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My take on the recent Kate Stewart sexuality “discourse” before I shut up about it. Just so it’s clear where I stand.

Ultimately, it’s up to each person how they view Kate’s sexuality, and canonically she has only shown interest in men, this is true. There is no show-canon basis for a lesbian/bisexual Kate.

However, it is fully within the right of anyone to dislike the fact that Kate’s pairing with Christofer is so clearly RTD’s misogyny in his writing. Additionally, it is fully reasonable for people to view Kate as a lesbian/non-men attracted, given she was previously established without a sexuality, and Jemma Redgrave’s own comments about playing Kate as a lesbian/woman-attracted character. While there are people who dislike Dustbuddies because they are biphobic, not all criticism of the ship is. The opposite is also true.

Biphobia is unacceptable. Lesbophobia is unacceptable. If someone views a character differently than you do, block or scroll. There is zero reason to get upset about a fictional character’s sexuality to the point of harassing others over the internet. Respectfully, you’re embarrassing yourself.

Personally, I view Kate as a late in life lesbian, and I choose to see Dustbuddies as platonic (It’s such a cute ship name btw, I wish I did ship it). I am aware that I’m completely deviating from canon, and I’m okay with that. You’ll never catch me seeking out content I don’t agree with to tell someone they’re wrong for seeing a character differently than I do.

And just so we’re clear, if I post/reblog/like content that is negative towards any ship, it is always with a nonserious intention. I try to keep my blog mostly lighthearted and open to anyone who comes across it, as much as I complain. But hey, I’m human and I have opinions. I’m just not gonna be a prick about them.

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i don't think the dr who fandom talks enough about the fact that Sara Kingdom murdered Bret Vyon and then seamlessly took his place in the friend group

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can i just say while im on the subject that something i really really appreciate about The Daleks' Master Plan is that the space security agent uniforms are basically non-gendered?

Sara does maybe have a slightly different belt & sash design from the men but if so it's a very subtle distinction and we don't see any other female agents so maybe it's a rank thing or something rather than a gender thing. who knows.

i think there was a real risk of her being styled as some kind of sexy space babe and im so so glad that whoever was responsible for the costuming had their head screwed on right. love this for her!!

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I see, thank you!

I’m still not a fan of the pantheon as a concept, but I’m glad to know that I wasn’t just horribly bad at media analysis and it was in fact a retcon lol.

Question for the people in the Doctor Who fandom who have more knowledge/analysis of the franchise than I do:

Is Sutekh a god or not? To clarify, is he a divine ineffable entity in the way we understand a god to be? I was rewatching Classic Who, and 4 pretty explicitly says that Sutekh is Osirian (Osiran?), he’s an alien who was mistaken for a god alongside the rest of the Egyptian pantheon. But in Empire of Death, he’s treated as an actual deity, on the level of the Toymaker, who has always been a cosmic god-entity. Is this a retcon or did I just misunderstand the episode?

I personally dislike the introduction of the pantheon/canonization of gods as divinities and not just aliens who are advanced enough in technology to be mistaken for gods. I hated the Devil’s Chord, and Lux was meh. I didn’t mind The Giggle because the Toymaker was a one off thing. Something that can’t be explained. But that loses its appeal when it’s done over and over again.

I understand that the divide between magic and science has been thin even in Classic Who, but maybe I’m just being salty that my scifi show is becoming more fantasy? Idk. With 9 + 11 we got an explanation of ghosts as caused by the thinning of the timeline in certain areas, so it’s not like Doctor Who shies away from making up scientific explanations for the supernatural. This new writing feels sort of like an attempt to excuse any inconsistencies or plot holes with “oh well they’re gods logic doesn’t apply to them etc etc”

As always, the floor is open to discussion!

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Question for the people in the Doctor Who fandom who have more knowledge/analysis of the franchise than I do:

Is Sutekh a god or not? To clarify, is he a divine ineffable entity in the way we understand a god to be? I was rewatching Classic Who, and 4 pretty explicitly says that Sutekh is Osirian (Osiran?), he’s an alien who was mistaken for a god alongside the rest of the Egyptian pantheon. But in Empire of Death, he’s treated as an actual deity, on the level of the Toymaker, who has always been a cosmic god-entity. Is this a retcon or did I just misunderstand the episode?

I personally dislike the introduction of the pantheon/canonization of gods as divinities and not just aliens who are advanced enough in technology to be mistaken for gods. I hated the Devil’s Chord, and Lux was meh. I didn’t mind The Giggle because the Toymaker was a one off thing. Something that can’t be explained. But that loses its appeal when it’s done over and over again.

I understand that the divide between magic and science has been thin even in Classic Who, but maybe I’m just being salty that my scifi show is becoming more fantasy? Idk. With 9 + 11 we got an explanation of ghosts as caused by the thinning of the timeline in certain areas, so it’s not like Doctor Who shies away from making up scientific explanations for the supernatural. This new writing feels sort of like an attempt to excuse any inconsistencies or plot holes with “oh well they’re gods logic doesn’t apply to them etc etc”

As always, the floor is open to discussion!

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Gaslight, Gatekeep, Geneva Violation <3

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Mickey Smith and Martha Jones: RTD and race.

The two most notable black characters in the first RTD era of nuwho, but it's not a strong competition, the next runner up is probably 'unnamed american newswoman' (later called Trinity Wells).

It's easy to point at RTD's track record and decry his work as racist, but how bad was it?

Let's give RTD the benefit of the doubt: Mickey was written as a character before Noel Clarke was ever cast. RTD wanted to write the new companion with a home life that she would easily leave: Jackie is overbearing and Mickey is needy. In contrast to Rose's bravery and curiosity, Mickey gets kidnapped, literally cowers from the TARDIS, and whines, constantly.

Mickey is frequently the butt of the joke. The ninth Doctor intentionally gets his name wrong; in Father's Day Jackie says (of his 5 year old self) "God help his girlfriend, if he ever gets one"; in the chase scene in Boom Town he runs into the cleaning cart and gets his foot stuck in a bucket; in School Reunion he realises that he's the k9 equivalent, not another companion; and in The Girl in the Fireplace we have this lovely exchange:

Rose: "No, you can't keep the horse." Doctor: "Why not? I let you keep Mickey."

Mickey is not necessarily a poorly written character, he has a solid arc from whiny to confident; he gets over his jealousy of the Doctor and goes off on his own adventures. He was written as unlikeable (but not too unlikable) so that the audience would want Rose to be with the Doctor (both romantically and on a literal basis), it's also something he grows out of. His characterisation is not the issue. The fact that we learn very little about his life outside of Rose is. We don't know his job or meet his family (we do eventually meet the not-dead version of his nan). It's one thing for him to get stuck in a bucket when everyone else gets to be athletic but why do the other characters need to find any opportunity to insult him?

But on to Martha, she actually does not really have an arc (more on that later). In her first episode she is shown to be smart, headstrong and compassionate. She takes charge in an emergency and saves the day (with help from the Doctor). For some unknown reason the Doctor kisses her, and bafflingly she falls in love (I understand why narratively, but not from a writing room decision). She takes him to task about living in Rose's shadow, but for some reason this plot thread continues for more than three episodes. The Martha that saves the world from the Master is the same Martha that we were introduced to.

She is intentionally written as not Rose. Rose is an only child from a single parent family; Martha has two siblings and two living parents (although divorced). Rose left school at 17; Martha is in medical school. Rose lives on a council estate with her mum; Martha's family has their own house and she has moved out. Rose has a boyfriend; Martha is single.

At the time of writing/airing (2007) RTD was 44, he was, and still is, a cis, white, man. It's hardly surprising that his understanding of race or gender is lacking. He managed to push the envelope by having notable black characters, and maybe that's all we should have asked for, but he could have done better at the time.

The Doctor did not have to be so aggressively rude to Martha about not being Rose. He insisted that their first trip was just a favour after saving him on the moon and the second trip was just to even out past and future travel; Donna meanwhile got invited to travel the universe after just one adventure. RTD (and Moffat) did not have to compare Mickey to an animal on two separate occasions. Martha did not have to get stuck with a human Doctor in 1913 rural England (seriously, this story could happen in any time in any place with little change, I understand that it wants to make a point about WWI but it's not specific enough to matter). Her parents did not need to break up over a young, blonde woman. The Master did not need to enslave her entire family.

Why did the Doctor tell Martha to "walk around like you own the place" when she was worried about being mistaken for a slave? Why did Shakespeare fetishise her for the colour of her skin and 'revealing' clothing? Why did Martha not complain about her straightened hair getting wet in Gridlock and why did it have no effect? (although this would have also been pretty cringey, better to just do away with the rain altogether). Why did Rose know Donna but not Martha? And finally: Why did he marry off his two black characters despite their only scenes being part of an ensemble?

It's pretty obvious that there were no people of colour in the writing room, certainly not any black women. If there were more black (or generally poc) characters these flaws would not be so bad, or obvious. But there aren't and they are.

A lot of the complaints against Martha's writing can be chalked up to sexism, and they're right. So, does sexism better explain RTD's bad writing? All three of his companions mothers (Jackie, Francine and Sylvia) are essentially the same person: overbearing, loud, skeptical of the Doctor, and quick to anger and violence. The companions leave with the Doctor, in part, to get away from them (Martha literally walks away from her family's arguing, that she was made to mediate earlier in the episode). You'd be hard pressed to argue that he's not trying to make a point. But so often discrimination walks hand in hand with itself. For a long time Martha was the only companion of colour (I don't think Mickey counts). Other characters frequently pointed out her one sided love for the Doctor and despite realising that they were treating her unfairly she never got the same treatment as Rose or Donna. Although there is sexism in his writing it doesn't quite explain why Martha seemed worse off than the other companions. A lot of the plot points she goes through look different viewed with the lens of racial inequality. The writers keep making the point that racism is wrong, but they keep putting Martha in situations where she is discriminated against. Their addressing of it is rarely head-on; characters will say something racist (normally in a laughable, dated, sort of way), Martha will say it's racist and then the plot will continue. No harm, no foul.

RTD has since conceded that he should have written a better character arc for Martha than 'woman realises man is not over his ex, stops travelling with him and joins a paramilitary science group.' (At least they gave her a good personality to make up for it).

Maybe he will realise that there is an undercurrent of racism right next to the sexism in his writing. I wouldn't hold your breath.

Fast forward nearly 20 years to 2024 and RTD is back, this time with a black Doctor and (in 2025) a new poc companion. In direct contrast to Martha's concerns the Doctor now experiences racism and prefers Lagos to historical England; Ruby steps on a butterfly and completely changes history. Is this an apology? Does this make up for his treatment of Mickey Smith and particularly Martha Jones and Freema Agyeman? No.

Neither the 15th Doctor nor Belinda get a character arc for their tenure (and depending on your interpretation, we never really meet Belinda), and Belinda is completely overshadowed by the younger, blonde, woman that preceded her (with the worst sidelining I've ever seen for the series finale, you'd think she was filmed separately and added in in post). In his first era RTD had Daleks appear in every season: 1 solo episode, 1 two-parter and three two part season finales. Rose fought them three times, Martha twice and Donna once. In his re-re-boot RTD broke from his usual pattern but still relied on Classic Who villains; yet Gatwa is the only Doctor not to fight Daleks, Cybermen or The Master, the so-called 'big three' of villains. There was a notable absence of aliens and big set pieces, more contained episodes than before (1 bottle, 2 Doctor-lite) and no two-parters outside of the finales. With a standard runtime this wouldn't be noticeable, but as it is there is far less time for the characters to breathe. Ruby is the only one of the main three characters to feel truly fleshed out (no wonder, she got the Christmas special, both solo episodes, and the season finales, bringing her up to standard run of 12 episodes). Knowing you have a reduced run time why did you not focus on the characters you had? Character work is what you're meant to be good at.

There are two versions of the 10th Doctor running around - one in a parallel Earth with Rose (why is it her job to heal him?) and one on our Earth with Donna - and for whatever reason Billie Piper will be back on our screens. RTD is forcing us all to relive his 'glory days' with him and his poc characters are paying the price.

RTD's worst written characters are all poc, even those that get good characterisation or development are treated unfairly by other characters or the narrative. It's impossible to ignore that these actors and their characters are poc and it's impossible to ignore the differences between them and their white counterparts. The 10th doctor moved past Rose and started treating Donna better in one episode but couldn't afford the same respect to Martha after thirteen.

I think RTD did the best he could with what he had, it's just that what he had wasn't good enough. He didn't have the experience or the ability to write meaningfully about black characters and should have brought more writers into the room with him. But unintentional racism is still racism. Mickey and Martha were both second best to white romantic options; Rose left Mickey for the Doctor and the Doctor could never love Martha after Rose. Had there been more poc characters this would just be romantic tension; Mickey wasn't a great boyfriend and the Doctor simply wasn't interested in Martha. He shouldn't have compared Mickey to K9, the Doctor had previously travelled with multiple companions at once, including men, it's unnecessary and inaccurate. He shouldn't have kept writing Martha into scenarios where she would have to fight back against racism: 3 of her episodes are set in the future, 5 are in the past (two, two-parters) and 4 are modern day (including the finale). You couldn't imagine a 'post-racism' world were Dr Jones and Mr Smith were both teachers hiding from the family of blood as world war 4 loomed over the students?

So, has it gotten better? The writing room and the supporting cast are more diverse, and 15 got two(!) whole episodes that explored race and discrimination (with it being explicitly mentioned in others). The writing and production department seem aware that race is an important factor in a character's life and that they need to do better than before. Maybe the fault lies with Disney and their production schedule, the unknown future of the series and whether the actors would be available. Whatever the case, Belinda ended up with a flatter character than Martha and neither her nor the 15th Doctor got a character arc before leaving. That feels like a step forward in visual representation and two steps back in character writing. Belinda is largely... there.

It seems unlikely that Mickey or Martha will ever return, Noel Clarke is too controversial and Freema Agyeman seems to have a successful career of her own (although she has apparently returned to the UK). Despite UNIT playing a large role in the last two series, there has been no mention of either character and the 10th Doctor saving them in The End of Time may well be their last appearance. Belinda seems unwilling to travel with the Doctor while she has to take care of Poppy and 15 has just regenerated into Billie Piper (he could still return for special episodes). Who knows when we'll get the next poc character, maybe a companion, maybe the Doctor again.

And where does that leave us, the audience? Do we rejoice in more poc characters on screen and the handful of moments or episodes that make this known through dialogue or plot points? Or maybe we should ask that all the characters get thought out writing, including the poc. Satisfying can be the next step, let's just have an arc.

The envelope has already been pushed with their inclusion, let's keep pushing it. And replace RTD, his time is past.

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SNAP! 📸✨🪐

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The version of Kate we see when the Doctor is present is the version the Doctor wishes to see, the Kate we see when the Doctor isn't very much more who she is.

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i dont care that kate stewart set an evil killer alien on that guy it was hot

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save me morally grey Kate Lethbridge-Stewart save me

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Negativity incoming if you don’t want to read more of my criticisms of RTD2. I swear I like this show guys I just wish it was better. I’ll make a tag or something so people can blacklist it.

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Is this a safe space to say I dislike most of the RTD2 reoccurring characters? Just because we know nothing about any of them, and I am not emotionally attached to anyone (except Carla + Cherry). My rewrites will be below the cut

Let’s recap what we’ve gotten in show:

Shirley: Basically replaced Osgood but doesn’t do anything specific, just vague sciencey stuff on her tablet that’s convenient at the given moment. What’s her specialty? Why’d she join UNIT? What are her opinions on the militarization of UNIT? She could have been a window into non-field operations at UNIT. Removing her from the stories she appears in would have no impact. An interesting character concept wasted by RTD

Christofer: His singular personality trait is to be Kate’s admirer-turned-partner. He’s kinda her conscience? but also not really because we’re never shown that his words have any impact on her. Again, would have been interesting to see the writers create dissent within UNIT if they actually had Kate’s moral ambiguity and Christofer’s less flexible ethics be a significant conflict. UNIT Director facing a potential mutiny from her own second in command who thinks she’s gone too far? Entire episode right there.

Mrs Flood: You will never convince me that she was supposed to be the Rani from the beginning. She had such an amazing set up and generated a ton of intrigue…for nothing. I was convinced she was the Trickster or even another Timelord (my irl friends and I had a crack theory that she was the Monk).

Rose Temple-Noble: It makes sense that Donna had a daughter, we know Donna always wanted a family. But I swear to God can we have normal companions? By normal I mean not Timelord hybrid/DoctorDonna shenanigans, btw. Like Donna is the most important woman in the universe and her daughter is completely normal. To me that’s more compelling than whatever happened in the Star Beast. Rose can still make her plushies and have the reasoning be Wilf tells her stories when her mum isn’t around. She’s stuck in the same hole as Shirley, interesting ideas with not awesome follow through. Why does Rose work at UNIT? You’re telling me that Donna Noble lets her underaged daughter work for the military? Also this is just a nitpick but Rose’s actress (I’m blanking on her name I’m so sorry) looks way too old to be 15/16. I genuinely thought Rose was Ruby’s age, like 19-21. This is not hate on the actress, her performance (what little screen time she gets) is fine. I just can’t suspend my disbelief enough to believe that is a girl in the middle of her teens.

How I would fix these things:

Shirley is the new UNIT CSO, and she’s simultaneously nervous of taking on that legacy and excited to be in a position to do good for the world. She mentored under Osgood, who recommended her to Kate. Osgood went dark to be able to help the Zygons and stay off UNIT’s radar, with Kate’s begrudging permission. Shirley specializes in biomedical engineering. She and Kate have a slightly uneasy dynamic because Kate unintentionally is always comparing her to Osgood, and Shirley is tired of being overlooked for her own talents. She privately considers Kate to be toeing the line between authoritative and authoritarian.

Likewise, Christofer has risen to second in command of UNITs military forces, but he’s very similar to the Doctor, in that he only uses violence as a last resort. People often assume the opposite because he’s a scary looking guy. He’s outspoken, serious, and isn’t afraid to call Kate on her bullshit. The two of them often disagree because of that, Kate pushing for harsher retaliation to alien threats and Christofer refusing to roll over and let her anger outweigh her morals. He would stage a mutiny if he though Kate had gone too far

Also, I’m injecting my Shirley/Christofer propaganda in here even though I’m likely the only person in this fandom who ships them. The two of them are basically the last line of defense when Kate gets really pissed off, and they bond over the fact. Christofer admires Shirley’s brilliance, and Shirley admires Christofer’s unwavering moral compass. Christofer fell first, Shirley fell harder (after my imaginary UNIT mutiny hypothetical episode)

Rose is trickier because she’s even more of a non-character. For one, I’d make Rose completely human, and she grew up believing in aliens because of Wilf. Anyways Rose doesn’t join UNIT as a literal child, she’s actually part of an alien/ufo truther club and makes her plushies to fund trips to historical extraterrestrial sites and conventions. Donna finds it adorable even if tOf course, UNIT keeps tabs on the club in case they ever get too close to the true aliens. That’s why she gets so excited when she meets the Meep (in this hypothetical rewrite) because then she can show the Meep to her club members. Unit figures it out because they’ve been surveilling former companions. I haven’t worked out how the Star Beast ending would change so suggestions welcome.

Mrs Flood…oh that’ll be a whole other post

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silly drawing i made a while ago

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i didnt know it at the time bit i would, just like bill, get into so many situations because a pretty girl told me

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anyone want to hear about my cursed timeline Kate AU where the Daleks invade Earth and everything is fucked? Kind of jumping off from my previous post about a nuwho take on Inferno (3+Liz era story)

no? Too bad.

The world:

Earth, circa ‘73, the Daleks invaded and turned the entirety of the human population into a labor force, turning Earth into a construction planet for their galaxy-conquering weapons and ships, the Doctor was killed/imprisoned on Gallifrey in the War Games instead of being banished to Earth

Around ‘97, the Daleks find a better planet, abandoning Earth after killing nearly 6 billion people. Earth is left a dystopian hell world, new unstable governments popping up all the time and prominent gangs controlling what’s left of the continent (the Daleks recreated Pangea for more convenient world domination, the tectonic shift is was originally killed half the world’s population.)

UNIT is reformed in response to people finding out how to utilize leftover Dalek tech to build weapons and dangerous equipment, which has led to more gang warfare. Unfortunately, it lacks the strength and resources it once had, so has begun to rely on shady tactics to gain power. There is constantly fighting in the ranks, and it becomes known for being the most vicious and power hungry gang of them all

Kate:

Katherine Lethbridge-Stewart, better known to her subordinates as Erin Lethbridge-Stewart. She kept her father’s name from the beginning of her career to legitimize her claim to UNIT leadership. She goes by Erin because it’s not as friendly-sounding as Kate, nor as long as Katherine. (sorry Erins of the world for calling your name unfriendly. I have my reasons for disliking the name but I shan’t overshare on Tumblr. Not today, anyways)

Erin is known as a harsh, authoritarian commander, who rules with a repertoire of cruel discipline and zero second chances, even for her closest friends. Hair-trigger temper, do not piss this woman off if you value your life. She’s long since sacrificed her morals to keep her authority, in a twisted idea of protecting her loved ones. Essentially canon!Kate if she let the Shreek eat Conrad instead of just biting him

She despises aliens, and has a shoot on sight rule for any non-human beings that get too close to UNIT HQ. That being said, she despises the Doctor most of all. Alistair raised her with the hope that the Doctor would come and save them, but seeing as that never happened, her resentment became hatred and disgust

She’s also not dissimilar to the Rani, and UNIT does have many unethical experimentation programs led by Erin herself. Her new goal is to enhance humanity’s defenses and the human body itself, in case of another alien invasion

Really messy doodle of how I imagine her looking (done digitally how exciting)

Her hair is her natural chestnut-ish brown, and is visibly greying in streaks. Ponytail because I think it’s cute, for her it’s easier to keep out of her face. She’s a bit too vain to chop it shorter than her chin even though she could totally pull off a pixie cut

Obviously she has glasses I’m a woman of taste. She’s tried several times to perform laser eye surgery on herself but she always immediately strains them before she can recover, so she’s permanently fucked up her eyesight

Human technology kind of stagnated and progressed at the same time in a paradoxical sort of way, which is why UNIT still wears their old green uniforms (also it’s a damn shame we never see canon!Kate in a UNIT beret and fatigues)

Vampire pale due to stress, both mentally and due to her constantly putting her body through experiments to see how much of the human genome she can tweak before it starts shutting down

She has a massive burn scar over her stomach from a repurposed-by-human-gangs Dalek phaser. It shot a hole through her and she has serious PTSD. She is easily triggered by sudden bright lights because of it

Up to viewer interpretation if it’s a mole or a piercing on her upper lip. Personally I am a got-a-tongue-piercing-in-uni-that-she-regrets-but-still-kept Kate truther, do with that as you will

(also if anyone is interested, I’m taking the advice of a friend and might start writing x reader fics for Kate. My asks and dms are always open for requests. I haven’t made a rules/limits post yet so just ask if you’re unsure! <3 Might dust off my AO3 account as well)

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No, I agree completely. I’m not a huge fan of writers chucking every easy “bad trait” at a character when it’s time for them to be evil. Conrad is suddenly a misogynistic, homophobic, ableist super-prick? The ableism we’ve seen before from him, but not in the way that Reality War implies.

For example: Conrad doesn’t just not think about disabled people. He actively believes that they’re stealing resources from the government and living perfectly well off. So why are they in a homeless camp in RW? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to have homes where everything is catered to them and the other character (Kate, 15, Belinda, etc) show disdain for them/echo Conrad’s beliefs? The same way Cristofer is homophobic to 15 because of the Wish? We all know Kate would if The Giggle is any indication (that could be an interesting foil/parallel between her and Conrad).

And on the topic of homophobia and misogyny, those are two very significant traits that definitely should have come up in Lucky Day if the writers wanted us to believe that Conrad was this awful from the beginning, and not that they retroactively made him worse. He had women in his ranks in Lucky Day, he is shown to dislike Kate and Ruby because they represent authority/government control, his mum honestly validly because she was emotionally and maybe physically abusive, Shirley because she’s disabled. Hell, he immediately rolls over and works for The Rani and Mrs Flood, not a single hint of “oh I secretly think I’m better than them because they’re women and I’m gonna use them”. Even in the final scene of Lucky Day’s confrontation between him and 15, Conrad says nothing to the fact that he knows the Doctor is gay. And he said some awful things I don’t think he’d stop before homophobia if we’re setting up the homophobia bit for RW.

Anyways OP you’re right and you should say it. Conrad is just as inconsistent as every other character, and it feels like no one in the writers room ever exchanged notes or even told each other what they were going to do in their episodes.

Anyone else found Conrad Clark's character inconsistent? It doesn't feel like one continuous guy that is manipulative and lies, it literally feels like two distinct individuals. The guy in the same room with Desiderium that "just" wishes for the world to be better and gave everyone food and a family is just not the same Conrad that organized the uprising against Unit. I'm not against complex characters or manipulative ones at all (I mean. Check my fandoms) but this just feels if Satan and a damaged lil guy were smushed together into one. I found it nice when he got his happy ending because it was like if just the Good Conrad™ did, and the show made him into this sort of fragile baby deer or something. It's like his character is disconnected from himself and his own actions all at once. They needed to make him more cohesive: either make his evil side bleed through in his good moments more often, and not give him a happy ending, or do the opposite and make his good side come out more so that you can actually make him sympathetic and give him a fair positive ending.

Cause so far his character has been the spiritual successor of Hans from Frozen y'all. Just switching back and forth from spotless manipulation and pure evil to uwu I am so damaged and I have daddy issues and then evil again