#but we DO HAVE TECTEUN

[bearinabandana]

No but resurrecting this post because I can't seem to forget this thing my friend said. Sometimes I'm watching fanvids and reading stuff about dw and I trained myself to watch and read this stuff as a person who doesn't know doctor who. Someone who vaguely knows doctor who. And I don't mean it in the doctor who British osmosis way, I mean someone who heard someone else talking about it once or twice. Someone who thinks doctor who is about a bunch of numbered scientists doing science

And I can't lie, I'm getting more and more compelled to make an AU for Doctor Who By The Eyes Of The Passerby

I love how people who never watched Doctor Who and don't know what it's about generally think the doctors are different people because we're always refering to them in numbers. They think it's like The Umbrella Academy or. idk. Stranger Things

I was talking to my friend once about the Doctor's species and she was like "oh they're aliens? I thought they were just a bunch of scientists doing science"

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

only good thing abt the vous situation is that it lets me experience tecteun calling 13 the child that im 100% convinced she actually would bc shes the only one who uses tu for her

[intuitive-revelations]

Random headcanon I came up with early this morning, because I’ve been thinking about Gallifreyan language recently:

The reason why so many Time Lord things are decorated with circular Gallifreyan, often too impractically to actually be read (eg. on the Moment), is because it’s a cultural touchstone that remains from pre-/early-Pythian Gallifrey’s use of magical runes and sigils.

Presumably it was more typically Old High Gallifreyan used in that time (though The Timeless Children does seemingly confirm circular Gallifreyan existed at least as far back as Rassilon's time, if not earlier), however. Twelve describes it as ‘the language of the Pythia’ in The Lost Magic, and as Eleven says in The Time of Angels:

ELEVEN: There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods.

This is obviously very reminescent of the Carrionites' (themselves from the Dark Times too) "word-based science" from The Shakespeare Code:

MARTHA: What did you do? TEN: I named her. The power of a name. That's old magic. MARTHA: But there's no such thing as magic. TEN: Well, it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. Carrionites use words instead.

In other words, while they probably weren't actually intended as such and may have their own specific meaning, whether they be poetry, namesakes, histories, instructions, whatever... these are basically protective wards:

[ID: Five screenshots of Circular Gallifreyan in New Who.

1. Rassilon's Inner High Council meeting in The End of Time Part 2. The table and headrests are inscribed with circular Gallifreyan.

2. The Moment in Day of the Doctor. Gallifreyan writing bends round the edges of the wooden frame.

3. The 'whirligig' rotar in Eleven's second TARDIS, inscribed with individual Gallifreyan symbols.

4. Set photo of the glowing Gallifreyan writing on the steps of Thirteen's TARDIS.

5. Tecteun's laboratory in The Timeless Children. Circular Gallifreyan lines the light above her, and a door in the background.]

As a side note - if they actually are kind-of intended as a form of protection, perhaps this is why we were only introduced to Circular Gallifreyan in New Who, despite it seemingly existing through Gallifreyan history. Because it was retroactively inserted into Gallifreyan culture as a form of defense during the War in Heaven / Last Great Time War?

Regardless, this also opens up questions how many other Time Lord traditions are holdovers from the Dark Times.

For example, who's to say that the renegade naming tradition didn't begin as a form of protection from hexes - either from hostile forces in the pre-anchoring universe, or from oppressive magic-users back on the homeworld? This may also be connected to the change in Gallifreyan name format before and after the Intuitive Revelation (eg. ancestral -sti and -sor names), though shifting power structures, gender roles etc. presumably played a role too.

Heck, is this one reason why Gallifrey's own name has changed over its history? From Jewel to Gallifrey in Rassilon's time to try and protect it from vengeful Pythian curses. From Gallifrey to just 'the Homeworld' in the War to protect it from new rituals of alternative histories and paradox?

[spirantization]

"Wild Blue Yonder" dealt with some of the emotional fallout of the Flux, so I want to rewind a bit and look at what that means for the Doctor.

I know that the Timeless Child and the Flux are contentious topics. I'm not here to argue either way. But now those storylines have decisively not been retconned, and with both of these fresh in my memory, I feel the need to offer some context for anyone who may not have seen it, and to recontextualize it for myself and anyone who has.

NotDonna: You don't know where you're from. The Doctor: How do you know that? How does anyone know? How does Donna know?

In "The Timeless Children", we find out that the Doctor was discovered as a child alone under a wormhole, and adopted by a woman named Tecteun. There was an accident where the Doctor fell from a cliff and regenerated, and subsequently Tecteun performed "experiments" on them to try to understand regeneration. The show minces words about this but she killed a child a whole bunch of times is what happened. Her experiments created the Time Lords and allow them to engineer their regeneration properties. The Doctor has no memory of any of this, and only finds out via the Master and information stored in the Time Lord Matrix.

The Doctor, predictably, doesn't tell anyone about this revelation. She makes a speech to the Master about how this makes her more, we get a single shot of her looking a bit tired in the TARDIS, then she immediately gets thrown in prison.

Ultimately, the Doctor doesn't know where they're from or who their parents are. And the very fact that they're not from Gallifrey is information that no one in the universe should have. Everyone who knew is now dead.

NotDonna: I saw it in your head. The Flux. The Doctor: It destroyed half the universe because of me. We stand here now, on the edge of creation, a creation which I devastated, so yes I keep running, of course I do! How am I supposed to look back on that? NotDonna: It wasn't your fault! The Doctor: I know!

A fun fact about the Flux is that the Doctor did not cause it. So why does he blame himself? Because the person who caused the Flux was Tecteun.

The reason why Tecteun wanted to destroy the universe is because the Doctor interfered with things too much. Too much morality. Too inspirational to people. She calls them a virus. So her solution to the problem of the Doctor is to destroy the universe, with the Doctor inside, and take her ship to a different universe to start fresh. She also was the one to steal all the Doctor's memories of previous lives in the first place. She's dismissive and patronizing and clearly does not care about the Doctor on an emotional level at all. Tecteun is a piece of work, and the implications of her actions and how they've shaped the Doctor have the potential to go deep.

Thirteen doesn't get too much of a chance to react to any of this, because there is plot going on. And shortly after they reunite, Tecteun gets killed by a different villain. So there was no emotional closure in the moment, and there's now no possibility for the Doctor to make sense of her actions. The Doctor does not tell any of her friends about any of these events. She keeps promising to tell Yaz but does not.

"Wild Blue Yonder" is the first time we, as the audience, hear the Doctor discuss the Flux. And their perception of events is skewed at best. The Flux wasn't caused because the Doctor made a mistake and a lot of people were killed, which is what you can argue for many other situations. The Flux and the devastation of the universe was caused by their mother, who promptly turned around and told them it was their fault for being such an interfering nuisance. We know that the Doctor is often an unreliable narrator, but this is beyond that. These are the words of an abused child who has internalized the narrative that the abuse was their fault.

So the Doctor being able to talk about this with Donna, who has seen what happened, who knows him, and tells him that it's not his fault — it means so much to him. He wants it to be her so badly. And then NotDonna laughs in his face. You can see the devastation. He thinks for one moment that he can finally talk about this with his best friend, and it's snatched away from him. He gives himself a moment to break down in the corridor, and then you can see the walls rebuilding as he suppresses it all again.

At the very end of the episode, back in the TARDIS, he's trying very very hard to be nonchalant. I'm curious. The NotDonna could remember all these things that happened to me while we were apart. Can you? Just wondering. Things happened, but I'll be fine. In a million years. It's not a joke.

He wants so badly to be able to talk about this. You can see it in all the lines of his body language. He's keeping himself together but is prepared to fall apart in an instant. He doesn't want to actually tell anyone, but if Donna just magically knew already, and could tell him it wasn't his fault — well, that would make the world of difference. But she doesn't know, and he can't bring himself to tell her. And so the cycle continues.

[omegas-reincarnation]

I'm sorry but I'm going to talk more about survival.

Ace asks the Doctor why the Master tries to destroy people and the Doctor replies "malice".

Unsatisfied, Ace says "there must be more to it than that",

-and the Doctor amends his answer to "survival." The Master believes one day the Doctor will destroy him, and wishes to destroy the Doctor first. (The Doctor is evasive about whether the Master is right to fear him like this, saying "I suppose one day we might cancel each other out.")

Shortly after this, the Master makes a speech echoing the fascist ideas that the weak must be destroyed to allow the strong to survive that several of the human characters have been lured in by all episode.

There is so much to unpack there. We can talk about the uncomfortableness of Dhawan Master dressing up as a nazi and Simm Master joking about a 'master race' and enslaving Martha's family as a problem of new who not understanding what crosses the line from fantasy villainy into real-world horror that's hard to forgive, but survival is unambiguous:

The Master aligns himself with a facist worldview. And I think that's important, because that's what Rassilon and Tecteun do too. I think it matters that the Master's rebellion against the time lord high command eventually leads him right back to them. I think it's important that his desire to dominate drags him down into a belief in his right to dominate because that's what happens in real life. It is impossible to desire power over others neutrally. There is always a moment when you have to relinquish that desire for power or be changed by it. There is no third option.

[master-missysversion]

These are just some of my favourites, honestly it was hard to choose

Full quotes under the cut

"Then it was a mercy killing" "I don't see in mercy in you"

"You cannot build an ionic membrane from scratch" "if I had crayons and half a can of spam, I could build you from scratch!"

"They'll be writing operas about our pointless deaths if we don't take drastic action right now!"

"And what are you Queen of, exactly? A stolen ship and second-hand guns? A Queen of shreds and patches. You're not a ruler, you're a parasite."

"In my time, Gallifrey doesn't exist. It's gone. Forever. And if you don't know that, you're in my past. So, you are only serving at the glory of ash and bone."

"Ryan, I've lived for thousands of years. So long I've lost count. I've had so many faces. How long have you been here? You don't know me. Not even a little bit."

"You want to call it? Do it now. All of you. (silence) Yeah. Cos sometimes this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit in the stratosphere, alone, left to choose. Save the poet, save the universe. Watch people burn now or tomorrow."

"It is the Doctor! The Doctor is an enemy of the Daleks!" "Yes, it is. And, yes, I am. I called you here and you came, like obedient little pets"

"As hard as it is for you to understand, this isn't about you. This is about Daleks."

"For your guilt you mean. Sometimes men like you make me wonder why I bother with humanity."

That conversation is too long to copy here but feel free to refresh your memory here (ctrl + f the word 'beneath' to skip to their conversation)

"Yes, people have written songs about her" "They'll be writing operas about our pointless deaths if we don't take drastic action right now!"

[ace-whovian-neuroscientist]

why do these old gods even have a fixation on the doctor? sure, the doctor goes around and saves the universe all the time but it’s always at a personal scale. nothing on the order of gods of foundations of the universe itself

unless the doctor isn’t just some guy.

we already know that the timeless child is still canon in rtd2 and it’s been referenced a lot for a show that seems to be wanting a fresh start. no one knows where the doctor came from before tecteun.

we might be finding out how the doctor, a being previously unlike any other in the main scope of the universe, came to be a lost child with no memories of how they got there.

the doctor has been running for so long, but they could have been running for much longer than we thought. and death has been waiting for a long time

[j-femmescoli]

some things re: ruby i've been thinking about

we have an entire episode in s1 (2005) about how someone cannot touch their past self or bad things happen so how could the woman who left her at the church be an older her

unless she's not entirely human? and maybe the rules are different about different species? idk

the doctor has mentioned their own children / family multiple times in just these six episodes -- telling ruby about susan in the devil's chord, repeatedly saying "dad to dad" to the anglican in boom, etc.

ruby and the doctor's stories mirror each other when it comes to their childhoods, abandoned and adopted. but in flux when the doctor confronts tecteun they say "what if i wasn't abandoned, what if someone was waiting to come pick me up." what if there's more to the doctor's story, the doctor's race, the doctor's home that we do not know about. what if it has to do with ruby.

if the woman who left ruby at the church is an older her, we still don't know who she is or where she comes from

i don't believe it at all but whenever i see the woman who leaves ruby on the church i can't get it out of my head that it looks so so so much like jodie 😭

that's all. for now

[synthient]

If we look at the little irish cop-boy metaphor vs the "real" events--Tecteun's narrative vs the Master's narrative--then the one big divergence is "the Doctor was murdered in cold blood, by a petty criminal, while they were both adults," vs "they were children, they were playing, it was an accident." And they both have reason to be unreliable narrators. And it might have been somewhere in the middle (whatever petty crime the Master was doing was a "game" that spun out of control?). But the Master's implied perspective seems to be "your mom blamed me for your first death, and she turned both of us back into children to give us a 'second chance' or make me atone for it. They took your life away because your were the Special Chosen One, and they took my life away so the Special Chosen One could be comforted by their favorite childhood toy"

[companion-showdown]

Nominations are now open: Which villain would make the best companion?

This tournament is intended to be smaller than usual, so I may be aa little stricter about who qualifies (at least when i'm familiar with the character, which means the EU nominees are going to end up with a lot more leeway)

as some starting rules

You can only nominate actual villains, they must actually be evil, not just dislike/be disliked by the Doctor

They must be an individual (or possibly a small group of individuals), eg you cannot nominate 'a dalek' it must be a specific dalek or daleks you can point to and say that/those ones

No companions, I don't care if they were evil when they met the Doctor or became evil later or were evil the entire time, they cannot already be or have ever been a companion

If there are multiple versions of the same villain (eg because they can regenerate), they will only be included once, either as generically as can be acheived, or a specific one will be chosen through a group stage

If they don't have a name (or you can't remember it) I will do my best to figure it out but try to give me as much context as you can and bare in mind im not psychic

Please bare in mind when you are nominating that I am hoping to keep the number of nominations under 64 to run this as a mini-tournament. This is not a hard rule so if nominations do exceed 64 its not a big deal, just something I'd like everyone to bare in mind (we have now broken 64 so full sized tournament it is

Nominees

The Master (this counts for any and all versions of the Master, a specific one will be chosen during the group stage, I'm preempting their nomination because duh)

Dalek Caan

Angel Bob

Morbius

Beep the Meep

Family of Blood

Meddling Monk

Salamander

Nobody No-One

Scaroth

Madeleine Issigri

JP Kettlewell

Sharaz Jek

Morgaine

Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen

Cassandra

Bonnie (Clara!Zygon)

Davros

The Rani

The Binary Apprentice

the Scream

Timewyrm

Sabbath Dei

Death

Time

Black Guardian

Braxiatel

Aphasia

Luke Rattigan

The UK government

Auton!Boris Johnson

The Statue of Liberty

President Arthur Winters

Dream Lord

The Axos

Sartia

Valeyard

Great Intelligence

House

Not Donna

Captain Wrack

Pirate Sea Devil

Tecteun

The Dalek that offered the doctor tea in Victory of the Daleks

Plastic!Mickey

John Lumic

Miss Foster

Prisoner Zero

Karabraxos

Cessair of Diplos

Andred

Miss Hartigan

Kro'ka

Mr Finch

The Headhunter

Swarm and Azure

Ashad

Lilith

Reverend Golightly

Mr Clever

Toymaker

Justine

Rassilon

Lolita

Eckersley

Soldeed

Pandora

nominations will be open for at least the next 24 hours, that is until 14:00 BST (GMT/UTC+1), 10/04

after that there is no guarantee

[rowanthestrange]

Genuinely though, who could Mrs Flood actually be? “Always hiding myself away” is definitely a relevant line.

What do we know: She can see the cameras. While hiding she still has her memories and can recognise a TARDIS. She is keeping around the Sundays. Is first seen after Ruby gets off a bus. Asks “Isn’t it your birthday, love?” to Ruby but doesn’t wish her a happy one. She is trusted enough to keep an eye on Cherry. She has arguments with the neighbour even when she knows the problem isn’t his fault. Fit - runs. Sat outside her house with blanket on lap, watching the TARDIS - not waiting for the Doctor to come out but Ruby to go in and leaves as soon as she does. Is secretly holding something in her hand and this is the best glimpse:

Looks like a notebook with those metal-edge things perhaps? It’s hidden in the blanket the rest of the time, this is the only shot of it I can see. She puts it down along with the blanket. (Trainspotter?)

She is given an absolutely banger theme.

However she is not particularly nice and sweet to Cherry, who when saying she wants a cup of tea is told “well we don’t always get what we want”. Didn’t say please admittedly. Cherry is supposed to take tablets which just the mention thereof seems concerning. She is aware what is going on with Sutekh and status as The One Who Waits. Refers to them as a storm ala the Doctor. But isn’t interfering just watching.

Instinctively with all that fourth wall breaking, you do kind of have to jump to Iris Wildthyme. Who has been sketchy before admittedly, though the vibes seem a little riskier here, and she’s not much of a planner - like the Doctor just bimbling around in her smaller on the inside bus, usually off her tits. We have seen the bus around and they’re still using one for their promos and at the release events.

But what alternatives are there? The Master is very accounted for (and can’t imagine her even claiming to do fun runs) but Missy energy is ok. The Rani is opposite vibes (if you’ve not seen Classic Who, Tecteun but the Doctor’s schoolmate instead of mother). Romana is definitely more on the regal end and Mrs Flood feels scrappy. River isn’t being a dick to an old woman. Nor Susan. None of the classic/audio Time Lords feel fitting. None of the Higher Powers like Omega or Rassilon. Clara can’t regenerate and while bitch (affectionate) feel like an old woman who’s relying on her is at worst getting ignored, though is closest vibe wise and with the collar, but crucially is technically-dead-but-moving and wasn’t given regenerations.

Genuinely who else even feels vaguely like they fit the bill? I feel like I can’t even differential diagnose her.

If she’s unknown Pantheon, why would she even need to hide?

[exuberantocean]

Last night I was watching some of 13's run (fanfic research purposes) and thinking about the sheer amount of abuse it is implied the Doctor went through as the Timeless Child. And what struck me is that there really is such an implication of loss of power and agency and yet I think the Doctor sees themselves as having a much more active role. Like, it's clear they're more than a little scared of what they would find themselves to be if they opened that fob watch - especially given they're role in Division.

And yet all I see is coercion and resistance. The Doctor clearly attempted to flee at least once, probably much more than once given the existential of the Fugitive Doctor. Tacteun makes snide remarks about the Doctor's morality getting in the way, which I give you could just refer to their post Division days, but I really don't think it does. And finally, the Timeless Child was tortured for decades by Tecteun. How many times did they regenerate in Tecteun's lab? She killed them, again and again, just to see how regeneration worked. Literally hurt and murdered a child multiple times. They had no choice but to join Division when Tecteun decided they would.

But, you know, assuming more agency than you have, more power, more fault, is not uncommon in victims of abuse. There is a warped comfort in it, because it is so deeply disturbing to acknowledge you don't. I gives a weird sense of safety to think that it was your fault it happened so you can control the abuse in some way.

This is especially true with child abuse. Blaming the caregiver that is abusing you, undercuts the idea that they can provide for you and keep you safe and since you needs them to do that as child aren't yet capable, it's common to shift the blame to yourself. If course people are complex and much like the Doctor, most people end with complex and contradictory views iof their abusers - blaming both them and themselves.

Moreover, since the Doctor was found by Tecteun, she also has a "your not my real mother" moment where she imagines that maybe, maybe Tecteun stole her from her real mom/parents, stole her from a much different, much better life. She has no way of knowing if she had loving parents on the other side of the wormhole or if they would have been capable of retrieving her if she did.

And yet, just a short time later, the Doctor relates to Ruby, I was abandoned. I was adopted. They really have no way of knowing what happened to them at that age. The news is still new. It's unstabilizing to their sense of self at a deep level (which is part of why I think 14 regenerated into a familiar face - how often do we seek the familiar and comforting when faced with these little earthquakes?). And so they have an unstable self-narrative of their origin. That makes sense, their very understanding of who they are has been deeply fractured. They are, of course, the Doctor. We know them, but they don't know themself.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

babe you gotta do something abt the big wet kitten eyes. youre aiming for menacing with the words i get that but it just doesnt quite have the effect youre going for with the big wet kitten eyes

[thenugking]

that was just--we started off from a point of "going insane over an actor's name for the past several weeks," and I've been swinging back and forth between "it's just her name, she's a real person, it doesn't mean anything" and "rtd absolutely knows what he's doing here though" but look as much as I wanted Susan I didn't want to get my hopes up too high. I thought we might be getting the Trickster, possibly the Guardians, but more likely a new generic villain I had no reason to care about.

And then they IMMEDIATELY have the character be called Susan too?? And bring up the annagram of TARDIS?? And I'm sitting here going "Susan named the TARDIS, is this a reference, are they actually doing a reference????" and then they straight up NAMEDROPPED HER and brought up the possibility themselves and I had my mouth hanging open through the titles.

And look I got that it probably wasn't actually Susan! And I was vaguely worried that if it was, they'd make things I didn't want Decisively Canon. And then the doctor's talking about how Susan was his granddaughter but that didn't mean he'd had her parent which??? Are we making Lungbarrow TV canon here??? And I know showrunners love to disagree, but the Doctor metioned being a dad in russell's first run, in both Fear Her and the Doctor's Daughter, so.... was that about Miranda?? Is Miranda also TV canon??

And THEN we get to the end and the TARDIS has something evil going on with it--is it Zagreus? Is it anti-time?? Why is this theme music so similar to the Master's Sound of Drums theme, it can't be the Master, can it?? I'd almost decided it was the trickster (I was getting Vibes from ruby's bio mum) but then he gets namedropped, and then the Mara gets namedropped and then?? The Other gets namedropped????

I got it at Set. Literally went "is this Sutekh??" outloud. Spent the final few minutes laughing. Did anyone call this??? "What if it's Susan/the Rani/the Master/the Trickster/the Toymaker/River/Tecteun/Rogue/Roger ap Gwilliam/Iris/Omega/the fucking Carnival Queen?" Nope it's fucking Sutekh apparently. He's back now.

I hope Ruby's bio mum turns out to be the person crouched behind his throne and holding it steady. what the fuck.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

Okay three people (@manesetgalaxies @back-in-the-rabbit-hole and @hisuian-history-makers Thank you all) gave me permission to ramble about the Timeless Child plotline so here is an undrafted rant about it

Personally, I do not hate it like others tend to, for a start. Yes, of course, when the doctor was simply a mad-man, below-average timelord with a broken blue box, they were more of an under dog, but doesn't it mean more for their species if they were spawned from them?

The fall of Gallifrey and, with it, the fall of the Time Lords. Heartbreaking when the Doctor could have saved them, but more so when they, inadvertently, of course, caused all the pain. Without the Doctor there would be no Time Lords, no Time War and no 2.7 billion children facing their deaths. At least, not on Gallifrey that day.

To consider what it means not just to the Doctor but to the Master. He fell witness to this tale and in response committed undeniable genocide. All because the Doctor was right. They were better than him, even as children, chasing through the streets of Gallifrey.

Fewer questions answered than posed, perhaps, I will give them that. Just how many lifetimes had Tecteun robbed them of? How many friends and companions forgotten?

Though it undoubtedly makes the Forced Regeneration plotline more meaningful, afterall, isn't that just what Tecteun put them through? Thousands, perhaps millions of times? The Master, in full knowledge of this fact, chose this honoured punishment for maximum heartache, I suppose.

I, personally, think it was important that the Doctor be known as more than a Time Lord or an enemy or an ally. Over four billion years they've lived, I think it's worth being the first of something. The first and greatest Time Lord. The best kept secret.

Regardless, we can either spend another sixty years with the same daleks and cybermen and weeping angels, or we can enjoy the show as it develops for itself.

Simple proof that in all time and space, the Doctor lives, somewhere.

I enjoy the Timeless Child plotline because I think it represents all the opportunity in the universe. All that's left for the Doctor to pursue.

And anyway, no one wanted them to stop after 12 lives so don't kid yourselves.

[heavenb3nt]

This song is about doctor who and HERE’S WHY‼️

“Don’t cry for your daughters eve” (the song) is very koschei and theta coded. Not necessarily their relationship (though that comes into everything, they are permanently intertwined whether they like it or not) but how the time lords used both of them, it’s way easier to see with theta, what with the timeless child arc.

They are the reason the time lords have the ability to regenerate, they, unwillingly and as a product of abuse, have them life. And how do they repay them? Exile. Treating them like shit over and over again, deeming them a failure and disappointment, all of the high ups on gallifrey berating them at any given opportunity (though, as we see in hell bent, they do have the support of plenty of the less wealthy and influential of gallifey. Definitely something to be said there) they are the unwilling creator of gallifreyan society (definitely not their fault, tectuen made all the choices and is responsible for doing this, but she fucked off and now dealing with the aftermath falls to the doctor, as if always does) don’t cry for your daughters? Don’t cry for gallifey

I could go through the whole song but I’m writing this while procrastinating so take a few things I want to note:

“Punished for another's mess // So you'll take the fall” tectuen made all the choices but the consequences are now the doctor’s to deal with

“Easy to lay the blame onto her alter as mother dies // And dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and // Dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and dies” If you don’t see the parallel I encourage you to think abt the timeless children for like a second. They, again unwillingly, died so the time lords could benefit, and they do nothing but blame them relentlessly.

The doctor is eve of gallifey and it sucks for everyone! The common people of gallifrey aren’t enjoying this either, sure they have regeneration but their society is ran entirely by the most corrupt and incompetent people the planet has to offer

OKAY ABOUT THE MASTER NOW.

So I would say for a start the song can be seen as like the master speaking to the doctor in many lines:

“I was frozen couldn't move from my seat // You think you'd be a saviour but can't do as you preach // Eve I'm sorry you must take the fall for their shame // I'd help you but I risk taking your place” like. Gestures. His reaction to ttc information -> anger at everyone involved -> realisation -> acknowledgment he’s benefited from her suffering

However‼️ I also think the song reflects the time lords treatment of koschei himself [hbomberguy voice] and here’s why.

The end of time was 2010. We knew about the time lords abuse of the master before we heard about ttc.

(People love to forget this when going “the time lords wouldn’t do that..��� girl child abuse is their hobby)

Rassilon sent the signal of the drumbeat back in time to just, sit there and torture them for like a thousand years until it was needed, now the plan failed, which so did tecteuns, I doubt she wanted gallifrey burnt (if she cared). But ignoring that, the master was driven insane for the sake of the time lords salvation, a thousand years into the future. He was also treated horrendously on gallifrey, he also ran away. He says his childhood was a life of duty. Not the words of someone who had a pretty okay time actually.

Going through some lyrics time.

“The court is gathered //Judge sits low // But round the room // The jury know // Gods not gonna help you now my girl” (also applies to the doctor. You guys remember trail of a time lord??) anyone remember rassilons council literally planning this? Like, we SAW rassilon decide to put the signal in the masters head. And no one was gonna object. He was condemned to madness by a group who didn’t know him, didn’t care, only had their self interest in mind.

“Legions of daughters those that you fought for happily curse your name now” the war master existed. And although he wasn’t selfless by ANY means, he didn’t want the time lords to lose (i actually haven’t listened to the audios yet I’ll make a correction if necessary <3) and although no fighting was involved, he did carry their salvation (the drumbeat) his entire life, he went day to day with rassilons “ultimate sanction” in his HEAD. And all they got was called insane, not only did the council explicitly say he was insane, in classic he’s been condemned by the time lords, and in EU he was PUT IN AN ASYLUM. ON GALLIFREY. Following his attempts to kill rassilon after the end of time. They don’t just put him in prison or kill him or exile him, they deliberately reinforce that he’s mad, which THEY CAUSED.

“Villainize victims slave to a system collecting kindling for our kin” they are a victim of gallifrey, overtly and undeniably. That is definitely not to excuse their actions nor are they more so a victim than the doctor, it’s incomparable, but they definitely suffered intense cruelty from the time lords at like every turn. They are villain (and it’s COOL) but the time lords had a hand in creating him that way, he also brought their propaganda in a way the doctor didn’t, he does follow some of their beliefs, he looks down on humans and thinks he’s better by virtue of his species.

They spent their whole life up until escaping the asylum (saxon regeneration) which was, according to one account, their 18th regeneration. They definitely were a slave to the system, and they helped their torturers, they HELPED the time lords they tried to save them even if it was for selfish reasons, and they got fuck all for it.

TLDR: Time lords love exploitation and history revisionism to a degree that feels religious in nature. Gallifrey is an exercise in one big generational trauma rooted in child abuse and colonialism, the doctor their creator and discarded and the master their salvation and discarded. Neither of them should cry for gallifrey nor the time lords, despite the fact that regular gallifreyans ALSO suffered because of these decisions, theta and koschei have been both eve and the daughters

ALSO LISTEN TO THE SONG