Rec: 5 Minutes Before the Wedding by naiad8

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

Bonsoir, Calufrax! doctorxdonna here (RoseByAnyOtherName on Teaspoon), I'm another one who encountered the Doctor through new Who, but I've been loving 'getting to know' him and his past though through the 1-8 stories that crop up here on Calufrax. I really and truly did mean to get to this recc yesterday, but I'm a retail manager and spent most of my time rocking back and forth in disbelief that I survived Black Friday weekend. Now I'm still riding the leftover high from the 50th Anniversary special, so I bring you this little gem from an author who'd never been recced here before. Enjoy!

Story: 5 Minutes Before the Wedding
Author: naiad8
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 715
Author's Summary: A conversation between the Doctor and the woman he's about to marry. She has her reasons.
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor and Queen Elizabeth I
Warnings: None

Recced because: How I wish the anniversary had played out a little more like naiad8's version of the story. History tends to speak of Queen Elizabeth I as a brilliant, pragmatic, and analytical woman, and I was a little sad to see them treat her a bit like just another girl with a crush. Here, Elizabeth reveals that her reasons for choosing to marry the Doctor when she'd eschewed so many suitors before him are motivated almost entirely by logic.

Comments

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Always love a new author! And this sounds wonderful - thank you!

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

New authors are awesome! Which is why I tried to craft my list to feature people who haven't been before on purpose. I hope I help someone discover their new favorite(s). :) Hope you enjoyed the story.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

Agree so hard on Elizabeth I. Mdme. de Pompaour was given a similar treatment. :(

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

Moffatt is a jerk when it comes to writing women. :(

[nonelvis]

I think reasonable people can disagree on that point.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

Not suggesting that you can't (personally, I haven big issues with both him and RTD on that point). :)

[nonelvis]

I appreciate that. I simply take issue with blanket statements about how a showrunner treats female characters, since this is very much a matter of opinion.

ETA: You added your clarification while I was adding my reply, and thank you for doing that. One of the things I find most missing from the endless RTD vs. Moffat wars is acknowledgement that it's possible to see problems with both, and that neither is necessarily perfect.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

No problem (also, I know your original reply was to the OP but I thought I'd clarify my own comment).

I've mostly withdrawn from the larger fandom because 1. the constant Moffat vs. RTD pissing contest is annoying and 2. The near-exclusive NuWho focus. I also dislike both Doctor/Rose and Doctor/River (find both relationships pretty disturbing), so there's not much room on the internet left for me. ;)

Re the blanet statement: I admit I often state stuff like that without adding an IMO because I assume it's taken for granted that it's a subjective statement, in the same way that I assume that people know that I'm expressing an opinion when I say ''cats are the best animals'' or ''Nickelback is a terrible band''. However, I realise that it gets a bit more complicated in a community like calufrax where there's supposed to be room for everyone.

[nonelvis]

However, I realise that it gets a bit more complicated in a community like calufrax where there's supposed to be room for everyone.

Exactly. calufrax is open to fans of all eras and characters, and while I'm certainly not going to insist everyone like everything -- not in the least because I can't do that myself ;) -- I'd just like people to keep in mind that not everyone will share their opinions. Thank you for being so understanding.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

No problem. Again, I wasn't the one who made the statement but I couldn't help but add my 2 cents. :)

Also, re my criticism of the writers and pairings mentioned in my previous, I also fully acknowledgment that it's possible to be a fan/shipper and still acknowledge the problematic stuff. There's fanfic that wouldn't have been written without that acknowledgment, after all (and now I've used that word three times).

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

Well, NuWho is kind of crappy about woman in general. Rassilon forbid that a woman not be obsessed with the Doctor (romantically or not) and/or marriage (Amy's initial reluctance to marry is portrayed as immature).

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll clarify-it is personal opinion that Moffatt often writes women in a a very sexist light. I'm sorry, but Elizabeth goes on to marry the Doctor after he all but calls her an idiot with terrible breath, amongst other things. Why? And what sort of message does it send to the young girls that watch the show-it's okay to let a man degrade you, so long as he's handsome? Skinny? A fast runner? Not that RTD wasn't guilty of writing with a sexist bent at times, but I at least felt like his characters got redemption. We see the very obvious changes that travelling with the Doctor had on Rose, Martha, and Donna's character-they become more mature, wiser, and maybe even kinder. And they learn to fend for themselves. Any more, I feel like Moffatt's characters are women with boobs or guns, possibly both, but that's the focus. And god forbid you indicate a character might be intelligent, because it seems those characters are rarely played by the 'pretty' girls.

I'm probably one of like two people on the internet who actually loved "The Girl in the Fireplace", even though I absolutely hated the way Moffatt treated MdP as a character. And of all the two part episodes in Tennant's era, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead is probably my favorite. I like Moffatt's writing most times, but other times he's just a jerk jerkity jerkface from jerktown, jerkannia, and my feeling is that his treatment of Queen Bess as a simpering girl with a crush was one such instance where his writing didn't do the character justice. I think half the problem is that he writes these crazy elaborate and strong plots, and then two-dimensional supporting characters are left trying to carry the weight of it because he spent more time trying to work in gratuitous cleavage shots than developed dialogue.

I love the Doctor, but I have a love-hate relationship with the head writers. No disrespect meant.

[nonelvis]

Thank you for clarifying your thoughts here. We disagree on Elizabeth and Moffat's treatment of women in general (not to mention how Rose's character evolved, and I speak as someone who likes her), but clearly different people get different messages out of Moffat and RTD's work. That's okay -- normal, even, as fandom is anything but a hive mind.

For what it's worth, I never had any issue with how you wrote your rec. Recs are by definition personal opinion, and as it happens, you're not the only person I've seen express this particular one.

I'm probably one of like two people on the internet who actually loved "The Girl in the Fireplace"

Well, it's my favorite New Who episode, and routinely shows up on "best of" lists outside of fandom, so I think it's safe to say that more than two people like it ;)

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

Perhaps its just the climate of the Teaspoon, but I've encountered way may Reinette bashfic than pro MdP stuff. The positives ones I have found I found through recs here (one of them your rec, if I recall). They're a sadly underrated and underrecced pairing, but I like them.

[nonelvis]

In general, I've seen very little pro-Reinette fic, which I agree is disappointing. Have you read nostalgia_lj's The Short Revolution of Time? Also, if you'd be interested in reading Rose/Reinette femslash, the_tenzo's Especial Friends and Le Ruban are both great.

[doctorxdonna.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm familiar with nostalgia's stuff. Thanks for the links, I'll file them for later. ;-)