Plural Stories

Zhonos interjected "It'll take time to adjust to the fact that you are still out there, yet also in here. And the other Time Lords… they won't treat you like they do now, we're all… an aberration to them".

"But we'll be here for you" Nistri added "And you'll be with us for whoever comes next. For number six".'

Blurb (from AO3): After sacrificing themselves to save the Doctor from an elder god, Yanistriterquyzhonosorkyquiana, a Time Lord agent with regenerative dissonance, barely manages to escape, at the cost of their fifth incarnation's life. Crashing onto Cretaceous Era Earth, they regenerate into a form best fit for survival, a Velociraptor.

Five months later, Yanis VI, aka Skyfallen, has become closely connected with a local pack of Velociraptors who have helped her to survive in her new form. However when the Doctor returns for her help, they uncover a conspiracy that could shake Gallifrey to its core.

Why is it worth your time?: First — the author takes a badly-realised, stereotypical 'alien DID equivalent' from somewhere down in the depths of canon, and hollows out and rebuilds the ethics of it, 'till the story doesn't doubt for a second that being many-in-one is, in fact, fine and awesome… and that you don't trust an ableist fictional society to be just this once correct about the danger somebody must supposedly inherently pose, even if the society's what's handing out your plot hooks. It actually goes through with applying what people say the occasional best things about Doctor Who ethics are… that you trust difference, and that you listen to people's perspectives, over traditions and impersonal systems that would like them to stop existing being inconvenient.

The collective at the center of things are vibrant, distinct characters, and they have a great teamwork dynamic, it's fun to read them solve disagreements! The author's also put quite some thought into the mechanics of how this plurality-equivalent's dealt with, and how other things are, the edges of what's possible and what's 'acceptable' and how that affects people living in these contexts.

Speaking of, beautiful, beautiful nonhuman societies worldbuilding… the plot mechanics're dizzying, but I love, too, the moment when it finally clicks into place. (The ending's a happy one, I believe, and the cleverness is one bit of how.) Fair warning, you might need a lot of lore and context to get the most possible out of this fic — I think I caught less than half — but if you can roll with unintroduced elements, or you do know that lore and context, this is the worthwhilest thing…

1+ Tags: abuse:low-focus (not connected to the existence of the plurality-equivalent), nonhumans ('Time Lord', velociraptor), median (sort of, they consider themselves 'the same person' in a way), serially singlet (sort of, people can all act through the body, but their body is always of the latest arrival), setting-specific, cofronting, teamwork

Content warnings: Adventure-story-typical violence, predatory animal behaviour, war mentions, death; ableism/pluralphobia, a lot; some mentions of ~abuse — there's nothing that's called abuse, but you could very easily interpret it anyway.

Access notes: Read it on AO3, here!

erinptah

erinptah

Marc wakes up in the mental hospital where he’s been living, lost in delusional fantasies of being a caped vigilante. Or has he? No, the whole thing is a setup by the goddess Ammit, to keep Khonshu’s Avatar trapped and helpless while she takes over the world. Or is it?

The trippy, twisty, reality-bending, beautifully-drawn run that redefined Moon Knight — this time, in a way readers actually liked. Marc flounders around in a world with multiple levels of reality, regularly slipping into different scenes from his past, trying to rescue a handful of people who might be his old friends or just his memories…and finally getting a substantial team-up with Jake and Steven.

Reimagined and expanded flashbacks finally establish that Steven and Jake didn’t just appear when Marc was an adult; they’ve been a system since childhood. The headmates spend a few issues split across different reality-sequences, with stunningly different art styles; but the plots keep blurring together, until they find their way into the same scene again. Sometimes we get gritty montages from Marc’s mercenary past; sometimes we get a sci-fi dream about fighting werewolves on the moon.

This isn’t a good place to start reading Moon Knight, because it’s dense with references to feelings and relationships that won’t land if you don’t have the context. And it’s confusing enough even with context! At least read some of the ’80s run first. But then, yeah, read this one.