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.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay, I see what you mean. Sorry, my brain was just going off on a tangent about the sacrifice thing (I actually discuss the way that notions of sacrifice work to uphold a Cartesian framework in my thesis, so my brain just went there).

Btw, I really love River Song too. I've always liked her, but she definitely comes into her own in this series.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well, I think we probably disagree on how ready Ianto was to die, too, but if we keep it over on Jack and the Doctor we can probably nod along pretty well ;) And I'm recognizing the intensity of my own emotions right now and sort of trying to talk about them but not their subject, because I need to stay contained and focused.

BUT RIVER SONG IS AWESOMECAKES.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sorry, I shouldn't have gone off on that bit of speculation, since you just said about how hard you're finding this (and also, I think I disagree with myself about how ready Ianto was to die, so... :P).

Anyway, YES. RIVER SONG. I would say "she rules" but that belongs to Liz X. So instead I will say OMG HER AWESOME KEEPS GROWING EXPONENTIALLY, AND AT SOME POINT THERE NEEDS TO BE A DOCTOR/RIVER/JACK OT3, BECAUSE OMG HOW GREAT WOULD THAT BE? :D

[rm.livejournal.com]

We will talk about Ianto after July 9. I think we can both agree that this week is not that week.

RIVER SONG SHOULD HAVE AWESOME 51ST CENTURY SEX WITH EVERYONE.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yes. And after I re-watch CoE with fandom people on July 10th, which I'm actually really looking forward to. :)

SHE SHOULD.

DAMN, I NEED TO WRITE THIS. I HAVE UNFILLED KINK BINGO SQUARES, SO THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO.

[rm.livejournal.com]

This conversation is the Alonso Frame of fandom mourning. "We are sad about Ianto; 51st century sex!"

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

LOL.

So, right now, I'm thinking "gags" prompt, Jack/River (I can't work the Doctor in there because [redacted because it contains a Season finale spoiler]). Jack is the one who is gagged.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Of course Jack is the one who is gagged. I mean really. You'd almost have to argue he never shuts up in hopes of getting some more of that.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Hee! I was having trouble working out what to do for that prompt, too! Now it's all settled. :D

[rm.livejournal.com]

That is one of those kinks that I could read all day, so quite excited to see this.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I'll try to have it done by the time you get back from Bristol.

Hmmm... maybe John Hart should be involved too... I will have to think about this VERY IMPORTANT ISSUE some more. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

If you don't write the following I will:

Jack Harkness, John Hart, a double-headed cock-shaped gag, and River Song laughing her ass off that they're still trying to talk.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

ROFLMAO. PERFECT. IT SO HAPPENED.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Wow, just wow, that would be awesome.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

...until you have to write the dialog. Trying to keep track of who is saying "mmffhghmm" and who is saying "uuuummmggh" would be a challenge.

My wish list for season 6 currently has only one thing on it: River gets herself a bitchin' awesome coat required for all Whoniverse swashbuckling types.