{ the parting of the ways }

[delga]

Now that is what makes a series worthwhile - foreplanning. All those little details come together so perfectly. That is what I was expecting all series. Frakking awesome.

I have all these questions and ideas about time travel now but my brain just cannot process them at all. I mean, it's confusing, isn't it? The Doctor can't break his own timeline. OK. Fine. Rose can't affect her timeline. OK. Fine. And yet...she does. I mean, as viewers, we're looking at one concrete timeline, theoretically, the Doctor's timeline. This is what we take as our chronology. But if you think about it, Rose's timeline is her own, not the Doctor's. In which case, after Father's Day do Rose's memories change? Or does it mean that her chronology is changed so that it no longer exists? Which is contradictory, right, because Rose can't change her own timeline without those scary time eater things turning up?

EXCEPT! Why do they turn up then and not when, say, the Doctor takes her to the end of the earth? I mean, do we surmise that this is an acceptable timeline, i.e. the way things are meant to happen? In which case, the events of Father's Day don't actually matter as long as her Dad died on that day, in that way. But surely that's changing the timeline too? In which case - BIG CONCLUSION - doesn't that mean that there must be ONE overall way for things to pan out? Like an overall eventuality. I mean, I know the Doctor sees all of time, all the time, and so he is perpetually conscious of how things should or should not be and yet when he's in his timeline, he has no idea whether or not he's going to exist in the next five minutes or not. He can change other timelines, tweak them, so that it fits the pattern of what he sees (or what he THINKS he should see, and if he's the only Time Lord left then does that mean that HIS perception is the ULTIMATE perception of how things should be? Or maybe it's just that there is an ultimate way of things being and he's the only one who knows anymore? Wait, that second one makes more sense, doesn't it?) which definitely implies some idea of fate, doesn't it? Right? Someone tell me I'm not bonkers. Because this is the point at which science and theology come back together. This is the point where they stop being separate things and go back to being the same thing.

My brain hurts. That is too much thinking for me. But seriously, doesn't that have the HUGEST implications for, like, the characters' ideas of fate? Also: someone needs to write fic where Rose doesn't go with the Doctor. Except Rose HAS TO GO with the Doctor because that's the point of Bad Wolf, isn't it? And I still don't get that; why did that Welsh woman (Grace?) see it as a bad, scary thing? Or maybe she just didn't understand it and it scared her. And are we to take it that time bent double at the waist to tattoo itself to remind itself to...The TARDIS did it, right? That was the heart of the TARDIS. In which case it's the TARDIS who was altering time for Rose; it was the TARDIS that was determining that Rose was part of the Doctor's timeline. In which case, even if someone DID write that fic, it would basically be a scenario where the big dragon things turn up, right? Because the TARDIS' actions imply that Rose HAD to go with the Doctor for the timeline to be secure. AND AGAIN WITH FATE.

OK. I'm really done this time. I swear. Heh. And I never picked up a Dr. Who icon. Oh! The spin-off is called Torchwood, right? Because it's an anagram of Doctor Who, right? BUT! The Anne-Droid asks that kid (the one who tries to run off) about the 'Great Cobalt Pyramid' (capitalised for proper nouns or not?) being built on the remains of some human thingwhatsits AND THE ANSWER WAS TORCHWOOD. GUYS! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Or are they once again frakking with my/our heads? Because I seriously thought Bad Wolf was an injoke until it kept reappearing too much. And why did it choose that name, anyway? OK. STOPPING NOW.