Rare Ship Month: Eight/Romana/Leela
(I know I'm horribly late and I'm really sorry about that. Real life got in the way a bit. But better late than never, right?)
If you've never listening to Big Finish audios, chances are you're looking at this ship and going 'bzuh?' Actually, chances are even if you love Big Finish you might be a mite puzzled. So I'm going to start with a wee bit of context first.
(And I've just realised, this post is going to contains spoilers for Romana and Leela's companion arcs on the show itself, and also for the Big Finish audios 'Shada', 'Neverland', 'Zagreus' and the Gallifrey series. Oh! And sort of 'The Next Life'.)
The short explanation for why I ship Eight/Romana/Leela is: I ship Doctor/Romana and Romana/Leela and need a way to reconcile the two ships during the Time War, which is the only time the two really clash, in my mind. And I can't choose between then. My standard solution here is naturally, OT3. Et voila! Problem solved, no decision necessary.
Ok, obviously I think there's more to it than that and I do think these three work really well together, especially during the Time War. Like doyle_sb4, I'm a firm believer that all the pairings in a threesome have to work and have something going for them in order for the threesome to work as a whole.
I also need to add at this point that this ship for me is really context specific, more than anything else it's a case of 'this is Cleo's personal canon for the Time War'.
Anyway. I'll start with a brief intro of each character and a (very small) picspam and then move on to the same treatment of all the pairings, before finally talking a bit about them as an OT3.
The Eighth Doctor
This is the Eighth incarnation of the Doctor. He's a bit pretty, as the evidence shows. He, alas, mostly just gets the TVM in 1996 but he's also got small cartloads of books and audio plays, the latter done by Big Finish. Relevant to our purposes are mainly three of these audios, 'Shada', 'Neverland' and 'Zagreus'.
Romanadvoratrelundar
Or, Romana for short. The pictures are her looking her most presidential, to my mind. Travelled with the Fourth incarnation of the Doctor and left him to basically become the Doctor to another universe. She eventually returns to Gallifrey and becomes its president, which is covered by both books and audios. Relevant to shipping purposes are again 'Shada', 'Neverland' and 'Zagreus', as well as the Gallifrey spin-off series. And obviously there are the seasons Romana's in with the Fourth Doctor, which is 16-18.
Leela of the Sevateem
Leela also travelled with the Fourth incarnation of the Doctor, right before Romana did, during seasons 14 and 15. SHE left him to stay on Gallifrey and marry another Time Lord, Andred. (Who is relevant to shipping purposes in that sometimes he thwarts them. This can usually be overcome fairly easily, however, given he's a) dead by the time we get to the Time War and b) he and Leela have canonical...marital difficulties. Woo! Or something.) Relevant audios for Leela are 'Zagreus' and the Gallifrey spin-off series.
Doctor/Leela
So there's sort of a timeline for me, I find, for shipping these three and it starts, obviously, with when Romana and Leela travelled with Four. I very much ship Four/Leela. In my mind this is a very uncomplicated ship though, they just travel and have a wonderful time together (and really good sex) even if he is occasionally a prat (and I may have blanked some of that). Sometimes there's that Eliza Doolittle vibe, which was awesome too. When she leaves, in 'Invasion of Time' it's just that that was a good time to end it and yes of course they missed each other a bit, but that was that, sort of thing. And she got on with her life with Andred.
Eight/Leela is, I will quite happily admit, the weak link in my OT3, for all that I said earlier about needing all three pairings to make sense. I think they've obviously got the foundation of their past relationship though and I think, in the context of the Time War anyway, they'd also connect through Romana and a sort of shared concern for her, I guess. Assuming, in this personal canon of mine, that Romana's President of Gallifrey during the Time War, I think they'd both care very much about her personally at a time when she might be less interested in that.
Plus, it's more fun than having them fight over her. :P
And in fairness, there's not a lot of audio canon for these two the way there is for the Doctor/Romana and Romana/Leela side of things. She's upset by news of his death in 'Zagreus' and cites him as a reason to stay on Gallifrey in 'Weapon of Choice', the first of the Gallifrey audio series.
I'm sure most of you have read this and this is such a tiny reason TO rec it but nevertheless, for an idea of how I see the Eight/Leela side of this ship, people could check out rosa_acicularis's excellent remix of netgirl_y2k's already excellent "The Boy Who Killed time">. The original is here, the remix, with a lovely convo between Eight and Leela, among other gorgeous things is here.
Doctor/Romana
So I don't want to tread on sneaky_angel's toes too much with this section and honestly, there's several incarnations of the Doctor and both of Romana's that you could talk about for this pairing. So I'm just going to give you a quick rundown.
As I said with Doctor/Leela, there's a timeline for shipping these three, and stage two is Four/Romana. Both incarnations. Through seasons 16-18 they have UST, fall in love, have a wonderful time travelling as partners through time and space and then part ways when Romana leaves partway through season 18 to become the Doctor in a universe all of her own.
I'm aware there's some book canon for how Romana got OUT of E-Space (the pocket universe she stayed behind in to become its Doctor) but in the audios she next pops up in 'The Apocalypse Element', in which we found out she became President of Gallifrey. But that all happens with the Sixth Doctor and thus is not strictly speaking, relevant to this post.
The Eighth Doctor and Romana first meet in the audio play remake of 'Shada', whose most important feature, to my mind, is making CANON the fact that this incarnation of the Doctor, at any rate, randomly pops up and demands that the President of Gallifrey sneak off on holiday with him at regular intervals. Seriously! Their first meeting has him telling her he needs her, saying he's more important than all the affairs of state she has to worry about as President (ok, so this is the Doctor after all and his ego is the size of...Belgium, at least) and her saying she likes the new body. Flirting doesn't cover it.
There's more flirting to be found in 'Neverland', including my favorite thing ever where he asks her if she's wearing tights and she gets embarassed.
'Zagreus' brings the angst like anything because the Doctor winds up having to leave our universe for the Divergent one, never to return. Romana gets a goodbye scene and it's very angsty and lovely. Though Leela doesn't get a goodbye scene a conversation between Leela and Romana at the end of the play makes it clear both will miss him.
Romana/Leela
So given these are audios and scans of the sleeves are hard to find, here's a couple of manips my flatmate made for me. Please feel free to share, if you like. He doesn't have an LJ but if you could credit id_doomer the LJ-less, that would be good. :)
This one sort of looks like Leela's grabbing Romana's boob. It's meant to be reaching for her arm, really. Ignore the file name...
A Time Lady and her bodyguard on holiday...
And it's 'Zagreus' that really kicks off the Romana/Leela side of things, they meet for the first time during this audio, though it's made clear they both know of each other already. They end the audio with Romana saying she thinks this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship which is definitely true. Throughout all their interactions in 'Zagreus' they've got this very fun brains/intuition dichotomy going and this carries on into the 'Gallifrey' audios.
In said audios, Romana asks Leela to be her bodyguard. There are just no words. I've said this before, I'm very FOND of saying it but Romana/Leela is Xena/Gabrielle if Gabrielle had become Queen of the Amazons and Xena had stayed and been her bodyguard. Their relationship is the cornerstone of these audios and both say numerous times, at various points throughout the three series that the other is the most important thing in their life. Romana is canonically the only thing keeping Leela on Gallifrey. There's a whole plotline where Leela compares her relationship with Romana to her marriage to Andred. You've got Romana promising Leela she will always have a place with Romana, no matter her regeneration, you've got Leela angsting over Romana's regnerations because of bad experiences with her husband's regenerations. Basically, you have a lot of canonical comparisons made by Leela between Romana and Andred. Time Lords (and Ladies) I have loved, or something.
You've got 'Spirit', in which Romana's reaction to Leela threatening to leave Gallifrey is to kidnap her and take her away on holiday. No, really.
I could go on, but do I need to? Romana/Leela actually makes parts of canon make better sense if you ship it. The number of times Romana throws all decorum and protocol to the winds to rescue Leela herself, rather than sending one of the many many people at her beck and call is...very high. And sure, from a narrative/meta standpoint, the writers NEED it to be Romana who goes because she's their other main character but from an in-story standpoint if you tell yourself it's because they're in love it makes lots more sense.
Eight/Romana/Leela
So now you know more than you could ever possibly want to about my views of Eight/Leela, Eight/Romana and Romana/Leela, what's left to say about them all together? Basically, I think it goes a bit like this:
Eight eventually gets out of the Divergent Universe, the Time War is starting up, Romana is still President, Leela is still her bodyguard. This, to my mind, puts Eight and Leela as her lieutenants and you get back to that idea of all of them being each other's support while the world falls down around their ears. Honestly, this ship comes out of a series of thoughts on my part. I can't imagine Romana not being President, I can't imagine Leela not staying with her, I can't imagine Eight not coming to help with the Time War, I can't imagine Romana leaving Leela but I can't imagine them not including the Doctor.
And now I have my one and only fic rec, The Devil You Know by lizbee. Even though it was only a few months ago I honestly don't remember anymore if this fic is entirely responsible for this OTP or if they sort of occured side by side. Either way, this is a really lovely look at what you can do with this OT3.
Also, just for fun, have a manip. I asked the same id_doomer the LJ-less for it and again, he's happy to share on the off-chance anyone would like to snag. :)
This post is basically a very long-winded way of saying this OT3 is a good way to write fic about the Time War, and Eight/Romana/Leela and Time War are both things that need more fic. :D
If you've never listening to Big Finish audios, chances are you're looking at this ship and going 'bzuh?' Actually, chances are even if you love Big Finish you might be a mite puzzled. So I'm going to start with a wee bit of context first.
(And I've just realised, this post is going to contains spoilers for Romana and Leela's companion arcs on the show itself, and also for the Big Finish audios 'Shada', 'Neverland', 'Zagreus' and the Gallifrey series. Oh! And sort of 'The Next Life'.)
The short explanation for why I ship Eight/Romana/Leela is: I ship Doctor/Romana and Romana/Leela and need a way to reconcile the two ships during the Time War, which is the only time the two really clash, in my mind. And I can't choose between then. My standard solution here is naturally, OT3. Et voila! Problem solved, no decision necessary.
Ok, obviously I think there's more to it than that and I do think these three work really well together, especially during the Time War. Like doyle_sb4, I'm a firm believer that all the pairings in a threesome have to work and have something going for them in order for the threesome to work as a whole.
I also need to add at this point that this ship for me is really context specific, more than anything else it's a case of 'this is Cleo's personal canon for the Time War'.
Anyway. I'll start with a brief intro of each character and a (very small) picspam and then move on to the same treatment of all the pairings, before finally talking a bit about them as an OT3.
The Eighth Doctor
This is the Eighth incarnation of the Doctor. He's a bit pretty, as the evidence shows. He, alas, mostly just gets the TVM in 1996 but he's also got small cartloads of books and audio plays, the latter done by Big Finish. Relevant to our purposes are mainly three of these audios, 'Shada', 'Neverland' and 'Zagreus'.
Romanadvoratrelundar
Or, Romana for short. The pictures are her looking her most presidential, to my mind. Travelled with the Fourth incarnation of the Doctor and left him to basically become the Doctor to another universe. She eventually returns to Gallifrey and becomes its president, which is covered by both books and audios. Relevant to shipping purposes are again 'Shada', 'Neverland' and 'Zagreus', as well as the Gallifrey spin-off series. And obviously there are the seasons Romana's in with the Fourth Doctor, which is 16-18.
Leela of the Sevateem
Leela also travelled with the Fourth incarnation of the Doctor, right before Romana did, during seasons 14 and 15. SHE left him to stay on Gallifrey and marry another Time Lord, Andred. (Who is relevant to shipping purposes in that sometimes he thwarts them. This can usually be overcome fairly easily, however, given he's a) dead by the time we get to the Time War and b) he and Leela have canonical...marital difficulties. Woo! Or something.) Relevant audios for Leela are 'Zagreus' and the Gallifrey spin-off series.
Doctor/Leela
So there's sort of a timeline for me, I find, for shipping these three and it starts, obviously, with when Romana and Leela travelled with Four. I very much ship Four/Leela. In my mind this is a very uncomplicated ship though, they just travel and have a wonderful time together (and really good sex) even if he is occasionally a prat (and I may have blanked some of that). Sometimes there's that Eliza Doolittle vibe, which was awesome too. When she leaves, in 'Invasion of Time' it's just that that was a good time to end it and yes of course they missed each other a bit, but that was that, sort of thing. And she got on with her life with Andred.
Eight/Leela is, I will quite happily admit, the weak link in my OT3, for all that I said earlier about needing all three pairings to make sense. I think they've obviously got the foundation of their past relationship though and I think, in the context of the Time War anyway, they'd also connect through Romana and a sort of shared concern for her, I guess. Assuming, in this personal canon of mine, that Romana's President of Gallifrey during the Time War, I think they'd both care very much about her personally at a time when she might be less interested in that.
Plus, it's more fun than having them fight over her. :P
And in fairness, there's not a lot of audio canon for these two the way there is for the Doctor/Romana and Romana/Leela side of things. She's upset by news of his death in 'Zagreus' and cites him as a reason to stay on Gallifrey in 'Weapon of Choice', the first of the Gallifrey audio series.
I'm sure most of you have read this and this is such a tiny reason TO rec it but nevertheless, for an idea of how I see the Eight/Leela side of this ship, people could check out rosa_acicularis's excellent remix of netgirl_y2k's already excellent "The Boy Who Killed time">. The original is here, the remix, with a lovely convo between Eight and Leela, among other gorgeous things is here.
Doctor/Romana
So I don't want to tread on sneaky_angel's toes too much with this section and honestly, there's several incarnations of the Doctor and both of Romana's that you could talk about for this pairing. So I'm just going to give you a quick rundown.
As I said with Doctor/Leela, there's a timeline for shipping these three, and stage two is Four/Romana. Both incarnations. Through seasons 16-18 they have UST, fall in love, have a wonderful time travelling as partners through time and space and then part ways when Romana leaves partway through season 18 to become the Doctor in a universe all of her own.
I'm aware there's some book canon for how Romana got OUT of E-Space (the pocket universe she stayed behind in to become its Doctor) but in the audios she next pops up in 'The Apocalypse Element', in which we found out she became President of Gallifrey. But that all happens with the Sixth Doctor and thus is not strictly speaking, relevant to this post.
The Eighth Doctor and Romana first meet in the audio play remake of 'Shada', whose most important feature, to my mind, is making CANON the fact that this incarnation of the Doctor, at any rate, randomly pops up and demands that the President of Gallifrey sneak off on holiday with him at regular intervals. Seriously! Their first meeting has him telling her he needs her, saying he's more important than all the affairs of state she has to worry about as President (ok, so this is the Doctor after all and his ego is the size of...Belgium, at least) and her saying she likes the new body. Flirting doesn't cover it.
There's more flirting to be found in 'Neverland', including my favorite thing ever where he asks her if she's wearing tights and she gets embarassed.
'Zagreus' brings the angst like anything because the Doctor winds up having to leave our universe for the Divergent one, never to return. Romana gets a goodbye scene and it's very angsty and lovely. Though Leela doesn't get a goodbye scene a conversation between Leela and Romana at the end of the play makes it clear both will miss him.
Romana/Leela
So given these are audios and scans of the sleeves are hard to find, here's a couple of manips my flatmate made for me. Please feel free to share, if you like. He doesn't have an LJ but if you could credit id_doomer the LJ-less, that would be good. :)
This one sort of looks like Leela's grabbing Romana's boob. It's meant to be reaching for her arm, really. Ignore the file name...
A Time Lady and her bodyguard on holiday...
And it's 'Zagreus' that really kicks off the Romana/Leela side of things, they meet for the first time during this audio, though it's made clear they both know of each other already. They end the audio with Romana saying she thinks this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship which is definitely true. Throughout all their interactions in 'Zagreus' they've got this very fun brains/intuition dichotomy going and this carries on into the 'Gallifrey' audios.
In said audios, Romana asks Leela to be her bodyguard. There are just no words. I've said this before, I'm very FOND of saying it but Romana/Leela is Xena/Gabrielle if Gabrielle had become Queen of the Amazons and Xena had stayed and been her bodyguard. Their relationship is the cornerstone of these audios and both say numerous times, at various points throughout the three series that the other is the most important thing in their life. Romana is canonically the only thing keeping Leela on Gallifrey. There's a whole plotline where Leela compares her relationship with Romana to her marriage to Andred. You've got Romana promising Leela she will always have a place with Romana, no matter her regeneration, you've got Leela angsting over Romana's regnerations because of bad experiences with her husband's regenerations. Basically, you have a lot of canonical comparisons made by Leela between Romana and Andred. Time Lords (and Ladies) I have loved, or something.
You've got 'Spirit', in which Romana's reaction to Leela threatening to leave Gallifrey is to kidnap her and take her away on holiday. No, really.
I could go on, but do I need to? Romana/Leela actually makes parts of canon make better sense if you ship it. The number of times Romana throws all decorum and protocol to the winds to rescue Leela herself, rather than sending one of the many many people at her beck and call is...very high. And sure, from a narrative/meta standpoint, the writers NEED it to be Romana who goes because she's their other main character but from an in-story standpoint if you tell yourself it's because they're in love it makes lots more sense.
Eight/Romana/Leela
So now you know more than you could ever possibly want to about my views of Eight/Leela, Eight/Romana and Romana/Leela, what's left to say about them all together? Basically, I think it goes a bit like this:
Eight eventually gets out of the Divergent Universe, the Time War is starting up, Romana is still President, Leela is still her bodyguard. This, to my mind, puts Eight and Leela as her lieutenants and you get back to that idea of all of them being each other's support while the world falls down around their ears. Honestly, this ship comes out of a series of thoughts on my part. I can't imagine Romana not being President, I can't imagine Leela not staying with her, I can't imagine Eight not coming to help with the Time War, I can't imagine Romana leaving Leela but I can't imagine them not including the Doctor.
And now I have my one and only fic rec, The Devil You Know by lizbee. Even though it was only a few months ago I honestly don't remember anymore if this fic is entirely responsible for this OTP or if they sort of occured side by side. Either way, this is a really lovely look at what you can do with this OT3.
Also, just for fun, have a manip. I asked the same id_doomer the LJ-less for it and again, he's happy to share on the off-chance anyone would like to snag. :)
This post is basically a very long-winded way of saying this OT3 is a good way to write fic about the Time War, and Eight/Romana/Leela and Time War are both things that need more fic. :D