#but doctors know where and how to hurt

[deathfavor]

Actual real talk though. Obviously being a (former) doctor gives Seiroku a lot of knowledge at his hands for his own sadistic delight. But a doctor really does make for a dangerous enemy. Not only in helping others recover on their side, but they also know the body inside and out. What will hurt the most, where to inflict the most damage, so on and so forth. Like sure, he COULD shatter someone’s whole hand......or just break the thumb and pinkie so they can’t wield a sword. Even if the rest of the hand is unharmed, just those two hindrances are enough. There’s a level of psychological torture to it all. He could just brute force it, but he can also do the most harm with the least mess / effort on his part because he knows what the weakest points are and how to weaponize it. Even if the spirit is strong, if the body isn’t capable, then that’s just more torture and pain he can inflict. 

[uncanny-tranny]

It's just... odd to me, I suppose, going from "what is in my pants is completely irrelevant to most anybody else's life" to the expectation that you must be completely open, essentially, about what is in your pants.

I think a lot of people understand the general idea of why it's bad decorum to demand people offer explanations for private information like this, but they don't analyze exactly why it's bad besides, "asking directly is just rude" and not "asking in any way still enforces the often violent nature of gender and sex, and putting people in the 'right box' is a part of that violence."

It's especially odd when seeing other trans people enforcing the idea that "what's in your pants?" is a genuine, good-faith basis for interacting with others.

[intyalote]

the thing about doctor/river is that the blatant romance is a defense mechanism. it’s playacting it’s how they sketch out the boundaries of their relationship because they can never be sure of how the scales of intimacy are balanced - they love each other, sure, but they are so rarely in a place where they both know enough about each other for mutual trust. so you get these really interesting juxtapositions like how eleven is in full flirty mode for impossible astronaut/day of the moon to the point where it feels like they’re about to make out every time they’re in the same frame but at the same time he dismisses her with “trust you? seriously?” and is shocked when she actually kisses him goodbye. in let’s kill hitler they flirt like hell when she is literally trying to murder him but not at all when they save each others’ lives. in the wedding of river song kovarian complains about them being lovey-dovey in front of her but right after that the doctor attempts to reset the timeline and river has to drag him kicking and screaming into respecting her enough to tell her the truth. in angels take manhattan we get both “just you wait till my husband gets home” (flaunting their relationship to grayle) and “never let him see the damage” (she doesn’t trust him to love her as a flawed, mortal person). they’re out of sync all the time, so sincerity is off the table except when it’s a necessary shortcut to trust that doesn’t exist yet - river whispering his name to him in the library when he doesn’t know her yet, their literal wedding being a tool the doctor uses to convince her to let him “die.”

the thing about “hide the damage” in particular is that river was responding to the doctor’s own fear of seeing the damage. she lied to him because she was trying to give him what he wanted, even if he couldn’t admit it. and it applies both to the broken wrist and to their relationship in general. every time he looks at her all he can see is the pain of her death, and she can see that he’s holding back even if she doesn’t exactly know why. this was always going to be a barrier to true intimacy between them unless they could be linear for long enough to know and see each other as they are, not as they’re going to be or as they were.

that’s why husbands of river song is such a perfect resolution for them. the only way river would ever be honest enough to let him see her insecurities is if she didn’t know who he was, so it had to be twelve and not eleven. and it specifically had to be twelve fresh from losing his memories of clara, so that he’d stop running away from confronting her death and just give them those 24 years together on darillium to really get to know each other, to see the ugliness and the imperfections and stay together anyway. it makes perfect sense that after that they could reach the level of love and trust river has for “her doctor” in the library, in a way that just isn’t possible with a relationship built on whirlwind dates done out of order and nothing else.

[ebenelephant]

I just think that Jack and Martha both should've got to slap the Doctor in Utopia, y'know?

[seaweedstarshine]

Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).

I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?

That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.

Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌

TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.

Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.

(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)

Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.

(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)

Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.

Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.

Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.

We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).

Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.

(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)

And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.

If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.

Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.

[perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin]

Hello praying people, I'm not doing well and would really appreciate your prayers right now <3

[quietwingsinthesky]

part of me wonders like. what if ruby's mom had just left. what if ruby had said "i'm named after a road", looking at her with so much hope in her eyes, and her mom, who made this choice nineteen years ago, couldn't handle it. and left.

[novantinuum]

honestly a big fan of the combination of Classic High-Concept Sci-Fi Horror Idea combined with shitty, unsettling ass CGI body horror

that's a 10/10 from me folks

[twelvedimensional]

also the depth the interiority that idle rambly monologue of the dr's holds, the fact that his offhand thoughts just coalesce into this wonderfully stark image (the tardis, revered, the tardis, reviled, the tardis, the center of a city and then all alone again at the edge of a sea)

[technicolorxsn]

love how there are pretentious video essays that just repeat the book and meander and ramble about house of leaves. it's what zampanó would have wanted. it is not, however, what I want

[scarletcomet]

guess whose therapist thinks she could benefit from inpatient treatment

[caffeinatedopossum]

I feel like I have an unacceptably low level of control over my body. Like obviously there are some things that no one can control but I have like actual big problems because of it. I'm not really sure how to describe it but it's not just me being really clumsy (although that is an effect of it) or even the tics I have.

It's like I can feel my body moving wrong constantly but I can't correct it and it hurts and it sucks and I'm tired. I'm tired of hurting myself, making mistakes, breaking things, acting like it's fine when in reality I'm constantly afraid of how much any movement I make next could hurt me. I need to move to stay sane, I want to workout and get stronger and go on walks with my friends. I wanna get better. I can't even roll over in bed without pain and I'm just so tired.

[eebie]

ffuck astro boy 2009

[watering-plastic-plants]

genuinely confused at how my dad decided to get a degree in a scientific field

[quietwingsinthesky]

for the ship ask game, have you ever thought about simm!master/eleven? would you like to?

would i ever!!!!!!

this was the basis of one of my posts about little amy so long ago. a hypothetical s5 where the master sticks with the doctor after he regenerates. but like can we talk about how insane that dynamic between him and amelia, the literal eight year old, would be. look at me. one of the defining things of eleven's run is that the first face he saw was amy's. seared onto his hearts!!! now, imagine that happens in a world where the master did everything right to be that person, and it was still amy. the tardis crashed, and the doctor went one way and the master went the other, and by the time the master drags himself soaking wet out of what was the swimming pool and into amelia's garden, the doctor is already having dinner with some random human child.

things simm!master is not above: being a little bitch to amy about this. yes, even when she's eight. (amelia pond with her stories about her magical raggedy doctor!! ...and the trash rat who crawled out of his time machine after him and threatened to eat her. wait okay hold on i know im getting distracted here but aslkjdalkjsd rory who amy makes dress up as the doctor vs mels who insists on dressing up as the master because she craves violence and an excuse to bite people.)

ANYWAY. god. eleven who is this bottomless well of grief and rage. and the master who is so much like him in this incarnation. silly goofy guys who burn too bright, burn up everything and everyone around them. what is simm!master if not a version of eleven untempered by kindness. i wonder what the master would have to say about a version of the doctor who is aware of how scared people are of him and uses it to his advantage. who scares the rest of the universe so much that they try to lock him away and kill him and do anything they can to get rid of him. when they lock the doctor up in the pandorica, does the master give him the final shove into the chair or is he a few feet away, just barely restrained, impotently snapping and snarling to prevent this?

but never looking at it directly, right? neither of them would be able to. not at what's between them, not at what came before. if you don't talk about that time you both saved each other, then maybe you can pretend it didn't happen.

i think the master would make eleven worse, no doubt about it. i think eleven might just make the master a little better, and he'd hate that but that wouldn't stop it from happening. they might find some sort of equilibrium, just this once, a little willing to bend in the aftermath of the events of the end of time. that part of the master that will be missy one day wakes up. the part of the doctor that was once the time lord victorious gets a last glorious breath. they can have that, together.

okay. okay. one last thing. gets ill thinking about eleven who is so physically affectionate being that way with the master. with mr 'im going to kiss my wife i married for political gain like im starving'. with mr 'time lord telepathy does not require physical contact but if we don't touch foreheads right now ill die'. with mr 'fuck u but also im gonna die in your arms, don't leave or let me go before everything falls quiet.' thinks about eleven touching him and hugging him and kissing him and- thinks about the master recoiling from it, hackles raised, or shoving the doctor away when he does. thinks about the doctor not stopping. thinks about the master getting accustomed to his touch, taking it greedily. (thinks about missy kissing the doctor to greet him later.)

yeag <3

[put any ship in my ask box and i’ll give my brutally honest opinion]

[nyelaexe]

One thing I will always appreciate about my mom is that she never judged me for my hyperfixations through the years. She gave me room to love whatever I wanted to. She never made fun and she never thought I was weird. She always supported me and, in fact, she even enjoyed them with me.

She'd watch One Direction music videos with me when I was a teenager. She even took me to see the 1D movie in theaters on a school day and she saved her movie ticket. I hate that I wasn't able to find it when we cleaned out her apartment. I remember her crying at the party where Zayn bought his mom a house. To this day she would listen to History. She sent me a link to the mv in August and reminisced on the days when life was easier.

In my later teenage to young adult years she would watch kpop videos with me. We would watch BTS and Astro videos in her room. I remember after Jonghyun passed away I watched Before Our Spring for the first time with her because I was too sad to watch in on my own. She ended up really liking BTS and she'd call me into her room whenever they were on TV. I have videos of her in my phone dancing to Move by Taemin.

We'd even watch anime together. We watched about 7 or 8 episodes of Death Parade and she really liked it. I didn't think she really cared all that much but every now and again she would bring the show up and tell me how much she like it. I hate that we were never able to finish all 12 episodes.

I always thought she'd pretend to be interested in my hobbies to humor me. Whenever I would go to her room and pull up kpop on the TV or watch Sohyang performances with her I would apologize and tell her "I know you don't really care, we don't have to watch if you don't want to." And she would always tell me to stop saying stuff like that. She was so happy to just hang out with me. She was interested in the things I like because I liked them and they made me happy. My brother would make little jokes about my interests from the time I was like 9 years old and obsessed with Justin Bieber. I know they were just jokes but, being a little black kid, I always felt weird about the media I consumed. My mom never made me feel like I was doing anything wrong by liking what I liked. I was able to explore all kinds of stuff and I'm so grateful to her.