Diverging a bit...

[mrv3000]

After being submerged in Tumblr this past week, I've discovered that Rose fans really don't like any other companions. Just Rose. (Erm, sarcasm here.)

So how about commenting with the non-Rose companions you like, and why!

Comments

[silvervintage82]

I don't know if that's quite true of most Rose fans (especially since most people aren't online and Tumblr is pretty young on the whole). Reading posts on Tumblr, I feel a little like the wrong generation and I'm not 'that' old

[_thirty2flavors]

People on Tumblr hating Donna and Nine shattered my world tbh. I THOUGHT THOSE WERE THE TWO THINGS WE AGREED ON, FANDOM. HOW COULD YOU?

[mrv3000]

People hate Nine? I thought everyone liked Nine! Or at least didn't dislike him. (Possibly his calloused hands.)

[_thirty2flavors]

NOPE PEOPLE ON TUMBLR "HATE NINE" SO MUCH THEY CAN'T WATCH HIS SEASON AND SKIP STRAIGHT TO TEN.

[_thirty2flavors]

WHATEVER, TUMBLR, I like all of them.

Martha is probably the most much-maligned and misunderstood. Wow, alliteration. Anyway, as a Rose fan nothing gives me more second-hand horror than seeing some kid on the Martha tag being all OMG MARTHA U STUPID H0R HE LOVES ROSE HOW DARE YOU GOD YOU'RE SO WHINY AND USELESS. I mean, none of the complaints about Martha even make SENSE. Martha is pretty much the least whiny person ever -- lmao and she spends an entire season beside S3 TEN and you're going to call Martha "whiny"?! -- and she also spends virtually every single episode stopping Ten from getting himself killed somehow. Ugh it's just terrible to me. Poor Martha. MARTHA DOESN'T LIKE YOU EITHER, TUMBLR

[fauxkaren]

Yeah I cannot with the two extreme reactions to Martha. Martha was NOT useless. She is not a pointless character. But uh... I also think that RTD gave her a pretty fantastic and empowering story over the course of series 3. And the audience is supposed to sympathize with her. So idk why people think that RTD hated her.

[_thirty2flavors]

Absolutely. The Doctor =/= the author. The fact that Ten neglected Martha sometimes or spent so much time grieving for Rose does not mean RTD himself was sitting there going YEAH FUCK YOU MARTHA YOU'LL NEVER BE ROSE!! It baffles me that so many people can't grasp the difference between the character's actions and what the author is saying with them.

[frelling_tralk]

Yeah, a lot of people thought he was making his preference of Rose too obvious by having Ten be hung up on Rose still, but eh that was the story he was telling as part of his goal to bring more emotional depth and character arcs to the show

I highly doubt that RTD meant unrequited love as the huge slur that some people took it to be anyway, he painted Vince from Queer As Folk very sympathetically for his crush on Stuart and ended series 1 on

Unrequited love. It's fantastic, 'cause it never has to change, it never has to grow up and it never has to die!

[gentlehobbit]

I'm glad I'm not on Tumblr then

[annissag]

I'm with you on every single point. Donna's my fave, but I'm a Doctor/Rose shipper.

I also didn't find Martha as compelling as the other companions, but I think I've figured out why I feel that way. With the other companions, there's a journey of self-discovery, but Martha's already got herself and her life figured out. There wasn't much for Martha to improve upon.

I loved Martha, though, and I loved how they closed her season 3 arc. I wrote about it a while ago. It's here if you're interested.

[frelling_tralk]

I agree, I think a lot more people could relate to Rose and Donna because they hadn't really sorted themselves out yet. Rose felt like she was stuck in a boring life at a dead-end job, still living at home and being nagged by her mother. And well who hasn't felt like that at some time or another? And Donna was again pretty unsatisfied with life and had a very unsympathetic mother to cope with, she was worrying about finding a partner at her age etc, which is again relatable for a lot of people

Whereas Martha was introduced as a very capable medical student who seems to have her life pretty much sorted and is great at dealing with her family, so she was never going to be as instantly relatable for a lot of the audience. Perhaps that was even partly why RTD introduced her crush on the Doctor to motivate her travelling with him a little bit, because otherwise she didn't have the same longing to escape life and find something better that Rose and Donna did

[_thirty2flavors]

Martha's good at dealing with her family, but I think her role as perpetual peacemaker and go-between is reasonable motivation for her to leave. I think the chance to escape that kind of familial madness was probably appealing to Martha. I think it's important that we see her meet up with the Doctor and travel with him not after the hospital, but after Leo's birthday, where her family has descended into a huge argument (over Martha, no less) and she's looking a bit tired of it all.

[flockofgulls]

I LOVE Donna and Jack.

I love their characters. They were so funny and full of life and just held their own. They were so alive.

MARTHA JONES

[fauxkaren]

I think that Martha has a pretty fantastic character arc that is misunderstood by so many people. Martha is pretty much a competent badass from Day 1. Rose and Donna both had to grow into the hero role, but Martha was just like THERE. The only thing is... she didn't see it in herself

Re: MARTHA JONES

[silvervintage82]

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Re: MARTHA JONES

[_thirty2flavors]

YES. God I love Martha Jones. I love all the companions, but I think Martha's is the most empowering. Martha's the only one who's gotten to exit the TARDIS on her own terms for her own reasons, and I don't think that's going to change with the Ponds. That's huge.

Re: MARTHA JONES

[fannishliss]

Yes, Martha rocks!!