Ian the Elf (short story)

 was the second The Blogs of Doom short story, published in later 2017 in Doctor Who Magazine 520. Like other features in the series, it narrated events in the life of a minor Doctor Who TV character before and after their involvement in the Doctor's life — in this case, Ian from Last Christmas — in first-person perspective.

As Ian disappeared in the latter half of the Christmas special, where Santa begins to show awareness of being part of a shared dream, this short story happening on the fringes of the episode was a way for writer Jonathan Morris to explore the exact nature of the dream-beings and show Ian confronting his own fictionality.

Summary
As a mad, mad night goes on, Ian's playful arguments with Santa about whether it's racist for him to call them "elves" make way to a much strange self-realisation.

Plot
It's Christmas Eve. Ian is travelling in Santa's sleigh and arguing with him about whether non-elves are allowed to call elves by that name, and on what, if not, it would be appropriate for Santa to call his supernatural helpers. After crashing into a chimney, they make a rough landing on the rooftop of Clara's roof, and things take a strange turn when an angry Scotsman emerges from a blue box.

Santa then whisks Ian off to the North Pole to go "bug-hunting"; of the various weapons Santa makes out of his magical toys, Ian is, to his displeasure, stuck with a rather harmless balloon dog. Teased about it, Ian argues that since any attack is about provoking "confusion and fear", then at least his dog will do its part in provoking confusion.

Some time later, still at the North Pole, Ian learns from Santa's mouth that they're all inside "something called a gestalt", a word he is unfamiliar with. With a sad look, Santa turns to him and Wolf and explains that "this is the end of the road for [them]", as they have no further role to play in the dream and were only fictional figments of the imagination, all along. Ian is creeped out at the idea, and, after learning that the base and its monsters were based on the horror movies Shona McCullough had been watching and Santa Claus on the film Miracle on 34th Street, he asks where he, Ian the Elf, came from. Santa hands him a copy of the Radio Times in response and points out a screening of Santa Claus: The Movie to him.

As he fades from reality, Ian reflects that in that case, it may be better off this way.

Characters

 * Ian
 * Rudolph
 * Santa Claus
 * Angry Scotsman
 * Clara
 * Wolf

Worldbuilding

 * Santa Claus: The Movie, a "guilty pleasure" of Shona McCullough's, starred Dudley Moore.

Continuity

 * The Twelfth Doctor, Clara and Shona McCullough encounter a version of Santa and his elves in a "gestalt dream-state". (TV: Last Christmas)