u/DannyBoy2196

`Hello! My buddy and I are planning on attending Gallifrey One next year, and we’ve come up with concepts for original characters set within the Doctor Who universe. We’re going as undercover Celestial Intervention Agency operatives investigating reports that multiple incarnations of The Doctor are present at the convention simultaneously (which is obviously a major temporal problem).

We are both blind in real life, so we decided to incorporate that into our characters as well. My friend is a white cane user, and I’m a guide dog handler. Our Time Lord characters were blinded after gazing into the Untempered Schism and now rely on Gallifreyan assistive technology, including:

• a “temporal orientation staff” (white cane) • an upgraded K9-style support unit disguised as a yellow lab (my actual guide dog)

We want the costumes to feel subtle and wearable rather than full ceremonial Time Lord robes, so our current plan is:

• long coats or trench coats • button-down shirts • slacks • vests and/or ties • Time Rings instead of a TARDIS • matching engraved lapel pins or badges featuring either our House insignia or CIA insignia

I had a few practical cosplay questions:

1. I’m 6’4” and on the bigger/fluffier side. Does anyone have recommendations for places to find comfortable long coats or trench coats for taller/bigger people?
2. Does anyone know good resources for getting custom engraved pins or insignia made? (Enamel pins, metal badges, embroidered patches, etc.)
3. I was thinking Etsy might be a good resource for custom props or replica-style pieces. Has anyone had good experiences there for cosplay accessories?
4. For my guide dog, I’m planning to make a custom “DO NOT PET” sign/tag for his harness that still fits the sci-fi/Time Lord aesthetic. If anyone has ideas or examples of subtle convention-friendly harness accessories, I’d love suggestions.

Thanks in advance! We’re really excited about putting this together, and I’d appreciate any ideas or recommendations people might have.

Hello! My friend and I are planning on attending Gallifrey One in February, and we’re both thinking about doing a bit of light cosplay. We’re both visually impaired, so I thought I’d pick the Whovian community’s brain for ideas—since this is exactly the kind of fandom that tends to know its deep lore inside and out. We’ve been tossing around a few ideas so far:

1. We considered traditional Time Lord regalia, but we’re concerned it might get uncomfortable over a full convention day.
2. We could dress as specific characters from the show or expanded media, but we’re more interested in creating our own original Time Lord characters.
3. Since we’re both blind, we thought it might be interesting to incorporate that into the characters themselves, especially since we’ll be using white canes and/or a guide dog. So here’s the concept we’ve landed on so far:
4. We are two Celestial Intervention Agency operatives sent to investigate the convention after reports that multiple incarnations of The Doctor are present at the same time (which is, of course, a serious temporal anomaly).
5. We were rendered blind after gazing into the Untempered Schism, and no matter how many times we regenerate, the condition persists.
6. We use specialized Gallifreyan technology to compensate for our blindness, such as temporal navigational staves (our canes) and a more advanced K9 unit modeled after my actual guide dog (a yellow lab). Now I turn to Reddit and my fellow nerds-in-arms: What would Celestial Intervention Agency field agents actually look like? And more specifically: • What do Time Rings typically look like in your headcanon or expanded lore? • What kinds of visual or tactile identifiers would make us clearly read as CIA / Time Lord operatives at a glance? So far we’re thinking:
7. Long trench coats or overcoats for a covert agent vibe.
8. Custom pins featuring either our Gallifreyan house insignia or CIA identification symbols.
9. A Time Ring each (since a TARDIS would be far too bulky for field work).
10. Possibly some kind of badge or even braille-encoded psychic paper for comedic effect. I know this isn’t strictly a cosplay subreddit, but I can’t think of a better group of people to crowdsource ideas for a couple of blind Doctor Who fans trying to build believable Gallifreyan field operatives. Thanks in advance for any ideas!

I am a blind audio engineer using Reaper mainly because of the scripts the blind community and it's allies have put together making it fully accessible with a screen reader. As such, I am always on the lookout for fully accessible plugins and the like. This past few months, I picked up Surge XT on a friend's recommendation, and it is awesome! All the presets it comes with along with a pretty powerful set of tools to make my own brings synth joys to my work flow. I am thinking that in the next few months, I'm also going to pick up one of Native Instrument's midi controllers. I've also heard they have tools like Native Access that make it fully accessible as well. It will be good to have a library of virtual instruments I can use on reaper.

When I do pick Native Instruments up, are there any recommendations for the sample libraries I should look out for? I make a lot of Acoustic rock or Alternative, so the more percussion, the better. I am also thinking about trying to add some orchestral elements to my stuff.

I am a game designer, working most specifically on roleplaying MUDs. I often end up as the lore master, because I enjoy making everything make sense. I'm sure we can all identify with the idea that every element of your world building with affect other things. If your primary intelligent race are creatures that roll on wheels like the people in the third "His Dark Materials" book, then you wouldn't have buildings with stairs and would rarely build upwards. That sort of thing.

It just occured to me that the majority of the time, magic is only used for combat applications. Usually, the flashiest magic is that which can do harm. Look at Harry Potter. All these students are learning some practical stuff, sure. But they also learn how to disarm, jynx, or destroy things. Now I get it. You might need to know how to defend yourself, but why is it a core part of the curriculum?

In Percy Jackson, there are some healing magics, but most of the powerful ones are used offensively. Jason and Thalia's lightning. Nico's raising the dead. Percy's blasting water fixtures into pieces to attack bullies.

The Black Mage, a series I never want to return to and hard didn't finish, has an entire magic system that seems to have literally no other uses except combat and healing. There magic school seems designed specifically to weed out the strongest. They get kicked out of the wizard army during their first year of training and are literally banned from joining the magical army. However, some of them make it pretty far before being cut. One student was even able to throw human-sized weights through the air. He got cut because others could throw even heavier weights through the air. But still, you're sending out people into your world who might not have cut it as battle mages, but they can still do some serious damage. And now they're partially trained.

Sorry. That turned into a Black Mage rant for a second. That world building still grinds my gears. My point is this. While magic would naturally end up with combat applications because combat is a natural outcome of people defending themselves, how many of your settings have magic systems that aren't primarily for combat? What do you think?

Hello. In Pro Tools, I learned that I can route internally and print subgroups or even the master track to a new track in the project if I set it's input to a certain bus. Is this possible in Reaper? I tried YouTube and found a ReaperMania video on routing which I know how to do, and I can create sends no problem. However I am not sure how to phrase what I want to do for Google, and our friendly neighborhood GPT is convinced I can do this, but I think it's halucinating because I can't find the things it's telling me to click on.

I did set a track's input to Loopback 1/2, and it did capture every signal my project was making, so I could solo the thing I want to print and do it that way. However, I would like to be able to simultaneously print my drums on one track, guitars on another, vocals on a third, etc.

I am running Reaper version 7.69 and am on a Macbook Pro 2024. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Edit for update:

Hello. Turns out opening the context menu for the track I'm routing signals to and changing the Record Output stereo, I could then print my subgroups in real time. Thanks to all who helped.

Hi, folks! I've just started The War Doctor Rises, Cybergene and flicking through my collection to see what's next. just out of curiosity, what are you listening to? Or what have you recently listened to that left you thinking, "Wow! That was brilliant!"

Hi, Big Finishers!

While doom-scrolling the other day, I was inspired by u/Mohammedamine9 and their top twenty Big Finish stories post. I’ve been listening to Big Finish for over a decade now, so I wanted to share twenty stories that have stuck with me for one reason or another.

I’ll also be cheating just a little: if an entire box set would make the list, I’m counting it as a single entry.

I hope you enjoy my list, and I’m really looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts and discourse in the comments!

---

20. Dead London Timey-wimey stories are my favorite, and this one puts a fun new spin on the theme as the Doctor and companion are shunted unwillingly across a dozen Londons throughout history.

19. The Lady in the Lake River is on top form here, and it’s always good to see how she operates when her husband isn’t around and she isn’t pining for him.

18. Time in Office After all the times I’ve heard about the Doctor once being President of Gallifrey, I finally get to see how that shakes out.

17. Caerdroia While this adventure is as wacky and weird as the rest of the Divergent Universe arc, there’s just something so cozy about this castle town near the countryside.

16. The Doomwood Curse I’ve never been a huge fan of historical Doctor Who stories, but this one puts such a fun literary spin on it. I love a bit of magic in my sci-fi.

15. A Death in the Family What if Ace got to be as Machiavellian as the Doctor? Or was he just playing her? I love how sweeping this story feels, and the music and sound design are fantastic.

14. Doctor Who and the Pirates If you’ve ever wanted to hear Colin Baker sing a Doctor Who-themed parody of Modern Major General, give this story a listen. I promise it’ll make sense. Maybe.

13. The Master of Callous Years later, this box set still gives me chills. I especially loved that Big Finish seemed to be experimenting with immersive binaural audio, which they should absolutely bring back.

12. You Better Watch Out / Fairytale of Salzburg This two-parter, plopped right in the middle of an epic box set, is perfect as a new Christmas tradition.

11. Now Is the New Dark I like to revisit this adventure every year or so because I love the idea of the modern era, but everything is medieval.

10. The Neverwhen This story’s concept is exactly the kind of weird paradoxical nonsense I would expect from a Time War story. Until this point, a lot of them felt like standard Doctor Who or Gallifrey stories that just happened to take place during the Time War.

9. Gallifrey Series 4 I’m one of those weirdos who loves some of the Star Trek Mirror Universe stories because you get to see familiar characters acting completely out of character. This box set is precisely that, multiple times over.

8. State of Bliss I love the Russian nesting doll nature of this story, with one alternate universe inside another inside another. Such cool Time War energy with just a hint of that alternate-reality flavor I enjoy.

7. The Eleven ⭐ FREE RELEASE The concept of the Eleven as a character is so cool, and I’m glad Big Finish keeps using him. Since this was the first story he appeared in, it absolutely earns its place in my top ten. Also, this one is available for free, so definitely give it a listen!

6. Dark Eyes Volume 1 Molly O’Sullivan was such a breath of fresh air with her accent, spunk, and the fact that she wasn’t a 20th- or 21st-century girl. The stories themselves are also super solid and compelling.

5. Doom Coalition Volume 3 Every single story in this box set was absolutely on fire. Never have I longed for the next release in a range more than at the end of this one.

4. Whispers of Terror I remember still trying to learn the voices of the different classic Doctors. Even while I struggled, the sound design and concept of the main antagonist absolutely fired my imagination.

3. Fallen Heroes Maybe this is here because of recency bias, but I absolutely loved listening to Jonathan Carley play a human who looks suspiciously like the War Doctor.

2. Friend of the Family This box set is perhaps the most cohesive River Song story I can think of. While she does pine away a bit for her Doctor, this really feels like River having to figure everything out on her own.

1. The Chimes of Midnight Partly because I loved this story when it first came out, and partly because it’s now a core part of my Christmas tradition, The Chimes of Midnight has to sit at the top. I love so many Big Finish stories, but it’s just so easy to love this one for the pure Doctor/Charley energy it brings. Plus, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without it now, would it?

Hello. I am not new to the full cast audio editing space and like creating immersive environments for my productions. I use Dear Vr Pro to take advantage of it's spacial designer and usually create a folder for each character in the scene, sticking the instance of Dear Vr Pro on the main folder track so any automation that would move the character from one place to another in the binaural field would also move any sounds they are generating. This work flow has served me well. However, I am currently enrolled in an audio engineering course at university, and the standard seems to be sub-grouping dialogue, music, and fx separately. I understand why this is, and it is easy to do in Pro Tools, but I can't help realizing that my current way of doing things does not conform. The only way it would work is if I created two folders, one for dialogue and one for fx and just made sure all the automation matched perfectly. I am looking for any suggestions for routing that would allow me to use my work flow while conforming to the industry standard. Maybe it's one of those situations where being self-taught clashes badly with the "official" way of doing things. Any advice is welcome. Thanks.