Ruby Sunday is the perfect gen Z companion. No hesitation on anything. Will not listen to her superiors. Optimistically apathetic in the face of obscurities. Political assassin. Would die for a gay romance she isn't apart of. No one has ever done it like her

RUBY + BEING THE BIGGEST DOCTOR/ROGUE SHIPPER

okay so the pantheon of discord we now have a list for (the ones we've seen before in italics):

actually let me elaborate on where we've seen all of these guys before:

#we are thesandmanning the whoniverse at unprecedented levels ( @thefiresofpompeii )

just living it up in my neil gaiman–doctor who–good omens circle

"The camera was positioned in a storage yard 66 metres away."

Or, in other words, 73 yards.

THIS THIS THIS!!! Ruby dropped herself off!!

definitely a metaphor for grief or mental illness or something right? like its always there with you no matter how much you try and run away from it, and even if you do what you feel like you “should” do to move on from it. constantly affecting your life and your relationships etc. and you’re always waiting for it to serve a purpose in your life and have some big greater meaning but it just. doesn’t. and it’s still there and you have to learn to live with it

The best part about this take is the realization that RTD is putting the ocean of layers in trauma symbolism and metaphor into the companion this time, not the Doctor. This is Ruby's story and Ruby's trauma, and the whole series is going to unfold around her.

Also, it's a metaphor for grief and I just KNOW that the reason why RTD felt like this was one of the best things he's written is because that grief is his grief on display, when he lost his husband. 73 Yards is RTD's Heaven Sent, and knowing that makes it hit different.

okay the new episode has people poking my sleeping special interest like a bear and it was about time to wake it from hibernation anyway so here are some fun facts about welsh fairies

i am fully aware rtd probably couldn't care less about any of this. he definitely didn't do the work that i did to learn all this and incorporating this into your theories is probably shooting yourself in the foot as far as actually being correct goes. HOWEVER i do think it's more interesting and fun this way :) theories are gonna be wrong anyway might as well respect the culture that's inspiring them while we're at it yeah?

i will cite my sources if anyone asks but i doubt many people care to read hundreds of pages of edwardian non fiction novels just to fact check me. trust me on this guys

is it just me, or does that sound like a reminder a director would give an actor right as they’re about to launch into a scene?

“and, from the top, Ruby, you’re standing in the street, on the phone to your own mother.”

or stage directions in a screenplay: RUBY, standing in the STREET, on the phone to MOTHER.

nothing to do with me.

we’ve been thinking susan twist is “The Director”, but what if she’s not? what if she’s a helpful member of the crew, trying to get through to Ruby and the Doctor in whatever ways she can; and The Director is actually Mrs Flood?

oh I do like this. Mrs Flood is the Director, and we are the Viewers, or even us the Audience is the One Who Waits, because we're always waiting for the next episode, the next season, the next Doctor, the next Show. The Toymaker is afraid of us because ultimately WE dictate his existence and survival.

like I understand the subtext that ruby is deeply terrified that there is something wrong with her that she doesn't understand but it's obvious enough to everyone else to make them abandon her just like her birth mother. I GET that. that's awesome. I also get that older ruby is like, literally a ghost and/or some changeling creature and that alone is scary enough to make people run. that's fine. HOWEVER. I feel like seeing a ghost isn't a strong enough reason to make carla abandon her and Say That. again I got the subtext reason for that but on screen, main text, what on earth was causing that? also what were the hand motions about? I spent the whole episode thinking maybe it was sign language but then ruby never bothered to learn sign so it definitely wasn't lol. LOVED this ep so much but that's what I'm hung up on

I think a lot of the mysteries of this episode can be answered by knowing the narrative rules of folklore. Horrific things happen in folk tales. Going mad because we entered too close to the spirit world is par for the course, as is terrible fates for children.

In the original Grimms fairy tales, it wasn't stepmothers who did awful things in these stories. It was mothers. Grimms adapted the tales to suit the audience he was publishing for, and erased this darker history in the tales we now know so well.

73 Yards felt like folklore through and through, for so many things. The horror, the fairy ring, the pub stories. But most importantly for its commitment to leaving the unexplainable (the supernatural) unexplained.

Love the dual imagery of the old woman. How she represents both the previous generations that dealt with Mad Jack the first time, and the current generation worrying what their future will be. Will the older version of me look on me kindly? Is that even the older version of me, does that person even survive? Or is it only the past, silently watching us walk into destruction?

The old woman appeared after the the circle was broken, yes, but also after Ruby became aware of her own mortality due to the Doctor’s slip of the tongue.

As a representation of the previous generations, the woman is distant and offputting. Not even the oldest folks in the pub are worried about Mad Jack anymore, and when Ruby tries to bring other people in, tries to let those now-dead generations speak, Ruby becomes the problem.

She’s left to embark on this (in retrospect) decades-long mission virtually alone, getting involved in politics, taking calls, holding coats, pulling every strategic lever available to her even if it means working for this terrible man. She has to, because she’s one of the few people who fully recognize the danger he poses.

And both the past and herself-from-the-future are watching.

This right here. The thematic layers is what makes this episode so compelling and probs why RTD called it one of the best things he's ever written.

That explains why this plot works: the mixing of current politics and ancient evils, because fascism and nationalism and bigotry isn't new, it just comes in different guises in different eras, and it's the evil we all face.