Make sure you bend the knee.
In the past few articles of this series we explored how a certain fandom incrowd consisting of Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Gary Russell, Paul Cornell, Chris Chibnall, Nicholas Briggs (often nicknamed the Fitzroy Crowd as they all used to congregate at the Fitzroy pub) were able to slowly take over the Doctor Who franchise during the 90s when it was vulnerable, and bully their critics into silence as “Ming Mongs” and anoraks.
But if all this monkey-posturing sounds absurd, then let’s put in the context of the late ’90s / early 2000s. You may remember a time, in the days before “Doctor Who fans” meant thirteen-year-olds, when the Virgin / BBC novels actually seemed important. The authors certainly thought they were important, and pride was their most valued possession. After all, the reason I gained a reputation as an unhealthy influence was that I broke what Keith Topping called “the unspoken code”, the Omerta-like law which held that New Adventures writers should all stick together in the face of fandom and not publicly criticise each others’ work. I say “Omerta”, but in practice, they behaved more like Medieval overlords than mafiosa: the elite have to form a united front, because otherwise, they’ll be revealed as weak, flabby individuals and the peasants will get ideas above their station. Oh, and you’re the peasants, by the way. When the new series began, those authors who were promoted to scriptwriter-level went from “overlords” to “royalty”, which is why my heartless attack on Mark Gatiss was received with the same shock as if a small-time landowner in the Middle Ages had just referred to the Prince of the Realm as a big spaz.
You think I’m exaggerating…? Then consider this. When Paul Cornell took me to task for the social faux-pas of having opinions, he seemed appalled that I was incapable of respecting the natural hierarchy, and asked whether there was anybody I ‘bent the knee’ to. Bent the knee…? What is this, geek feudalism? When I told him that I had no interest in serving or reigning, he asked me: ‘Do your followers know that?’ I found it horrifying that anyone could even think that way, and I still do.”
–Lawrence Miles
“I do worry about being surrounded by yes-men. You’re right, it happens. […] I don’t think it’s happened to me yet. In the end, just as good writers are hard to find, so are good script editors, good producers and good execs. When you find good people like Julie and Phil, their sheer talent cancels out the risk of them yes-ing. I suppose the danger is not RTD And The Yes-Men, but a triumverate of people who are so similar that contrary opinions don’t get a look-in.”
–Russell T Davies
In this article we are going to explore how Doctor Who fandom has become cult like, and how the combination of this and toxic identity politics has made the franchises fandom so poisonous that it threatens to destroy the series itself. Not only have the truly toxic fans had an influence on the show itself, but they have also made all Doctor Who forums, and even editing what are supposed to be factual articles on Doctor Who websites insular and dogmatic to the point where I can’t imagine many people having time for the franchise anymore.
What happens on Gallifrey Base when someone disagrees with a piece of received wisdom from the Fitzroy Crowd. Cheers Jon Blum.
All fandoms can be dogmatic. All fandoms have people who are self loathers, who are sticklers for tradition, who are abusive to other fans etc.
With Doctor Who however as Lawrence Miles has pointed out it goes beyond that. The Fitzroy Crowd (particularly Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat) are elevated to the position of royalty simply because they made Doctor Who popular again for a few years in the 00s.
We have already explored how the vile treatment Doctor Who received from the mainstream media in the 90s and 00s, bred a kind of desperation in fans to see the show accepted again above all else, even it was no longer the same show in any way shape or form, just as long as the brand of Doctor Who wasn’t targeted by shallow, moronic comedians on panel shows, then that was all that mattered.
Sadly Davies and Moffat used this to create a special kind of loyalty to the point where any criticism of them and their writing, no matter how measured and fair is viewed almost as heresy by certain quarters of fandom. “These were the men who delivered Doctor Who to glory. If you go against anything they say, you’re the type that would drag us back to the dark days of the 1990s.”
Now fair enough in response to this, both Moffat and Davies have received very dedicated haters, who yes have gone too far at certain points in their abuse of Davies and Moffat.
Still I feel that this wouldn’t happen if Doctor Who fandom were allowed to reflect a wider range of opinions.
Criticise anything about Davies and Moffat’s tenures on sites like Gallifrey Base and you will be either be dogpiled on, insulted, or eventually banned. It seems we must all learn to bend the knee.
The addition of identity politics meanwhile has just made the cult like mentality all the worse.
From about 2010-13 Steven Moffat was viciously slandered by radical feminists and regressive leftists.
Again I’m not by any measure right wing, but I do have problems with the more extreme examples of the left and their influence on fandom. They often paint themselves as simply wanting stronger roles for women and minorities, when in truth they often want to impose their own political agendas beyond that on works of fiction that should be for everyone.
They also often ironically want to divide people by race, gender and sexuality and define them entirely by those aspects of their personality.
A for lack of a better term SJW series, is not simply a series starring black people, or women, or LGBT people, which no one but a genuine bigot would have a problem with. It’s a series filled with explicit anti men material, that focuses more on making tired, cliched political points than in telling a good story. (No one is saying you can’t include politics in fiction, but the story itself still has to hold up on its own.)
It will also present its female, minority characters as tokens and trophies than as characters.
An example of this type of series is the CW’s Supergirl., which I think serves as quite a good contrast with series like Xena, Red Dwarf, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed none of which would be called SJW series, despite starring black, female, and LGBT leading characters.
Sadly as soon as the SJWs started to smear Moffat he caved. The reason they were able to get through to him, unlike Classic era fans was because the regressive leftists represent a young, hip, millenial audience to the Fitzroy Clique that they hope to win favour with. As they are all middle aged, it’s natural that they would want to make sure they don’t lose the young crowd. Of course there are plenty of middle aged SJWs and plenty of young classic era fans (including yours truly.)
Still Moffat and the rest of the Fitzroy Crowd held that mindset and so they went along with what the regressive left wanted for the series from the start of the Capaldi era onwards.
Here are examples of the SJWs vicious smear campaign against Moffat, as well as responses from Moffat and others to show it bothered them.
Problematic Posters For Doctor Who
Doctor Who Is Racist New Book Claims
Doctor Who Returns New Direction
BBC Responds To Sexist Accusations
Karen Gillan: Moffat Not Sexist
Steven Moffat Tweets Against Accusation of Sexism
Moffat’s “followers” as Paul Cornell would refer to them as, naturally followed suite when he started to embrace political correctness and unfortunately this just allowed them to bully dissenters to a greater extent than ever before.
Now they could smear you as a racist, a sexist, a homophobe over simply not liking the latest incarnation of the series, rather than simply a ming mong or not a true fan.
Here are a list of responses I received on Gallifrey Base to give you an example of the shows toxic fandom. The post in question that triggered these charming responses was simply asking posters how they’d fix Doctor Who. I mentioned decanonizing the revival, and not pandering to political correctness and the Gallifrey Base posters were not happy.
“It would seem burronjor finds the Thirteenth Doctor a sexually dominating figure and that makes him uncomfortable. I’d suggest his anxiety about that is more a matter for himself and a professional working in confidence, rather than for the BBC to make changes to accommodate. I mean they don’t even take strobe lighting off shows to accommodate people with photo-sensitive epilepsy – they just give a warning. Accommodating people who have fringe sexual hang ups they’re uncomfortable with, so they’re not triggered, isn’t very practical.”
“Whiny little bigot, when we see women or non-whites promoted to primary hero figures, that’s enough for manbabies like you to bitch and moan about how oppressed they are.”
I never once said I had a problem with women or non whites being promoted to primary hero figures. Would I have written articles like this if I did?
Would I have been retweeted by leading actresses from genre tv series if I did?
Dana Delorenzo “Means More To Me”
(Just to be clear I don’t know Dana Delorenzo. She tweeted this because she liked my idea of her playing Amy Winehouse.)
I got that response from simply criticising the Jodie Whittaker era.
“I can only say, having been a fan since 1977 and an active member of this forum and its predecessor since 2003 you are, quite simply, the worst Doctor Who fan I’ve ever encountered.”
“I could point you to exactly the video in which Bowlestrek is Islamophobic but I don’t want to contribute to monetizing the **** any more.”
I don’t watch Bowlestrek’s videos anymore. I used to watch some of his videos, but he ended up becoming stuck too much in the angry guy mode. I also thought his recent tweets about Jodie being ugly were nasty and childish. That said he is not a white supremacist or a racist, and the constant smearing of him as a bigot has I think led to him being more aggressive in his videos and tweets. (He certainly wasn’t as aggressive in his earlier videos.)
“There are loons on both sides, yes. You’re one of them.”
“You sound awfully threatened by inclusive casting. I genuinely think this is where a lot of this anger towards Jodie’s casting comes from – loss of privilege feels awfully like discrimination don’t you think?”
Yes I certainly am threatened by inclusive casting and female led forms of entertainment. That’s why I write articles like this. Top 10 Best British Female Singers of the 21st Century
“Understand? Of course you do. Because you know all this, and you know the difference in society between then and now. You’re just trying to justify yourself because you don’t like diverse casting in a show you think should belong to you.”
“All I see is you ranting a load of alt-right rubbish. The show is exactly the same as it’s always been.
What’s changed is people like have been radicalised by extremists and trolls on line. You hide behind your racism and sexism by pretending writers have been bullied into creating rubbish characters.”
“It was about as mature, sophisticated and eloquent a response as the fetid maggot-strewn rubbish that you’ve been posting actually merits. Perhaps even more so, but I’m feeling generous.”
“But is that your Mam shouting to tell you that your tea’s ready? Best run along now, before your fish finger butties go cold.”
“I don’t think bynnojor is really interested in discussion ,or facts, or really anything than spewing his ignorant, vial hatred and dated alt-right nastiness all over the place. All the usual points, all the usual “pretending to be reasonable”, all the usual SJW, woke, buzz words. It’d be a parody but people like this do esist, and they are delude din the belief that they are some kind of majority. They just want to exist ina world of hatred where women and PoC are only featured if they keep in their places.”
Hilariously enough after this tirade of abuse I was banned for life for my supposed bad behaviour.
Gallifrey Base is far from the only site that will abuse and then ban you if you dare to question anything that the Fitzroy Crowd have said however.
On the website TV Tropes and Idioms I was banned simply for editing their article about the Doctor Who villain The Master.
TV Tropes article about the Master states that he and the Doctor had always had a romantic relationship with one another. (As do other articles on their site.)
I simply edited in the truth about the characters development in the Classic era. Originally the Master was going to be revealed to be the Doctors brother. Roger Delgado who played the Master himself thought up this idea and Jon Pertwee who played the Doctor liked it, as did Barry Letts the co-creator of the character.
They were going to reveal that the Master was the Doctors brother in Delgado’s final story, The Long Game, but tragically Delgado was killed in a car accident before this story could be made.
Barry Letts would later oversee producer John Nathan Turner’s first season as producer. He filled JNT in on the backstory of the character of the Master, including the idea that he was the Doctors brother.
JNT liked the idea and hinted at it throughout his era. He even came close to revealing it in Planet of Fire, but cut the scene at the last minute because he wanted to leave the mystery about both characters past open.
You can find an interview with Jon Pertwee on the Planet of the Spiders DVD where he talks about this, and says that as far as he is concerned the Master and the Doctor are brothers, and that’s the only way their relationship makes sense.
Barry Letts in the same docu confirms this. Peter Davison meanwhile on the Planet of Fire DVD confirms that JNT believed the Doctor and the Master to be brothers and almost revealed it in the Planet of Fire.
These are simple, easily verifiable facts and for writing them into the Master’s article on TV Tropes I was banned for life from the site.
The reason for that is because TV Tropes are very biased towards the Moffat era and the revival overall. Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies, “ship” the Doctor and the Master.
Quite why you would want to ship the Doctor with a genocidal, sadistic, mass murdering monster who was envisioned as being the Doctors BROTHER, I have no idea, but again because Davies and Moffat say it (and wrote it into their versions of the character) a lot of their “followers” bent the knee and not only say that is how their relationship is now, but insist that it was always the case to make sure Davies and Moffat’s versions don’t stand out.
Steven Moffat in particular always insisted that his version of the Master, Missy channeled Roger Delgado, the original Master. This was undoubtedly because Missy was the first female Master, so in order for her to be a success, Moffat not only claimed she was in line with the others, but actually MORE faithful to the original than the other male Masters were.
It was a bold move, but it doesn’t hold up to anyone who has seen even 2 seconds of Delgado’s Master.
Delgado Master
MASTER: How well you know me, Doctor! Now come on, smarten yourselves up. We want to look our best for a royal audience, you know.
JO: He’s very confident.
MASTER: Well, Miss Grant, as an Earth poet once said, ‘My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure’. Come on, you fellows, let me out! Your Emperor is waiting to see me.
Missy
MISSY: Well, yes, of course it is. I mean, how would you ever find your glasses? Or the little girl’s room? And what if you kissed an ugly?
I think a lot of SJWs also adopted the Master and the Doctor together as gay icons, which is silly as their relationship isn’t exactly a positive representation of gay relationships.
Naturally writing in the actual FACT that the Master and Doctor were meant to be brothers completely destroys the entire Master/Doctor shipping crap, and shows just how unfaithful Moffat and Davies’ versions the character were. Even if you like Missy, if you are being truthful you have to write that she was a huge deviation which Davies and Moffat’s followers aren’t prepared to do, so I had to be banned.
Here is the conversation I had with a mod named Fighteer who both insulted and banned me.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=5cma6iojg5o27puhulc24sje&page=834
After this I was still able to log on, via an old account. I then tried to edit another article on their site about pandering to the base and included Steven Moffat’s attempts to pander to the extreme feminist side of his audience (which I backed up with facts.) Once again I was banned.
I foolishly tried to sort out my differences there with a new account in a discussion page, and backed up everything I had said about Moffat’s pandering with verifiable sources, only to be insulted and banned yet again. Not only that I also brought up the issue on the discussion page of the article in a civil and reasonable way (again with sources,) only to have what I wrote deleted after I was banned, in an effort to make sure no one could read my points.
Here is my latest confrontation with the people who desperately want the Doctor to sleep with his evil, xenophobic, twisted brother.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=90524&type=att#comment-90524
You can see how none of them are able to answer my question?
Instead it’s just all insults, calling me a crushing bore, telling me I lack the moral high ground, because I ban evaded and “I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER”. In regards to the ban evasion I was upfront about it. What else was I to do? I was banned unfairly for stating an objective FACT, just because it flew in the face of a mods infantile shipping agenda.
Fighteer demonstrated remarkable maturity by stating this after banning me again.
Well, that’s fun. Bye, ban evader. By the way, I feed on your hatred. It makes me more powerful.
Ironically this sounds like something the Master from the classic era, who was depicted as a controlling megalomaniac would say.
DOCTOR: The Master’s consumed with hatred. It’s his one great weakness.
MASTER: Ha. Weakness, Doctor? Hate is strength.
This is where posting FACTS will get you on a DW site. It wasn’t even as though in regards to the Master I posted anything controversial. It was literally just a description of what Barry Letts and Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado all wanted the character to be, yet because it didn’t fit in with Moffat’s kinky Mary Poppins version, that was enough for me to be insulted, smeared as a misogynist, a bore, a trouble maker and get banned three times!
Sadly the same would undoubtedly be true on other sites. If you were to edit the wikipedia article on the Master to include the knowledge that the Master was supposed to be the Doctors brother and mention how the character has changed over the years, (the way that other articles do about villains like the Joker.) A Moffat fan or a rabid SJW would most likely remove your edits without any kind of proper discussion and ban you as a trouble maker, a homophobe and a sexist.
A part of me wonders if future releases of Planet of the Spiders or Planet of Fire will even include the interviews with Letts and Pertwee and Davison, talking about the Masters origins? If they do, then people will know how unfaithful Missy is. (They’d know that just by watching the original Masters, but still you can’t even argue that the romance was a subtext with this in mind.)
I can easily imagine these extras and interviews being left on the cutting room floor, and all official articles on tv tropes, wikipedia being edited and monitored to make sure Moffat’s and Davies’ versions aren’t as ridiculously out of place as they seem. (Even though they still are.)
Similarly on the Planet Skaro Forum I was banned for stating the facts about the smear campaign about Steven Moffat. Ironically I had only come to the forum in the first place because someone insulted me after I had posted a link to a particular thread a few times (as examples of Moffat’s disdain for the original series.)
A poster accused me of being “the worlds angriest Scot” (as though my Scottish heritage has anything to do with my arguments?) When I explained myself, and again posted links to my arguments, the mods blocked me and sent me a private message calling me a stupid prick.
Here is the thread.
One of the worst individual examples of toxic fandom meanwhile has to be Elizabeth Sandifier, a popular blogger.
Sandifier has always been a somewhat irrational, bullying figure. (She has a page on LOL Cows for a reason.)
I personally had a clash with her when she obsessively went through a number of my posts on The Hive and started stalking me on twitter. (She accused me of being alt right, a sexist and encouraged people to mock my original fiction.)
When I confronted her on her accusations, and asked her to name me ONE thing I had said that was sexist or alt right, she called me a sexist cockwomble and blocked me.
Two years later, after the debacle of the Timeless Children which Sandifier hated (it seems that was too far even for the cult like New Who fans.) I decided to offer an olive branch and left a comment on her blog saying that we needed to ditch the Doctor Who is all about change narrative.
She responded by telling me to get the fuck off of her blog. When I told her that was a childish response and she should grow up, she posted a song telling me to kill myself.
Here is the song she posted.
https://idieyoudie.bandcamp.com/track/join-mussolini
I suffer from severe chronic depression as anyone who follows this blog (or looked obsessively at my posts on the Hive as she did) would know. I have been open about my struggle with it for years. Almost every single year this blog has been delayed at some point due to my frequent bouts of severe depression.
Yet Sandifier would send me a song saying “KILL YOURSELF, KILL YOURSELF, KILL YOURSELF DON’T DELAY.” When I pointed out to Sandifier my struggle with mental health problems and how inappropriate it was, she responded by deleting my comment talking about my struggles with mental health, but leaving the comment telling me to kill myself.
Essentially she wanted to taunt me about killing myself, but not get into trouble for it with her woke friends, so she deleted the comment that showed she was taunting someone with mental health problems, rather than the comment taunting someone with mental health problems. I think that tells you all you need to know about Sandifier.
The toxicity of fandom extends even to those who run Doctor Who Magazine and official events.
I recently got into a spat with Benjamin Cook who blocked me. Now in all fairness I am not going to play the victim here. I told Cook to fuck off. Recently Doctor Who Magazine recently hired Claudia Boleyn and many other controversial figures in fandom and openly said that if this upset regular fans, all the better. Claudia Boleyn is a youtuber, singer/songwriter who has been quite vocal about what she feels is the misogyny of the Moffat era. I like Claudia as a person to be fair. She is a very nice, intelligent woman, but I disagree with her political points and by her own admission she was part of the SJW wave of fans. Hiring her, whilst being so vocally against the likes of Bowlestrek and Nerdrotic as what fandom shouldn’t be is making a definite statement.
The magazine however later had to censor and dismiss Claudia Boleyn when she wanted to write an article focusing on the misogyny in the Moffat era. (Showing that even the SJWs have to know their place and bend the knee.)
Naturally when Ben Cook wanted the older fans back, I told him he could fuck off after insulting us, and his response was to send this to me.
Oh mate. DWM is a magazine about Doctor Who, made by people who love Doctor Who, for people who love Doctor Who. And that’s not you. You’re just an angry, women-hating, transphobic turd. If you were the last man alive, DWM wouldn’t want YOU as a reader.
Ha nice try: Now fuck off outta my mentions. I’ve read your tweets. Alt right? You’re not even one of the interesting ones. You’re just… boring.
And half YOUR mentions are people telling you to fuck off. So let me add to the chorus…
Fuck off, you sexist cockwomble.
Now again I didn’t expect a civil response, but I do find it quite funny the way that Cook felt he needed to put me in my place. Who am I? I should be a nobody to Cook, but clearly just as Laurence Miles pointed out in the 00s, the clique are so desperate not to be rumbled, any criticism, even from the plebs and ming mongs they would have looked down on, must be silenced. Also his arguments consists of the usual smearing me as a woman hater, a transphobe, a racist etc, without any proof or even reason to think that I am any of those things.
EDIT update, I later had a much more civil interaction with Claudia Boleyn which really moved me and just further reminded me not to tar all or even most new who, RTD era, SJW fans with the same brush. Whilst there is a problem with toxic fandom, it only represents a minority who sadly have all the power.
Recently when Claudia was suffering from depression. (Something I can obviously relate too.) I sent Claudia a message of support, and she was grateful and sent this lovely message back to me.
Thank you so much for your comment, Burrunjor. It honestly made me smile. Thank you for your kindness and for your compliments. I hope you know that though our views may differ, I really do respect you, and that it means more than I can say that in spite of that you’ve taken the time to wish me well. You mention your own feelings of regret, and I hope you find some peace with those soon. I also hope it’s not wrong of me to feel comforted by you sharing your struggle with a similar issue last year. I think just knowing that you’re here now, and you got through it, has given me a lot of strength.
(Also, I’m a Sasha Dhawan girl now!)
All the best and I wish I could do more to thank you. Xxx
I think this is very important to remember when discussing the toxic side of fandom, as it shows that people with different views can get along very well, which just further highlights how irrational people like Elizabeth Sandifier and those on Gallifrey Base are.
At no point in all the times I’ve been banned, told to kill myself, told to get the fuck out of Doctor Who fandom, smeared as a racist, a Nazi, a homophobe, had people gloat about kicking me off of websites, delete what I’ve written, been subject to racist abuse “KILL YOURSELF WHITE BOY TODAY” “World’s angriest Scot,” has anyone come up with a counter argument to my points about Steven Moffat, Missy and Delgado, or feminist pandering in the revival.
By far and away the most disturbing example of how far some cult like Doctor Who fans are willing to go however, is the recent smearing of Bowlestrek on social media as an animal abuser.
Again I acknowledge a lot of Bowlestrek’s content has become derivative and nasty, (far more so than Claudia Boleyn’s content ever was against Moffat for instance. She always insisted that it wasn’t personal, whilst Bowlestrek recently made nasty comments about Jodie looking like a pig.) That still doesn’t excuse the lengths people on Gallifrey Base and other sites have gone to discredit him however.
Recently a group of Doctor Who fans on twitter created a false rumour that Bowlestrek raped a dog. This was then picked up by users on Gallifrey Base and repeated as a fact on their site and across all of social media. Doctor Who fans even started sending Bowlestrek pictures of dogs, and messages saying “woof.”
These accusations could seriously threaten Bowlestrek’s everyday life, make him unemployable, make him a target of vigilantes. The rumour was completely fabricated, but the posters on twitter and Gallifrey Base hoped the mud would stick. I spoke with several fans who were spreading the rumour, telling them that it was slander. Their response was simply to say that Bowlestrek deserved it because he referred to Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Nasty.
See here
Mr Tardis Reviews “Bowlestrek Dog Rumours”
Here one fan named Dimmeh Looming openly admits she knows it isn’t true, yet continues to spread it around because she finds it hilarious (she also continues to tweet Woof at Bowlestrek.)
This was a serious wake up call for me not to get involved with organised fandom anymore. Whilst it’s lame, cowardly, and pathetic to ban people for not accepting your infantile revisionist views of Roger Delgado and Jon Pertwee, or to call people misogynists for not liking Jodie’s “performance”. Trying to smear someone as a sex offender for making shouty youtube videos is frightening and a sign of just how dangerous an organised fandom for something as benign as Doctor Who can become.
You Got Offended When That Dog Article
One Hand on His Dick Thinking About Dogs
The very idea that these people would try and ruin a man’s life like this over a disagreement over a crappy tv show defies belief.
What’s hilarious about the rise of toxic fandom is how they often try and smear their critics of being guilty of what they are actually guilty of. (A common tactic among all bullies.)
A prominent example of this can be seen in Mr Tardis Reviews recent outburst at the NotMyDoctor crowd. Now I have covered Mr Tardis in previous articles. He is a youtube commentator who shills for the BBC (he has admitted working for them in a freelance capacity in the past, and is clearly desperately trying to get a job with them.)
He is also a rampant egotist who sees himself as a knight for women, minorities, and LGBT people in the genre. He happily throws other Doctor Who and sci fi fans under the bus and smears them as sexists, white supremacists etc, just to make himself look better.
The great irony is that he barely knows anything about female or minority characters. Not once on his channel has he ever reviewed an iconic female led genre series, like Xena, Buffy, Charmed, Once Upon A Time, Ghost Whisperer, Sleepy Hollow, I Zombie etc. He doesn’t follow any major actresses from the genre on social media, like Lucy Lawless, Lana Parilla, Maggie Q or Dana Delorenzo (he probably wouldn’t know who half these women were.)
When I called him out on this he ran through a list of female led films he had reviewed. The only problem was they were all films he had to review either as a professional critic or to stay relevant. None of them were films he had tracked down on his own, and even then the list was poor as he was forced to include 50 Shades of Grey among them.
Mr Tardis doesn’t care about female heroes at all. It’s just a way for him to stroke his ego and get in with the BBC, but in spite of this he tries to present himself as an impartial figure in Doctor Who fandom.
In the last few months as the Jodie era’s viewers have crashed, Mr Tardis has naturally taken to blaming the toxic white male fans, but ironically all of the things he accuses the NotMyDoctor crowd of, he and those he associates with are far more guilty of.
See for yourself.
First off I’d just like to say how ironic it is that Mr Tardis is blaming Doctor Who fans for the shows fall in viewers. Don’t you remember when Jodie’s first episode aired to massive viewers, he was gloating about “get woke, get high viewing figures?”
See here.
Yet now it’s all our fault? Hilariously enough Dave Cullen said this exact thing would happen before Jodie’s first series aired that when it declined in viewers, it would be the sexist white males who would get the blame. (I am not the biggest fan of Dave Cullen. I am a socialist, and I support gay marriage, so I clash with him on most major issues. Still credit where credit is due, unlike Mr Tardis he called it out exactly as it was.)
The very idea that Bowlestrek is a white supremacist is laughable. Notice that Mr Tardis never backs his claims up. I do. In this article I include tweets of people accusing Bowlestrek of raping a dog (and admitting that it’s a lie.) I have links to arguments on TV Tropes and Planet Skaro, direct quotes from Gallifrey Base.
Mr Tardis on the other hand can’t find one quote from Bowlestrek that backs up the claim that he is a Nazi.
As for accusing others of spreading fake news, this is a man who saw nothing wrong with people spreading rumours that Bowlestrek was a sex offender, who claimed Jeremy Clarkson was a holocaust denier and who had to retract a completely false statement he made about Sargon of Akkad and apologise for it.
See here.
Again I back up what I say Trilbee. By the way I despise Sargon of Akkad too. I used to like some of his videos I admit, but I now consider him a right wing shill and apologist for Pinochet. Still unlike Trilbee I’ve never had to retract anything negative I’ve written about him, because I actually do my research when criticising him and don’t just jump on a “Sargon bad man” band wagon.
Furthermore Mr Tardis’ videos and articles are often very poorly researched. In his review of Amy, the 2015 Amy Winehouse biography (which is one of the few good female led films he has reviewed, but even then that was only because it was out in the cinema.) Mr Tardis regularly refers to Amy Winehouse’s boyfriend that got her addicted to drugs and inspired Back to Black as Reg Travis.
As anyone who paid even the slightest attention to Amy’s life will know, it was her earlier boyfriend, Blake Fielder Civil that got her hooked on drugs and inspired Back to Black. She only knew Reg Travis for the last two years of her life, and he tried desperately to get her off alcohol.
If he only referred to him as Reg Travis once, it could have just been an honest mistake, but he does so at least 3 times throughout the article.
See here.
And all of this is exacerbated by her relationship with her boyfriend Reg Traviss which was incredibly damaging due to his negative influence.
She wrote “Back To Black” when her relationship to Reg Traviss originally broke down and it was one of the most difficult periods of her life. She eventually got back with Reg and overcame many of her struggles.
You uh, you sure about that?
With this in mind I wonder if he has actually even watched the film, as there is no way anyone could possibly think Reg Travis was the person who got Amy hooked on drugs otherwise.
(He also clearly never paid any attention to Amy back in the 00s when she was around either. Again so much for appreciating prominent female entertainers. I meanwhile was a fan of Amy’s since 2003, just sayin.)
Nerdrotic meanwhile at least was proven right about the Ruth Doctor rumor.
Nerdrotic claims Doctors original gender to be revealed in Season 12
Never mind Nerdrotic’s fake news (that’s actually real) I’d be worried about getting sued by Jeremy Clarkson and Bowlestrek and Reg Travis if they ever see what you wrote about them Shilbee.
It’s hilarious that Mr Tardis would complain about gatekeeping. This from a man who once said “GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS FANDOM.”
Second I wonder if this bigotry includes “KILL YOURSELF WHITE BOY TODAY.” Or “World’s angriest Scot?” I wonder if this vile behaviour includes smearing people as sex offenders, or telling people who’ve suffered a severe, chronic, life long battle with depression to kill themselves?
Also I think it’s funny how the NotMyDoctor crowd are being accused of being bad fans because they dislike the current version, whilst Mr Tardis never held this attitude towards the feminists and SJWs who smeared Moffat as a sexist during the 2010s?
They devoted an entire website to trashing Moffat called STFU Moffat.com
Yet where was Mr Tardis, who was around at that time’s outrage and declaration that these people deserve unhappiness and that he was glad they were miserable?
Furthermore for all his talk of the NotMyDoctor crowd bullying actors and people involved in the show, Mr Tardis doesn’t seem to care when people are actually fired and even blacklisted from the franchise for expressing the wrong opinion to the other side.
Now tell me Mr Tardis who was it that got two people involved in the franchise (ironically two gay men) fired recently?
That would be the SJW “fans” who got both Gareth Roberts a longtime writer for the series, and James Dreyfus, who plays the first incarnation of the Master in the Big Finish audios, fired and blacklisted for criticising identity politics online.
“Your tears say more than substantial evidence ever could.”
Following these attacks, Dreyfus was dismissed by Big Finish from his role as the Master.
Meanwhile Gareth Roberts was also not just fired, but blacklisted from the entire franchise too. Just to be clear I don’t agree with Roberts, in that I think that trans people do exist. I do believe that gender dysphoria is real, and I have no issue whatsoever with calling a trans woman, a woman. Still to essentially ruin the man’s life by making him never able to work again, especially in a franchise that he helped keep alive during the wilderness period is really low.
Gareth Roberts Axed From Doctor Who
Hey it’s not like the warm, inclusive side of fandom that Mr Tardis associates with actually chased a former Doctor off of Twitter is it?
Oh that’s right they did, just days after Jodie was announced.
Peter Davison Chased off Twitter
Meanwhile Colin Baker who was for a female Doctor, and who wrote a condescending article insulting those who were opposed to it, wasn’t chased off of twitter at all.
And to think Mr Tardis complains because someone he claims to know who worked on series 12 (he conveniently doesn’t say who, or show any evidence) received mean tweets from some NotMyDoctor people. Try having your entire career torpedoed because you disagreed with the other side, or being chased off social media by fans of a franchise you starred in, or told to off yourself when you’re struggling with mental health issues?
Ultimately none of this matters to Mr Tardis or any of the true toxic side of fandom. They literally don’t see Jodie’s critics as people, so it’s okay to smear them in the worst possible ways, taunt them for their mental health problems and ruin their careers.
All of the things Mr Tardis has said are true about the side of fandom he has chosen to ally himself with. They are the ones who will be putting people off. Can you imagine any normal person wanting to be part of Doctor Who fandom today? Why would they want to be part of a forum where if they disagree with received wisdom they’d be labelled a ming mong, a sexist, an animal abuser, and told to go kill themselves?
And by wrong opinion I mean stating an objective fact about the shows long history, like writing that the Roger Delgado intended the Master to be the Doctors brother.
Then there is the fact that actors and writers are in danger of having their entire careers sunk, and their reputations slandered by this warm, inclusive fandom. Honestly what producer, writer or actor would want to work on Doctor Who (an already dying franchise) and run the risk of pissing off such a volatile and bullying fandom (who the BBC and Big Finish will always cater to?)
The only type of person interested in joining that type of fandom is someone who already has the same cult like mentality.
Gallifrey Base gets a new patron (It needs all the support it can get these days not surprisingly since most of its old guard have been either chased off or banned.) Cheers Jon Blum.
Even worse than the toxic fans however are the cowardly fans in the middle. They are arguably the people who have let it get so bad.
There are many fans who understandably want no part in the culture war that Doctor Who fandom has become, which is fair enough. I have no ill will towards fans who wisely just left the shit show the fandom is now like the youtuber, Wingy Media. He is the smart one.
However the people I get annoyed at are the likes of Who Addicts Reviews and Channel Pup, both of whom complain about toxic fandom, but only ever go after people like Bowlestrek.
It’s cowardice plain and simple. I hate saying that as I have had a few interactions with Channel Pup and we got along fine. I don’t think he is a bad person, (not like Sandifier) but the way he only goes after Bowlestrek so vehemently to me always seemed like he was going after an easy target.
I could be wrong, and if he wants to challenge what I’ve written here, I’d be more than happy to hear him out.
Still look at this video.
As you can see he rips into Bowlestrek in the nastiest and most childish ways. Some of his points are valid like Bowlestrek’s nasty comments about an actress from the new Terminator film, but he ends up burying them under petty insults, like ironically telling Bowlestrek he looks like a cinema masterbator.
I have never resorted to personal insults when taking apart Mr Tardis’ or Claudia Boleyn’s arguments. In fact I have always stressed that I quite liked Claudia as a person, it was just her opinions and impact on the franchise that I disagree with.
I may have called Mr Tardis an egotist, and a hypocrite based on what he actually said, but imagine if I said “Mr Tardis looks like the type of person that would feel up girls in parks.” How moronic and just plain nasty would that look? Yet that is actually what Channel Pup did in his attempt to debunk the supposedly toxic side of fandom.
Added to that the video is extremely poorly researched as Bowlestrek later took it apart.
Still that’s not even the main issue. The point is, where was a video like this about the STFU Moffat crowd? They constantly targeted Steven Moffat, they smeared him as a sexist, they got upset over nothing, they made ridiculous accusations that Matt Smith’s Doctor encouraged sexual assault.
Yet it’s Bowlestrek that Channel Pup attacks so strongly? I’ll be honest here, Bowlestrek is irrelevant. He’s just a shouty guy on youtube. He hasn’t influenced the direction of the series by smearing it’s head writer the way the STFU Moffat crowd did, he hasn’t got anyone fired, he hasn’t made forums into places where if you express the wrong opinion, you’ll either be banned, insulted, smeared or all of the above. Even his lowest, most abusive posts have never reached the level of slandering someone as a sexual abuser, or telling them to commit suicide and mocking their mental health struggles.
The simple reason Channel Pup and others go after Bowlestrek is because Bowlestrek is irrelevant and an easy target. You can smear him and face no consequences at all. Try and take on the people who smeared Bowlestrek as a dog rapist and maybe they’ll dream up some nasty little rumour about you. Similarly maybe they’ll get you booted off of social media like Peter Davison, or ruin your chances to work in the industry like James Dreyfus. (If established actors like Dreyfus and Davison can’t cope with the vicious backlash these people are capable of dredging up, what the hell chance does a young and upcoming youtuber have?)
I very much doubt that the likes of Channel Pup would even be willing to go through what I did on Gallifrey Base and have dozens of people dogpile on him, insult him as a misogynist, a racist, a homophobe, and be banned and have them mock him when he couldn’t respond. (I wouldn’t have gone through that if I’d known how bad Gallifrey Base was at first.)
That’s fine if he doesn’t want to go through that, but to try and pin all the blame on the decline of Doctor Who’s fandom on someone like Bowlestrek just because he is an easy target is not only cowardly, but actually helps the creepy, cult like “family” of Doctor fandom. It just further cements their delusion that they are the gatekeepers of Doctor Who fandom who have tried to keep the toxic elements (contrary opinions, people who don’t “bend the knee”) out, but now they are losing.
Who Addicts Reviews meanwhile are even worse as they were actually part of the STFU Moffat bandwagon, yet they now act all high and mighty against the NotMyDoctor Crowd? The same applies to others like Five Who Fans who similarly claim that the likes of Bowlestrek have brought Doctor Who fandom down, whilst also claiming to be impartial. They never say how Bowlestrek did this however, cite examples of forums he’s ruined, actors he’s got fired, examples of the show pandering to him that have ruined it?
In the end if you just want out of Doctor Who fandom like Wingy Media, I could not be more sympathetic, but don’t try and feed the very toxicity that is destroying it by dogpiling on an easy target like Five Who Fans of Who Addicts.
(Edit update, I just saw that Channel Pup and Bowlestrek have buried the hatchet. I respect Channel Pup for being willing to patch things up with someone he was in a feud with, which is exceedingly rare on the internet. Nevertheless I still think that the NotMyDoctor crowd have become all too easy a target for supposedly impartial fans to blame the decline of the show on. I don’t like the NotMyDoctor crowd to be clear. I think they have been guilty of overreacting to the smallest things like the STFU Moffat crowd, such as when they did multiple videos devoted to Jodie wearing a silly costume on set. Still ultimately so far they haven’t had anywhere near the impact the other side have had.)
As you can see Doctor Who fandom is really not even a fandom anymore. It is a cult. A cult that will try and silence any dissenting opinions, and worse ruin the reputations of people it sees as a threat.
Of course not all Doctor Who fans are like this. 90 percent of interactions I’ve had, even with just New Who, Davies, Moffat era fans have been pleasant, it’s just the tiny ten percent that hold all the power that have turned the fandom into a cult.
I’m not saying that we should shun all of New Who. I’m not even saying shun the Jodie Whittaker era, but we need to stop throwing accusations of sexism around at the drop of a hat, stop elevating people like Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat to being above criticism.
No figure in any fandom should ever hold the position that Paul Cornell at least wanted to have. “Reigning or serving.” In contrast to Doctor Who, the Buffy/Angel fandom is one of the best I have ever had the good fortune to be a part of.
Log on the Buffy boards, and then log on Gallifrey Base and the difference is quite alarming. On the Buffy boards you can criticise beloved stories like Spike and Buffy, and not have people dogpile on you. There are some minor fandom in wars like Spuffy vs Bangel, but it’s nothing like what you see on Gallifrey Base.
I lasted a short while on Gallifrey Base as a poster and my entire time there was a truly horrible experience. In contrast I’ve been on the Buffy board for a couple of months now and I’ve loved it. It’s not as though some of my Buffy opinions aren’t controversial. I despise the ever popular Spike/Buffy romance for instance. Yet there is no dogmatic, cult like belief on that site. Even Joss Whedon, the actual creator of the Buffy/Angel series is not held up in the same regard as Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat.
After the Fitzroy crowd are dethroned so to speak, no one else should ever take their place as cult like figures to Doctor Who fandom. That to me is the root cause of the toxicity in the fandom. The identity politics has not helped and needs eliminated as a dominant force too, but ultimately all fandoms are suffering from this right now, but none are as badly hit as Doctor Who.
The combination of its existing cult like loyalty to Moffat and Davies, and the cult of SJWs are truly toxic and needs eliminated from Doctor Who pronto if it is to survive.
What the Family do to Nevile’s flat here is a pretty good representation of what the Fitzroy Crowd and their “followers” have done to Doctor Who and it’s past.
burrunjorsramblesandbabbles 
Been watching Doctor Who since Jon Pertwee turned into Tom Baker. Stopped watching during Capaldi’s era.
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Hi. I am commenting on this post as someone who ended up inserting himself into this conflict on Twitter.
When Peter Capaldi became Jodie Whittaker, I decided to jump ship and leave the fandom as I had suspected that the show was now going to go in a direction that I wasn’t very interested in. At the time, I had believed everything the NMD fandom stood for and their beliefs that the show was accidentally being racist towards straight white males. So I moved on, and developed new interests and hobbies that I could invest my passion in, that I didn’t have to worry about anything else interfering with it, such as Classic Rock, VFX, art, The Brady Bunch, South Park, 70s films, Anime, French New Wave films, etc. And naturally I became much more satisfied with my life.
My perception of Chibnall’s era slowly shattered in about November 2019 when I saw a video of Jodie Whittaker dressing up as The Doctor, comforting a girl who suffered from depression. This act of kindness moved me, and later on, when the Series 12 trailer came out, I saw a Bowlestrek video about it, and it suddenly occurred to me that the kind of stuff the NMD fandom believed in was absurd. He kept calling Jodie “Whittaker the Hateful”, and complained about a shot of a vineyard being placed in the trailer for the sake of riffing on a trailer for the millionth Star Trek remake that was apparently being made at the time. I found his video so hilarious that I just subscribed to his channel just to see his reviews for entertainment.
However, later on, it started to stop being fun. The comment section in almost every Bowlestrek video since is very uncomfortable to look at. It’s just some people complaining about Jodie and Chibnall ruining their childhoods and inserting anti-white male propaganda which is not the case at all. When I at least tried to say something positive about one of the Series 12 episodes (I think it was “can you hear me”), I got a reply that was very bizarre and made no sense at all. I replied back “excuse me”, and he said something even more strange, and called me “woke”, which as of now is a word that means absolutely nothing.
While I do agree with many people that what I feel Bowlestrek is saying is wrong, I also understand that accusing him of things like beastiality is crossing a line, and that is something I strayed away from. I also made fan edits of Bowlestrek’s videos that weren’t specifically made to attack him, but rather as an inside joke between me and some other Twitter users. However, when Bowlestrek appeared to take notice of it, I quickly took down the videos so as to avoid getting into trouble. Most of my criticisms were just limited to things that many people would find upsetting, that he said, really.
These days, I believe after what has transpired, I might have done things differently and try and deal with such problems in a more calm and rational way, and articulate my thoughts in a formal way that doesn’t upset anybody
Nonetheless, I have also become very curious about the opposing 2 sides and want to get a better and full understanding on what the 2 believe in
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Well like I said I haven’t watched a Bowlestrek video in months. I can buy that the NMD crowd will eventually become the new STFU Moffat.com. They are desperate to hate on everything Jodie and others like her do, the same way the STFU Moffat crowd were Moff and Matt.
Still right now I don’t think you can say the toxicity levels are equal, only because the Bowlestrek’s are just a few people online.
Ultimately though I still the root of the problem is the Fitzroy Crowd’s cult like mentality. A lot of their most rabid followers aren’t even SJWs, they just go along with what they say because they said it, like Jon “Cheers” Blum.
This is another quote from Lawrence Miles that I think sums up the creepy cult like attitude from the Fitzroy Crowd rather nicely.
“Yep, I was right all the time. People with power are hideous, but worse still are the people who hang around near people with power: once again, I remember Paul Cornell haranguing me because of the way my “followers” were behaving on the internet (this was before I even had access to the internet, you understand), and his sheer lack of comprehension when I told him that I didn’t want to have any followers. We can all learn lessons here, not least because some of the silliest behaviour amongst Doctor Who tribes over the last twenty years has been a result of acting like an offensive security guard. Paul? This isn’t a feudal state where you have to “bend the knee” to the most popular writers, so stop it. Moffat? You’re not going to make any interesting TV by sucking up to a big gay producer or by supplying fangirls with things that might make them go squidgey for you, so stop it. Jon Blum? You’re not going to get hired by the TV series by defending every single thing BBC Wales does, so stop it. No, really, stop it. You sound like an arse, and everybody’s laughing at you behind your back. And me in 1999…? You’re not going to get into telly by lying to people who write terrible fiction, so stop it. Oh, you did. Good. You don’t have to positively insult them, mind you, but… no, whatever you like. All power is rubbish.”
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The NMD fandom are the literal equivalent to the cult of Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now
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I like to think me and my friend’s forum is a nice, fun little oasis from that conflict in fandom.
https://theautonfactory.proboards.com/
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Damn I wish I had seen this video before writing this article.
Proof if ever that New Who fandom is a creepy cult and that Lawrence Miles was correct decades ago.
I can’t be the only one who sees similarities?
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I got to this article because someone posted it on another fan cover video from the same channel. I’ve never been part of the DW online fanbase but I did take part in a couple of Doctor Who Fan Orchestra projects a few years ago (which were actually even more ambitious). I realise things have gone way too far elsewhere in the fandom, but to see just a sign of a ‘creepy cult’ in positive and constructive initiatives like these is really sad.
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Hi sorry I missed this comment. Been quiet recently on social media, but I won’t bore you with why.
Maybe I was being too harsh on them coming together for that video, but seeing them all singing together after Cornell’s bend the Knee couldn’t help but remind me of the Family. Who knows though maybe people like Sandifier have turned me into a self loathing fanboy too, always assuming the worst.
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in a perfect world we’d all sing in tune
but this is reality so give me some room
-Billy Bragg
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Just like to say that I feel bad about mocking that video. I shouldn’t rip the piss out of fan creators who never did me any harm. That is a huge dick move of mine. I admit it 100 percent. I guess at the time I wrote this I was just so angry at some of the treatment I got I was in a bad mood in general. For what it’s worth, I have made up with a lot of people I fell out with then, like Claudia Boleyn and even some people from Gallifrey Base so all is good, but yeah I can and do admit when I was being an asshole too for what that is worth.
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Not only ”would” people on sites like Wikipedia and Tardis Data Core attack anyone who tries to offer some sort of balance to things, they DO attack anyone who tries to correct information. All spouting the exact same neologist terms and phrases, but happily calling people “shit for brains”, all the while saying “Oh, we are trying to give everyone a fair say”.
If these people want to turn the current Doctor Who into the inside of a digestive system, then they can do that. What I dislike is the way this toxicity “travels back through time”. So now, as you say, the Doctor and the Master supposedly always wanted to have sex with each other. And now, the first incarnation of the Doctor was a little girl millions of years ago, not William Hartnell.
It’s really sad to see a show that once brought various people together in their love for it be turned into this fascist clique, with people like Blum and Cornell acting as the little Commandants. All the while claiming that they are the ones trying to be “inclusive” and fight hatred!
I can’t get onto Gallifrey Base to quote it(not that I’d EVER want to go back there), but I was banned outright from that site for a reason you may be interested in.
Kate Orman made a post where she said that of the first seven television Doctors(Hartnell through McCoy), four were male, two were female, and one was utterly asexual. However, the three that weren’t male had to “pass for male” due to the rampant sexism of the time. All the pariscubs and the like praised her for her remarkable insight and agreed that that was likely true. When I said what I though of it(never swearing, and criticising the IDEA, not Orman herself), I was kicked out of the sight because “Gallifrey Base doesn’t need bigots”, or words to that effect.
So, in the eyes of Gallifrey Base, Jodie Whitaker isn’t the first female television Doctor.
And, the big kicker…the actual transphobic ones are the ones promoting Jodie. because gender identity is not about simply flip-flopping between male and female. People know their gender identity. Sadly, some people are born with the wrong body gender, and they know themselves to be the other gender, despite what parts they may have. And that’s what transgender people are. With Nu Doctor Who however, WHATEVER BODY PARTS THE PERSON HAS DICTATES WHAT GENDER THEY IDENTIFY AS. After Capaldi regenerates, Whitaker looks down, sees female body parts, and so immediately starts identifying as “she”. That’s the very definition of “cisnormative”.
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That’s hysterical. I 100 percent believe that story about Orman. Isn’t it funny that this fandom is the one that is insanely SJW, whilst Buffy the one starring a woman, and featuring a lesbian woman (Willow) as the most powerful person on earth is the mellow, easy going, fun fandom?
It just backs up what am I saying that the worst SJWs are often self loathing men, or chancer men who think they can use it to get in with fangirls.
What you say about trans people is true, and I think this video from Blaire White sums up in regards to who the worst idiots that deny the reality of gender are (it also backs up what I’m saying too.)
What is wrong with these lunatics?
It’s important for people like us to constantly make sure that idiots on sites like TV Tropes and Gallifrey Base aren’t able to rewrite the past, by always writing it the way it was.
PS Terrance Dicks fucking hated Missy with a vengeance for all the same reasons I did. You never see that mentioned though.
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Someone found Kate Orman’s thread on Gallifrey Base.
“1. Gallifreyans are reproductively identical to humans. Therefore, while most are either male or female, 1-2% have characteristics of both biological sexes. The Doctor is one of these intersex Gallifreyans, chromosomally female, but with a recessive gene that makes him phenotypically male.
2. Ordinary Gallifreyans are hermaphrodites. On graduation from the Academy, Time Lords (due to a tradition whose reason is long lost) are required to select a single sex.
3. Gallifreyans have a haplodiploid sex determination system, like ants and bees. Due to this, almost all children are boys. In fact, girls are so rare that they’re outnumbered by the female regenerations of male Time Lords.
4. The copy of the Doctor created by the Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis is female from the waist down.
5. On graduation from the Academy, Time Lords are bestowed with the full reproductive powers of both sexes. Their ambisexuality is not obvious to humans, however, since their reproduction is as different from ours as ours is from that of mushrooms.
6. Time Lords alternate fertile and sterile generations. The Doctor adopted his sister’s son, who in turn adopted Susan.
7. Two of the incarnations of the Doctor we’ve seen so far were female, but (mostly) maintained male disguise. Three companions are aware of this.
8. Both male and female Gallifreyans are capable of lactation. Thus, some of the Time Ladies we’ve seen are in fact able to both beget and nurse children.
9. Male and female Gallifreyan external genitalia are identical.
10. It requires the full cooperation of five Gallifreyans to produce a child: two fathers, two mothers (only one of whom contributes genetic material), and a qualified scientist.
In fact, the Human Time-Lord Meta-Crisis copy of the Doctor is female from the waist up; if he and Rose reproduce, he will be able to grow breasts and suckle their child.
I once wrote about a page of a fanfic set in the alternative universe in which the Master and the Meta-Crisis Doctor were stranded on a desert island and the former impregnated the latter in hopes of rekindling the species. The baby was going to have to be born by caesarian due to the Doctor’s narrow hips.”
These are the ramblings of a lunatic. This type of insanity should not be indulged.
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Oh just to let you know there is a DW forum called The Auton Factory that is a bit more laid back than GB to say the least (though granted that wouldn’t be difficult LOL) which you should check out. I post there under the name Burunguy.
Here it is
https://theautonfactory.proboards.com/
You’d be welcome there.
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I used to use Gallifrey Base a lot circa 2013-15. It was mostly a good and level-headed site back then. Similarly, around the same time I was a big Mr. Tardis fan. I didn’t agree with everything he said but I thought he was mostly reasonable. Sadly it seems like both have lost a lot of sensibility of as of lately. When I visited Gallifrey Base a few months ago for the first time in years, I was gutted by what it had become. Similarly, looking at Mr. Tardis’ profile he’s nothing like the nuanced person he used to be. It seems like the world is getting so much more divided nowadays.
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Hi Burrunjor,
I couldn’t agree with your article more. I knew I wasn’t the only one who could see the problem with GallifreyBase and the toxic fandom at large, but I could never put it into words as eloquently as you.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head for so many points. There are things we disagree on, like with anything in life, I’m not a socialist but I despise the way the elites have rigged current-day capitalism. And I quite enjoy Sargon’s videos now that he’s on The Lotus Eaters, he seems to have calmed down a lot from being a bit of a provocateur. Though I do agree with you on pretty much everything else!
But I must say it’s so great to see someone I disagree with on some things be so reasonable. I hope I don’t sound patronising but it does seem today like if someone disagrees with you on just the one thing then you have to hate each other. From reading your post I’m sure I’d definitely get along with you in an IRL setting despite our minor disagreements.
And I think that’s what’s so important for people to understand, in particular, Doctor Who fans. I think they need to respect diversity of opinion a lot more and understand that just because someone has a different belief does not make that person objectively bad.
The amount of hate and vitriol I’ve seen flung at people for believing in just one thing different to the “groupthink” mentality is horrifying. And it’s baffling how blind these purveyors of hate are to their hypocrisy. Like you say they are what they claim to be against. And that’s why they gaslight people. Not even intentionally gaslighting as they think they are in the right and won’t even consider the fact they might be wrong. That’s the problem.
I always try and stay centred. I was very left-leaning back up until 2014 but the hate I saw from the far left pushed me quite towards the right as a sort of “over-reaction” to counter what I perceived as “far-left lunacy”.
Though recently I realised that I didn’t so much shift towards the right as I thought I did. It was more that the culture shifted dramatically to the far left and I had more or less stayed put in my beliefs and became “right-wing” by proxy.
Though I don’t want to make this all about politics, I would consider myself a “classical liberal”, and I think one of the great tenets of this is to see things from both sides and have moral consistency.
There are a great many people I dislike but I would never want them to be fired or de-personed. I find that reprehensible. So I can’t understand why these toxic fans can’t see things from the other side.
I do worry that the echo chamber created by places such as GallifreyBase acts as a hub for radicalisation towards “the far left” for those that remain. And towards “the far right” for those that are tarnished and harassed, such as in Bowlestrek’s case. They just cause more division.
I believe I have very strong morals on a whole, I’m all for equality, I don’t care what someone’s immutable characteristics are such as how much melanin one has or who they like to sleep with. I just genuinely worry that the people that should be all about that, and believe they’re all about that have been brainwashed in their echo chambers into becoming what they claim to be against. I think that’s the most horrifying thing. If they believe they’re so right then they’ll never even consider they might be wrong. I ask myself that and question my beliefs every day. I guess that’s the difference.
Sorry if I’m rambling but your article has really struck a chord with me and has perfectly articulated my feeling on current Doctor Who fandom. I no longer watch the show but I love it’s history. And I would like to have discussions with people, no matter what their preferences are in terms of Who. But it doesn’t feel like there is a place for that anymore. I’m constantly biting my tongue on GallifreyBase for fear of being piled on.
As someone who also suffers from mental health issues I can totally understand where you’re coming from, how being harassed in the ways you’ve described can and does make a difference in your day. Especially in a year where most of our discourse is online and we all feel more alone than ever.
I do hope you’re doing okay. That’s all we can ask for during these times. Just to get out of bed is an accomplishment in and of itself.
And always remember, there are so many people out there that agree with you, unfortunately they’re the ones who get silenced so it’s hard to hear from them. But I do believe you hold the majority opinion for what it’s worth.
And I must say thank you. Seriously, thank you for writing what you’ve written, it’s really helped me to see that there are sound-minded people out there still, like yourself.
Take care and look after yourself and best wishes. And remember, you’re a much better person than any of the people/posters you’ve mentioned could ever hope to be.
All the best,
Ryan.
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WOW that’s probably the best comment I’ve had. Thanks. As for Sargon he did used to do brilliant work. His a tale of two narratives is still the best debunking of the Mainstream media’s bullshit I’ve ever seen.
Sargon’s fall from grace if you’re being generous is comparable to Christopher Hitchens IE he started out genuinely left, and turned on the left because of his principles, but ultimately he let his anger pull him to the right. We both from what you tell me nearly fell into that, but thankfully we didn’t. Still maybe Sargon much like Hitchens has pulled back a bit. It was his apologism for Pinochet that much like Hitchens support for George W Bush that killed a lot of support from the genuine left for Sargon.
I do understand Sargon’s hatred of Vaush now however. I thought he was overreacting at first, but now I get why he thinks Shoe should have nothing to do with that creep. Watching the “debate” between Sargon and Vaush was painful. Vaush just came over as an arrogant, bullying, ignorant piece of shit.
I tend to watch Jimmy Dore the most now. His work is excellent, which is funny as I used to think he was a total twat. (Him spitting on Alex Jones was an absolute low point for the man.) Still his videos are the best right now, as are Kim Iverson’s. I still do check in on Paul Joseph Watson and some of the old “Skeptic community” like ShoeOnHead, but tbh it’s more for entertainment now. That said PJW’s latest video was quite good. I liked the way he criticised Trump for not pardoning Assange.
I think there is a fine line between mild socialism and reforming capitalism. A lot of people who think they just want to reform capitalism could actually be classed as mild socialists. IE they want universal health care, welfare, renationalizing the roads, railways, resources like gas and electricity etc, but they don’t want to hand over all power to the government. I don’t either. If we do that then the government just ends up replacing the big company’s that are monopolizing everything now and don’t have to do a good job for that reason.
Sadly however everything is made so tribal, that I think a lot of mild socialists or left leaning people end up becoming conservative, because they think any definition of socialist means handing over everything to the government, whilst conservative is the only alternative. (Again we have both been down that road before.)
Believe it or not PJW is actually at his core fairly left leaning. PJW supports gay marriage, the welfare state, free healthcare, and is incredibly anti American imperialism. Yet because he thinks “socialist means handing over everything to the government” he identifies as a conservative, despite being in opposition to most conservative ideas. (To be fair I think he does have old conservative ideas about women, and marriage and other things, but even then he’s not what you would call an ultra right winger, who loves everything America does. He’s probably one of the most anti imperialism people online.)
Yet conservativism ended up becoming his tribe, and so PJW now does ridiculous videos about the evils of socialism and becomes tribal about capitalism where he makes outrageous claims like the NHS is a triumph of capitalism. Seriously Paul? How can he possibly think that?
It can be so frustrating.
And thank you for the comments about mental health. It’s sad that there is still a stigma, but I’m glad there are more open minded people like you around. These last few months have been really tough for my depression, hence why all my work on this blog and my original fiction came to a stand still. I’ve had my ups and downs and there might be another article soon. It’s the final part of this series about politics in DW and how it should be implemented.
Of course having said that, maybe I should take Elizabeth Sandifier’s approach and tell you to kill yourself and bring up your race at the same time. That’s what the non toxic side of fandom does apparently LOL.
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Just remember the toxic people that frequent them are themselves not Doctor Who – so don’t let them spoil your love of the show.
I recently returned briefly to forums after several years and I have to say things haven’t improved, in fact they’ve gotten worse. Overall I think Western education fails to teach people to think critically and engage in healthy debate. A lot of the behaviour I’ve observed at times is almost tribal in nature, reinforcing a certain ideology and hierarchy. A lot of people also enjoy the online ‘pile-ons’ as they increase the cohesiveness of the group at the expense of an individual or a minority. Often the people charged with moderating are the worst offenders. These digital Tzars actually delight in gatekeeping and enabling abuse and some of them delight in their virtual anonymity. There are some higher profile ‘super-fans’ also that fancy themselves the final arbiters of right and wrong and react very, very poorly to anything that challenges their own world view. I think that many probably suffer personality disorders and I’m convinced I’ve actually encountered some likely sociopaths at various times. Many fandoms suffer from them but Doctor Who seems to attract the worst kind.
I recently had a life change and returned to so door to door work for the government for the first time in 25 years. It was a real eye opener to see how much more selfish and abusive people in general have become. A number of people working on that census quit because of it and I ended up with a massive workload in my district which was great for money but quite an education. So I think a lot of this online toxicity and intolerance is just a symptom of a deeper malaise that is undermining our culture in general.
I’m sure there are exceptions but most forums are simply a waste of time and energy. Stay an independent thinker, never bend the knee and stay strong.
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Toxic fandom has been around since Classic. A strident LGBT activist bullied the club to kick out his enemies, because he wanted our club to get into a political protest
The official DR online club kicked me out for calling Donna: Mindless impatient and bossy
Mary Sue did as well because I pointed out when they said they should have an all female TARDIS crew and pointed out there has never been an all male crew.
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The Mary Sue would be less toxic if it were a barrel of radioactive waste. Be grateful they kicked you off. I tried having a debate with someone on there and it was the usual irrational, hysterical “RACIST RACIST, RACIST, SEXIST, SEXIST” every two seconds.
Sad to hear this crap has been around for longer than you think in DW fandom. Right now though I don’t care about DW anymore. I still watch the classics, but with RTD, the man who caused all of this shit to go into overdrive coming back. Fat chance of anything ironically changing for the better any time soon.
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Good evening Lord Burrunjor,
Spot on! 😇👍👏
It’s exactly the same with (Disney) Star Wars and (Reimagined) Battlestar Galactica fans! ☹️👎👎 The site Bleeding Fool did a great article about Battlestar Galactica and pointing out how that paved the way for these ‘punitive remakes’ whereby the newest fandom becomes toxic and the older, more original fans are dismissed as irrelevant at best or condemned as stupid or bigoted at worst! 🤷♂️ And clearly Doctor Who’s downward spiral began with New Who’s ‘soapification’ from the word go!
Well no matter what close-minded newbie haters demand what we should like and not like we’ll always have our Classic Series (+ their expanded universes) to delve back into. 😇😎
Keep up the good work. 👏👍
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Haha Lord Burrunjor, I like that nickname.
What did you think of Jodie’s last episode? SPOILERS Tennant is the 14th Doctor. UGH to me degenerating the Doctor is as bad a move as a gender change. At this stage I don’t care as much though as it has jumped the shark, but it is a sad state that the character of the Doctor is in such a mess now.
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In fairness you do sound like a complete lunatic here. A lot of the folks you criticize are huge jerks… but so are you. Shrug.
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Well that’s a healthy attitude to have I guess.
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Are you kidding, 90% of toxic Dr. Who fans I can find out om a regular day to day are fervient antiSJW, this article is either very aged or very, very biased.
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Well for the record this maybe was written when I was a bit too much of an anti SJW. I was NEVER right wing. I’ve always been a socialist, always been for women’s and LGBT rights, HOWEVER circa 2016-2019 I got so frustrated with the lunacy of some feminist groups and SJW groups, who were destroying the sci fi genre that I am particularly passionate about (and even want to work in.) I got caught up a bit too much in my hatred of the worst aspects of the left and turned a blind eye to some of the extreme right wingers who were criticising them. Yeah not saying you can’t be friends with or find common ground with some right wingers, but I was at a stage where I was looking at any right winger, as long as they criticised some SJWs, and did end up associating with some hard line right wingers. To be honest a lot of these SJWs I hated weren’t even leftists, rather they were neo liberals, IE members of the elite who spout shallow, divisive forms of left wing politics, like identity politics in order to cover themselves or split up the working class.
I am not keen on the fandom menace for the record. Guys like Nerdrotic can be very nasty to women and minorities in ways that are absolutely unacceptable, such as the Frosk debacle showed. See here.
This is just five mins of Nerdrotic and his mates making nasty, childish, vicious remarks about a woman for her looks. I’m sure that Frosk was a nightmare in terms of taking over a geek show and making it all about her, but Jesus could they not have criticised her for that, rather than going to such a low blow like they did? They just backed up her points ironically and showed there IS a nasty misogynistic side to some aspects of fandom.
Utterly pathetic.
Also Nerdrotic knows fuck all about classic DW anyway. As seen in this article I pointed out a lot of the problems began with the revival and the Fitzroy Crowd. For some reason Nerdrotic thinks it only happened when Jodie was cast. A lot of these right winger types don’t even see Missy as being part of the problem!
That said however sorry when it comes to the niche subject of DW, the neo liberals, SJWs, fake left, whatever label you want to slap on them, are definitely worse. They have destroyed the characters identity, driven it into the ground, got people involved in the show fired for wrong think (whilst turning a blind eye to guys who have done worse shit like Neil Patrick Harris) and yes on forums, websites they do tend to make up the elite who will ban you for wrong think and instantly fly into personal attacks, assuming if you don’t agree with this particular direction for a fictional character that represents your opinion on everything. For instance if you say, let’s not make the Master, the Doctors gay lover because he is supposed to be his Moriarty, that means you hate gay characters ever being included, no it means you hate gay people i general! Conversely for saying I wanted the Doctor to remain largely asexual as romance didn’t suit him, I was told I was a puritanical lunatic who wants to censor sex from all forms of entertainment. Yeah great analysis for this Amy Winehouse/Lady Gaga fan LOL. These people have never heard of the idea that some things work for some forms of fiction, not others?
Then we have fans like Mr Tardis who spreads vicious lies about people, that could in the most extreme cases endanger their lives.
Mr TARDIS meanwhile, the patron saint of SJW fans said one guy online was a pedo and a groomer because he fancied Victoria. The actress who played her was 19-20 when she was in the show, but Mr TARDIS kept saying she was 15, due to a piece of spin off material written like 30 years later. It was malicious and could have had far reaching consequences. (PS the guy who said he fancied Victoria was being a bit creepy, going on about how she was easy as a joke, but again big difference between that and being a fucking groomer!)
Overall I’ve yet to see that level of insane nastiness from the Nerdrotic mob, but who knows maybe that’s just because they are not in as dominant a position. I certainly wouldn’t want them to have the power the neo liberals do now. We’d start getting accusations of so and so being a communist, people cancelled for left wing views and who knows episodes where the Doctor meets Ayn Rand.
I am not a centrist btw. I try not to be tribal and don’t just support something because “I’m a leftie and that is the leftie position.” Also unless it is extreme views like being a Nazi or a white supremacist then I do try and have as many friends among the right and the left, hence why Claudia Boleyn is my best friend in fandom, and I am also good friends with Golden Age Geek who is very criticial of the SJW side of fandom. If you have to slap a label on me I am still a leftie, but I oppose tribalism in all its forms.
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