#i loved the new war room boxset | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

magicofthepen · 2 years

Text

self-indulgent, unrealistic wishlist for future War Room stories:

lean into the whole “Leela and Narvin are stuck fighting on different sides when they really want to be together” thing. leaving secret messages. sneaking away from their respective missions to briefly see each other—knowing how bad it could be if Gallifrey catches them, but being unable to avoid taking the risk. would love to see “forbidden relationship energy, but in Gallifrey’s excellent platonic-romantic ambiguity way”

make Leela and Narvin’s conflicting loyalties hurt. Gallifrey already delivered on point 2 from this post about my War Room ideas (hell yeah), but I still want my heart broken with scenarios such as “Rassilon/other Time Lords putting Leela in a situation where she has to fight against the Resistance—oh god, Worst Case Scenario, she’s ordered to help with a plan that would kill Narvin if successful—but if it fails, Rassilon will kill Romana. so now what does she do??” or “the Resistance putting Narvin in a situation where doing a thing that would kill Leela and/or Romana (because Leela is a soldier of Gallifrey, and Romana is on Gallifrey—or just because if Leela dies, there’s a chance Romana will be killed too) would save countless lives. and prioritizing a friend over the universe got him in this mess, how can he do that again? how can he not?” (obviously they’d all have to survive somehow, but I’d love to hear them go through that pain, bc I love putting fictional characters in angsty Situations.)

center the next boxset on Getting Romana Back. have Leela (and Narvin) develop proper plans to try to do that (that may or may not work). now that they both know they’re not alone, it would make sense for Leela to be galvanized into properly scheming to free Romana, with Narvin’s help via Forbidden Meetings.

do a “meanwhile, here’s Romana” episode. Leela was gone for a boxset and before she came back, the narrative cut away to show a bit of what she’s been going through since that separation. I think they should do something similar for Romana—in her case, they need to show what the vault dimension is actually like and what exactly she’s going through, so we understand her mental state when she gets out (also. get her out of there eventually please). personally I’d love a Romana-centric episode where she’s trapped in flashes of the past—trapped in her own past, ideally, so we can bring the other main characters in, and maybe show new scenes of the past that fit between or within earlier episodes. properly explore her mental state—her guilt and self-loathing that drove her to try to commit suicide-by-Dalek on Unity. do I have a proper plot for this episode concept? no, not yet, but I’m sure you could find one—whether it’s something going Wrong in the vault dimension, things breaking down and Romana getting lost in the past as Leela and Narvin try to get her out (and so it ends with her rescue)…..there are options! But I think we need to see what she’s going through, and the setup of her being stuck in an archive of the past inevitably lends itself to a story about confronting her own past, facing her own grief and guilt about the past. (ultimate self-indulgent wishlist item is this leading to an exploration in later episodes of how to forgive yourself and choose to keep living…..)

Micallon episode, somehow. or Rayo can leave Micallon temporarily for Reasons, if that’s easier. I just want an episode with Rayo and Leela please! they didn’t get to say goodbye to each other, it’s not too much to ask! and I want my headcanon about Rayo and the Apothecary connecting to the Resistance (via Narvin) and creating a safe house on Micallon for people who want to escape the War to be canon. it feels like that was what they were setting up in Dissolution, and I’d love to see Narvin and Eris and Rayo as a Team, working to resist the War in different ways…..and then Leela somehow managing to steal some time with her kid who’s all grown up, who she never thought she’d see again. (I know Narvin said 70-80 years have passed, but I assume that’s for him and Eris because they’re running around the universe, and that much, much less time would have passed on Micallon—like much less time seems to have passed for Leela.)

this is very much a “what if War Room catered to me, personally” post, I’m not expecting or realistically hoping for most of these things, but like. what if

#gallifrey audios #gallifrey spoilers #war room 1 delivered on enough things that i was hoping for (or hoping for from tw4)#that i’m now vulnerable to the problem of “inventing where I want the story to go in my head and being disappointed when it’s not that”#but i’m gonna indulge that wistful daydream part of my brain for a bit #maybe get it out of my system #ramblings #suicide mention

21 notes · View notes

karlyanalora · 2 years

Text

Birth of a Fanfic Writer

When I was seven, my mom bought a giant roll of perforated printer paper. I rolled it out on my cousin’s carpeted living room and got down on my belly, colored pencils in hand, and drew horse after horse. I named them all and as I drew them, I spoke aloud the story of their lives as it burst into existence within my head.

In 2005, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came out in theatres. I watched it at home with my family. I remember being in Costco with my dad and him picking out the boxset of the books to go with the DVD, promising to read them to me. Such was the start of a tradition, but that’s a tale for another time. The important bit was dancing in the front yard under the aspen tree, imagining myself beside Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter. They were soon joined by Codename: The Kids Next Door, of which Numbah Five and Numbah One were my favorite. There must have been others, but those are the only two I can remember. My first fandoms if you will.

I don’t remember how old I was when I started, but on long car rides I would be arm myself with a pencil and a brand new notebook. I started many stories that way, writing out the first few chapters before I burned out. I only remember the plot of one. I had recently found a single issue of a comic from the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon. A bad guy tried to impersonate Starfire’s long lost brother and her pet pupa didn’t trust the impersonator. That was my first introduction to superheroes and it was love at first sight. So I wrote a self-insert where my family and I were magical shapechangers and Batman wiped out my people and killed my mom because he thought we were bad guys. Robin questioned him, but Batman was sure he was doing the right thing. I was raising my siblings in a tree when I rescued Robin, who I aged down to be my future love interest, and togethe we were going to show Batman he was wrong or something. I don’t remember what I had planned. I couldn’t have been older than nine. The angstiest thing I could have possibly read at that age was Percy Jackson. I have no idea where that dark storyline came from, but it was the furthest I would get in any story until NaNoWriMo 2014.

I was determined to create an entirely original story. But I found myself writing loopholes where I could connect my characters back to the MCU and DCEU. I did finish NaNoWriMo, but I had to make the outlines for books two and three. My family likes to tease me about He-Man appearing in book three.

In 2018, my friend Annie introduced me to Voltron. I can’t remember what season we were waiting on, but in the parking lot of early morning seminary, she introduced me to fanfic. A story about Pidge getting switched with the Green Lion along with other adventures. It was Though She Be Little by TheRedScreech. I read it, enjoyed every bit, and didn’t think about fanfic again.

Some family friends tried to get us into the YouTube channel craze. My sister and I were going to make a goofy cartoon and try to make money off it. I wrote to Star Wars about permission to do so and was politely told no. I was going to do it anyway and researched fair use laws. I wrote a script. I still didn’t think about fanfic.

During 2019, through regular dog sitting during the week and a month-long stint housesitting during the summer, I watched a lot of tv. I’d burned through all the available seasons for Tales of Arcadia, season seven of Voltron had failed me, so I rewatched my beloved Transformers Animated. And then I watched Transformers Prime and even Rescue Bots. But I was still starved for more. As I lay awake in my apartment at college in the early pre-Covid months of 2020, I remembered what Annie had told me about fanfic. How if I wanted to avoid smut, I should stay away from M-rated fics and so on. Armed with that knowledge, I plunged into the world of fanfiction.net and scoured the Transformers section. I stayed up all night reading @megadoomingir ‘s Redeem the Stars. Didn’t sleep much better when I started what was then up of their Stop Me.

And somewhere during those late nights of early adulthood, I realized I could create original work. But that’s never been what I wanted. Ever since I was a little girl, I had wanted to write fanfic. So in an empty classroom on campus, I called up my sister and read her the first drafts of what would become Widow’s Legacy and the stories that would come after.

I’ve grown a lot since then. Decided to let go of my shameless self-insert, The Fossa. Let a lot of other original characters and oc-centric worldbuilding go too. Started to think critically about the canon I was working with. But I think most of that was a product of growing up. Nothing I was doing before was wrong; it was a product of a less mature me who would have been writing for an audience who was in the same mindspace. I grew up, and so did the kind of story I wanted to tell.

Where ever you are on this journey and trust me, it’s a journey, be proud of it. Maybe you still want to write original work or like me, you’re happy to write fanfic forever. Don’t be ashamed of what you wrote, dreamed up, or outlined in the past. It’s great for where you were in life at the time, a reflection of a past you who is still learning, growing, and changing. They are your five-year-old self’s scribbles, loving placed on the fridge and maybe even saved for years. They are only made more precious by the masterpieces you create today because they are testaments to your beginnings. Your old fics and ideas are the birthplaces of that story you wrote that touched that one reader and left them forever changed. Be proud, and keep writing.

#writing #fanfic authors #writer things

7 notes · View notes

fortes-fortuna-iogurtum · 2 years

Text

Gallifrey spoilers below!!

(and also I’ll probably be posting a lot more thoughts about the new boxset soon, so it would probably be a good idea to blacklist the tags ‘gallifrey spoilers’ and ‘gallifrey: war room’ if you don’t want to see things)

just gotta throw it out there that I LOVE the idea that Leela’s entire motivation here is freeing and restoring Romana, and she would maybe sacrifice her morality and her honour to do that. like…. this sounds Good. the idea that even Leela can’t escape the corruptive influence of the Time War, even tho her motivations are (mostly) pure and true??? that she’s so focused on saving the people she cares most about, who represent to her the best that Gallifrey and probably the entire universe could be and the things she personally has lost to the Time War, but in trying to restore those things she’s actually falling victim to the very corruption of the Time War herself??? mmmmm like yes please I want to see it 👀👀

3 notes · View notes

elizasmarkgatissblog · 5 years

Text

Mark Gatiss to reunite with Peter Capaldi for Christmas ghost story

He will pen Martin’s Close for BBC Four.

By Laura Harding, PA Senior Entertainment Correspondent

August 21 2019 12:20 PM

source: independent {x}

Mark Gatiss will reunite with former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi when he pens and directs a new Christmas ghost story for BBC Four, it has been announced.

Martin’s Close is an adaptation of the M.R. James story of the same name, which follows the murder trial of John Martin.

Set in 1684, Martin is on trial for his life before the infamous “hanging judge” George Jeffreys but the case is thrown into question because the innocent young girl Martin is accused of killing has been seen after her death.

The 30-minute drama will star Capaldi, Simon Williams, Sara Crowe, Fisayo Akinade and Elliot Levey, and continues the tradition of Christmas ghost stories on the BBC.

In 2008 Gatiss penned Crooked House for Christmas, in 2013 he offered up The Tractate Middoth and last year he wrote The Dead Room, starring Simon Callow.

Gatiss, who penned numerous episodes of Doctor Who starring Capaldi and starred as The Captain in his final Christmas special, said: “After the delightful success of last year’s The Dead Room, it’s a fantastic privilege to continue the tradition of the Christmas Ghost story on BBC Four – and what better than one of my favourite stories by the master of them all, M.R. James?”

The Dead Room was watched by almost one million viewers over the festive period, placing it within BBC Four’s top ten shows of last year, the channel has said.

The ghost story is one of a slew of announcements from BBC Four at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

It will present a fakery season in association with BBC Arts in which Dr Janina Ramirez meets Shaun Greenhalgh, once one of Britain’s most prolific and successful forgers.

In Handmade in Bolton he will put his specialised knowledge to positive use by researching and remaking a selection of precious objects from the past using traditional materials and methods.

Ian Hislop will front Ian Hislop’s Fake News, in which he mines history to identify what motivates fake news and tries to figure out what to do about it.

In Van Meegeren: The Forger Who Fooled The Nazis, Andrew Graham Dixon investigates the story of the 20th century’s greatest art forger, Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, who made millions during the Second World War, selling fake Vermeers in Nazi-occupied Holland.

Meanwhile, The Last Igloo will tell the story of a typical day in the life of an Inuit hunter in arctic Canada and the igloo that he builds on the frozen landscape. The film will be a sensory immersion in the landscape of ice and snow, and is described as “an elegy to a world that is melting away”.

The channel will also follow on from the success of the first part of Charles 1: Downfall of a King history boxset with a new three-part series with the working title Charles I: Death of a King, which focuses on the monarch’s last days, starting with his captivity and the political machinations preceding his trial, leading to the days he took the stand and his execution just a few days later in January 1649.

Cassian Harrison, channel editor at BBC Four, said: “BBC Four has had an amazing year, with sterling programming successes including The Yorkshire Ripper Files and Bros: After The Screaming Stops, and a Channel of the Year award to boot.

“We’ve got an equally exciting year coming up, with content that builds on previous successes but also forges new paths, all of it adding to BBC Four’s distinctive and much-loved position in the UK’s broadcasting landscape.”

#MG #mark gatiss #christmas ghost story #bbc four #peter capaldi #the man behind the genius #all things MG

12 notes · View notes

fatmclassic · 6 years

Text

FATM extras

Heart in a cage-Strokes cover with Dev Hynes

As Far as I could get-RSD exclusive

Pure Feeling-Target HBHBHB US exclusive

Conductor-Target US HBHBHB Exclusive

Tiny Dancer-Elton John cover

Flakes-Cover on Mystery Jet half in Love with Elizabeth EP

Wish that you were here-Miss peregrines home for peculiar children OST

Breath of Life-Snowhite and the huntsmen OST

Over the Love-The Great Gatesby OST

Too much is never Enough- Final Fantasy OST

Fairytale of new york-Pogues cover with Billy Bragg

Galaxy of the lost-Dev Hynes cover

Last Christmas-wham cover

All I want for christmas is a gril with one eye-Cover

Filthy Fingers- Floribble amd miserabella

Between two lungs demo-From special lungs boxset

Falling demo-Drumming song CD single release Bside

Postcards from italy-Beirut cover

Addcited to love-Robert Palmer cover-Island records anniverrasy

Cant speak french-Girls aloud cover

Sunday-Ashok

Anew years anxiety-Ashok

My baby just cares for me-Nina Simone cover with Jools holland

My best dress-Unreleased

I don’t wanna know-Mario Winans cover

I don’t care-Icona pop cover with dev hynes

decadence-Ashok

GET lucky/standing in the way of control-Daft punk/gossip cover

Groove is in the heart-DEE LITE cover

Slow tune-Ashok

Happy slap-Ashok

Under the thumb-ashok

Somethings gotta hold on me-Etta james cover

Girl with one eye (Bayou percusiion version)-Lungs deluxe

Girl with one eye demo

Delilah demo-RSD B-sdie

Back to black-Amy winehouse cover

Heard it through the grapevine-Marvin Gaye cover

Hey Girl-Lady Gaga collab

Donkey Kosh-unreleased

My boy builds coffins demo

Bird song accapella longer version

Halloween-Florrible and miserabella

Small hands-floribble and miserabella

Only love can break your heart-RSD Neil young cover

Little donkey-Video for floribble an dmiserabella

Throwing bricks-Floribble and miserabella

The grouch-greenday cover with DEV

Nice guys finish last-greenday cove rteam perfect

The rat-walkmen cover

When in disgrace with fortune and men eyes-Shakespeare sonnet reading with rufus wainwright

I love you all the Time-Eagles of death metal cover for Bataclan massacre surviviors

Aliens exist-Blink 182 cover team perfect

The chain-Fleetwood mac cover

Going down-Bruce springsteen cover with Kid harpoon

Not Fade away-Buddy Holly cover for compilation album

Oh darling!-beatles cover

All the time-Greenday team perfect cover

Don’t tell me-I’m not calling you a liar demo

Swimming demo

Swimming final version-Itunes UK exclusive

Hitchin a ride-Greenday team perfect cover

Are you hurting the one you love-rabbit heart single Bside

Tear out my tongue-Unreleased

Love hurts-neil young cover with neil young

redundant-Team perfect greenday cover

Scattered-Greenday team perfect

Hospital beds-Cold war kids cover

Part of your world-Little mermaid cover

Halo-beyonce cover

Stay with me-Sam smith cover

If I had a heart-fever ray cover

AAB-Ashok

Lean from the middle-ASHOK

Franky boy-ashok

Geri gigolo-ashok

Stand by me-Cover for Final Fantasy XV

I will be-Final Fantasy XV OST

I’m not calling you a lair-Dragon Age 2 version

I come apart-A$AP Rocky collab

Walking on broken glass-Annie lennox cover

Wild season-Bank and steelz collab

Midnight-Cosmo (Felix white EP)

Radix-ashok

Silver bells-Fleetwood mac cover

Sweet nothing-Calvin harris collab

Fireworks-sings with Drake

Take care-Rihanna cover

Where are u now-Justin beiber cover

Youve got the love-The XX live remix collab

Times like these-Foo fighters cover

Spectrum-Avcii version

Since you been gone-Kelly clarkson cover

Wild wild life-Talking heads cover

Electric feel-MGMT cover (poor quality)

Throwing bricks studio version

Dog days are over-Arcade fire collab version

You got the dirtee love-Dizzee rascal collab

An offering-Rabbit heart demo on lungs special edition boxset

THink-aretha franklin cover

Gimme shelter-live collab with rolling stones

Southern man-Neil young cover/live collab

Heavy in your arms-Twilight eclipse OST

Spectrum (say my name)-Calvin harris remix and video

Hurricane drunk-Scrapped single version with video

Paper massacre-Scrapped song snippet extended

Adams song-Blink 182 cover Team perfect

Platypus I hate you-greenday cover team perfect

Maps-yeah yeah yeah cover (shocking quality sadly)

Rebel rebel-David bowie (poor quality and little footage again)

Don’t let go-en vogue cover

Borderline-madonna cover (messing in her room)

Suspicious minds-Elvis cover with Glasvegas

Jackson-Johnny cash cover with Josh Homme

Try a little tenderness-Otis redding cover

Dog days are over demo-Lungs deluxe

Ye olde hope-Unreleased

Hardest of hearts-Lungs deluxe

Bedroom hymns-Ceremonials deluxe

Landscape demo-Ceremonials deluxe

Strangness and charm-Ceremonials deluxe

Which witch-HBHBHB deluxe

Hiding-HBHBHB deluxe

Make up your mind-HBHBHB Deluxe

Ghosts-I’m not calling you a liar demo- lungs deluxe UK

Falling-Lungs deluxe

Bird song-lungs deluxe

Bird song intro-Lungs deluxe

Remain nameless-Ceremonials deluxe

Never let me go (reworked with Blood orange)

Toothpaste kisses-Live collab with the Maccabees

Still life-Live collab with The Horrors (Good quality)

People have the power-Patti smith cover

Judas-Lady gaga cover as blinding intro

Folsom prison blues-Live cover with pete doherty (awful quality sadly)

Unfinished business-White lies live collab

Girl with one eye featuring Jarvis cocker Live

On board-Friendly fires live collab (once again, quality isn’t great)

The bachelor-Patrick wolf live collab

Here lies love-David byrne and fatboy slim collab for concept musical about imelda marcos

If I rise-Dido cover (stand in for the Oscars)

Wild Horses-rolling stones collab live (not great quality)

Ball in your mouth-Skit with jimmy fallon

Adult Table-as Flo diggity for an SNL skit

You’ve got the Love XX remix-Flo remixes herself live with the XX

#florence and the machine #fatmclassic #may have missed things #Florence Welch

633 notes · View notes

storiescanberewritten · 6 years

Text

In Remembrance by Guy Adams

Ahhhh poor, unloved Class. I recently heard someone say, "Doctor Who is for kids, Torchwood is for adults, Class is for nobody." It always seemed that Class came about at completely the wrong time, just towards the end of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who when big changes for the franchise as a whole were on the way, both in front of and behind the camera. On top of this, the series was announced as a BBC Three exclusive in October 2015 and almost immediately afterwards in November it was announced that BBC Three would be relaunched as an online only channel. By the time Class was launched in October 2016 it was done relatively quietly online rather than being a big blockbuster event worthy of a Doctor Who spin off. Probably seen as the trailblazer of a new era for BBC Three, the series then failed to make the top 20 viewed programmes on the iPlayer at any time in its first seven weeks. The ratings when repeated on BBC One in horribly late night double bills were even worse. That can only be classed as a failed experiment (ho ho).

Regardless of any of this Class was always a strange concept, taking the iconic Doctor Who location of Coal Hill School/Academy and making it the centre of an ongoing Buffy style series featuring monsters, aliens and teen drama. I feel I enjoyed Class more than many others did, although it certainly had its problems (the over-arching Shadowkin storyline being mostly uninteresting was one of them) but the characters really grew on me over the series with the strength of each of the actors really shining through. Unfortunately Class was cancelled after the muted response from its potential audience, but as ever Big Finish audios are here to resurrect any tiny corner of the Doctor Who franchise that they possibly can. And we love them for it. Released last month, the two boxsets each feature three 45 - 60 minute stories set within the first series of Class.

As a whole the boxsets are really strong, avoiding anything but tiny references to the Shadowkin and instead telling more constrained, character driven stories that the actors can really get stuck into. What we are concerned with here on Stories Can Be Rewritten though is the final story of Volume Two, In Remembrance, a sequel of sorts to the hugely popular Seventh Doctor story from 1988, Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch (Ben will be popping up on this blog again very soon!) This audio adventure brings Ace (Sophie Aldred) and the Daleks (Nicholas Briggs) into the present day world of Class, with Ace encountering both Charlie (Greg Austin) and Miss Quill (Katherine Kelly) as she wanders into Coal Hill Academy one night to exterminate a lone Dalek. Big Finish do seem to specialise in crossing over different eras of Doctor Who with each other, often with varying levels of success. Thankfully In Remembrance is one of the more satisfying examples of the trend.

Without going into too much detail of the plot of Remembrance of the Daleks, that story is set in 1963 around and about Coal Hill School and focuses on a civil war between two different factions of Dalek. In Remembrance sees one of these Daleks do a temporal shift into the future to find out how this all pans out and learn anything that might help its unit of Daleks be victorious. For the purposes of this story it is claimed that upon beating the Daleks in 1963, the Doctor and Ace picked up signals warning them of the time travelling Dalek and meant to check it out but got distracted by another adventure. Ace, having left the Doctor, spent time on Gallifrey, and now returned to Earth, remembers the Dalek is about to show up in 2016 and goes to investigate. Charlie manages to get caught up in the tear in time and sends himself back to 1963, leaving the brilliant combination of Ace and Quill to exchange hugely entertaining barbs at each other whilst trying to defeat the Dalek trapped in the school.

The set-up is fairly convoluted then, and relies on retcons to Remembrance of the Daleks and the ability of Ace to be in the right place at the right time in 2016, despite spending most of the last few years on an alien planet. It is absolutely worth it to get Ace and Quill together though because their world views are completely at odds with each other and they immediately start to wind one another up. The constant cynicism of Quill versus the open minded, fun loving Ace is a great match and there's joy for the audience as it dawns on Quill that Ace knows the Doctor, whom she states is "a pain, and not be relied on" and storms away. "Yep, she knows him", malignes Ace with a knowing tone. Sophie Aldred is on top form, even briefly managing to do a convincing impression of herself 30 years ago as she puts on a higher, chirpy voice in a small cameo of young Ace meeting Charlie in 1963. Charlie really does draw the short straw here, getting stuck alone in the past with nothing much to do except run away from Daleks and talk to himself. It's a bit of a waste of Greg Austin's talents to tell the truth, as he really shows his worth in Volume One's Tell Me You Love Me.

The only thing I can really pick on here is the trope of the over-talkative, slightly comic Dalek that seems to come up every so often. The Daleks really are more effective as an unstoppable destructive force. When they stop to have chats things can sometimes go awry. Admittedly, you often need to do this kind of thing to build up a story and stop all Dalek episodes just being exactly the same (as much as that is possible) but sometimes it works better than others. Here Quill ends up trying to repair the Dalek so that it can take her back to 1963 to rescue Charlie, but accidentally harms it in the process. "Arrrrgh! Be more careful!", the Dalek exclaims. Excruciating for me as well as the Dalek. Quill then goes on to mock the Dalek repeatedly which is fine and quite funny, but does mean the Dalek has to rise to her and acknowledge the silly things she is saying about it. Again, this kind of thing should really be above the Daleks, although there is a history there of Daleks being slapstick - a Dalek feeling all sorry for itself and deciding to self destruct because it loses it's captive in Death to the Daleks for example, or the Dalek emerging from underneath a sand dune at the end of episode one of The Chase, coughing and wheezing as it does so!! There's probably room in Doctor Who media for all forms of Dalek to be fair, but there were a couple of moments here were the Dalek seemed a bit too pathetic for my tastes. Having said that, there's also some interesting interplay between Quill and the Dalek, giving us a glimpse at how the Daleks think of themselves other than just the usual "we are the supreme beings!"

Overall the story is a really nice tribute to Remembrance and the 1963 scenes even have some excellent incidental music which sounds very similar to that used in the TV story. The sound effects of the Dalek guns and the exterminations are also those that were used in the late 80s, so it does a great job of putting you back in the mindset of the Seventh Doctor Era, with new twists and wrinkles added of course. With the 30th anniversary of Remembrance of the Daleks coming up in October of this year, it's very satisfying to have this little throwback to my favourite Doctor Who story. Here's hoping the Class crew can return again on audio in the future, maybe even exploring that Weeping Angels plot that was so cruelly teased at the end of Series One. And, with a bit of luck, Ace can join them in the battle too!

#ace #sophie aldred #class #big finish #greg austin #katherine kelly #quill #charlie #guy adams #ben aaronovitch #daleks #dalek #doctor who #dr who #the doctor

4 notes · View notes

the-desolated-quill · 7 years

Text

A List Of The Eighth Doctor Big Finish Audio Dramas In Chronological Order (I Think)

If there are any Big Finish fans who can make sense of this chaos and think I might have missed something out, please feel free to add to this :)

Original Eighth Doctor Monthly Releases

Storm Warning

Sword Of Orion

The Stones Of Venice

Minuet In Hell

Invaders From Mars

The Chimes Of Midnight

Seasons Of Fear

Embrace The Darkness

The Time Of The Daleks

Neverland

Zagreus

Scherzo

The Creed Of The Kromon

The Natural History Of Fear

The Twilight Kingdom

Faith Stealer

The Last

Caerdroia

The Next Life

Terror Firma

Scaredy Cat

Other Lives

Time Works

Something Inside

Memory Lane

Absolution

The Girl Who Never Was

The Eighth Doctor Audio Adventures

Blood Of The Daleks Part 1

Blood Of The Daleks Part 2

Horror Of Glam Rock

Immortal Beloved

Phobos

No More Lies

Human Resources Part 1

Human Resources Part 2

Dead London

Max Warp

Brave New Town

The Skull Of Sobek

Grand Theft Cosmos

The Zygon Who Fell To Earth

Sisters Of The Flame

Vengeance Of Morbius

Orbis

Hothouse

The Beast Of Orlok

Wirrn Dawn

The Scapegoat

The Cannibalists

The Eight Truths

Worldwide Web

Death In Blackpool

An Earthly Child

Situation Vacant

Nevermore

The Book Of Kells

Delmos

The Resurrection of Mars

Relative Dimensions

Prisoner Of The Sun

Lucie Miller

To The Death

Dark Eyes Boxsets

Dark Eyes

The Great War

Fugitives

Tangled Web

X And The Daleks

Dark Eyes 2

The Traitor

The White Room

Time’s Horizon

Eyes Of The Master

Dark Eyes 3

The Death Of Hope

The Reviled

Masterplan

Rule Of The Eminence

Dark Eyes 4

A Life In The Day

The Monster Of Montmarte

Master of The Daleks

Eye Of Darkness

Doom Coalition Boxsets

Doom Coalition 1

The Eleven

The Red Lady

The Galileo Trap

The Satanic Mill

Doom Coalition 2

Beachhead

Scenes From Her Life

The Gift

The Sonomancer

Doom Coalition 3

Absent Friends

The Eighth Place

The Doomsday Chronometer

The Crucible Of Souls

Doom Coalition 4

Ship In A Bottle

Songs Of Love

The Side Of The Angels

Stop The Clock

Ravenous Boxsets

Ravenous 1

Their Finest Hour

How To Make A Killing In Time Travel

World Of Damnation

Sweet Salvation

Ravenous 2

Escape From Kaldor

Better Watch Out

Fairytale Of Salzburg

Seizure

Ravenous 3

Deeptime Frontier

Companion Piece

L.E.G.E.N.D

The Odds Against

Ravenous 4

Whisper

Planet Of Dust

Day Of The Master - Part One

Day Of The Master - Part Two

The Eighth Doctor: The Time War Boxsets

The Time War Series 1

The Starship Of Theseus

Echoes Of War

The Conscript

One Life

The Time War Series 2

The Lords Of Terror

Planet Of The Ogrons

In The Garden Of Death

Jonah

The Time War Series 3

State Of Bliss

The Famished Lands

Fugitive In Time

The War Valeyard

The Time War Series 4

Palindrome - Part One

Palindrome - Part Two

Dreadshade

Restoration Of The Daleks

#eighth doctor #paul mcgann #doctor who #big finish #audio dramas

161 notes · View notes

ysrith · 5 years

Text

A Game of Thrones, or the relief of the long term reader who finally gets an ending to the series she started 22 years ago

22 years ago I picked up a paperback book in the secondhand scifi section in Chapters bookshop in Dublin. The cover looked interesting, a broody looking bloke in black with a white wolf with red eyes. I had read some of George R R Martin’s Wildcard series and I was on the look out for a new fantasy epic so I thought why not. Seriously I bought it on the basis on that Jon Snow looked sexy on the cover. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for and how these books would break me.

I have been reading fantasy since I was 7. Started on Narnia and Alan Garner, moved onto The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, fell in love with Magician and worked my way through the various derivative 80′s staples. I did not care I just loved the genre. By the time Game of Thrones came out though I was bored.

That book was a watershed moment for me. I read a lot of Historical Fiction and History and here was a book that combined Epic Fantasy and the Historical Epic (I had not yet discovered Guy Gavriel Kay - that came later). It blew my mind. And of course I immediately fell in love with Jon Snow. I have always had a thing for the brooding moody loner hero.

Over the next few years I lapped up the next two books, I was delighted, They were coming out regularly and the story was wonderful and then the long wait started. I moved the the UK and waited and waited for the 4th book. Frustration built up. At the same time other fantasy series I had started in the 90′s also failed to deliver the next book, David Farland, Janny Wurts, Melanie Rawn to name a few. So I stopped reading fantasy. I moved over to more historical fiction and history and decided to leave the genre alone.

Someone introduced me to Harry Potter and Jim Butcher, and the urban fantasy/romance fantasy genre. I was in the middle of very stressful postgrad exams so these were a great relief. But I still waited for next book in The Song of Fire and Ice. I needed to know what would happen to Jon Snow.

I moved to Leeds and it was announced that the 5th book was due. I decided to start rereading the books again. I stayed up all night reading A Game of Thrones, it was that good. The 5th book came out. I devoured it and got to the end and flung it across the living room. Not because it was bad, oh it was not not!. Not because I hated the ending. I knew that was coming, it was the only way out of that scenario, but because I knew I would have to wait years to get the resolution.

I waited and waited. I even went to WorldCon and avoided the GRRM talk as I loved the books and did not want my frustration with the delay to ruin it for me. I would check the various websites waiting for news and nothing....

I fell in love with Battlestar Galactica and Stargate Atlantis and started an Ancient History degree.

Finally the TV series arrived. I did not watch it to start with as I did not have Sky Atlantic, but then succumbed and Kit Harrington was my Jon Snow, even if he is a little short, but I fell in love with him again. I patiently watched over the last 9 years because I now knew I would now get my ending. I had a slight panic when it went past the books and GRRM was mumbling about delaying it til he had written the next ones, but knowing publishing knew they had to have the plot line as part of the TV deal, and we got the next season and I got the resolution to my book flinging moment and I screamed with joy, I predicted that as well, but it just seeing it finally made me happy and my entire angst/frustration about never getting the ending vanished. My hope, just like my boy, was resurrected

So 22 years later, it is the end of the Song of Fire and Ice saga.

I have read the leaks, I don’t care if they are true or not, because I get an ending. I once thought that would never happen. Nothing I have read upsets me or feels wrong. It works for me. This is GrimDark fantasy and there are no happy endings. This is the War of the Roses on acid, and that was pretty grim stuff without the Dragons and the White Walkers. This is a world of betrayal and death and no happy endings. There is always a price to pay.

This has always been about Jon for me. I never really liked Daenerys. This probably makes me a bad feminist, but I don’t care, she never made me love her. I never fell in love with Jamie Lannister. I do like Tyrion and Davos, but they did not make me fall in love with them. It was all about Jon.

If Jon dies or ends up on the Throne it doesn’t matter, because for me, I finally an end to his story. I don’t expect to ever see the final two books. If I do I will read them and devour them, but for me after 22 years of waiting this is enough.

I moved counties three times, house 15 times and city 6 times while waiting for this. I did multiple post graduate exams, started a second degree, and developed a serious chronic illness. I have had many fandoms since them and read thousands of books. I even read fantasy again, although only series that are finished. Not falling into that trap ever again. I have lived 22 years of life, and yet I can see myself in the bookshop picking up that book and ogling the cover. I still have it. I also have 2 other editions since then. I never thought I would have to wait this long.

Yesterday I was in the local arts & crafts market and someone had a parchment poster of Jon and Ghost in the North. Jon in the Black, sword drawn, Ghost teeth bared beside him. It is almost, but not quite, the same image that made me pick up the first book all those years ago. And of course bought it.

I know what ending I want for Jon. The leaks suggest I will get it We will see. I am not going to be heartbroken if it is not the one I want, as finally his story comes to an end.

Game of Thrones has been an epic for me. The long wait, the pain and the pleasure of reading and watching it. It made me both hate and love fantasy. No matter how this ends, it has been a saga and epic and I will always both love and hate it.

Once it ends I am going to get all the boxsets and just sit and watch them again. I may even reread the books, once they are all finally published. But I am going to read Tad William’s Memory Sorrow and Thorn first. It also had a moody antihero that I fell in love with and I didnt have to wait 22 years for his ending, but while it is brilliant it was not the same and he still was not Jon Snow.

#gameofthrones #jonsnow #ASONGOFFIREANDICE #fantasy #grrm

0 notes

simonslittlepuff · 7 years

Text

MOVIE NIGHT (snowbaz feda)

Y’ALL IM BACK W/ DAY 5 HERE WE GO IT’S TIRED AND IM DRAINED also this was meant to come out yesterday but i added it to my drafts instead of adding it to my queue LOL

@snowbaz-feda

also bless up wiki for being my saviour about wolf creek

word count: 545

summary: AU where everyones fav ot3 had movie nights at watford

triggers: none !!

ok so back at Watford, Penny could get into the boys dorm

so let’s talk abt an AU where simon, penny & baz were Squad Goals™️ and always had movie nights in Simon and Baz’s dorm

the first official movie night was in fourth year

14 year old Baz thought he was top shit and found some creepy ass horror movie

13 year old Simon wanted to go with a nostalgic theme and found the first movie he remembers seeing as a child

and 14 year old Penny found a Star Wars boxset under her roommate’s bed and took it for the night

it started on Friday night, right after lights out

they spelled the room so it was soundproof and they put Baz’s horror movie in the contraband laptop he bought with him from home

so they’re watching Wolf Creek

idk about u but im too pussy to watch this aussie cracker and im 16 so imagine these kids watching it

big mistake

by the time they’re up to the part where Liz finds all the tapes, Penny slams the laptop closed

she has had enough

usually penny can handle shit like that but nope not this

she almost hits Baz she is not happy

whereas simon just zoned out completely and tried to block the movie out of his mind

baz was fine says he’d ‘seen worse’

penny calls bullshit but doesn’t push it

they decide simon probs has a nicer movie and they put Toy Story

in a much better mood, they begin to quote it

baz fucks something up so everyone attacks him for it

you know like that typo you make in the squad chat and it becomes a meme

well that’s what happens to baz

merciless kids they are

it hits 2am and A New Hope is put on

Penny’s the only one who’s seen it because her older brother loves Star Wars

she’s having the time of her life watching the boys reaction to it

‘PENNY LOOK AT THEIR LIFESAVERS’

‘lightsabers simon, they’re lightsabers’

baz lost his shit at the end

baz lost his shit throughout the whole movie tbh

he has now dubbed himself the ultimate star wars fan

next week they watch the rest of the movies all weekend

(no homework was done)

the final movie night they did was the week before everything went down at Christmas

the perks of being a wallflower, the breakfast club and high school musical 3

tears were shed over the first two

and through red eyes, they screamed the lyrics to hsm3

penny stayed over the night

they pushed the two beds together

it was a good night

one of the last good days together before the humdrum

#ash writes #snowbaz feda #carry on #simon x baz #snowbaz #simon snow #penny bunce #baz pitch #snowbaz drabble #rainbow rowell

38 notes · View notes

teddyaltman · 7 years

Note

Do the odds 🐢

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? i have cereal dry bc milk is gross but i do like cereal as a snack3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? mostly plane tickets or train tickets

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? yes altho i used to be worse7: do you name your plants? i only have one plant and no it has no name but now i feel bad, what should i name my plant???? 9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? Y E S always its a running joke at work that i’m always singing to myself

11: what's an inner joke you have with your friends? my mind has gone blank idk 13: what's something that made you smile today? texting15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! “you are taller in space” - this is fuckin me up cos princess leia is sO TINY imagine how small she would be on earth im emotional17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? i actually rly like my hair the colour it is at the moment but i’d prob go darker to try it rather than super blonde again idk19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? no im not organised enough for a journal but i do doodle in my work diary when i finish a to do list21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that's been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. i love my backpack that i haggled for in venice it’s blue and white and super comfy and i love it23: what's your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? netflix (and cuddling~)25: what's the weirdest place you've ever broken into? i broke into my friends house once by crawling through the kitchen window bc she forgot her house key27: what's your favorite bubblegum flavor? bubblegum flavor? idk?29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? dan always squeezes my hand rly tight when he’s happy and i love it when he’s happy31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. i rly like socks, especially when they’re fun socks i hate just black or just white socks!! i like to wear them to bed too otherwise the monsters might get my feet but if its super hot i might not. i don’t always wear socks in the day but i’ll mostly put them on for bed

33: what's your fave pastry? uh idk but i had an amazing vegan donut in dublin it was delicious 35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? i like pens but just like basic bic pens i like to have lots and lots but uh i like looking at stationary in paperchase but i rarely use it37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? i like it clean but it is often messy because i am Terrible39: what color do you wear the most? burgundy! 41: what's the last book you remember really, really loving? i read an anthology (the last one) from the otherworld series when i was in aus and honestly it was great i loved it so much that series means so much to me and it ended so many characters stories in a beautiful way43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? i have no idea tbh45: do you trust your instincts a lot? close my eyes and leap? uh yeah i try to trust my gut!47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? pineapple49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? i don’t rly buy physical cds anymore and i don’t have my own record player so~ i bought ed sheeran’s new songs last night on itunes??51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? marygrace - mr brightside53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? yes, yes, no, yes - i love rocky horror and i wanna see it live, heathers is Great, and pulp fiction is p good!55: what's the most dramatic thing you've ever done to prove a point? lmao i am a dramatic person idk i’ve probably done a lot of dumb shit57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? i cba but i could sing it from memory and yes of course59: what's your favorite myth? uhh idk i don’t rly have a fav??? i do like mythology tho esp greek stuff and i read some p cool fantasy books based on myths and metahumans61: what's the stupidest gift you've ever given? the stupidest one you've ever received? lmao i don’t even know omg my sister got me condoms once??63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? okay so my DVDs are all alphabetical except disney classics which have their own section, and boxsets are also separate, my books are in cubes and they’re sorted by age, also author and in series when applicable. also there’s a star wars section. i can’t wait to have my own place so i can get proper bookshelves tho tbh65: is there anyone you haven't seen in a long time who you'd love to hang out with? my cousin adam! he lives in greece and i didn’t manage to go visit him over christmas when he was home which was sad 67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? a lil gloomy but then i’ll take buddy for a walk and we’ll bounce along together and he always makes me feel better69: what are your favorite board games? trivial pursuit, bezzerwizzer, pointless, articulate, taboo, pictionary, citadels, life ... i love board games71: what's your favorite kind of tea? anything fruity73: what are some of your worst habits? biting my nails, speaking too loud, chewing ice75: tell us about your pets! MY BABIES okay i have two dogs; meg is a black lab and she’s an ol lady now but she’ll always be my angel girl and she got me thru some dark times in high school tbh, okay then my boy - Buddy Boo Rainbow Maurice is his official name (blame my sister) but my lil buddy he’s my saviour honestly, so he’s a beagle cross but we dunno what with and he’s HUGE like a beagle on steroids but with his lil beagle face and floppy ears like goddamn cutest ever tbh he’s such a bundle of joy i love him So muhc. then i have 3 chickens (we used to have 5 RIP) and they’re called Dragon, Jemima and Sue Ellen (yes, she’s mine, yes named after a Dallas char) they’re p chill i read to them sometimes last summer we read the book thief and hp philosophers stone77: pink or yellow lemonade? yellow79: what's one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? dan’s mum invited me to spend christmas with them when she found out my family were going away and she made me a special christmas eve present like i was just ~another kid in the family and i went again this year and honestly it’s just the sweetest thing i love them all so much and they’re all so welcoming and wonderful and i don’t deserve such goodness in my life (also shoutout to delani who drove all the way to may and kate’s to surprise me for new years!!!)81: describe one of your friend's eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. like the sea when a storm is brewing, but with a hint of steel underneath and the sun is still just visible on the horizon83: what's some of your favorite album art? tswizzle speak now, ed sheeran + ??? idk i use spotify on my phone mostly i don’t look at album art hahah85: do you read comics? what are your faves? sometimes, i like anything about girls tbh87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? The Holiday, Star Wars, The Parent Trap, Rear Window, 17 Again, It’s a Wonderful Life89: are you close to your parents? yes they’re my heroes91: where do you plan on traveling this year? canada! hopefully disneyworld too, and i;d like to see more european cities; lisbon, krakow, berlin!!93: what's the hairstyle you wear the most? i either shove my hair in a bun, braid it or wear it down 95: what are your plans for this weekend? hang out with my friends!97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? INTJ, scorpio, gryffindor99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. little miss, ours, truth in your eyes, follow your arrow, sugar we’re going down, a thousand miles, she is the sunlight, cotton eye joe

#omg this took forever #long post #about me #question time #hotgirlwizard

5 notes · View notes

adventures-of-mum · 5 years

Text

The Rollercoaster

[07:52] Matt In Poland: How are you feeling lovely? x

[07:55] Madeleine: Hard to say. Sometimes wonderful. Sometimes terrible. He is AMAZING. I am very very very very very very tired. But mostly on a positive trajectory with blips and setbacks along the way. It's the longest rollercoaster I've ever been on. Although I've never actually been on a rollercoaster to be fair.

As someone whose stomach flips upside down when a car goes over a bump in the road quickly and whose legs turn to jelly on the way up a spiral staircase, I'm not sure I'm qualified to say that becoming a parent is like going on a roller coaster. Nonetheless, from having merely seen those rides with their ups, downs, steep drops and rapid climbs, and of course, everyone’s favourite, the loop the loop, when my friend recently asked me how I was, I went out on a limb and made the comparison anyway.

At the start, you're strapped in, excited but with not without some nerves, some sense of trepidation. For straps, read essential parenting items like a pram, nappies, a cot. We were sitting next to each other before the ride began, physically at scans and appointments, watching our hypnobirthing course and plenty of boxsets on the sofa, and metaphorically in our support of one another as we counted down the days.

Then it begins. A ride so exhilarating, terrifying, exciting, joyful, challenging and unlike the rollercoasters you pay to go on, never-ending. Sometimes you are hurtling towards a huge drop, not able to stop the tears, or the feeling that this is simply too hard. Other times you are flying high on love and wonderful baby smiles and gurgling, cooing laughter, wanting to hear your baby giggle forever. Plenty of times you are going round and round, hopefully not loop the loop but sometimes it feels like it, with nappy changing, feeds, naps, getting out the playmat and toys, putting back the playmat and toys, and all the while trying to stay grounded, not lose sight of your own needs to eat, sleep, wash, rest, talk to your partner, exercise, and occasionally do something or talk about something that isn't baby related.

At its hardest, becoming a mum has forced me to question, to challenge and to doubt everything I thought I knew about myself. My resilience, my confidence and my competence all called into question by no one other than me (I hope) as I sob tears of exhaustion and frustration. I’ve run marathons and climbed Kilimanjaro- so why am I so physically exhausted? I’ve worked in war zones and listened to the stories of people affected by violence and conflict- so why am I crying at the smallest thing now? I know a fair amount about mental health including that we can all experience poor mental health at some point or another- so it is ‘my turn’ now? I am used to balancing lots of different activities, relationships, and plans – so why am I so mentally drained that I keep calling the oven the fridge and the fridge the oven (cooking crises so far averted, thank goodness)? Feelings of uncertainty, of guilt, of fear, of concern and of despair have all made their presence known throughout the last six months. “Mother’s guilt” gets discussed quite a bit and I understand why- even writing this paragraph has involved me having to override feelings of guilt that I’m somehow giving the world an unfair impression of my wonderful son and our time together. Learning, very slowly, to forgive myself for these feelings and dare I say it, be kind to myself (as of course I’m really good at advising my friends to be) is all part of the process. Sometimes I’m pleased with my progress. I bought myself a t-shirt covered in stars that I’d seen in the sale because I decided that morning that I was one. Later that day I felt pathetic thinking a t-shirt with stars would make any difference and I called my dad crying, simply saying ‘I can’t do it. It’s too hard.’

There’s more said about the mental health of new parents than ever before but still I’ve been asked just once about my mental health since having a baby. My GP asked “you seem ok, are you ok?” at my baby’s six week check-up. I saw a flyer about sessions of singing for new mums with their babies and filled in the questionnaire to see if I was eligible to take part. It asked questions like ‘do you sometimes blame yourself if things don’t go well?’ and ‘do you sometimes feel like you’re not doing a good enough job?’ This sounded to me like the experience of being a woman, never mind a mother! I qualified for the sessions and have been lucky enough to take part in twelve weeks of free music making with Lorcan. But I sought this out, I went looking. What about people who don’t or can’t?

Back on the rollercoaster, together, Lorcan and I with his dad and our family and friends, climb up out of the lows and soar higher than ever. Suddenly everything feels light, you have a spring in your step that you had no idea you could still find. You fizz with feelings of joy, of promise and happy expectation and of feeling like actually, you can do this. This rollercoaster goes higher than any other. A new sound from his perfect little mouth, a face that looks up at you with innocent curiosity and then turns into a smile, a noise from the cot that reveals the nap is over which makes you smile without thinking- your little one is squealing with excitement, with joy at simply being alive. When you look at the clock and it's far too early to be awake but you go into see your baby and there he is- legs kicking, eyes sparkling, face lit up to see you, it makes every early morning utterly and completely worth it. Watching him learn to move as he puts his little bottom in the air, seeing him intently grab at a rattle, a tambourine or a book he wants to digest (as in, books go straight into this mouth) or giving him a taste of cucumber and seeing his face crinkle as he considers this new and fascinating food he's watched us eat, face agog, is more entertainment than we could ever have hoped for. Learning what makes him smile and laugh and wriggle and giggle is a joy. Seeing him stop and stare when music goes on, when someone new comes into the room, or when giving mint and sage and rosemary a sniff for the first time in the garden; what you are watching, and what you are part of, is someone discovering the whole world and you get to rediscover it with him at the same time.

My husband bestowed the greatest ever compliment on our son a few weeks ago when he said to him 'who needs TV when you're around eh Lorcan?' High praise indeed. I have been lucky to have many days where everything has just slotted into place. Lorcan smiles and plays and explores and eats and sleeps. I do the same. If there are any tears they are only happy ones. We enjoy time at home, time in the park, and time when Dad comes home all together. Nothing in the world beats these days - apart from the weekends when Dad is with us all the time. There were days like this last week- meals made, naps had, washing done, playtime enjoyed, one baby salsafit class completed with a sweaty happy mum and a sweaty sleepy baby. After that class, I woke up the next morning with aches, pains, a blocked up nose and a sore throat and I remembered that I hadn't magically climbed off the rollercoaster whilst we were in the clouds. But regardless, I know that this rollercoaster is a ride I never want to get off.

When I was pregnant I asked friends for their top three tips of things they relied upon in the first six months. This was to avoid feeling overloaded by the amount of ‘stuff’ that having a baby seems to mean you automatically need. One answer came back- ‘a sense of humour’. It wasn’t what I’d been looking for, but it was absolutely true and I hold it with me all the time. Smiling through tears, laughing through exhaustion, seeing joy and wonder in as much as you can (taking lessons in this from your baby), and not punishing yourself if sometimes that just doesn’t seem possible, is what this is all about.

Being a parent is learning to accept your own fragility, your utter dependence on other human beings, and realising that what you may have once called failures are simply experiences that help you next time. It is feeling pain like no other when your child screams as their gums break and teeth peek through. It’s picking yourself up, literally off the floor and metaphorically in your mind, time and time and time again because your child comes first, no matter how you feel. It’s a rollercoaster. Being a parent is laughing at 3.30am because your baby is awake, squealing with delight and no one has any idea why. It’s crying tears of joy as your baby sits in his bath and shakes his shoulders laughing loudly at the sound of his Dad pretending to have a wash. It’s marvelling at how bodily fluids can cause such hilarity. It’s finding the facial expression of someone tasting apple for the first time amazing to watch. It is seeing your five month old in a highchair and wondering if the rest of your life will fly by this quickly and realising that life is for living, laughing and loving, as much as you can, every day.

#parenting parenthood mum mentalhealth rollercoaster newbaby newparent

0 notes

magicofthepen · 1 year

Text

I posted 1,161 times in 2022

71 posts created (6%)

1,090 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sircarolyn

@natequarter

@whifferdills

@magicofthepen

@presidentromana

I tagged 1,161 of my posts in 2022

#q. - 366 posts

#general - 281 posts

#gallifrey audios - 249 posts

#doctor who - 202 posts

#romana - 104 posts

#star wars - 104 posts

#gallifrey spoilers - 96 posts

#leela - 91 posts

#the locked tomb - 91 posts

#steven universe - 83 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#because that’s gonna make the reunion — because a reunion between leela and narvin at least feels pretty inevitable — hit that much harder)

My Top Posts in 2022:

War Room 1 Thoughts

My first listen, immediate reactions and emotions and ramblings below the cut. (There are. a lot of ramblings.) Spoiler free summary is that I enjoyed the boxset overall—I really liked a majority of the episodes, and I loved two of them. And even the one I was meh about, I didn’t dislike, it just felt like the weak link of the boxset.

THE LAST DAYS OF FREME

I listened to the preview the other day, so see this post for my initial thoughts on the first 15 minutes.

(….and whoops I have more thoughts on the first 15 minutes.)

I love how Leela is resisting the Time Lords in such a visceral, physical way at the beginning. While she isn’t as fearless as she wants them to believe, she’s far more willing to fight back when it’s her own life (or well-being) being threatened. And she has been through so much, it feels like it’s all coming out in one drawn out scream as the Time Lords try to control her.

But then: I do think Rassilon invoking Romana (even if he’s claiming she’s dead) is a way to subtextually dangle her over Leela’s head.

I do like quite like the new theme! The mood of it is so different from Time War despite not sounding that dramatically different (if that makes sense??)—but the energy it has feels right for this boxset. Time War was a plunge further and further into despair, and at last there are glimmers of hope. (….whether that hope will last is another question though.)

“Do I have a choice?” god this line is so raw. Leela’s choices have been taken away from her so much.

Lou Morgan Gets Leela so well, please let her keep writing Gallifrey. (This is going to be a running theme here.) Anger is her default way of dealing with grief, she’s drowning in grief and rage throughout the story, it’s so devastatingly good.

I thought it was in shame in Time War 4 that Richard Armitage’s Rassilon spent most of the time monologuing—I’m glad a main character gets to properly interact with him here. I’m even more glad about the amount of times Leela threatens to kill him. Extremely in character. I would have been disappointed if that didn’t happen.

And there’s a “coming full circle” horror with Leela and Rassilon. He violated Leela’s autonomy the first time they met by shoving himself into her mind and possessing her. And now he’s violating her autonomy again, dehumanizing her and trying to make her a tool of the Time Lords, having a literal collar placed around her neck to restrict what she can do.

“You are a ghost.” The Matrix projection of Ollistra’s earlier incarnation is a bit reminiscent of Pandora—a ghost from the Matrix rising again in a body that should be gone. That parallel makes Leela’s horror at Ollistra’s nature make even more sense.

“since Romana’s imprisonment in the Vault dimension” The General does know what really happened to Romana. Interesting, since Rassilon speaks as though she’d dead, in public and in private.

“She is a blunt instrument. A tool. Nothing more complicated than that.” oh this episode is going hard on Leela being dehumanized.

In Time War 2, it took until Episode 3 to have the Time Lords wipe out a planet, and that was the worst thing they’d done, an inconceivable atrocity. And now that’s the baseline. That’s what they’re starting Leela out with. It really drives home how much worse the War has gotten, how the Time Lords don’t blink at atrocities, and I love that this boxset didn’t shy away from going there immediately.

“Would the Oubliette not be more practical?” Confirmation that it’s officially returned. Although it’s odd that they assume the Daleks will know if they Oubliette the planet, but not if they destroy it through other means?

The General shows flickers of compassion to Leela, but also clearly has Rassilon’s ear. He’s a fascinating character—he comes off a sympathetic in comparison to other Time Lords because he’s kinder on a personal level, but in this episode he actively tries to persuade Leela to commit genocide. There’s a different kind of horror in the soldier who is squeamish about torturing one person who he knows, but justifies murdering billions as a necessity.

“One hundred microspans” oh the audios are back to using microspans, are they?

“Home. Some of us have no home left to return to.” I realize this was absolutely not meant as a Unity reference, but there are no Unity references, so I have to selectively interpret things where I can. Anyways, friendly reminder that the home Leela had built and found peace in for almost two decades was still only recently blown up, and her family lost to her in different ways.

I love Leela’s malicious compliance with Time Lord orders. Exactly the energy I was hoping for!!

The General is displaying typical Gallifreyan supremacist attitudes when he’s talking and an absolute willingness to follow orders in this first episode. He’s wriggling around his orders by the end of the boxset, and obviously by the time of the TV show he’s ready to defy Rassilon. But he still has a dangerous and terrible loyalty to Gallifrey.

“She doesn’t appear to be a savage.” Leela encounters one (1) person who views her as a person.

Ohhh the themes of grief—the meeting hall is the memorial hall, the walls are built to honor the dead.

“But you leave them behind.” This sounds like an accusation, but I read it differently knowing that Leela has, not so long ago, left her own dead behind when Veega died on Unity. (You didn’t ask for me to keep bringing everything back to Unity, but I’m afraid this is what you’re going to get with me.) And then she left Narvin behind—to die, as far as she knows. So I wonder how much of this comment is an accusation against herself, a desire for someone to justify it, to tell her that leaving the dead behind isn’t dishonoring them.

“Come, eat.” I’m sorry, I burst out laughing here….I’ve joked before about how Lou Morgan has a running theme of side characters making sure the main characters are fed and rested in her episodes (Nevernor and Dissolution), and although Leela didn’t get a proper rest in this one, she still got a brief respite from Time Lord control, and a side character insisting that she eat. Incredible. I hope the streak continues. 😄

Why doesn’t Leela try to warn the Fremians as soon as possible? Is it just fear of what the Time Lords will do to her? Is she biding her time to see if she can come up with a plan?

Veklin wants to go back for Leela and not leave her to die, but she would destroy a whole world — a terrible subjective morality.

goddd I love how this episode is in dialogue with Collateral. The plot is so reminiscent of Collateral: Time Lords about to destroy a planet, the people of the world braced to evacuate (for one reason or another), and our main character(s) trying desperately to save people. This episode is an echo and an answer to the despair of Time War 2, a chance to put Leela in the same situation Romana and Narvin were in (sort of), and a chance to write a different ending, and I love it.

Leela keeps asking questions and testing Argatro’s willingness to trust her. It’s like she’s trying to verify that he does see her as a person, and like she’s testing herself to see that if her honor and morality are still intact. The questions are for herself too: is she worthy of his trust?

See the full post

35 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

can we talk about seventy or eighty years? can we just process that for a minute?

Narvin hasn’t seen Leela in a human lifetime. he’s had no idea what happened to Romana all that time. he’s clinging onto memories and mementos of his old friends (Ace’s arcade TARDIS that he rescued from the trash heap oh my god). he’s thrown himself into the Resistance not knowing if he’ll ever see Leela and Romana again. if he’ll ever see the people he loves again.

god of course he was ready to tell Leela he loves her. he has been carrying that love and grief around for so long, all bottled up inside him, ready to burst. we saw how much Narvin was drowning in feelings just after losing Romana and Leela for a day or so in Dissolution, and now he’s had decades of yearning and not knowing, this Time Lord is absolutely brimming over with emotion when he sees Leela again, and I am wrecked

35 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

21 2021 Gallific Recs

I meant to get this out much earlier, but maybe with the recent Gallifrey announcement, now is a good time!

2021 was an impressive year for Gallifrey fic – 123 fics were posted or updated in the main Gallifrey tag on ao3, which is the most of any year so far! I haven’t read all of them, but I wanted to shoutout a handful of Gallifrey (and Gallifrey-adjacent) fics that I really enjoyed.

(Obviously this list is going to reflect my personal tastes, so I encourage folks to go check out Gallifrey’s and Big Finish’s ao3 tags themselves because there’s a lot of great writing happening. ❤️)

Listed in order of publication date:

All That is Left by @irving-braxiatel (T, ~700 words) — The last conversation between Romana and Narvin in the Beyond universe.

the other side of the war by @theladyjojogrant (G, 12k) — Romana, Leela, Narvin, and Braxiatel finding each other after the Time War. Set around Hell Bent.

Like the Blind Man by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 4.5k) — Romana in the immediate aftermath of Etra Prime, ft. an early interaction with Leela and an emotionally complicated conversation with Brax.

wishing for some magic film to make this moment last forever by @fortes-fortuna-iogurtum (G, 1.7k) — Narvin discovers telepathic photos of Leela and Ace, after losing them in the Time War.

it’s a wonder we keep going without you by @sircarolyn (G, 4k) — An exploration of Leela’s feelings towards those she’s lost and left behind, set during her time on Unity and after.

Our Hearts Will Be Closer by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 2.7k) — While wrapping up a mission, Leela and Narvin accidentally drink an emotional anti-repressant and get very cuddly with each other and Romana.

In Books Written By Rabbits by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 2.3k) — Leela visits Brax after Narvin’s death in Enemy Lines—surprising vulnerability ensues.

descansos by @sircarolyn (T, 4k) — Romana, tumbling through a nightmare landscape of her failures and traumas.

In the Drift by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 1.5k) — Romana and Narvin, grieving Leela after The Devil You Know and finally opening up to each other.

space and time, waking hours before i open my eyes, i feel my heart crack open by @sircarolyn (G, 3k) — Narvin and Leela, reunited and on a mission to rescue Romana. Post-Homecoming.

I’m Still Here by @theladyjojogrant (G, 11k) — Ace in the aftermath of Soldier Obscura. How she grapples with the gaps in her memory and eventually fills them, ft. Ace and Narvin’s friendship.

hold onto hope, if you got it by @theladyjojogrant (G, 1.3k) — Romana and Narvin leaning on each other during a late night after losing Leela.

stages of grief by @natequarter (T, 3k) — An exploration of Leela’s grief for Andred (when he’s missing and when he dies), ft. what happened to his confession dial.

The Most Arrogant of the Species by @presidentromana (T, 5.5k) — not exactly a Gallifrey fic, but the canon-in-my-heart backstory for Sartia, Romana’s one (1) friend from her Academy days who wasn’t erased from time. (psst….you should listen to Skin of the Sleek/The Thief Who Stole Time.)

the only touch i know is violence by @natequarter (T, 1k) — Romana attempts to talk to Brax while grappling with flashbacks of Etra Prime.

Romana the Promise by @presidentromana (T, 18k) — Star Wars AU where Romana and Sartia are apprentices to Sith Lord Pandora (in the past) and Romana is re-captured and tortured by Pandora (in the present). The rest of the Gallifrey squad also appears!

ad astra by @natequarter (T, 4k) — An exploration of the long-term physical and emotional effects of Etra Prime on Romana — it digs into the impact of the Doctor abandoning her and provides a bit of healing. Set pre-Gallifrey.

your face when you laugh, all my worries fade by @sircarolyn (G, 2.3k) — Leela finds an entertainment screen one day on Unity. Eventually, Leela and Veega talk about their feelings.

though the nightmares aren’t real, they still hurt by @whoteacheswho (G, 2.2k) —Tre, caught between one timeline and the next, unsure which of her memories are real.

for want of an ego by @natequarter (T, 6k) —The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan run into Eris and end up working together to find Romana.

fireside negotiations by @theuncertainhour (T, 2k) — Romana, Leela, and Narvin huddle around a fire on an Axis world—and find other ways to keep warm.

35 notes - Posted February 22, 2022

New Gallifrey drops in July!

Gallifrey's moral compass is lost, Rassilon rules, and Romana is gone. But it’s not the end, it’s just the beginning...

Gallifrey is at war. At the heart of the Capitol, the War Room co-ordinates the fight against the Daleks.

Leela has been forced into service, alongside the General and his soldiers, taking orders from Cardinals Rasmus and Ollistra.

But this being Gallifrey, politics are never forgotten. Some serve Rassilon, some serve themselves, and some have their own cause. The Time War will test them all.

Louise Jameson (Leela)

Ken Bones (The General)

Nicholas Briggs (Daleks)

Beth Chalmers (Veklin)

Chris Jarman (Rasmus)

Carolyn Pickles (Ollistra)

40 notes - Posted February 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

New Gallifrey cover!

82 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#year in review #gallifrey brain as always #and ooh nice to circulate this old fic rec post again!#gallifrey audios #ramblings #gallifrey spoilers

0 notes