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cynicalclassicist · 5 months

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Musings on Chibnall Sontarans

I've decided that it might be fun to try writing down some Doctor Who thoughts rather than just musing on them to myself. I freely admit that it's a tad rambling and I might diverge on the topic a bit but this is just me putting some thoughts down.

But the only way I'll ever get any better at writing posts like this is to write them.

Some thoughts on the Sontarans that I mused around.

I think that I prefer Chibnall's take on the Sontarans the most.

A recurring criticism that I saw of the Sontarans during Moffat's era was that they were being played for laughs too much. To be fair, the Sontarans don't really appear in force during much of his era. It's mainly just Strax, who is framed as a comedy Sontaran. It gets bit more complex when you see that when he first appeared there was a bit less of that comic tone, but after he joined Vastra and Jenny he was largely there to be the comic relief in the trio.

And when he briefly reverts back to his normal self in The Name of the Doctor it is effective, before he... gets disintegrated or erased, I'm never quite certain which.

But then you have scenes in The Time of the Doctor where the Sontarans don't seem to realise how an invisibility shield works and are there for a one-off joke.

The Sontarans don't really show up much under Peter Capaldi, Strax turning up in the first episode which is about it.

You may wonder why. Did they not fit Moffat's tone of more reflective and experimental takes with 12?

The boring answer for why the Sontarans didn't turn up much with 12 is... they just didn't. It's not really like the Daleks and to a slightly lesser extent the Cybermen, where it's sort of expected that each Doctor meets them.

The Sontarans were often seen as the third of the villain races in Doctor Who, behind the Daleks and Cybermen. But now they've been sort of eclipsed by the Weeping Angels. You can see that in how in The Time of the Doctor promo it had Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, Silents... something something joke about not remembering them. And that Hell Bent had in the catacombs a Dalek (that I headcanon was left over from The Apocalypse Element), a Cyberman and a Weeping Angel.

And likely Moffat didn't really feel that there was much more to do with the Paternoster Gang. I didn't object to them not turning up again in 12's era and I don't object now.

The Sontarans in Pond Life were a bit more traditional in that they're menacing, Pond Life being the piece Chris Chibnall wrote... which leads back to the original point.

The Sontarans in Flux are presented in a much less comical light. This is probably the most effective that they've been on-screen since... The Invasion of Time, where they came close to conquering Gallifrey. But in Flux they are shown massacring their way through 19th century British soldiers, having inserted themselves into history and conquered a large portion of the world. In the same ep they've easily conquered modern-day Earth. Then later that series they conquer Earth quickly again, having engineered a plan across decades with another alien to weaken Earth's defences.

I would say that you do see some of the flaws in Doctor Who: Flux from what I've said here, in that there are two invasions of modern-day Earth by the Sontarans this series, apparently un-connected, as it's not clear if the Grand Serpent helped in their War of the Sontarans invasion. I know that Flux was cobbled together in very difficult circumstances, and it does kind of show that the scripts have had to be forced a bit so they all sort of fit together, with the odd ending which seems to forget that most of the Universe was destroyed. I hope that we get something like a Writer's Tale one day or even adaptations of the original plans, like Big Finish has done for some Classic stories. Maybe novelisations? Anyway...

Along with invading Earth, the Sontarans trick the Daleks and the Cybermen, who they often play second fiddle to, into being destroyed by the Flux and come very close to becoming the main power of the Universe.

Though the Sontarans have often been seen as rather comical thugs, with full-on attacks we do see that they can be cunning. Flux does make them worthy of their status as one of the Universe's top warrior races.

Now I don't think that the Sontarans need to be too serious. You can still play them for laughs in their belligerent nature. Their whole Imperialism is always subject to mockery. The Time Warrior starts with Commander Linx annexing the Earth. You get touches of that throughout. Commander Skaak tells the Doctor that they are invading during the Crimea War as they wanted to ride a horse... That image of a Sontaran on a horse is brilliant. And of course, a Sontaran getting addicted to chocolate.

I kind of like some more attention being drawn to the alien biology of Sontarans, with details like them easily getting a sweet tooth and the detail about them having trouble on Earth so needing to refuel every 27 hours. You might argue that this is the sort of weakness that would have been brought up earlier, that it would have worked as a weakness for another alien race, and that the Sontarans already have that probic vent weakness. Yes. But DW being in new stuff after decades is... meh, it happens. Though it's odd that Svild still goes through this sleep when he doesn't have access to the ship. Maybe he has supplies?

A scene which feels symbolic of the move to more brutal Sontarans over the bumbling Strax happens in War of the Sontarans. Svild feels more Strax-like, even while he is imprisoned boasting about defeating human scum. When he goes back to the Sontaran base he is told by his superior that he is a disgrace and killed.

I would hardly say that this is a personal attack on Moffat's way of doing the Sontarans. The mentality of presuming that different writers are attacking each other like they are rival politicians I find to be very reductive and needlessly provocative. It does feel though like a reminder that Strax and the way he acts is not typical of the Sontarans. It's as if Strax is being killed but it's not Strax, as to kill Strax here would be a bit much.

There is also a much nastier feel to the Sontarans. We are used to Strax talking about killing human scum and off-screen he apparently killed numerous horses, but we don't see him doing that. We know that it's his usual boistering. But the Sontarans in Flux do show that it's not just talk.

In their first scene in The Halloween Apocalypse a Sontaran tells another how disgusting they look, a meaner kind of humour. The Sontarans seem to revel in how nasty they are. They mockingly tell human captives to keep their last words to themselves before killing them. They even massacre all the Lupari save for Karvanista (that is done a bit quickly I agree). They trick the Daleks and the Cybermen into a trap.

I have noticed that Chibnall seems to prefer writing nastier villains, which you see with Solomon (it counts as he wrote the episode), Tzim-Sha, the Reconnaissance Dalek, the Spy Master, Ashad, Tecteun, Swarm... this deserves it's own essay. All I'll say here is that the world is showing so many real-life monsters it doesn't seem too implausible to depict characters revelling in their evil.

It is worth noting, as I am fond of doing, that there is a sort of Russian element to the Sontarans. In a way they seem a metaphor for the likes of Putin. After all, they take the place of Russia in a changed timeline. Then resorting to a long-scale infiltration of Earth's defences, including defunding UNIT, obviously alludes to Brexit and the weakening of British defences. Probably why the Master and the other top villains of the Whoniverse assemble around Russia in The Power of the Doctor... but that's another story. That needs its' own essay too.

And their leader rides a horse.

The Sontarans are opportunists here, not planning the Flux but certainly taking advantage of it. What the Flux is... well, it can be interpreted in various ways. It could just be a general worry of complete annihilation. The main villains in this series, the Ravagers, are basically Gods of Nihilism, believing in simply the destruction of everything and seeing it as a duty to bring about inevitability. Kind of like the Anti-Logopolitans... or an Anti-Monitor, if you're going DC comics. And that story had the villains taking advantage of the trouble to try taking control of the remaining Earths...

Unfortunately, some of the dialogue does lean into unfortunate territory. "If the Flux is destroying the universe, if planets and stars are being wiped out, there will be displaced creatures who need a home. Somewhere to take over." It does sound like it is leaning towards the great replacement, the scaremongering that people like Douglas Murray snarl about, of how European culture will be replaced. I don't think that was the intent, aliens whose planet has been destroyed invading Earth is very standard sci-fi, from War of the Worlds to a lot of Doctor Who. It's probably just unfortunate phrasing. Reminds me of Lawrence Miles going at Mark Gatiss over The Unquiet Dead having aliens pretending to be vulnerable then invading in force. Could that be argued as more problematic? I won't debate that here. The other showrunners have done their show of problematic stuff and comments but that doesn't really make it any better and if I go on about this then it looks like I'm excusing it.

Of course, if we're talking about Doctor Who writers going great replacement that's probably more Gareth Roberts, considering he writes in Douglas Murray's shitshow The Spectator now. And Strax was based on a concept he had... but moving on as he's a sore spot for many Doctor Who fans because of how clearly he rejects the mentality of the show.

It did occur to me that if the Sontarans were travelling back in time to invade human history in a big sweeping universe-threatening adventure which involves multiple Doctors, that sort of makes Flux the closest thing to a live-action adaptation of Doctor Who Legacy, a fun little game which ran from 2013-2019, as Tiny Rebel did not want to renew the license with the BBC. I suppose that Chibnall gets the blame for that as seeing the complaints over the lack of Christmas specials has demonstrated to me that lots of people don't seem to entirely understand how much power the showrunner has.

Moving back... maybe even the design of the Sontarans seems to hark back to their earlier nature. As opposed to the sleeker, more realistic look of the Sontarans from The Sontaran Stratagem onwards, these Sontarans are more Classic in design. The blue armour and smooth skin is replaced by the black armour and rocky look of the Classic series. From what I've seen (but that's my circle so not sure how representative it is) a lot of fans actually prefer this design.

To quote a site that I found recently...

"I don't know that I'm a huge fan of the new Sontaran design - Commander Skaak kept reminding me of George C. Scott - but I do like that it was a deliberate nod back to the initial Sontaran mask as designed for 'The Time Warrior,' with the hairs and pock marked skin. Kevin Lindsay, the actor who played Linx in that story and who received a shout out in this episode's script, suffered from heart trouble, and that initial mask caused him a lot of breathing problems. So much so that when they brought the supposed 'clone' of Linx back the following season they'd had to re-make the mask for the sake of his health, and they used that opportunity to clean up the look a lot, removing the hairs and giving the skin a much smoother complexion. That was the general Sontaran aesthetic they used thereafter, and I like the nod to the original concept." (https://www.douxreviews.com/2021/11/doctor-who-flux-chapter-two-war-of.html)

They even have a Sontaran in The Halloween Apocalypse stick his tongue out!

For the sake of completion I may as well show how it changed from Commander Linx to Commander Styre.

I actually asked @dalesramblingsblog about this comedy stuff recently and got a response. Yeh, Sontarans have always had a comic edge. https://dalesramblingsblog.tumblr.com/post/733709232342499328/if-were-going-on-the-making-affectionate-digs-at

Maybe this whole post is a waste of time... Anyway, it's kind of fun writing these. I should do more. I might quibble on some details but it's honestly nicer saying how I liked something in Doctor Who.

#doctor who #sontarans #chris chibnall #war of the sontarans #doctor who flux #you don't have to like it to admit there are things to analyse #fuck putin by the way

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ssaalexblake · 3 years

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You know, i’d always looked at the narrative not really portraying as the yaz x 13 relationship as necessarily requited as them displaying 13′s issues, she wants her friends there and needs them there for her mental health and peace of mind but she also Doesn’t want to be too attached, either. Doesn’t want them too close, doesn’t want a reminder of all those times 12 got deeply hurt by his attachments to humans, doesn’t want to think of these three dead like Grace. Cannot deal with the possibility of loving any of them and losing them.

But i’d never before considered that 13′s lack of response to Yaz might be a side effect of Yaz’s behaviour? Like, i mean, we learn in Can You Hear Me? That Yaz has one of those tragic back stories. We learn that that bullying she spoke of that motivates her to help others was a Very abridged version of the whole story. We see a not necessarily explicit memory of Yaz wanting to die, but a Heavily implied one. We already knew Yaz chose to channel the effect of her victimization into helping others in the same situation/stop it happening to them full stop. The memory shows us that Yaz chose to approach this goal by emulating this lady police officer who stopped to help her.

This tells us a lot of important things. It shows us Why they decided to make Yaz a police officer when they genuinely have not used this as a plot point. At all. To the point it was a bit weird. It shows us that her emulation of 13 isn’t a isolated incident, Yaz who secretly has very low self esteem will mimic and copy those she admires or believes are doing good in the world will model herself Around those people. This one memory kind of contextualizes her whole character but narratively, the way they chose to illustrate it actively prevents anybody but the audience from knowing about Yaz’s hidden depths and troubled past. Her walls remain up.

In as such... I don’t really think anybody but Sonya knows the genuine Yasmin Khan. Maybe her parents, but it’s also shown in the memory that they didn’t understand what was going on. Her sister is the keeper of Yaz’s history, she is the only one who knows her truly and deeply, imo, we don’t know if Yaz was honest with her sister or was just unable to keep this all from her, either way, Sonya knows her sister fully and loves her deeply.

So... Yaz loves 13. Under the assumption that Yaz would want that to be reciprocated (which, okay, may not be true... But u want people you love to lover you back even when you Know it’ll be a disaster in the end, you just do)... Is Yaz herself the thing that is preventing the reciprocation of this love?

13 doesn’t know her! Not really, Sonya’s the only one who does that. If 13 is only getting the cliff notes of Yasmin Khan, Would she love her? Yaz is not letting herself be seen, because she doesn’t really realize what is there to be seen underneath it all is a woman who is inherently worthy in general and of love. In keeping herself from 13, is Yaz orchestrating her own failure in deliberately maintaining a distance?

I’d until now kind of assumed this lack of reciprocation was a 13 thing... And yeah, she Does have a lot of issues here that i am sure are playing a big part in her reticence. But I'm starting to think Yaz is orchestrating her own failure here as well... How would 13 love her if she doesn’t Know her?

I’ve always thought that the Yaz mental health/self esteem plot And the thasmin plot could coexist peacefully... Yaz places the doctor on a pedestal, yes, and is trying to emulate her from a lack of self worth, but... Sometimes we just need somebody to love us who doesn’t ‘have’ to. Sonya’s her sister, she loves her, but sometimes it’s easy to say that doesn’t count because duh, she’s my sister, she’s Supposed to love me despite the fights and competition.

I feel like 13 actually genuinely knowing the Real, hidden Yaz that she never tells anybody about and then loving her deeply anyway might actually show Yaz that she, herself Is worth it. 13, a person Yaz loves and admires still even after she takes her off the pedestal, who didn’t have any strong reactions of feelings towards her when she was putting up a front actually genuinely loving her deeply and insistently back once she Drops the façade may actually just clue Yaz in that yes, she is loved and worthy and good enough by doing nothing but being herself.

I still think Yaz should end up some kind of mental health worker, she ended up police because she was ‘saved’ by a police woman who was called to a mental health emergency and then Yaz then evidently linked That to how to help other people hurt like her. But Yaz in her very first Scene is unsatisfied with the job... We learn much later it’s because she wants to be helping people like herself. The problem here, of course, is that police are called in for mental health emergencies and not, you know, trained medical professionals.

Yaz is unsatisfied in her job because she’s in the wrong job, because the person who came to check on her should never have been police. So in emulating her she’s ended up screwing herself over in this situation as well, as much as her hiding herself away from 13 has backfired, her choosing to emulate this lady instead of working it out her own way Also left her frustrated and bored, feeling useless.

Yaz needs to find her Own way, not use other peoples ways.

So i guess my ideal endgame is 13 loving her back, but loving the Yaz that Yaz tries to hide. And then Yaz leaving off her own back to quit her job, not because her urge to help people like herself has changed, but because she realises doing it Yaz’s way is a better way to achieve it instead of copying somebody else, and then seeking employment in the mental health field for teenagers. You know, the type of people who should have helped 16 year old her to start with.

This era repeatedly screws over characters who don’t submit to being Known, and rewards those who do submit to the risk and terror of truly showing themselves to other people, and while we consistently call 13 out for being Very private and not consenting to share any of herself with others, Yaz is equally as guilty and it keeps screwing her over.

#dw shit #yaz and 13 are so facinating i concent to ship them even if i dislike #shipping the doctor with companions l o l #cannot Believe ppl say yaz is boring or has no depth #she is genuinely the most nuanced companion there has ever Been imo

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chrisswearicho · 3 years

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I feel like a big problem with Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who is that what could be big storylines get wasted by bad punchlines? Like just recently, in (new year special) we had 13 in prison. Was it to do with the Timeless Child? Were there bounty hunters sent by out after her by the Master or new big bad? Nope. Library books. Like, I would’ve had the Timeless Child reveal tied in. Have this past Doctor be just as reckless as the Doctor. Or have them be more evil. Bring the Valeyard in. Or just have it be that the Division was some kind of intergalactic Hitman squad for the Time Lords who were intent on remaining the top dogs in the universe. We’ve always been shown in Classic Who that the Time Lords were willing to shut down any civilisations that got even somewhat close to the advancements that they had in Time Travel and other tech. What if the Time Lords were the same back then and sent out the Division members to do whatever it would take to shut it all down? What if this pre-Doctor decided to fight against this, or met someone like Lee who showed them there’s more to the universe than constant death and they’re being hunted down for defecting? I dunno. Just a thought.

And Orphan 55. Big chance to pull in older episodes there as well. Rather than it being an alternate Earth, have it be Earth after 5 billion years, where it’s that space of time where no one’s meant to be alive on the planet. You can still talk about what pollution would have done to the planet (though I could’ve gone without the condescending speech at the end and had the Doctor actually go save those two that she left to die). Just a thought. There’s just so many interesting ideas that have gone with the blandest option for a storyline.

Ryan’s disability was basically forgotten about by season 2. Yaz being a police officer literally never once came in handy though that seems like the sort of job that would transfer well when in times of chaos with the Doctor. Have her using her police training to take control of a situation. Have her using her skills to question and interrogate people, even the Doctor who likes hiding stuff from them. This arms length reach 13 seems to keep them at could’ve made for such an interesting relationship between them all but instead we’re just being told that they’re best buds and it’s all fine even as 13’s refusing to listen or reassure Graham in anyway about him being scared about his cancer. Like, I get it, social anxiety is really hard to overcome, but if one of your best mates comes to you and is terrified of having cancer and is looking to you for reassurance, if you fob them off like she did then you’re just a dick. Especially if this is supposed to be someone she loves. Like I can imagine 12 telling him he doesn’t do feelings but then showing with the TARDIS that he’s fine or at least checking. It’s so cold to just cut him off and say, essentially, that she doesn’t want to know and doesn’t want to reassure or help him in anyway. Like she chose the name Doctor to help people. The fact that so many people seemed to like that she did that is horrifying to me. Any other version of the Doctor wouldn’t have done that IMO.

#doctor who #13th doctor #chris chibnall #like something always just feels off about how everyone acts #the Doctor especially #it’s like she’s more caring over strangers than the fam which... just no #graham o’brien #yasmin khan #ryan sinclair

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omegangrins · 4 years

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Chibnall, Children, Choice and Consequence

Allow me to introduce a companion piece to A Treatise on the Doctor:

It's pretty simple:

Chibnall knows what he's doing and is playing a long game to show how the Doctor needs to take more responsibility.

Let me start off with my favorite examples. That's right, plural.

Every single villain 13 faces is never defeated, merely pushed away from causing them any immediate problems. Tim Shaw being the prime example.

1&10. Seriously, Tim Shaw. Her plan was to use his own bombs on him and then teleport him off the planet. Even without Ranskoor Av Kolos, the Doctor should have thought to check in on him. Especially after The Ghost Monument showed the Stenza were a greater threat than she knew. She still hasn't even checked up on WHAT THE HELL THE STENZA ARE! They sound worse than Daleks but naw, let's go rain-bathing in the upper tropics of Canstano instead.

2. Ghost Monument. We saw the END of an interuniversal race. What the fuck is the beginning that got them there? Who is Illyn and how and why did he orchestrate a super race?

3. Krasko. Sent back in time. Really, Doc? Not gonna take a look at the device and see where Ryan sent the prick so you can double check that he's not gonna cause anymore damage?

4. President Trump analog. Ooooo, you looked at him menacingly, Doc, that'll show him!! Not like he's gonna KEEP DOING ILLEGAL SHIT LIKE THIS.

5. The Pting. She literally shunted it off ship to be dealt with by someone else BUT DOESN'T GO BACK TO BE THAT SOMEONE ELSE ONCE SHE HAS HER TARDIS. That's like leaving a living nuke floating around after sweeping it under the rug while you fly off to Paris.

6. The Pakistani-Indian conflict still happens and millions still die. Not her fault but still....

7. Kerblam. Sure, Charlie's terrorism was solved but not the underlying problem that led to it. Humans still can't work because corporations like profits over people.

8. Similar to the Punjab, how you gonna solve sexism, classism and all the -isms?

9. WHY WAS THE SOLITRACT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE??!! It's been around since before the universe. Why'd it decide to come back now? It's a whole universe trying to hug our universe to death. Maaaaaaybe we should check out why.

11. She's gets a pass on the Dalek. Fucking impossible to eradicate them.

12. The Master!!! Finally she checks up on something after the adventures... and it's horrible. With everything gone to shit in her absence. Seeing a pattern yet?

And Barton? And the Cassaven? They didn't disappear into smoke.

13. Multiple Earths being multiply fucked. Remember when I said the Doctor couldn't solve racism, classism, sexism, or any of the other -isms? Starting to look like she needs to TRY.

14. The Skithra FLY OFF after getting hit by a laser beam. That kind of thing tends to piss people off. Even if they're idiots using other's technology.

15. Jack. The Judoon. The Ruth Doctor. All things I'd start checking out if I had a time machine BUT

16. WE CAN'T cause the TARDIS emergency alert is going off and we need to hurry up and run and solve this problem before we run out of time in our TIME AND SPACE MACHINE. Leading to another problem the Doctor could help solve but won't. Plastic and over-consumption.

17. Oh yeah, let's trap two Eternals from another universe in the same place. There's NO WAY that could ever turn out bad.

18,19,20. And again. Cyberium. Pushed off Shelley onto herself and onto Ashad and onto The Master.

That's almost 20 "enemies" the Doctor still needs to deal with.

Oh, not to mention that they let UNIT go defunct because they didn't have the forethought to ask if they needed any money in their alien fighting budget. After asking for an office, a desk, and a job. Kinda funny that way, aren't they?

I hope by now you've gotten the idea that this is VERY deliberate. This is Chibnall laying down some very heavy pipe to smack the Doctor like a clothesline. There isn't a one of these situations that can't come around to bite her in the ass.

Barton, Roberts, Skithra. These are all very loose strands for a time traveller like the Doctor to get tripped up on. Chibnall's past episodes prove it. They're all about the Doctor learning how to take responsibility.

42: The Doctor almost gets Martha killed and almost gets himself killed trying to fix it.

The Hungry Earth: The Doctor (a thousand year old "adult") tells Elliot (a 10 year old kid) that "Sure it's totally fine to go get your headphones while we prepare for an approaching unknown alien force." And 11 rightfully gets his ass chewed for it by the child's mother when the kid goes missing because OF COURSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS, JACKASS!

Cold Blood: I could write an entire essay about the Doctor's guilt over the Silurian/Human conflicts they've witnessed, but I don't need to. Because every single Silurian centered episode written in the new era is from Chris Chibnall. And you can feel the sad knowledge of Classic Who spill through. He KNOWS how many times the Doctor has fucked up with the Silurians (about 8 times in television format. And it's rough everytime. Rough.) and he writes those episodes like an apology on behalf of the whole human race. And the Doctor. You know why people are put off by Warriors of the Deep? 5 releases a gas that melts the Silurians. And though it's cheesy, the idea and execution is still horrible.

Add to that if the Doctor hadn't stopped to check the crack, then Rory wouldn't have waited and been around to be shot then absorbed by the time crack.

Power of Three: An entire episode about how the Doctor has a problem slowing down and really taking account of the lives of their companions.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: The Doctor actually tries to be responsible and pick the right people for a job. For once. But gets angry when they realize it's too late and there's another bunch of Silurians they failed to save. Classic!

Like I said, if you can't see the pattern, you're not paying enough attention to your responsibilites.

Which leads me to the why.

When you fly around time and space for thousands of years, you develop a few duties of care along the way. In every situation, you're the oldest. Technically the only adult in terms of experience. You have a responsibility to act a little less rude and be a bit more aware than needing cue cards to tell you that you should be sad about things around you. And that's the purpose of 13. She's unlucky but learning. Like 12 telling himself something with his face he couldn't say out loud, 13's instincts are leading her to a new place for the Doctor: being a caring, responsible person. Not so much laughing hard or running fast, but being kind. It's the one thing they recognized as a problem in themselves when seeing 1. Being a Doctor is about being kinder than that. Just because you HAVE to saw someone's leg off, that doesn't mean you can't wait a little and comfort them before you do it.

You wanna know what gave me every faith in Chibnall showrunning Doctor Who? 13 staying for Grace's funeral.

Do you understand how unprecedented that is? This is the same person who never said Goodbye to Jo Grant as she got married and fucked off into the night. The same Doctor who said, "I don't do domestic.", did it with Rose a regeneration later, and then closed himself off to everyone but a married couple he felt guilty about who ended up birthing his wife. Have you any idea the number of funerals the Doctor should have the common decency to sit through? This many.

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So for 13 to stay around for the death of a woman she has only just met and not only that, BUT call out Ryan's father for not doing the same, it shows tremendous character growth. It's taken millennia but they're still changing.

Something similar happens with Rosa and The Witchfinders. Realizing that there a lot of companions who have been in situations that are sometimes worse than aliens, but they still manage to make it through. So she needs to buck it up and persevere for everyone else.

That's where her anger comes from, and really it's one of my favorite traits on her. It reminds me of 7. Someone impossibly old and impossibly kind saying to hell with it and at least having some fun with the evils who drag us through the universe. And just like Cartmel planned for 7, 13's past will come to haunt her.

That's where children come in. Most of us are crying babies to the Doctor.

There's this thing you notice most in British shows about answering the question directly as asked. Someone says "Are you sure?", you answer "Sure". That's a direct acknowledgement that you heard the question, understood it, and processed it enough to respond in a manner directly correlating to the question asked. Yas and Graham got it and said "Sure" but Ryan missed it and said "Deffo". This is like Elliot with the headphones. The Doctor should have immediately been like, "Okay, Ryan, it's obvious that you're still dealing with the trauma of your grandmother's death and probably not processing things on a logical level. I said "Are you sure?" Not "Are you deffo?" Because we are most definitely not deffo, Ryan. Graham, you wanna help here?"

I'm being sarcastic for points sake but you understand the idea. The Doctor knows better and has a responsibility as such. She should've really sat down with Ryan and Graham and seen if there was a better way to process their grief.

Because I'm fairly certain that "Deffo" is gonna lead to Ryan's death and Graham's cancer resurging as time cancer (I don't know what time cancer is. I just know it's bad.)

And that is gonna piss Yas off. Which will give you all that character you think she's missing (she isn't. Her character is in her subtleties and silences.). That's WHY her character is a police officer (like how does no else see that the man who wrote Broadchurch wrote an inspector character companion?) Imagine you're Yaz and you see the Doctor flying around in a big, magic box that says POLICE. As a fellow officer, you're gonna expect some basic safety protocols.

Like do a background check on everyone flying in the TARDIS to know whether they're stable enough (mentally, physically, emotionally) for time and space travel. It's no picnic. These people are going to go through hell. A little vetting and planning like Time Heist or Dinosaurs on a Spaceship goes a long way.

Secondly, full fucking disclosure.

"Oh. I can't die because I change my body. Oh. I have arch enemies that will try to kill and torture us any chance they get. Oh. My home planet is full of the biggest assholes in the universe and I'm including my arch enemies."

Third, police like to do this thing called "check-ups" where they go back to the scene of the crime in order to see if there is any more information that can be gleaned which you might not notice when you are busy running around trying not to be killed... Like, the Doctor has the perfect machine to do this with, but nope. Adventure done, run to the next place!!

These are all things you'd expect any reasonable person to do and say when taking others flying off into time and space and "helping". Even if they are an idiot passing through and learning. Especially when you consider the Doctor is vastly older and more experienced than everyone they encounter. They SHOULD know better. And they've got the lifespan to slow down. It's not like they need to be in a hurry because they're going to die at any moment like humans. The Doctor could easily stay for tea and it would be less than a drop in their lifespan.

Now, as usually is the case when I make these theories, I have a parts 1,2,3,4 and 6. There's allways this 5th piece I miss but I manage to get at the end.

But the 6th piece is the Timeless Child. The Doctor isn't a Time Lord anymore. They're not beholden to those people and ideas anymore. Even moreso, those people basically raped her childhood for their own gain so it's not like you'd really listen to them and their "policy of non-intervention".

I'm sensing a coming Trial of a Time Lord season (even believing these two seasons are the opening statement and preliminary evidence of the trial itself) wherein the Doctor finally gets the turnaround 6 deserved. A Trial of the Time Lords, if you will.

"In all my travels through time and space I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here! The oldest civilization: decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core! Power mad conspirators? Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen — they're still in the nursery compared to us! Ten million years of absolute power: that's what it takes to be really corrupt!"

This is what it's all coming down to. Chibnall's takedown of the Time Lords. And The Master is going to play the most crucial role of all.

They're going to be revealed as an Ux alongside the Doctor and show how the only constants they have in this universe are each other and it's about damn time they work together and tell these high collars to eat Schitt while they explore every star and planet they can find.

Come on, the episode is called The Timeless "Children". If it was just the Doctor it'd be called "The Timeless Child". The Master says as much with the misdirect line, "built on the lie of the Timeless Child." since we see two kids playing in that flashback.

"Since always. Since the Cloister Wars, since the night he stole the moon and the president's wife, since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie, can you guess which one?"

Now we know which one was a lie, we know the Master HAS known the Doctor since they were a little girl. THAT little girl...

But this is all just speculation. It's not like Chris Chibnall could have been thinking about this for the past 40 years and was given a blank slate to do whatever he wanted for five years on his favorite TV show. If y'all want to think he took those reigns and is choosing to make things worse...

Well then you don't know much about responsibility.

I'll let the man himself tell you about it.

"Very early in my career,” says Chibnall, “someone told me that you learn more from a failure than you do from a success. And then I lived out that phrase for a year in Los Angeles. I learned that I would not work that way again or be put in that situation again.” The essential lesson was: “You either have to be in total control of a show or working with people who share your vision and will work with you to achieve it. Also, never work with 13 executive producers.

“Camelot was the classic case of too many cooks. It wasn’t a harmonious set-up and I think that does manifest itself on screen.

“I had a fantastic cast but you have to be free to tell the story you want to tell in the way that you want to tell it. What ended up on screen was not what I wanted and so it is a blemish on my CV.”

Credit to @thirteenthdoc

“You immortals - so entitled, so spoiled. You never clear up after yourselves and you always leave stuff lying around.” - Thirteenth Doctor in Can You Hear Me?

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hypexion · 3 years

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Now that I’ve “reviewed“ all the modern Doctor Who episodes, it’s clearly time to make a Top Thirteen Episodes list! Except I haven’t given the episodes any kind of score, so ranking them is Clearly Impossible.

So instead I’ll just say which stories of each series was my favourite, which is basically the same thing, right? So let’s get right into it as I try to work out which episodes deserve the top spot and/or immediately pick a specific stand out story.

Series 1: It’s got to be Dalek. There are a few stand-out episodes in Series One, but Dalek is the best of the bunch. It really digs into what the Time War means for the Doctor and how it has transformed his relationship with his oldest enemy. Along with that, it also looks into what a Dalek really is, and how a creature made of hatred will ultimately destroy itself. It’s good stuff.

Series 2: The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit together create a surprisingly deep and at times terrifying story. It’s tense, it’s engaging, and unlike a lot of two-parters, almost nothing goes to waste. And as ridiculous as the Doctor defeating Satan with the power of belief in Rose Tyler might sound, The Satan Pit makes it work. Especially since Rose kills Satan. That’s canon!

Series 3: Yeah, it’s Blink. If I was just going on single episodes, The Family of Blood might grab the prize, but I don’t like it’s first part. Blink does have the weird quality of being incredibly unlike a regular Doctor Who episode, but it uses that to its advantage. Blink is a clever, self-contained story that plays around with time travel in a way that’s still understandable. The Weeping Angels provide a unique threat, with the ability to push the tension even when they’re not on screen.

Series 4: There’s something about Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead that works. Despite being an almost perfect warning of where things will be heading, the limited scope and primal fear provided by the Vashta Nerada pull things together into something better. While future episodes might taint it a little, by its own merits this story is razor-sharp, pulls no punches, and manages an intriguing mystery or three without falling apart from its own complexity.

10th Doctor Specials: The End of Time is the big ending for the RTD era, and it’s the best of the specials. Everything comes full circle with The Return of Rassilon and the Time Lords, the resurrection of the Master, and the Tenth Doctor’s final adventure. Plus there’s bonus Wilfred Mott action, which is always a treat. Sure, the ending drags a little, but it’s not just a farewell to a Doctor, but to an entire part of the show.

Series 5: If picking The Eleventh Hour as a favourite is cheating, then cheat I will! Something about this episode just made the Eleventh Doctor click with me. It’s all go go go from the beginning, with the Doctor tearing through things, defeating the baddies and acquiring the vital bowtie. A top introduction for a top character.

Series 6: The Doctor’s Wife makes the TARDIS into a character who can interact with everyone else. And it takes this one-in-a-continutiy shot and scores like a hundred points. It’s an eclectic mix of whimsy, darkness and just a pinch of horror, that comes together to make a powerful episode about a Madman and his Blue Box. Perhaps what makes The Doctor’s Wife so good is how obviously it could have gone so wrong, yet it didn’t.

Series 7: To me, A Town Called Mercy is the essential “Dark Doctor“ episode. Rather than all the pomp that episodes trying to focus on it use, A Town Called Mercy instead has a single moment of pure, unambiguous wrongness, when the Doctor throws Kahler-Jex out of the town to die. But unlike Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Girl Who Waited, this happens in the middle of A Town Called Mercy, meaning it actually has to be addressed. There’s a part of the Doctor who’s a killer, but in the end, that’s not who he is.

The Day of the Doctor: Hmm, somehow, The Day of the Doctor is the best episode in The Day of the Doctor. Weird. Must be a “timey-wimey“ thing!

Series 8: Oh no it’s gotta be Robot of Sherwood. “Good taste“ dicates I choose Mummy on the Orient Express or Flatline but the Doctor meeting Robin Hood and hating all of it is just too amazing. Like those other two episodes setup a lot of Twelve’s character but Robot of Sherwood has Robin Hood, robots, and Merry Men. Truly, we must embrace that Doctor Who has never been serious and pick Robot of Sherwood as a favourite.

Series 9: By process of elimination, my favourite pair here is Under the Lake and Before the Flood. This series is packed full of multi-parters, meaning the obvious contender of Heaven Sent gets dragged down by what it’s attached to. But hey, the Fisher King manages to be generally competent, and it all ties together quite nicely, unlike a lot of the time trickery type episodes. Plus they’re the only episodes that don’t feel like they’ve been mangled by the series gimmick, which helps.

Series 10: Thin Ice is a (mostly) fun little period piece, with bonus violence against a racist. It’s also got some really good characterisation for both the Doctor and Bill, with the spots of darkness in the episode spurring them on. And in the end, compassion wins, showing that even grumpy Twelve is a softy at heart.

Series 11: The Woman Who Fell to Earth is the best new Doctor episode since The Eleventh Hour, and it’s a bit above the rest of Series 11 as well. It gets right into the Doctor stuff, with Thirteen making a fighting start. Honestly the odd Doctors seem to be doing best, while the evens spend a lot of time sleeping. This episode also does a good job of juggling the three companions, which can’t hurt when the other episodes tend not to.

Series 12: It’s another wacky one with Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror. Honestly half the reason it gets the pick is that by the time it ends, everything in it is resolved. The rest of Series 12 is a mass of loose threads, which don’t all get tied off. On it’s own merits, however, it’s a punchy episode that feels very much like an RTD era adventure, with a cool mix of action and positivity. I think it stands on it’s own merits, even without the boost of the rest of the series being a bit of a mess.

Christmas: The Runaway Bride for Ten, because it’s got a nice bit of action, some fun bits and some sad bits, without being a total downer, and also Ten doesn’t spend most of the episode in a coma. For Eleven, I’m going to be weird and pick The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, mainly because Eleven’s Christmas episodes aren’t that great and this one is about the best of them. For Twelve, it’s Husbands of River Song, for being a fun time adventure that’s only marginally Christmas related, while also having some somber moments.

New Year: Thirteen would be sad to know she doesn’t get a Christmas special, but Resolution is close enough, and is actually one of the better modern Dalek episodes. Sure, it’s no Dalek, but it plays in a similar space and manages to make an unarmored Dalek a complete and total threat.

And those are my picks! Honestly it seems to be a pretty varied set of episodes, although it looks like “wacky historic“ is making a good showing. Also some episodes that are part of multi-part stories ended up suffering since they got attached to the rest of their stories. It’s not a very scientific process, so there’s probably no “favourite factor“ that could be distilled from these episodes, beyond “puts effort into making the premise work“, which seems more like a bare minimum than something special. I guess it’s notable that I didn’t pick any finales, but did pick two new Doctor episodes.

Maybe I’d have more conviction in my negative opinions?

#doctor who #doctor who rewatch

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xxmisty · 4 years

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My Big Humiliating Torchwood Confession - Part 1 :P

Warning: this will be a LONG post, and i’m sorry about that!

Lucy is sat opposite me asking me repeatedly if I’ve started typing yet because she knows how desperately i’m putting off making this post!!1

This is awful, this is.... probably the most embarrassingly intimate confession i’ll have made since the day I opened up about my fetish way back at the start of 2013. And on the surface of it it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal but IT IS TO ME! And a big chunk of the trauma i’m about to express is tongue in cheek but it’s genuinely been - and continues to be - a huge bundle of DISTRESS AND HUMILIATION AND UTTER RESENTMENT!!! Because this year has been.... one hell of a personal journey and i don’t even mean anything to do with the pandemic.

It all started on New Year’s Day. I was feeling horrendously ill; the miraculous medication that had started to give me my life back had run out and thanks to the festive postal delays my new lot hadn’t arrived yet. I was in agony, I had a horrible headache, I felt sick and I could hardly move. We spent the day watching a bunch of muppet stuff, and that night we watched the first ep of season 12 of Doctor Who and, y’know, it was a pretty damn good episode (plus thirteen in the suit.... fuuckkk)

So afterwards we started having a discussion about Chris Chibnall - we’ve long held criticisms about some of his writing (not all of it, but it’s a mixed bag) and Lucy told me I still hadn’t seen his worst writing because that was for Torchwood...

Which I had never seen. Which I had been desperately trying not to see, although I didn’t know why. I just always had this vibe like a big “NO ENTRY!” sign at the idea of ever watching it. It’s not as though I had a logical reason for it, it’s not like I’d read up about it and thought, ‘naahhhhhh, I don’t fancy watching that’. I just had a big WARNING sign in my head, telling me not to go there.

Several years ago Lucy made me watch the first episode (after i’d been avoiding her threats of showing it to me for like 2 years) and like... it wasn’t horrible? It wasn’t... great either... but it didn’t kill me. Then a couple of years ago she showed me Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang because we were having a big Runaways phase so she wanted to show me an episode with James Marsters in. Again, it didn’t kill me. It wasn’t horrible. But I still had those big NO ENTRY!!! signs up in my head. I was still trying desperately to avoid actually being shown Torchwood as a show.

And the the new year happened and I was too WEAK AND DEFENCELESS to know what was happening when Lucy and I cuddled up in bed that night. I was too sick to really comprehend what she was doing or to fight back when she announced she was going to show me the very worst of Chris Chibnall’s writing... and put on Day One followed by Cyberwoman.

Oh. My. God.

All day I had been in a state of physical agony. Suddenly my mental and emotional state was far, FAR worse!!! The sex gas alien was bad enough, then by the time she put on Cyberwoman my brain was trying to shut down. I used to suffer blackouts and, god, I kept blacking out all the way through it, and instead of being her usual loving, wonderful self she KEPT FORCING ME TO COME ROUND TO WATCH IT!!!

By this point it was gone midnight and I was in a state of utter distress!! This was the worst double helping of tv I had ever sat through in my life and I sat up and let forth a tirade of absolute distress! This, I decided, had to be the reason I’d been avoiding Torchwood. Because it was more like.... Torurewood :P

Yep, that had to be it. Couldn’t possibly be anything worse, could it?

At least now lucy had shown me those two terrible Chibnall eps I would NEVER EVER HAVE TO WATCH THEM AGAIN. Or ANY Torchwood episodes. Yes, my ordeal was over. Had to be.

Nope. We went back to bed and she put on Out if Time. And i’ll admit, the story was much stronger but goddddd I had issues with the endings! And my level of despair started to rise even higher. I HATED Torchwood! This was the most distressing night’s viewing ever and I just wanted to go to sleep and be done with it all! Lucy put one more episode on afterwards: They Keep Killing Suzie. And that was much better but halfway through we finally fell asleep - so surely my trauma was over with.

Nope.

I had horrible nightmares of a very thirsty Gwen coming onto me all night, over and over again and it was HORRIBLE!!! Like, you have no idea how distressed I was! And when I woke up I blamed lucy whole-heartedly and she very sympathetically laughed at my plight!

But yeah. My trauma was over. No more Torchwood. I’d suffered the night from hell. Now it was time to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and move on! My medication arrived that day, I started work on some new pet portraits and life went back to normal.

Until that night, when I saw the telltale sign of Lucy putting a video on and turning her iPad around and then there they were - the opening titles of Torchwood - and I wanted to jump out the boat and into the canal and swim as far away as possible!!!

But the episode she put on was Fragments. She said she wanted to show me Chris Chibnall’s finest episode. And y’know what? It was really pretty fucking good. And god, I was fURIOUS about that!!! When we went to bed she pulled a real double whammy though by putting on Adam - which became instantly one of my favourite episodes of ANYTHING, EVER. And I looked at my wife, shook my head, sighed and told her, ‘nice save, Lucy... nice save...’

Over the next couple of weeks we also had a major Doctor Who rewatch and revisited most of the New Who era, and - to my mixed feelings - she dotted various other episodes of Torchwood in around them. I was conflicted - after the Adam and Fragments double bill I was no longer in brain-screamy hatred territory. I did however keep having flashbacks to that godawful night. Plus i’d had several further nightmares about a thirsty Gwen and I did NOT like it! But by a couple of weeks into January I’d seen a fair bit of Torchwood. Some of them twice.

Around this same time I’d started back in testosterone after not being able to afford it for the last 3 years. And then I started to notice I was getting some..... urghhhhhh..... unusual... and very uncomfortable feelings... about certain.... things... and characters.

And I started falling headlong into a great big gay panic :P

And here’s where the whole story becomes a HELL of a lot more embarrassing so i’m going to put it under a read more :P

Did ya click on that read more? Wh-why? there’s nothing to see here... especially not a long tale of shame and distress :P ugggghhhhhhh ok, FINE;

Basically there were two things happening at the same time. One was that I started to feel something I hadn’t felt in two decades. When I was a kid/teen we didn’t have the phrase ‘hyperfixation’ so I just called them obsessions. I always had obsessions, at any given point there was always this ONE THING that was my entire life. i lived it, breathed it, became it. It was my whole world, my whole personality, my focus, my lifeline. 9 times out of 10 it would be a tv show. Between the ages of 12 and 15 I would generally change my obsession about once a month. There were several ‘usual suspects’ that would cycle around over and over - Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, Sonic the Hedgehog, Halfway Across the Galaxy, Parallel 9, Out of this World...

late in 1995 I became obsessed with The X Files and - bizarrely - that obsession just ran and ran. I was so used to my obsession changing around once every month that it was bizarre to still be absolutely hyperfixated on it almost 9 months later. And then, in June 1996, my longest ever obsession took its place, a little known uk fantasy show called Bugs.

That... was my longest running obsession. And oh my god, was I ever obsessed with it. I have no idea how that one obsession kept going for 3 years. i’m sorry this is particularly wordy but this is kind of personal and I want to explain this right.

If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll probably known that one of the most defining moments of my life happened in the summer of ‘98. My cousin’s husband sexually assaulted me and my life spiralled into total despair. While that night was bad enough, the slow breakdown I went through over the course of the year that followed was harder to recover from. And eventually I came out the other side to some degree but i’d lost my love of three things that made me the person I was: writing, drawing and being obsessed. All three were so closely entangled with that night and surviving afterwards that it changed something that had always been a fundamental part of me.

I was no longer able to feel obsession. To hyperfixate the way I previously had. It was like something was broken inside me. And that was like a loss unto itself. It was SUCH a big part of me. It had been the only way i’d survived years of depression when I was young. My obsessions were what kept me afloat.

In the last decade there are a few things that I called ‘obsessions’ and I thought were as close as I would ever get to the way I used to feel. I thought maybe it was because i’d ‘grown up’ (pah). That’s not to say that i wasn't thoroughly into Ashes to Ashes, FNAF and Homestuck, for example, because of course I was! I even called them obsessions, but there was something that just... wasn’t the same, no matter what I did.

And over time, I got back the other things I’d lost. I started writing my A2A fics in 2010 and Lucy helped me to start drawing again in 2018 and god, both times it was like finally having a piece of myself returned after so long! As for my ‘obsessions’, I just thought I wasn't able to feel the way I used to because I wasn’t a kid any more.

But then, I thought that about Christmas Eve too, and then lucy came into my life <3

Still, the last thing I was expecting was... for *those* feelings to start sneaking back in my life. Feelings I hadn’t been able to experience since the summer of 1998-9. And to my further distress I discovered that they were relating to a certain show that I’d had a traumatising introduction to on new year’s day...

Suddenly it was all I could think about; TORCHWOOD! TORCHWOOD! Aargghhhhh and yet I still hated it! It was still awful! And yet... at the same time... it was so goooooooood.... arghhhhh, every time we watched an episode there was a knife twisting in my guts, reminding me that I hadn’t even felt these feelings over things we’d been HUGELY into... the fandoms we’d met through, the fandoms we discovered together. Nope. It was Torchwood that brought back my ability to hyperfixate! And I have SO MANY ANGRY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS!!!! Grrrrrrrrr!!

And believe me, I kept thinking it was going to stop and go away BUT IT HASN’T! It’s only gotten worse! And as of yesterday Torchwood officially became my second longest obsession ever!!!

I. AM. FURIOUS!!!

It’s... urrghhhh I hate this fact but it’s almost like I have a crush on the *show*??!!! I... can’t explain it better than that??? It’s like, if I could throw Torchwood on the bed and make sweet, sweet love to it I would :P and yeah, i’m saying all of this tongue in cheek but i’ve had a fucking sky high libido ever since I went back on T (ohhhhh and believe me I am LOVING it!!! 💙💙💙) But it’s like... there are elements of Torchwood itself that are so fucking hot that I get.... reactions that I am SO FUCKING EMBARRASSED ABOUT for so many reasons deidjdhdggjhaaahhhhhhhhh

Lucy literally only has to say ‘Torchwood’ at me and I end up in a gibbering heap half the time - I am not even kidding!!!

This, however, is NOT the worst thing that happened as a result of Lucy making me watch this god damned show.

But honestly this post has gone on WAY too long already so i’m going to save that for part 2.

Oh god... my shame.... my total and utter shame....

To be continued :P

#torchwood #about me #me #obsessions #hyperfixation #moirspritmaterail blogging #Lucy is MEAN!!!#my posts

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marysfoxmask · 3 years

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the secret garden (1949) - why it’s my favorite adaptation

hello @renee-mariposa! thank you so much for the ask! while i believe i have answered a question like this before, i don’t think i’ve elaborated as much as i’d like to. so allow me to wax poetic on my favorite adaptation, the secret garden (1949)!

intro

this adaptation really stands out, i think, because of the the era it was made in; i don’t think you could get an adaptation aimed towards kids that is such a sentimental, gothic-lite melodrama with these days, at least without aggressively telegraphing its more emotional moments a la pixar/disney; it’s amusingly blunt and straightforward in that regard, much like the children at its center. there’s not much syrupiness at all. the child actors (margaret o’brien as mary and dean stockwell as colin) are fast-talking as any actor of that era, but in my opinion, the film’s clearly scripted dialogue just makes all the kids seem amusingly precocious.

actors

margaret o’brien as mary is great. i love her stridency, her snobbishness. unlike other adaptations, which downplay mary’s contrariness to the point where her character arc comes across as too subtle by half, the movie upgrades it. not only is 1949 mary contrary, her sullenness has been replaced by a shrillness, snobbery, and the tendency to run to emotional extremes (not to mention a healthy helping of classism). she alienates herself from the other children on the ship to england purposefully, finding them inferior to herself, then attempts to physically fight another passenger when the child calls archibald a hunchback. while this characterization isn’t book-accurate (book mary is a mix of fiery and sullen that none of the films capture accurately imo), i prefer this characterization of her to the closed-off sullenness of the 1993 version or the palatably traumatized 2020 version. 1949 mary isn’t given an obvious freudian excuse for her issues; her parents are just as neglectful, but the film puts the onus on mary for being contrary, which is weirdly refreshing and more attuned to the novel’s perspective. (that isn’t to say that mary’s traumatic early childhood didn’t inform her character in any meaningful way, or that the adults around mary aren’t responsible for how she turned out--but imo the films tend to take an un-nuanced view of the situation in order to make her a more palatable, sympathetic character, which is vastly less interesting than a complicated, flawed one no matter if the character is a child or not). when mary’s character develops and she becomes sweeter, it’s much more impactful as a result of this earlier narrative choice.

brian roper, who was 20 at the time (crazy, right?), plays dickon, and he plays him with a sweet affability that’s hard not to enjoy. he’s a little mischievous, laughing at mary when she accidentally speaks yorkshire (i’ll talk about that in a bit), and has, in a nice touch that i’ve strangely only seen in in the 1994 straight-to-dvd animated film, just as much of a passionate interest in the secret garden as mary does. dickon isn’t treated as mystically as other adaptations, save for the tendency to disappear strangely quickly just when mary happens to turn around (which is a nice nod to his quasi-magical aspects without being distracting, and also adds to mary’s sense of displacement/confusion on the mysterious misselthwaite grounds). he also gets a surprising amount to do in this adaptation, which i love, as someone who strongly believes his character has been under-served in all the film adaptations thus far. in this film, he gets to even enter misselthwaite manor by climbing up ivy into colin’s room in the middle of a storm (albeit offscreen), which is just the kind of adventurous, dramatic touch i enjoy. he also gets probably more dialogue than any of the other dickons (whoo!), as he makes a couple minor declarations--nothing super ham-fisted and melodramatic, as i said the screenplay is rather straightforward and devoid of a lot of corniness you might expect from a children’s film made in the ‘40s, especially with this kind of source material--that are heartfelt without being cloying (one of the benefits of having an older actor playing this kind of role).

colin, played by dean stockwell, is a weaker element to me. he does a good job alternating between screaming (and this movie contains a lot of screaming) and being sweet when the movie calls for it, but i don’t think he was the best choice for colin. while i think it’s awful to criticize a teen actor (stockwell was 13 at the time) for being baby-faced, the fact that he looks significantly younger than o’brien (who was 12) means that his tantrums come off as less a result of arrested development than they should. while he speaks as stiltedly as 2020 colin (who i personally think was one of the best elements of that film), it’s unclear whether that’s the result of the ‘40s fashion of expressing dialogue or a characteristic choice (i’m guessing the former). he can’t help but pale compared to o’brien’s mary, though he is perfectly adequate. he just didn’t stand out for me.

i summed up my feelings of elsa lanchester as martha in my previous, brief review of the movie back in june: “the one major flaw, i think, is actually martha, played by elsa lanchester; her portrayal is odd, feels definitely tone-deaf. her constant shrieking laughter feels very forced and unconvincing. in her few scenes, she jars everything to a halt in terms of believability.” she was significantly older than brian roper, being in her ‘40s playing a character heavily implied to be in her mid-teens to early twenties, and as a result feels out of her depth. her establishing scene is probably the worst, although i’ve warmed to her other scenes as time’s gone by.

tone/atmosphere

in general, i think the ‘49 film does a wonderful job expressing the gothic implications of the original book, even emphasizing them by casting misselthwaite manor largely in shadow and having mary and mrs. medlock first arrive in a carriage pulled by black horses on a dark, stormy night. it makes the bright outdoor scenery seem that much more inviting in comparison. burnett’s robin is also replaced by a raven, who also takes on aspects of dickon’s crow soot, as he is friends with dickon and hops on his shoulder occasionally. while it divulges from burnett’s book, i think a raven makes a little more sense in this adaptation, which amps up the eeriness of the original story; it gives mary’s journey a little more of a fairytale aspect, i think, and is overall an understandable and palatable change.

plot

the big plot development that divulges from the novel is the presence of a subplot where, due to a misunderstanding of an axe and a tree in the titular garden, mary and dickon fall under the impression that archibald killed lilias. now, this is a pretty bizarre plot, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t take up much of the film; it’s charming in its strangeness, and fits well with the idea of innocent children struggling to understand the complicated adult world—which is itself a theme original to the story that i’m kind of a sucker for, in general. it also serves as a bonding point for dickon and mary, whose friendship largely feels passed over in film adaptations.

and, of course, there’s the big plot-breaking point near the end, where archibald goes to tell colin that he’s selling misselthwaite and going to move to europe with him. an obvious plot point that conflicts with this scene is that colin, in the book, has no relationship with his father. again, it’s an odd adaptational choice meant to amp up the stakes, but it doesn’t impede my enjoyment of the film as a whole. the presence of two doctors—one, a hapless neville craven figure named dr. griddlestone, and the other is obviously inspired from the book’s “doctor from london,” who insisted all colin needed was fresh air, food, and exercise—gives the film some psychological weight. despite the disappointing element of all of colin’s neuroses being blatantly the result of his father’s emotional ailments, which i think is a lazy way of reading the original novel’s portrayal of colin’s illness, i think the way this development was executed in the film was tolerable—and i’m a sucker for children’s films that don’t think anything of including long conversations between adults about psychological issues. like, you can’t help but respect a film like that!

the garden

something i also love about this adaptation is that the garden isn’t a huge part of it; it represents more of a place where mary and dickon and colin can foster ideas and grow rather than a place of orgasmic beauty. there’s not a surplus of lavish panning shots, really, like in the ‘93 film, and it lacks the magical realism of the 2020 film. the garden itself is more transparently a plot device, which i actually like—it gives more room for the children to center themselves.

individual scenes

and the pacing of the film is actually really nice, i think—probably the best out of all the films. i love the ‘93 film with all my heart, and it’s definitely gorgeous in its own right, but i think it gets a little sluggish; this film is paced beautifully. there’s no fat, really.

there’s a scene i really love that shows the passage of time from winter to spring in a super succinct, stupidly obvious way that nonetheless works because of the innocent sweetness of o’brien’s delivery. like, it’s very old-fashioned and sentimental, but gah, it gets me every time.

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it’s time to talk about the scream scene!

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this film stole my heart the minute mary screamed wholeheartedly at colin that she hopes he dies. there’s a dark comedy to this whole scene; these two maladjusted, spoiled children trying to out-scream one another while tearing down curtains and knocking down tables full of food higgledy-piggledy?? you just can’t get better than that!

if you’re adapting the secret garden, i strongly feel you can’t soften the children’s meanness, their sharpness and ugliness. their tantrums must be harsh and grating and horrible! they have to really let loose! the rawness of the children’s emotional dysfunction contrasted against the buttoned-up stiffness of edwardian england is one of the fascinating aspects of the novel i love to think about, and you just can’t get that contrast if you don’t have the children be genuine terrors! i think this scene puts that nicely, more nicely than any of the other films, which pussyfoot around colin’s intense tantrum too much to be nearly as effective. i get giddy whenever this scene comes on; it’s brilliant.

there are so many little details from the book that i love: that the children speak yorkshire to one another, mary singing her ayah’s song to colin,

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dickon’s “i will cum bak” note (here written as “i will kum back”), the mention of dickon’s mother sending them bread to eat to make them strong. it’s all so nicely implemented, and reminds me of the joy of reading the book for the first time.

but the scene i love most is one entirely made up for the film. in it, mary tells colin about the garden, but wraps it up in fiction wherein it’s a sort of child’s eden, only accessible for children like themselves. that gets to the heart of why i love the book moreso than any other adaptation i can think of. it’s a children’s paradise where the innocent, inherent goodness of children reigns. it makes me tear up almost every time, despite the scene’s brevity.

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miscellaneous

there are some little details that i love about this film: the fact that mrs. sowerby is spotted in one scene where we see dickon at his home, feeding a lamb (and the implication that mary was so darn excited about finding the key to the garden that she ran all the way to the sowerbys’ cottage, five miles away from misselthwaite, to show dickon), mary’s clearly false story to colin about being surrounded by tigers and elephants in india, mary threatening to tear people’s gizzards out, mary telling dickon she hates him because he (gasp) dared to know about colin so she couldn’t reveal his existence to him...there’s a lot to enjoy about this film. it definitely isn’t the most accurate to the book, but it’s one of those films that i could watch over and over again.

aside from some superfluous subplots, it’s a lean adaptation that still captures all the essential elements of the book to at least to a degree. i can easily imagine some very indignant little girls in 1949 insisting that no, the raven was a robin in the book, and there was no implications of murder, either, but i love it in all its simplicity. i think you need a little old-fashioned sentiment to make a film adaptation of the secret garden successful.

#the secret garden #frances hodgson burnett #the secret garden 1949 #mary lennox #dickon sowerby #colin craven #margaret o'brien #dean stockwell #brian roper #elsa lanchester

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alj4890 · 4 years

Text

None But You

(Thomas Hunt x oc*Amanda) in a regency era romance as requested by @pixieferry

A/N So sorry this took so long. Migraines and writer’s block are making life so pleasant. We are slowly coming to the end of our series. I have loved how Thomas is in a regency AU. That proud man oozes Mr. Darcy vibes. Let’s see how everyone reacts to the shooting and plans to depart the Rawlings’ residence.

@graceful-popcorn @krsnlove @alleksa16 @hopelessromantic1352 @pixieferry @emceesynonymroll @buzz-bee-buzz @hopefulmoonobject @rainbowsinthestorm @lxaah11 @my-heart-beats-for-ya @everythingmarvelsherlockspn @friedherringclodthing @aworldoffandoms @ab1901 @i-bloody-love-drake-walker

Masterlist

Summary: Everyone comes to terms with Lord Ryan Summers being shot. Was it an accident? Or, was someone else the intended target? We also begin our journey to Lord Hunt’s home, Kirkwood Manor for the wedding.

Part 12

"Shh." Lady Henrietta Rawlings held her daughter close. "All will be well, darling."

"Oh Mamma." Millie cried. "I cannot lose him. Not after I realized" She trailed off as another sob tore through.

Henrietta smiled softly to herself. It had come as a pleasant surprise to find that her daughter had fallen in love with the one man she and Lord Gabriel Rawlings wished for her.

When Millie burst into tears upon hearing the news that Lord Ryan Summers had been shot, she knew her daughter must truly care for the man. After leaving Lucy in charge of the guests, she took her daughter to her bedroom so that she could cry in privacy.

Her smile dimmed as she remembered that the young marquess might not survive his wound. She couldn't bear the thought of her daughter finding love to only lose it so quickly.

"Stay here." She ordered. "I'll go see what the doctor says."

Millie blew her nose while nodding. "Please find out all you can."

***************

Thomas and Chris decided early on to escape members of the house party. With Amanda in tow, the three claimed one of the empty parlors.

Guests were frantic with gossip and predictions that Lord Summers would die from his injury. Ladies were sniffling in their handkerchiefs, lamenting the loss of a young man of both excellent breeding and fortune. Some of the visiting gentlemen took advantage of the situation to offer comfort to the more desirable matches.

Once Sir Chris shut the door, the three relaxed as best they could under the circumstances.

"How is Lord Ryan?" Amanda asked "Have you heard anything yet?"

"The doctor was able to remove the bullet from his shoulder." Thomas poured a libation for himself and Chris and then a glass of sherry for his lady. "It was a miracle that it missed anything vital."

"That is a blessing." Amanda set her barely touched glass down.

"What I want to know is," Chris bit out, "how the bloody blazes, forgive me, my lady, do a group of seasoned grouse hunters manage to shoot a man?"

Thomas gripped his glass. "Ryan was standing beside me." He took a healthy gulp in the hopes the brandy would burn away the image of his friend bleeding before him. "He then stepped back to ready his rifle."

Amanda covered her mouth. "You would have been shot in the back if he hadn't moved."

He nodded. "Seems odd that after enduring days of tense encounters with the duke that a man next to me is struck down by a stray bullet."

Chis snorted. "Tense barely scratches the surface."

"Has any gentleman stepped forward, claiming they shot Lord Ryan?" Amanda asked, praying it was truly a fluke accident.

"Not that I'm aware of." Thomas quirked an eyebrow in question to Chris.

"I haven't." He answered. "I believe that Lord Gabriel and Michael are going to question everyone."

While Thomas and Chris continued to speculate the shooting incident, Amanda's attention was drawn toward a flurry of activity outside the window.

Carriages were pulling up outside. Some of the houseguests were taking their leave. There were many that hoped to be the first to share the gossip at the many ton events that awaited them in London.

Her eyes darted to the left. Duke Viktor Montmarte stepped forward after giving a farewell to a trio of ladies, tittering at his flirtatious comments.

"I believe we should corner Montmarte's valet." Thomas explained. "I find it strange that he accompanied his grace for the hunt."

Chris softly cursed under his breath. "I didn't notice he was there. What gentleman has a valet that is also well versed in reloading rifles?" He set his glass down in the midst of standing up. "Where is the scoundrel?"

"They've left along with others." Amanda replied. "I do not think we will ever know who truly shot Lord Summers"

***************

"Papa?" Millie whispered outside Ryan's chambers. "Are you certain he is being properly cared for?"

Lord Gabriel's lips trembled with mirth. "Feel free to check on him if you wish. I was planning on sending Sanders in periodically to make certain the marquess is resting comfortably."

"Periodically!" Millie gasped in outrage. "Lord Ryan should have someone at hand until he is strong enough to leave his bed."

Lord Gabriel decided to withhold the information that Lord Ryan had regained consciousness earlier and had no trouble whatsoever with getting up to find a softer shirt to change into.

He had already spoken to Henrietta about letting Millie nurse the gentleman in the hopes the two would finally see that they belonged together.

"My dear," her father said in a condescending tone he knew would spur her on to defying him. "He will be fine on his own for the rest of the evening. We have guests we must entertain and help prepare for their departure on the morrow. You should--"

"Hang the guests!" Millie snapped. "If they are too witless to know how to act when a man lies at death's door, then they deserve no such courtesies!" She opened Ryan's door and slipped inside.

Henrietta popped her head around from around a corner. "You handled that well."

Gabriel chuckled as he walked over to her. "I've learned over the years how to get my ladies to do exactly what I wish."

Hen's eyes narrowed on her husband. "What was that?"

He winked at her as he escaped downstairs. "How else do you think I managed to trick you into bringing up marriage before I did?

"You wretched beast!" Hen screeched.

He laughed as he dashed downstairs.

Her lips eased into a smug smile once he had disappeared. "Foolish man. If he only knew I knew that was his plan all along."

**************

Ryan's eyes flew open when he heard water being poured. He scanned his dim chamber and nearly bolted upright when he saw Millie wetting a rag.

Curious to what she planned to do, he closed his eyes and feigned sleep.

She tiptoed over and gently placed the cool rag on his forehead.

He peeked at her from under his lashes. Her teeth were tugging at her bottom lip as she observed him. There was a crease forming in the middle of her forehead as her eyes narrowed somewhat in thought.

He relaxed when he felt her fingers gently combing through his hair. It was a soothing, almost loving touch that he felt down to his toes.

It took all his willpower to remain still when he heard the click of his door opening again. If anyone were to catch Millie alone in his bedroom, the scandal would rock the entire ton.

Millie's head jerked up at the intrusion. When she saw who it was, she decided to not bother being kind.

"What the devil are you doing here?!"

Victoria paused before shutting the door. "I could ask you the same question."

Ryan flinched from the hiss in the intruder’s tone. Both women noticed the movement and lowered their voices for his sake.

"I am nursing Lord Summers." Millie ground out.

"I believe he would prefer my tender ministrations over yours." Victoria's smile was a touch brittle. "After all, he has made a point to spend more time in my company than anyone else's."

Millie bristled at her not so subtle meaning. "Be that as it may, Lord Ryan is a guest in my home. Therefore his care falls under my responsibility."

Ryan frowned somewhat at that statement. He didn't want her to feel obligated to care for him. He had hoped she was doing so for a deeper, more heartfelt reason. This irritated him even more that he desired such an emotion from the bane of his existence.

"Well, I have a way with men that helps speed their recovery." Victoria countered smugly. "Why don't you go and try to obtain that which you don't have."

The lady made a shooing motion with her hands as she approached the bed.

"And what exactly have I yet to obtain?" Millie's voice had lowered and sounded more sinister than Ryan had ever heard. He cracked open his eyes. Never had he been more grateful to not be the recipient of her temper.

Victoria was oblivious to the effect her provocations had on the young lady.

"Poor little Lady Millicent." She sadly shook her head. "It must be devastating to have your closest friend, who we must admit is not a great beauty, make such an advantageous match in the midst of her first season while you have yet to capture attention from any gentleman within the span of nearly three seasons." Her lips curved into a mocking smile. "Even now the less popular ones are not inclined to give you anything but a cursory glance."

Millie was practically shaking with her anger. "How dare you?!"

Victoria ignored her, moving to fluff Ryan's pillows.

Millie snatched her wrist and roughly pushed her away.

"You wicked little viper." Victoria snapped, wrenching her arm free. "Do you honestly believe he would choose someone like you over someone like me?" She narrowed her eyes on Millie. "You are nothing but an annoyance to him."

Ryan noticed the color drain from Millie's face. Her hesitation touched his heart. In that brief moment, he realized that she believed he wouldn't choose her.

"Millie, are you--," Victoria's laugh echoed in the chamber, "You are! You are in love with Lord Ryan."

The man fully opened his eyes to see how Millie would respond to what had to be a farfetched notion.

Her blush and twisting of the rag in her hands appeared to point toward it being true.

"Oh this is rich." Victoria snorted while laughing again. "You'll never be able to show your face in London again after everyone hears about this." Her malicious smile reappeared. "Not only have you caused a scandal, but you fell in love with a man that barely tolerates his acquaintance with you."

Ryan spoke up when he saw the tears building in Millie's eyes. "Leave my room. Now."

Both ladies jumped and turned to look a him.

Victoria smiled sweetly. "My lord, I've already told her that she is unwanted." She went to pull the covers up over his chest.

Ryan caught her hands. "You are the one that is unwanted, Ms. Fontaine."

She narrowed her eyes. "You must be delirious, sir." She forced another sweet smile. "I'll call for the doctor. A fever might be setting in."

Ryan's polite veneer that he had worn throughout his life was nowhere to be found. Millie watched in a state of disbelief as he set the misguided woman straight.

"Ms. Fontaine, I have unwillingly endured your forced company this entire visit." He began. "If not for my respect of Lady Cora and Lord Michael Rawlings, I would have cut any and every conversation with you." His words were clipped and held an edge sharper than a blade. "My patience has reached its end."

He turned toward Millie. "My dear Lady Millicent, will you please pour me a glass of water?"

She gave a brief nod and hurried to get him what he asked for.

Victoria, upon realizing she was being ignored, decided to leave and spread what gossip she could.

She was in for quite a surprise on learning that Lord and Lady Rawlings had already explained the situation to their remaining guests, making Millie's actions all above board.

"Here." Millie slipped her arm behind Ryan's shoulders.

Instead of admitting he could easily sit up, he decided to play along, struggling with every movement. He weakly grasped her hand that held his cup and took a long, slow sip.

"Thank you." He exaggerated a groan as he sank down against the pillows. "That altercation took a great deal out of me."

Is there anything else I can do for you?" She worried over him.

"What can be done at such a dark moment?" He asked, tinging his voice with sadness. "I have been brought to my lowest." He covered his eyes with his uninjured arm. "How does one go on after this?"

Millie hemmed and gently grasped his hand. "My lord, you will come back from this. I know you have a deep strength that will aid in your recovery."

"My life will never be the same." He said in a gravelly voice. "What will become of me?"

Millie swiped at her stray tears. "Ryan, I--"

"Nothing but a lifetime of pity." He wailed, getting into his role of injured gentleman. "No lady will ever wish to marry me for myself. I will only be desired for my wealth and title."

"That's not true." Millie argued. "You--"

"She won't be able to look at me without seeing a once dashing, handsome man wounded beyond repair." He continued, peeking from under his arm at her.

"Ryan, you're going to be fine." Millie insisted. "You must recover. I need--"

"This is the end of Lord Ryan Summers." He interrupted. "The man you once knew who made ladies' hearts race is no more." He let his arm fall weakly to his side. "I am forever scarred."

Millie narrowed her eyes. "Is that all you care about?"

He turned toward her. "Is what all I care about?"

"Your effect on women." Millie bit out. "One would think a brush with death would cause a man to rethink his life and strive for something more."

"Millie, I-" he began, struggling with his laughter.

"Perhaps Victoria should tend you." Millie stood up and threw the wet rag in his face. "I am not the kind to give you the comfort you so rightly deserve."

"Now Millie," Ryan tossed the rag on the table, "I prefer your tender--" he grunted when she pushed him back down on the bed.

"I cannot believe I worried over you!" She pointed at the bandage at his shoulder. "You're perfectly fine!"

"I was shot in the shoulder." He argued, sitting up once more. "And it hurt like bloody hell removing the bullet."

"Not nearly enough!" She snapped. "You deserve so much more discomfort."

"Millie!" Ryan scrambled off the bed and blocked her exit. "Now Millie, you know you love me."

"I do not!" She screeched. "Whatever," she searched for the appropriate comparison to her previous feelings, "weakness I might have felt, it has thankfully disappeared." She waved her hand. "Kindly move."

"No." He folded his arms, then winced at the pain it caused.

The flash of anger Millie felt disappeared at glimpsing his actual pain. "Oh Ryan." She stepped forward and gently touched his cheek. "You must take it easy."

She slipped her arm around him and guided him back to his bed. She once again fluffed his pillows and covered him up. The entire time, she insisted he allow her to care for him.

Ryan's lips curved at her fussing over him once more. A man, he thought, could get very used to this.

***************

"Did you discover anything?" Amanda asked.

Thomas had pulled her off to an alcove after dinner. He kept her hand in his as they discussed his fruitless search for the shooter.

"Nothing pertinent. The few gentlemen that have remained for another night were all focused on the grouse." He lifted her hand to his lips. "Perhaps it was an accident after all." He grimaced with his next thought. "What if Montmarte's game was simply to cause me doubt and misery? To ruin our time together as a newly engaged couple."

"That is a possibility." She conceded. "Though I believe our original stance to remain guarded around him was wise. He does not strike me as a man that chooses inaction." She smiled softly as he brushed another kiss against her knuckles. "At least he is gone."

Thomas nodded, a hint of a smile forming. "Yes, and we will soon be at Kirkwood Manor." His eyes lifted to hers. "I am anxious to acquaint you with your new home."

"Oh?" Her teasing smile appeared. "Not for the wedding then?"

"That goes without saying." He grumbled. "You are very aware of how much I am looking forward to that."

She laughed, squeezing his hand. "I am looking forward to both."

Thomas hesitated, then leaned closer to whisper. "Even though Montmarte is gone, I would prefer keeping watch over you tonight." Before she could argue, he held up his hand. "I promise to rest during our journey tomorrow."

"Very well." Amanda conceded. "I see that you refuse to be swayed." Her breath hitched when he pressed a lingering kiss to the inside of her wrist. "I will see you later "

Thomas watched her wish her aunt and the Rawlings family goodnight on her way toward the stairs. His lips firmed in a frown as he wondered if they were truly once and for all rid of Viktor Montmarte.

******************

The next morning...

"Are you certain you feel up to leaving this morning?" Millie asked.

Ryan gave his thanks when one of the servants poured him a cup of coffee. "I do." His dimples deepened with his charming smile. "With you caring for me during our journey, I know that I will be fine."

His smile grew at the rosy hue forming on Millie's cheeks.

"Good morning." Amanda greeted when she and Thomas entered the dining room. "Lord Ryan! I am very pleased to see you up and about."

He stood and kissed her hand. "Nothing will stop me from seeing you and Thomas wed." He winked at her. "I have a vested interest in your marriage."

Thomas rolled his eyes. "I believe I was the one to actually court her."

"I'd like to think mine, Lady Millie's, and our closest friends' influence had a hand in nudging you toward the altar.

Chris and Matthew joined them at that moment.

"If I recall correctly," Chris grinned over his shoulder while filling his plate at the sideboard, "Our dear Thomas was very much against the notion of holy matrimony with any lady he came into contact with."

"He even encouraged other men to make a match with a certain lady." Matt added, chuckling at the glare Thomas sent him.

Amanda couldn't help but laugh at their teasing. She reached over and grasped Thomas' hand.

His eyes met hers. Seeing her warm smile, his frown disappeared. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Though he wouldn’t admit it, he was grateful they had such interfering friends.

Millie sighed at the tender action, thrilled beyond measure that all was how it should be. Nothing was standing in the way of those she cared for.

****************

A few hours later, Millie was ready to commit a murder before the wedding. With Ryan injured, she had readily agreed to riding in his carriage with him. Lady Lucinda was riding with Millie’s parents so that Amanda and Thomas could enjoy some alone time in his carriage. All seemed to point toward a pleasant journey for everyone.

Then Sir Chris and Lord Matthew insisted on joining her and Ryan.

It might have been pleasant if not for their teasing and hints that Millie and Ryan felt something deeper than mere friendship. Then again, it most likely would have been a miserable ride. The man she thought herself in love with was irritable with every jostle to his shoulder.

“Perhaps you should have waited a few days before traveling.” Millie suggested.

“I am not about to miss a single moment of my closest friend finally settling down with a young woman I actually approve of.” He snapped.

Millie’s eyes narrowed. “Then perhaps I should have chosen to ride with my parents.”

“Heaven forbid you remain with me and help nurse me back to health.” He grumbled between gritted teeth.

“I can think of a few ways to nurse you.” she mumbled under her breath, imagining shoving a rag in his mouth. “Why don’t you try and rest?”

“Capital idea.” Chris interjected when it appeared that Ryan was about to bite their only feminine company’s head off. “Go to sleep, Summers.”

“You all make it sound simple!” He snapped. “And here I am, thinking that the movement of the coach makes this contraption a torture chamber on wheels.”

“If anyone is tortured it is us that are trapped with you.” Millie countered. She folded her arms and purposely turned so that her back was to him.

“You may leave at any time you wish.” Ryan pointed out. “I was a fool to think having you with me would be a comfort.”

Millie’s gasp of outrage caused the other two men in the carriage to shrink back within their seat.

“I was more than ready to do all I could to ease your journey.” She hissed. “I had no idea though that not only are you stubborn but you are also prone to whining over every little thing.” She huffed and reached for a book to read. “I did not know I had chosen to travel with a petulant child.”

Ryan opened his mouth to deliver a crushing set down to the woman he thought he was losing his heart to.

“Here we are, sir!” His coachman called out.

Millie peeped out the window at the inn they were stopping at for the evening. She scrambled down the coach steps when she saw her father helping her mother and Lady Lucy from their carriage.

Her eyes scanned the charm of the small town and she noticed that a number of carriages were stopping at the various inns that lined the main road.

Thomas and Amanda paused on their way inside to check on Ryan.

“I pray it wasn’t too difficult on you.” Amanda said once the gentlemen had made it out.

“I managed.” Ryan quickly assured her.

Chris choked on his laughter. “He is a man to admire in how he suffers in silence.”

Millie was about to add her own cutting observation when she noticed how pale Ryan was. Sweat was glistening on his upper lip and he winced when he straightened his posture.

She stepped forward and took his uninjured arm. “Come, we should get you settled so that you can rest.”

Her sweet tone caught him by surprise. “Thank you.” He murmured, walking with her into the inn. “I do apologize for my rude behavior.” He grimaced at the pain throbbing in his shoulder. “I should have insisted you ride with your parents.”

“I should have been more understanding.” She gently squeezed his arm. “I need to work on my patience.”

“And charity.” He added, grinning at her quick temper.

She met his gaze and reluctantly smiled. “That too.”

He leaned down to whisper to her. “Perhaps you shouldn’t work too hard. I will look even more churlish if you become too angelic.”

She laughed out loud, causing his smile to to grow. “Very well. I will only partially work on my lack of patience for your sake.”

****************

“Thomas!” Amanda whispered. “What are you doing?!” She carefully opened the window to her room and stepped back so he could climb in.

“I wanted to check on you.” He replied, looking around her room only lit by a candle. “I have gotten into the habit of being unable to relax at night unless I see for myself that you are safe.”

She walked into his arms to kiss him, snuggling closer when he wrapped his arms around her. “What am I to do with you?”

“Marry me.” He suggested, pressing another kiss to her lips. “Then I can rest easy.”

She shut her window and tugged him over to her bed. “Hopefully you will once we reach Kirkwood.”

He removed his coat and cravat before settling beside her. “Hopefully.” He reached out to hold her, repositioning her until her head lay on his chest. Thomas closed his eyes as peace seemed to seep into his very bones with the feel of her in his arms. Her hushed whisper of her love for him made him even more grateful that she would soon be his for the rest of his life.

****************

Across the street, a man cloaked in shadows kept his eyes on the window that held the young lady and the man she was engaged to. He remained there, long after the candle was snuffed. Once he believed the man was not going to return to his own room, he left his post and reported all he had witnessed to his employer.

“So he is still keeping his nighttime habits, eh?” The duke chuckled while swirling brandy in his glass. He took a sip before returning his attention to his valet. “We will need to rethink our plans for the viscount and his lady.”

#None but you #Thomas Hunt #thomas hunt x oc #rcd regency au #thomas hunt x amanda #choices RCD #choices thomas hunt

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thelittlesttimelord · 3 years

Note

I had so, so many questions for DW Universe question game. Sorry if I trouble you. Number 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17, 18, 21, 24, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 40, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 56, 61, 64, 68, 70, 72, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, 84, 88, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 100.

Well, here we go!

3. First DW episode you ever saw?

I can’t actually remember. I know I kept seeing pictures of “Let’s Kill Hitler” on Pinterest and memes from series 6, so I just started watching. I started with Nine, so I’m pretty sure the first one was “Rose”.

6. Monster(s) that scared you most as a child?

THE FUCKING SCARECROWS from “Family of Blood/Human Nature”. I fucking hate those things. The mannequins from “Rose” and the Snowmen are a close second though.

7. Joke/story you didn’t get as a kid?

I didn’t really understand River’s story the first time around. I still don’t really, but it makes a bit more sense thanks to YouTube videos.

9. Who introduced you to DW?

Like I said, I kept seeing things on Pinterest and started watching because of that.

11. Who is your Doctor?

ELEVEN. But is anyone really surprised?

17. Best multi-Doctor story?

50th Anniversary, but only because it’s the only one I’ve seen.

18. Best Doctor monologue?

Shit. That’s a hard one. It’s a tie between Eleven’s final speech and Twelve’s angry one during the Zygone two-parter.

21. Favourite companion?

Unlike most people, I really like Clara. I also love Bill. I wish she’d had more than one series.

24. Best TARDIS Team?

Eleven, River, Amy, and Rory. I love their little space family.

28. Who should have been a companion but wasn’t?

Oooo. I don’t know. So I’ll answer it this way, I would’ve liked to see some companions from RTD era meet Eleven.

30. Who did you not used to like, but really like now?

Twelve. I stopped watching Doctor Who when Eleven regenerated, because I didn’t like what I saw in “Deep Breath” clips. When I went back and rewatched, I slowly fell in love with him.

31. Favourite episode ever?

The Doctor’s Wife. I love seeing Eleven and his TARDIS interact. So many good one liners!

34. Best two-parter?

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Mostly because of River and the Doctor’s interactions. It also hits a lot differently now that we know River’s whole story.

36. Episode that will always make you smile?

Vincent and the Doctor. I struggle with depression and anxiety, so I connect a lot with the story. I also live by the quote about life being a pile of good things and bad things.

37. Episode that will always make you cry?

It’s a toss up between Doomsday and The Time of the Doctor. Doomsday because of that final scene between Ten and Rose and Time of the Doctor because of Eleven’s regeneration.

40. Favourite Christmas special?

A Christmas Carol. It’s so bittersweet and I love the song at the end. Although I also kinda like Last Christmas because Twelve is such a mood.

42. Favourite series?

I really love series 4, because of the shit Donna and Ten get up to. They have the best dynamic out of the Doctor/Companion relationships.

45. Favourite series opening?

Eleventh Hour. It’s a perfect opener for Eleven. It shows off his personality and how much he will come to care for Amy.

46. Favourite series finale?

I really like The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang.

47. Best series arc?

I have to say “Bad Wolf” because none of us saw that coming. It was subtle and it was really clever.

48. Thoughts on series 11/12?

Looks okay. I haven’t really watched it. I’ve seen clips and Thirteen seems like a sweetheart and Graham is a straight up MOOD.

49. How much of Classic Who have you seen?

Absolutely none. I’ve seen clips here and there in YouTube videos and I know some storylines, but other than that I know nothing.

51. Favourite monster/villain?

Probably the Daleks. But only because they’re so stupid sometimes. Like in Victory of the Daleks...HOW THE FUCK IS A DALEK GONNA MAKE TEA?!?!?!

53. Monster(s) that scares you most?

Weeping Angels.

56. Monster you want to return?

I’d love to see the Doctor face off with the Midnight entity. Maybe she’d handle it a bit differently...

61. Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures?

Torchwood. I’ve never seen it, but I feel like I’m too grown up for the Sarah Jane Adventures.

64. Do you rewatch COE or MD?

I think given the choice, I’d probably rewatch Miracle Day because I know what happens in Children of Earth and it breaks my heart(s).

68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish?

I want to read some of the comics, but they’re hard to find in physical form. I have read some of the novels and I listen to Big Finish. I will take my Doctor Who in whatever form I can get it.

70. Do you like DW analysis (video essays, fan theories, etc)?

Oh yes. Those are my favorite kinds of videos.

72. Favourite piece of Murray Gold music?

Either Eleven or Clara’s theme music. Eleven’s theme is so epic, while Clara’s is flighty and whimsical.

75. Favourite Doctor outfit?

I’m a sucker for Eleven’s classic tweed and red bow-tie, but i also like Twelve’s look in series 9 (the old rocker look).

77. Best show runner?

I feel like if I answer this, I’ll be shot so I’ll say each show runner has brought something different to the show (whether that be good or bad). They’ve left their mark in a unique way.

78. Best writer?

Neil Gaiman, hands down. Or maybe Mark Gatiss. I love every one of their episodes.

79. Best opening titles?

Series 5. I hate the voiceover Amy has in series 6.

81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor?

Chicago in the 20′s. I’d wanna meet mobsters like Al Capone.

84. Companion you’d most like to travel with?

Donna or Martha. I feel like we’d get along pretty well.

88. Historical figure you’d like to meet?

Anne Boleyn. I admire her so much.

91. Historical event would you like to see in DW?

Maybe the French Revolution. Don’t know why. I just think it’d be cool.

92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW?

Maybe more about sexuality. We have Jack, who is Pansexual and Bill, who is a lesbian. But they kinda just go “this is this character’s sexuality and that’s that.” I’d like to see them go into it a bit more and maybe have companions with different sexualities. Like maybe an Ace companion. Or have a Transgender companion. I guess just more diversity really.

94. One unanswered DW question you’d love to know the answer to?

HOW DOES JACK BECOME THE FACE OF BOE. I need to know this before I die.

95. Actor/actress you’d like to see play the Doctor?

Tom Hiddleston. Because if he kept his natural hair color, the Doctor would finally be ginger.

96. Actor/actress you’d like to see play a companion?

I’d like to see another American companion (besides Jack), but I’d never really thought about it.

100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do?

Well Gallifrey “stands” now right (disregarding what the Master did in series 12)? I’d like to see the Doctor go back to Gallifrey and maybe find his family. I’d like to see his Timelord wife and maybe his children because they’re not dead now. I really just want the Doctor to be happy. Is that too much to ask for?

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kirbylord · 4 years

Text

Now that I (finally) finished watching the newest season of Doctor Who, I want to give my thoughts. This review includes spoilers, by the way.

Spyfall Part 1: 8/10. I had low expectations going into season 12, but this episode was great compared to all of last season. I loved the mystery and the monster and, of course, the big reveal. I was shocked! I absolutely adore the Master, he’s so goddamn childish. and did you know that O sent the doctor a pic of a catfish, bc he was one??

Spyfall Part 2: 9/10. After the first episode, I was excited going into this. (Since I watched this season after it all came out, I didn’t have to wait a week, fortunately.) I loved it, especially the reference to the four knocks/drums and the Master’s tissue compressor from classic Who. I think Dhawan’s Master has now become my favourite incarnation, although to be fair, I’ve only seen two other incarnations on screen. The only thing is they dropped Ryan, Yaz and Graham being fugitives of the law immediately by the end of the episode, and everyone who was present for Bartman’s presentation I guess just forgot that he has/had control over all their phones?

Orphan 55: 5/10. It started off strong. I got Midnight vibes at first, but the monster really wasn’t that good. The fact that they were all humans affected by global warming made me feel kind of pessimistic about the future, and most of the side character’s arcs ended poorly. I like the girl (I forget her name) who Ryan got a crush on, I wish she was around for more than one episode. I also like the furry girl with the tail... don’t judge pls.

Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror: 9.5/10. I love this episode so much and I’m not even sure why. The guy who played Nikola Tesla was such an amazing actor and after the episode I just wanted to know more about the real person behind him. And the Doctor’s chemistry with Tesla was so nice to watch. It really made me like Whittaker’s Doctor more, since I felt pretty iffy about her after season 11. Also the monster was good, reminded me of the spider woman from season 4.

Fugitive of the Judoon: 7/10. I thought bringing back the judoon was a weird decision, since I didn’t enjoy them during Tennant’s era very much. However, I surprisingly enjoyed their presence. Jack definitely brought the rating up for me, he’s just an extremely likeable character, but why didn’t he get to meet the Doctor? I would have loved to see her reaction (or disappointment) to seeing him again. Overall, this episode was very confusing. I liked Ruth as the forgotten doctor, but I don’t know how to feel about the Doctor having other incarnations than the ones we already know. It almost feels like Chibnall tried to create as much mystery as possible since people didn’t enjoy the lack of a storyline last season. Basically, idk.

Praxeus: 4.5/10. I kind of liked it, I guess. The mystery was intriguing, but I think there was too much here. And the girl whose friend died should definitely had more of a reaction to her FRIEND DYING IN FRONT OF HER. But, I thought the ex-officer and the astronaut (sorry, I forget their names) relationship was sad and cute. I’m so glad they didn’t kill off the astronaut, I’m tired of people dying.

Can You Hear Me?: 5/10. I would have put this at a 4, but I actually liked the story of the two gods. I would say they’re trying to fit too much story in a single episode, but I think DW is just like that in general. I’m glad the companions are finally getting some character development, that was probably the highlight of the episode.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati: 6/10. The idea of ghosts in DW is pretty cool, but I found most of the episode boring? I guess? I didn’t pay very close attention until the cyberman came on screen. It was an interesting concept, but I’ve never been super invested in ghost stories. I thought they would incorporate Mary Shelly into the story a bit more, too.

Ascension of the Cybermen: 7/10. It wasn’t bad. I’m glad they brought the cybermen back, but now I’m just confused about where they fit into the timelime? Why does the head cyberman feel emotion? Maybe it was explained in the episode but... I didn’t care much for the side characters, though I was interested in how Brendan fit into the storyline. Of course, my favourite part was the Master showing up at the end.

The Timeless Children: 8/10. This finale is leagues better than the season 11 finale, even if it retconned all of the Doctor’s past. I love seeing the Doctor and the Master together, you can just tell they had a deep connection with each other when they were children from the way they act. I thought the whole Timeless Child storyline would ruin my experience as a DW fan, but it really hasn’t changed all that much, besides making the Doctor even more of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character than she already is. I just have one question: if the Doctor was Brendan in the past, then why was he on Earth? Maybe it will be answered next season. I guess the Master is dead now, but he’s like a cockroach, you can never kill him, so I expect he’ll be back at some point.

Overall: Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched old seasons of DW in years, but I would say this is one of the better seasons. I know I’m probably in the minority here, though. I always try to go into new seasons with an open mind because DW changes all the time and most people are not open to big changes. Whittaker is a good Doctor (and actor in general) and I feel bad that she has to deal with a lot of hate because she’s the first female Doctor. Also, all the diversity is a good thing, shut up. There literally cannot be too much diversity, that’s literally how the world is in real life. I’m looking forward for season 13. I heard Graham and Ryan might not be in the next season, sadly. And I have a strong suspicion the Captain Jack will be back (lol) to meet Thirteen.

#doctor who #dw #13 doctor #dw season 12 #doctor who season 12 #doctor who review

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

Note

Dr who for the ask game

Thanks for playing! This is also a big, fun one! :O (I do love that the majority of these asks hit target on my own biggest obsessions x3 We checked off like all the live action shows at this point, I think, the only things left are anime/animated xDDD)

Again with a cut due to the sheer size. ^^°°°

Top 5 favourite characters: CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, The Doctor, Yasmin Kahn

Other characters you like: Rory Williams Pond, Graham O’Brien, Mickey Smith, Bill Potts, Sarah Jane Smith, Craig Owens

Least favourite characters: Rose Tyler by a landslide

Otps: not realy any actual OTPs but ships I guess I’m fond of would be Vasta/Jenny and Rory/Amy

Notps: every ship involving the Doctor, because I just honestly find it weird and uncomfortable to look at the Doctor as a romantic or even worse yet sexual being, but most of all Doctor/Rose and Doctor/River, also Jack/Ianto

Favourite friendships: I am living for the current team dynamic, 13-Yaz-Graham-Ryan are really good but my forever favorite is the Doctor and Jack, also the best team-up was the Doctor with Donna and Martha, that was perfect

Favourite family: THE FAM! 13′s team

Favourite episodes:oooh mmh, I do have multiple favorites, so let’s do this!

Blink: it is such a good episode, there was a time I just popped that one in when I had 40 minutes to waste

Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords: for me personally, this is where Doctor Who peaked. My absolute favorite storyline and episodes and team-up - my favorite Doctor with BOTH my favorite companions in an episode with my favorite Master as the enemy. Amazing. There was a time when I would regularly rewatch this, just these three

Turn Left/The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End:Suuuch a satisfying conclusion for a four series plotline, all of the companions coming together like that? It was so good

The Lodger & Closing Time: I love Craig and I love how these two episodes switch things up!

Favourite season/book/movie: Rather obviously, series 3 - the return of Jack, the series where Martha is the companion, a series with my favorite Doctor and four of my favorite episodes in it!

Favourite quotes:THE ANGELS HAVE THE PHONE BOX! xD And the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff! I got that one on a necklace even! *laughs*

Best musical moment: uuurgh the soundtrack of this show is actually so good? I listened to it on a loop for years. Series 3 and 4 being my favorites, they make you feel things, man.

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: Just this series when Jack returned. And let me elaborate to just convey how hard I fangirled at that, because it wasn’t just “oh a fave!”.

You see, Jack is... kind of why I’m here? I watched the first series with my mother back when it started airing in Germany. But they kind of... stopped dubbing it and it stopped airing in Germany and eh, I was okay with it because this show seemed weird like they just switched out the actor of the MAIN CHARACTER who does that what the fuck and I really liked Jack but he was gone now too so oh well.

However, then I read online about how Jack was in series 3. So... I went online and Doctor Who is genuinely the first TV show I ever watched in English, because I wanted to see Jack but there was no dub.

Then series 3 ended and both Jack and Martha left and I was very meh because I remembered that this is the show that constantly replaces its whole cast.

You can probably guess what happened next, but Jack was in the finale of series 4. So I went back into Doctor Who, rewatched what there has been so far all the way up to the series 4 finale - and that was when I was sold, because holy shit even with the switching of companions, they just bring them back! They just brought them all back! That was such a good pay-off.

Ironically, that was when I actually stuck around and started watching the show in real time instead of waiting for the next Jack appearance to bring me back from hibernation. Ironically because - well, that was the last we saw of anyone. (Aside from 10 in the 50 year special.)

That hard, hard cut from 10 to 11, no return of any companions...

Needless to say that when 12 came and went with no care for anything pre-11, I kind of... came to accept that this was it. Especially when they announced yet another hard cut - as in Moffat would finally be replaced and with the new era, both a new Doctor and new companions - I was so sure we’d never get to see anyone from the old crew again.

So when, after literally ten years, Jack Harkness returned and was so... so... Jack, I made the loudest, most unholy sound and the excitement of them actually acknowledging that he would be back for more and he would be there when the Doctor needs him? Tears of joy.

(but aso pls #LetMarthaMeet13 okay? Okay)

When it really disappointed you:YOU’RE MAKING A 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL. YOU HAVE SOOO MANY GOOD COMPANIONS. BUT. BUT YOU BRING NONE OF THEM BACK. ONLY ROSE TYLER’S FACE. OF ALL OF THE FACES. OF EVERYONE I COULD HAVE SEEN AGAIN IN THAT SPECIAL, IT HAD TO BE BILLIE PIPER’S MEDIOCRE ACTING. REALLY? REALLY??

Saddest moment: When 10 regenerated

Most well done character death: Surprisingly enough, this show makes me care even about the one episode characters to the degree that I find their deaths frustrating. It’s pretty good at character deaths overall

Favourite guest star: Does Craig Owens count? Because he only had two appearances in total. And the second one was genuinely a surprise to me; I was sure that The Lodger would be a stand-alone, never to be seen again kind of deal

Favourite cast member: John Barrowman! David Tennant! Freema Agyeman! I love all three of them and seeing them in other things always makes me really happy!

Character you wish was still alive: I mean, Bill. Can you imagine if the lesbian companion had gotten to meet 13?? Death :D

One thing you hope really happens: Martha. I mean, come on. Jack is back, Jack warned the Doctor, promised to be there when needed. There’s no way Jack lost contact with Martha and Mickey, even with those two off in space fighting aliens alone. I’d love for this... very, very big plotline that is currently happening to include the Doctor’s old friends coming back once more to help.

Most shocking twist: I mean... I mean it’s gotta be this series’ Surprise Origin Story. Like, I still can’t quite comprehend that one.

When did you start watching/reading?: As mentioned above, when it first started airing in Germany

Best animal/creature: Does the TARDIS count as a creature? Because then Sexy wins!

Favourite location: THE TARDIS. I wish they’d show it more often just casually. I wanna see the companions hang out in there, I wanna see their rooms, see that indoor pool and stuff

Trope you wish they would stop using: "OH NO THE DALEKS ARE STILL ALIVE AFTER THE LAST TIME I TRIED GENOCIDE ON THEM *gasp*”... Like. The very first time they brought them “back from the dead”, it was really cool because as a newbie you never met them before but you get they are important. Then they were wiped out. And then they returned again. And okay, sure. So they were wiped out again. And miraculously survied again.

Look, I get it. Doctor Who has three recurring entities in the villain gallery who are like... obligatory - the Master, the Daleks and the Cybermen. But for the love of everything, stop trying to show it as a “surprise twist” that the bad guy is a Dalek like we all knew they’re coming they’re the cockroaches of the universe, they ALWAYS surprise, stop acting like we should be shocked that they’re back again.

Every time, the Doctor goes Pikachu meme but with sad eyes and like just... have the Doctor groan, kick a Dalek and go “not you again”, instead of “how did you POSSIBLY survive THIS? :O” because after the sixth miracuous survival of a genocide, it stops being a surprise twist... -_-

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: Clearly something, because it has me come back for more like a masochist despite me being a character-driven viewer - me, abandoning the show after the first series was very in character, because I’m attached to characters and if you routinely replace all the characters, that’s... not really my thing. Somehow, this show defies the odds there

Funniest moments: JACK FLIRTING WITH PEOPLE AND THE DOCTOR GOING “NO STOP THAT!” xDDD

Couple you would like to see: NONE. NO ROMANCE. KEEP THAT SHIT OUT OF MY DW!!! Urgh. Just give me fun found family space adventures. I swear ever since the cast announcement I have had a twitchy eyebrow waiting if they’ll push for Ryan/Yaz and so far I am sooo glad they are NOT. I just... want friendship and space adventures, no fucking romance. At all. Not with the Doctor, not between companions. No drama

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: ...to stay in character, I have to say Dominic Sherwood. Partially because I am obsessed with him, but also because I WANNA HEAR HIS BRITISH ACCENT FOR A WHOLE ASS SERIES PLEASE

I would also like to see the return of James Marsters though. Time Heist teased by showing his face and acknowledging his existence in Doctor Who (it’s not like DW has acknowledged a whole lot of Torchwood canon so far, considering the catastrophic events TW has dealt with without the Doctor...), so that had me kind of hopeful he may at least cameo for an episode...

Favourite outfit: I looove Martha’s red leather jacket and Jack’s coat

Favourite item: The chameleon device

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: *clears throat awkwardly* ...Yes?

a metro card holder thingy with the TARDIS on it,

an I pin I have on my pencil case,

a necklace with a miniature TARDIS,

a necklace with the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey quote in a swirl on it,

a necklace with a Weeping Angel pendant,

a mug with the 10th Doctor as a cat on it,

a lanyard with Police Call Box written all over and a miniature TARDIS dangling on it

a TARDIS dress,

a whoosh-sound making door opening TARDIS with size-fitting figures of the 10th Doctor, Jack, Martha, K9, Idris, 11, Rory and John Hart (it’s James Marsters’ pretty face, okay?),

a Funko Pop 10th Doctor,

another TARDIS but this one is smaller and can’t open,

a larger TARDIS that can open (and is the right size for my Doctor Whooves),

a Doctor Whooves (if that counts since he’s technically My Little Pony but also he’s the Doctor so like...),

a TARDIS-blue stuffed owl with Police Owl written on it,

the first four series on DVD,

a poster from the 50th Anniversary with the War Doctor walking away from an explosion and 10 and 11 on either side of him,

a pocket watch that is the chameleon device

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: Mmmh I would like to be on the current team the most, I think? Generally speaking, their adventures were less intense than most others and I dig the family vibe

Most boring plotline: Boring, huh? There are always a couple stinkers, at least one in each series, but a really boring plotline was... Clara’s post-Impossible-Girl one. I LOVED her as the Impossible Girl, she was so interesting and I think that after she went into the Doctor’s timeline, the character should have been retired. Have her, I don’t know, dissolve there, since she is spread out through time. But that she stuck around was... not good, for her character? Her love drama with Danny was incredibly boring and not fun to watch (especially when she tried to kill the Doctor :D)

Most laughably bad moment: THAT FUCKING MOON EPISODE. THE FUCKING EPISODE WHERE THE FUCKING MOON TURNED INTO A FUCKING EGG AND AN ALIEN HATCHED TO THEN LAY A NEW MOON EGG IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEING BORN AND HUMANS JUST FUCKING SHRUGGED THAT SHIT OFF. Urgh. There are a lot of cringey things happening on this show, but this takes by far the crown. It was so stupid, so dumb, so ridiculous

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: Every time we learn more about the Doctor’s past *^*

Most layered character: I... I mean the Doctor. So many layers, so many lives, so many years

Most one dimensional character:Mh, this is harder... Among the not one-episode-off characters? I guess Nardole. Like, sure, good guy, but... not really all that deep that one

Scariest moment: Blink with the Weeping Angels. They lost A LOT of their scariness the more they were used - Moffat really overused them, in my opinion; they would have done better only appearing very rarely. But that first episode with them was just daaamn

Grossest moment: Cassandra?? Woman only made of skin?

Best looking male: CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS

Best looking female: MARTHA JONES

Who you’re crushing on (if any): Martha Jones

Favourite cast moment: John and David being cute behind the scenes is always amazing, but the bes moment is definitely the 500 Miles video!

Favourite transportation: The TARDIS, that’s not even a question!

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): Whenever we get to see (not destroyed) Gallifrey? It’s so gorgeous??

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you:SO MANY AFTER THAT LAST SERIES. But also things like: Where did Clara fuck off to in her flying diner? What exactly is Jack doing now that there is no Torchwood anymore? How in the world did Torchwood ever even work like how was the Doctor just never around during these gigantic problems?? WHO WAS THE DOCTOR’S FIRST WIFE? And what was the Doctor’s child like? Because the only one ever even mentioned is the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, but a granddaughter implies one more generation between. WHERE IS JENNY? Since she is also the Doctor’s daughter but also just fucked off into space and like why is she not trying to track her parent down??

Best promo: I mean, it clearly works when they show me Jack’s face so that’d be it for me :D”

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: At the series 4 finale, as above more elaborately explained

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS

#Doctor Who #In-Depth Fandom Ask Game #send me asks #fantasylover16

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mrmallard · 4 years

Text

I found my original idea for All the Time in the World, my Thasmin fanfiction! This was a project that I actually had an outline for before I wrote it - it wasn't the first one, but it did help me establish the direction I wanted to go on and define the direction of the story.

To this day, this is still my favorite story that I've ever written. I love it so dearly. I've bolded some points of interest, and I'm going to talk about them at the end of the post - so with that out of the way, here's the initial pitch and plot outline for the story!

---

"doctor who fanfic idea

Yasmin confesses her interest in the Doctor. The Doctor is flattered and happy, but she turns Yas down with a mention of her previous love affairs and how she feels personally responsible for the safety of her, Ryan and Graham. In essence, the memory of companions past who the Doctor has failed - those who she had loved romantically and platonically - keep the Doctor from necessarily reciprocating Yas' feelings.

Later, the Doctor and Yasmin are lying in their beds. Yas is a bit shaken, feeling small because The Doctor rejected her and that she had not been the first person to express interest. A part of the TARDIS magic wears off, and she considers going back to Sheffield and resuming her old life - partially out of embarrassment and partially because she feels like putting roots down in one place and building her rank the long way would be a way of building character, coming back to the Doctor as a more worldy, self-developed person. Basically, sudden low self-esteem and maddening awkwardness clash due to a failed romantic endeavor.

Meanwhile, The Doctor agonises over having rejected Yasmin and not fully explaining the nature of her existence. 2+ millenia of life, 13 very different lives and faces and a considerable amount of romantic partners has taken its toll - Yasmin is a nice girl, but with The Doctor's prior experiences, she's not sure if she can be the sort of person Yasmin wants her to be. She decides to take some time the following morning to talk to Yasmin and fully explain herself and hopefully come to an amicable resolution - see where things go.

Lots of double hand-holding ensues, The Doctor shows some of her older faces in a "Rememberance Hall" (which she flippantly calls "the photo album")."

---

So, first up - Yaz's arc changed a bit. This part of the story is my least favorite bit of the final product, mostly because I conveyed it in a really poor way. I skimped on the angst, and I mostly just focused on Yaz working through her emotional state after being rejected and going over her first crushes. And eventually she was able to stretch out and let the tension out of her shoulders, and enjoy the lovey sort of feelings for what they were, rather than feel stifled by the rejection. That's all good on paper, but parts of it feel like they come off as weird and skeevy. And then there's a bit of forced conflict in the second to last chapter, but it did help convey the Doctor's arc.

But on the flip side, the direction I took this plot point had me exploring Yaz being bisexual rather than being gay. Either interpretation is fine, and anything beyond the scope of these interpretations is fine too, and I was planning to make Yaz gay when I started the story, but I got caught up in the idea of her finding different aspects of different genders appealing. This was the biggest deviation from the plan, and I was really satisfied with how I did it.

I'm kind of glad I didn't implement this plot point fully. Like, Yaz is gonna go back to Sheffield for 25 years and improve herself for the Doctor? That's a lot of baggage for one person to shoulder to try and make a relationship work. I don't think Yaz should be expected to commit to something like that, just for a shot at romance with a time travelling alien lady - I like the Doctor, but making a character wait for years is such a Moffat trope. And relationships are mutual - The Doctor has her own baggage, but I don't think it's equivalent to spending a quarter of your entire, limited lifetime trying to prepare yourself for a prospective romantic partner. It's not equal.

So yeah, I'm glad I tinkered with this idea a bit.

The Doctor's conflict kind of got glossed over in places too - that, or I'm just unhappy that I didn't get to write long, morose essays about it. The portrait idea just stuck around in my head, I imagined a rope hanging from the ceiling holding a paint-splattered Thirteen by the waist, who's holding her thumb out in front of her with an eye closed.

Double hand holding is my favorite romance cliche. Getting your hands and holding someone else's hands between you both, ideally while asking them to trust you or asking them incredibly sappy, romantic questions. It's funny to see it crop up in the plot outline, because I remember re-reading the story and going "oh god, here comes the hand holding again". And it's a similar case with the Rememberance Hall and the comment about it being a glorified photo album - it cropped up in the draft!

I made a series of oneshots just as series 12 was wrapping up, and ever since then, the creative well has run dry for Doctor Who. I'm hoping that I'll be in a good place next year, or the year after that, to write some fanfic alongside series 13. The Chibnall era has been rocky at times, but I am loving the fanfic side of things and I like being able to talk about the show without the words feeling like ash in my mouth. I really didn't like Moffat's run, and even with Orphan 55, I would still much rather Chris Chibnall trying his hand at running the show.

#doctor who #thasmin

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sunshinedaysforever · 4 years

Text

DW FIC RECS PART 2

She’s back!! And so am I. This year has been full of wonderful stories (and some wonderful people) so here are some more of my 2019 favourites to catch you up to speed, in no particular order:

Reversion by hetzi_clutch

[People are dying throughout time. And the Doctor has abandoned her companions. Back in Sheffield, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham wait, watching the increasingly desperate news on the TV and slowly losing hope. It’s been three months since the Doctor left them—to die, it seems. At the end of the universe, Clara Oswald travels to Gallifrey to beg the Time Lords for one simple request: we need your help. The universe is dying. One dimension removed, Rose Tyler hacks at the universe walls, risking her entire world in an attempt to break through—not that it matters, because her world is already dead.]

PROBABLY BETTER THAN SERIES 12 IF I’M HONEST AND SERIES 12 LOOKS PRETTY AMAZING ALREADY.

Look, I’m in No Way Biased here just because I got the chance to beta read this amazing story, okay, it’s just objectively fantastic. I read the whole thing in one gasp, glued to the page. The pacing is frenetic, but never too fast. Hetzi is a master of tension, almost to a frustrating extent, but every wait is so well worth it that by the end you’ve forgotten why you were frustrated to begin with. Yaz is something of a central focus for the story, and she’s done wonderful justice, as are Ryan and Graham. There are some familiar faces showing up too that just leap off the page. And as for the Doctor - she’s complicated, frustrating, flawed and fantastic all at once. This story made me so nostalgic for the RTD era and also for that very Moffat-esque kind of twisty timey-wimey plot, but it’s married beautifully with the sensibilities of 13’s era. It’s also a punishing, brutal look at 13 herself that never strays from the boundaries of Doctor Who itself, and it’s deeply satisfying in a way that I wish all stories were, honestly. This might be my favourite fic of the year. In fact, I’m just going to say it - this is my favourite fic of the year and you should drop everything to read it right now.

(And then, once it’s finally all uploaded, you should yell at Hetzi to write the sequel)

not just selfish and found by hellynz

[What the Doctor might have been thinking when she did not comfort Yaz.] and [Yaz comes across something that belonged to Rose.]

(@ SARA DO U REALIZE HOW HARD IT WAS TO NARROW ANYTHING DOWN)

Kdjfshglfdsg but anyway, both of these fics are a perfect representation of the author’s range as a writer - she can go from sharp and devastating to soft and peaceful in a heartbeat, and every time, it’s smart writing that dives right into the heart of the show. As for the first, MAJOR SPOILERS lie within, so read carefully, but do read. Sara always gets the Doctor just exactly as I like her, and honestly, with a nuance that I don’t think anyone else even gets close to. This one is a one-shot (that might turn into a series, eh, eh) that adds just the right amount of extra context to the Doctor and Yaz in Spyfall Pt. 1 and it’s not only brilliant, it’s exactly what I was missing. Go read this, and then go read found, which feels like another perfect missing piece in the jigsaw of Yaz and the Doctor. It’s a nuanced, romantic take that never feels contrived or like it wouldn’t fit within the bounds of the show. It’s also calm and quiet, like the best of Sara’s works, and as always, it feels very kind. Sara’s a writer to watch (and the loveliest person, to boot), and I can’t recommend her works enough. Start with these two, and work your way through the rest - I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Sleep Paralysis and Retrograde by hetzi_clutch

[There's something wrong with Yasmin Khan.] and [The Doctor makes one mistake, and pays for it in spades. Now, she's left chasing forgiveness, for herself, and the one person she never wants to see again.]

JHDFLGFDG if I’m not careful and circumspect this whole list will just be Hetzi’s stuff tbh but I can’t be blamed, because it’s all just That Good. She understands this show in a way that’s miles ahead, and she has things to say that I’m still mulling over, months later. Go and read all of it, but these are some of my particular favourites from this year that I had to include. Sleep Paralysis is a slow reel through a plot that I could only dream of concocting, and it shifts and turns exactly where it should but never where you think it will. Yaz is the centrepiece, and in Hetzi’s capable hands she shines, just like always. For how little series 11 explored her character, she feels remarkably tangible throughout, and she’s the perfect POV, just as in the dark as the reader. I loved this one so much I think it’s basically imprinted permanently in my brain - it’s a fantastic character piece, and it does horrible, wonderful things to the Time War. And as for Retrograde - right now, it’s still a WIP, but I’m already so invested. It’s the Doctor, alone, because of a choice that she made, and it’s shattered my heart already but I’m so impressed by it I can’t even be mad. Both of these stories deal with the fallout of the Time War, years on, in very different ways, but they’re both brilliant and twisty and you should go read them, right now.

The Prodigal Daughter by Papapaldi

[The Doctor has some unfinished business on Gallifrey. She has a purpose, and the Time Lords intend for her to fulfil it.]

I feel a little bad linking all of these WIPs but in my defense, this one is already brilliant (it also comes with some art that is, frankly, fantastic) and I don’t think you should wait to read it. I’m a sucker for a) the Wilderness Years and b) magical prose, and this has both in wonderful combination. The Doctor, called home by the Time Lords, but that’s only the start. I love the reel of this, and the cadence of the prose. I love the beginning, with the brief glimpses we get of the fam in their ‘real lives’. I love the Doctor, very much herself, but just that bit older and more impossibly strange, the past reaching behind for her. This one is a winner, and it’s a great one to add to your reading list coming in to the new year.

Altruism by emptypockets

[Matrovon 7, and its inhabitants, are dying. The Doctor can do something about that if she can just get to her feet.]

ANOTHER WIP I’M SORRY but this one is also just too good to miss. Some classic h/c vibes, but very much situated within a plot that’s cohesive and so wonderfully Doctor Who. I adore the worldbuilding in this one, the planet, the original characters. And of course, the fam and the Doctor herself - pitch perfect in every way. They’re all given something to do, and a viewpoint that feels original and purposeful. I love this author’s other works as well, and you should definitely check them out (after you read this one first, of course!).

There are so many wonderful stories out there that this can only be the tip of a very talented iceberg - I’m so appreciative of everything I got to read this year, and I can’t wait for what the new year brings us. Happy reading, fam. <3

#doctor who #doctor who fic #fic recs #long post

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mtvswatches · 4 years

Text

Jane the Virgin 2x16 Chapter Thirty-Eight

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) All the Villanuevas are staying at the Marbella for free and making the most of it. Pablo is also staying there with Alba? How do you go from “he’s cursed” to “move in with me and my family to this hotel while my house gets repaired”? Man, Alba was really thirsty, am I right?

2) Rogelio is planning Jane’s wedding and he wants to invite the President of Mexico, Charo, and Oprah. Sounds like the event of the year, if you ask me.

3) Hm. Michael was interrogating Rafael’s brother and Rafael burst into the room pissed at the fact that his brother was being interrogated without a lawyer. I’m not buying it. I think Rafael and Michael are probably in cahoots and trying to get Rafael’s brother to trust him by creating scenarios in which Rafael stands up for him. Or Rafael is an idiot. It’s a toss-up, really.

4) Michael and Jane are looking for a new house and Jane is torn between what Michael and herself want as a couple and what’s best – and fair – for Mateo and his relationship with his dad. Rafael offered to chip in with the difference so that she can get the place she wants in Miami, and I honestly can’t see why this would be a problem? I certainly don’t know the laws in Miami, but in my country parents are supposed to pay for rent as part of child support, so it would be kind of like that? But I can imagine Michael won’t have any of Rafael’s “charity”. What do I get if he uses that word when he argues with Jane?

5) Petra is going through a rough patch because unlike Jane she doesn’t have a whole support system to help her navigate the first few months of motherhood. Both Jane and Rafael notice she’s kind of down, and Petra ends up asking Jane to take her out, which I’m here for.

6) Kudos to Michael. He didn’t use the word charity, but as expected, he wasn’t on board with the idea of Rafael giving them money to buy the house.

7) Hmmm. Jane convinces Rafael to accept her moving 40 minutes away just for a year to see if they can work it out. She actually uses Rafael’s argument that they need to make compromises against him, and this doesn’t seem like a compromise? It seems like she’s getting everything she wants and kind of screwing her baby daddy over? Look, Rafael is hardly my favorite, but he does seem to be a good dad so far, he’s very invested in all of his children, and I don’t think this scenario is fair to him.

8) Ah, okay, Alba hasn’t slept with Pablo. YET. She’s a tease, though. You go, girl!

9) OH MY GOD ARE THEY SEVENTEEN? GETTING MARRIED SO THAT THEY CAN GET LAID?! WTF!

I know she hasn’t had a good laid in years, but chill, lady! Have a taste first!

10) I don’t think this is what Petra meant when she asked Jane to take her out…

11) Okay…

12) Yep, Petra seems to be suffering from postpartum depression. That should be interesting, if it’s not only one-episode thing. It’s not a storyline that’s usually explored in TV shows, so I hope they handle it well.

13) Clearly, Rafael is not comfortable with Jane moving away with Mateo…

But then Petra intercedes and scolds him because he was “preventing Jane from having his dream house”? And while I do appreciate the fact that Petra and Jane have mended fences and Petra did not take the chance to drive a wedge between Jane and Rafael and actually took a stand for Jane instead…

Rafael still has rights? He’s the father? He has every right to be concerned he won’t be able to spend as much time with his son as he deserves? Why should he be the only one compromising and giving away time with his kid so that Jane can get her “dream house” with her new husband? I don’t like this, and I don’t like the show presenting this as the Good Resolution of the problem. Nope. Not one bit.

14) Rogelio’s character is having tea with Marie Antoinette and seriously, I want to see this TV show...

...but I’m also wondering, is this Jane the Virgin mocking Outlander, because if so,…

15) Oh, Rogelio. He always means well but ends up putting his foot in his mouth. He was so eager to get all of his three million friends in the wedding that he actually said: “Why not? I am paying for it.” And that was the last straw. Jane is not having it and she is right. It is her and Michael’s wedding so it should be any way they see it fit, and Rogelio has to accept it. Knowing Rogelio, he’ll apologize and understand why it was wrong of him to try to turn their wedding into his own private party.

16) Mateo is almost walking and Jane FINALLY realized they can’t move there because Mateo NEEDS to be close to his father. FINALLY. Thankfully, Michael understood, too.

17) Petra made an appointment with a therapist to treat her post-partum depression (GOOD!) but now she needs to ask her mother if she suffered from it, too.

18) Ha! I KNEW IT!

The narrator sets this up as “Michael is spying on Rafael” but I KNOW they’re in cahoots. THEY’RE IN CAHOOTS, I TELL YA! (I just love the word cahoots, alright?)

19) Well, Xiomara did bring up a good point. Rogelio missed most of Jane’s milestones, that’s why he’s probably going over the top with this one. Jane is now considering pleasing her dad and letting him have a big party.

20) So, not only is Pablo cursed but he’s also a two-timing asshole…

I knew I couldn’t trust that mustache.

21) You do not want to mess with Alba.

But now I’m like, what was the point of this whole storyline? Huh? Introducing a character as Alba’s great first love and the curse and blah blah blah? And now he’s just gone after two episodes? They really don’t know what to do with Alba as a character.

22) This honestly made me laugh…

PETRA: The doctor asked for my family history, so I was wondering if, um, well, after you had me, did you ever feel depressed? MAGDA: Depressed? I had baby girl. In Czechoslovakia. In 1985. Of course I was depressed. You were depressed. The neighbor who delivered you was depressed. We were all depressed.

23) I just can’t get over the fact that ROGELIO IS THE BEST? EVER? He comes off as shallow and ditzy but he’s also a keen observer and he always puts his loved ones first? And him and Xiomara? Now, that’s an example of a healthy relationship. I kind of don’t care about Jane’s love life, to be honest, I’m not into it at all (probably because I don’t relate to Jane as a character? Idk.) and I don’t necessarily ship Rogelio and Xiomara, but I just find them so wholesome and mature? Yes, they do on occasion act childish, but they always, always find a way to have an adult conversation about their feelings and desires. Anyway, I’m ranting. Rogelio wants to throw the perfect wedding party for Jane, but he understands he may not know what Jane likes considering he’s still getting to know her. So, even though he’d set out to ignore Xiomara hoping she’d miss him and ask him to get back together, he approaches her, comes clean about his previous intentions, admits that he understands they’re done, but argues that they’re still family and they’ll always be, so he asks her to help him plan the wedding, and she agrees with a smile on her face, and it’s just so healthy and wholesome and lovely.

24) I. WAS. RIGHT. Rafael and Michael are IN CAHOOTS! And they also had a very mature conversation about the whole new house thing. Jane and Michael finally found their dream house nearby and thought it was too cheap. Therefore, they assumed Rafael had paid the difference. While this eventually was not true, it did lead to Michael choosing to compromise as well, which is a great development.

25) This was cool…

Rogelio recreated Jane’s house at the studio so that she can get married where she had always wanted to get married – her house. What’s cool about it is that they’ve clearly used the show’s real sets for this. It feels meta, doesn’t it?

26) Oh. Petra bought the house for them. Nice. I hope.

27) It feels like the end of an era.

28) Petra can’t be leaving her daughters, can she?!

Is... this... what they were planning to do with the postpartum storyline? Huh?

29) It was an alright episode but I still don’t feel this magic “I’m in love with this show” feeling and the season arcs and plots are a bit messy, in my opinion. Is this normal? When did you guys fall in love with the show? I feel like I should have already, but I’m just not feeling it…

30) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

#Jane the Virgin #JTV #Jane Villanueva #Gina Rodriguez #Rogelio De La Vega #Petra Solano #Michael Cordera #JTV recap #recap #JTV 2x16 #mine

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hanyusan · 5 years

Text

181228 every [Eng Translated transcript]

Translation to the video, which can be watched here. A few timestamps included here and there to help you keep track of where you are if you’re watching along.

Note that these translations are based off a Chinese translation, so please forgive any minor errors that may come up.

ch trans: 羽生结��资讯台 eng trans: hanyusan

During the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics that took place February of this year, Yuzuru Hanyu became the first male skater in 66 years to be a back-to-back Olympic champion. 110,000 people gathered at his victory parade and he became the youngest person to receive the People’s Honor Award. It can be said that he is the “face” of this year.

He put down a heavy mark with his free skate at that time. We especially borrowed the costume that Hanyu wore then. Following the theme of the movie “Onmyoji,” the design is based on kariginu (*special hunting robes) worn during the Heian period. The chest is decorated with gold.

In actuality, we were going to use a mannequin to display this outfit, but because Hanyu is too thin, we ended up displaying it like this for everyone to see.

From October of last year to the time of the Olympics—the three months during which he was absent from the public eye—how did Hanyu spend his time? Then, the huge “mistake” that occurred before the competition; Hanyu talks about his historical victory.

[1:04]

The two Olympic gold medals in Yuzuru Hanyu’s hands.

“Pyeongchang’s smells more like gold…Sochi’s is so much larger. In terms of surface area, Sochi’s is bigger; but in terms of weight, Pyeongchang’s is much heavier.”

Four years ago; the Sochi gold medal…then this year’s Pyeongchang gold medal.

“This one [Sochi’s] is, how do you say it, a kind of reckless, diligent result. Then this one [Pyeongchang’s] has the feeling of gold. Because it was to win; like it condenses so much together, like I completely snatched it; it’s that kind of medal.”

At the Pyeongchang Olympics was the appearance of Yuzuru Hanyu, the first back-to-back champion in 66 years. However, in November, only three months before Pyeongchang, his right foot was injured while practicing a quadruple jump [4Lz]. With ligament damage in his right ankle, the doctor stated that he needed three to four weeks in order to completely heal. After being injured, Hanyu did not appear in the public eye. What happened in these blank three months?

[2:40]

Now, Hanyu tells us the story behind his consecutive Olympic victory. First is regarding the injury that occurred three months prior to the start of the Olympics.

“At the time, even standing on one foot like this hurt a lot.”

The right foot is an important part for entering a jump [Lz] with a toe pick.

“When you use your toe against the ice, the muscle in this part of your foot is really tight. The shock from it was really big and that was what hurt the most.”

After getting injured, Hanyu received treatment at his practice area in Toronto. However, after the month’s worth of treatment passed, the pain did not disappear. [Two months before Pyeongchang] Hanyu could not get on the ice and was continuing his rehabilitation. Two months away from the Olympics, the anxiety intensified.

“Well, I was being crushed by anxiety. Completely crushed, but Pyeongchang was coming closer and closer; it was really getting to the point that if I didn’t get on the ice, then I wouldn’t be able to make it to Pyeongchang. I felt very pained toward myself since I couldn’t get on the ice…I was very scared of myself, who could not go on the ice.”

Planning to get rid of the anxiety caused by his inability to skate, Hanyu began to investigate everything that he could.

“This…jumps, spins, how to analyze their point values. This is what I looked at the most.”

Hanyu actively analyzed papers on how the body is used during skating. He also studied how to continue his training.

“Things like the types of land training and how factors like the pulse influence training.”

For example, if the pulse is kept at 80-90%, athletic ability increases. Measuring his pulse, Hanyu was able to keep his land training very productive with his investigations. (*hanyusan: I think it’s important for me to say that I have no idea what the heck he’s talking about with percentages here, so this could be 100% incorrectly translated.)

“With land training, clearly there were only auxiliary exercises to support my physical practice. How to combine my own jumps with my own feelings while continuing training; that was what I learned the most.”

Regarding how to grasp the feeling on ice while on land, Hanyu also absorbed himself in image training.

“I told myself that I had to practice because it was such an anxious time. It would definitely help me at Pyeongchang. So, with that anxiety, I went into the challenge.”

[5:42]

Then, in January of this year, with only half a month left until Pyeongchang; two months after his injury, Hanyu officially returned to training on the ice. However…

“On land, I was luckily able to get my strength back and start to get enough muscle back in order to compete. I put in a lot of effort, yet in my imagination, I didn’t feel much pain or hardship. The real me and the me I had imagined were extremely different from one another.”

Two months after being injured, the pain did not disappear. In addition, during his land training, he was unable to completely capture the feeling of the ice. Hanyu understood this point: the Olympics in view, half a month away—the reality.

“‘Can I really return to competition?’ I was continuously struggling against this kind of anxiety.”

At that point, regarding the Olympics:

“How should I put it…my decision was: if I were to go to the Pyeongchang Olympics, then I had to be in a condition in which I could win. If I could not win, then I should withdraw. That was how I thought from the very beginning. So let’s just see what happens.”

“Withdraw” was in Hanyu’s considerations.

[7:14]

In the era of the intensely difficult quad jump, how far must his jumps go in order to win over his competitors? Hanyu’s thoughts are:

“I have to jump a 4Lo, put in a total of six quad jumps in my programs. If I didn’t have this level of difficulty in my programs, then I couldn’t say that I could definitely win.”

The 4Lo is a jump that Hanyu completed in 2016, the first in the world. This loop, then salchow, then toeloop; Hanyu calculated that three types of quads were necessary in order to win gold. The toeloop uses the left toepick in order to jump. The salchow uses the blade edge. Both are not very dependent on the right foot. However, the loop placed force on his injured right foot: a jump that is very dependent on the right foot.

With not even a month left until Pyeongchang, Hanyu made a decision in late January.

“Take painkillers…I decided to do it.”

Hanyu chose to take painkillers.

“I decided to, knowing that it would aggravate the injury. So I wouldn’t think about the pressure it would put on my right foot. I decided that I would ultimately do the 4Lo.”

Taking painkillers and endlessly practicing the 4Lo every day. The day that he succeeded the 4Lo:

“The day before [leaving]. One day before going to Korea, I completed the 4Lo. At that time, I already felt that I could win. I participated in order to win the Pyeongchang Olympics.”

This was the moment he confirmed to himself that he could win gold—the day before going to Pyeongchang; seven days before the competition began.

[9:37]

Two days after confirming he could win gold, Hanyu arrived in Korea, the first time showing himself after injuring himself three months ago. Under the eyes of the entire world, Hanyu said:

“I do want to be a consecutive Olympic champion.”

“I have confidence that I can definitely win.”

“I have no cause to be anxious.”

The gold medal was already an established reality to him. With this kind of mood, Hanyu repeatedly uttered these strong comments.

Then, the short program arrived. The Hanyu with “no cause to be anxious” was, in reality, still taking painkillers. He completed all his jumps successfully in an overwhelming performance.

With an increased score gap between him and second place in the short program, Hanyu was in first place. He made a decision.

“The score gap was bigger than I predicted, so I felt there was no need for the 4Lo.”

Hanyu abandoned the nervousness-causing 4Lo and opted to use his 4S for a decisive victory.

“If I could jump the 4S beautifully…this was the layout I decided on in order to raise my GOE.”

“My defining quality seems to still be my jumps. I felt like I had to bring out what would exemplify my skill the most under those conditions.”

A freeskate layout that was decided on in order to win gold: 4S and 4T for quads; in total there were four of the two quads that Hanyu was skilled at jumping. In order to win, Hanyu used his greatest weapon.

[12:10]

However, on the second day’s free skate, another new issue revealed itself before the competition. During the six-minute warmup, 33 minutes before the competition, the all-important 4S suffered multiple mistakes. Hanyu was unable to get the feeling of the 4S.

“How could I return [to a correct state] when I could not grasp the 4S; I really thought about it a lot.”

Minutes slipped by. The last 4S during warmup was also a failure.

“I put everything that I analyzed into it, but I still couldn’t get it. I was worried. It felt like ‘I couldn’t’.”

26 minutes until the competition started. There are two 4S’s in his program. With his jump coach Ghislain, he made fixes until the very end.

“It was really like I was at the end of my rope. I completely relied on Coach Ghislain’s knowledge and other views; trusted those and only focused on those.”

Then, the freeskate to decide the color of the medal began. Only he knew how close he was to grasping the correct feeling; whether or not he could correct it. The last time confirming the 4S. The pose was out and the competition began.

The 4S was the first jump in the program. This satisfactory jump received a full +3 GOE.

After this, Hanyu continually completed his jumps. Next was the second 4S, and it was a combination jump. Up to this point, Hanyu’s 4S+3T success rate was not very high, making it a dangerous spot.

“Even though I was so nervous that I felt sick…”

He said that he repeatedly thought of his first 4S, a successful one.

“I played it in my head like a 3D image. I combined that image with my own body in order to jump.”

Just as he’d aimed for, this jump earned almost full GOE points. Six years ago, he started practicing this jump, and his body remembered.

In this moment of victory, his right foot returned.

Back-to-back Olympic champion. An achievement in 66 years.

[16:24]

Then, this season, Hanyu moves toward a new goal.

“For now…”

He wants to jump a 4A, in other words, quad axel; also a quad jump. In addition:

“Well…I want to do a 4T+3A…”

A combination jump that, since the recording of this interview, no one completed successfully in competition.

The first competition was last month. The first jump is the combination 4T+3A. His jump is the recognized as the world’s first completed 4T+3A.

However, after that, Hanyu’s right foot ligament was injured. Withdrawing from all upcoming competitions, Hanyu sent us a message:

“Next year, I will focus on practicing the 4A. I hope I can successfully do it. Right now, I hope that I can start officially practicing my jumps again soon, and I’m waiting for these days to pass quickly.”

#yuzuru hanyu #translations*#pyeongchang 2018 #i've seen no full translations yet so i hope this helps somewhat #however it is 1am here and my brain isn't functioning fully #so pls forgive grammar/spelling errors etc :D #translations

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