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.
This Trope Round:
- Afterlife Antechamber: For characters who died in-Universe and took the Mortality Deferment option, the Round becomes one.
- 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.
- Book Burning: Dodo is attempting to burn every copy of Who Killed Kennedy on the principle that when they're all gone, her death will be reversed.
- Celebrity Paradox: In the Storytime! version of The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, with Ace as Holmes, Shou Yuing from "Battlefield" as Watson, and the Dream Lord as Sir James Damery, the Dream Lord briefly transforms into one of the Double-O Men from the 1980s Edutainment Show Jigsaw. "Watson" recognises the costume, and describes the characters as "David Rappaport and that other guy... what was his name? Sylvester McCoy. Whatever happened to him?"
- 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".
- 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".
- Crazy-Prepared: William Starr in Friendly Hopes. Just for starters, he keeps a sawn-off shotgun under his desk:The shells were loaded with a customized mixture of pellets: lead, gold, silver, iron, hardwood and platinum, with the gaps in the mix filled with tiny industrial diamonds. The man behind the desk had never heard of anything that was specially vulnerable to platinum or diamonds, but he figured it couldn't hurt. Liven up the Medical Examiner's day, at any rate.
- 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...
- Fandom Rivalry: Invoked with the members of WANKER — being diehard Who fans, their worst insult is "Trekkie".
- Fractured Fairy Tale: The Storytime! stories usually become this, however determined the narrator might be to stick to the script.
- 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.
- Gaydar: Julia the Saleslady's gaydar seems to be jammed permanently on.
- Gender-Bent Alternate Universe: Yet Another Time Round.
- 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.
- "How I Wrote This Article" Article: Missing the Obvious was written for a "crystals" challenge on rec.arts.drwho. In it, Ceannaideach Daibhid's Author Avatar completely fails to write a fanfic about crystals. It opens with a parenthetical comment that he can probably get away with this just once.
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals: The flower shop is staffed entirely by characters who were played by Wendy Padbury: Zoe Heriot, Jenny Wilson and Lorraine Baynes.
- Inn Between the Worlds: The Round itself.
- The Juggernaut: In the 2002 Adric Awards Ceremony, Shub-Barneyrath advances through a barrage of machine-gun fire, energy weapons, cheap Albanian wine, and Nitro-9. Fortunately Bagpuss has what it takes to defeat the monster.
- Karaoke Box: Adric and Number One go to a karaoke bar in "The Feminine Mistake". Where the machine's reportoire includes "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", as mentioned under Berserk Button. Naturally, Hilarity Ensues.
- 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.
- Never Heard That One Before: In "Cabals Up", the Brethren go by the names of "Number One", "Number Two" and so forth. New recruits are warned that any jokes referencing Reservoir Dogs, The Prisoner, or Star Trek: The Next Generation will be punished severely.
- 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...
- Same Surname Means Related:
- Alexander Carter of Carter's Imports appears to be related to every fictional and real-life character with that surname.
- Defied by William Starr, who answers his phone with "William Starr's office. No relation." (At the time, Kenneth Starr was a well-known figure).
- Script Fic: The "Storytime" series, in which the framing story is told conventionally and the story-within-a-story is presented as script.
- Spinoff: As you might have noticed, the Round spawns a lot of these. Look Who's Talking, the day care centre. Newman Primary, the primary school AU. Dunvworpin, the retirement home. Some Other Time Round, the mirror universe. H. G. Wells High School, the high school AU. Grade Hill, the mirror universe high school AU. This Toon Round, the animated version. Yet Another Time Round, the genderbent version (created entirely because this page pointed it out hadn't been done yet).
- Spinoff Babies: The "Look Who's Talking" day care centre.
- Thanks for the Mammary: Adric to Nyssa, in "Friendly Hopes".
- 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.
- Traumatic Haircut: In "The Feminine Mistake", the narrative leads the reader to expect that Number One killed or mutilated the Red Shirt character Michelle — then reveals that what he actually did was cut off her ponytail. It still broke her.
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: The Steel Maiden Bar and Grill, which appeared in a couple of fics as taking most of the canonically lesbian and Les Yay characters away from the Round.
- Work Off the Debt: In "Like Water for Adric", Doug only realises that his credit card's been stolen when he tries to pay for his bar tab. Francois the Ogron demands four hours' work from both Doug and Diane, to cover $12.50 of drinks — plus Francois' tip.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: "Nyssa's Christmas Carol".