heimeldat

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Poor Tegan. She signed up to babysit airline passengers, not autistic aliens.

Babysitting two kids today ✌️ being the dad isn't exactly easy.

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I insist upon there being permanent physical changes in Leela, and am backed up in this by Romana recognizing that she had changed in alarming ways

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damn. narvin shaking and in pain and bleeding out? i'm glad the episode cut so early. i'm glad we didn't get to see him delirious from blood loss. i'm glad we didn't get to see him in treatment, drugged off his tits, fighting sedation, drifting in and out of consciousness, mumbling too-vulnerable truths and nonsense and whining in pain. i would have hated that soooo much (<- said through grit teeth, almost crying with rage and loss)

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Moment of Truth

Fandom: Gallifrey audios (immediately after Annihilation) Length: ~1k words Summary: Leela is changed and explores her new reality, coming to some conclusions about other things that need to change.

I did a wolf!Leela one. I meant to do a vamp!Romana one too, but I'm tired so maybe later

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I think this is the closest we're getting to recognition. One coworker just sat there for a while considering my outfit, then said, "Look, I've worked out that your outfits are usually Themed, but I can't figure out this one. Is it based on something specific?"

My boss yelled out "Rick and Morty!" in response. No, sorry, no points for that.

I'm wearing another not at all stealthy cosplay today (thirteen, everything but the wig). It makes sense that nobody recognized Two a couple days ago, but this one's better known, let's see if anyone notices 😄

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The City of Atlanta Georgia has decided to demolish the research and conservation center of the Amphibian Foundation. This organization works tirelessly to conserve the Frogs, Toads, Salamanders, Newts, and other amphibians in the United States. In addition, they provide key education for herpetologists on the care, conservation, and preservation of reptiles and amphibians.

This emergency need is compounded by the government mass firing of conservation officials and the pulling of funds from many of the country's conservation organizations.

If you can help please donate here:

Key points from the Amphibian Foundation.

Our building will be demolished in 2026, and we need to identify a new location (or locations) for 7 labs and over 1,000 animals, many of which are endangered and part of critical conservation programs.

We've identified a new location for most of AF, but not our research and conservation programs. We have an amazing lead, but it's not confirmed yet.

Our first fundraising project is the AF Emergency Fund as the minimum cost estimates to move this many labs and animals safely is $50,000. (It costs about 50 USD per animal to move them)

If you can't donate.. please share... here.. and everywhere else.

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I meannnn technically he's the boss of the spies. He probably hasn't done any fieldwork in decades, if not longer. His acting and lying skills have atrophied. But also yes, he should be able to lie.

The way Narvin is called out for being a bad liar, lies (badly) about being unused to it, and Romana has to cover up her laugh. Dynamic of all time

Also, sir, you are a spy. You should be able to lie!

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Grumpy old man in a party hat

Procreate on ipad

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People at work agree that it's cute. One person says oh my gosh yellow suspenders??? that's so bold I don't think I could pull that off. Another says ooooh I like that dangly chain earring! So far I don't think anyone suspects cosplay.

I'm wearing another not at all stealthy cosplay today (thirteen, everything but the wig). It makes sense that nobody recognized Two a couple days ago, but this one's better known, let's see if anyone notices 😄

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I’d hoped there’d be stars ✨

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https://archiveofourown.org/works/68767171/chapters/178106371

making an attempt at a character study of the gallifrey characters told through the scars they get throughout their lives, here's romana's chapter

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Two people at the doctor's office say it's a super cute outfit and one adds that she could never pull off such a chic look. (??? Thirteen? Chic? Lololol)

I'm wearing another not at all stealthy cosplay today (thirteen, everything but the wig). It makes sense that nobody recognized Two a couple days ago, but this one's better known, let's see if anyone notices 😄

[heimeldat]

I'm wearing another not at all stealthy cosplay today (thirteen, everything but the wig). It makes sense that nobody recognized Two a couple days ago, but this one's better known, let's see if anyone notices 😄

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I think like. The thing I keep coming back to about the Murderbot show is that I cannot remember ever seeing another tv show give an “Oh” moment to platonic love.

But my god, when Murderbot shows Mensah Sanctuary Moon to help with her panic attack. You see her look at it, and you see her realize…

Yes, she has been thinking of Murderbot as a person, that’s why she went back for it at the DeltFall habitat. But it’s all been very theoretical—the way you might help a stranger up if they fall, but that doesn’t mean you want to get to know them. It doesn’t mean you’ve reckoned with their interiority.

But as Murderbot murmurs, “Breathe, breathe, breathe the crystal light” to itself, you see it all click into place for Ayda Mensah.

This terror she’s experiencing? All-consuming and confusing and soul-crushing? SecUnit has felt this. And it had to face it alone—not just in the sense that there has never been anyone to offer it comfort, but in the sense that no one even thought that it—it as an entity, it as a being capable of fear—exists.

So it found this show. And Mensah has been so pissed at it for potentially getting them all killed because it thought a stupid fucking soap opera mattered, but oh, oh, oh fuck, this show is the only thing in the universe that has ever given it comfort. This show has offered it context and escapism and asked for nothing in return. It absolutely is critical matériel.

And that brings her to now, to herself, to herself and Murderbot. This person next to her, who she is technically in possession of, who has had to claw and scrape for even a thimbleful of peace, who was only able to protect that peace by never ever ever letting anyone know it existed. She and her team have ripped away its impossibly precious privacy, exposed its secrets… and here it is handing her part of its soul anyway, because in this moment she needs it.

Because it knows what it’s like to be scared and alone, and does not want her to feel that way.

And so she falls in love, and you get to watch it happen.

My ace ass has a lot of messy feelings about love and the way it appears on screen. Few things have hit me as hard as getting to witness the exact moment Dr. Ayda Mensah’s soul met Murderbot’s and decided it was home.

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I still love this drawing. It has so much… aggression? Threat? I never manage to capture the right emotion in a drawing, but I got lucky here! And I like to think that their tattoos can move around their body when they change clothes or during intense emotional moments…you know what I mean

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Rocco's misadventures with the time ring begin during Panacea. He's off exploring the universe while his people are exploring alternate universes. At some point after they get back to gallifrey prime, Rocco just shows up again, probably somewhat worse for wear.

Also, Pandora totally fed him during the war.

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The Timeline of Irving Braxiatel

Irving Braxiatel is just about the Doctor Who character with the most broken timeline, and that's kind of an accomplishment. And, if you know me, I think that sort of thing is a challenge.

So when @oswinoswald15 asked me what was up with Pandora after the events of the Gallifrey story Mindbomb (if you don't know what that means, don't worry! I will explain), it quickly spiraled into something a lot more complicated. @dearsweetleela and @i-would-like-a-jelly-baby also expressed interest in seeing this, and I hope you both enjoy.

So I could just do this as a "here's the timeline here's what I think" but I think it would be really interesting to take this era by era - breaking down each era of Doctor Who spin-off material Braxiatel has appeared in and how I would construct a timeline using just those stories. My motivation here is in part because I think that's cool, but also in part because I think it helps to understand Brax's timeline if we look back to before it broke in the early 2010s. The way this will work is that I will discuss an era of the franchise, then show what I think Brax's timeline would look like at that point. I'm also color-coding this: red for Virgin Doctor Who books, purple for Virgin Bernice Summerfield books, pink for Big Finish Bernice Summerfield, and blue for Gallifrey audios.

So without further ado, I welcome you to another journey through the wormhole of the Doctor Who expanded universe, with a focus on the man that is Irving Braxiatel. Have fun!

1994-1996: The Doctor Who New Adventures

This starts simple. Irving Braxiatel was introduced in the Virgin New Adventure Theatre of War (or, if you're feeling pedantic, he got a brief cameo at the end of the VNA that came right before it, Legacy. I will be treating that as part of Theatre of War for the rest of this essay), where he was shown to be an old friend of the Seventh Doctor and the owner of the Braxiatel Collection - an art and archelogy collection established on an asteroid owned by the man himself. The story is set in the year 3985, but it is implied that the Collection has existed for a very long time by this point. We see his personality - he's the Brax we know and love from the word go - but he's not given any sort of backstory beyond "he and the Doctor go way back." Most of his "screentime" in the book is dedicated to his interactions with the Doctor's companion Bernice "Benny" Summerfield, and the dynamic between the two is absolute top tier.

Braxiatel appeared twice more while Virgin Publishing held the license to make Doctor Who books. The Empire of Glass is a First Doctor book, and explicitly established Braxiatel as a Time Lord who, at the time this book is set, still lives on Gallifrey. The Empire of Glass positions Braxiatel as an interventionist who has been trying to effect policy change from the inside, with a decent success.

And finally, we have Happy Endings, which is a full book dedicated to Benny's wedding. Braxiatel is a guest in attendance at the wedding, but the most plot-important thing he does is play cricket. (Interestingly, Romana also appears in this book, although she and Braxiatel do not interact.)

At this point, the timeline is very straightforward. Brax was on Gallifrey for a bit, then he left and founded the Braxiatel Collection where he met Benny, and then later came to her wedding.

Current timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings

1997-1999: The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield

After Virgin Publishing lost the license to make Doctor Who books, they spent a few years making books with characters they could still license. A post-TARDIS-travels Bernice Summerfield was the star of these books, and Braxiatel became one of the most important recurring characters. The primary setting for these books is St. Oscar's University on the planet Dellah in the 2590s.

Braxiatel is introduced in the second book starring Benny, Dragons' Wrath, where he was was presented as the head of St Oscar's Department of Theatrology. Notably, Brax has no idea who Benny is. This makes sense though, because Theatre of War is set in 3985, and Dragons' Wrath is set in 2593. And indeed, throughout the Benny VNAs, we see Brax planning set up his namesake collection (including purchasing the asteroid it resides on). So from a timeline perspective, this is after he left Gallifrey but well before Theatre of War. Fair enough.

One other thing that showed up in the Benny VNAs were connections to the War in Heaven plot the BBC-published books were currently getting into - specifically, the Benny VNAs showed Braxiatel's people (not named as the Time Lords, but them being the Time Lords had already been established) as gearing up for war. This will be relevant to some things I do much later.

(Btw, I am separating Dragons' Wrath from the rest of the Benny VNAs from the timeline to make some things I'm gonna have to do later easier. For now, just bear with me.)

Current timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Dragons' Wrath -> Benny VNAs -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings

2000-2002: Big Finish Bernice Summerfield

After Virgin stopped publishing books altogether, the licenses for the Bernice Summerfield characters were grabbed by a group of Doctor Who fans who had been making unofficial Doctor Who audio stories. Calling their new company Big Finish, these fans published some audio adaptions of Bernice Summerfield novels that impressed the BBC enough to give Big Finish the license to make Doctor Who audio stories as well. Big Finish then started making two lines of original stories: one starring the Doctor, and the other starring Benny.

The Big Finish Benny series was basically a continuation of the Virgin New Adventures Benny series. It picks up (in-universe) four years after the last Benny VNA, and transfers the main setting from Dellah to the newly-founded Braxiatel collection. (Which is just as well, as Dellah was effectively destroyed in the finale of the Benny VNAs).

The original Big Finish Benny series ended up running for eleven series (the first series being the previously-mentioned audio adaptions), and while a lot of things happen over the ten series of original stories, it is all presented as "in order" from Braxiatel's perspective, meaning we can just slot it in after the Benny VNAs without issue.

Current timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Dragons' Wrath -> Benny VNAs -> Benny Big Finish series 2-11 -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings

2003-2006: Gallifrey series 1-3

Knowing who reads my essays, you probably are familiar with the Gallifrey series. But if you aren't...

In 2003, Big Finish wanted to do a celebration for Doctor Who's 40th anniversary, and so they created the story Zagreus. Zagreus has... a lot of moving parts, but it also featured former companions Romana and Leela, who were both living on Gallifrey at the time. The episode also featured a brief appearance of Braxiatel, also on Gallifrey.

The next year, Big Finish would release a new series called Gallifrey, set on Gallifrey, with Braxiatel as one of the main characters. The series establishes that Braxiatel has lived his whole life on Gallifrey so far, but he is in contact with his future self, who is strongly implied to be the version of Braxiatel from the Bernice Summerfield series.

Halfway through the second season of Gallifrey, Brax is infected by a... let's just call her an evil mind virus, called Pandora. If Braxiatel remains on Gallifrey, Pandora will escape, but if he leaves Gallifrey, he can keep it contained within his mind. So he takes a Tardis and leaves.

Meanwhile, the in Bernice Summerfield series, Braxiatel had been acting increasingly shady and malicious, and one audio (The Crystal of Cantus) very strongly implies the reason for this is that Pandora is still in his mind and his defenses against her are slowly wearing down.

One month after the release of The Crystal of Cantus, Braxiatel returns to the Gallifrey in the episode Mindbomb. There, he uses Pandora as the titular mindbomb, and releases most of Pandora into Darkel, who promptly dies. However, he still has some amount of Pandora in his head, so he has to leave Gallifrey once more. It's a little unclear if Mindbomb is supposed to be before or after the Bernice Summerfield series, but the first two series of Gallifrey are presented as recent for him - he has not been gone from Gallifrey long.

Brax returns to the Gallifrey series again in the series 3 finale, Panacea. This time it is implied to be much later for him - he timescoops the rest of the main cast into the ruins of the Braxiatel collection, he refers to the events of Mindbomb as one would for something that happened far in the past, and he is also using the name Irving for the first time in Gallifrey. (For the record, had been using it consistently in the Benny series). And finally, no mention is made of Pandora being in his head. All of this make me believe that Panacea was originally intended to take place long after the Gallifrey series from Braxiatel's perspective, with the Pandora thing presumably being planned to be resolved in the Benny audios.

(also on my little timeline, I'm treating Zagreus as episode zero of Gallifrey for point of convenience).

Current timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Gallifrey series 1-2 -> Mindbomb -> Dragons' Wrath -> Benny VNAs -> Benny Big Finish series 2-11 -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings -> Panacea

2007-2010: More Big Finish Bernice Summerfield

Gallifrey's third series was originally planned to be it's last, and indeed, the series ceased production at that point. However, Brax continued to appear in the Bernice Summerfeild series, where he descends into the closest thing the series has to a main villain. Brax is ultimately fatally shot in the 2010 audio Escaping the Future, but the timeline in which that happened is destroyed shortly afterwards, leaving his fate in the Benny series unknown.

None of this changes our current timeline, as the default assumption is that he survives and goes on to appear in the stories taking place afterwards.

Current timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Gallifrey series 1-2 -> Mindbomb -> Dragons' Wrath -> Benny VNAs -> Benny Big Finish series 2-11 -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings -> Panacea

2011: Gallifrey IV (and the giant retcon)

In 2011, the Gallifrey series made a glorious return, picking up straight from where it had left off in 2006 in Panacea. In the first story of Gallifrey IV, Reborn, the ruins of the Braxiatel Collection as seen in Panacea are retconned into being an unrelated place called the Axis.

In it's second story, Disassembled, Braxiatel is thrown through a time window, with his destination left unknown to the rest of the Gallifrey cast. However, Disassembled ends with the conversation between Braxiatel and Benny that happens at the start of Dragons' Wrath, showing that he landed in Dellah, and nicely leading into the start of the Big Finish Benny series.

For the timeline, this means that Panacea needs to be moved to before any of the Bernice Summerfield stuff. This doesn't break anything else though.

(Oh and if anyone is feeling pedantic, I am including 2024's The Questing Beast as part of Gallifrey IV since despite being released over a decade later it is set directly amongst the Gallifrey IV stories)

Current timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Gallifrey series 1-2 -> Mindbomb -> Panacea -> Gallifrey IV -> Dragons' Wrath -> Benny VNAs -> Benny Big Finish series 2-11 -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings

2012-2013: Bernice Summerfield boxsets

(where this all goes to hell)

Ohhhhhhhhhh boy.

Following the conclusion of series 11 of Bernice Summerfeild, the series did a soft retool and switched to a boxset format. The first boxset (Epoch) forshadowed that Brax would return to the series, which he finally does in the finale of the second boxset, Road Trip. Brax proceeds to be a main character in the next three boxsets of Benny's series (Legion, New Frontiers, and Missing Persons)

Over the course of his appearances in these box sets, Braxiatel also claims the following things.

He believes himself to be from a different reality then the Braxiatel Benny knows, but is not certain about this.

He's been in this universe for a bit.

He knows what the Braxiatel of Benny's reality did secondhand from other people

He has met Benny once, in the scene we saw at the end of Disassembled (i.e., the start of Dragons' Wrath), but has not seen her since then

He does not know if the Braxiatel of Benny's reality is alive or dead

So let's break that down. I'm gonna refer to the Gallifrey Brax and the Dellah Brax here for the depictions of the characters from those two series (with Gallifrey Brax being the Brax from the Gallifrey series and the Benny boxsets, and the Dellah Brax being from the Benny VNAs and Big Finish Benny series 2-11).

What they were trying to do at the time was say that Gallifrey Brax and Dellah Brax were Braxiatels from different universes, and transplant Gallifrey Brax into the Bernice Summerfield series.

First things first, Gallifrey Brax is lying about at least one of those. There is a short story (Wurm Nior) that depicts him having contact with the Dellah Brax. He successfully hides this from Benny, suspecting she would kill them both if she found out. This also shows us that Gallifrey Brax isn't just a continuation from the Dellah Brax, since the Dellah Brax is still around. I also believe that Gallifrey Brax's assumption that he is not in his native universe is incorrect, as there are multiple other ways in which the Gallifrey series and the Benny series indirectly connect. So Gallifrey Brax and Dellah Brax are the same person. (and incidentally Brax being mistaken about that makes a lot of sense given some of the events of Gallifrey IV)

With those out of the way, I see no reason to assume that he is wrong or lying about having met Benny only once before, since Disassembled explicitly leads into Dragons' Wrath. This just leaves the problem of Dragons' Wrath being in both Braxiatel's stories.

I think my solution to this is pretty simple (and the fact that I think this is simple probably says a lot about me and my approach to Doctor Who continuity). Gallifrey Brax landed on Dellah, after Disassembled. He saw that his future self (Dellah Brax) was as a professor at St Oscar's, but was off-planet for some reason. So he takes the place of Brax for that book, then leaves the Dellah Brax a note saying "you've met Benny now!" Much later, Gallifey Brax goes back in time to become Dellah Brax, and sees the note and plays along.

Still with me?

So this means that after Disassembled, we have Dragons' Wrath, and then Brax just hangs out until the time of the boxsets.

Oh and since I know we're following Pandora as well, there is a story that confirms a Soul Sucker named Avril Fenman took Pandora out of the Gallifrey Brax and put her in Dellah Brax.

The last box set, Missing Persons, ends with Benny and her friends defeating the time-active creatures/group called the Epoch, giving them access to temporal technology. It's worth noting that Benny's next appearance has her travelling alone, without any of the supporting cast from these box sets, so I think a reasonable supposition could be that Gallifrey Brax took his share of the time tech to the Braxiatel collection (which Dellah Brax had abandoned by this point) and running the collection, before (much later) going back in time to found the thing to become what Dellah Brax. At this point, I have no evidence for if Theatre of War or the VNAs and Big Finish series should come first, so this decision is arbitrary, but I will get evidence for that in the next section.

Current timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Gallifrey series 1-2 -> Mindbomb -> Panacea -> Gallifrey IV -> Dragons' Wrath -> Road Trip -> Legion -> New Frontiers -> Missing Persons -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings -> Benny VNAs -> Benny Big Finish series 2-11

2015-2021: Gallifrey: Time War

Braxiatel returned, again, to the Gallifrey series in the story Intervention Earth / Enemy Lines (which in retrospect act as a lead-in to the Time War), and then proceeds to be a part of the Gallifrey: Time War series. Braxiatel shows up at the end of Intervention Earth, having apparently been off-planet this whole time. He then goes back in Gallifrey's recent history in order to change it in Enemy Lines.

Enemy Lines also features open acknowledgement of how broken Braxiatel's timeline had gotten, with it ending with him going to go try to fix that with the help of the temporal entity known as the watchmaker. I'm not gonna get into Brax's role in Gallifrey: Time War because of spoilers, and also because I don't need to. Every other story he has been in is pre-Time War, so his appearances in Gallifrey: Time War take place after everything else.

Intervention Earth / Enemy Lines's proximity to the Time War is why I place the Benny VNAs and the Big Finish Benny series after Theatre of War and Happy Endings, for the record. The Benny VNAs delt with the lead up to the War in Heaven, and if you have read my other essays you may know that I consider the War in Heaven to be the same conflict as the Last Great Time War. And so it makes sense to me that following the Bernice Summerfield series, he returns to Gallifrey right in the middle of the events of Intervention Earth.

So basically we stick his actual return to Gallifrey on the end of the timeline and call it a day.

Final timeline: The Empire of Glass -> Gallifrey series 1-2 -> Mindbomb -> Panacea -> Gallifrey IV -> Dragons' Wrath -> Road Trip -> Legion -> New Frontiers -> Missing Persons -> Theatre of War -> Happy Endings -> Benny VNAs -> Benny Big Finish series 2-11 -> Intervention Earth/Enemy Lines -> Gallifrey: Time War

Okay, so what about Pandora?

Okay so I do need to answer Lucero's original question, which was "What happened to Pandora after Mindbomb?"

My take on that is that even though Panacea was retconned to being before the Bernice Summerfield series, it still feels like some time has passed for Brax between Mindbomb and Panacea. I believe that in that time, Braxiatel has found a way to safely contain Pandora in his mind to a point where he believes she is no longer an issue, and can interact with Time Lords and visit the alternate Gallifreys on the Axis without issue. However, when he gets thrown out of the Axis and onto Dellah in Dissassembled, he is disoriented enough

I kinda blipped past this plot point earlier, but the audio story The Curse of Fenman explicitly says that the Soul Sucker Avril Fenman (herself something of a mind virus) took Pandora from Gallifrey Brax's mind and put it in Dellah Brax's. With the understanding of my timeline, this means from Brax's perspective, shortly after he arrived on Dellah Pandora was yoinked out of his mind.

Then, several hundred years in his future, once he had become Dellah Brax, Fenman returned Pandora to his mind. His skills had decayed after centuries of not interacting with the Time Lords, so his ability to contain her was much less consistent. However, when he died in the destructing timeline in Escaping the Future, he was able to leave Pandora behind in his dying body in the version of history that was destroyed, meaning that Pandora was destroyed. And once he felt confident enough in Pandora's destruction, he set course for Gallifrey and returned home for Intervention Earth / Enemy Lines.

Okay I think that's it! Follow-up questions and requests for clarification are always welcome, and I hope this was interesting and made sense!