elsandifer

[elsandifer]

"New" is a really weird choice of words here.

Source: Common Lives Lesbian Lives; A Lesbian Quarterly ( #29 - Winter 1989 )

[elsandifer]

This is possibly the greatest work of philosophical pessimism ever.

[elsandifer]

Wasn't "red bicycle when you were 12" meant to foreshadow a plotline RTD came up with where the Doctor had been manipulating Rose's timeline or something? Either way the criticism is weird to me, because it seems like part of being a Doctor Who fan has historically meant looking past the sometimes uncomfortable implications of the Doctor-Companion relationships.

That plot was, iirc, the one pitched by Paul Abbott in a script that never got made.

As for the larger issue, we all know none of the basic tropes of Doctor Who apply to Moffat episodes because those must be read with the most bafflingly hostile lens imaginable.

Which is to say, I stand by my accusation of paranoia.

[elsandifer]

re: moffat and young girls, substitute "turns to the camera and says 'i am in a romantic relationship with this woman'" with a slightly more inclusive "kisses while soaring music plays at least once, is for some time suggested to have impregnated, etc" and don't forget "red bicycle when you were twelve" :)

Is that first bit supposed to be a description of Amy? As for the second, iirc Moffat had not read the finale (he’s joked about how all the writers left out the continuity references and were then stunned when Davies just started dropping rels and shit) and certainly hadn’t read season two, so it’s a bit strained to suggest the relationship was romantic at the stage Moffat wrote the line.

Seriously, this is fucking paranoid man. Switch to indica.

[elsandifer]

Those short stay visas might become a lot more difficult for Americans to get as the economy collapses, preventable diseases spread, and so on. I'm not trying to doom, but you guys need to understand how difficult it can be for people from outside of the developed world to travel. Stay safe.

Sure. Or there could just be another pandemic. It’s not hard to imagine ways that things can go wrong when your starting premise is that things have gone wrong enough that one has to flee the country to avoid a pogrom.

That said, I think this piece by Josh Marshall outlines the fundamental flaws in the sort of doomerism that you’re, contrary to your protestations, quite flagrantly engaged in. But one works with what one has. It’s a long road from a bad election result to economic collapse and mass spread of diseases such that an American passport stops being a useful thing to have. Skipping to the end is deeply unhelpful.

[elsandifer]

Where would you flee? I have a feeling that a lot of places are going to much harder for Americans to get into in the not too distant future. :/

I am very lucky in that the nature of my job is that I can be a digital nomad and bounce around on short stay visas.

[elsandifer]

how likely do you think trans camps actually are at this point?

Likely enough that I went and updated my birth certificate so I had consistent ID with my name and sex, not so likely that I’ve fled.

More broadly, it’s a clear political goal of the people currently in power. That’s alarming. But not all goals get met, and it’s a long road from here to camps. (Camps here being a metonym for “the effective outlawing of being trans.”)

[elsandifer]

may have missed it on my last browse of the Eruditorum, but have you commented on Moffat's habit of having an adult man encounter a young girl who he will later enter into a romantic relationship with, possibly after the procuring of gifts?

Is this a habit? Like, we’re generally going to have to look at the time travel ones for that, so Time Traveler’s Wife, which isn’t his underlying story, River, who he doesn’t really spend meaningful time with as a young girl… Clara and Amy? Not romantic, which I think matters here. Douglas is Cancelled does “female lead meets male lead as a child,��� but not a romantic relationship there at all. So yeah. Not something I’ve commented on due to being fairly unpersuaded it’s a thing.

[elsandifer]

What do you do when the fascist has the will of the majority behind him?

Nothing different. The will of the majority does not actually carry moral force.

[elsandifer]

How do you feel about the ��am I a good man?” arc in series 8? It sort of doesn’t make sense to me when he just saved Gallifrey and then spent hundreds of years on Trenzalore. Maybe if this arc was after Time Lord Victorius (which was sort of dropped), but after Trenzalore is the least fitting time for such an arc. If not completely antithetical to what he just learned in the previous season.

I don’t think it’s a serious examination of the Doctor’s morality, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. Consider it this way: he’s just spent hundreds of years dying alone in a small village, genuinely believing it to be the end of his life, before suddenly being shoved in a new and eerily familiar body and immediately picking up with the life and friend he’d been hanging with before Trenzalore. That’s gonna do a number on you sense of self, and I think that’s what the arc is really trading on.

[elsandifer]

Would it be accurate to say you dislike superheroes? If so, why do you write so much about them?

It’s accurate to say I’ve burnt out badly on superheroes. In terms of writing, what were the last two things I wrote about them? The Loki essay, then the 1963 chapter of LWIA that I wrote back in 2022?

[elsandifer]

What are your five favorite Moffat scripts? Out of what he's written overall (i'd assume mostly Doctor Who and Sherlock pics, but who knows).

Gosh, there’s so much I haven’t seen in ages. Hell Bent and His Last Vow are the two big ones that’d definitely rank, but past that I really wouldn’t want to confidently say Blink without making sure there aren’t some jaw-dropping Press Gangs I want to represent, y’know?

[elsandifer]

What made Brief Treatise a failure/what was instructional about it?

Mismatch of word count to size of subject was the mechanical reason for its failure, but the lesson was not to go for an idea because I think it’ll be popular.

[elsandifer]

I read your review but I had a slightly difficult time nailing it down. Would you mind bulletpointing or something specifically why Water of Mars is ”secretely terrible”?

It does not earn or really even try to earn its lofty moral stakes.

[elsandifer]

given the nature of the Flux posts will there be any proper Pop Between Realities for that era (2021-2)?

Dunno. There’s no non-episode posts remaining in what’s going out on the blog. I’ll surely add one for Redacted somewhere in this stretch for the book, and expect I’ll add one or two extra essays elsewhere—I should probably have a PBR back in the 2019 area. But I don’t have firm plans for that book yet and don’t imagine thinking about it too much now is useful.

[elsandifer]

Is William Blake amazed and unafraid?

William Blake flagrantly suffered from an anxiety disorder, but also yes.

[elsandifer]

What do you think of Citizen Kane? (if you've seen it)

It's pretty good.