the eldest river in "the impossible astronaut" is always so fucking distressing to me in hindsight. the way she knows what's going to happen at lake silencio, but she can't say anything to the people she loves most. she constantly has to lie, always has to play pretend. spoilers. the fate of the entire universe depends on it.
and the doctor, her doctor, doesn't trust her because of it.
because of all the lies. because of what she has to do to necessarily protect them both.
how she has to revisit her ugly childhood and fractured youth and watch it from afar, incapable of helping that scared little girl in a spacesuit, the young woman submerged in the water.
and she watches her husband and parents, too—watches them watching her own making—and they don't even know it.
There's this exchange between her and her mother that becomes all the more harrowing when you realizing that she's talking about herself.
River: I know what you're thinking.
Amy: No, you don't.
River: You're thinking, "If we can find the spaceman in 1969 and neutralize it, then it won't be around in 2011 to kill the Doctor."
Amy: Okay, lucky guess.
River: It's only because I was thinking it, too.
and then there's the moment where she catches a glimpse of the Silence in the tunnels and all that pain and trauma comes rushing back to her in an sickening instant, and even when they disappear from her memory, that horror still lingers in her body, but she pretends to keep it together anyway for other people's sake anyway.
in those dark tunnels, she only allows herself five minutes to fall apart away from prying eyes.
and she would have gotten away with it, too, had her father not shown up. he's concerned—even though he doesn't know her very well yet—and he's there, and he's asking all the right questions.
Is she okay? what did she mean when said there's a worse day coming for her?
And River opens up to him in a way that we've rarely seen her do.
River: The trouble is, it's all back-to-front. My past is his future. We're traveling in opposite directions. Every time we meet, I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him, but I know that every time I do, he'll be one step further away. And the day is coming when I'll look into that man's eyes, my Doctor, and he won't have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me.
fucking gutting.
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you watch episode one and are like the 80s means trouble haha. Then you watch episode three and realise the code was set by a gay man and then you do something normal like bash your head against a wall
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