12. How many cups can you see from where you're sitting? 1! My active water cup! I’m a little anal about clutter hahah so each dish gets washed as soon as it’s finished. If my wife weren’t in the office right now, though, it’d probably be 4 - my water, her water, her forgotten water, and her tea.
14. How often do you take baths? Our landlord “redid” our bathroom and replaced our tub with a shower so never 😭 which is a real tragedy bc I love a long hot bath in the fall or winter and a rest day Epsom salt soak
20. What's in your freezer right now? Several ice packs (that deadly combo of arthritis and climbing will get ya!), a tub of homemade vegan peanut butter chocolate swirl ice cream, a bag of frozen edamame, another of frozen peas, and a couple bags of various fake meats + just the purple freeze pops from the heat dome bc neither my wife nor I like artificial grape
25. Favorite old person activity? Ooh probably sudoku. I used to have a sudoku app where they ranked you on a global leaderboard and was deeply proud of how many silver and bronze medals I got for fastest completion times lmao (deleted the app when I ran out of phone storage bc I refuse to pay for iCloud storage on the principle of fuck apple very much hahah)
happy early birthday @trying-to-get-somewhere-real!!!! Blanche/Judith truly giving the most delicious of brainrots to us all i think, thank you for your dedication to the cause.
#10 for the fall/Halloween prompts (I like to stay on brand ;)
“Cuddle with me so I can get warm."
She begins stirring at the feel of the coolbreeze ghosting across her cheeks, but it’s the sound of clattering that finally lures herto consciousness. River peeks her eyes open to find her ridiculous, anddecidedly nude husband, leaning half way out the window, his tiny bottom ondisplay. She sighs dreamily at the sight. There are certainly worse things towake up to.
Another gust of cool air creeps in through theopen window, a crispness to it that can only mean Autumn has arrived.Truthfully, River had been aiming for Christmas, but the batteries on hervortex manipulator must need charging because she got early October instead.Not that she minds. She might even be convinced to stay through the new year ifhe keeps waking her up like this.
More intrusive thuds disturb the morningstillness, and River finds the will to distance herself from the warmth of thebed, sitting up on her elbows. “Sweetie, what are you doing?”
“Experimenting!” he shouts with a flourish fartoo chipper for this time of the morning. Dawn is only just breaking theskyline and her parents are bound to still be asleep. Luckily, so is the restof this town. She knows because if they weren’t, his state of undress wouldhave given the elderly woman next door a heart attack by now.
River doesn’t need to ask with what he’sexperimenting. There’s been but one thing that’s fascinated him since themoment she arrived. Well, one thing apart from what they did last night.That had certainly held his attention.
“The cubes haven’t done anything for months, noteven when you tossed them into a volcano. I hardly think tipping them out thewindow will change anything.”
“They’ll do something eventually,” he says withnarrowed, ever vigilant eyes. Her husband is rather annoyingly determined thismorning, and River really doesn’t approve of having this whole bed to herself.
“Have you tried throwing them all at the sametime?” River offers. “If they have a hive mentality, group trauma might triggerthem.”
“That’s brilliant!” he exclaims, reaching for thebin filled with cubes and tipping it out the window. They clatter onto thepavement outside, entirely unchanged. With his toys gone and no answers to showfor it, the Doctor frowns, a pout pinching that baby face. “Well that was arubbish idea. What now?”
“You could always come back to bed,” Riversuggests sweetly, and when he glances at her over his shoulder, she batsinnocent eyes in his direction.
The Doctor smirksknowingly, already sauntering back toward the bed when he asks, “What wouldbe the point in that?”
“I have another experiment for you,” she answers,voice dry and throaty for reasons that have nothing to do with grogginess.
Her husband reads the invitation in her softlysmirking lips, crawling onto the bed. “And what might that be?”
“It’s a friction based study in thermodynamics,”she purrs back, lying flat once again as the delicious weight of him pressesher back into the bed.
The blanket acts as a barrier between them, but hesprawls across her anyway, his hip bones digging into her curves. Those pale arms frame her face, lithe forearms closeenough to bite. And she just might, now that she thinks of it. River brushesher lips across the closest bit of skin she can find, considering the temptingthought. He’s cold to the touch, still chilled from his morning exploits, and River snakes herhands out from beneath the duvet to caress across his broad shoulders.
The Doctor shivers at her touch, at her palmsagainst his bare skin. There’s a chuckle on his lips as he dips his head lower,kissing a path down her neck. “And what results are you looking to yield withthis experiment, wife?”
“You’ll have to come under the covers if you wantto find out,” she whispers, lips brushing the shell of his ear.
He pulls back the top of the duvet, peaking ather bare chest with feigned disinterest. “I could be persuaded, since it’s inthe name of science.”
“Entirely academic,” River agrees, and the Doctorleans in to kiss away her grin. The press of his lips makes warmth spreadthrough her core. And when both their core temperatures begin to rise, Riverknows her experiment is going to end far more successfully than her husband’s.
Whenever I think about River being Mels in those sorts of scenes I just get too sad :( Like, how did she do that for so long and not implode under the emotions???? How??? Thank you for this unexpected pain on this lovely Monday :P But kind of everything in this fandom is just unexpected pain.
I’m publishing this because I just want to splurge some Mels thoughts.
So this ask is because of my tags on THIS gifset from The Big Bang. You have to wonder if Amy wondered how River knew what she was up to in regards to the fez. We now know it’s because she grew up with Amy and the two of them could probably communicate silently (like best friends tend to do) at one point.
I have SO MANY FEELINGS about River being Mels. I don’t think it was explored enough in the show (because Moffat is fucking terrible at continuing on with his plot twists and giving emotional resolutions).
River knows Amy better than anyone (even Rory tbh, because Amy and Mels were best friends with Rory tagged on for a lot of their childhood). And even when she becomes River and goes off and becomes a doctor and gets incarcerated and has her own criminal lifestyle...she still knows Amy better than anyone. But that’s really when Amy stops knowing River...
I think Amy (and Rory) tend to just forget and/or ignore that River Song, this badass ‘maybe the wife of the Doctor’ woman, is also the person who was their best friend (they CERTAINLY constantly forget she’s their daughter...but that’s another meta for another day).I can just imagine River making them cups of tea, and the two of them briefly wondering how she knows how much milk and sugar they take before assuming it’s some timey wimey thing and they tell her in their future (when it’s because River/Mels was there the first time Amy ever drank tea).
River knows Amy’s favourite colour, favourite smell, favourite movie, favourite book. Not because she’s Amy’s daughter, but because for 15 or so years (??) she was Amy’s BEST FRIEND.
I’m kind of rambling now, but I just feel like everyone (from Amy, Rory, the Doctor to the fandom itself) forgets she was Mels. Everyone except River.
She’s their daughter - which they never really accept.
She’s their best friend - which they forget as soon as she regenerates/becomes River.
I have so much heartbreak over Mels and River.
But it’s scenes like that gifset of TBB that will always remind me about Mels. Because that scene isn’t mother and daughter, that scene is best friends having fun.
And to finally answer your question: She does it because she has to, because she always has to do the painful things. And I’m sure it kills her inside all the time. Especially whenever she hears Amy refer to the Doctor as her best friend instead of Mels.
I want River out of the Library as much as the next person, but I always assumed the writing was not inherently “bad” per se but written 1) before Moffat knew the extent to which he could flesh out her story; 2) so that the two-parter would have a slightly less depressing ending wo regard for big-picture depression; and 3) to make it slightly less crushing for 11 to meet her and allow himself to fall for her. Was obviously crushing regardless, but I think a 100% dead River would have been worse.
I don’t know man.
I understand that Moffat maybe didn’t have all of River planned out to begin with, but afterwards, when they did her entire S6 arc, there should have been more.
It’s not that River is in the database that gets my goat, it’s that Moffat left himself a way out, but never really finished it? Especially after TNOD where she just fades away back to the Library database...I need closure??? What happened? Is she still there for eternity? That’s what I consider bad writing - when you have two larger than life characters (River and the Doctor) who BOTH believe there’s always a way out - but neither of them figure out how to save River??? Bad characterisation, bad writing.
I know the way it happened means we can live in hope she’ll return to our screens, and we can at least have fanfic, but I’d much rather have had her just die. Because I can’t deal with the bad characterisation and the lack of closure.
The Magician - What’s something you’re skilled or knowledgeable at?
I feel like my answer to questions like this always relate back to farm animals simply because so much of my identity at work has always been rooted in my knowledge of animals. But! I’m growing and changing and trying to recognize my other strengths. Truthfully, I’m a really good editor of writing. I’m meticulous and ruthless - sometimes too much so - but I’m capable of spotting tiny errors and rewording things to make what a person is trying to say more clear to a reader. When I was in high school creative writing classes, a few friends called asking me to edit their work “parting the Red Sea” because I would leave a ridiculous amount of notes. Nowadays, I mostly proofread my ESL classmates’ work and agonize over my own stuff. I hope to, one day, have a role in a writer’s room that allows me to utilize this skill to create better storytelling on screen.
Death - What experience has changed you for the better?
When I was twenty-two years old, I began having really severe, constant headaches that didn’t ease with any medication. An MRI about six months into unbearable, debilitating pain revealed I have a Chiari Malformation. It was a really awful experience for many years, as a lot of doctors have still never heard of it or encountered it outside of a textbook and there’s a few that have that don’t believe anyone under 35 can experience symptoms from it. But while my quality of life was truly at its lowest point, I learned a lot of really great skills - like how to advocate for myself, how to navigate all the medical hoops you have to jump through for care, the importance of rest and recovery, etc, etc, etc. I think, because of all that, I have a lot more compassion than I would’ve otherwise. I’m also a lot more at peace with my life and my experiences. I’ve very much become laidback and I’m more willing to take calculated risks than I was pre-diagnosis.
The Devil - What’s something you’re addicted to?
Winning. In any capacity. I’m super competitive, so it can feel like I’m constantly striving to be the kindest, the smartest, the most talented. Also the loudest. I think it probably makes me obnoxious to be around, but sometimes it serves me really well. To brag, I’ve got a 4.0 GPA and President’s Honours for my entire college education thus far. If there’s something to earn, even just recognition of a job well done, I want it and will do anything to achieve it. It’s a gross amalgamation of being an overachiever with a people pleasing complex.
tryingtogetsomewherereal replied to your post “considering, historically, when it comes to tv shows my faves always...”
Will and Mac though!
Hot diggity, you’re right - I tend to linger so much on the ones that cause me pain! (I DO HAVE A COMPLAINT, THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH OF THEM BEING A COUPLE WHICH I WOULD HAVE APPRECIATED)
