Charamei: I do wonder how Gallifreyan culture accommodates the fact that as a species they virtually all have some kind of really severe obsession, though
\nCharamei: like, I suspect the obsession-as-species-trait is related to the fact that they have obscenely long lives
\nDromeianindistress: Well, they probably set their own work hours
\nDromeianindistress: Except for politicians, whose obsession is generally politics
\nCharamei: indeed
\nCharamei: not that we’re looking at anyone in particular, of course
\nCharamei: any three people
\nDromeianindistress: Not, not at all
\nDromeianindistress: And yeah, it’s probably related to their lifespan
\nCharamei: yeah
\nCharamei: Gallifreyans don’t seem to have ‘old age’ as much as ‘I got bored of being alive and stopped getting up in the morning and then stopped breathing’
\nDromeianindistress: XD
\nDromeianindistress: This is the species that schedules their own death
\nCharamei: yup
\nCharamei: are legally obliged to, in fact, so they can get re-uploaded
\nCharamei: because they never actually stop existing, they just have a brief respite from being alive
\nDromeianindistress: yep
\nDromeianindistress: *side-eyes Pandak*
\nCharamei: XD
\nCharamei: but, like… someone like the Master, who develops an obsession with a person. There’s got to be some kind of system for dealing with that in people who aren’t complete homicidal maniacs in every other respect as wellk
\nDromeianindistress: True
\nDromeianindistress: But what?
\nCharamei: idk
\nCharamei: I’d say rehab, but they need *something* to focus on
\nCharamei: …this is going to get very Black Ribboner, isn’t it
\nDromeianindistress: ….It would
\nDromeianindistress: And of course there would be a very complex ritual involved
\nDromeianindistress: I wonder if they ever tried to make Koschei do it
\nCharamei: probably
\nCharamei: that’s probably how he devloped the secondary obsession with universal domination
\nCharamei: slight backfire
\nDromeianindistress: Slight
\nDromeianindistress: He left mid-ritual
\nCharamei: needed a pee
\nDromeianindistress: XD
\nDromeianindistress: No, left Gallifrey
\nCharamei: ah
\nCharamei: well, you know what the queues for the toilets can be like
\nDromeianindistress: XD
\nCharamei: one of the rules of Gallifreyan obsession, of course, is that it must be downplayed in public at all times owing to Reasons of pretentiousness
\nCharamei: and honestly, as long as you’re on Gallifrey this is fine, because everyone knows that when you say ‘small hobby’ you actually mean ‘consumes my every waking thought’
\nDromeianindistress: XD
\nCharamei: then you get offworld and some aliens have things that they just… do for a while and then get bored of?
\nCharamei: and then they do something else?
\nDromeianindistress: And they do it for, like, a year
\nDromeianindistress: Like, why even bother?
\nCharamei: seriously
\nDromeianindistress: You haven’t even gotten started until you’ve spent at least a century on it
\nCharamei: and during that year they don’t even learn everything there is to learn about the thing and write five monographs
\nCharamei: what are they even doing with their hobby time
\nCharamei: relaxing?
\nCharamei: …I wonder if this is why Gallifreyan culture seems to like paradoxes so much, because you can go round them forever and never get to the end
\nDromeianindistress: oooo
\nCharamei: they’re the perfect timewasters
\nDromeianindistress: Well, they do have several millenia to waste
\nDromeianindistress: Also it’s not considered odd if a Time Lord takes a century off work to pursue something that’s caught their interest
\nCharamei: no
\nCharamei: in fact doesn’t Four say that? Admittedly he’s probably being a prat
\nCharamei: “I’m entitled to a fifty-year break every two centuries” or something
\nDromeianindistress: XD
\nDromeianindistress: I’d say it’s accurate, though<\/p>\n
Charamei: Time Lords with silly little obsessions
\nCharamei: and just how far will their otherwise completely oppressive justice system allow leeway for this shit
\nCharamei: (Aliens must get so confused)
\nCharamei: (apparently ‘Well, knitting has always been a small hobby of mine…’ is an acceptable reason to commute a sentence from forced regeneration to a mere five hours of torture)
\nCharamei: (and for some reaosn it doesn’t work when the aliens try it)
\nDromeianindistress: XD
\nDromeianindistress: Leela figuring out the justice system
\nCharamei: omg yes
\nDromeianindistress: And asking Romana questions
\nCharamei: yes
\nDromeianindistress: and Romana doesn’t see what the problem is
\nCharamei: and Andred, and Narvin
\nDromeianindistress: Yes, and Rodan
\nDromeianindistress: Even Brax, on occasion
\nCharamei: and they all get more and more uncomfortable because nobody wants to admit the real reason for it
\nDromeianindistress: It’s just not something you *talk* about
\nCharamei: there are some things you just don’t talk about with aliens, even friendly ones, and the major flaw inherent in Time Lord psychology is one of them
\nCharamei: no
\nCharamei: it’s just something you kind of… accept, and work around in your friends, and condemn in your enemies
\nCharamei: (Romana and Darkel slinging ‘Well she’s completely obsessed with being President!’ at one another and everyone just kind of smiles and nods like, of course you both are, otherwise you’d be doing something else)
\nDromeianindistress: yes
\nDromeianindistress: XD
\nDromeianindistress: And Brax has ‘a small interest in art collecting’
\nDromeianindistress: Which is why Romana hasn’t turned him in for breaking every law of time out there to build his collection
\nCharamei: exactly
\nCharamei: Narvin’s mild interest in astronomy probably translates to his entire bedroom being covered in star charts
\nDromeianindistress: Romana doesn’t even blink when he points out an extremely obscure fact about a minor space phenomenon relevant to the discussion
\nCharamei: nope
\nDromeianindistress: (…there probably isn’t a rehabilitation process for problematic obsessions. You just get mind probed a couple times as a warning, then exiled if you don’t find something else)
\nCharamei: (…yeah)
\nCharamei: (there are some psychic doctors who specialise in fixing this stuff but you have to go and actually find them)
\nDromeianindistress: (and most people don’t *want* to)
\nCharamei: (no, because wanting to destroy the universe is perfectly harmless, it’s only a thought exercise, of course they’d never… oh, hey, a Doomsday device!)
\nDromeianindistress: ( XD )
\nDromeianindistress: (Well there was also Shada)
\nCharamei: (yeah)
\nCharamei: (on the plus side, it does probably mean that people give Leela more leeway than you might expect when it comes to going hunting etc)
\nCharamei: (Andred and Rodan explained it as a mild interest and everyone just kind of nodded knowingly and left her to it)
\nCharamei: (she has no idea why of course)
\nDromeianindistress: (Most Gallifreyans don’t actually realize everyone in the universe isn’t like this)
\nCharamei: ( no)
\nCharamei: (that’s just what happens when you get interested in something)
\nCharamei: (then they go out there and start sabotaging fluid links so they can look around and the aliens are very unforgiving for absolutely no reason)
\nDromeianindistress: (That’s what interest *is*)
\nCharamei: (exactly!)
\nDromeianindistress: (Really, completely irrational. They’ll never understand how these aliens think)
\nCharamei: (nope)
\nDromeianindistress: (The Rani was totally taken aback when the Doctor tried to get her experiments shut down)
\nCharamei: ( yes)
\nCharamei: (and every time a companion says something like “Are you enjoying this?” the Doctor gets utter culture shock)
\nCharamei: (of course they’re enjoying it that doesn’t mean they don’t also care)
\nDromeianindistress: (this is what they *do*, this is what they’re interested in)
\nDromeianindistress: (they can’t turn that off)
\nDromeianindistress: (it doesn’t mean they don’t care about the people involved)
\nCharamei: (the Master enjoys trying to kill them as well but they don’t see the humans getting on their high horses about that)
\nDromeianindistress: (really)
\nCharamei: (filling obsessions just feels good)
\nCharamei: (…we’ve just found Time Lord sex)
\nDromeianindistress: (omg)
\nDromeianindistress: (does that mean Time Lord marriages are ‘our obsessions both line up very nicely with each other right now, let’s be joined at the hip until they diverge again’?)
\nCharamei: (…quite probably)
\nCharamei: (Darling I very much enjoyed your paper on the inverse correlation of x and y please marry me and we should discuss this at every opportunity)
\nDromeianindistress: (and they proceed to discuss it for the next 500 years)
\nCharamei: (yes, with occasional pauses to write papers)
\nDromeianindistress: (…Gallifreyan conversations tend to be very long)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charamei: I do wonder how Gallifreyan culture accommodates the fact that as a species they virtually all have some kind of really severe obsession, though Charamei: like, I suspect the obsession-as-species-trait is related to the fact that they have obscenely long lives Dromeianindistress: Well, they probably set their own work hours Dromeianindistress: Except for politicians, … <\/p>\n