This Time Round

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This Time Round is a Doctor Who fanfic setting, a pub that exists "Outside Continuity". At the time of writing, it has been home to roughly 700 complete stories by 57 different authors.

The Round is a Meta Fic setting, in which canon characters, crossover characters, Original Characters and Author Avatars can all be expected to show up. Originally written as a Doctor Who equivalent of the Subreality Cafe, it has branched out with a number of separate story series.

The archive of completed stories is here.

Tropes used in This Time Round include:

• The Alleged Car: In "To Die For", the TAURDUS. Later replaced by Lord Omega, which is even worse.
• Author Avatar: Several authors have written themselves in, either as fairly accurate representations of themselves, or as outright self-parodies.
• Berserk Button: The character Number One in the "To Die For" arc goes into an Unstoppable Rage any time he hears the song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". It's also not a good idea to mention the book Who Killed Kennedy in Dodo's presence. Or Lost in Austen in Victoria's.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: Most of the gods who pop up in the Round (including the muses) are members of the Celestial Bureaucracy. The local afterlife is also run by the Bureaucracy, and bears some resemblance to the one in Beetlejuice.
• Circus of Fear: The carnival in "Dark Carnival".
• City of Weirdos: Nameless, so, so much.
• Consulting Mister Puppet: Francois the Ogron's sock puppet, Mr Moggie.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In the "To Die For" arc, Number One is fond of forcing his ineffectual minions to watch Star Trek V when they screw up.
  • In "The Feminine Mistake", Catbert exacts revenge on a used car dealer by reporting him to the Intimidating Revenue Service, and every other Federal agency in the book.
• Covert Pervert: Victoria, at least judging by the underwear Happosai steals from her in "Like Water For Adric".
• Dead Fic: The "Dark Carnival" round-robin.
• Death Is Cheap: If a canon character gets killed, they just respawn an hour or so later.
• Do Wrong Right: In a scene in "Dark Carnival", the son of a mad scientist character recalls an occasion when, as a small child, he microwaved an egg to see what would happen; after it exploded, he received a scolding for making a mess and wasting food and not keeping notes during the experiment.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Given the prevalence of this trope in the Whoniverse, it was kind of inevitable it'd get extended to the Round as well: This Time Round's Proprietor, Look Who's Talking's Supervisor, Dunvworpin's Manager...
• Fun with Acronyms: The Wonderful & Adorable Nyssa's Knights-Errant Regiment.
  • The Panreality Logarithmic Oscillation Template, which can be manipulated with PLOT devices to form PLOT holes.
• Funny Animal: The inhabitants of Toonside (home to This Toon Round, the Round's animated equivalent) based loosely on a brief sequence in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip that reinvented the Eighth Doctor as a cat called Tardis Tails.
• Good Guy Bar
• Goofy Print Underwear: In "Like Water For Adric", Benny's underwear is decorated with pictures of little whiskey bottles.
• High School AU: The "Then Do That Over" series.
• Inn Between the Worlds: The Round itself.
• Mega Crossover: The Round has been visited by characters from anime, literature, other televised series... Basically, anything for which there's been a crossover fanfic is fair game. Several crossover characters have become more-or-less regulars, such as Terry Pratchett's Death and the Librarian, Wesley Crusher, and Gwendoline Lacey.
• Meta Fic
• Mirror Universe: Some Other Time Round
• MST: The "Mystery Psycho Theater 3000" series.
• Mugging the Monster: "The Crime Travelers".
• The Muse: Most of the Author Avatars have one, and they have their own society.
• Negative Continuity: As with Doctor Who itself, continuity is treated lightly or outright ignored. Authors include or ignore other authors' (and their own) characters, settings and so forth as they see fit.
• No Name Given: The Round's (usually) situated just outside the town of Nameless. In early TTR fics, the town was simply described as nameless, and the description eventually became the town's name.
• Rage Against the Author: A not-infrequent feature of TTR stories.
• Revenge Fic: The "To Die For" series started as a parody of anti-Adric Revenge Fic.
• Robot Maid: Being unable to keep most of his waitresses for long, the Proprietor decided to buy one, a Robot Girl called Neimi. Unfortunately for the Proprietor, Neimi happens to be a little too free-willed for his liking...
• Script Fic: The "Storytime" series, in which the framing story is told conventionally and the story-within-a-story is presented as script.
• Spin-Off: As you might have noticed, the Round spawns a lot of these. Look Who's Talking, the day care centre. H. G. Wells High School, the high school AU. Newman Primary, the primary school AU. Dunvworpin, the retirement home. Some Other Time Round, the mirror universe. This Toon Round, the animated version. We're still waiting on the genderbent Round, though...
  • Written entirely because that last comment looked like a challenge...
• Spinoff Babies: The "Look Who's Talking" day care centre.
• Thieves' Guild / Weird Trade Union: The Author Mafia, which is part-organised crime family, part Hollywood studio. To explain: every Whofic author basically runs their own production studio, but they've organised together as the Author Mafia.
  • Professional authors are the Dons. They rarely appear, but when they do it means trouble.
• UseNet: This Time Round originated on the alt.drwho.creative newsgroup, which remains the primary forum for posting and discussing stories (there is also a defunct LiveJournal community).
  • Usenet-themed villains make very occasional appearances: the Spamites and the Order of the Cross-Post.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: "Nyssa's Christmas Carol".