video, un: bowtiesaresupercool

[mmiab]

Hellooooooooooooooooooooo Nysans!

Nysans? El Nysans? El Nysonians? I don't know. Weird, this new planets lark, I'm out of practice, it's been a while. New planets! Fun!

Anyway. Hello. Occurred to me just now, and by just now I mean I'm bored and it's occurred to me before but I've been storing it up for an opportune moment, that there's a lot of you to whom I still haven't introduced myself! And since introducing myself can sometimes be a bit of a palaver, I'm going to go ahead and get through as many of you as I can with this one quick broadcast. Right. Here we go. Ready? Ready.

[ here, the stupid strange-faced bowtie-wearing man with the big grin who's staging a brief (I say brief...) takeover of your screens and attention takes a deeeeeep breath. rubs his hands together!!! grins again, and— ]

Hi! Hello. I'm the Doctor. Yes, the Doctor, not a doctor, though I'm one of those too, in many disciplines, none of them medical. Can still probably save you from losing a leg if I can get my hands on the right alien tech, though. Bit of a jack of all trades. Space and time travelling alien, to get that bit out of the way while we're at it. Two hearts. Legs. Okay? Okay.

While I'm here, let's play a getting to know you game. Yeah? [ a pause, in which he's waiting for an answer that he— apparently receives? from who, your guess is as good as mine. ] Hah hah. Yeah. Good. Getting to know you through the age old medium of word association! This is either going to be great fun or get very boring very quickly, so we'll see how it goes. It's the extended edition, rules are slightly different: for every word you give, you have to explain the link from the last one. However obvious.

Ready? Okay. Here we go. I'll give you a few choices for a starter. ... Train, story, sun, space, fashion, smile, or hope.

And we're off!

[ and he's... also off. (thank God????) good luck nysa... ]

Comments

i changed my mind

[vorrutyer]

How altogether terrifying. Well, I suppose it's terrifying, really. Bears have no real conception of mortality, being as we are bears. Death is an abstraction our simplistic cognition can't deal with. Honey, now - honey we understand. But not your human conceptions of what matters.

keeping the bears alive,

[mmiab]

Well, I can appreciate that. Just as well, really, no use in dancing with the concept of death when you could be living the reality of life. Though, again, not human. Don't have any human conceptions. Got a lot of non-human, non-bear conceptions, but not a human.

Anyway. Mr. Bearyerly. If I can ever interest you in some honey on toast, as a conciliatory gesture for your sorry person-skin trapped-bear state, I'd consider it my honour.

[vorrutyer]

Hm. What about honey's charming older sister? By which I mean mead. But I must ask - if you're not human, what are you? Tiger? Alligator? Hm, looking at your face...anteater?

[mmiab]

First of all, you're giving me mixed messages. Am I handsome in an unconventional sort of way or do I look like an anteater? Second of all, none of the above. I'm a Time Lord.

[vorrutyer]

Bears are famously attracted to anteaters.

And heavens me. What on earth is a time lord? Or what not-on-earth, I should say.

[mmiab]

Is that a fact.

It's a me. [ mario?? ] Not sure what I can tell you that I haven't already.

[ SLY!!! REFERENCE!!! TO HOW YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIS POST. back at it again. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ He gives a little wave of his hand. ]

Quite a lot, fellow. I know a bit about your anatomy, sure and true, but nothing else. What are you like, oh, culturally? Artistically? What have you contributed to the universe?

[mmiab]

[ the art of deflection isn't really treating him kindly here. "me or my race? oh, either way, a war that threatened to destroy the universe unless I committed two counts of genocide, which I attempted but did a shoddy job of."

very!!!! jovially!!!! ]

This and that. Grand city, group of people in odd costumes wielding all the power, standard stuff. Mostly we were observers - the watch all of time and space but don't interfere with all of time and space type, you know.

[ observers. yes. unleashed extradimensional horrors through experimenting with time-control technology, committed a planet-wide purge of a religious group because ???? powerhungry leader. decided these things were probably a bad idea and banned all future forms of intervention with the wider universe. all that good stuff. let's never talk about it again. ]

What about bears?

[vorrutyer]

Grub-hunting. Locked into eternal wars with bees. You know.

[ Byerly smiles, the expression perfectly friendly. ]

But goodness me, one group wielding all the power. That doesn't seem particularly fair, does it?

[mmiab]

A charmed and tricky life.

No, not at all. When is it ever? Four out of five civilisations I run into have built up some sort of hierarchy of power. Monarchy, government, etc etc. Sadly we never did break out of that dynamic.

[vorrutyer]

Hm. But most civilizations don't have dominion over time and space itself.

[mmiab]

No, no, I'll give you that. Not excellent having a time-wielding core of powerful individuals watching the universe unfold.

[ a flicker in his expression - to be expected, perhaps. they're all of them here lost to worlds that are lost to them. the smile he wears now tries not to bring the mood down too much. ]

Needn't worry, anyway. They're gone now.

[vorrutyer]

[ There's a glint in his eye that borders on predatory. He sees that flicker. ]

Dear heavens, good fellow, don't say that with a smile. They're your people, aren't they?

[mmiab]

Yes. [ yes. if he ever deserved them. but Byerly's right, and the faux smile falters, smooths out into some blank nothing expression. ] They are. Were. But we're all endangered species now, eh.

[vorrutyer]

In a zoo of our own, yes. [ He lifts his eyebrows. ] But your fellows are in cold storage, at least, eh? Revivable, perhaps.

[mmiab]

Mn. [ and it's almost left at that. but there's no point in carrying a lie he's never bothered to tell before. ] No. Unfortunately not. They were gone long before the Storm.

[vorrutyer]

Really.

[ No expression of sympathy, but perhaps it's telling that his questioning turns just a touch less aggressive. Perhaps. ]

What happened?

[mmiab]

A war.

[vorrutyer]

One you lost?

[mmiab]

One everyone lost.

[vorrutyer]

The only kind of war there is, I suppose. But your side was defeated?

[mmiab]

Both sides were defeated. The universe was at risk.

[vorrutyer]

[ Uh huh. ]

By whom were they defeated?

[mmiab]

What does it matter?

[ not saying that out loud in so many words today, thank you. Not Today. ]

[vorrutyer]

What does the fate of your people matter? I think it's quite significant.