Maius Intra Qua Extra

I only just realized that the majority of readers would think my last story is just a rehash of the 60th from a different point of view, which it's not. This is a good thing, by the way: I absolutely love writing stories that most people won't actually understand, because it's doubly enjoyable for the ones that do. (Also, I love being obscure.) But, since this is my blag and I can talk about whatever I want, I thought I'd talk about what I intended it to be.

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Omg I need new icons, especially of Fourteen and Donna.

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Still obsessing about Good Omens (though slowly getting excited for the DW 60th!). Lots of blabber below, mostly on themes and purposes.

Good Omens (very spoilery!)
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As you probably all know, I don't pay attention to any media, so I only heard about The News through bas_math_girl, and also through thisbluespirit. The actual event is behind the cut, in case you don't like DW spoilers, though I can't imagine how you'll miss this.

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Here's something that I just remembered that I've wondered about.

Back when I first fell headlong into Doctor Who, in 2013, I was working for a different development studio than the one I am now (actually, it was three companies ago over the last eight years - if you want job stability, independent software development studios are not a good choice) and one of the developers, Ian, was English. Ian was a little older than me (read: old enough to have grown up watching the classic show since the Third Doctor, possibly the tail end of the Second) and sported a thick accent which most of us Americans often couldn't decipher, even ones more comfortable with non-RP accents than I. I have since learned to recognize his accent as something perhaps Midlands, similar to Matt Smith.

When I started talking about DW at work, Ian took it upon himself to educate me to be a proper fan. However, only one thing he told me stuck with me, and it was this: "Never refer to the Doctor by number - the Third Doctor, the Seventh Doctor, the Tenth Doctor. We use the actor name - the Pertwee Doctor, the McCoy Doctor, the Tennant Doctor." He implied (or maybe he stated it outright; it was eight years ago, after all) that using numbers would mark me as an American (as if that wasn't obvious already) and an ignorant wannabe fan.

He does have a bit of a point, since after all, we refer to the Delgado Master, the Ainsley Master, etc., rather than the First Master and the Second Master (though we also refer to Romana I and Romana II). However, in eight years of hanging out in this corner of the fandom, I've never heard anyone, British or American, consistently refer to the Doctors by the actor name. Occasionally, yes, but not consistently.

So is/was that really a thing? There are a number of possible explanations. First, most people I'm in contact with in-person and on the web are American, so I mostly see American phrasing; however, I do have a number of British friends, many of whom are reading this right now, and they tend to use number rather than name. Second, since I'm mostly active in the fanfic community, I see the phrasing that's used there, and it's number; you won't see "Eccleston Doctor" as a selectable tag on ffnet, Teaspoon, or AO3. (Ship names would also get pretty complicated, if you can't use "Ten/Donna" or similar.) Third, Ian's been living in the States for a very long time (he's married to an American and has been here all that time), and perhaps the convention in Britain has changed and he's just not aware of it. Fourth, maybe he was just winding me up.

Whatever. It's not like I'm going to change now. :)

Good Omens has pretty much taken over my life for the last month. I've watched it probably seven times in total: once when it came out, once before the trip to the Midwest, once on the trip out, once on the trip home, and then random episode viewings during the trip and since we got home. A good fraction of the conversation between me and my husband are about the show or the book (or both), much like Doctor Who has been ever since I first watched "Rose" in 2013.

I haven't abandoned DW; it's just not the fresh new thing right now. GO is, and I'm even considering writing a fanfic or two. We'll see where that goes, but otherwise, I'm still an entrenched DW writer and working on some things for Camp Nanowrimo.

I think the biggest problem right now is that I just have no one other than my husband to talk to about GO. I've gotten most of my friends to watch the show, and while they liked/loved it, no one cares to discuss it more than "Oh, that was a gas!" (Yes, one of my friends literally said that. Dates him, doesn't it?) I'm a member of the Neil Gaiman fan group on FB and it's still the main topic of discussion there (except they've just announced that Netflix made a deal with Gaiman to adapt Sandman and that's the big news now), but they're not interested in discussing themes and things. So I'm stuck blagging (now there's an obscure reference) and clogging the ether with my fangirling.

And the bottom line is that you suffer for it. Muahahaha!

Note: What I write here might be considered sacrilegious. You've been warned.

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Here's a question to think about.

Let's change "The End of Time" in the following way: While the Doctor is talking to Wilf in the cafe, Wilf asks him to come back and fix Donna, to give her back her memories and her life with the Doctor. We know that the Doctor can't do that, but let's change it so that at that moment, he realizes that he knows how to do it - he can use his current biodata to filter from Donna what's actually him and remove it, leaving just her behind as a perfectly normal human, with intact memories of her life up through traveling with the Doctor.

With that knowledge, he and Wilf go off to find Donna to fix her, but the other events of the episode begin to happen, and they proceed as we saw on screen. After the Doctor defeats Rassilon and Gallifrey retreats back into the Time War, Wilf knocks four times. The Doctor then must choose: if he saves Wilf, he not only dies, but the regeneration rewrites his biodata and he can no longer fix Donna; but to save Donna, he must let Wilf die.

So, the question is, what do you think the Doctor would choose? And also, what would you want him to choose, since they are not necessarily the same thing? (Note: Meta is not within reach, so you can't choose "Save Wilf, then go get Meta to fix Donna." ;) )

This morning, during breakfast, my husband and I talked about Doctor Who, as is our wont. We decided to look through the episode lists of series 1-7 to see which episodes we can just sit down and watch and enjoy. Of course there are episodes we don't like and watch very rarely (if ever), but there's also a chunk of them that we don't watch for various reasons. For example, we tend to avoid multi-part episodes because of the mistaken belief that we don't want to devote that much time in front of the TV. This is stupid, of course. I will go, "Oh, I don't want to devote the time to watch HN/FoB even though it's my favorite episode, so I'll just put in Pompeii", then four hours later, after I've just chain-watched through most of series 4, smack myself for not just watching HN/FoB like I wanted to. I'm really stupid sometimes.

But I digress.

There are also episodes that we don't watch for other reasons. Despite it being my second-favorite episode, I've only actually seen "Midnight" twice because it's just too intense. Anyway, my husband pulled out his phone and read off the names of the episodes from the Wikipedia article. And then this snippet of conversation happened.

Him: Oh, "Doomsday"! That's a great episode, not even counting Rose getting punted. I mean, that was a pure bonus, but even without it, that was good!

A little later, we started talking about the ideal show we envisioned, if we could change things magically.

Me: I wish that Eccleston did a second season. I'd have him do two seasons, even if that meant that Tennant only got two, because I certainly don't want Tennant under Moffat.
Him: No, I think I'd rather insert a second season of Eccleston, rather than take one of Tennant's.
Me: But think about it. Two seasons of Nine and Rose, and Rose leaves with him, leaving Ten with Martha and Donna. That would be perfect.
Him: (thinks) That's interesting. But no, I wouldn't touch Tennant.
Me: I would.
Him: (rolls eyes)

We finally decided on an extra season of Eccleston and a second season of Ten and Donna, though I suppose by the end of that, RTD would just be a burned-out husk. Sorry, Russell THE Davies.

It's been a while since "Hell Bent" aired. My initial reaction upon seeing it was intense disappointment, and it devolved from there into hatred, mostly due to discussions about it with my husband, who loathed it (it was his first ragequit during a viewing for a number of episodes, if not all season). Thinking about it now, I don't think I really hate it, but I don't like it. I thought about writing a review here, but put it off for a while, because I couldn't quite get a handle on why I disliked it, but I think I got it now.

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Grump and ramble...

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