#stop arguing

The Doctor's relationship with River Song is totally different from his relationship with Rose Tyler. He loves both of them. Rose was his soulmate, River was his wife. Rose was the ultimate human, the most ordinary companion ever, there for him exactly when he needed it after the Time War and he was hopelessly in love with her. River is family to him before he even knows their story. Family, and the woman he knows will love him, and the woman he's heard he'll love back - eventually. In the future. He meets her as Ten in the Library and he discovers she'll be his wife, and eventually he finds out she's a Pond, and from there they have this wonderful resigned familiarity. They skip falling in love and confessions and go straight to the "old-married-couple" dynamic because they both KNOW they will eventually be married, they just don't know how or when. So they're playing off of a relationship they know will happen in the future and they have this premature care for one another already set up. Rose and the Doctor were a raging love story, and River and the Doctor are a love story that they see as a foregone conclusion. They know it's coming, so they don't have to work hard or guess, they just care without knowing all the details. It's beautiful - just as beautiful as the Doctor falling in love with an ordinary retail worker in London, who saved him as often as he saved her [they made one another better]. These are two different portrayals of the same kind of love, both affectionate, both undying, and I'm confident that if River and Rose ever met, they'd be kindred spirits because they alone know what it is to love the Doctor and be loved in return by the Doctor in that romantic, never-ending way. To say that the Doctor forgot Rose Tyler (Day of the Doctor? The Moment chose Rose as her form in the Doctor's darkest-ever hour? Hello?) after ANY regeneration would be flat-out wrong; he himself denies forgetting ANY of his companions in several episodes. How could he forget someone as impactful as Rose Tyler? And to say River was the only one who loved him regardless of which face he was wearing would be flat-out wrong too. Sarah Jane cared for the Doctor through four different faces, Ten and Eleven included. Rose loved him as Nine, Ten, and eventually the Metacrisis. More than one person has the capacity to love the Doctor unconditionally. Rose and River have two different representations of a romantic dynamic with the same man, and both representations are valid and meant everything to him. Just in different ways. You can applaud both, and it feels real good. Don't be disrespecting Rose Tyler. And don't disrespect River Song, or even over-romanticize her relationship with the Doctor. And stop acting like the Doctor could forget any of the people he's loved.

when your friends get into a VERY heated argument on the group chat and you panik and start sending pictures of cats :)