#It's like when I first heard David Tennant's natural accent | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

claudiafekete · 3 years

Text

This is another ordinary story of “how xxx fandoms changed my life” -

- or maybe not. you decide. I want to write it down. trigger warning for politics, discussion of sexual violence, mild gender dysphoria It’s also horribly long. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

When I first came to tumblr, I had just graduated from APH. Short for Axis Power Hetalia. I learned about it in the form of manga. For years it was my everything - I learned what fanfic or fanart meant and I learned the basic online etiquette. As I grew in years, it accompanied me.

Until it didn’t.

Shortly after I fell into solangelo.

It’s a fun story, how I picked up PJO years after years of absence. My brother was whining about something written in Magnus Chase. “What do you think the Norse Gods were going to do to Percy that Annabeth was crying?” He demanded. I expressed my confusion. He kept on with his different theories and I made the decision to look it up online later.

My online search of Percy Jackson’s fate soon revealed something unknown to me before: solangelo. The first canon gay ship I ever knew. Therefore, at the ripe old age of 19, I threw myself into this endless hole called “tumblr” for the first time.

It was the most LGBTQ+ friendly place I had ever been. I joke you not. It was also the place where I was taught not only how a healthy relationship should look like, but also how sex should or could be like. You don’t learn anything healthy about sex in Chinese or Mandarin using fandom, at least during the years I was in them. There were rigid 攻/受(roughly translated as top/bottom) stereotypes that everyone rushed to squeezed their characters into them. A lot of time though both person might ship A with B, they wouldn’t interact because one thought A should top and another thought B should top. Their different topping designation resulted in depictions of the characters’ personalities so dramatically differed that you couldn’t recognize them as the same characters. Other than the refreshing relationship dynamics, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard offered me a chance to take a look at my gender identity. I had known that theoretically non-binary people existed outside of binary gender, but I hadn’t known how one might live as one or describe themselves as one. I’m not trying to claim that Alex Fierro’s story is the only story of non-binary people. I’m trying to say that it was the starting point for me to make exploration and find the label “agender” for myself.

I stayed in APH for 6 years. I had expected to stay in solangelo for longer.

Entered June 2019 with its whispers and anxious demonstrations. Entered folks pouring into streets in Hong Kong. Entered tear gas and facemasks and sticks and a bullet scarcely missing the heart and journalists beaten by police. Entered young students not of age disappearing mysteriously. Entered people dressed in white attacking citizens and not arrested by police. Entered dead bodies that were probably “被自殺 (being suicided)”.

Entered a city falling into the hands of tyrants next to your door, and you didn’t know how to help. You didn’t know what to do with yourself with your clean and spare hands. You were so far away from the frontline, you were angry and helpless and hopeless for that.

It was the first time I witnessed, first-hand, how the Chinese government directed the discussion online, so that it seemed as if there were random mobs who were disturbing the peace of Hong Kong and possibly taking money or being trained by US. “Bullshit. Would there still be so many kids hurt on street if we have received any kinds of training for this?“ Of course, the majority of Chinese people inland wouldn’t hear that. Hong Kong is a former colony. Any calls of outrage toward the present government must be made by disillusioned young people who were unaware of colonization and imperialism.

That was why I took refugee in Good Omens. I needed to run some where to stop myself from scratching myself to blood. I needed to some works for these clean and spare hands to do so that they wouldn’t pick up something destructive, such as a knife.

If the PJOverse fandom had felt the best place on earth, well, the Good Omens fandom lifted me into paradise.

I’ve never seen so much kindness being showed under one tag. The creators and actors were all kind and interacted with the fans in their own ways. We were encouraged to do everything, anything, to build art with it however we liked. We as fans were recognized. We were seen. We were ... cared for. It was overwhelming, in a good way. For that, I would be forever thankful to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and Michael Sheen and so many others in the production. I would be forever thankful to artists who liberated body types and freed the ties between gender expression and genitals. I would be forever thankful for the fantastic creators out there.

Would it seem as if I’ve only cherished the mutuals I met in Good Omens fandom? It wasn’t my intention. There are friends I keep in touch long after I fell out of love with APH. There are mutuals I got to know through solangelo and I feel, I hope that we are friends. Everyone who has chat with me I do my best to remember. (Though I do left conversation in weird places, become so ashamed of my incompetency that I do not continue them.)

What I’m trying to say is, as good as the solangelo fandom was, I still ran into biphobic posts here and there. It was only once or twice – but it was a constant reminder that being bisexual didn’t seem “valid” to some of the other LGBTQ+ members out there. Who cares what cis-gendered, heteronormative people said? Bullets that shot from friendly fire hurt the worst.

Besides, with a large and vibrant fandom like Good Omens, it’s easier to feel less alone and more… seen.

Damn right. Even after writing more that 5000 words in English it is still so easy to fall back into the comfortable nest of mother tongue. I can read simplified Chinese characters as well as the traditional Chinese characters I grow up using. There probably will never be getting the accent right but soundlessly devouring words in front of a screen? I excel at that.

That was what’s happening when the days rolled into January, 2020. I flew to US as an exchange student and exchanged long letters with a young Chinese woman I met in Good Omens fandom. I’ve never felt so alone in life. English as in creative writing has never come more naturally for me. The words burst in my head and arranged themselves freely on screen or on papers. I’ve never felt more hopeful about my writing ability.

The days rolled into March, 2020.

The first time my mom told me to come home over home, I laughed. The second time, I frowned. Before she pleaded me for the third time, I had grabbed a ticket.

I hadn’t imagined the disease plaguing China and its neighboring countries would affect the whole world.

You lived the rest of the story. I fled back to Taiwan.

That was where Doctor Who came in. Or David Tennant. Such a strange time. For fourteen days I was the only living human in the house. I watched Casanova – or was it later? Hamlet definitely came before that. Then I could live with my family again. I handed in my homework and wrote in a different language than the people around me were speaking. My parents were working. My little brother was in school. When there was no one to talk to me I either read or watch Doctor Who to pass the time. I fell for Thirteen. I fell for twissy. Falling fast and hard and completely won over by their glamour.

I started internship. There were some small breaks where I could catch an episode or half, but never as much time as before. I dipped into fandom wiki and found that no matter how much research I did, there would always be details I overlooked simply because I could not afford hours watching all the episodes. No matter how hard I squeezed my schedule for time, no matter how much I devoted myself to the series, it would never be enough.

So I gave up, and let it go. For the first time in quite a while, I willingly gave up something for the simple reason of “I want to live a more comfortable life”.

Came summer. Damp air combined with biting heat and piles after piles of biochemical terms made life agonizing. An ordinary kind of pre-pandemic “agonizing” which felt like a luxury in a world that was ending.

Hong Kong fell.

It was bound to happen. Once I heard protestors fought their way into the legislature I knew, for almost an year I knew, nothing good would come out of this. CCP would never allow its subjects acting out of hand. With such open despise to the authority, CCP would take nothing but a full conquest at the end of it.

See where we are now. As long as you’re “interfering” the political climate “inside” China, it doesn't matter which nationality you hold or where you were or how long it has been since you made the statement. “According to the law”, China can come for you. No, better, it can tell your country to hand you over. What a clever empire. What a graceful empire.

What a horrifying empire.

With the news I spiraled down fast. I kept away from the young Chinese woman I was exchanging letters with, I kept away from any kinds of Chinese social media, and the worst of all, I kept away from Good Omens, for it was sweet and kind and hopeful, for it reminded me of a time where fighting seemed to make a difference. I was empty and exhausted and a husk. Something must come out to fill the void. Someone needed to paint me in colors so that the world wouldn’t notice I was fading away.

I was surprised at who took the brush.

After ten years, the first man I ever have a crush on strolled back into my life.

He was over thirty, but I always pictured him in his early twenties. Dark hair, eyes of grey or silvery blue. Loud laughter that sounded like a bark. Swift and elegant. Intelligent. Prideful. Stubborn. I embraced him as I’ve done ten years ago as a little child.

When I looked past him, I saw someone else.

Worn, weathered, with wry humor. Attentive and considerate. Tortured by the world yet never stop giving out kindness. Countless scars. Grey hair unfitting to his age. I didn’t pay him much attention ten years ago. This time, I looked.

Let me introduce you Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, my very first crush and the man who is too much like my last crush.

2020, a month before Fall semester started, I trekked cautiously, timidly back into Harry Potter fandom.

The fandom of August 2020 was very different from fandom of 2010. The lack of author, for one – it became mandatory to denounce the author’s transphobic statement and other bigotry setting. I’m glad that everyone is doing their best to make it a friendly place for minority groups. Though I’m afraid, by making it a white or black situation with short statements and no discussion, it wouldn’t really help people understand why she is wrong in this. However irrefutable the author’s guilt seems to us, it is not something obvious to those who are unfamiliar with the subjects.

But it does feel good to see blogs and fics with the introduction such as “If you support the author’s transphobic bullshit this place does not welcome you”. It feels reliving.

The second was, I found the type of work I’m actively pursuing changed.

Back when I was young – when I was so little I didn’t even know what the word “fandom” meant – I read Character x OFC and some M x M. During the APH period I read an alarming amount of M x M and countless historical AU. When digging through solangelo, beside the canon divergence stories, simple AU like coffee shop grabbed my attention. Coming out stories were my comforts. The best of Good Omens fics were either in canon verse discussing desires, bravery, humanity and mortality, or setting in an AU with the promise of sweet, fluffy endings. Doctor Who almost always focused on Time and Space. Love was twisted and so often tainted by anger. Monster and god were very alike.

I came a full circle back to the Marauder era, and found myself not looking for heroes, but for young fighters struggling desperately in a seemingly hopeless war. I looked for people who were frightened but never, never ever going down without a fight.

I used to find characters and events unfolding in foreign places, now I want characters who are close to what I am or what I want to be.

---

So, that’s it, my grand journey through multiple fandoms and basically a journey of self-discovery. It’s messy, sometimes painful, but always with so much joy blooming along the way.

Something doesn’t change. I’m still obsessed with words. I’m still a sucker for happy ending. I’m still wishing someone will come and love me the way I need to be loved.

Something does. I stop imagining that some magical power will come into my life and solve everything. I stop looking for others to save me from myself. I start believing that though wounds hurt, some of them do teach us to be a better person.

Long ago, I saw my friends and I as rabbits, without proper weapons to defend ourselves. That wouldn’t do. I thought. For my friends I’ll grow into a snake with fangs to protect them. Maybe I have grown into a snake. Maybe I haven’t. But I do hope I won’t stop fighting for those I love, with those I love.

I hope I won’t give up.

#APH #axis power hetalia #pjo #percy jackson #solangelo #tw: politics #tw: sex mention #magnus chase #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #alex fierro #hong kong extradition bill #hong kong demonstration #good omens #doctor who #tw: personal review of pandemic #harry potter #sirius black #remus lupin #hong kong national security law

5 notes · View notes

iamanathemadevice · 4 years

Text

Movie Recs

Our multicultural televisional channel here, SBS, has a frankly brilliant and generous free ‘watch on demand’ facility, and over the last few days, I’ve encountered four brilliant films, each completely different in genre and tone from the others. Depending on where you live, you may be able to see them too, for little or no money. Summaries from IMDB.

Strings (2004): “A Prince leaves his city and sets off to avenge his father, not aware his father wasn't murdered, and in reality, committed suicide, and soon learns the truth about his people from a warrior woman.”

Animated with real puppets, this beautiful film incorporates the ‘strings’ used to move the puppets into the plot and theology of the world th characters inhabit. Anyone who’s seen the Lion King won’t find the story challenging, but the way the strings are used is clever and moving. Top notch voice acting by Derek Jacobi, David Harewood, James McAvoy, Claire Skinner, Samantha Bond and others, add to the pleasure. The last scene is so moving and cleverly done, I’m still thinking about it

Swiss Army Man (2016): “A hopeless man stranded on a deserted island befriends a dead body and together they go on a surreal journey to get home.”

No matter what you’ve heard about this film, no matter how you imagine it, nothing can prepare you for its outrageousness and cleverness. If you can get through the first ten minutes, you can survive the rest, but trust me, it goes nowhere you would ever expect. Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe act their socks off, to tell an often funny, often sad story about a castaway and his talking, farting corpse friend.

Eye in the Sky (2015): “Col. Katherine Powell, a military officer in command of an operation to capture terrorists in Kenya, sees her mission escalate when a girl enters the kill zone triggering an international dispute over the implications of modern warfare.”

I chose to watch this for the cast - it’s Alan Rickman’s last live action movie - and that was a good decision, because that cast are razor sharp in this military drama, essentially exploring the classic “trolley problem”. Every aspect of a horrible decision is explored carefully and with nuance, by Helen Mirren playing Col. Powell, Rickman acting umpire between the political players, and Aaron Paul at the sharp end of the decision making process.

There is no right choice here. Innocents will die regardless of what is done. Watching that choice be made is excruciating and brilliant to watch.

What We Did on Our Holiday (2014): “A family of five is off to granddad's big 75th birthday party at an uncle's estate in rural Scotland. The parents fight and are separated, and hope their three kids won't mention it. The kids love, can talk with, and will do anything for, granddad.”

A bit like Swiss Army Man, this movie goes where you really don’t expect it to. It’s mostly funny with sad bits, and if you don’t hide your face in second-hand embarrassment at some point, then you’re not completely human. Billy Connolly as granddad Gordi is wonderful in a relatively restrained performance, the luminous Rosamund Pike playing Abi, sparky but frustrated with her estranged husband, Doug, played by David Tennant, also rather restrained in his natural accent and confused most of the time. Ben Miller plays Gordi’s other son, and Annette Crosbie and Celia Imrie have smaller, but equally snappy roles.

But it’s the three kids who steal the movie, with the best lines, the best motives, and the most amazing plans. This is not a sick fest with cutesy children - the two youngest have a post-vomit (thankfully not shown) contest with the oldest girl adjudicating as to who produced the most - and the three have very different ways of dealing with the impending divorce and other bad things in their lives.

It’s lovingly filmed in the highlands of Scotland, and everyone is given a chance to show their best - and worst - sides. Despite the storyline, it ends in an uplifting, realistic manner, and I felt like a better person after watching it.

So, you might like to try one or all. Enjoy them if you do!

#movie recs

3 notes · View notes

lokilickedme · 5 years

Text

(Okay, I’m going to do this in probably 3 parts because it’s long)

So The Department sorta happened because I wanted to get back into a regular weekly-updating online fic because, frankly, two reasons:

1) I’m worn out/exhausted/a bit burned out from working on novels and very little of anything else for the last year and a half, and

2) I crave/need the instant validation of the comment section at AO3, which you don’t get when you write a book :/

So I called a break, put away my manuscripts for a couple months, and am just indulging in some fun writing for a little while. And since I wanted something new (sorry WIPs, your time will come again) this is what we ended up with.

I don’t remember exactly what made me go with the police department premise. The potential for assholery and rampant egomania, most likely? Well, you know I love that shit when it hides something slightly more noble underneath...and I think I wanted a big ensemble cast because I just adore the dynamics that can occur in groups of disparate personalities who have known each other for a long time. That way they interact when they know each others’ secrets and there’s that one person new to the group who isn’t in on any of the jokes? Good stuff right there.

I do remember that the first ideas for this story came to me during the Professor Jeff’s Super Science Show at the library (yeah your guess is as good as mine on that but it happens literally every time). But if I’m being honest, I’d say it probably had more to do with Benny Hill than anything. I have this bad habit of sitting on the couch with my laptop on my knees, headphones on, head back, inventing scenes in my head that go along with whatever music I’m listening to. I’ve got this one insane playlist full of goofy tunes my 7-year old has requested for staging Thomas The Tank Engine crash scenes (don’t ask) and on this particular night that’s what I was listening to because why not. On that playlist is a 30-minute loop of the Benny Hill Theme. And all I could see in my head was a foot chase on ice and snow between a female officer, an out of shape Chief of police, a giraffe-legged office assistant, and a probably methed-up wannabe criminal who didn’t actually do anything major but was running anyway because he was bored. It struck me funny and I toyed with the idea of sticking it into something I already had started, because I do love me some chaotic slapstick.

So the next day I’m driving the boys home from the Super Science Show and I’ve been playing around with it in my head again, and it’s taking shape into something that I know I’m going to have to work with. We pass the Pupuseria Virolena Salvadoran restaurant downtown, and I start laughing because I’m suddenly hearing David Tennant trying to say that in his Scottish accent.

On the spot I named him Hawk and made him Captain. And now we have one of our characters, and by the time we pull up in our driveway ten minutes later I’ve got stuff needing to be written down right now.

(the rest is under the cut for length)

Chapter 1 - Prologue - Your Boatload of Bad Decisions Has Left The Harbor

I was so anxious to get into the story but it needed an introduction, or else Greta being in this podunk town wouldn’t have any weight. So we’re introduced to our heroine, who isn’t so much a heroine as just a decent if slightly too self confident special division officer who had some bad luck. It’s not elaborated on yet in the story, though it’s heavily referenced multiple times that she disobeyed an order and made the decision to continue a high speed pursuit that had been called off by her superior officer, the above-mentioned Captain Hawkins, whom Greta has something of a relationship with (yeah they’re screwing, what of it). And in the wake of that decision, Greta’s partner is killed and she’s brought up on charges, suspended, ordered to counseling, and finally shipped off to a small town in Minnesota so she can keep working while her final fate is decided by an investigative committee back in LA.

The opening chase scene was written from things I learned when I was a kid and my dad did vehicle tweaks for the Fort Worth police department from his auto shop. The officers used to hang out drinking Cokes and telling stories while dad made (possibly illegal) modifications to their cars. I was there a lot, sitting under his work bench with my books and pencils, listening to everything and remembering it all. And I thought it was so damn cool. So here we are. What else was I gonna do with that information? Might as well put it to use if it’s gonna be taking up real estate in my head for all these years.

For the record, I really liked Greta’s partner Joe and hated to kill him - but we needed a catalyst, and the cheerful best friend who sings Italian arias during chases while joyfully blasting out windshields is always gonna be the loser in the goner lottery. For once the male hero dies to further the female lead’s storyline.

Heh, take that Marvel.

Anyway, sorry Joe. There will be more about you in later chapters, so...gone but not forgotten.

Chapter 2 - Minnewhatever

This part starts out with the last bit of backstory we need to proceed. Hawk sending Greta off to Minnesota, a place whose name she never does remember or say correctly. She doesn’t figure she’s actually going to be there long enough to bother learning it, but Hawk informs her that her exile is likely to last at least a year, and he gives her very little reassurance that she won’t be serving every minute of her sentence.

Greta’s feeling a little betrayed here. She and Hawk have been sort of a thing for a while, friends and colleagues and lovers, but he’s washing his hands of the entire situation and she’s left angry and a bit bereft. But she still figures he’ll do something to get her out of it, if she’s patient and behaves herself in the new place.

Fast forward to day one in Weemeetwa. While drowning her aggravation in a bottle of the good stuff, Greta meets her first new acquaintance and decides to just go with the cranky fuck-it attitude that she’s been harboring since the incident, gets shitfaced, and goes home with the guy. This might have been a dual-purpose shag; Greta’s still feeling betrayed and abandoned by Hawk, so it’s a screw-you that he’ll never find out about - but that doesn’t stop it from feeling good in a vengeful sort of way. Plus it’s cold and she’s alone and the guy - Andy, a tall sweet longhaired cutiepie with an Irish accent - is all too willing to buy her a drink and take her home for some cuddles.

In the morning Greta wakes up in a strange place full of groaning regret and ends up giving Andy a ride to the station. She doesn’t count on seeing him again, so there’s no breath wasted on goodbyes.

Chapter 3 - A Logging Truck, A Mountain, and A Blonde Walk Into A Bar

Now we meet most of the department. Creeley, a gruff roughhouser with a rude streak forty miles wide, Sarah, the only other female in the department and possibly the only person alive who can keep the boys under control, Kevin, the quiet dispatch agent with an impressive mountain impersonation skill, and finally (for the moment) Chief, the slightly too good-looking and highly put-upon boss of them all.

I knew I wanted Tom Hiddleston to play Chief Tommy Davis. This is Kong Skull Island-era Hiddleston crossed with The Night Manager, with a handful of extra pounds around the middle and a frustrated sigh that goes on forever. He’s meant to be an ex hockey player who was waylaid on his way to the major leagues, so he’s strong and sturdy, but an injury benched him years ago and a career in small-town law enforcement has put him a bit to pasture. Middle aged, somewhere between 40 and 45. He’s got some stuff in his past but he’s happy now, for the most part, just living his life watching over the town.

Jason Momoa is Bobby Creeley, for obvious reasons. I knew I wanted a rowdy, rude, loudmouthed team member that’s always crossing everyone, but who everyone knows will be there no matter what if anything goes down. He’s instantly Greta’s nemesis from the moment she walks in the door. Gigantic and shaggy with a permanently amused nature and a fear of literally nothing, he’s simultaneously everyone’s best friend and worst enemy.

Sarah Lancashire has been finding her way into a lot of my fics lately as side characters, so it’s no surprise she ended up here as Sarah Pearl. Steely, tough, and highly immune to the idiocy around her, Sarah is the worn out voice of common sense that the department is running perilously short on. She’s also my first and foremost girl crush, and I’ll admit right now that I wrote an AU ending almost immediately that involved Sarah and Greta ending up together. It would be natural to assume Sarah would fall into the default role of mom to the group, but there’s a whole lot of oh hell nope wrapped around that trope. She would set them all on fire if anyone would let her have some matches, but Chief made a rule against that a long damn time ago.

Dave Bautista has been hanging around the back door of my muse stable for the longest, just minding his own business and waiting his turn, but I never really had any place to stick him. Well Drax, your time has come baby. I chose him to play Kevin Saylor based on his GoTG scene in which he tries to convince the crew he’s invisible. And that’s Kevin, in a nutshell. Huge and intimidating but quiet and intensely matter-of-fact in manner, he’s in charge of dispatch and immediately inspires Greta’s hatred of using the radio.

My first (and really only) faceclaim for Greta Morley was Zoe Saldana, but I waffled briefly for a couple of weeks, trying to cater to a few readers who told me they wanted to imagine themselves in the role. I planned to stick with that, and I tried, I promise I did. But every time Greta opened her mouth I heard Zoe, and by the time she went on her less than fleet-footed pursuit of Wilson with the longsuffering Andy by her side, she was locked in. Greta’s harboring some serious regret and raw emotional wounds from her not too distant past, and some time out in the American Midwest should be a much needed recovery sabbatical. Should be. But isn’t gonna.

Speaking of Andy...Andrew Hozier-Byrne was and is the only person I ever considered for the role of Andy Burns. Too tall, too clumsy, too cute, too sweet, just a whole bunch of too everything - he was perfect for the role and I may or may not have written it exclusively for him. Okay yeah, I wrote it exclusively for him. Andy’s the local cryptid, nobody really knows a lot about him. He may or may not be a drug dealer. He may or may not be officially employed by the police department. He may or may not be Irish or hypoglycemic or a blackout drunk or as goofy as he seems. Nobody really knows, and to be honest nobody really cares, because if you need it done Andy can do it...if he can remember you asked him to do it.

So Greta has arrived, for better or for worse. Cree immediately starts in with the sexist remarks and butchering her name, a favor she returns by embarking on what will become a neverending trail of obliterated mis-renderings of the town’s name. Creeley and Kevin kick off another of many running gags by arguing over whether or not anyone knew she was coming, and before things can get too stupid, Chief makes his first appearance.

And now things start to get interesting.

To be continued at chapter 4, Randy Andy and The Chief of Weemeetwa

@whatevervivie

#The Department #director's commentary #Hiddleston #Hozier #Momoa #Bautista #Saldana #Lancashire

12 notes · View notes

kissofgallifrey · 6 years

Text

An Audience with David Tennant

My eyes hurt like hell, but I promised you this over a week ago so it’s about time I finished going over it and post it.

(Skip to the second line-breaker (that’s its name?) if you want to go straight to the Audience with David Tennant, I just wrote the experience of the whole day. There are some bits of David before though)

Saturday saw the second and final day of the Adam Smith Festival of Ideas in Kirkcaldy, which ended brilliantly with a gala screening of You, Me and Him, as well as a sort-of-Q&A event with David Tennant, titled An Audience with David Tennant.

What could possibly go wrong?

I will start by saying there were some frustrations involved with that day. The festival was pretty awfully organised; it seemed the organisers themselves had no idea what was happening (we got some seriously conflicting info before and during the event); the no-photography rule was plain idiotic; and they clearly weren’t remotely prepared for the theatre to be full (for the record, full being just 400 people) or for people’s interest. Everything around the event was pretty frustrating as well – the theatre took forever to respond to emails or messages, and even calling them didn’t give a clear answer about, well, anything.

That being said, even though it badly organised, nobody knew what’s happening and the people who organised it clearly had no idea what was happening half the time, I did have a good time.

Since we’ve been told that David and the gang wouldn’t be walking the red carpet, we didn’t bother coming in to the theatre too early. Not much of an issue, since David, Georgia and Daisy were a bit late and nothing happened for the first twenty-five minutes or so anyway (except for Tenny who walked the red carpet!), but still. Georgia and Daisy really just walked through, and they seemed surprised when someone asked for their autograph or for a photo. It was really sweet – and made me want to grab both of them and say, “Yes, David and David and David, but we care about you, too, and we want to talk to you and hear from you. This is YOUR film, and you’ve both said such beautiful things about it already – what makes you think people don’t care about you?” With their modesty, it probably wouldn’t have mattered, but sometimes I feel like we do need to let them know that.

For David it was a bit more complicated. It took him about ten minutes to do a 1.5 metres (2m tops) red carpet because he was the same beautiful sweetheart he always is, and he literally stopped for every single person. He signed pretty much anything, from Doctor Who stuff to a Postman Pat DVD (“That’s a blast from the past!” He said with a grin as he did), he took photos with everyone, he stopped to chat and joke at some points. Really, it was the sort of moments that make you look at him and think, “You know, this man is too good for this world.”

He is, but never mind that.

After David finally managed to make it through the crowd (don’t believe the papers, everything was civil and actually a hell of a lot calmer than I’ve seen at the Stage Door), still very calm and smiley and sweet, they all headed down to what I’m assuming is a press room or something like that. We all headed up to the theatre.

They did a short introduction, which I’m not gonna say anything about because there’s a video online already, you can see it here, and then we watched the film. We have been told there will be a Q&A with Georgia after the film, but (there’s a shocker) the theatre apparently got it wrong again, because there was nothing.

Then it was time for the Audience with David Tennant.

In accordance with the running theme of the day, the panel did start later than intended, but I suppose that’s only natural in events like this. Georgia and Daisy sat in the audience (sneaking in…), and then the organisers gave a little speech and called David and Arabella Weir up onstage. You can see a (not too good) video of their entrance here.

It was utterly adorable and I think pretty much everybody in the audience melted when they saw it.

David and Arabella both took their seats and the celebration began.

Arabella opened by joking that she’s going to talk about herself the whole evening and David’s not going to say a word, at which point he nodded (silently and obediently). David, you goofy adorable boy <3

Anyway, the original plan was to have Arabella ask David her own questions, but then they asked the fans to send them questions, and apparently someone thought it’d be a better idea to change it entirely. So instead of several questions from fans, the whole thing turned into a version of a convention Q&A.

The first question was why David chose Kirkcaldy and the Adam Smith Theatre for this, to which David’s response was, “I didn’t choose it! None of this was me!” He continued to say that it’s been a while since he’s been to the Adam Smith Theatre – 27 years, to be precise (“which is amazing, cos I’m only 29 years old”). He was doing a play with 7:84 (he wasn’t entirely sure which one it was, he thought it was The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), and as they toured in Scotland, they made it to the Adam Smith Theatre for a performance (possibly two, he wasn’t sure).

As David tried to remember the name of the play they did here, someone in the audience (who can say her name herself if she wants to), said the name, and apparently she wasn’t very well heard onstage at first, because David went, “Someone is making noises! Sort of squeaky!” and started sort of looking for the source. Eventually it was found, and when David asked if she was here and watched it she said that she wasn’t, because she wasn’t really born yet… at which point David went, “Thanks!” Once the laughter subsided, he explained (in case anybody missed it) that “this was a voice in the dark telling me they weren’t born 27 years ago…” and added, “Neither was I!”

Arabella then explained that David didn’t choose the Adam Smith Theatre, she asked him to come. David (sweet as always) said that he’s thrilled to return. <3

The next question was what the difference is between working on a TV show in the UK versus in the US. The woman who sent it also had another question, which Arabella said she won’t read, and David went, “I want to hear the other question and I’ll choose.” Arabella said the other question just isn’t interesting, and David immediately turned to the audience and said, “Sorry”, and continued to ask if the woman was in the audience (and thanked her for the question). Is that sweet or what?

In answer to the question, David said it’s pretty much the same (“different accents”, which had everyone laughing), except that they work longer hours in the States (and get paid for working longer hours, since they still have the unions that work very hard to protect their rights and all), there are slightly different rules… it’s very much the same thing, trying to tell a story the best you can… “They have better snacks!” David cut himself off then, finding a new interesting thing. “The Americans are really good with snacks.”

David went on to talk about how in the States they’ve got craft service – which is a whole other department that only focuses on the food. In the UK, he said, if it’s a big production you might get some biscuits, but in the States they’ve got snacks coming through the entire day. “That’s the main difference,” He concluded, to much laughter.

The next question was what the best and worst things about being famous are. David looked at Arabella and went, “I don’t know… you tell me”, and she said that – obviously nobody wants to hear her answer and everyone want his – but the best is that people give you things, and the worst is that they expect things from you that they probably wouldn’t have if they didn’t know you from the telly. David agreed that it’s a very good answer.

David continued to add that it’s an odd thing, when so many people know you and you don’t know them, and it takes some getting used to. “I remember,” He said, “Before I was in that position, you would sort of imagine that was quite an empowering place to be, it felt like something that would give you sort of strength and confidence… and then actually, it’s quite… Like if you walk into a room, and people go, ‘Don’t look round, but there he is’ and they think you don’t notice that – it actually doesn’t give you confidence, it makes you feel rather insecure. It does me, anyway.”

He hurried to add that he’s not complaining, and he’s very humbled by the fact he was able to be a part of telling those stories that brought him into this place, but it does take getting used to. “I’m not gonna tell you how difficult it is, because it’s not, it’s lovely,” He concluded, “But there’s a sort of insecurity in it as well. It can undermine your own sense of self. You just have to be sure of yourself and maybe re-examine who you are and just make sure you know who you are so that it doesn’t send you to the slightly mad place.”

The next two questions were from someone’s kids (at which point David dwell for a moment on her name… it’s very easy to distract him, apparently), the first of which was, who his favourite Disney princess is. As always, David said it feels wrong to choose, but the one he’s spending the most time with currently is Moana, and she’s got some pretty great songs… so he’ll go with Moana.

The second question was when the last time he had diarrhoea was (I swear to god that was the question). David’s face was absolutely indescribably funny. He thought about it and then went, “I want to make sure I give her an accurate answer. I think if someone takes the time to think of a question like that they deserve a factual response.” XD

Eventually, after some thinking, he said he thinks it’s been a few months, but when he was away recently he had the opposite problem, which does happen occasionally when you’re in a different country. But don’t worry, everything is fine now. “Stop me at any time now,” He added, turning to Arabella.

The next question was from a history student, who wanted to know if David could play any historical character, which character it would be. David’s immediate response was, “Did you miss my Richard II?” Which got everyone laughing. He then continued to say that he doesn’t quite know, really. He gave it a moment’s thought, then said that he does have an idea, but it’s very dark, and despite our encouragement he refused to say who it was. :(

He then said that when you’re looking at historical characters, you’re looking for someone who’s done important things, but who was also flawed, because that’s the interesting sort of characters. He said that for instance, he wouldn’t want to play Henry V… except maybe in Henry IV, where he’s trying to find himself and doesn’t really know what he wants. “But I’m too old for that now,” He finished.

Someone from the audience yelled out, “Lady Macbeth!” which got David thinking a bit. He said it’s not exactly a historical character… there is some debate but… yeah, sure, he’ll go with that.

The next question was (the quite common) what’s the weirdest thing anyone had him sign. David went, “Oooh… I’ve signed some stuff,” In a slightly dark tone that had everyone laughing. He said that body parts are pretty weird – there’s a growing trend of people asking you to sign their bodies and then tattooing over it, which he’s done quite a few of. Arabella then asked if he agreed to do that, because she probably wouldn’t, and David went, “Oh, I’d do virtually anything.” ;)

He added that these things do make him a bit worried, because you sign with a sharpie and then people are going over it with a needle… that has got to lead to some sort of a blood poisoning! “But it hasn’t stopped me,” He finished, again making everyone laugh.

Someone asked what the most valuable piece of advice David has ever received as an actor. David thought… and then someone from the audience yelled, “Don’t do Nativity!” David’s expression turned into a living :O emoji (I swear) for at least thirty seconds straight (god that man and his expressions), and eventually he went, “How dare you? It’s the only thing my children think I’m any good in!”

David thought for a long moment before concluding that he doesn’t know and changing the direction of the question – to the acting advice he gives (“Can I turn the question to that?”). He said that people often ask for advice, “In the hope you have some clue… I don’t have a single clue about how to get into it”, but his advice is: be nice, be on time and learn your lines, which you would think is basic, but apparently not.

Arabella said that the best advice she received was that you’ll only know you’re an actor when you’re out of work. She didn’t understand it at the time, but when you’re out of work and you sort of keep pushing onwards, and you keep trying to do it, because you really believe you can do it – then it will come true.

The next question was what class at drama school he hated at the time, but has since found to be useful. David thought about it and then said that there are a lot of things they don’t teach at drama school and they should – like being unemployed, dealing with rejection and doing your taxes (pretty useful). “They should focus more on that because that does take up a lot of an actor’s life, I’d say,” He said.

He continued to think about the question and said that there are a lot of pretty useless movement classes, and pretending to be a sheet of aluminium (I swear he said that), “Which isn’t something I’ve relied on since”. But if you think that stopped him from enjoying, think again.

“The thing is,” He said, “I was pathetically keen at drama school. I don’t apologise for that, because I was very delighted to be there, I went in straight from school, I didn’t even do sixth year, so I was very young and very green, naïve, and quite immature, probably, at the time. So there wasn’t anything about it I didn’t like. I just thought it was all brilliant, because I got to do all day this thing that I’ve been dreaming of doing, I didn’t have to do maths anymore.” (cue laughter) “So there wasn’t anything that I regretted learning at the time, I was sort of drinking it all in.”

But looking back, he thinks it’s all probably been useful on some level… maybe apart from the sheet of aluminium. And some of the gavotte classes… at which point he gave us a little demonstration. “You see,” He added, “It all becomes useful!”

At this point someone from the audience called out, “Do your sheet of aluminium!” David explained that in fact, that was a group exercise in a visiting lecture… “Should I say her name?” He wondered. Despite our encouragement, he decided not to. “She’s dead now,” He said, to much laughter. “No, I mean, she’s actually dead now.” The response to that was, of course, a general “aww”… at which point he said, “You don’t know who she is, you don’t care!” (cue more laughter)

Anyway, she did these masterclasses – which were all about shaming them about how bad they were in their movement classes, really – and after they failed at yet another thing, the whole sheet of aluminium thing came up. “Drama school’s a funny place,” He concluded. “But it’s a sort of safe place, I suppose. It’s a safe place to try out some quite weird, creative ideas.”

David then said: “I think any kind of creative course has… you have to be allowed to go some quite weird places, to see what kind of fires your synapses, particularly what makes you as a creative person kind of buzz.”

He added that he was lucky because he was very young and not cynical at the time, so he got the best of it. Arabella said then that she taught him cynicism, at which David said, “It’s true. I went to London and Arabella spoiled me, she broke me.” (cue more laughter)

He concluded that that’s how art is, and that’s how art teaching should be – a bit crazy and a bit odd – because that’s what makes people think in ways they wouldn’t have thought of. And that’s why the arts is an important part of education – any education and should be supported.

The following question was a bit emotional – how he felt reading the script for his final episode of Doctor Who and seeing his last line was “I don’t want to go.” :(

“I had a little cry,” David admitted. He said that working on Doctor Who has been a wonderful experience, because it was such a great character, and the scripts were always so brilliant, and saying goodbye to that was very bitter-sweet. And then to be given that final line is very emotional. “I didn’t see it coming,” He said, “But then you sort of think, ‘how could it have been anything else?’”

David was also asked if there was a biographical film of his life, who would portray him? He said that he thinks Nicholas Lyndhurst.

The next question was whether he has a favourite character. Someone from the audience said Davina, and David went, “Oh, that’s old school.” David and Arabella then explained (for anyone who doesn’t know) it’s the transsexual barmaid he played in Rab C. Nesbitt. David then gave his usual response on that: he tries not to choose favourites (of anything, really), because he does change his mind pretty often, and he really kind of feels connected to the last thing he did – that’s what feels special. Since they just did the screening of You, Me and Him, he’s thinking of John at the moment, but it’s really not something that sticks, he doesn’t have one favourite for long.

Following that was another repeating question: what the differences are between stage and screen acting, and which one he prefers. David said he likes the variety and he likes being able to do both – he wouldn’t have given up on either. In terms of differences, the rhythms are very different – in a play you have three hours of intense stuff, whereas in filming there are long days where you do small bits of acting and mainly just “waiting around and drinking tea… and in America, snacks!” So in terms of rhythm, they’re quite different, but screen and stage are very similar, really. “They’re both just an opportunity to pretend to be somebody else,” He concluded, “And convince yourself that that means everything in the world in that moment. It’s all just sort of tricking your brain… thinking yourself into a state of being.”

The next question wasn’t quite phrased right: which three party David would have in his perfect dinner party. Arabella said, “Me”, and David immediately said, “Arabella, my wife Georgia, and Daisy.” (cue “awwww”)

Having gotten that out of the way, they asked whether the person who asked it meant what people from history they’d like to have (important clarification), which was indeed what they meant (“Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.”). David said he imagines most people who’ve done things in history were probably annoying, but it would’ve been nice to know if they were… like Shakespeare – it would’ve been interesting to know how well-adjusted and what kind of a person Shakespeare was, outside his writing.

Arabella said she’d have liked to have Hitler at a dinner party, because it seems fascinating to talk to someone with that sort of mind set, and David agreed it probably would be, but stated that he’s not sure how much fun that dinner party would be. But as Arabella said, the question didn’t state it had to be fun…

David added that he thinks it would be interesting to meet any person who’s sort of “a moment in history” and see the humanity within them. He also mentioned that he’s both fascinated and bewildered by Donald Trump (gotta agree there).

Next, David was asked whether he’d like a part in Two Doors Down, which he immediately said (somewhat sadly), “It’s not gonna come… I’m still waiting.” He said he’d love to, and it’s a great show.

Arabella then said that one of the writers of it was on a show with David – Terri McIntyre – Classy Bitch (I could listen to David say it all day long; he just had that sort of… like he was doing a movie trailer or something). Arabella said it was funny but it only ever aired on BBC Scotland, and David corrected that it only ever aired on BBC Choice. “I think it was watched by four people,” He said, to much laughter.

Following that was a question about foreign languages: what it’s like to learn lines in a foreign language? David asked the person who asked it (who made a very odd sound as soon as her name was mentioned) whether she was thinking about anything in particular, and she said she was asking generally. He replied that it’s not something he had to do often, but he did do it for The Quatermass Experiment, which they did live on the BBC, and for that he needed to learn a couple of lines in German. He doesn’t know any German – according to him he wasn’t great at French in school either – so he had to learn it phonetically. He didn’t really know what he was saying – he knew the meaning, but he was just repeating it phonetically.

Of course, he was very calm about it… just thinking, “You’re about to have to speak German, which you don’t understand, live on British television. You’re going to get this wrong.” Very David, isn’t it?

He continued to talk about how that moment feels to him. He said it happened to him doing plays, too, and usually quite far into the run of them. “Your brain starts playing tricks on you,” He said. “You’ve done it, I don’t know, seventy-five times, and your brain starts going, ‘No… you’re gonna get it wrong tonight. Those lines that you said seventy-five times? You’re about to forget them. This is all going to go wrong.’ And this is happening while the play is going on, and you’re sort of on an autopilot, and inside your head is this little voice that’s just getting louder and louder … it creeps out the back of your head and you’re just trying to keep yourself calm, but at the same time, while you’re doing the play, you’re composing the speech you’re about to have to make to the audience, where you kinda go, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m terribly sorry, I completely forgot what comes next, this is the end of my career, thank you for witnessing it, I’m going to go offstage and you will never see me again.’”

So during the live performance of The Quatermass Experiment, as his bit of German was coming up, he found himself thinking exactly that, except, not only he’s gonna have to do it in front of a theatre full of people – he’s going to have to do it on live telly in front of the entire nation! “Anyway, it didn’t happen, so…” He concluded happily, making everyone laugh.

The following question was (seriously *rolls eyes*) whether it was awkward to “work with your wife as your daughter”. Arabella immediately said that she wasn’t his wife when she played Jenny (they only just met on the set! Come on, people), and David seemed sort of baffled for a moment before going (in that sort of exasperated-patient-“are you listening to what you’re saying” tone), “I was playing a Time Lord. I was nine hundred and something years old and yet I didn’t look a day over thirty. That’s the conceit of the show.” Then, since Georgia was in the room, he turned to look at where she was sitting and asked, “Would you like to comment on that, wife/daughter?”

Once the laughter subsided, he continued to say that they had a lovely time. “She wasn’t my wife then,” He continued, returning to the earlier tone, “She was just my pretend daughter. And it’s not weird, because I was a Time Lord. And… it all worked out. She’s a little bit younger than me. She’s not that much younger than me. It’s not weird.”

And continuing with another question that probably shouldn’t have been asked, someone from the Fife Cultural Trust (which is probably the reason it was asked) asked what DC/Marvel character David would like to play. David went, “Have you not seen Jessica Jones?”

The next question was whether there’s a role David auditioned for and didn’t get that he think he should’ve. David immediately went, “All of them!” Once the laughter subsided, he added, “It’s just that other people didn’t agree with me.”

Turning serious, he said that he can’t think of something specific. He said that you just sort of go into an audition hoping for the best. On the one level, he said, you think it’s definitely yours, but on another you don’t think you’re worthy of anything. “But maybe that’s just me.” (cue “awwww”)

Someone from the audience mentioned that David said Georgia was auditioning other men (for the role of John, which isn’t technically true, because he didn’t say they auditioned, but never mind). David went, “Yeah, my wife’s always auditioning other men.” When the laughter quieted down, he looked at the direction of Georgia and said, “And that’s an ongoing thing? I’m discovering something now!”

Once the laughter stopped, Arabella cleared that the person talking was referring to what he said about them trying other actors for the role of John in You, Me and Him. David said that he doesn’t think they actually auditioned anyone else – “It wasn’t an audition as much as trying anybody else who wasn’t me.”

The next question, from another person in Kirkcaldy (to which David enthusiastically said, “Home crowd! Home crowd!”), was whether he got to keep anything from Doctor Who after leaving. David said that he was given a wooden box that was made by the prop man, which had an indentation for the sonic screwdriver and the psychic paper, and a couple other things. It was really beautiful, and from the way David talked about it, I imagine quite touching.

Another question was which of his roles has given him the greatest life lesson. David thought for a while, saying that it’s a very good question and this is pretty hard to know. Someone yelled out “Don Juan”, and David went, “I don’t know what the life lesson was in Don Juan.”

Anyway, David said that it’s pretty hard to know, because you sort of learn from everything you do. “Anything where you kind of walk in another other human being’s shoes, whether for real or for the purposes of a role…” He explained. He then added that it depends on what you mean by “life lesson”. In terms of “good to know”, he had to learn a bit of guitar playing for Campbell, so that was pretty good. But in terms of deeper understanding?

“I don’t know. I suppose anything that makes you examine your relationship with life and mortality… It’s probably hard to get past something like Hamlet for that because it makes you think about grief and being a human being, and how much you value your own life and other people’s lives, and that’s a very fundamental question. But I think the act of pretending to be someone else is continually illuminating, whoever this person might be, because it makes you consider a different viewpoint, which is something we all should be doing all the time, I guess, and I get to do it as my job, so I’m very lucky,” He concluded.

The next question was about Casanova – whether it was as much fun as it looked, and whether he considers it to be his “stepping stone for Doctor Who”. David replied that it was very fun, and that it was sort of his audition to Doctor Who. He told the old story, of how it was created by Russell and Julie, and while they were shooting it they actually started looking for someone to replace Christopher Eccleston, and it’s pretty much because of Casanova that they even approached him.

Arabella then asked whether they’d already been thinking about him before Casanova, and David said that not to his knowledge, particularly since they already had a Doctor. Things changed pretty quickly, and as a result of working on Casanova the opportunity for Doctor Who came along – but to this day he doesn’t know what the process was, what was said or at what point they even started thinking about him.

The girl who asked the question shouted that it’s her birthday, and David sort of looked at her, all, “Okay, what do you want me to do with it?” (those faces of his) for a moment, and then eventually went, “What do you want me to do? Do you want cake or something?” Being the sweetheart that he is, though, after the laughter stopped, he said, “Happy birthday. Many happy returns.” <3

The next question was about Secret Smile (“What was he? He was a stalker?” “He was a nutter, yeah”). Arabella started by explaining a bit about the mini-series (I think is the right term?) and David’s character, and then she started, “So the question is-“ only to be cut off by David who went, “Is that really you?” (cue more laughter)

Anyway, the question was what David’s reaction was to reading the character and how he got into the mind set for it. David’s response was absolutely beautiful (although for the most part not new). “The thing is, playing sort of nutters and the crazy people and people who are disturbed, it’s all… there’s something quite liberating about it. Because you get to dabble in the darker corners of psychology there within a very safe environment, of course, because it’s not that you become that person, it’s not like you have to live your life like that, but you get to sort of see what that might feel like. You get to kind of… obviously, in very sort of fictional terms, you get to kind of… sniff that world. You get to go to quite dark places, whilst knowing it’s safe and whilst knowing you’re not actually hurting anyone, so they’re kind of delicious characters to get a go at, because they go to places that you as a human being would never go. So there’s an acting challenge in it that is very appealing, and also, it’s quite intriguing to see what that feels like, even in a fictional framework.”

Another old question that popped up again: what’s David’s favourite episode of Doctor Who that he was in, and why. David once again said it’s hard to pick favourites, particularly because there are different levels, so there are different episodes that fit as favourites in those different levels. For instance, on the personal-emotional level, an episode that’s very important to him is The Doctor’s Daughter, because that’s where he met Georgia. “My life had been very different if that had never happened, so that completely changed the trajectory of everything that I now have, so it’s hard to see past that.”

Arabella then mentioned something about her favourite episode, and David said he’d like to know which it was, so she said it was the episode she was in. David looked at her and went, “I wasn’t in it.” And she just said, “Yeah, I know.” (cue laughter) She did mention that until she finally got a part in Doctor Who (not with David, which wasn’t fair), her kids said that David wasn’t in it, so it doesn’t count. (aww)

Following that, David was asked which character he played he connected to the most on an emotional level. David thought about it for a moment, and then said that there are different meanings for “connecting on an emotional level” – it can be someone who’s the most like you, or someone you feel empathic towards. He added that every character that’s well written is easier to connect to, really.

Arabella suggested Campbell (Bain, from Takin’ Over the Asylum <3), and David thought about it and said that he certainly connected to Campbell in a way. He went on to talk about Dave, from Single Father, which was very emotional to him – and that was even before he was a father himself. He added that if he did it now, he’d probably be better in it – but he’d probably find it unbearable, too. It was an imagined situation back then, but now that he has children and a family, it would become something so much more – which would make it even more difficult, so to do something like that now would probably be “almost too much”.

The next question was whether Walt (in the newly announced HBO comedy Camping) is an American. David said that he thinks so, but they haven’t started yet, so who knows.

The next question was about David saying that his obituary would have to be written in Tardis blue. The person who sent it continued and asked, if he had a choice, what would he prefer to be remembered for? David replied that he thinks he said something about Doctor Who being the first line of his obituary; saying it’d be Tardis blue was probably just being poetic. (“Or geeky,” said Arabella)

Following that, David was asked, what was it like to work with Jodie Whittaker? David (dead serious and very dramatic) replied, “Awful. She’s terrible. It’s unbearable!” Once the laughter stopped, David turned serious and replied that she’s lovely, and he’s had a great time working with her. “I’m sure everyone working on Doctor Who would say the same,” He concluded, to many cheers from the audience.

Another familiar old question followed: is there a Shakespeare role David would love to do? David went, “Of course! Loads of them.” He mentioned Iago in Othello and Angelo in Measure for Measure, and Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He concluded that there’s a long list… “And then when I’m old there’s a whole other list.”

The next question was about having to be sad/to cry while doing a scene. The person asked how he does it when he has to. David said that it depends on the circumstances – “In an ideal world, it comes out of a naturally occurring moment, when something feels real enough that it takes you somewhere emotional,” He explained. But in other cases, you learn to fake it. Arabella added that sometimes they give actors eye drops, and David agreed that sometimes they just put things in your eyes to make you cry (saying “cry” in his most Glasgow-boy accent).

Another question was if there’s ever been a role David hasn’t done and would love to do. Someone suggested James Bond, but David immediately said he’d be rubbish in it, although he would love to play a Bond villain – that would probably be fun. “I’d like to have my own volcanic lair,” He stated, to much laughter.

The next question was another old familiar one: does David prefer to play good or evil? David’s response was the same as always – that you shouldn’t categorise them. “It shouldn’t be binary,” He said. “Ideally, you shouldn’t really judge any of your characters as good or evil. You should just be that person, do what they feel they have to do. I don’t think human beings believe themselves to be good or evil, particularly – most of us believe ourselves to be good, or at least, hope we are. I think most of us come from that place. Maybe some of us fear we’re not. We’re probably all somewhere on that spectrum in between, not quite sure what we think and worry that we might not be as good as we hope to be or aim to be. So I think it’s dangerous to prejudge a character.”

He added that with someone like Kilgrave, it’s hard not to see him as a villain, because of the things he’s done, but you’ve got to see that person’s point of view – you’ve got to come from their world and see how they think and why they do what they do. You just have to try not to think about it in a binary way. “Inevitably, characters are placed in storylines to do certain things,” He added. “My job as an actor is to try to make sense of this.” (Arabella agreed and added that once you hate your character, it’s very hard to do anything with it, so you’ve got to try and look at it from the character’s perspective).

Another familiar question: what role have you most enjoyed? David immediately said, “All of them, all the time.” He continued to say that the “favourite” questions are hard, because it feels like you’re comparing roles, “like you’re putting them in a league table”, and the thing is, whatever job it is you’re doing at the moment is the one you’re the most engaged with, so naturally it comes up as a “favourite” and it feels like the biggest thing there is. “Because that’s the conceit of it, that’s part of the job, really,” He said, “You’ve got to give yourself to it as wholeheartedly as you can.” So naturally, each job you do at the moment is the biggest and most important and “favourite”.

The final question of the evening was actually… my question! Surprisingly (I’m not sarcastic, it really was a surprise).

Arabella started saying that this seems like a good question to end with, at which point we all went, “Ohhh”. She looked at us and went, “I’m sorry but that has to be it.” David looked at her and immediately said, “No, we’re gonna stay here all night until all these questions are answered!” Surprisingly, we all cheered. ;)

Anyway, after certain amount of doubting the truth of the question from Arabella (what, me, angry? Nooooo), she finally started reading it.

“You often talk about your own insecurities, and the fear of being ‘found out’-“

“Yes.”

“-Of not being good enough-“

“Yes.”

“-Yet you constantly put yourself out there for appraisal and criticism.”

“I know, it’s pathetic, isn’t it?” (Try incredibly brave, David.)

“How do you avoid letting those fears get in the way of your job?”

“I do think that, and I certainly feel that… all the time you’re waiting to be ‘found out’, you’re waiting for someone to show up and go, ‘So, you think you’re good at this?’” David gestured aside, like he’s pointing at a door, “’Here’s your coat.’ And then you sometimes wonder, maybe actors think we’re terribly special but we’re not. Maybe everyone feels like that all the time.”

Arabella then butted in and mentioned the Imposter’s Syndrome, and how every woman suffers from that and it’s something specific to women (that’s bullshit, and I’m a psychology student). And David went, “I’m definitely a woman, then.”

And that was it. There was a bit of an ending speech, and David was given a present, and then it was all over and we all went our separate ways.

You can find a collection of the photos I’ve taken that day over here, and you can find a few quotes that didn’t get into the final report over here.

Hopefully this makes anyone who asked for this report happy. xx

#David tennant #an audience with David Tennant #kirkcaldy #festival of ideas #Kirkcaldy festival of ideas #mine #my report #my summary #Adam smith theatre

96 notes · View notes

lesbianbeiovaz · 6 years

Text

Parallel: From Another World 6/34

So it's been a while since the last chapter, I haven't completed anything for my fics in about a month(?) There's been a lot going on and I've just wanted to chill and let things happen to be honest, however, I do have this chapter which I think is great. Tooth and Claw is definitely one of my favourite episodes from series 2. Enjoy! <3

Rita Stone lives in our world. The world where a big blue box bigger on the inside is simply impossible. However, this all changes after what is most definitely an impossible event. Then again nothing is impossible with the Doctor. Follow Rita through time and space, learning about herself while struggling to comprehend her new life travelling with the Doctor and his companions.

AO3 | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 | CH5 | CH6 | CH7 | CH8 | CH9 | CH10 | CH11 | CH12

"What do you think of this? Will it do?" Rose walked over to the console spinning around a little in her denim dungarees, Rita wrinkled her nose, personally thinking that it didn't suit the blonde.

"I prefer my new grey jeans with my plaid shirt and leather jacket, not to mention my new shoes" Rita laughed pointing at the new maroon vans on her feet remembering what happened to her red ones.

"You sure like vans don't you" Rose laughed.

"Yep" Rita popped the 'p'

"You can't wear that where we're going" the Doctor chuckled at Rita.

"You wear that suit all the time" Rita exclaimed crossing her arms over her chest and sighing, leaning on the TARDIS. "Where are we going anyways?" Rita raised a brow curiosity getting the better of her.

"Somewhere where you can't wear that" Rose laughed at her own comment.

"1979" The Doctor answered the brunettes question.

"Still not changing Doctor" Rita grinned "If you can get away with that suit with them Conversers in 1979 I can get away with what I am wearing" she gave a smug look, the Doctor being defeated smirked back at her.

"Very well then. Hold on, listen to this" he commented and then popped a CD into the TARDIS which then began to play. "Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Number One in 1979." He told the pair.

"You're a punk" Rose laughed at him.

"Hey, this isn't so bad" Rita nodded her head in thought.

"It's good to be a lunatic."

"That's what you are." Rose pointed and laughed "A big old punk with a bit of rockabilly thrown in." She waved her finger up and down at him Rita shook her head and chuckled at Rose.

"Would you like to see him?" The Doctor asked Rose.

"How'd you mean?" Rose asked "In concert?"

"What else is a TARDIS for?" He began to walk around the console, Rita behind him and Rose on the opposite side. "I can take you both to the Battle of Trafalgar, the first anti-gravity Olympics, Caesar crossing the Rubicon or Ian Dury at the Top Rank, Sheffield, England, Earth, 21st November, 1979. What do you think?" He grinned at them.

"Sheffield it is." Rose caught up with them and stood on the right side of the Doctor, Rita to his left, he looked over at Rita and raised a brow.

"Sheffield it is then." She agreed the Doctor smiled smugly at them both.

"Hold on tight." He pressed buttons on the console while turning knobs and pulling levers. He then brought out a large hammer and starts to hit the TARDIS to the beat of the music.

"I don't think she likes it when you do" Rita began but then was thrown to the floor on her back along with the Doctor and Rose. "That" She blinked and then looked over at the Doctor and then Rose.

The Doctor jumped up and placed the hammer down then helped Rose and Rita to their feet who followed him to the doors of the TARDIS while picking up his coat jacket on the way. "1979. Hell of a year." He grins at the both Rita then frowns

'You mean 1879' the brunette thought to herself.

"China invades Vietnam. The Muppet Movie. Love that film. Margaret Thatcher. Urgh." The Doctor shook his head slightly shivering. "Skylab falls to Earth, with a little help from me." He winked at the two "Nearly took off my thumb." He then exited the TARDIS followed by Rose and then Rita who already had her hands halfway in the air. "And I like my thumb. I need my thumb. I'm very attached to-" He stopped talking at the sound of well over 5 rifles being cocked and pointed in the trio's direction.

"My thumb" He finished raising his hands. "1879. Same difference." Rita shook her head

"Big difference" she whispers closely watching the men who were on horses and standing pointing their guns at the three.

"You will explain your presence." The man on a black horse the closest to the three "And the nakedness of this girl as well as this ones strange clothes" The Doctor caught on and began to use a Scottish accent which honestly sounded like he was from Scotland.

"Are we in Scotland?" He asked.

"How can you be ignorant of that?" The man on the horse frowned. Rita had to cover her mouth with her hands to stop her from laughing at the Doctors accent which she noticed sounded a lot like David Tennant's natural accent.

"Oh, I'm, I'm dazed and confused." he continued the accent looking over at Rita and winking "I've been chasing this, this wee naked child over hill and over dale." He looked over at Rose "Isn't that right, ya timorous beastie?"

"Och, aye! I've been oot and aboot." Rose tried to copy the Doctor but failed, Rita couldn't hold it in any longer and let out a chuckle.

"No don't do that" he dropped the accent shaking his head, Rita then snorted trying to stop her laughter.

"Hoots mon." Rose continued Rita then laughed louder.

"No. Really don't. Really" The Doctor shook his head then turned to Rita who then stopped laughing turning all serious.

"And what is wrong with her?" The man turned to Rita although she had stopped laughing you could see that she was desperately trying to hold another laugh in.

"Oh, she was with the wee naked child, wouldn't leave without her" He made up in a Scottish accent once again.

"Will you identify yourself, sir?" The man asked the Doctor.

"I'm Doctor James McCrimmon, from the township of Balamory. I have my credentials, if I may." He reached into the inside of his coat and pulled out the psychic paper and then held it up to the man on the horse.

"As you can see, a Doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. I trained under Doctor Bell himself." He took the psychic back a rather posh British female voice was then heard from the carriage.

"Let them approach" it ordered.

"I don't think that's wise, ma'am." The man on the horse recommended.

"Let them approach" she repeated.

"You will approach the carriage," He then ordered and the three walked over to the carriage following his orders. "And show all due deference." A footman then opened the door to reveal Queen Victoria.

"Rita, Rose," The Doctor beamed widely "might I introduce her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Empress of India and Defender of the Faith."

"Rose Tyler, Ma'am." Rose bowed before the Queen "And my apologies for being so naked."

"Rita Stone, Ma'am." Rita copied her friend. "apologies for.." she paused Queen Victoria raised a brow. "my strange clothes"

"I've had five daughters. It's nothing to me." She chuckled addressing them both "But you, Doctor. Show me these credentials." The Doctor then handed over the psychic paper to her, she looked over the psychic paper and frowned "Why didn't you say so immediately?" The Doctor then frowned in confusion" It states clearly here that you have been appointed by the Lord Provost as my Protector."

"Does it?" He questioned and then corrected himself "Yes, it does. Good. Good." he nodded "Then let me ask - why is Your Majesty travelling by road when there's a train all the way to Aberdeen?"

"A tree on the line" Queen Victoria replied.

"An accident?" Rita shook her head while Queen Victoria corrected Rose's guess: "I am the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Everything around me tends to be planned."

"An assassination attempt?" The Doctor raised his brows and nodded his head forward slightly.

"What, seriously? There are people out to kill you?" Rose questioned not believing what she was hearing.

"I'm quite used to staring down the barrel of a gun." She commented very seriously.

"Sir Robert MacLeish lives but ten miles hence. We've sent word ahead. He'll shelter us for tonight, then we can reach Balmoral tomorrow." The man informed the three.

"This Doctor, his timorous beastie and the girl in strange clothes will come with us." The trio smiled brightly at the Queen and nodded.

"Yes, Ma'am. We'd better get moving - it's almost nightfall." The man agreed.

"Indeed. And there are stories of wolves in these parts. Fanciful tales intended to scare the children. But good for the blood, I think. Drive on!"

The carriage then slowly began to move and the three walked behind following.

"It's funny, though because you say assassination and you just think of Kennedy and stuff." Rose thought out loud "Not her."

"1879? She's had, oh, six attempts on her life? And I'll tell you something else." He laughed "We just met Queen Victoria!"

"We did" Rita laughed.

"I know!" Rose giggled

"What a laugh!" The Doctor commented looking at the two girls beside him.

"Never thought I would meet the Queen." Rita told the too "You're impossible Doctor" Rita shook her head and smiled Rose did the same.

"Oh but you both love it really" He smirked at the two.

"She was just sitting there." Rose thought aloud again.

"Like a stamp" Rita commented.

"I want her to say we are not amused." Rose chuckled "I bet you five quid I can make her say it." She turned to Rita and then the Doctor

"Well, if I gambled on that, it'd be an abuse of my privileges of traveller in time." He said. "Plus Rita knows the future foreknowledge and all" He waved his arm in the air.

"Foreknowledge" Rita mumbled frowning.

"Like knowing something is going to happen before it does, that's foreknowledge"

"Oh" Rita nods in understanding.

"Ten quid?" Rose looked at the Doctor.

"Done" he smiled.

The three linked arms and continued to follow the carriage holding Queen Victoria in it, they joked around and told stories to each other on the way, Rita telling them both more about her life before meeting the pair.

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

"Your Majesty." A man walked out cautiously with a bold man a frown plastered on his face behind him. Rita looks down sadly knowing what was to happen to the man and most of the people in the house later today. There was nothing Rita could do and she knew that. The Doctor noticed her looking down with a sad expression he gently squeezed her hand to comfort the girl, Rita looked up at him and gave a sad smile to try and reassure him that she was ok.

"Sir Robert." Queen Victoria exited the carriage "My apologies for the emergency. And how is Lady Isobel?" She asked unaware of what was going on inside the house.

"She's" he paused thinking of the word to use "indisposed, I'm afraid. She's gone to Edinburgh for the season." he then tried to warn her: "And she's taken the cook with her. The kitchens are barely stocked. I wouldn't blame Your Majesty if you wanted to ride on." The queen waved it off not seeing the worry behind the man's eyes.

"Oh, not at all. I've had quite enough carriage exercise. And this is charming, if rustic. It's my first visit to this house. My late husband spoke of it often." She paused "The Torchwood Estate." Rita's eyes shot up at the Queen she knew what the house was called but hearing it in person brought it to a whole new level. "Now, shall we go inside? And please excuse the naked girl and the girl in strange clothes".

"Sorry." Rose and Rita both muttered.

"She's a feral child. I bought her for sixpence in old London Town. Wouldn't leave without the girl in strange clothes." he explained to those who hadn't heard earlier. Rita quietly groaned "It's was her or the Elephant Man, so" Rita rolled her eyes in annoyance. The Doctor was clearly enjoying himself. "You wore the clothes not me" He leant in and whispered into her ear. Rita then groaned again knowing that he was right. The Doctor smirked at her finding the annoyed look on her face quite funny.

"Thinks he's funny but I'm so not amused." Rose narrowed her eyes at the Doctor playfully "What do you think, Ma'am?"

"It hardly matters. Shall we proceed?" Sir Robert nodded at the Queen who then headed into the house.

"So close," Rose whispered to the Doctor and Rita.

"Yet so far" Rita smirked at her.

"Makerson and Ramsey, you will escort the property. Hurry up."

"Yes, sir." they nodded and headed for the carriage then took out a small box and carried to past the three. The Doctor looked at the box as it past intrigued as to what was inside.

"So what's in there, then?" The Doctor finally asked.

"Property of the Crown. You will dismiss any further thoughts, sir." He firmly told the Doctor "The rest of you go to the rear of the house. Assume your designated positions." he ordered his men.

"You heard the orders. Positions" One of the soldiers told the others. They then all followed going around to the back of the house.

The three followed the Queen and Sir Robert up to the observatory where Queen Victoria and Sir Robert were looking at his father's telescope. Rose and Rita peered over the three now including the Doctor to admire the telescope as well. "This, I take it, is the famous Endeavour." The Queen guessed.

"All my father's work." He nodded "Built by hand in his final years. Became something of an obsession. He spent his money on this rather than caring for the house or himself."

"I wish I'd met him. I like him." The Doctors smiled at Robert and then gleamed at the telescope "That thing's beautiful. Can I?" He gestured to it if he could touch it and look at it with more detail

"Help yourself" Sir Robert approved.

"It's amazing" Rita beamed and turned to Rose who nodded in agreement.

"Your father must have been proud" Rose then added.

The Doctor walked back over standing between Rose and Rita and looked through the telescope "It's a bit rubbish." The Doctor commented shooting down the telescope and wrinkled his nose. Rita rolled her eyes at him he just shrugged back at her "How many prisms has it got?" He asked but then it himself "Way too many. The magnification's gone right over the top." He pointed out "That's stupid kind of-" he stopped and then turned to the girls "Am I being rude again?" He raised a brow in question.

"Yep," they replied in unison pursuing their lips.

"But it's pretty. It's very pretty." The Doctor pointed out turning to the two girls who nodded in agreement.

"And the imagination of it should be applauded." Queen Victoria added.

"Mmm." Rose hummed "Thought you might disapprove, Your Majesty. Stargazing. Isn't that a bit fanciful? You could easily not be amused, or something?" Rita shook her head and grinned at the blonde finding her persistence to be funny. "No?" Rita looked up at the Doctor standing on the other side of Rose, looking down and shaking his head.

"This device surveys the infinite work of God. What could be finer?" The Queen asked, "Sir Robert's father was an example to us all." She turned to the man "A polymath, steeped in astronomy and sciences, yet equally well versed in folklore and fairytales."

"Stars and magic. I like him more and more."

"I thought you didn't believe in magic" Rita whispered to him who just frowned back at her in confusion. "Secrets" she smirked.

"Oh, my late husband enjoyed his company." She continued not hearing the pair "Prince Albert himself was acquainted with many rural superstitions, coming as he did from Saxe Coburg."

"That's Bavaria." The Doctor stated.

"When Albert was told about your local wolf, he was transported." Rita's eyes shot up staring at the woman the Doctor holding the same look.

"So, what's this wolf, then?" The Doctor asked.

"It's just a story," Robert spoke up looking very uncomfortable, Rita turned to him looking at the man with pity. She couldn't take knowing his future, knowing that she wouldn't be able to change or stop it without something like a paradox being created possibly harming Rose the Doctor and herself in the process, something that she couldn't see happen.

"Then tell it." The Doctor was persistent, Rita winced a little at that hating that he couldn't see what was going on with his own eyes then again she know he had no way of knowing what was going on below them in the cellar.

Robert stuttered for a moment and turned his head in the direction of the three bold men in the doorway "It's said that-" He was cut off by the man in the middle.

"Excuse me, sir." he cut in. "Perhaps her Majesty's party could repair to their rooms. It's almost dark." he smiled innocently a little too innocently for Rita's liking knowing what he had done or was going to do she shot him a glare that he did not see.

"Of course." Robert sighed "Yes, of course."

"And then supper." the Queen nodded "And could we find some clothes for Miss Tyler and Miss Stone? I'm tired of nakedness and strange clothes."

"It's not amusing, is it?" Rose smiled at the Queen who ignored her.

She turned to Robert "Sir Robert, your wife must have left some clothes. See to it." she turned back to the trio standing beside the huge telescope "We shall dine at seven, and talk some more of this wolf." Rita silently breathed deeply thinking to herself that she would rather not talk about the wolf. "After all, there is a full moon tonight."

"So there is, Ma'am," Robert commented and then bowed. The trio and the Queen walked out the room, Rita watching Robert closely wishing that she could help the poor man as the bold men stood behind Sit Robert.

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

"What do you think of the house then?" Rose asked Rita who thought for a moment sitting on the bed watching the blonde bring out clothes after clothes.

"Its, different than I thought it would be"

"Good different or bad different" Rose questioned not looking back while she scanned through the wardrobe.

"Just, different" Rita grinned at her reference to Christmas something the blonde most likely didn't think twice to remember, her face then fell as she remembered who else was in the room, her eyes darted around as she tried to remember where the housemaid was hiding.

Rose closed the wardrobe and moved over to another Rita's eyes then widened suddenly knowing what the blonde would find. The poor woman screamed and jumped back in fright as the housemaid looked at the pair scared to death.

"Hey, hey" Rita slowly walked over holding out a hand to try and calm the maid. "We're not here to hurt you" the maid cautiously stepped out of the wardrobe.

"Why were you in the wardrobe?" Rose calmly asked the woman in a soothing voice.

"They came through the house." The maid choked up tears forming in her eyes as she remembered the event. "In the excitement, they took the Steward and the Master, and my Lady."

Rose took the woman's hands and looked into her eyes Rita stood beside the woman with a hand on her shoulder trying to add as much comfort as she possibly could "Listen. we've got a friend." She spoke slowly so the woman could understand and calm down "He's called the Doctor. He'll know what to do. You've got to come with us."

"Rose we really should wait for the Doctor" Rita warned her calmly so she wouldn't scare the maid.

"No" Rose shook her head. "We should find him, he will know what to do," She said more to the woman than to Rita. "Right Rita"

"Right" she nodded knowing that she couldn't argue with Rose risking the new friendship as well as the course of events to come.

"Oh, but I can't, Miss." the maid said to Rose in a pleading voice now shaking, she looked at Rita begging for her to back the maid up Rita just slowly shook her head looking down.

"What's your name?" she asked the maid for Rose as she already knew her name.

"Flora." she choked up again, Rita moved her hand from the woman's shoulder and brought her in for a hug in an attempt to calm her.

"Flora, we'll be safe," Rose promised her, Rita knew that Rose couldn't keep that sort of promise knowing what would happen to many of the people in this house including possibly Flora. Rita couldn't remember if the poor woman died or survived the night, and she hoped it was the second option.

"There's more people arrived downstairs, soldiers and everything," Rose told her "and they can help us." She then looked into Flora's eyes and then up at Rita who nodded at the blonde before she looked back at Flora and with a serious expression told her: "I promise. Come on. Okay? Come on." She gestured for the maid and Rita to follow.

#my fics #Tenth Doctor x oc #Doctor x oc #original female character #my oc #Parallel: From Another World #TPS #TPS no6 #doctor who

1 note · View note

estuarries · 7 years

Text

baby’s first liveshow commentary

hello lads i have decided to attempt doing @nihilist-toothpaste inspired video commentary/write up/review thingies!!!! welcome to ramble-y fun time

phil’s liveshow on august 10, 2017

his smile in the first minute makes my heart so happy i love him so much

i love the eye-tongue-eye emoji stop being mean to it

he’s a bit late bc he just finished filming a new ap vid!!! it took him longer than he thought it would to finish filming bc he was rambling. this is a #relatable brain thing

“i just said goodbye and now i’m saying hello again!” wrt filing and then doing a liveshow makes me rly happy bc i wouldn’t have thought abt it that way. i love phil’s brain

new vid clues: paper bag(?) and bubble wrap. amazingphil asmr part ii??

dan’s not joining the liveshow bc he has a headache but phil’s gonna hop into dan’s next one

closed eyes and happy gesticulation whilst telling sleepy-morning “unexpected window cleaning man frightened me” story

phil’s fight/flight/freeze response is freeze

“imagine if i had decided to make breakfast naked! ...if i was that kind of person…” its okay m8 we know u like to make nakey bro brunches w danyul

are the emoji pants the only pair of graphic pj pants he has now ??? why are they being featured so prominently lately ???? phil IS an emoji is the only phnnie conspiracy i can support now

in the ap vid phil did SCIENCE and REACTED TO THINGS (chemistry . reaction . hehe :3)

he’s out of tv shows to watch ….he and dan have watched so many series together over the years ..... i am emotional

phil hasnt watched in a heartbeat EITHER !! BLASPHEMOUS BOYES!!!

re: rick and morty. i strongly agree and it makes me so nervous that rick burps all the time i cannot focus on whats happening in the show bc rick gives me so much anxiety

he misses the cherry blossom tree in thehowlter’s front yard and they are hopefully going to put it in when they have money

“you’re all like dan! not everything has to be symmetrical!” thank u for these affirmations that not everything has to be perfect thank u for being chill. a chill phil.

“i dont mind a little bit of wonkiness!” “i’m at a bit of a wonk!” “is the entire house wonky?” the only real phil branding is ~WOnKy~

phils hands are so beautiful???? i love them?????? @ 8:50ish

him trying to figure out his best side and saying “one? or two?” as options like at the optometrist when ur getting ur eyes checked.

someone in the chat: “both!” phil’s cheeky grin/”don’t flatter me!!!” response

someone in the chat: “side three!” i snort laughed along w phil this is truly Good Content. dark!phil RISE

phil doesn’t think he really has a bad side and his easy neutrality wrt his physical appearance is dreamy. i love him and i love that he’s comfy w himself like this

phil had an eye infection and this is the first day he’s been without glasses…… why does he glasses-bait us like this …..

it’s really hard for him to concentrate with dilated pupils so that’s why he was being a wee bit wonky in the last liveshow

his eye is no longer infected and is “white and ready to see!”. the tone of his voice, his accent, and the phrasingof that reminded me so much of my british grandma who i havent seen in a few years and now i want to call her i miss her

wicked was “as the kids say...Wicked.” I SNORTED AKLHFAEIHKF

also i cannot believe that he and dan used the same silly phrasewhen talking about their opinions of wicked. is it still #copyrightinfringement if its your bf blatantly enterprising ur intellectual property?

phil was feeling a bit meh going into wicked but now he’s converted and a fan

he loved defying gravity :(

phil: every audience is important! me: crying

phil loves coming-of-age/college/highschool aus … Me Too

phil remix: the top fans to the tune of mad world “all around me are familiar faces...lillyphanstuff, joteleena…”

he’s had “mad world” and also that fuckin. ditty song stuck in his head

“...is one thicc bih - NO!” is the best thing ive ever heard

im so sad that phil hasnt experienced the joys of ditty. apparently he doesn’t have it downloaded and doesn’t really know what it is

14:07 is my new ringtone (he sang the ditty tune in “doot doot doot”s)

“bandicussy” IM DEAD

phil thought it was a good family activity to see dunkirk but it made his parents very emotional bc his maternal grandad was in the war

making your entire family cry is apparently the phil way to entertain

neither he nor dan understood the timelines of dunkirk upon first watch

after filming his ap vid he sanitized using vanilla cupcake hand sanitizer

he watches zoe’s bath and bodyworks candle/lotion hauls??????? ME TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

apparently b&bw has some ~priiiicey~ candles. phil is the coupon clipping, consumer reports reading dad

he said that livestreaming games on dapg would be “dope”. i am reminded for the millionth time that he is a 30 year old white man. i am moderately uncomfortable.

jk it was someone in the chat who said it he was just reading the comment

“hi to the ‘phan’s moving boxes’ group chat”

facterino according to the nature man on tv: in england nature has decided that it’s autumn already. this is evidenced by blackberries coming out in august. because fall isstartingso early they’re expected to have a harsh winter but its fine bc he is excited for snow!

some climate change discourse

he’s not a big doctor who fan but his fav doctor is david tennant

he’s excited for the “lady doctor” and i’m uh. not a huge fan of that wording

23:02 pre-sneeze noises and hand motions are Delightful

apparently it’s southern england peeps who pronounce scone with a hard o (scOHne) and northerners pronounce it with a soft o (scAWn). phillu doesn’t know which pronunciation he uses

my mom grew up in cornwall (and moved to america when she was a teen. i’m american btw!) and pronounces it the northern way. we’ve had the scohne vs scawn debate!! lots of #britishfamilythings in this liveshow

philly homework motivation song @ 24:52

his first response to ppl being sad about school starting in a week is to calculate how many seconds are in a week so they can re-frame their time left in a way that feels more plentiful. i love this ???

i also really love how he tries to read premium messages from different people every time. idk that’s just really thoughtful and as a fan i really appreciate it

he knows that black makes him look good …. GOodBYe

today is world lion day!

phil is the one who puts the funny/random holidays on the dnp calendars. of course it was but im still so happily surprised

doinganap’s sicth/sixth discourse

he’s reading people from the chat’s bdays and telling them what funny holidays are on their birthdays! i love how he finds different ways to get ppl in the chat involved every liveshow. i appreciate him so much !like yeah i know its a marketing thing but let me pretend its solely phil’s care for us

he wants to go back to japan

he can’t read or edit and listen to music at the same time! me neither

someone asked what a good pet would be and phil went on a lil tangent about how it’s important to have enough time to take care of the pet you choose!! dont get an exotic pet or a breed of non-exotict pet that requires a lot of time, money, or energy to care for it if you’re not at a point in your life where u can take care of it to the best of your ability! <3

hedgehogs are one of the most common animals in the uk??? what the heck?

he can’t remember whether or not he’s seen a hedgehog irl so he texts mum lester to ask <3 why is this the sweetest thing in the world . like seeing a hedgehog irl would be an experience that his family facilitated or even if he was moved out when it happened it would have been so exciting that he def would have told kath about it. so any way it happened she would know about it. my heart is Warm.

he’s not a huge summer candle burner but as soon as it’s september he’ll be on the pumpkin spice train

mum lester texted back and apparently his grandparents had a family of hedgehogs in their garage and his granddad built them a little hedgehog house to hibernate in :( wow!

phil might play shelter 2 … with dan. No Thank You. let us have some phil-only time plz

shelter 2 is more of an autumnal game so he might do it later when he can cozy up with some cocoa and herd the badger babies

he feels a coffee buzz after five (5) chocolate-covered coffee beans. r u sure u even drink coffee phil????

rye bread is worse (in phil’s opinion) than regular bread and is ”claggy”. i busted out laughing and texted my mom IMMEDIATELY bca LOOOONG time ago we were at a family christmas party with my dad’s extended family and all of the Adults were playing scrabble. my mom ended up spelling claggy and everyone else was like THATS A MADE UP WORD WHAT THE FUCK!!!! and my mom was like ???? no its not? my dad’s family is from the eastern us and had never heard the word claggy before and i remember my dad giving my mom shit about it for YEARS afterward because she caused such an uproar. idk if it was a regional thing or if americans just don’t say claggy but REGARDLESS. my mom and i had a good laugh over this description of rye bread and we both love phil

he’s nervous abt what dalien is going to look like and become as he grows up. phil’s general reaction to dalien has been one of caution and nervousness and idk ?? someone more thoughtful analyze that please

his advice for making the most of the last bits of summer: do something you haven’t done before! immediately after bestowing upon us this Wise Advice he giggles and becomes self aware of his parental tone. Our Dad Is Becoming Self Aware

he doesnt swear around his parents?????? my mom says fuck all the time :0

2018 calendar and season two pastel plushies are in the works!

he’s singing another song to list the top fans. suggestions include toxic, the ditty tune, and the tetris theme. he goes with the ditty song and starts laughing in the middle of it so makes a seamless musical transition to toxic

if everything recorded properly with his new vid we should see it in the next few days!

he hopes that we have a lovely weekend and that whatever we end up doing brings us a bit of happiness :( i love him thank u phil

tiny little bonus song after he covers up the camera. schrodingers phil.

all in all i love phil’s liveshows and this has been the highlight of my day. thank u for reading!

#mine #commentary #amazingphil #phil lester

122 notes · View notes

genderqueerspacewives · 4 years

Text

Yall in my natural sciences class (it’s mainly biology but who cares) we watched a documentary on cells and viruses, and the first thing I thought when my teacher turned it on was ”Oh wow I love this person’s accent”. And then after having heard it for a few seconds I was like ”isn’t this David Tennant though?” so I looked it up and sure enough, it was. And yeah that was exciting because he’s cool and his accent is amazing

#also kudos to them for not making him change it into the whatever it’s called you know the ’’standard’’ english #that’s a first #david tennant #og posts

0 notes

actual-bill-potts · 7 years

Text

Thoughts on "Eaters of Light"

•I loved it. Really, really loved it.

•Okay first of all, has any other episode addressed the fact that the Tardis translates for everyone around the Doctor? Because I can’t believe I never thought about that.

•What a beautiful, natural extension of the Doctor’s “superpowers.” He always wants peace and understanding, and here he (or rather the Tardis) can quite literally make enemies understand each other.

•I found the treatment of both the ninth legion and the Picts very refreshing. The invaders are, well, invading, but they aren’t portrayed as mindlessly cruel. Nor were the indigenous people, who wreaked such massive death and destruction, treated either as “barbarians” or as completely in the right. It’s a refreshingly nuanced look at historical times—much more well done than “The Empress of Mars”.

•I liked the Doctor’s speeches here—it was very reminiscent of “The Zygon Inversion” in that he is so very desperate for these kids to stop for just a minute and take a look at what they’re doing.

•Bill and Twelve continue to be adorable, and I found Nardole very charming in this episode. (As usual.) I liked their half-serious argument over what happened to the ninth legion, and appreciate how very unashamed they both are of being utter nerds.

•"I think it’s sweet that you’re so…restricted" LOL

•Oh, Peter Capaldi’s delivery of “I can’t bear brave people” is so pitch-perfect. It is quick, and pained, and almost bewildering in its intensity. In an episode full of little pieces of Clara, this is perhaps the strongest homage to her. She left a deep hole in the Doctor’s life, an open wound still oozing just beyond memory, and because he doesn’t know it’s there he can’t begin to heal it. And so I found that sudden pain that showed in the Doctor’s voice very telling. It’s partly why I’m hoping so much that Clara comes back at least for a cameo before series 10 ends.

•I have no idea if the Scottish accents were any good since the only real one I’ve ever heard is David Tennant’s, but I enjoyed them.

•The scenes of the Roman soldiers bonding with Bill were very cute. It was brought home to me more than once how very young they were, and how sure of themselves until they understood the people they thought were their enemy.

•The companions were used in interesting ways here. Stopping the Doctor from sacrificing himself wasn’t really new, but I liked the role reversal of Bill being the pragmatic one, telling the Doctor it wasn’t his fight, and the Doctor being so desperate to save them. I think that was partly Clara showing through again, telling him he has a duty of care for these children.

•The whole ending, from “the crows are remembering” to “that’s the thing about hope” was just…beautiful. Utterly gorgeous. What a beautiful tribute to Kar, who was in herself a remarkable character. And what a wonderful way to bring Missy in again.

•When Missy cries, I cry. And I hated her so much in series 8, too…why must this show hurt me like this.

•On to “World Enough and Time”! I’m so excited for it. Missy and Simm!Master and Mondasian Cybermen and EEEEE.

#doctor who #dw spoilers #dw scribblings

14 notes · View notes

lithugraph · 7 years

Text

Rules: Complete the survey and say who tagged you in the beginning. When you’re finished, tag people to do this survey. Have fun and enjoy! Thanks to @gummyboots for tagging me!

1: Are you named after someone? Sort of. My parents wanted to have a boy so they could name him after my dad but surprise! They had a girl instead. My mom wanted to name me Rhiannon after the Fleetwood Mac song, but my grandmother – being the All Supreme Catholic – was like ‘That’s not a saint’s name.’ So my parents opted for a feminized version of my dad’s name.

2: When was the last time you cried? I almost shed some tears watching “Moana” the other day. It was the first time I’d ever seen it and its message about listening to that small quiet voice inside you and how that’s the real you and going beyond yourself and khaljf;akf;akdAS! It could not have come at a more appropriate time in my life.

3: If you could switch bodies/powers with a fictional character for one day, who would you pick and why? Never really thought about it, tbh. But I wouldn’t mind going for a ride in a big blue police box ;)

4: What’s your favourite song? Too many to list.

5: Do you have kids? One.

6: If you were another person, would you be friends with you? Yeah, I’m awesome!

7: Do you use sarcasm? No, never ::wink::

8: How old are you? 3 decades

9: Would you bungee jump? I used to want to bungee jump when I was a kid. Not so much now. I lose my shit on the Mach Tower ride at Busch Gardens. But I still want to try skydiving. Go figure.

10: What is your favorite kind of cereal? Lucky Charms all.the.way.

11: Who is your favourite villain? I would say The Master from the Doctor Who reboot with David Tennant, but he’s more mentally fucked up unstable. I’ve yet to read/see a really good and fleshed out villain. I want a villain that makes me think they’re the hero throughout until plot twist! you were wrong. But like gummyboots said, Cathy in East of Eden is pretty despicable.

12: Do you think you’re a strong person? I kind of have to be.

13: What is your favourite ice cream? Birthday cake!

14: What is the first thing you notice about people? Their speech patterns and facial expressions. And then I try to mimic them.

15: What is the least favorite physical thing you like about yourself? Nothing. I’m perfect. Although my hair has suddenly developed a mind of its own. I used to be able to rock any hairstyle, style it any way, and my hair would comply. Now it’s like nope, not gonna happen, I’m just going to hang in your face.

16: What color pants and shoes are you wearing now? Rust colored and no shoes

17: What are you listening to right now? I’ve got the crab’s song from Moana stuck on repeat in my head.

18: If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Teal…it was always my favorite.

19: Favourite smell? Hazelnut coffee and sandalwood.

20: Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? My best friend.

21: Favorite sport to watch? I will only watch sports provided: 1.) I am physically there at the arena or whatever to watch the sport 2.) I have beer. However I did enjoy watching the FIFA Women’s World Cup on the television. Also fencing.

22: Hair colour? Auburn

23: Eye colour? Chestnut brown.

24: Do you wish your hair/eye colour was different? I used to wish for blue or green eyes when I was a kid. But I’ve grown to like my eye color. My eyes are such a weird shade of brown – in some lights they almost look greyish-green closer to the pupil.

25: Favorite accent? Russian, Scottish, Yorkshire, Caribbean, Cajun/Creole (I met a Creole dude once at a bar and his accent was soooo cool, the interplay of French and English!). And there’s an accent here in Virginia that is really unique. I call it the Richmond accent. I’ve never heard anything like it before with regards to southern American accents. It still has a bit of a twang, but some of the words are more genteel sounding like “out, about, proud,” and so on. It sounds like a Canadian accent married a Southern American accent and had a child. Here’s a video so you can hear it: https://youtu.be/vJT4wVgTw0k

26: What type of movies do you like? Historical dramas, animated, and sci-fi.

27: Last movie you watched? Moana.

28: What color of shirt are you wearing? Cream with red and orange and black patterns

29: Summer or winter? Winter. Give me a chance to see snow, or flurries fluttering down, and the metallic scent in the air and black skeletal trees against a grey sky and warm drinks and a crackling fire.

30: Who is your current crush? Seb Stan as the Winter Soldier Michael Fassbender

31: What book are you currently reading? I was re-reading Jane Eyre (the slow-burn just started to intensify!)…but then summer session started and I’m knee-deep in UNIX and networking textbooks.

32: What fictional character do you feel you’re most like? Jane Eyre (obvi) and Elizabeth Bennet.

33: What is on your mouse pad? What’s a mousepad?

34: What is the last TV program you watched? Sherlock season 4….most disappointed.

35: What is the best sound?

nature.

36: Rolling stones or The Beatles? David Bowie. The only Stones worth listening to is their bluesy stuff, like Gimme Shelter and Tumbling Dice. And I have mixed feelings about the Beatles. I like their early “boy band” stuff…and some of their later stuff, but mostly the songs written by George Harrison. I think Paul and John were trying to “outweird” each other.

37: What is the furthest you have ever travelled? Berlin from Virginia.

38: Do you have a special talent? I can predict what’s going to happen in any tv series, movie, or novel. I’m a walking spoiler-alert. You don’t want to watch tv shows or movies with me…or suggest a book I should read because I will figure out the plot before the first half of it.

39: Where were you born? Virginia. And I live there again….except on the opposite side of the state from where I was born.

Totally optional, as always, but I tag: @niniel-kirkland, @irascible-erable and whoever else sees this and wants to do it.

#ask #survey #answered #all about me

3 notes · View notes

kintailscape · 7 years

Text

Awesome Con 2017- Day 2

Saturday, Day 2: I spent the night driving around dead bodies in the streets and saving my town and my daughter from tiny glowing balls that were trying to invade our bodies. So I woke up exhausted and shaken from my nightmare. But David Tennant was speaking at 10:30, so I got my butt out of bed. I hauled myself to the Metro and arrived at 8am. However, I just missed a train by 3 minutes and had to wait 17 minutes for the next one. Even worse, there was an issue with the trains when I tried to transfer and it was 40 minutes until the next Yellow train I needed arrived. So I didn’t get to the convention center until 9:35, which was when the doors were supposed to open for seating. As I arrived in the registration hall, I heard one of the best quotes of the con from one of the volunteers “David Tennant is by the garage door!” It was only to indicate that’s where the end of the line to see him currently was.

I hurried over to the pretty sizable line that was weaving from one side of the room to the other. I heard my name called and turned to see a friend from grad school I hadn’t seen in over 10 years! It’s great running into people at cons, but I was still in my one track mind of “must get to end of line!” During the next hour, nearly the entire room filled up with the line and, as far as I saw, every one of the 5,000 seats ended up being filled. The line volunteers were amazing, though, packing us all in there and keeping order. They would say things like “Welcome to the line! This is all part of the experience!” and “You’re doing great! You’re almost there!” VIPS got in first. Not including them, I think I was about a third of the way from the front. There was a WHOLE LOT of line behind me; I cannot imagine much of that portion got in.

There were some nice cosplayers in line near me, including a Rory & Amy Pond, a Kaylee & Jayne, and one of the kids from Stranger Things. I got into a short discussion with someone in line segment across from mine about Sense8 because I overheard the name of the show being spoken and literally butted right into the conversation he was having with the person next to him in line. Fun fact: I WILL NEVER PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO TALK WITH ANYONE ABOUT SENSE8! The line was long and moved slowly. It dawned on me, after a while, that I might not get in at all. I’d told myself that my biggest rule of the weekend was to have fun and not be disappointed if I couldn’t see everything I wanted. So I was sad at the realization but also working through all the other things going on that morning that I could do instead. In the end, my section of the line was let in and directed all the way over to the far side of the room where there were a few free seats. About 30 seconds after we walked in, David Tennant took the stage. It still took me a couple minutes to get to a seat, but I didn’t miss a thing. YAY!

10:30 AM-11:15 AM David Tennant Explores Time and Space It was fantastic seeing the actor who portrays my favorite doctor in person, talking about his acting career and portraying the doctor. I loved his answer regarding how it’s possible to play a character that has lived so long and knows everything: You can’t really research being a time lord. It’s hard to convey the knowledge of millennia in a look, so you have to play him as a person yearning for discovery with brilliance and intellectual heft. His advice to actors was bold and honest: 1-don’t be late 2-learn your lines, 3-don’t be an arsehole. And, FYI, I’d love to read a Shakespearean take on the Marvel Universe. “I’d love to see Peter Parker get bitten by a spider in iambic pentameter.”

The fortunate part of sitting at the very end of the room meant I was one of the first ones out the door when the event was over. So I went straight downstairs and got into line for Felicia Day’s Q&A and got a great spot in line. The room filled up entirely, every seat taken, so I felt lucky to get one.

12:00 PM-12:45 PM Felicia Day Q&A Felicia was a little late, because of autograph signing, but she was apologetic and immediately commented on the DC humidity (which I hate too) “This is how Aquaman lives. It’s not good!” LOL She had a lot of great lines… “If you mess your kid up a little bit, they’ll be more interesting.” “I got to play [Charlie] for four seasons–that’s a good track record for a female on Supernatural!” “The gender balance is better now and no one is the worse for it.” “We’re all here to enjoy that thing we all enjoy together.” Felicia was a great mix of kind and funny and clever. It was like listening to her book again only there she was in person.

I headed straight for the Legendary Comics event line after this and talked a lot with a guy behind me in line. It’s SO NICE to be able to talk Classic Who with fans now and actually know what I’m talking about. And it’s also just so nice to be able to talk Classic Who with anyone, actually. He showed me some of the great photos he took of the Doctor Who Experience which he’d been to… did he say 4 times? It was either 3 or 4. At any rate, it was a great conversation and a lovely way to pass the time in line. I believe this line is also where I spotted someone cosplaying as an Ewok and that was awesome.

1:15 PM-2:00 PM Legendary Comics: Monsters & Myths Honestly, I didn’t know anything at all about Legendary Comics, but I definitely enjoyed getting to hear the creative team talk about their project, Firebrand. Urban fantasy is my favorite genre, and it was great to hear about the world of magic and sumernatural they created. And part of it takes place in the Seattle Underground, which I’ve been in. What a brilliant place to set it! I also like that it’s a 3-woman creation team responsible for it. They definitely sold me on Firebrand.

Of course, the real reason I was in attendance was because I wanted to see John and Carole Barrowman. I missed Carole’s Q&A earlier, so this was my chance to see her. And I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get into John’s Q&A later, so this was my chance to see him again. I AM SO GLAD I WENT! They talked about their new project, Cursed, and I was hooked from word one. John entered wearing a kilt and sporran (I couldn’t get a good photo from where I was sitting, sorry). Then, with mood music and mood lighting as well, he proceeded to give the introduction to the series. As someone who slept with a poster of Scotland over her bed for all of her years as a teen, the quickest way to my heart is to say “Bonnie Prince Charlie” in a thick Scottish accent. And, yep, there was John doing just that. Cursed involves Bonnie Prince Charlie just after the Battle of Culloden when something supernatural happens to curse his descendants. The story takes place in modern day with one of these descendants, Charlie Stewart, who falls victim to the curse. So it’s got history and Celtic legends and supernatural elements and drama all wrapped into one. It’s like they’re writing it just for me! What a joy it was to hear them talk about it and answer questions in a more informal setting as well. They talked about working together on projects (it involves teasing and lots of wine) and about what makes good sci-fi (the story) and what they have in common (a love for Kit and Game of Thrones). And I hope to never lose the memory of John in a kilt, thrusting his pelvis at the mention of his photo op with David Tennant later. LOL

I attempted to get into Harry Potter and the Genetics of Wizarding, but when I arrived at the room, it was filled to capacity and there was a short overflow line already. It was only about 10 people long, but there was no knowing if anyone inside would leave. So I decided not to wait around just in case. I had things to do! I bought an expensive and not very tasty vegetable wrap from the food cart near the meeting rooms and borrowed some space on a bench next to a nice gentleman by the street level windows. I ate and watched a whole family of cosplayers working on their outfits, including applying more makeup to an adorable Beast Boy.

Then I headed to the exhibit hall with one mission: find the Supernatural Impala and sit inside it. I was shocked to learn the evening of Day 1 that I’d somehow missed seeing the Impala… so I desperately needed to fix this situation. I did indeed find it (and ran into another friend who, like me, was skipping out on library volunteering that day in order to attend the convention). There were actor-worn outfits you could put on to pose for photos in the car, but I didn’t really care about the photo op (and putting on clothes that tons of fangirls put on didn’t really appeal to me either, though I did pet them a little). What was exciting to me was being INSIDE the Impala. They did a great job tricking it out–cassette tapes, visors signed by cast/crew, a duffle in the backseat, a trunk full of hunter necessities. It was amazing to just get those details that you only get from being there–how soft the steering wheel was, how much give/slidy-ness the seats had, how close the seat and steering wheel were to each other, how the door latch worked, etc. I didn’t take nearly enough photos and felt too shy to go back and take more. And my time inside is kind of a blur because I was so thrilled. But it was SO WORTH IT.

While I was searching for the Impala, I noticed a mother and daughter pair carrying a gorgeous Hamilton art print. Naturally, I stopped them to ask where they’d bought it. So after enjoying sitting in the Impala and internally squeeing SO HARD, I went in search of the exhibit space. Just when I thought I wouldn’t find it, I stumbled upon it (almost literally; the art was displayed up on the walls of the space but also on mats on the floor. I checked out all his pieces, and I loved some of the Harry Potter ones. But, ultimately, I bought the Hamilton one. The artist had a lovely conversation with me about how the current state of things (how we’re blaming immigrants) is really just a repeat of what we’ve seen before and how it has not gone well historically when society tries to use minorities as scapegoats. Among the examples we were throwing back and forth, he mentioned the Polish and I said I was Irish and he said “Well then you know!” as if I’d been there at the turn of the century in person to have lived through that discrimination. Or as if what the Irish faced upon coming to America could even begin to compare with what Africans had to go through in this country. Not that ANYONE’S struggle is any less valid than anyone else’s. But the point is, people forget that this is not new to our country. It was definitely an enjoyable and spirited conversation.

I headed back upstairs to the main hall so that I wouldn’t miss Jason David Frank, the Green/White Power Ranger. Power Rangers was definitely a presence in my formative years, and I loved the green ranger (though, to be fair, I loved them ALL. And while Tommy Oliver was probably at the top of my list if I’d had to rank them, I don’t really remember playing favorites). By the time I got there, they had already started seating, but there was a line formed outside the Main Stage. A volunteer was asking everyone if they were there for JDF or John Barrowman. It was only 3:30 and John Barrowman was going on at 5:30, but there was already a line for his Q&A! I headed in but heard the people behind me answer “JDF or Barrowman?” with “Uhhhhh green power ranger guy?” LOL The place was definitely not full, so I needn’t have worried. I sat down and waited. And waited. And waited.

The Wait While waiting in the Main Stage room, advertisements/messages were displayed on the big screens. It was lovely to have something to watch to pass the time. And I’ve captured them below for the full con experience because I was there for at least an hour, waiting for Jason David Frank and got to know them quite intimately: Is Japan Cool?- Here are some cosplayers from all over the world for no explained reason but in Japan. People seated in front of Kate remark: these are characters from very old fandoms… Baby Driver Trailer- Oh, here’s the trailer for that movie they talked about in the event you didn’t go to. It’s a heist movie with lots of driving. Uh huh. The cast is decent though. And it’s got a good look. And the music is neat. Crystal TARDIS- David Tennant at a booth! Crystal TARDIS! *shows picture of a crystal TARDIS figure with Peter Capaldi’s doctor inside, not David Tennant’s* Your doctor preserved in crystal forever! That doesn’t sound creepy at all! He’ll be PRESERVED. *shows more of Peter Capaldi’s doctor in a TARDIS* And when the lights turn off… *shows Peter Capaldi’s doctor in a TARDIS glowing blue* It glows! *shows the stand that makes it glow with Peter Capaldi’s doctor, taking away all the magic of the glowing illusion previously showed* Get yours today! *quickly finally shows the one with David Tennant* Is Japan Cool?- Here’s a guy who owns a noddle cart sets up for the day and makes bowls of soba and ramen for his customers. Awww. Emoji Movie Trailer- You’re going to laugh not just at the jokes in the trailer but at the fact that we actually came up with a decent plot for an emoji movie. Seriously. Also Patrick Stewart does the voice of Poop. You’re so there, right? Planetarium- Have you been here yet? You’re at a sci-fi con, so you probably love space. Come see the planetarium! Baby Driver Trailer- Hmm, this actually looks good, doesn’t it? And it’s got some interesting reviews. And it’s fun to say Tequila every time Jamie Foxx says it in the trailer. Maybe you’ll remember to put it on your Netflix queue. Is Japan Cool?- Here are some reasons to come to Japan: Sumo wrestlers, harajuku girls, this tower in the distance, um… pubs? You like those, don’t you? Oh busy scramble street crossings. Um… capsule hotels? Crap, we’re running out of reasons. Umm…. vending machines! We’ve got those! Seriously, just come to Japan. Please. It’s cool. We promise. Awesome Con 2018- Next year, we are taking the exact weekend that the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference had this year in 2017. And probably Kate is the only one in attendance to realize this. Is Japan Cool?- We have cosplayers! People in front of Kate: these costumes are really old and outdated Baby Driver Trailer- Oh man. This movie looks awesome. This shit is bananas, dawg! It uses music the way the rest of us use air! Tequila! I mean, look at him driving! This is amazing. Tequila! That’s some Oscar shit right there! What the fffffff?! Main stage schedule for the day- here are some events you might have missed or might be sitting here waiting for at this very second. Just in case you’ve forgotten why you’re still sitting here here Great Courses- Hey, we know you want to learn some things! We have a way for you to learn it with no tests. A geeky guy like me? I’m going to want to dive into as many as possible! Is Japan Cool?- Seriously, we’re not sure yet. We need more validation from you. How about we give the winner of the costume contest a free trip to Japan? Do you love us yet? Costumes are Not Consent!- Speaking of which, if you’re being harassed, see a staff or member of the Brute Squad for help Baby Driver Trailer- HOT DAMN YOU HAVE TO GO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW! WHEN IS IT COMING OUT? YOU ARE PRETTY SURE THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!

?-? PM Jason David Frank Q&A Just as I was beginning to get annoyed, he finally showed up. Apparently, he’d been tied up signing autographs. Which, yeah, I get. He gets paid to do those. But unlike Felicia Day who was a few minutes late and very apologetic and had sent word to us explaining why she’d be a little late, JDF just rushed in and was all over the place and not that apologetic. He kept talking to his assistant/companion/manager (no idea; he never bothered introducing her to us) and trying to get Facebook Live up so he could run contests on it during the panel. And, yeah, I get it. He was flustered and has ADD and his mind was probably in twenty places at once… but I felt a little offended that he wasn’t giving us a little more respect and appreciation for turning up to see him and waiting through a hell of a lot of self-doubting advertisements for Japan. I dunno. Maybe I just expected someone more professional or maybe more calm and centered as someone so studied in the martial arts. He did do a good job talking to some of the fans who were… well, more obsessed than I am, let’s put it that way. And he gave away two headshots. But he didn’t start off with an intro to his recent work/projects, just jumped right in assuming we had some idea who Bloodshot was (maybe that makes me a bad fan for not knowing, so it’s partly my fault). And he did give a lot of good advice about being positive “I can. I will.” and “At the end of the day, it’s about fun and making you happy, not money.” It all sounded great… but it just didn’t ring as true as it could have, I guess, if he’d respected out time and shown up on time. He did make me laugh when he was talking about being asked who would win in a fight, the green ranger or the white ranger. “Me! They’re both me. I’d win!” And of course, there was also the universal truth of “Spandex don’t lie!” In the end, I think he did the best he could to save the event. I’ve just never seen an actor treat his fans quite like this at a Q&A before so I hadn’t expected it. But actors are allowed to be imperfect people too; I don’t want to be too hard on him. But I didn’t really enjoy hearing him speak the way I’d hoped to.

I used the back doors of the room as a shortcut to get into line for John Barrowman, which worked out wonderfully. I remembered standing in line to see John Barrowman at Awesome Con last year and looking up toward the food place to see one of my friends sitting and eating. I looked up this time and there she was again! Ha! Plus, I definitely got in, despite not having stood in line at 3:30.

?-? PM John Barrowman Q&A As always, John was hoot. He was dressed as a TARDIS and in high heels. He even brought his husband out, who was dressed in Captain Jack’s greatcoat and little on underneath (Scott must have an amazing amount of energy and patience to keep up with that man!). John told some extremely entertaining stories. He sang “I am what I am.” He gave great, inspiring advice as well. John is just a born entertainer and loves feeding off his fans’ energy. I went a little super-fangirly when he mentioned that S.E. Hinton messages him on Twitter (SQUEEEE!). I laughed at his story about his 50th birthday party (Stephen Amell in a speedo sounds like a great birthday present for him), about him getting the call about being in Doctor Who, and about him trying to find the gas tank on his DeLorean. I took 4 pages of notes, actually, so I’m having trouble trying to sum it all up. But: his thoughts on the recent Star Wars movies are similar to mine, he would like to kick the crap out of Nazis with Captain America and have Captain Jack trick Hitler into committing suicide, he would like to play Charlie if there were an adaptation of Cursed, he also associates Australians with Tim-Tams, he deliberately backed up onto Daleck wisks because the operators inside can’t look away, and his story about meeting Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith) in Who Tower where she greeted him simply with a nod and the word “Captain” is just amazing. But the best part of the whole thing was when the kid was upset upon learning that Malcolm Merlin was not going to come back to Arrow and John got down and hugged him because he was upset about it too. I LOVE that he understands that characters he plays mean so much to the fans. There were also some great LGBTQ-friendly moments. “Your sexuality doesn’t define who you are. Your heart does. The rest is icing on the cake” and “If someone doesn’t like you for who you are, tell them to piss off.” The Q&A really ran me through every possible emotion.

I was feeling good upon leaving. His Q&A was supposed to run from 5:30-6:15, and at 6:15, Wil Wheaton was having his Q&A downstairs. But when I looked at my watch upon getting downstairs, it was already 6:55! Jason David Frank’s lateness must have thrown everything off, and I hadn’t even been looking at the time to realize it. Luckily, I was right outside the room I wanted to be in for a 7 PM event.

7:00 PM-7:45 PM Slash of Our Ancestors: History of Fanfic A few minutes into the panel, a friend appeared in the doorway and took the seat beside me. He said to me “I figured if I was going to run into any [members of the Harry Potter group] it would be here.” LOL! I love running into friends at cons. Anyway, this was an interesting panel about the history of fanfiction, with a particular emphasis on slash fanfiction. The talk went from zines to archives to message boards to LJ to AO3. “You know you’ve built a useful internet tool when people start putting fanfic in it.” There was also some good analysis of fanfic itself–how attitudes in society get reflected in fanfic and so some tropes aren’t used any more, about the rules of fanfic (rule 1- punctuate; rule 2-don’t tell the actors), how it’s becoming normalized but there’s still a stigma, how it created a safe space for queers to explore, how we used to kill off wives and now just write threesomes, how quality/standards are different because we can’t mentor new fans any more, and how terms themselves have changed (actorfic=RPS), and how anime’s fic culture evolved differently. I also came out of it with a handful of recs I now need to track down.

We headed to the room the next event I wanted to attend was being held in in time to catch the ending of MAGfest’s event where people got to use green screen and actually be in a video game. That was pretty cool!

8:15 PM-9:00 PM The Shipping Game Live! Run by geek dating site DragonFruit, this was a card game similar to Slash, which I’d just played the first time last week with my Harry Potter group at our annual Game Day event. In this version, cards were drawn from a large deck of characters and one person had to argue the pairing as an OTP while the other had to argue NOTP. Then we audience members decided the winner. I find shipping across fandoms a lot of fun in games like this, but especially when it results in an interesting, viable pairing. I was shocked when the audience did not go for Clark Kent/Iron Man! In fact, the audience voted NOTP on nearly every pairing but the last two. They didn’t go for Princes Zelda/Black Panther despite the fact that they’re both royalty. And I can’t remember what they decided regarding Han Solo/Moaning Myrtle. It was a lot of fun listening to pro & con arguments for these crazy pairings.

We were headed to the same Metro stop, so we called it a night and traveled back home. The wait to switch trains was not as long as the night before (probably because it was a little earlier), and it was nice to have the company. I made a late night Walmart run and then still did another load of laundry when I finally got home around 10:30.

Awesome Con 2017- Day 2 was originally published on The Fangirl Project

#thefangirlproject

1 note · View note

londontheatre · 7 years

Link

What a non-traditional but traditional, unconventional but conventional, rendering of Shakespeare’s Hamlet this is. The inventive use of video technology in this production, a West End limited season transfer from the Almeida Theatre, seems to take after the 2009 BBC Television adaptation (starring David Tennant and Sir Patrick Stewart) of a previous Royal Shakespeare Company production. This production goes a lot further, though, with subtitles and captions of rolling news broadcasts displayed in Danish. Or at least one would hope they are in Danish. Elsewhere, appearances on screen of the Ghost (David Rintoul) – closed circuit television, to be precise – fit in like a glove to the 17th-century dialogue of the opening and subsequent scenes. And this production keeps the technology in use, right to the very end. Even the fencing in Act V Scene II is filmed.

Certain asides to the audience from Polonius (Peter Wright) are spoken instead to a hidden microphone, adding yet more subtlety to an already relatively quiet production in terms of volume from the stage. It is some time before Hamlet (Andrew Scott, retaining his natural Irish accent in the title role as Prince of Denmark) raises his voice at anyone. Not that he couldn’t be heard, but it was so different from the usual borderline over-projection that characterises proscenium arch West End performances of Shakespeare plays. Once I had become accustomed to this more reserved approach, I warmed to it.

It’s proof that one need not have booming vocals to put in a tour de force performance. The staging is not all that imposing, either – the modern security protocols in place at this twenty-first century Elsinore don’t seem far removed from current arrangements at places of interest in London at this time of heightened security. Ophelia (a convincing Jessica Brown Findlay), came across, unusually (for me) as having genuinely lost her mental stability in Act IV Scene V (the ‘mad scene’). The devil is in the detail, and some of the subtler mannerisms might possibly be lost to people not sat in the first few rows.

But then, perhaps not. Cameras are in use (focusing in on the actors, not the audience, please don’t fret) with screens at several different angles (the creatives have certainly considered the various audience slightlines – hurrah!), so almost everyone gets to see the ‘right’ expression at the relevant moment. Is it a bit too long with an almost four-hour running time? It didn’t feel like it. Indeed, most of the people around me were clock-watching (well, wristwatch-watching), longing for the second interval to finish, such was the level of interest.

The position of the first interval in the play, in terms of when exactly it happens in the script, is inventive – clever, even. Polonius (Peter Wight) speaks lines into a wire tap that would in almost any other production of Hamlet be spoken to the audience. The chemistry between Claudius (Angus Wright) and Gertrude (Juliet Stevenson) is palpable. The main soliloquies of the title character remain intact, ever sublime and immortal, but not exactly untouched – Scott’s compelling delivery makes these familiar words sound remarkably vibrant. The ‘Yorick speech’ is particularly poignant.

These sofas, these business suits, these sliding doors. It’s all bound to annoy the purists to high heaven. No matter. This is a surprisingly warm and inviting production, and a welcome addition to the many versions of this timeless play. I suspect this production will be a talking point among followers of Shakespearean productions for years to come.

Review by Chris Omaweng

Starring BAFTA and Olivier Award winner Andrew Scott (Sherlock, Birdland, Cock, Pride) as the Danish Prince, Juliet Stevenson* as Gertrude and Jessica Brown Findlay as Ophelia, Hamlet is brought to the stage by the critically acclaimed and multi-award winning creative team behind 1984 and Oresteia.

Robert Icke ‘one of the most important forces in today’s theatre’ (The Observer) previously directed Mary Stuart, Uncle Vanya, Oresteia, Mr Burns and 1984 for the Almeida Theatre.

Hamlet is produced by ATG (Sunday In The Park With George, Buried Child, Oresteia) Sonia Friedman Productions and the Almeida Theatre (Chimerica, Ghosts, King Charles III, 1984, Oresteia) who are renowned for introducing groundbreaking, critically acclaimed transfers to the West End.

* Juliet Stevenson for the first four weeks only. Further casting for Gertrude to be announced.

Harold Pinter Theatre 6 Panton Street, London, SW1Y 4DN Running Time: 3 hours 45 minutes (including two intervals) Booking From: 9th Jun 2017 Booking Until: 2nd Sep 2017

http://ift.tt/2p0ZF0T LondonTheatre1.com

#IFTTT #LondonTheatre1.com

0 notes

lesbianbeiovaz · 7 years

Text

Parallel: From Another World 6/?

Chapters: 6/? Fandom: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tenth Doctor / OC Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Rita Stone (OC) Additional Tags: Friendship, Major Original Character(s), Season/Series 02 Summary:

Follow Rita through time and space, learning about herself while struggling to comprehend her new life travelling with the Doctor and his companions. Doctor x OC

*I do not own Doctor Who or any of its characters. All original ownership goes to the BBC.

A03 | FF.NET

"What do you think of this? Will it do?" Rose walked over to the console spinning around a little in her denim dungarees, Rita wrinkled her nose a, personally thinking that it didn't suit the blonde.