#If you haven't watched season 13 don't click the read more

[zagreuses-toast]

I come from a place of sheer curiousity and I just wanna ask genuinely- you say that you're a fan of 13s/ the chibnall era. Why? Doctor who is my favourite show and I've connected with every incarnation deeply and immediately, but have never been able to "click" with 13, despite my best efforts. What is it that you like about her? What is it that you like about chibnalls writing? I want to know and I want to like her/it too, but as of right now, I just... don't. Obviously you're not obligated to, but can you explain why?

Ok so this ended up being a Long Post, so I'm putting my response under the read more. Also I'm assuming you've actually watched the Chibnall era up to The Power of The Doctor, if you haven't then heads up for spoilers and stuff that might not make much sense without context.

Oh and I'm gonna @ @rearranging-deck-chairs and @ssaalexblake because I see their DW opinions all the time and they're really good and they can probably give more nuanced answers on some things. (Idk how well I did on explaining why I liked some of them, and it really is up to personal preference on some things)

Thirteen herself:

There are a lot of reasons I like Chibnalls era, but one of the biggest ones out the gate is definitely Jodie and her acting in the role of the Doctor. I think the way she balances bouncy gregariousness with the colder more angry and mean aspects of the Doctor is great. She does this thing where she can just make her eyes go dead and then smile like it's a threat, like she's gonna bite, especially when going up against villains. It's great. And Jodie herself is a delightful person.

Beyond just physical acting choices, I find the thirteenth Doctors struggle between her anger and secrecy, vs her desire to connect and her joy at life very very compelling. She keeps this distance that's really interesting I think, where she's genuinely attached to and trying to be a friend to the Fam, but still trying to keep her whole past out of the deal, which doesn't work that well, as we see in s12 and Flux. She's surrounded by death and haunted by the knowledge of how little time she has with her friends, (Grace, and she just came back from bill) but she still wants and needs that connection, and she learns to live in the present a bit. I made a whole post about her final regeneration speech here. I love her arc a lot even if it hurts. Also she's such a horrible hypocrite about so many things, which also makes her a fun character to rotate in my head and study like a bug. I do see it as being on purpose, some people seem to think it's just bad writing that she contradicts herself but imo that's a big part of her character.

Chibnalls writing:

I personally like the timeless child plot because :

There are a lot of stories and ideas in the Chibnall era I like, and a lot more I find very compelling. Whatever your opinions on the writing (and I definitely have had a lot of critique for some bits), there were a lot of ideas introduced that were fun and interesting. One of the weaker points of the era IMO is having so much fun stuff set up, but only shallowly or quickly exploring it, and then adding more stuff on top.

A lot of things didn't get the exploration/screen time I thought they deserved (especially characterization and interaction/dialogue wise). But that just gives my brain more to chew on at the end of the day, and I do love what was done during the seasons itself, not just all the potential stuff.

1) I can connect with it, I know Chibnall was coming at it from a place of being an adoptee, but as a native person the story of a kid taken and raised into an imperial/colonial society, who had their history stolen and their body exploited to further that societies ends, hits very close to home.

And 2) I have a "everything is true at once" approach to canon and I think the more origin stories we make for the Doctor the funnier it is.

This era had a lot of repeating themes, ideas that showed up and we're explored in a lot of different circumstances, often with a rule of 3 aspect to it. One is themes of Empire and Exploitation. Particularly through the stenza in s11 (empire using up planets, introduced to us basically doing foxhunts for clout, but with People instead of foxes), the dalek specials, the Cybermen in s12, and Division/the timelords in flux (as well as the sontarans &co).

Within that there's the repeating motif of how by exploiting people or their beliefs for power the imperial power/bad guys sew the seeds of their destruction. From Tzim Sha using the Ux and them turning against him, to the Division being destroyed by the Ravagers, who they tried to use to get rid of the Doctor/the old universe (and the doctor and even the master going rogue in the first place). Hell even Kerblam! (I know I know) Has a version, where the AI system being used to do terrible things is the one to call the doctor for help!

Another standout are themes of breaking cycles, Ryan is estranged from his dad and was distancing himself from Graham, but they both put in the work and grow extremely close over their two seasons. He also chooses to leave the TARDIS when he realizes he's absent from his friend's lives and wants to be present. And the Doctor gets to break the cycle of exploitation that Tecteun started, when she meets a vulnerable being with mysterious power (the energy being from TPOTD) she helps it free itself, on a way she wasn't helped.

Individual character stuff:

Going again into more individual character stuff I love, I've gotta give it to Sacha Dhawan for being a fucking superb Master. His acting is bonkers amazing and he does a great job portraying the sorta huge personal crisis the master is going through, and externalizing via evil schemes. At the end of Twelves run we saw Missy try to be like the doctor, to get her friend back (and even succeed a bit) but end up dying for it. Now we come back to a master who died trying to be like the person they see as their only equal, and has discovered (wrongly) that they were never equal to begin with, that the doctor is so much more than them. So he tries to make her like him instead, and If she won't become like him and kill them both along with the rest of gallifrey, then he will become her properly this time (by body snatching), ruin her legacy, and die with her eventually (overtaking her in the same way his whole existance has now been caused/overtaken by the doctor in his eyes, because of her being the source of regeneration)

Also can we talk about the Yaz?? I've been dying to talk about Yaz!!! I love her a lot and I find her fascinating, shes probably my favorite companion based on just sheer amount of time spent Thinking about her. Her doctorification/character arc is so good

Yaz is into the travelling and saving the day lifestyle the Doctor gives her for the responsibility of it all, for feeling useful and capable and good. Her early characterization Monet's include her complaining about not having more interesting jobs as a cop because she wants responsibility, she wanted to be important and helpful (that's the entire reason she became a cop, to help people like she was helped when she was in a dark place, and she finds a better way of doing that with the Doctor). And she GETS THERE, narratively and on a character level, she spends three years on earth with her own companions! She co-pilots the TARDIS and can fly her herself! She saves the day when the master steals the doctors body! And most of all SHES EXTREMELY SAD AT THE END BECAUSE THE PERSON SHE LOVES DIED BEFORE HER!! JUST LIKE THE DOCTOR !! (ugly crying) (I could write a whole other post about thasmin, good and bad, but a lot of people have put it better than me)

Also, I'm a big TARDIS girlie, she has somehow ended up being one of my favorite characters in doctor who, and the chinball era does so much fun stuff with the TARDIS!! Different writers take different approaches to the TARDIS, and how alive vs inanimate, or how active vs passive she is. I think the Chinball era had something special in terms of the way the TARDIS was depicted, and I loved it a lot. We never really get to see past the control room but it's a gorgeous control room! And throughout the era the TARDIS just feels so alive, it's always humming and beeping and chirping, I especially love the moments when the lights change color to match the doctors mood (mostly to blue, for sadness, sometimes red to yell at that dalek that one time). And speaking of the doctor, starting with ghost monument thirteen has a bunch of sweet moments of banter or just ~emotions~ with the TARDIS. I genuinely teared up a bit when she entrusted the timeless child memories to the TARDIS,and before her regeneration speech when she asked the TARDIS to look after her. Because who can she trust with her past AND her future except her oldest truest friend.

I could add a lot more of specific things from the era I love (solitract my beloved) but I think this is getting long enough as is lol.

[iviarellereads]

The Wheel of Time Post Index

For a primer on the purpose of this blog as a whole, give this a read. Just to reiterate one piece of that: this project is spoiler-free past the chapter you click on. In this case, the TV show has more or less covered the first 3 books. I will not be putting TV show spoilers in the commentary, but I may make some reference to it, and maybe a second weekend spoiler-post once in a while to compare and contrast how each medium interprets the story. I will definitely have some additional weekend posts for full-book-series spoilers, but they will be marked as such, with all spoilers under a read more.

For the reasons I chose to cover the Wheel of Time, check this out. I will reiterate a part of that here as well: I highly recommend you start with the TV show's first two seasons to get a feel for the world and the main characters and the magic setup and see if this is a world and a story you want to explore further.

We'll be doing this in publication order, because the prequel placement is very controversial.(1) I won't be including much information from the encyclopedias, except where lore/worldbuilding details are particularly relevant but not forthcoming, but know that there exist two encyclopedias (one written as an in-world document with inaccuracies and art of questionable accuracy, one written as a proper for-readers encyclopedia), as well as a book about the origins of a lot of RJ's references for things like names and cultural elements (which range from real world mythologies to appliance brand names).

Book index

1 The Eye of the World 2 The Great Hunt 3 The Dragon Reborn 4 The Shadow Rising 5 The Fires of Heaven 6 Lord of Chaos 7 A Crown of Swords 8 The Path of Daggers 9 Winter's Heart 10 Crossroads of Twilight (Prequel) New Spring 11 Knife of Dreams 12 The Gathering Storm 13 The Towers of Midnight 14 A Memory of Light

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(1) For real, debates still rage. My personal stance is, if you started with the TV show, you can read the prequel at any time, even first, and it was written to be a good onboard point. But, if you haven't seen the TV show, well, I highly recommend it, but if you REALLY don't want to or can't watch it, I think publishing order is a good compromise for prequel placement because it's right where the author put it.

[halfbreeddege]

Ninjago Season 13 thoughts

Thoughts below cut so no one gets spoiled.

-God I'm so happy to see Cole finally got a season. A GOOD one at that too. Seriously, the action in this season was almost non stop and the final battle between the last two episodes and the camera angles. 10/10!!

-It's not that I don't like Lloyd, but it is SO refreshing to not see him being the center of attention for once in a long time.

-Don’t know why but found it funny the cutouts Vania has of the ninja have the faces on the actual minifigs. Oh....they’re probably still in her room too.....

-Also, are we gonna get the full version of S13's Weekend Whip??

-Now that we've seen Lou and Lilly, can we see Ed and Edna again too? How about some Ray & Maya?

-Dude, we should have known who the Skull Sorcerer was this whole time just by looking at the minifig. If you look at the king in the show and then look at the minifig without the mask, you'll see they both have the same marking on the forehead.

-How many times did the ninja get captured this season?? Were they trying to got for a record.

-So is anyone else curious who this buyer of vengestone is that's mentioned in ep. 7????

-Ep. 8, sorry Vania, can't bro bro goo goo out of this one.

-Now we know two people from Metalonia. Now I kinda want to see the ninja go there.

-I actually kinda like Vania as a character. Not really a big fan of her being Cole's love interest but as a character she's pretty cool. In the end, it's not ever confirmed they’re lovers, just buddies. They’ve probably friend each other on Facebook. Check out each other’s Instragram.

-We need more Chompy, 'nuff said.

-I actually kind of liked the animu episode this season. Now if we can just get a Monkie Kid grade animu episode, that would be swell.

-It wasn't until we were like 2/3 of the way through this season until everyone finally donned their 'hero' armor. The armor looked a lot cooler in the show though. I also guess this explains why some of the ninja wore silver while the others wore gold.

-Blundar - so is your hair spiky or not???

-WHY didn't we see the rest of the Vania vs Hailmar fight???? Like were they "Oh hey, the cameras stopped rolling. We cool now? Yeah, lets go get a slurpy and then meet up with the others."

-Was it ever mentioned what happened to the queen of Shintaro?

-King Vangelis, dude, you are just scum >:( Poor Vania and Skylor have something in common now. Lloyd can relate too.

-I miss Cole's scythe and hammer but the dual blades were cool too.

-We need Upply minifigs!

-Studio DHX's quality seems to be slowly getting better. Still not up to  Wil film's but look how long it took them to get to season 8 - 10 quality. The colors don't seem as washed out. Now if only we can give back everyone's proper facial markings and give Ninjago season an overhaul, I'll be happy.

-I know a lot of people don't seem to like him, but I was actually kind of happy to see Ol' Wu back in action. Even got to see him spinjitsu the first time in a while.

-The fire stone mech, welp that Cole & Kai duo was a damn lie. Just like the Kai & Nya forbidden spinjitsu minifigs or the Cole & Nya avatars. What's the next lie going to be in the next round of sets?

-Cole, why’d you leave the mech behind??

-Dude, Dareth wasn't seen or mentioned once in this season.

-Clutch was mentioned about 3 times but was never seen. Garmadon didn't make any kind of appearance either but was only mentioned. Guys, please make a quick pit stop back to the monastery and pick up Pixal!!! T_T I wonder how the chicken will make an appearance next season.

what are your guys’ thoughts??