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the-doctor-needs-a-river · 4 months ago

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11/River prompts, hmm? How about… “You still manage to surprise me.”

River Song has been called a great many things in her life- reckless, impulsive, imprudent, uninhibited. But the truth is, River Song is nothing if not an avid planner.

Meticulous and fiercely prepared, she leaves nothing to chance. Why bother? With all of history at her fingertips, why shouldn’t she treat every undertaking like an open book test? She made a habit of research, of peeking back or taking a cheeky look ahead. She routinely strolls through a bustling street at breakfast only to dig up its ancient remains by dinner.

Similarly, if she wants to organize a date with her husband, she diligently plans when and where to leave her love notes and invitations. If she fancies a romp with Pretty Boy, she need only look as far as impersonating the nearest ancient queen or galactic empress. That face really did have a habit of endearing himself with the aristocracy of any era. When she misses her floppy haired Sweetie, a museum is always her best bet. With a nostalgic streak a mile wide, there's no keeping that man from waltzing through glass covered exhibits, reminiscing about all the ways he’s molded history.

And on days like today, when she goes looking for trouble just for the hell of it, when the secrets locked in an impenetrable bank vault have tickled her fancy, River always, always does her research on the people who built it.

Tapping in the twenty-seven digit numerical sequence, River bypasses any and all security codes with a three thousand year old fail safe password that was programmed by the client who commissioned the place. Juliana Primean, lovely woman, great at golf, had a terrible habit of using her grandchildren’s birthdays as passwords.

A green light grants her entry, the door hissing as it pressurizes, preparing to open. An easy smile twitches River’s lips, because its almost too easy.

The door yields, swinging wide to reveal nothing but bare walls and stale air.

Well, she did say almost too easy.

It isn’t often someone beats her to the punch. Being fashionably late typically suits her just fine. The static in the air tells her she is most definitely late, even if only by a few seconds. Singed neutrinos reek of time travel, and River allows the buzz of it to draw her deeper into the empty vault.

Her heels click across ancient metal, echoing for naught but dust as she comes to a stop at the center of the room. There’s a note, intentionally placed and thoughtfully written, that reads, “Dinner?”

Space-time coordinates in script that could only belong to her husband make for a tempting summons. No sooner has a smirk curled the corners of her red lips than quick fingers are tapping at her vortex manipulator.

Matter shatters and rebuilds around her, smoke and vapor and the sudden smell of something divine.

“If I knew you delivered irreplaceable artifacts, I wouldn’t have bothered breaking in,” River coos in that honey velvet voice she saves just for him.

She hasn’t turned around to greet him yet, but she hears the grin in his voice clear as day as he says, “Yes, you would have.”

When she turns to face that cheeky husband of hers, a small gasp falls from her lips, breath momentarily stolen. There's a table set for two beside a giant wall of glass. Around her is intentionally dim lights and sound-proof walls, and her mind races with all the ways she could put it to good use.

Shame its primary function is a viewing platform. She doesn't have to wonder what for. Beyond the glass is a blazing Protostar, all oranges and purples and electric greens as matter and chemicals condense and swirl. It's the earliest stage of stellar evolution, only lasting about 500 millennia, a blink of an eye in the turn of the universe.

And maybe it's the way his tweed contrasts with stardust or the giddy way he rocks back on his heels, awaiting her approval, but River finds herself pulled toward him, the irrevocable fusion of hydrogen and helium and sharp edges and soft curves.

“This is a wonderful surprise,” she purrs, all joy and baited breath even as her eyes narrow in suspicion. “What's the catch?”

"Nothing!" he sputters and flails in protest, nearly upending a bottle of champagne. "I’m allowed to spoil my wife.”

River hums, studying him. Spoil her he does, often and with enthusiasm. He swings by in a top hat and tails and whisks her away to dance on ice rings and to see nights filled with stars and to watch planets be born. But he’s never taken a page from her playbook, never left her a carefully crafted and impeccably timed invitation before.

River chances a glance over her shoulder, making certain there isn't a carnivorous swarm or hostile planetary takeover on the horizon. Finding only starlight, she turns skeptical eyes back on her husband. “How’d you know I’d rob that vault?”

“Hah,” he barks out a laugh, his left arm leaning against the back of a chair, all self-assured swagger as he pins her in place with a crooked smile. “Two things are always bound to end up in uncrackable vaults. The rarest and most beautiful and impossible thing in the universe-“ he pulls out a chair for her in invitation, buzzing with secrets as he adds- “and the Primean family fortune.”

He’s on fine form today, and doesn't he just know it. The curl in his cheek is insufferably smug and devilishly handsome, and she’d be a damn fool if she didn’t allow herself to be pulled into the gravity of him.

Swaying into his personal space, River catalogs the way his gaze drops to her mouth the way a compass finds true north. Her skin hums from the undivided attention, the delight in her voice a betrayal of her contrary words. “Many ambitious thieves have had a go at breaking into that vault."

“But only you could pull it off,” he whispers, all seduction and sly smirks.

It's her turn to be captivated by his mouth, by the lips of the man who beat her to the punch, who emptied the impenetrable room of all but a handwritten note. “Look whose talking.”

Her husband merely shrugs, knowing full well she’s a sucker for mischief as he explains, “I cheated.”

“Dirty talk already, my love?” Green eyes dancing in that way she knows drives him to distraction, River slips past him, taking her seat before temptation demands she go straight for dessert.

"Behave," he half-heartedly scolds her. The answering hum she gives is warm and low, the rumble of something wicked on her tongue when he blurts, "I want to show you something."

Pity, she much prefers it when he makes her eyes flutter shut. River bites her bottom lip to keep from telling him so. Her gaze shifts to the view beyond the glass, to a black vacuum that swirls with glittering matter and shrapnel from the nearest nebula. She inhales deep, the rich aroma of fine cuisine from some far off time and place delighting her senses.

Bless him, he's gone through such trouble.

"It's gorgeous, Sweetie."

"Hm?" the Doctor looks up from where he'd been digging through his top pocket, eyes glancing to her and then the Protostar. "Oh, yes, I thought you'd like it." Half his arm still buried in his coat, he steps around to face her, nearly tripping over his own feet as he wrestles a small jewelry box from its hiding place. "But this is what I wanted to show you."

Pale fingers crack open the box, holding it out to her. River's breath catches in her throat. "Is this.." she exhales, all wonder and reverence as her eyes drink in one of the lesser known but highly coveted treasures rumored to be stashed within the Primean fortune.

"The Eye of Infinity," he tells her, giddy and full of the very magic that makes the universe turn. "It’s a micro galaxy encased in a Neuron Pearl inside a necklace made of pure Lonsdaleite diamonds." It's complicated and rare and physics defying, and it has nothing on the grin splitting her husband's cheeks as he says, "May I?"

"By all means," she breathes, but the Doctor is already brushing her hair aside, draping it around her neck before the air has left her lungs. Long fingers set to work, diligent in their task. It still thrills her, the way his fingertips brush against the back of her neck, the way his breath ghosts over the shell of her ear.

She wonders how long he’s been planning this. Unlike her, the Doctor is typically a creature of whimsy. No sneak previews, just barreling in and hoping for the best, his standard method of operation. But, with this, River can feel the precision, the planning, the perfection that went into this night.

As his hands fall away from their task, his knuckles trail across her shoulders and down her biceps before gently turning her toward the glass. In the reflection, she sees herself, fresh from a heist and still dressed for the occasion. Behind her, the most impossible man in the universe is grinning like the cat who ate the canary. A flush creeps over her skin at the sight of it, at the feel of the Doctor's breath on the side of her neck as he leans in to get a closer look.

Across her chest rests the most beautiful necklace she’s ever seen, and River’s voice drops an octave, ripe for misbehavior as she sighs out, “Oh, I am so keeping this.”

“I was hoping you might.”

She catches his smirk in the reflection, her interest peaked. “Not like you to encourage grand larceny. Quick, take me to bed before my husband comes back.”

He chuckles at her wicked tongue. “It’s not stealing. It’s a gift, from its owner.”

River’s incredulous brow arches as she turn to look at him properly. “Since when were you the sole heir to the Primean fortune?”

“Since I won it in a game of golf," he offers flippantly, tapping the tip of her nose. He dances away from her then, a flourish to his gangly arms as he removes the lid that's been keeping their dinner warm. "And not the whole fortune. Just the bits I thought you’d like.”

“When you said you cheated…”

“At the golf, definitely.” his coat swishes, hair falling into his eyes as he mimes swinging a golf club.

"I didn’t know you played," River offers, eyes locked on him, because she really isn't hungry anymore. Well, not for what's on the menu, anyway.

"I’m full of surprises," he grins.

Their eyes meet, the gold in his refracting the distant starlight. It's far more entrancing than nebula clouds or priceless heirlooms could ever dream to be.

Her own eyes must be filled to the brim with love and delight and desire. It must be written on her face, her appetite for something besides dinner, because that husband of her flushes crimson, entirely too pleased with himself as River confesses, "Yes, you are."

#in our year of the lord 2025??#we are blessed #fic

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the-doctor-needs-a-river · 2 years ago

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So, going into this tentatively because there are a lot of strong feelings going around.

People are so traumatised (and validly so) about queer/disabled character deaths from shows with horrible representation and queerbaiting that this has become almost the automatic response to the death of any queer/disabled character. In a lot of situations (cough cough spn etc.) this is absolutely the case.

HOWEVER.

What people are missing is that this doesn't apply to a show in the context where multiple characters are (respectfully) represented as disabled (Lucius, Ed, Jackie, Wee John, Prince Ricky) and nearly every single character is queer. The beauty of the intention here is that a queer/disabled character gets to just be a character. There's no tokenisation there. So when a character like this in this kind of context dies, it's just a character death.

Because of good representation, there is no malice in the death.

Add into this the fact that the death makes perfect narrative sense when viewed through the larger narrative lense of the main point of this season being Ed's emotional arc, it's actually very good story telling (can go deeper into this if requested). That's not saying that it doesn't hurt or that it doesn't feel unfair: that's what good story telling is supposed to do.

I think it's easy to, especially after the first 2 episodes of s2, try and villainise Ed, but I think that's a narrow understanding of what was going on. Yes, Ed was physically abusive to Izzy and the crew, but people overlook the fact that Izzy was emotionally abusive to Ed when he was in an incredibly vulnerable state, which was ultimately the catalyst for the events of S2ep1-2. They both did wrong and both deserved/needed to give apologies; there was no innocent party between them, a fact that Izzy acknowledges multiple times. That's why the parallel to S1ep10 ("there he is") was so beautiful and devastating because it was an understanding of wrongdoing on both parts and an acceptance that they no longer fit together.

Like Izzy said, THEY were Blackbeard, and Blackbeard needed to die for Ed to be able to move on and truly be himself - think the shift from ep 2 to 3 where Ed didn't want to die, he just didn't want to live being Blackbeard but had been convinced there wasn't any alternative. That was the overarching theme of Ed's arc and what Izzy was acknowledging in his final moments.

When you think about it this way, Izzy's death has been foreshadowed as a narrative necessity from the very beginning of the series. With this in mind, the journey that he goes on in the meantime goes above and beyond the acceptance of Ed's vulnerability that we needed to see for them to get to this point; we also see Izzy find his own vulnerability and strength within his found family and identity. THEY DIDN'T NEED TO DO THIS. They gave us this because they also love Izzy and wanted to give his character as much love as possible in the time up until his purpose as a device for Ed's character arc came.

And ultimately, this is what separates Izzy from Ed and Stede - his primary purpose has always been as a character based narrative device to challenge Ed. The fact that so many people love him in his own right is amazing but this has always been his main purpose. Of course he has intervals of brilliant character ingenuity and growth of his own, especially in this new series, but this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say we've been gifted this when we didn't need to be. Does that make the loss sting even more now that we've had it? Of course it does but that's the point. They went so above and beyond with him this series because they saw the potential in his character and Con's fantastic performances, and because they love him as much as we do. But the point still stands that he served the purpose of the character and device that he was always set out to be from the very beginning.

We know from dj that this was all very intentional and, although the analogy used can potentially be questioned, he stuck to his intended trope and executed it with dignity and beautiful parallels.

I guess I'm just saying that it makes me sad to see good writing be misinterpreted, but I completely get where the trauma response is coming from. I would hate to see us get into a situation where we lose this kind of amazing representation because writers are too scared of potential backlash to take the chance of including it when what has been interpreted wasn't narratively intended.

As always, this is written with respect, love and no ill intentions and everyone is entitled to their own thoughts ❤️

#ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #izzy hands #please don't come at me #i mean peace #i am a humble meta writer

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