#gallifrey brain as always

[magicofthepen]

I posted 1,161 times in 2022

71 posts created (6%)

1,090 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sircarolyn

@natequarter

@whifferdills

@magicofthepen

@presidentromana

I tagged 1,161 of my posts in 2022

#q. - 366 posts

#general - 281 posts

#gallifrey audios - 249 posts

#doctor who - 202 posts

#romana - 104 posts

#star wars - 104 posts

#gallifrey spoilers - 96 posts

#leela - 91 posts

#the locked tomb - 91 posts

#steven universe - 83 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#because that’s gonna make the reunion — because a reunion between leela and narvin at least feels pretty inevitable — hit that much harder)

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

War Room 1 Thoughts

My first listen, immediate reactions and emotions and ramblings below the cut. (There are. a lot of ramblings.) Spoiler free summary is that I enjoyed the boxset overall—I really liked a majority of the episodes, and I loved two of them. And even the one I was meh about, I didn’t dislike, it just felt like the weak link of the boxset. 

THE LAST DAYS OF FREME

I listened to the preview the other day, so see this post for my initial thoughts on the first 15 minutes.

(….and whoops I have more thoughts on the first 15 minutes.)

I love how Leela is resisting the Time Lords in such a visceral, physical way at the beginning. While she isn’t as fearless as she wants them to believe, she’s far more willing to fight back when it’s her own life (or well-being) being threatened. And she has been through so much, it feels like it’s all coming out in one drawn out scream as the Time Lords try to control her. 

But then: I do think Rassilon invoking Romana (even if he’s claiming she’s dead) is a way to subtextually dangle her over Leela’s head.

I do like quite like the new theme! The mood of it is so different from Time War despite not sounding that dramatically different (if that makes sense??)—but the energy it has feels right for this boxset. Time War was a plunge further and further into despair, and at last there are glimmers of hope. (….whether that hope will last is another question though.)

“Do I have a choice?” god this line is so raw. Leela’s choices have been taken away from her so much. 

Lou Morgan Gets Leela so well, please let her keep writing Gallifrey. (This is going to be a running theme here.) Anger is her default way of dealing with grief, she’s drowning in grief and rage throughout the story, it’s so devastatingly good.

I thought it was in shame in Time War 4 that Richard Armitage’s Rassilon spent most of the time monologuing—I’m glad a main character gets to properly interact with him here. I’m even more glad about the amount of times Leela threatens to kill him. Extremely in character. I would have been disappointed if that didn’t happen.  

And there’s a��“coming full circle” horror with Leela and Rassilon. He violated Leela’s autonomy the first time they met by shoving himself into her mind and possessing her. And now he’s violating her autonomy again, dehumanizing her and trying to make her a tool of the Time Lords, having a literal collar placed around her neck to restrict what she can do.

“You are a ghost.” The Matrix projection of Ollistra’s earlier incarnation is a bit reminiscent of Pandora—a ghost from the Matrix rising again in a body that should be gone. That parallel makes Leela’s horror at Ollistra’s nature make even more sense.

“since Romana’s imprisonment in the Vault dimension” The General does know what really happened to Romana. Interesting, since Rassilon speaks as though she’d dead, in public and in private. 

“She is a blunt instrument. A tool. Nothing more complicated than that.” oh this episode is going hard on Leela being dehumanized. 

In Time War 2, it took until Episode 3 to have the Time Lords wipe out a planet, and that was the worst thing they’d done, an inconceivable atrocity. And now that’s the baseline. That’s what they’re starting Leela out with. It really drives home how much worse the War has gotten, how the Time Lords don’t blink at atrocities, and I love that this boxset didn’t shy away from going there immediately.

“Would the Oubliette not be more practical?” Confirmation that it’s officially returned. Although it’s odd that they assume the Daleks will know if they Oubliette the planet, but not if they destroy it through other means? 

The General shows flickers of compassion to Leela, but also clearly has Rassilon’s ear. He’s a fascinating character—he comes off a sympathetic in comparison to other Time Lords because he’s kinder on a personal level, but in this episode he actively tries to persuade Leela to commit genocide. There’s a different kind of horror in the soldier who is squeamish about torturing one person who he knows, but justifies murdering billions as a necessity. 

“One hundred microspans” oh the audios are back to using microspans, are they?

“Home. Some of us have no home left to return to.” I realize this was absolutely not meant as a Unity reference, but there are no Unity references, so I have to selectively interpret things where I can. Anyways, friendly reminder that the home Leela had built and found peace in for almost two decades was still only recently blown up, and her family lost to her in different ways. 

I love Leela’s malicious compliance with Time Lord orders. Exactly the energy I was hoping for!! 

The General is displaying typical Gallifreyan supremacist attitudes when he’s talking and an absolute willingness to follow orders in this first episode. He’s wriggling around his orders by the end of the boxset, and obviously by the time of the TV show he’s ready to defy Rassilon. But he still has a dangerous and terrible loyalty to Gallifrey.

“She doesn’t appear to be a savage.” Leela encounters one (1) person who views her as a person. 

Ohhh the themes of grief—the meeting hall is the memorial hall, the walls are built to honor the dead. 

“But you leave them behind.” This sounds like an accusation, but I read it differently knowing that Leela has, not so long ago, left her own dead behind when Veega died on Unity. (You didn’t ask for me to keep bringing everything back to Unity, but I’m afraid this is what you’re going to get with me.) And then she left Narvin behind—to die, as far as she knows. So I wonder how much of this comment is an accusation against herself, a desire for someone to justify it, to tell her that leaving the dead behind isn’t dishonoring them. 

“Come, eat.” I’m sorry, I burst out laughing here….I’ve joked before about how Lou Morgan has a running theme of side characters making sure the main characters are fed and rested in her episodes (Nevernor and Dissolution), and although Leela didn’t get a proper rest in this one, she still got a brief respite from Time Lord control, and a side character insisting that she eat. Incredible. I hope the streak continues. 😄 

Why doesn’t Leela try to warn the Fremians as soon as possible? Is it just fear of what the Time Lords will do to her? Is she biding her time to see if she can come up with a plan?

Veklin wants to go back for Leela and not leave her to die, but she would destroy a whole world — a terrible subjective morality.

goddd I love how this episode is in dialogue with Collateral. The plot is so reminiscent of Collateral: Time Lords about to destroy a planet, the people of the world braced to evacuate (for one reason or another), and our main character(s) trying desperately to save people. This episode is an echo and an answer to the despair of Time War 2, a chance to put Leela in the same situation Romana and Narvin were in (sort of), and a chance to write a different ending, and I love it. 

Leela keeps asking questions and testing Argatro’s willingness to trust her. It’s like she’s trying to verify that he does see her as a person, and like she’s testing herself to see that if her honor and morality are still intact. The questions are for herself too: is she worthy of his trust? 

See the full post

35 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

#4

can we talk about seventy or eighty years? can we just process that for a minute?

Narvin hasn’t seen Leela in a human lifetime. he’s had no idea what happened to Romana all that time. he’s clinging onto memories and mementos of his old friends (Ace’s arcade TARDIS that he rescued from the trash heap oh my god). he’s thrown himself into the Resistance not knowing if he’ll ever see Leela and Romana again. if he’ll ever see the people he loves again.

god of course he was ready to tell Leela he loves her. he has been carrying that love and grief around for so long, all bottled up inside him, ready to burst. we saw how much Narvin was drowning in feelings just after losing Romana and Leela for a day or so in Dissolution, and now he’s had decades of yearning and not knowing, this Time Lord is absolutely brimming over with emotion when he sees Leela again, and I am wrecked

35 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

#3

21 2021 Gallific Recs

I meant to get this out much earlier, but maybe with the recent Gallifrey announcement, now is a good time!

2021 was an impressive year for Gallifrey fic – 123 fics were posted or updated in the main Gallifrey tag on ao3, which is the most of any year so far! I haven’t read all of them, but I wanted to shoutout a handful of Gallifrey (and Gallifrey-adjacent) fics that I really enjoyed.

(Obviously this list is going to reflect my personal tastes, so I encourage folks to go check out Gallifrey’s and Big Finish’s ao3 tags themselves because there’s a lot of great writing happening. ❤️)

Listed in order of publication date:

All That is Left by @irving-braxiatel (T, ~700 words) — The last conversation between Romana and Narvin in the Beyond universe.

the other side of the war by @theladyjojogrant (G, 12k) — Romana, Leela, Narvin, and Braxiatel finding each other after the Time War. Set around Hell Bent.

Like the Blind Man by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 4.5k) — Romana in the immediate aftermath of Etra Prime, ft. an early interaction with Leela and an emotionally complicated conversation with Brax.

wishing for some magic film to make this moment last forever by @fortes-fortuna-iogurtum (G, 1.7k) — Narvin discovers telepathic photos of Leela and Ace, after losing them in the Time War.

it’s a wonder we keep going without you by @sircarolyn (G, 4k) — An exploration of Leela’s feelings towards those she’s lost and left behind, set during her time on Unity and after. 

Our Hearts Will Be Closer by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 2.7k) — While wrapping up a mission, Leela and Narvin accidentally drink an emotional anti-repressant and get very cuddly with each other and Romana.

In Books Written By Rabbits by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 2.3k) — Leela visits Brax after Narvin’s death in Enemy Lines—surprising vulnerability ensues.

descansos by @sircarolyn (T, 4k) — Romana, tumbling through a nightmare landscape of her failures and traumas.

In the Drift by @swinging-stars-from-satellites (G, 1.5k) — Romana and Narvin, grieving Leela after The Devil You Know and finally opening up to each other.

space and time, waking hours before i open my eyes, i feel my heart crack open by @sircarolyn (G, 3k) — Narvin and Leela, reunited and on a mission to rescue Romana. Post-Homecoming.

I’m Still Here by @theladyjojogrant (G, 11k) — Ace in the aftermath of Soldier Obscura. How she grapples with the gaps in her memory and eventually fills them, ft. Ace and Narvin’s friendship.

hold onto hope, if you got it by @theladyjojogrant (G, 1.3k) — Romana and Narvin leaning on each other during a late night after losing Leela.

stages of grief by @natequarter (T, 3k) — An exploration of Leela’s grief for Andred (when he’s missing and when he dies), ft. what happened to his confession dial.

The Most Arrogant of the Species by @presidentromana (T, 5.5k) — not exactly a Gallifrey fic, but the canon-in-my-heart backstory for Sartia, Romana’s one (1) friend from her Academy days who wasn’t erased from time. (psst….you should listen to Skin of the Sleek/The Thief Who Stole Time.)

the only touch i know is violence by @natequarter (T, 1k) — Romana attempts to talk to Brax while grappling with flashbacks of Etra Prime.

Romana the Promise by @presidentromana (T, 18k) — Star Wars AU where Romana and Sartia are apprentices to Sith Lord Pandora (in the past) and Romana is re-captured and tortured by Pandora (in the present). The rest of the Gallifrey squad also appears!

ad astra by @natequarter (T, 4k) — An exploration of the long-term physical and emotional effects of Etra Prime on Romana — it digs into the impact of the Doctor abandoning her and provides a bit of healing. Set pre-Gallifrey.

your face when you laugh, all my worries fade by @sircarolyn (G, 2.3k) — Leela finds an entertainment screen one day on Unity. Eventually, Leela and Veega talk about their feelings. 

though the nightmares aren’t real, they still hurt by @whoteacheswho (G, 2.2k) —Tre, caught between one timeline and the next, unsure which of her memories are real. 

for want of an ego by @natequarter (T, 6k) —The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan run into Eris and end up working together to find Romana. 

fireside negotiations by @theuncertainhour (T, 2k) — Romana, Leela, and Narvin huddle around a fire on an Axis world—and find other ways to keep warm.

35 notes - Posted February 22, 2022

#2

New Gallifrey drops in July!

Gallifrey's moral compass is lost, Rassilon rules, and Romana is gone. But it’s not the end, it’s just the beginning...

Gallifrey is at war. At the heart of the Capitol, the War Room co-ordinates the fight against the Daleks.

Leela has been forced into service, alongside the General and his soldiers, taking orders from Cardinals Rasmus and Ollistra.

But this being Gallifrey, politics are never forgotten. Some serve Rassilon, some serve themselves, and some have their own cause. The Time War will test them all.

Louise Jameson (Leela)

Ken Bones (The General)

Nicholas Briggs (Daleks)

Beth Chalmers (Veklin)

Chris Jarman (Rasmus)

Carolyn Pickles (Ollistra)

40 notes - Posted February 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

New Gallifrey cover!

82 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[thylocalswampcreature]

Okay so I wasn't sure if I wanted to post this.

Buuuuut imma do it anyway, its the thoshei brainrot and I am making it yalls problem again.

But regardless! Enjoy those two idiots

I am trying to get used to krita 🧍‍♂️

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 3

The Master's father, Marnal, wrote an episode for Star Trek but took his name off it after they changed it too much.

The Fifth Doctor took Tegan back and time to kill that same would-be-dictator as a baby but was also unable to go through with it.

Nyssa once turned the Fifth Doctor into a vampire.

The Time Lords created the Were Lords, a species of lycanthropic soldiers who could regenerate, to fight for them in the Vampire Wars.

The Tenth and Fourteenth Doctors have different enough blood that the Fourteenth Doctor was able to resist blood control that used the Tenth Doctor's blood.

The Garvond is a monstrous entity in the APC Net of the Matrix composed of all the demented, evil sides of the Time Lords.

The First Great Time War was between the Time Lords and the Order of the Black Sun.

The Veil was fond of the Twelfth Doctor and considered them to be companions. The Veil hoped that the Twelfth Doctor would take them with him when he escaped from the confession dial.

Jack Harkness described the Midnight entity as someone who could eat its way into a person's brain and steal their voice. Given that it is unknown where he got this information, this suggests that Jack might have had an encounter at some point.

Both the Doctor and the Master have used the name "Merlin" before.

The final incarnation of the Master was a highly destructive entropy wave in one timeline.

The Eleventh Doctor once returned to the Library with Amy Pond, but he never mentioned River Song. They encountered Book Monsters.

The Doctor's first TARDIS was a Type 50, but they were left behind when the Doctor ran away from Gallifrey. This left them angry and hurt that the Doctor had replaced them, so they ran off from Gallifrey to find him.

According to the Seventh Doctor, the Rani and her giant rodent came to his graduation party.

There exists a canned drink called Sontaran Up that a Sontaran was seen drinking.

The Sixth Doctor's method for fighting the Weeping Angels included winking one eye at a time, so the Angels were always being observed. Given that he was almost immediately sent back in time where he encountered the Tenth Doctor, this isn't a very good method.

Due to similarities between the life stories of the Doctor and the Devil, there are many races who believe they are the same being.

The Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, and Dan once watched a production of Cinderella. While trying to make it more exciting, the Doctor accidentally replaced all the characters and props with the real versions, who began to attack each other and the audience.

The Doctor had thirteen children before running away on Gallifrey who were all killed (or perhaps a better word would be 'culled') by the Watch after Susan's birth.

The Doctor has had other children over the years (although they did not recognize all of them as such) including but not limited to Miranda Dawkins, Edward Grove, the Sound Creature, Daqar Keep, Jenny, and the Sapling.

Gostak was one of the First Doctor's tutors who he admired very much, but similar to Borusa, he went mad and had to be stopped by several incarnations of the Doctor.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

[death-by-sc0tland]

i never agreed with the argument that dhawan!master must be pre-missy because “it wouldn’t be consistent with missy’s arc”, because in my opinion the master’s reaction to learning about the timeless child very much goes with their character and with missy’s arc as well

i think the misconception some people make is that missy’s arc was about becoming good, which yes, in a way it was but never just for the sake of being good. missy wanted very badly to become the doctor’s friend again - and she knew she had to try to become good in order to do that. like fundamentally as a person the master doesn’t care about being good and i don’t think they ever would but they were willing to try for the doctor because the doctor matters to them that much.

missy believes that her and the doctor are equals and that only they are worthy of each other’s friendship, as she doesn’t really take the doctor’s friendships with humans seriously (comparing them to pets etc.)(and we know the doctor also sees them as equals when he says to bill that missy is the only person in the world that’s even remotely like him). and i think that’s something the master has believed ever since they first became friends, and why they still keep chasing the doctor.

she goes through so much change and pain just for the doctor. she even dies because of it. after she regenerates into the the master, he eventually goes to gallifrey. maybe trying to look for the doctor, who knows. he looks into the matrix and stumbles upon the whole timeless child thing. he finds out that the person he always believed to be his true equal isn’t like him at all and is actually so much more and that must have fucked with his brain massively. and not only that, also he finds out that his oldest and basically the only friend has been exploited and abused and the time lords hid all of that information away. so the master goes ballistic - he destroys gallifrey and then goes on to find the doctor to take out his rage and grief on her.

now ofc if you want to hc dhawan!master as pre-missy then go ahead cause the canon of this show doesn’t matter anyway but yeah. saying that dhawan being after missy makes no sense is just incorrect in my opinion

[grainjew]

On Gallifreyan Vestigial Gender

[this is the revised and expanded version of some rambling i initially did in my cowriter's discord DMs. i tried cite sources where i could, but a lot of this has been marinating in my brain since half-absorbing posts twenty pages deep into peoples' dw tags 3 years ago, and also i spend way too much time on the wiki, so please excuse anything i can't quite source, which is most of it. huge thanks to @oriigami for being my original conversation partner and contributing extremely to the concepts here, and to @bird-of-paradox and @waywren, neither of whom I am being allowed to @, for bothering me into not leaving it as unreadable discord screenshots]

-

There's this tendency among queer Doctor Who fans to look at Time Lord society, with its alienness and regeneration, and ask, frustrated, "Why do they even have gender?"

I sympathize with this extremely. I've been the one asking this question plenty in the past, and I do think it's a bit silly, and even sillier that the genders are "man" and "woman" and there are apparently two of them. But I also think that the section of canon most insistent about the Gallifreyan gender binary, the 7th Doctor novels from the 90s, also has the potential to be the most interesting about it.

Now, this is not to say that the text of those novels isn't weird about gender in a flawed, written by (as far as I know) cis people in the 90s way. But I think that you can extrapolate and queer what's there in very interesting ways, often because it's so flawed in the first place: Gallifrey, too, is an extremely flawed society. Decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core, as the show put it.

So, VNAs Gallifrey: living Houses and their female Housekeepers, cultural and literal planet-wide sterility, Loom birth, rigid overcomplicated bureaucracy, the enduring legacy of the pre-Rassilon Pythian regime. The gender binary as presented here goes something like

women: chaos/magic/psychic powers/superstition/the house (scary)/biological childbirth/fertility men: cold rationality/order/science/bureaucracy/loom-birth/sterility

The Pythia and the Lord President. Magic and science. The House and the Web of Time.

Obviously a lot of this is classic gender binary stuff. But let's put the exasperated question of "Why must we do the gender binary like this?" aside for a moment and think about Gallifreyan society instead.

Pythia-ruled and Time Lord-ruled Gallifrey have a lot of the same problems in the end, just wearing different faces: they're both very much totalitarian states that believe themselves to be above everyone else. But while the Time Lords observe and micromanage the Web of Time from their Panopticon, maintaining its integrity to their standards, the Pythians didn't have time travel, so this preoccupation with control manifested--as far as I know; this is the bit in the meta where I admit I haven't actually read Time's Crucible yet--as keeping the entirety of society in one psychic hivemind, leaving nobody any privacy, plus a lot of future-reading and prophecy and whatnot.

The main relics of that societal layout into post-Rassilon Gallifreyan society are the Matrix, which has every single dead Time Lord's brain in it and does their prophecies for them, just couched in a little bit more science than Pythian magic, the Houses, which are alive all around you and in which you're constantly being watched by the Housekeeper through her mirrors, and, of course, the gender binary.

The Pythia was always a woman. Women were the ones with vast psychic powers, with magic; women were the ones in charge. Pythian Gallifrey was a heavily gendered society. This is because Gallifreyans are a kind of bug /shot with the "irrelevant to the point at hand" gun.

And so, when Rassilon rebelled, he was very much playing the part of "opposite gender with opposite worldview." The Pythia had female magic and superstition; he had male science and technology. His most trusted Founders were either all or mostly men, depending on the version of events you prefer. (Personally I have my doubts about the Other.) Rassilon built his new society as a man, among men, in opposition to the matriarchs before him.

Gallifrey, despite the invention (or theft, depending on the story) of regeneration allowing people to trans their gender randomly and sometimes unintentionally, never left the gender binary behind.

The whole point of modern Gallifreyan society is that they're still stuck in that exact same moment Rassilon took over (and the Pythia cursed them to sterility, if thats the version you're going with). You could easily make an argument for this being some cycle of abuse type situation; Rassilon and co overthrew the Pythia and immediately did exactly what she was doing to them to the wider universe. I tend to read it as a regeneration: it's the same society, really. It just died and was reborn, and now it looks and sounds different.

-

The downside of trying to translate a discord conversation into a proper meta post is that sometimes making a coherent transition between thoughts is impossible. So to introduce the next bit of this post, I'm going to hand you off for a moment to this post about the 8th Doctor's "I'm not sure I've ever even been a man" quote from Interference. As op of that post says, the Doctor is genderqueer even by Gallifreyan standards- he's being questioned in that scene by another Gallifreyan, who doesn't understand his experience of gender.

The EDAs are full of "Eight is nonbinary" quotes, of course. Every queer fan who's ever engaged with them has a collection (and if anyone knows where that one google doc compilation that was going around awhile back went I'd be in your debt, because I'd love to know if my collection is missing any), but almost all those quotes refer to his genderqueerness in human terms, as observed by human companions, or in response to human assumptions. Except that one. Not only is Gallifrey's gender binary alive and well in a society where people can literally change their gender when they die, but the Doctor doesn't fit inside it.

All this to say that being a renegade Time Lord is a nonbinary thing to do. Especially the Doctor, with all sorts of weird Other Timeless nonsense in their biodata. Women stay on Gallifrey (or Karn!) and do magic and watch you. Men stay on Gallifrey and do science and watch other people. Renegades go out and do whatever they please. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

-

So. Gallifrey has a gender binary. It's vestigial, a remnant of an earlier iteration of society with a much sharper male-female divide, and it doesn't make logical sense for it to exist. So: How does it manifest? And what function does its continued existence serve in the interests of the status quo and ruling class?

Let's take a look at 7th Doctor novel Lungbarrow.

Lungbarrow introduces us to (among many other things) the living Houses of the Time Lord Families, and to the family structures within: the patriarchal figure of the Kithriarch, the always-female Housekeeper, bound in her ritual marriage to the House itself, and hordes of petty squabbling Cousins.

Kithriarch is already an interesting title. It's obviously a gender neutral version of matriarch or patriarch, but the role itself seems to be almost entirely a male sort of thing in opposition to the feminine Housekeeper.

The Housekeeper, meanwhile, seems to be in a direct conceptual and societal line of descent from the Pythian priestesses: she can see anything within her domain, she has a psychic connection to the House, from whom she cannot hide anything, she can command the wooden Drudge servants and other House subsystems, she prioritizes the House above all where the Kithriarch is supposed to prioritize the Family. Women are frightening and powerful psychics. They know everything you want to keep secret, and prioritize the collective.

(There's also something here about how Lungbarrow presents duelling dualities--the Doctor and the Master, the CIA head and the Lord President, the Kithriarch and the Housekeeper, the masculine and the feminine--but I haven't quite tied it into the rest of this yet.) (Although while we're mentioning the Master. He's girlcoded by Gallifreyan standards and the Rani is boycoded by the same. I will not be expanding on this at this time just trust me.)

I think Housekeepers and women who want to be Housekeepers try to keep their self-image as women strong enough that they never regenerate into a male body (whatever a '"male body" means, of course, but I'm not sure Time Lords have gotten that far in their queer theory yet). I also think that there are more female Kithriarchs than male Housekeepers, because Housekeeper is much more heavily ritualized role in keeping with the Pythia's more ritualized general vibe, but I do think female Kithriarchs are still few and far between.

I also think that these are probably the most explicitly gendered occupations on Gallifrey, although of course you'll see some drift. Most women are out there getting the same scientific, military, and bureaucratic positions as men. But there's this lingering specter of gender roles, a Pythia-shaped hole that exists around the concept of womanhood. As my cowriter put it when we were talking about this, an "ideal of womanhood. not ‘ideal’ as in desirable, [but] ‘ideal’ as in the quintessential image of the thing."

This is further amplified by the continued existence of the Pythians in the form of the Sisterhood of Karn, living in their perfectly functional all-women magic society just out of sight. Their presence at the edge of the Gallifreyan consciousness must haunt the Time Lords, as any imperialist power is haunted by its own past and its own ultimate impotence.

Because that's the other thing. Gender roles are, to quote my cowriter again, "stupid and antiquated and historically potent tools of authoritarianism." Of course the Time Lords have them. Have you seen them?

They're tools of control, of conformity, of idealizing the past. Of conservatism. Consider, to once more quote my cowriter, "the weird traditionalist psychosis of having gender roles in a society that can’t bear children."

The ideal woman on Gallifrey is still the Pythia, millenia or even billenia on. And the ideal man is still the Lord President Rassilon.

-

[thank you for your time! if you liked this please consider checking out my fic Something Old, which is about lungbarrow, the adventuress of henrietta street, and the gallifreyan concept of marriage, and in the writing of which i initially articulated most of the thoughts in this post. i've previously characterized it as a fic that's actually a meta post. and please don't be too mean to me for anything i got wrong in here! i'm just a little guy]

[canisonicscrewyou]

DUNNO WHAT OTHER ANON WAS TALKING ABOUT BUT I CARE. tell me about it

I have been meaning to answer these for like a hot week. Take my hand(s). Come with me. This AU is excellent if you don't care too much about canon and if you want to permanently ruin the way you watch Eleven's run w the Ponds. This is also just straight infodumping.

This post is both shorter and longer than I expected. I can talk about this for ages so this is truly one of those topics that’s like If You Have Any Questions At All About Fobwatched Rory!Master AU GimmeGimmeGimme I Will Always Be Down To Talk About Him/Them.

The gist is that this is an AU where Rory Williams is still Rory Williams. It’s just that Rory Williams should not exist? It’s just that Rory Williams Definitely Did Not Exist until some busted TARDIS fell into a backyard in Leadworth in the 90s and sat there to rot. It’s- It’s just that Rory Williams is a front. Was made up. Rory Williams is genetically human. Rory Williams has a fobwatch that has been harboring the Master for as long as Rory Williams has existed.

The background is that the year is 2012 and this is a headcanon being tossed around because the Master has not even been alluded to in Eleven’s run. Criminal. This premise was promptly stolen by me and ruined my brain for the next 12 years. There are a handful of fanfics that explore this premise, it’s been Too Long since I’ve read any so I truly don’t have any recommendations right now.

So. We have Rory Williams.

You may ask me “Hey, Andrew, in 2012 when other people were playing with this headcanon, was there anything in canon that could have supported this? Not because you NEED to justify headcanons and AUs with hard canon. I’m just curious.” and I say thank you for specifying. YES. Definitely. Totally.

I hope this helps :)) No straws were being grasped :)) It will be like 3 more years until Missy is introduced :))))) Some of us were starving :))))))))

So now that that’s some fun fandom lore established let’s settle this bastard (the Master)’s timeline…

From the Doctor’s timeline: Eleven has not actually seen the Master. Eleven’s last time seeing the Master was Simm!Master being dragged back to Gallifrey before the regeneration tour. The Master is dead.

From the Master’s timeline: Missy is dying. Missy is trying not to die and is effectively kickstarting a new regeneration cycle.

There are two priorities here: Get far away from the Doctor and get far away from any version of themself. In fact that new regeneration cycle might take time to fully develop. Doubly in fact, the Master’s TARDIS is not in good shape.

Solution: chameleon arch.

Rory Williams is not meticulously planned as a human. Rory Williams didn’t even have a name made up when the Master was both regenerating and going under the chameleon arch. There was no planning or time to plan. There was just going, and hoping for the best, because the chameleon arch will sort itself out just fine. (wrong)

Amelia Pond moves to Leadworth with her family as a young girl.

The night Amelia Pond settles into a house with a crack in the bedroom wall, a TARDIS crashes in someone else’s backyard in Leadworth. And Brian and Mallory Williams suddenly remember that they were supposed to be renovating their daughter’s bedroom (that strangely looks like a home office at the time), and put Rory Williams to sleep on the couch after he comes wandering in from the woods out back.

Rory Williams meets Amelia Pond the literal next day, and immediately, unknowingly, the youngest 7 year old in existence Fucks The Master’s Whole Shit Up For An Entire Millennia.

About a week later, the Doctor crash-lands into Amelia Pond’s backyard, and there is literally too much going on for him to even get a HINT that his Best Divorced Enemy is taking a ✨Mental Health Break✨ a few blocks over.

Amelia tells Rory all about the Raggedy Doctor she met and he does not question the weird anxious feeling in his stomach at all, because this kid is dealing with other things, like transgenderism and hanging off of Amelia Pond’s arm and also her Every Last Word. He will get dragged into games of Raggedy Doctor until they are at least 15 and will look at all of her Raggedy Doctor fanart and trinkets and listen to her borderline religious obsession with this character and is the only person in Leadworth aside from Mels to not look at her funny or tell her its all A Bit Too Much when she starts ranting about him. He decides early on he wants to be a doctor. Or maybe a nurse.

curb your enthusiasm.mp3

Everything from Eleventh Hour on is… Pretty accurate. The Master isn’t even really involved. The Master is in an old antique wristwatch somewhere in the Williams’ house, buried in boxes in Rory’s closet. I’m sure there’s a joke there somewhere.

Rory Williams is just. Like that.

The Master has no hand in Rory Williams’ sheer inability to die.

Every time Rory somehow evades inexistence the Master is pleasantly surprised. It makes absolutely no damn sense how this random human managed to escape death multiple times. It makes no damn sense that he just so managed to become an Auton just so he could guard his girlfriend for 1000 years (for the Doctor, but it’s important that every move this man makes is in Amy Pond’s name. The Doctor doesn’t even cross Rory’s mind when he decides to watch over the Pandorica.).

Rory Williams does not think much about how anxious he feels in the TARDIS. Somehow, the TARDIS makes him feel claustrophobic. Somehow, he feels like he isn’t welcome there, though nobody around him would give him that impression, ever. He does not think much about how he understood how the TARDIS worked immediately outside of the one article he read on dimensional travel. There is a period of time where he thinks the sickly feeling he gets in his stomach looking at the Doctor is just him needing to unpack weird feelings around his own bisexuality and Amy teases him relentlessly for it, because honestly, it’s just mortifying that it’s the Doctor of all people.

Around the Power of Three, Brian Williams is downsizing. It’s just him living in Rory’s childhood home now, no reason to hold onto all of these boxes of things.

Brian discovers an old, busted wrist watch in Rory’s childhood bedroom, buried deep in his closet shelves where he frankly never even touched. There’s some part of his memory that tells him it was from Rory’s grandfather, some hand me down, a gift for a christening, something. Rory should have this watch. Rory would want it. Next time he sees Rory, he gives it to him.

Rory is now aware of the watch. The Master is now aware that Rory is aware of the watch. The watch has gotten incredibly claustrophobic. The Universe resetting itself doesn’t take away Rory’s centurion stint, and it doesn’t apply to streams of consciousness that are hidden in dusty Time Lord tech. Rory does not want to open the watch- there is a part of Rory deeply self aware that if it’s opened, he will no longer exist. Every fiber of Rory’s being feels compelled to open the watch. The Master does want to open the watch- but the Master does not, cannot have, the watch opening around the Doctor. Neither man wins in this scenario.

You are the Master. You explicitly chose some random coordinates and fobwatched yourself into some random human with a random backstory. You somehow wound up best friends with the person obsessed with your ex that you were AVOIDING. You all traipse around his TARDIS together. You die and come back multiple times for this girl, this woman that you hooked onto immediately. Your daughter marries that same fucking ex. You couldn't have pranked yourself harder if you tried.

You are Amy Pond. You shouldn't really exist but you do against all odds. And you do not deserve any of this.

When the Master comes out(ha.) it is messy and awkward and nobody has a good time. There is no discernible reason why the Doctor should believe the Master going “oops !! oopsie !! well this is awkward isn’t it !!!!” while wearing the face of his best friend’s husband, and a very good friend of his own, and also technically his father-in-law. The Master is also aware of this. The Master is, actually, feeling kind of guilty that he killed Amy Pond’s husband right in front of her?

The Master has been locked in a state of half-regeneration for 1000 years. The Master has been in Rory Williams head, and likewise the Master has had Rory Williams in his own head. The Master is softly aware that there is something different in him this time around. There is something that feels decidedly human, sickly and overly emotional and cagey. There’s also just plain dysphoria when he looks in the mirror as himself, as the Master and not Rory, for the first time, something that absolutely fucks up the Master who is A. A Time Lord who has regenerated dozens of times B. Up until this point frequently operates on the idea that “Any Working Body Is A Good Body”.z

Eleven hates his guts. Amy is not fond either. (I am convinced that if that watch opened up without the Doctor around at all he would’ve immediately snatched up Amy and forced her to be his best friend even if she didn’t want to. I am certain that if Rory opened the watch at a few specific points the Master could’ve absolutely just willingly whisked Amy away to be his own companion and they would be sooo fucked up together.) It is uncertain to everyone involved whether or not River knew this was a possibility, let alone something she knew would even happen. The Master is spiraling. The Master is also lonely, both in the present and in the memory of being Missy. The memory of a Doctor who doesn’t exist yet. Rory Williams is a ghost that haunts the Master until he regenerates. Rory is in his sudden knowledge of how to properly bandage a burn. Rory is in his hesitation at saying the coldest and cruelest thing he could think of to get a reaction out of Amy Pond. Missy is in the inside joke he quips to the Doctor before realizing that the joke hasn’t happened yet. Missy is in the way he wonders if the Doctor even had a chance at remembering this regeneration of his since the whole timeline is disrupted, so does it actually matter what he does with it? Between Rory and between everything that happened with Missy and the Saxon Master and Twelve, is he actually what he perceives as the Master anymore? Or will another version of himself eventually just come along and put him down like a sick dog for not performing correctly, too?

Rory haunts the Master in the way that the Doctor can’t look at the Master’s face without revulsion for ages. Until the Master is grasping at straws, and suddenly insisting that the Doctor look him in the eyes. And he does- he just barely does. It’s not what he was expecting, but he does it. The Master grabs at his wrist and there’s a desperate insistence to the way he says it, the most pathetic “Say My Name” to ever fall from any regeneration’s lips, and when the Doctor does say “Master…”, it’s only to follow up with “Master… Are you okay?” because NO he clearly isn’t. The Master is quite obviously never okay but this is different, nothing is working the way it used to, nothing sounds right and even the Doctor isn’t doing it right and it’s clearly(/s) all just because of Fucking Rory Williams.

Anyways. It’s about haunting your own narrative and it’s about how to best fuck up a Time Lord who was Too Human For Too Long. It’s about giving the Master empathy and both gender and social dysphoria and an identity crisis.

It's also about Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, two human beings who by all accounts should NOT exist at all, finding and loving each other because two TARDISes crash landed in Leadworth in 1996.

In Conclusion:

P.S. while I’m here: Him Face (Also important to note that if you’ve read this far in, congratulations, you get the added fun fact of knowing that in this the Master’s TARDIS is a horribly beat up and graffiti’d vending machine. It’s not stuck like that. It’s just how his TARDIS prefers to present, and shockingly, the Master’s TARDIS refuses to listen to a word he fucking says.)

[alyona11]

It's out! Beware of the spoilers for War Room 2 Transference! This project took me about a week and 120 drawings to complete. After I collected the drawings together I kinda figured out there were things that I could have done differently but I really love this draft. Super proud of finishing it. Animatics are always very exhausting to make because you need to think about so many things at once and you have to relisten to the material to see the image in your head and then decently transfer it into an image. It's also trickier when it isn't a music video but the characters just having a conversation. But surprisingly it wasn't a huge problem with this scene in particular because it was written and acted so dynamically. I think War Room 2 turned out a very solid boxset and switched my brain into "thinking about Gallifrey" mode! Big cheers to @fiotrethewey for writing this scene and supporting this project in progress. Cheers to Sean Carlsen for playing this scene so heart wrechingly! Under the cut I'll post the storyboards with some notes:

[transgenderdoctorwhomst-old]

In Mr clever absorbing 11s mannerisms and emotions, which I just love the irony of that, I do wonder if it makes Clever & the doctor blended in a way where you can sorta tell who's who but the lines pretty blurred at this point. I wonder if it's blurred enough that a regeneration wouldn't even fully fix it.

I wonder if his mannerisms would be a little off, maybe to show to a point that at first Mr clever isn't used to a more humanoid body vs hydraulic or whatever the cybermen use, but as time goes on he learns to blend and gets used to movements and how to 'act' human.

I have a lot of thoughts but like not very in depth so I'ma be jumping around a bit.

But I am enjoying imagining just what would be the 'who is that' moment for different companions rn and how weird it would be for previous companions to see how the doctor is acting now. The yeah he acts about 80% like the doctor but there's a lot of little tipping points like you said that sort of point to something else.

Do you think we'd see a sort of return of timelord victorious with the planner? Maybe thinking he can bring the cyber empire into power using the tardis, either by changing history directly or a domino effect.

Idk, but I'd love to hear your thoughts <3

if the cyberplanner gets in the tardis, he is ABSOLUTELY pulling a time lord victorious. even if the cyberman amusement park planet is blown up, he'd definitely get to work on setting up a new army and figuring out what events he could change without accidentally deleting himself from existence. and he'd have to be keeping an eye on not changing his own timeline or the doctor's timeline, which is probably the only thing stopping him from going back and immediately changing every single loss the cybermen have ever faced. cant very well bring back the cyberiad empire if you blow up yourself and half a galaxy because of a paradox!

everyone will be very lucky the cyberplanner has the major flaw for a cyberman, of having an ego and feelings and potential for doubt. and also a flesh body that needs rest. and is constantly fighting with the doctor for control. and a tardis that doesn't always like to cooperate. because it would be an absolute nightmare for everyone else otherwise. any kind of evil doctor is an absolute force to be reckoned with.

for body movements, he seems to mirror 11, using his preexisting muscle memory, but i think over time he would make efforts to try and rewire it into more, you know, still and calm. less of 11's spinning around and waving his hands around and large gesturing. which is very odd to see on 11, because he's very active and needs to be constantly stimming. just some real uncanny valley shit.

we see they act similar enough that clara does feel the need to ask and can't tell just by looking, so long as the cyberplanner doesnt majorly fuck up an assumption about 11's behaviour. i think he would try to learn how to mimic the doctor, because it's useful if he can run around calling in any favors owed to the doctor. he just cant resist the urge to be a mean little shit to people, much more than the doctor usually is. (and 11 can be a mean little shit).

he does have the tell that he talks in a lower, more gravelly voice than the doctor, though. like he's trying to replicate the modulated cyberman voices. which is fun and definitely not something the cyberplanner is doing on purpose, i think it just sounds more correct to him.

i have no idea how a regeneration would affect, but considering 11 doesn't actually have any regenerations left until gallifrey gives him a new cycle, who knows when 11 might get the chance to try. the cybermen need physical parts installed though, so there's probably still some physical component wired inside his brain that could be burned out. the problem is not killing the doctor in the process.

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

what are some common disabilities that Gallifreyans have? what are some that you think are interesting?

It's quite literally impossible to tell you what's 'common' on Gallifrey; there's just nothing to give us any figures. However, you may like to start here for known and speculative disabilities (and perhaps the fact we know they exist makes them more common than others?).

The truth is if you can think of it, it's probably a thing. So besides the ones mentioned there, here are a couple more theoretical ones that I find particularly interesting:

🩸Artron Retention Disorder

This condition prevents a Gallifreyan from healing or regenerating without consuming external artron because the body can't sustain adequate levels. Because artron is in their blood and the afflicted Gallifreyan would likely need constant blood transfusions, it could be colloquially considered a form of vampirism.

🧠Regenerative Cognitive Disjunction

A condition in which a Gallifreyan's body successfully regenerates, but the mind fails to get a new consciousness. This results in a blank mental state, bordering on catatonia. Different forms of this condition can manifest with varying symptoms and degrees of cognitive disconnection:

Catatonic RCD: Complete lack of mental activity; the individual appears awake but unresponsive and immobile.

Disjunctive RCD: The individual retains some basic functions like eating and breathing but lacks higher cognitive functions such as reasoning, memory, and emotional response.

Fluctuating RCD: The individual's mental state fluctuates between periods of normal cognition and blank, unresponsive episodes.

🧟‍♂️Post-Regenerative Dissociation

A neuropsychiatric disorder affecting Gallifreyans after the regenerative process, similar to Cotard's Syndrome in humans. Individuals believe they are dead, nonexistent, or have lost essential parts of their body or identity.

⏲️Temporal Perception Disorder

A condition that affects Gallifreyans after regeneration, a bit like Alice in Wonderland syndrome for humans. It causes distorted perceptions of size, time, and space, making objects appear larger or smaller and time feel faster or slower, probably caused by changes in the brain’s structure and function during regeneration. It's most likely temporary and will stop after a few hours post-regeneration.

These are, of course, all made up.

Related:

Can disabilities persist through regenerations?: The nature of inherent and regeneration-specific disabilities.

Regenerative Dissonance vs Disassociated Identity Disorder - what's the difference?: How RD and DID compare.

Could a Time Lord have Regenerative Dissonance with a consistent voice?: Exploring a possible variant of RD and how it might work.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[savingthrcw]

@ordinariums x the Doctor (why??)

She should probably keep distance from him, since Tetha - no, the Doctor, is her murderer, but since he's taken the cloak of hero of the universe she assumes she'll have a chance to run before he attempts to do it again. And there's only the three of them left in the whole universe, as far as she knows, so it's sort of a species-duty to check in on him. And, well, check if it's true that Gallifrey was brought back and then re-destroyed. Information on the matter are fuzzy. But she does get in the way to put down a few angry Sontarans because hey, murder. Fun. It's less fun and more disconcerting to be thanked by the humans who use the opportunity to escape. But she's not about to unpack that. "Aren't you the Doctor? Champion of the galaxy, savior of the humans..." she starts, flipping her knife in her hand; always liked that. The flipping. "Can't you use your big brain to eliminate the threat quicker?"

[plants-and-poetry-and-punching]

my many thoughts on: “you win. you made me into this” vs ‘throw them into another dimension for the rest of their lives lmao’

I am FRESH off finishing the finale, so i can’t guarantee the hottest takes, but they’re fresh picked from my brain. no research, no rewatch, we sniff death dust like UNIT.

long rambly post! you’ve been warned!

I understand that ‘if you kill a killer you’re just as bad as they are’ isn’t the most… convincing argument. if you think about it, is the act of killing someone (or something) that wiped out billions and billions of people on the same moral level as committing that same unimaginable evil? is being killed a worse fate than being locked away, alone, for the rest of your life? (or for eternity- remember what 10 did to the mayflies? shit was fucked up!)

maybe the show really does want us to come away with “killing bad no matter what uwu*” but to me, I think it’s more important to think about this in the context of who the doctor is as a character. ‘no killing’ is his personal moral code, and it’s something he truly believes in. yes, it can get a little bit absurd when they’re sending people to forever time prison, but strong feelings and beliefs are very, very good at causing characters (and real people) to act irrationally. plus, he’s a gazillion year old alien. I think he can have a little blue and orange morality, as a treat.

friendly reminder: the doctor has canonically committed war crimes!! they pushed the big red button on gallifrey- there’s a LOT of blood on their hands**. they were always a pacifist at heart(s), but I think the time war really cemented the fact that they never wanted to kill again. the doctor expressed guilt several times this season for supposedly bringing trouble and death wherever he goes, and the whole finale was a distillation of that! countless lives wiped out, and he believes it’s because of him. no wonder the guy lost it***.

mercy is all they have. they can’t undo the deaths that still haunt them, but they can make damn sure that not one more soul dies by their hand- even if the alternative is arguably a fate worse than death.

I believe that, past a certain point, refusing to kill a foe isn’t about being merciful or having the higher moral ground. it’s just the doctor desperately trying to avoid taking any more lives, no matter the cost. it’s not rational- it’s emotional self-preservation. that single soul might just be the straw that breaks them apart.

no more. everybody lives.

the doctor didn’t admit defeat when everyone and everywhere he knew was reduced to dust. (tbf, universe ending catastrophes are an average friday for them.) he grieved, but then he got to work, and he and ruby fixed it.

stopping suketh was a victory. and yet, the doctor admits defeat right before he cuts that line. it’s right there in the text- to him, this is a loss, because he was forced to break the moral code he’s been carrying for thousands of years.

I think it shatters the armor they’ve built around their own self-perception. the doctor wants to be seen as someone who represents life. they want to be able to see themself as someone who represents life- and I believe that they’ve been struggling with that for a long, long time****.

there’s a reason the doctor doesn’t talk about themself, or their past, or loved ones they’ve lost- it’s all tainted by death. at least, I think that’s how they see it. this bitch is traumatized! (maybe they refuse to kill even the most vile enemy because a part of them feels that they’re just as bad? good dalek etc etc)

I don’t think the doctor is thinking all of this consciously, of course. (he’s definitely thinking some of it, though). I just think all of this stuff is a major part of their character.

I really hope that killing sutekh has some serious consequences next season. as big as the scene was in the moment, the end of the episode was more focused on ruby’s story than the doctor’s emotional fallout. (I’m not complaining about having the focus on ruby! shit made me tear up!)

I want to see how the doctor feels about breaking his one rule. I crave angsty character exploration! and maybe an scp end of death type scenario

tldr: I think the doctor deserves to make weird moral decisions every now and then*****. also they’re the sad wet little meow meow ever and I want to put them in the plot equivalent of a hydraulic press.

*I do believe that one of the show’s central themes is the sanctity of life, and that saving lives the most important goal someone can have. I just don’t think it’s here to preach the exact minutiae of what is or isn’t justified.

**I missed most of 13’s run, but it sounds like some serious shit went down there too. I’m gonna go back and catch up soon!

***that said, I hope they continue losing it now and then, because unhinged doctor is my favorite doctor. don’t read into that.

****I know that 14 supposedly fixed himself, but like… no he didn’t. I mean, I hope post-bi-generation 14 is doing great in therapy, but if he is, I don’t think 15 is getting any of the benefits. “maybe I’m the bad luck” in his very first episode?? this bitch lied directly to his own face and he’s kinda iconic for that

*****dear beloved piss on the poor website: the doctor is a fictional character. I do not endorse murder, war crimes, or trapping people in forever prisons irl.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Turlough Tales 2: Planet of Fire

I've marked this as a sequel to make it clear that there's an original out there for people to seek out if they need context for these.

I realize that this whole thing is a bit weird. Before the internet, fanzines were where fanfic was published, so these stories from a fanzine really should be on the same level as something posted on Ao3, but it feels different. Magazines are published. Stories have to be approved by an editor, and people pay for the magazine. (in theory, anyway. I'm getting these from archive.org). It makes fanzine fanfics feel more "official" than online ones. They went through a "quality control" process my fics don't have to. So, it's tempting to treat these fanzine stories as more like Short Trips, which were published by either the BBC or Big Finish. But, they're not, so I'm analyzing fanworks as if they can be compared to official EU material, because my zillennial brain can't comprehend pre-internet fanfiction. To people who were active in fandom, reading fanzines in 1996, I probably look like a bit of a dumbass.

Anyway...

I probably should've included a cut like this in the last one. Also, this is gonna take a while. I have a lot to talk about here.

Before we start on this next story, there's a quote in the same issue of the magazine that I think is vital to understanding why this exists the way it does. Peter Grimwade, inventor of the Trions, had a take on them different from anything I've seen anywhere else.

So, this story I think is more based on the idea of Trions as a Planet of Lawyers.

You see, in sci-fi, because writing a planet as complex and diverse as Earth, unless it's the only planet depicted in the story, is virtually impossible, alien worlds are often given a single culture that, though it can be explored in more detail, can pretty much be summed up in a single word. The trope that is doing this is called the Planet of Hats. The "hat" being a single concept that defines the culture of the planet that the audience gets to see. Star Trek has done this a fuckton of times, which a Planet of Logic, Planet of Honor Codes, Planet of Capitalism, and Planet of Pure Devotion to the State, to (not) name a few. (This was about Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, and Cardassians, if you're a Trekkie but couldn't figure that out lol).

In Doctor Who, with a few exceptions, specific alien worlds aren't often explored for more than one story, so the clear Planet of Hats you see in Star Trek isn't always obvious. Gallifrey can get a certain amount of development, and a few other planets are featured more than once (Skaro, Mondas, and Peladon, to name a few), but you usually don't get full cultures from them, since Daleks and Cybermen are too uniform to really have much of a culture to speak of. Daleks are the "kill everyone" people and Cybermen are the "convert everyone" people. Sontarans are Planet of War though, so that kind of works.

Trion is never even directly visited by the Doctor onscreen, so it gets little development. They had a civil war and Turlough's from there. That's all the show really gives us. This meant EU media could basically do whatever the fuck they wanted with it, as could fan works. However, there were a few more details that popped up early on, and thus became adopted by most people.

A Brief History of Doctor Who EU Nonsense:

Most Doctor Who EU media began during the Wilderness Years, when the show was off the air. There are a few exceptions to this. Doctor Who Magazine started doing comics in around 1980, and the magazine had a semi-official status, so you had proper tie-in comics for the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Doctors while their episodes were still airing.

Before that, there were annuals, yearly books of comics and short stories. The first one of these was published in 1965 and most of them had virtually nothing to do with the show until the 1980s. In the 1980s, JNT became producer and changed how basically everything worked. One of those changes was taking control of the EU, making sure the people working for more popular magazines and working on annuals and ongoing comic strips had access to enough information to know what was going on in the actual show. The children these things were aimed at earlier were assumed to not care, but Doctor Who in the 80s was marketed less to children and more to people who'd already been watching Doctor Who for at least a decade. The show took on a more serious tone and referenced its continuity more to pander to this new target demographic, and making sure the annuals didn't contradict the show was just a nice little side effect of the change.

This also applies to TV Comic, a comic strip that began in 1964 and was running beside and pretty much completely detached from the show throughout the 60s and 70s. It basically ended when DWM took over Doctor Who comic writing duties.

But, I just wasted your time on a bunch of this that don't matter here, because the only pre-1990 EU relevant to this story are the Target novelizations and a short-lived book series called The Companions of Doctor Who.

Planet of Fire got a novelization, like all classic serials eventually did, but it was one of the lucky ones to get a novelization not long after the episodes aired, written by the same person who wrote said episodes, making the serial and its novelization sort of equally canon to each other, coming from the same brain. The serial aired in 1984 and the novelization came out in 1985.

The novelization added a bit to Turlough's backstory, namely that the civil war was a revolution against the Imperial Clans, a group of families that had ruled the planet before. Turlough's family was one of the Imperial Clans. When the regime was overthrown, surviving members of the clans were either executed or exiled. What the Imperial Clans were beyond "the rulers of Trion" is never elaborated upon.

But, in 1986, someone did. This was the first of a series of spin-off novels called The Companions of Doctor Who, which followed companions after they left the TARDIS. In the end, the series had only three entries, the third of which was a novelization of K9 and Company, a failed spin-off about Sarah Jane and K9. So the only real entries are Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma and Harry Sullivan's War. Harry Sullivan's War had the advantage of being written by Ian Marter, who played Harry and therefore understood the character very well.

Tony Attwood, who wrote Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma, had nothing to do with the show and the both is not well-liked by Turlough fans. As far as I can tell, Attwood did talk to Mark Strickson while writing the novel, but not to Peter Grimwade, which he wasn't happy about. Still, the Imperial Clans from the novelization were included in The Earthlink Dilemma, portrayed as a sort of caste of scientists that ruled Trion for millennia, while mostly allowing the commoners to do their own thing. A lot of work is done to make the Imperial Clans seem good and make the leader of the revolution a terrible person who basically led a Reign of Terror (her name is Thatcher spelled backwards!!!).

This means that when Trion is given a Planet of Hats effect, they're more often a Planet of Scientists than a Planet of Lawyers. Turlough is proud of Trion scientific achievements and, when he returns to Trion, welcomed back as a hero and offered political power in the democratic government, he instead decides to be an astrophysicist. He just wanted to be a scientist this whole time. It's actually a pretty interesting take on the character, which is why it tends to stick around.

But, this story in this fanzine (remember that that's what this post was supposed to be about?) really leans into the Planet of Lawyers aspect and offers an alternate ending.

You can tell it's not canon because Vizlov. Not Vislor, nor Vizlor, but Vizlov. Oops.

Anyway, you can see that this version of Turlough was apparently charged with treason for rebelling against the government, instead of being part of the regime that was rebelled against. Said government is referred to as New Trion though, which muddies the waters.

Turlough's exile has a different purpose here. The Trions are basically trying to gain legal control of Earth and Turlough's exile was intended to have him eventually participate in that plan, as well as training in "primitive systems" as a sort of character-building exercise.

It seems that Turlough was blamed for the destruction of Sarn, because the Trions had no idea about the Master or anything else that was going on there. They thought Turlough, after escaping Earth, deliberately destroyed Sarn for Reasons. The exact charges:

He did escape his exile on Earth.

"Consorting with undesirable aliens" is an interesting one. Since Trions are actively involved on Earth, I don't think this would mean humans. This might mean the Doctor? Other EU works reveal that the Time Lords colonized Trion, so there might be a conflict there.

He's also seen as being involved in overthrowing the religious regime on Sarn, which is apparently protected in some way. Sarn is also considered government property that Turlough destroyed because, once again, the Trions don't know what actually happened and have no interest in listening to Turlough.

The Trions also have no way of knowing about Tegan, since she'd already left by Planet of Fire, but this bit is funny.

Turlough had been lured to Trion under false pretenses, expecting not to be immediately arrested again. There's some Lawyer Speak: You won't be persecuted for his previous crimes, but they will persecute him for new ones. Also Lomand has taken credit for Turlough's heroics. The bastard. Also, apparently political criminals don't exist because the motivation of the crimes do not matter...

Though, this story, like The Earthlink Dilemma, doesn't say what happens to Malkon in all this.

He can't prove the existence of the Guardians. Though, when it comes to his departure from Earth, Turlough is actually being dishonest here. He chose to go with the Doctor and was obviously desperate to escape Earth, so he is actually guilty on that one.

Also, Turlough encountered Tractators, which is enough to justify exile, because existing in the same space as Tractators threatens Trion? Because it's an infection? Maybe they're the "undesirable aliens"...

So, instead of going back to Brendon, he's now basically an intern to the lawyer who'd been handling his case, possibly to once again participate in the legal conquest of Earth they've got going.

We end on a sort of Where Are They Now? where we learn how Turlough's doing in 1996 (present day when the zine was published).

"Doctors have been manipulating him all his life" Ouch...

He definitely has reason to feel abandoned by the Doctor here. The Doctor didn't exactly check to confirm that Turlough was actually going home as a hero and not being lured into a trap. Perhaps the Doctor could've explained things to the other Trions somehow, or just straight up helped him escape.

So Turlough becomes a lawyer in an army of lawyers from the Planet of Lawyers trying to take over Earth. That's hilarious but also sad.

I still prefer "Returns to Trion as a hero but turns down the spotlight to become an astrophysicist" though.

[starsfic]

Passing the Wand Back

Summary: Skywynne has a female heir. Her son needs to return the wand. These are facts. Still, that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

Notes: So, a while back, @the-time-lord-of-gallifrey-1963 requested that I write something about Skywynne Butterfly because of the lack of fanfic about her. I decided to write the moment Jushtin had to hand the wand back. This was a touch hard since we don't know a lot of her personality, and I don't have the Book of Spells on hand, but I do know that Jushtin loved Solaria, even if she took his place as heir, so I decided to write them as a loving family. Skywynne probably had some thoughts about Jushtin's sense of responsibility, and probably wasn't forced to have another kid, as pointed out by @darkmasterofcupcakes, but she did probably love her son and see hints of him being a good king.

If she had the freedom to, Skywynne Butterfly would've reversed time to change her decision to get pregnant again.

Her first time with Jushtin had been agony. She wasn't sure why labor hurt so much, her mother said she had been easy, but she was certain that somebody knew why, based on how the doctors shook their heads and fiddled their hands. It had taken over fifteen years for her to have another baby.

The pain wasn't the cause of her distress, however.

"It's just...it's tradition," she managed out. Her mouth felt very dry. Gem-robin had taken Solaria- only two weeks old but surprisingly active- to walk around Mewni, stating he wanted to spend time with his daughter before time was lost in the rush to prepare her to become queen. Right now, it felt like he was abandoning Skywynne to this moment. "We've always had a queen. And now that Solaria is here-"

"Mother," Jushtin smiled at her, even though tears were clearly beading up in his eyes. He had clearly gotten attached to the wand, even though Subtraction the Alligator Head had bitten more people than she could count. "I understand. I swore a promise to give up any claim to the throne when Solaria was born, and I will keep that promise." He held out the wand. "She will make a great queen and I will be honored to serve her."

Skywynne took it. It felt enormously heavy in her hands, even as it shifted and changed back to her clock. Tears beaded up in her eyes.

"...you would've made a wonderful king too." He was a party man, a bit untrustworthy with magical artifacts (she still wasn't over how he had just left the Book of Spells in the warnicorn waste bin), and sometimes too focused on math, but she knew he had a good heart and a good brain. Skywynne leaned forward and, in a rare moment, kissed her son's forehead. "I love you."

Jushtin leaned forward. "I love you too, Mother." Arms wrapped around her and squeezed tight. "And I love Solaria too."

...never mind. Skywynne would never reverse time for this.

[bellacatt-art]

Right, okay so.... I watched Day of the Doctor for the first time ever (yes, I'm quite new to Doctor Who and I never really got to watch this special all the way through until now BUT - )

I'm gonna start rambling for a bit, so really sorry about that but OHH MY GOD I LOVED IT SM!!!! >.< Imo, considering it was a 50th anniversary special, it really delivered on that, it was so entertaining and fun! I loved all the little jokes, the fun references and the expansion on the Time War, it was just *chefs kiss* :3

I loved the War Doctor too, he was really intriguing to me!

I remember before I watched this, I never fully knew why he wasn't counted with the other doctors (yk, like how we have Third Doctor, Eighth Doctor, etc), but I get it now, I understand 😅👍

It was also really sad how the Doctor sort of distanced themself from that regeneration because they hated being reminded of the Time War, like that was really sad ngl :"(

Again, I'm not like majorly attached to War Doctor because we don't have much material to go off tbh, but I still like him a lot, he's a cool guy!

And OMFG THE FRIENDSHIP DYNAMIC BETWEEN TEN AND ELEVEN, I QKDNWJDJSJND 😆😭💗

They're so silly, I loved watching these two interact with each other!! 🤧💞

David Tennant and Matt Smith are so funny together, I genuinely wish we could've gotten more of them two together, like at least another special or mini episode with them two, I would've loved that! 🥺

And okay, PLEASE JUST,,, LET ME RAMBLE ABOUT THIS BC IM SO NOT NORMAL LIKE OMFG 😭😭🤧🤧

When the Doctor's came back to save Gallifrey, I qksnwndnqkdnjs 😆

Like, I already love any sort of multi-Doctor story where they get to meet each other, but when they ALL LINED UP, I 🥺💞💞

Idk idk man, it made my autistic brain very happy for some reason, like okay this is gonna sound weird but like

They were all lined up in EXACTLY the order I would've put them in if I could've lined them up myself!! idk why but the order they stood in?? It made me so stupidly happy 😭🤧

And aaaaa, the Four cameo at the end??? Hello??? That was adorable!! 🤧🥺

I'm sorry, but Four and Eleven are two of my favourite Doctors and them just talking together made me so happy ☆☆

I have a lot of respect for Tom Baker, he's done so much for the DW community, and I love him a lot ^^

Eeeee okay!! That's the end of my huge ramble!

Sorry about that, it probably WILL happen again! >:3

Ik this episode came out a decade ago now so it's probably old news or smth, but I just needed to ramble! I'm autistic and I love a good ramble hehehe :))

I knew I was going to love Day of the Doctor already but I didn't predict I would love it *that* much like omgg 🥲 my mum was sat on the couch next to me when I was watching it (she was doing her work at the time) and I kept going "OH MY GOD, MUM!! LOOK AT THIS!!" :D

Like, idk I just love finding joy in things and expressing my true authentic self, I love it I love it!!

Anyways, if anyone's seen Day Of The Doctor, please tell me your thoughts! Feel free to comment and tell me, like I'm genuinely curious, and I'm always up for a discussion about things I like!!

Okay, that's the end of Bella's rant of the day! ^-^

[time-like-tears-in-rain]

The Doctor as an Alice

So as promised, based on commentary I made here, and reminded by this post, I wanted to get out my thoughts on the Doctor and Companion as the Peter and Wendy, or "Annie's obsessed with the Alice archetype and makes it everyone else's problem."

I've seen the Eleven and Amy comparison more than once for Peter and Wendy, and I agree...to a point. I'd been making a (admittedly generalized and cis-normative statement) about how the Doctor continuously attracts female companions, not necessarily in a romantic way, but that women seem to get along with him (or her!) the best, and it always seems on the surface like that Peter taking Wendy by the hand and going on dangerous adventures--but I think it's also because these girls, these women see something the same as themselves.

Sure, the Doctor is Peter Pan, is the Goblin King, the Wizard of Oz, to the companions, but unlike those characters who only know the Other World and being the Other, he's also experienced this narrative from the opposite end, and THAT'S why I think he clicks so well and so specifically with certain companions.

The Doctor is also Wendy, Alice, Dorothy, Sarah. It's why Rose and Amy (regardless of if you view either as romantic chemistry), the weird girls of the bunch (and if there's one thing a weird girl will always relate to, it's an Alice), had such great chemistry: they were both the audience viewpoint, the Alice taken on an adventure, shown a wider world than she had any idea existed beyond her daily life.

But unlike Peter, unlike the inhabitants of a Wonderland, The Doctor knows exactly how that feels. To him, the universe isn't mundane at all, because he was raised in society, that while yes, time travel and space travel was ordinary, it was such a rigid and academic social structure with so little mobility. Time Lords weren't encouraged to seek beauty and wonder, they were encouraged to seek order, balance, and (even if their philosophy didn't expressly state it ) power.

So naturally, to humans, he's Peter Pan at the window. On Gallifrey, he's the one who ran away from what was expected of him, flew away, and went off to fantastic worlds, he's Wendy Darling.When Rose sees Earth burn, when Amy experiences the beauty of space for the first time, he understands, Alice-to-Alice, Wendy-to-Wendy.

More than that though, I'm fascinated by is that by the Doctor being both Peter and Wendy, he's the hero and the heroine (given the fact that the updated canon on Gallifrey is that they're very fluid when it comes to concepts of gender this suits enormously) which means...that he's also the one who always has to save himself in the end. He's the only character in the story who is both archetypes at once, the only one of his kind, etc.

Except for the Master, and Clara, and maybe River, definitely Jack, Bad Wolf that one time, and maybe...well, it's fine. The Doctor is a bit moody and always likes to say he's forever alone.

This isn't the sum total of my thoughts on the subject, and it's not a thesis that I've really gone through and tried to find evidence to defend it yet either, but it's been rattling around in my brain since last summer when I started the rewatch of all of nuWho.

@a-shard-of-quartz, @comicaloverachiever, were both told I'd tag them, and @violettenouvel was commenting on my original remarks about this.

[presidentdisastraofgallifrey]

Judging Doctor Who: Twelfth Doctor

Disclaimer: this is all in good fun and I don't take fandom seriously

Good episodes I like

Deep Breath - The t-rex is a little random, but the robot plot is a delightful setup for a new dynamic. Also beginning of Missy's first arc!

Robot of Sherwood - It's so fun and weird and charming, and he's so grumpy about it

Mummy on the Orient Express - the mystery is intriguing and I love them fighting but refusing to acknowledge that's what they're doing

Flatline - excellent silly monster of the week story

The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar - Everything about this is so ridiculous and delightful. It's a great daleks episode! Missy stops planes just to get Clara's attention! She casually murders people because she's having fun being evil! The Doctor throws a depression party by breaking time travel rules! He's so full of nihilism but can't quit compassion! I kinda ship Missy and Clara I think, in a really messed up way

Under the Lake/Before the Flood - YES, appropriate use of time travel!! Go solve the mystery in the past!

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived - One of my all time favorite arcs. The tragedy of an act of kindness destroying her, the way she can't hold all her memories, the way she stops caring but finds a reason to again. It's so sad! But so compelling!

The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion - I always thought this felt like it was missing a third backstory episode, but even so the entire situation is wonderful. And the Osgoods are in this one!

Face the Raven/Heaven Sent/Hell Bent - Such a great arc ending for Clara, very Doctor-like of her to erase his memories and run away in a TARDIS. With Me as the ideal companion. Also first nu who use of Gallifrey that I approve of.

The Husbands of River Song - The whole thing is just so funny after so many stories of genuine emotion. He can't find a way to explain to her because he's too autistic caught off guard. That "hello, sweetie" kills me. Oh and they finally get their relationship concluding date night

The Return of Doctor Mysterio - I love the superhero theme, how lighthearted it is (despite actual brain stealing!), and the Doctor feels unusually Doctory for Twelve

The Pilot - Excellent intro for Bill

Smile - Delightfully creepy while being colorful and bright. Also, emoji horror

Knock Knock - silly but also horrifying and sad. Also, we should see Bill's school friends more

Oxygen - Delightfully anticapitalist, and I approve of the Doctor having to deal with a disability (even if the sonic sunglasses are cheating a bit)

Extremis - Another au episode! And the start of Missy's second arc!

The Eaters of Light - This one just has such a sweet sad tone and ending to it

Twice Upon a Time - It does give the Doctor some closure, and I like the idea of everyone's selves being saved like that. Also always here for the Doctor meeting himself!

Bad Episodes I like

Dark Water/Death in Heaven - Cyberpollen is ridiculous, I will always be mad about fridging Danny, and if he dies then Orson can't exist later. But it's here because this was such a great scheme and reveal for Missy!

Last Christmas - Not the most coherent and I always hate the hints at the end that maybe it was real, but I enjoyed it a lot. It's very creepy but sweet, and the fake out of the Doctor meeting old Clara really reveals his side of the companion trauma I think.

The Pyramid at the End of the World/The Lie of the Land - It was not a good decision to blind him then undo it, ok. It just wasn't. He should have stayed disabled until regeneration. But a lot of the plot was fun, especially the au bit, even if I'm not sure how Bill won made much sense.

World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls - I couldn't decide where to put this, tbh. There is so much wrong with it. It's a terrible ending for Bill, and bad timing since she felt like she was just starting to really settle in as a companion. It's also a terrible end to Missy's very good arc. But I like the tragedy of Bill spending years alone while the Doctor spends so little time, and for once it wasn't his fault. Also as much as I hate cybermen, this was a harrowing backstory and horrifying reveal.

Good episodes I don't like

In the Forest of the Night - I don't actually think this is a bad episode. I really like that the answer was plants protecting Earth and for once it wasn't an invasion. But the pacing is a bit slow and I thought having this revealed by speaking through a child like that was unnecessary (they should have deduced it)

Thin Ice - This episode is fine but didn't hold my attention well

Bad episodes I don't like

In the Dalek - This one was boring. And also it felt weird that Clara is suddenly a teacher but there's no line about her having a new job. Maybe they meant for it to be a time skip, but it felt jarring

Listen - Possibly my least favorite episode of the whole show. It makes no sense. They get no answers. Are these telepathic guidance circuits ever used again? And they absolutely should not be able to reach Gallifrey's past, right? I do like Orson Pink, though

Time Heist - Simultaneously confusing and dull

Kill the Moon - No. Just no. Not even worth the Moon is an egg jokes.

Sleep No More - Hate this ridiculous contrived plot, and hate even more the implication at the end that they didn't win anyway

Empress of Mars - It felt really slow to me for this kind of episode

Episodes that are kind of offensive

The Caretaker - The Doctor's attitude towards Danny is hypocritical, and unfair, and this only seems to happen with companions' Black boyfriends so I'm blaming the show for this writing choice