Personal reference because I was being really smart and insightful in reply to lightgetsin's DW fic Think of Something. Read the fic.



That time, grief and things that makes the universe so brilliant, so fantastic is often times circular for the Doctor. And that's unbelievably sad because the Doctor in many ways understands it, realises it – companions will leave him, adventures will begin and end, people he meets and loves will not be the people he knows , and yet there will always be something new, something that will take him completely in, and it is beautiful and it is sad because everything will have to end – and then it will start once more.

But you know, the in-between must be the worst, because there is nothing except for his own thoughts, and the Ninth Doctor – Destroyer of his own kind, the last of his race must have been completely and utterly mad in his pain and grief, and the endless silence. What the Ninth Doctor must have been like after the annihilation of Gallifrey – searching for something to anchor him without even realising it. And it is so bloody sad because the Ninth, in many ways, is defined by the annihilation of Gallifrey - his neurosis, his grief and his often biting comments.

Which brings up the point of the Tenth Doctor (or fondly referred to, by me, as Ferret on Speed) – I love the Tenth Doctor as much as the Ninth Doctor because of their differences and their similarities, and I honestly cannot pick which one I love more. I know the regeneration process is random, and I really can't say this with 100% accuracy as I've ever only seen the new Doctor Who, but to me, the Tenth was in many ways created in response to Rose and the destruction of the Daleks (at that point). All the grief his previous incarnation had carried must seem so much less – it must have given him a slight comfort to know that he couldn't have destroyed another race, no matter the outcome. The Dalek are gone and he still had Rose, the universe was his.

What a shock it must have been to be reminded that the universe is hardly ever fair.