#perhaps a series if i feel like it

[sagerini]

tmagp 001

[lotus-pear]

HIII SORRY FOR NO NEW ART have some concept sketches for the fic i'm working on instead

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[sherrymagic]

Aou Thanaboon and Boom Tharatorn WE ARE | EP. 16 — behind the scenes

+ bonus:

[macdenlover]

feeling so nauseous thinking about how the crossover means all these strangers perceiving my little evil middle aged babies from my niche indie underground longest running live action legacy sitcom

[thirdeyeblue]

“Nine would have treated Martha better than Ten did”

I need to talk about this argument that never seems to stop circulating.

Note: Not a venomous/anti post. There’s more than enough of that across fandom spaces as is, and this is supposed to be a place for ✨sweet, blissful escapism✨

When making this argument, people seem to envision a scenario in which Nine never met Rose.

While I can appreciate a good hypothetical, recognizing Rose's significance to the Doctor (Nine and Ten) is essential to understanding why things with Martha played out the way they did in the first place.

In the third series, the Doctor is grieving. This grief is deliberately threaded into nearly every script, whether spoken aloud or not (and these are just a few examples):

He's burning in Rose’s wake the entire time Martha travels with him, which is why it’s so frequently called upon: It’s 100% deliberate in framing his grief. He grieved as Nine too, of course— having been fresh on the heels of the Time War — but then he met Rose, which changed everything.

Back then, he was still a rude, traumatized pain in the ass, but we watch Rose soften more of those jagged edges with every episode as they grow closer; as he lets his guard down and forms a deep connection with her.

He falls in love (against his better judgment) and it's game over.

And yes: provided S1E1 had been titled 'Martha', one can realistically assume things might have unfolded similarly to how they did with Rose. However, it wouldn’t have been that way just because the Doctor was Nine and “Nine was different” — it would be because he wasn’t already in love with someone else. The same can't be said for the start of S3.

Think of it like this: if Rose AND Martha had been in that cellar — if Nine had taken both of them along with him in S1 — we’d eventually be looking at the most melodramatic love triangle ever, what with him living in close quarters with two brilliant, gorgeous, compassionate young women... But Doctor Who is plenty “soap opera” as is with just one woman in the TARDIS.

(I certainly wouldn’t object to reading that fic, though)

Now, regarding the unrequited elephant in the room…

His inability to be romantic with Martha isn’t because he thinks her lesser, nor is it for lack of compatibility. It isn't because Rose is any better than her. It certainly isn’t just because he’s Ten.

It’s really only for one reason, which can't be denied — and now I’m a broken record:

He is still in love with Rose.

(cut from a tenrosedaily gif)

Nine is Ten, and Ten is only such a mess in S3 because he’s just lost the love of his life. Martha merely got caught in the crosshairs of a volatile Time Lord in mourning, and yes — it sucks. Absolutely.

But it also feels dismissive to chalk Ten and Martha’s relationship up to little more than some sort of mindless dance of pining, jealousy, and toxicity.

Ten trusted Martha with his life over and over again — and hers, with him. He constantly praised her brilliance, happily carting her around time and space with no intention of letting her go. In the BBC’s extended universe of novels/comics/cartoons/etc, there’s so much depth to their relationship: love and trust and trauma and sacrifice. They had their own special bond as mates, their own complexities — so it’s a bummer that it's forever overshadowed by the other things.

I’m not denying that there was a lot of stuff that sucked/was for sure toxic about Ten's S3 behavior, but so many of the things I've seen him catching flak for can be directly attributed to being A Clueless Fucking Alien Idiot (not a trait that’s unique to Ten) — as well as his flat-out obliviousness to Martha’s feelings.

So yes, I agree: if Rose never existed, he would have treated Martha differently as Nine. He also would have treated her differently as Ten. Certainly.

But Rose did exist, and when discussing canon, it matters.

“He tells me that he absolutely, 100% loves Rose... He tells me how my daughter; my wonderful, beautiful, clever little girl saved him from himself before… And he says that’s all because of me! I made her into the Rose Tyler that saved him.”

-Jackie Tyler, Flight Into Hull!

Martha got the short end of the stick in S3. She came round at the wrong place and time, but that doesn't mean it was all bad. It doesn't mean the Doctor didn’t adore her. It certainly doesn't mean the time they spent together was wasted or worthless. They were brilliant!

Sure, he could be a twat, but let it be known that he was a twat with Rose as well, both as Nine and Ten. I’m sure Tentoo can be plenty infuriating, too. So while I'll defend Ten (and Tentoo) into the ground forever and ever and ever, I'll concede that he's fucked up.

The Doctor is a certified Pain In The Ass. It’s one of the things I love so much about this character — dynamics.

But never forget that Martha was goddamn tough as nails and overcame every bit of it. She moved on with her life, and the Doctor moved on with his. One can only pray that, when they inevitably drag her back onto the show (which feels inevitable if I'm honest), we see at once that she's been living her best life for all these years.

[bloodfreak-boyking]

i love when they're suffering and allow themselves to comfort each other with physical touch :))))

[greeenchrysanthemums]

Alright, for now, this is everyones' roll in this au

Gem: Commander of the royal arm

Scott & Impulse: Gem's right-hand men and good friends + Royal Knights

Skizz: Knight + Impulse's best friend

Ren: The figure head king

Martyn: Royal advisor + resistances double agent

Bdubs: Royal gardener

Grian: Leader of the resistance

Scar: Grian's right-hand man + a wizard

Etho: Former royal knight + the resistances explosives engineer

Mumbo: Grian's best friend + second engineer of explosives

Cleo: blacksmith + resistance member

Tango + Jimmy: farmers who secretly supply the resistance with food and the likes

BigB: baker + resistance member

Pearl: Gem's best friend + secretly a resistance member (this will cause problems)

[titfairy]

[e-louise-bates]

Instead of "20 books to $50k" or "how to increase readership by writing and publishing a book every month that is exactly like every other popular book out there," I need the kind of marketing advice that goes along the lines of, "hey, here's how to get a modest fanbase and sell enough books to justify this as a side gig without having to go crazy and spend more than you earn on marketing." Because honestly, all the advice I find these days either a) requires me to put way more time and money into marketing than I am able to do, or b) requires me to write fast and sloppy in very specific sub-genres, and that's really not why I write stories.

And like Emily Starr, I would--and will--continue to write stories regardless of how many people read them, but it would be nice to be able to reach more than a dozen readers, and to be able to reasonably look on my writing as a part-time job rather than an expensive hobby.

(It doesn't help that there are so many articles out there claiming that self-publishing is dead! It's gotten too bloated and now only a handful can make a living off it! But wait--traditional publishing is also dead! It's gotten too greedy and now only a handful can make a living off it! Mid-level authors? Whether traditionally published or self-published, they apparently no longer exist)

[seventeendeer]

after watching ATLA I got curious about whether my constantly negatively comparing its gender politics to the (imo superior) 2003 Teen Titans animated series had any merit or what, so I sat down to watch TT properly for the first time in ~2 decades, prepared for the worst

but you know what literally THE SECOND EPISODE centers one of the female leads and her complex relationship with her sister and features her love interest comforting and supporting her as she works through her insecurities and finally confronts said sister so WHAT THE FUCK WAS ATLA'S EXCUSE FOR ALL OF THAT

[chickensoup1025]

Thinking about desert duo again but this time The Song of Achilles flavored. Ow ow ow

[agriocnemis]

I'm still sick but honestly getting hit with SVSSS full force is not what I expected.

[violet-witch-6]

Ahsoka and Sabine divorce was not on my 2023 bingo card y’all

[urdreamgirls-dreamgirl]

And another thing….

Steve is the only character we see on screen who attempts to apologize repeatedly within the narrative (I say “attempts” because he never makes it to Nancy in season 2). He apologizes to Jonathan and Nancy almost immediately in season 1 which is the entire reason he’s at the Byers house for the fight; he goes the Nancy’s house to apologize to her after she’s essentially told him she doesn’t love him which, again, is the whole reason he gets roped into the junkyard fight; when it becomes clear that Nancy has feelings for Jonathan and not him in season 2, he reassures her and tells her it’s okay even though she cheated on him (and this is not to vilify Nancy, I love her—but I know people argue that she didn’t cheat, but we do not see an actual breakup on screen); he apologizes to Robin in the bathroom (he doesn’t explicitly say the words “I’m sorry” if I recall correctly, but that’s essentially what’s happening, even after a week of being called stupid and a dingus, etc for really just being terrible at flirting with girls); when he hurts Dustin’s feelings in ST4 in the car he immediately apologizes to him. People are regularly calling him stupid and insulting him and we really never see anyone apologize to him (only Eddie! In the Upside Down! Who apologizes for making assumptions!). Even at the end of ST4, Jonathan is STILL insulting him, despite Steve protecting the kids at all costs even though he doesn’t have to at all (he’s not related to any of them, it would really just be 10x easier for him to walk away, but he DOESNT). I love Nancy Wheeler for sticking up for him there. Common Nance Wheeler W.

Like, I guess I just don’t really get why people really want to see him as a bully (even a former bully). If we take all the evidence we see on screen, his asshole behavior is really just being overly emotional/overreacting without communicating and being self-absorbed/self-centered to the point of not noticing people who are framed as outsiders by the narrative anyway. Typical teenage behavior??

Again it just seems like a disservice to both Eddie and Steve to create a bully dynamic between the two of them. I just don’t like it 😩😩😩

[lala-blahblah]

I will never make this because it would be for an audience of one (me) but ever since reading "If we Were Villains" (story about serious drama kids in college who perform shakespeare and deal with a murder) I have been entertaining the thought of a crack fic crossover with High School Musical The Musical The Series where the staff decides they will no longer put on shakespeare after the tragic accident that happened at Thanksgiving, because Shakespeare plays would only increase the tension and drama. So they hire Ms. Jen who decides their spring play will actually be High School Musical (which exists in the 90s in this universe) and it ruins the vibe so much that everyone gives up on being dark and mysterious because they're universally pissed at Ms Jen for making them learn choreoraphed basketball dancing.