DOCTOR WHO::

“I’m sure Ms Stewart has explained what UNIT does and what you will be doing, working for us, but do you have any more questions, Miss Chandra? – No matter whether it’s about your position here or about UNIT’s work in general.” If it had been him in her shoes, he would have had another million questions and in the end even those wouldn’t have been enough. But perhaps travelling with the Doctor – and everything else Belinda Chandra had been through – changed your view on these things, and suddenly an organisation such as UNIT was self-explanatory?

He gave the young woman sitting across from him at his desk a smile and then pushed the printed contract he had been holding, closer to her. “ – Paper might seem a little old-fashioned, but it’s still proved reliable over the years I’ve been doing this job now.” | @interl0per [BELINDA] LIKED.

“ uh, i think i'll be less ashamed of asking you anything compared to our commander in chief. ” all hushed laughter & awkward smiles, emphasizing the pronoun as a badge of honor—if UNIT even hands those out, she'd sure like one—as if this isn't another fish out of water situation. belinda gets caught in those, her lips twisted by pointy bit of a hook. sure, she's more than well prepared from her months of space fairing to tackle UNIT, to work alongside her fellow humans against alien threats on her home planet, but her life still feels like it's veering way off course. at least now her hands are on the wheel.

gone are the days of dreaming about travel, of wishing the tube would take you somewhere far, far away. another timeline was far enough. now she's got a contract & all those distant vistas are belinda's to claim, whatever the cost may be. that's a good point, actually, “ before i sign this, i'd like an overview of what's expected of me. besides nursing, of course, even if your triage department might have different priorities. ” the image of green goo melting a soldier's skin off comes to mind, & she's unsure if that's from her travels or something gleamed off the telly. “ & what i should expect, the sorts of things that'll ruin my schedule. i'm used to double shifts & super late nights, but i'm guessing they come under different circumstances. ”

“ do you have, like, a DEFCON system or something? ”

#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖮𝖮𝖢 . ⁾#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::#yea i guess this fits #belinda is a nurse and thus it is her job to care for people but it's clear her life is absent someone who would return the favor #(that's what romana is for)

╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖶𝖧𝖤𝖱𝖤 𝖲𝖧𝖮𝖴𝖫𝖣 𝖸𝖮𝖴 𝖡𝖤 𝖪𝖨𝖲𝖲𝖤𝖣 ? ⁾

palm . you give & give. you are a gentle heart, broken but still standing... always lending a hand for those who need it, expecting nothing in return. you deserve someone taking your hand & kissing your open palm, the hands which have selflessly helped so many others.

tagged by: @unitlead tagging: the girl reading this

bit of a crime belinda isn't getting her very own christmas special, specifically since she's not christian* it'd be fun to explore her relationship to the holiday

#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖮𝖮𝖢 . ⁾#*in deleted scenes and the novelization of robot revolution #although personally i'd portray her parents as christian and herself as undecided between their faith and the traditions she was exposed to #through her grandmother #like it's insane that the jathakam is a very important part of her backstory that was just cut from her first episode completely

She saw it as part of her job, working for HR after all, to meet everyone working for UNIT. At least everyone working at HQ. Meeting EVERYONE might be a little too ambitious, even for her. But she could at least make an effort. – And so the heels of her bright red boots were echoing through the hallways as she made her way to medbay. A way she would have found in her sleep, since she had made a habit out of sneaking in to meet Gordy on her lunch break. Today she wasn’t here to talk to her friend, and it was still some time until one would actually consider having lunch. Just about 10 am as she pushed open the door to the small office and showed Belinda Chandra her brightest, most charming smile to leave a good impression.

“ – Maddie Tam. People and Culture Officer. – Nice to meet you, Belinda. – Do you mind being called Belinda? I always think using first names creates more of a team spirit, that we need at UNIT, but there are always some people who don’t like it. Or were it feels totally weird.” | @interl0per [BELINDA] LIKED.

she's caught folding bedsheets, today's well of patients run dry, & she tries her best curtesy, “ belinda will do fine. it's what i prefer, actually. ” as opposed to bel, or linda, or the one time someone called her lins & she hit them with a broom handle. not her best moment—first, do no harm & all that—but it was more of a light tap on the shoulder of a man who looked like he could handle worse, & who ran belinda & her friends out of the pub afterwards. you could argue the harm is disproportional on his side, actually, if you account for the invasion of privacy that started the whole thing.

she tries to meet maddie's smile with her own, but the downward curve of her lips looks unnatural, her face always fits itself a frown much better. “ um, are you just here to say hi? or do you need a checkup? i don't really know how all of UNIT works, so it wouldn't surprise me if people & culture has some kind of alien integration program, you know, like men in black. ”

#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::

likeafantasy

sjsmithfiles

The Doctor, too, had been too lost in the avenues of her mind, entertaining her inner monologue, to consider the flesh of the real world around her. She'd only just stopped on the edge of the pavement, about to cross over, when a body comes colliding with hers. If not for the dormant lamp-post to her right, which she whips her hand out of her pocket to grab onto, she'd have been knocked to the floor.

A sad, wet Doctor on the floor - where she would belong, growls that ever-present internal critic, the Doctor's mind. She pushes herself back upright with a small huff. All of a sudden, the world is physical again and she's not trapped inside her own head.

It might be for the best that her attempt to cross the street was interrupted. She wasn't paying attention to the people on the pavement, so who's to say she'd have done any better at paying attention to the London cars whizzing to and fro? It's better to be walked into by a human person than crashed into by a human automobile.

The Doctor turns to look at the woman, who seems just as out of it as her—making the same steps to recover from it.

Belinda?

From behind strands of ginger hair pulled free from the messy bun nestled on the Doctor's neck by the rain, she stares back with wide open eyes. But there's no hint of recognition in Belinda's. For the date the Doctor had landed on, this should be well after Belinda quite colourfully bid her farewells to the Doctor, exclaiming intent to never see her face - or at that, any of her faces - again, so she should recognise her.

"Belinda?"

The Doctor wears a patchwork velvet jacket and an opulent vest underneath that pictures cats. As if the rest of her fashion isn't evidence enough that Belinda just walked into the Doctor, her shirt collar sports little red question marks. She looks in awe of the human, though a growing crease in her brow sees that awe turn to worry. Why doesn't Belinda know her? Is she being forgotten by the universe again? It wouldn't be the first time.

#sjsmithfiles #╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::

belinda? the woman asks, contorting herself the right side up in a manner no human, at least no human who cares about later in life shoulder & back problems, would. she's an eccentric, belinda can discern that through motion alone, & the knowledge shatters whatever sense of normalcy has kept belinda going through rain & fog on her walk back from work. it furrows her brow in a mixture of concern peppered with a sense of curiosity—at least the day couldn't get any more boring, right?

but then her name registers, the unreflected recognition of one party for the other, & belinda desperately scans both her memories & the woman in front of her to save herself potential embarrassment. the face is certainly unfamiliar, she's got the kind of features belinda would keep to memory, for whatever reason. she's struck by them for a moment too long, before her eyes finally slide down to the clothes—velvet, cats, red question marks on either lapel—belinda's brows furrow, “ oh, ” her expression slumps in disappointment, lips pressed into a thin line. who else? “ the doctor. ” the name, the title is said flatly, lacking a discernable emotion for them to latch onto.

“ didn't take for the type to randomly bump into acquaintances on the street. ” given they ... him, her? belinda's had an introduction to the complexities of gallifreyan gender, how renegades grow beyond the binary while homeworlders stick to it, & she feels the need to ask the doctor how they want to be addressed, but she'll save it for later. anyway, the doctor has all of time & space to run around, even with their preference for england it's a hell of a coincidence to find them standing stock still in the london downpour—on belinda's route back to the flatshare. “ you didn't set this up, did you? ” she's tries to sound accusatory, but the doctor's own surprise dashes the notion. this really is an act of random chance, or the universe's satirical play on a meet-cute.

“ actually, no, uh, this is going to sound weird, ” because it's not enough for belinda to know the doctor & all their faces, for him to spread himself across her life from birth onward, no, she has met them across two entirely different timelines. serves them right, she supposes. “ but which doctor are you? last of your kind or not? ”

sjsmithfiles

RP Post: The 17th Doctor and Silver!Belinda Chandra | TIME AND THE DOCTOR

Starter for @interl0per

---

The Doctor said she'd take a break from Planet Earth, but she's never been one for credibility. Hours away from Ruby and Belinda; hours of her hearts aching over the final words spoken to her by the latter being "I never want to see your face - any of your faces - again!" became days, and then months.

Perhaps years. She hasn't been counting. And she hasn't been letting go, either.

She feels guilty, but like a child, she also feels... why couldn't she have just ignored how I changed her reality and kept being my friend? It's fair to have been cut out of Belinda's life, but it doesn't feel fair.

Here she is, back on Earth, sadly walking around London with her hands in her pockets. She'd picked a rainy day, too, just to make herself feel even worse.

Although if she'd left it up to chance, a rainy day in England is more likely than not.

#sjsmithfiles #╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::

rain & london are hardly strangers to each other, in fact one might intuint they're bezzie mates—the gray skies & constant downpour become the de facto reason one learns the nervous system of the city, the london tube. it made for a sharp change from the croydon tramlink & belinda has never been a fan of either, precisely because boarding a train always gave her a sense of defeat. she was destined to travel, to see the world beyond the bounds of england & work to make it better, but all she's managed in her normal life is to watch the world go by from one tube station to the next. sure, she's seen the stars, the past, the future, a whole other timeline, even catching a brief glimpse of the time lords' seat of power on gallifrey. but that wasn't by choice, & now that she's finally home, back to the humdrum of her life as a nurse at able free—well, belinda isn't ready to admit to herself that she's missed her chance. with the little money she's been saving up & her reticent approach to relationships, she looks to the overcast sky & wonders if they're reflecting the mush of disappointment that's growing within.

where she isn't looking though is right down the road, & in a quick bash of a woman walking at a brisk space stumbles into somebody standing completely still, she's quick to step back, put a hand over her forehead & do her best attempt at apologetics. “ oh, ” a swear wants to come out, but by some minor miracle & remaining traces of the TARDIS' telepathic influence, the word isn't spoken. “ sorry, sorry, my ... mind was elsewhere. ” to another night spent perusing the pages of romana's sketchbook, her parting gift, with drawings & notes on all their adventures—& a concerning amount of rather detailed sketches of belinda, apparently she has a very aesthetically pleasing face, whatever that means in time lord speak. “ are you, uh, okay? ”

The argument continued as the name Mōri Kogorō meant nothing to the crowd. He really was used to it now, wasn’t he? Being recognised whenever he stepped onto the scene of a murder. Sometimes it took a moment, but as soon as the name was uttered, the crowd usually fell silent in awe of being in the present of the GREAT, SLEEPING DETECTIVE. Every time it made him roll his eyes; partially because the spotlight was stolen from him, who did most if not all the deduction work, but also because the old man enjoyed the attention too much. Today seemed to turn out as a lesson in being humble. – He would have enjoyed it, if his own mind hadn’t been on the case already. The victim stabbed in the middle of an ongoing party. The murderer had either run off or managed to hide amongst the crowd gathering around them in a half circle. But how had they managed to get rid of the blood then, that must have splashed on their clothes and covering their hands just like the stiletto blade, now safely laying on the parquet?

Lost in thought, he didn’t notice the young woman studying him. A one-track mind set to a new goal. Even if the murderer had fled the scene, they had to have left something behind. Fingerprints? No. He suspected the culprit had been wearing gloves. The easiest way to assure that no prints were left behind and at least one’s hands stayed clean. – It was the other speaking that brought him back to the scene; blinking, he turned his gaze, which had drifted to the corpse, back to her. In shock, surely, but she still looked surprisingly calm – and her voice wasn’t shaking in the way one expected. Her being a nurse offered an explanation, but could that be all? Used to the sight of blood and death; used to staying calm under pressure…

The expression on his face was forced into change as the seriousness was washed away and replaced by something he still hoped matched better with his APPARENT age. A hand raised, brushed through the dark hair at the back of his head. “ – Ah, I’m just – Uncle Kogorō here is a detective, you see…” He briefly pointed at the dark haired man he had entered the room with, who was still caught in his argument. “– and I… I like playing detective. I’ve learned a lot, living with him.” He really couldn’t catch a break, could he? The act sounding wrong to his own ears, but something in Belinda’s expression was setting off his alarms. It had to be the tension in the room and the different language, in which he hadn’t pretended to be just another, ordinary seven-year-old yet. He even managed the slightly confused expression at the mentioning of the Hardy Boys, that covered up well the offence that had originally crept onto his features. Wasn’t that more Hattori’s thing? At least he was the one with a motorbike and a detective father.

“ – For example, I’ve learned, that most often the solution to a case like this, isn’t the obvious one. My name is Conan. Conan Edogawa. And I am sure Uncle Kogorō will solve this mystery, too, Belinda.” At least HE would try to do his best, even if the odds seemed to be against him this time.

“ uh-huh, ” belinda doesn't even try to sound convinced, she's had plenty of practice in the art, & discerning truth from fiction isn't hard when you've been swept up into someone else's fantasy not once, but time & again—from one timeline to the next. she looks from the kid to his supposed uncle, trying to calm the crowd by announcing his status & fame as if a bunch of londoners are going to know some famous japanese detective, & then she trains her eyes back on conan. the detective sure isn't doing a lot of detecting, but his nephew seems to take charge of both victim & suspect with pinpoint precision, & while noting the absence of blood from her person isn't some great act of deduction, he is the first to point to it. to exonerate her from the screaming masses, & that is her tell that a kid wanting to follow in the footsteps of his uncle isn't all there is. what's that doyle quote again, one that pops up in every sherlock holmes adaptation? once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? yea, belinda's pretty sharp too.

“ & your uncle just lets you into a crime scene to watch him work? a dead body covered in blood, for a kid your age? that's pretty irresponsible. ” surely not the makings of some well-known detective, ready to swoop in & solve the case at the drop of the hat, but another nail in the coffin of conan's excuse being just that. “ cause he's not the one talking to the suspect, ” she points in his direction, glancing at the man however briefly. “ you know, doing the work—can't even seem to work a crowd. ” which seems like a crucial skill for a member of the police, maybe, she doesn't know what the public's like in japan. either way, if she can't trust the actual grown adult with her innocence, she'll settle for a kid who seems to know what he's doing. it's not any weirder than anything she's seen on planet earth & far beyond. belinda raises herself off her feet, dusting herself off to show rather than tell that she's past her brief sulk & ready to crack on with conan's playing detective. “ look, i ... uh, i've seen some strange things in my life, even outside the hospital. i've ... travelled a lot & not everything's peachy keen outside the bubble we make of our daily routine. you seem to know your stuff, learned from your uncle or not, & i have some experience solving problems. i can help, & it's good to have a nurse around, right? ”

A SCREAM. Loud and high-pitched. The kind that seemed to say the same thing all-over the world, despite not containing any actual words. An incident. A MURDER. It was a sound terrifyingly familiar to him and kicked him back into action, after having shut off his mind in pure boredom. Just another one of those parties that Sonoko had dragged them onto. Or to be precise, had dragged Ran onto and the old man and him were just the baggage coming with the whole deal. As if there weren’t any more exciting things to see in London, but some rented ballroom, that looked as though it could have been part of any European style building. He had been yawning; the hands in the pockets of his suit trousers, waiting for the arms of his wristwatch to wander forward, until any sensible adult would point out that a seven-year-old was supposed to be in bed. Sometimes looking like a child again could be your rescue.

– It was wrong to think of a murder case to come as your rescue, after all, even if it offered the distraction he had been silently asking for. It briefly brought up the question whether it was him who was cursed, or the man who looked surprisingly sober again, as they both ran across the short hallway connecting the two ballrooms used for tonight’s glamorous party turned crime scene.

It was him who reached the young woman first and while Kogoro checked the victim for a pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find any, considering the amount of blood pooling around the body, his gaze wandered over the yellow, unstained gown the woman was wearing, until his serious eyes rested on the stiletto in her hand. The murder weapon. Easy to spot. Its blade covered in scarlet. Unlike her hands. The lack of blood on them and on her hands spoke of her innocence, even if the object was clearly framing her as the murderer. Was she deliberately being framed, or was she just at the wrong place at the wrong time?

He briefly registered another familiar scene from the corner of his eyes; the old man yelling at Ran to call the police, before he was giving orders to people to stand back, but remain where they were. No attention paid to him for a moment, which he could use to his advantage. “ – I know you didn’t do it.” His expression self-assured, even if he wondered how long it would last until the old man would get involved again. For the moment, he could still hear him argue as a response to the question of WHO HE WAS. Well, they hadn’t quite made international headlines yet, had they?

“I suggest you put the weapon down slowly. Far enough from the victim that it won’t be covered in more blood when the police arrives.” It wasn’t ideal, but they couldn’t have her standing around with her hands raised until law enforcement had made their way here. She was in shock. “ – Take a slow step back, too. You have no intention to flee, you don’t need to, but you cannot remain like this.”

right, yes, here comes the great detective—the great detectives, maybe? she's counting at least three people sauntering in looking like they own the place, checking for a pulse, shepherding the crowd, but only one person actively speaking to her. a kid with the affect of someone far older who nevertheless looks to be barely eight years old. belinda leans her head to one side, confused for a beat, before nodding silently & leaving the murder weapon on the floor. stranger things have happened, she thinks, & her barometer for weird is higher than most people's. she looks deep into the kid's eyes, she's found that's the trick to discern age—it's what betrays time lords as millennia old despite appearing human—his eyes tell belinda everything she needs to know. she takes a necessary step back, a moment to herself just to exhale the breath she's been holding since being discovered at the scene of the crime.

only now is she registering that the corpse & the blood on the floor used to belong to a person, & belinda hunches her figure in shame at her own detachment. she could blame a&e as its primary source, nurses are the ones liaising with mortuary staff when transporting the recently deceased, after all, but she knows a certain blue box & its gateway to anywhere & everywhere has shown her equal wonder & horror. being an unwitting guest on the doctor's travels offered her the same ratio of beauty to death & decay belinda wanted to believe only existed in the hospital, but also the very same kind of reprieve when finding a cure to a diesease or the source of a problem. battling evil, illness, saving one person or many, that's what she lived for. looking at the murder victim now, though, brings about a sense of failure, & the only way to overcome it is finding the killer & stopping them before they strike again—if the strike again. justice, or whatever, but there's a part of belinda that just wants revenge.

she's nobody's patsy.

belinda curls onto the floor & against the glass wall, both in effort to steady herself against the incoming mystery & be at level with the boy wonder. she looks at him, brows furrowed in equal parts curiosity, skepticism & exhaustion, “ the knife still has my prints on it, but thank you. i wasn't looking to be the first suspect in tonight's game of cluedo. I'm, uh, belinda, by the way, a nurse ... in case you're wondering why, ” she gestures at the body, “ i can handle this kind of thing. you, though, i'd like to hear your story. what are you supposed to be—one half of the hardy boys? ”

well, rotten luck, belinda chandra. her internal commentary runs a scathing routine, with the rigorously applied measured self-critique that ignores any factors outside of her control, because she really shouldn't have chosen a night out over precious, precious sleep. it's her fault for allowing a few work friends to drag her out from her prison-like flatshare & to a gleaming party in old london town, to dress her in a very flattering yellow gown far above their paygrade & tell her to have fun for once. with the kind of zeal for distraction that reminds her of the two, no, three time lords she's traveled with. maybe she's subconsciously trying to recapture her repressed sense of adventure, which would be silly, or maybe the universe really does conspire to put belinda chandra in the middle of any given genre of mystery.

tonight's flavor is murder, & to the universe's credit this kind of scenario hasn't yet befallen her, or the doctor, the other doctor or romana. at least, not the kind of poirot inspired everybody is a suspect & we have a great detective on the scene setup that's less common in the real world than in agatha christie's stories. the backscratcher monster on the abandoned mining colony was a different horror entirely. the only problem now is that belinda is the patsy, the red herring, the nurse caught over the body holding the murder weapon after the real murderer ran out of the room & planted it onto her. of course, she didn't get a good luck at the killer in the commotion, & now she's hovering inches away from a corpse, holding a bloodied stiletto & doing her best impression of a dear caught in the headlights—big brown eyes & everything. they should see that neither her dress or hand are stained red.

her hope, well, her only hope now is for that great detective to show up & get the accusing stares of the crowd turned in their direction, to exonerate belinda to the other attendees & get on to solving this case while she can scurry away. if such great detectives exist outside christie or doyle's work, or if they attend glamourous parties in the center of london where the middle class comes to pretend to be rich for a night. belinda can really only cross her fingers, figuratively speaking, because her hands are raised before the crowd for the moment.

╰ ❝ ⁽ @driftvoid . ⁾ ::

unitlead

Amusement played on the corner of her lips. Yes, all in all, she found she rather liked Belinda Chandra. There was a certain, cynical, sardonic edge to everything the young woman said, and Kate found herself reflecting that perhaps they were more similar than she had first assumed. She could remember herself at that age. She´d been a single mother then, although her own journey into parenthood had been a little more traditional than Belinda´s.

What was that like? To wake up one day and find the entire course of your life had been altered without your knowledge or consent. Kate would never have given up her son Gordon for anything in this world, but she couldn´t deny she had chosen to go through with having a child. Belinda had never been afforded that same choice. It had been unceremoniously thrust into her hands. Yes, yes, the Doctor had saved this planet, the whole universe in fact, countless times. His help, however, often came with hidden consequences, and more often than not, innocent people paid the price.

❝ Yes. I see what you mean. It´s not for everyone. In any case, its intention was meant to go far beyond simple reminiscing. The Doctor´s friends, Belinda...or in your case, unwilling acquaintances, have skills and knowledge far beyond the average human. ❞

Beyond genuine concern for the younger woman, lurked the subtle manipulation of a pragmatist. It was her job to protect humanity; that mission was her first priority, always. ❝ We could use someone with your expertise at UNIT..... ❞

#unitlead #╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖠𝖱𝖢 . ⁾ DOCTOR WHO :: BUDGET CUTS .

“ i ... ” belinda scoffs, then laughs, then grits her teeth, bringing closed fists to her forehead & pushing her head against against her fingers. she's marred in frustration & embarrassment, the inability to avert kate's offer & the knowledge that it'd be difficult to deny. her jathakam told her she would travel, & though belinda chandra had seen many sings & wonders across all of time & space, she took her destiny to mean she'd see just the world, her planet, as a ballerina first & then a doctor, later a nurse. go wherever people are hurting & need someone to look after their sick, do what she can to help. there are many ways to travel, the doctor—the other doctor said, & he had the humility to admit having the universe at his fingertips made him lose his sense of scale. the earth is big enough, she doesn't need the stars, having one named for her. belinda knows she's needed here, & UNIT can certainly offer her that, but at what cost?

losing her autonomy once again to the battlefield? become a soldier, not a scholar, or a physician? the armed guard protecting the earth are not a charity, but they're not the military either, not really. maybe in her misery, she isn't being fair.

belinda relents her anguish, & looks to kate stewart, trying to plead by filling her eyes with sorrow, “ i'm just a nurse, kate. really, i'm nobody special. ” which isn't a self indictment, belinda has met gods & time lords, living cartoons & arsonist puppets. a menagerie of creatures that defy understanding, some even beyond UNIT's remit, she wagers, & it taught her there is nothing wrong with being ordinary. “ i've had enough of aliens & gods & robots for a lifetime, i just want to help people. can you ensure i get to do just that, not have to juggle little green men while i'm at it? ”

#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::

⁽ FILLORY & FURTHER . ⁾ ACCEPTING. @topshelfperverts╰ ❝ playing with time is such difficult magic .

“ time isn't magic! ” belinda all but yelps, with the kind of desperation in the face of a madman she imagines of the arkham sanitarium's staff—the one she misattributes to lovecraft's writings, of course, not the asylum of batman fame. she raises her hands, white knuckled fingers preempting some oncoming temporal disaster that follows from a laissez faire attitude to the fourth dimension. “ you can't play around with it, you don't know the tricks. doesn't matter who you work for. ” a kind of agency, he'd said, to fill in the void of temporal authority left behind by the extinction of the doctor's people. the latter part belinda deduces herself, because it would be such an unfair universe if there wasn't anyone to help. but this man, captain whatever he calls himself, there's a trickster-esque glee in his smile she doesn't trust.

it reminds her of her doctor, but with sleaze instead of charm, & she isn't falling for the same trick twice. “ we can't afford to make mistakes, because we'll end up sawing a woman in half instead of doing sleight of hand. we're not, ” the words that follow are said as a whisper, because she doesn't really believe in their authority, but maybe there's misplaced respect in their absence, “ time lords. ” who can be as brutal & brash as anyone, even the species the rani deemed lesser, with one exception,

“ we don't get second chances. ”

#topshelfperverts #╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::#oh belinda you have no idea how many chances jack harkness gets!

keikomivra

VARADA SETHU AS BELINDA CHANDRA DOCTOR WHO | 2.01: THE ROBOT REVOLUTION

#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖡𝖤𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖣𝖠 𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖭𝖣𝖱𝖠 . ⁾ ::#for a second i thought i wrote belinda as too mean but no i'm right #she's naturally abrasive in unfamiliar situations

because pippa bennett-warner, livia's voice actor in gallifrey: time war, also voiced cleopatra in the last queen of the nile (and is featured on the cover!), i will headcanon that livia chose the face of her final incarnation directly from the egyptian queen. it was somewhat unconscious & partially romana's influence, because livia's last regeneration was the result of political assassination, & knowledge of earth's history is a prerequisite of being anywhere near romana's orbit, but very few on gallifrey exist who could comment on the resemblance. those who do, however, do find it amusing

#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖮𝖮𝖢 . ⁾ :: the poster's crusade .#╰ ❝ ⁽ 𝖫𝖨𝖵𝖨𝖠 𝖢𝖠𝖱𝖠𝖫𝖨𝖲 . ⁾ ::#cleopatra's ethnicity is a hotly debated topic and i have no wish to join discussions that are outside my area of expertise #but if this is big finish's casting decision i will run with it #because livia is lord high president of gallifrey. it makes sense for her to base her appearance on historically famous royalty

unitlead

She almost laughed out loud at that. Settled for a vaguely amused smile instead. There was something about Belinda Chandra, something in that abrasive manner that spoke to Kate. Something told her that life perhaps hadn't gone the way Ms Chandra had intended, and that a certain roving alien in a blue police box had something to do with that. She admired her tenacity and spirit and her ability to lie with relative ease.

❝ Yes, I see what you mean. There are those of us who, I'm afraid, do view The Doctor in a certain light. I'm sure you're familiar with the old saying, one man's hero is another's.... ❞ She trailed off, inclining her head slightly.

No, her animosity towards The Doctor wasn't quite as severe as Belinda's, at least, not these days. But didn't view him with the same rose-coloured glasses that other UNIT staff seemed to. The Earth was as indebted to him as he was to it, in Kate's opinion. It was difficult to explain, and she doubted explaining would make a difference at all, so she didn't bother to try. Belinda had formed her own opinions from her travels with the Doctor. That was good enough for Kate. As for her opinion of UNIT. Well, that was a different story.

❝ ...UNIT isn't a cult Ms Chandra, we're a government task force charged with keeping the Earth safe. ❞ She spoke smoothly, matter-of-factly. No point in lying to a seasoned liar. Besides, Kate wasn't in the business of insulting people's intelligence unless they deserved it. ( There were quite a few ministers at Whitehall who could attest to that. )

❝ It can be quite difficult you know, readjusting to life on Earth. You're not the first of the Doctor's companions we've encountered. Believe it or not, you're not the first unwilling traveller either. Have you given much thought to what you'll do with yourself now that you're back? ❞