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ryttu3k · 3 years

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Part 2 of my season 12 reaction posts! Find part 1 (Resolution of the Daleks to Fugitive of the Judoon) here!

Praxeus

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Praxeus!

OKAY FIRST. THANK YOU, SHOW, FOR FIXING A BIG ISSUE I HAD WITH THE FIRST SEASON. So they were doing a thing where they’d introduce incidentally queer characters, have a female character mention her wife, stuff like that, only for them to die. This episode had Jake and Adam, married/separated/it’s complicated couple, who face huge amounts of danger, who both come close to dying, but who survive! And have a Big Damn Kiss! And walk off together holding hands! They survived!!

Plotwise, I enjoyed it a ton while watching, although in retrospect it did feel a bit free of danger. The companions were never in true peril because the Doctor can home in on them automatically, and we never got the true scale of the risk of infection, since the only people we saw get infected were in isolated areas. I would have liked to see, for instance, the threat of Praxeus spreading beyond just the very Hitchcockian birds; all of the peril was on an individual level.

Good message, if unsubtle. Mind you, that’s kind of Doctor Who’s thing, and it pisses off conservatives, so all for it, really XD (They must have loved the core relationship in this episode, too!) Like. Subtle doesn’t work. There are literally climate change deniers that exist. Sometimes you actually do have to tell a message with all the finesse of a sledgehammer because .

(Side note, I was deeply concerned when I saw the cowriter was the guy who did the hot mess that was Kerblam!, so at least this was just an unsubtle and kind of questionably written story instead of an actively harmful one.)

The companions: Ryan seems a fair bit more confident on his own? His initial scenes with Gabriela showed that he’s starting to work well even without backup, and picking up the bird proved to be a damn good call. Yaz and Graham were a fun pair, and Yaz got a lot to do when she and Gabriela (again!) got to explore, and I can definitely understand the conflict between curiosity/doing what’s right and safety when it came to the teleport scene. She does seem to be bordering on the reckless. Intriguing!

Minor plot snag - Graham knows how to set up an IV, presumably because of the shitload of time he spent in hospital! …And yet he doesn’t know what a pathogen is?

Friend note!

“fun fact about graham seemingly not knowing what a pathogen is! in my reading of the scene, i saw it as graham knowing what one was. with "Well, I’m glad you asked that…!” he seems like he’s actually sort of pleased with himself, like he’s about to launch into an explanation, and then IIRC there’s a very brief shot at Ryan giving him a Look and Graham immediately changes tone to “…cause I didn’t want to look stupid.” he immediately changes from boosting his own ego to bolstering ryans and im love"

In which case, good shit gooood shit.

SFX - the infection was creepy as shit. The very obviously puppet bird near the lab was hilariously bad.

Apparently the filming was tricky because it was super windy so all the shorts of Thirteen with her hair Like That weren’t planned, it just kind of happened. Love a fluffy ruffled Thirteen.

So anyway. People calling for more plot focus - literally this is the Doctor trying to distract herself and not focus on the plot! This is her avoidance tactic! Emotional honesty? Who’s she? She’ll get back to it eventually, but for now she needs a distraction after being punched in the emotions. Give her that for one episode, c'mon.

Ryan: “…I do a lot of running.”

Graham: “Whatever is giving off those weird readings… is on the other side of that wall!” Yaz: *silently turns scanner around* Graham, not skipping a beat: “…is on the other side of that door!”

Yaz: “I don’t want you to panic, but… we followed one of those things through a teleport and now I think we’re on an alien planet.” Thirteen: “…well, you don’t do things by halves!”

Thirteen: “That’s why you smell of dead bird! I thought you’d changed your shower gel.”

Thirteen: “I’m having half a thought. Ooh, this one tickles!”

Thirteen: “What can I say? I’m a romantic~”

In conclusion, Doctor Who said gay rights.

Can You Hear Me?

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Can You Hear Me?

Trigger warning for discussion of depression and suicide.

You know you're in for a wild ride when iView warns for horror themes instead of science fiction themes.

Overall: at first impression, it felt sort of mashed together? There's 14th century Aleppo, and there's 21st century Sheffield, and there's a deep space station, and there's creepy monsters and dream villains; I do kind of wonder why Zellin targeted a random girl in Aleppo as source for his pet monster, although targeting people like Ryan's best friend makes sense if he's deliberately trying to lure the Doctor to him.

The theme, on the other hand, of mental health resiliance and reaching out, was done incredibly well. Oh yeah there'll be more comments about it - the Guardian described it as 'adventures in Wokeness' - but damn, sometimes you need to hear it. I loved getting more of Yaz' backstory, about being a desperate teenage runaway at the point of being suicidal, and her reunion with the older woman legitimately made me tear up.

But like, goddamn. Her nightmare - she's still hearing that. She's still hearing her sister saying that she should "do it right this time" and that this time she won't call and that no one is coming and holy fuck. God this makes so many of Yaz' scenes incredibly painful in retrospect, knowing that she was at that point only three years before and that she's still dreaming that shit! It makes her recklessness terrifying!

Ryan's nightmare, and his experience with Tibo - it's quite reflective of the Doctor, too. She wasn't there, and Gallifrey burnt. And Ryan is realising this now, and really thinking about the potential future in Orphan 55. I think this is absolutely foreshadowing Ryan leaving at the end of the season (there's been a lot of speculation given Tosin's new TV role), and I think Ryan and Yaz' discussion at the end of the episode was a definite hint in the direction of Ryan choosing to going back to Earth.

Would have really liked Graham, during his talk with the Doctor, to gently remind her that she can talk about her own problems, although I can understand the narrative choice on why she didn't (although, yeah, would have been good for Graham to ask). Because, yeah, if anyone needs a sympathetic ear (...sans fingers) or a shoulder to lean on, it's her!! The entire theme of this episode was like... reaching out. Conquering your fears with the help of others. Sharing your fears to lessen them. Getting help. And the Doctor deliberately... not doing that makes it into an actual Thing that I think is going to seriously be addressed by the end of the season.

It's been such an ongoing theme. A bunch of episodes have started with an obviously depressed Doctor. The Fam has tried to raise the issue multiple times and have discussed it amongst themselves even more. Scenes like Yaz' reaction after being abducted in Spyfall (...which makes her, "I thought I was dead" part even more worrying) and being comforted by Ryan, not the Doctor... her whole reaction to Graham being like, "I'm glad you talked to me but I literally can't do the same in return" - if it's not addressed by the end of this season, it's at least going to have to be an ongoing theme, because it's becoming very deliberate now.

An interesting note: the actor who played Zellin (an immortal manipulator of nightmares) also voiced the Remnants (who were the first to mention the Timeless Child in The Ghost Monument). Coincidence or deliberate?

Assorted thoughts:

"I'm still quite socially awkward." There's socially awkward and there's emotionally repressed... (I saw a description of it on Tumblr as 'weaponised dissociation' and... yeah. And also yikes.) Also the way she was so closed in on herself, basically hugging her arms to her body! On a semi-related note, talking to herself in Aleppo was a bit depressing. Like it's continuing the theme of The Doctor Does Not Like Being Alone.

The finger thing - ew ew ew ew it's in their EARS ewww D:

Stylistic comment: the traditionally-styled animation for the Immortals' game was gorgeous.

"Try not freak out, yeah, but you're on a floating space platform trapped in a gravitational pull between two colliding planets."

"Thanks for lending a helping hand!" Companions just being, "...Doctor p l s."

On an old lore note, loved the callback to Eternals, Guardians, and the Toymaker! On a concerning note, man, the Doctor has so many issues with immortals. They abandoned Jack, there was the punishment they gave the Family of Blood, they had those Issues with Ashildr (from what I've read), now this, an eternal punishment with no chance of redemption, perhaps because she knows what immortality does? Parallels with the Doctor as quasi-immortal too, which Zellin even pointed out.

"You're wrong about humans. They're not pathetic. They're magnificent. They live with their fears, doubts, guilt. They face them down everyday and they prevail. That's not weakness. That's strength. That's what humanity is."

(Contrast: "That's what humanity is." The Doctor isn't human. She's not prevailing against her fears, doubts, and guilt.)

In conclusion, literally everyone but the creepy immortals needs a hug.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati

Thoughts on Doctor Who - The Haunting Of Villa Diodati!

tfw you think you're just going to get a nice spoopy historical and instead get major plot?

Overall impression: Well, Jack is going to be pretty miffed, given that the Doctor had to do precisely what he didn't want to happen - giving the Lone Cyberman what it wanted. To save Shelley, and also to save the future, although that does bring up the question on if the death of one person can rewrite the future, why doesn't that apply to literally everyone? Fletcher the valet and Elise the nurse died too, do their deaths have the same impact? Either way, the Doctor takes the Cyberium for herself - then realises that the Cybermen are inevitable, and returns it. And now she's trying to go and stop them. So... a bit conflicting in the message there, I think.

Yeah. Bit of a Trolley Problem there.

The characters were really fun. I did enjoy seeing Mary's sense of morbidness, but also her kindness and sympathy towards the Cyberman; you can see the foundations of Frankenstein there. I'm seeing some criticism of how Byron was portrayed as a coward, but eh. Nice little callback to Ada. Also I love how one of the rules was 'no one snog Byron'. Put that dirty boy back, you don't know where he's been! Glad Claire realised that too, although historically, she was already pregnant with his daughter at that point (and that didn't go well at all)... Either way. Good display of all these bright young reckless things.

(And yes, they were young. Byron was the eldest at 28. Shelley was 23, Polidori was 20, Mary and Claire were just 18. And while Claire lived to 80 and Mary to her 50s, the three men all died young, too - Byron at 36, Shelley at 29 - yes, from drowning, Polidori at just 25. Also wasn't mentioned that Polidori also created something on that Dark And Stormy Night along with Mary's Frankenstein - he wrote The Vampyre, the first modern vampire story!)

The Lone Cyberman (and I am deliberately using that instead of 'Ashad') - creepy as shit. Not just the whole Frankenstein look, but the way he acted! Not emotionless and blank, but actively manipulative and sadistic! Mary showed empathy and he actively threw it back in her face! I mean, yikes.

House was terrific and also spooky as hell. (Am lowkey miffed that no one went "VIBE CHECK!") The jumbled layout was quite Castrovalva, and I actually really dig that Graham got to see some actual ghosts. Ghostly sandwiches!

I think we got actual confirmation here that Yaz does have feelings for the Doctor? (Bleeding Cool News is pretty sure that it was for Ryan, but... lmao no.) BBCA twitter certainly thinks so!

Claire: "His answers only increase the enigma." Yaz: "I know someone like that." Claire: "This enigmatic person of yours... would you trade them for reliable and dull?" Yaz: "My person's a bit different..."

I MEAN.

(It got deleted. So. There is that.)

Thirteen: "Hmm. Fourteenth... no. Fifteenth century... touch more umami." (Doctor, have you been playing Detroit: Become Human again?)

Mary: "I don't think they're really from the colonies!" Byron: "No, she... is from somewhere much, much stranger." Polidori: "The North."

Thirteen: "YOU HAD ONE JOB."

Cyberman: "You appear courageous. But your vital signs betray a heightened state of anxiety." Thirteen: "Or as I like to call it... Tuesday."

Thirteen: "Yeah, 'cause sometimes this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit, in the stratosphere, alone. Left to choose. Save the poet, save the universe. Watch people burn now, or tomorrow. Sometimes even I can't win."

Claire: "You pursued Mrs Doctor without a care for my presence, belittled my thoughts and opinions... and then proceeded to use my person as a human shield." Byron: "...And?" Claire: "And the spell is broken... my lord." Polidori's face: "haha you fucked up dude"

Next week: Shit Hits The Fan.

Ascension of the Cybermen

In lieu of a proper post for Ascension of the Cybermen, here are a list of questions we need an answer for.

Will Graham and Yaz survive, on a giant carrier full of Cybermen?

Who is Brendan, and what is his relevance to the story?

What is the Boundary?

How is Gallifrey in the Boundary?

How was the Master in Gallifrey, and not trapped by the Kasaavin?

Who is Ko Sharmus and why am I getting Yana vibes?

Who is Ashad and what is his story? (And why is his theme such a literal banger?)

Is he an actual Cyberman? Because I'm totally getting this impression he's human in armour?

How did Brendan survive being shot, and why did his non-ageing father and mentor do that?

Why did it look like a chameleon arch?

Is Ethan's tech-savvy just warzone familiarity or something more sinister?

Are there any other large human populations left?

Was I detecting a hint of romantic tension between Graham and Ravio?

What's up with Yaz?

Why did the Cyberium get sent to that time period?

Who or what is this alliance Jack is a part of?

How do the Time Lords and the lie of the Timeless Child come into it?

WHO THE FUCK IS BRENDAN?

The Timeless Children

WELL THEN.

While I gather proper thoughts on The Timeless Children, here are the questions I had from Ascension of the Cybermen, now with answers!

Will Graham and Yaz survive, on a giant carrier full of Cybermen?

Yup! Disguises for the win!

Who is Brendan, and what is his relevance to the story?

Brendan is a filtered overlay memory of one of the Doctor's former lives.

What is the Boundary?

An anomaly, as far as I can tell.

How is Gallifrey in the Boundary?

No idea!

How was the Master in Gallifrey, and not trapped by the Kasaavin?

No idea!

Who is Ko Sharmus and why am I getting Yana vibes?

A big damn hero.

Who is Ashad and what is his story? (And why is his theme such a literal banger?)

We're still not actually sure. Either way, he's an action figure now.

Is he an actual Cyberman? Because I'm totally getting this impression he's human in armour?

Yeah, sort of.

How did Brendan survive being shot, and why did his non-ageing father and mentor do that?

Because Time Lords.

Why did it look like a chameleon arch?

It's probably related technology! If the chameleon arch rewrites memories, this one just wipes them.

Is Ethan's tech-savvy just warzone familiarity or something more sinister?

Just warzone familiarity. Poor li'l bean.

Are there any other large human populations left?

Possibly! If the Boundary really did send them to random places, there still could be surviving pockets elsewhere in the universe.

Was I detecting a hint of romantic tension between Graham and Ravio?

Maybe a bit XD And now they're all on Earth, who knows?

What's up with Yaz?

Who knows?

Why did the Cyberium get sent to that time period?

Ko Sharmus sent it. Didn't send it far enough.

Who or what is this alliance Jack is a part of?

Same organisation Ko Sharmus is part of. Also, young!Ko Sharmus/Jack please.

How do the Time Lords and the lie of the Timeless Child come into it?

In so many ways.

WHO THE FUCK IS BRENDAN?

The Doctor!

More thoughts later!

Thoughts on Doctor Who - The Timeless Children.

...Actually, first thought is the title. Timeless Children? Hmm.

Anyway. That is... sure a literally mind-blowing revelation for the Doctor, yes! Like, damn, the discovery that you're not even the species you thought you were, that your adoptive parent spent lifetimes abusing and experimenting on you, that your memories were routinely erased by people you thought you could trust (including your adoptive parent), that you're literally the progenitor for your entire species, that you've lost who knows how much time and who knows how many memories... yeah. Damn.

What's an appropriate birthday present for someone turning ten million?

Also, huh. Amidst all the old lore and casual mentions (like Borusa!) that got mentioned - were they taking hints from the Cartmel master plan? About the Doctor being some kind of founding figure for Gallifrey? Not exactly written as Cartmel had it, but that big main concept of the Doctor as a sort of... foundation piece of Time Lord culture was still actually there.

Brain of Morbius Doctors confirmed, I guess. I guess even Four was going, "...the fuck?"

Cybermen = still scary. Regenerating Cybermen = felt somehow obscene. Like, no, that's just fundamentally not right. Like the TARDIS responding to Jack by noping the fuck out kind of not right. God. And the Master was completely and utterly magnificently batshit, like, more than usual, come on, dude, you know they'd kill or convert you the second you turned your back.

Still. Deeply, deeply entertaining to watch just from a villain perspective, completely Chaotic, and like... I do understand where he was coming from? His entire life is a lie. His entire life is because of the Doctor, who, I think it's fair to say, he has Complicated Feelings regarding. (Their entire interaction this episode was a giant power play. Like damn guys just get into BDSM and leave the would-be genocide and universal takeover.)

Tecteun = Rassilon, I'm assuming. Goddamn. Like they were a pompous abusive asshole from the outset, this just kind of makes it worse. I also wonder if Rassilon chose the Master specifically to get the drums because he was friends with the Doctor? That actually may have been something the Master worked out himself, too. I mean, I'd be pissed off as well :-\

Also, how many people know about this? I assume Gat knew, since she was implied to be responsible for the mind wipes, but was it like... a super tightly-held secret or was it something a lot of higher-ups knew? Because that's fucked up tbh

Thought on the Master. Okay, he's hugely furious that he's been lied to, that the entire origin of his people is based on a lie, that his greatest friendrivalloveenemy is incredibly special and that a part of her is in him and not in the fun way, but like... I'm also wondering if he's looking at the Time Lords, the way they turned him into their puppet, how they drove him insane for their own purposes, then looked at the Doctor - someone who has also been used, abused, experimented on, manipulated, controlled, and went, "No. This is an injustice and the Time Lords need to be punished for it."

Oh, saw a nice theory regarding the TARDISes - Ruth!Doctor had the original busted police box TARDIS. When she was eventually taken in to be mind-erased, they sent the TARDIS off to storage to be eventually repaired. The Doctor manages to steal that one, goes to Earth, and it immediately gets stuck again because it's still broken. Explains how Ruth!Doctor can have the police box while also being pre-everything.

I really want the Doctor and Jack to sit down and have a nice chat about being timeless undying constants of the universe. Also for Jack to get one of the spare TARDISes around. Be kinda funny if he got the Master's old one, given the Year That Never Was, but it really is just sitting there. (Poor TARDIS stuck as a tree on a random wartorn planet in the far future, though!)

Also, Jodie was fucking magnificent in this episode. The hurt, the absolute fury, the almost glee when she's telling the Master he can't break her, her refusal to press the button at the end (so much like Nine's "coward or killer?" moment!)... just... so good.

Beautiful post I saw here on Tumblr - the Doctor as the Timeless Child, making the choice to help.

Amazing post here on Tumblr about abuse and repressed memories. Even if the Doctor doesn't remember it all, the abuse they underwent at the hands of a beloved parent figure still informs a hell of a lot of their behaviour, but it doesn't define them. The Doctor's need to run = informed by abuse. The Doctor's desire to help crying children = informed by abuse. The Doctor being an inherently good person = being their own person, no matter what their upbringing, no matter what their past was. They made the choice to be the Doctor, and that's a hell of an important thing.

Extremely painful post I saw on Tumblr about the Doctor being 'hip with the kids' by calling her companions her Fam but hell if they're not more family to her than her actual adoptive mother ow my heart.

Also, the scene between Yaz and Graham was so sweet <3 I do want to see Yaz, at some point, admit that sometimes she's so terrified she can barely move, and to tell him what she came so close to doing when she was sixteen, and Graham to just go, "Yeah, but you keep going." Also I'm trying not to think about how Yaz would respond to the Doctor going off on a suicide mission when Yaz was suicidal just three years earlier because ow my heart. She knows that Ko Sharmus went after her, she knows the Doctor might be alive, but either way, she's just seen someone she loves leave with the intention of dying (and Ko Sharmus too, actually). Someone please give her a hug. Actually please just let the Fam have a big group hug in general.

"Have you ever been limited by who you were before?" "Huh. Now that does sound like me talking."

So, remaining questions to be answered next season!

What actually is the Doctor? Since they were found near the Boundary, they could be from anywhere. It's fair to say they now are recognised genetically as a Time Lord, but what were they originally, why were they abandoned in the first place, and are there any more of their original people out there?

How do the Remnants know about the Timeless Child, or were they just picking up on that unconscious knowledge from the Doctor's own mind?

Like... we're generally under agreement that the Master, the eternal cockroach, survived, right? Despite definitely being lowkey suicidal like oh, was hoping the Death Particle would kill me? Like the Death Particle was made by the Cyberium, it could have gone, "Nah, keeping this one."

What's going on with the Kasaavin? Remember them? Still out there, stationed all through time and space? And are we going to see Daniel Barton again?

Is something going on with Yaz?

Will the Fam stay on? (I personally think Ryan will elect to stay on Earth to account for Tosin Cole's new TV role, and if Graham and Ravio enter a relationship, he might too.)

When will we see Jack again? If he was connected to the Lone Cyberman arc, that seems... pretty conclusively finished, unless we're going to learn more about it?

Is it Christmas yet?

............so the Christmas/NY special is going to start with Jack using his vortex manipulator to bust the Doctor out of prison and get back to the Fam and it'll never be mentioned again, right.

"At least buy me diNNER!!"

#doctor who #companion love #best enemies #long post

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gayforthe13th · 4 years

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Hi can u pls pls write 13th x reader during the last episode? Where 13th keep cyberium in her head n kinda become time lord victorious? 13th defeat the lone cyberman. But she made u n d fam very afraid. U tried to get her off the high of cyberium but she won't listen. But she become more forward when it comes to u though. Whatever happen next is up to u.

warnings: none

taglist: @hellothedoctorisreal

The whole room felt like it was shaking, your eyes were locked on the cyberman lying dead on the floor, a blinding light glowed above him. Before you stood the Doctor, a manic grin spread on her face as tendrils of silver crawled along her neck and up to her jaw. She was holding her arm where the cyberium’s glow had begun, her grin never faded. Behind you Yaz attempts to walk forward, but the Doctor’s eyes landed on her, glowing a deadly silver, and she back away out of fear. Ryan and Graham were on either side of you, seeing as you were the closest to the Doctor in terms of friendship they eyed you in silent question, but you didn’t know what to do. She had never been like this before, this power-hungry, this angry. If you were to admit it, you were just as afraid as they were. “Doctor-” you began, taking a step forward.

“What!?” she hissed, “look, I did it, I won.” you pointedly ignored the body of the dead cyberman laying before you as you stepped around it in an attempt to get to her, your hand outstretched. You yelp when she grabs you, her hands move in a flash her grip vice around your wrist. You’re suddenly more afraid than you ever were, you pull but she doesn’t let you go, the silver tendrils stretch across her arm and trail up the side of her face.

“Doctor…” you plead, “please, you’re hurting me.” Out of the corner of your eye, you can make out Yaz and Ryan herding the other humans away from the house. Yaz spares you a worried glance, you meet her eyes for only a moment before turning back to the Doctor, who failed to notice. Her gaze was empty, her mind clearly elsewhere. You flex your hand in her grip, it only serves to strengthen it. She’s not human, of course, she’d have strength far beyond yours, but you didn’t expect her to use it this way. Tears form in the corners of your eyes, you try not to let them fall. You’re sure she’ll kill you. “I-It hurts,” you whimper, “please.”

“Don’t you see,” she says, her voice dropped to a low whisper, “I can protect you now, I’m so much stronger.”

“You killed him!” you feel a stray tear slide down your cheek, “without mercy!”

Her smile fades, “I’ve killed for less,” she growls. Then she grins again, “all the ideas in my head, the civilizations I could save with this power, people I could never save before. The laws of time, mine.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Don’t even begin to tell me what’s fair!” you flinch at her sudden loudness, “I am in control! I make the rules! No one else is left! My own civilization was built on lies and I will be the one to create greatness again!” she tosses you away from her and suddenly you’re on the floor, your knees digging into the wood as you attempt to stand again. You’re sobbing now, you’re sure of it, but there’s a ringing in your ears and you can’t really hear the world around you anymore. The Doctor towers above you, the anger in her eyes seems to lessen, she seems to soften almost.

“Please,” you plead one last time, your vision blurry from the tears. You take a deep breath, “I love you.” If there was ever a good time to say this you suppose now would be it. You’ve loved her for quite some time, ever since you had met her on her eleventh face and traveled with her for a while before leaving. Finding her again had felt like a dream come true.

Now, it seemed like that dream was ending. “I love you,” you repeat, knowing that if she killed you now you’d never get to say it again. The Doctor’s grin falters, you watch as the silver tendrils slide rapidly from her face and converge back into her arm. Your eyes widen in realization, slowly you lift yourself up. The silver glow in the Doctor’s eyes fades to her natural color, you’ve never been more in love with green. Slowly, you lift your hand and place it under her arm.

“(Y/N),” she whimpers, letting out a pained groan.

“It’s okay, I’m here.” The Doctor gasps, the cyberium releases itself from her, floating around the room before disappearing into thin air. You’d have to find it again, make sure it doesn’t get into the wrong hands, but as the Doctor slumps tiredly into your embrace you take the time to think of more important things. “Let’s get you back, yeah?”

“Yeah..” the Doctor mutters, as you help balance her tired body on your shoulder.

“I’m so-”

“Don’t. I don’t blame you…”

“I hurt you,” the Doctor says, pushing herself away from you on wobbly legs to take your bruised wrist. “I can heal it..” You shake your head, opening your mouth to decline but the doctor is already pressing a soft kiss to your wrist. There’s a small cheeky smile on her face as she pulls back. You can’t find the right words anymore so instead you take her hand, lacing your fingers together as the two of you make your way back to the others.

#thirteen x reader #thirteenth doctor/reader #reader insert #request #requests

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rowanthestrange · 4 years

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Doctor Who Meta: Cyberium AI Meta Masterpost

@grassangel said: A thought for you because of your meta: the Cyberium as the fluid in the opening credits.

It definitely does have a resemblance, doesn’t it. And that fits in with the Chibs style of ‘if you think it’s odd/wrong it probably serves a bigger purpose’.

The Cyberium AI is weird as hell. It’s clearly really important, not just as a plot device, but as itself. It’s got characterisation. It’s got a mirror important enough to be in the first episode - Tzim-Sha’s Gathering Coil, the first thing this Doctor ever faces.

And it mirrors the Doctor and Timeless Child’s ‘Power’. I mean it really mirrors them. To the point where, like with the Lone Cyberman and Rassilon, I’m not sure if it’s mirroring the character ridiculously heavily, or if it just straight up is the character. Just like working out Clara was going to be the Doctor with a TARDIS - I knew the result but I didn’t know what form it would take, literally the character or not, until the end. Cus that’s Doctor Who and its shapeshifting for you.

You know how my preferred method is to just point out all the metas as I see them, so you can draw your own conclusions if they’re different to mine, but I will actually put my thoughts as to what this all means at the end.

So click below for every bit of Cyberium AI meta from not just Series 12, not even just Series 11...but all the way back to Season 25)

(Under a cut because there was so much more than I thought there was)

In episode order then:

The Woman Who Fell To Earth

(The Gathering Coil as double-layer, mirroring the Cyberium AI’s role itself; but also therefore as its Doctor character mirror, and Timeless Child ‘Power’ mirror)

-See the title of the episode. The title with at least three references now.

-It crashes into a train when we meet it. A few moments before the Doctor does.

-“What are you? Okay, you don't like questions. More the private type, I get that.”

-Its data is absorbed into the Rassilon-mirror Tzim-Sha.

-In doing so also implants into him - and I quote the Doctor - “Micro-implants which code to your DNA. On detonation, they disrupt the foundation of your genetic code, melting your DNA.” Sound familiar?

-It’s being used - against the laws of the user’s species - in order to attain leadership. (Like Rassilon/Tecteun)

-Looks like one creature but is actually a huge number in the appearance of one. (The Doctor).

-The Gathering Coil might look like an Eldritch horror, but it never actually kills anyone on purpose. When it first shows up, the woman driving the train dies from shock, (“Shock” get it? Like...) Grace dies in an attempt to stop it by electrocuting it. The most damage it itself deliberately does, is short-circuit a crane.

----

The Haunting Of Villa Diodatti:

(Heavily as Timeless Child ‘Power’ mirror(?))

-The Lone Cyberman confirms the Cyberium AI to be both a lifeform and ‘weapon of some kind’. Like the Ux.

-We meet it already inside Doctor-mirror Percy Shelley - suicidal, social activist, and a great believer in the importance of society having Hope even if not so good at it himself. He is not trying to use its powers, but as Guardian of them doesn’t want others to take and abuse them. The word ‘Guard’ is also used by Mary in regards to the child. (And we could leave this episode and say how Irish Metaphor Doctor was a ‘Garda’ but you get the point).

-It hides in a house that appears to warp and change and shield and use a perception filter - theorised to be the Cyberium AI warping the perceptions of people in the building, even though none of them are remotely Cyber in any way. Shelley says directly only some of the changing is his doing. On a practical level, it must have strong telepathic abilities - like the Doctor. On a meta level, it hides itself in a place that mirrors a TARDIS.

-The Doctor can’t find it at first because it’s “hidden away, cloaked, too big to register.” Like the Timeless Child memories.

-The Doctor seemingly genuinely didn’t know what it was a minute ago, when she was asking Ashad what it was. But now suddenly she does know: “Cyber technology. The knowledge of the whole cyber race and AI from the future, containing the knowledge and future history of all Cybermen”. Almost as if she’s remembered.

-This next bit’s important and connected so we’ll just do the whole lot and break it up afterwards:

Percy: “They scorched and split the sky. Built the army of all armies. Left behind only pain, rage, fear and death.” Mary: “How is he seeing all this?” The Doctor: “The Cyberium is burning through his mind. It'll destroy him if it stays in him much longer. An epic battle. The Cyberium at the heart of it, controlling data, strategy, decision-making. Clever! Very clever. Someone took it from the Cybermen, sent it back through time here in an attempt to change the future.” *The Lone Cyberman tries to break in* The Doctor: “In an attempt to protect you from that.”

-Like Donna with the Doctor’s memories, this is burning Percy up. -An epic Battle, like with the Ux - a great battle referenced and not explained. The Cyberium AI instead of the Ux at the heart of it, used to fight it. (If anyone’s still assuming the Timeless Child(ren) thing was simply about regeneration power, there should be more focus on the Division and the Child as weapon). -The Doctor again coming in with extra information. -Possible Future Meta: Someone attempted to change the future by taking the source of power from the Rassilon (see the mirror).

-Thirteen tells the Doctor-mirror to just let the Rassilon-mirror have the power. (Reminds me of how the Timeless Child ‘would not yield any secrets’). But the Cyberium AI has been sending Shelley (Doctor-mirror) symbols and numbers. So Possible Future Meta: It wasn’t just the regeneration power Rassilon got from the Timeless Child, it was also information. (Of course - the Doctor, especially this one meant to mirror all this, is the Builder And Destroyer, after all)

-We confirm the Cyberium AI’s own sentience, separate from its host, (and its reluctance to leave). It changes the mental map of the house specifically to avoid the Lone Cyberman.

-The Lone Cyberman believes the host must be killed in order to get the power out. Mary Shelley immediately talks to the Lone Cyberman about fatherhood, and how he doesn’t want to do this. (Rassilon/Tecteun)

-The Doctor convinces the Cyberium AI to leave by showing it Percy’s future. (The mercury-like substance exits Percy quite like the poison with Ten. Given the amount of Ten-era-mirroring, this one’s cute). (Possible Future Meta: The Doctor meeting Timeless Child self, like with Martin!Doctor).

-The Cyberium AI goes to the Doctor, who calls herself its “true Guardian”. Says it feels “Very at home”. Going with how she seemed to remember what it was without ever being told earlier...

-The Doctor, when her friends and the planet is at risk, decides to give it over the the Lone Cyberman, and the Cyberium works with her in a way it refused to with Shelley, meaning she didn’t need to die, even though she says it had already started fusing.

-Next after the Doctor-mirror/Doctor, the power enters the Rassilon-mirror.

-(Yaz restarts the Doctor-mirror’s heart. That’s not important to this meta, but it sure is important to other ones).

-We talk about ghosts just as we enter the Ghost Monument.

----

Ascension Of The Cybermen:

(Both as Doctor mirror and Timeless Child Power mirror)

-Cyberium!Ashad says “The Cyberium does know you. Both you and humanity will be destroyed, and I shall bring the Cyber race to its greatest ever glory.” - the Cyberium AI has already seen the Doctor’s death before. Or it’s lying.

-The Doctor’s blatantly obvious talking-to-herself therapy speech is to Cyberium!Ashad.

“The Cyberium has given me understanding. It has distilled my purpose. I am the perfect vessel.” - A container, a ship for the Cyberium AI.

“Everything is in me for the ascension of the Cybermen, and beyond. ... All your deaths. The death of everything is within me.” - First, mirrors the ‘life’ within the Timeless Child. Second, considering before this was previously an AI trying to avoid conflict and entering Ashad, the fact that Ashad and his death particle gets convinced to go to the Master and Gallifrey, makes me wonder how much the Cyberium AI was forced to go along because that’s its nature and it has to follow instructions, or whether it was planning and pulling the strings. Or both - TARDIS-style.

----

The Timeless Children:

(Heavily as Doctor mirror, minorly Timeless Child Power mirror)

-“Oh. Oop. Excuse me. Check my notifications. Oh, goodie! The Cybermen are here, at the Boundary. Better extend the hand of friendship. Breaker 1-2 calling all Cybes.” So the Master knew that the Cybermen would come. How? They haven’t interacted from our perspective at all.

-The Master says to Cyberium!Ashad “I want you to think of me as your new best friend.”

-Master to the Doctor: “Don't heckle, dear. I can always decide to cut you short.” -Master to Cyberium!Ashad: “Oh, shoot. I should've said, somebody needs to cut you down to size, then zapped you. I was just trigger-happy. I'll use it next time.” (Plus, a ‘next time’ - we haven’t seen the last of him).

-The Cyberium AI is revealed to have been the one to create the Death Particle. Which again makes me question who’s pulling whose strings. As the Master points out Ashad is more organic than most, and Ashad simply says that he’ll mechanise when the process is over - ignoring the point that this didn’t work before. And Ashad seems to think it will wipe out everything, ignoring the reality that its coverage is only a single planet.

-The Master is clearly talking to the Cyberium more than Ashad at points.

Ashad: “The Cyberium will process and dictate the strategy.” The Master: “The Cyberium. I've heard a lot about that over the millennia. The heart of all your power. The centre of all Cyber knowledge.” -Sounds very like the other Timeless Child(ren) mirror - the Ux.

-The Master actively flirts with it. “Oh, come on, Cyberium, show us some leg. What do you actually look like, hmm?” And after shrinking Ashad without so much as a close-up, like he’s been nothing to the plot, “Well, aren't you pretty? And fast. You made your exit very swiftly there. Worried, were you?”

-The Master hoped the Death Particle would activate and laments to the Cyberium AI that his “nice little gamble” didn’t pay off - as in it didn’t kill him. (Assuming Timeless Children plural, that may be the only thing that would work, and that he is telling this to the Cyberium AI again could fit nicely with the narrative idea that it knows what it’s doing).

-“Oh, sorry, were you close? Candidly, I think you can do better.” ... “Wow, that was quick. Wa-ha-ha! Whoa! Woohoo! At least buy me... dinner!” - (And considering we all had a giggle at the clearly intentionally funny ‘a piece of you is in me’ line that’s going to happen either in about a minute, or in the world of the episode and making adjustments for simultaneous storytelling, right now...)

-“I ransacked the Matrix of the Time Lords, distilled all the knowledge, all the experiences, all the discoveries, into these brains up here. All the Cyber knowledge, all the Time Lord knowledge. Put it together, what do you get? Absolute supremacy in the universe. Choose me.” - (The Master pointing out we’ve now got two sets of incredible knowledge. Rule of three has me wondering about the Timeless Child’s ‘Knowledge’.)

-After the power was originally in the Doctor-mirror/Doctor, it then went to the Rassilon-mirror(?) and then to the Master. If you’re a fan of Timeless Children Plural theory.

-The Master: “No, Doctor. As of now, I wish my enemies a long and healthy life, so they may witness my many triumphs, because they will be legion.” - (So, in case you’re not familiar with the Legion thing, two points: A Legion was a division in the Roman army of about 3000-6000 men. We will be coming back to Rome - oh God will we - but just slot that information away for later. Point two - For another use of Legion, we need to head to the Bible, Mark 5:1-9. ‘Who cares, Rowan?’ Well, this is the story in which there is a man living among tombs, who no-one can bind, not even with chains. He cries out and attacks himself, and on seeing Jesus in the distance rushes over and kneels before him, screaming that he’d put him under oath not to torment him. Jesus doesn’t talk to him, but to what is possessing him, ordering it to come out, and asking its name. And it, not the man replies: “I am Legion, for we are many.” (Fun fact, we eventually get rid of the demons by exorcising them into animals who then run off...a...cliff. *sighs* Ok.)

The Doctor: “You're looking peaky.” The Master: “Oh, yeah. The Cyberium lives in me now, Doctor. Yeah. Yes. See, I've been looking forward to seeing your face about that. I can feel it flowing around in me. The information, the strategy, the... the... the consciousness. It's a beautiful thing. And look at us. I have broken you and created a new race. And now? Now I shall conquer... everything. Oh.”

-“See, I've been looking forward to seeing your face about that.” - This is a quiet point that exemplifies a major one. The Master’s story is different to ours. He knows things that we do not. The Doctor in theory (though I doubt in practice) had never come across the Cyberium AI before, she hasn’t mentioned its name or anything about it to the Master. In theory (again press x) the Lone Cyberman carrying the Cyberium AI just turned up when the Master dragged the Doctor through to Gallifrey as pure happenstance, he should know nothing about that incident with the AI and Shelley (and yet he quotes him). Why has he been looking forward to seeing her face in regards to that? What does he know about it that he expects her to remember? Just like with the Timeless Child infodump, we are fools if we take all this at face value, because the Master planned for all of this. And it seems like the Cyberium AI _itself_ is planning too.

Ko Sharmus: “You didn't start this. I did. I was part of a resistance unit that sent the Cyberium back through time and space. Though obviously we didn't send it back far enough. So this is my penance. Mine to finish. My journey ends here. But the universe still needs you, so I suggest you run.” (Ko Sharmus is treated way too important. We’ve got to see him again.)

----

Done? Done.

Well no, no actually we’re not. Because there is one final episode.

But we have to go back, just a little bit, to the Seventh Doctor. Stick with me. I promise you’ll be glad you did.

Silver Nemesis:

-A story revolving around a thing called Validium.

-To quote the TARDIS Wiki: “It was living metal that could think for itself and was capable of speech as well. When destroyed, it could reform itself.”

The Doctor: “Validium was created as the ultimate defence for Gallifrey, back in early times.” Ace: “Created by Omega?” The Doctor: “Yes.” Ace: “And?” The Doctor: “Rassilon.” Ace: “And?” The Doctor: “And none of it should have left Gallifrey. But, as always with these things, some of it did.”

-Catch that hint of the Cartmel Masterplan where it’s clearly meant to lead you to ‘And? The Other One’. It’s ok, you’re not reading too far into it, I promise.

-“It should never have left Gallifrey, but some of it did. A piece of validium fell to Earth and was found by the Lady Peinforte.” Can you guess what she did with it? Why, she moulded it into a statue of herself.

-A silver lady statue.

-(You remember how we just seemed to abandon Barton? Who is somewhat not human? Was involved with creatures from another dimension? And that statue? Seemed set-up for a cyber plan? Saw nothing wrong with a bit of familial murder? Ooh hoo. Welp.)

-Nazis are involved. Ill-timed notifications. The Doctor forgetting. A cellar. (A fez). A meteorite containing the validium crashes by a barn. On November the 23rd. Happy Birthday. We blow things up. A lot of things.

-The villains of the piece? Besides the nazis and the Time(travelling) Lady? Well it could only be the Cybermen. A bit of the Validium is held by each of them

-The Cybermen take their bit of the Validium to the tomb of the Lady, with an inscription “Death Is But A Door”. The Lady is not buried there, and it doubles as a pun, with a hidden door.

-One of the lead nazis betrays his fellow to be turned into a Cyberman. “Supermen are all very well, but the giants are the master race.”

-The Seventh Doctor is mirrored with the Lady, who describes herself as evil. They even have mirrored scenes with their equivalent companions.

-The Lady: “All power, all power past, present and future, shall be mine. Why, I shall be mistress of all of that is, all that shall be, all that ever was. Yes, all! All!” - Oh, doesn’t she sound familiar now...

-Point Of Interest: Like many of the concepts Chibs has been playing with from Classic Who - the Morbius Doctors, almost certainly the Valeyard - this was apparently a fairly controversial episode among the old guard. Why? Because well...

The Validium: “I am beautiful, am I not?” Ace: “Yes. You're very beautiful.” The Validium: “It is only my present form. I have had others which would horrify you. I shall have those again. You are surprised I speak?” Ace: “I know you're living metal.” The Validium: “I am whatever I am made to be. This time Lady Peinforte called me Nemesis, so I am retribution.”

-I mean this is all cute but it doesn’t explain why it’s here and-

The Validium: “And I'm to destroy the entire Cyberfleet?” The Doctor: “Forever.” The Validium: “And then?” The Doctor: “Reform.” The Validium: “You might need me in the future, then?” The Doctor: “I hope not.” The Validium: “That is what you said before.” The Doctor: “Enough.” The Validium: “And after this, will I have my freedom?” The Doctor: “Not yet.” The Validium: “When?” The Doctor: “I told you when.” The Doctor: “Things are still imperfect.”

-Oh well that’s...Hmm.

Lady Peinforte: “You are nothing. Only the Doctor matters, and he is but a pawn in the game of my making.” ... Ace: “The Doctor's not just going to give you the bow. Tell her, Doctor. Tell her.” Lady Peinforte: “Doctor who? Have you never wondered where he came from, who he is?” Ace: “Nobody knows who the Doctor is.” Lady Peinforte: “Except me.” Ace: “How?” Lady Peinforte: “The statue told me.” Ace: “All right, so what does it matter? He's a Time Lord, I know that.” Lady Peinforte: “Well, Doctor?” The Doctor: “If I give you the bow,” Lady Peinforte: “Your power becomes mine, but your secrets remain your own.” ... Lady Peinforte: “I shall tell them of Gallifrey, tell them of the old time, the time of chaos.” ... The Doctor: “You had the right game, but the wrong pawn. Check.”

-What used to be the Cartmell Master plan is now the Timeless Child Master...plan- Is this why it’s involving the Master? For a pun? Whatever, either way the Seventh Doctor is now a treasure trove of useful ideas - I did wonder why Chibs chose Ace in particular as the companion who should get a ‘Thirteen meeting them again’ book - trying to lure people in for a second look, clearly.

-So what happens in the story? In the Timeless Child, the Master ends up absorbing the Cyberium. In Silver Nemesis, the Validium absorbs our Lady Mistress Of All. How neat.

-The Doctor ‘wins’ by giving the Validium the Cyberleader’s instructions, confirming it understood them, and then the Cybermen let it fly off to their fleet. Which then blows up. Because it chose to disobey them. (As he knew it would).

-The Validium is left floating in space, until the Doctor calls on it again. I’m not saying this relates to opening titles full of goop, but I’m not saying it doesn’t either.

So. That’s a lot. While I would usually doubt the Validium would literally be the Cyberium, and that it would be for fans to join together as they wished or not... Honestly, given the use of lore in Chibs Who, I don’t actually feel certain of that anymore.

But either way, there’s your meta masterpost, you can commence your theorising now.

****

I know no-one comes to these things for my stupid conclusions, but in case you did, here’s a couple of my very disparate fever-brained thoughts, that I’m too ill to put together more...smartly, and might have to come back to if you’re ever going to actually see this post:

-The Doctor/The Other/The Timeless Child had a hand in the weaponisation of the Cyberium AI (forced/cajoled/whatever).

-The Time Lord empire, in at least one version of reality, is inextricably linked to the Cybermen empire, with the Cybermen showing similar levels of technology to Time Lords (a cyber carrier ‘more advanced’ than very far future humans have ever seen - “Coming out of vortex now”, implies it has time vortex travel. And “That’s my home planet - that's Gallifrey”. Immediately the image cuts to Cyberman, then straight back.)

-The Timeless Child was chosen as a vessel to save some form of living knowledge, rather than just being a mystical alien.

-((My nuttiest guess that is only 30% meta and 70% gut feel is it’s a TARDIS-kind, probably our own, which stayed with them because they carried her, and now she carries them. That concept, the little links we’re seeing with TARDISes and their sentience, the implied planetary genocide of all but a saved pair, cyberised humans and cyberised Time Lords - a TARDIS is a cyberised something, the question of living technology, the gloop of the vortex, the Ghost Monument, the Doctor’s agonised loss of her for her first episode that she then only finds at the end of the second on a dead planet ruined by space-fascists...))

-Are those two the same story? You could go in either direction. The stories are all about cycles and loops, so a strong case for mirroring, but at the same time we have a Lone Cyberman who can’t be converted properly and no-one knows why, which makes me think that is still Rassilon with either the ghost of a memory of an old plan, or - thanks to time travel - the old plan itself. That perhaps the Timeless Child’s Power would end up somewhat fused with the Doctor when they turned it into the weaponised Cyberium “AI”, explains why we see it in meta go from benign to weapon creator.

-The Cyberium AI created the Death Particle which would destroy all life and stop the Cyber-Time Lords from taking over. This feels like the exact thing the Doctor was trying to stop with the Time Lords in The End Of Time, and Day Of The Doctor, as their absolute last-ditch plan.

-Certainly the Battle that the Alliance are gearing up for, I would assume is the same battle that we keep seeing in mirrors, and is directly related to Gallifrey. It keeps coming up linked together, like with Ko Sharmus, and we first find out about the Alliance from the inside of a stolen Battle TARDIS.

-So perhaps that’s a point that history is hinging on, and someone - read: the Master - has chosen to interfere. Things all seemed to go wrong after he discovered the Timeless Child information - impossible Time Lords and TARDISes appearing, an Alliance, a Cyber Empire etc. Maybe originally the Doctor/Timeless Child (title, not necessarily youth) was used to control the Cyberium AI and win the battle. But the Master took them away from Rassilon so that couldn’t happen, so everything’s a catastrofuck of paradoxes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We got a long time to think about it at least.

#doctor who #doctor who meta #the cyberium ai #the timeless child #the timeless children #rassilon #the assilon #(i’m so ill)#(so take it in...whatever form this is)#(too feverish for thinking)#(stupid partner socialising and teaching kids and giving me diseases)

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annakie · 4 years

Text

It took three and a half months, but I’ve finished my Doctor Who Rewatch.

It’s time to talk about seasons 10, 11, overall wrapup thoughts and some best/worst lists. Very long post below.

I started doing this back at the end of August as more of a joke when I was going back and cleaning the terrible cringe stuff off the first few months of my blog, then ended up taking that project from when I started the blog in May, 2011 until late 2016. I realized that I had too much going on IRL right now to revisit my life at the end of 2016 when things took a sharp turn the wrong way, so I haven’t picked that back up again. I still might at some point.

After the start of the nostalgia tour I:

Cried about Doomsday

Still hated the Manhattan episodes but renewed my love for one of my favorite characters of all time.

Reflected about Martha Jones and being an overly-zealous defender of a fictional character

Cried a lot over meeting and losing River Song in the span of an hour and a half.

Made my way through Season 4 and found myself still mostly loving the show.

Finished Season 4 and was starting to tire of Ten but knew I had more content to get through.

Didn’t post again til I was done with Amy and Rory. Loved Amy, Rory and River even more, especially Rory.

Watched an episode I remembered I didn’t like just because of the guest actors. Only marginally helped the episode.

Disliked the second half of season 7 even more than I used to. Felt meh about Clara.

Warmed to Clara more in seasons 8 and 9. Still, was ready to see her go. Loved Twelve, though the first half of season 8 continued to be rough. Adored the Husbands of River Song for the 6th+ time.

Took a brief moment to love Bill.

Full disclosure on the rewatch: I skipped most of Fear Her except the first and last few minutes, and actually haven’t gotten back to Waters of Mars or the one 11 Christmas Special with the kids who’s father dies. I may or may not pick those up in the next week or two.

So tonight I finished rewatching all of Thirteen’s episodes and wanted to talk a bit more about Bill, and then a lot about Thirteen, and some general thoughts about the whole rewatch.

Bill Potts is too good for this world. I remembered loving her during her season but was blown away on the rewatch with how much I loved her, and almost all of her season. Her energy, her story, her smile, it’s infectious. It’s infuriating that so many people didn’t watch Bill because wow she deserved a lot more attention that I feel like she got, and also I feel like the show itself turned a real corner that season. Season 9, yes, definitely better than 8 and 7.5. But It’s like Moffat or the writers in general kinda grocked into several important things and made the show more progressive and less cringe?

There wasn’t an episode I thought was bad, even the more filler episodes like the one in space with the air being a commodity was tense and fun. I’m not sure I’d skip a single episode.

And then Bill, I think, ends up getting an even shittier deal than Martha in her season. Left alone for ten years in a shithole mopping up floors, only to be turned into a cyberman and get left extremely traumatized, and sacrifice herself. A very good story. A very sad and frustrating ending. Except that she does get to “transform” and travel the universe with Heather.

Maybe she did eventually go back home and finish living her life from not long after she left in the TARDIS the last time -- it’s entirely possible. The Memory-Bill in Twice Upon a Time (the Twelve & One crossover) remembered traveling with Heather, which means her memory was taken from some point AFTER. So maybe she got to be an ethereal being for a long time, and then eventually went home to Earth. Or maybe she’s still out there traveling the stars with Heather. Either way, she deserves a good life, and a good ending, even if we never know the true ending.

Twelve -- I love him. Again, he had a really rough start but Capaldi is an amazing actor and he owned the role. I don’t think it’s actually possible to rank my favorite doctors from the new Who era, they’re all different, all great. And Missy -- such an amazing villain. Paired with Simms-Master was so, extremely fun, but even on her own, I think she’s now my favorite incarnation of The Master. (I’ve only seen a few episodes of Old-Who with Delgado, and I really love Delgado’s Master as well.)

Nardole was also a fun addition to the season. I know technically he was considered a full companion and enjoyed him when he was there, but tbh, to me it was all about Bill.

But hey, when Twelve left, it was a good time for him to go -- I really think three seasons is the sweet spot for length of a Doctor. I was so ready for Thirteen and The Fam.

I remembered loving Thirteen when her episodes were airing and, I was right to. Jodie Whittaker is so good -- I never doubt for a second that she’s The Doctor. The show one again feels very different with a new doctor / companions / showrunner. I honestly loved the lack of Doctor-Angst in the season. Thirteen is so much more brightness and sunshine and I think it was a good way to swing the Doctor after Twelve. I also liked that there were a few comments about changing genders, a little bit of frustration from noticing how people treated her differently, but it was neither an earthshattering thing that made EVERYTHING DIFFERENT nor was it a non-event. I really think they handled it well.

I will say that I think some of the critics were right, that the season itself could have used a bit more of an arc. Not a heavy arc, like seasons five and six had, but a bit more than Tim Shaw showing up in the first and last episodes of the season. It looks like next season is going to have that.

The arc that was there though really came from Graham and Ryan’s grief about Grace and their relationship growing. Honestly, I remember when we learned that one of the new companions was going to be a 60-ish year old dude I wasn’t looking forward to that at all, but honestly, I love Graham. He’s an actual good guy, he loves deeply, he’s allowed to show his emotions, he handles things WELL. He’s not perfect but also I felt like they wrote his character so well, he wasn’t an arrogant guy expecting everyone to follow his orders, he cares deeply for Ryan and even had some great scenes with Yaz.

Ryan and Yaz are both also just so fantastic. I loved getting to spend time with Yaz’s family both current and past. I actually learned a little history in the episode that took place in Pakistan (and loved having a benevolent alien storyline there, love that episode so much). I also loved that they allowed Ryan to show grief and sadness, and vulnerability too.

I was definitely feeling the 13/Yaz vibes on the rewatch, and although I wouldn’t say I’d be upset if they did end up doing a Ryan/Yaz storyline, I also wouldn’t be upset if they didn’t do any romance storylines at all. I didn’t miss it this season, and 13/Yaz seemed more likely than anything.

I also loved that they took on racism in a couple of big ways this series. I felt like the only big swing-and-miss episode was Ker-Blam! where they were so close to really hammering down a good message in the episode and then it felt like Jeff Bezos himself came in and rewrote the last 10 minutes.

TBH there were a couple of episodes that I had COMPLETELY forgotten about, especially the one with Chris North and the big spiders. Like while I was watching it I had a vague memory of seeing it before, but not up until then. I’d also forgotten about the New Year’s episode last year with Ryan’s dad. I only remembered to watch it because after the final episode I was like “Wait, wasn’t Ryan’s dad supposed to be in this season?” and so I went to hunt for the episode.

SO... that’s it. I was actually a little shocked last night when I finished up the New Year’s episode and realized... I was DONE. I made it back through eleven seasons and... it was worth it.

Some final thoughts... and I’m just picking a few things out here off the top of my head, I wasn’t keeping a list all the way through so I’m sure I’m going to think of other things after hitting Post, but here we go.

---------

COMPANION RANKINGS: God Tier: Martha Jones

Faves: Bill Potts, Rory Williams, River Song

I love you so much: Donna Noble, Amy Pond, The Fam (All together!), Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Wilfred Mott

Very very Good: Rose Tyler, Nardole

I Still Like You: Clara Oswald

---------

FAVE SEASON: I mean, it’s still gonna be Martha’s season with an honorable mention of the second half of 4.

If you take Martha Jones out of the equation, it’d probably be either 6 through 7.0, or Bill’s season.

LEAST FAVORITE: The second half of 7, for sure, and the first half of 8 is kinda rough. It’d be easy to say season 1, as well, but I don’t think that’s entirely fair, as I think the age of the show really shows there and there was a lot of getting-on-their feet they had to do. There’s still a lot of good there, you just have to look for it harder.

---------

Favorite Specials:

The Husbands of River Song, #1 favorite no question

The Day of the Doctor a close second.

Honorable mention to the Night of The Doctor for the canonical return of Eight. Seriously, the first time I saw that it may have been the single most joyous moment of New Who for me.

Least Favorite:

I mean, I haven’t rewatched two of them yet since I remember not liking them.

Also Voyage of the Damned was just even worse than I remembered it.

I Cried The Hardest:

Amy and Rory’s leaving in The Angels Take Manhattan

River’s death in the Library

The end of Doomsday

Danny’s death

The end of Vincent and the Doctor

Prem’s death in Demons of the Punjab, maybe the only single-episode character death that hit me that hard.

Happiest Tears:

Martha leaves the Doctor

The group in the TARDIS towing Earth home in Journey’s End

Twelve and River get 24 years together

Ryan calls Graham “Grandad”

Jackie and Alt-Pete meet/”reunite”

Heather shows up and... “saves” Bill, they go off on adventures.

Best Twists:

John Simms Return at the end of season ten.

YANA is the Master

Oswin is actually a Dalek

Heaven is run by Missy, and the Cybermen. (Damn I really love twists concerning the Master don’t I?)

Bill discovers she IS a Cyberman

Loudest cheers:

Mickey showing up in Doomsday

Martha laughs at the Master

Rory’s speech at the beginning of A Good Man Goes to War

The Doctor punches a racist who insulted Bill

Best dramatic moments:

Jack and the Doctor talk about Rose in Utopia

Twelve takes several billion years to punch through a wall

Just This Once, Everybody Lives!

Turn Left

The Doctor says goodbye Idris in The Doctor’s Wife

Missy and the Master’s mutually assured destruction.

Biggest Laughs for a good reason:

The entire poison scene in the Unicorn and the Wasp

Basically everything about the Doctor attempting to be normal in The Lodger.

Right, putting Hitler in the Cupboard.

Doctor, when I’m on a date, do not put the Pope in my bedroom.

Biggest Cringe:

Penis-head half-human Dalek

Concrete blowjobs

Anytime a lady slapped/hit a guy not in self-defense

Old goblin Ten / Jesus Ten in Last of the Time Lords

Most of The End of Time part 1

Eleven forces a kiss on Jenny in The Crimson Horror (THAT deserved the slap.)

There’s a lot of things I could point out in season 1 but I’m grading season 1 on a curve.

Favorite non-companion recurring characters:

Danny Pink

Brian Williams

Jackie Tyler

Worst Villians:

“Love And Monsters”

“Fear Her”

The eye-crud sleep monster with Twelve

I kinda wanna say the Daleks are so overdone it’s hard to get excited about them anymore, though I did kinda like what they did in “Resolution” (13′s New Years episode last year.)

OK I honestly don’t know if I want to put “A sentient universe who is in the form of a large frog and just wants a BFF” in best or worst but I feel it belongs SOMEWHERE.

Best Villians:

Missy

Whatever the fuck that thing is in Midnight

House

Got a Raw Deal award:

Adam (Seriously, he was told nothing and did nothing wrong via what he’d been told?!

Donna

Bill (Seriously, TEN YEARS SCRUBBING FLOORS? only to not be saved by 2 hours and then turned into a cyberman and killed again?)

Most Bothersome Lack of Continuity:

The rules for meeting yourself / interfering in the past.

Uh so who was the Not-Danny astronaut in “Listen” anyway?

Most Improved on a Rewatch:

The Fires of Pompeii because... ten and twelve? It used to be one of my least favorite eps of season 4.

the Daleks in Manahattan episodes I guess just because I liked them more this time though they’re still not great.

Seeing all of River’s timeline in such a short period of time

Gotta say I enjoyed Planet of the Dead a normal amount when before I used to really dislike it.

Best Premiere of a Doctor: The Eleventh Hour Roughest Premiere of a Doctor: Deep Breath, since I’m grading season 1 on a curve. Best Exit of a Doctor: Honestly? I’m gonna give this one to Nine. He sacrificed himself to save Rose, and he died too soon. It seemed a fitting end, if too quick.

Roughest Exit of a Doctor: I’m going to go with Eleven here. It came at the end of what I felt was the worst period of New Who. The episode itself was... I kind of felt like it was overwraught and didn’t pack quite the same punch as the other three. Say what you will about the “I Don’t Wanna Go” line with Ten and Twelve needing to be convinced to regenerate at all. Matt Smith did the best with what he was given, but he wasn’t given much in the entire last run of his episodes after having some of the BEST episodes the previous two and a half seasons.

Best Premiere of a Major Companion: Honestly? Still gotta go with The Eleventh Hour, for both Amy and Rory and the great way they were both set up and the mysteries of the season.

Worst Premiere of a Major Companion: If you don’t count Asylum of the Daleks (which I thought was great) as Clara’s premiere, then it was definitely Clara’s “The Bells of Saint John”. No contest. I don’t think ANY of the rest of them were done poorly, TBH. I guess I’d have to go with “Rose”, because the Autons themselves are pretty meh and the plastic wasn’t great.

Best (Main) Exit of a Major Companion: This one is more difficult. Doomsday deserves a nod. Martha Jones walked the world and ended on her own terms. Journey’s End saw the end of an entire era of companions we loved. River showed up and died on the same day, but her final appearance is one of my favorite episodes ever. The Angles Take Manhattan was SO GOOD. But The Doctor Falls was exciting and tense and tragic. Hell, even Clara’s final episodes were great.

Honestly, this shouldn’t even be a question. I can’t choose. I can’t think of a single one I didn’t love.

Anyway, thanks for reading this, if you got this far! Know what? Doctor Who is still a great show, even if it’s not an obsession anymore. I can see myself doing this rewatch again in a few years, and I’m super looking forward to the next season starting in a couple of weeks!

#doctor who stuff #personal post tag thingy

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colorofmymindposts · 5 years

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Could We Start Again, Please?

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairings: Twelfth Doctor/Missy (implied), Bill Potts/Heather

Warnings: Major Character Death, Alternate Ending to series 10, Major Canon Divergence

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Status: Complete but part two of my The Doctor Falls series (You don’t have to read part one to understand what’s going on)

Word Count: 2800

Summary: When the Doctor falls, Missy rises.

Tags: Heavy Angst, With cute lesbians, While Missy is sad

I don’t know if the tagging system is still messed up, but you can read this work on ao3 under my username colorofmymind! Kudos and comments will be much appreciated!

With a gasp, all the air rushes into her lungs. Everything at once feels completely at rights and out of control, her hearts beating at a pace she knows goes against their natural rhythm, but they should not be beating at all. A calculation taking the span of a nanosecond tells her she needs her hearts going at least eighty beats per minute if she is going to survive, so she simultaneously counts her breaths and adjusts their volume to achieve this rate. Simply put, it’s a manual override of her basic biological functions. Her eyelids had fluttered open with the sudden rush of air, but she’s only managed to blink stupidly, frustratingly, as her eyes operating at full capacity— unlike her hearts, lungs, and other vital organs—are not necessary for her to stay alive.

Staying alive, surviving, carrying on. With all her experience, so innately a part of her core, Missy has a more complex and nuanced knowledge than any other creature in the universe on the most universal want: the perpetual avoidance of death, of end. At one time, that came at any price. In this case, however, there is a discrepancy even her beautiful, brilliant brain can’t account for. Perhaps it’s because her brain is functioning at the level of a 21st century backup generator, but that is really besides the point right now.

She should not be alive right now.

There had been no contingency plan in place because in no scenario had she considered her past self’s somewhat deserved retaliation. There are no Time Lords who could have saved her this time; she is the last Time Lady they would ever spend their resources on now. Yet, unmistakably, she lay on the same ground where she flirted with death once more and had somehow been revived, like a debtor of a long overdue payment miraculously having escaped the clutches of his dreaded collector.

Logic rules that there can only be one other alternative, an impossible one but so is he (irritatingly and incredibly so). The thought of Doctor flashes to the front her mind, and she sits up faster than she had fallen. She cries out immediately upon doing so, her hands arresting the spot where she’d been shot with the Laser Screwdriver, which flares as if in a hot rage. Gritting her teeth, she casts about for her umbrella and finds it quickly enough. Her body and voice cry out once again in resistance as she uses her umbrella to leverage herself to a standing position, the pain from the shot still as intense as it was before.

That answers one question. She hasn’t been healed, something has merely enabled her hearts to restart, so it is likely that she has very well lost the ability to regenerate. Whatever she does now, she’ll have to do with trepidation and care. Still, it’s certainly not the worst body she’s been stuck in, and at that she laughs to herself. She’s done this entirely to herself, a thought that has often crossed her mind over the last 70 years. While her past self has probably long since reached his TARDIS and regenerated into her current incarnation, there is some irony in his actions. His plan having failed at ending her life, she’ll be stuck in this state for the foreseeable future, a Time Lady who has realized the errors of her past and wants to do what’s right, everything he despised and feared becoming.

With that she sets off through the forest to find the Doctor. The trees thin as she traces her path back to the settlement, and the distinctive scents of fire and burning metal begin to assault her senses. Missy quickens her pace, trepidation and care forgotten as she spots the Cybermen bodies by the dozens littering the ground around her, the smell of ash and smoke and death clinging to the air like petrichor after a storm, one she knows the Doctor has brought down on this land.

“Doctah!” Her shriek echoes in the barren wasteland. She’s running now without abandon, eyes scanning the area for any sign of him when she notices the girl, Bill her memory supplies, standing besides her curiously wet companion, but that can’t be possible, she looks undoubtedly human again—

The next thing Missy knows her face is in the dirt and the ash, and every part of her body aches with acute degree. She drags her feet over the Cyberman body she must have tripped over in her distracted state. Her umbrella probably had been flung some distance away from her fall, so she sticks her right hand out, latching onto an arm, that should be enough to support her into a sitting position at least, when a sickening realization hits her. The arm isn’t metal. She snaps her head upward to look, to prove it isn’t true, it can’t be.

It is him. Undeniably. The Doctor lays in ash and debris like a forgotten soldier, the red inner lining of his coat splayed out by his sides as though he lay in his own pool of blood. She stares in silence, gathering herself to sit besides him and take one of his hands in her own to feel for anything, a pulse, regeneration energy, even a device to feign the appearance of death.

Nothing.

She stops breathing for several seconds herself; it’s an uncontrollable response, out of respect for her fallen friend who long since took his last breath. His sonic screwdriver is gripped in his other hand, which she lifts out of his grasp, inspecting it for an answer, something, that might restore him. The last action performed by the device had been a sonic pulse, causing a mass explosion of the Mondasian Cybermen but also must have rippled across the entirety of Level 507. This was the catalyst for her hearts restarting. He had saved her one last time, without even knowing it.

“Missy!” A voice she faintly recognizes as the human girl’s shouts at her. “What the hell are you doing here? Where have you been?! We thought you’d run off!”

She lets out a shaky breath before replying, never tearing her gaze away from the Doctor. “Is that what he told you?”

“I,” Bill starts and falters. After a moment or so she answers, “He didn’t say anything about what happened with you. Either version of you.”

Missy blinks away the tears forming in her eyes and finally looks up and away from the Doctor. Here and now is not the place for her grief, at least not in front of his companion and...whoever this other girl is. Missy actually has no idea where she came from.

“You’re...human again,” she comments lamely.

“Oh! Well, sort of, not really,” Bill denies bizarrely and incomprehensibly. “I’m in a body that looks like the one I was in when I was a human, but I’m still technically dead. That’s actually me over there.”

She points over to a fallen Cyberman a few meters away. “Heather saved me,” she finishes with a beaming smile with eyes only for the wet blonde girl Missy presumes to be Heather standing to Bill’s right.

“How romantic,” Missy says, trying not to sound sardonic. These humans and their happy endings. The universe has none to spare for her. That’s probably right.

“The Doctor would have been glad to see you’ve found happiness, as am I.” Bill looks at Missy curiously, the disbelief transparent on her features. “I was the one who caused you to become a Cyberman in the first place, no matter which incarnation caused it. Perhaps it was both of our faults. In any case, it should have never happened. I’m glad to see that this is one of my mistakes that has reversed itself,” she explains.

Bill looks back to Heather, seeming to wordlessly reaffirm that she had in fact heard those words come from Missy. In all fairness, Missy had been introduced to this companion of his as a “monster” and she even self-admitted to throwing a little girl down a volcano. A little skepticism of her goodness is to be expected, healthy even.

“I can’t believe it. I thought you were a monster, and the last ten years only made me more sure of that,” Bill confesses, the weight of those ten years visible in the set of her shoulders, the intensity of her gaze and the pain behind it. “But, even after all that, and everything you did to me, which was awful and cruel, I’ve realized maybe he wasn’t wrong. The Doctor, I mean. You have turned good. At least enough of you has.”

Missy opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Just a short time ago, she would have laughed and scoffed at a human attempting to give her wisdom and judge her character, in fact she had done so in the past.“No, I’ve not turned good,” Missy had said to Clara after her accusation of the contrary, killing two men in the square to prove it. One of them had been a married man with a child, she recalls. She had held onto that for so long, the belief she was bad, irredeemable and revelled in it. Her time in the Vault has taken care of that last problem at least, but she could never be sure of the former two. But if a woman who has been tortured by her for ten years can see a glimpse of morality in her, then perhaps...perhaps that is something.

“Bill, I think it’s time to go,” Heather says.

Ah, that does bring up a good point. She is alive but still requires transport. So does the Doctor. They had left each other to die on battlefields before, this is true, but it was different then. It was their battleground, the center stage, one or none of them left as the curtain drew to a close on that adventure, always the promise of rage, the game, of return. This is and is not her battleground. Yes, her former self in a way created and enabled it, but he’d abandoned it, no final climactic fight with the Doctor. The Master and Missy reserved that honor for each other. She was not here, either version, to battle the Doctor or protect him, and for that very reason alone, he must certainly be dead.

She thinks briefly back to two weeks ago, when she flippantly vowed “If somebody kills you and it's not me, we'll both be disappointed.” That was the planned end, always, scripted from the day they’d broken their pact to travel the universe together and faced each other as best enemies. But it was theoretical at best, they always survived one way or another, and it all started again. She wonders what he must have thought, possibly what he said, before he died. Missy cards her fingers through the Doctor’s mess of grey curls, only for smoky ash to lodge under her nails. She instead opts for holding his hand, once warm in her own just hours ago, turned cold.

Bill protests, “But the Doctor—and Missy—we can’t just leave them.”

Missy looks up once again, surprised. While Bill has obviously somewhat reevaluated Missy’s character, she was not expecting an offer for help, at least not for herself.

“Of course we can’t. And we’re not going to,” Heather grins back.

Before Missy can properly register it, she’s travelling with incredible speed through time and space, until she’s greeted with the warm psychic presence of the Doctor’s TARDIS. Simple as that, she’s back within these walls. So is the Doctor, still beside her, his hand held by hers. Bill and Heather stand to the side.

“I suppose this is the only place he’d rest in peace. If there’s any place he’d do that,” Bill remarks.

Missy notices the blonde one starting to move for the controls, and with that she’s up and blocking the girl’s path, although with much more difficulty than she’d like. (She really must look into what the TARDIS has in terms of pain medication.)

“Oi! What do you think you’re doing? This is a very complicated sentient space time capsule that requires a careful and knowledgeable hand to guide her. She may just seem like a second-hand gas stove at first, but she’s really like a sweet, unreliable old dog, and only a few people know how to take care of her,” she explains with a silly if strained simile. Humans seem to respond better to that than just her shouting she’s superior, even if it’s true.

“I want to pilot us away from the spaceship, and I know how to fly her,” Heather insists, pulling the lever to start dematerialization. “I’m the Pilot. I can fly anything.”

“Really!” Bill exclaims.

“Yeah,” Heather replies with a wink. “You’re not an exception either.”

Rolling her eyes, Missy takes this opportunity to continue piloting them away while the lovebirds chatter away with their innuendoes and desires and promises. At least, she thinks that’s what they’re doing at any rate.

“So I’m like you now. I’m not human anymore.”

“I can make you human again. It's all just atoms. You can rearrange them any way you like. I can put you back home, you can make chips, and live your life, or you can come with me. It's up to you, Bill, but, before you make up your mind—” Heather rushes to the doors, opening them before Missy has any time to stop her. Luckily for all of them, they are in Quadrant 3 of this galaxy and not the time vortex. A single blue supergiant illuminates the blackness of space. Any protests she had formed quickly fail her, instead captured by the beauty of the star. She cannot remember a time before now where she could admire something like this; a star burning, something she could always appreciate, but of its own accord, a master to none like her. And that’s okay now.

Missy realizes that she has long tuned out the ongoing conversation until Bill is suddenly in her line of sight. Bill has her lips pursued, clearly about to say something she’s conflicted about but has deemed important enough to share.

“Missy, I’m leaving—with Heather. A lot of things have obviously changed since we got on that spaceship together: you, me, Nardole, and the Doctor,” Bill declares, casting a glance at the Doctor lying still on the console floor. “I think somehow I still want to travel the universe after all this, but that’s going to happen with Heather from now on. I’m also okay with leaving because I really believe you can take care of yourself now and the TARDIS. You have before anyways. Just really try not to be like that bloke that came before you, alright?”

Missy has no idea how to respond. Of course, it’s not like she wanted Bill and her gal pal crowding up the TARDIS, but she also has no clue as to where to go next with the Doctor’s TARDIS and his lifeless body on her own.

“Oh and another thing, yeah? Whether the Doctor’s dead or not, I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. You have to take care of him. Promise me,” Bill’s voice shook.

It doesn’t take her a second to respond. “Of course.” In any scenario, she would always be there for the Doctor. A memory she’d not been trying to recall, of “Love is a promise” in his voice spoken in a graveyard, reverberates in her brain suddenly. She forces down it, down below the endless layers of freshly surfaced regrets, where she hopes to never recover it.

Bill nods and then turns away, walking in a semicircle until she reaches the Doctor’s side and kneels beside him.

“You know what, old man? I'm never going to believe you're really dead. Because one day everyone's just going to need you too much. Until then,” Bill bends down to kiss his cheek. “It's a big universe, but I hope I see you again.Where there's tears, there's hope.” Her voice cracks at the last sentence, and Missy cannot find it within herself to chide the human’s sentimentality even in her own head. Bill stands finally, going to join her star-eyed lover.

“Just one thing. I've been through a lot since the last time we met, so I'll show you around.”

They clasp hands, and jump out of the TARDIS, flying on an unknown path, sure to include a variety of attractions and dangers with it. Plenty of love and kindness as well. As the TARDIS doors slam shut, Missy knows they will be more than fine.

She is left alone with the Doctor and his TARDIS.

#my writing #fanfiction #twissy #best enemies #space spouses #bill x heather #immortal space lesbians #space girlfriends #missy #the master #gomez!master #twelfth doctor #the doctor #bill potts #heather #doctor who #hope y'all enjoy angst #and cute lesbians #next part should be coming soon

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whovianfeminism · 6 years

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Whovian Feminism Reviews “Twice Upon A Time”

Letting go is always the hardest part. And yet, letting go is how this show survives. We have to let go of Doctors and companions, TARDIS windows and sonic devices, and producers and showrunners to let new ones come in. It’s how Doctor Who has survived for 54 years. Change and go on, or die as we are, as the Doctor would say. But it doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier. "Twice Upon a Time” gave us an episode filled with both sadness and hope, a perfect balance between a heartfelt goodbye to Peter Capaldi and a generous welcome to Jodie Whittaker.

To prepare for this historic regeneration, we’re brought all the way back to another iconic regeneration -- the very first one. After playing William Hartnell himself in An Adventure in Space and Time, David Bradley returns to Doctor Who to play the First Doctor in “Twice Upon A Time.” His portrayal of the First Doctor is incredibly well done, recreating the feel of Hartnell’s performance while also providing his own subtle interpretation of the role. In the unseen moments between the First Doctor’s escape from the Cyberman ship and his regeneration in the TARDIS, Steven Moffat slips in a story about how he, too, might have resisted regeneration.

Although it doesn’t quite break the fourth wall, I can’t recall an episode of Doctor Who that acknowledges quite as much as “Twice Upon a Time” that we are, in fact, watching a television show. The “Previously...” opener doesn’t just show us an abbreviated version of “The Tenth Planet,” it tells us that it took place 709 episodes ago. Black and white footage from “Tenth Planet” is show in its original, smaller dimensions before it beautifully transitions from Hartnell’s Doctor to Bradley’s Doctor, in color and in modern television dimensions.

There’s also a bit of a retrospective on the era and the actor which influenced the character of the First Doctor. Though this is a show about an alien time traveller, Doctor Who has always been a product of the people of its time, and has reflected their biases and prejudices. This was something that Steven Moffat was very aware of when writing his version of Hartnell’s Doctor. He told SFX magazine that the First Doctor reflected "old fashioned attitudes” in ways that stand out to modern audiences but were “normal and invisible” at the time. And instead of ignoring that, he tried to embrace it and confront it head on.

The first Doctor has several astounding moments that lay his sexism bare in “Twice Upon A Time,” several of which are grounded in comments and actions from previous stories. The First Doctor threatens to give Bill a “jolly good smacked bottom,” which is exactly what he threatened Susan with in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” (a line which Hartnell may have improvised himself). And the First Doctor mentions to both the Twelfth Doctor and Bill about how he expects female companions to clean up the TARDIS and fetch him things. That moment is handled much better than a similar one from “The Five Doctors,” where the Fifth Doctor asks a very offended Tegan to “humor” the First Doctor when he makes a similar demand of her.

Although I understand and appreciate what Moffat was attempting to do, I have to admit that after the fourth or fifth sexist comment it began to feel overplayed. His point could have been made with just one or two lines. Eventually, they began to actively detract from my enjoyment of “Twice Upon a Time.” The last thing I wanted to hear in the episode introducing Jodie Whittaker was two men sniggering over how all women are made of glass, even if they were clearly in the wrong. Hartnell and the First Doctor were hardly progressive, and it’s perfectly reasonable to want to address that. But to have some of the worst moments of that era of Doctor Who thrown so frequently in your face was just exhausting.

And yet, I have to admit there might be a generational difference here. I later watched "Twice Upon a Time" with my mother, who's just one year younger than Moffat, and she actually appreciated those moments. She grew up watching the same era of television as Moffat did, and remembered just how pervasive and accepted those sexist attitudes and comments were. These types of comments were already outrageously outdated and caricaturish by the time I was watching television in the 90s. But they were the background radiation of the media my mom consumed at a young age -- a poison in the foundation of our current media that we are still, generations later, trying to clear out. She felt it was important to have those moments called out for what they were, instead of letting them be swept away and forgotten.

And she felt that those moments perhaps revealed the endemic bigotry that kept a woman Doctor from being able to come forward earlier. Is it really believable that an alien time traveller would believe it is appropriate to spank a grown woman or would be befuddled by lesbians? No. Is it also believable that an alien capable of totally changing their physical appearance has only ever appeared as a white man? No. But did we really need to belabor the point and escalate the problematic comments? From my perspective, no.

Between three Doctors and two regenerations, we hardly have any time for Bill Potts, who makes a re-appearance to help urge the Doctor towards regenerating. Although it’s always a delight to have Pearl Mackie back on our screens, Bill is unfortunately not much more than a plot device in “Twice Upon a Time.” She’s used as a tool by the Testimony to either manipulate or understand the Doctor. She asks the right questions so the Doctors can provide us with exposition. And she’s there to put in the emotional labor to convince the Twelfth Doctor that he should regenerate. Bill does have moments of charm but ... that’s it. Moments. In the end, nothing much has changed since “The Doctor Falls.” She still lacks a satisfying story arc that is wholly her own, and exists almost entirely to further the Doctor’s arc. It makes me long even more for the next season of Doctor Who, where a woman will be the lead protagonist and a woman of color will be one of her companions, and it will be much harder to make their stories center around white male characters.

But for the time being, this is still Peter Capaldi’s story, and I cannot begrudge him the incredible ending that he so justly deserved. The man who was introduced as the Doctor while holding his lapels in an imitation of Hartnell ends his tenure by encouraging the First Doctor towards regeneration. The man who began by creating a “darker, less user-friendly” Doctor lands on his defining ethos: “Be kind.”

There is fear and sadness here, too. Regenerating isn’t dying, but it is an ending, and both of the Doctors are afraid of what comes next. The First is afraid of who he might become. The Twelfth is afraid that he might never leave the battlefield. But they still get another chance at life — which is why it is so very fitting to put them up against a British Army Captain from WWI, who is facing a very real and very final death. He was resigned to his death, until the Doctors accidentally gave him hope. Now he’s had time to think about everything he will lose, and he is afraid.

But kindness underlies everything. The Doctor pushes time forward to save a stranger’s life, relying on the simple and yet extraordinary kindness two armies showed each other in the middle of a brutal war. That selfless act of kindness gives the First Doctor the courage and conviction to regenerate. The Testimony allows the Twelfth Doctor to see his companions one last time and restores his memories of Clara Oswald, giving him peace. But it is one more call for help, one more act of kindness, that finally convinces the Twelfth Doctor he must regenerate.

His final triumphant speech epitomized the Twelfth Doctor, and the man who played him. Peter Capaldi will be remembered above all for being one of the kindest, most generous actors to ever pilot the TARDIS. He understands intimately what it is like to be a fan of the show, and what the Doctor means to so many. He was generous with his time and went the extra mile to show his appreciation. And he never, ever gave a condescending answer to children. His final lines about how children can hear the Doctor’s name came directly from his answer to a young fan at an episode screening.

I’ll admit that I have never before cried at a Doctor’s regeneration. During Capaldi’s, I sobbed. Bill was right — the hardest part of knowing the Doctor is letting him go.

Enormous credit has to be given to Rachel Talalay for creating such a gorgeous episode. I feel like I say that every time I review one of her episodes, and yet it has never been more true. She faced such a variety of challenges in this episode, from faithfully recreating scenes from the 1966 story “The Tenth Planet” to a grim and damp WW1 battlefield, from spaceships and glass ladies to explosions galore. And never is an opportunity wasted to turn what could be a simple scene into a work of art. When the two Doctors first meet at the South Pole, the scene is infused with the shifting, changing blues and greens of the Aurora Australis. When the Twelfth Doctor is considering whether or not to regenerate, the sky is filled with a fading golden light.

And never has a regeneration been quite as incredible as Jodie Whittaker’s. Most regenerations are efficient -- one Doctor burns or fades (or sneezes) into the next, and he plunges straight into a new adventure. But Whittaker is revealed in a mix of intimate glimpses and long, slow shots. We see her lit from behind, standing amongst smoke and light. We see her stumbling to see her own reflection, our first glimpse of regeneration from the Doctor’s perspective. Each scene, beautiful on its own, builds up our anticipation until we finally get our first full reveal of the Thirteenth Doctor. It’s a regeneration that will be remembered as being truly iconic.

Steven Moffat may never have cast a woman to play the Doctor himself, but he has been laying the groundwork within the narrative of the show for a woman Doctor for a very long time. And in an episode that could’ve been focused solely on memorializing Capaldi and Moffat’s time on the show, they both instead provided an incredible generous welcome to Jodie Whittaker.

“Twice Upon a Time” is, above all, a story about letting go. The First Doctor believes it is courageous to simply live and die as himself, but it is later revealed to be fear — and perhaps vanity and selfishness too. The viewers know, from seeing all the Doctors who have followed, that he has so much left to do. There are so many adventures to be had, planets to be saved, and friends waiting to be known. Things can’t end with the First Doctor.

But it’s not just the Doctor who needs to hear this —it’s the viewers too. We all have favorite eras and favorite Doctors, and that’s okay. But some fans go even further to say that the show should have ended after their favorite time or Doctor, as if because they got no enjoyment out of what followed that it held no value for anyone else. To end the story now, to deny all those stories that are waiting to be told, is selfishness.

Some are just nervous or afraid about what comes next. And that’s okay. I won’t deny I’m nervous about what the future holds too. But “Twice Upon a Time” has a message for us too — this is a chance worth taking. We wouldn’t have Peter Capaldi if someone didn’t take a chance on Patrick Troughton, or all the men who followed him.

Jodie Whittaker is a chance worth taking.

The Doctor has to grow and change, or the show will die. This is a change that brings the character forward into a new and exciting direction. This opens up a whole new universe of stories, and gives another wonderful actor a chance to define the role. And it gives a whole new generation of young girls and boys a new hero to look up to.

In one beautifully delightful moment, we get a glimpse of Jodie Whittaker and the Doctor she might be. And I cannot wait to see where we go from here.

#Doctor Who #Twice Upon a Time #Peter Capaldi #Jodie Whittaker #Twelfth Doctor #Thirteenth Doctor #The Time Lady #reviews

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tardispowered · 6 years

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Book Review: The Day She Saved the Doctor

Summary

Spoiler Warning: If you don’t like spoilers, don’t read. (That being said, it’s basically a one star read)

So, I had an issue with this book as soon as I saw the title. “The Day She Saved the Doctor”. A lot of this has to do with my near contempt for the majority of the back half of Moffat era Who. It’s not that they’re progressive because I am all for that- but there’s this big act like being progressive in Who is this NEW THING BOUGHT TO YOU TODAY BY MOFFAT! NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!

And… it has.

I mean, yes, Classic Who has its problems. It’s as much of its time as anything. However, DW has always been progressive and that includes Her Saving Him all the freaking time! How many times have Sarah Jane and/or Leela saved four’s ass? Even in Nu!Who, 9 wouldn’t be alive if Rose hadn’t pulled his ass out of the fire more often than not. There are instances of her saving him throughout the series so this is not new and to act like it is feels like an insult.

Still, I support women writers of Doctor Who because we need more of them. It’s still very much a boy’s arena. And the fact that I have contention with these stories is partly the writers but also partly the editor who decided these were good enough. Because they aren’t. They really aren’t. And it makes this book seem like a gimmick to shine the spotlight once more on HOW GREAT WHO IS NOW SEE WHAT HE HAS GIVEN US WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL

Well I’m not—because this is bullshit.

Ok, to be fair it caps off at about 90% bullshit with 10% being decent to pretty good. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?

Sarah Jane and the Temple of Eyes – Jaqueline Rayner

Props where props are due, I started out really enjoying this one. Sarah Jane and Four were both well characterized and it made me laugh out loud in several parts. Some bits made me side-eye a little, such as Sarah getting jitters over the mention of Blindman’s Bluff… but as she’d been blinded and fairly recently I imagine, given the weight of it in the story, I went along with it. There were a few Moffat Era (from here on out abbreviated to ME) bits that me sigh but otherwise, yes fine.

And thennn Sarah Jane gets kidnapped. Which okay fine sure.

And four gets kidnapped trying to rescue Sarah okay sure

The antagonist wanted memories, Sarah offered to give them memories of hers, the antagonist declined saying they didn’t need them, Sarah said the antagonist wouldn’t have memories like hers. Now, this is set in Ancient Rome so I was thinking, right, makes sense, modern girl and all

But no. Because SJ has memories of the DOCTOR and the DOCTOR is the BEST THING TO EVER EXIST and she would HATE TO LIVE WITHOUT HIM

And this is the one ME thing that consistently bugs the shit out of me. This CULT OF THE DOCTOR where everyone falls at their feet salivating in love or fear at his very presence. He is even called a God in this narrative to fit the lonely God title that 12 gets. And I hate that. He’s not a God. He’s not a hero. He’s a guy who likes running around the universe and not being told what to do. And he does help and save the day and that’s what makes him a good person.

But no he has to be THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER AND LET US ALL WORSHIP HIM BECAUSE HE IS GOOD AND RIGHT and so on

Moreover, I am assuming this book is bent toward one of a more feminist ideology, and I have no problems with that.

Only it’s hard to believe that when Sarah Jane has a line like: Oh the Doctor is talking down to me but he’s 700+ so it’s alright.

Also I hated that the Doctor, the fourth Doctor of all of them, said out loud that Sarah Jane is awesome and so good and he trusts her and so on and so on. Because nothing says subtlety like a ham handed asspat right? And ooc for four too.

But one thing that really bugged me near the end was the Doctor saying: “After all, if we can’t trust a bunch of women with the secrets of the universe, who can we trust?” And not even tongue in cheek. I imagine it’s supposed to be feminist or something but iit’s really not because HEY GUESS WHAT Women can be evil too and use that knowledge against others. And in fact the main antagonist ALREADY HAD but she was a scheming woman who wanted power and not like these who… are apparently better or something. I don’t even know.

It also felt really patronizing to women of ancient Rome who were, apparently, so shackled by the patriarchy that they couldn’t do anything else but be Oppressed. And, granted, it probably wasn’t great being a woman in Ancient Rome compared to modern day, but it showed nothing of their strengths and what they did have. What they could do. It was all: Poor Women Oppressed Doing Terrible Things.

It also didn’t help that Ancient Rome was just a set dressing. Like I’m not asking for a historical epic but it was just presented so slap dash and very little effort was put into making it seem like a real historical place.

Finally, Sarah Jane read a bit young to me. She generally has more confidence then that. (BUT IF SHE HAD THAT CONFIDENCE FROM THE BEGINNING, HOW CAN THE DOCTOR INSPIRE HER? /gag) Though it feels to me (and I could be wrong) that she just wasn’t used to writing Sarah Jane.

Two out of five stars

Rose and the Snow Window – Jenny T. Colgan

This is the only good story of the lot. The author’s bio says that Colgan writes for Big Finish and done 10th Doctor stories so it makes sense. It’s nicely paced, nicely plotted (more or less) and it’s clear she knows what she’s doing. Though I will say as a bit of an aficionado of 9, the writing in the story does tend to shade more to 10 at times, so the characterization, for me, isn’t as on point as I’d like it. Also there were some weird lines that made me go: bzuh? Overall though, it was entertaining, and Rose was well written and Nikolai was adorable (if not fleshed out terribly well). The ending was a bit more rushed than not but I actively liked reading it. Enough so I’d give the book overall one star rather than just a half.

Because, most importantly, Rose actually actively saved 9’s ass. So well done there

Three out of five stars.

Clara and the Maze of Cui Palta- Susan Calman

Calman’s bio mentions no previous involvement in Doctor Who and, yeah, I can kinda tell. I mean, far be it from me to say someone has to have official endorsement to be a good writer for Who (If that were the case I would be able to watch S10 without frothing at the mouth. Not to mention the awesome fanfiction writers out here) but it’s sort of clear she doesn’t work with these characters often.

You could tell that she at least got the gist of eleven and knew what he was supposed to be like but in reality he was really skewed. But not as bad as Clara. Hooh boy. Clara was not done well. The basics seem to be okay but she’s entirely too giddy in a girlish kind of way (which isn’t really suit her at all.) Laughing and clapping hands and things of that nature. And then I feel like far too paranoid being lost in the maze.

Because that’s all the story is. Them lost in maze. Granted there’s a skeleton suggesting they should probably leave sooner than later, but nothing chases them. There’s no real danger but them being lost. In a maze. It was kind of a boring read to be honest.

And then it ends with another ASSPAT FOR FEMINISM with 11 saying:

‘Clara, I was wrong to have not listened to you sooner. It was the maze, doing funny things to my judgement…. But I do trust you, I hope you know that’

Because if you don’t have it down in Writing that the Doctor loves and respects Clara and knew he did wrong then it’s just not enough. Gotta hammer it in there. Also it undercuts itself by him apologizing then blaming the maze. If it really was the maze, then he’s got nothing to apologize for. If it wasn’t, then don’t bring it up.

Anyway, she sort of saved the Doctor in this one. Kind of. But she mostly saved herself. I mean, yes, they could have been wandering around that maze for a very long time but she would have died of natural causes long long long looooonng before he would’ve.

So, go team, I guess. /shrug

One out of five stars.

Bill Potts and the Jackets-Dorothy Koomson

To start out, I have to admit that while I love the idea of Bill Potts and Pearl Mackie knocks the acting out of the water—I don’t think S10 gave her much character to work with. Oh she had some but to put it simply, S10 was mostly concerned with Missy and PROGRESSION POINTS. (and I am 1000% for a black gay woman as a companion, but hey give her something to do beside saying she’s gay in every episode and then have her wait ten years being slowly turned into a cyberman before ‘fridging’ her in the end to fuel 12 angst. Yes, she want off with Heather. But she’d only known Heather for maybe MAYBE a handful of hours.)

Still despite my extreme dislike for S10 I am always willing to give new writers a chance.

But unfortunately in this story it was clear that the writer had no idea what they were doing and it showed. MAN did it show. Bill was portrayed alright given the circumstances of her characterization (or lack thereof) but 12 was so badly done it’s not even funny. Forget the 12th regeneration, he’s not even the Doctor.

For example

Upon confronted with someone who claims to be Bill (who is the real one) when he already has a Bill in the TARDiS (and nothing otherwise wacky or dangerous is going on) he flat out refuses to consider any possibility but that it’s not Bill and tells them to go home. There’s no investigation. No nothing.

I mean it COULD BE that I missed something in reading (because I was annoyed so I did skim) that fake!Bill was using memory alteration on him or something but if she was it doesn’t stand out.

But even if that’s true, 12 is just acting like an asshole through most of this. Moreso than he even did in S8. It’s like that’s the only version that the author knows and they ran with it. But it’s not 12 and certainly not s10 12 who had learned a lot through Clara. (and retains it despite not remembering her)

Like he is severely mad at antagonist and agrees to help her but tells her to, to paraphrase: Get in the TARDiS now before he changes his mind.

Which fine, if she had been someone murderous or had tortured people or whatever. But there is clear indication at that point in the story (and the narrative supports the idea) that she was going to give Bill herself back but she didn’t trust the Doctor to help her. She didn’t hurt anyone. She just wants to get home. Even grumpy 12 would be more compassionate than that because guess what? Compassion is the Doctor’s default.

Also the real kick in the teeth is that Bill didn’t even save him. There was nothing to save him from. She more or less saved herself which is all well and good but when the title and idea of the entire book is: ‘When She Saved the Doctor’, you’d expect her to do a little saving.

It didn’t help either that the story was poorly constructed to and overall just an aggravating read.

No stars for this one. I’d be tempted to give it negative stars but rather blame the author, I’d rather blame the editor who thought this one was ok.

Because it’s not.

It reallllly fricking isn’t.

SO YEAH I wouldn’t recommend this book at all. It has a decent 9/Rose story where Rose is cute as hell but beyond that, it doesn’t even live up to its own hype. It’s sad too because it could have been so much more.

#doctor who #the day she saved the doctor #book review #sarah jane smith #rose tyler #clara oswald #bill potts #doctor who books #one out of five stars

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chasingthecosmos · 4 years

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Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 19/40 Read on AO3 here.

“‘Oh, dear. Looks like we might have picked up an extra passenger,’ the Doctor grumbled to himself. His gaze raised to Rose’s once more and she was struck by the sheer intensity of it and the way that he managed to look at once so familiar, and yet so different from what she was used to. ‘Best find something to hold on to,’ he warned her ominously.”

A Season 8 & 9 AU centering around Rose Tyler and her newly-regenerated Doctor as they both struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of some unknown force that seems to be drawing them together. Will they be able to solve the mystery of who is pulling the strings before it’s too late?

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first.

Rose could sense the Doctor's mind racing as he swiftly ran through the calculations for their current situation and chances for survival. It seemed to Rose that he was working at a far faster pace than usual, desperate to keep one step ahead of one of his oldest rivals.

Meanwhile, Rose's thoughts were racing just as fast as she tried to stay one step ahead of the cybermen's databases in an attempt to convince them that she could be of better use to them as a living pawn rather than a dead threat.

Suddenly, however, there was a sharp sting of pain through Rose's mental connection with the Doctor, and she felt her breath catch in her chest as the bond between them faded and slipped through her fingers when the Doctor fell unconscious.

Guard the graveyards, he cried out desperately. Rose ... stay safe ...

Her lies to the cybermen were beginning to grow a bit thin as she felt a wave of panic wash over her that was both hers and the Doctor's combined. What had happened to him to make him suddenly go unconscious like that? How was she supposed to face this threat on her own without him?

"You are Clara Oswald," the cyberman before Rose insisted as two others quickly joined it and the three of them all stared at her with matching blank, sinister expressions.

"I'm not," Rose insisted through gritted teeth. "'Clara Oswald' is a construct. I exist across all of space and time - do you really think I would bother confining myself to a single, human life in the twenty-first century? I made this form and this name in order to help the Doctor. Destroy me, and I'll simply make another - and I'll keep on going forever and ever until I watch every single last cyberman empire crumble and fall away into dust."

"This information cannot be confirmed," one of the cybermen before her announced after a brief, confused pause.

"Go on - do another scan, if you want to. I've got all the time in the world, boys," Rose replied teasingly. "You, on the other hand, do not. Because I already know what's going to happen next - the Doctor and I are going to stop you and there's nothing that you can do about it."

"Incorrect," a voice from behind Rose interrupted suddenly. When she turned, she was unsurprised to see a fourth cyberman was now approaching them and was watching her with that same expressionless, immovable gaze. "You are Clara Oswald."

"Look, how many times do I have to tell you ...?" Rose sighed exasperatedly.

"Your deception is intended to prolong your life," the cyberman cut her off, coming to a halt at her side and looming over her. "You are Clara Oswald."

Rose opened her mouth to continue to argue, but before she could get a single word out, the cyberman at her side raised it's hand towards her and a jolt of electricity shot through her brain and immediately knocked her unconscious.

While her thoughts swam in a murky, half-dream state, Rose was distantly aware of the Doctor's presence in her head as he continued to fight to save the world and return back to her side once more. She could feel him reaching for her, and she reached back even in sleep, reminding him that she believed in him and knew that he would manage to come up with something and save the day in the end.

Behind all of it, though, there was something ... else. There, just on the edge of Rose's connection with the Doctor was that same, niggling sensation that she had been feeling ever since they had entered into the 3W Institute.

Doctor, what does it want? Rose whined groggily as her exhausted mind shied away from the insistent mental annoyance.

Not to worry, love, the Doctor assured her confidently. I'm working on it.

Rose was so tired that she nearly allowed herself to believe the easy bravado in the Doctor's thoughts, but before she could let her guard lower too far, the strange intruder on the edge of the Doctor's thoughts swelled until Rose could feel the entity like pin pricks against her skin.

Wakey, wakey, a strange, unfamiliar voice called out to her in a forced sing-song manner that instantly had Rose jolting back into consciousness again with a startled gasp.

Rose had to fight to remember what was going on and what she had been doing before she had passed out as she blinked hard and forced herself to take deep, calming breaths in an attempt to regulate her heartbeat once more. She was instantly aware of the fact that she was no longer trapped in the 3W Institute and surrounded by cybermen - that, she supposed, was a good thing. However, it seemed that she had somehow been transported to a graveyard instead - the exact place that the Doctor had warned her about - with no living thing within view to tell her how she had managed to get there.

Doctor ...? Rose reached out warily as she narrowed her gaze on the tall, gray gravestones that stood in neat, orderly lines all around her.

Rose. The Doctor's mind instantly embraced her with a wave of eager relief as he felt her conscious mind return to him. Are you alright? What happened?

She was about to reach out and ask him the same question, but all of her words died on her lips and her thoughts fell into silence as she heard a rustling from behind her and turned to see an entire army of silver men slowly emerging from the graves all around her.

Doctor! Rose cried out in terror. They're here - the cybermen. They're coming out of the graves ...

Stay away from them, he commanded intently. I'm on my way. Just have to deal with ... Missy first.

Doctor, how is this possible? Rose asked desperately as she watched the cybermen standing around her slowly beginning to reanimate. How can the Master be here?

I don't know, he replied morosely. I never know. They just keep coming back - over and over, no matter what I do. Gallifrey and everything else burned and it never made even the smallest bit of difference ...

Doctor, Rose interrupted him gently. We've faced worse odds than this before, remember? Just ... get here and we'll figure something out. You and me, just like we always do.

You don't know her, Rose, the Doctor murmured, the true spike of terror in his thoughts nearly making her dizzy with fear. She had sensed fear from her bondmate before, but never like this. You don't know what she's capable of. She destroys everything she touches ...

Well she hasn't met me, yet, Rose reminded him determinedly as she straightened her spine and settled her gaze on the cyberman nearest to her, who was watching her with its steady, black gaze.

"Are you the one who brought me here?" she demanded coolly.

"Affirmative," it replied concisely.

"So you know who I am, right?" she continued pointedly.

"You are the Doctor's associate."

Rose threw her head back in a humorless laugh as she shook her head pityingly at the metal creature. "No, I'm not," she replied quietly. "I'm not his associate. I'm his wife."

The cyberman before her twitched as though she had slapped it as she continued haughtily, "Have you got any sort of Cyber-Internet in that tin head of yours? Look up what happens to you if you harm me."

"Where is the Doctor?" the cyberman insisted.

"I'm not telling you that, don't be daft," Rose replied through tightly-clenched teeth. "I would never, ever give up the Doctor. He is the closest person to me in this whole world. He is the man I will always forgive, always trust - the one man I would never, ever lie to."

The cyberman before her was visibly shaking now, and Rose twitched away from it despite herself as she watched it slowly raise its hand to its face and carefully remove the blank, expressionless mask to reveal the mangled, contorted features of Danny Pink beneath.

"Danny ...?" Rose breathed in terrified confusion.

"Danny Pink is dead," he replied matter-of-factly, though Rose could hear the unsure waver in his voice as he stared at her with a hooded, haunted expression. "Help me," he breathed in quiet desperation.

"Danny ..." Rose whispered in disbelief, her head gently shaking from side to side as she slowly looked him over. This simply wasn't possible - cybermen destroyed who a person was. AS soon as they were wired into the suit, their emotions were inhibited and they became thoughtless, soulless robots. So how was she speaking to Danny Pink right now? As he said - "Danny Pink is dead" ...

"Danny, I'm so sorry ..." she murmured. Rose knew that this wasn't the first time that she had spoken these words to the poor young man, and she was beginning to wonder why she had ever attempted to befriend him in the first place. It seemed that all she had ever done was hurt and betray him, and now he was suffering a fate even worse than death, all because of her.

"I need you to do something for me," he went on haltingly. "I can't do it myself."

Rose took a cautious step forward as she watched him reach for the large, circular panel in the center of his chest and removed it to reveal the emotional inhibitor that somehow hadn't yet been switched on. She was already shaking her head once again in terrified denial as he slowly raised his gaze back to her and informed her, "It's an inhibitor. It's not activated. I need you to switch it on."

"Danny, please ..." Rose muttered desperately. "Please, no. Don't ask me to do this ..."

"Please, Clara," Danny begged. "I don't want to feel like this." But the fear and sadness in his eyes was so human - how could he possibly as her to take that away? But what other choice did she have? To suffer in this constant, never-ending state of agony was madness. She couldn't force Danny to go through that just because she didn't want to be the one responsible for killing him.

Rose ...

The Doctor's presence swelling in her head made Rose gasp past the lump in her throat and she felt something in her chest expand as she blinked past her tears and desperately latched onto him.

I can't do it, I can't. Doctor, you have to help ...

It's Missy, the Doctor replied distractedly, too lost in his own current dilemma to do much more than commiserate with Rose's current state of heartache. It's always been Missy, pulling us together, leading us to this ...

Doctor ... Rose sighed gently against his thoughts.

It was always her. She put us together, she brought you to me, she made this happen ...

Then she's even more stupid than she looks, Rose reminded him, pulling hard against his thoughts as she furrowed her brows and focused a determined gaze on the man in the silver suit currently standing in front of her. If it really was her influence, then she doesn't understand anything. She doesn't know how the two of us make each other better - how we work together to overcome the impossible odds, how we always save the day in the end. She must not know the planets we've saved or the people we've rescued or the monsters we've defeated, because if she did - then she never would have put us together in the first place.

Oh, Rose, my Rose, the Doctor sighed in awed wonder as he desperately embraced the hope and fury that she was currently pouring into their mental connection. You are more than she could ever be in all of her regenerations combined.

The third, unwelcome entity on the edge of the Doctor's thoughts gave a twinge of self-righteous reproach at that, but the Doctor didn't pay it any mind as he continued to flood Rose's mind with devoted affection and breathless awe as he gently commanded, Don't do it. Don't turn off Danny's emotions. I'm coming. You're not doing this alone.

Together, Rose agreed with a quick, determined nod. Just like always.

#doctor who #dw #fanfiction #fanfic #dw fanfic #dw fanfiction #doctor who fanfic #doctor who fanfiction #the doctor #twelfth doctor #rose tyler #twelve/rose #twelvexrose #the doctor/rose #the doctorxrose

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whifferdills · 7 years

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“The Doctor Falls” quicktakes:

the cybermen scarecrows both make no sense and tie into so totally and terrifyingly into the overall theme of 'normalized horror' that if anyone is nitpicking based on Logic im gonna have to ask if you've ever enjoyed a piece of fiction, ever

Bill holding 12 is Iconic. the dark mirror of that one photoshoot where Sophie Aldred is carrying Sylvester McCoy. Companions Carrying Around Dr Who Forever

"how many times have you died?" "how many different ways?" like o.k. might be revealing too much of myself but this scene was hotttt

NARDOLE running away with purpose. that face

"oh, am i a woman now?" "well, kind of" "kiss me" "make me" "would you like to be alone?" im....fuckin. yeah

"which would mean more than it usually does" i n n u e n d o

that SONG what are they dancing to. if i remember to edit this i'll try and shazaam it

"old school, nice for a change," Simm!Master says while stroking his beard

Simm remains the slimiest of all Masters and the continuing sense of Missy playing along either to impress him or to play him or...these TWO

"Round??" "It's a little bit" "Shut up" THIS TIME LORD OK

shades of...what's that one where Simm pushes 10 around. Simm v much wants the Dr under his total control, but i think Missy would hugely prefer informed consent

confirming all origins of the Cybermen while dissing Trump and pulling off an unlikely plan: dr who in a nutshell

like even if what happens at the end did not happen, in an ideal world where narrative tropes are equally distributed, this is precisely how you'd do a conversion-type story. the emphasis on the character reacting against the monster they've become. having Bill be human!Bill for the most part really, really works

and the Dr being the only one who sees her, shades of "Last Christmas"

PCap going hard in the paint, dang

"Knock yourself out", and she does. nice

"Seriously, I need to know, is that true?" oh there's so much here and they're so close and it's just. how she looks at her hand after the dr lets it go, and rubs her face, and everything gets weird when dealing with touch telepaths

BILL MY GIRL GO GET EM

"the Doctor's dead, told me he hated you" "yeah heard you the first time" new dynamic: master/missy/nardole

the whole...dangerous person everyone is afraid of has a particular weight, when portrayed as a black lesbian. it's both kind of hinky and is getting at a really deep emotion, there. like sure it's not ideal but for Bill, dunno. this just seems like it rams in hard into her fears in an empathetic way

once again i do believe the Bill & Thete comparisons are deliberate

Bill looking into the mirror like...dang dude

Jelly baby?

aw the quiet whump, 12 is already broken and about to get more broken and. MY BOY. NO

they're so quiet, both of them. this scene is so heartbreakingly underplayed until the "i'm FINE" im

Bill yes i love you and support you

"why can't I be angry" ohhhhh that's a loaded line. maybe not played out so great but. yes. ask this question more, in your fiction

Nardole goes native once again. i love how him being a Computer Genius was woven into the series so he could save the day. nice organic arc, that

Bill & 12 brotp tho oh jeez these two

fuck off Simm!Master. so good at being slimy, and i love it, but a decade on am once again prepared to side-eye anyone who finds him Cute or Hot. he's a fuckboy, right

12's about to do a "Caves of Androzani" please no

Bill realizing 12 can't save her fuckin...fuck

"as my friend...i don't want to live if i can't be me anymore" and instead of "OH but i can SAVE THE DAY" the dr just says "...yeah. i gotchu. but - maybe?" and it's. thank.

s o n i c u m b r e l l a

is Simm!Master now sufficiently obviously gross enough for people to not write fluffy uwu fanfic

BILL MY GIRL

"Is the future gonna be all girl?" "We can only hope" CHINBALLS ARE U LISTENING

aw them three together pointing their sonics while Simm yells "kILL ITT" "well done, genius twins"

Nardole and his new girl...yknow, im happy for them. i like them. best of luck, godspeed

"is it wrong that I... "yes, very" HOLY SHIT AKDIPAHFFHPIAFHPIAWk0R-RY*@%@

kind of a Night of the Hunter vibe here

and a "Listen" vibe

Nardole was found on a doorstep

god the Dr's desperation here, how they just want to be kind even if it kills them. this is My Dr Who, right here. and aw Pcap stop making me tear up

"just to the end, just be kind" thank you murray gold and etc for shutting up, this scene really benefits from a lack of music, can u imagine how much a standard Gold riff would ruin this (sorry i uhhh. like i enjoy gold in broader stories and sometimes he nails it but im not hugely a fan)

and how Missy almost, almost stays

and dR WHO please PLEASE oh god ohgodohgodoh

Them RTD Cyberman Noises

t h e a p p l e o f d i s c o r d

like...okay this was not my dream ending for Twelvedole but the 'fuck off i'm a criminal im gonna ruin this so' and the 'you're stronger' and the.....fuck dude. and Nardole sort of saying goodbye at the tomb/elevator and then going on to live his life...it's bittersweet but i can deal

"You sure?" "You know i am" Aoufqurgo3qrq69r5674248148rfyhwekjs9d8f2q9(((((((((*^

"I need you to be big, and I need you to be brave, and I need you to follow me" NARDOLE

"Now that? was very really nicely done" i'm gonna fling myself into the sun

the Dr won't ever know that she meant to stand by their side and it's so them but it hurts ok

"You know how I go for girls and people my own age" and you're expecting like, oh god, not again, not another companion with a crush on the Dr, but then she says 'no hetero' and the dr's like 'yeh' and they blow themselves up together platonically. friendship goals

my headcanons about Koschei regenerating into Missy on Gallifrey are now kaput but i love, love love love, that they both shot each other in the back while giggling

remember that any character on this show is dead only until someone wants to bring them back

the dr won't ever know that missy would have stood by them and that's so...so them, and it hurts, but it feels right

12 naming off all the times Cybermen fucked shit up. here is where Murray Gold is good

"Let it go" im, i cant

when heather came back is when i outright started crying

BILL LIVES. in a different way. BUT FOREVER AND ALWAYS

but plus 1 to all of us who called heather coming back may they travel thru time and space happily, good luck and godspeed

hit or miss on that dude playing One but rn am erring on the side of it working for me

the Xmas special is gonna destroy me

am genuinely surprised there was no 13 here but i can deffo live with that

"i can fly anything, even you" oooHHHH

OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH

nice

Bill's the Dr now

woo-ee-ooooh oh dogg was that a riff on Clara's theme just fuck me up fam

tbh i feel like 12's earned their 'i don't want to go' more than ten like it's just that they want to stop more than anything

again the xmas special will ruin me

but yeh i liked this story ok

#the doctor falls #dw spoilers

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voyagerafod · 7 years

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Star Trek Voyager: A Fire of Devotion: Part 4 of 4: Hotter Than Hell: Chapter Twelve

Janeway struggled to her feet, still feeling dazed from when she and the others had all slammed against the wall. She was grateful that the Cyberman ship’s inertial dampeners, or whatever their equivalent was, hadn’t failed or she and the others would be so much splattered mess. She looked around. Tom had already gotten up and was frantically trying to hail Voyager, even though he had to know it was no use. Vorik was helping Gilmore to her feet, while Lydia Anderson was checking the back of Jaffen’s head for injuries. “Report,” she said. “We’re near Earth,” Tom said, sounding dejected. “Just not our Earth.” “Can we contact them?” she asked. A part of her hoped that perhaps the Earth of this reality, the one where the Cybermen had originated, would have something they could use to re-open the rift just long enough to get home. At least the fact that Voyager hadn’t replied when Tom tried to contact them meant that, presumably, the rest of her crew had made it home. Tom glared at the image of the planet on the main monitor. “No,” he said. “I was able to tap into the satellite network. The Earth of this universe is still in the early 21st century, though unlike us they didn’t have a Eugenics War. This Earth is more advanced in their 2014 than we were in ours, but not enough to do any good. They don’t even seem to have noticed us yet near as I can tell.”

Tears began forming in Tom’s eyes. He punched the navigation console. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

Janeway wished she had the words to help Tom, but she just didn’t. He had every right to be upset after all. Being separated from people you loved by over seventy thousand light years was one thing, but now there was an entire universe and hundreds of years separating him from his wife and newborn daughter, a child he’d spent mere days with. She looked back at the others. She could see sadness beginning to take hold over Anderson and Gilmore already. Jaffen seemed fine, if a bit dizzy. Vorik was as implacably Vulcan as usual.

Will we forget them too? she thought. Like we forgot about the Cybermen when they came to our universe? Or is it different for us now that we’re in their realm?

“So. What do we do now, Kathy?” Jaffen said. Janeway took a deep breath. She felt deep down like what she was about to say was a lie, but she needed to say something to give her people hope. Her crew, anyway. Jaffen would be happy wherever they were so long as he was with her. That was something she was glad for at least.

“The barrier between our worlds has been breached more than once,” she said. “It can be done again. I don’t know how long it will take, but we will find a way. I’ve gotten my people home before, I can do it again. Hell, if we’re lucky, it won’t take us seven years this time.” She added a smile to that last line, surprising herself at how genuine it felt. This speech was as much for her as it was for the others. “There is a man here, a time traveler, who helped Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise defeat the Borg/Cyberman alliance ten years ago,” she said, though Tom and Jaffen already knew that part. “If we can find him, I imagine he could get us home to our universe.” “How do we find him though?” Marla Gilmore said. “She’s right,” Tom said, slumped in his chair. “You heard what Seven said about him. He goes all over time and space, seemingly at random, in a ship smaller than one of our class 2 shuttles.” Janeway thought about it for a moment. Tom was right about that, but she remembered something else from that briefing; about the kind of man the time traveler was. Everyone looked at her, patiently waiting for what she would say next. “We make an impression,” she said. “Vorik, Gilmore, let’s get this ship in the best shape we can. Tom, go over this ship’s records. I want to know where the major hubs for information and trade are in this universe.”

“Ma’am?” Tom said. “It’s simple. We fix this ship up, we go around looking for sentients in need, and we help them,” Janeway said, now feeling genuinely hopeful instead of just trying to project it. This plan she was formulating had so many ways it could go wrong, but it was the best she had.

Besides, she thought, is this really that much more difficult than some of the crap we went through in our own reality?

Vorik raised an eyebrow. “With all due respect, I fail to see how that helps us return to our reality, Captain.”

“This time traveler,” Janeway said, “this man who simply calls himself The Doctor, has been an enemy of the Cybermen for centuries. Sooner or later, word is going to get to him about a ship belonging to one of his oldest and most dangerous enemies going around doing good in the galaxy.”

“And if I were in his place,” Anderson said, “that sure as hell would get my attention.” “Exactly,” Janeway said. Jaffen walked over to Janeway and casually put an arm around her waist. “I gotta say,” he said, smiling, “I like this plan.” “Can’t hurt to try, I suppose,” Tom said, sighing. Janeway looked up at the monitor. It was almost eerie how the Earth here looked just like the one she called home. She wondered for a moment if maybe it would be so bad to settle here if The Doctor never came.

No, she thought. I’m not ready to give up yet. Either we get to go back to our home, or we die here as heroes.

---

B’Elanna Torres cradled her daughter in her arms as she looked at the picture of Tom on the table in Admiral Paris’ home. Physical pictures weren’t the norm amongst the people of the Federation anymore, not with digital photo frames that could easily hold hundreds, even thousands of pictures instead of just one having been available to humanity even in the time before Zefram Cochrane’s first warp flight. The practice had never gone away completely though, and with the fear that the Voyager crewmembers who were trapped on the Cyberman ship when it got pulled through the rift would be forgotten an ever-present reality, they went from a mere act of sentimentality to a necessity. The new project that Admiral Paris, Reg Barclay, Lewis Zimmerman, and others had started on Jupiter Station required physical copies of photos of the lost crew, any information they had on them written down on real paper. The computer records of them were not lost completely but were spotty, incomplete, and easy to miss unless you knew what to look for. Or even that there was something to look for.

“Thank you for letting me stay here, Admiral,” B’Elanna said. “Please,” the Admiral said. “No need to be so formal. I’m off-duty, and you’re my daughter-in-law. Call me Owen. Besides, you don’t exactly have a place of your own right now.”

“That’s certainly true,” B’Elanna said. “I don’t even have a ship anymore.” Owen Paris sighed. “You heard about that, huh?” “I figured R&D would want a look at all that Delta Quadrant tech we brought back with us,” B’Elanna said, shifting on the couch slowly so as not to jostle the baby too much. “I don’t understand why they had to hide Voyager away though.”

“That was Nechayev’s idea,” Owen said, sighing. “She has this idea in her head that the new technologies inside Voyager would be a prime target for the Federation’s enemies. She’s not one hundred percent wrong, I’m sure the Romulans would love to have a look at that slipstream drive, even if it is burned out. But Elena is, well, Elena. Just keeping Voyager in the Sol system isn’t secure enough for her, she has to move it to one of her,” Owen groaned before completing the sentence. “Black Sites as she calls them. I don’t know if she doesn’t know the history behind that phrase or just doesn’t care.” B’Elanna nodded. “I knew that there was a chance, even with the pardon, that I might not get to serve on Voyager again, but that doesn’t make the mental image of a bunch of Intelligence types pawing at her warp drive any easier to stomach.” “With your credentials, record, and reputation,” Owen said, “I don’t doubt that once your maternity leave is up that you’ll be in anything less than high demand. There are a lot of captains in Starfleet who would kill to have an engineer with your skills on their team.”

“I don’t know,” B’Elanna said. “I might just try to join the team at Jupiter trying to figure out how to get Tom back from the other universe. If I didn’t have Miral, I’d be feeling so helpless right now.” “I can see about that,” Owen said, surprising B’Elanna who just assumed that he would be against it, perhaps arguing that she was too close, too emotionally invested. “Fact is, having people there who have more cause to care than anyone about the people we lost in that rift is probably the best way to ensure that they aren’t forgotten. If my own science training wasn’t a few years out of date since becoming an Admiral I’d be there myself.”

“Maybe we’ll go to Jupiter together then,” B’Elanna said. “It would certainly make it easier for you to spend time with your granddaughter.” “Speaking of,” Owen said, motioning towards Miral, “May I? I haven’t actually had the chance to hold her since you got to San Francisco.” “Of course,” B’Elanna said.

---

Harry Kim stood outside the airlock to the U.S.S. Delaware, reluctant to go inside. He reached into his pocket and fiddled once again with the folded up paper photo he had of his best friend, what was his name? The one who was in another universe now, or something like that. Why was it so hard for him to remember the name of his own best friend? “You understand, Lieutenant,” Lieutenant Ayala said coming up behind him “that the ship can’t take off from starbase with you standing in the connector.” “Right, sorry,” Harry said. “I guess it just doesn’t entirely feel real. I guess I just assumed I’d be going back to Voyager once I returned to duty.”

“I did too,” Ayala said. “But I guess R&D had other plans. The jerks.” Harry chuckled. “Yeah. Jerks.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, Let’s do this. At least I’ll have somebody from the old crew here. That should make it easier to adjust.” “More than one somebody,” Ayala said. “Didn’t you hear? Todd Mulcahey and Susan Brooks got assigned to the Delaware as well.” “I didn’t know that actually,” Harry said. “I’ll make sure to say hello after I report to the Captain.” The two men made their way through the open airlock onto the Nova-class ship. Harry had to admit it was a bit odd being on one of this class again, considering his last experience with one was the Equinox, but he didn’t want to dwell on it. He felt something in his pocket, not sure how it got there, but he figured he’d take it out later, once the Delaware was out of the Sol system.

He went through the open airlock first, Ayala close behind. The two quickly made their way to the nearest turbolift and rode it to the bridge, only to find it almost unoccupied. The only person there was a short haired red-headed human woman. Only when she turned around and Harry saw the four pips on her collar did he realize that this was his new commanding officer, Captain Kilkenny. “Ah,” she said, smiling. “Lieutenant Kim. Lieutenant Ayala. You’re early. I would’ve arranged for you to meet the rest of the senior staff if I’d known. Welcome aboard.” “Captain,” Harry said, standing at attention. “I look forward to serving with you.” “And I look forward to hearing some of your war stories,” the Captain said, practically radiating enthusiasm. “I mean, you two served aboard Voyager. You’re practically legends, and here I am, the one who’s going to be giving you orders.” Harry blushed. He looked over at Ayala, impressed at the man’s ability to maintain his composure. Harry turned back to face the Captain, but something behind him caught his eye, something sitting on one of the arms of the captain’s chair.

Is that a plush cat? He thought. The Captain realized he was looking at something behind her and turned around. “Oh, I see you’ve spotted Desmond,” she said. “Desmond?” Ayala said.

“My kitty,” Captain Kilkenny said casually, as though it should’ve been painfully obvious to him and Harry. “He’s been with me since my first assignment; the Kilimanjaro.” She sighed. “She probably would’ve been my first command if we hadn’t lost her to a Dominion sneak attack during the war. Could’ve been worse though. Out of 900 crew members 893 made it out alive. “But enough about old war wounds,” she said, her smile suddenly coming back. “Command has cleared us for departure at 0900 hours.” She checked the PADD in her hand. “Both of your quarters are on Deck 3. Feel free to get some rest before we head out.” “Aye, sir,” Harry said. “Aye, Captain,” Ayala said.

---

“A pleasure to finally meet you in person, Doctor,” Bruce Maddox said, extending his hand to The Doctor. “Likewise, Commander,” The Doctor said, accepting the handshake offer politely. “I was sorry to hear about what Starfleet Command decided to do with Voyager,” Maddox said. “Any plans, since you’re losing your sickbay?”

The Doctor looked around, his gaze falling on the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance. “Not really. I have been offered a teaching position at Starfleet Medical,” he said. “I may take it, but not this semester. Some of my Voyager crewmates have invited me to meet their families. I think they feel they owe me since I treated them during our time together, as if I ever would’ve not. I imagine their spouses, children, and what not wish to thank me for making sure their loved ones made it home. I appreciate the sentiment, but because of it I can’t help but think about all the people on Voyager I couldn’t save.”

“I don’t think you need me to tell you even the best doctors Starfleet has can’t save everyone,” Maddox said.

“I’m well aware of that,” The Doctor, “but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”

Maddox nodded, and turned to look at the bridge as well. “I imagine that seeing the faces of your crewmates’ families might help. It won’t make the guilt go away, unless you decide to remove it from your program. But if Commander Data can learn to live with the downsides of having emotions, I doubt you will have any problems.”

“I suppose you’re right,” The Doctor said. “In that case I probably should go then. My first invitation just for today is meet with Lieutenant Carey and his family. Perhaps I’ll see you some other time.” “I wouldn’t mind that,” Maddox said. “I can read the Voyager logs anytime I like, but hearing about it from someone who was there is an experience no report can properly convey. If possible, I can even arrange for you and Data to meet. He’s mentioned that he finds your story inspiring.”

The Doctor smiled. “I would very much love to meet with him. I’ll get in touch once I know I have some time to spare, and we’ll see what we can do.”

---

Seven of Nine pulled her robe tight around her as the air grew colder. She looked at the night sky on the Ktarian homeworld and was amazed at how many stars you could see, even this close to a major metropolitan area. She watched as off in the distance at the spaceport the ship that had brought her and her family here, the Starfleet passenger courier Lois McKendrick, took off. Naomi was on the other side of the city, spending time with her father and his parents. Icheb had, mere months after arriving in the Alpha Quadrant, earned early entry into Starfleet Academy. Samantha had fallen asleep on a small couch in the room they were sharing while they were here, until their leave was over. Or so she’d thought until she heard Sam walk up to her. She didn’t turn to look as Sam slipped her arms around Seven’s waist and rested her chin on Seven’s shoulder. “Trouble sleeping?” Sam said. “Not tired yet,” Seven said. “Just... thinking.” “Still hoping we’ll see them again?” Seven didn’t need to ask to which ‘them’ Sam was referring. “The barrier between the universes has been breached before,” she said. “At least twice, and that’s just what I know of. Who’s to say-” “It’s okay, babe,” Sam said. “I think we’ll see them again too. If I know Captain Janeway as well as I think I do, she’s probably already got a plan in motion.”

Seven chuckled. “Probably an ill-advised plan with a low probability of success.” “Yeah, well, those have worked out for her pretty well so far,” Sam said before kissing the back of Seven’s neck. “Now, if you aren’t going to come to bed, at least close the balcony doors. Ktarian cold winds can sneak up on you. And don’t forget we’re meeting my sister tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Seven said, watching Sam as she went back inside. Seven turned and looked up at the stars one last time before doing so herself. Even if her crewmates never did return from the other universe, even if they hadn’t survived the breach, she would make sure that they wouldn’t be forgotten.

~The End~

Dedicated to my Dad, an OG Trekkie, for introducing me to Roddenberry’s vision.

My biggest regret was that he didn’t get to see how this story ended.

#a fire of devotion #Part 4 #chapter twelve #the end #star trek voyager #fan fiction #sam7

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sports-and-fandoms · 7 years

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Say you won’t let go

Hello dear readers! College is over and I AM FREE! Requests are open once again. Please send them in, and don’t be shy. Also, I started watching Suits. How are there no imagines or one shot about Harvey Specter? He is so perfect! So I’m open to writing for him as well. Happy reading!

Request: By @crazyfangirlinabluebox I’m sick and I don’t understand what it’s going on because of the fever so can you do a 10th doctor x reader where i’m really really sick, like I’m almost dead, and the Doctor tries to lowering the temperature with ice? But the fever is strong and take five day to go away and I almost died twice, so when I wake up and I see the Doctor crying i’m very confused and he tells me what happend and I said “you think i’m going to leave you alone? Neither a Dalek and Cyberman army will make me leave your side” and he just crying and smile and he tries to kiss me but I stop him because i’m still sick. Make it really angst/fluff. Thank you :)

Warnings: So heads up, I was listening to “Say you won’t let go” by James Arthur. This is probably more angsty than I thought it would be. A tiny bit of fluff, if you squint really hard.

Words: what’s the use? I never check anyway… :/

Hyperpyrexia. 106.7 F, a critical body temperature for a human. A medical emergency.

106.7 F.

The chances of survival; moderately high but small risk of death present. The smallest of risk, of doubt, could be catastrophic if the stakes were high. And oh, they were. A small risk that could destroy everything.

What to do? How to help her? How to save her?

Questions swirled around in that genius brain of his. How could he save the one human that made him feel like the most special being in the universe?

He didn’t know what was worse, him not knowing how to save her or her dying without knowing that she was his everything.

The destruction of Gallifrey had brought out the monster in him. While Rose was there in the beginning, and Martha and Donna helped immensely, no one made his hearts beat like she did. No one made him want to be a better man. He tried; he saved the universe numerous times. He saved people that stupidly put their own lives at risk. He became The Doctor. The man, the hero, the universe needed. The man that had saved Earth so many times, that even he had lost count.

Earth. The planet he saved. The planet he now considered his own. The planet that didn’t even know about its savior.

You had once told him that he was like Batman; the man that vowed to protect and save people. The man that would do anything to save lives, even if it meant that he had to die. He would gladly sacrifice himself if it meant that this planet and its 7 billion people could live to see another day. You were filled with admiration for him.

Unbeknownst to you, sometimes he gave up. Sometimes he felt like no matter what he did, he couldn’t save everyone. He felt so lost, so broken. But then, you would hold his hand in solidarity. You would give him the courage he needed to pull through. You, gave him hope.

And he loved you. It had taken you lying in your room, on your bed, suffering by Hyperpyrexia for him to admit to his feelings to himself, but never out loud. He didn’t, couldn’t, say it out loud. Just uttering the words out loud could put you at risk. His countless enemies would find out about you, his Kryptonite, the one thing he couldn’t, wouldn’t, live without. His one and only love.

He thought that by never telling you how he felt, he could shelter you from the dangers of the universe. Yet, there they were, The Doctor sitting beside his companion, his one love, while she was dying and he couldn’t do anything. He felt helpless. He was losing hope. It was fading, just like his true love. If she died, the universe would mourn alongside its protector for the one that gave hope, the one that made him the man the universe needed.

He had tried everything. He had even taken her to New Earth. No medicine would cure her. They had told him that hope was all that was left. He could hope and pray that she survived.

He had never really believed in God. Where was He when worlds were ending? Where was He when people were dying? Where was He when his planet had died taking along every last one of his people? So many years had passed since he had prayed. Actually, he couldn’t remember the last time he had. But he knew that he had to try everything. He prayed and prayed, like his life depended on it, because it did. He prayed for Him, for someone to listen. To save her, his hope. The one that kept him going.

She died.

Twice.

While he was tending to her, she had died. He had watched as the heart monitors had flatlined. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t save her.

But then, something happened.

A miracle.

The medicine had finally kicked in.

She was fighting back. She was battling the parasite that had attacked her on their last adventure.

She was surviving.

Days had passed. Two days, that felt like all of time had been cramed in that short period. Two days that felt like an eternity. Two days of suffering, of holding her hand and waiting for her to open those beautiful eyes that filled him with warmth.

And then, it happened.

She opened her eyes and he felt like he could breathe. Like his soul had finally returned. He felt, for the first time in a week, that he was alive.

He cried.

He had almost lost her. Actually he had lost her. Twice. But now, she was back, she was alive and awake.

“D-Doctor? What happened? Why are you crying?“

Her words were slurred but they were the clarity he needed.

He told her. He explained what had happened.

The tears just wouldn’t stop, they couldn’t stop.

He held her hand tightly, and pressed kisses on it. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but could he? Did he deserve a light as bright as her in the darkness of his life? Could he tarnish a soul as pure as hers with the monstrosity that resided within him? Could he tell her that he loved her?

He decided that he couldn’t. He remembered Rose, Donna, and Martha. Rose, the girl that was stranded in another universe; because of him. Donna, the woman that forgot that she had saved so many; because of him. Martha, the woman that loved him but that he couldn’t love back. What would happen to her? While the previous companions would never say it out loud, he knew that they felt bitter towards how things had turned out. He couldn’t bear the thought of her growing bitter towards him because he loved her, and he couldn’t lose her.

So he kept quiet but never let go of her hand.

They locked gazes.

An indescribable look passed on her face, her eyes teared up.

“I know” she said.

“I always knew. Say it Doctor.”

“I can’t” he had replied with sadness cutting deep in his heart.

“Please.“

“I-I“

She knew but he couldn’t say it out loud. He feared that they would know, that they would come after her because of him. He didn’t say it but he cried. He cried for the woman he loved, the woman he had almost lost.

She tightened her grip on his hand, a silent promise to never let go.

The End.

Tag:

@heaven-bound-angel

#10th doctor #10th doctor x reader #10th doctor one shot #10th doctor imagine #doctor who #David Tennant #imagine #oneshot #fluff #angst #love #romance #cute #sad #please send requests

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modernwizard · 7 years

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The Doctor Falls is a flaming turd of misogynoir, aka Bill deserved so much better, but she was never gonna get it

Oh look spoilers. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The latest season of DW has treated Bill shittily, both as a WOC and as a lesbian, and The Doctor Falls was just the diarrhea sauce on a crap sundae of disappointment.

If you think it's a "happy ending" that Bill, the first lesbian COC [companion of color] on Doctor Who, suffered medical violation for ten years by the Cyber conversion team and ten years of mental violation by Eyeliner Master, then ended up condemned to the equivalent of TOTAL NARRATIVE DEATH, flying off into the universe with a personalityless dead wet white chick with whom she had no substantive relationship just because the DWWC had been stalking her for a decade, go read something else.

If you feel like partaking of my rage, stay with me. Other people, I'm sure, will direct their rage, frustration, and sense of betrayal into far more eloquent and exhaustive essays than mine about how this entire season failed Bill. I'm only going to focus on two moments from the beginning of The Doctor Falls that epitomized for me just how racist, sexist, and anti-Black women the narrative has been.

Note: I'm quoting from memory here because I have better things to do than to go back and watch the show torture Bill.

Both moments of quintessential misogynoir occur early on in the episode when the Doctor is telling Bill about her Cyber conversion and its consequences.

1) The Doctor says to her something like, "You're so strong," then lists examples of Bill's mental strength, including her survival of physical and mental rape for ten years. He then adds something to the effect of her having to resist her programming.

So the Doctor blows off Bill's stated fears of both dying and of Missy [see World Enough and Time], then proceeds to get her thoroughly perforated and DEAD, tells her to wait for him, doesn't come for her, leaves her to a decade of medical torture and mind-fucks from Eyeliner Master, then has the audacity to say that she's so strong for having survived despite the fact that he failed her on multiple levels.

This is the equivalent of straight and/or cis and/or white and/or dude-type persons treating queer and/or Black women like subhuman objects for years and then saying that they're so impressed by how the queer and/or Black women handle adversity. It's the Strong Black Woman stereotype: the idea that Black women's fortitude is an individual choice of personal responsibility, rather than a trait often developed out of the necessity of surviving in an oppressive society.

2) The Doctor also says to her in this conversation, "You're a Cyberman now. You cannot get angry." Of course, Bill, having been raped and tortured for a decade, then pulled out of hell too late by the Doctor, does become angry, so her blaster fires and something burns. "Because of that," the Doctor says.

Right...so...here we have a straight cis white dude lecturing a queer woman of color. The QWOC has just spent a decade of her life being abused, raped, and tortured in ways that queer and/or Black women have been particularly vulnerable to now and throughout history. The QWOC is full of rage, pain, and sadness. The straight cis white dude tells her not to feel her entirely understandable emotions.

This is playing directly into the stereotype of the Angry Black Woman whose wrath scares white people [especially dudes] so shitless that they must prohibit it. This also plays directly into the tendency of straight people to do tone policing on queer people, claiming that, if queer people weren't so loud/flamboyant/outraged/"openly gay," they would attain their goals of equal rights more effectively.

Bill deserved so much better than all the objectification, humiliation, and cancellation she suffered, but she was doomed from the start. The story tied up her arc and identity in losing and then ultimately finding that dead wet white chick with no personality. However, there's a stronger case to be made that Bill's arc and identity may more accurately be linked to an anxiety about her identity, her parentage, and being seen for who she truly is. [I am indebted to irascible bogtrotter's thoughts on the subject.]

But the narrative didn't give a shit about that, so it deprived the character of a significant chance for true development and flourishing. Add to that all the flaming racism, sexism, and homophobia that the showrunners et al. heaped on Bill, and you can see why the way in which she was constructed as a character gave her no hope of any satisfaction or satisfactory development in-universe.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm never watching the new DW again. I'm going back to play in my Shalkaverse sandbox, where it is quite possible that Alison Cheney, the Master, and the Doctor will vworp over to an alternative timeline and extract Bill from that shitshow to help her achieve the dignity, respect, and happiness that she was never able to in her season.

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chasingthecosmos · 4 years

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Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 20/40 Read on AO3 here.

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first.

The Doctor did eventually join Rose in that large, eerie graveyard, though he accomplished the feat using far more theatrics than Rose would have liked.

"Don't you ever think of doing that again," she hissed dangerously, turning to greet him with a glare as the TARDIS materialized nearby and he slowly stepped from it with a sheepish expression on his face.

Yes, dear ... he murmured quietly against her thoughts, though she could feel his hearts still pounding with adrenaline from the death-defying fall that he had just managed to survive. It might not have phased him much, but Rose wanted to make sure that he knew not to make a habit out of it.

Danny didn't allow their bickering to continue for very long before he forced their gazes back to him and the most pressing matter at hand as he murmured desperately, "Help me ..."

The Doctor didn't need to be asked twice as he immediately stretched his lanky limbs and began to circle the cyberman who was currently wearing the face of the kind, gentle maths teacher who Rose had befriended.

"I had a friend, once," the Doctor murmured distractedly as the two men locked eyes with one another and Danny fidgeted before him in a very un-cyberman-like fashion. "We ran together when I was little, and I thought we were the same, but when we grew up, we weren't. Now, she's trying to tear the world apart, and I can't run fast enough to hold it together!"

The Doctor's gaze dropped to the open panel in the center of Danny's chest and he raised his hand tentatively as though to touch it. "The difference is this," he whispered. "Pain is a gift. Without the capacity for pain, we can't feel the hurt we inflict."

"Doctor," Rose interrupted him, stepping up between the two men and biting her lip to keep the tears pricking at the backs of her eyes from falling. "Just do it. It's his life - it's his decision. We have to do what he wants."

"Clara, if you succeed, he will snap you," the Doctor insisted urgently. "Then he will step over your broken body and break another and another and another - he will never stop."

Rose let out a choked, pained laugh as she shook her head at him and replied, "You think I'm afraid of one, single cyberman? With you standing right there and the two of us back together again?" She raised her lips at him in a forced smile as she whispered pointedly, "Nah. I back us every time, Doctor."

The Doctor didn't make any sort of response to that other than to level a dark, assessing glare at her, but she could feel his thoughts warming slightly in the back of her mind as he eagerly accepted her silent promises of hope and victory and filled her thoughts with all of the pride and love that he had for her in return.

"What's the plan?" he finally asked, turning his glare back on half-human man standing before them. "Danny, I need you to tell me - what are the clouds going to do? You're part of a hive mind, now - just look."

"I can't see much," Danny admitted after a moment's pause.

"Look harder," the Doctor insisted desperately.

"I can't see properly, because this needs activating," Danny replied just as insistently, reaching up and gesturing towards the open panel in his chest. "If you want to know what's coming, you have to switch it on."

"I need to know ..." the Doctor murmured helplessly, his desperation rising up and flooding the bond that connected his mind to Rose's and filling her with all of his fear and anxiety as he weighed their options and outcomes. "I need to know ..."

Let me ... Rose offered silently, stepping forward and gently wrapping her hand around the Doctor's wrist where he was clutching his sonic screwdriver hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

No ... the Doctor refused vehemently. I can't let you. I won't turn you into a killer, Rose.

Well, you can't do it, Rose reminded him pointedly. You're no killer, either.

The Doctor fixed her with a weighty look as centuries and millennia of regret and sadness rolled through him and overflowed into her mind. Rose knew that he had taken more lives than he could ever even count, whether purposefully or not, but she pushed all of that anger and self-recrimination out of her mind as she took a step closer to her bondmate and pointedly slid her fingers further down his arm, letting her grip settle on the handle of the sonic screwdriver in his hand and gently prying it from his loose fingers.

You are not a killer, Doctor, she repeated stubbornly. And you will not be adding the weight of Danny's life to your consciousness. This one is on me. Let me do it.

She knew that the Doctor could sense her conviction and understood that there was no way of changing her mind or stopping her, but he turned his back on her so that he wouldn't have to watch his bondmate turn into a killer. Rose could see the defeated slump to his shoulders and feel the wild, terrified turn of his thoughts, but she locked her jaw as she turned back to Danny and steadfastly raised the sonic screwdriver to point it at the emotional inhibitor in his chest.

"I'm sorry, Danny," she repeated once more, her tears finally breaking loose and running down her cheeks as she looked into his desperate, pained gaze. "For whatever it's worth, I'm really, truly sorry."

"Me, too," Danny sighed warily, his voice catching on his own tears as he faced her bravely and prepared himself for death - a true, proper death that would last, this time.

"Ready?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah."

"Goodbye, Danny."

"Goodbye, Clara."

The fake name stung more than it had in a long while, as Rose realized that this man who didn't even really know who she was was putting his life in her hands and asking her to do the worst possible thing imaginable and end his life for him. Rose gritted her teeth together as she pressed the activation button on the sonic screwdriver and felt something deep within her break with a sharp, twisting snap.

Rose's arm dropped limply back to her side in defeat as she watched Danny's pained expression suddenly go blank as his emotional inhibitor activated and he finally turned into a true cyberman. The Doctor rushed past her before she could fully recover and began questioning him immediately.

"Danny, if you can hear me, if you're still there, what are the clouds going to do?" he demanded desperately.

"The rain will fall again," Danny explained in a flat, unfeeling monotone. "All humanity will die."

"And rise again as cybermen," the Doctor breathed in quiet disbelief.

"Correct," Danny agreed simply.

"How do we stop it?" the Doctor continued insistently.

"We cannot be stopped."

Rose knew that the Doctor had more questions for the cyberman who had taken control of Danny's dead body, but before he had the chance to ask them, they both turned as a sharp, zapping sound rang out through the quiet cemetery behind them. The Doctor and Rose turned in unison to see the apparition of Missy descending from the clouds like a dark approximation of Mary Poppins.

"Oh, that was brilliant!" she squealed delightedly. "Oh, I love the telly here, but did you see that?"

She skipped closer to them and flashed Rose a dramatic, pouting look as she added, "Oh, Clara, you poor thing - you must feel like death! Let me pop away the pain ..."

She reached for a device at her side, but the Doctor was between the two of them in an instant, snatching the small hand-held from her grasp and tossing it to the ground outside of her reach.

"Don't you dare," he snarled dangerously. "Don't you think about it!"

"Oh, sorry, hon," Missy sighed warily, "I'm just getting a bit carried away. I mean, I've waited so long to meet little Miss. Clara, you just have to excuse me."

"Pleasure," Rose hissed through gritted teeth as she narrowed her eyes on the female Time Lord in a reproachful glare.

"Been chasin' you a long time, doll," Missy continued, smiling slyly despite Rose's poisonous expression and the Doctor's fuming anger. "Knew you'd be worth the wait."

"Stop it," the Doctor growled lowly. "Leave her alone."

"No need to be so rude, dear," Missy insisted teasingly. "I know you don't like introducing me to your friends, but I thought for certain you'd have the decency to bring your wife home to meet me."

"Seems you have me at a disadvantage," Rose reminded her, keeping her gaze as level as possible as she took a confident step closer to one of the Doctor's greatest enemies. "Heard all of the stories, of course, but never had the pleasure of actually meeting you myself. The Master, wasn't it?" She gave the other woman a pointed once over before she murmured, "It appears you've had some work done."

Missy threw her head back in a raucous bout of laughter as she shook her head and murmured appraisingly, "Oh, I can see why he likes you." She flashed the Doctor a cursory glance as she added, "Yes, I think I've chosen quite well, though you're certainly not one to talk about having 'work done', my dear."

Missy paused to raise her hand into the air before her, her eyes taking on a far-off, dreamy look as she whispered dramatically, "'Call me but love, and I'll be new baptised; henceforth I never will be Romeo ...'" She dropped her hand back to her side as her lips curled up into a cruel, sneering grin and she leveled her gaze back on Rose again.

"Never really cared for Shakespeare much, myself, but I know the Doctor could never resist a sonnet," she murmured lightly. "Just like he could never resist you."

"I get it," Rose assured her tersely, "I don't need you to recite the whole play, thank you."

"Well, it's not exactly a play, now, is it?" Missy sighed exasperatedly. "Technically it's a tragedy."

"So what's it got to do with us?" the Doctor insisted quietly, his ice blue eyes glaring daggers as he warily watched his old friend tempt and tease his bondmate.

"Well, you have to admit it's rather fitting, isn't it?" Missy replied pointedly. "Your whole life has been a tragedy, hasn't it, Doctor? I did try to keep it to theme ..."

"What are you talking about? What's your hand in all of this?" Rose demanded insistently. "Why were you leading us together all this time? What was the point behind it all?"

"So many questions, goodness me you're starting to sound just like him," Missy sighed with a dramatic roll of her eyes. "Though, I've heard that's what marriage will do to you ..."

"How long?" the Doctor insisted deliberately, his tone taking on a dangerous quality as he glared hard at the other woman. "How long have you been pulling the strings?"

"Now there's a tragedy worth telling!" Missy gasped eagerly. She cleared her throat loudly and took on another dramatic pose before continuing, "Once upon a time there was this poor little human girl, you see? Her life was just so dull and boring that she could barely stand it - trapped in a time and place where she was unappreciated, unloved, unwanted. But then she met a man with a magical blue box and he showed her the universe! Took her all throughout time and space, getting his timeline all caught up in hers. But then ..."

Missy's eyes widened as she breathed a small, excited gasp, then let her expression fall into another dramatic pout. "They were separated!" she murmured sympathetically. "Poor Romeo had lost his Juliet and there wasn't a thing that they could do! But then ..." her eyes flashed again as a wide, manic smile stretched over her features, "the big bad wolf came howling."

"What do you know about that?" Rose hissed defensively as she felt her hands clench into two angry fists at her side.

"Oh, I know enough," Missy bit back tersely. "Our dear, sweet Juliet took the entire time vortex into her head - it was a bit hard for a certain devilishly beautiful and dangerously clever Time Lady to ignore ..."

"You're not seriously suggesting that you were responsible for the Bad Wolf?" Rose replied incredulously.

"No, of course not," Missy replied loftily. "That was all you, my dear. I simply ... embraced the fortuitous opportunity that you so graciously presented so that I could grant my dear, old friend the best birthday gift he could ever receive ..."

Missy gasped yet again and raised her shoulders up to her ears as she flashed the Doctor a wide, eager smile. "Tiny bit pleased?" she squealed delightedly.

When the Doctor did nothing but continue to watch her with a dubious glare, Missy sighed heavily and rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, go on - crack a smile! I want to see if your eyebrows drop off."

"So you've been pulling the strings since the dalek asylum," the Doctor surmised slowly. "Making sure that Rose made it back to this world - back to me."

"Yes, and you could show a bit more gratitude about it," Missy muttered sarcastically. "But fine - if your wife isn't a good enough birthday present for you, I do have one more birthday surprise."

"Oh?" the Doctor prodded her pointedly.

"Cyberdears!" Missy turned and called loudly over her shoulder. "Time to show yourselves off - go on, now, like we rehearsed ..."

The Doctor and Rose watched in wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock as the mass of cybermen around them all turned on the spot, aligning themselves directly with Missy's orders and following her commands with robotic, jerky movements.

"There," Missy stated definitively when they all came to a standstill around her once more. "Now don't say I never did anything for you, Mr. President. One Miss. Rose Tyler and a whole army of cybermen at your disposal - what more could a man ask for?"

#doctor who #dw #fanfic #fanfiction #dw fanfic #dw fanfiction #doctor who fanfic #doctor who fanfiction #the doctor #twelfth doctor #rose tyler #twelve/rose #twelvexrose #the doctor/rose #the doctorxrose

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chasingthecosmos · 4 years

Text

By Any Other Name

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Eleventh Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Eleventh Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 16/26 Read on AO3 here.

“Rose Tyler was dying - or, at least, she was relatively certain that that’s what was happening …” A Season 7 AU where Rose returns to her home universe only to find that 100 years have passed and nothing is quite the way that she remembers it. She wakes up with a new body, a new life, and a new Doctor. What has the Bad Wolf gotten her into this time? The 50th Anniversary will be included in this story.

"I don't like this, Doctor," Rose murmured nervously as she watched the two Maitland children dashing about the steps and balconies of the new TARDIS console room. "We don't even really know who these kids are! What if something happens to them?"

"Nothing's going to happen to them," the Doctor assured her with a small wave of his hands. "We're going to an amusement park in space! What could possibly go wrong?"

Rose turned and raised her eyebrow at him in a pointed look and the smile quickly dissipated from the Doctor's face as he rolled his eyes at her. "Yes, alright, I know I've said that before. But this time will be different!" he insisted eagerly.

"And what happened to finding answers about Clara?" Rose asked, making sure to keep her voice down to a whisper as the children continued to dart around them in wide-eyed wonder. "I thought we came back to Earth to do some research and investigation."

"We've got two key subjects, right here in the TARDIS!" the Doctor explained, gesturing grandly in Angie and Artie's direction. "We'll just take them out for a fun day at the park, let them ride a few rides, and subtly find out what they know."

"Yeah, you know I've actually seen your interrogations before, Doctor," Rose reminded him pointedly. "I don't think 'subtle' is the word that I would use ..."

"Hey, is this the Spacey Zoomer ride you were talking about?" Artie called over to them, instantly interrupting their conversation as he raced down a set of stairs and peered curiously into one of the TARDIS hallways.

"Nah, this is just the shuttle to get us there!" the Doctor called back eagerly, pointedly ignoring Rose's lack of faith in his plan as he darted forward and began pulling dials and levers on the center console.

"This is a shuttle?" Angie asked dubiously, eyeing the glowing time rotor with suspicion.

"Well, no, not really," the Doctor agreed with a shrug as he continued entering in their destination and preparing the ship for dematerialization. "But just for today, yes! Let's call it a shuttle!"

"It's a time machine, isn't it?" Angie asked, flashing Rose that knowing smirk once more. "That's how you ended up in all of those pictures. You've been traveling around in time with your ... professor."

"'Professor'?" the Doctor repeated, throwing Rose a look of disgust from across the center console. "I thought I was your boyfriend?"

"Are you?" Rose shot back teasingly, deciding not to be too concerned about Angie's keen perceptiveness since the Doctor didn't seem to be paying it any mind for the time being.

"It's better than professor," the Doctor grumbled under his breath as he finished setting the final coordinates. "Now," he added loudly, addressing the children, "hold on tight." He grinned broadly at Rose before he flipped the dematerialization lever. "Geronimo," he muttered gleefully.

Both of the children shouted in terrified delight as the TARDIS whirled and whirred around them, spinning them off towards whatever destination the Doctor had chosen for their adventure that day.

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

Unfortunately, the Doctor's attempt at a child-friendly, simple space adventure quickly ended in disaster as a full-scale cyberman attack suddenly closed in around them on all sides. The imposing metal army took Angie and Artie first, leaving Rose feeling helplessly and dangerously out of her depth.

What would happen if the cybermen did something to them? What would happen if she were never able to get them back? What would she tell George, waiting patiently back at home for them to return form their fun, friendly outing with the landscaper/nanny? Rose realized with a sinking sense that - whether she liked it or not - she was responsible for these children, and she felt horribly guilty for allowing them out of her sight for even a moment.

When she finally found the Doctor again, she was elated to see that he had Angie and Artie with him, but terrified to notice that they all now had strange, silver wiring covering the left sides of their faces. The Doctor seemed to be the only one in his right mind (for now) - and Rose suspected that it had something to do with the small strip of gold paper that was hanging loosely off of his cheek.

"I'll explain later, in a bit of a hurry," the Doctor assured her breezily. "Get me to a table, and somebody tie me up! Need hands free for chess." He smiled confidently in her direction and Rose recognized the expression as his go-to Doctor-look for whenever he was attempting to stay positive in the wake of crushing disaster. "And immobilize me. Quickly," he added ominously.

Rose and the few soldiers who had taken to following her command after the Doctor had named her acting captain of the planet's punishment platoon did as he instructed and set up his chess board in the throne room that they had found in the fake castle that they had taken up residence in.

"Right, that's good. I won't be able to move, but hands free. Good," the Doctor exclaimed as he squirmed against the ropes that Rose had wrapped tight around his middle and then flexed his arms experimentally.

"Are you going to tell me the plan, now, Doctor?" Rose muttered as she clapped her hands on his shoulders and leaned her head in close to the non-cyber side of his face. "What's with the chess board?" she whispered conspiratorially.

"Playing the Cyberplanner," the Doctor replied cryptically, tapping a knowing finger to the silver wiring against his left temple, "and winning!" Without warning, he ripped the strip of gold off of his cheek and his whole body jolted as he leaned heavily against the table before him.

"Doctor?" Rose asked nervously as she watched the tense set of his shoulders.

"Actually ... he has no better than a twenty-five percent chance of winning at this stage of the game," he muttered, his tone low and dangerous as he took on a strange (yet oddly familiar) Northern accent. "Some very dodgy moves at the beginning. Hello, flesh girl. Fantastic! I'm the Cyberplanner."

His eerie words immediately sent a chill up her spine and Rose stepped forward slowly to get a better look at his expression. The Doctor sneered up at her with a look that she had never seen on any face of his in all the time that she had ever known him and it instantly sent a stab of fear deep into her heart.

"What did you do to the Doctor?" she asked breathlessly as she leveled her gaze on the man before her.

"Ha!" he chuckled darkly. "Clever one, isn't she? 'Course that's probably why you picked her. Ooh, but there's something of the Wolf about you, my dear. Allons-y!"

The familiar words spoken in the right tone of voice but paired with the wrong face was disorientating enough without adding the Cyberplanner's acidic, dangerous glare into the mix. Rose blinked at him in open-mouthed shock as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. Her hands curled into tight fists at her side and she fought to keep herself as steady as possible as she forced herself to meet the man's poisonous gaze.

"Stop it," she murmured quietly, unable to manage much else as her old hurt for the previous incarnations of the Doctor who she had loved and lost resurfaced within her mind.

"Oh, come now, that was me attempting to be considerate," the Cyberplanner sneered up at her, his feral grin making her shiver. "I was trying to give you a taste of something familiar. Or have you decided to trade in the old models for the new? Frankly, I don't see the appeal."

"Stop it!" Rose repeated, her voice rising and becoming hard as steel as she leveled her onw glare on the Cyberplanner's familiar green eyes.

"Oh, but you know all about new models, don't you girl?" he continued as though she hadn't spoken. "Ah, but that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ..."

"Stop!" Rose shouted, her voice ringing through the room around them as another powerful bolt of fear and adrenaline shot through her. She could feel the confused stares from the soldiers standing at her back as the Cyberplanner began hinting none-too-subtly at her true identity. How could he possibly know all of this?

"Oh, but he's had some cowboys in here!" the Cyberplanner went on eagerly, his own voice rising as his eyes glinted up at her in a look of pure, manic glee. "My, my, Miss. Clara, for shame," he paused to make a disappointed clicking sound with his tongue as he shook his head at her, "carrying on with a married man like that. What would your late husband say?"

Ice immediately flooded Rose's veins at the word wife. The Cyberplanner somehow knew her name, knew about the Bad Wolf, knew about her husband, knew about the Doctor's past selves - but how could she possibly accept that this was true? Surely one hundred years wasn't enough to change the Doctor that much. There was no ring on his finger (though for him, that didn't mean much), but more than that, Rose knew for certain that he hadn't telepathically bonded with anyone. Her own mind's desperate attempt to reach out to him and complete her severed link was proof enough of that. She would have known if he had been married ...

"You don't know what you're talking about," Rose insisted stubbornly, staring down her nose at the creature wearing the Doctor's face in wary disbelief.

"No? Let's ask him ourselves, shall we?" the Cyberplanner muttered darkly. "Oh, Mr. Tyler ..." His tone took on a lilting, sing-song quality as he pretended to call out to her husband (who had not gone by the name Tyler, but they both knew that the Cyberplanner was using the name now simply for effect).

However, Rose had heard quite enough, and with this last hateful barb sitting heavy in her heart, she drew her hand back and slapped the Doctor hard across the face, the skin of her palm stinging where it scraped against the metal implants on his cheek.

"Argh! Ow!" the Doctor cried, tentatively raising his hand to the left side of his face in shocked defense. "Oh, that hurt! No, stop! Enough! Bit of pain, neural surge, just what I needed, thank you."

"Doctor ..." Rose muttered quietly, her eyes staring down at him with intensity as she fought to remind herself that it was really him this time and not the hateful Cyberplanner, "what are the stakes? What are you playing for?"

The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes, explaining quickly as though he knew that time was running out. "If he wins, I give up my mind and he gets access to all my memories - along with knowledge of time travel. But, if I win, he'll break his promises to get out of my head and then ... kill us all anyway."

"Doctor, the children," Rose reminded him pointedly, closing her eyes briefly in frustration as she gritted her teeth together. She knew that it had been a mistake to bring them along - now she held two innocent lives in her hands and the Doctor had a malicious entity trying to take over his mind. "Please tell me you can fix whatever's happened to them."

"Children," the Doctor repeated distractedly as he blinked up at her and tried to focus. "Yeah. They're fine. I mean, right now their brains are just in stand-by mode."

"I think we have varying definitions of 'fine'," Rose growled as she flashed him her best no-nonsense look.

"Listen!" the Doctor snapped, leaning forward and grabbing her nearest hand roughly with one of his. His touch immediately sent a nauseating feeling rolling through her stomach and Rose gasped at the strange sensation. It just felt ... wrong in a way that she couldn't quite describe. No touch from the Doctor had ever made her feel like this.

"Right now, they have a much better chance of getting out of this situation alive than you do," the Cyberplanner threatened her ominously.

Rose blinked at him twice and then forced herself to lean closer so that she could level her gaze directly with his. "You're in the Doctor's head," she reminded him slowly. "You can see everything in there. You know as well as I do that he's never going to let anything happen to us."

The Cyberplanner chuckled low under his breath as he clapped his hands loudly and leaned away from her once more. "Oh dear, Doctor," he muttered as he slowly looked Rose up and down with a considering look. "I think you married the wrong blonde."

Before Rose could open her mouth to snap at him again, the Cyberplanner continued loudly, "Now, if you don't mind, I have a chess game to finish, and you have to die - pointlessly, and very far from home."

Rose simply glared down at him, refusing to reveal the fearful, panicked sensation that was currently making her heart beat out of control. The Doctor would fix this - he had to. She had seen him get out of worse scrapes than this, and she knew that if anyone could outsmart a supercomputer, it was the daft alien sitting before her now.

"Finish the game," she demanded coolly, not entirely sure who she was addressing at that moment. "Quickly."

"Toodle-oo," the Cyberplanner spat ominously as he reached for the black knight piece and the game continued.

#doctor who #dw #fanfiction #fanfic #dw fanfic #dw fanfiction #doctor who fanfic #doctor who fanfiction #the doctor #rose tyler #eleventh doctor #eleven/rose #elevenxrose #the doctor/rose #the doctorxrose

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