#Tasha Lem

[nobleriver]

[lady-phasma]

The Time of the Doctor

Tight.

[seaweedstarshine]

Haters call eleven straight Doctor because he’s attracted to older women, when his type is clearly just morally questionable people who look middle-aged (he calls Churchill “dear,” don’t forget. he never calls Amy or Clara that. Churchill is in the same category as River and the TARDIS).

[thingsasbarcodes]

Doctor Who 7.X2 - The Time of the Doctor

[killjoygem]

Tasha Lem was a cool character, I wish we had gotten to see more of her

[patwrites]

I do love Tasha Lem!!!! Such a dynamic character

[betterbooksandthings]

“Everyone loves a good villain. One who cackles at the sky and shakes their fist and brings some form of doom to something or someone. It is fun to have someone to root against and root for — especially if they have a fun, cosplay-worthy aesthetic. With all that goes into stanning our favorite villains of all time, there is something to be said about examining the superficiality of villainy.

Like many character types, villains have often been visually identifiable. They have some costume or way of moving or physical features that mark them as villains in the story. Villains look bad or evil. Villains just look like villains. This is where some of the problems start with who we assign villainy to in storytelling. A hero versus villain narrative is often an Us versus Them set up, with Us being on the side of the hero and Them being on the side of the villain.

I recognize that sympathetic villains have recently been on the rise. I, for one, have also argued there are more generous ways of interpreting villains from our literary past. Nevertheless, when we look at the big picture of villains, they are often the othered members of society who are wrong or bad or shunned.“

[pikechris]

@daddyslittlegirlofsammy it's from 2015 yes but it's also why I specifically said "on screen". we all know 12 and her spent years together on dallirium and kissed and fucked, that's what the ending implied, but it wasn't shown on screen. that's the point. the last time we saw the doctor kiss anyone was missy, and that was brief at that. the tradition of the doctor kissing every companion and some randoms and his wife died with 11.

even taking into account that yes, 12 and river did kiss a lot off screen, it's still been nine years for us viewers and hundreds of years for the doctor since that.

yeah the doctor hasn't kissed a man since 2005 but they also haven't kissed anyone on screen since missy in 2014. ten actual years. do you understand the significance of this

[agenderhyde]

Clara fully supported 11 fucking a space nun

[sunflowerscottie]

Not to be Catholic on main, but I love a sexy church

[companion-showdown]

Who is the Hottest Companion?

Liv Chenka and Fey Truscott-Sade were the two character who actually tied, the rest are the best performing losers from the round determined by the metric I use to seed the tournament, which is a combination of the number and percentage of votes

TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

[doverstar]

Okay, two whole people asked me to share my thoughts on River Song as a character and my thoughts on Doctor/River after I wrote a whole Clara Oswald essay, and it took me 4 days to write that I ship River with the Doctor and I love her, but there are so many problems. The biggest is named Steven Moffat. And because you asked, I will tell you why, turn up your screen brightness here we go-

*huge inhale* In a nutshell, River Song is ridiculous. Stop wait let me explain- *hands you the nutshell and pats your hand* Shh. River Song as a character first appeared in Silence in the Library, right? We were with the Doctor’s tenth incarnation and Donna Noble, statistically the most popular era in the show’s long history. And this episode was Moffat’s fourth-ever story for the show. Blink and the The Doctor Dances two-parter were all so good. He was on a roll. River comes in and she’s so much fun. And she knows the Doctor. Already. And the crowd goes oooooh collectively. She knows him intimately, it seems. And he has no clue who she is, so oooh again, she’s from his future! It is heavily implied that they'll be married—it’s just the first place anyone’s brain goes.  And then she dies. And we loved her, end scene. Then Moffat took over the show and got the opportunity to explain himself, and he explained himself really poorly.

River went from being a very interesting flash-in-the-pan to being an overdecorated ideal. She is Moffat’s ideal woman. She’s crazy, she seems independent and powerful and unattainable, but she’s actually totally obsessed with the protagonist and consistently making innuendos at him. Her sun rises and sets on the Doctor. Why? Because that’s Moffat’s idea of an attractive woman. I kid you not. I think the problem with writing something that is pure self-indulgence is that you’re so excited about what you’re writing, you don’t stop and think, hey, is this working? You don’t measure the quality. You’re not thinking clearly, it’s just wish-fulfillment. River is everything Moffat thinks a woman should be. Mysterious, strong, insane, violent, but only because of the man she’s drooling over. Her whole story is an excuse to write a woman like the one I just described, because it’s hot to Moffat. (I know. Gross.) Here comes a Moffat rant. The man is insanely talented, and I am not silly enough to believe that all of his writing regarding women is fetish-fueled – I just don’t think that way typically when I’m watching something, but it’s really hard to miss with Moffat. Haven’t you noticed every one of his female characters is full of lust for the protagonist? That’s weird. It was weird when Amy kissed the Doctor against his will, engaged to Rory and not interested in “anything quite so permanent”. It was weird when Nanny Clara kissed him after having just met him, in the middle of a dangerous situation, and then not keeping her eyes front up the magic ladder. (It was weird that Oswin was dressed like that and lounging in all of those poses the first time we saw her, as a dead woman in a Dalek shell, go back and watch it. Laugh like I did. You’re [hallucinating that you’re] stranded on an alien planet in a ship that crashed—and that’s what you’re wearing to work? The last survivor?) It's weird that rando Tasha Lem divulges intense, universe-altering danger to the Doctor in a breathless voice with space wine as they creep closer together over a bed. Ew. What? Why is that even happening? And finally, it’s weird that a girl brought up to murder her parents’ much-older alien best friend, who she was brainwashed to believe is the universe’s biggest problem, should want to eat his face off. Especially when their timelines are out of order and she hasn’t gotten to know him for real at all yet.

Is the Doctor attractive? Yup. Was any of that necessary? Nope. Now we’ll transition for a bit into what I think is wrong with the ship, even though I do ship it. (More on the pros of it later.) The more we learned about her, the less River and the Doctor made sense. The only truly wonderful thing about their dynamic (my favorite part!) is that the Doctor and River act like they’re already married, even though they’re meeting out of order. They have that assurance in one another. They each know the other person will become someone they’re willing to marry someday—they each get a sneak peek of that future together. (River in Let’s Kill Hitler, the DoctorinSilence in the Library.) So when they do meet, even when she’s in Instant Kill Mode and he’s in You Scare Me mode, it’s with an expectation that, hold on, eventually I’m going to really really care about you. Everything they do with one another from that point forward is influenced by that expectation, which makes them comfortable around one another. So that’s sweet and I love it. The problem is—River isn’t the Doctor’s ideal woman. She might be Moffat’s, but on paper she should not work with the Doctor romantically. Moffat engineered this woman—who is supposed to eventually be the Doctor’s wife—to be violent, self-centered, insane, very sexual, and willing to shatter any laws of time (or morality) she sees fit. That’s the opposite of what the Doctor admires, chooses, and is attracted to from everything we’ve ever seen of him. (Does the Doctor like smart, capable women who are good in a crisis? Yes! Obviously! That’s not what I’m talking about.) But suddenly after meeting River, being told one day she’ll be his wife, (instead of organically learning why he would marry her and organically learning who she truly is and then growing to love her naturally), very quickly and without explanation he’s all “And unlike me, she really doesn’t mind shooting people. I shouldn’t like that, kinda do a bit!” What? Since when? Since Moffat. Because Moffat is behind the wheel and Moffat finds that hot. Sir, just because you told me to ship it doesn’t mean I’m convinced. Now, is it her fault that she’s a murder weapon? Is it River’s fault that she was brought up to believe it’s okay to choose violence, wear poison lipstick, and be the girlboss of murder? Absolutely not. Melody Pond was kidnapped, tortured, brainwashed, and used as a human/Time Lady weapon just because she was there. She had absolutely no choice in the matter. And when she did eventually, finally get to choose, she chose to rescue the Doctor and start over. She sacrificed every remaining regeneration she might have had to reverse her actions. That last part? That’s awesome. I love that. But that nice moment doesn't fix the rest. The story goes that River was stolen, raised to kill the Doctor, and then fell in love with him along the way—and the special sauce is, she’s meeting him out of order; every time she sees him he knows her less because she’s moving backward along his timeline. (Unnecessarily complicated, but very fun, Moffat! Can’t forget fun in Doctor Who.) The story goes, too, that the Doctor meets his wife from the future in the biggest universal Library one day, watches her die, and waits for her to appear again so he can start a love story he knows the ending to—and the special sauce is, he’s meeting her out of order; every time he sees her he’s getting to know her more and she knows him less, because she’s moving backward while he moves forward. That does make for an interesting love story. You’re excited to see it play out because you and the Doctor expect it to be a doozy based on River’s “not those times, don’t you dare, you watch us run” speech in Forest of the Dead. But the problem is, they were both told they’d marry one day and therefore they treat it as a foregone conclusion, so there’s no organic attempt at really, truly falling in love. They behave as though they didn’t fall anywhere, they were pushedinside and someone locked the door. (I just pictured Moffat outside with the key. “Now KISS!”)

The point is that nobody worked for this relationship. If you’re going to explain how they fell in love, because the audience already knows they apparently will, then actually show them falling in love! When did the Doctor decide he loved River? When he found out she was Amy’s literal daughter? When he found out she was a psychopath? Or did it all begin in the Library when she died for him, because he already knew that for some reason one day he would marry her, and it’s all just placebo from then on? Or did Ten just regenerate into the sort of man who inexplicably “love(s) a bad girl, me”, and really gets off on those moments when River threatens to shoot and kill other life forms? Yeah, that makes sense. When did River decide she loved the Doctor? When Kovarian told her he’s the scourge of universes? Or was it when River heard he's ultimately the reason she was kidnapped and made to be raised by the Silence and forced into a space suit as a child, because one day she has to rid the universe of this man? Oh! Maybe she fell in love with him when her literal parents went to primary school with her as peers and Amy told her about the Raggedy Doctor as little girls and Mels decided she’d marry him for some reason one day even though she was trained to kill him! (*big pause to catch my breath*) Do you see what I’m saying? We didn’t see it happen. We were told, not shown, that they were in love, or that they would be in love enough to marry one day, and then we watched it not actually happen. And so did the Doctor and River. They are both living in a constant state of resignation to their relationship. Moffat didn’t tell a love story, he told an epilogue, and neither of the lovers got to experience the beginning! For all the cutesy times they quipped “spoilers” at each other, they never once just let things take their course naturally. They lived in the spoilers. The spoilers are the only reason they’re together in the first place! 

And one more thing. A side thing. The Doctor did not want to marry River. That’s disappointing, isn’t it? The wedding was not a happy one. They did it because according to River, their history (their relationship’s “archeology”) differed - she’s either the woman who murders or marries the Doctor, and given those choices, the Doctor wanted to choose murderer instead of wife as River’s role because it was the only way to save reality, but she wouldn't listen to him until he called her wife. Their wedding, just like everything else about their romantic history, is something they’re forced into. It’s contrived. It’s confusing. It’s very difficult to believe in. Moffat gave us all the relational-dynamic payoff prematurely and never actually showed us the part where they fell in love.

That’s my problem(s) with their relationship. Now let me talk about (as requested) River as a character again and what I actually do find most interesting and endearing about her and about her relationship with the Doctor. Like I said, I actually do love her, I actually do ship it, and now I’m gonna vomit out why.

The most endearing thing about River to me is that she is insecure, and that humanizes the silly ideal. Now, in spinoff material River led a very long and varied life, and the Doctor was not the only man she was intimate with. But he’s the only one she loves. That love is what makes her so insecure. And it is love—after a while of repeatedly running into him after Lake Silencio, River is consistently choosing to put the Doctor and his needs before herself and her own. She always had it in her; she’s Amy and Rory’s daughter and the child of the Tardis, after all. But it’s the influence that the Doctor has on her that makes her go from psychopath to heroine. She genuinely believes he’s the best man ever, which is saying something when your father is Rory Williams.

And she, River, murdered him or tried to. She was stolen from his friends and made to attack him, made to put them in danger. She had to lie to him nearly every time they met, or at the very least withhold important information from him. Every time she met him, he trusted her less and less and less. 

And the Doctor is not perfect, but think about how River must see him. He must seem perfect, right? He’s so, so kind, he’s so, so good. He’s so brave. He’s so selfless. He’s so smart. He’s amazing, and he uses his time and his talents for other people, saving lives and helping out all across the stars. He even helped her. He even forgave her. That’s why she fell in love with him, not because he’s hot when he’s clever, not because she’s a psychopath and really, Madam Kovarian, who else was she going to fall in love with, what a basic mistake – NO. If you want to look at it from its most compelling angle, no matter how confusing it gets, how contrived, the most compelling angle is that River loves the Doctor because the Doctor forgave her. In spite of everything. And we see how she really thinks of him, how insecure she truly is, what she really thinks he must feel about her, in The Husbands of River Song. That episode is my favorite River episode.

She got to marry him, but it was under force. She got to be with him, but not forever. She got to help him, but not always. They kissed, but he treated it like it was the first time. He forgave her, but he had to bail them all out in the end, because when she tried she made a mess of it. “Trust you? Seriously?” “I don’t wanna marry you.” “You embarrass me.” “Why do you have to be this? Melody Pond—your daughter, I hope you’re both proud!” River is in love with him, but she genuinely does not think he is in love with her. On paper, it doesn’t seem like she’d be someone he chooses to love. Maybe someone he chooses to pity. Maybe someone he chooses to look after, because her parents are dead now and he loved them and he failed to save Melody the first time, guilty to the last. Whichever way she looks at it, he can’t possibly love her. Sure, he flirts with her, but he flirts with everyone. Yes, she’s smart, but he only takes the best. He’s surrounded by smart. She saved him and it was her honor, but she’s not the first to do that anyway. And like I said, neither of them got to see when the other person first started loving them, because it’s all back-to-front and they exist in a state of resignation. I can think of no better way to feel insecure about where you stand with the man you love than literally never ever knowing when it will begin.

But River’s cool. She’s brave and clever and she can do just about anything she wants with whoever she wants. She can live like the Doctor—adventures in time and space, and maybe sometimes he’ll run into her. In fact, she keeps calling on him when she needs help, and doesn’t he always come? Doesn’t that mean something? One day they’ll be married, just keep waiting, okay, now they are married, he’ll get used to it, he still flirts with her, stay cool, stay funny, stay smart, at least he’s still around, just keep waiting— And then after a while she stops waiting. She’s not like her mother. She gets on with life. The Husbands of River Song is genius because their timelines are synced perfectly, at last, for them to be at the peak of their affection for one another. River doesn’t know him, but not because he’s wearing a new face, because he’s actually really, really obvious about the fact that it’s him. He’s constantly trying to get her to see it without outright saying it, but she has this mental block that will not even consider that he’s there, especially the deeper they go into danger together. Why is that? Well, she says it. The enemy says she’s the perfect bait, refers to her as the woman who loves the Doctor, and what does River say? It's right here. And it’s made very clear by her actions throughout the episode before this speech that River really does believe it. Because he’s standing right behind her listening to all of that and she hasn’t seen that it’s him, because of course he’s not here. She suffers from the same mentality her sweet dad Rory did—that the person she loves will never love her the way she loves them. River doesn’t think she’s nothing, but she thinks she’s nothing to the Doctor.

I think it’s beautiful that she was wrong. I think the Doctor loves River, and I think it’s a very different love than what he had for Rose Tyler (or, now that I think of it, Sarah Jane). It’s still love, it’s just not the same. It’s nice that you can ship both, actually.

(If you ask me which I think is the better love story between the two ships, that’s a different essay for a different time, and one that I think will have people drop-kicking me throughout every facet of the internet. Right now we’re focusing on River and on her ship with the Doctor, which I do enjoy.) I may not think that it was brilliantly executed, but the fact remains that at some point, the Doctor did grow to love and care about River Song. And there’s one part of their wedding that I also liked a lot— When he marries her and her parents give consent, the Doctor’s first request of his wife is “help me”. That’s what wives do! That’s what husbands need from wives! That’s marriage. The sticking together no matter what, being the person you both turn to in life’s darkest moments. River understood that concept, because when Amy asks in The Angels Take Manhattan if allowing the Angel to touch her will send her to Rory, who has just died in front of them, the Doctor says he doesn’t know, and Amy asks “But it’s my best shot, yeah?” The Doctor shouts no, but River tells him to shut up. “Yes, yes, it is!” And she’s crying, but she’s smiling too. She knows what she would do if she were Amy. She knows why Amy is going to let the Angel touch her. Because that’s marriage. And that’s what she feels for the Doctor. I do ship it! I love the idea that love helped shape River instead of hate, contrary to Kovarian’s plans for Melody. I love the idea that the Doctor started out untrusting of River and in the end, trusted her implicitly. I love that he had her when he needed help. And let’s face it, they really are so much fun.

[universe-on-her-shoulders]

Prompt: Clara Oswald discovers her braided wig that she once wore back when she and 12 went to visit Robin Hood among a chest of drawers. She puts it on and shows the Doctor, who is utterly mesmerized and lovestruck by how the wig enhances her beauty.

"Think fast."

The Doctor had milliseconds to react, his hands coming up into a vaguely defensive position as he anticipated an attack of some kind, but instead he found himself snagging a tangle of brown hair from mid-air and frowning at it in consternation, attempting to work out if it was in some way dangerous.

"Why have you thrown your hair at me?" he asked Clara as she descended the steps from the upper level of the console room, grinning as she approached. "Why isn't it on your head? Did you get bored again? We've talked about that. No sharp objects when you're bored."

"You're not exactly in a position to talk. Remember the shaved head and the rocket fins?"

"Remember who therefore managed to smuggle a TARDIS key past Tasha Lem."

Clara grimaced, wrinkling her nose, and he knew he'd won; as he appraised her, he realised abruptly that her hair appeared to still be on her head, and that this was therefore some kind of wig. "Alright, you can have that one."

"Why am I holding your hair?"

"It's from when we met Robin Hood," she said, taking it from him and shaping it with her hands until it vaguely resembled the hairstyle he recalled from Nottingham. "I found it in the wardrobe."

"You were meant to be-"

"Finding an outfit for the coronation, I know. I got sidetracked."

"Clearly," he couldn't help but feel a lingering stab of discomfort at the memory of their time with Robin; he recalled with absolute clarity the terrible, agonising few moments in which he'd thought her dead.

"Don't be like that," Clara rolled her eyes, misinterpreting his silence. "Don't get all green-eyed."

"I'm not green-eyed," he assured her, mostly truthfully; perhaps some resentment lingered at her absolute giddiness around Robin. "Just remembering how it felt to watch you die."

There was a beat of silence, and then she wrapped her arms around him, and he let out a long breath, relaxing into her embrace.

"Sorry," she mumbled, as he extricated an arm and reciprocated the hug. "Should've thought. Not planning on dying any time soon though. Promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

"You can sue me if I do. Inflicting emotional distress."

"Deal."

[laurelismyblackcanary]

Doctor Who Rankings: Moffat Era: Eleventh Doctor

This is the ranking of the specials with Eleve

A Christams Carol, The Doctor the widow and the wardrobe, The snowman, The day of the Doctor, the Time of the Doctor

A Christmas Carol It's the best of all the Christmas themed specials of all the Doctors in my opinion. The Christmas Carol is my favourite Christmas story and I love the twist the show gave to the story.

The day of the Doctor I liked seeing the last days of Gallifrey and the moral dilemma the Doctor went through when deciding if he should push the button or not. I like seeing Ten, Eleven and the War Doctor together and I think Bilie Piper did a spectacular job as the Moment. I also liked the way all the Doctors came together to save Gallifrey.

The time of the Doctor The way Eleven left Clara behind reminded my a lot of when Nine sent Rose away in Bad Wolf / The parting of the way. I didn't expect Tasha Lem to be a Dalek. The way they solved the problem of the regeneration limit was surely better than this "Timeless Child" garbage they came up with now to expand the show beyond any limit.

The snowman I liked the villain of this story. I always enjoy Vastra, Jenny and Strax. This was probably my favorite version of Clara.

The Doctor, the widow and the wardrobe I only watched it once. Never cared for it, don't really remember it.

[sparklefiists]

Click the source link for 138 gifs (245x145) of Orla Brady as Tasha Lem in Doctor Who Special - The Time of The Doctor (2013). All gifs were made from scratch by me so please don’t claim as yours, include in other gif packs/hunts or make edits with them (if you want to turn them into gif icons, ask me first and give credit); I don’t abide by the classic +/- 5 year rule. For full rules, go HERE. Reblog & like if you find them helpful.    

Triggers:  holograms/flickering lights, kissing, bright lights.

[doctor-who-binge]

I believe even Moffat said he disliked the sexual tension he made between Tasha Lem and 11. Just like RTD said he regretted the unrequited love story between Martha and 10.

Tasha Lem would have been so much better without it.

I honestly don't want to rewatch whats his face video's on Moffat but to some extent 11 did have a lot of sexual tension with women, even powerful characters and thats a shame