![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
temporal mechanics
Hai! Am still alive. Am just neck-deep in (lots of non-web-based stuff, plus):
a) musics! (I'm finally paying for my own internet connection, which means I feel ethically okay with torrenting. So much musics! ... I am getting low on hard drive space, so must now organize and make backups.)
b) Doctor Who fandom! ..I have now read every single fic tagged Doctor/Master on del.icio.us. There will be playlists coming (tomorrow I hope) and maybe Massive Recs List of Doom after that. Meanwhile, here are
Five things that are true in my personal New Who canon:
1. The Doctor would never have left Sarah Jane (or Jamie and Zoe, or Ace, or...) if not for the orders of the Time Lords back on Gallifrey. But in Sarah Jane's personal post-Time War timeline, Gallifrey never existed, and as time healed itself, the only reason he knows for leaving her became that he's an inconsiderate, heartless bastard. Since he has a Time Lord's nonlinear memories, he remembers both what happened in his original continuity - and what must have happened in hers - which is why he never had the courage to go back and visit. (The reason he left Jack is that in the post-Time War timeline, he really is that heartless, because he'd have had to be, to leave Sarah Jane, and time heals itself.)
2.Time Lord memory and knowledge is nonlinear. They remember what happened, and what will happen, and what might happen, and could happen, and had have happened and has to have happened, and should will have happened, and so on, with the result that for all their knowledge they're never entirely certain of anything except what's happening *right now*, and there's a reason Gallifreyans have neither historians nor verb tenses.
Time Lords do have a low-level cross-temporal telepathic connection, which helps them sort out what probably *is* the current continuity, and what other continuities are also important, through sub-conscious cross-referencing with the whole pool of Time Lord nonlinear presence. The connection's usually consciously experienced as just a sort of many-voiced hum or song in the back of individual minds. Looking into the Schism is part of activating the telepathic link and of integrating the temporality.
When the Doctor looked into the Schism, he heard the song for the first time - and remembered the time when the song would be gone - and realized he was the only Time Lord who ever experienced that silence - and he ran from it. The Master never remembered the silence, which is why he was able to actually confront the Schism - but he did remember the multitudinous song of the Time Lords reduced to a single, unavoidable, four-stroke heartsbeat that resonates calling and despairing through all of history. And neither of them can shake the sure knowledge that Gallifrey never actually existed, even while they're growing up on it, which is part of why they never really took any of it seriously. Except each other. And the silence under the drums.
3. The Doctor's not half-human in the way we 21st century humans would mean the words - he was born with all Time Lord genes and all Time Lord spirit to a long line of pure Time Lords, and he never met a human until he and Susan ran away. Certainly, biologically, he's nowhere near half-human. But the Time Lords are post-biological by a long shot. And by his seventh regeneration, he's spent a great deal of time living with humans, living *as* a human, caring about humans, and regenerating among humans. And so in terms of the part-biology, part-technology, part-telepathy and part-spacetime physics that the Time Lords use in lieu of biology, he's a lot more human than most of them are comfortable with. (But the busy buzz of humanity will never go entirely silent, not until time itself is nothing, and oh how glad he is of that.) And after all the times he's spent on Earth, and all their history he's had his hands in the guts of, from the very beginning to the very end, the humans have become more than a bit Doctor, too.
And since Time Lords are somewhat temporally nonlinear, that human element resonated down his lifespan and was always part of him, so saying he wasn't born part-human is even less accurate than saying he was "born" at all.
4. The Time Lords have been tinkering with their own biology and history for so long that no one is even capable of remembering what they used to be -- But long, long ago, even before the time of Rassilon, before they even knew about relative time, the Gallifreyan life cycle was radically different. They lived until they grew unable to live any longer, and then they found another, and came together in a burst of ecstatic fire, and were reborn, mixing all the best traits (and memories, and spirits) of who the two were before into two new separate people who shared the old ones. (It's a very ancient and powerful method of having sex. On Earth bacteria still do it that way. And Gallifreyans are a very, very old species.)
But at some point, they learned how to rebirth/remix themselves *without* having to blend and share with another Gallifreyan and without the loss of pure selfhood, of individuality, and the terror that goes with it. And they stopped doing it the old way. By the time it was discovered that regenerating alone limited one to only a dozen rebirths, they had found other forms of immortality for themselves, and the old ways were eventually completely forgotten. But all the sterility and conservatism and isolationism of Time Lord society can be traced back to that old fear and denial of true change in rebirth.
(Sooner or later the Master is going to realize that they're still capable of the original method of regeneration, and that he gets unlimited incarnations if he does it the old way, with a partner. And he lost all his fear of transformation a long, long time ago, in the shadow of his fear of the *nothing* that would be left, without him to hear the drums... and the resonances *that* will make through all history, I don't even know where they begin.)
5. The TARDIS really is a nice girl, and she always tries to give them what they want (need) instead of what they ask for, because she learned a long time ago that, when you have near-unlimited power, giving them what they ask for rarely ends well. (She doesn't *want* their wishes to be poisoned.)
That's why, when she gave Jack Harkness his forever, she didn't just keep his body always young and alive: she fixed his mind and spirit, too. And just as his body always comes back healthy and strong, so does his spirit. He can't go mad or break even if he wants to, any more than he can die. Oh, he can still learn and grow, just as his hair grows and his body learns new skills, but every time he revives he's as least as healthy as he was that first time, standing firm in his courage and joy and secure in the knowledge that he was worthy of the love of two amazing people.
Oh, he can go mad for awhile, if he tries hard enough, but being suicidally insane is rarely a recipe for a long life, and when he comes back he's as cheerful and resilient as ever. The first time he managed it was in France in WWI and he thought his recovery was just sheer relief at surviving. It takes him a lot longer to figure out his mental invulnerability than it does to figure out the physical immortality. And it takes him a lot longer to decide whether it's a blessing or a curse.
Now to go watch "An Unearthly Child" and make myself some new shoelaces, if the cat who has stolen my bed will let me use yarn.
a) musics! (I'm finally paying for my own internet connection, which means I feel ethically okay with torrenting. So much musics! ... I am getting low on hard drive space, so must now organize and make backups.)
b) Doctor Who fandom! ..I have now read every single fic tagged Doctor/Master on del.icio.us. There will be playlists coming (tomorrow I hope) and maybe Massive Recs List of Doom after that. Meanwhile, here are
Five things that are true in my personal New Who canon:
1. The Doctor would never have left Sarah Jane (or Jamie and Zoe, or Ace, or...) if not for the orders of the Time Lords back on Gallifrey. But in Sarah Jane's personal post-Time War timeline, Gallifrey never existed, and as time healed itself, the only reason he knows for leaving her became that he's an inconsiderate, heartless bastard. Since he has a Time Lord's nonlinear memories, he remembers both what happened in his original continuity - and what must have happened in hers - which is why he never had the courage to go back and visit. (The reason he left Jack is that in the post-Time War timeline, he really is that heartless, because he'd have had to be, to leave Sarah Jane, and time heals itself.)
2.Time Lord memory and knowledge is nonlinear. They remember what happened, and what will happen, and what might happen, and could happen, and had have happened and has to have happened, and should will have happened, and so on, with the result that for all their knowledge they're never entirely certain of anything except what's happening *right now*, and there's a reason Gallifreyans have neither historians nor verb tenses.
Time Lords do have a low-level cross-temporal telepathic connection, which helps them sort out what probably *is* the current continuity, and what other continuities are also important, through sub-conscious cross-referencing with the whole pool of Time Lord nonlinear presence. The connection's usually consciously experienced as just a sort of many-voiced hum or song in the back of individual minds. Looking into the Schism is part of activating the telepathic link and of integrating the temporality.
When the Doctor looked into the Schism, he heard the song for the first time - and remembered the time when the song would be gone - and realized he was the only Time Lord who ever experienced that silence - and he ran from it. The Master never remembered the silence, which is why he was able to actually confront the Schism - but he did remember the multitudinous song of the Time Lords reduced to a single, unavoidable, four-stroke heartsbeat that resonates calling and despairing through all of history. And neither of them can shake the sure knowledge that Gallifrey never actually existed, even while they're growing up on it, which is part of why they never really took any of it seriously. Except each other. And the silence under the drums.
3. The Doctor's not half-human in the way we 21st century humans would mean the words - he was born with all Time Lord genes and all Time Lord spirit to a long line of pure Time Lords, and he never met a human until he and Susan ran away. Certainly, biologically, he's nowhere near half-human. But the Time Lords are post-biological by a long shot. And by his seventh regeneration, he's spent a great deal of time living with humans, living *as* a human, caring about humans, and regenerating among humans. And so in terms of the part-biology, part-technology, part-telepathy and part-spacetime physics that the Time Lords use in lieu of biology, he's a lot more human than most of them are comfortable with. (But the busy buzz of humanity will never go entirely silent, not until time itself is nothing, and oh how glad he is of that.) And after all the times he's spent on Earth, and all their history he's had his hands in the guts of, from the very beginning to the very end, the humans have become more than a bit Doctor, too.
And since Time Lords are somewhat temporally nonlinear, that human element resonated down his lifespan and was always part of him, so saying he wasn't born part-human is even less accurate than saying he was "born" at all.
4. The Time Lords have been tinkering with their own biology and history for so long that no one is even capable of remembering what they used to be -- But long, long ago, even before the time of Rassilon, before they even knew about relative time, the Gallifreyan life cycle was radically different. They lived until they grew unable to live any longer, and then they found another, and came together in a burst of ecstatic fire, and were reborn, mixing all the best traits (and memories, and spirits) of who the two were before into two new separate people who shared the old ones. (It's a very ancient and powerful method of having sex. On Earth bacteria still do it that way. And Gallifreyans are a very, very old species.)
But at some point, they learned how to rebirth/remix themselves *without* having to blend and share with another Gallifreyan and without the loss of pure selfhood, of individuality, and the terror that goes with it. And they stopped doing it the old way. By the time it was discovered that regenerating alone limited one to only a dozen rebirths, they had found other forms of immortality for themselves, and the old ways were eventually completely forgotten. But all the sterility and conservatism and isolationism of Time Lord society can be traced back to that old fear and denial of true change in rebirth.
(Sooner or later the Master is going to realize that they're still capable of the original method of regeneration, and that he gets unlimited incarnations if he does it the old way, with a partner. And he lost all his fear of transformation a long, long time ago, in the shadow of his fear of the *nothing* that would be left, without him to hear the drums... and the resonances *that* will make through all history, I don't even know where they begin.)
5. The TARDIS really is a nice girl, and she always tries to give them what they want (need) instead of what they ask for, because she learned a long time ago that, when you have near-unlimited power, giving them what they ask for rarely ends well. (She doesn't *want* their wishes to be poisoned.)
That's why, when she gave Jack Harkness his forever, she didn't just keep his body always young and alive: she fixed his mind and spirit, too. And just as his body always comes back healthy and strong, so does his spirit. He can't go mad or break even if he wants to, any more than he can die. Oh, he can still learn and grow, just as his hair grows and his body learns new skills, but every time he revives he's as least as healthy as he was that first time, standing firm in his courage and joy and secure in the knowledge that he was worthy of the love of two amazing people.
Oh, he can go mad for awhile, if he tries hard enough, but being suicidally insane is rarely a recipe for a long life, and when he comes back he's as cheerful and resilient as ever. The first time he managed it was in France in WWI and he thought his recovery was just sheer relief at surviving. It takes him a lot longer to figure out his mental invulnerability than it does to figure out the physical immortality. And it takes him a lot longer to decide whether it's a blessing or a curse.
Now to go watch "An Unearthly Child" and make myself some new shoelaces, if the cat who has stolen my bed will let me use yarn.
no subject
The only time I can remember him using his real accent was when he and Owen got arrested, and he wanted them to get tossed in jail.
But his family didn't speak American and neither did
Spikethe other Time Agent and neither did the original Captain Jack (though I may need to re-watch to be sure), and John Barrowman does not have the best American accent I have ever heard, so I remain wtf.(Which is to say, it isn't a *bad* American accent (though not as good as Hugh Laurie), but I think he lets it get in the way of his acting? At least, I have noticed some odd inconsistencies in JB's acting ability, and I can't think of how to explain it other than the accent. Hmm.)
And I have not - I have not read any Whoish fic at all since last we spoke - but I'll investigate it some day.
no subject
Then I fall back on the "flirting" explanation, being as I have not seen enough of the backstory to fanwank it. (Although there is the possibility that Jack is *actually speaking English*, and thus chooses his accent, while the others are all translated. Which also explains why the accent's not perfect.)
Also, Torchwood (or at least Torchwood Cardiff), given that they have their logo on their vehicles, seems to be going more for an "oh yeah, that's them, they're weird, don't worry about it" vibe than actually trying to be unnoticeable. Which, in my experience, works just as well *anyway* and is a lot less trouble. And it's not like Jack is ever going to actually act *normal*, so he might as well be discounted as "that American" instead of making people think about why.
The options aren't "Oh, I think there was a guy" and "that American"; it's "That American" and "he seemed to be trying to act normal but he felt wrong and wore suspenders and tried to flirt with the koi and I couldn't quite place his accent". "That American" is better.
no subject
Meh, I dunno. The people who know about them are going to think "they're all weird" no matter what accent Jack's got. And if there's just, say, some bystander who overhears Jack talking to someone, it IS going to be "some guy" vs. "that American." His coat's noticeable (and awesome) but not *that* memorable, unless it's paired with the accent.
I could maybe buy an explanation like "oh, he spent three lifetimes in California" except that he had the accent when he met Rose.
no subject
no subject
Though that still doesn't explain why he *kept* the accent, but I'm wiling to accept a fanwank wherein he did something funky to his brain or vocal cords to prepare for the heist. (Not sure one tiny little scam would be worth that, but .. meh.)
no subject
no subject
Maybe Jack actually learned English *from* actual!Jack, so of course he picked up the accent too? (I can imagine Jack knowing, like, three dozen languages, and having learned them all in bed--)
no subject
no subject
no subject
NOW.
no subject
no subject
And failing miserably! Nope, still not buying that explanation.
no subject
no subject