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Six Iconic Quotes from Scream (1996) dir. Wes Craven

pseudophan

dan and phil reveal the truth (but like actually this time)

cosmic-espero

only-cat-memes

spicyreyes

I try and avoid engagementbait when I can but look at his EYES

synthient

So through our 12th Doctor transition metaphor, Missy and Clara are two visions of "the Doctor as a woman" (not really competing visions; they're more like the same person at different life stages). Missy represents "would being a woman make me irredeemably evil," while Clara represents "would the lack of a protective masculine mask make me 'breakable' enough to inevitably get me killed." Each of their arcs reaches a sort of "no, but" conclusion: Missy is capable of goodness, but also so dogged by self-destructive impulses that no one will ever know; Clara is capable of fully embodying the Doctor role (and surviving the "death" of transition a la tv glow), but only at the cost of full alienation from everyone she once loved.

Bill is the Doctor's younger self if he'd actually gotten to self-actualize as a teen/twentysomething autistic lesbian. She gets sabotaged by Saxon Master, who self-destructs rather than become a woman. Missy and Bill are again two faces of the "self" - Missy as the self subject to a literal suicide, and Bill as the young-lesbian-self, spiritually smothered, forced into the ultimate mask/closet of cyber conversion. (This is the culmination of the themes we've been setting up since deep breath, re undeath, turning yourself into a literal or emotional robot in order to survive, killing the true parts of yourself so many times that you've ship of theseus'd your "self" out of existence and all that's left to you is to jump or be pushed, etc). And yet, Bill can't be extinguished. Where there's tears, there's hope. The Doctor has to face both the younger self who was (oh god I said so much sexist shit when I was younger, I'm going to throw up), and the younger self who never was (Bill, the self beneath the robotic mask). The Doctor has to grieve Bill, and yet understand that she's still there. She never really died. Despite your best efforts, despite the machine you tried to turn yourself into, the living death you made of your life...that inner spark survived.

So the Doctor is able to reach the same choice as the Master - kill yourself, or become a woman - and choose change.