(most of the) women of Doctor Who
doctor who
round-and-round-each-time: Amy pond and Clara Oswald for the meme?
AMY
What I like about them: She’s like me in that she’s not naturally strong but had to learn to be for the sake for her mental health. She’s loving and brave and very very clever.
What I dislike about them: She starts off very immature. Sexually immature, too. It’s like she genuinely didn’t realise that trying to kiss someone after they’ve said no is wrong, and that’s….a character flaw. To say the least.
Favourite moment: Oooh man. There’s too many! I love her fighting off the pirates. And I love that she totally, utterly went to pieces after seeing Rory die. Because I would. I think a lot of people would.
Least favourite moment: The incredibly icky aspects of the pregnancy arc. I mean, I don’t like that it was written like that. (That being said, I love AGMGTW as an episode. I just don’t like…well, my thoughts are summarised here really.)
A situation with this character that I want to see explored more: Er…see above I guess?
An interesting AU for this character: Recently I’ve wondered how she’d react to Twelve.
A crossover: Can you imagine Amy in the Game of Thrones verse? I can. I think her and Sansa would get along excellently.
OTP: Amy/Rory
Other ships: I dunno. I think Amy/Vincent might well have worked under very specific circumstances.
BROTP: Amy/Eleven
NOTP: Also Amy/Eleven. I think the show itself demonstrated why that wouldn’t work.
An assortment of headcanons:
- She’s bisexual
- Aunt Sharon was not a good guardian to her
- She saw River plenty after TATM. (Nothing ever said she couldn’t!) It was River who buried her parents and engraved their names on the gravestone exactly how she remembered it from all those years ago.
- All of this
CLARA
What I like about them: She’s confident (very confident!), clever, authoritative, brave, loving…and one hell of a liar.
What I dislike about them: She’s not a great girlfriend. But she admits that she isn’t!
Favourite moment: Again, there’s just so many! But probably: everything that happened in the volcano. Especially “I’d do it again.”
Least favourite moment: I actually don’t think I have one?
A situation with this character that I want to see explored more: Honestly, I would have LOVED to see a properly ‘dark’ Clara. Going up against the Doctor as a real opponent, whether to get Danny back or ‘just’ because the problems with him she outlined in Kill The Moon had become too much for her to ignore. Sort of a ‘Someone has to take you down, and I love you, so it will be me’ sort of thing. I think that could have been amazing.
An interesting AU for this character: See above!
A crossover: I absolutely love the idea that Connie (Bucky’s date in Captain America, as played by Jenna) was a Clara echo.
OTP: Clara/Danny, even though it probably wouldn’t have worked out even without the latter’s death.
Other ships: Clara/Journey, Clara/Maisie
BROTP: Clara/the Doctor.
NOTP: Clara/the Doctor (I don’t really do Doctor/Companion shipping.)
An assortment of headcanons:
- She’s bisexual (there’s a trend here)
- She kept in close contact with the Maitlands after she left their employment
- She gradually became a trusted confidant of Kate Stewart, who offered her a job with UNIT. Clara said she’d think about it.
- She tolerates Linda rather than really likes her.
- She was considering asking Danny if he wanted to marry her and start a family (she would have named a first daughter Ellie) before fate got in the way.
Nine does quite a lot of stuff that fandom excuses him for – his treatment of Mickey, his constantly calling people stupid, his decision to be ‘a coward’ actually dooming many more people – and I think it’s partly because a) he was a lot of people’s first Doctor and thus remembered in a glow of nostalgia, and b) we see a lot of his more obnoxious actions from the perspective of his companion, our audience surrogate. Basically I think the trouble is, people almost always look at Nine through…
(wait for it)
…Rose-tinted glasses.
See, here’s how I would have done Donna’s ‘death’: Donna starts saying, like she does in the show, that she doesn’t want to go back. The Doctor tells her that even without her memories and without him, she can still be a hero and indeed was in the parallel Turn Left verse. The only difference is that he won’t be able to help her, she’ll have to help herself, but he knows she can do it. Bearing that in mind, Donna agrees to the mind wipe.
There we go, still sad, but less icky and nooneisworthanythingwithoutthedoctor-y.
Microsoft Word’s Staple® – IDW Doctor Who #1, January 2011
Farewell, farewell, O warrior brave,
Nobody can from Death thee save.It’s broken, that one. It doesn’t have a gun (Steven Moffat, “Listen” Doctor who) // All the soldiers looked exactly alike except one. He looked a little different as he had been cast last of all. (Hans Christian Andersen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, tr. by Jean Hersholt)
Danny Pink was the man who tried to be the Steadfast Tin Soldier in a world that didn’t believe in fairy tales anymore. He was the silent vigil in a child’s world, crippled, not in his flesh but in his heart; the spoon he was made of was childhood-brittle and war-corroded. He was the timid lover of a paper doll, a girl made of books and rustling steps, and the stubborn and cool antagonist of the Jack in-the-box, of all trade, reluctant puppet master. He was the brave castaway in an ocean of strangeness, where an alien guarded his school and London was flooded with trees and howling. Always, he stood steadfast, unwavering in his love for the paper doll, for home, for children, and iron-clad in his need for truth and good. Danny was not a soldier when did all those things, not anymore.
But a tin heart he got in the end.
Danny died for no reason at all, just like the Tin Soldier from the story. Probably put to it by the Jack, a cruel child, instead of throwing him into the stove, put him in a box of metal, a metal suit, with a metal weapon and a metal heart. Soldiers keep the whole world safe. So Danny burnt in flames a soldier to keep the world safe from him. But Danny was not a soldier when he loved the paper doll, cared for the children and came back from death’s belly. He was iron-clad in his need for trust and promises. He burnt in flames for Clara.
And here’s where this is not a fairy tale: the paper doll didn’t burn with him.
(Feel free to delete the rambling)
