James Wylder, Writer

​One moment, Aesc and her companion Jason were traveling throughout the Dawns, watching as the threads of the universe passed them by. The next second Aesc was alone, finding herself in a gray metallic room with a bunch of people in suits. The stench of corporate filled the air and thousands of monitors were strewn throughout the room.
Instantly, everyone in the room flew into a panic as Aesc tried to work out what the hell was going on. Alarms began to blare and that was when Aesc figured that she should probably run. Without really thinking too much about it, she burst into a sprint, exiting the room to find herself in a hallway that had multiple doors on both walls. Ignoring them for now, she kept running as the shouts got quieter and quieter.
Eventually, Aesc found herself in a massive amphitheater, bigger than anything that she’d ever seen before in all her lives. Row after row of seats were present, that stretched beyond her field of vision. The stage was massive, big enough for at least twelve school buses.
Before she took a further look at her surroundings, however, she took a look back, making sure that no one was following her, or hiding in the shadows, ready to pounce. You’d think that she’d be easily able to hear them coming, but Aesc’s experience from her previous adventures across time had taught her that not every villain was careless enough to be heard.
After making sure that no one was after her, Aesc finally let out a sigh of relief, and took a deeper look at her surroundings. By that, she wasn’t taking a look at the colors, or the size. Rather, the smells, the feel, the vibe.
What she found temporarily put her in a bad mood. She’d been all over time, and as such, she’d seen many, many amphitheaters. Those had culture baked into them, a feeling greater than one could describe. They had soul, heart, imperfections that made them unique and special. They were the genesis of some of the greatest culture that Europe had to offer.
This….was not it. It was sterile, soulless, with no heart. Sure, it looked well made, with no obvious flaws, but that didn’t matter. It was merely a disgusting substitute for real beauty. Even the most cracked and dirty amphitheater was much more attractive to Aesc than what she saw right in front of her eyes.
Speaking of eyes, Aesc noticed something in the corner of her eye. Many different things out of the corner of her eye.
 
* * *
 
The cold wind stung Jason’s eyes. Where was he?
He looked down to discover a faintly ridiculous all-white uniform. Clutching a hand to his head, he found a similarly ridiculous all-white hat. And as he looked side to side, he saw what appeared to be soldiers in all-white uniforms and all-white hats, lined up in either direction as far as he could see. Before them was the ocean, a big ship on top of it, and, in a stark yellow font as if from a typewriter:

​That was odd. But, Jason supposed, it wasn’t as if it made sense any of the other times.
Overhead roared three fighter planes. Very old fighter planes. As a nerd for the subject, Jason thought they looked like 1940s ones from Earth. But that couldn’t be right.
On the ship, one of dozens of sailors pulled up the stars and stripes of the US. “Parp!” blared a full brass ensemble behind Jason, to his surprise and dismay. The lineup of soldiers, responding to some obscure and unseen signal, made a synchronized turn to face the band; Jason swiveled late as discreetly as he could. Between them and the band ran a long, red carpet. The sailors marched in steady lines down from the ship like some oddly stiff Hollywood ensemble, led by a tall, bulky man with a hard-set face. All at once, the assembled soldiers saluted this hard-faced man with a chant of “Ten-hut!”; Jason quickly did the same, hoping it might keep him unnoticed and out of trouble.
Unfortunately, there was no chance of that. After his own salute, the hard-faced man fixed him with a hard-eyed gaze. “Jackson,” he stonily intoned. “With me.”
With that, the man proceeded on his imposing way, following the red carpet to its end at the doors of the airbase - a sheer, white cuboid that resembled a warehouse as much as anything else. Not really seeing any other option, Jason hurriedly followed him, attempting an approximation of a military march, then deciding it was best not to fake it, then changing his mind and trying again, consequently falling into the Ministry of Silly Walks.
By the entrance stood some guy in a duck mascot getup, as if for a football game. The costume looked years old and well-worn, with black felt faded to gray, a sad-orange beak, and tired eyes. The dude in the mascot just looked at Jason as he went past. Was this part of the whole thing? Jason didn’t even know if the Air Corps had a duck mascot, although the Americans were certainly capable of it. And his colors were so desaturated even as the world around him was strangely strong. Jason could feel the strain on his eyes, the sea and the sky and the white walls reflecting the sun all hardening into bold, blocky shades.
 
* * *
 
Posters. Stuck all over the wall that was behind the stage, were posters. Intrigued, Aesc jogged over so she could see them better.
They were all over the wall, covering almost nearly every single bit, leaving only a few spaces between each poster. They stretched out higher than Aesc could see, beyond her vision. But what she could see was interesting enough.
The posters, most of them in vivid color, were for stories from Earth. Aesc smiled at the thought, remembering a very dear friend from another universe, who’d told her that all those stories were real, had happened in some universe or another.
They were all there. People in big, bombastic superhero costumes, more people in big, bombastic superhero costumes (but darker and grittier), a blonde haired boy with a laser sword, a shark about to eat a helpless swimmer, a Death God behind a boy with a deadly notebook, a woman dashing into a blue box (“still need to meet back up with you again, someday”, Aesc muttered), a knight of Indian descent kneeling in front of a living tree warrior, a bearded man making meth, a bunch of humans wielding two swords fighting against a skeleton giant that had once been their friend, etc.
As Aesc looked at the rows and rows of posters, she was, admittedly, slightly distracted. That was, until she found a specific poster. Fourth row, third from the right end of the wall, right next to the Blood and the Stars poster.
The poster was unusual in two ways. The first was that it wasn’t in color at all, but black and white.
The second was that it had Graelyn Scythes on it.
 
* * *
 
Once Jason was inside the office, the hard-faced man locked the door behind them. On the desk sat a glass eye with no ring of color around the iris. There was only a darkness that seemed to cancel the light that landed upon it. Next to the marble was a neatly printed nameplate: ‘Commander-in-Chief Dyson’.
“Sit,” commanded Commander-in-Chief Dyson, gesturing to the visitor’s chair. Jason did as he was told. It was a weirdly low chair, and the Commander’s seat was weirdly high, so he found himself looking up at Dyson like a small child. There was a cold aspect about his eyes, not cold as in cruel but as if he were only looking inward rather than outward. He was looking through Jason rather than at him.
“I have excellent news, Jackson,” Dyson rumbled. “Today is a very, very big day for you. Your dream is about to come true.”
Jason nodded levelly. “Yeah?”
“It’s your time to fly.”
Jason studied the Commander’s face. He did not seem to be speaking metaphorically. Despite the unintelligible circumstances, he relaxed a little. That wasn’t so bad. In a way, he was on home turf.
“That’s right,” Dyson continued. “The Japanese are approaching fast, and we need you to shoot them down.”
That was less good. “I see,” said Jason, wondering if that yellow-typewriter text hadn’t been more important than he’d assumed. “Would now be a bad time to say that I’m not actually in the Air Corps, I never have been, I don’t know how I got here, and your entire reality might be a movie?”
“Always the wise guy,” Dyson said. There was no humor in his voice, only an assertion. “There’s no time to waste. You’re to get up in the air immediately.”
Jason could feel panic setting in. “Listen,” he said as reasonably as he could. He folded his arms, then decided that was too much and unfolded them, momentarily falling into the Chicken Dance. “I think you may have me mixed up with some other pilot named Jackson.”
“You can’t weasel out of this one, Jackson,” Dyson said, more firmly this time. “Two of our men are already up in the air. If you don’t get up there, now, you’re letting the whole fleet down. Lives are at stake.”
Jason’s surroundings swam around him. It occurred to him that the lives of the people they were shooting at were also at stake. But still, he was never much good at saying no to people, especially people who didn’t want to hear it. And whether or not this was the real Air Corps, the people seemed real enough, and he hated to think of letting anyone down or leaving them in danger where it could be helped…
He swallowed. “What have I gotta do?”
 
* * *
 
Aesc had to take a step back for a moment. This was getting strange now, because as far as she knew, she was still in the Dawns. So, why was Graelyn appearing on a fictional poster?
Still confused, she took a look at the next one, which was also black and white, this time displaying three teenagers: Agatha Hawkings, a Black girl with brown eyes and an afro, Robert Brick, a White boy with golden hair and green eyes and his lover Sasha Billie, an Asian girl with dark brown eyes and short black hair. While she’d never met the three, their story was pretty well known to anyone who traveled between universal boundaries. Agatha got an alien stalker who could change reality, which it did, turning Earth into an 18th-century hellscape. The three ended up dying after saving the remnants of humanity from the rest of the stalker's race, and rejuvenating the planet in the process.
But the point was, why were they here too? They were a part of the Dawns, after all.
It was then that she noticed the third poster. Right next to the other two, was a poster with her face splashed all over it. Only this one had a giant red “x” scribbled over it.
While she knew that she had to get back to Jason at some point, this was getting too tempting to stay away from. Something deeper was going on here, and she wanted to find out exactly what.
It was at this point that she noticed that the poster was starting to turn into color, just as the sounds of zapping and guard boots stomped in a nearby hallway.
 
* * *
 
The sounds of gunfire and pig-metal frameworks tore apart the sky overhead, rending the air apart.. For no apparent reason, Jason was already in his plane. Commander Dyson stood on the ground just beside him. “We’re all counting on you, Jackson!” he barked over the slowly increasing hum of the engine.
“Wait!” said Jason. “There’s one thing I don’t understand.” (There was actually nothing here that he did understand.)
Dyson snorted impatiently. “Make it quick.”
“There were no other doors into the airbase, and no other doors in your office. Why was your office the only room? Is there some other way in or something?”
This made Dyson laugh - a short and disused sound from the throat. “No cause for concern, my good man. It was only a production error.” He slapped the hull of the ship and, as if obeying a command, it started crawling forward.
This was the point where Jason should have broken into full-blown panic. Instead, he found himself suddenly much calmer. This was expected. Flying was always dangerous; he knew that when he got into it, and it was part of the draw. It was a particular kind of danger that felt like an old cardigan. Of course, he didn’t get into the business with a view to shooting at anyone, but neither did lots of pilots. That was just the deal you often had to strike in return for that lonely impulse of delight.
The craft rose steadily higher, the ocean stretching out under him, broiling and frothy: a flash of foam and Neptunian wrath, an intrusion in his windpipe. He steadied himself. No matter.
The clouds around him were dense and dark now. The rat-tat-tat of gunfire was growing louder, louder until it was absolutely deafening, and it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once and nowhere very specific. He couldn’t see where he was going. He had no idea, no idea at all–
He thought he glimpsed something. In the cockpit of the enemy plane - but no, it was preposterous, it didn’t make any sense.
But the Japanese pilot’s costume - that was no uniform. It was a mascot. Was it the same one as before? There was a terrible ringing in his ears, a staticy migraine obscuring his vision. Was it the–
 
* * *
 
As Aesc ducked behind a seat in the ampitheater, which had a strange device attached to the back of the seat, Agatha burst into the room, followed by two pursuing guards holding strange electric weapons, with three behind them holding Robert and Sasha.
Agatha didn’t get very far before one of the guards shot her with the weapon, causing her to fall to the ground. Strangely, it didn’t seem to hurt her at all.
As the guard grabbed her and brought her over with the other two, Aesc noticed the last bit of the poster turn to full color.
“Huh,” she thought to herself. “Interesting.”
Almost as soon as they had all three in their possession, the guards started to walk back towards the hallway, Agatha, Robert, and Sasha in tow. Instantly, Aesc started to sneak behind them, passing by rows and rows of doors.
After only a few minutes, the guards arrived at a door, which they opened, and started to push the three inside. Three guards entered after them, and shut the door.
Well, three guards, and Aesc. Who, once the door was closed, instantly relieved the guards of their weapons in a split second, faster than their eyes could keep up.
“Wha...what the fuck?” one of the guards said.
Aesc smirked. “Now,” she said. “Who wants to give me an explanation while they attempt to brutally take me down?”
Surprisingly, however, none of the guards moved, instead, staring at her dejectedly. Aesc took a quick look over at Agatha, Robert, and Sasha, who were just staring at her in disbelief.
Walking over to the guards, she attempted to poke them, only to have her finger go right through their bodies. Like a ghost, like she wasn’t…………..integrated into the system.
It was then that Aesc noticed the surroundings. It was a ruined city, with bodies all over the place, dressed in 18th-century clothing. It was an exact replica of Dawn 2,000.
She then took a look at the sky. At first, it seemed normal, but then she noticed the cameras, just out of range of human eyes, but not hers.
The amphitheater. The posters. The weapons. The devices on the chairs. All the doors. The cameras. It was starting to make sense now.
Quickly, she turned to the three.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
“Huh? Who are you?” Agatha said.
“No time for introductions! Just tell me, how did you get here?”
“We...we were on a crashing starship,” Sasha said.
“Sasha!” Robert hissed.
“She just beat the shit of the guards, I think she’s somewhat trustworthy! Anyway,” Sasha continued. “We were about to crash, and then we blacked out. Once I woke up, we were all here.”
“Interesting……..” Aesc said to herself. So, they’d been taken out just before their death, before their story was about to end. For someone to do this, they’d have to be able to cross universes, which narrowed the list down considerably. And they’d have to be able to go beyond the Dawns, which made that list even smaller. And they’d have to specifically like amphitheaters, since they could’ve just made a regular theater……………..
“Alright, you three! Come with me,” Aesc said. “I need to save my friend, but I also need people to explain things to and marvel at my brilliance in the meantime.”
 
* * *
 
Jason had a hell of a headache. In a half-asleep state, he heard a distant voice carried on the winds of octothorpic algorithms: “This is Tyler. Tyler, with Grammarly’s help, is writing a letter to his boss, Anita—”
The voice faded to inaudibility. He was in the plane, the plane had come to a rest on the ground, and there was green all around him. Trees, grass stretching out indefinitely. In the sky:

And a masculine slap on the hull of the craft.
“Jason!” barked a hard-faced man who had been shoved like a mattress into the suit of a 1910s gentleman. “What are you doing in there? Get out at once!”
“Sorry, Jason murmured. He tried to marshal his thoughts, but there were few thoughts to marshal. How had he gotten here? It was all cloudy. He had better do as Uncle Dyson asked. So he undid his straps and hopped out easily.
Dyson threw an enormous arm around Jason and bustled him in the direction of the big house - and wow, it really was a big house. This was Styles, wasn’t it? It was certainly a bit like Styles, whatever Styles was. Jason felt for reasons he couldn’t understand that this was a place for investigation, that he was about to find more information about his predicament and begin the process of piecing it together.
“Listen here, boy,” Dyson growled into his ear. “I know you killed your father.”
Jason blinked. “What?” Did Uncle Dyson know that? Because Jason sure didn’t.
And then a backstory slotted into place in his mind. He remembered standing over his father with a knife, the blood gushing fast and thick and dark onto the carpet of the locked room for which Jason had secretly devised a clever, unfindable exit. He recalled that blasted Belgian who had been sniffing around the place. And he recalled his father, born in 1865 and raised in Sligo, an academic and an enthusiastic Gaeilgeoir; he remembered how his father would take him up on his knee beside the fire as a child and tell him stories of kings and crows and alp-luachra, spoken with hushed weight like the engravings of an amphitheater–
“Ah jeez,” said Jackson, massaging a temple. That static migraine was coming back.
“Don’t even worry about it, chap,” Dyson said, lightly and unusually convivial. “I’m happy to turn a blind eye.”
Jason was weary. “Right.”
“So long as you return the favour.” He somehow pronounced the U.
“What?”
“And turn a blind eye while I poison my ex-wife’s new husband. He stole her from me, and now he must pay the price.”
Jason felt himself almost slumping his weight into Dyson as they walked along. “I’m not following this.”
“The finer details aren’t important,” Dyson said dismissively. “What’s important is that you let me do this.”
They were upon the house now. Dyson pushed open a small wooden back door with patchy white paint. Inside was a pantry, and he immediately set about making a cup of tea. From inside his jacket, he retrieved a small jar filled with white powder and labeled with a little skull and crossbones. “What do you say, boy?” he said to Jason, smiling darkly. “What should we give the man? One lumps or two?”
Jason squirmed. “Zero?”
“Do try to get in the spirit of the thing,” he said as he spooned in the poison. Then the teabag, the hot water, the milk. “I know the man prefers to put the milk in first, but it won’t kill him!”
Jason imagined himself reaching out to stop Dyson, throwing the poison in his face, sounding some alarm. He stammered.
“It’s a joke, boy. Laugh at it.” He took up the tray and strode out of the pantry and into a small lounge with faraway azure walls and comfortable chairs and a small coffee table, possibly oak. And instantly entering for efficiency was a forty-something balding man with a face that was open and kind and… familiar. His eyes crinkled in a friendly manner; he resembled nothing so much as a realtor.
He shook Jason’s hand warmly. “Good to see you, Jackson. How have you been?”
Jason’s head was swimming. “Oh, you know,” he said noncommittally.
“Not too much trouble with the old wound? Hope it’s not terribly rude of me to ask.”
As the avuncular fellow said this, a dull, old-new ache flared in his side. He inhaled - only a little, but sharp enough for it to be noticeable.
“Sit down, sit down,” the uncle said quickly, and they both sank into the comfortable chairs. Dyson, who had been hovering by their side in silent satisfaction, set down the cup and saucer. The uncle looked vaguely scandalised-with-an-S. “Are you not having a cup yourself, Jackson?”
Dyson slapped his shoulder and gripped. “He’s just after one, aren’t you?”
Something very strange clicked into place in Jason’s mind. “Oh Jesus Christ,” he said. “You’re Rory Kinnear.”
The uncle crinkled up his eyes in a befuddled manner. “I beg your pardon?”
“From James Bond and things,” said Jason, “and that movie about the men. Men. You were the one guy who kept–”
“I’m afraid I haven’t hit it big in Hollywood since we last spoke, old chap,” the uncle laughed, eyeballing him with annoyance and a little desperation, like an actor trying to get Jason to remember his line. Despite himself, Jason looked round for Dyson in the hope of some explanation. But the man was gone.
Rory Kinnear picked up his little teacup, moved to raise it to his lips. Paused. “Are you sure you’re quite alright, Jackson?” he said. “You seem a little out of sorts.”
Jason froze. Rory Kinnear was still holding the teacup, about to take his lumps. It was unconscionable that he hadn’t already struck the cup out of his hands; Men had been a bit rubbish, but it wasn’t that bad. So what was it? That image transplanted into his mind: standing over a presidential corpse, a knife in his hands. The guilt of it was a corrosive dish-scrub in his ribcage. If Dyson ratted him out, he’d be ruined. He’d be locked up forever. But he couldn’t, couldn’t watch this.
He ran. Rory Kinnear shouted something after him, but he didn’t listen. He gunned down the corridors, old doors into sea-blue walls into white windowsills and Waterford Crystal light fixtures, and wasn’t the production design on this show just to die for?
From a distance, he heard a wet tearing. Not the sound of death by poison but the sound of flesh. And he ran straight into Dyson’s chest.
“Just as I expected, boy,” said the man. “Just as I expected.”
How had he run into his chest? He was only a few inches taller. “You’ve got to call this off. You can’t kill him.”
Dyson smiled in satisfaction. “I may have lied for the purposes of concealing a small twist. It’s not death; rather, a manner of imprisonment.”
The static fuzz was coming back. Jason’s hands shook. “What do you mean?” he stammered.
Behind him, the doors were knocked off their hinges.
There was an enormous animal. It didn’t look like an animal: it looked like a guy in a natty animal costume, all orange fur and a crooked-up, smile-shaped face. Less convention, more children’s entertainer. The giveaway was the eyes: that wasn’t the shallow black of plastic that has never been alive. That was the black of something that had given up life.
It was Rory Kibbear.
The bear roared, an impossible, deep rumble that seemed to come from all directions, and charged at him on all fours, too fast. The static spiked, Jason was blind and deaf and dumb–
 
* * *
 
“So!” Aesc said, as they walked through the hallway, past door after door. “Gotta say, it’s nice to meet the three of you! I’ve heard so much about what you went through.”
“What?” Robert said. “How the hell do you know about us?”
“I told you! I’m a traveler. Space, time, dimensions, universes.”
Robert frowned. “How are we sure that you’re not some kind of trick? How the hell do we know that you’re not here to lead us to...to, some kind of dangerous shit?!”
“Robert!” Sasha said.
“What?!” Robert replied. “You remember what started this whole mess, right? Agatha! It was your therapist being replaced by an alien, remember? Sasha! Remember how both of our families tried to kill us, for some kind of spiritual weapons made back in World War Two? We can’t trust anyone guys!”
“Robert,” Agatha said. “I’ve got no idea who this woman is either, but what would you rather us do? She’s the one that got us out of captivity, and she’s……..”
“Agatha! We were about to die! For all we know, whoever took us tried to save us! We were in an environment that looked like home! What if this person’s trying to kill us?”
“Why do you trust them, huh? Didn’t you just say to trust no one?”
“I……..”
That was when Sasha grabbed Robert’s arm, and looked him in the eyes. “Robert,” she said. “Please.”
Sighing, Robert took her hand, and went quiet. Aesc could still see a look in his eyes though. A look that meant that he didn’t trust her, was actively hostile.
Aesc didn’t really have time to worry, however, as three doors down, a voice shouted out. A very familiar voice.
 
* * *
 
Jason Jackson yelled inarticulately. The sun was in his eyes, and sand was at his back, and Dyson loomed over him paternally, clutching Jason’s jaw so as to keep the mouth open and pouring in the tea. Boiling water against his tongue, against the roof of his mouth. He gargled through cathode screams.
Below him - somehow, his own body was below him - he felt his arms shrivel up. Thinner, a little shorter, and they were building up harder skin, almost like a tortoiseshell. And on the back of that tortoiseshell, arm hair was coming through quick, ripping through follicles. The shell was sprouting all across his torso now, down his legs, like a conscripted suit of armor. The palms of his hands shrank with a strange tingle into small, baby-soft pads. His two front teeth tore through his gums, extending further down, down, too far.
And his eyes. He felt something turn off in his eyes. He could still see just fine, and nothing had left him, but something deeper than sight had been knocked out cold.
In the sky:

Dyson let go of Jason’s strange new face at last, stood back to admire his handiwork.
Jason was a rabbit suit now.
He padded uselessly at his chest, trying to get through to his real chest underneath. But he immediately sensed the truth. There was no real chest underneath. This was just what he was now. Off-white, cheap fur making a lazy ovoid around his torso. It suddenly occurred to Jason that since this was just his body, he wasn’t wearing any clothes, and he huddled up in the fetal position in humiliation, trying to hide himself. Little to hide, though. He was like Ken or Barbie. Perhaps it had been slammed in the car door.
“Up,” commanded Dyson, and clapped his hands twice.
Feeling cowed, Jason pulled himself to his new, flopsy-dopsy feet; he hated to think what hell Dyson might inflict upon him if actually angered. Dyson huffed as if disappointed all the same and pushed a fake rabbit leg into his hands. “Catch it.”
Jason put out his new hands - paws, he realized in disgust. Could he catch anything in this condition?
Dyson sighed in annoyance. “No.”
Jason realized at last that they were in a desert, blocky sunrise cliffs stretching up either side of them, dandelion sand forever.
Dyson pointed to a cloud on the horizon, an approaching plume of smoke streaking like a comet. “Catch it.”
Jason recognised it, an idea strangely deep in his mind, a jester casting about half the shadow of a myth: funny bird go fast.
“I can’t do that,” he said weakly. “I’ll fall off a cliff or something. It never works.”
“That’s what the fake leg is for,” said Dyson, pushing it into his hands. “Keep you out of harm’s way.”
“No,” he said, trying and failing to sound assertive. “No, I shouldn’t– when Aesc finds out about this, you’ll be in trouble.”
“Why, my rabbity friend,” Dyson smiled knowingly, “this is all part of Aesc’s plan.”
That couldn’t be quite right. Would Aesc leave him here? Maybe she just needed time.
The leg was in his horrible hands now, and Dyson had guided him to the side of the road. He couldn’t see a way out. He was at least a couple of inceptions too deep in the metatext to see any literal solution. Maybe it was trust in Aesc, maybe he was holding in there until she could save the day. If he understood the real reason that he extended the leg out onto the road to trip the bird, then he would understand a lot more about himself.
There was no intermittent point where the cloud was closer to him; it just zipped up to him. The leg spun around in a spiral, wound itself tightly in a loop-de-loop. It had been no obstacle at all. Jason paused, looked at the leg, as alien to him as his own body now. It wasn’t so bad; he could feel Dyson’s gaze on his back, but he was unclear on how any of this could help him to–
All at once, the fake leg unspan in his hands like a tornado with a sound like a slide whistle, spinning him with it. With white-hot intensity, he felt his new spine break in two places, then three, then forty-seven. He was being wound up in a loop-de-loop. A fun gag. It was more than his addled mind could even comprehend, the pain of it. His head was near the desert now as he balanced on one hand, each of his alien limbs crunched up into the vortex, reduced almost to grains of sand–
And then his body unwound itself abruptly as if letting go of pressure, sending him spinning around out of control, spinning, spinning, a flurry of lines around him like a Tasmanian tornado. As he flurried away from the road, he saw a large novelty sign: ‘DANGER - MINEFIELD’. Under the tip of his tornado, he felt a soft click - then a flash of noise and light and pain, more pain as his feet were scorched. Let them burn off, some part of himself thought distantly. Let those things burn off.
The blast had flung him into the air like a slingshot, over the rim of a heretofore-unobserved cliff edge. Something was crawling on his back. Finally unfurled, his entire body screaming, he was somehow able to grasp it like a robotic subroutine. It was another, smaller novelty sign that he held up for the benefit of someone, as he fell for the benefit of no-one: ‘HOW ABOUT CUTTING BACK TO AESC BEFORE I HIT?’
The static rose again.
‘THANK YOU’
 
* * *
 
Aesc threw the door open and raced inside, with Sasha, Agatha, and Robert right on her tail. She thought that she could hear them shouting at her, something about a closet or something, but she had one goal at the moment, and that was to find Jason.
After a few seconds of running, however, Aesc realized that she was in what she could only describe as a….strange desert, with heaps of trash and weapons all over the place. The sand had a bit of a dark tint to it, and the air smelled odd.
Turning back around, she could see the three teenagers, standing a few meters away from her. The only thing was, they appeared to be frozen in fear, staring at something. It was then that Aesc realized that the sand wasn’t dark per say; rather, it was a shadow, looming over her. And the air didn’t smell odd, it was the clanks and whirrs of whatever was behind her. Furthermore, something was digging into her back, and she felt more….integrated now. As if someone carrying one of those weapons had touched her.
“Of course,” she said out loud. “The amphitheater was what really let me figure it out, you know.”
Turning around, she stared right into her own face, albeit an older one, which was positioned on a giant, spider-like contraption, with lots of tiny arms flopping about, each carrying a similar weapon to the guards from earlier, while the eight legs scuttled around. The two Firmament stared at each other for a moment, the present day Aesc somewhat vindicated that she’d been right, as well as somewhat concerned that she could now get hurt, and the older Aesc angry that the one person that she’d never wanted to see was here right now.
The standoff was only for a few seconds, but it felt like eternity. That was, until the modern day Aesc slapped her future self.
“You three, run!” she shouted, as her older self reeled back, ready to attack. “Find Jason!”
Robert didn’t hesitate, grabbing Sasha and racing off towards the door, Agatha tailing behind.
“Wait! How do we know who Jason is?!” she shouted, as Aesc barely dodged a strike.
“Who cares! We need to get out of here!” Robert shouted.
“We can’t just leave her!” Agatha said.
“Why not? We don’t even know who she is!”
“Robert!” Sasha shouted. “Did you see the look on her face when she thought she’d heard that Jason guy’s voice? I don’t know her, that’s true, but she sure as hell sounds like she cares about people!”
Robert gritted his teeth and hesitated for a moment, but sighed, and started looking around rapidly.
“Robert, what are you doing?” Agatha asked.
“If they’re taking all these people from all their universes, and this is a closet, then that means that there’s gotta be stuff in here that could help us.”
As Aesc dodged yet another strike, this one almost cutting her leg, Robert dug through a trash pile, throwing out piece after piece of scrap, with an occasional piece of garbage and old food. Another near miss. Frantic searching from the two girls. The next strike threw sand into modern day Aesc’s eyes, causing her to fall to the ground. It was certain that the next one was going to hit.
Finally, Robert found something. A rifle, one that was already loaded with a single bullet. Without a moment of hesitation, he aimed the rifle at the older Aesc and fired.
The bullet struck her flesh, causing a sickly looking blood to spew out. It wasn’t enough to kill her, but it was enough for present day Aesc to stand up and start to run off.
As the older Aesc recovered, the four had already reached the door, Robert throwing the rifle behind him as it slammed shut.
 
* * *
 
Hospital President Dyson clicked the door shut behind him. “Ah, Jackson. You’re here. Good to see you healthy and human again.”
Jason looked at his hands; mercifully, blessedly human, all the tendons and joints properly arranged. The pain was a distant memory now, a cartoon he watched twenty years ago. He clutched at his chest again; just his ‘Ace Pilot’ t-shirt and smooth skin underneath. He could have cried.
He was in a hospital waiting room, a shaft of cold light hitting neutral walls, Hello! magazine on the tabletop. Dyson sat down beside him, less commandeering for now and more convivial. He turned to Jason. “Who is Rory Kinnear?”
“What are you–” Jason began. Then he remembered. The house, the bear. “Oh!”
“The decahedron plucked that from your cultural frame of reference,” said Dyson “I don’t really get the joke myself.”
“He was– I don’t know. Like I said, he was that one guy in James Bond.”
“Right, right.” From the pocket of his smart trousers, Dyson withdrew a glass eye. Jason recognised it: it had been on the office desk back in Pearl Harbor. “It’s humiliating to say this, but I believe you have defeated me.”
Jason raised his eyebrows. Had he waited him out? Had Aesc done something?
“You see,” Dyson continued, “you might be familiar with the Turing Test. I have something similar: tell a sufficiently advanced robot to punch itself in the face enough times, and eventually, it will disobey. Some robots take a longer time, but every subject passed the test except for two. The first was my Version Zero.” He held up Zero’s remains, the eye. “A test I ran before I had figured it all out. The second is you, today.”
Jason blanched. “I don’t understand.”
“Jackson, you have failed the basic free will test passed by every serious robot. I need the Sphere to have a human protagonist, they just produce richer semiotics. The robots are all heroic feedback loops, circular logic ad nauseum. But I have spent all day trying to force you to disobey me, and you will not. The rabbit gambit was supposed to be brute force.”
Jason looked down at his shoes. “I’m sorry.”
Out of nowhere, he got a smack in the mouth. Clutching his jaw, he saw that Dyson was red in the face now. “Don’t be!” he barked. “Why the hell would you be sorry to me? What’s wrong with you? We need an active protagonist, man! Someone with agency!”
“How can you do this?” Jason cried. “How can you make all this happen, watch all this happen, and think you’re right?”
“I will never be implicated as the viewer.” He caught himself, breathed deeply, regained his steely composure. “Listen,” he began again. “We’re going to try this one more time. The surgery theater is ready.”
“I have to have surgery now?!”
“No, you don’t have to–” Dyson caught himself again. It wouldn’t work if he spoke it as an instruction. “No. You’re the surgeon.”
Jason groaned. “Oh God, what now?”

He was in a surgery theater, wearing the blue gown and the mask. Before him, laid out under the severe spotlight, was a creature that looked like a guy in a cow suit.
“I thought it would be fun for the title to echo what you had just said,” remarked Hospital President Dyson from the theater balcony above, “but maybe I should have gone with Grazin’-atomy. Now, Doctor Jackson, it’s time for you to make your climactic moral choice.”
An ophthalmologist. He was an ophthalmologist. He wondered what that might be.
“Mrs. Daisy needs new eyes,” said Dyson, “and you’re the only one with eyes that match.”
“No,” he said. “No.”
“Medical technology is now advanced enough that you can be given bionic eyes afterward, but–”
“But they suck,” Jason finished the sentence. A pilot’s vision had to be perfect; anything less would cost lives. There were universal bans on anyone with bionic eyes even getting into a training course, bans justified well enough that Jason wouldn’t even want to cheat them.
“You will find the anesthetic to your left, Doctor,” said Dyson. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Jason looked at the cow. Was she real? Was she alive? Was she a robot? If he walked away from this, would she have to go on with a life with no vision? Did he have the right? Did he even know enough to make a call? His head swam.
He had always been a soft boy, a decent sort. He was always kinder to people than he needed to be. He’d never really thought about it, but was there such a thing as too kind? There couldn’t be. Could there?
He just didn’t want to bother anyone.
The threads were all knotted in his mind. But he had figured out the one thing he needed to figure out right this moment: he had to trust his own judgment.
“No,” he said, and he clearly meant it this time. “I’m going to do something else.”
Dyson, palpably relieved, rubbed his sandpaper hands together. “Well done, Jackson. Well done. Now, tell the cow’s family.”
He didn’t know if the family was real, if they felt real feelings.
Between his forefinger and thumb, he picked up two surgery needles - he didn’t know the proper terms, because he didn’t know how to do surgery - and held them in both hands like darts.
“Hey, dude,” he called up, “eye surgery, right?”
Dyson looked down, and Jason threw both needles straight upwards, piercing him right through the irises. The soft squish of one-hundred-and-eighty.
Dyson didn’t scream, didn’t even vocalise. He just exhaled, strained, through his nostrils and sank to the floor, blood trickling down his cheeks.
Jason ran. He threw open the doors of the theater and he ran and ran and ran.
The lights were going out behind Dyson’s glassy, ruptured eyes. But most everything those eyes started out with had died a long, long time ago.
His dry lips crooked up. “I knew he had it in him.”
 
* * *
 
Aesc and her three new companions raced down the hallway as her older self pursued them. Each step that the older version made closed the gap slightly more between her and the four that were running away.
“Quick! Turn here!” Aesc shouted, diving into another hallway. Robert, Agatha, and Sasha quickly followed suit, and continued running. The older Aesc, however, failed to make the turn, and slammed into the wall. It wouldn’t be much, but it had bought them a bit of time to continue running.
“I’m….getting…..dizzy…..” Sasha said, nearly falling over. Robert grabbed her before she was able to fall over completely, but it was clear that they could no longer run any further.
The hallway finally opened up to the amphitheater, which had gained some flashy decorations and lights in the time that they were gone. This wasn’t particularly a good sign. Not only could they not hide as easily, but it meant that the older Aesc was planning something flashy and that couldn’t be good.
As Aesc started to look around, her face smashed into another face. A very familiar face, one that she hadn’t seen in a while…….
“Jason!” Aesc said.
“Hey,” he said, out of breath.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“A lot of stuff with a guy called Dyson. I’ll tell you later. How about you? And where exactly are we?”
“Oh, I can answer that,” the older Aesc said, stomping into the room. Finally having caught up with them, her massive figure loomed over everyone like a giant about to eat a gazelle.
“You’re in the Dyson Sphere,” she continued. “An entirely new dimension, beyond the normal dawns.”
“The Dyson Sphere?” Jason said, confused.
“Yes, well, Dyson’s the physical representation of the Sphere itself. Not sure how you managed to defeat him, but that’s nothing compared to what’s about to happen to all of you.”
“And what would that be?” Aesc said, stepping in front of the group.
“You’re going back exactly where you started with all of your memories wiped.”
“Huh?”
“You see, you weren’t supposed to be here in the first place. Well, you and Jason anyway. I very much want the other three.”
“So why are we here then?” Jason interjected.
“A mistake. I meant to capture some insane space squid, but you got in the way. But I can’t exactly keep you, can I? You’re too smart not to figure something out And if I kill you, Graelyn Scythes or someone will notice. It would interfere with my final operation.”
“Your what?” Agatha asked.
“Hmmm. Well, I suppose I can tell you, since you’ll all be put back in your places anyway. You see, I’m obviously in need of repair, and what better way to drain that than to drain the souls of people?”
“So you’re trapping people and creatures from other universes to…..feed yourself?” Aesc asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
The older Aesc let out a laugh. “Oh no. They’re just the bait.”
“Bait for what?” Robert asked violently.
“Oh, we got a fighter over here. But to answer your question, bait for the people I’m going to entrap in this amphitheater.”
Things started to piece together for Aesc. It was well known to anyone who traveled across universes that in other universes, they were considered fictional stories.
“So, you’re luring people here on the promise of stories?” Aesc said.
“Exactly,” older Aesc said. “What better way to get people here than forced nostalgia? The masses will come in like vultures to a corpse, ready to feast on seeing their old favorites again. But I shall be the one feasting on them instead. I will drag out all these characters' stories to get as many people as I can. And until eternity ends, I shall survive. But I’ve done enough talking. It’s time for you all to go back to where you belong.”

​With a scream, the older Aesc started spewing out mechanical tentacles, ready to take each of the five in their cold, metallic claws. Only, before she could start her plan, Jason shouted to her.
“Excuse me, but one question!” he said.
“What?”
“You say that you have all these characters trapped. And you had guards to keep them from leaving by the doors. But what would happen if, say, I opened the doors because the guards were distracted by Lady Aesc and gave me the opportunity to free them?” 

​The instant Jason finished, the sounds of millions of footsteps filled the air. Older Aesc’s eyes widened and she instantly turned to the hallway that led into the amphitheater. For a moment, everyone stood still in anticipation of what would happen next.
Then, it happened. Those millions of footsteps burst into the room, revealing themselves to be everyone that Aesc had trapped. Not only that, they were all carrying weapons, either theirs or ones that they’d stolen from the guards. Some were even in the air, either on jetpacks or on special devices that allowed them to fly.
Older Aesc let out a roar and charged, but the instant she got near, they started to fight back. For every person that older Aesc stomped on or tore their brains out, she would lose one of her mechanical limbs by a sword of light or would have her flesh nicked by an arrow.
The Sphere began to collapse as well. Bits and pieces started to fall from the walls and the floor was cracking.
As older Aesc got cut even deeper by a small eyed man spinning two blades through her while flying through the air, Aesc motioned to the other four and started to run out of the room.
“NO!” older Aesc shouted, stumbling towards them. However, a machine gun tore into her robotic chest, forcing her to stay put to kill the assaulter. That was all the time that Aesc needed.
It only took her a few seconds to reach the room that she’d arrived in this time. Thankfully, every single lab coat was gone, leaving the room to her alone. And thankfully, it seemed that future Aesc didn’t advance that much creatively in all her extra years, so Aesc knew exactly what buttons to press.
“Time for the end credits,” she said with a smile and pulled the lever.
 
* * *
 
It was over. The entire Sphere had been shut down, and they were back in reality. Everyone had gone back to their own times, their own universes, to live out the rest of their story. Only Aesc, Jason, Agatha, Robert, and Sasha were still here, as they were people of the Dawns.
Well, them, and the older Aesc. As the present day Aesc took a look at her future self, she only felt disgust. Not at the physical state, wires and steel hooked to her bloody, broken body, which Aesc was fine with. She’d seen worse. No, it was the eyes. Instead of the wonder that present day Aesc had, future Aesc’s eyes were filled with rage and jealousy, of greed.
Aesc wanted nothing more than to tear her future a new one, but there was something else she had to take care of first. Turning to the three teenagers, who by now were looking pretty exhausted, she took a deep breath.
“Right then!” she said. “You three need to go back home! Your story isn’t over yet.”
“Wait, what?!” Agatha said. “We’re on a crashing spaceship! We’re gonna die!”
She and Sasha began arguing, shouting, at Aesc. Robert was about to join in, until he saw a look in her eyes. A look that he’d only seen in people that he’d trusted. He’d seen that look in Sasha’s eyes when she told him that she loved him for the first time. It was a look that meant, “I want the best for you, and I know that what I’m about to say/do is going to do that for you.”
“Guys,” Robert said, interrupting the two. “It’s okay. I trust her.”
The two girls looked at him as if he were crazy at first, until they saw the look in his eyes. Quieting down, the three turned towards Aesc, and nodded.
They reappeared in the spaceship. It was crashing, falling, closer and closer to the ground. And yet, none of the three moved to pull a lever, or scream, or run like a chicken with its head cut off. It was hard, sure. It went against every single instinct that they had. But they remained sitting down, with Robert and Sasha even taking off each other’s shirts. They trusted Aesc.
And just before the ship hit the ground, Aesc’s Factory of Crystal tore them away from the ship and dropped them on the ground, miles away from the impact site, in an instant. The three watched as the ship fell to the ground, and Aesc’s vessel flew away, illuminated by the explosion.
Of course, this hadn’t happened yet for Aesc. She was a time traveler, after all, she didn’t have to do it right away. She would do it as soon as she could, of course, but right now, she had one last thing to take care of.
Turning around, Aesc stared back at the creature that seemed to be her future. The two looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, before future Aesc began to speak.
“Do you really think you can just walk away?” she asked, her voice gurgling with death fluids. “Do you know why I look like this, Aesc? Do you know why we’re going to look like this!?”
“Don’t care,” Aesc replied, as she began to walk over towards her future self.
“You will,” her older self shot back. “I didn’t start looking like this cause I wanted a change of outfit. The Dawns are changing, Aesc. And it’s going to end with a trillion people dead in a pointless civil war, with thousands of bullets pummeling our body until we finally get to die. I’m trying to save us, Aesc! What don’t you understand!?”
Aesc stopped, standing right in front of her future self. It hurt her to do so, but she looked herself directly in the eyes. How could she end up like this? This parasitic, this selfish?
“No,” she thought to herself. She didn’t have to end like this. This wasn’t like when she was young. She had agency. She could make her own future.
“Except you’re not saving me,” she said. “You’re saving yourself.”
Before her future self could speak up, Aesc continued. Her eyes went wild as she ranted and to anyone watching, it seemed that Aesc was at the edge of insanity.
“You’re not me,” Aesc spat. “You’ll never be me. You artificially extended people’s lives, people’s stories, in hopes to extend your own. You get no sympathy from me, because you aren’t me.”
“I am you, you fool!” her older self shouted.
“No! I denounce you. You are nothing more than another cog in the wheel of the Dyson Sphere. So I dub thee…Dyson A!”
The newly named Dyson A sputtered, but she couldn’t find the words. Which was exactly what Lady Aesc was hoping for.
“And since you aren’t me,” she said, leaning in close to Dyson A. “I can do whatever I want to punish you. Regardless of how painful it is.”
By this point, Dyson-A was shaking. It was hard to tell exactly if it was fear or if it was simply the beginning of her death spiral. Fluids began to pour out her mouth and eyes.
“But I won’t,” Aesc said, stepping away. Turning around, she walked away from Dyson-A, leaving the woman who would not be her future to die. “Because that would be hypocritical. And I am not going to let you live another minute. Because not everything can go forever.”
Dyson-A finally began to slump over, the light leaving her eyes. Lady Aesc didn’t even watch, only continuing to walk away. All she did was speak.
“All stories need to end someday.”
 
* * *
 
“And then I was like, ‘all stories need to end someday,’ and it was kind of bittersweet but I also looked very cool.” Lady Aesc happily bustled around the Foce console, checking all systems were stable, or stable enough for her liking. “That was a bit mental,” she said, “but all’s well that ends well, eh?”
Jason was sitting on one of the steps, facing away from her. “Mm, yeah.”
Aesc looked over at him, subtly, she thought. He was resting his chin on clasped hands. She slid on over to him. “You alright?”
“It was just,” he said quietly, “it was just a bit mental, like you said. There was a cartoon bit.”
“You were in a cartoon? Like, did you become 2D? That’d be fascinating.”
“No. At least, I don’t–” He put his head in his hands. “I gotta rest right now. Might tell you about it tomorrow.”
Aesc nodded, patted him lamely on the shoulder. He didn’t respond.
She returned to the console, considering this. She was, it occurred to her, too used to the abnormal. She was probably the best in the Dawns for helping people out of scrapes, but cheering them up afterwards? She was a bit spotty on that. Who was better at this humany-wumany business?
Oh, of course. As if it was even a question.
She pulled the console lever, and away they went to the next episode.

Lady Aesculapius Series 1 is part of 10,000 Dawns, and is a publication of Arcbeatle Press.
Lady Aesculapius was created by James Wylder.
All original elements to this story are the property of the author.
All rights Reserved, Arcbeatle Press 2019.
Our cover art is by Anne-Laure Tuduri.

Any resemblance between persons living or dead, fictional characters, and real or fictional events is either co-incidental or has been done within the bounds of parody and/or satire. ​

Eve of the Daleks is a strange episode to be airing 3rd from last in the run of an era of a show, after only two more episodes we're done with these characters, and the Doctor will fall, and another woman will get up and saunter away.
 
And yet, we have finally gotten the episode where Chibnall's era of Doctor Who clicks together into the clearest statement of what it is. A lot of this comes from the limits of the episode: with only five characters with real active roles, and the Daleks mostly there for their plot device within the time loop, we have a lot of time for the different characters to reveal things about themselves, come into conflict, and understand themselves and others more. This has been the mode that the Chibnall era has been aiming for throughout its run, and when its hit it, its hit it incredibly well. Early scenes like King James' talk with the Doctor really stood out for the way the focus on the characters as straight drama worked. In fact, the moment where I really understood Jodi Whittaker's performance wasn't her big "I am the Doctor!" moment in her first episode, but her scene after Grace's funeral where she quietly talks about herself and what they've been through. When I saw that scene I thought, "Oh, Chibnall is onto something here." And when the show went into that mode, we got many of its best moments. But there were also issues.
 
The biggest one is the cast size. One less person has helped since the moment it happened, and the cast dynamic has really settled in. Dan, Yaz, and the Doctor work together so well as a trio it feels like every scene is now a vision of what they show was striving for. And with only two guest cast members, we have plenty of time to get to know both them and the cast. Its great, and its nice to see things working.
 
Thankfully, we also have a theme going through... this... episode... well....
 
Thankfully?
 
The theme of this episode is one we've been building for a while: Communication and Secrets. The characters in this episode are stuck in patterns in their own life they can't seem to break out of where they keep either pushing other people away, or don't tell them what they're really thinking. And this leads to the best and the worst part of the episode.
 
The best? Well, as has been shouted from the rooftops: Yazmin Khan is in fact, in love with the Doctor. They really did it, and you know what, good for them. She's just been unable to communicate this, holding it in, not admitting it to even herself.
 
The worst? Well uh... So... gosh okay. So the romance in this episode between the two guest stars is supposed to be cute. But its pretty uncomfortable, and is only salvaged at all by just how charming both actors are. They give it their all, and they nearly pull it off. I bet for a lot of you, they did pull it off. But... I also know a lot of people who rightly can't get over how Nick is a stalker who keeps random objects from his ex-girlfriends and catalogs them like a serial killer inside a storage unit.
 
Do they find every way they can to play this as cute? Yes. Do they give Nick a big heroic sacrifice scene to make us like him? Also yes. Does he say that maybe he shouldn't have kept all those objects like a serial killer? Yes again.
 
Does this fix the fact that its like... the set up at all? Well, results may vary, but I'm going to come down on the "no" side pretty firmly. I very much wanted Sarah to run away from Nick, very far away. But they get together. And... well that's that.
 
So we have Yaz unable to communicate her feelings to the Doctor, the Doctor hiding things from Yaz and constantly running off alone instead of accepting help, and Nick hiding that he’s been stalking Sarah and keeping mementos from his ex-girlfriends cataloged.
Along with that, Sarah and her mother can’t seem to get on the same page, and Sarah’s current boyfriend Jeff just isn’t available to contact. And in the other corner, Dan is lamenting his own failure to communicate in the past and using that as the catalyst to move things forward for Yaz and the Doctor.
 
So what to make of it all? Well, overall I liked it. I definitely feel like Orson Krennic in Rogue One lamenting how close to perfection we were, but oh well. It is what it is, and I enjoyed it. Doctor Who doesn’t always have to be deep, sometimes it can just be a fun time loop romp with some nice character moments, and that’s fine.
 
Next time, we’re in China. We’ll see how that goes.

So, what was Doctor Who Flux about? Memories? Sontarans playing a trick to make them look like heroes? The Division? The Ravagers? Somehow the answer is both all of those, and none of the above. In the end, is Flux about anything?

Last week, we ended with the death of big-arc-character Tecteun, and the cliffhanger of the Ravagers moving to disintegrate the Doctor with a touch of the hand the same way. The cliffhanger is resolved by the Doctor moving away from the hand, and the episode moves away from many of its previous plotlines.

The Doctor, who has been trying to find her lost memories all season after the big set up in the Timeless Children, decides not to. Bel and Vinder get together, and that’s that. Four species get genocided, and this is barely touched on except with a sort of cheery line towards Karvanista in apology about his whole species getting wiped out. The universe isn’t restored (and if is it has to have been done so casually in a throwaway line that I missed it on first watch). Dan doesn’t get the girl, and it weirdly feels like an unearned and unexplained conclusion instead of twist on the formula. The Doctor and Yaz hint at feelings but it all remains under the surface so nothing has to be cut for overseas broadcast. The Flux is defeated by just chucking a guy at it. And Eustacious gets the best, and oddly quite emotional, scene in the episode where he decides to sacrifice himself. Swarm and Azure reach their boss, who kills them, and then just sorta lets the Doctor Who.
​
So what was Flux in the end? I’m not really sure. I’m not really sure it was anything beyond a six-week Doctor Who story. There were a lot of things I wanted it to be about, and a lot of things I thought it could be about even if I didn’t want them, but in the end it’s hard to tie all those things together.
If I was put up against the wall, I’d say it was about memories, but that doesn’t entirely pan out. The Flux isn’t solved with anything related to that, they just throw passenger at it and have him suck it up like a vacuum. Maybe you could make a case that as Passenger stores people inside himself, sucking up the Flux is like… preserving the memories of the destroyed universe the same way that the Doctor’s memories were chucked in that fob watch?

That’s a stretch, but it’s what I’ve got.

Swarm and Azure are a lot of fun, and their campy delightful performance is once again a highlight. Jodi Whittaker really goes for it in this one too, and she’s memorable in a way she wasn’t last week while being lectured at. She gets things to do, and she takes it. Weirdly, the Doctor being attracted to herself is one of the highlights of the episode. It was a good gag.

There were a lot of good gags: the Sontarans raiding corner ships for chocolate? Good gag.
There were a lot of good images. Even the overdone “CGI fleet of ships is all blown up” got a nice new visual take on it with the use of blues and greens against the orange wave of Flux. It was very pretty.

It didn’t lose my attention. I watched the whole thing.

But its hard to imagine I’m going to rewatch this and pull new things out of it in the way other Doctor Who finales have. The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos has a lot of consideration as the worst finale in the Doctor Who Revival in many circles, but for all the complaints about it, that episode has themes and throughlines that play into the end of it. They’re often heavy handed, sure, but rewatching it I was able to pick up on ways that Chris Chibnall had written his themes in on multiple levels. Little details you could pick up on.
And I’m not sure that’s as easily found here. We’ll see. Predicting how people will see things in the future is always a roll of the dice. Maybe I’m missing something huge. But Flux doesn’t tie all its ends together, and doesn’t even tie them all up. We’re sent down a sprawling path, waiting for the clever way the threads will knot together, but some of the threads just sit there with frayed edges. We can only squint at them, and try to make reason from their form. Try to will a new meaning that we didn’t first see. I expect many fans will do that adeptly. But those threads are still frayed.

And that’s not a tragedy. I think a lot of folks can get maudlin about Doctor Who not living up to expectations. In the end, no matter how much it means to us personally, Flux is just a series of a TV show. There are going to be three more episodes with Jodi Whittaker, and then there will be a new Doctor and a new showrunner. Even if Doctor Who not being to your tastes was a moral sin, which it isn’t, there’s already a different future awaiting it. Its all been filmed. Its all in motion. It is what it is.

When Flux started, I thought it might really be a stunning swansong for this Doctor. I’m sure it will play better in a binge watch where you don’t have to wait week to week, and I’m sure if I do that in the future I’ll have a lot more fun with it. But what it isn’t is that unquestionable swansong. It would have been nice to be able to stand up and point to Flux and say “Even if you didn’t like the rest of her tenure, watch this!” The way you could about say, the last season of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor.

In the end, it just is what it is. And really, I do hope you liked it.

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A girl without her parents, taken in by a villainous group in order to serve their own ends. The girl has mysterious powers which enable her to survive, but also allow her new adoptive family to exploit her for their own ends…

I’m talking about Anisa Lagrange in the series “The Precious Sister of the Villainous Grand Duke,” Obviously.
​
The trope of a special child taken from their family and raised by another without their knowledge is an old one, with countless permutations. But usually, it’s a plot mechanism that allows for a few different plot points to play out that audience wishes to see. Such as the reunification of the child with the family they were stolen from, or the confrontation between them and their original family discovering there was a reason they were taken from them they didn’t know.
In “The Precious Sister of the Villainous Grand Duke”, a webcomic by Ikkamnu and Éclair, illustrated by Lunaheng, this child is Anisa. Stolen from her mother, Anisa was part of the Euclid family, and was born with a special magic power that allows her to see people’s auras and cleanse them, giving them a new chance at life. As part of the LaGrange family, this proves to be pretty darn valuable as the family pits the children to kill each other in order to determine who is going to be the heir, and to do so leaves items laced with demonic energy around their estate to poison their minds and souls.
Because Anisa can cleanse this, she’s able to survive without just doing murder, and changes the course of the story--

DIVISION PROTOCOLS ACTIVATE
INITIATE INTRUSTION

INTERUPT ESSAY - DIVISION PROTOCOLS
Chaos: Well, personally I was enjoying that.
Order: This isn't a game, we already retold this story with the Irish Policeman. I liked that one.
Chaos: Of course you did, your name is literally Order.
Order: Well don't rub it in. Anyway, what exactly is the point here? I'm sure it's all a symbol for something.
Chaos: Does it? Can't I just spill out the toybox and let you step on the legos?
Order: Lego is plural, you don't add the s.
Chaos: Literally no one with a social life does that. Anyway, I say we let it proceed.
Order: It’s a pretty weird comparison though, I mean, a Korean comic? Manga? Manhua? Doesn't really seem to have a lot to do with this.
Chaos: It has everything to do with this.
/End protocol
 
Anisa makes a friend in Dietrich, her adoptive brother who helps protect her even as he himself fights and engages in the cruel machinations required to become the family heir to the LaGranges. He even begins to make pacts with demons, such as the demon Baal, who becomes quite the comic figure despite/protocol error
 
/error/the torn mask on his face. But the access to such corrupted forces allows Dietrich to go to the main family estate, and wipe them out, converting them into demons themselves. This fulfills the prophecy from the previous romance manga series about a hybrid that would be of two races (Lagrange/Demon) and destroy the family. It can get a little confusing though, because by all accounts that prophecy was already resolved, and now we have resolved it twice. But regardless, Dietrich is now the only Lagrange left, leaving Anisa to destroy the family to save them both, but this role is taken from her at the last minute by a character she's barely known, the old man from the Lagrange family cellar who had fled there after the death of his own family.
 
/error attempting correction/
/reversing time/
/error, attempted to reverse planet named time, now reversing concept of time/
The Doctor gets the idea to make money on Gallifrey by entering the lottery, and buying as many tickets as she can. This ends up being facilitated by the older Timelord the Rani, as she--
/error/
/end script/
 
DIVISION PROTOCOLS
Chaos: Sorry, this is all falling apart.
Order: Its a pretty simple concept isn't it, the essay is just comparing the two stories and getting them mixed up. Its a clever format decision!
Chaos: But is it? Does the format change actually add anything to the story here, or the analysis? It feels like we're cutting back and forth so much that we're killing the whole flow of the story.
Order: Why are you the one complaining here, you're Chaos?
Chaos: That's just my name. My mom named me that.
Order: Let's just reset the servers, maybe that will stop things from being in such flux.
 
/loading
/loading

​/essay start
Before the latest episode of "The Precious Doctor of the Villainous Grand Division" aired a British politician make the absolutely ludicrous statement in a speech that the character of Anisa becoming a woman was causing a massive crime spree in Britain. After all, if the heroine of a girl's romance manga can't be a man, then what sort of role models would men have left? This has been a big problem since the start of the series after all, with countless men online stomping their feet and screaming that they need a series starring a man. When pointed to the countless romance manga starring male characters, the criticism was deflected. It was never about having male representation after all, I mean, Dietrich is right there, as is her other brother Yurik, but about having a series starring a female character at all. Simply being a woman was the sin, which led to a new strange problem. The worst critics of the series were so vile in their directed attacks, that many felt hesitant to voice their more reasonable complaints for fear of aiding them.
 
Like the infection of the demonic energy into the Lagrange household, it spread, tearing things up in a flux till simply surviving that deluge became a problem.
 
And it never ends. That politician is only the latest in a long series of bad-faith complaints that all crash against the rocks with their paper-thin criticism and candy-floss strength analysis. But it does its damage all the same.
Even so, we now end up with a new problem: What if the story problems, totally disconnected from the issue of the sexist attacks on the series as a concept, begin to themselves pile up?
 
Part way through the series, it becomes apparent that Dietrich is in fact going to be the male lead of the series, that is, the romantic interest for Anisa to fall in love with. There's of course a big issue there: he's her brother. Sure, they're not related by blood, and it’s even clear that she's been stolen from her original family, but... he's still her brother. For many fans, they never quite recovered from this revelation, even though it can be quite common in the genre.
It’s still pretty damn gross.
Like, really? Her brother? Come on now.
 
//error
//refreshing paragraph
Part way through the series, it becomes apparent that the series isn't going to live up to the reputation of being woke that it's gained simply by its casting. While the show does some amazing work in diversity, many fans get put off by a series of creative choices such as the episode "Kerblam!" seemingly having an anti-workers message, Anisa using the skin color of Dietrich's latest regeneration as a weapon to get him captured by literal Nazis, and erasing the memories of some female historical heroes while leaving men in the same series with their own. For many fans, they never quite recovered from this turn, even though it can be quite common in the genre.
It’s still pretty damn gross.
Like, really? Using his skin color against him? Come on now.
/error
​
DIVISION PROTOCOLS
Order: But is that really a fair criticism? I mean, it really is just a time travel convention. Reveal the person from the future to be a liar and get them in trouble!
Chaos: Yeah, but the issue is they used his race, and used literal Nazis as a weapon against him. That’s messed up.
Order: Hold up, which story are we talking about?
Chaos: I mean, the incest is bad too.
/loading

But how does this all relate to Anisa Who: Dark Aura? Well, how do you deal with a follow up to something kind of gross, that starts getting better, but drops the ball in a different way? After all, this full series has been trying to tell one story, and when it works, its worked very very well. The Sontarans and Weeping Angels were good fun, and while it got mixed public reception I actually quite liked “Once, Upon Euclid” which I thought did a great job of balancing its new story elements even if some of them worked better than others.
But here in part 5, the threads start to fray. Because we’re starting to pay off things that the series has been setting up for a long time. But how it pays them off is going to determine quite a lot of how enjoyable the era as a whole is. And… while I’ve been fairly positive of the series, even despite my reservations about the plot involving the LaGrange family’s machinations. But here we are.
Anisa finally confronts her mother, the woman who picked her up and brought her into the LaGrange home. And how does that go? Camilla LaGrange isn’t a good woman, something we could surmise for her work for a secret time traveling evil organization, but we’ve barely met her before. The confrontation between mother and daughter feels like it should be climax of this whole story: after all, Anisa is the Timeless Child. She’s the one where the magic power to regenerate the auras back to purity came from, as we learn in later dialogue:

​Anisa: The Demons created the dark aura because you're scared of me? Of the Euclid bloodline?
Baal: Not scared. Wary, perhaps.
Anisa: How much power do you imagine I have?
Baal: You inspire. Make people question and rise up. You give them hope. Just look at Yurik and Veronica. That can be problematic.
Anisa: Who even are you?

But the confrontation with her mother is filled with so much explanation of the setting’s lore, it kills the shock of it all, and the rapid cut back and forth between the different divided characters doesn’t help either.

DIVISION PROTOCOLS
Order: Hold up, I think we’re straying from Anisa’s real story here.
Chaos: Look, it was never going to be a one-for-one comparison.
Order: But Anisa was abandoned by Donna Euclid, right?
Chaos: How do we know the Doctor wasn’t abandoned?
Order: We don’t! But she could have also been stolen. That’s the issue here, we get explanations of the lore, but we’re missing the explanations of the character dynamics. We know that the Doctor feels wronged, but we get far more dialogue about the whole multiverse-thing going on.
Chaos: That gives the moment focus though! And it underscores her own lack of knowledge.
Order: But shouldn’t Anisa meeting her long lost mother be more emotional? Shouldn’t this be the emotional climax? Why is this episode 5?
Chaos: We’re going to get answers next episode probably, we saw that Azure has the pocketwatch.
Order: It still feels like a missed opportunity for the Doc… Anis… which story are we talking about?

/error
/redirect

Which leads to the episode’s strangest choice: to kill off Anisa’s mother just after we’ve met her, completely vaporized by the demon Asmodeus. This acts as a cliffhanger, and it feels like it should be shocking, but we haven’t had the build up to it we needed for that. Instead, it pushes the plot forward, and the emotions of the characters backward. We’ll deal with Asmodeus and Baal next time, but we’re simply left with the unfulfilled potential of this encounter.
So, what is important in a story? Is it the plot? Is it a clever structure? Or is it the characters? Their emotions? The ties that bind them and separate them? I’ve never been a fan of this plotline, but it wasn’t because of the lore itself. It was because time and time again, it feels like the lore has come before the character’s actions.
Twice now, we’ve had a character lecture Anisa on her own history, and she just stands there and listens. Talks back a little, but largely has no agency in these scenes that are so important to her story. Giving us the knowledge of her life seems more important than making us care about it, and there’s a sadness to that, because when you lay out the events on paper the dramatic potential is obvious: a lady confronting her abusive and manipulative mother who stole a whole potential life from her. It’s a rich tapestry, just waiting to be mined. But it’s pulled away for a cliffhanger.
And maybe the cliffhanger is a fake out, and we’ll get more next week. Maybe we’ll get that resolution in the flashbacks from the magic watch. Maybe. But we can only judge it week by week for now, and for now, there’s an empty hole there waiting to be filled.
Filled.
Filled
Filed.
/Error
Of course, the Master was confronting Division, and only pretending to hate her so she wouldn’t try to interfere, but the Doctor getting between them and confronting her trauma through the visions given to her to save both of them allowed them to subvert fate and move forward. Where will they go from here, now that they’ve saved Lagrange—I mean Galifrey? Or Time?
So much of Anisa’s story involves memories of things she doesn’t know—versions of herself from past lives that she has to work through the memories of. Both herself, a girl from Korea, and the original Anisa who dies in the story. Not to mention the Fugitive Anisa version of the character who was hunted by the Judoon. Or the one who was a cop in Ireland.
So the real question we have now, I think, is which is going to be more important in the finale: the contents of the memories, or the fact in themselves that they were lost?
It’s a series of comparisons, an infinite set of alternate lives that show what matters. Whether its in the LaGrange manor, or the halls of the planet Time, the song remains the same in a dress or a coat.
What will her memories mean to her?

DIVISION PROTOCOLS
Order: Alright, enough of that.
Chaos: But it was fun.
Order: I think the format itself is starting to get in the way of the piece.
Chaos: We already covered that.
Order: I mean—never mind. Let’s just talk about Yaz and go home.
/error
/reloading

But what about the side characters?
Yaz, Dan, and Eutacius get their own big side story here, and its absolute rollicking fun. We get to see the group in period get up, get a moment to tantalize Yaz/Anisa shippers, and even get a fun moment with Dan’s space dog that’s pretty damn funny. Their whole journey is a real highlight of the episode, and shows how much fun this era of the series can be. A little more confusing is a side-plot about the Grand Serpent going to Earth and helping start UNIT, run UNIT, and then disband UNIT so he can invite the Sontarans to invade it. Maybe we’ll get more explanation next week, but there’s a certain amount of “A+?=C” to the plan. Why help found UNIT only to later get rid of it, and spend decades on that endeavor? The segments themselves are fun, and the Grand Serpent is a pretty successful menacing villain. Craig Parkinson was excellent casting.
Bel and Vinder are also there, as is Dan’s not-quite-girlfriend, and they mainly remind us of their presence for the finale.
The tunnels finally get tied back in, and it’ll be exciting to see how that all plays in together.
Its strange though, Flux has been made of so many strands. Next week, we will see how they all come together, and never before in Doctor Who has it felt so much like the way the strands come together will change how we reflect on everything before it. Maybe every grumpy complaint will be wiped away, maybe it will be a collapsing disaster. What if? We wait.
If nothing else, the serialization is fun. The wait to see what we think. Complaining, rejoicing. It can feel like its all a menace sometimes, like disagreements about the quality of a story are very important things. But it all exists in our heads.
And the version of it in our heads is the one that matters. Those precious memories, whether good or bad, form us and shape us. And I’ll certainly remember this series. And hopefully, unlike the Doctor and Anisa, your past will remain with you.
And if it doesn’t, I hope you find the story of you somewhere and can find something that matters to you in it.
After all, Tapas has regular updates of newly translated chapters.
/end Division Simulation
/begin memory deletion protocol
/see you next week

Images are taken and used in a transformative and moderate mannter from "The Precious Sister of the Villainous Grand Duke" also known as "Villain Duke's Precious One"
Authors: Ikkamnu / Eclair
Artists: Lunaheng

You can read the story here (its good!):
https://tapas.io/series/villain-dukes-precious-one/

Going back to one of the most revered things in a franchise is always tough for a creator. You can just repeat the greatest hits of it, but you'll end up with something crowd-pleasing but whose sheen fades as soon as the newness wears off, and people have the option between choosing between it and the original. The other option is to push things in a new unfamiliar direction, which can be initially off-putting but which has a lot more staying power if it’s done well.
It's the sort of statement that can get tomatoes thrown at you, but a pretty good example in my eyes is the difference between the Star Wars films "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi". The Force Awakens plays within the boundaries of existing expectations, and in doing so creates a very fun and well executed film that's a blast to watch. But then you have the Last Jedi, which does new things and challenges your expectations, creating whole new things for your imagination.
 
"Village of the Angels" is interesting, in that it tries to have its cake and eat it to. It’s an episode built up out of familiar elements, and allowing them to play out, but then butting in with brand new things that crack the shell of your expectations. But it’s also not a standalone story, and so it’s difficult to judge some of its elements till we see how they play out in the next two episodes (if they do at all).
 
The Weeping Angels are one of the most iconic and beloved monsters in Doctor Who, despite only appearing as the main antagonists in a handful of episodes, and this story very quickly gets us up to speed on all their elements: time-shifting, moving when unobserved, the image of an angel becomes an angel, a person becoming an angel and having sand in their eyes. At first, it seems like its just going through the motions, until after setting those elements up, it plays with them. And those parts? Well…
 
Where this episode really shines, is its understanding of what visual elements Doctor Who can actually pull off well--aside from some dodgy CGI at the end, but even that was unique and interesting enough for me to suspend my disbelief even while it resembled a video game cutscene. There are some truly fantastic visuals here that stick in your memory: the Doctor crumpling the drawing of the Angel up, and the angel itself crumbling with it. The Doctor throwing that paper in the fire, and the flaming angel that appeared afterwards. The night/day divided screen of the past and future of the Village. And of course, the final and likely instantly iconic image of the Doctor turning into a Weeping Angel.
There's enough here to keep you coming back just to see the things you remember fondly, and I expect this is going to be a well-regarded episode by the general public for just this reason--its super entertaining. This is one of those episodes where even though I'm going to whine about the issues I have with it in a minute, I'd be lying if I said wasn't a bunch of fun. The things that work about it work well enough that I'm sure lots of folks will have a very good time with it, and I'm very happy for them.
 
But does the episode as a whole work? Well, no. While other episodes have played very carefully with the Covid filming restrictions, this this definitely the episode where the inventive solutions to the problems end up hurting the episode instead of rescuing. Largely, this is due to the vast difference in how the tension is being built up between the two halves of the split main cast. It’s become a signature of this series to split the cast up into two parties so that filming the episodes under covid restrictions would be less ungainly. Only here, one half of the cast is having the tension ratcheted up as they try to fend off Weeping Angels in a spooky house, and the other half of the cast is engaged in a slowly unraveling mystery about a missing child. Both these plots are fine on their own but cutting back and forth between them ends up stopping the buildup of tension in each story to a halt during the switch overs, because they're not having story beats of equivalent tension next to each other. This is a nuts-and-bolts criticism, the sort that most viewers probably just vaguely feel in the back of their head, but it’s there, nonetheless.
 
But the biggest issue with the episode is everything after the reveal of why the Rogue Angel has infested Claire's mind. And... alright, we can't avoid it anymore.
Let's talk about the Division.
 
The Division is of course the secret service style group on Galifrey that erased the Doctor's memories of being a secret chosen one from another Universe and has been a very important part of this whole series. We've slowly been learning about them, and the big reveal this episode is that the Rogue Angel is something of a Space/Time Wikileaks Whistleblower, holding all of the information the Division kept from the Doctor, and it will give that info to the Doctor if she saves it. Of course, the Angel is duplicitous, and turns the Doctor in to save its own skin (stone?). But it’s an odd sort of turn, and it doesn't work the way it did before.
Last week, the Doctor was the focus of the parts of the episode that lead up to the Division plot reveals, and they worked. The episode built up to them, and paid those things off.
But the set up and pay off here is odd, in a lot of ways. Claire is the min focus of the segments with the Doctor, only for us to learn very late in the game that actually the focus is the Doctor in a way that doesn’t tie into anything we learned or followed about the Angels—it’s a follow up from things from previous episodes, and it feels like an emotional leap. Maybe if you marathon Flux later it will all flow together better and this will feel more natural, but week to week it not only feels unearned, but Claire’s plot goes rather unfulfilled as well. Will Claire get her moment next week? We can only hope.

The other weird thing is the plot with the little girl—I was talking to Will Shaw (who writes incredible coverage of this Doctor Who Series you should read) after the episode, and after I mentioned I wondered what the payoff to her story set up would be, did he point out that the payoff was that she was the old lady they met earlier in the episode was actually her. Was it just that I am too jaded to these sorts of twists and figured that out very early on? Or was it just the weird way that the pacing was thrown off by the divided cast segments that meant that it didn’t feel like a climax to a storyline as things didn’t build up to it specifically? I’m not sure, but it didn’t quite fly.
 
But does that matter? Its visually pleasing, the Angels were creepy, the Doctor was funny. Is the script a structural mess? Absolutely. Will anyone care? Probably not. Its an odd case where the episode could be better with stronger emotional payoffs and more impactful scares with just a little tweaking, but there’s enough that works that complaining feels pointless.
 
It could be better, but you had a good time. Whatever sort of bar that is, I’m fine with it.
 
See you next week!

In old television anthology series, there was an understanding that the same cast could come in and play multiple roles throughout the production as need be. You'd tune in one week, and a character actor would be playing the secretary to the mayor, then a few weeks later you'd see her back as the detective's long separated ex-girlfriend. Over time this became less and less common, but you'll still find it in long running dramas like "Midsomer Murders" or "Law and Order", albeit with the roles often spaced out by years instead of weeks.
 
This method was used in its fullest extent in the A&E Nero Wolfe series in 2001, where every episode had the same cast working in the various changing roles, giving the whole production the feel of a local theater company presenting you these stories.
 
While this trope used to be common, it's fallen away till it’s mostly only seen in long running crime dramas, and so here we are in Doctor Who Flux, three episodes into the season, three paragraphs into this essay, and with Chibnall taking this format and using it for one of the most creative and successful episodes of his tenure.
 
"Once, Upon Time," was perhaps vastly oversold before airing as being an experimental revelation for the show. It's not, and really the comparison does the episode no favors in that it obscures the clever way its playing on tropes the viewer is already familiar with. How much you enjoy those tropes is going to factor a lot into the gas milage you'll get with this one.
 
So, ya like procedural cop dramas? A lot has been made of the 13th Doctor's relationship to the police. One of her companions is a police officer, and her expressions of her identity often emphasize elements of justice, and law and order (dun dun, executive producer Dick Wolf). This is brought into its most focal point with the revelation that the Doctor worked for an organization called "The Division", a sort of Timelord Spacecop group that was entangled in a bunch of the past events the Doctor has been uncovering during her adventures.
 
I'm not going to attempt some defense of the "Doctor as a cop" thing, its not a take I like, but its also not one I'm going to pour more ink into tearing into because... well its already been covered, and I'm not passionate enough to dig into that with a greater depth than is already out there. So, for now lets just establish that it's a bad idea and leave it at that. Because like it or not (and well, I'm in the not) its there. Which leads to the question of what exactly Chibnall is trying to do with this?
 
I think that question has come into focus here, as after setting us up with the basic serial structure he used writing Broadchurch with a tangle of plot threads thrown at us to watch untangle and come back together, we now reach something playful with the format. We're given backstory flashbacks for our characters, where different roles are played by our main cast, straight out of Nero Wolfe. Part of this is clearly very clever Covid filming protocols, each actor is clearly on set with as few people as possible, and the group of main cast members who have to be around each other anyway get to work around the awkwardness of shooting whole scenes with just shot-reverse-shots. The result is much better performances from everyone, as they're actually able to go back and forth with their co-stars. But beyond being practical, we're being thrown into familiar genres.
 
Our first strand is Bel, a survivor of the Flux who is living in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that follows it, hiding from monsters like she's in a horror movie. Turns out she's Vinder's partner, which I was surprised by because I thought for sure she was going to be some lesbian representation since we hadn't had anything so far this series, but it is what it is, and the character as envisioned is a strong one.
After that, we get the "one last mission before I can retire" cop drama of the Doctor going on a job for the Division in the past, the domestic drama of Yaz at home with her sister, the political conspiracy of Vinder, and the Romantic Drama of Dan. Azhur Saleem does a great job switching between these and manages to quickly capture the tone and feeling of each strand so they feel unique.
 
Quick aside here: Azhur Saleem is the best director of the 13th Doctor's tenure so far, yes? He has a grasp of visual space and clarity of character that makes the show pop from the script page in a way that seems to have finally come into focus with him. It’s too bad it’s so late in the game, but we finally have a real working vision of how to direct the 13th Doctor's era. I'm looking forward to his other two episodes.
 
Back to the strands--Chibnall's experience with police drama comes into focus here, as the tropes he's playing with quickly establish each segment. But what's notable about these flashbacks is how each is so filled with failure (the exception being Bel's, the only story that's largely "present"). None of these stories are true triumphs: Vinder stands up for what he believes and gets punished for it. The Doctor confronts the bad guys as a spacecop, but only puts off the problem to deal with later. Yaz can't manage to balance her family and work life, and still can't even now with the Doctor despite everything, getting into a spat with her just like with her sister. Dan almost manages to move forward with his love, but he's held back by both his own past and his own circumstances.
 
Everyone here is haunted by their past, and presumably this is why we're seeing the weeping angel's featured so strongly leading up to next week, villains who literally throw their targets into the past. We'll see if that clear thread is picked up next week or not.
 
For now, we have an episode that was the most fun I've had with the show in a long time. I really liked this one, and I'm hopeful that it's a sign of good things to come, especially with the other episodes directed by Mr. Saleem. We'll see.
 
So till then, we'll wait for the angels.

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​Well, that was pretty good.
After the whirlwind of last week which spent most of its runtime setting up the future story threads, we finally get to sit down and actually enjoy one of those stories and... you know, once again, one really gets the sense that this is the form that Chibnall's Dr Who always should have been in. If you don't like Chibnall's quirks, you won't like them here either, but the way it’s all executed simply works better than it has before for the 13th Doctor. I don't even think this is the best episode of Chibnall's Doctor Who, but it is certainly the one that feels the most like it’s something that could be sustained.
My previous favorite episodes very much felt like one offs--you don't do Demons of the Punjab twice, or if you do, the second time isn't going to work as well.
Here, we have a structure that could be repeated across a variety of stories with different elements, and have it work. Again, this is because the structure is playing to Chibnall's strengths. We spent a lot of time doing set up last week, and because of that we can simply spend time with all of the different plot threads and character without needing to reestablish who these characters are, and reducing the guest cast with lines down to a minimum.
Which is also useful, because this is also a very obviously, "Effected by Covid" episode. Not in a bad way, it’s very well structured around that, but you can tell. Previous Chibnall series have reveled in being able to place several characters in frame at once, giving the show a feeling of constant presence, emphasizing connectivity between characters so that shots showing divisiveness strike harder. Here though, shots are much more isolated. Lots of shot / reverse-shot conversations where there isn't a "back of the head" body double for the other party they're talking to, as they're keeping the contact to a minimum. Lines of dialogue from characters feel sometimes like declarations being given to the room, as the actor was clearly alone on set during that shot.
But this isn't a criticism. In fact, I'd say it comes together stronger than the choices made in previous seasons.
 
Chibnall's Doctor Who has always wanted to be a character drama, but without the extended runtime of serialization, has often staggered at the attempt as there were too many characters in each episode trying to do too many things.
But here, our heroes are divided up, and given characters to play against directly. There's an intimacy to it all, a sense that we're really getting to meet these people and peer into their perspectives. Whether by design or luck, it’s a stylistic improvement, and one I hope we'll see continued going forward.
 
But what of the story itself? Well, it’s funny for one thing. John Bishop pulls off some punchlines that I had to pause on going back to them later, but I can't deny they worked. The Sontarans were a wonderful balance of evil and ridiculous and gave the biggest laugh of the night with "And I wanted to ride a horse!". The A and B plots, set in the modern day and in the Crimean War respectively, intertwine concerning a Sontaran invasion of Earth through time. They both shine, and I had a great time with both of them (aside from a thing we'll return to later...).
 
But what of the C plot? What of Yaz? Well... unfortunately Yaz doesn't get a lot to do in this episode. After a refreshing turn last week, this week we find things are once again happening to Yaz, rather than Yaz doing things. She is transported to a place, a flying upside-down pyramid tells her to do something, she follows it, meets Vinder, and then meets the bad guys who turn her into a replacement statue/conduit. It's the weak spot of the episode, mainly redeemed by how much damn fun the actors seem to be having. Swarm, Azure, Vinder, and Yaz all seem to be having a blast on set, and the energy that Swarm and Azure bring to their performances is clearly infectious. But they steal the show from Yaz, who already just had the show stolen by a pyramid, and it would be nice if the following weeks give her an episode focused on her character.
 
So, mostly its a good time. But what about that bit I said I'd come back to?
Well, the ending.
The ending is just the ending of "The Christmas Invasion", an earlier episode of Doctor Who, played out with the same emotional beats. Is it effective? Well, your milage may vary. But it left me pretty cold. I had been on board with the story, even the disappointing C plot, but the payoff felt like a whimper, even though it involved things literally going bang. Oh well.
Even so, I'm hoping the renewed energy and structure continues in the coming weeks. My fingers are crossed.
 
* * *
 
Theme corner!
This episode featured three plots of people turning their enemies’ own possessions against them. Two of the plots have our heroes using Sontaran tech to defeat Sontarans, and the third has Swarm and Azure using the technology of "The Planet Time" for whatever their scheme is and turning two of the heroes literally into objects to use against their enemies.
Mary Seacole and the Doctor being healing figures is of course a contrast to Swarm and Azure placing two people into positions they will be hurt and turning to ash anything they don't like.
And once again, we have a return to Chibnall's body horror, one of the defining tropes of his era in my opinion. Yaz and Vinder becoming statue like conduits for time, covered in writing and markings, is a very nice piece of subtle horror. We'll see how it plays out.
 
And next week should prove... an interesting moment for my opinions on this series, judging by the preview. But more on that then.

​Doctor Who: Flux
Part 1: The Halloween Apocalypse
 
Doctor Who has been going on for so long that seeing it do something it hasn't done before on TV is always a little refreshing. Whether or not it works as intended is almost beside the point: when you're on your 39th series of a TV show (and 13th of its current run) that's had five TV spinoffs and so many spinoffs outside TV it’s not even worth trying to count, something new is always worth a respectful nod.
And Doctor Who Flux is certainly something new for the show.
 
Chris Chibnall is most known for his work on the mystery series "Broadchurch", a sprawling story about a small town that has a heinous crime happen in it. It’s a story told each season week by week, each episode part of a larger whole.
When Chibnall became the showrunner of Doctor Who, I expected the format to be somewhat similar. And at first, it seemed I was right: the ending of the first adventure of the thirteenth Doctor is a cliffhanger right into the start of the second episode. However, that proved to be more the exception than the rule. Most of the 13th Doctor's era ended up being largely episodic, with fewer multi-part stories than any era of the show’s revival (and, with the current Flux story, tying the 9th Doctor's single season's multi-parters).
It seemed a puzzling choice to me, as Chris Chibnall's greatest strengths as a writer were interconnectivity. His ability to juggle a group of characters who are each going about their own lives until events start forcing convergences between them. In Broadchurch, it was the murder of a child. Here, it’s the murder of the universe.
There's a strange inevitability to this, a sense that this is what we should have been doing the whole time. It’s what Chibnall coming to Doctor Who feels like if you step back from it and just imagine it as a concept, to be a little insufferable, it’s the Plato's Cave of Chibnall Who. But well, we're finally here. All that waiting, and we're finally at that point.
So, what's it like?
Well, in short, its sort of like Broadchurch Season 2.
That is, it its own story but one that is connected inexorably from the stories before it. As well as one where the opening episode spends a lot of time establishing things, we're going to see later with the expectation that we'll stick around to see the payoff. The story establishes its ties to the past fast and furiously--though to be fair it establishes everything fast and furiously. Vin Diesel is nodding his approval somewhere.
The Doctor is dealing with the Flux, a force that is unraveling the very fabric of the universe. She's also dealing with Sontarans invading Earth (though she doesn't know that yet), Weeping Angels (though she also doesn't know that yet), some guys in 1820's Liverpool having an issue (again, unaware), a fleet of doggos trying to kidnap humanity, and a pair of evil crystal-faced siblings who want to do bad things. And maybe something else I'm missing.
The main point is that we're dealing with a lot of plot threads, which are being laid out to us in an unraveled state so that we can watch them entwine, in the opposite manner of the universe unraveling. Presumably, this entwining will go along with fixing the universe itself. We'll see.
As such, it’s difficult to describe the Halloween Apocalypse, as its very much an introduction to what is going to follow. This is just a prediction, but while we may see bits from each of the storylines in each episode going onwards, it seems likely that we're going to have a structure of each episode dealing with one of the big plotlines we've established, with the Flux itself and perhaps the crystal siblings being running threads through all of them.
 
Really, the episode is more focused on establishing its characters than giving this episode a focused plot, and considering the introductory nature of things, that's probably for the best. Surprisingly, a big highlight is the newcomer Dan, played with instant likability by John Bishop. Did I think I was going to like Dan going in? No. Did Mr. Bishop manage to sell me on the character very quickly? Yes.
This goes into what has been one of the strongest points of Chibnall's era of Doctor Who: the casting. Bishop pulls off some lines that in other hands would be frankly pretty awkward, giving them a playfulness and sincerity that makes his scenes a delight to watch. When he finally gets to interact with Yaz, played by Mandip Gill, the way he doesn't absorb the energy in the room, but instead builds on it helps the scene shine, and you can see why they wanted to bring him into the cast's dynamic.
Watching Jodie Whittaker and Gill go at it is good, and frankly pretty refreshing, at the episode's start. It’s the dynamic I was hoping to see, and the dynamic is fun. I was disappointed when I heard we weren't going to have the adventures of just the pair of them, but Dan doesn't derail the pair, because Bishop understands something that in hindsight makes some of the earlier episodes a little unbalanced in dynamics: he doesn't need to have the spotlight all the time, and the show around him is better if he doesn't try to focus it in on him with every line. So, Dan is our fresh face, asking questions for the audience, being surprised at things, while Yaz gets to be the old hand who has seen it all. Its good stuff and makes me look forward to their future adventures together.
 
But again, there's a strange sense of "Ah, this is he dynamic we wanted from the get-go, isn't it?" I liked all of the fam in the previous Whittaker seasons, but four main cast members was just too much for the episodic format to handle. Here, it all clicks together nicely. It’s the right balance, and I like it.
 
I have a feeling that this episode will work better when you can binge straight into the second, on its own its a madcap rush of ideas that doesn't give you the satisfying tie up you want, because that's not what it’s doing or meant to do. We'll have to be back next week to see how that plays out.
 
* * *
 
All those words, and we haven't actually answered the question: What is Flux about?
Well, if I had to guess, it’s a story about things being taken and separated from things that matter to them. Throughout the episode, we start with the Doctor and yaz locked up on an alien world separated from the TARDIS, we see Dan kidnapped by space dogs, Dan's girlfriend and the mysterious Claire are both time-zapped by Weeping Angels to the past, we have one Crystal Alien named Swarm locked up by the Division (of Timeless Children Fame) and escaping, disintegrating his captors into crystal dust, before rescuing his sister who has been apparently captured and forced to live a life thinking she was a different person working for the Division. We also meet Vinder, who is separated from basically everything, locked away in a space station observing nothing, and a pair of guys in the 1800's who...
...who...
...Look I don't know why they're there yet and they don't tie into my thesis as far as I know, so maybe I'm full of it, maybe they're an outlier and should not have been counted.
But most of the plotlines are filled with things being taken from people, and those people wanting them back.
The biggest one of these things is of course that the Doctor wants to know the truth of the Division and the Timeless Children. A child stolen from their parents, raised by another culture, and their biology and memories stolen from them for the good of others.
 
The Flux is wiping everything away, just as the Doctor struggles to learn what was taken from her.
 
Now the question is, how will these strands form knots?

​Graelyn hung the string of lights up and stood back to admire her handiwork.
"Wow," Graelyn said, "it looks like shit."
Arch sighed, "It's not too bad, it's certainly the best possible look under the circumstances."
He was right, not that she wanted to admit it right now, as she avoided scratching her face. This was the worst place she could have gotten dropped on a mission, only to get involved in a wild chase that resulted in her satchel of the crystal dust that allowed her to travel between alternate realities dropping into a precipice. And then, of course, it had turned out there was a plague here, and even after they got in touch with Spiral, they had to quarantine themselves.
"You know, I'd had bigger plans for my birthday this year," Graelyn said.
"You don't even know how old you are, I mean, didn't you get turned into a baby that one time and have to redo your entire--"
"Hush. I'm serious."
She flopped down on the couch in the house they'd rented, and groaned. "Look, I've never had a good birthday. Something bad always happens, so this year I decided I was going to make it a good birthday no matter what. No unexpected breakups, or familial abuse, or gaslighting or--"
"--I feel like this is a very low bar--"
"And...just spend it with all the friends I've made."
Arch nodded, he could get that, as much as he really could. Neither of them had particularly minded being quarantined, they had both spent a long time alone in their lives. But looking at Graelyn staring up at the ceiling, he began to realize exactly how not-alone they'd both become.
It hadn't been so long ago that Archimedes was alone on Ahnerabe Station, thinking he'd spend the rest of his life alone and adrift. It wasn't so long ago for her that Graelyn had pushed the whole world away because of her hellish upbringing, and had given certainty to a life of solitude.
Even being quarantined together with his friend was twice as much human contact per day than he'd expected out of his life.
So Arch put his processors and brain cells to work, and began to formulate a plan.

* * *

Let's look outside the building, shall we? Whole world, big plague, you know the deal. The streets are empty, aside from one figure hiding behind a tree. They peer at the rented house, and begin to sneak towards it. Over their shoulder is a bag: Graelyn's bag.

* * *

Arch of course, heard the door unlock. He had exceptional hearing, being that it was literally just high end microphones and vibration sensors. So when the person tried to sneak in, the attempt was thwarted fairly quickly, as they got halfway into the kitchen to find Arch sliding in behind them to block their exit, and Graelyn, with Face-mask, standing in front of them with her hands on her hips.
"Did you really think you were breaking into my house? On my birthday?"
"It's not actually our house, it is a rental," Arch said.
"Not the most important detail I think. Now who are you?"
The man reached for his own face-mask, and Graelyn and Arch both threw up their hands, "No no no!"
"You can keep that on, we don't need to see your face."
The man still pulled his mask down, and Graelyn and Arch threw their hands up in disgust, "Really?" Graelyn said, "What was the point of that, I can hear you just fine through the mask."
The man's face went red, "Don't you know who I am?"
Graelyn shook her head.
"I'm the one who should have had your adventures! You thieving girl."
"...What?" Graelyn said, blankly.
"I'm Elliott Jo Jordan. I was the top candidate for Project Atlantis' intern position, but you somehow got it instead! I should have been the one travelling between alternate realities--"
"Uh, hate to bring this up but to be here you had to have literally travelled between alternate realities..." Arch noted.
He spun around to point a finger at Arch. "I'm not finished! I had to make a deal with that group Dusk in order to find you, and destroy you for what you did."
"I thought we defeated Dusk?" Arch said.
"They are Time Travelers. That does make it messy."
"But I thought we prevented them from ever existing?"
"But if you time traveled before you never existed you still exist."
"Ah, right. Forgot."
"You have a hard drive in your brain, how do you forg--"
"STOP TALKING LIKE I'M NOT HERE!" he yelled, "I DEMAND TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY!"
Graelyn laughed, "No thank you. Anyway, let me have my bag back."
He grinned, "Never. I finally have the upper hand on you, Graelyn Scythes. I have the power here, the leverage. The only way off this rock. Now you're going to--hey!"
While he was yammering, Arch hand simply pulled the bag out of his hand. He proceeded to block the thief by placing his hand on the top of his head as he flailed and tried to move forward.
"Right, let's get back to my birthday then, finish this up?"
Arch nodded, "Yeah, honestly I was expecting more of a threat today, I don't know why."
She shrugged, "I won't complain."
The theif promptly found himself out the door, which was slammed and locked behind him, and a chair put under the doorknob on the other side. Grumpily, he wandered off into the night.
"They'll take me seriously..." he muttered as she stepped into a puddle, and sighed.

* * *

"Well now that that's done," Arch said, holding up a tablet in front of Graelyn who was sipping a glass of milk on the couch, "I have a special present for you!" While the lag is too bad for video calls here, I asked some of our friends to send you messages!"
Graelyn tilted her head, "Really? Why?"
"...Because it's your birthday and we care about you."
She looked down at her hands, "I guess that makes sense. I don't expect you got many."
He shook his head, "I got...a lot. So why don't we start." He flopped down next to her on the couch, and each of them holding a side of the tablet, hit play.

Loading.

Loading.

Video Message 1

"Hey Graelyn! This is Lady Aesculapius!" Lady Aesculapius says, wearing a T-Shirt that said, "I'm Lady Aesculapius" on it. "I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, and I promise my friend Virginia Stens-6 will make you cupcakes when you get out of there--oh Blanche, Jason can you say hi."
A young woman who looked just like Graelyn, only with white hair, came into frame, "Hi. Sorry again about trying to murder you a few times."
A man wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm the ACE up your sleeve!" popped in from the other side of the frame, "Hey Graelyn! You might not remember me much, but happy birthday nonetheless!"
"Alright, that's all from us, your most successful spin off! Now go have fun!"

"Hey Graelyn, President Zhang Han here, wishing you a happy birthday from the presidency of Mars. My wife isn't here right now but my daughter Odyssia is. Odyssia look at the camera. Look!" she pointed at the Camera, and Odyssia barely glanced at it from her perch on her mother's lap and then returned to staring at something out of frame. "Oh well. Anyway, I've arranged for a special gift for you to be placed at the following coordinates-" a series of numbers flashed up on screen. "Many happy returns."

Graelyn didn't learn this till later, but the gift was of course a basket of popular exports and products from the planet Mars, including four different varieties of olives.

"Happy birthday from Fleet Admiral Cornelia Carthage," the admiral said, sitting rigidly at her desk. A voice off camera asked: "...is that it?"
"Yes."

"Graelyn! Do you remember me? It's Alice MacLeod. Oh, wait sorry you've probably met dozens of me now. Specifically the first one, you know Songbird? I really hope you have a lovely birthday, and everyone else does too. Jack, Treyvon, Yi, Chantelle, and Shona. Though Shona went on a trip, I'm a little worried about her...regardless, even though we've been apart you're still one of my closest and dearest friends. I hope you visit soon. All the love from the World Revolutionary Council."

"Is this on?" Shona asked.
"It's on," The Tourist replied.
"Great! Hey Grae, it's me, Shona! Also your ex-girlfriend Ashlyn is here--"
"I TOLD YOU TO NOT MENTION THAT!" Ashlyn yelled.
"I thought you said you're  on good terms?"
"That doesn't mean...oh whatever," Ashlyn popped into frame next to Shona, "Hi, Happy Birthday Graelyn. I hope you and that Archimedes fellow I've heard about are having a good time. Are you two together now?"
"ASHLYN!" Shona shoved her out of frame. "So yeah, me, the Tourist, Ashlyn, Pathway, and Miranda--not your Miranda a prototype one--all wish you the happiest day! Eat cake!"

Graelyn and Arch awkwardly didn't look at each other for 87 seconds, and then Graelyn played the next video.

A Graelyn appears, not our Graelyn, but well, it's a Graelyn, "Hey me! So, things have been really great with this version of our family here...I actually just became president of the physics club. Can you believe that? I've made a lot of friends here...and well...happy birthday. You deserve it. Cheers!"

A really gross man appears. This is more of an objective description than you'd think, because his skin has been ripped off his face. Auteur grins up at the camera, "Bonjour, my daughter. Are you well? Are you eating? Have you been eaten? I'm sorry I couldn't make whatever you invited me to which was," he looks down at a paper, "this video message. But I will be sure that I make you a video message next time to make up for it."
He stops to take a sip from a glass of something that it's hard to tell is blood or wine. Trick question-it's 50/50.
"Ah yes, the formalities: Happy Birthday my dear child. I tried making you a birthday present, by asking Dracula if he would meet you, but I was informed by Father and Mother that I was simply talking in my sleep. The nerve! The audacity! I'll make it happen though, I'll write you a tale that you'll never forget my child, you'll struggle and bleed and--"
The video kindly cuts out.

"Hey Grae, it's your former lawyer Jame Morrel. I hope you have a great one. And if you need more legal services just contact me at--"
Graelyn skipped ahead to the next one.

A woman appears, holding a mimosa. She is sitting on a golden throne, waited on by a man and woman in stereotypical butler and maid outfits. The throned woman is wearing an elegant black dress, and sunglasses. Indoors.
"Hello dear, this is Ariadne Moore, or as you're more familiar with me, Chess Mistress Hex--what no I'm tired of the caviar, get me something else--regardless I hear it's your birthday." There is a long pause. "So I hope that goes well for you or whatever."
"Wow," Arch said as the video ended.
"She really does care," Graelyn said.


There is a huge group-shot--we see tons of familiar faces: it's all of Dawn, standing under the swirling clouds of Spiral. A T-Rex dozes peacefully in the background. In the front is Kinan Jans, dressed as Sesshomaru from Inu Yasha.
"Hello Graelyn," Kinan Jans says in her monotone with a wave, "I hope you know how much you have meant to all of us her, and to me in particular. I know this is a message from your workplace so I'll try not to get too smarmy or whatever. But I wanted to dress up as my favorite memory together, when we went trick-or-treating in Nightmoore. Anyway, from all of us here at Dawn..."
The group shouts at the camera, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" which wakes the T-Rex up, and it roars, startling everyone as the camera cuts off.

Graelyn looked over at Arch, "Thank you. You didn't have to do that."
He shrugged, "I kinda did. You're my best friend."
"Right back atcha--wait whats that?"
Arch looked at the tablet, "Ah, we're getting a new file. Looks like a late entry?" He pressed play.

Kinan Jans and Backgammon Jenny appear. Jenny is popping gum, and sitting on the edge of Kinan's desk. Kinan is back to her usual outfit, fingers steepled.
"Arch informed us that you caught the culprit behind your stranding. It's good to know you'll be able to head back on your own power upon the completion of your quarantine. However..."
Jenny laughed, "They're going to hate this."

"Well as I said, I'm glad you caught the culprit," Kinan droned, "but you do know that now that you had contact with someone there we have to start your quarantine clock over."
Graelyn stared unblinking, "Cool," she said, "super cool. I figured my Birthday was going too well."
Arch put a hand on her shoulder, it was very big compared to her shoulder. "I'll make you something. Your birthday, whatever you like. I've been getting pretty decent at cooking despite, you know, eating mush."
Graelyn smiled, "Let's do it together. It may not be what we expected, but we'll make the best of it. Happy birthday to me."

Thank you for five years of adventure. We hope to bring you many more. From all of us here at Arcbeatle Press and 10,000 Dawns, happy 5th anniversary to 10kd!

​
Copyright 2020, Arcbeatle Press and James Wylder, all rights reserved. Auteur is the property of Jacob Black, used with permission. Chess Mistress Hex is the property of Taylor Elliott, used with permission. Alice MacLeod is the property of Jo Smiley, used with permission. 10,000 Dawns and it’s characters are the property of James Wylder and Arcbeatle Press. This story is a work of fiction, any resemblance to persons living or dead, or events past or present is purely co-incidental. Any resemblance to characters not owned or licensed is done firmly within the grounds of parody or satire. Arcbeatle Press is located in Elkhart, IN. arcbeatlepress.com

​The Tourist pulled the chart down, and pointed at it with a rather excessively long pointing stick. Pathway sat with an ice pack on her head, Ashlyn was reading a book called, "The Untold Adventures", ("Well I didn't do that...oh no wait that did happen." she said at least three times.), Miranda was on the floor playing with spray-paint, and making the whole floor into a mural. Shona, well, Shona was just lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling throwing a ball up and down.
"Hello? Are you even listening? I have another plan to get us noticed!"
"What are you going to do?" Pathway said flatly, "Blow up a universe? Run off with Ashlyn for a long time, and then neither of you tell us what happened for literally days while the two of you avoid each other in comically romantic mishaps around the Pyramid?"
The Tourist pointed at pathway, but no words came, and she lowered her finger, and shrugged. "Okay, so maybe my plans haven't gone according to plan."
"That sounds like a pretty big problem for plans, "Pathway replied.
"Can you just get...all the way off my back about this?"
"I'm not on your back, I'm in a chair."
"This is why you weren't in the novel, bejeebus." The Tourist rubbed her forehead, and Miranda coughed. All eyes turned to her.
"Hi, yes, Miranda here. CNN. So, Miss Tourist, why are we still...doing this?"
"What's with the CNN gag?"
"I thought it was fun."
Shrug, "You know, I take that back, continue."
"Thanks, look, we've already done a lot of stuff. We ended the world!"
"That got undone pretty quick," Ashlyn muttered.
"...and formed a rock band."
"Okay, that part was actually fun," Pathway noted.
"But my main point here is...I think we had a good run at this? People paid some attention to us. We had a good time."
The Tourist frowned, and lowered her pointy stick. "We can't just, end things now, there's still so much to do!"
"Like?"
She fumbled through her trenchcoat pockets, but came up with nothing, "Uh...well..." She threw the pointer, and adjusted her sunglasses, "there is a mysterious final task I had for us...one big plan to change everything for us."
"No there isn't," Ashlyn said,
The Tourist frowned, "Well don't tell them that!"
Ashlyn sighed, "Admit it, just admit why you're really doing this, Tourist!"
She threw her hands up, "I already told you! Attention! I could not have been more clear this was all just a selfish ploy for attention!"
Ashlyn crossed her arms, "Is it."
"YES?"
"Whose attention?"
The Tourist froze solid, and glanced at the rest of the room, "Uhhh."
"Hmn?" Miranda asked.
"Yes, go on," Pathway prodded.
"I missed most of that but please say the interesting thing," Shona said.
The Tourist turned around, this was not going her way. She was supposed to keep this going for some time, not end it all with, ugh, being *honest*. It was grotesque. No, no she had a better plan...she started the laughter slow and soft, and increased it in intensity, throwing a hand in the air, fingers splayed in a claw. "So then, you finally figured it out."
"Yeah," Miranda said, "we literally all knew you weren't going to be honest, again, and just do something weird like that. We all know why you're doing this, just say it."
Shona raised a hand, "Actually uh, Tourist, let me point a thing out? You do realize that none of us would be here still if we didn't like hanging out with you, do you?"
The Tourist's jaw went a little slack, "Uh, no?"
Pathway raised an eyebrow, "Do you really think any of us care about recognition the way you do."
"Oh I absolutely do," Ashlyn said.
"Sorry, do you really think any of you but you and Ashlyn were in this for selfish reasons?"
"Hey!" Ashlyn and the Tourist yelled back.
Pathway stood up, "We're still here because this is fun. It's fun to spend time with friends, so run around, to be somewhere. If you spend enough time alone, those things become precious. And you may be an emotionally insecure jerk, but in the end you do the right thing, even if, you know, you have to posture about not doing the right thing for ten minutes."
The Tourist looked at her feet.
"We're here because we like you, stupid. So throw out your plan. Let's find a path somewhere else. We'll go with you, right?"
Miranda nodded, "It's been fun, and if we're lucky we can find another roller derby."
"I've been bored ever since we finished mopping up the Centro resistance, so this has been pretty great, plus there are a lot of great food trucks when you have a time machine," Shona said.
"It's not a time machine it travels along narrative--nevermind," The Tourist tried not to smile. She failed, so she spun around again to face the controls to the pyramid. "Right, well, if there's no plan, then let's go somewhere exciting."
Ashlyn perked up, "Somewhere wild?"
"You could say that. One of my favorite places. Where beasts come from all over to compete for who is the supreme beast." She grinned, "If you're all still up for the ride?"
The cheers told her they were, and as the Pyramid zipped off, The Tourist felt her face flush.
The right kind of attention, after all.

* * *

Ashlyn sat there, completely unimpressed.
"You said beasts. You said it was wild."
The tourist pointed out, "It's exactly that! No lies!"
"Personally, I am having a wonderful time," Shona said, holding the bag out to the couple, "popcorn?"
"Yes," Ashlyn grumbled, and took some, chewing angrily.
"I hate you," she mumbled to the Tourist.
"Love you too."
Ashlyn stopped and stared, "Sorry what was that?"
"Oh uh, I mean, I despise you, you...filthy...human...with all that finely done hair and...attractive bisexual aesthetic."
"I don't entirely know what that means, but please continue while I eat Shona's popcorn."
Pathway and Miranda slipped back in, carrying their commemorative stuffed toys.
"You really like that stuff?" the Tourist said dryly.
"It's so cute!" Miranda said, waggling the stuffed animal in front of her by awkwardly leaning over all the other seats.
"Yes, they are soft," Pathway replied.
"Well this whole thing is still stupid," Ashlyn muttered, as the announcer came back on to announce that the next round of the puppy bowl was starting.
"Shh! Miranda said, "Look the little golden retriever fell asleep!"
"So did Shona," Pathway noted.
The Tourist smiled, honestly. She'd never forget this.