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maurofonseca · 5 months

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I don't know if you talked about it before, but how much do you have planned out for your own comic idea you've posted parts of before? Or generally how do you prepare and outline your own story ideas?

both too much and not enough, if you learn from me do so only to learn what not to do lol

Gonna ramble a bit, so adding a read more.

I've got a lot of ideas and concepts, enough to do like 5 years of continuous monthly comics, but I can't really do that, I'm physically unable to, need to pay rent etc. So I've got a lot of ideas around in word documents, on sketchbooks, etc, and then a rough plan in my head- a starting point, and the decision to make it into short stories, something I can do in a few pages and be concluded, rather than launch into "this is going to be my 1035 chapter manga" and then be unable to continue just one chapter in (as has happened in the past).

So, end of the day, what does this mean. I've got a roadmap in my head of the immediate first three chunks, think of it like "years" though again, I can't really do this consistently enough for that to make sense. I know I want to do the story of the Tournament that was mentioned in my small comic I did to intro the characters; I know I want to do a few stories first before that, leading to it; and I know I want to, aside, do the stories I was planning to do with Public-Domain-Mickey, and have them also lead to the tournament, a crossing of two different comics in the same setting, basically.

So, where's any of this going? Well, I've had a lot of Sonic comic work, so not much of anywhere. My plan for most of this year was to put the "lead to tournament" and "tournament" arcs in the backburner, maybe for 2025 and 2026, and focus on the Public-Domain-Mickey story first. The plan was to draw it by now, I had the breakdowns done, I'd roped a friend to help write, I was gonna do it in about 40 pages, etc.

And then I realised that worldwide law is not just different from US law, in this case it's VERY different, and outside the US Mickey will only be public domain decades from now. So now I need to rework that stuff, make substitute pastiche characters, and the urgency of "have it done by Jan 1 2024" is gone. So now I'm thinking different formats- maybe do the full-page short stories with Lalla etc, and the not!Mickey ones as a newspaper strip format?

And of course, again, it's easy to plan forever and do nothing, or to bite more than you can chew. So now my plan is again to just sit down and plan a 12-or-so page "pilot" story about Lalla Shepherd, Jackie Pollard, Lily Rock, etc, the start of it all. If I can do that, then I'll think what I do next. But the plan is to keep it focused on short things- not huge 150 page graphic novels, small amounts of pages, preferably divisible by 4 so they're easily postable in social media like Twitter or Bluesky, etc.

As for how do I plan it and draw it proper etc- I follow the advice of a pretty terrible man whose youtube I used to follow, and I divide the story in 3. Beginning, middle, end. I quickly assign an idea to each of those elements. Then, subdivide- the beginning, middle, end of the Beginning; the beginning, middle, end of the Middle; etc. Keep doing it like this and you'll have enough pages eventually

That's the theory. In practice, of course, it's not as easy. I don't do well writing directly- I do that to organise ideas, but to make comic pages proper, my brain needs visuals, so I start doing thumbnails, and getting a feeling for "this can come here, this can come there, this is taking too long so I can remove this page, I need a page here".

Once I'm happy with that, I can start going into pencils; but also, I start thinking dialogue. I add dialogue to the thumbnails (now resized up, of course) so I can have a feel for how much text per panel, etc. Now, I've got a lot of complexes about language. I want my characters to read naturally like the language they're speaking, or are supposed to, which is a problem for me when writing characters that're mostly either from fantasy-Britain or fantasy-US. So by this point I consider my dialogue just a rough draft, and I get friends from those nationalities to go over it, make them feel natural, etc, and I assign it to characters in specific- asking US friends to verify the dialogue of fantasyUS characters, but not of fantasyUK characters, etc. And then for Lily, since she's fantasyPortuguese, I write her dialogue in Portuguese and translate it to English, to intentionally leave any bits of odd grammar or turns of phrase. It's me projecting my own insecurities on my English lol

Dunno. End of the day, I've not written that much stuff myself. I've mostly in my life been either an illustrator or a comics penciller of other people's scripts, so I don't have the most experience here. Hoping this helps something, and hoping I can finally in 2024 justify all this bluster with having actual comics for reading and sale.

#ask

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timeladyjamie · 2 years

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Lalla Ward Appreciation Post

Photos of Lalla Ward I haven’t seen around the internet before. All the love to our amazing and beautiful Romana II.

#guess what I’m currently hyper fixated on again #jamie rambles #lalla ward #romana ii #doctor who #classic who #Classic Doctor Who #romanadvoratrelundar

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sixties-doctor-who-stan · 3 years

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Hm, Keeper of Traken and Logopolis were actually pretty good. Wasn’t a huge fan of most of Season 18 but the last two were enjoyable.

Funny how they’re the two without Romana (I love Romana but there are points I could tell Lalla Ward and Tom Baker were pissed off with each other).

Honestly even though I am glad to be finished with Tom Baker’s stuff I really liked Four and Adric’s dynamic — a snarky mentor and mentee vibe. And I even liked how Nyssa and Tegan worked with him as well. Pity there’s no really viable way to have more Four with Nyssa and Tegan stuff.

If more of Tom Baker’s stories had been a good as these then I would have liked his era more. Like I took a four month break from his stuff because I got burnt out from it. Which I suppose you could argue is because of how many stories he has but I do feel it was more a quality issue than a quantity issue. Like I really enjoyed Shada and that was near the end of when I first took a break.

Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me because I’m not a massive fan of Tom Baker’s stuff on the whole. And it’s a consistent thing too, like I find the Hinchcliffe stuff and the Williams stuff on par with each other on average.

This is a bit rambly but just my thoughts I guess

#doctor who #classic who #fourth doctor #adric #nyssa #nyssa of traken #tegan jovanka #romana ii #logopolis #keeper of traken

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natequarter · 3 years

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*tucks hair behind ear* tell me about doctor who

HIHI so first off. andred! second off. a bunch of shit i swear i did not make up. all of this actually happened. and ofc this!

i also feel the need to direct you to lalla ward's wiki page because what the genuine actual fuck?

now onto doctor who itself. i am going to RAMBLE and everyone is going to LISTEN. so obviously there's the doctor blah blah blah they're autistic and nonbinary very nice. but my favourite companions are bill (she's awesome & very intuitive she does sort of die? but she's a Black lesbian and she gets a girlfriend), rory (who is like. a normal guy. he's just your average dude and whenever the doctor gets sad over being a murderer :( rory just looks at him like WHAT THE FUCK) and clara (she kills people)

there is a terrible movie like really terrible the characters are awesome (i heart grace holloway) but it has negative plot. there are audios where the characters eat each other. one of the villains is a fairytale. a teenager killed the dinosaurs and the doctor does not know where heathrow is

#asks #doctor who

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magicofthepen · 3 years

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Gallifrey Relisten: Spirit

This reaction post is almost 4,000 words long, which, given the episode in question.....is very on brand for me. So here have a whole lot of ramblings, in which I go back and forth between “I love this so much” and “hmm yes I do think Spirit is overhyped by virtue of being The Romana/Leela Episode,” and back and forth between “I will be objective and not get overtly shippy about this” and “I’m definitely getting overtly shippy about this.”

(Includes discussion of The Apocalypse Element, the rest of Series 2, Intervention Earth and Enemy Lines, also a bit about Time War 3, but only in the last section.)

Things that are absolutely not overrated and deserve every bit of the hype:

1. The premise

Like, hold on. Hold on. Here we have an entire episode resting on the premise of “Romana wants Leela to stay on Gallifrey so badly that in spite of being y’know, the President of a planet, and specifically a planet currently undergoing major social changes and dealing with evil eldritch beings, the #1 most important thing for her to do with her time is take Leela on a private vacation off world to convince Leela why she should stay on Gallifrey.” (Hint: it’s. it’s for Romana.)

She also then proceeds to be very bad at using her words when it comes to this premise because Romana is all into grand gesture and very little into actually talking about her feelings. Of course. But in an episode that rests on the idea of Romana as the Rational, Logic-Driven One, and Leela as the Instinctive, Emotion-Driven One, it is very good that the premise of the episode is entirely driven by Romana’s emotions. (Wait. Am I going to talk myself out of the idea that Spirit creates these overly simplistic contrasts between Romana and Leela by arguing that it also muddies them at the same time? .....I still think the “overly simplistic” thing is true to an extent. But stay tuned.)

2. The core emotional story

I’m deeply into Gallifrey for the relationships between the main characters, so Spirit is vastly appealing on that front.

The central question of Spirit is: can Leela trust Romana? Leela’s been deeply betrayed by her husband, she feels lost and adrift and she’s doubting her own ability to judge people. (“He stood before me as Torvald, and I did not know him. I had thought myself to have a keener eye.” / “But is his the only trust I may have given in error?”) Leela’s doubting her own instincts specifically, which is why it’s so important that this episode has Romana move from being more dismissive of Leela’s instinctive, emotional approach to the world, to understanding where Leela’s coming from and appreciating her instincts and worldview. Leela needs to trust not just Romana, but also herself.

And it is 1. important to explore this! Shoutout to Gallifrey for not brushing aside the emotional repercussions of Andred’s betrayal on Leela’s close relationships in general and her own image of herself! and 2. intersects in super fascinating ways with Romana’s trust issues.

Romana gets a hard time for the “valuable asset” thing, which. Fair. But I think it is important to acknowledge the premise here — the whole vacation, everything Romana is actually doing screams “I care about you very much on a personal level,” and just because she isn’t saying that doesn’t mean she isn’t showing that. Because she has her own baggage when it comes to friendship and trust, and a lot of that does loop back around to “being imprisoned for twenty years and having no one come to save you really messes you up. on so many levels.”

(Also I have to mention the end of The Apocalypse Element because that last scene with the Doctor and Romana really established how I looked at Romana and her close personal relationships moving forward. Because yeahhhh maybe having the one (1) person who is specifically your Friend (and not your colleague, or advisor, or anything related to The Presidency) go “yeah you can clean up this mess right! cool bye!” after you’ve gone through decades of trauma immediately followed by needing to repel an invasion of your planet....maybe that might make you distrust that anyone in the universe is actually going to care about you as a person anymore, and not see you as The President of Gallifrey first and foremost).

Bottom line: Romana really, really likes Leela (.....we all can decide in what way....), but also has a whole lot of doubt that other people could care about her as a person, doubt that it’s even worth letting herself be that emotionally vulnerable with someone else, because what if they throw her trust and care back in her face? And so this whole episode, there’s this undercurrent of wanting to trust each other and wanting to care about each other simmering under the surface for the both of them, but they’re both having trouble really seeing and believing what each other is feeling and I love it. I love this kind of interesting, complicated relationship struggle so much, and I love how Spirit has a positive ending, where they both manage to convey to each other in one way or another that they really do want to be around each other. ( “I was so alone in the world of dreams when you left. The wildlands were dark and so quiet. I do not wish to be alone.” / “There will be a place for you with me, for always. Whatever face I wear.” ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

(Sure, the later episodes of the season fuck everything up again, but we are Not Talking about Insurgency/Imperiatrix here.)

(We are also Not Talking about Intervention Earth/Enemy Lines....okay I’ll talk a little about IE/EL, but only because when relistening to Spirit there’s this sort of elephant in the room with “There will be a place for you with me, for always. Whatever face I wear.” And that elephant is the writers deciding that when Romana regenerated, she would abandon Leela, which...hmmm. To be fair, I have lots of more complex, specific thoughts about what might have happened emotionally and literally in that thankfully jettisoned timeline, but the bottom line is that I was and still am very *side eyes* at that writing choice.)

3. The chair scene

Oh my god. Oh my god. This scene is actually brilliant and delightful on every relisten, I want it framed please??

I think it’s probably iconic because it’s just so happy, and it is so so wonderful to have a moment like that, with the two of them making up a silly story to Hallan about what happened to the window and laughing about it. And it is good! It’s so good! (A side note: Romana in particular in this episode has that “audibly smiling” tone of voice so so much more than usual, in addition to her overall tone having very clearly shifted away from “presidential” for the majority of the episode and y’all.....it’s so excellent to hear, that is such a rare thing.)

Also specifically, it’s the fact that Leela is like ugh this room is too stuffy :( and Romana immediately is like “I must fix this, I need to make her happy” and does something so ridiculous and impulsive just to please Leela.......again, this episode is pulling a Romana Has Too Many Feelings and is acting on her emotional instincts thing......yes.

“You’re a breath of it yourself in the Capital.” “Oh Romana, nice words will not make me stay.” I’m sorry but Romana’s delivery of this line is so flirtatious? (And Leela going ah no, you can’t flirt your way out of this.)

Things that are......not good:

1. The science vs. spirituality dichotomy (and how it makes the characters look)

The whole evolution vs. creation discussion thing not only feels too simplistic for the characters, but it also feels like it’s deliberately painting Leela in a negative light? To have Leela specifically going I don’t believe in evolution when the audience is going to disagree with her and bounce off of that....yeah. It also feels like the whole exaggerated ~super in tune with nature, doesn’t know or believe things about science~ thing is leaning into the racist indigenous stereotypes her character is too often linked to.

And on top of that, it doesn’t feel in character? Classic Who episodes don’t stick in my brain that well so my memory isn’t super clear on the details, but Leela was banished from her tribe for questioning their beliefs. Plus she learned that her society’s social divisions were based on misinformation and forgotten history (having more information was important, it changed things for her world). And she was the one who wanted to leave and travel, and also has always showed a lot of interest in learning new things. To have Leela so deeply clinging to the beliefs she learned when she was young, without any of that questioning or the nuance of weaving in new things she’s learned with the old......it feels reductive. (There could be so much more nuance here re: how living so long away from the Sevateem and having to defend her background so much on Gallifrey has affected her relationship with the culture and beliefs she grew up in, but Spirit has none of that.)

2. The mindswap’s lack of nuance

There’s a similar issue here with the mindswap, where Leela especially comes off as over-simplified. I don’t know if this was an acting choice or a directing choice, but the over-the-topness of Lalla’s performance during the mindswap really feeds that (the way Romana’s voice sounds so different when she’s “acting like Leela”, while Leela still sounds fundamentally like herself when she’s acting more like Romana — why the difference?). Also, Romana is a lot more helpless and distressed when she has part of Leela in her mind, which again, does not make Leela come off as especially competent (even though she is). There are times when this episode feels like it’s trying harder to put Romana and Leela into these boxes than it is at trying to break down those boxes and yeah, all around I wish there was more nuance.

3. The interrupting of the vacation date, damn it, do you think I care about a “plot”?

Alright, alright this one is not in the same category as the other two. It is absolutely not a valid criticism, it is purely the “I want this audio to cater to me, personally” part of my brain getting disappointed every time I relisten when Wynter crashes the vacation. Specifically, when they’re all alone in the woods together having important personal conversations and Leela’s decided that they’re camping out for the night....maybe I just wanted to hear the overnight camping trip, y’know. Maybe I just wanted them to cuddle beneath the stars. (Also this will come back big time next episode, but I very much back away from horror of Wynter’s mutilation, I am a squeamish person and the Wynter thing is not my favorite plot.)

Misc liveblogging things:

“I’m sorry I had to have you dragged here to my quarters. I have requested an audience with you several times on a matter of security but have received no answer.” — It’s unclear exactly how much time has passed between Lies and Spirit, but not too long(?) and Leela’s been trying to track down Andred a lot during this time (which means that once again, Romana’s specifically taking Leela away from looking for Andred....).

Leela scathingly calling Romana “Madam President” oof. (I think this moment may have been what I was thinking of re: Leela only uses Romana’s title when she’s annoyed or angry, will have to note if/when it happens again.)

“It is your world and not mine. Although I have lived here for many years it has never been my home. And I am unhappy.” I know I’ve said this before, but Leela’s concept of home is very much the people she cares about and hhhhh so many feelings about this throughout the series.

Oof Darkel’s got Romana pegged with the “how far will she go” thing.

Is Narvin......being nice re: Romana having a trying time? Or sarcastic? Or is he just like oh thank god she’s off the planet for a hot sec I can take a breath.

Brax saying it was him that recommended Romana leave and insisting they don’t talk about it — he’s sooo covering for her, but also I want to know how that convo went....how exactly did Romana explain the “I’m going to take Leela on a private vacation off-world for.....personal reasons.....please cover for me slash be my emergency contact” thing?

“So I can only conclude from your recent behavior that you’re experiencing a considerable amount of pain.” — I mean, Leela did explicitly say earlier that she was unhappy. Still, it is a really good moment here — Romana saying I see that you’re hurting and I want to help.

.......and that’s right before “valuable asset” line. You were doing so good, Romana. (She does say friend though! I mean, she says it like it’s an ordeal, but she does immediately course correct to admit that Leela’s her friend.) Also....I’m having some kinda thought here about the “asset” line — how she compliments Leela in terms of her usefulness is icky, but I think Romana often judges her own worth based off of how useful she is to Gallifrey? I think there are several moments throughout the series that point to Romana basing her worth as a person off of her work and how successful she is at protecting her world and making it better, which is just an overall unhealthy mindset to be in (and this says something about the toxicity of Gallifreyan culture possibly but also something about the lingering trauma of Etra Prime and living for decades in a place where her life itself (whether she survived) was directly tied to her usefulness...going to mull this over more, but I think there’s something here).

Hallan is so awful about Leela, and he goes on for a bit about how he should be watching the president at all times — aka there is definitely resentment within the Chancellery Guard towards Leela for taking the role of bodyguard to the president. And this is mixed in with nasty comments about Andred, former member of the Chancellery Guard, for marrying an alien.

“A marriage is about maintaining the power of the chapters, strengthening alliances between houses” — it is interesting how more than once in the audios they talk about marriage as primarily a political thing in Time Lord culture (at least among the elite), with love being an exception and something disapproved of.

The “Leela’s been on Gallifrey for twenty-five years” math......does not work. Between The Invasion of Time and the Gallifrey audios, Romana left Gallifrey, ended up traveling with the Doctor for a while, stayed behind in E-space for a while, returned from E-space to Gallifrey, became President, got captured by the Daleks and held prisoner for twenty years, and according to Square One I believe it’s been “years” since The Apocalypse Element.......and apparently only twenty-five years have passed on Gallifrey? Even if we pretend that no time passed on Gallifrey during Romana’s adventures with the Doctor and in E-space, that timeline is still questionable. Leela has to be on Gallifrey for a lot longer than that.

“I’ve searched for [my purpose] in many places.” — It’s interesting that Romana lists off the places she’s tried to find purpose, but doesn’t say anything at all about Gallifrey — Leela is the one to say that Romana has found her purpose on Gallifrey, Romana never actually says that. (I have...lot of feelings about Romana’s very complicated relationship to Gallifrey.)

Romana mentions Pandora predicting that she would rule over Gallifrey, and predicting that Romana would let that happen — Romana is worried about Pandora in particular, and also there’s the implication that she wants Leela to stay to help her hold onto herself and prevent that future.

Just ahhhh the scene by the fire where Leela decides, after avoiding too much discussion about what she’s feeling, to be emotionally honest: “It frightens me to think that I have spent so much of my life with another in a trust that I believed was true and strong, one that could not sicken, and that I was wrong.”; “You are my friend. I know that, for all we disagree on. And yet, if tomorrow you grew sick, you could throw off your form like an old sheet and be a person I would no longer recognize, not with my eyes nor with my heart.” It’s a good scene!!

The whole “who is the broken man?” mystery is good on first listen I suppose, but I’ve never quite bought that they can’t ID him. Can the Time Lords not do a quick DNA test or something? (To be fair, these are the same people who missed that Andred was impersonating someone else for months, but at least here they actively know that they need to be figuring out who he is.)

The herbal remedy — “The outsiders use it when in pain or distress.” Confirmation that Leela does hang out with the outsiders on Gallifrey.

“I’ve been inside these things I don’t know how many times and I assure you nothing could go wrong.” Post-Etra Prime Romana trying to get some sleep for once tbh (also okay she does have some healthy coping mechanisms apparently).

“It speaks to your innermost wishes and wonders and indulges them while you dream” “There is a wild woman inside me” I’m so sorry but did they really not intend to making the sensory tanks and mindswap sound incredibly erotic because

“It is winter here.” *eyebrow waggle*

I do not like hearing stabbing sounds! (Also apparently this season has a thing for Romana kinda sorta killing people with knives.)

Leela wakes up a bit later than Romana (she stays in the dream space longer), and she says she heard Pandora’s voice — Romana dismisses that, but I do wonder what exactly happened in the dreamspace after Romana woke and what additional things Leela might have heard/seen??

Hallan is so shitty, kick his ass Leela.

I do wonder why the subplot with Melyin and Hallan was included? Was it to introduce Hallan as a character and flesh out the side characters so we know them a bit better when they’re around with the Wynter subplot? (Personally, I don’t enjoy how earlier in the episode they keep cutting away from Romana and Leela’s really important and interesting conversation to those two sides characters, so I’m not sure they needed that storyline?) But there is this sort of interesting moment where Melyin talks about freeing herself from this place where she’s isolated and Leela sympathizes — and yet at the same time is choosing to go back to Gallifrey. There is potentially an interesting parallel here, but I’m not exactly sure what the parallel is supposed to be saying about Leela.

“And what about you? Back to Gallifrey and your husband?” “I am returning to Gallifrey, yes. It is not yet time for me to leave.” Leela expertly dodging mentioning Andred in her response or referring to him as her husband. Actually I kinda want to pay more attention to when she does or doesn’t refer to Andred as her husband. I’m pretty sure she calls him her husband after he dies because that is who she’s grieving, but in this episode she talks about wanting to confront him and hurt him or make peace with him, and in A Blind Eye she was all “my husband is dead” (and I think there are some things in Insurgency about this) —there is a question here about whether or not she still considers herself married to Andred at this point.

How did the knowledge of events get out on Gallifrey? Brax says if people were watching his movements closely it wouldn’t be hard to put things together — but also he probably knows that Romana needs to return for Gallifrey for events to play out, so it seems quite possible that he essentially leaked the info himself (knowing that the events of Pandora are coming....oof).

Leela talks about returning to Gallifrey avenge the broken man — in series 2 and 3, she frequently turns to vengeance as something to give her motivation and purpose when she’s unhappy and grieving, but I forgot it came up as early as Spirit ahhh yikes.

The (shippy) elephant in the room:

(Includes vague mentions of Time War 3.)

As a final thing, I do want to mention that while this episode has a reputation of being really gay (because yep it so so subtextually gay)....I do always remember that it is only subtext. Specifically in a “isn’t it interesting that other ships between main characters get clearly teased as romantic possibility, but when it’s the core relationship of the show that just so happens to be between two characters played by women, they would never explicitly hint that there might be anything romantic going on there” way. (For a long time, I tried to convince myself this didn’t bother me. It does.)

Like don’t get me wrong, I adore their friendship and I am very cool with their relationship being entirely platonic in the audios. However, my feelings are also very context-dependent, and the context is an audio drama series in which the only explicitly queer characters are side/minor characters who die horribly (and also only exist in the very recent releases). There are no canon f/f relationships or canonically queer women in the entire series (no, Leela/Veega doesn’t count, they were pretty explicit on that being not canon), in contrast with plenty of canon m/f relationships. This is also why I say that I’d be 100% unbothered if Gallifrey really was equal-opportunity devoid of romance (I really genuinely enjoy the friendship-centric narrative of this series, it’s so good) or even had significant canonically queer side characters, but when there’s such a pointed ignoring of any queer subtext and a general ‘would never ever make any main character canonically queer’ vibe throughout the whole series (I am looking at you Unity) it’s.....hmmm. It just doesn’t feel good, you know?

To end on a lighter (ish) note, going to talk about shippy things for a sec — so I have many headcanon universes that float around in my brain, but generally speaking when I’m writing Romana/Leela fic or thinking about the possibility of their relationship being romantic at some point, I tend to go for things happening between them later in the audios (ideally post-Enemy Lines), with the early series just being endless unresolved tension. But gosh there is a part of me that’s interested in the disaster universe where they do get romantically involved with each other post-Spirit (because as far as the early series go, it does feel like it has to be post-Spirit, when Leela does make the choice to stay with Romana/for Romana on Gallifrey) because oh god that’s so emotionally messy. (It’s only been six months and change since Leela’s husband first disappeared! We’re only two episodes away from Andred’s death! She’s not in a healthy emotional space to be doing this right now, and neither is Romana, frankly! Especially given what’s going to happen in the next several episodes.....but oof wow there’s certainly a story to explore there).

This was not a lighter note, I’m so sorry. Anyways, friendly reminder that I’m always down to go on and on about Romana/Leela, I have....so many feelings about them. Also if you’ve actually read through this entire post, wow and thank you??

Previous Episode Reaction: Lies

#gallifrey audios #romana #leela #(i will be honest i had large chunks of this written even before i relistened)#(what can i say i will take any and all opportunity to ramble on about these two)#also i think this reaction post deserves the #romana x leela #tag #the relisten of rassilon #ramblings #emily listens to big finish

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glompcat · 4 years

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As I slowly rewatch the E-Space trilogy alongside listening to the Fourth Doctor Adentures Series 9, I’ve been trying to take a bunch of the New Who lore and apply it back to what I’m watching.

This then expanded into me thinking about Romana’s entire time on the show and what adding New Who lore to it does, and while it sometimes creates interesting headcanons, it can also just create all kinds of confusion.

(of course I’ve been thinking about many of these things for a while now and have talked to some friends about them in the past because fantasy world building and how it affects characters endlessly fascinates me)

Some of my rambling thoughts are under the cut.

What works:

Moffat introduced that first face this face saw thing, which given that the Doctor was very much the first face Romana II saw, could explain why she was Like That right out the gate

If we take the First Face This Face Saw thing at face value as a species trait that would give regeneration an extra factor of terrifying loss of self (since whoever happens to be near you when you die could wind up becoming someone important to you regardless of how you felt about them before. This is especially interesting in cases like Andred’s, but I digress) - as if the process wasn’t scary enough in that regard as is. This makes Romana’s reactions to the execution in The Power of Kroll far more interesting. Not so much the first execution scene (nothing can save that colonialist garbage tbh) but the second execution scene where she and the Doctor are going to be slowly killed side by side and literally tied together. I wonder if in the time before the Doctor put a halt to things with his weird ass yell Romana was contemplating what the aftereffects of her and the Doctor regenerating together would be. For the Doctor’s new face to be the first one she sees, and hers to be the first they see (also please imagine for a moment a universe where Five and Romana II were traveling together under those circumstances? I’d say she wouldn’t look like Lalla Ward since she hasn’t met Astra yet, but she was in that body in two of the worlds she visited in Gallifrey Sereis 4, including one where Gallifrey never discovered space or time travel, so who knows!). What are the effects of two Time Lords regenerating in proximity anyway? New Who shows so much artron energy coming off them during regeneration, you have to wonder just how much of the two of them would combine before resettling into new forms. This could account for why Romana didn’t think of using that weird scream thing the Doctor did to get them out of there (also btw can I just say how much I love how whenever the Doctor uses Time Lord bs like that Romana always seems suprised she didn’t think of it first, and whenever Romana does Time Lord bs - like stopping her hearts to trick the Daleks into thinking she was dead - the Doctor just gins one of those massive Fourth Doctor grins?). Also why as soon as they were free she started to apply her regular psychological technobabble to herself for the first time. Her behavior towards the Doctor noticeably shifts after that scene too… I wonder how much of what she was imagining she hated, and how much of it made her realize that maybe regenerating while around him wouldn’t be all that bad. It becomes a great character moment with her actual regeneration coming in the story after next.

RTD’s staring into the untempered schism as a child aspect of Time Lord childhood can give Romana so much more depth, especially when combined with that History of the Time Lords guidebook that said Romana ran from what she saw when she was eight. Here is this Time Lady who has worked so hard to be what a Time Lord is supposed to be, one who wanted to run all those years ago and has done everything she could to correct for that ever since. She is now stuck on a mission with the Doctor, and that part of her she learned how to suppress and ignore, the part of her that wanted to run, the longer she is in his company the louder and louder it becomes, freeing itself from over a century of Time Lord conditioning (also are Time Tots reactions to the schism recorded somewhere? It kind of feels like Rassilon knew she wanted to run when he was talking to Narvin in Time War 2).

Moffat really took the TARDIS-is-actually-sentient thing and took it from a fringe suggestion other Time Lords (most notably Romana on multiple occasions) made fun of, and made it a fact of what a TARDIS is. That combined with RTDs addition that a proper TARDIS crew is six pilots and a captain makes me wonder… how did the TARDIS feel about having a properly trained Time Lord living inside her for a change? Did she consider Romana a full fledged member of her crew? What was their relationship like? Unlike the humans and other aliens the Doctor normally collects Romana has the symbiotic nuclei needed to communicate with the TARDIS. Unlike the Doctor she did actually pass her TARDIS flight exam and she’s read the manual and is just as good if not better at temporal engineering as the Doctor. Hell, we saw her modify the ship once in the show (adding the tracer interface) and Big Finish has the Doctor mention that they’ve been pulling out her actually working and helpful modifications (specifically in that case a missile defense system, which the Doctor revealed they pulled out while a missile was heading towards them) because they don’t like her upgrading their ship! Romana and TARDIS had to have had a relationship all their own, and I need to know exactly what their feelings towards each other were. This can also help account for Romana’s many comments about how the TARDIS is just a machine and the Doctor should stop talking to/about the antique like it’s alive. Rather than confusing relics of a time when the TARDIS sentience wasn't really a thing, they become about her relationship with the TARDIS and tbh I’d even go so far as to say they are Romana affectionately teasing the ship. The Fourth Doctor Adventures even have a few stories (namely Skin of the Sleek) where Romana sometimes accepts the TARDIS having she/her pronouns, and there are many times in The Fourth Doctor Adventures where it almost seems like she calls the TARDIS “Old Thing” in the same way the Doctor calls her “Old Girl.” Other audios I am contemplating relistening to because I am pretty sure Romana makes comments about her relationship with the TARDIS are The Apocalpyse Element (I remember her calling the TARDIS quaint and taking control of it with the telepathic controls. Need to relisten for specifics), Zagreus (iirc the evil humanoid Nicholas Courtney TARDIS insults Leela and Charley and the idea of human girls inside it at length, yet all I remember it saying about Romana was that it thought she was smarter than siding with the humans and it addressed her as “Madam President”) and Luna Romana (p. sure I remember her thanking the TARDIS and calling it Old Thing while they were alone together, but I could be remembering wrong)

It’s been mentioned to death, but RTD’s fifteen hours post regeneration is a special grace period thing does wonders for explaining Romana’s regeneration

Some things that I actually have trouble coming up with an explanation for and am basically making this post to ask for help figuring out because it makes no damn sense to me at all, whatsoever:

Moffat claimed that the noise the TARDIS makes is because the breaks are on. Romana got a triple first at Prydon Academy and is a fully qualified and licensed TARDIS pilot. Her very second story on the show opens on her studying the Type 40 manual, and then correcting the Doctor on what proper dematerialization procedure should be. There is literally a scene of her reading the manual and noting what should and should not be done when dematerializing, and when the Doctor gets frustrated with her for doing that he tells her to go ahead and do a by-the-books landing herself. The Doctor braces for a crash in a super over exaggerated manner while she lands the TARDIS easily and smoothly, and even the Doctor admits the landing was technically perfect before scrambling to find things to discount it. We hear that wheezing groaning noise throughout that scene. Are you telling me that the Doctor, who petulantly was looking for something, anything, to criticize, wouldn’t point it out if she had somehow accidentally left the brakes on? Also, how did she never mention the breaks to the Doctor in all the many many countless scenes of her criticizing the Doctor’s flying? Why hasn’t Big Finish even thrown in a nod to it in any of their works, especially now that they are allowed to reference New Who and have done things like have Four talk about smelling the Master in other volumes of The Fourth Doctor Adventures? Ahhhh I can’t make any sense of this at all, like obviously TV comes before everything else so I am happy to toss aside the way we hear that sound whenever any TARDIS at all is in operation across Big Finish (even works made after River said that and Big Finish was granted permission to talk about the modern series?), but I can’t think of a single way to rationalize why Romana left the breaks on every time she piloted the TARDIS on the show? Not just in that serial either, but every time we see her pilot the TARDIS (which isn’t that unusual) we hear the wheezing groaning. We also hear it with Professor Chronotis’ TARDIS, the Master’s TARDIS, the Rani’s TARDIS and when the unnamed messenger showed up in Terror of the Autons (I can’t remember if we heard it with the Monk too, but I think so?). I know I should just give up and accept that Doctor Who has no canon so trying to apply lore backwards is a silly stupid thing to do but ahhhhhh I want it work because the Doctor being a dumbass is always funny! Sadly the only option here is every Time Lord ever leaves the breaks on and River is the only being who figured out that isn’t supposed to happen, but that just seems silly. D: D: D: D:

#Doctor Who #long post #Classic Who

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