Panda

Panda, an old, erudite, rakish, self-professed art critic, was commonly identified as a ten-inch-tall, fuzzy stuffed panda; mention of this, however, would cause Panda a great deal of offense, often driving Panda to resort to violence in retaliation.

Panda spent many of his later years travelling with the garish transtemporal adventuress known as Iris Wildthyme aboard the Celestial Omnibus — a time machine of conflicting origin, but one thing that did remain consistent was its appearance: a red double decker bus, the 22 to Putney Common.

Though he was Iris's best friend, they often had rows and barneys, but they did it knowing that none of it really mattered. They simply argued for the sheer fun of it. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

For a time, Panda was a robot known as Clockwork Panda. (PROSE: Flasket Brinner and the Clockwork Heart, The Woman Who Sold the Moon, etc.)

Using X-rays, infrared, DNA sequencing and deep tissue analysis, the Forge were unable to find any signs of life within Panda's body. (PROSE: Project: Wildthyme) Panda was said to be the "ultimate paradox" by members of Faction Paradox. (PROSE: Library Pictures) Due to the fact that he had no fingers, Panda had to stick blu-tack onto his paws in order to turn pages of books. (PROSE: Iris Wildthyme and the Unholy Ghost)

A complicated origin
There existed multiple accounts of Panda's early life, each differing to various degrees. (AUDIO: Muse of Fire, PROSE: Enter Wildthyme, The Delightful Bag)

Once in his travels with Iris, Panda hotly postulated to her that he came from a place where "everyone was ten inches tall with small black ears and piercingly intelligent button-bright eyes" - Iris referred to such a place as a "whole planet of Pandas", though she seemingly didn't believe that such a place existed, and thought that Panda should accept that he was likely the only one like him. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme) However, Panda's theory was true, as there was indeed a (as called it) "Planet of the Bears", Ursino Six, which was home to a faction of reality-engineers resembling stuffed bears, with at least one having similar speech patterns and physiology to Panda. (PROSE: Teddy Sparkles Must Die!)

According to one account, Panda's homeland was China. (PROSE: The Delightful Bag) According to another, he was a cyborg, designed to journey into space with the children of star colonists. He was supposed to act as a protector and a teacher. (AUDIO: Muse of Fire)

Early life
He had many adventures and, whilst living with Thomas Daley, contemplated writing his memoirs. (AUDIO: Wildthyme at Large)

Meeting Iris
Panda once said that he didn't know how long he'd been travelling with Iris, as he stated that with all the "flitting about [they did] - backwards, forwards and diagonally through the alternate paradigms" claiming it was "well nigh impossible to pin down anything at all". He elaborated that there were many times where they deliberately relived, erased, and changed events that they had previously had done. He also preferred others to take care of continuity and chronology, with himself preferrring to "live and run about!". (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

According to several accounts, in which the and es were indistinct, Panda spent many of his later years living with Iris' ex-companion Tom in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. During this time, he contemplated writing his memoirs, (AUDIO: Wildthyme at Large) but was unable to due to his paws jamming the keys. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

In the mid 2000s, Iris reunited with Tom, and after she left again, Tom felt guilty about the novels he wrote about her, so, taking Panda with him, he set off to his publisher, Mida Slike, to ask her to relieve him of his contractual obligation to write more novels. Mida refused, getting increasingly heated with Tom. Tom and Panda attempted to flee, but were captured by MIAOW, who were working for Mida. Panda first met the (although he knew who she was) when she arrived in her bus, being controlled by the Head, who was after Iris' memories, stored inside a Memory Crystal. The Head almost succeeded in taking the Memory Crystal from Tom, but Panda grabbed it, throwing it down hard onto the ground, shattering it, allowing Iris to save the day, and getting her memories back. (AUDIO: Wildthyme at Large) However, Panda later recollected that he had thought Iris was just a fictional creation of Tom's. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

Adventures with Iris and Tom
Panda was irritated by Iris calling him a stuffed toy but fell in love with her, (AUDIO: The Devil in Ms. Wildthyme) choosing to stay with her when Tom returned to Earth to live as a journalist. (AUDIO: The Sound of Fear)

New adventures with Iris
When Iris was exiled to 1972, Panda became a journalist and helped her in her investigations. After meeting the White Rabbit and Mock Turtle he started to believe that Alice in Wonderland was real. (AUDIO: Iris Wildthyme and the Land of Wonder.

Panda found it difficult to accept Iris's male incarntaion and was annoyed by his attempts to make Panda sober. Whilst combating Roger the Naxian, Panda opened his hip flask and found that it was a temporal link to the Rehab Dimension where his Iris was, bringing her back. (AUDIO: The Two Irises)

Several times, Panda got lost at the end of the universe, (PROSE: Future Legend) completely changed in size (PROSE: The Shape of Things) and was killed in fake realities designed to trap him. (PROSE: Framed)

Panda sacrificed himself to save the multiverse from being invaded by his alternative selves by jumping into a rift in the Time Vortex whilst holding a bottle of Tonic water. (AUDIO: The Panda Invasion) Panda did not die as he had expected and was saved by Iris and Santa Claus. (AUDIO: Iris Wildthyme and the Claws of Santa)

Clockwork Panda
After the Steam Lords retro-fitted the Obverse to be a bit more steampunk, (PROSE: The Woman Who Sold the Moon) Panda became a robot that had been created by Flasket Brinner.

When Clockwork Panda's heart broke, Iris searched the multiverse for a replacement. (PROSE: Flasket Brinner and the Clockwork Heart) Iris and Panda encountered the Counter-Clockwork Yeti of Mrrm, impersonated Venusian ambassadors on the Moon, (PROSE: The Woman Who Sold the Moon) visited Skullvaria (PROSE: The Story Sorters) and bumped into an entity. (PROSE: Being)

Facing the future Iris
After he and Iris defeated the Slime-Filled Slarvians, the New Naxium Empire decided to graciously reward them on New Naxia, however they were interrupted by the arrival of a Monstron Time destroyer, which attacked them, sending them running to the Celestial Omnibus and escaping to Trull, to lay low. Ironically, they were recognised almost immediately by Iris' biggest fan, Wayne Bland II.

After getting away from Wayne, they headed to a local bar, however Wayne followed them, and he deceived Iris into swapping minds with him, allowing him to inhabit Iris' body. Despite Iris' now odd behaviour, Panda didn't think much of it as he assumed that she'd snapped. Much later, after the Omnibus went into lockdown mode after sensing an intruder, "Iris" became a celebrity on Trull, taking advantage of a future incarnation's stardom. Panda, who was now the head secretary of "Iris's" fanclub, told this anecdote to a till girl when he was purchasing luxury towels on "Iris"' behest. Afterwards, Panda visited "Wayne" in the Trull Central Institute, and "he" profusely claimed that he was Iris, but this failed to convince Panda. "Iris" arrives, and guilted Panda into not believing "Wayne", but as they headed outside, "Wayne"'s claims about an sexual planet, Kragoom, turned out to be the truth. Through a complicated series of mind-swapping, Iris piloted the Omnibus to Kragoom, and she attempted to sacrifice herself to stop the randy planet, but Wanye tampered the mind swapping device so that his mind would be swapped with Kragoom. Wayne, now a planet, left Trull to explore the universe, leaving Kragoom, trapped in Wayne's body, on Trull. As Iris and Panda began to relax, the Monstron Time destroyer caught up with them, causing them to flee once more. (AUDIO: The Iris Wildthyme Appreciation Society)

Panda did not understand why Iris installed a randomiser in the Celestial Omnibus which caused their rides to be bumpier. (AUDIO: Iris Rides Out)

He asked her to take him to Earth to get a pork pie, but he was instead involved in a murder investigation and was, with Iris, captured by her future self (AUDIO: Midwinter Murders) and sent to a Pleasure Prison. Panda was immersed in a virtual reality in which he had a biographer/personal assistant called Amanda, but he kept hearing Iris's voice and caused her future self's plan to fail. (AUDIO: Whatever Happened to Iris Wildthyme?)

Panda and Iris went to a darts competition and met the Bovians, meaning he had only three species in his book of terrifying of monsters left to see. (AUDIO: Iris at the Oche) He later had a TV jingle stuck in his head and came under the the spell of Lift. (AUDIO: A Lift in Time)

Under Iris's direction, Panda worked as an art critic in Paris, 1922, giving poor reviews to artistic geniuses such as Salvador Dalí. His reviews were causing these great artists to give up on art and leave Paris, thereby changing history, which the Seventh Doctor chastised him for. He caught the Doctor and Ace breaking into the bus, but confessed that he had misgivings about Iris's intentions and told the Doctor about this. He helped the Doctor to get the artists back to Paris, only to discover that Iris's purpose for ousting them in the first place was to protect them from Dora Muse, who wanted to consume the serotonin from their brains. After trying unsuccessfully to feast on Panda's brain, Dora transferred her mind into his body. He recovered after falling into the Seine, expelling Dora's consciousness. (AUDIO: Muse of Fire)

Iris and the Clockworks
Panda remained on the Celestial Omnibus when Iris investigated strange happenings in Darlington, knowing how the locals would react to his appearance. Still, he made himself useful by relaying information to Iris from the Omnibus.

Iris returned to the Omnibus with her new friend, Simon, and the trio used the Omnibus to travel to the Begins at Home, the source of the strange happenings, and they found that the ship had been ransacked by Dog Pirates. Returning to Darlington, they discovered Anthony Marvelle's scheme to reach the Obverse. They left with Simon's friend Kelly, travelling to an alternate Paris in 1894, on the brink of the Martian invasion.

They left Paris hastily, returning Kelly to Earth after she found she couldn't handle the stress of time travel. Barbra, a Servo-furnishing, stowed away with them when they travelled to Valcea. On their journey to the City of Glass, Panda and Simon discovered a tear in the Very Fabric, left by Marvelle, inside the Omnibus, and they ventured through it, finding themselves at a Vince Cosmos concert in 1973, and saving Vince from an assassination attempt by Martian Time Agents.

At the after party, Simon encountered a future version of Iris who scolded them, instructing them to return to her past self. Panda and Simon returned to the Omnibus, and they finally reached the City of Glass. They're were immediately captured by the Wardrobes, who tortured Panda for information. Panda escaped with Simon and Iris after a bomb that had been secretly placed inside Barbra begins to explode, and Iris piloted the Omnibus to Hyspero, following Marvelle. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

On Hyspero, Panda drove the bus whilst sitting on five pillows and believed that the pub they found in the desert looked like part of MIAOW. He also believed that Saga City was a trap for Iris and wanted to go after Simon once he was kidnapped by the Scarlet Empress's vizier. (PROSE: Wildthyme Beyond!)

A secret mission
After dropping Panda off somewhere to complete a mission for her, Iris travelled with Jo Jones, and later with Captain Edwin Turner. (AUDIO: Find and Replace, An Extraterrestrial Werewolf in Belgium) After parting ways with Turner, she went looking for Panda, but couldn't find him. Instead, she encountered a human called Arthur Bayer, who had a voice very similar to Panda's. (AUDIO: Looking for a Friend)

Travels with Brenda Soobie
At some point, Panda travelled with an early incarnation of Iris who called herself Brenda Soobie. The two spent some time in Las Vegas and partied backstage at the Flamingo Hotel with Elvis and Priscilla Presley. They stumbled upon an alien plot to abduct the Presleys and ended up chased through the hotel by an android duplicate of Tom Jones deployed as part of the masterplan, until they managed to escape through a portal that connected to the changing room mirror of the Shopkeeper's shop in Samhain. The old man already knew other, later versions of Iris, but this was her first meeting with him, and her first visit to the town, from her perspective.

The two started exploring the town, and Panda was run over by the clockwork monkeys, who had taken Master Maker's van for a joyride. Brenda sought help from the RifKind, living stuffed animals left behind by a writer who'd left Samhain behind twelve years ago and moved back to the "normal world", going over Hebden Bridge. After they mended Panda's arms and brought him back to consciousnss, Panda and Brenda tracked Riffkind down in the company of Wise Old Mog, finding him disillusioned with his attempts at a serious writing career, and helped inspire him to return to his beloved puppet characters. The three then returned to Samhain. (PROSE: Death of the Author)

Later life
At one point later in his life, Panda travelled to the Obverse and helped a young Iris discover her identity and flee the Clockworks in her bus. (PROSE: Wildthyme Beyond!)

One of Iris' future incarnations starred in a successful television series as well as several films. Panda only appeared in the pilot episode of the series before he was replaced by a kangaroo named Hoppy. (AUDIO: The Iris Wildthyme Appreciation Society)

Undated events
Jack told Ace that hippies helped put Panda on "the bus to space". (PROSE: Teenage Kicks)

Living with Paul Magrs and Jeremy
Panda once met Paul Magrs and his partner Jeremy in Norwich. Panda travalled with them to Manchester, where he moved in with them in their flat, and Panda stayed with the couple when they moved into their cosy new home in Levenshulme. Panda spent most of his time with the couple, so if they would go on holiday to places such as Paris, Panda would accompany them. Panda also spent his time reading biographies and reviewing ballet and opera for "serious-minded broadsheets".

When Fester Cat, a cat that Paul and Jeremy took in off the streets in 2006, moved in, Panda would often make conversation with Fester, but Fester was sceptical about Panda being "real". (PROSE: The Story of Fester Cat)

In 2012, Panda visited the Rollright Stones with Paul and Jeremy after they returned from the Utopia convention, and Panda was "delighted" that the stones were "Panda-sized". (PROSE: The Stones of Spookiness)

In 2013, Fester began work on a book about his life with Paul and Jeremy. Fester actually omitted Panda from most of the book, as he was still unsure about Panda. (PROSE: The Story of Fester Cat) However, in a short story Fester wrote to publicise his book, Fester showed that he had finally accepted that Panda was real. (PROSE: Fester and the Christmas Mouse)

Lionel Pandeau
One alternate version of Panda was the villainous Lionel Pandeau who used Iris's bus to summon an army of alternate Pandas to San Francisco on New years eve, 1999. Among the countless versions of Panda to emerge were vampires, cyborgs and giants, who Pandeau intended to use to conquer the Multiverse.

Others Panda theorised to have been brought through the rift were traffic cop Panda, construction worker Panda and Native American Panda during his mocking of Pandeau's plans.

All Pandas were shown to have an aversion to Tonic water, demonstrated when Iris poured a whole bottle onto a vampire Panda that had been assaulting hospital visitors. (AUDIO: The Panda Invasion)

The Gallery
Panda once found himself in a mysterious place known only as the Gallery, and Mister Heart kept repeatedly luring Panda into other worlds, in a ploy to capture Panda within a painting. In these worlds, Panda experienced being other versions of himself, including:

Chef Panda
This version of Panda hosted a show called What The F**k Do You Call That?, before his eventual death by choking on stuffing. (PROSE: Framed)

Art Critic Panda
This version of Panda was a judge for an art show. He had a relationship with Antoinette Bisby, who turned out to have an ulterior motive of exposing Panda and his fellow judges for being corrupt, and this broke Panda's heart, as he was genuinely in love with Antoinette, and he slit his throat with a piece of glass in despair. (PROSE: Framed)

Author Panda
This other version of Panda was an author who had just released a bestselling novel, but when a secret message was discovered in his book, Panda killed himself as he new he had no future.

As it turns out, Iris had spent seventy-four years deliberately causing the death of Panda within these worlds, so as to prevent Panda being trapped in a painting for all eternity. (PROSE: Framed)

Personality
Panda was usually bad-tempered. He took offence at being called a toy. Like Iris, Panda drank heavily, and always carried a hip flask of whisky with him, as he felt that it kept him safe through dark times. (AUDIO: The Two Irises) Panda resented being described as a bear and threatened to punch those whom he had felt insulted him "right up the hooter." (AUDIO: Wildthyme at Large, et. al)

Panda wanted to be a DJ for Radio 4 and was annoyed when the bus got messy. (AUDIO: The Sound of Fear)

Panda expressed a sexual interest in Mida Slike, who he thought was "gorgeous" (AUDIO: Wildthyme at Large) and had "splendid boobs". (PROSE: Iris Wildthyme and the Polythene Terror)

Behind the scenes
Panda appears in a few of Paul Magrs' non-Iris Wildthyme but still DWU novels, including Brenda and Effie Forever!.

In The Runaway HiFi, a piece of fan fiction that Magrs wrote for his blog, Panda is revealed to be HiFi. This story was later published in A Second Target for Tommy in 2018 by Obverse Books.