#Doctor Smug

[jolieeason]

September 2024 Wrap-Up

Here is what I read, posted, won, received, and bought in September. Let me know if you have read any of these books and what you thought of them. Books I Read: Books Reviewed: Fall for Him by Andie Burke—review here Tough Luck by Sandra Dallas—review coming April 29th, 2025 Lucy Undying by Kiersten White—review here Books I got from NetGalley: Books I got from indie…

[starsinmylatte]

This man is giving me terminal brain rot, istg.

There are so many blurbs and fics about Veritas being rude to an "inferior" significant other, but please think about him with a significant other who is just as smart in an opposite way.

Aka, I want to lovingly bicker with him about our respective areas of medicine and science SO BADLY

Veritas Ratio x GN reader married science bickering and fluff

"Veri, dearest...... Can you explain that theorem one more time? I'm still slightly confused," you sigh, tracing your fingers along the side of the spiral notebook you'd been using to take notes.

As always, your notebook is filled with page after page of scrawled formulas, stray doodles, and hastily added mnemonics. To almost anyone else, they'd be illegible, but to you, they were perfect.

Ratio sighed, resting his chin atop his hand in mild exasperation as he leaned over your shoulder and checked your work. "We should come back to this later if you don't understand it by now. As you well know, beating the information into your brain does not lead to true mastery of the subject."

Your husband certainly had a fearsome reputation as a pedagogue, with some of his students even going so far as to add his name to the word's adjective list in the Intelligentsia Guild Databank, but you knew better. Veritas Ratio could certainly be vitriolic at times, but his actions were always used to benefit as many people as possible. At first, his heart seemed cold and stoney, but there was actually gold hidden underneath the rough surface.

"I didn't say that to you the last time the tables were turned," You pointed out with a softly admonishing smile. "I seem to remember spending all night in the library to help a certain someone finally understand oxidation-reduction reactions."

Veritas scoffed derisively. "You're right, but I do feel the need to point out that you had fallen asleep at the table and were drooling onto my textbook when it finally clicked."

"So..... you're going to deny that my many patient explanations helped?" You looked at him with vague amusement, remembering the way he'd launched a piece of chalk across the room after incorrectly identifying the electrophile in one of the practice problems.

"No, no. Just food for thought." His face softened, and a small, indulgent smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Although, I am afraid that I'll have to insist we at least get something to eat after this attempt. You, of all people, should know that your neurons need proper fuel to work at optimum levels."

[greghatecrimes]

Character 👏🏻development👏🏻

[ghost-bison]

[jabberwockypie]

Friend of mine just got a POTS diagnosis and was ordered by her doctor to have at least an extra teaspoon of salt per day.

Which is just to say that she does have one of the few illnesses where crystals actually do work to heal her.

[radiantlyrey]

Ruby Sunday: Thoughts & Theories (SPOILERS)

WARNING: LONG POST. SPOILERS & SPECULATION AHEAD. MOVE ALONG TO NEXT POST IF YOU WANT TO REMAIN UNSPOILED!!!!!

The Facts Were These:

Ruby Sunday was abandoned by as a newborn baby by her birth mother. (Note A: Her birth mother's name is unknown, but has been promised to us. Note B: Her birth mother's provenance is equally unknown, and has not been promised to us.)

Ruby Sunday has been taken out of time twice--once by the goblins on the night of her birth, and once by her stepping on a prehistoric butterfly and changing history.

Despite a genetic test, Ruby Sunday apparently has no relatives on Earth who her DNA can be matched to.

The snow from the night of Ruby Sunday's birth and abandonment appears when the memory of Christmas 2004 is invoked. (Note A: It also seems to appear when she is feeling some strong emotion.)

Maestro, a child of the Toymaker and a part of the pantehon, believes Ruby Sunday is human until Christmas 2004 is invoked. They then think Ruby may be connected to "the oldest one" (another child of the Toymaker? another god?) before calling Ruby a "creature" who is "very wrong."

The events of "73 Yards" appear to show Ruby Sunday trapped in a loop of time (perhaps more a Möbius strip of time) that only breaks when she dies.

The Doctor at times is discomfited by Ruby Sunday and her existence. (Note A: He is surprised by the Butterfly Incident detailed in Point 2. Note B: He hides his concern about the snow with a hug. Note C: He runs a genetic scan of Ruby after their first adventure.)

The Doctor has been following Ruby Sunday since before they properly met. He has admitted this to her, but he has not explained why.

Ruby Sunday and the Doctor have a lot of common in their backstories--they were both abandoned as children; they were both adopted; they are both somewhat unconnected to their adopted societies. Coincidence seems to be tying them together, and to their adventures. (There have been a lot of parentless children in these stories.)

So those are the facts.

Now for some metafictional facts: There are a lot of strange things going on with Ruby Sunday. She has yet to properly, by herself, save the day. (In fact, in two of her five episodes, she has been absent for the climax entirely.) Most modern companions do this in their first couple of episodes. Despite her moment of defiance in "Boom", she has yet to make the Doctor angry with her actions, which most companions have done by now. It's almost as if she only exists as a character on a purely surface level. She has little depth, hardly any flaws; she and the Doctor get along like breezy best friends, but there's not much of substance about her. Given RTD's reputation as a character writer (especially as concerns Doctor Who), the characterization of Ruby Sunday has seemed more than a little flat. And I can't help but wonder if maybe this is all deliberate.

By this point in the season, when we've hit the halfway point, everyone has a theory about Ruby Sunday. The writing has encouraged the mass theorizing, piling on mystery after mystery with gusto. There are even theories (mostly driven by the fourth-wall breaks in "The Devil's Chord") about the whole season being some kind of misdirect or fakery. But those theories, I think, go slightly too far.

I have theories of my own, of course. My crack theory is that Ruby is either related to the Time Lords or even the Doctor's mysterious species. There is a little evidence for this--her disappearances and reappearances from the timeline, the time loop stuff from "73 Yards"--and it might be true, but I'm starting to shy away from it slightly. Another theory I've seen in this line is that Ruby is part of the pantheon, another god-like being who's been disguised as a human. This seems a little likelier, but I have another idea.

Maestro refers to Ruby Sunday as a "creature" in "The Devil's Chord"--and the word "creature" has the same Latin root as the word "create." I think it's entirely possible that Ruby was created as a trick or a trap for the Doctor, that she's merely an idea that's been given human form. The idea is this: "someone who travels with the Doctor." Fans have already pointed out the numerous parallels Ruby has with other New Who companions--she phones her mum from the future like Rose in "The End of the World"; her existence mirrors the mystery of Clara Oswald in Series 7; she has a lot of the spitfire spunk we've seen from Donna Noble; she even dies and comes back to life like Rory constantly did during his tenure!! Given the teasers we've received for the penultimate episode, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday"--an image of a monitor with the episode's title on it, and [NOTE: I cannot seem to find a source for this; please help!!!!!] a line of teaser dialogue about the Doctor's life playing out on multiple screens [AGAIN: cannot seem to find a source; if you know where teaser dialogue lines for this season were released---or if they're even real--PLEASE LET ME KNOW], it seems to me that the Doctor's life has been studied in order to create the perfect companion, a tailor-made trap for the Doctor and the Doctor alone.

I don't think RTD is stupid enough to pull a "gotcha! it was all a dream/TV show/hallucination!" trick for the whole season, which I know a lot of people are theorizing about. That is a hard needle to thread in the best of situations, and if it doesn't land effectively, then a good chunk of your audience will leave in disgust and never come back. But I think it's very possible you could pull the same trick with one character.

My theory is this: Ruby Sunday is a simulacrum, or hybrid (ha), or something else entirely! But she is not Real. She was created to be thrown away, a lure for the Doctor meant to be eaten or discarded. It might be that she's part of the Doctor's species, but caught by the pantheon (or something else) and changed into a tool or toy or something not-quite-Real. There's been talk about how Doctor Who is gaining more fantastical elements (goblins and gods and so on), and what is more fantastical than a fairy tale? I think the legend of Ruby Sunday is one such fairy tale, and I think I know how it's going to end.

Ruby will, at last, assert herself. She will break free of what she's been created (written) to be, and claim her personhood/characterhood. She will re-enter the world fully herself and fully three-dimensional. She will finally become Real, with all that that implies.

And nothing is more fairy tale than that.

[dykepaldi]

do u reckon clara just wanted to fuck that cartoon fox

[evviejo]

thirteen’s face appreciation: 43/?

[tardxsblues]

Doctor Who | 8.05 Time Heist

[lonelyzarquon]

—  Doctor Who?

[ultraericthered]

Marvel's Spider-Man (2017) Otto Octavius Appreciation Post

Much like Varian, the amount of character development given to this iteration of Doc Ock is displayed here, and it is tremendous.

[starleska]

OKAY NOW IT'S AIRED I CAN SHARE SOME INCOHERENT FIFTEEN-CENTRIC RAMBLINGS ABOUT THE NEW EPISODE

spoilers for the Doctor Who episode Boom! 👀🔥

Ncuti Gatwa you absolute LEGEND oh my godddd????? can we TALK about the range of emotion this man managed to show while standing in one place for almost an entire episode?! the tears running down his cheeks, the trembling, the determination, the self-soothing to keep his adrenaline down...it was all so amazingly acted. honestly Fifteen has quickly jumped up to one of my favourite Doctor incarnations but ohhhh this cemented it 😳😳😳 i think most intriguing were those little pockets of rage, the clenched-jaw, 'i could say something much worse but i am holding myself back' moments. that is what i love in a Doctor (looking at my favourites - Six and Eleven - it's no surprise 🙈) and i am delighted to see it in Fifteen, who so far has been deliriously sweet and charming and fluffy. yesssss let's give our favourite Time Lord a touch of that trademark anger 😉 just, oooooh. every Doctor has some level of cockiness, arrogance, superiority, but the ways in which each incarnation shows it makes for hugely differing personalities...and these little moments of nastiness (the 'do you get-get-get it?' and 'faith gyal' to Mundy) have killed me dead. after The Church on Ruby Road, Space Babies and The Devil's Chord i would never have expected that Fifteen could be a scathing incarnation...but i'm loving it. more please 😳💖

[19thcenturyfuck]

cursed multi-doctor story where the dream lord, the valeyard, and the time lord victorious all have to put up with each other. nightmare blunt rotation

[shadowkira]

Inspired by this, I'm just slow 🐌

Follow me on X: Joneslm (art, personal, pets), Shadowkirra (art, photos, 🔞)

[dougielombax]

*distant smug laughter echoes from the bottom of a wishing well*

[radiantlyrey]

I’ve been watching The Church on Ruby Road on repeat all week, and I’m starting to think there’s more going on with the Doctor here than we’re being allowed to see. More after the cut bc spoilers….

I’m starting to think the Doctor we see prior to December 24 is a future version.

Like. Why is the Doctor following Ruby around? Why is he witnessing her accidents? It’s like he seems to know who she is already, but he only asks Ruby her name when they’re on the ladder to the goblin ship. So what’s actually going on?

My current theory: the Doctor was following the goblins, not Ruby. That’s why he landed in front of Mrs. Flood’s, that’s why he was on the roof in the first place. Every Doctor we see prior (except maybe the Doctor on the dancefloor) is a future version.

The cold open Doctor (who is visibly crying; the Doctor who saves baby Ruby in the shot towards the end is not) is a future version. The opening narration implies that the Doctor finds out the name of Ruby’s mother, which the Doctor later in the episode does not do.

On December 22, when Ruby’s band is performing, the Doctor is watching from the back of the pub, and the editing implies that he is watching Ruby. He also has a hat on, which I think might prove to be significant later.

On December 23 at the club, I think there are two Doctors present. One is on the dancefloor having a good time, but the one who catches Ruby’s drink has crossed into his own timeline to do that. He also says Ruby’s bad luck is worse than just bad luck. There are implications there, that he knows more than even we-the-audience know.

Furthermore, I think the Doctor we see get “snowmanned” is the same Doctor who catches Ruby’s drink. (Presumably the other Doctor was still dancing.) He’s watching Ruby and her friends very closely, much like we saw him watching her on the 22nd.

RTD is, I think, doing exactly what Moffat did in Series 5: he is laying the groundwork for some kind of story something that involves the Doctor and Ruby and the coincidences that have woven them together. (For example, the hat might prove to be a Thing in the same way Eleven’s jacket reappearing was in Flesh and Stone.)

Because I don’t think the goblins were ever at any point really after Lulubelle. I think every coincidence (Ruby and Davina McCall both having accidents; Ruby and Lulubelle both being Christmas Eve babies taken in by Carla; maybe even Ruby and the Doctor having Suspicously Similar Origin Stories) was leading up to them taking Ruby as a baby, and only Ruby.

And so. I think RTD (who has already stated that Ruby’s mysterious origins are going to Be A Thing in the upcoming season) is playing yet another Long Game. There is more going on behind the curtain than we yet know, and I honestly can’t wait to find out what it is.

(I am less enthused that we have to wait until FUCKING GODDAMN MAY to find out, but. One thing at a time.)