Doctor Who

[rm]

1. HOW CAN ANYONE HATE RIVER SONG? She's Jack, but with tits and frizzy hair. As someone with tits and frizzy hair I hate the haters on River Song. Seriously, the Jack references are SO OBVIOUS -- the drape of that dress is the girl version of Jack's coat; her lines are just as bad, and that teeny tiny blaster is the same model as the one pulled out of John Hart's ass in KKBB. Hell, I bet she's slept with John Hart.

2. I love the 51st Century! Oh, the things this season is doing with the military.

3. Wait, back to River Song.... the very good man she killed... it's the Doctor, isn't it?

4. Wow, I'm working on something related to how sacrifice of one's life is the gold standard for heroism in the Whoniverse and how that prevents the show's narrative heroes (the Doctor and Jack, primarily) from ever being actual heroes by the show's own definintion and wow this episode just handed me everything I needed on a platter with Octavian.

"Ready?" the Doctor asks.

"Content," comes the response.

The Doctor and Jack can never sacrifice themselves for anyone, can never be content!!!!

5. And if you think I didn't find that resonant with Ianto's death too, you're out of your mind.

6. Rory's speech about how the Doctor destroys people because they want to make him proud!!! Spot on! Also resonant with pretty much all the fuckery that goes down in Torchwood.

7. This season is weird in that it feels more like a children's show in pacing, exposition and staging, and yet the dark, dark, dark themes are still there. Silence and genocide! Ah, Doctor!

8. I didn't feel like "Vampires of Venice" was a major episode, but I suspect it will be so in retrospect.

9. Extension of the Weeping Angel mythology is challenging, at least to my Jack/Weeping Angel, eye-gouging sex fic, but I can work with it.

9.5 -- Oh hey, when River tells the Doctor that there's "a thing in there that can't die" did anyone else go "OH SHIT, THE DOCTOR THINKS IT'S JACK?"

10. Yeah, I'm not well.

11. There is truth in the meta on this show.

"That's a fairytale."

"So are we."

!!!!!!

12. Oh, oh, oh the things about death!!! Never being born vs. just dying. The horror of being undone as opposed to dead. Oh!

Right, so in three days I'll be in a plane over the Atlantic. I can't even process it. I think the idea that I can break this mood is probably bullshit. I'm just going to be in a weird space for a few days, and it is what it is.

In speaking with my mother on the phone earlier it occurred to me, not for the first time, but for the first time in a while, that I can only write -- in any genre, really -- from a place of sadness, of longing, of desire, of mourning, regardless of whether I'm writing something sad or not. It's just one of those Ways That I Am, but right now I feel very tired out by it.

My mother was saying how my paper is about something so neat and fun earlier, and I was like "Mom, it's awesome. I love what I'm doing work on, and I think my subject is fascinating, and quirky, and beautiful and really, really elegant. But it's sad. And it's exhausting to have to spend so much time in other people's grief, some of which I share and some of which I don't understand at all. And I do it every day, because I'm looking at everything I'm reading and watching through this lens, every day. I watch a show I love, and I sit there watching it through 'he's dead, he's dead, he's dead' so no matter how excited I am by this scholarship, RIGHT NOW I AM VERY TIRED."

Getting to say that made me feel about 200% better, too. But death project moratorium for a week post-Bristol (it's one reason I'm doing the Imperial War Museum before the conference and not after) before I start working on the D*C presentation. I suspect this will all feel moderately different on July 10. I can't wait. Take me there.

Meanwhile, as much as I don't buy this Doctor as a sexual creature (Nine wanted to fuck, Ten wanted to have his heart broken, Eleven doesn't want to think about how fucked up he was as Nine and Ten), anyone got any Amy/Rory/Eleven that will change my mind?

Comments

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

You are going to LOVE the finale. :)

Very interesting observations about sacrifice, and what you're saying about the Doctor and Jack makes a lot of sense.

I'm not sure Ianto's death can be framed as a sacrifice, however, because nothing was gained from it. In my mind, for something to be a sacrifice, rather than a waste, it needs to be some sort of exchange -- "I give up X, so that Y can happen". In Ianto's case, it seemed to be more a case of "If I succeed, I live, if I fail, I die" -- and he KNEW he was going to fail/die (well, at least I think he did -- that is, of course, a matter of interpretation).

(Yeah, my latest theory on "why many people found Ianto's death emotionally unsatisfying" -- one day, I will stop coming up with these. :P)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Octavian's death wasn't useful either, just unavoidable. What interested me about it was that he was so ready.

[tree00faery.livejournal.com]

I KNOW RIGHT?! I love River Song to bits. She only gets more awesome, too. I have friends that don't like her, and I'm like, "We cannot be friends." (Kidding, of course. But I don't get it.)

Totally agreed about #s 4-7.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Hell, I bet she's slept with John Hart.

Who hasn't?

I cannot dislike any 51st century characters. At all. Except for Gray, because Gray's an asshole.

[rm.livejournal.com]

SECRET BROTHER IS NOT A VALID PLOT.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

Love. River!

Also, thrilled that The Boy loves River! Yay! Another in the very long line of smart, tough women who can kick his butt that he has crushed on in fic and in RL! This trend makes me happy and gives me much hope for his future!

[shehasathree]

My mother was saying how my paper is about something so neat and fun earlier, and I was like "Mom, it's awesome. I love what I'm doing work on, and I think my subject is fascinating, and quirky, and beautiful and really, really elegant. But it's sad. And it's exhausting to have to spend so much time in other people's grief, some of which I share and some of which I don't understand at all. And I do it every day, because I'm looking at everything I'm reading and watching through this lens, every day. I watch a show I love, and I sit there watching it through 'he's dead, he's dead, he's dead' so no matter how excited I am by this scholarship, RIGHT NOW I AM VERY TIRED."

Getting to say that made me feel about 200% better

hi! i love reading your posts.
i'm in the final stages of writing up my undergraduate thesis right now, and my topic is self-injury (and the ways it's represented in various texts, etc etc) and it took me a long time to get here and sometimes i just stop in amazement that 'omg this is my life!' it's so wonderful to be able to work with this topic and theory and it's very exciting to see my ideas taking shape and getting to share them with people.

BUT - i'm writing about self-injury. it's hard, and sad, and emotionally draining, and i think a lot of my procrastination about writing my thesis has come from a place of not really wanting to engage with the emotional side of my work, and the emotions it brings out in me.

so thanks for posting that, because it really helped me crystallise that emotional side of my work. i really appreciate that.

[alt_universe_me.livejournal.com]

Yay for River Song love! Seriously, River Song is awesome. I don't get the hate for her either. And her character just keeps getting better and better. I'm going to shut up now so I don't accidentally spoil you for anything :)

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I <3 River Song so much. I'm glad you seem to be liking this season so far. If you're interested, btw, I wrote wee bit of meta" on "Flesh and Stone. I don't go into the issue of sacrifice, but I talk a lot about faith, which is not irrelevant.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's not. I think the religion stuff that goes on in DW is some of the most interesting stuff out there, despite the officially atheistic perspective of the show.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I like River song herself, but I am, as always, a little squicked by the implication she might have sex with him at some point. I was also seriously squicked by him am and rose. Time Lords having sex with humans hits my age taboo hard ayt the samwe time it feels like bestiality. the exception to my no humans and Ztime Lords taboo would be Jack once he's had a few centuries in him, because by then they are coming from similar places. I repeat, it's not river, it's me not wanting to see him kiss humans particularly.

River herself? Freaking glorious. I always liked the tough, competent companions best. (Another thing I didn't like about rose). She fits that, so I'm comfortable watching her be tough and competent.

[rm.livejournal.com]

See, I don't have Old Who exposure, so the Doctor and sex isn't the hard line for me I know it is for many people, but I can accept that objection. It's the random misogyny that I see leveled at River Song a lot that drives me mad.

[elisi]

I... can't explain how much I love River. (Although I'm trying in the essay I'm currently writing.) She's like THE MOST AWESOME CHARACTER EVER!

3. Wait, back to River Song.... the very good man she killed... it's the Doctor, isn't it?
That certainly seems to be the implication - and I love how this is what makes him begin to be really interested. (Future wife? Run away run away! Future killer? Hmmm, now isn't that interesting...) Dear Doctor, you are impossible screwed up. But River loves you like that, so it's OK! :)

The Doctor and Jack can never sacrifice themselves for anyone, can never be content!!!!
That is a very interesting point. (Love Octavian.)

Rory's speech about how the Doctor destroys people because they want to make him proud!!! Spot on! Also resonant with pretty much all the fuckery that goes down in Torchwood.
Oh Rory. He is very perceptive.

This season is weird in that it feels more like a children's show in pacing, exposition and staging, and yet the dark, dark, dark themes are still there. Silence and genocide! Ah, Doctor!
Like you say, there is truth in the meta. It's all a fairy tale, but how. (Love this quote by the Moff: Maybe this isn't new but it is my view: Doctor Who is a fairy tale – not sci-fi, not fantasy but properly a fairy tale. And I don't mean Disney-style where the endings are changed and everyone lives. Doctor Who is how we warn our children that there are people in the world who want to eat them.)

Oh I love this season in about a million different ways, and I want you to watch the rest so I can see what you make of it! (It's SO hard not to spoil you...)

And all the best for the next week! *crosses fingers*

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh that SM quote is great. And I entirely agree. I will have to mention this to my mother who resists the shows I love and has been aggressive in the past in her criticism of my interests because aliens make her uncomfortable for reasons she's not yet been able to articulate to me or herself. I wonder if the fairy tale perspective will mitigate this for her, or, conversely, finally serve as its explanation.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved loved loved this series, and Rory just keeps getting more and more fantastic. I have mixed feelings about River Song and you just managed to put the finger on it.

It's the whole "maybe she's his wife!" angle. She's got way too much interesting potential to be filed away under "love interest". Which cracks me up, because if there weren't such huge bones thrown in that direction, I'd probably ship them. As it is, I want her flirtatiousness to just be a mannerism (and one that gets used on others a bit more *coughAMYcough*).

I had a moment, though, where the kickassery of River Song clicked for me; when she took off her fierce stiletto heels because she needed to run. She may never be a favorite character of mine, but that one little touch won me over in a huge way.

[sanat.livejournal.com]

Oh... migod. Your ICON. 0.0

[chicleeblair.livejournal.com]

I love River Song in all of her 51st Century glory. I loved this season to bits.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

You are going to love everything about this season OMG!

:D

River is <3 for the many reasons that Jack is <3... Ach, we should all be so adorably flirty.
If there is ever a time in which River and Jack will meet canonically, my head will be happily 'sploded.

[eris.livejournal.com]

"I don't buy this Doctor as a sexual creature"

I've been rewatching a lot of the classic who and I just recently put my finger on why I can't see Eleven as a sexual creature either.

Despite the age of the actor, himself, Eleven is much more similar in personality to some of his older, stodgier, iterations. He pulls off the old soul in young body thing so well that I think of him as old. The fact that he's 900+ years old never escapes me with Eleven and it frequently did with Ten.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

:nodding: Oh yes, definitely. That whole bit where Amy was trying to make out with him - WTF was she thinking? He does old-soul-in-young-body so well, but even without that, there has always been something asexual about him. I can't put a finger on it other than to say except you how you just know about certain people? The Doctor is one of those people.

[cookiedough.livejournal.com]

I love-love-loved River in the finale - much more than the first time we saw her - and I believe Mofty has said her square sonic blaster is the same as Jack's. As in, the same singular one. She'll have something else even more Jack later, though not sure if it's meant to be same exact one of those.

With River, after those Angels eps, there was a lot of hating and a lot of people hating the hating saying YOU JUST DON'T LIKE HER BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE SEEING THE DOCTOR BESTED BY A WOMAN. And okay, no. I didn't really like her in those two eps, but I think the reason a lot of people don't like her ISN'T because she's a woman doing better than The Doctor, it's because she's anyone at all, doing better than the Doctor. She can fly the Tardis, she can speak Gallifreyan, she can basically show the Doctor up. She's the only character who can equal the Doctor, and we DON'T KNOW WHY. It's unexplained. That's why people don't like her - not because she's a woman, but because she's a mystery. The only clue that we have to it is that she probably learnt it from the Doctor, in her past/his future, there's so much more to it than that, and I HATE not knowing.


Eleven is not a sexual man. Just wait. Oh he just can not be.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

That's why people don't like her - not because she's a woman, but because she's a mystery.

How could anyone not like a mystery, though? Half the fun is figuring out where she fits in the entire canon.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

I just *know* River is Jack. I'll be disappointed if she isn't.

Thus, yes, she HAS slept with John Hart.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of River Song... She's so much FUN!

[tree00faery.livejournal.com]

I haven't been reading much fic of this season (are people writing it?), but since you asked, I have to recommend LSA's current stuff.

"Insomnia" starts off as Eleven/Amy(/TARDIS) (http://loveslashangst.livejournal.com/59635.html#cutid1)

And then she wrote a Rory/Amy/Eleven sequel, "Manual Instruction," (http://loveslashangst.livejournal.com/61127.html#cutid1) for my birthday. <3

And then there's a third part, "Fulfillment" (http://loveslashangst.livejournal.com/62420.html#cutid1)

I think there's a fourth part in the works, too. :P

Warning, these are pretty much 100% porn. I see Eleven as fairly asexual also, and yet these totally work. (Sorry for the long links - I fail at making things look pretty at 4 in the morning.)

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

I've seen more gen than anything, but a surprisingly large crop of Amy/River fic seems to have sprung up starting from the Angels eps.

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

I love River insanely much and don't understand how it's possible to not love her.

She's Jack, but with tits and frizzy hair.

This!

Oh hey, when River tells the Doctor that there's "a thing in there that can't die" did anyone else go "OH SHIT, THE DOCTOR THINKS IT'S JACK?"

ETA: Absolutely. Hell, for a second there, so did I.

I can not wait until you finish the rest to hear what you think after the finale, in terms of River and in terms of how the storytelling of this season works and some of the places it appears not to work at all.

Truer words were never spoken

[witchway.livejournal.com]

Nine wanted to fuck, Ten wanted to have his heart broken, Eleven doesn't want to think about how fucked up he was as Nine and Ten

WELL SAID. (There may be an entire facfic hiding in that sentence, I'll have to think about it.)

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I've yet to watch Dr. Who, so I skipped over that bit, but, I used to think I wrote from a place of grief.

I started writing when I was in 5th grade (an epic adventure about twin bunnies that found a golden carrot in their garden and wanted to take it to the Smithsonian to get it checked out; I was a strange girl and haven't really changed ;-p). That was the spring my favorite grandfather's cancer was discovered and I spent the next 5 months watching him die.

I got more lost in my stories when my mom died 2 1/2 yrs. later. I wrote (and acted, my after school activity in high school was drama) because my real life sucked rocks and I needed to escape. I created obstacles my characters could overcome or in the ones I never showed anyone, they spent weeks doing all those things a proper Southern lady of not quite 14 shouldn't even know about, let alone contemplate doing herself. (Mostly crawling into a bottle of something alcoholic to forget but occasionally paired with drunken orgies.)

By the time I hit my early 20s, when I was the happiest I'd been since I was a little kid (I'd finished college, was newly married, loving finally being an adult and having my own space and money I didn't feel guilty about spending.) I had no urge to write whatsoever. I remember chatting with my best friend when we were at Balticon about it.

Both of us had done a lot of writing as teens (her life sucked as much as mine but in different ways) and now that we were happily married and getting on with being grown-ups, we didn't find too many things to write about. Our creativity was elsewhere.

And then, about 6 years ago the urge to write came back. Mind you I was inspired by the tragedy that was Remus Lupin's life, so the sadness was still there. But, I'd somehow figured out a way to not let the sadness take over.

I also didn't focus on death or sadness either. I think it would be very easy to be overcome if I were writing about death of grief regularly.

Hope this wasn't too off topic or TMI.

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

People hate River Song?

*is confused*

I've clearly been in SPN fandom too long, because I'm fairly giddy over the female characters who are both awesome and still alive after the end of the episode. It's amazing, really. Maybe this isn't typical for DW -- I've only been a casual viewer until late this season -- but I'm enjoying the hell out of it right now.

*edits cause the first icon I used was a bit spoilery -- sorry!

[rm.livejournal.com]

People hate River Song. They call her (and Amy, and Gwen, and Martha and Rose and any female character they can find a whore, but people REALLY hate River Song). I found her inoffensive in her first appearance during the Ten years, but have loved her to pieces so far with Eleven. I know that she's irritating as hell, and that's okay, people can hate her for non-misogyny reasons and I'm good, but she's Jack with frizzy hair and tits. I love it.

[trillian42.livejournal.com]

Apparently I'm the only person who has really mostly disliked this whole season. The last two eps were worth it, in that I'm glad I watched the rest of the season so that I would understand those two eps, but other than that? Eh. Most everything else was a letdown for me this season.

[brilliant-snark.livejournal.com]

I am anxious to hear your thoughts on the rest of the season. :)

I don't get all the River Song hate either. I think she is made of awesome, and I love that the more we learn about her, the more questions it gives us.

Also,
Meanwhile, as much as I don't buy this Doctor as a sexual creature (Nine wanted to fuck, Ten wanted to have his heart broken, Eleven doesn't want to think about how fucked up he was as Nine and Ten)

This times infinity. Though I have come across some Amy/Rory/11 that I enjoyed. Hmmm...

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

I've been resisting commenting on this one, because I do come down on the River-hating side of the fence. However, my reasons for doing so are mostly meta - placed into some other context, like maybe a LARP or tabletop RPG, the character would be awesome.

That said, the character of River Song is the worst Mary Sue I've ever seen in actual canon media. If she were a fanfic character, NO ONE would buy it. Married to the Doctor? speaks Gallifreyan? Leaves him graffiti all over time and space? Flies the TARDIS better than he does? Cooler than Jack, because her cons actually work, AND she's got his blaster (which admittedly I didn't notice in the epi, and which knowledge just makes this worse) and a VM? More badass in a tavern scene than Marion in the first Raiders film, and better at tomb-raiding than Lara Croft, with a Dark Secret in her past? "Spooiiilers."? Seriously?

Kali posted, early on in the season, that Amy was a little bit of a Mary Sue, because she's a fangirl, she's *us* - half in love with a story, retelling it, making things related to it. Amy is fangirl-as-Companion, who's also ultimately one of the narrators of the story, as child and as woman. What we'd like to think we were, if we were allowed to be Companions. Yeah, she's a Mary Sue, but she's a functional one, and it mostly doesn't get in the way of the character - it's there in the background, and kind of cute.

River is something else altogether: she grates on me like the stuff I created as a pre-teen, when I first started writing and gaming, and all my characters had unicorn familiars and and silver hair and were elves like Tolkien, or were daughters of Time Lords and in love with a young Sherlock Holmes.

Married to the Doctor. Flies the TARDIS better. Cooler than Jack. "Hello, sweetie." That's not a character. It's wish-fulfillment.

EtA: Sorry, this comes across a bit vehemently in the re-read. I think it's important to stress that these are my OWN opinions about the character. :D

And that I think, removed from the Who context (or at least, in something where the Doctor doesn't appear directly), she has the potential to be a bad-ass, interesting character. Frex, I'd love to see a series written entirely around her AS a character, not involving her interactions with Ten or Eleven or whoever, but "River runs a con on an entire planet", "River steals Liz Nine's crown jewels", "River averts a war with clever use of costumes," something like that. A very updated and modernized Stainless Steel Rat, perhaps, minus all Harrison's dreadful misogyny. :D There's a lot that can be done with her, that doesn't involve the gratingly smug interactions with the Doctor... :D

[neadods.livejournal.com]

HOW CAN ANYONE HATE RIVER SONG? She's Jack, but with tits and frizzy hair

I know! And now I'm desperate for lots and lots of River/Jack, which probably counts as masturbation, but the sheer gleeful lust and lust for life would be fabulous.