So I've finally watched LotTL/tSoD (the New Who Master episodes). I figured it was time, given how much meta energy I've been expending on it. (See, the over-elaborate themed fanmix was almost ready to post- then I realized I had to switch the order around a bit to match the episodes better.)

Watching actual episodes after you've already been deeply immersed in fandom for them is a really interesting experience. Because I already know what *happens* - in great detail, with copious theories and elaborations and details and analysis - and I can use all of that to figure out what must have happened, and what everybody's underlying motivations must have been, and how it all interlocks with other things that were going on. And people who have seen the episodes generally agree that my interpretation makes sense, because after all I'm working from the same evidence and body of theories as they are.

And then I watch the actual episode and realize I've been wrong, wrong, wrong. All the evidence is still there - my previous version still makes *logical* sense - but what I'd been missing was the tone of voice, the body language, the pacing, the completely insignificant details, sometimes even entire minor characters who nobody else noticed enough to work into their theories - and I realize that whatever motivation I'd been ascribing to these characters, I'd barely scratched the surface.

It's like I'm a historian who's studied a certain event in detail, and read all the primary sources and historical accounts, who suddenly gets to travel back in time and *be there*. ...it's pretty awesome, honestly. But I'm going to have to rewrite my whole thesis from the beginning!

( Like, for example, the aging effects were even *stupider* than I though they'd be. )