#i need to stop getting attached to torchwood characters | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

twelverose · 5 years ago

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i once believed love would be black and white, but it’s golden.

One year together measured in the memories lit by golden haze.

Rating: Teen (Implied sexual content)

Paring: Tentoo/Rose Tyler

WC: 6k

Tw: panic/anxiety attacks & drinking/smoking

A/N: a light plot. more of a character study than anything. but like, it was fun to write so. (angst & fluff)

Song: Daylight by Taylor Swift

Read on Ao3

Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down Maybe I've stormed out of every single room in this town Threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it's morning now It's brighter now, now

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“He needs you. That’s very me.” echoed through her mind as she watched him sleep.

They were driving back to the zeppelin. Pete driving with her mum in the front seat. They were trying to give them as much privacy as possible. Not that it mattered. The moment they made it to the main roadway, he fell asleep.

He fell asleep holding her hand. Like he was holding onto his promise.

When Jackie realized he was asleep, she went on about Tony. Which morphed into why Pete needed to finish some project that had been sitting in the garden for a month now. Rose pointed out why it had been abandoned. Her mum gave her no mind. Explaining you need to finish what you start. Rose scoffed. Quiet enough to avoid a scolding from her mother.

It took about an hour to get there.

Once they woke up the Doctor- which took a lot more effort than it used to- and made it onto the airship, Rose found herself exhausted. The last 72 hours catching up to her.

72 hours of fixing timelines and finding her universe and saving all of them. An emotional roller-coaster stuffed in for good fun. She wasn’t sure how she felt right now. Everything was foggy- including her vision.

She made her way to her usual seat. The Doctor not trailing far behind. They were pressed together in the seat. Not that they had to be, but it was a subconscious thing. Something they did before everything could give her butterflies all over again.

They listened to Pete’s call to Torchwood. Well, he did more than Rose. The drone of his voice forced her eyes shut. She started to drift off, resting her head on the Doctor’s shoulder.

She was half asleep when he asked, “It’s gonna be us?” in a low voice.

She reached for his new, new, new, hand, “Yeah.”

They were lucky. Lucky to have each other. Rose reminded herself that everyday. But falling into things- things they never did before- was beginning to look more difficult than they thought.

Days full of new aliens and old tropes. Meetings that sounded exciting in theory but when given context, Rose couldn’t process correctly. The Doctor trying to fit into the routine of work and home. Old jealous feelings and new conflicting ones falling out of each other’s mouths. Learning to communicate truthfully.

But they made it work. Just like they always have and always will. Although time decided it would move slow.

It was a hell of a day repairing a fleet of fly-sized spaceships and giving the captains directions to Bangladesh. That’s what the Doctor did. Rose was granted the honour of detailing her most recent experience with the “Original Doctor” and how they saved universes.

There was a heavy dread in the back of her mind. Thinking of all the versions of the people she knew that she failed to save. She never got used to detailing what happened when she jumped. But the dread had become something new now. It was thinking of the day they drag the Doctor into an interview room and drill him on how he’s different. She already was holding a grudge against the stoic people she knew would question him.

She didn’t like them in the first place.

Rose came home late. Annoyed and brain dead by the ten hours of redundant questions. Why had they waited two weeks to ask? She didn’t know. But the thought only annoyed her a little bit more. The Doctor was lying on the couch, watching some documentary. Probably about the universe. She couldn’t really focus on anything either way.

“Rose!” His head popped up when the front door closed. Hair adorably mussed and a bright smile on his face.

She gave him a small smile, “Hey.”

He looked like he was about to ask her questions about her day. But bit his tongue when she gave him a pointed look, “Tired?”

She nodded and fell onto the couch next to him. She didn’t want to explain. She could probably ask Pete for the tapes or documents if he was so desperate for an explanation. But he looked at her with those puppy dog eyes and she caved. Giving him a brief explanation of what she had to say and why it was stupid. It wasn’t much but it was what she had to offer.

“I was stuck on Earth working for U.N.I.T. for five years. Reminded me that I wasn’t a desk jockey or meant to live a linear timeline.” He said matter-of-factly.

Rose snorted, “You’re stuck with both for the time being.”

“Not so bad when I’ve got you.”

The words echoed memories she still considered precious. They happened more often now. Soft moments laced in a golden haze replaying in her mind. They changed her moods completely.

This time, she couldn’t help but lean up and kiss him. Something they were trying to find the natural for. He still let himself go lovesick. Like now, as Rose pulled back with a tongue in tooth grin at his small sound.

He wasn’t entirely ruffled. But definitely dopey eyed when he mumbled, “I love it when you grin like that.”

She hopped up to grab her phone, much to his dismay. And people thought they were attached before.

“Rose, wh-”

“I need to call mum. And order a pizza. You can look for a movie in the meantime.”

“That’ll be at least an hour! What am I supposed to do after I find the movie?”

Rose raised her eyebrows, “Last time it took you almost two hours because ‘Films aren’t the same here!’”

The Doctor opened his mouth to defend himself but couldn’t quite find a good defense. She was happy that he didn’t. Because she was right. he found a movie right before the pizza showed up. It was some sci-fi fantasy that didn’t really interest Rose but she doubted she’d stay up until he found another one.

For a man who was so used to letting things happen, he was picky over the media he consumed.

It was a pretty movie, she would give it that. The colors and framing were nice. But nothing else really appealed to her. After eating and curling into his side, she found herself drifting to sleep. Only opening her eyes when the light was bright enough to wake her up. Or when the Doctor moved because his arm was falling asleep or the dialogue pulled him into the story.

Part of her wished she wasn’t so tired. She loved watching him react to new things. Now they lived in a universe of brand new. It normally included having to hear him complain that she should at least try and enjoy the story. He didn’t protest too much. Just enough to remind her that you could find good in every story. So in return, she’d read a book.

Reading gave her a better advantage of watching him. His eyebrows and lips would twitch, as if he was replying. Or maybe criticizing the character’s choices. His fingers would twiddle and feet would tap. It was almost childish, how much he immersed himself.

She loved it. But she was also happy with where she was- option number two. It was also twice as comfortable.

Before she knew it, she was being lifted off the couch. Rose could feel him strain slightly as he carried her. She tried to hide her smile but couldn’t help but let a small one ghost her face. He tapped the bedroom door open with his foot. Moving as gently and quietly as possible, as if she wasn’t a deep sleeper. He knew that well.

Maybe he didn’t know when she was pretending. It made something catch in her throat. All the times she would pretend to be asleep- most of the time because she was already halfway there- just to spend time close to him. Did he never really know?

When he tucked her into bed she realized that he had yet to spend a night in the bedroom. Sure, he needed a little less sleep than the average human- because he wasn’t average. They shared a bed several times before, but he never stayed with her now. Granted, her bedroom wasn’t an alien jail cell or an archaic guest room.

It was an intimacy they never had without barriers and boundaries. Before, they were too aware of what time and space can do. Well he was. When he kissed her forehead, Rose realized it was something they could throw into the wind.

She grabbed his arm before he moved away, “Stay.”

There was a company party at Torchwood. The Doctor had been around long enough- two months and three days- for people to know who he was. Which meant he and Rose ended up staying for an afterparty. And then found a few.

In theory, it was Jake’s fault. He was the one who wanted to test the Doctor’s limits. They were greater than Rose expected. And unlike previous times, he wasn’t afraid to let it show. They ran around the streets of London. Jake showing them holes in the wall, where to get anything and everything. He broke up around 1 in the morning. Leaving them to laugh when one of them stumbled and hide from her father’s paparazzi in dark alleys. It didn’t do much but make them look worse in the morning.

They didn’t care. Too busy having a good time. There’s no doubt in that. They danced and flirted and had way more than one too many. Stumbled home and…

Rose woke up to a pounding headache. Maybe she was getting too old to have that type of fun. But the moment she had the thought, she decided the hangover was worth the fun. Even if the bed was empty when she woke up.

She got out of bed with a groan and grabbed the first shirt within arms’ reach. Which happened to be the Doctor’s button down from the night before. She brushed her teeth and took a few painkillers before walking out into the living room.

The stereo system was playing music that Rose wasn’t familiar with. But she heard him humming along.

She stopped and smiled as she caught sight of him. Clad only in a pair of briefs, the Doctor was swaying side to side as he chopped something. He was light. Not the tense and straight-backed man who needed to prove he was still worth his title. Hair beautifully messy, a blush spreading over the freckles of his back, and remnants of them from the night before.

He was beautiful. Especially when he let the weight off his shoulders.

She couldn’t help wrapping her arms around him when he was within reach. Pressing a kiss against his spine as he chuckled. Appreciating the heat his body left against her cheek.

“Good morning.” The vibration of his voice made her feel light as well.

She hummed in response. Appreciating the feeling of it all.

“I figured I could make us some breakfast.” He said, his voice slightly hoarse.

“Have you made any tea yet?”

“No.” A tinge of pink gathered on his cheeks, “I waited because it’s better when you make it.”

She let go with an exaggerated sigh and a smack of his bum. Smirking to herself at his quip, which was exactly as she always thought. She made their tea in their respective mugs. Her’s was one her mum painted with Tony, his was the one Tony made for him as a surprise. It was lumpy and chipped and colorful. Rose knew it was the few things that would expand into the sentimental collection he’d grow. It would probably remain one of his favorites.

She sat on the counter next to where he was making their omelettes once the tea was ready. She watched his focus intense when he went to flip them. Tongue daring to peek out the side of his mouth.

“Since when did you learn to cook?” She asked suddenly.

He placed his omelette on a plate before giving an explanation.”

“Oh, er,” His hand went to rub the back of his head, “When you have meetings or something during lunch, Jake has been showing me some stuff. He gets a kick out of it. Finally found something he’s better at than me.”

Rose laughed, “You found yourself a drinking buddy!”

“Oi!” He scowled, she noticed how he barely kept his finger from pointing, “I have not become that domestic, Rose Tyler!”

She couldn’t keep but laughing even more. The image of a Doctor disheveled and only in his pants, making breakfast and trying to defend that he still had an edge. The only thing that could make it any better was a “Kiss the Cook” apron.

Rose made note to get him one for the next holiday.

“Rose!” He whined, “Please, will you let off it?”

She found herself saying, “Make me.”

The Doctor wasn’t having any of that taken lightly, he took the two steps to invade her personal space with zero hesitation. The next laugh got caught in her chest. The smile remained though.

He smirked when the only sounds were their breathing and the music.

“Didn’t have to do much to do that.”

“You wish.” She mumbled, trying not to show how much she wanted him to kiss her.

“You’re wearing my shirt.” It came from deep in his chest.

He kept close to her. Close enough to where she could feel his breath against her lips. She was seconds from giving in. Letting him win until-

“Food’s getting cold!” He made a dramatic spin to grab their plate.

Rose kept in the groan. Feeding his ego was the last thing she wanted to do in the moment.

Which was fruitless. Because he still had sharper hearing. Thus, he easily made out the “Tease.” she let out underneath a loud sigh.

“You can wait, we’ve got the rest of our lives.”

She followed him to the table, “You wouldn’t say the same if I did it to you.”

He set the plates down and turned to face her, an offended look on his face.

“As if.”

She smiled, “As if you haven’t thought the same way.”

“Like…?” He did a poor job of hiding the way he looked at her.

“Well, we could stay inside all day. Just the two of us.” She took a step closer.

“I thought that was already planned.”

She ignored him. Standing on her toes and whispering, “Or the rest of the weekend.” before pulling him into a kiss. Only to push him away when it became a little more than chaste.

“Minx.”

The day she had been dreading came two weeks later. Rose’s ears had been ringing ever since she went by the Doctor’s lab to see if he was ready to go. Only to find a few of his coworkers and to hear that he got taken up for an interview. Jake said he didn’t see him during their breaks.

She called her mum everyday. It was habitual. But today it seemed like Jackie knew what was happening. Maybe Pete told her. Rose didn’t really care. She might later.

Why didn’t they deserve a heads up?

Jackie tried her best to soothe Rose. She could hear her daughter pacing the flat, rummaging through things. Half-heartedly listening to Jackie’s story about Tony and dinner. She was halfway out the door when Rose said,

“He’s home. Talk to you later.”

And he was a mess. Hair messy but not in the way Rose liked. Shirt untucked and blazer unbuttoned. His jaw set. He looked angry. The type of anger that would hide behind his eyes. That made deep brown shine gold if you knew him. She wondered if this was going to be a different anger than before. She heard stories of Donna Noble’s emotional and passionate rants and rages. She saw Donna close to falling apart when she sent her back to fix the timeline.

He looked a lot like both right now. A mix of a wildfire and a downpour.

“Doctor?”

He looked afraid.

“Hey, c’mere.”

His fist clenched.

“Talk to me.”

She reached for his hand and led him to the sofa.

She couldn’t read him. All tempestuous thoughts couldn’t translate the way she was used to. He saw that. So instead he tried to put on the facade of someone who has it together. One that only told her it was worse. Something terrible tugged at something deep within him.

“I didn’t think it’d be that bad.” He cleared his voice, “It actually didn’t bother me until I got home.”

It was exactly what she expected. Everything that made her heart hurt for him.

“It does that, doesn’t it?” She wasn’t sure what to say.

Her mum had always been better at this. She always knew how to get through, to tell people it was okay to say what they needed. Rose was better at feeling the same as them without the words. But she sat in front of a silent rambling man.

“Yeah. It’s a blow to the chest.”

She reached for his hand, interlocking their pinky fingers. There was a static shock when she did. And that seemed to be the tipping point. The shock that told him to let go.

“I need you now.” His voice broke at his attempt to hold back tears, “I don’t know. Before I could go on. I could keep going. But it’s different, isn’t it?”

Rose nodded. Still unsure of what to say, how to help. She understood. Understood so clearly she wondered if he had tapped into her mind.

“Do you think they realize what they say?”

“Yeah.” Rose looked down, “They’ve done it to me and mum several times. Well, mostly me.”

“How did you deal with it?” His eyes were wide. He looked lost trying to navigate what he was feeling.

“I knew I had to get back to you.” It came out simple. Like it was clear. Like she never spent days in bed after these interrogations sometimes.

He shook his head, “I’m not the me that you were trying to get back to. They know that. You know that.”

“I know you’re the same man. One less heart and hair that’s got a streak he always wanted.”

“Now I’ve got a last name and pay rent. Not exactly the man you met.”

“It’s been eight years since we met, for me. We change. I don’t mind, Doctor.”

He grabbed her hand, not taking his eyes off of it, “Some people do.”

“To hell with them. We’re going to live lives they can only dream of.”

A silence settled over them. Rose heard her phone vibrating in the kitchen, but didn’t care. She watched as his eyes traced her face. Curious and willing. Unsure and timid.

“I’m not sure what else is going to happen. I don’t really care,” He took a shaky breath, “All I know is that it’s you.”

Her mum and Pete asked for them to look after Tony for an evening. There was some publicity event or whatever. Jackie couldn’t remember what exactly. Rose never minded. Her little brother was easier to take care of than most would think. Raised just as she was plus a little more expense. He deserved it. The miracle child who kept her company at her worst times. He knows it too.

He also adored the Doctor. For one, he looked super cool and was super cool because he saved the universe and worlds with his sister. Two, Tony could ask him any question and he’d have the answer, the Doctor never dulled it down either. He just would answer the questions that followed. Tony’s favorite thing though, was that they could get into messes and out of them without too much consequence. Rose was sure that if he knew the words, he’d already be calling him a brother-in-law.

As much as they were two peas in a pod, it took an hour of debate between the boys for them to figure out what they were going to do. In the midst of the Doctor arguing the pros of his idea, Rose announced that they would be going to the park.

After a walk around, they settled on a hill. The Doctor laid out his trenchcoat for him and Rose to rest on. Tony left for a few minutes before coming back with a handful of flowers. Handing them to Rose and asking her to make him a crown. Before taking off to find more, so they could all have one.

“Since when could you do that?” The Doctor asked, pulling out a prototype of his sonic.

Rose shrugged, “I taught myself when I’d babysit my little cousins. Muscle memory at this point.”

“You’ve never mentioned it.”

Rose looked up from the braided weeds with a smile and raised eyebrow, “‘Cause you’re not a six year old who needs to be kept busy. At least, most of the time.”

“I’m six months and fourteen days.” He puffed his chest.

Rose rolled her eyes, “Always have to bring yourself into it, don’t ya?”

Before he had the chance to reply, Tony came running up with another boy in tow. Quickly dropping a few handfuls of flowers at Rose’s knees before steering toward the Doctor. People who appeared to be parents a few yards behind. Rose waved, making sure it was alright as the boys focused on the Doctor.

“This is Dr. Noble! He’s my sister’s boyfriend.”

Rose chuckled at Tony’s explanation of him. But the boy held out his hand to shake in a grand gesture. The Doctor took it with the same enthusiasm.

“And what’s your name?”

“Jackson. I’m Tony’s second best friend.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, “Well who’s the first?”

Tony looked shocked, “You are, Silly!”

“Of course I am, Tony.”

Something overtook the playful gleam in his eyes, something softer and touched. Rose noticed that there may have been a tear in his eye. She smiled at the ground, glancing up every so often.

Tony started asking the Doctor to tell his favorite story. The one about what happened at Krop Tor. She listened as closely as the boys, he had never let her hear it in entirety before. Most of it was as it happened, granted, not as grave. There was something he didn’t know, which wasn’t normal. And they got trapped when they went to figure it out. So it goes.

But he changed his tone at the end of it. Lowering his voice when he asked, “Do you want to know the best part?”

To which the boys nodded eagerly.

“Well, I wouldn’t be here to tell you this if it weren’t for someone.” He nodded his head at Rose, “I was just fighting the body. Which is scary but nothing compared to the soul of the Devil.”

“C’mon!!” Tony bounced on his knees.

“She was the one who made the final move. Ready to sacrifice herself and who she loved for the better of the universe,” He started to whisper, “I knew that she was the best. But this is when she became the very best.”

He explained how she shot the window of the rocket. Dramatizing it to make her sound more impressive. Throwing his hands around while talking about the Tardis. Dedicated to giving the happiest ending for the boys.

He did it with a breeze, leaving them whooping and cheering.

They were once again antsy to run around and burn off energy. Rose handed them both a crown, trying to keep Tony’s attention.

“When do you have to be back here, Anthony?”

He scowled at the use of his full name, “Before the sky turns all dark blue.”

“You’re good to go.” Rose laughed.

Tony pulled his friend away. They only managed to get just out of ear’s reach before Jackson came bounding back up.

The Doctor looked up from where he was fiddling with his sonic, “Yes sir?”

“What’s your first name?”

“Doctor,” He grinned mischievously.

“Your last?”

“Noble.” He said it with pride.

Jackson gave him a questioning look but shrugged and ran back to Tony, who was poking at something with a stick.

Rose left the rest of the flowers on the ground and turned her attention to the sunset. Listening to everything going on around them. The phantom breeze in the trees. All the kids calling for each other. Passing conversations.

“What about when we get married?”

It came out of nowhere. She tried not to let her surprise show, “What about it?”

“Our last names.” He looked at her, the wind in his hair reminded her of their time on New Earth, “I quite like Noble and I don’t think you should give up Tyler.”

“What if I want to?” She raised her eyebrows at him.

“Well, I mean-”

“I’m joking, Doctor,” She looked at him, lost in thought, “We could hyphenate them.”

He shook his head in thought, “Hm, but who would go first?”

She shrugged, returning her focus to the sky. Listening as he rolled “Noble-Tyler” and “Tyler-Noble” off his tongue while it turned a brighter and brighter pink.

She swatted at him with the back of her hand when Tony ran back to them. Trying to avoid any conversations that aren't necessary. He asked the Doctor to come play with him because Jackson had to leave. Before he started to drag him away, the Doctor managed to give Rose a peck on the cheek. The six year old was too impatient. Leaving him to yell “I love you!” at her.

Her eye roll was followed with her own shout, “I love you too!”

The Doctor was wearing a tuxedo similar to the one he wore the first time they were here. This time it wasn’t to gain information but to give it. He was to give a lecture on something he figured out in the eight months he’d been here. He argued that it wasn’t that important. That he didn’t need to do it. Pete reminded him that the other scientists working on it eight spent years. Not months.

The Doctor and Donna’s personality had always been intertwined in him. Rose knew it. She first noticed because he was quick to reply to her mum’s quips and actually started to enjoy spending time with her.

He said it was because he’s half the alien he used to be. But both Rose and Jackie beg to differ.

But this was the first time she’s seen the personality merge work against him. He couldn’t just brush off the idea of speaking in front of people who are there to question him. Speculate how he did it. Insecurities bubbled to the surface and crawled into his nerves.

Rose found out through Jake, who had to pull her from talking to people before the seminar. She wasn’t the one resisting. She was tired of questions about this “mystery man” who was “quick to put a ring on her finger.”

Although, the reactions to the fact that she was the one who got down on one knee humored her. But led her to explaining that he got her ring later.

“He’s been pacin’ the room like an animal that hasn’t got enough enrichment.” Jake said while walking Rose to where the Doctor was, “I couldn’t get through to him but we all know you can.”

She entered the room to a speaker being in pieces across the floor. The Doctor sitting in the middle of all the pieces, trying to rig something together. She wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a DADA sculpture or a new invention. Either way, his new anxieties were making him manic.

“Doctor?”

His head snapped up and he gave her a tense grin, “Rose! I was just thinking of you.”

“I don’t think you stop doing that.”

He shrugged and started sweeping all the pieces into a small pile in front of him.

“Doctor,” Rose said it softer than before, “What’s going on?”

“I’m about to talk to a room full of people and I can’t suppress hormones like I used to be able to.”

He said it with a straight face. Leaving Rose to hold her breath to keep from causing him anymore anxiety. She wasn’t sure if her urge to laugh was caused by the point-blank approach of explanation or the fact that he was clearly lying. She didn’t think on it too much. She tried to think about what her mum said and did all the times she was at a breaking point.

The first thing she noticed was how disheveled he was. Only half dressed, though he’d never admit it. Then it clicked.

“Presentation is the most important thing. That’s what I’ve learned from Pete. So let's tidy you back up.” She held her hand out to lift him back up.

She talked about everything except what his mind was so desperate to be focused on. Coaxing the dopey smile and puppy-dog eyes out of him. In the end, it was more flirting than discussing. But it worked the way she needed to either way.

Rose couldn’t help but notice how he focused on her hands when she buttoned his shirt.

“I’ll unbutton them later if you don’t have a heart attack on stage.” She said with his favorite grin.

She couldn’t help but let it slip. And the mischievous look she got in return was worth it. Now that he was dressed, it was time to move onto his hair. Which would only take so long due to the fact he was overprotective and particular with it. This was where she planned to dig back in.

He gave her a sheepish smile as he sat down in front of the mirror, watching her hands start to tease his hair.

“What had you so worked up earlier?” She asked, watching his eyes dart from her to anywhere else in the mirror.

“I started thinking too much. Or- I focused on one thing and wouldn’t think of anything else.” He looked like a schoolboy. Embarrassed to feel things.

Rose thinks this is the most human moment he’s had yet. His superior biology not quite what it used to be.

“What was it?”

“Well, uh,” She swatted the hand that went for the back of his head as he spoke, “I didn’t want to disappoint Pete. or Jackie. Or you.”

His eyes met with hers in the mirror and she gave him a sweet smile, “My mum and I don’t care. You know that. Pete? He’s got PR on standby if necessary.”

“I know,” The Doctor shrugged, “But you’re the ones who let me get here.”

Jake knocked on the door, “He’s got five minutes!”

His spine went rigid again. Rose ran her hand over it in response. She pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, where no one would notice if a lipstick stain was left.

“Just talk to ‘em like you’d talk to Tony, yeah? Go on your big monologue and worry about what’s going on in their heads later.”

When he stood up she fixed the lock of red in his hair to flow with the rest.

“I love you. You know that?”

“Absolutely.” She straightened his bowtie one last time, “You know, you have nothing to prove to me.”

Rose blew air out like a cigarette, watching a cloud too hazy and heavy form. Those days were long gone. She realized they had gone before she met the Doctor. A long memory now, where she lived in a parallel universe with a new half-human, half-timelord Doctor. She didn’t mind, though. That’s life isn’t it?

It was this line of thought that led her into sleepless nights. Comparing lives. Wondering how her old Doctor was doing. Wondering if her Doctor was really, truly, happy. If they’d ever get back the life that they belong in. All this what-ifs and open-ended question that she’d never get an answer for until the moment came. They ran rampant through her head. Like a skipping record.

Sometimes it was tempting to pick up old habits when she got like this. She knew why she didn’t when the door behind her slid open, revealing a shirtless, groggy Doctor.

“Rose, it’s 3 am.”

“I know,” She turned to face him completely, “I couldn’t sleep.”

He hummed in understanding and sat next to her. Looking up at the sky full of stars he’s yet to map. It made a sharp pang go through her chest. To see him like this. So bare in a universe he was ready to make a mark on. Then Rose noticed the goosebumps rise on his arms with a gust of wind. He’s yet to admit that he’s been cold. Even when it’s written all over his face and hands.

She also noticed the way his eyebrows furrowed. As if he was counting each and every star.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?”

She shrugged, “Thinking ‘bout what you said.”

“We’re at the halfway mark. Now is time for her to grow on her own.”

Rose thought back to the shed on Pete’s estate that they spent every free day they had at for the past month. Which meant one of them pulled the other out of bed. Because they had their very own Tardis growing inside, waiting to learn of new skys.

“But will we make it that long?” She felt the fear bubble over into tears, “It scares me. To not know when. Which is ridiculous but I’ve waited so long and I know you’re just as restless.”

He sat there for a second, gathering the right words.

“Rose, you did the impossible once. All on your own. Yeah, you had Jackie and Clive and Pete, but-”

“Now I have you.”

The words hung heavy in the air. Like it was some confession. Admitting something she always wished for had come true. But it wasn’t made up of the dreams she once had. It was messy and real but even worth more than what once was the only thing that let her sleep at night.

“I told you a year ago, it’s gonna be us. I could care less about what else there is.”

Maybe that was the catharsis. The unholy amounts of emotion came pouring out of her. She fell into his arms as she broke into tears.

She had no clue where it came from. Maybe it was stress from work. The clutter starting to build in their tiny flat. Or knowing they were so close. Her heart begging to be reminded of what showed her love in the first place.

“Rose, you golden girl. You did it. You got back to me- or well, I came back with you. Besides the point. You’ve done it once. What’s a second time with the impossible holding your hand?”

He rocked her slightly as she started to calm down. Brushing her hair out of her face and wiping her tears. Pressing kisses against her forehead. Mumbling things she normally didn’t hear.

He pulled her back with a wide grin, “Hey, we still have to get married before leaving. I don’t want another slap from your mother.”

“I think we should do it Vegas style.” it came out as a snotty laugh. And in the back of her mind she wondered if he ever saw her like this before now.

“I don’t care as long as it’s you.” He smiled, “You said it a while ago, ‘Better with two.’”

She giggled, rubbing her eyes one last time, “The stuff of legends, us.”

“Especially in a few months' time.” He said, looking back up at the sky.

“We’re gonna be alright,” Rose pulled him into a tight embrace, “We’re okay.”

#timepetals #tenrose #tentoo x rose #rose tyler #ten x rose #.txt #tenth doctor #tenth doctor x rose tyler #doctor who #dw #dw fanfic #tentoo #metacrisis doctor #vincent writes

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verus-veritas · 6 years ago

Text

Interactive: The Great Shift (2)

The cop's gun dropped from his hand as he looked around in shock.

"Oh no!" He cried. "Where am I now?"

I looked down at myself and let out a great sigh of relief. I was still in the body that once I could have only dreamed of having.

"Who are you?" the new cop asked.

"I'm Tony Coletta." I said with a smile. "But you don't need to worry about that. Who are you?"

The cop looked down at his badge and said. "Well I guess I'm Officer Reynolds now."

I smiled again. It looked like I had found an ally who would come in handy if or when Tony came looking for his body. A cop would be hard to argue with.

"If you need somewhere to stay I've got plenty of room at my place." I said.

The cop instantly climbed into the passenger seat and I started the engine. As I drove I watched the new Officer Reynolds check himself out in the wing mirror.

"Very nice..." he murmured. "I can live with this."

Officer Reynolds was a big man, but in all the right places. He had broad shoulders, muscular arms and a face that said, 'Don't mess with me'.

I watched him pull a wallet from his pocket and flick through his I.D.

"Kieron Reynolds", he said over and over again before putting it away. He turned to look at me.

"So you're really you then" he asked a little suspiciously..

"Yes," I lied with determination in my voice. "Why?"

"You're a lucky guy", Kieron continued. "It’s happened twice and you've escaped it both times?."

"Weird shit like this doesn't happen to me", I said with a smirk. "I thought everyone was playing some kind of stupid prank on me at first."

"Nope," Kieron said holding up his hands and studied them. "It happened alright."

As we pulled up outside the house Kieron let out a slow whistle.

"Nice!" he said. "You've done alright for yourself here."

"It's my house." I snarled at his remark.

"Yes, yes of course", Kieron said as he followed me inside. I began to wonder whether bringing 'Kieron' home with me had been the right thing to do. Was he going to mess up my plans of taking over Tony's life for good? I stopped to look at my new face in the hallway mirror. No-one was going to take it away from me now, not even Tony himself!

"So who were you originally?" I asked Kieron as I handed him some chicken from the fridge.

He let out a laugh and almost choked on the food.

"An ex-con down on my luck. Shitty apartment, slut of a girlfriend," he said. "Now look at me! I'm the fucking long arm of the law. Thank you very much Officer Reynolds!"

"What about the real Officer Reynolds?" I asked.

"Fuck him," he said. "Hopefully he’s permanently out of the picture. If not I'll arrest him for impersonating a police officer." He laughed long and hard at his own joke.

"Anyway Tony," he said and I realized I liked being called that. "I need to take a shower now. Get to know the new me properly, if you catch my drift." he winked at me before I guided him upstairs.

I found him a guest room with en-suite and left him to it. As I closed the door he was already half undressed and grinning like a cheshire cat. I dreaded to think what he was going to get up to in the shower.

I went to Tony's, I mean my room and closed the door. Picking up a photo album on the desk, I flicked through it while studying every picture of Tony so as to learn as much as I could about him. I let Tony's face smile smugly as I acknowledged that these were now pictures of me, the hottest jock in town! My eyes wandered to a porn magazine I had seen earlier and I soon felt a stiffening in my jeans. Removing my shirt and revealing my muscular body, I picked up the magazine and was about to take off my jeans when the doorbell suddenly rang again. I cautiously made my way downstairs while repressing my raging erection and opened the door to see Phoebe, our school’s head cheerleader.

"Tony? Is that you?" Phoebe asked.

"Who else do you think it is?" I said in character. "Ain’t no one getting their hands on my body."

"Thank god," she said. "Can I come in?"

I watched her walk into the house. She was hot. Dark-skinned and petite in a Camila Cabello sort of way. Tony's hormone were rushing through my body. I knew what I wanted.

"Is that really you then Phoebe?" I asked.

"Yes," she said with a smile. "What happened to everyone?"

"I don't know," I said wrapping my big arms around her and smelling her hair. "But at least we're still ourselves."

"Yeah..." she said holding me tight. I felt myself start to stiffen but she only pushed tighter and it was pressed hard against her.

"Let’s go upstairs." she whispered and led the way. She obviously knew where Tony's bedroom was.

I lost my virginity as Tony Coletta. I couldn't have wished it to be any better. Me in control of his great body and with the Head Cheerleader as well. I lay back feeling the blood pumping through my veins. I felt more alive than I had ever been.

"Tony," Phoebe said. "You were amazing."

"Well I am Tony Coletta," I said with a smirk. "What did you expect?"

She let out a little giggle.

I lay on the bed and watched her go the bathroom to shower. I looked down at my penis and flopped it about in my hand. I smiled knowing that I was going to have so much more fun with it. That is if the real Tony didn't turn up... But even if he did, there’s no way I would let him take all this back. I was Tony Coletta now!

I went downstairs to find Kieron watching the television dressed only in his boxers. He was studying a tattoo on one of his big arms.

"Had a little action then," he said. "Could hear you both down here."

"Yeah, so what if I did?" I answered him with a snark.

"Nothing wrong with that," he said shaking his head. "Good-looking guy like you must get a lot of girls after you. Mind you I think the same is gonna apply to me now." He let a sneer cross his new face which seemed out of place. Suddenly Phoebe walked into the room.

"Oh I didn't know you had company." she said shyly.

"Hi, I'm Kieron, a friend of the family." Kieron stood up to greet her, shaking her hand.

"Shhhh!" I said as a news report flashed up on the tv screen.

"Scientists have finally discovered a way to return those affected by the recent events to their own bodies. By capturing energy from the recent aftershocks Professor Ian George of the Torchwood Institute has created a device that will attach itself to the residual energy in a person’s body and transfer it to another. It will be a lengthy process but it looks as though things will soon be back to normal," the reporter said from inside the body of a stunning blonde. "And I for one will be looking forward to getting back to my daily weight lifting sessions. This is Bill Masters for CBS news."

There was a moment silence.

"Well that’s good then isn’t it?" Phoebe asked.

"Oh yes, great news." I said.

"Yes, couldn't agree more", Kieron said.

Then there was another moment of silence. Suddenly, my mobile started to ring. I picked it up hesitantly. Someone was trying to contact Tony and I had a pretty sure idea of who it was...

"Have you heard the news?" a strange voice said, but I knew it was none other than the real Tony.

"Sure. Good news alright." I said while trying to hide my dissatisfaction.

"Oh yes, the best news I've heard today! So, are you ready to go?" Tony said obviously unable to hide his excitement.

"Where to?" I played dumb.

"The Torchwood Institute, of course. I think I’m in the body of a wanted criminal, so I want to get out of it as soon as possible." Tony said hastily.

"Uh... okay. Just come here first so we can pick up some stuff, and we’ll go there together." I answered him. He simply agreed and then hung up. Sitting back on the sofa I started to think. If everyone already believed I was the real Tony, there was no need for me to give this body away! I just had to get rid of the real Tony and then I could stay as Tony Coletta forever! And that’s when I knew exactly what had to be done.

"What a weird guy!" I exclaimed loudly to attract Phoebe and Kieron's attention.

"Is everything all right?" they asked in unison.

I then told them about a bad guy who claimed to be me, and demanded I give my body to him. I also lied and said that he threatened to kill me after he got my body.

"What a horrible thing to do! To pretend to be someone else just so he could steal someone’s identity, who could do something like that?" Phoebe shook her head in disbelief.

"Don't worry about that, my friend. Since I’m a police officer now, it’s my responsibility to protect innocent people like you." Kieron reassured me. I simply nodded at him before we all gave each other a knowing look.

When the real Tony entered the mansion, Phoebe, Kieron and I was hiding behind the door. Before he could react we jumped on him and knocked him out.

"I recognize this guy. He was the most dangerous serial murderer in the city," Kieron said. “Thank god he never got the chance to switch with anyone.”

Taking the unconscious Tony to the police station, now in the body of the most wanted criminal, the police were incredibly satisfied with our work and gave us a great reward. As for the real Tony, he tried to explain the situation he was in but nobody believed him. After all, it was three people’s words against one. He was eventually sentenced to death and the execution was held on the same day. Removing one more dirt from the planet.

---

Eventually everything went back to normal, everyone was supposedly sent back into their original bodies, but with a few people missing. One of them was the outcast Evan who’s mind was never found. His parents were miserable, but they got over it soon when the government compensated them for the loss. The students also noticed a few changes in the school jock, Tony Coletta. It seemed as if he had become friendlier, more intelligent and mature. He was also often seen hanging out with the police officer Kieron or went out on long steamy dates with Phoebe. But it’s not like it mattered. Tony was the perfect guy before, and after The Great Shift he still was. It seems as if some people are lucky enough to be completely unaffected by The Great Shift, and Tony Coletta was definitely one of them.

The End

Source: “The Great Shift” Interactive Story on Writing.com

#bodyswap #jock #bully #selflove #permanent #the great shift #interactive

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takaraphoenix · 5 years ago

Note

Dr who for the ask game

Thanks for playing! This is also a big, fun one! :O (I do love that the majority of these asks hit target on my own biggest obsessions x3 We checked off like all the live action shows at this point, I think, the only things left are anime/animated xDDD)

Again with a cut due to the sheer size. ^^°°°

Top 5 favourite characters: CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, The Doctor, Yasmin Kahn

Other characters you like: Rory Williams Pond, Graham O’Brien, Mickey Smith, Bill Potts, Sarah Jane Smith, Craig Owens

Least favourite characters: Rose Tyler by a landslide

Otps: not realy any actual OTPs but ships I guess I’m fond of would be Vasta/Jenny and Rory/Amy

Notps: every ship involving the Doctor, because I just honestly find it weird and uncomfortable to look at the Doctor as a romantic or even worse yet sexual being, but most of all Doctor/Rose and Doctor/River, also Jack/Ianto

Favourite friendships: I am living for the current team dynamic, 13-Yaz-Graham-Ryan are really good but my forever favorite is the Doctor and Jack, also the best team-up was the Doctor with Donna and Martha, that was perfect

Favourite family: THE FAM! 13′s team

Favourite episodes:oooh mmh, I do have multiple favorites, so let’s do this!

Blink: it is such a good episode, there was a time I just popped that one in when I had 40 minutes to waste

Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords: for me personally, this is where Doctor Who peaked. My absolute favorite storyline and episodes and team-up - my favorite Doctor with BOTH my favorite companions in an episode with my favorite Master as the enemy. Amazing. There was a time when I would regularly rewatch this, just these three

Turn Left/The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End:Suuuch a satisfying conclusion for a four series plotline, all of the companions coming together like that? It was so good

The Lodger & Closing Time: I love Craig and I love how these two episodes switch things up!

Favourite season/book/movie: Rather obviously, series 3 - the return of Jack, the series where Martha is the companion, a series with my favorite Doctor and four of my favorite episodes in it!

Favourite quotes:THE ANGELS HAVE THE PHONE BOX! xD And the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff! I got that one on a necklace even! *laughs*

Best musical moment: uuurgh the soundtrack of this show is actually so good? I listened to it on a loop for years. Series 3 and 4 being my favorites, they make you feel things, man.

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: Just this series when Jack returned. And let me elaborate to just convey how hard I fangirled at that, because it wasn’t just “oh a fave!”.

You see, Jack is... kind of why I’m here? I watched the first series with my mother back when it started airing in Germany. But they kind of... stopped dubbing it and it stopped airing in Germany and eh, I was okay with it because this show seemed weird like they just switched out the actor of the MAIN CHARACTER who does that what the fuck and I really liked Jack but he was gone now too so oh well.

However, then I read online about how Jack was in series 3. So... I went online and Doctor Who is genuinely the first TV show I ever watched in English, because I wanted to see Jack but there was no dub.

Then series 3 ended and both Jack and Martha left and I was very meh because I remembered that this is the show that constantly replaces its whole cast.

You can probably guess what happened next, but Jack was in the finale of series 4. So I went back into Doctor Who, rewatched what there has been so far all the way up to the series 4 finale - and that was when I was sold, because holy shit even with the switching of companions, they just bring them back! They just brought them all back! That was such a good pay-off.

Ironically, that was when I actually stuck around and started watching the show in real time instead of waiting for the next Jack appearance to bring me back from hibernation. Ironically because - well, that was the last we saw of anyone. (Aside from 10 in the 50 year special.)

That hard, hard cut from 10 to 11, no return of any companions...

Needless to say that when 12 came and went with no care for anything pre-11, I kind of... came to accept that this was it. Especially when they announced yet another hard cut - as in Moffat would finally be replaced and with the new era, both a new Doctor and new companions - I was so sure we’d never get to see anyone from the old crew again.

So when, after literally ten years, Jack Harkness returned and was so... so... Jack, I made the loudest, most unholy sound and the excitement of them actually acknowledging that he would be back for more and he would be there when the Doctor needs him? Tears of joy.

(but aso pls #LetMarthaMeet13 okay? Okay)

When it really disappointed you:YOU’RE MAKING A 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL. YOU HAVE SOOO MANY GOOD COMPANIONS. BUT. BUT YOU BRING NONE OF THEM BACK. ONLY ROSE TYLER’S FACE. OF ALL OF THE FACES. OF EVERYONE I COULD HAVE SEEN AGAIN IN THAT SPECIAL, IT HAD TO BE BILLIE PIPER’S MEDIOCRE ACTING. REALLY? REALLY??

Saddest moment: When 10 regenerated

Most well done character death: Surprisingly enough, this show makes me care even about the one episode characters to the degree that I find their deaths frustrating. It’s pretty good at character deaths overall

Favourite guest star: Does Craig Owens count? Because he only had two appearances in total. And the second one was genuinely a surprise to me; I was sure that The Lodger would be a stand-alone, never to be seen again kind of deal

Favourite cast member: John Barrowman! David Tennant! Freema Agyeman! I love all three of them and seeing them in other things always makes me really happy!

Character you wish was still alive: I mean, Bill. Can you imagine if the lesbian companion had gotten to meet 13?? Death :D

One thing you hope really happens: Martha. I mean, come on. Jack is back, Jack warned the Doctor, promised to be there when needed. There’s no way Jack lost contact with Martha and Mickey, even with those two off in space fighting aliens alone. I’d love for this... very, very big plotline that is currently happening to include the Doctor’s old friends coming back once more to help.

Most shocking twist: I mean... I mean it’s gotta be this series’ Surprise Origin Story. Like, I still can’t quite comprehend that one.

When did you start watching/reading?: As mentioned above, when it first started airing in Germany

Best animal/creature: Does the TARDIS count as a creature? Because then Sexy wins!

Favourite location: THE TARDIS. I wish they’d show it more often just casually. I wanna see the companions hang out in there, I wanna see their rooms, see that indoor pool and stuff

Trope you wish they would stop using: "OH NO THE DALEKS ARE STILL ALIVE AFTER THE LAST TIME I TRIED GENOCIDE ON THEM *gasp*”... Like. The very first time they brought them “back from the dead”, it was really cool because as a newbie you never met them before but you get they are important. Then they were wiped out. And then they returned again. And okay, sure. So they were wiped out again. And miraculously survied again.

Look, I get it. Doctor Who has three recurring entities in the villain gallery who are like... obligatory - the Master, the Daleks and the Cybermen. But for the love of everything, stop trying to show it as a “surprise twist” that the bad guy is a Dalek like we all knew they’re coming they’re the cockroaches of the universe, they ALWAYS surprise, stop acting like we should be shocked that they’re back again.

Every time, the Doctor goes Pikachu meme but with sad eyes and like just... have the Doctor groan, kick a Dalek and go “not you again”, instead of “how did you POSSIBLY survive THIS? :O” because after the sixth miracuous survival of a genocide, it stops being a surprise twist... -_-

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: Clearly something, because it has me come back for more like a masochist despite me being a character-driven viewer - me, abandoning the show after the first series was very in character, because I’m attached to characters and if you routinely replace all the characters, that’s... not really my thing. Somehow, this show defies the odds there

Funniest moments: JACK FLIRTING WITH PEOPLE AND THE DOCTOR GOING “NO STOP THAT!” xDDD

Couple you would like to see: NONE. NO ROMANCE. KEEP THAT SHIT OUT OF MY DW!!! Urgh. Just give me fun found family space adventures. I swear ever since the cast announcement I have had a twitchy eyebrow waiting if they’ll push for Ryan/Yaz and so far I am sooo glad they are NOT. I just... want friendship and space adventures, no fucking romance. At all. Not with the Doctor, not between companions. No drama

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: ...to stay in character, I have to say Dominic Sherwood. Partially because I am obsessed with him, but also because I WANNA HEAR HIS BRITISH ACCENT FOR A WHOLE ASS SERIES PLEASE

I would also like to see the return of James Marsters though. Time Heist teased by showing his face and acknowledging his existence in Doctor Who (it’s not like DW has acknowledged a whole lot of Torchwood canon so far, considering the catastrophic events TW has dealt with without the Doctor...), so that had me kind of hopeful he may at least cameo for an episode...

Favourite outfit: I looove Martha’s red leather jacket and Jack’s coat

Favourite item: The chameleon device

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: *clears throat awkwardly* ...Yes?

a metro card holder thingy with the TARDIS on it,

an I <3<3 the Doctor pin I have on my pencil case,

a necklace with a miniature TARDIS,

a necklace with the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey quote in a swirl on it,

a necklace with a Weeping Angel pendant,

a mug with the 10th Doctor as a cat on it,

a lanyard with Police Call Box written all over and a miniature TARDIS dangling on it

a TARDIS dress,

a whoosh-sound making door opening TARDIS with size-fitting figures of the 10th Doctor, Jack, Martha, K9, Idris, 11, Rory and John Hart (it’s James Marsters’ pretty face, okay?),

a Funko Pop 10th Doctor,

another TARDIS but this one is smaller and can’t open,

a larger TARDIS that can open (and is the right size for my Doctor Whooves),

a Doctor Whooves (if that counts since he’s technically My Little Pony but also he’s the Doctor so like...),

a TARDIS-blue stuffed owl with Police Owl written on it,

the first four series on DVD,

a poster from the 50th Anniversary with the War Doctor walking away from an explosion and 10 and 11 on either side of him,

a pocket watch that is the chameleon device

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: Mmmh I would like to be on the current team the most, I think? Generally speaking, their adventures were less intense than most others and I dig the family vibe

Most boring plotline: Boring, huh? There are always a couple stinkers, at least one in each series, but a really boring plotline was... Clara’s post-Impossible-Girl one. I LOVED her as the Impossible Girl, she was so interesting and I think that after she went into the Doctor’s timeline, the character should have been retired. Have her, I don’t know, dissolve there, since she is spread out through time. But that she stuck around was... not good, for her character? Her love drama with Danny was incredibly boring and not fun to watch (especially when she tried to kill the Doctor :D)

Most laughably bad moment: THAT FUCKING MOON EPISODE. THE FUCKING EPISODE WHERE THE FUCKING MOON TURNED INTO A FUCKING EGG AND AN ALIEN HATCHED TO THEN LAY A NEW MOON EGG IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEING BORN AND HUMANS JUST FUCKING SHRUGGED THAT SHIT OFF. Urgh. There are a lot of cringey things happening on this show, but this takes by far the crown. It was so stupid, so dumb, so ridiculous

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: Every time we learn more about the Doctor’s past *^*

Most layered character: I... I mean the Doctor. So many layers, so many lives, so many years

Most one dimensional character:Mh, this is harder... Among the not one-episode-off characters? I guess Nardole. Like, sure, good guy, but... not really all that deep that one

Scariest moment: Blink with the Weeping Angels. They lost A LOT of their scariness the more they were used - Moffat really overused them, in my opinion; they would have done better only appearing very rarely. But that first episode with them was just daaamn

Grossest moment: Cassandra?? Woman only made of skin?

Best looking male: CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS

Best looking female: MARTHA JONES

Who you’re crushing on (if any): Martha Jones

Favourite cast moment: John and David being cute behind the scenes is always amazing, but the bes moment is definitely the 500 Miles video!

Favourite transportation: The TARDIS, that’s not even a question!

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): Whenever we get to see (not destroyed) Gallifrey? It’s so gorgeous??

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you:SO MANY AFTER THAT LAST SERIES. But also things like: Where did Clara fuck off to in her flying diner? What exactly is Jack doing now that there is no Torchwood anymore? How in the world did Torchwood ever even work like how was the Doctor just never around during these gigantic problems?? WHO WAS THE DOCTOR’S FIRST WIFE? And what was the Doctor’s child like? Because the only one ever even mentioned is the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, but a granddaughter implies one more generation between. WHERE IS JENNY? Since she is also the Doctor’s daughter but also just fucked off into space and like why is she not trying to track her parent down??

Best promo: I mean, it clearly works when they show me Jack’s face so that’d be it for me :D”

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: At the series 4 finale, as above more elaborately explained

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS

#Doctor Who #In-Depth Fandom Ask Game #send me asks #fantasylover16

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virgil-is-a-cutie · 5 years ago

Text

I need to stop getting attached to characters bc then they die and I end up sad as fuck

like when Ianto died in Torchwood I was off Netflix for a week and spent 2 months being sad about it

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vampiremonday · 5 years ago

Note

TV series ask meme: Doctor Who

send me a tv series and I’ll tell you:

my all-time ultimate fave character: I’m not sure I have a favorite, but I have clung to Clara harder than any of the others. I like all the companions I’ve seen much of, some more than others, but she was the one who makes me think the most. I also really love Martha and Rose. I guess those three are my favorites, but it depends on what we’re talking about.

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: River Song. I understand some of the criticisms of her, but she grew on me to the point that I would say I like her.

a character I used to like but now don’t: I never liked her to begin with, but the original portrayal of Cassandra in 1x02 makes my skin crawl a bit because of the transphobia involved now that I understand it, which I probably didn’t in my early years as a fan. I appreciate that the second and final portrayal of her involved showing her some empathy, which I guess was a slight rebound on that, but still. Bad taste in my mouth.

a character I’m indifferent about: Thirteen, so far, because I haven’t seen her or her companions??? And I guess that I was just kind of put off by the very hamfisted pop-feminist marketing angle they went for. Like, the fact that the Doctor wouldn’t be opposed to regenerating as a woman had been foreshadowed since Eleven, so I don’t really think that we needed Simm!Master being made even more arbitrarily sexist than he already was (which was enough and made some kind of sense character-wise) and Twelve and co being all ~the future is female~ in the text of the show. I mean, I guess hedging your bets against idiot dudebros who can’t read the writing on the wall. But yeah, I hope to… one day enjoy some Thirteen but for various reasons including the way the marketing just made me feel blank about something I thought I would otherwise be intrigued by, I haven’t gotten around to it.

a character who deserved better: Martha Jones the mostest. Also, Danny Pink. Ianto Jones (Torchwood). Also Owen and Tosh but especially Tosh. Probably a bunch of other episodic characters, including that Family of Blood whom the Doctor went full wrathful-Eldritch-god on. Oh, and Donna Noble.

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: Doctor/Donna as a romantic thing. There are others I’ve seen that I’m indifferent to or put off by, but that one is one that I can sympathize with the urge to ship but just… can’t.

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: Honestly since I’ve liked Doctor Who for over a decade, this is a hard question to answer. Doctor/Rose was one of my first ships as a teenager that I really understood in a fannish way, but over time the fire about it has cooled somewhat for me. I like it still, but I feel like over time I stopped being as OTP~ about it. So Doctor/Rose is a mainstream ship that I really like when presented in certain ways. Clara/Danny broke my heart. I liked Amy/Rory as they matured, and “together or not at all” made me really happy even if I was iffy about the early execution. I still tear up a little at the musical piece from that scene. And… uh… I am forever transfixed by Doctor/Master | Missy and Doctor (especially Twelve) & Clara and might be persuaded to ship it under certain circumstances. See, I can’t choose, but I guess if I had to it would be one of the last two. Oh, and it’s pretty much bits and pieces except on the Torchwood side, but one of my favorite rarepairs in the world is Jack Harkness/Martha Jones and I would’ve endgamed it so hard had Torchwood S3 ever existed.

a cute, low-key ship: Jenny/Vastra? I’m mostly pretty “oooh I can’t decide” about choosing ships and favorites, but in this case I was pretty, like, on-board with it. I wrote a fic one time which is more than I can say for even ships I’ve been more into. Doctor/River wavers between “I accept it” and being low-key to very occasional bursts of Strong Feelings that would put it in the above-category.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: Jack Harkness/Martha Jones.

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: The sexist, dehumanizing elements of the episodic romance in Love and Monsters have aged really badly. At first, I didn’t really fully understand why so many people hated it so much, but I get it now, even though I liked the underlying concept for that episode a lot. I also have a lot of discourse-y opinions about why, while I enjoyed some of it and rooted for Ianto and Jack both to be happier, together or apart, that I really don’t like Jack/Ianto endgame and/or it being treated like this Epic Romance when it really only became Epic because Ianto died horribly. I would just prefer to ignore CoE (I have never watched it) and endgame ship them with other people. But this is a sin to people who are major Janto shippers, and I support you! I just… don’t personally… jive with it. It felt like Ianto settling for me and then getting killed for it.

my favourite storyline/moment: The whole narrative throughline involving the Doctor, Clara, and Missy in S8 and S9. It really played with the whole “the bad guy is right” and “who is the bad guy” in a way that never became so nihilistic I couldn’t stomach it, and in fact led to Missy’s redemption, which is hitting all of my happy buttons.

a storyline that never should have been written: The ending of Love & Monsters (the stupid kids-show-write-in-monster resulting in a woman being a tile that performs oral sex for the rest of her lifespan is bad but didn’t have to be like that). I’m really bitter about The Girl in the Fireplace even though there are parts of it that I have grown to be at peace with. I still would probably be happier if the episode mysteriously vanished from memory. That bizarre thing with the Daleks in business suits and something about pigs? I hate The God Complex, like, a lot. I only ever watched it once and am afraid to try and stomach it again. And there are others I’m just indifferent about or have mixed feelings about, but those are my axes to grind. Interesting how, at this point, most of my gripes happened in the RTD era, though The Girl in the Fireplace was entirely the result of then-Moffat’s textual criticism on how stupid it would be for the Doctor to fall in love with a common girl. Probably my favorite episodes in S1 are actually the ones that involve the Slitheen, but I hate the fatphobia and fart-joke-heavy aspects of those as aliens. Would tweak the actual threat, though the writing of the overall story feels like some of the best in early Doctor Who revival to me?

my first thoughts on the show: The first episode I ever saw was The Idiot’s Lantern, and I really understood nothing about it except that it was science fiction, a revival, and something a British friend watched every Saturday. I was perplexed, but intrigued. Then I caught random smatterings of episodes over the rest of my Christmas break, and by the time I saw The Christmas Invasion on Christmas, I was in love and given a new lease on hope. I had just gone through a personal trauma, and it really helped me to feel something about anything again, and S3 and Simm!Master’s role really helped me grapple with what I’d been through and feel empowered enough to survive.

my thoughts now: I always tell people that I’m kind of indebted to Doctor Who for my life. And I feel like that’s true. My emotional involvement with it varies a lot, depending on when you’re talking to me, but it’s a comfort-attachment for sure. There are certain lines or scenes from it that form some of the foundation of my personality, when I manage to have one. I think it is at its best when it is showing love for what it is: healing, restorative, and revolutionary, but on the other side of the coin, cruel, dangerous, and destructive. I think its engagement with questions about the nature of love and responsibility toward one’s fellow-living-things is when it is the most fun. I haven’t really interacted with it as much since Clara left. I have seen about half of Bill’s episodes, the missing chunk being the middle of S10, and I’ve seen nothing after that. I will one day, probably.

#doctor who #stargazerdaisy #answered ask

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timeagainreviews · 6 years ago

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Doctor Who and Video Games

We live in the era of the franchise. Everything it seems is getting the franchise treatment. After the success of the MCU, everyone wants that sweet sweet money. We’ve got the failed Universal Monsters reboot, the Harry Potter extended universe, and endless Star Wars movies. However, some franchises, it would seem, struggle to grow further than their core narrative. Star Wars never strays very far from the battle with the Empire. Which is one thing you can’t really say about Doctor Who. Doctor Who has done fantasy, sci-fi, period drama, schlocky horror, whimsy, and utter rubbish. I’ve always admired Doctor Who’s flexibility as a property. It lends itself beautifully to a wide range of mediums, such as audios and comic books. But what about video games? Are there any good Doctor Who video games? Could there be?

Over the past week, in preparation for this article, I've completely immersed myself in the world of Doctor Who video games. I feel uniquely qualified to have an opinion on the subject. But before we continue, I give a word of caution. I'm talking directly to you, now. Never in your life, should you ever play "Doctor Who: Return to Earth," for the Nintendo Wii. It's not worth the £1.80 that I spent on eBay. You don't ever deserve to do that to yourself. I don't care what you've done, nobody deserves that. If like myself, you have played this game, you have my deepest sympathies, especially if you paid for it new.

It doesn't interest me to make a list of the worst Doctor Who video games, as many people have done this already. It's nothing new to say that Doctor Who has a video game problem. When I wrote that Doctor Who should be run by Disney, I don't actually mean it should happen. I was merely illustrating that Disney knows how to take care of its properties. I would venture that Doctor Who has always had a bit of a management problem. Merchandise from Doctor Who has always reminded me of Krusty the Clown merchandise. So much of it is some bullshit they slapped a Dalek on said: "10 quid please!" Barring the occasional home run or third-party licensing, a lot of the merchandise is pretty uninspired. Which is bananas, because the world of Doctor Who has so much colour and potential.

Video games based off of movies and television are almost always as bad as movies and television based off of video games. They're rarely breaking the mould in their new medium. Most of the time, tie-ins such as these are quick soulless cash grabs. You can see this a lot in the Matt Smith era. There are at least seven games featuring his Doctor, and then a sudden decline. Matt Smith was the Doctor during one of the show's biggest points in popularity. Never before had the show been embraced on such an international level. Of course, the Beeb wanted to push as many video games out as possible.

The problem is, they didn't throw a lot of money at it, and not one project seemed to get the focus it deserved. I won't pretend to know the motivation behind the BBC's forays into video games, but it seems to be a trend with them to overdo something, and then be scared of it in the future. They changed the 5.5" figurine set to a 3.75" scale and nobody wanted them. Because of this, we haven't seen nearly as many 5.5" figures since. They once put out a figure of Lady Casandra's frame after she exploded into gore. We used to get figures like Pig Lazlo and the Gran from "The Idiot's Lantern." Now we'll be lucky if we get everyone's favourite- Graham O'Brien. They also did it with the Doctor Who Experience. They make this brilliant Doctor Who museum with the OK'est walkthrough story, and then put it right in the middle of Cardiff. They wondered why it never made any money. I've been twice, and I gotta say- they should have put it in London. It would still be open.

This isn't to say all of Matt Smith's video games are bad. In fact, the Eleventh Doctor adventure games referred to simply as "The Doctor Who Adventure Games," are some of my favourite in the entire lot. And as much as I would like to blame the BBC for their lack of caring, the fact is Doctor Who is not easy to translate into video games. Even if they do care, they still need the right team on the job. Oddly, it's one of the Doctor's greatest charms that makes Doctor Who hard to translate into a video game, and that's the Doctor's stance on violence. If the Doctor could pick up a laser pistol and just frag some Daleks, we'd probably have an entire series on our hands. Unfortunately, most developers go one of two ways. They either ignore the pacifism or we get countless mind-numbing puzzles.

Puzzles are by far the worst element of any Doctor Who game. In the browser-based "Worlds in Time," there were a plethora of Bejewelled type mini-games and pipe matching puzzles. The puzzles got increasingly harder even if the player wasn't also getting increasingly better. Even the platformer "The Eternity Clock," was mired in constantly stopping to do puzzles. They pop up in the Adventure Games, but other than the infuriating "don't touch the sides," puzzles, they don't detract much from the gameplay. There were moments where I felt a bit like a companion because I was decoding a Dalek computer for the Doctor, which is really the money spot for a Doctor Who video game. Any time a Doctor Who game can make you feel like you're in Doctor Who is time well spent.

When asking my friends what kind of Doctor Who video game they would like to see, many of them mentioned they would like a survival horror type game. We sort of get this in many of the Smith era games. In "Return to Earth," the mechanic is sloppy and infuriating at best. In "The Eternity Clock," and the Adventure Games, it's a little more manageable. It's a nice way to add a challenge to a non-violent gameplay style. It would be interesting to see what a game team from something like "Thief," or "Resident Evil," might do with the sneaking aspect.

Another way the games have completely side-stepped the non-violence and puzzles is by having the Doctor act as a secondary character. The player is put in the position of the companion or perhaps a UNIT soldier as in the case of "Destiny of the Doctors." If you've not played DotD, I wouldn't blame you. I was hitting my head against the wall just trying to figure out what to do. The only real reason to play that game is for one last chance to see the fabulous Anthony Ainley reprise the role of the Master. He's in totally smarmy ham mode, even if it's a bunch of gibberish they shot in a day. You can find the entirety of the footage on YouTube and it's surreal.

youtube

The problem with having the Doctor be violent is that it doesn't feel true to the character. Sure, Three did some Venusian aikido, Four broke that dude's neck in "Seeds of Doom," and even Twelve socked a racist in the face, but these are isolated incidents. The spirit of the Doctor is lost in 1992's "Dalek Attack," when the Doctor is forced to go full on bullet hell on a Dalek hover cart. It's funny then that one of my favourite Doctor Who games incorporates a violent Doctor. In the Doctor Who level of "Lego Dimensions," the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to make villains fall apart in a very safe Lego style violence. I can excuse this mostly because the game is not primarily a Doctor Who game at heart.

Funnily enough, the Lego game does something I've always wanted in a Doctor Who video game. I've always wanted to have a Doctor Who game where you could regenerate into different Doctors, and also go into their respective TARDISes. Sure, some of the games on the Commodore 64 allowed you to regenerate, but it was pretty naff in its execution. I tell no lies when I say I spent a lot of time regenerating and reentering the TARDIS to explore the Lego versions of their respective console rooms. Really, the biggest problem with the Lego Doctor Who game is that it wasn't it's own game. Lego Dimensions was its own failure. If TT Games would come out with an entire Doctor Who game, I would buy it yesterday.

The overarching problem with every Doctor Who game is the same problem Torchwood had- if it wasn't attached to Doctor Who, we wouldn't be interested. While I did have a lot of fun with the Adventure Games and Lego Dimensions, not one Doctor Who game has every element right. One has a good story, but poor mechanics, another has great mechanics but doesn't feel right. It's a bit of a tight rope to find the perfect balance, but I don't feel it's impossible

One of the reasons I would love to see a proper Lego Doctor Who game is that they have a history of good adaptations. They're not exactly beloved games, but I myself play a lot of them. One of the most impressive things I've seen them do was in Lego Batman 3, where they made each of the planets in the Green Lantern mythos a visitable world. Could you imagine the same treatment for Doctor Who? Visiting Telos and Skaro, and then popping off to medieval earth or Gallifrey? You could get different missions depending on which Doctor you were, or what time you arrive in. And the collectable characters! So many companions, and Doctors, and baddies, and costume variations to unlock! Doesn't that sound nice? You can buddy Jamie and Amy with Seven and Twelve and have an all Scottish TARDIS! A Zygon could ride K9!

The fact is, we probably won't see a very expansive Doctor Who game. I would be very enthusiastic for an open world Doctor Who game, but even as I type it, it sounds difficult to pull off. I may be able to say what doesn't work about the games, but saying what would work is admittedly, not as simple, but this doesn't mean I can't think of at least one good game. Piecing together some of the things I mentioned earlier, I think the best genre for Doctor Who is point-and-click adventures. I know I keep singing the praises of the Doctor Who Adventure Games, but it's because I think they were actually onto something. It's sad then that they scrapped any further developments to work on the inferior "Eternity Clock."

Could you imagine a point and click Doctor Who in the same vein as "Day of the Tentacle," or "Thimbleweed Park"? You walk around as the Doctor, pick up bits, talk to funny characters and solve complex problems. If you throw in a bit of horror survival, you've basically got the Adventure Games, which is my point- Do more with what they've already done. Grow the concepts. Improve the mechanics. A Doctor Who game should be jammed packed with Easter eggs, unlockables, and mystery. The point is, do more. Even their phone apps are abysmal. You know how much I would play a “Pokémon Go,” style Doctor Who game? You go around trapping baddies in cages you set off with your sonic screwdriver or something. I. Would. Catch. Them. All.

We still have “The Edge of Time,” coming to PC and consoles in October, and I'm pensively excited. While the graphics seem really top notch, in no way does it feel like anything more than a fun little VR experience. The game is going to remain exclusive to that small subsection of gamers that own a VR headset. Before it has even been released, it's closed itself off to yet another section of its very wide audience. Let's just hope that it doesn't scare the BBC away from making a proper Doctor Who game in the near future. And in the meantime, I'm going to have to borrow my friends' VR set, because of course, I'm going to play it. It's Doctor Who.

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Well friends, thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun “researching,” this article. Playing Doctor Who games all week? Oh no, twist my arm! Sadly, a lot of these games are no longer available from their original sources. I was able to find a lot of them on the Internet Archive. If you want to give them a go, I would definitely suggest it. A couple of them are even capable of being emulated on your browser from the Internet Archive. The game I had the hardest time locating was “The Gunpowder Plot,” but I was eventually able to find it after some digging. I didn’t play any of the text-based games because I’m not very good with spatial awareness, and so text-based games are usually a nightmare for me. Sadly, Worlds in Time is lost forever, but I remember my character fondly. I also discovered I’m pretty good at Top Trumps: Doctor Who. Go figure.

#Doctor Who #video games #tardis #bbc #matt smith #eternity clock #edge of time #mines of terror #return to earth #nintendo #wii #playstation #xbox #lego dimensions

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unfolded73 · 6 years ago

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vatrixsta replied to your post: Maybe it’s because I’m a fandom old, but I...

The other issue I'll bring up (as someone who both likes certain character bashing fics on a visceral, GP level and also finds them icky and am a little ashamed of enjoying them) is - where is the line here? I recall reading Twilight fics where Jacob was basically portrayed as a wife beating monster, over and over again, simply because he was the most obvious and easiest obstacle to put between the main pairing. The same is true in CS fandom for Neal and Milah (1/2)

particularly in AU fics. I think these fics are more noticeable because they are not part of a larger work and are not AUs - they are canon fics that exist solely to torture the character (while also hitting the GP smut button that we all share). Whether it’s right or wrong or tagged or not is a separate etiquette argument - but when you’re specifically talking about the /other to a ship you OTP, people aren’t really rational about “this is anti-Neal” tagging. Nearly (2/

(It’s just going to keep getting longer, stop me!!) every Twilight fic would have needed to be tagged anti-Jacob. (Spoiler alert: they were not) At any rate, I do think if you’re taking a character and writing them in a way that isn’t necessarily a canon interpretation, it’s fair game to tag it anti to allow people to filter as they choose. But can also see where people get so wrapped up in their interpretation that they’re like, why would I tag it anti-the Devil? Cuz duh

@vatrixsta That’s a good point, perspective matters, which is probably why I was like, clearly this is bashing and you just need to tag for it, and an author was like, I don’t really see this as neal bashing but ok. Like if you think it’s within the realm of canon that he would behave this way and think this way, then what’s the big deal? I think we all just need to be empathetic to other fans and try to think outside our bubbles.

The romantic obstacle thing is such a huge part of it. The place where i saw this kind of thing become the most toxic was in the Torchwood fandom, when fans feared that Gwen was going to be a romantic obstacle to Jack and Ianto, one of the first canon gay male pairings in a genre TV show that I’m aware of. Obviously a lot of fans were very attached to Jack x Ianto, understandably so, and that fear of Gwen as an obstacle (which she never turned out to be) turned bashing her in fic into a sport. Combine that with the fact that she’d committed adultery in the first season (even though she decided to stay with her husband), and that just added an ugly shut-shamey cherry on top of a misogynistic sundae. That’s where I saw a lot of “no character bashing” rules crop up, because the anti-Gwen fic genre was HUGE. Imagine being a fan of Torchwood and coming in and seeing that most of the fics were about how shitty the main female character was? *shudder* It was ugly.

#vatrixsta #unfolded talks about fandom

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aesthetic-rat · 4 years ago

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Soo, lots of thoughts SeasonSeasonof spn.

Sam's fast lol

NO DEAN ITS NOT YOUR FAULT

Dean would literally kill to save sam, that's scary i-

GET IT IG

NO I LIKED AVA

Sam u needs chill u can't save everyone

SAM NO WTF POSESSED YOU STOP IT I-

I DONT LIKE THIS VERSION OF SAM

WHY JO THO I LOVE HERRRR SHE BEST SURVIVE

ONCE AGAIN, GET IT DEAN!!!!!

DEAN YOU HAVE TO SHOOT HIM! IK YOU DONT WANT TO, I DONT WANT YOU TOO, BUT YOU HAVE TO!

(This is a lot of aggresive yelling in the span of 5 minutes)

OOH YEH GET IT GUY I FORGOT THE NAME OF

gotta love some good ol holy water

Got it, so dean thinks he's in a james bond movie. All the time.

NO YOU CANT DIE SAM YOURE BASICALLY ALL DEAN HAS LEFT

Dean buddy, this isn't gonna end well

Told you it wouldnt end well

JOHN?

tf is going on- how much can happen in the last 5 minutes-

Wait- so is it dead? Like for real? There's no way-

NOO THIS IS TOO SAD FOR ME ✋ STOOPPPPP

YALL LOVE EACHOTHER TOO MUCH ✋

Season 3

I don't really like the new intro thingy-

I'm liking this tamara girl

this kid is funny

IS THAT KID DEANS?

OMG. WHAT IF HE IS?

SAM LOOKS LIKE A CAR SALESMAN LMFAO

Nooo this makes me sad ✋ dean would be such a good freaking dad

I LOOK AWAY FOR ONE SECOND AND SHES DROWNING HER KID- WTF-

SAM THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT GOT DEAN IN THIS MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. MAKING A DEAL WOTH A DEVIL IS NOT GOING TO HELP

Plz sam looks so sad "I lost my shoe"

Sam rly gonna die again lmfao

Oh yay bela is back

NOT DEAN! NOT YET!

oh wait.

HES DIED LIKE 100 TIME THIS EPUSODE LORD-

NOOOO BOBBY

SAM IS LOWKEY SCARY RN

NOOOOOO

Not bobby

I love him too much

YAY ITS THE TRICKSTER?

NO HE JUST KILLED BOBBY-

NO NO NO NO

OK GOOD.

Holy shit this man is insane

Ah he's a demon

Dang Sam has this shit memorized

OK BUT IS DEAN OK

Holy shit so much is happening

Omg

I swear I'll blink and I'll miss Smth

Yayyy no more demons

Yayy no more running from fbi

Holy shit so much has happened this season

BAHAH I LOVE THIS SPECIAL ALREADY

BAHAHHA

this is torchwood but with absolutely no budget ✋

That was weirdly gay

PLS WHAT IS THIS

PLS I LOVE CORBETT

Wait but I love this style of film-

PLS I FORGOT ABOUT THEM-

THAG WAS SUCH A GOOD EP TOO-

No not corbett! I like him!

no not sammmm

CORBETT BEST NOT BE DEAD

IM ATTACHED NOW

NO HES DEADDDDDD

NOOOOOO

Pls Ed is so oblivious

PLS JUST PUT CORBETT OUT OF HIS MISERY, HE DESERVES BETTER

YAY YOU GOT THROUGH TO HIM

NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD CRY OVER A FICTIONAL CHARACTER IVE KNOWN FOR AN HOUR

get it ig

PLS I LOVED THAT

Once again, SAM LOOKS FINE IN A SUIT

EHRBEHRVRVR NOOOOOO NOT DAD BEING RUDE LOL

wait what-

He can get him out? I-

DEAN U NEED TO CALM URSELF

pls why do y'all always fight.

sam- buddy-

YALL NEED TO STOP LYING TO EACH OTHER

PLS I JUST REALIZEE SEASON 3 IS WAY SHORTER THAN 1 AND 2 AND I HAVE WAY MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT IT LMFAO-

Yayyyy sammy didn't lose an eye!

Pls why is this guy so creepy

I mean- what kinda quality of life is that-

They deserve it.

GET OT RUBY

PLESE THIS DEMON CHILD PLAYED OLIVE IN ANT FARM

Yayyyy it's not in her anymore we

ABSOLUTELY NOT

I REFUSE THIS

Uhh- Wut is goin on

NO DEAN NO

WHY SUCH A GRUESOME DEATH THO

NOOOOOOOOO

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tenroseforeverandever · 8 years ago

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Dear Father Christmas... Chapter 3: December 24, 2018

MASTERPOST

Characters: Tentoo; Rose Tyler; Jackie Tyler; Pete Tyler; Tony Tyler; OC Hope Tyler-Noble; OC Charlotte Tyler-Noble; OC Wilfred Tyler-Noble

Rated: Teen

Tags: Family!Fic; Kid!Fic; Pete’s World; Letters to Santa; Christmas Fic; Family; Fluff; Hurt/Comfort; Angst; Romance; Love

Summary: When Rose Tyler was little, she always wrote a Christmas wish list to Father Christmas. As she grew older, the wish list became more of a letter to someone she could confide in once a year, but she fell out of the habit somewhere along the way. Now, as a new mum, celebrating her daughter’s first Christmas, Rose takes up writing her Christmas letter to Father Christmas once again.

Rose’s Christmas letters are excerpts from her life with her beloved Tentoo and their children in Pete’s World, written once a year, for each of 31 years.

Chapter Summary: Rose reminisces about her year, including a well-needed vacation with the Doctor and the unexpected outcome of their time spent alone together, changes in their routines, Hope’s new interests, and the Doctor’s cold-weather outdoor project.

Notes: As always, my eternal gratitude to mrsbertucci and Rose_Nebula, my wonderful, ever-giving betas.

Thanks to @doctorroseprompts for their 31 Days of Ficmas prompts. A reminder that I am using the prompts very much out of order, but I intend to use them all. The prompt I used today was Skating.

Also read at: AO3; FF.net; Teaspoon

December 24th, 2018

Dear Father Christmas,

What a year we’ve had! Such a great year! So much has happened, I don’t even know where to begin. I suppose I could start with our romantic vacation to Barcelona (definitely the planet, not the city!) The Doctor surprised me on Valentine’s day; said he arranged for a romantic get-away. After all the rowing and bickering over Christmas last year, we both needed a little time for just the two of us. Mum and Pete were over the moon to have a chance to look after Hope for a couple of weeks, so that was one less worry.

Gaudí Province was gorgeous: it was spring, and beautifully warm, such a nice break from the bleak winter weather we left behind in London. There were flowers and blossoms everywhere. And the dogs! The dogs really didn’t have noses. It was so weird, but there you have it: life with the Doctor! And of course, he had to make that joke… it just wasn’t funny, especially after the hundredth time, and I told him so. He just grinned and told me I had no appreciation for good humour. I showed him I had a great sense of humour: I couldn’t stop laughing when the cutest little noseless dog had it off on his leg, right in the middle of the street.

Actually, to tell the truth, spring must definitely have been in the air; the dogs all seemed to be rather randy. They weren’t the only ones. Me and the Doctor spent a lot of time in our hotel room on that trip. It was so lovely to be together and share our bond just for the sake of sharing it. Back home and on other trips with the TARDIS, the bond was a really useful tool for communicating and keeping a track of Hope, but we’d got out of the habit of just enjoying it. And when we were angry, we usually avoided using it altogether or shielded ourselves from one another. I hadn’t realized until we really let our guards down just how shielded we had been.

We came back from that trip so much more in tune with one another. I, personally, came back well and truly up the duff. And so this year, Santa, you’ll get to meet our little Charlie (Charlotte… named after Charles Dickens.) She’s a feisty one, she is. She just turned one month old a few days ago and is finally sleeping through the night. (Well for four hours in a row, but I’ll take it.) I’d forgotten how knackered you feel, and add a nearly three-year-old into the mix… blimey! Let’s just say, me and the Doctor are back to using our bond for almost exclusively utilitarian purposes.

Poor Hope. She’s brilliant, she is, but even though she’s academically beyond gifted, she’s still just a little girl whose life has been turned upside down by the little human larva that takes up so much of her Daddy’s and my time. She never wants my attention more than when I’m feeding Charlie. For the first few weeks, I was a right mess every time I looked at her. I couldn’t stop crying because I couldn’t give her the time I used to. But now things are settling down, and we’re finding a rhythm. Still, I’m so thankful it’s Mum’s turn to do Christmas this year. I think I might have exploded if I’d had to juggle that too.

Over this past year, and after everything that happened last Christmas, me and the Doctor agreed to spend a bit more time Earthbound. We explore strange new worlds in the TARDIS during the week, and on weekends we spend time in our little blue house and take Hope to various activities: dance and gymnastics are her favourites. She loves art too, and likes to spend time painting with me, just as I’d hoped she would. She has a keen eye, but I’m so thankful her skills are pretty much just like that of any other child her age. Her colourful creations are all over the TARDIS, our house, and Gran and Grandad’s house, too.

We also decided to spend extended periods on Earth around special Earth holidays. So, Christmas, for example, same as last year, we’ll be on Earth for at least a month, and with Charlie here this year, I think we’ll stay on a few months more. Hope’s enrolled at Torchwood Nursery again and is thriving. And the Doctor seems to be actually happy with the domestics, especially when he sees how much Hope is getting out of it.

Speaking of the Doctor and domestics: the weather this year has been so cold! But the Doctor, in a complete fit of domesticity, has been taking full advantage. He’s spent every evening for the last couple of weeks creating our very own skating rink in the back garden. He laid down layers and layers of ice with some gizmo he tinkered together attached to the garden hose, and soniced the surface completely smooth. He and Hope decorated the entire yard with fairy lights. There’s a big evergreen right in the centre of the rink that’s just covered with lights. It’s beautiful. And somehow he’s set up big, tall floodlights that light up the whole rink at night.

Last night, we got to go skating for the first time. Mum and Dad and Tony were there and loads of friends from Torchwood, and some of Hope’s playmates and their families. We did a potluck, so that was easy. Mum and Dad went and bought loads of pairs of skates in case some folks didn’t have their own. It was so much fun! Just what I needed!

You should have seen the Doctor trying to skate. My poor love. The way he’d been talking, he was so excited to be introducing Hope to this great new adventure. He was a brilliant skater when I first met him. Me and Jack and him all went skating once. He was really good, but he’d never tried again since his regeneration. Apparently, the skill didn’t stick with his new body. Oh, God, he was all long legs pinwheeling around, and he ended up on his bum more times than I can count. He was miserable, and after I popped inside with Charlie for a nappie change, I came out to find him sulking on one of the benches he’d set up, glowering at Mum skating in pretty circles with Hope hanging onto her hands.

I went over to cheer him up and suggested I could hold his hand. He just grumbled at me, and told me there must be something wrong with the ice. “Too risky, Rose Tyler. In fact, I should bring Hope in right now; she could be in danger, even as we speak.” (I said that in his voice. I hope I did it right. I’ve been getting good at it over the years!) Meanwhile, Hope was twirling all by herself, now, quite in control. No danger whatsoever. Tony was watching out for her, just like a big brother. He loves her so much.

In the end the only way I convinced the Doctor to come skating with me was by going out there myself first (Charlie was bundled in the baby-carrier against my chest) and the Doctor was immediately on his feet, making to follow me, with the notion that he needed to keep me safe. Of all the ridiculous… The big plonker!

Anyway, the first thing he did was fall on his arse and nearly knock me over! So I told him he had to hold my hand from then on. Mum sailed by and offered to bring him a chair to hold onto which wasn’t entirely helpful, and called him a duffer. Also not helpful.

I finally passed the baby off to her Grandad, and got the Doctor back on his feet, and convinced him to take my hand. I reminded him that that was all he really needed to get across the universe: a hand to hold. He grabbed my hand and opened his bond fully to me, and I’ve never felt so loved. His body seemed to relax and we did a few circuits of the rink together. Then he did a few on his own, and spun around me in a slightly wobbly circle while I watched him. Then he grabbed me by the waist and I just flung my arms over his shoulders so he wouldn’t overbalance us ‘cause my feet were slipping everywhere. Suddenly he’s shouting and twirling us around (I’ll try to do his voice again) “Rose, I’ve just remembered! I can skate! I can skate!” And he starts humming Glenn Miller in my ear and dancing with me over the ice!

Now he’s talking about getting a skating rink on the TARDIS!

I hope we’ll go skating again tonight! Just the two of us, once the little ones are all tucked in and their stockings are hung.

Happy Christmas, Santa! To you and Mrs. Claus, the reindeer, and all the elves,

Love, Rose

#doctorroseprompts #kid fic #tentoo x rose #christmas fic #fluff #hurt/comfort #angst #family #love #romance #ficandchips #tenroseforeverandever's fic

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myotishia · 6 years ago

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Time hopping part one

Fandom: Torchwood. Trigger warnings: Emetophobia, suicide mention, death. Characters: Owen Harper (Past and present), Toshiko Sato, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper, Elise Carter (oc), Lisa Hallet Rating: Teen and up Tropes: We’re fixing things right over here.

Blurb: Owen Harper has been dead for a long time and he hasn’t spent all that time doing nothing. Far from it in fact, he’s been setting a plan that crosses time in motion but he needs help and he’s found just the person.

Elise followed the figure, rubbing the back of her right hand.

“Ready?” Owen asked.

“For what?”

“We’re going to time jump.”

“Sure, why not?” She crossed her arms, waiting for nothing to happen or to be woken up by the sound of a heart monitor in the hospital.

“Before we go, do you have paper and a pen?”

“Why would I have paper and a pen if I was going to jump into the bay?”

“Fucks sake. Fine, you need a coat anyway. Where’s your place?”

“I don’t exactly have one anymore. Can we find something on the way?”

Owen paused before heading over to a lamppost with a poster for some nightclub attached. “This’ll do. Grab this for me, I can’t hold anything for long.”

She raised an eyebrow but pulled down the poster is she’d been asked. “And a pen?”

“Use your eyes. People are always dropping the things.”

“Great.” She began scouring the area for something to write with, feeling ridiculous. Finally she found a crushed pen, the inner stylus still undamaged. “Got one, what now?”

“Write on the back. Do not damage. Gaseous lifeform inside. Needs airtight containment. Tell Gwen not to throw shit.”

Once the paper was written she looked up at Owen. “So now what?”

“We have to deliver it. Try not to throw up.”

“Wh-” She was cut off by the feeling of the world spinning in all directions before landing hard on the grass. It was a dark place, cold. The nausea hit her like a tidal wave and she lost her breakfast, behind a tree. “The hell!”

“Shhhh.” He scolded. “We’re trying not to be seen here. I can’t just time jump back if you get shot now.”

She sat back, catching her breath. “Shot?”

“Over there. See those tents? Think of the people in there like a really jumpy military group. We can’t get caught. Do you still have that letter?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Follow me and stay low.” He turned and headed slowly into the field, staying as low as he could. They seemed to be travelling towards a crater that had been illuminated with industrial looking lights. She could see two figures approaching it. One tall and wearing a large coat. The other smaller, female.

“Elise. You need to get that note over to them without being seen. That’s Jack and Gwen. Me and Tosh are in the crater.” Whispered Owen.

“A lot to unpack there but ok. How?”

“Think of something for yourself.”

She felt around for something to weigh the paper down so it didn’t fly off, finding a fist sized rock. She wrapped the letter around it and secured it with a spare hair band. Waiting until the figures were looking into the crater she wound up a throw and launched the rock over, hoping that it would hit the pole of one of the lights. It didn’t exactly go to plan. The rock missed the light and slammed itself into the back of the tall figures leg, sending him tumbling into the crater. Owen clamped his hand over his face trying, and failing, not to laugh. He time jumped them just as Gwen turned to see where the rock had been thrown from.

Elise sat on the curb trying to settle her stomach after the time jump. At least she hadn’t fallen over this time. She looked up to see Owen still laughing after seeing Jack fall face first into the crater.

“It wasn’t that funny.” She said and rolled her eyes.

Owen caught his breath, not that he really needed to since his death. “If you knew him it would be.”

“So, what now?”

“That was just a test. If you didn’t manage then it wouldn’t matter.”

“Oh great.” She brushed her hair back with her fingers. “I passed then?”

“I’ll give you an A… No, an A plus for launching Jack like that.”

“Better than any grade I got at school.”

Elise stood back up, the nausea settling to a manageable level. She watched Owen playing with his watch.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You said you can’t touch anything so how do you use your watch? In fact how are you wearing clothes?”

“Would you rather I didn’t?” A smirk spread across Owens face.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“My clothes were atomised with me so they’re almost part of me now.”

“And your watch? Did that go too?”

“No. This is something it took me a century to build using a few parts I scavenged. If Tosh had been around it would have only taken a week.”

She smiled softly hearing the warm sentiment from the phantom. “Who was she to you?”

“A friend.”

“It doesn’t sound like she was just a friend.”

“The me in the past was a moron. By the time I realised I was dead… So was she.”

The area seemed to fall silent. An uncomfortable moment passed before it was broken by Owen, back to business.

“What’s your opinion on euthanasia?” He asked, finally looking over at her with his inhumanly dark eyes.

“What?! Where did that come from?”

“The next job isn’t going to be fun for anyone so I need to know if you’ll be up to it.”

That uncomfortable silence had returned and it had gained a lot of weight. When Elise didn’t reply Owen continued.

“Remember I said there was another member of our team? Don’t give me that look we’re not killing him. He has his girlfriend hidden in the basement. She was partially converted into a cyberman a while ago and he’s been trying to find a way to save her. There isn’t a way to save her but she’s going to wake up soon and at doesn’t end well.”

“You want me to fight her?”

“Fuck no! She’d kill you. I need you to take her off life support before she can try and kill everyone.”

“Oh… I see.” She took a deep breath and slowly blew a cloud of condensation into the night air.

“Look I understand if you can’t do it b-”

“I’ll do it. If she’s like that then she’s suffering, right? And it must be killing your friend-”

“Workmate.”

“Workmate-”

“Tea boy.”

“Oh shut up! Let’s just go.” She shook her head and followed Owen as he strode off towards the locked up buildings nearby. An unassuming tourist information centre sat silent and dark, seemingly vacant.

Owen stopped at the door and looked around, pulling something from inside his coat. A set of keys rattled as he swiftly turned one in the lock before it began to turn to dust.

“Are those like your clothes?” Elise asked as she gently pushed the door open.

“Yep. I’m glad I was still carrying them otherwise neither of us would be here. Right, now keep behind me and keep quiet. Jack should be asleep so we shouldn’t have any trouble.” He held up a card key and a hidden door popped open in the wall, closing after Elise stepped through. It felt as if she’d stepped into a completely other dimension as her steps echoed softly through the tile lined hallway.

She whispered, “Where are we?”

“Torchwood. This was our base.”

“Fancy.”

“Wait until you get inside.”

“This isn’t inside?”

“Not even close.”

“Couldn’t we just jump inside? Like we did to the field.”

“No. This place is a nexus for time space bullshit and it completely nullifies my time hopping ability. Right this is about to get loud. If my timing’s right then Jack should be out cold and won’t bother us but just in case get ready to move.”

She nodded and braced herself for the noise. A siren blared above as the massive cog door, that Elise hadn’t realised even could move, rolled aside. Owen surveyed the dark room, paying extra attention to the glass walled office. It stayed still and seemingly empty so he waved her into the room.

“This place is huge.” She breathed, her eyes getting used to the darkness.

“This way.”

The autopsy bay was cold and smelled strongly of disinfectant as they entered, a light flickering on automatically and effectively blinding Elise for a moment.

“Shit!” She tried to shield her eyes with her arm. “You could have warned me.”

“Over here. Grab one of these bottles. If I remember right there’s basically an IV system keeping her partially sedated. All you need to do is contaminate it with this and that’ll be it.”

“That’s it?”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. Something more violent I guess. Isn’t this a bit much?” She studied the bottle, the size of an average cola can.

“It’s overkill but I don’t want to take any chances. If you give her too little the cybernetic systems might take over and wake her up early. This way they’ll be too flooded to react.”

“You’d know better than me.”

“What do you do if she wakes up even with all of this?” He asked, looking up at the door.

“Umm… Run like hell?”

“Right. You run until you get here. You saw that office earlier?”

“The glass one?”

“Yes. Head right there. At the back of the office there’s a hatch on the floor. If that thing is after you open it and climb down. Wake Jack up and hope he doesn’t shoot you.”

“That’s comforting. What good will he do?”

“He’s immortal.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’ll explain later. We have to get this done and get out before Ianto gets back.”

“That’s your fiend.”

“Workmate.”

“Workma-”

“Tea boy.”

“Oh fuck off.” She laughed quietly, trying not to think about what she was about to do.

With the bottle securely held in her hand she followed Owen down corridor after corridor , trying to map the way out in her head. Opening a final security door Elise saw the woman she was about to kill. There was no other way she could think about it. It was a mercy killing but she’d never even hit anyone let alone done them any harm. The figure seemed to be partially made of metal and was wired up to a cold metal bed. Wires snaked across the floor threatening to trip her up.

“Over here.” Owen pointed to a small hatch in the side of the bed.

Elise knelt down and pressed it, sitting back as it opened to show a churning deep red liquid. It didn’t take a PHD to realise what it was. The bottle felt like a lead weight in the woman's shaking hand as she removed the cap, a strong chemical smell of cleaning fluid rising into the air. She bit her lip and quickly emptied it into the port. She closed it and tried to stand but ended up staggering back into the wall, crumpling into a heap, hands clasped over her mouth.

Dr Harper watched the still figure. He still clearly remembered dealing with her the first time and the aftermath. He wished he could have found another way. Maybe saved her but she was beyond help. He’d tried multiple times but it was impossible, you can’t bring back the dead. The body in front of him began to spasm and foam at the mouth before ceasing to move for the final time. On his way out, Elise staying close and refusing to speak, he pulled out the bundle of plugs. By the time Ianto returned Lisa’s body would be cold and they would be gone.

#torchwood #ianto jones #owen harper #jack harkness #toshiko sato #gwen cooper #oc #elise carter

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kuckie · 8 years ago

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(Long post)

I’ve watched a lot of series through my life...

...like, seriously, a ton of series, from beginning to end, some of them. I think the first series I followed, like, actually waiting for the next episode, were anime series.

Then, I watched House MD and at the same time, Torchwood. The time between a season and the next one, were 6 months approx. for both of them. So I watched series like Law and Order, CSI (all of them) which you can watch and stop watching because most of the time the episodes’ stories start and end within the episode. The background story is only interesting for some, but it is not the centre of the series (at least, first seasons)

House was like this and at the same time I couldn’t just focus on the case on the episode, I loved the background story. The same with Torchwood (although the effects turn me off sometimes). I watch other series in between seasons, I read fanfiction, I wrote some, and changed ships in House when the character development and chemistry between characters changed. First seasons I was a Houseron/Hameron shipper because the vibes where suggested by characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters. Then, I started shipping Huddy, because the characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters guided me to think in that direction. Finally, I was a Huddy/Wilse shipper because even though one of the characters have left the series (Cuddy), I felt in House interactions with other characters that he was suppose to keep feeling attached to her. And Wilse, because the characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters subtext and text implied the possibility. Even though through the whole series they were mostly shown as heterosexual men, behaviour and evolution of their relationship, together with dependency in a very "special” and toxic friendship (but that’s topic for another post) allowed the ambiguity. AND THEN THAT FINAL EPISODE. Maybe it was friendship, maybe it was more of a romantic/sexual relationship, maybe it was not. But the series allowed the ambiguity with the plot.

Torchwood has a very special place in my heart. There was this gay actor (John Barrowman), playing an omnisexual character (as a pansexual who only recently-ish discovered the term, he was the first character that show me it was not bad to love everybody/every body). There were aliens, kick ass women who had personalities, that loved and were loved back, that show me unrequited love was not that bad (Toshiko loving Owen was not the centre of Toshiko’s character also) and you could live with it. A woman being the one that cheated on her boyfriend with co-workers (not that is good, but it is normalized for guys), a male receptionist/coffee boy (Ianto was so much more, just, normally, there are women on those jobs)... I shipped every ship on these series, because the characters’ interactions, characters’ personalities, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters showed that everybody could end having a relationship with anybody. My favorite ship, and the one I read and wrote/write about is Janto, because it was sexy (which was/is not common for gay couples in no gay centred series (Queer as Folk was gay centred and sexy at the time, for example)), it change the interactions between characters accordingly, but not all the show. A character who had a gf then had a male lover/partner (they weren’t boyfriends, they said they were together very weirdly) explained that HIS FEELINGS (not just physical attraction or sex) were confusing but that he knew he felt something for this man. HE SPOKE OPENLY about it. Shy-like, but openly. Then when (SPOILER ALERT) Ianto was killed (among other characters) and everything changed I couldn’t keep watching the series much longer because it hurt too much. Because they were going somewhere with it before. But I was not angry against the writers, because it was foreseen, it was not just a killing for the drama, it was what happen to characters on the series (because at the end of the day, they had a dangerous job).

Why, you may think, am I writing about this.

I write about this, because I want to explain something about Sherlock. I ship pairings on those series because I thought canonically on the series they would make sense. I wanted them to become canon because the chemistry between them was suggested by the writers/actors actions. I had ships like Foreman/Chase on my writings because they help me get other ships on my stories, but I never thought they would become canon, because in the show THEY ALMOST HATED EACH OTHER. I shipped Jack and Ianto before they were a thing because they spend a lot of time together and had conversations other characters on Torchwood didn’t have (also, we didn’t know about the gf for a while). I thought they might end together, but if they didn’t (before they started developing their feelings) I understood it was because there was also chemistry between Jack and Gwen, for example.

Now, Sherlock. I watched the first season in 2011, so I had a year or so to get into the fandom, analyse the series, propose ideas as to how they escaped from the swimming pool before we got series 2. At the very beginning, I got into more than just the cases. I very much liked/like the background story. It was never about the cases really.

I didn’t ship Johnlock immediately thinking about it becoming canon. I shipped it because I thought it was nice that Sherlock/Ben C face glowed when instead of being called a freak for his deductions, he was “amazing, brilliant”. Because they went to live together and they were asked if they will need two bedrooms as something casual, not a decisive point of them renting the place. Because the brother of the main character suggested it (at the moment I thought that confirmed Sherlock liked men). Because there is a scene where both the main characters said that loving people of the same gender is fine, one saying GFs are not his area (which made me think it was implicitly acknowledging he did not liked women).

But I didn’t thought at that point it will be Canon. I thought, they are playing with the gay innuendos. I thought, John Watson is straight as fuck, look, he has date after date. He want to date every frigging women on the show but Molly.

I liked Molly a lot too, so I thought maybe they will pair her with Sherlock because she is obviously interested. Maybe they will pair them with John, as a Mary Morstan adaptation. I thought Molly and John could work when she said “Sorry, I don’t know your name”, because I thought “yeah, they may start seeing each other more now and it will be a good meeting by chance, through a friend”.

However, season 2 happened and season 3... Irene Adler, John GFs and Sherlock death happened and ... the characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters made me BELIEVE it was definitely going to be canon Johnlock. The writers cannot lead in any other direction, I mean, you mourn over a friend, but you keep going. You don’t ask a friend for a miracle of them not being dead, you are not angry with a friend because they weren’t dead and didn’t tell you, you are relieved. You on the other hand, can be angry with someone that is more than a friend, because they owed you more. They should have trusted you.

I stop shipping Molly with John when she was obviously still thinking about Sherlock (Christmas party) and began shipping her with Greg, although because of some fanfiction, I was very much into Mystrade. I never thought Mystrade would be Canon (which kinda subtlety happened-ish, but then in season 4 Lady Smallwood and WTF Mycroft) but I thought maybe Lestrolly/Molstrade (because, again the characters’ interactions, plotlines and chemistry between the actors/characters suggested it)

Then, Season 4 happened and for 2 episodes I thought it was definitely no queerbaiting when they married John, they will make history.They will make him openly bisexual. There’s no other reason to kill Mary. Without the heartbroken-pushed-to-limits-former-soldier John, he would never open his heart. Nor would Sherlock.

Then episode 3 happened and 1st, I thought it was a tribute to The Ring (Ringu). I watched it and regretted watching the episode. I thought about Molly being so sad answering the phone, not eager to answer, when in the previous episode she was there because Sherlock asked her to 3 weeks earlier. No suggested communication in between. Maybe the checking up on the ambulance would made her angry. WHo knows, plotholes, whatever.

My point is... Johnlockers don’t ship Johnlock because we are gay fetishists, because we hate Molly (we like Molly as a character for seasons, we hate what they did to her (plot device, cough cough), I’m personally sad that Lou feel attacked because we think the I love you part was awful for the character and misleading as a VERY IMPORTANT part of the series). Johnlockers had explain quite extensively why Johnlock was the only shipping possibility. And the ambiguity of everything is just awful.

On House MD you could accept the House/Wilson ship not being canon, because it was sensible as a friendship due to very well developed relationships through all the series with other characters.

On Torchwood you could understand the death of a main character because most of the characters died in related-to-job activities, not because killing the gay character was groundbreaking (which is not now, neither was nor will be ever) or a plot twist or the character was used as a plot device. Also, the actors and writers were very sympathetic to the fans who felt this as a devastating moment for the fandom.

On Sherlock you cannot accept the writers’ queerbaiting. There’s this amazing chemistry going, character developing, kick ass women... and you ignore all and make the plot developed in 4 seasons shatter on the floor killing one of the kick ass women for no reason but to strained/get back together other characters as friends, going back to your characters’ personalities from season 1 and addressing some LGBT+ issues within your own series jokingly knowing the fandom is very serious about it.

That’s why I hope there are more episodes to come on Sherlock. More series. Anything. No because I want two men kissing or fucking on my screen, but because I think the characters deserved it. Molly deserves it, because she could have been more than sad Molly. Mycroft deserves a deeper explanation of his character after what we discovered. Sherlock deserves to show how human he can be, that he deserves love, being loved, being in love. That we discover the not-so-perfect John loving, being loved back without lies and actually raising Rosie up.

#Long post #rants after being on twitter 2 minutes #Sherlock #sherlock bbc #queerbaiting #HOUSE MD #torchwood #Johnlock #Janto #Wilse

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timeflies1007-blog · 6 years ago

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Doctor Who Reviews by a Female Doctor, Season 4, p. 3

Midnight: Davies has written a lot of epic, sometimes overblown stories, but this relatively quiet piece of terror is easily his most impressive, and it gives us more insight into the Doctor than perhaps any other episode in his time as showrunner. The supernatural presence in this episode is never defined or explained, but it never stops being terrifying. In general, the episode’s minimalism works sublimely well—the lack of spectacle and setting allows us to focus on the characters and the fear that they feel. Fear has rarely been more palpable on this show, especially in the long, chilling sequence of repeated language, and Alice Troughton’s magnificent direction and Tennant’s sublime performance keep the tension building for the entire episode. It’s one of the scariest episodes the show has ever done, but in spite of how frightening both the unknown presence and the panicking humans are, the episode isn’t completely without hope, and the pieces of light make this very dark episode much more meaningful than the straightforward piece of horror that it would otherwise have been.

The Doctor behaves here as he generally does—he’s interested in the people around him, he enjoys their company, and he’s determined to protect everyone once the danger becomes evident. If Donna had been with him, she might have balanced out his know-it-all tendencies enough to make his efforts to take charge more palatable, but on his own, the Doctor is a giant spectacle of brilliance and heroism, and some of the episode’s effectiveness lies in its understanding that in a moment of crisis, these qualities are less comforting than one might think. The Doctor doesn’t just fix problems, he does it with a flourish, and this draws attention to his personality in a way that can make him feel like part of the terror rather than a way of fighting it. I’m still not a huge fan of the depiction of Luke in the Sontaran episodes, but his bratty insistence on his own cleverness provides an interesting piece of context for the Doctor’s assertion that he should be in charge because he’s clever. The Doctor is by far the smartest and most capable person on board, but his assertiveness does come across as off-putting and perhaps inappropriate here; in the middle of a genuine panic, there are few things more terrifying than seeing someone who seems far less frightened and confused than he should be. He doesn’t really do anything wrong here; he’s had far worse moments of arrogance and narcissism at various points in the show, and he responds rationally and intelligently to the threat. He’s so busy being the hero, though, that he’s rarely seemed less human, and the lack of a human companion by his side makes this all the more dangerous.

I definitely miss Donna in this episode, but I get why this story required her absence, and I think it’s kind of awesome that she decided to sit out an adventure in favor of relaxing and enjoying herself. The need for drama means that we only really see the more thrilling pieces of the Doctor’s travels, but I’d definitely like to think that he and his companions at least occasionally put their feet up and have a margarita. Because this is mostly a companionless story, the minor characters have especial importance, and they’re an absolute triumph. I was surprisingly attached to Sky Silvestry, in spite of the fact that she becomes possessed so early in the episode that we get very little time with her actual personality. Everyone else is unusually well-rounded for one-episode characters, with the one exception of the Hostess. She is far less defined and generally easy to ignore, which makes her act of self-sacrifice all the more dramatically satisfying. She’s a startling savior, given that she’s spoken very little in the episode and has reacted far less vehemently than anyone else around her. We might have expected the more knowledgeable Dee Dee to be the one to figure things out, or even Jethro, who seems frustrated by his parents’ unwillingness to listen to his ideas. The Hostess has been a pretty unremarkable presence for the rest of the episode, and, as the Doctor remarks after she is dead, we never even learn her name. She listened, though, to the Doctor as he engaged in small talk at the start of the journey, and that’s enough to let her know how the alien presence is working even when all of the theorizing of the other characters completely fails. There have been many highly distinctive, memorable personalities on this show, but I love that we get an act of heroism here from someone who has otherwise faded into the background—this creates a surprising ending, but more importantly, it creates a brilliant disruption of the horrifying portrait of human nature that appears throughout the episode.

A story like this definitely runs the risk of becoming so angsty and dark that it’s just unpleasant to watch, but I think it mostly avoids this. It’s definitely bleak, and I will say that this is not an episode that I’ve rewatched a lot—certainly less so than any of the other episodes near the top of my list. This is why, although I can definitely understand seeing this as the best episode of the reboot, for me it’s maybe sixth or seventh best, because there are other episodes that are about as brilliant and that I just like watching more than this one. Still, in spite of the bleakness, the episode ends on an intriguingly specific moment of redemption. This is partly because of the Hostess’s stunning moment of self-sacrifice, but what also really interests me about this moment is the fact that the Doctor is essentially saved by the quirks of his own self-expression. The scene makes it very clear that the Hostess realizes what has happened only when Sky begins to say the Doctor’s catchphrases: “Allons-y!” and “Molto bene!” These are generally presented as fun little pieces of dialogue, not as items of especial importance, but here they take on much more significance. The Doctor’s ego is definitely on display in this episode, and he makes clear that his status as the smartest person in the room is constantly on his mind, but it’s the tiny sparks of personality that wind up mattering here. There’s something really beautiful about having a voice so distinctive that it’s recognizably yours even if it’s been taken by force, and it’s a fitting tribute to the Doctor that it’s not his cleverness or courage that makes the difference in the end, but rather his unmistakable uniqueness. A+

Turn Left: Well, one episode after the Doctor gets a pretty clear message that his assumption that he is the world savior at all times can be obnoxious and frightening, we learn that if the Doctor wasn’t here to save us, we’d be in a terrifying dystopia within about a year and all of reality would start to disappear shortly thereafter. I still love the incisive look at the Doctor’s ego in “Midnight,” but we maybe could have followed it up with a little bit less of a validation of that ego. Anyways, the Doctor-less world is a fascinating concept, and it lets us have an entire episode focused on Donna. Some fans consider this to be among the best episodes of the reboot, and I definitely think it is one of the best ideas, but it switches with frustrating rapidity between brilliance and mediocrity, making it difficult to enjoy even the unequivocally good parts.

The structure of the episode is one of the items that alternates between stupidity and near-perfection. I do find the ways in which we learn of the deaths of the show’s major characters to be genuinely chilling. The fairly quiet portrayal of these events, generally conveyed through brief announcements on the news, makes for a much more heartrending sequence than what would result from a flashier depiction of the deaths. Hearing characters like Martha and Sarah Jane being killed off in a couple of sentences, as if they barely matter, is just so shocking that the deaths are very alarming, even though we know that this is an alternate universe and everything will probably go back to normal soon. The actual shape of the story doesn’t work quite as well for me, although I do love that it resolves the “something on your back” line from “The Fires of Pompeii.” The beginning has a weirdly Orientalist vibe—“Donna is attacked after naively trusting a mysterious, sinister Asian fortune-teller” sounds like the kind of story you’d expect to find in about 1897. The idea of the Trickster is interesting, but a lot of his abilities get explained on The Sarah Jane Adventures, which makes this episode a bit difficult to follow if you haven’t seen that show. In general, I really like the way that Davies creates links between Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Sarah Jane, but usually it’s possible to understand this show even if you don’t watch the spinoffs, and I’m not sure that that’s the case here. Still, the plot is more than anything else an occasion for us to watch a different version of Donna interacting with Rose, so a few moments of confusion are all right.

This is the episode in which Rose finally returns properly, after several miniature cameos throughout the season. I loved those brief appearances, which I thought were a stellar way of hinting at what was to come, but her actual return is underwhelming to the point that I sort of regret the entire decision to bring back the character. It makes sense that she is different from the Rose that we knew in seasons One and Two, as this shows the impact of working for Torchwood and of living with her loss of the Doctor. I fully understand making her more serious—and, really, I wanted them to show her changing more than she did in Season Two—but there isn’t much of an effort to make that work for the character here. If we had seen a more gradual change across Season Two, this would be more believable, but she just seems like a completely different character; aside from the brief moments when she remembers how great the Doctor’s hair was and when she first watches Donna enter the TARDIS, there’s so little of Rose’s personality here that it just feels like they cast Billie Piper in a different role. Even The Moment in “The Day of the Doctor” has a little bit more of Rose’s personality, and that is literally not Rose at all and is just an interface using Rose’s image. She doesn’t get anything interesting to do here; I love that she has clearly gotten really good at her job, but in this episode, she basically turns up, tells Donna the information that she needs to know, and then vanishes, while being annoyingly and sort of needlessly cryptic. She uses some of the Doctor’s language (“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry”) but she doesn’t have anything that reminds us of her own character, and even the Serious Rose angle goes back and forth between seeming like an awesome professional woman and putting on a weird affect that makes her look like she’s been drugged. I really find Piper’s performance odd here, but I’m assuming that Davies or the director told her to play the character like this because Billie Piper is a stunningly fabulous actress and she could have done so much better than this. On the one hand, regardless of the portrayal of Rose herself, we do get two women saving the world together, which is great. (In general, this is one of the most female-centric episodes of the reboot; Wilf and the Italian neighbor get a fair amount of screen time, but the other major characters are basically all women.) On the other hand, this is the first sustained return of Rose after her departure, and it’s a lot less great that for much of the episode, she’s just a plot device, and kind of an irritating one.

In spite of the attention given to Rose and to the numerous character deaths, Donna is the star here, and even when I’m not thrilled about what the episode is doing with the character, it’s wonderful to see her get so much screen time. I’ve heard this referred to as the episode in which Donna stops being a joke, but I don’t think this is true at all, as she’s been a non-joke since the end of “Pompeii” at the latest. It is an interesting shift for the character, though, in that we finally get to see her in ordinary circumstances for an extended period of time; between her departure with the Doctor at the end of “Partners in Crime” and her return at the conclusion of “Journey’s End,” the Sontaran two-parter is the only time that Donna visits home, so even with an alternate universe and alternate Donna, this episode provides an important piece of context for a character who uses the TARDIS to escape from ordinary life more than any other companion. Granted, “ordinary” has taken on a new meaning here, as the world has collapsed into a dystopian mess, but we see her in a lot of situations that don’t involve dealing with the supernatural. Brief as they are, it’s nice to get scenes of Donna going out for drinks with her friends, singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” with her housemates, or railing against her employer as he fires her. It’s a little frustrating that we get this kind of material only in an alternate universe episode, as it still just leaves us with the idea that this is what Donna’s everyday life would have looked like if her life had been quite different from what it was; still, the episode conveys her sadness and hopelessness beautifully, and it is definitely the best portrayal of her relationship with her mother. The situation they are in is so terrible that Sylvia’s tendency toward complaint has more depth than it usually does, and this makes her into much less of a caricature than she is in other episodes. The episode doesn’t sugarcoat the problems between these two—Sylvia makes clear that she’s basically given up on her daughter—but their difficult relationship is nuanced and believable, and ultimately very moving.

This episode lets us see more of the flaws that Donna had mostly overcome even by the earliest episodes of this season. In the absence of the Doctor, her tendencies toward self-centered shallowness haven’t been challenged, and it’s interesting to see more of those qualities here, although I think that one scene might go too far. I like the scene in which she just keeps yelling about her own problems while the hospital gets transported to the moon, but I’m less pleased with the scene that depicts her as somehow not realizing that immigrant labor camps are a problem until Wilf points out the obvious to her. The former scene works because lots of people tune out the suffering of others that they see on the news. Donna is definitely being portrayed as self-centered and callous here, but she’s taking on those qualities to a degree that seems believable and doesn’t make her look like a psychopath. There’s a difference, though, between ignoring the misfortunes of strangers on the news and being completely oblivious to the pain of your friends when they’re standing in front of you, and I just don’t buy that she would be quite this disengaged, even in a giant dystopia in which lots of different terrible things are happening. She thinks her housemate is loud, but she does seem to like him, and having people she knows being rounded up on a wagon and taken to forced labor camps on the grounds that they are immigrants is a pretty big thing to overlook. She does get upset about it once Wilf starts talking about “the last time,” but she swallows her neighbor’s cheerful lies about the labor camps being all right so easily that she comes across as having the awareness of a six-year-old. My concern here is that it makes the change that the Doctor produced in her seem bigger than I assumed it was. The general impression that I get of Donna is that she has quite a lot of natural empathy, courage, and generosity, but she felt like she had so little control in her life that she didn’t really make use of those qualities as much until the Doctor awoke those feelings in her and made her try harder. This scene makes it look like the Doctor basically gave her a new brain, or at least implanted some qualities in her that hadn’t existed prior to their meeting, and I would prefer to stick with the idea that the Doctor brought about an awakening in her and not a total personality transplant.

I’m also conflicted about her act of self-sacrifice that returns us to the show’s normal universe. Part of my issue with this is that the season has by this point leaned too hard on the notion that good people die protecting the Doctor. I get why this is here, because it’s going to come up in the finale, but of the past six storylines, this is the fifth to resolve things through the structure of “The Doctor is dead/about to die but someone [takes his place on the exploding Sontaran ship/jumps in front of the gun/takes the fatal charge of the library computer in his stead/throws herself out the airlock/jumps in front of a van] so that he can live.” It reads more as an attempt to build a theme than as an inability to think up a wider range of endings, but this should be a really big moment for Donna, and I think the impact is diminished by the fact that we’ve seen similar actions in so many recent episodes, especially since the scenes in “Midnight” and “Forest of the Dead” were so brilliantly done. In spite of the repetition, her moment of sacrifice is very dramatically effective, but I like it less the more that I think about it. The Donna who travels with the Doctor has been shown to be smart, compassionate, resistant to being told what to do, and good at making connections with people. She’s valuable because of who she is, and what her heart and mind bring to their adventures together. The version of Donna that we meet in this episode has a tremendous moment of embracing death for the good of the world, and she does show some quick thinking in figuring out what needs to happen, but ultimately she is valuable because her corpse causes a helpful traffic jam. It’s not even the case that she’s doing something useful and gets killed while doing it—what the story needs is a body in the right place on the road, and she allows her own body to serve that function. Her death is very meaningful here, but in the rest of the series, her life has value, and while this episode ostensibly lets Donna find a sense of heroism without the Doctor’s help, it winds up emphasizing how much her personal growth depended on the Doctor’s influence. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that Donna was fundamentally altered through her travels with the Doctor, but this episode is sometimes celebrated as an empowering vision of how Donna would have been amazing even without the Doctor, and to me this ending doesn’t really manage that.

Sacrificing your life in order to protect a different version of yourself is an interesting psychological scenario, although the time constraints of wrapping everything up in one episode means that we don’t get to go into this very much. I can imagine that if you were feeling hopeless and valueless, news of another you running around helping to save the world would be an odd thing to experience. It might be thrilling to learn of a better version of yourself, but it could also be immensely frustrating to look around at your actual circumstances and see how different they are from this vision of your ideal self. It’s a fascinating concept, but the episode doesn’t quite have time to go into the complexities of her feelings about this. The story’s conclusion makes clear that AU Donna values the version of herself who travels with the Doctor more highly than she values herself, although the degree to which this is a world-saving act of self-sacrifice versus a somewhat self-interested attempt to take on the better version of her own life is unclear. The relationship between the two Donnas is also unclear to me; Rose denies the notion that AU Donna will simply become proper Donna, but she is able to remember the phrase “Bad Wolf” at the end, which suggests that at least some of AU Donna’s consciousness transferred into the primary Donna’s mind. I’m possibly just looking for more of a metaphor than the story is actually trying to depict, but I keep feeling like I should be able to understand more about actual Donna on the basis of what we see of her alternate self, and I never really get much insight into her beyond a general sense that she’s a good person whose life would have been much worse without the Doctor in it.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about problems in this episode, which might make this review reflect more negativity than I feel; in spite of my dislike of this episode’s approach to Donna, she still gets some great material. I’m not sure if a companion has ever been given as much of an emotional range to work with in a single episode, and Tate conveys the characters feelings—her hopelessness about life, her panic and terror about her role in events, her occasional moments of enjoyment in spite of everything—in a tremendously detailed, utterly believable performance. I wish that we had been given a more coherent vision of what it would be like for Donna to find some of her best qualities without the Doctor’s assistance, but there are moments in which Davies gets things exactly right, like this exchange between Wilf and Donna: “You’re not going to make the world any better by shouting at it.” “I can try.” B+

The Stolen Earth: I find it difficult to evaluate this episode, because it sets up a lot of plot developments that I wind up hating, but they don’t really go awry until the next episode. I really liked this one the first time I saw it, and I do think that it’s mostly very good, but after watching “Journey’s End,” my frustration with that episode spoils some of my enjoyment of the setup that this episode provides. Taken on its own, though, this is an exciting piece of television with a lot of lovely guest appearances, so it’s not really fair to criticize it for a subsequent episode’s problems.

In some respects, the huge cast is a limitation of this episode, because there are just SO MANY characters that it feels like we can’t spend enough time with any of them. Watching an episode starring The Doctor, Rose, Martha, Donna, Captain Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Jackie, Mickey, Wilf, Harriet, and Sarah Jane sort of feels like being a puppy when lots of humans come into the room; you want to rush over to someone and wag your tail in excitement, but there are so many humans that it’s easiest to just sort of run around in circles. Even if the episode does pull in slightly too many directions, though, they’re mostly very good directions. Martha continues to be a much better character this season than she was in the previous one, and the episode does a great job of creating tension about how long it would take for anyone to notice that Rose is back on Earth. (Rose continues to demonstrate the skills she has honed in the parallel universe, but she seems like herself again, which makes the previous episode’s weird portrayal of the character even stranger.) My favorite return, though, is that of Harriet Jones, which goes a long way toward remedying the awfulness that happened with her character in “Christmas Invasion.” I don’t know if this was the plan all along or if this was a response to criticism of that episode, but she gets back all of the dignity and integrity that “Christmas Invasion” took away from her, and she’s just marvelous. I’m sad to see her die, but I love that she is given a thoughtful, brave, heroic death that totally redeems her from the earlier nonsense.

There are some really lovely moments of plotting here, in which we find out what has been going on with the various missing planets mentioned throughout the season and why the bees have been disappearing. Davies has woven these ideas into the fabric of the season in a really understated way, and they come together beautifully here. He’s really very good at introducing details like this without telegraphing that they’re going to play a major role in the seasonal arc—both this and the early pieces of the Harold Saxon storyline are set up with impressive subtlety. We also get to see the Shadow Proclamation and the return of the fabulous Rhinoceros Police, so there’s plenty of great material to enjoy in this episode.

In spite of my enjoyment of most of the plot here, it does feel like the storyline that’s taking shape here is a massive departure from the rest of the season. The strong character work in many episodes has given this season a sense of intimacy, and the delights of the Tenth Doctor/Donna pairing have created a consistent sense of fun, although the last couple of episodes already started the movement away from that. Season finales tend to be big and epic, so that’s unsurprising here, but the focus on so many different characters and the sudden raising of the stakes makes this feel disconnected from most of the episodes that came before it. Still, it’s a solid piece of setup, and the final moments, in which the Doctor is shot down by a Dalek just as he finally sees Rose again, create a terrific cliffhanger. A-/B+

Journey’s End: Oh, good grief. About nine million things happen here, and a lot of them are absolute nonsense, but the frustrating thing is that the episode is occasionally brilliant, so we get a tantalizing sense of what this episode might have been like if the good elements had been grounded in a more believable story. Part of the problem is the continuation of the previous episode’s tendency to seem much bigger than the season’s storyline can support. The placement of details about disappearing bees and planets has been impeccable, but while the season has been superb at conveying the necessary exposition in a subtle manner, it has done nothing to prepare for the tone that this finale takes. Both of the next two season finales also work with crazy plots and extreme emotional intensity, but in both cases something of that tone is established at the start of the season and continues to make appearances throughout the season, so that by the time we reach the finale that energy makes sense. Here, the plot just feels like it’s overflowing from its container; I quite like the idea of a reality bomb, but if you want me to believe that by making a bunch of planets into a big space diorama and then pressing a button the Daleks can wipe out not only this universe but also all other universes as well, you really need to prepare for a story of that magnitude, and the relatively small-scale feel of much of this season doesn’t do that at all.

In addition to seeming at odds with the tone of the season, this episode also draws upon previous seasons to an unfortunate degree. The plot is essentially this: the Daleks have been trying to destroy the universe, as they do, and the Doctor is trying to stop them. There’s a possibility of defeating the Daleks through major violence, like destroying the Earth, but the Doctor is against it because he is a man of peace. Just when it looks like the Doctor has failed and the universe is in great peril, it turns out that the Doctor’s companion, who has gone off in the TARDIS without him against her will, has unknowingly absorbed a huge amount of abilities that vastly exceed anything she has ever been able to do before. She turns up at the last minute and saves the day, her “just so human” qualities combining productively with her new powers, thus explaining a phrase that was brought up earlier in the season and creating an awesome moment in which the ordinary, working-class woman saves the world. Unfortunately, her body can’t take this influx of power for long, and so it has to be removed from her, and sadness ensues. I liked this plot when it was called “The Parting of Ways,” but this episode takes the framework from that finale and exaggerates it until it ceases to be enjoyable.

This show has repeated concepts plenty of times, and it usually works, because the constant recasting means that we can take a concept from a previous episode and see how it works differently with a new Doctor or companion. This many recycled elements in one episode, though, is just too much, and once again it doesn’t quite manage to give Donna the moment she deserves. On the one hand, I do really love the reveal of the human-Time Lord metacrisis; it’s fantastic to see Donna be the hero for a while, and after saving the world she makes the Daleks spin around, which is hilarious. There’s also a nice reference to her time as a temp, as she makes use of her quick typing skills. Unlike Rose as the Bad Wolf, she retains much of her personality even when she has acquired her new powers, and her moment of triumph is an absolute delight. On the other hand, there’s been so much attention to the idea that Donna really is special, even if she doesn’t quite believe it, and I don’t think that centering her moment of triumph on a retread of something Rose did three seasons ago conveys that specialness. After “Turn Left” concluded with her act of sacrifice that mimicked the actions of many other characters in this season, this episode really needed to give her something unique to work with, and in that sense it completely fails. I also think that Donna’s triumph is a little bit too reliant on luck. In “The Parting of Ways,” it was definitely a fortunate coincidence that Rose happened to take on godlike powers just when the Daleks were about to win, but her determination to return to the Doctor, her speech about learning a better way to live, and her collaboration with Mickey and Jackie in getting the TARDIS to open really make it seem like her absorption of power is a direct result of her own choices and values. Donna takes on new abilities here because she was in the right place at the right time, and so while it remains lovely to watch her take charge, it seems a bit unearned. (There’s also a lot of nonsense from Dalek Caan about predestination and external controlling forces, and it’s unclear to me exactly how much of a role that played in this season, but I don’t like it.) Her temp abilities (100 words per minute!) may have been useful, but she wouldn’t have been able to do any of what she accomplishes here if the metacrisis hadn’t poured a lot of knowledge into her head. It’s fun to watch her succeed, but Donna doesn’t become great so much as she has greatness thrust upon her, and I would be more satisfied by this development if Donna’s actual values and abilities played more of a role.

This storyline does allow for some very good things. Dalek Caan’s involvement is sort of interesting, even if it is explained so quickly that it doesn’t make as much of an impact as it could. In addition to sort of enjoying Donna’s moment of world-saving, in spite of my reservations about it, I also love what this episode does with Martha, whose reluctant but determined effort to use the Osterhagen Key is one of the most compelling pieces of the episode. I was constantly aggravated by the third season’s focus on her jealousy of Rose, but when she finally learns of her predecessor’s return, she simply says “Oh my God, he found you!” and looks genuinely happy for the Doctor. It’s a small moment, but a really beautiful one, and an indication of how much better the writing has been for Martha this season. I also really love the scene in which all of the characters fly the TARDIS together in order to tow the Earth back to its proper spot; yes, it’s cheesy, but it’s awfully sweet. Even if I’m frustrated with some of the ways in which the characters are used here, this really is a marvelous ensemble of people, and seeing them together is a nice reminder of how many supremely likeable figures Davies has created for us.

I would also say that some of the things that the episode tends to get criticized for don’t strike me as all that bad. The Doctor regenerating into himself does make the previous episode’s cliffhanger look like a pretty contrived piece of drama, but the regeneration energy and its effect on the severed hand are important later in the episode, so I can see the value of this development. It sort of messes with the rules of regeneration as we’ve come to understand them, but it’s a pretty ambiguous process anyways, so I don’t think it’s inexcusable to shift them a bit here. The severed hand itself is a particularly good piece of plotting, as Davies has been building this into the narratives of both this show and Torchwood across several seasons. I’m not even as troubled by Donna’s memory erasure as some people are. The complaints against this tend to take the form that the Doctor removing her memories even while she is directly saying, “No, no, no” has a sort of rape-like quality to it, as he is completely ignoring her wishes about how to deal with her body and mind. I can see this, but I can also understand why the Doctor would feel like he should act in this way. She could be seconds away from dying, and so there isn’t time for him to get into an argument with her about why it’s better for her to live, and I can imagine the Doctor’s desperation to avoid bringing her corpse home to Wilf. It absolutely should be her choice, but while I think this is a problematic moment, the Doctor is making a decision that I can imagine a decent person making in a moment of crisis, so it’s a dark scene that avoids making him into a monster. It also is a genuinely tragic ending to Donna’s story—probably the saddest thing this show has done that doesn’t eventually get reversed. Having her save the world but retain no memory of it is an awful fate for someone who enters the show with very little self-esteem, and her reversion to her former more callous self is just heartbreaking. The erasure of her memory is wonderfully acted by both Tate and Tennant, and even if I have some doubts about this as an ending for Donna I am really moved by the whole sequence. Her casual goodbye to the Doctor at her home is probably the saddest moment of the entire episode, and it’s one of the few things in this episode that at least partly seems like it is tragic because of what it means to her and not because of what it means to the Doctor.

This is an unfortunately rare thing in an episode that turns basically everybody else (and sometimes Donna too) into ways of understanding the Doctor’s guilt and loneliness. What I am most bothered by is what Davies does to poor Rose. She does get some gorgeous scenes early in the episode, especially the moment in which she takes the Doctor’s hand while it looks like the TARDIS is being destroyed, but her final scene is appalling. I don’t object at all to having her wind up with the Doctor clone, but the manner of getting them together is just so awful that I can’t imagine what anyone was thinking. Rose Tyler has always been fiercely determined to make her own choices about her life. The Doctor sent her away at the end of Season One, and she used a big truck to pull the TARDIS open in order to get back to him. She winds up being taken to the parallel universe at the end of Season Two, but when the Doctor first sneaks one of the universe-travel devices around her neck and sends her there, she comes right back. Even when she has landed in the parallel universe, she keeps trying to return to him. She has fought so hard to be able to make her own choices about her life even in seemingly hopeless situations, which is why it’s so odd to watch her care so little about her own agency in her last moments on the show. I get that the gaps between universes are closing and so there isn’t time for a lot of discussion, but the Doctor could have at least asked her what she wanted to do. Instead, he just takes the TARDIS right to the parallel universe and then, once they’re there, he informs her that she’s going to help the banished Doctor clone to get over his inner violence, but it’s ok because they can date. She very briefly objects to this on the grounds that the Doctor clone isn’t the man that she knew, but it takes about four seconds for her to go along with the plan, and having the two Doctors repeat the conversation from the end of “Doomsday” so that the clone can say “I love you” doesn’t take the place of giving Rose the chance to think about what she wants. The whole sequence comes across as extremely manipulative and creates the sense that our Doctor is refusing to say he loves her just to make sure that Rose follows the plan. I also assume that the entire notion of banishing the clone to this parallel world is a similar ruse, as the Doctor has committed genocide before, and so the only reason to banish him is to create the circumstances necessary for Rose to stay in the parallel world. (Or maybe he does genuinely think that the other Doctor is truly dangerous? I honestly can’t tell what his ethical position is here.) She looks a bit cruel for kissing the other Doctor in front of him, and he looks awfully controlling, especially since he scampers while they’re kissing instead of saying goodbye. I can’t believe that Donna was on the Doctor’s side here; the Donna we’ve had all season would be shouting at the Doctor and probably throwing sand at him at this point. I get that the Doctor is being all noble and this solution is probably best for Rose in the long run, but he works so hard to force the resolution that Rose gets to play only a very small role in determining her own future. He interferes with Donna’s decision-making in a moment of crisis in which she was otherwise about to die, but he takes charge of Rose’s life when, even with the clock ticking, there was enough time to give her more of a choice—and she doesn’t even seem to mind. Rose Tyler is one of the most beloved characters in the history of this show, and one of the biggest reasons why the reboot became so successful, and she deserved a much better ending than one that essentially involves saying “I don’t have to care about my autonomy anymore, because the Doctor can be my boyfriend now!”

This isn’t the only way in which this episode comes across as disrespectful toward its female characters. Davros is mostly wasted here, as he is really just used to tell the Doctor to feel bad about himself, but the most irritating thing about his function in this episode is that he asks the Doctor and, implicitly, the audience, to see the other characters almost entirely in terms of what they reveal about the Doctor. Martha’s principled, quietly determined consideration of destroying her own planet in order to save the rest of the universe, Sarah Jane’s acquisition of the Warp Star, and the efforts of all of the other returning companions all become ways of reminding the Doctor that he can’t shake the association with violence. The Doctor does try to defend them, saying that they’re trying to help, but the episode seems to take Davros’s critique pretty seriously. The montage of guilt, in which the Doctor remembers the deaths of numerous (mostly female) characters from the past few seasons, is even worse. I don’t usually find this show to be particularly bad in terms of fridging, although it does happen on occasion; there are plenty of female characters who die, but the show isn’t excessive about it, and many of them die in ways that are meaningful to their own stories and not just methods of propping up the Doctor’s narrative. The montage of character deaths, though, essentially digs up the corpses of a lot of women and chucks them into a giant freezer. Even beautifully done scenes, like the deaths of River and the Hostess, suffer from being placed into a montage of reasons for the Doctor to feel guilty, removing these deaths from the narratives of those characters and presenting them as stepping-stones in the Doctor’s moral journey.

The Doctor has plenty of flaws, and this version of him arguably has more than some of the other regenerations. He has a tendency to be narcissistic, arrogant, and oblivious to other people’s feelings. He’s still a wonderful, charming, admirable hero, but these flaws are there and it usually works well when people point them out. The fact that people sometimes die in proximity to him is not really among these flaws—there are occasional exceptions, like “Human Nature,” but it’s usually the case that if the Doctor wasn’t around, a lot more people would die. It also isn’t really a problem that he takes smart, brave people and gives them the ability to fight back against evil beings who are trying to destroy the whole of reality. I don’t get the sense that Sarah Jane, Martha, and the rest are being needlessly violent, they’re just trying to be practical in a fight against literally the worst thing that could possibly happen. Granted, Davros is not exactly someone you’d expect to have spot-on moral advice, but the show and the Doctor seem to believe pretty strongly in his words, and this means that the show has to embrace the notion that the ways in which many of its major figures have developed in recent years basically just serve as reasons to be skeptical of the Doctor. There isn’t any meaningful sense of doubt on the part of the characters themselves—Martha, for instance, gets some fascinating material throughout the episode, but there’s never any real attention to her potential concerns about the kind of person she’s become as a result of the path that the Doctor put her on. Nobody else’s feelings matter much here; the Doctor has a moment of tremendous moral doubt, and everyone else just gets pulled in as an illustration of that guilt.

And then we get the mass exodus of people, which is done in the most annoying way possible. Sarah Jane’s nice comment that the Doctor acts lonely but actually has a huge family just winds up becoming tragically ironic, and it takes forever, and the last twenty minutes feel like a never-ending epilogue. The whole episode is just weirdly structured, like going to an ABBA concert and then having Coldplay come out to do an encore that’s half as long as the rest of the concert. What feels like the climax of the story occurs well before the end, and then we get another one, sort of, and even if pieces of it work well the whole thing is just a mess. Eventually, we get to the end, and the Doctor is being sad and lonely in the rain, and it makes a great meme but I don’t think there’s anything in the world that isn’t a symbol of the Doctor’s guilt and grief at this point; the Earth basically just exists as a large-scale reminder that he has flaws, without any sense that the Doctor is aware of what his actual bad qualities are or how he could fix them. There are a lot of amazing characters in this episode, but in the end, they’re just ways of breaking the Doctor’s hearts, and Davies has never done a bigger disservice to the genuinely lovely world he created than this. C

#doctor who #female doctor #reviews #season 4 #tenth doctor #donna noble #david tennant #catherine tate #russell t davies

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tenroseforeverandever · 8 years ago

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Home for the Holidays: Chapter 2

Chapter 1

A @dwsecretsanta gift for @chocolatequeennk.

Characters: Ten x Rose; Jackie Tyler; Pete Tyler; Mickey Smith; Jake Simmonds; Donna Noble; Empress of the Racnoss; Lance Bennett

Rated: General (rating may change)

Tags: Doomsday Fixit; Runaway Bride rewrite; Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Separation; Eventual Christmas fluff; adventure

Summary: A Doomsday Fixit that also follows the events of the Runaway Bride.

Despite having the victory of the Battle of Canary Wharf behind them, Rose remains resentful that the Doctor tried to send her away after she promised she’d never leave him.

Chapter Summary: Rose begins to make a life for herself on Earth, working for Pete at Torchwood, but on Christmas Eve, when she investigates some low grade alien activity at the securities company, H.C. Clements, she stumbles into much more than she was prepared for.

Notes: Once again, massive hugs and thank-yous to @hellostarlight20 and MrsBertucci for their brilliant beta services. That being said, all the mistakes are my own, and always will be (I keep finding weird redundant commas and the like! I mean, honestly! The number of times I’ve reread…)

Any recognizable dialogue comes from the Doctor Who episode, The Runaway Bride.

WARNING: No Doctor in this chapter. This is not the chapter reunions are made of… not in the least! We have a little while to go yet before the Doctor and Rose are reunited. And even then, our babies have a lot to work through.