#just after lotsd

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

it'd just be really nice to have a fucked up thasmin kiss to parallel with this

[quizmasterfred]

13 in 'The God Complex'

I saw a Reddit post a while ago asking 'what episode would you like to see a different Doctor tackle', and now it's been ages but i had some thoughts, and can't stop thinking about it, and just desperately need to write them down somewhere so here if you're seeing this: sorry, you've got to deal with my ramblings now.

This could replace ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’ wholesale. It was most people's least favourite centenary special, so hopefully we’re not losing much. OR, if you want to wrangle 4 specials in that year, it comes between ‘Eve of the Daleks’ and LotSD, which I’ll elaborate on later.

Arrival:

13 genuinely intends to follow through with “that moment on the beach where you tell me everything”, directly says as much at the end of EotD. Instead of fobbing it off with “whatever happened to the lost treasure of the Flor de la Mar”, they ARE going to San Munrohvar, which Yaz is ecstatic about.

In the OG God Complex (quick reminder: 11/Amy/Rory originally), it’s Amy’s faith in the Doctor which brings them there, and it’s the same now. Except it’s not just the generic faith of a particularly attached companion, it’s the exact specific moment of Yaz knowing she’s about to get that conversation.

Her faith is both restored, and about to be rewarded. After years of asking, and wondering, and being fobbed off, finally the Doctor is opening up. And right after Yaz’s coming out to Dan? Wow - what if!

They aren’t there because Yaz “has faith in the Doctor”, they’re there now because in the exact moment the TARDIS launched, that faith was higher and more intense that it has ever been.

Dan:

Common complaint is that Dan’s a bit of a blank slate – Diane, Liverpool, nice bloke. Fun moments, but not enough time to really develop as a character. I’m not going to make a spectacular reveal here and give him an amazing arc, but at the very least we have a chance to make that blank-slatedness really work. He takes on Rory’s role in the story:

13’s Room:

We never see 11’s room, only hear the TARDIS’ cloister bell as he looks in. The implication, of course, is that he’s afraid of dying – permanently. Trenzalore, no more regenerations. Very nice and subtle for 11’s arc/personality – the old man disguising himself as a 20-something.

13 has a very different problem: she’s the Timeless Child, she’s been alive for potentially a billion years before her memories begin, and she’s still regenerating. 11 is afraid of regenerations running out; 13 is afraid they’ll never run out.

It’s harder to convey my idea here with just a noise, not showing the inside of the room itself, so I will describe what I imagine the room to look like, but if there’s a way to do this without showing the viewer, that’d obviously be great.

Her room is a field of graves: “Susan Foreman”, “Sarah-Jane Smith”, “Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart”, “Donna Noble”, “Amy + Rory Williams” (an exact copy of the grave from ‘The Angels take Manhattan’), “Clara Oswald”, River('s Screwdriver/Neural Relay sitting on a Library server?), “Bill Potts”, “Yasmin Khan”, even one written in Gallifreyan (could be inferred to be the Master, but not directly stated). Only a brief look, but enough for someone to pause it and read a bunch of companions’ names.

Many are faded, symbolising a fear that one day she’ll be so old with so many lost loved ones, there simply won’t be room for all of them, and she’ll starting to forget their names and faces. Thousands more we can’t read, the people she’s yet to meet across all her future lives, and they will age and die all the same. In the centre, she’s still there. Alive, young, never dying. Maybe it’s not even Jodie standing there – maybe it’s Ncuti Gatwa, or some completely other actor: ‘generic future self’.

This is the moment of tragedy for her. After her own chat with Dan, the fireworks, seeing Sarah + Nick happy, she had decided to give it a try with Yaz. But seeing this room is what changes that. This is the moment she says to herself:

In OG, this happens immediately after 11 effectively invites Rita to join the crew, but maybe we can swap these around. So 13 sees this, completely psyches herself out of pursuing a relationship with Yaz, knows in her heart that her biggest fear is losing more and more and more people, but seeing Rita being a little bit brilliant again makes 13 invite her along anyway. She can’t help it – a clever little human working their way in, no matter what. Bittersweet.

Speaking of:

Rita:

Another young Muslim woman who’s a little bit brilliant and a little bit too brave? In all of time and space, it’s a bit weird for a bottle episode to have someone who, on the face of it, is basically a carbon copy of our main companion, right? We’ll see.

13 gets along with Rita just as 11 did. Maybe Dan is the butt of the ‘with regret, you’re fired’ joke. Maybe in a moment alone, Dan can crack a line to Rita that ‘she’s got a thing for clever Muslim gals’. But of course, most importantly, Rita and Yaz have a bit of bonding over their shared faith. Rita mentions ‘Jahannam’ in the OG, and we can use that to get some insight to Yaz’s faith. We know she’s practicing-enough to visit a Mosque (mentioned in Rosa), but really we get very little exploration of what Islam truly means to her throughout Chibnall’s run. Give Yaz something personal that isn’t tied to the Doctor, y’know.

Then, the phone call when Rita is about to die. Like 11, 13 tries to talk her into coming back: maybe she can save her, she really wants to save her. She can’t convince Rita, but Yaz takes the phone off of her. Two young women of the same religion have a heart-to-heart about faith and rapture and Jahannam. They both start off thinking Yaz was brought here for the same reason Rita was (and the viewer does too) – stealing their religion from them.

BUT, Rita gradually realises that isn’t true for Yaz. She realises that Yaz’s faith in the Doctor is stronger: “if you come back, the Doctor can save [you/us]”. That brief, shining moment of beauty that Yaz felt when the Doctor confirmed she would follow through on ‘tell[ing] you everything’ was so powerful, it eclipsed her religious faith. Not forever, she hasn’t become an atheist, but the novelty, the cocktail of love, and rewarded patience, and anticipation, and trust – for a tiny moment, it out-shone her other faith, and that’s why the TARDIS was pulled in by the eponymous God Complex.

Maybe Rita says it explicitly, or maybe she doesn’t. Either way, Yaz also realises what Rita has seen, but the Doctor isn’t privy to Rita’s side of the conversation (because… phone). They hang up, turn off the cameras, and Rita dies. If Yaz hadn’t let the Doctor take over her life and heart, could she have saved Rita? Did someone die because she failed as a Muslim? (Obviously the answer is no – that’s not how faith/religion works, and Rita was dead anyway because that is how the minotaur works, but the point is Yaz has a total crisis here)

As with the OG, the very next scene is the Doctor’s ‘I figured it out’ moment.

Yaz is hit with a whole fresh wave of guilt. The whole reason they’re here, the thing that killed Rita – and the Doctor agrees with that assessment (the Doctor couldn’t hear Rita, so this obviously isn’t actually the Doctor saying ‘you’re right, you got her killed’ – the Doctor would never think or say something like that – but that’s what it feels like to Yaz).

Yaz’s Room:

Now this is what’s really beautiful about the change from 11 to 13. Amy and Yaz’s rooms are the same thing. Amy’s is a little girl waiting by a window for her Raggedy Man to come back; abandoned. Yaz’s is a young woman in a basic white TARDIS console room, surrounded by sticky notes and sheets of paper, after hundreds of failed attempts to make it fly, waiting for the Doctor to come back from Gallifrey; abandoned.

[Quick side-note: the moment between Amy and Gibbis where she says ‘I thought that room was for me’ about the Weeping Angels still works for Yaz. In her only meeting with the Angels, what was the result? They took the Doctor away from her for 3 years]

11’s speech to Amy, tearing down the image of him in her head – saving her life by pretending he can’t – absolutely stunning. But 13 has even more to work with here: Amy/Rory, Clara (died because she became too much like the Doctor – hello Yaz), River. The added tragedy of breaking not just a friend, but someone who is actively in love with her and who she shares those feelings for, and the only way to save Yaz’s life is to shatter those feelings.

AND: Bill. "Remember that man who tried to kill you, Graham, and Ryan in a plane crash the instant he met you? The man who tried to kill us all on Gallifrey, and is ultimately the reason I left you, vanishing for 10 months? The man you’re most afraid of, of every villain we’ve met together? I TRIED TO HELP HIM. I put his redemption above Bill and Nardole’s safety because ‘[he’s] the only one person that I’ve ever met who’s even remotely like me’ (direct quote, btw(!) – ‘World Enough and Time’), and it got her mercilessly killed and converted. That’s the sort of person I am, and now I’m about to get you killed too."

Falling Action:

Because Yaz is a little bit brilliant, and coming into her own as “becoming like the Doctor”, like Clara did, she later works out that the speech in her room was ‘the plan all along^TM’ to get rid of the minotaur, and starts to patch herself up by telling herself that the Doctor didn’t really mean not to trust her. So Yaz presses, once again, asking for the Doctor to tell her something about herself.

The Doctor, of course, actually was being genuine, because her own room – the field of graves – scared her that much. 11 rebuffs Amy’s question, continuing with his exposition about the prison. 13 does the same to Yaz. The episode started with Yaz being elated that the Doctor would finally open up, and ends with 13 reverting back to closed-off, and refusing to answer a personal question. Because 13 saw what was in her room, and decided, against everything they both wanted 45 minutes ago, that she can’t fix herself.  So back in the box it goes.

Then:

From 11’s perspective, this could be perceived as bittersweet. He’s still afraid of death, but at least there’s someone here and now commiserating with him. Maybe it would be a gift, and maybe he can accept it in time, and go to Trenzalore in peace. But for 13, it’s just bitter. 'Yes, it would be a gift – if only I could ever have it. But at least I can grant it to you.'

We can either do the beach scene now, ‘can’t fix myself’…

(and then in my ideal world, alter Power of the Doctor to give us a slightly happier end / opening up / explaining 13's hotel room / Thasmin kiss, because god knows us gays need someone to throw us a bone – but that’s not important right now, not relevant to 13!GodComplex)

Or this is where the Doctor goes ‘let’s fuck about looking for the Flor de la Mar’, cue LotSD. Again we see the contrast between her genuine intent to be honest with Yaz 45 minutes ago vs fobbing it off now. Yaz’s heart is broken for real, just after she managed to convince herself that the Doctor’s speech in the hotel room was all a trick.

I can't stop thinking about it, because Doctor Who has consumed my every waking moment for the last 2 months...

[13thdoctorposts]

The way 15 has been crying in damn near every episode he's actually in, running away consistently, abandoning Ruby all over the place (including to fuck some stranger in the latest ep), is annoying because its very not Doctor behaviour and because 13 was unjustly accused of all of this shit and absolutely raked over the coals for it but somehow when it's a male Doctor who is actually literally guilty it's all cool. Not even getting into people creaming themselves over the Doctor being canonically maintextually queer like 13 doesn't exist. I am done with this show and fandom, the misogyny is galling.

The hypocrisy, and the complete lack of the acknowledgment of the hypocrisy is insane.

With the crying, I think this is frustrating a lot of people, because it’s been every ep except 73 yards, which he basically wasn’t in. And while I do think its fine for the Doctor to cry and I think it’s good to see men cry on screen to normalise it, I feel nothing when he does it now because I know it doesn’t need to be that deep to make him cry, basically it’s just lost any impact. Like it should have had more of an impact at the end of Dot and Bubble and while I understood his frustration the crying didn’t have the impact it would have if I hadn’t seen him cry almost every episode before. You’ve seen everything, lost everything, and you’re crying every adventure. Clearly it’s doesn’t need to deep to make him cry so it doesn’t pull at my heart strings. No like that 1 tear that slips down 13s cheek after talking to Yaz at the end of Flux, because I know for that to happen, 13 is really feeling something and her mask has dropped for that moment and she’s being really vulnerable.

We haven’t heard the end of the 13 locking spiders in a room with 6 months worth of food and water (Jack Robinson tells us this when they are in the room) but it was fine for 15 to send the Bridgeton bird aliens to another dimension? Also perfectly fine to kill a whole ship of goblins?

Also perfectly find that Rouge kissed the Doctor and stole and hit the switch so the Doctor doesn’t have to… but 13 was horrible when she let someone else hit the button in TTC and LotSD.

Honestly at this point the people who claim 15 era is amazing but are still bashing on 13 era I think are more disingenuous than the right wing pundits because at least they are consistent about what they hate in the show and why, so despite being terrible at least aren’t being hypocritical.

There is a very clear double standard between the female doctor and the male doctors but they completely refuse to acknowledge it because then they would have to admit their misogyny and they don’t want to admit they are they problem they want to demonise the woman and make her the problem.

[syazthidw]

The LotSD episode just hits different. The Doctor is different. She looks happier, more open and I just love how she acts around Yaz. How she looks after her, how she flirts with her (intentional or unintentional). It's like the Doctor had forger that she's dying and all she wanted was to be happy and live of what she and Yaz had - love.

Even if the episode itself isn't the best, it's still one of my favourites, because of them.

[none-ofthisnonsense]

zjufuee power of the doctor j'ai bien aimé zjfjf its like after chibnall's countless attempts at a complex multilayered plot, he finally succeeds ! Same for eve of the daleks, where it more of a weird timey wimey plot, and legend of the sea devils is more of success at mixing history and aliens. I'm glad he FINALLY succeeded at doing what he wanted to do.

Dunno if you re there yet, but the doctor and yaz definetly should ve kissed on that beach. I mean they should've kissed anytime but especially on that beach. Or underwater. But I prefer the beach. Though I like thz scene underwater a little better. But I'd rather they had kissed on the beach. If you haven't seen it this must sound incredibly confusing.

Je shippais pas du tout thasmin avant les 3 specials, et je comprenais pas trop la hype, MAIS MAINTENANT AAAAH CHIBNALL I AM IN YOUR WALLS.

Mais trop content que les personnages ont eu la place d ETRE DES PERSONNAGES a la fin. Dommage que ça a pas été le cas pour Graham (bebou) et Ryan (moins bebou mais c parce qu'il est mal ecrit le pauvre)

ANYWAY if you have any thoughts I'm right there zkejejzue

j'ai vu EOTD+LOTSD but not POTD

AND YES. YES. YES. c'était à l'épisode 5 de flux que j'ai commencé à me dire that there was something there? but nothing deep juste je comprenais why people shipped is

OH MY GOODNESS YESSSSS LA SCÈNE SOUS L'OCÉAN WHERE 13 JUST TALKS TO YAZ AAAAARGHHHHH

Oui that was what was missing dans les 2 1ères saisons it was GOOD CHARACTER WRITING

Graham je t'aime I miss you 😭 Ryan was nice mais juste mal écrit

I have thoughts mais pour demain 😂😭 la je vais me coucher

[yellowech0]

I found some old Thasmin fanart I did just after lotsd.

(Just a quick one, It’s pretty trash tbh)

[evviejo]

in case anybody’s interested and missed the fact that i sometimes write fic, i thought i’d make a sort of masterpost of what i’ve written for thasmin so far. they’re one-shots and pretty short things that just needed to get out of my head, and are mostly canon-compliant.

candy floss (post-rotd, in which the doctor and yaz are on a trip where they eat a lot of candy floss and yaz is struggling with her feelings)

the earring (set after grace’s funeral, the story behind the doctor’s earring)

the phoenix (there is stargazing with a side of mutual pining)

flying lessons (the doctor teaches yaz how to fly the tardis, and inadvertently they end up having dates)

not a honeymoon (written and set post-lotsd, the doctor and yaz go on a space cruise, stumble upon a murder and end up sharing a bed)

the most incredible people (what probably happened on the beach after the credits rolled in lotsd)

(un)familiar (yaz coming to terms with her new, doctorless life at unit)

enjoy 💖💖

[lostcosmos]

Hiya from your Thasmin secret Santa! Super hyped to be writing for you!

Just thought I’d message to ask, what’s your favourite Thasmin quote seeing as it’s been suggested for this week’s prompt! 💙

Hello! That’s a tough question haha

Out of pure me going feral over flirty thirteen, I would say the line “come on, tell me you’re impressed” because it rewired absolutely everything I thought thirteen would be like after knowing yaz likes her

But I do also love “I think you’re one of the greatest people I’ve ever known” because the parallel from yaz saying something similar early days to the doctor saying it in lotsd is just so good 🥹

[pinkninja236]

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#5

okay but so true bestie 😭 13 is NOT the longest running doctor (counting eps) but yaz IS the longest running companion (counting series) im fine being a hypocrite about this

wait but. shes been there from 13's first until 13's last episode thats like. must be a record. at least in new who. like only rose did that and 9 only had one series. anyway even if it's not a record it still feels special <3 there hasnt been a companion doctor duo who was together the entire time in new who

yeah! so my source is tardis wiki:

(note the clara one is stories not episodes, so while yaz has been in 31 episodes that only counts as 25 (? if I counted right) stories, because spyfall 1&2 count as 1 and flux only counts as 1, which is bullshit)

so for calendar time yaz is the undisputed longest, and for modern companions she is the only one with 3 complete seasons (I believe clara would be the runner up here, 2.5 seasons)

In terms of calendar time counting for companions but not doctors, it somehow feels different? idk why, it just Is. vibes

I do believe yaz is the only companion (other than rose&nine) to be with the doctor from first to last episode, and even that is somehow different as we dont know how long 9 was alone between regenerating in the 50th and meeting rose, while yaz is certifiably there from just after one regeneration to just before the next

18 notes - Posted October 17, 2022

#4

#okay Im pretty sure I had Thoughts(tm) while watching this but 'you are loved' with tecteun at the end broke me and now they're all gone

✌ that was my evil intention im glad it worked. also: 😭

because thats the thing isnt it? river telling them "i asked for help for you" and the doctor going "THATS SO STUPID"

amy and rory setting out a place for them. "but you didnt know i was coming, why would you set me a place?" "because we always do"

the doctor disappears and you dont know if or when they'll ever be back but i dont know if they expect you to wait for them. so many people throughout time who have told them "i waited for you" and it never seems to sink in that they wait for them. that they miss them.

the doctor quietly removing themself from people's lives bc they only bring chaos and destruction anyway. it's better like this. theyre saving them by leaving.

clara going "i mean it's not like im never gonna see you again" "isnt it?" "is it?" "i thought thats what you wanted" "but youre gonna come around for dinner or something arent you? do you do that? come around peoples houses for dinner?" "of course" they lie because they dont "thought you mind find it boring"

"do you want to come for tea at mine?"

maybe they do find it boring. or maybe thats an easier sentiment to express, an easier idea to grapple with, than the fact that there are people who care about them enough to spend time with them when nothing particularly exciting is happening, spend time with them just doing human maintenance things, when they dont need them. because theyre not necessary when there is no danger. theyre not needed, just wanted. because theyre not loved by the people who love them for being The Doctor, theyre loved for being the doctor.

river voice: but thats not the sort of thing you could ever understand, is it?

and maybe it’s easier to say it’s boring, that they dont do that sort of thing, than to say they want to, but they dont know how, because it’s never quite right, because their big blue box breaks chairs in the living room, and whats missing from them is so much more evident when theyre surrounded by people who are connected, who have a place they belong and each other and a shared history

“have you got family?”

AWSOK: It's over, Doctor. It has been ever since we let a virus into the experiment. DOCTOR: What sort of virus? AWSOK: You.

so they just leave, because youve got your own good safe human life to lead, because they cant fathom the idea that you will miss them, because it hurts to try to make connections on top of the gaping craters of broken ones, because they cant quite fix themself to anything, because theyre out of place everywhere, because it hurts less to swoop in, save the day, be unknown but adored for a day, every day.

......i got carried away. sorry for being depressing in your inbox 😭

no no don't apologize, this is excellent!

so many people love and wait and miss the doctor and they don't get it! But then to contrast that with their mother, someone who is supposed to love you, and maybe even does in some weird twisted way, but never in a way that compares to the people the doctor finds themselves, is ugh. how do you do this. please keep making me sad with your videos

20 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

#3

latest Thing that won't leave my head

See the full post

29 notes - Posted February 2, 2022

#2

69 notes - Posted January 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

fuck.

FUCK

117 notes - Posted September 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[transboytwelve]

For the ask thingy, because I’m in an angsty mood: Thasmin, the doctor misjudged coming back from space prison—it’s been 10 years

OOO TEN YEARS THATS SO LONG (in true Me fashion it took me days to do this I’d apologize but it will happen again)

Send me a ship+au and I’ll give you a lil headcanon for it!

ok i went through a few scenarios with this and the one i like the most is: yaz moved on.

which is wild, but considering this is pre potd, pre lotsd eotd, pre flux, pre rotd even! i think she'd have worked past that anger we saw in rotd while she worked on her grief, and i think she'd come out the other side (mostly) unscathed.

ten years is a long time.

ten years in linear time is a long time, especially for a human.

and yaz has had all of that time to Get Over It, and i think she's stubborn enough that she would.

because, like, what choice does she have? she can't disappear again, she can't run off with a time traveling alien and forget her earth problems. What choice does she have other than to grit her teeth and bear it for however long it takes.

and eventually, that "however long it takes" turned into "a while" and that turned into "forever" when she got to the acceptance part of her grieving process.

and then the doctor comes back.

yaz is older now, like, what, 32 ish right? close to? she's got her own flat or maybe a house even, and a few plants, and a cat. and she never went back to police work but now shes doing social work, which she likes a lot better. and she's matured now. she doesn't get those urges anymore, and she doesn't run away as much.

and the doctor comes back. like, shows up on her doorstep, thinking maybe Yaz is visiting a friend or summat. no idea its yaz's house, and knocks on the door or just walks in like she owns the place. and yaz was washing dishes from the night before and looks up when the door opens and fully drops the mug into the sink.

the cut on her hand is kinda deep and she curses and and the doctor immediately rushes over to help cos she didn't mean to scare her! and she doesn't even notice how different yaz looks bc shes so focused on getting her a bandage and helping her wash out the cut

and shes holding yaz's hand and finally looks up and frowns because...she looks different.

the doctor isn't great with faces or remembering them but she'd remember yaz (she made a conscious effort to remember yaz in prison) and this yaz doesn't look like her yaz and for a second shes scared she flew into a different universe or something by accident

and shes like "yaz?"

and yaz feels like she's going to Throw Up, and not because of the cut on her hand.

and then the doctor finally registers everything in the house, like the dishes in the sink and the flowers in the vase on the window and the cat sleeping on the couch and the sweatshirt thrown over one chair and the pictures on the wall showing a life lived (showing YEARS of a life lived)

and shes like ..."oh."

and yaz is like "yeah."

and the doctor is like "how longs it been?"

and yaz pulls her hand away and steps back because holy shit

and shes like "ten years."

flashback to clara and the dream crabs and 13 feels like this MUST be a joke like that, right? like, there's NO way she's that late. no way. absolutely none. her ship has never steered her that far off course.

and shes like "no..."

and yaz is like "yeah, doctor. ten years."

And Yaz wants to be angry. Oh god, she wants to be PISSED. She wants to feel that anger she did in the months and years after, where she’d imagine the doctor showing back up in her flat with a smile and a stupid excuse as if nothing had happened. She wants to feel that emotion again because it’s at least SOMETHING, and not…whatever she’s feeling now

(Which like, it isn’t relief. It’s not anger and it’s not sadness and it’s not happiness either. Not entirely. It’s more like…acceptance?)

((And that’s when she knows she’s truly moved on, because she’s able to bandage her hand and make the doctor a cup of tea and sit on the couch while the doctor goes around her flat and looks at all the evidence of her life over the years, and Yaz doesn’t feel the pulling urge to run away in the tardis like she did in her twenties.))

[master-missysversion]

I am pretty sure the Dan outing Yaz thing is about him telling the Doctor 5 seconds after Yaz has - kinda - made it clear she isn't even completely out to herself yet, let alone anybody else.

To be the first one someone comes out to - also kinda because she had to but that conversation is sweet imo I don't have issues with it - and then immediately run to your mutual friend and pass the message along, is not the best thing to do.

He didn't mean to hurt them, of course and there was a good chance they were about to die and the Doctor is a genderfluid alien but still. He did out her and she was not happy about it (see lotsd). Even if it was good that her and the Doctor talked and that arguably wouldn't have happened otherwise.

(I am actually more or less partial to him outing her. It is the wrong thing to do, yes, and he hurt her and I wish we would have seen them talk that out, but it is also so helplessly kind. Because he is trying to do the right thing, he just doesn't. And stuff like that can happen even with supportive family/friends and it is still wrong, so I like the idea of making him mess it up. I'd just wish we would have seen that discussed in more detail afterwards.)

(It would have been so easy to go 'you like her' instead btw. Like, 'Doc, it is obvious you are into Yaz but you are sending mixed signals. (Again.) Stop playing with her.')

Yeah idk i guess so can see how you'd take that perspective but I just don't think it was the terrible act people make it out to be. It's not like Dan was actually fishing for information from Yaz with the express purpose of passing it on to the doctor, and most of the issues with timing can probably be attributed to real life timing— Eve of the Daleks wasn't even supposed to exist so I'm sure they were feeling the pressure of how quickly this storyline had to be moved along

I dont really remember yaz mentioning it in lotsd, I'd probably have to rewatch that

Ultimately I think a lot of the feelings around this maybe are just to do with personal experience, I'm at university where its very common to be queer and talk about liking girls, or about who likes who, regardless of gender. It's not as tentative or nerve-wracking as it was in high school or in my home town. I have experienced my mum telling her friends that I'm queer and nobody has reacted badly but i do know its pretty uncomfortable, so I imagine that's the kind of experience people are perceiving this situation with Yaz and Dan as being like, it's just not what I automatically compare it to yk?

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

[quizmasterfred]

Thinking about Flux and Thamsin again, so as per usual I'm dealing with it by typing a full stream-of-consciousness into the nothing :D

Enjoy! (or, more likely, don't 🤷‍♀️ it's really long and I am prone to rambling)

Let me preface this by saying this is NOT a Dan Lewis Hatepost. He's fine (and John Bishop is a darling), but I think he's a bit bland and takes up a lot of screen time that could better serve our main duo if we just... didn't have to include Dan.

In Hallowe’en Apocalypse, he’s great. He’s the hook 13 + Yaz need to get into Karvanista’s ship and kickstart the main plot.

WotS

he gets sent back to Liverpool immediately, infiltrates a sontaran ship, and Skypes 13 to shut down their Tempura Shrimp plan.

Either, you could then have 13 (at the end of the episode) make sure he’s okay and alive, Karvanista says the Lupari are taking care of earth for a bit, and Dan now stays home, because y’know this is all really fucked and he’s some normal guy who shouldn’t be whisked off to fight ancient paranormal demons when he’s barely aware of space travel.

Or K takes over his role. Towards the end of HA, 13+Y can drop Dan off before they go looking for the flux. In WotS, K can board the Sontaran ship as he does in canon anyway, except instead of looking for Dan, he’s now there on an active mission to sabotage the Sontarans, and isn’t worried as much about Dan, since the Lupai have changed tack to defending earth rather than their original 1-to-1 human taxi plan. This allows 13+K to get on each others nerves a bit as they work together to stop the Sontarans, and interrogate their (forgotten) relationship from the Division days before 13(+Y) goes AWOL for three episodes.

Either way, Dan is now out of the picture. He’s a fun celebrity cameo/comedic relief role that doesn’t outstay his welcome and is just there to get the ball rolling. In the Karv-centric version of WotS, we get more info on Division, which is the Doctor’s driving goal for this series.

O,UT

Canon!Dan spends this episode in the time storm with everyone else. Without him, you can explore the other three characters more; that simple. Yes, Dan’s face is taking Karvanista’s spot in 13’s visions, but since we never find out the identities of Y+Vinder in those visions, we can cut one face without any change to the plot.

When they’re out of the storm, Dan has a moment with Holo-Diane in the Passenger, but this could have been one of the Khans! The Ravagers clearly know enough about Yaz, and that extra strain on 13+Y’s relationship would be more interesting than with Dan. Canon!13 yells at Yaz in her post-storm delirium, and now Yaz gets to push back because her family is in danger because of her relationship to the Doctor, which isn’t something the Khans have faced up to this point.

The Khans are SO well set-up in s11/12:

Sonya is the one who saved her sister when she ran away, and now Yaz has “run away” again in a different way

Najia will not stop interrogating 13+Y’s relationship, which creates tension with Yaz not wanting to freak her family out with the knowledge of aliens etc

Hakim is a CONSPIRACIST whose daughter has now run off with an actual real time-travelling alien!!!

But they don’t get the payoff for any of it. Each one of them is primed for an incredible reaction to the Doctor/Time Travel/Aliens reveal and we never get it! If we can’t get the full family episode-2.0, then at least putting one of them in the passenger gives us payoff for that character. (And ideally LotSD gets replaced with KhanFamily-2.0, but i'll get to that later)

Point is, a known 2ndary character related to one of our leads is more compelling than a tertiary character we don’t know related to a 2ndary character we also barely know. We get some major strain between our two leads because of it, but also, after the initial shock has settled, we see Yaz’s genuine trust in 13 to save her family, AND 13's care for Yaz + family in promising to save [whichever one]. They’re almost at each other’s throats because of 13 keeping secrets, Yaz pushing her too much, big pressure cooker episode, but at the end of the day, they trust and care about each other, and 13 WILL protect her companions' families.

VotA

Canon!Dan spends this entire episode with Yaz. He doesn’t have a unique plot role at all. If he's not here, Yaz can have a taste of a solo mission, again showing 13’s trust in Yaz to perform under pressure, but of course it goes wrong because they’ve underestimated/couldn’t predict the Angels’ plan.

Script-wise, we get more reliance on Yaz’s detective skills, and unspoken context clues for the audience, rather than bouncing off Dan. She can talk to herself a little bit (picking up a habit from 13), but the point is it focuses more on Yaz alone working things out. And once she finds the kid, there's someone to dialogue with anyway, so it's not like it'll just be a silent role for half the episode or something.

SotF

Now here’s where it gets interesting. We all know this is THE doctorification-of-Yasmin-Khan episode. Jericho and canon!Dan are very much her companions, and she is the doctor in 13’s absence.

Dan’s role can be taken on entirely by Jericho. The companion role can be absorbed without any major changes - canon!J already does half of that work anyway. Dan’s main character scene here is comforting Yaz after she watches the hologram. But I think we can retool this and even make it more effective with Jericho.

A surprisingly common headcanon is that J is gay, and here we have an opportunity to make it canon (though not explicitly stated - bear with me). In the canon version, JDY have all known each other for the same amount of time, so the strength of familiarity + friendship can be directly translated from Y+D to Y+J. J is perfectly able to tell how badly Y misses 13, and while he didn’t see HA, WotS or OUT like Canon!Dan, he did get a good look at 13’s brilliance and magnetism in VotA, so he kinda gets it. This woman is a bit mad, but clearly more than the average person, and these two have clearly developed a stronger-than-average friendship, so he’s just as capable of delivering the comfort that canon!Dan does.

And if we make gay!J canon, it creates a beautiful extra layer. J knows 13+Y are extremely close, so recognises that spark of atypical attraction in Yaz that he knows from his own life, but maybe can’t be certain. Certainly Yaz hasn’t come to terms with it herself at this point, so J has to tread carefully because he doesn’t want to force Yaz into any self-revelations before she’s ready.

But more importantly! J is from the 60s! His only experience with talking about LGBT stuff is mired in the risk of rejection and ostracism - he has NO IDEA that Yaz would just be accepting because she’s grown up in a better time! So he can’t come out and say it, he HAS to tiptoe under threat of losing his only friend in a terrifying time-adrift situation. Similarly, Yaz is both not ready to acknowledge her own sexuality, and couldn’t say anything to J directly anyway because he’s from the 60s! He’s “probably deeply homophobic”, so there’s no way Yaz could risk bringing it up even if she were ready to (which she isn't)!

J has to tiptoe around the suggestion because on the one hand, he can see that spark, but can’t risk losing his friend/lifeline, and Y has to pick up on something much more subtle than she’s prepared for (but won't - yet!). All wrapped up in the simpler ground layer of Yaz just needing some comfort - any comfort - as she’s been bearing the brunt of the work since taking on the role of “the Doctor” for an extended time now leading the pair of them through this insane mission to get back to their times, and just... because she misses her best friend.

This conversation now has the dual role of canon!Dan’s pep talk AND forming a bedrock for Yaz’s coming out as she can have a hindsight-realisation about what J was hinting at (during one of the 2022 specials).

Vanquishers

Canon!Dan is again with the group the whole time, so he doesn’t have an individual plot purpose for us to replace or work around. Canon!Karvanista doesn’t even care about Dan at this point, so his role doesn’t change either. The only conversation they have is a payoff to “fetch your dog”, which can easily be one of the (multiple) 13s going to fetch him for more 13+K dynamic, rather than both 13s going to Bel.

Obviously we get the Passenger rescue in this episode too, so our chosen Khan has the appropriate freak-out moment. Pick your favourite:

Sonya yelling that “this is where you’ve been and you didn’t tell me” + a sisterly ribbing about the romantic tension between 13+Y

Najia going into full “this is my daughter you’ve taken off to god-knows-where and I expect her back in one piece” @ 13 + “are you sure you’re not seeing each other?” @ Yaz

Hakim HOLY SHIT ALIENS ARE FUCKING REAL YAZ CAN YOU BELIEVE IT

2022 Specials

Dan's biggest contribution here is the “I know what you are” talk @ Yaz in EotD and playing (failed) matchmaker in LotSD, and then he fucks off for PotD anyway, so that doesn’t even need any changing.

In my ideal world, we would actually replace one of EotD or LotSD with KhanFamilyEpisode-2.0 (KFE2), continuing on from the post-passenger-rescue revelation in Vanquishers. I LOVE EotD, so I would replace LotSD and that’s the direction my ramblings will go from now on. But it could be either way round (or in magical get-everything-we-want land, it's just an extra 4th episode)

EotD doesn’t need to have Dan pushing Yaz to come out to herself. Admittedly, this is the dodgiest consequence we get from stripping back Dan so much, but bear with me. Combining the Sarah/Nick romantic B plot and Yaz pulling on that aforementioned hindsight to her conversation with Jericho, we can get the same effect without having a straight man effectively force a closeted lesbian into coming out. (As much as canon!Dan is trying to be nice, and I respect him for that, the actual result is cornering a closeted young woman into coming out to him, and then immediately outing her to someone else, which is not… the best thing to do)

We can replace it with more reaction shots for Yaz to S/N’s relationship and bickering, sprinkle in a bit of flashback to her conversation with J with new context, maybe an almost-confession that she chickens out of in the heat of the moment during one of the later loops. Something like 13 being reckless and Y yells at her for it and goes off about how she cares about 13 a lot and can’t just lose her if shit goes wrong - a direct mirror to 13’s “I will not let you die for my mistakes” moment. They each get an admission of care now. If we’re desperate, Yaz can have a self-annoyed talking-to-herself moment berating herself for said chickening out, but this is a bit heavy-handed and shouldn’t be necessary if the rest of it is played right.

In KFE2, one of the Khans of course has appropriate characterisation from Flux. I think Sonya works best here, since she’s the most likely to accept Yaz’s inevitable plea to “don’t tell the others anything about alien bullshit” (potentially including blackmail wherein Yaz has to promise to do sonya’s chores for a month or something, classic sibling hijinks).

Obviously Doctor Who shenanigans ensue and it probably results in the whole family finding out the truth about the Doctor. But the B plot is Sonya needling at Yaz over her now-obvious crush on 13, culminating in the equivalent to LotSD’s beach talk.

ALTERNATIVELY:

Swap KFE2 and EotD. The B plot in KFE2 ends in Yaz coming out to Sonya (instead of Dan), who is on the one hand, a typical sibling response of “yeah obviously duh, and i'm gonna make fun of you for being a dumbass about it” but on the other hand is fully supportive because she knows Yaz’s mental health history (+ potentially already suspected her sexuality from school years) and is, at heart, an actually good sister.

EotD can then have Yaz actually confessing to 13 during that aforementioned stressful late-game time loop, mirrored by moving 13's confession from LotSD to this episode as well. And then the equivalent beach talk.

Diane

Final note: I didn’t want to just delete Diane completely, because I do really like that she just exists as a disabled character who gets shit done. We definitely don’t need the will-they-won’t-they if we’re stripping back Dan’s role, so if you really want, we can just have them be an established relationship for that little bit of world building. Maybe D+D can have minor roles in Vanquishers as part of the finale if you rejig it a bit

OR we can just give Dan’s role to Diane wholesale. Diane’s actress was perfectly good, she can carry that role easily, and we get to keep a semi-prominent disabled character. I quite like what little we see of Diane, so I like the idea of keeping her over Dan, but narratively speaking it’s not important either way.

[13thdoctorposts]

I know narratively the Doctor telling Yaz in LotSD that they can’t be together because it will eventually hurt makes sense.

But Chibs could have also narratively justified them being together since his Doctor is meant to be a hopeful Doctor, it would have totally made sense for her to choose Love despite the heartbreak that would follow… because heartbreak always follows love for at least one partner. And since he’s a big believer in Doctor Who being for kids as well, it would have been cool instead of the message being don’t do love because it eventually hurts, the message could have been love hard while you can.

He wouldn’t have actually have had to really change any of the story in Power of the Doctor either because you can effectively read them as a couple, though the acting and script points like the Doctor screaming Yaz’s name as she essentially dies, Yaz not giving up on getting her back even though she knows the Master has taken over the Doctor and doesn’t know enough about regeneration to actually know if it’s possible to bring the Doctor back. She wasn’t giving up for anything… that’s love.

The way they interact in the episode could be easily taken as friends as I’m assuming was intended but so easily as lovers as well so if Chibs had the Doctor choose to throw caution to the wind at the end of LotSD after Yaz’s little speech on Courage have the Doctor say… ok, I want to try and end that episode with basically saying they are going to be together, Both LotSD and PotD could play out exactly the same but you could put a kiss in at the end and it would make sense. Story wise you would only have to change a line in LotSD and add a kiss in PotD, it probably would only had 15-30secs of screen time to each episode.

It also would mean there could be extended universe story’s for between LotSD and PotD were other story tellers could play with them being together.

This is just one of many thoughts I’ve had about the 2022 specials of which I love all of them this is just a different path that could have been taken that I often think about.

[quizmasterfred]

It’s the same reason 13 shuts down the romance in LotSD (despite how much she herself wants it too) - it’s all about saving Yaz’s life. She knows Yaz is exactly the type of person to sacrifice herself because she’s doing something for the Doctor, or to save the Doctor, or saving innocents because “WWTDD”.

Rose almost got sucked into the void because she wouldn’t leave.

Donna lives (in 13’s time) in constant peril of just 1 alien causing her brain to melt because she “was gonna stay with you forever”.

River died explicitly because she wanted to preserve their relationship + marriage.

Amy + Rory got lost in the wrong century because 11 could not leave well enough alone (and basically INSTANTLY after receiving Brian Williams’ blessing).

Clara died because “why can’t I be like you”.

Bill died because she was doing something 12 asked of her, which Yaz is even more inclined to do just because “it’s the Doctor, of course I’ll do what she asked”.

Not Yaz. Yaz gets out, Yaz lives, Yaz is safe. It’s the only good ending 13 can think of, and she has to break both their hearts to do it, but Yaz is alive and well, and that’s what matters.

(And then she immediately gets hit with the self-mandated therapy break, which is really heartbreaking to see after we just lost Thasmin 😭 but hey, showrunner-change gonna showrunner-change)

i've seen a couple of people talk about yaz's ending and. i have some thoughts.

warnings for discussions of suicide ideation under the read more

i don't mind yaz's ending. i think it was a little rushed, but i don't think it was bad. she had to go bc of showrunner changes, but there's nothing wrong with the bones of it, it was just a bit rushed - and it is both happy and tragic in a way i deeply enjoy.

i agree with people when they say that yaz wouldn't leave the doctor of her own free will, that it'd have to be the universe pulling them apart. but - and this is important - yaz's story is one about recovering from suicide ideation.

yaz's ending couldn't be her dying.

i think she'd be okay with dying - to some degree i think she expected it, particularly during flux. i don't think she has a death wish anymore, but she had a "aware of her own mortality" vibe during all her seasons that made it clear that she was okay with it - that she thought travelling with the doctor was worth the risk. but, if she died, having chosen to live, having chosen the 50p - out of universe that sends a terrible message. and in universe it's - rough at best.

it's okay if you're suicidal - don't attempt suicide, a chance to heroically sacrifice yourself and die for the "right reasons" will present itself!

yeah.

looking at other companion endings - trapped in an alternate universe? bad. walking away? ooc - yaz would never walk away from the doctor of her own free will. she'd never choose to leave.

she leaves because the doctor asks her to. and the doctor asks her too because 13 is trying to be kind. because yaz has just had - probably the worst post-regeneration experience of any companion, and definitely the worst in nuwho, and because the doctor has been hurt by companions' rejection in the past and because yaz - was scared.

and nothing short of death would keep yaz from staying - even the doctor forgetting her (or her forgetting the doctor, but that would be even crueler, considering) - she'd just try and befriend her again.

yaz leaves because the doctor asks her to - and she walks out to a home with supports, to ryan and graham and dan and the companion support group.

yaz leaves because she loves the doctor, and the doctor asks her too. she doesn't walk away because she wants to - she walks away because she loves her. and 13 asks her to leave because she loves her too - and she lets her go because she loves her.

to love someone is to let them go - and that's the tragedy of yaz's ending. and that's why i like it.

[nightmanatee]

thinking about the underwater date again and about how after 13th almost joke-ish "not a bad date am i?" yaz doesn't joke back or brush the answer off but honestly answers with her quiet "no".

she's so much more brave that i've thought about her before (not that i've ever thought that yaz is not brave; she is, she very much is but this moment...). imagine you're standing in front of a 2000+ years old alien creature that's "seen more, loved more, lost more". the creature that is so like... infinite, so much more than just a friend someone you'll put on a pedestal and still STILL after this "not a bad date am i :D" you don't hesitate you don't go silent but you're honest and you admit something (that you didn't even want to admit to yourself a couple of hours/days ago). it's not "did dan tell you to say that" or "no you certainly is a bad date, we could've drowned!!!" or "where's the ship tho?" no it's an HONEST answer.

it makes me respect chibnall's writing more with each rewatch bc yaz IS special but in ordinary/everyday things you wouldn't think as special before moments like this. bc like admitting your feelings is huge but normal but admitting them to the doctor?

i wonder about how/will this lead to something in potd? in a way of yaz being brave one last time.