#there is no canon grounds for zilch that I write

[bokettochild]

I got so busy working on the Valentines/Palentines fic that I almost forgot it was a Friday!

Here you go!

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

yippie!!

ok so one day i was hangin out and thinking about how jinx and murie are both my favourite little sad wet guys in my two fave medias of all ever *And* at the same time SO far apart on the spectrum personalitywise

and it took me listening to this to flip the switch on the Autism Blender and want to just fucking mash them together like a coked up toddler making Slime out of fish guts and hayao miyazakis mothers ashes because thats what i do thats my job💅👌so theeeen it comes out pretty reminiscent of my first muriel au that also sprung up from a song i like, just- a bit to the left? like, moving along on the scale from The OG not liking violence and being involved in it whatsoever, to AU 1 where i pictured him going "yeah ok fuck it this is what i do i guess" and revengy motives to his whole thing that i now connected with him more thru the song lmao it just made me realize the vision of like. jinxies "murderingmurderinmurdering 💕fun✨" aspect + his potential desire to still do good things despite being doomed to be a machine made for destruction (ignore the fact of that desire being nonexistent in his canon form because of how he perceives himself as a thing unable to achieve performing any good ever under any circumstance) (but still refusing to actively cause harm as he isolates himself to prevent any situations arising that would lead him to do so) (ignore all that) (were yassifying him a little were allowed its fine ive already lost the plot here anyway were wildin) so a vigilanty type beat and also ~my axe is my buddy🥰 we both cry with the trees😔✊ /me & my axe will bring the devil to his knees (✿◕‿◕ )~ goes hard as phUCK

so then all that led to This new V.3 mutation where hed be actually having fun with it........ so I kinda start turning him over in my brain some more, forgetting about jink by now and at first I go Huh this is kinda. him but lucioey a lil bit. and THEN i go hm. Well this ground is awful soft n ready to dig

so with all that out of the way i can now present!: Brand New Vague Shadow of a Concept of an Idea that ill Never Do Anything with

and I really don’t know how to verbalize this very well at all mmjfdh but like. Ok bulletpoints activate

Muriel:

From a badass warrior tribe

Didn’t get booted out cuz theyre fine this time oopsie no genocide

Hes in there way chillin way awesome way good at fighting everybody loves him

Hes like. Way himboey in this one. SO jock. Smiles a lot <3 <3 <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Like okay if i was actually serious about writing this I think id need a fucking lucio consultant because I really know zilch about that bitch but like okay you know how lucios kinda all scary n cunty and cunning and fancy and seems like hes got shit figured out. Until he *starts talking*? Muriel here is like that but hes just really fucking scary until he starts talking BUT not like normally where hes adorable just has resting bitch face, its just like. that part of him that came thru in the reversed ending at the very end, yknow. but make it less depressing ihjhsrfbjs hes like full letterman jacket highschool bully core total kurt & ram vibe, like ok youd see him on a battlefield ABsolutely WRECKIng some fools into a pulp with his bare bear hands and immediately after that he turns around like WOOOOOOO THAT’S what im TALKIN ABOUT LETS GO GUYS WHO WANTS A BEER *cut to him chugging an entire keg over his head with da boys around losing their minds* like think college frat but they raid villages for fun and profit. Pretty orc coded. Kinda thor coded. Actually exactly thorcoded wow that really is what I was going for. I was wondering why I couldn’t help imagining him with a australian accent, I guess that’s a mystery solved. anyway

Maybe his parents got killed in some other battle im not sure how to weave around that in detail yet BUT- ok so check this I thought ill have to give him some motive to wanna reach the devil somehow for,,.,,… something right. to make him fill an antagonist role So this might be stupid a lil I just thought of this and it needs to cook for sure but what if he just rolled up into vesuvia as the magic capital or something whtver, to figure out how to get to talk to the devil, cuz he just like, really wants his parents back cuz they got valhallad in some glorious combat, and they were cool and he misses them and they could fight some more cool fights together and pillage n chill jhbsfvjgzdc beCAUsE hear me out im rolling with the swap inversions opposites motive here right, so the thing that popped up in my head was- Lucio had the “I wanna kill my parents bcause I hate them and so I can rule and get what I want” thing goin at the start right, like that is basically what started it off he got his dad he didnt get morgha SO what IF I gave murie a “i wanna conquer this place and use it to get my parents back. cuz I missem :(” like fully turned it around idk IDK IT SEEMS MESSY IDK IS IT CUTE IS IT DUMB IT MAKES ME FEEL DUMB BUT IN THAT WAY THAT MIGHT MEAN THAT ITS ACTUALLY WORKING BUT I DONT KNOW *screaming with no air*

But overall yeah hes khal drogo but more noticeably himboey but not in a likeable way cuz were switching them so I cant make him likeable for myself hnjdgfgb leaning into popular dumb jock trope

UnLESSSS i DID combo it with murdermuriel au 1.0 some more and made their tribe like. Not murdery somehow like what would be the opposite of the og scourge roaming around ruining shit. well that was the og kokhuri but now I gotta do some fucking triple axels here to make it make sense so how the fuck do I make this version of kokhuri more warriory in culture than the original but still nice like robinhoody style jhbfsvhjbs this is falling tf apart might need to scrap it bc on lucios end itd be even harder wouldn’t it. Spartan cunts but they don’t kill people that’s a nono lmao

now im thinking some more about the aspect of lucio being, you know. a pretty shitty leader right, and how to incorporate that here, because i have no idea if im following an actual set rule here regarding whats swapped and how even, theres barely a theme im straight up just

but yeah so now i figure it could be murie tryna get his folks back because they were the actual defacto leaders of their tribe, he was just kinda still following along and doin his chores in being the uhh the face, the charisma, the one to kinda like. get the people on board easier with whatever decision they made for them and hyping it up as the best possible choice anyone could ever make and maybe even actually believing it too cuz theyre actually that tightknit and he trusts them with anything aw. is this too onedimensional or can i give my boy some good nice facking family relations at least in an alternate life ghhkjkfdh hes their pride n joy and can do no wrong but yeah the point is he himself hasnt actually made any decisions without them before, isnt very good at actually leading and strategizing and planning and knowing how everything complicated works and he knows it, so he sees his only solution in bringing them back to not let everything fall apart

SEE I BROUGHT IT AROUND I CLEANED UP NICE WITH OG LUCIO SETTING OFF FROM THE POINT OF FEELING LIKE HES THE BEST AT EVERYTHING AND SHOULD B RECOGNIZED AS SUCH AND TRYING TO GET RID OF HIS PARENTS TO GET IT AND MY BOY HERE ENDING UP EXACTLY OPPOSITE. GO SHAWTY GO SHAWTY IM SO SMART am i fucking up lulus backstory i feel like i am cuz im like wait what the fuck did he kill his dad for again. demonheart. deal. thing. whatd he wish. like he wasnt already running for count n shit yet he did want to climb up the ladder in his own tribe right i have no idea yell at me in comments thank you

I also don’t know if the first (last) scourge battle wouldve happened or nah

Lucio/Montag

Oh my fucking god what if I figured out an alternative L moniker for murie so theyd get to switch letters in their namesssssssss like lucio is a made up name he made it up so like UAGHASHG L.,,,...,, Lion ofthe,... south NO he HAS to be bEAR CODED AAFYFFHG BUT LUCIO HAD LEOPARD IMAGERY N SHIT RAAHAHHGH IM FITIN FOR MY LIFE HERE

Anyway he lives in a forest somewhere cuz his tribe threw him out fully voluntarily bc he sucks ass (or at least for their standards cuz I guess he would be way younger than 18 here for this) (Like a spartan type deal ur too weak we don’t want you *drops you off a cliff*  *but theres 4 feet of snow under it so he survives*  *that’s so fucking goofy hjbsfbj kinda suits him*) so uhhhhhh i don’t know where hed be currently chilling for an mc to meet him ever but yeah hes kinda Floki Vikings™ type of vibe at least visually that’s what came to mind first to picture him lol

look at this little blond rat bastard. adorable. becoming increasingly obsessed. picturing lucio with this exact hairline. moving on

and his thing is hes still insecure as fuck but worse at ignoring it and hiding it and hes a lil nervous bundle of sticks and always talking bc of it, kinda Bruno Madrigalesque type vibe julian but a pitch more pathetic who knew it could be done yknow? opposite of The OG The Mountain The Stone Cold Silent The Muriel The Scourge The Kokhuri The Third and also me when writing and not stopped in time

oh oh what if he was totes in denial that his tribe kicked him out and in his view hes on some super intense convoluted secret mission (lasting from. age 7 to now apparently) and as soon as hes done they’ll totally come back for him kdfsgjffd I thought it could either be his own copium or he took it from some last interaction with someone who took pity on him as a kid and wanted to give him some comfort, or something he misunderstood entirely

hm. They both have canid familiars idk what to do with that. muriel with two wolves tho. thats hot shit righ there if i do say so myself

oh now im toying with the idea of taking away muriels SUPPOSED YET UNCONFIRMED AS MY VERY CONTROLLED ACADEMIC STUDY HAS SHOWN COUGHCOUGHJHBSRGJBHF talking to animals buff, i dont wanna just take it and give it to lucio tho, but like. what the fuck else do i give him. astral projecting to tie into his ghost era? sounds dope actually alright lets do that lmao

ok its 1 30 am i hope this is comprehensible to anybody anywhere im zonking out now khbsfhbfk love u

@tetsuooooooooooo I've missed your essays, this was such a treat to log in to!!!

And WOW, thorcoded Muriel is not something I ever would have thought of on my own but oddly enough I feel like the AU you're coming up with could really work, goodness me. And the way you've inverted Lucio's character too!! I'd love to see how their interaction dynamics invert as well!

Always good to hear from you friend, hope you're doing well!

[innumerable-stars]

Promo Post: The Notion Club Papers

Summary

One of Tolkien's most obscure and unfinished works, The Notion Club Papers came about as the result of an agreement with his friend C S Lewis. Lewis took on the challenge of writing a space-travel story, which became his Space Trilogy, whereas Tolkien was clearly all in on Middle-earth at the time and never made it very far into his time-travel story.

The end result that we have is two versions of the beginning of what could have been a much larger tale, consisting of fragments and a somewhat puzzling narrative along with characters clearly based on (admittedly!) the Inklings themselves. The story itself, what exists of it, gives hints of H G Wells' The Time Machine, Charlie Stross' Laundry Files, or, naturally, C S Lewis and his Space Trilogy, to which it is at least partially a response.

Why Should I Check Out This Canon?

I think there is honestly so much untapped potential here for both writers and artists, however, it's probably not to everyone's taste. But if you like the Inklings themselves and would be intrigued by a fictional version, if you like the idea of piecing together fragments of a larger work, if you're inspired to fill in gaps and explore dark recesses, if you're wondering how Tolkien would have perceived the future (1980s-1990s and 2012), or if you're a fan of Aelfwine, then have a look and see what you make of it!

Where Can I Get This?

This is only available in The History of Middle-earth, Volume 9, Sauron Defeated, and makes up the second half of the volume. It was published in the 1990s and is probably available in your local library or bookshop, though it might have to be special-ordered. If you cannot get hold of it another way, please get in touch with me @edgeoflight / elwinfortuna and I'll arrange to get you a copy.

What Fanworks Already Exist?

Nothing, nada, zilch! If you want to break some new ground here, you absolutely can.

[ura-writes]

Trampolinist - Part Two

Part summary: You encounter a few strange teenagers, discover blown-up ruins, and find out about who caused them.

Warnings: mild anxiety, thoughts of murder, blood, threats, lots of swears

A/N - I got a good few requests asking for a taglist for Trampolinist, so here it is! Just ask and you shall be added!

@lemonmochitea

@dad-ee-drea

@victoria-a567

Also, this is non-canon compliant, but only by a bit. I may change a few small details.

Hope y’all enjoy!

(Also, if you can find the movie reference I put in here, then kudos to you!)

——

A lingering curiosity sits in the back of your head for the rest of the week, not quelled by any amount of Bedwars or Skywars, which leave you exhausted in the evenings.

Even your dreams hold inquisitiveness.

How lovely.

Eventually you have to go back to your home world to check on your animals, repair your tools and the like. It’s tedious work, but nothing you can’t handle.

Boredom eventually sets in.

It’s unnerving. You never get bored of combat, of competition between your fellow players and teammates, but here you are, eyeing the list of servers on your grid.

Only two people are on the server at the moment, their names not available for whatever reason. You’d prefer to pop on when there were no people online, mostly to scope out the server, but you’ll take only having to deal with two people.

Hopefully they’re adults and not kids that recently learned to use portals.

You stick your pointer finger out, curl it like you’re dragging it down a wall; a ripple starts where your finger lands, slowly following its path downwards. It rips a hole through the fabric of woven servers, creating a direct link to the Dream SMP. You just hope that no one attempts to close the portal, as opening one in the first place takes a good deal of energy and effort.

A sight of spruce trees and misplaced dirt greets your vision through the rip in reality.

An odd spawnpoint, but whatever. You’re not one to judge.

In the corner of your eye, where chat normally sits, a message pops up.

TommyInnit: who the fcuck

TommyInnit: what

TommyInnit: NEWY PERFHSAON

Ranboo: ah yes, perfhsaon

TommyInnit: shut the fuck n up

You chuckle at the messages rapidly crowding the chat, watching them fade idly while trying to find a way out of the really weird spawnpoint, which is, for some reason, walled off by a combination of dirt, wood and stone haphazardly placed down, as if in a hurry.

Your efforts do not go unrewarded as you spot a section of the wall that sits lower than the rest, low enough to climb over if you try hard enough.

Perfect.

Feet hit the ground rapidly as you get a running start towards the wall, scrambling upward after you jump. You fall almost immediately off the other side.

“Ouch.”

“That looked like that hurt.”

You glance upward to meet heterochromic eyes, red and green contrasting with the curious face split in half by its black and white sides. A tail flicks behind the person as their crown slips a bit down their head.

“Wh—the fuck?”

The figure laughs at your reaction, offering a gloved hand out to help you off the ground. Hesitantly, you accept, being pulled up easily, and that’s when you realize that he’s a lot taller than you thought.

“Jesus, you’re tall,” you comment idly, brushing yourself off. “Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem. I’m Ranboo.”

You introduce yourself with your tag, which elicits a hum of recognition from him, much to your pleasant shock and surprise.

“You’re the person that Dream invited, aren’t you?”

“In the flesh.”

He laughs at your quip at him, smiling with sharp fangs exposed to the midday sunlight. No point in judging a person on their (potentially, anyway) monstrous features.

“Well, you probably need a tour—“

He’s quickly interrupted by a loud “hey!”

“Oh great,” you mutter, crossing your arms. Ranboo looks a bit sheepish at your cocked eyebrow and slightly irritated expression, scratching his bi-colored hair.

“That’s Tommy. He’s uh… well, Tommy.”

A teenager wearing a red and white shirt and jeans with battered sneakers comes sprinting out of the nearby forest, coming to a halt just in front of you.

“New person!”

“Yeah, and what are you, the gremlin that got fed after midnight?”

The kid sputters out a few protests against being called a gremlin, sprinkling a good few swears in his jumbled sentences that mostly consist of rambles.

When Tommy gets his bearings, he eyes your tag, squinting at it suspiciously before his eyes widen in recognition.

“You’re the bastard that beat the shit out of me in Bedwars! Get ove’ here—“

One of Ranboo’s arms shoots out to grab the lanky teenager with ease to stop his potential assault on you. You just brush your nails off on your shirt.

“Oi! Lemme a’em!”

“No, Tommy, remember what Tubbo said?” Ranboo lectures, tail flicking in annoyance, eyes trained on him. “Remember?”

“You’re one to talk about rememberin’.”

Ranboo cocks an eyebrow.

“No punchin’ people we don’t know unless they’ve hurt us…” Tommy grumbles. “Can ya lemme go now?”

Ranboo agrees, letting go of his shirt and summoning a journal and quill to write something down in, muttering that he’s almost out of ink.

“Anyway, how about that tour now?”

You smile at him.

Maybe you’ll like this place.

——

“...and this is L’Manburg… or what’s left of it, anyway. It’s still being rebuilt.”

“How’d it get destroyed?” you ask him. “It takes a lot of TNT, Withers and dedication to destroy a city this big.”

I should know.

Tommy eyes Ranboo.

“Hey, it’s your city. I’m not explaining it,” Ranboo defends against the wordless accusation. Tommy exhales with a groan and begins his explanation.

“Wil-Wilbur, my brother, went a bit insane a few months back, blew it all up with Technoblade’s help. Wil’s… well, he’s dead.” Tommy sounds indifferent about the death, much to your surprise.

You nod absentmindedly, setting your eyes on a slightly obscured poster that flaps in the wind. When you get close enough to pin it down it reads:

Wanted: Dead or Alive. High Treason, Inciting Violence, Unlawful Use of Explosives, Extreme Terrorism.

Reward: See Authorities

Below that is a well-painted picture of a man you somewhat recognize, wearing a red cape, a crown, full enchanted Netherite armor and carrying an axe that seems to shimmer in the light.

Technoblade. You’ve had a few run-ins with him playing Bedwars and Skywars, even teaming up with him a few times. He always seemed nice enough, and certainly a damn good sword fighter. He always knew when to run and when to stand and fight, when to attack and when to defend.

“What did he do?”

Ranboo starts to speak, but Tommy interrupts him.

“Blew the rest o’ this place up. Bastard ran after that.” Tommy all but spits the words out of his mouth, like they’re acid or venom. “Fookin’ coward.”

Well, I wouldn’t call ‘knowing when to run’ cowardice, but we’ll pretend I agree, child.

“No one knows where he is now,” Ranboo adds. “Except Phil, of course. But he’s pretty much silent about it. Won’t give up a word of information.”

Shouldn’t be that hard to find one man, you muse to yourself. Bet I could.

“Well, I’ll let you know if I find anything out,” you lie with a smile plastered on your lips. “Y’know, as a sort of gift to you as the newest member of the server.”

Hah, as if.

“We’ll hold you to that.”

You nod and say your goodbyes, walking towards the central nether portal while keeping an eye out for an ender chest so you can get some of your stuff. You know the admin will take your elytra away if it so much as comes into contact with the server’s air, so you decide not to risk it.

Spotting one, you make a small noise of triumph and dart over there, grabbing the shulker with your stuff in it, transferring it to your inventory with a practiced ease.

Armor adorns your figure, enchanted Netherite striking an imposing silhouette against the blackstone beneath your feet. You twirl your sword with a grin.

Now to find Technoblade.

——

Turns out, finding a piglin hybrid is not easy.

You scoured the Nether for any sign of him, any trace of fabric, of a broken pickaxe, hell even a piece of iron he may have held. The ability you hold as a Jumper not only allows you to jump servers, but also allows you to find people if you have something of theirs.

Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nil. Absolutely jack shit.

How can one man be so difficult to track down?

Just as you’re about to give up, a barrage of curses at the tip of your tongue, a glint of iron catches your eye.

Odd.

Hopping over a cluster of Netherrack and scaring off a few baby Striders, you see a small circle of iron sitting in a pile of red dust, looking dented and beat up.

You huff and brush the dust off of it, titling your head to the side when it reveals itself.

A compass, pointing in one direction, working even in the Nether.

Standing up, you pocket it and head to the nearest portal, jumping through to the other side only to grab the compass out of your pocket as you walk to who-knows-where. It still points in the same direction as before, only moving when you do.

An irregularity in the metal against your hand inspires you to flip the compass over to look at the back.

What lies there makes you smirk.

Technoblade’s cabin. Phil’s compass.

This might be easier than you initially thought.

:)

[amtrak12]

The Girl in the Fireplace: An Essay

When I first watched the Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace”, I was a new college freshman with only half a clue about who I was. On the one hand, my television/Doctor Who obsession was so well established, my friends presented me with a talking Dalek and a yellow truck at our December gift exchange. On the other hand, it would be another five years before I understood my thrill at seeing David Tennant’s and Billie Piper’s faces together wasn’t just because of David Tennant’s attractiveness.

During this oh-so-distant past of Winter 2006, I immediately knew I did not like The Girl in the Fireplace. But why? Because I was a Doctor/Rose shipper was the obvious explanation, but beyond the urge to defend myself against claims that I was a “whiny shipper”, I knew there was something else off about the episode. Something fundamentally wrong in the concept or structure of the story. But what did I -- a clueless, infant, “I have no desire to be a man so of course I’m straight” and “I’m an engineer not a writer despite my obsessions”, 18 year old know about story structures?

Zilch. Nada. Obviously. But oh -- oh ho ho, my friends -- I am no longer that clueless 18 year old. No today, at 31 years old, I finally have enough life experience and bisexual awareness to think “hey, if Girl in the Fireplace had been about Rose and Reinette, I might have actually enjoyed it” -- AND THEN!!! eureka myself into understanding exactly how The Girl in the Fireplace royally forked up and why it was not nearly as “poignant” as those 2006 TV critics claimed it was.

No, it’s not simply because it wasn’t gay. And no, it isn’t because it sidelined my beautiful and brilliant Rose Tyler...

... except that it totally is.

Let’s begin with context. In season 2, The Girl in the Fireplace falls just between School Reunion and the Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel two-parter. Now, historically, Doctor Who has never cared for such banalities as continuity. It has a long, lauded tradition of being whatever the hockey sticks it wants, established canon be damned. This is fine -- brilliant even. If Doctor Who couldn’t constantly reinvent itself, then the show would have never lasted past the 70s. But let’s also all agree that a television show tells better stories when there is at least a consistent character arc for the season to be grounded in.

What are the character arcs in season 2 of Doctor Who? Traditionally, the Doctor is a static character. The quirks and actor changes, but the core character never does. The new series tends to toy with this. It constantly challenges the Doctor, throws long arcs at him that send him down bottomless angst pits, but ultimately -- no matter the season, writer, or Doctor -- we always return to the default: a genius immortal who uses his wits instead of guns to save the day. That leaves the heavy character lifting to the companions, and original New Who showrunner Russell T. Davies -- for all his plotting faults -- at least recognized that Doctor Who needed to give the companions proper character arcs.

Rose Tyler begins season 2 with her belief in the Doctor shaken to its core after he regenerates. For all her traveling, she’s still so young and human that she forgets the Doctor isn’t human too. They establish Ten is still the same person as Nine by the end of The Christmas Invasion, but the doubt has been planted in Rose’s mind all the same. This is not the life she imagined when she happily sprinted into the Tardis all those months ago. Is this still the life she wants? Season 2 is about challenging Rose’s commitment to the Doctor. It’s about Rose overcoming these challenges to choose the Doctor over and over and over again until two universes rip them apart and she’s not allowed to choose otherwise. So the question poised with The Girl in the Fireplace should not have been “what’s a cool sci-fi gimmick we can do?” but “how can we challenge Rose’s decision to stay with the Doctor while writing a cool sci-fi gimmick?”

Let Rose be Reinette’s savior.

It’s a simple substitution. Reverse roles. Yet, it twists the episode around entirely and makes it something truly poignant.

Again, this episode directly follows School Reunion. You remember, this is the episode that challenged Rose’s view of the Doctor’s life and her place in it by bringing back Classic Who favorite Sarah Jane Smith. Rose had to face the Doctor’s friends and relationships that came before her. She had to face there will be friends and relationships after her -- except she didn’t face this at all, did she? She heard the words “you can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can’t spend the rest of mine with you”, but she didn’t grasp the meaning.

The intention is for Rose and the viewers to grasp this in Doomsday when Rose is left trapped on a freezing beach in a parallel Norway with no way back to the Doctor. But I argue it would be better for both Rose’s arc and to support the emotional gut punch of Doomsday if Rose first experienced the Doctor’s immortality for herself -- at least in the only way a human could.

Have Rose befriend Reinette as a small child. Have Rose witness Reinette growing up, becoming an adult, meeting the king, moving into Versailles. Have Rose pop back into the future for a moment -- just a moment -- only to return to find years have passed and Reinette has died. In a matter of hours, Rose would have witnessed an entire lifetime play out for someone she’d grown attached to, someone she felt responsible for, someone she could save from monsters and clockwork scavengers, but who she couldn’t save from the most relentless villain of all: time. It’s the closest Rose will ever get to understanding the Doctor’s life, and it’s aching message would give new weight to Rose’s decision to stay with him. Because she’s no longer being told how hard this life is. She’s experienced it first hand. Just a taste, but it’s enough to push her down the path towards the person she (and the show) wants her to become.

Which is someone like the Doctor. Rose absorbs the Doctor’s words so thoroughly, and she adapts to this life so completely, that -- shorter lifespan aside -- she becomes the perfect partner for the Doctor. This is Rose’s true character arc in season 2. From The Christmas Invasion where she shakily confronts the Sycorax to Army of Ghosts where she boldly boasts of destroying the emperor to a Dalek’s face -- when the Doctor isn’t around, Rose steps in. In fact, this arc continues off screen until her return in Turn Left (season 4) where she spouts off so much technobabble, her nineteen year old self would wonder if she’s been body-swapped.

“You even look like him.” -- Jackie Tyler, Army of Ghosts

What better way to drive the lessons of School Reunion home while setting up the finale’s assumption that Rose becomes the defender of the parallel Earth than by swapping Rose and the Doctor’s roles in The Girl in the Fireplace?

Mechanically, this isn’t a difficult substitution to make. School Reunion also ended with Mickey inviting himself onto the Tardis. Yes, that’s right, remember Mickey? The boyfriend who grew leaps and bounds during the show until he decided that he, too, was ready to see the stars? Well, in case you’ve forgotten details of this episode, Rose was Not Pleased with the idea of Mickey traveling with them. It’s easy to begin Girl in the Fireplace with Rose still annoyed. She would want to avoid Mickey, and when that didn’t work, prove that she belongs in this life of traveling through time and space while Mickey doesn’t. She’d give in to the urge to show off, and would poke around the spaceship with less caution than she ordinarily would use. Of course, she’d find the magic button on the fireplace before the others and be whisked away into the past.

By the end, Rose’s experiences with Reinette will bring her closer to the Doctor yet push her further from her life with Mickey. This in turn, adds more support to Mickey’s decision in the following two-parter to stay behind in the parallel universe. Supporting two character arcs in one episode? Who would have thought it was possible!

Meanwhile, the Doctor can fiddle with the portals from the spaceship just fine without ever stepping foot in France. He can pout as Reinette gets more and more attached to Rose and try to bring up that time he totally snogged [insert your favorite historical Earthling here] -- yes, it did too happen, Mickey! Don’t scoff. And selfishly, I’m now dying to see the Doctor tied up by the clockwork scavenger and Rose walking in still glowing from a fabulous 18th century French royal party she had just attended. Some wounds run deep, okay?

As for the third act: Rose -- impulsively brave Rose always trying to do what the Doctor would -- shatters a portal as she rushes in to save Reinette and gets herself trapped in the past. The Doctor would have to temporarily face the idea of a life without Rose before launching into action and finding the one remaining portal to bring her back. The Girl in the Fireplace and Doomsday become proper mirrors. This time, the Doctor is able to rescue Rose. Next time, he can’t.

In conclusion, Stephen Moffat is a garbage writer who ignored the story the season demanded in favor of the Doctor romancing Moffat’s high school history crush. I hate him and this episode, and after 12+ years of debate, I can finally articulate why.

Thank you so much for reading my essay. If you would like to fight me over any of this, just tell me what alley to meet you in. If you want to write this alternate (and correct) version of The Girl in the Fireplace, PLEASE, BY ALL THAT MAKES UP THE GOOD PLACE, DO IT because I am still in mediation with a Yatesbert fanfic (one year later omg) and while we’re close to settling, we are not at all close to receiving the actual fanfiction payout. So yeah. Please have at this. Any other thoughts or feelings, my inbox is open or catch me in the reblogs.

Next week, I will discuss how to solve the Journey’s End metacrisis conundrum with some respectable timey-whimey shenanigans and a returning non-Doctor Time Lord because -- shocker -- those still exist and her name is Romana.

(jokes. There will be no essay)

(but also there is a 99.9% probability there will never, ever be any fic either, so maybe there will be an essay)

The End 

[maverick-werewolf]

Random Werewolf Fact #20 - How to Kill a Werewolf (Weaknesses)

The age-old question that people like to ask but seems so easy to answer in most movies, because they always die - how do you actually kill a werewolf, anyway?

I wrote a post on silver once, if you recall. But here’s a much more robust version of what can and cannot actually hurt a werewolf.

As you probably already know by now, werewolves are often essentially invincible. Often, but not always. In some stories, killing a werewolf was just as easy as killing any other person or any other wolf. Burning at the stake was common, as you might imagine.

Or more often than not, the werewolf simply cannot be killed, and you have to find a way to fix/revert/cure them instead. For more details on all this and more, you can also see one of my previous posts on werewolf abilities.

Want to get Mav all fired up? Tell me about werewolves with ridiculously stupid contrived weaknesses. Send me an ask if you want a rant. Honestly, I got very angry just writing this post, thinking about the stupid crap people do. But for now, I’ll just stick to info as well as I can.

Did NOT appear in folklore:

Silver - The big one. The fake one. The one completely made up by Curt Siodmak in 1941 when he wrote his movie The Wolf Man. The one I’ve said many times and had some people point at me and just say “So... Yeah. Wrong.” Well, right back at you, O friendly one. You’ll hear people now and then try to tell you that this whole silver thing for werewolves started around the Beast of Gevaudan; it did not, that was a fictional retelling and embellishment someone wrote years later. Some people will try to tell you there are other stories that mention silver for werewolves in a folkloric fashion. The trouble is, I’ve never seen any properly documented and accountable sources to back up these claims, so honestly I can’t bring myself to believe they exist, especially since Curt Siodmak and people who worked with him said themselves that he made up the silver thing completely from his imagination. So anyone scouring legends to find silver, picking up trails of contrivances and mistellings and misinterpretations over the years, trying to hard to make this a real thing - they’re all wasting their time. Folkloric werewolves are not sensitive to silver and never have been. Does silver appear in other folklore? Sometimes, yes. Is it alchemically associated with the moon and that’s probably why Siodmak picked it (because he chose to associate his werewolves with the moon)? Probably, yeah. Does it make for a good story? Well, yeah, it can! But, I’m sorry, it simply is not from any folklore anywhere that specifically werewolves are sensitive to, or can only be slain by, silver.

Holy ground/holy artifacts - This is also not a thing. Werewolves aren’t unholy. They aren’t like vampires or other unholy monsters like evil spirits and demons; in fact, they have absolutely nothing to do with any of those things. And even when some Satanic sorcerer court cases got mislabeled as being werewolves, the wolf sorcerers still weren’t repelled by holy symbols or unable to step on holy ground.

Vampire bites - As I’ll be detailing in a future post, the whole “werewolves vs vampires” thing is a very modern idea made by modern storytellers. Vampires have no special natural “weapons” against werewolves and vice versa. Vampire bites certainly don’t “poison” werewolves.

Fire - No, fur is not made of pure oil that will catch on fire and burn like pitch the second it comes into the tiniest contact with a single freaking match. It doesn’t catch on fire instantly and it won’t stay burning forever like some eternal flame. Also, in berserker lore, they are specified to be immune to both iron and fire. And in fact I’ve been led to understand that really the only thing that causes your hair or fur to burn is the body oils that coat it. Listing this as some kind of unique and special weakness for werewolves, like everyone likes to do, is ridiculously silly, please stop doing this. And listing it because fire scares animals is also silly because werewolves aren’t animals; they’re werewolves. Anyway, no, this wasn’t a thing in folklore, either.

Running water - This is another undead/evil spirits/vampires thing, never once associated with werewolves, particularly as werewolves are not unholy.

Loud noises/bright lights/whatnot - As you might imagine, no one in the days of actual werewolf beliefs was running around with flashbangs, so no, this never really happened either.

Wolfsbane and belladonna - This is a really popular one and another one that originated from The Wolf Man (1941) when Curt Siodmak decided to associate his werewolf with the wolfsbane flower. Basically, Siodmak dictated to the world what his werewolves are like and then everyone decided to copy him and now it’s all but universal canon that werewolves are like his werewolves. It’s pretty wild, really. Wouldn’t it be amazing if that happened to you, if you suddenly just up and told the entire world what this monster is like for essentially the rest of its existence in all storytelling everywhere?

Electricity - This seems to be an increasingly common thing. I mean, yeah, most everything is “sensitive” to electricity, right? This is another new thing, though, so it’s like whatever.

Literally everything else in all those TV shows - Yes, all those shows you watch that have werewolves in them. Supernatural, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Being Human, Teen Wolf, you name it. They all made up a gracious plenty of things, some ranging from completely ridiculous (sulfate gas, what? What does that even...?) to arguably more reasonable. Of course if you ask me most are ridiculous. Blood loss? Really? What do you think the regeneration is even there for?

Of course, making up weaknesses for your werewolves isn’t a bad thing. I mean, I’m not saying it’s innately bad; not at all (well alright except some of them and especially the unholy thing... can we not?). Especially since I hold to the idea that they should be essentially invincible otherwise. But none of these have actual folkloric sources - that is my point.

Appeared in folklore:

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING - You heard it right. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Big goose egg. Nothing. Naught. Nichts. Ekkert. Nec entem. Ingenting. And now you also know how to say “nothing” in various ways and languages, too.

Want a few of the weirder instances of how werewolves were actually defeated? All of these only happened once on an individual level. In one case, we get the idea that speaking a werewolf’s Christian name will turn them back to their human form. In another case, if you throw a piece of iron over their head, they’ll turn back.

Do any of these actually hurt, kill, or “cure” them, though? Nope, sorry.

No weaknesses. Good luck with that. You know Wolverine, right, from Marvel? He’s much more of a proper werewolf than like 95% of werewolves in pop culture.

So next time you’re making up werewolves for your world or something, if you want them to have no weaknesses - hey, that can still be on point. Or you can just use silver, because honestly everyone takes that for granted now. And I’m not denying it’s fun (I use it in my own setting, though I have a gratuitous backstory to go with the why and the how, instead of it “just being a thing,” and no one knows why/the creator[s] don’t really know why or care to know either).

But for goodness sake, if you use silver, don’t do that obnoxious thing where people act like you can somehow feed a werewolf silver and it’ll kill them (like they’ll just swallow silver for some reason lololol so funneh and trickseh). Even if they did swallow it, you realize vomiting is a thing, right, especially if it’s something actively burning your insides? Or people who act like you can actually shove it down their throat in the middle of combat. That is the stupidest thing ever in the history of everything. It wouldn’t work and you would die and the werewolf wouldn’t be anything except really mad and busy tearing your stupid head off. Get out.

*ahem* So there you have it! Enjoy.

(If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to check out my other stuff!

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