Things

[thisbluespirit]

1. hamsterwoman has started watching Blake's 7 for the first time, is up to the end of S2 and has thoughts (and doesn't mind stray friendly B7 people wandering over for a chat if they feel inclined, because I asked before I posted this).


2. Someone made a podfic of my Miss Marple/Dracula crossover fic So We Meet At Last. (It's short enough that even I managed to listen to it and it's a very good reading of it and, you know, I can almost see for the first time why other people like it!!)


3. I have not yet watched this week's Doctor Who. I've not been feeling so great and even though I'm a bit better these last two or three days, the spoilers that met me on Monday morning made me want to wait till I was stronger. Or possibly forever. Well, no, I will watch it, of course. (I don't want to be That Fan, but I honestly never have before - but here I am: I haven't even seen it and I'm upset that they broke my show. I mean, it's DW, it'll all be retconned eventually or next season even, or we'll absorb into the time-space vaccum somehow but still. I don't like it and I'm upset even though that's silly. RL is being miserable enough; leave my fictional worlds alone at least for a bit, thanks. :-/ )


4. Entirely related to the fact that I couldn't even find a way to type #3 till now, I have made about 8 James Maxwell gifs and so now I can. (First resulting tumblr post here.)




Courtesy of liadt who sends me nice things on occasions, like episodes of Dangerman that contain JM being unconvincingly shot but still nearly dying of it anyway.


5. I've been working my way through the freeform tags for hurtcomfortex to find the ones I want to request and offer. It's certainly entertaining anyway. (They are like: CHARACTER A SACRIFICES THEMSELVES FOR B, CHARACTER B IS FED UP WITH CHARACTER A SACRICING THEMSELVES, and lots of people dying and then ATTEMPTED AROMATHERAPY MAKES EVERYTHING WORSE and it's a ride, basically.)

Comments

[theseatheseatheopensea]

I feel the same about DW. I feel that they retcon things that don't need it, in order to keep people interested in watching? I don't know. But I also don't like it.

RL is being miserable enough; leave my fictional worlds alone at least for a bit

Exactly!

I hope you feel better soon!! <3 Hang on in there! *sends spoons and good vibes*

[thisbluespirit]

♥

"You've redecorated. I don't like it!"

Yes, I mean, I do need to see the actual episode before I can fairly comment, but what it is they've done and the particular way that they've done it makes it hard to brush over in anyway, and it really does change everything. Obviously, I can do the time-honoured thing of Not My Headcanon, but still... I don't like it. *nods*

I hope you feel better soon!! <3 Hang on in there! *sends spoons and good vibes*

Thanks! I am doing okay, really, but it always takes a while to come out of a really low period - and I don't like that, either!!

[john_amend_all]

The DW events are getting to me, because I remember radw in the Nineties. Those venom-hurling haters, who'd respond to any mention of the Seventh Doctor — my Doctor — with canned scatological 'reviews' or outright abuse. And now I fear that's what I'm becoming: someone who not only despises the current era, but is angered by the thought that anybody would enjoy it. So far I've resisted spamming YouTube reaction posts with cut-and-paste screeds or reacting with outrage in admiration threads, but that may only be a difference in degree, not kind.

And (to repeat what I said on auroracloud's post), like the late and damned Professor Weston in Perelandra, I can't even look back on what [the show] was like, because it feels like it never meant anything even from the beginning.

I'm not sure what could tempt me back. Maybe a really mean-spirited retcon, such as the next showrunner starting by reshooting Peter Capaldi's regeneration into Keeley Hawes.

[thisbluespirit]

Given Chibnall's vintage, one of my first thoughts, was OMG, we finally have DW made by one of those radw fans who really hate the 80s Gallifrey stories that much that they'd do that for real. All the while canonising some random part of a Hinchcliffe story because of course. And want to make DW IMportant and Serious and do it by Darkness and Angst everywhere.

So we're not Those Fans. He's That Fan, totally!

(I mean, I should actually see the thing. I could wind up liking it and then I'd look silly. But I can't see CC - whose writing I can't stand on a good day - making me like it. :-D

It is really hard, because it does mess up the past - if someone had made the whole The Other thing canon, that would have been annoying on the Specialness front but at least that would have been the Doctor going from someone who really wasn't the Doctor and still would therefore have kept a lot of fundamentals remaining. This - given that's I've seen Ruth!Doctor - shows us a pre-show Doctor who is the Doctor, running round in the TARDIS shaped like a police box. Maybe she needs a few edges off her yet, but it knocks free will, choices and happy accidents as well as not-being-special on the head. This adventure didn't begin in a junkyard; destiny had already written things in this shape.

I'm sure I'll get round it, or the show will, or whatever. But in the meantime, yeah, I'm having some sort of grieving for the show I was watching for 55 years, and I didn't think even CC would manage that.

I don't want to retcon Jodie! Just, give her and Sacha Dhawan better stories to be in.

*fist bump of commiseration*

[philomytha]

I'm going through the hurtcomfortex tagset trying to pick out the ones I want to request, and I'm only halfway through C so far... and yes, I too noticed the aromatherapy one :-D

[thisbluespirit]

I don't want to know what they've done with the lavender oil! (No, I tell a lie: I do. :lol:)

[astrogirl]

As someone who is currently trying very hard not to be That Fan, because I genuinely really dislike That Fan, and having a tough, tough time of it, I sympathize. :)

[thisbluespirit]

Yeah. You've killed Doctor Who! No, I mean, actually this time! :-/

I was all DNW on first reading the spoilers and goggling at tumblr people being gleeful about it all, but the more I think about it, the worse it gets. It is probably partly an overreaction due to being tired/ill again, but... it is going to take a while before I can find a way to deal with this and still love the bits I love, because Chris Chibnall has just written stuff I hate all over them.

[thisbluespirit]

On a more cheerful note, this clip of Sacha Dhawan trying a Doctor vs Master quiz amused me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwQ-NOqXyYg

[hamsterwoman]

(and doesn't mind stray friendly B7 people wandering over for a chat if they feel inclined,

Stray B7 folks indeed welcome! :D

(me watching it at this point is entirely your doing, from first intriguing me with Servalan scenarios in the courtship generators/character roulette memes, to pitching the Vitriolic Best Buds during Snowflake, and, of course, shepherding me through the first 2 series :) Thanks again for all that!

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, my pleasure! If I have any point in life, it's probably in encouraging people to watch Blake's 7 and Sapphire and Steel! :lol:

(And, heh, thank me once you've got through some of S3's worse eps. *coughs*)

But obv your life is better for having experienced Servalan's hat for real, so it will balance out.

[pedanther]

I actually haven't watched most of this season yet; I watched the first few episodes and then just lost the will to continue, mostly because Chibnall, and nothing I've heard about it since has given me motivation to push on. (Even the mysterious Ruth thing, which might have hooked me in the hands of another showrunner, actually if anything made me slightly more reluctant, because I didn't trust Chibnall to have it be going somewhere I'd find satisfying.)

Even the idea that it will all be retconned away someday isn't something I find comforting these days. DC Comics mostly lost me as a fan when they did a big hamfisted retcon that broke the DC Universe I was emotionally invested in, but where they lost me completely was a few years later when they tried to reacquire some of the fans they'd lost by doing another hamfisted retcon to put parts of the old Universe back -- and that was the point where it stopped being a Universe to me, with characters I could care about and actions that had consequences, and became just a box of things being arbitrarily rearranged by whoever happened to be in charge. I don't want that to happen to my Doctor Who as well, and I'm not sure but what it hasn't already.

[persiflage_1]

I saw the first episode of the season - several days late because I forgot it was on on New Year's Day, and having already been roundly spoilered for it the morning after it aired, and I sort of lost the will to live, or watch any more. And I won't lie, Chibnall is a big part of the reason why I've not got invested in it this season, despite loving Jodie!Doctor A LOT. He shouldn't be allowed to write SF 'cos he's shite at it. Stick to stuff based on real life (like S1 of Broadchurch).

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, just retconning something is bad writing, but OTOH, it is DW and canon has always been kind of optional. Plus, this is CC, we can't rule out bad writing of the type that in S13 we learn it was the Master lying or a nightmare in the Matrix.

BUt if he wanted to do this kind of thing, it would have been nice if he'd left the past alone and just messed with the present.

[shannonsequitur]

Chibnall broke what’s pretty much the only rule of Doctor Who, so is it really surprising that many, many fans—myself included—are deeply frustrated over it?

I’m also still absorbing lots of secondhand Star Wars angst, so if I only watch sitcoms for the rest of my life, you know why.

[thisbluespirit]

To be fair, I don't think you can always trust sitcoms, either!

Chibnall broke what’s pretty much the only rule of Doctor Who, so is it really surprising that many, many fans—myself included—are deeply frustrated over it?

At the moment I'm just kind of ridiculously sad for the show I thought I was watching since I was 11. Which is silly, but it'll take me a little while to find a better response.

[liadt]

And now even more people can enjoy Miss Marple taking on Dracula:D

Nice gifs! I recognised 'The Traitors' ones by the blinds, turns out I was paying more attention than I thought or I wasn't and was looking at the decor instead(!). I should watch 'Private Potter' really.

Making the Dr the special one takes away everything that makes the Dr special in the first place. Think I might see Classic Who and Nu Who as completely separate entities because at least I get to keep half the show. I suppose it will be retconned at some point as Gallifrey's been destroyed more times than I've had hot dinners. Interestingly, I was re-watching 'The Underwater Menace' at the weekend with the similarly unfortunate Atlantis. 'Nothing in the world can stop me now!" could be a good catchphrase for Chibnall;p

Hurrah for amusing tags:)

[thisbluespirit]

They can enjoy it in Russian and they can listen to it, to! I thought it would be deeply uncomfortable listening to even a short thing (my bad sentences/words!) but actually it was okay and funnier than when I'm reading it, as if it was written by somebody who isn't me.

I recognised 'The Traitors' ones by the blinds, turns out I was paying more attention than I thought or I wasn't and was looking at the decor instead(!)

All you can see in that scene is the blinds, as everything else is too dark. Thanks for making at least two of those gifs possible! ♥ (Hey, you don't have any Dangerman Suzanne Neve up your sleeve, do you? ;-p)

I should watch 'Private Potter' really.

It's an odd thing. The bit with the Norwegian Cypriot that they added in for the film feels very added on indeed, but it does give us a glimpse of what the more focused play-of-the-day episode was like, with the weird moral dilemma. (I liked it, but then I do like what the proto-Royal Exchange group do. They're kind of weird and over earnest and thinky and slow, but it feels worth it afterwards. Also, there are several people with fake eyebrows, so you can pine less over missing AAL!

'Nothing in the world can stop me now!" could be a good catchphrase for Chibnall;p

Ahahaha! I've just watched it and that was better than worrying about watching it, because a) Sacha Dhawan was so good and b) the rest was really crap and I feel much better about possibly just ignoring it.

I don't like the idea, though, and I really dislike the way it affects so much of Classic Who and - despite all the "Everything you know is a lie!" guff, Chris Chibnall has now wandered off in search of the next adventure as if it totally didn't matter. *scratches head*

Hurrah for amusing tags

I laughed a lot and then felt as if all the characters should probably be taken to casualty.

[dimity_blue]

I'm glad you got to make JM gifs. *hugs*

I'm sorry about DW. I guess that's one of the issues when a series goes on for so many years. :o(

[thisbluespirit]

I'd like to think, just casually rewriting the entirety of the show's ethos in one episode and then moving on as if it wasn't even important is not something that's inevitable at all.

On the positive side, it was worth watching as Sacha Dhawan was excellent and the rest of it so silly I feel better about possibly just ignoring most of it forever. So that's something.

I'm not sure how to react. But JM gifs are always a plan!

[dirtygreatknife]

I did enjoy it, but I do admit that was entirely bc I find Sacha Dhawan in any role utterly lovely.

[thisbluespirit]

He was definitely the best bit of it!

[scripsi]

I didn't like it. Love Thirteen, like the new Master- starting to actively dislike Chibnall, after just having been lukewarm. Not just for the last episode but for, twice, in one season, treating men and women differently in similar situations- and with women drawing the short stick.

Also- how did the Master manage to kill off a whole planet with people who constantly regenerate? Granted no more than 12, but still. I found that extremely annoying.

[thisbluespirit]

Also- how did the Master manage to kill off a whole planet with people who constantly regenerate? Granted no more than 12, but still. I found that extremely annoying.

I have been wondering that, too! I mean, if he'd been able to do that, he'd 100% have done it already at some point. And it couldn't be that big a bomb/doomsday weapon or something because he kept the bodies pristine enough for cybernisation!

ETA: Now you just made me think about this a disturbing amount and I have concluded that it must have been some kind of poison gas attack. Thanks, scripsi!!

[swordznsorcery]

A new B7 fan! Hurrah! Such things are rare these days, and deserve to be treasured. And she is about to encounter the wonders that are Tarrant and Dayna. :)

I loved Who, if that helps. It probably doesn't. But then it all turns on something the Master said anyway, and when did (s)he ever tell the truth? So make of it what you will.

[thisbluespirit]

I loved Who, if that helps. It probably doesn't. But then it all turns on something the Master said anyway, and when did (s)he ever tell the truth? So make of it what you will.

No, it doesn't! The only thing that makes it better is everyone else hating it too. (And it doesn't: the worst bit is Ruth!Doctor, who we saw, because if the Doctor was the Doctor before Hartnell then everything in early classic Who was not what we thought at all and that makes me feel weird and upset and I can't look at any Classic Who things at the moment. I am not happy about that!! And that's before you even get into the Doctor being actually special (WRONGNESS) and destroying Gallifrey yet again and also more crap retconning, which I would have things to say about if I were not being stupidly heartbroken at being robbed of classic Who by Chris Chibnall. Temporarily, I hope, but you never can tell. Sometimes these things wind up permanent.)

Sacha Dhawan was good, though. I think we can all agree on that much, but that's about as far as it goes.

A new B7 fan! Hurrah! Such things are rare these days, and deserve to be treasured. And she is about to encounter the wonders that are Tarrant and Dayna.

She's just made it to Volcano, so Dayna and Tarrant have been met!

ETA: Also people are getting into B7 all the time on tumblr!

[aralias]

i can almost see for the first time why other people like it!!

:D :D

[thisbluespirit]

It's a funny thing, isn't it?

Btw, if you have a chance to drop in on hamsterwoman, they've been enjoying your S1-2 (spoiler-free) fic so far and definitely share a lot of your B7 likes, if you're not too wrapped up in Carry On and that blue hellsite. (Either or both of them.) ♥