mmm....soup

uwu (._.)

[gzltheduck]

Sarah Jane and Rose: A Nuanced Perspective

Colour me surprised at how much seems to be overlooked when discussing Sarah Jane and Rose‘s dynamic in School Reunion, mostly to the detriment of Rose‘s character. Let’s get some nuance in here, all right?

When Sarah Jane and Rose meet, for the first time, they clash. Rose sees somebody who the Doctor is clearly (very) familiar with:

The Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive from one direction, Rose from another. [...] The Doctor instinctively drops Sarah Jane's hand like a smoking gun.

The fact that the Doctor drops Sarah's hand "like a smoking gun" implies he realises this might potentially hurt Rose; honestly it’s almost giving guilty vibes. It’s interesting how the script pointedly emphasises this.

Because this also implies the Doctor was definitely aware that he was moving into romantic territory with Rose, and his arrival while holding another woman’s hand could potentially be interpreted the wrong way if Rose noticed. Since holding hands is their thing. And notice she did.

She asks the Doctor who she is and Sarah does the same; the Doctor gets the introductions done, and Sarah realises that Rose is the "new companion". And doesn't waste time to attack:

"Oh, I get it. Hi. Nice to meet you, Rose."

So far, so good.

(nudges the Doctor) "You can tell you're getting older, your assistants are getting younger."

And here we have the first attack, coming from Sarah. It's understandable; Sarah Jane is hurt, upset, and jealous. She got essentially dumped by the Doctor with no word back from him. She waited all this time, thinking he died, only for him to come back, looking younger than ever before and with a younger and prettier girl.

You can tell, her ageing and Rose's subsequent youth is a big insecurity for her, and that's why she digs at Rose's age and intentionally mislabels her as an "assisstant", thus rendering her inexperienced and naive, and implying a much more surface-level relationship between them.[1]

She also dismisses Rose's protest of not being an assistant with a sarcastic remark. Rose is too stunned to counter, and they're off running.

When they find the packaged rats, Sarah-Jane, once again without any provocation from Rose, takes a dig at her intelligence and her (young) age:

"[…]Rats? In a school?" "Well, obviously[2], they use them in Biology lessons, they dissect them. How old are you, haven't you reached that bit yet?"

It's only here, Rose starts to attack back:

"'Scuse me, no one dissects rats anymore, they have't done that for years. Where are you from, the Dark Ages?"

It's pretty clear that Rose's continous scathing remarks, from this point forward - like the Doctor having never mentioned Sarah - are in defence of Sarah-Jane's lashing out.

So, saying that Rose is acting jealous, clingy and bratty out of nowhere or because she feels entitled to the Doctor would be a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened.

Sarah (inadvertently) hits all of Rose's biggest insecurities. She even realises she's unsettling Rose and deliberately doubles down, or at least, doesn't do anything to de-escalate their fight (which she started).

Like when Sarah shows the Doctor K-9 in the boot of her car, and they both talk about him with such familiarity, she notices Rose's hurt and anoyance, and throws Mickey a look of half raised brows, half derision.

Sarah Jane and Mickey exchange glances.

Before people come at me, I'm not actually mad at Sarah. Everything she does and how she behaves towards Rose in particular is explained by her hurt feelings and own insecurities.

What annoys me is that people apparently can't or won’t extend the same curtesy to Rose because, just like Sarah, Rose's behaviour towards Sarah makes perfect sense in the light of her insecurities and hurt feelings.

You can tell Rose isn‘t even mad about the Doctor being close to anyone else (another popular thing people like to blow out of proportion) if you look at how she talks to him in front of the cafe:

[...]Beat, quieter; she's almost scared. "But Sarah Jane. You were that close to her once, and now, you never even mention her. Why not?"

This is the issue, right here. She's terrified the Doctor is going to dump her too, one day, out of the blue, forget about her and never mention her ever again. It's something that would put out anyone, but it hits that much harder for Rose who consistently shows she has abandonment issues.

Sarah and Rose's animosity reaches its peak, the next day when they're tasked to work together. They exchange barbed comments, which then escalates to them comparing their merit by what they've dealt with on their respective adventures.

And here, something interesting happens, which is convieniently left out, every time, I read any discourse about them, online:

Rose staring. But then, suddenly, she smiles. And Sarah Jane smiles too. "God. Listen to us. It's like me and my mate Shareen, the only time we fell out was over a man. And we're arguing over the Doctor!" "He doesn't deserve us." "And that's the truth." (beat) "Sorry." "Me too."

Rose, as soon as she realises they're being ridiculous, de-escalates the situation, immediately. She's even the first one who apologises.

Then, she immediately starts bonding with Sarah by roasting the Doctor's oddities, and they end up laughing their heads off.

Further, yet; people wilfully ignore the way Sarah and Rose are immediate besties, as soon as they've cleared the air.

A scene in particular highlights Sarah‘s and Rose‘s growth during the episode and blatantly shows their fight is firmly in the ancient history territory, by then:

"Hey you, what's 47 times 369?" "No idea. It's gone now, the oil's faded." "But you're still clever. More than a match for him."

Sarah not only compliments Rose‘s intelligence, here, she also states she’s an equal in her and the Doctor‘s relationship, thus rendering her previous assessment of her being a young, vapid assistant null and void.

Rose does the same with her previous accusations:

"You and me both."

I bet you thought I was done, but this goes even further because Rose wants Sarah to come with them:

"Doctor..?" (meaning, ask her)

The script is a bit ambiguous here, but if you watch the actual scene it seems more like Rose and the Doctor actually talked about asking Sarah, before that moment, judging by the looks they exchange.

Which brings me to my final point of Rose seeking out Sarah‘s advice, again subverting their earlier animosity. She trusts Sarah Jane‘s wisdom and judgement:

And they hug. Quiet whisper: "What do I do? Do I stay with him?" "Yes. Some things are worth getting your heart broken for."

In turn, Sarah offers support whenever Rose should need it:

"Find me. If you need to one day. Find me." Rose nods, she understands.

So, where does this leave us? Exactly: Rose and Sarah Jane were two people dealing with the madness that is having that alien completely change their life, and basically ruining anyone else for them, romantically.

As soon as they realise they’re essentially in the same boat, they also let go of their respective hurt feelings and jealousy, see the other’s value and become friends, almost kindred spirits if you will.

So, casting Rose as a jealous, entitled brat while Sarah Jane gets nowhere near the same judgement for essentially behaving the same way is

a) ignoring lots of context

and

b) a double standard (and like I pointed out in my earlier post, anti-Rose propaganda).

In the end, the positive outweighs the negative by a ton. The script and the episode itself have much more nuance to it; sometimes fandom discourse, or rather negative bias, can skew things a lot more than we realise.

-🦆

(All quotes in italics are directly from the episode (script))

Bonus/honourable mention:

The Sarah-Rose-hug is just so sweet!🥰

Further Notes:

[1] Since we‘re already on the topic of age, I want to remind everyone that Sarah Jane is the senior adult in this situation. Age-wise Rose has much more ground to behave in a catty way because at this point in her life, Sarah (technically) should have known better. Yet it is Rose who de-escalates, as you will or have see(n).

[2] The "obviously" is emphasised in the official script in italics. I put it in bold here for formatting reasons, so it becomes clear there‘s a specific emphasis on that word in the script itself, and it’s not my own highlight.

[unhappytogekiss]

a new reality tv show called So you think you can write Doctor Who

twelve episodes, twelve contestants - a mix of annoying middle aged sci fi authors, fan fic authors and random people off the street

a variety of against the clock writing tasks, big finish scripts, ability to interact with actors without shouting at them and challenges where you have no budget or doctor for an episode

judged by solely by christopher eccleston

this is how you find the new doctor who showrunner

[oogaboogasoup]

I know this is very premature but I'm very seriously wondering how TLOVM will or won't veer from the end of C1

I think if they stay true to the end it means they've essentially already confirmed they're getting a show for C3 or some other kind of commitment to following through with how that campaign affects the characters in VM

Versus if they suddenly change things ala how Travis had made comments before the show was confirmed to be getting the full requested 5 seasons that they were making choices based off not knowing if they would see the full story through.

Because TLOVM and Mighty Nein are currently popular and Amazon seems content with letting Critical Role keep producing projects with them but if we aren't seeing s5 for two years like people here are saying I'm interested in the prospects of the least popular campaign getting a complete show when the fandom is scrambling for a Calamity movie instead.

My point being I'm hoping one way or another we do get the cartoon characters also getting some version of their happy ending which took like 10 irl years to get in the first place :/

[oogaboogasoup]

Not me actively putting off finishing TLOVMs4 because I'm already sad enough

[wittythunderwitch]

[wrath-of-achilleus]

re the dany in a sea of brown extras, YES. not because there wouldn't be brown slaves in the masses she freed, but because there's a constant implication of valyrian ethnicity amid the free cities ESPECIALLY for sex workers, how the lysene are especially valyrian-looking, and how they focus on slaves for sex work BECAUSE of this appearance. doreah herself was to be an example and even in westeros you get more than a casual mention of sex workers being valyrian. that mass of freed people should have been much more heterogeneous, and not only that, the effect it would have on the visuals themselves, dany freeing people who look like her gives it such a brilliant quality to the 'mother' aspect of her path

and like even on more fandom-wise, oc wise areas. if the fandom wasnt so scared of making their targs non-white they'd find a lot more face claims than your average holly grainger and elle fanning and witcher henry cavill. people are SLEEPING on the huge huge amount of period dramas with white hair wigs and period clothes, because they're unable to consider they could be making their targs be asian. you can add so many things to them for pondering they could not be english.

i'm sorry i'm yapping your ear off today, i just don't have many conversation partners who understand the effect of all this whom i havent already yapped ears off

YES. like valyria literally colonised half of essos, their genes aren’t going to just disappear lol. and you’re so right, dany saving people that also look like her adds so much dimension to her character.

and the ‘we were filming in morocco we could only use brown extras’ is such a lame excuse imo. because a huge show like GoT on a huge streaming platform like hbo means that each shot probably had to go through multiple people before being approved. you’re trying to tell me that not a single person was like, hmm this looks a little problematic, maybe we should scrap it?? like I was fresh into high school, barely 15, knew nothing about cinematography or directing, but when I first watched that episode, I IMMEDIATELY clocked the white saviorism. AS DID EVERYONE ELSE.

and yess, we really need more interesting valyrian face claims istg. there is so much wasted potential.

(don’t apologise for yapping! this is fun!! I totally get the feeling of not having people to talk to about this haha, I’m the same)

[oogaboogasoup]

I'm so frustrated that D&D set this precedent to flatten all Targaryens down to madness and irrational atrocities. We can't have characters with personalities and emotions and interesting facets - we have these pompous, flat cardboard cutouts that snap into being crazy so that they can throw themselves into some situation to move the plot along.

Like not only was their decision to reduce Daenerys to a crazed tyrant flawed at best (I think its utter BS but to be generous for sake of argument), but to then take whats supposed to be a complicated series of mistakes and conflicts between powerful, messy people acting out of their own selfish interests and start reducing the characters down to base traits as clever as "looking insane" and "acting irrationally" is so so disappointing.

This isn't even to act like "oh the Targaryens are super special and great" actually, the point is that we're ruining morally gray characters by making them all insane to justify killing them at this point.

HBO is aware that causal viewers like the dragons and remember Daenerys so they wanted to adapt this story but don't want to even try and be faithful to the characters (and also don't seem to want to make content with dragons but thats a whole other issue)

Its not good TV, its not good storytelling, and its just retroactively justifying people rewriting GOT in their minds to think Daenerys was a lunatic the whole time.

[forsakenwitchery]

This life could be yours, you know. Or you could remain loyal to your matron, and suffer the fate she has condemned you to. The Legend of Vox Machina 4x07

[fortuneiv]

Art Fight 2026 Graphics

f2u w/o credit but it is appreciated! link 2 my af (assets taken from the id card)

[kay8k]

Couple of comedy things i made for myself... feel free to use! just credit me on my artfight @ kay8k

[utilitycaster]

oh the raven queen has been ominous vax. likely thing for her to be. you made a deal with a death deity not a rainbow puppy sunshine deity. woman forbid gods do anything.

[daisybrekker]

If Vaxleth don't get engaged or married in the Vox Machina live-show in October then what's the point?

[oogaboogasoup]

Big fan of the moves the shows been making to paint Vax and Keyleths tragic ending, as from what I understand in the original campaign it's maybe a lot less explored seriously given the more in the moment realizations of whats unfolding.

It's much more impactful too, if we look at the C3 iterations of these characters ie the show already presenting the groundwork for just how much anger and bitterness Keyleth will harbor

Most importantly though to me is I appreciate how much Vax doesn't actually want to die? It might just be me but when Liam sort of got thrown into returning as Vax in C3 I fear it felt a little too much like this is actually what Vax wants most in a way that personally I disliked.

(Note too I haven't truly gone back to consume C1 so this is my warped understanding of these characters from the Vox Machina show and then later developed stories from C3)

[mushimallo]

yearning for a soulmate that you've never met

[naetaesarya]

So.... if Dany didn't come to the North and fight the army of the dead, she'd be a cruel, tyrannical, power-hungry queen according to the fandom. Remember how demonized she was for not auto believing Jon that this zombie army of dead corpses was real. See? Dany is Evil. But since Dany comes North to fight the army of the dead, she's a cruel, tyrannical, power-hungry queen who is starving the North with her dragons and armies. See? Evil :(

[opacarophile22]

The concept of Matt divulging his identity for Karen and ONLY Karen be it when he willingly comes clean so as to not lose her, or when he tells Nadeem as gratitude for saving her to now when he lets the cat out of the bag in front of the entire world, risking imprisonment as long as it guarantees her safety and security.

[oogaboogasoup]

Daredevil finale thoughts below (also s2 thoughts as whole now that the seasons over)

Spoilery spoilers

I genuinely disliked this episode a lot, it was distractingly bad at times

While Daredevil's legal scenes have never been incredibly true to life, I really dislike the way that BA has dramatized them, my suspension of disbelief for how these court scenes flow is broken by the inane dialogue. I am a Star Wars girlie who has always loved the Senate scenes and the political intrigue, so for the legal drama scenes to be dramatic monologues ungrounded in reality bugs me especially

Another thing that's been baffling the whole run of BA is the wishywashy handling of the political reality of Fisk being mayor of NYC which was particularly insane given the governor just kind of showing up and somehow not being the defacto problem solver here???

In fact the throughline of the port really just doesnt pay off anyway because Matt decided to oust himself instead of letting the governor do anything

Matt ousting himself at the point he does seems pretty pointless tbh, and we have not had enough time with Matt as a character this season to really back it either

This whole season has moved at such a breakneck speed that we literally never got Kirstens reaction to Matt suddenly appearing, Matt casually saying he got shot that's why hes late, or really even a reaction to Matt being Daredevil

The resolution to everything was lame and unsatisfactory

Truly this season has been so shallow and hollow it's crazy how little anything mattered

We had some very good moments and a lot of good ideas drowned out by weak, unfocused storytelling

Gosh I don't have the words to fully articulate my feelings yet, I'm honestly baffled at how lackluster so much of this season wound up being

Truly the version of this season that would be well written and fleshed out would have another 5 episodes to do so

My positives:

I love that we have broken the tradition of Matt not having a stable romantic partner by having him and Karen be (relatively) stable throughout

Additionally, love that we finally have canon LukeJess

Fisk breaking and slaughtering civilians was a fabulous part, I wish this show had the ability to showcase aftermath and consequences to match the severity of his crashout

I have spent the entire season eagerly awaiting Heather losing it and finally got the resolution to that so love that for her

Small thing I enjoyed, the follow through of Matt teaching Karen self defense at the start of the season shown through her attacking a AVTF guy in the finale

Big fan of Bullseye intercepting the fake-Bullseye, a tactic he of course would be very familiar with Fisk employing

Also it should go without saying but the performances throughout this season have been delightful