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Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2025: Week 25
Fobwatch fics employ a canon AU scenario that originated in the Doctor Who episode, "Family of the Blood". In this episode, the Doctor uses a piece of technology called the Chameleon Arch to change their biology, essentially turning the Time Lord temporarily human, while their original memories are stored in a fobwatch. The Doctor's memories and Time Lord biology are only restored when the fobwatch is opened.
Works employing this trope are rarely episode tags. Instead authors create scenarios where the Doctor, or another Time Lord (a popular choice being The Master), must use the chameleon arch to become human.
Sometimes same actor characters are used for the Fobbed!Time Lords human identity. For example Fobbed!Tenth Doctor works could disguise Ten as Alex Hardy, David Tennant's character from TV series Broadchurch. In this way, a fobwatch fic can resemble a Human AU and crossover fic. In other cases, the Fobbed!Time Lords human alias may be based on a name they've used in canon or in para-canonical stories (John Smith being a popular choice).
Since this is a trope that began in the Tenth Doctor's era it is often used in fanworks with Ten and the subsequent iterations there after (Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, etc). Although, since we don't know when and how The Doctor obtained this technology it was not unusual to see the trope be used for pre-Ten Doctors, Nine and Eight being popular choices. During the Thirteen Doctor's series it was revealed that the Rebel Doctor—a secret unknown past version of the Doctor—had used the Chameleon Arch, sealing their memories in a lighthouse instead of a fobwatch, which opened up new possibilities for fans.
Although primarily a fanfiction trope, it's also not uncommon for fans to create graphics, particularly moodboards. These can be connected to fics, or simply used for inspiration.