#probably 13

@ohdearlybeloved

**With a little help from friends there's no end to what can be accomplished. Especially when it means that someone loved, cared for, and missed gets to hear it. Your letter arrives carried carefully and dropped through the letter slot with a "WOOF!" that announces your delivery!** @ohdearlybeloved

To my light,

I’m not good with words. You know that. Most of the time, I keep my thoughts to myself because it’s safer that way. But there’s something I need you to know, even if it’s hard for me to say.

You’ve become… important to me. More than I expected, more than I thought I was capable of letting someone be. When I’m around you, it’s like the weight I carry eases, even if only for a little while. I notice the small things—the way you look at the world, the way you face challenges, the way you make people feel seen. I don’t say it enough, but I respect you. I admire you. I care about you.

I’ve spent a lot of time alone, moving through darkness, thinking I had to face everything on my own. And maybe I did, for a while. But being with you has shown me that it’s not weakness to let someone in. It’s… necessary. You’ve become someone I rely on, someone I trust. And even though I struggle with how to express it, I want you to know that I carry you with me. Through every fight, through every battle, through every choice I make.

There are moments, when I think about the future or the paths we’ll have to walk, that I feel something I rarely allow myself to feel: hope. Hope that I won’t have to face everything alone. Hope that I can be someone worthy of your trust and your presence in my life. I don’t know how to promise forever, not really. But I do know that right now, and in every moment I can, I want you by my side.

I don’t expect you to understand all of this, and I don’t expect anything in return. I just needed you to know. You mean more to me than I’ve ever admitted, even to myself. And if being honest about that is difficult for me, it’s only because it matters more than anything else I’ve ever felt.

- Squall

Back then, I openly shared my DA account with my irl friends

Oooh he has a very Doctorish face!

It's a reason for both whiteness and maleness, because it's a subconscious decision to have privilege, to not have to struggle to get respect, to just make things easier. So it says interesting things about the Doctor's character, interesting things about regeneration, and interesting things about power structures in our world.

So a female or a POC Doctor (or both!) could mean things to do with changing power balances (which crosses the fourth wall slightly in that people are asking for a female or POC Doctor so obviously there's less divide than previously. Not none, but less), or it could mean things to do with the Doctor not needing that mask or protection or helping hand anymore. That second one was discussed in Deep Breath, and then thematically throughout series 8, which gives me hope for a female or POC Doctor! Along with heaps more things in series 8 that were more specifically for a female Doctor - it's inevitable, basically!