#when you look at narvin/romana she is way more normal about him than he is about her

[magicofthepen]

#gallifrey is absolutely part of the polycule #which makes narvin leaving while romana is entombed in it - not just the planet but subsumed into the idea of gallifrey #makes all that extremely very (@whifferdills)

maybe the way I see it is that Romana is in some ways Narvin's one great love of his life. maybe not his truest, that would be Leela because his love for Romana is so tangled up in his foundational love for Gallifrey, but the greatest love of his life and the only one who can be described as such. but he's not Romana's greatest love. she might not have one or she might have more throughout the course of her lives. if anyone it's probably Leela. but Narvin is her truest love, whatever that may mean.

[finefeatheredfriend]

For the character meme: Romana?

oh my god i somehow maybe misread the ask meme thing and thought it was just gonna be one of those questions plus a character but nope, apparently it’s all of those questions - and now i feel a bit weird about sending someone A Lot of asks with just one question and a character but ANYWAY

Romana! my wife! my starblazing queen of the night! i love her! so thank you for sending me her! here you go:

what i like about them - every single thing. on a more serious note: her smile, her intelligence, her faces, her laughter, her humour, her endurance, her fashion sense, when her voice goes soft... there are just so many things

what i dislike about them - that whole imperiatrix business

favourite moment - the chair. definitely the chair. and The Scene, especially her growled ‘Braxiatel!!!!’ (and if this counts, the way she laughs when it’s actually Lalla and not Romana in the outtake). and lalla/romana trying to imitate leela. and the fanfiction. if i have to choose a moment from the tv series then maybe when she solves that “unsolvable” riddle box and grins all proud,

least favourite moment - when she approved the use of the oubliette of eternity (cause i don’t like what she did) and when she had to spend decades as a prisoner of the daleks (cause i don’t like what she had to go through)

a situation with this character that i’d like to see explored more - Brax’s dream au

an interesting au for this character - Brax’s dream au

a crossover - okay so how about iris wildthyme meets her and romana does Not know how to deal with this chaos

otp (or ot3+ etc... just favourite ship) - this was difficult cause there are two ships i love almost equally - and that’s Leela and Romana, and Leela and Romana and Narvin. okay fuck this it’s still too difficult i’m choosing both

other ships - the OT4, and, of course, Romana and Brax. i also really kind of like Romana and Livia...?

BROTP - i used to ship them before i got into gallifrey, but really the Doctor and Romana have to be the brotp, and they are

NOTP - hmmmm so. Romana and Rassilon. Romana and Pandora. and Romana and prydon (that’s the vampire dude right)

an assortment of headcanons - okay so i’m just gonna write whatever pops into my head cause idk if i have any headcanons i always think about...?

- one headcanon that i’m just gonna steal is this really cool situation where leela narvin romana and brax are on this planet that’s basically a magical paradise, and when narvin and leela announce their wedding plans romana gets a proposal from braxiatel but because he doesn’t have his white charger with him and so can’t carry her off into the sunset, she yells at him

- okay okay i’m gonna get serious now

- romana is the fanfic author that has the highest hits and kudos count on her stories on the gallifreyan go to fanfic site, maothreeix (i’m so sorry it’s 2am)

- she loves knitting and knits all of her favourite people all these sweaters and scarves and hats and gloves and i can’t decide if i like this more: a) she’s amazingly talented at it and comes up with complicated patterns herself cause knitting is basically just maths and science (one time she manages to get a secret message to her friends by convincing her enemies to let her send them a knitted scarf which they don’t know is actually knitted in code (knit=0, purl=1 so like binary code)) OR b) leela teaches her but she’s better with all the thinking and her hands won’t quite do what they’re supposed to do so everything ends up being kind of crooked but her favourite people love those knitted gifts with all their hearts and look at those little crooked parts fondly

- she put hallan in the freezer on one of the tardis’s and then forgot about him

- she’s secretly providing both the doctor and brax with blackmail material about the other one

- she, like any normal time lord not associating with those blooming ceruleans (hehe) (not as funny as you think eileen. go to sleep), she can’t stand plants - but she will fill her quarters with plants of all kinds, and spend days in forests and gardens filled with plants, cause it makes leela feel at home

- she keeps sending Narvin and Ace out on missions together cause she secretly enjoys watching him struggle to deal with this human but also loves how he slowly turns slips into the dad role with ace

okay there’s probably so much more but i almost made myself fall asleep thinking about all those cute adorable headcanons

thank you so much!! this was more fun than expected!! (i thought having to answer them all would be difficult and overwhelming but it really was fun!)

[gawayne]

For those soft sentence starters: “You’ll always be safe with me.” (But maybe it’s narvin saying that to leela?). Thanks!

Whelp I actually got a good deal done on this so I stuck it up on Ao3 too. Hope you enjoy! 

---------------

Despite all claims to the contrary, Narvin really must admit to himself that exploring this alternate world has proved rather lackluster without Romana. It isn’t, of course, that he wants her natural tendency to attract every ounce of trouble present in a fifty mile radius lurking at his back the whole time. In fact, this trip has been relatively smooth compared to their others, and he is relishing what so far has come pretty close to his idea of a vacation. But he can’t deny that with the danger of taking her along often comes interest, and opportunity, and he’s grown tired of wandering around a useless Gallifrey full of useless beings in the most miserable weather he’s seen in this lifetime. 

On the other hand, camping out in a one person CIA-issue tent while the portal makes its way back is much less hazardous with two than three. Narvin doesn’t think it’s a terrible loss. 

A low rumble of thunder rolls in from somewhere altogether too close for his liking. Lying wide-awake on a thin bedroll, he feels the ground tremble beneath him, and officially gives up all hope of getting any sleep. The corresponding flash of lightning illuminates Leela beside him, wrapped snugly in a blanket, curled up fast asleep with her back pressed against the wall of the tent. It’s times like this that he almost—almost—envies her comfort out in the elements, her ability to adapt to any world the portals throw at her. He might even be willing to tell her so, in the name of armistice, except for the fact that Romana has apparently been much more effective at curbing her enthusiasm than he’s ever given her credit for, and lacking such a deterrent she’s been slagging him off at every opportunity all day. 

He doesn’t know what he expected. 

Lightning strikes again, so close now that the sound and light arrive almost simultaneously. Narvin flinches at the deafening crack of thunder, and starts again a nanospan later when Leela jumps into a sitting position, knife in hand, looking around wildly for the source of the noise. Momentarily certain he’s about to have his throat slit, he scrambles as far away from her as he can (about two inches) and raises a handful of blanket between them. 

“Pandak’s ghost, put that thing away!” he shouts, over the pattering of rain on the tent.

“Romana?” Leela’s sightless gaze fixes on him, then snaps back up to the sky. “Are we under attack?”

“It’s me,” he hisses. He softens his tone. “There’s nothing wrong, it’s just thunder. Put that away before you hurt someone.”

Adrenaline draining visibly from her body, Leela sags back onto her bedroll. After a moment’s consideration she tucks the knife back under her pillow, and huffs out a sigh. 

“Don’t know how you managed to get to sleep at all,” mutters Narvin, his hearts still working at resuming their normal pace. “Tired from a long day of insulting me, are you?”

To his surprise, Leela doesn’t offer a witty comeback. Wide-eyed, she looks up as a fresh bout of lightning crackles overhead, and tugs her blanket back up around her shoulders. 

“I did not mean to frighten you,” she says quietly. 

Narvin blinks. “You didn’t- oh, whatever. Can’t you try just a bit harder to not stab me in the future?”

“That is unlikely,” she says, though her heart clearly isn’t in it. Her brow is creased in an expression of concentration; she worries her lip between her teeth. He watches as her head twitches towards each sudden sound, tracking their source instinctually as she would any threat, and he watches the lightning periodically throw her features into sharp relief, tension evident in the way she holds herself under the blanket. She’s afraid, he realizes, with a certain degree of alarm. Suddenly he very much wishes he wasn’t the only other person here. 

Attributable no doubt to a moment of weakness brought on by his tired, cold, somewhat damp state, Narvin moves back onto his bedroll and then a bit further. “Leela?” he asks cautiously. “Are you… alright?”

This alone seems enough to break Leela’s concentration. She tilts her head, so that she would be looking right at him. Not for the first time, her sense of direction unnerves him. 

“I am fine,” she replies, in a particular tone that suggests she would like to be fine, and is perhaps adjacent to fine, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet. 

“It, er… it shouldn’t be much longer,” he offers. “If K9’s done everything correctly the portal will be back in a couple spans.”

“Not long to you,” she counters. 

“Well… yes.”

There’s a long pause.

“I want Romana,” she murmurs. “She should be here.”

“Yes,” he says. He hesitates. “Leela…”

“I am scared, Narvin,” she says shakily, and that shuts him up. “I should not be scared. It is only a storm. It is not more dangerous just because I cannot see it, but it… it is loud, and so dark, and Romana should be here. She would…”

She trails off, and doesn’t continue. Narvin would like to think it’s completely unrelated to the fact that he’s reached out and taken her trembling hand in his, but that would be a stretch even for him.

“Romana makes you feel safe,” he says quietly. At this volume, the rain nearly drowns out both of them. 

Leela nods. “I trust her,” she murmurs. 

The subtext makes something tighten painfully in his chest—she doesn’t trust him, not enough—even though he knows this, and knows she shouldn’t. He’s hardly done anything to deserve it. Lately, however, trapped away from his home and life and people, Gallifrey’s fate left to the three of them, he’s found himself afflicted by the horrid desire for camaraderie. Friendship, even. And it’s surely nothing more than the shock of losing just about everything he’s ever known—but then again he’s lost just about everything he’s ever known, and now they’ve lost Brax, too, and he aches to be trusted by the two people he has left. To have it known, absolutely and irreparably, that he would do anything for them. 

He shuts his eyes, so it feels just a bit more like he’s talking into the empty night. “You’re safe, Leela,” he says. “You’ll always be safe with me.”

The pause is much longer this time. Narvin tries to forget he said anything, and that Leela ever even woke up, and that he’s actually awake at all, though it doesn’t work very well. When eventually he runs out of patience and opens one eye, he’s more than a little surprised to see her smiling. 

“It is very cold in here, Narvin,” she says. 

He blinks, wondering if she wants him to offer her his blanket. He gets his answer when she, always one to take initiative, wriggles over to his side of the tent and works her way under the blanket with him, tossing an arm over his waist in the process. 

“Oh,” says Narvin, recoiling at first but putting an arm around her in return before he quite knows what’s happening. “Oh, er…”

Leela tugs him closer, tucking her head beneath his chin and making herself at home. “Hush,” she says. “I am trying to sleep.”

It’s only later—an embarrassingly long, distracted time later—that he realizes he couldn’t possibly be a source of warmth for her. It’s not a terrible loss. 

[rennyrosie]

The Gallifrey High AU That No One Needed But Here It Is Anyway

SO JUST A DISCLAIMER I WAS HANGING OUT WITH @coordinatorromana AND THEY WERE WEARING A GALLIFREY ACADEMY SHIRT UNDER THEIR GALLIFREY ACADEMY JACKET AND THIS AU LITERALLY STARTED WITH ME SAYING THAT THEY LOOKED LIKE A VARSITY ATHLETE FOR GALLIFREY HIGH SO IT’S THEIR FAULT NOT MINE

The year is 2XXX. Korean society has evolved so far that our ID schematics have been condensed into chips taking the shape of normal contact lenses. These ID lenses are given to children and are changed according to their growth needs. When their eyes stop changing a permanent lens is fixed onto one of their eyes, thus making ID cards and numbers obsolete. However, a growing number of reports are surfacing of chips becoming scrambled or dislodged after injuries, accidents, and other incidents. What happened to Leela Sae’s eyes to make her unidentifiable? In this new technological age spurred by chaebol conglomerates, whose family will come out on top? Will Korea’s economy be torn asunder in the rumbling threat of an economic war?

I imagined 갈리프레이 고등학교, 갈고 for short (Gallifrey High School, “Galgo” or “Sharpening” for short) as a Special High School, a fancy private high school for students whose parents are affiliated with conglomerates, diplomats, politicians, all kinds of important people. So basically like an international school minus the white people and with only three years in high school: Korean high schools split the twelve grades 6-3-3 as opposed to 5-3-4 as is common in America. (Yes this does mean that I headcanon the entire cast as Korean in this AU). Usually in these private schools, students from lower income families with certain professions (lower level civil servants/bureaucrats, small business owners, etc.) have access to certain degrees of financial aid that depend on how well the student does in school. In some rare cases, a very low income and potentially first generation student can gain a full scholarship for exceptional talent.

This is how we first meet Leela (새리라, Leela Sae), a seventeen-year-old cast out into the world who uses a fake last name for Reasons. She’s always wanted to be free as a bird and bird in Korean is 새 so she chose it as a new last name. She gains admission to Gallifrey High by winning a taekwondo tournament hosted by the conglomerate owned by Romana’s family, the 나라 (Na-Ra, “Nation”) corporation. The tournament was meant to scout new muscle to work as guard staff for Na-Ra with the promise of job security and a scholarship to 갈고 for the youth division. Because Romana is the heir apparent of the corporation, she is of course present at the tournament and as the newly-elected student body president she welcomes Leela to the school. Leela transfers to Gallifrey High as a second year, the same year as Romana.

Romana (나루마, Ruma Na) is the sole child of the ruling Na family, making her heir apparent to the corporation from the age of fifteen. She excels in school, consistently ranking first in her class, but finds her true passions lie in leading the school to victory and prosperity in all aspects of student life. However, recent tensions between conglomerates and within her own family’s corporation have kicked off power struggles in the Korean market as well as in school. A separate faction led by Darkel, the heiress to Kim and Co., a competing conglomerate and the Na corporation’s closest rival and bitterest enemy.

Darkel (김다루, Daru Kim), another second year and the Student Body Vice President, has consistently scored just below Romana in rankings, but despite her sharp intellect her unpopularity and refusal to listen to her peers made her lose the opportunity to hold power over the entire school, an opportunity she thought should be rightfully hers. As such, she gathered all the students whose families worked with or for her and rallied them against Romana and the Na-Ra corporation. This started a kind of turf war in the high school as well as starting an economic meltdown of global proportions as Na-Ra and Kim and Co. slashed prices, salaries, everything to compete against each other, resulting in the near-total collapse of the Korean economy.

As the war rages on, Darkel seeks out Narvin, the Student Body Treasurer and lures him to her side of the fight, intending to bankrupt his family’s large pharmaceutical company later to monopolize more power over the school and the economy.

Narvin (빈나라, Nara Bin, play on words with “empty nation” and also yes matching to one of the conglomerates guess which) is the Treasurer and is very stingy with club budgets despite only being a second year, but that’s what he likes so much about that work: He could know and control the money flow of the entire school. Although he starts out working with Darkel, when he discovers Darkel’s plan, he crosses sides to join Romana, despite his reservations about her and the transfer student she always hung around. Now, he doesn’t care to admit it but he cares deeply about Romana and Leela in the aftermath of the Sul War. Narvin is a huge nerd who is on the math team and participates regularly in the physics Olympiad.

On the other hand, Brax (시보락, Borak Si) seeks to gain more power than his position as Secretary of the Student Body by aligning himself and his family’s company with Romana. As a third year, this year is his last chance to try for student body president and he is growing more desperate. Darkel considers him a prime threat as a key player in this war due to his parents’ microchip development and manufacturing company, Si Sees Ltd. This emphasis on technological advancement to tear the other side apart led to the coining of this economic war the Sul War, for “Kisul”, meaning “technology.”

Wynter (태위영, Wi-Young Tae) is an impressionable first year who looks up to Romana and considers her his 선배. His family is among the first to go bankrupt when the falling cost of iron makes his family’s ironworks company go under and he leaves the country to pay off his debt to loan sharks.

Andred (뢰안도, Ando Rae), a second year who took interest in Leela, the new transfer student, as he was also a recipient of financial aid as the son of a lower ranking bureaucrat. He found Leela’s blunt language and unconventional wisdom charming and they dated for a while until Leela saw that Andred was just like all the other spoiled asshole brats at this entitled school and left him. Soon afterward, Andred was expelled for beating another student into unconsciousness despite multiple suspensions and warnings from similar behavior.

Matthias (아마디, Madi A, first name means “words”), was a quiet second year student but his family seemed to be the only one really staying afloat as he kept to himself and was often ignored by the likes of Darkel and Romana. However, when he was noticed he was generally well liked and as the son of a high ranking politician he knew how the game worked even if he chose not to play. Until now. Sensing a weakness in both Romana and Darkel, Matthias seized an opportunity to make himself student body president with the support of weary and newly broke students and the promise of rebuilding Korea’s techno-economic infrastructure.

The Doctor (닥터, Doctor), is a truant. No one knows what year he’s in, only that he’s smart but he pops in and out as he pleases and the teachers can only sigh and shake their heads at him because heaven knows they’ve tried yelling, punishing, locking up, it didn’t seem to matter to him.

Valyes is taking his second year a second time because he failed out the year before. Despite knowing how the school works and how the political game is played he lacks the common sense and patience to use what he knows effectively. (Yes I realize I’m being way too nice but I’m trying to get something of a consistent tone here ;w; )

Other minor commanders and such are class reps in the student council.

I haven’t met Ace yet where I’m up to (haven’t started season 6 yet) but according to Alex’s description my version of Ace is a delinquent with constantly dyed hair who could use the nearest object to smash your head in but would rather shatter your kneecaps and let Leela finish you off.