im sorry but spamton isnt white to me i refuse to depict him as white lol

Byron and the rock star

Fandom : Doctor Who (new!who and eda)

Characters : Eight, Twelve, Fitz and Bill

Pairing : Eight/Fitz

Warning : none that I’m aware of tbh

Words :5 253

Note : so a couple of days ago I started obsessing with Eight and Twelve starting a band together because why not? Due to severe boredom at work, I’ve had a lot of time to write, so there it is : the Doctor kicking time regulations in the nuts to start a band with himself.  I’m not really sure about characterisation. I think Bill is okay, but I haven’t written about Eight in a long time and don’t think I ever wrote about Twelve.  Also, English is not my mother tongue, so please feel free to let me know if you see any grammar/spelling/vocab mistakes, I’m always in for improving :)

  “Doctor, hmm … this doesn’t look like 21st century London.”       The Doctor went out of the TARDIS, sniffed the air and took a look around.     “Ah. Yes. I see. It’s because it’s not London. We’re in Bristol.”                 “Bristol?”   Fitz Kreiner turned around to sweep with his eyes the place they had arrived to. The TARDIS had landed in some sort of peculiar circus. It was the centre of a massive roundabout and one could cross the street circling it by using four tunnels going in four different directions. In front of Fitz a double-decker had been painted in green and was now used as a burrito restaurant. All around, people were skating and playing football, or just crossing from one tunnel to another while a group of young people was tagging a wall. Actually, the walls surrounding the place were covered in graffiti, an explosion of colours and shapes, the heart of the artistic centre of Bristol.     “We may not be in London, but we’re definitely in the 21st century.” The Doctor announced rather proud with himself. Fitz thought that it was not that far away from where and when they had planned to go after all. “This is the St James Barton Roundabout. Also known as the Bear Pit.”             “The Bear Pit? Odd name”         The Doctor looked up and Fitz followed his gaze. Right behind them was a massive statue of a black and white bear. Fitz took a step back to see it better. He could not really realise how big it was but he felt slightly uncomfortable looking at it. He turned around and started to walk towards the entrance of the nearest tunnels. He stopped when the Doctor called him but did not come back to him.     “I’m going to explore!” he glowed at him. “Are you coming?”                 “Start without me, I’ve got to check something in the TARDIS. And be careful!”             He shrugged and left him. The Doctor always had something to check with the TARDIS. Fitz loved his Doctor and he knew that his friend felt the same. But their relationship was far from being normal. How could it be when the two of them were travelling in time and space in a police-box shaped time machine? But Fitz loved him anyway, despite his strangeness, his flaws and fragility. He loved him because he was the sweetest man he had ever encountered and also, because the Doctor needed him, he needed Fitz to take care of him as much as Fitz needed the Doctor. And when the Doctor was too alien or Fitz was too human, Fitz would remember that it did not matter because he was worth any trouble.                     He exited the tunnel and went up a flight of stairs. He arrived in a busy street, probably the city centre. He followed the crowd, marvelling at the fashion sense of the people around him. When he got tired of so much promiscuity, he abandoned the crowd and turned right. He ended up in another busy street with even more shops. But it did not matter. He went inside one shop and tried on a couple of hats. He was admiring himself in a mirror and wondering if the Doctor would like it when he noticed her reflection. His curiosity picked, he turned around. She was behind him, looking at some clothes. Taking advantage of the fact that she had not noticed him yet, he detailed her. She was tall and wearing jeans with a yellow jacket that made her dark skin look even more beautiful. As she was focusing on another piece of clothing, she smiled. That’s when he decided to come and talk to her.               “Hi there, gorgeous.” He smiled and winked when she turned towards him. She stared at him in complete bewilderment before starting to laugh.                  “Are you talking to me?” she asked with no trace of aggressiveness.                   “I don’t see anyone else as remarkable as you.”              She looked around, clearly amused.      “Sorry mate. I’m not really interested.” She took a step closer to him, as if she was going to tell him a secret. “I’m not into guys.”     Fitz smiled broadly, almost relieved. Flirting was a second nature for him and checking out a pretty girl or a handsome guy would always be his first instinct. But he also knew that he would not act upon it. Not anymore. He usually did not get much anyway out of his pitiful attempt at seducing people, but even if it did work, he would simply pay the lady or the man a drink and disappear. There was only one person in Fitz’s heart and bed.                               “That’s totally cool. I wasn’t really interested in you either.”      She frowned and crossed her arms with a predatory smile.     “I know that I just blew you off but that’s not very nice to hear all the same.”                 He raised his hands apologetically.         “Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you. I do find you hot, but there’s already someone.”                   She raised an eyebrow.               “I see… And how does she feel knowing that you flirt with other girls?”             “He doesn’t notice most of the time. And when he does, well, he doesn’t mind.”         The second eyebrow rose. He shook his head and they both smiled at each other. Fitz liked that girl, there was nothing sexual there, but he had the feeling that they could become very good friends.   “I’m Fitz, by the way.”                 “Bill.”     They fell silent, as if everything had been said. As Fitz was still staring at her, Bill looked away. The guy seemed dorky but she liked him. She could tell he was a bit of a loser but instead of pitying him, she felt close to him. She, too, was usually struggling to flirt with girls and she kind of recognized herself a bit in him.             “I know we’ve just met and I’m totally not flirting, but do you want to grab a drink or something?”   Bill pondered that for a minute before nodding.             “Sure. But I’m supposed to meet a friend of mine for a coffee, you should definitely join us, I’m sure you’ll like him.”                 Fitz agreed. He thought about going to get the Doctor but knew that he would be able to find him anyway.  “Alright.”   He joined Bill and they went out of the shop before starting to walk towards a coffee shop nearby. The girl looked inside, searching for someone and when she did not see them, went to order a coffee with Fitz. Seeing that there was nothing stronger than caffeine in there, he felt slightly disappointed – he could have done with a brandy, or even just a beer.                   “My friend isn’t here yet but he’ll be here soon, he went to buy new strings for his guitar.” Bill explained.       “I play guitar too.”         They took their drinks, a latte for Bill and a dark coffee for Fitz, and found a table near to the entrance. They waited barely five minutes until Bill waved to a man entering the coffee shop. Fitz had expected him to be around the same age as his friend but he was older, around 60 and dressed in the most peculiar way : a black attire with a white shirt that looked out of this time. And his hair looked even crazier than Bill’s. There was also something oddly familiar about him            “Doctor!”   Fitz frowned. Doctor? Surely another kind of doctor. Unless…                 The man joined them, a huge smile eating his face. He did not seem to have noticed Fitz, his whole attention being focused on Bill.   “I found them, Bill!”       “Yeah, that’s great but we have company. Please behave.”     His eyebrows went as crazy as his hair as he turned and discovered Fitz. He stared at him for some long seconds in a way that made Fitz feel both uncomfortable and … at home. Fitz probed the man’s eyes. They looked very old, older than the man’s appearance suggested. They were also filled with so much sadness, sadness that was not there when he had entered the coffee shop, Fitz was certain of it.     “Hello Fitz.” He said with a tenderness that surprised Bill.         He sat next to her, ignoring (or not seeing, more likely) her puzzled expression.           “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”                   “How do you know me?” Fitz asked. He was not sure to want to hear the answer to that.   “Don’t you know?”       Of course he knew. The Doctor did tell him about regeneration and even if he had not, Fitz would have been able to recognize him anyway. But he was not going to let his guard down so easily. ��     “It’s me. The Doctor.” The man grinned.             “Prove it.” His voice was harsher than he had intended to be. The smile on the Doctor’s face faded.   “Fitz, Fitz, Fitz. You were born in 1936. Your mum was staying in an elderly home, where I first met you, with Sam Jones. Your dad was German and you were bullied at school because of it. You drink a bit too much, I think I told you that before. You always oversleep in the morning and when you do get out of bed, you need your cup of coffee before doing anything. You did a lot for me, Fitz Kreiner.”   “I still am, Doc!”               The Doctor grimaced.                   “Please don’t call me that. I never liked it.”       Fitz ignored him and turned his attention towards Bill.                 “So, you’re travelling with him?”             She nodded with a big smile on her face.           “Yeah. You did too?”     “Yes. He was a different man by then, though. Right Doc?”       The Doctor crossed his arms.     “I regenerated several times since then, yes.”                 “Wait! What do you mean ‘regenerated’?” Bill interrupted.     “When he’s about to die, he changes his body. His old self dies, in a way, but the Doctor survives. He becomes a new man.”     “That’s typically you! Going around and changing faces. You know what? That’s weird. You’re weird.”   “That’s an understatement.” Fitz joined in.       The two companions shared a look and smiled at each other. They understood one another.                 “Anyway.” The Doctor rolled his eyes, breaking the moment. “Your Doctor must be around somewhere.”   “Probably looking for me. Unless he’s still checking the TARDIS.”           “This one does that too.” Bill laughed. “Always has something to check there. I’m sure he doesn’t even know what he’s doing most of the time. It’s kind of sad, really.”                 “If you had lived as long as me and seen so many people go away, you too would hold on to the thing that has been with you through the darkest of times.”           Those words woke a deep, primal fear in Fitz’s heart. Questions that could never be answered formed inside his brain. What had happened to him? Why had he stopped travelling in the TARDIS? Had the Doctor ever remembered what Fitz had tried so hard to protect him from?                   Bill, on the other hand, rolled her eyes.               “He likes to play all grumpy and dramatic, but inside he’s a teddy bear.”             “A teddy bear?”             “I should find my Doctor.” Fitz interrupted.       The Doctor agreed and the three of them left the coffee shop. They walked for a while in silence until the Doctor stopped.               “We should leave you here.” He said. “I wouldn’t want to meet myself.”           Fitz nodded and as he was about to say goodbye to Bill, a call behind them froze the three new friends.   “Fitz! There you are!”                   The three of them exchanged a look and slowly turned around to see Fitz’s Doctor running towards them.   “The TARDIS picked up temporal dis…” he stopped mid-sentence when he noticed the strangers. “Oh. Hi. Care to introduce your new friends, Fitz?”           He exchanged a look with the older Doctor who grimaced.       “Dreadful fashion sense!” he groaned.               “Like you have any notion of fashion sense!” Bill exclaimed.     “Mind you, I’ve been worse than that.”             The younger Doctor frowned and looked for Fitz’s gaze but he seemed to be avoiding him.     “Who are you?” he asked the strangers.             Bill walked forward with a smile.             “I’m Bill Potts. Nice to meet you.”                         “And I’m the Doctor. Doctor Disco.”       “You are not calling yourself Doctor Disco!” Bill shook her head. She could forgive her friend’s eccentricities but this was beyond her strength.       The younger Doctor looked at them, half bewildered half worried. His Time Lord instinct was telling him to go away, quick, and he decided to listen to it. Some mysteries were better left unsolved.   “Come on Fitz. Let’s go.”             He exchanged a look with Bill and after muttering a ‘goodbye’, followed his Doctor. They had not gone five metres that the older Doctor came after them, followed by his companion.   “Doctor! Wait! I take that you still have your violin.”     The Doctor slowly turned around, frowning. He gave a quizzical look to Fitz, who simply shrugged and stepped backwards, just like Bill did. The two Doctor were now facing each other. One was smiling, eager to witness the look of recognition that would soon shake his other self. The other one was still frowning. The man in front of him seemed to know him and yet, he had no recollection of having seen him before. Had he forgotten him? That would not even be surprising and he started to wonder how many companions he had forgotten over the years. Unless he did not know the man at all and Fitz had been talking too much. No, he trusted Fitz with his life. There was also this look on the other man’s face. A look that he knew very well. And those eyes … Where had he seen the light in those eyes before?               “Who are you?” he asked knowing that he would not like the answer.               “Come on Doctor, you know who I am.”             Yes. I also know where I’ve seen this expression before : in a mirror.     “Good grief! Do I regenerate into you?”             The older Doctor, far from being offended, laughed.   “Not directly, I’m afraid.”           The younger Doctor raised an eyebrow but did not answer. He detailed his future self with attention, aware that he probably would not keep any recollection of this extraordinary meeting. Beyond the smile and the idiotic expression, he perceived there a darker man than he was himself. He was conscious that events, some of which he remembered, so of which he didn’t, had already started to eat away his innocence and light heart. He was not the same man he had been after his regeneration, pains and sorrows had already begun to change him. He wondered with some kind of horror if what had happened to him was the reason why his future self was so sombre.     “So how about this violin?” the older Doctor repeated.               “Why do you care so much about that?”             “I’m a musician myself, and with you playing the violin and Fitz here, I thought we could start a band!”   Not only had he gone dark but he was also completely mad. The younger Doctor would have seriously worried for his fate if his future self had not been showing so much enthusiasm and excitement. One must never cross one’s own time line, or so the first law of time said. Or whichever law it was. And there he was, about to give a massive kick to time travel regulation to start a band with one of his following regeneration. The younger Doctor smiled from ear to ear.   Let’s live a little.               “A band? Are you serious?” Fitz demanded.     “You should be flattered. I play the guitar because of you.”       Fitz lowered his head to hide his blushing and if the two Doctors were getting too hyped to notice, it was not the case of Bill. As the Time Lords decided to go and fetch the Doctor’s violin and Fitz’s guitar in the TARDIS before going to the Bristol University, she slowed down a bit, to stay behind with Fitz.         “So.” She started. “Are you and the Doctor …”                 “Me and the Doctor what?” he asked defensively.       “He’s that special person, right?”           He hesitated before taking a cigarette out and lighted it.             “How did you guess?”                 Bill shrugged and looked at the two Doctors walking in front of them.                 “I’ve seen how you look at him. I’ve had crushes before too, you know.”         “It’s more than a crush.”             She smiled sadly. Nardole had mentioned the Doctor’s wife, River Song, but she had never imagined him with anyone and knowing that at some point in his past, he had had someone like Fitz Kreiner loving him and caring for him made her happy.     “You two!” the older Doctor shouted at them without turning back. “Don’t linger on. If you get lost, kidnapped or put yourself into mortal danger again, we won’t come and get you.”               Bill and Fitz glanced at each other and ran to join their friends.

  The Doctor was a university teacher. Fitz had almost burst out of laughter when Bill had announced it as they were getting inside his office. He was having a very hard time imagining his friend preparing and giving a lecture without getting distracted and losing his train of thoughts. His Doctor, though, seemed impressed and was looking curiously on the desk of his future regeneration.   “Susan!” he exclaimed when he saw her portrait. “And who’s that?”                   The older Doctor looked at the picture of River Song with heartache.                   “Spoiler.”   Fitz’s Doctor shrugged and walked away. He took his violin out of his case while the other Doctor was plugging his electric guitar. Bill looked at them with interest. Her Doctor could prove to be annoying with his instrument sometimes but she was very curious to see what their little band would be.   “The Doc and I already have a couple of songs rehearsed.” Fitz said.     “I know. I remember them.”     “I’m not sure that they’re fit for electric guitar, though.” The younger Doctor intervened. “They’re more romantic than rock.”       “Rock can be romantic.”             The older Doctor started to play a melancholic, sad tune, that Bill had heard him play a couple of time before.               “That’s not romantic, that’s barbarian.”               “And you’re too sentimental!”                 “I think we can find a compromise, right Doctor?” Fitz had put himself between the two of them. “You two have two different styles, but I’m sure we can make this work.”  The two Time Lords agreed reluctantly and Fitz and his Doctor started to play. Bill listened as her Doctor joined in and couldn’t help a smile. She observed them for several hours, playing and arguing, but she got bored after a while and decided to go out.                When she came back, three hours later, they were still playing. She listened to the soft music of the younger Doctor’s violin as the other two were playing in the background. When they saw her, the three men stopped, silently deciding to take a break.       “How did it go?” she asked with a wide smile.                 Fitz shook his head.       “Quite well when they stopped bickering.”       The two doctors shared a look and decided not to reply to that. Fitz rolled his eyes but beneath his mask of annoyance, she knew he had had a great time : the flame in his eyes was not fooling anyone.   As he and the older Doctor were comparing their guitars, Bill came closer to Fitz’s Doctor. She had not had the occasion to speak to him yet and was very curious to know more about him. He was looking out of the window and turned around when she sat in the armchair that was sitting there.   “Hi.” She said.                   He replied with a charming smile that made her roll her eyes. Fitz was flirty in a not so subtle way but his Doctor was a charmer too, not with cheap catch phrases – somehow she felt it would have been wrong -  but in a more romantic way that was not without reminding her about Lord Byron. She realized that love was a very important part of both their lives. Looking for it, growing it, celebrating it and she thought that the two of them could not be better paired. Her own Doctor on the other hand was completely different. She knew he had been married and yet, imagining him in love with someone seemed very peculiar to her. It made her feel sad.           “Miss Potts, right?”       “Yeah, people usually call me Bill, though.”       “Right, Bill. How did you end up with him? With me?”                 She looked at her Doctor. He was now chatting with Fitz.           “He’s my tutor.” She paused. “He’s amazing, he’s like the best person I know. But don’t tell him that, he’d be insufferable.”                     The Doctor mimicked locking his mouth.             “Wait, but if I told you, he’ll remember it!”       He shook his head with a smile.               “I wouldn’t worry about that. I probably won’t retain any memory of this…”   “How come?”                   He shrugged, almost in a fatalistic way.                “That tends to happen. A lot.”                 Bill pouted but chose not to say anything. She focused her attention on her Doctor and Fitz again, observing them interact with each other. The Doctor was explaining something to him, he was wearing his professor expression, the one he took when he was teaching her something. She smiled fondly. Bill loved the old man. She had never known her dad and had lacked a paternal figure in her life, until the Doctor had arrived. She turned towards the other Doctor again.     “Can I ask you a question?”       “You just did.”                 She ignored that and took it as a ‘yes’. Even if he was pretending to be annoyed, the Doctor never refused a question. She was convinced that this was true whatever in incarnation. He had to retain some core personality traits and missing an occasion to share his knowledge was definitely never an option.   “Why us?”         “You’ll have to be more precise.”           She sighed.       “Ok, stop me if I’m wrong. You have a tendency to travel with humans. Fitz, me. And I’m sure there’s been plenty more.”                   He nodded.       “So why us? Why humans? Why not Martians or whatever?”                   The Doctor turned towards the window and for a moment, she thought he was not going to answer.   “I have travelled with other species but I guess you’re right, most of my companions were humans. To me, you’re the most fascinating species.” Bill raised an eyebrow but he did not let her comment on that. “You’re such a complex species, all physically so similar.”                 “You can’t possibly look at Fitz and me and tell us we look the same.” She interrupted.             “On the outside, maybe not. But at the core, on a physiological level, you’re the same. Same species.”   “Ok, we’re all the same inside.” She did not sound convinced. “If you want. But still. I’m female, Fitz is a guy. Even inside we’re different.”               He shrugged.     “It’s only gender.”         “Only? You’re a guy, you were born a guy. Surely you’re different from female Time Lords. How do you even call them?”                   “I’m a man now. Next time I might be a woman”           She frowned.                   “Don’t tell me Time Lords can also change sex.”             “Why not?��       Bill opened her eyes wide.         “That’s … weird. But kinda cool. Have you ever been a woman?”           He shook his head.         “Not that I remember.”               Bill let this information find its way towards the ‘need to have a talk with the Doctor’ part of her brain.   “Ok.” She finally said. “Let’s say that us, humans are very similar, I’m not saying that I agree but you know… Is it the only reason why you travel with us? If it is, I’ll be a tad disappointed, I must tell you.”   “I didn’t say similar, I said physically similar. That’s the paradox of it. You look the same but you’re all so different at the same time. All of you, when you first step in the TARDIS, are a complete mystery to me, no matter how many humans I’ve travelled with before. Discovering you is as exciting as discovering a new planet.”           Bill grinned.       “You’re pulling my leg.”               The Doctor shook his head and looked at Fitz.                 “I’m not.”           Bill’s smile faded. She followed his gaze and put her hand on his arm.                 “He’s different to you, though.”             “Something happened to me.” He started hesitantly. “I forgot who I was. I became a mystery to myself. Fitz was my constant, I knew him better than myself and he knew me more than himself probably.”   “I’m sorry.”       He shrugged and they both fell silent.

  Fitz observed Bill and his Doctor chatting. He wondered what they were talking about and resisted the urge to join them. The Doctor sitting next to him drew his attention away.                 “Hey Doc.” He smirked at the grimace that followed.                   “Hey Fitzgerald.”             Fitz’s smirk turned into an expression of horror. The Doctor laughed and Fitz decided to imitate him when he stopped feeling like he had been hit in the stomach.         “Ok, point made.”         “It’s nice seeing you again, Fitz.”             Fitz sighed. He had a lot of questions burning his lips but he knew that the Doctor would not answer any of them, which was making the whole situation very frustrating. What was the point in having a future version of his Doctor if he couldn’t ask a couple of question? His curiosity, though, always got the best of him and he gave in.         “What happens to me, Doctor?”             The Doctor did not reply at once. Probably he had forgotten how and when they had parted, Fitz thought bitterly. No, that was unfair, he decided. He could not blame the Doctor for forgetting. It was not his fault if he was all messed up but it was Fitz’s responsibility to make sure he was ok. The only good thing he would ever do.               “You know I can’t tell you that.”             “Come on, you’re blatantly ignoring your laws of time to start a band with yourself and you can’t even give me a clue about my future?”           The Doctor smiled but shook his head.                 “There’s one thing I can tell you. The best is yet to come, Fitz. Don’t lose hope.”           “Is it with you?”               “I can’t answer.”             “It has to be though. My best can only be with you.” Now there was desperation in Fitz’s voice that broke the Doctor’s hearts. “Without you, I’m worth nothing. I’m a loser.”   “It’s not my role to show you how wrong you are, it’s his. But I can promise you he will.”           The Doctor’s expression that had softened became hard again.             “And now stop whining. No one ever accomplished anything by whining.”       “Sorry.”   “Hey. Bill’s got a great idea.”     The younger Doctor’s intervention prevented Fitz from being rebuffed again by the older Doctor. They both got up.                   “That wasn’t MY idea, Doctor.” Bill protested, in vain as the Doctor ignored her.             “Bill can be our singer.”               The older Doctor raised a sceptic eyebrow.       “I’m very flattered guys, really. But I can’t sing.”             “This one can’t play the guitar.” The Doctor gestured towards his future self. “That’s not a problem.”   “Oi! No need to be rude.” The older one protested.     “I’m not rude. But one needs to be honest with oneself.”         Before the two Time Lords could start bickering like an old couple again, Fitz stood between them.   “The lyrics for my songs are in the TARDIS and we’re not going to get them, that’s one problem solved. As for you two, stop depreciating yourselves. You’re both great, admit it and move on. Besides, self-pity is usually my stuff, I won’t accept competition.”     The Doctors frowned, agreed to apologise to each other and the incident was forgotten.   “Anyway, I think we should go, Doctor.” Fitz started. His Doctor was about to agree but Bill cut him.   “Oh wait. I’d like to listen to you. Do you think I could have a private concert?”               Fitz grinned charmingly.               “Of course!”     He grabbed his guitar and the two Time Lords imitated him after having shared a look. Bill made herself comfortable in the Doctor’s armchair as the three musicians were conversing in a low voice. Finally, they seemed to agree and took position – Fitz in the middle, slightly in the back and the two Doctors on his flanks. One silent minute passed and the violin started. The music was slow and melancholic, a tune that seemed to suit this particular incarnation of the Time Lord. Then, Fitz’s guitar joined in and they played together a song that they had played together a hundred times. It should have clashed when the electric guitar joined in but it didn’t. The Doctor reproduced their soft tune and Bill thought they were doing rather well. When the first song finished, she clapped enthusiastically. They played two more songs, more rock, livelier, where the older Doctor lead the other two. Fitz was obviously having a lot of fun and even the younger Doctor was using his instrument perfectly, in a range that was not so familiar to him. If she had to be perfectly honest, Bill would not have thought that the violin and the electric guitar would be well matched, a reflection of their owners’ characters. But they did rather brilliantly and as she was watching Byron and the rock star getting on so well, her heart lifted a little. They finished their improvised concert with Fitz original song. It was serene and romantic, like a ballad and Fitz’s voice, slightly out of tune, brought shivers down Bill’s spine. When they were finished, the three of them bowed in front of their small audience and she cheered.           “That was amazing!” she congratulated them.                 The Time Lords accepted her comment with modesty and a smile, but Fitz had to make a fuss of it. His Doctor stopped his fervour by putting a hand on his mouth.               “Thanks Bill, that’s very kind. But I’m afraid we should leave now. We’ve already stayed together too long.”                 “He’s right.” Her Doctor stepped in. “Besides, if Nardole finds out I started a band with myself, I’ll never hear the end of it.”             Bill agreed and they started to say goodbye. She hugged Fitz, making him promise to visit her if he was still around in 2018, as the two Doctors were shaking hands.               “It’s reassuring to know that my future is in good hands.”         The older Doctor smiled faintly. He knew what was ahead of his younger self and if the temptation to give him a peek was high, he resisted and kept his mouth shut. Instead, he turned towards Fitz.   “It was nice seeing you again, Fitz. Take care.”                 “You too, Doctor.”         Fitz was about to step back but the Doctor trapped him in a hug. The Time Lord did not want his old friend to see his face, and if Fitz saw nothing indeed, Bill did notice his wet eyes and promised herself to take good care of her Doctor.           “Goodbye, Bill.”               To her surprise, the younger Doctor kissed her on the cheek and after having taken their instruments, he and Fitz were gone.       She and her Doctor looked down from the window at them walking away. It was only long after that they had disappeared that they turned towards each other.           “Does it happen often that you run into yourself? It must be when you’re a time traveller.”   “Now and then.” He replied with a mysterious smile. “And always when it’s needed.”            

1, 7, 14, 15, 18, 21, 26, 33, 34, 45, 51, 54, 84, 87, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96 :)))))

wtf why are you like this sherms 😂😂😂😂

there’s 19 freaking questions

(1) Do You Sleep With Your Closet Doors Open Or Closed? 

Mostly closed... but there’s a cupboard whose door is slightly ajar because it just can’t be shut properly. 

(7) What Is The Temperature Right Now? 

I swear it must be like 38 degrees celsius or sth, i’m sweating like a pig here

(14) What Books Are You Reading?

None at the moment because I HAVE NO TIME FOR IT

(15) Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 64, Give Me Line 14.

“Only four of the thirty or so established manufacturers of cable-actuated equipment in business in the 1950s...”

- some business book of my brother’s (The Innovator’s Dilemma)

18 has been done so moving on...

(21) Favourite Animal?

Probably cats. Any cute animal tbh. Hamsters are also really cute.

(26) Favourite Tumblr Blog? 

Not @mysmesomefluff obviously. 

(33) PlayStation Or Xbox.

Neither because I HAVE NEITHER. If I had to choose I’d go with PlayStation though.

(34) Would You Swim In The Lake Or Ocean?

Lake, because the ocean is too huge and scary.

(45) Name One Movie That Made You Cry.

I was watching the Guardians of the Galaxy movies recently and I vaguely remember tearing up for both films. I tear up easily when there’s a character death :’D

(51) Do You Like To Read / Write?

I like reading books (depending on the genre) but as for writing... I like creating stories, but I have no confidence writing them or producing them in general.

(54) Put Your Music On Shuffle, What Is The First Song That Came Up?

Fall Out Boy - I Don’t Care (lmao)

(84) What Are Three Things You Did Today?

Dug out my cupboard to find stuff... My cupboard’s currently in a mess.

Tried to fix my SSUM app to no avail

Browsed tumblr

(87) Are You A Day Or Night Person?

Night... In the day I’m sleepy and unproductive lmao.

(91) What Sounds Are Your Favourite? 

Rain! Also the sound of peaceful cafe music. And the soft purring of cats. I also like music box sounds (most of the time, some of them are a bit creepy etc).

(92) Do You Wear Jeans Or Sweats More?

Jeans. I don’t wear sweats often at all.

(94) Name Something That Relaxes You.

talking to TEOHot showers, playing and singing along to music I like, enjoying a cool breeze (ha, there’s no cool breeze here tho)

(95) What Tattoo Do You Want?

I don’t actually intend on ever getting a tattoo, but I think white ink tattoos are really cool. If I were to get one, I’d want it to be small, of either birds flying or wings and somewhere on my back. 

(Actually I had OCs with such tattoos hahahaha)

And finally...

(96) Favourite YouTuber?

Hard question, because I don’t actively check out any specific youtuber’s videos... Though recently I was looking at HonestTrailer’s videos of certain movies just because. :’DThanks sherms??? for the long??? list of questions????

So I finally got around to finishing DotO, so here are my thoughts on it. Bear in mind my run was strictly ghost/clean hands so you won't find many mention of the combat aspect of the game here:

The Good Things:

- Billie's powers. Actually a lot of fun to use. They were pretty distinctly different from everyone else's powers we played with so it was fun learning how hers worked and how to use them to get past obstacles.

- Billie. Billie is just an awesome character and its rad as heck that we get to play as the badass from Knife of Dunwall finally; she was actually one of the characters I was guessing we might be able to play as alongside Emily before the first trailer for DH2 dropped. Hecka pleased we can play as her.

- The Bank Mission. Okay, once you're inside the bank here, DotO turns into a game of Thief, and anything that can remind me of Thief is a good thing. Billie's got a lot of cheekiness in this level, I like that you have to be creeping around, and just the solution for getting the knife from the vault is great. Overall a very solid mission, and one I'm likely to replay again.

- The Oracles. Heck yeah we get to see the Sisters of the Oracular Order, we've been wanting to see them for ages and they don't disappoint.

- The Clockwork Sentinels. Not as agile as the clockwork soldiers, but boy are they way the heck more spooky. With Dolores's voice, the way they cheerfully try to promote the bank, that ceramic grin of theirs. Even though they've been nerfed they really make one want to avoid them, and they are awesome.

- Hook mines. fuckin bless hook mines, thats all there is to that

- Crossbow bolt upgrades; the fact that you can actually increase the amount of non-lethal bolts is a blessing.

- Bone Charms. Holy heck there were a lot of black bone charms and they were awesome, I was juggling them around trying to figure out which ones I wanted most.

- The cutscenes. I'm a sucker for stylized cutscenes, and the comic-strip aesthetic of the briefings were really rad.

okay, so those were a lot of things i thought doto did good on, now lets move on to...

The Bad Things:

- The acquisition of Billie's powers. Lets just cut to the chase here. I almost quit the game in disgust the moment the outsider showed his face. The fact that Arkane Studios thought it was alright to show the outsider, a white dude, essentially physically assaulting Billie, a black woman, in a scene that is so obviously reminiscent of sexual assault in order to FORCE a change onto her, and for her to be okay with it afterwards is goddamn disgusting. It was a fucking sick scene, and the writers and editors in charge of it should feel goddamned ashamed of themselves, because this was literally the worst Dishonored has ever sunk. It was disgusting, uncomfortable, and made me want to quit the game then and there because it was upsetting and not at all what we've come to expect from the Outsider. And on that note...

- The Outsider. If you're one of those people to come to me and be like "It's not your IP, Arkane can write their characters however they want!" when i'm about to criticize the characterization of all these characters, y'all can step off right now, because the Outsider is wildly out of character here. If you compare the Outsider to the other points of reference we have: DH1 and DH2, you'd see that the Outsider typically tends to stand apart from everyone. He keeps his distance, occasionally showing his face to let one of his marked know just enough information about what's going on around them to keep them going, and to let them know he's watching. In doto, there's none of that. He doesnt even show up in the void in the beginning, he just straight up grabs Billie and rips off her arm in a scene that's very ?????? It makes no sense given the character we know and are familiar with, and it just never recovers from that. He's just a completely different character here.

- Billie's motivation. Or, lack thereof. She wants to find Daud, okay that's good and all, but once she does, she loses all stakes here. WHY does she care to listen to Daud's every word? It's been 15 years, but she seemed too eager to just do what Daud wanted her to do. She doesn't have any drive, any REASON to pursue these goals. WHY does she suddenly want to also kill the Outsider and do what Daud wants her to do? There's really nothing there driving her, and it makes the storytelling weak.

- The lack of targets. There aint no targets. Sure there are important people, but tbh I straight up ignored them half the time. There was no real reason in even giving them a second glance, its like the game didn't even care if you noticed these people or not. And on that note...

- The lack of chaos system. Look, for all its faults, the chaos system is something that is inherently Dishonored since Dishonored first came out. It gives you a reason to do replays, to see what happens if you kill EVERYONE, or if you spare everyone instead. It adds variety to the game, and a reason to keep coming back and to consider your choices. Without it... there's no reason to do much of anything. Why replay the game? Why bother trying to do ghost/clean hands, or to kill everyone? Why do much of anything? Nothing you do matters in the game, so why care?

- Daud. Another characterization gone wrong. His story was supposed to have been concluded with the Brigmore Witches, and given that he and Billie still live, we should reasonably assume that in the canonical timeline, this is Low Chaos Daud. A Daud who took a step back, looked at his actions, and began to change who he was. He didn't beg forgiveness or anything, and let his actions speak louder than words as he decided to show a more merciful touch. To get a document right off the bat saying that he just went right back to killing people and never stopped, and began to blame the Outsider for the wrongdoings in the world, is just to take several steps backwards in his character development. He's already grown wonderfully as a character in KoD and BW, so to see him take these massive steps backwards is disappointing from a writing perspective.

- Bonecharm crafting. So easy to miss. Why is it not even available until you're nearly done with the game? There's no indication WHY you're suddenly able to craft bonecharms when you have the knife, and at that point it's almost not even worth it anymore.

- The length. It was a short game, and mind you I'm a slow player and put 13 hours into my first run, but it's short. It should've been DLC, tbh because...

- The Recycled Mission (the Conservatory). makes it feel like it was rushed, incomplete, and tbh not worth $30 as a standalone game. It would've made infinitely more sense for it to have just been DLC like KoD or BW.

- Bugs. Now this one isn't something that everyone has, but it's something I have that has been GREATLY affecting my gameplay. The game is buggy and wonky and needs serious patching. In my own game I was constantly battling disappearing crosshairs, disappearing button prompts, disappearing items in the black market shops... basically nothing on my HUD was showing up as it was intended to, and it made the gameplay aggravating.

i'm probably missing a lot of things but that's the stuff i can remember off the top of my head. Perhaps on subsequent playthroughs (if i do them >__> ) I'll add more depth to this

OVERALL VERDICT:

5/10

Average game, not BAD, but certainly not what I've come to expect with the Dishonored series

Ultimately, the fun gameplay just can't save the confusing and poorly written narrative. The characters were just too off the mark, the story felt like it had too few connections with the ACTUAL playable character, and that made it feel like we were just running errands for Daud rather than actually playing a character with her own drive and motivations. It really felt as though we were more on rails here, and that what little choices we DID have in the gameplay didn't amount to much of anything.

More importantly, it just didn't feel like Dishonored.

Now, for my Thiefy followers, lemme put this into simple TL;DR terms:

Thief Reboot > Death of the Outsider

There we go, I said it. Y'all know how i feel about the reboot and can probably get a strong understanding of my feelings on this game from that statement there.

I hope the use of Seal lyrics was intentional Lo (I mean I'm pretty sure it was lol) cos "my power my pleasure my pain" distracted me from the great meta (to be?) post you were making! But back on topic I feel you on all the unresolved shiz, I just don't think the show think anywhere near as deeply into it as us! I do think more effort is put into Robron (and Coira) then other couples which translates into longer story arcs, so there's still hope.. pleasure and pain... lol!

oh, yk i just can’t resist throwing nonsensical song lyrics into things 

the show definitely doesn’t think about this shit as deeply as we do because… well, they’ve got other characters to worry about and we’re all out here like HERE’S 200 WORDS OF META ON THE SIGN IN THE BACKGROUND OF A SCENE WHERE ROBERT AND AARON ARE MAKING OUT 

(i say we but that was me. i did that. I DID IT AND I STAND BY IT)

sometimes i do think though that… even if yes, ok, OK FINE, none of these scenes were made to withstand the level of in-depth scrutiny we put them under and no, i never needed to write a 3000 word essay on the confusing characterisation of rebecca white when she’s clearly, in the crudest terms, more plot device than representative of an understandable human and as such it’s all just sort of futile, but… sometimes, just sometimes, i think the bigger picture ideas aren’t actually necessarily off base

ok and i just got this ask from another anon, so hopefully neither of you mind, but i’m going to put this in here, because this ties in to the point i’m going to attempt to make (that’s really just me validating my inability to be succinct and my love of meta) lmao:

anonymous asked:

but i think - because its a soap - robert and aaron are never going to resolve any of their issues in a satisfying way. because if they were resolved and dealt with then the show wouldn’t be able to use those issues for drama. so i can’t really see their reunion addressing any of the january stuff tbh

on some level, i agree with you. i totally do. on another, broader-picture level, i think that… i think i’ve been surprised by the level of cohesiveness in the storytelling for aaron and robert - like, it’s not the most tightly constucted thing in the world by any means, and this is obviously coming out of me coming from the glee fandom, where we had literally no cohesiveness ever and so i’m probably just over-impressed by even the most marginal attempts to write a meaningfully constructed longer form story, but… but i think, given that it’s a soap and given how much content they need to produce and given the inconsistent treatment of a lot of the characters on the show, aaron and robert’s relationship does get a decent amount of care put into it, on the whole, and sometimes that’s visible in the storytelling - like sometimes, a scene will happen that just sort of… slots a lot of things into place and calls back to meta we’ve been writing the whole time and… idk. like, you really do just need to look at rebecca as a character and compare the writing for her over the past year with the writing for aaron and robert, who have much more consistent traits and motivations.  

i think this is why i like writing meta for this show. because sometimes there’s a pay off, where the show will specifically highlight things we’ve been talking about and examining and make them explicitly canon. it’s super satisfying. the heavy handedness works (for me) for this purpose. it’s like taking our meta and saying to everyone ‘oh hey, that thing you were reading into is exactly what we were going for’. and the general audience will do this as well - everyone will have an opinion on what’s happening beneath the surface of some stuff, it’s just that they might mention it off-hand to someone they’re watching the show with whereas we sit down and spend three hours typing up an argument to support it based entirely on how we’ve interpreted that last three years of canon and then use it to try and convince people to feel the same way lmaoooo. it’s awesome. but those bigger picture ideas that maybe aren’t called out specifically 

like… don’t get me wrong, i don’t believe in the idea that they’re going to call back specifically to the january argument and take a big, in-depth delve into why that specifically happened and why it was some sort of turning point that they ignored in favour of being together and how that ultimately went wrong… i can’t imagine that’s happening lmao, that’s absolutely what our meta is for (which is fine). like… i don’t see them calling back to the specifics in any meaningful way (at most we might get some dialogue parallels bc the show loves those, as we know lmao)

but like… ok, some of this is going to come back to how early on did the show know they were going to break aaron and robert up, in all honesty. we know that iain has been intending to get rid of the whites… probably since the time he started? going by the interviews he was giving at that time? we know rebecca was brought on with some sort of plan in place for her character (to get in between robron lmao). obviously we can sort of… like, chicken or the egg, what came first - lucy announcing she was pregnant and them realising that rob and aaron would have to get married quickly, or iain deciding to go max feeling exploitation and get two weddings out of robron? this is all random extrapolation on events we know, because we can’t pinpoint when it became clear to them that they were going to do a wedding, followed by a big break up, followed by a big reunion and culminating in another, ~~~~real (so to speak)~~ wedding. but at some point, that would have been firmly in their plans. 

the january argument -

ok. ok fuck it let’s meta the january argument even though i literally said i wasn’t going to and that i wanted to wait until they got back together idc i don’t listen to me she doesn’t know what’s up

the reason i love the january argument so much as a turning point within the larger overarching story they’ve been telling is because it works so well as this big flashing harbinger of doom that the boys both ignore - it’s built up specifically from problems they have been having since right before they got engaged 

and look, i wanna write meta about all the arguments they have firstly from the reunion until ssw and then from in between ssw to the january argument, because i think the stuff that takes place when rebecca is in the village is very pointedly building towards what ultimately happens in january

and i think it’s clever because when you watch it for the first time, the fact that aaron is ultimately driven to violence and puts kasim in hospital and then ultimately gets arrested is what you’re left thinking about - it totally draws attention away from the things aaron and robert are saying to one another and the way that their argument(s) echo previous fights they have had around rebecca and aaron not understanding rob’s bisexuality and rob’s tendency to lie and scheme and rob’s defensiveness around his schemes and how much he has changed and is trying to change vs how much aaron needs from him and just… the ways in which they’ve been slowly falling apart. 

(and ok at some point i will write my actual meta where i actually quote the dialogue instead of making vague references to it, although i usually feel like it’s a safe assumption to think that you guys know where i’m sort of pulling these ideas from when i talk about this shit - specifically, stuff i want to talk about includes the things aaron has said about rebecca and robert’s interactions with her, the moment robert talks about his scheme as something that is no longer about andy and absolutely about the money, aaron’s understanding of the robecca kiss, rob talking about how aaron can’t be happy and that he screws things up (which is horrible foreshadowing for kasim), rob yelling about aaron walking away from arguments and not recognising the change rob has made and the way that rob literally brushes his kiss with rebecca under the table, aaron literally saying that he doesn’t like the person he is around robert because of how things have played out with rebecca ec. etc.)

anyway, they just… i’ve fully written about this before, but the kasim stuff acts as a distraction both for robert and aaron - who, before aaron’s arrest, are having a tentative conversation where rob is gently pushing for them to still go to vegas to try and work things out and aaron is absolutely not convinced. after aaron gets arrested and then gets released, the next scene they have is aaron trying to give robert an easy out and robert point blank refusing - over the course of the three episodes, from aaron getting arrested to aaron giving the police a new statement, rob makes multiple references to fighting for their relationship even if aaron doesn’t think it’s a good idea - literally says that he’s not going to stop fighting for them, which is important but also sort of conveniently skims past the point that this argument didn’t occur in a vacuum and at no point have they faced up to what happened to bring them there between the two of them.

when, during the reveal, aaron says that rob was the one who pushed for this, you can sort of see where he’s coming from in a sense. i think aaron’s impending sentencing also made it harder for them to focus on what the real issue was (or rather, made it way easier to ignore, because they were too busy being terrified of losing one another) - but even then, rob decides to throw a surprise wedding because in canon we know that aaron is panicking about leaving robert and losing him completely - which is ultimately what happens, both exactly in the way aaron feared, but also not at all because rob’s motivation to cheat is, as we all know, entirely about aaron (or rather, about both rob’s feelings for aaron and rob’s horrible decision making/tendency towards lashing out impulsively when confronted with things he doesn’t know how to deal with like a normal human and fucking up his and other people’s lives in the process). aaron’s fears that rob would want someone else were unfounded but those fears also sort of led him to underestimate how much of a toll his getting sent to prison would have on robert and so, in the most perverse and unexpected way, his fears about what robert would do given rob’s behaviour up until that point, ended up being spot on.

all this is to make a point that the january argument played a massive role in robert and aaron getting married the first time round and also led them both down a road where they were distracted from what should have been the ultimate sign that things weren’t working and thus didn’t take the opportunity to fix it, rather let things get dangerously and disastrously out of control. i remember a lot of the meta around the time of the jan argument pointing out that things hadn’t been resolved and that they would be resolved at some point - i saw a lot of people talk about an immediate resolution. i think my instinct was that it would take them a little longer - maybe a month max, but that things would be worked out before the wedding. the fact that the wedding wasn’t legal was like this big red herring - it made us all believe that the only reason they’d have a second wedding would be to legalise things. but oh, oh no, no - little did we realise at that point that the whole first wedding was just another distraction (a very beautiful and romantic distraction, but a distraction nonetheless). the first wedding wasn’t a random break from the misery they’d had between that point and ssw, it was a symptom. once again, robert finding a way to push through their issues, to make it more about their love and the fact that they want to be together, and aaron following because that’s what he wanted too - neither of them wanted to deal head on with any of their shit.

uh, taking things right back to my original point of ‘how much of this will we actually see resolved when they get back together’ - i mean, it’s difficult to say? because on the one hand, it depends on what story the show wants to tell with them next and on the other, it depends whether they want to sort of just brush their issues under the carpet and pretend they never happened (worst case lmao). i think, though… i mean, i don’t know, i actually genuinely don’t want to speculate at all on what we’ll ultimately see because down that road leads madness and also an inevitability that we’ll all get it wrong, as we did before with both the jan argument and the purpose of the first wedding, for instance. i think, particularly because it is something i’m looking forward to, i also don’t want to put any expectations on it, really? i’d rather just watch it as open-mindedly as possible. which is also why i want to wait until after i watch it until i really write my meta around this break up, because then i can sort of shape my opinions about what we’ve been shown and where they’ve taken things. i don’t want to try and assume they’ll deal with x or they won’t deal with y or they’ll have them do this or whatever.

having said that!!! that doesn’t stop us from looking at what’s been done so far - the wedding, prison and the ons happened over six months ago now, so we’ve got enough distance from it to say that… look, rob and aaron had so much misery and so many problems from ssw onwards and they ended up going through a massive break up. so big-picture wise, it’s logical that all that misery was intentional. it wasn’t just fuelling the andy plot or whatever, it was there as a build up to ultimately splitting aaron and rob up and making it last a while (even if they hadn’t decided at that point to actually break them up - it’s chicken and egg, they would have known what they’d put them through up until that point and understood that this could realistically ultimately lead to a break up). the january argument wasn’t resolved because it couldn’t be, because that would be counter-productive to the eventual plan of separating them. the first wedding was rushed and not legal and the reason for it being held was literally LITERALLY bc aaron was afraid rob would cheat - because again, that wedding wasn’t going to be the one that lasted. there had to be problems there.

basically - yes we absolutely put more thought into this shit than the show does but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the thought we put into it is… wrong? or will lead to us not feeling satisfied? because the way that things have gone wrong with robron so far have led to a break up. it feels like a safe assumption that they’re not going to go through a massive break up again after they get back together at the beginning of 2018, so on some level somewhere, it seems like a safe assumption that we’re not going to have rob kissing his ex to get money, or aaron doing a miserable 6 week prison stint, or robert knocking someone up etc. basically, i guess what i’m saying is… the pain wasn’t for nothing? it was there to play a function in the story and while i doubt that aaron and rob are gonna get back together and the show is gonna be like ‘ok well their problems are fixed now so that’s nice’, they’re going to be writing with a different eventual goal to the one they’ve had this year?

this wasn’t even ur original question i just took this to an entirely different place lmao. sorry. i guess what i’m trying to say is i’m not particularly concerned about getting a final resolution on rob and aaron’s issues, but the writing for them will change as the direction of their story changes, so. the reason i’m waiting is more because i’m waiting for that direction to stop being “keep them apart” and start being “get them back on track and prove they can be together”. which is sort of… the next step? i guess? regardless of whether or not they have problems (and it’s a soap so u know they will), the story needs to shift from a break up to a big second wedding - the one that you assume will last more than a month (because they’re not stupid - they know there’s only so much you can wring out of a thing and they’re already pushing it). so… yeah. that’s what i mean when i talk about this particular storyline wrapping up.

i could just keep that last paragraph and delete the rest and you would still have your answer but im obviously not going to do that.

Has no one noticed the description of season 1 episode 13???? "Dean is contacted by his first love, Cassie!" CASSIE, CAS, OMFG! This is canon and I choose to believe! Coincidence? I believe it's foreshadowing!

I stumbled over to my askbox first thing after waking up and squinted at this like, oh, hon, don’t believe everything you read on the internet, until my eyes adjusted and put “season” and “episode” in the right order

But yeah, there’s a beautiful wealth of literature about Cassie and Dean, who are the only reason to watch that episode. 

(It helps, if you’re going to watch, to pretend that bit where Cassie, brilliant local reporter and apparently extremely smart cookie, who has gathered mountains of information on this case and has extensive personal ties to it, before she called in the Winchesters like an extermination service, has to sit there and watch Dean suddenly figure out her whole case for her, instead actually gets that win herself, at which point at least all the agency in dealing with the case goes back into the black woman’s hands, and Sam and Dean are just hired muscle and a fun hook up for our real hero. :P I figure that weird choice was an attempt to not make Sam and Dean pretty much passive observers through the first ¾ of the episode out of some misguided feeling the show had to be about them ALL the time, but in some cases you should prooobably stand back a little and wonder if that was not maybe the one choice you could make if you had to do EVERYTHING else the same to salvage the episode out of total infamy, and all it costs you is making your smart and interesting original character continue to live up to the most important character trait we know about her, aka that she is a good journalist, and not have that all unfairly robbed from her so the white guys can look smart and she’s reduced to a love interest with an infuriating deliberate passivity in the story)

Anyway my entire tag for the episode is either complaining about the rest of it or talking about Cassie and Dean and this parallel 

I think even if Cassie was called ANYTHING else it would still be an absolutely fascinating case study in Dean’s early emotional history, the way Sam teases him about it, the suspiciously similar lines in their argument to the way Dean and Cas talk (sadly without hooking up immediately after :P) and it just happens to be that way. I doubt it was more than a coincidence - this is in season 1, Buckleming, only episode more maligned by the show in its own text when being self-referential is Bugs etc etc - and this IS the show that in 3x06, a mere 10 episodes before Cas showed up, had Sam using a summoning spell that invoked the names of several angels, Castiel among them. Also the same show Jeremy Carver accidentally-deliberately (?) named three separate wives and girlfriends “Amelia” and even used the same career for the husband in 2 of those instances. I’m sure if Sam stuck around and married HIS Amelia he would have started selling ad time for radio whatever the heck that is.

Brains work in weird patterns and no one checks this stuff as far as I can tell :P

Anywho if it was Buckleming writing 4x01 (*shudder*) I’d maybe think picking “Castiel” was at least a sort of influenced decision, but as far as I can tell the show’s been so desperate to bury The Racist Truck Episode, Cassie has never been mentioned again and in general the writers clearly know not to go mining the episode for material to reuse :P The decision to use “Castiel” was because he was the angel of Thursday and that’s the day the show aired on at the time, and of course he was never originally intended too be a love interest and convincing arguments to explain narrative roles and at least why we CAN read him that way earlier aside, not strictly written as one until season 7 or 8. 

But now sitting over here with all that hindsight, it is a pretty excellent thing :3 I like to think of it as the way the show just runs to many loops around itself it’s not even always intentional, and tbh the fact it is basically a storytelling uroboros, the snake eating its own tail, is hardwired into the show’s DNA as the kind of narrative style used since the early days, but the way details come around again and again often feels almost like it’s unconscious and after a point certain things get absorbed into the back of the writers’ minds - lines of dialogue, characters, quirks they like to include and there’s only a chance they know they’ve done it before… I think season 12 serves as a good example of how the show looks once the writers are told to be AWARE of doing it and ENCOURAGED to go pilfer from anywhere in canon they like, taking advantage that the “we’ve been down this road so many times” mantra has left them free to use mirrored moments that can reflect 8 different episodes in 8 different seasons in like one line of dialogue, only now it feels like every episode and every moment was intentionally tuned to be doing that in a self-aware, meta way instead of how you suspect earlier iterations were just the same train rolling through the same town on its route like we were commuters along certain threads of the story. :P 

(Sorry this has turned into a treatise on why I love Dabb era so much) Anyway long story short if Cassie HAD been introduced in 13x01 the “omg I see what you did there” would be way more intentional, but as it is Cas just sort of FITS into one of these already established grooves in Dean’s character, right along with his issues with angels and faith that with hindsight make 1x12 and 2x13 look as if the writers somehow just KNEW it was about Destiel, and I’m not talking the “well yeah they were/probably were setting up for him to have an angel love interest all along, only it would have been Anna” type speculation, I’m talking about 1x12 and Roy LeGrange using dialogue 4x01 would nick and put in Cas’s mouth… 

Maybe my next ridiculous diagram should be “why everything before season 4 proves Destiel is real even though none of it was written intentionally to do this” :P

TBH and Rouge One

Returning from Rouge One I had a few thoughts I wanted to write down before they fluttered away (which they’re already starting to!). These were just my perceptions and options of the movie overall. I’m not well versed in Star Wars, and I’m certain that has had an effect on my experience, for better or worse. I personally really loved this movie.

Here are some of my thoughts:

All the characters die and I think its Great

In fact, if they hadn’t died, I would’ve been disappointed. I’m not heartless, and I loved each of the characters to death (pun intended), but it made for the whole tone of the movie. (In general, I actually typically dislike character deaths but more on that later).

The movie and the franchise speaks to the symbolism idea that we as individuals are something a part of a bigger whole and that it is more important to us than ourselves. The rebels die for their cause because they believe in the greater idea of the mission and its importance. They themselves do not matter but what they chose to do with themselves does. If the main characters, particularly Jyn or Cassian had lived, it would’ve made for a much different tone. One that spoke to the idea that the characters themselves were more important than the thing they were accomplishing. 

Also, each death was so well handled and I didn’t really have any complaints (which if you know me I almost always have complaints when deaths are involved, they’re usually done so cheaply and unnecessarily). Each member of Rouge One gave their live respectfully and appropriately. Their deaths felt meaningful, not shoddy and done for dramatic effect. 

I honestly loved each and every death in it’s own right. They each fulfilled a purpose in the end. My favorite of the favorite death would perhaps be the last couple of significant deaths, Cassian, Jyn, and the random rebel.

The rebel who tries so desperately to escape the closed door but, when seeing Darth Vader mow down his fellow crewmen and knowing he’s also going to share their fate, chooses to pass off the information but it is so vital that it gets to the Alliance. There are a lot of World War references throughout Star Wars but this scene specifically reminded me of that emotional feeling, of one individual doing everything they can in their last moments to save something bigger than themselves. Doing what they can to save others they will never meet.

(Weirdly enough watching Rouge One to me felt a little like if one lived in the Star Wars universe and it was their version of watching a historical movie bringing an amazing wartime story to the big screen because we all knew coming into the movie theatre that the events in Rouge One have already happened. It was much more about the journey itself than the ending.)

Jyn and Cassian’s death.... It was incredibly well done in my opinion and I loved every cut scene of it.After sending out the message, Jyn helps Cassian to the beach to send their last moments alive somewhere pleasant. They can’t escape, there’s no way out of the situation and the ripple of the blast is swiftly coming down upon them, and they find it in themselves to accept that and to find comfort in a companion’s presence in their last moments because they’ve done what they needed to do. They knew coming into this mission they likely weren’t getting out alive and given the options, going this way is better than they could’ve hoped for.

(Also on a small note, the white coat commander [Idk his name] being on the planet and seeing his creation rise in the sky to end his life. That was some poetry right there. He never honestly thought of just what his weapon would be like if he was on the other end and you see, that now he’s about to experience the full spectrum of the Death Star and all it’s “beauty”.)

The Romance, or lack thereof

If I rant to you irl, you probably already know but to put it mildly, I just don’t have much time for romance in movies; particularly action movies. I always feel they they are forced, crammed in too tightly, and poorly written to the point that they completely miss the goal they were trying to achieve leaving no one rooting for the couple or even the characters.

Rouge One didn’t do that, and dear lordie did I love it. There were zero outright romance plots (minus Jyn’s parents and not even them really), and the undertones were subtle and perfect. All these characters are in the middle of warzones and high risk, covert operations and don’t have time for any budding romances and surprisingly; the writers accepted and worked with that.

Throughout the entire movie you see these people slowly learning to trust and appreciate each other, working together toward their mutual goal and accepting the fate they have chosen before them. But there is not one kiss or awkward sex scene throughout.

Instead, the audience receive several subtle, non-disruptive moments between characters that leave much up to interpretation because, much like the character’s, the plot doesn’t have time to concern itself with the foolishness of romance. That would’ve been something to deal with outside of this time period in their lives.

With Chirrut and Malbus, you see a long standing companionship from the start. These two have obviously known each other a long time and have many shared moments together. They fight, discuss, and jest well together. Still, their relationship remains ambiguous throughout (there is a particularly adorable scene in which Chirrut says he’ll be safe because he’ll have Malbus with him-- a giant who constantly complains about saving the guardian despite his impressive fighting skills). Malbus, never one who is seen directly believing in the Force, and often joking about Chirrut’s fate, never attempts to dissuade him and during their final moments together he prays for Chirrut’s sake out of the respect for the connection they share. He is distraught to see Chirrut die and in his own final moments, Malbus finds comfort in looking upon Chirrut one last time.

Jyn and Cassian, the two protagonists, were obvious and almost dreaded choices for a romance in the movie. Surprisingly, there isn’t really any romantic or sexual tension between the two throughout almost the entire movie. It isn’t until their last few moments that the audience receive the potential undertones, (which are never fully brought up). Instead of having them share a kiss during their final moments, they hold hands and hold each other close, facing their impending deaths together using each others strength. For me personally, I don’t think that Jyn or Cassian even ever really saw themselves as friends but they came to share a great mutual respect and admiration for one and other in the end.

Both of these relationships presented the subtle possibility for more than a friendship but also allowed the viewer to accept their relationship as only a friendship if they wished.

[Only in a little part of my head did I imagine all the characters were asexual and it was also beautiful but probably complete nonsense. Still  so Beautiful though to watch them from that perspective none the less.]

By doing things the way they did, it actually had me appreciating the potential couples in ways I never can when couples are outwardly done in these kinds of films.

Diversity and Accents

Diversity in casting today is something I’m rather passionate about. I think it’s incredibly important and needed to be telling a competent and fully fleshed out story of the human people and I think we’ve fallen short in this department more often than we’d like to think in recent years, filling the potential for good storytelling with the poor substitute of diverse casting for the sake of having it. A character of a specific gender/race/religion/orientation/etc, should not exist simply to be that one specific quality. Humans are diverse and complex in their existence and successful characters should reflect that. [I’m rambling now... Back to Rouge One points...]

Diversity in this movie... I loved it. In the beginning I had some disappointing doubts about the diversity of the film watching the opening scenes but when we got into it, the movie really ended up impressing me.

The majority of the main characters came from racially different backgrounds and their accents, their accents. Not being entirely familiar with SW universe and such I know they have their own languages (which was cool to see) but also each of the characters spoke with their own distinctive accents, suggesting a truly diverse and multicultural upbringing between all of them. Even Jyn’s accent is not distinctively American (which to me personally seemed to be many of the older SWs characters [I could be wrong here]). It’s not a bad thing to have a American accents and such, but I think it’s important to have more than just that one perspective in a movie like SW because the world created includes it because you are talking about people living on so many different worlds with different races... just think of all the differences in human culture within our own one little Earth.

Anywho, the accents really brought something to each of the characters and gave them a special kind of identity that often isn’t seen in popular franchised movies.

So yes, it was great. And I enjoyed it greatly.

Cassian should have shot Him

There were only about two things in the movie that I thought were a little cliche but with all the other amazing things in the movie (and with how small they were), I really didn’t mind.

During the scene where Cassian was looking through he sniper scope...It was here that, despite his dilemma over shooting Jyn’s father, Cassian totally should’ve shot Mr. White Coat Commander dude. 1) meta-speaking, it would’ve saved them a ton of time down the road a little bit of hurt, and 2) Cassian being a rebel member should’ve known this guy was a high ranking Empire member and should’ve taken him out on site for the sake of the alliance. it would’ve been a good hit to the Empire.

The other thing was actually a split up of two things relating to Galen Erso. 1) he’s wife’s death was a little cheesy, just having her die at the beginning and him holding her body. and 2) him dying as soon as he reunites with his daughter. Both of these things were pretty small to the overall point of his character and the movie and with everything else going on (so much amazing plot, characterization, etc.), it’s honestly easy to give these few little things a pass.

Starship battles always make me cry

Seriously though, every fantasy movie I watch with star fighters blowing up and random big battle scenes make me getting teary-eyed and I’m not a particularly big crier. It’s just, I don’t see ships blowing up, I see people with families exploding. And I see their families being contacted later on to inform them of the tragedy. [You should’ve seen me in GOTG when the Nova core all die... so many silent movie theatre tears]

Star Wars may be all about fighting got a bigger cause/idea but I also feel like there were men stationed at that Comm tower (Ik there were clones [they’re another deal] and stuff but here I especially mean the regular blokes) whose partners told them them if they were going to be joining the Empire’s Militia, they’d have to find a station somewhere out of harm’s way where they won’t get hurt.

Now imagine the pain of losing the loved one, added to the fact that you thought they had chosen a relatively safe planet to work on.

Rouge One is Basically a fantastic fanfic

What I mean here, is that we already have the setup of Star Wars in canon, and we know what’s already happened to original main characters. Rouge One is like a fanfic that creates other characters within the same world, existing at the same time, and we see the world from their perspective and from their story.

It’s so great to me that this exists and is done so well, especially with the age difference in the movies and ugh, just so good. I’ve died because of fanfics that worked like this.

In Conclusion...

Basically, in short, Rouge One is Just Brilliant.

In my opinion, it has just so much to offer people, both those who do an don’t know the franchise well.

I was rather neutral going into the film but man, it just blew all my expectations and presumptions out of the water. In the best way possible.

The biggest things I usually have problems with in modern cinema, unnecessary/cheap death scenes and romance were both handled practically flawlessly.

So much heart was put into this and it shows.

It renews and reinvigorates my standards and hopes for the future of cinematic film.

[Also, jokingly I just kept thinking how much differently this whole movie could’ve gone with Star Trek beaming tech xD]

I highly recommend seeing this, if you haven’t already. You won’t be disappointed (I don’t think)!