#anyway stan bernard!

[introspectivememories]

i hope i am not just your average dc enjoyer to you but also your favorite timbern poster

[lovebugcody]

I AM A FUCKING IDIOT I TOTALLY FORGOT COMIC TIM'S BOYFRIEND IS BERNARD

SO OF COURSE TITANS!TIM IS ALL NERVOUS AROUND HEAD OF STAR LABS BERNARD AND BERNARD IS OH SO HAPPY TO HELP

IT'S FUCKING GAY

[sweet-caress-of-twilight]

Disney Animated Canon Dashboard Simulator

🦁 a-mighty-king Follow

How do I look?

🦌 a-life-in-the-woods Follow

mid

🦁 a-mighty-king Follow

That's why your mom is dead

🦌 a-life-in-the-woods Follow

ik you're not talking when your uncle killed your dad 💀be so fr rn

🦁 a-mighty-king Follow

moots you have 24 hours to unfollow a-l*fe-in-t*e-w**ds

🧞‍♂️ phenomenal-cosmic-power Follow

geez, wanna buy some vowels?

🦁 a-mighty-king Follow

how dare you say we piss on the poor

#classism tw

🧞‍♂️ phenomenal-cosmic-power Follow

I'm not classist, my best pal is a street rat

🐭 rescue-aid-society-official Follow

Actually, we prefer the term "mouse" - Bernard

🧞‍♂️ phenomenal-cosmic-power Follow

I don't believe it, another "piss on the poor" moment? I'm not even talking about you dawg 💀

⚡️ b01t Follow

...

🥖 one-jump-ahead Follow

actually I wouldn't mind being pissed on

🌺 jasmine-like-the-flower Follow

AYO?

📖 milo-thatch Follow

#aladdin horny heritage posts

💛 more-than-this-provincial-life Follow

h

💪 roughly-the-size-of-a-barge Follow

I SHOWED YOU MY COCK IN DMS PLEASE RESPOND

💪 roughly-the-size-of-a-barge Follow

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'VE BEEN BLOCKED BY BELLE ANYWAYS DNI IF YOU STAN THE BEAST

🕯 b3-0ur-gu3st Follow

#THE BEAST SWEEP

💪 roughly-the-size-of-a-barge Follow

shut your goofy ass up before I melt you

😜 yaa-hoo-hoo-hooey Follow

Gawrsh, did someone mention me?

🐤 d0n4ld-duck Follow

hes not talking about you you big palooka

😜 yaa-hoo-hoo-hooey Follow

Actually, you're supposed to put an apostrophe in the word "he's"

🐤 d0n4ld-duck Follow

GAHHHHHHH WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

💚 theboywhowouldntgrowup Follow

adults are so annoying like go pay your taxes grandpa 🙄

🏴‍☠️ theworldsmostfamouscrook Follow

You are a minor who knows nothing about the world. You are the ugly one here. I can make YOU shut up but I suggest you one thing. You don't want to deal with a devil like me.

🐊 tiktokcrok Follow

Hi

🏴‍☠️ theworldsmostfamouscrook Follow

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

🏴‍☠️ theworldsmostfamouscrook Follow

moots please tw crocodiles

💎 m4d4m-m3dus4 Follow

BOO

🏴‍☠️ theworldsmostfamouscrook Follow

THIS IS THE LAST STRAW MEDUSA!!!!!11 I'M BREAKING THE MUTUAL!!1111!!

🐚 p00r-unf0rtun4t3-s0u1s Follow

And this, my darlings, is why we don't put our triggers out in public

💜 m3g4r4 Follow

Hercules save me

💜 m3g4r4 Follow

Hercules

💜 m3g4r4 Follow

save me Hercules

💪 zer02hero Follow

Never fear, I'm on my way!

💪 roughly-the-size-of-a-barge Follow

Nice pfp bro

💪 zer02hero Follow

254.421.81.132

🛐 a-righteous-man Follow

uhm,,,,this entire dashboard is rife with sin and degeneracy. Do you all have no shame?

🐐 esme-and-djali Follow

fiwruehfiuerhgiuerhughgeuyrhg

🐐 esme-and-djali Follow

Sorry that was Djali typing anyway OP literally tried to burn me at the stake for being Romani????

🛐 a-righteous-man Follow

And I would do it again to cleanse the world of your wickedness! You flaunt your heresy and expect us to applaud?

🐐 esme-and-djali Follow

how about you keep that energy when you look in the mirror? cause last i checked, your obsession with me wasn’t exactly “holy”

🛐 a-righteous-man Follow

You dare speak to me of obsession? I shall have you blocked and reported from this webbed site!

🐐 esme-and-djali Follow

lol ok

🛐 a-righteous-man Follow

DO NOT SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY! YOU SHALL ANSWER TO DIVINE JUDGMENT!

🐐 esme-and-djali Follow

frollo got termed lmao sucks to suck

🔥 officialhades Follow

that sucks, i was gonna invite him to my place for a BBQ

🔮 th3-gre4t-and-powerful Follow Why do I always wake up to the chaos of this dashboard? I need coffee and Kuzco's head on a platter.

🦙 realemperorkuzco Follow

tf is u doing ur really killing my groove here :(

🔮 th3-gre4t-and-powerful Follow

Get off of my dash.

🦙 realemperorkuzco Follow

u havent blocked me tho

🎢 pull-teh-lever Follow Uh, Yzma, are we still making spinach puffs for dinner? Asking for a friend.

🩶 bear-nessities Follow

Hi guys, this is my first post here! Good vibes only!

📖 milo-thatch Follow

Unfortunately, there appears to be a spelling error in your username. It is supposed to be "necessities."

🩶 bear-nessities Follow

🤓🤓🤓🤓

🏄🏾‍♀️ 0hana-means-family Follow

Guys, I have a theory: I think Baloo and Little John are the same person. I mean, have we ever seen them online at the same time?

🦊 stealfr0mtehrich Follow

You know, Little John did get termed recently....

🦊 g00dby3-may-seem-4ever Follow

Nice pfp

🦊 stealfr0mtehrich Follow

Thanks, I stole it from you

#oodelally

😴 br1arr0se Follow

🦁 a-mighty-king Follow

Um this is extremely offensive to people who have been put under sleeping spells??????

🍎 myprincecame Follow

Excuse me, Simba, but Aurora has been putting under a sleeping spell, as have I. Please don't spread negativity here :(

🍎 myprincecame Follow

plsushthepostistreu - Sleepy

🦁 a-mighty-king Follow

you know that by being sleepy, you're appropriating the culture of those who have been put under sleeping spells?????

🥖 one-jump-ahead Follow

so...just fuck being tired, I guess?

🍎 myprincecame Follow

Please no profanity on my posts, Aladdin :(

🎩 un81rthd4y Follow

anyone in this thread smoke weed

[yonderghostshistories]

I've recently watched "Stan and Ollie" (2018), aka the Laurel and Hardy biopic. Tbh, the only reason I watched the film was because (sexy) Rufus Jones (my beloved) was in the film as Bernard Delfonte, and also before I watched it I had very limited knowledge on and was only *slightly* aware of Laurel and Hardy's history.

HOWEVER, after watching it, I can definitely say that I....LOVED IT!! It was quite beautiful too, like I literally cried my eyes out at the ending 😭😭!

All the performances were really nice, especially Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy respectively, and I really enjoyed their chemistry together!! Also, I loved Nina Arianda as Ida Laurel (Stan's wife) and Shirley Henderson as Lucille Hardy (Ollie's wife) respectively too, cuz not only do I love me supportive wives in biopics, plus they were really great too!!

And, ofc, Rufus Jones was GREATLY AMAZING as Mr Bernard Delfonte, I very much enjoyed his scenes!!

Anyway, uhh, I do recommend this film to anyone interested in the Laurel and Hardy lore, it's pretty lovely and warm and nice!! Plus, it's now wanna make me dig into more of the Laurel and Hardy history too, so uhh thanks film!

[colorfulyetsinful]

Okeyyy, Im trying to lead to Tim being Robin so I can do Tim being a fanboy on Robin’s main. (This is leading to something I swear)

Anyways,,, here’s a glimpse of Tim’s main account—yk before the trauma. Him and Bernard are friends, and yes Bernard is talking about Tim’s stan account.

[lmelodie]

TSCS Season 2 Episode 5

This episode...threw A LOT at me hard and fast, and me specifically. If you are also a fellow Council stan, you probably won't like this episode.

First, not too impressed that Cal is taking after his father and needlessly lying to Sandra to go fight Mad Santa. I love Cal, he brain really is empty, but come on dude. At least try rubbing your two braincells together.

I also keep forgetting that the way the lore is set up, Scott is the first and only human Santa. So, when it's said that Magus was Santa for centuries, I had to do a double take lol. Keeps throwing me for a loop!

Can't believe they got rid of Bernard YET AGAIN. IN A FUCKING FLASHBACK. It's almost funny how they've just given up on giving good excuses as to why Bernard can't be there. They just give him a mention and be like, "Yeah he's not here right now/anymore, ANYWAY."

And I wanna know why Bernard is at the very top of the maim list? What did he do that's worse than leading an actual coop? Good for him though, slay.

SO UGH!! My main beef with this episode is the fucking council! Because its utter BULLSHIT and completely out of character that they wouldn't help! I'm actually with Scott on this one surprisingly, you're telling me they can send Cupid to spy on him in his own home but not help the elves to rebel against a very clearly evil Santa???

They don't even give a good reason for it either! It's just a non-answer of "Legends can't interfere" which they most DEFINITLY CAN! Its bullshit! And I refuse to believe that the council would do this.

Like, you're telling me that this is the same council that seemed so sincerely supportive of Scott and his issues for the last two movies? The same council that came down to the pole to personally help pick up the slack in the third movie??? No, simply put I refuse to acknowledge that bullshit their trying to feed us, the council is nice and cares about the other members okay!

Also, I don't know how to feel about Befana being an ex-council member. I kinda liked her better as a cool forest dwelling Christmas witch that does her own thing and doesn't listen to a higher authority.

And maybe this could've worked better if there were any hints AT ALL to this being a thing, but it was never once implied up until this point that there has been any other council member's period. But of course, there wasn't! So, this development falls a little flat for me, not very impactful and a little jarring if anything.

He's a lemon...they turned him into a lemon. I can feel the years being taken off my lifespan...

And stealing the legendries powerful artifacts? NOT NECCESARY IN THE SLIGHTEST. Especially stealing cupid's arrows when normal arrows would've worked just fine! Are these arrows benign?? Are these gnomes gonna start falling in love when they wake up? Does the council currently know about all the stolen shit and have forgiven the elves and Befana? Do they STILL not know that this happened??

Also, really didn't need to use the arrows and sleep dust if you had Mother Nature's WIND AND LIGHTNING. LIGHTNING!! You couldn't win a battle with the actual (ill gotten) forces of nature???

This might be what I need to start drafting that hate fic. The spite fueled one shot. Because god damn there is so much petty CRIME happening here committed BY THE GOOD GUYS.

I don't even know how they're gonna possibly wrap all of this up, I am so tired.

[brightgoldenstar]

Came on Tumblr excited after watching the newest episode to talk with my fellow Bernard stans about how great it was to see him again but now I’m sad cause it’s mostly just people complaining that the storyline doesn’t line up with their fanfiction and etc… y’all do realize that you don’t have to follow canon when writing right? Lol That’s the whole point of fanfiction you make it whatever you want! You can completely ignore canon if you want! You don’t need to get mad about canon/the direction they went and claim the episode/Bernard’s return was ruined because of it! I promise y’all it’s not that serious, and this is coming from me, one of the biggest Bernard lovers in the world!

So yeah ANYWAYS, BERNARD IS BACK AND MY HEART IS SO HAPPY!!!!! 🥹😍🙌🏼❤️✨

[hawkzeyes]

why is everyone against bernard being the question guy wouldn’t it bring more to berdnard anyways

Mmm there are a lot of reasons personally for me! I’m gonna go ahead and say I’m incredibly biased and DC’s recent choices have my eye twitching.

1. Renee deserves to continue as The Question. DC has done this thing again, where an effective and exciting woman hero gets shifted backwards and we just lose all character development for no reason at all. This isn’t the first time DC has done this and it certainly won’t be the last time unfortunately. I’d like to see it fixed tbh and I’d like to see her back in the mask!

2. The Question seems to get just the title of a “conspiracy theorist” which is what I see B*tfam Stans using as a reason as apparently Bernard has had this trait, but that’s a huge misconception (mostly because of JLU love it though) sure he works with conspiracies but mostly because they are linked to corruption, which is really what he actually handles most of the time. Along with Renee! He just happens to be really cryptic about it, giving him that mysterious ‘crack pot’ vibe. That’s the purpose of The Question though. To go where the person behind the mask can’t, to stop the corruption at its core.

3. The DC comic verse has done enough sacrificing other characters for the b*tfam honest to god. Ppl are getting really tired of it. There has been plenty of this talk outside of the b*tfamily circle but it’s generally missed by them because they tend to stay in their circle. Which is totally fine! That’s their space, but the rest of the families/fandoms are irked. The way multiple characters have been altered and changed just to fit along that family is A LOT in the N52/Rebirth situation. The rest of the characters in DC are not responsible for Bernard being more interesting. If writers want him to be interesting they ought to just develop him as a person? Renee doesn’t deserve to lose the mantle because y’all want Tim’s boyfriend to be a cool conspiracy guy

4. If y’all want to see this, write fanfiction about it? That’s what fanfiction is for. What I don’t want is it being pushed at DC because A LOT of writers right now are waaaay too involved in fandom spaces rn (which I find highly unprofessional. Like I’m not saying you can’t be a fan, obviously I would prefer that, but starting fights with fans, beefing over Twitter, and using your power in these comic companies to run over others opinions and or steal ideas from fans is weird) and they do take from it. T*m T*ylor.

5. I think it would actually crush me to see Renee lose the mantle because of fandom space after Vic (who is one of my favorite characters) trusted her with it. The person who has it now respects Vic and the meaning behind the mask, because that very much matters when it comes to The Question, instead of just “lol conspiracies 🤪🤪”

6. If I remember correctly isn’t Vic back confusingly? With the whole Manhattan Flashpoint mess (please don’t ask me to explain I literally never understand the flashpoint LMFAOOO) So if Renee really is done with the mask… and Vic Sage is literally right there (I think) and about a million times better than Bernard would ever be at being The Question since he is literally the original, why should he? Bernard has literally done nothing to prove he would be better than either of these characters or has really done anything to show he deserves the mantle.

[thesinglesjukebox]

SEXYY RED - "POUND TOWN"

They were gonna find out anyway...

[5.69]

Crystal Leww: When I was in high school, I went over to a friend's house to work on a school project together, and she put on "Ms. New Booty" by Bubba Sparxxx. As teenagers, we were absolutely shrieking at that chorus, just like jumping up and down, hyped up on 7-11 Big Gulp soda. It is still one of the most viscerally funny, goofiest, most unserious things I've ever heard in music. I hope that feeling that I bottled up and hold dear to my heart even today is what what teens today felt the first time they heard "my coochie pink, my bootyhole brown!" [8]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: It was the pound heard 'round the town, and Sexyy Red became an instant star. It's easy to see why: she's having a total blast here while rapping with minimal effort, in a regular talking cadence. She lets out a laugh or two, throws in casual ad-libs, and says some of the most memorable lines of the year. Kanye talking about bleached assholes was always unrelatable; finally, a bootyhole song for the people. [7]

Ian Mathers: Look, I enjoy my trips to Pound Town as much as the next person, I just have some questions about how the Pound Town tourism board is spending their budget. [5]

Nortey Dowuona: This has been Sexyy Red's year, as last year was GloRilla's year, as last year was Doja Cat's year, as last year was Megan Thee Stallion's year, as last year was Cardi B's year... can we just let them all share the next year? I'm really irritated by the way we hype up a new femme rapper for a year, praise them to the roof and back, then give up on them afterwards (remember Chika? Remember Saweetie? Remember Free JT? Remember Maliibu Miitch? Remember Treety? Remember Dreezy?) We let too many mid male rappers get the chance to drop and hog the discourse with either praise or condemnation and seem to forget that women rappers are just as diversely populated and are good as hell. (REMEMBER CUPCAKKE!!!??) I can't even be too positive about this song cuz I know what happened to literally everybody who we were like, "they so good omg we love them, twerking on the runway" -- not doing that shit this year. All you folks pissed about Yachty making Tame Impala Feeding Music use that anger to engage with the next Rapsody album instead. And "Hellcats SRTs" is the actual best song Sexyy Red has ever done, but it's not as memeable. Fuck this. [9]

Alfred Soto: Wary of stanning for female rap artists who wield vulgarity like an épée -- the fandom, depending on its expression, can look an awful lot like exoticizing -- I resisted Sexyy Red. Her conversational tone reminded me what I admire about the Everyperson anonymity of dance singers from Shannon and Bernard Sumner to Katy B and Peggy Gou. I've accepted "Pound Town." Now, about her embrace of Trump... [7]

Taylor Alatorre: "TRUMP TO CITY: DROP DEAD" [2]

Katherine St Asaph: Please note as you read this score that for our 2023 return, we have also re-curved the rating scale, and the YouTube comments are a [-10]. [0]

Leah Isobel: "Pound Town" works wonders as a comedy bit and as an introduction to Sexyy Red's charismatic delivery -- the way she tosses off That One Line and then audibly starts giggling into the next is star power personified. I'm not sure it functions as well as a song as it does a meme, but that's what "SkeeYee" is for. [6]

Michelle Myers: Sexyy Red has better comedic timing than most professional comics. On "Pound Town," she's playful and winky, delivering unhinged lines about scouting Miami for hoochie daddies and exposing her cheating man (love u baby!). [7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: "My coochie pink, my booty-hole brown" was the first line that made me laugh out loud. The rest of "Pound Town" is a treasure trove of deadpan punchlines, from the withering delivery of "I'm out here in Miami," to the feigned imperative of "come suck a bitch toes," to the fourth wall breaking of "I can't say his name, 'cause he be cheating." The Nicki remix, for what it's worth, is an [8]. [7]

Will Adams: Listening to a song shouldn't make me want to furiously smash Logic's nudge function to get the vocal to actually align to the beat. [2]

Jeffrey Brister: Somewhat less...technically complex than "WAP," but I value directness. There's a lot to be said about clever wordplay and all the other literary techniques you want to reference, but sometimes you just need to hear "come suck a bitch toes" and appreciate the simple beauty of being insanely and candidly horny. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: I've been known to enjoy filth, but you've gotta give me something to latch onto. Filth for the sake of filth is just sad. 2 Live Crew, for instance, were filthy, but they at least sounded like they were having fun. John Waters of course glorified in filth in his early work, and made it art. There's no fun or art in "Pound Town"; Sexyy Red just sounds bored and uninspired, like she's just waiting for this to catch on online so she can start cashing checks. I hope she invests well. [0]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Obnoxious! [8]

Jonathan Bradley: During his career peak, even while he was claiming to be the best alive, Jay-Z would often demur about whether he was actually a rapper. He didn't write anything down; he was a businessman; he would retire any minute now. This disengagement with the expectations of art, the notion that creativity might call someone to account and absorb them into a guild with traditions and limitations, has been resisted by other rappers since: Lil B, for instance, switching from Bay Area sneaker raps to rambling psychedelia or such MCs as Blueface or Teejayx6 severing the links between beat and flow. On "Pound Town," Sexyy Red reminds me of how Chicago drill icon Katie Got Bandz mumbled and smirked through her way through her rhymes, as if she were too dangerous to bother trying to be a rapper. Sexyy Red mumbles here, and cuts her lines off into short, simply rhymed taunts, as if she's too hot or maybe too horny to rap properly. She collapses into a giggle half way through some of these missives, switches to a playful sing-song for others, and breezily apologizes for almost giving away a man who's been sneaking around with her ("I love you baby!"). Despite the brooding piano-led beat, which approaches hook-ups the way Nas did paranoia home invasion in "Shoot Em 'Up," it's fun! Sexyy Red does what she wants; why would she bother putting in the effort of rapping properly? And even if "Pound Town" is more languid and less urgently anarchic than "Born By the River," and perhaps less insistent than "SkeeYee," it still has an important message about which parts of Sexyy Red are pink and which parts are brown. [8]

Brad Shoup: The textbook definition of "it ain't that deep". [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[safyresky]

HOW DO YOU DO FELLOW HUMANS, HUMAN FELLOWS. How we feelin after episode 4? Feelin like uh, we have MAYBE seeeeeen a takeover of the North Pole before? Albeit very different??? Still missing our frosty mans?!?!!?

WELL GOOD NEWS. IT IS 12AM, I AM DRUNK, AND I AM HERE WITH ANOTHER PLUG FOR ANOTHER FANFIC I WROTE CALLED THE TWELVE YEARS OF FROSTMAS.

Frostmas? you say. I see it mentioned, in passing, in Crystal Springs, which I have definitely read since you pinned it and offered it to us in a trying time! You say.

That's sweet, I reply. You can be honest, it's okay if you didn't read it!

Okay good, you say, because life gets busy and I'm fucking tired and it's so niche. There's barely any B-Man! Where is the B-Man!

I get it, y'all are B-Man stans. What's a Jack stan to do in this economy.

THIS, APPARENTLY.

anyway.

LET ME OFFER YOU A FROSTMAS! WHAT IS FROSTMAS ABOUT, YOU ASK? SIMPLE!

FROSTMAS IS MY OWN PERSONAL TAKE ON HOW JACK'S REIGN AS SANTA WENT FOR THE 12 YEARS HE WAS SANTA-ING ABOUT, BEFORE SCOTT CAME BACK AND THEY D-D-D-DUELED!

In TTYoF, commonly referred to here at SafyreSky Industries as Frostmas, Jack poofs to the moment the sleigh descends (because I said so) and starts his reign as Santa, the long way round. Of course, when he arrives, Bernard (YAY!) is like "well this is fucking WRONG" and summons the Council.

Unfortunately, Jack grabbed the coat; so now he's Santa. But then...who'll be Jack Frost?

Well, his Legate (remember that? From the Crystal Springs plug?) of course! His lil sister! My OC, Jacqueline Mother Fucking Frost!

AND ENTER JACQUELINE! WHO IS TELLING US THE STORY OF JACK'S REIGN AS SANTA FROM HER PERSPECTIVE! IT'S FIRST PERSON LADS! AND JACQUELINE IS ONE HELL OF A NARRATOR!

Seems good for Jack, right? He's Santa, Jacqueline is taking care of his old job? WRONG. BECAUSE MOTHER FUCKING JACQUELINE FUCKING FROST REMEMBERS THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE

AND SHE IS NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT.

Join her retelling of Jack's reign as Santa, which she has dubbed "The Twelve Years of Frostmas", and watch how Jack takes the Workshop from tradition to CAPITALIST HELLSCAPE! Watch as he slowly descends into "maybe we should get the guillotine" territory, and how the Workshop we know and love comes to be the capitalist hellscape we see Scott disassociate in in the film.

AND MAYBE a narrative in which an unhinged woman gets a villain arc and becomes her worst fear, while the not quite a foil foil (I forget the other word ): realizes that this isn't at all what he wants, and watch how it all unfolds! Wow!

this isn't a good sell but it's 12:30 am and I've had like, the equivalent of 7 shots and APPARENTLY 7 shot Dani is like, wow, i am a wordsmith. everyone should read this shit. wow.

TL;DR: I WROTE A FIC CALLED THE TWLEVE YEARS OF FROSTMAS THAT EXPLORES JACK'S REIGN AS SANTA AND HOW WE GET FROM WORKSHOP TO SANTA DISNEY LAND, FEATURING AN OC THAT TELLS US HOW IT WENT FROM HER PERSPECTIVE. AND ALSO DID I MENTION THAT BERNARD (YAY!) IS FEATURED PROMINENTLY? YEAH BERNARD (YAY!) STANS, I'M TALKING TO YOU!

So, in conclusion. Reasons to read The Twelve Years of Frostmas by safyresky:

Jack as Santa

Jacqueline Mother fucking Frost gets to be unhinged and maybe a bit antagonistic (a lot if ur Jack)

Bernard's there! (YAY!)

Also, Bernard is there! (YAY!)

Did I mention Bernard? (YAY!)

Reasons to NOT read Frostmas:

none

(i kid)

it is 1st person perspective and also features an oc prominently, so if either of those things aren't your thing, please disregard this long post and go about your midnight happily not reading 1st person or OCs

tho idk why anyone wouldn't like ocs

they're a whole bucket of fun!

[We here at SafyreSky Industries would like to give viewers and potential readers a warning about the Frostmas Effect, which may affect you if you choose to read. Frostmas is a bop, however, it is massively, massively long because our CEO, SafyreSky herself, is a slut for aesthetics and one chapter is always one year. The word count goes from 4-5k, to 8-10k, and suddenly 20-30k. Please use Frostmas wisely. We recommend frequent breaks. Please see a doctor if prolonged use of Frostmas keeps you up at night. We here at SafyreSky industries waive any and all responsibility to your emotional wellbeing after you embark on your reading journey. thank you for your time, be safe, and enjoy the descent into madness that is The Twelve Years of Frostmas.]

[roobylavender]

i think tim is bi not gay. and yeah i think the reason it always came across as off is because they basically introduced this very bland random character (bernard) whose sole role is to be tim's bf and feels very detached from anything about tim up until this point? i mean twt tim stans who woobify him enough already dont care but it's just jarringly done

oh yeah sorry i used gay as an umbrella term i know he’s bi 😭 the interesting thing is if tim had to date anyone i do think it should be a civilian bc he needs to have a definitive part of his life that is not entrenched in vigilantism and keeps him grounded to reality. but bernard is a bit of a bizarre conduit to use and then comics nowadays rarely produce anything compelling anyway so even if that dynamic does have potential it’s certainly not going to be capitalized on in a way that’s really meaningful.. albeit i do like that the writers recognized the significance of tim revealing something personal about himself to bruce and that being a big thing bc as far as his original robin tenure went tim was very adamant about separating the two parts of his life to the point he almost suppressed the civilian part esp where bruce was concerned, and that was obv not healthy

ig for me the disconnect with fandom comes from the reasoning popularly used for why he’s not straight. like it either has to do with his interactions with ariana and stephanie which i think it is a bit shortsighted to call queer coded bc they’re clearly products of dixon’s misogyny. or it has to do with the kon relationship, a hyper focus on which to me says people don’t equally value the other relationships in the core four. like if it was any of the other core four who died would people automatically ship tim with them too bc he would obv be incredibly upset and desperate to bring them back? the core four comes off as such a wonderful friendship to me and i personally kind of hate the whole prerogative that if you’re in a friend group it’s obv at least two of you will date. i like them as friends and i think it’s fine to keep it that way

i just wish people’s engagement with why tim could be queer was more interesting. i’m definitely open to the idea but it has to come from more than authorial misogyny and a reaction to a particular character dying

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who 10 for 10 Part 4/10: Series 4

This is the dream team, ladies and gentlemen. Following her brief appearance in The Runaway Bride, Catherine Tate was given the opportunity to reprise her role as Donna Noble, which she quickly accepted. During a tweetalong for that same episode in December 2020, Russell T Davies threw out the idea of returning to Doctor Who and asked Catherine Tate and David Tennant if they were interested. The two of them accepted and now, RTD is back as showrunner with David Tennant and Catherine Tate returning for three 60th Anniversary Specials in November 2023. But for now, let’s focus on their original series from 15 years ago.

This instalment will encompass the 2009 Specials alongside Series 4. During the production of Doomsday, RTD, Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson and Jane Tranter agreed to do two more series before putting the series on a break with a year of specials as they prepared to transition to a new production team, with Steven Moffat accepting the role of showrunner in September 2007. David Tennant had been offered to continue on for Series 5, but he ultimately declined and he announced his departure via livelink at the National Television Awards on 29 October 2008.

Interestingly, the production of Series 4 is probably the most documented out of all of Doctor Who. This is thanks to a collaborative project between RTD and Doctor Who Magazine writer Benjamin Cook, starting off as emails to create a series of articles in the magazine, but as the amount of correspondence grew, it was decided to create a book with them, resulting in The Writer’s Tale being released in September 2008 covering emails (and text messages) from February 2007 to April 2008. Later on, it was decided to compile another 18 months worth of emails up to September 2009, eventually resulting in The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter being released in January 2010. In those books you can get the biggest insight behind-the-scenes and see just how much planning and time goes into the production of a series of Doctor Who. You can also see RTD’s health slowly deteriorating as he oversaw three flagship programs over six years. Seriously, it makes me look like a joke, compressing decades worth of work into 10 years, and that’s mostly just writing, not all the filming and work that goes into pre-production and post-production.

Anyway, let’s jump into the retrospective for Series 4.

1. A Noble return

During the planning for Series 4, RTD intended for the companion to be a “leftover” woman in her mid-30s called Penny Carter, however when Catherine Tate agreed to return (possibly also because Penny’s character was similar to that of Donna’s), the plans were changed and Penny’s story became a continuation of Donna’s story.

Jacqueline King and Howard Attfield were signed back on as Donna’s parents, Sylvia and Geoff Noble, however during the filming of Partners in Crime, Attfield broke his leg after only having filmed a few scenes on a hill. After some quick discussions, Attfield was replaced by Bernard Cribbins as Donna’s maternal grandfather, Wilfred Mott, who was featured in the 2007 Christmas Special, Voyage of the Damned (the highest-rated episode of the revived era, presumably thanks in no part to the appearance of Kylie Minogue) and the scenes on the hill were refilmed. Cribbins’ character was originally named Stan, but after he signed on for Series 4, his character was changed to accommodate (luckily his name was never mentioned in the special so all they needed to do was change his name in the credits). If you ask me, given what we see in those scenes, I think Bernard Cribbins was a better fit in them, given what he was saying about aliens in the special. Attfield died a couple weeks after the recast, with his scenes being included as deleted scenes on the Series 4 DVD box set. The return of the Nobles marked the beginning of a storyline that tied the Doctor and Donna’s fates together, which would be concluded in the finale and later extended to the 2009 Specials.

The Nobles weren’t the only characters returning in Series 4, however. As RTD intended for this series to be his last, he wanted to make the finale as big as possible. Rose Tyler made a surprise appearance in the season premiere, followed by two brief appearances (filmed for one episode then added to the other) before her main involvement in the series finale and the episode before it. Martha Jones rejoined the Doctor for three episodes before returning again in the finale. Jack Harkness and Sarah Jane Smith also returned for the finale, bringing in characters from their respective spinoffs, namely Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Luke Smith, Mr Smith and K9. Harriet Jones, Francine Jones, Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith also returned in the finale as well. Most of them would appear again for cameos near the end of The End of Time Part Two, including Alonso Frame (who was originally scheduled to return in The Stolen Earth but declined due to other commitments) and Verity Newman, the great-granddaughter of Joan Redfern from Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Additionally, there were plans for the Shadow Proclamation scene in The Stolen Earth to feature various aliens from across the RTD era, but that was cut for time and budget, resulting in the scene only having a group of Judoon. A similar scene would be realised in The End of Time Part Two.

2. Warnings from the future

After Donna officially joined the Doctor, their first adventure (in The Fires of Pompeii) was to Pompeii in the year 79 AD, right on Volcano Day. Since they knew what would happen that day, the Doctor insists that they can’t change anything about it, even though Donna tried her best to do so. This story also shows that while an actual historical event was hijacked by alien forces, the Doctor’s intervention allowed history to continue as normal. Other examples would come later in Series 6 with the Silence and Series 11 with Rosa Parks.

The Pyroviles’ homeworld was lost, though a group of them managed to escape and crashed to Earth, eroding to dust in the core of Mount Vesuvius. Following an earthquake in 62 AD, the soothsayers began to predict the future accurately, but they were never able to predict Volcano Day because the Pyroviles were using Vesuvius’ power for their plan to convert Earth into their new home planet. When the Doctor and Donna managed to expose their plans, the Doctor explains that he can invert the system and blow up the Pyroviles, but in doing so, he would be the one to cause Volcano Day.

The Doctor and Donna push the lever together and they manage to get back to Pompeii. As they head back into the TARDIS, Donna insists to the Doctor that he at least save someone, and he briefly goes back to rescue Caecilius and his family.

Karen Gillan, who played a soothsayer in the episode, would be cast as companion Amy Pond for Series 5 onwards, while Peter Capaldi, who played Caecilius, played John Frobisher in the third series of Torchwood before being cast as the Twelfth Doctor in 2013. In the behind-the-scenes episode, RTD suggested that Frobisher may have been a descendant of Caecilius and that his conclusion was time reasserting itself after the Doctor saved Caecilius in the past. This was confirmed by Moffat in 2015, but the rest will have to wait until we get to Series 9.

3. Double returning villains

Series 4 saw the return of not one, but two villains from the classic series. The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky saw the reintroduction of the Sontarans in a story that has them utilise humanity’s reliance on cars, GPSes and petrol to turn Earth into a cloning planet. Aside from Martha’s return in this story, we saw the Doctor’s attitude to soldiers and weapons, as evidenced by his aversion to weapons and people saluting him.

Davros, the creator of the Daleks, also makes a return in the series finale, with him reuniting with Sarah Jane Smith many years after their first meeting in his debut episode, Genesis of the Daleks. Although the Sontarans and Davros appeared considerably less than the Daleks, Cybermen or the Master, the production team’s confidence in bringing back gradually obscured villains from the classic series was proven by the success of the series so far. A scene featuring a young Davros in the past was scripted for the finale, but like the aforementioned Shadow Proclamation scene, was scrapped for time and budget.

4. The end of the river

After two single-parter episodes in the last two series, Steven Moffat’s contribution to Series 4 was Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, his last two-parter in the RTD era to round off his first two-parter in Series 1. The story featured the debut of River Song, a character at the end of her timeline who would become more relevant in future episodes as the Doctor’s timeline continues and her past is gradually explored. I think Moffat wrote the story knowing that he was going to be taking over from RTD and so he wanted to get a head start on his storylines.

The story also features the Vashta Nerada, carnivore piranhas of the air that live in shadows (thereby creating another innocuous thing for people to be scared of) and an underlying storyline involving the mind of Charlotte Abigail Lux, or the command node CAL. A century prior, CAL tried to save the 4022 people that were in the Library when the Vashta Nerada began to emerge, but since she was unable to teleport them away, she had to save their minds to the data core, leading to Donna being “saved” as well when the Doctor attempted to teleport her back to the TARDIS. In the end, River sacrificed herself to teleport Donna and all 4022 people out of the data core, but the Doctor managed to upload her data ghost into it, where she lived with the data ghosts of the rest of her crew and the avatars of CAL and Donna’s children.

5. Thematic story arcs

The story arc of this series was teased more subtly compared to previous seasons as multiple elements from the finale were scattered across the episodes of the series. Those elements included the bees disappearing, the Medusa Cascade, lost worlds, the return of Rose Tyler and the DoctorDonna. Other elements from other series were also resolved in this series, such as Harriet Jones, the mystery of the Doctor’s hand (which the Doctor retook possession of at the end of the last series) and Dalek Caan of the Cult of Skaro.

After Evolution of the Daleks, Dalek Caan’s Emergency Temporal Shift somehow took back into the Time War, which was meant to be time-locked. He travelled to the Gates of Elysium, where he managed to save Davros from the jaws of the Nightmare Child. Although his mind was damaged in the process, he gained the ability to clearly see through time, allowing him to manipulate events as he saw fit.

Davros was brought to the present day, where he used the cells from his body to create the New Dalek Empire before creating a reality bomb to destroy every reality. To power it, they stole 27 planets, some from different times, and relocated them to the Medusa Cascade one second out of sync from the rest of time. This caused some bees from Melissa Majoria to leave Earth as they sensed a disturbance.

Without the Doctor to stop it, the reality bomb’s effects began affecting other universes as stars began disappearing. Rose Tyler journeyed out from Pete’s World in search of the Doctor and ended up in Donna’s World, a world created around her when a Time Beetle was attached to Donna. It was revealed that reality had been bending around her since she was born, causing her to meet the Doctor again and be dragged into two parallel worlds, the other instance being in the data core of the Library.

In the Doctor’s universe, however, the Doctor’s absence led Harriet Jones, the former Prime Minister of Britain who was deposed thanks to the Doctor’s words near the end of The Christmas Invasion, to activate the Subwave Network in an effort to find anyone who could help contact the Doctor. Harriet found the Doctor’s former companions and used the network to call the Doctor, but the Daleks tracked her down and confronted her, but not before she gave control of the network to Torchwood.

Harriet was apparently exterminated by the Daleks, but in the anthology Now We Are Six Hundred written by James Goss and illustrated by RTD, there is a poem that details how Harriet managed to escape the Daleks by falling through a trapdoor and riding away on her motorbike. Phil Collinson was apparently not happy with RTD killing off Harriet Jones and “nagged” him about it ever since, so RTD took the first opportunity he could to send the poem to him. Collinson asked RTD if it counted and he said that he did. During the lockdown tweetalong for the Series 4 finale on 19 April 2020, RTD elaborated on Harriet’s escape, even going so far to suggest that it was a part of the Trickster’s long game, “but that’s a story for another time”.

6. My Choice, My Life, My Death

Fun fact - the title to this was the former title for my version of Turn Left in my personal project, which was a result of me ripping off bits of the RTD series while writing the first few series of Doctor Who.

Turn Left was the Doctor-lite episode of the series, double-banked alongside Midnight as the companion-lite episode of the series. As a result of the Time Beetle mentioned in the previous topic, a parallel world was created where Donna never met the Doctor, which led him to die in what would have been the events of The Runaway Bride. The timeline would continue to go on with the following differences; Sarah Jane and her group would take over the events of Smith and Jones before dying alongside Martha; the Titanic replica crashed into Buckingham Palace, destroying London and flooding all of southern England with radiation; the Adipose seeding happened in America instead of London; and the Sontarans activated ATMOS to convert Earth into a clone planet, but Captain Jack and the Torchwood team gave their lives to stop them.

Rose Tyler found Donna while in search for the Doctor. She kept Donna alive by diverting her away from London before the Titanic replica crashed into Buckingham Palace because she realised that she needed the Doctor and Donna together to stop the oncoming darkness. With the help of UNIT, Rose sent Donna back in time to where the split in the timeline happened and Donna ended up sacrificing her life to ensure that her past self wouldn’t make the decision that would inadvertently create the alternate timeline. Rose did manage to leave a message for the Doctor - “Bad Wolf” - to catch his attention.

7. The mystery of the Doctor’s hand and the DoctorDonna

After the Doctor regained possession of his spare hand at the end of Series 3, it has ended up playing a significant role in two Series 4 stories.

In The Doctor’s Daughter, the Doctor’s hand appeared to react as the TARDIS was brought to Messaline, which happened due to the creation of Jenny from the Doctor’s genes. Later on in The Stolen Earth, the Doctor was shot by a Dalek upon reuniting with Rose and proceeded to regenerate, sparking speculation as to whether David Tennant had resigned despite it being reported that he would be in the 2008 Christmas Special. In the next episode, Journey’s End, the Doctor ended up directing most of his regeneration energy into his spare hand, leading to speculation over the years as to whether a regeneration was actually used, though that was dispelled in 2013 when Steven Moffat confirmed as such in The Time of the Doctor. I wasn’t a fan of the regeneration twist initially, though I understand how it was needed for the rest of this storyline to work out.

The Daleks brought the TARDIS up to the Crucible and ordered everyone out. Donna became distracted by a heartbeat in her head and found herself unable to leave when the TARDIS locked her in. The Daleks dumped the TARDIS into the core of the Crucible, where it was to be destroyed, but as Donna fell to the floor, she reached for the Doctor’s hand, which formed into a copy of the Doctor while the ensuing biological meta-crisis gave Donna the Doctor’s mind, though it laid dormant until Davros shocked her. This allowed Donna to deactivate the reality bomb and send the stolen planets back to their original places in space and time. As such, Donna became the DoctorDonna, with the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor’s creation being the cause of the timelines converging around her, allowing her to meet the Doctor again despite missing events in previous stories through coincidences.

Sadly, the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor and the DoctorDonna weren’t able to stay in the Doctor’s universe for long. After destroying the Daleks in one fell swoop, the Doctor left his meta-crisis self with Rose in Pete’s World, because he was like himself when he first met Rose and he needed her to change him. As for Donna, she began to find herself being overwhelmed by her newfound knowledge, which would have killed her if not for the Doctor wiping her memories of their adventures together, thereby “killing” her mercifully. When the Doctor told Sylvia and Wilf of this, he noted to them that there are worlds out there singing praises of Donna, for she was the most important woman in the whole universe, though she can never know it.

8. The Time Lord Victorious

As stated at the start, there would be a series of specials broadcast throughout 2009 in lieu of a fifth series, which would come later in 2010 with a new production team. The Next Doctor saw the return of the Cybermen and a special guest companion, Jackson Lake, who began to see himself as a new incarnation of the Doctor due to an incident with the Cybermen. Planet of the Dead was an Easter adventure with scenes filmed in Dubai and the beginning of a mini-arc that would see the end of the Tenth Doctor’s life - “He will knock four times.”

The Waters of Mars shows the Doctor at his most reckless as he tried to avert a fixed point in time by saving Adelaide Brooke and two of her crew from Bowie Base One when an aqueous viral infection known as the Flood infested the rest of the crew. Originally, Adelaide was supposed to die with her crew and the cause of Bowie Base One’s destruction remained unknown. After the Doctor returned to Earth, Adelaide allowed the surviving members of her crew to leave and share their story. As the Doctor proclaimed to Adelaide that he was the Time Lord Victorious, Adelaide became horrified and angry at the potential of the Doctor’s power, so she took her own life in an effort to preserve the timeline, which led the Doctor to realise the seriousness of his actions, though he seemingly remained defiant.

I suppose I would have liked to see this attitude continue into the final specials, but it would be revisited a decade later with the multi-platform Time Lord Victorious series, covering books, comics, audios, games and webcasts. The series explored the Tenth Doctor going into the Dark Times, where he encountered a species known as the Kotturuh, who assigned lifespans to species based on their significance to the universe. By stopping the Kotturuh, the Tenth Doctor rewrote history and altered timelines, eventually resulting in the Eighth and Ninth Doctors allying with the Daleks and a group of vampires to make their future incarnation see the error of his ways.

Ironically, in the 2015 Titan Comics miniseries Four Doctors, the Tenth Doctor defied his fate and became the Time Lord Victorious again, conquering the universe before he was assassinated by a Raxacoricofallapatorian.

9. The evil of the Time Lords

Originally, three specials were commissioned for 2009, but in April 2008, Jane Tranter pushed for David Tennant’s final story to be a two-parter, and as such, RTD had to work hard in order to make The End of Time the big story that it was. The 2008 global financial crisis led to budget cuts across the BBC and with countries like Canada and Japan no longer deciding to buy rights to the series, RTD feared that the two-parter would be cut to 45 minutes each or that The Waters of Mars would be dropped, but luckily, Julie Gardner managed to raise the money to make all four specials possible. Both parts of The End of Time made up the 2009 Christmas Special and the 2010 New Year’s Special, the latter being the first of its kind before the Chibnall era decided to move the Christmas Specials to New Year’s Day.

Part One saw the Master being resurrected thanks to his contingency plan, but an accident left him with an energy deficit. Meanwhile, Wilf was contacted by a mysterious woman who told him to take up arms. Wilf manages to find the Doctor to see if he can bring Donna’s memory of him back, but he refuses to go to her. On Christmas morning, the Doctor finds Wilf again in an effort to find the Master, which he does thanks to a subconscious suggestion from Donna. Wilf goes with the Doctor to the Naismith mansion and confronts the Master, who uses the Immortality Gate to transform every human (except for Wilf and Donna) into himself, creating the Master Race.

Part Two sees two Vinvocci rescuing the Doctor and Wilf while the Master uses the Master Race to trace the origin of the drumbeat inside his head. The drumbeat was revealed to the the work of the Time Lords, who put the signal in the Master’s head when he was eight years old and was taken for initiation to the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey. This was an effort by Rassilon and the High Council to win the Time War by breaking Gallifrey out of the time lock and ripping the Time Vortex apart, which was what made the Doctor destroy Gallifrey to stop them (apparently). Only two Time Lords opposed this plan, with one of them being the woman that contacted Wilf. The Doctor fell back into the Naismith mansion and confronted the Master and Rassilon, struggling to choose who to kill until a glance from the woman leads him to break the link, sending the Time Lords back into the Time War, with the Master going as well in an attempt to exact revenge for turning him into what he was.

In all honesty, it feels kind of surreal to see Rassilon becoming a villain in this story, given how he was revered by the Time Lords and also the fact that the Time Lords were written in a better light during the classic series (but what would I know, the only Gallifrey-related classic series episode I really watched was The Five Doctors). Then again, I don’t think the Doctor ever saw eye-to-eye with the Time Lords in the classic series, so it kind of makes sense how he wouldn’t see eye-to-eye with them in the revived series.

10. The grandest farewell

Once Rassilon and the Time Lords were sent back into the time lock with the Master, the Doctor was initially relieved to still be alive until Wilf knocked four times. After ranting about how he could do so much more, the Doctor couldn’t bear leaving Wilf to die and allowed himself to absorb the Immortality Gate’s regeneration to get him out of the control chamber. He then dropped Wilf off at home and went off on his final reward, visiting all his previous companions and other people he met (even those from spinoff media and the classic era, as would be revealed in SJA Series 4), seeing Donna at her wedding, and visiting Rose on New Year’s Day 2005 before struggling back to his TARDIS, setting it into flight and regenerating into the Eleventh Doctor, setting the console room on fire in the process.

Aside from the returning cameos in The End of Time, there was some bonus farewell content from the production team to celebrate the end of the RTD era. At the wrap party, two videos were produced by Jennie Fava for the cast and crew; a video of everyone singing to The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) and The Ballad of Russell and Julie, featuring David Tennant, Catherine Tate and John Barrowman.

Although The End of Time was David Tennant’s final episode, he would also be involved in the filming of the 2009 BBC One Christmas idents and the SJA episode The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, which would premiere that October.

Unlike Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant readily embraced his role even after his time on Doctor Who, appearing at the Birmingham Lords of Time Fan Convention in September 2012, reprising his role in the 50th Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor in 2013 and making his Big Finish debut with the first volume of The Tenth Doctor Adventures, released in May 2016. And then of course, he returned again at the end of The Power of the Doctor in preparation for the 60th Anniversary Specials in November 2023.

In the end, there were too many things to say about Series 4 to summarise in 10 topics, so I’m putting in some honourable mentions below:

Was Mr Copper ungrateful?

One of the most notorious things about Series 4, or rather Voyage of the Damned, is the Doctor Who Magazine interview with Clive Swift, who played Mr Copper in the special and also Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks (he was also due to star in a Big Finish audio in 2003, but he withdrew due to a family illness). When Benjamin Cook interviewed Swift (on set in his trailer towards the end of the shooting), he didn’t seem to take the interview seriously, complaining about why Cook taped the interview instead of using shorthand and commenting about how he wasn’t getting paid for the interview. In 2017, Cook commented that RTD and Julie Gardner had to approve the interview before it was published, suspecting it was “testament to what a sod he’d been on set all month”.

Apparently, it was rumoured that RTD was going to have Clive Swift reprise his role in The Stolen Earth, but he changed his mind after the DWM interview. This was never confirmed, however his character was mentioned, as it is implied that Mr Copper established the foundation that developed the Subwave Network.

When Swift died in 2019, RTD apparently claimed that he should have not allowed the interview to be published as he felt that he had a duty of care to Swift, just as with any other actor. Although the only source for this is someone else’s Twitter without any primary source to back it up, it’s very likely that RTD actually said this because Benjamin Cook has replied to people replying to that tweet.

Something that can be verified, however, is a letter that RTD emailed to Doctor Who Magazine shortly after Swift’s death. This didn’t seem to have gotten much attention, but someone managed to take a snapshot of it and posted it online, which I’ll also attach below.

What do you think of RTD’s response? Do you think it made Swift seem less ungrateful about his experience on Doctor Who? Feel free to let me know what you think.

Keeping it (the timey-wimey) in the family

I’m gonna get flamed for the title to this, I just know it. But nonetheless, I’m still stating the obvious.

Peter Davison reprised his role as the Fifth Doctor for the 2007 Children in Need sketch, Time Crash. About a week before it aired, Davison’s daughter, Georgia Moffett, was cast as Jenny in The Doctor’s Daughter, meaning that a daughter of a Doctor was playing the daughter of the Doctor. After Tennant and Moffett married, Peter Davison became the former’s father-in-law.

Although Jenny was shown to have been killed near the end of The Doctor’s Daughter, the ending of the episode showed her being revived, unbeknownst to the Doctor, before stealing a shuttlecraft and leaving to go on adventures. Georgia Moffett was interested in returning to the series and although she hasn’t reprised her role onscreen, her character has returned in extended media, with Moffett returning for a Big Finish audio series featuring Jenny in 2018.

On a side note, former TVB actress Corinna Chamberlain (a Westerner) is literally Georgia Moffett and you cannot convince me otherwise.

That Time Lady

The identity of the Time Lady who contacted Wilf has never been openly explained on-screen, although the popular explanation seems to be that it was the Doctor’s mother since it was what RTD told her actress, Claire Bloom, and the production team. However, RTD acknowledged that it could have been any other Time Lady, such as Romana, Susan Foreman’s mother (aka the Doctor’s daughter) or even the Rani. And before anyone says it, it can’t be Tecteun because she would be with Division.

Another similar woman appeared in Series 9’s Hell Bent when the Twelfth Doctor returned to the drylands of Gallifrey. Steven Moffat said that he would rather leave it to the fans to decide who that woman was, whether she would be the Doctor’s mother, or even if she was the same woman from The End of Time.

“How many have died in your name?”

In Journey’s End, Davros reveals the Doctor’s soul, telling him that while he may abhor violence and never carry a weapon, his self-sacrificing nature convinced the people he meets to do the same, thereby making them into weapons, which makes him recall Harriet Jones and all the people who gave their lives in his name, including River Song and Jenny (again, he didn’t know that Jenny was revived). I’m sure there are many more examples of this from both before and after the RTD era, but that would be way out of scope for both the original episode and this retrospective series. I suppose I like to think that the people who are still alive are proud of having met the Doctor and would do anything they could to help him if he needed it. I mean, that’s what Harriet Jones did, didn’t she?

In my opinion, Series 4 and the 2009 Specials were the peak of the revived series, or rather the first of few. I didn’t get into Doctor Who for a few more years when this series came out (though I did watch one or two stories here and there), but even in Australia, the appeal of the show was as profound as it was in the UK. In primary school, I knew three kids in my year level who were fans of the show; one of them invited me to his house (or maybe his mum invited my mum and brought me along as well, idk) and we watched a story from Series 1 together; and the other two I played with in a Doctor Who-esque LARP with some Dynasty Warriors added in to boot; that LARP was one of the origins of my personal project which I would put to pen and paper (or rather, document and keyboard) in a few years’ time.

When I finally got into Doctor Who around 2011 or 2012, I took my time to watch the RTD era episodes as well; looking back, I only wish someone drilled it into me to start watching Doctor Who, whether by buying the DVDs or watching the episodes as they premiered on ABC, but knowing my mum back then, she would always have something recording on weekend nights, on the one DVR that could receive digital television, so I’d have to settle with watching on analog because the idea never came to me to buy the DVDs or find some way to watch it online (my 10GB internet data plan didn’t help things either).

This ends the Tennant and RTD eras of Doctor Who. Stay tuned for Part 5 as we enter the Smith and Moffat eras with my 10 takes on Series 5.

[gastrobrack]

Brave New World 2020 review from probably the biggest fan of the book you’ll meet in your life

(Mostly Spoiler Free) Okay so. I’ve been waiting for this show for a really long time because I absolutely love the book and it means a lot to me. My standards were admittedly pretty low because it can’t get worse than the 1998 movie, so I didn’t really mind when I saw the trailers and stuff where other people were complaining. 

TL;DR I thought the show was actually pretty enjoyable, but you have to read the book first in my opinion, or else it seems like it would be hard to follow at times. Where the show really screwed up royally was Mond’s storyline, which felt completely out of place and confusing, and when it ended up dominating the end of the final episode it just kinda ruined the story for me. The show is definitely more focused on the setting and characters than the societal predictions and themes of the novel, and for me that’s okay because we have the book to tell it better anyways.  I’d say watch it if you liked the book or are curious about it, but I don’t think it would really be enjoyable for the average viewer.

Side note: I watched this in the wee hours of the morning and some of the praise might just be the special interest talking, I’m just happy to be here and get more content

That being said, I think this show is like the Riverdale of Brave New World. However, in its defense it’s at least got the energy of the parts of Riverdale like the “epic highs and lows of high school football” and the “serial killer gene”, so it’s at least pretty funny. Personally, I knew that they would have to change a lot both to adjust for the longer runtime (around 9 hours) and to make the book enjoyable to a TV audience, because of course in the book you can have 2 chapters of exposition at the beginning and that’s not as enjoyable for a TV experience. So, let’s get into the pros and cons of the show!

PROS

-I really liked Bernard! In the book he means a lot to me personally (hell, I’m writing this while listening to my Bernard playlist) so I was of course kinda worried they might screw him up again like they did in the ‘98 movie, but I was pleasantly surprised! They did change him and divide his original personality between John and Lenina, but somehow they managed to create a new Bernard that both kept me on my toes and at the same time felt authentic and likeable! 

-Honestly, almost all the characters were done very well. They were all expanded upon in an interesting way while also staying generally pretty accurate to their book counterparts. I generally felt the same about them as I did with the novel, so I think that means they did a job well done. I think that John and Lenina were very different, but they still ultimately had the same general motivations. A lot of the cast’s interactions felt very natural, and I liked that they expanded upon Lenina and Fanny’s (or Frannie as she’s called here) friendship. 

-The show looked great, I know a lot of people really didn’t like the look of it because it wasn’t what they thought it would be when they read it, but for me that’s basically exactly what I imagined it would be. The costume designer clearly had fun making a bunch of outlandish outfits for everyone to wear and it’s all very pleasant to look at. 

-I think they did a good job fixing some of the problematic elements of the book without actually damaging the integrity of the things they were changing. For example, in the book, the savage reservation is quite literally just a native reservation, written in a way that clearly suggests Huxley didn’t really put a lot of thought into his depiction of real people. In the show, it’s a theme park where British people get to immerse themselves in the cultures of the old world, with the savages themselves being poor theme park workers reenacting events to shock and mystify the Brits. Now, admittedly, I think this makes a lot more sense as it ties into the consumerism that runs deep within their society. I know some people are mad about this because they think it’s cancel culture or something but honestly it’s not a big deal to me.

-This one might not be as important to some people, but I liked that the cast was pretty diverse, and the fact that John is the only straight one honestly made sense to me considering it would be in the World State’s best interest to encourage bisexuality amongst its citizens. Some of the characters (Helmholtz and Mond) are being played by women, and some people are kinda upset about that but I don’t really think it changed too much, although to me it is funny to think the showrunner thought he was doing something by “casting women of color to play white male characters” considering everyone I know who read the book didn’t picture either of them as white. 

-Honestly, I think the show did humor very well. It was very funny in a sort of dry way, and never felt forced or out of place. It all seemed like it naturally stemmed from the characters’ awkwardness and culture shock (on both sides) and it made me really happy as someone who loves all these characters to see them make me laugh.

CONS

-Now, I’m not usually one to complain about this too much, seeing as I love the book in a non thematic and academic context, but the message kinda got lost in all of it. I think the issues they brought up certainly were there, and could lend themselves very well to being good. The writers just focused on the entirely wrong things in the last episode, and that misguided focus completely changes the lens in which the rest of the show is retroactively viewed for me. 

-Mustapha Mond was just, where do I even begin. In the book, Mond doesn’t show up much except to provide exposition, and his position as an authoritative figure ultimately moves the plot towards the end of the novel. In the show, Mond gets this weird AI plotline that makes no sense, as in this version they have a sort of internet contact lens type system that allows them to connect to everyone else, and it is powered by said AI. The system itself doesn’t bother me as much as how poorly handled this plotline was. Not only was it completely random and was the only plotline in the show not to have some sort of roots in the events of the book, but it was extremely confusing to me. This leads into my next point, which is:

-The ending. Oh my God the ending. Now, look. I’m not gonna say much because I want this to be as spoiler free as possible, but the ending just honestly was a dumpster fire. The writers chose to focus the whole ending on the aforementioned AI plotline, despite the book providing a much more solid framework for an ending that they already seemed to be setting up. This shift in focus comes very late into the final episode, and it honestly doesn’t make any sense why the writers would really want to go this route. It feels like they were just adding things that didn’t fit into the story, and I can’t really discern why except for the possibility of setting up an unnecessary second season. I love the book, it’s my special interest, but I think I speak for everyone when I say we do not need a second season especially if its gonna be full of plotlines that make no sense and serve no purpose.  This heavily changed ending not only undermines the whole thematic purpose of the novel but honestly kind of goes actively against everything the book was trying to say in the first place. 

-They really don’t set up any of the world building, and although I caught on very quickly due to my familiarity with the book, it seems like it might get confusing for unfamiliar watchers. In the book, they explain their process for birthing and then conditioning children into their social body very in depth before they get into the actual plot and characters, and I think this show could have used some of that. Here, they talk a lot about conditioning but don’t actually explain what the conditioning is or why they have the caste system in the first place. 

-This is a minor disappointment more than anything and I didn’t actually notice till about the second episode, but there’s no more Ford talk, which is kinda disappointing cause it was pretty fun in the book. 

-Obviously it goes without saying that there’s sex in this, I mean it IS Brave New World. However, in this one, it just feels excessive and kinda just like it’s there for shock value more than anything. 

-This isn’t really a con so much as it is just a disclaimer, I know a lot of people are excited for Demi Moore as Linda and Joseph Morgan as the new character CJack60, but don’t get your hopes up too much, they don’t get to do much. If you read the book, you’d know that about Linda but I’ve seen reviewers get upset that she wasn’t in it more when she was one of the big names attached to the project. (FWIW she did a great job and I loved Linda in this whereas I didn’t in the book) As for CJack, he spends a lot of time just standing there and looking at things and doesn’t get to do much until the last 2 episodes or so. 

CONCLUSION

As someone who really loves the book’s setting and characters sometimes even more than the actual messages and predictions, I’ve always wanted an adaptation that focuses more on those elements, especially since that would make for an easier transition to the screen. Seeing this was a very nice breath of fresh air, because it embraces the inherently satirical and dare I say funny aspect of the story, as well as the characters’ individual quirks and distinct personalities. Obviously it’s not as hard hitting and important as the book, but I think those messages were better left in book form anyway. For someone like me, who loves the book with all my heart, this show honestly gave me most everything I wanted and it felt the most true to the spirit of the book’s world and characters out of any of the adaptations. I would say check out the show if you’re interested in it or enjoyed the book, but you should definitely be familiar with the book before you watch this. 

[lindaeastman]

miranda reading her old english lines from theodred's funeral I'M FINE THATS NOT MY VERY FAVOURITE SCENE IN THE FRANCHISE

[throckyova]

Anyways kpop stan Bernard

[my-gf-timothy-jackson-drake]

Film Noir AU that's kinda dumb because I'm dumb.

So Bruce Wayne becomes a Private Investigator and for some reason he has a bunch of kids working with him and the GCPD just doesn't question it at this point. They get the work done when their detectives are like "what the FUCK are we missing here?"

Anyway. This is a Tim Stan Blog, I wanna talk about him. Dick has his thing going on in Bludhaven with Babs. Jason is uhhhhh like. probably doing illegal shit, but for good. He keeps the more dangerous criminal in check. Damian is actually a child, he's still legally stuck to Bruce's side.

Tim and Steph strike it out on their own, working on the opposite side of town.

So Tim's doing his thing, overthinking and drinking coffee.

and in walks a face he hadn't seen in a long time. Bernard Dowd.

They had been friends in high school, but drifted apart when Tim's life blew up and he dropped out. But they had been friends, so when Bernard needs help, he doesn't go to the Bat.

Bernard, local conspiracy theorist, might have girlbossed too close to the sun. He got too close to some answers that some people might not have wanted him to have. Now he's being targeted, and Tim is on the case to uncover the conspiracy and to protect Bernard.