🎭💖 Kyrie Fae 🌺🎶

Summoning that Missy Energy.

...I think it's going to become necessary.

A note about The Eleventh Hour: it is a story that explores, grieves, and eventually accepts a loss of innocence.

Yet, through the medium of Doctor Who, we get to play at a more wholesome alternative to simple broken promises, forgotten and impossible dreams and the like. The Raggedyman came back (eventually).

Through the eyes of Amelia Pond we are reminded not all of our childhood dreams or fantasies have to be put away. It's true the world rarely offers space for them but in one way or another, we can find what we're looking for because sooner or later, we may just realize what we always wanted was right beside us all along.

...or what we always feared had deeper meaning and inexplicable answers only time could properly reveal.

Beyond the enigma of her fairy tale existence which takes multiple seasons to fully grasp, Amelia is our window back into the life of The Doctor in this episode. We get to be just as bewildered by the mystery as she is and this crack in the wall will continue to haunt her well into the future.

...but an enigma himself is the Raggedyman that appeared and disappeared in the matter of one night. An impossible moment in her life she could never possibly forget...no way to prove it's reality; no way to resolve the quiet horror beside her bed and through the wall.

He eventually returned to save the day but the day he was meant to save was not the day they met.

The ordinary may become extraordinary or perhaps it will always remain as such but we can never be completely certain all at once. We dream and in some ways that is our curse.

We are also cursed to live to see another day while we wait in anticipation for something more; something new. When those new days come, we are reminded that we still wait. The choice is then repeatedly placed at our feet: do we lament, abandon, retain, or forget the promises of yesterday?

In the end, there were no obvious choices or any obvious solutions to the inexplicable story in The Eleventh Hour and our hero, Amelia Pond, may finally be able to see all of time and space but what she endured in the meantime would always remain a part of her.

For better, for worse, and for all of the above.

We are all stories in the end. So make it a good one.

Be it a hot-take or not, Demons of the Punjab, belongs in the Top 5 all time best stories in Doctor Who.

Instead of being about silly sci-fi monsters or the checkered inner-workings of the Doctor (two things I deeply enjoy btw), we spend the length of a very cinematic and beautiful episode witnessing a tragedy on a deeply human scale. Tragedy and hope intertwined; how else could one possibly cope...

Love to all the episodes everyone would likely place into contention to hypothetically keep this story at a lower rank...but I'm going to make space at the table for the spirit of 13's era.

The monsters of the week being humble servitors of the dead is such a sweet plot twist that deepens the extent of the narrative. The Doctor is powerful but she can't stop this event; or events like this. The tension that comes to a head in this episode represents a struggle far greater than any one battle or war. No sonic warbling can stop the tide of human pride; of our systems built to create 'order' that leave ruin and heartbreak.

Attempting to put it to words, even in summation, highlights the gravity of the subject matter this episode invokes. Instead of navigating those waters by diving in as I am inclined to do, the cast and crew highlight a beautiful and vibrant world for us to see and by story's end we watch that world be torn apart by an ultimatum unseen. A hatred that festers in people's hearts through fear of uncertainty and the corrosion that imperialism left in its wake.

But we witness love. However fleeting it may have been. We witnessed it and by seeing it, we're given the hope we so desperately need.

Death comes for us all but before it does we can make that choice to open our hearts to others. They may not be receptive to it...they may even fight us on it.

Even if our circumstances fail to afford us any other opportunity, love will always be a choice.

Yasmin succeeded at meeting her grandmother when she was young and learned why the story Nani Umbreen refused to tell her was being kept secret all these years. She witnessed the pain of that moment in a way words would never quite illustrate. Even the events Umbreen knew were not the complete story; even that which Yaz was able to see.

The Doctor couldn't stop those events from happening but helped to guide a path forward through the darkness in a way only she could.

Stories like this remind me of how powerful the medium of Doctor Who is...and how flexible it will always be.

It's not all mops of curly hair, long scarves, and Allons-y! Occasionally it's a clever way of reminding ourselves of the pain we cause, the pain we keep, the love we had, and the love we still have to give.

*This is a TL;DR maybe trauma dump kinda post so fair warning. 😉

I have been no-contact with my parents for about a year and a half now. I'd say in that time I've found peace I wasn't affording myself before and I hadn't consciously been able to figure out why. I held on to a sense of guilt and obligation they imbedded in me; indoctrinated into my brain.

I let them go at the age of 32.

I let them know my reasoning but I also note on here a very important thing they were and will likely never know: they don't know I'm nonbinary and they don't know I'm bisexual.

Their acceptance isn't something I crave because I have long since lost it. I've grieved it's loss a thousand times over; many sleepless, tear-filled nights wore away at the desire to feel their acceptance like rain to stone.

It started with "Mom, Dad...I'm not Catholic" at 16 and snowballed from there. The amount of therapists and counselors and priests they sent me to and the sheer distance emotionally they created with me had profoundly negative consequences on our relationship. Not to mention the heightened sense of awareness I began to note as to how much they wondered or cared about my preferences or my day or my thoughts on things. They established a power dynamic and believed they could throw money at the problem; but their "problem" was me. A non-dogmatic child.

I say all of this to build at least a semblance of context around the significance that a couple of days ago, I re-downloaded the book of faces to my phone. I generally don't care to use the app but friends of mine remain connected through messenger. Anyway, my mother reblogged the prototypical Christian supremacy thought line on the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Specifically the part where she and so many other people, fueled through hatred, see a drag showcase of the Feast of Dionysus and think of it as an abomination unto her lord.

...

It's a quiet pain.

Quiet because I expected as much but I know now I was correct. Correct to preserve myself. To look after my own safety; to walk away.

...if she'd heard her youngest child who staunchly accepts agnosticism is ALSO "one of those queers" well ...she'd have a downright panic attack. The phone calls I would receive alone would send me into a spiral. Instead...I know where I stand. I know where she and my father and my siblings stand.

Over there in their echo chamber of heteronormative, god-fearing obligations, duties, and restrictions. Atop their pedestals looking down upon the rest of us that live our lives in every other sort of manner.

While I'm over here. Loving the beauty that exists out there in the world and genuinely moved by what I've been seeing these Olympics. Especially the opening ceremony.

Gojira!? Are you kidding me? I fucking love them. Whales are in the sky!

If you've read this much, know that I'm sending you the positive vibes I plan to instill in my day. You're included and you're valid. 💞

Kisses.