#Bring back the eu honestly

[mayakern]

upcoming store stuff & why we're doing a super sale

omg hiiii it's devin again, and this time i'm bringing store news

the short version: we're moving ourselves back to minnesota, and we're moving order fulfillment to a fulfillment center

wow, that's big news! maya and i are so so so excited to be closer to our minnesota friends (and also my family lol). i'm hoping to be back in northeast minneapolis, but let's be real we're probably gonna get priced out and into the suburbs

in addition to that, due to a variety of reasons i'll explain in more detail below, we're transitioning from in-house fulfillment to working with a fulfillment center (or 3pl, short for third-party logistics). we're at an awkward size that makes staffing difficult and have had issues with extended processing time. the 3pl should be set up by september, and we're working on the back end to have fulfillment centers in australia, canada, the UK, and eventually the EU. if tax authorities work with us we should have all that ready by december 2024!

to prepare for that we're doing a super sale. ash told me not to call it liquidation but she said that like 30 seconds after i hit send on the marketing email, sorry about that. items that we don't want to pay to move to the 3pl are discounted by 25-70%, with some of them priced at cost. under no circumstances will anything ever be 70% off again

if you're nosy you can read the q&a i made up in my head while eating pigs in a blanket:

how are the labor protections at the 3pl?

pretty good! we were shocked to find anything even halfway decent in the US; we went looking for a fulfillment center in the EU to handle all international fulfillment, and the one we found just so happened to have bought a US location two years ago.

they're located in ohio, pay $19/hr, and provide health insurance and 401k matching. that seemed too good to be true so we dug through employee reviews on places like glassdoor, and while there were some bad reviews those were all dated prior to when the facility was purchased by this new company. they also have a very low turnover rate which is a HUGE green flag

why are you transferring to a 3pl?

the serious

sometimes we have a high volume of sales, and it makes sense to have two full-time employees plus a part timer! but usually we have a low-to-medium volume of sales. we can float by on that, but it gets risky, and the economy is in a bad enough state that we're concerned about the longevity

related, the 2023 holiday sale showed us some major flaws in our fulfillment process. if the same issues were to happen this year the business probably wouldn't survive

we're moving cross-country in early 2025 and would've had to close this location anyway

the dumb:

i'm sick of dealing with commercial landlords and if i have one more wall leak i'm going to throw it into the river brick by brick

what about your staff?

unfortunately we will have to say goodbye to our office staff. they have been given 3.5 months notice and no-questions-asked PTO for interviews with a small severance

why are you moving back to minnesota?

troy was always meant to be a temporary move. initially the plan was to move to vermont or massachusetts, but after being out here for 7 years we just kinda want to go home. the weather in troy is perfect for us, we love the mountains, and we have some great friends here, but for some goddamn reason we want our eyelashes to freeze together.

will you be returning to midwest cons?

if we return to cons at all it will be with ariel and/or ash running the booth, maya will not be involved. this would likely be in california and/or in the northeast US.

my friends are begging me to go to CONvergence as an attendee so ig you might see me there? maya has pledged death before crowded venues tho

will you do any local events in minnesota?

we might do sample sales. honestly idk what we're gonna do with the samples we have in troy, most of them are terrible. do you want samples of the strangest low rise bell bottom pants ever created? please take them from me. my bush hangs out

also my kid brother has gotten really into library events and if he asks nice enough we might do some of those

is there anything else?

i mean probably, but i started this last week and i haven't had any other ideas on what to include

[nicoline1998enilocin]

Lazy Sunday morning

Pairing | Boyfriend!Robert Downey Jr. x Girlfriend!Fem!Reader

Word count | 1K

Summary | Sunday mornings with your boyfriend and two cats are always something you look forward to after a long, hard week at work. From lots of cuddles to a delicious breakfast, Robert always makes you feel special, and you happily relax and allow yourself to be pampered by all three.

Rating | Teen (T)

Warning(s) | Established relationship ~ boyfriend/girlfriend, use of nickname ~ Gorgeous, unspecified age gap.

A/n | I want to thank @ccbsrmsf1 for bringing the fact that Robert owns two of the most adorable cats to my attention; it has only made me love him more, in all honesty! I hope you will enjoy my post-midnight thoughts and ramblings, and I cannot thank you enough for proofreading this! Você é um anjo e eu te amo 🩵

Banners: @vase-of-lilies | Divider: @firefly-graphics | GIF: @ccbsrmsf1

Main Masterlist | Robert Downey Jr. Masterlist | Read on AO3

You look forward to Sunday mornings every week because being a lawyer representing celebrities during all sorts of cases is challenging. It's not that you don't love it, because you do, but you also need some time to yourself, and you have each Sunday entirely to yourself, and you often spend it with your boyfriend, Robert.

The two of you recently moved in together, and it's good that both of your cats - Montgomery and D'Artagnan - also get along. Montgomery has been with you since he was a little kitten, and D'Artagnan was adopted by Robert later in life.

Ever since you started to spend more and more time at Robert's house, your cat has come with you each time, slowly adjusting to his new house. Robert has fallen head over heels in love with your little black devil, and you haven't left since.

However, your first matter on Sunday morning is not your cats but your alone time with your boyfriend. These moments alone are more and more spread out lately, so you exchange many small kisses, soft touches, and sweet words.

''Mornin' Gorgeous,'' Roberts says with his gravelly morning voice against your neck as he gently pulls you against his chest. You two are only separated by the shirt you're wearing, which is three or four sizes too big, seeing that it's Robert's shirt.

''Good morning,'' you say with a soft giggle as Roberts's long fingers softly massage your belly, and you enjoy the soft kisses on your neck, along with the scruff tickling where he places them.

''I can never get enough of waking up next to you on these glorious Sunday mornings. They're the highlight of my week, you know that?'' he asks you, and you confirm that you feel the same way.

''Same; I honestly don't think I want to leave the bed today,'' you tell him before turning around in his hold, now facing him. You kiss his nose before he captures your lips, molding them with yours and ultimately taking your breath away.

Your hand glides over his chest, enjoying his chest hair, and as you slide lower with your nails, you feel every ridge of his muscle flex at the feeling of your touch.

''Hey, stop tickling me, or you won't be making it out of bed today,'' he jokes, and after one more kiss, he lets his hand wander from your thigh under the back of his shirt, cupping one of your butt cheeks and squeezing playfully.

Your hand eventually finds it’s home in his hair, letting your fingers glide through the strands as you look into each other's eyes.

''I can't wait to call you my wife one day, Gorgeous. You will make a beautiful bride and a gorgeous wife as well. And not to mention, when you're pregnant and carrying my baby, you'll be the hottest baby mama this earth has ever seen!'' he tells you with a big smile. Starting a family has always been one of his biggest dreams, and ever since he met you, he has been dreaming of doing just that.

''I want that too, Robert. Growing old with you, our boys, and future kids? There's nothing else I could ever wish for,'' you tell him, and even though he's quite a few years older than you are, this has never been an issue for either of you. You love each other, and being with him is like a dream.

The two of you stay like this for thirty minutes, whispering sweet words, letting your hands wander and your lips touch every inch of skin you can reach. Until one of your boys finally wants some attention, he isn't afraid to let you know.

After a fourth loud meow from Montgomery, Robert gets up, and you can't help but sneak a peek at your boyfriend as he walks over to the bedroom door. His light grey, tight sweatpants are hanging low on his hips, the curves of his butt and bulge perfectly visible, and his happy trail, muscled abs, and broad chest and shoulders are on full display.

''I can feel you staring, Gorgeous. I would say you should stop, but you know I like it too much when you look at me like that,'' he jokes before opening the door, a deep blush covering your cheeks as you've been caught ogling him.

When the bedroom door swings open, your cats sprint into the room and onto the bed, ready for attention and cuddling. Montgomery is curled up on your belly, enjoying his head scratches while purring loudly in contentment. D'Artagnan is stretched on your side, enjoying your company, while Robert finds his place on your other side, making the cuddle fest complete.

''I don't think I will ever get enough of this,'' you tell him, and Robert wholeheartedly agrees. His arm is draped over you to scratch D'Artagnan, too, giving everyone as much physical attention as possible.

It isn't until your stomach starts to rumble loudly that you finally decide to move out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen, where the cats enjoy their breakfast while you're enjoying looking at Robert as he prepares pancakes.

The muscles on his back flex and relax now and again, and you can't get enough of looking at his broad shoulders, wanting to do nothing more than scratch them as he makes you fall apart, but for now, you'll happily settle for waiting on breakfast.

''Here you go, Gorgeous; when these are gone, we can spend the entire day on the couch. How does that sound?''

''Like the perfect Sunday,'' you tell him, and after one last kiss, you eat your pancakes, savoring every last bite. You will never forget moments like these, and you secretly let your mind wander to what it would be like with a little one or two running around, too.

''A penny for your thoughts?'' Robert asks as he sits beside you, and you smile at him as he looks at you expectantly. Little does he know what you're thinking of, though, at the same time, you don't have a single clue he is about to go on the hunt for the perfect engagement ring, wanting to savor these moments for the rest of his life.

''I love you, Robert.'' ''And I love you more, Gorgeous.''

[hero-israel]

I hear you on the song-and-dance with 'the disputed territories in the West Bank', but to some extent I kinda think the push back on the language choices used to describe Palestine are warranted. The West Bank WAS occupied. By Jordan, and then later by Israel FROM Jordan. And then Israel and Jordan made peace and agreed on their borders, and now the territories in the West Bank are disputed, not occupied. (but also, yeah, sure, end the occupation)

and Gaza is (was, current war notwithstanding) blockaded, not occupied, because a territory is considered occupied when it falls under “effective control of hostile foreign armed forces.” Traditionally, effective control requires three main components: the physical presence of a foreign military without consent; the inability of a local sovereign to exercise control because of foreign forces’ presence; and the imposition of occupying forces’ authority, and like, the only bit that can with any honesty be argued is 'imposition of Israeli authority' in terms of a moderately closed border and an import limitation. (like, yeah, borders be violence, why is cardamon on the prohibited substances list, BUT) you cannot honestly argue that the diagnostics of an occupation were present in Gaza. But us jews are so wily we can, unlike any other people in the world, enact an occupation without ANY OF THE DIAGNOSTIC INDICATORS, according to the EU, and the Red Cross, Amnesty, the African Union and several different UN organs. (in an inverse of the standard; rules for me but not for thee, fucking hypocrites)

Like, it's just frustrating, and I understand being Done and Tired about the attempts to get nuance into language, but also also, the WORDS MEAN THINGS GODAMMIT

(this Words Mean Things Rant brought to you by: Gaza can't be an enclave, godammit, it borders to both Egypt and Israel!)

To be clear - I will and do say that there was no occupation of Gaza after the pullout. Having a border fence between hostile neighbors is not an occupation. Even Hamas admitted publicly that the occupation was over. As you surely know, for the first 8 months after the pullout there was only a rather flimsy fence and no naval blockade at all, and it would have stayed that way if not for the Lost Causers.

In the West Bank, 90+% of the time it is just not a worthwhile argument to have. Especially when I think one of the best ways to show the falsehood of the "apartheid" accusation is how (as my pinned post says) there were no changes in the structure of the occupation itself and you can't just morph one into the other from being bored. When people try to relitigate 1948 and 1967 and "stealing from Palestinians," then I show them why those arguments were false at that point in time and get them to remember Jordan and Jordanians exist. But I feel like there is only so much needle-threading that we can ever expect people to sit still for, and in 2024 when the Israeli army really is dominating territory of people who don't like it and who live under military law instead of civilian law, it is much more an academic exercise than a home run. I don't want to sound like one of those guys who goes "ackshyually it's not pedophilia, it's ephebophilia".

It depressed me to realize that most people don't base their stances around legit evidence or consistent arguments. Nearly everything Jewish people can say to defend themselves against bias and prejudice boils down to "You're being inconsistent, you're treating us unlike other groups!" when just announcing that doesn't bring change. Life is not a college debate class, the heart is not a court of law, there is not actually a judge from a made-for-TV-movie who will listen to us and take our side and translate our accuracy into better lives. Most people don't even try to stick to consistency or principle, they just decide what they want and make up a reason after, and, as the quote says, they "indicate that the time for discussion has passed."

Jewish culture and literature and society famously revolves around dispute and interpretation and commentary. Our mindset, our epistemic interaction with reality, does not match that of the people who want to kill us. All we can do is argue but we cannot make them listen. Our ancestors in Spain and Germany certainly tried, and they were right, and it didn't matter. The sword is mightier than the pen and no one is actually afraid of us. When people say antisemitic things their "punishment" is getting a tour of a Holocaust museum. If our ancestors really had colonized the world and left billions of descendants to reap the rewards, maybe we could have our own version of the Mohammed cartoon approach and make people leave us alone.

[crowlines]

Previous anon here again, do you think that you would re-release some of your past lines for people overseas?

Quite honestly, if I retired a design due to low sales, I'm really unlikely to bring it back. I used to ship to the UK and the EU prior to 2021; my audience there was not remotely big enough to justify stocking entire inventories of product only for those customers, let alone product that sold poorly, and I anticipate that still being the case now in 2024.

I have to emphasize that stocking clothing is very expensive and takes up lots of space which I have very limited use of, because it is made in large batches and not one garment at a time. I'm sorry this isn't the answer you wanted to hear but truthfully I do have to be careful about what I invest in (even if in an ideal world everyone could have the exact thing they want from my shop at any time).

As for products that aren't retired due to low sales and are simply sold out / awaiting restocks, sure, those will happen at some future point as planned anyway! But I am probably going to start being more choosy about my restock choices as I would like to focus on new designs and products, and having slow-moving inventory can really hamper that.

[salora-rainriver]

We're talking about Ads Again

Context for those followers of mine who weren't there: I made a post about tumblr ads being weird back in 2016 and it's literally still getting notes to this day. People responded GREAT to it. honestly, despite being like. ass old at this point and written by a literal high schooler, it's still pretty good! I thank my dad being in advertising helped significantly. I had an expert witness.

Tonight, I'm writing the sequel to that post. the sequel is this post.

let's just fucking dive into it or whatever.

why am I doing this?

okay for starters I made that post in goddamn 2016 and I refuse to believe my insights into the marketing world have not improved since then.

Also, the marketing world has CHANGED. Huge swaths of my old post are no longer relevant. What we saw with tumblr ads in 2016 was in some parts a passing fad, and in other parts the harbinger of a new wave of influencer marketing and corporate parasociality (I coined that term just now).

Honestly I've been thinking for a while that I should make an update post, but what with, yanno, adulthood, that's been kinda hard!

Well, I've missed a train, and it's Christmas, so I've finally found the time to do that.

What has Changed?

in my personal life... dad got fired! yeah it fucking sucks. the good news is he and his wife are working towards their retirement now, shifting away from the industry overall. Good news as far as life is concerned, but it does mean I no longer have as clean a connection to the Industry as I used to.

but more importantly, why he got fired. The fact is, dad's old! I know, shocker. More than just being old, though, his field (and my stepmom's field - they both did the same work) represents an older paradigm of advertisement. he did TV spots and posters, not ad reads for Raid Shadow Legends. He was great at his work, but we're in an era of data-driven, maximalist, google adsense, low-barrier-to-entry, super-fast and super-cheap digital advertisement.

Well, more specifically,

We're on the cusp of an extinction event poised to bring said era crashing to the ground.

Pictured: the current vibes in the ad world

Siberia is on Fire and Everything is Dying

So given that my typical source on stuff like this is currently unemployed, I decided to hit good ol google (well, google and duckduckgo. fitting given what we're talking about) to see if I could get any insights into what the current state of advertising is.

and the short of it is that everyone says the end is nigh. check this out:

Digital is dead, and so is TV. God fucking damn. BY THE WAY, I loved these two articles. Chris Gadek, a man I only learned about today, is clearly an excellent writer and his professional insights are probably gonna be way better than my amateur synthesis of the half-dozen different articles I read today, including his.

blatant shilling for random article writers aside, let's get on to my half-baked synthesis, starting with:

What Set Siberia on Fire

In small part, it's the same issues facing most major companies and industries in our late capitalist world: Hubris.

As this New York Times article points out, we've got a low barrier of entry into a gargantuan industry that's increasingly pumping out slop to follow a strategy of 'more is more'. And we've all seen the bizarre mobile game ads and shady scams that have resulted from THAT.

On top of that, we've also got the fucking digital privacy issue shaking up the entire world as consumers increasingly don't like being spied on (imagine that), and the EU starts rolling out heavy restrictions on the data harvesting that was fueling a bunch of this advertisement bubble.

There's also the ad fraud. Oh, you didn't hear about that? Well, it's nothing much, just that lots of bots are clicking ads to falsify click metrics, artificially inflating the effectiveness of said ads. look, it even has a wikipedia article

oh and Facebook did it. Facebook did ad fraud. :)

and I'm not even getting into everything that works to shake up or demolish basically every advertisement channel out there - the decline of cable tv and print newspapers, the increasing use of ad blockers, the crisis of consumer trust, etc etc.

In short we are looking at a multitude of micro-crises all working together to make the environment unlivable for most current forms of advertisement.

in other words: an extinction event!

Who's Gonna Survive

And just like in a real extinction event, whether or not you survive depends on how good you can adapt to the brave new world you've found yourself in. Old school advertising needs to drastically rethink their everything if they're gonna stay afloat, and every field of the industry needs to recreate itself. As my new favorite writer Chris Gadek says,

"These crises show that there are no safe havens. You can’t substitute one advertising medium for another. Rather than pivot, the advertising industry must adapt and learn to effectively use the channels at their disposal (TV included), factoring in the seismic societal and technological changes that have occurred over the past decade and beyond."

and what is that going to look like? what's going to be the new face of advertising?

The field seems torn, at first... but also aligned, at least when it comes to the core principles:

privacy is a big issue. Seems like a lot of advertisers are seeing an end to wanton consumer surveillance, and looking into less invasive ways to gather important and meaningful data

companies that rely on selling ad space and propping up their engagement metrics are going to be relied on less, probably, because the metrics themselves are being seen as less reliable (for good freaking reason)

regaining consumer trust is going to be a massive priority in the future.

overall, we're probably going to look at a massive downturn in ads, as people turn to a quality-over-quantity strategy in an attempt to stop flooding the attention marketplace.

that's the gist I'm getting from reading oh so many different articles of varying quality from so many different sources.

So, yanno, there may be some hope out there. If smart people start leading this industry (lol), we may get to actually enjoy ads.

Yeah. Enjoy ads.

Unironically.

I know, it's crazy.

PS: if you start seeing affiliate links on mainstream TV ads, thank our lord of excellent business analysis Chris Gadek for calling it early. God, that's such a crazy left-field idea and I really want it to actually happen.

[being-of-rain]

I listened to The Last Day, Big Finish's lead-in to the TV Movie. It was more or less what I expected from the fact that it's a sequel to Dark Universe, co-written by that release's author and script editor. Which is to say, it reminds me of a lot of Event Comics from DC or Marvel: bombastic and full of spectacle, has a Big Deal premise and lots of characters crossing over, happy to do a character-assassination or few to make the plot work, and ultimately not particularly good.

I think I'll just write down my thoughts in dot point form. Spoilers ahead. There's a few positives mixed in there somewhere, I swear.

In case you don't know, the plot is that the Doctor takes over the universe (using all-powerful creatures from another universe that have decided to whatever he tells them to) in order to solve everyone's problems by destroying species and rewriting people's timelines. Ace puts together an over-complicated plan involving many of the Doctor's friends and enemies to stop him.

-The premise of Seven finally going full control-freak might make for a good finale to a character arc (maybe) with a story arc and writers that really do justice to the character. These were not that. Unless I missed something, there's no explanation whatsoever why the Doctor took over the universe - no inciting incident, one day he just got tired of not taking it over I guess.

-And honestly, the vibe I got from basically every EU story I've consumed is that Seven was more of a master manipulator in the middle of his life, and as he grew older he mellowed and grew tired of masterplans. So personally, this feels far from "natural progression" the writers claim it to be for Seven's final days.

-The story really didn't act as a great finale to any arc, really. It didn't feel like a necessary continuation to any of the characters' stories. It didn't even really do anything with Ace's anger at the Doctor that bubbles over at the very end of Dark Universe, too late for that story to do anything at all interesting with it. To be completely honest, I'm not even certain if the hero Ace of this story (as opposed to the Evil Ace also in this story) is supposed to be young Ace or old Ace. I assume Old Ace since she's on the covers? (and a comment made by Roz that I wasn't sure which way it was supposed to be read). But to be fair the cover uses a young Hex and Sally when they're supposedly several decades older in this, a young Seven because for some reason they don't have the rights to TV Movie Seven, and a young Mel when god knows how/if this fits into her timeline.

-The covers are also just bland in general. Marvel movie poster disease.

-One positive that Event Comics have that this doesn't is that there isn't any fresh new story arcs starting from this story either. Given how utterly disinterested Big Finish is in creating any ongoing arcs or connected series or anything that's not as standalone as they can make it, they can't really do big Event Stories. The events of The Last Day will be lucky to ever get mentioned again - which is wild when you consider this is the time the Doctor decided to take over the universe. I saw someone online say 'it's hilarious that the Doctor will spend their lives being ashamed of the War Doctor for picking up a gun when Seven did THIS' and it's TRUE.

-All this plus the fact its set in a universe where timelines are altered in order to bring back dead characters (and presumably return them to the grave by the end although they didn't go into that) makes this story feel much more like an alternate universe What If style tale, with about as much impact on the franchise as that would suggest.

This is going to be a long post, I can tell. But I want it to be just one post so... take breaks if you need to. Drink water. Now, what else.

-The story was naturally presented as the bringing together of lots of elements from Seven's life, but I think it's far more accurate to say it's the bringing together of lots of elements created by these writers specifically. The majority of characters, species, and concepts not from the TV show were created or mostly developed by Guy Adams and Matt Fitton, and considering how iffy I find so much of their combined bibliography, that was not a happy discovery for me. The Quantum Possibility Engine, a story by Adams without much impact on the franchise, is honestly more necessary required reading than Dark Universe.

-Probably the most obvious example of this is Mother Finsey, featured on the cover of Part One, who previously appeared in a single Third Doctor story by Adams. She has a fun premise, being an ex-companion of the Master, but it wasn't necessary to this story to include her.

-Another example is Stenn the Sontaran, is a specific Sontaran from the random Fitton sontaran story Starlight Robbery (which I absolutely wouldn't have known if not for the behind the scenes interviews). And the real reason that annoys me is: do you know who else is in Starlight Robbery? Elizabeth Klein! A fantastic Seventh Doctor companion who feels tailor-made not only for a Seventh Doctor final story extravaganza, but for this story in particular!! I don't know why or who made the decision not to include her, but it's hard to feel cheated when she was left out and so many other characters weren't.

Okay, I know I'm getting nitpicky and personal but honestly... I want to be nitpicky about this. I try to be so objective and fair in my reviews sometimes, let me be nitpicky about this one.

That said, we're up to a few things I liked!

-I did rather like Ace in this story (mostly). She's the one leading the plan to stop the Doctor, and listening to her fly around in the TARDIS coordinating plots and pulling strings felt so right to me. I've always loved the idea of her taking after the Doctor, learning from him in the way the TV show started all those years ago, so in that one respect, this story felt like it was culmination of decades of build up. Other stories have definitely shown parts of that, but this one feels the most like Ace carrying on the legacy of the Doctor. It feels wrong to be complimenting this story on how it treats the Ace and Doctor relationship, for reasons we'll come to later.

-My favourite single episode of the twelve-parter has to be the second one. Episode one's cliffhanger of Ace saving someone who turns out to be the Master, happily asking him to help save the universe, and him laughing his head off, put me in a gleeful mood. And that continued throughout episode two, in which Ace puts together her suicide squad of villains. Not even the out-of-place Mother Finsey or the obnoxious Garundel being part of it could dampen my spirits.

-When Big Finish announced that Kane, from 1987's Dragonfire, was returning, I rolled my eyes. But damn it if he didn't become my favourite part of this story. Hearing a fully-realised Ace face off against her teenage self's first ever villain, this time with flamethrower to make him sit down and have a civil conversation, was delicious, and worked wonderfully as the framing story for episode two. He was also a surprisingly good character in his own right, fiercely intelligent and quick to follow everything going on, but without being loud and annoying about it like the Time Lords and their companions. His airs of respectability made it extra fun for him to be walking around in a cooling survival suit like Mr Freeze. I never thought I'd come out of this thinking 'that was kind of a better sequel to Dragonfire than anything else' and 'I wish we got more Kane' but here we are.

-The Master was also incredibly fun. Guy Adams sometimes has a way of writing characters that's very... I'm not sure how best to describe it. Abstract? Philosophical? Slightly off? It'll sound like he's trying to get the best quotes or thinking points out of them, rather than what they might realistically say (like how James Goss writes, but less so). And while I might not like it all the time, it works great for the Master, especially when he's not the main antagonist. Instead he'll skulk around the other characters, enjoying himself and having lots of the best lines. Geoffrey Beevers is, as always, a delight.

That was a lot of good things! You can't accuse me of not finding things to like. Remember to stand up and stretch, by the way. Relax the tension in your shoulders.

-Now, to talk about the end. I was curious how it was actually going to tie into the TV movie, and remained so for most of the story because it was not obvious. In the end... well I only just listened to it today, but first impressions is that I don't like how they did it.

-At the time it was announced that the Master was going to be in The Last Day, I was hyperfocusing on the Master's timeline, so I was incredibly intrigued by Big Finish finally linking the decayed Master they introduced in 2001 to the next incarnation. In the final episode, his bitter ex-companion Finsey kidnapped him and simply dumped him on Skaro, which did feel rather contrived considering how much she seemed to want to personally finish him off.

-What annoyed me more (and now I'm going to get mad at something very niche) is that just before dumping him, Finsey makes a comment about the Master 'looking healthier' and he says that he picked up a new regeneration cycle while he was on Gallifrey. Beevers voice doesn't really change at all, so I guess they're saying that he didn't properly regenerate but just grew skin and a goatee (and switched his ragged cloak for a sharp suit) and it was the Beevers Master that appeared at the start of the TV movie? A few years ago Big Finish put some hard work and a fascinating story behind giving the Master a new regeneration cycle after the TV movie, but now they're apparently saying before that he just casually picked one up, didn't even use a full regeneration out of it and then lost the whole cycle immediately. That's even stupider than the Thirteenth Doctor getting her life back from the Master then dying again twice over the next day.

-Now on to the Doctor's ending. I'll tell you what happened. As soon as Ace gets face to face with him, he gives the whole universe takeover up, which was rather anticlimactic, but rather more in-character than deciding to do the takeover in the first place, so whatever. He goes to have a drink at a cafe with Ace and then she 'accidentally' gets a drink spilled on him. He goes to change clothes in the TARDIS and gets a call while there- from Narvin, telling him the Master has been killed on Skaro and would like to be picked up. The Doctor muses that if he wasn't in the TARDIS at this exact moment he would've missed the message and someone else would've gone (because Time Lords don't have voice mail I guess) and outside Ace says "Manipulative people always become something dark. I'll have to watch out for that. Hopefully I'll have a friend who loves me enough to stop me. Goodbye, Doctor."

-Now, I like the idea of tying the very end of Seven's life to Ace, the most important relationship in that life. But having her have him killed because he was too dangerous sure is A Choice. My conception of Seven's life story was someone who got worse and then regretted it and mellowed. This story suggests he got worse and worse until his closest friend had to kill him. Yowza.

-This continues what I hated from Dark Universe: the idea that Ace and the Doctor's relationship is ultimately bad. I hate that! I enjoy some depth and some toxicity to relationships but Ace and Seven just don't seem THAT bad to me, and are both characters I want to have happier endings. And these two stories feel like they treat the topic with surprisingly little depth either, both of them simply finishing with 'and they were bad for each other, The End' before they could start an interesting discussion!

-There's an Evil Ace in this story, an alternate timeline Ace who the Doctor picked to take care of Earth for him- by being its authoritarian ruler, of course. And I think her only real purpose in the story, apart from being a reference to Ace's many canon timelines (again a reference rather than a discussion), is to show how bad the Doctor and Ace can be for each other and for everyone else. But it feels so flat for me, because neither character would act like that! "Manipulative people always become something dark" is such a boring and shallow thesis.

-It's made clear that part of the reason Evil Ace can be so cruel and callous is her time studying with the Time Lords and feeling superior with them, which she did early during her travels with Hex. I do hope this isn't suggesting that the 'prime timeline Ace' (if there could possibly be such a thing) didn't train with the Time Lords, or it would've been a bad thing if she did. I like Time Lord Ace.

-On another topic, Narvin being the one to tell the Doctor to go pick up the Master is funny. Put that man in vital parts of Dr Who lore. He hates it. And it just makes it funnier when Narvin and the Doctor reintroduce themselves every so often like they've never met before.

-Oh, and the scene that Doom Coalition and Dark Universe share has the Doctor being told that the president has one more request for him, implied to be that he pick up the Master. So I guess this story (which is, I again stress, the sequel to Dark Universe) just ignores that jskldjf. Dr Who would truly rather die than have a coherent canon in any parts of the franchise.

Anything else I want to say? Oh the other companions.

-It was nice to hear a bunch of the companions again. They probably didn't need so many returning characters, and by the end I had trouble remembering who was where, but I can't blame them for going all out (or as all out as they felt like, anyway.)

-It was cute how Hex and Sally named their kids for Hex's mum, Hex's friend from his first story, and especially Evelyn <3 I hope Sally got some say in the matter. Honestly their segments were slightly too Family Melodrama for me, but that's personal taste.

-Probably the most boring episode was episode four which was just Mel and Benny running trying to avoid Hob from The Quantum Possibility Engine (and the DWM comics, but none of Seven's). Benny's always at least charismatic with a good actor, and I was worried that this was her only appearance, so I'm glad she returned in the second box set for some more wisecracks.

-Given the TV show's recent retcons, Big Finish forgetting its own plotlines, young Mel being used on the cover, and this being something of a sequel to her previous appearance travelling with Seven and Ace, it's possible this could be the last appearance of the Mel who reunited with Seven in A Life of Crime and had more adventures with him. As well as, I suppose, an opportunity to explain it away as a changing timeline, if you want to do that kind of thing.

-Lysandra died and I assume she came back to life at the end. Quite a few characters died but she was one of the only ones who wasn't either brought back to life during the story or was dead before it started anyway. I suppose Vienna Salvatori also fits into that category? So yeah they're both probably alive again, it's fine.

-Roz's death in the novels was actually a plot point, which is yet another time Big Finish has tied itself closely to the New Adventures in some ways while contradicting them in others (I'm thinking of the Master specifically). I don't mind though, that's something that's been going on for 25 years now. One day the EDAs might get the same treatment.

Anything else?

-The incidental music was bad. I think it was just recycled from previous audios, but even if it wasn't it almost always felt really out of place and took me out of scenes all the time.

-Oh Brax got a mention which was fun. In the Doctor's new universe he exiled Brax who then died, much to the Doctor's distress. Big Rip moustache man.

That's all I can think to say about this set right now. So overall it had it's fun parts, but failed to be much of a big event, and had a really bad take on Seven and his relationship with Ace.

[qqueenofhades]

oh, absolutely! and that’s why i’m honestly so fed up with these online leftists. they act like they were the first people to sound the alarm on bunch of horrible shit and go all defeatist, completely disrespecting the work of activists and organizers who have been trying to fix these issues since before they were even a thought. there’s this widespread idea that the systems won’t ever work in a way that’s fair because they weren’t designed to, and while yes, the systems were designed to be unfair and awful to marginalized groups, gutting them won’t solve the problem if there’s nothing to replace them with. mutual aid is a wonderful thing and i’m happy to see people talking about it but i don’t think a lot of them realize it can’t replace a system. it can help but it can’t be this thing you throw everything into because you’re disillusioned with the systems. the only way to make those systems better is to vote in candidates who will but these people are so sick of being told to vote they just refuse to even entertain why people may be telling them to do that.

See, this is where far-right libertarians and far-left "burn the whole system down!!!" ideologies once more collide. Far-right libertarians don't want to participate in society and don't want to be responsible for the welfare of others and don't want any rules and definitely no regulations and so on and so forth. Far-left "revolutionaries" claim to want the same thing in terms of destroying the existing system, but they do so out of some misguided idea that either some new and completely perfect system will magically spring from the ashes (spoiler alert: no), or that informal neighborhood-level networks of mutual aid (however they define that, when they're often willing to totally exclude people who disagree with them about the smallest things, so why would they help people they disagree with on everything else?) can replace, as you say, the entire system.

The thing is, if you're reduced to informally scraping along with your local neighbors and have absolutely no other recourse or formal system of governance and/or distribution, you're living in a failed state, and nobody who has ACTUALLY been through that experience thinks, as the Online Leftists do, that it would be a great idea. This is another thing about their total failure to learn from history, or listen to anyone who isn't American, despite the tankies' insistence that America causes all evil in the world forever. My friends who grew up in the former USSR sure don't think their system was great, even if it was called "socialism" or "communism" or whatever terms the left wants to use with no appreciation of their difficulties. And so on.

Basically, it reminds me of when the Brexit loons were insisting that it made no difference to food supply if Britain left the EU, because, and I quote, "Britain is a nation of farmers, we can grow food in our back gardens!" As if the entire point of human civilization has been to bring us back to personal subsistence farming, which has generally been acknowledged throughout history to totally suck and also be the least reliable way of providing for yourself, and also... the idea that personally growing food in your nice back garden in Kent can replace the entire structure and system of the EU single market and customs union is completely absurd. To say the fucking least, and to anyone whose brain isn't poisoned with Brexit Brexit Brexit! And yes, hey presto, Britain is now experiencing food difficulties and frantically blaming it on anything except Brexit. Meanwhile, Sunak finally negotiated a new Northern Ireland protocol with the EU, but it's anyone's guess if it'll pass the Commons, since the Tory backbenchers just reflexively nuke anything that suggests any cooperation with the EU or any acceptance of EU law. Because they want to pretend the EU never existed! (Even though it was Margaret Thatcher's idea/initiative, shh.) Yeah. That'll work.

So yeah. If you live in your own world where facts don't exist, or exist only to support your preferred ideology, and your insistence that destroying the system with nothing to replace it is the best idea... it is, uh, dumb. Which is the nicest way I can possibly put it. It's never worked out before, it won't work out now, and honestly, "I'm tired of being told to vote after I didn't vote and then things went wrong!" is an argument I have NO sympathy for whatsoever. I know things are bad. You know things are bad. If there's a simple, easy way to start fixing it -- and systems CAN be fixed, even if it takes time and is not the instant dopamine gratification of moral posturing on social media -- where you have to participate once every two years, and you don't do it, then yeah. I don't think that person is serious about fixing anything, and I have no obligation or desire to listen to them at all.

[bastardtrait]

not...the outcome anyone was hoping to hear i'm afraid.

transcript:

Chapel of Santelmo in the Village

ABRAHAM: (quietly humming a hymn) ANGELO: Abraham. You had something for me.

ABRAHAM: Yes…Sr. Graciela. You grace my chapel once more.

ABRAHAM: (sigh) I fear I don't have good news for you. ANGELO: Don't say that. No. No. You didn't say anything before I came. ABRAHAM: Yes. So you could pay me for my trip to Xelaju on your behalf. That's how this works. ANGELO: That's fucking bullshit! It's bullshit!

ABRAHAM: Do you expect me to make miracles? No man is higher than the Lord. ANGELO: Stop your fucking asinine bullshit about god and tell me what you found. ILLA: (low, antagonistic growl) ABRAHAM: (sigh) Very well. I found a family named Graciela in Xelaju--Quetzaltenango. They are Dominican. Their Josefa…is a very old woman.

ANGELO: (harsh sigh) So what, I just keep going out into that fucking jungle and bring you back shit to pay for you--fumbling around? ABRAHAM, aside: Honestly, Sr. Graciela, I would humour that, but I've come to an end with your investigation. Your mother left Guatemala two years ago. She married a European. She's gone.

ABRAHAM: Now you know damn well I'm not about to get involved with Interpol. So. I'm afraid this is where our involvement ends, Sr. Graciela. It has been…interesting. ANGELO: Eu--Europe?! Where. Where did she go, Abraham? (wince) Where did she go! ABRAHAM: A question for a different man. Obviously she had no desire to be found, least of all by the son she abandoned. (sniff) Goodbye, Angelo.

[neoheros]

HAPPY HOLIDAYS YOUU!!

it’s been a hot minute since i was here and honestly it’s been a very long year, but i hope everyone’s all well and gotten through it just fine, i know it hasn’t been the easiest on all of us but on the precipice of 2023, i am very happy we’re all making it

neoheros is unfortunately saying goodbye — although this was a very long time coming — i just wanted to thank everyone for the support before i truly left for good

i am on ao3, writing for genshin now!! although sporadic, i will be bringing haikyuu and jjk back there when i get the chance, but it’s been very fun writing for all of you here and it would be the greatest pleasure to write for you there as well !!

(or if you’re on the EU server in genshin, come add me if you wanna play together sometime!!)

but all that being said, this is goodbye now <3

[morgana-lefay]

Top 7 Comfort Films

I almost forgot about this. 🙈 Thank you for tagging me, @dandysnob and @marimayscarlett. 🖤

Well, wasn't expecting this to be so hard! I think my mind is always more programmed for TV Shows. But here we go.

Batman Begins (2005)

I love the Nolan trilogy, but Batman Begins has a special place in my heart (even if I only watched it in 2012, when TDKR came out). I watched it so many times (also, because, a few years back, I made some gifs and edits from it), I think I might know all the dialogues by heart. This has no particular order, but I think this one might be my #1 comfort film, now that I think about it... The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012)

It brings me lovely memories with my nephew, when he was little.

Gremlins (1984)

Although I haven't seen it in many years, I loved Gizmo so much when I was a kid! And I had a soft spot for the bad guy with the white mohawk too. The Land Before Time, or as I've known it all my life "Em Busca do Vale Encantado" (1988)

I used to rent it at my local video store (still have it in VHS, even if we weren't allowed to record the tapes 🙊) and it was dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese, as many things back in the late 80's/early 90's, for some reason (o "Petrúcio" era o meu personagem favorito e aquele diálogo "Eu voei?"/"Não vocês caiu", juntamente com a parte dramática em que ele lhes diz "Estão indo embora sem o Petrúcio", ficaram-me até hoje). So thank you Näd, for reminding me of this one. 😊.

The Star Wars saga (1977 - 2019) (let's pretend they're all one)

It's just amazing sci-fi and I grew up on these, loving on them with my brother. So, in a way, it feels like home.

Inside Out (2015)

This was so fulfilling to watch back then, I can't really explain it. I'm not sure if it still hits the same way now.

Joker (2019)

Honestly, I had no idea what to put last, so I went with the last film I watched that gave me the feeling of being closest to perfection.

Sending this your way: @ohdeararuninmystocking, @maliciousdelice, @lexxxie-kun, @lacedwithkace, @hildegarda-till, @reiinraus, @naomullen, @grotesque-hallucinations, @franwikema, @namelessrammgirl, @in--my--tears, @shayofalltrades (I went a bit crazy on the tags here 😅 but you know the drill, answer only if you fell like it, of course, and sorry if I tagged anyone who already done this)

[alyniaffxiv]

I wanted to make a post kinda compiling all my thoughts on what was announced today! First off feeling super hyped. I'm excited that we're adventuring off again after the events of endwalker, it'll be a much needed breath of fresh air. That trailer omg it was so good. Never seen one piece, but got such one piece vibes from it. The cgi for the scions and wol looked fantastic and the new areas look amazing. Very excited to see it's based of south america and hope they do it well.

Can we just look at HOW GOOD HE LOOKS ♡♡♡

A little bummed it is next summer, thought it would be beginning of next year but think it'll be worth the wait. Fingers crossed for early June/July.

Now this scares me don't let me fight the twins or g'raha please ;-; but honestly looking forward to some kinda of conflict with the scions and what it'll be about exactly. And will this have long term effects?

The new areas look freaking STUNNING with the new graphical update. It was cute seeing how excited yoshi p was talking about the shadows and plants being updated xD

SPEAKING OF THIS MAN WAS A TEASE ;-;-;-; But we all know yoshi doesn't wear a shirt without it having some kind of purpose so seen a few different theories. Based on the trailer we did see either the wol or somebody with a similar cloak holding a new weapon. Some people are thinking a corsair class which would be cool. And it could be a dual wielder with a pistol and a sword. If true that'll be a fun class. The two new classes were confirmed to be a melee and a caster (hell yes finally) But going back to the shirt it could be going many different directions. All the TMNT turtles are named after artists. So maybe some kind of Inkmage is what I seen most talked about. Or they are holding duel wielding weapons which could further confirm the corsair class. Whatever it is might see one of them at the EU fanfest in october.

Taking a break to admire the boys Erenville and G'raha Tia cause LOOK AT THEM ♡♡♡

Now probably the biggest thing this update is the graphical update and WOWW it seriously looks great so far.

Left is updated right is current ingame The way it just looks so much brighter and colorful fdjhfv seriously can't wait. It's a much needed update and so far they still aren't done but next time we see it will be even better.

Updated example of aura their horns look great so far not just a blob. There are some videos on youtube showing off just the updated graphical updates and it all looks stunning especially a certain flower field we're all quite familiar with. Now with this of course does come with updated system requirements not as bad as I thought I barley just meet the recommended but keep this in mind for Dawntrail. It makes me wonder if by 8.0 support for ps4 will stop entirely or they will just have a lower quality version for ps4. We'll have to see.

NOW THIS THANK YOU FOR ALL THIS This is all stuff I know myself and so many players have been begging to be added into 14 and it's finally happening.

Really hoping for at least 100 slots for housing inside and maybe 20 for outside. It seriously will just give so much more freedom for housing peeps. Now of course we have standard stuff we come to expect -Level cap -New Dungeons -New Trials -8 Player Raids -Ultimate Raids -Alliance Raids -New Gear and Recipes -Fates -Hunts -Treasure Hunts -Side quests -PVP Updates

P.S just love this little guy <3

But we also have what yoshi p said Expansive New Lifestyle Content so something like island but not. Super curious what they have in mind for that or what it even possibly could be? Now...the two things I would have NEVER and I mean NEVER guessed is this...

FALL GUYS?!?! Not just a collab in fall guys as a full pass but a probably perma game mode in the gold saucer! I could not stop screaming crying laughing in vc with a friend. I'm still in shock this is even happening. Much less skins being in fall guys but a fall guys game mode in 14! Ngl tho it looks like a ton of fun and I hope it brings some more people to the gold saucer. Now they said in 7.0 gold saucer is getting an update which they said in 6.x that was gonna happen. Please let it be a bigger update this time.

This is the second thing that surprised me was 14 is coming to xbox! Which is great bringing in new people to the game and honestly about time it's on xbox. Phil spencer also great to see him as awkward as ever :)

Nothing needs to be said about this picture lol this was so funny to watch live Overall though extremally hyped for what this expansion is going to bring. I think it's going to bring such a fresh air from the doom and gloom endwalker brought and what I am hoping is just more content. Endwalker does feel a little lacking in content and I just want more and hopefully they can deliver.

I know and can understand people not super vibing with the more relax vacation this is showing off so far. But we still don't fully know what mysterious or problems we'll have so I'm quite optimistic of what they will bring here. Anyone reading this I'm curious what other people think and if you want leave a comment I wanna know :D

[behindthewox]

Criticism is hard

I've been quiet for a while to allow some time to pass and the EU site leaders to work out the kinks (but also due to IRL commitments) and from what I've heard the opinions are still pretty mixed.

The new site leaders published a feedback form a while back, which is a great idea and honestly should've been done sooner, but instead of just taking the feedback to heart amongst themselves they have now publicly responded to it in a notice board post. Some users in the comment section are very appreciative of this but based on my tumblr inbox there are those who disagree and think it's pretty bad and I kind of agree that it doesn't look all that good.

Yes, it's important to respond to feedback. But it has to be done carefully and at the end of the day it's the actions that really count, not the words you respond with. Actions like arguing against the critics and dismissing opinions as lies or untruthful speaks very loudly, and throwing blame on others is just plain disrespectful and unprofessional. The lack of actions speaks loudly too, and the choice of what feedback to act first on sends a clear message about priorities.

So how do you respond to criticism?

There's no simple answer, but in my experience the following points are generally agreed upon:

§ Humility is key when responding to feedback and criticism. Pride and arrogance will only screw you over and no matter how superior and infallible you think you are, you're not. § Be honest and truthful in a neutral manner. Don't make empty promises and if you want to share your feelings try to be genuine. § Your words mean nothing if they are not backed up by action. If there's no concrete suggestion on how to do it better, ask for advice on what you need to do differently in order to improve or make the changes your critic wants to see. Asking for more input is a great first action to take. § Be objective, try to look at the matter from both sides and see if you can relate to the critic. § Don't dismiss the concerns that your critic expresses, unless you can back up the dismissal with solid reasons for dismissing it. § The feelings and opinions of your critics are not wrong: feelings and opinions are personal and subjective, there is no right or wrong there. A critic can be incorrect but you should never imply that they are wrong in what they express to you. § Your own feelings and opinions generally don't belong in a response to feedback. Feelings can be irrational and when it comes to feedback and criticism it's not about what YOU think and feel, it's about what OTHERS think and feel. § Apologies are good - in moderation. Use them wisely and phrase them carefully. Remorse and regret is overall good for responding to criticism, but keep it minimal and professional. § Explanations can easily be interpreted as excuses, so sometimes it's better not to explain yourself but rather offer to explain it upon request. Critics are usually not objective and will actively look for flaws and weaknesses. § Don't share more information than necessary and always respect and protect the integrity and/or anonymity of your critics. Don't give them more reasons to criticise you. § Don't bring other people into it, especially not to put blame on them. There is absolutely no need to put other people in a bad light, if anything it just makes you look bad. § Don't pose yourself as the victim, even if you feel like you're the victim of unjustified criticism. If your response is more about you than about the critic, it's a bad response. § Read up on terms and concepts like "gaslighting", "victim blaming", "guilt tripping", "discrimination", "self-vicimization" and "minimization/downplaying (psychology)". Not everyone will recognise and identify it but to the people who do it looks really, really bad and they might accuse you of manipulation and (depending on the severity) even verbal and emotional abuse. Learn to recognise it so that you don't do it by accident to others.

Results may vary and what works in one situation might not work in another. The advice above is pretty generic but there will be always be nuance and exceptions that generic advice can't account for. Ultimately you should ask someone to look over your response and help you identify potential issues with it and help you finetune it before you hit send.

You will inevitably get it wrong sometimes and that's okay, as long as you learn from it and put in the time and effort to improve your skills over time. There will always be flaws and weak points in what you do and say but the goal here isn't to be flawless, the goal is simply to dodge as many bullets as possible and keep the damage to a minimum.

Criticism isn't easy and it takes a lot of practise but it's an extremely valuable skill to have in life. Both giving criticism and receiving and acting on it. I'm still learning and I might never fully master the art of criticism, but I'm pretty confident that I've got the basics down and I mostly know what I'm doing. Mostly. It's a work in progress :P

NOTE/CREDIT: This post is based on an anon submission where the anon criticised the Feedback Response on WoP EU and provided a few pointers on what they did wrong. I decided to take the rather harsh criticism and flip it into something less negative and more constructive that can be helpful to everyone, not just the individuals adressed in the submission. It's a mix of anon's original points (credit goes to them) and my additions with what I've learned over the years as well as personal experience, preferences and beliefs. I'm not an expert but it should align pretty well with the general consensus among the people who actually are experts in the field. Thanks for your submission and I hope you don't mind that I Frankensteined it, Anon. Please let me know what you think about this submission-flipping experiment of taking something negative and making something more constructive out of it.

[myfandomrambles]

Not to be an asshole but like just because David Tennant/Tenth Doctor had the best viewing numbers of NuWho doesn't actually mean he's sooo uber special better than the others.

Like every doctor before and after he actually matters. Some of those doctors are beloved by like a lot of people.

It somehow just feels icky to me to pick up with David Tennant and Davies and like what? Fuck 11, war, 12 and 13?

Chibnall was bad enough about kind of feeling like he was snubbing 11 & 12's eras.

Like obviously you had misogyny and racism problems under Moffat. And we must, must speak up about that and make sure the show does better. And no he didn't stick the landing every time, The Wedding of River Song sucks. But like there were a shit ton of people involved in those years who like fucking put their heart and soul into that.

Matt Smith & Peter Capaldi along with all the companion actors (plus Gomez) deserve some goddamn respect. I do have just some big emotional attachment to 11 & 12 yes. I also however do not think every story under them was bad. They had extremely good stories! Like season 10 might not be popular but fuck does it kick me in the feels.

But like it's not like all the Tennant hype only affects Moffat's writing if you happen to hate him. This does feel insulting to Ecelston as well. I know he hates the BBC so like I get he wouldn't come back to the main show (his audios rock btw).

This whole thing also feels sketch because you're sticking him in between your first female doctor and your first main doctor to be played by a person of colour. Like do you just not trust that Ncuti Gatwa will be good enough to make people watch? Do you not trust your own writers (even your own writing) to be compelling unless you bring David Tennant back and give him a whole other marketing number (and the numbers, while sort of ridiculous at this if you look through canon, do have meaning to the fans)? Not to mention a new costume (No I don't mean he has to wear the exact same clothes if they don't fit but you can sew a copy of the same design again) and a whole big announcement about him getting a new Sonic. The costumes and sonics are HUGE signs for fans. Like people collect the fucking sonics you have the old ones referenced in the show, it's a whole part of 12's identity crises with the shades and the new sonic after re-accepting the doctor after losing Clara. The TARDIS can make these for The Doctor or The Doctor makes their own. It's a whole thing!

Also, do they have to also fuck with Donna's ending? Really? I get some people do the whole "Donna deserved better" shtick but her ending is heartbreaking, well-written, well-acted and done just so well. Sad can be okay! I'm with Ashildir on this one, It was sad and beautiful. (Yes she's not referring to Donna but the principle stands)

Also like, The Doctor fucks people's lives up. Donna wasn't the first up Companions to have shit destroyed by The Doctor!

In the words of Martha Jones:

You need to be careful, because you know the Doctor's wonderful and he's brilliant, but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burned (TV: Sonatarn Strategem)

Like Journeys End aired in 2008! Could we just let the story stand on it's merits?

I realise the culture of like the media in the 2010s & 2020s is just fuck with shit that should have been left alone. I mean I guess if we're doing a distribution w/ Disney we might as well follow their storytelling formula.

I mean remember the whole Time Lord victouris project? Like I'm obsessed w/ Doctor Who and have been into the EU for a long time I didn't even try and keep up with it. It was like the high republic franchise in Star Wars so hard to keep up w/ the story when you have to get so many disparate pieces of media. And again it's all Ten focused.

Honestly, I have always loved Ten. minus all this fuckery he is fantastic. And i will go to the bat i don't think he's a fuck boy. but I also like am perpetually gonna be annoyed at him.

Being a money maker does not actually define the quality of the story in every case.

[the1975attheirverybest]

yes yes yes the sound intros!! at leeds he was like “what’s that sound??” and i went “is that a smash hit??” then he said “sounds like a smash hit to me!!” so we’re officially besties

honestly it’s a crime that they took wwat off the setlist it was the perfect end to that half of the show, especially with the band outros🥺 and those harmonies at the end deserve to be heard!! also i agree justice for ballad i need to hear that song live

-🪩

Awww hahaha you gave him the answer!! You’re soulmates basically!!! He’s so funny when he adlibs and makes shit up. I love him.

YESSSS gosh i hope they bring back Ballad for UK/EU. I’m sure it sounds spectacular live. Not that I’d know. Matty I’m in your walls.

[rosheendubh]

just as point in fact…no one ever paired Tywin Lannister and dad-bod in the same sentence…

—Just sayin’…a mid-60s/maybe early 70s, lean, mean, ruthless, pragmatic, cunning, disciplined, battle-machine. He walked into that throne room when Cersei was about to kill herself, and her son, with more presence than Filoni’s rendition of Thrawn (no fault to Lars, but he was both not well cast, and not well directed) could to an entire ISD hanger’s worth of Fart-Gas Zombies held together by red duct tape chanting his name…which is also quite out of character, whether from Legends/canon EU books. Thrawn’s characterization with Zahn is many things, but excessive displays of aggrandizing isn’t one of them (cue: the apologetics for “but 10 years in Exile”)…it also doesn’t help that none of the actors look like they’re taking their lines seriously (and with the over-long, melodramatic pauses, long-range 10000 yard stares, and ChatGPT level dialogue, who can blame them?—no honestly, I’ve seen ChatGPT dialogue that sounded exactly like that exchange between Sabine and Ahsoka on the ship, with her training…down to the actual tags/and descriptors), and move through the space around them so stiff and hesitant, you can tell no time was taken to smooth out scenes largely cast on green-screen between the production team, and the actors. Which is why, even the action bits appear awkward, and without much dynamism.

—To each their own, but this portrayal of such a pivotal character is definitely Filoni’s (horridly, but only IMHO) misconstruction. —and as for Ezra and Sabine’s reunion…*wah-wah-wah*—whaaaa??? Anyone recall Sansa and Jon Snow’s embrace after ALL THE ABSOLUTE SHITE they’ve survived over the years? I will still rewatch that moment—ya’ll should too. It’s very cathartic compared to Gazoo-moment everyone was rewarded with, between Ezra (“Hey, Girl, Waz’Up-Word”)-lost-boy-for-a-decade-SpaceAladdin, and Sabine (I’m supposed to be in my late 20s/30?-with the emotional maturity of a teen who just lost cell phone privileges-so flipping annoying-you wish Shin actually had gutted her and decapitated her…omg—how do people think she’s *sooo awesome*—and goes shrill on a Wolf-Horse for…reasons?? Oh, dramatic tension, she’s a very tortured and *fiery* warrior…I’m a woman, and a feminist, but this ain’t how ladies should be written…this is how fanboys think STRONGFEMALECHARACTERS act…take a pass, go watch EmilyBlunt in ‘TheEdgeofTomorrow*…).

—GoTs has A LOT OF ISSUES (mostly with S7/S8 of GoT, and its early Season1 episodes were admittedly…difficult. For a while, I called it LotR with T&A$$…but by that SeasonFinale, as Daenerys stepped out of ashes with 3 lil’Bebe Dragons, and Jorah kneels to her, vowing that line, “Blood of my Blood”—a line that could have fallen in flat-trope-tripe—hell no, hello, Drama Hook. We were on Team Dany…). —Genera differences aside, Team Filoni needs to take some lessons from what the GoTs writers/producers learned as they re-vamped (apparently, an even worse original filming of S1E1 of GoTs, that went back to the drawing board, it was so awful…so urban legend/DenofGeek alleges)—get fresh eyes to look at what you’re doin’ dudes…and maybe someone who’s read the actual source material. But isn’t in love with it—like Gilroy. I still think that’s why ‘Andor’ carried such a different essence—and a much needed sophistication for how science-fiction, and SpaceOpera ought to land. Fuck, go read some DeathStalker too, if you’re looking for bombast with tropes, and a good time. Watch bloody ‘The Expanse’. Someone mentioned, if Filoni required a lesson on how to communicate back-story as a balance between narration, and scene progression, to bring a largely uninformed audience up to speed on a Universe/World building Plot mythos with which most audience isn’t familiar, watch the first 15 minutes of ‘Serenity’. And maybe the entire Season of ‘Arcane’?. —which leads to the ultimate conclusion, Thrawn shouldn’t have been used by Filoni at all in ‘Rebels’. They needed a BigBad, and he ought to have just contrived his own generic Imperial of the Week. Which is what he did. And named it Thrawn. And yes, I know, supposedly he consulted Zahn. I’m more convinced, Zahn is diplomatic, and either felt (as he’d mentioned a few years ago), he was done writing Thrawn’s arc, and so, resigned his BlueManArtLovingAdmiral to the Disney drain of EU archives from which Disney borrows when it can’t be bothered to create its own original characters; or, he’s going to quietly retcon Thrawnius back into Zahn shape—given the rumors of recent months where he seems to have reconsidered revisiting Thrawn/Chiss arcs. Who knows? —My suspicion with ‘Rebels’ (of which, I completely can figure out the story-line, *secret*—it’s not that complicated for anyone who’s read any sort of children’s literature, or young adult books through their youth. Yes, I’ve tried watching episodes—it’s a cartoon made for kids—would’a loved as a kid…probably/maybe? As an adult, I’m wondering what other fodder people read and watch to consider this *quality*). I think what no one admits is, the animated series needed a big name from popular Lore to draw viewers, so there was computer-animated, cartoon-Thrawn…Filoni’s Disney Imperial. —okay, soap box rant done—we all have our OPs. I’m holding out for Andor/S2, but after that, cancelling Disney+. Actually, might even cancel before, and just renew when Andor/S2 comes out…

[thessalian]

Thess vs Being an Immigrant

WIth things a little more set up for this evening’s D&D session, I did a thing that was either going to depress me too much to play at all or really put me in the mood to go full-on feral: I looked at the news.

The Tories are ... bad, okay? They’re mega-super-ultra bad. Problem is, Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party, is giving worse and worse takes on everything, every time he turns around. He keeps going on about how he will Make Brexit Work, without actually explaining how, and I tolerated it only because I was hoping he was saving the “I’m going to at least get us back into the single market if the EU can ever forgive us the Tory issues” bombshell for when he was safe in office. He keeps going on about how strikes shouldn’t be happening and Labour MPs should not be on the picket lines, never mind that the entire fucking Labour party was started by labour unions; that is why they are the Labour party, because I was hoping that he was saving the “Everybody needs to sit down, shut up, and make sure people get proper pay and job security, and they shouldn’t need strikes to make their voices heard” bombshell for when he was safe in office. I tolerated a lot because frankly he seemed - and honestly still somewhat seems - better than the alternative.

Thing is, his issue today is ... well, the NHS. Because it always comes back to the NHS. Or, more specifically, using the NHS to underline, highlight, and carve in stone how much he’s actually supporting the mess of a Brexit we have. Because his comment has been, “We’re recruiting too many people from overseas! We don’t want open borders! Points-based system! Freedom of Movement is gone and it’s never coming back, so it’s time to hire BRITISH!”

...’scuse me? Sir? That’s going to be a problem. Here are the reasons why, from someone who has worked in or at least with the NHS for decades:

While not at US level yet, UK university costs more than just about anywhere in Europe. Interest rates are sky-high, making loans a problematic prospect at best. Add to that the cost of living increase, which is going to hit university students particularly hard, and the number of people who can actually qualify to work in the health care sector drops dramatically.

So let’s talk about nurses. There used to be bursaries for people to qualify for nursing, free of charge. I know because I was actively considering it at one point. Then the Tories nuked it. Unless you want to bring that back, welp, we’re still screwed in terms of the financial outlay required for nursing training.

“Ah,” I hear you say, “but the wealthy could do it!” Except ... why would they want to? We have all heard the stories about the NHS and how the government has been treating it - everyone. The pay’s crap (which is why so many doctors also run private practices, which reduces the overall availability of doctors), the stress is unbelievable, the hours expected are ludicrous, and the government has a tendency to try to make their lives even more miserable in the name of false economy. So the wealthy will probably want cushier jobs, since ‘doctor’ is not a profession that denotes wealth, status, and prestige anymore. As for nursing? I can’t see that at all, given what a nurse has to do day-to-day.

Even if all of those issues were fixed tomorrow (AND THEY WON’T BE; WE ALL KNOW THIS), training up medical professionals takes time. Years of study, more years being shadowed by senior doctors before real, proper qualification happens. Rush that, and you’re risking people’s lives. So it will be minimum 5-10 years before a meaningful number of British people could qualify to work as healthcare professionals even with abolition of university fees, the return of the university grant, and the salvation of the economy from its current shambles. We can’t wait a decade to fix this. Therefore, our only hope is to get already trained people in the interim and then we can talk about how to get more British people qualified to work in the health sector.

Starmer has to learn that waving the Brexit flag is not going to have the desired effect. Yeah, the people who still support Brexit are either exceedingly loud or, worse, quiet but powerful (say, the ERG). But just because they’re loud doesn’t mean there are all that many of them. A lot of people who were for Brexit during the vote are starting to rethink now, especially when at least one expert made no bones about stating, loudly and clearly, how much Brexit has to do with our current economic shambles.

“Labour has pledged to take on an extra 7.5k medical students every year if their party wins the next general election”, they say. Okay ... how? Who pays for it? What’s the economy going to look like in two years that means that this is possible? Even if the numbers can somehow be massaged to make that possible, that’s extra medical students who have only just started training. See above re: it takes time to train a doctor.

You know, this country keeps making it clearer and clearer how much it hates me. It hates me because I’m disabled. It hates me because I’m queer in any way you care to name. And, for all “they don’t mean me” because I’m white, they hate that I wasn’t born here. My paternal grandparents were, sure, but I was not. So every time they talk about immigrants, they are talking about me. I don’t care if they mean ‘the bad ones’; the ones who don’t speak English as their first language, or are darker of skin tone, or live in a country just across the Channel that they keep insulting at every turn. I am an immigrant, and I’m not even a citizen, so everything they are saying, they are saying about me. Because I am no different than anyone else who lives and works here but wasn’t born here. In fact, I’m nowhere near as well-educated or well-qualified as most of them.

I mean, I hate it here anyway. I hate this country as much as it hates me. So maybe I shouldn’t care. But I do. I know a lot of people can relate to feeling like their country hates them because of who they are. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse if the country isn’t even yours but you’re stuck in it, with it hating you the whole way.

Suffice to say, I’m still going to vote Labour but only because the Tories are still, unbelievably, worse, and voting for anyone else guarantees the Tories a win. Especially given that the next general election is going to involve voter ID and government oversight over the Elections Committee, and when you add that to First Past The Post, shaking the Tories is going to be hard enough without trying to swing Lib Dem or the Greens into 10 Downing Street. We’re a two-party system in all but name, honestly. Besides, Lib Dem and the Greens have been keeping their heads down lately. I have a feeling that neither of them really want to win the next election because whoever does is going to have the hugest mess to clean up and no one really wants it. Except the Tories, probably, who are profiting off of making it worse.

Still not sure if angry or too depressed to cope. But at least there’ll be some fun later. Time for a trip to the shops, food, and painkillers, I think.