Talk:Mrs Frimbly's Festive Diary (short story)

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Revision as of 23:38, 27 January 2022 by Jack (talk | contribs)

Equivalence

I'm not contesting that this page should be covered given that Trish and Deirdre are in it, but surely given that it isn't licensed to use the Doctor or Mrs Wibbsey it can't equate the two with Tom Baker and Mrs Wibbsey. Shouldn't Mrs Frimbly be split from Mrs Wibbsey? Jack "BtR" Saxon 23:02, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Epsilon the Eternal will be better-equipped to cover the details, but I assume the 'Homeworld' principle is in effect (sorry to link to a sandbox, but User:SOTO and I aren't quite through drafting the full merging policy yet… everything already on this sandbox reflects current policy, all the same!). Magrs doesn't have the rights to the Doctor or Wibbsey, but he does have the rights to the narrative context that surrounded them in Nest Cottage, so he can use that as the legal bridge… There's probably something more substantial, but think of "Deirdre Whatsit's neighbour" as the creator-owned common property that unites the two legally-distinct aspects of the entity known sometimes as Frimbly, and sometimes as Wibbsey, in a similar way to "home planet of the Great Houses" allowing the link between "Gallifrey" and "the Homeworld" to be drawn. Scrooge MacDuck 23:07, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Having read the section about being able to surmise that Benny's time traveller friend is the Doctor, how come Box (When to Die) has to skirt around the obvious intention that the Doctor and the "Dr John Smith" who gave it to Liz are the same? Jack "BtR" Saxon 23:14, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Well, that's really more of a discussion for Talk:Box (When to Die). Perhaps we were over-cautious when writing that page up — it happens. That's the whole impetus behind me and SOTO trying to put the rules to paper in a clear, unambiguous, centralised way! Scrooge MacDuck 23:20, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


Dang edit conflicts... can't get a word in edgeways.

Yeah, a lot of the homeworld principle has been put into play here. However, nothing in this story is unlicensed; I need to clarify that.

  • The Doctor has been "reinvented" here; he now isn't exactly the Doctor, but a larger-than-life version of Tom Baker, who also seemed to have similar adventures to the Doctor. But he is far enough removed from the Doctor that he isn't the Doctor, in a legal sense.
  • Fenella Wibbsey/Frimbly is also not unlicensed. Though I've yet to create a page for it, there is at least one, non-BBC, story I know of that uses Mrs Wibbsey. In this instance, Frimbly is an alternate name for the character, a la Cleavis or Arthur Korns.
  • As for the rest of the concepts, it's a mix of concepts owned by Magrs and "Homeworld" precedent characters.

The reason that Baker's End portions of Tom Baker isn't one with Fourth Doctor is because of the aforementioned "reinvention". Mrs Frimbly, however, is not a reinvention just going by an alternate name, thus not needing a new page. Hope that clears it up.

23:22, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


I still question how it is fair to have one licensed work be able to give "valid" information about another character that they do not have the license to simply because they are using a phrase that hasn't been copyrighted. RadMatter 23:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I do have to confess that I'm not sure I entirely understand why we're keeping, for example, the Master and man with the rosette separate when we aren't Mrs Frimbly and Mrs Wibbsey. The merging policy says that the Master and the War King aren't merged because no story has been licensed to use them both and draw a connection. Am I right in thinking, then, that Mrs Frimbly's Festive Diary has to have had the license to use Mrs Wibbsey? Do we know for a fact whether it is or not? Jack "BtR" Saxon 23:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)