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clarionglass · 23 days

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so i have been bitten by the sam reich!master bug courtesy of some phenomenal art by @northernfireart and uh. as is too often the case i had to write something otherwise if i didn't get it out of my brain i would go absolutely insane

(there may be more vignettes coming if i have ideas..... there are definitely other episodes i'd like to give the Treatment to, plus with the new dw series coming out on the weekend i may have ideas for how to incorporate the dw gang! however, i promise neither more writing or no more writing. that said, this was a lot of fun so there'll probably be more at some stage :D )

this has full spoilers for the game changer ep "escape the greenroom", but hey that's been out for a while now so,,,, if you haven't seen it i'd highly recommend it as an episode!

so, without further ado:

Samuel Dalton was a complete fiction, of course, but that didn't mean that when Sam Reich snuck back upstairs to get tied up in the “out of order” bathroom, the Sam that remained on the monitor, laughing at the contestants, was a pre-recording. And if Brennan, Siobhan and Lou had snorted at the idea of a time-travelling evil magician great-grandfather (for good reason), going in with the actual truth of the matter would have sounded like jumping the shark.

It sounded bizarre, but the time travel bit was the only part about his new partner in crime that was confirmably real. Admittedly, the jury was still out on “evil”—he gave off a weird vibe at times, but so far, no lines had been crossed, and it had all been funny as hell—so for now, Sam was willing to roll with it. But perhaps most surprisingly, there wasn’t even the possibility of blood relation between Samuel Dalton Reich and the guy who had shown up out of the blue one day with his exact face and a plan to really fuck around with things on Game Changer.

Yeah, the whole alien thing had really ruled out that particular prospect.

There had been various bits and pieces of confirmation that this guy wasn’t human through the time Sam had known him, but the final nail in the coffin for that one was when his doppelganger had looked him dead in the eye and tried on one of the heart rate monitors—sorry, “range extenders”—for As a Cucumber. The damn thing had literally sparked up, then died completely. Trying to process input from two separate heartbeats at once would do that, apparently.

His doppelganger was a Time Lord, or so he had nonchalantly said one afternoon in casual conversation, though Sam still wasn’t sure if that one was a joke or not. It was hard to tell, sometimes, because he said the wildest things with the straightest face, and so far, most of them had turned out to be one hundred percent certifiably true. The time travel, the space travel, even the changing faces thing—it sounded objectively insane, but the proof was undeniable.

There were some notable exceptions, though. Saying he’d been trapped for aeons inside Neil Patrick Harris’s gold tooth went just that bit too far to be believable, though Sam did appreciate his double’s slightly warped sense of humour.

It was that offbeat line of thinking that lent itself well to game design, as it turned out. He had a knack for coming up with ideas for Game Changer episodes, albeit with the occasional suggestion that went way beyond the bounds of good taste, and, as in the case of Escape the Greenroom, had devised some blinding twists on concepts Sam had already half-formed. The letter puzzle unlocking the secret door? It was perfect.

Understandably, Sam’s doppelganger had wanted to observe the fruits of their labours in real time, rather than watching the recording later. It happened, sometimes, particularly when it was one of his ideas that had made it through to the episode list—they’d swap places for a session, with nobody being any the wiser. Watching those edits back always felt a bit weird—it was uncanny how flawless the mimicry was—but hey, the guy was right. It was always fun.

Escape the Greenroom, specifically, with its “Samuel Dalton” conceit, provided them with a unique opportunity. Instead of swapping out the camera feed for a recording when the cast piled into the tiny secret room behind the wall, as per the original plan to get Sam in position to be discovered in the bathroom, they could just swap out the people. Sam would go upstairs, and his double would take his place at the podium, ducking out of sight when everyone came back to the main stage to “defuse the bomb”.

Sam was keen—hell, if their situations had been reversed, he’d want to be there to watch, too—but caution raised a flag. “You don’t think it’s too risky?” he’d asked when the subject was first raised. “Both of us being in the same place?”

His doppelganger had shrugged one shoulder with supreme unconcern. “The crew won't notice.”

At the time, Sam had shot him a sceptical look, but right now, Sam-Reich-in-a-purple-tie and Sam-Reich-in-an-orange-tie were standing backstage post-record, clearly visible and and calmly chatting, and not a single member of the crew had given them so much as a second glance.

…Hardly even a first glance, come to think about it. If anyone looked over their way, their eyes seemed to… not exactly go through them, but slide over the two of them like water. He was tempted to wave to Nico or Ash or someone, just out of pure curiosity, but something in the back of his mind told him that wouldn’t be the world’s greatest idea. He had a funny feeling he wouldn’t like to see what would happen next.

(He’d given the prop bomb back to the crew once the cameras stopped rolling, and though it looked the same as the one he remembered from before he’d headed upstairs, it felt different in his hands. Heavier, more… serious, somehow. He was sure nothing would have happened—but at the same time, he was suddenly very glad that the cast had cut the correct wire with no less than a minute fifteen to go.)

(The jury was still out on evil, after all.)

“Worth coming in for?” he asked instead.

“Absolutely,” his double replied with relish. “Locking those three in a small room for an hour? Brilliant, fantastic. Inspired. It was absolute chaos.”

“Have you seen up there?” Sam asked, a smile starting to spread across his face. “They messed up the set real bad.”

His doppelganger smirked at him. “You know it took literally two seconds from you telling them to escape the greenroom for Lou to smash that guitar?”

Sam shook his head. “Oh my god. Yeah, they were stressed.”

“Mmm. Some real panic in that room,” his doppelganger agreed, and Sam chose to ignore the faint note of satisfaction in his voice.

He shifted his weight, settling back to lean against the table behind the set, in the exact instant his double decided to do the same thing. It really was freaky how similar they were, down to the smallest mannerism—like looking in a mirror, only weirder, because the face that looked back at him was truly his own face, not mirror-reversed. Even now, it still caught Sam off guard from time to time, but at least it had faded into a more comfortable kind of strange. He had an exact lookalike who was an actual time-travelling alien. Cool. Doesn’t everyone?

The pair shared a companionable silence for a few moments, before a thought Sam had been turning over for a while rose to the top of his mind. He shifted again, this time on his own, and he felt his double’s regard swing up to fix on him like a magnet.

“Okay, real talk,” he started, and his doppelganger frowned back in an approximation of confused innocence. “What’s all this for?”

“Who says it has to be for anything? Aren't we just having fun?”

Sam hummed, considering. “Yeah. No, I'd believe that, if I didn't sometimes walk into production meetings and find out I'd apparently been very specific about the people I wanted for certain episodes.”

“Point for Sam,” his doppelganger acknowledged with a grin. “You got me. Wasn’t hard to make a few phone calls on our joint behalf.”

“Yeah, but why?” Sam pressed. “I mean, Siobhan, Brennan and Lou are always great comedy value when you put them together, and it was awesome to have them for this, but I get the feeling you’re thinking of something other than making good content.”

“Who, me?”

With that, his double gave him a look of such overdone pantomime innocence that Sam suddenly and thoroughly understood why, not half an hour earlier, Brennan had very seriously threatened to push him down the stairs.

He rolled his eyes, which earned him a smirk for his troubles.

Dropping the act, his doppelganger continued. “I’m expecting an… old friend, I guess, to show up at some point, and—well, I’d like to put on a really special show for them. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a few things out, you know?”

Ominous pause aside, that was actually kind of sweet. Sweeter than he’d been expecting, that’s for sure—he was half anticipating the revelation that he and his cast were subjects in some weird experiment. Hey, that still couldn’t fully be ruled out, but still.

“Okay,” he acquiesced. “Well… just let me know, next time? Before you start ordering in my cast like takeout?”

“Who says they’re your cast?” his double shot back with a twinkle in his eye, and Sam snorted.

“Fine. Our cast, then. But seriously, let me know?”

His doppelganger nodded, which, if not quite fully convincing, was good enough.

“Oh, and do you know when your friend might be arriving?” Sam asked. “Because if you wanted to plan something, we can—”

“I don’t know,” his doppelganger interrupted. “So yeah, we’ll have to move fast when they do get here. But I’ve got it under control.”

He broke off, then shot Sam a mischievous grin. “In the meantime, though, I’ve had this fun thought about time loops…”

#sam reich!master #sam reich #the master #dw #doctor who #game changer #dropout #dropout tv #northernfireart #clari speaks #clari writes #in posting this i am fully aware that sam reich is a real human being who uses the internet and fuck. if this escapes containment.#mr reich sir if you ever see this i can only apologise but it was truly fucking funny to write #oh btw i imagine that reich!master asked for those specific 3 because across em you've got a good spread of personality traits #that the doctor and their companion(s) would have #we've got the monologues and the high-stakes-all-the-time from brennan.#we've got the puzzle focus and the 'oh this is my first time in this kinda situation' from game changer newbie siobhan #and lou is just. pure and beautiful chaos #plus they're all very smart and creative mfers #so it's a good test run

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galadrielspeaks · 2 years

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sam is that friend that tells the waiter you asked for no pickles on your burger

#sam: now look here mr waiter sir i understand you are under a bit of a rush but that don’t mean you should neglect your customers wishes.#my good friend frodo asked for NO pickles good sir. now what if he had an allergy?! it’s no big deal but mind you this could have been worse #if you could please make him up a fresh burger that would be much obliged yes #much obliged thank you very much #samwise gamgee #frodo baggins #hobbit posting #guess who’s rewatching lotr rn KDJFJDJSSJ

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all-that-jazz-93 · 1 year

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Great romcom idea:

The protagonist visits their love interest's workplace and asks them to leave behind their high profile job in the big city and join the protagonist in picturesque New England to help out with a real underdog cause. The love interest reveals they're engaged to be married and they're about to make partner at the firm and they just can't give all of that up. The heartbroken protagonist leaves and goes to New England alone but they're so moved by the cause they're fighting for that they just have to go back and tell their love interest. The protagonist returns to the big city and runs through the pouring rain to reach the love interest's office and stands outside the window soaking wet and smiling, prompting the love interest to stand up in the middle of an important meeting and walk out, leaving behind everything that was important to them, and they run away to New England with the protagonist.

Yeah idk I just think it would be a really beautiful and romantic—what do you mean that was a West Wing episode

#the supporting characters are a grumpy guy and his ex who falls in the pool when she sees him #the west wing #tww #josh lyman #sam seaborn #mr sorkin sir are you aware that you wrote a romcom into the middle of your dramatic season premiere

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steam-beasts · 3 months

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An Interventional Meeting

(Summary; Mr Percival holds an intervention meeting with his engines, specifically the ones who've got bad nesting habits. Rusty's just there, Luke doesn't have any nesting issues so he's absent)

(At the Quarry...)

#thomas and friends #thomas the tank engine #monster engines #ttte mr percival #ttte skarloey #ttte rheneas #ttte rusty #ttte duncan #ttte sir handel #ttte peter sam #short comic #some of the pictures could've turned out a little better #i tried my best #hope yall like it #ttte narrow guage engines

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trainalt22 · 3 months

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Tidbits & Bobs #2

(NG Edition)

• Rusty transitioned to gender-neutral in 1998 and goes by they them

• Duncan and Rusty are unlikely best friends but the two get along greatly

• Skarloey and Rheneas see the newer fleet members (except Duke) as their kids and act accordingly with Rhen being the "cool dad"

• Skarloey has a Welsh accent while Rheneas has an English one although Rheneas learned Welsh just for Skarloey

• Rusty has a Macabre sense of humor often their jokes don't land on the SKR fleet but they don't mind they get a laugh out of Duncan sometimes though

• Sir Handel and Peter Sam are in a relationship and have been since 2002

• Rusty can't see ghosts but they can sense them they can sense many different paranormal events and tries to warn others however Sir Handel never listens

• Duncan tries to listen to rustys advice including saying thank you to the "Forrest spirits" but he doubts their existence but he sees what happens to Sir Handel and doesn't wanna take that chance

• Rheneas hates when his name is mispronounced he says it's pronounced Rhen-E-as, not Rhen-A-as but Skarloey says it wrong on purpose just to wind him up

• Duke is a former guardian however when his shed was buried he respectfully retired and relinquished his powers so that it could find a new engine to take up the mantle

• Sodor technically has two guardians one on the NWR and one on the SKR it's a rare occurrence and as such it drains the sudrian golden well more than if there were just one leaving the guardian on the SKR weaker than their NWR counterpart

• Sir Handel is considered a cursed or unlucky engine that paired with his general bad attitude means that he rarely has a crew that wants to work with him

• Mr. Percival Sir Topham Hatt and Sir Robert Noremby try to gather once a month for tea and more often than not they take a scenic route around The Skarloey Lake pulled by the railway's namesake

#ttte #ttte au #vivamus machinis #ttte skarloey #ttte rheneas #ttte peter sam #ttte mr percival #ttte sir topham hatt #ttte sir handel #ttte duncan #ttte rusty #rusty is the goth child of the SKR and you cant tell me otherwise #proteus is cannon he just needs his own tidbits and bobs #sir handel isa bitch tbh

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naurasweetarudesu · 8 months

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Self indulgence doodle where Falcon and Stuart are Indonesian middle schooler and elementary schooler respectively because i can :)

"Here, as you can see, Falcon trying to be a good big brother by holding Stuart's hand so that his little brother doesn't wander off alone..."

Reference pics of the uniform:

And the logo badge:

#Fullbody anatomy? Shoes? What is that? Never heard of it 🤪 /s #ttte sir handel #ttte peter sam #ttte falcon #ttte stuart #Falcon is that one kid who faked illness so he won't go to school when there's exams or subject he doesn't like #Stuart is that one extrovert kid who had many friends from every class even he befriended the mrs. cafeteria and school's cat.

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klinefelterrible · 4 months

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#mr vimes #sam vimes #sir Samuel #vetvimes #havelock vetinari #lord vetinari #vimes x vetinari #vetinari #commander vimes #doodling #discworld #gnu terry pratchett #terry pratchett #nice hair vimes

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dickensianenglishbulldog · 5 months

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I feel that Lord Peter and Sir Percy would get on well.

Also Sam Vimes and Richard Hannay

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lacomandante · 7 months

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Also I forgot to update: last Sunday I got Sharpe's Command (thank you Amazon Spain) and I just want to say. Bernard Cornwell sometimes you are the bane of my existence but I lost my MIND reading this book. I couldn't put it down and screamed at Sam as I read ahead bc CORNDOG GAVE US SO MUCH TERESA AND TERESA/SHARPE STUFF. SO MUCH. TERESA GETS HER DAY IN THE SUN AND I HAD TO REFRAIN FROM SCREAMING W/ ASSUMPTA RIGHT NEXT TO ME WHILE I READ. Literally this book is SO FUCKING GOOD for both teresa/sharpe content AND teresa content I am SO happy with it, and it absolutely was worth the wait. Every time he could've done something disappointing he didn't and i kicked my feet and twirled my hair and rolled around on the couch as I read it and ooughhhhhhhh it's now my favorite Sharpe book EVER!!!!!!!!!! TERESA MORENO MY BELOVED SHE GOT SO MUCH STUFF IN THIS BOOK....THANK U FOR MY LIFE CORNDOG

#;ooc #(i wont post spoilers here yet for a while but AAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)#(I put SO many fucking sticky tabs in it to highlight my favorite parts)#(THEYRE SO CUTE THEY HAVE SO MANY CUTE INTERACTIONS)#(SHARPE LOVES HIS WIFE SM IN THIS BOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!!!!!!)#(AND TERESA LOVES HIM TOO ;WWWW;)#(there's a fantastic scene that made my heart SWOON AND I CANT TALK ABOUT IT)#(SAM HURRY UP AND READ IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)#(I want to scream about it there's so many good teresa scenes. one is so fucking funny)#(she is so smart and cunning and GOOD and there was like. one part that made me go hmmm but its forgivable)#(okay small spoiler for one of my favorite parts: teresa + 🧱)#(ALSO THE END IS THE PART OF THE ENTIRE BOOK)#(ITS MY FAVORITE SCENE EVER FOR TERESA)#(i couldnt believe he gave her so much. corndog took my question to him seriously when i messaged him on his website)#(me: mr cornwell sir can we plz have more partisan teresa :(( we never see her be a partisan much at all in the books)#(corndog: you Know What Kiran i will make this book Just for You)#(now its 1am and im fucking feral about this book)

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pinkysberg · 8 months

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ive been rly into starfield lately and i have to say, sam coe is???

i was drawn in by the cowboy aesthetic but now i keep hearing abt this man's ex and i -

#sir PLEASE LMAO #i do NOT need to hear this much abt your interpersonal marital issues mr. coe #thinky #starfield #sam coe

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denimbex1986 · 1 month

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'Johnny Flynn was murdered within a week of stepping onto the set of Ripley.

The British actor plays Dickie Greenleaf in the eight-episode Netflix adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley and while he knew the character would meet an untimely demise in the story, he wasn’t prepared for it to be within days of meeting Andrew Scott, who plays the title character.

“I was just getting to know Andrew and there he is bludgeoning me and cradling my dead body,” Flynn tells Rolling Stone. “It was a good icebreaker. So basically I got to die in the first week and then I could get on with the living bits.”

Flynn initially auditioned to play Dickie—a role made famous onscreen by Jude Law in Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film—prior the the Covid pandemic. He devised an elaborate way to shoot audition tapes in his kitchen, reading all of the parts himself rather than asking someone else for help. Creator Steven Zaillian cast Flynn while he was in the midst of doing press for Autumn de Wilde’s whimsical take on Emma — and the actor still seems perplexed by how he ended up in Italy pretending to die on a boat. “I don’t know why he cast me,” Flynn says, slightly laughing.

While Ripley exists in the shadow of the acclaimed 1999 film, the Netflix series as created, written, and directed by Zaillian, has a different approach to the story. Flynn recalls being initially concerned about the love for the film when he met with Zaillian, especially having not read the novel at the time, but was quickly put at ease.

“It’s a very different tone to the film,” Flynn says. “Which is great because it’s its own thing. In film adaptations they usually have to conflate things and create extra characters to tell part of the story that don’t work unless you have a whole novel to do so. [In the film], they wanted the characters to live together for a lot longer, which made them more interesting. But the brilliance of the book is that Dickie gets killed quite early on and then the jeopardy is that Tom is being tracked and you don’t know if he’s going to be found out. Steve wanted to do something that was true to that aspect of the book in terms of the structure of the story.”

The series, filmed on location around Italy, including in Atrani, Rome, and Capri, and in New York City, was shot entirely in film noir-style black and white. It’s intended to pay homage to the cinema of the novel’s time period, a visual choice that also sets it apart from prior onscreen versions.

“If you think about the film, it’s in the summer and everything’s in bright colors,” Flynn says. “Steve wanted us to be the only people on the beach when Tom meets Dickie and Marge.”

This specificity meant that Flynn and Scott, as well as Dakota Fanning, who plays Marge, were called into rehearse scenes sometimes several months before the actual filming would take place. At first, Flynn and Scott tapped into their theater backgrounds and used the rehearsals as an opportunity to explore their characters and to try new things in the scenes. Zaillian quickly put a stop to that.

“He was like, ‘What are you doing?’” Flynn says. “The rehearsal was literally just to figure out where he was going to put the camera. We realized quite quickly that it was not for us. He knew what he wanted to do [and] he was just trying to make a final decision about which angle to shoot from. Steve had it all in his head. And that’s what makes him great. He has the whole universe of the story in his mind before he starts doing anything else and talking to people about it.”

It was a new way of working for Flynn, who deftly balances a career in theater, film and TV, and music. Before Ripley he played George Knightley in Emma and David Bowie in Stardust, an off-kilter biopic about Bowie’s first U.S. tour in 1971. He has an extensive resume on London’s West End, including productions of Jerusalem, True West, Richard III, and Twelfth Night, as does Scott. (Flynn also recently concluded a lengthy stint as Richard Burton in Sam Mendes’ The Motive and the Cue at the Noël Coward Theatre.)

“Steve knew what he wanted, but also he trusted us,” Flynn says. “The piece is framed by the writing and the way it’s shot, and that’s the storytelling device—not a generated performance. So I think the process wouldn’t have suited a lot of actors, who might have to really feel like they’re burning up and creating something new in that moment. But I realized that I could just trust the words and be in the scene and let it be without pushing too hard.”

He adds, “That need to be crazy and spontaneous and do something new and fresh is there on sets, and most projects that I’m a part of, you see actors desperately trying to come up with something new and fresh. What I learned from this is that you can take the pressure off yourself and do something interesting and very nuanced to give the camera a chance to pick up something really deep from within your soul and the subtlety of what you’re saying if you believe the words. And there’s no better actor for that than Andrew.”

The relationship between Dickie and Tom, which is complex and fraught with an undercurrent of sexual tension, and Flynn and Scott wanted to ensure there was a “sensitivity” between the characters, just as a sensitivity existed between the two actors. Flynn describes a softness to himself and Scott—“It’s odd to be talking about myself like this,” he notes—that could be translated onscreen.

“Steve wanted a tenderness that you could believe was interpreted on Tom’s part as something romantic and some kind of soul connection, but it’s a very ambiguous one,” Flynn says. “Andrew and I always said we wanted it to feel like there’s a quiet bond that you understand and that’s not explained too much. Because you’ve got to know why they’re spending that time together. For Dickie, because of where he comes from and the schools he attended, there’s a way to do things. You don’t allow your crush on another boy to actually become anything else in the society he’s part of,” he says. “The fact that Dickie won’t budge on that means there’s only one way forward for Tom. And Tom is like a shark, always moving forward.”

A significant amount of the series’ dialogue occurs in Italian. Thanks to Zaillian’s intense attention to detail, the entire cast learned to speak the language—fluently—before production. Flynn took three to four hours of Italian lessons each week (“I’ve never had anything like it,” he says). The actor did not take painting lessons to prepare for Dickie’s artistic pursuits, which are hilariously depicted in the episodes as poorly-made Picasso knock-offs. The humor of Dickie’s paintings undercut the seriousness of the visual tone, as do many of Scott’s line readings throughout the show.

“The fact that it’s funny is surprising and I loved that,” says Flynn, who remembers him and Scott laughing when they saw the prop paintings. “It’s not billing itself as a comedy. But there’s a dark humor to the books that it reflects. There’s a cruel aspect to her writing that is also very enjoyable.”

Since filming Ripley, Flynn has stayed busy. He played a violent mobster in the 2022 film The Outfit, opposite Mark Rylance, and recently appeared in the 2023 World War II drama One Life, taking on the role of real-life hero Nicholas Winton alongside Anthony Hopkins. Between filming, he’s recorded two albums with collaborator Robert Macfarlane, including last year’s The Moon Also Rises, which marked Flynn’s sixth LP. After a much-needed break, he and Macfarlane will hit the road for a U.K. tour in May.

...But for now, the actor is happy to finally lay Dickie to rest.

“When a film or a TV takes a long time to come out there’s a sense of closure when it finally does,” Flynn says. “Now, my slate is clear and there’s a nice amount of clarity around that. I can’t believe my luck to be pulled in all of these interesting directions and different experiences and different collaborations.”'

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clarionglass · 17 days

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yeah, we all knew this one was coming. 5395 words, if you're wondering exactly how bad the brain rot has set in ^^;

----- deja vu (sam reich!master cinematic universe, part 2)

Right from the beginning of Game Changer, Sam had had a small monitor in his dressing room where he could watch the show being recorded. He'd always appreciated it being there, but never quite understood the point of having it, if he was going to be on stage hosting the shows himself.

When his doppelganger was hosting, though, being able to watch the show while hidden away was absolutely ideal.

Since Escape the Greenroom, the pair had been less cautious about being seen in the building together. It was always more enjoyable to debrief immediately after a show, and besides, they had their secret weapon. The magic technology that kept anyone from thinking too hard about two Sams in the one place had turned out to be nothing more than a small lump of circuitry attached to a key on a loop of string, and whichever Sam wasn't on set at the time held onto it and watched the session from the dressing room. It was an extra precaution—hell, if everyone knew Sam was in the middle of a recording, why would they be going into his dressing room—but it was handy to have nonetheless.

It didn't work if you knew what you were looking for, though, so when the door creaked open and his doppelganger walked in, pure glee painted across his face from ear to ear, he turned his megawatt smile on Sam straight away.

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Good record, was it?”

“Oh, was it ever.”

“Well, great!” Sam replied. “You were pretty keen for this one, glad it lived up to expectations.”

As his double nodded with satisfaction, Sam's eyes flicked back to the monitor, now showing a view of backstage, and Trapp, Ify and Siobhan talking quietly to each other.

Something felt off. They didn't seem distressed or anything bad, bad, but the energy between the three contestants was weirdly muted. As it was for everyone, actually. Josh, Zac, Brian—the general vibe backstage was sitting noticeably lower than usual, particularly with such big personalities in the room.

“How'd the cast take it, though?” he asked. “They all look exhausted, was everything alright?”

His doppelganger flapped a hand dismissively. “Oh, they're fine. It was just a long record.”

“No longer than usual,” Sam said, with a brief glance down at his watch and a frown. “We had seven loops planned, right? And you definitely didn't get through all of them, you only did, what—”

“Five, yeah,” his double agreed, speaking with him. “For the episode, we ended up recording five.”

There was an odd tone in his voice as he said it, an emphasis on the specifics that was just a little too weighted. Sam grimaced.

“I'm sensing there's a but coming.”

“Yeah,” his doppelganger admitted slowly, then grinned, a bright, twinkling expression of pure mischief. “We actually ran a lot more loops than that.”

“Wait,” Sam said, “wait. No, you didn't, I was watching the entire thing.”

“Come on,” his doppelganger shot back, a bite of impatience bleeding into his excitement. “You really think I'd fight to do the fake time loop episode and not throw in a real time loop or five?”

“Oh my god.” It was all Sam could say, and he really couldn't tell if he was impressed, or dumbfounded, or just really fucking worried. “Oh, my god. What did you do?”

The giddy delight shining in his double's eyes as his smile broadened even further, brilliant and infectious and only slightly predatory, did nothing to calm Sam's nerves.

---

The first loop went well enough, and confusingly enough. Weird trivia, questions that clearly had an answer, but no way of working out what that answer was, cameos that didn’t seem to relate to anything—it was strange, but you knew that was what you were getting into when you signed up for Game Changer. Trapp, Ify and Siobhan knew that there was a solution to it, but they’d just have to work until they found it.

And then Sam pulled out that bizarre dance that he expected them all to join in on, and accidentally kicked Kevin’s camera out of his hands, and the three of them shuffled offstage for a two minute reset.

The second loop, the pieces were starting to fit into place. The trivia was a memory tester; the weird questions had answers that could only be worked out with knowledge gained in previous rounds; Zac’s—sorry, Grant’s—spaghetti was going to cause problems by way of Brian’s podium inspector; the list went on.

This time, it was pretty clear that the kick wasn’t accidental.

The third loop, everyone knew they were dealing with loops right from the start.

“I think my watch battery is dead,” grumbled Ify on the t̷͖͗̅h̶̥̔͗i̴͉̞̊r̴̭͘d̵̢͔͌̈́ loop.

Loop aft̵̐͜e̷̘̓r̵̩͊ ḽ̵̞́o̷͉̬̼͈͘ö̸̖̠̭́̈̀p̶̡̣̖͂ ạ̸͌͘f̸̱̲͐͗t̶͈͐̇ẻ̶͇̮̄ř̷̤̗͝ ̷̹̌l̸͎͎̔̀̅̀̀̕ò̸̢̨̜͓̳̮̀̕o̶̮̕p̵̪̫̠̝̘̒͒͗̚ͅ, ad infinitum ad nauseam.

A few loops in, Siobhan watched Brian get paler and paler as he examined the trio of podiums. And this time, he was actually taking the time to look at them properly, not just making an act of peering through that stupid little magnifying glass in order to justify a foregone conclusion. He was acting weird, even for him.

Still, he put a good face on it, declaring each one dirty in increasingly elaborate ways, just as he had every time before. Something had clearly rattled him, though, and it made her uneasy in turn.

“Sir? Excuse me, sir?” she said, just as she had the last few rounds, and smiled sweetly with a dollar bill folded in her palm. As Brian came over, she locked eyes with him, hoping the look was enough to convey her question.

“Camcorder, Jan ‘97,” he muttered as he took the money, and had given her the (bribed) point and hurried backstage before she could ask what he meant.

She knew the video he was referring to, it was one of his. Creepy, definitely, but very well-done, all about rewinding tape and rewriting time. And—yeah, man, duh. This was the time loop episode, apparently, so why state the obvious? And why so cryptically?

Unless… unless it was something to do with time loops that wasn’t to do with the format of the episode.

How long had they been recording, anyway? All their phones were in the box backstage, Ify’s watch was dead, she wasn’t wearing one at all, and with her and Trapp on the outside podiums, there was no way she could ask him without making it look stunningly obvious. But it had been a while, for sure, and Sam wasn’t showing any of his usual signs of wanting to usher the recording session towards a natural conclusion.

If anything, he was looking wolfishly pleased with the way things were turning out. He'd even favoured Brian with a wider grin than usual, where Brian's own smile had been kind of watery.

Another part of that video, Siobhan couldn't help but recall, was that sinister, looming silhouette.

Through more and more loops, and the brief interludes they were granted backstage, they’d worked out the rules, sort of. People weren’t affected by the loops resetting, they carried through pretty much as normal. Objects didn’t, though. Things on the set, like the ducks, the money in their envelopes, and the spaghetti stuck to their podiums, reset to the state they were at at the beginning of what they’d begun to call “Loop 3.0”. Things brought across the threshold of the set, like Zac/Grant’s plate of spaghetti, or Josh’s balloons, reset as soon as they crossed over that boundary.

Josh hadn’t had a good time when he realised that one. While the contestant cast and the cameo cast were kept separate backstage, the contestants had to assume that Brian would have told them everything he’d worked out. The next loop after Brian had given his hint to Siobhan, the contestants had to watch a very good character actor try to keep control of the creepy clown role while going through a moderate existential crisis. It was uncomfortable to watch, stuck at their podiums and unable to help. At least they could mutter a few words of encouragement each time they went up to pop a balloon, and the same with Zac and Brian each time they came by to mess up or inspect their podiums.

It was good to have that connection, brief as it might have been. They might have been stuck, but at least they were in this fuckery together.

The crew, though, seemed to be immune from feeling the weirdness they were caught up in. Or—no. Not immune. Exempt. They weren’t trapped in the loop, they were part of it, moving along their set tracks like automata. It took the cast a while to work that one out, because Sam kept time perfectly, interacting with Ash when she brought out the contraption and the jar of beans as if they were having a normal, fluid conversation. But then Ify spotted that the camera operators were moving completely out of sync with the cast, and Trapp noticed that only Sam’s half of the interaction with Ash ever changed, and the illusion fell apart from there. The crew wouldn’t be a lifeline.

And speaking of Sam… Fuck, it was a hard one to swallow. He was their boss, their friend, and they’d all known him for years—hell, he’d come through for each of them multiple times. Until now, he had been pretty unequivocally a Good Guy. But it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the signs that Sam Reich was the puppeteer of this entire shitshow.

He was still pretending to not know what anyone meant when they expressed frustration with the loops, but the words were accompanied by a twinkle in his eye that said he knew exactly what was going on, and was staunchly refusing to help. He was delighting in their discomfort, even more so now the cast knew just how fucked they really were.

He looked like Sam, he sounded like Sam, every single mannerism was something that the cast knew intimately. But the personality driving his actions was wrong. Maybe this guy wasn’t Sam at all. Fuck, if they’d suddenly been catapulted into a reality where time loops were real, maybe so were evil clones, or brain-snatching parasites, or—no, the magician great-grandfather lore from Escape the Greenroom was still a stretch too far. But given the choice between believing that a weird sci-fi plotline was true, when another one was literally happening around them; or believing that their friend had secretly been some kind of torturer with access to sci-fi tech the entire time they’d known him—the decision wasn’t particularly hard.

“We have to stop him from kicking the camera,” Trapp said quietly, as soon as they had all huddled backstage. “That’s what he’s going with as the trigger.”

“It could be another bluff,” Siobhan interjected glumly. “More fucking misdirection.”

Trapp shot her a look. “You got anything better you want to try?”

“I can get between him and Kevin if I’m quick,” Ify volunteered, the tallest among them by a good half a head, with a build to match.

“See what happens,” Trapp said. “But be careful, yeah? Don’t get yourself hurt.”

“So what’s the way to get out?” Siobhan asked, as Ify nodded his agreement. “There has to be something, I might start killing people if I let myself think this is actually completely random.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Popping the right balloon? Or winning the video game?”

“Or unlocking that,” Ify suggested, nodding to the green chest that had been sitting on the table the entire time.

“Yeah,” Siobhan and Trapp agreed together.

“Cool, so we try and—��

“Sorry, y’all, but I’m supposed to take your phones?” Kaylin interrupted, holding out the box as she always did.

By virtue of podium order, Trapp, then Ify, then Siobhan noticed it as they walked on and gave their introductions. Something had changed.

The point totals on the podiums read 14, 9, 14. The points they’d ended with in Loop 3, not started with. They’d survived it. Time was moving.

“Sam, look over there!” Siobhan exclaimed as she entered, and dragged a couple of boxes onstage with her in no more subtle a way than she did the last time.

Trapp got it, he really did. These loops had been… wearing, was probably the best word for it. “Sadistic” was a bit too harsh, particularly when nothing actually bad had been happening (and to be honest, he didn’t even want to risk thinking too badly of the person who seemed to be pulling all the strings in this scenario, in case he somehow noticed, and decided to turn the heat up), but… yeah. Wearing. So he understood why Siobhan might be trying to keep things the same. Making the group less fun for their host to play with.

The trivia rounds were chaos, as always, and passed in a jumble of noise that Trapp was only half focused on. A quiz show was still a quiz show, even if it had descended into some kind of weird time loop purgatory, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to be first on the buzzer regardless. Maybe the points were the way to get out of this whole shitshow, who could say. But when Ify and Siobhan started to have their exact same argument over the equation question, complete with Ify’s triumphant twerking, Trapp felt his stomach rise into his throat, as if once again, the ground had been cut out from under him.

“Yeah, Solzhenitsyn,” Siobhan nodded in response to a question he hadn’t asked, and his blood went cold.

Sam, or possibly ‘Sam’, looked him dead in the eye and winked.

“Next up, there’s a little game I have just for Mike Trapp,” he said with a smirk.

Tinny music started up, and the bright colours of that infuriating video game popped up on the screen, but Trapp didn't care. There wasn't any point in pretending now.

“You fucker,” he said, walking close to eyeball the host. “You mother fucker.”

‘Sam’ just wheezed with laughter, exactly as the real Sam Reich would when a contestant insulted him out of annoyance at the game, and for the briefest of moments, Trapp had his doubts. Everything about this man said Sam Reich, every tiny detail. Had he really been hiding this all along?

“You were doing great playing as a team,” ‘Sam’ said once he'd regained his composure, looking at Trapp with wide-eyed sincerity. “But that's not really the point of the game, now, is it?”

No. Sam, actual Sam, wouldn't do this to his friends.

“What have you done to them?”

“To them? Nothing,” whoever the fuck this was said brightly. “To the studio, though… Well, it would take too long to explain, and you wouldn’t understand most of it anyway. Let’s just say I can run this whole place like a VCR, and the only two people who wouldn’t be caught up in it right now are you and me, bud.”

“That’s fucked up,” Trapp said, as Ash, deaf and blind to their conversation, came out with the giant jar of beans. “That’s just fucked. Let them go.”

“Aw, but they’re probably having a better time than you are right now,” ‘Sam’ said, mock-serious. “They think time’s finally moving ahead for them, remember? And anyway, do you really want to be arguing with little old me when you’re wasting your one chance to earn points without any competition? It is an individual game, after all.”

Trapp’s eyebrows shot high. “Are you saying only one of us gets out of this? You sick fuck.”

‘Sam’ just shrugged and smiled, looking meaningfully at the empty podium. “Do you want to risk it? The choice is yours, Trapp, but time's a-ticking.” His smile flashed. “Or maybe it isn't.”

“Next up, there’s a little game I have just for Ify Nwadiwe,” ‘Sam’ announced.

Yeah, no shit. Ify wasn’t an idiot, even if his point total was sitting below his fellow contestants’. He’d been checking his not-actually-dead watch at the start of every loop, so he knew right from the off that even though their host had been gracious and let them pass through one gauntlet, it sure didn’t mean that the time fuckery had finished.

This run, though, was looking extra screwed up. Siobhan arguing loudly with him about things he didn’t even say this time was the final confirmation. He was alone in this loop, just him and the guy who was running the show.

He knew that ‘Sam’ knew that he knew that he was the only person who wasn’t stuck. So he waited, staring flatly at the person who had taken over the host’s podium, watching to see what move he would make.

‘Sam’ just smiled. “Left or right?”

Alright, so that’s how he was going to play it. Yeah, no, absolutely not.

“Nah, nah, nah,” Ify said instead of engaging, because it didn’t really matter. In his peripheral vision, the game kept scrolling through. “Fuck that. What’s the win condition? What do we need to do to get out of here?”

“Play the game,” ‘Sam’ replied.

“Shut the fuck up, man.” Ify shook his head, and ‘Sam’ chuckled like he’d told a good joke. “We’ve already done that, and it’s got us exactly fuckin nowhere. You put us in this thing for a reason, so there’s gotta be something you want to see happen.”

‘Sam’ blinked at him innocently. “Who says this isn’t exactly it?”

Ify took a deep breath. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying we’re in here, doing the same shit over and over again, until you feel like you’ve had enough?”

“In a nutshell,” ‘Sam’ beamed, “yes.”

“Fuck you, man,” Ify said, shifting his weight to lean more heavily on the podium. “Fuck you.”

“Noted,” ‘Sam’ said brightly. “But I wouldn’t spend too long being mad at me, because—” he broke off, giving the front of Ify’s podium a significant look, “—you’ve got quite a lot of ground to make up, in… well. Who can say how much time?”

“Fuck you,” Ify repeated, and ‘Sam’ just laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Ify was taking too long to name a goddamn Keanu Reeves film, again, and Siobhan had had just about enough. So when he stalled, and stalled, and still came up with the same title he’d answered in the last round, grinning like he’d just got one over on her, she could have screamed.

And then she remembered where she was, and who was asking the questions, and her heart sank. They weren’t done yet, apparently, and this time she was completely on her own.

She playacted the rest of the argument, that and the equation question, and hated the fact that even to her own ears, she was sounding more and more shrill as she shouted, because yeah, it’s panic-inducing to continue a screaming match with someone who doesn’t even register that you’re there. Every word was another reminder that she was trapped.

And then the melodrama stopped, and ‘Sam’ smiled at her. “Next up, there’s a little game I have just—”

“—for Siobhan Thompson?” she finished with him, voice dripping with sarcastic surprise, just like she had in Loop 3.0.

“That’s right!” ‘Sam’ said happily. “Now. Left, or right?”

“No,” Siobhan said.

The man in front of her raised his eyebrows. “No?”

“You’re not Sam, which means I’m not fucking playing. So, who are you?”

“Sam Reich,” he answered quickly, easily, naturally.

Siobhan frowned. “No. Bullshit. Who are you?”

“Sam Reich,” he repeated, sounding somehow even more sincere, and genuinely confused that Siobhan would be asking. Fuck that. She wouldn’t take it. Couldn’t take it.

“No. Bullshit. Try again! Who the fuck are you?”

This time, instead of doubling down, he paused. “Do you want to know a secret?”

After a moment, she nodded warily. He beckoned her close, and slowly, cautiously, she left her podium, walking up to this devil in the shape of a game-show host. Close enough to see his eyes properly, and how truly, deeply old they were.

“Even if I told you,” he stage-whispered, those ancient eyes sparkling with terrible glee, “it wouldn’t make a single bit of difference.”

“Did you just—”

“Yeah. And—”

“Yeah.”

The three of them were once again huddled backstage, debriefing.

“So, are we allowed to do this?” Trapp asked quietly. “Because he seemed pretty against the idea of us working together.”

“Didn't say anything to me,” Ify shrugged. “And I don't see another way of getting out of this if we don't share stuff. And even then—sorry, but I think we're here til he wants to let us go.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Ify said. “Because we got the game, we got the key, we opened the chest, and here we all are again, so I dunno what we have to do. I asked him point blank about the win condition, and—”

“He made it sound like the points, to me,” Trapp interrupted.

Ify nodded. “Me too. But he also pretty much said we're here because he's having fun. I don't think the points are it.”

“So we can lose, but we can't win.” Siobhan's voice was dull.

“C'mon, Siobhan,” Trapp said encouragingly. “We'll get out of it. We've gotta have hope.”

Siobhan just looked flatly at him.

“Look, there are silver linings, okay?” Trapp insisted. “Not many, sure, but enough to look for. Like, because it means our actual friend isn't fucking with us—this guy isn't Sam, that's for sure.”

“I'm not…” Siobhan started, and winced. “This is going to sound bad. But I'm not even sure he's human.”

Ify exhaled deeply.

“Don't give me that,” Siobhan snapped reflexively, and Ify raised his hands placatingly.

“I'm not saying I don't agree,” he said. “It checks out. But it's heavy going, that's all.”

Siobhan nodded, looking calmer. “He still wouldn't say who he is, but… I saw him. The real him, up close. And yeah, he's the spitting image of Sam, but… fuck. People don't look like that behind the eyes.”

“Jesus,” Trapp breathed.

She just nodded wordlessly in reply, and despite knowing that it was costing them valuable discussing time, all three lapsed into silence. What could you say to that sort of revelation?

“The microphone,” Ify said abruptly, and Trapp and Siobhan’s eyes both swung to him. “I mean, I’ve still been thinking about win conditions. Or at least how he’s controlling the loop, and how we can use that.”

“He said he can run it like a VCR,” Trapp added. “But I’m not sure how, I assumed it was something in his podium—”

“But he keeps drawing attention to the microphone,” Ify continued. “Every single goddamn loop.”

“So we break it,” Siobhan said decisively.

Trapp made a face. “Or steal it?”

“Whatever. Either way, we get it out of his control.”

“Sorry, y’all,” came a familiar voice, and they all had to stifle a groan. Planning time was over.

The game started back up again, and—the point totals were as high as they remembered. The set was just as dirty. All promising signs.

And then their host’s eyes turned to Siobhan after Ify’s successful run at the video game, and her stomach clenched. Even though the time loop continuing was the worst possible scenario, departures from his routine were never a positive thing.

He gave her an indulgent look. “But, Siobhan.”

She was focused, she was prepared, she could handle whatever he threw at her. “Yes.”

“Because it is the last round of our game…”

Oh.

The buzzy little chiptune started up again, but to Siobhan, Trapp and Ify, it didn't mean a thing. The words “last round” rang in their ears sweeter than any music.

All of them knew it was probably false hope. Nonetheless, it was better than nothing. Something to cling to as they trod the motions of the remaining questions.

And then the cameo cast and all the crew came onstage when the wenis music played, and that certainly had a grand finale type feel to it; and Kevin didn’t get kicked in the face, no matter how much he was darting around in what had suddenly become a minefield of flailing limbs; and whatever it was that was wearing Sam Reich’s face led them all through more repetitions of the routine than usual, radiating manic joy the entire time.

“And stop!” he yelled as the music cut out, throwing his arms wide and looking around frantically as if the camera remaining intact had any fucking bearing on the time loop whatsoever. “Kevin, did we get that?”

The cameraman pulled open the now heavily duct-taped camera body, then looked up, scripted embarrassment mingling with scripted regret. “There’s no tape in the camera.”

And with that, their host turned away from him to look straight down the barrel of the main camera, favouring it with an open smile of pure, uncomplicated enjoyment; the sort of smile that invited you to share in it with him, no matter how strong the hatred that burned in your veins. “That brings us to the end of our show!” he announced happily. “Our winner tonight: Mike Trapp!”

“No-one’s a winner,” Trapp cut in, shaking his head. “No-one’s a winner here today.”

But even so, he was presented with a cool watch, and the confetti cannons went off, and they left the set for longer than two minutes and weren't called back at all, and finally, finally, they could let themselves believe it.

The loop was broken. They were free.

---

“What did I do?” Sam’s doppelganger repeated, pausing for a moment to think. “Oh, nothing awful.”

Normally, Sam would be content to let that slide. But just lately, he’d been getting a weird feeling from his doppelganger, and there was too much grey area between ‘something good’ and ‘nothing awful’ to be comfortable. “No, seriously.”

“We just ran the recording a few more times,” his double huffed, his smile fading—not quite impatient, but visibly put out, somehow, like he didn’t feel sufficiently appreciated. “Look at them, they’re fine.”

“I am looking at them,” Sam said. “And that’s why I’m asking. They’re my friends, I can tell when something isn’t right.”

His doppelganger hummed briefly, moving next to him to come and look at the monitor, and—just for a flash, less than a second—Sam felt the hair on the back of his neck rise when his double passed behind him.

“Maybe you're right,” he said slowly, after watching the feed for a few seconds. “Okay, I'll fix it. I'll have a chat to them.”

Sam exhaled, relief washing over him. Of course there wasn't anything to be worried about.

“Thanks,” he said.

His double just smiled faintly and nodded, then left the room.

Sam turned back to the monitor, waiting for the moment a minute or so later when his double would appear in the frame. And sure enough, he did. The sound setup was only piped in from the stage, and even then it wasn’t the best quality, so Sam didn’t have a chance of hearing what was actually being said. But he watched as, without exception, every single cast member flinched when his doppelganger touched them lightly on the shoulder to get their attention.

The conversations were quiet, with a gentle sort of intensity. His double seemed to be focused on making sure each person felt acknowledged—Sam couldn’t recall him breaking eye contact with anyone he was speaking to—and whatever he said, it seemed to work. One after another, he spoke to all the cast, contestants and cameos, leaving calm in his wake. And when he had talked to the last one, and everyone looked settled and genuinely at ease, he shot a look of pure satisfaction towards the backstage camera, and headed out of view.

“Thank you,” Sam said again when his doppelganger returned to their dressing room, and received a gracious nod in reply. “Just out of curiosity, though—what did you tell them? Because fuck, it worked like a charm!”

His double tilted his head, half-smiling. “Oh, you know. All the right things. That I was very sorry for anything that might have gone weird during the recording, that I wasn’t feeling like myself, that it’ll never happen again… Oh, yeah—and then I wiped their memories.”

Sam coughed. “You what?”

“Wiped their memories,” his double repeated matter-of-factly. “It was the simplest solution, really. Everyone stays in continuity, they’re blissfully free of any… more troubling memories, our cover isn’t blown—it’s perfect.”

“No, hang on, you can’t—”

“I can, and I did,” his doppelganger replied. “I fixed the problem—which you asked me to, I might add—and now everyone’s back to their regular happy selves. It’s a totally closed system. The only person who knows it happened at all is me. Oh, and you, of course.”

Sam frowned.

“Besides, this way, you don’t have to worry about having to work out the overtime for a time loop, because they’ve got no idea what the extra pay would even be for,” his double added breezily before he had a chance to say anything, then snapped serious. “And don’t look at me like that, Samuel Dalton Reich, because you were thinking about it. I know you.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t deny it. The tiny part of his mind that was always in Dropout CEO mode had been grappling with the ethical and financial implications of a time loop and getting nowhere, and the relief of not having to deal with it was like a fist unclenching.

“See?” his doppelganger said, meeting his eyes with a pointed sort of kindness. “I know what I’m doing, Sam, I’ve been doing it for a very long time. And it’s better for everyone like this.”

“I don’t—” Sam started, faltering. On the one hand, there was something intuitively and viscerally horrifying about his friends having their memories wiped. But on the other…

“If you don’t want to know,” his double said softly, and god, it gave Sam the shivers to hear his own voice used that way, “there is a way around it. I thought you’d rather be a part of everything that’s going on, but…”

His eyes caught and held on Sam’s like magnets, and—something had shifted behind them, something small, but with a seismic effect. He was pinned by that gaze, trapped, electrified; wholly unable to look away.

“I can do the same for you as I did for them.”

On the other hand… his double was right. It was kinder, probably, if they didn’t remember whatever they went through, and in that moment, he realised he couldn’t even begin to guess what that was. And… it was definitely easier.

“No,” he said, and when the word came out as a whisper, he cleared his throat and tried again. “No. It’s okay.”

His doppelganger blinked, and the spell was broken.

“Great!” he said brightly, back to his usual cheerful self, with all traces of that scary side—that dangerous side—folded neatly away. “You know, I really didn’t want to have to do that to you—you’ve been so much fun to work with, it would have been a shame to have it all come to nothing.”

And Sam, feeling like a marionette with its strings cut, hated the fact that he agreed. Even with everything that had happened lately, he couldn’t deny that the electricity that came from working with his doppelganger, the sizzle of pushing ideas just that bit past the boundaries and laughing uproariously at the result, was liberating. Exhilarating. Addictive, almost, a heart-racing excitement that sang in his blood.

Maybe the danger was part of the game. And as long as nobody came to any harm, he could keep playing.

“Just… promise me one thing, okay?” he started, and his double turned wide, patient eyes on him. “Promise me I won’t have to see anything like that again. There’s nothing we can do to change this now, but I can’t let it happen again, yeah? They’re my friends, and there’s a line.”

“Sure,” his doppelganger agreed. “You’re right. And I do like them, so—hm. I’ll treat them like I would my own friend.”

“Thanks,” Sam replied, finally letting the tension drain out of him. “That means a lot.”

His doppelganger just nodded in acknowledgement, then clapped him on the shoulder and grinned. “C’mon. We’ve got more work to do.”

----- missed an installment of the sam reich!master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): you are here!

#sam reich!master #doctor who #dw #the master #game changer #dropout #sam reich #clari speaks #clari writes #turns out you can take the girlie out of the horror genre but you can't take the horror genre out of the girlie #not my fault time loops and memory wipes are inherently horrific #once again i include the disclaimer: mr sam reich sir if you see this i am so sorry but i have no regrets

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