#anyway i think it would be fun if the tardis. in contrast to the doctor always running always traveling. if she — despite being a ship.

[quietwingsinthesky]

and i will casually slip in my tardis headcanons

#dont mind me. dont mind me. just writing. #anyway i think it would be fun if the tardis. in contrast to the doctor always running always traveling. if she — despite being a ship. #a time machine. — doesn’t actually *move* per se. or more accurately. that she can’t move to a location when she’s already in that location. #that she’s simultaneously everywhere she’s ever travelled. and will travel. #if the tardis is stationary because that’s the easiest way to move through time: to already be there. #the doctor is the one in motion #the tardis is standing still #she is. obviously. perceived as moving. in the same way that observing a molecule affects how it functions. of course she’s moving if you’re #looking at her. she’s a spaceship. how else would you see a spaceship fly. it has to be moving. #is this more convoluted than it needs to be? yeah. but whats the point of a time travel show if i cant think about a sentient object’s #personal perception and experience of time.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 45

It's 1974! I can practically feel Jon Pertwee.

But this is not a UNIT story - instead, we get a ghost story! Fun! Matt Smith is back but with Clara this time, and they're off to a giant country house, here played to perfection by Margam Park on the outside. Inside it's sporting Her From Call the Midwife and also actual literal Dougray Scott, so the acting quality skyrockets.

This seems to be early Clara, though. And hilariously, we just watched an Amy/Rory/River episode that went hard on the arc mystery for a story this watch order had already resolved for us; with Clara, though, we seem to be getting the mystery in real time. I think the only odd bits currently are (a) what did he mean about the souffles, and (b) why the fuck did she hang out with Capaldi. But this here is early Clara, still new to traveling, and the Doctor trying to work out what she "is".

The plot here is in two halves. The first half is a nice-looking but fairly toothless ghost story. Midwife lady and Dougray Scott are ghost hunters (or more accurately, he is; she's an empath trying to help the ghost), and they're in this big house because it's been haunted by a ghast since time immemorial. The Doctor and Clara just sort of turn up for a bit of a nose. There's a fun scene where Dougray Scott (I really cannot get over that this is real Dougray Scott holy shit) shows them his board of ghost photos and talks them through the ghost's history, which is fairly sparse, but the genuine Dougray Scott is the one acting it, so it's creepy as fuck anyway. Also Clara spots that the ghost is always in the same position in every photo. It's very good, I liked that bit.

Funnily enough, the rest of the ghost story is badly served because of this stupid watch order. Say what you like of this era but the previous episode with the Silents was genuinely creepy and scary and horrifying when it played with its "There's something in the room with us" moments, so this is more, you know, generic, just with Dougray Scott.

Then halfway through there's a scene that very neatly bisects the ghost story half of the episode and the generic sci-fi half. The Doctor and Clara jump in the TARDIS and take a photo of the ghost from the Earth's creation to its death so they can make a movie of it. This means they can see it's just some time traveller stuck in a pocket dimension running away from a sort of unspooled corpse trying to be a crab, but more importantly to US it means Clara has a moment of realising the existential dread of her own mortality, leading to a mildly trite conversation where she demands to know if she's just a ghost to the Doctor.

"No," he says. "You're the only mystery worth solving."

By contrast to the ghost story, that's actually well-served by this watch order. It makes it sound like he means humans in general, which would be sweet and also a fascinating character beat, rather than Clara specifically, which is unsettling and kind of intense for a first date.

Anyway the rest of the plot is them opening a portal to the pocket dimension (using the blue crystal from Metebelis 3! Which Matt Smith cannot pronounce! I said I could feel Jon Pertwee) and rescuing the time traveller from the unspooled corpse crab. There's a bit where the TARDIS is a dickhead to Clara; I like Clara, but I fucking adore TARDIS-as-character stuff, I'm an utter SLUT for it, so I was delighted. Why though? Who knows! A new plot thread!

And then the final five minutes becomes a lot of lacklustre romance between multiple characters, but I'm not criticising because two of those characters are unspooled corpse crabs. We go the whole episode not being properly shown them, and then right at the end Matt Smith goes back to the pocket dimension and is like "COME WITH ME! i'LL TAKE YOU TO HER!!!" :D :D :D

And then it finally rises behind him and it turns to look at him and

well

I'll be honest I fucking howled. Best bit. Loved it.

And then the Doctor asks the psychic midwife what Clara is, and she's like "...that would be a normal human girl, asshole" as the double negative moodlet from the Sims appears over her head. So that mystery remains mysterious.

Let's update! No new threads, nothing resolved, one minor tweak.

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest. The Thijarian planet was destroyed by some sort of impact). Is this the Flux?

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (unless she’s Missy. Nope: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again. NOPE, back to not working.)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregnancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?) She’s deffo pregnant and the baby becomes River, but why inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri (Not anymore, somehow)

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory? How did she forget a Dalek invasion?

Is Rory plastic or not?  Yeah, must be, he couldn’t possibly remember being plastic otherwise

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras? NEW INFO: A psychic midwife says she's just normal human

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name?

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years? Since Roman times, it seems

How does the Doctor survive River? He doesn’t, apparently

How does he erase himself from history

Did Captain Jack lose his memories to the same people as the Doctor? What did he lose?

When did the Doctor send the Daleks into a void to save the universe?

What’s with the weird crack in the wall and is it affecting memories?

Why do Amy and Rory think the Doctor is dead? Is it because of River as an astronaut?

Is Matt Smith’s Doctor a tree racist?

Why is the beautiful geode woman stealing people into a Passenger form?

River says she’ll die one day when the Doctor doesn’t remember her, let’s hope she doesn’t mean it

NEW INFO: why doesn't the TARDIS like Clara?

#doctor whom #and yet we are continuing

[variousqueerthings]

@autistic-puffin Alright, one episode left of season 1 [insert screaming]

So, some of my favourite things about nine:

the way they're clearly relearning how to interact with any kind of person, only really good at conversation at the beginning if there's danger

doctor internal monologue: "what would be the best thing to show rose - a woman I've just met - to make her think I'm so cool? I know, I'll show her her planet exploding!"

the fact that they're really so fragile and learning to be again and scared of rose leaving them on the one hand, but on the other is so scared of getting too close (the "domestics") and opening up for fear of what will happen (and what happens... well, we know...)

but also will have a whole trauma response the second time they ever met ("we're falling through time, you and me, and if we let go...")

in retrospect with the war doctor, the way they interact with the dalek in the last sequence of that first episode almost feels like they can't access those memories, like there's that "version" of them locked in some part that could have been re-released if not for rose, but what's left is these half-spoken sentences that just trail off and into "oh rose. they're all dead." and that sense is there anyway, but as a metaphor with the later war doctor reveal, that performance hurts all the more

the way they smile when they say "fantastic" is like a new person being revealed

nine knew from early on in the episode "father's day" that the way to save everyone was for rose's dad to sacrifice himself, and never even had it as a consideration, never mentioned it to anyone, even said they had no idea what to do (until the tardis key), even though that was an option

"It's brilliant! I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical."

(in reference to wwii) "Beat the Germans, save the world - don't forget the welfare state!"

this is reading into it, because I fully didn't realise all those dancing references in empty child/doctor dances were meant to be sexual (the bits about jack, sure, but all of them? and it doesn't even make sense, anyway) point being, I always read it as a way of showing the doctor coming back into themself, learning to hope and have fun and not always worry about the other shoe dropping. joie de vivre as it were. so I love the bit at the end where nine says they can dance and I will continue to read it as I always have done

nine's very direct way of inspiring people and seeing people once they've started coming out of their shell -- the way they talk to the bride-and-groom-to-be in father's day, to cathica in the long game, to jabe, to gwenyth, to harriet jones, to nancy, to lynda with a y (also so often it's women in RTD's stories). the journey nine goes on is so vast, from rebuffing rose several times in the first episode and thinking the worst of people, to remembering why people are amazing and inspiring better versions of them

I'm always somehow just. sad. and touched. by the way nine talks about the pig that was experimented on and then shot. they were so upset by the callousness of it. nine cares about peoples names as well. they're consciously making a point of life and death mattering

by contrast the conversation with blon in "boom town" about being a killer. nine is doing better, consciously. nine has seen violence on a massive scale and is choosing not to perpetuate that and is learning (also in contrast to "dalek")

by the time "lynda with a y" came into the picture it was like they were ready for a whole family -- rose, jack, the more the merrier

and coming up I know in the last episode: "Coward or killer?" "Coward." and "you were fantastic, you know that. absolutely fantastic. and you know what? so was I."

generally nine was so imbued with a sense of vulnerability that's begging to be seen and coming from being so raw and hurt and closed to the beauty of living because of the violence they've experienced, and then relearning it and re-embracing the classic ethos of dw, as well as that fair play for all idealism that feels quite inspired in some ways by eccleston's own socialism and rtd's ideals (did enjoy the "no third term for thatcher" socialist signposts to indicate the 80s, I feel like we need to bring that energy back into dw again)

#dw #doctor who #nine #christopher eccleston #rtd #a pleasure always

[theultimatenonbinarynerd]

Doctor Who: Horror Of Glamrock Review

Introduction

Having Big Finish free on Spotify is truly a blessing in disguise and absolutely amazing. I do not regret beginning to listen to these now. Something I've noticed is how experimental Big Finish is and I find that a huge strength. This story was very unique and fresh and I enjoyed it alot.

Its hilarious to me that people were moaning about a musical number in Doctor Who when Big Finish did it first in this story. Sure Paul MacGann didn't burst into song but it was quite something and very fun. This is one of the stories that has cemented and helped me understand Paul's Doctor and his complex personality.

What I Liked

There's so much to rave about when thinking about this audio drama.

First I loved how creative the concept was and how unique it was. It embraced it's goofy sci-fi style and was fun to listen to. Although a group locked in a room having to hide from a monster isn't new, this concept absolutely is and it was a blast. Loved how we had to rely on audio cues to get the sense of how terrifying the only ones are. Would love to have these guys adapted into live action sometime but for what they were, they were a great villian.

Secondly, I have to praise the incredible music. Tim Sutton did an absolutely fabulous job scoring as every piece of music was an earful delight. They got the Glamrock music aesthetic down and it was nice to listen too. Campy songs aren't done often in Doctor Who but Big Finish does it wonderfully here. There's another story later in this season that also has great music but it'll talk about it when I review that story. Anyway in short, to rock music fans, your in for a treat. Especially with the campy and fun Doctor Who theme variation at the end.

Again the performances. Everyone killed it and made this fun but weird story wonderful. I have to say that Big Finish know how to create a good side cast of characters and I love them for it. So often I grow little to care for any side characters who appear but in Big Finish they're all memorable in the end. It creates a welcome change that I very much like. Paul MacGann killed it as the Doctor and created a complex Doctor with lots of wisdom but still one who's still eager and desperate to help others. He also perfectly portrayed The Doctor's darkside when stakes got higher in the story. I've found myself really getting attached to his character. Lucie Miller was ace in this story too and Sheridan Smiths portrayal just amplifies the characters brilliance even more. Sheridan Smith walked so Catherine Tate could run. She portrays a character still getting use to the Doctor and his time travel antics really well. Side Characters gave amazing performances too. Bernard Cribbins, I know he did this in 2003 but it tears me up to hear his voice again even if he's in a more villainous and morally grey role, just goes to show his incredible range. Una Stubbs also does a fab job as the witty and sassy waiter Flo, she's so charming that I almost pictured her as a companion. Stephen Gately and Clare Buckfield were wonderful as the Tomorrow Twins and had great chemistry together. Both of them really work well together to sell this dynamic and show their contrasting personalities. Lynsey Hardwick was also great as "Auntie Pat" and I hope she'll appear in other stories. Everyone is great and it's almost impossible to praise anything without mentioning the stellar acting.

Finally Lucie and The Doctors dynamic. My opinion after listening to this tardis team is very fluid but this is one of the stories where they really work. They are much more tolerable than they were in Blood Of The Daleks and they're actually really entertaining. I love how despite being only three stories in they're working together as a team and how much potential for good growth they have.

Overall fantastic, absolutely fantastic.

What I Disliked

Pacing, I love these episodes in the style of a New Who format but sometimes it can cause a lot of pacing issues. One such issue is that it gives us less time to build up the side characters and make us care about any death's that might happen. I know it's suppose to be a Doctor Who story but it still feels a bit fruitless to have character deaths without the proper build up.

Other than that though I really enjoyed it and there wasn't much that spoiled it really.

Conclusion

Another fun and fresh adventure that was a pleasure to listen to it. Its theme blends through the story brilliantly and the villian has a really sinister layer underneath once everything comes together. Doctor Who is at it's most fun when it's embracing it's weird sci-fi campy nature.

I recommend every story I've listened to in the 8th Doctor Adventures range but this one specifically if your look for a fun inventive story.

Really love the 8th Doctor's characterisation and development he's going through in the audios. I loved him in the TV Movie but he's on another level in the audios.

So glad I chose the 8th Doctor Adventures as a start to diving into Big Finish its been really fun and interesting.

The First Season Of The 8th Doctor Adventures are free on Spotify and it has been so worth it giving them a listen. Highly recommend.

Bonus:

I'm hosting a Big Finish listening challenge on Storygraph. My username is Melsage1823 for anyone interested in following.

Just thought I'd set something to motivate me for my first year getting into Big Finish.

Here's the full link to the challenge:

-Melody-

They/Them

#doctor who #the eighth doctor adventures #the eighth doctor #eighth doctor #big finish #audio drama #doctor who big finish #lucie miller #Spotify

[lucascecil]

Project: Blue Box - The Church and the Crown

This review contains SPOILERS

◆ Summary

Paris, 1626. The tension betweet the church and the crown grows in the streets of Paris as King Louis prepares the biggest party France has ever seen. With a new member in the TARDIS crew - temporarily -, the Doctor, Peri and Erimem find themselves involved in the palace's intrigues when Peri is mistaken for Queen Anne.

◆ Doctor

He still is unsure about travelling with Erimem and I don't understand where that comes from - she was forgotten by history, a pharaoh that never was, so I don't get why her leaving Egypt would've been a problem. Specially because he plans to take her to the Braxiatel Collection, which is a terrible, horrible idea. There is no way he could've meaned to leave her under Bernice's care because they haven't met yet and anyways I don't think the Doctor would like to leave anyone near Braxiatel's shadow.

Five has a strong characterization in this story towards him worrying and caring about his companions that fits the character perfectly; but I can't help but wonder where all of this was when Nyssa and Tegan (and company) were going through hell in every single story of theirs. He talks to the TARDIS in a very cute scene; and all of this sums into a version of the Fifth Doctor that is a nice and gentle guy. Of course you can argue that this was always present in his character, but I thought of him as a little bit distant, as if scared of the world around him - and even of his own companions. He is a child in the body of an adult; and a child that was protected too much.

This time he is the winner of the russian roullet of terrible events that haunt the regulars in the expanded universe; the scene where he is tortured by lord Buckingham is very well done and horrible. The Doctor is always the one out of the TARDIS crew to recover faster from the lots and lots of traumas they go through, but honestly he freaks out much less than he should given how many shit things happens to him.

◆ Peri

She has this wonder for her trips in the TARDIS that we saw little in the TV and that is lost later in the timeline when she is already a veteran companion. She is less present in part two or three, but I like a lot that the Doctor and company go rescue her; but when they arrived there not only has she already escaped but also the tables turn and it's Peri who now must rescue the Doctor. The scene she meets Erimem once again after them being separated the whole story is very cute.

◆ Erimem

The smartest choice in this release was, first, to put Erimem spending a lot of the runtime besides the Doctor - in contrast to Eye of the Scorpion that focus much more in her dynamic with Peri and so we have two releases that gives her character a lot of opportunities to established her in this TARDIS team. And honestly she is perfect for them. And then, second, it being a historical again. Obviously it's going to be fun seeing the character exploring other planets and facing aliens, but putting an historical companion in historical scenarios they are not a part of is an idea I never get tired of and there is always a lot of potential and things to do in these situations.

Erimem also is extremely competent; not only it's her who gets them into the palace, but it's also her who conducts the talk with the crown and positions herself in the court in a way that the other character would listen to what her and the Doctor have to say - she tells them she is a princess from a foreign land that came to party, which fits like a glove because she was indeed royalty just a few days before. The ways she positions herself with authority in her stories is what made me take a liking to her so fast.

She would never be a companion in New Who tho. Not only does she uses her social position to shut up a character (not unlike what Tenth does with Harriet Jones), but that's not something she does once and that's it. She is like that, that's her character. Obviously Erimem is far from being a realistic depiction of how a royal would be - she is gentle, patient and a good listener. But there these moments that reminds you she was once a pharaoh and that makes her a tridimensional character that is tangible in a way I like.

By the end of the story she says that Buckingham should be executed; and that if they were still in Egypt she would've him tortured. It's her whom commands the troops in battle at act three and it's her whom interrupts one of the fights between the Queen and the King in a scene I adore. “And I shall tell you both what I think. If I behaved in this manner in my own kingdom, I would have been executed within days and left for the jackals to feast upon. You bring shame and dishonour to the name of your Royal House.”

◆ Other characters

King Louis is an interesting character. A bit less cruel than monarcs tend to be in Doctor Who and specially an more kind approach to a monarc in a historical, but still interesting character that the story have fun with even though he is a horrible person. There are scenes of his that put a smile in my face; but he is characterized as completely irresponsible, someone who is often taken by fits of jeaously and that can't deal with anyone contradicting him even a little bit.

But he gains complexities through the other characters from the court, specially cardeal Richelieu, that here represents the church, and queen Anne. His relationship with the cardeal have some interesting nuances because of part three when Richelieu reveals a genuine respect and devotion to the crown. And his relationship with the queen is a failed marriage in which the two parts are drowned in ressentment of each other. And yet I would say that there is genuine feelings between them, at least from the king - even if I would not call it love. Their relationship is too messy to say their marriage is made of apathy, but at the same time the jeaously from Louis' part does not sound to me (only) possession or a king indignant with the dishonor of adultery. Was it so I would think the queen dead already. That's not to say that I think he is a man who never cheated his wife, but I don't know the historical facts and here is suggested he was sexually interested in Erimem. It's 1616, I would not be surprised.

◆ Golden ideas and memorable quotes

Expectations can be a huge problem and this time it came from the title. I was expecting a study of religious tensions and intolerance as was The Massacre, but that's not the tone neither the approach of The Church and the Crown. What this story is, is a kinda realistic pastiche of musketeers tales, the books of Alexandre Dumas being the obvious reference.

It's an aspect I like a lot because it's used in the more comical parts and it's fun. Perhaps it would work even better as a TV story because it'd be amazing to see Peter Davison fencing.

I asked myself if no one would notice that Peri has a different voice to the Queen (not anyone in the streets, but her former lover defenitely should) and the answer is yes he does, he is just stupid.

The only bad moment with Erimem is at the end of part two when it finished with a scream that I would expect to come out of Susan's mouth in the sixties. It's extremely caricate and out of place, but I'll give it to you that's a appropiate response from a character seeing a explosion the first time in her life (me thinks). This scene is followed in part three with a line of dialogue from the cardinal that left me wondering if he had a more intimate relationship with one the guards but that's so different from his characterization in every other scene that I think not.

I love pure historicals but they can have an inherent problem: Doctor Who can't defy (known) history even if it would benefit the catarse. At the end of part three you have this wonderful scene where the cardeal threatens to excomungate the King and is imprisoned. In any other story this would mean in permanent changes in the relationship of the church and the crown, but because History with capital H must run its corse they reconcile. There is another world in which exists a scene of queen Anne revealing to the guests during the party that the King has him prisoner. The same can be said for the diplomatic relations of England and France.

“You would dare to take on one of the finest swordsmen in England?” “Hasn’t anybody told you? We’re in France! Ha!”

◆ Sound effects

The battle scenes are very well done. Paris fells alive, both through its characters and the sound effects. The uproar of crowds, the beats of the bell. The torture scene is frighteningly well done. The music is subtle but it fits nicely.

◆ Replay factor

This is not a story with twists, so you don't gain anything in that prospect in a relisten. But it's a wonderful story that I can picture myself revisiting here and there.

◆ The Veredict

I finished The Church and the Crown with an grin in my face between Five being a silly guy and asking the musketeers to shout "one for all and all for one!" and Erimem finally being invited to permanently travel in the TARDIS. It's just their second story and the chemistry of the cast is in the heights and there is this fondness between the characters that warms my heart. A very good pure historical and another triumph for the Fifth Doctor adventures, there is a lot to like in this story. And the cover is gorgeous.

◆ It's great, ★★★★☆

#Fifth Doctor #Project: Blue Box

[nevertherose]

One Hundred Seconds to Midnight: Chapters 1-8

"All Roman wanted to do was take Logan on a Doctor Who LARP within the Imagination.

But with Thomas's Sides at their figurative breaking point after the disastrous wedding, the Imagination may just have a few ideas of her own..."

Hello, Tumblr fanders, it has been a while since I've poked around in here...mostly because, I've been writing another story!

Do you like Sanders Sides? Do you like Doctor Who? Do you like the idea of the Sides playing Doctor Who characters? If so, this story was written especially for you.

I found that the process of cross-posting Mahogany and Teakwood across three platforms, one chapter at a time, involved a lot of me spending too many hours squinting at html code. Not especially fun. This time around, I've only been posting on AO3 and Wattpad.

But I wanted it to exist here as well.

So! Today I'm going to post the first half (in two posts, because apparently Tumblr has a post size limit, who knew?), all the chapters that are up so far. Then, when the whole story is up on the other platforms, I'll post the other half.

Of course, you could head to either AO3 or Wattpad, if you want to read as the chapters go up.

But if you're like me, and like to read stories in nice, big, juicy chunks...here you go:

One Hundred Seconds to Midnight

Chapter 1- The Eleventh Hour

“Who are you?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m still cooking.”

Midnight.

The witching hour.

Or was that 3AM? Roman wondered. No, that’s the devil’s hour…damn it, Virgil! You had to get them all mixed up!

It was nearly midnight on the Imagination’s border.

Moonlight, pearlescent and brighter than it could ever shine in the real world, streamed feather-light through the tall windows on Roman’s side of the Dream Palace. It made patterns of light and shadow over the black marble floors, made nighttime caricatures of the white ivory statues that lined the corridor.

Roman’s heeled boots echoed in the silence; Logan’s dress shoes, in comparison, were whisper-quiet.

Logan himself had been uncharacteristically quiet since they entered this place, Roman noted, glancing back. Normally by now the logical Side would have asked a million questions, made a million plans, or be several bullet points into a lecture about palace construction or the history of measurement units or some other nerdy, obscure subject.

And Roman would either pretend to be annoyed, or would interject witty counterpoints to make Logan stop and bluster and…

But not tonight.

Maybe he’s nervous about being here, Roman told himself, smoothing a hand over his red sash. He’s only pointed out a million times that Logic and the Imagination are anathema to one another. Maybe I should have planned something else…

Or maybe he’s just annoyed at you for dragging him out of bed in the literal middle of the night, a more insidious inner voice whispered. When you know he likes to keep a consistent sleep schedule.

Roman pressed his lips together, lifted his chin…he might be a mere facet of a single personality, but he was also a Prince, and Princes do not listen to inner demons. However, he also looked back for the dozenth time to make sure Logan was actually still following.

That was the only reason Roman kept looking back.

It had nothing to do with the way the translucent moonlight caught the other Side’s dark, immaculately kept hair, or glinted off his glasses.

In the real world, of course, and whenever they manifested near their Source, the Sides all had precisely the same face and body as Thomas. But deep inside the mind, where physical appearance was an illusion anyway, the Sides exercised much more control.

Thomas remained their base template, but each Side also tended to portray himself with features that Thomas associated with their core function. Like Patton’s fluffy curls and childlike freckles, or Virgil’s anxious, ever-changing eyeshadow, or Remus’s abominable comic-book villain mustache.

Like Deceit’s…no, Janus’s very real scales.

Damn that snake. Why did I have think of him now?

Hopefully the lying bananaconda had better things to do than pop up and spoil things tonight. Because tonight, Roman was finally fulfilling a longtime promise to Logan, and taking him on a grand adventure.

The thought made his heart flutter in anticipation, and he looked back again.

Logan within the mindscape was leaner than Thomas, an inch or two taller, and his neatly trimmed hair and intelligent eyes were almost black in the low light. His face was narrow and intense, the nose more aquiline, and he had a habit of standing straighter than any of the rest of them.

(A habit which constantly showed off his trim waist and chest muscles…not that Roman paid any attention to that…)

Roman, by contrast, was a bit shorter, but his shoulders were broad and he was more muscular, due to all the questing and sword fighting he did here in the Imagination. He wore his hair in longish disarray that paired devastatingly with his clean, square jawline; hair that could be turned loose and wild on quests, or pulled neatly back as befitted royalty. His hands were strong; with long, artistic fingers, as skilled at wielding pens and paintbrushes as they were at wielding swords.

He liked to think he was handsome.

He was also painfully aware of how little it mattered when a certain someone…ehem…never seemed to notice.

“Roman, I confess to still being a bit lost as to the purpose of this journey,” Logan said at last, breaking the high-ceilinged silence. “You said you were taking us on a…’lark’? If so, why are we wandering around the Dream Palace?”

“LARP,” Roman corrected, flashing him a smile. “L-A-R-P. It stands for live action role play, Specs.”

Logan’s nose wrinkled at the words “role play”, and Roman’s stomach lurched. He hates it, he hates the very idea of it, you haven’t even started yet and you’ve already failed…

“Oh, don’t make the scrunchy face!” he added, a bit louder than necessary, and waved a hand. “At least wait until you’ve seen it.”

Roman had only been planning this for weeks.

“You know, when you promised to take me on one of your ‘adventures’,” Logan said, making finger quotes. “I was not expecting to be roused from bed in the middle of the night.”

“That’s because this isn’t your average adventure.” Roman gestured around them. “I constructed a special dreamscape to get all the details right, and we can only use the Dream Palace when Thomas is asleep.” He turned and dared a wink. “Only the best for you, my detail-oriented friend.”

Logan adjusted his glasses.

“Let it be known that I am indulging your antics right now because you have, on occasion, had some good ideas. You will, in turn, have to indulge my skepticism.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m gonna pretend it was a compliment,” Roman said with a wink, which Logan rolled his eyes at.

“Ah ha, here we are!”

Roman stopped at a set of iconic blue doors, nearly vibrating in excitement as he waited for Logan to recognize them.

The nerd did not disappoint.

“Roman…” Logan murmured, stepping forward to touch the white PULL TO OPEN sign. “They look just like the doors to the TARDIS. The attention to detail is exquisite. But why?”

“Because I’m taking you on a Doctor Who LARP!” Roman exclaimed, flapping his hands. “All we have to do is step through, and the Imagination will make us Doctor and companion, and whisk us away through all of time and space!”

Logan’s face was a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “Again…why?”

“Because it will be fun?” Roman bit his lip, looking at his toes. “I…I know you aren’t into swords and sorcery and dragon-witches and whatnot. I wanted this to be something you might actually enjoy.”

Logan’s brow furrowed, as it often did when he tried to process something that didn’t fit neatly into his graphed, notated, logical worldview.

Usually, it was an emotion.

“But won’t us enacting such an intense scenario at this time of night negatively affect Thomas’s sleep?” Logan asked.

“That’s the genius of adventuring in the Dream Palace,” Roman explained. “You can do hyperreal, immersive stuff, and if Thomas does happen to remember anything, he’ll just think he had a weird dream. The worst that could happen is he might post about it on Twitter.”

“Hmm. I can see you’ve thought this through. I am…flattered that you went to all the trouble,” Logan said in a quiet voice.

Roman had to bite back an ecstatic giggle.

Not…not because of the way his nerves skittered below his skin when his gaze caught Logan’s black eyes and soft expression. No, Roman was merely…excited! That someone like Logan appreciated his hard work!

It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone, like some middle school boy with, you know, a crush or whatever. For the last, well…two years.

…and then some.

Ugh. There was little point in denying his feelings; he’d only accidentally summon Janus and his oily smirk, and if that happened, Roman would most certainly die of embarrassment and that was not a lie, thank you very much.

The truth was, ever since Thomas had placed that jar of Crofters into Logan’s hands and inspired him to sing…not just rap, or begrudgingly harmonize, but actually sing…Roman had fallen, and fallen hard.

How could he not?

Logan’s words and ideas had always challenged him, pushed him to be smarter, sharper, better, just to keep up. Logan was the grounding anchor to his sails, the clarity to his excess. It used to infuriate Roman, the way he and Logan always came at problems from opposite sides and fought, sometimes bitterly, over the best way to meet in the middle.

But now?

Now Roman relished the way they traded words in a good fight, like blades in the hands of expert swordsmen. Logan, despite his dislike for anything fanciful, was a natural wordsmith…and Roman was a great lover of poetry. Even better, it seemed like Logan was also starting to enjoy their verbal sparring matches…

And then these last few months had happened.

The Decision, and Deceit, and the way that snake had let Remus out of the shadows to wreck havoc, and then the disastrous wedding itself…and Roman knew that Logan, through all of it, had been feeling pushed aside.

Goodness knew the logical Side hadn’t deserved to be shoved to the back of a courtroom, or relegated to a pixel-y shadow of himself before being removed from the discussion entirely. Worse, in both of those scenarios, Roman had either done nothing…or actively made things worse.

Roman knew he was guilty of letting his mouth run wild in his zeal to solve Thomas’s dilemmas…or in desperately hiding his true feelings. He knew his nicknames often came with barbs, his insults sometimes hit too close to home, that he often ignored or dismissed Logan’s cool, much-needed perspective.

He knew he needed to be better.

I’ll make it up to him tonight, Roman told himself as he laid a hand on the rough wooden blue doors and glanced back at Logan. The logical Side nodded, giving Roman a tiny burst of confidence.

He’ll get to play his favorite character and be his best nerdy self. This is going to be great!

Roman took a breath, and shoved open the TARDIS doors.

Chapter 2- Human Nature

“It’s all becoming clear now. The Doctor is doing the things you’d like to be doing.”

The blaring of a dozen sirens burst in Logan’s ears.

He was yanked across the threshold, Roman’s hand practically a vice around his wrist. Logan inhaled the sharp scent of metal and warm electronics, and a million figurative lights went off in his brain.

Being the physical incarnation of Logic, this wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar sensation.

The TARDIS shuddered…wait, TARDIS? We’re actually on the TARDIS?…under impact. Lights flashed; reds and greens over an ambiance of steely blue-gray, and Logan knew exactly what to do.

He shook free of Roman’s grip and strode to the center console…console, how do I know this is a console?…flipping several switches and turning the green dial to precisely 3.56 degrees to offset the radiation sheer from the M-class star they’d just spun past.

Because naturally they happened to be careening through an asteroid field.

The time rotor rose and dipped, Gallifreyan symbols whirling overhead; Logan adjusted shields and dodged rocks, striding confidently from station to station. He guided his TARDIS around the last large asteroid, one that easily could have smashed his beloved ship to bits, and then they were clear.

The TARDIS chimed reassuringly under his hands, relieved to be in empty space again.

Roman screamed.

The sound echoed off the metallic walls, causing Logan to whip around and nearly lose his balance.

“What happened?” he said sharply, leaving the console. The creative Side stood near the railing, staring down at himself in obvious dismay. “What’s wrong?”

“Look at me, Logan!” Roman said shrilly and gesturing at his body. “Just look!”

Logan examined his fellow Side. There were no obvious injuries he could see, no blood, no bruising, nothing that would merit a scream. There was just Roman, unfairly handsome as always.

(He still wasn’t sure how Roman managed that feat when they all literally, at least some of the time, had the same face.)

“I…don’t see a problem?” Logan asked slowly.

“I meant, look at what I’m wearing, Calculator Watch,” Roman snarled, and turned to yell nonsensically at the ceiling. “Am I a joke to you? When I said I wanted to be a companion, this is not what I meant!”

Logan focused on Roman’s clothing, which had shifted rather drastically since passing through those doors. His normal princely attire was replaced by a denim cutoff skirt, overalls, pink leggings, and a tight pink blouse that clung to his muscular chest and arms...

“I look ridiculous, don’t I?” Roman murmured, scuffing a combat boot against the metal grated floor. The motion drew Logan’s gaze again to the way the cutoffs hugged his hips and wow, that skirt was really short, wasn’t it?

And those tights, the way they accentuated Roman’s legs...

Logan frowned, his face feeling unusually warm. Why did he keep noticing these things? Of course Roman was more fit than the rest of them.

Perhaps it was simply that Logan didn’t usually see the evidence of it so…plainly.

Stop, Logan told himself sharply. You might be gay and allosexual, but that is no excuse to be disrespectful.

He cleared his throat.

“If I may, Roman?” he said, approaching, and made a closer examination of Roman’s outfit.

“I gather from your earlier ranting that you instructed the Imagination to cast you as one of the Doctor’s companions for the duration of this scenario?”

“Well, yeah,” Roman admitted, “but I was thinking someone like Jamie McCrimmon, or Rory Williams, or maybe even Jack Harkness!”

“You know there is some debate over whether Jack Harkness would be considered a proper ‘companion’, as he was never full time on the TARDIS,” Logan argued absently, still eying Roman’s ensemble.

It was attractive but also familiar; he just couldn’t quite place it…

“Neither was Clara Oswald at first, but nobody had a problem handing her that label from the start!” Roman folded his arms and Logan had to look away because wow, short sleeves and arms…

“Just because she was a girl and the writers obviously intended for her to be a love interest—”

“A girl, of course!” Logan snapped his fingers. “Roman, you are a companion. Specifically, you are Rose Tyler.”

“What?” Roman frowned, smoothing the overalls across his middle. “I…Hmm. You might actually be right.”

“Of course I am right.”

The creative Side scoffed at that, but continued to frown.

“I think it’s a good choice,” Logan added. “Rose is arguably one of the most beloved companions in new Who; bold, kind, and intelligent in her own way. She was pivotal to the Ninth, Tenth, and arguably the War Doctor’s character arcs.”

He laid a hand on Roman’s shoulder. (To convey reassurance, of course. Not because he suddenly wanted to touch…)

“Hers are not the worst shoes you could be given to fill,” Logan said, “idiomatically speaking.”

“Only you would drop a word like ‘idiomatically’ in everyday conversation,” Roman grumbled, but some of the spark returned to his caramel eyes.

“But look at you!” Roman said in a brighter voice, gesturing. “All proper and Doctor-ish. At least the Imagination let you keep your tie, or, whatever that thing is around your neck.”

Logan glanced down at himself for the first time.

His sensible polo and jeans had become a clean-cut black suit, with a warm grey waistcoat, a crisp white undershirt, and a silver pocket watch. A navy cravat was knotted around his throat.

His knee-length suit jacket was also black, with a striking cerulean lining.

He retrieved a slender, metallic something from the jacket’s inner pocket: of course, the Doctor’s signature sonic screwdriver. Specifically, the Tenth Doctor’s screwdriver.

Logan chuckled, remembering all the times he’d ranted to Roman about how impractical and flashy Eleven’s screwdriver became, and don’t even get him started on Twelve’s, it was practically a lightsaber…

“Interesting,” he murmured, stretching his arms to turn in a slow circle, letting the jacket flare. “Fashionably, I appear to be a cross between the Eighth and Twelfth Doctors, which I appreciate, as they are the two most sensible dressers of the bunch. And by the way, Roman, this is a called a cravat, not a tie…”

He’d lifted hands to his neck but the words died on his tongue.

Roman had summoned a mirror and was, quite literally, checking himself out. He swayed his hips, tilted one toward and then away from the mirror, pouted, did a tongue smile, and…and Logan realized he had been watching for more than a socially acceptable length of time.

He swallowed hard and cleared his throat again. But he was saved from having to speak by a loud crackling at the center console.

Both Sides rushed over, Logan seizing the TV screen and pulling it down. Gray static skittered over the polished surface. He flipped two switches and turned a dial, trying to zero in on the signal.

“I meant to ask earlier…how do you know what to do?” Roman asked, tilting his head. “You were piloting before I think you even realized we were on a TARDIS in the first place.”

Logan froze in the middle of winding one of the cranks.

“I…I really do not know.” In fact, the more he thought about it, the less sense any of the controls made. “Now that you’ve drawn my attention to it, you are correct: rationally, I should not know the function of any of these…gizmos.” He gestured at the crank he’d been winding.

“Yet somehow my hands just…know.”

Roman leaned casually onto the console.

“When I built this LARP, I gave the Imagination quite a bit of leeway in how it wanted to construct our characters,” he said. “I’m thinking it took things a step further than costume changes, like making me the companion it thinks I most resemble instead of the companion I wanted to be.”

Roman bit his lip as though troubled, then clearly shook himself out of it.

“And it must have imparted some of the Doctor’s knowledge upon me.” Logan added, not sure how he felt about the Imagination having such a direct influence over his mind. He supposed if it didn’t get too invasive, and was confined to this one night, he could deal with it.

It had proven useful so far, after all.

Roman shot Logan a fierce grin.

“Indeed! So engage that big Doctor brain and let’s see who’s trying to call us. Allons-y, adventure awaits!”

“You know ‘allons-y’ is my line, right?” Logan said dryly.

He had to use his screwdriver on the screen before the picture came clear. The stream of static acquired the cadence of a voice…and then a disturbingly familiar face stared back at his own, looking equally shocked.

Roman, for the second time since entering the TARDIS, let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Chapter 3- The Witch’s Familiar

“If you’re going to take my stick, do me the courtesy of actually killing me. Teamwork is all about respect.”

Janus had just settled into his favorite chair with a mug of chamomile tea and a political science book when he was yanked…rather rudely, he might add…onto the deck of a spaceship.

He sighed, and dismissed his drink.

When one lived in the same mindspace as the literal embodiment of chaos, one unfortunately learned to expect such interruptions.

“REMUS!” he roared, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did I not specifically ask to be LEFT ALONE tonight?”

Silence.

Deeply annoyed now, Janus took a moment to look around himself. This was not a normal spaceship; no windows, for one, and it was laid out in levels around a translucent column at the very center. His mismatched eyes followed the center rotor up and down, his mind almost placing it…

Something clumsily rose up from the deck with a clatter, causing Janus to summon his crook with a yell.

Only…the object that dropped into his hand wasn’t smooth wood, but a slender metal instrument just barely longer than his hand. A…sonic screwdriver? What the actual heck?

Well. It was what he had.

“Get back!” He pointed the instrument at the…figure…who still slowly climbed to its feet. It was an android or robot of some sort; humanoid, and the same kind of weirdly familiar as the ship.

“Janus?” the robot said, tilting its head.

Janus froze, all the scales standing up on his body. That was…that was Patton’s voice. Flat, mechanical, but unmistakable.

After all, Patton was the only Side who consistently called Janus by name.

“Patton?” Janus whispered.

“Oh, that was so weird-feeling! Thank goodness I’m not all by myself,” Robot-Patton said, putting a hand over his…well, where his heart should have been…in obvious relief. “But why are we both suddenly on the TARDIS?”

Janus drew in a sharp breath.

Of course, he should have recognized the stupid time rotor immediately. He’d never admit it to any of them, but he was as much of a Doctor Who nerd as Logan or Roman, sometimes going so far as to spy on them when they argued over episodes together.

To learn their arguing styles, of course.

Not because he had any desire to join those discussions.

And now, looking at Patton with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Janus deduced exactly what he was: a Mondasian Cyberman. They were older and cruder in design than the reboot versions…no wonder he hadn’t put a finger on it right away.

That wasn’t really the issue.

“REMUS!” Janus shouted again, more angrily this time. Bad enough his pleasant evening of solitude had been interrupted by…whatever this was. But putting the sweetest, most emotional Side into a canonically unemotional shell, a robot?

That was cruel. That was insulting.

It was too far, even for Remus.

“Janus, is everything okay?” Patton asked, coming closer. Janus shivered at the sound of that warm voice coming from a blank metallic face with empty eyes.

“Do you…feel all right?” Janus said in a hesitant voice.

“I’m a little chilly, but otherwise I’m in ship shape!” the other quipped, giggling. “Get it? Cause we’re on a ship?”

Is it…is it possible that he doesn’t know?

“Hilarious,” Janus deadpanned, but inside his thoughts spun.

He sensed they were in a dream construct within the Imagination, which meant this had to be Remus’s doing. Remus, who reveled in gore, despair, disturbing imagery, angst, and who was in charge of Thomas’s nightmares.

Remus could…and would, given the chance…recreate the experience of being a Cyberman down to the Last. Grim. Detail.

Maybe he hadn’t meant to ensnare Patton specifically to fill this role…Remus didn’t generally pull other Sides in for nightmares, come to think of it…but meanwhile, Janus didn’t want to find out what this might do to Patton’s head.

Worse, it was becoming clear that Patton was somehow oblivious to the state of his own body; he’d used his metallic hands to clutch at his metallic chest and found nothing wrong with either. He couldn’t hear the electronic rasp in his own voice, or the heavy clanging of his steps on the grated floor.

Should Janus say something?

Would Patton believe him if he did?

Ever since Thomas’s near mental breakdown after the disastrous wedding, Patton and Janus had orbited around each other in a state of tenuous truce. They talked now, sometimes, and those talks didn’t always end in arguments. Patton began to leave space for him by Thomas’s blinds when he was called up, and he…and by extension Thomas…occasionally actually sought his input.

But Janus, well.

Janus was still a liar.

The others still called him Deceit, either by accident (Logan) or out of spite (Virgil). Then there was Roman, who invented a colorful, wounding ego-jab for him every day, and Remus, whose fond nicknames tended to double as sex jokes.

Having no other real allies in the mindscape, Janus really, really didn’t want to screw up his tenuous alliance with Patton. Why sabotage his figurative “seat at the table” over one of Remus’s stupid nightmares?

Patton would assume Janus was slipping back into his old ways, lying just because he could, and Janus would never be able to prove otherwise. And later Patton would make that sour, pinched face he always made when he was disappointed, the one that made Janus want to crawl into a hole…

So.

Best to keep his observations close to the chest, for now.

“Do you have any idea what we’re doing here?” Janus asked, striding to the center console. True to dream logic, the controls made no sense and simultaneously made perfect sense.

Patton shrugged; a strange, clanky motion of his shoulders.

Janus sighed. “Although Remus has dragged me into dreams before, even he generally understands the concept of consent.” He casually flapped a hand. “And he always leaves you ‘light sides’ alone.”

“Honestly, this doesn’t feel like a nightmare to me,” Patton said, nearly making Janus choke. The Cyberman clanked over to stand by the console.

“It’s too clean,” Patton added. “Roman let me glimpse Remus’s side of the Imagination once, not long after he showed himself to Thomas, and it was…”

Patton trailed off.

“Fragmented? Chaotic? Disturbing?” Janus supplied.

“Sure, we’ll go with that,” Patton said quietly. “This,” he waved a hand around, “feels more like Roman’s work.”

“I suppose you would know.” Janus ran a thoughtful thumb over his face, tracing the ridge that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear.

“And I would almost have to agree,” he added slowly. “If this was a nightmare, surely something ghastly would have happened by now. But my being pulled into one of Roman’s creations makes even less sense. He literally cannot stand me.”

“Maybe this is one of those dreams Thomas has sometimes after binge watching a show?” Patton suggested. “When there’s enough material in short term memory that the twins don’t get much input? Did Thomas binge a season of Doctor Who yesterday or something?”

And to think the others still view you as stupid, or slow-witted.

Janus bit back a smile.

“It’s a good theory, Patton, but no,” he said. “Thomas hasn’t really binged on much of anything lately.”

Patton ducked his head.

“You don’t…you don’t have to rub it in, you know,” he said lowly, the metallic rasp grating on Janus’s ears. “You and Logan have both made it pretty clear that I’ve been too strict with Thomas’s time.”

Janus fought to keep his expression neutral, but his stomach twisted.

Damn it.

Leave it to Patton to find guilt where none was meant. Even if Janus claimed he hadn’t meant it like that, Patton would probably not believe him.

Patton tilted his metal head as he examined Janus’s face.

“Did you know you have a mustache now? And a little goatee?”

“I have a what?” Janus felt at his face and groaned, his gloved fingers tugging at hair that most certainly did not belong on his face; with the scales, it probably looked hideous.

His entire outfit had altered in subtle ways, he realized. His usual plum tunic and trousers were now a brown suit and waistcoat ensemble, crossed with yellow pinstripes, with a black collared undershirt. A brown, knee-length suit jacket replaced his caplet, with subtle gold trimming. His yellow gloves were unchanged, thank goodness, and his hat…?

His hands flew up to his head and found something perched over his hair, sitting at an angle. Janus yanked down a screen at the console and stared. His beloved bowler had shrunk into a tiny, flat, rakish thing with a wide brim, festooned with a cluster of yellow rosebuds and black beads.

“What on earth, Remus?” he grumbled, turning his head from side to side. Well, if he had to be honest, pinstripes and a hatinator weren’t a terrible look.

“Well, if we’re on a TARDIS, I guess you’re supposed to be the Doctor,” Patton pointed out. “Which would make me your companion.”

Janus stroked his goatee and examined their surroundings in more detail. But am I a Doctor? he wondered. And if so, which one?

And whose TARDIS is this?

Because while it was clear they were on a TARDIS…what other class of spaceship had a time rotor?…he wasn’t almost certain this was not the TARDIS.

Every corner of the Doctor’s ship, no matter which face it belonged to, tended to overflow with bright, shiny, eclectic whimsy. By contrast, this one was plain, stark, with exposed metal beams and sharp angles.

Too dark, too full of shadows.

An awful suspicion rose up in his mind.

He crossed to one of the bookshelves, ignoring Patton’s soft inquiry, and his jaw clenched. There was the Necronomicon, shelved between the Liber Inducens in Evangelium Aeternum and The Black Scrolls of Rassilon, Book of Vile and its Black Appendix, The Ambuehl Lores and the Insidium of Astrolabus.

Janus finally looked at the sonic device he’d been holding all this time; seeing now that it wasn’t a screwdriver at all, and thanked every god he knew that he hadn’t tried to use it on Patton earlier.

It was a sonic laser.

Once again, even in a stupid, nonsensical dream, Janus had been cast as the villain.

His fist had collided with the bookshelf before he even realized he was moving, books falling to the floor. He punched it again, and again, until a cool rigid hand closed around his wrist and yanked him back.

“Janus, Janus, stop!” Patton yelled in his ear.

Janus wrenched his arm away and stalked back to the console, running gloved fingers over his scales, pushing them up and smoothing them down. The familiar sensation grounded him.

“You were right, Patton,” he threw over his shoulder. “This is definitely one of Roman’s dreams, and he definitely fucking hates me.”

Patton’s heavy footsteps clattered behind him.

“Language. And how do you know that,” he asked. “…Doctor?”

Janus whirled, lips curled in a snarl.

“I am not the Doctor, Patton, and we are not on the TARDIS.” He spread his arms to encompass them both, gesturing to the dimly lit spaceship. “Look around. Look at me!”

He turned, slowly, and eyed his mustached visage in the dark view screen.

“Clearly, I am the Master.”

Chapter 4- Nightmare in Silver

“You think he knows what he’s doing?”

“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”

Patton rested his arms against the console and sighed.

Once again, someone I care about is upset, and I don’t know what to do. I guess I should be used to it by now.

It didn’t help that it was so cold in this TARDIS. He folded his arms around his middle, which felt strange and heavy, to combat the chill that seemed to have settled deep in his bones.

Janus stalked past again, grumbling to himself.

“Of course the Prince would pull me into one of his little ‘adventures’ without my consent. He probably needed an antagonist. And naturally the slippery snake would have been the first person to come to mind!”

Patton opened his mouth…though he had no idea what he was going to say…but Janus drowned him out.

“Come on, Roman!” he shouted, throwing his yellow-clad hands up. “You’ve had your fun. Yes, I’m evil, I’m the villain, I’m the bad guy, blah blah. Let’s have our epic confrontation or whatever nonsense you have planned, as I would very much like to get back to my reading sometime tonight.”

Silence.

Patton didn’t know what Janus was expecting.

“Look, maybe we should just play along for now?” Patton said aloud, wincing when Janus turned his murderous expression on him. The deceptive Side had such deep, cutting golden eyes, the human one so much darker than the other…cynical eyes that were, ironically, almost impossible to lie to.

They’d see straight through it.

“It takes a liar to know a liar.”

The glare quickly softened, though, which in Patton’s opinion said a lot about how far Janus had come.

“And how do you propossse we ‘play along’?” Janus said, hissing his s’s in frustration.

“Well, we’ve kinda decided this is Roman’s dream, right? And since we’re in his part of the Imagination, we know he won’t let anything bad happen to us…”

Patton trailed off at Janus’s pained expression, reminded of just how badly Janus and Roman’s last encounter had gone.

“What are you, a middle school librarian?”

“Thank god you don’t have a mustache.”

And I just stood there and did nothing…no, I can’t dwell on that right now. Patton shook himself out of the memory.

It was surprisingly easy; even his emotions felt a little heavy and muted. He supposed he wasn’t used to being in a dreamscape; unlike Roman, who played in them all the time.

I know Roman, Patton reasoned. He might hold a grudge for a while, but he wouldn’t actually be out to hurt Janus.

Right?

“So, if we’re on a time ship, on some kind of adventure leading up to a confrontation like you said, the first thing we’d have to do is figure out where we need to go,” Patton finished, shrugging.

Janus pursed his lips…which looked downright weird with a mustache and goatee, almost making Patton giggle…and began pushing buttons on the console.

“You are definitely incorrect, Patton,” he said, pulling up another screen and flipping a few switches. “If I have been cast as the villain in this ridiculous charade, that means Roman is likely prancing around as the Doctor right now, on the proper TARDIS. Which, as the Doctor’s nemesis, I should be able to contact…ha!”

The screen burst into static.

“Doctor, oh Doctor, do you read me?” Janus crooned, and if Patton hadn’t known just how angry he was in that moment…well, he would have never known.

Janus had tucked it away entirely, in half a second's time.

That’s the scary thing about him, Patton realized uneasily. He’s smart, nearly as smart as Logan. Smart enough to run circles around me, that’s for sure. And he’s easily as good an actor as Roman.

Those attributes, combined with his naturally manipulative nature, made it difficult to trust him.

Patton was trying.

He’d been trying since the wedding, and well, since everything else that had happened. (Patton still cringed when Thomas encountered even a picture of a frog.) He’d done a lot of thinking and growing that day (in more ways than one!), and he’d come to a disturbing, but inevitable conclusion.

Janus wasn’t evil.

He never had been.

Just like Virgil had never been evil. Mean, sure; and sarcastic, and spiteful…but at his core, Virgil had wanted what was best for Thomas.

They all did.

And then there was the uncomfortable corollary to that: Patton, despite his best efforts, despite his core Purpose…Patton wasn’t entirely and automatically good.

Two weeks ago, Janus had proven beyond a doubt that Thomas needed him…ruthlessly, cuttingly, but no one could say he hadn’t made his point. It had been Patton who’d inadvertently pushed Thomas to the brink of a breakdown, and Janus who had to pull them all back.

Despite Patton’s unease, and the little voice in his head telling him that Deceit couldn’t be trusted, could never truly be trusted because it was in his nature to deceive…Patton remembered how they’d pushed Virgil so hard he decided to duck out, and how much of a tragedy that could have been if they hadn’t all intervened to bring him back.

With a pang of guilt, he pictured Thomas lying on the floor, crushed under the metaphorical weight of everything Patton needed him to do to keep from being a bad person…

He would not make those mistakes again.

If Virgil could learn to work with them instead of against them, so could Janus. If Patton could learn to recognize when his own Purpose did more harm than good, so could Janus.

Patton had to believe that.

He’d made too many mistakes lately to believe otherwise.

The screen in Janus’s hands cleared to reveal…

“What? Logan??” Janus exclaimed, as a scream echoed somewhere in the background.

“D—Janus?” Logan countered, then looked over his shoulder. “Roman, for the love of Archimedes, will you stop shrieking? I cannot hear.”

The screaming cut off and Roman’s fuming face squished into the frame with Logan.

“Deceit! I should have known you would show up to ruin this!” he managed to shout before Logan shoved him away.

“Ruin…I’m sorry, what?” Janus glanced at Patton, looking honestly confused. “Is he roleplaying right now? We assumed this scenario was Roman’s creation.”

Onscreen, Logan placed his whole hand against Roman’s mouth to prevent him from interrupting.

“It is. But to my understanding, it was only supposed to involve myself and Roman, and…wait. You said ’we’.” Logan peered around. “Who else is with you?”

Patton started to wave, but his view was blocked by Janus bending close to the screen to whisper something. Suspicion flared in Patton’s stomach; old, familiar, but after the talk he’d just given himself, he purposefully pushed it down.

I won’t assume he’s being shifty unless he actually gives me a reason to.

Lifting his chin, he crept forward until he was next to Janus’s shoulder.

“Hey, Logan,” he said brightly, waving.

“Ah…hello, Patton,” Logan squeaked after a moment, his eyes still wide.

“Wait, Patton’s there? With the snake?” Roman’s voice yelled from the background, and then there was Roman’s face again.

“Patton?” Roman said, narrowing his eyes. “But why are you—?”

Both faces disappeared for a moment as Logan yanked Roman out of frame. Patton thought he heard a rapid, hushed conversation. He glanced at Janus, who only shrugged, looking at puzzled as Patton felt.

Roman’s face reappeared, solemn and deeply annoyed.

“Patton,” he said, and hesitated. “D—Janus. You two…well, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“Very reassuring,” Janus quipped.

“This was only supposed to be a two-person adventure: Doctor plus companion. I have no idea why the Imagination brought you both in as well; I certainly didn’t tell it to.”

“Aw, that’s okay, kiddo,” Patton started gently. “It’s not your fault—”

“Oh, sweetie.” Janus folded his arms. “I’m sorry, but that’s bull. Putting me in the Master’s shoes? Are we seriously going to pretend the Side who unashamedly hates me had nothing to do with that?”

“I didn’t!” Roman argued, his voice going high. “You really think I wanted you here, in any capacity?”

“Deceit…er, Janus, you are being unnecessarily antagonistic, and as such, unhelpful,” Logan cut in with his low, reassuring voice. “But Roman, it might behoove us to consider the role of subconscious influence. You may not have intended to pull the others in, and yet here they are.”

Roman looked at Logan, aghast, and Patton almost flinched at the raw hurt in his caramel eyes. The creative Side backed out of frame.

“So you’re on his side, too,” his voice said quietly. “Is that how it is?”

“I am not on anyone’s side,” Logan argued, raising his hands. “We are all currently in this situation together, and as such—”

Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off by another garbled transmission, taking over the screen and blocking out Logan’s face with crackly, purple static. A gray, snarling face flashed out of the haze, making Patton shriek in surprise and even Janus took a step back.

Then it was gone, dissolving back to static…and the sound of someone laughing filled the connection.

“Hellooooo, nurse,” a familiar sing-song voice crooned. “Did you miss me?”

Chapter 5- The Long Game

“You can’t just read the guide book, you’ve got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?”

Logan sighed.

He knew that voice; they all did. Even Thomas, unfortunately.

“Remus,” Roman hissed.

The mustached Side filled the screen, grinning madly. “Boo!”

“Get out of my scenario,” Roman said, his eyes flashing. “If you know what’s good for you.”

“Your scenario?” Remus echoed, faux-outrage in his expression. “Yours? The Dream Palace is my domain, too, brother, whether you like it or not.” He leaned closer, letting his nostrils and a single radioactive green eye fill the screen. “Did you really think you could keep me out?”

Roman made a sound of disgust deep in his throat.

“Am I to assume, then, that you are responsible for bringing in the other Sides?” Logan asked, careful to keep his voice even. Remus thrived on getting a rise out of people.

“Of course he is!” Roman snapped, throwing up his hands. “He loves to ruin things, especially my things.”

“Now why would having the others here ruin anything, brother?” Remus asked in a sickly sweet voice, propping his head on his hand. “Unless you intended for this nighttime romp between you and Logan to be private?”

Roman sputtered and glanced at Logan, red-faced, as Remus giggled.

“It was meant to be so, yes,” Logan supplied, unsure why Remus would find that funny…or why Roman would find it embarrassing.

“As amusing as this all is—” Janus’s crooning voice cut through the speaker.

“Great. You’re still here, snake?” Roman snarked, his arms folded around himself.

“We’re all listening, kiddo,” Patton’s metallic voice said.

Roman’s lips always curl into a pout when he is angry, Logan thought, eyeing him without turning his head, and he gets a little wrinkle between his eyebrows. Why…why am I noticing such things all of a sudden?

Maybe it was the stress, or the unfamiliar environment.

Or maybe it was the Rose Tyler outfit.

That skirt ought to be illegal.

Logan deliberately focused on the screen, his cheeks warm.

“So this is kinda new,” Patton went on, “all of us actually talking—”

“If Remus is responsible,” Janus cut in again, “then perhaps he would be so kind as to explain the objective of this late night group therapy session?”

Despite the biting sarcasm, Logan did appreciate Janus’s insistence that they get to the point, even if it did mean talking over Patton…

Speaking of, why would Remus have paired Patton with Janus?

Surely he should have grouped Patton with Logan and Roman, and put Virgil with Janus? Or…maybe not, given how Virgil hisses if Janus so much as enters the same room.

Ugh. Interpersonal drama. Logan was thoroughly sick of trying to keep track of who carried a grudge against whom, especially when it seemed to change from day to day.

And on top of that, why would Remus make Patton a Cyberman? None of these decisions make any sense…

“Right?” Roman agreed softly next to him, and Logan realized he’d said that last bit out loud.

“If anything, I should have been the unfeeling killer robot,” Logan murmured.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Specs.” Roman shot him a strange look, both warm and troubled. “And frankly I don’t give a stinky rat’s ass about my stinky rat brother’s sick thought process. What I want to know is why Deceit doesn’t want us to mention it around Patton?”

Logan, who was still mentally stuck on rodents and donkeys…Roman’s metaphors were always something else…shook his head slightly.

“There’s no logical way Patton is unaware of his condition,” Logan pointed out. “So I can only guess he wishes to protect Patton’s feelings on the matter, by not allowing us to talk about it in front of him.” He shrugged when Roman’s frown deepened. “Those two have been getting along much better these last few weeks.”

“I think you’re giving the snake too much credit,” Roman muttered. “Even after he impersonated you, Logan? C’mon. It has to be something else.”

Logan bit back a sigh.

He doesn’t understand, he thought guiltily. Because he doesn’t know what really happened…

#

“This is unacceptable, Deceit,” Logan snapped, flinging the crook away from his body. “I was in the middle of a discussion—”

“He won’t listen to you,” Deceit had said, and there was no sarcasm or snark in his voice.

“Patton asked for my opinion!”

“And he dismissed you from the conversation the moment that opinion went against his preconceived notions!” Deceit snapped back.

Silence.

Logan could hear the others still talking, out in the real world…without him…as the misty dregs of subconscious curled around their feet.

“You tricked him.” Logan folded his arms. “He was scared and off balance and you gave him an out.”

“I didn’t make him take it!”

Deceit sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Logan. You know he is wrong on this. You know what this is doing to Thomas. His unquestioning, black-and-white, juvenile morality; it’s not working anymore. Thomas needs to grow up, and Patton is not letting him.”

Logan bit his lip.

“Logan.” Deceit moved closer, dismissing his crook into mist and setting both gloved hands on Logan’s shoulders. Logan stiffened.

“Logic. Please. I am…no good at this.” Deceit dropped his head, his hat obscuring his eyes. “I operate through deceit because that is the only way I can make them acknowledge me.”

“They don’t acknowledge you because you operate through deceit,” Logan pointed out.

“A perfect catch 22.” Deceit let out a bitter laugh. “But a snake cannot change its scales and I don’t…I have tried everything I know. I cannot fix this from the shadows. I am out of ideas.”

A strange thought entered Logan’s mind.

“You care. You care what happens to Thomas.”

Deceit looked up, his mismatched eyes glittering with stinging intensity. “I am the literal representation of selfishness. Why the hell else would I go to all this trouble if I didn’t care?”

“Well…” Logan trailed off, troubled.

He’d let the others get to him, he realized in that moment. He’d let Roman get to him, with his talk of evil and Dark Sides and how they were always trying to tempt Thomas off the right path.

But…they were all part of Thomas, even the so-called “dark sides”.

Of course they wanted what was best for him…well, what Remus wanted at any given moment was debatable…even if they didn’t always go about it in the healthiest of ways.

Deceit had laughed then, high pitched and bitter.

“Really? Really? Even you think so low of me?”

“You are manipulating me right now.” Logan frowned. “You are using my concern for Thomas to make me trust you.”

“Yes! I am!” Deceit got in his face, fangs flashing. “I am a manipulative bastard because that is the lens through which my Source perceives me. But that doesn’t matter because you, Logic; you see through me, always have. And you know perfectly well that logically, any objection you have to my personality or my methods does not change the fact that I. Am. Right.”

He punctuated each word with a poke to Logan’s chest.

“Deceit—” Logan started.

“Janus.”

“What?”

Deceit sighed. “My name. My…real name. It’s Janus.”

Logan blinked. He knew the mythology, of course: Janus, keeper of doorways and thresholds, looking simultaneously to the past and future. Two faces. Seeing things from every angle.

Self-preservation.

“It suits you,” Logan said quietly.

Tension bled out of Janus’s shoulders, a stiffness Logan hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone.

“Thank you.”

“Why am I here…Janus?” Logan asked, glancing away. “What do you need from me?”

Janus looked at him intently.

“Let me speak to them as you.”

Logan raised an eyebrow, and Janus sighed, waving a hand.

“I know, I know, more deceit, more lies, but—”

“No, it’s…” Logan pressed his lips together. “You already pointed it out. They don’t listen to me, either.”

The bitter twist that accompanied those words was becoming an all too familiar sensation in Logan’s chest.

Janus snorted.

“Oh, they do. Eventually. They heeded your advice on how to deal with Remus.”

Logan shrugged uncomfortably.

“Look,” Janus added, “honest people know how to tell the truth, but liars…” he smirked, not especially nicely. “We know how to wield the truth to accomplish an end. I can pull Thomas and the others out of this rut, but they have to be receptive to my tugging on the reins.”

Logan pursed his lips.

“You won’t fool them. If you recall, you tried to impersonate me once already and barely lasted two minutes.”

“I didn’t have your blessing.”

Janus fixed Logan with his intense mismatched eyes again, and held out a hand.

Logan stared at it, torn.

This was Deceit, the master liar: Thomas’s entire capacity for deception condensed into a single, snake-faced Side. How could Logan possibly trust him to not make things worse, after all the falsehoods, the impersonations, how he’d manipulated them all in one way or another to get his way?

But…as much as Logan, personally, didn’t understand why that callback had been so important to Thomas…he could not dismiss the fallout Thomas had suffered as a result of missing it. The decision to attend the wedding had turned out to be a bad one.

Patton had been wrong to insist upon it over Janus’s objections, and over Roman’s.

Those were just the facts.

Janus sighed.

“I’ll unmask myself when an opportunity arises, if that would help,” he offered, and to Logan’s shock, slowly tugged off a glove. “I won’t…I won’t let it go on as long as it did with Patton.”

He offered his now bare hand to Logan again.

Out in the real world, Logan could hear Patton’s increasingly desperate and ridiculous responses to Thomas’s and Roman’s questions, and winced. Janus did the same.

“Please,” was all he said.

Logan sighed…it really couldn’t get any worse, could it?…and shook Janus’s hand.

#

In his TARDIS, Logan let out the sigh he was holding back.

He might have personal, concrete evidence that Janus wasn’t evil, but he also knew Janus had wounded Roman, badly, that day. The creative Side was simply not currently capable of viewing any situation involving Janus with any sort of objectivity.

Passionate, sensitive people like Roman tended to have an unfortunate habit of hanging onto grudges.

As Logic, Logan needed to remember that.

“Oh, all right,” Remus said, his voice crackling over the connection. “Since you’re all here—”

“Actually, Remus, we’re not all here,” Patton’s voice pointed out. “You all know perfectly well who we’re missing; we’ve done this before.”

Logan’s eyes widened. “‘Where is Anxiety?’” he quoted.

“You mean Tickle Me Emo isn’t with one of you?” Remus asked, looking delighted. “Oh dear, oh dear. Is he lost?”

“I mean, TARDISes are huge,” Roman pointed out. “He could be somewhere on one of our ships.” His voice dropped again. “I’ll bet Deceit stashed him away, because we all know how he hates Virgil.”

“Excuse you,” Janus’s voice interrupted, annoyed. “It is Virgil who hates me, not the other way around.”

“Let’s both scan our ships,” Logan suggested, hoping to head off an argument. Honestly, if Roman and Janus didn’t stop picking fights with one another, he was going to lose his marbles.

The scans pulled up nothing.

“Oh well,” Remus said with a shrug. “Guess the emo gets to miss out.”

Janus grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “lucky”.

“All right, here’s what’s going to happen.” Remus leaned close to the screen. “I’ve crash landed on a lovely snowbound planet that’s crawling with psychotic tin cans who like to roll around yelling ‘exterminate’.”

“Daleks? A snowbound planet, so not Skarro, but where else…” Logan narrowed his eyes.

“He’s on the Dalek asylum,” Roman said lowly. “That was one of the episodes I had in mind when I plotted this adventure.”

“Very good, brother.” Remus clapped his hands. “And up there in orbit is a ship full of people who’d really like to blow up the whole planet. Oh, woe is me, whatever shall I—”

“Save it,” Roman snapped. “You’d probably enjoy getting blown up.”

“Hmm, true.” Remus’s green eyes sharpened. “Think of the mess! Little bits of intestines floating through space, long pink ropey—”

“Or?” Logan interjected, before Remus gave Patton nightmares.

“Or you have to come rescue me!” Remus’s teeth flashed as he grinned. “Because otherwise it’s nighty-night for me and all the other aliens in the asylum.”

There was a beat of silence.

“As terrible as that sounds,” Janus drawled, sounding anything but worried, “given that none of this is real, and at least one of us would very much rather not be here at all…why exactly should your plight concern us?”

Logan secretly agreed, but felt his stomach clench when he glanced at Roman’s troubled face. None of this was real…right? Would something concretely bad happen to Remus if the planet he inhabited was blown up?

Surely not.

This was only a dream. Perhaps, then, Roman was merely upset that his twin had usurped his adventure for the night?

“Also.” Remus buffed his fingernails. “You should know that the Imagination will only release us if we complete the objective. In other words,” and he sneered, purple-shadowed eyes glittering, “we’re all stuck in this scenario until we’re all reunited.”

Remus giggled as Logan exchanged a shocked look with Roman.

“I don’t believe you. This was my dream,” Roman said darkly. “And I’ve just about had enough of all this!”

He stepped back and snapped his fingers with a flourish. Frowning, he did it again, and again, his face growing paler with each try.

“Roman, what—” Logan started.

“I can’t end it,” Roman whispered, still snapping. “He’s right. He’s…he’s sealed off the dream’s boundaries somehow. Remus!”

This he roared at the screen.

“Keeping Thomas trapped in a dream state is going too far, Remus!” he yelled. “I don’t care what kind of demented game you want to play with us, but we don’t bring Thomas into it.”

“Oh, you think I created an unbreakable dreamscape?” Remus snapped. “You let the Imagination have too much reign, my dear brother, and now neither of us have the power to end the dream ourselves. I estimate we have about ten hours before Thomas wakes up.”

For a moment, all Logan could hear was the soft whoosh of the time rotor, and Roman’s shallow, angry breathing at his shoulder.

“So I suggest you all pilot your ships to these coordinates,” Remus added, and a series of numbers and strange symbols flashed up on one of the smaller console screens. “And get started.”

The main screen blipped, and Remus’s face was replaced by an expressionless Cyberman and a snake-faced Side who looked extremely pale under his scales.

“Well,” Logan stated. “This is a problem.”

Chapter 6- Asylum of the Daleks

“You’re going to fire me at a planet? That’s your plan? I get fired at a planet and expected to fix it?”

“In fairness, that is slightly your M.O.”

“Don’t be fair to the Daleks when they’re firing me at a planet.”

The familiar wheeze of the TARDIS materializing filled Roman’s ears as he waited by the doors. Logan joined him a moment later.

“Ready?” he asked, smoothing a hand over his cravat.

He looks good as the Doctor, Roman thought, eying the slimming black and navy, the graceful arc that hand made as it adjusted a pair of glasses…

He shook himself out of his distraction. “Let’s do this, nerd.”

Logan opened the doors and the two stepped out…not onto the asylum, but onto a spaceship. Shiny copper terraces lined the vast walls in curving rows, leading the eye up to a domed ceiling with a clear view of black, star-studded space. Like a huge amphitheater, or stadium. Even Roman had to admit, the Imagination had really outdone itself on the realism.

Of course, given that the ship was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of Daleks calling for violence…realism wasn’t exactly comforting at the moment.

“Surprise, surprise, I don’t see my stupid brother,” Roman commented over the dull roar of the crowd.

“No. But I recognize where we are.” Logan waved a hand. “You were right about Remus’s location; this ship is from the episode ‘Asylum of the Daleks’, in Season 7. If we are following the basic plotline, Remus is likely somewhere down on the planet below, and we will be sent to him in due course. However…I am curious as to why all the other aliens are here.”

Roman looked around again, seeing that Logan was right. Daleks formed the majority of the crowd, but he also spotted Zygons, Sontarans, Silurians, other Cybermen, Ice Warriors…and quite a few aliens from older seasons he couldn’t remember the names of.

(Logan probably could.)

A second TARDIS materialized near their familiar blue box: plain, gray; a squat column of a ship. Janus emerged first, a silver instrument gripped in one gloved hand, followed by an old-school Cyberman…Patton. Roman frowned. Seeing that metal…being…and having to remember it was actually his friend was going to be difficult now that there wasn’t a screen separating them.

“Nice work, Roman,” Janus said, sidling up next to him and faux-clapping his hands. “A ship full of aliens who want us dead; always an excellent starting point for an adventure.”

“This is how the episode starts, Mr. Oh-I’m-Such-an-Expert-in-Doctor-Who,” Roman retorted. “Accuracy is important.”

“But this isn’t accurate,” Logan pointed out. “There should only be Daleks here.”

Roman folded his arms, stung.

Damn Logan and his damned need to be right all the time.

“I…well, I didn’t model this adventure after just one particular episode,” Roman admitted. “I wanted it to be a challenge, and it wouldn’t be if Logan and I already knew the ending. So no, I can’t exactly explain why all the other aliens are here, okay?”

Logan sighed.

“I was not criticizing you, Roman,” he said in a gentler voice. “As this has apparently become as much Remus’s and the Imagination’s handiwork as it is yours, it would be unreasonable to expect you to know what comes next.”

“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH THE SUPREME DALEK,” a grating robotic voice boomed across the ship, making them all whip around. A large white Dalek with an antenna on its shell loomed on a raised stage near the center of the amphitheater.

“They were expecting me, too?” Janus raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

The lights on the Dalek’s head flashed as it spoke again.

“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH WITH THEIR COMPANIONS.”

The four Sides exchanged a glance, and weaved through the assembled Daleks to the raised stage. The White Supreme Dalek was not the only occupant; it was flanked by an Ice Warrior, an Emojibot (which made Patton giggle), and…

“Look, a Janus,” Roman chortled, nudging the snake-faced Side in the ribs and pointing out the two-faced alien.

“You are all nerds and my logo is a two-headed snake,” Janus complained, rolling his eyes. “I literally do not know how all of you missed that obvious clue to my name.”

“DOCTOR,” the White Dalek said as they climbed the dais. “MASTER. WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE DALEK ASYLUM?”

“I’m just impressed my rat-faced brother wasn’t lying about his location,” Roman grumbled, and sputtered when Logan placed a hand over his mouth.

“According to legend,” Logan said, “you have a dumping ground, a planet where you lock up all the Daleks that go wrong.”

“The battle-scarred, the insane. The ones even you can’t control,” Janus clarified. His voice dropped to a hiss. “No wonder they ssstuck Remus there.”

Roman covered his mouth to keep from snorting.

The snake would not make him laugh.

“CORRECT.” The Dalek pushed a button and a hole opened in the middle of the floor. A snow-covered planet lay below them, pristine from this high up.

“Ooh, that’s,” Patton started, and let out a metallic gulp. “That’s quite a drop. Do we, ah, have to go down the same way? Cause I remember that part, and—”

“How many Daleks are down there?” Logan asked.

“A COUNT HAS NOT BEEN MADE,” the white Dalek said.

“Millions, certainly,” a new voice chimed in. The tall, robed, dark-skinned Janus stepped forward, their front face addressing them. “But they will not be your only concern. The population of the planet consists of more than just Daleks.”

Roman exchanged a suspicious glance with Logan. This wasn’t in the episode. This is new.

“What do you mean?” Janus, their Janus, asked.

The alien Janus turned to a nearby monitor, pulling up some information. The backward-facing face continued to address them.

“Some time ago, the Daleks began noticing a curious phenomenon,” they said. “Random people, from all different races and species, started turning up on various planets in this quadrant of space, including the asylum. No ships, no technology, and no knowledge of how they’d gotten there. At first the imprisoned Daleks on the asylum simply killed them off as they appeared—”

Patton visibly winced, even with his metal body, and Logan’s eyes grew flinty.

“—but the new arrivals eventually became too many to exterminate,” the alien Janus went on, unconcerned. “By now we suspect the planet has a population of over a billion, far too many for its automated systems to handle.”

They turned their forward face to the four again.

“THE ASYLUM IS COMPROMISED,” the Dalek Supreme proclaimed. “IT MUST BE CLEANSED.”

“Hang on, you’re still going to blow the whole planet up?” Roman protested. “A billion people?”

“To be fair, that is what they did in the original episode,” Logan pointed out quietly.

“But that was just Daleks!”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Ah, so genocide is fine when it’s only the evil aliens getting blown up?”

“You know, somehow I’m not surprised to hear you defending the bad guys!” Roman snapped.

“That is enough!” Patton snapped in his robotic voice, stepping between them and raising both his hands. Laser pistols popped out of both of them, making both Roman and Janus step back in alarm.

After a tense moment, Patton lowered his arms again; the guns clicked and vanished into their casings.

“Uh, sorry kiddos, I don’t know what came over me,” he said in a sheepish, more Patton-y voice. “Can we please not fight? It…it kinda makes me feel weird and jittery when you do.”

Roman stared at Patton’s blank Cyberman face and armored Cyberman body and swallowed, hard.

Their Patton would never deliberately aim a gun at anyone, let alone his family. But Cybermen were created to eliminate…or rather, delete…anyone who got in their way.

Did Patton even realize what he’d almost done?

What would happen, if and when he was forced to confront the reality of his body in this realm? What if he didn’t figure it out until he accidentally did something terrible? It wouldn’t be real, of course, but to Patton…that wouldn’t matter.

If his Cyberman programming forced or tricked him into hurting someone, the guilt of it would devastate him.

All I wanted to do was take Logan on an adventure, Roman thought bitterly. A fun little dream adventure where he could play one of his heroes. Was that too much to ask, Imagination?

He folded his arms and glared around the Dalek ship, anywhere but at his fellow Sides.

Whatever the hell this has turned into, I want no part of it anymore.

“In order for us to destroy the planet, we will need you to disable the planet’s forcefield—” The alien Janus started, but Logan held up a finger.

“Excuse you,” he said sharply. “We have not agreed to do anything, least of all help you murder a billion people whose only crime is to have accidentally turned up in your prison. Have you even attempted to solve that mystery?"

"And why do you care what happens down there?" Roman added, sneering. "If the insane Daleks are armed—”

“DALEKS ARE ALWAYS ARMED,” the white Dalek proclaimed.

“—then why can’t they defend themselves?” Logan finished, shooting Roman a questioning glance.

Roman huffed, and looked away.

“At first they did,” the Janus explained. “But as I said, the automated systems cannot keep up with the influx. Wars are being fought over food and other resources as we speak. A starliner crashed on the surface mere days ago, and—”

“Ah,” Logan said slowly. “You’re afraid, with all the shifting alliances and new activity, that the mad Daleks will escape in the confusion.”

“We do not know who or what is behind the influx,” the Janus said. “But eventually, they will start coming with ships, or they will build them on the surface, or reach out to those who could attempt a rescue.”

“‘If sssomeone can get in, everything can get out’,” their Janus quoted darkly.

The other Janus nodded. “Even the Daleks agree, their mad brethren cannot be allowed to escape. We, of this assembly—”

They waved to the assembled crowd of aliens, who observed in eerie silence.

“—have decided that one planet must be sacrificed for the greater good of the universe.”

Roman slowly and deliberately drew his sword (which the Imagination had kindly left as part of his outfit). It rasped as it emerged, the sound hair-raising in the sudden lull.

Instantly every Dalek gunstick and alien weapon on the ship was primed and pointed at the four Sides.

“And if we refuse?” Roman said evenly.

“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL COOPERATE,” the Supreme Dalek warned, its lights flashing balefully.

“COOPERATE! COOPERATE!” the cry was echoed by the other Daleks, filling the ship with a cacophony of robot voices.

The alien Janus shrugged, spreading their hands.

“You don’t really have a choice. If you want to live, that is.”

“Is that so.”

Roman tensed and sprang at the white Dalek, not giving himself time to think. He dodged a blast from its gunstick and leaped, bringing his sword down hard. This being the Imagination, the katana cut through the Dalek’s metal armor like butter, and it clattered to the deck in two pieces.

There was a shocked silence…but no retaliation.

“Well?” Roman shouted, spreading his arms and turning in a slow circle. “This is me, not cooperating. What are you waiting for? Are you really going to shoot us?”

If they all died on this spaceship…the worst that would happen is they’d be kicked from the Imagination, and that was what they wanted, anyway.

“Roman,” Logan warned quietly, pointing.

Roman looked.

The white Dalek’s shell was…laughing?

“Oh, Roman,” Remus’s crackly voice emerged from the fallen Dalek’s casing. “Roman, Roman, Roman. My poor brave brother who thinks he can solve all his problems with steel and bravado. Did you really think it would be that easy?”

Each word bit like sandpaper against Roman’s ears.

He growled, and stalked to the Dalek’s top half, snatching it up and quickly locating a tiny speaker.

“C’mon, Remus. End this stupid charade,” he said quietly, holding the casing to his face so he could speak quietly. “You’ve had your fun at my expense. Go back to your pile of severed limbs and gloat if you must, but end this. For Patton’s sake, if nothing else.”

“I’ve already told you, it’s out of my hands,” Remus responded; typically, annoyingly casual. “If you want to end the game, you have to come down here and find me.”

Roman exhaled, resting his head against the cold, bumpy metal for a moment. His eyes burned, but he was Prince; he wouldn’t cry, not here.

“Why must you make everything difficult?”

“Roman, in all seriousness,” Remus’s voice dropped. “I didn’t know you were taking Logan on a date tonight—”

“It’s not a date,�� Roman hissed, glancing at the other Sides…one in particular.

“The Imagination brought me into this without asking, just like it pulled the others in,” Remus went on. “I am aware of what has to happen, but I did not cause this.”

“You’re lying,” Roman said tonelessly.

Remus’s whiny voice grew hard.

“I don’t lie, and you despise that about me. You hide so much shit from yourself that it baffles you when I refuse to do the same.”

“Look,” Remus added when Roman didn’t respond. “The Imagination is clearly trying to get our attention. Sure, it usually goes through one of us first, but it doesn’t have to. When it comes down to it, Thomas’s mind answers only to Thomas. ”

“How are you so sure?” Roman frowned.

Was Remus seriously suggesting the Imagination they both oversaw had gone rogue somehow?

“Because I don’t curate my side as meticulously as you do, brother.” Remus chuckled. “I listen. I let the Imagination do as she pleases, free from all those pesky ethics and morals and other boring boxes you always force her into, so that our sweet Thomas doesn’t fear the contents of his own head.”

“You expect me to believe that you know what’s going on because,” Roman let every ounce of disdain seep into his voice, “the Imagination talks to you, and not me…because you don’t make her behave?”

“You should try letting her loose sometimes,” Remus drawled, “or you’ll end up with a cane up your butt like Nerdy Wolverine over there.”

“Don’t call him that,” Roman spat.

“What you so-called ‘light sides’ always get wrong,” Remus went on, “is that the juicy stuff, the gruesome and grim, the ‘bad’ thoughts that filter up from the subconscious; they can’t all be locked away and ignored.” His voice dropped ominously. “Repression can be very bad indeed, you know.”

Roman’s reasonable nature knew that his brother, despite his infuriating attitude, was actually making some good points. Thomas had been dealing with a lot lately; the tension in the mindspace felt like a ticking clock, counting down to the next disaster.

But at that moment, Roman had no desire to humor his twin.

All he wanted to do was lock himself into his own room in the Dream Palace and spend the rest of the night writing sad poetry about love, or listing his mistakes to himself until he fell asleep.

“I just wanted to show Logan a good time,” he said aloud.

“And oh dear, apparently you couldn’t even manage that correctly,” Remus said, implacably. “So maybe you should use this opportunity to get your head out of your poopy ass, and reevaluate yourself.”

Roman slammed the Dalek shell against the floor.

It cracked upon impact, the wiring inside sparking and finally flickering down to darkness. He ran his hands through his hair, reminded, once again, why he hated talking to his brother.

Like looking in a funhouse mirror…

“Roman…” Patton sidled up behind him, laying a cold hand on his back. Roman shoved the metal arm away and stalked back to the others.

“Let’s just get this done,” he said in a low voice.

“You will need these,” the alien Janus said, pushing a button on a nearby console. A translucent vertical tube rose from a gap in the floor, holding three bulky black bracelets.

“Ah yes, I remember this,” Logan said, striding forward and taking a bracelet.

“They will prevent—” the Janus started.

“The nano cloud from converting us into Dalek puppets, yes?” Logan interrupted, snapping the bracelet onto his wrist and handing another to Roman.

The nerd is getting into this, Roman thought as he put it on. I guess that’s something.

“The cloud is only active in certain areas of the asylum,” the Janus warned them again. “And those change as different factions seize control of different areas and weaponize them.”

Patton hesitantly raised a hand.

“Um, Mx. Alien, I can’t help but notice that there are only three bracelets, and four of us?”

Logan frowned. “But Patton, why would you—?”

“I’m sure it’s because I’m part snake, Patton,” Janus interrupted smoothly, swooping in to grab the last bracelet and snapping it onto Patton’s arm.

Roman exchanged an alarmed look with Logan; that was the last bit of confirmation he needed. Patton really was unaware that he was a Cyberman.

But why on earth would Janus go to such lengths to keep him in the dark about it? Even leaving aside the fact that Patton was a walking weapon; being a machine, he didn’t need protection from the nano cloud at all.

Whereas Janus…probably did.

But when Roman opened his mouth, Janus shot him a look full of daggers and promises of pain, and shook his head. Roman rolled his eyes and mentally washed his hands of the situation.

Typical Deceit. Protecting his lies.

At least Patton would be twice-protected. If the snake wanted to risk his life for a lie, let him.

“The gravity beam will convey you close to the crashed starliner,” the alien Janus said, and then there were Dalek blasters being shoved into their backs, propelling them toward the hole in the floor.

“Oi,” Roman protested, “get your freaky little eggbeater appendages away from me, you AAAAHHHH!”

There was a push, and they were falling.

Chapter 7- Oxygen

“Look at this. Classic design. Pressure seals. Hinges. None of that ‘shuk shuk’ nonsense.”

“Space doors are supposed to go shuk shuk.”

“Are you gonna be like this all day?”

Janus was done.

He sat up with a groan, brushing snow from his jacket and vest, making sure his hat and gloves were still in place. Everything ached. Bad enough he never wanted to be part this stupid dream game in the first place; now he was probably going to literally turn into a Dalek.

All because the Imagination is being a dick and Patton doesn’t know he’s a killer robot.

Wind gusted around him, making Janus glad that the Master, like the Doctor, usually preferred long sleeves and a coat. He stood, turning in a slow circle as he took in the lay of the land. Nothing but snow and rocks; true to the episode, still.

The gravity beam had split into four as it hurled them at the planet, but Janus was reasonably sure at least one of the others had landed nearby.

He hoped it was Patton.

Not because he was concerned or anything. It was just that either of the others would be absolutely insufferable company, that’s all.

“Janus!” a metallic voice called, and Janus breathed a sigh of relief.

Patton’s Cyberman body clattered awkwardly down a nearby snowbank, sliding the last few feet to land in a heap.

“It is all kinds of chilly down here.” Patton stood, and waved rather nonsensically. “Hullo there, Janus, so ice to see you.”

Janus rolled his eyes. (He would deny to his dying day that the corner of his mouth twitched at the ridiculous pun.)

“If this scenario is consistent with its source material,” he said, gesturing to the closest ridge, “there should be an escape pod from that crashed ship nearby. Come on.”

He set off across the snow, Patton following in his wake.

“Say, what do snowmen call their offspring?”

Janus exhaled carefully. Hoo, boy, maybe Logan wouldn’t have been so bad…

“I haven’t the faintest.”

“Chill-dren!” Patton chortled at Janus’s grimace. “What did one snowman say to another?”

“St. Genesius spare me,” Janus grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What, pray tell, did one snowman say to another?”

“‘Do you smell carrots?’”

Janus quickly covered his mouth.

“You smiled,” Patton crooned.

“I most certainly did not.”

“Okay, okay, one more.” Patton scurried ahead and turned around, so that he was walking backwards. “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” Janus said flatly.

“Snow.” Patton hooked his thumbs into the metal rim at waist, like one might on a pair of pants. Janus swallowed and looked away.

“Snow who?”

“Snow laughing matter, Janus, I don’t know why you’re smiling.”

Janus snorted before he could hide it, and cleared his throat.

“I am not smiling, how dare you.”

“That’s twice now!” Patton cackled, the sound coming out all distorted. “Admit it.”

“I refuse,” Janus said, drawing himself up. “You won’t make a liar out of….”

Liar.

He felt the joke fall flat and cringed. Even though Patton’s metal face couldn’t react, those metal shoulders visibly stiffened.

Too soon.

Liar.

Too much history between them.

Besides, you are a liar, his mind whispered. Lies of omission are still lies, Deceit, and you’re doing that right now.

Janus gritted his teeth. They topped a ridge; the expected escaped pod lay half-buried near another ridge, across a flat stretch of snow. The two Sides glanced at each other and continued their journey in silence.

Patton seemed disinclined to continue his little pun war.

Janus badly wanted to say he hadn’t minded the punning, but truthfully, keeping silent was easier. Patton’s baffling ignorance over the state of his own “flesh” was starting to wear on Janus’s conscience. He knew the longer he kept it secret, the worse the fallout would be when Patton finally learned the truth.

The urge to come clean was an unfamiliar one for him, and extremely uncomfortable.

Ironic, the master liar, conflicted about maintaining a lie.

The old him would have laughed, but…the old him hadn’t heard the sincerity in Patton’s voice, when he’d spoken Janus’s true name aloud for the first time. The old him had assumed Thomas would reject him forever…because of Patton.

And then, with Janus still smarting from the sting of Roman’s mockery, Patton had said his name.

Patton had trusted him to take care of Thomas in his stead, when the moral Side knew he had failed at it. The memory still made all Janus’s scales tingle and his heart beat a little sideways.

The new him…this him…couldn’t find it in his small, shriveled, but very much present heart to risk pushing Patton away.

They reached the pod.

Muffled shouts and something that sounded like blaster fire filtered up from inside, making them exchange another glance.

Janus set a hand on the ice-crusted latch.

“Remember, we’ll have to fight our way through a bunch of dead Dalek puppets,” he reminded Patton.

“That’s a lot of noise for just a few puppets,” Patton said softly. “That canonically shouldn’t even be awake yet.”

“I know, and that is strange,” Janus agreed. “Maybe someone got here before us. But we won’t know exactly what to expect until we get down there.”

Patton sighed, a cloud of frost puffing out of his small, rectangular mouth.

Janus pushed the latch, popped his head in, and was met with a scene of utter chaos.

About six or seven human-Dalek puppets, with stalks sticking out of their heads and blasters sticking out of their hands, were locked in a fire fight with a horde of robotic humanoids that looked like they came from the Fourth Doctor’s era, if Janus remembered correctly. Round, bulky shoulders and faces that looked like metal sunbursts.

Both puppets and robots were using the seats as cover, blaster fire zinging back and forth and exploding against the walls in little showers of sparks. Janus and Patton would be directly in the blast zone when they jumped down, a little closer to the robot side.

“Well, someone definitely got here before us,” Janus muttered.

He withdrew his head and studied Patton. Honestly, with his metal body he’d be in far less danger, and those guns in his arms would actually be useful in this situation…but telling Patton he was a walking weapon, now, would definitely not go over well.

“The hatch down into the asylum should be in the cockpit of this thing,” he informed Patton. “There’s a lot of blaster fire, though, so—”

“—don’t get cold feet and hesitate?” Patton finished.

Something in Janus’s heart twisted…something he didn’t dare examine too closely.

“Say, Patton,” he said softly, looking away.

“Yes?”

“What did the hat say to the scarf?”

Patton turned his black Cyberman eyes on Janus.

“What?”

“‘You hang around, and I’ll go a-head’.” Janus let a smirk curl his lips.

Patton was silent for a moment, but then he began to giggle, covering his mouth.

Janus pulled out his sonic laser.

He dropped into the pod with a swing of his legs, catching one of the robots in its metal chest. It fell with a screech, careening into another of its kind, but by then Janus had gained his feet and ducked behind a seat. Patton clattered down behind, with less grace and far more noise…and a random Tivolian tumbled in directly after him.

Patton caught the rodent-faced alien with a startled shout, immediately dropping them again when they screamed and struggled. Janus blinked; where the hell did they come from?

The Tivolian tumbled across the pod’s floor, only making it a few feet before getting cut down with blaster bolts. Janus saw Patton cry out, and caught the Side before he could leap out and draw more hostile fire.

“It’s too late!” he shouted over the noise.

“I should have hung on!” Patton, if he’d had a proper face, would probably be in tears. He hated death. “I don’t know why they were so scared of me!”

Janus could answer that…

“I’m more curious about where they came from,” he said instead, frowning. “They surely weren’t up on the surface with us. It’s like they just teleported in, but Tivolians don’t teleport. They don’t have the technology—”

A blaster bolt exploded across the top of the seat they were hiding behind, showering them in sparks and forcing them both to duck.

“Janus!” Patton snapped. “We need to get out of here!”

“Right.” Janus brandished his sonic. “We’ll just have to run for it.”

He leaped out, activating his weapon, and discovered that a sonic laser had a very satisfying range and kickback. Forget the Doctor’s screwdriver, he thought, blasting a Dalek puppet aside and ducking another gun blast. I wonder if the Imagination will let me keep this…

A cold, dead hand seized the collar of his jacket, yanking him back.

Then there was a yell, a clatter, and Janus turned in time to see Patton blast a puppet with a fire extinguisher. The moral Side chuckled at Janus’s shocked expression.

“I’ve seen this episode too, you know,” he pointed out.

Janus huffed.

The two dodged and fought their way to the cockpit; Janus used his laser to seal the door behind them. For a moment they simply stood there, catching their breath.

(Well, Janus caught his. Did Patton even breathe, in that form?)

“Unauthorized personnel may not enter the cockpit.” Remus’s high-pitched voice came over the speaker system. “Unless it’s an actual pit full of cocks, in which case, where’s my invitation?”

Janus was going to need something a lot stronger than tea, once they finally got out of this mess.

“Remus, for god’s sake,” he grumbled.

“God has nothing to do with my cock, but if that’s how you want to roll…” One of the cockpit screens flickered to life, and there was Remus in all his ruffly, sparkly, mustached glory. Clara’s warm, messy cove spread out behind him, reds and yellows clashing horribly with the green of his sash.

Janus moved so that his chest and shoulders blocked the screen, to prevent Remus from catching sight of Patton. If Remus saw Patton as a Cyberman, Janus would never be able to convince him to keep his mouth shut.

“All right then, where do we find you?” Janus said. “And where did the others land? Not to mention our dear missing ball of anxiety.” He leaned forward, putting on his trademark smirk. “Come on, Re. You must know. One Other to another, you can tell me.”

“Aww, Jan Jan,” Remus crooned, also leaning forward. “You care.”

“I most certainly do not!” Janus sputtered, and cleared his throat. “Patton was worried about Virgil, that’s all.”

“I was?” Patton asked from the other side of the space. “I mean, of course I am, but—”

“But surely you can at least tell us why this scenario isn’t playing out quite like the episode it comes from,” Janus interjected smoothly. He didn’t want Remus to notice the metallic quality of Patton’s voice.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve already told you everything that I know.” Remus shrugged. “Roman really did give the Imagination too much freedom.”

Janus frowned.

“Then how do you know the scenario will end when we find you?”

“I actually don’t! Isn’t it great?” Remus crowed, clapping his hands. “I love stories where anything could happen. We could all get vaporized, or have our flesh eaten by—”

“Remus, focus.” Janus pitched the bridge of his nose. “So, given what we know of this particular episode, you’re assuming that our main tasks are to come get you, and to drop the forcefield on the planet so the Daleks can blow it up.”

“That’s the idea, Double Dee!”

Behind him, Janus heard Patton make a weird, choked noise, and grimaced.

“By the way, Roman and Logan are already inside the asylum.” Remus grinned, the whites of his eyes flashing. “So if you want to catch up, you’d better scute those scaly asscheeks along. Check the floor for a breach; that will be your way out. A breach, ha! Like a butth—”

Janus pointed his laser and fired on the screen, cutting the transmission and sending sparks flying all over the cockpit. An awkward silence fell in which he turned to face Patton, who of course wore no visible expression.

This, and all the reasons for it, annoyed him further.

“I swear if you ask one question about scutes or scales,” he warned, holding up a finger.

“I wasn’t…going to.” Patton held up his hands. “Logan kind of taught us how to tune out the more, er, naughty things Remus says. But I am wondering,” he added hesitantly. “Are you…feeling okay?”

“Fabulous. Peachy,” Janus said flatly, kneeling to feel around on the floor. “Fantastic, allons-y, geronimo, what have you.”

“It’s just, you seem a little angry,” Patton went on. “And you remember, that’s, that’s the first step in being converted. Maybe you should wear the bracelet for a while? We can trade on and off…”

Patton’s fingers went to his wrist, but Janus stopped him with a gloved hand on top.

Tell him, an inner voice whispered. Tell him now, before this gets any more awkward.

“That’s sweet of you, but no, I’m merely frustrated,” Janus admitted. “I would very much like to get out of here, so I can return to the pleasant evening I was having before all thisss.”

He gestured irritatedly around them.

Patton joined him on the floor and together they found a person-sized hole, with a rope ladder hanging down.

“Hey, Janus,” Patton murmured, as they were about to start the long climb down. “Can I ask you something?”

“Why do I have a feeling you’re going to ask no matter what I say?” Janus said wryly.

“Do you remember when that puppet attacked you in the main part of the ship, and I fought it off with the fire extinguisher?” Patton ducked his head.

Janus raised an eyebrow.

“They hesitated, when they saw me.” Patton’s unnaturally black eyes met Janus’s. “That’s why I had time to grab the extinguisher.”

Janus swallowed, his heart starting to pound.

“Well, I’m sure they aren’t used to anyone fighting back—”

“No, they hesitated like…like I scared them or something,” Patton pressed. “It was weird, Janus. Please. If there’s something you need to tell me…you know you can.”

Janus’s mouth compressed into a flat line and he looked away, bitterness welling up inside him.

“Can I, Patton?” he asked softly, holding up a gloved hand. A yellow indictment of everything he was. “Can I really?”

Patton sighed, long and deep.

“Touché.”

Chapter 8- Extremis

“Something’s coming. And I’m blind. How can I see them when I’m lost in the dark?”

Logan awoke to someone shaking him.

He opened his eyes to an expanse of blurry blobs and color splotches, and Roman’s sharp, frantic face very close to his. His eyes have amber flecks, his brain noted inanely. But why is he clear when nothing else is…?

Roman threw his head back and exhaled in obvious relief when Logan groaned, blinking rapidly to clear his vision.

“Singing chimeras, Specs, I was starting to worry.”

Logan sat up and touched his bare face. Ah, there’s the problem.

“Where are my glasses?”

Roman was quiet.

Logan leaned closer to the other Side, squinting. Bad eyesight was such an annoyance. If only Thomas’s developing brain hadn’t decided early on that “smart and logical” also meant “stereotypically nerdy”, and pigeonholed his own sense of Logic into actually requiring corrective eyewear.

“Roman?” Logan tried again.

“Um. About that.”

Roman bit his lip, and handed over a smashed set of frames. Logan’s stomach sank as he examined them; the lenses were shattered beyond repair.

“I found them next to you like that, when I woke up,” Roman explained. “I’ve been trying to summon another pair, but for some reason the Imagination won’t let me!”

Logan pushed down a growing sense of dread, that he’d have to navigate the rest of this adventure half-blind.

“My glasses getting broken is obviously not your fault. We did fall down a rather deep hole,” he pointed out. “But what do you mean, the Imagination isn’t letting you?”

“I mean it’s not letting me!” Roman threw up his hands. “I could summon things on the TARDIS just fine, but now…” He sighed. “I am Creativity, right?”

Logan tilted his head and frowned.

“Is that…Roman, that is a nonsensical question. Of course you are.”

“So summoning a tiny object in my own dream scenario should be easy.” Roman hung his head.

“How long have you been trying?”

“Twenty minutes, maybe?” Roman shrugged, still not looking at him. “All that time, and yet still I fail.”

Logan resisted the urge to point out that twenty minutes should be long enough to realize a thing might be outside of one’s control, and to start brainstorming other options.

Stubborn fool.

“Maybe it’s just as well we picked the wedding over the callback,” Roman added darkly, an uncharacteristic glower twisting his face. “When Thomas’s Creativity apparently can’t even control his own dreams.”

Oh…this isn’t about glasses at all, is it? Logan swallowed around an achy sensation in his chest; the one he always got when something was wrong and Roman made that face and he just…needed to fix it.

Native English speakers have a passive vocabulary of around forty thousand words, he thought, frustrated. So why, in situations like this, am I constantly struggling to find the right thing to say?

The resigned set to Roman’s jaw prompted Logan to try.

“Your inability to summon things may not be your doing,” Logan said, laying a hand on Roman’s knee. “Perhaps the Imagination is attempting to impose a sense of realism on this adventure.”

“Realism,” Roman echoed flatly. “In Doctor Who.”

Logan huffed. “You must admit, summoning objects out of thin air does defy even time-traveling alien logic.”

Roman’s face twitched in the tiniest of smiles. “So why did it work before, Teach?”

“Maybe it only worked on the TARDIS because the ship already defies every known rule of physics.” Logan shrugged. “I admit I cannot possibly intuit the inner workings of the Imagination; I can only theorize from what I have observed thus far.”

Roman chuckled softly to himself, and bumped Logan’s shoulder.

“Aww, Nerd, I’m touched. You’re trying to logic me into feeling better.”

“Is it…working?” Logan asked.

“Kind of?” An unreadable expression flitted over Roman’s face. “At least one of us is still grounded in reality.”

“Where else could one possibly be grounded?”

Roman laughed outright at this.

“Oh, Logan. Never change, okay?”

He stood up, and pulled Logan to his feet as well.

“Where are we?” Logan asked, squinting.

He could tell they were in some large, open space; all blacks and browns and dull grays. Blurry domes of copper were scattered amongst what could be bits of fallen scaffolding or machinery.

Logan was also hyperaware of Roman’s warm arm pressed against his, and his own hand clasped tightly within the Prince’s larger grip. With everything else blurry, physical sensations were all the more distracting.

“Don’t panic, okay?” Roman started.

Logan scoffed.

“You are fortunate that I am not Virgil,” he commented wryly. “Because starting a sentence like that would almost certainly have caused him to panic.”

“Well, it’s just, do you remember that scene in the Dalek asylum episode where Rory wakes up in the hanger full of dead Daleks who turn out to be not actually dead?” Roman said in a rush. “Because…yeah.”

Oh. Logan swallowed.

“So, I am guessing that those copper domes are actually Daleks?” he said softly.

Roman snorted.

“Copper domes? Jeesh, your eyesight sucks.”

“I am aware,” Logan said flatly. “Which means you will have to guide us out. If I remember correctly, as long as we are quiet and don’t kick any pipes on the ground, we won’t wake them up.”

Roman let go of Logan’s hand… and replaced it with an arm wrapped around his waist. Logan only held back a squeak because it would have been extremely undignified.

“Hey, relax, I got you, Specs.” Roman’s breath ghosted over Logan’s ear. The Prince’s shorter stature allowed him to fit snugly against Logan’s side; if Roman turned his head, he could comfortably tuck his face into the crook of Logan’s neck.

Not…not that Logan imagined him doing any such thing.

Roman drew his sword with a metallic rasp, prompting Logan to pull out his screwdriver, and they set off across the floor.

It was a strange, vulnerable sensation, Logan thought, being this close to another, being forced to rely on him for direction…or maybe it was just that Roman’s Rose Tyler outfit left so much more skin on display than his usual royal attire…

To be fair, Roman’s bare arms and short skirt and leggings were the only non-blurry things in Logan’s line of sight at the moment.

“You know, I am not sure how much good a sword will do against a Dalek now,” Logan said dryly (to distract himself). “Since it would seem that the Imagination is now attempting to be realistic.”

“It’ll be a lot more useful than a screwdriver,” Roman retorted. “Honestly, the War Doctor had a point. The later seasons really do start to treat the sonic like a weapon, and it looks ridiculous. There’s an oily-looking puddle to your left.”

They dodged around it.

“The sonic screwdriver is an ingenious, multipurpose tool,” Logan argued. “Fitting for a character who is, at heart, a pacifist. In the right hands, it most certainly could serve as a weapon. For example one could scramble a Cyberman’s circuits, short out fuses, or calculate the precise amount of blunt force needed to take down an enemy.” Logan waved the hand with the screwdriver around them. “All things that a sword could not accomplish.”

“Sure,” Roman drawled, leading them around one of the still, silent Daleks, “but you don’t point a sonic at an oncoming Dalek and expect to survive. Even the Doctor had more sense than to try that. At least a sword could cut off its blaster arm.”

“We don’t know how strong Dalek amor is down here,” Logan pointed out. “You could end up breaking your sword and then where would we be?”

“Better off than we’d be while you assembled a cabinet at them!”

Logan’s foot collided with a metallic something that made an awful CLANG and went skittering across the floor. Roman pulled them up short, his face going pale.

All around them, round blue lights began to flicker on, one by one.

“I kicked the pipe, didn’t I?” Logan said, his heart starting to pound.

“You kicked the pipe,” Roman confirmed in a sick voice.

“EGGS…!” a crackly Dalek voice next to them stuttered, making them jump. “EG-EG-EG-EGGS…!” Its twin lights flashed erratically as it spoke.

“Roman,” Logan started.

“‘Eggs, you may laugh and that’s great…’” Roman sang in a wavering voice. “‘Your smiles are what make my day’…”

The Dalek rolled toward them creakily. “EEEEEGGS!”

Logan’s breathing sped up. Another Dalek rolled in from the other side, causing him to stumble. All around them, mechanical creaks and groans and a chorus of digitized voices rose up…

“EG…EG-EGGS…TERM…”

“Roman, I believe we need to run.” Logan could see the Dalek almost clearly now, its eyestalk glowing, its gunstick rising up.

“…IN…ATE…”

Blurry, flashing lights closed in.

“‘My self-worth’s fragile like an egg,’” Roman sang. The hand gripping Logan’s middle tightened painfully. “‘When it breaks it’s tough to put together again…’”

“EX…TERM…IN…ATE!”

“Roman!” Logan shouted. “Get us out of here!”

“EXTERMINATE!”

A blaster bolt warbled past and exploded over their heads.

Roman shuddered and seemed to snap out of it, seizing Logan’s arm and pulling him so hard he nearly fell. Logan staggered, hanging onto Roman’s hand for dear life as they ran, and ran, and blaster bolts burst at their feet and shattered around them.

“This way, boys and boys,” Remus’s voice sing-singed across the room. Roman yanked them hard in that direction.

“REMUS!” Roman shouted as they ran, and Logan was impressed he had the breath for it. “Remus, you better open that door like you’re supposed to or we are DEAD!”

“Oh, keep your pants on, brother,” Remus snarked, sounding a little closer. “Although maybe Logan would prefer that you didn’t—”

Whatever else he said wasn’t audible over a hanger full of jabbering Daleks and firing blasters.

They reached a wall and Roman shoved Logan down.

“Straight ahead, crawl. Go, go, go!” he said, turning and brandishing his sword.

Bless that Prince and his stupid, stupid bravery.

Logan went, nearly tripping over his coat as he crawled under the barely lifted hatch door. Once he was past the threshold Roman flung himself under and through, knocking into Logan and sending them both sliding across the floor.

There was a hiss and a heavy thud that Logan hoped was the door shutting behind them, and finally, blessed silence. They both leaned against the wall for a moment, catching their breath.

Roman thunked his head back.

“Jesus Christ Superstar,” he muttered.

“Your welcome.”

Remus’s voice crackled through the hallway. Roman growled and sat up straighter, looking around as if his brother would magically appear.

“I did just save your lives,” Remus added. From the direction of the sound, Logan guessed he was talking through a speaker somewhere on the far wall.

“Yeah, and I’m still gonna whip your butt when this is all over,” Roman groused.

“Oooh, do I get to choose the instrument?”

Roman sputtered, but Logan grabbed his arm before he could yell back.

“You know he just likes to get under your skin,” he murmured, and raised his voice. “Thank you for opening the door, Remus. We are grateful for your help.”

There was a silence on the other end, with a quality that Logan would have described as shocked.

“Well. You two lovebirds better move along,” Remus drawled finally, shrill as ever. “Before the Silurian army shows up.”

“Excuse me, the WHAT?” Logan exclaimed.

No answer.

“Remus!” Roman clambered to his feet and helped Logan up.

Nothing.

Except now that Logan was listening for it, he definitely heard approaching footsteps and murmuring, heavily-accented voices. And they were getting closer.

“That dick,” Roman grumbled through gritted teeth.

“To be fair, I think he is trying to help,” Logan pointed out. “In his own way.”

“Don’t be fair to my brother when he’s just led us out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

“We are neither in a pan nor on fire, Roman; I have never understood that saying—”

The lights dimmed and flashed an eerie purple; Roman silenced him with a hand over his mouth. There was a voice…not Remus’s, not alien, not like anything Logan had ever heard. It chanted something, over and over again, before fading out.

The lights flared back to normal.

Logan waited, counting Roman’s shallow breaths against his neck.

Nothing.

“What was that?” he asked softly.

“Beats the hell out of me,” Roman responded. “But I guess that’s our cue to go. Stay close, Mr. Magoo.”

Logan grumbled, but allowed Roman to recapture his hand and lead them in the opposite direction of the approaching footsteps…which had resumed the moment the purple light vanished.

Next time Roman asked him to come on an adventure, he was bringing a spare set of glasses.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #ts fanfic #ts fanfiction #doctor who #thomas sanders #canon compliant #action #adventure #romance #roman sanders #logan sanders #deceit sanders #patton sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #ts sides #ts roman #ts logan #ts deceit #ts patton #ts remus #ts virgil #logince #moceit #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #bickering #enemies to friends #rivals to lovers

[magicofthepen]

Gallifrey Relisten: Lies

In the chaos of.....all of November....totally forgot I meant to relisten to this episode sooner! Which is odd because Series 2 is definitely one of the high points of Gallifrey for me (apparently listening to everything slowly collapse into the civil war is super engaging and interesting? idk Series 2 just does a lot of solid character work and storytelling and good narrative progression to the “ahhh everything is very bad” finale...and I’m not sure how to feel about this, given *gestures at the world these days*). But anyways, now for some thoughts on the series opener:

Fun fact: From the TV show alone, Romana I was my favorite. (This had something to do with her having more character growth in season 16 than season 17, since her early days on the TARDIS involve the “wait my academic success does not necessarily translate to the real world” realization and learning about worlds and people different from her own and growing from High-Achieving Student to Adventurer in her own right. Also I loved the grudgingly-working-together to actual-friends arc with her and the Doctor. I was a bit less interested in her character when she was just going around being a capable adventurer, although I did become invested in Romana II in her last episodes, as she quietly grapples with the issue of what she wants to do next in life and eventually chooses to go off on her own. Also to be fair, I appreciate the fun times of Season 17 a lot more now because Romana being happy and having a good time traveling around the universe? What a concept.) 

All this to say: me on my first listen of Gallifrey was very excited about Romana I being in this episode. And even though it’s not quite as much of a !!!!! thing for me these days (the Gallifrey audios have long since solidified Romana II as my favorite), I do love the (sort of) multi-Romana interaction that happens in this one.

Brax essentially going “yeah the education system is supposed to be shitty and take an emotional toll on you” sir.

“I am not xenophobic” — Oh yeah, this scene is Narvin at his most unlikeable. “I’m not being bigoted, I’m just trying to protect Gallifrey, the fact that I assume that people who aren’t from here inherently can’t be trusted, and also go on about how they’re too loud and disruptive and don’t belong is definitely not a bigoted worldview nope.” Yikes. Very glad he’s going to see the error of his ways. 

The Narvin and Darkel rant session does actually do a good job at explaining what’s been happening and establishing the primary conflict of the series while not feeling like it exists solely to be an info dump to catch up the listener. Like, it’s definitely a setup scene, but it is an interesting setup scene. 

“But she is my President, and it’s my job to ensure that she gets what she wants and needs, efficiently and without question. Well, too many questions anyway.” Okay this moment and Darkel and Wynter’s conversation later about Narvin’s weakness (“Loyalty. An unswerving loyalty to his office and his precious CIA. And above all, loyalty to his president.” “He despises President Romana!” “Oh yes, of course. But it’s the position, not the person, he places that trust in.”) are really setting up some key Narvin Character Theses that we’re going to see play out this series (and also that the narrative is going to push in really interesting ways later on..... “position not the person”.....just you wait....) 

Darkel and Narvin being indignant that Romana changed the law is just....hilarious in a kind of horrifying way? Oh no, the President worked with the legislative body to actually get a law passed. The horror.

“She has a temper. And a very long memory.” This is definitely about the CIA trying to overthrow her in Neverland but uhhh also it’s about Etra Prime and the Powers That Be on Gallifrey never making a serious effort to save her (at least from her perspective). 

Yeah Darkel as antagonist is a bit abrupt (not that I particularly mind, she’s a good enough “love to hate” character that her not being set up as an antagonist from Series 1 doesn’t really bother me). But yeah, not sure what was going on behind the scenes, but it doesn’t seem like in Series 1 the plan was for her to be the primary Series 2-3 antagonist.  

Darkel to Narvin: “You will let me know when you’ve decided.” Ooh yeah, this moment is quite a good setup of Narvin’s arc throughout this series — he has to decide where his loyalties truly lie. 

Wynter is really interesting as far as character dynamics go, because he breaks the whole “Romana and Leela are the youngest people in the room” vibe — and it is just really interesting to see Romana interacting with this quite young Time Lord and specifically compare/contrasting it to how she interacts with young Time Lords in the later series when she’s older and a bit more emotionally mature and has more of the “mentor figure” vibes. (There isn’t really a conclusion to this thought, it’s more of a “huh, I’m thinking about this now” thing.)

“It’s been seven weeks, Andred. It’s hardly a lifetime.” Romana: please you have not been in a cell for that long, calm down.

“I thought you two were friends.” “A president of the High Council of Gallifrey cannot allow herself the luxury of friends.” Ahhhh, where it begins!! I’m extremely weak for the arc of Romana opening herself up to friendship and love, what of it. 

Honestly, Andred’s politics have always been very confusing to me? And it probably doesn’t help that the show is all “he’s fully Andred now” but also “he lived as Torvald a long time and that’s still influencing him.” Like both of those things can be true, but it’s a bit unclear what Andred’s true priorities and motivations really are right then — and honestly, it just comes off like his primarily desire is to be useful to someone, and be granted some form of autonomy/power/respect in return (aka he doesn’t have any real clear principles that are motivating him). Also complaining about Romana opening Gallifrey up to aliens is such a bad look dude. 

Romana to Andred: “I control your future. I control whether you have one.” Umm???? The foreshadowing?????

Andred, no. Andred, the free time pun was too much.

“I wish I had databanks. With a flick of a switch I could turn myself off, become unaware of all that has happened.” Leela ahhhhhhhhhh. (The desire to give Leela all the hugs and emotional support is very very high throughout these next couple seasons especially.....her mental health is in such a rough place ahhhh.) 

Andred regenerated “nearly six months ago” and it’s been six and a half (or seven, depending on which character is speaking) weeks since A Blind Eye, which took place an unspecified amount of time after The Inquiry, which took place two weeks after Square One...(don’t mind me, just taking some notes on the timeline math...) 

I believe a couple times in the Gallifrey audios, they reference the position of “Vice President,” which is very weird because that doesn’t seem to be a position that exists?? Chancellor is definitely seen as the #2 spot?? Idk what’s going on here. 

“You are appreciated, highly regarded, and were I to lose you I would be...disappointed.” Romana, you started strong and then you got a bit emotionally repressed there. 

“Torvald was a fool, but he was my fool.” .....I am not saying anything.....I will not be commenting on the Narvin and Andred scene......I just.......you know. There are some fics you cannot unread. 

Romana does really trust Brax here, doesn’t she. And she really doesn’t trust easily post-Etra Prime, so this is a big deal — making it all the rougher when she (in the short term) finds out he meddled with her memories and (in the long term) has to deal with him doing things like temporarily betraying her for the greater good of protecting her while not explaining at all what’s really going on. 

Okay, yes the whole pearl-clutching about Romana changing the laws is kinda silly and horrifying in a “how dysfunctional is your society if passing one (1) law is drastic change??” way, but also the flip side of this, aka “we thought these things were entrenched as norms in our society and would not change and then here comes along one president who’s trying to undo all of these things and threaten the whole system”.....y’all that hits differently now in the month November in the year 2020. In the Gallifrey audios the context is different — they are for sure overreacting to Romana’s very mild idea of “perhaps....we could change some things about society” but the way they talk about her political changes in the episode — feels a bit too close to home!

Romana’s voice right when she sees Leela....she missed her.....

Pandora being the “first female president” is a very weird and very unnecessary bit of misogyny? Ah yes, we must specify that this ancient president of Gallifrey who was wildly power-hungry and cruel and went too far and almost ruined everything Gallifrey had built was a woman?? Why was that bit of dialogue needed?? Tbh early Gallifrey does have a problem in general with characters played by women tending to be power-hungry....which is partly down to the fact that they have so so few women in the cast in general, it’s Romana, Leela, and Villains, mostly. (The lack of women in the supporting cast in early Gallifrey is going to be an ongoing complaint.) 

“You should not be afraid of your feelings, K9.” / “Yes, thank you, if we can move on from the emotional support group session.” Pffffff

I do choose to ignore the implication that Romana returned to Gallifrey and became President because of the subconscious influence of Pandora/the Imperiatrix Imprimatur nudging her towards power. Tbh it’s simply not interesting to me to have such a pivotal character choice reduced to genetic/subconscious manipulation. Yes, Romana ended her TV run insisting she didn’t want to go back to Gallifrey (and even staying in another universe to avoid it), and yes, it creates this initial emotional dissonance suddenly jumping to stories where she’s President of Gallifrey. But I already did the headcanon work before I jumped into Big Finish to make it work for me, I didn’t need this weirdness.

Elaborating on this a bit more: There is something interesting to me about a person who left home and slowly ended up rejecting the narrow worldview she grew up with, cutting herself free from the place she was born — and then eventually choosing to return because she genuinely wanted to make that messed-up world better and believed she could. And it also creates a really interesting contrast with the Doctor: two Time Lords who came to realize that Gallifrey was pretty terrible actually, and one of them kept running away from it and rejecting Time Lord society, and the other came back and said maybe I can change things. Because both are understandable and complicated reactions to have to a messed-up home world, and there are different ways of trying to do good. And regardless of how her choices turned out, I always liked the idea that it was Romana’s own choice that brought her to Gallifrey again, and I don’t think Pandora needed to be shoehorned in to explain her actions.  

Okay, I want to hear the follow up where Leela insists Romana tell the whole Key to Time story after hearing all of these random out of context bits and pieces. 

Why does Brax admit to breaking the Laws of Time? The fact that he’s in contact with his past/future selves isn’t actually relevant to what he needs to tell Narvin? He literally could have just said that he hypnotized Romana, without mentioning that it was his future self who did it? (Also, it’s implied in this one that he pushes for Romana to use the mind wipe on Narvin because he wants the memory of that reveal erased, but somehow that’s the one thing that Narvin keeps because he uses that information against Brax later? Aka: how did Narvin remember that Brax told him this?)  

And final thought: general internal monologue during this episode is just: Pandora arc Pandora arc Pandora arc here we go!! Because the Lies through Warfare run is really one of the more interesting bits of Gallifrey for me (Imperiatrix specifically ranks very high on my favorite episodes list), and I’m excited to be re-listening to/thinking about/hearing other people talk about these episodes!

Next Episode Reaction: Spirit

Previous Episode Reaction: A Blind Eye

#gallifrey audios #romana #leela #narvin #irving braxiatel #going to listen to the pod of rassilon episode on a long car ride tomorrow (well. today at this point) so very excited for that! #ramblings #emily listens to big finish #the relisten of rassilon

[geekmedium]

Favorite Doctor/Companion Teams

Because I want to spread some Doctor Who good cheer for Christmas. Also, I’m not doing the 9th or 13th doctor because they’ve really only had one team. Anyway...

1. The Original Team 

The ones who started it all. They would win by iconography, but even with that, they’re just a lot of fun to watch. This is the doctor at his most curmudgeon; he’s rude, fairly detached, and very much not the hero we’re use to. So they gave him a granddaughter who he cares for, and two teachers who act as the parents and honestly more noble, likable people.

It’s a family dynamic, one which we don’t see often. I appreciate that they were a team who grew to care for each other, but still had radically different approaches to whatever situation they found themselves in. And it is through this team up that the Doctor could mellow out and be a more straight up heroic figure. He learned from them just as much as the reverse.

2nd, Jamie, and Zoe 

Where the first team had a family dynamic to it, the second doctor had a more “bro” relationship with his team. He and Jamie are famously close, and if I’m not mistaken, Jamie is still one of the longest lasting companions. They joked around, had each others backs, and were just great pals. While Doctor Who was meant to be a teaching show, I believe these two turned the tone from edutainment into one full of Wonder.

As for Zoe, well I just like her. She was probably the first companion who could be considered of super intelligence. I like the Doctor and Jamie as two bros hanging out, but Zoe can be in there to keep everyone from getting along too well. Her intelligence could lead her to be smug, but she was truly loyal to the Tardis team. And I loved her interactions with Jamie as brother and sister.

3rd and Jo Grant 

I kind of like the Doctor with a ditzy companion. Despite not being remembered very well, I think Jo was able to occasionally pull her weight and she worked well with the Doctor. Plus their last scene together, when he says goodbye? Man, you could tell how sad that made not only them, but their actors as well.

4th and Sarah Jane

There were so many choices, but ultimately I can’t help thinking of this one as the best. Not only is Sarah Jane still considered one of the best companions, her dynamic with the Doctor was one of equal love and exasperation. She would often debate with him, grow frustrated with him, but still be with him through some of the most terrifying threats any companion had to deal with. And when it was time to go, she took it with good grace; she would always remember her time with the Doctor fondly, and only asked that he do the same. Magical.

5th, Adric, Tegan, and Nyssa 

Here we have the family dynamic back again. I just really like the Doctor acting like a mentor to Adric, with Tegan and Nyssa as best friends who act like the big sisters of the group. I feel that while the first Doctor’s family was a generational thing, with each passing something to the next, the fifth Doctor’s family was a group of siblings. They were kind of equals with each other, and they got into plenty of small arguments, constantly annoying each other, but with a kind of affection that made them want to be together even when they were mad.

I know it’s hard to write Doctor Who with more than 1 or 2 constant companions, but I personally like family dynamics the best. With the 2nd through 4th, there isn’t a ton to say because they got on very well. There were disagreements sure, but for the most part, they were great friends and always happy with each other. A family dynamic, like with the fifth ensured a lot more dynamic back in forth bickering, with everyone's different backgrounds playing off each other in a way unique to Doctor Who, that could bring people from different timelines and planets together.

6th and Evelyn

I’m going to cheat a bit by going off the grid into the audio dramas. No offense to Peri fans, but Evelyn is everything a companion should be. Tough, strongly opinionated, and incredibly empathetic, she provided a good foil to possibly the most selfish Doctor.

But what I loved most about her was that she was elderly. It provided a different dynamic to the Doctor, who occasionally acted the part of student to her mentor, instead of the usual status quo which is the reverse. Even more than that was her role in the story; she wasn’t there to be a young companion who realizes her potential under the Doctor. She was there to show that even if your bones don’t work like they use to. Even if you’re not most people’s ideal of good looking. Even if you’ve lived a life full of joys and sorrows, you’re never too old to start over. To gain new experiences, new joys, new pains, and new love.

I think that’s really beautiful.

7th and Ace

I struggled with if I wanted to add Bernice Summerfield to this team, because she’s great. But then I realized so much of what I like about the 7th Doctor and Ace works when they are a two person team.

The 7th Doctor is believed to be the most manipulative, actively using his own loved ones for the greater good. He can be cold and calculating in a way few other Doctors ever approached. And so that made his relationship with Ace all the more heartwarming. Here was this little delinquent of a girl, who thought she was worthless, and yet she was the only person in the universe who could bend the 7th Doctor to her whim; he loved her like a daughter, and the scenes where they interact is all the more special when you contrast them with the cold Doctor.

Having another companion kind of intrudes on this very intimate bond. I think Ace should be special to this Doctor. The one person who he would sacrifice himself before he sacrificed her. A companion who can be horrified with his more manipulative acts, but nevertheless stuck with him out of a loyalty to the first person who ever took a chance on her. Hurt Ace at your peril; the 7th Doctor will come for you.

8th and Izzy (plus Fey) 

Ignore that Izzy’s a fish, she isn’t usually.

This one is pure nostalgia. The 8th Doctor’s comic strip adventures were my first real introduction to the WHO-niverse. So while I’m sure Izzy is probably last on most people’s list (if they know her at all), she’ll always be my companion. She was probably the first pop-culture savvy companion who could offer a quip that stumped even the Doctor with how contemporary it was. She was finding herself on her journey with the Doctor, and had a character arc that I think inspired RTD when it was his time to reboot the series. Plus, from what I’ve read of other 8th Doctor material, he tends to be romantically linked with most of his other companions. Some people might like that, but I think you can tell from this list, I like my Doctor as a more celibate fellow.

Fey is someone who I think of as an intermittent companion. She helps out the Doctor a great deal, and her position within the universe is very unique and imaginative, but I wouldn’t want her in for more than a story arc or two at a time before moving on to another spatial-temporal James Bond style adventure.

10th and Donna

Like the fourth Doctor before him, I had plenty of options. I was even gonna pull a fast one and pick another comic strip companion, the self-centered businesswoman Majenta Pryce. But the 10th Doctor and Donna are special.

Not only is she one of the only companions the Doctor has called his best friend, when you get down to it, she was who he needed at the time. After the last two companions had ended in a sort of tragic romance, the Doctor was walling himself off again. Donna, however, came into his life as purely a friend. Someone to pal around with and banter with. For the Doctor, this must have been a godsend. No drama, no hassle, just true companionship in every since of the word. And she still has possibly the saddest exit for any companion to date.

Goodbye Donna Noble. You definitely lived up to the name.

11th, Amy, and Rory (plus River Song) 

The last family companionship on this list, and quite honestly, my favorite Tardis dynamic in the whole series. Why? Because it’s such a glorious mess that should collapse in flames but becomes something that’s just so interesting to think about.

The Doctor was Amy’s childhood crush she never quite got over. She eventually grew to love Rory, but both she and the Doctor were kind of dismissive of him. But does Rory angst and get into a love rivalry with the Doctor? Not really. He grows into himself, faces numerous dangers for them both, and by the end both Amy and the Doctor love the guy to pieces. And then you have River Song, who should turn the whole thing into a kind of Jerry Springer prize winner. I won’t go into spoilers, but what could have seemed creepy is actually a very interesting relationship with the Doctor. Though like Fey above, I think she works best as an intermittent companion who often goes off on her own adventures.

Still, they are the best family and if that’s controversial, it is the hill I will die on.

12th and Clara

The final companions are another friendship. In a lot of ways, this is pretty fun, because the 12th Doctor is an old curmudgeon like the first. But with all that he’s been through, it is interesting to see how they contrasts, especially in their companions. Because while the 1st Doctor was happy to play the cranky grandfather type, 12th had a genuine friendship with Clara.

They didn’t always get each other. They frequently disagreed, and could even be resentful. But when the chips were down, they would follow each other into hell together. The Doctor always tried to be a little more considerate for her than most others around him, and Clara tried to defend him against his critics. And while the end to their companionship could have been handled better, it was still an impactful parting between two friends.

So do you agree or disagree? Who are your favorite teams? I would love to know.

#Doctor Who #friendships

[hourglass-full-of-stars]

Rant/Theory time

I have lots of thoughts about Doctor Who pt. 2 except this time I won’t accidentally delete

Big big big spoilers under the cut

okayokayokayokay TIMELESS CHILD.

I had a lot of thoughts about this during season eleven and I thought the timeless child was....the doctor? I thought that maybe that the magic tarp thingies knew her as that, but obviously not, unless,,,,,,,,,,, honestly, it doesn’t bother me how chibs is yet again changing the thing with Gallifrey, I mean it’s been changed so many times, and it’s not gonna stop changing. I like the twist how the master went back and destroyed all of it because he was in a rage, because they lied to them about whatever happened. And like...everyone is sort of mad because of the Missy redemption arc being lost but what I think is that it’s either before Missy and the thing with the “burn whole cities to the ground just to see the pretty shapes the smoke made” when she was crying, maybe she was thinking of Gallifrey (as @superevilbeans said in her post that I will link at some point), but it could have been that and that Dhawan!Master is pre-Missy, post-Simm, or that....I dunno, I know we had a whole season of Missy’s redemption arc, but unpopular opinion, I don’t think she ever truly changed. I think either learning that everyone on Gallifrey lied to her is enough to change them so it could even be post-Missy, because I don’t think they could just turn the Master good. He can be like morally grey and not entirely evil, of course, they’re a very interesting character like that, but I don’t think they ever fully redeemed themselves. Even while I was watching season ten, I wasn’t really going for it. They can be good at times but that doesn’t change that the doctor and the master are enemies and I just don’t think they would be completely redeemed. So, either of those make sense, but I’m not closed off to other theories, of course (including that Chibs just forgot about Missy’s redemption arc) but also, like I said, the thing with Gallifrey has been changed like a million times, a new showrunner is going to change and it’ll just stay like that.  What I am wondering is HOW DID THE MASTER FIND OUT ABOUT THE TIMELESS CHILD? How do they know? Who told them, and why did it make them so angry? I thought that maybe he went back to Gallifrey and found out there, and then destroyed it. It’s a possibility, or maybe-- remember the magic tarps, Tim-Shaw things enchanted things knew about the timeless child. And they were like “she doesn’t know!” she maybe it’s something that all other races know about and have acknowledged it, and they all think the Timelords think it too, but they don’t. They were under the idea that it was just perfect, and the way they taught them. I also saw a thing,,, I think also on the previous blog I mentioned, that the timeless child turned into what the time vortex or whatever it was young timelords looked in. Maybe the Master found out directly from the Timeless Child.

It’s very interesting wording though. “Timeless” so that could mean that it’s either immortal or abides by different laws of time. The Timelords helped write the laws of time (I think) or they were the protectors of them anyway, so maybe they took the Timeless child and changed it and made their own. There are different dimensions, there can be different rules of time. Or maybe the Timeless child wrote the laws of time and then the Timelords took them away from them. My original theory was that the Doctor was the timeless child, and I know that doesn’t make sense, but I feel like they might weave it in somehow. I don’t have any evidence to back the theory up, it’s just a weird thing I think. It could even be that the Timeless Child is PART of Gallifrey. Like, it absorbed it or something and it had like Very Great Power and it gave all the TARDIS-es power, and was the reason for the two hearts, three brain-stems. Or maybe the TC just is....time. Like the embodiment of time, and they harnessed it to create their whole species and it’s sitting dormant somewhere....all of its power being sucked. And then when the Master found this out- did he kill the TC out of rage? Or did he save it, and is keeping it somewhere. Did he even find it? And is it a person we know, or is it new? Maybe together, the Master and the Doctor make up the TC, not as in it’s their child (ewewewewewewewew disgusting), but they are like...two sides of the same coin, it’s like, if the Doctor had gone bad, the dream lord part of the Doctor, they would be the Master. The dream lord and the master (especially this one) are very similar. It’s very interesting their similarities and contrasts.

One thing I really didn’t like- why was the Master in a nazi uniform for like....half the episode. Like, that was weird, and it kinda creeped me out. And I didn’t like it. Although, when he stormed in that convention thing in the 1800s that was a Very Nice Top Hat, one hundred percent goals. 

Also, when he was like “that was the LONGEST 77 YEARS OF MY LIFE” I burst out laughing, my god. I think he’ll be back. Deffo for the finale if not later this episode, he’s not staying in that other creepy dimension. 

Graham’s laser shoes. Need I say more.

I lovedlovedlovedlovedloved the Doctor’s mini speech at the end, I have been waiting for that since season eleven, episode one, I think everyone has. I can’t wait till the fam finds out more about her, and just who she truly is. She’s been trying to run away from her past, and hide it from her friends and try to ignore it but she can’t anymore. The Master was like “VIBE CHECK. YOU THOUGHT.” It’ll be interesting to see her dark side come out more, because I think she can do it so so so well.

ALSO- DID YAZ, RYAN AND GRAHAM’S PASSPORTS AND STUFF EVER GET FIXED ?? THEY WERE WANTED ????????? I need answers it really stressed me out.

That SCENE with the Master and Thirteen on the Eiffel tower was So Well Done, I cannot state that enough. It was so fun oh my godddd. Seeing them interact is just the most fun thing I’ve ever watched. WIll they kill each other? Will they have a civil conversation? Both ? WHO KNOWS. 

Overallll, like 13/13. 

#doctor who #dw #doctor who spoilers #dw spoilers #the master #thirteen #the doctor #Yasmin Khan #Ryan Sinclair #Graham O’Brien #tardis #timeless child #spyfall #spyfall part one #spyfall part 2

[saiilorstars]

The Beginning of Everything

Fandom: Doctor Who

Pairing: Female OC x 10th Doctor

(OC Renata’s Face claim: Marjorie de Sousa) (Gabby’s face claim: Victoria Moroles)

// Story Masterlist // 

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DISCLAIMER: This chapter’s plotline is from Doctor Who’s comic stories. Most of the dialogue is directly written from the comic. The plot is NOT mine.

Ch. 15: Art Butterflies

Chapter Summary: Renata struggles to find the right way to 'teach' Gabby on her first trip to an alien planet, so the Doctor naturally offers a way to help her. In the midst of a battle against art apprentices, Renata and Gabby come in contact with a force that gives them a glimpse of a never before seen energy.

When the Doctor found Renata, she was in the console room but...she was just standing there like a statue. Her back was to him so she didn't immediately see him but the closer the Doctor got to her, the more he could hear her mumbling to herself. Anyone else would've called her a crazy person, but the Doctor was no stranger to silent conversations with one's self in the console room. Half the time that's what he did when he was in the TARDIS.

"Renée?" his soft call still elicited a gasp from her, as well as her sudden whirl in his direction.

"You scared me!" she exclaimed, clearly irritated with his way of entrance. "Don't do that again!"

The Doctor raised both his hands to show he was coming in peace, but the growing smile on his face - which looked like he wanted to laugh at her - betrayed his intentions.

"It's not funny!" she huffed and once again turned away from him.

"What are you doing anyways?" he decided to skip his argument that he wasn't trying to make fun of her. "Just standing in the middle of the room talking to yourself? That's my job."

Renata almost snorted at him. She bit her lip and gave him a strange look instead, one akin to…

"Why do you look scared?" the Doctor quickly picked up on it.

"Because I did something bad."

"You?" now the Doctor nearly laughed. "What could you have possibly done, Renata?"

"I let some human come into the TARDIS with the idea that I'd be able to teach 'em something!" Renata exclaimed in a full blown panic. She'd been thinking about this ever since Gabby was invited yesterday. She hadn't slept wondering what the hell she would teach Gabby when she herself didn't know a lot of things.

"That's your problem?" the Doctor was about to comment how ridiculous it was but seeing Renata's worked over expression made him pause and think. "Renée... c'mon...Gabby's 19. She doesn't know a lot to begin with."

"Which is exactly why she expects to be taught about everything!"

The Doctor tilted his head at her. The expression on his face was the exact one he would give Renata back on Gallifrey when he claimed - he firmly believed- Renata (then Zuriah) was overreacting. Renata wanted nothing more than to snap at him and tell him that she wasn't overreacting. But of course doing that would out her.

"You should teach her," she instead decided. "Yes, that's the better idea. I don't have a clue of what goes on out there," she turned sideways to make a gesture at the doors. "And if Gabriella wants to know about the galaxies, then she should learn it from the smartest one of the two. You."

The Doctor just couldn't help the wide smirk that took over his face. "Oh, so you think I'm smart?" Renata rolled her eyes at him, but she did have to turn her head away to keep her blush a secret. "As much I truly accept the compliment, I must refuse." Now that made Renata's head snap back in his direction.

"What?" she frowned. "You refuse?"

"Yes," the Doctor nodded his head. "Because it's not true. You are intelligent beyond belief."

Renata scoffed. "Please. You already kidnapped me, you don't need to suck up."

Now it was the Doctor's turn to roll his eyes. "I'm just telling you the truth. Your intelligence does not stem from travels. Remember what you did back in the foundation you worked for? All that has made you so smart…"

"But I don't know humans!" the woman threw her hands into the air, giving the impression she might just self-combust in that moment.

"Yes you do," the Doctor nodded, his smile of amusement irritating the hell out of her. "You spent so many years living amongst them. You know humans."

"I don't know what to do with one!"

"You don't do anything with them. They're not pets, Renata."

Renata rolled her eyes. "I didn't say they were. I'm just...I'm not in my element. There's a 19 year old human who…"

"Looks up to you?" the Doctor finished for her with the same smile still on his face.

Renata groaned. "Why would she do that? She doesn't even know me!"

"You did save her," the Doctor swayed his head. "And then you did bring her along the city to save it."

"You are not helping!"

The Doctor grinned at her. "I think I am. You just don't want to admit it."

Renata sighed and leaned against the console. Alright, so maybe having someone looking up to her was a bit exciting but it was also scary. It meant that Gabby was going to watch her every move and what if she messed up in front of the girl? What would Gabby think then?

Renata scrunched her face when she realized how much thought she was putting into what Gabby would think of her. It was the expression that made the Doctor suddenly laugh. "Is my misery amusing to you?" Renata demanded from him.

"No, it's...you looked like you caught yourself or something. What'd you realize?"

It was moments like these that reminded Renata of how easily the Doctor could often read her emotions. Back then, it was almost impossible to hide her feelings no matter if they were good or bad. He always knew how she felt. And when he picked up on her bad feelings, he almost always endeavored to solve it with a great big hug.

Renata really loved his hugs. She could really use one right now.

"Morning!" the cheery voice of Gabby pulled Renata back to the present. Gabby was coming into the room with Donna, the former looking extremely excited. Gabby came directly to Renata with the biggest smile Renata had ever seen. "So, Donna says we start travelling today. Where are we going?"

Renata's mouth opened to answer until she realized she had no idea where to even bring Gabby. Her eyes flickered to the side in an attempt to come up with something fast.

"Actually," the Doctor suddenly spoke up, "Renée was just talking about visiting an art gallery in the 50th century."

Gabby's eyes nearly sparkled at the idea. "Really!?" she looked back to Renata, but the Time Lady was staring wide-eyed at the Doctor.

"I was?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah. You mentioned the Academia Stellaris on Sirius 5. I thought-" his hands went to his chest in what Renata would describe as dramatic, "-it was a brilliant idea. I told her, 'Gabby is going to love it!' and-"

"-I do! I so do!" Gabby exclaimed, unable to stop herself from squealing like a child. "Oh, thank you!" she hugged Renata so tight, and so unexpectedly, that all Renata did was just let the human sway her body side to side.

Donna noticed the way Renata was looking at the Doctor and had to describe it as gratitude? And the Doctor, being who he usually was, had a big grin on his face. Oh, those two were so complicated to read sometimes.

"Why don't you go grab a coat?" the Doctor suggested to Gabby then to Donna. "It's a bit chilly on Sirius 5, not quite adapted for humans yet."

"I'm getting my furry coat!" Donna quickly said when she remembered how freezing cold the Ood planet was. "C'mon Gabby, let's find you something in the wardrobe!"

"There's a wardrobe here?" Gabby blinked while Donna dragged her by the arm back into the corridors.

Soon as they were gone, Renata brought her hands to her face and groaned. "That was a disaster!"

"Seriously? Gabby's happy," the Doctor tried to remind but Renata shook her head.

"She's only happy because you thought of a place to bring her. I didn't. I'm terrible at this." Her shoulders slumped as her entire body fell against the console.

The Doctor stared at her for a few seconds as he convinced himself that this really was Renata. He hadn't ever seen her so confused and...feeble? Since she'd come with him - well, when he kidnapped her - all she'd been was authoritative, even when sometimes it was a pain in the ass because it deeply contrasted with his way of living. She always knew what to do, when to do it, and the best way to do it. But now Gabriella Gonzalez was the apparently the downfall of the Time Lady. And honestly, it was the closest the Doctor had felt to Renata since they'd started travelling together. Her cool walls were down and now he was meeting the real Renata, the part of her that was just as frazzled as he was; the part that showed him that she made mistakes and sometimes had no idea what to do. He liked both sides of her, but this side right now was the side that allowed him to get closer to her, even if it was just to aid her.

He stepped closer to her and gently pulled her hands off her face, though he then kept them in his hands. He met her fearful eyes and offered her a kind, soft smile. "I just gave you a start. Doesn't mean I'm better."

Renata shook her head. "No, it's always been a fact that you are better." She lowered her gaze as the repressed feelings started worming their way to the surface. It was his ideas that always gave her a moment of fun in her life, even when it was usually accompanied by nearly getting caught. It was his ideas that always ended up getting a smile from her, it was him that always had her feeling better in the end. "You've always been better," she whispered.

The Doctor wanted to believe that there was more meaning behind her words, but as much as he tried to think about it...he came up with nothing. He didn't know her. He didn't know what she could possibly be thinking about. And it irked him. Yes, it irked him.

Donna purposely cleared her throat when she and Gabby returned, both coated up. She raised an eyebrow at the questionable aliens and had quite an amusing time watching them quickly tear their hands from each other and move in opposite directions. "Did we...interrupt…?"

"Of course not," Renata immediately shot the idea down, even throwing a glare at Donna for the insinuation.

"Are you ready, Gabby?" the Doctor asked the young girl, perhaps as a way to move things along who knew.

"Aha!" Gabby nodded her head so fast the others thought she might get dizzy.

"Right then, let's go!" the Doctor went for the controls to get them to Sirius 5.

Donna brought Gabby up to the console with the warning that the trips were never easy, something that earned herself a hard 'Oi!' from the Doctor. He did his best! But Gabby couldn't be less bothered with the way the TARDIS jolted. All she knew was that as soon as the TARDIS stopped, it meant she was going to be on a foreign planet. She turned to run for the doors when Renata called her to wait.

"Oh, Renée," the Doctor moved around the console, throwing the Time Lady a smirk, "Let her go out and explore."

"I think not," Renata's authoritative hardness was back. "We need to know what's out there, hence the monitor." She moved up to the screen and ignored the Doctor rolling his eyes as he mumbled about how boring that was.

"Oh, that makes sense," Gabby quickly turned on her heels and returned to Renata's side. "Something could, I don't know, pop out and eat us."

"I doubt that would happen, but...it's always a good idea to check where you've landed," Renata pointed at her like a mother would when she was lecturing their child.

"Can she be my teacher?" Donna, smirking, looked to the Doctor. She knew very well the Doctor would never in a 100 years be this cautious. It didn't mean he was careless but...Renata just did it better when it came to this part.

"I'm just going to go," the Doctor resolved and turned for the doors.

"Fine, but when you get eaten I don't want to hear it," Renata calmly called while she gazed at the readings on the monitor. So far, everything did look okay but she wanted to be extra sure.

"When I get eaten," the Doctor mumbled under his breath and missed Renata's sharp look on him. Gabby brought a hand to her mouth to cover her giggle. They were a funny pair. "Oh, look at that," the Doctor pushed the doors open and stepped out. He looked back inside after a few seconds. "Nothing's eaten me yet." He made a show of walking a couple steps away then once again called back to say how he was still very much not eaten.

Renata scrunched her face and tilted her head. "I am this close-" she raised her hand with her index finger and thumb almost touching each other, "-to shutting the doors and leaving him here."

"Do it," Donna laughed at the idea. The Doctor's face would be priceless!

Renata's smile was close to turning into a laugh, but she knew better than to be this rude. "Let's just go Gabby. Everything seems in order." She led the way towards the open doors and stepped out first into a dark, blue sky planet. The Doctor was a few feet away, gazing at a collection of mountains not too far from where they were.

As soon as Renata heard a thud behind, she whirled around in a state of panic thinking Gabby had been hurt. It was only confirmed when she found Gabby on her knees and with a hand over her mouth. "Gabriella! What's wrong!?" Renata rushed up to the young woman.

Donna looked at the Doctor to see what he thought, but he didn't appear to be so concerned. He seemed to guess what was going on with Gabby.

"Gabriella?" Renata exclaimed. "Are you okay!? Please tell me what's happening!"

"Yes!" Gabby said through a teary-eyed laugh. She felt guilty fofr making Renata think she was hurt but she couldn't help it. "This place...it's just so beautiful!" Renata let Gabby go as the latter reached to scoop up some sand from the ground. "Even the sand feels different! More smooth, more…" she got up fast and rushed to a bush with blue leaves and curly vines. "The leaves are blue! And…" she leaned forwards to sniff it, "...they smell like lavender!"

"You think that's nice, come check out the pond," the Doctor nodded to the small lake ahead of them.

"Wait, Gabby!" Renata called just as Gabby dashed for the lake which meant she was running down the hillside. "Don't run or you'll fall!"

Gabby couldn't hear anything right now. She was ecstatic. She dropped to her knees and leaned closer to the water. She saw a creature resembling a seahorse but it was purple...and it had blue wings…

"Oh my God, look at that," Donna had come up beside Gabby and pointed at a pair of jellyfish that turned out to have iridescent, gangly tails.

"C'mon," the Doctor offered his arm to Renata so they could walk down the hill to join their companions. She rolled her eyes but accepted nonetheless. She curled her arm around his and allowed him to lead the way down. "It's quite nice to see their reactions, right?" he asked her quietly, but Gabby and Donna were too enthralled with the sea life to overhear them anyways.

Renata had to admit there was an indescribable feeling to it. "I guess this is why you tried so hard to impress Donna when you first took her to the Ood planet."

"Look at the waterfall!" Gabby laughed and pointed ahead.

There was a waterfall between two of the mountains the Doctor had seen earlier. But the water was so sparkly that it almost looked crystal clear. What really took Gabby away was the fact that part of the water seemed to be flowing from the sky, almost looking like Van Gogh's Starry Night.

"It's a pretty good place here," Donna remarked and looked back at the pair of aliens. She took notice of their closeness but kept it to herself for now. "Why haven't we come here before?"

"Because we were busy getting nearly killed somewhere else," Renata said so calmly and easily.

"You what?" Gabby turned around. She hadn't caught a word of their conversation and it showed because anyone else would've panicked at their track record.

"Nothing," Renata said instantly. "We were, um, we're going to head into the city."

Gabby's face lit up all over again. "Yes! Let's do that!"

The art gallery was at the very end of the city, which allowed the travelers to see pretty much everything in the streets. Of course once or twice, Renata had to remind Gabby that around here she was the alien. Gabby couldn't help but point out the fact that a lot of these people, aliens, had blue or green skin. Not to mention the fact many of the civilians had bulging eyes like one would see on a bug. She just couldn't help it!

"How do you guys do it, though?" Gabby soon started a round of questions when they turned the street that would lead them to the art gallery. "Be so at home even though you're on an alien planet, millions of galaxies away from Earth? Or even from your own home?"

"We're used to it. We tend to move a lot," the Doctor was the one to answer, despite now wearing a heavy expression on his face.

Gabby paused to really study both his and Renata's similar expressions. They seemed sad, but like..really sad. Almost grim. She said something she shouldn't have because even Donna was nervously biting on her index nail. But what did she say?

Then it clicked.

"Hey," she started again but in a quieter tone, "You never said...where are you from?" Neither Time Lord wanted to answer that, but Gabby noticed their expressions fell deeper towards a crestfallen path. She had asked the wrong question. "Sorry, I-I didn't mean-"

"Look, the art gallery!" Renata pointed out the building they were approaching. Once Gabby saw it's castle-esque style, she forgot all about her question.

"That's like royalty!" she gawked.

"The Pentaquoteque Gallery of Ouloumos," the Doctor presented, much happier than a few minutes ago. He was relieved Gabby was forgetting about her question because he certainly wasn't in the mood to go down that path with her yet, much less Renata.

They came up to the open gate which was several, and several, feet high. Gabby felt so small when she walked past them, even more so when she caught sight of the beautiful garden leading up to the gallery's front door.

"This is amazing!" she practically screeched and dashed to one of the many statues lining up the path.

"She really reminds me of a kid in a candy shop," Donna remarked. She looked at the Doctor and Renata and saw their agreeing looks. She was about to add that they resembled parents in that moment when she realized it would probably trigger memories of Jenny. Thank God she caught herself on time. "I'm going to stop her from touching something she shouldn't," Donna then said and hurried off before she said something she shouldn't. Too close!

"She does look happy," Renata said after the ginger had gone. "Thanks for that." Her warm smile meant everything for the Doctor, but he wasn't sure why. Still, he took it.

"Look, Renée," he moved to stand in front of her.

"That's not my name," she reminded, not that it mattered. The nickname had stuck despite her protests.

"I have an idea, I'm just not sure how you'd feel about it." And judging by the look on his face, it was quite an idea.

"What is it?" Renata admitted she was a little curious.

"Inside there's a lot of paintings and statues and other things Gabby's going to see. I imagine you'll want to explain what they are-"

"-naturally," Renata sighed. "But I won't be able to. I don't know what's inside."

"I do…"

"Surprise, surprise," Renata playfully rolled her eyes.

"There is a way for you to know it too," the Doctor said, though his tone had gone quiet and...a bit soft? Renata wasn't sure. "I can...share with you. My thoughts? The ones specific to this art gallery. I can share that with you telepathically."

Renata instantly knew what he wanted to propose. Her body shifted to the side, as did her gaze. "Doctor…"

"I know you've refused in the past to let us connect our minds telepathically but this is different," the Doctor promised fast before she would shut him down. "I could let you in and you would be able to know everything that's inside that gallery."

"But that's cheating," Renata bit her lower lip, her eyes flickering to Gabby excitedly babbling to Donna about a golden statue they'd discovered. "Not to mention lying. I'd be taking credit for something you learned. Something you know about."

"You wouldn't be because I'm letting you peek into my mind to answer a question Gabby might have."

"That's literally cheating."

"Renata," the Doctor rubbed his forehead. He knew this would be a complicated thing to run by her, so he just had to push through.

"Doctor I can't do it," Renata shook her head. "You're the one that knows everything. I shouldn't take credit. It's cheating, lying and stealing."

"Not if I'm letting you take it," the Doctor argued. "I'm teaching you, in a way...just a quicker way. I'm giving you access to an information bank."

"Your brain is not…" Renata paused when she realized that it was the perfect description of what his big old brain was. She had to laugh.

The Doctor grinned. If she was laughing then they were on the right track. "So, what do you say?"

Renata sobered from her laugh fast as she got to thinking. Sharing their thoughts was a gateway to letting each other into their respective minds that included other memories and feelings. What if she accidentally let one wrong memory slip from her grasp and he saw it? What if he saw she was Zuriah in the past? That's why she initially told him that she wasn't comfortable connecting telepathically.

It's not like you don't have a tight grasp on your memories, she berated herself. She wasn't stupid.

"Oh my God! Look at this!" Gabby's voice drifted to them. She now stood in front of an odd statue with a twisted body. "What do you think this is?" she asked Donna, but of course Donna had no idea.

The Doctor probably knows, Renata thought.

"I won't look into your head, Renata," the Doctor quietly said, presuming that's where her thoughts had gone to. "I would never do that."

"I know," Renata sadly smiled at him. "I do trust you, Doctor. You're not that type of person."

"So, what do you think?"

Renata drew in a deep breath before she nodded her head. "Okay. We can do that. But-" she raised a finger to point at him, "-in return I want you to actually teach me about the galaxies. I don't want to take credit for your experiences. That's not fair. If I'm going to teach Gabby, I want it to be from me."

"I would love that," the Doctor beamed. Someone who didn't mind hearing his babbles about his trips? Someone who would actually understand what he was talking about? How could he refuse!?

~0~

The inside of the art gallery was even more grand than the outside. There were dozens of hallways with dozens and dozens of artwork to admire. Gabby couldn't get enough of them! She'd visited museums before but they all paled in comparison to this one!

"Oh! Look at that one!" she practically seized Renata's wrist and yanked the Time Lady towards a podium with a see-through cube. Its inside had millions of small black and white particles floating in the air while golden waves floated from its corners. "What is that!" Gabby pointed at it.

Once Renata pried her wrist from Gabby, not that the human noticed with all her excitement, she took a look at the cube. "...it's a 3D pointlist painting. It's based on principles invented by George Seurat." Gabby audibly 'aaahd' as she circled the podium. "It changes depending on what angle you view it from."

"It's so cool!" Gabby felt like she was repeating the same thing over and over, but there was really no other way to put her thoughts into words. She was just speechless and that's what came out.

As they continued down the hallway, Gabby kept pointing at different artworks that Renata would then explain. It was honestly quite incredible the way the information just rolled off her tongue, least that's what Gabby remarked after leaving two portraits that mimicked her face and Renata's.

"Thank you," Renata would then whisper to the Doctor every time she had the chance. Everything she was saying was what the Doctor was telling her telepathically, as well as what Renata saw through his mind. He truly had been everywhere.

"Of course," the Doctor would say each time despite having to do it almost every 5 minutes. He liked watching her flushed face when Gabby would praise her.

The group reached an intersection a couple minutes later and since no one really knew where to go from there, the Doctor suggested they visit the room dedicated to an artist he was good friends with.

"Zhe Ikiyuyu is a phenomenal artist," he said as he took the group down a turn. "I think you'd love her block transfer sculptures."

"Block transfer sculptures?" Gabby repeated in confusion then looked at Renata for an explanation.

"Uhm...it's a method of creating solid objects from pure mathematics," the blonde elucidated then added, "It's usually done by chanting."

"What?" Gabby laughed at the absurd idea. How do you sing and create sculptures? That sounded more like magic than artwork.

Donna, on the other hand, was giving Renata a strange look from behind. She'd been quietly listening to everything Renata said and she couldn't help but feel that the way Renata was explaining...sounded familiar. She just couldn't place it yet.

"And Zhe's a skilled artist," the Doctor added. "She trained on Logopolis centuries ago! She sings things into existence!"

He stopped in front of the right room and poked his head inside, only to find it completely empty. Gabby and Donna looked inside and wore similar confused expressions.

"Is it supposed to be empty, spaceman?" Donna asked.

"Uh, no…" the Doctor turned as if to leave but then poked his head into the room one more time to make sure he really was seeing it empty. "That can't be right," he frowned and then finally walked away.

"Where are we going?" Renata was right behind him.

The Doctor took them directly to the gallery's curator, who turned out to be a green-skinned woman with a head shaped like a potato...least that's what Gabby whispered to Donna who then snickered.

"What do you mean Zhe's vanished?" the Doctor demanded from the curator, nonethewiser of the snickering going on between his companions.

"A hundred years ago," the curator leaned against her desk and took a look at her fingernails.

"You don't seem very concerned," remarked Renata.

"You know what artists can be like," the curator practically snapped. "Zhe was the most mercurial and sensitive of the lot."

"Still," Renata put her hands together, her face scrunching as sarcasm dripped in her next words, "If someone I knew vanished a hundred years ago, I would want to know where they went."

"Does her private space elevator still work?" the Doctor had gotten the same careless vibe from the curator as Renata had.

"Yeah," the curator shrugged. "Pushy art dealer tried visiting about seventy years ago and he came down in quite a hurry."

"Is that supposed to be a warning?"

"No, just a head's up."

The Doctor didn't give the curator another look. He left the office in a hurry, leaving the others to promptly follow.

"What are we doing?" Gabby asked Renata once they had left the building altogether.

"Something's up there that made an art dealer rush back down," Renata said and had Gabby soon staring up at the starry sky. "We need to see what it is."

"Yeah, but...where would that be?"

"A very long piece of string, basically, one end of which is held in geosynchronous orbit by a counterweight, in this case Zhe's private moon," the Doctor said with a wide grin on his face. He loved explaining that bit. "Used to be a creative retreat. She would invite other artists, writers, students...and the parties she'd host…" the Doctor's wolf whistler elicited a sharp glance from Renata.

"Please finish that sentence with what you would do at these parties," she said calmly, but that was a trick the Doctor learned quickly when she first arrived. He'd start saying something and it was usually the wrong thing that would get him in trouble.

Donna, in the meantime, had seemed ready to say something but caught herself again. Now her eyes were flickering between the Doctor and Renata, as if something had finally donned on her.

"But it's beautiful," Gabby had to circle the elevator before they would go inside. It was in a cylindrical shape made up of glass. "This will really take us into the sky?"

"Yeah, apparently," Renata answered and motioned the girl to go in first. Before she or the Doctor followed Gabby and Donna, she grabbed the Doctor's arm and quietly asked, "Are you sure this is safe?"

"The elevator? Of course," the Doctor almost laughed at the silly question as he walked inside.

"I meant the moon," Renata said through gritted teeth.

"Ooh," the Doctor turned to her with a thoughtful face. "One can only hope."

Renata's face was comical in his opinion. Her eyes were wide and half of her mouth had raised for quite an expression.

The way up to the 'moon' had been a quiet one, but even then the Doctor was still agitated. It was nothing like the last time he'd been there. Even the lovely friend who used to manage the elevator was now a dusty old robot in the corner that didn't speak. Something was definitely wrong. Once the elevator opened up, it let the travelers onto mushy grass. One wouldn't even think that this was a place in the sky. It looked just like the actual planet below them.

"Is that a sculpture garden?" Gabby spotted the millions of old-looking sculptures dispersed around the front garden. They weren't as pretty as the ones she'd seen down in the gallery. "They're all...stringy and…"

"Hey, just like him," Donna jerked a thumb at the Doctor. He didn't really approve of the comment.

"You two need to appreciate this artwork," he reprimanded. "The study of the living form is the basis for visual arts in billions of cultures across the universe! Well if you happen to have a living form that is...or eyes...or perception based on sensory input in a nervous system."

"I have no idea what you just said," Gabby gave him a strange glance.

"You get used to that too," Donna shrugged and went up ahead. "But you know what, I don't like these sculptures. Even though they're fake...it almost looks like their eyes follow you..." she circled one sculpture with a twisted, gangly body.

"Yeah, I don't quite like it either," Renata admitted. There was something in the air that felt terse to her, frightening…

"You three are over-reacting!" the Doctor opened his arms to gesture the sculptures on both sides of the path. "All these statues represent the artist's State of Mind. Her influences... Touch of Giacometti here and a little Henry Moore there! Zhe was always in search of the perfect subject. She could find beauty in any form - what an eye she had! Though she did love bipeds - the humanoid form. Changed her own gender willy-nilly to get different perspectives on it. She would jump forms to get a sense of what a biped looked like from the outside."

"She could change bodies just like that?" Gabby blinked.

"It's not that hard, trust me," Renata mumbled.

"Well, Zhe's case was more of body augmentation," the Doctor said. Zhe wouldn't have to die to change bodies. She would just think it and change in that moment!

"So, all the sculptures have been conjured into existence by your friends singing a bunch of numbers?" the more Gabby asked these questions, the more she wanted to disbelieve this was actually real.

"As crazy as it sounds," Renata shrugged.

"It takes a great concentration, skill, and awareness of quantum foam harmonics and, oh, I don't know, a nice voice?" the Doctor thought that should be enough to make these 'ugly' sculptures look better to the women.

"Sounds very complicated, though," Donna ducked to meet the face of another sculpture whose head seemed to be under one of their legs. "Did she really do it all by herself?"

"Right, like one of those fancy computer programs," Gabby thought of but the Doctor quickly shut that idea down.

"No, no," he shook his head. "She doesn't use computers or machines. It's a discipline that needs all the nuances and playfulness of living minds…"

Donna gasped when the sculpture she was staring at blinked at her. She stepped back and stared at it for another minute.

"What's wrong, Donna?" Renata noticed the way the ginger had suddenly froze in her spot.

"I, uh...I think that sculpture-" she pointed ahead, "-just…" She was about to finish when the sculpture raised its head and straightened its body. It grew twice as big and stomped a foot forwards. "Moved!" Donna whirled around and dashed towards the others.

"Is that supposed to happen!?" Gabby, wide-eyed, looked at Renata but she could guess the answer all on her own.

Now it was Renata's turn to seize Gabby's wrist and pull her forwards into a run. The statue chased them down the path and each time it stomped a foot, the ground rumbled like an earthquake which made it harder for the group to get away.

"What the hell kind of artwork is this!?" Donna shrieked at the Doctor who'd taken her wrist to run.

"Not artwork! Not Zhe's fault!" the Time Lord clarified before anything.

"Oooh of course it's not!"

"Would you two quit arguing and run!?" Renata actually passed the two with her own companion. "There's the gate!"

The building meant to be Zhe's personal workplace had a large silver gate barring them from going directly inside. As they neared it, the Doctor used his sonic to open the locks and was the last one to go through it before shutting it again.

"Are you okay?" Renata immediately turned to Gabby. She grabbed the girl's head and turned it both ways to examine her for any injuries.

"I've never felt so alive!" Gabby laughed and pushed Renata's hands form her face. "It's like every instinct, every cell in my body, just switched on!"

Renata incredulously stared at her.

"Doctor, that's not going to hold those things!" Donna was busy telling the Doctor. The creatures had reached the gate and were pulling and pushing against the bars.

"I have a feeling they're about to stop," the Doctor was staring at the creatures with a calm face. And not a minute later after he said that, the sculptures froze to become actual sculptures again.

"You're just showing off," Donna raised her hands and turned away from the man.

"How'd that happen?" Gabby asked him, but he had already turned for the building where a young boy was awaiting. "Oooh. Never mind."

The Doctor led the group towards the front steps and waved a hello at the boy who, upon closer look, was a young Asian man. "Hello! Is Zhe here? I'm an old friend of hers, the Doctor?"

The boy looked on with a straight face.

But that didn't stop the Doctor from trying to peek into the building's foyer.

Renata cleared her throat and pulled the Doctor back to stand with her. She offered the man a kind smile as she spoke up. "We're just looking for Zhe. I'm Renata, that's Donna and Gabriella."

"It's Gabby," the woman in question raised a hand to wave.

"I address you by your actual name," Renata shot the Doctor a look when she said that. "Because a nickname is not a name." Her words flew over his head.

"Gabby's an artist too," he said instead. "Just wanted her to meet Zhe."

"I am the ultimate apprentice," the young man finally spoke up. "There can only be one."

"That's a bit creepy," Donna muttered under her breath.

"Is Zhe around, then?" the Doctor moved on into the building, consequently pulling Renata with him since she'd been holding onto his arm again.

"You don't just come in like that!" she scolded.

"You seek to become an apprentice?" the young man followed the group inside.

"No, no, we just want to see Zhe's art as well as Zhe herself," Renata let go of the Doctor and turned back to the young man. "Would you be so kind to show us where she is, please?"

The young man nodded and moved around them to take lead. He brought them down a hallway, into a dark room where only a spotlight illuminated it. There was nothing but a sculpture of Zhe herself sitting cross-legged on an orange cushion over a table.

"She looks like an Egyptian goddess," Gabby remarked and eyed the sculpture's four arms positioned in the 'zen' manner. She curled her arm around Renata's and pulled the Time Lady forwards when suddenly Renata pulled her back. "What?"

"This isn't right," the Time Lady went again. She'd gotten the same vibe from before when they had entered the gallery. "That statue…"

But it was too late.

Before she finished that sentence, she felt a force pick her body and Gabby's to drop them somewhere else. It was quick, instantaneous that all took was a mere blink to find themselves in a different room.

"Uumm...what just happened?" Gabby tried to uncurl her arm from Renata's but now the Time Lady was holding on tight. "Where's the Doctor and Donna? And where are we?"

The room was now white, still empty, but they were also standing in front of the young man...who was now a girl.

"Where the hell did you put us?" Renata demanded from the girl.

"Weren't you just a boy a couple seconds ago?" Gabby tilted her head, very much confused.

"You can't fool me," the girl warned. "You want to be an apprentice," she raised a finger at Gabby. "But there can only be one and that's me! I am the ultimate apprentice!"

"Oh my God - this is all for a stupid job?" Renata now let go of Gabby's arm to rage at the apprentice. "Are you kidding me?"

The girl merely tilted her head as something seemed to be sprouting from the side of her neck. It turned out to be another head, the head of the boy they'd met outside.

"Gross," Gabby crinkled her nose.

"Focusing on the wrong part!" Renata whirled around to face Gabby.

"Right…"

"Go!" Renata ushered Gabby towards the door.

~ 0 ~

Donna was the first one to notice Renata and Gabby were gone from the room. The Doctor had been busy admiring the statue to notice it right away. But when he did, he turned to the apprentice - still a boy - and dropped his typical playful demeanor. "Where are they?" his voice had dropped to a low tone, dark too. "I'm not playing jokes. Where is Renata and Gabby?"

"I do not believe you dropped by only to see Zhe," the apprentice finally spoke up. "You brought the girl to become an apprentice but there is only one."

"He thinks we brought Gabby to steal his job?" Donna raised an eyebrow. "Listen here, buddy," her voice grew louder, "We don't care about some job! We just came to see some artwork!"

"Lies!" the apprentice raised a hand which quickly became claw like. It kept morphing until it appeared as if a pair of scissors had fused with his fingers.

"Seriously, I think you've got this all wrong!" the Doctor pulled Donna to run away together.

"No, Doctor," the apprentice chased after them. "I am exactly right! Time is running out for you!"

"That sneering, cleverer than thou attitude you have - this is my domain and I hear everything! I heard everything you said on the way up to the house! Your friends think the sculptures are frightening and wrong! You're worse than all of them! You think you know it all! You're not artist! Admit it!"

"If we admit it, do we get to leave alive?" Donna had to ask. She yelped when the Doctor pulled her towards a staircase.

"Not likely!" the Doctor told her. "C'mon! If this staircase follows the house's original layout, it'll lead to the roof terrace!"

True to his word, they came running into a lovely terrace full of flowers and unfinished work.

"Get the hell away from us!" they soon heard a familiar cry from below.

The Doctor dashed to the ledge and looked down to see Renata and Gabby fighting off another version of the apprentice. Donna did the same and was relieved to see them relatively okay.

Renata had just thrown a pot at its two heads and couldn't look more furious. Actually, she didn't even look scared. She was just incredibly mad. "Who do you think you are, huh? I demand to see Zhe and put in a formal complaint!"

"Really? Those are her threats?" Donna raised an eyebrow at the blonde, but the Doctor was just smiling.

"That's my girl," he said, or blurted. It might have been a blurt.

"Oh, really?" Donna's smirk was a red alert for him.

"I-I did not say that. Don't you dare tell her I said that!"

Donna's smirk widened.

"Donna!" the Doctor's yell pulled Renata's attention from below.

"Oh! Doctor! There you are!" she exclaimed.

The Doctor shook his head at Donna then quickly told Renata, "Find Zhe's studio! That way!" he pointed them to the left. "It's a glass wing building with big windows! Maybe she's there!"

"Okay!" Renata grabbed Gabby's arm and took off in the direction he'd pointed them to.

"So telling her you said that," Donna warned, much to the Doctor's dismay, but all was forgotten when they turned to leave and saw the apprentice under the threshold.

"Not you again," the Doctor groaned.

~ 0 ~

Renata and Gabby eventually found the building the Doctor was talking about. The big glass windows were the giveaway that they were in the right place. Renata brought Gabby inside, which turned out to be a regular workplace. Even as they dashed down the hallways, Gabby had to admire the artwork hanging on the walls.

"You know, you can stop to admire this when we're not being chased by a jealous, homicidal apprentice!" Renata yanked Gabby away from one canvas the latter had stopped by.

"I know but it's just so pretty!" Gabby looked over her shoulder and saw the apprentice still coming after them. Renata continued to run and Gabby seemed to be on the same plan...until she passed one room she just had to go back to.

"GABRIELLA!" Renata's scream wasn't enough to pull the human out of the room. With a groan, she darted back for the specific room.

It turned out to be a studio - Zhe's studio - which was completely cluttered with unfinished and some finished work. Bookshelves lined the four walls and were filled to the brim with art utensils, books, pieces of objects probably meant to be artwork.

"What a nice studio," Gabby gawked with a huge grin on her face.

"Hello!" Renata waved both her hands in the air, not that it mattered since Gabby was walking up to a desk. "Homicidal apprentice still after us! You remember that part, right?"

"How dare you touch those!" the apprentice appeared at the doorway, making Renata scream and jump back.

"Did you do these?" Gabby had taken hold of a pile of papers and turned to face the apprentice. Her eyes were full of wonder and fondness. "They are preliminary sketches for some of the sculptures outside, right? I love them!"

The apprentice paused. "Seriously?"

Renata's eyes flickered from Gabby to the apprentice.

"Seriously!" Gabby laughed. "This is kind of a strange thing to ask, seeing as you're trying to kill us but...would you mind showing me some more?"

"Are you kidding me?" Renata growled. "She's trying to kill us!" Gabby might turn out to be more like the Doctor and this was only her first trip! Renata dreaded to think what she might become after more time in the TARDIS.

"But she's an amazing artist!" Gabby thought that was a good enough reason, leading Renata to smack her own forehead. "Imagine what I could learn from her?"

"You really think all that?" the apprentice's female face had a small smile all of a sudden. "I...thought you were after an apprenticeship."

"With Zhe? Nah!" Gabby shook her head. "I've already got a teacher. Her." She pointed at Renata who was couldn't believe how this was going. "Could I see your work, though? I bet you're just as good. Who knows, I could even become your apprentice one day."

"No, no," Renata wagged a finger at her. "You will not become an apprentice to a homicidal apprentice."

"Maybe she won't be a homicidal apprentice anymore-"

"-stop!" Renata pointed a finger at Gabby, looking completely incredulous. "You are just as crazy as the Doctor!"

Gabby laughed. "No, I just really love artwork."

Well, at least Renata could say that Gabby had gotten the apprentice to lose the second head and revert back to her female version.

"Alright, I've never really shown this stuff to anybody ever," the apprentice motioned Gabby and Renata to follow her to a set of double doors at the end of the studio room.

"I get it," Gabby put the sketches back on the desk. "I like to draw but I'm never sure if I'm any good."

Her words seemed to make the apprentice a bit more confident as she led them into the adjoining room. Its walls were covered in papers of sketches and drawings.

"I'm not going to pretend you know the first thing about sculpture block transfer or otherwise...but I think these are beautiful. I love that you began just by drawing." Gabby hurried to the nearest wall to stare at the sketches.

"Drawing is one of the first and oldest technologies for many life-forms, humanoid and otherwise," the apprentice said. She raised a hand to create a hologram of a nude woman. "We learn to forage, to hunt, to communicate, to make fire...then we draw. As soon as our basic needs are met, we begin to make things. Drawing if the very beginning of that impulse." The one hologram turned into two, then three and suddenly the room was filled with different holograms of creations.

Gabby and Renata saw more humanoid figures forming a circle as if it was a ritual. Behind them swirled an orange fish-like creature that zipped behind Renata. The blonde shot it a look, still mighty suspicious that the apprentice might attack them when their guard was low.

"It is almost as old as we are. We draw to understand the world around us. It's the beginning of representational thinking," the apprentice was saying. "It's our way of assigning meaning to everything to see. It's the beginning of written language, of symbols and code of numbers. And once you have numbers, you begin to understand at the very stuff from which the universe itself is made of."

Soon, equations started flowing into the air. Gabby laughed melodically as it passed over her head and zoomed past her face.

"All this from drawing," the apprentice said.

"Alright, stop," Renata ordered and her voice was hard enough to put an end to everything that swirled in the room. The apprentice lowered her arms and looked at Renata. The Time Lady was furious again. "I have had enough of this."

"Renata," Gabby whispered, but Renata pointed a finger for her to stay quiet and so Gabby did. Renata was kind of scary when she was mad.

"You have chased us all around this place with the intent of killing us out of pure jealousy that was so misplaced! And I have no doubt that the other version of you is still chasing my friends," Renata stormed up to the short apprentice and glowered. "So I need you to take us to them. Or are you going to kill us now?"

"Renata, she's not evil," Gabby dared to speak again and it was still enough to earn her a glare.

"She just tried to kill us five minutes ago!"

"But she was just misunderstanding. I think we can trust her."

"In my experience, you can't even trust your own family," Renata's words held double meaning and Gabby knew it. There was no doubt in Renata's eyes. She firmly believed what she said.

"I am sorry," the apprentice suddenly said. Renata returned her gaze to the small girl. "I have misunderstood but...I can repair it. Let me impart some of my knowledge to you both."

"I don't need nor want to understand anything here," Renata snapped.

Gabby moved towards them and held one hand out for Renata and the other for the apprentice. "I'd love to."

"No," Renata looked away.

"Stop being stubborn," Gabby gently said, even smiling at the Time Lady despite the frown on her face. "We might even learn a way to find Zhe like this. Or do you already know everything?"

Renata slowly looked to Gabby. "Gabriella, this is just not a good idea. Even if the apprentice does mean well-" she shot a glare to the questionable girl, "-we don't know what might happen."

"Take a risk," Gabby wiggled her fingers at Renata, once again reminding the Time Lady too much of the Doctor.

'Take a risk', he would say to her back when they were on Gallifrey. She was too much of a stickler to have fun. Everyone always seemed to know how to have fun except for her. Why couldn't she be more like them? More carefree?

"C'mon," Gabby gently took Renata's hand. "It could be fun."

Renata sighed. "Okay, fine. If I die, what's another face? This life was useless anyways."

Gabby gave her a strange look for her words, but the apprentice cut in to commence.

~ 0 ~

The Doctor was so tired. He and Donna had been running for a good while now. One room changed into an endless pit that threatened to kill them...until he figured out it was just an illusion and that there was a rope for them to hang on (from which they got rope-burn). It brought them to another spiraling staircase which led them…

...back to the first room they'd come into earlier.

"That statue again," Donna crossed her arms at Zhe's statue. She was out of breath and if the Doctor didn't do something quick they were just going to die.

"Of course," the Doctor hummed. He moved towards the statue as he now took a better look at it. "That's why the apprentice distracted me...you're no sculpture…" he leaned closer to the face of the sculpture. "You're Zhe."

"Doctor! C'mon!" Donna wearily said. "What are we doing here?"

"Donna, we've been tricked. This isn't a statue, it's Zhe but...she's been trapped somehow."

"Okay, so what do we do?"

"I can maybe reach her telepathically. Keep an eye out for the apprentice, Donna."

"Keep an eye - how!?" Donna practically screamed, but by then the Doctor had joined hands with Zhe's (one pair anyways) and left her. "Oh, you're kidding me!"

~ 0 ~

The apprentice's room was covered in purple and golden butterflies. At least that's what the figures resembled. They swarmed to cover every inch of the room and yet Renata and Gabby didn't feel overwhelmed by it, nor like they would suffocate. It was as if they were a part of each other.

They were immersed into a different type of reality. At first, it was a series of incoherent images and noises that they saw. Renata presumed they were images of places they would perhaps see one day. She blinked as an image of a young woman with curly, ginger hair briefly appeared in front of them. Gabby's ears perked when the woman sang, in a beautiful voice, singing what seemed like a lullaby.

"A little fairy comes at night,

Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown'

with silver spots upon her wings,

And from the moon she flutters down."

The song and the woman disappeared altogether to continue the rush of images. Both Renata and Gabby screamed when they were sure that a blast of sharp icicles were about to hit them. A tall woman with a short, curly blonde hair seemed to be staring at them with glowing blue eyes. There was a clear, elegant-jeweled crown sitting on top of her head.

Then, just like before, she disappeared and from there the images that Renata and Gabby saw were from their past.

Gabby saw herself back in New York, fighting off the Cerebravores. Then there were Primavores and their beautiful butterfly wings flying around her. "This is incredible! I feel like I'm plugged into a new world! And that song…"

"It's everywhere," Renata drew in a deep breath. She could hear a song, a bloody song that made her feel...bad...but she didn't know where it was coming from.

But then she saw herself. Not this her right now but…

'Zuriah!' someone called. Her first incarnation turned her head and with her flipped her fiery orange hair. She was laughing - or rather she was laughing at someone, but it was a good-natured laugh.

It was the Doctor's first incarnation who was responsible for that laughter. He had tripped over one of her boxes in her foundation's library and brought down a stack of books with him.

'Doctor! I really can't leave you alone. What am I going to do with you?' Zuriah had come up to the man on the ground and squatted down next to him.

The Doctor pulled a book off his face and gave her a sly smile. 'I've got a few ideas.'

Renata blinked and immediately looked away. "NO!"

But then the song grew stronger. And it didn't have any words. It was just a tune - a melody that carried through.

"Oh, hello!" she heard Gabby say, and when Renata opened her eyes she saw an Ood very present in front of them.

The air around them had turned into a dozen colors swirling around the three.

"Is that you singing?" Gabby leaned forwards but Renata touched Gabby's arm to keep her from moving.

"Time Lady Renata, the Vortex Butterfly is coming," the Ood spoke up. "Be warned that if it rises - along with its companion, the Cosmic Butterfly - your song will end sooner."

"STOP!" Renata clapped her hands on her head. She screwed her eyes shut and fell to her knees. She didn't want to hear nor see more.

"I sense interference," the apprentice cut everything off and turned for the doorway where the other version stood.

Gabby, on the other hand, was more attentive to the Time Lady on the floor. "Renata, what happened? What did all that mean? I-I saw you and you didn't look like you! Neither did the Doctor! Plus that weird alien - what was that?"

The more she spoke, the more Renata wanted to yell at her to shut up. How could she have been so stupid to do this? Now Gabby knew more about Renata than Renata wanted anyone to know of her. And the Ood? She'd rather forget it all and just go home. She just wanted to go home.

'Home. I want to go home.'

Renata's head snapped up. She had not said that aloud.

"Woah, what's going on?" Gabby had heard too, but not only that…

'We're you, duh,' went her own voice against her.

Gold and purple butterflies flapped their wings around them. They weren't 'real' persay but they were real enough to be seen and heard.

"It's the Doctor trying to make contact," the male apprentice was telling the female on the side. Neither seemed to be that worried over the new butterflies.

"We must prevent it," the female apprentice said.

The two joined bodies, literally, and rushed out of the room.

"Wait!" Gabby called after them. "You can't just leave us here!"

'We have to stop them!' went her voice again.

"I was going to say that," Gabby frowned.

Renata pushed herself up to her feet and looked around. "What a mess."

'We know. What a mess indeed,' her voice agreed.

Renata balled her fists in the air and decided to go chase the Doctor first. He needed to be safe.

'Always keep him safe,' her voice said.

"Shut up!" she screamed frantically.

Gabby felt really guilty then. She'd been the one who convinced Renata to let the apprentice share her knowledge. She hoped the butterflies would disappear soon or Renata might just drop her off back on Earth.

~ 0 ~

Donna had picked up a piece of a table leg and was brandishing it at the two apprentices when Renata and Gabby ran into the room. "Nice of you two to show up!"

Renata rolled her eyes. "We were a bit busy, Donna! What's the Doctor doing!?" she saw the man standing in front of the sculpture - who was Zhe - and joined by the hands.

"Turns out that bloody sculpture isn't a sculpture! It's Zhe!" Donna swung the table leg at the male apprentice but missed. "And you two need to stay the hell away!"

"And he's gone off trying to contact her telepathically," Renata groaned.

'Doctor, Doctor, always doing the same stupid things!'

Donna froze for a second as she tried to decide whether or not she'd heard the echo of Renata's voice.

"It's a long story," Renata left it at that. She hurried towards the Doctor's body, not that he would know since he was deep in another realm. "Oh, you idiot, what have you gotten yourself into now?" she gently touched the side of his face, careful not to let her own telepathic abilities interfere with his trance.

'Just like always.'

Renata closed her eyes. This second voice was a truth teller, apparently.

"Okay, please stop!" Gabby put herself between Donna and the two apprentices. "You've really got all this wrong! The Doctor's not the bad guy. He doesn't mean any harm - none of us do."

"He's trying to connect to the originator and that can mean only one thing," the female apprentice scowled at her. She was back to being homicidal.

"He wants to be an apprentice," the male apprentice finished with the same frown on his face.

"No he bloody doesn't!" Donna snapped. "Doctor doesn't have the patience to sit still and draw! Ha! As if!"

"Please believe us," Gabby begged and looked to the female apprentice. "We had a connection, you must know that I'm not lying. And look," she gestured to Renata who was completely focused on the Doctor. "She's just trying to get him back. We're not lying."

The female apprentice studied Gabby then Renata for a minute. She slowly split from her male counterpart and raised her head. "She's right. I detect no deceit from them."

The male apprentice didn't seem to agree. "If you can't finish them, I will!"

"No!" the female apprentice raised her hand - which had turned into a shovel - and smacked the other apprentice's head. "We must weigh up the variables. This requires further information!"

"No!" the male apprentice argued back and raised his own hand, only instead of retaliating himself he brought the largest sculpture from the front yard and let it stomp through the wall.

Donna looked back at Renata and the Doctor. "We need him back or we're going to die!"

Renata couldn't argue with that logic. "I-I don't know…Doctor, can you hear me?"

~ 0 ~

Zhe was trapped in her own realm, out of her own accord. And as she was explaining to the Doctor how she came to be there, he heard the echoes of Renata's voice around him.

He looked around the blue realm and saw nothing but himself and Zhe. Still, Renata's voice kept calling to him.

"My artworks. The binary pair... They're in opposition... Not enough strength to keep them from destroying each other and us," Zhe brought one of her hands to her forehead. She seemed tired.

"Zhe, we have to go," the Doctor helped her stand straight with one arm around her waist. "My friends are in danger. I can hear one of them calling to me."

"I don't think I can make it," Zhe wearily said, letting her head hang.

"Oh yes we can!" the Doctor exclaimed. They just had to make it back to the origin of Zhe's force. It was so close, he could almost feel it.

Plus, Renata's voice got stronger and stronger. And that was only because on the other side, she was screaming as the sculpture tried to stomp on Donna and Gabby, She ultimately let the Doctor go to try and help them instead.

"C'mon!" she pulled Gabby and Donna towards a corner of the room.

"What are we going to do!?" Donna shrieked.

"I've no idea!" Renata shook her head. Even the apprentices were going at it against each other. And really, what did they have to fight against the big sculpture? Nothing, that's what.

But thankfully, a blinding light flashed from the Zhe's frozen body. It rocked the Doctor to the ground, but Zhe emerged from her trapped form and rose into the air.

"Enough! This little experiment ends here!" her voice roared. She swung one of her arms and captured the two apprentices in jets of white energy. "Binary Apprentice! Opposing aspects of my psyche - artists create! Never wanting to or knowingly destroy things!"

Zhe brought the two apprentices down and turned them back into what they had been originally: energy.

"Hello there," the Doctor had found his companions and Renata in the corner of the room. He looked completely fine with that big grin on his face. "You hear that? A block transfer artist in performance!"

It was very possible that one of Renata's eyes twitched. Her nose crinkled but more than it should have. She snatched Donna's table leg and threw it right at him.

Alright, so maybe he shouldn't have been so focused on that part. He should've focused on the homicidal situation they were in.

'Oh, it's the Doctor!' Gabby's echo filled the room. But out of her excitement, more thoughts started spilling out, including what she thought about him and the TARDIS.

"Oh, stop it!" Renata berated herself, but her own thoughts were spilling through...only hers included more of her past.

'Just like before!'

'The trouble follows!'

'Zuriah!'

"What?" the Doctor's eyes had widened to the brim at the last thing they heard.

~ 0 ~

Once everything was back to normal, Zhe invited the group for a nice cup of tea on the terrace with the promise of a good explanation for the frightening apprentices. As it turned out, they were created due to, ironically, a creative block. Zhe accidentally created a physical manifestation of her self doubt with all her powers. It split into two and went mad from there. As a result, she trapped herself in a voluntary stasis in an attempt to drain their powers.

"I need to go home," Renata had said as soon as Zhe finished her story. She got up from the table and walked away, of course with her new friendly echoes.

"How long is that going to last?" the Doctor quietly asked Zhe since both Renata's and Gabby's echoes were still very much active.

"It should fade as soon as you leave," Zhe said, offering her most apologetic smile.

"Very truthful echoes, mind you," Donna remarked as she sipped her own tea. "I had one of Gabby's tell me, in a spectacular manner, that I was much older than her."

"Is that why she hasn't come from over there?" the Doctor nodded to Gabby who had positioned herself by the balcony for some time now. Donna shrugged.

Renata had come to stand next to Gabby, not looking at the human but instead at the yard ahead of them.

"Renata...I'm sorry about this," Gabby made a gesture to their combined butterflies around them. She shouldn't have let the apprentice touch her and Renata because now they had all this foreign alien stuff on them. "I-I didn't think of what could happen...but you did. I should have listened to you."

"Don't worry about it, it'll fade away I imagine," Renata drew from the Doctor's mind. That link was still active, but not for long.

"And about what we saw...the images...that alien saying the thing about the song and the butterflies-"

Renata closed her eyes. She didn't want to think about her death prediction. "Let's never speak of that. I don't want to."

"But you look scared," Gabby pointed out. "Maybe we should tell the Doctor-"

"-no. I don't want to."

Gabby kept quiet for a moment, but there was just too much to ignore like Renata wanted her to. "But the connection...it showed us images from our past - least that's what I'm assuming since I saw myself back in New York. You weren't you. And neither was the Doctor. Were you on your planet? And were you and him-"

"-don't," Renata turned to face Gabby, her face hard and empty of any emotion. She wanted to look as scary as possible to keep Gabby from drawing conclusions and saying them aloud. "I don't ever want you to speak about what you saw, do you understand? Those are my memories. Memories you should have never seen. If you say anything about those memories to anyone I will personally drop you back on Earth in a snap of a finger. Understand?"

Gabby quickly nodded her head. "Aha. S-sorry."

Renata turned away from the girl and walked away. She wanted to find the TARDIS and refuge herself into her room.

~ 0 ~

"That was...I can't even describe what that trip was," Donna was very honest when the group had finally returned to the TARDIS.

"The usual, I suspect," the Doctor shrugged and turned to Gabby who was coming in last. "Whaddya think, Gabs? You want to keep going?"

Gabby bit her lower lip and looked at Renata. The Time Lady couldn't quite look at her right now. "I mean...I'd love to, but...Renata…"

The Doctor made a face and followed Gabby's gaze to Renata. "Renée, are you okay?"

"Yes," she snapped but went directly into the hallway without saying anything else.

"I think I angered her," Gabby hugged herself. "I-I should have just listened to her. She's the teacher. I'm...I'm the student." She went towards the hallway, like Renata, but she wasn't going to do any sleeping like a human should.

"What...just happened?" the Doctor scratched the top of his head.

"You're a dunce, you know that?" Donna remained by his side and leaned against the console.

"Maybe you should follow," the Doctor suggested and moved away from her. She rolled her eyes but let the comment go. She had something else she'd been wanting to say.

"Hey Doctor, I've got a question," she leaned off the console and turned around. She pressed her palms to the bottom of the control panel and smiled so innocently, it made the Doctor nervous. She had something up her sleeve. "Last time I heard, Renata didn't really know a lot about the world. I mean, she's smart cos she's from Gallifrey but...she never really traveled."

"So?"

"She never came to Sirus Star 5, did she?"

The Doctor blinked at the straightforwards question. "Excuse me?"

Donna folded her arms and gave him quite a look. It was unnerving, really. "I just kept wondering how Renata knew what every single thing in that art gallery was and then it hit me - her explanations sounded like you. And they were you!"

"Donna, what are you going on about?" the Doctor gave himself away by focusing completely on the console. He'd brought them off the planet and into the vortex, but for some reason his hands kept playing with the controls.

"What did you do, spaceman, that made Renata talk like you? And don't lie to me because I'll smack you."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Fine. I just let her into my mind. No big deal."

"Except it is," Donna said. "Do you just share your mind with anyone, then?"

"Well, no, but-"

"-you did with Renata-"

"-because she needed help and I wanted to help!"

"Doctor, it's just me now," Donna moved around the console until she standing next to him again. "You've been a little...closer...to Renata lately. And to be honest, that worries me a little bit."

The Doctor gave her a crazed look. "What?"

"Don't get me wrong, Renata seems kind and caring and...more put together than you but-"

"-oi!"

"But have you ever really asked yourself who she is?"

"What kind of question is that!?" the Doctor frowned.

"I'm saying...do you really know things about Renata?"

"Yes!" the Doctor answered a bit too fast to sound genuinely right. "I've talked to her and I know about her family and her job."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"Do you know her sister's name?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer but...he didn't actually know the answer.

"Or what exactly was the nature of her job? And I'm not just saying what she did - I really mean, what was her job? Who did she help? What did she do?"

"Donna-" the Doctor shook his head. He couldn't believe she was actually trying to make Renata seem suspicious.

"How about where she lived on Gallifrey? Who her parents were?"

"Enough!" the Doctor's voice hardened and the look on his face was not one you wanted to be on the receiving end of.

Donna knew he was upset, but she just needed to get this out there for both their sake's. "I think there's a reason why she's so reclusive about her past. Don't you feel like she's hiding something?"

"I have no right to pry about her past lives, alright? And it doesn't matter because I like Renata now. I like her - who she is right now."

"But there could be more to her and you'd never know because she doesn't say."

"Donna…"

"Doctor, who was that 'Zuriah' name Renata's echoes named?" Donna folded her arms and watched the Doctor's face shift through several emotions. "I saw the way you reacted when you heard it. Renata looked terrified. Who was that? If she was someone you knew, Renata didn't tell you, did she?"

The Doctor's gaze fell to the console again. Zuriah. How could Renata know that name if he never told her?

"Doctor," Donna rested a hand on his arm, "I like Renata, I really do. I'm not trying to make her a bad guy I'm...I have questions. And I know that if I have these questions, then you've had them for a while. Why haven't you asked her?"

"Because I don't want to lose her," the Doctor said quietly but his tone indicated this should've been obvious for her. "Renata is the only other of my people. I already started way wrong with her."

"Right, because you kidnapped her and forced her into the TARDIS," Donna mumbled, bit the Doctor said a sharp 'no' that made her stop altogether. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor was thinking about a time he'd forced himself to forget. 1913 when he was John Smith, the man who fell in love with Renata and simultaneously killed her family. Again.

"What are you keeping from me, spaceman?" Donna narrowed her eyes on the Doctor.

"I can't," he shook his head but he was a fool if he thought he would be getting away from Donna Noble.

"Oh no, you tell me right now what you did. What could be worse than kidnapping her?"

"It's a long story."

"And I have time," Donna straightened herself up and motioned him to start talking.

And for some reason, the Doctor felt like he could really use the talk.

#10th doctor #doctor who #ocappreciation #ocapp #dw imagines #10th doctor imagines #10th doctor imagine #doctor who imagine #doctor who imagines #doctor who fanfics #10th doctor fics #donna noble #gabby gonzalez #tardis

[theskyexists]

Spyfall part 1 (spoilers)

Ok so.

I was pleasantly surprised.

I really was.

I thought this was going to be another disaster ( which for me watching a chibs ep means: I am stewing in frustration during and afterwards I think what in the heck was that,  it doesn’t make ANY sense)

I appreciate how the trailer (the good one) was almost completely taken from this first episode - that was well done. I’m not as happy that the motorbiking was much more fun and cool in the trailer than the episode in which it didn’t really involve any stakes only reinforced by all the bullets hitting the motorbikes - harmlessly??

I have to say - that twist. Uh.............???? All I could think was, really? REALLY?? Already? Huh?? I couldn’t believe it. I literally was like - surely not. You’re not now implying this. How can you reboot Missy after ONE series break? That’s really...like, it did not feel right. And I’ll be honest, I was just straight up disappointed by a male Master. Then I thought, well, maybe we’re going to get a worthy opponent for the Doctor.....? :/

However, I like the actor. He gave O a lot of humanity - interestingly. Like O as a character - bit sad he doesn’t exist.

I actually liked the directing, i noticed that the very, very up close stuff - it now really gave a little more subtle panic vibe. The music was.

The pace seemed high to me - so check. Chibs fixed a big problem of mine.

Lots of character moments. Check. Though not being a native speaker and having no access to subtitles i had to really listen very VERY hard for those interactions. I liked the ‘iced tea - possibly.’

We briefly get to find out how the companions are dealing with travelling in combination with their regular lives. Check. Alright then. Graham even discusses it - the temporal disorientation.

The companions are PUT IN DANGER. check, fuckin hell finally. There’s just a bit of suspense in this.

Loved the decided focus on Yaz and Ryan. Check. Ryan being a normal kid not trained for this shit and Yaz smoothing the conversation, taking risks, asking sharp questions, modelling herself after the Doctor - I really like how they contrasted that.

I suspect Ryan casually noticing the weird statue in the glass case is going to be relevant however. (if not - sigh)

Really really liked how Chibs really worked at NOT undercutting the Doctor -  giving her clear moments of authority and genius and unaffectedness as the Doctor is supposed to get.  ‘i got an upgrade’ and having the Doctor chewing people out, interrogating them, negotiating with them - WITHOUT getting self-conscious or self-deprecating - lots of confidence - all of that helped along by multiple special agents coming for the Doctor - implying the need for more force, C mistaking Graham (i like that lil moment) but losing his argument to her, O being such a fan, and the Doctor sassing so much - he really worked on rendering her authority.

He only put in two moments:  ‘I don’t understand’ and ‘I think it’s laughing at you Doc’ - ‘I know that!’ which was so similar to the Tsuranga Conundrum I guess Chibs is going to buckle down on this specific stuff (and I can see how the Doctor sometimes simply admitting to not knowing might be a deliberate and interesting choice) - well if it’s balanced like this it’s alright. NOT so happy about this RANDOM SPY DUDE telling her to go back inside - which is clearly something Chibs wanted to emphasise AGAIN because that bit was completely isolated, that she should listen to other people - always just your regular self-sacrificial well-meaning men!!! (turns out lol they always get killed if she listens to them but the narrative doesn’t acknowledge that.) And i Hate it.

Also actually, that ‘i don’t understand’ was about multiple earths, and she’d just heard that the aliens were going to conquer the ‘universe’, implying they were from somewhere else. Like, if the very normal viewer (me) can see the writing on the wall, then why the fuck can’t the Doctor. I just wish Chibs would stop emphasising his need for his character not to figure out the plot at that moment - at great cost to the character and accompanying power fantasy.

Most of all, I thought the acting was great. Jodie built in a LOT more calm and authority (the script explicitly allowed her that) but also lots of quirkiness. Graham really got a wonderful supporting role dynamic with the Doctor as he does at his best - emphasising her go go go attitude and genius, and Yaz got to have a near-death experience. Bit weirded out that once again, it’s not the Doctor who deals with the fallout of a mission which she’d explicitly sent Yaz on. I also got some VERY ominously heterosexual vibes from Ryan and Yaz there....mostly because of the sister angle.... hmmmm

I liked the topicalness of ‘VOR’ and the dependence of national governments on their expertise and resources but I have no idea where it’s going or whether Chibs just wanted to point out: yeah tech giants (esp google) are powerful. kay. true.

Liked the Doctor doing some computer stuff bc it tickled that women programming narrative.

Loved Graham and Ryan bantering. Loved the moment in the TARDIS with the creatures getting in and Yaz pulling Doctor to attention. Loved the moment that the Doctor was playing a totally different game from blackjack extremely seriously. hahaha. strangely enough loved the moment between O and Yaz in the casino as well though I don’t know what it means. Maybe nothing. (MAYBE YAZ BECOMES THE MASTER)

Anyway as a viewer who’s not super good at theorising - i was like.....????????

A lot of stuff is uh - strange. e.g. Why can the scanner identify 93% human dna but not the 7% alien (or whatever it is) dna? Not sure why Yaz would be able to wipe the camera images of them from a distance (???) but then Barton got them recovered no probs. The car stuff took a bit too long but eh. I also in retrospect have no idea why they’d try to assassinate them via car. Also let’s not talk about everybody sprinting at the same speeds as a plane during take-off.

Anyway. The ‘monsters’ sure are - not exactly scary - but a bit typical. I liked the implication of them not being from this universe bc it’s a bit different. But if the Master is in league with them it’s uhhhh well it’s quite typical. I enjoyed this episode riffing on the spy genre. That is to say, they carried it off - watching the preview i was like...why spies??? but they asked the same question and it worked.

I feel like it would have been possible to make this a little bit more scary, just a little bit more scary. I appreciate that them playing with the lights was supposed to be  that - but surely there’s a more scary way to represent creatures not from this universe - for horror purposes? there is such a primal fear you can tap into.

ANYWAY

the Master literally spelling out ‘everything you know isn’t real’ or whatever makes me feel hopeful about this being not just the face of it all. Multiple universes, multiple masters?, and Yaz got hella zapped and then zapped right back into the midst of the team? interesting huh....

what a weird episode to start off a season with and whether he makes it work or not - that IS quite brave.

forgot to say: they really love instantly killing off their famous guest actors. think Fry did quite a good job with what he got.

also one more thing i LOVED; the Doctor threw herself against the door of the cockpit when the bomb went off in some sort of attempt to protect her companions. wanted that from the Sonic Bomb in Tsuranga (it just fit) and glad i got it here.

when part 2 gets here i might still think: what in the heck that didn’t make ANY sense.

#i appreciate that this is a total ramble #kdjsf #fjsdlfja #dsjfkaj #dsjfakjd #my stuff #dw #spyfall

[the-desolated-quill]

The Keys Of Marinus - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this serial yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Oh poop!

The Keys Of Marinus was written by Dalek writer Terry Nation at the last minute to replace another serial written by Malcolm Hulke, which was deemed problematic by script editor David Whittaker. It speaks to Nation’s talents as a writer that he was able to come up with a compelling premise at such short notice, however the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

The TARDIS arrives on an island of glass in the middle of a sea of acid. Okay. Stop right there. I’m already sold! What a great location! Sure the 60s production values hamper the vision slightly, but that opening wide shot of the glass temple and the tranquil sea really is breathtaking. I really wish New Who could be as imaginative as this.

So anyway, the Doctor and co quickly run across a monk named Arbitan who is protecting a machine called the Conscience of Marinus from a group of invaders called the Voord. The Conscience has the power to remove evil from the minds of the planet’s entire population, but requires five keys for it to operate effectively. So it’s a race against time to find the keys and stop the Voord before it’s too late.

What really frustrates me about this six part serial is that there’s a really good idea at the centre of it that Terry nation fails to capitalise on. A machine that effectively brainwashes an entire planet, eradicating evil from the minds of the population. This opens so many questions that could have been fun to explore. Why would people willingly allow justice and morality be dictated by a machine? What gives Arbitan the right to decide what is and isn’t moral? How does the Conscience even know what’s moral considering that morality isn’t absolute and is often contextual (for example killing someone out of malice versus killing someone in self defence) or comes down to an individual’s point of view (for example abortion)? Is our free will and individuality what allows evil to exist in the world? if so, would we be prepared to give it up for the sake of peace or would that be too high a cost? It’s an excellent premise and yet the story does absolutely nothing with it. The Doctor doesn’t even comment on the ethics of such a machine until right at the end with a little throwaway line about how man shouldn’t be ruled by machines, which is really baffling to me. Sure the First Doctor isn’t quite the noble do-gooder his future incarnations would be in the years to come, but he still takes a moral stand. He still holds firm beliefs on matters such as freedom and personal autonomy. So to have the Doctor not comment on this rather fascist machine seems wildly out of character.

The main problem this serial has is its plot structure. Rather than taking the time to expand on the initial concept, each episode of The Keys Of Marinus plays out as its own mini-adventure with its own settings and challenges. By far the best episode of the six is the second one, titled The Velvet Web. The Doctor and co arrive in the city of Morphoton in search of one of the keys. Morphoton is initially presented as a perfect utopia where the TARDIS crew are waited on hand and foot, but over the course of the episode it’s revealed that everyone is being hypnotised by a Mesmer field and that the city is really a dirty, filthy squalor. This episode stands a cut above the rest for several reasons. The most obvious is the premise itself. (Honestly I think it’s good enough to be its own serial). It’s incredibly dark and genuinely unsettling. The hypnotised Altos played by Robin Phillips was especially creepy in particular. It gives Barbara a chance to shine as she’s the only one that manages to break free from the Mesmer and has to save everyone. But most importantly of all, it’s the only episode of the six that actually connects thematically with the central premise of the entire story. The idea of people giving up their free will for peace. If the entire serial was like this, I wouldn’t have much to complain about, but sadly that’s not the case. Before we can learn more about how the city came to be like this and what’s the deal with those brains in the jars, we’re suddenly whisked off to another part of the planet to find the next key.

The word ‘random’ comes to mind when I think of this serial. The entire story feels incredibly disconnected because there’s nothing that seems to link all of these mini-adventures together. After Morphoton, we head to a screaming jungle that’s growing rapidly out of control. The episode after that takes place in the snowy mountains where the TARDIS crew have to contend with a hunter, some wolves and frozen zombie knights (I... I don’t get it either). Then at the final key, Ian gets framed for murder and we get a courtroom drama. Quite a bizarre change of scenery, granted, but it could have worked. After the jungle and mountains tested everyone physically, the trial could have been more a battle of wits, serving as a nice contrast to previous episodes. Except it’s really not done very well. It’s the really boring kind of trial where the baddies hold all the cards and where the law seems to cater solely to the prosecution’s side for the sake of plot convenience. Also it opens up a slight plot hole. If the Conscience of Marinus dictates what’s right and wrong, what reason is there for a courtroom or a judiciary to even exist? And if all evil has been eradicated from the planet, why is there law enforcement? Surely the Conscience would make that redundant considering that crime shouldn’t be a thing anymore, right?

What it all boils down to is this. How does this world work? And the short answer is... I haven’t the foggiest idea. And that’s the problem. All of these episodes and scenarios are wildly different to the point where they don’t feel like they’re part of the same story. They don’t fit into any overall theme or connection. It just feels like a bunch of random concepts shoved together. What would have helped immensely is if the Voord could have played a bigger role in the entire serial. They only appear in the first and last episodes (in fact, to be honest, I actually completely forgot about them until they showed up again). We never learn anything significant about the Voord other than they’re bad guys who want the keys to use the Conscience and, again, Terry Nation doesn’t take the opportunity to properly connect them to the overarching plot. What if, instead of evil invaders, the Voord were actually Marinusians(?) who had somehow broken free from the Conscience’s influence and were trying to sabotage it to set everyone else free? Wouldn’t that be more interesting? You could even have the Mesmer in The Velvet Web episode serve as a microcosm of what happens later in the serial. But no. They’re just generic baddies who want to take over the world because the script said so. Sigh.

It’s so frustrating. Given more time and a couple of rewrites, this could have been something really special. It has one or two really strong ideas at its core that’s just begging to be explored. Sadly, while it does have its moments, The Keys Of Marinus just feels like a wasted opportunity.

#the keys of marinus #terry nation #doctor who #first doctor #william hartnell #susan foreman #carole ann ford #barbara wright #jacqueline hill #ian chesterton #william russell #bbc #review #spoilers

[ialwayscomewhenyoucall]

Into Her Dreams

tentoo x rose

“Are there any planets like Middle Earth?”

Rose is perched on a conveniently located ledge, feet kicking aimlessly, and Doctor is half under the TARDIS console while they spin through the Time Vortex.

“Middle Earth? You mean Hobbits and Elves and Ents and the like?” He isn’t quite making fun of her, but she can tell he is amused.

“You got a problem with Tolkien?” she says, maybe a bit too defensively.

“No, no, Tolkien’s brilliant! Had tea with him a few times, as a matter of fact.”

She waits. When he doesn’t go on, she finally--trying not to sound too eager--says, “So? Are there?”

He laughs, sliding out from under the console and sitting up to look at her. “Well, there’s Godnor.”

“Wait, Godnor? Like Gondor? Really?” She is incredulous.

He rubs his hand on the back of his neck. “It’s possible I may have inadvertently suggested a few things,” he says sheepishly. “I rambled about Godnor one day over a cuppa. Godnor, giant eagles, walking trees... Next thing I know I’m reading about Middle Earth. Go figure.”

She can hardly contain her delight. “You have to take me there. Please? The TARDIS has to have some suitable clothes for meeting elves...or whatever they’re actually called.” She bites her lower lip, eyes pleading.

He can’t say no when she looks at him like that. Not that he’d planned to say no anyway.

*

Rose has stepped onto many new worlds. She’s stepped into the ancient past and the distant future; she’s even stepped into her own past. She spent what felt like an eternity hopping between actual universes, searching for the doctor. But until today she’s never felt so much like she was stepping into a dream.

Godnor is her dream.

It’s her childhood dream: a forest of impossibly tall trees with fluttering yellow leaves at the foot of a mountainside dotted with buildings that are so perfectly in tune with their surroundings they look like they grew right out of the rock. She gasps, her hand fluttering in the direction of the mountain city. “It’s Rivendell! Doctor, it’s actually Rivendell! It’s just how I always pictured it!” She grabs the Doctor by the hands and spins them both in a circle, laughing with pure delight. The wide skirt of her medieval style dress flares around them, the deep russet red a perfect contrast with the yellow leaves under their feet.

She stops their spin and smiles up at him, her face flushed. “This is...Doctor, this is fantastic. It feels like magic.” He grins and links his arm through her hers.

“Doctor Magician, at your service,” he says with a wink.

*

The Doctor leans against the doorway of the wardrobe room, watching Rose lace up a pair of sturdy boots. “You sure these are okay?” she asks.

“Your dress covers your feet. Trust me, you don’t want to be hiking in flimsy sandals. It’s a world of forests and mountains. We’re not going to be carrying the One Ring to Mount Doom--no, there is no Mount Doom on Godnor--but we travel by foot or by horseback. Either way you’ll want boots.”

He pauses, watching her again. It’s times like this, these tiny moments, that he can’t believe how lucky he is to have this life with his Rose. He loves every bit of it--the new worlds, the “run for your life,” and the quiet moments. He may have lost the ability to regenerate, but he’d gained a lifetime with Rose.

Snapping back to the present, he quirks his head sideways; Rose sees and answers his unasked question. “Remember our walk through the park last weekend?” He nods. “There were two girls, nine or ten years old, sitting against a tree and reading a book together. They were completely absorbed in the story, they didn’t even notice when a group of boys ran past and nearly stepped on them. It took me back…” She sits back, pulling her knees to her chest, the long skirt of her dress fanning out around her. “The summer I was ten years old a girl and her dad moved into the flat below Mum and me. Her name was Julia. Jools. She was a quiet thing, exactly the opposite of me. But we somehow fit. Some days I dragged her outside and made her get into trouble, some days she made me stay inside and we’d watch movies or draw or bake cookies, quiet things. One day when I got to her flat I found her curled up on her bed with a battered paperback.”

“The Fellowship of the Ring?” guesses the Doctor.

Rose smiles. “Actually it was The Return of the King. But after she talked about it for a few minutes, her face so bright...Her dad started reading them with her before she even knew what books were, and he kept reading through them again and again, once a year, every year. She loved those books, I could tell that from the sparkle in her eyes. It wasn’t long before The Fellowship of the Ring was out and we were reading it together. It took weeks, but we read all three books. Sometimes we’d take turns reading aloud to each other, sometimes we sat next to each other, heads together, saying ‘done’ when we reached the end of a the page. We read in our bedrooms, at our kitchen tables, outside on the steps, at the park. When we needed a break from sitting--usually me more than her--we played at being hobbits or elves or sometimes even orcs. We made up tunes and sang the elven songs. Every day was an adventure.”

The Doctor can hardly believe what he’s hearing. It’s no wonder she fell so perfectly into step with him all those years ago. She’d been looking for someone to take her hand and say “Run!” for years.

“Rose--” he starts to say, but she cuts him off, again answering his question before he asks.

“She moved away before Christmas, that same year,” she says, a single tear tracing down her cheek. “I never saw her again.”

“I’m so sorry, Rose,” he says quietly, sliding down the wall so he’s sitting next to her.

She rests her head on his shoulder. “Me too. But even though I stopped having sword fights in the kitchen, I still read the books every year. And seeing those two girls in the park…” She sighs, although not unhappily. “I often wonder what happened to her, what her life is like now. I wish I could tell her about you, and about the TARDIS, she’d love all this. But mostly I’m just glad I met her, you know?”

He knows.

*

They are nearly to the edge of the mountain city when locals come to greet them. “Welcome! You’re here for autumn festival?” asks a tall blond woman with pointy ears and an ethereal smile.

Rose can barely contain her glee.

“Oh yes!” says the Doctor. They chat as they walk out of the trees and into the Rose’s imagination. She has to blink several times before she’s convinced it’s real.

They’ve been calling it a city, but it’s not like any kind of modern city Rose has ever seen. The buildings are all arches and parapets and towers, built right into the side of the mountain, and many of them are connected by narrow bridges high above their heads. The stone practically glows in the light of the setting sun. And even though it is autumn--even if their escort hadn’t told them about the autumn festival, the golden leaves on the trees and the slight nip in the air would have given it away--there are still flowers growing everywhere. Gold and red and orange and brown and every shade in between spilling from window boxes, sprouting from vines climbing the sides of buildings, at the base of every tree and along every path. Even some of the trees are spilling flower petals as well as leaves.

And then there are the elves.

They aren’t really elves, of course, that’s just what Tolkien called them. But she can’t help but think of them that way. They are impossibly beautiful, and so full of joy; Rose feels lighter inside just being in their presence.

And when they see the visitors they smile brightly and introduce themselves; they offer food and drink and it isn’t long before Rose is whisked away from the Doctor into a colorful riot of twirling skirts and stamping feet, harmonizing voices echoing back at them off the mountainside.

*

Rose isn’t sure how long the music lasts, but it feels like days later when she finds herself sitting on a bench beside the Doctor, breathless, her sweat-dampened hair sticking to her neck.

“Doctor,” she says, squeezing his hand, “I was dancing. With elves.” Her eyes, wide with excitement--and the wonder of her ten year old self--reflect the starlight.

“Well, technically you’ve been dancing with the Sky Singers of Godnor, but, well, close enough.” He grins at her. “Good trip?”

In answer she captures his lips with hers.

for @doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas || Day 15: Santa and/or Elves

additional prompt: magical for @legendslikestardust

my ficmas masterpost

#lirael writes #31 days of ficmas #doctorroseprompts #legendslikestardust #tentoo x rose #tentoo #rose tyler #yes i know i'm a giant nerd #i read 'santa and/or elves' and think 'ooo! tolkien!' #because those are elves #just not the kind everyone else will think of #(so so sorry) #(not really) #jrr tolkien #lotr