promethia

Randomly woke up at 3am and realized something:



If the Clara in the Library with Ten died to save him, she would have been scooped up by CAL.

Which means there's a very good chance that there's been a Clara hanging out in the Library computer with River all this time.

I can't believe it's taken me five years to think of that.

Just got done listening to a podcast interview with Steven Moffat. It's all lovely, of course, and an enjoyable listen if you've got the time.

Two highlights, though, were:

1) Moff's rundown of some of his favorite episodes starting at minute 42 (In which he reveals that he basically loved all of season nine and it's probably his secret favorite. Quite right too.)

2) An insight into PC's portrayal of the Doctor starting at minute 51 that I don't think I've heard before? Which is that he came back after series eight and said "I don't want to play the Twelfth Doctor. I want to play the Doctor." And then revised his portrayal to try to be less distinctive. That is fascinating to me, and I think the results basically speak for themselves.

Warnings: Includes spoilers for Pyramid at the End of the World and the next time trailer for Lie of the Land. So long. So very long. Not properly edited. Seven years of accumulated symbolism is such an unwieldily thing, guys, I'm sorry.

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Bill started out on this show, I thought, remarkably devoid of symbolism. Clara and River and even Amy, to an extent, all entered the show dripping in symbolism. With names that begged to be analyzed and new veins of metaphoric imagery flowing from them.

Amy was about fairy tales and growing up. Apples and stories. She and the Doctor were lost children, running away together, learning how to grow up.

River was about life and the power of grace and the flow of time. She was associated with water and forests and music, life and death and renewal. Her appearance told us the Doctor was going to grow and heal and and again be a force for life and wellbeing.

Clara was about clarity and power and rules, and about mirroring the Doctor. She brought with her flowers and eggs and birds: symbols of fruitfulness, rebirth, and freedom. On her first appearance she symbolically healed the Time War by severing the Doctor’s connection to the Daleks.

Missy came in and co-opted all the symbolic threads the others had established and made them evil: a twisted mother figure. Queen of no natural forces, but of the undead. And her influence twisted up Twelve and Clara and spread over their whole era, as they gripped tighter and tighter to each other, unwilling to let time and nature run their course.

To see even an episode or two of any of these women was to understand, quite quickly, major things about what they would mean.

This did not happen with Bill. Bill was remarkably, intriguingly, and somewhat reassuringly . . . flat.

( Read more... )

So Knock Knock was very boring, I thought, except as ENGLISH MAJOR CATNIP.

( Let's talk, shall we? )

Hello new friends!

Welcome. Please feel free to stop in and introduce yourselves. I've subscribed to everybody who's subscribed to me. Some of you have also granted me access to your locked entries. If I don't previously know you, I have not done the same. If you stick around I'll change that. I don't lock much, mostly stuff that could locate me in space. Though, fair warning, I don't post much either. Never quite got the hang of personal journaling, so I mostly just live in people's comment sections.

If you're new to DW or just new to using it seriously, I cannot recommend enough actually reading the official site announcements on dw_news and dw_maintenance. These are infrequent but pretty much always substantial, informative, refreshingly transparent, and they mean new goodies! They've just posted a welcome/orientation post for all the new people. I was planning to make a few quick posts suggesting basically everything denise suggests doing towards the bottom of the page (claim your Open ID, enable the beta features), so just go read what she says and do it.

Note: comment notifications are always delayed a few hours when they put up a news post because the system has to push it to everybody.

It's also worth your while, if you've not been around much, reading through some of the back-catalogue on dw_news. It's a good resource to understand how Dreamwidth works (philosophically and technically) and the features they've added on top of LJ's codebase.

Small self-pimp for people who've added me in the last few months: back when LJ moved their servers, I wrote a post about How to Move to Dreamwidth and Like It, with my accumulated wisdom about making the switch. It seems to be making the rounds, so that pleases me.

Last but not least: DOCTOR WHO TEIM SOON EHRMAHGAAAAADDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!

*deep breath* Ok, if you're gonna play at guessing at Moffat Who, sooner or later you have to put your cards on the table. So here's how I see this whole thing going. It's a question of . . . aesthetics. Let me show you:

( Narrative seeking order . . . )

(If you leave a comment and I've disappeared, I'm sorry. I have today off and then life goes sideways for awhile. I will do my best.)

*dusts the cobwebs off this place* Hello, all! I've missed you. I've missed fandom. I've missed staying at all up to date with my flist. And I've missed things being normal and boring and quiet the past few weeks. Isn't Christmas supposed to come with a vacation? Sheesh.

Word of advice, children: I can't really recommend proper employment as a life choice, so study hard and stay in school. And fail all your tests so they can't make you leave.

Anyway, would like to find a way to both keep myself in coffee and rent money and to stay moderately active online again, and then realized that this is why they have those fandom challenge things, isn't it? There is a Doctor Who-ish one going around right now, but that is so clearly for actual Doctor Who fans and not people like me who are Moff-Who fans who also enjoy making fun of Rusty recreationally in their spare time. So the Fandom Snowflake Challenge it is.

Also: hello to various new people! Please stop in. I shall endeavor to be at least a bit entertaining for you, so you may feel the friending worthwhile : )

( Day One )

Am actually feeling like I would like to get back into make Doctor Who stuff again, but not sure that what I want to say about this fantastic complexity that the show has become (or the emotional labyrinth that is the Pond family) is really gonna fit into words. I think . . . I might . . . feel a vid coming on? How do I vids, anyway? *scratches head* Is there a Vidding for Dummies post somewhere?

My descent into fandom bum-hood continues with, perhaps, the worst-explained post of all time. If you follow this, you get all the gold stars, but frankly, I won't blame you if you don't want to wade through my brain-dump. Input welcomed and desired, though.

( Spoilers through A Town Called Mercy )

Let's have some Doctor Who, shall we? Good, I'm glad we're agreed ; )

Things with whose perfection I am entirely incapable of putting up right now (vid edition):

Moves Like Jagger (Eleven/everyone) by lady_with_cats So, I have this song on my iPod at the moment, and I keep cracking up at inopportune times because . . . well, you'll see. Because the Doctor knows he is a smooth gq fucking rockstar, and he might even be right.

Safe to Shore (Amy, Eleven) by niyalune This vid almost makes me feel like we are back in season five again, just enjoying the joys and sorrows and adventures of Amy and her Raggedy Doctor, all while connecting it to season six and its complexities, and oh I love it so. The essence of these two together.

I Would Hurt a Fly (Eleven, his relationships, and his journey) by gnattery I won't mince words: this vid is the reason for this post. Because somebody made an epic, meat-y, meta-y vid about the relationship between the Doctor/the TARDIS/the Time Lords/the Master/the Universe/the Doctor's own darkness/Amy/Rory/River/and everything else. Oh, and it's beautiful. That's all.

(I know I owe comments on my last post--please forgive me. But I loved your insights and I will get back to it. Also: have watched Avatar: Legend of Korra and suspect it might be amazing, if flawed.)