#HAPPY SPYFALL DAY EVERYONE

[thetorturedlovergirl]

Happy anniversary to my mentally ill babygirl with iconic moments, bad executed ideas but memorable outfits. Hope the tooth is more comfortable than the Rasputin outfit, but never as iconic.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

I've never met ANYONE who actually likes the Chibnall era. Would you seriously say that it's objectively good?

Brace yourself for unpopular (albeit positive) opinions.

Objectively? I don't know, I tend to feel like media is very much subjective and down to opinion. But on the whole...yeah. I'm gonna say yeah. I think the Chibnall era thus far is every bit as good as the Moffat Era and Davies Era were. It actually blows my mind to see the fandom come together and almost universally agree that the show has gone downhill. It's part of the reason why I kind of stepped away from the Doctor Who fandom because there's something very demoralizing about re-watching clips from Season 12 and seeing literally every comment just talk about how the show is ruined. And if I re-watch old clips, very often I come across comments that talk about how the show "used to" be good, and should have ended with Twelve, etc. I know a little reluctance toward the new Doctor can be part of the transition process, but normally the fans are over it by now.

Things haven't really changed.

I've been re-watching Twelve's era, and found a new appreciation for him. But I re-watched Thirteen's era right beforehand, and you know what? It holds up. Season 11 is remarkably strong. I can't think of a single "bad" episode in that season. It focuses on the characters, and thus it doesn't have nearly as strong ambitions, compared to one of the Moffat seasons, which were clever but often convoluted. They couldn't always stick the landing. (Looking at you, Season 6) But every has it's good parts and it's bad. The same man who wrote The Wedding of River Song and betrayed the entire season's storyline in the process...also wrote The Doctor Falls, which is probably my favorite final episode of any season ever. The Chibnall Era is the same way. The Tsuranga Conundrum isn't really a bad episode, it's just kind of forgettable, apart from the Pting. But then it is immediately followed up by Demons of the Punjab, which is an exceptional story in every way. I want the Thijurians to return for Thirteen's regeneration, I'm saying it.

My point being that even if there are episodes you can't stand in the new era, is that really exclusive to Chibnall? All the way back in Season 1, they had The Long Game, which I remember disliking, but it was sandwiched between Dalek and Father's Day, which are in my opinion, the two best episodes of that season. A lot of people don't like Orphan 55, for example. But it's followed up by Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror. Does anyone really dislike that episode? You're valid if you do, but I think it's really good. Ask me about any episode in the Chibnall Era, and I'll find something to like about it. (Except maybe Arachnids in the UK...and that one's not even bad, just kind of weak.) Because like I said, there is good and bad in every season...and I do think that the fandom has overblown how "bad" the Chibnall Era is...though that may be in part because I think this era is generally good? Incredible companions, solid episodes, a great Doctor, and hey...this era actually made the Daleks scary again. That is impressive. Even most of the hated episodes, like Orphan 55 as I mentioned...I enjoy them.

I stand by that. I think this era is great. If anything, I don't like that they reduced how many episodes we get, because some of these stories, like The Witchfinders and It Takes You Away especially Fugitive of The Judoon, are just begging to be two-parters. Spyfall is the only real two-parter we've had, in my opinion (Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children feel like two separate stories to me) and the episode was much stronger for having the extra time. If I have one genuine criticism with the Chibnall Era as a whole, it is the stark contrast between Seasons 11 and 12. I love Season 11, I thought it was beautiful. I like it far more than most people. I also truly enjoyed Season 12. But they are worlds apart, with Season 11 feeling so standalone and Season 12 picking up with a big storyline that really hadn't been hinted at all in the previous outing. The tone is also different, with The Doctor and "the fam" having a distance between them that seems to have developed offscreen in between seasons. It was as though Chibnall wanted to give everyone a breather from big overarching plots after the Moffat Era, but then after one season he decided "break's over" because he wanted to tell his story. And that's okay! It is. But it's jarring. Anyway, let's talk about Chibnall's storyline. You know where this is going.

"That" episode.

I meant what I said before. There isn't a single episode that I actively hate as much as say, Listen. Now let's get very controversial, because I know what y'all are thinking. "Not even The Timeless Children?" And I'll just get this out of the way right now: I don't think The Timeless Children, or it's twist, ruins Doctor Who. I don't think it gets anywhere close. I mentioned before that I was demoralized reading the comments on a clip of Doctor Who...to no one's surprise, it was this episode. Now, I may just be biased...after all, I didn't even hate Hell Bent. But while I have my criticisms of Season 12, The Doctor's revised backstory accounts for exactly none of them. You want to know what really bothers me? That we had a seven season buildup to Gallifrey's rescue, a nine season buildup to it's return...only for the show to do nothing with it, and then just destroy it again a couple of seasons later. As someone who loved The Day of The Doctor, I'm mad about that. Among other reasons, destroying Gallifrey is the kind of card you can really only play once.

So no, I don't think The Timeless Children is perfect. The Doctor had a seven season character arc culminating in them learning the lesson that using The Moment would be wrong, and that it was never okay to do something like that. To hear her even consider using The Death Particle, that "Or, a solution" line in response to Ryan appropriately reacting in horror? Yeah, that upset me. I don't like that Gallifrey is gone again, and even if The Doctor wasn't the one to do it, she almost did, and she left someone else to do it in her stead. That bothers me more than The Timeless Child ever could. That being said...the Timeless Child doesn't bother me. Seriously, it blows my mind that people act like this twist ruins Doctor Who. It...really doesn't, guys.

It does not insult the legacy of William Hartnell. He is still The First Doctor. It's not like there isn't a precedent for secret incarnations from The Doctor's past. We didn't start calling Christopher Eccleston The Tenth Doctor after we found out about John Hurt. Nothing can change The First Doctor's status or take it away, nor do I think Chibnall is trying. He is doing what I've actually wanted Doctor Who to do for a while. Give us a story about The Doctor's childhood. (Listen doesn't count, I don't care, that was all kinds of bad.) Let me ask you, what does this really change? I've seen people complain about the revision of The Doctor's history...but there's a precedent for that too. We could play bingo with how many times Clara fundamentally altered or influenced the show's history. She is the reason he started traveling, the reason he chose his Tardis, and the reason he saved Gallifrey. Why doesn't that bother people, if this does?

I also understand it if people dislike this change because they feel as though it makes The Doctor a kind of chosen one, compared to them having just been an average person who wanted to make a difference. I get that. However, this is down to interpretation, and there are so many ways to interpret The Doctor. Some people love it when The Doctor goes dark, other people cannot stand it and view it as out of character. Some people love it when The Doctor is heroic and badass, when they save the day...others would prefer that they take the backseat, teaching the humans how to save the day themselves. "The man who makes people better." And which interpretation you get, where it falls on the spectrum...it will vary from writer to writer. Moffat loved to make everything about The Doctor, and Davies frequently compared him to an angel or a god. This is not the first time that the show has portrayed The Doctor as a godlike being. It's not even close to the first time. And honestly? I don't think this makes The Doctor special or supernatural. I think it makes them a victim, nothing more. A victim of child abuse.

People also disliked this episode for removing the mystery behind The Doctor...but I fail to see how it did that? There are so. Many. Questions. That this finale opens up. Where did The Doctor come from? How and why did they get to our universe? What exactly is The Division? What went down between them and The Doctor? Where is Tecteun? (No, she's not Rassilon...) As the Masters asks, "What did they do to you, Doctor? How many lives have you had?" Amid all of the comments that made me sad, I did see a great one about how the original creator of Doctor Who actually didn't like it when they introduced the Timelords, because she felt that it boxed the show in and removed the mystery behind The Doctor, and how "She would have loved this episode." I agree with that. (Still salty that they destroyed Gallifrey though...) You know, I am genuinely interested in this story and where it's going to go, especially with the sixtieth anniversary approaching. But it depresses me that they might scale it back now, after how much the fandom has risen up against it. Not that I'm saying the fans shouldn't be happy, but...it's clear that a story is trying to be told here, and I think it should have that chance.

To each their own, of course. But I will never understand why this era is so hated.

[wykart]

Oneshot fic where I try to piece together Thirteen’s character post spyfall part 2, and extend the episode’s final scene. (read on ao3)

The Promise

She stands, bathed in blue, with three pairs of eyes boring holes into her back. Inquisitive eyes, reproachful, skeptical. Dissatisfied. She thinks that’s probably fair enough. 

Behind her, the ship puts on a pale imitation of its usual golden hue – which is partly her fault, because the strength of her anguish resonates within the temporal engines. The ship mourns with her. It had been her home too. 

She’s taken on more than she can handle; three humans – she hasn’t had to deal with that many at once in a long while. It’s exhausting, because behind her back, they talk. They conspire. They formulate attacks in the form of questions and furrowed brows. It’s her against them, and it has been for a while now. Her against them; how had it ever come to this? Friends or enemies? She’s always found it difficult to tell the difference. 

It would be easy, perhaps, to drop them back on Earth, waltz off with a grin and a lie through bared teeth, and never return. She’s done it before. 

But the promise she made claws at her, raging at her behind pale eyes. Eyebrows; with his lined face and harsh expression – easy to intimidate, with a face like that. Easy to lie.  She craves that mask of lines, that icy stare. Maybe if she still wore that face, they wouldn’t ask so many questions.

He wanted to die, old Eyebrows had, and she’s starting to think that maybe he had the right idea. “Be a Doctor,” She had promised, but she doesn’t feel like the Doctor anymore. It all just feels like a game. 

And what was the rest of the promise? Never be cruel, never be cowardly... oh, but she is a coward – she’s been afraid of the dark since she was a boy, and she’s been running for – how long? About three thousand years, half of her assures (more like four and a half billion, the other half answers). And – though this is harder to admit – she is cruel. She’s crueller, colder, older. Be a Doctor, but the Doctor is a lie. Now more than ever, she’s hiding behind a title. For the first time, stranded without her friends, marooned in history, the cruelty had boiled over, and she’d found that she was full of so much of it that it scared her, but she couldn’t stop it from spilling out. At least the Master knows he’s cruel, he revels in the fact. She is something worse, because she’s convinced herself that her cruelty is some sort of justice. Some sort of twisted kindness, because the rules of time are not hers, and she is just a traveller. Walking away, in Montgomery and the Punjab, leaving a young boy to burn and a horde of innocent creatures to starve, that was cruel, but it was necessary, because sometimes she loses. Because the rules of time were never hers. 

Wiping Ada’s mind should have shaken her, it should have reminded her of  pleading eyes and words of power; Donna, Clara, Bill. But it didn’t. (If you ever stop, I think the universe might just go cold). And what if I go cold, she asks no one, what happens to the universe then? 

Always try to be nice. This one, she has down to an art. She can’t remember ever being nicer. She’s bubbly and hopeful and sweet - at least, when her friends are around. When she’s putting on a show, because the Doctor is a lie. Even when she’s cruel, she’s sweet. She’s nice. All wicked smile and steely eyes, teasing. A trickster’s stare. It was fun, at first, the youth, the constant movement and chatter and quirky quips. It was fun, because they didn’t question her. She revelled in their awe and their reverence in a way that filled her with sour guilt. She kept herself mysterious, confident, infallible. Vague. She stuck to the rules, when her friends were around. No weapons, no interference. Hasn’t she already seen where breaking the rules can get her? She is just a traveler; not a god or a monster or an impossible hero. Not anymore. She’s holding herself in, but the shell is too small. Jagged edges of her past jut through the edges of her silhouette, so she keeps her friends distracted. She keeps them moving and she never stays for tea, because the quiet is when questions are asked, and linear time makes her head ache and her fingers twitch. She’s hooked on the adventure. The lie. (It is Clara, she answers an old question, weary, it is like an addiction). 

Never fail to be kind. But she was always failing. She’s told her friends who she is, using empty words robbed of their usual pride and significance. Her voice and her manner had been waspish, impatient. Cruel. (There, happy?). Their unending curiosity, their kindness, it grated against her in a way that told her she was becoming something awful. She holds them, her new best friends, at arm's reach, and never closer, because she knows what happens when she lets herself get too invested. 

Oh, and never tell anyone your name. Well, that’s one promise she can keep - because everyone who can understand the cadence of her true name is dead. Killed by the only other person who still knows it. She will never be able to tell anyone her name again. 

Laugh hard. She’s done all sorts of laughing.  Triumphant exclamations of wonder, because she’s just a traveller, and everything is new to these dark eyes, everything inspires hope. Belly-clutching, strained reels of laughter when her friends are cracking jokes. When they’re travelling, never stopping, never still. The real sort of laughter comes when she’s alone. Low, cruel chuckles to the enemy that roil in her gut, that make her feel alive. Wind whistling through newly spun blonde hair, cold air against new bared teeth, old tattered clothes hanging loose as she shed the one she was before. It was a good feeling, intimidating. Darkness biting through the nice. 

Run fast. She’s faster than ever. She’s running so fast that she can barely keep up with herself. Hands always moving, fixing, tweaking, tinkering. Mouth running off at a hundred miles an hour spouting tidbits and anecdotes that even she isn’t sure are truth or lie. That night on the train, she had hit the ground running, and hasn’t stopped since. Not until she’d taken a trip home, and she’s stopped dead in her tracks. All the adrenaline she’s been running off it gone, now. All she has is anger. 

Be kind. And that’s the most difficult part of all. Nice is just a show you put on to the people around you, and pretending is easy. Kindness is deeper, and difficult to fake. Difficult, especially, because she can feel him – the Master – in the back of her mind like an itch, gloating. The ghost of a laugh, bright and spitting and maniacal, because this is exactly what he wanted. Where he is, that dark, dead dimension, the walls are thin. He can see her. Exiled to an unknown dimension, foiled and hopeless and alone, he’s still won. Laughing. Gloating. (Why would it stop). He tore apart the life she’d been building, ripped away the veil to show a glimpse of her true face; to her friends, and to herself. And she hates him. She hates him so much she wants to scream. Who is he but a reminder that it can never, ever stop. The grief and the running, and her, growing colder by the moment. A snarl twists at her face. She’s all anger, prowling, body wracked with energy that makes her want to break something, break him. The thought only makes him laugh harder. 

“Doctor?” A voice that doesn’t come from inside her head. A voice without the bite of the telepathic. Simple, human. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

It’s Yaz. The Doctor turns, blinking against the golden light of the console and its amber pillars. Graham and Ryan stand under its canopy, concern knotted through their features. Yaz is closer, because she’s the only one who’s brave enough. Her eyes are wide and dark and kind. The sort of kind she hasn’t been in a long while. 

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just tired, it’s been a long few days.” Five days, five planets. No trouble, just relaxing. She did it for them rather than herself, because her ideal vacation involved a lot more running and danger and mystery. Instead of sickly sweet ice cream and soft golden sands, she craved blood and ash, the slick oil and grease of weathered machines, the smell of fear and panic. The calm and emboldening feeling of being in charge, weaving together a solution, saving the day and bounding off on the next adventure. The past five days have been hell, because hell is quiet. Hell is being left to your own devices and thoughts and left to stew out in the sun like the the rocks baking on the shoreline by her faded luxury deck chair. Decaying. And all the while, his laughter, echoing inside her skull. 

“Doctor?” The voice tries again, impatient. 

“Hmm?” She murmurs, absently meandering back towards the console, looking for something to tinker with. Something to do with their hands to make herself look busy. Behind her back, she feels them shifting, casting glances at each other that speak a thousand words. Inwardly, she sighs. Friends or enemies? 

Graham is the first to venture forth. “Look, I, err, we” – he amends, and nods pass between her friends, still behind her back – “we’ve been meanin’ to ask you something.” Of course it’s him, the most skeptical. She sees the way he looks at her, the way he worries. It’s true that she prefers the company of the young, because the young haven’t yet had the chance to learn what old eyes look like. They don’t recognise those eyes in her. “Why are you travelling with us, I mean really…” Because you were there. You were human and you were there and I was lonely, she doesn’t say, because that would be cruel.

“Yeah, and who are you? We’ve tried asking’ so many times but you always dodge the question.” Ryan cuts across, emboldened. She turns around, away from the nothing she was doing with her hands. She stares at them and tries to look nice, but fails to look kind. 

“‘Cause we’re putting’ our metaphorical foot down, Doc,” Graham says, with a hint of a smile. Keeping it light. “We’ve been talkin’, and we think, if we’re gonna keep on travellin’ together, we should get to know who we’re travellin’ with.” There was a time when they wouldn’t have dared. They were so caught up in the adventure and so scared that it was going to end that they would never have asked her that question, not when she’d been so adamantly obvious about dodging it. They were afraid to lose her, but now, they know just how much power they hold. Her against them. They know she’s lonely, that she needs them just as much – maybe more – than they need her. Running from grief, from abandonment, from boredom. Human problems. Simple reasons. The other reason they are asking now is, she knows, because they’re afraid. She slipped up. All that time carefully calibrating the ultimate TARDIS experience; controlled, self-contained adventures, and never to those voluminous corners of the galaxy where the people knew her name; in reverence or in fear, because she’s just a traveller. Now they know that she can make mistakes, that she has a history, old enemies. It scares them, because they wanted, needed to believe that she was infallible. It made following her seemingly arbitrary and ever-shifting rules all too easy. Now, suddenly, travelling is difficult. Scary. Real.

“Not that we don’t want to keep on travellin’ with you,” Yaz assures her with that officer calm. “We just think we’re entitled to know a bit more, seein’ as you know us so well.”

“And I don’t mean some made up words that don’t mean anythin’ to us” Ryan says. Gallifrey, Kasterberous, Time Lord – what did any of that mean to them? Nothing, especially when her voice had been so cold, deflated, deflective. Trying to make them feel guilty for daring to ask. “I mean, why are you runnin’?” What a question... Of course, he doesn’t realise what he’s asking, the gravity of it. Boredom or exile or fear – or a mixture of all three. (And why, he asks, with his eyes, not his mouth, because he can’t quite articulate the feeling, why do we trust you?) It had been going so well. In her head, the Master laughs some more, and she doesn’t know whether he’s really there or if she’s imagining it. 

“And who were you before we met you?” Yaz asks, eyes softening, begging her. “Who were you before that night on the train?” It’s the final question that makes her muscles seize up and her eyes go cold. It’s what makes the anger bubble to the surface and the laugher break from background noise to a shrill cackling inside her head. She had been a white-haired scottsman, and she made a promise. A contract, and she’d broken every clause. 

“Why should I have to tell you?” She snaps. Maybe the ferocity should surprise her, but it doesn’t. Cruelty is becoming normal, for her, something that’s always lurking there, just below the surface. Yaz steps back from her stare, shocked. “I’m just a traveller, didn’t I already say, I’m nobody. Isn’t this enough for you?” she pleads, and he laughs. “Aren’t you having fun?” a different angle, because they can’t deny that. It’s been fun, it’s been lighthearted. It’s been good.  “Why can’t you just let me be this?” her voice comes in strangled, breaking gasps, because there isn’t just cruelty under the surface, there’s grief as well. “Why can’t you just let me leave it all behind?” The ship rages beneath her; lights flashing, sparks spitting, crystalline pillars spiralling with blue and harsh red. It casts them all in shadow. The remnants of her voice rings out in the hollow space, the ship whirring back into silence, echoing her, understanding her like none of her new friends ever will. 

In the silence, Graham hums, his mouth folded into a line. Ryan is staring at the ground, chest rising and falling with subsiding panic. Worse, though, is Yaz, because she’s staring right at her. There’s no fear in her eyes, just kindness and a twisted sort of satisfaction. Her face says ‘I was right,’ and in her cruellest moment yet, the Doctor hates her for it. 

“I’m sorry – I…” she knows what she has to do, and all her previous faces are looking at her in disdain. In disgust. Shut up, she swats their images away. They aren’t her, not anymore. The Doctor is a lie, and she is just a traveller. “Yaz, I’m really, really sorry,” she whispers, voice like silk. Beckoning. The girl can’t resist. 

“I know, it’s okay,” Yaz smiles, walking forwards. But the Doctor isn’t apologising for what she said, instead, she’s apologising for what she’s about to do, because she won’t get the chance after it’s done. More faces; Donna, Clara, Bill. Ada. She ignores them, and takes comfort in the cruelty of the act. 

The Doctor reaches out, and Yaz leans in to her touch, thinking that she’s offering comfort. The Doctor places outstretched fingers against her temple and searches her mind. As she sifts through her timeline, the act pressed into the space of a moment, it occurs to her that she could pick apart the strands of her memories and pluck out the parts that don’t fit. The doubts, the fear. The time she spent in that horrible dimension; lost and alone in the endless forest. She could make her better. The ship hums a dissonant note; a warning, and she realises that she isn’t quite that cruel. Not yet, anyway. She only takes the past minute. It’s barely a touch upon her mind, barely a dent, so she stays conscious. Yaz sways for a moment, dizzy, while the Doctor strides over to the two boys. They aren’t paying attention. They’re talking amongst themselves in low, harsh whispers. Behind her back. Her against them. 

There’s a moment when they notice her purposeful steps clanging against the metal floor, and they look up. They see her expression; flat and cold. Unyielding; and their eyes flash with fear. Graham opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, she raises both hands towards their heads. She takes Ryan in one hand and Graham in the other; outstretched arms reaching, the pads of her fingers running over the surface of their thoughts as their eyes brush closed. She could take back the memory of the Master, the panic on the plane, the bone-burrowing fear of being on the run - but she doesn’t. She thinks she will regret it later, when she’s grown a little colder still. 

In their moment of confusion, time rewinding, she takes her position at the top of the stairs. The blue light on her face feels right, it feels honest. She waits for their eyes to open and adjust, once again trained on her back, and she walks away before they can pose their carefully constructed questions. She leaves them standing under the fading gold of the console, sharing those transparent, conspiratorial glances, forming a new plan to get her cornered. Her against them. She makes a new promise, and the promise is this; they can never know. You are nobody. You are just a traveller. 

The Doctor is a lie, and they can never know. 

[smoliboops]

the egos as different (new who) incarnations of the Doctor: revisted

(havent written an analysis type of thing in a while, miss sharing ideas with people in general aha :’D)

originally 2am thoughts/concepts that i might draw aka revisiting the concept of the egos as different regenerations of the doctor (debate and additions are welcome):

schneeplestein- nine

(first regeneration after the time war and as such major guilt and lonliness from being the sole survivor who also had to be the one to end it. this paralleling to schneep’s 9 month disappearance and his possible guilt resulting from the events of say goodbye and moreso kill jse (as well as schneep probably doing risky things in the name of stopping anti). other things including, sass, calling humans “stupid apes”, rational, angry sometimes, but can appreciate the ancient human music that is tainted love, saving their friend/companion and telling them to live a good life as they head off to face their longtime enemy,the pain you see on his face when he gets compared to said enemy (”you would make a good puppet dalek), bananas being good source of potassium)

chase- ten

(is kind of a mess but a cool mess, generally the most emotional/human of the incarnations, starts off as a cool, charismatic type of guy but slowly goes downward into a spiral of sadness and lonliness as everyone he loved leaves (ya see the connection im getting at?), loses the girl he loved and missing the chance to tell her he loved her, ”im fine” he says as he just lost his best friend and is now alone standing in the pouring rain, accidentally quoting the lion king and harry potter but also “no second chances im that kind of man,” loves little shops and making things that go ding and silly made up words like “wibbly wobbly timey wimey”, literally Human Nature/Family of Blood shows how much he wanted a human life with a wife and kids and the episode "the doctor's daughter" where he finally gets a kid and loses her, the hero who goes from saving the universe with all his friends around him to him dying alone not wanting to go, literally called “the man that regrets” in dotd, listen to love don't roam on YouTube)

jj- eleven

(the doctor with the most confusing timeline, child-like wonder and the look of a young lad hiding the tired eyes of an old man who has seen and gone through so much, very protective of his fond family/people he loves, he literally snuck into a charlie chaplin film in s6′s immpossible astronaut, also stayed in Victorian london for a time which would be jj's aesthetic tbh, can be silly and clumsy and starry-eyed while also being capable of becoming the oncoming storm, “ Good men don't need rules, today is not the day to find out why i have so many.”, great with kids, like weird/unique hatwear, b o w t i e s, g o g g l e s, just wants to go home even if it’s the long way round, “every lonely monster needs a companion” (you can’t tell me jj probably would still feel like a monster cos of how closely related he is to anti), and also theres puppets in two episodes of his, despite the darkness and loneliness it just made him kind, the optimist, the hoper of far flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams )

marvin- twelve

(recognizing gender as a concept far beyond them obvs, he’s literally called a magician half the time lol, avoiding death by rocking out in the 1500s with an electric guitar on top of an army tank, “can you hurry up before i hit you with my shoe”, as a morally gray character that many theorize whether he’s good/bad, marvin relates well to twelve’s whole journey of questioning if he was a good man and willing to learn the extents of what that means, tried his best to not only do right but to try to help those who weren’t good people who he knew needed help, would fight robin hood irl with a spoon and have a sign saying “go away humans”, not totally great with social cues but he tries and that’s what counts, seemingly cold and harsh and grump but take time to know him and he’s actually warm deep down, "do you think i care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?", wiliing to "go to hell" for their friend, not only protective of the people he loves but is also willing to to things like repeatedly die over 8 billion years and almost cause the destruction of the universe for the sake of saving his friend, would sacrifice himself recklessly in the name of standing up for what he believed in)

jackieboy man-thirteen

(total ray of sunshine who also recognizes the dangers of being close to them (i.e. dying, forgetting, getting trapped in another time or parallel world, getting converted and dying, etc) and as such keeps those they love at a distance, literally not talking about who they truly were for a whole series cos they didn't want to wrap their family up into their own troubles they faced, adorably socially awkward/anxious but still perseveres in the face of danger and certain doom, "darkness never sustains, even though sometimes it feels like it might," would build their own gadgets, g o g g l e s, would eat dirt and bone dust for analysis, would save the day by becoming best friends with a sentient universe in the form of a frog, always tries to have a flat team structure but in reality "this team structure...it isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me, in the stratosphere, alone, left to choose. Save jack the poet, save the universe. Sometimes, even i can't win.", P U N S)

Bonus content: anti as sacha Dawhan's master

like *chefs kiss* (LITERALLY pretended to be the doctor's friend for years until revealing he actually killed him before she met him and took his place (that gif is him just throwing away that dude's minituraized dead body btw), the kneel scene, his s m i l e, maniacal g l e e as he destroys everything and kills people all to cover up the pain and sadness and anger he feels inside because of her *cough a piece of SPOILER being inside him and him not being able to stand it is definitely anti/jack vibes cough*, also imagine this small exchange but between jackieboy man and anti:

The doctor: "proud of yourself?"

The master: "Definitely."

The doctor: "all this death...Finally made you happy?"

The Master, smiling: "Ecstatic."

The doctor, closer to his face: "And has it calmed all the rage?"

The master, pausing and looking away: "...I don't think anything will ever do that."

Also pls watch that spyfall pt1 reveal scene (basically the whole ending tbh), again it's just *chef's kiss*

Ok that's enough blabbering from me. Still debating on drawing the egos as the doctor (ooh maybe a screen cap redraw would be fun if some people have suggestions for an ep to ref for each one (granted who knows if I'd have time to draw them all but I'm curious anyway lol)) ok time to head out *yeets*.

[sarriane]

(warning: dr who s12 spoilers!)

i know a lot of folks (including myself) are disappointed that s12 never addressed missy's "redemption" arc from s10, and we get a new incarnation of the master that's as batshit as ever and absolutely destructive. i'm over it, but mostly because i'm happy they addressed the possibility of redemption and moved back to casting the master as an excellent villain. (and super campy. hell yeah!)

maybe the reality of "without witness, without reward" didn't sit well with the new incarnation. maybe "what would you die for?" doesn't include the doctor, because dying is a lot different than killing, and the master will do anything to survive.

piecing together a timeline, we get an idea that, however the master survived and regenerated, he then goes to gallifrey and hacks the matrix. finds out that the time lords have been lying to everyone, him, and the doctor. that the whole of time lord society - that he has tried to destroy before - only exists because of the doctor. that they experimented, tortured, and wiped the doctor's memory, for time out of mind. and then he destroys the citadel, somehow keeps a number (if not all) of time lord bodies in cold storage, and leaves. cue the events of spyfall.

i think there's several main elements here:

1- preexisting rage for what the time lords have done and how they've treated him and the doctor (deadly assassin, trial of a time lord, the time war, the end of time, etc). he has wanted the planet destroyed before, this is not new. rassilon literally drove him *insane* with the drumming to attempt to bring gallifrey out of the time war.

2- anger that a piece of the doctor makes up an important part of him, the part literally keeping him alive. no matter what, the doctor is inside him. the doctor, who has experienced all of that trauma and is still the kind coward who can only almost bring herself to kill what's left of their terrible planet. (she will not rule beside him, she would rather destroy herself than admit that there's a piece of her that's like to him.)

3- anger and shame that the time lords lied and said they were bigger and greater than the rest of the universe, when really they were nothing more than liars and thieves. that he is "nothing" but what the doctor's DNA made him.

4- i think, deep down, he's upset that they hurt the doctor. he has come to the doctor's defense again and again. he reacts like this even when the valeyard, the doctor HIMSELF, tries to team up with the time lords to destroy the doctor. to see the time lords have been succeeding in wiping her memories, torturing her, possibly destroying her permanently (and the evidence). as many times as he's attempted to hurt or kill the doctor, he has also tried to convince the doctor to stand beside him. he can't control what's happened to the doctor, this time.

overall, besides the betrayal and confusion, i think there's questions that bother the master: "is the doctor better than me? greater than me? why would the doctor ever stand beside me, if i'm nothing without her? how can i prove that i am great and powerful? how will i ever have mastery over her now?"

the answer has always been, the doctor loves you, idiot. they love your stupid plots and fixing them, and working together on something like it's an old project with no stakes at all.

looking back at s12, i'm amazed at how angry thirteen has been towards him. it's not a game, she isn't amused, she isn't playing along, and she isn't desperate to change the master. she doesn't want to stand with him in any way. this is the first time we really see this reaction, the lack of pity and the desire to destroy them both.

the doctor watched missy say, standing with you is all i ever wanted, but i can't, and turn and walk away. she left twelve to die, and even though we see her kill simm!master and admit that she's going to save the day, she doesn't. and in the end, was that truly kindness? is it really a change of heart, to literally kill the person you were and rush in to save the day at the last minute (as she no doubt imagined). while it would be glorious, it isn't what the doctor wanted. it wasn't kind or right, it was selfish. she wanted to surprise the doctor and see him realize she'd changed.

in her final moments, perhaps missy realized what the doctor was saying. she had tried to destroy something bad, to literally cause her own "birth." in the process she said would stand with him, and for that, she was killed. she died standing with the doctor, without witness, without reward.

the incarnation of the master that was born in the ashes is angry down to his bones, and maybe that's why. he finally experienced the injustice that it is to be the doctor.

(tl;dr: just listen to "No Good Deed" from the Wicked Original Cast Recording.)

[isagrimorie]

“Doesn’t she know by now that once you’re in a crisis, the safest place to be is generally - right next to the Doctor.”

If we think about it, does the Doctor believe that? Especially after what happened to Bill Potts? 

In Lie of the Land Twelve told Bill he wanted Bill Potts beside him because it’s the safest place to be, and yet.

On World Enough and Time, it wasn’t the safest place to be. In fact the whole first act of the episode, Twelve spent a majority of time trying to convince Bill to give Missy a chance, pushing past all of Bill’s better judgment about Missy and the adventure they’re about to embark on.

And then the next moment, they end up on a colony ship about to be consumed by a black hole and a blue guy so terrified, he tries to kill any Human he comes across.

Twelve tries his best to distract the blue guy, right up to boasting to the blue dude: “You don't know it yet, but in a short time, you will trust me with your life. And when I save you and everyone on your ship, one day you will look back, and wonder who I was and why I did--”

But something startled the blue guy and on instinct, squeezed the trigger.

The Doctor was right there in the room when Bill was shot. All of the Doctor’s boasting and claims did nothing to protect Bill. All he could do was watch helplessly as Bill fell to the floor with a big hole on her chest.

The Doctor promised Bill she was safest with him, the Doctor promised Bill she won’t get her killed.

The Doctor promised Bill, she could come back from being a Cyberman.

The Doctor failed in each of his promises to Bill Potts.

Fast forward to the Doctor as Thirteen now, trying to do better and right by the team, especially once they’ve joined her. She tries to honor their agency and what they want, and to her credit she did try with the flat team structure and for the most part she’s succesful.

The Doctor brought the team to adventures where the risks are all calculated not to bring them any major trauma, the only adventures  barring Haunting of Villa Diodati that brought them trauma are mostly adventures she didn’t plan -- Spyfall, Orphan 55, Can You Hear Me?.

She’s tried very hard to honor their agency, and she clearly didn’t want them to be in a cyber warzone with her, nor was she happy that they were there but they wanted to be there.

I don’t think the team really got it, I think they think they understood the dangers even as Thirteen explained the Cybermen to them but knowing something is different from experiencing the utter terror and fear the Cybermen can induce.  

The Doctor did act out of sorts and reacted badly at the team pointing out the things that didn’t work, not once but three times... which to be honest I get. This was something she could have prevented but chose to keep the past and the universe in tact by keeping Earth safe in 1816.

But she’s seeing failure of her efforts right before her

at that moment, it felt like the team were rubbing salt into fresh wounds and just reinforced her first instinct to leave the team in 2020 despite what the team wanted.

So she lashed out because she needed them safe and away from her because to her mind the safest place to be in the middle of a cyber war zone is not with her.  Because the last time that happened, the last time someone believed and trusted her in this situation, Bill Potts died. 

I really wonder about this - by now I think we can call it - toxic dynamic between the Doctor and her companions.

It really looks like the Doctor resents them for not stepping up, for responding to her like most people do - letting her take charge, letting her come up with the plans, letting her make the decisions. When they point out the obvious - that her plan has failed, that they have nothing to protect themselves with - they are not just pointing it out - they're laying those facts at her feet to fix. That's the dynamic they've shaped together. In that first episode, to be able to do her thing, she needed for them to go along with her, to trust her, to do what she said. The only one who acted on her own was Grace - and she died as a consequence. And she's continued this way - handing out assignments at most, disapproving of initiative at the very least, denying them information and access to decision-making. She resents them for behaviour she's conditioned in them, for not pushing back enough. But she doesn't give them much of a chance. She believes they can't understand her - they can prop her up when she needs some emotional support - but they cannot take her burdens from her. She resents it, and she lashes out at them over it.

Between the loss of Bill (who she could have saved if she'd simply wiped her memory) and Grace (who was too much like a real companion - full of enthusiasm and vigour and courage), it absolutely seems like this has the Doctor caught between two impulses.

On the one hand, she is ridiculously reckless with them - I'm sure that them simply being with her counts as reckless by this point in her head (and she's right: she brought them into a CYBERWAR), and she knows warning them was the absolute LEAST she could have done. She outright forgets about their safety repeatedly (Yaz in the back of the ship, all three in a crashing plane), and doesn't dwell on it any longer than she has to (moves onto the mystery of the Kasavin dimension immediately), nor shows much distress over the possibility of losing one of them (Ryan almost getting mauled by the Dregs). It's like she just doesn't want to think about it.

On the other hand, she's so careful with them. she will send them on little missions, set them on little tasks - she monitors them - has them wear communicators - scans buildings for danger before they enter them. She tells them to get behind her, behind her - in the moment - she puts her very body between the threat and her friends - the bomb and her friends - shoos everybody into the TARDIS before her when they're being chased. She tries to draw the fire - act as bait. She sends (or attempts to send) them away from her when things get too dangerous. Sometimes she succeeds, sometimes she doesn't.

Which is indicative of three warring forces again: her desire to have them safe, her desire to have them with her, her poor attempt at not taking their agency away.

But when she sends them away - why is that? Really? Because then they can't see what she does to her enemies? (S11?) Because then she doesn't have to think about them and what danger she's put them in? (S12?) Because she knows taking them with her has been one drawn-out fuckup and she lives in a constant disassociated state of fear and guilt?

Doesn't she know by now that once you're in a crisis, the safest place to be is generally - right next to the Doctor. Especially with her out of sight out of mind attitude....

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

The Doctor Who Companion Wishes You A Very Merry Christmas!

The #DoctorWho Companion Wishes You A Very Merry Christmas!

Everyone at the Doctor Who Companion wishes you, our dear readers, a very Merry Christmas, and, as is customary, a Happy New Year – although of course we’ve got a whole week’s worth of content coming up before 2020 dawns and Spyfall, the first episode of Doctor Who Series 12, hits our screens.

Sadly, there’s no Christmas Day special, but we don’t have too long to wait until a whole new run of…