I Reread This Snippet From The Book:

Crowley’s Type?

Season Two Spoilers Below

Okay, so when Shax and Aziraphale are in the car, Shax says to Aziraphale, “You don’t seem his [Crowley’s] type at all.”

…

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!

What does she think Crowley’s type is? What is she basing this assumption on? Crowley’s aesthetic? Did Crowley curate some kind of reputation as a lusty tempter of goths downstairs in some hilarious scheme? How?! He’s so bad at that kind of stuff!

Maybe she’s just preying on Aziraphale’s insecurities?

I need to know!!!!

I was thinking about Midge and Lenny while working on a new chapter of “Very Blue Lives” (it’s on ao3, please go read and review. I need validation like Lenny and Midge need each other).

Anyways, I was thinking about Midge and Lenny in Miami and why Midge turned Lenny down.

Sure the bs Vegas train wreck just happened, and Carol kind of freaked her out, but those answers are boring.

First of all, he’s weirdly reluctant to talk about her career. In Miami, whether she knows it or not, Lenny’s avoidance to discuss her career is part of the reason she walks away. Flash forward to the blue room, he’s making it clear that he listens to her and promises to take her seriously, and that’s when she decides “yes, okay. Let’s see what’s between us.”

She needs him to take her seriously as a comic, and once she realizes that he does, she’s willing to be vulnerable with him as a woman.

And that’s a great step for Midge, who isn’t taken seriously personally or professionally, especially by people she loves.

Ncuti Gatwa has my favorite Doctor intro. No sadness of a fan favorite departing hanging over him.

There’s something new, something other than the Doctor being sick or erratic. (It worked for especially well for Ten because of the story and because it gives his eventual reveal so much weight, and it gives him 15 minutes uninterrupted to showcase the full-range of his character), but that doesn’t have to be the formula forever.

This time we get so much time with a genuinely kind, energetic, supportive Doctor who said, “it’s okay to take a break. And while you do that, get the one thing you never let yourself have, I’m going to go be amazing. He straight up says “sit down, I’ve got this”

For the first time since I originally watched Born Again, I felt like I made a friend.

I don’t want this incarnation to actually be some weird limbo version of the Doctor that’s going to eventually regenerate into 15, because that means you’re taking away the beautiful, wonderful positivity and kindness that Fifteen innately possesses. Gatwa’s doctor is just an incarnation that is born ready to finally let go of angst and sadness that has defined the last two decades of the show.

Someone he loves (his past self) is going to take care of themselves and heal, and that’s what makes him okay. He’s not ‘fixing’ anyone, he’s not ONLY there to help. He wants to head back out into the stars immediately (well, evidently the club) and he does. As he should.

Fifteen is absolutely the Doctor. The Doctor who is kind and beautiful and fun from the word go. I can’t wait to watch his adventures.

Fourteen, for me, will forever be the Doctor in a garden telling stories and basking in the love of his family that he always wanted and finally has and can sneak his family off for low-stakes, but no less magical adventures. No future regenerations, no merging with Fifteen later down the line, no becoming the Valeyard.

If that’s not what the intent was…honestly I don’t care. If that’s what is revealed later… honestly I will probably ignore it.

Fourteen is explicitly told to just sit down for awhile, so I don’t feel like he’s hanging over 15. But if David comes back, I’ll still be in for a phenomenal performance of a wonderful incarnation of a character I adore, by an extremely talented actor who loves the show as much as any fan because he is one, and one who is getting the chance to continually fulfill his greatest childhood dream.

The specials are not perfect, but I can connect with them in a way I haven’t been able to connect to the show in a long time. There was a real focus on character again, something I personally enjoy in storytelling.

If that isn’t what you like, that’s fine. My opinions are just that, and by definition can’t be right or wrong.

Doctor Who is science FICTION. It is an endless web of retcons and contradictory lore. It is a show where an alien ship that fits an entire dimension inside of it, that can travel anywhere in all of time and space, looks like a police box and requires a key.

Sometimes I don’t need it to make perfect sense. Sometimes I just want to watch a character I love get something nice after being saved emotionally by his awesome queerplatonic bestie and his happy, supportive mitosis brother!

Sometimes the real world is hard, and I just want a happy ending in my escapism.

I can’t with these reviews:

- “Indulgent, Romantic, and an Ineffable delight”

- “The Sweetest Love Story This Side of Heaven”

- “A lovey-dovey shipper’s delight”

Like, these last hours are killing me!!!!

just a quick thing about the finale news.

the montage of a family’s plan to oust a housekeeper from her job, often referred to as a “perfect scene” in the Oscar-winning film Parasite, is approximately four and a half minutes long.

the sequence in Casablanca of Victor Lazslo and the other refugees striking up the band in Rick’s cafe to play the Marseillaise and drown out the Nazis singing? one of the most memorable and strangely timeless scenes in an incredibly solid film? Two and a half minutes long.

Re-Animator, a film beloved both by horror hounds at large and fairly specifically by transmascs on tumblr (a population I proudly count myself as belonging to)? 86 minutes long.

James Whale’s Frankenstein? 70 minutes on the dot. Primer, a time travel movie so dense there are multiple charts online untangling the timelines depicted? 77 minutes. My Neighbor Totoro? same length as Re-Animator.

add on to that the fact that we’ve got two of the greatest actors of their generation (one of whom I regularly see tagged/described as The Microexpressions Guy), a phenomenally expressive composer scoring, and a whole lot of passionate folks involved in production design.

what I’m saying is, please leave yourself open to the idea that you might be surprised at how much story and emotion can fit inside of 90 minutes. I am also grieving that it won’t be longer, but considering the length of so many other great films and powerful sequences… there’s space for something wonderful there.

On Crowley in the Book of Job

Season 2 Spoilers below:

I just…I’m having a hard time with Crowley tempting Aziraphale to eat.

Like, we just established that Crowley is not capable of true evil.

And he and Aziraphale clearly know each other enough to have a dynamic. Aziraphale clearly knows Crowley enough to have faith in his fundamental hidden goodness. And despite all of his pretense, that faith means something to Crowley.

So…why tempt Aziraphale? It feels so…uncharacteristically sinister.

Is he trying to get Aziraphale to fall too? But why? Some part of him obviously likes Aziraphale.

Maybe he’s trying to prove a point? But what is he going to do if Aziraphale falls over this? How will he carry that for eternity?

Maybe he knows Aziraphale won’t fall, and that’s the point? But how would he know that?

What’s the point?

Can i just say you and your marvelous work are a GIFT! Im literally saving your pieces as a reward for doing the hard stuff in my life right now. Thank you thank you so much for it!

Aw! That’s so sweet! I’m really glad you’re enjoying it. You’re actually my first ask/submission ever, and it really made my day! I hope the hard stuff gets easier, and I’m glad that you’re finding something to look forward to. The fact that it’s my work is so amazing to hear, and I hope you continue to like my work! Have a great day!

Guys PLEAAAASSSSEEEEEEEE stop using AI for fanart. I know so many amazing people who literally spend HOURS creating art. HOURS. And they do it for free, or for very little. To use AI for fanart so incredibly insulting to them.

Want art? Find something that's created and boost their work by reblogging!

Better yet, commission an artist! So many of these people are using commissions to pay for rent, or other bills, or fucking top surgery. Don't take that from them.

Stop using fucking AI.

Things I've learned about gen-ai while stealing and re-drawing over screenshots I've found over the last week:

A single prompt uses about 500ml of water... with thousands of new prompts made every second... holy fucking shit.

It doesn't follow a single rule of art. No rule of thirds, no guiding lines, no colour theory... it's uncomfortable because lacks any kind of human perspective on what constitutes art & connection.

About 20% or more of your daily feed includes some kind of AI garbage that doesn't do anything to improve your experience. It doesn't need to be there.

It fuckin' sucks.

It Needs Saying:

How Regeneration informs character

Christmas Invasion is off for Rose because the man she loves, the only person she knows that thinks she’s fantastic explodes in front of her with a really vague explanation after she wakes up from passing out with her memories missing. She is scared at first because she reasonably assumes that this could be a threat. She’s encountered malevolent shapeshifters and dangerous teleportation rays fairly recently.

And now, there’s this younger, flirty, seemingly happier man promising that he remembers everything, that swears he’s same man. Except this too-good-to-be-true man whispers seductively as he grabs her hand, and smiles like Casanova, and gives her the impression that he definitely dances and wants to with her.

Nine wouldn’t do any of this even if she wished he would, but she knew he loved her, thought of her more highly than anyone she ever met. He loved her so much that a Dalek felt it.

She’s beginning to believe him but then he passes out.

“The proper Doctor would save us” is a weird thing to say about someone who woke up from a coma because you whispered help me. It’s not a weird thing to say about someone who less than twelve hours ago didn’t need to be asked to save people. (Obviously Rose still hasn’t been told what regeneration sickness is because Nine gives a really vague explanation as it’s happening and Ten does explain it but not how to help him because he has ADHD and can’t focus even to literally save his life)

This is also Rose learning the lesson that the Doctor is not a perfect hero in a practical way. She has by now learned about the Time War, about what he did, witnessed his dark rage in Dalek. But now she’s seeing him physically vulnerable, having to take him down off the pedestal in a different way.

He’s getting worse and aliens are invading and she doesn’t know how to help him. She tries running away and saving the people she cares most for (which still includes him) but that fails. She then tries to use what information she’s picked up even if it costs her life. There’s always been a hero in Rose. She risked life in Rose, Dalek, Parting of the Ways and World War III, she does the same now.

Then the Doctor returns and saves the world, with the same fierce protectiveness as Nine. And she doesn’t have a smidge of doubt.

It used to bother me that he yelled at her for giving up on him, but in all fairness “Can you change back?” Probably deeply hurt his feelings, even if it’s hilarious now in 2023.

But she’s leaving out an important part of the question.

She’s asking, “Can you turn back into the person who thinks I actually have worth? Who I know wants me?”

In the end of the Episode, she admits that her concern was that he wouldn’t want her anymore.

It isn’t until he gives explicit verbal confirmation that he still wants her to travel with him (something he hadn’t done before) that she relaxes. (Ironically this is how the love confessions go for them too).