OlgaSaysSo

Still figuring it out

[olgasaysso]

Frieren somehow teaches me how to take my time doing things while also teaching me to not take anything for granted because everything disappears with time.

HOW.

[olgasaysso]

I guess this is my “coming out as a River Song hater” post, because out of all her traits that bother me, I just realized what her worst one is.

And I’m going to explain it by comparing her to Clara.

I saw this edit of Clara Oswald and it reminded me of her behavior in the episode “Listen.” It’s the one where we find out that she has, unintentionally, shaped the Doctor’s life since he was a child by telling him: “Fear doesn’t have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind.”

And when he wants to go and find out what’s outside the TARDIS, she stops him. She makes it clear that he can never, ever find out what’s out there, and that he has to trust her. There’s no intergalactic threat. No timeline collapsing. There’s no theoretical or actual danger waiting for him outside that door if he were to discover the truth.

So… why does she stop him? Because she loves him and respects him enough to understand that he has a whole identity outside of her. If he were to find out that the words he has lived by since he was a little boy actually came from her, it would undermine who he is.

Now let’s compare that to “Miss Spoilers,” who tells the Doctor that she is his future wife, that he can’t change it, that he will take her to Darillium, and that he will lose Donna.

It's a fixed fucking point in time now.

But it’s really a pattern for her. While she’s giggling half the time and refusing to reveal information because of “spoileeeers,” she’s also quite willing to reveal things that take away the Doctor’s agency in choosing to be with her.

She's insufferable.

[olgasaysso]

One of my favorite things about peoples reaction to Jinmao in the apothecary diaries novels is how it changed overtime to reflect pure resignation and acceptance of Jinshis radical monogamy and love for Maomao.

At the beginning of the story we see instances of characters like Gaoshun and Suiren make comments about his attachement to Maomao, referring to her as a toy in their minds (not even in order to disrespect her, just to point out the difference in Jinshis and Maomaos status) and clearly see her as a phase and something temporary. Something he needs to "grow out of".

Over the course of the story not only does it stop happening but almost all side characters seemed to have accepted that Jinshis love for Maomao is just an unchangeable part of the worldbuilding.

So much so that Rikuson uses his jealousy to separate himself from the detective Maomao in order to commit a crime and remain undetected by her.

Suiren, the woman who used to hide Jinshis favorite toys from him when he was growing up to prevent him from forming attachments assists him in (spoilers for ln 8) branding himself like a slave so that he can refuse being with any women besides Maomao.

And I think that's beautiful.

[olgasaysso]

I just imagined an alternative ending to 12clara and their arc that I think could've improved the story a lot without actually changing almost anything.

Obvious spoilers to season(or series) 9 of doctor who.

Face the Raven happens. Heaven sent happens. Hell Bent happens.

The doctor pulls Clara out away a second before her death, everything is the same.

Except when they talk in the cloisters the truth is revealed and we the audience get to see the curtain fall down and Clara suddenly becomes old in our eyes. And so she had been old. In her 70s or 80s.

She has spent decades with the doctor, she would've died sooner or later. But as the audience we have been seeing her through doctors eyes..."Clara Oswald, you never look any different to me".

In this alternative version he hopefully doesn't have to forget her and she still decides to go travel before returning to her death.

The reason I think it would have been interesting to see is the fact that it would be adressing something that has been introduced with Rose. Doctors pain about not being able to age with people he loves that often leads to him losing them too early anyway.

Also imaging Clara as an old lady who keeps pushing off her death to go on her "one last trip" is just so endearing to me, I'm not sure why.

[olgasaysso]

There is something a bit poetic about the fact that Jinshi, a man who hates his beauty, who has been so repressed emotionally that he is constantly switching between a perfect gentleman and a beast, a man who wants to be seen as brave and "manly", who spents every waking second of his days overworking himself... is viewed as a helpless, lazy and effeminate by majority of the apothecary diaries.

Maybe that's why I don't find the jokes about Maomao getting him pregnant particularly funny. At the surface it's just a joke but at it's core it's spitting at the very core identiy of Jinshis character. Who he is and who he wants to be and how he is treated by other characters within the story.

Same goes for Maomao.

I'm not sure why is it so hard for people in fandoms to comprehend that people are not one way or another. Jinshis empathy and beauty doesn't make him a woman. Maomaos assertiveness and refusal to comply to the norms doesn't make her a man.

They are not characters who have ever aspired to be the opposite gender.

[olgasaysso]

People saying that the Doctor wouldn't be against ICE or would straight up support them has me laughing since yesterday because that might just be the stupidest thing I have heard in this fandom.

The doctor is much closer to being a sexual predator and a genocidal maniac than he is to being anti immigration. (And I'm not arguing he is those things but that you can make a much better argument for this)

The doctor is in fact so radically accepting of everyone and everything seeking refuge that he repeatedly puts peoples lifes in danger just to give someone a chance.

3rd episode with Rose, where Gelth are posessing human corpses he literally paves a path for them to invade despite Roses protests on how it's wrong. Guess what, she was right and people lost their lives.

In the episode midnight, when the unknown creature possesses Sky and kills the 2 captains, the hostess says they should throw it out. Unlike other passangers she is not being paranoid here and actually acting reasonably, recognizing a threat to her, the passangers and possibly the rest of humanity. When the whole crew turns on the doctor, she sacrifices herself to save him and everyone else by taking the creature out with her.

If the doctor listened to her, she'd be alive. He knew the creature was dangerous, already killed and didn't have good intentions and he still dismissed everyones worries.

A lot of 12th doctors arc is about him trying to understand whether he is a good man or not because at this point, even when he acts with good intentions people get killed.

He has a total disdain for armies and soldiers but it's very hypocritical when you consider that those are systems put in place to protect humans... humans that are far more breakable than he is.

And I'm saying it as someone who is not a big fan of the army either.

There is no universe in which the doctor has anything kind to say about ICE.

Well, at least 9-12th doctor, I can't speak for the rest of them.

[olgasaysso]

Maomao dislike for Lakan doesn't make her an unreliable narrator btw.

She never claimed to hate him for being "a bad father" or anything like that, people just interpreted it this way.

She dislikes him simply for who he is as a person.

I see people interpreting Maomao dislike for Lakan as him being a bad father to her and then they are shocked to realize that's not the case and think either Maomao has been lied to or is lying to herself. Meanwhile Maomao has a very specific and unique belief system that she follows.

She likely has some resentment for her parents that's not clear to her because she has a hard time interpreting her own emotions... but that mostly causes her to cut herself off from them and judge them independently as their own people and she just doesn't like these people.

She doesn't like how selfish Lakan is and how he treats people as pieces in his game and how lazy he is. If anything his special treatment of Maomao makes her dislike him even more because she realizes he only helps people "on accident" while he's trying to help her. Maomao has been raised by Luomen and one of his main traits is the fact that he lets people take advantage of him because he's too kind.

People like Lakan get on her nerves because he doesn't care about anything other than what will help him get ahead and just because Maomao and Luomen are the exception to that doesnt make her like him

[olgasaysso]

I'm tired of all the pathetic whining about the portrayal of the demons in Frieren being supposedly inherently racist because we don't get a goodie little broken hearted demon who only kills humans because they're traumatized so Frieren can understand her wrong ways.

Like go watch kpop demon hunters or something if you need that kind of thing. It's literally in every piece of media ever and well executed too.

Stay with Frieren if you want to discuss Macht and the golden city arc. The demons in Frieren aren't evil, they're just incapable of complex emotions like love, empathy, remorse, guilt but also - hate.

What they are capable of however, is feeling the emptiness where those emotions should be. And fear.

I didn't think Frieren could make me feel sad for a demon but it did. Machts death was sad, as was his existence. Despite the people he killed it's hard to even hate him because he is just simply not capable of the emotions that would lead him to make better choices.

We know that because he desperately tries to understand humans. Spends hundreds of years on it. Becomes a servant to a human family, tries everything to make himself feel attached to them just so he can feel something when he eventually kills them.

"What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." - Fyodor Dostoevsky

[olgasaysso]

People trying to disrespect Rose Tyler by comparing her to other companions and how they would slap/scream and argue with the doctor always makes me laugh.

Because what they are trying to imply is that Rose was somehow silly, naive and unable to assert herself as a companion and that this somehow makes her not a good match with the doctor.

But... the reason we don't get scenes like that with Rose is because he treats her very, very well so there is literally no need for her to do all that. First of all, it's not like Rose never stands up to the doctor, she does. It's just that she has never needed to be agressive towards him for him to respect and listen to her. He has always made her his top priority.

You can love his dynamic with other companions but this remains a fact. He has never played mind games with her, he doesnt ignore her and when they do argue he resolves it quickly.

I love Clara (and yes, I ship whouffaldi) but he would never put Rose through what he put Clara on that one moon episode.

He burned up a son to say goodbye to Rose and meanwhile completly ignored Rivers consciousness after uploading her to the library.

If they didnt get separated the doctor would stay with her till she died of old age. It would hurt. But he'd do it. He even said he would never leave her like he did with his other companions... with no hesitation at that.

The only exception is the girl in the fireplace episode which is so stupid and pointless I dont even consider it canon.

[olgasaysso]

When you're making predictions on a peace of fiction and you want them to be accurate, you need to take into account the worldbuilding and the rules of the story you're consuming, not from our own world.

It's why I cannot agree with peoples massive panic over how Loid will probably leave Anya and Yor or/and fight to the death with Yor. Any ending other than them being a happy family would be very surprising to me and I also believe - very bad case of writing.

I don't care about the real world rules of how a spy and an assasin from opposite sides of the upcoming war are supposed to be enemies.

I don't care about the creator of the story supposedly not considering them a real family.

The literal main theme of the story is about this 3 people forming a family that is more real than most peoples. How despite it starting out as "fake" they care about eachother deeply.

The plot about Martha and Henderson who didn't get a full on happy ending was supposed to add seriousness to the story and introduce higher stakes but it's not a foreshadowing on Forgers not working out. If anything, it's the opposite. It's adding urgency and context for the reader and works as an example fate of previous love story that our main characters are supposed to "overcome".

Other than that she show is mostly fluff with some plot, I don't see how it would suddenly become morbid and unhappy and end like that.

The whole thing makes me think about the recent disaster that is stranger things and how people were beyond shocked that nobody died... why are we so surprised when this show never killed anyone off if they lasted 1 season?

And that is an example of bad writing in this case however it still counts. You need to look at what the show is doing now and think in the context of the already established world and not add things from ours. It won't make sense.

[olgasaysso]

The chosen one? ✅️

Funny and smart? ✅️

Used for their power by a group of men who don't appriciate their sacrifice at all? ✅️

Not allowed peace, even in death? ✅️

Lowkey shitty friends (more so Buffy tho)? ✅️

Not allowed to have any personal life to the point where they have to fight for it so hard that they're adults but still act "childish" because they weren't allowed to have a childhood? ✅️

Arrogant but for a good reason? (They KNOW they are better than everyone else and they earned that title) ✅️

Same person, different font.

[olgasaysso]

My hot take is that "the girl in the fireplace" and "the family of blood" (fury of the timelord episode) are some of the worst episodes of the 10 era in terms of storytelling, characterization and continuity.

Especially the girl in the fireplace, because at least the family of blood introduces the idea of timelords becoming human, which is useful later in the story.

Other than that both these episodes main purpose is putting the companions in "their place" and it's just stupid.

So the doctor risked himself and put Martha in danger to hide and runaway so that he doesn't have to punish the bad guys? Like are we for real here? What kind of stupid reason even is that? It was also ofc the racism in the narrative.

Even in the episode "blink" it's said that when they got stuck in the past she had to work and support him... when he literally had a sonic screwdriver that I'm pretty sure he used many times to get money.

And the girl in the fireplace? The part with madam de pompadour where they have her "look into" 10s soul and show her as the only person in the whole wide world who could possibly understand him... mind you, he knew her for like 2 hours. And then they have him sacrifice Rose, Mickey and the Tardis to save her! Am I supposed to believe that he would do that? It's stupid and insulting. The same as that scene at the end where he is all sad and Rose asks him about it and he just says it's fine. It's supposed to give us that empty feeling of him losing the love of his life or something but that was just pathetic.

All that while Roses literal role in the plot was bringing light into his life again after the time war. They have such a close relationship it's a running thing that they leave a lot of things unsaid but they KNOW. She's even the bad wolf, hello? She looked into the tardis? She does have a good understanding of the doctor, that's the point.

[olgasaysso]

Probably throwing myself to sharks with this one but having a giggle at the fact that someone robbed the most famous museum in the world in 7minutes and got away on scooters is a natural thing.

On the other hand, actively celebrating the fact that some people stole priceless pieces of jewlery that are PUBLIC PROPERTY from a place that used to be a royal palace but became a public museum during the french revolution, is idiotic.

Cause why do you not want the people to be caught and jewels to be returned? It's you who got robbed.

Even if you don't care about jewlery, there are people who do. Artists, historians, students who would love to see those jewels up close and till recently had the opportunity to do so.

And yes, there is an argument to be made that these jewels have some bloody history but let's not act like they were in the hands of the bourgeoisie. They weren't stolen from the rich, they were stolen from the people.

[olgasaysso]

I can't help but think it's so funny that fans of doctor who, the show that has unconditional love and looking "beyond" someones appearances as one of it's main themes, are so desperate to call the relationship between the doctor and Clara platonic or even "father-daughter" or "grandfather-daughter" like.

The doctor is still the doctor. He is not suddenly going to be a "father" figure to a woman he was kissing and flirting with just the previous regeneration. And just because he ended things with her doesn't mean he stopped feeling what he did like are we fr. The only thing that changed is that he started to LOOK old. I don't even like age gap relationships but I will defend this one because he clearly kept his feelings for her all this time.

Also, before all the "his love for clara was too big to call it romantic or platonic, it was the a special secret third thing..." like just stop cause that's embarassing. He loved Clara unconditionally, yes. Whether he could be with her or not. But specifying that he wanted to be with her romantically is not belitteling their relationship. Platonic or romantic are just descriptors to specify what they felt, not how much they loved eachother.

Honestly I think it has also something to do with how Moffats era tends to "oversexualize" the doctor to the point where people aren't able to see a romantic relationship unless the characters are obviously having sex/talking about it. It's also why I think people tend to belittle Rose and her relationship with the doctor, because unlike with River it wasn't very explicit and all about their attraction but building a friendship. The doctor with Roses flirting was much more "subtle" where even with 9 they used the term "dancing" instead of dating (and I think it was Moffats work here too but it was much more subtle regardless). And then 10 acted very weird, like overtly interested in sex (that's not very like him, idc how the show tries to shove it down our throats, it doesn't suit his character at all) and everytime I would later find out that Moffat was somehow involved in making the episode.

[olgasaysso]

The fact that, by now Rose had 4 regenerations "dedicated" to her is insane....

9 regenerated into a pretty boy and the most human of the doctors, then he was so desperate not to die that tentoo was created. Then, although I stopped watching after 12, I heard that apparently 13 was also influenced by Rose. And now the doctor straight up regenerated into Rose 😭

I don't really like this nostalgia bait but I just think this shows how much of an importance Rose has in the story, to the doctor and the fans.

I always got the feeling that they tried to almost "earase" her importance after 10. Giving the doctor 2 more love interests (and I love Clara and can tolerate River so don't come at me pls) and making him do all kinds of romantic gestures for them while barely acknowledging the existence of Rose. Which, I get that the story must go on but it almost had the opposite effect. He never actually grieved her properly or had any closure (probably because he didn't say "I love you" so Rose could move on with tentoo).

What I noticed is that he was most comfortable when he was with her. He was deluding himself the whole time that they will stay together forever and never could handle the idea of losing her. Now that I think about it, he was as comfortable as if they were both human/timelords and he never let himself forget that difference between himself and his companions again.

[olgasaysso]

Can I just point out that the doctor, when given the chance, chose Rose.

(I don't mean that in a sense of comparing her to River or Clara, I think they all belong to different eras and there is no point of comparing them cause he loved them all)

I've seen a lot of people belittle Rose in a sense, say she follows him around like a puppy but... let's be real here, she is the only one of the companions who actually "ended up" benefiting more from her relationship with the doctor. River and Clara ended up having their fate sealed and eventually dying, but also their families lives as well as their own were altered a lot (and majority of the time not in a good way). Amy went through literal hell, lost her daughter and then lost her parents too (again) by having to go back in time.

Donna got brainwashed and spend like what? 2 decades? Basically not remembering a huge chunk of her life.

Martha was smart and knew to take off when she could but before that her family was basically enslaved for a time and lots of fucked up things happened to her.

Whereas Rose... her only actually sad thing that happened is the fact that she was seperated from the doctor. And it was only for a few years too cause she reunited with him later and he CHOSE her to spend his life with.

She ended up with her dream adventure job, both parents alive, insanely rich and she got to stay with him.

It's clear that Tentoo, who has all of Tens memories, is basically him. He IS the doctor. Just human.

And he didn't even hesitate before choosing her. Didn't even say goodbye to anyone. Straight up just told her he loves her, kissed her and stayed. I think it really shows that if given the chance, the doctor would absolutely choose to spend his life with Rose.

I don't think Rose was dumb or naive at all for how much trust she had in the doctor considering how he made her his number one priority (with the sole exception of the girl in the fireplace which was idiotic and made no sense within the story, sorry).

People bring up his treatment of Martha a lot but I had to think "he would never do that to Rose" so many times with the companions who came after. That shit 12 pulled with Clara with the moon episode? He would NEVER do that to Rose (and I'm a huge 12clara fan).

And I'd also like to point out the fact that the timelord doctor not telling Rose that he loves her doesn't mean he didn't. It's more so a testament to how much he loved her. He understood that if he said it, she would have a harder time letting go off him and he knew she would have a better life with the him that's human.

[olgasaysso]

Listen, as someone who hasn't read the spiderwick chronicles I do respect people who disliked the show for not being accurate enough and am not judging...

But as a reader and fan of Holly Blacks other work (specifically the folk of the air series) I fucking loved the show and I'm so disappointed it wad canceled.

This show feels like something written by her. It has all the silliness and weirdness along with surprising dark themes I so love seeing in her works. It's original, it's fun and it makes me feel like that magical world is real.

The characters can be very annoying but you can also tell that the family loves eachother very much. I think Holly Black is brilliant at writing family dynamics, especially dificult but loving ones. You can see all sides when watching the show and sympathize with all the characters cause their behaviour makes sense given the background.

But also, for me, someone who has 3 different editions of the folk of the air series, it just feels like something that's happening somewhere outside Elfhame. I'd be watching the show and looking for hints of Jude Duarte or any characters that can be found in her other series.

I would much prefer an animated series adaptation of Judes and Cardans story but I found myself get excited at the possibility of them existing in that world.