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theroseandcrown · 4 years ago

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The Rose & Crown: Chapter Five

Rating: M Chapters: 5/24

Summary: Clara and the Doctor find themselves on the trail of the mystery surrounding their memory loss. What will they find when they follow the clues?

Read this story on another platform: Archive of Our Own Fan Fiction WattPad

Clara had always been impressed by the selection of clothing available to her in the ship’s wardrobe. The items she found in there consisted of such created by the TARDIS herself or those that had been left behind by the Doctor’s previous companions. Either way, they excelled in their knowledge of well-fashioned taste when it came to providing her with disguises to accompany him on his travels. Whether it be the year nineteen hundred or forty thousand, the old gal certainly knew how to treat a girl. Although, this time she may have outdone herself a bit. Having searched for quite some time through the ever-changing, ever relocating closet, her heart jumped when she saw the dress. Champagne in colour, the floor-length fabric was entirely embroidered with tiny sparkling silver patterned jewels from the modestly draped straps over her shoulders to the tips of her clear heeled shoes. Gazing at her finished form in the mirror, the dress seemed to embrace her with an ethereal glow. A part of her shook the thought that a particular dress of this nature might be too fashionable for a girl such as her. She exited the wardrobe and headed for the control room where the Doctor told her to meet him. Hesitating for only a moment to regain her confidence, she lifted her skirt above her shoes and climbed the metal staircase towards the heart of the TARDIS.

“Finally!” the Doctor exclaimed after hearing her soft footsteps approaching from behind. “You’ve been down there nearly an hour!” He spun around to face her. “What on Earth took you so-?” And then he saw her, truly saw her. Her presence in the room suddenly cleared him of all thought and speech. He had travelled with her an uncountable amount of times. From the past to the future and beyond even that. And yet, she always remained the same Clara to him no matter what version of her he was with. Always his impossible girl. There was no one else he would rather have by his side. He cared for her more deeply than he would ever dare to admit. All the dangers he put her through, all the incidences in which he thought he’d lost her had been more unbearable each time. He fought to keep the feelings he had for her from himself and anyone they ever encountered together from the moment he first laid eyes upon her in his previous form. He felt that somewhere buried deep inside his stubbornness, she would never accept him in this body as she did with his last. This furrowed old man he had become could never compete with the love she still carried in her heart for his younger self. It was better this way. Emotions are dangerous. There were far too many enemies in the universe willing to take advantage of a weakness so great.

Something inside of him was freed from its forgotten place as she approached him, a feeling he thought he would never have for anyone else. He couldn’t tear himself away from her magnificent grace. She could light up every star in the sky or power an entire world with just the look in her eyes at that moment. He could feel the electricity emanating through the air in the palms of his hands. The deafening silence in the room could only be tamed by the delicate sound of her shoes tapping along the metal flooring. He watched her approach until she was but an arm’s length in front of him. “You look, uh…” were the only words he could manage.

“Is it too much?”

“No, um-”

“It’s too much, isn’t it,” she responded nervously, beginning to feel foolish.

“No, no! Well, I mean, it’s not bad. For a girl who can’t even tie a tie correctly. But I suppose the dress will have to do,” he humoured her in an attempt to maintain a hold over his emotions.

“Thanks.” She knew that was the closest to a compliment as she was going to get. She noticed he’d taken the time to groom himself in her absence. A characteristic he hadn’t seemed to have adopted very often in this body, if at all. And yet, something about the way he looked in his tuxedo warmed her from within as if she were standing beside an open flame during the dead of winter. All the anger she felt earlier in the day and the past several weeks had melted away leaving no trace of its former existence. The warm feeling inside of her began to grow more intense as she stepped closer, their shoes nearly touching. “I could say the same about you,” she pointed out, slowly reaching up to straighten his tie.

He watched her every move. His hearts raced at the sensation of her fingers grazing along the outside of his collared shirt. He gazed down at the top of her head as she perfected his slightly skewed necktie. The closer she was to him, the more he could feel the electricity making its way throughout his body. There was something different about her, something he hadn’t noticed before. Not strange, per se, a rather enjoyable feeling actually. A warmth about her. He felt the tiny hairs on his arms rise underneath the sleeves of his jacket. A very faint, almost entirely unnoticeable connection to his telepathic abilities could be detected. Is she somehow reading my mind?

“Well!” He nervously pulled away from her grasp and quickly moved to the console. He feared he may have endured her closeness for too long. If she had been reading his mind, there was no doubt he might have let some thoughts slip by he shouldn’t have. Trying to distract himself, he made a few adjustments to the computer. “Shall we?” he asked, extending a hand towards her. He could sense her reluctance, possibly having to do with the day’s previous conflict between them. The look of uncertainty in her eyes. He knew he had tampered with her trust in him. There was only one way to make it right. “Clara Oswald, I would be deeply honoured if you would accompany me as... my date,” he requested, offering a bent arm for her to accept if it pleased her. Clara smiled. The same smile that drove him into the deepest parts of his sanity. Accepting his offer, she interlocked her arm in his and prepared to be transported to the next adventure. Matching her smile with his own, he pulled down on the lever and sent the time machine to its instructed coordinates.

Prima Nova

The TARDIS materialized into the medium-sized vacant room. The door opened and the Doctor poked his head out from within to examine their new surroundings. Once it was decidedly safe, he exited the box as Clara followed closely behind.

“Well, this is exciting!” She took hold of his arm with her own. The anticipation of what was out there sent a sense of thrill throughout her body. Each time they encountered the unknown together, there was always a feeling of excitement mixed with a small amount of fear of what they might come across. But this time felt different. Being with him made her truly feel like a part of his life again. “It’s as if we’re solving our own mystery! Just the lot of us. Like Sherlock Holmes!”

“Yes, well, if only Sir Conan Doyle had known the true identity of whom he really based his main character on, I’d bet he would’ve looked a little more green, and had scales, and was actually a woman,” he replied, remembering his past adventures with Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. Back when he felt the universe didn’t need him to be the Doctor anymore. Back when he had given up all hope. “Besides, their mysteries were nothing but child’s play in comparison to what I’ve seen in my lifetime. Imagine the pair of them encountering an army of Cybermen back in their day. What a great story that would have been to tell the kiddies.”

They approached the extraordinarily large double doors to the room in which they were standing. They were over a storey in height and several arm lengths wide. A questioning look appeared on his face as he took out his sonic-screwdriver and attempted to scan the door. Other than being made of wood, in which the screwdriver lacked in its abilities, there was nothing he would usually be concerned about. Except that these doors appeared brand new as if they had just been installed, unlike the other walls in the room or the ancient relics hosted inside of it.

“Doctor? What is it?” Her grip on him tightened with concern.

“This door. It’s unusually large for a room this size, don’t you think?”

“Maybe they’re just really tall people?” She couldn’t help the smile that formed.

Frowning at her humour, he placed his ear to the wood and listened for any sounds. Glancing towards her, he opened the door. The light from the other side brightly filled the space all around them. In the next room, they could see hundreds of well-dressed normal-sized people chatting and mingling amongst each other while oblivious to their entrance. Shutting the door behind them, he led her into the crowd to blend in as if they had been there all along. “Now remember,” he warned, continuing to lead her through the mixed mass of aliens. “We’re here to find out what happened to us, not to dilly-dally. No distractions. Look for anything you might remember.”

Clara frowned. All these people enjoying themselves and she was stuck with the Time Lord, Slayer of Fun. Doing as he asked, her eyes scanned the room for anything that would jog her memory. She didn’t recognize any of the other guests nor the room they were in. Nothing out of the ordinary, besides being surrounded by aliens of course. However, she supposed that to them it was she who was the alien. She noticed a strange object hanging from the ceiling high above the guests’ heads. An orb-like structure encased in shaded glass. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing upwards.

“Brain scanner,” he responded, having already noticed it the second they entered the lobby. “It detects ill-intent.”

“What would they need a brain scanner for at a party?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

She could feel him pulling her towards the next room where they were greeted by a well-dressed man of a species she was not familiar with. He stood eagerly behind a host’s station. A badge clung just below his lapel were inscribed with the words Xarbanka, Maître D’.

“Ah! Mr and Mrs Smith!” he addressed them, extending a scaled hand towards the Doctor. “So good to see you again! Mrs Smith, you look absolutely stunning this evening!” He returned his attention to the Doctor. “Better keep a good eye on her tonight, sir!” he boasted with a friendly smile.

“Will do,” he replied, trying to keep the thought of having no memory of this man at rest.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” the man added, retrieving a lightweight box from inside the station. “This arrived earlier today with strict instructions to deliver to you personally upon your arrival.”

“For me?” The Doctor raised a questioning brow. “Who sent it?”

“They didn’t say. It was accompanied by this.” The man pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to him.

Taking the note, he opened it to observe its message. For Mr Smith, from a friend. Glancing towards the Maître D’, he placed the note inside his pocket and released the clip holding the small box shut before hesitantly opening the lid. Inside were two identical pairs of what appeared to be ordinary reading glasses. Upon examination, he found nothing peculiar about them. Removing them from their case, he promptly placed them into his jacket pocket and nodded his gratitude towards the man. Turning to Clara, he noticed she was experiencing the same confusion as he. “Well, shall we head for the refreshments, dear?” A smile formed on his face as he played along with his new role. They parted ways with the man and headed towards the entrance of the next room where the sound of live music was heard playing.

“That was a bit strange,” she whispered. “Were you expecting a package here?”

“No, which means whoever sent it must have known we were going to be here at this exact moment.”

“So, Mr Smith, eh?” She tried to hold back her laughter. “They get a lot of caretakers to come to these things, do they?”

“And, apparently, their wives,” he teased.

“Hmm, Mrs Clara Smith. Doesn’t sound all that bad. Better than Mrs The Doctor. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.” She let out a small laugh.

“My, aren’t we chipper this evening,” he noted, addressing her sudden adjustment in mood from earlier. The more they immersed themselves into their surroundings, the brighter she had become. He could feel the happiness resounding inside of her now seeping into him. “To what do I owe this new change? Surely you haven’t forgiven me for everything already,” he prodded, yet remained hopeful the answer would be, ‘Yes.’

“I dunno.” Clara thought about it. It was as if she didn’t even remember being so cross with him. As if it happened ages ago. Whatever feelings she felt before had been replaced by something else, something warmer. Something she wasn’t so sure she had control of. Whatever it was, she liked it. She liked the way she felt around him now more than ever. The thoughts and feelings she still clung to of his last form were slowly being replaced by his new one. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. You’re here now,” she added. As they entered the next room, her grip on him tightened. “Doctor!” she nearly gasped his name. “I’ve been here before. I remember this room from my dream.” She looked around the structure to observe the walls and flooring. It was the same as the nightmare she experienced right before the spectre attacked her. It sent shivers down her spine seeing this place again. Her eyes searched the room for the ghosts she had seen before only to find it was vacant of them. Even the people were different from those in her vision.

“Do you recognize anyone?” he asked, taking in all the details they might have been missing.

“No, you?”

“Nothing.” He strained to discover a clue, anything that might jog his memory of having been there before. He noticed a second scanner atop the ceiling and assumed there was one in each room.

As Clara examined the unfamiliar faces, she couldn’t help but wonder it if was possible they had been wrong. That there wasn’t anything there to find. Had they come all this way for nothing? She continued to observe the guests paired with their partners and dancing to the rhythm of the music. So carefree, so unaware of anything out of the ordinary. Just simply dancing and enjoying the company of one another. Feeling safer, for the moment, she turned to him. “Would you care to dance?”

“Good thinking! Blend in, gather details. Surely one of these people holds the key to our memory!”

Shaking her head, she smiled and determined that he would always be the same old Doctor to her no matter how hard she tried to tame him. A part of her loved that about him and wouldn’t change it for anything.

He took her hand and led her onto the dance floor. Facing her, he realized how long it had been since he had done this even if it were to simply gather data. Trying to recall exactly where he was supposed to put his hands and who was supposed to lead, he decided to go with his instincts instead. Under any other circumstances, he would have felt the flutter of his hearts beating. But this time, something about her was different. She placed the palm of her hand in his, the other wrapped around his back to which he mirrored. As he held her hand, he felt an overwhelming sense of emotion as he detected the vast amount of electricity emanating from her soft delicate fingers entwined in his own. He tried to hide his concern and concentrate on his objective, finding those responsible for all of this. Yet he couldn’t keep his mind focused on anything else. What was different about her? What was he missing? Stay focused, Doctor. Don’t lose yourself in her eyes. You are here for a reason. His mind teetered between studying the room and her gaze. He could feel her pulse in the palm of his hand, though it was strangely foreign. Far too fast to be her own. It’s nothing, she’s just excited. You mustn’t get distracted.

He could feel his muscles tense as her body drew close to his. Her head rested on his shoulder. The hand he claimed around her back found its way to her waist while the other held onto hers firmly. The same warmth he felt before in the TARDIS began to rise within him. The electricity from her hand deepened as if it were connecting to every fibre in his body. What is she doing to me, he wondered? Trying his hardest to stay on task, he began to distract his senses with observation. He counted the tiles on the floor, the number of beverages being passed around, anything even remotely relevant to their reason for being there. He noticed a few of the guests had their attention turned towards them. Did he know them? Did they know him? Could they be involved or was he just feeling paranoid? Before he lost himself in her arms, he attempted to de-escalate the intensity of their embrace. “I feel we are being watched,” he finally spoke, breaking the silence of the moment.

“By who?” she asked, slowly lifting her head off his shoulder.

“Usurians, behind you.”

“What’s a Usurian?” She started to look in their direction.

“Don’t turn around!” he ordered quietly, closely monitoring the other guests as he waited for just the right moment. Seizing the opportunity, he spun her around to the rhythm of the music. His dominant hand retained its grasp on hers as her back became flushed up against him. His other hand slid across her front and held her midsection firmly, pulling her even closer. He ignored the small gasp that escaped her lips. “There, just in front of you,” he whispered into her ear. “Do you recognize them?”

Clara, trying to swallow the surprise that overtook her from his sudden intimacy, glanced in the direction of which he was speaking. “No, I don’t think so.” She hardly even looked at the suspected guests, being too distracted by his closeness. Her free hand found its way to his and placed it gently atop his own. She could feel herself breathing more heavily as he applied pressure to her abdomen.

The Doctor, not ready to eliminate the Usurians as possible suspects, scanned the room again looking for more clues. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, a powerful surge swept through him originating from the hand resting securely upon Clara’s body. A telepathic connection he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It was so unbelievably strong, it pulled him out of his reality entirely.

He opened his eyes to find himself in an undetermined space, relocated from where he last stood as if he had been teleported. Darkness had formed all around him. Am I dreaming? Far off in the distance, he saw a small light. Approaching slowly, he shielded his eyes from the intense glow emanating from it. As he drew closer, more finite details of its existence began to occupy the void surrounding him. Light particles circulated from its main source. The closer he stepped, the more he could hear it trying to speak to him. He heard the sound of its heart beating faintly, then louder until it beat like a drum deep in his soul. Yet there was something different about it. Something only he would be able to feel. There were two. Two distinct heartbeats originating from the same source. No, it can’t be! How is this possible?! He found himself being drawn to its life force, unable to stop himself from stepping closer until he could nearly reach it. The light burned his eyes yet he could not look away. His hand reached out, ready to succumb to its will, until his fingers made their first contact with it. Then there was a flash of light.

The Doctor opened his eyes once again, gasping and breathing heavily. He searched his surroundings thoroughly. He was back in the ballroom. His hand was still clenched around Clara’s as the other pressed her tightly against him from behind. Panic came over him. He quickly released himself from her and stepped away as the music came to an end. He saw her turn to face him, her eyes conveyed worry and concern for her friend. He couldn’t shake the vision in his head of what he saw, for what he feared was happening inside of her. He tried to even conceive of the possibility. His mind raced, his hearts beat rapidly in his chest. No, this isn’t possible! Yet everything he knew and felt was pointing to only one answer, that his Clara was with child.

“Doctor?” She stepped closer only to watch him step even farther away. His eyes were wide with fright. “Doctor, what is it? What’s wrong?”

His mind burst and flooded with a thousand thoughts as if it were a shattering dam. So many questions, so little answers. It all started to make sense and didn’t at the same time. The electricity and warmth he felt just being around her, a warmth he thought to be the deep feelings he carried for her, was, in reality, the tangible emotions of the life form growing inside of her. Emotions they now shared. If Clara was upset, the child would imitate her distress. When she became elated, so would the child. And if she were to experience pain or suffering...

“I-I’m not sure.” He kept his distance. The words he wanted to say were lost under miles of thought. She came closer, the look of fear on her face as she did when they were in real danger. He couldn’t move, not because of the couples dancing all around him and trapping him where he was, but because his legs would not allow him to. As she stood in front of him, her hand reached for his. “Don’t,” he stopped her firmly. He couldn’t bear their touch again. Not now. Not when his mind needed to repair itself of its malfunction. They stood in unbearable silence, the music having long since ended as the musicians adjusted their pages for the next set. “I think I’ve had quite enough dancing for one evening,” he told her, trying to keep the worry off his face.

Clara was confused and mildly hurt. Had she done something wrong? Why was he so flustered, she wondered? The music started to sound again yet neither one of them yielded their positions on the floor. She hardly even noticed the young man approaching her side.

“Excuse me, Miss?” the man addressed her.

She turned to him, nearly forgetting the Doctor’s strange behaviour. She was taken aback by his youthful features. Not young enough to be a boy but certainly not too old either. He appeared human, but so did many others who either were or simply used a type of cloaking device to possibly hide their true race from potential enemies.

“I was just wondering,” he continued shyly, “if you would do me the honour of sharing this dance with me. If it pleases you.” He looked towards the Doctor. “Of course, that is if you do not mind, sir?”

“Well, actually,” he started, trying not to show his infuriated demeanour over the sudden interruption between them. “We were just about to-”

“I’d love to.” She took the arm of the young man.

“Clara, we really should be going,” he insisted, attempting to lure her back to him.

“I’ll only be a minute! I’m sure you can ‘handle things in my stead,’” she replied, turning his own words against him.

Impossible woman! The Doctor attempted to remain unaltered by her unexpected leave of him. He removed himself from the crowd and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms in disapproval as he watched them from a distance. He could see the young man take her into his arms and pull her close to his chest. She appeared to be somewhat taken with him, laughing and smiling in his direction. He could feel himself becoming jealous but tried to ignore it. Of course she would feel an attraction, just look at him! He’s everything I’m not; young and handsome. While compared to him, I’m nothing but a frustrated emotionless old man.

He attempted to distract himself by continuing to observe the room around them. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe they were too late. Or just maybe there was nothing there for them to find. But why the brain scanners? What could be so crucial there to require them? And even more importantly, who sent him the glasses? Who had known he was going to be there on this exact night? His eyes drew back to his companion. The young man’s hand had found its way to her waist, her head rested just slight of his lapel. “Will this song never end?!” he mumbled to himself.

As he continued to watch them, he couldn’t help but think of the child developing inside of her. Was she aware of its presence? Could she feel it within her or was it simply too early to detect? The dreaded thought of how it came to be was secondary to his greatest concern, that the child was of Gallifreyan decent. The list of possible fathers was too short to deny being responsible for any part of it. But how had this happened? There must be some sort of an explanation, he thought. The song finally ended and the young pair made their way towards the refreshments.

“May I offer you something? Some champagne perhaps?” asked the young man.

“That would be lovely, thank you.” She watched him head towards the bar to attract the attention of the bartender.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she heard the voice of the Doctor say behind her. Rolling her eyes, she turned around to face him. “My my, what a lovely couple you two are!” he added.

“Doctor,” she replied, now slightly annoyed with him.

“How old is he? Twelve? Thirteen? Ages, not my area.”

Ignoring his jealous comments, she decided to change the subject. “Did you find anything?”

“Oh, I thought we were here to dance and party!” Behind her, he saw the young man returning with two filled glasses in his hands. “And drink!”

“Champagne, for the lady,” the young man offered, handing her a glass.

“Thank you.” Accepting the glass from him, she raised it to toast the gentlemen.

“That other one must be for me then?” the Doctor asked the boy, his temper getting the better of him.

“Doctor!” she hushed him, lightly smacking his arm. “Behave.”

He watched her bring the glass to her lips. A sudden unexplainable protectiveness came over him as he removed the drink from her hand before she could take a sip. “No, I don’t think so. We wouldn’t want you to get all sloshy.” He handed the drink back to the young man. “Don’t let her appearance fool you. She’s a terrible drunk. Absolutely the worst! Now, if you’ll excuse us.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the confused man.

“That was incredibly rude,” she scolded.

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll forget all about you. Plenty of other sultry girls here to choose from.” He felt her rip her arm away from his grasp. Surprised, he turned around to see her face. He could only describe the look of shock and hurt in her eyes.

“Is that what you think of me then?” she asked as tears started to form at the brim of her eyes.

“No, of course not.” He realized he had let his jealousy take control of him. “Clara, I need to speak with you,” he implored, extending a hand towards her apologetically. After a moment, she wiped the tears from her eyes and took his hand. He took her to a less crowded area of the room and made sure there was no one listening in. He looked into her eyes, still damp from tears. He didn’t even know what to say or how to begin. He brushed the loosened hairs from her face and wiped the remaining tear still clinging to her cheek. “Clara, I-” he stopped himself and ran his fingers through his hair. Why is this so difficult? Just tell her! He sighed heavily and regained his thoughts. “Clara, I need to tell you something.” She did not reply, only gazed into his eyes awaiting his next words which only made it harder for him to speak. At last, he found the courage to tell her the truth. “This may be difficult for you to understand right now, but you… you’re-”

“Welcome guests to the Prima Nova Biannual Charity Auction Ball!” a woman suddenly shouted from the top of the stairs. The guests cheered and clapped at her entrance.

The Doctor was frozen in thought by the interruption. He knew that voice. It sent a cold chill of unavoidable fear down his spine. There was only one person he knew of who had power over him such as that. He glanced towards the sound of her voice hoping he was very wrong about the thoughts invading his mind.

“I’ll be your host this evening,” she continued, descending the stairs. “But you may call me... the Mistress.”

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vampiremonday · 5 years ago

Note

TV series ask meme: Doctor Who

send me a tv series and I’ll tell you:

my all-time ultimate fave character: I’m not sure I have a favorite, but I have clung to Clara harder than any of the others. I like all the companions I’ve seen much of, some more than others, but she was the one who makes me think the most. I also really love Martha and Rose. I guess those three are my favorites, but it depends on what we’re talking about.

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: River Song. I understand some of the criticisms of her, but she grew on me to the point that I would say I like her.

a character I used to like but now don’t: I never liked her to begin with, but the original portrayal of Cassandra in 1x02 makes my skin crawl a bit because of the transphobia involved now that I understand it, which I probably didn’t in my early years as a fan. I appreciate that the second and final portrayal of her involved showing her some empathy, which I guess was a slight rebound on that, but still. Bad taste in my mouth.

a character I’m indifferent about: Thirteen, so far, because I haven’t seen her or her companions??? And I guess that I was just kind of put off by the very hamfisted pop-feminist marketing angle they went for. Like, the fact that the Doctor wouldn’t be opposed to regenerating as a woman had been foreshadowed since Eleven, so I don’t really think that we needed Simm!Master being made even more arbitrarily sexist than he already was (which was enough and made some kind of sense character-wise) and Twelve and co being all ~the future is female~ in the text of the show. I mean, I guess hedging your bets against idiot dudebros who can’t read the writing on the wall. But yeah, I hope to… one day enjoy some Thirteen but for various reasons including the way the marketing just made me feel blank about something I thought I would otherwise be intrigued by, I haven’t gotten around to it.

a character who deserved better: Martha Jones the mostest. Also, Danny Pink. Ianto Jones (Torchwood). Also Owen and Tosh but especially Tosh. Probably a bunch of other episodic characters, including that Family of Blood whom the Doctor went full wrathful-Eldritch-god on. Oh, and Donna Noble.

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: Doctor/Donna as a romantic thing. There are others I’ve seen that I’m indifferent to or put off by, but that one is one that I can sympathize with the urge to ship but just… can’t.

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: Honestly since I’ve liked Doctor Who for over a decade, this is a hard question to answer. Doctor/Rose was one of my first ships as a teenager that I really understood in a fannish way, but over time the fire about it has cooled somewhat for me. I like it still, but I feel like over time I stopped being as OTP~ about it. So Doctor/Rose is a mainstream ship that I really like when presented in certain ways. Clara/Danny broke my heart. I liked Amy/Rory as they matured, and “together or not at all” made me really happy even if I was iffy about the early execution. I still tear up a little at the musical piece from that scene. And… uh… I am forever transfixed by Doctor/Master | Missy and Doctor (especially Twelve) & Clara and might be persuaded to ship it under certain circumstances. See, I can’t choose, but I guess if I had to it would be one of the last two. Oh, and it’s pretty much bits and pieces except on the Torchwood side, but one of my favorite rarepairs in the world is Jack Harkness/Martha Jones and I would’ve endgamed it so hard had Torchwood S3 ever existed.

a cute, low-key ship: Jenny/Vastra? I’m mostly pretty “oooh I can’t decide” about choosing ships and favorites, but in this case I was pretty, like, on-board with it. I wrote a fic one time which is more than I can say for even ships I’ve been more into. Doctor/River wavers between “I accept it” and being low-key to very occasional bursts of Strong Feelings that would put it in the above-category.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: Jack Harkness/Martha Jones.

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: The sexist, dehumanizing elements of the episodic romance in Love and Monsters have aged really badly. At first, I didn’t really fully understand why so many people hated it so much, but I get it now, even though I liked the underlying concept for that episode a lot. I also have a lot of discourse-y opinions about why, while I enjoyed some of it and rooted for Ianto and Jack both to be happier, together or apart, that I really don’t like Jack/Ianto endgame and/or it being treated like this Epic Romance when it really only became Epic because Ianto died horribly. I would just prefer to ignore CoE (I have never watched it) and endgame ship them with other people. But this is a sin to people who are major Janto shippers, and I support you! I just… don’t personally… jive with it. It felt like Ianto settling for me and then getting killed for it.

my favourite storyline/moment: The whole narrative throughline involving the Doctor, Clara, and Missy in S8 and S9. It really played with the whole “the bad guy is right” and “who is the bad guy” in a way that never became so nihilistic I couldn’t stomach it, and in fact led to Missy’s redemption, which is hitting all of my happy buttons.

a storyline that never should have been written: The ending of Love & Monsters (the stupid kids-show-write-in-monster resulting in a woman being a tile that performs oral sex for the rest of her lifespan is bad but didn’t have to be like that). I’m really bitter about The Girl in the Fireplace even though there are parts of it that I have grown to be at peace with. I still would probably be happier if the episode mysteriously vanished from memory. That bizarre thing with the Daleks in business suits and something about pigs? I hate The God Complex, like, a lot. I only ever watched it once and am afraid to try and stomach it again. And there are others I’m just indifferent about or have mixed feelings about, but those are my axes to grind. Interesting how, at this point, most of my gripes happened in the RTD era, though The Girl in the Fireplace was entirely the result of then-Moffat’s textual criticism on how stupid it would be for the Doctor to fall in love with a common girl. Probably my favorite episodes in S1 are actually the ones that involve the Slitheen, but I hate the fatphobia and fart-joke-heavy aspects of those as aliens. Would tweak the actual threat, though the writing of the overall story feels like some of the best in early Doctor Who revival to me?

my first thoughts on the show: The first episode I ever saw was The Idiot’s Lantern, and I really understood nothing about it except that it was science fiction, a revival, and something a British friend watched every Saturday. I was perplexed, but intrigued. Then I caught random smatterings of episodes over the rest of my Christmas break, and by the time I saw The Christmas Invasion on Christmas, I was in love and given a new lease on hope. I had just gone through a personal trauma, and it really helped me to feel something about anything again, and S3 and Simm!Master’s role really helped me grapple with what I’d been through and feel empowered enough to survive.

my thoughts now: I always tell people that I’m kind of indebted to Doctor Who for my life. And I feel like that’s true. My emotional involvement with it varies a lot, depending on when you’re talking to me, but it’s a comfort-attachment for sure. There are certain lines or scenes from it that form some of the foundation of my personality, when I manage to have one. I think it is at its best when it is showing love for what it is: healing, restorative, and revolutionary, but on the other side of the coin, cruel, dangerous, and destructive. I think its engagement with questions about the nature of love and responsibility toward one’s fellow-living-things is when it is the most fun. I haven’t really interacted with it as much since Clara left. I have seen about half of Bill’s episodes, the missing chunk being the middle of S10, and I’ve seen nothing after that. I will one day, probably.

#doctor who #stargazerdaisy #answered ask

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annakie · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on a DW Rewatch & Mass Effect replay.

So I’m in the Eleven / Clara half-season now.

Also I’m now replaying Andromeda. I have thoughts, about both. I’ll start with Doctor Who then label it when I get to Mass Effect stuff.

Oh my God this gets long and rambly. Apparently, I have a lot of thoughts.

So, season 702... I’m ready for it to be over. I miss the Ponds. I felt like most of the first half of this season was pretty great, honestly. I’d forgotten how fun some of those episodes were, I think at the time we were anticipating a new companion so heavily that it was harder to appreciate those episodes? I feel like there was a lot of criticism levied towards them that now I felt like was a bit too much. The western episode was kinda meh but still not bad.

I’m not sure what exactly it is about these Clara / Eleven episodes that I’m still not connecting with but I’m in the middle of the Crimson Horror episode (which is a Vastra/Jenny/Strax heavy episode and enjoying it more than anything else so far this half-season.

*edit later* NOPE NOPE NOPE I’D FORGOTTEN HOW THE DOCTOR FORCES A KISS ON JENNY. GROSS. SUPER GROSS. SHE’S A MARRIED WOMAN, A LESBIAN AND DID NOT CONSENT TO ANY OF THIS. BAD DOCTOR, BAD.

Honestly even with some excellent guest start acting, the Russian Submarine episode was STILL a slog and the ghosts in the 1950′s episode no better. Like they still weren’t ridiculous and unwatchable but... just didn’t feel fun or interesting at all? The Journey to the Center of the TARDIS episode was decent, and I felt like that wasn’t nearly as cool as it should have been..

I remember reading a criticism of these episodes early on where they said that the biggest fault is that they failed to give Clara any real characterization or solid personality other than “girl the Doctor is obsessed with”. She’s SUPER IMPORTANT but not only do we not know why at this point but it really doesn’t feel... earned? I don’t recall it ever feeling earned that Clara was supposedly always so important? “The most importantest companion EVAR!”

And as someone who stanned the hell out of a character who was hated in the fandom for “replacing” a previous companion I’m checking myself to make sure it’s still not because I Miss the Ponds. Like, I don’t HATE Clara, I just, at least at this point in the rewatch, can’t find any reason to really LOVE her? She’s there, she’s fine, Jenna-Louise Coleman is doing a great job with what they’re giving to her but... I don’t know. It all feels... off.

I had forgotten all about the “the Doctor rides a motorcycle up the side of a skyscraper” moment and something hit me in that moment that made me remember that wow people hated that moment. It felt really... shark-jumpy somehow.

I love Eleven, but this half-season isn’t connecting with me, AT ALL. It feels like the writers just went and dug through a bunch of rejected script ideas, polished them up and were likle “let’s just do this until Matt Smith is gone.” I’m anxious to get to Twelve.

Mass Effect Stuff

OK TECHNICALLY I haven’t finished ME3. I still need to do the party and the goodbye scene, (Citadel Epiloge Mod installed) but I’ve gotten all the Stuff and done all the missions in the arena. I just wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet, so I started Andromeda a bit early.

-----------------

OK look I had a point I wanted to make and never quite got where I wanted to go with it right here. I’m too tired of trying to fix it, so this stands as written.

This playthrough had me ruminating a lot on Kaidan and Garrus. I really love both of those characters, though in my heart I’ll always primarily love Kaidan, I’ve done the Garrus romance and wouldn’t mind playing that character again to see the romance one more time. In ME1, I bring Kaidan everywhere all the time, and pick which other companion I bring to the story-based missions based on what I know is gonna happen like I’m sure most people do. Wrex for Therum, Tali for Feros (though I REALLY wish you could switch before going to see the Thorian), Liara for Noveria, Ashley on Virmire, Garrus for Ilos/Endgame. I rotate through all five for sidemissions.

In ME2, Garrus is my always-bring companion, with Garrus + Miranda being my favorite team. Except after the Omega relay, where characters with Throw really shine with all those husks running at us, Jack holds the bubble, and Miranda and Thane, who both have Warp to help take down the Reaper Baby, are the preferred team. Also so Miranda can tell TIM to fuck off.

Then in ME3, once the game opens up, Garrus is back on the perma-team, with a preference towards bringing Liara along... until we get Kaidan back. And then I realized I didn’t bring him to a single thing except a side mission or two until Earth. Mostly, this is because I’m following the Kaidan Banter guide and it turns out Garrus is a real banter hog for most of the missions. At leat he’s not James, who I literally never use unless I’m going on an N7 mission and feel bad that I haven’t taken him off the Normandy in awhile. I mean, even Javik gets more play. Also EDI doesnt leave the Normandy til near the end when all of a sudden she gets real important.

But Garrus is always on the team for Priority Earth. And that always felt like the way the main game should end, with your two favorites. (Also what kind of monster wouldn’t bring Wrex to the combat-centric areas of Citadel DLC? I keep thinking I should have runs where I bring other people but... Wrex is my other fave and we don’t get him with us AT ALL since ME1.)

I love Garrus, so much. And I was thinking with this whole parallel DW rewatch / Mass Effect replay think I’m doing right now how both Rose Tyler and Garrus Vakaraian are characters that were ruined for me for awhile due to their respective... overly enthusiastic fanbases who a small percentage of were dicks to people who loved other characters. The Kaidan tag (and from what I understand Thane got some of this too, but not nearly as bad) was a pretty hostile place for awhile (and yeah I used to check the Garrus tag too and there was a small amount of tag-invasion there but uh, like 5% of what the Kaidan tag got) which made loving the character of Garrus a lot harder for awhile. But when actually watching seasons 1 & 2 / the end of 4 of DW, or actually playing the games, those characters are awesome.

Fanbases can be amazing or terrible, and time and time again I think you start to realize that no matter how great a fandom is, there are going to be a few people who can only enjoy themselves by feeding on drama, or on lifting up what they love by stomping on other people/characters/plotlines. Going back through my blog reminded me that even the TAH fandom had some of this, with a small percentage of fans being real dicks to two prominent female characters in favor of their favorite ship, which soured even that just a tiny bit.

It’s not fair to characterize everyone who loves a popular thing as someone who does this. It’s also hard to avoid completely because there will always be jerks, or young/new people who don’t realize what bad form they’re showing. I did learn by trying to fight it for a year or two, that responding might help that one person not do it again, but it’s not going to stop overall. Maybe yelling a lot about Martha Jones did change some people’s minds. It still isn’t that good of a look now, even knowing that in general I was pretty polite and logical about it. I might respond to an odd comment now and again in some favorite character tags, but in general, turns out that kind of fight just isn’t worth it.

And those fights seem so stupid in the light of everything else happening in the world today.

Anyway, don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.

-----------------------

I also wanted to say, and I know I said it in a few other posts about this ME3 playthrough, but seriously I cannot believe how much ME3 is a changed game because of the modders. I cannot imagine ever playing ME3 again without these mods. There were so many small things that I kept thinking I should take note of to talk about and I’m sure I forgot 90% of them, but there’s things like... adding in mentions of the Andromeda Initiative, closing a few plotholes, mentioning Emily Wong, adding in many more Spectre console options which end up having their own plotlines, adding in an entire plotline about the VI civilization that had previously only been talked about in like, social media or Cerberus News Network posts, having the Normandy be so much more populated, seeing so many more other species on the Citadel with more variety in clothing for those species that have clothing / could have more variety, way more female Turians.... every time I play ME3 the game is more and more like the game we wanted when it came out.

I am kind of itching to go back and replay it even now.

But hey, instead, its time to talk about Andromeda.

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So first of all, yes, mods for Andromeda. A few appearance mods, a lot of convenience mods.

After having recently played DA:I and I think Andromeda and DA:I are a lot more similar than Andromeda and the previous trilogy, I had decided it was time to cut down on the stupid stuff Andromeda does, like “Oh, you want minerals? Spend 10 minutes in each mining zone finding the PERFECT place to gather materials or you’re fucked” No, thanks. I’ll mine but give me that “one probe placed anywhere and you’re done” mod.

Make the modifications and crafting materials I use actually matter. 2% damage increase is nothing. Make my squadmates not suck because I remember doing 90% of the work myself before and that got exhausting with the number of spawns.

I tried to not go overboard so things feel like cheating, but there’s enough out there to just get rid of the stupid stuff, and it’s nice. And works together a lot easier than the DA:I mods did.

One thing I did do was install the Multiple Romance Mod. I enjoyed it in DA:I, even though ultimately I only did 2 full romances. I am **NOT** romancing Gil or Cora with the mod, I just wanted to experience all the content available for female Ryders at once, since I’m not going to have the energy to replay this 100+ hour game enough times to see every romance on its own. So I am poly-romancing Liam, Jaal, Vetra, Suvi, Peebee, Keri, and if it lets me, Reyes when it’s time.

I’ve only gotten all the way through Andromeda once (where I romanced Liam) My second playthrough was right after my first and stalled out about halfway through (was romancing Jaal.) It was one of those “I’m totally gonna get back to this! (She didn’t.)” things. I’m gonna be honest, I enjoyed the Liam romance and was enjoying the Jaal romance, I’d done a fling with Reyes but not the full romance my first time through and the fling with PeeBee on my second. Reyes was probably my favorite out of all of them. So this time I decided.. let’s see which I love the most, all at once. I don’t know if I’ll do this in the future, but this game is too long to not see all the content I wanna see, TBH.

And you know, I still really do like Andromeda. It’s a GOOD game. And I’m forever going to be mad that we’re not going to see how this story ends. This story deserved to finish being told. Like, there are a lot of very legit criticisms about Andromeda, but it didn’t deserve the harshness it got. And the worst thing about it, and DA:I both is that... there’s just a little TOO MUCH of it. 100 hours is an amazing amount of game but... it’s also just too much. For now I’m not trying to 100% this playthrough. My plan is on each planet to get the planet to 100%, take out the Kett or whatever major base, the Remnant Architect, and yeah probably clear out the sidequests that show up on the map, but fuck quests that are like “visit random Kett camps until you find the right datapads that don’t show up on the map!” or “scan random blobs in the forest that don’t show up on the map!”

So like, do the content, not the filler.

I still hate the vaults. The first one is cool. The rest are tedious. But they’re mandatory.

I love everyone on this spaceship though. They did the Tempest stuff SO WELL. All the companions I think are... good? There’s no one I don’t like, even the non-squadmate shipmates ship have so much interaction and so much to do/say. It’s not like “a bunch of randos and Joker, with occasional appearances by Chakwas and the Engineers” There’s no randos, it’s just a few people you have real interactions with, and its great.

The lack of enough beds in the bedroom will never not annoy me. There’s 4 beds for... Lexi, Liam, Cora, Suvi, Kallo, Vetra and Gil? Even if Liam slept on his couch, and Vetra put a bed in her supply room... still doesn’t add up. What, do Salarains not sleep or something? Does Lexi sleep in a medical bed?!? Peebee sleeps in the escape pod, Jaal brings a bed with him, and Drack’s like “Eh I’ll just sleep in the kitchen”. WHAT? THE KITCHEN?

I mean sure there weren’t enough beds, even with the sleeper pods, on the Normandy either, but somehow that was less disturbing.

Also, I know you’re supposed to HATE Director Tann but I love Kumail Nanjiani so I find it hard to be a total dick to him, even if he usually deserves it. If he wasn’t an anti-Krogan racist I think it’d be easier to like him. He was thrown into a pretty shitty situation and... did actually hold things together for some time. He’s not doing anything out of malice. He’s a dick, but also doing what he needs to do to keep the Initiatiave going. Oh, except for being a anti-krogan racist. (Honestly, I also think “until he turned Cerberus Udina was just doing his job pretty well” too, so...)

Taking some screenshots as I go. I mostly just take screenshots for me now. I have a few thousands screenshots from a dozen or more games rotating through my desktop background, and I keep adding to it, and love it.

Anyway, I’ve gotten Eos, Voeld and Havral to 100%. Time to go save the Moeshe. I’m having fun.

*edit from later* I’d forgotten that... idk if the dialog they recorded for Jaal was the first thing they recorded for him or they used a different VA or what but on the Save the Moshe mission his voice is VERY DIFFERENT and oh man, that is still bad.

Might take a break for when Onslaught comes out for SWTOR, though. I haven’t really played SWTOR in months. Oops.

#personal post tag thingy #annakie's mass effect stuff #doctor who stuff #hey this gets REAL RAMBLY sorry not sorry

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dalekofchaos · 6 years ago

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What I love and hate About Moffat’s Doctor Who

Much like I did for RTD’s Era, I will be listing my What I love and hate about Moffat’s Doctor Who.

What I love

Eleven. Ten will forever be my Doctor but Eleven has a special place in my heart! I will always remember him in my heart, I will cherish the memories I had that he was The Eleventh Doctor, I will always remember his epic sense of fashion, his triumphs and sad moments, his eccentric childishness both as him and as a way to trick you and then you realize Eleven is truly terrifying. I will always remember Eleven as The Doctor!

Twelve. I love Twelve. He may have had some poorly written episodes given to him, but Capaldi still handled it like the professional he is. Twelve brought back the sternness of One and the dark manipulator of SevenI Capaldi’s ability to portray the extremes of human emotion make him, perhaps, one of the most skilled and diversely talented actors to take on the role. One of the most joyously mesmerising facets of Capaldi's interpretation of the role is the level of sincerity and gravitas with which he approaches every scene - it doesn't matter if the Doctor is being funny, Capaldi plays the Doctor with a sense of naturalism and realism which has breathed new life into the part. While Smith and Tennant each had a wonderful sense of humour in the role, Peter has taken the opportunity to play the straight-man when it comes to scenes involving a degree of comedy, making the Doctor all the more funny for it. I also love Twelve because I liked the fact that his sheer introduction brought back the idea that older actors (and now actresses) can play the character. Having been a lifelong fan himself, Capaldi would have accepted the role knowing full well that his life would never be the same again. Aside from this willing acceptance of the renown that comes with the role, Peter seems to be one of the warmest and most genuine actors to adopt the guise of the Time Lord. He regularly speaks warmly and at length of the entire history of the programme, not just the series since he joined. His knowledge and passion for the shown and it's fans is truly moving as Capaldi is regularly warm and inviting to those fans that speak to him in the street. Some actors can be somewhat short with their fans, especially if they're having a tough day, but Peter seems to be welcoming and charming regardless of the circumstances. In short, he's nothing shy of the perfect ambassador for the show. The Doctor was indeed in safe hands and we will miss Peter dearly.

Moments like The end scene of Vincent And The Doctor and Twelve’s brilliant anti-war speech in The Zygon Inversion.

Amy Pond and Rory Williams I loved Amy and Rory. Amy Pond is an incredibly layered, wonderful, and flawed character. She is brave and independent, she is scared of abandonment and commitment, she is rude and yet compassionate. She has a knack for creative problem-solving and can make connections other people can’t, whether it is realising the truth about the star whale or figuring out how to defeat the Weeping Angel.She has had a difficult life, but Amy is always changing and growing, as she holds onto the contradictory pieces that make up her own histoy. We watch her learn to love and to trust. We see her struggling with keeping up with both her travels with the Doctor and the normal life she comes to value. She experiences joy and loss and she just lives, passionately.What is so exceptional about Amy’s ending isn’t that she chooses Rory; she likely would have made the same choice two seasons earlier. But for the first time it feels like a decision that she can be happy with. Because she no longer is “the girl who waited” - and the Doctor didn’t keep her from growing up, he just became part of her story to get there. Rory is awesome. He’s one of my favorite companions ever, despite being on and off at times because of small things like being dead. Rory is smart, cool, actual husband material, and he keeps The Doctor humble. I adore their relationship. Amy and Rory loved each other. Their relationship is what made series 5 and 6 great. Beautiful soulmates and The Ponds are beautiful. I think my favorite part about the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory’s time together was the fact that most of the other companions in New Who were always talked down to. Not that the Doctor didn’t respect them. He did, immensely. But he was always the one to explain something, always the one looking smart, always the leader, always the one saving the day. But in the case with the Doctor, Amy, and Rory, the Ponds were the ones figuring things out and saving the day while the Doctor tripped as he tried to simultaneously put on a bowtie and eat a fishstick. And that’s beautiful.

Clara Oswald Clara Oswald is a perfectly ordinary sweet natured girl, who’s compassionate and caring, who has shown herself to be quite independent on several occasions, who takes care of children simply because she knows perfectly well what they are going through, and saved the Doctor on so many occasions just out of the goodness of her heart. Clara Oswald is a scared but very clever girl, who becomes very good at playing the most dangerous of situations to get advantage and gets addicted to that thrill. From the beginning, she parallels the Doctor, with her whole era basically being a female Doctor origin story.

Bill Potts. Bill was wonderful. Finally, a companion who is not a forced plot device, Bill is finally a companion who is special just because The Doctor considers her special cause she’s The Doctor’s friend. Bill is a proud gay woman of color. Her introduction is brilliant, hella adorkable, Has immense respect for the Doctor without ever defining herself around him like so many other companions, strong and stands up to him without ever seeming condescending or ‘you may be the Doctor but I know you better than you know yourself’ and all the slapping him. The Doctor and Bill have the healthiest Doctor/Companion dynamic. Has a clear inferiority complex but never takes it out on the people around her. Her first reaction to seeing depressed Heather is to sit down and ask her what’s wrong, because that’s what she feels is right. Basically so incredibly kind and selfless to everybody. I love Bill so much

The Paternoster Gang. Anytime Vastra, Jenny and Strax are on screen, it’s instantly gold. A trio of associates to the Time Lord who didn't have hokey origins or contrived resurrections. They emerged fully formed and unexplained; Vastra was a lizard serial killer, Jenny was her servant/lover and Drax made some funny jokes about not being able to understand human biology.

Missy Michelle Gomez was so deliciously and hammy evil. I loved every moment she was on screen, it’s a shame The Doctor Falls ruins it. In her first two appearances she was firmly established herself as a force to be reckoned with. Suffice to say, you wouldn't want to meet this renegade Time Lord in a dark alley. She'd sing "Oh Missy you're so fine" and then obliterate you on sight. After taking a selfie with you, of course. Plus Missy always looks her best when she’s ready to destroy the world! When she gets her lipstick out, you know that something rather unfavourable is about to hit the timey-wimey fan. Anyone can kill someone but it takes a special sort of person to do it with as much attitude as Missy. After all, if you're not going to zap someone to death looking your best, you might as well not do it at all. It's rule one, guys. Though I do wish they just called her The Master. If Moffat doesn’t think she couldn’t keep calling herself The Master, I’m pretty sure he’d rename Thirteen The Nurse.

Simm!Master’s glorious return! Simm!Master returned and it was perfect! It was both what the fans of Classic Master wanted and what Simm wanted. John Simm always wanted to play a dark and evil Master, it was RTD who wanted Simm to play a dancing and giggling lunatic who acted like Frank Gorshin’s Riddler on crack. Pure and utter hatred for The Doctor and no regard for anyone but himself. Absolutely glorious. It’s just a shame that Simm!Master will not return and an even bigger shame that the surprise of Simm!Master’s return was spoiled by the trailer and bad make up and inability to hide Simm’s voice.

The Guest episodes in RTD’s era and the new monsters. All the guest episodes are great. Moffat is good at writing monsters. Moffat is responsible for creating the best monsters in New Who. The Weeping Angels, The Empty Child, Vashtra Narada and The Silence were all good. The sad part is Moffat is good at writing guest episodes.

What I hate

Plots that go nowhere and abandoning established ideas for his plots and just making up as he goes along. Moffat tends to introduce plots and either never intends to go back or explain them or abandons them altogether. In series 5, it’s introduced that Th Alliance, a group of The Doctor’s worst enemies all worked together to put The Doctor in the Pandorica, who brought them altogether, when and how are they joined together and when are they gonna return? Never brought up again....Okay? When we all heard “Silence Will Fall” it gave us a sense of wanting more. And in the series 5 when River went to Amy’s house in The Pandorica part 1 ending, I saw Omega symbols everywhere. This led me to believe that Omega is tied into the cracks in the universe and The Silence and maybe we would see Omega in series 6 and maybe The Silence were created by Omega. It never happens. The Silence are a religious order. It STILL could’ve worked because there were STILL Omega symbols all over in A Good Man Goes To War. And once again, nothing, I don’t know if Omega was ever planned to return but something was dropped. Moving on. I thought that the reason why The Doctor’s name was shown to be this terrible thing in New Who is because The Doctor used his real name to Timelock The Time War and saying it would unleash The Time War on the universe and...his name is dropped like it’s nothing. The Silence with a flip of a hat decide to join The Doctor despite it being their goal to kill him because...reasons. So glad that was resolved so easily. How did The Doctor and Clara escape The Doctor’s timestream? Never addressed. John Hurt’s character. I always thought he was gonna be The Other considering the 50th was coming up and it might be the Cartmel Masterplan. He’s a Doctor between 8 and 9 and was the one who fought in the Time War? Okay. Okay when Missy started appearing and when she talked about Clara “I chose you well” I got the hint that who this big bad was, that she created Clara to use against The Doctor, this led me to believe that Missy was The Rani. “Oh she’s the Master, but instead of calling her The Master we call her Missy now”....kay? The Master chose their name like The Doctor, I’m pretty sure they would not change it because The Master changed genders, but whatever. The Hybrid. Something so horrible that The Doctor left Gallifrey “it was The Doctor and Clara” are you fucking kidding me? Oh it gets better, The Doctor doesn’t even care that he found Gallifrey, all he wanted was Clara back despite Clara being content with dying. No seriously you fucking asshole, you wasted my fucking time with either dropped storylines or shit you made up cause we all fucking know you did not know what you were doing.

River Song The issue with River Song is she is simply an awful character. River stokes The Doctor’s PTSD really bad. She is a character forced upon both the audience and The Doctor. River is a character who kills at the drop of the hat and makes a Dalek scream for mercy. Yeah, call me old fashioned but showing mercy to a Dalek is more compelling. She encourages The Doctor to kill, and reveres him as some untouchable genocidal god, and constantly pushes herself onto him sexually, even though he pulls away. River Song is Steven Moffat’s Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. And there’s the fact that River is predatory. If it was a male character constantly coming on to the much physically younger female character, and being naked and doing so despite being asked not to do that like.... people would have freaked out and called River out for being a predator and had a fit, but because she's an older female and he's a younger bodied male this is... somehow badass and empowered? Oh and let’s not forget the fact that River is somehow part Time Lord? Being born in the fucking TARDIS does not make you part Time Lord. Jesus fucking christ, JENNY is more Time Lord, at least that makes more sense. And the revelation that River is Amy and Rory’s daughter makes no sense. Rory was erased from existence. How can River still be their daughter if Rory died at that point? But moving on. I hate that she is used as a plot device. Oh, by the way she can fly the TARDIS, and oh by the way, she can flipping regenerate. I’m sorry, but River Song should, by NO means, be able to regenerate. She pops in to get the Doctor in and out of trouble and then disappears to who-knows-where/sometimes prison. And fixed points in time? Excuse me? No. I mean, really. That was absurd. Special rules do not apply to her. Moffat is just trying to make her look cool and I am not sacrificing good writing for image. River Song is a sociopath whose entire life revolves around The Doctor, there is not ONE SINGLE decision she has made for herself. She goes around with a gun, shooting things, causing genociide and we’re meant to believe the Doctor is actually ok with that? Giving her a gun does not make her a strong, independent woman. It makes her a sociopath with a gun. Her smugness annoys me to no end. Fucking spoilers. Fucking hello sweetie. Her sensuality is forced. She has no chemistry with Matt Smith. Her line in the wedding of River Song. I’ll suffer if I kill you-more than the entire universe-yes. How selfish can she get? She is constantly rubbing in her knowledge in not only the Doctor’s face but the companions. It’s like when Moffat took over he wanted to one up RTD so he made River who lets everyone know how awesome she is, how well she knows the doctor, how she can fly the Tardis so well (you turned the “handbrake” off, congratulations) She has no reactions to her parents dying. And finally she is meant to be this brainwashed sociopath who exists to kill the doctor and in the space of literally 30 seconds she changes her mind. A lifetime of brainwashing and trauma and pain and she gets over it in 30 seconds. Like I said, I shit you fucking not River Song is Moffat’s Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. And yes, the marriage. It was forced. The Doctor flat out states that he doesn’t want to marry her and she pressures him into it because it’s the only way she’ll let him touch her. If there is any kind of pressure, blackmail or abuse to get someone to marry another person, the marriage is forced. The Doctor was absolutely pressured into participating because not participating would’ve ended the universe. Here’s the difference between Rose Tyler and River Song. Rose Tyler was a character who existed and had a romance with the Doctor. There was NO love at first sight. it was not Predestined, or anything like that; it was just some crazy old alien being like “oi, you wanna go and see all of time and space?” and rose was all, “yeah, why not!” and they were BEST MATES FIRST. they were just two best mates flying around in their stolen TARDIS, having a laugh, and then when the Stakes Were Raised rose kind of went - oh fuck. i love him. and the doctor went - oh fuck. i love her. it was just a natural, mutual caring and it was just two nerds, both of whom would raise HELL for the safety of the other while saving the universe together. River Song was a character who existed TO have a romance with the Doctor. We are instantly told, not shown by the first meeting that River is important to The Doctor. Someone The Doctor would give his screwdriver to and tells her his name. And eventually they meet again and she kills and The Doctor is okay with it...for reasons. No one ever bats an eye that another genocide happens, but whatever. “Never be cruel or cowardly” apparently The Doctor overlooks why he chose his title when River is around. Honestly, The Doctor would never fall in love with someone who would risk THE ENTIRETY OF SPACE AND TIME because she didn’t want to kill him, i.e. river. he would NOT love someone like that, much less he would certainly not marry her because of it. Okay. Why is River the only one who knows The Doctor’s name? You might say that River does have a life outside The Doctor cause she’s an archaeologist, yes, but that is barely shown. What do we really know about River? Even though she’s not consistently characterized, we do see that she’s violent, crazy, arrogant, overly sexual, sassy, and even bossy. Not much is known about her that makes us actually love her except that we are supposed to love her because of the Doctor. If I could change River’s character, it would be this. River should have been like a future companion who was mentored by The Doctor. Like Seven mentored Ace. In which he becomes like a father to River. She is hateful to him at first because of the conditioning done to her by The Silence. The Doctor saves her from herself and makes her a better person and slowly mentors her, I kind of got that impression when she told Rory about herself in The Impossible Astronaut. I would have prefered a father/daughter relationship more than a romantic one. And River getting over trying to kill the doctor in just one episode (Let’s Kill Hitler) didn’t really take advantage of the weapon turned companion plot, and it was such a waste! It’s so frustrating how much potential there was there to really tell a story, and instead they just rushed it and made it into a nonsensical mess, rushed into a mystery and rushed into a forced romance. And we will never be free of River, as long as Moffat guest writes for Doctor Who, River will always be there. Even when she is being sent to her death, River Song’s presence is forced upon us in series 10 and no matter how much we want her to go away, River will never leave. Fuck Moffat for forcing River on us.

Moffat’s perception of The Doctor. Moffat sees The Doctor as this angsty vengeful authoritarian god. The Doctor is important because They are the one being trying to make a positive impact in the universe not because they’re a god/angel/cosmic authority/vengeful deity

The Doctor’s Name. Since when does the Doctor’s name matter so much? He chose his own name, Doctor, for a reason. It stands for everything he believes in. and that’s what matters, not his birth name, they weren’t gonna do the Carmel Masterplan, so it really doesn’t matter. Furthermore, how could the Doctor’s name bring about the end of the universe? I just…I don’t understand? I’m really trying to and I can’t, because it makes no sense. Before Steven Moffat took over, The Doctor wasn’t this prophesied space messiah that all the evil beings in the universe were hell-bent on destroying because they knew that his name had catastrophic properties. Never explained why and all mentions of why his real name is important is thrown away, thus once making something built up entirely pointless.

The Silence Genocide. Here’s the difference between how genocide is presented with the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. The Ninth Doctor has the opportunity to destroy the Dalek Emperor’s fleet with the delta wave generator, but it would be at the cost of the humans and Jack on the game station. He couldn’t bring himself to commit genocide a second time, he would choose to be coward over a killer anyday. With Ten, he had no choice but to destroy the Racnoss and commit genocide, but he was ashamed of himself. The Silence had been on earth for thousands of years and had influenced human history and helped get humanity to the moon. One of them killed a human. The Doctor sanctioned a genocide of an entire race with a smile on his face and turned on by his psychopathic future forced wife(jesus I wish I was making this up) and the humans just go along with it, The Doctor might as well have just told Cletus to burn a cross on The Silence’s yard. What was The Silence’s crime exactly? furthering Man's achievements? I can only assume that no one knows about the killing of Joy in the toilets, but if the Doctor did its a bit harsh to wipe out a whole race because of the actions of one. I mean, holy shit we have a jail that is capable of holding aliens established in the beginning of the episode and apparently killing them all instead of holding them all away is preferable.

Apparently sexual assault is funny if a woman forces herself on a man. If someone forces themselves on you without your consent, it is assault. It happened with Amy(while she was on her way to being married), it happened with River, it happened with Clara, it happened with Tasha Lem, and it happened with Missy. It was not funny in absolutely any time, yet this immature fucking jackass always plays assault for laughs. If this were an older man forcing himself on a younger woman, there would be outrage. and the creepery of women who meet fully grown men as little girls falling hopelessly in love with that same grown man, usually throwing themselves at him and forcibly advancing on him. And him sexualizing them when they're adults when literally like 5 minutes ago for him they were children, it’s really vile.

Moffat’s inability to break the New Who companion formula with Clara. When we were first introduced to Oswin Oswald, I sincerely thought we were finally getting a new type of companion, FINALLY a companion from the future and not just another modern girl from the UK. Then Oswin was revealed to be a Dalek and she died. Sad but I thought she was a great character and I really wanted her to start traveling with The Doctor, Oswin and Eleven had great chemistry and unfortunately it was wasted potential. Next, we get Victorian Clara. Finally, a companion from the past. Her story was so great and once again good chemistry with Eleven and once again I wanted Victorian Clara to travel with The Doctor and she dies. What happens next? We are once again forced to have a “the companion must be special to travel with The Doctor plot device” and we have Clara Oswald from modern UK. Okay, fuck you. You complete and utter fucking moron. Not every goddamn companion needs to be from the modern UK. The Doctor has traveled with companions from the past, from the future and even aliens, hell, two of his companions were Cybermen. The Doctor traveling with a companion from the past or future works.

Moffat believes companions should only be female. Gee, it’s not like Ian Chesterton, Steven Taylor, Ben Jackson, Jamie McCrimmon, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Mike Yates, John Benton, Harry Sullivan Adric, Vislor Turlough, Mickey Smith, Captain Jack Harkness, Rory Williams and Danny Pink don’t exist or are important. Seriously fuck you, the male companions are just as important as the female companions.

Death always being teased but never executed upon and made ultimately pointless in the end. Rory has been dying in three fucking seasons until he actually dies in series 7. His death in series 5 was actually great. Then, when Amy and Rory ACTUALLY die in Series 7, it makes absolutely no sense and there are so many plot holes around it, it can be avoidable and The Doctor could simply just travel to a different part of the country in the TARDIS and just go back to New York on plane or car. Their death is completely avoidable and comes off as Moffat saying “He can’t save them because shut up” The Doctor let Amy and Rory go at the end of series 6. That is all you had to do. LET THEM GO, their deaths were avoidable and if you wanted to write them off, let them go. The most interesting Claras died and the last Clara died but was stupidly brought back despite the fact that Clara was content with dying. Ashildr had a great death protecting her people and of course deus ex machina technology makes her immortal. Even Heather, a girl from one episode had a good emotional death, is brought back in the finale. Bill Potts had possibly the worst possible fate. Bill was shot and everyone was shocked. Like damn, Bill is dying and the next thing we know is she is being converted into a Cybermen and who knows The Doctor is being forced to deal with the fact that he led his friend to a fate far worse than death. The emotional pain is there...and it’s ruined. Bill is fine and gets a happy ending like Clara and Ashildr. River is dead AND WE ARE STILL NOT FUCKING FREE FROM RIVER SONG! I don’t know why the fandom perceives Moffat as bad as George R.R. Martin, Moffat is a coward when it comes to death and never sticks with death, everyone HAS to come back and the deaths for every companion is undone and makes their deaths and sacrifice completely pointless. The reason Adric dying worked SO WELL is because he stayed dead and Adric’s death was a sacrifice and it worked. If Moffat was headwriter for Earthshock, I’m pretty damn sure he would find a way to undo Adric’s death. Death has no consequences in Moffat’s Who.

Until Bill Potts, every companion ALWAYS had to be special because the plot demanded it. Amy was “the girl who waited” River was River and Clara was “The Impossible Girl” no one could be special cause they are special to The Doctor, they had to be related to the plot

Day Of The Doctor was not celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who. It celebrated New Who and The Time War. It only celebrates The Time War and Moffat’s Who. It makes Not only that, it makes it black and white, it makes The Daleks the true evil of The Time War and erases the culpability of The Time Lords. Remember it wasn’t just the Daleks who were the cause of The War, it was The Time Lords themselves who started The Time War when they convinced Four to try and stop the Dalek creation in Genesis Of The Daleks, it’s very important to understand that it wasn’t black and white and make the Time Lords the innocent party. And Day Of The Doctor ignores that and ignores that Rassilon wanted to erase all life and make The Time Lords beings of higher consciousness at the cost of all life in the universe.

Mishandling The Time War itself. Throughout series 1-4 The Time War was built up as this horrible war that was so horrible that if it did not end, it would’ve destroyed life itself. The Time War NEEDED to be more than a generic Sci-Fi battle. in the novelization of the episode Rose,

The Time War was meant to be bigger and more horrifying.“this wasn’t a fight like laser guns and spaceships and explosions, this was a filthy, stinking war that changed reality itself.” Instead, it became a generic Sci-Fi action movie. Instead of the enormous time-traveling, inconceivable concept that was painted. The Time War prior to the 50th was something that we COULD NOT CONCEPTUALIZE because it was not fight like a normal war, it spanned galaxies and time. The true tragedy of it wasn’t that the Daleks were going to destroy Gallifrey or Arcadia, it was that THE DALEKS AND TIME LORDS BOTH WERE RIPPING THE UNIVERSE APART WITH THEIR WEAPONS. You cannot show that. So instead, we got shitty action movie explosions. When I got real interested about the Time War before series 6, a fan trailer showed a concept that The Daleks wanted to capture the Eye Of Harmony and insinuated that the Daleks went to war with the Time Lords to gain Gallifrey’s resources so they can gain mastery over space and time. That alone is more compelling than “Daleks just wanna exterminate the Time Lords” it was lazy writing, even more so by portraying the Time Lords as the innocent party. The Time Lords tried to get The Fourth Doctor to stop their creation and The Seventh Doctor manipulated Davros into destroying Skaro. There is no innocent Time Lords, retconning their actions throughout classic who and ignoring Rassilon and the High Council’s plans was complete and utter lazy writing. Rassilon and the High Council were as scary and menacing as the Time Lords from War Games and Rassilon was a fearsome genocidal demigod. Choosing to ignore that was seriously dumb. Let’s go over Moffat’s depiction of children of Gallifrey and how he portrays the Time Lords waging War. Ignoring the concept of looming is dumb. “children of Gallifrey” I was just so mad when I heard about this. looming made Time Lords more alien and it is an interesting portrayal of Time Lords being asexual. Ignoring that, the concept of Time Lord Children is really dumb, Time Lord children carry stuffed rabbits. Because Time Lords children = Human children. Oh wait. Then Moffat’s concept of how The Time Lords would wage war. Time Lord soldiers have helmets. Time Lord soldiers have helmets to protect them from the rubble. There is rubble. Things are burning. No, I mean things are literally burning. Things are burning because the Daleks are shooting ray guns and the Time Lords are shooting back using their super advanced … ray MACHINE guns!!!! Just to remind the audience, the Time Lords are a superior race with power over time itself. The Time Lord soldiers have walky-talkies. No really, they do. When Time Lords make art, they make it in 3 dimensions. When Time Lords make war, they make it in 3 dimensions. “Have you ever thought what it’s like to be wanderers in the Fourth Dimension?” Masters of time and you decide to make them have ray-guns? This isn’t the fucking Terminator. And also, it ignores the fact that The Doctor witnessed Gallifrey burned. The way The Time Lords were portrayed in DOTD, was just lazy.

Sonic Sunglasses. I believe that the sonic screwdriver needed a long break. It worked for Five-Seven so it would work for Twelve. I like the sonic screwdriver but I hate how they constantly made Ten and Eleven dependent on it and turned it from a time lord device that can open any door to a magic wand that can perform a deus ex machina. What happens instead of Twelve relying on his intelligence and wit? He gets a downgrade and gets himself Sonic Shades. It worked like the screwdriver, with a few added bells and whistles to justify this downgrade. One of the most noticeable problems with the glasses was that, unlike the screwdriver, their effects weren’t visible. Doctor Who is ordinarily a visual program that has always drawn attention to its colorful sci-fi/fantasy moments. Also, unlike the screwdriver they weren’t exclusive used by The Doctor, making them far less special. Clara, Ashildr and Osgood all donned the specs during the limited number of episodes in which they appeared. In series 10, the glasses committed their greatest sin. After the events in Oxygen rendered The Doctor blind, instead of having him deal with the extent of losing one’s vision, he popped on his magic glasses, thus cheapening the experience. While they didn’t restore his vision, the tech provided him with enough guidance to dramatically lessen the full extent of his blindness. Sadly, if the writers had allowed The Doctor to go 100% blind, the sheer vulnerability of such a powerful character could've made the Monk Trilogy a much stronger arc.

Hell Bent undid Clara’s sacrifice and made Day Of The Doctor completely pointless. Hell Bent STILL leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. All this mystery around The Hybrid and it was completely pointless. Gallifrey was completely wasted. We were given hope that The Doctor would see his home and his people again, but instead of The Doctor restoring Gallifrey, finding Susan, Romana, Leela and Ace again, Gallifrey is reduced to background noise and The Doctor doesn’t even care that he’s home. It was all just to bring back Clara. Clara was content on dying to save Rigsy. Clara paid for her mistakes by trying to emulate and be The Doctor. Heaven Sent was brilliant, it showed The Doctor trying to struggle without Clara, it was emotional and brilliant. Not only is her death undone and Gallifrey is reduced to background noises, Clara is rewarded by her actions by becoming a faux Doctor with a TARDIS and her own companion in Ashildr. This is the complete opposite of what should have happened. She gets rewarded for trying to become The Doctor when she shouldn’t be. She should be paying for it, that’s the whole point. Clara isn’t The Doctor, what makes her different is her primary strength and that’s why they need each other. Clara dying was the only good way to end this character and it ended up as a copout. It took her agency away and because Moffat could not let her go he had to bring her back, thus making Face The Raven and Day Of The Doctor completely pointless

Because Moffat STILL will not let River go, he has a portrait bigger than his own granddaughter’s Susan Foreman. There is no way within time and space that The Doctor will never believe River Song is more important than his own granddaughter. In my opinion, he should have picture frames of Rose, Jackie, Mickiem Jack, Martha and Donna, The Ponds and Clara along with Susan, but only River gets the big special picture. Fuck Moffat and his petty favoritism

Nardole For the majority of series 10, The Doctor was followed around by a cue-balled whiny crying cyborg known as Nardole. He first appeared in the 2015 Christmas episode with a purpose and then proceeded to just sort of hang out afterward with no discerning purpose. Then midway through series 10 in the episode Extremis, his purpose was explained. He was just a reminder that River Song is still there. We can’t be free of River no matter what and because of that we have to sit through this unbearable, annoying screaming robot. Kamelion is better than him and that should show you how bad Nardole is, but unlike Kamelion who had issues cause the robot malfunctioned and only lasted a few episodes, we suffered through the entirety of series 10 because of Nardole.

Bad make up and giving away Simm!Master in the teaser ruined the reveal. The series 10 trailer spoiled that John Simm would return as The Master at some point. However, since he didn’t appear in the first ten episodes, it became a given that’s he’d appear sometime during the two-part series finale. And while they might have been saving him for part two, it was likely they’d want to utilize him for the entire story arc. So with all that in mind, a character that looked and sounded like John Simm in heavy makeup appeared about 15 minutes into the penultimate episode, The World Enough and Time. Some viewers may have been as shocked as The Doctor and Missy were by the reveal, but it could’ve been handled better. Simm did his part by disguising his voice and mannerisms. Yet it feels like a lost opportunity with an easy enough fix, if anybody had cared. The whole thing could’ve been avoided by either not including The Master in the trailer, or by disguising Simm in even more makeup and prosthetics.

Ignoring Simm!Master’s character arc in End Of Time. I don’t like End Of Time for a majority of reasons, but even I understand that Simm!Master had an arc in End Of Time. Sure, he mostly wanted revenge for what Rassilon’s done to him, but he still saved The Doctor, he considered The Doctor’s offer and had a realization that maybe he doesn’t have to be bad. Simm!Master had sane moments in his insanity which all had in some way the Doctor involved, showing him listening, with tears in his eyes. And in The Doctor Falls, he is completely unchanged. Acts as if the character arc never happened, Simm!Master is sexist for no reason. Time Lords have no real concept of gender inequality. The Master had respect for Jo Grant, Nyssa, Tegan and Martha Jones and never harbored sexist attitude for them, he had ill feelings as an enemy, that’s it. Made to hate the Doctor so much he’d rather die than standing with him - Ignoring the fact that’s exactly what he did in The End of Time Part 2 and also the fact that the Master’s main goal over everything else was always his own survival. So he dies unredeemable, learns nothing, uncaring asshole, and completely disregards his character development in "The End of Time and all just to make Missy look good.

Missy had no reason for wanting to change and my annoyance at the name change. I don’t see or understand why Missy wanted to change. Obviously they are gonna give her a redemption story for...reasons. What are the reasons you might ask?...Shut up. Well, we obviously need her to fight her demons so why not give her absolutely no reason to want to change (except “I want my friend back” which apparently wasn’t enough reason for any other Master) I seriously do not understand why Missy would want to change. Missy/Master would want to fight a common foe with The Doctor and later betray The Doctor later and their game would go on as it always goes. Missy had no motivation, every chance The Doctor gave her, she always went back to her old ways. Missy’s “change” simply comes off as “let’s praise Missy She’s changed!! Why? Who cares. Motivation? Character development? Nuances? I can’t do that, I can only create a contrast between new and old so crass, everyone will see the change! Shut up and stop asking questions!” If Missy returns, I want them to stop calling her Missy. Call her The Master. The Master chose their name like The Doctor, I’m pretty sure they would not change it because The Master changed genders. You don’t just change that name. She can very well still call herself The Master, there is no reason why, they cannot call her The Master. Changing gender is not a reason to change the title The Master chose to be called as such as they believe they can rule and subjugate the universe. But The Master should at the very least return as a villain, despite the forced change.

The Daleks and Cybermen are misused and overpowered. The problem with the Daleks is that Moffat has no idea what he wants to do with them. This video explains it perfectly. When the Daleks returned in series 5, they returned with an awful new look but they are still the biggest threat in the universe and the emotional trauma and hatred with the Doctor is there. Then, The Daleks go away and nothing is done with them. In series 7, Asylum Of The Daleks they return. They are not treated like the unstoppable force they were once in Classic Who or in Davies’ Who or even in Victory Of The Daleks. They are instead treated like another monster of the week. It’s not a big deal for The Doctor to face them anymore, he doesn’t seem to have any kind of reaction to them still operating or prospering in the universe. So now with no explanation Skaro is apart of the universe again despite the fact that it was destroyed in Remembrance of the Daleks, there is a Dalek parliament, thousands of them exist, they have their own asylum(apparently the Daleks are too scared of their own malfunctioning Daleks) and they have death camps. Dalek death camps and The Doctor doesn’t care. Dalek death camps and The Doctor has no reaction to nor does he want to help anyone in the camps. While the execution of Evolution of The Daleks wasn’t very good, Dalek Sec was right that the purity of the Daleks would always destroy them in the end and must change if they are to survive, but that is no longer relevant. The tone of the Dalek appearances after Victory Of The Daleks shows their menace is no longer there. The Doctor goes from being enraged and consumed by grief by seeing The Daleks, to not feeling anything nor caring that the Daleks having death camps across the universe. The Rusty thing just didn’t work. The only thing that did work was the “you are a good Dalek” line. The Daleks have lost their menace and if The Doctor doesn’t care or show any fear or hatred towards them, then why should we as an audience care? As for the Cybermen. The problem is they are just the Cybus Cybermen with the symbol removed, the same monotone “DELETE” the only difference is they are too overpowered and well they are apparently Iron Man now thanks to the Nightmare In Silver all rocket boots and detachable limbs and superspeed. In Dark Water/Death in Heaven they are nothing but Missy’s slaves with no autonomy of their own rather than a true force to be feared. It hasn’t helped that more often than not, modern Doctor Who has repeatedly decided the only way to beat the Cybermen is to overwhelm them with the power of love, a trope the show falls back on far too often. What made the Cybermen scary in Classic Who is when they were first envisioned, they were meant to be a chilling extrapolation of what creators Dr. Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis saw as the future of prosthetics and cosmetic surgery, humankind chopping bits of itself until what was left was more machine than man. Only their very first incarnation, the Mondasian Cybermen has ever tangibly captured the gruesome, tragic roots that sit at the heart of the concept behind them as monsters. Tomb Of The Cybermen also showed them as a true threatening monstrosities. So when the Mondasian Cybermen do return, Bill is converted and what happens? Bill retains consciousness and apparently it’s not enough to have the Mondasian Cybermen, Moffat just HAS to bring back his overpowered Iron Man knock off Cybermen. No true and utterly terrifying new designs, just the overpowered Metallic Gary Stu Iron Man Cybus Cybermen. So as usual Moffat has a genius idea and manages to ruin it in the end.

Moffat’’s sexist garbage ruined The First Doctor in Twice Upon A Time. I have seen EVERY First Doctor serial and One is not sexist at all. I get it, the sixties were a different time, Since the First Doctor was of that era, he wanted the audience to laugh at how different things were back then. Especially with the constantly horrified reactions of Twelve at his former’s self’s behavior. So what’s the problem? Short answer, it’s because the First Doctor wasn’t like that. Not even remotely. And this is the story that takes place before One’s regeneration, apparently Moffat doesn’t care about all the character development One went through with Ian and Barbara, he just wanted bad humor that goes against One’s character just so he can appear as the better party “see? My Doctor is better than Classic Who” no, asshole, The First Doctor was not at all like that One wasn’t a walking ball of sexism, he was a curmudgeonly grumpy old space grandpa who lightened up with his first human contact, grew warmer and closer to them and learned to help rather than… eh.. smash people’s skulls with rocks.

The real problem with Moffat is that Moffat is a good writer, capable of being a great one at times, but a terrible showrunner. Steven Moffat was a man who in the beginning had some marvelous ideas, and much like another BBC writer Terry Nation. When writing scripts once or twice a year were completely brilliant, but when stretched to almost write an entire series single handed, the outcome suffered. Doctor Who used to be a show full of heart, courage, emotion, character driven, cared more about the heart of the show and character than the concept of the over-complicated plot that will eventually be dropped at the end of the series. And honestly sometimes Moffat’s fans sound like Rick And Morty fans “To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Moffat’s Doctor Who." that’s what most of y'all sound like. After watching the teaser for series 11, I am finally really excited for Doctor Who. It feels like everything it used to be, everything that made Classic and Davies’ Who great. 13 and her new friends I cannot wait and finally it feels like Doctor Who

#Doctor Who #New Who #Anti Moffat #Anti River Song #Eleventh Doctor #Twelfth Doctor #Amy Pond #Rory Williams #Clara Oswald #Missy #Simm!Master #First Doctor #Bill Potts

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years ago

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The Crimson Horror - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I really want to love The Crimson Horror. After my constant berating of his Who stories, it’s nice that Mark Gatiss has finally gone back to doing what he does best. Camp and macabre horror.

There are a lot of things to like. At first things start off really intriguing. Set in Yorkshire 1893, red corpses start showing up in the river and this so called ‘Crimson Horror’ appears to be connected to the recently opened Sweetville. A utopian community run by Mrs Gillyflower, played by Diana Rigg, and her silent partner Mr. Sweet. It’s a really great mystery that feels very reminiscent of other Victorian era Who stories, most notably The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, and a lot of the characters and plot points feel like stuff you’d find in Gatiss’ The League Of Gentlemen. This isn’t the first time Gatiss has done the Victorian era of course. His first ever Doctor Who was The Unquiet Dead during the Christopher Eccleston era, but while The Unquiet Dead felt like it was being held back due to the Doctor Who setting, The Crimson Horror seems to dive headfirst into this twisted world Gatiss has constructed. It’s still kid friendly, but there’s something really quite yucky about this episode. The corpses in the river alone should give kids nightmares, but then we also have to contend with very dark themes like eugenics, Victorian values and views of what is considered decent and moral, and domestic abuse.

The standout stars for me are Mrs Gillyflower and her daughter Ada, played by Diana Riggs’ real life daughter Rachel Stirling. Both are incredibly well written and well performed, and both are used to great effect. Mrs Gillyflower is incredibly sinister and really highlights the strict religious values of the time period. She believes that society is in decay, using her own daughter’s blindness to demonstrate this, and offers her followers salvation in Sweetville. Sold as a utopia for people to live and work, it’s actually just a front to preserve her victims for her ‘New Eden.’ (The giant gramophones playing sounds of factory noise to fool the applicants was a nice touch). It does in some ways cover the same ground as The Rings Of Akhaten in terms of its criticism of religion, but this is goes slightly further in a different direction. She’s obsessed with perfection, only accepting the best to be preserved in her glass jars (which is creepy in and of itself) and discarding the rejects into the river with the rest of what she perceives as muck. Her views are beyond horrific and her actions are truly deplorable. The scene where she coldly rejects her daughter, calling her unfit for her vision, was very uncomfortable to sit through. She ruined her own daughter’s life for her own utopian vision and then just left her on the scrapheap.

Ada is a very sympathetic character, caring for the Doctor while he’s been Crimson Horrored. However I do appreciate how they don’t take her down the innocent and naive route that you normally see with these kind of abuse stories. She may be blind and a victim of a mother’s cruelty, but she’s not in any way weak. In fact there’s more than a little bit of her mother in her. When she discovers the truth about her blindness, how it’s the result of her mother’s experiments rather than an abusive father, her fit of rage feels very similar to Gillyflower’s behaviour. And let’s not forget that while she did save the Doctor and looked after him, she also chained him up and locked him in a cell. She effectively imprisoned him for being a ‘monster’ just like how her mother imprisoned her. Of course Ada’s motives are slightly different. She’s driven more by a sense of loneliness rather than any selfish goals, and it doesn’t make her any less sympathetic. I’m glad she ended up getting a happy ending and now that she’s free of her mother’s poisonous influence, she’s free to live a life of her own and actually make friends and companions, which she couldn’t do before.

It’s these two characters and the execution of the whole mystery plot that allows me to look past some of the episode’s shortcomings. The reveal of Mr. Sweet (a Silurian parasite) clinging onto Mrs Gillyflower’s bosom was both icky and funny in equal measure, but I didn’t fully understand what the purpose of it was. Was it just providing the venom? Was it somehow influencing Gillyflower’s behaviour? What was its motivation if that was the case? And I don’t understand how a Victorian era chemist was able to build a rocket in her basement, nor how she intends to poison the entire world using one titchy bottle of venom. But as I say, the execution is so good and the characters of Gillyflower and Ada are so intriguing and engrossing that I honestly don’t mind.

Like I said at the beginning, I so desperately want to love The Crimson Horror. There’s so much good stuff in here. Unfortunately it’s all let down by the usual suspects.

Why couldn’t the Doctor have stayed Crimson Horrored throughout? Have the Paternoster Gang be the sole protagonists who just happen to discover the Doctor while they’re investigating and have to find a cure for him whilst they handle Gillyflower. Actually take the opportunity to develop the characters properly at last and give them a story outside of the Doctor. Alas, they’re still just as dull and lifeless as before. As I’ve said in the past, I’ll never understand why people like the Paternoster Gang because they don’t actually have interesting characters. Madame Vastra is boring as fuck, Jenny very quickly slips into the Moffat default of sassy dominatrix (which in Victorian times would have been scandalous), and Strax... Look I never found him funny to begin with, but even if he was amusing the first time around, he most certainly isn’t amusing now because it’s literally the same joke over and over again. Strax wants to blow something up, Vastra or the Doctor says no, Strax leaves in a huff. It’s just boring now.

In fact a lot of the humour doesn’t work in this episode. We have that journalist guy who keeps fainting every five minutes. That got old very fast. The Strax jokes, as I said, aren’t funny anymore because we’ve heard them a thousand times now. But the worst joke of all has to be when that random kid shows up to give Strax directions to Sweetville:

Strax: “What is your name?”

Kid: “Thomas sir. Thomas Thomas.”

OW! OOOOOOOOWWWWWWW! OH GOD! SOMEONE PHONE AN AMBULANCE! I THINK MY CRINGING PIPES HAVE BURST!

And the worst offenders are of course the Doctor and Clara. I’m really getting sick of their constant pissing around. It’s not in the slightest bit funny and actually distracts from some of the far darker and more emotional moments. Particularly the scenes with Ada. The scene where she kills Mr. Sweet, the source of all her torment and misery, should have been really powerful, but then it’s all ruined by Matt Smith undercutting it with humour. (Also the Doctor sexually assaults Jenny and there’s an erection gag involving the sonic screwdriver. I really wish they didn’t do that). And do we have to keep going on and on about how Clara is impossible? Unless you’re going to give us an explanation for why she’s impossible, shut the fuck up and get on with the story.

It’s frustrating because if this story featured any other Doctor and companions, I honestly wouldn’t hesitate in calling The Crimson Horror a classic. It’s easily one of the best things Gatiss has ever written for the show (it meant putting up with 8 years worth of crap from him, but we got there in the end) and it really plays to his strengths as a writer. If only we had a Doctor and a companion who was even vaguely tolerable (only 4 or 5 more episodes to go until he regenerates. Just hang on Quill. Grit your teeth and you’ll get through it).

#the crimson horror #mark gatiss #doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #clara oswald #jenna coleman #steven moffat #bbc #review #spoilers

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thenotoriousscuttlecliff · 7 years ago

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Moffat Era Rewatch: Dark Water/Death in Heaven

To save Danny Pink, the Doctor and Clara go to hell..

Warning: Spoilers Sweetie

So glad Moffat decided to go back to two-part finales. They just work so much better.

First Doctor Who episode directed by the amazing Rachel Talalay. Again, Chibs, you’re a fool if you don’t keep her on the payroll.

Love that Jenny and Vastra get their own separate post its.

“Danny, I'll never say those words again. Not to anybody else, ever.” Never say never, Clara.

How does she not hear the car hit him?

Danny forgot to splink.

RIP Danny Pink.

Why’d she change his pic?

We still don’t know Clara’s gran’s name.

“It was ordinary. People just kept walking with their iPods and their shopping bags. He was alive, and then he was dead and it was nothing. Like stepping off a bus.”

“It’s rubbish.” He’s having ‘Inferno’ flashbacks.

"Danny Pink.” "Yeah?” "Is dead.” "And?” Doesn’t even pretend to care.

“One last chance. And I don't care about the rules, I don't give a damn about paradoxes. Save Danny. Bring him back or I swear you will never step inside your Tardis again.”

This moment is somewhat spoiled by the fact they can both open the doors by snapping their fingers.

Never play games with the Doctor. Don’t ever think you are capable of that.

“Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?” Closest he has ever come to saying “I love you” to her.

This is my idea of hell, a dull, grey office where you are made to fill out lots of forms and drink shit coffee.

Okay, that’s ominous.

So was this planned from the beginning or did Missy just decide on the spot to pretend to be a robot so she can better mess with the Doctor?

The little nose kisses have to be a Michelle Gomez original.

He’d rather face every Dalek in the universe wearing nothing but his socks than go through that again.

I used to work with someone who looked exactly like Dr Chang.

“You have Wi-Fi here?” The question we will all ask when we die.

Missy and Seb arranged for Danny to meet up with the boy he killed. Wow, that is just extra level mean.

“I keep saying they should use this stuff in swimming pools." “Why?” "Think about it.” "I am thinking about it. Why?” The Doctor is one confused asexual.

“Another government inspection? So soon? Why is there all this swearing?“

“Sounds like somebody left their body to science.”

Doctor Skarosa. Doctor Skaro-sa.

“Can you just hurry up, please, or I'll hit you with my shoe.”

This is a disturbing concept I’m not surprised it upset a lot of people.

“I promise you this is not a con.” Except it is.

“Who would harvest dead bodies? I feel like I'm missing something obvious.” *Cybermen theme plays*

Let us take a moment to appreciate that Missy chose to make the lift doors look like Cybermen. She is making no effort whatsoever to hide what is going on.

“Humankind, bring out your dead.”

“And I'm not going to kill you until you say something nice.” She did warn him, say something nice and you’re dead.

“The one you abandoned, Doctor. The one you left for dead.” Now is she talking about what happened in ‘The End of Time’ or ‘The Doctors Falls’?

DELETE

Penguin run!!!

“I'm sorry, everyone. Another ranting Scotsman in the street. I had no idea there was a match on.”

“Well, I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?” This is probably the most important plot twist in modern Who history. If the show hadn’t pulled this off as successfully as it did, it’s doubtful we’d have Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor.

Who you calling unimportant, mate?

“Oh, don't be so slow, it's embarrassing. Who could fool you like this? Who could hide right under your nose? Who could change their face any time they want? Hmm. You see, I'm not Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald has never existed.” “Identify.” "I'm the Doctor.” This is basically Moffat sticking his finger up at those who complain about the show becoming Clara Who.

“Nice bow tie.” “Bow ties are cool.”

“Kate Stewart. Divorcee, mother of two, keen gardener, outstanding bridge player. Also Chief Scientific Officer, Unified Intelligence Taskforce, who currently have you surrounded.”

Since the Cybermen only just revealed themselves, Kate obviously had her PA dash back to the office, dig a battered Cyberhead out of the archive just so can look like an even bigger BAMF than she already is.

The Doctor, the Master and UNIT all together again. Oh this takes me right back to my childhood.

Cybermen can fly now.

“Queen of evil.”

I’d say this was the creepiest thing the show ever did with the Cybermen but Steven and Rachel topped it two years later with ‘World Enough and Time”.

“Clara Oswald, your assistant?” "My friend.”

Seeing pictures of the Brigs always makes me sad.

Doctor Who references Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds. This really is my childhood in one neat little package.

“Well, gentlemen. Where to start? I was born on the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm a Time Lord, but my Prydonian privileges were revoked when I stole a time capsule and ran away. Currently pilot a Type 40 Tardis. I've been married four times, all deceased. My children and grandchildren are missing, and I assume, dead. I have a non-Gallifreyan daughter created via genetic transfer. How much more do you need? I'm the Doctor.” So he told her all of that but not about Amy?

“Look, ask anybody who knows me. I am an incredible liar.”

“We do have files on all our ex-prime ministers. She wasn't even the worst.”

By offering Osgood all of Time and space, the Doctor sealed her doom.

“Every cemetery, every mortuary, every funeral home, every hospital, the dead are returning to life as Cybermen.” That means not just the Brig but also Amy and Rory, Clara’s mum, Rose’s dad, I should stop before I make this worse.

Our entire concept of the afterlife comes from one Time Lord trying to give another a really disturbing birthday present.

“Hey, Missy, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind. Hey, Missy. Hey.”

“I'm going to kill you in a minute.”

Those guards behind her are really useless.

RIP Osgood. Or RIP Zygon Osgood.

“Do you know, that was always my dad's big ambition, to get you to salute him just once.” “He should've asked.” And you would’ve told him to get lost.

There’s something on the wing!

She’s lucky she’s his oldest friend because most people who get that look don’t last very long.

"What, you think I would give up the Doctor? Don't be daft. I would never, ever, give up the Doctor, because he is my best friend, too. He is the closest person to me in this whole world. He is the man I will always forgive, always trust. The one man I would never, ever lie to.” Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.

Michelle Gomez makes the best faces.

Since Clara didn’t recognise Missy she must’ve worn a typically over the top disguise when she gave her the TARDIS number.

You don’t want to know how pissed off I was when I thought they had actually killed off Kate.

"Boys, blow up this plane and, I don't know, Belgium, yeah? Kill some Belgians. Might as well. They're not even French. Byeeee!”

Gogglebox Missy Style.

The most Bondian moment in Doctor Who history.

Doctor, he’s dead, at least call him by his real name.

“I had a friend once. We ran together when I was little. And I thought we were the same. But when we grew up, we weren't. Now, she's trying to tear the world apart, and I can't run fast enough to hold it together.”

“And didn't all of those beautiful speeches just disappear in the face of a tactical advantage? Sir.”

“I wasn't very good at it, but I did love you.” At least she admits it.

“I'm never going to say that again.” Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Clara.

She’s Mary Poppins y’all.

“Happy birthday. Oh! You didn't know, did you? It's lucky one of us remembers these things. Happy birthday Mister President.”

“I need you to know we're not so different. I need my friend back.” And just like that you feel a sudden twinge of sympathy for Missy.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I really didn't know. I wasn't sure. You lose sight sometimes. Thank you! I am not a good man! I am not a bad man. I am not a hero. And I'm definitely not a president. And no, I'm not an officer. Do you know what I am? I am an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver. Just passing through, helping out, learning. I don't need an army. I never have, because I've got them. Always them. Because love, it's not an emotion. Love is a promise.” How ironic that it took the Master of all people to help the Doctor realise who he really is.

Love this fusion of Eleven and Twelve’s themes.

“This is not the order of a general, nor the whim of a lunatic.” “Excuse me?“

RIP Danny Pink. Again.

“The current coordinates of Gallifrey. It's returned to it's original location. Didn't you ever think to look?” "You are lying!” Technically, she wasn’t.

No one has ever been this excited about being killed by the Doctor.

“You win.” “I know.”

KATE LIVES!

I’d love to know how Clara explained this kid’s resurrection to his folks.

“I've found Gallifrey.”

The despair of a Time Lord.

This is one of those moment that could’ve only worked with Twelve. I can’t see Ten or Eleven being so angry and distraught they’d just punch the console with their bare hand.

“Me and Danny, we are going to be fine.” Rule 1, Clara lies.

One more awkward hug for the road.

I’m so glad this wasn’t Clara’s end. It’s just too ordinary for her. Clara deserved a more epic farewell than this and she got one.

And then Nick Frost shows up as Santa, unquestionably the most “What the fuck?” ending to a Doctor Who episode ever.

Next Time: Last Christmas

#Doctor Who #DW #Moffat Era Rewatch #The Doctor #Twelfth Doctor #Clara Oswald #Danny Pink #Missy #The Master #Dark Water #Death in Heaven

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pea-green · 7 years ago

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July’s books!! There’s a whole bunch because I’ve been travelling a lot this month and I get like 80% of my reading done on trains.

This month: We Go Around in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire by Jules Grant, The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson, Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, Fair Play by Tove Jansson, and Birdbox by Josh Malerman.

We Go Around in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire follows Mancunian lesbian gangster Donna and not to be hyperbolic but I love her and literally everything she says and does is Iconic:

A tragedy forces Donna to take in the book’s other protagonist, her 10-year-old goddaughter Ror, and the scenes where emotionally repressed Donna tries her best to do right by Ror (who thinks the world of her) are easily the best in the book. Women supporting women is a dynamic curiously absent from a lot of wlw books but is 100% present here; the network of northern lesbians, from the mean streets to upper society is wonderful to read. There aren’t many contemporary lesbian-themed books set in the UK, and I loved the style and language - the novel doesn’t use any speech marks which I’ve never seen before but worked perfectly. It’s a dark read, but I really, really recommend this one.

The Crime Writer is essentially Patricia Highsmith RPF. Before I read this book, the only things I knew about PH were 1. she was gay, 2. she wrote Carol, and 3. she was weirdly into snails. All three of those things feature quite heavily in this book, although it’s way, way less whimsical than whatever you’re imagining. Patricia is extremely messed up; all her relationships (with parents, friends and lovers) are in shambles, and while she’s definitely not the most sympathetic protagonist ever written, her slow unravelling is just the right amount of disturbing to be enjoyable. I mean, it’s about a vintage lesbian, I was always going to enjoy it, and there’s praise from Sarah Waters on the back cover - although I wonder if Waters thought certain bits of the plot were extremely similar to The Paying Guests (because I really did).

I read a friend’s copy of Annie on My Mind years ago and, like a lot of people born in the late 80′s/early 90′s, it was the first LGBT-themed YA book I ever read. I’m really glad I reread it because it’s told retrospectively, and the beginning is more powerful when you know what’s going to happen, and while it’s definitely dated and full of what look like cliches today, the impact it’s had on gay-themed YA books that came after is obvious. It also has one of my all-time favourite scenes which still hits me straight in the heart:

I went downstairs to Dad’s encyclopedia and looked up HOMOSEXUALITY, but that didn’t tell me much about any of the things I felt. What struck me most, though, was that, in the whole long article, the word “love” wasn’t used even once. That made me mad; it was as if whoever wrote the article didn’t know that gay people actually love each other. The encyclopedia writers ought to talk to me, I thought as I went back to bed; I could tell them something about love.

I’d also forgotten how sweet the relationship between Liza and Annie is; the life-changing, all-consuming feeling of falling in love for the first time is described perfectly, and I wanted to be cynical about the likelihood of young love like that lasting the ages, but my edition of AOMM had an interview with the author, who is still in a relationship with the girl she fell in love with at high school. Having a much wider reference point for YA lit, I especially appreciated the relationships that Eliza and Annie have with their families (Eliza’s brother especially; why are siblings in lesbian lit always such dicks??), and also I’d like to petition for a book entirely about the amazing lesbian teachers.

Birdbox was recommended by my sister and isn’t gay (bc the only way to get me to read non-gay books is for Gabi to rec them) but I read the whole thing on a ridiculously long train journey and it was a really enjoyable way to pass four hours. It’s a horror/suspense novel set in America 5 years after the sudden appearance of unknown things which, when seen, immediately drive anyone who sets eyes on them to suicide. Society has crumbled and remaining humans live a survivalist existence where they mustn’t ever open their eyes outside of their windowless homes. The execution isn’t on the same level as, say, Stephen King - there were a few really frustrating plotholes and the writing was a little clunky sometimes, but the premise was really interesting and the story gripping enough to read in one sitting.

The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet was recommended by @anormaladdams and I am SO HERE for the socially progressive scifi movement that’s being championed by this and the Imperial Radch series (cute: Ann Leckie is quoted on the cover, calling it “great fun!”). It’s been endlessly likened to a less sexist/racist Firefly, which I think is fair - there is a lot of space-related plot, but all the best scenes are the ragtag band of misfits sharing a spaceship and navigating their relationships with each other. The characters are (nearly) all absolutely lovely, and getting to know them is a joy, but I couldn’t help thinking the narrative jumps around a little too much and might have been an easier read if there had been just two or three POV characters. The book’s a great, fun read in itself (including a wlw relationship! Human/alien relationships aren’t really my bag, but if you like Jenny/Vastra you’ll love this), but there’s a recent sequel in the form of A Closed and Common Orbit which I’ll definitely check out.

I already posted about how my amazing sister got me a signed copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day, but despite being a huge fan of David Sedaris (books and radio), I hadn’t read Talk Pretty before. It’s amazing. I deliberately read it at home rather than on public transport because I figured if it was anything like his other stuff I’d just be cackling away to myself the whole time and it turns out I was absolutely right. Like with his other books, it’s a series of anecdotes which vary from being ridiculously relateable (David being super gay, and also kind of terrible person a lot of the time) to outlandish (I mean, who hasn’t spent 6 months high on crystal meth and living with a man who made a nest out of human hair as an art piece??), but regardless of the subject they’re all brilliant. My favourite - because I used to get dragged along to Gabi’s speech therapy sessions and I suspect why she bought me this particular book - was probably the time he was forced into speech therapy and decided the best way to overcome his lisp was to just avoid the letter S altogether: “plurals presented a considerable problem, but I worked around them as best I could; “rivers”, for example, became either “a river or two” or “many a river”. Possessives were a similar headache, and it was easier to say nothing than to announce that the left-hand and the right-hand glove of Janet had fallen to the floor”.

I picked up Fair Play because it was by Tove Jansson, more famous for The Moomins, and figured that if Ali Smith had written the introduction, it must be gay. It is, but understated doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s a series of vignettes about Mari and Jonna, two artists in their 70′s who live on a tiny Finnish island together. It’s unclear how much of the book is autobiographical, and it’s definitely less cute than, say, Annie on My Mind or other books about girls falling in love for the first time; Mari and Jonna have been together for decades and they argue and compromise and know each other inside out. The theme of Art threads through all of the stories, but I’m a huge philistine and their visions and cerebral discussions didn’t do much for me. (haha they do a lot of sailing about and there are some storms, though, and that definitely did)

#books #books read 2017 #tove jansson #long post #(this is under a cut but sorry if you're on mobile!!)

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whovianfeminism · 8 years ago

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Whovian Feminism Reviews “The Pilot”

This reviews contains SPOILERS for “The Pilot.”

After a very, very long year, Doctor Who has finally returned to us with an episode that was well worth the wait. “The Pilot” was billed to us a reboot, of sorts. And while it’s not completely clear of baggage, it was a refreshing reintroduction to a world we think we already know so well. Peter Capaldi charms, as he always does. But the heart and soul of this episode belongs entirely to new companion Bill Potts, portrayed magnificently by Pearl Mackie. If you’ve fallen off the wagon and haven’t watched Doctor Who in a while, this is the series to return to.

“The Pilot” is purposefully light on plot, giving us plenty of time to get to know Bill. She’s got the classic companion traits -- she thrives on a challenge, she’s curious, and she’s got a hunger for adventure. She’s sweet and compassionate, but firmly establishes boundaries with the Doctor. And despite her complete inability to get a date, she’s truly a romantic at heart.

And yes, Bill is gay! It’s one of the first things we learn about her, it’s a fundamental part of her character, and she defends that identity against anyone who even casually erases it.

Overall, I felt that her sexuality was very well handled. I’ve had many problems with Steven Moffat’s portrayal of queer women over the years. Either they’ve felt like titillation for a male audience (Vastra and Jenny in their early Doctor Who stories, or Irene Adler in Sherlock), or their queerness has been erased so they can be romantic or sexual interests for the male protagonists (again, Irene Adler). But with Bill, it seems like Moffat is trying exceptionally hard to learn from past criticisms. There isn’t even a hint of romance with other male characters, and Bill firmly shuts down any implication there might be something between her and the Doctor. And her crush on the ill-fated Heather is treated just as seriously as any of the heterosexual companions’ one-off crushes.

There is, however, one sour note in the scene that establishes Bill's sexuality. In a short anecdote that provides absolutely nothing useful to the story, Bill reveals that she was attracted to a woman who ate at her canteen, and that she tried so hard to get her attention by serving her extra chips that she “fatted her.” It’s a bad joke, made worse by the way you can feel Moffat trying to write his way around what he seems to recognize is a bad joke. Bill’s dialogue takes extra pains to imply she sees nothing wrong with her crush getting fat on chips, and Bill and the unnamed fat woman later wink at each other in the canteen, just to prove that Bill’s still attracted to her. After working so hard to mitigate the damage of her comment, why not just cut the damn joke?

There’s also a part of me that worries whether Bill’s sexuality will be something that’s seen in future episodes. In “The Pilot” her mutual crush with Heather is a fundamental part of the plot. But ultimately, Heather dies (...maybe, it’s a little ambivalent). I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is an example of the “Bury Your Gays” trope. Their mutual attraction is actually the only thing that nearly saves Heather’s life and helps her retain her humanity. And while very few relationships end happily in Doctor Who, I’d hate for Bill’s only relationship to end so gruesomely. I hope her attraction to women remains a fundamental part of her character and remains as present in future episodes as, say, Rose’s or Amy’s attraction to men.

Now, don’t think I’ve forgotten Peter Capaldi. Though “The Pilot” is Bill’s story, Capaldi absolutely shines as the Doctor. He’s perfected the balance between Series 8′s grouch and Series 9′s punk magician, mixing just the right amount of aloofness with enigmatic charm. And even though he’s in hiding (or exile, or on a mission), he’s right in his element as a professor. This Doctor was made for the off-beat, grandiose lectures about life and the universe, and now he’s got a captive audience and all the chalkboards he could want. And his monologue about time and space and life will surely go down as one of the best Doctor Who speeches ever.

Though Moffat presented “The Pilot” as a reboot for the show -- a new ‘pilot episode,’ if you will -- it doesn’t quite manage to shake off enough baggage that I would recommend it as a good jumping-on point for new viewers. Nardole is still clunking along in the background. While Matt Lucas does his best to make the character as charming and endearing as possible, I still don’t understand how this character has justified a place in the TARDIS. And while I’m always a sucker for continuity references, they were prominent enough that I’m sure they would’ve tripped up new viewers. I loved seeing Susan and River Songs’s photographs, but they were so prominently featured during critical moments that I know new viewers would recognize they were missing crucial details.

Where this episode truly shines is when we get to experience the Doctor’s world through fresh eyes. And in Bill Potts’ first adventure, she sees everything that traveling through time and space has to offer -- from it’s wonder and adventure to it’s terror and heartbreaking despair.

Oddly enough, this episode’s most compelling moment happens before Bill ever steps foot in the TARDIS.

“If someone’s gone, do pictures really help?” Bill asks the Doctor after revealing that her mother died when Bill was a baby and that she hardly has any photographs of her.

It’s a question you wonder whether Bill really wants answered. Perhaps having no photos of her mother makes the pain of that absence seem a little less sharp. Without them, Bill can invent a woman who she’d like to be her mother. She can make up little sayings her mother might have told her.

But when the Doctor travels back in time and creates a new collection of photographs for Bill, she can’t take her eyes off of them. There’s her mother, more real and tangible than she’s ever been before. And when Bill started crying, so did I.

My father passed away this February. When we were preparing for the funeral, I was put in charge of collecting photographs from his far flung family and friends. I know what it feels like to sort through each of those frozen moments, piecing them back together frame by frame to mark out the space left in our lives by someone we loved. Even photos taken of my father from before I was born made his absence feel sharper, because they represented frozen moments in time we could never get back.

Time and relative dimension in space. It means life.

And the Doctor brings Bill’s mother back to life for her. It’s the turning point in their relationship. He starts to shed his role as Bill’s tutor and put himself back in the role of the Doctor. He breaks the rules he’d set for himself and uses the TARDIS for the first time during his exile at the university, just to let Bill see her mother.

To see someone and be seen by them is this episode’s most compelling theme.

Bill craves being noticed by the women she likes. But she struggles to see them for who they are, rather than who she’d like them to be. When she first meets Heather, she recognizes Heather’s distress, but she focuses her attention on romanticizing the star shaped discoloration in her eye. When Heather disappears, Bill starts ascribing more nefarious meanings to the star in her eye.

But Heather doesn’t want to be romanticized. She’s firm on the fact that the star is a meaningless defect, a discoloration she wants to have fixed. Bill and Heather flirt about Heather’s desire to leave, but only the sentient creature in the puddle truly sees how desperate Heather’s desire is. And it uses that to consume her and make her a part of it.

And yet, the brief connection between Heather and Bill is enough to tie them across all of time and space. And when Heather offers Bill the opportunity to see the universe as she sees it, Bill can’t deny her. They are both nearly consumed, but that moment of recognition saves them both. For the first time, instead of being forced to mimic Bill, Heather can finally say Bill’s name and releases her.

Even the Doctor, who spends so much of his time trying to expand his companions’ perspectives, needs to be reminded to see Bill as her own person and not just an accessory to his adventures. He is the one who sees Bill sneaking into his lectures, who sees that she smiles when she’s confused, and who sees the potential companion in her. But even after everything they go through, he tries to erase her memories. Bill challenges him, asking him to imagine how he would feel if someone did this to him. And as the faint notes of Clara’s theme echo in the background, the Doctor reconsiders. He knows all too well what it feels like to be in her place, and he decides not to inflict that pain on her.

Having recognized each other for who they are, Bill and the Doctor begin their adventures on equal footing. After years of the Doctor knowing more about his companion’s lives than they did, it’s nice to see a more balanced relationship. And I’m so excited to see where they go from here.

#Doctor Who #Series 10 #The Pilot #Feminism #Whovian Feminism #Reviews

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gemvictorfromtheponyverse · 8 years ago

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Love at First Lizard Chapter 2

Finally! Chapter 2 of mine and wonderful @green-love-paternoster gay masterpiece!

Chapter 1 of this Vastra/Jenny Vet AU can be found here: https://gemvictorfromtheponyverse.tumblr.com/post/159010298794/love-at-first-lizard-chapter-one

Credit goes to always lovely @kelticscribe for helping with the Scottish translations in this chapter! ❤

And as promised, here is Chapter 2:

The clock on the kitchen wall indicated that it was currently 8:30 in the morning. Vastra stood there leaning forward on the kitchen counter, already dressed in her regular casual weekend attire, consisting of a simple short-sleeved white button-up shirt, faded gray skinny jeans that accentuated the fine shapely curves of her legs, and black calf-length leather boots. Her favorite studded black leather jacket and plaid scarf were both hung on the back of a nearby chair.

A cold, half-empty cup of green tea was laid on the table beside Vastra’s green, purple, and yellow motorcycle helmet, adorned with three large reptilian-like crests that protruded from the surface. The cup was labeled with the words, “Looney Lizard Lady”, written in a swirly childish font; It had been a gift from her friend and fellow veterinarian, John Smith, at a company Christmas party two years ago. While Vastra had outwardly rolled her eyes at his constant teasing about her so-called affinity with reptiles, she was nonetheless genuinely grateful for his friendship.

It was an extremely rare phenomenon to see the anti-morning Scottish woman awake so early on a Sunday morning when she had no work, yet here she was anyway, nervously fumbling with her phone as she stared at a certain number glowing on her contact list. Strangely enough, she hasn’t been able to sleep properly within the past five days and deep down inside her mind, she knew that it had something to do with a particular young girl whose pet lizard she helped to treat several days prior that week. Watching the girl–Jenny–leave the clinic, Vastra felt as if the whole weight of the world had come crashing down upon her, and she had to resist the urge to go running out after her. Ever since that fateful Wednesday, Vastra has found it to be utterly impossible to focus on anything else because of this accursed beautiful girl, who seemed to haunt her mind without any rest during her every waking hour. The powerful tingling sensation she had felt that day still lingered on her hand where Jenny touched it, an enduring reminder of the profound connection they had shared together. Vastra would mentally replay the episode of Jenny’s visit over and over again, allowing her to fully memorize all of Jenny’s physical details including her enchanting brown eyes, her blindingly bright smile, the little beauty mark located near her left upper lip, the lovely roundness of her face, and the way the light reflected brilliantly off of her dark brown hair. Never in her life did she thought that a creature so divinely magnificent and perfect could even exist on earth.To make matters worse, her infatuation with Jenny was actually the worst kept secret among her other co-workers at the clinic, who would often catch her daydreaming in her office with a spaced-out expression on her face. Whenever she heard someone come in through the front door, Vastra would immediately rush into the reception room with the hope that it was Jenny, only to be severely disappointed each time. It was as if the girl had somehow cast a spell on her, effectively captivating her entire body, heart, and soul, from which Vastra struggled strenuously to break free.Vastra tried her damn hardest to hide her feelings and act like everything was normal by being her usual condescendingly grumpy self, but she knew that it was a completely futile effort on her part. Nothing she do or say could stop John and Clara from continuing their bets and whispering gossips behind her back; For once, however, John and Clara also expressed a benign sense of pity towards Vastra, because they could clearly see just how much Jenny means to her. Although the two of them might be total assholes and drive Vastra crazy sometimes, they were still able to rally at their friend’s side whenever she needed some extra support.

The only small consolation was that Vastra had fortunately managed to get Jenny’s phone number before she left. She honestly had no idea what to do next with that information, which now led her to this present situation of contemplating the pros and cons of calling Jenny that Sunday. A flurry of doubts and contradictions swirled around in her mind: What if she’s busy? What if she doesn’t pick up? What if she thinks I’m a stalker? What if she secretly hates my guts? What if she changed her identity and fled the country???

Suddenly overwhelmed by all the negatively discouraging voices in her head, Vastra angrily shoved her phone away across the table before hiding her face behind her hands in utter exasperation. Vastra felt like a coward and a fool to think that she could just talk to Jenny when even the mere sound of her name was enough to give her a goddamn heart attack. The chances that Jenny would view Vastra as anything more than “the looney veterinarian lady who looked at my lizard”, nevermind sharing the same romantic feelings for her, was far less than one in a billion. Bloody hell, she doesn’t even know if Jenny swings that way for God’s sake! Therefore, it soon dawned on Vastra that perhaps she had made a terribly grave mistake in regards to this whole Jenny debacle.

Then unexpectedly, there was another voice that called out to Vastra from the very deep recesses of her subconsciousness. It sounded rather familiar, and as Vastra continued to concentrate on the voice, she eventually recognized it to be her father’s voice! Her father’s voice was trying to remind her of an important piece of advice that he once gave her long ago, when she was just a wee lass back in Scotland: Love works in mysterious ways, my darling daughter. The best thing to do is simply follow your heart and seize the opportunity right in front of you, lest you miss out on something that can grant you a lifetime of happiness.

Vastra couldn’t help the small, bittersweet smile that crept upon her lips; Good old Papa was still looking out for her even after all these years, she mused. Vastra’s father had always been an incredibly wise man, and she really didn’t want to disappoint him by letting this golden opportunity slip away so easily. Fueled by a newfound surge of fearlessness, Vastra quickly retrieved her phone and proceeded to hit the call button on her phone.This was it, there was no going back from here. The shallow rhythm of her breathing and incessant pounding of her heart filled Vastra’s ears, as she anxiously waited for Jenny to answer at any second. Her foot tapped vigorously along to the ringing tune playing on the other side of the line.

“Hello? Who am I talking to? Hold on” After a few moments, a tired sounding voice spoke up on the other side, falling quiet for a little while before picking up once more. “Sorry Miss McIntosh. Had to check the caller ID. So, how can I help you?” Vastra could almost hear Jenny smiling on the other line, waiting for an answer.

Vastra really hoped that the heavy, relieved sigh that escaped from between her lips wasn’t noticeable to Jenny on the other end of the line. Step one accomplished! God, how absolutely wonderful did it felt to finally hear the sweetly angelic music that was Jenny’s voice again.

The sheer fact that Jenny even picked up momentarily stunned Vastra, who started to speak but hesitated. Vastra had to rack her brain to find a valid response, and uncharacteristically stammered when she said, “Uhh…err…um….H-Hello, Miss Flint, yes it is I, Miss McIntosh, the vet from the clinic in case you don’t remember me. I was just calling you to ask if um….if you’re having a good morning today?”

Vastra’s entire face cringed as soon as she uttered those words. Ugh, you stupid, stupid idiot! Are you trying to make it sound so bloody fucking obvious?!

“Oh. Yes I am having a good morning. I’m sorry I was a little slow earlier, I’m normally an earlier riser. Unfortunately I have not been sleeping very well lately, so I’ve been trying to catch up on lost sleep when I’m not working weekends.” There was a short pause, and then Jenny spoke once more. “And you ? Are you having a good morning?”

“Splendid!” Replied Vastra, sounding a little too enthusiastic than she intended, causing her to wince yet again. Bloody hell, woman, pull yourself together already! “Errr, what I mean,um, is that it’s truly splendid to hear you are doing well this morning. Despite the fact that you’ve been unable to sleep much lately, of course, which I am sincerely sorry about. Although, I do appreciate your kindness in asking me how I am….my morning is also good, thank you. Dare I say, maybe even better now that I’ve finally managed to make your acquaintance.” Vastra unconsciously bit her lip, though she was barely able to prevent a silly, indulgent schoolgirl smile from breaking out across her face. She then realized that she had been rambling unnecessarily, and decided to quickly get on with business by saying, “Well then, Miss Flint, perhaps it would be best if I get straight to the point with you. It was my intention to call you this weekend to ask about Greeny, and I just wanted to be sure that I got the right number. So, how is Greeny faring since your visit to the clinic?”

“Oh, Greeny. Yes…my pet lizard…” Once more Jenny trailed off, before quickly picking up again. “Yes. Sorry, tired. Me brain is being stupid. Greeny is doing better than ever. Your tips about the heat lamp was just what Greeny needed, it seems. I haven’t had time to pick up any more plants for him but it’s definitely on my to-do list. If you want to….and only if you want to….then maybe you could come over and see for yourself?”

Vastra very nearly dropped her phone when Jenny said that, and her hand instinctively tightened its grip on the phone with enough force to break it in half.

“P-Pardon?” Gasped a highly bewildered Vastra, who felt her pulse rate increased dramatically due to the shock caused by Jenny’s words. “Can you repeat that, please?”

Vastra was entirely convinced that her ears must be deceiving her, as she believed that there was no possible way Jenny could have mean what she thought she meant.

“Uh…I just…maybe it was stupid. I understand if you’re too busy and everything, but I just thought maybe you’d like to come over and see how Greeny is doing?” Jenny stumbled over her words and Vastra couldn’t help but think she sounded almost hopeful.

It took a while for Jenny’s words to sink into Vastra’s brain, leading her to reply with,“Oh….Oh! Please forgive my uh confusion, Miss Flint, it’s just that no client has ever invited me to their home like that before. Though if you insist, I suppose that I can make time in my schedule to come over and check on Greeny. You’re lucky that I don’t have to work on Sundays.” Vastra silently pumped her fist in the air at how well she handled that response. Her glee was short lived, nonetheless, for she then realized that she have absolutely no knowledge about Jenny’s place of residence. “Err….however, I’m afraid that I don’t have a single idea as to where you live. An address would be most helpful, if you are willing to provide me with one.”

“Oh…uh…yes I’m sorry if it’s a bother. I normally work on Sundays, but today I don’t, so I thought it’d be a good idea. Greeny could benefit from it, and I’d know that he really is doing better.” She paused to catch her breath.. “Oh! And my address, it’s 222 Great Portland Street, the Armitage Apartment buildings. It’s close to Hyde Park near the River Thames.”

Meanwhile, Vastra had ran to her bedroom drawer and frantically searched around for a notepad and pen. She carefully wrote down the address as Jenny spoke before reassuring her,“Trust me, Miss Flint, this is honestly no trouble to me at all whatsoever. In fact…,”Vastra paused to consult the watch on her wrist, “…would it be okay with you if I come over now, since I am free this morning?”

“Oh yes…absolutely.” Jenny sounded just the tiniest bit hesitant as she spoke. “I’m just fixing some things in my apartment, but you can come over whenever.”

“Excellent! I shall indeed be there shortly, Miss Flint. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you again….goodbye for now!” Thus, with that final farewell, Vastra abruptly hung up the call.

Vastra tucked her phone away into her jean pocket and leaned heavily against the drawer at her back as she tried to regain her breath after talking with Jenny. That phone call could have been a huge utter disaster, but miraculously she was somehow able to pull it off…..albeit barely. God knows that every inch of her body was on fire the entire time, and she felt as though her heart was going to burst out of her chest just from that one simple interaction. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever expected Jenny to suggest that she make a personal visit to her actual home . Damn it, if she can’t even handle a little phone call with Jenny, then how the hell will she be capable of physically seeing the girl face-to-face at her home without totally self destructing on the spot! She was going to fuck up so badly in front of Jenny for sure, and the thought of that really frightened her more than anything. Vastra was beginning to consider potential excuses that she can use in order to not go, but all of them instantly disappeared when she caught sight of Jenny’s address that she had written on a notepad. Her eyebrows became scrunched upon her forehead and she bit her lip, a wave of guilt washing over her as she knew that Jenny was looking forward to their meeting later. Vastra soon found herself painfully torn between growing a spine and going to Jenny’s home anyways despite the risks, or breaking her promise to Jenny like a lily-livered chicken; She wanted to cry out in frustration due to the raging internal conflict that was threatening to effectively tear her apart. Why must this godforsaken girl suddenly walk into her life and completely complicate everything! It was during this dark hour, that salvation then came to Vastra in the form of her father’s disembodied voice once again.

…..Follow your heart and seize the opportunity right in front of you…..

Those words ignited a fiery spark of courage within Vastra’s heart, as she became firmly determined to seize the opportunity right in front of her, just like her father had taught her. Life was too short to waste on worrying over frivolous doubts, and this could be her only chance of at least starting something deeper with Jenny. She would never be able to forgive herself if she had simply let her fears scare her out of pursuing a relationship that could change her life forever. Deciding that there was no time to lose, Vastra immediately went to grab her leather jacket, scarf, motorcycle helmet, and keys, before exiting her house to approach the motorcycle parked beside the sidewalk. Her resolve was strong as steel and absolutely nothing could break it now. The Scottish woman could soon be seen zooming down the street, as she was embarked on a personally sacred mission to heal a lizard and get the girl.

—-

Hanging up the phone, Jenny felt as though she could hardly breath. She couldn’t believe that she just had invited her pet lizard’s extremely hot veterinarian to come into her home and take a look at said lizard. In her home , where she could observe all of her attractive Scottish glory. Even though she hoped she had sounded collected on the phone, calm and collected was the last thing she was feeling, and she was quite sure that she would explode from pure, untempered desire lest she moved right that minute. She had to get her apartment ready and properly presentable for Vastra, because a good first impression was extremely crucial in this situation.

Quickly, she got up on her feet, trying to gather everything that was out of place and putting them back as sufficiently as she could while still keeping some efficiency. She had been meaning to spend the day cleaning up the apartment anyway, because she hated when it got too dirty, but now she only had an hour, two at most, to do a day’s worth of work. Fortunately, if there was anything Jenny could do adequately, it was cleaning. Her first priority were the tea cups;She searched out all the abandoned tea cups in the house, picking them up from bookshelves and the coffee table and the floor, everywhere she’d abandoned them, before carrying them to the dishwasher, and putting them in there until it was filled.

When she was done with the cups, the books came next. As much as Jenny liked to drink tea, she also enjoyed reading, and therefor, there were books laying everywhere as well. With the speed of a seasoned professional, she picked up one paperback after another, gathering them in her arms and lining them back in the bookshelves. She made sure they were put back in a correctly organized order, and once she was done, she smiled at her handiwork.

Cleaning her apartment always felt great, and it was even better now that she’d done it in record time, too. More importantly, it felt reassuring to know that Vastra would be coming into a clean, neatly organised apartment. Standing there, looking at her beautifully spotless apartment, she suddenly wondered what she should do next. Lifting her arm a little, she caught onto how much her armpit smelled, and decided that she definitely need to take a shower next. Just like her apartment couldn’t be dirty, she herself couldn’t be smelling like a trash can.

Swiftly, she made a beeline for the bathroom, plucking some new clothes out of the drawer with care as she once more thought about Vastra, the gorgeous veterinarian visiting her apartment later. Still completely immersed in her romantic daydreaming, she retrieved a short black skirt and cute white top that might be slightly too tight, before popping into the shower to make herself as clean and sweet smelling as possible.Ten minutes later, Jenny came out of the shower, a towel wrapped tightly around her freshly moist body as she made her way over to her bedroom to get dressed.

Passing by the window, she suddenly caught sight of someone coming down the road on a motorbike. The person driving the vehicle was wearing a frankly ridiculous looking helmet with some kind of lizard-like crests on the top in the most obtrusive colours. Jenny was absolutely positive that such a helmet could even be seen from all the way up in outer space!

Jenny was still laughing about the truly quite flamboyant headgear, when the mysterious rider, to Jenny’s great surprise, stopped outside her apartment. More interested than before, Jenny kept looking as the rider jumped off the motorcycle and removed the helmet and goggles, and….Jenny almost fainted dead in her towel as she then saw that it was Vastra who was the unknown rider. For God’s sake, why can’t this woman just give her a fucking break for once already!

Feeling suddenly panicked, heart caught in her throat as she tried to process the fact that Vastra had a motorcycle and a leather jacket, and was on her way up to her apartment, Jenny rushed to find her clothes and put them on. After blindly fumbling around, entirely unfocused, for at least five minutesl she finally got hold of the skirt and top and put them on, getting dressed just in time to hear the doorbell ringing out in the hallway. Not thinking about anything else but Vastra standing in a leather jacket outside her door, Jenny hurriedly ran across the apartment, almost ripping the door off its hinges in her rush to open it, just a little too excited finally see Vastra again.

Vastra stood in the hallway, hand raised as if she was about to knock on the door, and carrying a small plastic bag in her other hand. All of her earlier bravado seemingly vanished into thin air when she caught sight of Jenny after she had opened the door. She suddenly couldn’t breath as her eyes tried to refocus themselves on the mind-boggling vision that was Jenny, dressed in a form-fitting white tank top that revealed just the right amount of cleavage, a black mini skirt, and thick strands of dripping wet hair hanging down her head. Vastra could feel the lingering steam of the shower practically radiating off of Jenny’s body, which now floated towards her face, hitting her head-on like a sensually humid tropical breeze. Her lips were impossibly dry, prompting her to quickly lavish them with her tongue. Even though the temperature outside had been rather chilly, Vastra found herself getting increasingly hotter with every passing second that she remained staring at Jenny, and she was certain that she was going to end up spontaneously combusting anytime soon. Vastra also noticed the innocently welcoming smile that appeared on Jenny’s face, causing her to wonder if Jenny was somehow aware of the bewitching effects she had on her by wearing such an outfit. Her hair, her cleavage, her curves, her legs…..Jenny was clearly a walking embodiment of lustful temptation and poor, gay Vastra didn’t stood a chance against her. Goddamn it, just when she thought that she had everything under control, Jenny had to come along and throw one hell of a curveball at her! So utterly dumbstruck was Vastra, that she even forgot the words to speak and the ability to move her body. The only thing that her brain could think about was Jenny, who definitely was going to be the death of her as she knew it. Oh, what a strangely idyllic way to die that would be.

Jenny watched as Vastra stood before her, a tingling sensation gathering in her stomach as she admired the smooth, shiny leather encasing Vastra’s upper body. It was so different from what she had worn at the clinic, and Jenny found herself to be intrigued by this new side of Vastra that she wasn’t previously familiar with. She also had never seen anyone who looked that ravishing in a leather jacket, making the normal appeal of leather clothing even stronger. Still, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander a bit trying to imagine what she would look like underneath the smooth, shiny leather. She imagined hard muscles first, then she imagined spider thin, delicate limbs, and lastly she imagined what it might feel like to cup her hands around Vastra’s full round breasts, carefully squeezing the smooth flesh in her hands and enjoying Vastra’s reaction. Quickly dragging herself out of her fantasy, she realised that Vastra was still waiting for her to say something.

“Miss McIntosh!” She smiled, stepping out of the way so that Vastra could come inside. “Come in. It’s good to see that you could come so soon. I do hope it’s not a bother.”

There was no response from Vastra, who merely continued to stand there with a faraway expression fixed on her face.

“Uh, Miss McIntosh? Ma’am?” Carefully, Jenny prodded a finger into Vastra’s side, in an attempt to get her attention. “Are you alright?”

Her prodding seemed to work a little too well, as it startled Vastra and she began to blurt out, “I LOVE YO….oouuuuur wallpaper….that you have here, in your home!” Very narrowly dodging a bullet there, Vastra finally managed to reboot her legs and swiftly stepped into Jenny’s main living room.

Giving Vastra a slightly odd look, Jenny allowed herself to look at her dark blue wallpapers, too. She’d never given them much thought, but she supposed they could be worse. “Thanks. Though honestly, they’ve looked like that since I moved in. I meant to maybe change them someday, but they don’t really bother me and…well, I haven’t had enough time, I suppose.” She shrugged. She really did not care much about her wallpapers.

“They look perfectly fine to me, and this particular shade of blue does seem to bring everything together….,” remarked Vastra, observing the wallpaper for a while longer before ultimately forcing herself to turn back towards Jenny. Trying to ignore the deafening sound of her inner terrified screaming, Vastra flashed Jenny her most genial smile and said, “Well then, aren’t you looking rather properly rested this morning, Miss Flint. I can clearly see that you have quite an attractive, sunny complexion about you.”

Hearing the compliment, Jenny’s entire being lit up like a christmas tree, a big smile on her face as she followed Vastra inside, closing the door behind her. “Thank you! It is very nice of you to say that. Really, I’m glad you think I look better than I actually feel. So…um, what should we do now? Want some tea or coffee? You can put away your jacket if you want to.” She continued to smile, still entirely smittened by Vastra complimenting her complexion and feeling extremely happy as she gestured to the coat rack.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious about her appearance, Vastra nervously tugged at the collar of her leather jacket while switching her gaze in between Jenny and the coat rack. Although she was genuinely flattered by Jenny’s warm hospitality, Vastra couldn’t help but be afraid of what she might think about the tattoos on her arms. Vastra knew that tattoos were a huge turn off for some people, and she wasn’t willing to take that risk just yet, in case Jenny was one of them.

Vastra mentally concluded that the only logical thing for her to do in this situation, was to remain calm, check on Greeny, and leave as quickly as possible to help minimize the probability of her potentially embarrassing herself in front of Jenny. “Err, no thank you, Miss Flint, I’m actually not that thirsty at the moment,”declined Vastra graciously, despite her mouth being noticeably parched as a sun baked dessert in the middle of summer whenever she looked at Jenny. “I assume that you have many plans that you’d want to fulfill this Sunday, yes? Therefore, would you be so kind as to show me where Greeny is? I certainly do not wish to take up too much of your time with this visit today.”

Jenny tried not to show how disappointed she felt as Vastra brushed aside her suggestions, before affirmatively nodding. “Of course. I…ah, yes,Greeny is over here.” Deliberately, she crossed the living room until she was standing by the wall, bending down to retrieve greeny’s cage from the floor. “Where do you want me to put him? Somewhere here or in the kitchen?”

Vastra then peered into Jenny’s kitchen through the entrance located on the left side of the room, and was able to catch a glimpse of a pristine marble countertop. That instantly triggered a series of remarkably vivid images to flick across Vastra’s eyes; Coincidentally, all of them appeared to feature the same marble countertop upon which Jenny was sitting, still wearing her tank top and skirt, her legs wrapped tightly around Vastra’s waist as the two of them ravished each other’s mouths in a sexually passionate embrace. Witnessing those explicitly carnal visual representations of her own deepest, secretive, forbidden desires towards a particular female client was a profoundly alarming experience for Vastra, who felt as though her whole body was being consumed by a ruthless whirlwind of pure hellfire. This was definitely not the appropriate time, or place to be fantasizing about jumping your client’s bones, especially if said client is standing directly in front of you, which only makes it a thousand times worse! Vastra was at least fortunate that Jenny wasn’t a professional psychic mind reader or anything, because she would totally die from mortification if she could somehow see the things that are happening inside her head. Vastra was desperate to find some kind of cerebral off switch that could stop these unwanted thoughts from invading her psyche, but there seemed to be absolutely no end in sight to this annoyingly persistent problem. She remained determined anyways, however, and continued to push herself until she was finally able to break free of that accursed illusion using sheer willpower.

Praying fervently that her inner shame wasn’t too visible, Vastra returned her full attention back onto Jenny and answered with, “The living room is fine, we don’t have to go anywhere else. There is already a table in here and that’s all I really need to be able to work with Greeny.”

Vastra had, indeed, made it a main priority to stay far away from the kitchen as possible, in order to prevent herself from getting entangled among such troublesome hallucinations like that ever again.

“Oh, good. Yes, that sounds good indeed.” Smiling, Jenny quickly put the cage down on the table, opening the door. “And again, thank you for taking time to come by and check on Greeny, Miss McIntosh. It really is awfully nice of you.”

“Really, Miss Flint, you don’t have to keep thanking me for simply doing my job. I am merely following the ancient sacred Veterinarian’s Code of Honor to always help an animal in pain, wherever they may be,” Vastra joked lightheartedly as she approached the coffee table, carefully making sure that there was an ample amount of space in between Jenny and herself. “Additionally, I must also admit that have been missing yo…. Greeny an awful lot lately. I’m truly delighted to be here in your humble abode, so that I can see how my special little green boy is recovering.” She abruptly diverted her gaze towards Greeny’s cage, utterly relieved to have something else to look at instead of Jenny.

“Great! I’m sure Greeny missed you too…Uh…” Jenny’s eyes moved around the room, searching for something to focus on that was not Vastra’s stunningly attractive face and lethal smile. “What’s in the plastic bag?” She gestured to the generic plastic bag she just noticed that Vastra was carrying.

Vastra merely blinked and tilted her head to the side.“What plastic bag?” She asked, momentarily confused before remembering the thing she was holding in her hand, “Oh….yes, of course, it’s uhh….just a little gift that I picked up on my way here.” Vastra was smiling rather bashfully as she proceeded to reveal the content of her bag with great flourish. “It’s a traditional mini Japanese bonsai tree, for Greeny. I have one of my own at home, and thought that maybe you’d like to put it in his cage as decoration.” Even then, Vastra still kept her eyes on the tree and nervously bit her lip while she anticipated Jenny’s reaction.

Jenny nodded slowly, smiling. “Oh. Yes, uh….thanks! I had meant to buy some new plants but I haven’t really had any time…or money…to do it yet. Thanks.” She blushed, ducking her head and looking away.

Glancing at Jenny, Vastra was able to catch a brief glimpse of Jenny’s pretty, cute blushing face, which was more than enough to make her heart stop altogether for several dreamlike seconds. At this particular point, Vastra was almost entirely convinced that Jenny was no ordinary human girl, but must really be a divine angel who had somehow fallen down to earth. There was simply no other explanation as to how someone could ever be so beautiful, pure, and marvelous as Jenny is in her eyes.

“You’re, uhh, very welcome, Miss Flint. Do you want to take the tree yourself, or should I put it down somewhere?” Questioned Vastra, sounding slightly uncertain with the bonsai tree still in her hands.

Smiling and feeling acutely embarrassed, Jenny immediately reached out for the plant. “I suppose I don’t mind taking it off your hands for you. I’ll just…” Carefully, she went in to grab it, but at the same time Vastra suddenly moved slightly to the side and instead of taking the tree, she hit Vastra squarely in the face with her hand, barely catching the tree as Vastra dropped it before stumbling backwards, clutching her face with her hands while her glasses were sent flying to the floor by the accidental punch.

“Oh my god! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just…oh my god!” Jenny couldn’t even process what she’d done, backing away slowly with the tree clutched in her hands, eyes wide in horror. She could barely believe that her chronically clumsy tendencies had caused her to K.O. the most sexy person in existence by mistake.

The Scottish woman kept reeling backwards until she hit a wall, causing several of the hung paintings to rattle a bit. Vastra released a rather snake-like hiss as she felt the stinging pain spreading across her face from where Jenny had smacked her. Though as tremendously embarrassing as that may be, Vastra still couldn’t bear to hear Jenny blaming herself for something that was truly an accident.

Putting on a brave front, Vastra gradually lowered her hands away from her face and tried to re-establish a stable, composed demeanor. “Oh dear….hehe, that’s quite a strong right hook you got there, Miss Flint,” Spoke Vastra with a humorous tone in an attempt to make light of the situation, while completely disregarding the blood that is oozing out of her nose. “I think I understand why Scotland Yard hired you now…..such bountiful raw power, contained within such a small person. It’s fine, Miss Flint, I’m OK, really, I forgive you.” Vastra gave Jenny her best and most reassuring smile to show her that everything was alright.

Looking doubtfully at Vastra, Jenny said nothing but quickly pulled out a tissue from the box she kept on the coffee table and gave it to Vastra. As soon as Vastra accepted the offered tissue, Jenny then went for the glasses next. She had noticed them falling off Vastra’s face, and now she went to retrieve them, bending over to pick them off the floor.

Having a perfectly good view from where she stood, Vastra’s eyes practically popped of their sockets and her jaw very nearly dropped to the floor at the sight of Jenny’s skirt riding up her rear to reveal a rather provocative glimpse of her silk panties underneath.

As Jenny stretched out to grab them, she noticed to her amusement that there were tiny lizards printed on the glasses. Smiling to herself, she quickly picked them up and stood upright again. “Right. I got your glasses, and I really am so sorry . I can’t even hit that hard!”

“Well considering that my nose is now bleeding, I’d beg to differ on that” replied Vastra without the slightest hint of anger, as she tore off the tissue into smaller pieces and stuffed them up into her nostrils. She was absolutely certain that she was going to die of blood loss by the end of that visit.

“Right. Again, I’m very sorry.” Stepping forward, Jenny carefully tried to put the glasses back on Vastra’s face, her breath catching as she saw the brilliant blue eyes looking directly back at her. They were incredibly beautiful, deep puddles of glittering oceans bringing to life an equally brilliant mind. God, she could easily get lost in them forever and never come back, thought Jenny. As she finished putting the glasses in place, Jenny put her arms back at her sides, carefully taking a step back and suddenly realising how extremely close she had been - and still were - to Vastra.That the Scottish woman had even let her in that close surprised her, and she couldn’t help the blush tinging her cheeks as she realised that she had in fact, invaded the woman’s personal space without even asking for permission.

Taking another step back, her blush deepened, and so did the embarrassment. “I’m sorry. Again. I….you…your eyes are…blue. I like blue. Not blue like my walls but, better blue. Perfect blue . Amazing ocean blue. Really, really blue of the prettiest blue kind.”

Vastra swore that the entire world had stopped spinning in that moment, freezing time in place as Jenny slid her glasses back onto her face with such genuine care and tenderness. Her eyes briefly fluttered shut and she allowed herself to inhale a whiff of Jenny’s sweet smelling peach shampoo that sent all of her senses into overdrive with euphoria. A very small, inappropriate part of her even wondered whether or not Jenny would taste as delicious as she smells. Alas, Vastra had to keep her utter disappointment hidden when Jenny abruptly moved away from her area of range, appearing immensely apologetic for some reason which she couldn’t figure out. Vastra missed being so close in proximity with Jenny, but her dismay was instantly replaced by surprise when Jenny complimented her eyes, albeit in a fairly awkward and drawn out way.

Now it was Vastra’s turn to blush as she nervously adjusted her glasses, scrunched her nose, and bowed her head to avoid the other woman’s gaze. “I….uhh…thank you, how very kind of you to say that,” said a highly flustered Vastra, a shy elated smile forming upon her lips. “Yes, my eyes are indeed blue. I’ve had them since I was born….but nobody has ever seemed to appreciate them like you do.”

“Nobody has ever appreciated me like you do.” Jenny replied, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them, regardlessly not being able to hold back her smile.

“Excuse my forwardness, but I do find that hard to believe,” Vastra responded softly, lifting her head up to lock shining blue eyes with Jenny’s chocolate brown ones. There was a period of inaction where the two of them merely smiled at each other in a sort of intimate silence, before Vastra decided to break it by saying, “Well then, let not this minor setback prevent us from getting on with the task at hand, shall we?”

Thus pushing aside that trivial incident of unintentional violence, Vastra promptly approached the front of Greeny’s cage and proceeded to gently coax him out of his home. As soon as Vastra first saw that little scaly lizard’s head peeking out from the cage, she could already tell that Greeny had been recovering far better than when she examined him at the clinic. His scales appeared to be more colorful, his movements more fluid, his eyes wide open, and there was even a tiny contented smile on his face. Vastra’s smile grew wider when she heard Greeny emit a high-pitched crooning noise as a way of greeting her. Apparently, there wasn’t going to be much that Vastra will have to check on Greeny and she was glad for it.

Jenny watched Vastra tending to Greeny intently, praying that her little lizard was doing alright. Careful not to come too close, she approached the both of them slowly. “I do think he should be doing quite fine now, seeing as I took your advise. He’s seemed to be more energetic lately, but I don’t really know. What do you think? Is there something else I should do?” She bit her lip a little, trying not to sound all worried, thought to be honest, she feared what Vastra might say.

Several long, agonizing minutes passed before Vastra turned to look at Jenny and said,”Congratulations, Miss Flint, your pet lizard here does appear to be in excellent shape from what I can see. I hope that my diagnostic will help to put your mind at ease about Greeny’s wellbeing. Trust me, he is perfectly healthy and lizardy as ever, so I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you.” With that final verdict, Vastra then returned Greeny back into the safe, warm, cozy vicinity of his cage and recast her gaze over to Jenny. “Any more questions that you want to ask me?”

Upon hearing Vastra’s question, Jenny had to bite her lip hard to not let something lewd, or incredibly inappropriate, out of her mouth. Finally, after standing around and chewing her lip longer than she ought to, she then asked, “Can you stay for some coffee, or tea if you prefer, and pastries? I’ve got some cookies I baked just the other week in the kitchen. It could be my way of thanking you for coming here and looking at Greeny.” She smiled, and before Vastra could protest, she added. “Please? I would feel so much better if I gave something in return.” She made puppy dog eyes, and hoped so badly that Vastra would not go. She was not ready to let this goddess of a woman walk out of her apartment just yet.

Those accursed puppy dog eyes seemed to have put a dent in Vastra’s initial plan for a hasty escape out of the apartment. Any argument against Jenny’s invitation to stay that Vastra possessed instantly melted away into those enticingly warm brown eyes that look as though they could pierce right through her very soul. Secretly, though, Vastra’s heart was deeply touched by the fact that Jenny actually desired her company, and was fighting so hard for the chance to show Vastra her gratitude. It was exactly this type of caring nature and moxy that kept pulling Vastra further and further in love towards this utterly majestic young woman. How could she possibly bring herself to deny Jenny this one innocent request, when she knew that it would certainly break the poor girl’s heart if she said no? What’s the harm in hanging around for a little bit of complimentary coffee and cookies? Just play it cool and everything will be fine, right?

Feeling all of her resolve rapidly slipping from her grasp, Vastra finally managed to crack open a slight friendly smile and nodded in agreement. “Fine, you win! But only because I’m feeling rather famished, and your offer of cookies does sound simply too good to refuse,”spoke Vastra cheerfully, even topping it off with a fairly flirtatious wink to boot.

Vastra then walked around the coffee table in order to reach the sofa, where she began to remove her leather jacket and scarf. Vastra didn’t really thought much about what she was doing, until she heard an audibly shocked gasp coming from Jenny. That alone was enough to make Vastra stop, her entire body becoming tense, as she squeezed her eyes shut and mentally reprimanded herself for acting so carelessly in Jenny’s home.

As Vastra sat down on the couch, she finally pulled off her scarf and that incredible, sexy leather jacket that she had arrived in. Taking almost too much pleasure in watching her pull off the smooth leather from her shoulders and sliding her well-toned arms out of the sleeves, Jenny simply couldn’t withhold her gasp as she saw what Vastra was hiding underneath. The entire length of Vastra’s gorgeous , breathtakingly lean and slender arms were covered in stylistic black and green snake tattoos. Jenny followed them with her eyes, greedily taking in every little detail of the extensive, beautifully designed snake tattoo. It went all the way up to Vastra’s firm shoulders, some of her brown hair just barely reaching down long enough to lay across the very top of it, before mysteriously disappearing into her shirt and perhaps continuing underneath. While Jenny did not envision Vastra to be the kind of person to be covered in tattoos, she could not say that she disliked what she was seeing, and she kept smiling as Vastra made herself comfortable on the couch.

This woman was not only hot, she was on goddamn scorching fire!

Suddenly feeling terribly naked without her jacket and with her ink clad arms now on full display for Jenny to see, Vastra blushed bright tomato red as she shifted quite uneasily in her seat. Not wanting Jenny to think that there was anything wrong, however, Vastra then implemented a deliberate demonstration of swagger by stretching her muscular arms high above her head, before bringing them down to rest upon her neatly crossed legs. Hands clasped deftly against her knee, Vastra couldn’t resist leaning slightly forward so that she could hungrily devour Jenny’s most peculiarly risque attire with her keen eyes once again.

“Well then….is the lovely hostess not going to provide the promised coffee and cookies for her guest?” Inquired Vastra with a thickly alluring Scottish accent seeping through her tone, and one dark eyebrow raised elegantly on her forehead.

Jenny truly thought that she would faint on the spot. For a moment, she felt everything swim before her eyes and it felt as though all the air had left her lungs, but thankfully she soon managed to collect herself. It would have been terribly embarrassing if she did pass out, just because this goddess of a woman removed her jacket. Nodding, she quickly set off towards the kitchen, disappearing through the doorway before Vastra could say anything.

“Coming right up! Do you want sugar or cream?” She called out once she’d reached the kitchen, thankful to be out of sight as her cheeks kept heating up like two buns fresh out of the oven. “Also, are you allergic to nuts?” The last thing was an afterthought, because as she reached for the cookie jar she realised, she didn’t know and she always used nuts in her cookies, because she liked it that way herself. Almost frantically, she tried to look for something else to server her guest as she waited for the answer, preparing for the worst.

“Just a dash of sugar and cream is how I usually prefer my coffee,” responded Vastra, who could hear Jenny moving around inside the kitchen due to her rather abnormally sharp sense of hearing. “I am not allergic to any nuts, but my body is badly affected by chocolate!”

Vastra truly didn’t mind waiting for Jenny, and she was able to occupy herself with observing the surrounding area that was Jenny’s living room. The room was considerably smaller than your average house, yet still relatively comfortable, noted Vastra as her eyes swept across the modest sized television set, framed paintings, bookshelves ladened with an impressive quantity of reading material, and a few colorful priceless vases among other things. What really struck Vastra the most was how impeccably clean and well-kept everything was, as far as she could see at least; It was such a stark contrast when compared to Vastra’s own junkyard of a house, which made it nearly impossible to tell where clutter ends and civilization begins. As domestically challenged as Vastra was, she would always attribute it to her busy working schedule at the clinic which left her with very little time to get her home in order. The best that she could do was a little dusting here, a bit of sweeping there, and a whole lot of shoving things into a closet to be forgotten about forever. Though to be honest, it never actually bothered Vastra as much as it would other people knowing that her house will never be as neat as Jenny’s, mainly because she’s already gotten so used to its constantly chaotic state by now.

“Coffee’s here!” Jenny announced cheerfully as she came out the kitchen with the tray, coffee, cookies, sugar and cream loaded onto it, as well as a cup of tea for herself. “I hope they will be satisfactory.” She bit her lip, hoping Vastra would be satisfied by the coffee and cookies. She could already feel her cheeks heating from the disappointment and embarrassment if Vastra were to dislike any of the food or beverages.

Little did Jenny know, however, that the tray of freshly baked treats and coffee weren’t the only things that Vastra was drooling over.

Vastra watched with substantial interest as Jenny placed the tray of refreshments down on the table in front of her, and uplifted her face to smile graciously at her generous hostess. The Scottish woman had always possessed an uncanny ability to accurately detect even the slightest quirk in someone’s body language, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that she was able to pick up on Jenny’s nervously restless aura. Vastra was intensely curious as to the reason for Jenny’s apparent anxiousness, but figured that would be best if she didn’t say anything about it.

Instead, Vastra simply went ahead and picked up a delectable looking cookie from the tray, before taking a tentative bite off of it. “Mmmm…..how exquisitely scrumptious, and I especially liked the delightful crunch of the nuts you added,”commented Vastra, seemingly pleased, whose tongue then briefly flicked out to wipe some crumbs off her lip. “You really ought to consider becoming a baker, because I can happily eat these for the rest of my life.”

That was soon followed by Vastra picking up the cup of coffee, it’s powerfully rich aroma filling her nostrils despite being clogged with blood, and bringing it towards her mouth for a sip, which also elicited the same positive reaction from Vastra.

Jenny watched attentively as Vastra tried the cookies and coffee. To her utter delight, the woman seemed to enjoy both of them, even going as far as to compliment her cookies. Once she felt safe that everything was satisfactory, she carefully sat down on the other end of the sofa, grabbing her cup of tea in both hands and trying to think up something to say. Her eyes scanned Vastra’s body, her gaze continuously being drawn to the green and black tattoos on her arms, still as fascinating as the first time she saw them. “So…” She said tentatively, pausing to sip on her tea. “It is some very nice tattoos you got on your arms. I like the design.”

Vastra abruptly stopped and instantly swiveled her head to look at Jenny, being utterly astonished that Jenny just actually complimented her tattoos.

Gradually, her face then lit up with a brilliantly bright smile, as she could hardly contain her excitement, and said, “Oh thank you, Miss Flint, how very kind of you to say so! I chose this particular design, because I wanted something to help me remember my ancestral Celtic roots while I’m down here in London.” Vastra’s smile continued to broaden even more when a most splendid idea struck her mind. “Also, if you like what you’re seeing on my arms, I have another tattoo on my back which I am especially proud of. Here…I‘ll show you!”

Without giving Jenny a chance to reply, Vastra eagerly pulled out her phone from her pocket and found a picture of herself flexing shirtless while facing away from the camera to showcase the large, intricately detailed tattoo that occupied nearly her entire backside.

The tattoo was absolutely stunning, as it depicts two swords crossing a shield bearing the noble McIntosh clan name, and strewn with vines of wildflowers.

Jenny started at the photo, politely trying to focus on the beautiful, intricate tattoo rather than the amount of bare skin Vastra was revealing in the photo and her strong, flexing arms. “That’s an absolutely amazing tattoo.” Jenny said softly. She didn’t know much about tattooing, but with a highly detailed and creative design being worn by such a gorgeous Scottish woman, Jenny truly felt like she’d fallen in love with the tattoo.

Now suddenly aware of the fact that she has just showed Jenny a very personal and half naked picture out of sheer impulsiveness, Vastra could feel her face blushing a fiery crimson for what would be the billionth time in that day alone. “Err…thank you, I’m really glad that you think so,”replied Vastra, who couldn’t help sounding somewhat bashful. “Yes, my tattoos are amazing indeed, because they hold such a great amount of personal significance to me. They’re a permanently important part of who I am, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”

Jenny merely nodded and smiled understandably at Vastra, trying to absorb every single one of Vastra’s words as the Scottish woman was practically baring her soul to her.

It was in that moment that Vastra’s phone suddenly started ringing, which caused the both of them to jump a little in surprise.

“Oh God, it’s my sister calling me,” muttered Vastra as she checked the caller ID before returning her attention back to Jenny. “I’m so sorry if this might be an inconvenience, but um….would you mind if I answer this call real quick?”

Jenny smiled reassuringly, nodding. “If you need to, then sure go ahead.” She thought of her own family, and how she’d never in a million years would have answered a single call from any of them. Ever. But, she guessed not everyone’s situation looked like hers.

Giving Jenny one quick grateful glance, Vastra then pressed the button to answer the call and brought her phone up against her ear. “Hello, Lanah? What are you calling me for this time? Is it your dog, did he eat one of your earrings again?” It was hard for Vastra to keep her tone free of any annoyance that she felt at being interrupted in the middle of her meeting with Jenny.

“Hello to you too, dear sister. How nice to hear you think I only call if something has happened, it does make me feel so very appreciated.” Lanah mocked, her voice overly happy as she spoke.

The Scottish woman groaned internally, but was also secretly excited to talk to her beloved sister again. Resuming with their naturally well rehearsed banter, Vastra said, “So I’m assuming that your dog is OK then? I still remember how poor Capaldi couldn’t eat for a month because of that stupid diamond earing tearing through his digestive intestines. I swear, your insatiable appetite for fine precious jewelry is going to be the death of him!”

“Yes, he is perfectly diamond-free, for your your information. Jesus Christ, that was ONE time! Besides, I do recall you letting your friend feed Billy chocolate last time I let you babysit him!”

“Well, do you think that I don’t regret making that mistake,” snapped Vastra in response, before speaking more collectedly, “ Ahem, anyway…..the past is in the past, so I suggest that you just get straight to the point already.”

“Fine. I can tell you what I want, and I assure you, I will be much straighter than you.” She paused, letting Vastra realise what she just said, before continuing. “Billy wanted to talk to his favourite aunt, who ironically nearly killed him.”

From the sidelines, Jenny watched anxiously as Vastra spoke to her sister on the phone, always ready to come to her help if she looked as though she needed support. At one point, Vastra snapped, the conversation seemingly having turned south, and Jenny was very close to asking if she wanted her to give her an excuse to hang up, but the situation calmed down and Jenny stepped back. Still, as she saw Vastra glance in her direction, she couldn’t help but whisper, ‘Is everything okay?’, worried that Vastra might be caught up in a situation she found uncomfortable.

Vastra could only smile lightly at Jenny to indicate that there was nothing to worry about, and proceeded to reply with, “I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised, since it’s a scientifically proven fact that every family should have a cool lesbian aunt to keep things interesting.”

At hearing Vastra openly admit that she was a lesbian, Jenny almost couldn’t hold back a gasp that threatened to escape her lips. Of course, she did have her ideas and suspicions, and she had been desperately hoping that it would be the case, but to actually hear it being confirmed took her completely by surprise.

“As long as ‘interesting’ doesn’t mean deadly, I can possibly agree.” Lanah said fondly. “Either way, I’m putting on Billy now. He’s been tugging at my dress for the past half-hour and it’s getting a bit annoying.”

Immediately after she said that, the line went momentarily silent as Lanah passed on the phone to Billy, and before Vastra could even prepare herself, her ears were suddenly bombarded by the voice of a highly overenthusiastic four year old boy.

“Aunty Vasha! Aunty Vasha! It’s me, Billy!” Shouted Billy from the other side of the line without any repercussions whatsoever. “I wanted Mommy to call you because I love the toy racecar you sent me for my birthday! I like to play with it because it’s super fast and it goes zoom zoom and sometimes Capaldi will chase it! When I grow up I will have a real racecar and we will go on awesome adventures together! Maybe I’ll have a flying car that can take us up to the moon!”

There was a broad doting smile spread across Vastra’s face as she happily listened to her adorable nephew’s passionate gushing about his new toy racecar. It was then that she fully realized just how much she missed her family back home in Scotland, who she would see only a few times each year for holidays and whatnot. Since she clearly lacked any children of her own, Vastra was able to compensate for it by loving all of her sibling’s children and spoiling them rotten, including Billy. Billy’s rapidly spoken words helped to draw out old distant memories from the very deep recesses of Vastra’s mind, allowing her to relive all those wonderful times that they had together. Vastra was immensely thankful to at least have this one little connection with her family, and she hoped that it would never end.

When Billy finally paused to take a breath, Vastra promptly took advantage of it to say, “Ah, yes hello there, Silly Billy, nothing ever makes me happier than getting a call from my most favorite nephew! I’m so glad to hear that your crazy wild imagination still hasn’t changed. It sure seems like you were able to put it to good use while playing with your race car.”

“Thank you a lot, Aunty Vasha! I don’t care what Mommy says, you are the greatest, awesomest aunty ever!” Proclaimed Billy zealously, which touched Vastra’s heart in a profoundly meaningful way.

From the couch, Jenny kept observing Vastra in curious silence. She’d said she was fine, but it didn’t help Jenny’s worries much. What did, however, was when she saw Vastra breaking into a huge grin, her whole face practically glowing as she listened to someone chatting energetically on the other end. Seeing Vastra so happy and at ease made Jenny happy, too, and she couldn’t help the small smile resting upon her lips. It was wonderful and amazing to see someone so joyful and content and absolutely at ease in a conversation with family. For Vastra, family was clearly people she cared for and loved, and somehow that made Jenny feel both glad and also sad, because while it felt blissful watching someone else experiencing it this way, it was not something she would ever have.

As soon as Billy was done talking, the line went quiet for a moment, and then the voice of Vastra’s sister picked up once more. “That’s enough Billy, time for us grown-ups to talk again. Thanks for listening to him, Vastra. He’s been going on and on about how he wanted to talk to you all morning, and you know he gets cranky when he wants something.”

“Hmmm….well, I do certainly wonder who he got that from,” Vastra mockingly questioned while stroking her chin, a massive smile still plastered onto her face. “It’s really no problem, Lanah, because I find it quite sweet that Billy wanted to call and thank me for his present. Honestly, I was beginning to worry that he had forgotten all about me. So just out of curiosity….how is the rest of the family doing,” Vastra asked carefully as she bit her lip, craving for more information regarding her the status of her family.

Most importantly, she needed to know if they had been able to recover from her father’s tragic death due to cancer five years ago, because God knows she definitely hasn’t.

After Vastra’s question, there was a short pause on the other end, and she could hear her sister saying something to her son, before she began to reply with, “Well…I guess it’s okay overall. Most of us are doing pretty well, some are in a bit of a low period at the moment but hopefully they’ll be feeling better soon. We miss you, though. Honestly, it would be so nice if we could see you a little more often.”

A biting sensation of guilt stung within Vastra’s heart upon hearing her sister’s downhearted statement, and she shakily spoke, “You know very well I that want that more than anything…. and I would do so, in a heartbeat, if only my schedule would allow it. It’s just that….it’s hard, you know, going back there….and remembering all those things.” Vastra’s voice was barely above a whisper by the time she finished speaking, a tell-tale sign that her emotions were threatening to overwhelm her.

The day that Vastra’s father died was not something she liked to think about often, even going so far as to block it out of her mind completely. His untimely death dealt an enormously heavy blow on everyone in the family, and each of them had their own ways of coping with the aftermath of that terrible event. Immediately after graduating from vet school, Vastra moved down to London because she simply couldn’t bear to stay in Scotland any longer. Really, she was trying to run away from the past where her father still dwelled while his spirit continued to haunt her in the present. A small part of Vastra always knew that it was selfish and cowardly of her to leave her grieving family behind instead of remaining with them during their darkest hour. She never had much trouble suppressing those echoing doubts in the back of her head until now, as talking to Lanah for the last thirty minutes was causing all of her old, painstakingly hidden grief and regret to resurface again. Vastra’s entire body was trembling at this point, and she could feel herself being dangerously close to bursting out in tears, though Jenny’s presence was the only thing that encouraged Vastra to maintain her composure, because it would be most utterly lame if she randomly started crying in front of her crush. No, there will be enough time to have an emotional breakdown later, but in this current moment she must put on a brave face for Jenny.

On the other end of the phone, a deep sigh could be heard, and then Vastra’s sister said,. “I know, Vastra. I’m not accusing you of anything, Little Extra. I’m just saying we miss you, that’s all.”

Still sitting and waiting for the call to end, Jenny could tell that things were getting tense as Vastra suddenly started shuddering, and she decided that perhaps it would be best if she gave her some time alone.

With the efficiency of someone who had their fair share of working in coffee shops, Jenny quickly started gathering the cups and half empty plate of biscuits, piling them up atop each other on the tray that she’d brought with her to the living room.Once she was done, she stood up, taking the tray in her arms and began setting off towards the kitchen. However, as she left, she took one last glance over her shoulder at Vastra, thus neglecting to see where she was going, and tripped on the threshold.Feet hitting against solid wood, Jenny’s entire body was sent crashing to the floor, the tray flying out of her hands, porcelain breaking into a million pieces as they landed upon the floor along with Jenny.

“Fucking bloody hell!” The swear words slipped past her lips as she tried desperately to readjust her bruised and aching body, swearing even more as she realised how much ruined china there was spread out everywhere. “Fucking shit!”

The collective commotion of shattering china and an angrily cursing Cockney woman instantly pulled Vastra away from the phone call, her eyes growing wide with shocked concern at the sight of Jenny’s disastrous wipeout. “Oh dear Lord….are you alright, Jenny?” Blurted Vastra, momentarily forgetting that her sister was also listening on the line.

“ Jenny ? Who are you calling Jenny ?!” Lanah hadn’t been aware that someone else was in the room with Vastra, but then something clicked in her mind and she sang, “Vaaaastra, are you at your girlfriend’s house? Someone named Jenny? Why didn’t you tell me! Finally, someone to take care of your sorry, egotistical arse!” Her voice was gleeful and humorous, and Vastra could imagine her smug smile as she spoke.

Vastra hissed sharply into the phone in retaliation before abandoning her phone altogether on the sofa as she quickly ran to Jenny’s side. “Jenny, oh my God, are you hurt anywhere? Bloody Christ, there’s a lot of broken china over here! Let me uhh help you uhh…..”

It was then that Vastra’s eyes made the mistake of landing on Jenny’s enticing cleavage visibly peeking through her shirt, with only a few inches in between the two of them, and that caused her to swallow hard as her entire bodily system effectively malfunctioned.

“Excuse me.” Jenny said, slightly embarrassed as she caught on to Vastra’s sideway glance down at her cleavage. “Can you please help me up a little? I’d really like to get away from this spot without cutting my hands and feet on all this china.”

“Huh? Oh, yes….the china, of course….sorry,” Vastra rapidly blinked, summoning all of her willpower in order to tear her gaze away from Jenny’s bosom, and generously stretched out her hand for Jenny to take. There was no way to prevent the deep embarrassment that she felt at being caught ogling by the other woman from exploding into varying shades of red across her face. “Pray tell, how in the world did this happen anyway?”

At this, Jenny blushed and immediately became red in the face, awkwardly trying to form a coherent reply that wouldn’t directly reveal she’d been listening in on the phone call. “I…well, you seemed a little upset so I thought I’d….I’d take out the dishes and give you some time to yourself. But then I just…..I looked back at you as I left and hit the threshold.” Finishing her explanation, Jenny held tightly onto Vastra’s offered hand as she ungracefully jumped over the broken porcelain, landing on the floor next to Vastra.

As soon as she did that, Vastra instinctively scooted a few inches away from Jenny, in an attempt to prevent herself from getting too lightheaded while in Jenny’s intoxicating presence. She could have sworn that that she felt an invisible electricity crackling in the air between their hands as she hastily retracted her own, just like when they first met at the clinic. A faint, yet hopeful voice in the back of Vastra’s mind told her that it might be a sign from the universe, that perhaps she might actually have a chance with Jenny who was totally far out of her league. Sobering up again, Vastra immediately dismissed those thoughts as mere wishful thinking, and tilted her head slightly aside while her eyes fixed themselves upon Jenny with the suspicion that she had been eavesdropping on her private conversation. Not that Vastra could hardly hold her at fault, of course.

So without any hint of accusation in her tone, and a gentle smile forming on her lips, Vastra responded with, “You really ought to be more careful, Miss Flint. Although, I can honestly say that this isn’t the very first time somebody had an accident due to my rather distracting tattoos.” Her gaze then flicked over to all the fractured pieces of china, causing her expression to grimace as she spoke, “I’m awfully sorry about your china….I truly am. Will you allow me to assist you in cleaning up this mess? It’s the least I can do, after you’ve shown me such a generous amount to hospitality.”

Upon hearing her first remark, Jenny blushed even more, the redness on her cheeks deepening. As she came to the second part of the sentence, Jenny felt so embarrassed and uncomfortable that she wanted nothing more than for Vastra to leave, to take her things and walk away and never come back so that maybe Jenny could just forget her and move on. Her heart obviously disagreed, however and instead of telling her to go, she found herself nodding in acceptance to her offer. “Yes, please, hat would be very welcomed.” She said, biting her lip hard at how much of an idiot she must look like, and quickly started gathering shards, just to have something - anything - to do.

Vastra’s brows furrowed in confusion, as something about what Jenny said felt kind of…. forced to her, but it wasn’t long before she, too, dropped down onto her knees and began to carefully collect the sharp fragments into her hand. There was only a cold and empty silence as the two of them continued to clear the floor of broken china for what seemed like an entire eternity, each trying desperately to avoid looking at the other. Then by accident, while they were both too deeply caught up within their own contemplation, their hands touched yet again on the last piece of china. That simple incident served as a catalyst that sent powerful trails of sparks burning up the length of their arms until they ultimately reached their hearts and set them aflame with the intensity of a thousand blazing suns. Neither Jenny nor Vastra could comprehend why it must always happen this way, but at the same time it was also getting increasingly more difficult for them to ignore their passionate mutual attraction to each other. Completely aware of all the risks that came with it, both Jenny and Vastra simultaneously lifted their heads so that their eyes became firmly locked, bright blue staring into rich brown. Every single trace of the outside world gradually faded away until nothing else remained except for the two of them, utterly alone with the deafening sound of their seismic heartbeats. Vastra subconsciously licked her lips and stole a tentatively quick glimpse of Jenny’s perfectly kissable mouth, a sudden erotic shiver shooting up her spine when she noticed Jenny mirroring her actions as well. There was a distinctly apparent change among the atmosphere that surrounded them, filling it to the very brim with a heavy and undeniable sexual tension which radiated off of Jenny and Vastra themselves. Slowly, their faces started moving forward inch by inch in order to close the gap between them, though neither was fully capable of registering it, as if there was some unseen mystical power that was pulling them together, whether they knew it or not.

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, Vastra’s ears perked up to an all too familiar voice that started shouting from the sofa. “Vastra? Extra, where the hell did you go?! Don’t tell me you seriously dropped the phone without hanging up to go get some from that girl of yours!” Lanah called out from the phone speaker, utter amusement and irritation mixing within her tone.

Thus, the mysterious trance that was holding Vastra and Jenny captive had been broken. They blinked rather absentmindedly, as if just waking up from a long slumber, both entirely unsure about what was happening in that particular moment. Then witnessing that their hands were still in the same position, they immediately separated them with impossibly lightning quick reflexes, the final china piece being claimed by Vastra. Nonetheless, the overwhelming heat of the carnal fire that had consumed them earlier refused to go away, but continued to rage within them ever so strongly. Their eyes strictly fixated onto the floor, neither of them could find any words to say, for fear of escalating the already stressful situation even more. Therefore, they decided to simply keep their mouths shut, and wordlessly rose up from the floor before walking over to the trashcan in Jenny’s kitchen where they cautiously disposed all of the damaged china fragments.

Once that was taken care of, Vastra immediately sprinted back into the living room to pick up her phone, and resumed the call saying, “ Ha ha ha ….very funny, Lanah. If you really must know, I’m with a client right now, another lizard case as you can probably guess. So I would highly appreciate it if you can kindly stop spouting shit out of your ass hole, and let me do my job.” Vastra was definitely in no mood to tolerate her older sister’s inappropriate remarks, but she also knew that Lanah was fully capable of enduring her verbal abuses after all those years.

“Well, excuse me! You’re not exactly notoriously known for going out of your way to visit patients in their homes, especially not on weekends! On the other hand, what you are notoriously known for is being insanely, ridiculously, EXTRA gay ! But whatever, blame a woman for trying to make some logical conclusions, it’s fine I don’t care. Either way, I don’t have time to stay talking to you much longer so I’m hanging up now. Goodbye, Vastra!” Immediately, the line went dead as Lanah hung up.

Inwardly relieved that the call was finally over with, Vastra sighed deeply as she placed her phone back into her pocket.

“Hey, Vastra. Are you…are you okay?” Carefully, Jenny approached Vastra, putting a hand on her arm. It was quite obvious that the lengthy phone call had drained Vastra, and she wanted to make sure that she was okay. “I’m here for you if…if you need to talk.”

It required every bit of Vastra’s willpower not to jump off the sofa when she felt Jenny’s delicate hand on her arm. Eventually turning around to face Jenny directly, Vastra tried to act like nothing was wrong as she said, “Thank you, Je–Miss Flint– but I assure you, everything is perfectly well with me. It’s just that, my sister….she enjoys pushing my buttons way too much sometimes.” Vastra chuckled nervously, a wry smile gracing her countenance. “Yes, she can often be a royal pain in the neck, but I still love her anyway.”

Vastra had intentionally stopped herself from addressing Jenny by her first name, because the phone call with Lanah made her self-conscious of the fact that she was getting a little too friendly with Jenny, and that she needed to reestablish some kind of professional formality asap.

While Jenny felt a bit hurt that Vastra refused to use her first name, she kept smiling peacefully, squeezing Vastras arm. “I understand. You are very lucky to have people who do care for you, even if they sometimes drive you crazy. They still love you.” Her smile felt less real with every passing second because seeing the way Vastra and her family worked, made Jenny’s heart ache. She badly longed to have a life and a family like that herself, too, but it was and always will be an unreachable dream, and she knew that. It had never been a possibility. “A lot of people have it much worse.”

Vastra was able to detect a trace of bitter melancholy in Jenny’s tone, which led her to gently lay her hand on Jenny’s knee and asked, “Pardon me if this sounds intrusive, but I’m under the impression that perhaps you don’t get along with your family?”

That was an extremely risky move on Vastra’s part and she mentally kicked herself for prying into the personal life of this woman who she barely even knows. On the other hand, however, Jenny seemed to be so sad and miserable that Vastra just couldn’t help giving her heart out to her in sympathy. There was really nothing that she could do except waiting anxiously with bated breath for Jenny’s response

Upon hearing Vastra’s inquiry, Jenny almost dissolved straight into tears. Her arms wrapped tightly around her own shivering body and she nodded. “My mom is dead. My siblings are God knows where, I haven’t heard from any of them in years, and my dad would probably try to kill me if I ever got close to him again.” At the end she was openly sobbing, unable to keep it all back as it came rushing out against her will, hot tears splattered on her cheeks. “There is not a single person who cares about me. I don’t have anyone who I can truly call ‘my family’ in this world” She knew it sounded pathetic and attention seeking from her side, but Jenny couldn’t help it. Once the dam had been breached, the flood of emotions could not be stopped no matter how hard she tried.

Oh dear….Oh God….Why is this happening….I shouldn’t have done that….Bloody hell I am such a fucking idiot!

Needless to say, Vastra was in full blown panic mode as she realized that she had unwittingly opened Pandora’s box. It’s rather obvious that she has brought this upon herself, because she just had to cross the line and make Jenny talk about a severely sensitive topic instead of minding her own damn business. So as a result of that, Vastra was now absolutely stuck in a most awkward situation with Jenny literally crying an entire river beside her, and there seemed to be nothing she could do to fix it. The real truth is that Vastra has always been the worst at trying to comfort people, especially when they are leaking an excessive amount of salty liquid out of their eyeballs, and would be more likely to distance herself away from them. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that her heart wasn’t actually breaking into a million pieces with every single choking sob that escaped from Jenny’s lips before falling on her ears. Vastra seriously hated seeing Jenny in so much pain and suffering, which she had ultimately concluded as somehow being caused by Jenny’s family. It was strikingly clear to Vastra that Jenny was carrying a lot of heavy, unresolved emotional baggage, and she very desperately wanted to help Jenny in any way she can, but her whole body was currently in a state of complete shock. Vastra was immensely determined to do at least something–anything–and began summoning all of her energy in order to regain her physical functionality.

Miraculously, Vastra’s efforts soon paid off as she was then able to slowly stretch her arm out towards Jenny and started to lightly pat her on the shoulder.

“Err there, there, Miss Flint….everything is going to be alright,”Vastra reassured fumblingly, wincing at how weak that sounded while trying to wrack her brain for more things to say. When she couldn’t find anything that she considered to be adequate enough, Vastra merely sighed and said, “Oh, who am I bloody kidding? Nothing is right about this whatsoever, and it’s all my damn fault! It was a stupid mistake on my part to just drop that question onto you out of nowhere. I really should have stayed in my lane. God, I’m such a fucking daft, insensitive fool!” There was a prolonged pause as Vastra suddenly fell silent, guilt and remorse weighing down heavily against her heart like lead. “I am so, so terribly sorry, Miss Flint….I now realize that it was inexcusable of me to overstepped my boundaries….and I completely understand if you want me to leave.”

Somehow, the thought of Vastra leaving, of Jenny having chased her away because she could not keep her damn mouth shut about things she knew no one cared about, felt even worse to Jenny than the agonizing torment of her mortal soul. Her stomach twisted,and even more tears came pouring down her face, and before she knew what she was doing, she wrapped her arms tightly around Vastra, hugging her and sobbing into her firmly solid chest. “No, please don’t go….I’m…I’m sorry. I…I know I shouldn’t….I’m sorry for being like this.” There was not much else that Jenny could say, still shamelessly clinging onto Vastra for dear life and crying her eyes out.

Vastra was caught completely by surprise when the woman of her dreams suddenly threw herself at her, for lack of a better term, and was refusing to let her go anytime soon. While Vastra was utterly afraid that she might mess things up even more if she made just one wrong move, she also felt a sort of newfound maternal instinct kicking into her system as she simply couldn’t bear to hear Jenny apologizing for something that wasn’t her fault. Eventually deciding to throw all caution into the wind, Vastra carefully encircled her own arms around Jenny’s small trembling frame, propriety be damned! She then proceeded to rub soothing circles upon Jenny’s back, while quietly whispering sweet words of comfort into her ear, because God knows the poor girl definitely deserved nothing less than to be treated with utmost compassion and kindness as she continued to thoroughly soak Vastra’s shirt with her tears of anguish. They remained together in that position for an indefinite amount of time, which didn’t really bother Vastra one bit because she was perfectly willing to wait for as long as Jenny needed.

Finally, Jenny’s tears started to abate after she had all but cried herself dry, embarrassment quickly claiming her and putting her cheeks on fire as she separated from Vastra, scooting to the other end of the sofa and giving her some extra space after having clung to her shamelessly for what felt like hours. Carefully, she dabbed the edge of her tank top against her cheeks, trying to remove the leftover tears and attempting a wobbly smile. “Sorry.” She said, her voice not quite as steady as she’d like it to be. “I don’t talk about my family often, for obvious reasons. I prefer to just bury it all in the back of my head and forget.” She gave a shallow laughter, but it was lifeless and not particularly funny and she decided to just shut up instead.

Vastra would have pouted in disappointment when Jenny abruptly broke their tight embrace, and hastily retreated back to the other side of the couch, but luckily she was able to school her features into appearing strictly normal. Already did she missed the warm weight of Jenny’s body pressed against her own and the special intimacy of having her arms wrapped around the petite woman; It was as if a large piece of her heart had been taken away along with Jenny, which left her feeling utterly hollow and incomplete.

Vastra’s eyes simply couldn’t resist dropping down to look at the exposed skin on Jenny’s stomach as she lifted up the fringe of her tank top, but she still made sure to instantly revert her gaze so that she wouldn’t be caught like last time.

“It would seem that is much easier said than done, I’m afraid,” replied Vastra wistfully, returning with a rather strained smile of her own. She could sense that the atmosphere of the room has changed drastically yet again, and she didn’t like the way it somehow made all of her hair stand up on end. There was a tense pause before she continued to speak, “That was quite an impressive emotional catharsis you had, Miss Flint. How are you feeling now?”

Wincing a little at the thought if what she had just done, Jenny nodded. “A bit better, thanks. Actually, a lot better. Don’t think I’ve told anyone that much about my family since I was a teenager. Hope it wasn’t too embarrassing for you.” She purposely looked away from Vastra as she said the last part, but she didn’t feel quite as ashamed as earlier.

A wave of regret washed over Vastra when she saw Jenny did that, as she had to fight the persistent urge to grab Jenny’s face and force her to look directly at her. “Believe me, Miss Flint, I did not find it to be the least bit embarrassing….as long as it doesn’t bother you to disclose the private details of your life to a foolish, meddlesome stranger, of course, “Vastra responded reassuringly, while also including a sharp jab at herself for starting this in the first place.

Jenny frowned a little at this, and quickly shook her head. “You’re not a meddlesome stranger. You’re someone I trust.” She said sincerely, looking up at Vastra, their eyes meeting. “Besides, maybe it isn’t so healthy to hide your problems and wish they’ll go away for most of your adult life. It certainly doesn’t seem to have done me any good.” She frowned again, uncertain. She thought of the phone call with Vastra and her sister she listened in on, and knew that Vastra was trying to forget things as well.

“Mmmm well, I actually have several people in mine who would love to disagree with you on that,” Vastra responded in a more lighthearted tone, desperately attempting to decrease the negative aura that was surrounding them. Then thoughtfully stroking her chin out of habit, she asked, “Have you ever considered keeping a diary or journal, Miss Flint? You are absolutely right about it not being healthy to permanently suppress your feelings, but perhaps it would be helpful for you to write them down somewhere? Get them off of your chest?”

Oh, there was actually so much more that Vastra wanted to get off Jenny’s chest.

Vastra could still remember all the diaries she had kept when she was younger, and the freedom that they gave her to express herself without any restrictions within those countless blank pages.

Jenny giggled. She didn’t quite know why, but she definitely giggled. “That might have been a good idea.” She admitted slowly, the ‘but’ resting at the tip of her tongue. “But I’m rather daft. Never really thought I was very good with words, and reading,and writing. I can, of course, especially if I take lots of time like I do at work, but it’s a slow process. I really don’t think it’d be helpful, in my case..” She gave Vastra a sheepish look, feeling a little mean for turning down her advice. She did like the idea, but it didn’t feel quite right for her.

Vastra only nodded understandably, an objectively cordial smile plastered on her face as she said, “Ah, yes, I should have known that it wouldn’t necessarily work for everybody. It was just a suggestion, however, and there’s nothing that says you have to abide by it.” Biting her lip, Vastra lowered her gaze down to the floor, as she was struggling to contain this one particular question that’s been bugging her brain during the past hour. That proved to be too difficult though, and Vastra couldn’t stop her mouth from suddenly uttering, “Why do you think that your father is going to kill you?”

Ughh, what is fucking wrong with you?! When will you ever learn from your mistakes, for God’s sake! Vastra was very angry at herself for lacking better self-control, and blurting out yet another absurdly intrusive question. Although she was genuinely concerned and intrigued when Jenny mentioned something about her father killing her, Vastra had vowed to try her damn hardest not to let it escape from the mental confines of her mind. Therefore, having totally failed in that, Vastra immediately braced herself in anticipation for what she thought would be a repeat of Jenny’s earlier reaction.

“Oh” It was the first thing that came to mind as Jenny heard Vastra’s question, a simple ‘oh’ of surprise. Surprise that Vastra had actually noticed her quite offhanded comment about her father, and surprise that Vastra cared to investigate it further. As the surprise passed, Jenny felt as though there was not much left to say at all. Had she been asked earlier she might have cried, or screamed or even run for it, but now, she felt as stoic and gray as a stone, entirely void of all emotional attachment to the question. “Well, my father, he’s…he doesn’t like people who don’t obey the Bible. Who, for example, are attracted to the same sex. It’s a sin and I…well…I’m a sinner. He caught me kissing a girl and after that I didn’t have much of a choice. If they’re sinners, killing one’s child is entirely justified.” It was honestly unbelieveable that , Vastra had managed squeezed out yet another thing Jenny never talked about. It wasn’t that she was ashamed that her family for being extremely conservative, but it felt wrong to mention it when she herself couldn’t fill their standards of decency.

At first, there appeared to be no hint of a visible reaction from Vastra, because she had been struck absolutely speechless after listening to Jenny’s heartbreaking testimony. It was the same old story that she had heard from many other people in the LGBT social circles that she usually hung around, but this time with Jenny it’s somehow different because within seconds, a mighty and overwhelming inferno of righteous fury was ignited in Vastra. While she herself was fortunate enough to come out to a remarkably supportive family, just the thought of there being parents who, for some bullshit reason or another, simply cannot accept the fact that their children love the same gender, and would even go so far as to kill them, never failed to make Vastra’s blood boil hotly with anger. The way Jenny had described her father, how he had abused her solely for her sexual orientation sounded utterly barbaric to Vastra, as she found herself becoming increasingly protective of Jenny. She also imagined what it would be like to run down that bloody homophobic bastard with her motorcycle as a rightful punishment for all the damage he had inflicted against Jenny. No doubt she would have derived a most immense amount of satisfaction from it.

Vastra soon pulled herself out of her revenge fantasies, and impulsively reached over to hold Jenny’s hand in hers, before speaking bluntly, “No, don’t you ever berate yourself as a sinner like that again! I won’t stand for it! Forget everything that your asshole father said because you are definitely not a sinner! You, Miss Flint, are such a kind, beautiful, intelligent, honest, diligent, strong, and overall extraordinary individual as I have come to known throughout the course of my visit here. Your sexual preference for the fairer sex should not negate all of these positive qualities, nor should you be ashamed of being the way you are. So if your despicable bigot of a father refuse to understand that, then you might as well consider him dead to you, because I would bury him twenty feet underground if given the chance.” Vastra paused to catch her breath, her serious demeanor melting away to offer Jenny a softly compassionate smile as she concluded with, “Please trust me when I say, that even though your family may have forsaken you, I myself will always believe in you no matter what. You are worth so much more than you realize, Jenny Flint.”

The doubtless sincerity of Vastra’s words seemed to drip thick from her lips like luscious honey, which Jenny desperately longed to taste.

Jenny was entirely floored.

The effort of Vastra to show her love and appreciation and try to make up for the heaviness of her past had her stunned, shocked and overwhelmed with pure joy at the tremendous amount of care that Vastra dedicated to her. Even when young and still with a family, she hadn’t been very noticeable. A middle child among eight - too many mouths to be fed and too many expenses to be payed in the eyes of her parents - Jenny had been used to nearly not existing in the eyes of most. She was just another one , another student at the same school as four siblings before her and another pair of shoes that needed replacing when her father hadn’t had a job for weeks. Another young woman with lacking education searching for any job she could get in an effort to survive. The kind of care and kindness and love Vastra offered was something totally new. With Vastra, Jenny felt like the star of a play standing on a stage, everyone’s eyes focused solely on her. It made her heart soar and she lit up like a christmas tree at the thought.

“Thank you. Really, thank you. I…there has never been anyone showing me this much attention before, if I am to be honest. As a middle kid among eight, I….I’ve always been used to being forgotten. Well, until I do something wrong, that is, but that’s not the kind of attention you want.” She smiled, her broadest and happiest. “Thanks for caring, Vastra. For making me feel so very appreciated. You are special, too, and I’m so happy that I met you.”

Vastra couldn’t bring herself to say anything, because there was no words that could adequately describe Jenny’s radiant beauty in that moment when she is smiling and gay. It was a thrilling sensation for Vastra to be the one who could turn Jenny’s entire perspective around and help her to see the light that shines within her. There was truly nothing that she desired more than for Jenny to find the courage to love herself as perfect as she already was. She didn’t care about Jenny’s shitty childhood or her terrible abusive father, because none of that mattered anymore as she was determined to guide Jenny in moving forward from her unhappy past. Vastra’s heart was practically overflowing with pure, unconditional love towards Jenny, and even though it seemed highly unlikely that she would ever share her same romantic feelings, Vastra will never stop wanting the best of everything for Jenny.

Once she was able to recover her tongue again, Vastra gently squeezed Jenny’s hand and began to say, “Well, who else is going to to care for you if I don’’t? Really, Jenny, I promise that you will have a family of your own someday, a new and even better one. You already have Greeny….and I….I lo-”

Just as vastra was about to utter some of the most important words in her entire life, the sound of police sirens interrupted her, the noise coming from the kitchen and making itself heard all the way to the living room.

As if on cue, Jenny jumped up from her seat and ran off to the kitchen. After a while, the noise died out and she came back into the living room, her phone pressed to her ear, urgently talking to someone.

Glancing at Vastra, she whispered. “It is from work.” Before going back to talking to the person on the other end. “You know I don’t have weekend shifts this month, Jack! And yes, I am in the middle of something, too! So I’m not going to just give it up unless…wait, seriously? Oh my god! Why didn’t you say so? I’ll be there soon, bye.” Jenny hung up the phone, stress and mild panic clear on her face.

Whatever that was said in the conversation between that person and Jenny made Vastra considerably concerned, but also slightly piqued her curiosity.

“Jenny, you don’t look so well….what’s wrong? Who was that calling you?” Inquired Vastra eagerly, as she began to stand up with the intention of walking over to Jenny.

Glancing over at Vastra, and almost looking as though she just noticed she was there, Jenny frowned. “That was Jack, from work. He’s in charge of arranging all of our schedules and…he needs me to come in and work extra today. A sort of… thing happened and they need everyone they can get as soon as possible.”

Vastra arched an inquisitive eyebrow at that and said, “ Oh ….yes, I figured that it must be something serious if Scotland Yard is calling you on your day off.” She awkwardly fidgeted in her seat, uncertain on what to do next. “Anyway….I would seem that I’ve overstayed my welcome in your home. Perhaps you’d like me to leave now, so that you can get ready for work?”

An unspoken question hung in the air as Vastra and Jenny merely gazed at each other from across the room. Vastra really didn’t want to leave Jenny, who she’d fallen so incredibly hard for, or the enchantingly serene paradise consisting of just the two of them inside her apartment together. Being with Jenny had made her forget that all good things must come to an end eventually, and that she was completely powerless to prevent it.

Jenny glanced between the phone still in her hand and Vastra, a slightly guilty look on her face. She didn’t want this to end, but she felt as though she didn’t have a choice. It was extremely urgent, and she had promised Jack to come as soon as possible. “Look, I’m really sorry to have to throw you out like this, but there’s sort of a crisis going on, and I really need to get changed and get there! But we can still see each other at another time, yes?” Jenny smiled, nearly bursting at the seams with hopefulness.

Afraid that her voice might crack if she gave a verbal response, Vastra simply opted for a wry, bittersweet smile and nodded in understanding. She wordlessly retrieved her leather jacket to put it back on, hiding away her glorious arm tattoos from the view of mortal eyes once again. She then stood up before proceeding to swiftly walk towards the door, and Jenny followed suit to see her out. Jenny reached the door first and politely held it open for Vastra to go through. The Scottish woman already had one foot out the doorway when she suddenly paused, standing there like a statue as she contemplated something.

Then catching Jenny off guard, Vastra turned around and used one hand to cradle Jenny’s chin as she leaned over to plant a softly chaste kiss atop her forehead. “ Ceòthach mhadainn dh'fhaodadh a bhith latha soilleir….that’s Scottish for, ‘a misty morning may become a clear day’,” whispered Vastra as she slowly pulled away, capturing Jenny’s eyes with her own, which were full of undisclosed desires and passion. “Farewell, dear Jenny Flint, and thank you for a most splendidly memorable afternoon.”

Vastra allowed her hand to linger underneath Jenny’s chin in a rather seductive manner for several more tantalizing moments, before she abruptly spun around on her heel and marched right out of the apartment without so much as a backwards glance.

Jenny stood where Vastra left her, frozen in place, her eyes fixed on the doorway through which the unbelievably remarkable woman had just departed. Slowly, her eyes closed, her hand travelling all the way to her forehead and touching the spot where Vastra’s lips had touched it. Before her mind’s eye, Jenny could see Vastra’s beautiful lips resting on her pale skin, cool and slightly moist against her heated skin. She imagined those sweet lips traveling down her body and touching all of her. She wished to have her own lips on Vastra’s body, too, and though she knew it would probably never come true she couldn’t help but let herself get caught up in that dream for a while. A pleasant tingly warmth spread throughout her body and she smiled.

When she opened her eyes again, Jenny realised that she had spent all too much time dreaming about the most lovely scenarios with Vastra’s beautiful lips grazing her skin and her own lips kissing Vastra’s perfect face, and she quickly decided that she needed to get moving. The smile, however stayed on her face, just as the warm feeling in her chest remained there, and she kept the fantasies of her and Vastra and all that she could be with that gorgeous woman in the back of her mind for her to continue enjoying while she got dressed for work.

A misty morning may indeed become a clear day.

The golden sun hung high in the sky when Vastra emerged from the apartment complex, casting its far reaching rays upon her entire body as a kind of purifying blessing. She took several steps outside until she was approximately three feet away from the building, and only then did she finally permit herself to look back up at Jenny’s window. Vastra couldn’t resist reminiscing about the countless blissful hours that she had spent with Jenny; What had originally started as a simple veterinarian house visit to examine a client’s pet lizard, somehow gradually turned into one hell of a roller coaster ride with its numerous dramatic up and down points. Indeed, it was quite a perplexing paradox, because while Vastra found it considerably difficult to be confined in the same general area as Jenny due to her severe infatuation with the girl, she was also able to genuinely enjoy Jenny’s hospitable company nonetheless. Vastra thanked God that she was fortunate enough to bask in the magnificent aura of Jenny’s divine presence, witness her uniquely striking beauty up close with her own eyes, and engage in sociable conversation with Jenny as if they were old friends, rather than formal strangers. By the end of her tenure in Jenny’s home, Vastra truly felt like the two of them have learned so much about each other after sharing very intimate things from the deepest bottom of their souls, which helped them to form an even stronger and more meaningful connection than ever before. Never in her life did Vastra predict that she would be able to fully open herself to someone, or that a single person could have such a profound impact on her heart. Out of all the people in the world, Jenny was like a precious diamond among the rough, a cool oasis in the middle of a desert, a miraculous breeze of fresh air flowing into her lungs. Nobody else was even remotely worthy of being compared to Jenny, whose extraordinary celestial status uplifted her high above the rest of mankind in Vastra’s eyes.Everything that happened in the apartment served to confirm Vastra’s underlying belief that the feelings she harbored for Jenny weren’t just a mere crush, but undeniably true and honest love that consumed her entire being. Whether Jenny would ever reciprocate her romantic inclinations was a whole different matter, however, and there seemed to be little that Vastra could do to soothe the unbearable pain of falling for a perfect girl who she can never have. At least she could still find slight comfort in the fact that she actually got to hold Jenny in her arms, and earned her invaluable trust as a friend, which she concluded was better than nothing. Vastra’s mind continued to wander further as she remembered how conflicted she had been at the beginning, trying to decide between bravery and cowardice when Jenny first asked her to come over. Ultimately, Vastra was glad that she chose to follow her heart, because it had led her to the possibility of obtaining something much greater with Jenny.

Finally pulling herself out of her inner musings, Vastra glanced down to look at her watch.

The time was just nearing 12 PM.

Therefore, the day was still young, leaving plenty of room for an impromptu Sunday adventure. A delighted smile unconsciously spread across Vastra’s face, as she stuffed her hands into her pockets and leisurely walked the rest of the way towards her motorcycle. Once clad in her protective helmet and goggles, Vastra didn’t hesitate to rev up the motorcycle before it launched itself roaring down the road at maximum hyperspeed.

———————————————————————–

Tag/Update list (DM me to be added):

@kelticscribe @zaridaxe @antiveninn @dorvanie

#vastra and jenny #dw femslash #madame vastra #jenny flint #paternoster gang

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theclockisstrikingtwelve · 8 years ago

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Time Traveler’s Wife – Anna and the Doctor

@theclockisstrikingtwelve / @videofaciempraeteriti

(Also including @tavinwho, @thenamelessareforgedinwar and once @princeofconjurers)

“Will you share your life with me, For the next ten lifetimes? (Forever) For a million summers? (Forever) Till the world explodes, Till there’s no one left, Who has ever known us apart?”

Anna and the Doctor’s timeline from the Doctor’s point of view (under the cut)

The First Doctor

The Doctor as a Child – #Listen Anna met the Doctor as a child on Gallifrey, before he even became a Time Lord. He was asleep in the barn when the Twelfth Doctor, just traveling from the end of time, accidentally landed the TARDIS on Gallifrey, at a time and place where the Doctor was a child. He did it by using the TARDIS’s psychic controls going back within your own personal timeline, taking him back to a place when he had the nightmare that everyone seems to have, where you think you’re awake, and you think there is something in the room with you. When you sit up, a hand reaches out from underneath your bed and grabs your leg. It turns out that the person who grabbed the Doctor’s leg when he was a child, when he thought he was having this nightmare, was Anna. She whispers to him and tells him that he is dreaming.

The First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctors

#Missing Adventures The Twelfth Doctor wanted Anna to truly know him. And to do that, she had to know all of him. So he took her back in time so she could meet his previous selves. Since the first time he actually remembers meeting Anna was as the Tenth Doctor, while in the form of John Smith, he gave her a device that would suppress his memories. He would be able to remember them when the specified amount of time had passed. He set it for his current time, so as she was doing it, he would be able to remember it, but not before. He took her to meet every version of himself. Little bits of memories of her leaked through as time went on, so she seemed familiar to him in each regeneration, but he never knew how he knew her (until she tells him). Even the First Doctor thought he had heard her voice before (he had, in his “dream” when he was a child on Gallifrey, but the Doctor still doesn’t know that was her).

The War Doctor

#Great Men Are Forged in Fire – #The Day of the Doctor Anna met the War Doctor on the last day of the Time War. The day he “destroyed” – and ended up saving – Gallifrey and ended the Time War. The Doctor stole the ultimate weapon of mass destruction from the Time Lords. It was called the Moment. It could destroy worlds, but it became sentient and developed a conscience. The Doctor was going to use it to destroy Gallifrey to stop the fighting. But before he did that, the Moment, taking the form of Rose Tyler in Bad Wolf form, opened up time portals into his own future, to show him what this day, and his actions, will turn him into. He went through the time portal and met his Tenth and Eleventh incarnations, and his future companion and wife, Anna. In the end, Anna was the one to convince him and his other two selves to save Gallifrey instead of destroy it, and they got every version of him to help out.

The Ninth Doctor

#You Were Fantastic. Absolutely Fantastic. And You Know What? So Was I. – #Missing Adventures The Twelfth Doctor wanted Anna to truly know him. And to do that, she had to know all of him. So he took her back in time so she could meet his previous selves. Since the first time he actually remembers meeting Anna was as the Tenth Doctor, while in the form of John Smith, he gave her a device that would suppress his memories. He would be able to remember them when the specified amount of time had passed. He set it for his current time, so as she was doing it, he would be able to remember it, but not before. He took her to meet every version of himself. Little bits of memories of her leaked through as time went on, so she seemed familiar to him in each regeneration, but he never knew how he knew her. Even the first Doctor thought he had heard her voice before (he had, in his “dream” when he was a child on Gallifrey, but the Doctor still doesn’t know that was her).

#You Were Fantastic. Absolutely Fantastic. And You Know What? So Was I. – #Phantasma The Doctor took Rose to an amusement park called Phantasma on Coney Island in New York, at the beginning of the 20th century (approximately 1907), where Anna happened to be working as a “mermaid” (and dating the owner, the mysterious Mister Y). The Doctor felt like he knew the mermaid in the tank somehow, but he couldn’t place it (Crossover with #Moon of My Life).

The Tenth Doctor John Smith – Fobwatched!Ten

#Journal of Impossible Things Volume I – #Human Nature, #Family of Blood The Doctor’s first encounter with Anna that he can fully remember, but not Anna’s first encounter with the Doctor. This is actually far into Anna’s timeline with the Doctor. She was traveling with the Twelfth Doctor when he dropped her off to where was supposed to be home, but he got her to the wrong place, and the wrong time. 1913, to be exact.

The Doctor was hiding away from the Family of Blood in England in 1913. He used the chameleon arch to become John Smith, a perfectly ordinary human being, a man with his head in the clouds perhaps a bit too much. He was a school teacher who dreamed of being a Lord of Time. His dreams were filled with fantastical, almost fairytale-like adventures with monsters and aliens and a tiny, enormous, impossible box that travels anywhere and anywhen in the universe. And she was there, in his dreams. Her face was in his dreams, even before he knew her (he had proof, too; he drew her in his Journal of Impossible Things before he met her). She made John Smith fall in love and showed the Doctor what it was like to be normal for once. They were married and the Doctor almost had a chance at an ordinary, simple, beautiful life. But they found him, and John Smith had to wake up from his dream of an ordinary life and become the Doctor again. He left her behind, because she was just a fairytale. He didn’t know he would meet her again.

The Tenth Doctor

#He’s Like Fire and Ice and Rage – #Midnight The Doctor went to a planet called Midnight with his current companion, Donna Noble. He was on his way to see the beautiful Sapphire Waterfall, an enormous jewel the size of a glacier that reaches the Cliffs of Oblivion and shatters into fragments, falling a hundred thousand feet into a crystal ravine. A wonder of the universe, and the entire planet had never been touched by any known living creature, the extonic sunlight prevented that. Donna stayed back, relaxing in the leisure palace. She was there. Anna, his wife. How could she be here? They were centuries past her time and lightyears away. She acted like she had never met him before. It was all strange and impossible, and made him wonder about the mysterious woman he had fallen in love with and married on Earth in 1913, when he was a completely different person. It made him wonder if he really knew anything about her, and why there was so much that he didn’t know. The Doctor didn’t know it, but there was something new, or something very old and undiscovered, moving around outside, on the surface of Midnight on that unexplored detour the bus took. Something got in. It mimicked their speech until it stole his voice, made him choke on his own words as it used his voice to convince them to throw him out. Anna knew that it had him. She recognized that it was his voice that it was stealing, and she gave her life to save his, throwing herself and the creature out into the extonic sunlight. That was the first time he saw her die.

#He’s Like Fire and Ice and Rage – #Missing Adventures The Twelfth Doctor wanted Anna to truly know him. And to do that, she had to know all of him. So he took her back in time so she could meet his previous selves. Since the first time he actually remembers meeting Anna was as the Tenth Doctor, while in the form of John Smith, he gave her a device that would suppress his memories. He would be able to remember them when the specified amount of time had passed. He set it for his current time, so as she was doing it, he would be able to remember it, but not before. He took her to meet every version of himself. Little bits of memories of her leaked through as time went on, so she seemed familiar to him in each regeneration, but he never knew how he knew her. Even the first Doctor thought he had heard her voice before (he had, in his “dream” when he was a child on Gallifrey, but the Doctor still doesn’t know that was her).

#He’s Like Fire and Ice and Rage – #The Day of the Doctor At this point in the Doctor’s relationship with Anna, he can only remember her from when he met her as John Smith, and when he met her on Midnight. Seeing his future self makes him blame himself for her death on Midnight, because he thinks he is how she got from England in 1913 to Midnight, and therefore he is the reason for her death. Of course, though, at the end of this episode, he can’t remember meeting her here.

The Eleventh Doctor

#I Will Always Remember When the Doctor Was Me – #The Snowmen* Earth, Victorian London, approximately 1892. The Ponds were taking a break from traveling with him to be married, so he was on his own. Well, aside from Vastra, Jenny and Strax. They brought him a case. Or more precisely, Anna brought them a case. How could she be here and on Midnight? The case turned out to be the Great Intelligence controlling the snow. Snow that can think, snow that remembers and mimics what you’re thinking. They defeated the Great Intelligence, but it also killed her. That’s the second time he saw her die. But if she dies here, how can she also die on Midnight?

*This episode is changed from where it takes place on the show, so that it takes place between series 5 and series 6, just after the Ponds’ wedding in ‘The Big Bang’, switching places with the ‘A Christmas Carol’ Christmas special.

#I Will Always Remember When the Doctor Was Me – #Anna Who The Doctor sets out to find Anna again, and to find out answers about how he can watch her die twice, and why she keeps turning up. He is able to lock onto her timeline and trace it back to the beginning of her timeline. Of course, as is often the case, the TARDIS lands a bit late, although it was way earlier than the Doctor expected. It took him to the 13th century. The TARDIS has a difficult time getting in because she has protection “spells” set up, but it still gets through. This surprises Anna, she didn’t know anything could get through her warding spells. He finds her and whisks her away with him to travel the universe. She can tell the TARDIS is alive, and is more surprised by that than by it being bigger on the inside. Neither the TARDIS nor the sonic screwdriver can tell him what she is, but she does make a brief connection with him with her magic, and also accidentally with the sonic screwdriver, which gave her some information about the future and its technology.

#I Will Always Remember When the Doctor Was Me – #All of Time and Space Anna’s travels with the Eleventh Doctor which includes adventures not shown in the episodes as well as the following ones that did: The Doctor’s Wife, The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People (also the creation of Elevenganger).

Elevenganger

#I’ve Reversed the Jelly Baby of the Neutron Flow – #The Almost People Elevenganger is the ‘flesh’ doppelganger of the Eleventh Doctor (this takes place during the episode The Almost People). For a brief time Elevenganger, Eleven and Anna worked together to (attempt to) form an alliance between the flesh gangers and the humans. This ended with Elevenganger and another ganger sacrificing themselves to stop the gangers who were trying to kill the humans. Eleven and Anna took the human in the TARDIS, think Elevenganger died in the explosion, but he didn’t. He stayed on his own for a while until he was able to get his hands on a vortex manipulator, then he occasionally time traveled.

The Eleventh Doctor (continued)

#I Will Always Remember When the Doctor Was Me – #All of Time and Space (continued) Night Terrors, The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex (series 6). At this point they separate, The Doctor drops Anna off and she goes to Midnight where she meets the Tenth Doctor for her first time (he had already met her as John Smith in Human Nature and Family of Blood, but that hasn’t happened for her yet). This is where Closing Time happens for the Doctor, and since Anna dies on Midnight, The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe is what is happening for him while he’s waiting for her to reincarnate and grow old enough to travel with him again.

Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, A Town Called Mercy, The Power of Three, The Angels Take Manhattan, A Christmas Carol (switched places with The Snowmen), The Bells of Saint John, The Rings of Akhaten, Cold War, Hide, Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, The Crimson Horror, Nightmare in Silver, and The Name of the Doctor (series 7). The Day of the Doctor (also with the War Doctor and the Tenth Doctor).

As well as the episodes shown on the show, there are also many adventures that haven’t been played out yet or shown that have happened, and during this time, the Doctor sometimes drops Anna off on Earth at her request when she starts to get older, so the Doctor won’t have to watch her die. He then picks her up when she calls him after she reincarnates and grows old enough to travel with him again. Sometimes (most of the time), the Doctor accidentally drops her off at the wrong place and/or the wrong time. Somewhere during this time they also pick up another companion, a Warforged simply called ‘Him’, who is with them for a long time (as well as his cat, simply called ‘Cat’).

#I Will Always Remember When the Doctor Was Me – #The Time of the Doctor The Doctor is called to Trenzalore again when a message is sent throughout the whole universe. No one could translate the message, but the Doctor could. It was the Time Lords speaking out through the crack in reality, asking one question, over and over again, “Doctor who?” The Doctor stayed for Christmas, to protect it from the aliens who would destroy it to get to the Time Lords. He stayed there for 900 years, but Anna didn’t. He sent her back to Earth, because she would die in less than a hundred years anyway, she couldn’t stay with him for all that time, and he couldn’t watch her die. He doesn’t like endings. She manages to come back in time to convince the Time Lords to give the Doctor another regeneration cycle, so he doesn’t die.

The Twelfth Doctor

#Just a Bloke in a Box Telling Stories – #A Whole New Regeneration Cycle With the Doctor starting an entirely new regeneration cycle, the color of his life force changes along with his new face. He’s no longer the bright yellow to Anna, he is now purple. He seemed like a completely different person to Anna, and as a result, it throws her off. With the Doctor being off, as well (because this regeneration really messed with him) it threw their entire relationship dynamic off. It takes a long time before they’re able to find their new dynamic.

Anna’s travels with the Twelfth Doctor includes adventures not shown in the episodes as well as the adventures that did, which are Deep Breath, Into the Dalek, Robot of Sherwood, Listen, Time Heist, The Caretaker and Kill the Moon (series 8). Somewhere in here, during one of those times the Doctor drops Anna off but gets her to the wrong place and time, Anna meets the Tenth Doctor as John Smith (Human Nature and Family of Blood) and marries him.

Also during this time would be when the Missing Adventures happen. The Doctor wanted Anna to truly know him. And to do that, she had to know all of him. So he took her back in time so she could meet his previous selves. Since the first time he actually remembers meeting Anna was as the Tenth Doctor, while in the form of John Smith, he gave her a device that would suppress his memories. He would be able to remember them when the specified amount of time had passed. He set it for his current time, so as she was doing it, he would be able to remember it, but not before and he took her to meet every version of himself.

#Just a Bloke in a Box Telling Stories – #“Vow Renewal” Wedding, #Mummy on the Orient Express (Honeymoon) Anna claims that their wedding while he was John Smith didn’t really count, because he was a different person then. The Doctor has always believed it to have counted, and has always considered them married, but she convinces him to do it again with him considering it a vow renewal even though she thinks of it as a wedding. After their wedding/vow renewal, the Doctor takes Anna to the Orient Express in space as their honeymoon. This is when Mummy on the Orient Express happens. Just after their wedding may also be when Anna gets pregnant.

#Just a Bloke in a Box Telling Stories – #A Whole New Regeneration Cycle (continued) Flatline, In the Forest of the Night, Dark Water, Death in Heaven, Last Christmas (series 8). The Magician’s Apprentice, The Witch’s Familiar (series 9).

#Just a Bloke in a Box Telling Stories – #Pregnancy Anna had felt sick for a while, so she scanned herself using the TARDIS. When she got the results back, she thought it was broken or she scanned herself wrong, because she does not get pregnant very often. She had the Doctor try and they both tried quite a few times, but the results always came back positive. Anna was pregnant. The Doctor was thrilled (after confirming that the baby was his) but terrified, because he lost his family during the Time War and Anna has a history of difficult pregnancies, usually ending up with either her death or the baby’s. Anna and the Doctor made sure that nothing went wrong, and the Doctor took Anna to the finest hospital he could to take care of her. They agreed that after the child’s birth they would settle down on Earth for a while and the Doctor would use the chameleon arch to turn himself into the human John Smith again, so they would stay out of trouble as much as possible.

Tavin was born in the Aresite branch of the Universal Intergalactic Hospital on the 34th of the month of Erosæn in the year 2100apple4, according to the hospital’s records based on the calendar of the Aresian people (the closest species to the hospital within the star system, what most of the employees of the hospital are). His birth constellation was Kasterborous. His birth was very stressful for his parents. Even though there were little complications considering his mother’s history with difficult pregnancies, it was still difficult for them, especially because they knew that not long after his birth, the Doctor would have to go through the chameleon arch and turn into a human so they can raise him on Earth as safely and quietly as they can. The Doctor was reluctant to hold his son at first, thinking he wouldn’t be able to go through with changing back into John Smith if he held and got attached to his child, because he knew he would miss the first several years of his child’s life (or at least go through it stuck inside a watch), but he did and he quickly bonded with son. As soon as they could be released, they went to Earth and bought a house, and the Doctor got to spend the first couple of weeks with his new infant before he had to turn into John Smith.

John Smith (continued) – Fobwatched!Twelve

#Journal of Impossible Things Volume II – #The Newest Time Lord Anna finds out she is pregnant, and Anna and the Doctor decide it is best to use the chameleon arch to turn him back into John Smith, and settle down on Earth until the baby is old enough for it to be safe for them to travel together. They live in the 21st century, which takes some getting used to for John, since he was from 1913, but he adjusts quickly. He gets a job as a schoolteacher again and continues to write his dreams down in his updated version of the Journal of Impossible Things, only this time knowing it is all real. Anna secretly works for UNIT to do her best to keep trouble away from the Doctor and the baby while the Doctor is human and the baby is young, trying to give them as normal a life as possible. Except for Him, of course. Their sentient ex-war machine “Living Construct” companion who has basically taken on the role of nanny while they’re grounded on Earth. That part is still a little unusual. Also that the Doctor still talks to his son through his watch, and sometimes the Doctor’s doppelganger (from another life), literally, shows up.

Elevenganger (continued)

#I’ve Reversed the Jelly Baby of the Neutron Flow – #Back in the TARDIS While John is at work and He is taking care TB, Elevenganger and Anna sneak off to have a trip in the TARDIS, since they both missed it, and missed each other. Anna feels guilty about how much she is enjoying it, knowing how insecure the Twelfth Doctor is about the Eleventh Doctor, and also John about the Doctor in general.

The Twelfth Doctor (continued)

#Just a Bloke in a Box Telling Stories – #The Hybrid Child After the first four years of TB’s life, John opens the fobwatch, returning the Doctor’s Time Lord Consciousness back to his body. They all do their best to stay out of trouble and go to relatively safe places, since Tavin is still young (it doesn’t always work). During this time the events of the following episodes take place; Under the Lake, Before the Flood, The Girl Who Died, The Woman Who Lived, The Zygon Invasion, The Zygon Inversion, Sleep No More, Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, and Hell Bent (series 9).

After Face the Raven when Anna dies and the Doctor spends 2 and a half billion years in the confessional dial, and during Heaven Sent and Hell Bent, Rigsy and Him are taking care of TB. The Doctor doesn’t mention anything to the Time Lords about his son in fear they will think that Tavin is the prophesied Hybrid they all fear, since he is half gallifreyan and half human.

The Return of Doctor Mysterio.

#Just a Bloke in a Box Telling Stories – #When Two Worlds Collide Anna was having one of those lifetimes where she spends it with her other husband(s). In this case, Erik, the Phantom of the Opera (crossover of #Time Traveler’s Wife and #Moon of My Life ships). The Doctor, a now teenaged TB and Him were traveling without Anna, when Tavin suggested they get ice cream (at a place that “just so happened” to be near Anna and Erik’s cottage). When the Doctor left to get it, Tavin left to find his mum, with Him following behind to keep an eye on him. When Anna called the Doctor, he claimed to not know that he would do that (but he was secretly hoping he would, because he missed her to).

Elevenganger (continued)

#I’ve Reversed the Jelly Baby of the Neutron Flow – #Stuck on Earth Sometimes the Doctor drops Anna off on Earth so she can stay with Elevenganger. He has a vortex manipulator but doesn’t use it very often. He sometimes works for UNIT since he is stuck on Earth, and Anna helps him sometimes.

John Smith (continued) – Human!John

#Journal of Impossible Things Volume III – #A Life of His Own John Smith finally has his own body. He was born to Sydney and Verity Smith in 1982. He was a miracle child, as his parents were told they would not be able to have children, yet Verity got pregnant with him anyway, and carried him full-term with very little complications. He was a shy and slightly clumsy child who always had his head in the clouds, creating stories in his mind, including stories that happen in his dreams about a time traveling alien named the Doctor and his reincarnating fae wife named Anna. John thought these stories were forgotten memories, and that he was the Doctor in another life and Anna was his wife. He would draw and write about these characters and their stories a lot. He was still not over this “fantasy” by the time he was eight and his parents got concerned about it, and his ability to distinguish fiction from reality, and sent him to a therapist. By the time he was a teenager thoughts about these “characters” were mostly suppressed and while he still had his head in the clouds, that world was largely forgotten, even though he never did throw away all of his material on it (maybe he could turn it into a book series one day, who knows?). The characters were sent to the back of his mind, but his love of history (due to the time travel) was not. He went off to college with a double major of History and English. He got his teaching credential and got a job as a History teacher at the same school that Anna works at.

#Time Traveler's Wife

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