39 year old female from North Lancashire, England. You can also find me as laal ratty on fanfic.net, ao3 and as laalratty on Youtube. Also as laalratty1 on Steam. As you may have guessed, I'm a bit of a Riddler fan in general and of the RiddleCat ship in particular.
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Until today, I didn't realise I needed to hear Romana be called that. 10/10 audio drama. :D
Anyway, spoilers for Square One. Another long post. Hm, if only I had this much energy for other stuff...
This is my favourite Gallifrey audio drama so far. Maybe even one of my favourite audio dramas overall. (Yup. This is the second episode.)
So, firstly, there's the K9s. K9 mark II is insistent on calling K9 mark I an inferior unit. K9, whichever version, is usually 90% normal, logical robot and 10% randomly says something that could be construed as an opinion. E.g. "You are a very stupid machine." when talking to the TARDIS in 'The Invasion of Time'.
At best, the K9s tolerate each other as if they were both dealing with an annoying coworker but have to be civil.
They haven't interacted directly yet though and there's a reason they're never left in the same room together by Leela or Romana. Mostly convenience. But I can interpret it how ever I want and if I want the K9s to have a workplace conflict then so be it.
As for the story, it's pretty interesting.
I think the ending is what really brings it together. Hossak is the antagonist in this audio drama but her actions aren't easily dismissed as evil. She deliberately kept going back in time to try again so as to broker peace between all the Temporal Powers. Of course, Hossak herself isn't so much of a good person.
For one, she wanted to erase Romana from existence to achieve her goal and showed delight in wanting to do so. Probably because Romana tricked her by holding another summit elsewhere and she was bitter about having worked so long on this only for it to be a fake.
For another, she showed no care for Lexi (a dancer and prostitute) and called her a slut. You could suggest that she has some subconscious misogynism since words like slut have been used to shame women whenever they dared to be the slightest amount of promiscuous. I'm sure she'd consider sex workers of other genders just as repulsive but the fact that she used the word slut and not something more gender neutral implies that she was specifically attacking Lexi for being a female prostitute. Then there's the Time Lord superiority that she feels she has over all the other species, such as how she treats Leela and the lack of care she has for her.
Hossak is hypocritical too. Saying that she had hoped Leela was there so as to be an example against the xenophobia on Gallifrey, that anyone from any culture just like her could thrive there. I don't think she's able to recognise that she's xenophobic too just to a less extreme extent.
Anyway, back to my original point. Hossak's crime being her interference with time. The only real difference between Romana's trickery and Hossak's trickery is that one was government sanctioned while the other wasn't. So, Hossak gets trialed but Romana doesn't. Both had good intentions but only Romana's effort was rewarded.
It's enough to pity Hossak even if she's not that great of a person.
It must be existentially frightening to live in a universe with time travel. As Leela says at the end:
"When the things we live through, which shape us, could be wiped away like footprints in dust, changed, then where is the meaning?"
That's horrifying. You could be a completely different person the next day because someone decided to intervene and you'd get no say in it. Romana ends up replying to this without engaging with Leela's concern since there's not really a way to answer it. Meaning is subjective. Instead, she says that:
"I am respecting you. Perhaps that's where the meaning lies"
A vague answer, for sure. Generally, people find meaning in friends and family so for Romana to choose respect is curious. She demands respect constantly and she always gives respect but she doesn't take it away from anyone, at least not so far. I'd say this links back to the Etra Prime incident where she was constantly dehumanised as TV Romana didn't place an emphasis on it. She doesn't want anyone else to be treated in that way, especially not herself.
The murder of Lexi that happens and then doesn't happen never gets any justice which bothers Leela. I doubt that Flinkstab was ever held accountable, even for his previous murder. I doubt his unwritten murder of Lexi occurred accidentally, such a thing doesn't happen twice. Especially if the first incident haunts you. Also, how do you accidentally murder someone in that way? He says that the girl just broke, that she wasn't strong enough. I'm sorry, what? Most importantly, there's no way he didn't notice. I'm fairly sure he disregarded her wellbeing entirely in favour of his own desires and only felt bad for her murder because it would get him in trouble. Flinkstab is a nightmare that I hope dies out in the real world.
Side note, this is the third time sex workers have been mentioned in the audio dramas I've listened to. It's not really relevent but to go from 'haha i'll hide a sex innuendo joke' tv show to 'no sex allowed' tv show to 'sex is real' audio dramas makes it pop out to me more. I do appreciate that whenever sex workers are in the story, it's in a way that isn't negative towards them. They're written as normal people, although they've always been women thus far.
I really love how the audio dramas have no filter. They know that kids aren't going to be listening to this so they just go all out.
Okay, last few thoughts now.
So, Narvin. He's obviously not on the same side as Romana even if he works for her. They disagree often and Narvin doesn't trust the other Temporal Powers at all. He's the kind of xenophobe who tries to make his xenophobia sound reasonable and logical. He doesn't harm anyone physically for being non-Gallifreyan so in his mind, it's all sensible. Just keeping Gallifrey and time safe by limiting risks. Of course, the only reason he doesn't trust the other species with time is because they're not Gallifreyan. Similarly, the other Temporal Powers don't trust each other because they're different species. Lots of xenophobia to go around, it seems. I'm sure he's hoping Romana gets disposed soon so that someone who he considers more sensible can take over. He tolerates her to be professional but only for that.
Braxiatel doesn't get much to do in this audio drama, same as the last one. He's more of an advisor and Romana's political ally as she trusts him to handle something as delicate as the real temporal summit. She sends Narvin to handle the fake one as she doesn't trust him enough to handle diplomacy properly. Hence why she came up with several pre-recorded hollogram speeches to intervene in case he manages to mess up the fake summit. Narvin's such a mess. :)
Romana's shown to be more calculating than her TV self ever gets to be. I know the consensus is that Romana's the Doctor's equal in the TV show but... It's Classic Who. Remember? Misogynistic Classic Who? She might get to be more intelligent than the other companions but she's rarely allowed to solve anything with that intelligence. It's always the Doctor who gets to save the day in the show.
Anyway. Audio drama Romana. She really gets to show off her intellect in this audio drama. A whole plan she thought out, the way she figures out what Hossak had been doing, just everything and with such ease too. Something gets messed up, she doesn't take the time to worry and just fixes it. She could get erased but she goes on to do what's needed anyway.
It's interesting how she reacts to the potential of being erased. If she is suicidal, she still doesn't want her entire existence to be erased. It'd be all for nothing if that happened. It wouldn't further her goals and she wouldn't have had a purpose.
I don't have much to say on Leela yet. She clearly feels out of place and she latches onto whatever comfort of home she can get. I think she's going to end up hating Gallifrey because of the constant xenophobia she faces.
Finally, time is messy. Bells, microspans, spans, etc. I'm pretty sure it's only used as a measurement of time in the audio dramas since I've never heard it used in any of the Gallifrey based episodes in the show. Seems to be regularly used by each of the Temporal Powers.
Span was used in The Invasion of Time though but as a measure of distance.
I think it's been a few days between Weapon of Choice and Square One since the inquiry instigated by Narvin was said to take place in two weeks after the Weapon of Choice.
Also, I found this while trying to figure out what microspans and spans mean:
Makes sense. He would be the kind of guy to get scared by spiders.
That should be everything. I think. It's 3:41am now and I started writing this at 1:50am. So, I should just... go sleep now. Kinda stressed out about tomorrow (today?) though which is why space politics is great escapism from earth politics.
A conversation I donât think yall are ready for yet is that you can love a character sooooo much and relate to them and see yourself in them but at the end of the day theyâre still fake and thatâs why someone elseâs take on them or headcanon about them isnât a direct message about you or insult to your identity. If your identity is so wrapped up in a character that you canât distinguish between reality and fiction, then you are the problem. Not some random person online who interprets the character differently than you.
this also goes for when you hate a character soooooo much and relate them to every person who hurt you and see everyone you hate in them, at the end of the day they're still fake and someone else's love for them is not a commentary on your trauma
#i also think we should not be using 'i relate to the character' as a claim to authority on the character #just because you relate does not mean your interpretations are law for the rest of us or even correct or 'more accurate' than anyone else's #it just means you relate full stop lmao. (via @kaibacorpintern)
I'm not gonna articulate this well, but there's this phenomenon I keep seeing on the left that I'll call "bean soup rhetoric," wherein someone fails to understand that they are not the target audience for a particular message, or just can't conceptualize why a speaker would craft their message differently to resonate with a target audience that doesn't already completely agree with them.
"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not youâit's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!
The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.
Tailoring the argument to the things she already cares about does not mean we're forgetting that she has more privilege than mostâentirely the opposite, in fact. A privileged ally can be extremely valuable. Jennifer votes in every election. And so do all the other ladies at her book club, and church, and in the PTA, and those folks listen to Jennifer. There's a reason both parties were courting suburban women so hard in the last election cycle! If we can find common ground with her on this, if we can get her calling her representatives and talking to her friends and phone-banking and door-knocking and making a stink, that's how the needle starts to move. If I can convince her to take her support away from the candidates who are actively restricting my rights and throw it toward those who want to restore and expand those rights...then I'm sorry, but Jennifer is a more valuable ally to me than the people who agree that the legal boundaries of gender ought to be abolished altogether but refuse to actually do anything except complain online about how both sides are equally bad because the right is trying to force everyone to drink the cyanide kool-aid while the left keeps serving bean soup and they don't like bean soup
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Not wanting to have sex is NOT a problem. It doesnât matter if you are asexual or allo, there is nothing wrong with not wanting sex. Itâs just an activity. Thatâd be like saying that if you donât like soccer, you need to go to soccer therapy to figure out why you dislike it and figure out how to like it because itâs for your own good. See how ridiculous that sounds? IT IS OK TO NOT WANT TO HAVE SEX AND IT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!!!!!
i'm going to say something insane. i think the overall pronounced fandom cultural slide away from complex plotty violent work and towards kidfic and coffee shops AUs and cozy domestic romcoms is a symptom of fascism.
I heavily disagree with this and think this is some kneejerk reactionary bullshit, but you know, go ahead and keep disparaging ânormiesâ like people are doing in the notes. Thatâll really endear you to fluff fic writers.
I say this with genuine, and I do actually mean genuine, respect, but the point of the original post wasnât to put an equals sign between fluff/cozy fic/coffeeship AUs and fascism. The point of the post was to draw attention to the very real push toward a "cultural hegemony" that happens every time fascist ideology takes hold of a culture. The rest under a cut for length.
In this case, it is white Euro-American Christofascism that demonizes and criminalizes any sexuality that is not reproductively-driven sex between cisgender heterosexual men and women. It is Christofascism that calls any sex not cishet sex for the singular purpose of procreation (or any physical or psychological deviance) degeneracy, which is a buzzword that eugenicists have used for decades to justify conversion therapy for gay kids, forced sterilization of mentally ill people and POC, and the illegality of gay marriage.Â
Christofascism hates any violence that is not the violence of its own against The Other (which is anyone not drinking the kool aid). It weaponizes âfamily-friendly valuesâ to wash out any nuance and moral complexity from a piece of art. It weaponizes âfamily-friendly valuesâ, a distinctly white American Christofascist construct, to delegitimize, suppress, and erase any story that does not conform to its standards. Which includes⌠a lot.Â
If you look at the larger trend of mainstream (film) storytelling over the last 30 years, you can see this clearly. We had films, shows, and stories in the mainstream that would never have been able to be made today: Full Metal Jacket (1987), a viciously, violently antiwar film. Leon The Professional (1994) about a middle aged hitman who befriends a precociously sexual preteen girl and teaches her how to kill people. That 70s Show, which was much more recent (ended in the early aughts) but still showed minors drinking alcohol and smoking pot onscreen. Entrapment (1999), a film where a young woman in her 20s or very early 30s gets sexually and romantically involved with a man in his 70s. Contrast that with today, when the most âedgyâ thing in the mainstream is an irony-poisoned superhero movie that relentlessly queerbaits its audience but makes it painfully clear that No, Actually, Theyâre Not Gay, Theyâre Just Doing It For The Lols. No shade if you genuinely enjoyed Deadpool and Wolverine, by the way. I did too; thought it was funny as shit. But it's also very much a product of its sociocultural time, and the time is Kinda Bad.
Thankfully we do have people still making genuinely Good stories with heavier, more complex, more morally grey themes, but my point stands. Â
So was everything better back then? Oh hell no. Sexism and racism were also onscreen full bore, so in that way we have moved forward. But my point is not to say âback then things were betterâ, which is, itself, an authoritarian dogwhistle. My point is that rightwing Christofascist authoritarianism, with the help of corporations and governments lacking the political will to oppose it, has driven much of the nuance and humanity from mainstream storytelling to serve its sociopolitical agenda and it has begun to show in the downstream culture of fandom.Â
This is where authoritarianism on the left wing rears its head: why you see people getting kicked out of discord servers for offenses that would get them nothing more than a hard look in real life. The insistence that shows up on both sides of the political aisle: that fiction is reality is fiction. On the right, this looks like "violent video games are turning my kid into a murderer". On the left, this looks like "this person wrote a fictional minor having sex with a fictional adult, so the person is a CSA apologist in real life and should die."
That is the truly reactionary bullshit in this scenario.
I myself, a frequent creator of exactly the kind of content this authoritarian fandom culture hates, have been kicked out of several fandoms and have received several death threats for writing things that violate this purity culture that has developed in so many fandom spaces nowadays. My friends and people I know have been victims of the same. And it has only gotten worse over the last 15 or so years.
This purity culture is what the original post is meant to talk against. The purity culture is performative, closed-minded, and (left-wing) authoritarian. It finds any art that does not meet the purity standard (see above) disgusting, degenerate (thereâs that word again), and unfit to exist. It incentivizes simple, nonthreatening stories; stories that do not require the reader to think critically or face any kind of moral conflict. In the mental landscape of the authoritarian, Moral Good is cozy, comfortable, white-coded, simple, and does not force one to confront or examine one's morality or ideology. Moral Evil is complicated, nuanced, scary, colorful, and defiantly deviant.
But again, this does not mean that if you write, read, or enjoy these kinds of stories, that you are a fascist. It just highlights this false equivalency between Moral Evil and thematic darkness/deviancy.
I hope this helps make sense of the original post a little. Â
I'll just be sitting here thinking about how in the audio "Reformation", the Master is forced to experience all the horrible things they've ever done and he just plays along so he can get it over with until it gets to his memory of being a child and not standing up for the Doctor when he was being bullied. At which point he starts screaming at the bullies and himself. And then when presented with the idea that the Doctor has and will always forgive them, the Master changes the conversation. *Chef's kiss*
Props to 5 for being the only doctor that doesnât have any companions from England. Instead, we have:
An Australian
An American
Three (3) aliens including
* an orphan princess, whose entire planet was destroyed by the doctors Situationship, and whose fatherâs body was then stolen and possessed by said situationship
* an orphan from another dimension, whose whole personality is math ďżź
* a political exile who tries to kill the doctor with a rock ďżź
And A shape shifting robot thatâs face is so uncanny Valley that it was probably inadvertently scarier for kids than most of the monsters, and spent its short tenure sitting off screen in some dark room in the tardisďżź
Big round of applause for fivey. No one collected friends like him. ďżźďżź
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A generous friend has shared with me the full text of âGallifrey: Notes on the Planetâs Backgroundâ â Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, and Marc Plattâs original outline of their masterplan for the Doctorâs origins â as printed in Virgin Booksâ 1996 Doctor Who: A History of the Universe. Please see also Lance Parkinâs explanatory footnote and my commentary beneath!
The planet Gallifrey, world of the Time Lords in the constellation of Kasterborous, is one of the oldest and most powerful oligarchies in the universe. Its political and scientific influence is prevalent throughout the cosmos. But it is a world apart. Its power is substantially used for observation rather than involvement. Over the millennia, its self-imposed isolation has made it a staid and decaying society, obsessed with its own self-importance and tradition. It was not always soâŚ
What if Buffy's mom hadn't found out about slaying at the end of season 2 and Buffy had to convince Spike to stay in town and pretend to be in a band with her because that was the cover story they'd told Joyce
Low key I feel like Buffy would just see it as a cover and itâs a âfake bandâ but Spike gets like way into it and itâs a Real Bandâ˘ď¸ to him and heâs a little annoyed Buffy doesnât take it as seriously. Heâs always like âyou missed practice this Tuesday what the hellâs up with that. We have a gig next week btwâ
#he starts trailing after her on patrol to bitch about missing practice or how she's sloppy on her chords #starts pitching in on the slayage because vampires keep interrupting his tirades #''EXCUSE ME we are having a ROW'' *stakes fledgling* #no chip necessary spike is literally the guy in the band with zero chill about the band #he undeads the band. he unbreathes the band. he spends all his time not sleeping... on the band. #(willow is their manager xander is the merch guy) #(giles was secretly plotting to lure spike into a trap until he notices spike is... actually better at corralling buffy on patrol than he is #because spike doesn't want her injuring her hands or doing anything that fucks with her breath control) #(giles is also weak to the nostalgia of it all and tunes their instruments when he thinks they're not looking) #(when faith arrives mid-S3 she's quickly recruited to sing backup) (via @entirelytookeen)
#spike after learning Oz plays guitar: why Ä°sn't he in the band? #buffy: he's already in his own band. which is actually a real band unlike our fake band that you keep forgetting is just a cover story #spike: we're never going to make it in the music industry if you don't stop calling our band fake
Spike (with reluctant but knowledgeable backup from Giles) finally convinces her that "Slayer" risks bringing copyright lawyers down upon their heads, a fate worse than vampires
#Buffy at their next concert: hi this is my Fake band and you're at my Fake concert#Fake band fans go NUTS when the Fake lead singer pulls her signature move: peacing out mid-song to go beat up some guys out back#Meanwhile: extended guitar and drum solos#the fans eat. that. gimmick. up.#Buffy returning covered in blood an hour later: oh god you're still going. Okay Fake second song here we go#and the crowd goes WILD
most frustrating thing in the world is when you really like a character who sucks, and you know they suck, so youâre chill with people who dislike or even hate them because⌠well they suck, you get it. but then a whole bunch of people hate them for things that just arenât actually accurate or canon to the character and just treat these inaccurate and awful character traits as a given, so then you feel like you gotta be this scumbagâs defense attorney. free my man, he did so much awful shit but he didnât do that
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I like going shoe shopping as it means I gain a shoebox into which I can put my ever-growing Big Finish collection.
I have separate boxes for the War Master, Missy and Dhawen Master, Gallifrey, Torchwood 3, Torchwood 1 and miscellaneous. And I still have loads on my shelves.
riddler week is over? no, no, beloved, you've just had a horrid nightmare. riddler week is forever and eternal. go back to sleep.
(but maybe read my story first. y'know. if you're into that kind of thing!)
The Shadow Knows
Rated T, Humor/Mystery/Romance, Completed
Chapter 7: Insomnia
âNo funny business, Ed,â the older cop warned, tugging on the handcuff chain again.
âFunny business? You must have me confused with somebody else,â the mysterious Ed said haughtily. âI...am the Riddler,â he intoned, as if the sound of the words would make everyone present realize that they'd made a terrible mistake in arresting what was very clearly a sane and well-adjusted kind of guy that just happened to have gone swimming in this season's latest and most fashionable mix of mechanical lubricants."
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
snowghoul
jacobvanloon
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
