aria | rage, rage against the dying of the light

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rage, rage against the dying of the light

I've ... been staring at this blank screen a little, and also I'm not sure I can feel my legs. At least Eleven had legs? I think Eleven was doing a Ten impression and will settle into being properly himself after a little while.

I think the real problem is that Ten's last words were I don't want to go, and it fucking ripped my heart out. I already didn't want him to go! And he was alone, oh god, a huge part of me wishes he would have died entirely without ceremony in that little glass chamber with Wilf watching helplessly, and then sprung out and raced off without a second thought. Because the I don't want to die was contained in that awful little tantrum he had when Wilf was still trapped, and that -- I didn't need my heart ripped out twice. I DON'T HAVE TWO.

I guess I'm working backwards, so: I hate that his death was so drawn-out; if he had to stumble off, I didn't need to see a Retrospect On Ten's Companions (fuck you, Mickey found this universe's Jake, Martha is married to Tom Milligan OR DID YOU FORGET THIS, RUSTY, and I can already assume what Donna and Jack and Sarah Jane are up to) -- I would have just done Rose at new year's. I did love that. I love that he got to see her, because in about a million ways that makes it worse, and may have been the second time I teared up.

The first, by the way, was when the Master started blasting the fuck out of the Time Lords and screaming at them for using him. I am going to be inexcusably egotistical now, but thanks, I did a much better and more coherent plot with Gallifrey and the time lock than RTD managed; I actually did love the hugely dark take on the War, and though I maybe laughed a bit at Timothy Dalton (who may or may not have been Rassilon?? I AM CONFUSED) going on about "We'll fuck over all of spacetime and ascend! Like Ancients from that other show! EVEN MORE IRRESPONSIBLY!!" it ... does seem like the ultimate in douchey noninterference. As so often happens, A++ on concept, D- on execution.

I love that the Doctor can't kill the Master to save the human race. I love that for once, for once, they got out of one another's way. If the BBC had sanctioned me an extra ten minutes, I would have had the Master shuffle through all of his crazy and then genuinely team up with the Doctor to kick the Time Lords out of time, although I ... am not sure whether I would have sucked the Master out with them. There is something satisfyingly circular about him going out with them, even if it means Ten couldn't die in his arms.

Fuck, Ten had just -- the most depressing run. Like, lots of it was really genuinely good; I mean that at the end there is no hope. And I'm not quite sure what to do with that.

I still want to write that Doctor/Master fic I wanted to after seeing part one -- all of my notes are still frighteningly pertinent -- but since I don't think it's a fix-it from a place of "oh Rusty, wtf are you doing?" any longer, I'm going to have to sit down and talk with it a while rather than banging it out.

Tell me what you guys thought.

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I only watched the last 15 minutes or so, because I'm not wanting to sit through an hour plus of The Doctor's Man Pain right now. Aside from the anvil-y music cues and the distinct odor of self-indulgence, I quite liked some parts of it-- the monster Rogue gallery in the bar was fun, I liked Martha's hair, I liked the Doctor being able to do one last thing for each of his companions--although I am sad we didn't get a reprise of Sally Sparrow-- and I liked the meta-symmetry of beginning and ending with Rose.

I am also ridonkulously excited for Eleven, so for me the best parts of the last 15 minutes were by far the bits with him. :P Not ginger! Not a girl! Totally pleased to be in the middle of a burning TARDIS (and I'll be taking bets that we get a new interior TARDIS design for the next series)! Has a better designed logo!

Aside from plot near-incoherence, quite a lot of the Doctor's Epic Pain was in the last fifteen minutes. I imagine the retrospective by itself was quite nice, but it threw off the pacing enormously. I did love the bit with Rose, though.

I am slowly becoming excited for Eleven! I mean, I have a few more things to say about Ten first, but I am deeply excited for Moffat's new season. :D

I did a much better and more coherent plot with Gallifrey and the time lock than RTD managed

too true. fortunately i already told you it was great, last year or whenever, because that's really playing your series down - i can't imagine a less coherent explanation than the official one. follow the drumming, and the star is a diamond from gallifrey, and if we hook the star up to this medical gate, pulling all the time lords (and yes, rassilon himself...) through time and gallifrey with it!!

...what?

I think ... I think I could probably take all those plot elements and get them to make sense! It wouldn't be too hard. I'm not so sure about Rassilon, though. I think in my head Timothy Dalton is Borusa. XD

Your version made way more sense. I got totally hung up on "the Time Lords didn't die - they were just trapped in a bubble?" I assume they were actually from the past, but it wasn't very clear.

I must have missed the Master getting sucked out and I sort of wish that hadn't happened. I'm going to hope that he was actually deposited somewhere outside and that he was hiding in the TARDIS while Ten made his goodbyes. The Master doesn't give a crap about the human race but I like that he cared enough about the Doctor to get out of the way. Obviously there was self-interest there, but not completely.

I'll be hoping I read fic soon!

Oh, it just now occurred to me that both the Doctor and the Master have ended the race of the Time Lords. That seems like something that screams for further exploration.

Thank you! And mm, the Time Lords being trapped rather than dead does make sense to me -- they try to escape in the space before the Doctor kills them. Time locks are tricky that way! Or something.

They didn't actually show the Master -- or indeed any of the Time Lords -- actually being sucked out of time, so I assume that if future writers want to use any of them, everyone's still fair game. Which is excellent. :D

Your observation that the Doctor and the Master have ended the race of the Time Lords makes me all shivery with glee. I think there shall indeed be further exploration!

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I think if one doesn't want to believe that he went out with the Time Lords, it's easy enough to handwave it. In that sense, writing fix-its is more difficult from the "Ten dies" perspective than the "Master dies" one.

Rassilon, however, has never been nice. I don't know if you've seen any old school, but he's in The Five Doctors, and while he's not ... the main villain, he's not a particularly wonderful guy, either.

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HEE. That is basically accurate. And the reason that he transforms people who want immortality into statues is not because Immortality Is Wrong, per se, but because he wants to keep it ALL TO HIMSELF.

Your nine year old self should be a Time Lord? XD

As a complete outsider in Who except for the Master/Doctor eps, I was pretty satisfied :D both the doctor and the master delivered spectacularly in terms of acting, their plot and characterization wasn't bad. There can never be enough interaction between them, for me, it's what I'm there for, butoverall, for an episode the ending of which I knew - the doctor dies - it was good. I mean, I wish they'd died in each other's arms, but, you know. I'll take this and wait for your fics :p

From that perspective, yeah, it was kind of excellent! And with a day's distance I love all their scenes almost unconditionally, although as you say there can never, ever be enough interaction.

Ficcing: starts now. :D

I admit, I was a little teary since the radiation chamber, but when I saw Jackie and Rose I just started crying and I couldn't stop. Oh, Rose. OH, TEN.

And, yeah, those last lines of Ten's- those were painful. Just like you said, I didn't want him to have died alone, and sad, and scared.

...but I DID love Eleven's irrational fear that he was a girl. Something about Eleven still makes me think he looks kinda like Frankenstein's monster, but I'm thinking I can love him.

Back to the episode: I'm not actually feeling very coherent on this, yet, but everything with the Master was GOLDEN for me here. I hadn't watched the preview of the bondage!Doctor scene before seeing the episode, so I was flailing my little arms off in surprise and happy, and his showdown with the Time Lord's was great, even though I thought the glove was a bit ridiculous. Is there anything in canon that mentions the magic death glove of the Time Lords? Because I was highly unconvinced. As I was by the whole time bubble/diamond meteor/drum beat epic plot thing (though I was actually impressed by the four beats being the heartbeat of a Time Lord) but I TOTALLY FORGIVE because overall I really liked the episode. Though I think I was most highly disappointed by the lack of good Donna.

...but really, this whole comment was just an excuse to tell you that I've read almost 1.5 MILLION WORDS OF dS FIC (NOT EXAGGERATING- ACTUALLY DID A ROUGH COUNT) SINCE YESTERDAY. SRSLY. THIS IS WHAT MY LIFE HAS BECOME.

Ahhh I wish I could have started crying. There was just too much stuff between the radiation chamber and Rose, and by then I'd gone into numb unhappiness.

I wish someone had been there for him! ANYONE. I mean, half his regenerations are alone and miserable, but that doesn't make it better.

ELEVEN. I am still processing Ten, so I am not at the glee stage yet, but I think I am beginning to be excited.

There is no Magic Death Glove of Rassilon, but that hardly matters; the whole thing was half-coherent and the important part was DOCTOR/MASTER INTERACTION OMG. He couldn't shoot the Master. Not even to save the whole human race! MY HEARTS.

asdofdkdfsj ahahaha DUE SOUTH IS TOTALLY EVIL LIKE THAT. Tell me what your favourites are!! Also tell me when you are coming back to school.

I…have no intelligent thoughts on the matter at the moment, but in my head, the Doctor and the Master totally kissed at one point. At LEAST one point.

…I'm sorry. I'll GTFO and stop lowering the tone now shall I.

Doctor/Master snogging does not lower the tone! I don't want epic, Stella, I want all Doctor/Master all the time. So this comment is good. XD

Playing the "that was actually a kiss but they're pretending it was just an excessively long look" game is almost too easy with those two! The Doctor telling the Master he was beautiful is just not even trying to be subtle, is it? I mean really. Doctor/Master OTP plz kthx.

fuck you, Mickey found this universe's Jake, Martha is married to Tom Milligan OR DID YOU FORGET THIS, RUSTY

I think my reaction was close to yours about that, except for the Jake part. I was pretty much going WHAT THE HECK HER HAIR WHAT THE HECK THEY'RE MARRIED WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO TOM MILLIGAN THAT'S WHO SHE'S SUPPOSE TO BE WITH.

I did like her hair, though!

I have a more coherent reaction an entry up. :)

Oh, don't get me wrong. I liked her hair too! But initually seeing it was a big shock.

but thanks, I did a much better and more coherent plot with Gallifrey and the time lock than RTD managed;

Yeah, you kind of did.

I've been obsessively re-reading your alternate seasons and I came here in the hope you'd say this:

I still want to write that Doctor/Master fic I wanted to after seeing part one

Looking forward to it!

(deborah_judge on LJ)

On the whole I liked the episode pretty well, I think. I was constantly yelling at Donna to START BEING AWESOME, ALREADY, but on the other hand the Master's idea to turn everyone in the world into himself seemed much less crazy when the ultimate goal was to declare war on the universe. I mean, he already tried taking over humanity; since that didn't work, making lots of Master-clones to do the dirty work instead does actually seem like a fairly logical option to try from that perspective.

I had mixed feelings about the drawing out of Ten's death, which I'm...not sure I can really articulate. Artistically it was way too long and completely unnecessary, but on the other hand...I dunno, it also kind of fit in a weird way I don't really understand.

--As for Martha and Mickey, I think frankly that the writers could just never make up their damn minds who they wanted Martha to end up with, because if you'll recall the "The Stolen Earth" and its Part II, the name of which I forget, I'm pretty sure that Tom Mulligan or wossname was completely absent the whole way through and then at the end Martha wandered off hand-in-hand with Captain Jack. So either they couldn't make up their minds, or they figured that after the Doctor, Martha kept looking for men who in one way or another reminded her of him -- Tom, the "doctor who's always off in exotic places saving the world" or however she described him; Jack, the man from the 51st century who's saved the world a few times; and ultimately Mickey, who like Jack is a time traveler, traveled with the Doctor for a bit and has a saved world or two to his name.

OR MAYBE I'M JUST REALLY GOOD AT RATIONALIZING THESE THINGS KTHNKXBYE.

I actually have two other posts that are much more coherent reactions than this one, which is mostly "waaaah no more Ten!!"

I completely concur on Donna, and I think I have mostly made peace with the Master's Master-clone plan; it's not any more bonkers than the one he had in s3, anyway.

If you do figure out the weird way in which the drawing out of Ten's death fit, please, please let me know. That is one of the only bits I am not sure I can ever learn to like.

I'm just handwaving Martha and Mickey: obviously Tom the fiance died in the Dalek attack or something, and Mickey stayed at Martha's, and they fell in love, and it was all very wonderful, or something like that. WE CAN RATIONALIZE TOGETHER.

PS I do not recall, when are you back in the area? I would love to see you!

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rage, rage against the dying of the light

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