As We Wind On Down The Road

Kelley O’Hara the ultimate “get shits done” woman. 👌🏼 (or the ultimate “We need a bitch. Get Kelley!” 😂 )

Of course Miss Kelley O’Hara is doing the media interviews for the USWNT.

And with all these player interactions & post game huddle talks & sideline coaching. I’ll be waiting for the day that Kelley Maureen O’Hara officially become the coach. 👊🏼

Jodie Whittaker & Mandip Gill at Awesome Con 2023 in Washington, DC

and sonya noticing, because she's always been the one to notice when yaz feels like running away. so she spends time with her; ropes her into watching love island, takes her to the national videogame museum, begs her to tell her about her travels. and when yaz's birthday rolls around, she takes her out for dinner.

but when the waitress is drawn in by the silly paper hats sonya made them wear and decides to ask what birthday they're celebrating, yaz and sonya give two different ages. yaz was 19 when she met the doctor, 26 when her doctor died. she never told sonya about the three years she was lost in time, the three sad birthdays she spent wondering whether she would ever see her family again as dan and jericho tried to console her. how could she explain that without her family thinking she finally lost her mind?

sonya begs yaz for answers. pleads for her to explain why she's three years older than she should be. and over the course of their dinner, yaz tells her everything. about the doctor, about graham and ryan and dan and jericho and jack and ruth and their adventures across the universe. and by the time dessert rolls around, they're both crying.

They included Thasmin.

(OK this isn't the only reason obviously but it's one I was just thinking about; also huge thanks and much love to @evviejo for use of these gifs)

Thinking about this part of that scene from EOTD:

And how Dan's reply to Yaz isn't completely honest.

Because as we know from this later scene...

...he knows that 13 is aware of Yaz's feelings towards her. (Or at the very least he's reasonably certain regarding 13's awareness of the situation.)

So, when Yaz asks "Is it that obvious?", why does Dan not say something like "Yeah it is and she knows"?

Because when your friend is going through an emotional struggle, whatever it might be, you don't necessarily employ total, unflinching honesty with them. You mentally assess what you believe they need to hear, along with what you believe they want to hear, and then you say what needs to be said.

Dan knows that his mate Sheffield is really going through it. He saw what she went through during the four years they were parted from 13, and how even now being parted from her for even a brief period still bothers Yaz.

So by referencing "good-hearted weirdo" he keeps the tone light and just a bit jokey, to help ease into what he says next about having seen what she went through over the past four years.

He's honest with her, but not overly so, if you get my meaning. He knows there are things Yaz needs to hear from 13, and not from him.

The further and further we move away from 13 era Who the more and more I feel thankful to Jodie, Mandip, Chibs and crew that we have it.

I don’t think I realised how lucky we were when it was on or how likely it was going to be the only era of its kind.

Chibs had a harder time than the other showrunners of NuWho. It was a constant uphill battle, a lot of the fandom already didn’t like his writing and didn’t want him as showrunner, a good chunk of the fandom didn’t really want a female doctor, they weren’t interested in a more naturalistic less campy version of the show, budgets at the BBC became tighter, BBC were more restrictive and then to top it off there was a world wide pandemic, destroying industries, taking lives and making feats like making flux seem like it would be impossible.

The show was a light in the darkness during that time, Jodie shone brighter then a diamond as the Doctor we all needed, not just in the show but here in the real world for all of us.

I talk about how great 13 is a lot on this blog but there is just as much love for this incredible human.

Yaz is as much 13 era Who as 13 herself to me, they, together make 13 era Who the incredible ride that it was and it wouldn’t have been what it was if either of them weren’t apart of it. I do love the whole fam but 13 era Who couldn’t be what it was without Mandip’s portrayal of Yaz, that’s just a fact.

What’s also a fact is that Mandip was captaining the Thasmin ship long before it was an actual thing in the writing, if it wasn’t for her it may not have been at all, and the impact of that story may never be fully known for how many people it touched, how many people it made feel seen. Not just a young woman finding herself, but a young woman of colour finding herself in a high profile mainstream show. It is actually a beautiful balance to Bills character, some people know who they are and are confident about it and we get that in Bill, some people take a little longer to figure it out like Yaz. We were lucky to have both characters in Who and to have 13 reciprocate Yaz’s feelings really is the cheery on top.

If Mandip hadn’t ever had the thought, and then acted on it to have Yaz fall in love with the Doctor, even if it wasn’t in the writing at first, we wouldn’t have possibly the most powerful and important story of 13 era Who. So don’t be fool by what anyone says out there, Yaz’s story is possibly one of the most impactful companion stories in Who history, especially on a meta level, she is the heart of 13 and the heart of 13 era Who.