JohannesVIII's Doctor Who liveblogs archive: Grimm Reality

[Original blog post on Tumblr: November 23th, 2017]

Some highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (Grimm Reality).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

Have you ever eaten a cake which was so full of delicious sugary goodness that you wanted to like it, but couldn’t bear the thought of eating more than a tiny slice of it? Well, this book is that kind of cake. Reading it entirely took me four months. At some point, I was certain I was approaching the end of the story, surely, but when I checked the number of pages, I was barely one third into the book. It’s exhausting.

Oh, it’s a good book. But it’s so dense, packed with so many details, full of so many characters who all have their own little subplot, that it ends up looking like a written description of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. It’s great, beautiful and complex, but it’s very hard to tell what exactly is going on, and it goes on for way too long. I want to love it as a whole, but I can only appreciate it in tiny, tiny bites. 8/10

Oh. So. This is actually like a Grimm tale, then.

What could possibly go wrong.

IT WAS A TRAP. SURPRISE.

Is this Oxygen

Okay yes this is definitely Oxygen

Doctor, you already know it won’t be marvellous for long, if any of your adventures can be trusted.

Or maybe it will! I don’t know! Surprise me.

“WE’VE LANDED SOMEWHERE! :D" Oh Eight.

SUDDENLY APPEARING FOREST

Ummmm.

You might want to run.

You idiot

I’m 100% on Anji’s side there

Doctor, no

I kinda like these aliens.

Meanwhile, Team TARDIS met a witch! :D

GUYS STOP LAUGHING AT HIM

okay I would probably laugh too

And now they’re in a market and I’m starting to enjoy this.

I’m laughing like an idiot

Anji, that was rude and uncalled for

“That’s not a good sign"

YEAH YOU THINK

Ahhhh this is too cute, I kinda want to draw Eight fixing the toad’s tiny leg now

The most difficult question of all.

This description makes me want to go back to sleep under my blankets right now

Oh wait, Anji’s been kidnapped because of her bargain, right ?

Also I can’t help but picture a warning sign for magical black coaches.

Fitz in a wolf-hide cloak is also an entertaining picture.

POISONED APPLE SOMNOLENCE SYNDROME OH MY GOD

Doctor you little shit

Wait, is the entire planet some kind of beast? What??

Probably.

He’s so happy to have learned a new way to insult people haha

Fitz you idiot, I love you but why are you like this

I’m starting to notice that everyone and everything here has a tiny backstory, and I’m really not complaining, except it’s giving me a headache.

That sounds like a bad idea.

Oh there’s a spirit trapped in a globe, now.

The globe isn’t bigger on the inside, eh

And now Eight has a gnome friend since he freed him from the globe.

Meanwhile, Fitz is scared to go pee in the woods. Really.

Gilfred you liar, you still have a lot of food.

Why do I get the feeling that this last sentence will turn out to have a useful and cryptic meaning later

And now this Alex guy joins Eight’s party because his friend was eaten by a… stove??

It happens, I guess.

That makes me a lot sadder than it should

EIGHT SAYING STUFF LIKE THIS SHOULDN’T MAKE ME SO SAD

Meanwhile, Anji makes things worse by trying to trick her captors into breaking her magical contract, and failing.

Oh my god.

I love this description.

OH SHIT FITZ AND THE PRINCES SLEPT IN THE HOUSE WHERE THE PEOPLE-EATING STOVE IS

THE ENTIRE HOUSE EATS PEOPLE OH MY GOD

THE WITCH TOLD HIM TO WATCH HIS BACK AND HE’S SAVED BY HIS WOLF-SKIN CLOAK, I LOVE THIS

Nice try.

STOP WRITING DESCRIPTIONS LIKE THIS, I’M OVERDOSING

If the bone in the inn was real, giants do exist here, so don’t worry too much.

Thanks! I can’t wait to see this character die a painful death!

This book in a nutshell

Meanwhile, an ogre has fallen in love with Anji and he’s calling his witch grandmother to help her- a sentence I never expected to write about a Doctor Who book.

Oh my god Anji.

TALKING SPARROWS

They’re trying to help Christina and I’m sorry but - TALKING SPARROWS AHHHH CUTE

Oh, that’s the cover of the book, isn’t it?

Something’s gonna go wrong, I can feel it.

Oh shit here it comes.

You kinda fell into that one a bit too easily, to be honest.

Meanwhile, in the giant’s home: alien geometry.

“No one in their right mind could find this fun”

Thank you Inex, that was almost helpful.

Eight you idiot

EIGHT YOU IDIOT

[Dr. Nyarlathotep fans cheering in the distance]

That made me laugh way too hard.

Try again, Eight.

I shouldn’t be laughing so hard but I can’t help it, this scene is hysterical

And he managed to get out by hurting the giant’s teeth, haha.

Well that sounds reasona-

-GODDAMMIT EIGHT

This is a fun little detail.

“Are giants accidents“

Uh. That was weird. Is the giant talking for several creatures now?

Well that’s reassuring.

Noooooo not the TARDIS keyyyyyy-

Who am I kidding, of course they’re going to find it later.

So the wishing boxes show an infinity of possible outcomes, and you pick one? Is that how it works?

That sounds exactly like all these fairytales where you pick three items to throw at your pursuer.

This is the mental picture my brain instantly provided for the river-sucker.

And that was exactly like one of those fairytales I was talking about, haha. Too bad this setting makes some things more predictable at times.

Meanwhile, Anji is in a contest against Christina to win the hand of that insufferable prince from earlier.

I swear a million things are happening in this story.

Now that’s just being mean to that poor guy.

And it doesn’t make any sense, too. Great job, prince of jerks.

This is cute.

Wishes really are some sort of medium of exchange around here, aren’t they?

I’m glad this minor character had his own little happy ending.

What the actual fuck.

Meanwhile, Fitz is in prison, because of course he is.

Meanwhile, another wish was used to cheat during the contest.

This is a lot more interesting than wishes solving everything, though. Go on, Anji.

Meanwhile, that random character knows way too much about Eight, and if I keep saying ‘meanwhile’ a lot, it’s because all this stuff is a bit hard to follow.

HOLY SHIT WOLFSKIN IS A PERSON.

That's... that's your only problem with this? All right, then.

ANJI OH MY GOD.

Hahaha oh wow, serves him right.

This strongly reminds me of a chapter from Mushishi where someone ate a fruit containing the memory of an old tree. Is this the memory of the planet?

Wait, the planet isn’t an organism mimicking a planet, but an actual living planet??

Also

Ooooooh. So that’s why the giant’s teeth were damaged. The miners did it to the planet.

Also, a planet called Albert is a wonderful thing.

Fitz, please never change.

So the wishes are bargains that the planet makes with its inhabitants? That’s really weird.

Doctor, admit it, you don’t have any plan whatsoever.

To be honest, there’s so many characters I had forgotten about her.

GOOD. VERY GOOD.

For once I think you should all listen to Fitz.

IT’S THE CERULEAN REVOLUTION, EVERYBODY RUN

Holy shit hahaha, that’s another wonderful mental picture.

Well Christina, the first thing you should know is that none of them has the faintest idea how this whole thing works.

I wonder how many stories in Doctor Who have this kind of "the planet/the moon/the star is alive" theme, now. Because there’s already been quite a few.

Oh so the wishing boxes are literally "potential futures” stored in tiny boxes, then. This is starting to make some kind of sense. Some.

WOLFSKIN NOOOOO

WHAT

OKAY SO WOLFSKIN IS NOW OFFICIALLY A PERSON AGAIN

WHAT THE HELL

YEAH YOU THINK

And now the lovesick ogre is back.

What did he wish for? I need to know.

Indeed.

Same, Fitz, same.

A perfect summary of all the plans Eight has ever made.

Ho don’t do it

Okay so he’s gonna pick what the beast is going to be.

Please don’t pick a rabbit. You know how that’ll work.

That was clever.

SHUT UP IT’S MAGIC

No, it’s only a law of storytelling.

And here’s the princess suffering from PASS!

FITZ NO.

Okay, so the wishing boxes are possible futures full of possibilities, spat out on this planet by the white hole nearby, and one of the possible futures quantum thingies became some sort of prince because it was sentient?? This is really weird.

IT’S A TRAP.

I love how Anji saw it as a long discussion while Fitz saw it as ‘fuck off’.

Whatever you do, don’t think of a giant marshmallow man.

I love this.

Okay. So he’s gonna wish for a tiny change in reality, and the quantum sentient whatever thingie will inhabit that change. I think. This is all very abstract.