#this script is insane

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Just a demon kissing, licking or sniffing at his demonic soulmate’s neck for no reason, before completing their covenant with a blood sacrifice.

Feeling that scent of lilacs?

[sasmeo-bisaster]

Do you ever think how in the third life finale grian was so mad after becoming red and ready to get vengeance but the moment scar answered with "you can kill me" he immediately folded? Any bloodlust, any anger, any feeling of betrayal just gone as fast as they came which is insane considering grian is freshly red

[sorbeau]

sketch i forgot to post from the latest ep

how bout them barons from the baronies huh

[gothamite-rambler]

Selina: Why is she here?!

Talia (hands on her hips): I'm here to see my son— you know, the one I had with Bruce. Because we had a son together. Consensual, and he looks like both of us… Yeah.

Selina: Oh, so the cleavage window on your dress is what you wear when seeing your son?

Talia: If you’ve got it, flaunt it. You wouldn't know that would you?

Selina: Don't lie Talia, it's unbecoming- Oh, I'm sorry, that already passed.

Damian entered the room with his backpack.

Damian: Oh, hi Selina.

Selina: Hi, Damian! You look very nice today.

Damian: Aw, thanks.

Talia: Don't compliment my son; he's mine. Damian, you're well dressed—because you're my son.

Damian (to his father): What did I walk into?

Bruce: Just stay quiet until they're done arguing.

Talia: Selina, why must you continue this competition with me? You lose every time.

Selina: I feel like my life, fighting skills, and history would beg to differ. Honestly, I'd rather not have you around Damian considering you once planned an assassination on him.

Talia: I wasn’t in the right frame of mind thanks to my sister. I'm better now. And by the way, I don’t have to wear all leather to fight crime.

Bruce cleared his throat loudly offended.

Talia: Except for you, babe, you make it work.

Bruce: Don’t call me that.

Selina: It’s unfortunate all your plans failed to win him over. Even though you gave him an adorable son, you’re merely a walking second-place medal.

Talia: Better silver than bronze.

Selina: Nice seeing you, Talia.

Talia: Same to you. Come on, Damian.

Damian walked off with his mother while Selina moved closer to Bruce, who looked confused and unsure about what had just transpired.

Selina: That’s just how we talk to each other sometimes. It’s a frenemy thing; you wouldn’t understand.

Bruce: Fair enough.

[daily-trey]

K*fi

ACT I: 1 - 2 | ACT 2

[stellinator]

Tom can’t let anybody in, even for a second, or he might die

[sparrowlucero]

ik you were joking but I would be genuinely interested to hear about the flux cowriting credits strife if you feel like going into detail on it

So I have a big conspiracy theory about season 13 of Doctor Who ("Flux"), namely that there's a lost episode was scripted and even possibly filmed in near entirety, but ended up being cut and cannibalized in post production due to behind the scenes issues, and the fandom has yet to pick up on it.

For anyone who doesn't watch the show: Flux is a miniseries of Doctor Who; a full season was not commissioned because it was produced during Covid. The most important stuff about it for the purposes of this post are:

It's 6 episodes long (¹). The episodes are all directly continuous and could not be shuffled around. (I should clarify here that, no, the showrunner can't simply choose on a whim to make 10 episodes, or only make 4; they had to stick to 6, as that was the amount they were picked up and scheduled for)

The showrunner, Chris Chibnall , wrote every episode apart from episode 4 (Village of the Angels) which he has a co-writing credit on.

(More subjectively but perhaps relevant) The season is largely considered to be kind of a structural mess and (less subjectively) there appears to some abnormal and consistent production issues (²)

So the first thing I need to evidence here is that Chris Chibnall, aforementioned showrunner and writer of the entire season, was late. Like, really late.

Word of mouth gossip had been circulating for a while that there was some sort of on-set problem involving filming having to be paused because he was still finishing scripts: (³)

This would later be confirmed at a Gallifrey One panel (⁴) with Matt Strevens, the executive producer, who suggests that filming stopped to allow Chris Chibnall to finish scripts; he further implies that large swathes of episode 5/Block 2 weren't written until Episode 4/Block 1 (in which Kevin McNally debuts) was filming:

So with that context, let's talk about that Episode 4, "Village of the Angels", the only episode not attributed solely to Chris Chibnall. Co written by Maxine Alderton.

The filming pics reveal an interesting bit of trivia for Village: namely, the clapperboards show that the story was actually filmed as episode 5, not 4:

As the above tweet suggests, this doesn't make much sense. The miniseries is, again, a single continuous plot. It's not like they flipped Village and the current episode 5, Survivors of the Flux; the latter explicitly takes place chronologically after it. And yet, Village having been intended as the penultimate episode 5 is further evidenced by the original trailer for it, in which a character states that the story takes place on the 28th of November. This line is dubbed over in the final episode and subsequent trailers to instead say the 21st:

Why is this line important enough to dub? Because that's meant to line up with the air date of the episode. Episode 4 aired on the 21st and 5 on the 28th. But something happened in post production, and now it's episode 4 on the 21st instead (⁵):

So if none of these episodes were moved around but it does seem like Village was meant to be episode 5, where and what is the original episode 4?

I have a theory.

Flux has a recurring subplot involving two side characters, a married couple (Bel and Vinder) who have been separated by the titular disaster and are traveling the universe to reunite with each other. This story is told through segments sprinkled throughout the episodes. These have a different writing style (including a diary-esque narration only present in these scenes) and an internally consistent visual style that looks somewhat different to the other parts of the season.

Village of the Angels, for instance, is a moody, dark episode set in a village in the 1960s:

However, Bel and Vinder's segments in the episode have a somewhat different look:

On top of this, they never intersect with the episode's A plot (literally or in any clear thematic way), and the majority of these segments piece together into one single scene that seems to have been cut up.

So, what I think is that the bel and vinder scenes across the middle of the season were originally a single full story, an episode 4 that took a breather from the main plot and characters to follow the lives of these two side characters; the differing visual and writing style is due to it originally having been filmed separately and with a somewhat different artistic intent. I believe Chris Chibnall's cowriting credit on Angels exists because these specific scenes are from a script he wrote, but that otherwise the Angel script can be credited solely to Maxine Alderton by normal cowriting standards.

"But wait," you might say, "I thought there were already 6 episodes that are all plot relevant? If no episodes existing right now can be cut, how could this 7th episode exist?"

Remember this tidbit:

The adventures in question comprise a large amount of the next episode (Episode 5: Survivors of the Flux), nearly 20 minutes of a 50ish minute runtime (and frankly, much of the rest of the episode is somewhat fluffy build up that feels like it's taking advantage of an extended runtime). A version without this added plot would, in my opinion, only warrant one final episode rather than two.

I think the showrunner, still scrambling to finish scripts as the episodes were being filmed, and making a snap decision to include a new major subplot (⁶), wrote a finale script so long and with so many plot threads that the only way to keep all this material of was to split it into two episodes, 5 and 6. And because they only could only make 6, he had to get rid of one of the previous 5 episodes - the already scripted and filmed ones - to make room for this new episode 5. A tough order when it's a plot-heavy miniseries... if not for episode 4 being a standalone divergence from the main plot about the lives of two side characters, one that could, in theory, be cut up and dispersed throughout the season without continuity issues for the main story.

(Some notes and clarifications under the cut)

(1) some sources initially reported the episode count as 8; this wasn't inaccurate - the 2022 new years/easter special were part of the episode order. Flux itself was always meant to be 6 episodes long. (2) A few of the production issues include: - episodes filming without a second draft:

- the fx team that had been on the show since 2005 abruptly leaving midseason (because they "didn't feel like part of the team anymore") and returning as soon as the creative team changed, including the head of the studio implying they weren't properly credited (mild vfx body horror warning in link):

- people working on additional projects such as books not receiving clear information on the characters they were assigned to write:

- and likely a director who was put on hold due to a script being rewritten:

Among other things I can't directly cite at the moment, including vfx artists having to do whole episodes solo in crunch time and writers not being told their work was massively overhauled until it aired due to major changes being extremely late in production.

While I don't wish to pontificate too much here and many of these things are pretty normal by themselves, I do think it could paint a picture of a production where an episode well into filming may genuinely be cut on a whim and without consideration for the crew, artists, etc. working on the show. (3) This reddit post comes from a leaker who was known to be consistently accurate. (4) Gallifrey One does not allow filming of panels. I know Kevin's livetweets of panels to be accurate. (5) It's very, very unlikely the entire season was moved back a week, as the premier is a Halloween special that was certainly always intended to air on Oct. 31st. (6) I don't wish to insinuate Chris Chibnall is, throughout his career, an inherently poor showrunner, but I do think that maybe his jump from police procedural - a genre that doesn't involve quite as much concept art, vfx work, marketing, convention panels, set building, episodic storytelling, and keeping in touch with expanded universe producers - to flagship science fiction adventure show may have contributed to some of these issues, especially when he was already in the mindset that things could be changed on a whim (perhaps not such a major issue when it's broadchurch and no new sets need be built)

(source) Basically I don't really think this is "the showrunner's fault" or anything; more that a perfect storm of a showrunner who was habitually late on scripts, used to writing lowkey cop dramas, covid, an entirely serialized season, etc. may have led to these issues

[beadelmare]

manifestation and shifting and all this stuff makes me genuinely so excited. like fym i can manifest anything i want and then if i happen to get bored i can just server hop into another fucking reality

[dennisboobs]

standing in front of a firing squad would have been easier than reading this script i need to be shot

[k3n-dyll]

Oh look, they did the thing

[macden]

[gothamite-rambler]

Duke: If the Purge was legal, would you guys kill people?

Bruce: That would be one thing I'd do... maybe once, and then steal stuff from designer clothing stores.

Dick: That’s… who would you kill?

Bruce: Joker, but only in a world where my mental health is better. You know what? Killing him wouldn’t be the right choice for me. I’d go after someone like Black Mask or Tony Zucco… or Joe Chill! Let me stop.

Bruce took a breath, making his kids laugh.

Bruce: If the Purge happened in this world… I would log into a website that handles student debt and clear it all off. Every college student, back to zero.

Stephanie: That is… am I about to cry? Oh, and I’d kill my dad.

Dick: I’d kill… Tony Zucco, since Bruce wouldn't. Yeah, and then I’d take all the good groceries from the store in a big moving truck. Jason?

Jason: I have a plan for this. I wouldn’t kill unless I desperately wanted to. In between debating who to kill, it'd be a villain, and Joker would be on that list… but Black Mask too. Before that, I’d break into a Barnes & Noble and steal so many books!

Damian: Why books?

Jason: Why not? They're free at that point. Oh, and I’d kill a corrupt CEO… five corrupt CEOs.

Duke: I respect that. If you're doing all that, can I kill the Joker?

Jason: Um… sure, go ahead.

Duke: Awesome! After that, I’d loot from a mall.

Damian: I’d snuggle with a seal, fight a villain that I truly despise, and steal a gift for Mother and Father from the mall. Cass, what about you?

Cass: Well, you know how I feel about murder, so regardless of it being legal during the Purge, I still wouldn't do it. I’d vandalize the house of someone I really dislike, go with Jason to that bookstore, break into a bank, and then end it by stealing from a jewelry store.

Damian: Why a jewelry store?

Cass: I’d get my new girlfriend a gift.

Stephanie: Oh! Girl, stop! The two-year pact hasn’t even ended yet.

Bruce sighed, covering his eyes; he hadn't warmed up to the idea of Stephanie dating another one of his kids.

Damian: Father, you can't kill Stephanie during the Purge just because she might date Cass.

Bruce: I'm not. I'm not. Just annoyed.

[morgana-pendragon]

THE HOLIDAY (2006) + first descriptions of the characters

[insignificant457]

the fact that kaz and matthias are the only crows that have siblings does not get talked about enough. i mean, they are trying to pull off a high stakes group effort with four (4) only children in tow. no wonder the two of them are grumpy 24/7

[currantpearl]

IVORYYYY,

NEW WHITE PINE EPISODE, I REPEAT NEW WHITE PINE EPISODE RAHHH

[charmac]