Just the start of it all

Here is some character meta about Martha, written for kepp0xy in the Fall Fandom Free for All. kepp0xy's request was for "Character Study - Doctor Who: Martha. I've tried & tried to understand her through s3 & s4, but have failed. I'd really like some good insights: preferably with equal thought given to her good and bad attributes." So that's what I'm aiming at here, though I'll admit that I've got more than half an eye on Martha fandom, given that these days even many of Martha's fans seem to swallow the twin memes that Martha's characterisation was inconsistent, and that all the stuff we liked about her was fanon.

I'm firmly convinced that the Martha we got on the telly does have a consistent character that evolves in a credible fashion as a result of her experiences with the Doctor, that a clear line can be drawn between the enthusiastic medical student we meet in Smith and Jones and the person who can play nuclear brinksmanship with Davros in Journey's End; the rest of this post constitutes an attempt to explain that. I'm not saying anyone has to agree with me, just detailing why I think what I think. (It's a tiny little bit picspammy: there are about eight smallish images beneath the cut, but nothing that should break people's connections too badly.)

( She'll be a doctor too when she passes her exams )

lifeonmartha are doing this clever thing of having a posting month-and-a-bit covering all of Martha's eps, books, comics, lolly sticks, etc. to date ready for her coming back at the end of the season.

No one has picked The Pirate Loop yet. WTF? It is just the awesomest thing since ever and the only reason I didn't pick it is that I didn't want to be greedy. Well, that and I've already squeed about it at length as shown in that link. OK, my three top reasons were trying not to be greedy, not wanting to repeat myself, and wanting to represent for the awesomeness of Jacqueline Rayner by picking my other fave Martha book, Last Dodo. (pace wishfulaces's point about Rayner's hate on for museum curators.)

The person I am looking at knows who she is.