#compared to ‘doctor time lord YEAH!’ and ‘donna human NO!’

[ninemelodies]

this scene. this fucking scene. when i watched this the first time it really struck me how much 14 has grown. 10 wouldn’t have let that argument go. they would’ve kept pushing buttons until one of them stormed off. but 14 stops, cuts himself off mid-sentence and walks away to take a breath.

“no,” he says. no we’re not doing this. no it’s not my fault. no it’s not your fault. it’s a shitty situation and they’re both stressed and afraid.

and then he apologizes even though he didn’t start the argument and he didn’t spill the coffee. and it was definitely donna’s fault but sometimes being best friends means you let things go and you lie a little because your friendship is more important than being right

AND THEN HE COMFORTS HER. without her asking and without her initiating it.

[dreamcaught]

So okay, I haven't seen the commentary about Fourteen returning to Fifteen once he's processed his trauma to be "reabsorbed" or whatever, but if that's how it's gonna go, then yeah. Okay, I can see why they did this.

Doctor Who has been such a fucking insane whirlwind of loss and trauma pretty much since Journey's End when the Doctor lost his lover and his best friend. Tentoo and Rose are happily married in Pete's World. That Doctor gets to actively live the happiest he's ever been every single day, but this Doctor had to keep going.

Eleven lost the Ponds. Twelve lost Clara and Bill. These characters effectively die, which is why they're mentioned directly. And exemplified by the Toymaker, these are big losses. Yaz+Co. didn't get even an inkling of a mention because, quite frankly, they weren't. They all just got to go back home like companions used to do all the time. It was kind of a big deal that so many companions had such tragic, permanent, traumatic endings. So yeah, it makes sense that the Doctor would need to take time to process this.

(That and the Flux thing, apparently, which - uh - I guess falls under the same umbrella.)

Fourteen is incredibly vulnerable. He's open and raw, and he needs to be in order to be the Doctor to process these things. It makes strategic story sense to have the Doctor break in half to allow part of him to retire and process while the other part of him keeps going, because (like with Tentoo), the show must go on -- he can't actually stop.

Having David Tennant's face as Fourteen makes a lot of strategic sense, too. Not only is DT a fan favourite, but his relationship with Donna is the most familial of relationships he's had. Some fans may wonder again why Yaz wasn't who he'd go to, but it has to be noted that they made Yaz a romantic interest and that is not what this Doctor wants or needs right now. That's why they've established Fourteen as (likely) gay. That's why he's calling Rose Noble his niece and Shaun his brother-in-law. He's effectively rehabilitating with his sister, and that's kind of cool.

I do understand the tragedy of Donna's ending was appealing to many viewers, but it's been 15 years. That's long enough for her to get a better ending to her story that doesn't just involve winning the lottery. Her family and how she cares for people who need it are Donna's greatest strengths. Having Donna get her memory back but not become an all-knowing DoctorDonna hybrid is sending a kind message of hope that I think this world needs right now, to be honest.

RTD has done this, in part, to allow for the show to return to being more lighthearted and about hope than it has for a long time. It's saying that it's okay to take a break, but also acknowledges that the Doctor - as a show and as an almost supernatural being - has to carry on as well. It's a soft reboot with acknowledgement to the past without having to view it as a burden, so I get that.

I've seen a lot of people immediately compare this ending to Tentoo/Rose, though, and I don't know if I agree. This isn't a Doctor creating a version of himself to be with a lover as a human, to live the one, singular life he couldn't otherwise have. He didn't bi-regenerate out of love or fear of losing his lover. His loss of regenerations and ability to age as Tentoo is really important to their story, and this is not true for Fourteen. He's still full Time Lord - and if the commentary is true - will eventually reunite with himself. That's not at all the same. Instead, this is the Doctor many years after a traumatic experience using a magical way to get his break and travel, too.

As well, the Doctor was in love with Rose. He had to tear his heart out and leave her in a different universe to let her go. That would not have happened with a bi-regenerated Doctor sharing the same universe. The two Doctors would have had to create a copy of Rose (much like these two had to do so with the TARDIS) in order to be happy. It's not like Donna, because Donna can be a sister to two identical brothers and it's not weird.

(That's if you don't count polyamory, but that would never happen in the show.)

I hope that they use this soft reboot to help move on from past traumas in a healthy way. I hope that Fourteen with Donna does help Fifteen become more of a positive Doctor than even Thirteen was, who was secretly dealing with so much angst all the time.

I do adore, absolutely, that the Doctor did acknowledge his favourite people. River Song and Adric were mentioned as important and lost. Sarah Jane and Rose were explicitly said to be loved. It was less than I was hoping for, but also exactly what I think should happen if they're trying to use this special as a way to finally, realistically move on and start something fresh, new and positive.

So yeah, I guess I'll keep watching to see what happens next.

[jennycalendar]

i’m a black girl and i adore martha, and i think the tenth doctor did NOT deserved her whatsoever. i feel uncomfortable with the idea of martha being paired with the guy who put her through so much horrible situations and was even racist. bc i mean, yeah, the characters aren’t real and rtd is racist & the real responsible for his characters actions but no other character in his era behaved as nasty as ten towards black people. he brushed off martha’s concerns about her race and invited a racist to the tardis so they could have a romance together while martha was there, and he comparing her to rose as if she’s second best, to the point martha admits he can’t see her for who she is, he’s just remembering someone else—someone who he wished was there instead of her—rose. and the way he dismisses her pain in the last of time lords and cries miserably for the man who imprisoned and slaved her family for an entire year. i know the master is his best friend and they have this toxic and complex relationship, but i can’t see him acting the same way regarding the tylers or the nobles, he’d be so pissed off with the master and would prioritize rose’s and donna’s feelings. he’d be like twelve with clara and missy. i think ten’s writing is very racist because, well… he is. sorry. but he is. twelve literally punched a racist to defend bill, ten’s chosen a racist over martha… the fact that she literally left because of the shitty, unfair way she was treated... and as someone who has been in martha’s shoes too many times, i feel really negative and repulsive about this tardis duo, especially with the romantic view on them.

sorry i had to vent off as i’ve seen too many people who’s against this pair having their reasons unfairly invalidated. when most of us are martha stans who believe she deserves all the good things–which tbh is the total opposite of giving her a romance with… ten, out of all incarnations. i have been noticing the martha fans who have a romanticized view on their relationship love to act like everyone who’s against it have racist reasons for it, like. no. just no. we’re not delusional and that’s it

hi! i just got off work, but i've been thinking about this for a minute. my response will be long, as i feel this deserves.

i first wanna preface this by saying that not wanting the doctor to be with martha is more than understandable given how horribly he treated her in canon. i myself struggled through all of her season, and i'm still not 100 percent sure whether i'll be able to watch certain episodes again. absolutely, the way ten treats martha is horrendous, and i would argue that all of his actions towards her in canon are informed by the racism woven so deeply into rtd's era. but the thing is, i feel that saying that the tenth doctor is racist is not going hard enough.

to say that ten is racist means overlooking the fact that ten as a character is supposed to function as someone who pays attention to the intricacies of marginalized communities. this was the authorial intent. the fact that the authorial intent involved ten being consistently racist towards martha means that the bias that must be examined should not be centered around the doctor himself, but with the writers. the writers authentically believed that the tenth doctor was not being racist when he allowed martha to be objectified by shakespeare, harassed by the woman he would later profess the potential of love to & express a desire to travel with, regularly reacts with visceral disgust/discomfort when she flirts with him (that one is the one that's the worst to me!!!) and i feel like saying "ten is racist" limits the scope of how monumentally awful it is that the writers wrote all of those things and still believed that they were writing a hero.

the doctor is always intended to be viewed as someone who has the best interests of humanity at heart. the doctor has also always been written as someone who fights for the rights of people that have been marginalized and oppressed, who makes tearful and impassioned speeches for the humanity of people who are seen as subhuman. the tenth doctor especially is portrayed as someone with boundless compassion who can see the good in everyone and always wants to find a way to forgive and love. this is the inarguable authorial intention re: the tenth doctor. this is why, to me, saying that he is racist erases how fucking horrifying it is that he is written as Not A Racist Person, Ever, while spending an entire season being viscerally, brutally, repeatedly racist to martha.

to sorta demonstrate my point: i think harry potter is a much better example of in-text bigotry from a fictional character that goes hand in hand with the writer's bigotry. ron responds to hermione's crusade for the rights of the house elves with "but they like being enslaved, hermione," and the narrative demonstrates that ron is right. which, sure, fucked up of jkr for perpetuating this message about forced servitude, no question, BUT ALSO ron as a character was raised within a system that repeatedly enforced this idea of the house-elves liking their servitude, was given no reason to question this message, and is not the kind of person to question it anyway. this is so, so, so different from the doctor, who has always been the kind of person to question shitty behavior, to fight for what's right, and to seek for and admire people exactly like martha.

and now to loop back to my own thoughts on ten and martha! i feel that my little two-sentence posts on "martha and the doctor could be cute" definitely did not delve into what motivated my statement. i wanna stress one more time that, if you have watched canon and cannot ever see martha and the doctor together because of how awfully he treated her, that is 100 percent valid and reasonable and i would never dream of correcting you. my anger towards the people who dismiss tenmartha as a concept has always been directed towards the people who are saying that ten could never love martha like he loved rose. i am very sorry that you saw my posts and felt otherwise.

i do not romanticize ten and martha's relationship as it exists in canon. as with my points re: ten, this is a situation where i am responding to a glaring gap in the writing. if the tenth doctor really was consistently written, written as we are intended to see him -- as a person who is loving, kind, always looking out for the people he chooses -- i honestly can't see a timeline where he wouldn't have some sort of romantic feelings towards martha. i feel that a season three written effectively could still carry forward ten's complicated feelings for rose while also honoring the joy and wonder of martha -- specifically, by having ten avoid romance with martha not because she's Not Rose, but because he doesn't want her to be a rebound, and he's worried that admitting he's enamored with martha would mean stringing her along (which, of course, in this situation, he would still be doing). i think a compelling story could be written about martha responding to his awkward and halfhearted attempts to rebuff her while never really letting go of her hand. the narrative would shift so much more clearly away from the clearly racist message of "the doctor obviously could never love martha like that" and so much more towards "the doctor is in love with martha and deeply emotionally damaged, and she deserves better."

but, again, this is the way i choose to engage with the text! and i wanna be really clear that this comes from a place of wanting to articulate exactly how ridiculous it is that the doctor would not love martha, when everything we learn about him as a character in every other season suggests that he would and should love her. if you see this discrepancy and feel antipathy towards the character for it, that is absolutely your prerogative and i would never ever take that away from you. it is fucked up writing and we are all dealing with it however we choose to. if you wanna watch s3 and hate ten forever, i truly think you have every right to do it. this is how i personally choose to express my own anger, and i hope it makes a little more sense laid out like this.

[britishsass]

who would the equivalent of rose tyler in the timelord au

That depends on what you mean by that.

If you mean "They were a normal person until their job exploded, and the time lord offered for them to come with after they helped" then it's Bob.

If you mean "They saw a regeneration in front of them and fell in love with their time lord, as well as leaving a long-term impact on their time lord, but also they're into gymnastics" then it's Lucy.

If you mean "They traveled with two regenerations of the same person and joined far too early in their life, but also fell in love with the second because they had the same silly vibes" then it's Nash.

It's all a bit of a mix. I even have a list of what companions I compare some of these folks to for my ease.

Bob: Rose (Came with on a whim), Martha (was offered a couple trips after helping), and Donna (did an adventure, left, and came back) as well as Rory (very devoted to his partner but also strong in his own right).

Helmut: Rose (always having a good time with people-- and falling in love along the way) and Amy (very proud of who he is, also him and Bob thank you).

Lucy: Jack (pops in and out throughout the timeline just for fun, also she's more open about relationships than most), River (Likely married to the time lord just 'cause, also popping in when she feels like it and saving her husband) but also Amy (He crashlanded in her yard and raided her fridge before getting dragged into stuff)

Boyd and Cassie are the ones who notice this strange guy appearing all across time-- Usually this means background characters, but... Yeah, no, they're important.

Gloria and Edgar are people in their own right and I can't compare them to anyone. They're very much just... People who are vibing in their own stories.

Hollis is like Rose (the first human this time lord saw), Martha (An actual doctor who can stop some of the silliness) and Amy (Definitely the one in charge of these guys. Totally in charge of her boys.)

(P.S. I think the friendship between Hollis, Fred, and Cal is one of my favorite bits that I'm likely not gonna write much. Cal is hard to write.)

[melancholydreadfuldream]

wonders lost and wounded

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: 10th Doctor x Reader 

Summary: The Doctor has lost so much and he has gotten a bit dark but will you still stay with him or leave?

  Warning: ooc, angst, plot holes, dark!doctor, manipulation, death, etc. You have been warned.

 More warning: English is not my first language so beware of the headache you will receive upon reading this.

    The Doctor sighed in relief and disbelief as he realized he is still alive. He chuckled. "I'm still alive." Maybe the prophecy is wrong after all, he thought.

  He turned to you who were knocked unconscious on the floor a few feet away from him. He crawled toward you to check you for injuries. He is relieved knowing you are fine too.

  You slowly woke up under his touches. "D-doctor..." You whispered groggily.

  The Doctor grinned at you. "We are alive." He said and pulled you into a hug.

  You were surprised at his sudden show of affection but you were not complaining. You knew about the prophecy, he had told you before about the four knocks. You both thought it was about the Master.

  You smiled at him too, relieved, thinking he is able to cheat the prophecy.

  He chuckled again until four sharp knocks were heard. The dread you both felt was so great as you both turned around slowly and saw Wilfred, trapped in the radiation booth. 

  And the Doctor knew then, he still trapped to fulfill the prophecy of his death.

  You knew what will happened next. You thought the Doctor will have to sacrifice himself to save Wilfred.

  You listened numbly as the Doctor explained the situation to Donna's beloved grandfather.

  "Can't you just open the door?" Wilfred asked.

  "The Master left the nuclear bot running and it's gone into overload."

  "That's bad, is it?"

  "No cos all the excess radiation gets vented inside there. Vinvocci glass. Contains it. All 500.000 rads about to flood that thing."

  "Well better let me out then yeah?" Wilfred said with a chuckle.

  The Doctor doesn't laugh. "Except it's gone critical. Touch one control and it floods." He pulled his sonic screwdriver. "Even this would set it off."

  "I'm sorry." Wilfred looked a bit scared but also resigned.

  "You had to go and get stuck. Cos that's who you are, Wilfred. You were always this. Waiting for me all this time." The Doctor said calmy but you could sense the rage and despair in his voice.

  "Oh really just leave me. I'm an old man, Doctor, I've had my time." Wilfred said softly.

  "Well, exactly look at you. Not remotely important." The Doctor said in such a ruthless tone.

  You stared at him in disbelief. You knew he is working on the acceptance of his upcoming death but his words are cruel. You didn't say anything though. You wanted to comfort him but you got the sense he will refuse any comfort right now.

  "But me...I could do so much more. So much more! But this is what I get. My reward." The Doctor raged at the world. "And it's not fair!!"

  You flinched when he threw some stuff on the floor in his anger. Your heart ached for the Doctor. You wish you could do something, anything to help him at this moment.

  You know you could choose to sacrifice yourself in his place but you were too afraid. You can't judge him for wanting to live. He is right. He deserve to live longer. But he need to save Wilfred. The Doctor will die but he will regenerate, you know this.

  "I don't accept it."

  You turned to look at the Doctor at what he said.

  The Doctor's words chilled you to the bone. He sounded so cold. "I'm sorry, Wilfred, I'm so sorry." He said. "I refused to die here."

  "Doctor..." You whispered his name. You didn't know what to say, too horrified at the thought that he is willing to let Wilfred die.

 The Doctor didn't even look at you. He still staring at Wilfred with a dispassionate look.

  Wilfred glanced at the Doctor and nodded his acceptance.

  "No." You said. "Doctor, you can't just let him die. He is Donna's grandfather." You grabbed his arms, pleading at him. "There has to be a way."

  "There is no other way. Would you rather I die instead, (name)?" The Doctor asked you insensitively.

  "That's not fair. I would never wish for your death, you know this." You answered with tears on your eyes. "But, Wilfred..."

  "It's okay, (name)." Wilfred said. "I have lived a good life. I am old. Sooner later I will die."

  "Not like this." You said to him. "Not like this." You turned to the Doctor. "Donna would never forgive you if she know..." You knew it was cruel to bring up Donna but you just wanted the Doctor to snap out of whatever the state he is in. He frightened you. He sounded like the Time Lord Victorious back at Mars.

  The Doctor flinched. He turned and glared at you. "Then, it's a good thing that she will never know."

  "Doctor, please, you are scaring me..." You begged him.

  He won't budge from his position and you didn't know what it is you are trying to make him do. You wanted him to save Wilfred but you didn't want him to die either. So, what are you going to do now?

  You couldn't think straight as you made your way toward the booth but before you could reach it, the Doctor grabbed your arms roughly. 

  "Don't even think about it." He hissed at you. "You can't regenerate. You will die."

  You turned to him, tears in your eyes. You didn't want to die either, part of you is relieved he stopped you but all you know is you can't let Wilfred die here, certainly not because the Doctor choose not to save him.

  "Doctor, you can't just let him die..."

  "I can't always save everyone." He said callously.

  You flinched.

  "It's okay, (name), it's alright." Wilfred said comfortingly at you.

  The Doctor pulled you away from the booth. You didn't stop looking at Wilfred. He is still smiling gently as he resigned to his fate. You turned toward the Doctor and blanched at how unfeeling he seemed as he stared at Wilfred.

  7777

  The Doctor has dragged you back into his Tardis. 

  He had done it. He cheated death, he broke the prophecy. He will live on. He is victorious.

  The Doctor smiled.

  You couldn't believe your eyes. How could he be smiling like this after he let someone he close to die? 

  You were still shaking and in shock after leaving Wilfred to his death. You wiped your tears and you turned away from the console room and back into your room aboard the Tardis.

  You sat on the floor, hugging your knees. You didn't know how long you were on the floor. You couldn't think straight.

  7777

  You first joined the Doctor in his current incarnation. He was traveling with Rose at the time. He invited you to travel with him and Rose. Rose never like you, thinking you were her competition. You did started having feeling for the Doctor but you could tell he loves Rose so you never tried anything with him. 

  You stayed with him even after he lost Rose. But you were never good enough for him. At long night when he especially missed Rose, he would glance at you and you could tell what he was thinking. Why you? Why can't Rose be the one who gets to stay by his side?

  He would feel guilty when he saw your hurt look but he never apologies.

  You were grateful when Martha joined the Tardis. You got along well with Martha. You and Martha were both miserable with the love you both felt for the Time Lord. You bonded with the fact the Doctor always compare you both with the awesomeness that is Rose Tyler.

  It surprised you at all that John Smith ended up falling in love with you during the period of hiding from the family of blood. Oh it was hard for you to fend off John's affection for you. You couldn't bear the thought that when John disappeared, the Doctor will remember everything he did as John. You were mortified, especially knowing his true feeling for Rose.

  However John is very persistent in wanting to court you and he is so adorably awkward about it. If thing is different, if John is just a simple human, you could see yourself falling in love with his charm. But you know better. Or at least, you should have.

  And yet despite knowing this, you ended up accepting his courting. Martha supported you albeit a bit bitter about it. You can't blame her for you would be too in her place.

  John would always smile at you whenever he saw you, offer his arm as he took you out on a stroll into town. He shared with you his weird dream and his journal. That made you felt guilt because you know the truth about his real identity. You saw his drawing of Rose. Even as a human, this version of the Doctor is still fascinated with the idea of Rose.

  He draws your picture in his journal and he was very good at it. You thought he have made you too beautiful and told him so. He had said that is how he see you. 

  And you realized he did see you when the Doctor himself didn't. You both shared a look and he kissed you.

  If it's not for Martha's interference, you would have been sweep away by your passion for John. You felt bad for Martha when John shouted at her for not knocking before entering his room. 

  You tried to leave despite John's insistence to stay. "This is a mistake." You said without thinking.

  John looked hurt. But it was the truth. You shouldn't have let him kiss you or kissed him back in return. You were ashamed that you have no self-control.

  He tried to stop you from leaving but you were a coward as you ran out of his embrace.

  You hated yourself for being so weak, for easily falling in love with John just for his show of affection of you, even knowing full well that he has an expired date. What were you thinking? Stupid!

  You talked to Martha about it. You apologized to her for everything she has to endure in this period and for having John's heart. Martha, brave-heart Martha, never blame you and she understood you. You were grateful for her friendship.

  When the family of blood attacked, John were attending dance party with Joan, the matron who have her eyes on John ever since the first time they met. You thought he did that on purpose to make you jealous, to hurt you as you have hurt him when you rejected him. 

  You and Martha raced against time to find the pocket watch containing Doctor's time lord consciousness. You and Martha had to convinced John to open the watch but he refused to do so even after you both explained everything about the Doctor and his current enemy.

  John glanced at you mournfully. "Did you love him, this Doctor?"

  You didn't know how to answer him. You wanted to lie but you found you couldn't lie to him. "I love him."

  "And did he love you back?"

  Your heart ached at the question. You shook your head. 

  "Then how can I return to be him when he didn't even love you?"

  "John..."

  "I don't want to go..." He whispered brokenly. "Why can't I stay?"

  You pulled him into your embrace. Tears filled your eyes as your heart ached for this man, John Smith. 

  "Promise me something, (name)." John whispered to you. "If this man, this Doctor, would never love you back, promise me you won't stay with him. You deserved someone who loved you back. You find that person. Can you do that?"

  You glanced up at him. You hesitantly nodded. You didn't know if you could keep your promise but you made that promise anyway.

  After he returned back into the Doctor, you noticed he started treating you a bit differently. Martha said she caught him staring at you a few times. You believed it was a remnant of John's feeling for you and yet it still not enough for the Doctor to do something about it. So you both tried to ignore the elephant in the room. But Martha is right though, you kept catching him giving you a look. You wondered if he remembered the promise you made to John and whether you would ever act on it.

  You lost the only family you have left in the world during your travel with the Doctor. You didn't even get to say goodbye. You were devastated. The Doctor and Martha were thankfully there for you. The Doctor granted you a chance to say goodbye to your mother and you were eternally grateful to him and his Tardis.

  Afterward you needed a break from the Tardis but you made the Doctor promised to come back for you when you are ready. You reunited again with them on Valiant when the Master arranged his people to kidnap you. It was painful year for everyone involved. You were so glad when the Doctor and Martha defeated the Master and time is reset.

  Martha left the Tardis after the fiasco with the Master. She warned you not to put your life on hold for the Doctor. You wished you could take her advice but maybe you are still one sick puppy for you let yourself burn over and over again for him.

  The Doctor invited Donna to join you both. You got along with Donna. You love how she took no nonsense from the Doctor. You remembered your first meeting with her in her wedding dress. She never stop yelling or slapping the Doctor. It was funny. You thought Donna is exactly the kind of companion the Doctor needs. You loved watching the two exchanged banters, it was very entertaining.

  You thought you could keep your feeling for the Doctor under wrap but Donna noticed it. Despite her teasing and support, you refused to act on her crude advice regarding the Doctor.

  Then Rose returned. She always is possessive of the Doctor. She doesn't like that you were still there with the Doctor. She is afraid that you will take her place in the Doctor's hearts. She really need not to worry for you know the Doctor only has eyes for one Rose Tyler. You could never compete with her.

  With Rose returned, you know it was time to take Martha's advice and keep your promise to John about leaving the Doctor for good. At least that is your plan until everything fall apart around you. The Doctor once again stranded Rose in the bad wolf bay and gifting her a gift of a life with Metacrisis Doctor. Then, he had to erase Donna's memories of everything pertaining the Doctor. 

  You can't leave him now. You can't let him be alone. He is the loneliest man in the universe and you wish to ease his loneliness even for just a bit. So you stayed for him.

  The Doctor treated you differently now. He is more affectionate with you. You were confused and you couldn't help the hope rising in your heart even though you knew he is just using you. You found you didn't mind. How pathetic you can be? So hungry for his affection that you would be anything he want.

  He frightened you though during a trip to the Mars. At first he insisted to leave for he doesn't want to mess with a fixed point in time. But he changed his mind when he saved some of the crews' lives. You were properly scared when he proclaimed himself the Time Lord Victorious. You thought he snapped out of it when Adelaide committed suicide to keep the timeline in tact. 

  Now with what happening with Wilfred, you have to wonder if he is still the Time Lord Victorious.

  7777

  You felt guilty. You knew it was out of your control and yet you still felt guilty anyway. You had nightmare about Wilfred. You couldn't stop shaking every time you woke up in cold sweat.

  The Doctor acted as if nothing has changed, grinning at you and talking about the next trip he planned for the both of you.

  You couldn't stand it so you asked to be taken home even though there is nothing for you at home. You needed a break from the Doctor so that you can sort out your mind.

  A dark expression crossed his feature immediately, making you winced as you took unconscious step back away from him.

  "Okay." He said solemnly.

  You blinked in surprise and confusion. You glanced at him, wondering if your mind just played a trick on you earlier.

  He smiled at you and talked you about giving it a few days for him to prepare a last hurrah for you. 

  You couldn't refuse when you watched how excited the Doctor as he was planning that last hurrah thing.

  7777

  True to his words, he planned a very exciting trip for you. You had a lot of fun that day. You laughed along with the Doctor. He would grab your hands tightly as he made you run as he showed you the wonder of the universe.

  He glanced at you fondly, grinning boyishly. You love the sound of his laughter. 

  And then he kissed you.

  You were stunned.

  He cupped your face gently, pulling your chin up as he continues kissing you.

  "Doctor, what are you doing?" You asked in hurt tone.

  He glanced down at you, putting his forehead over yours and let out a soft sigh. "Can't you tell?"

  "Are you trying to stop me from leaving by doing this? Kissing me?"

  "I don't want you to go." The Doctor whispered in your ear. "Stay with me?" He is distracting you with kisses on the neck.

  "Doctor, I..."

  Your mind short-circuits when he kissed you again.

  And so, you give in to him the next time he asked you to stay.

  7777

  Ever since that day, your relationship with the Doctor changed. He kissed you a lot, not that you are complaining, you just still not sure whether you were a couple or not. You were too afraid to make confirmation though. So, yeah, you did indeed stay with him again. 

  He was smiling and grinning a lot and still talked really fast over everything like over excited puppy. The dark look that alarmed you before never made appearance again until Jackson Lake.

  The Doctor took you to London on Christmas Eve in 1851 where you encountered a man that the Doctor thought to be his future regeneration. Soon the both of you are pulled into the cybermen fiasco where the Doctor learn the man he met is not a future version of himself. His name is Jackson Lake. His mind got infused with cybermen infostamp which made him believe he is the Doctor.

  It was there you once again saw the Time Lord Victorious. He let Jackson Lake fell into the time vortex along with the cybermen. He didn't even bother to try to save him.

  You confronted him about it much to his displeasure.

  "I can't always save everyone. You know this."

  You couldn't believe him. You knew he could have; he just chooses not to. "Is this who you are from now on, Doctor? You would just let people die."

  "I did the best I can do in the situation."

  "Yeah? And will one day you would do that to me too? Someday you will just choose not to save me?" 

  He glared at you as he moved toward you, causing you to flinch in fear. You thought he would hit you. He trapped you instead between him and the wall.

  The Doctor cupped your cheeks with his hands. "I will always do everything in my power to save you, (name)."

  You were stunned to see the sorrow in his eyes.

  7777

  There were times that you wanted to leave the Doctor but then he will do something that made you feel too guilty to ever leave him behind. So, you never did leave him.

  You and the Doctor ended up in Leadworth where you met Amy Pond while the Doctor deals with Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi. 

  Amy told you she has a message for you from her raggedy Doctor. You were confused. She took you to her house to her bedroom and told you to touch the crack on her wall.

  You were hesitant at first but you eventually did.

  You found yourself in some white space and you saw a man who Amy claimed is the raggedy Doctor.

  The man smiled at you fondly. "(name)..."

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm the Doctor."

  "But you can't be."

  "Well, I was supposed to be the Doctor until he, your Doctor, changed his path." He said. 

  Suddenly the surrounding around you changed into the time where the Doctor were still with Wilfred, only this time you saw the Doctor walked inside the booth, allowing Wilfred to survive another day. You watched in tears as the Doctor made his goodbyes trip and his heart-breaking final words which reminded you of John. Then he regenerated into the man you saw, the so-called raggedy Doctor.

  You blinked suddenly when you realized you weren't with the Doctor in these visions. "Where am I? Why am I not with you?"

  The Doctor looked so sad. "Oh, (name), remember Mars?"

  You nodded hesitantly.

  "Do you remember what happened after Mars?"

  "You mean with Adelaide...?"

  "After that..."

  You pondered about it. "I was in the Tardis with the Doctor."

  "And then what? Where did you both go?"

  You frowned when you realized you didn't remember. "I don't..."

  The raggedy Doctor has such a sorrowful look as he look at you. He cupped your cheeks. "I'm so sorry, (name)."

  You felt like choking. "What is going on? I don't understand."

  You woke up on the Tardis med-bay. The Doctor, your Doctor, apparently found you unconscious in some empty house. The owner of the house apparently were in a coma, a victim of Prisoner Zero.

  You didn't tell the Doctor of what you saw.

  7777

  You and the Doctor encountered River Song in the Byzantium. You were annoyed watching River flirted with the Doctor. You watched the Doctor tentatively flirted back much to your disbelief.

  River then explained why she called the Doctor here and asked him about what he know of weeping angel. There was supposed to be only one angel. However, it turned out this time, the Doctor didn't notice the danger the weeping angel pose as you and everyone involved were in the middle of the angels army waking up.

  Despite the Doctor warning for you to stay close, you ended up got lost and you screamed when you met face to face with one of the angels.

  You woke up feeling weak inside the Tardis med-bay and you distinctly heard the Doctor arguing with someone, arguing with River, apparently.

  It sounded very heated. River looked pissed and the Doctor looked annoyed.

  "It was very stupid and foolish, not to mention, cruel!" You heard River yelling at the Doctor.

  "Don't talk about things that you don't understand."

  "Oh I understand more than you think, Doctor."

  You choose that moment to cough.

  The Doctor and surprisingly, River, fussed over you immediately.

  You touched your stiff neck. "Ow, I think I sleep wrong, my neck is killing me..." You whined.

  The Doctor and River exchanged a look but it went unnoticed by you.

  7777

  You were shaking in fury and in tears.

  Earlier that day, during routine adventure, you and the Doctor naturally gotten into trouble. By the end of it, you were taken hostage. And as you always dreaded, he chooses not to save you.

  At first the Doctor has threatened them with his usual no second chance thing, his oncoming storm vibe. His eyes cold and calculating as he stared down the people who took you.

  Your eyes widened in disbelief and hurt when he said to the alien to go ahead and kill you. You felt so betrayed. Even the said alien was confused with the Doctor's sudden change in mood.

  The Doctor's firm look betrayed nothing of what he planned. He just stood there with flat look even as the alien insisted he will kill you. Instead you saw him lifted his sonic screwdriver at your direction.

  You must have fainted at some point because you woke up on the Tardis med-bay unharmed. You cried though when you recalled what happened.

  The Doctor entered the room and dare to look happy to see you awake after he just betrayed you like that. How can you trust him again?

  You were so furious. You refused to hear his explanation that he was just bluffing and that everything turned out okay. 

  "(name), you need to trust me. I would never abandon you." The Doctor said as he grabbed my arms.

  "Take me home, Doctor. I am done. I can't stay here anymore. I don't feel safe with you anymore." You said with tears, ignoring his pleading eyes. "I can't do this anymore. I can't trust you."

  The Doctor looked like he was being slapped. His eyes looked sad and tired. "After everything we have gone through together, how can you not trust me?"

  "I am afraid of you. I know I am just human. I know traveling with you is dangerous and that someday I will eventually die. But I have always trust you to have my back, to protect me when it matters. But you told him to just go ahead and kill me!"

  "It was just a bluff. I would never let him kill you." The Doctor pleaded. "Please, (name), you can't leave..."

  "I can't stay. I am sorry, Doctor. I just..."

  "I am sorry too."

  You glanced up at him and saw a dark look on his face. You took a step back away from him in fear.

  He glanced down at you as he walked toward you slowly. "Don't be afraid of me, (name), not you..."

  You tried to stay put as he stood before you. He raised a hand over your head. He tentatively wiped your tears with his thumb. He bend his head toward your ear and whispered something to you.

  7777

  You woke up to the sound of bird song inside the Tardis even though you were pretty sure you were at home just before. Were you really at home though? Didn't you decided to stay with the Doctor? You couldn't think straight.

  There was a man that look exactly like the Doctor, saved for his ginger hair, sunglasses and his dark clothing. He called himself the Dream Lord. He was very loud about it too.

  He insinuated the Doctor is keeping some secret from you. You said that was nothing new. But then he mentioned the secret involved yourself. He showed you a door, a vault really, with complicated lock on it.

  "How am I meant to open that?"

  "Well not here you can't but when you woke up and find it, just think open sesame, it will work."

  "Seriously?" You asked in disbelief.

  "Don't you want to know what happened after Mars?" He asked in a chilling tone.

  You froze under his gaze.

  "Find the vault. Learn the truth."

  That's when the original Doctor suddenly appeared and the vault dissolved before the Doctor noticed as he was busy yelling at his twin.

  You eventually woke up for real. You wondered what is that dream lord thing. The Doctor had said the dream lord is not real, just a manifestation of his darker side, influenced by psychic pollen inside the Tardis which heated up and causing both you and the Doctor caught into some dream world.

  7777

  You secretly tried to find the vault you saw in your dream but you couldn't find it within the Tardis. You wondered if the dream lord is bullshitting you. Would open sesame even worked to open the vault? 

  But you were curious about what he said about after Mars. It was twice now a version of Doctors warned you about it.

  What happened after Mars? Where did you and the Doctor go? Why can't you remember?

  You must have lost your mind because you started to hearing whispers in your head. You followed the whispers alongside the corridors within the Tardis.

  Find the vault. Learn the truth. Find the vault. Learn the truth.

  It was like someone is chanting those words over and over again.

  You clutched your pounding head with both hands, wishing the headache will go away.

  "(name)? Are you alright? What's wrong?" The Doctor asked.

  The whispers suddenly gone and so is the headache. You glanced up at the Doctor, eyes glassy but you were relieved.

  Without thinking, you rushed toward him and hugged him close. He hugged you back and rubbed your back. 

  "Come on." He led you away from the corridors. He discreetly turned to look at the corridors you both just left. The air around it started to falter, showing something hidden beneath it. He pulled an arms around you protectively.

  7777

  The Doctor let out a heavy sigh. That was a close call. One more step and you would have seen through the perception filter and once again find the vault.

  Each time you did find the vault, he would have to erase your memories of it for you could never cope with the truth behind the vault. 

  And yet for some reason, time and time again, you continued to stumble your way into the vault no matter how many times he relocated the vault, regardless the many protective layer after layer of perception filter he placed upon it.

  You always ended up finding the vault, learning the painful truth behind the vault, almost like something is guiding you to find it.

  After making sure you were asleep, he left you behind. He walked toward many corridors within the Tardis before stopping in front of the vault.

  He pushes open the vault door with ease. He entered the room with heavy heart as he walked toward a huge tube containing a figure submerged in watery grave.

  The figure within the tube is badly disfigured. The tube is connected with some complicated machinery which put the figure in deep sleep. Not far, there were some sort of bath tub containing icky white liquid. 

  The Doctor sighed as he put one hand over the tube. "I swear it, (name), I will never stop finding a cure for you, until then you will have to bear seeing reality through your gangers."

  He leaned against the tube. "I'm sorry about yesterday. Your ganger got her neck snapped by a weeping angel. I know that was very unpleasant. I will do better next time to keep you safe."

  He slowly sat on the floor, staring forlornly at the floor, remembering an early ganger version of you, crying in pain, unable to fully stabilized, feeling too much pain of the original you, melting and screaming, unable to accept that you weren't real.

  "I am real! I am (name) (last name)! I am real! I am not ganger!" You had screamed and raged amidst the pain. You were confused and in pain even though you weren't injured at all. You were horrified to see your own skin, how wrong it feels. You watched your hideous flesh face from the reflection of the tube and screamed.

  He stared at you solemnly, eyes looking apologetic and sad. "I am so sorry." He raised his sonic screwdriver, turned it on and vaporizing you. The eyes are always the last to go and he hates it.

  The Doctor sobbed as he harshly clutched his own hair. Keeping the truth from you has been hard. And now even your ganger self is wanting to leave him. He can't let you do that. He can't let you leave...so he made you forget your intention. 

  He was thankful he got to the real you when he could. You weren't grateful though, in absolute pain as you were, you begged him to kill you.

  He couldn't do it. It would be a mercy to put you down. But he couldn't. And so against your wishes, he put you into the tube, put you into deep sleep, pumped you full of anesthetic drug. 

  You were hanging by a thread. He knew he will lose you so he forcefully bound you to himself. You will live as long as this version of himself remained alive.

  And so he fought time itself, the prophecy of his own death, to buy you more time. He will not accept another loss, no more. But in order to keep you alive, he was forced to sacrifice another. He will have to live with that with the rest of his life.

  The Doctor was lonely. He didn't want a new companion. He wanted you. So when he found out about the flesh technology, he hooked you up to it. He tampered with your memory to ensure the trauma didn't get transferred to your ganger self.

  He found the hard way just how far gone you are and that caused some of your gangers he created descent into madness. So, he had to dig deep inside your mind, separating the damage, salvaged a semblance version of you before he could connect you into the flesh technology.

  He had to experiment with many versions of your ganger self in order to make sure you will get the best experience. Unfortunately, it didn't always work. The flesh technology is not perfect but enough to give you a half-life.

  The Doctor had no idea how River know about you and the vault. She was not pleased with it. She said he was playing God. She said he was being cruel to you. It made him angry. How dare that woman says such a thing? He did everything for you, to ensure you live. How can him trying to keep you alive being seen as cruel?

  He could feel time is falling apart and rearranged itself around him forming a new timeline. He was supposed to die that day and regenerated into his eleventh self. But he didn't. He cheated his death. Part of him is relieved he can postpone his own death. Because...he didn't want to go.

        A/N: ok, this story won't make any sense at all. I think halfway through writing this, I lost sight of what I actually want to write. I'm not satisfied with it but honestly, i don't think i can continue developing the storyline for it. I already use KISS to try to salvage this, erasing half of what I already write, it still won't connect the dot though. But I already write too much of it, I figure I will just have to accept it is a failure and then dumpost it so that it will no longer occupy my mind and just filed it as finished or discontinued.

[dw-thehiraethkids]

Bedtime

I'm going to start off by saying uh the very base of this character came from here so please read it it's a really good story and I uhh aged 13 accidentally stole this boy so 

But he's very different than the other version in this au so hopefully you can forgive me

Also there’s a part (you’ll know it) thats based on that audio with the baby McElroy (i dont know things about them sorry)

And the song referenced is a real song: Soldier, Poet, King by The Oh Hellos

It was quiet at night. Not that night was a solid force in the time vortex. But it was quiet nonetheless. The Doctor sat in the console room with his leg in an unexplainable position up on his chair, reading a book. Only at this time could he get any good reading in without any of his human friends going out on adventures, or more pressingly, making sure that Alexander was safe and well taken care of. It was exhausting taking care of a child, even with the amount of help he had between Donna and even Alex’s father. 

He was distracted from his book though, by the sound of pitter pattering feet down the hall, past the console room. He didn’t stop reading though or even look up. If anyone needed anything they were more than welcome to come see him. 

The footsteps came closer and closer. They were definitely Alex’s footsteps: too small and light footed to be anyone else’s. He still didn’t look up. Not for any reason, mostly because Alex had any choice in the situation and he didn’t have to interact with the Doctor if he didn’t want to. Sometimes they’d just sit together in silence enjoying each other’s company. 

But instead tonight Alex pulled on his pant leg, on the leg that was oddly still perched on top of the arm of the chair. He shut the book, with a bit of a dramatic flair. He moved his leg back down to a more realistic position and perched his head in his hands, “What’s up Alexander?”

Alex’s face scrunched up in thought, clearly he’d come into the console room only to forget what his objective was somewhere between his room and there. Something must have clicked though because his face relaxed and he made his way over to the console. He was a bit too short to reach a majority of the controls and clearly didn’t know how to pilot the ship, “I wanna go.”

The Doctor laughed, “Go? Absolutely not; it’s past your bedtime.”

Alex scowled, a look he had most definitely picked up from his father. It was a bit too cute on him though with his little fists balled up and his arms over his chest. Maybe in 30 years it would look intimidating, maybe. He stopped his foot, “No. I wanna go.” 

The Doctor sighed, he wasn’t getting out of a fight that easily. There was no part of him that wanted to just pick him up and drag him back to his room, honestly because he was getting bigger and he didn’t want to haul an uncooperative dead weight across the TARDIS. “Okay, let’s say I was taking you somewhere, which I’m not, where would we go?”

Alex looked up at him, still unimpressed, kids were in the business of getting what they wanted as soon as they wanted. “Home.”

Oh. Well that was an easy one, maybe he was missing his mother. The Doctor could spare a trip to Earth, maybe he’d settle back down to sleep there. “Okay. You want to see your mum?”

That, was evidently the wrong thing to say. Alex’s face went back to a scowl, and his arms back over his chest. “No. Home.”

The Doctor stared down at him confused. The TARDIS and Earth were the only two homes he had ever known. He knew for certain that his father hadn’t been taking him on any secret adventures, the TARDIS didn’t allow him to operate her except in dire circumstances. (This had nothing to do with anything the Doctor had asked for, she was just one to hold a grudge.) “What do you mean? Where do you want to go?”

He rolled his eyes and the Doctor felt himself flash forward to his teenage years and how little he was looking forward to that; he was already too much like his father in some ways. “Not my home. Your home. Yours and daddy’s.”

Oh. He wanted to go to Gallifrey. 

The problem there was that there was no Gallifrey to go to. At least as far as he was aware. Ali hadn’t mentioned her or any of the others at the Collection finding any trace remnants of their planet. As far as any of them it was gone. Dead. He moved to the floor and crouched down to be eye level with Alex, “We can’t go there. It’s gone.” He definitely wasn’t one to shy away from talking about the horrors he’d seen, but he was one to shy away from traumatizing children he helped take care of, so he’d keep it vague. 

But of course that wasn’t a good enough answer for the little one. “How come? Why’d they get rid of it?”

Kids' minds were unique compared to any others. To think that they simply removed a planet with billions of inhabitants for a singular reason made sense to Alex. The Doctor took a deep breath, “Well there were other aliens that didn’t like them very much and they had a war. A very big war and the only way for them to keep other people safe was to lose.”

Alex made his thinking face again, “Why didn't they like Gallifrey?”

It was honestly hard to make a convincing argument as to why anyone would actually like Gallifrey and therefore would be easier to list its benefits rather than its pitfalls, but Alex wouldn’t take that as an answer. “Well, a lot of people didn’t like the Time Lords. But these aliens in particular didn’t like it that the Time Lords kept trying to stop them from taking over everywhere in the universe.”

He really was only alternating between being a very childish version of angry and deep thought in his facial expressions that night. They were all a bit over dramatic and comical. There was a lot of emotion stored in such a little body. “I’m gonna punched it.”

“What?” He was confused, deeply confused. He hadn’t even said who the other combatants were. Or perhaps he intended on punching the Time Lords which the Doctor could only see as fair, they were kind of bastards. But assuming he was talking about the ones who fought the Time Lords, there was no way in hell he was letting this child punch a Dalek. “You want-- you want to punch them?”

“Yeah.”

“How ‘bout instead I take you to your room and I tell you about Gallifrey instead?” There was only one way to win an argument with a child, especially a nonsensical one: distraction. 

He nodded and threw his arms up ready to be carried. The Doctor didn’t love this outcome but it was better than explaining to a little kid the intricacies of the Time War. 

Alex’s room was never too far from the console room. Just in case. Just in case he needed something quickly, as the Doctor spent most of his time there. But just far enough away that if something managed to get into the TARDIS (which really was impossible) that he wouldn’t immediately be in harm’s way. He was also only ever a few doors away from his father, but again far enough away. Just in case. 

Honestly the Doctor was happy, excited even with how much Alex’s father was improving himself after spawning a child. He definitely wasn’t winning any humanitarian awards for his behavior but it was a lot harder to enact evil plots and schemes with a little kid at your side telling you to be sure to mind your manners so you can have a cookie after dinner. 

It was still a surprise that he was sitting on Alex’s bed when they returned. “Oh, he’s not dead.”

He was joking. Sort of. The Doctor rolled his eyes, “Of course--”

“Daddy!” Alex’s face lit up and he ran into his father’s arms. 

The Master looked the Doctor in the eyes, a different look than he’d seen in centuries. It was nice to see it again after so long. “I was going to tell Alex bedtime stories. Have any fond memories about Gallifrey.”

The Master scoffed. The Doctor expected it, the planet had screwed them both over but specifically him in the brutality of the Time Lords. In their ever present belief they were the highest powers in the universe. “You’re really gonna ask me that?”

The Doctor was preparing whatever story came first into his mind. Something kind, Alex was still at the very black and white thinking stage.  Zagreus is strictly off limits as it was disturbingly dark. Plus he was still a bit traumatized from the time he’d manifested into his head just a few regenerations ago. 

“There will come a soldier who carries a mighty sword,” the Master has taken matters into his own hands. 

It was an old folk song. Probably a prophecy he noted. Possibly about him, that was nothing new, clearly he had a large effect on Gallifreyan past, present, and future. Which as one of the only positive renegades in the universe that made sense. 

Alex nuzzled in closer to his father’s hand as he stroked his hair to put him to sleep. “There will come a poet whose weapon is his word.” 

That did sound like him didn’t it. The powerful Time Lord Victorious who could turn armies away with a single word. Not that he hadn’t been powerful in the War but honestly those myths were nothing more than that, just myths. “Night night Doctor ‘n daddy.” 

Then he passed out. 

The Doctor continued humming the old song. They sang it at the festival of Fate. A year end celebration honoring the old gods. He trailed off as the song ended, no need to keep it in his head for the next decade. He’d been there and it was not enjoyable. 

They sat together in a comfortable silence for a while just watching Alex sleep. Eventually though, the Doctor’s curiosity got the better of him, “Why’d you come in here in the first place?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, just staring at his son. “Somethings coming Thete. Something bad and I can feel it. I just—want to get in any of the time that I can.”

The Doctor put his hand over his, “I’m here to help. No matter what it is, Koschei. I’m here for both of you, no matter what. And don’t you dare try and push me out of whatever this is. Got it?”

“Okay whatever loser.”

[avid-windex-consumer]

Heaven’s Trap | Chapter 1 | Birdcage

She doesn’t know how they got here, but she knows this place.

“Doc?” She hears Graham ask, but it’s distant now. Her skin is on fire, she’s burning up, her flesh is charred and she can feel it’s hands on her, it’s breath in her face, and the buzz of flies-

“Right.” She turns around, a painfully fake smile plastered on her face. “Let’s get a shift on. I know this place too well.”

She does. She knows how the walls move, how the rules work here. And she sees the portrait of Clara-she can remember now, the regeneration knocked a few things back into place-hanging on the wall, cracked and old.

4.5 billion years old.

It’s not real, she tells herself. It’s not real and you know it. Because there is no reason for the Time Lords to bring her back to this place.

She hopes. Because she doesn’t know if she can do it again.

“Where are we?” Yaz asks, and her throat clenches.

“Someone’s trying to get my attention, so they somehow built a replica of a place I’ve been before. I don’t know why, or how, so let’s figure it out, yeah?”

It’s overly simplified, she knows. They’re going to want more information, but the screen is on and it’s coming closer.

“There’s something coming for us. Follow me, we need to get to the other side of the castle.”

The four pick up their pace, following the Doctor blindly, filled with so much trust.

“Doctor? What’s going on? What’s coming for us?”

Yaz, always with the questions.

“I’ll explain when we’re safe. The rules here aren’t the same as they are out there.”

She glances to the nearest screen as they round the corner, and sees the portrait of Clara in its view. She narrows her eyes.

That was far too close.

It takes a while to get to the other side of the castle, but eventually they reach the dining room. And suddenly she’s-

Sitting there alone, the spoon drops while his heart does, and he stands up, narrowly escaping its clutches-

“Sit down. Eat. We don’t have much time.” She’s dropped the mask of whimsical happiness, and the companions seemed to have noticed this. It would be hard not to.

“Doc, what’s going on?” Graham questions her, looking around the castle.

“This place can’t be real. If the people who trapped me here originally were going to do it again, they wouldn’t pick somewhere that I know how to escape. This is meant to scare me.” The Doctor thinks out loud, pacing back and forth.

“What are we running from?” This time it’s Yaz speaking.

The Doctor slows down; stops pacing.

“There are rules here,” she begins, “It moves slowly, but it never stops. Wherever we go, whatever path we take, it will follow. Never faster, never slower, always coming. We’ll run. It will walk. We will rest. It will not.

“And I don’t mean to intimidate you, really, you’re my fam, I wouldn’t do that, but you need to know the stakes. I can get us out of here, but I need your trust.”

“You have it.” Ryan, who’s been oddly quiet up to this point, speaks up.

“The screens show where it is. It’ll come here slowly”-

-Always so slowly, never stopping. Why is he here? Why won’t it stop?

Wrong question-

“The only way to keep ahead of it is to keep moving. It takes almost exactly eighty-one minutes for it to go from one end of the castle to the next. That’s when you sleep, eat and plan. And if it manages to catch you, you have to make a confession-

-I’m scared of dying. I just realized that I’m actually scared of dying-

“-Something you’ve never told anyone before. That’s the only way to win here.

“On the other hand, this isn’t the real place, it can’t be the real place, so that means it might not want information. I don’t know if it’ll freeze up once you confess, so best to just avoid it entirely, yeah?”

The companions let her words hang over them, contemplating and listening and learning. That’s something she’s always loved about humans, they learn fast and can run pretty fast too.

-x-

They haven’t gone to sleep, it’s not time for them to, the Doctor knows that. But she also knows that as time goes on, their bodies will be begging for rest. The intervals-

-Click

Click

Click

Click

She’s counting down, she’s always counting down, but it’s been a long time since she did it outside her head-

-won’t be a long enough time for them to get proper sleep. And once the stop sleeping, they won’t be quick and death will be right around the corner.

This place wasn’t designed for humans; it was designed for her.

These companions have been in bad places, there’s no denying that, but compared to what Amy, Rose, Donna, Clara, and all the others faced…

They’re new, they haven’t seen those things yet.

And now they were in one of the most horrifying places she’s ever gone.

Not only that, but who knows if the rules are the same. What if it isn’t eighty-one minutes after all?

What if there’s no way to stop it, what if it’s faster, what if-

She has to stop. There’s no time to think about that. There are more present issues right now, like escape.

Last time she’d escaped it had taken 4.5 billion years.

Assuming there was Azbantium at all, she figures a few extra hands to cut down the time would help.

But 4.5 billion years…even cut down…she couldn’t ask that from them.

So she thinks of a plan.

-x-

-2 minutes

Click

Click

Click

Click-

She checks the screen, and she knows exactly where it is. She knows which hallway to take to avoid it.

“Okay team, fam, gang? Ah, work in progress. It’ll be here in a few minutes, so it’s best to get a head start now, yeah? Follow me.”

The team gets up wordlessly, all too trusting, and follow her down the corridor. They stare down through the glass to their right, overlooking the dining room. Below them, it wanders.

I’s right there. So close, through the glass. She’s seen this before, every time she came to the dining room on each loop.

And there’s buzzing, the flies, god, she hates them so much.

And its cloak, and its hands.

No, its claws-

-its claws on his face, burning her flesh

Charring him, holding him tight, and the flies-

Keep it together, she hisses to herself.

She knows where she needs to go, though she desperately doesn’t want to. Room 12. That’s her destination, in the end. Isn’t it always?

And who knows, maybe she won’t need to go there after all. Time will tell.

“Where are we going?” Yaz asks her.

“To the bottom floor of the next tower, there’s something I need to see.”

“Which is?” Ryan speaks up.

“How many skulls there are.”

-x-

It takes them a while to make it to the room they’re looking for, but she remembers it vividly. She dried off here after she fell-

He smashes the chair through the window

Glass shattering

The smell of salt

The density of the air

And he’s falling

Clara

Clara

He hits the water and-

No time to reminisce. It took them long enough to get here, and she’s counting the minutes down. 81...80…

Click.

Click.

Click.

“Alright then! You lot, stay put, I’ll be back in two minutes.” She strips her coat off, putting it in front of the fire.

“Oi! Where are you going?” Graham exclaims as she kicks off her boots and bends down to take off her socks.

“For a swim!” She says cheerfully, trying to distract them from the severity of the situation.

“A swim? Now?”

“Nothing like a good swim.”

And with that, she opens the door to see the water. She knew it would be there, but her heart drops.

She wanted to be wrong. Just once, about this place. Because if she’s wrong, it means she isn’t in the confession dial. Because she can’t be, right?

But every time she knows exactly where to go, what to do, how to win. She hasn’t been wrong once so far.

God, just please, once, let her be wrong.

-x-

She dives down, feels the familiar splash-

Can’t I just sleep?

Question one. What is this place?

Do I have to know everything?

How are you going to-

Clara, I can’t always-

Win?-

-She opens her eyes, and there are skulls everywhere.

Just like before.

Maybe she is back there, maybe she is-

No, no time to think like that.

She swims down, the water gets cooler as she gets lower, and the swim is painstakingly familiar.

She grabs a skull, and swims up, higher and higher and higher, till she reaches the surface.

-x-

After getting out of the water, she renters the room and strips off her blue shirt, leaving her just in her white undershirt and pants, setting the skull down for just a moment.

“Doctor!” Yaz shouts. “Why would you do that?”

“I needed to see something.” She sets herself down in front of the fire, hand on the skull.

“What did you need to see?”

“How many skulls there were in the water.” She answers simply, still shivering.

“Why?” Ryan asks.

“Because now I know a few things. See this?” She points to the skull, then her nose. “Not the same nose. But I do remember that nose, the nose on the skull. I’ve seen this skull before, no many, many times before.”

“Noses? Doc, what are you on about. What do you mean by knowing this skull?”

“What I’m saying is that this isn’t my skull.” The Doctor concludes.

“Well of course it’s not, you aren’t dead.” Graham says with a raised eyebrow.

“There’s ways of getting someone’s skull without ending them. Killing someone and ending them are two different things.” The Doctor says cryptically.

“You know who this skull belongs to?” Yaz cuts in.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely, there’s no mistaking it.”

“Who?”

The Doctor goes quiet for a moment, and then shakes her head. “Not important.”

“You said you’ve been here before…?” Ryan prompted.

“A long time ago, some people imprisoned me here to get me to confess. I escaped, course, but I was here…a long time. I originally thought this was a replica, but if it is a replica…then it’s perfect. Everything, perfect. But they don’t want answers! I don’t think so, anyway. They got all the answers they needed.”

“So why are we here?” Yaz asks, looking around the room.

“I don’t know…but I do know where to go next.”

“And that is?”

“The top of the tower during night. I need to see the stars.”

[timelxrd-victorious]

I just... need to vent a little re: the Tenth Doctor and how certain sections of the fandom (especially certain sections of the RPC who have made it their mission to chase out any dark!Doctor muses) treat him, so here we go.

It annoys me how people hate on Ten because of how his character developed, but like...  1) I love that he started out happy-go-lucky-ish and slowly grew into a darker character; and 2) yes, congrats, that's the whole goddamn POINT of his character arc; it went right over your head.

A lot of people rag on how he treated Martha, the whole thing with the DoctorDonna and his forcibly taking away Donna's memories, and even those who never liked him point out his actions with Rose when...

Ten and Rose get explicitly called out for their behavior by Queen Victoria and Torchwood was fucking founded in the first place BECAUSE of them

literally the entirety of series 3 and the Master's rise to power would NOT have happened if Ten hadn't fucked with the timeline and removed Harriet Jones as Prime Minister in his very first episode

Ten also didn’t mistreat Martha; John Smith did, yes, but not Ten. He made it very clear that he was not looking for anything romantic with Martha, and he never compared her to Rose. It was Martha who misinterpreted his actions and the signals he was giving her, because she fancied him (and kind of needed someone at that particular point in her life given her dysfunctional family and what was going on with her career as a medical student), and it was Martha who saw herself in a competition with Rose. 

I can already hear some people protesting and bringing up their trip to Elizabethan England and Martha’s worry that she was going to be carted off, but: 

the Doctor is an alien, has telepathy as their primary sense, and it is canon that all their incarnations are face-blind in varying degrees 

it’s heavily implied that the Doctor has been traveling on his own for some time ever since losing Rose in “Doomsday” and his first encounter with Donna in “The Runaway Bride”, and when the Doctor (especially Ten) goes wandering through time and space with no companion, he tends to revert back a lot to that ingrained Time Lord arrogance (slash-brainwashing from the Matrix) and forgets social norms when dealing with humans from different time periods

so being primarily telepathic, face-blind, and in a very much Not Human mindset, Ten either literally didn’t see what Martha was concerned about, or temporarily forgot the social and historical norms for this time period (also, like... international trade was a thing)

And again, Ten’s darker side was right there just under the surface from the get-go. After he goes through A Lot of Shit in this incarnation... yeah, no wonder his A God Am I tendencies flare up—

but Ten's entire three-season run deconstructs his whole playing-god complex and shows how said playing-god tendencies tend to bite him in the ass later.

Donna’s comment of “Find someone. Because sometimes... I think you need someone to stop you” could easily be taken as her telling him to find someone to curb his darker impulses and humanize him... but it could also be taken as her telling Ten to find someone because if he doesn’t, the universe is going to need saving from him.

[basmathgirl]

Hi! If you're taking prompts from the fluff/angst list, could I ask for 10/Donna, no.40, please?

Hello @allons-y–spaceman! I am so sorry for the long wait for this one, but I wrote myself into a corner and had to totally start again. 

Prompt no. 40: “I wasn��t lying when I said that I loved you.”

As things often do, it began innocently enough. A comparison, a quick decision to confirm a theory; and there they were. Locked. Well, sort of. More like a ‘clutched’ situation, to be honest.

“Did you know Martha told me you’d kissed her once?” Donna opened the conversation by suddenly asking one day whilst they sat in the kitchen sipping a celebratory cup of tea.

The Doctor’s left eyebrow rose in query. “Oh? Is there any particular reason why she offered that piece of information?”

“Calm down. It wasn’t a character assassination,” she assured him with a comforting smile. “I’d merely asked her how you’d met and why she was so sweet on you.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He grinned disarmingly.

“Your modesty lets you down at times,” she mocked. “No, I’m bringing it up because I was wondering if you’d done that to Rose too.”

He shook his head. “She kissed me; but she was possessed at the time, so it wasn’t completely her.”

“Ghost or alien?”

“Alien.”

“Stands to reason,” she dismissed. “So you never kissed her?”

“Not really. I used a sort of kiss to draw out the Vortex from her head to stop her being killed by it. Didn’t do me much good though. Had me in bed in a coma for days. Took me ages to get over it. Almost missed dealing with the Sycorax the other Christmas when they tried to invade Earth.” At her blank look, he added, “One third of the population standing up on the rooftops…”

“Oh yeah. I remember you saying. One of the things I missed.”

“That’ll be on your gravestone: Donna Noble Missed It”

“Nice to know I have your full support,” she joked. “Anyway…”

Here it comes, he thought.

“Don’t you like kissing humans? Or is it just not a thing with Time Lords?”

Oh. That was not the question he had been expecting; and was suddenly quite relieved. “I like kissing and have nothing against it, per se,” he defended. “I just don’t like public displays of affection. It was heavily frowned upon. And for me to properly kiss someone would mean a commitment that I might not be able to follow through with. I have my duty to time and the universe.”

“Yes, but does it have to be another Time Lord you can do all that with, or can it be a mere human?”

“Donna, you are not a mere anything,” he huffed.

But she had expected him to react like that. “Never mind the semantics, you’ve not answered my question. Why can’t you commit to a human?”

His face fell, thinking of all the times he had had to push someone away for their own good. “Because you don’t live very long. I’m left to watch you wither and die.”

“How horrible. Ninety years tops is nothing compared to over nine hundred years. We must be like the equivalent of pet hamsters for you.” She sat glumly contemplating his eons of loneliness. “Is it true that it is better to have loved and lost than to never love at all?”

“Oh yes,” he readily agreed.

“Then why aren’t you allowing yourself little snippets of happiness? You deserve to have the chance to love someone for a while, no matter how brief.”

“I can’t. The pain is too much.”

“But you already love people. You’ve practically admitted that. Some giant foot isn’t going to come out of the sky and squish you for following your hearts.”

“You’ve been watching too much Monty Python.”

“Perhaps I have.” It was still too close to home for him, but she wanted him to know that she’d support any future romantic liaison he chose to have. “Or you could just be telling me that you’re a rubbish kisser.”

“What!” he gasped in shock. Why did she think that?!

“Let’s face it, if you were any good, you’d be doling them kisses out left, right and centre,” she cheekily reasoned.

“Just because our kiss was hindered by ginger beer, walnuts and anchovies does not mean you can dismiss my kissing skills,” he huffed.

“If you say so,” she muttered as she took the last dregs of her tea down. “I’ll never know now, will I.”

“Are you challenging me, Donna Noble?” he pondered.

“More of a dare than a challenge, I suppose. Or would that mean me using my womanly wiles for a non-emergency?” she tormented him. “You certainly weren’t keen to find out.”

“That is not…!” he spluttered, remembering that moment on Messaline. “I didn’t want…”

Her head tilted to the side, silently questioning his motives.

“I was protecting you from unwanted and disrespectful attention. You are worth more than that; and he didn’t deserve to receive a kiss from you.”

“My, that’s a fancy way to try and shut me up,” she voiced. “It’s okay, I get the message.”

“No,” he insisted while his courage still held, “you’ve challenged me, and I’m determined to hear your opinion.” He pushed his chair away from the kitchen table and then patted the tops of his knees. “Come on then. Try me out.”

“You might regret this, Spaceman,” she proclaimed as she launched herself from her seat and landed on his lap. His look of surprise was worth it all on its own; but she didn’t want to break him or their relationship. “Here goes,” she murmured before raising her hands to rest on his jaw, cradling his head, as she leaned forward to softly kiss his astonished mouth.

She had expected it to be all over in seconds, with him brusquely pushing her off his legs. No doubt he would have followed it with some lie about Time Lord physiology or other.

But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he kissed back.

The Doctor looked up at Donna and placed his hands on her waist, not wanting her to fall. It would be very embarrassing if she fell off his lap now. Would cause all sorts of threatening behaviour and personal damage.

Short but not sharp kisses grew slower, a caress of skin with adoration filled with longing. Like gifts upon a shrine.

Then more languid. There was no need to hurry this delicious moment, after all. It had to be savoured as their mouths moved together in exquisite harmony.

After a few seconds, his hands migrated southwards towards pastures green. Of course, he had careful plans for when the migration could go in the opposite direction and his hands would land on soft, ample territory. For now, he continued to enjoy the press of luxurious lips against his own, and Donna’s hands following their own wayward path. So far, they had caressed the skin on his nape, but were currently combing through his hair, her fingers delicately scraping across his scalp before tugging closer tufts towards her in her thoughtless passion.

It idly crossed his mind that he hadn’t had much of a concept of what humans called Heaven before, but this feeling, wrapped in the arms of his companion was his new definition. In fact, he was prepared to contemplate how heavenly his situation was for quite a lot longer.

How much of a touch telepath was he, she wondered as her fingertips graced over the buttons of his shirt; longing to delve further to feel his chest beneath. She thought back to a moment beneath Mount Vesuvius and her outburst. Would she ever be able to say: “I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you”? To him, of all people?

No, she decided. It was still too soon to admit such a thing. Circumstances meant that he would have to make a love declaration first or not at all. After all, it was his way of living his life, under wraps, protected from destruction from evil plans.

So, still a little bit dazed, she pulled back to enjoy the sight of him, eyes closed, with a beautiful smile upon glistening lips that bore her mark. Her seal of approval.

“Yeah, alright, I believe you. You aren’t a rubbish kisser,” she allowed, letting his ego have this tiny boost. “Unless, of course, it’s thanks to my womanly wiles that your kissing skills have improved.”

His eyes immediately opened to gaze at her impudence, a smirk of amusement within his expression. “If this is a true experiment, then its consistency would have to be tested to validate your results. So erm… shall we tweak the variables and take our experiment elsewhere?”

Now this sounded interesting. “Where were you thinking?”

“Somewhere more comfortable than a kitchen chair. Perhaps one of the larger settees in the library, or a bedroom.”

A bedroom might be a little too forward; just yet. “Let’s go and recline in front of the fire in the library,” she suggested. “That way we can test the romantic ambience of a room too.”

“I like your thinking,” he approved; and gracefully stood with her. “Allons-y.”

She willingly took his outstretched hand. “Bring it on, Spaceman.”

Angst/fluff Prompt List

[concrete-tiddy]

You know who irritates me to no end (and this will give a A LOT of hate but I honestly don’t care, some of you clearly need to hear this) is how fucking privileged Batfamily fans are.

This whole fucking week I had to hear from Nightwing fans how DC doesn’t respect him. Like what?

Excuse me?

He has his ongoing own solo book. Has had this ongoing solo for years now. For a sidekick, street level hero, that’s plenty of respect. DC likes him just fine.

You know who doesn’t have their own solo book? Wally West, any secondary Wonder Woman character. Hell Nightwing is in more books than Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Martian Manhunter, would you gather that? We got one(1) short Mera spinoff out of Aquaman thankfully, but a shit ton of other main stay characters/legacy characters that can carry their book who haven’t had nearly the amount of opportunity Nightwing, Batman, or Red Hood books to be good, or gain traction, surprisingly don’t have such privileges. And yet you don’t hear their fans bitch nearly as much as Nightwing fans over how “unfair DC is being” to their favorite character.

Jason Todd? Whose fans whine how he “didn’t deserve” what DC gave him? Has his own fucking team. Yes, that’s right. He is the weakest fucking character on his own goddamn team and he still headlines it--hell he even gets his own personal sex Amazon out of it. Because if it can’t be Bruce fucking Diana, we gotta have some Bat kid fuck an Amazon somewhere, right DC? We can’t have those pesky strong female Wonder Woman characters have any semblance of independence from the Superfamily or Batfamily, right? Outside of that all the development goes to Jason emo-edge-lord Todd and I still have to hear his fans piss and moan how “DC just isn’t fair to poor ol Jason.” Yeah, trust me, DC is less fair to Artemis in that same goddamn book.

Damian? Fuck you. Just fuck you. If you for one think this shithead is getting the short end of any stick, let me introduce you to EVERY OTHER DC CHARACTER EVER CREATED. I had to hear people whine about how OP and unrelatable Superman is for years only to hear people defend the logic behind a fucking 10 year old human boy just being practically asshole jesus superspy ninja assassin that is the center of the universe? Give me a goddamn break. What’s more is this character is in EVERYTHING. So please, Damian fans, you can go ahead and burn those “but DC hates my character the most” cards.

Even Tim Drake, who I actually do understand why people feel he’s been shafted, hasn’t had it nearly as bad as EVERY OTHER DC CHARACTER EVER CREATED. He has more appearances in comics than some main members of the Justice League. So once again, get in the back of the goddamn line.

Barbara Gordan/Oracle, okay, maybe you guys have an excuse...................................................way back in the 80s with the Killing Joke. And maybe when Bruce Timm animated an adaptation of that. But beyond that, for a character who was originally a sidekick/girlfriend to a sidekick, I’d say between all her appearances in media to comics, she’s doing very very well. Compare that to someone like Power Girl or Donna Troy. Yeah...she’s fine.

Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, Cassandra Cain, etc? Honestly most of these characters shafting problems stem from the overexposure of the characters above. So fans of these need to take it up with your fellow Batfam fans, because it sure isn’t Doctor Fate that’s taking up a potential Cassandra Cain solo spot. I don’t know, compromise. Demand for some mix and match. Instead of a solo Nightwing run where the walking STD gets into a love triangle for the 728394th time, make it a Nightwing/Cassandra Cain teamup. Instead of making a Damian Wayne solo where---I guess judging by patterns here initiated by Tom King and then Scott Lobdell---Hippolyta turns into his personal sex Amazon, make it a Damian Wayne/Duke Thomas teamup. I mean, you guys call it a BATFAMILY. Why not make those books reflect that? Combine the character interactions to free up some funds and authors for some spots to actually develop DC characters who need it.

Basically, if you’re a Batfam fan (specifically those who don’t recognize how good they have it), and am tempted to post and gripe about “how DC just hates Dick Grayson/Jason Todd/Damian Morrison/Tim Drake” just take a deep breath, pause, and take a moment to realize DC and Dan Didio doesn’t hate them nearly as much as they hate the entirety of the rest of their characters.

[whitetrashphilosopher-blog]

Top 5 RTD Multiparters

5. The Stolen Planet/Journey's End: This episode is so indulgent, and I love it to bits. I would liken the rest of the episodes in this list to a hearty meal, but this is a decadent dessert. It is pure fanservice and I eat it with a spoon. My favorite companions all back? Check. Awesome cameos by beloved characters from the spinoffs? Check. Funny callbacks? Check. Everyone gets to showcase why they're incredible? Check. Killer one-liners? Check. If only RTD hadn't done Donna dirty. Also, why didn't Martha and Mickey join Torchwood?! C'mon. "Tell the Doctor that he chose his companions well." Yes, he most certainly did.

4. Aliens in London/World War Three: God this episode is fun. And what an amazing cast. Harriet and Margaret are GEMS. Also the Doctor owes Mickey about a thousand apologies. Mickey is a superstar. Manages to compile piles of information about the Doctor. Faithfully watches street corners waiting for Rose to come back. He's loyal, brave and a freaking genius. Mickey Smith is the man. Also Jackie is number one mom. Yes she also did Mickey dirty, but she SLAPPED THE DOCTOR. She slapped the oncoming storm. I love Jackie Tyler so much. The characters make this storyline, but the plot it also really great. It's clever and well paced. The whole thing is oodles and oodles of fun. "Prove it, stitch this mate." I adore you Jackie Tyler.

3. Utopia/Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords: I love Donna, but can you imagine season four with Martha, Jack and Ten as the team? Wow. The chemistry of this trio is in-freaking-credible. This is the storyline that keeps on giving and every moment is full of entertainment. There's a perfect balance of fun and humor compared to tension and dread. The Master is a brilliant villian and a delight to watch. The stakes are so high and we never lose sight of them. And the dialogue, this arc has such great dialogue, especially from the master. Except for that dumb demographic boxes comment. That was beyond stupid. But this finale beats all other finales for me because the characters sacrifice so much. They suffer for the world and they do so willingly. Martha chooses to undertake her pilgrimage. Jack surrenders his chance to escape. The Doctor bares the indignities inflicted upon him. They are tormented for a year, but they come out the other side with the world intact. They earn their happy ending. "It's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist. You too huh?" He doesn't deserve you Martha, Jack.

2. Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks: I love every single thing about this story SO much. I love the mystery. I love the complex plot. I love the social commentary. I love Tallulah with 3 Ls and an H. I love the showcase of the best and worst of humanity. I love the capacity for change even within a creature as deplorable as a Dalek. I love Martha Jones. I loved her from her first episode, so clever and brave even under the worst of circumstances, saving the Doctor and saving the world. But this episode is where she truly comes into her own. She takes charge when the Doctor is with the Daleks, coming up with brilliant solutions and leading well in a crisis. She is brilliant, but so much more than that she is kind. Her empathy is her greatest strength and it is showcased so well here. Her friendship with Tallulah is beautiful, and I wanted more of it by the end. I also love how the Time Lord attribute given to the hybrids that saves the day isn't mercy or compassion, but curiosity. It's not that they abhor violence, but they demand to know why. They don't want to take orders but decide for themselves. That's VERY the Doctor. Free Will saves the day is hardly a brand new idea, but damn it plays out so well here. Lazlo is a gem, and his romance with Tallulah is precious. I do wish the hybrids had survived and been allowed to start a civilization on a new world, but you can't have everything in life. "It plays music. What's the point of that? Oh, with music, you can dance to it. Sing with it. Fall in love to it. Unless you're a Dalek, of course. Then it’s just noise."

1. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: This episode was when I fell in love with Doctor Who. Was it because of the charming Captain Jack played by the fantastic John Barrowman? Was it because of the amazing anti-war pro-welfare message? Was it because of the incredible chemistry between Jack, Rose and Nine? Was it because of the fascinating storyline that kept you hanging onto the edge of your seat? Was it because of all the amazing one-liners? I mean yeah, all of those things, but most of all it's because of Nancy. Because the world is cruel and so unkind, but Nancy's not. Nancy cares for the children even after losing her own. Nancy braves the horror and the danger. Even when she has no hope. Even in the pit of despair. Life has been so unkind to Nancy, but she never lets it make her unkind. When faced with monsters she sings to them. Soldiers are useless and only worsen the situation. It's Nancy that saves the whole world with just a single hug. The philosophy behind this episode is so good and it bleeds through in every interaction. There's a banana grove where a weapons factory used to be. A screwdriver is more valuable than a gun. Forgiveness is more persuasive than force. It's all so beautiful. Even the most bitter misanthrope couldn't help but fall a little bit in live with humanity after seeing this. I should know. "Everybody lives! Just this once Rose, everybody lives!"

[circular-time]

TARDIS crews: The early years (1963-1971)*

I’ve been thinking about how nervous some new Who fans must be during this time of change, and how it compares to previous upheavals.

They’ve never gone through a transition this huge in modern Doctor Who. But there are precedents. There were season-long arcs that interrupted business as usual. The Season 27 hiatus was originally meant to make room for a movie that took years to get off the ground. The return of the show was an opportunity to throw out a lot of things and start over.

Most of all, almost nothing remained the same for the start of the 1970 season. A Doctor had gone, and all his companions’ actors decided to leave with him. How could the show survive? Then as now, the producer (Derrick Sherwin, in consultation with his predecessor) realised it was better to steer into a skid than lose control. So the Jon Pertwee era opened with a bang.

For the first time:

We knew for certain the Doctor wasn’t human

We had glimpsed the Time Lords and Gallifrey

He stopped traveling in time & space; the TARDIS was crippled

He was exiled to Earth and lived among humans almost 24/7

His adventures took place on present day Earth

The Doctor had one female “assistant” instead of a "family" of 2-3

But he gained UNIT, a team of regulars and redshirts to call on

The Doctor assumed the male companion’s Action Figure role

He joined a human military organisation and was answerable to it

He became the Doctor crossed with James Bond: an eccentric older scientist fighting spies monsters with gadgets, a cool car, and martial arts

The sonic screwdriver became a regular feature

The MASTER MADE HIS DEBUT and was in every Season 8 story

The Doctor acquired a personal nemesis/Moriarty

And oh yeah, the show was now in colour

Imagine how much screaming there would be nowadays if a showrunner had taken that many chances at once! But look what came of it:

The Master. Time Lords. The sonic screwdriver. UNIT. Gallifrey. The Doctor/female companion dynamic.

Not bad, eh?

I’m not saying that Chris Chibnall will be as brilliant as the Season 7-8 showrunners were when they shuffled the deck, tossed it aside and grabbed a chessboard. But Doctor Who has survived only by remaking itself from time to time.

New Who has been around for ten years. The danger of stagnation is real. The Doctor has been falling more and more into a toxic-relationship rut with his companions, with Clara and Bill particularly, but starting as far back as Martha and Rose. They keep burning one another. That’s a disturbing pattern to get locked into. [ETA: I meant to write Donna not Rose, but I suppose even Rose’s wings were a bit singed by coming too close to the Doctor’s sun.]

So I can see why Chibnall has seized this opportunity— the departure of all the regulars at once— to try some new spin on the classic Who TARDIS crew, updating the old 2-3 companion “family” or team for the 21st century.

Change, my dears. Perhaps not a moment too soon.

*Seasons in photoset simplified. Until Jamie and Zoe, companions had always overlapped the beginning of the next season and/or the end of the previous one.

[chocolatequeennk]

Write all the Words, 3/30

I set out to get through the whole of Stolen Earth today, and I almost made it. I have 5 minutes left--of course, that five minutes is getting a lot of replacement scenes, since most of what happens is the first moment the Doctor and Rose see each other again, and him getting shot by a bloody Dalek. 

I’m really, really looking forward to Journey’s End. Tomorrow. 

Also, I worked on the purple prose fic for a bit, getting the nature of the reunion nailed down. I’ll have to add all the waxing poetic stuff added later, because right now, it feels downright flat compared with the floridness of yesterday’s section. I have full confidence in my ability to be over the top, though. 

Word count: 

FANA: 4450 Deleted: 1783 Purple Prose: 574

And!! That brings me to a huge milestone--I have now written 100K this month!!

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

The Doctor leaned down and read the list. “Callufrax Minor. Jahoo. Shallacatop. Woman Wept. Clom.”

“Clom’s gone?” Rose said as she joined him. “Who’d want Clom?”

The Architect’s nose thinned. “Who is the female?”

The Doctor wiped his mouth to hide his smirk as he stepped back, letting Rose speak for herself. Rose tilted her head back, and even though she was a good two inches shorter than the Shadow Architect, the proud way she held herself made it look like she was looking down at the other woman—who happened to be one of the most powerful politicians in the universe.

“I’m Rose. Rose Tyler. Other half of the Stuff of Legend.” She looked over her shoulder at the Doctor, an eyebrow arched. “Blimey, they’re a little behind the times around here, aren’t they?”

“Apparently,” the Doctor managed to say without laughing.

Jenny stepped forward and put her hands on the table. “And I’m Jenny Tyler. I’m their daughter.”

“Yeah, I notice you didn’t ask about us,” Donna snarked. “I’m Donna, by the way. I’m a human being. Maybe not the stuff of legend but every bit as important as Time Lords, thank you.”

The Shadow Architect turned to the Doctor, tight lines etched around her mouth. “You travel with an entourage, Time Lord.”

“Oh, I’m just the chauffeur,” the Doctor said blithely. “Now, tell me about these planets.”

[youremyonlyhope]

The End of Time Part 2

Honestly, at this point I’m so ready to see Ten go.

And that’s not even like... me hating on Ten. I’m just literally itching to move on in this rewatch that’s lasted so long.

We’ll see how sad I am at the end of this.

Wrote that intro like 3 days ago and procrastinating pressing play. NOW I’m finally watching this.

Oh wow. Did not realize we saw the wreckage of the Time War in this episode. Also, I love “This Is Gallifrey” Overhead shot like Ani leading the clonetroopers. I see you. I don’t like Rassilon.  Blind Wave pointed out that there would have been millions of pregnant women when the Master became everyone, so what happened to the fetuses? I love that there’s a little screen with the Master as my girl Trinity Wells. You could see the little outline of the green screen on each of the Masters in the Beijing Army. Come on Doctor Who. You can do better. I love Donna so much. Also, I always thought she was saying “What did I...” before she falls, but Amazon’s captions says “I don’t want to die” and now I’m like which is it!!?!???? Awww the Doctor’s smiling. Ok see, the Master’s plan to find the source isn’t even like... evil... he genuinely wants to know why he’s heard this his whole life... I mean, this plan comes after trying and succeeding to take over Earth... but this part of the plan isn’t necessarily evil... if that makes sense. Basically, at this point I don’t blame him. “Worst rescue ever!” Oh Wilf. “But we’re in space” “Yep” Adorable. I mean, throwing a star/crystal/thing into a projection of Earth wouldn’t make it land on Earth... especially if they’re timelocked and Earth isn’t... but ok. Seriously, who is this random lady? So if corpses were changed, I’m assuming unborn babies were too. Great. 906. Doctor, baby, you’re burning up regenerations too fast. You were 900-ish when you were Nine. Now it’s been only 6 Time Lord years and you’ve regenerated twice as Ten and are about to regenerate into Eleven. “We must look like insects to you.” “I think you look like giants.” I’ve always loved that line. I mentioned this in my Tsuranga Conundrum post last night, but I love it when the Doctor shows how much they love life and beings and the universe. “i’d be proud.” “Of what.” “If you were my dad.” Awwwwwwww. UGH they’re making Wilf bring up the 4 knocks thing. 2nd time he and the Doctor have talked about it. Stop foreshadowing. “I’ve taken lives... Manipulated people into taking their own.” Ok. Ok fine. I’ll maybe forgive him for Waters of Mars. Since I’m 99% sure he’s talking about Adelaide. Yes, he is to blame for her suicide, but not in that way. He tried to manipulate everything else, causing her to commit suicide to right it all. But the Doctor always just blames themself for everything so... I’ll forgive Ten. “Well don’t you dare, sir. Don’t you dare put him before them.” Wow I love Wilf. But also, he knows the Doctor can be that selfish... “And please don’t die. You’re the most wonderful man and I don’t want you to die.” Awwwww Wilf. THE DOCTOR GRABBED THE GUN. I FORGOT ABOUT THAT. I knew he gets the gun at some point, but I thought he’d just pick it off the ground or something before the scene at the end. But NOPE. HE TOOK IT BECAUSE OF THE TIME LORDS. It can’t do much against them, but still. Is this his last Allons-y? Also I meant to point this out earlier, but if they’ve been in orbit all night, they should have orbited away from being directly above England... right? Ok they’re flying over the ocean, so they did orbit a little away.

“And will stand as monument to their shame, like the Weeping Angels of old.” see, this is why I don’t like the theory that they’re Weeping Angels. Because Rassilon compares them to Weeping Angels. He wouldn’t compare them if they’re going to become them. Unless... what he’s saying is that Weeping Angels are shamed Time Lords and that used to be the punishment... THAT could be a theory I guess. But still, I don’t think these to Time Ladies become Weeping Angels.

Also, why bring them along? “You didn’t vote for us to go to Earth, so you get to come along with the initial Time Lords that are going to meet the Master on Earth” - Time Lord logic. “Doctor, you said you were going to die... But is that all of us? I won’t stop you, sir, but is this it?” Oh no Wilf. But also, Wilf knows that the Doctor can get selfish enough to actually do that... I forgot about the Doctor literally just dropping from the ship into the mansion... Doctor... you’ve done some dumb stuff... but this is one of the dumbest... Oh yeaaaah, that was the Master’s plan, to become all the Time Lords too. Ok but also, he didn’t know the Time Lords were the source of the drumming at first (I’ve found the source of the ticking! It’s a pipe bomb!), so he had to have only come up with it after the star was found. So he went from “HA. TAKE OVER A PLANET AND BECOME ALL HUMANS” to “I can finally find out what’s wrong with me, what the source is!” to “IT WAS THE TIME LORDS? REVENGE!!!!!!!!” Ok, I was looking at Rassilon’s gauntlet just now... and my brain went “Infinity Gauntlet!” and I laughed. That gauntlet is too powerful. It killed that Time Lady without giving her a chance to regenerate, AND it can reverse the transformation of 6 billion people? Really? Also, yay my girl Trinity Wells is back! I’m glad that Temple (can’t remember his first name) seems to really love Donna. Enough to hold his future mother-in-law when there’s a planet in the sky, and then go running to find Donna. He seems like a good guy, I’m happy for her. I’m emotional. I want Donna to just have happiness. I just realized that for this entire scene, the Doctor’s just been trying to get the strength to get up after falling through a ceiling. Hey Naismith, this is partially your fault. WILF NO. I FORGOT HE WENT IN THERE TO SAVE SOMEONE ELSE. WILF I LOVE YOU. Wait. Wait. Waaaiiiittttt. The Doctor said “The Nightmare Child”... wasn’t there some child mentioned in an episode this season... oh wait it was the Timeless Child. Aww, I thought I had a breakthrough or something. “The Could-Have-Been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres.” I. LOVE. THAT.  “To become creatures of consciousness alone.” First of all, why do you want that? Second of all, Dr. Owen Harper did it first. “You are diseased. Albeit a disease of our own making.” YEAH. AND YOU DID IT TO HIM LIKE 2 HOURS AGO FOR YOU GUYS, HUNDREDS OF YEARS FOR HIM. DON’T JUST SAY THAT LIKE IT’S NOTHING. YOU LITERALLY JUST DID IT. “No more.” NO MORE. “You never would, you coward.” But Nine said “Coward, any day.” sooooo There was a little music playing there as the Doctor pointed the gun at the Master, and I can hear the full version in my head. I just can’t remember what the piece is called. WAIT. IT WAS PLAYING WHEN THE DOCTOR DE-AGED AND FLOATED TO THE MASTER. THAT’S IT.

Also. I need to bring up the parallel of 6 billion people being linked by the Master’s network being the thing that brought him down last time, but this time he became those 6 billion people. I thought I’d mentioned it, but apparently I hadn’t. So there. Yay parallels!

Seriously, lady, WHO ARE YOU? “Get out of the way.” “Get out of the way.” Awwwwwwwwwww These people should not be cheering that the Gallifrey is gone from the sky, THEY SHOULD BE FREAKING OUT AND ASKING WHY IT WAS THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Also, still wondering how the Master goes from saving the Doctor here, to his state of mind in the World and Enough Time/The Doctor Falls. I guess a lot of time passed. I like the way the music dies once Wilf knocks.

Also, this scene is the reason that I finally realized that I hadn’t watched this episode. I explained it in either The Next Doctor or Waters of Mars, but because Netflix didn’t include the 2009 specials with the rest of the seasons, I skipped straight from Journey’s End to the Eleventh Hour. I assumed they’d just not even done a regeneration and I went with it for a few episodes. Then I was on tumblr, and saw a gifset of this scene; the Doctor saying “I’m alive,” then the caption of the 4 knocks, then a gif of it panning over to Wilf. And I realized this was from an episode I hadn’t seen. So I looked up the episode list, and saw 5 episodes that Netflix had just let me skip. All of the 2009 specials. And I had seen the Next Doctor when it aired, so I was surprised I forgot to go looking for it when I finally watched Doctor Who in order. And I had seen commercials for the Waters of Mars too, but I just forgot about the episodes when I finally watched the show years later. So, in the middle of season 5, I watched all the 2009 specials besides the Planet of the Dead. And because I was spoiled for this plot twist of a moment, I knew it was coming when I finally got around to watching the End of Time.

WILF. WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU PICK 4 KNOCKS? AFTER TALKING ABOUT THE 4 KNOCKS THING WITH THE DOCTOR TWICE. TWICE. “I’m an old man, Doctor. I’ve had my time.” Wilf stop breaking my heart.  Oh god. His death is essentially a suicide. To save someone else. Like Adelaide. And he knew he’s been living as Ten for too long because of Adelaide. Oh no. Ok. I’m sad. Also, I hate the fandom turned that scene into just the “I’m in a glass case of emotion” gif. Which, I’d also seen before and hadn’t realized I never saw the episode it was from. Oh no a little Vale Decem started. “Did I miss something? Again?” Awww. Donna. Love. I know this music... NO IT’S SONG FOR TEN THE INSTRUMENTAL VERSION. I’M IN PAIN. Sylvia Noble smiling at the sight of the TARDIS? Amazing.

AHHHHH MY GIRL MARTHA. WITH MICROBRAIDS. Literally, the one complaint I have about Martha was that her hair wasn’t natural. So I love seeing her in a protective style. And my baby Mickey! Oh no. Guys. I’m getting emotional. I don’t need to say anything about how I feel about their relationship. I’ve ranted many times during my Monthly Martha Spams. But I love both of them so much, so I’m happy to see them. I like that Luke’s the only one who has a physical interaction with the Doctor during this goodbye tour. Especially since he didn’t get to meet him last time. Oh Sarah Jane. Oh Elisabeth Sladen. I’m glad we got one last Adipose. And I’m glad that Tallulah’s music is still played, even in this Cantina in the future. Also, I’m glad Tallulah got acknowledgement at all. The Doctor saluted Jack. After all those years of telling him to not salute. He saluted him. And after all those years of telling Jack not to flirt, he sets him up with Alonso. Awwww... I love Jack. Oh I nearly forgot about Joan’s granddaughter. “A Journal of Impossible Things” I never noticed the title of the book. OH NO HER NAME WAS VERITY LIKE THE FIRST PRODUCER OF DOCTOR WHO OH NO MY HEART. “Was she happy in the end?” “Yes. Were you?” I’m glad she asked that. “Well friends, and Nerys” bringing that joke back one more time. Oh it’s Minnie the Menace! “That women, who was she?” Seriously. TELL ME. I forgot he went to Donna’s father for the quid. Oh. OOOh my heart. I love Donna. She deserves so much. I can’t handle Wilf crying. I never noticed he also blew a little kiss. Oh. “Get rid of him, Mom, he’s useless.” “Listen to you! With a mechanic!” HEY. Hey. Jackie. Mickey is the best. You will learn this. Rose, girl, you are not dressed enough for snow. Neither is Jackie in her tights and shorts. What’s with you Brits? I forgot that it’s the Ood who sing for him. I think I was remembering Vale Decem as just what his regeneration was set to. But nope, it’s part of the story TOO.

Ok. I was emotional. And I was in awe of how amazingly and perfectly the music matches the scene. And then.... Matt Smith’s look of confusion made me laugh and snap out of it. I love how confused he looks. It’s adorable. I’m the same when Eleven turns into Twelve; sad during it, but then once Capaldi comes I’m just laughing at his face.

But seriously, Murray Gold. Amazing.

“Chin?... Blimey.” Love it. I love when they make fun of the Doctor’s features. Nine complaining about his ears, Eleven’s chin, Twelve’s eyebrows. Love. GERONIMOOOOOOOOOOOOO

FINALLY. AFTER 5 YEARS. I AM DONE WITH THE TENTH DOCTOR. 

Longer than his actual run. This is like when I watched Season 6 of Supernatural and stretched it out over a year and a half, longer than the time the show actually aired during, so by the time it finished I barely remembered how it started.

I do love Ten a lot. I just love Nine and Twelve a lot more. And I’m excited to rewatch Eleven since almost all of his episodes are ones I’ve only seen once (and I’m 99% sure I never actually properly finished season 6... but I’ll explain that when I get there.) and at least one that I’ve never seen (A Christmas Carol. Once again. Netflix had it separate. And by the time I realized I skipped it, I didn’t feel like going back. Still have not seen it.) so I’m excited to watch him again.

I feel bad that I’m not sadder...

Oh my god. I’m like the Tenth Doctor. He’d lived for too long, I stretched out his run for too long. And it was bad for both of us. Yay parallels!

Also, Wilf is the best.