[via dwhos]
Never trust a hug. It’s just a way to hide your face.
doctor who
I wish Amy’s problems had become a bigger focus. I felt like the Doctor’s fun was always seen as more important than Amy’s struggles.
Agreed. I think in Amy Pond we had a great opportunity to explore mental health issues in a sensitive way that could educate audiences and also help viewers feel more compassion and empathy for the many people out there that suffer a mental illness of some sort.
It really disappointed me that the Doctor became the central focus of Eleven’s later run, because we were robbed of the rarely portrayed point of view of a young woman with mental health difficulties that didn’t define her. And that could have helped a lot of people.
I was going to wait until the morning to see if I still wanted to respond to this but I’ve decided I want to do it now. I recognize everyone’s right to write commentary on my gifsets but this has started a rather large reblog chain and I feel the need to respond.
This was a pro-Moffat gifset. This was me celebrating Moffat’s decision to write a character with mental health issues. As someone who’s seriously struggled with mental health, I found myself in Amy Pond. I found a home in Amy Pond. It’s not that it “could’ve helped a lot of people,” it did help a lot of people, such as myself and some of my followers. I’ve received frequent messages from people thanking me for this gifset and sharing their stories of how Amy helped them through recovery.
Please do not dismiss our experiences. Please do not view Amy Pond as something that “could’ve been but Moffat ruined it.” That’s very insulting to people like me who Amy Pond helped so much in the way she was already written. I like her subtle arc. I like that her mental health issues aren’t the forefront of her character. I like that she was explored as a character in tangent with the Doctor, and I disagree that she was pushed to the wayside for the Doctor’s arc. I would argue that Series 7A was much more about Amy than it was about the Doctor.
Amy Pond already built that empathy for a lot of people. Amy Pond already helped a lot of people. The links provided show mountains of evidence in addition to this gifset showing this to be true. We were not robbed of anything. We still have our glorious Pond.
Seriously, though, what does Terrance Dicks think of Missy? Why has no one asked him? Why does this interview not exist?
He hates it. Said so at LIWhocon. But he hopes they “got it out of their system” now and won’t do a female Doctor.
Man, that is both disappointing and literally exactly what I expected.
This is the best filming pic yet. x
AU in which Missy, Kate, and Osgood all hit it off, and MIssy voluntarily calls off the Cybermen in favor of a big “let’s talk about embarrassing things the Doctor did” session with her new gal pals.
I wandered into the Danny Pink tag and as I suspected, there’s a lot of hate there. (Same at GB.) And I do know that there are reasons to dislike Danny – he accidentally killed a child, after all. But the fact that he has reasons to geniunely dislike him is sort of…why I like him? He’s careless (or he was) and he’s socially awkward and inflexible and he might well have been lying to Clara as much as she was lying to him (depending on whether she knew about the dead child or not), which also makes him a hypocrite, and…
…he’s just so damn interesting, alright? Because he’s also caring and charismatic and tormented over his actions, and good with kids and a natural leader and he obviously really loved Clara. (I don’t think their relationship would have lasted without both of them making serious changes, however. Which just makes it sadder.) I’m so sad to see him go, I loved him to bits, and I really want to see lots of meta about him.
Dammit this post started off as a reply to at least three people, but it got out of hand a bit…
I wish I liked the Doctor more. Any Doctor. Of all the modern ones I’ve seen, the only one I think I really like as a person is Eleven and I have huge issues with some of his actions, too. Of the Classic Doctors, I quite like some of them (especially since I’m so fond of most of the actors) and I strongly suspect I’d adore Eight if I could just! get! round! to! watching! his! film! – but I’ve always, always identified with the companions more. And the companion’s companions. How does nigh-on unlimited access to the entire universe affect a person? Would you ever be satisfied on Earth again? Would – like Rose and Clara, arguably – you end up a entirely different person once your adventures had finished, and not necessarily for the better? Rose says that being with the Doctor showed her a better way of living her life, but –
– the Doctor’s way of life isn’t that better than anyone else’s? I know what Rose meant – she outright says it: ‘you make a stand, you say no, you have the guts to do what’s right…’ but what’s the Doctor making a stand against, what’s he saying to no to? He’s killed children, killed whole species, he has more than once been cowardly or cruel. (And, on a metafictional level, almost always gets away with it because he’s the main character.) The modern-day show is so inconsistent about the Doctor – he’s got to be simultaniously an ANCIENT GOD DRENCHED IN THE BLOOD OF MILLIONS and a shining beacon of all that’s good and brave in the world. I dunno, sometimes it works, but not always.
I do love him as a symbol, I think – admittedly in the real world more than in the show. I cheered out loud when all the Doctors appeared to save the day in Day of the Doctor. And as an icon of British pop culture I think he’s one of the best we’ve got, in that he and the show are or try to be about creativity and imagination and humanity. It’s just that within the context of the show I don’t always get that – I don’t always even see him as a hero; that’s more the companion’s job.
God this is getting really metatextual now, but Doctor Who the show – I, we, know it’s flawed because all shows are flawed. It could be better, it could always be better, but it’s done so many amazing things. The sense of community that so often springs up around it (and not even just in fandom) – I wouldn’t change that for the world. Doctor Who’s a big part of my life – I’ve been in this fandom for nearly a decade now – but I think when it really comes down to it I like the show more for what it does than what it is. And I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing.
Anyway. Doctor. Often bad and inconsistent. Often does good things. Inspires others to do good. Is sort of like show in that respect. Yes that is the sort of idea I’m trying to badly get at here.