S4 of NuWho sprinkling in more evidence that Tentoo was the only way Ten was going to get a happy ending
so last year i wrote a thing about ten and human vehicles [link] but in this recent watch through of NuWho i'm noticing some deep parallels between the different futures ten and tentoo end up having
more under the cut 'cause this got a little long
how different he treats Donna and Martha's families and how different those families treat him - he's not a part of the family at all, he's just seen as a danger and nothing more
the moms don't know where their daughters are bc Donna and Martha feel like they have to lie about who the doctor is and what they're doing with him
jackie tyler is literally tentoo's mother-in-law and even before him she was ten's mother-in-law but now tentoo has more family, he's got a father-in-law and baby brother-in-law and will have a daughter and (hopefully makes) friends he doesn't have to say goodbye to all the time
even just the different in other relationships he gets brief touches of
episode 6 the doctor's daughter, jenny who reminds me so much rose (the gymnastics, the tyler sass, the blonde hair) ten doesn't get to raise her, doesn't get to watch her grow up, doesn't get the chance to be a parent besides a few instances and then she (seemingly) dies in his arms! and he leaves with another hole in his chest
tentoo gets to experience all of it - gets to be there for the conception and watch her grow in rose; gets to be there for the birth; gets to raise his daughter and watch her grow up; it fills the hole his dead children left
episodes 8&9, the library episodes, foreshadowing that the doctor will have a wife, but while ten has to watch her die and never get the chance to know her let alone love her tentoo marries the woman he was literally created for and dreams about and knows so so so well
tentoo literally gets everything the universe takes away from ten and i fucking love it
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You know what's an important line? When Donna says, "You don't have to stay forever."
It gives him the agency to recover and then to leave when he's ready. It's acknowledgement that he's not stuck or being forced like when he was exiled to Earth before. He's choosing to rest with one of his most comfortable found families but it doesn't have to be forever, because with him, it can't be.
And with that line, it's also a nod to the fact that he's chosen to stay somewhere else forever, in a different place where he only had the one life to give.
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Musings on Another Life
“What’s up, spaceman?” Donna asked, setting a cup of tea in front of the Doctor where he sat at the wrought iron table in his back garden. He blinked, noticing for the first time that the sun was setting. It was odd that time could get away from him like that, now. An adjustment. So much of it was an adjustment, living like this. He’d thought that living linearly would make time feel so much more present, but it was the opposite, somehow. It ebbed and flowed and slipped away, like water.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, the answer still a reflex, before shaking his head. “No, sorry. Not nothing. A lot of things. I’ve been thinking about… a lot of things.”
Donna settled into the seat across from him, tapping her nails against the mug she’d kept for herself. “Care to share with the class?”
The Doctor took a slow sip of his tea—milky and sweet, just like he’d taken it the first time he’d worn a version of this face. He wondered if it was how the Other Him still took it. He swallowed. “I’ve been thinking about the Metacrisis,” he admitted.
“What about it?”
“Him,” the Doctor corrected. “The person. The Other Doctor. Well, the first Other-Doctor.”
“The part-human, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Right.” She studied him. “What about him, then?”
“I’ve always thought of him as a copy,” the Doctor admitted. “I told Rose that he was me, but… I don’t know that I really believed that. I thought of him as lesser. A facsimile of sorts. Oh, close enough for them to be happy together, sure, but not really me. But I…” he sighed and leaned back in his chair, setting his tea down. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I think I got it backward.”
Donna tilted her head to the side. “How d’you mean?”
“I think he was the real me, and I was what was left over.”
“Sorry, what?”
The Doctor met her puzzled gaze. “I don’t think it was a copy. I think it was a split.” When Donna just raised her eyebrows at him, he went on, “I mean, think about it. I was regenerating, but I didn’t want to, so I sent the energy into my old hand so that I could be what Rose wanted. And then I… I walked away into battle, and rather than being better now that she was back, I was worse. I was judgmental and cruel to my friends, and then to the Metacrisis, when all of you were doing the right thing. You were all doing what had to be done to save the multiverse, and I judged you for it. And then I… I just left them there. I abandoned Rose, the love of my lives, who I would have done anything to get back before then, whom I’d nearly killed myself over the loss of more than once, like what she wanted didn’t matter at all. I didn’t tell her I loved her, when it was all I’d thought of saying for years after I lost her. And then I became a monster. The Time Lord Victorious.”
Donna made a sound of protest, but he interrupted her. “No, I did. When I sacrificed myself to save your granddad? I’m sure he never said, even once we had you back and it was safe for you to remember, but I yelled at him. Called him a stupid old man who’d lived his life; told him, more or less, that my life was more important than his. That I was worth more than he was. Not in those exact words, but…” He shook his head. “And then I regenerated and I forgot. All of you, all of it. I went on like none of you had ever mattered. Barely thought of you. Never spoke of you. I was cold, disconnected. More alien than I’d been in centuries. I lost all of the lessons I’d learned in those past few bodies. Oh, sure, I came to love my new friends. Even River, in the end. But it was never the same. I was never the same. I think…” He wrapped his hands around his still-warm mug, letting the heat dispel the chill of the advancing evening. “I think that the parts of me that Rose healed went with her. I think that instead of staying the man she wanted, I became the man she wanted, and I saved the universe with you and then I told her I loved her and I gave her my forever. And I think that the person who stayed in this universe was what was left.”
“Oh, Doctor.” The Doctor felt Donna’s hand settle on his forearm. He blinked his eyes open. He couldn’t recall shutting them. The sky was darker now, and he could see stars shimmering into view in his peripheral vision. Donna’s eyes were damp in the reflected light shining through the sliding glass doors. He freed one hand from his mug and rested it over hers.
“It’s okay. It’s… I oddly feel more at peace with that than with the alternative. Is that weird?”
“Not really, I suppose. I mean, you wanted to give her everything, and you wanted to be with her more than anything. I can see how there would be peace in thinking that maybe you did, and you are.”
“But you don’t think it’s true?”
“I dunno. I wasn’t exactly there for the aftermath, was I? But I just saw you split in two in front of me not so long ago, and the next you clearly left a lot of his baggage behind—”
“Oi!”
“—so it wouldn’t be the strangest thing you’ve done even in the time I’ve known you, and it wouldn’t be terribly unbelievable, all things considered,” she finished, ignoring his protest.
He gave an aggrieved sigh. “I suppose that’s fair.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
The Doctor drummed his fingers against the back of her hand. “I don’t know, either. Considering that nothing I knew about myself or Gallifreyans or regeneration turned out to be true, it’s hard to say. It feels true. But it also feels like maybe I’ve finally grown it all back, in a way. Like maybe… maybe, after all those centuries, I’m finally me again.”
Donna smiled at him softly. “I think that’s all that matters then, don’t you?”
“Maybe so,” he agreed, smiling slightly back at her and squeezing her fingers. “Maybe so.”
On AO3
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So I've seen a lot of comments about how this bi generation undermines what happened with Tentoo...
So when Tentoo was born, the doctor was put into an impossible situation. Only having a limited amount of time to fix everything etc. There still had to be a guardian of the universe, but all he wanted to do was to be with Rose. Live a life with her and grow old with her. Something he could never do. But Tentoo could. So he gave her a part of himself to grow old with that would love her like he does, would be able to age with her. An adventure he could never have because he has a responsibility to the universe. He could never stop to mourn his losses because the universe awaits, needing protection.
So with this bi generation, the doctor gets to mourn. He gets to mourn all the companions he lost. He gets to stop have a second even multiple seconds to grieve. (which the doctor doesn't do well, he's always pulled from one thing to another) His counterpart has the universe covered. Who better to grieve your losses with than your best friend?
I wish wholeheartedly we got a scene with Rose Tentoo or any of the doctor's family in the other universe. Jackie and Sylvia would be weirdly hilarious together. Rose Noble meeting her namesake? The doctor getting to hug rose after all these years? Possibly meeting his part daughter Mia? I need it like I need air.
At least 10/14 got a better ending this time around. I think Rose and Tentoo would have wanted that for him.
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