#rtd1 era

[topaz-eyes]

I mean, this is how Ten's run began? Ten derailed Harriet Jones' Golden Age at the end of "The Christmas Invasion" on a whim, and that set the stage for Harold Saxon/The Master to appear in S3. So it makes sense that Fourteen's (and Donna's) actions in the Specials with gravity/mavity, the salt, and the Toymaker would lead to a whole mess for the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby to fix.

I wondered why there were so many (direct!) callbacks to S3's "The Last of the Time Lords" in The Toymaker special, like the similarity in the method of taking over the world (a signal broadcast from every screen)--right down to the hand that picked up The Toymaker's gold tooth. This might be why. If there's one thing I learned from watching RTD's 2005 run, it's that he adores his symbolism.

I just love that all the events happening in the new season are the direct result of Fourteen and Donna fucking around, so now Fifteen and Ruby have to deal with a whole world of mess and multiple really batshit crazy villains. Hell is gradually breaking loose, Fifteen and Ruby running around trying to deal with all this, while camera cuts to Fourteen and Donna sipping tea in their garden like “Let us say, from the bottom of our hearts, OUR BAD.”

[angelqueen04]

[leikeliscomet]

'Ten should've treated Martha better by acknowledging time travelling as a Black person and not comparing her to Rose' and 'Ten and Martha were an interesting duo by having a doctor x doctor pairing an had some great character moments' and 'RTD's handling of race in s3 was dookie' and 'Martha had great character traits and many Black fans felt seen by her' need to coexist. Because I feel like bc of the way things went down in s3 people think Martha never wanted to travel with Ten AT ALL or she would never wanna travel in space or time ever again. All this 'she hates the Doctor' 'she wouldn't wanna come back' whoa hold on now...

[casasupernovas]

thinky thoughts on the rtd era:

when nine regenerated into ten, it was like he regenerated using rose as an imprint but he only got a rough imprint of humanity, the image of it - youthful, enthuastic. but it's just a facade because underneath is the cold, aloof, dark, mysterious alien - still. the image doesn't convince rose at first but through a act of heroism and bravery, ends up being so convincing rose doesn't see a problem with it...until she forgets that despite the youthful nature of the face, they are much, much older and thus have had a long life outside of her, before her and will after her. until the parts of her that are supposed to stand out like compassion and kindess blur in with the alien and instead turn into insensitivity, detatchment and inconsideration.

and rose now wants something that isn't real. the doctor isn't going to settle down with her. he never does. she would never say it but it's what she wanted. when she says the doctor isn't going to slow down so neither will she there is something so desperately sad in the statement. but either way after rose's departure, ten is the equivalent of the chick leaving the nest for the first time. or more like a chick who was pushed out of the nest.

enter donna and martha. and regarding the racnoss, it's like donna encountered the child in the middle of a huge meltdown. his safety blanket is gone. he needs to learn and grow. so enter martha.

like a long-suffering carer who gets little thanks she helps to scrub off the rough edges, teach him things, take care of him, protect him from danger, goes above and beyond. but as all care givers who are taken for granted or give care to someone who doesn't really want it despite knowing they need it, they are taken for granted. and they have to start looking after themselves because it's draining them.

then enter donna, who reaps the benefits of the advice she gave him. though i doubt when she said he needed to find someone to stop him, she meant to find a companion and use them like a stress ball, to put it nicely. he's not perfect but no one is, but this time, it's his turn to help grow someone into their best self. but donna's story is slightly different.

donna gets into a lot of situations with the doctor that are, well, terrifying for her. she does good in pompeii, because she does help save people. but when she sees the ood she's devastated and when it's revealed they were slowly poisoning someone to turn them into one of them donna doesn't know who's in the right anymore. with the sontarans, she's scared out of her mind and with jenny she is the one teaching the doctor to be more open minded ...but by the time the daleks move earth, donna is the only one out of her depth and plaintively terrified.

but then the solution is clear. to survive this she needs to be more doctor like...literally.

all of 10's companions are all doctor-fied to varying degrees. rose's doctorfication makes her cold and unsympathetic, and jackie comments she's starting to be less like herself and more like the doctor. rose thinks this is great. jackie is clearly doesn't. martha jones' doctorfication is major both metaphorially and literally, with her being a medical student and taking the reigns for most of their travels. donna noble is the companion who gets the doctorfication to the highest degree. she literally becomes him and it kills her.

but im racking my noodle as to what the takeaway is. because it appears that donna's self plus the doctor is exactly what they needed to sort the situation...but it's like an almost monstrous/frankenstein take on the balance between what the doctor needs in a companion and why the companion needs the doctor. it's not lost on me that the doctor and donna become hybrids in the episodes where they confront biologically engineered mutants revived from the literal chest cavity of their deranged creator.

so. what gives? and the moment, i don't really have an answer. it's all a bit bleak.

[darklinaforever]

Deconstructing Moffat fanboys (and why they will ALWAYS choose to believe Ten was in love with and shagged Reinette)

I want to say that the ideas in this meta are not entirely my own – I’ve gotten a lot of help and feedback from MEN irl. MEN AS IN MALE. And that’s something I want to highlight bc of the very nature of what I will be saying here. A lot of people are getting upset over the latest Moffat fan to hit the Internet today, via that Digital Spy article (which I won’t link to, out of principle lol).

I – and every other Doctor Who fan with a sense of justice and a keyboard – has written meta about the inherent sexism in Moffat episodes, but that’s not what this post is about: it’s about the inherent sexism of the fanboys, and why our very valid arguments are doomed to fail. In particular, this is about their sexism, and why they cheer on every one of the Doctor’s romantic escapades (both real and imagined), except for one … Rose Tyler. Why is that? Is it classism? Maybe. Sexism??? Definitely.

It’s important to take a big step back, and look at the fanboys, and how a lot of them initially became Doctor Who fans: because a LOT of them are Classic Who fans, or at least had it on their peripheral radar (and conversely, the show didn’t have nearly as many female fans back then as it does today). These concepts are almost definitely related. Prior to 2005, the Doctor was a lone figure. He wasn’t always handsome – but he was brilliant. He saved the day. He was respected – and when he wasn’t, he proved himself and brought his enemies to heel. He had hot companions that he never looked twice at because he didn’t need to. He was powerful, and smart …

… and pretty much the perfect character for a geeky male tween/teen to self-identify with. Particularly males who maybe had a bit of a hard time with women—which, let’s face it, although stereotypes are often a bad thing, the stereotype of a geeky male who is uncomfortable with women is still culturally relevant.

Fast forward to 2005. Billie Piper is the companion. And she’s hot, right? In a girl-next-door kind of way (probably the girl you could never get a date with). And there’s some flirtation with Nine, but nothing you can’t really handwave away if you’re so freaking totally excited that your favorite show is back on the air after a long hiatus, and the writer’s don’t push things too far. (This, I believe, is where I think a lot of the “I liked Rose — but only in season 1” comments come from). And Nine dies for her – and not in the same distant way that Five dies for Peri, by handing her the poison’s antidote instead of taking it himself. Nine kisses her. This is the stuff of discomfort here (and probably where a lot of the “Bad Wolf wasn’t really Rose – it was the TARDIS!!” stuff comes from).

Now let’s fast forward to 2006. Again, Billie is the companion, but this time she sizzles on screen with David Tennant. And they are clearly in love, they are written to be in love. You’re a fan, you watch the confidentials, and you read DWM, and it’s all over the place. And here is your male childhood hero, the hero on TV you identify with because he’s not the kind of Casanova that you will never be either, because he never needed to be–and look at him. He’s fawning all over Rose. She’s just a stupid companion. She’s no different from anyone else!! But he fucking cries when she leaves?? Wtf is this bullshit about him practically being suicidal in The Runaway Bride? WHY WON’T HE SHUT UP ABOUT HER IN S3?? He is NOT supposed to be emotionally reliant on women. He is supposed to be YOU. And YOU’RE not emotionally reliant on women—particularly not those who are all kind of girl-next-door and kind of remind you of the girl you could never get a date with in high school. That is NOT her place. He shouldn’t even NOTICE her!!

… so what do you do?

You hone into episodes like Girl in the Fireplace. Let’s think like an angry cis white male for a minute here:

1)      Option 1 is that you have problems with the characterization and sexism in the script, because it’s very OOC and the Doctor’s character arc is compromised in many ways, including but not limited to the fact that he no longer acts like he’s in love with the companion who now pisses you the hell off for reasons stated about

2)      Option 2 is that he sidelines his useless companion, just like she’s meant to fucking be sidelined. He doesn’t notice her. He falls in love with someone else – someone who WAITS for him, because he is an allegory for you, and he is just that damn awesome that girls will do that. She’s hot and famous and has a huge rack, and even though the episode’s writer and DWM come right out and say he never screwed her, you insist upon it. Not because you don’t know better – but because it means that Rose is now back to being the companion she should be (e.g. “I really hated Rose in s2 – except for Girl in the Fireplace, she was great in that one!”)

Why doesn’t this extend to other ships, you may ask? Because Rose was unique in that since then, the Doctor has never been so emotionally reliant – indeed, repeatedly emasculated, for multiple seasons, in their opinion – by a love interest. (e.g. “I really hated how he moped over Rose – he never moped over Dodo!”)

River Song – first off, he’s not exactly written to be in love with her. He’s alluded to have sex with her, and spar with her—she’s a sassy, sexy match, and he never really mourns her extensively.

QE1 – he shagged her and they broke up

Reinette – Reinette who? (After GitF, she’s never mentioned again)

Astrid – ditto

Lady Christina – ditto

Lynda-with-a-Y – ditto

Jabe – ditto

Joan – it wasn’t really the Doctor, and again, except for feeling bad about the incident in The End of Time, by all appearances he’s over it as quickly as with the others

Rose is clearly different. VERY different. And that’s why he was NEVER in love with her, and she WASN’T special, and that’s why he FELL IN LOVE WITH REINETTE, and that’s why he SHAGGED REINETTE, and that’s why S1 ROSE WAS BETTER, and that’s why MOFFAT IS A BETTER WRITER, and that’s why … ((insert fanboy opinion trope here)).

It all comes down to this: Rose mattered. Rose touched the Doctor’s life in a way that fanboys don’t want to admit they would have liked to have been touched during their formative years, when he was an allegory for them. And to this very day, it pisses them off.

[corallapis]

'noo the new tardis is too white she's too clean' ok pls get off my gifset -_-

[nat-20s]

RTD if you're listening 🙏🙏🙏🙏 you've given me everything I could ever want for Donna and I cannot thank you enough for that. Now please let me hold Apollo's dodgeball and manifest an on screen apology from followed by actually healthy friendship with The Doctor for my queen Martha Jones

[songforten]

[aq2003]

i say this 100% unironically and as someone who very recently watched rtd1 era twice over; if you think the writing quality of the 60th specials is any worse than the episodes from rtd1 era you either a) need to rewatch all of rtd1 (yes all of it, not just cherry-picked clips), b) are unable to recognize you have outgrown the show and lost your sense of whimsy, or c) are a conservative offended that the progressive sci-fi show is progressive and looking for any reason to hate it. or some combination of these 3 things

[sallysellsseashellssundays]

After hearing horror stories about Chibnall's era and knowing nearly nothing about the companions I gotta say I find Graham to be very likeable, Ryan was quite endearing in "The Ghost Monument" and "The Tsuranga Conundrum" and I think Yaz's development will come later but she seems nice so far

I did skip "Rosa" and "Arachnids in the UK" but if the four episodes I've seen are representative of Jodie's era then it isn't nearly as awful as people painted it out to be????

Demons of the Punjab was especially good, I'd say one of my favorites so far

[edwardshundredyearoldspunk]

goodbye ten my beloved, hello eleven my beloathed (first christmas special with eleven)

[sadcoms]

LUMIC: You are proud of your emotions. DOCTOR: Oh, yes. LUMIC: Then tell me, Doctor. Have you known grief, and rage, and pain? DOCTOR: Yes. Yes I have. LUMIC: And they hurt? DOCTOR: Oh, yes.

And if I said this is the Doctor's actual turning point in Season 2 instead of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit? In this essay I will -

[hollow-keys]

You see parallels I see repetitive writing

[chodoyodes]

preemptive apology to people who followed me for doccy who art i’m going into self portrait and OC lockdown indefinitely <3

[leikeliscomet]

Who’s Afraid of Tenmartha? - Thoughts on Doctor Who’s Most Hated Ship 

All about attraction and desire, fandom morality and ‘ethical’ shipping, if that even exists.

Intro Chapter 1 - She Loves Me, He Loves Me Not Chapter 2 - Bad Girls Club Chapter 3 & Conclusion - All’s Fair in Love and Shipping

Intro

‘Martha deserved so much better than that’

This is the first thing you’ll hear if the word ‘Tenmartha’ is ever typed or spoken out loud. For many, Tenmartha is a problematic ship and one of their least favourites. But Doctor Who’s known for its messiness. The Master with their homicidal tendencies is still a big contender for Thoschei. Meeting River as a literal baby and her brainwashing didn’t stop the DoctorRiver train. There’s people who overlook the platonic bond of Ten and Donna and ship them romantically regardless. People even ship Thirteen and Graham. The ‘normal’ in the idea of a normal ship with the Doctor is doing A LOT of leg work when it comes to this show. But despite all of this, Tenmartha has taken the crown for the worst ship. Or at least, is sharing it with Thasmin. Tenmartha and Thasmin are battling out for the title of ‘worst’ ship but Tenmartha still has the upper (or lower?) hand. Whilst the thassies have built up a small community for themselves with zines and collabs galore, Tenmartha seems to take a beating every week on the tl and even outranking the more ‘problematic’ ships I just listed in most hated ship polls. If Tenmartha’s lucky to rank high you can bet the ‘why would you do that to Martha’ tweets fill the quotes. But on the flipside, we’re also in a Tenmartha renaissance, with Tenmartha archive accounts going viral every other day and viral snippets from series 3 because of how interesting the dynamic was. It seems Tenmartha is a marmite ship; you love it or you hate it. In the eyes of some it’s awful and for others it's Doctor Who’s guilty pleasure.

I don’t ship Tenmartha mainly from the fact I don’t really care about the Doctor’s ships like I did when I was a kid and I care more about companion ships generally (this is strictly a Clani and IanBarbara household only!). But also from the main fact I really don’t like how Ten (and RTD) treated Martha in series 3 at all. But, when you factor in the long-existing Martha Jones hate train, the misogynoir towards Freema Agyeman, the long history of fandom’s hatred of interracial ships, society’s even longer dynamics of romance, sex and how Black people especially Black women participate, or if we’re even allowed to in the first place, plus the concept of morality when applied to Black characters, I can’t say the anti-Tenmartha wave is entirely in good faith. Especially from how I’ve already done a deep dive into how Martha and Freema Agyeman’s treatment was rooted in rampant antiblackness and misogynoir. Is the buzz around Tenmartha fully about her ‘deserving better’ or are there missing pieces of the puzzle? Is Tenmartha even being shipped in good faith? Is there an ‘ethical Tenmartha’? I’m gonna try to unpack my thoughts on Tenmartha, its fans, its antis, everything in between and outside.

It’s time to ask the question, who’s afraid of Tenmartha? And most importantly, why?

Chapter 1 ->

[landscaping-your-mind]

i love my cringefail son (dw series 1-4 intro)