OHGOD IT'S FINALLY DONE
So, earlier last week, savagestime wrote up an absolutely amazing essay on the Master’s approach to sexuality and sensuality, which a great many of you followed suit with. This was brilliant and made me exceptionally happy, because I’m a whore for character studies. But then I thought: I want to do this for the TARDIS, but how does one describe the sexuality of a machine? A living machine, sure, but it’s not like she trots around and throws herself at people (I am, obviously, discounting her presence at realityshifted right now because that’s an entirely different section of this essay.) So you people twisted my arm demanded suggested I write up a Companion List instead.
I hate each and every one of you.
Actually, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be writing this. But as I got to thinking about it, I realised there is a great deal I could say about the TARDIS in terms of relationships with the Doctor’s harem companions that doesn’t revolve so much around sexuality and sensuality, but around affection. Yes, you read that right. Affection.
Allow me to explain.
It actually all begins with the one person she’s spent nigh on a millennia with: the Doctor. To understand what I mean, we need to understand exactly what living with the Doctor for 900 years will do to a person (or, in this case, a machine).
By the very nature of their relationship, the Doctor and TARDIS are very close. There’s really no room for dispute in this, it’s stated throughout canon all over the place. She’s his ship, his home, his best friend, and he’s her saviour. They are also mentally connected through the Rassilon Imprimature, which only adds another layer to the entire thing because they can feel what each other are feeling. The closest real approximation to this would be, for all intents and purposes, soul mates.
Now, the Doctor travels around with an assortment of companions for a few years each, and by the time they leave, each of them is changed in their own unique way from knowing the Doctor. You see it time and again. Keep in mind, they are simply travelling with him. Are they friends? Yes. Are some of them closer than others? Certainly. But they are still humans (and aliens) gallivanting around the universe with a Time Lord who, quite frankly, thinks the world of himself.
Imagine being bonded to that.
By the very nature of their bond, the TARDIS sits inside the Doctor’s head, in some little niggling place, and that makes for a very easy method of imprinting. So for approximately 900 years (and I would argue more, but let’s use canon numbers for now), the TARDIS has been soaking up bits and pieces of the Doctor’s beliefs, attitude and viewpoints, not unlike a really large sponge, while the Doctor has been drawn further and further into her psychic networking. Bonds go both ways, after all. But if just a couple years can change his companions in so many ways, sharing such an intimate connection with the Doctor for so long has to have some serious effects on the TARDIS’ psyche herself.
But star, you cry! What does this have to do with sexuality?
Ah-hah, my dear reader, I respond. It has everything to do with it.
As I said, a whole bunch of you have been explaining the Doctor’s take on sexuality. One of the biggest things in common among them have been the Doctor’s often callous or ambivalent attitude toward sex in general. It’s nice, sure, but he’s got better things to do. As a giant computer, just to simplify, the TARDIS would have extensive knowledge on sex as an act. Her databanks would probably make the Kama Sutra blush and be of intense interest to Jack if he had a week to kill. And that’s all well and good! Knowledge is power, yadda yadda, but the TARDIS is still a machine and an attitude toward sex is different than a knowledge of it.
And her most intimate understanding of an attitude toward sex? Comes from the Doctor himself.
I do so hope you see where I’m going with this.
The Doctor doesn’t value sexual relationships the way humans do. He loves people, sure, but he’s rarely in love with them, and even when he is, he’s an awkward little idiot about it. I’m looking at you, Ten. He’s not exactly Casanova (and if you get that pun, I love you). So the TARDIS, naturally, does not view sex or sexuality as all that important. Let us use sexuality from this point on because, like I said, she’s not exactly getting down and dirty with people. But love and affection? Oh, she understands that in spades.
So, the TARDIS doesn’t really consider sexuality important the way other characters might. It’s there, stored in her databanks, but it’s not exactly top priority. Affection, however, is perhaps the single most important emotion she feels. It even trumps her being a selfish, catty, wilful brat. Again, canon shows us just how cheeky she can be (and I’m not even getting into the audio dramas for this part! Whoooole ‘nother can of worms, that. It’ll be toward the bottom, promise!) But it can be argued, and I am here, hence this essay, that her other personality traits stem almost exclusively from her love of the Doctor.
And this part requires background!
Canon says the Doctor stole the TARDIS. Now, there’s plenty of speculation as to why and how. We know he wanted to leave Gallifrey, but I’m not sure that he’s ever given a clear-cut reason outside “by Omega, but they are stuffy bints.” Now! This part is funny, because I can’t remember if the TARDIS was canonly scheduled to be decommissioned when he stole her. Haha, how bad am I? But! We do know that when he stole her, she was all ready an older model and on the fritz. I personally believe he saved her from death. But no matter the reason, he did steal her and they’ve been together a long time. He gave her back the stars just as much as she gave them to him.
If that’s not a reason to love someone, I really don’t know what is.
So, we’ve got a renegade Time Lord and his stolen ship. He’s still a young’un when he steals her, and she’s all ready old. I do not doubt she viewed him as something of a child to be protected. Fast forward a few hundred years, and that love has now become something other than maternal. Which doesn’t bother the TARDIS at all, because she doesn’t differentiate between types of love. Love is love, doesn’t matter who it’s toward. The problem with loving the Doctor comes from the fact that the TARDIS is exceedingly jealous. The Technical Manual states that “it is impossible (or at least unethical) for a Time Lord to own more then one TARDIS. This is, at least in part, due to the fact that a TARDIS becomes terribly jealous when an operator is bonded to more then one” and would more than likely do horrible, evil things to the other in a jealous fit.
To recap: the TARDIS loves the Doctor. The TARDIS is an exceedingly jealous creature. The Doctor travels with a whole lot of people who may or may not love him and whom he may or may not love in return. As you can see, this is a right recipe for disaster should that last little bit be true.
This is not to say all her personality traits stem from jealousy. The TARDIS is about as racist as they come (I’m looking at you, vampires and Jack), she’s pissy and wilful and “talks back” to the Doctor, if we are to go by some of his dialogue toward her. She’s horribly arrogant and lacks the same sense of altruism and morality the Doctor has. But her selfishness, cattiness and downright rude behaviour can more often than not be attributed to her affection for, and therefore jealousy of, the Doctor and his various companions. There are, obviously, exceptions to this rule, which I will get to below, but first, a very brief (and I do mean brief, because this thing will never end if I don’t) look at her affection for the Doctor. As if I haven’t given enough.
Basically, the TARDIS loves each Doctor in the same way, but not with the same intensity. As stated earlier, she doesn’t exactly differentiate between types of love, so her maternal affection for One is viewed the same way as her frighteningly possessive love of Eight as her clingy love of Ten. Those little adjectives I just used, however, demonstrate a difference in intensity, which I believe stems from two factors: how long she’s been with the Doctor, and his attitude toward her. I will use a couple quick examples.
The TARDIS obviously loves One (or Theta, depending on how you look at it) for stealing her in the first place. He’s young and naïve and tetchy, and she sees him as someone to protect. By the time we get to Three and she’s been silenced, there’s a distinct longing for his presence that wasn’t necessarily present when they were properly bonded. Three is, I believe, the first to call her ‘old girl,’ an obvious sign of affection and an acknowledgement of her being more than just a mere machine.
Then we get to Six and his speech about the TARDIS being his only constant. There is a lot of stroking and petting going on in Six’s run, somewhat akin to Four’s but no so much protective as it is almost possessive on his part. Seven is perhaps the most open about his bond with the TARDIS, something you hear over and over again in the audios. I mean it. Over and over and over again. Perfect example:
Doctor: "Well, my TARDIS is a well-travelled one, and we've been together for a long time. We've grown together."
Mel: "Hmm...like an old married couple."
The TARDIS is most openly hostile and possessive of the Doctor during Eight’s run. There is an entire audio dedicated to this fact. That does, however, tie into her characterisation at realityshifted, which I will get to later, so. Moving on.
After the Time War (another long and exhausting essay which I may or may not one day write, haven’t decided yet), both the Doctor and the TARDIS are a little more than broken. They need each other in ways they never did before. Which, you know, I really wish canon addressed more but whatev, rant for a different day. As such, you see a distinct lack of the TARDIS’ wilful and jealous attitude, especially toward his new companions. You do, however, see that protective streak rear its massive head again, points of example from my own personal canon being the ending of Parting of the Ways and the creation of the DoctorDonna and DonnaDoctor in Journey’s End.
No matter how you look at it, though, the TARDIS does love the Doctor, obsessively so, and that reflects on her attitude toward his companions. So, let’s take a look at the majority of those who were lucky enough to travel with the Doctor and forgive me any errors, lack of insight or just plain skipping of certain companions. I’ll do my best with those I’ve no personal knowledge of (with a huge all mighty thank you to those who gave me information), and I’m not breaking my back for all the audio companions. It’s just not happening. I AM ONLY HUMAN, PEOPLE.
So! The Companion List shall be as follows:
A study in loathing; or 'I would that I could eject you from my interior into the depths of space if only the Doctor would let me':
For as horribly catty as she can be, there are only a handful of people who actually make this distinction, two of them because they were unlucky enough to be travelling with younger Doctors when the TARDIS was still too new to the concept of companions for her to differentiate between “threat” and “they’ll leave eventually.” I will note that there are three exceptions to this list, companions who would otherwise be on here because of their attitude and interactions with the Doctor, but that for very specific reasons are instead loved by the old girl. They will be discussed in detail later, but they are: Nyssa of Traken, Ace McShane and Reinette, who is a special case in her own right.
Jamie McCrimmon - Jamie, unfortunately, falls into this category for one reason only: he was unlucky enough to get close to the Doctor during his youth, when the TARDIS was particularly overprotective and still too new to companions and their dealings with the Doctor. On the one hand, she rather appreciated Jamie’s bravery, as it got the Doctor out of a scrap or six, but his dismal understanding of technology was a sore spot, and don’t think she didn’t see him and Two making eyes at each other. Bad form, Jamie. Bad form.
Jo Grant - The TARDIS rather hates Jo for a lot of reasons, the most obvious being that the Doctor fancied her. This is pretty much asking to be the object of her ire (because she can’t, of course, hate the Doctor). Jo’s lack of real understanding of the TARDIS, coupled with her ditzy attitude, don’t really help matters much. The TARDIS also blames Jo for leaving the Doctor for another man, a hypocrisy that isn’t necessarily lost on her, but she still justifies.
Romanadvoratrelundar “Romana” (I and II) - Romana drilled a hole in the TARDIS and forever cemented herself in the ‘I really, really hate you’ group. Her borderline intimate relationship with the Doctor only intensified that hatred. Romana has a lot going against her in the TARDIS’ opinion, and not only on the sexuality front. That’s part of it, yes, but the TARDIS hates Romana for a lot of reasons. For all her intelligence, Romana is arrogant and oftentimes rude, and tends to adopt the general Time Lord attitude of the TARDIS simply being a machine, perhaps the second most hated thing one can do to the old girl, after fancying her Doctor.
Romana has the distinction of being the first companion the TARDIS really dislikes for reasons that extend behind the superficial. Jamie and Jo never really did anything to the TARDIS herself, but she dislikes them because of their relationships (perceived or otherwise) with the Doctor. Romana actually damaged the TARDIS and, while it really isn’t that big of a deal or a wound when examined objectively, the old girl still perceived it as a threat. There’s also the fact that Romana is a Time Lady. Why should that matter, one asks? Well simple. Because, according to the Technical Manual (and my own personal take), the TARDIS views herself as a Time Lord. Having Romana on board subverts that belief and gives the Doctor an “equal” with whom he can interact in ways he cannot interact with the TARDIS. The TARDIS is not only jealous of Romana’s relationship with the Doctor, but of Romana herself.
If we want to take this farther than canon and get into the audios, Romana is also responsible for a handful of other slights against both the TARDIS and the Doctor. In Zagreus (and this audio will come up a lot, just sayin’), Romana essentially kills the TARDIS by dropping her in the Crucible. She threatens to kill the Doctor if the anti-time infection cannot be removed from him, and her last words to Eight before he leaves for the divergent universe are anything but cordial. Assuming RTD wasn’t just pulling our chain, Romana is Lady President during the Time War, and therefore responsible for all the horrendous orders the Doctor must follow and the eventual regeneration of Eight into Nine.
Being as protective and possessive as she is, harming the Doctor is about as grave a crime as is possible in the TARDIS’ eyes and I honestly believe that, by this point, it would take a monumental effort for the TARDIS to view Romana as anything other than a person to loathe.
Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown -- Quite frankly, Peri is annoying. She’s loud, raucous and whines far too much, in the TARDIS’ opinion, not to mention she doesn’t wear enough clothes and so gets the Doctor’s attention. She’s also, you know, the reason Five regenerated into Six, and as I’ve noted with Romana, being the reason the Doctor is injured is about the worst thing you can be to the TARDIS. It wasn’t even Peri’s fault, but she was there and he died to protect her.
This is one of those sticking points where the TARDIS’ sense of “morality” and the Doctor’s do not coincide. He saved Peri because she was his companion. Didn’t matter she was his companion for all of two seconds, she was his companion, and therefore meant to be protected. To the TARDIS, she’s just a silly, simple human girl, not worth the life of a Time Lord, let alone the Doctor. If it meant saving him, the TARDIS would gladly and gleefully allow Peri to die. So him saving her and losing a life is almost a personal affront to the TARDIS, and, as with Jo, she can’t hate the Doctor for his actions toward his companions, but she can hate the companion for being there to receive said treatment.
Taking a step back from canon and examining the Short Trips, it’s interesting to note that the TARDIS’ child with Kamelion (I’ll get to that), ends up taking the form of Peri and is left on Earth to fill in for Miss Brown while she’s traipsing across the universe with Six. I don’t believe the TARDIS has any real connection to the child, she’s more of a “maybe I’ll see her again and then we can chat” sort of anomaly, but the TARDIS is also bitchy, and I can see her holding the entire affair against Peri, just to be able to tell the Doctor “See? She has taken my child from me. She is a nuisance, be rid of her.”
Charlotte Pollard -- There is a very, very, very lot to be said of Charley, and very little of it positive. For those of you not familiar with who Miss Pollard is, she’s a companion of the Eighth Doctor’s and there is absolutely no love lost between her and the TARDIS. To put it in comparison, Charley rates right up there with the Master and Romana on the hate scale, only this time, it is based almost exclusively on the girl’s sexual and emotional attraction to Eight.
But it all began with her being a paradox. See, the Doctor saved Charley from the destruction of the R-101, a ship on which all the passengers (according to the audios, which are actually inaccurate as to the historical facts) were supposed to die. Ripping her out of time the way he did made Charley unnatural, much the same as Jack’s immortality makes him. There’s point number one. Then the girl has the audacity to fall in love with Eight and, horror of horrors, have him return the sentiment (the feeling can be argued). Point number two. Charley is clingy and whiny with the Doctor, she’s headstrong and naïve about the Laws of Time and other such ‘You really need to pay attention to these’ sorts of things, and she’s mouthy to the TARDIS. The only time she shows any real understanding of the TARDIS is during Zagreus, and that’s only after Romana dropped her in the Crucible. After that, it goes right back to snarking and snipping.
To the TARDIS, Charley signifies two things: a rival for the Doctor’s affection, obviously, but also a betrayal of the affection he has for her. To save Charley, the Doctor not only risked all of time and space, he also infected both himself and the TARDIS with anti-time, leading to their exile into the divergent universe. Where, by the way, the TARDIS had no purpose, and got manipulated by Rassilon. Again. Goddamnit. He chose the human girl’s safety over that of his ship. It is the entire reason the events in Zagreus happen, and the TARDIS does some very, very cruel things to the Doctor in that audio out of her hatred for what he’s done. It’s through a manipulation of her emotions, yes, but they’d not be there for the manipulation if she didn’t harbour them initially.
So Charley gets herself a special place on the ‘I hate you like the burning of a million supernovas’ list, and is, I will note, the last such companion to be treated as such. Good job, Miss Pollard.
A study in indifference; or 'I permit you passage, do be so kind as to not become loathed':
It should be noted that almost all of One and Two’s companions go here. Being new to the whole companion thing, the TARDIS wouldn’t have any concrete understanding of human interactions and social setups (not that she does now, mind) and would view the majority of the humans who travelled in her as something more like a flea on a cat. If they bit (ie: showed affection for the Doctor), she would react (ie: Jamie), but otherwise, she doesn’t really notice them. There are at least two exceptions to this, but I will discuss them later.
Ian Chesterton -- Other than protecting Barbara and helping out the Doctor in certain scraps, the TARDIS has no real interest in Ian at all. To her, he was more there as a tool to be used in difficult situations and, being one of the first humans to board her, more a cerebral nuisance than anything. Remember, she’s racist.
Vicki, et. al. -- These guys all go together for two very simple reasons. One: the TARDIS doesn’t differentiate between any of them. None of them made a particular impact on her, none of them drew any particular attention from or foisted any particular attention on the Doctor (save you, Polly, but it wasn’t enough) and they were, quite frankly, just little stupid humans. Also, I just don’t have enough information on them to make proper graphs for each. Hey, it’s my Companion List, I’ll do what I want. Suffice to say, they were more like blips or fleas and the TARDIS hardly thinks on them anymore.
Harry Sullivan -- Harry is one of those people who might possibly have been in the respect group, but he just wasn’t around long enough and didn’t do enough for her to really think on him in any particular light. He helped the Doctor into his Fourth regeneration and certainly saved the man from a scrap or six, but the TARDIS remembers Sarah Jane far more than Harry. Not to say she didn’t like Harry when he travelled with them. He was curious and well-mannered and kind, but that’s really about it. He’s sort of like Ian in that regard.
Leela -- Leela ranks about as high on the TARDIS’ scale of species to pay attention to as humans do. She was loud, stupid and wore waaaay too little. The TARDIS appreciated her trying to learn, because any creature that is willing to gain knowledge is worthwhile, but she’s also a haughty bitch and Leela just didn’t quite make the cut. Leela also has the unfortunate stigma of being Romana’s friend and bodyguard? Confidant? Whatever the hell she ends up being, which negates any positive views the TARDIS may have had on her.
Tegan Jovanka -- Oh Tegan. Tegan gets stuck here because the TARDIS just didn’t really like her, but certainly didn’t loathe her. It can be argued there was a certain amount of romantic tension between her and Five (but then again, it can be argued there was a certain amount of romantic tension between all of Five’s Team TARDIS), but Tegan’s general no-nonsense, do-not-mess-with-me, I-won’t-have-any-of-it attitude just about negated it. She was, quite frankly, mean to Five, and put him through a lot of turmoil. She never physically harmed him, or led to any physical harm like, say, Peri, but she was still a point of extreme contention during her stay with him.
On the other hand, Tegan also took care of him during his regeneration into Five, something the TARDIS must credit her for, and she cared for Adric, the TARDIS’ first real BFF. Five and Tegan parted on decent terms, but the TARDIS still views the entire thing as a slight against the Doctor, which negates any positive feelings she has for the woman and lands her squarely in the ‘tolerate’ pool.
Kamelion -- Why, might you ask, would the theoretical father of one of the TARDIS’ children be in the ‘tolerate’ group? Simple. Because that’s all he is: tolerable. Even for a machine, he was a nuisance and the TARDIS really had no care for him whatsoever. Whether you want to take the Short Trips into account or not, assuming she did have a child with Kamelion, I firmly believe it was more of a ‘Let’s see if it’s possible’ scenario than because the TARDIS had a burning urge to get down and dirty with a shape-shifting robot. Ignoring the fact that TARDISes don’t even reproduce that way (at least, not until Compassion, but she’s later), you’ve also got the lovely issue of Kamelion attempting to, you know, kill the Doctor. The only reason he isn’t loathed for that is because he was being manipulated by the Master, and the Master trumps all in the hatred department.
Melanie “Mel” -- Mel is annoying. Very, very annoying. There’s really nothing else to it.
Dr Grace Holloway -- Grace, oh Grace, how you ruin everything. Grace is, quite frankly, a massive sticking point in the TARDIS’ characterisation and I hate it. As much as I like the movie (what? I adore camp!), and as much as I pick and choose what is canon in it (like perfect_shoes, I do not believe in the “Doctor is half-human” drivel), I can’t exactly pretend Grace and Li aren’t brought back to life at the end. There’s handwaving, and then there’s just plain being stupid.
So the TARDIS uses the Eye of Harmony to resurrect Grace and Li and the Doctor says something along the lines of ‘She’s a sentimental thing, this old girl.’ I’m paraphrasing, forgive me. AT ANY RATE, he does say the word ‘sentimental.’ Now, if we look at the TARDIS’ characterisation of all the companions that came before Grace, we can see why this is not true, at least in her case, for two very simple reasons.
One: Grace killed Seven. Biggest no-no in the book. Two: Grace loves Eight. There are two things you can do that will earn you an eternal hatred with the TARDIS and Grace is full up. So why isn’t she under the ‘loathed’ category?
Because the movie dictates the TARDIS brought her back to life. And I can’t handwave it, because resurrection is a pretty big deal and she’s obviously very alive at the end of the movie. Could I pretend the end doesn’t happen? Sure. But then that means Li isn’t resurrected, and for all his faults, he was being manipulated by the Master. Remember up there where I said Master hatred trumps all? Yeah. So she’d resurrect Li for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but not Grace. But if I ignore the ending, Li remains dead. ARGH.
So the best I can do is say that the TARDIS had a MASSIVE MOMENT OF SENTIMENTALITY because Eight just exudes happiness or something. Or because she’d just eaten the Master. Whichever. But it caused her to break her own rules and resurrect Grace. Therefore, Grace goes in the ‘tolerate’ group because she sure can’t go anywhere else.
A study in respect; or 'But aren’t you an intelligent and thoughtful creature, I rather like you':
The vast majority of companions end up sharing space between this group and the previous, which actually surprised me, because I didn't think the numbers would be this favourable toward companions. See? The TARDIS even astounds me, sometimes.
Barbara Wright -- Baaaaabs. Babs is one of two exceptions to the ‘tolerate’ rule as described above for One and Two’s companions. Why, might you ask? Because she’s one of the first in the show to be all: ‘The TARDIS is alive!’ Thank you, Edge of Destruction, for that little plot point, elsewise you’d probably not be reading this and my fingers wouldn’t be cramping up. At any rate, Babs thinks it’s just awesomesauce that the TARDIS is alive, and that means the TARDIS takes notice of her! Coupled with Barbara’s absolute love of history and the places the TARDIS can take her? Yeah, you’ve got yourself a solid relationship and a fond remembrance.
Katarina and Sara Kingdom Katarina and Sara actually do not fall into the exception rule, but they are here for one very simple reason: they sacrificed themselves to save the Doctor. Had they chosen any other path and made a different choice, they’d probably be in a different category (which is up for debate), but they didn’t, and they died, and so the TARDIS has a great deal of respect for both women. If hurting the Doctor can earn you her eternal ire, saving his life can do the exact opposite, after all.
One can argue that Sara didn’t actually die to save One, but because she was stupid and in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is true. But she still followed him for fear of his safety and to help him should his plan fail. The TARDIS is rather good at handwaving what she wants to believe and twisting things to match her own style of logic, so to her, Sara’s death is more a sacrifice than it is a bad choice.
Zoe Herriot -- And here we have the real second exception to the One and Two rule. Why? Because Zoe is frigging intelligent. She does not interact often with the TARDIS, if at all, but she’s intelligent and creative and clever, something many of Two’s companions were not. It helps she didn’t have the hots for the Doctor. She was also a screamer, which, you know, is annoying, but considering the serials she’s taken from, it’s almost to be expected. With Zoe, the TARDIS actually felt something akin to sadness when she lost her memories, unlike with Jamie, where she didn’t particularly care. This is actually interesting to note, because as a general rule, the TARDIS likes the Doctor’s male companions more than his female ones.
Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw -- The TARDIS likes Liz for the same reason she liked Zoe: she’s intelligent, clever, and a scientist. She doesn’t blame Liz for not really understanding or acknowledging her presence, considering how the TARDIS was silenced at the time Liz was with Three, but the fact she helped the Doctor with repairs and, well … didn’t view the Doctor as a love interest so much as a rival, earned her a spot of respect with the TARDIS.
Sarah Jane Smith -- Sarah is one of those companions who is hard to forget because she made her presence so very well known. Did she get herself into any number of scraps? Yeah. Did she get the Doctor out of them? Most certainly. Did she love the Doctor? One can argue it! But to the TARDIS, she came across more as an intelligent, loyal companion than anything else. She was with Three through his regeneration into Four and she helped take care of the Doctor during some of his more tumultuous decisions. She also, you know, urged the Doctor to kill the Daleks. +100 affection points, that.
Sarah actually lucked out because she was a companion during a time when the TARDIS was beginning to understand the concepts of human interaction more. Is the old girl still racist? Sure, but she wasn’t viewing the Doctor’s companions so much as fleas as something to study. The Doctor’s sense of curiosity has finally affected her to the point where she wants to learn about this little species. The TARDIS is, by breeding, curious - she has to be, or she’d never leave the Vortex. But she’s always been more interested in the planets and stars they visit than the creatures that inhabit them. Right around Four’s era, that attitude begins to change.
Now, New Who makes Sarah Jane a little more difficult in terms of TARDIS characterisation, but this is remedied by the all-powerful handwave. As I said above, it can be argued that Sarah had some sort of attraction to the Doctor. I don’t doubt there was. But it was never a focal point and I doubt she would have ever made a big deal of it, being the even-headed thing she was. Then comes along School Reunion and suddenly she’s a simpering git who’s wasted her life waiting for the Doctor to return. Outside the fact it just makes me really angry, it’s also a disservice to her characterisation. So I rather like going with the idea that she was more nostalgic and swept up in the moment than actually pining for the Doctor, and after a while, she got hold of herself and wasn’t being a div anymore. As such, I don’t see it being a sticking point for the TARDIS.
Then again, Ten’s TARDIS is a vastly different creature from the one Sarah first encountered. She’s old and worn and broken and lonely. The TARDIS doesn’t have the energy to hate as she once hated, and this will be a point of discussion with the New Who companions.
Vislor Turlough -- Turlough is one of those companions who started off on the fast track to being loathed and ended up being rather liked, instead. He did more than enough to earn himself a spot on the loathed list, that’s for certain. He began his journey trying to kill the Doctor; his actions directly resulted in Nyssa remaining on Terminus; he had, as all Five’s Team TARDIS had, romantic tension with the Doctor. But he was also one of the few companions shown who actually tended to the TARDIS, was able to assist the Doctor in her repairs and upkeep, overcame the Black Guardian’s hold on him at risk of his own life and protected the Doctor when he otherwise should have been trying to kill him. Turlough is the perfect study in ‘how not to be loathed by the TARDIS’ and she remembers him fondly for it.
Hex -- The TARDIS likes Hex, plain and simple. He’s a whiny git, sure, but he’s a fun whiny git, and he brings a lot of excitement to an adventure. And as much as the TARDIS is tolerant of Seven and Ace’s relationship, she approves of the distraction Hex provides. She’s only tolerant of them getting busy, after all. Unless she’s involved. Hex also offers something of a companion to Ace and, as you’ll read below, Ace is exceedingly important to the TARDIS. Therefore, those things that make her happy (even in an aggravating sort of way - don’t deny it, Ace, Hex makes you happy), are welcome to the TARDIS.
C’rizz -- Like Turlough, C’rizz is another one of those companions who really should be in the ‘loathed’ category but, for the same reasons as Katarina and Sara, he isn’t. C’rizz is a really mixed package with the TARDIS. He’s a new species - one of the first she really gets to meet in the divergent universe, seeing as he’s travelling with Eight. He has knowledge she does not, and that fascinates her. He also, however, betrays the Doctor for Rassilon. Considering why she’s in a divergent universe, this is … well, it’s bad. Very bad. Generally, this would lead to outright hatred of him, and yet the TARDIS refrains. I don’t doubt she’s wary of him, especially with the voices in his head, but she’s also far too curious about this alien to completely write him off yet. She will do what she can to keep him from her Doctor, yes, but she thinks of him more as a lab rat to be studied.
Then he goes and sacrifices himself to save the Doctor and all the wariness and uncertainty are replaced by the same type of respect she felt for Katarina when the girl opened the airlock. Without that action, C’rizz would most likely be, at the most, a tolerated passenger, but his decision has moved him into the ‘respected’ category, for better or for worse.
A study in affection; or 'If I had a body, I would probably shag you if you asked; barring that, let’s have a hug':
Ahhh, the love group. This group is also small, similar to the ‘loathed’ group, but it is made up of the people the TARDIS treasures most in the universe. Other than the Doctor, at least. There is one person the TARDIS loves who will not go in this section, simply because she gets her own, along with her master.
Susan Foreman -- The TARDIS adores Susan. Absolutely adores her. Even if the girl hadn’t given the TARDIS her name, she’d still adore Susan. Some of this, I believe, is spill-off from the Doctor’s own emotions toward his granddaughter, but it also stems from the fact that Susan just honestly loves the TARDIS back. The old girl is her home, more so than even Earth, which Susan eventually adopts. Her choice to leave the Doctor is one of the only ones the TARDIS ever disagreed with and, at first, she was hurt by Susan’s decisions. But unlike those companions who chose Earth or other humans over the Doctor, Susan is the only one the TARDIS doesn’t resent for it. She simply misses her granddaughter.
In my headcanon, the TARDIS often gets into arguments with the Doctor over visiting Susan. She says they should, the Doctor tries to avoid it. After the War, Susan was the first person the TARDIS wanted to check on to make sure she was alive. Nine wouldn’t have it. She’s never quite forgiven him for not looking.
Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart -- If you didn’t see him being on this list, then you people haven’t been paying attention to the TARDIS’ journal name. There’s a reason why she chose the Brig’s form in Zagreus. He was the one who was most trustworthy, whom those she was trying to deceive would believe and recognise, yes, but the Brig has been a constant in the TARDIS’ life just as much as the Doctor’s. He has saved the Doctor countless times, travelled in her a handful of others, and he treats her as he would any of the Doctor’s companions.
That’s right. He treats her like a companion. For those of you just now playing along, the TARDIS sees herself as more than a machine, more than a vessel. She sees herself as a Time Lord. It’s why she hates Romana so much. Susan was the first to really see the TARDIS as more than a vessel. That the Brig does too is huge for her.
There’s also the fact that, for all his humanity, the Brig is very, very logical. He’s more a computer than she is, at times, and she loves that he is that dependable, that precise and unwavering. Let’s put it this way: if the Brig were a robot, a la Kamelion? You can bet she’d be getting down and dirty with him just because.
K9 -- Yay, a robot who isn’t Kamelion! The TARDIS loves K9 because he is like her. Well, sort of. He’s a sentient robot, and while he’s nowhere near as advanced as she is, she finds him to be something of a best mate. They can talk as they will, and K9 isn’t afraid to snark about the Doctor. She likes that. It bothered her a great deal when the Doctor sent him away with Romana, because she thought K9 deserved better than to be stuck with the Time Lady as a mistress. There have been elaborate plots to retrieve him from her. Thankfully, the Doctor doesn’t know about them.
Adric -- The TARDIS’ first ever BFF! Seriously, she loves Adric to pieces and views him as something of her son. Not only is the kid a genius, but he likes her. Being the Doctor’s adopted son doesn’t hurt, either. There’s really nothing more to it. She just loves him like cheesecake.
He does, unfortunately, also fall into the category of those who have sacrificed their lives for the Doctor. Not only does remembering this make the TARDIS incalculably sad, his death is also one of the only points in time she would ever actively attempt to change, laws and timelines be damned.
Nyssa -- And here we are, exception number one to the ‘loathe’ list. Why Nyssa, might you ask? Because of all Five’s companions, Nyssa is the only one the TARDIS was remotely attracted to, which trumps her hatred of the Doctor also being attracted to Nyssa.
Now, I’m going to take a quick moment here to note something, because it can be argued with both Ace and Reinette, as well as a few of the other companions the TARDIS likes. Being bonded to the Doctor as she is, it is entirely feasible that the impetus behind the TARDIS even liking some of these people is because the Doctor’s feelings are bleeding through their bond and affecting her judgement. I will not argue that, because I think it’s fully valid. But the TARDIS is also a sentient being in her own right, capable of making decisions and expressing emotions, and canon gives us that in all the little one-way arguments the Doctor has with her when she’s being petty or temperamental. It is my belief, therefore, that she does harbour her own feelings and emotions toward certain companions, ones that may have sparked from the Doctor’s feelings, but that she grew and cultivated on her own. The three exceptions are, I believe, initially influenced by the Doctor, but become something more through the TARDIS’ own making. Otherwise, she’d love every companion, same as the Doctor does, and not hate a one of them.
So! Nyssa. Nyssa is, I believe, the one emotionally closest to Five. They’ve a lot in common, after all, the least of which being the Master. They’re rather two kindred spirits, both aboard the TARDIS. Now, this would land Nyssa firmly in the ‘loathe’ group if the TARDIS herself didn’t care for the girl. But why should she? Because Nyssa understands the TARDIS in ways others do not. Turlough helps with the TARDIS, but he doesn’t understand her. Nyssa seems to harbour a much deeper understanding of the time ship, either because of her own scientific background or because of her people’s deep-seated connection with tranquillity. They are in tune with a concept and the TARDIS is, really, a concept, as well, at least in personality. She works in abstracts and Nyssa can see that.
There is also the fact that Nyssa and the TARDIS are the same in that they are, for all intents and purposes, the last of their kind. Nyssa’s home planet is destroyed in Logopolis by the very man who stole her father’s body. She’s an orphan in every sense of the word. One can assume that the TARDIS is the last functioning Type 40 in existence, since her kind have been replaced by successively newer models. The TARDIS sees something of herself in Nyssa and I believe that draws her to the girl, much more than it pushes her away. When Nyssa chose to stay on Terminus, the TARDIS was actually forlorn and she hasn’t quite gotten over the betrayal she sees it as.
Evelyne Smythe -- What’s not to love about Evelyn? No, seriously. Name one thing. Evelyn gets love because she is Barbara 2.0, only snarkier. The TARDIS finds the old professor incredibly endearing, and the Evelyn, for the most part, returns the sentiment, something the TARDIS is positively thrilled about. She also applauds Evelyn’s tendency to put the Doctor in his place, because really, the Doctor needs it. Often.
Dorothy “Ace” McShane -- Ah Ace. Exception the second. I blame this almost entirely on aces_are_rare and timewill_tell for their absolutely incredible take on the Seven/Ace dynamic, a ship I never actually believed in or agreed with until reading their work. They’ve built up this incredible universe and the more I read their interpretations, the more I liked them. Which, in turn, has affected the TARDIS’ take on their relationship.
Ace is one of those characters I loved from the get-go. She’s smart, sassy, and can hold her own. These are all reasons the TARDIS would also be able to tolerate her and, quite possibly, respect her. But then throw in the possibility of a relationship with the Doctor, and Ace finds herself firmly in the ‘loathe’ category. And yet, she isn’t. She’s here, with Nyssa, as an exception to the TARDIS’ rules on ‘Thou shalt not covet my Doctor.’ And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realise it’s because Ace and Nyssa have an awful lot in common.
Like Nyssa, Ace is something of a one-of-a-kind. She’s a self-titled orphan, if you will, and her only home, like Nyssa, is the TARDIS. Not because hers was destroyed, but because there is no place she can call home, considering her upbringing. So the TARDIS takes that role. And Ace, also like Nyssa, understands the TARDIS. Not on the same level, but she can understand the TARDIS’ love of the Doctor, her need to protect. She can understand the TARDIS on an emotional level whereas Nyssa understood the TARDIS on a technical and conceptual level.
Ace is also, I believe, one of the first companions the TARDIS marks as belonging to her. This is where the audios come into play big time, in particular Colditz and Rapture. ***If you’ve not heard these and don’t want to be spoiled, I suggest not reading any further.*** The TARDIS is, as we’ve seen with the Doctor, highly possessive of those she considers as belonging to her. She will do anything to protect what is hers, even if that means killing another. It plays on that lack of morality mentioned way up forever ago. In Colditz, Ace is held hostage and just about raped by Kurtz, a German guard of the Third Reich. He does untold amounts of damage to Ace’s psyche, scarring her in ways that go beyond flesh. At the end of the audio, he is, quite literally, ripped in half in front of Ace’s eyes when he gets trapped half-in, half-out of the TARDIS as she dematerialises. In my headcanon, this was done intentionally as punishment for what he did to Ace. The TARDIS could have either allowed him full entry or ejected him, but she chose, instead, to pin him between temporal shifts as she dematerialised. This obviously had some rather negative effects on Ace, ones the TARDIS would not have foreseen because, hi, she doesn’t think like humans, and so she attempts to help heal Ace by giving her what she’s always wanted: a family. This is done in Rapture when they show up in Spain in time to meet her long-lost brother. The TARDIS is trying, in her own strange way, to make Ace happy and give her something that can be construed as kind. ***You can read again now.***
All of this leads me to believe the TARDIS honestly loves Ace in ways she hadn’t really loved a companion before now. Ace holds a place with the TARDIS that was only ever held by a Time Lord before. And considering how some people speculate that Seven was priming Ace to become a Time Lord, that seems highly appropriate to me.
Compassion -- Compassion has the honour of being the only novel character on this list. Why? Because she’s the TARDIS’ daughter. You don’t really get much more simple than that.
Unlike the child the TARDIS (maybe, possibly, sort of) had with Kamelion, Compassion was a concentrated, purposeful decision on the TARDIS’ part to create a new Type of TARDIS. She knew what she was doing when she created Compassion, and she did so almost ruthlessly, destroying the being Compassion used to be in order to give birth to a daughter. This is another example of that whole lack of morality thing, not that the TARDIS cares. Seeing as how she put so much effort into Compassion’s creation, the TARDIS is incredibly protective of the woman. She nurses and cultivates all of Compassion’s abilities, as well as her personality - one that, one might note, is very similar to the TARDIS’ own temperament. No wonder Compassion and Eight get on so well.
Also unlike the child with Kamelion, I see the TARDIS actually taking a vested interest in what happens with Compassion, especially when she begins breeding new Types of TARDIS. I do not doubt she did her best to keep in contact with the Type-102 during the War and often sends out probes to see if her daughter is still alive once the Time War is over.
Now then, my dear reader, a few of you may have noticed that there are no New Who companions on this list as of yet. And you very well may be wondering why. I can’t blame you! After all, this is page 15 of a never-ending essay and well on its way to 9,000 words, but I’ve not yet mentioned Rose, or Martha, or Donna or Jack. What gives! Well, I will tell you, my lovely readers. New Who, quite frankly, doesn’t work the same way Classic Who does in terms of categorising companions. And there is one very simple reason for this. The TARDIS is too broken to feel that way.
Yes, you read that right. She’s too broken. The Time War took a great toll on both her and the Doctor, and neither of them are exactly what one might call healthy, emotionally or physically. They are all the other has and are, as such, indescribably lonely. Where before she would loathe and resent and (sometimes) like the people the Doctor travelled with, now she clings to them as much as he does, desperate for the attention, to hear new voices and know the Doctor is not alone any longer. She still dislikes several things the New Who characters do (she does not, for example, agree with Rose loving the Doctor. At all), but there isn’t the same kind of concentrated effort to hate them as she once had. She doesn’t actually hate any of them. It takes too much effort and she’s too tired to let herself.
Therefore, New Who companions are each considered separately and on their own merits, instead of fitting into an arbitrary category of the TARDIS’ choosing.
So, let us begin.
Rose Tyler -- The most significant thing about Rose is that she came at a time when both the Doctor and TARDIS needed someone. Badly. She wasn’t the smartest, but she was clever and loyal and generally pretty keen to learn. She brought a new perspective to things that previous companions didn't, and she saved the Doctor more than once. She also almost destroyed time, but not everyone's perfect, and considering how much the TARDIS wanted to go back and changed the past, not entirely without merit.
The TARDIS also trusted Rose enough to use the girl's body at the end of Parting of the Ways. This is entirely personal canon, but I do believe that the majority of what Rose did (ie: killing the Daleks), was because the TARDIS had possessed her and was in control of her body. Resurrecting Jack was entirely Rose, because the TARDIS would never break that kind of law, but leading up to that was a joint effort, at the least.
By S2, the TARDIS still likes Rose, but her clinginess toward Ten is noticeable enough that it becomes bothersome. She doesn't loathe Rose for it, but there's a general feeling of 'I'm only tolerating this because it makes him happy' than a genuine approval. When Rose leaves, the TARDIS is still honestly upset to see her gone, and I don't think she'd have allowed the Doctor to destroy a sun otherwise, but she wasn't nearly as close as she was with Rose when Nine piloted her.
For the most part, the feelings the TARDIS felt for S1 Rose carry over to realityshifted. They aren't exact, as R/s TARDIS is from Eight's timeline and therefore has yet to meet Rose or go through the Time War, but she finds Miss Tyler endearing. She is quick to note, however, that Rose can never truly have the Doctor to herself, even if she wants to, and more often than not tells her the Doctor cannot and will not return the girl's affection.
Mickey Smith -- Mickey didn't spend enough time on the TARDIS, and for that, she's fairly sad. He was a breath of fresh air, really, and his keen interest in technology made the TARDIS incredibly happy. Him downloading porn, not so much.
Jack Harkness -- Oh Jack. His is a case of someone she highly favoured becoming someone she immensely loathes, and not of his own doing. The TARDIS really liked Jack during his S1 appearance. Like ... really liked Jack. He was intelligent, suave, and paid her attention. He knew his way around computers and machines and was a help to the Doctor with the TARDIS' numerous repairs. He was also, you know, friendly, and both the Doctor and the TARDIS could use more of those types of faces, coming off the war as they had.
But then Rose resurrected him, and the TARDIS' racism kicked in. Intellectually, she knows Jack is still the same person, personality-wise, but the utter wrongness she feels from him makes her violently ill. He is unnatural and unwanted, and even if she would like for him to return to her, she cannot stomach his presence. She is not the Doctor; she cannot overcome certain base functions. And her instincts tell her to flee him. Immediately.
The TARDIS at realityshifted generally feels the same way toward Jack. She does not have the benefit (or sorrow) of having known him previously, and so her initial interaction with him was one of disgust. She attempts at remaining civil, but there is a distinct lack of affection for him.
Reinette -- Exception the third, for more than one reason. Reinette isn't even technically a companion, for one. She's the woman Ten has to save, but she doesn't travel with him. She's a 'what if' and a regret, on multiple levels. She could have been a lover, she could have been a companion, she could have been a best friend, she could have been, could have been. But Time didn't allow that. It only allowed what was given. And what was given was enough to, in the past, warrant intense hatred from the TARDIS. But it actually ended up the exactly opposite.
The TARDIS loves Reinette, because Reinette has a reason to love the Doctor. She looked into his mind and understood him in ways no companion has before. And knowing that, she did not ask of him anything, made no demands, and expected him to be nothing more than he was. Where most would pick and choose what they wanted the Doctor to be, she simply accepted what he was and that, to the TARDIS, makes Reinette something of a kindred spirit. Reinette can see the light and dark in Ten and she loves him anyway, just as the TARDIS can see all the dark and horrible things the Doctor is, all the bright and beautiful things, and love him without fail. There is a huge amount of respect there and, even though it pained her to be separated from the Doctor by such a great margin of time, the TARDIS did not fear for him while he was with Reinette. She simply waited, and hoped he'd return.
At R/s, the TARDIS feels very similar. Through their discussions, she's found a great deal to like in Reinette and finds herself very attached to the woman. She is one of the only people on the Plane that can really understand and share the TARDIS' love of the Doctor, and that is a strange comfort to the old girl, even in her youth, when she's far more catty and cruel.
Martha Jones -- Martha and the TARDIS were totally BFFs while she was a companion. She was clever, intelligent, more than willing to talk back to the Doctor, and significantly more subtle about her attraction. The TARDIS appreciated that. Martha also proved herself during the Year That Never Was and not only saved the Doctor, but the TARDIS, as well. When she left, the TARDIS viewed it as a slap to the face and was rather unhappy with the Doctor for a good deal of time afterward.
Martha hasn't been around at R/s long enough for the TARDIS to really get to know her like she does Rose. Being from before Martha's time, she has no previous feelings or experiences to go by and must base all her knowledge on the things the Doctor has told her.
Donna Noble -- There are no words to describe the love the TARDIS has for Donna, but it's pretty intense. Like Ace, Donna is 'marked' by the TARDIS and considered 'hers.' Ever since she first encountered her in The Runaway Bride, the TARDIS has been keenly interested in Donna, both as a human, and as an anomoly. Donna warps Time, rearranging events and affecting timelines in ways that even the TARDIS cannot fully understand. She is fascinating as a creature of Time, but she is also that special blend of personality that the TARDIS is particularly drawn to. She's head-strong, no-nonsense, clever and independent. She's also not attracted to the Doctor which, of all the New Who companions, is a first. (Mickey totally wanted a threesome.)
Donna is tragic for several reasons, not the least of which being her sendoff in Journey's End. Much like Compassion before her, the TARDIS views Donna as her child. She made her what she was in the finale, created the DoctorDonna and the DonnaDoctor. It was out of desperation, yes, but she is a child as much as reject!Ten is, and so when the Doctor sent her away, the TARDIS mourned.
I do not doubt the TARDIS has plans for Donna. Ten is adept at wiping memories, it seems, but what is lost can be reclaimed, and the TARDIS is not a bad surgeon herself. After losing everything she's ever loved to the Time War, the ship is not about to lose another daughter, and certainly not because of the Doctor's actions. In my headcanon, the TARDIS is slowly but surely removing all traces of Time Lord from Donna, cutting them out, allowing her to heal, then cutting out more, awakening memories and emotions as she goes. It isn't fair to Donna to be trapped in a body or world that are no longer hers, and it isn't fair to the TARDIS to watch her suffer. When all of the Time Lord has been cut away, the TARDIS intends on returning to Donna, if only to apologise, and bid her the proper farewell she was not allowed to receive.
The TARDIS loves R/s Donna about as much as she loves canon!Donna, without a doubt. All of the feelings that endeared the old girl to Miss Noble in the future endear her to the ship now, and the TARDIS oftens finds herself longing for Donna's company. She doesn't even necessarily want to talk. She just wants Donna to sit in her console room, chatting her up or reading a book. There is something about her the TARDIS finds immensely calming and she's one of the few on the Plane the TARDIS will defend as fiercely as she does the Doctor.
AND THE COMPANION LIST IS COMPLETE! It's not over, but it's complete. Those of you still hanging in there, I commend you. Those of you who just joined us because you skipped the first 9,000 words, I find you clever.
This next section is reserved for the only other recurring characters in the show who are not companions. Because no list of the TARDIS' feelings would be complete without writing about her take on the Master and his TARDIS. So here we go!
The Master -- The Master started off something of a nuisance who quickly and efficiently earned himself the spot of Most Hated Creature in Existence Ever. Even Romana cannot trump the Master, and for very good reason. Romana, for all her faults, does not hate the Doctor, nor was she once the Doctor's best friend. The Master betrayed the Doctor in a way no other entity can boast and for that alone, the TARDIS could hate him forever.
To add insult to injury, he's also, you know ... destroyed a third of the universe, injured beloved companions, killed a Doctor and, you know, turned her into a Paradox Machine. Nothing big, really. I swear. He's conniving, abusive, distinctly unlikeable, tastes really, really bad, and yet the Doctor still loves him, anyway. That, more than anything, angers the TARDIS, because she's afraid that, if push ever came to shove, the Doctor would choose the Master over her, even though she loves him most in the universe.
There are two Masters at realityshifted and the TARDIS, wonder of wonders, hates them both. Go fig. But let us look at each separately, shall we?
Ainley!Master -- Ainley!Master is actually the more tolerable of the two, but also the one who terrifies the TARDIS most. (Shh, don't tell him.) He's the one she's most familiar with and therefore the one she understands the most, but there is also a certain sadism beneath his polite facade that Simm!Master's outward crazy doesn't quite capture. Simm!Master functions off his emotions; at times, Ainley!Master seems not to even have them, and that terrifies her beyond belief.
It should be noted that Ainley!Master is also the Master who took advantage of the TARDIS when she was being manipulated into hating the Doctor. She thought she could not hate him more than she did; now she knows that, yes, there is no threshold to how much one can loathe another.
Simm!Master -- The TARDIS has no canon knowledge of Simm!Master, and so she cannot fully understand the crazy that he is, which tends to make her far more cheeky and brave when confronting him. She's aware that he will later rape her and turn her into a Paradox Machine, but she does not fear the future and has no real desire to let him see her uncertainty. Because Simm!Master is so emotional (for lack of a better word), she also finds him easier to be around. Oh, she still hates him beyond measure, but she's capable of holding actual civil conversations with him, whereas Ainley!Master, more often than not, will get, at most, a politely worded insult.
Simm!Master, while not taking full advantage of a manipulated TARDIS, did at one point plant the drums inside her mind. Just for kicks, mind. She didn't really appreciate that. He's also living with a Doctor and that is a significant point of contention for her, which results in more than one very nasty confrontations with both Simm!Master and Ten.One.
Lolita -- Call her what you will -- Lolita, the Master's TARDIS, Buyan, I don't care -- but she is the only other creature in existence that the TARDIS loves with the same intensity as she loves the Doctor. It's far from a healthy relationship and it certainly isn't constant, but there is an undeniable attraction and connection between the TARDIS and Lolita. The easiest way to sum it up would be to call it the Master/Doctor 2.0, because it's about as abusive and about as pathetic. Lolita, like her master, is cruel and callous and, more often than not, hurts the TARDIS when she has the chance, both emotionally and physically. She strings the old girl along, captivates her senses, then disappears with her master, leaving the other unfulfilled and longing.
As of her timeline in R/s, assuming Simm!Master is to be believed, Lolita is probably all ready dead. The TARDIS chooses to believe he's lying, but the very idea of the other ship being gone has caused her incalcuable sorrow.
AND THERE. THAT IS IT FOR CANON! Those of you playing along for just the Companion List, I commend you on your tenancity and spirit for getting this far. I'm surprised I got this far and didn't just give up. Apparently I'm a masochist.
AND APPARENTLY THE POST IS TOO BIG orz. SO. The relationships for R/s are going in a different goddamn post. As to this one: If I forgot anyone, I am really, really sorry. I did my absolute best. If you feel I did someone an injustice, or want to point out a companion I missed (and that isn't an audio companion, I all ready addressed that issue), please, feel free to say something!
I hate each and every one of you.
Actually, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be writing this. But as I got to thinking about it, I realised there is a great deal I could say about the TARDIS in terms of relationships with the Doctor’s harem companions that doesn’t revolve so much around sexuality and sensuality, but around affection. Yes, you read that right. Affection.
Allow me to explain.
It actually all begins with the one person she’s spent nigh on a millennia with: the Doctor. To understand what I mean, we need to understand exactly what living with the Doctor for 900 years will do to a person (or, in this case, a machine).
By the very nature of their relationship, the Doctor and TARDIS are very close. There’s really no room for dispute in this, it’s stated throughout canon all over the place. She’s his ship, his home, his best friend, and he’s her saviour. They are also mentally connected through the Rassilon Imprimature, which only adds another layer to the entire thing because they can feel what each other are feeling. The closest real approximation to this would be, for all intents and purposes, soul mates.
Now, the Doctor travels around with an assortment of companions for a few years each, and by the time they leave, each of them is changed in their own unique way from knowing the Doctor. You see it time and again. Keep in mind, they are simply travelling with him. Are they friends? Yes. Are some of them closer than others? Certainly. But they are still humans (and aliens) gallivanting around the universe with a Time Lord who, quite frankly, thinks the world of himself.
Imagine being bonded to that.
By the very nature of their bond, the TARDIS sits inside the Doctor’s head, in some little niggling place, and that makes for a very easy method of imprinting. So for approximately 900 years (and I would argue more, but let’s use canon numbers for now), the TARDIS has been soaking up bits and pieces of the Doctor’s beliefs, attitude and viewpoints, not unlike a really large sponge, while the Doctor has been drawn further and further into her psychic networking. Bonds go both ways, after all. But if just a couple years can change his companions in so many ways, sharing such an intimate connection with the Doctor for so long has to have some serious effects on the TARDIS’ psyche herself.
But star, you cry! What does this have to do with sexuality?
Ah-hah, my dear reader, I respond. It has everything to do with it.
As I said, a whole bunch of you have been explaining the Doctor’s take on sexuality. One of the biggest things in common among them have been the Doctor’s often callous or ambivalent attitude toward sex in general. It’s nice, sure, but he’s got better things to do. As a giant computer, just to simplify, the TARDIS would have extensive knowledge on sex as an act. Her databanks would probably make the Kama Sutra blush and be of intense interest to Jack if he had a week to kill. And that’s all well and good! Knowledge is power, yadda yadda, but the TARDIS is still a machine and an attitude toward sex is different than a knowledge of it.
And her most intimate understanding of an attitude toward sex? Comes from the Doctor himself.
I do so hope you see where I’m going with this.
The Doctor doesn’t value sexual relationships the way humans do. He loves people, sure, but he’s rarely in love with them, and even when he is, he’s an awkward little idiot about it. I’m looking at you, Ten. He’s not exactly Casanova (and if you get that pun, I love you). So the TARDIS, naturally, does not view sex or sexuality as all that important. Let us use sexuality from this point on because, like I said, she’s not exactly getting down and dirty with people. But love and affection? Oh, she understands that in spades.
So, the TARDIS doesn’t really consider sexuality important the way other characters might. It’s there, stored in her databanks, but it’s not exactly top priority. Affection, however, is perhaps the single most important emotion she feels. It even trumps her being a selfish, catty, wilful brat. Again, canon shows us just how cheeky she can be (and I’m not even getting into the audio dramas for this part! Whoooole ‘nother can of worms, that. It’ll be toward the bottom, promise!) But it can be argued, and I am here, hence this essay, that her other personality traits stem almost exclusively from her love of the Doctor.
And this part requires background!
Canon says the Doctor stole the TARDIS. Now, there’s plenty of speculation as to why and how. We know he wanted to leave Gallifrey, but I’m not sure that he’s ever given a clear-cut reason outside “by Omega, but they are stuffy bints.” Now! This part is funny, because I can’t remember if the TARDIS was canonly scheduled to be decommissioned when he stole her. Haha, how bad am I? But! We do know that when he stole her, she was all ready an older model and on the fritz. I personally believe he saved her from death. But no matter the reason, he did steal her and they’ve been together a long time. He gave her back the stars just as much as she gave them to him.
If that’s not a reason to love someone, I really don’t know what is.
So, we’ve got a renegade Time Lord and his stolen ship. He’s still a young’un when he steals her, and she’s all ready old. I do not doubt she viewed him as something of a child to be protected. Fast forward a few hundred years, and that love has now become something other than maternal. Which doesn’t bother the TARDIS at all, because she doesn’t differentiate between types of love. Love is love, doesn’t matter who it’s toward. The problem with loving the Doctor comes from the fact that the TARDIS is exceedingly jealous. The Technical Manual states that “it is impossible (or at least unethical) for a Time Lord to own more then one TARDIS. This is, at least in part, due to the fact that a TARDIS becomes terribly jealous when an operator is bonded to more then one” and would more than likely do horrible, evil things to the other in a jealous fit.
To recap: the TARDIS loves the Doctor. The TARDIS is an exceedingly jealous creature. The Doctor travels with a whole lot of people who may or may not love him and whom he may or may not love in return. As you can see, this is a right recipe for disaster should that last little bit be true.
This is not to say all her personality traits stem from jealousy. The TARDIS is about as racist as they come (I’m looking at you, vampires and Jack), she’s pissy and wilful and “talks back” to the Doctor, if we are to go by some of his dialogue toward her. She’s horribly arrogant and lacks the same sense of altruism and morality the Doctor has. But her selfishness, cattiness and downright rude behaviour can more often than not be attributed to her affection for, and therefore jealousy of, the Doctor and his various companions. There are, obviously, exceptions to this rule, which I will get to below, but first, a very brief (and I do mean brief, because this thing will never end if I don’t) look at her affection for the Doctor. As if I haven’t given enough.
Basically, the TARDIS loves each Doctor in the same way, but not with the same intensity. As stated earlier, she doesn’t exactly differentiate between types of love, so her maternal affection for One is viewed the same way as her frighteningly possessive love of Eight as her clingy love of Ten. Those little adjectives I just used, however, demonstrate a difference in intensity, which I believe stems from two factors: how long she’s been with the Doctor, and his attitude toward her. I will use a couple quick examples.
The TARDIS obviously loves One (or Theta, depending on how you look at it) for stealing her in the first place. He’s young and naïve and tetchy, and she sees him as someone to protect. By the time we get to Three and she’s been silenced, there’s a distinct longing for his presence that wasn’t necessarily present when they were properly bonded. Three is, I believe, the first to call her ‘old girl,’ an obvious sign of affection and an acknowledgement of her being more than just a mere machine.
Then we get to Six and his speech about the TARDIS being his only constant. There is a lot of stroking and petting going on in Six’s run, somewhat akin to Four’s but no so much protective as it is almost possessive on his part. Seven is perhaps the most open about his bond with the TARDIS, something you hear over and over again in the audios. I mean it. Over and over and over again. Perfect example:
Doctor: "Well, my TARDIS is a well-travelled one, and we've been together for a long time. We've grown together."
Mel: "Hmm...like an old married couple."
The TARDIS is most openly hostile and possessive of the Doctor during Eight’s run. There is an entire audio dedicated to this fact. That does, however, tie into her characterisation at realityshifted, which I will get to later, so. Moving on.
After the Time War (another long and exhausting essay which I may or may not one day write, haven’t decided yet), both the Doctor and the TARDIS are a little more than broken. They need each other in ways they never did before. Which, you know, I really wish canon addressed more but whatev, rant for a different day. As such, you see a distinct lack of the TARDIS’ wilful and jealous attitude, especially toward his new companions. You do, however, see that protective streak rear its massive head again, points of example from my own personal canon being the ending of Parting of the Ways and the creation of the DoctorDonna and DonnaDoctor in Journey’s End.
No matter how you look at it, though, the TARDIS does love the Doctor, obsessively so, and that reflects on her attitude toward his companions. So, let’s take a look at the majority of those who were lucky enough to travel with the Doctor and forgive me any errors, lack of insight or just plain skipping of certain companions. I’ll do my best with those I’ve no personal knowledge of (with a huge all mighty thank you to those who gave me information), and I’m not breaking my back for all the audio companions. It’s just not happening. I AM ONLY HUMAN, PEOPLE.
So! The Companion List shall be as follows:
A study in loathing; or 'I would that I could eject you from my interior into the depths of space if only the Doctor would let me':
For as horribly catty as she can be, there are only a handful of people who actually make this distinction, two of them because they were unlucky enough to be travelling with younger Doctors when the TARDIS was still too new to the concept of companions for her to differentiate between “threat” and “they’ll leave eventually.” I will note that there are three exceptions to this list, companions who would otherwise be on here because of their attitude and interactions with the Doctor, but that for very specific reasons are instead loved by the old girl. They will be discussed in detail later, but they are: Nyssa of Traken, Ace McShane and Reinette, who is a special case in her own right.
Jamie McCrimmon - Jamie, unfortunately, falls into this category for one reason only: he was unlucky enough to get close to the Doctor during his youth, when the TARDIS was particularly overprotective and still too new to companions and their dealings with the Doctor. On the one hand, she rather appreciated Jamie’s bravery, as it got the Doctor out of a scrap or six, but his dismal understanding of technology was a sore spot, and don’t think she didn’t see him and Two making eyes at each other. Bad form, Jamie. Bad form.
Jo Grant - The TARDIS rather hates Jo for a lot of reasons, the most obvious being that the Doctor fancied her. This is pretty much asking to be the object of her ire (because she can’t, of course, hate the Doctor). Jo’s lack of real understanding of the TARDIS, coupled with her ditzy attitude, don’t really help matters much. The TARDIS also blames Jo for leaving the Doctor for another man, a hypocrisy that isn’t necessarily lost on her, but she still justifies.
Romanadvoratrelundar “Romana” (I and II) - Romana drilled a hole in the TARDIS and forever cemented herself in the ‘I really, really hate you’ group. Her borderline intimate relationship with the Doctor only intensified that hatred. Romana has a lot going against her in the TARDIS’ opinion, and not only on the sexuality front. That’s part of it, yes, but the TARDIS hates Romana for a lot of reasons. For all her intelligence, Romana is arrogant and oftentimes rude, and tends to adopt the general Time Lord attitude of the TARDIS simply being a machine, perhaps the second most hated thing one can do to the old girl, after fancying her Doctor.
Romana has the distinction of being the first companion the TARDIS really dislikes for reasons that extend behind the superficial. Jamie and Jo never really did anything to the TARDIS herself, but she dislikes them because of their relationships (perceived or otherwise) with the Doctor. Romana actually damaged the TARDIS and, while it really isn’t that big of a deal or a wound when examined objectively, the old girl still perceived it as a threat. There’s also the fact that Romana is a Time Lady. Why should that matter, one asks? Well simple. Because, according to the Technical Manual (and my own personal take), the TARDIS views herself as a Time Lord. Having Romana on board subverts that belief and gives the Doctor an “equal” with whom he can interact in ways he cannot interact with the TARDIS. The TARDIS is not only jealous of Romana’s relationship with the Doctor, but of Romana herself.
If we want to take this farther than canon and get into the audios, Romana is also responsible for a handful of other slights against both the TARDIS and the Doctor. In Zagreus (and this audio will come up a lot, just sayin’), Romana essentially kills the TARDIS by dropping her in the Crucible. She threatens to kill the Doctor if the anti-time infection cannot be removed from him, and her last words to Eight before he leaves for the divergent universe are anything but cordial. Assuming RTD wasn’t just pulling our chain, Romana is Lady President during the Time War, and therefore responsible for all the horrendous orders the Doctor must follow and the eventual regeneration of Eight into Nine.
Being as protective and possessive as she is, harming the Doctor is about as grave a crime as is possible in the TARDIS’ eyes and I honestly believe that, by this point, it would take a monumental effort for the TARDIS to view Romana as anything other than a person to loathe.
Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown -- Quite frankly, Peri is annoying. She’s loud, raucous and whines far too much, in the TARDIS’ opinion, not to mention she doesn’t wear enough clothes and so gets the Doctor’s attention. She’s also, you know, the reason Five regenerated into Six, and as I’ve noted with Romana, being the reason the Doctor is injured is about the worst thing you can be to the TARDIS. It wasn’t even Peri’s fault, but she was there and he died to protect her.
This is one of those sticking points where the TARDIS’ sense of “morality” and the Doctor’s do not coincide. He saved Peri because she was his companion. Didn’t matter she was his companion for all of two seconds, she was his companion, and therefore meant to be protected. To the TARDIS, she’s just a silly, simple human girl, not worth the life of a Time Lord, let alone the Doctor. If it meant saving him, the TARDIS would gladly and gleefully allow Peri to die. So him saving her and losing a life is almost a personal affront to the TARDIS, and, as with Jo, she can’t hate the Doctor for his actions toward his companions, but she can hate the companion for being there to receive said treatment.
Taking a step back from canon and examining the Short Trips, it’s interesting to note that the TARDIS’ child with Kamelion (I’ll get to that), ends up taking the form of Peri and is left on Earth to fill in for Miss Brown while she’s traipsing across the universe with Six. I don’t believe the TARDIS has any real connection to the child, she’s more of a “maybe I’ll see her again and then we can chat” sort of anomaly, but the TARDIS is also bitchy, and I can see her holding the entire affair against Peri, just to be able to tell the Doctor “See? She has taken my child from me. She is a nuisance, be rid of her.”
Charlotte Pollard -- There is a very, very, very lot to be said of Charley, and very little of it positive. For those of you not familiar with who Miss Pollard is, she’s a companion of the Eighth Doctor’s and there is absolutely no love lost between her and the TARDIS. To put it in comparison, Charley rates right up there with the Master and Romana on the hate scale, only this time, it is based almost exclusively on the girl’s sexual and emotional attraction to Eight.
But it all began with her being a paradox. See, the Doctor saved Charley from the destruction of the R-101, a ship on which all the passengers (according to the audios, which are actually inaccurate as to the historical facts) were supposed to die. Ripping her out of time the way he did made Charley unnatural, much the same as Jack’s immortality makes him. There’s point number one. Then the girl has the audacity to fall in love with Eight and, horror of horrors, have him return the sentiment (the feeling can be argued). Point number two. Charley is clingy and whiny with the Doctor, she’s headstrong and naïve about the Laws of Time and other such ‘You really need to pay attention to these’ sorts of things, and she’s mouthy to the TARDIS. The only time she shows any real understanding of the TARDIS is during Zagreus, and that’s only after Romana dropped her in the Crucible. After that, it goes right back to snarking and snipping.
To the TARDIS, Charley signifies two things: a rival for the Doctor’s affection, obviously, but also a betrayal of the affection he has for her. To save Charley, the Doctor not only risked all of time and space, he also infected both himself and the TARDIS with anti-time, leading to their exile into the divergent universe. Where, by the way, the TARDIS had no purpose, and got manipulated by Rassilon. Again. Goddamnit. He chose the human girl’s safety over that of his ship. It is the entire reason the events in Zagreus happen, and the TARDIS does some very, very cruel things to the Doctor in that audio out of her hatred for what he’s done. It’s through a manipulation of her emotions, yes, but they’d not be there for the manipulation if she didn’t harbour them initially.
So Charley gets herself a special place on the ‘I hate you like the burning of a million supernovas’ list, and is, I will note, the last such companion to be treated as such. Good job, Miss Pollard.
A study in indifference; or 'I permit you passage, do be so kind as to not become loathed':
It should be noted that almost all of One and Two’s companions go here. Being new to the whole companion thing, the TARDIS wouldn’t have any concrete understanding of human interactions and social setups (not that she does now, mind) and would view the majority of the humans who travelled in her as something more like a flea on a cat. If they bit (ie: showed affection for the Doctor), she would react (ie: Jamie), but otherwise, she doesn’t really notice them. There are at least two exceptions to this, but I will discuss them later.
Ian Chesterton -- Other than protecting Barbara and helping out the Doctor in certain scraps, the TARDIS has no real interest in Ian at all. To her, he was more there as a tool to be used in difficult situations and, being one of the first humans to board her, more a cerebral nuisance than anything. Remember, she’s racist.
Vicki, et. al. -- These guys all go together for two very simple reasons. One: the TARDIS doesn’t differentiate between any of them. None of them made a particular impact on her, none of them drew any particular attention from or foisted any particular attention on the Doctor (save you, Polly, but it wasn’t enough) and they were, quite frankly, just little stupid humans. Also, I just don’t have enough information on them to make proper graphs for each. Hey, it’s my Companion List, I’ll do what I want. Suffice to say, they were more like blips or fleas and the TARDIS hardly thinks on them anymore.
Harry Sullivan -- Harry is one of those people who might possibly have been in the respect group, but he just wasn’t around long enough and didn’t do enough for her to really think on him in any particular light. He helped the Doctor into his Fourth regeneration and certainly saved the man from a scrap or six, but the TARDIS remembers Sarah Jane far more than Harry. Not to say she didn’t like Harry when he travelled with them. He was curious and well-mannered and kind, but that’s really about it. He’s sort of like Ian in that regard.
Leela -- Leela ranks about as high on the TARDIS’ scale of species to pay attention to as humans do. She was loud, stupid and wore waaaay too little. The TARDIS appreciated her trying to learn, because any creature that is willing to gain knowledge is worthwhile, but she’s also a haughty bitch and Leela just didn’t quite make the cut. Leela also has the unfortunate stigma of being Romana’s friend and bodyguard? Confidant? Whatever the hell she ends up being, which negates any positive views the TARDIS may have had on her.
Tegan Jovanka -- Oh Tegan. Tegan gets stuck here because the TARDIS just didn’t really like her, but certainly didn’t loathe her. It can be argued there was a certain amount of romantic tension between her and Five (but then again, it can be argued there was a certain amount of romantic tension between all of Five’s Team TARDIS), but Tegan’s general no-nonsense, do-not-mess-with-me, I-won’t-have-any-of-it attitude just about negated it. She was, quite frankly, mean to Five, and put him through a lot of turmoil. She never physically harmed him, or led to any physical harm like, say, Peri, but she was still a point of extreme contention during her stay with him.
On the other hand, Tegan also took care of him during his regeneration into Five, something the TARDIS must credit her for, and she cared for Adric, the TARDIS’ first real BFF. Five and Tegan parted on decent terms, but the TARDIS still views the entire thing as a slight against the Doctor, which negates any positive feelings she has for the woman and lands her squarely in the ‘tolerate’ pool.
Kamelion -- Why, might you ask, would the theoretical father of one of the TARDIS’ children be in the ‘tolerate’ group? Simple. Because that’s all he is: tolerable. Even for a machine, he was a nuisance and the TARDIS really had no care for him whatsoever. Whether you want to take the Short Trips into account or not, assuming she did have a child with Kamelion, I firmly believe it was more of a ‘Let’s see if it’s possible’ scenario than because the TARDIS had a burning urge to get down and dirty with a shape-shifting robot. Ignoring the fact that TARDISes don’t even reproduce that way (at least, not until Compassion, but she’s later), you’ve also got the lovely issue of Kamelion attempting to, you know, kill the Doctor. The only reason he isn’t loathed for that is because he was being manipulated by the Master, and the Master trumps all in the hatred department.
Melanie “Mel” -- Mel is annoying. Very, very annoying. There’s really nothing else to it.
Dr Grace Holloway -- Grace, oh Grace, how you ruin everything. Grace is, quite frankly, a massive sticking point in the TARDIS’ characterisation and I hate it. As much as I like the movie (what? I adore camp!), and as much as I pick and choose what is canon in it (like perfect_shoes, I do not believe in the “Doctor is half-human” drivel), I can’t exactly pretend Grace and Li aren’t brought back to life at the end. There’s handwaving, and then there’s just plain being stupid.
So the TARDIS uses the Eye of Harmony to resurrect Grace and Li and the Doctor says something along the lines of ‘She’s a sentimental thing, this old girl.’ I’m paraphrasing, forgive me. AT ANY RATE, he does say the word ‘sentimental.’ Now, if we look at the TARDIS’ characterisation of all the companions that came before Grace, we can see why this is not true, at least in her case, for two very simple reasons.
One: Grace killed Seven. Biggest no-no in the book. Two: Grace loves Eight. There are two things you can do that will earn you an eternal hatred with the TARDIS and Grace is full up. So why isn’t she under the ‘loathed’ category?
Because the movie dictates the TARDIS brought her back to life. And I can’t handwave it, because resurrection is a pretty big deal and she’s obviously very alive at the end of the movie. Could I pretend the end doesn’t happen? Sure. But then that means Li isn’t resurrected, and for all his faults, he was being manipulated by the Master. Remember up there where I said Master hatred trumps all? Yeah. So she’d resurrect Li for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but not Grace. But if I ignore the ending, Li remains dead. ARGH.
So the best I can do is say that the TARDIS had a MASSIVE MOMENT OF SENTIMENTALITY because Eight just exudes happiness or something. Or because she’d just eaten the Master. Whichever. But it caused her to break her own rules and resurrect Grace. Therefore, Grace goes in the ‘tolerate’ group because she sure can’t go anywhere else.
A study in respect; or 'But aren’t you an intelligent and thoughtful creature, I rather like you':
The vast majority of companions end up sharing space between this group and the previous, which actually surprised me, because I didn't think the numbers would be this favourable toward companions. See? The TARDIS even astounds me, sometimes.
Barbara Wright -- Baaaaabs. Babs is one of two exceptions to the ‘tolerate’ rule as described above for One and Two’s companions. Why, might you ask? Because she’s one of the first in the show to be all: ‘The TARDIS is alive!’ Thank you, Edge of Destruction, for that little plot point, elsewise you’d probably not be reading this and my fingers wouldn’t be cramping up. At any rate, Babs thinks it’s just awesomesauce that the TARDIS is alive, and that means the TARDIS takes notice of her! Coupled with Barbara’s absolute love of history and the places the TARDIS can take her? Yeah, you’ve got yourself a solid relationship and a fond remembrance.
Katarina and Sara Kingdom Katarina and Sara actually do not fall into the exception rule, but they are here for one very simple reason: they sacrificed themselves to save the Doctor. Had they chosen any other path and made a different choice, they’d probably be in a different category (which is up for debate), but they didn’t, and they died, and so the TARDIS has a great deal of respect for both women. If hurting the Doctor can earn you her eternal ire, saving his life can do the exact opposite, after all.
One can argue that Sara didn’t actually die to save One, but because she was stupid and in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is true. But she still followed him for fear of his safety and to help him should his plan fail. The TARDIS is rather good at handwaving what she wants to believe and twisting things to match her own style of logic, so to her, Sara’s death is more a sacrifice than it is a bad choice.
Zoe Herriot -- And here we have the real second exception to the One and Two rule. Why? Because Zoe is frigging intelligent. She does not interact often with the TARDIS, if at all, but she’s intelligent and creative and clever, something many of Two’s companions were not. It helps she didn’t have the hots for the Doctor. She was also a screamer, which, you know, is annoying, but considering the serials she’s taken from, it’s almost to be expected. With Zoe, the TARDIS actually felt something akin to sadness when she lost her memories, unlike with Jamie, where she didn’t particularly care. This is actually interesting to note, because as a general rule, the TARDIS likes the Doctor’s male companions more than his female ones.
Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw -- The TARDIS likes Liz for the same reason she liked Zoe: she’s intelligent, clever, and a scientist. She doesn’t blame Liz for not really understanding or acknowledging her presence, considering how the TARDIS was silenced at the time Liz was with Three, but the fact she helped the Doctor with repairs and, well … didn’t view the Doctor as a love interest so much as a rival, earned her a spot of respect with the TARDIS.
Sarah Jane Smith -- Sarah is one of those companions who is hard to forget because she made her presence so very well known. Did she get herself into any number of scraps? Yeah. Did she get the Doctor out of them? Most certainly. Did she love the Doctor? One can argue it! But to the TARDIS, she came across more as an intelligent, loyal companion than anything else. She was with Three through his regeneration into Four and she helped take care of the Doctor during some of his more tumultuous decisions. She also, you know, urged the Doctor to kill the Daleks. +100 affection points, that.
Sarah actually lucked out because she was a companion during a time when the TARDIS was beginning to understand the concepts of human interaction more. Is the old girl still racist? Sure, but she wasn’t viewing the Doctor’s companions so much as fleas as something to study. The Doctor’s sense of curiosity has finally affected her to the point where she wants to learn about this little species. The TARDIS is, by breeding, curious - she has to be, or she’d never leave the Vortex. But she’s always been more interested in the planets and stars they visit than the creatures that inhabit them. Right around Four’s era, that attitude begins to change.
Now, New Who makes Sarah Jane a little more difficult in terms of TARDIS characterisation, but this is remedied by the all-powerful handwave. As I said above, it can be argued that Sarah had some sort of attraction to the Doctor. I don’t doubt there was. But it was never a focal point and I doubt she would have ever made a big deal of it, being the even-headed thing she was. Then comes along School Reunion and suddenly she’s a simpering git who’s wasted her life waiting for the Doctor to return. Outside the fact it just makes me really angry, it’s also a disservice to her characterisation. So I rather like going with the idea that she was more nostalgic and swept up in the moment than actually pining for the Doctor, and after a while, she got hold of herself and wasn’t being a div anymore. As such, I don’t see it being a sticking point for the TARDIS.
Then again, Ten’s TARDIS is a vastly different creature from the one Sarah first encountered. She’s old and worn and broken and lonely. The TARDIS doesn’t have the energy to hate as she once hated, and this will be a point of discussion with the New Who companions.
Vislor Turlough -- Turlough is one of those companions who started off on the fast track to being loathed and ended up being rather liked, instead. He did more than enough to earn himself a spot on the loathed list, that’s for certain. He began his journey trying to kill the Doctor; his actions directly resulted in Nyssa remaining on Terminus; he had, as all Five’s Team TARDIS had, romantic tension with the Doctor. But he was also one of the few companions shown who actually tended to the TARDIS, was able to assist the Doctor in her repairs and upkeep, overcame the Black Guardian’s hold on him at risk of his own life and protected the Doctor when he otherwise should have been trying to kill him. Turlough is the perfect study in ‘how not to be loathed by the TARDIS’ and she remembers him fondly for it.
Hex -- The TARDIS likes Hex, plain and simple. He’s a whiny git, sure, but he’s a fun whiny git, and he brings a lot of excitement to an adventure. And as much as the TARDIS is tolerant of Seven and Ace’s relationship, she approves of the distraction Hex provides. She’s only tolerant of them getting busy, after all. Unless she’s involved. Hex also offers something of a companion to Ace and, as you’ll read below, Ace is exceedingly important to the TARDIS. Therefore, those things that make her happy (even in an aggravating sort of way - don’t deny it, Ace, Hex makes you happy), are welcome to the TARDIS.
C’rizz -- Like Turlough, C’rizz is another one of those companions who really should be in the ‘loathed’ category but, for the same reasons as Katarina and Sara, he isn’t. C’rizz is a really mixed package with the TARDIS. He’s a new species - one of the first she really gets to meet in the divergent universe, seeing as he’s travelling with Eight. He has knowledge she does not, and that fascinates her. He also, however, betrays the Doctor for Rassilon. Considering why she’s in a divergent universe, this is … well, it’s bad. Very bad. Generally, this would lead to outright hatred of him, and yet the TARDIS refrains. I don’t doubt she’s wary of him, especially with the voices in his head, but she’s also far too curious about this alien to completely write him off yet. She will do what she can to keep him from her Doctor, yes, but she thinks of him more as a lab rat to be studied.
Then he goes and sacrifices himself to save the Doctor and all the wariness and uncertainty are replaced by the same type of respect she felt for Katarina when the girl opened the airlock. Without that action, C’rizz would most likely be, at the most, a tolerated passenger, but his decision has moved him into the ‘respected’ category, for better or for worse.
A study in affection; or 'If I had a body, I would probably shag you if you asked; barring that, let’s have a hug':
Ahhh, the love group. This group is also small, similar to the ‘loathed’ group, but it is made up of the people the TARDIS treasures most in the universe. Other than the Doctor, at least. There is one person the TARDIS loves who will not go in this section, simply because she gets her own, along with her master.
Susan Foreman -- The TARDIS adores Susan. Absolutely adores her. Even if the girl hadn’t given the TARDIS her name, she’d still adore Susan. Some of this, I believe, is spill-off from the Doctor’s own emotions toward his granddaughter, but it also stems from the fact that Susan just honestly loves the TARDIS back. The old girl is her home, more so than even Earth, which Susan eventually adopts. Her choice to leave the Doctor is one of the only ones the TARDIS ever disagreed with and, at first, she was hurt by Susan’s decisions. But unlike those companions who chose Earth or other humans over the Doctor, Susan is the only one the TARDIS doesn’t resent for it. She simply misses her granddaughter.
In my headcanon, the TARDIS often gets into arguments with the Doctor over visiting Susan. She says they should, the Doctor tries to avoid it. After the War, Susan was the first person the TARDIS wanted to check on to make sure she was alive. Nine wouldn’t have it. She’s never quite forgiven him for not looking.
Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart -- If you didn’t see him being on this list, then you people haven’t been paying attention to the TARDIS’ journal name. There’s a reason why she chose the Brig’s form in Zagreus. He was the one who was most trustworthy, whom those she was trying to deceive would believe and recognise, yes, but the Brig has been a constant in the TARDIS’ life just as much as the Doctor’s. He has saved the Doctor countless times, travelled in her a handful of others, and he treats her as he would any of the Doctor’s companions.
That’s right. He treats her like a companion. For those of you just now playing along, the TARDIS sees herself as more than a machine, more than a vessel. She sees herself as a Time Lord. It’s why she hates Romana so much. Susan was the first to really see the TARDIS as more than a vessel. That the Brig does too is huge for her.
There’s also the fact that, for all his humanity, the Brig is very, very logical. He’s more a computer than she is, at times, and she loves that he is that dependable, that precise and unwavering. Let’s put it this way: if the Brig were a robot, a la Kamelion? You can bet she’d be getting down and dirty with him just because.
K9 -- Yay, a robot who isn’t Kamelion! The TARDIS loves K9 because he is like her. Well, sort of. He’s a sentient robot, and while he’s nowhere near as advanced as she is, she finds him to be something of a best mate. They can talk as they will, and K9 isn’t afraid to snark about the Doctor. She likes that. It bothered her a great deal when the Doctor sent him away with Romana, because she thought K9 deserved better than to be stuck with the Time Lady as a mistress. There have been elaborate plots to retrieve him from her. Thankfully, the Doctor doesn’t know about them.
Adric -- The TARDIS’ first ever BFF! Seriously, she loves Adric to pieces and views him as something of her son. Not only is the kid a genius, but he likes her. Being the Doctor’s adopted son doesn’t hurt, either. There’s really nothing more to it. She just loves him like cheesecake.
He does, unfortunately, also fall into the category of those who have sacrificed their lives for the Doctor. Not only does remembering this make the TARDIS incalculably sad, his death is also one of the only points in time she would ever actively attempt to change, laws and timelines be damned.
Nyssa -- And here we are, exception number one to the ‘loathe’ list. Why Nyssa, might you ask? Because of all Five’s companions, Nyssa is the only one the TARDIS was remotely attracted to, which trumps her hatred of the Doctor also being attracted to Nyssa.
Now, I’m going to take a quick moment here to note something, because it can be argued with both Ace and Reinette, as well as a few of the other companions the TARDIS likes. Being bonded to the Doctor as she is, it is entirely feasible that the impetus behind the TARDIS even liking some of these people is because the Doctor’s feelings are bleeding through their bond and affecting her judgement. I will not argue that, because I think it’s fully valid. But the TARDIS is also a sentient being in her own right, capable of making decisions and expressing emotions, and canon gives us that in all the little one-way arguments the Doctor has with her when she’s being petty or temperamental. It is my belief, therefore, that she does harbour her own feelings and emotions toward certain companions, ones that may have sparked from the Doctor’s feelings, but that she grew and cultivated on her own. The three exceptions are, I believe, initially influenced by the Doctor, but become something more through the TARDIS’ own making. Otherwise, she’d love every companion, same as the Doctor does, and not hate a one of them.
So! Nyssa. Nyssa is, I believe, the one emotionally closest to Five. They’ve a lot in common, after all, the least of which being the Master. They’re rather two kindred spirits, both aboard the TARDIS. Now, this would land Nyssa firmly in the ‘loathe’ group if the TARDIS herself didn’t care for the girl. But why should she? Because Nyssa understands the TARDIS in ways others do not. Turlough helps with the TARDIS, but he doesn’t understand her. Nyssa seems to harbour a much deeper understanding of the time ship, either because of her own scientific background or because of her people’s deep-seated connection with tranquillity. They are in tune with a concept and the TARDIS is, really, a concept, as well, at least in personality. She works in abstracts and Nyssa can see that.
There is also the fact that Nyssa and the TARDIS are the same in that they are, for all intents and purposes, the last of their kind. Nyssa’s home planet is destroyed in Logopolis by the very man who stole her father’s body. She’s an orphan in every sense of the word. One can assume that the TARDIS is the last functioning Type 40 in existence, since her kind have been replaced by successively newer models. The TARDIS sees something of herself in Nyssa and I believe that draws her to the girl, much more than it pushes her away. When Nyssa chose to stay on Terminus, the TARDIS was actually forlorn and she hasn’t quite gotten over the betrayal she sees it as.
Evelyne Smythe -- What’s not to love about Evelyn? No, seriously. Name one thing. Evelyn gets love because she is Barbara 2.0, only snarkier. The TARDIS finds the old professor incredibly endearing, and the Evelyn, for the most part, returns the sentiment, something the TARDIS is positively thrilled about. She also applauds Evelyn’s tendency to put the Doctor in his place, because really, the Doctor needs it. Often.
Dorothy “Ace” McShane -- Ah Ace. Exception the second. I blame this almost entirely on aces_are_rare and timewill_tell for their absolutely incredible take on the Seven/Ace dynamic, a ship I never actually believed in or agreed with until reading their work. They’ve built up this incredible universe and the more I read their interpretations, the more I liked them. Which, in turn, has affected the TARDIS’ take on their relationship.
Ace is one of those characters I loved from the get-go. She’s smart, sassy, and can hold her own. These are all reasons the TARDIS would also be able to tolerate her and, quite possibly, respect her. But then throw in the possibility of a relationship with the Doctor, and Ace finds herself firmly in the ‘loathe’ category. And yet, she isn’t. She’s here, with Nyssa, as an exception to the TARDIS’ rules on ‘Thou shalt not covet my Doctor.’ And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realise it’s because Ace and Nyssa have an awful lot in common.
Like Nyssa, Ace is something of a one-of-a-kind. She’s a self-titled orphan, if you will, and her only home, like Nyssa, is the TARDIS. Not because hers was destroyed, but because there is no place she can call home, considering her upbringing. So the TARDIS takes that role. And Ace, also like Nyssa, understands the TARDIS. Not on the same level, but she can understand the TARDIS’ love of the Doctor, her need to protect. She can understand the TARDIS on an emotional level whereas Nyssa understood the TARDIS on a technical and conceptual level.
Ace is also, I believe, one of the first companions the TARDIS marks as belonging to her. This is where the audios come into play big time, in particular Colditz and Rapture. ***If you’ve not heard these and don’t want to be spoiled, I suggest not reading any further.*** The TARDIS is, as we’ve seen with the Doctor, highly possessive of those she considers as belonging to her. She will do anything to protect what is hers, even if that means killing another. It plays on that lack of morality mentioned way up forever ago. In Colditz, Ace is held hostage and just about raped by Kurtz, a German guard of the Third Reich. He does untold amounts of damage to Ace’s psyche, scarring her in ways that go beyond flesh. At the end of the audio, he is, quite literally, ripped in half in front of Ace’s eyes when he gets trapped half-in, half-out of the TARDIS as she dematerialises. In my headcanon, this was done intentionally as punishment for what he did to Ace. The TARDIS could have either allowed him full entry or ejected him, but she chose, instead, to pin him between temporal shifts as she dematerialised. This obviously had some rather negative effects on Ace, ones the TARDIS would not have foreseen because, hi, she doesn’t think like humans, and so she attempts to help heal Ace by giving her what she’s always wanted: a family. This is done in Rapture when they show up in Spain in time to meet her long-lost brother. The TARDIS is trying, in her own strange way, to make Ace happy and give her something that can be construed as kind. ***You can read again now.***
All of this leads me to believe the TARDIS honestly loves Ace in ways she hadn’t really loved a companion before now. Ace holds a place with the TARDIS that was only ever held by a Time Lord before. And considering how some people speculate that Seven was priming Ace to become a Time Lord, that seems highly appropriate to me.
Compassion -- Compassion has the honour of being the only novel character on this list. Why? Because she’s the TARDIS’ daughter. You don’t really get much more simple than that.
Unlike the child the TARDIS (maybe, possibly, sort of) had with Kamelion, Compassion was a concentrated, purposeful decision on the TARDIS’ part to create a new Type of TARDIS. She knew what she was doing when she created Compassion, and she did so almost ruthlessly, destroying the being Compassion used to be in order to give birth to a daughter. This is another example of that whole lack of morality thing, not that the TARDIS cares. Seeing as how she put so much effort into Compassion’s creation, the TARDIS is incredibly protective of the woman. She nurses and cultivates all of Compassion’s abilities, as well as her personality - one that, one might note, is very similar to the TARDIS’ own temperament. No wonder Compassion and Eight get on so well.
Also unlike the child with Kamelion, I see the TARDIS actually taking a vested interest in what happens with Compassion, especially when she begins breeding new Types of TARDIS. I do not doubt she did her best to keep in contact with the Type-102 during the War and often sends out probes to see if her daughter is still alive once the Time War is over.
Now then, my dear reader, a few of you may have noticed that there are no New Who companions on this list as of yet. And you very well may be wondering why. I can’t blame you! After all, this is page 15 of a never-ending essay and well on its way to 9,000 words, but I’ve not yet mentioned Rose, or Martha, or Donna or Jack. What gives! Well, I will tell you, my lovely readers. New Who, quite frankly, doesn’t work the same way Classic Who does in terms of categorising companions. And there is one very simple reason for this. The TARDIS is too broken to feel that way.
Yes, you read that right. She’s too broken. The Time War took a great toll on both her and the Doctor, and neither of them are exactly what one might call healthy, emotionally or physically. They are all the other has and are, as such, indescribably lonely. Where before she would loathe and resent and (sometimes) like the people the Doctor travelled with, now she clings to them as much as he does, desperate for the attention, to hear new voices and know the Doctor is not alone any longer. She still dislikes several things the New Who characters do (she does not, for example, agree with Rose loving the Doctor. At all), but there isn’t the same kind of concentrated effort to hate them as she once had. She doesn’t actually hate any of them. It takes too much effort and she’s too tired to let herself.
Therefore, New Who companions are each considered separately and on their own merits, instead of fitting into an arbitrary category of the TARDIS’ choosing.
So, let us begin.
Rose Tyler -- The most significant thing about Rose is that she came at a time when both the Doctor and TARDIS needed someone. Badly. She wasn’t the smartest, but she was clever and loyal and generally pretty keen to learn. She brought a new perspective to things that previous companions didn't, and she saved the Doctor more than once. She also almost destroyed time, but not everyone's perfect, and considering how much the TARDIS wanted to go back and changed the past, not entirely without merit.
The TARDIS also trusted Rose enough to use the girl's body at the end of Parting of the Ways. This is entirely personal canon, but I do believe that the majority of what Rose did (ie: killing the Daleks), was because the TARDIS had possessed her and was in control of her body. Resurrecting Jack was entirely Rose, because the TARDIS would never break that kind of law, but leading up to that was a joint effort, at the least.
By S2, the TARDIS still likes Rose, but her clinginess toward Ten is noticeable enough that it becomes bothersome. She doesn't loathe Rose for it, but there's a general feeling of 'I'm only tolerating this because it makes him happy' than a genuine approval. When Rose leaves, the TARDIS is still honestly upset to see her gone, and I don't think she'd have allowed the Doctor to destroy a sun otherwise, but she wasn't nearly as close as she was with Rose when Nine piloted her.
For the most part, the feelings the TARDIS felt for S1 Rose carry over to realityshifted. They aren't exact, as R/s TARDIS is from Eight's timeline and therefore has yet to meet Rose or go through the Time War, but she finds Miss Tyler endearing. She is quick to note, however, that Rose can never truly have the Doctor to herself, even if she wants to, and more often than not tells her the Doctor cannot and will not return the girl's affection.
Mickey Smith -- Mickey didn't spend enough time on the TARDIS, and for that, she's fairly sad. He was a breath of fresh air, really, and his keen interest in technology made the TARDIS incredibly happy. Him downloading porn, not so much.
Jack Harkness -- Oh Jack. His is a case of someone she highly favoured becoming someone she immensely loathes, and not of his own doing. The TARDIS really liked Jack during his S1 appearance. Like ... really liked Jack. He was intelligent, suave, and paid her attention. He knew his way around computers and machines and was a help to the Doctor with the TARDIS' numerous repairs. He was also, you know, friendly, and both the Doctor and the TARDIS could use more of those types of faces, coming off the war as they had.
But then Rose resurrected him, and the TARDIS' racism kicked in. Intellectually, she knows Jack is still the same person, personality-wise, but the utter wrongness she feels from him makes her violently ill. He is unnatural and unwanted, and even if she would like for him to return to her, she cannot stomach his presence. She is not the Doctor; she cannot overcome certain base functions. And her instincts tell her to flee him. Immediately.
The TARDIS at realityshifted generally feels the same way toward Jack. She does not have the benefit (or sorrow) of having known him previously, and so her initial interaction with him was one of disgust. She attempts at remaining civil, but there is a distinct lack of affection for him.
Reinette -- Exception the third, for more than one reason. Reinette isn't even technically a companion, for one. She's the woman Ten has to save, but she doesn't travel with him. She's a 'what if' and a regret, on multiple levels. She could have been a lover, she could have been a companion, she could have been a best friend, she could have been, could have been. But Time didn't allow that. It only allowed what was given. And what was given was enough to, in the past, warrant intense hatred from the TARDIS. But it actually ended up the exactly opposite.
The TARDIS loves Reinette, because Reinette has a reason to love the Doctor. She looked into his mind and understood him in ways no companion has before. And knowing that, she did not ask of him anything, made no demands, and expected him to be nothing more than he was. Where most would pick and choose what they wanted the Doctor to be, she simply accepted what he was and that, to the TARDIS, makes Reinette something of a kindred spirit. Reinette can see the light and dark in Ten and she loves him anyway, just as the TARDIS can see all the dark and horrible things the Doctor is, all the bright and beautiful things, and love him without fail. There is a huge amount of respect there and, even though it pained her to be separated from the Doctor by such a great margin of time, the TARDIS did not fear for him while he was with Reinette. She simply waited, and hoped he'd return.
At R/s, the TARDIS feels very similar. Through their discussions, she's found a great deal to like in Reinette and finds herself very attached to the woman. She is one of the only people on the Plane that can really understand and share the TARDIS' love of the Doctor, and that is a strange comfort to the old girl, even in her youth, when she's far more catty and cruel.
Martha Jones -- Martha and the TARDIS were totally BFFs while she was a companion. She was clever, intelligent, more than willing to talk back to the Doctor, and significantly more subtle about her attraction. The TARDIS appreciated that. Martha also proved herself during the Year That Never Was and not only saved the Doctor, but the TARDIS, as well. When she left, the TARDIS viewed it as a slap to the face and was rather unhappy with the Doctor for a good deal of time afterward.
Martha hasn't been around at R/s long enough for the TARDIS to really get to know her like she does Rose. Being from before Martha's time, she has no previous feelings or experiences to go by and must base all her knowledge on the things the Doctor has told her.
Donna Noble -- There are no words to describe the love the TARDIS has for Donna, but it's pretty intense. Like Ace, Donna is 'marked' by the TARDIS and considered 'hers.' Ever since she first encountered her in The Runaway Bride, the TARDIS has been keenly interested in Donna, both as a human, and as an anomoly. Donna warps Time, rearranging events and affecting timelines in ways that even the TARDIS cannot fully understand. She is fascinating as a creature of Time, but she is also that special blend of personality that the TARDIS is particularly drawn to. She's head-strong, no-nonsense, clever and independent. She's also not attracted to the Doctor which, of all the New Who companions, is a first. (Mickey totally wanted a threesome.)
Donna is tragic for several reasons, not the least of which being her sendoff in Journey's End. Much like Compassion before her, the TARDIS views Donna as her child. She made her what she was in the finale, created the DoctorDonna and the DonnaDoctor. It was out of desperation, yes, but she is a child as much as reject!Ten is, and so when the Doctor sent her away, the TARDIS mourned.
I do not doubt the TARDIS has plans for Donna. Ten is adept at wiping memories, it seems, but what is lost can be reclaimed, and the TARDIS is not a bad surgeon herself. After losing everything she's ever loved to the Time War, the ship is not about to lose another daughter, and certainly not because of the Doctor's actions. In my headcanon, the TARDIS is slowly but surely removing all traces of Time Lord from Donna, cutting them out, allowing her to heal, then cutting out more, awakening memories and emotions as she goes. It isn't fair to Donna to be trapped in a body or world that are no longer hers, and it isn't fair to the TARDIS to watch her suffer. When all of the Time Lord has been cut away, the TARDIS intends on returning to Donna, if only to apologise, and bid her the proper farewell she was not allowed to receive.
The TARDIS loves R/s Donna about as much as she loves canon!Donna, without a doubt. All of the feelings that endeared the old girl to Miss Noble in the future endear her to the ship now, and the TARDIS oftens finds herself longing for Donna's company. She doesn't even necessarily want to talk. She just wants Donna to sit in her console room, chatting her up or reading a book. There is something about her the TARDIS finds immensely calming and she's one of the few on the Plane the TARDIS will defend as fiercely as she does the Doctor.
AND THE COMPANION LIST IS COMPLETE! It's not over, but it's complete. Those of you still hanging in there, I commend you. Those of you who just joined us because you skipped the first 9,000 words, I find you clever.
This next section is reserved for the only other recurring characters in the show who are not companions. Because no list of the TARDIS' feelings would be complete without writing about her take on the Master and his TARDIS. So here we go!
The Master -- The Master started off something of a nuisance who quickly and efficiently earned himself the spot of Most Hated Creature in Existence Ever. Even Romana cannot trump the Master, and for very good reason. Romana, for all her faults, does not hate the Doctor, nor was she once the Doctor's best friend. The Master betrayed the Doctor in a way no other entity can boast and for that alone, the TARDIS could hate him forever.
To add insult to injury, he's also, you know ... destroyed a third of the universe, injured beloved companions, killed a Doctor and, you know, turned her into a Paradox Machine. Nothing big, really. I swear. He's conniving, abusive, distinctly unlikeable, tastes really, really bad, and yet the Doctor still loves him, anyway. That, more than anything, angers the TARDIS, because she's afraid that, if push ever came to shove, the Doctor would choose the Master over her, even though she loves him most in the universe.
There are two Masters at realityshifted and the TARDIS, wonder of wonders, hates them both. Go fig. But let us look at each separately, shall we?
Ainley!Master -- Ainley!Master is actually the more tolerable of the two, but also the one who terrifies the TARDIS most. (Shh, don't tell him.) He's the one she's most familiar with and therefore the one she understands the most, but there is also a certain sadism beneath his polite facade that Simm!Master's outward crazy doesn't quite capture. Simm!Master functions off his emotions; at times, Ainley!Master seems not to even have them, and that terrifies her beyond belief.
It should be noted that Ainley!Master is also the Master who took advantage of the TARDIS when she was being manipulated into hating the Doctor. She thought she could not hate him more than she did; now she knows that, yes, there is no threshold to how much one can loathe another.
Simm!Master -- The TARDIS has no canon knowledge of Simm!Master, and so she cannot fully understand the crazy that he is, which tends to make her far more cheeky and brave when confronting him. She's aware that he will later rape her and turn her into a Paradox Machine, but she does not fear the future and has no real desire to let him see her uncertainty. Because Simm!Master is so emotional (for lack of a better word), she also finds him easier to be around. Oh, she still hates him beyond measure, but she's capable of holding actual civil conversations with him, whereas Ainley!Master, more often than not, will get, at most, a politely worded insult.
Simm!Master, while not taking full advantage of a manipulated TARDIS, did at one point plant the drums inside her mind. Just for kicks, mind. She didn't really appreciate that. He's also living with a Doctor and that is a significant point of contention for her, which results in more than one very nasty confrontations with both Simm!Master and Ten.One.
Lolita -- Call her what you will -- Lolita, the Master's TARDIS, Buyan, I don't care -- but she is the only other creature in existence that the TARDIS loves with the same intensity as she loves the Doctor. It's far from a healthy relationship and it certainly isn't constant, but there is an undeniable attraction and connection between the TARDIS and Lolita. The easiest way to sum it up would be to call it the Master/Doctor 2.0, because it's about as abusive and about as pathetic. Lolita, like her master, is cruel and callous and, more often than not, hurts the TARDIS when she has the chance, both emotionally and physically. She strings the old girl along, captivates her senses, then disappears with her master, leaving the other unfulfilled and longing.
As of her timeline in R/s, assuming Simm!Master is to be believed, Lolita is probably all ready dead. The TARDIS chooses to believe he's lying, but the very idea of the other ship being gone has caused her incalcuable sorrow.
AND THERE. THAT IS IT FOR CANON! Those of you playing along for just the Companion List, I commend you on your tenancity and spirit for getting this far. I'm surprised I got this far and didn't just give up. Apparently I'm a masochist.
AND APPARENTLY THE POST IS TOO BIG orz. SO. The relationships for R/s are going in a different goddamn post. As to this one: If I forgot anyone, I am really, really sorry. I did my absolute best. If you feel I did someone an injustice, or want to point out a companion I missed (and that isn't an audio companion, I all ready addressed that issue), please, feel free to say something!