#idk. the way she gets along w the master has me…hmmmmmmm inch resting

[macbethz]

I am very invested in the idea of River song as like…a clinical psychopath. And one literally trained and brainwashed to be an assassin at that. which is what canon claims she is but it rarely characterizes her that way especially post-Mel. I think it would be interesting if she genuinely had low empathy and a non-intuitive sense of right and wrong but uses this kind of overly flirtatious, femme fatale persona to mask that because firstly she was trained that way and secondly she thinks it makes her seem more like a “real person.”

And I think her connection to the doctor (especially 11, who I think has a really unique relationship to both having a masked personality and intimacy as a whole) becomes even more layered because they are both these outsiders almost play-acting the way they think human relationships are supposed to go. This version of River would be especially drawn to the doctor because he’s the only person who can really get her nontraditional understanding of love, something she can’t intuitively feel but has learned and basically only feels for him and her parents.