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This is so fucking funny

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made me laugh

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so Ruby Sunday was likely meant to be Desiderium before behind the scenes stuff made the show go to all hell.

This is an expansion of the theory I posted on Bluesky (kicked off by this Reddit thread), and maybe I am just copin' and seethin' but. like. even Charles Dickens would think this is all too much of a coincidence to not be Something.

Here's how I think it probably went down before Millie and Ncuti decided to leave early: The Rani kidnaps the God of Wishes and places her with a normal foster family, moving in next door to keep tabs on her, and when the time comes engineers things for the Doctor to take an interest in her (Church on Ruby Road). Ruby's DNA scans as human because she was born to human parents, but cannot be traced in the UK because she was born 180 years ago in Bavaria. And also her mum is flowers.

In Space Babies Fifteen wishes he and Ruby could be Poppy's parents within earshot of the God of Wishes, who unintentionally makes this true when Wish World opens with Ruby and John Smith having Poppy as their kid. Series 1 then plays out much as it had done before, with Ruby's ability to recognise something is wrong with the Doctorless universe in 73 Yards and Maestro's fear of her hidden song because she's a powerful member of the Pantheon. I think the rewrites only began with the ending of Empire of Death - in the original cut, it turns out even the fash DNA supercomputer doesn't know who she is and we're left on a cliffhanger with regards to this.

Ruby decides to take time out of the TARDIS after seeing the whole universe end and whilst Fifteen is off having adventures in Joy to the World she briefly dates Alan Budd before dumping him due to his controlling behaviour during a date where he gifts her a star certificate. She rejoins Fifteen after she is kidnapped by robots from Missrubysunday (with Ruby replacing Belinda this season the star certificate thing is centred on her) and he rescues her, with the time fracture in that episode reversing the events of the episode but leaving Alan's memory intact. He's dumped back on Earth where he becomes determined to ruin Ruby's life and so Lucky Day is about Alan, not Conrad, attacking UNIT/Ruby. At the end of the episode Alan is picked up by an ecstatic Rani who now has the God of Wishes and her ex boyfriend who has a serious grudge against her and wants to change the world for the worst.

Season two remains pretty much the same as well. We then hit the finale which also plays out the same initially - sorry guys I think Omega was always going to be a skeleton baby :( - but with Ruby ending the fake reality by breaking into where Alan is holding her as a baby and touching her baby self's hand, just like the resolution with the certificate in Robot Revolution. The universe resets but Ruby notices Poppy is missing, able to remember her because a) she was the one who cast the wish; b) her experience with parallel universes (73 Yards); and c) her characterisation as an "abandoned" baby who wants everyone to have a home. She uses her powers one final time to bring Poppy back and decides to leave the TARDIS for good and raise her new daughter.

The episode ends with Ruby donning the Rani's cloak and leaving her baby self outside the church on Ruby Road to ensure the timeloop is maintained, changing Fifteen's memory by pointing at the Doctor just as we saw in Empire in order to keep that mystery intact as well.

Fifteen, touched by Ruby's decision, flies off in the TARDIS determined to find Susan. and also rescue Rogue from Superb Hell I guess #justiceforrogue

The end.

(To be clear I adore Belinda, the above was not written to write her out of the show - I think she deserved better in her own story, when clearly she was simply recycled from story beats taken from Ruby).

Some supporting evidence -

• Desiderium is the seventh child of a seventh child. Ruby Sunday's name alludes to both: rubies are the birthstone of July, the seventh month, and Sunday is the seventh day of the week.

• the Goblins in Church on Ruby Road fed on coincidences. Desiderium was born to the Zufall family. Zufall in German means "coincidence".

• The Rani talks about having to keep track of the Doctor's companions to make her plan to summon Omega work, but only actually references Ruby by making a slight about blonde girls. Belinda also has absolutely no impact on The Rani's plan whatsoever, to the extent she was locked in a box for the whole finale, so The Rani's interest in her feels utterly pointless. (Because it was).

• Strong themes of motherhood, childhood abandonment, and adoption paralleling what happened with the Doctor as per Timeless Child revelations throughout the series that make absolutely no sense for Belinda, who came from a home with both parents present. Ruby was always meant to complement Fifteen's recent discovery of his adopted status and help him work through it as he helped her work through hers.

• Space Babies also literally opens the show on a spaceship misinterpreting stories and making them real.

• The odd duplication of fashy boys Conrad and Alan - it makes more narrative sense if they were both once the same character who got sawed in half during hasty rewrites.

• Ruby's name being tied to sevens is similar to River Song, Melody Pond, and Amy Pond being related to water, hinting at their connection.

maybe I am wrong, maybe the show was always meant to be written this way but like. theorising. is also fun!

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With the announcement of at least a two year break between the last episode and the next season and the fact it has no year of release. May I suggest we rerelease ‘Doctor in Distress’?

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i want hbomberguy to make a follow up video to his sherlock video entitled “RTD is garbage, and here’s why” it’s the only way he’s allowed to see heaven

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"a couple of years ago Everyone was happy to see david tennant back 🙄" not me actually! ♥️

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not a great sign when the tags of a gifset for a character are full of people giving their condolences for how they were treated

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not a great sign when the tags of a gifset for a character are full of people giving their condolences for how they were treated

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people calling the haters of the episode "impossible to please" is sooo funny. i don't wanna throw around everyone's favourite word "media literacy" bc i hate when people do that it's infantilizing tbh but how can you see someone say "hey how come the previous episode was all about a dystopian conservative world where womens only role is having children and then the next episode the main companions whole life is rewritten around being a mother the whole time and they put her in a box for 15min while the white woman does action stuff and forgives her terrible ex and then dr who gaslights her" and go like yeah those are impossible standards. sorry we suck.

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MASTERPOST

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i guess i really did care for doctor who so little that it betraying me made a difference

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oh so someone who says "have some whimsy" is gonna tell me that episode was good actually

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my brother recorded our reactions to the regeneration live and i cant stop watching it its so fucking funny. we have doctor who cinema experience at home

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but like in a way this is great bc we’re all having a category 10 hating event together. life is beautiful

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re gifs sometimes im like guys this is not an intentional parallel or self reference this is just the same thing again. sometimes because the show is very big and many things happen in it so its common for things to happen again. but also sometimes its just nostalgiabait sorry