#neverland

Discover Your Inner Lost Boy or Pixie! 栗‍♂️

Last week, I blogged about Kip Sorell's epic return to the ring against Manny Mendez in BG East's "The Comeback 5."

I was pleased to see my fellow blogger, WrestleBard, wrote up this same hot match on his Neverland blog -- and goldang can he write real good!

I believe he was even more excited than I was by this match, plus he writes way better than I, so you may want to go check out his post. The captions for today's images (also swiped from his blog) were written by the Bard himself.

I gotta share the following gem from the Neverland article:

"Manny snaps on a lock tight full nelson that shows off the star of the show, Kip’s phenomenal physique, beautifully. The muscle beast wrings Kip out like a rag doll, and fuck, I can feel Kip’s screams deep down in my testicles."

Yes! Me too! I think I'll go back and watch this match again with Bard's commentary in my head.

"Kip’s brand has been that of a devastatingly gorgeous muscle jobber ripped off of a stripper pole and put through the wringer again and again."

(bc I really wanted to listen to Scherzo but then I was like well I'd better listen to the main stuff before it and then the Thing Mainly Before It is zagreus and so I was like well I can't listen to zagreus without listening to neverland and tbh i probably could have kept doing that until I hit storm warning but I was very restrained and demure about it)

anyway it's so good and I think I must have forgotten how much I liked it/maybe was a tasteless baby the last time I listened?? because I don't remember enjoying it as much as I did this time.

actually wait. I hadn't listened to gallifrey yet last time I heard it. I bet that's it. neverland/zagreus are a nice little gally taster in some ways

all of which is to say a) I completely forgot about the little Imperiatrix future glimpse they reused later b) the way romana gives the doctor absolutely zero context or warning before flinging him RIGHT IN THERE c) something so wrong with her

something really makes my heart ache about her and 8 in this one there are a few moments (like when they're plotting underneath the console while pretending to argue) that are so sweet and nostalgic but the rest of it he is sooooooooo like. not over her exactly that's too mean. but there's this incalculable distance between them now that she's become The State. all of which is to say something something the doctor/narvin two sides of the same coin they both can't separate romana from the institutional fact of gallifrey and narvin sees no problem with this meanwhile the doctor can't bring himself to forgive it

(speaking of which poor pathetic vansell......wet tissue of a man and i don't mean that like a compliment. this crunchy little zealot, rabid in all the wrong directions, still loyal at the last second to what's basically just his own flawed idea of the state...big finish will be like does anyone want this pathetic xenophobic little civil servant who worships at the altar of his own government such that he's willing to destroy himself for nothing and then not wait for an answer. no notes)

and this is very 8 so i can't even be mad about it it's perfectly in line with his character but he's so vacant/borderline flippant as well about a) her treatment by the daleks ('she has her own score to settle with them' y e a h ! no shit!) b) her clearly still doing her best for him and charley even though she's also clearly a little jealous (only jealous is too strong a word I think - it's more that like. buddy. my guy. she still loves you!! she's just a little hemmed in by the trappings of quasi-liberal governance you decided you were too good for!). and i'm projecting ahead to zagreus tbf he's not that much of an asshole in this one, and obvs let's not be under any illusions that little miss emergency powers i can't be racist my best friend is an alien is like the Best President of All Time but man. she's hardly even let the institutional corruption get to her yet give my girl a break!!

it's just a really interesting dynamic. and tbf he clearly still has so much affection for her (or at least who she was) but he can't quite bring himself to trust her or even really like her anymore. delicious!

but enough about all that there's so much else that's so interesting too I completely missed/forgot the little CIA oubliette of eternity subplot that's what i get for. for b. right well i canonically can't hear v well so I'm forgiving myself but anyway it's very good! and incredibly chilling, the little reveal from the former cia coordinator whose name I have no idea how to spell

the anti-time ghosts/the never people are also so good. you'd like to think when you erase people from time itself you'd never have to think of them again but that would be too convenient wouldn't it! you can't keep the bones beneath your little empire buried forever. the way romana is instantly like 'well sucks to be you but also this is soooo not my problem' like girl we get it youre the leader of a colonial state desperately clinging to the facade of its contemporary ambivalence towards the crimes of its past! THE BONES ARE STILL YOUR PROBLEM. YOU'RE STILL CULPABLE FOR THE BONES.

there's something here too about charley as a gateway, the Companion As A Door of it all that I'm too tired to have a proper thought about but maybe when I reach zagreus

OH and speaking of doors. I can't remember whether the rassilon they encounter in this is the real one (or is just an anti-time hallucination?? well I'll find out again) but. something something rassilon opening a door out of the matrix for romana vs opening a door into the matrix and then shoving her in and throwing away the key forever--

the wildly contradictory characterizations of rassilon we get I also find deeply compelling. 'wise old man infinitely sad' alongside 'his holiness i'm blowing up reality and taking us all with me' like yeah. you know what. that does track, actually. man has layers. he's had centuries and centuries to go cuckoo bananas maybe he's earned it

The Forgotten Truth of Neverland

History remembers Peter Pan as a whimsical tale written by J. M. Barrie—a story of a flying boy who never grew up, Wendy Darling, and adventures in Neverland.

History is wrong.

The real Neverland is an ancient Elven realm hidden between worlds, home to dragons, fae, and forgotten magic. Peter was never an eternal child but a young elven outcast in his early twenties, known to the world by a borrowed human name. His true name, spoken only by those closest to him, has long since been lost to history.

Among those few was Wynriel "Wynn," Peter's lover and closest companion. When Captain Hook cast Wynriel through a magical portal during a desperate battle, Peter believed he had watched the man he loved die. Consumed by grief, he mourned Wynriel for years, never knowing he still lived.

Instead, Wynriel awakens in Victorian England, unable to return home. Forced to conceal his pointed ears, immortal nature, and his love for another man in a society that condemns both, he survives with the aid of the fae, crafting a life of wealth, anonymity, and quiet loneliness while searching in vain for a way back to Neverland.

Everything changes when Wynriel purchases a newly published book by J. M. Barrie: The Little White Bird. Hoping against hope to find evidence that someone knows the truth, he instead discovers a charming fairy tale that twists every memory he holds dear. Peter has become a seven-day-old baby who flies away to join the fairies. Neverland has become a nursery fantasy. Worst of all, Wynriel has vanished entirely, erased from the story as though he had never existed.