#merlinmonkey16

6: Which author would you be thrilled to go out for coffee with?

J. K. Rowling. I really, really want to talk about how amazing her Harvard speech is and ask her about the time she spent at Amnesty International. (It's the sort of place I wouldn't mind working at for a while. It gets you more in touch with other people's experiences.) And if we had a lot of time, then obviously about Harry Potter.

21: What are your top 3 books of 2014?

Assuming this is about the books I read in 2014, hmm... The Great Gatsby, Paper Towns aaand... the Bartimaeus trilogy. (That was a reread, but sssh.)

Parks. I love to wander around in them, usually alone. I especially like ones that are huge and look like a part of nature and has animals running about. One of my favourite things about London was getting to go to Richmond Park (it even has deer) and St James Park, both of which are absolutely gorgeous. 

character: hate them | don’t really care | like them | LOVE them | THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS

ship with:  I was rather heartbroken when Lee and Donna didn't find each other at the end of Forest of the Dead. :c They were adorable. Plus I have a soft spot for characters with disability.

general opinions: I know that she is popular because she is blunt and funny, but it's her quiet moments that I love utterly. When she takes a step back from the scene: when she observes, sometimes judges. When she sees how the Ood are treated and wonders if she wants to continue travelling. The whole Turn Left episode. When she tries to figure out the plaques with the dates while everyone else is busy with something else. When she feels compassionate. And the moment that made me fall in love with her in Runaway Bride, when she admits that Lance might have been horrible but still didn't deserve to die. I really enjoy seeing this side of her, because being boisterous comes as second nature to her at this point, and this is more revealing, I think. Also, I adore her best friends relationship with Ten, they are so much fun to watch.

I really love Danny. I think he is sweet and genuinely awkward (but in a way I really feel for).

I already ship Danny/Clara.

Danny/Confidence in his social skills

There's no mysterious back story? Idk I see plenty of people speculating that he's the Master or the war he was in was something else, but I don't buy it.

I want to see him and the Doctor talk about the maths the Doctor has been writing lately.

Thank You!

And it really is frustrating! That's exactly what I said to someone who messaged me about this yesterday after I went in the tag and was just totally deflated by the "Clara is nothing but a flirty girl in a short skirt" comments. I'm less frustrated today and coming back to a bunch of messages like these is always nice to remind me of why I stick around fandoms.

It's especially frustrating, like you said, because many of us love  characters like Clara, identify with them personally, and relate to them while another part of the fandom is insisting they aren't relatable and writing them off.

No one can tell someone else what they can or cannot relate to. That's far too personal and unless you've lived all these people's lives, you just cannot decide that for anyone else, much less everyone in a fandom.

While I don't personally gravitate to her as much as some do simply because I can see myself in her, Clara is also the character most like me on Doctor Who.  I see a very realistic person in Clara.

The thing for me is that I personally relate to characters on more abstract ideas than on actual "this person's life is like mine" which makes the Doctor Who fandom more frustrating with it's insistence on what characters need to be like in order to be normal and relatable because I find myself most drawn to the characters who aren't like everyone else exactly because they aren't "normal" because that's what I find interesting, that's what I needed to see when I was younger more than normal, and that's what draws me in to a character.

The fandom can be a huge mess sometimes, but there are a lot of great people in it who really love these characters and really see them for who they are.

Big Doctor Who group hug for the unappreciated characters and all their fans!