#rebelqueenofthediscovery

[clockworkouroboros]

Okay, I have to ask - what the heck is the Cartmel Masterplan? Because that's cropped up several times over the past couple weeks, and I'm curious as to what it is.

Oh boy,,, this is kind of niche Doctor Who, and I don’t know how much of the expanded universe you’ve gotten into? So I’m just gonna make this comprehensive and try to include everything I can remember.

So. It’s 1987. Doctor Who is failing due to a super restrictive budget and also, people are getting bored of it. The writing is meh, the Sixth Doctor was hugely unpopular (which makes me sad, but that’s another story), and viewing figures are very low as Sylvester McCoy comes in as the Seventh Doctor.

This is when Andrew Cartmel is hired as the new script editor. Cartmel decides that the Doctor is too familiar. People know him too well. They’re not watching the show partly because the Doctor is too predictable and it’s getting boring. So he has this loose plan, which was later called the Cartmel Masterplan, to make the Doctor darker and more serious.

The Cartmel Masterplan was unable to be carried out on TV, first because John Nathan-Turner, the producer, kept messing with scripts (back in Classic Who days there wasn’t a single showrunner like we have now, it was a team of producer + script editor), and then the show was cancelled in 1989.

But you know Doctor Who fans, they kept going with making new Doctor Who stories. Virgin publishing company got the rights to make Doctor Who books, and they just kept going with the Seventh Doctor, in their New Adventures series. The VNAs feature Seven, Ace, and later, some original characters as companions. It also continued the Cartmel Masterplan, and although Cartmel wasn’t the editor of the series, he did contribute to it, as well as other writers who worked with him on the Masterplan. Virgin would eventually publish Lungbarrow, which is infamous among Doctor Who expanded universe fans (primarily because it’s incredibly rare and can’t often be bought for less than $1000). Lungbarrow also sort of completed the Masterplan, although I haven’t yet read it, so I don’t really know that part. (I’m working on the VNAs in order, and I’m going through them at an abysmally slow pace. I’ll get there eventually!)

The Cartmel Masterplan was supposed to make the Doctor mysterious and somehow more important than other Time Lords: someone as important as, say, Rassilon. The idea was essentially that the Doctor was basically a reincarnated version of one of the Gallifreyan founders, namely, the Other, who is never given a name and was possibly (?) not truly Gallifreyan. (Honestly there are a lot of headcanons surrounding all of this and i’m not sure how much is fanon.) He crops up in a lot of Doctor Who books concerning early Gallifrey, like Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible and in either Cold Fusion or The Infinity Doctors, I don’t remember which. (The two are connected.)

The Other apparently yeeted himself into a loom (looms are how Time Lords reproduce, they’re sterile due to a curse, if you believe Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible) and the loom spat out the Time Lord who would become known as the Doctor, thus making him more important than other Time Lords, who were loomed the ordinary way, without anyone throwing themselves into a loom first or anything.

Now, to bring this back to Thirteen: in Spyfall, the Master says that everything they know about Gallifrey is built on the lie of the Timeless Child, and that the founding fathers of Gallifrey lied about their history. Obviously, we have no clue who (or what) the Timeless Child is as of this point, but everything else for sure is like. The Cartmel Masterplan? Hello? Going back to ancient Gallifrey and there’s some deep mystery about their past? That’s not to say they’re going down that path, for all we know it could be something totally different. It’s just crazy how many people saw Spyfall and immediately were reminded of the Cartmel Masterplan.

There’s a possibility I missed some important stuff or got something wrong, so if anyone wants to make any additions/corrections, please do! I don’t pretend to know everything and honestly this post could very much be exposing my ignorance in the world of the DWEU.

[thirddoctor]

For the Doctor Who thing: 1, 3, 8, 11, 18, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28, 34, 39, 47, 48, 56, 73, 84, and 94

Answered 1.

First DW episode you ever saw: Spearhead from Space.

Who introduced you to DW: I first heard of it from my dad, who’d seen some of it as a kid. The reason I started watching though was my friend @astudyinimagination got into it! Please direct all complaints about my terrible DW posts at her. :)

Who is your Doctor: Three and Twelve again.

Best Doctor monologue: Oh, definitely one of Twelve’s speeches. He has a lot of good ones, but I’m going to go with the “just be kind” speech from TDF.

Best Doctor/companion pairing: I assume this just means the best duo, rather than pairing in a romantic sense? Anyway, I like Three and Jo, One and Vicki, Six and Evelyn, and Twelve and Bill a lot.

Answered 21.

Least favourite companion: Rose, I’m afraid. When I started rewatching S1, I wondered if maybe I had reacted against her unfairly simply because I thought she was overhyped by the fandom at the expense of other characters, and hoped I would come out of it with a far more positive view of her, but by the end I realised nope, she just doesn’t appeal to me much. That’s fine, not every character is everyone’s cup of tea.

Favourite companion’s family: I love Wilf and Jackie, but I kind of want to go with Ryan’s family? Obviously I love his relationship with Graham, but I also liked the scenes with Aaron, and I loved Grace (still wish they hadn’t fridged her... :/).

Who should have been a companion but wasn’t: idk... Journey Blue?

Answered 34.

Best cliffhanger: Dark Water. Again, a very biased answer, but that was the most exciting moment I ever had watching DW.

Answered 47.

Thoughts on series 11/12: Oh, I’m sure everyone knows my thoughts by now and has had enough of them. (The gist of it is I like the characters and some of the episodes, have serious issues with the overall writing/storytelling.)

Monster you want to return: Meglos. :)

[ask me a Doctor Who question]

[penny-anna]

For the ask meme - D, E, N, X

D. What’s the most personal fanfic you’ve written?

hmm.... the answer to that is a LOTR daemon AU fic feat. Frodo & Bilbo discussing Frodo’s parents that I haven’t ever actually published bcos it needs some work and I’ve yet to be in an emotional place to revisit it jdkghd;s

E: What character do you identify with most?  Is there a certain fic of yours that captures these qualities particularly well?

hmm. I’m not actually big on identifying with characters! and when I do it doesn’t tend to be in a ‘we have stuff in common’ way y’know?

N: Any fic ideas brewing that you’d care to share?

I think I’ve posted about all the Witcher fic ideas I’m working on already actually!

X: How would you categorize your fanfic reading?  Are you a voracious reader?  Do you carefully pick and choose?  Something in between?

somewhere in between tho how much I read varies a lot - rn I am reading a lot bcos I’m in a fandom w a ton of fic for the first time in a while!

thank you for asking!

[notallthosewho-wanderarelost]

I was tagged by @rebelqueenofthediscovery to list my top 7 comfort films. Gonna cheat a bit and count some film series as one thing lol Thanks for tagging me! In no particular order, here goes:

1. Stardust

2. The Mummy + The Mummy Returns

3. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

4. Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3 (The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End)

5. The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea

6. Thor (2011)

7. The Princess Bride

Other faves include Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992) and Aladdin 3: The King of Thieves, Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland, The Lion King (1994), Ever After, Splash, Peter Pan (2003), Anastasia, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Cinderella (2015), 10 Things I Hate About You, and The Swan Princess 1-3.

I’m going to tag @ngol27 @casuallyotaku @kiebs @beheworthy and anyone else who would like to do it!

[the-social-recluse]

🌹 ✌ 💚💤 👀 💓

Ship that you have as an OTP - Over the past 9 months my mind is 95% WangXian, and that’s on a day devoid of news :’)

Ship that you find cute but don’t ship - most well-presented side ships from my known fandoms.

Ship that you secretly like - She-Ra’s Catra/Scorpia (it sank though…)

Ship that is canon but you don’t ship - anything with endless vitriol about it from works I’m not into. Can’t do one without getting involved in the other, so… 🙃 Ships that are viewed as canon because it makes most sense to sometimes fit as well.

Ship you’re curious about - currently, ships from other MXTX novels)

Ship that you didn’t expect to ship but now do - not current (because it’s dormant), but Victuuri in its heyday really overwhelmed me 😌

[residentofthedisc]

Writeblr Character Tag Game

I was going to do a massive love-rant about the little things which make you fall in love with your own characters and I decided that I was tired and that I’d prefer to just make a tag game instead. 

So, list your main characters and tell us a little thing you like about them. Nothing huge - no secrets, no mystical powers, no destinies. Nothing hugely plot related. I wanna hear about their quirks, their tiny heartbeats which change them from paper dolls to living, breathing people. What made you fall in love with as little people?

1. Emmett cannot put on a pair of shoes without tapping the toes against the nearest wall before he takes his first step to check they’re on right. 

2. Kizzy disguises her penny dreadfuls inside the dust jackets of her textbooks. None of them fit properly, but she devours every grisly tale long before they can be discovered.

3. Sixsmith has the worst screwkick which has ever happened. He can swim, but he has never quite figured out how to do breast-stroke without one leg at a drastic angle from the other.

4. Talas can paint flowers which look so real that you feel like you could pluck one straight off the page but he can’t tell you the first thing about them. 

5. Maia threads a needle perfectly every time, but breaks always her thread halfway through her embroidery. She doesn’t even slow down because she’s so used to this.

6. Although she’d never admit it, Scarlett knows all the words to Wee Ti-Lee Was a Mariner with accompanying hand-gestures. It’s all very twee and she will utilise it to entertain small children (despite insisting she doesn’t like small children). 

Tagging @queer-crusader @rebelqueenofthediscovery @cogesque @inky-duchess @writedragon @dustylovelyrun and anyone else!

[waistcoat35]

Happy 30th Anniversary to one of the most glorious books I have ever read - Good Omens is an absolute masterpiece, courtesy of Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett, and I thank them for all it's given me.

The first image is of my pinboard featuring all of my beloved postcards, also featuring art and doodles from wonderful friends such as @niryda ! I'd like to thank her, @wildenessat221b and @rebelqueenofthediscovery for accompanying me on this delightful fandom journey.

[talesfromthenorsesmouth]

Last Line Tag

Tagged by @rebelqueenofthediscovery - thank you!

Rules: Post the last line that you wrote, then tag as many people as there are words in the sentence. Well, here go:

VICKI: Can we focus on what we came here to do, please?

EDWARD: Once we’ve worked out what that is, certainly.

From the Riddler PI comic script I am attempting to write, which currently rejoices in the working title ‘Trivial Pursuits’

Tagging! @writingmorningcoffee @riddle-me-ducc @sammysdewysensitiveeyes @jaelijn @ilsa-fireswan @bruinhilda @hadescavedish @ruth-dw

(no pressure to do so- just if you want to and happen to have something on the go!)

[tocktickwip]

TOCKTICK BLURB by ResidentoftheDisc/H.M

Autistic aeronaut and single father, Captain Emmett Askren has a problem.

That problem being that his ship, The Iris has been grounded for the foreseeable future, robbing him of his only source of income and now his debts are due yesterday. He needs a job with a large payment upfront or he and his daughter will be forced into the death-trap sky-harvesters which hang ominously along the coasts of the Sturm Islands.

But then, a miracle. A pair of genius inventors approach him with a proposal: they will pay off Emmett’s debts and repair his home and, in return, he will test their revolutionary new engine in the race of a lifetime. The 1880 Throgmorton Aeronautical Contest is a chance for Emmett to prove himself as both a worthy captain and a productive normal member of society.

However, to race Emmett needs a crew and a whole lot of luck. Besides the inventors, his recruits are the un-hireable, the dregs and outcasts of society. And worse, they have a brought their own baggage and murderous ghosts along for the ride.

Emmett can fly them through any storm, arcane or otherwise, but it is the dangers on the ground which he will struggle to outwit. 

@queer-crusader @rebelqueenofthediscovery

[loptrcoptr]

Get to know me meme

Tagged by @rebelqueenofthediscovery !

ancient or modern · bitter or sweet · chocolate or vanilla · coffee or tea · create or destroy · day or night · early bird or night owl · freckles or dimples · gold or silver · greek mythology or egyptian mythology norse mythology · macarons or eclairs · hot or cold · thunder or lightning · typewritten or handwritten · secret garden or secret library · spicy or mild · dark magic or light magic · ocean or desert · mermaids or sirens · known or unknown · rough or smooth · moon or stars · rain or snow

Anyone who wants to do a thing, consider yourself tagged

[clockworkouroboros]

Time Lords can't reproduce normally? What is the Loom (I'm sorry I keep asking all these questions, but I'm not that knowledgeable about a lot of Doctor Who lore)?

No need to apologize, given how insane and vast Doctor Who is, asking someone who seems like they might possibly know is definitely the best way to learn anything!

There’s, um, some inconsistencies with looms and why Time Lords can’t reproduce normally, based on what source material you read. A lot of obscure deep lore with Doctor Who is very inconsistent and/or outright contradictory, and we actually have stories that focus on that. (See: Unnatural History by Jon Blum and Kate Orman or Celestial Intervention: A Gallifreyan Noir by Dave Rudden.) Just a disclaimer before I start.

So first off: Time Lords can’t produce normally. This is first hinted at in Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible, and it certainly isn’t adhered to by every writer, but especially in the Wilderness Years (1990-2004, roughly) it’s a major thing.

In Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible, a portion of the novel takes place on ancient Gallifrey, when the first time travel experiments are happening. Rassilon and his squad are there as the local science bigwigs who are threatening an upheaval of Gallifreyan society, as Gallifrey was at the time very steeped in mysticism. The mysticism was centered in the Pythia, who was sort of the leader of the planet. The last Pythia, seeing that Rassilon was taking over, sent her followers to Karn, where they would continue as the Sisterhood of Karn, and then cursed all the remaining inhabitants of Gallifrey with sterility, dooming the planet. That’s one version. (I’d find quotes, but I never want to read that book again, sorry.)

In The Book of the War, the Great Houses (read: the Time Lords) “anchored the thread” of the spiral politic (web of time), thus making themselves the center of the universe, essentially. The book goes on to state that “[the anchoring of the thread] would make [the Time Lords] virtually indestructible, as a society if not individually: the price would be infertility and cultural stasis.”

So there are different explanations for how the Time Lords became sterile as a society, but the end result is the same: the early Time Lords would have to ensure that their race didn’t die out, so they could continue to sit and be high and mighty over the rest of the universe.

To do this, they came up with looms. It’s never quite explained how they work; at least, not in the material I’ve read, but it seems that you basically put the DNA of the parents into the loom and it weaves, or maybe knits, the DNA into a Time Tot. Looms first show up in the Seventh Doctor novels, but they’re mentioned pretty regularly in the Eighth Doctor novels, especially in the first half-ish. They don’t really crop up in New Who at all, but I live in hope that they will someday. :D

Anyway, as with anything involving weird stuff like looms, it’s kind of difficult to explain, because they’re almost only in these obscure books from the nineties. This is definitely jumping into the deep end of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, so if you have any questions or want to know where a better starting point might be for some of this, feel free to ask!

[thirddoctor]

I thought "The Timeless Child" was one of the most boring episodes ever, and it being either the Doctor OR the Master was so predictable and disappointing and I can't believe they actually went with one of them. But my question is - would the Master have reacted as badly if it turned out it HAD been a random child tortured and exploited by the Time Lords? I mean his moral code is hard to pin down at the best of times, would that be a line in the sand or not?

I mean, his reaction isn’t anger at his people for exploiting a child, it’s anger at the Time Lords for lying about their history and disgust that so much of who they are actually comes from someone else, and worst of all that person is the Doctor. I personally don’t buy that he would react this way—the founders of Gallifrey have lied about so many things already, and the Master themself has never been averse to exploiting other species to survive, in ways that would be far more degrading than simply having a tiny bit of the Doctor’s DNA—but if I had to try to justify his reaction, I would say a lot of it stems from his issues with the Doctor (still doesn’t make much sense, since they were resolving things last time we saw the Master, but whatever). He’s mad that the Doctor is more important than he is and most of his special Time Lord heritage actually comes from her. In that case, I cannot see him reacting the same way if it were a random child, because he has no reason to feel jealous/inferior. Honestly, I think he’d just see it as the Time Lords exploiting a useful resource and be fine with it. The only Master I can see potentially taking issue with it is S10 Missy.

On the other hand, I actually think it would be far more upsetting for the Doctor if it had been a random child. Yes, finding out this happened to her and there’s so much of her past she doesn’t know is a lot to take in, but she’s already suffered far worse things that she does remember, and she ends up taking it all in stride. But if she found out a core part of who she is—her ability to regenerate and live so many lives—came from the abuse and exploitation of an innocent child, if she found out her civilisation’s power (and thus all the privileges she’s enjoyed, including her access to time travel) was built on that suffering, that would be far harder for her to deal with. It may not have been her fault, but I think she would still feel complicit. She would be disgusted with her very nature in the way TTC wants us to believe the Master is, though for different reasons. I’m not sure where you would go with that story exactly, besides the Doctor immediately trying to find out what happened to the child, to see if they’re still out there and if there’s any way she can help them, but I think it would challenge the Doctor’s identity more.

[enbyboiwonder]

tag game

Rules: We’re snooping on your playlist - put your entire music library on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people

I’m on Spotify rn and I don’t feel like opening up my iTunes library, so y’all are getting 10 songs from my Tim Speedle master playlist, so if these aren’t mostly classic rock then idk what’s up with the shuffle feature

01 - Living in Lightning by City and Colour 02 - No More Walks in the Woods by Eagles 03 - The Feeling is Gone by Boz Scaggs 04 - Commentators by City and Colour 05 - Holy War by TOTO 06 - The Children by Starship 07 - Constant Knot - Horns Demo by City and Colour 08 - Beats Workin’ by Van Halen 09 - Layla - 40th Anniversary Version by Derek & The Dominos 10 - Open Arms by Journey

Tagging: @panchostokes, @purplecolouredglasses, @deltajackdalton, @atereal, @rebelqueenofthediscovery, and anyone else who would like to do this!

[notallthosewho-wanderarelost]

Tagged by @rebelqueenofthediscovery

Thanks for tagging me!

stars or clouds / tony stark or steve rogers / buzzfeed unsolved or buzzfeed worth it / lavender or rose / chocolate or vanilla / latte or americano / police procedural shows or hospital shows / fast zombies or slow zombies / modern films or classic films / musicals or plays / hamilton or in the heights / blue lightsaber or green lightsaber / hats or headbands / queen or elton john / multicolored lights or white lights / pastels or neon / flowers or succulents / log cabin or hotel / sprinkles or cookie crumbs / ghosts or aliens / single book or book series / library or bookstore / brunch or dinner / snow or leaves / jean jacket or leather jacket / tea cup or mug / galaxies or constellations

I’ll tag @quirkyrogue @kiebs @sweettalktome @neveryi3ld and anyone else who sees this and feels like doing it! 💙

[mariocki]

I was tagged by @mistressofsmite to list my top 7 comfort films, so here goes...

1. Profondo Rosso (Deep Red, 1975)

2. A Shot In The Dark (1964)

3. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

4. C'era una volta il West (Once Upon A Time In The West, 1968)

5. Charade (1963)

6. Phantom Of The Paradise (1974)

7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

There were also films that I couldn't find gifs for (What A Carve Up! and Theatre Of Blood especially), and probably i will think of many more I have forgotten, but yeah, these 7 films are much loved and often revisited.

I tag @thisbluespirit @basiltheratatouille @nicesweater @rebelqueenofthediscovery @scarletmanuka and uhhh just anyone really?

[residentofthedisc]

The Drowned Rook - Comic Sans WIP Powerpoint by ResidentoftheDisc/H.M

@queer-crusader​ @rebelqueenofthediscovery​ and anyone else who wants!