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ever_neutralAnd so it continues.
02 | the ship you love because it really neverwill was going to happen
/random boring spam
Surprise, I ship it. (Tho, not a surprise to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xx_pinkstar, bless.) This may earn me some stink eye considering the way this fandom is about 1) Doctor/Rose and 2) doctor/companion pairings in general. I'm pretty sure 80% of criticisms leveled at the show concern the almost-constant UST between the (revolving-door) leads BUT I BEG TO DIFFER. I will literally ship the Doctor with practically everyone except River and Clara. Humans, aliens, the Tardis; I DON'T CARE. And you can expect to see all the canon doc/companion ships here before this meme is out; deal with it or like go eat a tree I don't care what you do with your life.
Ahem. So, Martha/Ten. Unpopular ship. Firstly because everyone's obsessed with Rose/Ten, and secondly because Ten is a bag of dicks who never appreciated Martha like she deserved, which I understand turns a lot of people off. Not me! I live for terrible awkward unrequited shit like that, MAKE OF IT WHAT YOU WILL. One huge source of appeal of Martha/Ten for me, ironically, is actually because I don't care to see the Doctor being portrayed as some smoldering romantic hero. I don't care for him being romanticized or glorified. I LIKE that even though the Doctor can be a hero and saver of galaxies blah blah blah, he is also the world's worst friend/boyfriend and also generally a vain self-absorbed douche. At the same time, I do find it very believable (and almost inevitable in certain cases) that so many would fall head-over-heels for that showy time lord shit because, well. But the thing about Martha and Ten's NOT!romance is that while there is a textual ongoing romantic/sexual tension (and unlike the Doctor and Rose's relatively straightforward epic love) the relationship itself isn't romanticized. That is, it isn't presented as romantic.
And really, why should it be. Why should any doctor/companion relationship be. The Doctor is a hundreds-years-old genocidal alien. I'm not particularly interested in seeing romance involving him, but I am (always) interested in seeing romantic tropes being subverted. And while I can appreciate how the story was problematic (re: the narrative either implicitly or explicitly pitting Martha against Rose and/or propping up Doctor/Rose), it's also clear IMO that we're meant to sympathize with Martha in her rejection, often even over the Doctor -- her relationship with him is framed almost completely from her POV and, like Amy, it overturns and to some degree deconstructs the idealised perspective of the Doctor-as-romantic-figure established by Rose/Ten. One of the things that works for me about the tragedy of Martha and Ten is that it's so mundane: it's not sprawling and epic; the Doctor isn't a tortured Romeo -- he is really just another guy who took you for granted.
[ASIDE: And contrary to how this basic piece of shit fandom would have it, Martha Jones is not wholly and solely "defined" by the Doctor. She is in fact consistently portrayed as an exceptionally capable, intelligent, proactive, and moral person whose one major weakness is being hung up on an emotionally unavailable guy. I balk at the idea that the latter "ruined" her character because no, being a Strong Female Character (TM) let alone a "strong woman" does not preclude being in love with a dude who's bad for you -- plus also fuck Strong Female Characters (TM). This complaint particularly irks me wrt Martha since inside the story she consistently displays agency, has life goals that are unrelated to men, forms and maintains relationships with other women, helps people for the sake of helping people and, oh yeah, SAVES THE ENTIRE WORLD ALMOST SINGLEHANDEDLY, not to mention the Doctor's useless ass on more than one occasion. And at the end of it all she makes the decision for herself to stop traveling with the Doctor, not just because she recognizes that she deserves better but also in order to pursue her true life goal: helping people in need. The moral of this paragraph is basically that Martha Jones is a goddess and peasants will bow or get out of my journal.]
Possibly the most (mundanely) tragic part, though, is the effect of bad timing. The thing is that Martha is exactly the Doctor's type of person: smart, curious, headstrong, big heart, gorgeous, adapts easily in bizarre situations, etc. and their best moments are when he properly acknowledges these things (especially in Smith & Jones). The Doctor does love and care for Martha a lot, considers her his best friend for a long time. But, ultimately, his heart's not fully in it; he left it back in that parallel universe. You could have had it all but instead were hung up on what was already lost. Which, really, is obnoxiously human.
So, yeah, in summary: Martha/Ten. Wrong!ship it because it was absolutely futile. COME AT ME.
02 | the ship you love because it really never
'Cause he never looked at her twice. I mean, he liked her, but that was
it. And she wasted years pining after him, years of her life, 'cause
while he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her, I
always said to her, time and time again, I said, "get out"
So this is me, getting out.
it. And she wasted years pining after him, years of her life, 'cause
while he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her, I
always said to her, time and time again, I said, "get out"
So this is me, getting out.
/random boring spam
Surprise, I ship it. (Tho, not a surprise to
xx_pinkstar, bless.) This may earn me some stink eye considering the way this fandom is about 1) Doctor/Rose and 2) doctor/companion pairings in general. I'm pretty sure 80% of criticisms leveled at the show concern the almost-constant UST between the (revolving-door) leads BUT I BEG TO DIFFER. I will literally ship the Doctor with practically everyone Ahem. So, Martha/Ten. Unpopular ship. Firstly because everyone's obsessed with Rose/Ten, and secondly because Ten is a bag of dicks who never appreciated Martha like she deserved, which I understand turns a lot of people off. Not me! I live for terrible awkward unrequited shit like that, MAKE OF IT WHAT YOU WILL. One huge source of appeal of Martha/Ten for me, ironically, is actually because I don't care to see the Doctor being portrayed as some smoldering romantic hero. I don't care for him being romanticized or glorified. I LIKE that even though the Doctor can be a hero and saver of galaxies blah blah blah, he is also the world's worst friend/boyfriend and also generally a vain self-absorbed douche. At the same time, I do find it very believable (and almost inevitable in certain cases) that so many would fall head-over-heels for that showy time lord shit because, well. But the thing about Martha and Ten's NOT!romance is that while there is a textual ongoing romantic/sexual tension (and unlike the Doctor and Rose's relatively straightforward epic love) the relationship itself isn't romanticized. That is, it isn't presented as romantic.
And really, why should it be. Why should any doctor/companion relationship be. The Doctor is a hundreds-years-old genocidal alien. I'm not particularly interested in seeing romance involving him, but I am (always) interested in seeing romantic tropes being subverted. And while I can appreciate how the story was problematic (re: the narrative either implicitly or explicitly pitting Martha against Rose and/or propping up Doctor/Rose), it's also clear IMO that we're meant to sympathize with Martha in her rejection, often even over the Doctor -- her relationship with him is framed almost completely from her POV and, like Amy, it overturns and to some degree deconstructs the idealised perspective of the Doctor-as-romantic-figure established by Rose/Ten. One of the things that works for me about the tragedy of Martha and Ten is that it's so mundane: it's not sprawling and epic; the Doctor isn't a tortured Romeo -- he is really just another guy who took you for granted.
[ASIDE: And contrary to how this basic piece of shit fandom would have it, Martha Jones is not wholly and solely "defined" by the Doctor. She is in fact consistently portrayed as an exceptionally capable, intelligent, proactive, and moral person whose one major weakness is being hung up on an emotionally unavailable guy. I balk at the idea that the latter "ruined" her character because no, being a Strong Female Character (TM) let alone a "strong woman" does not preclude being in love with a dude who's bad for you -- plus also fuck Strong Female Characters (TM). This complaint particularly irks me wrt Martha since inside the story she consistently displays agency, has life goals that are unrelated to men, forms and maintains relationships with other women, helps people for the sake of helping people and, oh yeah, SAVES THE ENTIRE WORLD ALMOST SINGLEHANDEDLY, not to mention the Doctor's useless ass on more than one occasion. And at the end of it all she makes the decision for herself to stop traveling with the Doctor, not just because she recognizes that she deserves better but also in order to pursue her true life goal: helping people in need. The moral of this paragraph is basically that Martha Jones is a goddess and peasants will bow or get out of my journal.]
Possibly the most (mundanely) tragic part, though, is the effect of bad timing. The thing is that Martha is exactly the Doctor's type of person: smart, curious, headstrong, big heart, gorgeous, adapts easily in bizarre situations, etc. and their best moments are when he properly acknowledges these things (especially in Smith & Jones). The Doctor does love and care for Martha a lot, considers her his best friend for a long time. But, ultimately, his heart's not fully in it; he left it back in that parallel universe. You could have had it all but instead were hung up on what was already lost. Which, really, is obnoxiously human.
So, yeah, in summary: Martha/Ten. Wrong!ship it because it was absolutely futile. COME AT ME.
