doyle | (no subject)

Fitz!

I've been trying to put thoughts together for ages on why I love Fitz (aside from the obvious 'because he really, really loves Eight and so do I' - Sam loves Eight and it doesn't make me fond of her.) Fitz is brilliant because he tends towards being a bit shit at things, really: when he's first introduced he'd like to be a famous rock star and a ladies man but he actually works in a garden centre and has a crap flat and a sick mum and, as far as we know, no friends. And even after he goes off with the Doctor (or in his own words, as best as I can remember them from Vanishing Point, "I met somebody special and went travelling round the universe with him") he still fucks things up and falls in love at the drop of a pair of knickers (often not even that) and smokes and swears and ambles all over space and time being a Sixties dropout, and somehow he manages to help save the world/the universe/the multiverse lots. I don't think post-Earth Arc Eight would have managed nearly so well without Fitz.

I think it's Eater of Wasps where Anji asks how he can be so loyal to the Doctor even when he's acting like an uncaring shit, and Fitz says "because he's good. Because he's so good." And even aside from all slashiness (though it should be noted that Anji responds "you really love him, don't you?") that's just perfect.

Oh, and there's that whole question of how much of him - the Fitz Mk II him - was created by the Doctor in Interference, which nicely hits my obsession with people-who-were-made-up-by-someone-else (Dawn in Buffy, Eve in Angel). *And* he's from 1963 which means it's obviously canon that Susan groupied him at that Soho club he played in and he went to school with Jamie from An Empty Child and he knew Ian and Barbara (the latter probably not in the biblical sense, to his sadness, although he would be quite scared of her, I think.)

*latches*

Somebody I used to know on OG on at least one occasion called Fitz the Everyfan, which to me was a brilliantly concise summation of Fitz Kreiner.

Fitz and the Doctor are just so damned dependent on each other, particularly after the Earth arc--but even in The Taint it surprised me when I reread it recently how quickly the Doctor got his snark on (uh-hem) with Fitz. They just clicked.

And he has all kinds of identity issues that are exactly the kind of identity issues that interest me and really, that's just not fair.

I loved the first half of The Taint, especially the Doctr's first conversation with Fitz involving trying to charm him into giving him a sick begonia for free.

I was very interested in Interference Pt I the comment that the Doctor likes Fitz and feels terribly sorry for him but he doesn't exactly trust him, because I never got the feeling he didn't trust him afterwards. That made me wonder if he, even subconsciously, tweaked some bits he didn't like so much when he was remembering Kode into Fitz (which would fit with him creating Sam as his perfect companion without his knowledge). Mmm, identity crises, I love them.

*pretends to be someone else* Anji!

Anji is great because she doesn't *want* to be an intrepid traveller through time and space. She'd rather go back to her great job in the City and make lots of money on the stock market, thanks, and she can see straight through most of the Doctor's crap that Fitz chooses to ignore, and she says so.

I sort of wish more had been done with Anji rather than half the books reducing her to being emo about her dead boyfriend, because she's smart and sarcastic and sure of herself and if she was ever put in charge of a planet it would have the best-run economy in the universe. This is possibly why the Doctor wants to keep an eye on her. Also I *hate* that she was written out by being handed a pre-fab family in a new boyfriend and an annoying adopted daughter.

omg yes Anji leaving like that annoyed me. i don't think they ever really knew what to do with her and lots of people hated her for being any good. also she knows that the doctor and fitz are in love and i think she should have become empress of the universe

also she knows that the doctor and fitz are in love

She's so aware that Fitz will probably let the Doctor get away with everything up to and including murdering everything in the entire universe and react with a tolerant but besotted shrug, and she calls him on it. She's the Senisble Bossy Girl-character Among Childish Boys, which is possibly why people hated her, and why I <3 her.

Anji would like Romana and Sarah-Jane, I think. (I have this whole AU in my head where Romana is the last Time Lord and is travelling with Sarah-Jane and now Anji seems to want in on it...)

Ten/Oz!

Crossover pairing of *love*! After nine lifetimes of being surrounded by companions who exist to ask "gosh, what's that, Doctor?"/scream/fall and sprain their ankle, I think the Doctor'd appreciate someone who could take it all in stride. And he probably knows all the best concerts and wouldn't even blink at the werewolf thing. Oz is presumably attracted to people with runaway mouths (Devon, Willow) ~~and English accents (Giles)~~ and I can't see him having any hesitation about the chance to travel anywhere in time and space. Plus, you know, pretty (I keep thinking 'Ten's so *tall*. And with the suit and everything. That would just look nice.)

Good suits with cute trainers, motormouth, southern-English accent: Ten is *perfect* for me Oz.

*loves on you*

Mickey! Possibly with a side of Mickey/Ten...?

Mickey, Mickey, Mickey... I admit, it took me a bit to warm to Mickey, since he doesn't make the best first impression in Rose. By the time we get to WWIII, though... wow. He's spent a year being persecuted and probably questioning his own sanity and he's still prepared to kill the woman he loves to save the world, something the Doctor hesitates over. And he stands up to Jackie, which is a terrifying enough prospect.

Mickey is just good, basically. I know RTD's said the intention was for him to be a blameless character whose life was blown to bits by the Doctor, and I love that despite the crap he's gone through he's still the one who refuses to let Rose give up in PoTW: he's got the perfect chance to keep her, get rid of the Doctor forever, but he helps her instead, knowing he might never see her again.

So: loyal, funny, a hell of a lot smarter and braver than he thinks - yeah, I'm glad he's going to get to be a proper companion. And Mickey/Ten - definite thawing of his relationship with the Doctor in TCI (the group hug!) and when he asked "you're never going to stay"... maybe it was just me, but I don't think that was solely for Rose. It'll never happen in the series but I'd love to see, after Mickey's been travelling with them a while, Rose decides it's time to go - and Mickey realises *he* doesn't want to. He's actually out there, doing these amazing planet-saving things rather than working in a garage, and the Doctor's possibly the first proper male friend he's ever had and just maybe, if he's honest, his thoughts have sometimes wandered in a less than platonic direction. And they're alone in the console room as Rose is packing and the Doctor asks what she hasn't, does Mickey want to stay, and there's just a moment... I need to fic. *g*

Ian Chesterton.

It is actually quite hard to consider Ian on his own and not as 50% of Ian'n'Barbara. The thing that primarily springs to mind about Ian is that he's Nice, which sounds like a condemnation but isn't: he's just such a thoroughly decent person, and absolutely someone I'd want on my side if I needed to trap a Dalek with a cardigan. And he gets passionate about things he believes in, and has quite a sly sense of humour, and it's odd that he doesn't get any love interests when Susan and Barbara and the Doctor do because he's rather fanciable ~~especially in a cardie~~

Five/Turlough!

Oh God, I need to start with Mawdryn Undead (which needs to be released on DVD *now*): the bit when Five introduces Turlough to Tegan and Nyssa is so "this is my new best friend!" (as one of my housemates pointed out, he's probably thinking 'finally, another male in this TARDIS of estrogen! *latch*') He's just so happy to meet him, and there's a bit where he's babbling about how some piece of technology works and he breathlessly finishes "I made it myself!" and Turlough properly smiles - for possibly the only time in the whole series, that I can think of - and sort of laughs as he says "I'm sure you did". He looks so charmed, forgetting for a moment that he's meant to murder this guy. It's such a nice little instant connection between them.

Then of course, the parallel that I couldn't believe I'd missed when it was pointed out to me, Turlough picking up a rock to murder someone in order to gain his freedom, just as the First Doctor does in the very first story. Very interesting, that. I love that they go from attempted assassination to that doleful "look after him"/"I shall miss you" in Planet of Fire, and that Turlough clearly ends up caring about the Doctor despite his best efforts to be a self-serving bastard. The fact that they're both stubborn and sarcastic (more facetious, in the Doctor's case) works well for me, too - I love reading and writing dialogue between prickly people.

By the way, you were mentioning PDAs on your journal - I loved Imperial Moon, which has Five and Turlough gatecrashing a Victorian moon landing. All very Jules Verne, and while I agree with the OG reviewers who reckon it was written as an EDA and "Fitz" replaced with "Turlough" at the last minute, it's got a really nice Five/Turlough friendship going.

Oh, the bit where the Doctor introduces him makes me flail! He sounds so happy. And the only bits where Turlough smiles are when he's with the Doctor, doing boy things and having subtext. Such a pity they didn't have more onscreen time together, doing standard Doctor-and-companion adventurous stuff.

Didn't know about the rock parallel: that's awesome. There are boatloads of points of connection between then.

Sorry, this was meant to be you rambling on...;)

Cheers for the tip on Imperial Moon. Am more than happy for him to be written as a sort of Fitz stand-in if that leads to Five/Turlough goodness, hee.

Oh, feel free to ramble on!

Such a pity they didn't have more onscreen time together, doing standard Doctor-and-companion adventurous stuff.

Absolutely. I'm sad there are so few audios/novels with the two of them (though I suppose there are a few - it'd be far worse if I was a Five/Adric fan)

They work really nicely together, I think (in between murderous intent and being driven insane and trying to run away like a great big coward, obviously). Five really liked having Nyssa around because she knew stuff and although he loves being smug and knowledgeable, there comes a point where it gets a bit frustrating being surrounded by ninnies. And Turlough had that same thing of knowing a bit about technology, and not needing every little thing spelt out to the point of absurdity. There are trust issues obviously, but Five talks to Turlough on a level he never does with any of the others: sort of mutual respect despite the context.

Still haven't heard the audios yet, though will crack imminently I think. I'm trying to spread out the bits that are left I haven't heard/read yet now I've wolfed down all the eps in a big chunk: slightly pathetic, but I hate the thought that one day soon there will be No More New (to me) Things. (Daft really, as a)this is tv from 1984 and I should be whooping that there ARE new things and b)fic, doh.)

I have no sympathy for the Five/Adric fans as they are on crack. Ahem. :D

Five/Nyssa's my het Five-OTP, and one which there is zero fic for. Woe. Shall have to write some.

slightly pathetic, but I hate the thought that one day soon there will be No More New (to me) Things

*clings* I know! I've seen all Five's stuff and am trying to pace myself a bit on the books and audios because there'll be none left, and with no new PDAs in the foreseeable future... woes.

I have no sympathy for the Five/Adric fans as they are on crack. Ahem. :D

Hee. I love some crack pairings myself, but I'll admit I really don't get Five/Adric. I think my main problem is Adric's apparent age: I know Mark Strickson and Matthew Waterhouse are the same age but Adric *looks* (and acts) about 13, while Turlough looks anything from 17 to 30-something depending on the shot.

Holy crap, had no idea they were the same age. That's so odd. I know they're very different characters, and Adric is very much the 'annoying little brother' as opposed to Turlough being the World's Oldest Schoolboy, but...yeah, odd. But I think Adric is my real problem with Five/Adric. You're not good enough for him, pyjama boy!

I have this little dream world where the success of the new series means a revival of the PDAs ~~and then they phone me up and ask me to write one and let me make it all Five/Turloughy through the means of clever subtext~~.

It is weird there is no Five/Nyssa. I buy that a hell of a lot more than Five/Tegan, who hog all the attention.

Four/Romana!

::is predictable::

(Or how about Eight/Romana? Or just Doctor/Romana?)

The one Doctor/Companion pair who were utterly, indisputably in love and doing it madly offscreen. IMHO. Four's the one Doctor who doesn't seem to actually want pesky companions spraining their ankles and asking "what's that, Doctor?": he's got his TARDIS, he's got his robot dog, and he's happy puttering around the universe interfering in things and taking the odd day off to do some fishing. Then Romana gets dumped on him and it's all a bit screwball-comedy (overcompensating for something, indeed). After she regenerates, Romana seems much more keen to get into this whole adventuring lark, and this seems to be when they really hit it off (there are the obvious real-life reasons why the chemistry suddenly shoots off the charts, but they don't count because It's All Really Really Real, obviously) so there's running around Paris holding hands and matching sonic screwdrivers and "you are wonderful"s.

The fact that she's a Time Lord gets rid of most of the Doctor/Companion issues right off the bat, though I'm sure there was some gossip on Gallifrey about how that previously sensible PhD student suddenly ran off with that renegade 600 years her senior. I love that Romana's cleverer than the Doctor but much less experienced. I love that she finally runs off to be just like him. I agree with nos that it's very hard to write them together without being twee (plus factoring in the whole alien sexuality thing) but they're just Love.

Eight/Romana are Love too. Just that he looks a lot younger now and is hyperactive and if you go by extended universe-canon she's a proper grown-up and the President of Gallifrey and she can't go running off with him whenever she feels like. But they'll always have Paris.

Yay! And that's true, she does run off to be just like him...

But they'll always have Paris.

And Cambridge! :-)

And I'm sure that schoolgirl outfit is still hanging up in the wardrobe room. But at the back. So it doesn't make him sad.

Awwwww...

::pictures the Doctor (any of them) finding the schoolgirl outfit and smiling wistfully::

*experiences happy shipper glow from reading this*

The whole "you are wonderful" routine kills me. I had to watch it four times before I returned the "State of Decay" video to the library.

*goes back to watch the "Shada" webcast again*

Buffy/Oz.

There's something so right about the idea of those two together; Oz ties with Gunn as the person I'd most like to believe Buffy hooked up with post-Chosen. The werewolf thing deals with her woman-of-steel-man-of-kleenex issues with having a human boyfriend; they've got that parallel going between her and Spike/him and Veruca; he'd never get hung up on her being stronger than he is; they'd be fun. Mellow and low-key and fun. (Damn you, that does make me want to write Buffyverse *g*)

Trix.

Or, failing that, Romana.

(I love your icon.) Trix deserved far better treatment than she got in most of the novels, I think: on her first appearance she came across as a Bond girl, and afterwards she seemed to exist just so she could dress up as someone and be unmasked. But she has great potential, both the fact that she's a con artist who loves her work and isn't as heartless as she'd like to be, and the mystery about her past.

In my head her relationship with Fitz lasted about three months - a fun three months, mind you - before she ran off with a gorgeous guy with an American accent who offered to show her his invisible spaceship. And she's never looked back.

(*beam* Thanks! I loved the ones I'd seen for other fandoms, and when I needed text for the glowy!Rose effect I'd messed around with, I borrowed the phrase. ...was supposed to be for an icontest, but... I wanted to use it. *grin*)

Yeah, I was reading through, and she sort of got pushed to the background. I wondered why that was, why they didn't just kill her off if they didn't like her much. And she could have been great. I liked her wanting to be heartless and instead just being slightly annoying.

Oh, god. Jack would have totally done that. And her. *blink* That is now my fanon. Someone should write it. Although... they could both have a mysterious past together, where they both teach each other everything they know, but Jack's lot find out and take his memory away, but he's left with this desire to become a con man that he doesn't know the reason for. Heh. Sorry.

Susan:)

Susan fascinates me. She occasionally annoys me, too, with the continual shrieking-and-being-a-bit-useless because the writers needed someone to be a damsel, but that's just the companions' curse and so I'm not going to judge her for it *g* She's so wonderful in An Unearthly Child: I love how odd and alien she is in the school scenes without being over the top.

In a couple of years Susan goes from (presumably) being a young teenager no Gallifrey, to going on the run with her grandfather, to living on Earth, to travelling with her grandfather and Ian and Barbara, to being 16 and married and stranded in a post-apocalyptic future Earth. Talk about your character arc. And what about Susan and the Time War? That last scene in Dalek Invasion is heartwrenching on its own, but taken in conjunction with "before this war I wasa father and a grandfather..."/"I know the feeling" it's devastating.

Oh, I've been reading some of the Target novelisations and headdesking at Terrance Dicks' fondness for Susan calling her own grandfather 'Doctor'. She *is* his granddaughter, dammit!

Also one of the Big Finish audios, Auld Mortality, is an AU where One never left Gallifrey, and Susan's now grown-up with grandchildren of her own. It made me blub shamelessly.

Because I saw you mention it above:

Five/Nyssa!

I'm stunned there's no fic. They're the Ian and Barbara of Doctor/Companion pairings! They'd be so *nice*! (This is possibly why there's no fic. Gentle pairings tend not to get written about. But I like nice.) They'd get excited about science things that nobody else in their right minds would get excited about, and have in-jokes, and he's take her to planets he's always wanted to visit and they'd actually get there because she'd make him fix the TARDIS more often.

That look on Five's face when Tegan announces she's coming with them in Arc of Infinity cracks me up every time. Curses, his alone-time with Nyssa spoiled!

They'd get excited about science things that nobody else in their right minds would get excited about, and have in-jokes, and he's take her to planets he's always wanted to visit and they'd actually get there because she'd make him fix the TARDIS more often.

Totally! And he'd always prod her to think more deeply about things, and she'd always prod him to be nicer to people when he was in a particularly grouchy mood!

Though, granted, put in the wrong hands and it'd become so sickeningly sweet your teeth would fall out. But still! Cuteness!

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I'm sorry, I can't stop myself from jumping in.

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luring you back into the Whedonverse

Re: luring you back into the Whedonverse

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