The thing about s2 is that aside from Girl in the Fireplace and Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, I've only watched it once and half of that was before I was properly fannish about DW, so... I probably should not meta about it. But what struck me about Ten/Rose was not that they were acting like giggly adolescents who couldn't take anything seriously, or that they treated Mickey like shit--both of these things are true, but they aren't what stuck with me. What made me go "DO NOT WANT" was that Rusty obviously ships it as the OTP to end all OTPs in the most normative way possible--Attractive Male and Attractive Female are the main leads, therefore they will end up falling in love, and their love shall be romantic and het and monogamous and forever and More Important Than Anything Else Ever. And what it just skates right over is that the Doctor has been the Male Lead opposite dozens of Female Leads without falling for them, so why now? and that it is full of sketchy power dynamics, and most importantly that it is about as queer as you can get without any actual gay, since the Earth models of romance that Rusty keeps trying to shove them into completely break when one of them is a 900-year-old regenerating alien time traveller.

So in my head Doctor/Rose is the story of a traumatized veteran who should know better than to fall hard for the first true ray of light he comes across but no longer gives a fuck, and an ordinary Earth girl with nothing going for her at home who gets her chance to become extraordinary, and how they are all kinds of fucked-up but they need each other desperately, and how some kinds of love are universal no matter how messy the breakdown of all known romance models can be. But I am pretty sure that while Rusty is aware of most of these things, he is trying as hard as he can to shove most of them under the rug or treat them as external obstacles to their Tragic Star-Crossed Love. Which--no, do not want. I can get that shit in pretty much any mainstream book/movie/show if I want it, I am not interested in cramming my DW shipping into that mold.

And hahaha I am pretty sure I just wrote you an essay there, because apparently even s2, the RTD season I am most lukewarm about, gives me all the feelings and most of them involve impotent rage.