#but the whole sequence of regeneration was brilliant

[notvictorious]

Tag. You’re it.

[denimbex1986]

"To be there on that day with him and Catherine, and faces that I grew up with, that like, essentially raised you, was just very, very overwhelming."

"Quite exciting to shoot two regeneration scenes within a few weeks of each other. The one with Ncuti, of course, was very different; very different to anything the show has done before."

"...Just when you think nothing can happen, you can never have two Doctors, oh, except you can!..."

"David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa in one scene together, with Bonnie Langford on one side, Catherine Tate on the other, faced by Neil Patrick Harris. Everything thrown in; it's marvellous."

"Episode 3 is something that Doctor Who does really well, which is simply nuts..."

"I got a DM from Russell on Instagram...from page one, The Toymaker is a very intoxicating and juicy part. I set the whole thing down, I texted him back and said: "Let's go.""

"It's a great bit of casting to get Neil Patrick Harris. There's not many people you can think of who had the skill set. You've got to be able to sing and dance a bit, he's got to be able to do some ludicrous accents. He's got to be sleight of hand. It's very important that he can juggle. I don't know who else we could've got. If he'd said 'no', I think we'd have been in trouble."

"Neil; he just brought so many different layers and aspects to that character. I thought it was a brilliant piece of casting and just great fun."

"Another thing about Neil actually; when you're casting a villain in Doctor Who like this, you've got to get someone who can match David Tennant. That's hard to do. There are not many actors in the world who can actually hit that peak and be a proper enemy to him. So that's Neil..."

"I didn't do so much with the puppets a Catherine did...they were horrifying. I think there'll be some nightmares after this episode. I kind of become a puppet at one point...that was a - quite a complex little sequence."

"And the Vlinx is an extraordinary creation. I love the fact that there's no real explanation of where the Vlinx has come from or what it is..."

"...I wasn't really expecting to come back for this. I was very, very excited when Russell contacted me...seeing Mel brought back to life in a lovely, rounded form was so joyful..."

"To be on that open air helipad with David, with Ncuti, it was really magic. I think everyone knew...could feel the history in the air. Everyone knew something monumental was happening then."

"I feel very fortunate that one of my - I guess my very last scene in the show - is Ncuti's first scene in the show, and I get to actually be responsible in some ways for the new Doctor's appearance...I take a pride in the fact that I got to be there."

"We had this motion control camera which would sort of recreate the same movement so that several images can all be combined. It was exciting. But yes, having just met Ncuti, we had to get very intimate, very quickly and be sort of strapped to each other."

"It was so epic. David is like, an icon to all of us. To me, he's like one of the reasons that I became an actor. I don't know; he signifies everything to me that like an actor should be or can be. I remember getting like a copy of his Hamlet before I went to drama school, and it was very much like: 'This is - this is an actor.' David Tennant as the Doctor and myself as the Doctor, it was just so much fun. The catch scene was a lot of fun."

"In the script, there's just a page where it says: 'Catch, catch, catch, catch, catch, catch, catch.' That informed everyone that the intention was to, you know, to really drag this out; to make it feel like, precarious and on which so much rested."

"That scene was just very exciting because it's like each Doctor has like a moment where they're kind of getting used to their new body and so that's what that scene essentially was for me. And so that was like the funnest way to do that part of the Doctor's story."

"All three of us as actors are fairly physical and it required us to do a lot of single and individual shots; to be to be as cool looking as possible and as effective as possible because some of them were dives and catches, drone shots. To watch the three of us together I thought was really fun."

"It was trying to find enough ways to catch a ball differently. There's also a moment where I kind of had to propel myself off Ncuti's back, and we needed something to give us that lift, so yeah, a bit of trampette work; some of my finest."

"I could never, ever catch the ball, and so we ended up having to fake it...I was terrible at that."

"You would try and sort of palm it, behind your hand, and then do that as you caught it, which should hopefully make us look slightly better at catching than any of the three of us actually were.

"Ncuti did a one-handed cartwheel, just like it was nothing."

"I was going to do the one-handed cartwheel, but unfortunately Ncuti got in first so, as he was the new boy, I had to let him do it. Mine's a little bit better than his but it is what it is; it's fine. I'm okay with it."

"It's a physical show, but you know, when you're acting with those two, it just felt really exciting."

"So the Toymaker's magic mallet still has some inter-dimensional power left, which allows the new Doctor to double-up the TARDIS with, with one well placed whack. So we had two TARDISes; one TARDIS becomes two TARDIS."

"...when Russell told me that we were putting a ramp in the TARDIS, I - I cried. I did. He actually told me about a fan who had contacted him, who was a wheelchair user...he said: "Even though I can't get in the TARDIS, because it's not wheelchair accessible, I just love it." And Russell was like: "So we change it, instantly. We change that." When he told me that story, that really hit me, straight in the heart. I know what that will mean for the disabled community and many disabled Whovians who haven't had that; that's the first time the TARDIS is wheelchair accessible, and to know that it will be like that forever now feels - I'm gonna get emotional -...no, it's good because that's what it means because to know that I was part of that change - it's really special."

"I mean, who knows? I don't know what happens next. That's the exciting thing."

"The end is very simple; actually...It means David is parked, David is living. For once, we've got a happy Doctor who is no longer saving the universe, but that's parked, with Donna, for a happy life."

"Yeah, I suppose the Doctor will settle into being an honorary member of the Mott-Noble-Temple clan, and will see out his days drinking tea and trying to stop Wilfred shooting the moles I suppose."

[softwater3452]

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[an-aussie-button-masher]

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy review

   If you’re like me and grew up playing video games throughout the early 2010’s, you’ll probably remember when games had no microtransactions, no DLC, and often even no side missions or other bonus content. Just a single, straightforward adventure from start to finish. While extra stuff is still usually fun and some games do get DLC right, I’ll always welcome any game that brings back that old formula. Eidos-Montréal has done just this with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, a fun, action-packed story with elements of choose-your-own-adventure and not a single microtransaction in sight. You play as Peter Quill, a.k.a Star Lord, the captain of a motley crew that includes Gamora, Drax, Rocket & Groot. If you’ve watched any Marvel movies lately, this will all sound familiar, but trust me - this particular version of the team is very different to their film counterparts. Even if you’re a stranger to the Marvel universe, this game is definitely an excellent introduction, and I’d recommend it to anyone.

   For my first playthrough, I played on the default difficulty setting, expecting to have to lower it over time since I often have trouble with combat on console games. However, the game turned out to be very well-balanced, giving me a challenging experience but not an annoying or frustrating one. Some fights were a little more tricky than others, but I never once felt angry or bored at any point throughout the entire game. The combat is engaging and requires a fair bit of awareness and planning, directing your companions around the battlefield and juggling ability cooldowns. Between fights, the game is full of puzzles that are fun and interesting all through the game, forcing the player to be very aware of their surroundings and the tools available to them. The game also does its best to break up repetition, with certain segments of combat where one or two of the Guardians are absent, making the player change up their strategy and generally ensuring that the game stays challenging without being monotonous. Finally, the most fun part of the game was just the sheer absurdity and over-the-top awesomeness of it all - Eidos-Montréal definitely knows how silly the Guardians can and should be, and embraces it fully. At one point, there’s a quick-time event where Peter Quill catches his beloved mixtape in midair, in space, while fiery explosions rock the screen and a gigantic freaking dragon flies past! Even Gamora comments on how metal the whole sequence was. This game takes itself only as seriously as the Guardians take their job - that is, not very - and it’s brilliant.

   One thing that genuinely impressed me, even before I started playing the actual game, was how customisable the difficulty was. Some games allow a fair bit of player control over the difficulty, but it’s usually hidden in some out-of-the-way options menu or even require the use of developer consoles. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, however, simply has it all sitting on the difficulty selection screen, basically the very first thing you see when you start playing. The amount of depth the options had was even more impressive - how much damage you deal, how much damage you take, health regeneration, ability cooldowns, QTE difficulty, just about every aspect of gameplay can be fiddled with at any moment. In my second playthrough, I remembered certain especially difficult combat sections, and temporarily lowered the damage I took just a little bit for those fights, making them easier without trivialising them. I highly encourage more developers to allow this level of player control. Once you get started in the game proper, the combat controls are easy to learn and well-tutorialised, quickly becoming reflex like over the course of the game. Outside of combat, the various puzzles are often decently tricky to figure out without being annoying or tedious, giving the player a constant and consistent level of fun and challenging gameplay for the entire campaign.

   This game has excellent environment design, featuring some of the most bizarre and suitably otherworldly settings I’ve ever seen. From a massive space junkyard held together by weird pink goo to the bustling, neon-lit plazas of Knowhere, each area is genuinely stunning to take in and it all looks amazing. The rainy and snowy areas have extremely well-animated weather effects, right down to puddles of rain pooling on the ground and the wind blowing through the air. The character models are also very well done, with each of the main characters looking distinct from their more recognized movie counterparts while still feeling familiar. The more cinematic story cutscenes are incredibly well-animated, with each character’s facial expressions feeling realistic, making me empathise with them just from expression alone. However, in most of the optional, dialogue-based cutscenes, the character animations are rather stiff and twitchy. The lip-syncing could definitely be improved in those cutscenes, and it’s a little unnerving when none of the characters blink in them either.

   As to be expected in a Guardians of the Galaxy game, the soundtrack is simply brilliant. There’s an impressive collection of 80’s songs that play throughout the game, and the original orchestral soundtrack brings an epic, cinematic feel to the more serious and dramatic moments of the story. The ambient environment sound effects are very immersive, such as the rain and thunder in one of the earlier levels and the various explosions and laser blasts throughout the entire game. The voice acting is also excellent, particularly in some of the more emotional scenes; Gamora’s voice actress, Kimberly-Sue Murray, does a brilliant job of making Gamora probably the most well-acted and sympathetic character in the game. Unfortunately, due to the sheer amount of dialogue in the game, it’s all too easy to accidentally skip conversations outside of combat, and there’s no option to have the characters resume talking about whatever they were discussing before they were interrupted. During combat, dialogue tends to repeat itself far too often, making some of the more extended fighting areas rather annoying.

   While there isn’t any specific incentive to do New Game +, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy has plenty of hidden skins and collectables scattered throughout the chapters, all of which can be missed if you haven’t been on the lookout while playing. If you accidentally skip a hidden item, you’ll either have to reload a previous checkpoint or just try again on the next playthrough. In addition, considering the highly customisable difficulty and the various dialogue options throughout the story, there’s a lot that the player could try across multiple playthroughs; checking out different story paths, attempting self-imposed challenge runs, and so on. It’s probably a wise choice to have a walkthrough open for future playthroughs, however - most of the collectables and secrets are extremely (and sometimes frustratingly) well-hidden, and many important events can only be triggered by very specific dialogue options. 

   In total, the entire story campaign took roughly 17 hours for me to finish. Considering there’s no side missions or other bonus content to pad out the playtime, a 17-hour story campaign is definitely worth the price at the very least. There was never a single moment, even in my second playthrough, that I felt bored or the game felt predictable. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is a consistently entertaining and engaging adventure for the entire ride, as well as a welcome throwback to the early, simpler days of adventure games that you could just sit down and enjoy for hours on end without being hassled by meta-shops or some of the other more annoying parts of the modern gaming world. While I do have some tiny little nitpicks, like the occasional janky bit of animation and the easily-interruptible dialogue, I genuinely cannot recommend this game enough. 9/10.

[johannesviii]

So I guess I have thoughts on The Timeless Children

If you’re expecting some well-organised meta this isn’t a good post for that, you should probably leave now

I probably forgot half the things I wanted to say because I waited 2 days to write this

Ok so first I have to say I’m disappointed that the horrible bullshit from the WW2 sequence of Spyfall part 2 wasn’t addressed at all. It means it was not part of some big plan and that Thirteen doing some horrible shit wasn’t foreshadowing, but just insensitive writing. Fine. Ok. I don’t like it at all but it, unfortunately, happens. Every single New Who showrunner so far has made a big mistake at some point or another so that doesn’t mean Chibnall is worse than Moffat or RTD, who also had their own qualities and flaws and some occasional horrible writing. It sucks, and it’s gonna taint Thirteen’s character for me. But I’ll live.

HOWEVER

THIS FINALE

Oh my god ok so uh first, Cybermen? again? But like? It was still interesting?? The designs were varied, and the Lone Cyberman had this whole Hellraiser-lite aesthetic going on, and that abandoned warship was straight out of Sword of Orion and I really enjoyed all of that. It’s a shame the Lone Cyberman was defeated so quickly, because he was a much more interesting “final boss” than the one from the previous season in my opinion.

The regenerating Cybermen were 100% ridiculous but it was the good kind of ridiculous and I loved it

I have to say something about the fam now but I don’t have a lot of thoughts about them specifically. I liked it when Ryan threw that explosive thingie and actually managed to hit the cybermen and was super hyped about that, though

OK SO

Look. I loved Missy. I adored her semi-redemption arc, and her self-doubt, and her ultimate decision to be good, just to be killed by her past self as a result, even though the Doctor wasn’t there to witness it. That was brilliant.

But.

This new Master. I already thought he was pretty great, but the way he’s been recontextualised in this finale? I?? Holy s h i t

I’ve said it already but the actor is doing a fantastic job

I wasn’t even planning to put pictures in this post but this shot is so incredibly good

So in my Spyfall post I pointed out that he was very aggressive and very performative in his evil actions, to the point where he looked like he wasn’t enjoying himself. He was, like, doing it to prove a point.

Turns out it was because the best way to make a new evil version of the Master after Missy’s semi-redemption arc was to base this new Master on INTENSE, DEVASTATING, SUICIDAL SELF-LOATHING

AND IT WORKS SO WELL??

AND I LOVE IT??

IT’S ALSO VERY UNCOMFORTABLE BUT LIKE? IN A GOOD, INTERESTING WAY??

The part where he gives Thirteen the key to stop him. And he doesn’t dare her to press that button. He’s begging her to press that button. He knows she will do it because she did it once before and he’s like go on. Kill me now. God

If you’ve ever been suicidal or even just self-destructive yourself, even if you’re, like, a nice person and not... well.... an intergalactic criminal like the Master is, seeing him being like “go on. Press that button. End me. Do it. NOW” is... extremely relatable not gonna lie

Thinking “oh mood” about the Master during one of his scenes is... not something I was expecting but here we are

Also I absolutely adore how all of his world-destroying rage against the Time Lords was basically fueled by “they hurt my best friend and only I have the right to hurt my best friend” that’s so in-character

SPEAKING OF WHICH

You already know I’m very in favor of fluidity in the DW canon. One of my absolute favorite DW stories I’ve read so far was Unnatural History, which basically said “the Doctor is an idea that exists across the entire multiverse and every origin story is true and every version is true and nothing is canon because everything is canon”

But I wasn’t very fond of one specific version of the Doctor’s origin story which is super popular in the Extended Universe crowd of fans, and that’s the Cartmel Masterplan. I won’t bore you with my full thoughts on it but I’m not fond of the idea of the Doctor being some sort of rebirthed god now on the other hand the idea that all Time Lords are eldritch beings and that the Doctor or the Master is Nyarlathotep-

But this isn’t what this finale is doing

So far the Doctor’s origin story in the tv series was basically saying “look. This character that grew up in a privileged and pretentious part of their planet’s society just had enough of that one day (for a reason or another or even several reasons) and decided to leave, and by traveling and making friends, they realised being kind was important, and they decided to help people instead of watching bad stuff from afar without doing anything.” And now this finale basically added: “That society of pretentious assholes? Yeah they actually adopted that character as a kid and exploited them like a convenient source of power, and at the root of their power there’s literal child abuse, and they had to erase that child’s memories so that the kid could be assimilated in the society built on their own pain“.

It didn’t change that many things about the Doctor as a character ; it DEFINITELY changed stuff about the Time Lords, but they have always been this kind of background menace, with evil founders and shady shit, so I think it’s very appropriate.

So yeah. If you ask me to pick one between “plot twist the Doctor is a god” and “plot twist the Doctor is a lost child with the ability to regenerate”, I pick the second one, definitely

The best part is, it doesn’t contradict anything really important. The Doctor didn’t remember any of this. At all. Their desire to run away, their eventual hatred of Time Lord society, their choice to be kind and to try to help where they can? This didn’t come from that completely forgotten past. They still grew up in a life of privilege after their memories were erased, and they still decided to run away. It’s still their choice.

It doesn’t even diminish later things, like Ten being afraid of dying, or River giving away her regenerations to Eleven. Because, again, the Doctor didn’t know any of that origin story. Just like Gallifrey being hidden in a pocket universe doesn’t erase or diminish Nine being completely destroyed by what he thought he had done. It’s still as good as before.

It does put that scene from Time of the Doctor in a different light, though! This wasn’t a new regenerative cycle being given to Eleven in the end, just unlocking a dormant potential.

I saw someone saying this episode was bad because it was saying nature was more important than nurture? But... the episode literally states the opposite very explicitly, with Ruth saying ”have you ever been limited by who you were before?”.

I also saw someone on twitter saying that the diversity in the past incarnations we briefly saw “felt forced” and. like. It’s 2020. Can we not do this again please

I have such a thing for identity crisis tropes and stories and adding a bunch of lives in the Doctor’s past is certainly that and it’s like opening a giant sandbox. Imagine all the things that are actually possible now. The stories you can tell in that nebulous past! And I’m so glad the Morbius Doctors were briefly seen too!

Hell, there’s even an open door right there if you didn’t like this origin story, built in the scenario, and I’m certain it’s on purpose: the Matrix projection didn’t tell us the child was the Doctor. The Master told us the child was the Doctor. You’re free to believe him or not. It’s not set in stone. And that’s even better in my opinion.

So yeah it was all very very Unnatural History and the only thing I disliked was how it was a bit too much “telling” instead of “showing”, but that’s a minor complaint.

If you disliked this story, you aren’t a “fake fan”

If you liked this story, you aren’t a “fake fan” either

If you like some parts of the show you’re a fan, and you’re free to dislike some other parts ; god knows I don’t like some other things in Doctor Who

The only fake fans are the people bullying other fans about what they should like or dislike

I can’t wait to see what the fandom is going to make with this new sandbox and I’m so glad to be enthusiastic about the tv series again

Have a nice day

[mw-draws]

What’s your favourite Regeneration Sequence (Which includes what happens before and after like with 10’s the whole thing where he goes and visits everyone and after he regens, 11 whole Sequence

oh, my favourite regeneration scene has gotta be 12's. it's literally perfect (give or take a few things ksjsks). I love the music, the lighting, the Doctor's speech to 13? all fucking gorgeous.

and then the post regeneration? UGH, beautiful. the Doctor's theme, quietly playing while everything, for a brief moment in time, is still. the Doctor takes it all in, the smoke, the lighting, the music, its all gorgeous. then the camera pans up to reveal 13 and she says the iconic line "oh, brilliant" and then everything goes to shit and disaster!13 comes into play and she's thrown out. I fucking love it so much.

my only gripes with it the regeneration effect. why does it look like orange lightning? what's going on here? it just doesn't look right, but I absolutely love everything else.

[emperorsfoot]

New fic for the Entrapdak ship. Will be multi-chapter work. 

The eco-suit Entrapta made for Hordak was just a quick, on-the-spot- patch job. It was never meant to be a permanent solution to his clone degradation. A permanent solution required much more creativity, and much more time. 

But when Catra returned from the Crimson Wastes with Adora and her sword... and the answer to making their portal machine work, things sort of spiraled out of control.

The experiment was left unattended. 

The exo-suit wasn’t perfect overnight, an in fact, was not likely to ever become perfect. It could only give Hordak a healthy and functioning body while he was wearing it. While this didn’t seem like a problem while he was lifting equipment in the lab, he did have to disrobe eventually. To shower and cleanse himself. To change his under clothes and keep them fresh. To assess the spread of the clone-degradation. The exo-suit allowed him to function, it was not a cure for what ailed him. The exo-suit wasn’t perfect, and was not likely to become perfect. It was not lasting solution.

The exo-suit was just a temporary stop-gap. A means of keeping Hordak alive and giving him a level of quality to that life similar to what he had grown accustomed to, while Entrapta worked on a more permanent solution to the flaw in his genetic coding that was the root of all that ailed him.

Hordak said he was unable to clone a new body for himself. But Hordak wasn’t quite –and she meant no disrespect to her lab partner, he was the best (and only) lab partner she’d ever had- but Hordak wasn’t as clever or brilliant as she was. Hordak didn’t look for creative solutions. Instead, he allowed himself to become frustrated by failures, and frustration clouded his thinking.

Entrapta, however, did not suffer from such a handicap. Instead of becoming frustrated when an experiment failed, or an invention did not turn out the way she originally planned, Entrapta became more excited. It wasn’t a problem. It was a fun new puzzle to solve. It was exciting.

While Entrapta fitted Hordak with his exo-suit, she also took the opportunity to take samples of his DNA for testing to figure out the cause of the degradation that plagued his body. A single strand of his blue hair. A few discarded flecks of his waxy white skin. Getting the saliva sample wasn’t quite as subtle, she had one of the machines fitting the collar accidentally bump him in the teeth. Hordak bit his lip on the impact, angering him, but also gifting Entrapta with a little blood as well as saliva.

Rich with samples of his DNA, she began her new project of learning the root cause of the clone-degradation that plagued her partner, stopping it, and –if at all possible- repairing the damage already done.

After all, if he really did plan on going back to his own dimension one day, he would need his body to be functional and healthy, and not need to rely on mobility-aids or prosthetics.

It was a good thing she got samples from multiple sources, because when her computer read her the first results she had to double check the results and account for variables. But the results remained the same even accounting for the variable of the source of the sample.

Hordak seemed to be missing the MG53 gene. That could just as easily be because he was an alien from, not just another planet, but a whole other dimension entirely. However, considering the nature of his problem, Entrapta didn’t think so.

The MG53 gene was protein that was the key active component in the body’s engine for repairing cell membranes. In other words, it was what allowed bodies to heal after being injured. It was what caused wounds to close, tissues to regenerate, and fought infection. Since Entrapta had met Hordak, he only seemed to become weaker and more frail, his skin more waxy and leathery, those dark patches on his back larger and wider. In short, his body was not healing.

But that was an easy fix!

Entrapta could just fill in his body’s deficiencies by mixing in Etherian DNA to fill in the holes in Hordak’s sequence. She could clone him a new body! He tried to do it himself, but none of his clones ever survived the incubation process because they were missing the vital gene that allowed them to regenerate. She could clone him a new body and splice in some Etherian genes to make up for his body’s deficiencies.

And getting a sample of Etherian DNA would be even easier than getting his DNA. Entrapta could just use her own!

After setting up a new tank and splicing in the desired genes, Entrapta waited just long enough to make sure cellular division had begun and the spliced cell had successfully become a zygote, before returning to the portal project she shared with Hordak.

By the time the portal was stable and he was ready to reunite with Horde Prime, he would have a brand new and healthy body to inhabit and live out the rest of his quasi-natural life in.

Then Catra returned from the Crimson Wastes with Adora and the sword of She-Ra, and things went sideways.

[clarabosswald]

this week on gallifreybase: my attention’s been turned to a brilliant post summarizing all the unmade episodes in new doctor who some of which i knew about, some i didn’t i love this kind of behind the scenes stuff to death so here is the post under the cut for everyone to enjoy

Series 1 -The Paul Abbott episode Originally in RTD's Series 1 Pitch document, Episode 11 was just called "The New Team" and just said "The Doctor, Rose and Jax. A small scale adventure, character stuff" presumably to be written by RTD himself. Then it was retitled "Pompeii" after RTD saw a documentary on the event and thought similar SFX could be used a Who episode. Then Russell managed to tempt his friend, successful showrunner Paul Abbott to write an episode. So the pitch document for Ep11 was re-titled "Paul Abbott Episode" There's no evidence that Abbott used the Pompeii idea. Instead, according to Russell, Abbott's story pitch was that Jax would discover that the Doctor had been secretly manipulating Rose's life, in order to make her the perfect companion and there would be conflict over whether to tell her. RTD was hesitant over the idea, because it ruined his own plans for the Doctor & Rose, but he allowed Abbott to continue to develop it. However after a few weeks it became clear Abbott wouldn't have the time to do the episode, Russell replaced with his own script "Boom Town" Series 2 -The 1920s by Stephen Fry In RTD's Series 2 story outline, Episode 11 was called "The 1920s" and was to be written by Stephen Fry, partly based on research for his film "Bright Young Things" The episode was also based on the story of "Gawain and the Green Knight" giving the story new alien origins. It included a scenes of the TARDIS landing on a strange planet. It was reportedly set in 3 different time periods (incluiding the 1920s) The story apparently involved the Gawain character falling in love with Rose in the wrong narratative order for viewers, and for Rose herself. However, late in 2006, it was decided that the story was too expensive for this point in production and it was pushed back to Series 3 & replaced with "Fear Her". It has also been said there were issues with violence. Unfortunately by 2007, Fry didn't have time to rewrite the script further or alter it for the new companion and so he wrote a letter to RTD and it was abandoned altogether. Some have said (off the record) that the script's tone was was very different from RTD episodes, closer to the Classic Series (e.g. It began with the Doctor & Rose playing chess in the TARDIS by candlelight) in 2011 Fry has said he would like to re-use the idea, taking out the Dr Who elements and turning into a novel, when he has the time, but since then nothing has happened. Series 3 -Ood story by Chris Chibnall After his first successful year show-running Torchwood, Chibnall was invited to write for Dr Who, Series 3 Episode 7. He told Starburst Magazine "Russell said, “Come and write this episode"... It was one with the Ood, and it had Zack and Ida from The Impossible Planet, and it was like going to see what had happened to them afterwards. There were tiny elements of it in Planet of the Ood but it wasn't the same story. And so we did a lot of planning on that; and it was an alien planet. And then I finished all my writing duties on Torchwood and we had the meeting and it was like, "Actually we can't afford to do that. We need an episode set in corridors, with no monsters, because we couldn't afford monsters. That's probably why there are no real aliens" Series 4 -The Suicide Exhibition by Mark Gatiss This was planned for Penny's (later Donna's) Episode 3 (which was later swapped with "Planet of the Ood") RTD's Series 4 breakdown describes this as "World War 2. Monsters on the loose in the Natural History Museum as a Nazi strike force invades...Plus an Indiana Jones-type chamber hidden beneath with sliding stone doors" Gatiss said the story was based on how, during the war, museums would put out less well-known exhibits, so that if they were bombed they wouldn't lose any great treasures-Suicide Exhibitions. He also said the monsters were based on the preserved bog-men found in the museums, like "The Lindow man" "After the first draft, Russell said, "Let's make it the Nazis and do the full Indiana Jones on it." The whole museum was a puzzle box of sliding doors and traps and stuff." Gatiss worked on the script for a year, and a script was ready to film, but when the production team discovered it'd be possible to shoot an episode overseas, the story was abandoned in favour of "Fires of Pompeii" -Century House by Tom MacRae An companion-lite episode. The Doctor goes live on reality TV show "Most Haunted" to track down a ghost known as The Red Widow. Donna & her family watch him at home on TV. It was set in a big old, abandoned, spooky house on a cliff top, with OB vans and tricks with cables rings around the house. Certain rooms would flashback to the 1950s/60s. There was a big fire sequence towards the end. If I remember correctly, MacRae compared moments in the episode to Sapphire and Steel. This was an idea RTD originally gave to MacRae to develop for Series 3 (so Martha and her family) Unfortunately they found there wasn't a place for it there, so it was held back for Series 4, episode 8. Unfortunately, despite MacRae working on it for over a year, RTD and the team were concerned that the setting was too similar to "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and that the concept they had given him wasn't strong enough. Shortly before pre-production, RTD challenged himself to try to come up with something better in a few days, and ended up quickly writing "Midnight". In a later interview, MacRae was quite sanguine about this, saying that if his episode had to be replaced, he was glad it was with one of the best. The Specials -Space Opera/Alien Hotel by Gareth Roberts and Russell T Davies One of RTD's earliest ideas for the 2009 Easter special would be have to the TARDIS arrive in the middle of an interstellar war, complete with aliens, spaceships, and dogfights in space. He gave this idea to Gareth Roberts who wrote an outline. RTD has issues with the result, including later scenes set in an outer space hotel where guests were having alien eggs secretly implanted (a gruesome reference to easter eggs) So the story was abandoned in favour of what became "Planet of the Dead" -A Midwinter's Tale by Phil Ford and Russell T Davies A grandmother (possibly to be played by Helen Mirren or Judi Dench) is trapped in a posh hotel with her unruly family at Christmas. Wishing that they'd all just disappear, she storms out, only to find the corridors deserted, her family has disappeared, and as she searches further, so has all of humanity. Finally, she comes upon the TARDIS and the Doctor. Investigating, they discover eight-legged centaur-like creatures abroad in London. It transpires that aliens from another dimension, the Shi'ar, have frozen time on Earth in order to hold a festival celebrating the marriage of their queen. The life of the grandmother's family becomes endangered, culminating in a race through secret tunnels beneath Buckingham Palace. This was a story idea by RTD given to Phil Ford, planned for when there would've been only 3 specials: Easter 2009, Christmas 2009 and the Doctor regenerating at Easter 2010, leaving a few weeks before Series 5. "Midwinter" would be the Christmas special. Eventually it was decided there wasn't enough incident for an hour. "Waters of Mars" was developed instead, which was then moved to November with a new two-part Christmas regeneration. Series 5 -Death to the Doctor by Gareth Roberts This was originally planned for Series 5: Episode 7, the "Amy's Choice" slot. According to Gareth Roberts on Twitter,it was set on a Holiday planet like Las Vegas in middle of huge star war. The planet totally peaceful, with the law rigorously enforced. , There were police robots called Fleetfoots. If anyone committed any crime they had to fight a duel with a giant cyclops, and then the Doctor got arrested on a minor offence... Amy and Rory would have to find a way to get him off world without whole planet going up in war. The story also involved a disgraced Sontaran character called Commander Skorn. This story got as far as CGI being designed for the cyclops. Unfortunately as Series 5 went on, there was a budget crunch and it was realised they couldn't afford their original plans. So Hungry Earth/Cold Blood was rewritten to be cheaper, Neil Gaiman's Episode 11 was moved to Series 6, and Roberts' episode was abandoned altogether. Instead Roberts and Simon Nye were hired to write new, cheaper stories for episodes 7 and 11. However, even though the episode was lost, Moffat reinvented Commander Skorn as Commander Strax for A Good Man Goes to War, delighting Roberts. -Fear Itself by Paul Cornell (from Paul Cornell's Newsletter https://paulcornell.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=198e8a011b70a7fa79dd704d6&id=de506d08cb) This was to be a companion-lite episode. It was a loose adaptation of Cornell's Christmas story "The Hopes and Fears of All the Years" The story involved the Doctor visiting a boy (Tom) every year on his on his birthday, because the Doctor knows he will, on one birthday, save the boy's life. It charted the life story of the boy, then the man, through the Doctor's regular visits on the same day. The story went through at least six drafts with the threat the Doctor was protecting Tom from changing during this process. By the Sixth draft it an alien computer that turned surrounding people into monsters for a few minutes each year. Tom had a green glowing lump on his neck & the computer's directive was to obtain it/destroy it. The story got as far as Cornell being brought in to to talk about casting, with some big names being discussed for grown-up Tom. Eventually it was decided the story was too expensive for Series 5 (Two scenes of birthday visits through the decades would've depicted the two World Wars) and the episode was pushed back to Series 6. However when Series 6 started, Cornell was told they weren't going ahead with his episode after all. Series 7 -Craig of the Gods by Gareth Roberts This was intended for episode 5 of the original Series 7b when Beryl the Victorian nanny was to be the companion. Craig was playing a computer game with real people trapped inside. The Tardis landed in game, Doctor and Beryl looked up through the clouds to see god and it was Craig. The story was seemingly abandoned when Beryl was replaced with Clara as the companion Roberts later observed that similar ideas were used in Series 10's Extremis. -Craig's Wedding by Gareth Roberts This would've featured the return of Craig, Sophie and their son. In one interview, Roberts said "I had this idea where Craig and Sophie were going to get married and were on this beautiful island somewhere near Greece and it was all going fine, then you turned around and saw the Doctor water-skiing away from a Sea Devil. Then you’d have Craig trying to keep him out of the wedding.” However someone who had read the Series 7 outline says that Sea Devils weren't there, instead a different monster was featured. Roberts later described the episode as "Nuts In May on Alzarius" Nuts in May was a Mike Leigh comedy about a slightly dull married couple (Craig and Sophie?) who try to go camping, but keep having their peace interrupted, often by the husband's jealousy. It may have been cancelled due to James Cordern's rising stardom in America. From what we can gather, it seems to have been replaced with "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" Series 8 -Strax on Trial by James Henry Detailed here http://jamesandthebluecat.blogspot.com/2018/01/always-spell-check-your-email-headers.html Briefly, James Henry (writer of Green Wing, Campus and Smack the Pony) was asked to pitch stories for Series 8. Eventually Moffat asked him to develop one his own ideas, where Strax is kidnapped by his fellow Sontarans, taken back to his home planet, and put on trial for helping humans and the Doctor. An outline was written (read the blogpost) and it appears it was in competition with "Mummy on the Orient Express" and "In the Forest of the Night" for the final two slots. For various reasons, those two episodes were chosen instead. Series 9 -Vampire story by Paul Cornell Paul Cornell was asked to come in and submit ideas for Capaldi's first series. One story idea was for the Doctor & Clara to encounter a community of peaceful vampires in London and for the Doctor to get bitten and become one. The story was a sort of inverse 'Human Nature', going with the idea that this was to be a Doctor who couldn't quite be trusted. This story idea was accepted and could've been made for Capaldi's second season (per Cornell's reddit AMA) but it was never developed further than a one page outline. Series 10 -Jamie Mathieson's New Monster In 2015, when Moffat was first talking to writers for Series 10 episodes, he told the Radio Times "[Mathieson] has just been in and pitched a brilliant idea, a brilliant new monster. I just read his first pass at a storyline for that and I’ve no idea where we’ll end up going with that story. But that’s him. Being Jamie, he came in with 20 ideas and this one is just a belter" Early next year, Mathieson told a convention he had received an email from Moffat beginning "I can't stop thinking about your monster" However, in a 2017 DWM, Moffat reported that although they had tried to make Mathieson's monster story, they'd never managed to get the script to work, Moffat thought that it would still make an amazing horror film. Instead he asked Mathieson to develop another different story based around astronauts. -Sleep No More 2 by Mark Gatiss When planning his story for Series 10, Gatiss originally planned to do a semi-sequel to "Sleep No More" He told the Radio Times "I had this idea [that] I'd like to do the double in a kind of Yeti way, to have two stories about the same monster.”  "Although it was still in space, 'Sleep No More' was originally going to be on a trading floor; it was a stocks and shares thing, with these executives who were trying to stay awake in order to be more productive...I thought there was something in that, and actually maybe I could do a modern day one, set in the City, where they’d invented the same process but actually thousands of years earlier, and it had the same effect.” So the story would have been more of a prequel, set in Modern day London, The Genesis of the Sandmen. Gatiss said he abandoned the episode when he realised that this could be his last Who episode, so he asked instead to write the story he'd always wanted to do: Ice Warriors on Mars. -Pride & Prejudice & Daleks by Paul Cornell Paul Cornell was again asked to submit ideas for a later Capaldi series. One idea he developed, involving Daleks in the Land of Fiction was paid for because it was similar to an idea another writer was working on and they wanted to be able to use his ideas (this is standard practice with writers) However the latter story was never made. List of writers that were commissioned, but we still know nothing about their stories Series 3: Matthew Graham (possibly the man who can drain color that he unsuccessfully pitched for Series 2) Series 5: Rob Shearman, Jack Thorne, Amanda Coe Series 7: Tom MacRae, John Fay, Jack Lothian, the mystery original writer of Series 7b Episode 2 Series 10: Russell T Davies (Moffat said at Cambridge that they had a story all worked out, but then he became too busy) At some point during the Steven Moffat era, Charlie Brooker & Jed Mercurio were asked by the showrunner if they wanted to write Doctor Who stories. However Brooker was too busy & Mercurio wasn't interested in 2018 acclaimed writer Sally Abbott said that she worked on a Doctor Who story for several months, but wouldn't say more except it was "a few years ago" Paul Cornell has also said that around 2011/2012 he worked with Caro Skinner on another TV Doctor Who spinoff, which he's going to discuss on his newsletter at a later date. So if you want to read about that in full, I encourage you to subscribe https://paulcornell.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=198e8a011b70a7fa79dd704d6&id=de506d08cb)

to those of you who are on gb, here’s a direct link to the post: 

[notoriousgrd]

Thoughts on The Woman Who Fell To Earth...

It was nine minutes before the Doctor showed up, instead we got to know the new TARDIS team.

And when the Doctor does show up and *that* bassline kicks in, chills down the spine combined with wanting to punch the air and shout “Yes!”

The music in general, when I noticed it it was in a good way, conplimenting what was going on rather than drowning it out.

The Doctor : “I'm calling you Yaz cos we're friends now.”

The Doctor : “Can we have the lights and siren on?”

Yaz : “ 'ello, Ryan's nan!” Lots of lovely little bits like that between the new friends.

Didn't notice it until some time afterwards, but I don't think there was a single continuity reference other than mentioning regenerating and falling out of the TARDIS.

The entire look of the show has evolved again and looks fantastic.

Ryan : “You all would've done the same.” Graham : “I wouldn't.” The Doctor : “I would've”

Love that the new friends are all normal people, nobody is “special” (except for Karl, who is special and valued) and there's no ongoing mystery behind any of them.

Jodie was instantly The Doctor. No settling in, no zig zag going, just The Doctor.

The drunk chucking his takeaway at Tim Shaw cracked me up.

I did half-expect The Doctor to start playing those spoons only for them to fly off in opposite directions. (Still one of my favourite wee Eccleston moments is him throwing the cards all over the kitchen in Rose)

I felt Ryan's dyspraxia was handled well, it wasn't made a huge hook to hang a bit of plot off of. I have moments of sheer fumblyness due to CFS/ME so can appreciate someone with co-ordination difficulties being made a main character in a big show and handled decently so far.

Also the fact the alien hunter is actually listed as Tim Shaw in the credits.

Everything felt nice and grounded and real. Which I really enjoy in my Who.

My only real criticism of the episode is that I kind of knew very quickly that Grace wasn't going to survive the episode. Which was a shame as she was brilliant.

My only worry about Bradley Walsh was that I wouldn't be able to entirely disconnect him from being constantly corpsing game show host Bradley Walsh. But no, I was watching Graham the whole episode.

Great confrontation at the end, felt very Seven in giving them a chance to surrender but when they don't take it, having turned their own weapon against them. Also her while of Karl for kicking the hunter off the crane.

Loved the Doctor getting her new clothes from a charity shop, having helped at one for a while I can confirm you can find some surprisingly good stuff there.

The Doctor : "Deep breath." RYAN INHALES The Doctor : "Not you lot, me."

The microwave going ding after they’ve all vanished.

Also love that the new TARDIS team have become that through an accident.

ANd a proper cliffhanger!

I love that they've held off showing the TARDIS and the new title sequence, will get a few people tuning in just to see those I'd imagine. I've been spoiled for the new TARDIS interior, but can't wait to see how it looks onscreen.

I love the new theme it retains a lot of the original, fuzzes and distorts the bass up and has drums but instantly I prefer it to all of Murray Gold's efforts. The (deliberately blurred?) closing titles looked nice as well, somehow combining echoes of the Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee and Baker titles I to a new whole.

Some didn't like it but I appreciated the list of upcoming actors, revealing almost nothing about the actual contents of the rest of the season.

Sure there's lots I'm missing, but yes, loved it, now top of my “New Doctor's First Episode” list and can't wait to see what the rest of this series brings.

[elizadoolittlethings]

Invaders from Mars written and directed by Mark Gatiss

What’s it about: Hallowe'en 1938. A year after a mysterious meteorite lit up the skies of New York state, Martian invaders laid waste to the nation. At least, according to soon-to-be infamous Orson Welles they did. But what if some of the panicked listeners to the legendary War of the Worlds broadcast weren't just imagining things? Attempting to deliver Charley to her rendezvous in Singapore 1930, the Doctor overshoots a little, arriving in Manhattan just in time to find a dead private detective. Indulging his gumshoe fantasies, the Doctor is soon embroiled in the hunt for a missing Russian scientist whilst Charley finds herself at the mercy of a very dubious Fifth Columnist. With some genuinely out of this world 'merchandise' at stake, the TARDIS crew are forced into an alliance with a sultry dame called Glory Bee, Orson Welles himself and a mobster with half a nose known as 'The Phantom'. And slowly but surely, something is drawing plans against them. Just not very good ones...

Breathless Romantic: Throwing away all of the incoherent nonsense that was suggested in Minuet in Hell, Mark Gatiss kicks off the second year of the 8th Doctor’s audio adventures by writing for his character with as much zest and enthusiasm as possible. He is extraordinarily fun throughout, making it all up as he goes along and juggling up super powers and Martians with equal aplomb. The closest comparison I can think of is Tom Baker in Talons of Weng-Chiang – in that story the Doctor seems to adore the living homage he is experiencing and has a sense of glee about the whole experience, throwing out witty lines and dazzling the enemies with his fiendishness. That’s exactly the same feeling I got with the 8th Doctor and Invaders of Mars – that he loved every second of his stroll around 1930’s America.

He loves a detective story and always seems to end up helping the police with their enquiries. It is a constant mystery to the Doctor that whilst he is showing his companions the wonders of the universe they are striving to get home and return to a normal life. He has a stab at the witty film noir-ish dialogue swearing that he is an expert at the local patter but Glory Bee merely thinks he is ill. He only sleeps once in a while. Every now and then he treats himself to a complete makeover – what a great way of explaining regeneration. By episode three he is juggling the Nazis, the Russians, the CIA, gangsters and Martians and he barely breaks a sweat. Devine asks if he is a part of Victorian revival week. He is a huge fan of Orson Welles and has seen all of his movies even though they haven’t been made yet. He has the brilliant plan of using the War of the Worlds scare to scare of a genuine alien threat and wants to get in on the action so orders Charley into the TARDIS so he can grab the mike and have a go at playing the monsters trying to take over the world!

Edwardian Adventuress: Does Charley appear in this? Not really…she is kidnapped early in episode one, drugged in episode two, escapes in episode three and tails behind the Doctor in episode four. This is the Doctor’s story through and through but never mind as the next story is the ultimate Charley story.

Great Ideas: As you can imagine this is full of the imagination you would come to expect from one of the League of Gentlemen. Cosmo Devine is such a fantastic character, the life and soul of every party and the biggest crook on the planet! He uses Jimmy and Biro and murders them both afterwards. Glory Bee is revealed to be a Russian Agent and ends up falling off the Brooklyn Bridge to her watery death. The Nazis, the Soviets and the CIA all want to get their hands on the alien technology and created weapons to control the world. I love how the Martian scare of War of the Worlds is subtly squeezed into the story around all the political shenanigans going on elsewhere. It is a great use of a genuine historical event. Devine’s associates turn out to be the Nazi’s and he is a most unusual sympathiser and has visions of the Master Race with flying saucers and death rays – it is such a clichéd idea but a refreshing way of telling the same sort of story. The story really kicks off when Streath and Noriam show up – adult aliens who are as mischievous as the Slitheen when it comes to manipulating the human race and exploiting their wealth. It is basically one big protection racket where they shoot a ship full of alien eggs to different planets and let them hatch and cause the local populace to panic. After fooling them into thinking they are vulnerable they step in and look after them for a modest fee! Devine cottons on to their scheme and steps in to convince them to actually conquer the world! The Doctor sneakily arranges a second broadcast of War of the Worlds for the aliens benefit only and they scarper thinking that beefier invaders have turned up.

Sparkling Dialogue: This is probably Mark Gatiss’ strongest script for Doctor Who when it comes to witty dialogue – it is as sharp as a needle being dragged down your arm! Gatiss clearly adored Devine and every single syllable he utters is as gorgeous as his name. ‘I see little green men all the time! All I need is a few hours with my old friend Jack Daniels!’ ‘I better get you to a darkened room’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ ‘Nice equipment’ ‘I bet you say that to all the girls’ ‘Listen to me you lousy faggot!’ ‘What are you waiting for, Fritzy?’ ‘Martians! From the planet Mars! The red one you passed on the way in…’ ‘’How does it feel to betray your own planet?’ ‘A lot like betraying your own country but a teensy bit more satisfying.’ ‘Err…what’s that ticking?’

Audio landscape: Good golly gosh! Gary Russell is not directing this baby! Wonders will never cease! Gatiss treats this piece like a labour of love and makes it sound as authentic as possible with lots of brilliant US accents and framing the story within a radio broadcast. Cars blast their horns in the pack American traffic, windows smash, the TARDIS grinds through the vortex and there is a fabulous 30’s style death ray effect. I loved the sequence when the Doctor opens up the second storey window and lets in the noise of the traffic, they clamber down the clattering fire escape and bullets bounce off of the walls. Welles reading War of the Worlds in episode two is very creepy. The tacky and melodramatic voices for Streath and Noriam are belly-ache funny. Insects hum in the evening air. Music: It was a wise move to include less music as it allows you to focus much more on the performances but the dramatic stings at the end of scenes really drives home the feel of a 1930’s radio broadcast. The Doctor Who theme is worked in a few times to amusing effect. Standout Performance: What a cast! How can you choose one performance in this repertoire? John Arthur rocks on as the delightful Cosmo Devine, one of the slimiest Doctor Who villains it has been my pleasure to listen to – a homosexual Nazi sympathiser with all the wit of Noel Coward and the ruthlessness of Genghis Khan! Streath and Noriam are a very amusing pair; one is a histrionic world conqueror and the other a cataloguer in awe of what the planet has to offer. Any story with Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg is going to stink of quality and Don Chaney and Glory Bee allow them to have great fun with a number of accents. A small mention as well for Ian Hallard’s squeaky voiced Mouse in the first episode who meets a very unfortunate end. Result: I am starting to wonder if I used to be a superficial youth (despite always thinking the contrary as all youths do!) as I used to find this story as boring as sin but in hindsight this is one of the better McGann audios with an infectious sense of fun and lots of marvellous and imaginative ideas. Using the real War of the Worlds Martian scare to excellent effect and giving Paul McGann to take centre stage and wow his audience, Mark Gatiss proves to be the perfect choice to kick of the second season of 8th Doctor Audios. The plotting is watertight and the characters manage to walk that fine line between realism and melodrama with Cosmo Devine taking the place as the campest Nazi sympathiser of all time. India Fisher is sidelined completely but that just makes way for some other fantastic performances and a general feeling of old school Doctor Who produced with real verve. A very strong start: 8/10

[ms3ox]

So...about that new archon quest...

Khaenri’ah Theory

Before Present Storyline

> Archon War

~circa 2000 yrs. BP (bp = before present)

> Celestial Thrones determined by the Archons created

~circa 2000-1500 yrs. BP, original Gods include: Zhongli (Morax), Decarabian (Old Anemo God), Baal, Hydro Archon, Cryo Archon (NOT Tsaritsa yet), Dendro Archon (old one, I think the new one came 500 yrs. BP)

WARNING! THIS WILL CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE NEW (1.4) ARCHON QUEST AS WELL AS CHARACTER STORIES!

___________________________________________________________

We begin with:

The nation of Khaenri’ah, the only nation in Teyvat WITHOUT a presiding God/Archon

Khaenri’ah, because of its godlessness, became known as a nation of human excellence

It can be deduced—also in part to the fact that many citizens of Teyvat do not know what a missile is— that Khaenri’ah, ESPECIALLY existing 500 yrs ago, was a very technologically advanced nation

It would also seem that much technology has been lost to Khaenri’ah’s destruction

I.E. ALBEDO. ← he has smth to do with it, he does not breathe (as seen in dragonspine, he is the only model that does not produce visible air), he has a star on his neck, he is not a human

Albedo may be a homonculus, made of chalk, a product of this human excellence !

Going off of historical analysis, Khaenri’ah may very well be modeled after Ancient Rome and the return of antiquity during the Renaissance

In Florence—500 years ago in our world— the ending of the plague brought a new wave of the ideas of Humanism, the celebration of the accomplishments of man; focused on the idea of human greatness

As we also know, historically, the Ancient Romans were also very technologically advanced for their time, building waterways, roads, and buildings that have been able to stand the tests of time for hundreds and hundreds of years

With humanism, however, came the idea that people would put themselves BEFORE God, an idea that had been previously deemed sacrilege

Seeing as many nations in Teyvat are modeled after real nations (i.e. Mondstadt → Germany, Snezhnaya → Russia, Liyue → China, Inazuma → Japan, etc.), it would make sense if Khaenri’ah is modeled after Italy, specifically during the formative ages of the Renaissance

It would also make sense that these people, seeing as they could achieve so many great things, would not see the need for a god or even denounce the gods as a whole, therefore representing that humanist line-of-thinking

This, understandably, would have angered the gods in Celestia because they might have felt that their authority was being questioned, therefore they had to eliminate the “threat”

The Destruction:

500 years before the beginning of the storyline, the Gods of Celestia strike down Khaenri’ah turning it into The Abyss.

✒️ Important Characters: Kaeya, Childe, the Tsaritsa, Dainsleif, and Lumine (written from perspective of an Aether player)

Overview:

Khaenri’ah, as a nation built and governed by its people, had become a target for the gods

The government—from what we know— was guarded by the 7 Protectors, strong, chosen warriors who dedicated their lives to fight for Khaenri’ah

The gods (presumably) did not like the humans having autonomy like the people of Khaenri’ah did

In a coordinated attack, the divine thrones destroyed Khaenri’ah, turning it into the abyss and cursing its people, either killing them or turning them into abyss monsters

There are a few Khaenri’ahn individuals who are separately affected by the curse however, including BUT NOT LIMITED TO: the Protectors and royalty

These individuals are most commonly cursed with immortality, but that may not be the only reprecussion

Characters:

Now, lets go over the most important characters who may have been directly or otherwise involved in the destruction.

Kaeya

-Kaeya’s personal story talks about how his father told him about the land of Khaenri’ah, where they were both from

-In his profile it states that he is also 22 years old.

-There are multiple ways to explain this but I am going to use the theory that he and his family were Khaenri’ahn royals (or a part of the Eclipse Dynasty family) who were cryogenically frozen for safekeeping during the destruction

-500~ years later, they woke up, and upon seeing the destruction cause around them, the family—including Kaeya— saw fit to leave

-Under normal circumstances, this theory would have no backing, but Kaeya says a line quite frequently in battle that may elude to the validity of this theory:

“This moment will be frozen in time!”

-Another user also pointed out that Kaeya’s elemental burst looks very similar to the cryo abyss mage’s shield reformation sequence wherein a bunch of diamond-shaped ice chunks rotate around it periodically until the shield is regenerated

-This further supports that Kaeya is involved with the Abyss, and by proxy, Khaenri’ah

-It has become common speculation that Kaeya is a spy, which makes sense seeing as everything about his demeanor screams “shady”

-From this standpoint, Logically, we can speculate that Kaeya may be a spy of some sort looking to restore the Khaenri’ahn monarchy

Lumine

-She and Aether canonically travel to Teyvat ~500 years ago where they witness firsthand the destruction of Khaenri’ah

-It is likely that the god who stopped them—the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles, I believe her title was— was a god who was involved in the destruction, and did not want humans meddling in Celestian territory at that time

-While the god’s motive for fighting the twins is still largely up to debate, the cubic cage that Aether gets sucked into may have put him to sleep, only for him to wake up 500 years later, thus leaving Lumine to face the destruction alone

-In the various game trailers, we see Lumine running through decrepit areas which sometimes look like Celestia, and another territory that is unfamilair

-If my thoughts are correct, this never-before-seen land may very well be a snapshot from Khaenri’ah itself during the destruction (edit: I’m pretty sure its Old Mondstadt)

-In these small scenes we see a block-like magic slowly chaining the world in very large pillars, which look much the same to the blocky magic the Sustainer used in the introductory scene

-Reasonably, after witnessing such destruction and conjuring a hatred of the gods, Lumine started the Abyss Order and became its princess, an order whose motives are still largely unknown at this point but seemingly want to interfere in the path of the traveler

-Though we still do not know the extent of the Abyssal hierarchy, because of the points of contingency in the goals of the Tsarista and Lumine, it may be logical that they are working together or are somehow related

-Lumine may have also been directly involved in dealing with the downfall of the Eclipse Dynasty and the destruction of Khaenri'ah because she seems to also have been cursed with immortality

-Due to the polarizing goals between Aether and Lumine up until this point, there may come a time during the game where Aether must choose between his sister and Teyvat

-A choice of this magnitude has already partially been revealed in leaks—if these leaks are to be correct, a lot hinges on them— and it would not be out of MiHoyo's wheelhouse to force us into such heavy situations (Honkai players I am looking at you)

-More about this decision theory will be explained under the Tsarista theory

Dainsleif

-Dainsleif, as revealed by Lumine, was a Royal Guard of the Eclipse Dynasty and was cursed with immortality upon the fall of Khaenri'ah

-Lumine also says that during the Destruction, Dainsleif failed whatever duty he had

-Logically, this would mean that Dainsleif failed to protect Khaenri'ah

-For reasons still unknown, Dainsleif hates the Abyss Order/The Abyss in general, and does not side with Lumine

-Though it is speculated that they were once traveling partners, and whatever happened to Lumine led Dainsleif to leave her side

Childe (godammit)

-Jesus Christ, where do I start with this magnet of chaos

-Childe—or Ajax at the time— left his home in Snezhnaya when he was 13-14

-On his journey, he fell into a crack in the ground, and fell into the Abyss

-He states in one of his quotes:

"I once ventured deep into the abyss and came face to face with an enormous beast. I don't know its name, all I know is the sight of it chilled me to the bone. But mark my words, one day I will march back in there and behead that beast, and you, comrade, will be my witness!"

-I believe at some point we will actually be fighting this beast, whether it be one of the final bosses of the Snezhnaya Chapter or one from the Khaenri'ah Chapter, I believe this beast will have something to do with either getting us to Khaenri'ah or it's somehow related to the Tsaritsa

-As he ventured further into the Abyss, he came across a brilliant swordswoman who taught him everything about fighting for 3 months

-However, when he came back from the Abyss, it had only been 3 days (MORE ABOUT THIS WILL BE EXPLAINED IN THE ABYSSAL THEORY SECTION)

-As we can see in his boss fight and in the fights with the Abyss Herald, a lot of Childe's fighting techniques seem alarmingly similar to the ones used by the Abyss Herald

-This leads me to believe that the swordswoman he trained with as a child was either an Abyss Herald herself or a Royal Guard from Khaenri'ah

-From what we also know, Childe is the only Harbinger who is able to wield BOTH a Vision and a Delusion simultaneously

The Tsaritsa

-Though the Tsaritsa was in power in Snezhnaya when the Destruction happened, it is very likely that she is related to Khaenri'ah based on the fact that she "was traumatized by it [The Destruction of Khaenri'ah]"

-Since she, herself, is seemingly still a human, it is reasonable to infer that the Tsaritsa was either: Eclipse Dynasty royalty or one of the Khaenri'ahn Royal Guards

-There is one line Dainsleif says where he tells the audience that she has no love for her people, neither to they harbor any for her

-Which makes sense since she is not originally from Snezhnaya

-While he is an incredibly biased source, Childe says something interesting about her:

"Her Royal Highness the Tsaritsa is actually a gentle soul. Too gentle, in fact, and that's why she had to harden herself. Likewise, she declared war against the whole world only because she dreams of peace. And because she made an enemy of the world, I had the chance to become acquainted with you."

-What is interesting here is that Childe uses the phrase "Her Royal Highness" to describe the Tsaritsa

-In common royal etiquette, based on our world, you address a queen or the highest monarchical power as "His/Her Majesty" whereas other members like princes and princesses are addressed as "His/Her Royal Highness"

-This would imply that the Tsaritsa is not the one in ultimate control, and that there may be someone above her

-Of course this is very reachy-y but Childe's wording here is interesting

-Additionally, the Tsaritsa, as described by this quote, has waged war against the world because she dreams of peace

-We can see her ambitions in action by her confiscating the gnoses of the current Archons of Teyvat

-The Tsaritsa is most likely siding with Lumine under the same goal; they wish to dismantle the divine thrones in Celestia

-Ultimately, this leads me to believe that a heavy decision will happen toward the end of the Sneznhaya Chapter, likely in the final boss fight (possibly against the Tsaritsa herself)

-And if Aether does have to fight her, that would mean that he is also fighting against his sister since they seemingly share the same goal

-The Tsaritsa wielding the power of the Abyss to create Delusions somehow fits in here somewhere I just don't know how

-But the Tsaritsa is another example of a person(?) who can wield both an elemental power (cryo) and the power of Delusions

Abyssal Theory

In this section, I will be discussing my theories about the Abyss, about how time works there and its relation to Teyvat.

Concerning Time:

So as we know, Childe fell into the Abyss and stayed there for three months, however, in the over world only three days had passed

This means that every 12 days in the over world = 1 year in the Abyss

That means that every year in Teyvat = appx. 30 years in the Abyss

Time moves much faster in the Abyss, which can explain why Lumine is so old, yet may not have been cursed with immortality

Rather, she’s just been spending a lot of time in the Abyss

Concerning Teyvat:

This is where it gets interesting

There is a theory circulating that the Teyvat we are exploring right now is an alternate dimension, or a “flipped” Teyvat

Where it gets interesting is—CONCERNING CHILDE AGAIN— he falls into the Abyss through a crack in the ground

...

He falls.

How is that possible? Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Childe, only having left home for a few hours, was still in Snezhnaya?

Isn’t the only known location of the Abyss in the fallen Kingdom of Khaenri’ah?

How could the Abyss be under Snezhnaya if the Abyss is in Khaenri’ah?

This leads me to believe that underneath our Teyvat is the ruins of Old Teyvat

The Old Teyvat that was ruined by the Destruction of Khaenri’ah

This would also make sense in the context of the directions not being accurate in-game

For example, the wolf of the north, located on the map, is most definitely NOT towards the north, and rather, located in the WEST

The gods, after destroying Khaenri’ah, expanded their destruction to the rest of the continent, and to start over, they created an alternate dimension underneath/on top of Old Teyvat and New Teyvat

New Teyvat being the world we are currently exploring

So, in conclusion, underneath OUR world is an alternate Teyvat that was destroyed by the gods, and the world that we originally came to in the opening scene

This may explain a lot of the places Lumine runs through in those cutscenes, she is running through Old Teyvat

Maybe the people of Teyvat had their memories wiped? This would make sense in the context of the 1.1 event with Scaramouche where he says that “the stars are a lie”, and people may be seeing the “real” Teyvat, or having their memories re-awakened

Concerning the Final Archon Quests:

I believe that the beginning of the Khaenri’ah Chapter will be the end of the Snezhnaya Chapter

By which I mean that whatever final boss we fight in the Snezhnaya Chapter is will ultimately be the one to take us to Khaenri’ah or the Abyss

How this happens, I’m not sure, maybe there is a device in the beast Childe saw that could take us to Khaenri’ah, like the eye of the First Field Tiller, but I believe that the S Chapter and the K Chapter are intertwined

This also makes sense since the Tsaritsa and Khaenri’ah have such strong ties

Maybe we, too, fall into a crack in the ground...?

__________________________________________________________________________________

New Timeline

> Archon War

~2000 yrs. BP; War over the Divine Thrones

> Divine Thrones Established

~2000-1500 yrs. BP; The gods establish Archonhood

> The Destruction of Khaenri’ah/Old Teyvat

~500 yrs. BP; The gods did not like the people of Khaenri'ah and destroyed the land

> The Creation of New Teyvat/Alternate Teyvat

~500 yrs. BP; The gods involved in the Destruction create a new Teyvat since the Old Teyvat has been completely destroyed

> Lumine Creates the Abyss Order

~500 yrs. BP; Abyss Order created to fight against the unfair treatment of the Archons; “Do not trust the gods”

> Fight Against the Archons

~500 yrs. BP → Present; The Tsaritsa and Lumine work together to dismantle the Divine Thrones of Celestia

> Aether Wakes Up

~3 mo. BP; Aether wakes up from his—presumably— 500 year slumber, this is the catalyst to the Archon Quests

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to expand on these theories or point out inconsistencies with the actual lore, please let me know!

-devilscasserole

[teamrealitystanza9]

Doctor Who: Dalek Attack

SO! MANY! WORDS!

Check under the read more for this super in depth ride description love! [ written by the brilliant Pi on my Cake featuring art by the sharpie queen Tegan pilots a chicken]<3

~Loading Platform/Ride System~

Guests exit the TARDIS and enter into the cargo bay of a Dalek spaceship.

This serves as the loading station for the ride. Guests go forward and see Team Members in Torchwood Institute uniforms here to help them into the ride vehicles. [ The Torchwood Institute is a team of alien hunters and paranormal investigators based in Cardiff. They have helped the Doctor a few times before. ] The ride is a mini-EMV style system similar to Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Although both for capacity reasons and to add more motion/rotation, the ride vehicles are a bit larger. One other difference from Pooh is the use of showstops throughout to increase the ride time and enhance the experience.

Visually, they look like Daleks. The story reason for this is that we are using the shells of old, broken Daleks to be able to sneak through the ship undetected.

~Scene 1~

Guests begin their journey by being almost immediately stopped by a Dalek. The vehicles rotate to face the imposing, yet simple animatronic figure.

“HALT! THE DALEK SHIP IS ON FULL LOCKDOWN! ALL DALEKS MUST BE SCANNED!” - Dalek Guard

The Eleventh Doctor’s voice can be heard over a radio assuring us that the shells we are riding in will pass any scan. The Dalek’s weapon begins to charge as if he is about to shoot.

“Well, in theory they can pass any scan.” - The Doctor

“SCAN COMPLETE! CONTINUE ON, FELLOW DALEK! MORE GUARDS ARE NEEDED TO WATCH THE PRISONER AND THE ULTIMATE EXTERMINATOR!” - Dalek Guard

“Ultimate Exterminator? Don’t like the sound of that. But let’s focus on finding me first.” - The Doctor

~Scene 2~

Guests then continue on through the foreboding ship. A few other Daleks can be seen standing guard. Weapons seem to follow us.

This appears to be an armory of some sorts. Decommissioned Dalek shells broken down and scrapped for parts mixed in with new weapons and GunSticks [ the little laser doodads that Daleks have. ] This is a quiet scene. A calm before the storm. But tension is rising and seeing the Dalek armory raises the tension and establishes just how dangerous they can be.

~Scene 3~

Next is the Dalek Prison Block. Most of the cells are empty since Daleks don’t typically take prisoners. But we do see the 10th Doctor in a cell!

This is another showstop as our vehicles park in front of a large screen showing the 10th Doctor.

“Sending the calvary in repurposed old Dalek shells, brilliant! I am one smart fellow! Well, I will be one smart fellow. Well, I am one smart fellow and my future regeneration will be too. You know what, you all get the gist. Open this cell we have work to do.” - 10th Doctor

The cell opens up and The 10th Doctor steps out holding out the Sonic Screwdriver to scan the room.

“Now, the Daleks have some sort of super weapon and I’m gonna need some back up. One smart fellow is great, but two! That’s when things get crazy. Of course, the calculations required for two versions of myself to exist in the same time and place take a very long time. But if I start now I should be done in…” - 10th Doctor

The ride vehicles turn around to face a different screen where a TARDIS is appearing. As it is appearing, the Eleventh Doctor’s voice can be heard.

“...137 years, 2 months, 4 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes, and 42 seconds. Hello, me. Long time no see.” - The Eleventh Doctor

~Scene 4~

Alarms start to blare! Dalek troops are everywhere [ optical illusions and screens are used to make this section of the ride look much larger and much more full of Dalek. ] We see the two Doctors going around on the screens outsmarting and tricking Daleks to save us. It can be stuff as simple as basic pranks [ like the 10th Doctor tapping a Dalek on it’s right “shoulder” when really he’s on the left side ] to more aggressive stuff [ like the 11th Doctor knocking a lubricant on the floor and “This is Sparta” kicking a Dalek down down the slippery hall. ]

This scene is pure fun crazy chaos and absolutely captures the spirit of light-hearted, epic adventures that make Doctor Who so great!

~Scene 5~

Next we enter the room with the Ultimate Exterminator! A giant Dalek Super Weapon! Both Doctors are standing nearby gloating and exchanging some fun, cocky banter. This is another showstop in front of a large screen. They explain that the reason they captured the 10th Doctor was that they wanted to use the Temporal Energy generated by Timelords to power the weapon. But what they don’t understand is that time isn’t linear, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.

Since time isn’t simple and linear, anything using it as a power source can have that power taken away. A weapon made for explosions, can instead cause an implosion! All they need to do is reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!

This whole scene works as an homage to the technobable filled inspirational hero speeches the Doctor is known for!

Guests then follow a glowing pipe towards the engine of the Ultimate Exterminator.

~Scene 6~

As we head towards the engine for another show stop in front of a large screen, we see it already pulsing with energy and getting ready to implode!

Suddenly there is a big blast and wind blows through the room! A hole was blown in the wall of the ship! Daleks are seen flying out into space and the ride vehicles use it’s motion base to simulate the feeling of trying to hold on!

“Allons-y!” - 10th Doctor

“Geronimo!” - 11th Doctor

The scene quickly becomes a short simulator type sequence as we get sucked out into space! Daleks out in the void with us as well as a lot of debris. We see the TARDIS flying around in the distance. Although as we get a bit further from the ship things start to slow down leading to another slower scene.

~Scene 7~

This scene has a bit of peaceful stillness as everyone is calmly floating out in space. Lights line the room creating a beautiful starfield. A miniature of the wrecked Dalek ship is here creating the optical illusion of it being off in the distance. A couple of Dalek figures are floating in space [ the supports are hidden in the darkness. ]

The peacefulness is interrupted by the Eleventh Doctor’s voice over the radio.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? I’ve been travelling through here for a thousand years and the sight of the stars still hasn’t gotten old.” - 11th Doctor

The sound of the Doctor’s voice alerts a nearby Dalek that was aimlessly floating out in space. It starts to flail and panic and shoots it’s laser wildly hoping to “EXTERMINATE” the Doctor! 

With a flash of light and a sudden jerking motion from the vehicle, it seems like the guests were hit! The vehicles start spinning as they careen into the next room!

~Scene 8~

This scene uses a speed tunnel effect [ basically a wrap around projection tunnel ] like Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. This allows the guests to be surrounded by a high speed space battle and hurtle through the stars as Daleks try to EXTERMINATE them! The vehicles are turned backwards here to help add to the chaos and excitement of this sequence.

Among the space debris flying by during this scene on the projections, Jmmy Neutron’s ship and George Jetsons’s ship can be seen as Easter Eggs to the past inhabitants of this showbuilding.

After a bit, the star projections give way to a time warp tunnel! With two TARDISes flying through it! The Doctors rescued us and we are now warping safely back to earth!

~Scene 9~

Guests then head to one final show stop facing the TARDIS in an alley behind the museum that served as the queue. The door opens and behind it is a screen with the Eleventh Doctor standing in the doorway here to say goodbye.

“You’ve done splendidly. Absolutely breathtakingly fantastic. Fantastic. Faaaannnntttaasstic. It sounds weirder when I say that then when I said it. Oh well. Point is, you did an amazing job and you saved a lot of people. Now, go treat yourself! You earned something special. Maybe get a nice fez. Fezzes are cool.” - The 11th Doctor

The TARDIS then disappears [ What we saw was just a Pepper’s Ghost reflection, so making it disappear is easy. ] After that, guests head towards the unload station which continues the alley theming. The voice of beloved Doctor Who side character and star of the Torchwood spin off, Captain Jack Harkness, comes over the radio.

“Before you head home, me and my buddies at Torchwood wanna check in with you. Just a quick debrief and you can be on your way. And I’m a master at debriefing.” - Jack Harkness ;)

This short message sets up the story for the gift shop and gives a nice segue for guests exiting the ride and heading to the store.

[devosdevine]

I’m a Witch.

Witch.

Why use that word? Mostly, because it's true.

Also, because it's an incredibly important word.

As Madeline Miller explains in her brilliant Guardian article, From Circe to Clinton: why powerful women are cast as witches, the word witch "reflect[s] our ideas about women back to ourselves." This lone syllable is a palimpsest of information about women's history: forms of feminine power, fear of feminine power, and the independence of women who hold power.

I learned I was a witch at age 11. Unfortunately, not by owl.

When I was 9, my progressive Episcopal school hired a remarkably conservative pastor. He taught my third grade Bible class that women were inferior members of the Christian faith. Convinced of my equality, I fought him openly. When the class reached Corinthians, I was exiled to the hallway.

Fortunately, I also spent that year studying Scandinavian history and mythology. I thus realized that pre-Christian spiritual alternatives existed, but the old gods still seemed distant, found only in fairy tales and books of ancient history.

Two years later, I stumbled on a curious volume at a used book fair. It was pink, with an picture of a beautiful woman on the cover and a compelling title: The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries. I took it home and devoured it in one sitting.

Running into my mother's bedroom, waving the book like a flag, I hollered, "Mom! I understand now! I'M A WITCH! Everything makes sense!" I was deliriously happy.

My mother lowered her newspaper and said levelly, "OK. But you can't ever say that to anyone else. They won't understand."

If you've met me, you know I'm a rules-follower. (Well, except when my Bible teacher tells me to accept my subservience.) I didn't speak the word "witch" to anyone else for nearly ten years.

Yet, I was a lucky wee witch: I had little supervision, an allowance, subway tokens, and all of New York City at my disposal. I bought a tarot deck at a comic book shop, made a wand from a branch found in Central Park, taught myself to meditate, and spent hours on the floor of Barnes and Noble devouring feminist classics and occult texts.

I paid scant attention to pop cultural depictions of witchcraft. It seemed a bit dangerous: would my curiosity indicate that I was, indeed, a witch? Also, I didn't want to get my information from Willow. I wanted real magic.

When I reached Duke University, I found a trove of resources in the Divinity Library, which was often empty and had a forgotten copy machine in the basement. I studied there, Xeroxing whole chapters from Doreen Valiente's works after I finished my homework.

I also found mentors: a married pair of witches raising their young daughter in the craft. They took me in, filled the many gaps in my knowledge, taught me how to perform rituals with proper tools and other witches, and coached me through many challenges. But they practiced in secret, because North Carolina wasn't a safe place to be a witch in the 1990s. So I practiced in secret, too.

Until I met my husband. Nominally Christian, he was remarkably sanguine about my beliefs and befuddled by my secrecy. We spoke Methodist vows at our wedding, but did so bathed in sunshine and surrounded by flowers, bees, and butterflies, so that I could feel the presence of the divine.

I stuck a toe out of the broom closet after my daughter's birth. As her primary role model, secrecy and sneaking around seemed like a terrible precedent to set. We decided to become an interfaith family: our daughter was baptized, but also included in my observances. Today, we celebrate all pagan holidays and some Christian holidays. Openly.

Yet, I didn't really leave the broom closet until we moved to Asheville, where I found allies, resources, and wise teachers including Byron Ballard, Becky Beyer, Sarah Chappell, Maia Toll, Jodi Rhoden, and Katie Vie. When I stopped hiding, I found my tribe.

--

So, what do I believe now?

Animism

I am an animist, which means that I perceive all natural things - rocks, plants, trees - as in some way alive. I also believe in divine immanence - an organizing force in the universe that is both holy and present in all natural things. I believe we can perceive divine order in the patterns of sacred geometry - pentagrams, spirals, stars, whorls, the Fibonacci sequence. (Here, let Donald Duck explain!) Thus, I believe nature is to be cherished, protected, and venerated.

Views about classic theological questions - the soul, the afterlife - vary widely among animists. Personally, I think our bodies and consciousness return to nature, but I really don't know what that means. I doubt my mind is capable of understanding it.

Paganism

Paganism is a polytheistic religious practice. I believe it is difficult for the human mind to approach the divine without some organizing principles. Gods, goddesses, myths, and stories help us conceive of the divine in a concrete way. Forming a relationship with one of these manifestations is a way to venerate the divine in the material world.

Views about classic theological questions vary as widely as you might expect among pagans. We have a "family goddess" and organize our veneration around her symbolism and incarnation.

Witchcraft

Witchcraft is a practice, not a religion. Thus, one can be pagan and a witch, pagan but not a witch, and a witch but not a pagan. I happen to be both. There are too many strands of witchcraft to list here.

Witchcraft, as I define it, is the practice of magic.

I think of magic as the conscious direction of intention on the material world. My practices are informed by Reclaiming, Norse, and Dianic Wiccan practices. (But I no longer use materials created by trans-exclusionary authors.) I'm also starting to learn about Appalachian folk magic, since I'm surrounded by it. However, I also think of magic and science as a spectrum: magic can be defined as a collection of observed (and still somewhat fuzzy) knowledge that has been passed down along generations but not incorporated into the laws and rules of "science." I read Sagan and Einstein along with spell books.

My daily spiritual practices include meditation; reading tarot; caring for our land; invoking, spending time in the presence of, and making offerings to our family's matron goddess; working on our family altar; casting spells; and taking classes in herbalism, mysticism, or history. Special spiritual practices are reserved for holidays known as sabbats and esbats.

Sabbats are the eight holy days observed by many Euro-American pagans and witches. They represent spokes on the Wheel of the Year. These are holidays for our family, and we have special traditions associated with each. Many are revivals of pre-Christian festival days, and fall close to popular holidays. Samhain is one of the holiest days of the year, often referred to as "The Witches' New Year." Yule is a lot like Christmas, so our family observes a full week of wintry celebrations. Imbolc is the return of the sun, a better version of Groundhog Day. Ostara is very similar to Easter. Beltane is May Day, and my daughter's school actually celebrates a version of it with costumes, maypole dancing, treats, and games. Summer Solstice, or Litha, is a time for staying up with the sun, catching fireflies, drinking champagne in the grass, and making strawberry shortcakes. Lammas is the first harvest festival; we visit local farms, make bread, and learn about food systems. Mabon, or Autumn Equinox, is the big harvest festival, and I see it as the kickoff of the "season of the witch," when everyone is getting ready for Halloween and I can luxuriate in feeling normal for a month! We carve pumpkins, pick apples, and decorate like love children of the Addams and the Griswolds.

Esbats are rituals held at the Full Moon and New Moon. These are special times for holding rituals and casting spells, so I set up a small ritual for my daughter wherein I teach her some new skill like grounding or casting a circle. Then I do my own rituals and spellwork after she's in bed.

--

My decision to leave the broom closet was informed by (1) a new sense of safety, because witchcraft is extremely popular right now, but also (2) a new sense of responsibility, because of the misogyny unearthed in the 2016 election.

Clearly, the election itself was informed by a persistent hatred of powerful women. "Witch" played a strong role in misogynistic descriptions and depictions of Hillary Clinton. For younger women, especially witches like myself, this was alternately infuriating and thrilling. It was both a denigration of us as individuals and a recognition of our political power.

As Kristen Sollee has explained, “Witches have always been politically radical, in my opinion, but it seems that even more American witches are these days because the internet allows for a new kind of organizing on a larger scale." After the election, activist witches began to organize, often via the internet or in spaces created by feminist entrepreneurs. W.I.T.C.H's many outposts. Intersectional feminist events at Hauswitch, Catland, Ritualcravt. (And many more I'm surely leaving out.)

Women who were witches - and women who weren't - began to see themselves reflected in the activism of witchcraft.

Then Donald Trump co-opted the term "witch hunt." It rang hollow. As Josephine Livingston said:

On the one side, we have the young woman. Her natal chart is fully indexed; she can read tarot. She knows that Planned Parenthood guards her liberty. Her interest in witchhood is bound up with her political conscience, gender identity, and sense of humor. On the other, the President of the United States. His witchhood is, by contrast, a simple claim: that enemies hunt him for no good reason.

Like Livingston, I believe that "the only sorcery effective against him is solidarity: more magic, more craft, more witches."

If you can hex, do it.

If you can work to regenerate the earth, do it.

If you can bind, do it.

If you have the power of persuasion, use it.

But above all...

If you're a witch, use the word.

It's a powerful word. It rings with history, beauty, pain, and magic. We could all use a little more magic right now, by which I simply mean a little more intention in our relations with the material world, and a little more faith that our intentions matter.

Then, as Miller asks, "perhaps we can at last celebrate female strength, recognising that witches – and women – are not going away."

“We are the granddaughters of the witches you could not burn.” It’s not a biological claim. It’s a tribal cry of belonging. A recognition of my powerful foremothers, the women who were called “witch”: Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn, the herbalists, the alewives, the midwives, Hillary. 

I’m a witch.

[the-desolated-quill]

Deep Breath - Doctor Who blog (New Doctor, Same Bullshit)

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I was very cross going into Deep Breath back in 2014, and before I talk about this episode, I’d like to quickly address all the bullshit that surrounded the buildup to the Twelfth Doctor.

Moffat kept saying how Series 8 was going to represent a brand new direction for the series and that this new Doctor would be so different to any we’ve seen before. He even hinted at the possibility of a female and/or non-white Doctor, saying there was no reason why it couldn’t happen. Who did we end up with? Peter Capaldi! Wow! A middle aged white guy?! Never seen one of those before!

Now before @furrychimp has a go at me, I’ve got nothing against Peter Capaldi. He’s a brilliant actor and I was confident he’d be great in the role. That’s not the issue. The problem I had was that Peter Capaldi was the only actor auditioned for the role. Moffat didn’t even try to think outside the box or look elsewhere. I’m not angry because Capaldi was cast in the role. I’m angry because of the wasted opportunity here. It was a year after the 50th anniversary. A chance to break new ground and try something different, and Moffat didn’t take it. If Moffat knew a non-white, non male Doctor wasn’t on the cards, why in God’s name did he keep banging on about it? It’s like I said in my review of A Good Man Goes To War, he’s more concerned with looking progressive than actually being progressive. Anyone can say there needs to be more diversity or that there needs to be change, but unless someone within the industry actually pulls their finger out and does something about it, those are just empty, meaningless words.

‘Oh but Capaldi is a lot older than previous Doctors.’

Bollocks! He was 55! That’s not old! And besides, we’ve had older Doctors before. He’s not even the first actor to play an older Doctor in New Who, or have we all conveniently forgotten about John Hurt all of a sudden? This is nothing new or original. And while I’m on the subject of his age, good God how fucking patronising were the press at the time? Listening to them, you’d think Capaldi was a 200 year old corpse that had arisen from his tomb and was at risk of collapsing into a pile of bones by the end of the series. The whole obsession with his age was seriously odd on both sides (those who thought this was some kind of cheap novelty and those who thought Capaldi was so weak and frail that he wouldn’t be able to get around the TARDIS without the use of a motorised wheelchair).

And then there’s the promise that the show was going to get a lot darker than it was before, to the point where the BBC pushed the show further back in the schedules so that you knew how dark this was going to get. This isn’t teatime entertainment anymore. It has to be broadcast at 8:00pm because it’s going to be so much daaaaaarker. 

Well... we’ve all seen Deep Breath. We all know that was bollocks.

Seriously, how is this any different from an episode in the Matt Smith era? (apart from the fact that Peter Capaldi is less zany and more tolerable than Matt Smith was). It still has the same goofiness and forced whimsey to it (more on that later). In fact some of the humour is actually worse than the Matt Smith era’s. When Madame Vastra tricks the Doctor into forming a psychic link with her so she can put him to sleep, they actually had the fucking nerve to add a comedy cartoon sound effect when he falls unconscious. How fucking desperate can you get?!

But what really strikes me about Deep Breath is how utterly unoriginal it all is. The clockwork robots are back from the overrated Girl In the Fireplace and they’re basically just doing the same shit as they did before only with an extra helping of stupid sprinkled onto them for good measure. ‘Don’t breathe’ is basically the same gimmick as ‘don’t blink’, but whereas ‘don’t blink’ made the Weeping Angels bloody terrifying, ‘don’t breathe’ just makes the clockwork robots laughably inept. A lot of the plot is similar to The Talons Of Weng-Chiang and we’ve seen dinosaurs in London before in Invasion of The Dinosaurs. Not to mention all the lines taken straight from the classic series that Moffat is determined to grind into the dirt (I swear if I hear the ‘you’ve redecorated’ gag one more time, I’m going to scream). Is this what constitutes a brave new direction now? Rehashing plots and concepts from previous stories rather than coming up with your own ideas? Moffat, go stick one of your BAFTAs up your arse. Best place for it as far as I’m concerned.

What’s worse is that this episode has been extended to an hour and 15 minutes, most of which seems to consist of extra scenes of the Paternoster Gang being their usual unfunny selves. At this point it’s not just that they’re boring, underdeveloped and utterly uninteresting characters that bothers me, but also that they are making the Doctor’s universe too small. The man has travelled all across time and space, Surely he must know some other people who would be willing to help him. Why do we keep having to come back to the Paternosters? Strax is still fucking irritating (how can he not tell the difference between an eye and a mouth? Humans and Sontarans aren’t that different. And what was even the fucking point of that medical checkup anyway other than to pad out the runtime?), and I really take issue with how Vastra and Jenny are written. I’ve taken issue with how Moffat presents LGBT characters in his stories before, but this just takes the cake. The episode constantly finds ways to patronise and objectify Jenny while Vastra plays a ‘man with boobs’ type role. And it gets worse when Clara gets involved and we see Vastra start to morph into the predatory lesbian stereotype. Call me picky, but I think we deserve better representation that that. And don’t get me started on that bullshit ‘oxygen share’ kiss. Doctor Who has never been apologetic about two heterosexuals kissing, so why should it treat two homosexuals any differently? It’s just wrong! If they’re open and okay about same sex marriage, why are they being so coy about two lesbian partners being intimate with each other?

So let’s talk about the Twelfth Doctor. Despite my anger and frustration towards the circumstances surrounding his casting, I knew Capaldi would make a great Doctor and he does do a good job in the role for the most part. I liked the stuff at the beginning where the Doctor is really confused and was having memory problems. You could almost draw parallels between him and someone suffering from a memory disorder like Alzheimer’s and it’s genuinely unnerving to see the Doctor in such a high level of distress. I also really liked his final confrontation with the robot and the moral ambiguity of whether or not he pushed him. This is a very different Doctor from Matt Smith and I’m curious to see where they take him (remember I haven’t seen any episodes past Kill The Moon, so I genuinely have no idea what happens to him). Unfortunately all of this is punctured by the usual shit you find in post regeneration episodes. A lot of crazy goofiness and pondering over whether or not this is the same man as before. Admittedly the latter was interesting at first, and The Christmas Invasion did add some dramatic weight to it what with the Doctor being the last of his race and therefore having a more personal connection with Rose than he did with any other companion as a result, but after the twelfth time you’ve done it, you’re just bored by this point. Is the Doctor the same person as before? Er... Kind of. That should be firmly established by now considering the number of bloody times the show has asked this question. Can we move on?

A lot of times I feel Capaldi is scuppered by the humour. He can be a great comedic actor, but this sort of material just doesn’t work with him. It’s too whimsical and eccentric, like the whole sequence with the horse or him calling the dinosaur a big sexy woman. It feels like Moffat is still writing for Matt Smith and it just doesn’t sound right coming out of Capaldi’s mouth. And then there’s the painfully obvious metaphors. There’s a lot you could interpret about the Doctor from what you see on screen. The similarities between him and the robot, and how they both change and replace body parts to the point where you could argue they’re not the same people they originally were. The similarities between him and Vastra, both hiding behind some kind of mask in order to feel accepted. All potentially interesting, but what ruins it is Moffat’s need to fucking spell it out for us. How about crediting your audience with some intelligence?

I really hope Chris Chibnall doesn’t go through all this shit when Jodie Whittaker takes over. In my view, all post regeneration episodes should be like The Eleventh Hour. New body, new personality and then it’s business as usual.

But by far the worst aspect of Deep Breath is Clara. I can understand being worried about the Doctor’s memory problems and state of mind, but that’s clearly not the case at all. Clara is more concerned that the Doctor has gotten visibly older, which is beyond absurd. She’s seen all of the previous Doctors. She’s met the War Doctor. Why should the Twelfth Doctor be a shock to her? Vastra says it’s because the Doctor is no longer young and sexy and, no matter how much Clara tries to deny it, that’s pretty much the only reason I can think of why she’d be angry at the Doctor. I honestly can’t see any other alternative. It doesn’t make any sense why she would be this shocked about the Doctor’s regeneration. At one point she even asks how they change him back. It just makes her come across as really shallow and selfish (not a narcissist or an egomaniac. Seriously Moffat, try browsing a dictionary some time). But what really gets me is that the episode clearly expects you to be on Clara’s side, even going so far as to try to imply that the Doctor is so different now that he has at one point abandoned Clara and left her to die, which I didn’t buy for a second. The First Doctor may well have done that, but he’s a very different man by now. Does she have to stay as the companion? They even wheel out Matt Smith again for yet another goodbye speech to reassure her about Peter Capaldi, which was just plain silly. I suspect the BBC were a little worried that people wouldn’t accept an older, less romantic Doctor. I think the BBC need to have a bit more faith in the audience. May I remind everyone that Doctor Who lasted nearly 30 years without the need to shove in any Doctor/companion romances or snogging and people loved it?

And finally we get Michelle Gomez pissing about in a garden. Who is this mysterious and clearly crazy woman who appears to have intimate knowledge of the Doctor? Gee, it couldn’t be the Master, could it? Oh no! Of course not! The Master is a man! And besides, Moffat would NEVER do a plot twist that bloody obvious.

So what is the Promised Land? I don’t know and I don’t really care to tell you the truth. i’ve become so sick and tired of Moffat’s convoluted series arcs and endless intrigue that I honestly can’t even muster up the energy to even be mildly curious about it.

Deep Breath is an uncreative, boring and lazy start to Series 8. That being said, the Twelfth Doctor does show promise. We’ll see where they go from here.

[linkspooky]

Moonlit Cafe - Uihai Day 2017

A slightly canon divergent Au, where instead of Akira and Amon, it’s Ui and Hairu who join Goat post the clown raids. This fic depicts their reunion and how they grew closer together.

Happy Uihai 2017. The entire fic is under the cut, there’s a brief prologue to explain the Au, and the rest is Ui Focused. I hope you enjoy, if you want to leave a comment it’s posted up on AO3, here. 

Prologue

Whether you sit on the throne, or destroy it, it’s all up to you now.

When Takatsuki said those words to him, Kaneki Ken knew for the first time in his life he had a choice. Perhaps it was because the wounds from watching his choice to kill Arima, taken away from her were still fresh, the images still flashing by in the back of his vision.

He relished the freedom he felt in that moment. A single, dazzling, brilliant moment of clarity. As all things beautiful though, Kaneki Ken immediately knew it was fading. Fading as fast as Takatsuki in front of him, who could barely keep her eyes open.

He barely had time to contemplate it, and when he did he contemplated it as thus. He could destroy the throne, slowly destroy the roles that others laid out for him and finally have a reason to live as Kaneki Ken, or he could throw that away and become the nameless king which best served ghoul kind.

It could have gone either way. Kaneki felt it too, the desire to simply sway between the two. As if he were standing in a boat, halfway to shore and halfway to tide, letting the waves rock him back and forth without ever deciding one way or the other. That way he could continue to stay at the center of things forever.

In fact, it was likely ninety nine times out of one hundred that Kaneki would simply continue to stand there, and not decide. Let’s say though, for the sake of argument, this one path, this unique reality differed in one way-

Kaneki Ken decided.

“I will become the nameless king, so… farewell Takatsuki, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude. I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may you now wield me, Yoshimura Eto.”

He knelt before Eto; pulling off the last remaining fabric on his shoulder that had already been torn by Arima’s fragmented quinque in his last blow, and offered it to her as if he was waiting to be crowned.

It was a small decision, one minor change. Yet, events after that, much like a butterfly flying a few inches away from where it was meant to be flying, could change the route of a hurricane, events began to cascade.

Kaneki Ken did something he had never done before when he announced himself as nameless king, he took human blood. Later that morning, Shinsanpei Aura would have a real reason to hate him when he discovered the news. He took the title, and with the remnants of Aogiri began organizing his forces.

He only took one brief break from his work. To take a stroll and meet with Furuta Nimura, his former partner. The conversation went mostly the same, except with one difference. In these sequence of events though, the endings made all the difference.

“They’ll make their debut one day; do me a favor and play with them then. Ufufu.”

“King. Are you sure you don’t want to go after him?”

Hmmm, Kaneki thought in that moment. Perhaps he was right. Then a great kagune emerged from his back, large enough to drill into and shake the foundations of the tunnel. Kaneki had learned something clever from Furuta, the best way to destroy a ghoul of Rize’s regeneration level was to crush them.

When he saw the still living Furuta, peeking his head out of the rubble he knew he was correct. Kaneki brought a razor sharp tendril of Rize’s kagune to his throat, but when he saw something strange, Furuta’s small and genuine smile something stopped in himself.

That expression quickly disappeared.

“Wah! Be careful with that! You could really cut a guy up.”

“I want to give you a nice cut, your hair’s gotten too long you think. You’ll look handsome.

“Oooh! I want that! But then I’d die.”

“Yep, you’d die.”

Kaneki sighed.

Amazing, he had just heard Furuta’s whole story and not batted an eye. It did not matter to him much, even if Furuta had been born some half thing with a half life, he purposefully went on to make Kaneki into a monster just like himself. There was no need to look past his own pain on this occasion and feel sympathy for the devil.  However, the peaceful and relaxed expression Furuta Nimura displayed moments away from his own death moved Kaneki’s own heart.

Kaneki looked up at the sky. The sun was low in the horizon and his shadow stretched out as long as it could possibly be. It had become night time already. He supposed there was no choice then, but to drag Furuta back with him to the moonlit cafe.

The Case of Ui Koori

Kaneki returned from the basement, replacing the gloves on his hand as he did. The old ones had become far too stained. Wearing them was only an old habit though, as the flesh underneath was fully intact, and soft like a newborn’s.

In the background he heard the television, but more notable was the sight of Take, Yomo, Yusa, Shio, Rikai all staring up at the same sight.

Black smoke is coming from the CCG building in the 22nd ward, we’re receiving reports that the 19th ward is in a similiar state. Is this also the doing of ghouls.

“So this is how, the ‘other side’ does things, huh…”

Kaneki supposed Touka was there as well.

“It’s not a problem. Our new friend Furuta left a parting gift for us when he left the CCG. Since he’s already set things into motion, we might as well take advantage of things.”

“You can’t possibly… that would be just like what Aogiri was doing.”

“You know Touka, your brother, Naki, Miza, a lot of ghouls in that prison they were members of aogiri right? Then they shouldn’t mind at all.”

Touka slammed her fist on the counter. It was normally something that would have gotten a stunned reaction out of Kaneki, but he was tired already from his long ‘conversations’ with Furuta. He merely gave her a sidelong glance.

“What?”

“The news said the attackers were wearing clown masks. You have to know this already, the clowns are a dangerous gang.”

Kaneki smiled at her. It might have been a fake smile, but he hoped she would appreciate at least the effort he put behind it.

“You worry too much, Touka! I was an investigator for a long time you know, I’m different from the newbie to the ghoul world waiter you once knew. Maybe it’s no longer from an insider’s perspective, but I know comprehensive information on most ghoul factions, and I know one thing in particular about the clowns.” At that moment he scratched the side of his cheek with one finger. “They love famous people! So, everybody present, let’s show them our fight and convince them our side is more enertaining!”

Touka had nothing to say in response. Except to think how after his long ‘conversations’ with Furuta, even though his hair had turned pure white just like the last time she had known him, Kaneki Ken was beginning to change into something she did not recognize.

Using the news, as well as spies he had planted in the various wards Kaneki was quickly able to catch up to the location of the raids, even with the meager forces that were currently housed in the :Re cafe and the auditorium across the street.

When he said he was going to go join the raids, most of the Aogiri ghouls joined him without question. In fact it was only Touka who elected to stay behind, Kaneki agreed that it was probably better that way to have somebody watch the shop in case it became suspicious. He did not need that many forces anyway, all the king had to do was make an appearance to make it seem like he was leading them.

He was sure the clowns would appreciate this plot twist enough.

Ah, despite beginning the chapter with him though, Kaneki Ken was not the main focus this time around. He had become the nameless king after all. He was merely a living macguffin which everybody now revolved around.

Rather than himself changing, it was actually everybody who slowly began to change around him.

A person who had begun to change drastically, perhaps who had changed the most because of these eventus, was ironically nowhere near him. He was somebody who had barely even talked to Kaneki since the Rose operation.

Ui Koori no longer sat in the high rise luxury of a special class’s office. Instead he had lowered himself to a small bar in the 4th ward. He used to be in charge of the safety of this entire ward, now he was one of the masses.

Due to Kaneki’s decision to support the clowns rather than fight against them, the clown raids had a much more disastrous effect then ever predicted. The main office was almost completely run over, with the only survivors being those members who stood behind Suzuya’s squad, and those who stood behind Matsuri. The CCG was splintered into several surviving offices that had only barely made it through the fight. They became desperate, and started to lean on the self defense force for extra men and equipment.

The amount of disposable soldiers increasing, and the deaths of most of any faction that would be able to contest his leadership caused conveniently by the raid (in particular, Furuta Nimura the surprise heir who had gone missing days before the raid even started), Matsuri Washuu felt his confidence reignited. He spun the great loss as a call to action, a reason to strike rally against the ghouls and strike back permanently so this day could never be repeated.

He seized control of the CCG and the director’s chair. Matsuri who had stood out like a mountain against an approaching tsunami, the wave of clowns unable to cut through him. He had cut them all to ribbons first, and protected every man who stood behind him. No one was able to question anymore, if he would make a good leader for the CCG.

Ui Koori, the man who had tried to stand against him now sat alone in a bar.

Drinking alone had become a hobby of his, well it had always been but after joining the Arima squad there were times when he could go with Take.

He had been wandering like this, head down only looking at his drink. Occasionally he heard the the frantic news reporting on the television, that was the only way he had to keep up with how much time had passed.

Another drink was slid into his field of vision. “That’s the last one for the night.”

Ui raised his eyes just a little bit, but he stared at the bottom of the man’s face rather than looking at his eyes. It was the exact same thing he used to lecture Arima for doing. “I still have money.”

“No you don’t. These drinks were being paid for with my pity, for the sad sack who wanders in here every night like he hasn’t slept in weeks, but even that well has run dry.”

Ui realized he was being rude now. He bowed his head low, the way a proper human being should in this situation. He said sorry even though he didn’t really mean it. There was a paper bag next to him, he picked it up and shoved it in the inside pocket of his coat. Without saying goodbye, he turned around and left.

Outside he looked at the contacts of his phone. Arima, dead but he had not bothered to delete it, Fura, he did not want to bother a new father, Sasaki and Take, those phones had liekly been destroyed a long time ago, one name he could not even bear to look at, and then his mother and father. If he wanted to, he could have enough drinking for money with one press of a putton and one long conversation.

The memory of a frail, and sensitive boy who wanted to become an investigator and stand on his own two feet though, made him stop. Ui looked up for just a moment to realize he was standing on a bridge. How convenient, he thought, before dropping the phone off the side and listen to it splash in the water.  

He continued to wander outside, with his head held low and his hair covering his face. When he finally peaked out through his dark bangs, he decided more or less the place he was standing now was where he had meant to end up.

A place with rolling green hills, and stones sticking out from the ground. Ui stood in front of one of them. The name on the stone was a lie though. There was nobody buried underneath his feet. The body had never been recovered.

“Sorry, I think - I definitely did a bad job without you. I wanted to become a model investigator, and I thought that was what you wanted for me. I was just trying to act tough when I said I would take responsiblity for the clown operation, but Matsuri took me for my word. He fired me.”

Ui chuckled.

“He looked disappointed when he did it, but that was probably just because he was hoping I would have died in the clown raids. I suppose, I could have spoke up and resisted, but why should I? There was nothing left for me to fight for at the CCG anymore.”

Remembering that phrase again, brought tears to his eyes. The same tears he had drank so hard to suppress. Damnit… really, he didn’t want to do something like this crying. He at least wanted to look cool.

“There’s nothing… there’s nothing left in this world…” Ui picked up the paper bag he had dragged out of the bar with him. He let the paper bag fall away, to reveal a gun. Civilians were not allowed to carry these, but in his time as a Special Class, he had stolen one with RC Capped rounds and hidden it away just in case of an emergency. He cocked it, and placed the barrel right at his head.

Ui could not resist keeping his eyes open. He wanted to see the name in front of him carved out on the gravestone, right until the end. It was the only thing left of them in this world. An empty vacant funeral with no mourners, an empty apartment he was told to take care of,  a box in the corner full of memories, nothing but this name was left…

“I didn’t want to believe Haise killed Arima, if I have a last regret, that’s it.”

It’s as he said. That was it then. He reached with a finger, to curl it around the trigger. He wished just for a moment, if there was a god out there, even if it was just a god of death it would show him some miracle before he died. Suddenly though, a voice coming from nowhere stopped him.

“That’s rather kind of you, Ui-senpai. I’m grateful.”

He thought a ghost was speaking to him. How appropriate, when he looked around he saw Haise Sasaki’s hair had turned completely white. With trained reflexes, Ui immediately whipped his gun around to be aiming at Haise rather than himself.

“To be honest, I would rather you point that gun at me then yourself, too.” Sasaki came closer to him. Ui felt his hand begin to shake with indecision. The CCG’s traitor was in front of him, all he needed was to shoot. The hesitance in his heart, it would disappear if he killed this one ghoul. That was what he had believed all along. Ui held it straight at him, but his hands began to shake. Sasaki closed the distance between them, letting the gun move inches away from his eyepatch. “Come on, the mucous membranes are a ghoul’s weak point, if you shoot me here it’ll go directly to my brain. My only fear is that you’ll miss.”

Ui dropped the gun. He decided, it was better to let Sasaki kill him. “Hurry up already then, torturing me would be useless Matsuri never told me anything. Just indulge in your pointless cruelty, ghoul.”

“Ui-senpai, I wasn’t going to kill you. I was just testing if you would be civil enough to let us talk.” Ui looked at the ground around him, there were kagune tendrils, that had been just below the surface all the way around him, digging in like tree roots. If he had shot, there would have been no difference at all. What a cruel choice that Sasaki gave him right now. Sasaki looked past him, and read the name on the grave. “How odd, I thought if you had said your last goodbyes to anybody it would have been Arima. You seemed to look up to him the most. I guess that’s my mistake, I never really got to know you. I tried, but sometimes things just don’t work out…”

Ui realized, that Sasaki was just babbling awkwardly to fill the silence. “What are you even here for? Did you come to gloat about what you’ve done? To talk my ear off? Either way, you’re annoying me!”

Sasaki chuckled slightly, and scratched at his face. “That’s more like you. I only came to talk. There’s something I’ve learned. While the main contingency of the clowns were focused on the head quarters, I myself led a raid of the main laboratory. Furuta told me something interesting, that he was hiding some kids of his down there. I didn’t think think they would be actual kids, but that’s what we found. Kind of mesed up right?”

Ui Koori said nothing in response.

“All of them with kagune implanted from Rize. The lab members we interrogated said that Furuta behind the backs of most of the CCG had already brought in Kanou after Rueshima and started his experimentation. He already had the Quinx surgery as a base model, from the bodies he stole after the Rose operation. You should be familiar with that particular event, it’s why the grave you’re standing on top of right now is empty. Oh, sorry that’s insensitive.”

Ui Koori said nothing in response.

“Anyway, we only expected to find the kids but when we were there conducting a full sweep we found something else. Something that Furuta did not tell us about. Something we never would have believed…”

Ui raised his head suddenly. “What?” A miracle that only a god of death could bring.

“The rest… well you should hear it from her. Even I’m not insensitive enough to take the words from her mouth.”

“Who is her?” Ui questioned, a second time with increasing urgency.

Sasaki still close, reached into the inside pocket of his own jacket. He pulled out a letter and presented it to Ui. It was snatched away and torn open. The message on the letter was simple.

‘Koori, please do not look for me.’

He had no idea what it meant. The letter was written in Hairu’s handwriting. That was the important part. Ui suddenly seized Kaneki by the lapels of his own jacket.

“This… this is worse than killing me.”

Kaneki casually looked down, not too bothered by the fact he was getting throttled by a former special class. “I won’t disagree with you. In a twisted world like this hope can seem like nothing more than a cruel lie.”

“Stop talking to me…”

“If you don’t believe me, you saw Noro’s remains yourself. The ghoul was long dead but still functioned like a living ghoul, the properties of kagune are quite beyond our understand at times. Even I felt dead for a few good seconds when I was fighting against Arima, only to sudenly…”

“Shut up! Like I could ever join the side of the person who murdered arima! Where would the justice be in that? Arima will never rest well.” Ui shook him again.

“Ui-senpai, aren’t you the one who told me that if we don’t keep a clear head that we’ll lose sight of justice. What is justice anyway? Is it meant for the whole world, for one country’s society, or just a few special people?”

Ui’s grip on him finally loosened.

“How about that justice, now.” Sasaki said smiling. Perhaps it was cruel of him to taunt an already broken man. Oh well, he thought. They were all a bit broken at goat, it would help Ui fit in more. He turned around briskly, expecting Ui to follow.

Why would he not. Ui was in hell, and he had appeared, as a sole spider thread offering him a way to climb out. Anybody would accept that one string to hang on to. Ui hesitated for a moment, looking at the letter again. Even if it was a fake, he felt like he still would have believed it.

“I’m sorry, Hairu.” He muttered, to the gravestone marked ‘Hairu Ihei’. “I’m going to disobey you.” With that, still holding the letter tight to his chest he moved to follow Kaneki.

The walk there was silent. They took a circuitous route, Ui was sure so they would not be followed, and if he betrayed them, he would not remember the exact location. It wa s alarge abandoned looking house. In the front, there were children playing. Ui did not pay close attention to them, other than notice the noises they were making. If he had, he might have noticed that some of the children were playing with kagune.

“This place reminds me a little bit of the chateau, that’s why I chose it. The children here, well they should be safe as long as they don’t wander too far away.”

Ui Koori was not listening. He only raised his head again when he noticed Take standing guard in front of the door Sasaki was leading him to. Of course, he made no facial expression, or acknowledgement of his presence after all this time. That was so like him. He turned instead to Sasaki.

“I see you were successful.”

“More or less,” Sasaki said, and then looked to Ui gesturing in the direction of the barred door.

“What are you doing? Holding her prisoner to blackmail me into fighting for your side?”

“That’s cruel, Ui-senpai. I wouldn’t want to make you fight all of your previous comrades against your own will. Besides, in your current state you look like you would be pretty useless fighting for the sake of ghouls.”

Sasaki looked over once his disheveled appearance, and sunken in slightly crossed eyes. Unlike Take, he could not maintain enough of a poker face not to react to it.

Ui opened his mouth for some retort, but the sounds of whimpers from within made him shut his mouth with an audible, clack! He grinded his teeth instead, trying to be patient with the unusually long winded Sasaki.

“I was hoping her former boss, would be able to reason with her.”

Ui only nodded. He would be lying if he understood half of what was going on. Still, he was able to reach for the door and grip it without hesitation. When he threw it open, he saw huddled in the corner hugging her knees to her chest, and hiding her face in the divet between, a sobbing female form.

“Y-you.”

Hairu.

“Are you okay?”

Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu.

“Hey.” Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. “Raise your head and speak to me, it’s rude to ignore someone when they’re addressing you.”

Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. HairuHairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu.

“Koori you idiot. When Haise gave me the chance to write a letter to you, I tried to warn you not to come.”

Ui had fallen to his knees in front of her at some point. He was only a short distance away from her though. Close enough to touch. He reached out, his hand shaking again. His vision blurred as his eyes slightly went cross fro the shock of the situation. “H… hairu.” Finally he was able to say that name. The one that had been silent on his lips for months. He reached out to touch her on the head, only to have his hand slapped away.

“Listen to me, Koori! I’m not… I’m not Hairu anymore.” She raised her head finally. He was so close that he had no choie but to see it in full detail. Her neck was held together by sloppily done stitches. A small fabric choker coverred in lace was the only thing she wore over them to cover the scars, but it did a bad job of doing so. More importantly though was her eyes, one of them had veins bulging underneath the surface of the skin, and glowing even in the sclera of the eye bright red against a black background.

A kakugan.

Had she been made into a Quinx? He suddenly wished he had been paying more attention to Sasaki’s ramblings.

“The quinx… I know I was suspicious of them, but they were still considered humans.” He gave a fumbling attempt at trying to comfort Hairu. All the while he rubbed the reddened back of his own hand. It felt empty.

He regretted it now. Everything in private he had whispered to Hairu about Sasaki. Every last seditious remark.

“It’s nothing like that. They could eat human food. I… I… it would be better if I just starved.”

“What?” Ui tilted his head. Hairu was here, alive. She was dead, but now she was alive. Why would she want to die again? He would lose her all over again. “What?” He repeated a second time, the phrase sounding empty. Is this what Sasaki asked him over to do. “You have to eat, Hairu.”

“I’m not going to eat human flesh! I’m not going to be a monster like they are.”

Ui blinked. The jumbled pieces in his head finally clicked together. This is what Sasaki had meant when he compared her to a ghoul like Noro. To keep living in this state, she would need to continuously eat.

“I want to die as a human.”

She would need to kill and eat in order to live. If to live meant devouring others, she would be no better than a ghoul.

“I’m not such a meanie… that I’d make you kill me, so please just. Turn around and forget you ever saw me. Continue to live happily with the memory of the complete me in your mind.”

“I can’t do that.” Ui said finally, his hand reaching out to touch her once more. Perhaps if he could just confirm that she was real, and not some dream, or momentary illusion that was meant to pass. “You might not know the reason why but… know that I could never do that, please.”

This time instead of slapping him away, something burst out of Hairu. He felt shards tear at his flesh. In the next moment he knew he was bleeding from several places, but she had missed hitting anywhere vital. He knew because he was still breathing a moment after taking a full Ukaku barrage at close range. His eyes flickered up briefly for a moment, and he saw something like a wing pattern left in the tatters of blood on the wall.

“Beautiful…” He muttered, as he fell forward and lost consciousness.

When he woke up next, a ghoul with a strangely shaped beard was patching him up. Ui felt thoroughly disgusted because the ghoul was using his kagune to do so, but he decided not to comment. One because it would be rude, and two because he did not have the strength to open his mouth.

A few minutes later Sasaki came into the room. Behind him, Take was standing, no, following like he was a shadow. “I see you weren’t able to talk any sense into her. That’s too bad.”

Ui found strength where there had been none before. “Can’t you tie her down and force feed her? You’re much stronger than she is, than I am.”

Sasaki looked genuinely remorseful for a moment. Ui could see it in those much too large eyes of him. However, he closed them and shook his head. “I have to fight for the sake of ghouls, Ui-senpai. How much extra resources do you think I have to waste, on a pair of unfortanate human investigators?”

Ui realized. Just like at the bar, he was simply being pitied. Everything Sasaki said made sense, even if Ui did not agree with the side he was fighting for, it made more sense to devote every part of himself to that side. Perhaps, Sasaki had learned something after all. Perhaps that was why he changed.

“You can stay here for a few more days and try again if you want. I wouldn’t recommend any longer, she’s almost at her limit and when a ghoul starves for that long, the hunger begins to induce insanity in them. We had to bar the door to her room, but you must have seen the stains and scratches all over her wall.”

Ui did not raise his eyes to look at Sasaki. He could not, even if it was the impolite thing to do. “I’ll stay until the end.”

Sasaki nodded. “Do what you think is best, then. Ah, senpaii, are you alright?”

Ui touched his own face. There were tears there. He had not even realized it. He had begun to cry.

Sasaki shrugged. “I thought you would take this news badly, it’s a bit weird to see you smiling. Oh well. Goodbye.”

He turned around and left. For Ui, there was only one thought on his mind. Hairu was still alive. Even if she might die tomorrow, that in the present was enough happiness for him to continue on.

Take lingered for a moment. He saw that the bandages that Banjou had affixed on him were a little loose, and moved forward, reaching out to grab onto the ends. He pulled the loose ends into an even tighter knot. “It seems the young investigators we’re supposed to raise, are nothing but trouble. For us both.”

Take let go and turned around. Ui wished suddenly, that he had a drink in his hand. “So it seems.”

He wondered around the empty house for awhile after Kaneki’s men had left. There were a few other adult ghouls around, but they seemed to be preoccupied with watching the children. Ui, as he wandered into the kitchen finally found what it is he thought he had been looking for. When he opened the fridge though, he found it to be empty.

Then all the children here must not be eating human food, his mind clicked the idea together. Before he could conclude on what else that meant a small and high pitched voice interrupted him.

“Hey there, are you looking for human meat? We’re fresh out.”

Ui looked down to see the child the voice belonged to. He had long hair that went down to his neck, a long set of bangs, and a hat to keep the hair out of his face. He was also wearing a straight jacket. Ui guessed he should have noticed that first, but it was not the strangest thing he had seen today.

“Hajime. You ran drills with zero squad recently. What are you doing here?”

Hajime Hazuki laughed. “You really are the sentimental type, huh? I volunteered for the new quinx surgery myself. That’s why I didn’t appreciate it, when my oh so gracious rescuers took me out of that tube. They didn’t want to kill me, so they stuck me in this jacket tight enough to cut off the blood circulation. Hey, can you itch my nose, mister?”

Ui leaned forward and granted the child’s request. Predictably, Hajime snapped his teeth at him, trying to get a bite of a finger. His reflexes were quick enough though, that he withdrew his hand easily.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ui noticed. Against the counter there was a bat. “What’s something like that doing here?”

“We’re kids you know. We sometimes like to play baseball.”

Ui’s expression somehow managed to look more tired than it already was. “Why are there nails in the batt then?”

“It’s a really fun version of baseball.” Hajime joked, and then began to laugh at his own joke. Already this child was reminding him of someone but he could not quite put his finger on it. Hajime must have caught him staring in the direction of Hairu, because he immediately called hi out. “You’re here for her, aren’t you?”

Ui felt there was no longer any point in lying. “She’s… my reason.”

“Your reason to do what? Kill? The only thing that’s going to save her now is fresh human meat you know, but I doubt even if you find some that she’ll eat it. You’ll have to overpower her and force it down her throat.”

Ui stopped for a moment, leaning down to pick up something before he walked away.

“Hey, where are you going?” Hajime called after him.

“Somewhere,” Ui muttered.

“Why did you take that bat?” Hajime asked. Children really asked too many questions, sometimes.

“ I’m going somewhere fun.” He could feel his vision blur again. His eyes were starting to become slightly crossed. It was a bad habit of his. He was handling his stress poorly.

The next moment that Ui remembered though, he felt oddly at ease. He looked down, and saw he was holding a plate with a slab of raw meat on it. That was good, if Hairu had this then she could eat.

This time, slowly and deliberately he opened the door. When it was open just a crack, he peered inside to see Hairu. She fell asleep sometime after they last saw each other. He was glad, she looked much more peaceful than she had been awake.

Ui thought of the gentlest way to wake her possible. Still holding the plate in one hand, he reached forward, and dragged gently the back of his hand against her cheeks. He caressed them, and from the slight touch the flesh felt so warm, no, it felt alive.

“Hairu, wake up.” Her nose was the first thing to twitch. She must have smelt the blood. One eye opened immediately, it was pure black and red. It spun around wildly before focusing on Ui. Hairu pounced suddenly out of the bed, pinning him against the floor with tremendous strength.

“I’m glad it’s you who came for me after all, Koori! You’d be happy to die for your beautiful Kouhai, wouldn��t you?” There was an insanity leaking into her voice. It sounded off pitch, Ui wondered if Hairu was even the one speaking right now. It looked to him like a case of dmeon possession.

Ui recovered from the shock of being tackled, only to look up at her. “Yes, I would.”

Hairu leaned in close, and smelled the area between his neck and his shoulder. He felt her entire body shake with the inhalation. “You smell so good, Koori. I just want to eat you up.”

“And I want you to eat, but then I’d die.” Ui Koori was smiling once again, somehow he could not control it.  

“Yep, you’d die.” Hairu was inches away from his neck, she even opened her mouth to prove this. All that came out though, was the sound once again of her sobs. The Hairu that was looming over him like some predatory animal, fell on top of him as she broke down into a series of sobs.

“Hairu, I’m sorry. I failed as your senpai. I don’t know the right way to guide you any more. Even so, I want you to live.”

Hairu murmured something underneath the sound of her crying, but Ui could not hear her. He looked to the meat on the floor. Then to Hairu on top of him. He flipped over suddenly, so she would be on the bottom this time, and reached for the plate that had fallen away from him. Ui, without hesitance, or even seeming to realize what he was doing, took a bite of the meat present on the plate.

“It’s okay, if you become a monster. I’ll make it okay, because I’ll become one too.”

When Hairu gasped, Ui took the moment to force his lips against hers. The meat that he had partially chewed up, he forced down her throat. His lips lingered on hers. He had always wondered, in some forbidden part of his mind what Hairu’s lips might taste like.

Right now, he only tasted blood.

When he removed his lips finally, Hairu looked at him. Her face turned an odd shade of pink. She averted her eyes. “Koori-senpai, you can’t do something like that. It’s embarrassing.”

Ui smiled at her. There was blood, running from the corners of his lips all the way to his chin. “Hairu, neither of us are in the CCG anymore. I think it’s okay to call me Koori, now.” She tried it out, stuttering just a little bit in a cute way “K-koori then.”

He would have to get used to the sound of that. He decided, he would live long enough to get used to the sound of that.

[darugha]

What do u think about Dr. Who season 8? And 9? And 10?

Ooh thank you for the ask!

Well Season 8 I would rate as mediocre. Like it has a few good episodes like ‘Into the Dalek’ and ‘Dark Water’ and certainly introduces Missy as a totally awesome character but the whole thing smacked of not really know what to do with Capaldi. His performance is a little all over the place and it has ‘Robots of Sherwood’ which is probably the worst episode I’ve ever seen. Also the crap ending to ‘Listen’ disappointed me so badly I’ve never watched it again and Danny Pink was actually an awesome (and hot) character and I will never forgive Moffat for ending him. Then again I loved the concept of ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’ and the 2D alien episode but it just felt all so middling.

Season 9 I would have given a glowing review for, but instead it’s just good. The opening two episodes with Missy and the Daleks are fantastic and most, if not all the others are good - special mention for ‘Sleep No More’ as I thought those monsters were actually frightening and I loved seeing the Doctor ‘lose’. Ashildr’s (me) story was good but a bit weak, and then ‘Face the Raven’ happens and Clara dies and that was emotionally great and intense. ‘Heaven Sent’ is arguably one of Capaldi’s finest episodes and probably one of the best in the series and then ‘Hell Bent’ literally undoes the whole thing and robs both the previous episodes of their emotional significance. Like the Doctor’s return to Gallifrey should have been a momentous event and instead it was all about sodding Clara. A phenomenally disappointing end to a decent series.

For me I’d rate Season 10 as Capaldi’s first brilliant one. His performance is far better than it had ever been, Nardole was surprisingly good and Bill was an utter legend. Missy being part of the continuing story was also an absolute joy. Most if not all of the stories were actually honestly good, with the exception of the ‘Monk’ trilogy. Now the first two episodes there are great but the last one is so shockingly poor it undoes the brilliance of the sequence. Also fake-out regeneration is cheap and awful. The series finale is probably the best two-parter Moffat has done for Capaldi across three seasons though and saves a weak end to the series. Though I won’t forgive him for boasting about the Movellans and reducing them to a ‘blink and miss it’ cameo. That sucked.

In short - Clara Oswald was the worst thing to happen to Doctor Who since cancellation while Missy was the best thing since River Song. Capaldi starts badly but becomes a legend and for every crap storyline there was a good one.