#alpha centauran

[stalkerkyoko]

Alpha Centauran sound look like monster girls. H

Oh their cute

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Alpha_Centauran

TBH they sound like monoeyes

http://dailylifewithamonstergirl.wikia.com/wiki/Monoeye

[robinsontheroof]

It has always bothered me how Doctor Who writers have this tendency to forget that they're writing genderless aliens like half-way through the episode and start using "he" pronouns for literally no reason.

But you know what pisses me off even more? That this "accidently" always happens with individuals who're important. Figures of authority, mostly. For example, Trevor Baxendale goes 160 pages without screwing up once in Prisoner of the Daleks, until the big boss shows up. The Dalek in charge, the Dalek with a reputation. That one is a "he" for some reason. Except of course it's not, but still, for the rest of the novel there is consistent use of he/him/his when referring to this specific dalek. Sometimes you have paragraphs where you can see "he" being used for Dalek X and "it" - the canonically correct pronoun for daleks - for another dalek, any other dalek. How do you not notice doing this as a writer? 

This goes for most individual Daleks on TV, like the Supreme or the Emperor (and please don't go "well they do refer to their leader as 'emperor'" because no they don't, Daleks aren't actually speaking English they're aliens). It's not just Daleks either, as the fan wiki puts it: "Despite their female-like voices, Alpha Centaurans were hermaphrodites and should properly be referred to as "it". Nevertheless, the Doctor generally used the masculine to refer to the Federation ambassador to Peladon." ??? WHY? This literally happens all the time and I'm honestly so tired?? Don't write genderless aliens if you're not actually willing to write genderless aliens. In fact, don't write sci-fi if you can't think outside of your own cultural binaries literally wtf

And if you think this is nitpicking: how frustrated would you be if you were reading a novel in which the author kept insisting that the Doctor has one heart? Because it's the same kind of mistake: just write your aliens consistently! (Except of course that the pronoun thing has unfortunate implications in real-life (it gives away that the author automatically thinks of anyone in a position of authority as male)) The fact that so few people notice these mistakes is kinda a problem in itself.