#just the amount of kindness and compassion donna has underneath her rough and brash exterior is so astounding

[ninemelodies]

i think planet of the oods has some of my favorite ten & donna interactions like. it starts out with donna being SO excited and a little nervous about being on an alien planet for the first time and ten sharing that no, that feeling never really goes away, not even for him, and that’s what he keeps traveling.

and then they get outside and it’s freezing and the doctor is still rambling bc he’s so excited that donna is so excited. and he turns around and she’s gone back inside to get a coat. she makes fun of the TARDIS, again. and oh, theh bicker back and forth about her coat for a little bit but they’re having fun and laughing as they trek across the snow.

until. they find an ood dying. now the doctor knows who these creatures are, but donna has no idea. the only alien she’s met has been the doctor (and the racnoss) and the doctor looks human, acts mostly human, but this. this is something completely different. and she reacts that way, falling back on old human prejudices. she calls the ood an it and comments on how different it is.

and the doctor just. redirects her, with “donna, not now,” and “he’s an ood, and he’s a he, not an it.”and donna learns. and the doctor asks her to comfort delta-50 and she does! no questions asked. she tells him her name and about the doctor and that the doctor is here to help, and she shows no fear in approaching this ood that just SNARLED at her, just so she can close his eyes so he can rest peacefully.

and then. she turns around and tells the doctor he’s full of shit for saying that the last thing controlling the ood was literally satan. and the doctor doesn’t correct her. (not think i think it would’ve mattered if he HAD) and then the doctor let’s her ramble when he’s showing off the physic paper. sure, he’s giving her a look that screams “shut up, you’re making it worse. please stop.” but donna already told him once he wouldn’t be telling her to be quiet.

and then they get assigned married by the marketing lady.

and then that whole marketing meeting with the doctor looking vaguely unimpressed and donna just listening and then. donna being SO mind-blown about being in 4126 and about the fact that humans have survived so long and spread so far. and she asks, “we’re everywhere. is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” and the doctor tells the truth, “sometimes, i wonder.” and then they see how many ood distribution centers there are and donna’s next question is “don’t the ood get a say in this?” and donna asks! she talks to the ood, she knows there’s no way they were born like this and she wants to know how they feel about it.

but then they have that conversation in the container. the doctor reminds donna that all-in-all, this isn’t so different from her time, to which donna vehemently disagrees. “who do you think made your clothes,” the doctor shoots back. and donna has to know he’s right, at least a little bit, but she gets onto him for it.

“is that why you keep humans around?” she asks, “not so you can show them the wonders of the universe, but so you can take cheap shots?” and the doctor apologizes, and donna tells him don’t because she knows he’s right, but he won’t talk to her like that, and then she calls him spaceman, because she’s not angry with him like that.

and then in the warehouse, she gets locked in that shipping container with all those ood and she’s so frightened. and the doctor knows that she’s okay as soon as he hears her yelling, and he drags his feet to get the guards to stop and open the container. he tells them that they better let her out of they’ll be on the receiving end of donna’s ire.

but as soon as she gets out and confirms that she’s safe and the doctor’s safe, her next question is about the ood. “never mind me,” she says. “what about them?”

then with the solana, donna wants so much to believe that the people of earth wouldn’t stand for this if they knew how the ood were being treated, but the solana says the same thing as the doctor. “i didn’t ask.” “they don’t ask.” and it’s all the same thing and donna knows it even though she hates it.

and then the doctor gives solana the chance to help. to be the person who asks and to stand up and make a change and she doesn’t. and the doctor and donna are so disappointed, but they have work to do.

through this the doctor can hear the ood song, even if he’s not paying attention. and it’s got to be so sad and awful to deal with, yet he does it alone. and when the doctor asks, donna agrees to hear it, and he warns her how sad it is. and she listens anyway, and it overwhelms her, and she asks him to take it away and he does and she apologizes for not being strong enough, for not standing with him, because she knows and says as much that he can hear it all the time.

then they learn what the company is doing and they’re both so angry, so upset. donna understands what it means that the company is cutting off the ood hindbrain, and she realizes that the universe and time and space isn’t as grand as she made it out to be. it’s just as terrible as she told him it was originally. and she says she wants to go home, and the doctor looks so upset.

and then they get captured together. locked to a pole at the mercy of the company. and donna is the one who realizes that the ood weren’t born to serve, they weren’t going willingly without protest, it was that the ood were docile creatures. they HAD to be because they are born with their brain in their hand.

even as they’re trying to escape they’re bickering. because donna is scared and sometimes that what she does when she’s scared. but the doctor takes it in stride. they find the main ood brain, and together, the doctor and donna confirm what is happening and what needs to happen.

and when mr. halpen has a gun and is pointing it at them, the doctor makes sure to pull donna behind him, out of the way.

this post got so long but i care them SO MUCH they way they show affection through bickering and the way they bounce off each other like that and the way donna is so much smarter and brilliant and kind and compassionate than she believes herself to be, even when she hides it under her crass facade.