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

[mmiab]

Very well, thank you!

[ it works... very well. badum. tsh ]

[motivation]

Oh, you're funny.

[ her tone implies it's not a compliment. it isn't an insult, exactly, either. an observation: he's the jokey kind of person. great. ]

[mmiab]

It has been said.

[ funny came early on. he's got a tendency to milk it these days. especially these days. ]

Bit of a combo of a suspended supernova, dimension-shifting technology and a smaller star caught on the point of collapse buried in the heart of the ship. There's a lot of spacey science involved that I could probably talk you through if you wanted, but as an overview I basically just toss in the date, press a few buttons, pull a lever and hop across a few thousand millenia in the blink of an eye.

[motivation]

Can you rewrite history?

[ history and the universe's memory, those are things that have been on dutch's mind now. how khlyen and aneela have pushed her away from both, kept her hidden, how she'll be forgotten.

she refuses those things. she's writing the future, but what couldn't she do with a time machine? ]

[mmiab]

... ah. it's a dangerous question - anyone asking it usually has a reason to, at least when it comes out as directly as that.

not that the answer can hurt anyone here: he's shipless. unsure she's even survived. but he's careful to keep the mood of his response light anyway, walking the tightrope. ]

To some extent. Strict rules on that one - some things are fixed points, and those are the ones I can't touch. I can usually tell which are and which aren't.

[motivation]

[ it is a dangerous question, but if dutch could make it so the hullen never came to the quad — she thinks she'd take that chance. even if it meant she was never created at all.

maybe she wouldn't. she's not that selfless. johnny would, though, she thinks. he'd be right to. ]

The Storm one of them?

[ so much for light. ]

[mmiab]

[ oh. ]

... No. No, I don't think so.

[ The Storm he never saw coming. and he's seen everything coming, at one time or another. too late, often, but to have missed something as huge as a cross-universal swallowing force...? there's a very certain shift in him, the crossing of a cloud over the sun of his careful expression. like he's just been struck, then tried to make out like it didn't hurt. ]

[motivation]

One you can't touch, one you can't tell if you can, or one you can?

[ dutch's question was whether he could change it. that it hurts — well, that's something they all have to live with. she can't quite manage sympathy for that. doesn't try, either. dutch has always been selfish in her pain. ]

[mmiab]

One I can't, but only because I've no means to here. I didn't see it coming before it came, so I've no way of knowing if there was something that could've been done.

[ so, don't know.. having said that... ]

I doubt it was a fixed point. I've traveled the length and depth of time and space in my universe and I've never come across it before - nothing that vast could've gone under my radar for that long. That means it's a blip. Something other from somewhere else.

[motivation]

No means. [ a beat. ] You mean no ship.

[mmiab]

[ a beat in return. ]

Yes.

[motivation]

[ promptly: ] Pity.

[mmiab]

Agreed.

[ it's for the best, he knows, one way or another. but god if he doesn't wish she were here. ]

[motivation]

[ dutch isn't quite sure what makes her say - ] I don't have my ship here, either.