#the one time they all agreed on a theme for comic con lol

[the-thieves-gambit]

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[synthient]

15th Doctor Season 2 predictions

Spent this morning mapping out a vague direction of where I think the show is going (more on the level of "themes" and "emotional stakes" than specific plot beats, which I mostly handwave as "meanwhile, alien antics ensue"). Because I love to look for Patterns and Signs and things of that nature :)

Christmas special:

This is what I wrote in my notes app on the train this morning, before I even knew about the comic-con trailer:

We see "what the Doctor gets up to when he's alone." Which, I predict, mostly consists of him trying to convince himself that he doesn't need companions and he's fine on his own, while being obviously miserable.

And I think the trailer basically confirms this lol. Joy is a Doctor mirror. Her efforts to mask her loneliness under a plucky attitude are exactly what the Doctor is doing.

Anyway, at some point during or after the Joy-Doctor bonding session (if she's not going to be a companion, then hopefully nothing happens to her that reminds him why he was trying to be alone ☹️):

The Doctor runs into the new Varada Sethu character. He notices that she looks like Mundy and goes "oh weird! this is an impossible girl situation, just like Clara" (the intitial seeding of Clara-exposition for new viewers, a la the Doctor-Donna stuff or the Toymaker's puppet show. This Is A Surprise Tool That Will Help Us Later).

The mystery offers him a self-justification to bring her along (maybe he's not even endangering her! maybe she's already tied up in some supernatural shenanigans, and his presence could protect her, if anything. Is that why he agreed to bring Ruby along, when he thought she was at the center of a mystery? And is that part of why he left her as soon as he realized she wasn't?)

S2 E1:

Meanwhile, Ruby is becoming disillusioned with her ordinary, post-Doctor life. She's working a thankless customer service job. Her bio parents aren't as perfect as she always dreamed they'd be. She has new, more complicated family dynamics to navigate (and probably has to face the uncomfortable truth that, in the rush of finding her "real" mom, she hasn't been treating Carla great).

Some crisis bring the Doctor back to 2020s London. Ruby is thrilled to see him - but then, when she realizes he replaced her with another companion almost immediately, hurt and resentful. She thought they were best friends. She thought she was special. Are his human "friends" just interchangeable props to him?

A mid-alien-crisis emotional confrontation ensues. The Doctor tells Ruby that it's because he cares about her that he left. When he doesn't push people away, they get hurt. Clara is brought up as an example. (She's still fresh on his mind from the Impossible Girl/Mundy lookalike thing. More exposition is fed to new viewers).

Ruby declares that she cares about the Doctor too much to let him push her away, even if it's for her own good. And she loves their adventures enough for it to be worth the risk. With mixed feelings, the Doctor lets her back onto the tardis team.

(The Ruby/Sethu Companion dynamic becomes ?? Are they friends? Are they still competing to be the Favorite Companion? Will Mundy Sunday happen as foretold?)

Next few episodes:

Our Three Heroes set out on a series of one-off adventures. I won't try to predict the details, but I'm guessing the episodic stories won't have much literal connection to the Main Plot, but will tie in subtextually and thematically.

In S1, there were two big thematic throughlines: 1) abandoment issues, and 2) cultures that echo Gallifrey. Ruby was a Doctor mirror on the abandonment issues front. So my prediction is that Sethu Companion will somehow be a mirror on the "Doctor re-evaluating his relationship with his home" front. We have no idea what time and place Sethu Companion will be from - but Mundy's "soldier indoctrinated into an ideology that was all a violently-exploitative lie" background certainly tracks.

What is The Main Plot?

Again, I won't hazard many specifics. I'm going more for Themes than the exact way those themes are executed. But the big two reveals I'm gambling on are:

1. Rogue is the Master

2. We get a long-delayed payoff for why Missy introduced Clara to the Doctor (something to do with the hand that picked up the tooth?)

And with those two reveals, we unify our main themes: 1) The cycle of abandoment (the Doctor is abandoned by his parents, abandons the Master, abandons Susan and his future companions). 2) Re-evaluating his relationship to Gallifrey. And 3) What kind of relationships should the Doctor have with his friends? How much closeness can he afford? Is he a bringer of death? Of life? Of joy? What's the right time, and the right way, to say goodbye?

Not to get too Clara centric, but I am getting a little Clara-pilled re Mrs. Flood? I think it'd be fun if Clara spent a few centuries adventuring, eventually figured out how to undo the frozen heartbeat thing and start aging again, and came back to see the Doctor, with their old person/young person dynamic now reversed. Her Missy-coding fulfilled via an ominous, convoluted, yet twistedly-loving way of expressing her friendship. But I think there are multiple answers to the Mrs. Flood question that could still fit The Themes. Any timelord would work, for example

I'm also kind of leaning toward the "big bad" being not Mrs. Flood, not Missy or Rogue-Master, but Rogue and the Meep's boss. Who's some third party we can't really hope to predict, any more than we could've seen Sutekh coming. Assuming there's one at all - maybe Sutekh already met our "big bad" quotient, and we'll get more heaven sent-style personal stakes this time?

Entirely possible that there's some storyteller trying to craft a narrative out of the Doctor's life, put "perfect companions" in his path, etc. Mrs. Flood is the obvious suspect....but too obvious? What if the Doctor is subconsciously narrativizing his own life, and his story "ending in terror" is actually something Mrs. Flood is trying to disrupt

If Susan shows up, I think it'd be really funny if she was trying to parent-trap her two grandpas

Anyway, I think the biggest hole in my analysis is that the cue at the end of S1 was to look into Clara, Missy, and Romana. And I still haven't started my Romana Studies. Gotta get Romana-pilled

[katyobsesses]

#katy hijacks a post#sorry literally don't apologize for dumping a ton of headcanons on my posts it makes me 🥰♥️💞🫶🤍♥️😍😻♥️💞🫶🤍🤍♥️😍😻♥️ (about the nerdy Santana post)

But literally I just imagine the NY gang is the biggest bunch of nerds ever and also Tina is in the NY gang shh but yes agree w Tina and Santana being the biggest fanfic writers of the bunch. And it's literally canon that Blaine reads Sam Star Wars fanfic so you know he's reading him their friends' fics too. And Artie is probably there and they're both just listening with rapt fascination while Blaine reads to them and does all the voices and such

Honestly I think Kurt would be writing fanfic too, but maybe not as much as the other two. I think he'd be sitting there watching whatever nerdy thing everyone else is watching and he'd end up sketching out costume designs that would fit in with the world. While complaining about how lazy the actual costume design is lol. And he'd be helping everyone with their outfits when it came to Halloween costumes or any kind of con. Tina too, bc we know she can sew and I like to think she'd be creative with clothes and costumes as well

Also hello you know Kurt and Santana are writing the Facts Of Life musical together. That's basically canon lmao

my hijack of the nerdy santana post:

the NY gang are the largest group of nerds you'll ever see, just in different ways and different fandoms.

Tina, Artie, Sam, and Blaine are all in the same fandom(s) and talk about it(them) IRL all the time. One of these fandoms is also the fandom Santana is in, secretly one of the BNFs of the fandom smirking as she listens to them rant about things she's made discourse in the fandom, but they just think she's mocking them. Sometimes she chimes in too when she gets annoyed at their characterisation of a character, or their analysis of a scene, or when Blaine is reading one of her fics outloud and getting the cadence wrong goddamn it give it here, hobbit! Tina is sitting there agreeing with her when she says the cadence is wrong because it's one of the fics she co-authored. (they both still have no idea who the other is, still totally anonymous friends despite writing together since freshman year or something)

I have no idea what fandom it is they'd all be in, there's too many of them and i definately don't know all of them. maybe a Sci-fi show or something, a big one with a lot of content. They are also all in other fandoms the others aren't a part of - Sam with Disney channel shows, and nickelodeon shows and he would totally love Julie and the Phantoms rn and HSMTMTS. He also still stans Avatar and also ATLA and LOK. He, Artie, Blaine, and Tina are all Marvel stans. Santana prefers DC (Sam is a stan of both, as well as more indie comics). Blaine is the one most into stuff like D&D and LOTR but Tina also likes Medival fantasy. Artie is the biggest Sci-fi nerd. Tina's still in the Twilight fandom, but mostly so she can make more supernaturally accurate fic, she's also in the Supernatural Fandom and was in the SuperWhoLock fandom by osmosis in 2012-2016ish. Also Merlin, i think most of them like Merlin. (i am definately missing fandoms i have no idea about)

Rachel and Kurt are more into the Broadway fandom, obsessing over musicals (Blaine is too, and Tina dabbles from time to time in the fandom). Kurt likes to write fanfiction where he adds more queer themes to the shows he loves, or expands on the queer themes, but he doesn't post often and usually only writes one or two fics for a show. Rachel mostly argues with people. She's the one sending anon hate to people she thinks are wrong about their opinions.

Kurt and Tina design and make all of their costumes for Comic Con.

Eventually Santana can't hide her nerdom, and she comes out as having a tumblr and writing fic, and she and Tina realise who the other is and have this huge tearful 'meeting' as their online personas becuase they've been besties for years now online and have helped each other through a lot of things, especially during highschool. Tina was the first person Santana came out to as a Lesbian, Santana is the first (and only, at the time) person Tina came out to as pan.

They often have movie nights, or show binges, sleeping over at each other's apartments so much that they're not even really sure who lives where and everyone has spare clothes all over New York and just crash at whoever's closest after nights out or long shifts or emotional days.

the nerd nerds eventually coax Rachel and Kurt into their fandoms and Rachel and Kurt hate them for it, because they never knew they could feel so many things about silly fictional characters that fly in spaceships, or wear tights to fight crime, or use magic to protect the once and future king. Blaine and Kurt love Merlin and it becomes Kurt's comfort show. Sam introduces Kurt to the young avengers and he cries a little at the first kiss between Wiccan and Hulkling. They all freak out at the fact that both Robin and Superboy are canonically Bi with boyfriends right now.

-

Mercedes is just there, she doesn't get it, she's fine never going on tumblr and only reading fluffy Twilight fanfiction Tina recomends thanks. but she loves that they're so excited about things and enjoys listening to them all infodump about their fandoms (she's an awesome friend like that)

[sparklegemstone]

San Diego Comic Con 2019 -- Sat. Marvel Studios Panel

Got back from a long weekend at SDCC Sunday night and wanted to post my reactions. This first post will be about the Saturday Marvel Studios panel since that is what has captured most people’s interest.  Fair warning, half of this is going to be my own personal waffling and stream-of-consciousness that you may not care a wink about.

I've been trying to get a SDCC badge for, what, 4-5 years now?  Year after year, the lottery did not look kindly on me. So towards the end of 2018 when I finally succeeded in getting a badge for 2019, not only was I excited to have gotten a badge at all, but I thought I was extra lucky and that, if I were to be able to attend any year, this would be the year to attend because 1) it would likely be the concluding Game of Thrones panel, which after almost a decade would be a monumental event and 2) under the impression that the Loki series was going to be some of the first content available for Disney+ released late 2019/early 2020, without really having any expectations I was daydreaming about how great it would be if Hiddleston were to be there promoting Loki+ as well.  Turns out both of these were true! 

So flash forward to the weekend of SDCC.  Since we'd learned that Loki+ was still on the far horizon I'd completely forgotten about any wistful idea of Hiddleston being at the con.  In the aftermath of Endgame, I was not feeling interested in the upcoming Marvel Studios content, but still my love for Phase 1 and 2 and completionist tendencies were compelling me to try and get into Hall H on Saturday for the Marvel Studios panel regardless.  If only 50-100 more Star Trek fans hadn't felt it worth sticking around for Marvel, I would have gotten in, it was very close, but I didn't quite make  it. But I did get to see the official recording of the full panel sans promotional videos Saturday night 3 hours after the live event as part of the "playback" programming at the con.   

So! Feige's introducing movies and bringing their casts onto the stage, but my brain's so comfortably seated in my prior belief not expecting Hiddleston to be here that the possibility didn't even dawn on me.  I was so dense you guys, it did not dawn on me until literally 5 seconds before Hiddleston came out on stage, even after Feige had started talking about Loki+, lol. But what a delightful surprise! 

People are talking about the bit of music that played while Tom walked onto stage. There's another piece of music, though. In the playback of the Hall H panel that I watched, there was some introductory video for the Loki+ bit of the panel for which the video itself was redacted but the sound for the video still played.  For that piece of music, whimsical is the wrong word, I don't want to bring people's minds to the cartoony/whimsical character of the first Loki+ logo we saw because the music wasn't of that nature, but it kind of felt quirky and unearthly, not heavy, grounded, and driving like a lot of the powerful MCU themes. I thought it had to be for Dr. Strange 2 until it became clear it was for Loki+. 

I was delighted that the audience started chanting "Loki! Loki!" in callback to his previous SDCC appearances.  That's a good group of fans there. 

Also, seeing these huge groups of casts and creative teams coming on stage for 10 minutes at a time to introduce each of their movies, and then seeing Hiddleston up there by himself to introduce his own show, given equal weight and importance among the other MCU announcements at the panel, it just uniquely dawned on me then how proud and happy I felt that Hiddleston now had a front and center role carrying his own show and was getting the recognition for it, no longer a supporting character in a larger ensemble film.  He was the only one that had the stage all to himself during the panel.  Coming close would be things like Falcon & The Winter Soldier, which featured Mackie and Stan, but it's unclear to me how much that show is going to be about their characters vs. just featuring their characters, being about their interaction and the situations that arise when you throw them together.  I have hope that Loki+ is going to be specifically about Loki as a character. 

I enjoy the fandom content featuring Strange, Wanda, and Loki together as the trifecta of powerful magic users, and so when they announced Wanda would be making an appearance in Dr. Strange 2 I was lightly miffed that Loki was left out. In practice, though, I'm not sure how challenging it would be / how likely it would be that the creative team would execute such a Loki appearance well so I'm not going to focus on it. 

And then Thor 4.  Despite having negative interest in anything Thor-related at this point and agreeing that Loki as a character is not well-served by the sensibilities of another Waititi film, the thing I was most interested in was seeing if Hiddleston was going to join them on stage for that one, and when he didn't, I will admit that I felt a juvenile, knee-jerk reaction of irrational and undeserved resentment on Hiddleston's behalf, as if he was being excluded and deemed not good enough to be in another Thor film after all that he's brought to the Thor franchise, but of course it made no sense to feel that way when my brain kicked in. I'm not going to touch any of the 'behind the scenes relationship' wank, but in the most general possible sense, different stories have different needs.  Either a character furthers a specific story or they don't, and for a piece of work where service to the story comes first, it should be as simple as that and needn't be about the character at all.  Plus in this case logistically I don't even know if Hiddleston would have the time to act in both Loki+ and Thor 4. 

With how Jane was carelessly brushed aside in Ragnarok, and not being aware of anyone in Marvel Studios having talked about Portman since TDW, I was very surprised about the announcement that Thor 4 was going to feature Jane again, and intrigued as well at her larger role, just not enough to actually see the film.  Maybe there's hope for Betsy yet (I don't actually believe that).  What's interesting is that the Marvel comics and Marvel Studios exhibit that was in Seattle earlier this year featured artwork of Jane-as-Thor (if I remember correctly, it was created specifically for the exhibit) next to Hemsworth's costume, and now looking back I wonder if that was deliberately added to the exhibit by someone that had knowledge of Thor 4 or whether it was just a coincidence. 

I cannot decide which has the sillier name: "Thor: Love and Thunder" or "Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness".  Oh wait, yes I can. 😋 

[valeriemperez]

i'm guessing we're going to get an episode next season set entirely in Nora's time, and we'll get to see everyone in old age makeup, lol. or Barry will travel to the future to see what happened there

Oh, man, I would love that! We deserve another special episode like that. I don’t think S4 really had those, unless you count 4.15 and 4.16.

½ I’m trying to figure out why there are wa fans that think Nora doesn’t like Iris based on that last scene. I expected those theories from the antis, but I keep seeing wa fans upset because apparently the way she looked and talked to Iris made it clear she isn’t fond of her. I mean I guess it’s possible that there is some friction between them that will come up next season, but that scene alone didn’t give me the impression that there are problems between them. If anything I’d say she was2/2 nervous because of whatever she messed up in the timeline. I feel like people are really overanalyzing that scene.

Yeah, I think it’s mostly because she hid from Iris in 4.20. It’s very possible that Nora and Iris have a strained relationship at the moment if Barry died and Iris still told her not to go back to save her dad. But it’s also equally likely that Nora just didn’t want to be discovered, and then was more concerned about the mistake she made. We’ll find out in… 4 months lmao. Although I’m sure we’ll get a hint at comic con.

Do you think the writers forgot about the Barry disappearing in 2024? To me at least felt they heavily implied Nora changed the timeline by helping Barry bc I assume were supposed to think he died. Maybe that explains why she was so excited to meet him and avoided Iris up until she had to reveal herself.

They definitely haven’t forgotten, but you have to remember that time can change in an instant. Remember how the newspaper article disappeared in 1.07 just because Barry lost his powers for a day? That means every time Barry’s lost his powers, that article changed. Hell, it might have changed in S4 when Iris quit her job, and we just didn’t check on it. 

But I agree with you that the way they wrote and filmed the finale made it seem like Barry should’ve died in 4.23 in Nora’s timeline, which she changed into our timeline where he doesn’t die there.

From what i read of your tags, you tried to start WestWorld, right? If so, how far in did you get? Because i WANT SO BAD for you to catch up to where the show is, because certain themes that have developed are more along the lines of your tastes, i think.Just realized your tags might have meant you weren’t a fan of a certain character, not that you haven’t been watching or aren’t a fan of Westworld. Sorry! (If this is the case, i’m… with you there re: that characters popularity.)

You were right the first time, no worries. I watched the first season of Westworld, but I had a hard time really focusing on it or getting attached to the characters. Plus I could see the Man in Black twist coming and hated it, lol. But I’ve heard S2 is getting really good and that Shogun world was amazing, so I am definitely gonna catch up as soon as I can!

Was it ever confirmed that the Flash mentioned in the article was actually Barry rather than, say, Wally taking up the mantle? Thawne only thought it was Barry because he went back in time and met that Flash, and the only other future Barry we knew was the Savitar Barry that was happy to let time remnants sacrifice themselves…

The only hint that it’s Barry is the photo on the front being of Barry, but they could always make that a placeholder or have it change at different moments. But I’m positive that when 2024 rolls around, either in the storyline or in real time, they will return to Barry disappearing.

Sorry if my brain seems scrambled with this question and I’ve made a huge comic mistake, but Nora Dawn is the twin who marries a Thawne, right? Could that be cause for tension in the future between her and her mom?

It’s not a huge one, but Don is the one who marries Meloni Thawne. They have Bart while Dawn marries Jeven Ognats and has Jenni.

Do you think Ralph gets to stay because of Hartley’s Saturn Awards nomination or it was just the plan all along? With him back next season, if the ratings continue to go down, the racists will blame Iris.

Not because of his Saturn Award, no. I think the producers like Hartley a lot and tragically enjoyed writing for Ralph, and that’s that. As for the racists, they’ll blame Iris no matter what.

you know what else never came into play was Iris’s written vows. i could have sworn that close-up on them (which they inserted later on with somebody else’s hands, ffs) was significant. it felt like we were supposed to get a good look at that for some reason

Yeah, a lot of us thought they would be important. But maybe the higher ups just wanted a shot of her vows and forgot to get it when Candice was filming lol.