#regeneration

[whosthirteen]

nobody is coming to save you -- get up!

prints

[unbfacts]

Axolotls look cute, but their repair system is wild. These salamanders can regrow lost limbs and repair damaged spinal cord, heart, and brain tissue. In many cases, they heal with little or no permanent scarring.

[avemakuta]

I think that the real fantasy of regeneration isn't living forever, it's being able to die without having to end.

It's the War Doctor being able to hope that after he dies, his next incarnation won't be a warrior anymore. It's Ten praying that when he does go, that new man who saunters away will be the Doctor in a way that Ten doesn't know how to anymore. It's Fifteen hoping against hope that maybe this time, maybe this life, he'll be able to avoid becoming a killer.

It's the ability to look back at your past and your regrets and your failures and say "I was a different person back then" and maybe, just maybe, genuinely believe it.

[old-type-40]

I just wanted to talk about how Unification was a great follow up to the other Rodenberry archive short film Regeneration which came out a year and a half ago. In Regeneration, we saw Spock visiting Kirk's grave on Veridian III and picking up Kirk's insignia from atop the grave where Picard left it after burying him.

Unification implies that the events of the photo novel Strange New Worlds are canon in that Gary Mitchell became a powerful non-corporeal being after his death on Delta Vega. Mitchell initially wants revenge on Kirk but Kirk eventually gets him to realize that he can set aside human desires and flaws. Mitchell sets out to travel the universe. And in Unification, Mitchell finds out about Kirk's death, sees Spock mourning at Kirk's grave, and Kirk's remains in storage at Daystrom Station.

So Mitchell brings Kirk back, has his insignia returned to him, and gives Kirk and Spock one last sunset to share together. And that's beautiful.

There's been so much focus on just the Spirk moment that I didn't want the rest of it to be overlooked and under appreciated.

[why-and-or-bother]

Like I know these 2 seasons was the original deal ncuti made, but I feel like we’re burning through doctors at this point. Like they don’t have to all be Tom baker and stay forever but like damn, with 14 only having 3 eps and 15 having only basically the length of one full season, like we’ve gone through two incarnations in less than 2 years! That’s bonkers! Stay longer please! Let me fall so in love with you and have such a sense of familiarity and consistency with your presence that when you DO leave it feels like my hearts been curb stomped.

[yoan-le-grall]

[polarity-disturbed]

Can you imagine if regeneration didn’t work the way we know it—just swapping one body out for the next—but instead the new form grew inside the old one and had to literally claw its way out.

The Doctor mid-regeneration, glowing, trembling—and then suddenly their skin cracks open like a chrysalis. Fingers pushing up beneath their own face, nails ripping through old flesh as a younger, sharper hand bursts free. Their eyes cloud over, then slide wetly out of the sockets, leaving empty husks for the next pair to peer through. Ribs crack open like a cage being pried apart, organs collapsing into slurry as the new body drags itself forward.Absolutely disgusting. Absolutely metal. The BBC could never.

It would completely change the vibe too. Regeneration would stop being this majestic golden light show and instead be full-on Cronenberg horror. Imagine companions watching in shock, the old Doctor’s face sloughing away, while the new Doctor gasps for air like a newborn. Half nightmare, half miracle.