So I saw some people last night on my dash (rightly) upset about the fact that while we had all of these Supernatural/Human pairings this season and they were all clear parallels to a Dean/Cas endgame, there was really no “resolution at the end”. There was nothing to tie all those pretty little side parallels together. In other words, the C plot was left hanging at the end of the Season. Man, that’s gotta be infuriating, right? I mean, all this time, all these human/creature crosses, and then nothing? How meaningless.
Or is it? Is it really just left to “bad writing”? Or are we gearing up for something bigger, something that needs to take steps to be shown, because of the nature of things? What’s going on with all these supernatural pairings that keep cropping up in the show?
Bless SPN for this scene. Bless Carver for turning the audience’s own preconceived notions on their head. Bless him for the archery symbolism that ties neatly back to not only the theme of hearts, but also Artemis whom we saw fall in love inappropriately according to the precepts of Olympus. Bless the two plaid-wearing, bearded scruffy men who are stand-ins for Hunters and Dean’s notion of über masculinity who also fall in love, but this time with heaven’s express and noteworthy nudge. Bless this rare (the cupid did say her arrows were being directed less and less frequently) and heaven-mandated event to be one of the last things heaven does before it stops meddling in the affairs of humans. Bless this event for happening in front of Dean and Cas. Bless Cas for his nonchalance and easy acceptance and Dean’s pause of consideration. Bless this neon sign toward Destiel becoming definitively canon.
 | Anonymous: hi :) i just want your opinion about 'River song', do you think that she was 'The doctor's love life'? the writers said something? i read some quotes that Rusell T Davis said and he pretty much said so :/ (also of course her creator steven moffat). but after all those moments with Rose, after all the quotes they SAID i read about Rose being 'the soul mate' of the doctor, how THAT can be possible? how is that this River song came and became 'the doctor real love life'?. |
Okay, I get what you’re saying, I really do. You want your OTP to actually be the one true pairing, but the question you gotta ask yourself is: does it really matter?
Are you a feminist? Do you enjoy deconstructing Moffat era Doctor Who, particularly in regard to Moff’s often problematic ideas about women? Great! I applaud you for your critical attitude and I may even agree with you on many points.
Yet it’s important that we all understand that there are reasons for hating Amy Pond which are, in and of themselves, incredibly problematic and sexist.
So, allow me to outline a few really, really horrifying arguments that do not justify Amy as anti-feminist character:
“Red moves where the danger goes. Black is bad but Derek’s going gray… and so is Stiles. 2x08 is where it turns.” A picturesque mini-series in which I commit amateur fashion
crimesanalysis for character journeys throughout S2, focusing on colors and layers. Themes include:
- Isaac - an emerging color of kindness
- Derek - black out or in?
- Stiles - the disappearing red
***Stiles Stilinski - Or, What’s Going On with our Little Red?
Stiles is often called Little Red Riding Hood by this fandom for good reason - he’s the human who runs with wolves. What I want to look at here is what that red means - why red is “his” color, and what it means for red to disappear as season two goes on.
Let me first establish three defining traits for Stiles’s clothes, besides the lack of any fashion sense:
- Layers. Stiles typically wears at least two, and sometimes three. This highlights how human he is - because he easily gets cold, whereas werewolves like Scott, Derek, and Isaac do not - and it highlights… well, how human he is. Stiles is complex. Stiles is not “one note”. Stiles shows different layers - flippant, clever, caring, pragmatic, vulnerable, petty - in different situations; and what’s more, he’s not afraid to show how much he cares, unlike Derek. Stiles is extremely close to his father and to Scott, but he doesn’t shield his identity with theirs the way Isaac initially does with Derek. Nor does he obsess over his body as armor the way Jackson does with his pretty boy jock status. So… Stiles has layers, and more than one of those layers is true to who he is.
- Plaid. Again, multiple colors, reflecting a complexity of character, an interplay of emotions. While a strand of red often runs through the plaid, Stiles increasingly wears checkered gray shirts and striped gray hoodies as the season goes on. He’s never all black or all white; he’s a mix of darkness and lightness, depending on how you turn him. He’s a yin and a yang, a light that always holds the seed for darkness, a darkness that can never destroy all of his light.
- The color red. If blue is “Isaac’s color”, then red is Stiles’s. By this I mean it’s his defining color, the color that is true to him. Why red? Well, he’s the Little Red Riding Hood of this show, the lone human surrounded by wolves. Red marks his vulnerability in the midst of danger. In fact, red denotes when Stiles is in personal danger, and subsides when the focus is on someone else. But I’m also going to argue that Red is who he is - his self-sacrifice, his courage, his heart - and because of that, it’s when Red goes that Stiles is in far graver danger.
Note that red is - except for one crucial episode - always on the outside. Stiles almost never wears a red inner layer. I’ll argue that this suggests that Stiles is an obvious target for the supernatural because of his humanity, but he’s nowhere near as vulnerable in battle as he seems. He looks like Little Red Riding Hood, he even draws attention to his body at times (like with Gerard), but he’s not *really* some naive little girl skipping through the woods. Beneath that slender body he’s dangerous… maybe the most dangerous character on this show.
And he’s in terrible danger when the red hood goes.
stupidbloodyidiots submitted:
- http://stupidbloodyidiotsarchive.tumblr.com/post/19401185134/it-concerns-me-too-that-amy-kind-of-got-shafted-in
- http://stupidbloodyidiotsarchive.tumblr.com/post/20682747940/an-actual-platonic-look-at-the-doctor-and-amys (about how complex and awesome her relationship with eleven is)
And quickly, my perspective on why Amy is the fucking bomb:
| Anonymous: hi! i really love your meta! here's the story: my friend told me that he hates amy pond, so could you give some reasons why amy is awesome? |
Woahhhhhh. First off, your friend needs to take a step back and look at his choices, because they’re probably wrong. He needs to acknowledge that while he may not like her (and it’s perfectly alright to not like companions), he shouldn’t hate her, not if he acknowledges how much of a badass she is.
Secondly, the Doctor only takes the best. So no matter how much you might dislike a companion for various reasons, you have to give them credit. They save the world over and over again, every single one, so how can you possibly hate them for that? Are these some of the reasons why your friend hates Amy? Because if so, then he needs to knock it the fuck off right now.
There’s nothing wrong with disliking a companion or preferring one over the other. But to just blindly declare that you hate them without acknowledging any of their virtues is a sign of close-mindedness.
Now, Anon, admittedly, I specialize in series 1-4. I know that information and those companions like the back of my hand. Series 5+, however, I’ve only watched once or twice, which is why I tend not to write in-depth explanations of the companions. Anne, however, is a wonderful Amy stan and has kindly provided the following meta for you at my request:
- http://stupidbloodyidiotsarchive.tumblr.com/post/19401185134/it-concerns-me-too-that-amy-kind-of-got-shafted-in
- http://stupidbloodyidiotsarchive.tumblr.com/post/20682747940/an-actual-platonic-look-at-the-doctor-and-amys (about how complex and awesome her relationship with eleven is)
And quickly, my perspective on why Amy is the fucking bomb:
Allonsy.
How in the fuck did he survive this, yet the fourth Doctor fell off Jodrell Bank and thought “sod it”?
If you’re interested:
Fall injuries are weird, and a bit random. It really depends on how you land, and all sorts of other circumstances. Some people manage to literally walk away from falling off buildings with nothing worse than a sprained ankle or a broken wrist. In other cases, someone can slip and be killed instantly from falling only the length of their body.
We can see in End of Time (and in this gifset) exactly how Ten lands. His arm hits the ground first, then his leg, then his cheek (notably the part of the head where the brain isn’t). His chest/torso doesn’t touch the ground until he collapses, and he hit his face instead of his head.
What this means is that, while he’s hurt, the parts of his body which are most badly damaged are not the vital, life-supporting parts. Essentially, either he knew exactly how to land in order to survive, or he got very lucky. Plus, we never actually get to see the extent of his injuries in full- it’s a high adrenaline situation which he spends the vast majority of sitting down. Then, immediately afterwards, he gets blasted with radiation and dies/regenerates. If he was injured in a way which would have affected him more slowly, it doesn’t get a chance to.
Also of note: The glass slowed him down in a way which may very well have been crucial. There have been IRL cases of (non time lord) people hitting power-lines or tree branches on the way down which slow their descent to the point where falls which should have been fatal result in only relatively minor injuries.
Now, transitioning to Logopolis. We don’t actually see Four fall. We see him lose his grip, then it cuts to the Master, and when we see the Doctor again he’s lying flat on his back, dying.
We don’t know exactly how he hit the ground, but given that he fell onto his back, he did not break the fall with limbs. This means that the first point of impact would have either been his back or the back of his head. What this means is that nasty fatal things like head injuries and organ damage are significantly more likely.
There’s also the Doctor Who science of regeneration, which is a bit dodgier than real science, but also makes sense in this case. As far as we can tell, an individual dying Time Lord has some control over the speed of the regenerative process. It appears as if they can trigger it at several different points along the spectrum of ‘dying’, ranging from immediately after a critical injury/illness (including one which could be theoretically survivable with treatment), to after the point of death.
Ten does not want to regenerate. That’s where 3/4 of the emotional arc comes from. He’s also capable of holding the regeneration in. So, indeed, if he was dying from his injuries here, it’s very possible that he’d have just been holding the regeneration back completely. He was busy, and he didn’t want it to happen. Again, the radiation happens so quickly after the fact that we can’t tell what would have happened without it.
Four, on the other hand, knew he was going to regenerate and seemed to be pretty much okay with that. Unlike several other Doctors, he didn’t try to hold off his regeneration at all- he let it trigger as soon as he was injured. It’s possible he could have survived for a bit longer, but he didn’t, for some reason.
tl;dr: The science of this actually does sort of work. Fall injuries are weird, Ten was very lucky, Four wasn’t.
This fandom is amazing
To go along with the strange science of regeneration it’s also important to note that 10 is older then 4 was and that he’d gone through 6 regenerations. It’s entirely possible that time lords simply get stronger the older they get older/spend more time in the time stream. Ten also had survived the Time War and had held the heart of the TARDIS inside him for a brief amount of time both of which could have made him physically more capable of surviving a fall then four was.
The real world science works as well as mentioned fall injuries are weird especially where head injuries are concerned.
(Source: oswinsleaf)
| Anonymous: NILI TELL ME YOUR FEELS ABOUT ALLISON ARGENT if you don't mind kind ma'am, cause i'm curious and i've never seen you talk about her before |
I LOVE ALLISON ARGENT. I think she’s a total badass and a very strong character and I love that about her. Did I kind of hate her at the end of season 2 when she went nuts and shot everyone? Of course I did. You’re supposed to. But I also understood why she did what she did, I thought it made perfect sense to her storyline and to her personality, and I am 900000000000014% willing to forgive her for it.
People make mistakes, mostly when they’re grieving I wouldn’t even say it’s all her fault, to be honest. It was Gerard whispering in her ear and manipulating her in a very vulnerable time, and instead of everyone calling for Allison’s death (#KillAllison was treading on twitter for a while), we should have taken a step back and offered some sympathy to the situation. Yes, Allison was acting like a bit of a jackass. But hey, her mom just died because of a werewolf, because her mom so strongly believed that werewolves were horrible and disgusting creatures that she’d rather kill herself than become one, so you really can’t blame Allison for developing such an anger toward them in general and toward Derek in particular.
We, as the audience, are always much more willing to judge characters (and are much harsher in our judgements) because we’re looking at a situation with a clear mind and knowing all of the information. Allison most likely didn’t even know why Derek bit her mom, just that he did and her mom was dead because of it. From her perspective, a werewolf that even her boyfriend had always mistrusted suddenly went rabid and bit her mother, and with Gerard whispering werewolves are evil and can’t be trusted, they should be put down like dogs in her ear, and her dad not really fully stepping in in the way that he should have, well it’s no wonder that Allison lost it for a little while.
Allison is an amazing character, in my opinion. She’s smart, strong, opinionated, and stubborn. She does what she thinks is right, and yes, sometimes she might be mistaken about what right is, but the fact that she recognized her mistake with Gerard and was willing to take a step back in order to rethink everything? I think that speaks very highly of her. She wants to do better, to be better, and for her to be willing to take time out for herself, instead of just ignoring the problem and drowning herself in Scott-time again, tells of a great maturity in her character. Yes, her growth was won through really tough and shitty circumstances, but she’s recognizing her errors and working through them. How could you not love a character like that?
 | dragonlordette: I read your thing from a few days ago about how you aren't interested in the mystery of Clara, you're more interested in seeing her develop as a character, which you feared (knowing Moffat) probably wasn't going to happen to the same degree that it did for rose/martha/donna. Do you think, after watching The RoA, that that will still the case? Just cause I thought there was a lot of character development in that ep (compared to amy at least) and I'm curious to see if you agree or not. |
There actually wasn’t a lot of character development in that episode, though. We mostly just learned about Clara’s backstory, which I absolutely loved and enjoyed, but Clara herself didn’t go through a huge amount of growth as a person. In fact, based on the episode, she was pretty spot-on. She didn’t need to grow because she did and said the right thing the whole time: comforting the girl, saving the girl, saving the Doctor, saving everyone - she never really made a mistake, always knew what to do, never did anything that seemed like it wasn’t something she would have done before back home. That’s not really character growth.
All the other companions made mistakes, sometimes big, sometimes small, but they were better people from it, because they learned from their mistakes. Even Amy s5 made mistakes, changed her mind, discovered herself, etc. All of those things display character growth. Clara didn’t make any mistakes, so she didn’t really grow or change. She’s pretty much the same Clara that you met in the previous episode. It’s the changing, the growing, the process of bettering yourself based on your experiences (both good and bad) that I find the most appealing when it comes to characters. We learned a lot about Clara’s past in TRoA, which I genuinely loved, but there wasn’t a lot of development. At least, not yet.
Is that a bad thing? No. We need to find out who a person is before we can understand how they change. We usually don’t get a huge amount of character development in the first few episodes of a new character because we’re still getting a feel for them. But is this an excellent start on the path of character development? Yes. Good character development just doesn’t happen in one episode. Sometimes, it all comes to a head in an episode, such as in Amy’s Choice, but for the episode to make sense, it needs to have been preceded by a series of episodes that displayed that the character was changing, sometimes even in just small ways.
Character development is one of my favourite things because it’s hard. It’s convoluted and not easy to pinpoint and sometimes so subtle that it’s hard to notice until you look back and compare the first episode to the last, but that’s the best kind. People don’t change overnight. You can sometimes point to a turning point in someone’s history, but they don’t just wake up one day as a completely different person. It takes weeks, months, years, for people to start growing up and figuring out who they are and what they want. For shows like Doctor Who where the companion usually last between one or two years, it’s usually takes place over at least a full season, so until we get a sense of the full Clara arc that’s taking place, we don’t be able to fully appreciate her growth.
Does it mean I didn’t like the episode? Of course not. It’s probably my favourite episode of Series 7 so far. Does that mean I’ll start caring about why Clara is such a ~mystery~ now? Nope. I still don’t care. I want to learn about Clara as a person and as a character, not as a plot device.
Rebloggable by request! Also link to the Clara theory if you want it (BEWARE: MAJOR POTENTIAL SPOILERS IF YOU CLICK)
HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THAT STILES IS LITERALLY THE ONLY PERSON DEREK PROTECTS WITH ALL HIS ABILITY. I MEAN IN THE FIRST GIF DEREK KNOWS THAT HIS UNCLE IS NOW THE ALPHA, AND FOR MOST PEOPLE IT’S “FAMILY FIRST” RIGHT? BUT INSTEAD HE TELLS STILES TO GET OUT OF THE WAY SO HE CAN TAKE HIS MOTHER FUCKIN UNCLE DOWN AND KEEP STILES FROM GETTING KILLED. IN THE SECOND GIF, IT’S ISAAC’S FIRST FULL MOON AND HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT HE’S DOING, HE JUST SEES A CHANCE TO ATTACK, AND THE WAY THAT DEREK LOOKS AT STILES CROUCHING BEHIND THE DESK IS LIKE “OH HELL NO ISAAC DON’T YOU MOTHER FUCKIN DARE” AND THEN HE GOES ALL ALPHA ON HIS ASS AND LATER STILES IS LIKE “HOW’D YOU DO THAT” AND DEREK IS LIKE “I’M THE ALPHA” BUT WHAT HE REALLY MEANT WAS “I’LL DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT YOU LITTLE BABY STILES”. IN THE POOL SCENE, THE KANIMA ATTACKS ERICA BEFORE IT ATTACKS DEREK, AND DEREK DOESN’T EVEN BLINK. HIS ONLY CONCERN IS STILES STILES STILES MOTHER FUCKIN PROTECT STILES AND THAT’S WHAT HE DOES. HE PHYSICALLY TURNS AROUND TO PUSH HIM AWAY, AND EVEN SCOTT WHO’S BEEN DATING ALLISON SINCE THE MOMENT HE LAID EYES ON HER, DOESN’T PHYSICALLY TURN AROUND TO TELL HER TO RUN AWAY. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS SAY ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP, HUH? ANYWAY THIS RESULTS IN THE KANIMA SCRATCHING THE BACK OF DEREK’S NECK AND PARALYSING HIM, WHICH LEADS TO THE KANIMA HOLDING THEM HOSTAGE IN THE POOL FOR TWO HOURS. THEN DEREK SAYS “DON’T LET ME GO” AND “YOU DON’T TRUST ME, I DON’T TRUST YOU” BUT STILES LETS HIM GO ANYWAY TO GET HIS PHONE BECAUSE HE DOES TRUST DEREK, DEREK HAS SAVED HIS ASS MORE TIMES THAN HE CAN COUNT AND NOW IT’S HIS TURN TO RETURN THE FAVOUR. AND I’M NOT EVEN DONE YET. IN THE LAST ONE, DEREK HAS TO GO SAVE SCOTT’S MOTHER FUCKIN ASS AGAIN SO HE TELLS STILES TO BREAK THE CIRCLE OF MOUNTAIN ASH SO HE CAN GET THROUGH. AND STILES’ FACE IS LIKE “SHIT MAN REALLY I JUST WORKED SO HARD ON THIS CIRCLE CRAP” BUT HE STILL DOES WHAT DEREK ASKS BECAUSE HE TRUSTS THAT DEREK KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING AND HE CARES ABOUT SCOTT MORE THAN HE CARES ABOUT SOME STUPID CIRCLE OF MOUNTAIN ASH. THEN DEREK SQUEEZES HIS SHOULDER BEFORE HE RUNS OFF LIKE HE’S REASSURING HIM THAT IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY, AND SILENTLY THANKING HIM AND RECOGNIZING HIS HARD WORK. AND STILES’ FACE IS LIKE “WAIT HE JUST SQUEEZED MY SHOULDER WHAT DOES THAT MEAN DEREK NEVER SHOWS AFFECTION TOWARDS ANYONE EVER” BUT HE DID, THEN. HE DID SHOW AFFECTION. I’M JUST SAYING THAT WE’VE NEVER SEEN DEREK WOLF OUT ON STILES, LIKE HE DOES WITH SCOTT WHEN THEY HAVE A BITCH FIGHT EVERY OTHER EPISODE. AND I’M JUST SAYING THAT I’VE NEVER SEEN DEREK COME TO HIS OWN PACK’S SIDE FASTER THAN HE COMES TO STILES’ SIDE. AND I’M JUST SAYING THAT YES, STILES DOES ANNOY THE SHIT OUT OF DEREK AND MOST OF THE TIME HE FEELS LIKE SLAMMING HIS FACE INTO THE WALL, BUT WHEN IT COMES TO LIFE AND DEATH SITUATIONS DEREK DOESN’T EVEN HESITATE TO STEP UP AND PROTECT STILES. I’M JUST SAYING.
(Source: imsamthisisdean)
What I loved about the episode and the parallel to the Swan Song scene is that they managed to beautifully contrast Dean’s two most important relationships and the way they are fundamentally different from one another.
Dean managed to get through to Sam by reassuring him with “I’m here.” — always his protective big brother, being strong & there for him, but with Cas it’s open and vulnerable “I need you.” and there was absolutely no doubt in the way he spoke how desperately true he really meant it. I had similar thoughts in the prayer scene of the previous episode, but this one reaffirmed my belief that Dean looks at Cas & needs him almost as he would his spouse (as opposed to his brother).
Dean is Cas’ and Cas is Dean’s and it hurts me.
Because I’ve got film-school training and am currently addicted to Teen Wolf.
He’s waited so long. In the dark. And the cold. And the diamonds. Until you came. Bodies so hot. With blood. And pain.
This is, literally, one of the best episodes in new Who. Everything about it was so smartly written. I know when we think of creep factor in DW, we tend to always think of Moffat, but this was one of the few non-Moffat antagonists that seriously scared the shit out of me.This thing is ancient…it had been there for who knows how long, just waiting, biding its time. Who knows how many identities it has stolen in its life time…and it’s so powerful it could even “steal the voice” of a Time Lord.
Mind you, not only does this thing “steal someone’s voice”, it shows a clear capability to actually learn. This thing is learning as the episode progresses, creating a sync with whatever organism it encounters while it learns to mimic it, and mimic its thoughts, and possibly learn to think like said organism at a quicker speed. This creature, literally, became the Doctor for a brief moment and began to think faster than him.
There’s never even an explanation of what this thing is. You never even get to see it. It’s this entity, this thing. I can’t begin to explain how fucking brilliant this episode was. People can hate RTD all they want, but this episode was masterful. I’d say this thing, which is never even named, stands as probably the absolute fucking creepiest antagonist in the new series, followed really closely by the Silence and the ancient entity in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit.
There are also a lot of complaints about the way Davis writes the 10th Doctor and how arrogant he is, and I think this is one of the few episodes where his arrogance nearly gets him killed. This thing only took over his voice because he just had to tell everyone in the room how clever he was.
This isn’t even taking into account that the entire episode was told in one set. They never leave the shuttle bus It was nerve wrecking, and a brilliant decision. This is one of the reasons why I think series four of new Who is one of the absolute best in the new series overall.
