Cake and reading and Dr Who, oh my...

[girlofprey]

Went to town with grandmother and mum today. She bought me cake! In our little town's vaguely posh cafe-thing. There is a brand new 'cafe-bar' nearby, which serves onion rings and whatnot, but I did not think my grandmother would be able to sit on the seats, or if she could, get back up again. Still, it requires further investigation in the summer (aka next week), I think. Hmm. The cake came with a huge dollop of ice-cream, which the waitress did not mention was 85p extra, the cunning hag, but grandmother was paying so its all the same to me. There was another cake which my mother and I thought was called Sex and Toffee, which was tempting, but it turned out to be Texan Toffee, and all gone (no suprise, frankly), so we had other cake, and I felt a bit sick but happy :)

Yay, I have £360! Sort of. I'm not sure if the £110 for connotations has gone out yet - awaiting my next bank statement. But I owe dad £200 for rent anyway. So slightly less money. But more than yesterday, perhaps. Enough for things. And no-one told me The White Stripes had a new album out! I caused a slight disaster getting it down to look at it in Tesco's, but I am tempted. Oh yes I am. The songs have pretty names. Hmm.

East of Eden is out on DVD :D. Though sadly very expensively. Btw, WH Smith and Tesco CD/DVD prices kick the arse of so-called CD/DVD shops ::looks at you, HMV and Virgin:: Hmm.

The father of my sister's baby almost went to jail. But didn't. They've reduced his fines, apparently. A part of me is slightly disappointed, but he does seem to be helping her out a lot, so yes. Hm.

Lolita is sort of pissing me off. I don't know. I sort of like it. When Lolita is not around. Not that I dislike her, she seems like a perfectly nice kid, but Mr Humbert does have a nasty tendency to go off into flowery, intoxicated, showers-of-gold (not like that)-type speech, which makes me roll my eyes until I go blind and pass out. But all the other adults seem so annoying compared to him that you can't help but like him...until you realise you're only seeing them through his possibly self-delusional paedophilia-celebrating eyes and you just want to choke him again. Hmm. I will finish it though. I'd like to see where the story goes, even if we pretty much know what happens to Humbert Humbert. I am sort of in love with the girl on the front cover though. With her painted nails and Dorothy dress and pretty is-she-19-or-is-she-12? face, and sunshine and grass. Mmm.

I have begun writing what will hopefully turn out to be a nice Mickey/Rose/Doctor/Jack piece. With, yes, much focus on Mickey, who doesn't get much fic-love from anyone but me, le sigh.

Or thoughts on why I dislike the Doctor and Rose most of the time, I guess. I really don't know about Doctor Who - it's exciting and fun, and I enjoy it a lot even when poor Mickey's not around (particularly with evil!Simon Pegg, rawrr). But I'm not sure about this message about the Doctor, and Rose in particular. Yes, a life of adventure in far off places/times in often better than just slobbing around working in a shop you hate - but to act like the vast majority of people are just simpletons, or 'idiots', who cannot get beyond this, cannot even imagine a life beyond it, never mind get to it, with only a few bright shining examples breaking the mold, ie fiesty young girls with no A-levels but nice hair - what precisely is that saying? That some people really are better than others? Nice.

And that's what I see when characters (and fans) go on about poor, stupid, ordinary, 'loser' Mickey. No, he's no bright, dashing hero with 900-years worth of knowledge and a brilliant quip every five seconds, but he's a nice person and he tries his best, dammit, which yes, is not always enough to save the day, but the Doctor rarely saves everyone. We've seen Mickey essentially give up his life to save someone he knew, and someone who didn't like him very much - at worst, to save the mother of a girlfriend who abandoned him for a year, and keeps on pissing off with some mysterious bloke who either calls him 'idiot' or Ricky. We've seen him willing to risk his girlfriend's life to save his planet, to come running whenever said abandoning girlfriend clicks her fingers, and to try to take down what he knows is a homicidal monster with the others despite his lack of experience/heroism. What's that worth, precisely?

I'm not going to say that this is show's view on things, because we probably wouldn't have seen all of the above Mickey moments if they thought everyone but Rose was useless. But it seems like the Doctor's point-of-view, which, let's be honest, colours the vast majority of the show. I don't believe that the Doctor and Rose have any sort of big love going on, 'behind the scenes', or that they're made for each, but precisely how does he see her, having picked her out of a mass of 'idiots' as a worthy companion? And what makes her so 'worthy'? Asking 'the right questions', i.e. the ones he thinks she should ask? Being willing to run off with a strange bloke in a box because he offers to let her travel through time with him, which is frankly just swapping one 'life in the passenger seat' for another, as I see it. He's made it fairly clear how he sees companions who go off and do their own thing (see: Adam), and even Rose when she occassionally disagrees with him. Which I'm sure is building up to some wonderful character arc for the season, but still makes me go arrrrrrrrgh.....

Maybe it's just me. Maybe its just the ways of show I don't like - I like shows like Farscape, where characters do incredible and insane things because they have too, where characters are pushed to their limits and we see what ordinary people can really do. Which is probably much less realistic, in a way, than Doctor Who, and can be seen on a variety of other shows, like Farscape. But this 'we save the universe because only we can, aren't we fantastic?' still makes my head hurt. It reminds me of the way all my friends used to talk about going out and getting pissed - 'oh it's wonderful, it's so much fun, it's literally the most fun you can have, why aren't you doing it, oh god you're so sad'. Now I don't begrudge them their going out or getting pissed, and I'm not even claiming to have done anything more worthwhile with my time than them (I appear to have mostly watched TV I can't remember now) - but I was quite aware that anyone claiming it was the 'best fun ever' or 'most worthwhile thing to do' was bullshitting me, and probably themselves. And its how I see most people claiming they have found the one truly fulfilling way of living their life. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And so I like Mickey. Who is ordinary, but doesn't seem ashamed of that fact. Who is not brave enough to go off battling space monsters, but who equally - at least in my view - has his own 'ordinary' life which he's happy with, and doesn't feel the need to go off gallavanting around the galaxy to be happy. And I'm not saying that this is the perfect way to live your life, anymore than I think bouncing around the universe in your own little bubble of a society, never stopping long enough to make any other friends or live any one particular 'way of life' for more than a few days. And maybe I'm reading too much into Doctor Who, and taking it too seriously, but I'm much more interested in some kind of emotional 'balance' between the two extremes - with Mickey as almost perfectly situated 'touchstone' - than in any crazy alien world the effects team can show us. That's fun...but you can't do it all the time. And it's not what I'll be writing fic about, if I ever do.

But that's just what I think. And I've said my piece. I'll bug thee no more ::gets back to scribbling fic...::

What's this about Billie Piper leaving Who after the first series anyway? It's new to me.

Hmm. I quite like these long posts, although I worry they bore the Hell out of everyone else. One advantage of being at home (when the computer's free, anyway ::eyeroll...::).

Comments

[jekesta]

I like the long posts. Although I forget what I meant to say about the stuff at the top by the time I get to the bottom.

I am trying not to think too deeply about the new who because if I did the whole concentrating on the people on Earth thing would be killing me. But your mickey thoughts are good yes, especially about people valuing one way of life over another because of their random beliefs type thing. Hm:)

Hurrah for moneyness yes:):):)

[jekesta]

Ooh, and just a comment to say about connotations, because thedivinegoat is thinking of coming and looking for someone to share with and I don't really know if you are already sharing with someone, or even want to, or anything, and I don't really know the divine goat, so I can't swear she's lovely and will be a perfect roommate, or anything, but I met her briefly at jailcon and she seems very lovely, so if you were looking for a probably not murderous type room mate person to lower the costs a bit you could maybe talk to her? And I don't know what the hotel is like with room availability or anything either and I'm rambling quite a lot, but I thought I should mention it in case yes.

[girlofprey.livejournal.com]

I trust your judgement entirely with regards to this goat person, and anyone else you recommend (I'm pretty much inviting you to be my pimp here, aren't I?), but I've already booked and half paid for a single room. I don't know if you can change these things, and probably I'd do it wrong. So perhaps no, sadly, unless she wants to sleep taped to my ceiling? The offer is always open.

[girlofprey.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your long-post support. Hee, evil plan of CONFUSION!! going exactly according to plan.

I cannot help thinking deeply about things mostly. My brain goes off and does its own thing most of the time, then orders me to write huge posts about it >:| Also, mostly because I like the randomest of shows, and the randomest of characters, and feel like I need to justify it somehow with lots of words (I win at wordcount!). But they are good thoughts, yay! You are a nice lady.

Having money is a far, far better thing than having no money. This I have learned as a poor student. I am not very far away from becoming a corporate whore with a nice car ::dreams it...::

[tiniago.livejournal.com]

I love your Doctor Who thoughts, they make me happy. Hmm. I kind of feel like I have things to say to this but I haven't quite framed them yet. I haven't got any sort of thematic grip on Doctor Who at all yet; I can't tell what its big message is and what it's accidentally saying or whether it's feminist or not or anything at all, really. I'm still stuck on the pure delight, and the ooh! things happening! SEE THEM HAPPEN! But I like the way you think.

Oh, Farscape. <3

I first read Lolita when I was Lolita's age, and so my reaction was mostly "Ew!". Also, I was Philistine and didn't get the prose style. But I reread it last year and cried like a baby. Really, I think it's beautiful and amazing and what it does to the love story is just mindblowing. I won't spoil it all for you so eee, hurry up and finish it and CRY WITH ME. *bounce*

[sarah531.livejournal.com]

regarding your essay- Y'know, it's funny- those were (kinda) my thoughts for a while, especially after The Long Game, with the Adam thing. It was just one of those things lurking in the back of my mind. And -damn, I feel pretty bad about coming to your journal and promptly linking to my own fanfic- but I sort of wrote an entire Doctor Who fanfic series based on that, about what happened to Mickey after Rose left and how he grows to become almost a little like the Doctor himself, and inspires others to be more than they were. And that was kinda what it was always coming back to- that ordinary heroism from ordinary people was equal to heroism from people like Rose and the Doctor.

But...anyway. That was an incredibly interesting post. It's interesting that they kinda did tackle that theme on the show, with 'It's what the rest of us do.' in Parting Of The Ways.

p.s. Mind if I friend you?

[girlofprey.livejournal.com]

How MUCH did I love that line in 'Parting of the Ways'. And the way he just looks at her, stone cold, all 'you think you're better than us'. And it's just true. I'm not saying that either way of life is better than another, but the Doctor's way gets glamourized so much more, and well done Mickey and well done the scriptwriters for sticking up for the other.

Anyway. Thank you :) I sort of wrote out of vague annoyance that everyone was all 'eee, Doctor! Eee, Rose!', and I was all 'eee, special effects! Eee, villains! EEE, Mickey!'. And no-one else seemed to understand my love. But perhaps I was just reading too many posts at time_and_chips. I do love Mickey, and yes, ordinary heroism, which is some ways is even better, because he DOESN'T think he's in some way better than everyone else, but he still steps up, naturally, time and time again. And people take the piss because he trips up on the way. Growl.

I'm ranting. And I quite like the relationship he seems to have with the Tenth Doctor now, so hopefully that will appease my wrath somewhat. Friend away, I'll friend back. Mickey fangirls have to stick together ;)