#is it supposed to be a parallel to Amy??

[keirln]

Every time I remember that Sonic’s shoes are actually just boots rolled down (No, they’re not socks, nor are they leg warmers.) I feel like I’m about to start convulsing. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, it makes me ill. Why do you look like that bro oh my godddd

Literally kill me I can’t look at him anymore

[5h0w1sh]

SOUL EATER x SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

[girlmetalsonic]

something that is like the baseline of amys entire character to me is that shes lonely. shes clingy and physically affectionate in a way none of her friends really are, shes always getting pushed aside and left behind. yeah, she helps out people she doesnt know because shes a nice person, but also, she sees part of herself in them. she wont leave someone else behind because she knows the feeling —and more importantly, hates the feeling. if she doesnt have somebody to stand by her and be there for her, then shes going to be that person for everybody else. something something her obsession with sonic is really just like a manifestation of that desire for closeness with someone, and she thinks that romance is the only way to get that. idk... this hedgehog can have so many abandonment issues.

[ghost-bison]

I had a sort of epiphany as to what makes Ten and Donna's relationship so appealing to so many people, so much so that it's been over 15 years and we're still talking about it.

What i'm about to say is nothing really new but I find it interesting how for hundreds of years, the Doctor's been the person and the companion has been the mirror.

What I mean by that is, the Doctor's this all impressive, wonderful being, this super-human to the people he meets and especially those he travels with, and so they think that in order to deserve him and this life, they need to be like him.

We saw it with Rose, who by series 2 started becoming a totally different character: careless, her immaturity hidden behind a newfound confidence encouraged by the Doctor - who, at this point in the show where his most defining traits are guilt and regret, desperately needs an equal.

This change in Rose's personality and demeanor is explored during her talk with her mum in 2x12 "Army of Ghosts":

JACKIE: You even look like him. ROSE: How do you mean? I suppose I do, yeah. JACKIE: You've changed so much. ROSE: For the better. JACKIE: I suppose. ROSE: Mum, I used to work in a shop. JACKIE: I've worked in shops. What's wrong with that? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. JACKIE: I know what you meant. What happens when I'm gone? ROSE: Don't talk like that. JACKIE: No, but really. When I'm dead and buried, you won't have any reason to come back home. What happens then? ROSE: I don't know. JACKIE: Do you think you'll ever settle down? ROSE: The Doctor never will, so I can't. I'll just keep on travelling. JACKIE: And you'll keep on changing. And in forty years time, fifty, there'll be this woman, this strange woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human.

Then, we have Martha. The better-known side of her relationship with the Doctor is that she has an unrequited love for him, but do people ever think about what's going on inside his head during his year with her?

Cause he pretends like he doesn't see it and it sort of works, for we all know he's pretty dense (when Cassandra possessed Rose's body, not ONCE did he glance down at her voluntarily revealing neckline, and he always looks so dazed and surprised when women kiss him, etc...). So Martha believes him when he acts like he doesn't see how she looks at him.

But he didn't have to kiss her passionately if he didn't want her to fall for him. He could have just done some weird shit as always and lick her cheek or something. He chose to kiss her because at this point, because of what he's done to Rose, he's forgotten that that's not what his relationship with people needs to be. He thinks she'll leave him if she doesn't idolize him.

Another side of their relationship we think even less about is Martha being a doctor (or doctor-to-be). She has this particular view of the title that comes with years of university and hospital internships, a view that's less present in companions who don't work in the medical field (Rose, Donna, Amy, Clara, Bill, Ruby...). So she has this advantage where, as she said, "You need to earn that title", but also this bias where she realizes he does live up to it, and because she wants to be a doctor, he's everything she needs to be.

This creates an interesting parallel with other medical worker companions: Rory and Belinda, the nurses.

Rory's relationship with the Doctor mainly exists through Amy's relationship with the Doctor: he's been seeing, ever since they were kids, what their encounter did to her, and then by the time they're adults and Amy sees the Doctor again, what it evolves and will evolve into.

At some point, Rory tells the Doctor:

RORY: You know what is dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around.

And then, this is what Belinda tells the Doctor the first time he takes her into the TARDIS:

BELINDA: Is that what you say to all the girls? Is that what you said to Sasha? She trusted you, and she died. You tested my DNA without even asking my permission. God... You're dangerous. [...] I am not one of your adventures. Now I'm asking you, Doctor, to do the right thing.

Interesting coincidence that the two nurses of the show, basically the two people who aren't impressed (in the sense of "dazed") by the title of "Doctor", are two of the only companions who can see how messed up some situations he puts them in actually are where most companions would make an awkward "that was bad" joke out of it, or even just not say anything.

BELINDA: Some things don't change. There's always a doctor standing back while the nurses do all the hard work.

then:

BELINDA: So what's your name? Doctor what? THE DOCTOR: Just the Doctor. BELINDA: What? You're actually called "the Doctor"? THE DOCTOR: Yeah. BELINDA: All right then, I'm called "the Nurse".

To them, this title is just this: a title. To Martha, it's her future.

And to Donna... it means strictly nothing.

The first time she meets him in 2x14 "The Runaway Bride", she's transported directly inside the TARDIS. She sees the inside before she sees the outside. So where other companions would realize "it's bigger on the inside", Donna sees the contrary: it's smaller on the outside.

When she asks WHO he is, he just says "I'm the Doctor". Then he asks who she is in turn, and she says "Donna". She doesn't try to understand why he gave her this instead of an actual name, nor does she try to obtain an actual answer to her question. She just gets that he's strange, rolls with it, and tells him her name in turn.

By the end of the episode, there's no mistaking the fact that she IS impressed with him... but it's not a good thing.

The Doctor is surprised: he's used to it being a good thing. Generally, it gets him what he wants, which is a new companion. He's done everything right: saved her life, showed her the stars, he's even made it snow to make her smile!

And yet, at this point, all Donna thinks about is how the Doctor drowned kids in front of her, and in front of their own mother, and didn't even blink as he did.

THE DOCTOR: Come with me? DONNA: No. [...] I can't. I mean, everything we did today... Do you live your life like that? THE DOCTOR: ...Not all the time. DONNA: I think you do. And I couldn't. THE DOCTOR: But you've seen it out there. It's beautiful. DONNA: And it's terrible. That place was flooding and burning and they were dying and you stood there like... I don't know. A stranger. And then you made it snow, I mean, you scare me to death!

She is impressed, yes, but she is not dazed, yet. And by the time she is in series 4, she's had too long to think about it to let it cloud her judgment:

When they meet again in 4x01 "Partners in Crime", and she's finally ready to come with him, she gets a glimpse of how narcissistic and self-centered he is when he makes it clear that he thinks she wants to be with him in a romantic way (as I said earlier, he's forgotten that not all his relationships needed to be like this, and this belief that he has was reinforced by his time with Martha).

But Donna immediately puts him back in his place, twice:

DONNA: That Martha must have done you good. THE DOCTOR: Yeah, she did, yeah... She fancied me. DONNA: Mad Martha, that one! Blind Martha, charity Martha. [...] THE DOCTOR: I just want a mate. DONNA: You just want to mate? THE DOCTOR: I just want a mate! DONNA: You're not mating with me, sunshine! THE DOCTOR: A mate! I want a mate! DONNA: Well just as well because I'm not having any of that nonsense, I mean you're just a long streak of nothing. You know, alien nothing.

Then, throughout the whole of series 4, she spends half of their time together learning things about the Universe, about herself, and the other half challenging him:

In 4x02 "The Fires of Pompeii", she doesn't obey blindly. She asks interesting questions, pushes back, disagrees with him. She wants to save the whole town, he tells her they can't do that, she doesn't care. He's not used to having to engage in long explanations as to why his word is to be followed, because he considers himself to be righteous. This is mainly why she challenges him: she's a grown, capable woman and he treats her like a child:

THE DOCTOR: Donna, stop it. DONNA: Listen, I don't know what sort of kids you've been flying around with, but you're not telling me to shut up.

Then, she reminds him once more that they're equals and that she knows what she's doing with him when she puts her hands on that lever, taking on part of a burden that the Doctor thought was going to be entirely his again. And then, finally, she shows him that if you can't save everyone, one person is better than no one at all. She gives him hope and reminds him of his purpose.

On and on, she keeps doing stuff like that, until the point where the line starts blurring between them: they were the DoctorDonna before Donna had even gotten near that hand.

And instead of the companion trying to mirror the Doctor like every other time, the Doctor starts becoming the companion. And Donna does find him dazzling, she said it to her gramps, but she knew better than to let it show when she was with him.

Where he changed Rose into someone else entirely (which ended badly and could have been avoided had they been more careful), pushed Martha into forgetting her own individual worth (which she ended up understanding and decided to leave for her own good), he only gave Donna a glimpse into what she already was, and SHE was the one who changed HIM for the better.

Donna's fate couldn't have been predicted or prevented by either of them; it was destined to end like this, and this, all of this, is what makes their relationship so absolutely magnificent: both the simplicity and complexity of it, and its ineffability.

[nonbinarypirat]

Palome and Kirio

I think we should talk about the similarities between Palome and Kirio. Obviously the story of Palome is a work of fiction within the universe of Iruma-kun created as a group effort between Beem, Iruma, Silvy, and Marnie but the similarities between them are very clear. Palome was a demon who wanted to be accepted by her peers and put herself out only to be ridiculed. From this trauma, she derived pleasure from the experience rather than the typical pain she should have felt. This is not just a sporadic “oh I love the look of despair now!” This came from her deep seated insecurity, previous trauma, and self hatred. Just like Kirio, she has been constantly rejected and to save her from the trauma, her brain derived pleasure from the sensation.

However, we then learn that the only reason she came to this conclusion was because of her sadistic sister. Galna manipulated her their entire relationship and probably contributed to her ostracism. She used Palome’s distress to her benefit to make her loose her mind and spend the rest of her days as a painting. Only to become an even more dangerous painting to one up her sister for the final time.

While Amy came to the conclusion himself to shield himself from the trauma of constant isolation, Baal has also used and twisted his desire from his own gain. A vulnerable young demon who is confused and looking for connection with deep seated issues? That’s the perfect victim to recruit into your budding cult. Kirio may have already been on the track to origins but Baal grew the likelihood and has since been using him. I mean, their relationship is just plain not healthy? A little back and forth teasing is great and all but the abuse he spit at Amy when we first learned about him is just not normal. But for Kirio, he’s the first person he sees as understanding him and when we are talking about evil schemes, this type of relationship is fine right? Idk, it’s just very interesting for Nishi to make a fake character with this type of story when we have a character so similar to Palome. I don’t believe it was an accident. I think we as the audience are supposed to see this, recognize their similarities, and connect all the details.

More evidence pointing towards this is during the Walter Park arch. When Elizabetta is in the shelter, she takes it on herself to take care of the children there. Obviously they are scared out of their minds and confused on what’s going on. From her thoughts we learn that this stressful experience could cause them to have severe issues with their evil cycles or even turn to origins. From this, we know that trauma is one of the root causes for returning to origins. Now I don’t believe it’s the only way, there may just be demons more prone to this line of thinking. Demons who were just born more "primitive." But it’s clear that this is a psychological issue that, if not addressed, can turn to deadly consequences.

The parallels between these two is very curious and it makes me wonder about how Kirio will end up. Will he too be trapped in a "frame," unable to come back to himself and falling too much into the deep end to recover? With this ending, it seems that Baal has won and there's nothing left to do other then to one up him after Kirio has served his purpose. He will fashion himself into a grander painting that will be feared by all that look upon it (or at least, that's his hope). Or will Kirio find a middle ground and escape his fate of being internally trapped in the painting? Will the story have a different end for him? Only our lord and savior Nishi will know the answer.

(Also, I meant to post this a looooong time ago during the haunted house arch but better late than never as they say. Sorry for taking a long time in between posts, college is destroying my brain but I'm surviving.)

[anonzentimes]

Wording it with “talked him down,” Maria could talk Shadow down, Amy was able to reach his inner heart similar to what Maria did but different by reminding him of her, and Sonic is able to be up close and personal and seep into his inner depths and talk to him similar to what Maria did but differently with the parallels of who he is as a person but it doesn’t always work and he can’t tell him what to do. Shadow does whatever based off of his understanding of a situation, so I suppose the main point here is that Maria is the only one who can tell him what to do/talk him down or have him stand down easiest and it always works with her but now she is gone. Those who can either display glimpses of what Maria meant to Shadow or are Sonic who is the one who can consistently get close up and personal but cannot always talk him down are the ones who can reach his heart. At least, that’s my takeaway with the lines.

[uneducated-author]

I have a little conspiracy theory. I think Belinda was never supposed to exist.

Lemme explain.

So, I believe that Ruby was supposed to be a companion for two seasons. I think they had fair notice, probably before they started filming the first, but I think the general storylines were already put in place, and major episodes, specifically 'Robot Revolution', 'The Well' & 'Interstellar Song Contest' were already largely drafted.

I didn't dislike Ruby as a companion, but I really did quite love Belinda. But I feel like this ending feels matched with Ruby's themes, as well as the FINAL episode basically fridge Belinda, literally trapping her in Stepford before having her literally locked in a box.

Final episodes, especially Companion final episodes always involve the active companion. Especially in an RTD season. Rose becomes the Bad Wolf/gets locked in an alternate dimension. Martha walks the entirety of the earth to unionise the human race. Donna unlocks the metacrisis. Even in Steven Moffat, Amy brings back the Doctor, Clara jumps into his timestream, Clara basically drives both the season 8 and 9 finale two parters.

Belinda does... Very little, comparatively. Even her moments with the Doctor feel strange, there's no fallout of her calling the Rani's forces on him, not even any fallout to them being married. She gets a scene where she runs off into the woods to scream, but she doesn't even get an explanation as to who Poppy is from Space Babies, and how the Doctor knows her.

Comparatively, Ruby not only has the emotional weight of stopping Conrad, she also convinces the Doctor of Poppy's existence. Hell, Belinda isn't even THERE when they give the God of Dreams and Wishes to Ruby's family for them to raise.

Theory. Alan Budd was Conrad. Ruby was Belinda. Season 2 starts with a flashback of her kissing Alan, noticeably sexist and disrespectful, names a star after her, and we cut to seventeen years later. The MissBelindaChandra Bots, now known as the 'MissRubySunday Bots' grab her and take her away. The Doctor, of course, comes chasing after her, and the two reunite. This also answers the question as to how Mrs Flood is both Ruby's and Belinda's neighbour. They're the same character. It should be the same house.

The season, largely, continues as normal. Ruby and the Doctor have very much the same dynamic as Belinda and the Doctor. They probably rewrote a lot of the dialogue for a more combative dynamic to distinguish the two. But generally, the two are pretty close, best friends, dressing up and goofing off, and on a rewatch, even when Belinda's words are her own, her actions never feel far from Ruby's.

(I'll admit that's a stretch as 'companion' characters tend to have the same actions, but I hope you understand what I mean.)

Season 2, the vindicator isn't a thing. Ruby admits to enjoying life with the Doctor, and they commit to a couple of funky trips. Replace the 'something is connecting us' speech with Belinda with something like 'the whole universe, and I found you twice/Doctor, I thought I might have to live my life without you, without the universe, let's go everywhere'. This even helps the moment where the Doctor promises Rose that she Will see him again seem to make a lot more sense. Bear in mind, Joy To The World still takes place, so he still has his 'missing Ruby, making two coffees' arc.

(This opening would probably be a parallel to Partners In Crime in some senses? The Doctor and Ruby in the start of Robot Revolution being like the Doctor and Donna constantly missing each other.)

Here, the vindicator never existed. Anyways, it's never mentioned more than a couple of mentions per episode, and even as the deus ex machine weapon against Omega, you could remove every mention of it from the season and it would be fine. The Doctor and Ruby don't have any pressure on getting back on time, they're vibing. It is very much like the last season, only replace the Susan Twist cameos with Mrs Flood cameos.

In 'The Well' we get an indicator that the human race is not in fact gucci. And in 'Interstellar Song Contest' Graham Norton pops up and tells them that the Earth was destroyed on the 24th of May. And this is like Journey's End, when the Doctor and Donna return to Earth, and then the planet vanishes.

(I really see a LOT of Donna's era in this season)

So, in Wish World, the Doctor and Ruby are married. Replace the scene where Ruby knocks on the door and says everything is fake with Ruby being the Doctor's wife telling him that she doesn't remember their daughter. Keep the scene of her being asked about giving birth to Poppy and screaming in the woods, keep the scene of her finding Shirley, only this time, someone else calls the police on both the Doctor AND Ruby. Which is why we get zero fallout of the Doctor feeling like he can't trust Belinda. Because here, they were BOTH reported and taken in.

So in Reality War, Ruby is the companion confronts Conrad, except it isn't Conrad in this version. It's Allan. Noticeably sexist Allan. Belinda even says 'all you ever did was correct me' and that's what he's doing. Correcting the World, in his image. His obsession with obedience.

Hell, it even makes Poppy make more sense. Poppy is born because 'Allan' would want 'Ruby' to be a mother, and in season 1, we see Ruby ask the Doctor if he has children, to which he responds that he will have. Ruby sees him with the space babies. And RUBY, who remembers Poppy, tells the Doctor NO, that she was real, that Poppy existed and he NEEDS to save her. Ruby even tells Poppy 'I wish we were (your parents)' which would make space babies make sense.

Maybe the Zero Box exists, maybe it doesn't, but midnight hits and it's the 25th. And Ruby convinces everyone as to Poppy's existence, and the Doctor leaves, pours regeneration energy into the time vortex, bringing Poppy back and entrusting her to Ruby. (Poppy returns, but is fully human.)

This works for Ruby's themes way stronger. Ruby's arc was always about finding her mother, and being a foundling. I mean, she was even wiped from existence. (They try to make Belinda relate with being trapped in a time storm which is weak).

This is RUBY'S story. Even the idea around family, we get wonderful moments with Cherry and Carla, and after a whole season of Belinda nattering about her parents, we only see her mum for three seconds. And I think they wrote Lucky Day to establish Conrad, and explain why Ruby matters to him.

I don't think this makes the season bad at all. I am a bit upset that Belinda seems like such an afterthought as a character. But here's my theory all the same.

[itz-pandora]

CAKEPAN IM CURIOUS WHATS THE AU !! /silly /nf

I don't know how to describe it other than magical girl and it's not necessarily magical girl

Basically a select few of the cast get thematic transformation things. Sonic : Star/Light/lightspeed — Knuckles : Moon/Rock —Shadow : Black Hole — Amy : Nature/Health — Blaze : Fire — (I've thought about Silver being water)

They each get their own little fella to be their bestie (Sonic gets Chip, Amy gets Birdie, Knuckles gets a Chao, Shadow gets Doom's Eye)

(Shadow's black hole is parallel to Sonic's star. He might be artificial? Probably also ark incident happens. Former star? Shadow is immensely unstable) (Knuckles is supposed to be a compliment to Sonic) (Amy is vastly different from the others bc she represents living things unlike them, so that's why she looks normal)

Sonic's shoes should be star buckles not the wing buckles! I was too lazy to change them. Also they all should have more contemporary designs but I only designed Sonic's

Idk how to articulate my thoughts but uh have this

[facelessoldgargoyle]

another reason that I can’t stop shaking Amy Dallon in a mason jar to turn her into butter. Is that. Her arc makes such a compelling critique of the nuclear family. Consider:

Carol not wanting to have a child, but “caving” to it because Mark promised he’d help. This isn’t stated in the text, but i think it can be reasonably absurd that they were trying to create the image of a family.

Carol’s obsession with feeling safe with a child because it came from her body. It reminded me strongly of Purity’s obsession with her own baby being free from the contamination of the world, and her ex specifically. That parallel immediately makes the ugly subtext clear: obsession with children being pure, and belonging to you, is Nazi shit.

the New Wave is built upon the image of the perfect nuclear family to the point of absurdity. It’s literally composed of two nuclear families, and they perform virtue while hiding dirty secrets. Additionally “the new wave” has always sounded reminiscent of “the third wave” to me. I’m not sure if that was on purpose, but the resonance gives the name an extra sprinkling of fascism.

So into this set of conditions enters Amy. She is mistrusted by her new mother and neglected by her new father and she doesn’t fit into the image of the perfect family. She resents her own power because it exhausts her, but I think that if she could be masked and maintain a civilian identity, she might be able to relax and recharge. This is not allowed by New Wave.

The nuclear family is thus the source of all her problems. Subsequently, Amy is positioned as the nuclear family destroying itself.

Amy’s incestuous feelings are a perversion of the love that the nuclear family is supposed to embody. They arise because the family has failed to embrace her, and shut her out of it. The family causes its own destruction.

Amy’s lesbianism is a perversion of the nuclear family’s ideal of heterosexuality. Changing Victoria’s mind so that she reciprocates is a replay of the homophobic tropes of fifties and sixties lesbian pulp novels, and it literalizes the straight fear that gay people will “corrupt” their children. By playing out a story from conservatives’ worst nightmares, we can see how the fear causes the problem to occur. Carol feared Amy because she reminded her of her father and because she was an intrusion on Carol’s designed family. This fear caused Amy to be shut out, which means she didn’t instinctively view Victoria as a sister, which left the door open for romantic feelings. In the real world, parents’ fear that their children will be corrupted and taken away from them causes them to be controlling and bigoted. This is what drives children away.

Amy’s destruction of Victoria’s body happens as a result of her loss of control, and it happens while the two of them are isolated from the rest of the world. Amy introduces stray cats and dogs and rats—vermin—to Victoria’s body. This literalizes Carol’s fear of contamination, and remakes Victoria so that she no longer came solely from Carol’s body. Amy’s loss of control here frames her more as a carrier of disease than an active agent, in contrast to the last bullet point. The fear of genetic contamination from diseased people plays on very old antisemitic tropes, and again, is Nazi shit.

It’s compelling on the same level that Greek tragedy is! It’s wildly homophobic, but it’s so deliciously ironic.

[lonely-space-ace]

Tbh so much of this would've worked better if they had Poppy as part of the plot from the very beginning

(This got long so it's under the cut)

Like we meet Belinda, have the robot episode like normal, and then at the end when she wants to go home she says it's for her daughter.

And then throughout you could even have Belinda beginning to enjoy the travel (also make it less rushed bc wow that was a quick turnaround) and maybe even have her feel conflicted or guilty about enjoying it because she knows she has to go back.

Because like, we saw Donna in the specials. You can have a companion who is a parent and who's desperately trying to get back to their kid, and they can still enjoy the adventure a bit, but they can also be angry. and they can tell the Doctor off when he gets it wrong.

AND wish world still would've made sense, because even if Poppy was supposed to be there, the doctor is very much not, and you could still have that tension.

(and if you really want to go for it, have a moment like with john smith in family of blood when he really doesn't want to remember because he's so desperate to believe that she's really his daughter. Give him remembering some emotional weight! give him something to loose!)

OR

Alternatively

Do something similar to Amy's parents falling through the crack in time.

Belinda doesn't have a daughter, she doesn't think Poppy exists, but maybe things don't add up. Maybe she lives in a big empty house. Maybe she knows she needs to get back but cant remember why.

Anytime she tells a story from her life, whenever she mentions her parents making her laugh or letting her stay up late, have her trail off and be unsure, like there's someone else she should remember. In Story and the Engine have the screen flicker for a minute, like there's a story that's been erased.

And then in Reality War have Belinda realize that this is really her daughter, and suddenly we care a lot more because this is something Belinda has unconsciously been missing.

Either way, If they had you know, made Belinda a consistent character instead of twirling her around willy nilly then it would've been better, and it wouldn't feel like she was being rewritten and shoved into a box.

But no, RTD had to have his "plot twist" of Poppy being real and the Doctor's daughter, introduce new plot threads at the last minute, and confuse everyone (and waste the Rani and Omega)

A simpler story, of a Belinda fighting her way back to her kid, woud've also been a great parallel to last season with Ruby desperate to find a mom.

(Not to mention the whole "It actually would have been Belinda's OWN FUCKING CHOICE to have a child instead of it being forced upon her" thing. no I'm not mad about that, why do you ask?)

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

tbh i have mixed feelings about the new like, assumptions about "the Ethics(tm) of rewriting people's timelines"

because don't get me wrong, I have always had a bit of a doubt with the kind of storylines that change a person's lives and "make them better" (which happen in doctor who all the way to s1 ). Fi

they're kind of iffy when you think about it too hard from the POV of "oh they just erased the AU!person because a "worse life" person has "less value" than one who's Happier/More Successful (tm) etc", and in a way, if you're very uncharitable, it's kind of a sort of murder (just one that "replaces" the murdered person immediately with a new one, who's slightly different)...

And also sometimes they're less satisfying because it's like, actually the "terrible timeline" character was pretty awesome skdlfj (old amy with the swords you'll always be famous)

(although honestly? they do tend to be very satisfying sometimes, for the simple ape brain reaction -> character i like is happy = i am happy)

but the thing that makes me have mixed feelings about it thought is that... I don't think it "gels" that well emotionally, honestly?

first, because it's a kind of "ethical dilemma" that is extremely removed from any kind of real life scenario.

you know, the old zootopia problem... IRL humans can't change the past. So spending so much time arguing its ethics seems kind of fraught to me. Or at least not super exciting, personally (in general I tend to prefer dilemmas that have some sort of parallels to irl, but I acknowledge that this is not the case for all the fandom)

and second, more of a doylist point, because it's kind of... I don't know, like oh we spent 60+ years not having a problem with this kind of story, and suddenly we're all gonna act like "yes it's always been wrong and we've Always Knew It as doctor who writers" like get out of her lol no u didn't. many times it was just played straight that "some timelines are objectively Better and as an audience u are supposed to be happy they got rewritten" (ex: Inferno). I don't know, it feels like a retcon/revisionism lol

[v1leblood]

Curious about your 17.z thoughts

ok so i double checked and some parts i thougjt were in 17.z are actuallyin the arc 18 interlude, so my feelings aren't as strong as i thought they were, but i still have something to praise and something to complain about

marquis's entire section is good. its almost always nice to see him and even though ward amy is kind of a nonsensical character he still manages to be a good parent to her. mark too. there should be drawinga of them having hateful homoerotic tension

but the interlude also contains rune's pov, ans it's just... baffling. rune is one of the nazis that got the least play during worm, and we've barely ever seen her at all in ward. this makes some of the contents of her part of the interlude very confusing: firstly, the interlude's an introduction to the very basics of the character, on account of her doing fuck all in worm and about as much in ward, while simultaneously having the vibe of... one of those interludes where we get the pov of a character we know and whos been having an ongoing story in the background, a la fume hood or some of the vasils. this makes it not read right, like we're missing part of an ongoing story, and coupled with that is the fact that as we're introduced to this character, there's also extenuating circumstances affecting her behavior -- Victor's skill drain power affecting her "gift of gab", which by the way is mentioned as if it were something about the character we're supposed to be familiar with, despite the fact that she may have two entire lines in the whole of worm. its just very structurally odd, it doesn't feel right.

to top it off there's the question of whether or not her story is worth telling. maybe there is merit in a story about a quasi-reformed nazi, in fact you could make some parallels to some members of breakthrough with that, but is that merit, if present at all, still there if it's not actually a story, but a snippet where the character and themes aren't explored so much as they're mentioned? does anyone but people who are already predisposed to find virulent violent racism forgiveable or agreeable actually want to read that? i mean, i don't think it's wildbow doing apologia for the ideology, the text condemns it, but it seems like a really stupid decision to cram it in with no build-up or justification. we've spent more time with & care more about cinereal than victor, but its his titan trigger with see, not hers. i don't like it. it sucks

then, not strictly 17.z but encompassing it and the chapter prior, is contessa getting turned into a titan. to be blunt i find this plot element to be nonsensical. the only argument that can be made as justification for why she titan triggered is that she's lacking in something that grounds her now that scion isn't the big overarching goal, but i find that to be pretty weak since, as these chapters prove, there's still entity-based world ending threats to focus on and she clearly already had paths in motion given she was escorting teacher after his arrest. furthermore, good general headspace or not, are we supposed to believe contessa was in the middle of solving things and sorting shit out and she just... gave up? no inciting incident, just lost the will to live partway through teacher being taken to the big house? the same woman who saw the goal of killing an alien through from ages 11 to 44? that contessa? i find it to be nonsense, cool design or not

[rascallyrose92]

Sonic 06 would be ten times better if Blaze got to converse (read: kidnap and interrogate) with Elise.

Not only would it be a fun parallel with Amy’s scene with Elise (since they’re supposed to contrast on one question”Save the Girl or Save the World” with Amy being the first and Blaze being the latter) but it would also solve the “Elise gets kidnapped too much” thing. Now Elise gets kidnapped by Blaze instead of Eggman:D

And we can play with the whole “Blaze can sense Iblis and his flames” thing. Maybe when Silver confronts Sonic at the train tracks, Blaze senses Iblis within Elise, kidnaps her, and interrogates her. “Why should I let you breathe another second when you have the power to destroy the world?”

You know, fun stuff like that:)

[beardedmrbean]

They survived Hitler and the Holocaust – but these Jewish New Yorkers never imagined they’d witness images evoking the horrors they experienced 80 years after liberation.

Aron Krell, a 97-year-old survivor of Auschwitz and other camps who was liberated nearly 80 years ago at 18, said the images of the three Israeli male hostages released from Hamas’s clutches looking weak and malnourished after 491 days in captivity, evoked painful memories.

“You could have lifted me up with one finger,” Krell told The Post on Sunday of his own liberation as a “weak” and “feeble” survivor from the “warehouse of the living dead.”

The chilling footage of the three released hostages, Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, revealed their dangerously gaunt and hallowed features.

For Krell, their photos brought rushing back painful memories of the darkest days of his life and moved him to tears.

“When I saw their pictures coming out of captivity, they looked so emaciated and so sick,” he said. “And the world doesn’t care. I can’t understand — where is the outrage?”

“It breaks your heart to see how Jews are being treated today. And no one says a word,” blasted Krell, echoing the cries of Jews who took to social media to lambast the apparent apathy.

“It’s a sorry sight to look at, and even sorrier we have to discuss it. It evokes so many things when you think about it,” he added. “It brings back the memories you try to forget, but you can’t forget.”

Another point of connection the Holocaust survivor shares with the liberated men is the bitter reality they came home to — as each improbably survived hell not knowing the fate of their loved ones.  

“It’s a tragic moment when you find out you have no one — no mother, father, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody is gone,” said Krell, noting that Sharabi only learned that his wife and two teenage daughters were brutally murdered during the October 7 Hamas attacks upon his release on Saturday.

“What kept me alive was being an optimist — thinking that one day that things will end and we’ll come out free,” Krell said, hoping he would see his remaining family after the separation.

“It’s the only thing left — maybe I’ll meet somebody again,” he recalled some 80 years later of his mindset to stay alive.

Though 6 million Jews were killed in the camps, antisemitism has survived — and mutated all these decades later.

“We thought of what had been done to our people – that was supposed to be history,” lamented 91-year-old Lucy Lipiner, a longtime Upper West Side resident who’s lived in New York City since she was 16 when she arrived as a stricken, 90-pound Holocaust survivor from Poland in 1949.

“The horrible images of the hostages pale and starved that were released yesterday brought me back to a very dark time in my life,” Lipiner wrote on X.

The emaciated hostages held captive in tunnels, looking listless and lifeless, evoke classic Holocaust imagery.

“The three men look like they came out from Auschwitz,” she said.

“It breaks your heart — how can this be happening in 2025, 80 years after the vow, ‘Never again’?” Lipiner asked incredulously.

The images of the three Israeli hostages looking like shells of their former selves, having reportedly lost some 30 percent of their overall weight, pierced Lipiner to her core.

“I saw almost skeletal men walking. The worst thing about them was the depression that was written on their faces – the hollowed cheeks, sunken-in faces… can you imagine this emotional torture, on top of physical torture?” she said of the painful parallels between past and present.

President Trump also pointed out the disturbing resemblance between the hostages and victims of the Holocaust.

“They literally look like the old pictures of Holocaust survivors. The same thing,” he said on Sunday.

For Krell, the fresh images evoking Holocaust survivors put a modern color patina on what should have remained in black and white.

“The whole world doesn’t really care. When it comes to the Jews, the Jewish question, everything is moot,” said the survivor of Poland’s Lodz Ghetto, followed by multiple camps – including Mauthausen in Austria and Auschwitz.

The Upper East Sider, who has accused leaders failing to condemn antisemitism of having “a case of laryngitis,” admitted that when tearing up over Saturday’s images, he thought to himself, “It’s a sorry thing, but history does repeat itself. It’s not very pleasant to revisit.”

After living in a German DP camp for displaced persons after the war and learning that one-third of the world’s Jewish population was annihilated, Krell said wearily, “I didn’t expect antisemitism to exist to such a high degree again — I figured the world has learned something.”

“And it’s like nothing happened.”

The deafening silence since the three hostages were released, is a bitter pill to swallow for Krell.

“There’s very little hope — you can see that the world is ambivalent.”

Lipiner, who moved to Tel Aviv weeks before October 7, summed it up: “After the Holocaust, we always said, ‘Never again.’ And I believed that.

“I never believed there was something like a Holocaust. But this was.”

[ghost-bison]

Doctor Who: 1x08 The Satan Pit (2006) / 60th anniversary special 2/3 Wild Blue Yonder (2023)

I frankly love that parallel. One scene taken out of each of the two RTD eras.

First there's the colour palettes. You can see that they're polar opposites. RTD era1 was warm all the time as talked about in this post (which I love dearly, I keep referencing it in my posts), and then we have RTD era2, which has a more modern-looking, colder palette for science fiction.

But it's also a directing choice for the mood I think, cause on the one hand, we have Rose who, we all know, would even give up on seeing her mum again if it meant she got to spend the rest of her life with the Doctor (quite like Donna back in series 4 actually, who was very prompt to say she was going to travel with Ten forever). On the other hand we have Donna in 2023 who's now got a daughter and a husband and who hadn't even planned on doing a trip with the Doctor in the first place, let alone at the edge of the universe. I mean, they were just supposed to go see Wilfred! On one side we have Ten who's slowly recovering from the trauma of the Time War and falling in love for the first time in a while and re-learning that he deserves to be loved, too. On the other side we have Fourteen who, just as Donna put it, is "staggering", and as Fifteen said, is "running on fumes". He's got FOUR regenerations worth of trauma on Ten who was already struggling as it was with one (since the Time War I mean. Maybe two if we count Nine, cause who knows what he's been through between his regeneration and meeting Rose). Fourteen went through losing Rose, Donna, Amy, Rory, River, Clara, Bill, and he went through Pandorica, billions of years imprisoned by the Time Lords in his own personal hell, finding out about the Timeless Child, etc... and now, on top of everything, he's got to deal face to face with the guilt of what he did to Donna as she's been given back to him. Anyway, it's dark, when you think about it. No wonder the colours are so much colder in Wild Blue Yonder.

Then there's the music. In The Satan Pit, the soundtrack, The Impossible Planet, has a mystical quality to it. It's slightly creepy (I mean, it IS an episode about Satan), but it's mostly mysterious. Ten and Rose are only 500 years away from home. But in Wild Blue Yonder, Fourteen and Donna are 100 TRILLION YEARS away from home. The soundtrack from that scene, The Edge of Creation, isn't just mysterious, it's eerie and ethereal and perfectly encompasses what it would feel like to stand somewhere so impossibly alien it has become supernatural (if you can't tell I am obsessed with that track and episode lmao).

I love the contrast between Rose and Donna and the questions they ask. Rose's question is cute, she's like "I've seen it in films, is that it?", it stems from a place of curiosity, like she doesn't really realize the deep shit that they're in. She's just a kid. Whereas Donna's question, it stems from a place of dread: "Where's the light?". It almost has a "The Licked Hand" quality to it (if you don't know that story: the girl is scared, she puts her hand under the bed, her dog licks it. She goes into the bathroom, finds her dog dead in the tub, and written in its blood are the words 'humans can lick too').

Then, finally, there's the order in which things have been done: in The Satan Pit, Rose remarks they're "a long way from home". Ten takes a long look at her, and seeing that she seems a bit scared, he explains to her how long it would take to get home. In Wild Blue Yonder, Fourteen first explains to Donna how long it would take to get home, and only THEN, he takes a long look at her, and finally Donna says "that's my family, over there". It parallels Rose's sentence in the sense that they both talk about home and how far away it is, but they use different words for it with a different meaning behind. Donna is more specific on what she'll be returning to when it's over (her family), whereas Rose, who isn't as grounded as her, just says "home" (which, for her, probably just means the place she grew up). I also love the contrast between Rose's "a long way" and Donna's "over there". The first implies foreign, the second implies close enough to see. What's interesting about this bit is Donna is further away from home than Rose is, geographically speaking. But for Rose, Home is actually the Doctor, just him, so she has no problem saying she's "a long way from home" since she doesn't mean it in the same way Donna would. So for Donna, when she says "over there", it's because the Home she's talking about is closer to her heart, and she's probably trying to reassure herself that she'll see her family again (I used to do something like that when I was in primary school, I'd travel all the way back to my house in my head to kiss my parents on the cheek because I was so homesick).

So that's that I guess

[shakertwelve]

thinking about costumes

the intent with victor was always that his post-gm costume would resemble victoria's pre-gm costume, and vice versa—just by coincidence, but closely enough that catching a glimpse of each other out of the corner of their eye would be weird for both of them. vinny and vixen obviously have the same thing going on.

i don't think it makes sense for victor to be signing up for an actual "villain team" post-gm, but i figure he ends up involved in some kind of parahuman fight club situation, so his costume is repurposed from stuff that was supposed to be gladiator-themed. the lion motif is his equivalent to antares' star motif, referencing his altered form/the shape of his forcefield—antares' stars are the wretch's hands, heracles' helm and cape are the beast's jaws and mane. he's not doing the celestial theme as directly as the other vics are, but hercules is a constellation like antares, so it still fits the pattern.

vinny's post-gm sun/eclipse motif is a reference his old costume's crown, which was itself supposed to evoke his light powers, in the same way antares' stars come from glory girl's tiara which evokes vicky's aura. the eclipse thing is the connection to his altered form, since he was sort of made of two overlapping bodies. equivalently the "v" pattern/arrowheads/fox ears on vixen's first costume became the crescent moons on her second costume, and she was cut down to a small sliver of herself before her body was restored, like how the moon wanes in the sky.

amy's red queen costume isn't based on anything from ward and is mostly just fanciful. to entertain myself, i tried to make her costume progression vaguely parallel adam's, and the same with amelia and annie.

amelia's queen of hearts costume is her trying to look more mature now, losing the doll stuff from dauphine. the rose motif is a reference to alice in wonderland, with the white roses being painted red and all. (all the meebs are using red to represent blood in reference to The Incident—amelia's gets up on her dress because she was literally kneeling in a pool of blood.)

annie's nightingale costume is supposed to look like a nurse's uniform, with the winged heart being her personal icon; she loses the nurse part in her second costume but keeps the wing theme, going less cutesy and more renaissance angel. amy's post-gm costume covers less of her because she's not trying to hide herself anymore; in annie's case, her original costume was more revealing than she was comfortable with, so her post-gm style is the opposite.

adam's first costume is very directly trying to emulate how marquis used to dress, with her second costume still obviously following the estate's royalty theme, but moving more in her own direction. the cloak is lined with real fox fur.