#revisiting a planet we've not been to before

[reachingforthevoid]

Doctor Who: Timelash

I rewatched this serial on 7 May 2023. It’s a mostly enjoyable, rather silly story told with such seriousness it is delightful. 

In the TARDIS, the Doctor is looking at star charts. Peri wants to go to a place to relax, and of course that’s not going to go well. They become trapped in a time corridor and end up on Karfel where the Doctor’s been before, not that we’ve seen that visit. Jo Grant went with him, and from what she says in Death of the Doctor (the Sarah Jane Adventures), it sounds like they enjoyed a pleasurable visit.

Meanwhile on Karfel, three young white people want to escape from the Borad: under his rule, Karfel is a dystopian nightmare. The three youngsters are terrified of what they call the timelash, which is what awaits them because of their rebellious talk. It doesn’t take long for the three of them to be caught: the two men are thrown into the timelash, and the woman is dragged by a giant blue-skinned and white-haired android to the Borad. I love the androids in this story and their odd speech cadence.

There are lots of political shenanigans, both on Karfel and with interplanetary neighbours. One of the politicians is archly played by the splendid Paul Darrow.

For reasons, the Doctor ends up in the Highlands of Scotland briefly and meets a young man named Herbert. Herbert sneaks aboard the TARDIS and travels to Karfel. This prompts one of the best lines in Dr Who: “To be perfectly frank, Herbert…” Geddit? There’s also a joke about the Loch Ness monster. I prefer the Skarasen.

Little plug for Candy Jar Books who are doing a range of stories pairing Professor Travers with a chap named Herbert…

[desultory-novice]

"Evigheden"

"...I'm sorry..."

.

-

"...Hee! Noir, you smell kinda moldy." "Yeah? And now you're going to smell that way too."

"...Because I'm not letting you go for anything."

-

Sometimes, the collar is a metaphor...

-

[Apologies AU Masterpost]

Also sorry if the first panel is unclear. Adeleine isn't trying to clumsily remove the visor, she's reaching in to touch his face to let him know she's there, as Noir is blind and deaf in this particular form, outside of what information the petals take in and transmit to him. They can't recognize qualities of the voice, ie, that it is his beloved little sister, simply that "some" voice is talking to him. They are also what transmits his "voice" (more like a droll, ghosty monotone) outwards.

-

Anyway, I was revisiting some of my favorite fairy tales, including HC Andersen's "The Snow Queen" (where the title originates) when I realized just how well parts of that story fit Adeleine and Noir.

In seconds, I'd written up a fresh script and was drawing this. It's a little rushed/uneven because I pushed myself to finish as quick as possible so that this could be my official last art post before my surgery tomorrow, figuring it was a good note to leave things on.

Call it ~fairy tale magic~ (although I imagine this is set sometime AFTER the Dark Matter Trilogy rather than during. Perhaps after Zero's "favorite tool" was discovered to be broken beyond repair and with Zero itself destroyed, 02 and the rest of the Dark Matter cut him off from the hive and left him to starve to death in the ruins of Shiver Star, where Adeleine eventually discovers him after revisiting her journey with the others) ...but at least we've got x1 Noir saved now!

(...How many more to go...? ^^; )

-

Because I know you folks care about lore, drone-type or unhatched Dark Matter "feed" off energy provided from the Hive Queen and they will burn in the light without their queen's protection.

Main game Shiver Star is actually MANY years removed from the Shiver Star Adeleine and Noir grew up on. (Adeleine fell through a dimensional rift halfway off planet and wound up on Popstar YEARS later than she left. It's a...complicated...story I'll tell later, while Noir has been Dark Matter for much longer than it seems) So, in addition to there being no more people there, there is significantly less of the kind of light that harms Dark Matter. (Is it, in fact, DUE to the lack of living creatures on the planet?? Dun-dun-dun?!)

Speaking of lore: "Wasn't there a literal parasite inside this version of Noir?? Like, an eyeball in his chest? Is that just gone now?"

Fufufu...

It is not GONE, for no one goes through life without some consequences. Though it was starved into hibernation and made further dormant by ~the healing power of love~ Noir does retain some piece of Dark Matter living inside him. A creature inside that grows stronger feeding off his negative emotions. 

He will simply have to learn to control it instead of giving in.

...Just like the rest of us humans. ^_-

[thefirstknife]

Please tell me you've read the lore on the new Trials items??

I have and I haven't stopped crying since.

It starts with the new Trials ship, Valiant Memory. It's the opening Lightfall cutscene but told from the point of view of Reed-7, the Titan from the Trials fireteam of Reed, Aisha and Shayura. They were a constant background lore characters on Trials gear. Here's a brief post I have about them from before. Since then, Shayura has been re-captured, gone to therapy, healing and reunited with her fireteam. Among them, Reed was a really sweet Exo who was known as "Strike dad," basically the heart of the fireteam, really sweet and warm.

The ship lore tells us that Reed, Aisha and Shayura were in the battle in space at the start of Lightfall when Pyramid fleet attacked. As the lore tab progresses it becomes increasingly clear that these three are the fireteam we've seen in the cutscene. Specifically, the Titan we've seen sliced? Reed-7.

The Witness is nothing more than a sliver of dark shearing through a field of white, but even at such a distance, Reed can feel its eyes on him. A chill jolts down his spine the moment the reticle locks on. His Exomind throbs with the sense-memory of a migraine.

He immediately knows something is wrong. He turns to his Ghost. His Ghost looks at him, but it's already dead. The world separates into slices.

And

so is

he.

I don't think I will ever emotionally recover from this. Aisha and Shayura survived for unknown reasons. Neither Aisha nor Shayura know why their Ghosts were spared; possibly because they both toyed with a version of Darkness. Aisha was a stasis user and Shayura's issues led her to killing Guardians. We don't know.

Either way, after the ship lore, I suggest reading the Ghost Shell, Hero's Wake. Immediately knocked out by the flavour text:

"He was like a father to us both." —Aisha

The lore tab itself has Shayura grieving and preparing to go therapy.

Next on the schedule for the emotional breakdown is the sparrow, Survivor's Journey which shows us Aisha personally traveling to Titan to tell Sloane about Reed. This also shows us that Sloane knew this fireteam, which is neat. But yeah, Aisha is devastated and had to tell Sloane in person.

The final bit is the Trials glaive, Unexpected Resurgence. Shayura is in the Tower and she has the remains of Reed's Ghost. She is approached by a woman who introduces herself as Sister Faora. Faora was the leader of the Cult of Osiris, but now introduces herself as an "outcast." The link between them is that Shayura and her fireteam were Trials regulars. Faora gives Shayura the glaive and offers to be her friend. No clue why Faora is an outcast. Maybe the whole Cult of Osiris has been somehow restructured, disbanded or made defunct after Osiris' ordeal with Savathun and after he lost his Light. It would be nice to get an update on it!

Outside of the assault on our emotions, I am curious about Faora's reappearance. Paired with them mentioning Vance again (albeit jokingly), I wonder if this is meant something more than just randomly dropping names. Vance is the only remaining "missing" vendor that we have yet to learn more about and Mercury is a potentially very interesting place to revisit, if we can, given its ties to Darkness through Lighthouses (which emit Darkness-aligned tones; the same tones that are being emitted by Pyramids and the planetary anomalies, as well as very likely egregore). Maybe a hint for a future season? I would love to revisit Mercury and get some nice lore reveals about the Lighthouses, Vance, Mercury's secrets (the planet houses a prediction engine!) and the Vex.

But until then, pain and suffering even. Goodbye Reed, Strike dad.

[earhartsease]

are you guys bodily 61 or is that an alter age? /genq

I'm curious bc of the queer stuff

good question! this human body doing front-of-house management is 61 - as far as we're aware, nobody in this system is actually 61, but ages range from around 6 up to late 50s when it comes to the humans - and as for the beyond-humans, your guess is as good as ours (current rough count is 29 individual beings, plus the accompanying inner forest)

there are a bunch of animals (we didn't include all the pets of ours and others that we invited into the forest when they died, there's a good two dozen of them! - but two animal alters for sure), two forest gods (one young, one ancient) and, well - a forest that's part of a landmass that's presumably part of a planet ecosystem in some universe, since there are stars and sun and moon in/out there

but yes, we all inhabit this 61 year old body and are trying to look after it, it's a bit fucked so we're trying to be as kind to it as toxic social conditioning will let us, and that goes for all of us really - just trying to love and listen to each other and it seems to work pretty well ☀️🌿

as for the queer stuff, given the constraints of lack of language or a safe space in which to think about it as a kid (very abusive upbringing), we think if we'd had the language back then we'd have known we were agender by the time we were 5 or 6? we certainly knew something was off in a "not really digging the boy thing, not really yearning to be a girl either though exactly, is this all necessary?" way

and certainly by the time our tweens hit we'd have known we were trans if it had been safe to know that (we didn't and don't get gender as a thing but we knew unconsciously that our body would be happier looking female) - we read a load of sci-fi with trans and queer themes all through our teens and kept revisiting the trans parts and no knowing why, for example - and at 23 we first knew we wanted a physical transition but got slapped down about it before we could look more into it - so didn't do anything about that until we were 48 in the end

but we came out as bi when we were 21, which apparently was brave in the 80s, and we finally embraced queer as a label in 2010 (after embracing genderqueer), and were able to let go of old horrors around the word and see how positive it is for so many people - and we came out as ace about a decade ago but it would have really helped if we'd known that was an option like 50 years sooner

as for all of us in here, nobody really has genders, all the humans are they/them and nonbinary, some look more male and some more female and some more *shrug* and it all sort of works?

we weren't planning to go into this much detail, but since it feels valuable for younger queer folk to know that us oldsters exist too, we figured we'd tell it out more - one thing we'd like to end with is by saying once again: none of this is set in stone - we've come out over 10 times now in the process of figuring out who we are, and we're on our tenth legal name change - and this is either it now or it isn't :D

- Irian on behalf of the emerald forest ecosystem

[danwhobrowses]

Power of the Doctor - Quickfire Thoughts

So it's time for a New Doctor to take the reins

It's been a mixed tenure for Whittaker - by no fault of her own, moreso the writing - but let's see how her final effort goes

Spoilers for the Episode

Hang on, isn't that Luther from Umbrella Academy?

Didn't expect the Cyber Masters to be back, let alone be shot down by laser blasters

Bit reckless from the Doctor to drop her 'fam' into a Cyberman raid

They were still opening the box, this is not the time to do the speech

Ace the poor museum lady's not gonna tell you some alien shit is going down with the painting

Inevitable write-off for Dan even though we've had a whole season to come to terms with mortality, y'know to push the whole Doctor and Yaz thing he was thirdwheeling

First time? Dalek Sec Doctor? Rusty?

Of course the Master is Rasputin

Got some classic stuff going though; Kaled mentions, Tegan and Ace, Master's hypnosis and action figuring, referencing the Second Doctor's Forced Regeneration someone has been doing their homework

Joker was here and he stole a TARDIS!

Doctor you do have a Time Machine, time should be all you have

How polite of the Master to message UNIT at that exact moment

Vinder! Why aren't you with your girl?

Sacha Dhawan's Master is at its best right now, but seriously how many times do you have to bring the Master into a secure and sensitive facility for it to be part of his plan before you think twice?

As dangerous as jumping a train full of Cyber Masters Yaz?

Oh so the Lone Cyberman is just a pawn again? Bit of a waste

UNIT aren't aren't so ready if they just have simple machine guns...

To be fair the garb works

United in a common goal and all you could get is Daleks and Cybermen? I mean, the Pandorica had a bigger alliance

'Yo Dalek is this a bop?'

So does Sacha technically become the Fourteenth Doctor or are we gonna count this the same way as War Doctor and Metacrisis Doctor? I mean he's even wearing a wardrobe mismatch of other outfits, even the flute and celery.

I mean, couldn't this have been achieved by just...changing your name?

CGI Hartnell (well, David Bradley but a bit of work done), also irl Colin, Davidson, McCoy and McGann

McGann could still play the Doctor I'm just saying

Guess no CGI Pertwee, Troughton or irl Baker, no Eccleston, Smith (guess he is housing dragons at this time) or Capaldi either

I miss Osgood, anyone else miss Osgood?

Okay so if they can shoot through the window what's stopping them from escaping the building?

Sorry Ace it's kinda a NuWho thing; River, Clara, even the sentient piece of jet fuel

GRAHAM!

So UNIT has a laser shield but not a laser gun?

Technically he never accepted the terms...

So does the original Master just chill in a box forever?

Wait, how can the AI turn into Fugitive Doctor? Yaz never met her didn't she?

We're...just gonna leave the Master there?

Guess Kate isn't liked enough to have AI Doctor helping her out

Daleks can survive bullets but not a baseball bat

Good thing Vinder was here to shoot the Master once

Won't doing that still disrupt the tectonics on the planet?

What about the other Brother Eye Death Star thingy?

Aw man no more Graham :/ if we were just gonna cameo it would've rather we just swapped him and Vinder for Dan and Karvanista

I mean, you were hit with a laser from a being of pure energy

The fact that we will never get Dan and Graham as a comedic companion duo is the true tragedy

Companions of future past being cameo'd too, would've thought there'd already be a support group

DAVID!!??

So he's not a past iteration for the special? I guess the Curator did say we'd be revisiting a few old faces in the last special

So is DAVID counted as the Tenth AND Fifteenth Doctor or is this also gonna count as another War Doctor or Metacrisis Doctor?

If we had a penny for every time the Doctor unexpectedly turned into David Tennant again we'd have two pennies, which is not a lot but it's still surprising it happened twice

So there we have it. I liked the episode, but I didn't cry. I think it's just that I wasn't as attached as previous, part of that does come down to me never really being a fan of Yaz. Even in this episode the most impressive thing she does without help is pilot the TARDIS with the help of post-it notes, I could've told you from the get-go that the episode would find a way to write out Dan as well. It was nice seeing past companions like Ace, Tegan and Graham, but most of them had a limited role, also UNIT were extremely ineffective, as were the Daleks and the Cybermen really, especially the lone Cyberman who was just a named redshirt. The plot felt a bit convoluted as well, the interesting stuff didn't get as much time you know? We could've had like a full 3-parter on this to flesh it out more, the train stuff at the beginning was a bit meh, plus the CGI and wiring were a bit iffy.

But it was still good, end on a surprise and we had a lot of fanservice, a lot of clever callbacks, we'll have to see in 2023 how Tennant course corrects to Ncuti Gatwa

[bluntblade]

The Force Awakens thoughts because my current WIP is bumping up against it:

The more distance I get from The Force Awakens and the more film/script literate I get, the more I feel like JJ Abrams really coasts on the intent of his stories and is let off the hook for never really following through with what he seems to want to do.

Like, revisiting A New Hope and even The Hidden Fortress (an Akira Kurosawa film which massively influenced Lucas, do watch it), that film does so much more on a character level than TFA. Abrams traffics in a kind of writing where lots of stuff happens regularly, so it can be easily seen as a refined and more efficient version of those early Spielberg/Lucas pictures (they're off the planet in less than half an hour! In ANH they haven't even met Han yet!), but it's kind of a mirage.

In the same time that Luke has learned about the key factors in the plot and had a (brief) Refusal of the Call, only to he's lost his home (the kick out of the door), Rey and Finn have mostly been chased a number of times (they won't have a clue/care about the Starkiller until some time later, so unlike in ANH it suddenly just appears in the plot from the heroes' point of view). At the point where he had taken an irrevocable step and we've embarked on new conflicts between them and Han (and then Leia too), they're either just conflicting together in the same way or being led along by Han. They're running, but mostly running in place.

Film Crit Hulk refers to this move as the old "just then bad guys come in with guns" but I think of it more as hitting one snooker ball with another. Abrams' characters are very reactive (especially Rey, but actually Finn too) and so beyond the plot necessity of getting BB-8 to D'Qar, they aren't propelling the plot themselves. Believe me, I love both characters and feel glum saying this. So periodically in comes a smallish threat to nudge them along for a bit, but it's gone and then they halt again. There isn't really an evolving conflict here, and in terms of action causing character change it doesn't really go beyond "they get along better now."

Equally, revisiting the strict text of the film, the whole thing around Luke is distinctly odd. I would argue as a TLJ diehard that Johnson adhered to the letter of TFA but not the spirit, but that leaves the awkward sense that Abrams was setting out things he didn't seem to believe. Luke grew disillusioned because he felt responsible for the destruction of the temple, but Abrams doesn't want to dwell on that. It'll be fine, no need to even discuss what he might think when Rey pops up.

But maybe that's also par for the course with a filmmaker who will milk a scene for pathos and then discard it, with minimal consequences for what comes next. Which is to say that Finn's five minutes of PTSD work better than Carol Marcus watching her dad get his head crushed in Into Darkness, but that's not a vast achievement really.

In the final stretch there's a tangible unwillingness to tie a bow on anything; instead the film makes a couple more promises and then seems in a mad rush to hand on the baton before it's asked to give a real thought on the themes that it's flirted with. It's content with fascimiles of growth and meaning, but it wants someone else to grab the lightsaber and do the actual work.

[kidmachinate]

Not All Is As It Seems

**SPOILERS BELOW THE PICTURE**

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“Rey…Skywalker”

THAT’S NOT HOW THAT WORKS!!!

My literal reaction to the very end of the movie. Much like The Last Jedi, I don’t have an issue with this as much as the majority of the internet and think it was a fun watch…however…two things. As a Star Wars film, which is what it is, man did they mess things up. Also, whatever plot complaints people had about The Last Jedi? Rise of Skywalker basically says, hold my beer. Let’s get into this.

This was the most obvious thing from the beginning with the trailers but Emperor Palpatine? Why is he in this? Kylo just gets the shaft at the end of the day because he’s “Supreme Leader” until THE supreme leader comes in, which brings him back to the temper tantrum angry kid he is. Still taking orders from someone ultimately and can't rise to power. Poor Kylo. Guess we've gotta kill Palpatine. Everyone wants to anyway. I suppose this all needed to happen in order to set up “ReyLo” but the inclusion of Palpatine at all just seems like a huge copout. Should have just kept Snoke. Replacing Snoke with another main villain after he was killed off by Kylo makes that scene pointless in the previous movie. Palpatine for the Final Order apparently has a bunch of literal planet destroyer ships. Cool…so…pulling the strings all along over the last two movies is pointless. Just execute the final order and forget going through all the trouble? The final battle was cool upon first seeing it, but just doesn’t feel like a satisfactory payoff at the end. The more it dragged on it went between predictable and cringeworthy. Rey gets shown the space battle just like he did to Luke back in Return of the Jedi to try and make her lose hope and embrace her dark side because…you know…evidentially Rey is a Palpatine. Isn’t this Rise of SKYWALKER? Maybe we should look at it from Kylo Ren’s perspective instead and it makes more sense? All these force families are related in one way or another and cross over and such so I’ma give that a pass. The way the ships just fall from the sky when things are over just seems absurd. Lando Calrissian must be one hell of a charmer to have gotten the army he did to help out. There ARE things I like, I swear. Call this nitpicking but these were my thoughts through the movie. Take it or leave it. There’s more.

The ending overall was probably my least favorite part of the whole film. The awkward tension between the three main characters towards the beginning felt forced, and I think we could have done without as well. The force link of sorts between Rey and Kylo was kind of annoying and awkward as well in the previous movie, but I think was done much better in this one. The ways Kylo tries to manipulate Rey or extract info from her is front and center. Parts of the fanbase don’t like Rey. Well I do, so fuck them. Just kidding, we all have opinions. That said, for as much as I actually don’t like Kylo Ren, this trilogy might as well have been his journey. He is probably the only new character fleshed out to their full potential. He actually gets progression through the movies. Rey is basically the equivalent to Superman and just can’t be stopped. Struggling with the dark side and her humility keeps her “human” but her sheer power just makes things very predictable. She throws down against Kylo in The Force Awakens with NO FORCE TRAINING and wins. It is actually one of the reasons I thought he was kind of a joke. This is his trilogy…then he dies. But hey, awkward kiss from Rey before he dies. Guess there goes ReyLo. What they were building up to all these movies…fanfic achieved…short kiss…no more ReyLo. I’m almost done with the bad I swear…

Finn. What the hell were they thinking? What is his role in this film, really? In fact, what is his role truly since Force Awakens? He’s clearly force sensitive in some way and they really don’t get into what that could mean. Easy character development that just doesn’t really happen. He has heroic moments in The Last Jedi as well but in this movie…he’s just not interesting and mostly ends up just being worried about Rey but never able to do anything about it. He also “has something to tell her”. He never does. The topic even gets revisited between Poe and him. Still doesn’t say anything. Guess there’s no resolution there. Oops. Also, real quick, we knew Leia would fall just like Han and Luke. One per movie. But we don’t kill off Chewy although we tease it. I was happy about that. Droids are fine too. Humans gotta go though. Guess human don’t sell as well as toys. Alright, we’re done here. Onto the good stuff.

I just mentioned Chewbacca so his emotional reaction to Leia’s death was really well done. Leia was treated the best way she could have been with what they had to work with, in my opinion. The tiny gripe was referring to her as Princess instead of General but I guess we will give that a pass too. The force ghost scene with Luke and Rey was both great and nostalgic. That X-Wing was sitting there the pervious movie and to see him raise it for Rey to use was one of the grand moments of the film. This along with him catching the lightsaber as if to say, I was wrong and was scared when you first approached me about training. Or maybe this was to shut up angry fans about the fact that he threw the saber in the first place in The Last Jedi. I found that great personally. Fans need to get over themselves sometimes. The Han Solo retread with the famous “I know" line was another highlight. People will nitpick this and say Han never had force powers so shouldn’t show up in this way. Clearly it was just Ben recalling memories as if to be talking to himself, to his Dad, and being offered forgiveness. A highlight of the movie for me as well. This all brings things to where this post started. Just before that however, I want to recall thoughts from a previous post of liking what they tried to do in this sequel trilogy and prove that the force is more than what we saw it as and isn’t “just blood”. Even the dark side can be converted. Offered redemption. There are just several places where this all could have been done much better. They also could have put Mara Jade in the movie. Just saying, totally not salty, let’s wrap this up.

Rey’s revisit to Tatooine is a great way to end the film, the Skywalker saga. She buries the two sabers where Star Wars started in the first place and reveals the one she forged for herself. I love this. When she engages in conversation with the person who questions who she is, at the point of redeeming the ending, she mentions she is Rey Skywalker. You’re a fucking Palpatine, was confirmed, and I get that you got the nod from Leia and Luke’s force ghost, but that quite literally, is not how things work. You don’t just label yourself something and become that. Without her being a Palpatine, her struggle with the dark would make less sense. However, I do think there would have been more value in her actually being related somehow to a Skywalker that dabbled in the dark, meanwhile Kylo Ren started good and turned dark due to having too much “Vader” in him. Like two people trying to find their proper place in the world in their own struggles. Rey was always gonna be the one to live however. I personally think it would have been more respected that way. Maybe I’m dealing in absolutes here.

These are my thoughts on everything. Nothing is as it seems and Kylo and Rey both have their respective journeys realized for better or worse. Will Rey train a new generation of Jedi and tell them about the Skywalker linage while then lying to the kids about her being one as well? Since she is now a self-proclaimed Skywalker? Don’t lie to the kids. Don’t hide shit from them. You don’t want to end up with a classroom full of Kylo Rens.