#and when I look up in the sky

[dreamer-329]

When the sun don't shine

And the sky's not blue

When the clouds stop cryin'

Maybe then I'll stop lovin' you

#when I dream baby you the one I seek #and when I look up in the sky #I see the stars then I see your eyes #no I don't wanna say goodnight #ali gatie #can't give up #his music just hits deep #super relatable #but also just in general #amazing singer #this song especially hits deep cuz I feel this and I feel the pin in his voice when he is singing it #I've been waiting for this song to drop and it hit!!!!!!!! #Spotify

[rassebers]

So, who's paying?

#mp100 #my rart #shigeo kageyama #reigen arataka #mob psycho 100 #i love tumblr tags now I can talk abt this a lil bit #i rlly really wanted to try a back and forth panelling parallel thing to emphasize their body language #and I imagine mob is more comfortable with his emotions and expressing himself as he gets older #so as reigen & mob become closer friends I think they tease eachother more #hence. mob starts purposefully copying reigen #also small optional detail #i Imagine when mob says you're moving apartments right it's bc serizawa n reigen found. an apartment together #because every night I look up at the sky and it's full of stars and the world is beautiful #no matter how old mob gets #reigen will always insist that hes the one with the paycheck #so obviously *he* should be the one paying! #Reigen never gets out of the habit of calling mob kiddo either #thanks for listening #mob pays in the end btw

[blue-mood-blue]

I’ve grown to appreciate the aus where Shen Yuan enters the story as “Shen Yuan” - same name, probably similar face, generally able to interact with PIDW as himself and change the story through his added presence. I like the sense of “if only you’d been here, things might have been better the first time around” of it all.

And I was thinking, it’s a funny coincidence in that scenario that someone named Shen Yuan gets put into… another Shen Yuan. What are the chances? What a weird twist of fate that Airplane would pick out the name that his most dedicated critic could slip into seamlessly.

What about a version where it’s not coincidence at all?

Airplane goes to school with a kid named Shen Yuan. He’s prickly and hard to approach and a little intense, but Airplane is persistent. In fairness, Airplane is relentless - and maybe it’s a good thing that they end up being friends, because they’re a little too much for anyone else to handle. They balance each other out. They’re the “weird kids” in class and they’re okay with that, because even when they don’t have any words for it, they know they’re not like their classmates, not really. That’s okay; they don’t want to be.

Recesses and breaks are consumed with the elaborate stories that Airplane wants to tell, and all the holes Shen Yuan pokes into them. It’s not mean-spirited, though, even though Shen Yuan isn’t the kind to temper his words. It’s passionate. He cares about those stories the way Airplane cares about them, and it can’t be mistaken for anything else when they lean together conspiratorially across the lunchroom table. They’ve both got notebooks filled with details and characters and monsters. Shen Yuan’s practically got a whole bestiary sketched out in wobbly childhood attempts at art, entries fervently scrawled beside them. Airplane prattles out plots nonstop, always with the promise of shining eyes and being asked “what happens next?”

They come up with a whole world together. Airplane’s going to write about it someday. Shen Yuan is going to read every word.

Shen Yuan misses school. Shen Yuan starts missing school a lot.

Airplane goes to the hospital room instead. He doesn’t think to worry, because Shen Yuan is okay - that’s what he says. He looks okay, and he’s a kid, and it doesn’t feel real that anything bad should happen to a kid. He doesn’t think to worry. He doesn’t think to say goodbye.

It’s one of the older Shen brothers who catches him on the way up to the room one day, in the hallway just outside - snaps at him to go the fuck home, and when Airplane hesitates, pushes him into the elevator and tells him not to come back. “Tells” is a generous way to describe the way the words come out - a growl, a hiss, the sound an animal would make when a hand got too close to a wound.

(It’s not fair to name a villain after him, even if the name never really comes up in the story. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He’d lost a brother minutes before, and he was getting his brother’s friend out of the way so he didn’t have to… see. It isn’t fair, but then, none of it is fair.)

Death feels very real after that.

The notebooks get shoved into a closet, and it’s not until Airplane’s moving out and one falls on him from a high shelf that he thinks about it again. He’s written things, lots of things, but nothing as ambitious as this - nothing as important. It could be good, he considers. He’d promised. Shen Yuan wanted to read it.

The problem was that no one else does, not for a long time, not until Airplane has whittled himself and his art into a corner and into such an unfamiliar shape that he has to wonder how it’s still his own face he sees in the mirror. He has to eat. He has to pay rent. Shen Yuan would yell at him, but Shen Yuan isn’t there to yell at him, and who cares. Who cares if it could have been better? The people who actually are here love it, and it’s paying his bills, and sometimes stories don’t go the way they’re supposed to and the world is fucking unfair. It doesn’t matter.

(It does. But he shoves that thought away along with styrofoam cups and soda bottles to the bottom of a garbage bag.)

Authors are not gods and their power is limited, but Airplane exercises just a sliver of what he’s been granted and gifts an inconsequential sort of immortality. He thinks about making him a rogue cultivator, maybe the kind that goes around documenting beasts and compiling his findings. He thinks about making him someone too powerful for death to touch, or too important to threaten, but when Airplane looks at the world he crafted and everything that’s become of it, it feels like the kindest thing he can do for Shen Yuan is a childhood where he’s loved, and a death that’s peaceful. What does it say about that world, that he’d kill off his best friend too early again instead of making him live there?

(The best writing he ever does is the only, shining moment of humanity that his scum villain ever displays: a lament about death that comes too early, about a brother gone too soon. The commenters praise him. The commenters flatter over how real the emotions feel. The commenters don’t get any response from Airplane on that chapter.)

Death is incredibly real when it comes for him too early, too, still hovering over his keyboard with the story technically finished and incredibly incomplete. Airplane could tell himself that’s because the written version can never be the version in the writer’s head, always shifting and with every possibility still on the table, but he knows better than that. The System knows better than that, with its condescending message about “improving” his writing and “closing plot holes” and “achieving his original vision”...

…and he’s a child again. He’s a child in his own story, he’s Shang Qinghua now without the benefit yet of a peak or cultivation or anything, and maybe he’s a little bitter, and a little scared, and…

And Shen Yuan - with longer hair, with robes, with a couple of older kids watching him from across the street, but undeniably the prickly little boy who used to sit down imperiously across from him and tell him everything that was wrong with the chuck of writing that had been handed to him last period, but with that smile that said he was only invested because he knew it could be better and they were going to make it better - marches up to him with a fire in his eyes and a frown that warns of a coming tirade.

“You told it wrong,” is the first thing he says.

Shang Qinghua wants to ask how him how he’s here, how this is possible, or maybe laugh because, yeah - yeah, Shen Yuan has no goddamn idea how wrong he got absolutely everything.

(Shang Qinghua wants to say “I missed you” and “why did you leave so soon” but he’s here now. He’s right here.)

“I know,” he says instead. “I’m sorry. It all kind of… spiraled out of control.”

Shen Yuan frowns, but then it dissipates the way it always does, and his eyes shine with ideas the way they always used to. “That’s okay,” he relents, grabbing for his hand. “We’ll fix it. We’ll make it what it was supposed to be.”

#scum villain self saving system #svsss #shang qinghua #shen yuan #airplane shooting towards the sky #this got more into the feelings than i thought it would #surprising no one #anyway just! childhood friends au! as a reason for a shen yuan insert! #obviously he is not going to die as a child in this version #shang qinghua would not have that nope not again #also pls consider poor shen jiu who looks at this child that shen yuan has picked out for a best friend like '...really? that one??' #(it's up to you if he's shen yuan's actual brother from his first life) #(put there's a part of me that likes the idea that shen jiu also gets a second chance to spend more time with his brother) #a second chance for them to grow up together! #THAT SAID #RIP TO SHANG QINGHUA #WHEN SHEN YUAN IS OLD ENOUGH TO LEARN ABOUT ALL THE PAPAPA #the LOOKS shang qinghua is going to get #anyway here have a thing because I CANNOT add another au to my drafts thank you and goodbyyyyye

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 168

So. Apparently halfas are like phoenixes or something, which Danny would’ve really liked to know. 

See, usually with ghosts if they’re forced to retreat to their cores they reform as was, but apparently, since they’re still partially living, schrodinger's people and all that, halfas have to regrow their body from scratch. At least that’s what he’s understanding from Frostbite. 

But how come he has to deal with it? It’s Dan’s fault for trying to pull such a stunt! Oh, it’s either him or Vlad? Well fuck, he might have calmed down and is going to therapy in both the living realm and the Zone, but he’s waaay not equipped to raise a child except for like, monetarily wise. 

Well dammit, how long will this core incubation thing last, he has his new job in… let him check which offer he accepted again… He has his new job in Coast City that he needs to finish packing for and then all the rest of the stuff to do. 

What do you mean it’ll take months?! He doesn’t have months?! Urgh, fine. At least being a mortician isn’t that exciting, nor dangerous. Just hand him Dan’s core and he’ll figure things out for the living side of things. He’s sure Tucker and Sam wouldn’t be against helping, if only to try and claim favorite aunt or uncle spots. 

#dcxdp #dpxdc #prompts #Coast City is where Hal Jordan lives hilarious enough #I just chose a random city but honestly a green lantern city is hilariously on brand for where Danny would choose to move #He’s just a cheerful space core dude who is glaring down several ghosts & helping others move on while he’s working #He’s also slightly uncanny valley to people outside of Amity & doesn’t realize it #He runs into a reporter Wes at some point & okay the fact he looks like the lady doing math meme when seeing Dan? #Utterly hilarious #Danny holding a newborn with matching slightly pointy ears and claws :) #Wes who is *pretty sure* Danny is cis but is second guessing everything now: #Danny is going to do his best to avoid any hero BS #He’s trying to do his JOB #Who cares if he brings his baby to work he needs to eat and he isn’t going to hire a babysitter #Bby Jordan tried to set the house on fire during his last tantrum do you THINK anyone else can deal with him? That’s what he thought now ou #Ellie visits as well & straight up melts out of the wall sometimes like a horror movie #She has weaponized her goo powers and is also excited to show her dad her new gravity ones #Space Core Danny + Fire Core Vlad = Sun Core Dan #Ellie has a Moon core (something something phases of the moon & travelling across the night sky) #Danny is encountering so many rogues and heroes and just doesn’t acknowledge it because he has a literal BABY who can destroy the entire JL #He’s very tired and would like a nap now

[un-pearable]

so sonic prime part 2 is looking great

come on wildbrain. TWO multiverses??? (cross-fandom context: sonic prime and ninjago are produced by the same studio. ninjago just revealed it’s latest season is ALSO about multiverse stuff. shenanigans abound.)

#also i just think everyone needs a cowboy sonic au. i KNOW it was the one people made the most jokes about back when prime dropped #art✨ #ninjago #ninjago dragons rising #sonic #sonic prime #nya ninjago #kai ninjago #zane ninjago #lloyd garmadon #cole ninjago #jay walker #<- sry i know it’s clunky but for personal tag sorting (helps me see all my character art) #originally drafted this back when prime dropped and the joke was that he looked up and saw the ninjago logo in the sky like the lego movie #this joke is so much funnier i’m glad i waited. ALRIGHT which one of you color coded protagonists broke the universe *NOW??*

[coern-art-very-cool-and-nice]

the end is so, so close, you can almost taste its sweetness on your tongue

#my art #isat spoilers #sky cotl spoilers #I like these games....they have a lot of similarities when you look closely #(<- said by person who made a venn diagram of sky and isat) #isat #in stars and time #scotl #sky children of the light #I love backgrounds #I like the second a lot #the first is alright but my favorite part got covered up by the railing #sad #for anyone wondering first image is a moth on the railing in act 5 just before the allies fight #and the second image is ascension to orbit #I had another idea for the first but I decided to go with more of a background #thought it matched the other better #sky cotl #in stars and time spoilers #I wont tag characters since they're sorta just part of the background

[the-owl-tree]

#warrior cats #a starless clan #sky spoilers #mothwing #frostpaw #splashtail #tigerheartstar #sunbeam #lightleap #owlnose #everyone for the love of god be so nice about the quality #the og thing was huge and csp threw up multiple times when i tried to fix it #it's going to suck to look at <3 #this bitch has been sitting in my files since river released #i want it OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mishapen-dear]

mann im still thinking about that one foolish stream jaiden was on and was talking to him and forever (?) and said basically, “yeah roier is my platonic partner.” And like that alone fucking kills me but what nukes my tombstone is that IS. she said IS!! present tense roier IS her platonic partner. he’s married to cellbit but that doesnt change what they have!! cellbit Is roier’s romantic partner and jaiden Is roier’s platonic partner and one does not negate the other and fucking. it’s jaiden who says that. jaiden who was surprised to be invited to their wedding. she’s no less important to roier and she Knows that now. she was so reluctant to take up space in roier’s life (and i cant stop thinking about the house she built and then abandoned to live in his, and then to refer to the house as his) but here she is. roier has a new partner now but that doesnt mean she’s been replaced it just means that there’s a new place in his heart for a husband to go. she doesnt have to leave to make space he wants her to stay and she knows that.

#qsmp #i havent watched all the streams so classic disclaimer there of i may not be entirely on my rocker #but the ones i have seen are. yeah #if im misremembering when she said this im gonna Wail but i think it was the foolish stream where he told her pomme assassinated him #and then later on was the capybara ride thru the sky #anyway im shaking jaiden and roier and cellbit so violently #idk what the terms are when part of the polycule’s platonic but #jaiden and cellbit looking at each other as metamours and going ! a friend #drives me fucking bonkers #and the parallels between them.... #anyway anyway this has been: cubito insanity hour #coming up next: cubito insanity hour

[slink-a-dink]

Dawn

#sky children of the light #sky cotl #thatskygame #art #my art #resh #king resh #me when i can make up a guy #redid my design completely bc i wanted them to look youthful and less imposing to highlight being young yet tasked with so much #eden elder

[shen-mu]

oh my god imagine if dead eggs trying to wake up their siblings bc they can't sleep that long. imagine the panic in their voices and how they're trying to shake them. and the only one who can hear them is tallulah. they know that. that's why they're trying to talk with her but she starts crying in her sleep. but never wake up

#qsmp #qsmp eggs #and about pomme & dapper #what if pomme asked dapper to go and check on their family just to be safe #and when dapper goes into 'shadow' mode he sees....nothing #everything is quiet and he goes to check on richas #he's asleep but there's a lot (and i mean A LOT) of sticky notes with 'wake up soon' and 'hope you're having good sleep' and he just knows #so he goes back to pomme and tells her everything #and she's looking up to the sky to ask her dads (etoiles and antoine) to keep an eye on them #im fine btw i just woke up lmao

[albino-parakeet]

Skytober Day 9 Moth (Eoraptor)

My other Skytober drawings

#sky cotl #sky children of the light #thatskygame #sky but with dinosaurs #skytober 2023 #A moth fresh off the press and the perfect dinosaur to accompany them #Eoraptor #One of the earliest known dinosaurs #I know there’s other ones that are possibly earlier but this one is cute #I never realized how morning in home space looked until I had to color this #Very brown? Grey? Idk #Still trying to catch up #I might just draw the ones that interest me more and then circle back #To previous days when I finally get an idea #Also just noticed I’ve colored the past 3 dinosaurs brownish. Gotta fix that lol

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Hey do you think ya can explain Barnaby and his illusion smoke a bit? It seems really cool and I don't remember if ya talked about it in depth before

sure! this got a bit longer than i expected!

so i was thinking that Barnaby seems like more of a hands-off kinda guy when it comes to altercations. would rather sit back and make funny commentary! so if he Had to get involved, i imagine it would be from a distance and still in an Entertaining Way!

thus - illusion magic! for this au i've been picturing that he got his paws on some illusionary herb in his early teens. for making people laugh, you know! and help out with the farm - illusions could distract animals, convince them to move on to different pastures, calm the chickens for egg-collecting, etc!

Ms. Beagle didn't really approve, since smoking is harmful, but lucky for the both of them this particular plant doesn't deal as much damage when smoked as normal smoking materials would - like tobacco! something to do with the magic properties! so Barnaby mostly used it for chores (when his mama wasn't paying attention, ofc - it's still a bad habit in her eyes) and entertainment purposes.

how it works: on its own, it doesn't do much when burned. it's not like illusions will waft out of the pipe's bowl, or that sniffing it will give someone hallucinations. in order for it to work properly, the user has to inhale properly, form the Intent of what the illusion should be / look like / behave, then purposefully blow the smoke out with that thought firmly in mind. the reach of the smoke depends on the force of Intent, and the intensity depends on the amount inhaled. those that breathe it in / are surrounded by it will see hallucinations of whatever Barnaby - or whoever the user is - wants them to! it can be literally anything! whether or not the target is fooled depends entirely on the individual, but the herb is potent enough that most are convinced that what they "see" is real (auditory hallucinations only occur if the target breathes in the smoke)

upsides: this form of magic is great for distractions, cover, deescalation, and that kind of thing. if needed, Barnaby could stop a fight with one exhale! it's a pretty powerful trick! it also means that Barnaby has built up a tolerance to illusion magic over the years, so where most of the party would be tricked, Barnaby would be unfazed. the only one with total immunity to the form of magic is Wally!

downsides: if Barnaby uses too much in too short of a time, it will get to him. and since he breathes in the largest amount - undiluted at that - it can fuck him up! using it sparingly / using repeated small amounts doesn't do anything. the most it will do is make him feel slightly untethered, but he has an easy time ignoring it / shaking it off.

in mild cases of the magic getting to him, it's like a bad trip. his proprioception is messed with (basically he gets uncharacteristically clumsy & off-balance), he feels like he's falling, anxiety spikes, and his vision is just... off! there are blind spots (im talking actual blind spots, not spots of black), things are moving in ways that they shouldn't, he has mild auditory hallucinations. the others can help ground him by talking to him, touching him, and confirming what's real and what isn't.

in bad cases, it's like that but 10 times worse. on top of all of the previous symptoms being worsened, he gets extremely vivid hallucinations, and they're very often not fun! it's a simultaneous feeling of dying, going insane, and not knowing what the fuck is going on. Barnaby loses sense of where he is, who's where, what's happening. he can get lost in the hallucinations - he has no way to know that they aren't real. in these terrible trips, no one can really help him. they can't get through the hallucinations, and if they do, the magic morphs Barnaby's perception of them and they end up adding to the effects. honestly the best thing for him is to let him rest somewhere with as little sensory input as possible & leave him be until he starts to come down. physical contact does help, since Barnaby understands on an instinctive level that illusions can't touch him, but it doesn't help half as much as it does w/ the mild trips. and again, the presence of someone can make the hallucinations worse.

so! suffice to say! he doesn't like using the herb all that often, and it's why he Stays Out Of It unless absolutely needed. he has two pouches of the herb - one with the strong stuff, reserved for emergencies / one with just a tiny bit of it mixed in with Barnaby's own personal blend for recreational/everyday use. (he also has an emergency tobacco stash in his pack, but that's only for when he's completely out of his usual blend <3)

extra lil scribble that didn't make it into the lil doodle post... i broke his wrist...

#the undiluted one is the blue/purple/pink smoke #while the personal blend changes color depending on his mood #and the personal blend does Not cause illusions! #the herb is included in the blend for cosmetic effects - colorful smoke! - and it has calming affects #so its. yeah its rgb weed last person nailed it on the head #rambles from the bog #wh fantasy au #the other day i was thinking about howdy's first adventure with the neighborhood #and i was like 'ok situation where barnaby has to use a tad too much of the magic' #and i amused myself imagining howdy's shock and panic when barnaby - steady graceful barnaby #staggers a little. looks up at the trees/skies. goes 'oh no' and promptly stumbles and falls on his face. and then just does not get back u #he has to go get poppy to make sure he isnt hurt / also howdy would Not be able to half-drag barn back to camp on his own #that dog is dead weight and staggering all over the place - if they can even unstick his claws from where he's anchored himself #sometimes barnaby will feel the unpleasant trip Incoming and he'll just. lie down right there and then #facedown. gripping the grass like his life depends on it - and also whoever's closest #frank always leaps out of the way when barn starts to Sway bc he does not want to sacrifice his arm for a solid few hours #usually wally is the one to sit with him and happily get his arm bones squeezed into dust <3 #a common thing is barnaby will be like 'the trees/sky is melting and the ground is turning inside-out' #what does that mean! no one knows! he cant explain it when he sobers up!

[pocketramblr]

It's all my fault

#i am so glad i got to the endgame unspoiled that was crazy good #but kabru just immediately flopping over and going 'ah this is all my fault' was the funniest thing #only to become the second funniest thing when Mithrun just immediately got up and went to punch him about it shfhgjgh #still i kinda wish kabru had more than a single panel interaction with this #but the fact that his arm was grabbed (he normally is the one grabbing) and the eyes stayed close (even though they could have looked human) #i dunno just fun #.... also #kabru: why won't you open your eyes #wl!laios: oh I'm about to! (rips apart the sky) they're open now! #anyway silliness aside #it's fun to draw with those textures #my art #alt text #dungeon meshi spoilers #delicious in dungeon spoilers #dm spoilers #i don't. i don't know how to tag spoilers #i wasn't blocking any #i was just lucky that of all the fun content i saw on my dash before i started reading it none of it gave away this #i hope the rest of y'all are so lucky fhgjgjgh

[twst-mer]

najma viper sketch

#najma viper #twst #twisted wonderland #a firelit sky: over the sands #najma and jack are equally my twst bias #when everyone teamed up with najma against jamil when they literally only just met 2 seconds ago i wheezed #she steals jamil's food and everyone was like no she was so right for that actually #rip jamil #najma: i know we dont really look alike but im this dudes sister #SHES SO FUNYY #i love her sarcasm #i love her dynamic with jamil #i love her dynamic with everyone #najma show up more pleas #viper sibs fans rise

[skylerfurmaniac]

"You regret making that mistake, don't you?"

OooooOoooooOoooooOOooo sona lore :3

(I have more doodles but I'll send them in the morning when I have better Wi-Fi ^^)

#sky's random rambles #art #skyler's art #sona: skyler #small artist #I TRIED MY BEST I HOPE IT LOOKS OKAY #<:3 #my back literally cracked like a glow stick when I got up from finishing this like it was LOUUD

[variousqueerthings]

VERY RAMBLY BUT I think rose and martha are like the inverse of one another in terms of narrative, in that they both meet a doctor who is deeply deeply hurt, but the doctor interacts with them about it so differently, because of where they're at with that hurt, and the doctor is like "hey, I'm suave and vulnerable beneath the surface, which is quite attractive, want to travel in space and time in my whimsical timeship?" and they both go "oh heck yes!" and then it's like splintered glass from that point on, like martha lives in a funhouse mirror of rose's story -- up until she makes it her own of course and she does call the doctor out on it relatively early on, although rose continues to have that haunting effect

so rose has this bubble created around her that is perfect and unchangeable almost, in which nothing bad can ever happen (except for all the times it does but huuush, we'll be together forever forrealsies don't look at that big ol hurricane hurtling our way), which then inevitably bursts, but is always there-as-memory, because rose becomes something of an impossible ideal to some extent

and martha isn't protected at all, and has all the badness spilling out on her because the doctor is unable to contain any of it (and maybe is relieved to finally give up on being strong), and subsequently all of the promise of wonder has an air of sourness to it, and the doctor will always feel incredibly guilty about how it all ended

but crucially there's a lot they have in common, that is quite different to, say, donna (who is woven in in her own, interesting, way) -- they both become attracted to this powerful, interesting, and suuuper traumatised being, they're both taken along on a journey of promised wonders, they're both incredibly reliable to the point that the narrative is retroactively fitted around how much the doctor's belief-systems revolve around belief in their companions, with many others from the past given their dues (starting with sarah-jane), and they both do see wonders beyond their comprehension (and so does donna, but again, there's something a bit different there to poke at in another post...),

except where for rose this wonder helps her break out of the path that was set down for her and become who she always had the potential to be in a way that is mostly framed as a positive (although with some -- I think -- under-analysed caveats...) and she will be forever thankful for the doctor arriving in her life, martha's is more like an awe that the universe is so hostile and so lonely and so heartbreaking, and so she needs to become more resilient and more ready to make choices that are terrible (from travelling the broken world for a year to the osterhagen key....), and so there's another story about someone who becomes strong and tough (just like rose) but it's because the doctor wasn't really able to be there for her, and while I don't think the show (from memory) ever has her totally regretting the doctor dropping into her life, there for sure is some solemnity to how her story ends, a bit of a dampener in comparison (even tbh in comparison to donna, who yeah, gets her memory taken, but is suggested -- now confirmed perhaps? -- to get more of her life in order/feel more self-confident, also partially because of that subliminal influence of her time with the doctor)

and this isn't to say that it's all-bad for martha! her working for UNIT and Torchwood has a lot of very interesting facets to it, and she is fulfilling her potential to be this impressive, capable person, but the ways all of this was built up to is so heartrending

rose coming in and "saving" the doctor, except it was a bit of a lie, because the second she wasn't there they crashed even harder than before, and martha coming in with the idea that she could save the doctor and walking away when realising what it was doing to her life, and both rose and martha irrevocably changed to the point that the person pre-doctor is barely recognisable in them anymore, both take on the doctor's self-sacrificial traits...

and also the idea that rose gets the fantasy, but it's the fantasy a-bit-to-the-left (funhouse again) because there's always something a bit disconcerting about the lengths the doctor goes to to maintain the bubble, to the point of offering up the alternate-him/tentoo so that she can still have it, even though the actual physical doctor that shared it with her isn't actually there! and martha gets the glimpse of the fantasy, and then has to come to terms with the fact that she's not the person it's "for" and reassess her relationship to the idea of a fantasy in the first place (it helps that martha is an incredibly practical, pragmatic person, but it's still so... ouch)

I don't think it was intentional, but this also fascinating from the perspective of rose as a white woman and martha as a black woman -- who is the fantasy for, to the extent that strange and universe-breaking events go into maintaining it, and who has to be practical and pragmatic and self-reliant?

and also, it's got more tragedy in both cases -- rose as a spectre/haunter of the narrative is always a little bit intangible when she's looked back on (even though in the story she's in she's incredibly real and well-rounded, every time I go back to s1 I am struck by how grounded she is in reality), and I think that's something interesting in terms of her mother's warning in s2, how if she travels with the doctor "forever" she'll become something else, something not her

and martha's mother warns her as well, although she's not completely sure of what, and in contrast to rose this warning comes into very painful fruition, harming her entire family (except, maybe her brother? I wonder if there's anything written about that), but where rose is so omnipresent, martha tries several times to take herself out

(also something about both of their mothers being their anchor-points)

there's something there that's at the centre of both rose's and martha's arcs:

is the change they're going through because of the doctor... good? good for them? good for their families? good as in they're becoming better people than before? good for the world they inhabit? is it good for the person they used to be? did they become better than that person? can they ever truly deal with or even begin to comprehend how these events made them who they are? can they even connect who they are now to who they were then? was this good?

they both become these larger-than-life people, somewhat without noticing on both parts (but the narrative does notice), one of them a ghost, and the other a soldier -- one of them an increasingly intangible, ever-present idea, and the other someone who has to fight every step of the way

it's just a bunch of things I've had going through my head that I can't quite formulate in coherent essay-like sentences, but for sure it's there

opposite sides of the coin, rose tyler and martha jones

I do wish they'd had space in the story for them to talk

#martha jones #rose tyler #doctor who #dw #i also wish they'd had space in the narrative for them to make out but youknow #i know that rose and tentoo is generally interpreted as a net-positive -- including in a subsequent comic #but it was always very eerie to me #this also to deal with the fact that while i looove martha's arc in s4 #hers was the weakest goodbye scene in the final episode imo #because the pair the spares makes it seem like there wasn't a lot of thought put into it/where she is now #and like sure they're both hanging out with jack at torchwood but it's so out of the blue #and then she finishes up with a gun in her hand -- far cry from where we met her even in poison sky #working for UNIT but! --- but does fit somewhat from where we saw her end s4 when she was ready to destroy the world #but it's still sort of disconnected from the story? why is she there? why is there a sontaran there? why gun and not medicine? questions #questions for which the answer presumably was: because she looks badass but i need More than that! I need Answers! #argh martha i want so badly for them to at least mention you in the specials. where are you 🥺🥺🥺 #gun to your head rtd do it! #doctor who meta