. "I remember war."

"War, that makes sense," the Doctor sucked in a breath and leaned forwards to meet the child's face.

Orphan didn't seem to remember a lot about Gallifrey, much less about herself. She suffered a type of amnesia but the Doctor was fairly sure there was something else going on, he just needed his sonic first. She remembered the planet's environment, its people, but when the Doctor asked her specific questions about herself, she went blank. She seemed kind, she seemed...like a child. She was a very mature child, more than the Sapling was. That was normal given Orphan's age. She was a bit past 100...she couldn't remember the exact number. And she genuinely wanted to remember who she was.

The TARDIS materialized outside the room, just as the Doctor hoped. He had barely gotten up from his chair, albeit wobbly, when the doors opened and allowed the others in.

Avalon came rushing in first, once again holding the sonic in her hand. "You're not supposed to stand!"

The Doctor playfully rolled his eyes. He supposed this was how everyone was acting with her. He could understand the annoyance that came with it. "Thanks Ava, but I'm fine." He took the sonic from her and turned back to Orphan.

"So...what's happening?" Amy quietly asked while they watched him sonic Orphan. The child sat motionless, only blinking at the sonic in front of her.

"Do you know who I am, then?" The child asked when the Doctor pulled the sonic away, taking a look at the readings he'd gotten. "You said there was a possibility that we might be related."

Everyone behind the Doctor went wide-eyed. Could they be related? Could it be…

"Is that one of his kids?" Rory whispered very quietly to Amy. They knew that the Doctor had once had children of his own and that they died as adults in the War…

...or so the Doctor thought.

Avalon swallowed hard and stepped back. What if the child really was his? That would be wonderful news for him, that one of his children had survived...but that left a lot of questions. Did it mean the child had regenerated into a child during the War? And if so, why was it only now that the TARDIS picked up on their signal? It was all just a bit too odd.

"I'm sorry Orphan, would you excuse us for just a minute?" The Doctor smiled at the child and turned to the others, his smile dropping. They needed to follow him.

"Doctor, where are we going now?" Amy asked as they crossed through the doors.

"I need to see the Golden Triangle now!"

"Right, but what about her?" Avalon stopped him for a moment. She suspected he was on his fast pace plans again and his body wasn't quite up to it. "Is she...you know...your daughter?"

"Do I have a sister, Father!?" The Sapling beamed at the idea of having a sister. The could have so much fun together!

The Doctor visibly tensed. "I need to see the Golden Triangle," he repeated.

Avalon inwardly sighed. He wasn't going to tell them one bit until he talked to those people. "Fine. But please don't run. You still look sick!"

"I feel sick," he corrected as if it was a point for him.

"So you need to slow down," Rory exclaimed, his nurse side coming out.

"Quite the opposite Rory, I need to be faster! It's the Temporal Quakes! If they don't stop soon then my body will try to regenerate! And the problem with that-"

"-besides the fact you'll be regenerating?" Avalon folded her arms over her chest. What more could there be than that!?

"Well...I don't really have any regenerations left."

Avalon's eyes widened. That. That was worse! Her arms dropped to her sides out of shock. "What...what do you mean you don't...you don't have any left!? You said you could regenerate!"

The Doctor cursed himself for choosing this moment to have that type of talk with her. There were so many things he needed to discuss with Avalon now that he knew who she was and who her family was...but it just wasn't easy. How could he bring up his regeneration count? Her mother''s own life?

"Doctor, you're kidding right?" Amy asked, trying to ease up the tension with what she hoped would be the beginning of 'Of course I am, Pond'...but it wasn't.

"Father is telling the truth," the Sapling spoke up. "He only has 12 regenerations and he is at the end of the cycle."

"Thank you Sapling," the Doctor sarcastically smiled at the child. He was trying to be delicate about it but the Sapling, really being just a child, couldn't see that. "Avalon...I didn't know how to tell, there was no right time with everything…"

Avalon shook her head, pushing away everything that she was thinking to focus on the most important thing right now: keeping him alive. Because if he stayed alive then she could kill him afterwards for not telling her about the regenerations

"Let's go," she snagged his hand and pulled him down the corridors.

They found the Golden Triangle in the only room with its door wide open. They were waiting for the group, or more so the Doctor.

"We're delighted that you've finally deigned to meet with us, Doctor," one of the trio said as the group walked into the room. "The Golden Triangle is always happy to meet a peer."

"Yes, even one who dismisses us from our own conference room," the second of the trio said somewhat sourly. The Doctor hadn't been too kind asking them to leave him alone with Orphan.

"I am Beaback, Doctor," the only female of the trio introduced herself. "Such a pleasure."

"And I am Sendham," the first male went next. "We met when I was just a boy actually."

The Doctor didn't remember that detail.

"Shriven," the last of the trio said. "Are you enjoying our friend? She's been helping us with our experiments for some time now."

"Yes, yes, charmed. Which one of you gave her the name 'Orphan'?" the Doctor started going around the room on his wobbly feet, trying to find something the others weren't sure of.

"Ah, it's the only thing she could remember when we found her injured in the forest all those years ago," Beaback said.

"Lovely story," the Doctor's sarcasm was very noticeable. He was shooting down everything they were telling them. "An amnesiac Time Lord foundling...kindly scientists. Shame it's all poppycock of course."

Avalon watched the trio go from outrage to shifty in two seconds. "Oh, are you lying?" She smirked. "Somebody just got caught."

"How dare you!" Senhdam exclaimed but the Doctor paid him no attention. He had found what he was looking for. The sonic had found a hidden compartment in the wall.

"What are you doing, Father?" the Sapling scurried over to him while he pushed the compartment open.

The Doctor reached inside to pull out a small pyramid with silver metal outlining it. "Oh you silly, silly, sausages. You have no idea what this is, do you?"

"None of us do, actually," Rory pointed that out for him.

None of them noticed a small figure peeking their head into the room.

"What about Orphan? Does she know?" the Doctor demanded from the Golden Triangle.

"Know what?" Avalon dreaded to ask, but they would need to know anyways.

"That she's not real."

"What?" A child's voice asked, claiming the entire group's attention. Orphan had found them and had tears pooling in her eyes. "I'm not...real?"

"Oh Orphan, I'm so sorry!" The Doctor exclaimed and moved towards her only to feel that same pain course through his body. The same golden energy was striking the right side of Orphan's face, sparking up into the air.

"Not again!" Avalon rushed to help the Doctor stay on his feet, but she had to take away the pyramid and hand it to the Sapling instead.

"Orphan! You don't need...ah! Orphan!" the Doctor extended a hand towards her but she was already turning away.

"Help me!" Avalon motioned to Amy and Rory. The Doctor was slouching in his attempt to chase after the girl. Between all of them, they brought him into the hallways after Orphan.

The child was nearing the TARDIS but she stopped. Her body was flickering. She raised her left hand and saw it...disappearing?

"Why does she look like that?" Amy crinkled her nose. It almost appeared like she was losing her hand in bits that kept disappearing in the air...like she was disintegrating.

"I...I know this box," Orphan said at the sight of the TARDIS. "I don't understand I'm real!"

"Of course you're real," the Doctor said once they were behind her. "You're just...not like me. You're not like anyone. Trust me, that's not the first time I see it happen." He had someone just like that helping him stand and she had no idea.

"Father, do you need this?" The Sapling presumed once the Doctor had straightened up on his feet, though he was still a bit rockish.

"Yes!" He moved towards Orphan and gently turned her around, making her face the pyramid and the others. The Golden Triangle had come after them but remained a cautious distance from them.

"What is that thing?" Orphan stared at the pyramid in fear.

"It's...well, it's you, Orphan," the Doctor said, gently bringing her a bit closer to it. "You're the user interface for it."

The closer Orphan got to the pyramid the brighter her body became. The others had to shield their eyes every now and then.

"It's a...weapon. A terrible Time Lord weapon," the Doctor swallowed hard. It was far too similar to the Moment. Even its structure resembled it. "The Orphaned Hour was part of the Time Lords' Omega Arsenal. It was deployed during the Time War. It worked by hurling everything within a defined radius back in time. Imagine being able to make an advancing army disappear simply by resetting your surroundings. Wildly destructive even in the right hands. The weapon was designed to protect users from its effects, but they were still vulnerable to the external threats. Last I heard, the Orphaned Hour had been damaged in the war. It - you - must have been flung clear of the…"

The Doctor shut his eyes terribly hard. He used the Moment, he needed to accept that and own up to each time it came up. He used the Moment and just before chaos descended, the Orphaned Hour must have been thrown off planet and landed in Zoline.

Orphan gingerly took the pyramid from the Sapling and held it with shaky arms. She was glowing. "I'm...I'm not a weapon!" she frowned. "I feel! I think!" She let the Sapling take the pyramid back and turned to the Golden Triangle, eyes blazing with fury. "Is this true!?"

"Ah, well...its complicated," Bearback said nervously.

"You said you were my friends!"

"Of course we're your friends, Orphan! You've known us since were children! We treat you like a princess!"

"Oh, shut up!" snapped Avalon, shooting a similar glare at the trio like Orphan. "That is not how you treat a princess! Actually, that might not be as true. You do, you just treat her like Rapunzel. Keeping her locked away."

"Preposterous!" Sendham snapped.

"Yeah?" she arched an eyebrow. "How many times have you let her go outside? Out of the room we found her in?"

Silence.

"Mhm. She's like a caged bird and you are the evil stepmother, only worse!"

"It sounds like you just used her," Amy frowned.

"Because they did," the Doctor reiterated, feeling terrible when Orphan looked back at him with fresh tears in her golden eyes. "You three found a broken magic box that magically resets your world every, what...thirty years? You correctly deduced that close proximity to the Orphaned Hour would protect you from its effects. Then every time this planet got reset by a few decades, you kept the technological innovations made by others during the last cycle. You claimed these innovations as your own and then waited for real geniuses to build on them so you could steal their ideas too and so on. Finally, you invested in life-extension tech so you could continue fleecing these poor people indefinitely, isn't that right? Zoline's great minds? Don't make me laugh! You're cheap con artists who lucked into the ultimate scan!"

"Uh, Doctor…?" Rory was the first to catch the Doctor's flashing gold. Avalon and Amy each gasped when the same gold spread over his body.

"Unfortunately for you, this gizmo wasn't designed to be triggered multiple times. You're lucks run out. This broken bomb's gonna blow!"

"So let it go!" Avalon snapped when the Doctor took it from the Sapling hands. He groaned and fell to his knees with it. "Dammit, Doctor!" She ran to help him stand with Amy's help while Rory and the Sapling took Orphan's weakened self.

The Doctor pointed them towards the TARDIS so they helped them in. "You lot better not move!" He yelled to the remaining trio behind.

The trio huddled together as another tremor shook the ground. A few seconds later, the TARDIS doors re-opened only for a book to be thrown directly at them. It fell to the ground where it remained until the Doctor stepped under the doorway and pointed at it.

"Pick it up," he ordered with gritted teeth. "Come on, chop chop!"

Shriven grabbed the book off the ground and opened it up to a random page. "I...I can't read this!"

Carbon Sequestration For Children: A Beginner's Guide was freshly printed on the title cover.

"It's p-printed on semi-psychic paper!" the Doctor clutched his chest with one hand. "Give it a few seconds and it'll translate into your language."

"What are we supposed to do with this!?"

"You have the money and the resources, so you're going to - ah! - roll up your sleeves and fix this mess yourselves! No resets, no do-overs!" He wouldn't tell them he'd be checking up on them later on to see their progress. They would most likely wait for him to come and fix everything and he was not going to do that!

"That book's a got a cool pop-up section!" The Sapling poked his head from around the Doctor. "I love it!"

"Doctor!" Avalon called from inside.

"Fix it!" The Doctor left the Golden Triangle with those parting words. He let the doors close behind him as he rushed to the console.

Orphan was continuing to disintegrate.

"What's happening to Orphan?" Rory asked once the Doctor joined them. He would try to be a nurse once he knew what the problem was exactly.

"The weapon's disintegrating which means she is too!" The Doctor ushered them away from her, leaving only himself around.

The TARDIS hummed a second before a lever on the console was pushed down. She was bringing them back to space, off Zoline.

"Did the TARDIS just move us?" Amy blinked. Funny, the box hadn't rocked them this time. The Doctor truly was that bad of a driver.

"Yes, but…" the Doctor groaned, lurching forwards.

"The weapon!" The Sapling gasped at the pyramid. A fierce golden light was slicing through the thing.

"Doctor!" Avalon forgot all about staying away when she saw the Doctor collapsed on the ground. "N-n-n-n-no! You gotta get up!"

"He's dying!" Amy frantically looked at Rory but neither of them knew what to do.

"Shut up, no he's not!" Avalon had heard that far too many times in this year alone. Why was the universe so hell bent on taking him away from her? From the entire world!?

Orphan picked up the pyramid from the ground and desperately looked over to Amy and Rory. "Please...I don't want to hurt anybody. What do I do?"

Neither could answer her but the TARDIS could. The console shined bright in a white light, pulling the Orphan's attention. "What?" It was like she could understand what the box was trying to tell her. She gave a firm nod. "Yes...yes of course. The Heart of the TARDIS."

Hearing those familiar words made Avalon raise her head from the Doctor. "No, wait! I know that!" But the Orphan was already coming towards the console.

"Don't...don't let her…" the Doctor struggled to get up. He felt terrible (apart from his biological pain) using Avalon like a pillar to stand up, but he couldn't let Orphan get any closer.

"Will it hurt…?" Orphan seemed like she wasn't even in-tuned to their world. She was in a little bubble, talking to the TARDIS who kept calling her forwards.

"Orphan, you can't do that!" The Doctor argued once he was back on his feet but try as he might, he couldn't get closer.

"It'll kill you too!" Avalon exclaimed. Orphan's body was already more than half disintegrated.

"The TARDIS says this is the only way to keep everyone safe," Orphan reasoned. "I am not a weapon for destruction. I can do good." Her voice started to echo as her body truly began to lose form and turn into white particles. "I think...I would have enjoyed being a Time Lord, Doctor. Shame."

"Orphan, no!"

The Sapling wrapped his branch arms around the Doctor to keep him in his spot. They couldn't get any closer without getting hurt themselves. Orphan was sacrificing herself for them! They couldn't let it be in vain! Soon, the white light faded and it was like nothing happened.

"Sapling, let me go!" The Doctor untangled himself from the branches but wasn't free until the Sapling listened. "I could've fixed this!"

"It didn't look like that," Amy frowned at him. "You were dying too!"

"I could've done something!"

"No, you couldn't have!" Avalon stepped towards him. She wasn't going to stand there and let him blame them for something the Zolines did and much more for wanting to keep him safe and alive! "You were dying if you forgot!"

No, of course he hadn't forgotten. That was still a pending conversation to have with her. The console suddenly sparked, starling all of them, before a wicked groaning came from the Time Rotor.

"What...was that?" Rory asked slowly.

The Doctor hurried up to the console to find the problem. "Well...the TARDIS just euthanized the Orphaned Hour by absorbing it into her core. I don't think she thought it through!" He yelped when the Time Rotor burst, shooting out white electricity all over.

"What's happening to her!?" Avalon shrieked when an electric shock just narrowly missed her side.

"We're going to lose her! We're coming apart!" the Doctor had to step back from the console, or what was going to be left of it.

"I thought you said she could withstand the heat of a star!?"

"I don't know what that means but she just digested a Time Lord weapon of mass destruction! That's bound to make things harder!"

Amy fell against one of the railings. "Doctor, what do we do!? What do we do!?"

The Doctor put his hands together and thought. He really thought. This was the first time something like this was happening and he had nothing to keep it from tearing apart!

Actually…

The Doctor shook his head. No, that was...that was a terrible thing to ask…

"RORY!" Avalon screamed when Rory toppled down the staircase leading to the corridors. She tried running towards him but Amy yanked her back.

"I'm fine!" Rory called from his spot, but who knew how long that would be true.

The Doctor closed his eyes. He had to. It was the only way to keep all of them safe. "Sapling!" The child raised his head at the call of his name. "I...I need you to put down roots again, right now!"

The Sapling naturally hesitated. "But...I will lose myself among my leaves, Father!" That's what happened the last time he grew so tall and wrapped everything in his arms. He ended the hippie party but he nearly got lost! What if this time he stayed lost forever!?

"Doctor, you can't make him do that!" Avalon wobbled on her feet to get to the two. She almost fell but she was close enough for the Doctor to grab her and pull her up to him.

"Ava, tree roots stabilize crumbling riverbanks, shifting sands...the Sapling can hold the TARDIS together!"

"But he's just a child!"

"I know that!" He snapped, startling her into silence. He held her closer, really close, enough for him to feel her heart beating rapidly. She was terrified. "I always do things like this and I'm sorry but this is the only way to keep everyone - to keep you - safe."

Avalon's eyes teared up. She shook her head and looked at the Sapling. "You don't have to," she whispered. "You're just...you're just a child."

The Sapling swallowed hard. He believed his mother when she said it was his choice, but he also believed his father. The only way to keep everyone safe was to sprout his roots. He didn't...he didn't want to let anyone die, especially his parents. But he was just so scared. He wasn't brave like them.

But he had to try.

"Will I...will I still be me when you have saved us all?" He asked in a frail, child, voice. "What if I disappear like last time?"

The Doctor shifted so that he could face the Sapling and still keep hold of Avalon on the side. "Sapling you listen to me, we are family. That means that wherever you are, I'll find you and bring you home."

A smile took over the Sapling's face. "That's what you said to aunt Amy and Mother...and you found them." It took them a long time to find them but they did, so that meant that they would find him no matter what.

"Sapling…" Avalon reached for him but didn't have to move a step. The Sapling ran up to her and the Doctor, throwing his arms around them. He hugged them tightly.

"Sapling, I swear we'll find you," the Doctor told the Sapling when he looked up at them. This was the last time he would ever say that to anyone. He had to stop putting them in danger like this, making them get taken away.

"Yeah?" The Sapling asked.

"Yeah, cos I'm going to help," Avalon smiled strongly for him. "And you know what they say, mothers always find what they're looking for."

The Sapling giggled. "You're funny." And that was his Mother, whether she was sure of it or not. He took a deep breath and stepped back. He looked down at his feet and saw them started sprouting the roots on the ground.

His body started stretching out into huge, thick branches that went to cover every inch of the room.

Outside the TARDIS, something was beginning to peek through the shattered windows of the door. "Yesssss, finally….I wassss right all along. Faaaame issss chiefly a maatter of waiting for the rrright door to open."

The Scream smashed a hand through the last window of the door to squeeze right in. "Doctor, I hhhhhave finally fooound youuu."

#ocappreciation #doctor who #11th doctor #dw imagine #11th doctor imagine #11th doctor fics #doctor who fics #doctor who imagine #oc: Avalon Reynolds #fic: falling in temptation

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ronandonlyposts · 5 years ago

Photo

My Sonic OC, Ronic The Hedgehog.

Art By The Amazing and Wonderful Trana-Draws! Please go check out her art on https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/tranadraws-art and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/tranadraws I am always open to RP and can find me daily on Twitter and Discord. Feel free to add me, send me a message and introduce me to your OC!

Twitter: @DaRonAndOnly twitter.com/DaRonAndOnly Discord: TheRonAndOnly#6331 And also ask me and Ronic questions on CuriousCat: curiouscat.me/DaRonAndOnly

Name: Ronic

Nickname: The Blue Comet

Species: Hedgehog

Age: 18

Sex: Male

Sexuality: Straight

Height / Weight: 3’2” / 35kg

Affiliation: Hero

Personality:

Ronic is the most kind hearted, selfless and friendliest hedgehog you’ll meet, always running around and helping others wherever he goes. Although a little naïve, Ronic is always willing to help out anyone he meets for no reward, be it rescuing them or being someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on.

A teenager with the mind of an 8 year old, Ronic is an enthusiastic, energetic, young at heart and a big kid. Always excited about something and always happy, people seem to believe he is never sad.

He is a fun, warm, thoughtful, compassionate and trustworthy individual that likes making new friends. Whomever he meets, he wants to get know and understand them. If they are going through any turmoil in their life, he tries his best to help them the best that he can. He always sees the good in people and the potential in them that they might not see in themselves.

As he has trouble remembering his past, Ronic instead lives for the here, now and for the future. He’s always looking ahead and racing down a brand new, unknown and uncertain path. This makes him very spontaneous and loves anything new, be that a new friend or finding a new place on his travels.

He seizes the day and enjoys every new moment like he has just been born.

But this also makes him very impulsive, reckless and foolish. Rushing head long into things without thinking them through. Always speaking his mind without thinking before he speaks, but that is only because he speaks from his heart.

His naivety goes hand in hand with his mild stupidity, leaving him very scatter-brained and sometimes forgetful. But just because he might not have a lot on his mind, it means that he’s a lot more open minded than others.

Ronic also wears a mask. Not a physical one but an emotional one. As previously mentioned, Ronic seems to be always happy and people believe he is never sad. But if you can get him alone, talk to him and asking the right questions to get him to open up, you’ll find that Ronic is actually hiding how scared, afraid, lonely and sad he truly feels.

He is scared and afraid of being on a brand new world he knows nothing about, knowing no-one on this world, having no-one to help him and of the pressure he feels knowing he has to take on an ancient evil that threatens to destroy the universe. How can the universe expect him to save it, when he doesn’t even know who he is?

Due to losing all of his memories when becoming Ronic, what hurts him in the most is that he doesn’t know who he really is. He doesn’t remember his planet or his family. He doesn’t know where he belongs, as he can no-longer remember where he originally came from. Backstory:

At the beginning of time and the birth of every universe, 3 constants were created that governed existence itself. Chaos, Destruction and Peace. They spread out throughout the blankness of space and became the building blocks to every world in every universe. Chaos created life, destruction created death and peace kept the balance between the two. On many worlds, evolution happened and civilizations rose and fell with these 3 constants ever present.

In the early years of the universe’s creation, the power of each constant grew as their influence spread throughout the universe.

They were given different names by different races and different cultures.

In one universe, an enormous battle took place between the three spirits. Chaos and Destruction fought for their dominion, whereas Peace understood that this universe needed both Destruction and Chaos to exist.

Their battle ended with all three becoming severely weakened and were stripped of their incorporeal forms and became corporal.

The Spirit of Destruction took the form of a gigantic, demonic dragon and was imprisoned within the nearest planet of their battle, a planet called Nede.

The Spirit of Chaos crashed onto the Nede’s surface and fractured, its power splitting into 7 large Gem Stones and 1 larger Gem that would control the smaller 7. They would act as the keys to the lock that imprisoned Destruction and were kept on the furthest side of the planet, out of Destruction’s reach.

The Spirit of Peace also crashed landed on the planet’s surface, taking the form of a white, angelic anthropomorphic hedgehog with large wings.

The inhabitants of Nede, Nedians, found the injured Spirit of Peace lying on their planet’s surface, weakened from the fight.

The Spirit told them that the battle was not over and with time, Destruction would regain it’s strength and break free of his prison and threaten the universe once again. With Chaos now reduced to it’s new state, neither Chaos or Peace would be strong enough to stop him on their own.

The Spirit tasked the Nedians to form a society that would guard the temple of Destruction and create another temple to keep the Master Gem and 7 Gems of Chaos safe, bestowing on them this prophecy.

The prophecy was that when Destruction would re-awaken, a Nedian that embodies the strength and will to bring peace to everyone, would be chosen to become the vessel for the Spirit of Peace. With this, they would have enough power to use Chaos to fight and re-imprison Destruction.

The Spirit of Peace then went into a deep slumber, cocooning itself with a meteorite and flew off into the upper atmosphere of Nede. The Comet of Peace would remain circling the planet until the prophecy came true.

The Nedians gave the Spirits new names. Destruction became Hammon, Chaos became Ataxia and Peace remained.

The Guardians of the Temples of Hammon and Ataxia were given a special name. A name in our language would mean guardian, protector or more specifically, hero. But in Nedian, it was Ronic.

Each Ronic was gifted with a white scarf, whilst different races on the planet would have different colored scarfs. Hedgehog’s being black, birds being green, aquatic creatures being blue etc.

Eventually, the prophecy would come true and Hammon brought destruction across the planet as he awoke from his slumber, finally powerful enough to break free and continue it’s path of destruction.

A wave of destruction washed across the planet and all of Nede gathered at the last known safe space, the Temple of Ataxia.

As the wave grew closer and more powerful, the shield protecting The Temple of Ataxia was destroyed. Everyone feared for their lives. Except one.

One young enough and naïve enough to stand to a god of destruction and that always stood up to bullies. Rody stepped forward, arms out stretched to protect his family and his people.

As Hammon laughed and swung a strike to destroy the feeble creature that stood before him, the Comet of Peace finally came back down to Nede and engulfed Rody.

Rody was transformed and emerged as a taller, older and stronger hedgehog. His brown fur changed to a shiny and nice blue and his scarf from black to white. Rody had finally become a Ronic.

With the 7 Ataxia Gems and Master Ataxia Gem, Rody’s body transformed again to shining yellow and then a shining white, with what some would call angelic, glowing wings. And with the combined power of Ataxia and Peace, was able to save and restore Nede and weaken Hammon.

Unable to destroy him, Hammon was reduced to the form of a tall demonic, anthropomorphic dragon.

Not wanting to be beaten by the Spirit of Peace, Hammon used the Ataxia Gem’s power to open a dimensional rift. The rift sucked in the 7 Ataxia Gems into another dimension before jumping in after them, Hammon vowed that once he obtained the Ataxia Gems, he would not just destroy their universe, but every universe until his full power was restored.

The Spirit of Peace knew it had to leave this universe in order to travel to the other dimension to stop Hammon again. But for Rody, it would mean leaving Nede. Leaving his family.

Without Rody, the Spirit of Peace would still be too weak to fight Hammon. So, Rody agreed to help the Spirit. Not just to protect his family and planet, but every planet in the universe.

Sadly, this would come at a greater price. To make the transformation permanent, the Spirit of Peace would have to wipe Rody’s memories. Everything that made Rody who he was would remain, but he would have no re-collection of his past life. Rody sadly agreed and left Nede with the Spirit of Peace, becoming cocooned into a new comet, a Comet of Peace, to help travel through the universal rift.

On the other side of the dimensional rift was the universe containing Mobius and on one fateful day, a Blue Comet could be seen streaking across the planet’s sky before crashing onto its surface.

Emerging from said comet, a teenage looking blue hedgehog with a long fringe, white scarf, red and white boots and red and grey gloves took his first steps on a new planet.

Coming to the rescue of a bunch of Mobians under attack by Hell Hounds, a demonic large dragon / dog like creature, the scouts of Hammon’s demonic army he creates and controls, the blue hedgehog was asked his name. The blue hedgehog couldn’t remember his name. Only one word. A word that meant hero.

He spoke “Oh…I’m…I’m Ronic. Ronic The Hedgehog”.

Meanwhile, Hammon had also arrived on this planet and being able to sense the 7 Ataxia Gems energy, began to search for them, for they were the key to storing him to his Perfect form.

Unbeknown to both Hammon and Ronic, the dimensional rift that Hammon had created would have ramifications for not just their universe and the universe containing Mobius, but all universes…

Motivation:

To save, protect and help everyone he can. To find the Ataxia Gems, regain his memories, defeat Hammon once and for all and hopefully one day get back to his original home world and his family.

Abilities: The fastest thing alive on his own planet, but not the fastest thing alive on Mobius, Ronic has been gifted with the ability to run at super speed. Except that when Ronic is life-threatening peril or needs to go Plus Ultra to finish a fight, he’ll tap into his ability to travel at the speed of light.

Disappearing in an instant, Ronic takes the form of a blue streak of light and then reappears in a blue flash of light and twinkling, small blue stars around him. He can use it to deal a knock out punch or to save someone from imminent doom.

Forms:

Using his own form of energy known as Ataxia and when in possession of all 7 Ataxia Gems, Ronic is able to transform into Super Ronic, similar to that of Super Sonic.

With the 7 Ataxia Gems and Master Ataxia Gem, he is able to become Angelic Ronic, changing colour into a pure white, with a powerful white aura surrounding him and taking the form of two, large, angelic wings on his back.

Weakness:

The problem being is that Ronic has no full control over this power. He can only tap into it if he or someone else he cares about is in danger.

And even when he does use it, he is physically weaker after using it. He pants, sweats, falls to his knees and even faints or passes out due to the amount of energy it took out of him. It takes him at least a few hours before he has enough energy to use it again.

In short, he is a glass cannon. He is not a fighter and would rather run rings around his enemies than face them in a straight up brawl. He can take a few good licks, but in the long run, he’ll be out for the count in a few powerful punches.

Extra:

He loves corn dogs and can play the acoustic guitar, but that’s a secret so don’t tell anyone, okay? 😉

#sonic oc #sonic fc #sonicoc #sonic original character #sonic #sonic au #ronic #ronic the hedgehog

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themoonstarwarrior · 4 years ago

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PLAYLIST SHUFFLE TAG!

Okay, so @viterbofangirl tagged me in this and I need to start learning to post my own shit, so what the hell, why not?

Rules: you can usually tell a lot about a person by the type of music they listen to! put your favorite playlist on shuffle and list the first 10 15 songs, then tag 10 people. no skipping!

(I couldn’t stop at 10 so I added 5 more, sue me)

I have very random music taste and I listen to my music on shuffle alot, so I made a playlist of the ones I like the most (that way I don’t hafta skip 150 songs to get to the one I feel like) so I’m gonna use that one.

1) History of Violence - Theory of a Deadman

Hoo boy starting off light huh?.... Yeah so, I was in the drive thru at Sonic when I first heard this on the radio and was immediately like “holy shit”. Instead of like metaphors and poetic subtlety, it’s just straight up like “here’s a poor abused woman who resorted to murdering her shitty boyfriend/husband cuz she couldn’t take it dum dum dum”. Even though the actual situation is not the same, this song is perfect for getting across the internal issues and turmoil of my character Mikey. Its so perfect I’m even planning to animate something for it...... if I ever get around to learning animation that is.....

2) The Vengeful One - Disturbed

Two songs in and I look kinda emo.... But hey this song is soooooo cathartic! I love me a good heavy rock song, and the drums and electric guitar are perfect for my ears to absorb. This song gives off a feeling of overwhelming power mixed with a coldness and disdain for the bad in the world. Obviously, thats not my usual temperment, but its an interesting one to explore! Especially when I’m trying to get into the head of characters that exude that like my OCs Spark or Ryu. Plus its fun to sing in the car X)

3) Enter Sandman - Metallica

Okay this one is just a classic! Same thing with the drums and guitar they both slap SOOOOO GOOD. I don’t really associate this song with any of my characters or fandom favorites, but it DOES give me a super strong urge to learn the drums. EXXXXXXXXIT LIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! OFF TO NEVER NEVERLAND!!

4) We Are Giants - Lindsey Stirling ft. Dia Frampton

I don’t really to listen to music by band or artist, but I LOVE Lindsey Stirling!!! She’s probably my favorite musician! This is such a good song, especially for someone like me. Its a positive song that talks about feeling alone in a crowd and unimportant to the world, but how you really do matter and shouldn’t be afraid to dream big and shoot for the stars. It really speaks to me and the vocalization is so good (especially for singing), not to mention the official music video is animated and AMAZING!

5) Cetus - Lensko NCS

I dunno if anyone knows this song, but damn its good. Its one of those Royalty-Free songs that people look up for their channels, which is how I found it in the first place, but I loved it immediately. Its a peppy 8-bit electronic bop that turns a little Irish jig at the end and honestly I think if I ever start an animation channel I’m totally gonna use it! (Also go support Lensko he make good beats!)

6) Sanctuary - Utada Hikaru

I did not grow up with Kingdom Hearts, and only played KH2 within the past year n’ a half. But good God, the moment that Cinematic Opening came on and this song started playing I swear I astral projected into a daze of feelings without names. I know that “Simple and Clean” is the quintessential Kingdom Heart song that gives everyone feelings, but IMHO Sanctuary blows it out of the water. As beautiful as the animation was, or how curious the occasional backwards lyrics are, or how weird it is having high-res Goofy and Donald in what is essentially an anime opening, I really can’t be distracted from this song when I play.

7) Chemical Plant Zone (Rock Remix) - Zerobadniks

Chemical Plant Song is like, one of the TOP Sonic songs by popular vote (and we know how awesome the Sonic series is musically so thats saying something!), but I could never quite vibe with the normal 8-bit version. I think I first heard this as someone’s ringtone and was immediately like “THATS PERFECT THATS EXACTLY HOW I NEED IT!”. The rock makes the song soooo much better and honestly gives the song the perfect vibe. Unfortunately, it took FOREVER to find cuz none of the Rock Covers of this song were the right one. In fact, tbh, I’m not even sure whether Zerobadniks is the correct artist..... that’s just who everybody was crediting when I found it.

(imma include the link i found since its a little hard to find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqJiZEM6aPI )

8) The Wolf - SIAMES

YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT ANIMATED MUSIC VIDEOS???? THIS IS A GOD-TIER ANIMATED MUSIC VIDEO. I found the video first, and seriously, if you haven’t seen it YOU NEED TO!!! The beat works perfectly with the images on screen and the story being portrayed is really intriguing, with the lyrics adding to atmosphere without necessarily describing the visuals shown. Even without the animation, the song itself is a banger. It bring to mind the feeling of intense motion forward, but unable to decide whether its movement TOWARD something or AWAY from something. I love listening to this on a nighttime drive.

9) Burn the House Down - AJR

If you ask me, the best way to make a pop song better is to add either violins or trumpets. For this song, it was definitely the trumpets that first caught my attention, and the rest of the song kept me listening. I don’t really know how to describe the vibe of this song, and I don’t have a specific character or story in mind when I listen to it, so its a little hard for me to talk about it. I think the best way I can describe this song and what draws me to it is a feeling of nonchalant go-with-the-flow attitude to shenaniganry. Almost an undertone of “We’re hooligans in a situation that we probably should get out of, but hey we’ve got life and each other so why worry?” At least that’s the closest I can get to a verbal description heh...

10) Slim Pickens Does the Right Thing and Rides the Bomb to Hell - The Offspring

DANCE, FUCKER, DANCE, LET THE MOTHERFUCKER BURN!!!

So this also has a KICKASS animated music video, but its technically combined with the song “Dividing by Zero”. Now the video works SO well with both, and the shifting artstyles reflect the differing tones of the songs PERFECTLY. However, I have a preference for both the animation and the song on the Slim Pickens half. Its fun to listen to and sing at the top of your lungs and its SO CATHARTIC. Again I cant really describe what my head does when I hear it, but I think you can probably feel a similar vibe if you watch the music video.

11) No Heaven - DJ Champion

The first time I finished the original Borderlands, I had been playing for days on end, had just finished a long battle with the Destroyer, and sitting back relieved to have beaten it and reflecting on how much I had enjoyed the adventure. Then this song started playing. For what I believe was forty minutes this song looped on my TV while the credits rolled. By the time the credits finished I was pulling up the song to listen to again! What an absolutely PERFECT cherry to add to this experience. This song perfectly encapsulated the chaotic, trigger-happy, morally ambiguous craziness that I had enjoyed and absorbed in this game. Every time I hear it now, I imagine myself in the wastelands of Pandora, driving haphazardly across the sandy dunes as my companions and I shoot and blow up everything in sight. You know, living the dream.......

12) Hit & Run (Wolfgang Lohr Remix) - The Electric Swing Circus

I fucking LOVE electro-swing! The electronic beats and rhythm blend so well with the wild and energetic freedom of swing. A lot of electro-swing gives me a vibe of wild movement, reckless abandon, and freedom from constraint. I think this song melds all of these feelings the best! As the last song might have indicated, despite my general nice and sweet temperament, there is a part of me deep down that is an absolute gremlin secretly enamored with chaos, insanity, and a general disdain for law and authority X). But whereas anything Borderlands related has a more “morality is an illusion blowing shit up is real” air about it, this song is far more peppy. More of a “good-hearted but insane” type of chaos, like an 100mph car chase where you end up sailing over the train tracks JUST as the train passes.

.... I may have gotten a bit off track lol

13) Kickstart my Heart - Motley Crue

I love this song, but I have to be VERY careful when and where I listen to this. I love songs that make me feel like I’m going a million miles per hour, like I’m gotdam Sonic the Hedgehog. Unfortunately, I may or may not have had multiple instances of listening to this song in the car and abruptly realizing that I’m going like 15mph above the speed limit...... So yeah, regardless of absolutely perfect it feels to play this song while speeding down a nearly empty highway, please be careful and drive responsibly!!!

14) I’m Born to Run - American Authors

Imma just up and say it. This song is a Sonic song; like not like actually from the series but a song for the character. This song encapsulates Sonic as a character better than some of his ACTUAL THEMES (and remember Sonic music are bangers!). Its a song about freedom, living life as it comes, and not letting anything slow you down. Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t make this song FOR the Sonic series, or even the movie! Speaking of which, ironically I heard this song right after watching the Sonic movie in theaters, so yeah there’s no way I can associate it with anything else.

15) Opa Opa - Antique

Oh, what a PERFECT way to end this list! This may be one of my absolute favorite songs of all time! I don’t remember exactly how I found this song... I think I had just relistened to Dalar Mehndi’s “Tunak Tunak Tun” and was looking for other catchy non-english songs and BOY HOWDY I found one! I know nothing about the band or what the song’s about (its in greek and i dont speak it), but this song is just a masterpiece of retro, pop, and dance sounds. This song feels like the musical and lyrical manifestation of dance and movement. I really REALLY wish I could dance JUST so I can express how happy and free this song makes me feel! This is the BEST song for me to end this list with!

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JESUS, this got long..... Sorry about that XD. It was fun though, and hopefully somebody was vaguely interested in my ramblings.

Guess I need to tag people now? How about @tharkflark1, @rockmilkshake, @neonbuck, @drawingsdrawingseverywhere, @birthgiverofbirds, @puccafangirl, @kalcat, @biblestudybussybopsbabey, @monstrous-milktea, and @memecage! I think there are a couple of people here I haven’t talked to though soooooo..... hi, I hope you don’t mind the tag X)

Anyway hope you enjoyed and/or want to do this too! This took for-fucking-EVER to type, so imma go fuck off and watch youtube or something now...

#music and remixes #viterbo i was gonna add you to the bottom list and then i was like SHIT SHE TAGGED ME XD so oh well #i may or may not have cheated just a bit but shut up these are the songs i had something to say about #moonstar wont shut up

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downwiththeficness · 5 years ago

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Skygazing-Cara Dune One-shot

Pairing: Cara Dune/Female OC

Summary: Set in the time Cara spends on Sorgan. Veda is the owner of a local bar who just happens to need a little security now and again, and Cara just happens to step in. Veda takes Cara to a local harvest festival that celebrates the transition between Fall and Winter, the giving and taking of the harvest. As they walk through the woods to give an offering to the gods, Veda gives Cara an opening to take a step forward in another way.

Word Count: ~4,200

Warnings: None, just a soft, fluffy thing.

Veda had fallen for Cara the second she’d seen her wipe the floor with a man who’d gotten too handsy at the bar. Cara had taken one look at the hand on her thigh and grabbed the back of the man’s head, slamming it into the bar in front of her without so much as blinking. Veda could still feel her chest constrict with excitement when she thought about it.

One could not mistake the power in Cara’s body. Her curves were molded around solid muscle that flexed to suit her needs. All she had to do was walk into a room and everyone in it knew she was not to be fucked with. Head up, shoulders back, alert and confident.

Veda had complemented Cara on checking the creep, and Cara had lifted a dark brow, asking if the bar needed a little extra security. As it turned out, Veda was in need of a little security here and there. Although the planet was mostly peaceful, and group of people with enough alcohol was bound to get a little rowdy now and again.

To her absolute surprise, Cara had agreed and Veda had ended out offering the woman lodging in return for a few nights a week service. Since then, Veda got front row seats to arm wrestling matches, games of skills, and all out fights (though Cara was careful not to break any of Veda’s furniture).

And that was how their relationship had started—with a broken nose and a wet rag cleaning up the mess. Veda wouldn’t have it any other way. Despite chastising her friend (she hoped they were friends) whenever she laid out a customer, Veda always ended out smiling and shaking her head, refilling Cara’s drink.

At present, Cara was winning a fight against a man twice her size, her eyes alight with amusement. Despite the bruise forming on her cheek, Cara was grinning wide. Veda couldn’t help but to lean a hip against the sink behind the bar and fold her arms across her chest, watching as Cara slammed the heel of her palm into the man’s throat. He made a strangled sound that was more and more common in the ring, a combination of pain and disbelief. After so many front row seats to Cara’s various altercations, Veda knew that the woman had already won.

Making quick work of him, Cara pinned the man and claimed the victory, fists to the sky. Veda shook her head and moved to the tap, pouring a pint of Cara’s preferred ale. She was always particularly thirsty after she’d won and Veda lived to serve.

The clink of a credit hitting the bar made Veda turn. Cara was sliding it across to her, fingers giving it a tap. She was still smiling, eyes crinkling at the corners.

Veda reciprocated by setting the ale in front of her, “That was a good fight.”

“That,” Cara scoffed, “Was hardly a fight. But, a win is a win.”

Nodding, Veda leaned on her forearm, eyeing the loser, “Looks like you’ve made an enemy.”

Cara looked over her shoulder, one hand waving the statement away, “He’ll get over it. Or, he’ll challenge me again and I’ll earn a few more credits.”

This was another common motif. Despite having kicked their ass over and over, people kept challenging her. Cara never turned them down.

Veda huffed out a breath, “What do you plan to do with all those credits?”

One strong shoulder lifted and fell in a smooth movement, “Save ‘em for when I need ‘em.”

Practical, efficient, much like the woman, herself.

“A good plan.”

“I like to think so. You need me tonight?”

Veda very nearly sighed. Cara asked that question almost every night. Some nights Veda accepted the offer, some nights she didn’t. Not once had she allowed the flirtatious ‘yeah, but not for work’ pass her lips.

“No,” Veda replied eventually. “The harvest festival will keep most everyone in the woods tonight. I’ll probably close up early and join them.”

Cara cocked her head to the side, “Harvest festival?”

“Pretty much what it sounds like. We had a good harvest this year. There’ll be plenty of food for the winter and we might even be able to trade off world.”

Cara eyed her for a moment, taking and drink, “What’s it like?”

Veda moved to pour a pint for another customer, her attention still on Cara, which was pretty much par for the course at this point. Her attention was nearly always on Cara, if she was in the room, “Its nothing spectacular. Just a big fire, some songs, and a march through the woods to the lake and back.”

“That it?”

Veda shrugged, “Pretty much.”

“Why the march?” she asked, holding her drink aloft as she said it, sipping from the rim afterwards.

Veda flicked hair from her face and picked up a bar towel, wiping up a spilled drink she hadn’t yet noticed, “Some people still believe in the old gods—water gods, you know.”

The planet was soggy almost all year, water seeping up from the ground no matter where you walked. Veda’s first piece of advice to any newcomer was the invest in a good pair of water resistant boots. The alternative was perpetually damp feet and blisters.

“So,” she continued, “The water gods live in the lake, where the water gathers its minerals to nourish the crops. People light the crops on the bon fire, then take the ash to the lake. To return a portion of the minerals to them.”

Cara hummed, turning the cup in her hands, “Do you believe in the old gods?”

Veda shook her head, “I believe in what’s in front of me.”

There was a moment, like there had been many moments before, when something Veda had said made Cara go silent and still. Her attention was not often focused solely on one person, a result of a lifetime scanning for danger. Veda felt her face flush under that scrutiny, and her hands itched to be doing anything other than wringing the towel between them. But, when it happened, Veda could feel her body snapping to attention, an anxious tremor that dug deep into her bones. As per usual, Veda had to break the pressure before she burst from it.

“Still, its nice to remember where we come from.”

Veda had lived on Sorgan her entire life, had grown up with traditions that varied from quaint to downright strange. The harvest festival was her favorite. She liked sitting by the heat of the fire and watching as children brought their family’s offering forward to burn with the offerings from the rest of the community. She particularly liked the long walk through the woods under the starlight.

“Maybe I’ll come to the festival, see what its about.”

Veda smiled, “You should. People might accept you more if you participated.”

Cara was an outsider. And, despite having worked to save the village not long ago, people were suspicious of her. They clocked her as a soldier immediately, and soldiers were not always to be trusted. Add together that she’d beaten every challenger in the fighting ring, and a lot of people started to wonder if she might be a potential threat.

“I don’t much care if people accept me,” Cara said, finishing off the last of her drink and setting the cup back on the bar.

Veda made a small gesture to indicate ‘another?’ and Cara nodded. She poured from the tap into the same cup, sliding it to Cara.

“You might not care, but the winter is hard. Doesn’t matter that we had a good harvest. Trading with the locals is the only way to keep your stores up.”

Cara ran her tongue over her bottom lip, “You gonna let me starve?”

“No,” Veda answered, a little too readily. “But, I have to trade with them. You live here, work here. What you do reflects on the bar and its owner.”

Cara seemed to think on that for a long time, her fingers fiddling with the cup while Veda served other customers. Eventually, she gave Veda a few credits and stepped away, offering no further conversation. Veda watched her go, her steps taking her down to the basement.

With her room next to Veda’s, there were times where Veda could hear Cara tossing in the night. She was a little ashamed of how many times she’d pressed her ear to the wall that divided them, listening to Cara having a nightmare. Part of her, a large part, wanted to go and comfort the woman so clearly in pain. But, despite the fact that they were friendly, Veda could not bring herself to step out of her room and knock on Cara’s door. Her past was locked up tight and Veda respected those boundaries. Over time, maybe Cara would share some of her burden. Until then, Veda could be patient.

The evening came as it usually did, the sun setting low and the sky letting go of its amber glow and falling into midnight blue. Veda could smell the fires starting as she locked and barred the front doors. After turning off the lights, she headed down to her room to get cleaned up and changed. Her work pants and shirt were dirty and a little sweaty after the day spent tending to the customers. Though she might not believe in the old gods, she respected tradition enough to be presentable.

Veda disrobed and headed for the fresher, letting the sonic vibrations clear away the grime. Skin clean and hair dry, she pulled on a soft blue dress that she only wore on special occasions. It was a little big for her, made for an older sister Veda had put in the ground long ago. She belted it with soft leather and slipped on her boots. The skirt fell to mid-calf and flared out when she moved. Veda smoothed it down with her hands.

In the mirror, she braided her hair to one side. She should cut it, but the convenience of being able to pile the weight on the top of her head without too much fuss made the thought of taking off much length unpalatable. Veda gave herself one last look to make sure that she was presentable before turning and heading for the door.

Outside, in the too tight hallway, Veda paused before Cara’s door. She stared at the familiar wood, the room having formerly been extra storage. The light was on. Cara was there. Biting her lip, she hesitated, her fist hovering mid air as she debated. Then, she gathered up her courage and knocked.

Movement sounded, and after a moment the door opened. Cara had changed clothes since Veda had seen her last. She was dressed in a dark long sleeve shirt and fitted trousers, her hair braided back on both sides.

“Time to go?” She asked.

Veda nodded, “They’ve lit the fires.”

Reaching back, Cara turned off the lights and stepped out into Veda’s space. She resisted the instinct to take a step back, looking up at Cara with a small smile.

“You look nice,” Cara commented, her eyes following the line of Veda’s dress.

“Thank you,” Veda said, blushing, “You look nice, too.” Then, “Ready?”

Cara paused, eyes sliding down once more over Veda’s face and body, “Ready.”

They headed out the back door and down the alley between the bar and a boutique shop. Cara followed Veda’s lead as she made her way away from the central lane and towards the far end where the alley opened up to a large, empty field.

A few years back, someone tried to buy the field from the city to make way for a large apartment complex. Veda had seen mock ups of the potential project—a pretty location with water fountains and lots of archways to let the air move through. She’d hated them immediately. This wasn’t what the land was for. The soft green earth squished under her boots, water pooling in her footprints. Gravel walkways eased travel, but there was still mud beneath them. This was the kind of land that rose up and surrounded whoever trod upon it, and Veda doubted it could be subjugated with concrete.

Ahead, the bon fires were growing, fed with logs seasoned especially for the festival, soaked in woody natural oils that gave off spice and musk. Veda looked back at Cara, whose eyes were reflecting the light of the fires. Her breath caught a little at such a pretty sight, much prettier than any tiled archway or fountain could be. Veda was once again glad they’d scrapped the project.

They chose seats a little ways from the largest of the fires, the heat wafting towards them as the night settled into itself. Though the days were usually warm and humid, the atmosphere was thin enough that the nights were always cool. Veda smoothed her skirt and caught the first of the children with their offerings.

About eight or nine years old, they were wearing traditional costumes, lots of bead work and jagged structural patterns, most of them passed down for several generations. Their little hands were filled with wide bowls of vegetables and flower buds, all soaked in the same seasonal oils as the firewood.

“Each family chooses from their harvest something to burn,” Veda explained gesturing to the little ones. “The children offer it to the fire and the ashes are mixed together for the walk to the lake.”

Cara nodded, her hands resting on her knees. Veda had seen those hands throw a full grown man across a room, her shoulders turning with the motion. The nails were short, the fingers long. The palms were calloused a little at the skin between thumb and forefinger. Too much time holding a weapon.

More offerings were added to the fire, and Veda looked up to the sky, noting that the stars were beginning to come out.

“How come you don’t have one?” Cara asked, motioning towards a little girl stumbling over the hem of her dress.

Veda shrugged, “Guess it was never the right time. I wouldn’t want to do it alone, though. You know, raise a kid.”

Lifting a brow, Cara regarded her inquisitively, “Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” Veda answered as honestly as she could, “Always thought it was a two person job, at least.”

Nodding, Cara settled a little further into her seat, “There are plenty of men here who could help you.”

She was right. There were plenty of men. Sorgan was a mostly peaceful place, and men didn’t go to war to die so often as other planets. Veda very well could have married early and had a brood by now.

“I never wanted any of them.”

Though she wasn��t looking at Veda, Cara swallowed audibly. Her gaze remained focused on the fire as she said, “Why not?”

Veda drew in a short breath, “I always thought women were more suited for me.”

It was about as forward as Veda had been with Cara in their time together—about as forward as Veda had ever been with anyone who wasn’t causing a scene at her bar. Though no one looked twice at women together in the village, the population was small, and Veda had only had a few short lived relationships. None of them had made her feel as she did, just sitting next to Cara. Her heart felt like it was going to pound right out of her chest and fall to the soggy ground at her feet as she waited for a response.

Cara gave her a sidelong glance, amused, “Given the men I’ve seen on this planet, I don’t blame you.”

A kind of ragged disappointment flashed through Veda. To conceal it, she looked down at her hands folded in her lap. Perhaps she’d misjudged Cara’s interest. It would not be the first time.

Clearing her throat, Veda shrugged, “Yes, well, it is a backwater planet, after all.”

Eyes rising to the night sky, Cara asked, “You ever think of leaving, going some place with more...people?”

Veda considered it for a long moment, looking upwards, “No, not really. A visit, maybe, but not permanently.” She gestured to the bonfires, now roaring across the field, “I’d miss this too much, I think.”

The smoke was fragrant and soon the field smelled like the harvest that had just been completed, woody, homey. Veda inhaled it, feeling as she did during every harvest festival, at home.

“This is nice,” Cara said.

“It is.”

They sat in silence while some of the locals began mixing the ashes together, using them to douse the fires. More fragrant smoke poured out of them, billowing up to the sky. Veda smoothed her skirt and stood, motioning for Cara to follow. She made her way to the nearest fire, taking a small container of the ashes.

“Now, we walk the path through the woods to the lake and give the ashes to the water god,” she explained lowly.

“Because they gave you the harvest.”

“Because they gave us the harvest.”

Cara eyed the container skeptically, but made no scathing remark. Veda had explained a lot of what the locals did to Cara, usually while they were standing on opposite sides of the bar. She was gratified that Cara never once belittled them for their little superstitions, though she was often confused by them. Veda wondered what superstitions of her own Cara had, though she never really got the courage to ask.

The path was lit on either side by glowing lights, a cool blue that bounced off the gravel path and the surrounding trees. They walked at a leisurely pace. The quiet of the night surrounded them, the air thin, but filled with reverence. Even the wildlife seemed to have settled down to allow them to pass through with deference.

“What happens when we get to the lake?” Cara asked lowly, her voice just above a whisper.

Veda leaned towards her, her voice similarly pitched, “We cross to the center of the east bridge and pour the ashes in, then we cross back over the west bridge.”

Cara gave a little laugh, “That’s oddly specific.”

Nodding in agreement, Veda made a kind of bouncing gesture from left to right with her hand, “The water flows from east to west. We offer the ashes in one place and in the next place, we cross over water that is filled with the richness of the earth.”

The words came from somewhere in her memory, a reminder of all the things her parents had said to her during similar festivals. She tried not to feel sad that she wouldn’t hear those stories any more, except when she told an outsider.

Veda shifted the container from one hand to the other, and tripped a little on the gravel. Instinct had her reaching out, and she was suddenly holding hands with the other woman. Cara had grabbed her hand and forearm in both of hers, holding Veda steady as she regained her footing.

“Sorry,” Veda offered with a little embarrassed laugh. Her face was hot with mortification, a blush that she was sure had spread all the way down to her toes. She righted herself and took another step, her ankle rolling on a large rock. Stumbling, she almost dropped the ashes.

“Okay,” Cara said with finality, “I’m going to take those.”

She plucked the ashes from Veda’s hand and waited a beat for Veda to gain her balance before starting off down the path again. Veda was too busy mentally chastising herself for being so damn clumsy that it took her about thirty feet or so to notice that Cara had not let go of her hand.

Walking about half a step in front of her, Cara caught the direction of the path and followed it. She looked back at Veda, smiling.

“Come on, slow poke. We got ashes to spread.”

Veda followed along, trying not to smile too wide at the feeling of Cara’s hand in hers. Her palm was warm as it pressed against her, the grip firm. She liked the way their hands swung a little as they walked, a leisurely pendulum that marked the upbeat of their footsteps.

When they reached the lake, there was a short line waiting for the bridge. It moved at a moderate pace, each family given a little time to do whatever it was that they needed to do as they poured the ash into the water. Cara’s hand remained in Veda’s, their fingers threaded together as they walked across the wooden planks to the middle of the bridge. Only when she handed Veda the little container of their offering did Cara release her.

Holding it aloft, Veda let the moment extend for a few seconds before she dumped the contents into the water. There was a soft ‘whissh’, and then nothing. Leaning over the railing, Veda could see the faint outline of the ashes make an ever narrowing circle until they’d all dissolved into nothingness. She kept looking, not sure what she was looking for.

“I feel like I should make a wish,” Cara said quietly.

Veda glanced at her, “You can, if you want.”

Gaze holding, Cara reached out and grasped Veda’s hand again—not pulling, just holding. Veda smiled and stepped towards her.

“We should go, others are waiting.”

The wooden planks creaked beneath their combined steps, replaced by the soft sound of the ground giving just slightly under their boots. The east and west bridge were not far apart, the path lit brightly despite the dark of the night.

“You do this every year?”

Veda nodded, “I don’t know why, but it feels right to honor the beliefs of my people, despite not believing in them, myself.”

Cara’s grip shifted, and she wrapped her arm around Veda’s hips, the weight of it bringing them closer together, “Sometimes, that’s how we make things right.”

Veda hummed a little, daring to return Cara’s embrace, their sides pressing comfortably together as they walked.

“I was thinking of starting a little class, for the kids,” Cara said when they took a turn around a large boulder.

Veda looked up at her, “What kind of class?”

The shoulder not leaning into Veda’s side lifted, “Self defense, maybe a little strategy. There won’t always be an ex-soldier around to teach those things last minute.”

Tensing, Veda edged, “You plan on leaving?”

Cara shook her head, “No, but I can’t predict the future, and I don’t like the idea of your people being left without some skills.”

Forcing herself to relax, Veda took the short step up to the west bridge, “Why work with the kids?”

“Because,” Cara explained, “Kids take to it easier, and they’ll teach each other as much as I’ll teach them. Adults can have too many agendas to train effectively without an established hierarchy.”

“Ah,” Veda said, not really understanding it, but knowing that Cara knew what she was talking about. She’d seen the depth of her skills first hand, had watched from the front door of the bar while she trained men to wield sticks as effective weapons.

About mid way over the bridge, Veda slowed and looked up. She pointed to a set of stars that were rising over the horizon. A set of three surrounding one in the center, each one spaced about equidistant apart in the sky.

“When I was a kid, my dad used to smoke. Mom never let him do it in the house, so he’d sit on the porch. Sometimes, I’d sit out with him. He pointed out that constellation all the time, telling me that it represented—I forget the name—a god of change. It was that god that gave us seasons, that separated night day, man and woman, the old and the young.”

Cara looked out at it silently for a while before looking down at Veda, “If that’s the case, then I’m glad he did.”

Rolling her eyes, Veda urged Cara with her as she headed for the end of the bridge, “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I like to look at it, though. It always rises first right when winter starts. That’s how I know the cold is coming.”

They entered the woods again, the path winding back towards town. Veda could see a few people up ahead, walking as leisurely as she and Cara were.

“I never much liked the cold,” Veda continued. “Winters here are kind of brutal.”

Cara slowed to a complete stop, turning towards Veda, both hands on Veda’s hips. She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of Veda’s braid behind her ear, fingers tracing her jaw. The moment hung suspended in mid air, a deep inhale that spread out between them.

“Well then,” she said with a kind of soft finality, “I guess its good I’m here to keep you warm.”

The kiss was soft and sweet, not much more than the meeting of two pairs of lips. Veda leaned into Cara, her hands cupping Cara’s face. She could feel Cara smile into the kiss a bit, giving her another quick peck before pulling away. Veda stared up at the woman who had entered her life in a whirlwind, saving people that she cared about, who stuck around afterwards to help clean up the mess. And now, she was offering to stay a little longer. It was almost too much to hope for. Veda warned her little heart to take care.

“I think I’d like that very much.”

#cara dune #the mandalorian #star wars #skygazing

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tenroseforeverandever · 7 years ago

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Dear Father Christmas... Chapter 3: December 24, 2018

MASTERPOST

Characters: Tentoo; Rose Tyler; Jackie Tyler; Pete Tyler; Tony Tyler; OC Hope Tyler-Noble; OC Charlotte Tyler-Noble; OC Wilfred Tyler-Noble

Rated: Teen

Tags: Family!Fic; Kid!Fic; Pete’s World; Letters to Santa; Christmas Fic; Family; Fluff; Hurt/Comfort; Angst; Romance; Love

Summary: When Rose Tyler was little, she always wrote a Christmas wish list to Father Christmas. As she grew older, the wish list became more of a letter to someone she could confide in once a year, but she fell out of the habit somewhere along the way. Now, as a new mum, celebrating her daughter’s first Christmas, Rose takes up writing her Christmas letter to Father Christmas once again.

Rose’s Christmas letters are excerpts from her life with her beloved Tentoo and their children in Pete’s World, written once a year, for each of 31 years.

Chapter Summary: Rose reminisces about her year, including a well-needed vacation with the Doctor and the unexpected outcome of their time spent alone together, changes in their routines, Hope’s new interests, and the Doctor’s cold-weather outdoor project.

Notes: As always, my eternal gratitude to mrsbertucci and Rose_Nebula, my wonderful, ever-giving betas.

Thanks to @doctorroseprompts for their 31 Days of Ficmas prompts. A reminder that I am using the prompts very much out of order, but I intend to use them all. The prompt I used today was Skating.

Also read at: AO3; FF.net; Teaspoon

December 24th, 2018

Dear Father Christmas,

What a year we’ve had! Such a great year! So much has happened, I don’t even know where to begin. I suppose I could start with our romantic vacation to Barcelona (definitely the planet, not the city!) The Doctor surprised me on Valentine’s day; said he arranged for a romantic get-away. After all the rowing and bickering over Christmas last year, we both needed a little time for just the two of us. Mum and Pete were over the moon to have a chance to look after Hope for a couple of weeks, so that was one less worry.

Gaudí Province was gorgeous: it was spring, and beautifully warm, such a nice break from the bleak winter weather we left behind in London. There were flowers and blossoms everywhere. And the dogs! The dogs really didn’t have noses. It was so weird, but there you have it: life with the Doctor! And of course, he had to make that joke… it just wasn’t funny, especially after the hundredth time, and I told him so. He just grinned and told me I had no appreciation for good humour. I showed him I had a great sense of humour: I couldn’t stop laughing when the cutest little noseless dog had it off on his leg, right in the middle of the street.

Actually, to tell the truth, spring must definitely have been in the air; the dogs all seemed to be rather randy. They weren’t the only ones. Me and the Doctor spent a lot of time in our hotel room on that trip. It was so lovely to be together and share our bond just for the sake of sharing it. Back home and on other trips with the TARDIS, the bond was a really useful tool for communicating and keeping a track of Hope, but we’d got out of the habit of just enjoying it. And when we were angry, we usually avoided using it altogether or shielded ourselves from one another. I hadn’t realized until we really let our guards down just how shielded we had been.

We came back from that trip so much more in tune with one another. I, personally, came back well and truly up the duff. And so this year, Santa, you’ll get to meet our little Charlie (Charlotte… named after Charles Dickens.) She’s a feisty one, she is. She just turned one month old a few days ago and is finally sleeping through the night. (Well for four hours in a row, but I’ll take it.) I’d forgotten how knackered you feel, and add a nearly three-year-old into the mix… blimey! Let’s just say, me and the Doctor are back to using our bond for almost exclusively utilitarian purposes.

Poor Hope. She’s brilliant, she is, but even though she’s academically beyond gifted, she’s still just a little girl whose life has been turned upside down by the little human larva that takes up so much of her Daddy’s and my time. She never wants my attention more than when I’m feeding Charlie. For the first few weeks, I was a right mess every time I looked at her. I couldn’t stop crying because I couldn’t give her the time I used to. But now things are settling down, and we’re finding a rhythm. Still, I’m so thankful it’s Mum’s turn to do Christmas this year. I think I might have exploded if I’d had to juggle that too.

Over this past year, and after everything that happened last Christmas, me and the Doctor agreed to spend a bit more time Earthbound. We explore strange new worlds in the TARDIS during the week, and on weekends we spend time in our little blue house and take Hope to various activities: dance and gymnastics are her favourites. She loves art too, and likes to spend time painting with me, just as I’d hoped she would. She has a keen eye, but I’m so thankful her skills are pretty much just like that of any other child her age. Her colourful creations are all over the TARDIS, our house, and Gran and Grandad’s house, too.

We also decided to spend extended periods on Earth around special Earth holidays. So, Christmas, for example, same as last year, we’ll be on Earth for at least a month, and with Charlie here this year, I think we’ll stay on a few months more. Hope’s enrolled at Torchwood Nursery again and is thriving. And the Doctor seems to be actually happy with the domestics, especially when he sees how much Hope is getting out of it.

Speaking of the Doctor and domestics: the weather this year has been so cold! But the Doctor, in a complete fit of domesticity, has been taking full advantage. He’s spent every evening for the last couple of weeks creating our very own skating rink in the back garden. He laid down layers and layers of ice with some gizmo he tinkered together attached to the garden hose, and soniced the surface completely smooth. He and Hope decorated the entire yard with fairy lights. There’s a big evergreen right in the centre of the rink that’s just covered with lights. It’s beautiful. And somehow he’s set up big, tall floodlights that light up the whole rink at night.

Last night, we got to go skating for the first time. Mum and Dad and Tony were there and loads of friends from Torchwood, and some of Hope’s playmates and their families. We did a potluck, so that was easy. Mum and Dad went and bought loads of pairs of skates in case some folks didn’t have their own. It was so much fun! Just what I needed!

You should have seen the Doctor trying to skate. My poor love. The way he’d been talking, he was so excited to be introducing Hope to this great new adventure. He was a brilliant skater when I first met him. Me and Jack and him all went skating once. He was really good, but he’d never tried again since his regeneration. Apparently, the skill didn’t stick with his new body. Oh, God, he was all long legs pinwheeling around, and he ended up on his bum more times than I can count. He was miserable, and after I popped inside with Charlie for a nappie change, I came out to find him sulking on one of the benches he’d set up, glowering at Mum skating in pretty circles with Hope hanging onto her hands.

I went over to cheer him up and suggested I could hold his hand. He just grumbled at me, and told me there must be something wrong with the ice. “Too risky, Rose Tyler. In fact, I should bring Hope in right now; she could be in danger, even as we speak.” (I said that in his voice. I hope I did it right. I’ve been getting good at it over the years!) Meanwhile, Hope was twirling all by herself, now, quite in control. No danger whatsoever. Tony was watching out for her, just like a big brother. He loves her so much.

In the end the only way I convinced the Doctor to come skating with me was by going out there myself first (Charlie was bundled in the baby-carrier against my chest) and the Doctor was immediately on his feet, making to follow me, with the notion that he needed to keep me safe. Of all the ridiculous… The big plonker!

Anyway, the first thing he did was fall on his arse and nearly knock me over! So I told him he had to hold my hand from then on. Mum sailed by and offered to bring him a chair to hold onto which wasn’t entirely helpful, and called him a duffer. Also not helpful.

I finally passed the baby off to her Grandad, and got the Doctor back on his feet, and convinced him to take my hand. I reminded him that that was all he really needed to get across the universe: a hand to hold. He grabbed my hand and opened his bond fully to me, and I’ve never felt so loved. His body seemed to relax and we did a few circuits of the rink together. Then he did a few on his own, and spun around me in a slightly wobbly circle while I watched him. Then he grabbed me by the waist and I just flung my arms over his shoulders so he wouldn’t overbalance us ‘cause my feet were slipping everywhere. Suddenly he’s shouting and twirling us around (I’ll try to do his voice again) “Rose, I’ve just remembered! I can skate! I can skate!” And he starts humming Glenn Miller in my ear and dancing with me over the ice!

Now he’s talking about getting a skating rink on the TARDIS!

I hope we’ll go skating again tonight! Just the two of us, once the little ones are all tucked in and their stockings are hung.

Happy Christmas, Santa! To you and Mrs. Claus, the reindeer, and all the elves,

Love, Rose

#doctorroseprompts #kid fic #tentoo x rose #christmas fic #fluff #hurt/comfort #angst #family #love #romance #ficandchips #tenroseforeverandever's fic

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renaramblesaboutcomics · 7 years ago

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Wednesday Roundup 11.10.2017

It’s that time of a week again where I prove to be nothing if not a complete glutton for punishment, which apparently includes having way too many trades preordered on the same week by magical coincidence. It’s like the old saying, when it rain it pours. And sometimes it’s just ridiculous.

But we’re seeing the closing a few storylines, the beginning of a few, and just a general large array of comics at our disposal, including more of the Marvel Primers. So I say we just dig right into it.

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine, Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, DC’s Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Marvel’s Captain America, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists, DC’s New Super-Man, Image’s Rat Queens, DC’s Red Hood and the Outlaws, Marvel’s Runaways, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine (2015-present) #25 Tom Taylor, Juann Cabal, Nolan Woodard

Will I ever run out of good things to say about All-New Wolverine? No? Good. I wouldn’t want to be dishonest and that would be the only way I’d have negative things to say about my love for this series.

Story: So believe it or not, the relationship between Daken and Laura is something I have desperately wanted to see more of. In the Daken/X-23 crossover they had a few years ago, I really felt like we got somewhere with their relationship, and the bits and pieces since then have really helped my attitude only grow stronger on the subject. So seeing Taylor hint at it growing more in the last arc, and knowing it would be delivered on in this arc has me SO excited about what is to come.

You know. When Daken is around for more than an awesome bar fight that... leads to his dismembered arm being hung from a bridge. THAT old plot device. I’m a little sad to see that Gabby is being left behind (especially since her outfits never cease being adorable and hilarious) but knowing that we’re dealing with Mutant Bigots this time around somewhat made me appreciate that decision. I worry way too much about Gabby to take that at face value.

And then that cliffhanger hits like a freight train and it’s like WHAAAAT. But no like what. Oh my god. Is this real? I know we have to wait a month but. uh. Kudos, Tom Taylor. I am not often surprised by characters seemingly returning from the dead anymore. To say this was not expected is VASTLY underplaying my shock.

Art: There have been a lot of great artists on this title and I don’t think Juann Cabal is an exception to that rule. He has solid character art, lots of good control of backgrounds and paneling, and got pretty inventive with combining flashbacks with Laura’s current travels and actions. And the bar scene with Daken was just fantastic all around like, a simple but highly effective action sequence and I’m really excited to see what action he’ll draw Laura herself in as we carry on.

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (2016-present) #12 Ryan Stegman, Brian Level, Jesus Aburtov

We wrap up another storyline of what has quickly become my favorite Spidey series of the ‘10s and it comes with highest of highs and lowest of lows. And lots and lots of adorable hugs.

Story: I was concerned that with the pacing we had had for this storyline up to this point that there would be a lot of things that would have to be knitted together a bit too tight or not at all, and that definitely seemed to be the case. We flew through this issue with revelations hitting in waves. Ms. January was the villain all along, Normie is suddenly a perfectly normal kid who was just misled, the symbiote is removed from MJ using sonic waves, Annie saves her parents, and just overall there was a lot that happened within this single comic. It all made emotional sense, and the hug between Annie and Normie at the end, bringing their family feud at last to an end, felt completely right.

I liked small callouts like having Liz be the parent Normie needed, the X-Men coming to help the Parker family, and the amazing banter between MJ and Peter, but I think because there was so much fit into this last issue there felt like a bit of continuity bending to make logical sense where the emotions didn’t quite carry us. Like Normie’s... complete change in character. And Ms. January’s apparent obsession/love of Harry and need to avenge him. These things make sense if they fed into each other -- Ms. January’s influence inspiring Normie to cut his mother out of his life even more than she had been already and then feeding him more and more hatred toward Spider-Man by saying that it was his fault. But that doesn’t make so much sense with what we read in the issues before, specifically the issue where Normie took up arms to protect his company and revealed his backstory through his own internal monologue and flashbacks.

So while this confrontation has been 12 issues in the build up, the resolution mostly came... only from this issue. Maybe the last two issues, too, if we’re being generous.

The epilogue confuses me. It feels like Renew Your Vows is trying to wrap itself up and yet I know from solicits that it’s not, but we are justifying a timeskip to eight years in the future so that artists have an excuse to draw a teenage girl in a tighter costume -- I MEAN BECAUSE THEY WANT TO TELL MORE TEEN ORIENTED STORIES OBVIOUSLY. But I worry that this change is going to make what has been a unique take on the Parker-Watson family and turn it into Sider-Girl Lite, which is unfair to everyone all around. Also were they... not operating for those eight years? Why is the new costume a big deal for her eighteenth birthday? How much sense would it make for them to just... suddenly find a way to stop Annie from going out as a superhero with them when the whole point of the past 12 issues is that they couldn’t.

What about Dr. Connors and his son? What about Annie’s additional precognitive powers? Did she end up going to the Xavier institute?

I feel like I was asked to bite off a bit too much in this issue, and as much as I enjoyed it and enjoyed this series, I feel this is a rare storyline where I actually would have preferred an extra issue to set all of this up.

Art: The art is beautiful. Soft and textured but also sweeping and animatic like you would want for any good Spidey story. And considering that there has been a fair rotation of art teams on this book since the first issue, I really appreciate how much they worked toward giving the book a consistent style of its own. It was neat and helped even artist style changes feel coherent still and I’m really interested to see if this dedication to that continues, especially since the epilogue appeared to have a different feel to it.

It’ll be interesting to see next month either way.

DC’s Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016-present) #15 Julie Benson, Shawna Benson, Roge Antonio, Marcelo Maiolo

Well, I’m sure for 99% of you this is an unexpected addition to the roster. For those unaware, I have put the first volume of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey on blast on my personal blog @renaroo for having some things I consider to be insufferable in regards to the handling of Barbara and specifically the consistent villainization of Oracle. Which you know, I’m about sick of.

So why am I picking up BoP now? Simple: Cass is going to start appearing regularly beginning with this particular storyline and I will support her here since for finances I’ve had to move ‘Tec to trade wait.

and oh boy. This is. Something.

Story: So there’s this old episode of the animated Justice League series where an Amazon OC standing in for Donna Troy unleashed a plague on Earth that only affected men and it was putting all men in comas and the such and it left the only two women of a seven-person Justice League because of course there were only two women to deal with it and save the world... well half of it. It was broad strokes of feminism as written by men which included Diana being the strawwoman feminist who couldn’t understand if losing men (including her friends???) would doom society and Hawkgirl being the relatable cool egalitarian alien bird woman to be all “guuurrrrrlllll you need to respect men more”. It’s like. The episode i remember the most from my childhood and I hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

Apparently I’m not the only one who remembers it however because that... that is the plot of this storyline. I don’t know why they couldn’t just bring back the ebola plague from Batman: Contagion which was a legitimately good storyline I like but we’re doing the... gender specific plague.

Are they going to address trans men and women? How is this disease preying specifically on men? Is it magical in origin and that why it follows no rules? Why is Lois here? Is Wonder Woman here just because of that Justice League episode?

I don’t know.

I appreciate that we didn’t waste a whole lot of time with Batwoman’s squad duking it out with Babsgirl’s squad over whether or not antiheroes who.... one of which she’s worked with before and... another of which she knows for a fact is... engaged to her cousin. But whatever. Also Steph in her post-Belfry uniform is... going along with this okay. I’m picking too much but there’s a lot of what in those four pages.

I do appreciate that the dialogue seemed to match everyone’s character very well, and Oliver and Dinah were hysterical and lovable together. .... But damn is it difficult to wrap my head around Babs’ character anymore. Like literally falling to her knees and tearing up begging Poison Ivy (who she was friends with in the previous BoP???? which is sitll canon bc they bring it up???) to help because “people she loves” are affected by the disease like. It’s the antithesis of the Babs I knew and was familiar with and admired in the day but. I guess that’s the Babs we have now. And I’m just... supposed to roll with it I guess.

Also enjoyed Helena being a teacher again, that was awesome. Even if her calling up Dick instead of Babs was... still difficult to process but whatever.

Art: It’s good! Really consistent, the lineart was sometimes a little softer than I prefer, but there were varied bodytypes and lots of good action sequences handled concisely enough that it didn’t feel like panel space was wasted. I really enjoyed it overall.

Marvel’s Captain America - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Valerio Schiti

I have been pretty vocal in my disdain for how Marvel has handled Cap for the last two years and I join pretty much everyone in a chorus of “how can you misunderstand something so bad” but at the same time I’m... just tired. And it’s hard to even be excited at the fact that the reign of Spencer is over because it feels like the enjoyment and interest I’ve felt for Cap for all this time is simply used up. which is why a primer like this is really something that I needed. I needed to see a reminder that Cap punches Nazis and Hydra and Marvel -- or at least some people at Marvel remember that still. I don’t want that history gone, cosmic cubed or otherwise. And given Waid and Samnee’s interviews it seems they’re going to push for just that.

Here’s hoping they accomplish it because even these three pages of Cap acting like Cap again was enough to make me smile at least a little.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Marcus To

If I was going for snark and snark alone here I would begin and end this with “why is Scott Lang here” because no really why is Scott Lang with the Guardians of the Galaxy. And it’s something I shouldn’t be asking because I really have still -- even in liking the movies as much as I do -- not found myself any more persuaded to read into the space opera stuff over at Marvel. It’s just not something I want in my life right now.

Marcus To’s art is very nice, though, and usually worth it on its own. Even if I’m beginning to notice a touch of samefaceness in the art style At least it’s a very pretty face.

Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists (2017) #6 (of 6) Kaare Andrews, Afu Chan, Shelly Ghen

Immortal Iron Fists has come to an end and I’m both saddened and yet incredibly enthusiastic about how everything turned out!

Story: So I feel like it should not have taken the better part of 5 issues for me learn that Pei and her friends are sixteen and not... middle schoolers despite how they were drawn and how they acted as way way younger than that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that... it’s not that they’re drawn or written younger, it’s that it’s that unusual to find an American comic that actually shows teenagers appropriately and that helped me gain a whole new respect for a series that I was already very much enjoying.

Everyone coming together and remembering Pei for the impact we have seen her make in their lives, Pei fully realizing her power as Iron Fist, and the general fun of a huge climactic battle that was a three way fight between Pei, demons, and the Mother of All Dragons is probably one of the most bombastic that can be asked for. And I love that Brenda made a comeback after her truly terrible exit from the finale of Immortal Iron Fist under Andrews, but at the same time don’t... really care for how it wasn’t set until last issue.

All the positives of this story almost make me overlook the unnecessary, though appreciably subverted, kiss of life Pei gives her guy friend and I love that Danny, man serial dater that he is, is flumexed by this turn of events.

Everything is fun and delightful and I really really appreciate how dedicated this comic was from beginning to end to be Pei’s story and not letting that focus escape it the entirety of the six issues.

Also Brenda flying off on the Mother of All Dragons at the end and being like stfu Danny you ruined a good thing was hysterical and I loved it.

Art: There was definitely more production in this finale There seemed to be a lot more variation in coloring and textures, and even the characters seemed to keep almost perfectly on model the entire time. The one distraction of note, though, was that Pei... developed more into a traditional teenager look by the end... by which I mean.... boobs are now a thing and I’m not sure if it was just that she wore thicker clothes throughout the story or if it was because much like myself, the art team realized last issue for the first time that Pei was a sixteen year old and not... twelve. Anyway. It was a little distracting, but the increase in panel variation and high number of action sequences definitely made the story far more fulfilling in my view.

DC’s New Super-Man (2016-present) Vol. 2: Coming to America Gene Luen Yang, Billy Tan, Viktor Bogdanovic

After what felt like a long wait, we join Kenan and the rest of the Justice League of China once more on a bombastic quest as written by Gene Luen Yang. And much like last time, the results are rather unexpected and honestly kind of remarkable.

Story: Going off of my experiences with Yang’s work, I really feel like his passion in storytelling lies in finding the balance between the question of identity and how identity is formed by the cultures that nurtured us and how it is formed by the influences of the cultures around us. I think that was the main focus of American Born Chinese but it really is beginning to shine through Kenan’s adventures here as the New Super-Man and how much of the titular’s character is being drawn from the two huge influences he is feeling -- the pressures and dangers of the Chinese government and culture, and the admiration and sometimes oppressive shadows of the American culture that he is both attempting to copy as Super-Man and attempting to circumvent by finding the focus of his powers in Chinese philosophies and values.

And I think that’s where his supporting cast -- Wonder-Woman and Bat-Man and now also Avery Ho’s take on the Flash -- are really coming into play. While Kenan is being torn back and forth by his responsibilities and his bombastic self-absorption both in his internal conflict and his external conflict of learning the truth of his parents, we are getting a broader exposure to what being a superhero in China means as opposed to the normalcy we’ve come to expect from Western comics.

Bat-Man is just as influenced by his family as Batman, but the pressures are more in the focus on building his exceptionalism and in differing from his sister on whether to stay within a system that robs children of their childhoods and individuals of their sense of self, or to find purpose within that system and excel based upon the traits which only he can bring.

Wonder-Woman, like Wonder Woman, is derived from myth and legend but instead of a Western legacy, it is purely Chinese and her alienation and stand offish nature initially toward the rest of her team only makes that much more sense given what has brought her to her current state. She is a myth, a legend herself, but she is nearly forgotten by the current times -- Kenan even has to be told the story of her origins by Bat-Man -- and her finding the will to fit into a China that is so influenced by external cultures and influences are a struggle we’re only now beginning to appreciate.

And finally, with Flash, a Chinese-American, we’re going to receive yet another wild perspective, and considering Kenan’s already developing friendship with Avery I imagine that this is a perspective that will only receive more focus in stories to come. And I perceive that Yang’s inclinations to reference the struggles of culture and self-identity are going to be explored further here.

All around i greatly enjoyed this volume and am looking forward to the continuation now that Kenan has finally learned the truth about his family. There are a lot of interesting new angles to explore and I hope we do just that.

Art: The art is really reminiscent of Greg Capullo’s run on Batman, but has a whole lot more color and variety breathed into it which I personally really appreciate. The colors do a good job of presenting the differences in everyone’s base personalities and also makes the action sequences easier to follow even as the action itself becomes increasingly complex. The page layouts were fairly reserved considering the DC standard lately, but I personally appreciated it because it kept the focus on the storytelling and in doing so enhanced the nuances therein.

Great work all around, and yet another enjoyable volume.

Image’s Rat Queens (2013-present) Vol. 4: High Fantasies Kurtis J. Wiebe, Owen Gieni, Ryan Ferrier

I only recently jumped on the barge for Rat Queens and I’ve been more than happy with the results of caving to the advice of many friends. Because what is better than female-full cast of hilarious and dramatic DnD like adventures with more swearing than a naval ship? I gotta say, not much!

Story: So compared to the previous volumes, I actually found High Fantasies to feel like it had a lot less at stake. Although part of that may just be that I was somewhat anticipating a Betty-centric volume finally to elevate her out of being the shroom eating comic relief and bring more of the assassination attempts and her outlaw past into the forefront. And that’s clearly a problem of my own expectations and not necessarily the story’s fault itself. That said, the focus on Vol. 4 being on a gender bent loser version of the Rat Queens was pretty funny but also not something I would have thought carried enough weight to pivot as the main plot, but that would be just me.

I do appreciate Braga being in a larger role this time around, and really I wish we could see more less human creatures on the roster in general. It was also a huge heartwarming feeling to have Hannah more comfortable around her Queens and even showing some horns now and then in public. It feels like a huge progression of her character, even as she spends a fair amount of time earning the girls’ ire and.... walking in on naked mayors. As you do.

Basically Vol. 4 isn’t as character centric as the previous volumes have been, but it is a great adventure that feels like a good ol’ fashion DnD campaign with the friends you love at the helm and for fantasy nerds like me that’s more than enough to bring me back into the story.

Art: The art is always spectacular with Rat Queens, but I did find that this volume -- mostly as a result of not going to as many unestablished and important/original locations, did have a significant lack f inventive background use. That’s not always a slam on art, really the art was very good, and I actually am just... happy to not have Upchurch as the artist, honestly. That alone is worth three and a half gold stars. Though the whole controversy there is still my largest apprehension with the series at this point.

DC’s Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016-present) Vol. 2: Who is Artemis? Scott Lobdell, Dexter Soy, Kenneth Rocafort

Okay who authorized this? Who made this comic exist and who made it be actually good?? Because I didn’t and I feel offended at the amount of emotions that were forced upon me in this single volume of a comic written by Scott friggin’ Lobdell of all people. You couldn’t have told me a month ago that I would be enjoying anything that was remotely connected to Scott Lobdell and expect me not to laugh hard enough I’d bring myself to tears.

And yet here we are.

Story: Having learned a bit from how lackluster the attempts of balancing the concentration of the narrative was for his previous incarnations of the Outlaws, Lobdell somehow learned how to, y’know, write an ensemble narrative that is still heavily Jason Todd’s perspective, but does not lose any opportunities to expand on or even concentrate on the stories and character development of Bizarro and Artemis. oth of which are shockingly well handled and shockingly controlled, well paced, and interwoven into each other’s stories.

Like legitimately, did someone nab the Lobdell who wrote decent 90s Marvel comics and put him on this project? Because that feels like the kind of bizarre logic that would seem acceptable at this point.

Now, of course, it’s not perfect. Far from it. But at the end of the day we got an intriguing ongoing story, a team building exercise, Jason’s internal struggle personified both through his inner monologue and flashbacks, but also moments like his sparing of Bizarro whic not only didn’t have overly wordy exposition bringing attention to it, but was strong enough and meaningfully enough that from it alone we could see what Jason couldn’t: he is not as lost, he is not as amoral, and he’s not as cold as he has tried desperately to prove himself to be.

I actually found the take on Artemis and the Bana Mighdall pretty interesting in this retelling, and I like that we have a rogue Amazon as a new enemy for the team.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m super excited to see what will come after this.

Art: There was a range of artists, which is fine, the industry standard of pushing out these comics with the turnaround that they do does cause some disconnect, but for the most part an artist stayed for at least the completionof their storyline and then she was. And overall the trade still fel tconsistent, with some artists just standing out more than other.

Marvel’s Runaways (2017-present) #2 Rainbow Rowell, Kris Anka, Matthew Wilson

The new run of Runaways absolutely blew me away last month by shooting any and all expectations I had right through the skylight and beyond, so a good premise with beloved characters and a set in conflict really leads to a question of how do the pieces fall in order?

Story: I absolutely adore how Gert being the heart and glue of the family is being so blatantly emphasized throughout this (and that Old Lace is back). I also love that... honestly the trauma and lingering horrors Chase and Nico have survived in particular are being treated as real and damning in the eyes of someone who knew them only two years ago already. But most of all I love the emotional balance. Gert’s anger and disappointment are justified, but her crudeness and accusatory nature are also clearly shown as being wrong and too subjective. The important thing to her, and thus to the group, is to come together again. And I love that it is her prime motivation through and through.

That all being said, after such a bombastic first issue, it was a little difficult to have the momentum come to a halt so quickly. I don’t want to be taken wrong, I love issues where comics take their time and really meditate on the characters, their reactions to evens former and to come, and really develop relationships and the such. But it does feel a little unnatural to have that only two issues in when the previous issue was SO incredibly packed.

I’m still fascinated with where we can go from here and very excited to see that Victor, Xavin, and Klara might not be destined to eternal obsecurity like I assumed when the book was first announced.

Art: Honestly I’m still amazed at just how fantastic the art really is in this comci. .It’s SO good and the designs for all the characters are simply gorgeous. Though probably the best thing about all of it is the great coloring we see done here. Top notch.

Marvel’s Spider-Man - Marvel Legacy Primer Page Robbie Thompson, Valerio Schiti

I think I know less about what Marvel plans to do with Miles these days than Marvel knows what to do with Miles, which is horrifying because I just set that bar about as low as it could possibly have gone. But we.... have Rio Morales back which is the big reason I stopped keeping up with Miles to begin with so yay? I don’t know.

I feel like this primer is actually aimed at fans like me who got off the wagon back when the Ultimate title lost most of its steam both from killing off too many of Miles’ personal supporting cast and becoming too much about tertiary cast’s origins and then Peter Parker returning to life and stuff’s weird. This feels like a big neon sign that says “Things are back! The origin’s the same! Do not look behind the curtain!” It makes me curious but also apprehensive at the same time.

also can we get robbie thompson to write miles’ book and bendis let someone else write some books already jfc this was such a relief.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe (2016-present) Vol. 2 Nick Pitarra, John Lees, Brahm Revel, Ryan Ferrier, Adam Gorham, Sophie Campbell, Bobby Curnow, Pablo Tunica

So unlike the rest of the reviews, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe doesn’t really fit my review format since it’s more like a collection of vignettes across the TMNT universe that feed into the main book and each story is written and drawn by a different team, so it wouldn’t have that same cohesion.

As the giant Ninja Turtle fan that I am and probably always will be, I can’t get enough of the mythos and the characters in TMNT, so having a book that has a solid, even meditative point of just exploring smaller stories and little character developments that wouldn’t fit in the very tight and controlled narrative of the main title is something of a perfect godsend to me. I love it in concept and in execution.

One thing I worry about, however, is that there definitely seems to be a lot of stories here that feel necessary to keeping up with the main series. Such as the story of how Alopex and Angel ran into the Toad Baron and escaped -- that was a pretty crucial piece of information for the Eternals storyline a few issues back in the main book. So it feels like more and more, because of how tight and concentrated the main book is, they’re using books like Universe to fill in everything else, including buildup to larger more important narratives. And while that’s fine and even something I enjoy, it’s a move that will really push people to start being more choosy with their books. It’s much like keeping up with Transformers right now, and that tends to lead to some mixed bags. But I suppose we’ll trust and see.

At the end of the day, I have to pick the comics that really stuck with me the most. And while I was a little disappointed by a few titles this week, there was a pretty intense competition between the ones that genuinely caught me and made me really feel while reading them. And I think by that measurement I have to give the Pick of the Week this time around to the conclusion of Immortal Iron Fists. I was so worried about how this story could wrap everything up and it’s with mother flipping dragons that’s how. I love it. I love Pei and I love her being officially adopted by Danny who is TOTAL ridiculous dad now. This is the kind of Immortal Iron Fist I am happy to support.

As far as trades go... wow I for some reason was not anticipating getting slammed as much as I did, but I really didn’t feel like any of the books let me down. They were all pretty amazing and I felt like I also managed to incidentally cover the entire span of comic book genres and types in a matter of two days, which let’s admit it, pretty impressive. I feel like the new releases this week are honestly a harder competition than the single issues but twist my arm, surprising no one nearly as much as I’m surprising myself here, I have to pick Red Hood and the Outlaws for managing to be a comic that... is unexpectedly good and unexpectedly sincere and unexpectedly emotionally motivating in ways that I wish... more comics... were? I just. have a real hard time complimenting Lobdell after tearing his books a new one for..... six years straight now. But... thank you? for writing well? And making me feel things? For Jason Todd, Bizarro, and Artemis? Am I doing this right?

And those are the comics for this week! Did you happen to agree with me? Disagree? Think I missed out on picking up a comic that was good? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But before I let you go, I have to (yes have to) plug once more:

I have exactly a month to pack up everything I own and move halfway across the country again which is not helping those financial crunches I mentioned before either.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

RenaRoo Ko-Fi

RenaRoo Patreon

RenaRoo PayPal

#Rena Roundups #Wednesday Spoilers #SPOILERS #New Superman (2016 )#Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016 )#All New Guardians of the Galaxy (2017 )#Captain America (2017 )#Spiderman (2016 )#Immortal Iron Fists (2017)#Amazing Spiderman: Renew Your Vows (2016 )#All New Wolverine (2015 )#Runaways (2017 )#Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016 )#Rat Queens (2013 )

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spindashed · 8 years ago

Video

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1dV4YriZVM)

Over time, if you follow my blog, you will see me write “counter articles” in response to the fandom, and non-fandom videos, reviews... etc.

Lets begin!

1.) “Have an actual story this time.” I can partially agree with this. I do agree that having a in-depth story per console game adds to the value of the experience. More so than stories that are short and simplistic. Sonic Unleashed had an amazing story, and it’s gameplay was great! I loved the daytime stages, and I personally LOVED the nighttime stages too!(The werehog was a nice touch, it gave flavour to the story, and it had a very “God of War” vibe to it, both the game mechanics and the fact that you had to solve puzzles.. Huge points from myself especially since I love the God of war series.) That said! phrasing your first rant with: “Have an actual story this time.” Is quite an ignorant statement..

I strongly feel you’re grasping at straws with this one, because I could easily sit here and list the “actual stories” from each game. Sure some games had shorter plots, or plots that weren’t seriously in-depth like Unleashed, but there are stories there. Saying otherwise is just straight up ignorant. Besides! Sometimes simplicity is best.

2.) “Only put fan favourite characters in the game’s story if it’s for a legitimate purpose, however, no more of the ‘The adventures of Sonic and Tails’.” This one is a funny subject. When Sega had Sonic’s friends in game as playable’s, there came a point where people were LITERALLY bitching and complaining about how they’re so sick and tired of Sonic’s friends!!!! That all they wanted was “SONIC” as a playable..

Now that Sonic has been the only playable in most games, fans are now complaining about how they want Sonic’s friends back.. Smh.

For some fans, having certain characters as playable’s (I.e. Shadow.), would bring a lot of joy... Fortunately with myself, I’ve been a Sonic fan since 1991, and usually have a preference to only use Sonic, so I’m personally happy with Sonic only games. But my personal preference aside; I think it’s safe to say fans of specific characters would be far happier to see their favourites appear even if they are NPC’s (Non playable characters) oppose to them not appearing whatsoever.. In my personal opinion, I’d say if Sega/Sonic Team decide to have a NPC appear, they should have them doing something, even if it’s an Easter egg kind of thing in the background for fans to catch.

3.) “Don’t reply too much on nostalgia.” Alright! Green Hill Zone crybabies need to get over themselves. Wahhh, Green Hill Zone is back... Why! Wahhhh.. Are you sure you’re even a Sonic fan? The Green Hill Zone was LITERALLY the FIRST stage in the series! It was brought back, because it’s timeless it’s iconic just like Sonic himself. The Green Hill Zone is like Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom, like Cloud Strife’s Midgard, like Link’s Hyrule... I can go on.. Not to mention: It has COMPLETE justification to reappear in Sonic Forces, considering it’s where Classic Sonic spends a lot of his time. (This has been verified by direct source: “Sonic revisit GHZ often, because he really likes that Zone.”)

If Classic Sonic is brought back to the present time, where else would you expect him to be found? Gtfo.

(Green Hill Zone) “A lot of us are getting sick of it..”

Speak for yourself. I should also note, the most vocal fans in our fandom, often also tend to be the haters.. The same crybabies that whine about everything.(Wahhh Sonic’s eyes are green. Wahhh Sonic’s arms are blue...)

4.) “Stage to stage is fine, but if you’re gonna have a hub don’t be lazy with it.”

a.) I loved Sonic Unleashed too. I give you that.

b.) If you actually played the game in full, and paid attention to the concept of the story, you’d understand that the hub world stages being completely “white” was justified, and even when you bring life back into it, the background stays white because Time Eater FUCKING ATE TIME!

If there is nothing left in existence other than pocket zones (a.k.a the hub worlds.), it’s either going to be white space, or black space. Deal with it.

c.) Sonic Generations was one of the best games of the modern era... I think based on what the game was in it’s overall entirety, we can cut the hub world’s details some slack. Besides, what glorious games have you made? Talk is cheap, remember this.

5.) “No stupid cringe worthy jokes.” Alrighty, I can agree with this one. Knowing how to blend good humour in with the right action and seriousness is key for greatness.

I feel that because Sega has begun aiming the games at a younger audience, despite the fact that the younger audience of today actually play the same “serious” games that we adults play.. The jokes can come off a bit much sometimes. I’ve been a long time reader of the Archie comics (Which I’m sad to see it’s probably been canceled.) That said, I’d enjoy seeing Ian Flynn write for Sonic games, I think he’d be a wicked asset to the games.

6.) “If you’re going to have Wisps be more creative and actually make them fun.” I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again! For people who ACTUALLY play the games.. They obviously served a purpose in “Sonic Colours” storyline.

It was literally explained in “Sonic Runners”, why the Wisps were still in Sonic’s world. (After the events of Sonic Colours, some Wisps liked Sonic’s world so much, they decided to stay on earth/mobius.)

In Sonic Lost World, they were completely optional to use or not. Plus Wisps are basically items/power ups. KEY WORDS: “Optional to use.”

I don’t see anyone complaining about it when Mario uses his reoccurring power ups, so why must Sonic fans be so cringe.. And lastly, I’m starting to think people in our fandom are headass af.. This time around, in Sonic Forces, the Wisps aren’t there like they have been in the past. They are now “Wispons” as in they power up “Avatar’s” gadgets. (Maybe spend less time complaining, and pay a little more attention to the content revealed.. smh.)

The fact that people are actually complaining about basically an item/power up, which the Wisps literally are; is as headass beyond words as can be..

7.) “Make sure the custom character feature lives up to the hype.”

a.) Sega literally stated “Avatar” (Which is what Sega calls him/her.) plays a heavy role in the events/story of Sonic Forces. Again you would know this if you actually paid attention over flapping lips.

b.) Sega/Aaron Webber also literally stated that the Avatar character doesn’t actually talk, voice actors have been hired, and they do grunt and have voicing to some extent. This may or may not be something that will change. But as far as things go at the moment, they won’t have any real lines.

c.) Avatar is each person’s PERSONAL OC, which literally means, if Avatar doesn't live up to the hype, you as a player failed. Sega is simply giving fans a tool, it’s up to the fans on how to use it.

8.) “Have a Super Sonic final boss fight.” I agree having Super Sonic in the games is fun, mostly because I love Sonic including each of his forms.. But I find this one ironic, because you were literally just complaining about how Green Hill Zone has been back too many times, and how the Wisps were back again.. And yet you want “Super Sonic” to be just that. (Perfect example of the crybaby logic at it’s best.) Thank you for proving my point. *Thumb up!*

9.) “Try as hard as you possibly can to not make the game short.” I think you should go try to make your own game. It’s easy to talk, but if you have no experience in the industry that’s quite the ignorant statement man.. But don’t get me entirely wrong. I understand where you’re coming from. Games are not cheap these days, and feeling like we have some good content to really dig deep into goes a long way.

10.) “No stupid power up that spawns when you die too much so you can skip ahead to the next checkpoint. Not only does activating it happen on accident, but it’s like the game is holding my hand.” It’s funny, because Mario games have an option where if you die around 3 times, you have the option to let Luigi complete the stage for you. (I.e. skip the stage.) And no one complains about that. The only catch from what I understand is skipping a stage in a Mario game will keep you from unlocking everything in-game. I think it’s a pretty fair, or good optional thing to have.

11.) “Either change Sonic’s Voice or Roger Craig Smith Improves.” Jason Griffin was one of my favourite voice actors, no doubt! But Roger isn’t all that bad. Not to mention the voice actors do actively try to improve, but they’re also doing what Sega directs them to do. As far as I’m concern, this is a complaint based on bias, and is not worthy of the “my opinion” title.

12.) “Have a moment in the story that somewhat shocks the player.” Plot twist are great, but when you have fans that wear the “expect card” right on their forehead, even if Sega comes up with a pretty good plot twist, I’m sure the fans will find something to complain about. (Notice 99% of your video is a big complaint?)

13.) ”Have Unleashed-esque presentation.” I can agree with you on how epic Sonic Unleashed was all day. And I would love a “Unleashed-esque” presentation/depth to all the games. But lets be real, you and I both know the loud people in our fandom will find something to complain about regardless.

14.) “Don’t be kiddy.” I’ve been saying this one for a long time now. Sonic should always be catered to us long time old fans. The younger fans will come into the fandom on their own.

One of the hottest games for people was the “Call of Duty” games. Despite being rated for the older crowd, I cannot begin to tell you how many underaged kids were playing these.

My point is, kids like what we older fans like. (I should also note, I have never cared for the COD games.)

15.) “Make the gameplay more open than in previous games.” “Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric” was an open world game.

It was also meant to be a much fuller and in-depth game, but due to being rushed, and having to have massive game content cuts, it ended up being what it was. (Check out Sonic Synergy. What Sonic Boom RoL was meant to be, and it looks amazing.)

16.) “Fix the Ranking System.” This is the first time I’ve heard anyone complain about the rank system...

This one is also a ironic one, because if you check out the Mario games, those games are some of the easiest brain dead games you can play..... People eat them up, and yet when Sonic is time to time easier going, it’s a bad thing? Smh.

17.) “Fix the Ranking system animations.” This one is a bit better of an opinion. I did enjoy how Sonic would react to the rank in Unleashed, and how the music was dictated based on your play quality.

(I feel this one was an actual constructive criticism. Thus I accept this one.)

18.) “Have Crush 40.” There have been a few games without Crush 40 that had some real great OSTs. “Sonic Unleashed” was one of them. What I will say with this one is: I’d love more rock and even metal tracks in future games..

19.) “Have actual boss fights this time.” I’m pretty sure we’ll get a good serving of decent boss fights with Sonic Forces.

20.) “Fix the Classic Sonic Physics.” a.) Plenty of people wanted Classic Sonic back. And when Sega brought him back, being true to the cringe our fandom is judged on, the crybabies haters started pushing the bandwagon for all who wanted a ride...

b.) Classic Sonic had pretty damn well the play style he had in the classic games, I think you’ve lost your damn mind.

(*Note: I should add, anyone who dislikes Classic Sonic is headass. Without Classic Sonic, there would be no Modern Sonic. Respect the roots.)

21.) “Don’t make the final boss Eggman.” I’m not sure if I want to slap you or strangle you for this one.

Eggman is Sonic’s fucking nemesis. Get over yourself. Mario has Bowser, Cloud has Sephiroth, Ryu has Bison, Megaman has Dr.Wily, Blah blah blah blah.. The list goes on forever.

Every Super hero has his main villain. And it’s not ALWAYS Eggman. Sonic has fought other main bosses just as equally as everyone else in their own respective games.

22.) “Eliminate the lives system.” SMFH! That’s all I can do for this one.

This is by far one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. I guess every other game best get rid of the lives system too right? Get the fuck outta here.

24.) “Put the Chaos Emeralds in the story.” Adding the Chaos Emeralds for the sake of adding them for what tiny fan service addition they give to the story, just like throwing in Super Sonic for the mere fan service would be literally no different from just throwing random Sonic friends into the story for mere fan service, your arguments are literally contradictory as fuck. Smh.

25.) “No false Advertising.” As mentioned earlier: Sonic Boom was what it was strictly because the game was rushed, and “Big Red Button” literally got a last minute notice that it was for the weaker system compared to what they had been making it for. Thus the game had significant content cuts, and was released incomplete.

Hence why Sega literally gave a public apology.

26.) “Bring back humans to raise the stakes.” Humans have both appeared and been absent across games. This will not make a difference to overall game quality so once again, this is a ridiculous complaint.

27.) Just make a good Sonic game please, is that too much to ask?” a.) Sonic fan’s expressing their opinions makes the game better ONLY if it’s constructive criticism! The games will not ever be better when the bitching and complaining is void of a positive point to improve said game. (i.e. “the constructive” part.).

b.) “I call it actually caring.” *See 27a. If you still cannot comprehend that, might I suggest getting a cat scan?

28.) “I’m in grade school.” Why is it, school kids always seem to think they know it all. lmao.

29.) “This is not a Sonic hate video.” Than how about making a video with a overall positive tone. This entire video was nothing but the same tired bs.. Complain, complain, complain.

Try talking about what you love, and if you’re going to give constructive criticism, back it up with a positive fix.

This fandom is already far too full of haters, and bandwagon riders that can’t think for themselves, we don’t need any more of that cringe.

“Sonic is my SECOND favourite game franchises.” Of course it is.

*Closing Note: The Sonic hate, complaining for the sake of complaining, and constant negative tone with out purposeful point is tired af guys. It’s also far from cool. Don’t be a bandwagon baby.

If you are in this fandom, and all you think of is negativity when Sonic comes to mind, it’s time to leave the fandom and never come back.

#video response #Fandom counter article #sonic facts

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tardisgirlepic · 8 years ago

Text

Ch. 1: “The Empress of Mars” Analysis Doctor Who S10.9: Fastballs, Mars-Not-Mars, Rassilon References, Etc.

Apologies for getting these 3 chapters for “The Empress of Mars” out after the airing of “The Eaters of Light.” I post first on Archive Of Our Own, which I did before the 10th episode. With photos, it takes more time to post here.

NOTE: TPEW = “The Pyramid at the End of the World” TRODM = “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” THORS = “The Husbands of River Song” CAL = Charlotte Abigail Lux, the little girl from the Library TOS = The Original Series of Star Trek TNG = Star Trek: The Next Generation

Wow, So Much to Say and So Little Time!

It’s going to be impossible to cover all the main points of “The Empress of Mars” because of the huge data dump of subtext. DW has run out of time to tell the story in a slower manner. Even though the subtext has been coming at a fast pace all season, this episode crams more subtext into it than probably any I’ve ever seen. It must have taken Mark Gatiss awhile to figure out how to get all the references into the episode.

These week-to-week analyses are just the start, too, of how I read subtext. The one thing they lack is to place them in the broader context after several weeks and months, seeing how they fit in the subsequent story. For the most part, I don’t have that luxury of doing that here in a weekly format. That’s something for a post mortem, so to speak, after Season 10 is over.

Due to lack of time, I’m going to show only necessary photos.

The previous analysis was really long. My apologies. This analysis will be in multiple chapters.

Big Classic Who Connection

“The Empress of Mars” has a very Classic Who feel to it. It’s clear to me that Mark Gatiss is a fan of the Ice Warriors since this is the second story he’s written with them. His first one was “Cold War,” an 11th Doctor story.

However, the really big Classic Who connection comes at the end with the Alpha Centauri character, shown below. Alpha Centauri is an ambassador, or was, at least, in Classic Who.

The woman, Ysanne Churchman, who voices this character in “The Empress of Mars” is the same person who voiced the original Alpha Centauri in the 3rd Doctor story “The Curse of Peladon.” I had never heard of this character before. But now I’m geeking out with the Classic Who connection of getting the original actress.

Ysanne Churchman was born May 14, 1925, and according to the TARDIS Wikia, she has “voiced Alpha Centauri in the Doctor Who stories The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon and Empress of Mars, and an Eight Legs in the Doctor Who story Planet of the Spiders.”

Usurpation of a Different Type, Cowardice & Leadership

This story has a lot of themes. And one of them is usurpation. It’s not possession as we’ve seen but the situation where young Captain Catchlove in the British army is blackmailing older Colonel Godsacre with the colonel’s secret. Godsacre is a figurehead of sorts, and at any moment of the captain’s choosing, the captain can take command, and he does.

Interestingly, this theme is connected to another, which is people grappling with cowardice in the face of leadership. The colonel had a crisis of leadership sometime back, which led to his desertion. However, Catchlove fairs no better once he usurps control.

In fact, he is even more of a coward than Godsacre. Even though we see Godsacre run again from leadership once he, the Doctor, and Bill escape the brig, it’s Catchlove who throws Vincey in front of Ice Warror fire to save himself. And a little later, Catchlove takes Queen Iraxxa hostage to save himself again. In fact, he’s planning to desert his men and strand everyone on Mars.

In the end, Godsacre finds redemption when he pledges his life to die bravely in battle.

GODSACRE: God save the Queen. SOLDIERS: God save the Queen! IRAXXA: You will die with honour, with bravery, and in the service of those you swore to protect. GODSACRE: Thank you. You don't know what that means. Thank you. IRAXXA: But not today. In battle, soldier. To die in battle is the way of the warrior. Pledge your allegiance to me and my world, and I will ensure you have the opportunity. GODSACRE: My life and my service are yours. (kneels) To the end. IRAXXA: To the death, my friend. To the death.

It’s a good day to die, a warrior’s hope to die well in battle. While this phrase does come up in TNG with Klingons, like Worf, who is living on the Enterprise, among humans, I first heard this phrase as a child. It comes up in the movie Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman, a white man who was raised among a group of Cheyenne in the Old West after his parents were killed by another tribe.

I mention this because redemption and dying well have become themes for the 12th Doctor. Dying well is implicit in the whole idea of Norse culture and Ragnarök. And we’ll examine this more in the next chapter.

Anyway, Godsacre and Catchlove aren’t the only ones grappling with leadership in the episode. Iraxxa admonishes Friday, telling him his duty, as an Ice Warrior, is to command.

DOCTOR: His cryogenic cell was damaged. They saved him.

IRAXXA: And made him their pet!

FRIDAY: It was necessary to dissemble, Majesty. I thought only of your resurrection. It was a tactical decision.

IRAXXA: An Ice Warrior's duty is to command!

She doesn’t accept his excuse.

Cowardice & Leadership in a Broader Sense

Cowardice has long been a theme. The Doctor has been running all his life, according to the 10th Doctor in “The Sound of Drums,” ever since he looked into the Untempered Schism at the age of eight. In “Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent,” we find out he’s been running from himself. He’s scared of the prophecy that he is the Hybrid, who will destroy the universe for love.

GENERAL: All Matrix prophecies concur that this creature will one day stand in the ruins of Gallifrey. It will unravel the Web of Time and destroy a billion billion hearts to heal its own.

Cowardly in Love

As a result, the Doctor knows he is not supposed to fall in love with anyone. Love is a curse, which comes back to the 7th Doctor story “The Curse of Fenric.” He then becomes cowardly in love, too, not telling people how he feels. We saw those results, for example, in River’s outpouring of anguish in THORS.

Cowardice in the Face of Leadership

In “Dark Water,” Danny Pink dies. Later, he has a chance to delete his emotions in the Nethersphere, but he can’t bring himself to do it. In “Death in Heaven,” the 2nd part of the finale to Season 8, Danny becomes a Cyberman with emotions.

He wants Clara to turn off his emotions because he can’t bring himself to do it. He’s a coward here. Yet Danny admonishes the Doctor for the Doctor’s cowardice of not wanting to turn off Danny’s emotions, either, and allowing Clara to do it. Danny is being hypocritical, but then Danny is a mirror of the Doctor.

DOCTOR: Danny, Danny, I need you to tell me. What are the clouds going to do? What is the plan? CYBER-DANNY: How would I know? DOCTOR: You're part of a hive mind now. Presumably that's how you found Clara. Just look. CYBER-DANNY: I can't see much. DOCTOR: Look harder. CYBER-DANNY: Clara, watch this. This is who the Doctor is. Watch the blood-soaked old general in action. I can't see properly, sir, because this needs activating. If you want to know what's coming, you have to switch it on. And didn't all of those beautiful speeches just disappear in the face of a tactical advantage? Sir. DOCTOR: (sighs) I need to know. I need to know. CYBER-DANNY: (sotto) Yes. (normal) Yes, you do. CLARA: Give me the screwdriver. DOCTOR: No. CLARA: Just do it, Doctor. Do as you are told. (The Doctor meets Cyber-Danny's gaze then gives Clara the sonic screwdriver.) CYBER-DANNY: Typical officer. Got to keep those hands clean.

In the end, it’s the women who step up. Clara turns off Danny’s emotions, and Bill, to help stop a slaughter, confronts Iraxxa in an irreverent way that even the Doctor wouldn’t or couldn’t consider.

Fear & Usurpation

Has the Doctor been usurped because of his fear when he was blind?

Interestingly, the Master talks about his own fear in the 10th Doctor episode “The Sound of Drums.”

MASTER: The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a

[Underpass]

MASTER [OC]: Time War. I was there when the

[Cabinet room]

MASTER: Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. I saw it. I ran. I ran so far. Made myself human so they would never find me, because I was so scared.

Turning human is a form of usurpation of a sort, where the human part takes full control of the Doctor’s body. In “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood,” we saw how different the Doctor was when he was human. He did things he would never do as a Time Lord, like having children beaten or sending them into battle.

Both the Master and Doctor turned themselves human out of fear. Is this how all the problems started? There is subtext in “The Empress of Mars” that suggests, not for the first time, that events are all the Doctor’s fault. We’ll look at this in the next chapter.

Imperialism: Another Type of Exploitation

Exploitation of beings is one of the main themes in Season 10 within different types of governments, economic systems, and government actions. We’ve seen it in a totalitarian government in “The Lie of the Land.” Before that, we’ve seen capitalism gone amok in multiple episodes. And now imperialism rears its ugly head in “The Empress of Mars.”

According to Wikipedia:

Imperialism is an action that involves a country (usually an empire or kingdom) extending its power by the acquisition of territories. It may also include the exploitation of these territories, an action that is linked to colonialism. Colonialism is generally regarded as an expression of imperialism.

It is different from New Imperialism, as the term imperialism is usually applied to the colonization of the Americas between the 15th and 19th centuries, as opposed to the expansion of Western Powers (and Japan) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, both are examples of imperialism.

Since exploitation of groups of people, racism, and species-ism are heavily referenced, especially this season, I expect this has to be at the heart of the story with the Doctor. It comes back to the question: why is Caecilius a slave in Pompeii to begin with? Is it because he is a Janus of sorts but turned himself human? The Janus could also possibly relate to Missy and the Master, where Missy represents the future and the Master the past.

Imperialism, Robinson Crusoe, Friday & Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe, a 1719 novel by Englishman Daniel Defoe, is important to look at since Friday, the Ice Warrior, is specifically mentioned as being named for the character in the book.

In the novel, Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman whose father wants him to study law. Initially, Crusoe is committed to obeying, but he eventually capitulates to the temptation of the sea and embarks on a ship with a friend. They nearly die in a storm. On his second voyage, Moorish pirates seize the ship, and Crusoe gets enslaved. Later, he and a slave boy break free, and Crusoe sells the slave boy.

Years later, he gets involved in the slave trade when he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he gets shipwrecked in a storm, along with 3 animals. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, so here is another religious conversion event, similar to the Doctor going through the Great Work.

Wikipedia says

More years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.

Friday, too, wants to eat the people they kill, but Crusoe forbids it. Crusoe spends 28 years marooned, the last 4 with his servant, Friday, according to Wikipedia, “on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has since been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966, but various literary sources have also been suggested.”

The expression "Man Friday," comes from the novel and describes a male personal assistant or servant, especially one who is particularly competent or loyal. "Girl Friday" is the female equivalent. (Nardole is, at times, playing the Doctor’s Man Friday.)

It’s the interpretations of the novel that I find very important because they symbolize themes, especially in Season 10. It’s James Joyce’s that I find particularly interesting. According to Wikipedia:

Novelist James Joyce noted that the true symbol of the British Empire is Robinson Crusoe, to whom he ascribed stereotypical and somewhat hostile English racial characteristics: "He is the true prototype of the British colonist. ... The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity." In a sense Crusoe attempts to replicate his society on the island. This is achieved through the use of European technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the "king" of the island, whilst the captain describes him as the "governor" to the mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is explicitly referred to as a "colony". The idealised master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural imperialism. Crusoe represents the "enlightened" European whilst Friday is the "savage" who can only be redeemed from his barbarous way of life through assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nonetheless Defoe also takes the opportunity to criticise the historic Spanish conquest of South America.

According to Wikipedia, Defoe’s “most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1701), defended the [King of England William III, who was Dutch-born] against the perceived xenophobia of his enemies, satirising the English claim to racial purity.”

Interestingly, racism was not overt in “The Empress of Mars,” and at least from what we saw, there was tolerance of both Vincey and Bill, at least race-wise. We did see sexism, which added realism for the time period. On top of that, Vincey had a picture of Alice, the white woman he wanted to marry. So I found the message of human toleration hopeful from the start, except for Godsacre’s initial reaction to the Doctor. Most likely, there’s more going on here with the Doctor than what it appears.

Instead of racism, species-ism is a problem with both the humans and the Ice Warriors. The humans have made Friday a servant, just like Robinson Crusoe did, and they want to claim another planet as their own. On the other hand, Iraxxa calls humans pink things and worms.

I see this episode as hopeful in the end, where the 2 sides show tolerance and cooperation, overcoming whatever prejudices they have to live, work, and die together.

While the themes are sound, we can’t trust the setting.

They’re in the Library Matrix

From the start, the Matrix makes its presence known. Things aren’t happening the way they appear.

NASA

At the beginning of the episode, the shot of NASA looks very digitized, so we know right away this is in the Matrix. Also, there’s a reflection line (red arrow) to tell us this isn’t real.

Inside NASA, there’s another reflection line (red arrow). Also, there are at least 3 types of computers (yellow arrows) in the mission control room. While I’m not an expert on working at NASA, I’ve been in a similar environment. The computers would most likely all be the same in this type of environment. Maintaining multiple types of computers (one is a laptop) costs more money and can create potential problems.

Doctor Fades into the Clockwork

Interestingly, right at the end of the NASA scene, the Doctor smiles at the “God Save the Queen” message, which seems odd once again. Then, a mist of sorts starts to superimpose itself over the Doctor, and the color mutes before he starts to fade into the clockwork, as shown in the image below. He becomes part of the machinery.

Mars Is Not Mars

We know the Doctor, Bill, and Nardole can’t be on Mars for multiple reasons. The Doctor while on Mars said, “Mind you, there's a lot here that doesn't make sense.” So true! These are just a few of the problems:

Martian Gravity

Since Mars has a lot less mass than Earth, the surface gravity on Mars, according to NASA, is only 37.5% of the surface gravity on Earth. Therefore, if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 37.5 pounds on Mars. The moon’s mass is about 1/6 of Earth, so 100 pounds on Earth weighs only 16.7 pounds on the moon.

While people on Mars wouldn’t be bouncing as much as on the moon when they walked, there would still be a noticeable difference in how people moved.

Martian Oxygen

To prove there was oxygen on the Mars-not-Mars, there was a fire. That didn’t preclude any harmful elements or compounds, though. Nardole, the Doctor, and Bill could still have died when they took off their helmets.

On Earth, our atmosphere is mostly made of nitrogen, 78%, while oxygen accounts for about 21% Argon, carbon dioxide, and smaller amounts of other gases make up the rest.

On Mars, according to the Universe Today, the atmosphere is composed of 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water. The atmosphere is not breathable without a spacesuit or an artificial environment. Even if the Ice Warriors had created an artificial environment, that doesn’t account for the gravity issues, unless this is a spaceship with artificial gravity.

There’s also less atmospheric pressure on Mars.

It’s interesting that oxygen is once again a subject and that there would be a lack thereof. I’m betting “Oxygen” will be referenced again in at least one subsequent episode.

Spacesuits Are Fake

The helmets wouldn’t have helped anyway because the spacesuits are the 2-piece variety. Therefore, they can’t be airtight the way they should be. There’s no way the steam punk spacesuits of the Victorians are airtight. I do love the ear horns. Nice touch. Why does Catchlove’s helmet have all those viewing holes? How many eyes does he have?

Helmet Lights

Most of the time, we can see 4 lights in the helmets, a sign they are in the Library. A few times, we can see 5, which is a weapon of mass destruction. This episode is very much foreshadowing the Doctor’s fate, which we’ll examine in the subtext references.

Martian Ice Cap Obscuring “God Save the Queen”

There’s no way the Martian ice cap wasn’t there in Victorian times. Therefore, the whole “God Save the Queen” message couldn’t possibly be written the way it appears.

Pitching Fastballs: Astounding Number of Internal & External References

Wow, there are an astounding number of internal and external references in the subtext! On the whole, “The Empress of Mars” possibly has more internal and external references to movies, TV shows, books, short stories, songs, British terminology, mythology, and other DW episodes than any other episode so far that I’ve seen in DW. Also, I believe Season 10 has more of these internal and external references than any other season of DW.

“The Empress of Mars” is a great example of fastballs: the copious subtext references that we have to deal with in one week before the next episode airs. Because I had to look up most of the references, it’s taken time just to understand all of this before I get to write anything, which cut into my writing time. There are several references to Classic Who episodes, but I only had seen a few of them before this episode.

On top of this, some of the external references are actually indirect allusions to other DW episodes. So there is a big bowl of spaghetti to look at.

“The Empress of Mars,” The Princess of Mars & Star Wars

Right from the start, the title of the episode, “The Empress of Mars,” is an external reference to a classic science fantasy novel A Princess of Mars by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs. It’s the first book of his Barsoom series.

The Princess of Mars and the Barsoom series is what Star Wars is based on. In 2012, Disney put out the John Carter movie but horribly marketed it. Many people didn’t realize this John Carter story started it all. The original story really is remarkable given Burroughs wrote it in 1912.

The Doctor even made a reference, too, to Star Wars, when he said, “I have a bad feeling about this.” That quote is said in every Star Wars movie at least once.

Here’s what StarWars.com has to say about Burroughs’ story The Princess of Mars and subsequent books and the John Carter film.

John Carter is a film directed by Pixar alum Andrew Stanton that follows Civil War veteran John Carter on his astounding trip to the planet Barsoom, which we know as Mars. There he meets a princess leading a rebellion, fights against an evil empire, and meets a variety of strange aliens on a desert wasteland of a planet, gets powers far beyond the abilities of normal men, and encounters a strange religion. There are times where he’s captured, thrown into an arena to fight bizarre monsters, and other times where he’s forced to rescue a princess.

It sounds like I could be talking about Star Wars just as easily as John Carter. And since John Carter came out in 2012, you might be thinking, “No! You’ve got it the other way around! John Carter was influenced by Star Wars.”

But you’d be surprised.

Here’s a quote from George Lucas in a 1977 issue of Science Fiction Review: “Originally, I wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, with all the trimmings, but I couldn’t obtain all the rights. So I began researching and found where [Flash Gordon creator] Alex Raymond got his idea: The works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially his John Carter series of books.”

We examined many chapters ago how the Doctor was going to be involved in a rebellion. We’ve seen the evil empire in “The Lie of the Land.” Also, we’ve even seen much of the rest of it, including a strange religion – the Church of the Papal Mainframe, the Silence, and the Monks.

Mars Has Significant Ties to Previous Episodes

When I think of Mars references in DW, I think of “The Waters of Mars,” which “The Pilot” alluded to with all the water coming off of Heather. However, there are other episodes that are very important, too. BTW, this isn’t an exhaustive list:

“The Pyramids of Mars”

In “The Pyramids of Mars,” a 4th Doctor story, Sutekh, according to the TARDIS Wikia, is a powerful extraterrestrial, also known as Sutekh the Destroyer. He was an Osiran who planned to destroy all life in the universe. Afraid of all forms of life which might one day challenge his hegemony, he became the destroyer of all living things. The Osiran inspired Egyptian mythology.

At one point, he usurped the Doctor’s body.

“The Ambassadors of Death”

“The Ambassadors of Death” is an early 3rd Doctor story with Liz Shaw as his companion. I had never seen this story before. It can possibly explain a bit about what is happening in Season 10.

The Doctor joins UNIT's investigation of the mystery surrounding Mars Probe 7. The Recovery 7, on a rescue mission, runs into problems once it comes back to Earth. The 3 astronauts are kidnapped. It turns out these astronauts are a triad of radiation-dependent alien ambassadors, who swapped places with the 3 human astronauts.

According to the TARDIS Wikia, the Doctor finds that Mars Probe 7 is still orbiting in space. Intercepted by a huge, alien spaceship and taken aboard, the Doctor finds the real astronauts unharmed, but mind controlled. The aliens' captain threatens to destroy the Earth unless the 3 ambassadors are released.

The Doctor returns to Earth and discovers that the kidnapping of the ambassadors is part of a plot devised by xenophobic ex-astronaut General Carrington to frame the aliens. The general has a machine built to mind control them, forcing them to kill humans, so he can convince the world's authorities to wage war against the extraterrestrials.

The 3 ambassadors act like robots, very similar to the zombies in “Oxygen.” In fact, like the zombies, the aliens can kill with their touch. Once the aliens aren’t being mind controlled, they want to know why they have been made to kill when they came in peace. The Doctor and UNIT thwart the general’s plans and arrange an exchange of the ambassadors for the astronauts.

Interestingly, right at the end, there is a big structure overhead made of hexagons, symbolic of imprisonment. The Doctor walks out, representing his freedom as one of the astronauts.

In the 10th Doctor episode “Smith and Jones,” the Doctor talked about roentgen radiation after using an X-ray machine to kill a Slab, a slave drone, who was trying to kill them.

MARTHA: What did you do? DOCTOR: Increased the radiation by five thousand per cent. Killed him dead. MARTHA: But isn't that going to kill you? DOCTOR: Nah, it's only roentgen radiation. We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. It's safe for you to come out. I've absorbed it all. All I need to do is expel it.

Why would the Doctor or any Time Lord be playing with roentgen bricks in a nursery?

Interestingly, in the very 1st Dalek story called “The Daleks,” the Daleks talk about needing radiation:

DALEK 2: We need radiation to survive. So we must increase our supply of radiation.

DALEK 1: But there is only one way to do that.

DALEK 2: Exactly. We may have to explode another neutron bomb.

There’s a possible theme here of needing radiation to survive in 2 of 3 episodes.

Tip: When reading subtext, always look for patterns (at least 3 occurrences). Or what could be the beginning of a pattern (2 occurrences). Themes that keep coming up are foreshadowing the coming canon. Patience is typically required because it’s rare for foreshadowing to become canon in the next episode. Usually, things take years to become canon. However, Season 10 and the 12th Doctor are different.

There are several key points here, making patterns that we’ve encountered.

1. There is a triad involved.

2. There is usurpation, not of possessing a body, but of mind controlling the aliens to kill, something they normally wouldn’t do; they came in peace.

3. Their touch kills, like the zombies in “Oxygen.” (This isn’t a pattern with 3 occurrences that I know of, but with everything else matching it becomes part of the pattern.)

4. We know the subtext shows in “Deep Breath” that the Doctor is a cyborg. Is he really a cyborg? Is it that he is just mind controlled to look that way, or is he really that way? If so, how did he get that way?

5. The aliens are being framed, which is something we examined as a possibility in my analysis of “The Lie of the Land,” relating back to how the Valeyard, the Master, and the Time Lords were working to frame the 6th Doctor.

Therefore, “The Ambassadors of Death” does help substantiate my hypothesis that the Doctor is being framed and being used to kill against his will. And this also goes along with the image we keep taking a look at, shown below, from “Human Nature” that has said all along the 24th Doctor (the Roman Doctor) is in the Library metaphor being framed and used against his will. And it’s because he’s unbalanced by love. For the extensive examination, take a look at Chapter 10 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.

There’s a similar photo of the 12th Doctor that we looked at from TRODM in Lucy’s kitchen in the pre-airing analysis of the episode in Chapter 9 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.

A cyborg assassin and time travel are themes of The Terminator, which Bill mentioned in “The Empress of Mars.” The Terminator goes back in time to kill someone to prevent a revolt. Not only does this have similarities to using the ambassadors as cyborg-type killing machines, but also the movie’s concept of an assassin relates to the 4th Doctor story, “The Deadly Assassin,” which we examined in my analysis of “Extremis.” In it, the Master frames the Doctor.

“The Christmas Invasion”

While the first 10th Doctor story “The Christmas Invasion” has just a small reference to Mars, it is very significant. Britain sends the Guinevere One space probe on a mission to the red planet and loses touch with it, which is a call back to “The Ambassadors of Death.” While, the signal loss is only for a short time, unlike the Classic Who episode, we see a triad of assassin Santas. Also, Mickey and the others talk of the Santas being pilot fish, a reference to the 12th Doctor. Santa, for that matter, is also a reference to the Doctor. Therefore, there is quite a bit of similarities to “The Ambassadors of Death.”

Guinevere is also a character in the King Arthur legend.

“The Waters of Mars,” “The Five Doctors,” the Ice Queen’s & Rassilon’s Tombs

Back in Chapter 19 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, I posed a question. “Did the 10th Doctor bring a curse upon himself when he announced he was Time Lord Victorious” in “The Waters of Mars”?

Here’s what I said

I believe he is either a version of Rassilon or a slave of Rassilon, since this most likely comes with a curse of immortality, just like with the Ring of Rassilon.

Rassilon, in the past, has slept eternally in his tomb while his mind lived on in the Matrix. Putting on the ring grants the wearer immortality. However, it imprisons the wearer in the stone of Rassilon, watching over him forever. In “The Five Doctors,” a Time Lord puts on the ring and gets petrified as a relief on the side of Rassilon’s sarcophagus. The ring comes with the warning:

To lose is to win And he who wins shall lose

So Time Lord Victorious loses.

Weeping Angels are probably involved in this.

We’ve actually looked at “The Five Doctors” multiple times in recent chapters because Rassilon’s insignia keeps coming up in Season 10. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the Ice Queen’s tomb in “The Empress of Mars” looks similar to Rassilon’s tomb, shown below, in “The Five Doctors.”

Rassilon is sleeping eternally (red arrow). However, we see his projection from the Matrix (yellow arrow) of his head. The Time Lord on the right will end up in the blank area (white arrow) as a stone relief because he puts on Rassilon’s ring and gets immortality at a price of being a sentinel to Rassilon. This relief is one reason why I believe the Weeping Angels may have something to do with all of this.

In comparison, here’s the Ice Queen’s tomb, shown below. Like Rassilon’s tomb, the items underneath the body, in this case gems, have an effect on the body above.

In fact, both Rassilon and Iraxxa claim themselves as resurrected.

In “Hell Bent,” after Rassilon tries to have the Doctor executed, gunships show up

RASSILON: Excellent, General. You sent for reinforcements. DOCTOR: No, he didn't. (He puts on his sonic sunglasses.) DOCTOR: I did.

(The final troopers join the Doctor as the gunships train their weapons on Rassilon.)

RASSILON: What? I am Rassilon the redeemer! Rassilon, the resurrected! Gallifrey is mine!

In “The Empress of Mars,” Iraxxa talks to Friday, who is here sentinel:

IRAXXA: My Sentinel. You have fulfilled your pledge. I am resurrected!

Mars, the Roman God of War, and the Janus Connection

Mars is significant for multiple reasons. Not only is it the setting of multiple Martian episodes that have a bearing on what is happening, but also Mars was the Roman god of war. According to Wikipedia, he was also “an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army.”

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, “Mars was a part of the Archaic Triad along with Jupiter and Quirinus, the latter of whom as a guardian of the Roman people had no Greek equivalent.” And Quirinus: “In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was also an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus.”

Regarding Janus: In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.

This is significant because not only is there a triad, which we’ve examined in my analysis in “Extremis,” although not in the same context, but also we’ve examined the Janus connection, which shows up in “Face the Raven,” where Clara is killed. We also saw it in “The Pilot,” where Heather is shown as a Janus in a puddle. Since I never got to finish “The Pilot” analysis, I ended up talking about the Janus concept and mistaken identity in my analysis of “Oxygen.”

The Doctor is a mirror of the 2 Janus in “Face the Raven” as well as Heather. Interestingly, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. We know the Doctor is connected to time, and we’ve examined the Door/Doughnut metaphor (which would also cover passages and gateways) in Chapter 17 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, along with the Doctor’s struggle with duality in my analysis of “Oxygen.”

Therefore, it’s fitting that “The Empress of Mars” takes place on Mars-not-Mars for multiple reasons.

I’ve arrived at the symbology of duality and the Door/Doughnut metaphor (which includes gates, doorways, and passages) independently from the symbolism of Janus. Because everything connects, it verifies we are on the right track of reading the subtext.

Tip: When reading subtext in DW, just about all subtext will have multiple connections, so it should link up from various, independent directions. Once it does, you know these things are important and will become part of the canon in some form.

Alpha Centauri & Ice Warrior References

As we saw above, Alpha Centauri shows up in 2 stories, neither of which I had seen.

“The Curse of Peladon” & TOS: “Journey to Babel”

“The Curse of Peladon,” a 3rd Doctor episode, is very interesting, especially because DW obviously based this episode on parts of TOS: “Journey to Babel” and Spock’s background. Now, I understand better why Spock’s name comes up 5 times in “The Empty Child.”

Anyway, in “The Curse of Peladon,” according to the TARDIS Wikia:

The Doctor and Jo make a test flight in the TARDIS and arrive on the planet Peladon. Seeking shelter, they enter the citadel of the soon-to-be-crowned King Peladon, where the Doctor is mistaken for a human dignitary summoned to act as chairman of a committee assessing an application by the planet to join the Galactic Federation.

Here’s a case of mistaken identity. Only men of rank and women of royal blood are allowed in the royal throne room of Peladon. The Doctor and Jo become imposter Federation delegates – Jo impersonating a princess.

Every time the term “Federation” came up, I kept thinking of Star Trek. At first, I didn’t think anything of the soon-to-be king’s pedigree that he was half-human on his mother’s side. However, when characters started talking about the delegates voting on Peladon’s application to join the Federation and mining rights were involved, along with a strange murder, I suddenly realized this was based on parts of the TOS episode “Journey to Babel.” And the soon-to-be king was a mirror of Spock, who is the Doctor in DW, as “The Empty Child” makes clear.

According to Memory Alpha regarding “Journey to Babel”:

The delegates will be attending a conference on the neutral planetoid named Babel to decide the admission of the planet Coridan to the Federation, which is rich in dilithium but is poorly defended.

As the Enterprise comes under attack on the way to a diplomatic conference on Babel, one of the alien dignitaries is murdered, and Spock's estranged father Sarek is the prime suspect – but he is also deathly ill, and only Spock can save him.

In this Star Trek episode, we find out Spock broke tradition against the wishes of his father and joined Starfleet, an instrument of the Federation. In comparison, one of King Peladon’s trusted advisors is accused by another trusted advisor of abandoning “the ancient ways of our people.” And he says that this will bring the curse of Aggedor upon everyone. To avoid the curse, the advisor kills the other. The king wants to join the Federation, which would abandon the ancient ways.

The Doctor, as Spock, is a mirror of soon-to-be King Peladon. The prince wants to marry Jo, the Doctor’s companion.

In comparison to the Doctor-as-a-prince mirror in “The Curse of Peledon,” in “The Lie of the Land” the 12th Doctor is associated with Prince Charles (red arrow), shown behind the Doctor, and Lady Diana in her wedding dress (on the other side of his head). This happens inside the pyramid just before he touches the seated Monk’s head.

Then, in “The Curse of Peladon” both Alpha Centauri and Ice Warriors show up. The Ice Warriors are not the villains. In fact, one of the Ice Warriors saves the Doctor’s life.

Even more interesting is that there are emblems of Aggedor, the beast, shown below, whom people are afraid of. It looks like a pig or boar, which is reminiscent of the sheriff’s boar emblem in the 12th Doctor episode also penned by Mark Gatiss, “The Robot of Sherwood.”

“The Robot of Sherwood”

Here’s the Sheriff’s shield and emblem in “Robot of Sherwood.” This shield also shows up in THORS.

Surprisingly, Ice Warriors and Mars are also mentioned in “The Robot of Sherwood” in a conversation between the Doctor and Clara.

CLARA: Yeah, you. You stop bad things happening every minute of every day. That sounds pretty heroic to me.

(The Doctor licks something from a large metal spoon. Custard?)

DOCTOR: Just passing the time. Hey, what about Mars?

CLARA: What?!

DOCTOR: The Ice Warrior Hives.

CLARA: You said it was my choice.

The sheriff (a cyborg) was supposed to lose his head in the episode. However, it was to air just after journalists were decapitated, so the BBC, thinking better than to show a decapitation, edited it out.

“The Monster of Peladon” & TOS: “The Cloud Minders”

“The Monster of Peladon” is a sequel to “The Curse of Peladon.” However, it’s not that good. Both Alpha Centauri and Ice Warriors show up again, but this time the Ice Warriors are villains. This episode is based on the same premise as the TOS episode “The Cloud Minders.” In both the DW and TOS episodes, miners are at odds with the leadership on the planets.

The main thing I came away with from this sequel is that 50 years later, King Peladon was dead, and his daughter is now queen.

Another Master Reference

One of the internal references in “The Empress of Mars,” has the Doctor mirroring the Master again. At NASA, Knibbs starts counting down to the reception of the probe’s signal.

KNIBBS: I got everything crossed. Okay, people. Transmission arriving in ten, nine, eight, seven, six. (The big screen is now counting down to Download Commences with them.) DOCTOR: Five, four, three, two, one! Sorry, I could never resist a countdown.

In “Last of the Time Lords,” the Master says

MASTER: Three minutes to align the black hole converters. Counting down. I never could resist a ticking clock. My children, are you ready?

Additionally, the Doctor’s smile at “God Save the Queen” before the opening credits just seems really odd and out of character.

In the Next Chapters

There are so many references left to look at, so I’m planning on 2 more chapters to show you the meaning of at least part of them. For example, Friday is a lot more important than he might appear, so we’ll examine him in connection to more than just Robinson Crusoe. In another example, ravens show up in the subtext in multiple ways, which comes back to Clara. We’ll begin to look at some of the raven references in the next chapter. Then, there’s more to the Victorians than it appears, and I’ll show you examples of what I call collective symbology vs. individual symbology in relation to the troops. Additionally, we’ll look at how the subtext is coming together for Ragnarök and more.

Go to next chapter => Ch. 2: Friday, Odin & the Doctor; Missy’s 2 Faces; Etc.

#doctor who #twelfth doctor #bill potts #nardole #clara oswald #river song #eleventh doctor #amy pond #rory williams #tenth doctor #the empress of mars #meta #analysis

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saiilorstars · 5 years ago

Text

The Beginning of Everything

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: Female OC x 10th Doctor

(OC Face claim: Marjorie de Sousa)

// Story Masterlist //

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Ch. 7: Partners in Crime

Chapter Summary: Renata struggles traveling with the Doctor after Martha's departure. She tries to follow the Doctor through his crazy ways of helping people but she just can't help but point out how many rules they break! And the Doctor doesn’t make it any easier when he tries to argue with her.

"It's crazy-"

"Of course humans wouldn't be able to detect any-"

"-what you're saying-"

"-extraterrestrial signals but I have the-"

"-I mean what's the point of-"

"-TARDIS constantly checking for anything strange and there it was," the Doctor pushed the monitor so that it was in front of Renata. "Adipose Industries. Bunch of conspiracy theories-"

"Doctor, the humans are always looking for crazy theories-"

"Well it happens that these are not so far off. We really should just pop in and check to make sure everything is alright."

There was a clear 'why' written across Renata's face. "What is your obsession with planet Earth?" That was one question she'd been asking ever since she met the Doctor on Gallifrey. Up to now, she suspected there wasn't a clear answer.

The Doctor just smiled at her question. "Renee, I really think we need to check it out. Just a couple of investigation scenes and-"

"Which will involve us breaking in and lying to officials - no, no way!" Renata turned away from the monitor, intending on going into the corridors so that she wouldn't have to listen to anymore of the nonsense.

"Oh we're not going to be doing anything bad!" the Doctor reached forwards and grabbed her arm.

"Really?" Renata pulled her arm and crossed them. "What does your little plan entail, exactly?"

"Just, you know, bit of the pyschic paper and-"

Renata stopped him with a hand in his face. "Psychic paper? You mean that little portable lying booklet?"

"That's...a strange name to give it but...sure," the Doctor nodded his head.

"And in that little paper we're going to lie and say we're some other people to get ourselves into the Adipose headquarters?"

"Um...yes," the Doctor had to contain himself under Renata's scolding face. To him, honestly, it was both funny and a bit scary how serious she got sometimes. He'd come to learn that it was often.

"Do you hear yourself?" Renata raised her hands in front of her, making it clear she wanted no part in this plan. "You're going to go in that building, interrupt business and for what? Conspiracy theories?"

"Renee, I'm going," the Doctor left it clear, turning for the console and preparing the controls to land on Earth. "Question is, will you be coming to make sure I don't get into trouble or will you be here."

Renata's eyebrows raised almost increduliously. "Am I to be your babysitter?"

"Well, no, but you seem so determined to give yourself that role…"

"Doctor!" Renata huffed.

"Well, you are!" the Time Lord turned around to defend himself before she decided to smack him on the back.

"We've been at this for a month-" Renata gestured between them, "-and you can't seriously understand that I am against the lying and breaking in?"

"You didn't have trouble in 1913," the Doctor mumbled under his breath.

Renata's eyes widened. "I was doing that to fit in! Not to break in all silly-nilly!" A small smile began spreading across the Doctor's face. "Why are you smiling?" Renata crossed her arms, expecting there to be some joke she hadn't caught like usual.

"You said silly-nilly, but somehow I'm the one that uses childish words."

Renata air-strangled him but brought her balled hands to her mouth. "Sometimes I just can't with you!"

"So you've said in this past month," the Doctor said all proudly which only irritated Renata even more.

One month she had been in the TARDIS with the Doctor after Martha left them, and somehow she hadn't strangled the Doctor into his next incarnation. Yes, the Doctor had done everything in his power to make sure she felt welcomed in the TARDIS - which she truly did. And yes, he was never purposely rude to her and he was always attentive to what she needed or where she wanted to go. But that didn't stop him from frustrating her with his childish antics and constant rule breaking and running.

Renata honestly wondered how he had made it this far without regenerating again.

Every day he had somewhere new he wanted to go and almost every time there was something he just needed to help and save which would then bring along danger and a lot of running. When they weren't travelling, the Doctor was 'fixing' the console and causing things to break. He was a fast talker when he was excited and thus had Renata's ears nearly fall off when they were together discussing things of home or some experiences they've had.

It truly felt like they were those young Time Lords again still messing around in her foundation.

Renata tried pushing those feelings away, every day, but being so close didn't help. Now there she was...bickering away with him...and remembering everything she'd fought for so long to forget.

"Renata, c'mon, it'll be fun," the Doctor smiled incredibly wide and held out a hand for her, wiggling his fingers.

She hated herself. She truly did. Renata took her hand, ignoring the Doctor's face momentarily go smug, and let him bring her back to the console.

~ 0 ~

A couple of hours later, the two embarked on a journey for Adipose Industries. As the two walked along a busy street, Renata continuously looked around like they were already going to get caught. The wind blew much of her blonde hair on her face, making it more difficult for her to keep a 'look out'.

"I see it," she said to the Doctor once she caught sight of the large building meant to serve as headquarters for the company. "But there's plenty of security check, I'm sure."

"Good thing we're going through the back," the Doctor pulled her to the left to go along the building towards its back.

Renata's head did a double-take in the process. "The back? What? Like actual thieves?"

The Doctor preferred not to get into a whole argument on the technicalities of what they were doing. Renata grew even more self-conscious as they arrived to a fire exit.

"What are you doing?" she nearly hissed when she saw him pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

"Getting us in," he motioned as he flicked on the sonic.

"Oh my God, we're actually breaking in - ah," she put a hand over her chest and looked around, properly frightened.

The Doctor hid his amused smile in his work. It was actually rather adorable the way she got so worked up over things he did so normally. When the door opened, they crossed into a set of solitary corridors. All the noise came from their quick strides.

"Doctor," Renata had another near attack when she saw a security guard walking opposite of them. Her arm curled around his on instinct.

Without conflict, he just pulled out the psychic paper and flashed it at the security as they passed on by. "John Smith, Renata Cartwright, Health and Safety."

"How do you do that so calmly?" Renata whispered to him despite leaving the security guard well behind.

"Do what?" the Doctor repeated rather cluelessly.

"Great," Renta unwinded her arm from his and sighed, "You don't even realize you do it anymore."

After making it to the higher levels, they discovered that there was to be a private lecture from the very head of the company herself.

"You don't think they'd notice two unregistered people waltzing into the lecture room?" Renata had to ask as she followed behind the Doctor in a hallway.

"That's why we're not going there, clearly."

"What?" Renata stopped, dumbfounded. "Then where are we going?"

"Projector room, c'mon!"

Renata slowly continued to follow. "But...how are we getting in?"

~ 0 ~

"Health and Safety. Film department," the Doctor once more showed his psychic paper to a man working the computers in the projection room set right above the lecture room.

Renata shook her head behind the Doctor.

They were able to see the head, a blonde woman with glasses who went by 'Miss Foster', describe the components and process of her company's products to the small audience. "Adipose Industries. The 21st century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain. Just lifelong freedom from fat. The Holy Grail of the modern age. And here it is. You just take one capsule, one capsule, once a day, for three weeks. And the fat, as they say…the fat just walks away."

Renata couldn't help scoff as she listened. "Do all the humans have an obsession with thinness?"

Beside her, the Doctor nudged her to be careful with her words. He motioned to the man working the computers who was giving Renata a curious look for her statement.

"U-uh," Renata flustered and looked at the window again. "I meant...the lot of humanity."

The Doctor gave a discreet shake of his head, fairly amused. Renata was one woman who did not know how to travel. That was novelty.

~ 0 ~

"Don't you think we're playing our luck here?" Renata walked right beside the Doctor through an aisle of small cubicles.

The Doctor had a bright idea to go to one of the employees and pick up a couple more information.

"Just relax, Renee," the Doctor wondered if he would ever get tired of telling that to her. Because everytime they traveleld somewhere, it was the same thing. She was overly nervous about getting caught.

They came into the cubicle of a young, dark-skinned woman who was in the middle of a call with a customer.

"John Smith, Renata Cartwright, Health and Safety. Don't mind us," the Doctor whispered so as not to interrupt her phone call. He let Renata take a seat first then took the one next to her.

Soon as she was done, the Doctor got straight to questioning. It truly amazed Renata how well he did it. There was no faltering, no stuttering, not a trace of nervousness in his face.

"If you could just give us a list of some of your customers we'll be on our way," the Doctor finished it off with a big nice smile.

The employee, Clare, seemed more than happy to oblige.

"That's the printer there?" the Doctor stood up for a moment, unknowingly giving Renata a hearts attack thinking he might get caught by Miss Foster. She'd only been in the room 15 minutes ago, what's stopping her from coming back?

"By the plant, yeah," Clare nodded.

"Brilliant," the Doctor beamed but Renata yanked him down to his seat again. Soon as her hand let go of his arm, he sprung right back on his feet. "Has it got paper?"

"Yeah, Jimbo keeps it stocked," Clare found him amusing.

Renata did not. She grasped the Doctor's arm and pulled him down with all her might. "Sit down!" she hissed. She then smiled at Clare. "Anyway, if you could print that off. We'll be on our way. Thanks."

The employee typed on her computer for a moment before giving them the 'ok' nod. Renata stood up followed by the Doctor but stopped when she heard the Doctor ask, "Oh, what's that?"

Renata turned around to see Clare giving him a piece of paper.

"My telephone number," the woman answered his question.

Renata raised her eyebrows.

The Doctor looked between the paper and Clare. "What for?"

There came a smirk across Clare's face. "Health and Safety. You be health, I'll be safety."

The Doctor stammered for an excuse. Renata...did not.

"I am going to report you!" she threatened the woman as she snatched the paper from the Doctor and slammed it on Clare's desk.

"What-"

"You can expect a call from your superiors tonight!" Renata grabbed the Doctor by the arm and yanked him out of the cubicle.

Honestly, she thought. Where was that human's professionalism!?

~0~

Night time fell and instead of going back to the TARDIS like Renata believed, the Doctor dragged her to continue investigating. This time they were set to pose as employees of Adipose Industries who made house visits. As the Doctor flashed his psychic paper to a lucky customer they were visiting, Renata rolled her eyes on the side and began to count the many times he'd done something like this and gotten away with it.

She couldn't count that high without losing her place.

Now sitting in the customer's, Roger's, living room, they listened to him how the pills had worked for him in so little time.

"I've been on the pills two weeks now, I've lost fourteen kilos!" he finished excitedly.

"That's the same amount every day?" asked the Doctor.

"One kilo exactly. You wake up, and it's disappeared overnight. Well, technically speaking, it's gone by ten past one in the morning."

Renata's brows knitted together. "I-I'm sorry...how...how is that?"

"That's when I get woken up," Roger answered in a matter of fact tone. "Might as well weigh myself at the same time."

"U-um…" Renata glanced at the Doctor to see if he was as confused as she was.

He was. "Could you...could you tell us more about that please?"

"Ten minutes past one, every night, bang on the dot without fail, the burglar alarm goes off. I've had experts in, I've had it replaced, I've even phoned Watchdog. But no, ten past one in the morning, off it goes."

"But with no burglars?" Renata asked to be sure.

"Nothing. I've given up looking."

The Doctor still did not falter. "Tell me Roger, have you got a cat flap?"

Renata made a face at that but nonetheless she followed the plan. Roger showed them to the cat flap on his front door, more than happy to show another person in case this one actually figured it out. "It was there when I bought the house. Never bothered with it. I'm not a cat person."

The Doctor had already begun screening it with his sonic. "No, I've met cat people. You are nothing like them," he murmured.

He's met cat people. Renata inwardly sighed. Of course he's met cat people.

"It's that what it is then? Cats getting inside the house?" Roger frowned.

"Well, thing about cat flaps is that they don't just let things in, they let things out as well…" the Doctor said slowly, still coming up with ideas to follow.

"Like what?"

"The fat just walks away..." The Doctor pushed himself back on his feet and turned to Roger with an excessive smile. "Well, thanks for your help. Tell you what, maybe you could lay off the pills for a week or so."

"Probably forever," Renata added. "You could just try the regular eat healthy and exercise thing..."

The Doctor stiffened when he heard a small 'bleep' from inside his jacket. "Ooh, we gotta go, sorry."

"What-"

The Doctor hurriedly opened the door brought Renata along with him. He reached inside his jacket to pull out a device he'd hand made earlier that day.

"When did you make that!?" Renata gave a face at the device, fearing it would explode like the last thing he made.

"This morning! Now hurry!" He let go of her completely and picked up his pace. Renata was also not good at running.

Groaning, Renata did her best to keep up.

She managed to catch up when he made a stop by the corner of one street. He banged a hand on his device, ignoring Renata's sarcastic 'that'll make it work' then ran off again.

"What are we looking for!?" Renata panted when they stopped again.

Not answering, the Doctor held up the device for a better signal. He waved it around then lowered it to check the readings. When it dinged, he beamed and ran again.

"Oh my God," Renata groaned and chased after him. They were nearly ran over by a rushing van in the process. However, soon as it passed by, the Doctor turned in the same direction to follow it...apparently, the signal was coming from it.

He finally came to a stop at an intersection and was disappointed to find the signal gone.

~ 0 ~

Much later would find the Doctor examining one of the golden capsules of the Adipose company. He was looking at it through a magnifying glass, far interested in its components. "Ohh, fascinating!" he gawked. "Seems to be a bio-flip digital stitch, specifically for…"

"Are we still on that?" Renata's voice stopped him in the middle of his discovery. He glanced back to find her leaning against the corridor's threshold.

"Well, uh, I was…" the Doctor motioned the magnifying glass still in his hand then lowered it.

"Still investigating," Renata finished for him, giving a small shake of her head. "Honestly Doctor, don't you ever get tired of fixing everyone's problems?"

Because she had asked in a simple, curious manner, the Doctor entertained it. "What do you mean?"

Renata shrugged her shoulders as she came off the threshold. "I mean just what I said. You always go and find a problem - like Sto's government and a broken water pipe - that you have to fix. Last week it was some planet's default engineering settings and today it's…" she had come up to him in the while of her explanation and took the Doctor's magnifying glass from, "...Adipose," she looked at him through the magnifying glass, her brown eyes enlarging from the glass.

"Are you asking me why I help people?" the Doctor raised an eyebrow, finding the question too far even for her uptightness. Because yes, it only took a month to realize that Renata was uptight.

Knowing how that sounded, Renata ventured to clarify herself. "I don't mean that you shouldn't help people I just…" she thought about it for a second, "...isn't there the Shadow Proclamation to help with cases like these? They are the police and it should be up to them how things get fixed. I don't see why you have to keep doing it."

"The Shadow Proclamation is never that good," the Doctor gave a roll of his eyes, clear dislike for the place. "And I like helping. I can do it, don't see why I shouldn't."

"Yeah, I can see that you like to," Renata chuckled.

"And I can see that you not so much." And the Doctor truly appreciated how Renata was doing her best to keep up with him in his shenanigans.

"I do! You have no idea how much I love to help people, but...when I did it...it was with...our people."

"You don't like to help the humans, then?"

"I do, if I have the chance then...sure," Renata nodded, but it was easy to tell that she wasn't all that into the idea. "But in the end...they're just humans to me. For so long they were only a means to hide myself from the rest of our kind. I miss helping my kind, you know? People I can share my ideas with, my perspectives, my everything. People that would understand me."

The Doctor tilted his head, a faint smile writing itself across his lips. "Renee, what did you used to do back on Gallifrey?"

The question set Renata into nervous state. "U-uh...l-like my...my job?"

"Yeah," the Doctor didn't catch any of her nervousness, too curious imagining her in different positions. "Cos you're all uptight and-"

"Hey," Renata pointed at him but he went on.

"-strict on rules so...I would think of you as one of the teachers at the academy."

Renata blinked, for a moment in disbelief. "You think I was a teacher?"

"Well," he straightened up. "Were you?"

"No," Renata shook her head. "I wasn't."

"Then, what were you?"

Renata stared at him for a minute, the ongoing battle within her taking a bit more than she thought. It wasn't like she hadn't thought about telling the Doctor more about herself - in fact, she already had. Bits and pieces had been exchanged between the two about their past lives on Gallifrey but Renata was always careful not to disclose too much about herself that would risk her identity with the Doctor.

"I...was…" her eyes flickered to the side, "...I worked at a foundation."

Technically, she wasn't lying.

Those were the rules she set herself for. Loopholes.

"You did?" the Doctor became even more curious.

"Mhm. I worked with all sorts of people in need. Children who weren't quite ready for the academy came for some lessons. People who just needed help, whether emotional or physically but didn't have the resources were always welcomed to stop by," Renata looked into the distant, remembering more and more about her foundation. She missed it so much. She missed her workers, her kids, her friends…

"Renata?" the Doctor gently shook her arm to get her out of her thoughts.

She realized she'd let herself think far too much and released an awkward breath, smiling in a flushed manner. "Sorry," she waved a hand at her face.

"No, it's okay," the Doctor softly said, reaching for her waving hand. He liked seeing her remember their home due to the fact she hadn't disclosed much about herself on Gallifrey. He had made it his mission not to get overexcited and push Renata to tell her stories when she wasn't ready. To say, she hadn't even said whose family she was from. But still, the Doctor was forcing himself to be patient.

"Do you want some dinner?" Renata was the one to pull him out of his thoughts this time. With a warm smile on her face, she took his hand. "It's all set up like usual."

The Doctor smiled, forgetting his investigation from then on till the next morning. Renata made it a custom that they were to have dinner every night like normal people. She made pretty damn good meals.

"C'mon," Renata said quietly, still smiling as the two headed for the corridors.

~ 0 ~

The next day, Renata was not the least bit surprised to have the Doctor practically pounding on her bedroom door shouting for her to wake up because they had to go back to Adipose Industries. Swooshing herself out of bed, she got ready and came out of her room...and then smacked the Doctor on the chest and stalked for the console.

"I hate mornings!" was the only explanation the Doctor got for being hit.

They left the TARDIS in an alleyway close to the Adipose Industries building and once more used the fire exit to gain entrance. The Doctor led the way down the same empty corridor but this time stopped midway and turned to a storage closet.

"What...are you doing?" Renata blinked as he opened the door to the small room.

"We need to hide, c'mon," the Doctor didn't wait around for her to warm to the idea and pushed her inside first. As he sonicked the door shut, Renata raved with her back to him.

"Are you mad!? This is wrong!" her hands waved above her head. "First of all, we're bound to get caught! Second of all, it's just wrong!"

The manner in which Renata had said her last statement made the Doctor turn around questionably. "Why? What's wrong?"

In her moment, Renata whirled around to face him and bumped into him because he was literally standing right in front of her. Her eyes blinked rapidly trying not to overthink it. Meanwhile, the Doctor was still demanding to know why she was so freaked out.

"Renata? Why did you say it like that?" his eyebrows knitted together in the manner they always did when he was confused.

Renata slowly looked up to meet his gaze and soon wished she hadn't. She found that she was vulnerable to his long look no matter how she felt at the moment. It threatened to give her identity up.

"Renata?" the Doctor finally broke through her thoughts which, admittedly, were making her face warm. "Well?"

"...it's just inappropriate…" Renata quietly said, turning away and walking the most she could inside the small room which turned out to be seven small steps.

The Doctor scoffed, giving a sway of his head. "Really? But it's not to live inside a TARDIS with me?" the moment turned sideways with alarmed eyes the Doctor regretted his response. "N-n-n-n-n-no! Forget I said that!" and he rushed up, but because of the small room he nearly rammed into her.

"Doctor! Just stop!" cried the blonde, swatting him away with her hands.

With a big sigh, the Doctor listened and retreated to the door. He took a seat on the floor, back up against the door. He watched Renata look for a spot of her own until she settled for a small box positioned over another.

"Renee…?"

"Hmm?" Renata wearily glanced over to the Doctor, hoping that whatever came out of his mouth would not send them into another round of bickering.

"On Gallifrey...were you part of...high society? Before you married off, of course."

"Why would you think that?"

The Doctor made a gesture at her. "Just...just the way you act...the way you think. It has all the...makings of a high class Time Lady."

Renata looked down, her fingers fiddling with each other. "And you hate that," she recalled from oh-so-long ago.

The Doctor wasn't about to lie and say he was best friends with that part of their people. "I mean, they weren't particularly the best people for me to spend time with."

"So then why do you tolerate me and my...uptightness?" came Renata's honest question. She knew she was not the ideal companion and she doubted she ever would be.

A warm smile spread across the Doctor's face. "Because I like you of course - you and everything I know about you so far. You're not like the others of your class and I'm happy. Otherwise it would have been a real shame for such a pretty woman with big hearts to go to waste."

Renata's face softened. "Doctor…"

"You working at a foundation just proves it," the Doctor shrugged. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask.. " he cleared his throat, suddenly nervous, "The foundation...did it...did it happen to be…the Auxilium Foundation?" It was like Renata's whole world just stopped. The Doctor was too delved into his own memories to notice it. "There was only a couple foundations and...and you seem the sort to want to help Gallifreyans despite what Time Lord society thought. Was it?"

Renata couldn't bring herself to lie more, at least not in that moment. It was too many memories, too many fond memories she couldn't get rid of. "Yeah…" she passed a hand down her hair, secretly shooting him a glance. "How do you know about it?"

The Doctor released a breath, a dreamy one actually that sped up Renata's hearts in the second."Oh, I, um...I knew someone there…"

"You need to see it, Zuriah. I bet the pictures don't do Earth justice!"

Zuriah laughed softly while the Doctor rambled onto her about what he'd learned of Earth that morning. She shook her head at him and moved on around the empty tables, soon to be filled up with their daily visitors, to set up some of the materials. "Now I know why you probably failed some of your coursework in the Academy. Did you ever stop talking in those classes?"

The Doctor sent an unamused glare her way. "I'll have you know I have my moments of silence."

The scoff Zuriah gave in return was one of clear disbelief. "Just help me out here, please?" she motioned with her hands to the mess of toys on the ground. "Some new recruiters' kids found my stash of toys and didn't exactly learn the rule of 'put it away'."

The Doctor rolled his eyes but got up to help. "So, do you think you could somehow incorporate this planet in your activities?"

Zuriah waved him off. "I don't know. We haven't done the schedule for next week. Perhaps..."

"Oh c'mon! You know you'd love to!" the Doctor hurriedly threw some toys into the bin she'd set up. He followed her around the tables, rambling on about the benefits her people would get if she incorporated Earth into activities.

"Look, Doctor, maybe we could - AH!" she had stepped on a toy and slipped backwards. Her basket went flying in the air along with the materials. She herself would've fallen to the floor if the Doctor hadn't caught her.

"Hm, didn't take you for the klutz," the Doctor smirked at her. Zuriah looked up, her face flushed when she realized their closeness. The Doctor felt it too, but he didn't think about telling her of it. Although he did take notice of how many freckles were over Zuriah's face...they were lovely...

Renata was utterly stunned to see such a soft look on the Doctor's face. He was clearly remembering something...

"Zuriah, that was the, uh..." the Doctor shook his head out of the memory but no matter how much he tried, the freckled-face ginger still smiled at him. It'd been so long since he thought about her...

~0~

After a full day passed, the Doctor finally declared it was time to leave and investigate. Since they had fallen into bits and pieces of conversation after the foundation topic, Renata was itching to get out of there. She was afraid that the Doctor would begin to ask questions about 'Zuriah' which was her before she picked her graduating name.

You can't hide it forever, Renata. The same sentence passed her mind over and over but somehow she still couldn't act.

"Where exactly are we headed now?" Renata inquired once they were striding down the dark corridors.

"Up to the office of course," the Doctor flashed a smile that warned it wasn't technically literal.

Renata would have questioned further had it not been for him pulling her into a hasty walk. They found the staircase and went up...and up...and up…

Of course he meant the roof. Renata actually blamed herself for not seeing this earlier.

The Doctor went straight for the edge and sonicked the cables holding…

"What are you doing?" Renata slowly approached the edge, eyes glued onto the Doctor who was in the process climbing into a window cleaner's cradle.

"Getting a look at the office, what else?" the Doctor shrugged then motioned with a hand for her to join him. Instantly, Renata incredulously blinked. "Don't give me that look! C'mon!"

Nervously, Renata inched closer to the edge and took one look down to the high view. "Um...is this a bad time to tell you...I have a fear of heights…"

"Not surprised," the Doctor said. He then reached over and grabbed her arm, pulling her slowly. "But for another time!"

"Doctor…" Renata struggled to let the Doctor bring her into the window's cradle.

"In you go," the Doctor slipped his other arm around her waist to get her into the cradle.

As soon as Renata felt the cradle wiggling a bit she gasped and latched onto the Doctor for dear life. "We're going to die! We're going to die! We're going to die!" she cried with eyes shut.

There was a fierce determination in the Doctor not to laugh. But he was still thankful that she couldn't see his face right now.

"This is it! This is where you finally kill me!" and because the Doctor didn't know who Renata was, he thought she was just talking about their short time together...when in reality Renata was remembering all the adventures their younger selves took because of him.

"Calm down, it's not moving," the Doctor peeled her off him and aimed the sonic at the controls. Renata gasped again when the cradle descended. "And duck!" he ordered when they were nearing Miss Foster's office.

"You're gonna get us caught," Renata whispered.

The Doctor ignored her and poked his head just slightly above the cradle to peer into the office. He saw a young dark-skinned woman being tied to a chair by body guards while Miss Foster watched. Unknowingly, an old friend was also watching from the other side of the office, right in front of its door.

"What's going on?" Renata curiously asked, still not taking the risk by peering herself.

"Can't hear much," the Doctor mumbled. He could see Miss Foster showing her prisoner a capsule.

"Well, it is a window-"

"Donna!?"

Renata made a face and looked up to find the Doctor, stunned, staring ahead. "What? What is it?"

'Donna?' she watched the Doctor mouth.

What she didn't know was that across the office stood the Doctor's old friend, Donna Noble who was also stunned to see him there.

"DOCTOR!' she excitedly mimed back, her face right in front of the door's porthole.

'But... what? Wha... What?!'

Renata tried following along but the Doctor was just opening and closing his mouth to her.

'OH MY GOD!' Donna continued miming happily.

'But... how?'

'It's me!' Donna pointed her thumbs at herself, as if the Doctor hadn't yet made the connection it was in fact her.

'Well, I can see that!' the Doctor gestured his eyes then pointed at Donna. Beside him, Renata was still hopelessly lost. She was not risking herself to see who it was.

'Oh this is brilliant!' Donna would have laughed if she could.

The Doctor, on the other hand, was perturbed. 'But what are you doing there?'

'I was looking for you!' Donna pointed at him.

'What for?!'

Now Donna, being Donna, did her best to mimic what she was saying which went along the lines of…

'I, came here, trouble, read about it, internet, I thought, trouble = you! And this place is weird! Pills! So I hid. Back there. Crept along. Heard this lot. Looked. You! Cos they…' But when she happened to jerk a thumb to her right she found that Miss Foster, along with the tied-up woman and her body guards, were staring at her.

The Doctor too had caught it.

"Are we interrupting you?" MIss Foster loudly, sarcastically called to Donna.

'Run!' the Doctor urgently mimed for Donna then aimed the sonic ahead to lock the door of the office and give Donna time to run. Without notice, he waved the sonic above and pulled the cradle above.

"DOCTOR!" Renata nearly cried when the cradle shot up.

"Sorry! Sorry!" the Doctor hopped out of the cradle fast and turned to help her out.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on!? Besides probably getting caught - like I told you!"

"Old friend of mine-" the Doctor grunted as he pulled her out, "-in a bit of trouble! Hurry!"

They ran back for the door that laid the staircase. Despite Renata asking questions of who this 'friend' was the Doctor didn't answer many as he was focused on helping Donna out before she was hurt. They came down another set of staircase where they bumped into a redhead. Donna had encased the Doctor in a big hug, ecstatic with finding him. Renata's eyes just flickered from one to the next.

"Oh my God! I don't believe it!" Donna laughed but suddenly stopped to give the Doctor a look over. "You've even got the same suit! Don't you ever change?" The Doctor sarcastically rolled his eyes. "Yeah thanks Donna, not right now."

"Well…" Donna finally noticed that the Doctor was not alone. "Hey-" but that was all she could say to Renata before the Doctor saw the guards and pulled them both up the stairs.

"Doctor! There are guards!" Renata had looked below to see several guards coming after them.

"Yes, I've noticed!"

Donna was too cheery to be affected by the guards coming for them. As they made it back to the roof she explained the events that led her to the building. "Cos I thought, how do I find the Doctor? And then I just thought, look for trouble and then he'll turn up! So I looked everywhere, you name it - UFOs, sightings, crop circles, sea monsters. I looked, I found them all…"

During this, the Doctor had started working on the cradle controls with his sonic. Renata had half a mind to scold him for even thinking about using the damn thing! But she was quick to discover Donna had a rambling mouth much like the Doctor.

"...like that stuff about the bees disappearing, I thought, I bet he's connected. Cos the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all. Well, apart from that replica of the Titanic flying over Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day, I mean that's gotta be a hoax!"

"What d'you mean the bees are disappearing?" the Doctor picked the sentence up by random.

"I don't know. That's what it says on the internet!"

"Doctor!" Renata helplessly watched the Doctor get back into the cradle, and was even more astonished to see Donna so easily getting in as well. "Aren't you even going to question why you're getting in?" she demanded from the ginger.

"I figure it was to escape?" Donna glanced at the Doctor but quickly looked back to Renata. "I'm sorry, what's your n-"

"Renata, get in!" the Doctor urgently said.

"What for!?" Renata argued. "They'll just bring us up again! I'm not here to go up and down like a stupid amusement park ride!"

"No no no, cos I've locked the controls with a sonic cage. I'm the only one who can control it," he promised. "Not unless she's got a sonic device of her own. Which is very unlikely."

The door burst open again and out came Miss Foster.

"RENATA!"

Flinching, Renata clambered into the window cradle. Soon as she was in, the Doctor made it go down.

"How are we getting out!?" the blonde held onto the railing as they went down and down, but suddenly they started going dangerously FAST faster.

The Doctor managed to stop it with the sonic but the force knocked all three down for a moment. Being the first one to get up, he aimed the sonic at the window. Up above, Miss Foster ordered to the building to be deadlocked.

The Doctor retracted the sonic. "Can't get it open!"

"Well, smash it then!" Donna had grabbed a large spanner from the floor and used all her might to shatter the window.

Renata helplessly looked from Donna to the Doctor, wondering how much worse it could get. Her answer came in the form of sparks and smoke from the cradle. "She's cutting the cable!" she shrieked after looking up and seeing Miss Foster aiming some sort of laser pen at the cables. At her words the Doctor and Donna instinctively grabbed on but Renata hadn't had the time and so when the cable broke and the cradle lurched to the side, she was flung back screaming.

"RENATA!" the Doctor wanted to go in after her but calmed after seeing her feet dangling under them.

She'd manage to get ahold of the broken cable and was currently, and dangerously, swaying back and forth. "DOCTOR!"

"Hold on!" the Doctor tried reaching for the cable sustaining her to pull her back up but he just couldn't.

"Doctor!" went Donna this time who was staring up, seeing Miss Foster about to break the last cable.

Angrily, the Doctor aimed the sonic above just at the right moment to make it spark and fall out of the woman's hand. He caught the second sonic and climbed up the cable to another window. He managed to get it open and ordered Donna to follow him.

"I'm not gonna fall am I!?" Donna asked for the blonde below who was crying out in terror.

"Get in! Get in!" the Doctor didn't want to waste time answering obvious questions. His hearts was racing unbelievably fast as he thought of Renata so close to danger (and because of him).

Meanwhile, Renata was crying out to be helped. Her eyes were stinging with tears and from the hard wind hitting her from every direction. She was sure her hands were slipping from the cable and that at any moment she would fall and splat on the ground like the television showed.

Oh God I was wrong - this is how he finally kills me! And yet Renata felt not an ounce of anger with the Doctor. It was just so like him to get near danger, like a taunt, and then get away from it like nothing. It was actually one of the things that attracted her after getting to know his ways. Her hearts pounded like never before yet it was not a new sensation for her.

"AH!" she screamed all over again when she felt hands on her ankles. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

"Renata, it's me!" the Doctor managed to cut through her screams. "I've got you! Stop kicking!" He slowly pulled her down and into the office he and Donna coordinated would be the room of the next window down. "There we go! I've got you!"

"Oh my God! I thought I was going to die!" Renata clung to him with teary eyes. "Oh you stupid, stupid man!"

The Doctor soothed her with a hand on her back and regretted he couldn't do more at that moment on account of still being on the run from Miss Foster. "We have to go, I'm sorry," he pulled away and felt a pang of guilt seeing her tear-stained face.

He took her and Donna out of the room but not before untying the journalist in the office and telling her to go home. They only made it to the call center because Miss Foster and her guards were already waiting for them.

"Well then," Miss Foster pulled off her glasses and raised her head at the trio, "at last."

"Hello," Donna nervously laughed, the thrill of the chase still clouding bits of her.

The Doctor was just the Doctor who said 'hello' to everyone. "Nice to meet you, I'm the Doctor."

"And I'm Donna!"

Renata crossed her arms, deciding the Foster didn't need her name.

"Partners in crime," Foster concluded, eyeing Renata who seemed to falter every now and then from her brave stance. "And evidently off-worlders, judging by your sonic technology."

"Oh yes, I've still got your sonic pen. Nice, I like it," the Doctor raised the sonic pen to give another look. "Sleek, it's kinda sleek." He let Renata and Donna give it a glance as well, but Renata lowered it down.

"I don't think it should matter the form of the thing that nearly killed me."

The Doctor winced and retracted the pen from Renata. "Now-" he looked at Foster, " if you were to sign your real name that would be...?"

"Matron Cofelia of the Five-Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet. Intergalactic Class."

"A wet nurse?" Renata gawked for a second. "What...and you're using humans as surrogates?"

Foster gave a curt nod. "I've been employed by the Adiposian First Family to foster a new generation after their breeding planet was lost."

"But who gave you the right to use humans as cows for your reproduction methods!? It's against Shadow Proclamation rules!"

Beside Renata, the Doctor silently laughed that she would ignore a planet being lost because of 'rules'. "How do you mean lose a planet?"

"Oh, politics are none of my concern. I'm just here to take care of the children on behalf of the parents," Foster made a gesture, shrugging her shoulders.

"What, like an outer space super-nanny?" Donna crinkled her nose.

"Yes, if you like."

"So... so those little things they're, they're made out of fat yeah, but that woman, Stacy Campbell, there was nothing left of her." Donna still couldn't shake off that horrible feeling of seeing a nice woman like Stacey disappear into little white blobs of...fat?

"Oh, in a crisis the Adipose can convert bone and hair and internal organs. Makes them a little bit sick, poor things."

"What about poor Stacey!?" Donna incredulously returned.

"Enough," Renata's sharp edged voice cut through the womens' conversation, and the hand she had for Donna was, frankly, irritating the ginger. "Seeding a level 5 planet is against galactic law - you should know that!" she said to Foster who merely raised her eyebrows.

"Are you threatening me?"

The Doctor then put an arm in front of Renata. "We're trying to help you, Matron. This is your one chance; cos if you don't call this off, then we'll have to stop you."

Foster smirked. "I hardly think you can stop bullets." And just as she said it, her guards flanking her took aim.

Alarmed, Renata stepped back.

"No, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, one more thing, before... dying…" the Doctor settled for the blunt word. "Do you know what happens if you hold two identical sonic devices against each other?" he once again gestured to his sonic and Foster's sonic pen.

"...no?" Foster doubtfully answered.

"Nor me, lets find out!" the Doctor happily pointed both sonic objects at each other, activating them at the same time. A high-screeching rang in the room, causing everyone to squirm uncomfortably and a glass pane behind to shatter.

"Come on!" Donna was the one to pull both aliens out of there.

In the process, the Doctor took the lead and ran them down an empty corridor, stopping by a door of a cupboard.

"No more cupboards!" Renata nearly pleaded. Small spaces meant more talking and more talking meant more chances to risk her identity.

"Not quite," the Doctor opened the door and started throwing out the storage's supplies.

"You can't just throw those things out!" Renata said, scandalized as he created a wad of mess on the floor. "Those are some employee's utensils!"

"Another time, Renata!" the Doctor rolled his eyes, this time a smidge of honest annoyance for her lack of priorities.

"Renata?" Donna repeated the name, looking a bit confused as she studied Renata head to toe. "So you're not Rose, then?"

Recalling the name, Renata scowled. "No I am not! Why would you think that?"

"Dunno…" Donna shrugged, "...blonde...and stuff."

"I'm not her," Renata's eyes briefly glanced at the Doctor and saw him working. There was glowing green machinery built into the wall.

"Well, I'm Donna Noble by the way," the ginger held a hand to Renata, realizing that they hadn't been introduced properly.

"Renata," Renata shook Donna's hand. She looked over at the green panel and frowned. "Okay, what's this for?"

"It's the inducer. For the Adipose. It's wired up the whole building...I...I'll need some time," the Doctor paused, running a hand through his big hair.

"Then get to it," Renata made a motion. "I'm not sure if I can distract but...but I can certainly try." The Doctor made a face at the prospect of that idea. "I can to you know," the blonde insisted now more than ever.

"Okay."

Renata bubbled with instant anger. "Listen to me you idiot," she began sharply, "I nearly fell off a window's cradle because of you!"

"Which I will make up for later, I promise!"

"That's not the point!" Renata's voice cracked and she took it a sign to calm down. With a sigh, she put a hand on her forehead and took a moment for herself. "Sorry," she said a minute later, truthfully.

"I get it, I do," the Doctor didn't stop his work but gave her an honest face. "You're making an effort and I do see it and appreciate it." Renata lowered her hand from her face and smiled.

Donna silently studied the two aliens in front of her, a bit curious of what they were and just who was Renata overall. Renata crossed gazes with her and realized she had yet to ask something important.

"How do you two know each other?" her finger pointed from Donna to the Doctor.

"I met him on my wedding day - the big starship in the sky at Christmas?" Donna waited for Renata to remember. "That was us."

Renata blinked as something donned. "It was you who drained the Thames!" she turned on the Doctor with an accusing finger. The Master had never clarified the happenings of that evening, but then again she wasn't exactly in the mood to be talking to the Master during that period.

"It was such a crazy day," Donna continued. "In the beginning, I thought he kidnapped me actually," Donna had a small laugh.

"You too!?" Renata incredulously asked of the Doctor. "What, did you throw her over your shoulders too?"

"No, I didn't!" the Doctor defensively said.

Renata huffed. "Well, that's unfair."

"What do you mean?" Donna fit in the pieces together quick. "Did he do that to you?" Renata nodded and gestured being thrown over a shoulder. "Doctor," a great smirk took over Donna's face as her eyes landed on the Doctor, "I didn't know you were that sort of man."

The Doctor looked mortified at her assumption. Renata face palmed. "I meant a thief!" she exclaimed.

"I was not a thief!" the Doctor stopped for a minute to argue. "You-" he pointed a finger at her, "-were being stubborn!"

Renata's eyes blinked rapidly and her mouth parted slightly. "M-me? You're saying it was my fault? What part of 'you threw me over your shoulder and brought me into the TARDIS' did you forget about?" The Doctor said no more but his scrunched face said the words alright.

Donna burst into laughter, making the argument stop. "I'm sorry, but...what?" she couldn't believe what she was hearing honestly. The Doctor had actually slung the poor woman over his shoulder and forced her into the TARDIS? No, hold on, the woman had to be forced in the first place? Who wouldn't want to travel the stars!?

Grumbling, the Doctor returned to work.

"It's really not that funny," Renata crossed her arms and muttered. "Least Martha didn't laugh."

"Martha?" Donna repeated. "Was that a friend at the time?"

"Yeah. My only human friend who I still keep in contact with," Renata thoughtfully said, since Joan was dead and she had left the family in 1959.

"Is she here? In the TARDIS?"

"No," the Doctor said then. "She was brilliant... but... I destroyed half her life."

Renata's annoyance was gone the moment she saw his guilt-ridden face. "You did not," she softly said then looked at the surprised Donna. "Martha decided it was time for her to go back home. But she's fine. She's good."

"Oh," Donna nodded then thought for another moment. "What about Rose?"

"Still lost," the Doctor mumbled, missing Renata purposely looking away. He had yet to tell her anything of Rose and he frankly didn't know when. He actually thought that perhaps Renata would be scandalized to know he had developed an attachment to a human. He was, for a lack of a better word, scared of her reaction.

Renata, on the other hand, thought his lack of explanation arose from the fact she wasn't trusted enough, and that perhaps he didn't see her as a friend at all. By this point, she knew who Rose was. The Master had taken joy rubbing it in her face that the Doctor had exchanged her for a human.

"I thought you were going to travel the world?" the Doctor suddenly remembered it was Donna's grand plan after her failed marriage.

The cheery face on Donna was quick to fade away. "Easier said then done. It's like I had that one day with you and I was gonna change. I was gonna do so much. Then I woke up next morning, same old life. It's like you were never there. And I tried. I did try, I went to Egypt. I was gonna go barefoot and everything. And then it's all bus trips and guidebooks and don't drink the water and two weeks later you're back home. It's nothing like being with you. I must have been mad turning down that offer."

"What offer?" the Doctor failed to recall.

"To come with you." But now Donna was a bit nervous that since Renata seemed to be on board maybe the Doctor was good on companions.

"You didn't want to go into the TARDIS at first?" Renata was a smidge more impressed with the woman. Usually, every human jumped at the chance to get into the TARDIS.

"I didn't understand," Donna tried to explain herself. "I was...I was all emotional...and-and...just…"

Renata swayed her head till she met the Doctor. "I mean...I wouldn't mind, honestly."

The Doctor was surprised to hear such easy acceptance from her. "Really?"

"Yeah, maybe we would bicker less," Renata recalled that was her excuse for when Astrid Peth had asked to come with them. It was true, as much as she loved the Doctor - and boy did she - there were moments where she just needed a break...or at least someone to stop her from strangling him. She was sure that the feeling was mutual.

"Oh yes!" Donna cheered.

'Inducer activated.'

Renata peered into the cupboard to see the green machinery. "What's it doing now?"

"She's started the program," the Doctor groaned.

'Inducer transmitting.'

"And...what does that mean?" Renata now stared wide-eyed at the machinery.

"Up to now the customers have only been losing weight but the Matron has gone up to emergency pathogenesis."

"Oh no." Renata glanced at the end of the corridor where they could see doors. She was sure that outside swarms of little Adipose were going to be gathering real soon pathogenesis.

"That's when they convert…" Donna, too, remembered.

"But that's skeletons, organs, everything!" Renata exclaimed. "A million people are gonna die!"

"Gotta cancel the signal!" the Doctor took out the golden capsule they'd gotten the previous day and pulled one of its end to reveal a chip inside. "This contains the primary signal. If I can switch it off the fat goes back to being just fat." He hooked up the capsule to the machine hoping to God he was right.

'Inducer increasing.'

The Doctor panicked. "No no no no no, she's doubled it, I need... Haven't got time! It's too far, I can't override it! They're all gonna die!"

"Can we do anything?" Renata asked, Donna nodding her head in agreement.

"Sorry, this is way beyond you - and I mean no disrespect but I have to double the base pulse, I can't…"

"Doctor, tell us what do you need," Donna sternly cut him off. Rambling was no good to anyone.

"I need a second capsule to boost the override, but I've only got the one. I can't save them!"

Donna blinked, remembering something very important. She reached inside her pocket to take out a second gold capsule. Renata laughed when the Doctor froze in shock.

"Here!" Donna waved it in front of his face till he snapped out of his stupor. He nabbed it and hooked it into the green machinery, making all its lights shut down.

A couple seconds, a loud horn filled the place.

"What the hell was that?" Donna frantically looked around.

"I suppose it would be...the nursery ship," Renata said.

"But when you say nursery you don't mean a creche in Notting Hill?"

"Nursery ship," Renata repeated.

'Incoming signal.' the machinery had come back to life for a minute and began with a voice that spoke a different language.

"Hadn't we better go and stop them?" Donna made a gesture for them to leave.

"Hang on, instructions from the Adiposian First Family," the Doctor put a finger on his lips to listen in. "She's wired up the tower block to convert it into a levitation post!"

"But now she's the one in trouble," Renata said soon after she heard.

The Doctor didn't waste a chance and hurried back for the roof. Renata and Donna ran after him. When they got up all they saw were blue beams levitating thousands of Adipose babies into the large nursery ship in the sky.

Most of them were smiling and waving at the trio.

"What you gonna do then? Blow them up?" Donna curiously asked the Doctor beside her.

"They're just children," the Doctor made a face for a brief moment. "They can't help where they come from." Besides, something told him that if anyone threatened those children they would come across a raging Time Lady. God help those fools.

"Doctor, there she is!" Renata called as soon as she spotted Foster coming up in one of the blue beams.

The Doctor ran up to the edge with Donna. "Matron Cofelia, listen to me!"

Foster stopped right at their lever. "Oh, I don't think so, Doctor. And if I never see you again, it will be too soon."

"Oh, why does no one ever listen? I'm trying to help! Just get across to the roof. Can you shift the levitation beam?"

"What, so that you can arrest me?" Foster's eyes briefly flickered to Renata.

"No, you're going to want to listen," Renata promised. "Because the families you worked for know that it was a crime to breed on Earth. So what's the one thing they want to get rid of? Their accomplice!"

"I'm far more than that. I'm nanny to all these children."

"Exactly!" the Doctor frantically waved a hand. "Mum and Dad have got the kids now, they don't need the nanny anymore!"

And just then, the blue beam sustaining Foster disappeared and she fell all the way down screaming. Donna hid her face in the Doctor's shoulder and Renata covered her mouth.

Sometime later, when the police arrived to the site, the Doctor and Renata, along with Donna, exited the building. The Doctor chucked the sonic pen into the nearest trash bin.

"Oi, you three!" the journalist the Doctor had thought followed his instructions to go home was coming up to them...tied to a chair again.

"Didn't you let her go?" Renata whispered to the Doctor, blinking rapidly.

"I did," the Doctor defensively replied.

"You're just mad. Do you hear me?" the journalist cried. "Mad! And I'm gonna report you... for madness!"

Donna silently watched the woman leave, barely able to hold her laugh back as she said, "You see, some people just can't take it."

"No," agreed the Doctor.

"But some people can. So, then - TARDIS!" she excitedly said and grabbed the two aliens by the arms, pulling them away.

They headed back to the alleyway where the TARDIS had been left...and apparently Donna's car as well.

"That's my car! That is like destiny!" Donna laughed. "And I've been ready for this." She rushed up to the car's trunk and opened it to reveal a series of suitcases. I packed ages ago, just in case. Cos I thought, hot weather, cold weather, no weather…" she pulled out the top luggage and loaded them into the arms of the Doctor, who was too stunned to say a word at the moment. "...he goes anywhere, I've gotta be prepared." She then loaded more into Renata's arms.

"You've got a... a... hatbox?!" the Doctor found his words after Donna loaded him with one last box.

"Planet of the Hats, I'm ready!" Donna declared and shut the trunk of her car, excitedly heading for the TARDIS. "Do I need injections though, do I? Like when you go to Cambodia, is there any of that? Cos my friend Veena went to Bahrain, and-"

Renata suddenly began to laugh hard, making Donna stop just outside the TARDIS doors. Even the Doctor was oddly staring down at the Time Lady. Donna eyebrows furrowed together, thinking Renata was laughing at her.

"Oi! What's so funny!?"

"This!" Renata motioned with her arms to the luggage and then the situation in general. "You're so funny! I love you!"

The Doctor gaped. "Wow…" he had never seen such a reaction from Renata, so lively and happy…

Renata walked up to the TARDIS, sobering slowly from her laugh. "I like you, I do. Doctor, can we take her?"

"I'm not a dog," Donna made a face. But it did feel better to know Renata wouldn't mind if she came along with them.

"It's really fine with me," the Doctor admitted, staying right where he was. "It's just...it's a funny old life, in the TARDIS."

Donna knew that sort of tone well. It came when one was fired or the casualness from her mother. "You don't want me."

"I'm not saying that-"

"But you asked me," Donna frowned, glancing at Renata for some help.

"Doctor, it really is okay with me," Renata shrugged. "It's your TARDIS. You can bring whoever you want." She wished he would make up his mind faster because Donna's luggage was getting heavier by the second.

"I wouldn't mind either. In fact, I would love it," the Doctor clarified, letting the luggage in his arm drop to the floor. "It's just...the last time, with Martha, it... it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I would want nothing more than a mate-"

"You just want to mate?" Renata blinked, eyes impossibly wide. Beside her, Donna was losing it believing in what Renata heard.

"You're not mating with me, sunshine!" Donna shouted.

The Doctor had a hard time keeping up with both women who'd heard horribly wrong. "Renata! I didn't say that-"

But Renata was trying to control herself after her first outburst. "No, no, that's fine. What you want to do in your TARDIS is your business-"

"What - no!" the Doctor once more tried to cut in but then came Donna.

"He better find someone else cos I'm not into that sort of alien thing, no sir!"

"STOP!" the Doctor finally cut over both of them. "I said a mate! Nothing more!" he frantically waved his hands.

"...oh," Renata looked away, embarrassed yet relieved.

The same applied to Donna. "Well just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonsense. I mean you're just a long streak of... nothing," she motioned to the Doctor who took it with an unamused face. "You know, alien nothing." She then passed a casual glance at Renata and shrugged. "You could probably find yourself someone quick. Kind of curvy."

Renata laughed.

"There we are, then. OK," the Doctor was glad to have things clarified and corrected.

"I can come?" Donna anxiously asked.

"Yeah. Course you can, yeah."

"I'd love it!"

"Great," Renata pushed the TARDIS door open to begin bringing Donna's things.

"Car keys!" Donna suddenly remembered, gasping.

"What?"

"I've still got my mum's car keys! I won't be a minute!" she held a finger to them and ran away.

Renata started to laugh again as she returned. She stopped at the doorway and smiled. "I think I'm gonna like her. She's so...spunky."

"Yeah, she is," the Doctor agreed and left his part of luggage inside.

"And you know," Renata stopped him just outside after he came out, "It really is your TARDIS - even though you stole that too," she mumbled and the Doctor rolled his eyes, "So you can bring anyone in without having to consult me. And...do whatever you want inside."

"Yeah…" the Doctor sucked in a large breath, "...no thanks."

Renata couldn't help the stupid smile that quickly set on her face. She forced it away as best as possible. "I-I mean...it's it's your choice…"

"Renee," the Doctor tilted his head, close to laughing at the subject they were somehow talking about again.

"I'm only saying! I respect rules and...and in here-" Renata gestured to the inside of the TARDIS, "-they're whatever you want-"

"Renee! C'mon," the Doctor laughed. "None of that please. We should focus on the fact we're having a new guest in the TARDIS who I am sure is going to love your dinners."

Renata smiled. "You think so?"

"Oh yeah! Who wouldn't?" the Doctor reached for her hand and brought her inside the TARDIS.

A couple minutes later, Donna came rushing in, happy than ever. "Off we go, then!"

"Here it is, the TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside…"

"Oh, I know that bit," Donna interrupted the Doctor's favorite bit. "Although frankly, you could turn the heat up."

"So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?"

"Oh, I know exactly the place," Donna smiled widely with just one spot in her mind. "Two and a half miles, that way!" she jerked a thumb to her left.

Although confused, the Doctor and Renata obeyed. It became clear where they were headed when they saw a street lined with similar houses. Donna hurried to the doors, to get them opened. It was almost an instant when she saw her grandfather looking up into the sky through his prized telescope. She waved ecstatically below. Renata and the Doctor waved from behind, although neither was sure if the grandfather would see them. Still, it didn't hurt to be nice.

Afterwards, when all was calm, Renata started for the corridors. "I'm just going to get dinner started. Donna, allergic to anything?"

"N-no…" replied the finger, fairly confused. "Though if it's alien meals then I wouldn't know would I…?"

Renata chuckled. "Fair enough." She disappeared soon after.

Curious, Donna looked to the Doctor who seemed quite at home. "Uh...since when do you do dinners? Last time I asked you disappeared into the night."

The Doctor smiled and looked up from the console after setting them in the time vortex for a peaceful night. "Oh that's just Renata. She does that every night. Sort of our tradition actually."

"Sorry, I never asked...are you and her…?" Donna gave a meaningful tilt of her head.

"No!" the Doctor quickly clarified before word made it to Renata. "No, we're not! Actually," he moved around the console, "Renata is one of my people. She's a Time Lady. Last one."

Donna didn't know what happened to the Doctor's home but she assumed it was not good. It was incredibly good to see that the Doctor was not alone anymore.

#10th doctor x oc #ocappreciation #ocapp #dw imagines #10th doctor imagines #doctor who #10th doctor #noblecrescentedit #oc: Renata Cartwright #donna noble #10th doctor x original female character #10th Doctor imagine #dw fanfics #doctor who fanfics #fic: the beginning of everything

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