#//anyways! here's some lore stuff i've been meaning to put somewhere.

[humming-pokemon-helpers]

📝 - A private record ( Ex. Criminal, Medical, etc… ) - @studysnorlax

C:\Users\Colre\Documents\PRecords\PreCoro\ST\Prof\VReport2010.pdf

This document is for only the Sages' eyes.

NAME: V (Note: No legal name or identification on record in any known region.)

ID: 00013

AGE: 12 years, as of 10/4/2009.

SEX: F (Note: as confirmed by genetic testing. Unclear whether expression differs due to other genetic anomalies: see PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION.)

POSITION: Shadow Trainee, Rank 4 (Note: Under direct command of Shadow Triad.)

FIRST ENCOUNTERED: 12/15/2006, Nimbasa City, Entertainment District

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: When undisguised, stands at 5'3" head to toe, 5'7" including ears. Lightweight.

Subject bears pale skin, medium-length white hair with red ends (Note: regardless of where hair is cut, ends are red), and yellow eyes. Ears resemble those of an ancient Hisuian Zorua, and sit at top of head (Note: likely due to Hisuian Zorua genes. Incredibly sensitive to noise and touch). A tail exists at subject's tailbone, similar to aforementioned Hisuian Zorua (Note: Semi-corporeal. Tail end appears to be completely phasmatic). Legs resemble those of a Zoroark below the knees.

Several white, cut-shaped markings exist on subject's chin and ribcage (Note: these appear to be natural, rather than injury-related). Extensive burn scars also appear across subject's left forehead, back, and sides of stomach (Note: scars predate first encounter).

KNOWN POKÉMON: Subject has a singular partner: a non-battling male Hisuian Zorua they refer to as "W". "W" is highly protective of subject, assaulting anyone who threatens physical harm to them. (Note: W bears significant genetic similarities to subject, similar to that of a half-sibling or aunt/uncle.)

KNOWN ABILITIES: Subject bears notable ability to disguise themselves, similarly to a Zorua. Disguise can be broken with sustained physical or mental damage, or prolonged unconsciousness. This disguise does not change any physical properties of the subject, only the perception of others. (Note: this ability seems to also include voice mimicking. Requires further research.)

Subject appears able to understand and Pokémon, similar to N (ID: 00002). Unlike N, subject appears capable of conversing within Pokémon language.

Subject is capable of using moves typical of a Hisuian Zorua (Note: sourced from historical records. May be inaccurate). Displayed moves include Scratch, Hone Claws, Taunt, Knock Off, Spite, Agility, Thief, and an unknown move we have titled "Bitter Malice".

Statistics in battle appear to line up with a level 40 Zorua with a Hardy or similar neutral nature. Though unconfirmed, subject appears to bear high IVs in all skills other than speed.

Subject is skilled at weaponless self-defense & use of knives and other slashing weapons, and shows little hesitation in carrying out given tasks. Shows great skill in blending with crowds, finding and luring others without direct prompting, and eluding capture.

CURRENT DUTIES: Subject is regularly employed in disabling, dissuading, and discarding of potential threats to Plasma. Unlike others, subject seems amenable to this work, potentially due to a noted hatred of humanity. Subject also frequently accompanies Shadow Triad (IDs: 00010, 00011, 00012) on duties in which Ghetsis (ID: 00001) is not present.

EXTRA NOTES: Though subject is not accompanied on missions, subject is tracked via subcutaneous tracking chip implanted in right ear, and communicated with via in-ear earpiece.

It is imperative to keep subject physically separated from both Ghetsis and N for preservation of future goals. Subject must also be kept separate from Grunt #06049, due to subject recognition of 06049 from previous incident of arson (Note: see case file #45947).

If subject begins to show any signs of doubt in their cause, immediately contact their direct supervisors. Defection may prove disastrous.

[the-s1lly-corner]

OOO what about a Dark Fey reader like Maleficent? that was being hunted down by a dangerous group of cryptid hunters, and had a broken wing n wounded by iron bullets but kept running.

And the Creeps found them took em in. and since ferfolk cannot lie,.. caught them off guard with a question on how they felt about that creep 😉

I expect to see Slenderman!👁👁 and another ig👍plz

idk I rarely see Supernatural like readers, it's a little disappointing imo. I love powerful self-inserts ok?

Slenderman with a Fey!S/o

UWAAAA I'm sorry for taking so long to get to this !! I've kinda been sucked up in a bunch of irl stuff !! (Nothing serious, just me working on things)!!

Admittedly I have never watched maleficent; so I'll solely be going off the info given in this ask I hope that's alright ☝️😔 and I apologize in advance if it's no good 😭💔

As you specifically brought up slenderman, he's gonna be our star today!! I was originally going to do the full list of characters but my brain js

A raisin

Also also!! I totally get what you mean ab the shortage of supernatural readers!!! Not just in the creepypasta fandom; but really any fandom! Let the insert have powers, let them be super strong, ect ect !!

You'd stumble into him after trying to hide and take shelter in his woods

Normally, he'd take down any trespassers after stalking them for a bit; but he was just too curious about you to make that the case

I dont know, I always think of slenderman to carry that kind of curiosity about the world and other creatures; I feel like that makes him more interesting than the fandoms standard "stern and oddly fatherly" take... also I just live the idea of curious cryptids!!

Moving on

He'd help patch you up with the resources in the forest; I've seen mixed opinions on whether or not slenderman has weird healing powers but personally; I think he has regen abilities that can only be applied to himself! Unrelated to the ask I know, but a quick little fun aside and little bonding point for him and s/o if they have the same deal going on

As for shelter? I'm personally still on the fence on if I wanna make the manor thing a part of my personal universe and hc that I write for these silly lads; but rn I've settled for a version of it! Not as grand or tidy as the old fandom hyped it up to be; it's a lil smaller and kinda... run down

Still livable, though, and you're more than welcome inside if you need somewhere to stay

Granted, I'm not entirely sure how the topic of romance would be brought up with him, but let's say he picks up on some behavior from you that makes him start putting together a picture

Bro has zero rizz I'm sorry

Regardless, he eventually asks the question; and as the rules go, you're kinda forced to tell him how you feel

I think regardless of if he reciprocates or expected your answer, he'd be surprised

I mean how many people are out here flirting with a forest monster, to their face

I think it could work, honestly! The relationship I mean!! I wish i had more hcs since this is such a fun idea, but I genuinely dont know much about fairy stuff and all the lore regarding them

But onto some more side hcs/little ideas to make up for the lack of stuff !!

If you need comfort, about the whole being hunted thing, slenderman is a good listener; and he understands what it's like, bro probably has to deal with people trying to get a look at him all the time. He gets it

Want revenge on them? Well if the hunters followed you into the woods they probably wont last long anyways; despite the whole curiosity thing he can be... rather territorial

Day to day life with slenderman is interesting as is, but with a fellow non-human companion? Shenanigans will likely ensue

What kind? Cant say, due to my lack of knowledge 😔☝️

Too injured to move around on your own? If you need to go somewhere slenderman will either fetch it for you, or just carry you to where you gotta go

Also he totally wont make it habit; even before the romantic relationship is fully formed

It just activates his neurons 😔

[insertsomthinawesome]

I love your Genshin lore takes, any interesting hcs/AUs/lore bits you'd like to share? Also, amazing art!

AA!!!!

That makes me so happy to hear actually??? THank you???? I love getting to ramble about genshin or stuff I'm into i'm just often too shy asldfkaslfalsgsdgdsdgsg so thank you!!!!! ;;v;; AND THANKS I'M GLAD YOU LIKE MY ART TOO!!!!!! ;;v;; <3 <3 <3 OOOoooh HMMM, I've been more into TWST and Trigun Recently so let me dig up my braincells to think about it dfLSJFLSDJGLSDGD Throwing stuff below the cut cause this could get LONG

Well on the subject of Itto, I headcanon him being 6'6 ft tall... Why??? Because it makes his voiceline about everybody shorter than him being a child really funny. 🤣 Also because he beeg and you can't convince me otherwise SDLFJSDLJGSLDGSD OOOOH Okay this one is very much a headcanon i have for pure self indulgence: So my two genshin blorbos of main focus are Zhongli and Diluc right? I like to headcanon that, at some point after Diluc was nearly killed by the harbingers, he collapsed somewhere near Liyue harbor (His injuries probably weren't directly related to the Harbinger ones, tho it depends on the amount of time it's taken between That incident and him being in Liyue, I think I came up with this idea LONG before i really understood a lot of what Diluc actually did away from home xD) he's found and carried to Liyue, where he's tended to, probably by Baizhu cause I love Baizhu, and recovers. Its here he's visited by Zhongli. Zhongli knew Crepus. Not super well! They weren't besties or nothin, but Crepus would be in Liyue, and Zhongli would be in Liyue, both of them having some level of prestige, Zhongli through his job and Crepus through his Titles, ended up meeting. They would talk and of course that means Zhongli heard about Diluc. Beyond that even, Zhongli was probably vaguely aware of Diluc's existence just from the fact that Crepus is a Ragnvindr, which means gossip/news on his family spreads potentially across the globe. (And maybe Zhongli checked in once in a while out of honor to a dear friend he hadn't seen in five hundred years...) ANYWAYS. Zhongli introduces himself and mentions he knew Crepus. A grieving Diluc probably asks for more information without really knowing if he wants more info or not. Its through this that Zhongli learns of Crepus's passing, and Diluc being less well put together from his injuries, ends up confessing to having hurt Kaeya. He despairs of ever being able to make up for it, to which Zhongli is surprisingly quiet and attentive before finally speaking up: "...Life is short, like the flower, it blooms for a season, blossoms in all its color and beauty, and then it shrivels away on the winds, nothing left of it but the Sweetness of memory." He pauses. "If you care about your brother, than return to him, confess your wrong doings, and don't let the burden of you mistakes carry until such a time as the ability to do something about them is force-ably taken away from your hands." The mans smile is soft, but sad. Not in a pitying way, and not in a way that is even directed at Diluc, if anything, he seems thousands of miles away. "There are fewer burdens, and fewer regrets, that can weigh heavier." This of course creates a fun dynamic to play around with if Lumine or other events drag Diluc to Liyue later >:D As for AU's I can give you two I've dwelled on!: Number one is an Inazuma rewrite, but I bring in a party of my chosing. I started this one before I played the game, so I didn't exaclty understand what went down in the INazuma plot, but Man I was having fun so xD THe party of choice in this case was Zhongli, Diluc, Thoma, and of course Lumine. I had fun with this idea because it allowed Zhongli and Diluc to function in the plot, and Thoma would be WAAAAY more involved as well. I didn't iron out Loads of details, but I wanted there to be a big confrontation between Lumine and Zhongli based off the fact that Azhdaha's quest happened before Inazuma, and before that was uh. THe reveal of Khaenri'ah. Needless to say Lumine's not exactly feeling the greatest about Zhongli. But she considers him a friend, or at least wants too. Zhongli is dealing with the sting of a pre-inazuma plot confrontation from Lumine, where she confessed that she'd have a hard time trusting him if he kept keeping secrets and he couldn't explain himself.

The two of them were planned to get into a huge fight that ALMOST gets physical. But Diluc stops them (Something something he knows making the mistake of attacking someone you love out of fear and broken trust 🙃) This ends up splitting the party for a while, Diluc going off with Zhongli, and Thoma staying with Lumine. Ultimately I wanted this to end with Zhongli getting to have a bit Showdown with Raiden Shogun, essentially kinda getting to brute force his way into her grief. I always loved the idea of the woman who can't move on from grief talking with the man who has suffered so much grief but still lives, this would kinda allow that, it would also allow for Zhongli to be a little bit of a father figure to Ei in her frustrations and grief. Also it would be hilarious if Inazuma kinda knew Rex Lapis was alive... but he kinda saved all their butts, so nobody's going to out him xD This would essentially spiral into a lot of canon divergence plots and development for the cast of characters that's just, not in canon? But man I still think it'd be so fun :D Also Diluc and Ei eventually become friends through this adsflJSFLSJDLGJSLDGJSDGSDG. I think they could help each other :) The SECOND AU is one where, Diluc, on his journey, ends up getting stuck in Inazuma before he can get home. So diluc is visionless, Has the Delusion, and is not in good health. Itto ends up finding him passed out on a beach, drags him back to Granny Oni's, and his gang nurse him back to health all while assuming Diluc was a victim of the Vision hunt decree (i think the vision hunt decree is pretty recent in canon?? This would be an AU where the timeline got bumped up, probably Raiden starts off a lot slower with the vision hunts, only taking a few of them once in a great while to further "eternity" Until she spirals bad enough to start taking them all.... IDK its rough but workable maybe xD) THis AU is mostly for letting Itto bully Diluc into loving himself among other things xD and the angst of it taking even longer for Diluc and Kaeya to reunite...... WHich i would defo make them reunite when Lumine comes over to finally end the Vision hunt decree soooooooooo >:3 Diluc ends up getting adopted by the Arataki gang, by EVERY member, and he's not happy about it (He is, he's just a freaking tsundere)

[daughterofheartshaven]

Aw, thanks! Seriously, that means a ton. I put a buttload of effort into this stuff, so it does really feel nice to get that appreciated. The answers to your questions are written out below

Yay for a good Susan backstory! TBH I didn't really come up with this, given how The Book of the War went out of its way to state that "Grandfather" is the name of a head of a House and also that sometimes Time Lords go together to make new Houses. I gotta imagine whoever was writing that had that same idea in mind.

I agree that the Doctor's name being a genetic memory is dumb, but not only is it required for this to work, its literally strongly implied in Lungbarrow's version of events anyway. You work with what you get. If it helps, there is a different book, Frayed, which states that "The Doctor" and "Susan" are names that those two only adopted after they left Gallifrey - we can assume that any scenes with the two before they left Gallifrey are using those names for the audiences' benefit (in the same way all Gallifreyan dialogue is translated into English). So the Doctor didn't always call themselves such, but they stumbled into that name in Frayed and it felt right to him bc blah blah blah vampires vampires.

Don't worry about coming across like you are hole-poking, btw - I love this stuff! Here are my answers to your questions.

Yeah I had in mind the Timeless Child as a lesser vampiric servant. One of the comics I cited, Monstrous Beauty, shows that the vampires had plenty of those during the Yssgaroth War. It's also worth noting that... somewhere in the Faction Paradox lore I don't remember if it's The Book of the War or somewhere else, it's stated that all vampires are linked to a degree - Yssgaroth can be considered one entity. So even a single, small piece of it being lost to another universe would have disastrous consequences.

One idea I had literally right now as I was typing this but actually super like is that the physical form of the Timeless Child wasn't from Spiral Yssgaroth, but was infected with the Yssgaroth Taint that fell through the wormhole. This would neatly explain why they happened to be humanoid - humanoids are common in our universe due to Rassilon's eugenics projects (cite: Zagreus), but there is no reason for that humanoid template to show up in Spiral Yssgaroth. So, some random child wanders too close to a portal and is accidentally infected with the Yssgaroth taint and becomes a vampire. Since Yssgaroth wants to be whole, the child (whose original mind and personality have been subsumed by the Taint) - a gap in time that could have been years. Once they are away from the portal, Yssgaroth's influence on the Timeless Child lessens, so they are able to develop a personality and identity.

Yeah I actually really like that.

Anyway onto the second question you asked. My reason for the Fugitive Doctor's Tardis is a police box is because Chris Chibnall made dumb errors because the Fugitive Doctor's Tardis scanned the planet where they were landing and saw that on this planet, Tardises tend to look like police boxes, shrugged, said "I guess we're doing Police Boxes now" and turned into a police box since that was apparently the proven thing to work with disguising a Tardis on Earth. This isn't a perfect answer (her Tardis is still a police box in like EU stuff and that isn't explained) but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far. I guess I could say that since Tardises exist outside of normal space-time, the "I guess we're doing Police Boxes now" ended up applying retroactively before and after that?

I will say that I fully believe that the Fugitve Doctor's Tardis is not the Doctor's Tardis. That's one coincidence too many.

If anyone else has any follow up questions to this, please let me know! As has hopefully been made clear, I think about this stuff a lot and love talking about it.

Using the Doctor Who EU to recontextualize the whole Timeless Child thing

Or, why the Doctor is a dhampir.

Salutations!

Maybe you saw my essay here about how Gallifrey wasn't actually destroyed by the Master using the Expanded universe as my evidence. Now, I want to tackle The Timeless Children's other controversial plot point - the titular Timeless Child's relationship with the Doctor. Also, perhaps you have heard of the Doctor Who book Lungbarrow, and how it connected the Doctor to a mysterious figure called the Other in Gallifrey's ancient history. So how are those connected? Was the Doctor really the Other? And just what is the story of the Timeless Child?

So let's talk about the Timeless Child. Let's talk about the Other. Let's talk about Patience. Let's talk about Division. And let's talk about vampires and where regeneration really comes from.

Shall we get started? Buckle up for another ride into the endless pit that is the Doctor Who expanded universe.

Okay, ground rules first. Anything seen on tv, happened. I can recontextualize as much as I want (and I'm gonna do that, believe me) but it still has to fit with everything we see onscreen. I also have to use all of an EU source if I use it. No picking and choosing bits. However, that same loophole applies to EU material - I can recontextualize those as much as I want, too.

With that out of the way, let's meet the stories that are our players. I'm going to be sorting them into medium by category this time.

Tv stories:

Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children: The controversial Thirteenth Doctor episodes. I'm assuming you're familiar with if you're reading this.

Fugitive of the Judoon: The Thirteenth Doctor story that introduced the Fugitive Doctor. I'm assuming you're familiar with this.

Flux: The Thirteenth Doctor story that followed up to the Timeless Child plot points in a way that is very relevant to this discussion. I'm assuming you're familiar with this.

A Good Man Goes to War: An Eleventh Doctor episode that established some of the history of the Time Lords

The Brain of Morbius: A Fourth Doctor story. Notable for this discussion because it featured brief images of ten faces that were implied to be incarnations of the Doctor from before the First Doctor. These are collectively known as the "Morbius Doctors".

State of Decay: The Fourth Doctor tv story that established the series lore on vampires

Books:

Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible: the Seventh Doctor book that laid the groundwork for Lungbarrow and its Gallifrey Lore

The Pit: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Goth Opera: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Damaged Goods: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Cold Fusion: A book starring the Fifth and Seventh Doctors that is notable for introducing the character of Patience

Lungbarrow: the big Gallifrey Lore book. I will be going over this one in depth

Interference: Shock Tactic: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

The Infinity Doctors: A very confusing Doctor Who book (this will get explained later)

The Book of the War: The first book in the Faction Paradox series

Audios:

Zagreus: A Big Finish story starring the Eighth Doctor and Rassilon

Patience: A Big Finish story starring the Eighth Doctor

Comics:

The Tides of Time: A 70s comic starring the Fifth Doctor

The Bidding War: A 2010s comic with some vampire lore

Monstrous Beauty: A 2020s comic with some vampire lore

Origins: A recent comic that features the Fugitive Doctor

Okay, so there are kinda four threads running together that tell a more complete story, but were all written independently of each other. The story of the Timeless Child and Division, the story of the Other, the story of Patience, and the story of the Yssgaroth War. Let's go through them in order.

Also while the Other, the Timeless Child, Patience's husband, the Fugitive Doctor, the Infinity Doctor, the Morbius Doctors, and the Doctor are all presented as more or less the same character who all call themselves "the Doctor", I will be referring to them all separately. I have a few reasons for doing this which will become clear later, but it's also helpful for reasons of clarity.

Prologue: Where all this mess came from

So in the 70s, there was a tv story called The Brain of Morbius. Morbius was a Time Lord president who decided it was Morbin Time, tried to conquer the universe, and caused a civil war on Gallifrey in just about the only interesting thing to happen on Gallifrey between Rassilon's presidency and the Doctor being loomed. He was killed, but one of his followers managed to save his brain and is trying to make Morbius a new body so it can be Morbin Time again. The Time Lords decide to throw the Doctor at this problem, and he ends up getting into a mind-bending contest with Morbius (who was by that point in an artificial body). During this, both Morbius and the Doctor's past incarnations are shown on a screen, and then we see ten new faces while Morbius says, "How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?". A lot of people assumed those faces were Morbius's, but the intention from the producers was that they were prior faces of the Doctors (I will be referring to these incarnations as the Morbius Doctors moving forward, as that is how they are generally reffered to in the fandom). Trouble is, the rest of classic who completely ignored that.

Oh and if you're worried, while Morbius won the mindbending contest, it left him disoriented enough that he was able to get mobbed by the Sisterhood of Karn and pitched off a cliff, averting the renewal of Morbin Time.

And with that out of the way, let's get on to the real attractions.

Part 1: The Timeless Child and Division

So this story is the most straightforward of the three. In Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children, it is revealed that in Gallifrey's prehistory, a Gallifreyan scientist named Tecteun travelled off-world (in her world's first exploration of another planet) and found the Timeless Child by a portal to another universe. She took the Timeless Child back to Gallifrey and discovered that the Timeless Child had the ability to regenerate. Tecteun was able to synthesize this regenerative power and give it to her own people, becoming one of the founders of modern Time Lord society in the process. Later on, the Timeless Child and Tecteun were both recruited into something called Division, a time-active-interventionist group that skirted around or outright ignored Gallifrey's laws. It is also stated that the Timeless Child's memory was wiped - at least once, possibly more than once - in order to control them. It's also suggested that Tecteun seems to have regrets about all of this, given how she left a message for the Timeless Child in the matrix about it.

This is where the story gets fuzzy. The next time we see anything, the Timeless Child has evolved into the Fugitive Doctor. She is seen working for Division in the flashbacks in Flux and Origins, but following Origins, she goes on the run from them. The events of the Fugitive Doctor's flight from Division play out in Fugitive of the Judoon. She is able to assassinate Gat, the Time Lord seeking her capture, and while it comes at significant personal loss, there is nothing to indicate that the Fugitive Doctor is unable to make a clean getaway.

By the story presented in Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children, however, the Fugitive Doctor is assumed to have been captured with her memory wiped to eventually become the Doctor. Let's put a pin in that assumption, though. That same story also shows the Fugitive Doctor and the Morbius Doctors being a part of the Doctor's past.

Tecteun, meanwhile, had become head of Division (if she wasn't head of it to begin with). Origins briefly shows her leading Division at the time of the Fugitive Doctor, and she is finally shown meeting the Doctor proper in Flux. There, it is revealed that she had started considering the entire universe a scientific experiment, but due to the Doctor being considered too much of a rouge element, she decided to use antimatter called flux from outside the universe to destroy the universe, with Division being safe outside the Universe. She also released a pair of Great Old Ones, Swarm and Azure, with the intention that they would kill the Doctor. Tecteun's plan was that the old universe would be destroyed, and that Division would conquer the universe that the Timeless Child originated from.

This plan did not work.

Swarm and Azure instead killed Tecteun and destroyed Division, before being destroyed by an entity only known as Time (and I could go on a whole tangent on what her deal is, but I'm gonna save that for another post). It's not shown explicitly in the show, but I also believe Time removed the destruction of the flux from the universe as well (mostly because planets explicitly destroyed in Flux are shown still existing in the future of the series).

In any case, during the Flux event, the Doctor was able to recover the archive where the Timeless Child's wiped memories were stored, but she ultimately decided not to access them.

It's never stated which universe the Timeless Child comes from in the show, but we're gonna circle back to that. It's also not stated how long Tecteun ran Division between its founding in early Gallifreyan history and its destruction during the Flux event. We're coming back to this, too.

Part 2: The Other

Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible establishes two very important things about Gallifreyan history. One, all Time Lords became sterile early in their history - shortly after the conclusion of their war with the vampires (more on that war in a bit). Since then, instead of having sex, they have big cloning machines called Looms that make new Time Lords. And two, Rassilon (the founder of Time Lord society) had two major co-founders - Omega, and one other whose name was lost to time. He gets called just "the Other."

Rassilon and Omega were both established as characters in the classic series, but the Other is an invention of the books in the 90s (from the reader's perspective at least - he was a behind the scenes idea from the last few seasons of classic who, but he was never explicitly mentioned onscreen). He gets cryptic references all over the Virgin New Adventures book line, but this only gets concrete in their final Seventh Doctor book, Lungbarrow.

Where we get to know them in the book, Omega is presumed dead, and the Other and Rassilon are having a falling out. Omega's death is weighing heavily on the Other, and he thinks Rassilon is going power-mad and is trying to have the Other killed. Omega's last and most impressive creation, the stellar manipulator called the Hand of Omega, is quite possibly the Other's only friend by this point. The Other wants to leave the planet and so he tells his family to escape, and then confronts Rassilon with his intentions. Rassilon Does Not Like This and tries to have the Other stopped, and blocks all spaceports to make this happen. The Other then calmly walks into the primary generator for the looms and is never seen again.

And then, ten million years later, out from a loom, comes the Doctor. The Doctor's looming process was unusual, with the Doctor later claiming he could remember just before it happened, waiting to be born. (Although given the Doctor was five years old at the time he said this, that may be a little suspect). In any case, the Doctor lives a fairly normal life for a while, until he is found by the Hand of Omega which sees in him its old master. Shortly thereafter, the Doctor is confronted by the Time Lord Glospin (explaining his deal is a little complicated but he's a part of the same Family House as the Doctor is, the titular House Lungbarrow), about some irregularities in the Doctor's biology before being driven off by the Hand. It's ambiguous if either of these were the deciding factor, but the Doctor takes the Hand and leaves Gallifrey shortly thereafter.

Of course there's one last little piece left to take care of. If you're familiar with Classic Who, you may know that when we first met the Doctor, he was travelling with his granddaughter, Susan.

Lungbarrow claims that the Doctor's first trip in the Tardis was to travel back to Gallifrey's prehistory and meet the Other's granddaughter, the last child born before the Time Lords became sterile. She recognizes the Other in the Doctor, and considers him her grandfather. The Doctor doesn't quite recognize her, but takes her on as his first companion in the Tardis. And thus, Susan joined the Tardis crew.

The other thing that's important is uh that Lungbarrow has an actual plot. And said plot is only tangentially related to the above. Everything I just said is presented as three flashbacks in Lungbarrow - one straight narrative sequence (the argument between Rassilon and the Other), one where the Doctor shares his memories of leaving Gallifrey (basically everything that happens with Glospin, the Hand of Omega, and the Doctor first leaving Gallifrey), and one where several characters enter the Doctor's subconscious and have a dream sequence (including the Other walking into the Looms and the Doctor meeting Susan). The subconscious trip has some moments to it that are super trippy and metaphorical, and I'm gonna use that fact later. But for now, on to part 3!

Part 3: Patience

Like I said earlier, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible is the story that establishes that all Time Lords are sterile. At the end of a civil war in Gallifrey's ancient history, the leader of the losing side, Pythia, cursed the people who would become Time Lords with sterility before killing herself. (Her followers, by the way, left Gallifrey and eventually became the Sisterhood of Karn). The Time Lords, desiring to avoid extinction, created breeding engines known as Looms, which would create new Time Lords through what was effetely cloning. That's the story presented in Cat's Crade: Time's Crucible, anyway. But if you look at other places in the EU, this story starts to crack. An Earthly Child introduces Susan Forman's explicitly biological son, for example. And in Lungbarrow, the Time Lord Andred is able to get a human, Leela, pregnant, although the character's future appearances in Big Finish are notably child-less, suggesting the pregnancy failed somehow (either that or the child removed themselves from history as part of joining faction paradox and became the character known as Intrepid, but this is a tangent).

So are Time Lords sterile? Yeah, I think so. For the most part. But we know that not all of them are. A rare few can still reproduce sexually. There is another Time Lord who had a biological child that I've yet to bring up, as well. Her true name was lost to time, so we know her only as Patience.

This is her story.

The character of Patience has some truly strange origins, even for the Doctor Who EU. In the 1982 comic The Tides of Time, the fifth Doctor briefly sees an illusion of someone who looks familiar to him, created by the demon Melanicus using something called the Event Sythesizer (no, I'm not going to explain that). The art shown is close enough to Second Doctor companion Zoe Herriot to assume that's who the author and artist intended the illusion to be of, but that's not the direction later stories went in.

The character of Patience was introduced proper in 1996's book Cold Fusion. It also features the Fifth Doctor, in an earlier point in his life then The Tides of Time. In it, a prototype Tardis crashes into a planet that is later colonized by humans. The humans discover one pilot, comatose, who by all rights should be dead. She isn't. They take her back to their big fancy lab and attempt to find out more about her with basically no success.

Enter the Doctor. (And also Tegan Jovanka.)

When the Fifth Doctor stumbles into this, he is able to help the pilot complete her first regeneration. She is unable to remember much of anything from prior to her regeneration and is from Gallifrey's distant past. She is, biologically, something of a proto-Time Lord: she speaks a different language then the Doctor naturally, she only has one heart, and a few other things. She's explicitly more-or-less a contemporary of Rassilon.

Not having a name for herself, she adopts the moniker "Patience" on Tegan's unintentional suggestion. Despite all this, Patience and the Doctor recognize each other on some level, and neither really have any ideas as to why - the Doctor shouldn't even be able to recognize the dialect of Gallifreyan she speaks, as it is dead by his time. Patience has some garbled memory of fleeing from arrest as ordered by Rassilon (with the implication being that any fertile Time Lords were having their births stopped so that the loom-born were to inherit Gallifrey). Patience's escape came with the help of her husband, whom authorial intent confirms as one of the Morbius Doctors. In any case, in the present day, Patience is starting to properly recover when she is shot in the back of the head, apparently killing her. Her body then disappears. The Fifth Doctor's memory of Patience is lost shortly thereafter when the Seventh Doctor orchestrates the Fifth Doctor losing his memory of the whole adventure in order to preserve the timelines. The Seventh Doctor only met his prior self after Patience's body had vanished, meaning that the Doctor's entire memory of Patience was erased - except, perhaps, for some vague recollection which we see in The Tides of Time.

While Patience's fate is followed up in the book The Infinity Doctors, The Infinity Doctors is a very strange book that doesn't really contribute much to this ongoing discussion. The Infinity Doctors is deliberately evasive about which Doctor it stars, with its protagonist being sometimes implied to be the First Doctor and sometimes the Eighth. It's very possible that Patience and Omega (yes he's here but I'm not going to explain that) are the only characters in the story from the Whoniverse as we understand it, with everyone else being from a different universe. I might do a breakdown of The Infinity Doctors someday, but now is not that day.

The only other information we have about Patience comes from the 2021 audio story fittingly entitled "Patience". In it, the Doctor tells uses an ancient artifact that takes the form of a deck of cards called the Paradoxica to analyze time and hide his companions - Liv Chenka, Helen Sinclair, Tania Bell, and Andy Davidson (yes, the Torchwood character. no, I'm not explaining that either) - from the Judoon. The narrative is interspersed with the Doctor telling a fairy tale about a woman completing an impossible task (emptying an ocean with a bag that had a hole in it) and receiving the child she desired once she had spent an eternity completing this task. The story ends with the confirmation that this woman was Patience, and that she gave the Doctor the Paradoxica. How this happened is left unsaid - either she gave it to her husband who became the Doctor, or this happened during the events of Cold Fusion.

Part 4: The Yssgaroth War

Unlike the other narratives I've just rambled off, the Yssgaroth War is much more of a patchwork from various places around the EU, so this is gonna be even more scattered than I have been thusfar.

State of Decay, for being a story set in the pocket universe called E-Space, ended up being one of those foundational Gallifrey lore episodes of the classic series. That's the serial that established that at the dawn of time, the Time Lords fought and won a massive war against the vampires.

Yes, you read that right. This is one of my favorite pieces of Doctor Who lore.

State of Decay establishes that the Great Vampires were massive bat-like creatures who could drain the life from entire planets and who created more traditional vampires as their servants. Rassilon lead Gallifrey against them, and ordered the construction of "bowships," which were giant spaceship crossbows that could be used to stake the Great Vampires. The Great Vampires were ultimately defeated by the Time Lords. EU sources generally agree that this was the biggest war the Time Lords ever participated in until the Time War ten million years later.

The book The Pit would add a couple of new details about the conflict. It would rename the Great Vampires "Yssgaroth" and claim that the Yssgaroth originated from outside the universe - the early time travel experiments overseen by Rassilon ripped a hole in reality and the Yssgaroth were what came through with intent to consume the universe. These details are supported by Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible and Interference: Shock Tactic.

A couple more recent comics have fleshed out the Yssgaroth War a bit. The Bidding War further reinforces that the Yssgaroth are from outside our universe, with it showing that during the Time War, the Time Lords opened a rift to the Yssgaroth dimension in an attempt to use them as a weapon against the Daleks. Monstrous Beauty was the first story to show us the War proper, depicting Rassilon personally leading forces against the vampiric army.

And this would all be interesting but irrelevant to our discussion if not for two stories published in the early 2000s that both seek to recontextualize the Yssgaroth War and the Time Lord's rise to power.

Let's start with Zagreus. The story as a whole is dedicated to deconstructing Rassilon's façade as a benevolent and reasonable ruler and instead reveals him to be a xenophobic tyrant who wished to remake the universe in his image - something that lines up with pretty much all of Rassilon's appearances post-Zagreus. As part of this, the vampire Lord Tepesh states that before the war, the vampires were peaceful and Rassilon provoked them because he feared their power. Tepesh is presented by the narrative as an unreliable narrator, but the point he makes is still worth noting.

The other story I need to talk about is The Book of the War. While the book's primary focus is The War in Heaven (for the uninitiated, that's basically spin-off series Faction Paradox's version of the Time War), it does give a lot of relevant information about the Yssgaroth War. First of all, it gives the timing of the War being right after Gallifrey established History as a concept - by "anchoring the thread" and making a linear history, the Time Lords accidentally let the Yssgaroth into the universe. While this contradicts some of the timings given by some of the sources mentioned above (other sources agree that it was the early experiments that caused the Yssgaroth to enter the universe not the final establishing of History and mastery over time), this can be excused since The Book of the War is an in-universe document and so may not be completely accurate. What makes this book relevant is that it also theorizes that the Time Lord's regenerative capabilities were stolen from the vampires. Even for an unreliably narrated book, this is treated as speculation, but as a concept, that is fascinating.

Interlude: when regeneration happened

There is some inconsistency in all of these sources as when regeneration first became a property of the Time Lords. The Timeless Children has it come shortly after they discover interstellar space travel, and far before time travel, but several of the VNA-era books (including Cold Fusion and I think Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) depict early time-travelling Gallifreyans as being without regeneration. The tv episode A Good Man Goes to War states that regeneration came about as a result of exposure to the Time Vortex. My personal take is that The Timeless Children showed Tecteun discovering regeneration, and initially only shared it amongst herself and her elite (Rassilon, etc.). After the Looms went into effect, they started Looming more and more Time Lords with regenerative capabilities, until eventually it's a shared trait among all Time Lords. After ten million years, the artificial origins of regeneration have been lost to time, but the symbiotic nature of the Time Lords to Tardises and the Time Vortex has meant that a being conceived in a Tardis could be engineered to have limited regenerative capabilities.

Part 5: Bringing it all together

So back to the Doctor and Gallifreyan history. Uh, how does this all make one cohesive story?

Okay so our story starts with Tecteun and finding the Timeless Child by a portal to another universe. She takes said child home, discovers from it the secrets of regeneration, and so on and so forth. Tecteun, Rassilon, and Omega become the three founders of Time Lord society.

So that's the first thing there. The Other, as revered in Time Lord history, isn't the Doctor or some version thereof. The founder whose name was lost to time was Tecteun. And Tecteun discovered regeneration from the Timeless Child. This child, for whatever reason, starts calling themselves the Doctor.

But wait? Wasn't there some theories running around that the the Time Lords stole regeneration from vampires? And that vampires initially weren't as hostile to the universe before Rassilon saw them as competition?

Yes, yes, there were. It's simple, really. The Timeless Child was from Spiral Yssgaroth. They're a vampire.

(I really wish I had been clever enough to come up with that on my own, but I'm not. Pretty much everything else here is out of my own brain, but that is a fan theory I saw on the internet.)

In any case, the Yssgaroth War was motivated, at least in part, by the Vampires' outrage that their secrets and child had been stolen. But, as history records, they were defeated.

And for a time afterwards, Tecteun and Rassilon continue to rule Gallifrey together. But Omega's apparent death shortly after the end of the Yssgaroth War weighs heavily on them both - and they're both ambitious enough to not quite appreciate the other being their equal. Trouble is, they kinda need each other. Rassilon, despite his posing, isn't a scientist - he's a politician. He needs his scientists to continue to work miracles, and Omega is already gone, so that just leaves Tecteun. Tecteun, for her part, is no leader. She wants power but doesn't have the people skills. And she still cares deeply about her people and about the vampire she has come to see as her child. The two drift apart - Tecteun becoming the leader of Division which she took increasingly off-world while Rassilon becomes more and more the sole face of leadership on Gallifrey.

Eventually this reaches a boiling point. Tecteun and Rassilon have lost all trust in each other. Tecteun makes preparations - including leaving the message in the Matrix we saw in Ascension of the Cybermen / the Timeless Children. She and Rassilon then have the confrontation that we saw in Lungbarrow. But Tecteun doesn't throw herself into the looms - she takes herself off Gallifrey through technology Rassilon doesn't know about and begins to cut Division's ties with Gallifrey altogether. Division has already begun recruiting across the universe, so she figures she can leave Rassilon to his one planet. Notably, she also leaves the Hand of Omega behind on Gallifrey, where it is eventually put in a vault and forgotten about. She maintains contact with Gallifrey only through her agents, one of which is the Timeless Child.

For their part, the Timeless Child has gone through several incarnations. They've had their mind wiped to hide that they're not Gallifreyan, and they have then been the Morbius Doctors, including Patience's husband. The Timeless Child has had a personal life (as seen by their marriage to Patience), but they're increasingly being a full-time agent of Division.

In any case, right now the Timeless Child is the Fugitive Doctor. And she plays along with Tecteun for a while. However, following the events we see in Origins, she goes on the run. Tecteun has Division track her to Earth, where the events of Fugitive of the Judoon play out. The Fugitive Doctor manages to get away as we see, but she doesn't know of any way to get away from Division long-term (as Big Finish is currently exploring) - and, away from Tecteun's influence and protection, she's starting to work out that she's not the Gallifreyan she thinks she is.

In an act of desperation, she pilots her Tardis back to Gallifrey - on the very same day Tecteun left. She takes Tecteun's place in Lungbarrow's story, and throws herself into the Looms, where she dies, dissolving into the giant vat of Gallifreyan genetic material.

This leaves Tecteun searching time and space desperately for the Timeless Child. At first, the Timeless Child seems nowhere to be found. But eventually Tecteun discovers that there is a time traveler called the Doctor out and around the universe. An investigation into the Doctor reveals that they've been all over the universe. Trying to just grab them and do a memory wipe isn't an option because they've done too much. Tecteun doesn't realize this Doctor is a different person to the Timeless Child, to the Doctor they left a message in the Matrix for.

Tecteun had probably never been that good of a person, but she used to care. She used to care about Omega, but he's gone. She used to care about Rassilon, but they burned too many bridges. She used to care about her vampiric child, but she takes this as a betrayal. And whatever good left in Tecteun dies.

Tecteun decides to destroy the universe and start over in a new one where she can control everything, so she picks a point far in the future where Gallifrey will have been destroyed naturally so her home planet will be unaffected. By convivence, one of the Doctor's most common destinations - Earth - happens to be at that point. Tecteun initiates the Flux event in Earth's time and releases Swarm and Azure to finish the Doctor off.

The Doctor stumbles into this, but she's operating off incomplete information from the Matrix. She doesn't realize that she's not the Timeless Child, since the Master seemingly destroyed any records that she could check his claims against. So when Tecteun and the Doctor confront each other, they both assume that the Doctor is the Timeless Child.

And this becomes a moot point because the Doctor finding Tecteun and Division HQ allows Swarm and Azure to find it as well. They kill Tecteun and destroy Division. If you're reading this, you probably watched Flux, you know how this goes.

It's not clear if Rassilon is aware that Tecteun died shortly after their argument. He certainly comes to the conclusion that she won't be an ongoing concern anymore, and, as the last survivor of Gallifrey's founding trio, uses his remaining lives to rule Gallifrey unopposed. With no one to oppose him, he removes Tecteun's name from record - as far as he's concerned, she betrayed him and does not deserve to be remembered.

Ten million years pass.

The House of Lungbarrow looms a new Time Lord, but, for whatever reason, this particular Time Lord has a significant amount of the Timeless Child's genetic material mixed into their genetic soup. This new Time Lord chooses to call themselves the Doctor - in unconscious echo of their genetic predecessor. Their amount of vampiric genetics makes them genetically distinguishable from other Gallifreyans if close examination is done, but for a while no one has any reason to do this.

This is also why I get to call the Doctor a dhampir - they're not a true vampire, but have a nontrivial amount of vampiric genetics - or, to use the terms of The Book of the War, they carry the Yssgaroth Taint.

These genetics are still enough to get the attention of the Hand of Omega, which has been mothballed for those Ten Million years. Maybe the Hand sees the Timeless Child in the Doctor, or maybe it's just intrigued by someone who isn't just another Time Lord. In any case, Glospin confronts the Doctor, the Hand drives Glospin off, and the Doctor leaves Gallifrey with it.

He also leaves with Susan. She isn't from the dawn of Gallifrey. Instead, she is a Loomed Time Lord of the Doctor's era who found herself ostracized and disliked. That being said, she found community with three other Time Lords: the Doctor, the Master, and another Time Lord named Braxiatel. The four of them are all outsiders from their own Houses, and so consider themselves a house unto themselves, and Susan, as the youngest, began referring to the Doctor as "Grandfather", as that term is reserved for the head of a House (something that is established in The Book of the War), as she views him as the head of their little house of four.

In any case, the Doctor and Susan leave Gallifrey. The Master loses his mind when he realize he got left behind, steals a Tardis himself and heads out after the family he thinks abandoned him. Braxiatel stays behind and becomes a successful politician and art collector.

A couple hundred more years pass.

We're now in the events of Lungbarrow. The Doctor shares his memory of leaving Gallifrey with some of the fellow members of his House. However, he edits Susan out of the memories he shows - technically, he went through the criminal justice system for this, but Susan never did and he doesn't want her to. Gallifrey has seemingly forgotten about her, and he wants to keep it that way.

And then he has his vision trip dream sequence where he sees the past and sees the Timeless Child walk into the Looms. He then sees a memory of himself meeting Susan. This isn't literal - it's symbolic of Susan and the Doctor's relationship changing and evolving as they left Gallifrey. The Doctor knows this isn't literal, but it's in his best interests to act like it is - he's not in control of this dream sequence and several other people are there (including one of the Doctor's enemies), and he still wants to protect Susan, so he goes along with that story.

The Doctor continues their life and eventually gets to the Thirteenth Doctor where she meets the Fugitive Doctor in Fugitive of the Judoon. When she scans herself and the Fugitive Doctor, the two register as the same entity. However, Time Lords are not biologically identical across regenerations - the Doctor has to have something specific to herself that she is looking for.

And she actually has one. At some point in the Doctor's life, they found a genetic quirk that has persisted across their regenerations. They don't know it, but it's the Yssgaroth Taint. Since the Doctor has never encountered another Time Lord with the Taint, she is by this point assuming it's a quirk of her own biology, so takes her sonic detecting the Taint in the Fugitive Doctor as confirmation that the two are the same.

And then shortly after the Doctor meets her genetic predecessor, the aforementioned stuff with Tecteun happens. It's possible that the Doctor themselves has noted the ambiguities in their backstory and heritage but given that there were several thousand years of life between the Seventh and Thirteenth Doctors, it seems likely that they don't think to try to analyze it that closely.

And that's a wrap! If you have any thoughts on all of this, I'd love it if you would share them! Thank you!

[changeling-rin]

It's fairly easy to tell with most of the guys, but I've been wondering: what kinds of things are Lore afraid of? How does he react when he's forced to face those things?

Oh!  @ask-the-dimensional-links did a thing on this!  Give me a minute, I’ll go and dig up that post- 

Click Here To Read It

Also, I went back through my message history and found the original thoughts I sent them regarding that Ask in the first place.  However, it is long, and I have recently figured out how to stop spamming people with novel-length posts, so!  The LONG answer shall be under the cut ;)

(But if you don’t want to read the whole thing I’ll put Lore’s in bold so you can just skip to it)

((For greatest fears… well, honestly I’ve only addressed this a couple times, because most of my interpretation of being the Holder of Courage means that said Holder isn’t afraid of a ton of stuff. That said, I have tried to give each Link something that they ARE afraid of, if only because Courage also means overcoming your fear and doing the thing anyway. I probably haven’t mentioned them all in-story because not all of them came up through natural events or dialogue, but hey, now I can!  Gen is afraid of spiders. I did this because, in his game, they’re freaking enormous and have a nasty habit of dropping out of absolutely flipping nowhere, landing on his head, and proceeding to try and eat him then and there. Granted, the spiders in Twilight Princess can be equally large, but you can usually see them coming. Plus, Dusk has very sharp teeth and that quick-time event thing with Midna and her magic, so he’s much better equipped to take them out swiftly whereas Gen has to stab the thing and usually get spider guts on himself too.Speck worries about getting stepped on. One of the very first things he learned about being small is that almost nobody pays attention to you, and they certainly don’t pay attention to where they’re walking. Most of the time he uses this to his advantage, like his fighting style. But he always makes sure to keep to corners and to walk in places where he can’t easily be spotted, because getting crushed to death by an unobservant human sounds absolutely terrifying.The Four don’t like being alone. It’s something that’s developed more in relation to the more time they spend together; there’s something really intimate about sharing thoughts the way they do, and they’re a little bit worried about how they’re going to handle it all when they have to put the Four Sword back. To them, noise means people and people mean life and warmth and laughter and a bunch of other good stuff. Their hive-mind means that they’ve always got each other, but especially now that they’ve gotten used to having ten-plus siblings around, being alone just sounds so… lonely.Ocarina is scared that he can’t measure up. It’s a lot of pressure, to take a nine-year-old boy and tell him, “Hey, you gotta save the world.” Now, though, he’s in a body that he’s still getting used to (he never had the opportunity to grow into it, after all), and there’s a future version of himself hanging around who’s confident and cocky and everything Ocarina’s not. He’s afraid that Mask might look at him one day and say, ‘You’ll never be me. You’re not enough.’ Common sense, of course, tells him that this is obviously never going to happen, because otherwise that would be a massive paradox and plus Mask just isn’t that kind of person, but fear isn’t exactly rational.Mask got over that whole inferiority thing a looooong time ago, but now he’s got a new issue: he can’t stand being left behind. Not in the kind of ‘You’re too slow’ way, but in the 'people move on without him’ way. It started when Princess Zelda sent him back to his child years (without actually consulting him on it, might I add), and suddenly here he is with all these memories surrounded by all these people who have no idea what he’s been through. Mask would have much rather continued as he was, with the people who shared the experience with him. Then Navi left, for reasons he’s still trying to figure out, and he literally left the country and went to a new one searching for her. This is part of the reason why he resonates with the Skull Kid; they’ve both got the same fear.Neither of them are very fond of Dead Hands, though.  Dusk doesn’t like losing people - at all. He’s so protective that the idea of one of the people he values getting hurt terrifies him. After all, what did he do when his adoptive brother got kidnapped? (That’s Colin, by the way.) And what did he do when Colin nearly got tossed off a bridge by King Bulblin? He went nuts on the guy. Same thing when Speck almost got crushed. He’s a wolf, and the pack means everything to him. He’s going to fight until he literally can’t anymore to keep anything from happening to his family.Vio, Blue, Red, and Green each have a diluted version of Link’s original fear, because they’re one personality split across four bodies. Basically, Link hates being the person who screwed up. The reason that Vaati is free in the first place was because he drew the Four Sword, breaking the seal and letting the sorcerer loose. (If you’d like, the Blue in him outweighed the Vio and instead of thinking of other ways to rescue the Princess, he went for the immediate option.) In a roundabout way, the whole mess is his fault (or at least he thinks it’s his fault), and he’ll do anything to make sure it doesn’t happen again. For his four split selves, this manifests into a general desire to not be the person in the group to botch the timing on a combat plan and to have their teamwork, at least, be smoothly-running.Lore, for a while, didn’t think he had a fear. Then he met the group and he abruptly realized, that, yes, he actually does. Lore’s afraid of rejection, that one day these people that he’d come to regard as family will say 'That’s it, we’re done, you’re too weird and we can’t cope with it.’ He actually reigned himself in, at first, just a little bit, because he liked these people and he wanted to stick around and for some reason, the idea of them looking at him in apprehension and confusion the way most other people did bothered him. He’s let loose by now, obviously, because he knows that none of them are going anywhere and neither is he, but it’s just one of those things that comes up in a bad dream every once in a while and always ends with him spending the rest of the night awake.Sketch has a straight-up phobia of water. I’ve covered this one fairly in-depth in the story, I believe, so I won’t reiterate it too much. But Sketch is always going to look at the ocean differently than the rest of the group will, because The Rain Incident is never too far in his mind.Realm is secretly afraid that one day, he’s going to get lost on his way to save somebody and by the time he finally gets there it’ll be too late. Or, that he’ll lose his sword and be unable to fend off an attack, or lose his shield and be unable to defend someone. This is why he never stops trying to find whichever item he misplaced or whichever location he lost track of this time. He’s going to get there whether it takes him two weeks or not, because the alternative isn’t an option. He’s better nowadays, because somehow hanging with the group cuts his travel time by about eighty percent and he still can’t believe that it’s normal for people to get where they’re going in less than a week, but it’s awesome and he’s not complaining one bit.Wind is afraid to lose. Not exactly in the traditional sense, but more like he’s terrified of what will happen if he fails. What would have happened to Aryll if he’d failed to save her after she’d gotten kidnapped? What would have happened to Tetra if he’d failed to get her out of Ganondorf’s hands? What would happen to her now if he fails to find Bellum? And, the current one, what will happen to existence if they fail to stop Demise? (I guess he’s afraid of the Game Over scenario, heh.)Steam never says anything about it, but he sometimes sees things that nobody else does and they freak the living daylights out of him. He’s started suspecting that there’s some form of spirit world sharing the space with their physical one. He’s learned to ignore it, for the most part, although being able to see it did come in really handy when Zelda lost her body. Unfortunately, that led him to think that he’s seeing the afterlife, and that was just uncomfortable.

Shadow likes to pretend that he doesn’t have a fear and he gets away with it too, because what he’s actually afraid of never actually occurred to anybody else. Which is funny, because he’s actually really obvious about it. He doesn’t like sunlight. Kinda like Sketch and his water phobia, Shadow’s afraid of sunlight because it hurts. He’s never tempted fate to see what would happen, but judging by the smoke that starts coming off his hair he doesn’t think he wants to find out. Hence the cloak he wears, and why he’s always under a shady tree somewhere.Oni dislikes the idea of losing his legacy. He’s the very first Hero, after all, he’s gotta protect his kids. Plus, if they’re gone, who’s gonna beat up the evil that pops up all the time? He’s like the formal older brother/father who’s actually an enraged momma bear if you manage to trigger his fear.))

[scifinal]

DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

[call-me-schmidt]

I've been listening to isweeden reading out fialleril's Double Agent Vader fics, and I've just been reminded about how much I love the way it fleshes out both Tatooine and Alderaanian culture. I mean, there's so much attention to detail and care that's gone into it; that's gone into the Tatooine Slave Culture tags as a whole. I've pulled all-nighters before by getting submersed in that part of the Star Wars fandom.

So, I suppose because of that and because of fialleril's bit on the Tuskens - and, also, I've basically just remembered that one of the first encounters I'd had with the fanfiction side of the fandom was that one where Luke was raised by the Tusken Raiders - that I put down some bullet points that I thought were interesting. So, uh? Here?

Okay, so the Tuskens in the movies basically function as faceless bandits and that's why I liked that one fic a lot - and it's why I like fialleril's headcanons on them that relate them to their Amavikka culture. I don't remember what the Tuskens were under their wrappings in that fic, but Luke blended in with them, so I think in both cases they were another strand of Star Wars Humans? Most of the human population of Tatooine who were born on planet - and more particularly among the enslaved population or those with slavery in their ancestry - are pretty certain to have Tusken ancestry. Names like "Skywalker", "Darklighter" and "Whitesun" are translated from Tusken roots; tribe names or appellations. I know a lot of this is actually treading quite close to other people's headcanons, but it's very good: in that it makes what happens between Shmi and Anakin that much more tragic, and in the way it fleshes out a good bit of Tatooine further.

Related to that: the Tuskens and the Jawas are the native sapient species of Tatooine and there are mythic events present in both of their general cultural storytelling. One of these is collectively known as the Green Time or the Rainy Time: which seems to remember a period of Tatooine's history when the planet could support more/lusher life. Tusken storytelling treats the Rainy Time as both an Age of Heroes type of thing and a promise of a future time of plenty. The Jawa lore says that when the first Jawas saw Tatooine from orbit, the planet was green and appeared to be covered in swirling clouds, but when they landed they found only the desert. The other very significant event that both species remember is the coming of the first slavers and the slave trade as is seen in canon to Tatooine. For the Tuskens, there are many versions of the tale that describes this event as the end of the Rainy Time.

Stemming from the arrival of the slavers, there is a group that becomes prominent in Tusken lore: the Tuskens that were taken onto slavery, who have become the Lost. This is a term that is in contemporary use for those who are enslaved, often applying to the wider population of slaves on Tatooine regardless of personal origin or species. The escaped or the freed are known as Found.

You know, related to that, I’m saying that there would be a debate as to whether or not these terms ought to apply in between cases: should it be reserved for those Tuskens that were taken only, or even those who are traceable descended from the tribes? Should it apply to all slaves regardless of origin? Can one only be Found if they make their way back to a tribe, or is being free enough to be Found?

Tatooine is a very hostile place to have tried to settle, and there are huge swathes of the planet that have been left untouched but for the nomads that go through. I think in Heart of Kyber by esama, they pinned it down to just around the poles as the coolest places on the planet and I think that I quite like that? It's a very good sci-fi concept, and it leaves - in my head, anyway - a huge kind of Point Nemo somewhere on the planet.

At the centre of this, the remotest possible point from any other settlement, is a city. There's odd ruins all throughout the desert on Tatooine - just because it's not settled doesn't mean it hasn't been tried, after all. Moisture farms that fell either the tribes, the slavers; the animals, or even the desert itself. Camps that have been left standing, but the people have been taken away; the sandstorms have not got to them yet. Jawa sandcrawlers left only to the shells of droids. Palaces whose masters have been routed. Even things from the Rainy Time, even things from before. I'm kind of imagining something that's a cross between Eris' desert realm from that Sinbad animated movies and Vaes Dothrak from Game of Thrones for this city. 

At the centre of this city, the reason that the Tuskens keep returning to maintain and protect it, is a well like this one: Chand Baori; and the Tusken word for it translates directly to Stepwell. Among the nomadic people of Tatooine, making the journey to Stepwell is often held as a coming-of-age marker. There is different significance attached to making the journey with company and journeying there alone, but I've not quite found the right words yet.

And I'm running out of stuff in my notes so I'll add more on later when I think of it, but there is this one point I've put down about a subculture of Tuskens that live in caves. Their traditions and way of life differs significantly from the Tuskens who live in the open desert or in within the sphere of influence of the cities. They tend to be less nomadic, as there is readier access to shade, storm shelter and sometimes water; and they make decorations and beads out of their home rock. I haven't thought much more about them yet, though. And I’ve ran of of notes there.

Hey, I just got a bit fascinated.