★ JohannesVIII's Doctor Who liveblogs archive: The Sleep of Reason

Some highlights of the latest EDA I’ve read (The Sleep of Reason).

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

Okay, so. As far as "Doctor Who stories seen from the perspective of an outsider" go, this is pretty good. It's kinda fun to see Team TARDIS from a different perspective, even if it's not particularly new at that point, and they are mostly fine here, even if the characterisation is nothing groundbreaking.

The problem is that the story itself feels like a single idea stretched far too thin for far too long. Of course it doesn't help that the previous book was throwing a dozen ideas at the wall at once, but still, this one feels full of filler side plots at times.

At this point you might be bracing yourself for a bad note, but no, I mostly enjoyed this book! And it's because the new characters are well written! Laska in particular feels like a real person and I like her a lot, despite some edginess regarding self-harm early on in the book. Oh yeah by the way: self-harm is a major plot point in this book - so, yeah. You've been warned. 6/10

I'm aware all of these are song lyrics from a lot of different genres BUT when you put all of them next to each other like this, every single chapter sounds like a 2000s emo song even when the original song isn't one

Banger opening, please go on

Wait that's Eight. I'm stupid

Very intriguing start, in any case

FUCKING HELL

also: relatable

Loving that entire description despite the general edginess. Or maybe because of it

FUCKIN HELL

LITERAL BIRTHDAY MASSACRE

Repeating myself, and I know it's from something else, but: god-tier title for an emo track

Oh Eight... you're always so unnerving and we love you for that

So they're also around, cool

UH OH

ask Laska 100 years later how well that's working for her

don't mind me I'm just taking notes about the patients in case I need them later

oof this poor patient

I feel like we've already done this in Camera Obscura, so I hope it won't be too much of a re-thread

of course you have blue hair and suicidal tendencies

great description lmao

It's really funny that that's their real names and not aliases he's complaining about

Semi-recently I was watching some Ghost Files episodes where the team was looking for ghosts with this lady who was a medium-

-and her fave way of "contacting ghosts" was cat toys, which opened a brand new world of comedy for me

So yeah, a toy light saber checks out

maybe it was the moon. you don't know

wait you're in a relationship with a PATIENT??

well, got him there

see?? that's exactly why this kind of relationship is dangerous

and now we're inside a power metal album

yep. yep this is definitely Ghostlights

all cat owners can relate

STOP USING MY OWN JOKES, WHO'S LIVEBLOGGING WHAT HERE

no, it's fine, they're always doing that

welcome back autistic Eight, please never leave again

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

omg please let them interact

Fitz no

You know what. We're getting dangerously close to the end of this series and if the last books aren't making me say "Fitz no" at least once, they will have failed one of their most important tasks

IS SHE WRONG THOUGH

self-awareness!

oh nooooooooo Eight

Eight in a nutshell right there

do it. make my day

Oh that could explain the names of the chapters, then

I have nothing to say about that part, I just like the prose here

Death is blushing somewhere in the background

And now there's also Turlough complaining somewhere in the background

I need you to know that I've had this gif in my collection on my key for nearly 12 years and that all this time its name has been "turlough fail.gif"

I hope the monster of the week isn't just 'evil dog'

I think Eight is the impostor

lmaooooo he's so casual about it

ohhhh wait. wait wait wait. it's dawning on me that helping her might be him unconsciously looking for redemption for what happened with dark!Sam

yeah I think I might be right

and a fever you can't sweat out

so it was destroyed then rebuilt, maybe?

Okay so when my father was at uni there was this one guy who kept trying various drugs and one time he spent an entire day in one corridor, sitting and looking at people, sleeping on the floor, or creepily staring at other students taking the stairs. A few days later my father asked the guy what that whole thing was about and apparently the guy told him that at the time, he was under the impression he was a cat.

All of this to say: not that out there.

Trueeeeeeeee the proof is this blog

Ohhhhh he kinda remade the vibes of his TARDIS in the library

he's feeling at home!

oh the threads are connecting

19th century Sasuke

Oh Fitz. Never change

Finally things are happening

A tale of mystery and adventure and stupid injuries

Tries is the operative word in my humble opinion

I'm not sure what to do with this information because it's not that shocking

Not gonna lie I'm not impressed by the evil dog monster-of-the-week. Might be because The Thing and various other things I like set the standard for creepy undead dogs extremely high.

Weirdly enough the most haunting "creepy undead dog" I've ever seen was in a comic I didn't even like. It was in the second volume of Kenya, a somewhat banal scifi series about aliens and creatures displaced through time. Specifically, this undead dog was hosting a giant parasite that was using the dog's corpse like a puppet.

I need you to know that I had to go to a library to take this picture cause I couldn't find that page anywhere online, and that this is the sole reason why I'm posting this liveblog so late even though nobody else cares about that comic page lol

me when I infodump the exposition

sdfghj got him

Laska probably

literal cursed necklace!

don't know why I laughed

sdfghjklm

Dr Oldfield does NOT deserve to share a name with my fave musician ever

girl this doesn't work like that. this isn't depression olympics

is this a care home or love island

yes good

You know, there's so much Doctor Who that exists than it's hard to find an interesting new way to describe the Doctor and whatever the hell they're doing with their life. But this one right there is a great description and I like it a lot.

uh oh Laska

HAHAHA times like this really turn his perpetual amnesia into a proper weakness

YEPPPP EXACTLYYYYYY, RUN

terrible job, Eight

oh so now he's gonna burn EVERYONE?

I was gonna say this is pretty progressive for the time, but not gonna lie it's also progressive for today

The boy who cried wolf, except wholesome

I didn't expect it to work either

OOF ouch I just got some phantom pain in my ex-broken nose

meanwhile the villain got bored with threatening living people

well that's a boring design for a supposedly eldritch and inconceivable alien

LMAOOOO
GET COLOMBOED, IDIOT

this is the 'here's Johnny' bit from The Shining except Jack Torrance is on both sides of the door

Fitz I swear to god can you please FOCUS

FITZ STOP

did. did Eight just drop the guy at their feet like a cat drops a dead bug

what the fuck

it's fine, Laska, just don't have romantic dates inside of the mausoleum ala Mary Shelley and you should be perfectly fine

terrible explanation Eight, thanks

oof ouch my bones

DUDE WHAT

kinda vibing with the metaphor of everyone dealing with mental illness in their own way

wait wait wait
so let me recap. During the entire 20th century:

- Eight was amnesiac on Earth
- Twelve was teaching at a university
- Missy was in the Vault
- Dhawan!Master was also stranded on Earth
- Captain Jack was buried alive in a field
- Auton!Rory was guarding the Pandorica
- and there was also THIS version of Eight in a casket somewhere

cool
cool cool cool
I love Doctor Who. Like unironically