#i think doctor who is at its best with a good monster (alien) of the week and a mystery to solve

[stereotypical-jew]

okay. so. i did not vibe with the latest doctor who episode a lot? and idk why exactly. i did still enjoy it for the most part! do love that we're getting more explicit queer romance on the show, but idk it didn't feel...genuine? especially with the doctor saying that ruby's his best friend but then abandoning her to aliens for most of the episode. i'm like really feeling that the overarching plot must be about storytelling. like especially all the blatant references to bridgerton INCLUDING the bad guys and poker face covers. and the teaser line about it being the doctor's life they're playing out. i'm hoping that the arc is kind of about how something (pantheon character?) is kind of controlling the doctor/ruby's story to hit the beats it's supposed to bc its tv but is doing so in a non-organic way which is why the season feels so disjointed and very telling-not-showing. also the weird 6 month time jump between Space Babies and Boom. otherwise i'mgonna feel like it was just kind of poorly written. like! to be clear! i am still enjoying the show! but not as much as i have other seasons

[weepingchoir]

DOCTOR WHO SERIES 14: A FULL SEASON REVIEW

Another decade, another frantic Doctor Who resuscitation. (Not that there were news of potential cancellation, but things must’ve been dire for the BBC to sell one of their most storied shows to the Mouse.) Chibnall is out, Moffat on retainer, Russell “Thee” Davies is in. The theme song is the best since Matt Smith, which, through weird and inexplicable coincidence, was also the last time I watched Who with any serious interest. Good start.

The Star Beast

While not technically part of the season, the specials preceding series 14 signal the beginning of a shift in tone and rules for Doctor Who, including the introduction of the new Doctor. Not yet, though. First we get an OLD DOCTOR FUCK YES DAVID TENNANT IS BACK.

I already know Tennant won’t stick around, and I’m glad. That would’ve stunk of Disney nostalgia-raking. Nevertheless, as a returning viewer, I’m grateful for the breakfall. “The Star Beast” doesn’t yet carry the magic that’ll characterize Gatwa’s series. It’s a standard scifi monster of the week serial, and the monster rules. Looking for returning companion Donna Noble, the Doctor runs into the Meep, a no-pronouns gremlin-Yoda puppet living in Donna’s shed, under the care of her daughter, Rose.

UNIT comes under attack by Kamen Riders. The Meep tears off the blorbo mask to reveal a genocidal dictator on the lam from the Intergalactic Criminal Court. It’s a hilarious turn in an episode whose emotional core relies on Rose’s transgenderedness. Pronouns are a real-time strategy game and evil space aliens are better at it than humans.

Quick dustup on weird plot shit: if Donna remembers the Doctor she dies. She has to remember anyway, in order to stop the Meep’s ship from taking off. Turns out that she’s since become immune to Time Lord neuron overload by offloading it on her daughter. Donna and Rose expel the toxic memories by harnessing their feminine emotional intelligence.

I don’t want it to land. Facing the Doctor, who was a woman one episode ago, Rose says that a man could never understand how she just harnessed the divine feminine. Nevertheless it passes, maybe because any representation of a transgender woman as through-and-through female is a gasp of fresh air. For better or worse, this also cues the season’s cardinal rule: what you feel is true is more important than what makes sense.

Wild Blue Yonder

The TARDIS crashlands at the edge of the universe and disappears when it senses danger, one of those things that it’s never done before and will only do again if it’s funny or cool.

The “edge of the universe” is a spaceship floating in ink-black, with Marvin the Paranoid Timebomb making its way down the hall, one step at a time. This is a great opportunity to ease us into the budgetful new Doctor Who, with sleek but understated shots of the spaceship’s exterior. When the Doctor and Donna split up to fix the ship, they converse with each other’s doppelgangers: “not-things” from beyond reality, looking to assimilate physics. Communication with the not-things goes awry as an eerie set of medium close-ups pull back to reveal their overlong limbs.

Backed with half a decade of set chemistry, Tennant and Catherine Tate ace all four characters in this bottle episode. Much of the runtime consists of the Doctor and Donna’s mind games against each other. It’s less a restatement and more a self-justifying exploration of why bother with a last hurrah for two fan favorites. Well-earned, too, as the Doctor nearly leaves the real Donna to die in the ship’s explosion. It’s impossible to be done exploring the fullness of a relationship. But one day, and soon, we will have to move on.

The Giggle

 Two crucial stopgaps against the not-things. One, a line of salt on the floor, which the Doctor tricks them into thinking they can’t cross, since they’re sorta vampires. Two, cognitive dissonance. It’s hard enough for the uncreatures to assimilate beliefs, let alone simultaneous contradictory ideas.

The Doctor fears that, by invoking fiddly rules at the edge of reality, he’s opened a door for fell mythos. This episode stars the Toymaker, a villain from a partially restored First Doctor serial. Originally a Fu Manchu caricature, the new Toymaker is Neil Patrick Harris putting on a German accent, which he can always do, it’s never racist.

The Toymaker has snuck a mind-warping signal into every screen, starting with the 1925 Stookie Bill experiment. Now mankind is mad , reacting with explosive hostility at any confrontation. Over the last decade, as writers have moved from mocking subsets of people for being on phone to everyone being on phone, we’ve uncovered more cohesive portrayals of what 24/7 connection is doing to us. Writ large, more and more of us are looking to win arguments. Even losing is a thrill.

It’s a contrived plan for a villain whose power transcends mere limitless control over physical matter. The only thing that binds the Toymaker is the rules of the game. We can trace the evolution of TV drama by comparing his first appearance to his last, William Hartnell’s almost congenial gotchas to Tennant’s panic at genuine omnipotence. The Toymaker traps the Doctor and Donna in a theater for a puppet play about the many deaths of the former’s companions. The Doctor, ever the hero, denies them three times.

Well, are they dead? These specials have proven that, even in the megacorp mines, fan favorite returns don’t have to be Rise of Skywalker gruel. Donna, and the Fourth Doctor’s returning Mel Bush, bring necessary continuity to the transition into new-new Who.

Not everything, at least, has to end in tragedy. When the Toymaker commandeers the giant laser gun the government is cool with UNIT keeping in uptown London, the Doctor bigenerates, splitting into straight Tennant (presumably) and gay Ncuti Gatwa. Together they beat the Toymaker at catch, which banishes him for good.

From here on, we follow Gatwa’s Doctor. Tennant stays with Donna. There is movement in rest, organic, within. Their relationship may continue to develop, just where we can’t see it. Not everything is for screen consumption.

The Church On Ruby Road

Every time I see this episode’s title I get Hüsker Dü’s “Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill” stuck in my head, except the Inter Arma cover because that’s the first time I heard that. The Doctor is fortunate enough to run into one of the few actresses that can match his energy, Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday: songwriter, orphan and ingenue. Ruby lives a zoomer kitsch apartment with string lights on the walls, alongside her adoptive mother and grandmother. She suffers from a curse of bad luck, bewitched by an airshipful of baby-eating goblins.

The Doctor and Ruby stop the goblins from eating a baby, to the tune of an R&B paean to Jabba-the-Hut, the only logical step from the Toymaker’s Spice Girls lipsync sequence. The goblins retaliate by traveling in time to eat baby Ruby, abandoned by her mother on Christmas day on the porch of The Church That Lives On Ruby Road. Watching Ruby’s mother go, Gatwa cries his series-first tear of silent grief. He’s very good at that.

The Doctor’s rule of no self-interaction has fucked his opportunity to let Ruby meet her biological mother. Pay attention, this’ll be on the test. Other than that, “The Church” is an easy, fun, low-stakes introduction to the Doctor’s companion and many of the season’s dominos, only some of which will receive a proper knockdown.

Space Babies

The first real ostentatious show of Disney budget is a quick but lush visit to James Cameron's Mesozoic. A CGI diplodocus doesn’t have to be bad. CGI baby mouths, on the other hand.

Budget cuts strand a colony spaceship, replete with babies in a bizarre state of semi-suspended animation: they’ve been toddlers for six years. Only accountant Jocelyn remains. The babies are terrorized by the Boogeyman, a snot monster generated by glitched-out educational software. Jocelyn almost airlocks the Boogeyman until the Doctor reminds her that it’s kind of her baby also.

The Doctor’s memory of Ruby Road changes to feature Ruby’s mother pointing at him. It starts snowing indoors, another magic plot puzzle piece. Cue tear of silent grief. There’s not much else to say about “Space Babies”. It’s a lot of terrible ideas, executed with functional neatness: quoting a friend, the platonic ideal of a Russell T 6/10.

The Devil’s Chord

1925 again! There’s a whole pantheon of Toymaker-type evil gods. This one’s Maestro, the god of music, played by a spectacular Jinkx Monsoon. Over the course of four decades, Maestro ruins music so thoroughly that even Abbey Road sounds like dogwater.

The Doctor and Ruby negotiate with the Beatles, who make dodgy gestures towards the whole of music being an embarrassing business. It’s never made clear how Maestro has convinced the world of this, or, like the Toymaker’s giggle, why they bothered when they have the power to eat music itself. We’ve crossed into the realm of magic. It’s not about the method, but the goal: within a hundred years, musicless mankind will self-exterminate to vent its anger, leaving Maestro to enjoy pure aeolian tones.

It’s hard to agree that music is the salve keeping mankind from abject violence when contending with the history of, Burzum, Chris Brown or Meni Mamtera. Nor does the idea that Maestro can be defeated by a seven-note scale available to basic Western music theory hold much water. “The Devil’s Chord” is an altogether less cohesive “The Giggle”, and only three episodes after its predecessor, too. On the other hand, as a piece of musical cinema, it’s a brilliant watch for Monsoon’s performance, the playful metanarrative gestures, and the closing number, ‘There’s Always A Twist At The End’.

Boom

On the ravaged planet of Kastarion-3, there is only war. A landmine vaporizes a guy, attracting an 'ambulance' automaton to euthanize his friend Vater by reducing him into an awesomely gross flesh tube.

Gatwa leaves the TARDIS in a super-sexy leather jacket and steps on a mine. What follows is ten agonizing minutes of the Doctor and Ruby figuring out the logistics of the situation. The Doctor can’t move off the smart mine or exhibit high emotion. On finding Vater’s tube, Ruby convinces the Doctor to let her hand it to him to use as a counterweight, in a move that almost kills them both. The pressure is immense, achieved with nothing but close-ups to tears of silent grief and a silly prop of a landmine with LEDs.

Vater’s daughter finds the duo, triggering the flesh tube to generate a grief counselor hologram of her father. Ruby gets shot while managing a haywire ambulance. The only way to get the ambulance to treat her is to admit that the Kastarians never existed. With a full third of characters dead, Cyber-Vater betrays its parent corporation to end the war. This is the most stressful Doctor Who gets, in all the best ways. For a second, and against all logic, I was even convinced it might be the end of Ruby Sunday.

“Boom” is the closest Gatwa’s Doctor has to a companion capsule episode. This focus on their relationship might’ve gone over even better if it’d been earlier in the run, especially given “The Devil’s Chord” has the opposite problem. I suspect the prime reason why it’s placed in an awkward middle slot is to not give away the game: “Boom” front-and-centers Susan Twist, who’s played minor roles in almost every episode since “Wild Blue Yonder”, as the face of the combat ambulance AI. There’s always a twist at the end, remember?

73 Yards

The Doctor’s always stepping on some bullshit. After intruding on a ritual circle, he disappears, leaving Ruby alone with a mysterious woman that’s always standing 73 yards away. Everyone who talks to the woman flies goes no-contact with Ruby: a hiker, a bar-goer, UNIT, even, in a harrowing turn, Ruby’s adoptive mother. So Ruby spends the next twenty years alone. Without her family, and also alone in this ethereal way where she’s meant to be on startlit adventures, not half-there on a wine bar date.

Gibson carries this mammoth episode on her shoulders, evolving from panicked 20 year old to middle-aged, purpose-driven mercenary. The closest thing to a co-star is the cinematography, following her eyes towards the woman-shaped hole in the near horizon. This is one of the subtler metanarrative moments of the season: the woman is impossible to photograph, blurry in pictures just as she’s never in focus for the camera.

Ruby makes up a mission: save the world from ‘Mad Jack’ Roger ap Gwilliam, a presidential candidate whom the Doctor off-hand warned would lead the world to nuclear ruin. Infiltrating, Jack’s presidential campaign, she maneuvers the woman into manifesting next to him, which makes him run screaming from office. The world is saved. Ruby isn���t. As she lays dying of old age, alone, the mystery woman is revealed to be herself, traveling back in time to warn the Doctor off the circle.

This is the furthest Doctor Who can stray from its own standards before becoming a different show altogether. The theme song doesn’t even play (shame). Not a coincidence, it’s also the episode to most demand that we trust emotion over logic, and it pays back that trust with dividends. It doesn’t matter that we never find out why there was a shrine to Mad Jack atop a cliff in Wales twenty years before his time, or the mechanism by which Ruby created a closed time loop. The important bit is the emotional resonance, the click of catharsis when we discover just enough details to let it rest.

Dot and Bubble

I feared, as “Dot” opened on a woman so dependent on social media that she can’t navigate her immediate surroundings without GPS, that this would be the Phone Bad episode “The Giggle” had managed to surpass. The truth is more complex: Finetime’s residents can afford to spend all day Whatsapping because they’re the offspring of another planet’s leisure class, here on permanent vacation.

Giant man-eating slugs have invaded Finetime, and the Dot-Bubble navigation system is walking people straight into their maws. Our lead is neither Gatwa nor Gibson, but Callie Cooke as Lindy Pepper-Bean in yet another of the acting masterclasses that characterize this season. An ongoing tension point is whether Lindy can keep her Bubble down long enough to string together two tasks. This means the season’s highest ratio of close-ups to other shots. Cooke carries this focus with recidivist disdain, processing the situation in arbitrary bursts only to default to anger at the Doctor for intruding on her groupchat, or elation at meeting a celebrity singer.

The slugs are an invention of the Dot, which, after years of servicing Finetime, has learned hate. Huddled outside the habitat dome, the all-white survivors reject the Doctor’s 'dirty' safe passage, and strike out to colonize the wilderness, ‘like their ancestors’.

Laterally to Phone Bad, an ongoing trend in wronghead fiction is Rich Bad. Movies like Bodies Bodies Bodies portray the bourgeoise as a self-obsessed bunch who will fall snarling on themselves at the first provocation. This is not what makes the bourgeoise dangerous, but in fact the exact opposite: because the rich have everything to lose, they will close ranks against you, no matter how much good you’ve done for them, no matter what you could yet do.

Rogue

Before the season ends, anybody want to defend England one last time? Playing nobility at a Regency London ball, the Doctor runs into Rogue, a bounty hunter who mistakes him (at gunpoint) for a shapeshifting, murderous Chuldur.

The Chuldur are fans of Bridgerton, on Earth to cosplay it to death. In order to lure them out, The Doctor and Rogue publicize their whirlwind romance. If “Dot and Bubble” was a response to the idea that Gatwa might run into racism if he travels to the past, “Rogue” is its inversion: the plan works because the modern Chuldur can’t resist the titillation of wearing a black gay man. They run after the hypervisible Doctor, while the white Rogue becomes “the other one”. He’s less problematized, less interesting, the one you get stuck with if you don’t call intersectional shotgun.

After the trap is sprung by accident, Rogue's banished alongside the Chuldur to a random dimension of nobody’s knowing. The Doctor declares it’s impossible to find him. We’ll see about that.

For all its nods towards fandom, “Rogue” isn’t a po-faced condemnation of fan culture. Ultimately, the Chuldur too are defeated through cosplay. Plus, it’s a straight beat-by-beat of the strongest points in Who structure: strong side characters, scifi logistics, a villain as goofy as it’s horrific. Whether its back-to-back placement with its thematic mirror, or as a segue to the season finale, is ideal, is anyone’s guess. 

The Legend of Ruby Sunday

The Doctor asks for UNIT’s help in figuring out why Susan Twist follows him everywhere. On 2024 Earth, she’s Susan Triad, tech CEO on the verge of releasing some kind of Alexa thing. But before we get to that, the Doctor decides now’s the time to meet Ruby’s biomom.

Using a ‘Time Window’, Ruby visualizes The Church That Lives On Ruby Road. Ruby cries: the Window refuses to show her mother’s face. The machine goes all creepypasta on some UNIT boot. Panicked, the Doctor chases down Triad, who reveals she can remember her past lives in dreams.

Triad pulls away to her conference. Though she’s live worldwide, her soundstage is empty, the crowd canned. Where much of this season has dealt with the phenomenons of mass media and TV, “The Legend” digs into a grief specific to Doctor Who, an ill-kempt archive of decades forever on the verge of cancellation.

Little else happens, for two good reasons. First, this episode is a two-parter. Second, much of its runtime is dedicated to extracting maximum stress out of the situation. Ruby is too compromised to act, while the Doctor and UNIT are late from the start, only just figuring out the situation in time to witness it unfold. The big reveal paying off all this anxiety, crossed purposes, fear and despair is, unfortunately, a CGI dog with a hat.

Empire of Death

Sutekh is a Fourth Doctor villain who’s been locked in the Time Vortex for thousands of years or a dozen seasons, whichever’s longest. He has spawned harbingers like Triad in every planet that the Doctor’s visited, and his “dust of death” has the power to kill nost just everyone, but everyone at every point in time. In the era of streaming television (and stream-only television), the C-suite can overnight erase all evidence that a show ever existed.

Through a bit of absurd circular logic, the Doctor declares that the Time Window’s memory of a TARDIS is in fact a functioning TARDIS. The crew escapes to roam a deserted universe. The memory TARDIS begs to tie long-dangling plot strands into knots of neat logic. Instead, a bunch of nonsense dialogue happens. When Ruby asks the Doctor why Sutekh has a The Mummy thing going on, the Doctor answers “cultural appropriation”, and fails to elaborate. Laterally, when Ruby casually lists the chameleon circuit’s AOE as 73 yards, the Doctor asks how she knew that. She’s not sure. Nothing comes of this.

Because Sutekh is incapable of seeing Ruby’s mother, the Doctor decides it’s all tied together and heads to a government office in Mad Jack Britain, containing the UK’s forcibly harvested genetic data. Much more cohesive commentary on racism than reminding us cultural appropration is a thing Doctor Who has done. Armed with knowledge, the Doctor baits Sutekh into the Time Vortex, where he forces him to, like, kill death and then die in turn.

It’s a fantastic turn of character for the Doctor, who oft makes a spurious point of not killing in order to condemn villains to fates worse than death, or adopts a ‘War Doctor’ persona which kills a bunch of people anyway. It’s a matter of framing, but also a genuine point of no return. As for less satisfying character beats: Ruby gets to meet her mother, who’s just some middle-aged Instagrammer with a bad haircut and a passion for rocky beaches.

So why was this character immune to everyone from the Time Window to Sutekh, and the unwitting carrier of Ruby’s inherited power to make it snow? Because, the Doctor explains, we cared about her.

Which begs the question: who is we?

The easiest answer is: the last people left alive in the universe. But Ruby’s been making it snow since “Space Babies”. Not proximity to the Doctor either, else the Doctor himself would have magic powers: on the contrary, he’s spent the whole season grappling with his limited ratfic ability to deal with the supernatural. And there’s millions of orphans out there. Ruby is, in this regard as in most else, not special.

Taken all together along with the season’s metanarrative overtures, which keep going right up to the last second of “Empire”, the only answer is that we are the audience. Or the audience and the crew, anyhow: the camera, the screen, Ruby’s protagonism and the people that accept it. We have imbued Ruby Sunday with transcendental power, because we would like her to transcend.

This doesn’t work unless I am more emotionally than narratively invested in Ruby Sunday.

Not that I didn’t get torn up when Ruby met her mother. But that’s just cinema trickery. A season’s worth of promises, a bit of music, very good acting: of course I was going to care. Not more than I care about finding out what the fuck was going on, though. As an explanation, this all rounds out to: what was going on is what was going on. Ruby’s mom was important because she mattered to us, and it mattered to us because she was important. Me, I refuse to be complicit.

There is an unpleasant extreme to the logical lens, the CinemaSinners combing through scripts, sacrificing the greater story to the tendentious idol of Plot Holes. Doctor Who has long been plagued by these types, pitfalls of being an easy-watching BBC show with a large audience. Series 14 scans like a concerted effort to not give these guys an inch. In overcorrecting, it created a maudlin mess of unfulfilled promise.

That is as far as the season's connected plotline goes. Fortunately, most of the episodes are gems, directed with a sense of fun almost unseen in the revival series’ longstanding gloom. The Doctor has turned into a killer, maybe for good. We are promised that his tale will end in tragedy. I hold out hope that, next time the story tries to hit me where it hurts, it’ll follow through.

7/10

[leikeliscomet]

Flop and Bubble - I’m Not Stanning RTD2’s Racial Commentary

On Dot and Bubble, experiencing fandom backlash and what this means for the Black Brit (or lack thereof) in the writer’s room.

Part 1 - The Episode

If you’ve already seen my posts, I don’t like this episode. At all. I watched it on Friday night with everyone else not knowing what to expect and live-tweeted away. It wasn’t worth the late night stream. I rewatched it on Saturday and still felt disappointed. Apart from 50 minutes of cringe millennial/Gen Z parody, mid social media commentary, boring aliens and a whole intense, action-filled scene dedicated to Lindy trying to walk in a straight line, Dot and Bubble tried to give us a racism commentary too, which in all honestly felt like someone was taking the piss. Opening up Twitter and Tumblr to see this episode being called the best of the season and ‘the greatest’ episode of nuwho felt like a 73 Yards of my own. Most posts about how ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘important’ this story is make my eyes roll into the back of my head I’ll be honest with you. I don’t wanna copy and paste everything I’ve already said in my original thread (here’s the Tumblr version), but I’ll recap my main issues with it.

The predominantly white casting fails as a racism commentary in a show that’s already predominantly white. White fans who’ve grown up in white areas watching a predominantly white show have no reason to question why that show would be white too. It’s their default. Including that of the writer's room, as there were no Black writers for series 14. White fans who didn’t notice the white casting have no reason to. Why would they when the show has catered to them for most of its run? There is no fundamental difference between Dot and Bubble’s predominantly white cast and the all-white main cast of Series 6 or the episodes of RTD1 where Martha or Mickey were the only Black characters of the episode. But only one of these results in pearl-clutching. The self-flagellation from white fans late to notice felt very strange. Apart from the guilt of not noticing something they had no incentive to notice, nothing productive comes from this guilt. Being upset about having white privilege is an acknowledgement I guess, but what material actions are coming from this? RTD and co. wanted a message about predominantly white representation then didn’t have any Black writers in the room to create that message. There’s no point in gasping at how white the table is and then not offering Black people a place to sit. Dot and Bubble wasn’t a new story either, as it was originally planned for the Moffat era instead. What would the ending look like for the 11th Doctor? No bowties allowed? To say this episode sprinkled in racism last minute doesn’t seem that far-fetched considering it wasn’t originally a part of the script in the first place. How can I credit an ‘intentional’ build-up of microaggressions to the big racism reveal in the last 10 minutes when they were never originally there to begin with? How can this be a good commentary on the Black experience when Black writers were not only missing but the Black main character himself?

RTD Who’s campness is already something I disliked from RTD1, but for the big white supremacy episode out of all to choose from was just in poor taste to me. I already hated the Love and Monsters style episodes of the OG RTD run, but for an episode that represents systemic racism of all things felt like a slap in the face. Not to say racism can’t exist in comedy because it can. Many Black writers including in the shows I recommend later in the thread do this, but they use humour as the Black characters’ coping mechanism for racism. The actions of the racist characters aren’t minimised because of this. Dot and Bubble doesn’t have the range for this that Doctor Who fans think it does. Lindy’s incompetence is a way for Fifteen, Ruby and the audience to look down on her in the sense she’s clapped basically and her racism comes from the fact she’s unintelligent. But in the real world, white supremacy is a lot smarter. White supremacist rhetoric is hidden and cloaked intentionally so it can’t be noticed and this is used as a way of recruiting white people to join in and maintain it. White supremacy is a system constructed for the purpose of oppressing Black people and other people of colour. It’s a bit more than a few silly billies trust me. Even if we do entertain the idea of ‘accidental racism’ the only reason it happens is because of this white supremacist conditioning which tells white people it’s okay. It’s not your fault for being born in this system but it’s absolutely your fault for continuing to maintain it when you have the choice not to. The only sign of intellect Lindy has comes from when she betrays Ricky and gets him killed. This was what Lindy could’ve been. A white woman who weaponises her incompetence and innocence to her own advantage because she knows how it will benefit her in a white supremacist state. An episode with a darker tone exploring racism in a technological dystopia. This is what fans think the episode did but frankly, it didn’t, but they wanted it to because they idolise RTD to the point of creating his writing intentions for him. Lindy didn’t weaponise being incompetent she is incompetent. Her incompetence is attached to her social media obsession and youth and without these things she lacks even more intelligence than she already does. The episode promotes the idea that racism is the product of low intelligence and overreliance on technology. She is a walking talking caricature for the fans to project onto than a real person capable of actual harm. Apart from the ableist connotations that the lower the intelligence the lesser the person morally, it’s an overly basic and mediocre representation of racism. I won’t speak for the Black people who do relate to the representation of Lindy as a racist, but for me personally, the Lindys of my life were never silly in their racism. They knew what they were doing. They knew no matter how harmless their actions were (to them not me that is), they would get away with it. And they did. I didn’t have time to laugh about how silly the racists I’d met were. I was too busy trying to survive. It’s hard to giggle about being smarter than a racist when they hold the power to dehumanise you completely. What use is an intellectual high horse then?

Speaking of projecting onto characters, I don’t care about Ricky September. His main role was to get Lindy to walk in a straight line and find the escape. He provided as much interest to the episode as water adds flavour to white bread. Ricky is raised in the exact same Finetime conditioning as Lindy but he’s an antiracist icon because he likes walking and books I guess. White fans will be disappointed to know that racists can read and exist outside too. He becomes the ideal white man, a white saviour we’re supposed to distance from the rest of Finetime. The episode again reaffirms that racism is about moral character and not a system. The Ricky Midtembers of my life still benefit from racism even if they are just are just ‘nice’ white guys. Ironically, Ncuti Gatwa’s interview about white mediocrity becomes relevant again. Ricky is put on a pedestal for just existing, expecting applause from the audience. My hands are staying still.

What makes the episode’s politic even more flimsy is how it’s missing from the rest of the season. In The Devil’s Chord, Fifteen opened the TARDIS doors in 1963 with an afro and big smile on his face and I was confused. The arrival of the Windrush generation, the Bristol Bus Boycott and the Notting Hill race riots had all taken place by the time Fifteen and Ruby landed. Would this play any key role in this historical British episode featuring a Black man as the Doctor for the first time? Nah! Only a week after D&B he and Ruby were kicking it with British aristocrats in Rogue, a group of people well-known for respecting Black people for sure! The show’s avoidance of addressing Black British experiences almost feels intentional at this point. Black British history is rarely if not never taught in the British education system, let alone the rest of the world. From previous discourses on Rosa, Thin Ice and Human Nature, ignorance about our history is so prominent in the Doctor Who fandom. White British fans can’t accept the idea of racism being British, not exclusively American, on the same level as the US or even worse. And the show passes up the opportunity yet again to debunk this. So far the show’s closest attempts were Human Nature/Family of Blood and Thin Ice, but even then these episodes had limits. We had Mary Seacole in War in the Sontarans but as the title suggests, the Sontarans were the focus of the episode, not her. Whilst some white fans think the futuristic focus is a smart move, it just highlights the lack of depth a Black perspective can provide. When was the racism of Britain’s past actually addressed? How on earth can you claim learning about Britain’s racist past is limited when you don’t even know about it? How can you address race in the future when you can’t even address it today? Racism can only exist in a futuristic world, far away from Earth in a fictional blue-blooded race of the white bourgeoisie because we can’t have this sci-fi-attempting-fantasy show getting too real. Dot and Bubble’s racism needs to exist in its own isolated white echo chamber so that the racism of the Doctor Who fandom’s one can stay intact.

Dot and Bubble is a failure because it reinforces the bias white fans already have. That as long as they aren’t a specific flavour of white person (rich, Christian, cisgender, heterosexual, allosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical and perisex) they can’t be capable of anti Black racism. The episode comforts them in knowing what they already want to be true and need to be true. They don’t have to question or self-reflect their own antiblackness because the episode doesn’t give them any reason to. Why should they? They’re a Ricky not a Lindy, right? The white fans ‘saddened’ by Lindy’s low assumptions about Black men will continue in their hatred of Ryan Sinclair, Danny Pink and Mickey Smith. The white fans disgusted by Lindy’s disgust will keep going on about how ‘off’ they feel about Martha Jones but ‘don’t know why’. The white fans that ‘hate’ Lindy’s hatred of Ruby and Fifteen’s close proximity will keep gagging at the thought of the Doctor having any romantic connection to Martha Jones because she ‘deserved better than that’. The white fans ‘heartbroken’ for the ‘first’ Black doctor will keep erasing the Fugitive Doctor. The white fans that stan the ‘anti-racist’ slugs today will hate the Black people that fight against racism tomorrow. The white fans praising this episode for being ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘inspirational’ and ‘important’ will be racist to Black fans that dare to say that maybe it was a bit shit. And that is exactly what happened.

The fandom’s praise of Fifteen’s compassion, kindness and humanity (of a Time Lord that is)  hinges on him being a ‘good’ Black man for the racists that hate him to the core. If he hadn’t begged and screamed to save Lindy, that praise would’ve been revoked instantly. Fans uncomfortable at his anger towards the Chuldur and the killing of the Goblin King confirm this. Despite the long morally grey history of the Doctor, Fifteen’s darkness is uniquely ‘out of character’ because thanks to bigeneration this isn’t supposed to happen anymore (allegedly). Deep down, this is what the white audience wants. There can never be an alternative to Dot and Bubble’s ending. It’s easier to imagine racism as an inevitable part of the natural order we must experience for the sake of storytelling, the only form of conflict that Black characters and people can ever have than that we could ever, just maybe, say ‘no’ to the white standards put before us. We must beg. We must be nice. We must be compassionate. Even when history and current events have shown us time and time again white supremacy can’t be killed with kindness. Why take the boot off your neck when you can find out how strong and brave you are for handling it instead? Either that or just pretend it doesn’t exist. White incarnations of the Doctor on the other hand have and will continue to be the radical icons of the show because unlike Fifteen, white characters will always be given more agency to explore their actions and behaviours. Punch racists! Free the Ood! Stan the anti-racist slugs and eat the rich! Slay!

When Black people stop chasing after the boat, we don’t get this same radical praise. We pay a price. And the response to Dot and Bubble’s criticism would ironically prove this.

Part 2 ->

[suethesocks]

Egyptian Ben 10 AU!!

A long while ago i got the idea of making an au where ben is an Egyptian Orthodox Christian (the idea entirely spawned off a joke my friend made about a hypothetical ben like that having to explain his fasting to rook)

At first the idea was gonna be that his parents are Egyptian immigrants and he was born and raised in Bellwood, but last second before finishing his character bio i decided to flip everything over and make this AU *in* Egypt

The timeline i have in mind for these bios are all at around right after the highbreed arc, but also before season 3 straight up starts. I feel like thats a good jumping-on point

In terms of aliens mostly i just get to explore what the aliens would look like as teenagers since uaf and ov didnt really do much with that (they didnt even bother giving wildmutt a tail) and have fun trying to make his flannel into outfits for the aliens. Hoever if i get any cool ideas for entirely revamping aliens id definitely do it

I tried to make fourarms darker skinned not sure if its showing. Id have done the same with stinkfly but the uniforms colorscheme wouldve crashed. I wanted to try giving wildmutt black fur because this ben has darker hair but nothing really quite worked hsjhds wildmutts obnoxious orange is just too iconic

Prep school is mostly an american thing, here the closest equivalent for the early 2000s would be an international school. Also i changed lawyer to doctor as thats the sort of "go-to" job that makes a lot of money, lawyers in egypt arent usually as fortunate

Here she doesnt wear her uniform this is just how she dresses. I tried to fit the cat motif like OS but i couldnt really think of something that fit. If i were drawing UAF or OV gwen in my own take id have given her cat imagery but i think for Jwanas personality it actually makes more sense for her to be boring and lose the cat

Jwanas also a lot more angsty about her magic (and it is magic) since her parents and basically entire surrounding community both Muslim and Christian are very against magic and consider it sin. Shes also a lot more angsty in general because like the bio says shes under alot of stress and is very jealous of ben, which is conflicting because ben is also her best friend and she doesnt wanna feel this sort of animosity to him. She also doesnt realize how much he looks up to her as someone who is a lot more intelligent and disciplined than he'll ever be (for example the concept of jwana having the spark isnt here, ben just can never learn magic because he doesnt have what it takes)

Kevin much like ben is more or less the same as he is in the show. With jwana i went with my own take but Ben and Kevin are more of, culminations of what i think are their best parts in the series and then just fleshing that out more

I felt like the outfit he has in earth-prime works best with a few touchups. Prime kevin has consistently had that rugged guy-who-lives-in-a-garage look so despite being the most basic outfit it works the best with a few touchups

I did change his anatomy, i wanted to make him look like a mutant freak. I gave him this sort of frankenstine's monster posture (a small reference to him being an amalgamation in os). He also has these stretch marks all over his body since his material absorption doesnt just create a coat around him but also alters his skin itself (so these markings arent there for os-era kevin) He also has a lot of weird bumps over his body

This kevin is 100% mutant no alien shenanigans. If i do aggregor i'll uhhh think of something else for him to be. His transition to the lightside is a lot longer and for the majority of the highbreed arc hes not even there hes more of an occasional ally if he feels like helping

Was his dad a plumber or not im not sure tbh, im leaning towards not though

Next post is gonna be a bunch of villains for funsies

[demise-seems-dead]

*cracks my knuckles*

hello doctor who fandom. Im here to throw out my opinions in a vibey way, just to get it over with. I may literally never talk about doctor who on this acc ever again, but i figure i may as well lay out all my nuwho opinions right now for anyone who wants to vibe or to know who will hate my opinions so i can get a nord vpn sponsorship and hide my ip address.

so heres where im at.

9: my all time favourite, wrote well- if not a bit cheesy- and acted very well. Do i think anyone actually skips nine? Not really. Do i feel like defending him on my life from the evil tenners? Nope. I think hes the best, but its not like hes under-rated, people just like to make up conflicts for the fun of it. Its the internet, its what we do. Favourite episode is empty child or boom town.

10: hes fine! I liked him well enough. Good actor, great establishing episode, but i dont feel too strongly about him. Hes pretty neat but i think there wasnt a lot of creativity? Like fun monsters, but we didnt get a lot of the real timey wimey shit we get to see later that i think 10 could have acted very well. Favourite ep is 42. Sorry weeping angels, your like 3 or 4th tho!!!

11. i actually really like him. I think later season stuff was fantastic but there was a dip in my enjoyment around lets kill hitler. Found him to be a lot more dynamic than 10 or really 9 in his personality. Hard to characterise, which is great when your talking about basically a god. Favourite episode isssssssssssss the impossible astronaut? Maybe the lodger actually. I dont like james cordon, but i do like the concept.

12: beautiful wonderful old man. Admittedly, watching his season was a blur, right before i started falling off the who train for a bit, but i do know i fucking love him. Uh, i think i remember liking knock knock. Im due for a rewatch.

13: i promise im coming back to it. I fucking love jodie but the end of 12 is just when i started struggling to watch doctor who (dealt with heart issues and a car accident and just could not divide more attention to a tv show) but im coming in with optimism. I know a lot of people thing her season was shitty, i'll probably think the same, but by god im going to try and love it! Also shes hot /hj

14: skipping because i dont really have a lot to say????

15: oh boy. Im really trying to like it. I think its good tv! I like what its about. But i just dont think it feels like doctor who. I dont really care for talking about ai/media bad (even though the actual theme of that episode is racism that is still part of it, literally dont come for me lol i think the racism part of it is very well wrote) or economy failing/bad in my show about a time alien and their human friend against the world. Not that its bad, but its just not for me. So far ive liked boom or 73 yards the most.

and yeah, those are P much my thoughts. Feel free to debate with me. Dont argue- because thats stupid- but debating is fine! I'd love for somebody to show their passion and make me rethink. Most of this posts purpose is to encourage civil discussion.

[rawwkfingers]

The Green Death

Wow. Just, wow. What an amazing serial

Not going to lie, while I did enjoy the entire story, up until the very end scene I wasn't going to place it above Silurians or Mutants for me but Jo's departure was so well done that I really think it elevated the entire serial to stand with my favorites from the era, and Classic as a whole

A huge part of why her departure was so good (the first one in Classic Who to actually make me tear up) is that the entire serial *felt* like a goodbye story for her. Like a lot of past companions, her romance with Jones did come from nowhere, but unlike past departure stories the chemistry between the two actors felt genuine (they were engaged in real life) and her leaving had been set up before she ever met him, not just in this story but throughout the whole season. Even if I hadn't known before watching that this was her final story, I would have known right from the start of this serial. So, when Jo and Jones (lol) announce their engagement and the Doctor quietly leaves her behind to live her life without him, it's a truly heartbreaking moment but also feels like a natural end to their journey together

In a way, Jo's character growth makes me feel bad for Carole Ann Ford because Jo was everything Susan could have been (if the whole alien princess stuff was off the table.) She began her arc as the damsel in distress who rarely contributed, but over the course of the series she became more and more independent, resourceful, and active in the story and I really grew to love her as a character. So when this story began with Jo refusing to go on a trip with the Doctor because there was a climate protest she felt was more important, it was a believable change in her

Which, yes, like all the best Pertwee era stories this serial was also extremely political. And while there were some elements of the political storyline that I thought could have been improved on (I think BOSS would have been a more intimidating villain and compelling allegory without the mind control stuff or the random human emotions thrown in) you can't really fault the story when what saves the day is a mushroom protein replacement. One little thing that I particularly liked was the way that the main danger was unintentional, but avoidable had Global Chemicals been willing to not seek out profits above all else

I hate to say this, but throughout the serial I was comparing it a lot to Series 11 and its abject failures when compared to this one serial, specifically Arachnids and Kerblam. Those two stories deal with similar issues that Green Death does, pollution and corporate greed specifically. But where the Series 11 stories only barely touch their topics on a surface level (and ultimately comes out in favor of corporate greed in arguably the most out-of-character episode the Doctor has ever had,) Green Death really shows its viewers the impact these issues have.

This was definitely one of the stronger seasons, but I still gotta rank the episodes haha

The Green Death. Just, what a powerful story. Political in the ways Doctor Who does best but with more character work than I've seen in Classic Who ever before

Frontier in Space. A really great political thriller with the Master working as an agent for the Daleks to start an intergalactic war, what's not to love

The Three Doctors. I love the fanservice and the world mythos building, but I do have to admit the actual plot is fairly basic

Planet of the Daleks. I actually quite liked the story of this serial, but its politics weren't great and also it having a romance subplot for Jo just doesnt make sense considering how her story ends

Carnival of Monsters. While a fun idea with some really wacky character designs, the story itself just wasn't strong

[thetimelordbatgirl]

What are your favorite aliens from the Whoniverse? I honestly think the best ones from modern doctor who came from the 9-10th doctor era. After that, I can’t really think of any other iconic ones other than the Silence. I appreciate the modern versions of the Zygons and Sea Devils too. Super excited for Beep the Meep.

Ooh, hmm...if we including Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood too...Slitheen definitely near the top of my favorites, as sure, they do devolve a lil from their appearence in Doctor Who when they move over to reguarly appearing in Sarah Jane Adventures, since kids show, but just, they are a pretty good mixture of sillyiness (the farting thing does take a bit to get used to I will admit) but also threatening, especially when you see they literally skin native's on the planets they trying to get shit from, and that includes literally children in Sarah Jane Adventures. And sticking with Sarah Jane Adventures (sorry, I am mentally unwell about this show lol), the Bane were a pretty good species idea. Like yeah, they do kinda have the whole hunting thing like most alien species in the whoiverse, but at the same time, they are pretty terrifying in their first appearence, and Mrs. Wormwood is a pretty good villain character, hers and Sarah's bitch fights being pretty funny to rewatch. And another favorite from SJA is the Xylok, because the idea of an alien species who only have one purpose and once you take it away, they not sure what to do and shit? Perfection, and Mr. Smith was a terrifying villain in Lost Boy. And just one more cause uh, I've been focusing on SJA too much lol- but the Pied Piper was a pretty terrifying alien, talking as someone who hates clowns.

And this is kinda SJA snd doctor who now, but the Trickster is a definite favorite of mine, as who doesn't love the concept of an alien who seeks to cause chaos via seeking people as they about to die and stopping their death via a deal so that the trickster can use them for his plans? He don't even appear in doctor who and yet, I am forever curious still about his brigade we got hinted at in Turn Left when his ally makes an alternate reality via Donna. In terms of Torchwood, off the top of my head as uh, I don't think Torchwood was always heavy on aliens lol: the Fairies cause holy shit, batman, to how they put a twist on fairies, and the 456 are a terrifying alien species, and not fully a favorite but I do find it funny a lil (I am a lil immature, ngl lol): the sex gas alien. Just...what even is that episode lmao?

And in terms of Doctor Who itself, besides the Slitheen I already mentioned, prior to Doctor Who fucking turning them into your villain of the work, Daleks were terrifying and they were really good in their appearences, especially Stolen Earth/Journey's End. Weeping Angels terrified me as a child, so I'd have to add them to my list, and also Steven Moffat, pay for my therapy please with that ending of Blink. The Altons are pretty good as well, again, Doctor Who turning anything you see into aliens, so good luck seeing them outside of Doctor Who. And I do appreciate the Cybermen, but I also have a soft spot for the Cybermats. Terrifying creatures that I also kinda wanna adopt lol. And I do agree about the Silence, but also like, shout out to uh, shout out to the Abzorbalof from Love And Monsters. A mixture of ridiuclous and terrifying in a pretty decent episode (except for the endng...that's just gonna make me weirded out forever). And as someone whose still terrified of the dark at twenty one, the Vastra Nerada are pretty good terrifying aliens. And last one, the Krillitane just for being in one of my favorite episodes of Tenth era...and also being terrifying, cause kid me could not watch these episodes but nowadays I can, though we need to question why so many aliens go after kids in this universe, cause you don't escape aliens no matter the age I guess.

And I have not watched much of Classic Who or read much of its extended lore, so I don't have much so far from Classic Who, but Candyman is funny as shit and I love him and I want him to come back, ridiuclous costume and all. And I fucking have a fear of spiders, but the spiders from third doctor era are just, they good villains and they look ridiculous, so onto the list they go, but its probably a good thing SJA didn't go through with bringing them back, given do not want to see them evolve from their puppet form.

[doctorstrangereview]

Strange Tales #118

Cover Date: March 1964 On-Sale Date: December 9, 1963

We get another little milestone for this issue. Doc gets his picture on the cover, not just a text blurb like the previous issue. Also, a call for celebration. Doc faces a foe who isn't Baron Mordo or Nightmare! Hooray! While it isn't cause for celebration or a milestone, Doc wears his awesome cloak for nearly the entire story! Watch carefully. The collar and that cloak will grow with each story until its retirement in about 10 months.

Unusually, we start with Doctor Strange. I'm guessing this will make the foe more mysterious even though we've seen them on the splash page. It's quite a good splash page harkening back to the Atlas monsters and aliens era just a few years ago. The first panel introduces the yet-to-be-named Orb of Agamotto. The orb isn't a crystal ball yet, it's a globe of the earth and parts of the map where the bad men are turn black. Even though no one is present, not even Wong, Doc talks to himself a lot. Is he reminding himself of his duties or does he need his daily affirmations? We may never now.

The scene shifts to the outskirts of some village in the mountains of Bavaria. We see a rock formation that is just a bit too cuboid and words in a pink word balloon emit from it. That's the convention for this story. They speak with colored word balloons. The ominous statement? "The time has come! Go ye forth and possess the humans!" Not very subtle there.

Next we go to the village proper where Herr Braun greets his neighbors. What's that you see? Yes, there is an actual female in the story! And she has two sentences of dialogue! Hopefully Victoria Bentley doesn't get jealous. (Actually, she will in a few years but for different reasons.) After his neighbors compliment Herr Braun on how nice he is, he walks through a dark area and starts glowing green. Fortunately he doesn't turn into a Hulk. He just starts ignoring everyone and they wonder why he's suddenly so cranky. He's not alone. Time passes and more of Herr Braun neighbors turn crank and, of course, everyone starts flailing their arms in the air yelling "Flee! Hide from the possessed!"

In a stunning plot convenience, Doctor Strange shows up. One of the villagers remarks "His manner! His clothes! And most of all... his eyes! How awesome he looks!" And I must say, I agree!

Man, Steve Ditko gave our magician real style in this story. With the cloak covering parts of his tunics symbol (whatever it is) he looks like a weird clergyman. It was a great choice to have him keep the cloak on.

Most of the villagers seem to think Doc is the cause of their troubles, except for an old blind peasant. (Man, this place is full of stereotypes!) The peasant tells him where to find a a possible possessed dude whom the Doctor promptly visits. The cranky possessed guy yells not nice things at the Doctor and gives the game away. Doc magically paralyzes the cranky possessed dude, but the possessor flees just in time so Doc's non-consensual scan only catches a fleeting glimpse of the entity. The possessor runs away to his base and speaks with a non-colored balloon. Is this an oops? It's difficult to tell. There may be a convention where the balloons are only colored when their inside another person, but it's not entirely consistent.

Our runaway possessor is now in an empty field and says "Let the entrance appear!" with a pink colored word balloon. A transparent cube appears followed by some mist which coat the cube in rock. Ah! So that's why that rock formation looked a bit unnatural! Inside a transparent cylinder, his fellow creatures give him a body. He gives his report and the lead creature says "Silly boy, he's just a human! Now get back out there and possess everyone!" Our boy is soon back in the village. Meanwhile, we check in on Doc. He's contemplating the situation doing his best The Thinker pose in the light of a creepy candle. Did mid-century European supply these or did Doc bring his own?

A possessor attempts to possess Doc, BUT, Doc has left his body. There's nothing to possess. Suddenly our bad boy is thrown back by an irresistible force and held fast by Doc in his pale blue astral body. Doc gives him a non-consensual mind probe and blah, blah, blah, extra-dimensional aliens want to conquer the earth. Still not having learned that just releasing your foes isn't a good idea, Doc releases him. Bad boy immediately goes to the possessed mayor who does what the plot calls for: rouses a mob. This is really just a bit of filler. As they approach Doc he easily beats them back by flailing his awesome cloak and finds the ENTRANCE. He breaks through and confronts the aliens, in actual bodies now.

Doc and the leader confront each other. For some reason the alien coats himself in grey rock and tries to non-consensually probe Doc. Meanwhile, Doc's all-purpose amulet tries to melt the rock away. Surprise, Doc wins! He forces the leader to recall all the aliens, return home and seals the entrance behind them. We are left with this final, awesome panel!

Introducing new foes is a breath of fresh air. A locale outside of New York City, Asia or Mordo's castle helps as well. Even though they're only briefly in the background, having a couple of women in the cast breaks up the sausage fest atmosphere of the series. The possessors are portrayed as mysterious. Their from a neighboring dimension and have technology. Are they science? Magic? Some combination? Sadly, Doc will only face them one more time. They would have been interesting as recurring protagonists. Magic is getting more magical, and Doc doesn't need to rely on his amulet for everything. Just some things. I like to believe Ditko enjoyed penciling the story. It gave him new locales and concepts to illustrate. Doc is even less of a dick than usual!

[theteethofgod]

Week One of Random Horror.

Stream of consciousness reviews below (heavy spoilers)

Insidious: Chapter 2.

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/3

Typical that our first spin would land us on a sequel - luckily I watched the first one all the time as a kid so I’m pretty familiar with both plot and characters.

I’ve got to be honest, the majority of my enjoyment of this film came both from how damn good it looks and its commitment to being a Ghost Story™️. The lighting is wonderful, especially for a Blumhouse horror which typically either under light or simply take no creative direction with it whatsoever.

Narratively it’s above average. I am a sucker for a sequel that expertly fills in the gaps from the original and the scenes of Josh in the Further recontextualised without really uprooting some of the best sequences from the first film. Also a big fan of the comic relief of the two idiot ghost hunters trying to contact their dead boss via haunted dice - honestly kinda giving Shakespearean comedy in some places.

Despite some strong scares early on and a very clear love for its neo-gothic aesthetics the film falls flat in the third act. I remember a lot of discourse around whether or not a cross dressing serial killer is transphobic but honestly the bigger crime here is that they do nothing with him. I appreciate the attempt at the twist that the ghost isn’t actually “evil” just desperate to relive a stolen childhood but nothing interesting was done with it and it did feel like the film decided that it was time that you understood that and dropped everything else in favour of conveying this singular idea.

Was it scary? No

Was it fun? Yeah.

Would I recommend? Watch the first one, if you like it keep going.

The Blob (1988 Remake)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

The fact that I have gone my entire life without seeing this is outrageous. I believe that I naively dismissed it due to the ridiculous title (I have never seen the original either). Turns out that this is a properly nasty film. Characters are introduced, fleshed out, made funny, gentle, awful, or just irritating and then all are dissolved in a screaming, writhing mess of stunning practical effects. This film has no regard for horror conventions when it comes to violence: children are dissolved on screen and the sheriff off - his acid eaten body floating past the woman he was on his way to rescue in her final moments.

I can only assume that the twist would have been even more effective had I seen the original - the “alien” turning out to be a US government biological warfare experiment feels uniquely post-Vietnam. Even without the impact of the original story being subverted, it was a great reveal that breathed some brand new tension into a second half that could have fallen flat once the blob had used all his tricks (there’s only so much “oh no he’s on the ceiling” a film can make fun).

Was it scary? Kinda.

Was it fun? Fuck yes.

Would I recommend? Yes absolutely it is on youtube go watch it.

Bone Tomahawk

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

I literally watched this film for the first time like a week ago so of course it would come up immediately.

I don’t know why but the first time I watched this I was absolutely convinced it was a lot older than it is. Maybe it was the first kill where they just bash a totally stiff mannequin around. Maybe it was because I just don’t associate the 2010s with 2 hour long horror western hybrids. Either way, this film is a lot of fun. I’ve read plenty of debate around whether or not it qualifies as a horror film but I think these people are too caught up in base aesthetics. Monsters come to town and kidnap the doctor, a cowboy, the sheriff and his deputy (who defo have something going on, it can’t just be me), and a sketchy outsider must hunt them down and get her back. The film uses the classic western formula but supplements the Cowboys vs Indians model for Cowboys vs Other, whilst maintaining the native presence as kind of mediators - aware of both sides and choosing, fairly, to say fuck that we’re not getting involved.

That’s not to say it’s some kind of radical colonial horror. Instead I think this was simply included to acknowledge the issues of writing a genre that inherently requires the Other in a period of genocide and displacement.

Mannequin kill aside, the gore is fantastic. There’s one scene in particular that is just absolutely sickeningly brutal and I loved it so much.

Not all that much to say about this one - it’s a slow burn character drama against the backdrop of western horror. It’s fun it’s gross there’s cowboys.

Is it scary? No

Is it fun? Yes

Would I recommend? Yes!

The Omen

⭐️⭐️1/2

Full disclosure: I have tried to watch this film many times and this was the only time I managed. Nothing about this really resonates with me. There’s two main subgenres of horror that never really move me, religious and children/family. I was raised not only atheist but completely removed from any form of religion, genuinely believing that Jesus was kinda like santa in the sense that it’s something you tell kids to make christmas more fun. The idea that people genuinely believe in souls and hell and the like is something that I really struggle to empathise with, no matter how much I’ve tried. I also can’t think of anything worse than being married with kids so the whole Desecration Of The Nuclear Family also falls totally flat. Luckily for me this film combines the two and then goes on for all of time. Damien is not threatening, his nurse is not threatening, the dogs are not threatening. The baboons were kind of scary but not exactly the antagonist.

The priest and photographer both had insanely good deaths - the latter felt a little cheapened by how impressed the film seemed to be with it, but good all the same. The graveyard scene was beautifully lit and I was briefly engaged when he got his arm impaled on the fence.

I don’t like this one. It’s boring and I have nothing to say about it. I hope I never have to watch it again.

Is it scary? No

Is it fun? No

Would I recommend? No.

Hatchet

⭐️

I hate this fucking movie. Perhaps unfairly, but hear me out. 2000s horror is perhaps one of the most cohesive periods in the genres history. The post-9/11 practical effects torture porn dirty warehouses rusty metal and that awful brown/green diseased colour scheme that feels like it infects everything it touches. Controversially I do not attribute this to the classic Saw -> Hostel -> Worthless Derivative Imitators that every History Of Horror book will. Instead I think that we do not pay enough attention to the 2003 Texas Chainsaw remake. Tobe Hooper’s OG commentary on the meat industry finds new thematic relevance in the wake of mass loss of life - especially an event such as 9/11 which saw people trapped amongst the dying and the dead, knowing it was only a matter of time. What is that if not the experience of the slaughterhouse. “Torture porn” (which is a whole discussion in itself) was not about the act of killing, it was about the knowledge that you will die. Combine this genuinely compelling emotional foundation with some of the most ridiculous chinese-whisper warped tropes from the classics (sex being thematically important -> some of the horniest shit you’ve seen in your life, for example) and you get the weird offputting hybrid of the schlocky and the cliche with the genuine zeitgeist of the destruction of the body and sudden outbursts of violence.

How the FUCK do you fail at parodying that. By the time Hatchet came around (2006) these themes had become so codified that if you ask anyone about horror, even now in our “elevated” era, they’ll probably default to describing them (aside from maybe the classics, but that’s a given). Hatchet fails to nail down a single piece of commentary on the genre aside from “sexualised girls” (who incidentally are the funniest part of the film for this exact reason). The villain is cool looking and the practical effects are genuinely outstanding but for a horror comedy that consistently seems desperate to reflect on itself it ends up creating nothing more than a below average replication of the genre with perhaps one or two jokes funnier than your average bottom tier slasher. The whole time I just wished I was watching Scary Movie.

Was it scary? No

Was it fun? No

Would I recommend? No

[gyllenhaalstories]

this is so so fun! and i so so cheated! but it's so so okay because the cheat with the spinning rule was about AND for me (confirmed). all is well! but all was not well when i started spinning again and again until i had way too many options. so... i did 5 pairings instead of 3!!! yay me.

thank you for this amazing idea!!! it's so fun to read people's results and i loved writing about these prompts but also it was quite the challenge to write about characters i have never really considered writing for.

warnings: sexual harassment, army, violence, intoxication/drugging, monster fucking cough cough, funerals & death.

Anthony Swofford 💖 "Who hurt you?"

I like thinking you guys are strangers, he's seen you around a few times but he doesn't even know your name. You probably work on the base and you're used to getting a flock of starving seagulls whenever you walk around or wait for your food at the cafeteria. And by seagulls, I mean other soldiers and privates and basically all these guys with pent up testosterone just desperate for a glimpse of cleavage. I think it's obvious where I'm going with this.

A party, could be Christmas or New Year who cares. A party happens and everything goes awry. You're not enjoying yourself at all and you're trying to leave but there's this one very insisting guy who just doesn't get the memo. You keep telling him to get away from you, to shut up, to leave you alone or to let you leave at all but he is not budging. The more you tell him to go fuck himself the more riled up and aggressive he's getting. Maybe you insulted him, spat on his face, threw your glass at him, whatever you tried ended up in him grabbing your arm and roughing you up to force himself on you. You manage to run out of the tent where the party is happening and Swoff sees that. He sees that and it makes his blood boil.

The next day, he waits for you. You're scared at first but he greets you with: "Who hurt you?". The bruising grip of the drunk guy at the party is showing on your skin and Anthony doesn't want it to get worse. A rough grip is only the beginning. At the second your eyes are done scanning the room and spotting the guy, he stalks him like a hawk until he pulls him outside and makes him regret he even laid eyes on you. He finds you again to tell you that the asshole won't hurt you anymore. Before you walk away, you finally ask for his name.

David Jordan 💖 Sex Pollen

Something something he made it home safe from space (and not gangbanged by Calvin the alien). He got to keep a few things from his trip in space, mainly his yo-yo but also... a very limited amount of a foreign substance that Doctor Derry extracted from Calvin. He keeps it in a small bag, he rarely ever reaches out for it except on special occasions. What does it do, you may ask? Not much unless you ingest it. The particules in the air would just make you a bit giddy at best, lightheaded at worst. The effects are more intense in space, he remembered that day when the entire team felt like they were high as Derry explained his discovery. On Earth, they're mainly manageable unless you ingest a considerate amount of it. A wet fingertip dipped into the powder and brushed under the tongue would take you on a wild ride.

One day you ingest it for whatever reason, possibly some experimental treatment very few people have heard of. David retired from active missions in space but he's probably still involved in research to help his fellow astronauts recover from their trip in the void. And through the branches, rumour has it he's trying to reproduce this alien substance to use its benefits to help the astronauts feel better faster after a long mission. It's basically a mood booster of some sort, at least that's what they're trying to develop in the labs. David has the good stuff, the strong stuff, and eventually you meet with him and, hoping to help you with your issues, he offers you to try it. He is not aware of the extent of its powers, but he's aware of it enough to walk you through it. He puts it in your mouth and talks you through every step of it. A feverish warmth in your body, your mind abandoning itself to this urge you cannot fight and resist. You'd be begging for David to help you, to alleviate some of the pain it causes in your core so you can release the endorphins you crave but he would hold back. He would help you, he would assist you, but he would not take advantage of you. When the sex-pollen runs out, he will help you clean up, hydrate and rest. Some sort of one of a kind experience only David can provide.

... Or maybe he did get gangbanged by the alien and inherited some tentacles he has to satisfy every once in a while so they don't cause him harm. He has to sex pollen himself so he can handle the seemingly endless sex drive of Calvin at times (Calvin has his way with David). Perhaps, when the need is too grand for one person to fulfill it, you have to get sex-pollened too so you can both get used beyond your mind and body's limits (Calvin has his way with both David and you).

Tommy Cahill 💖 Childhood Friends to Lovers

I was going to write this prompt whether the wheel wanted me to or not. Any version of friends to lovers screams Tommy to me. Years of secret pining, years of insatiable yearning, years of secret feelings. Years of listening to the same U2 song while thinking of each other!!! The song Tommy introduced you to, the song that might have started it all! You were both waiting to be picked up by your parents after school, Tommy was kicking rocks as far as he could and you were watching him while swaying your lunchbox around. Your respective fathers drove into the parking lot around the same time, windows rolled down, the same radio frequency playing the same song. "My dad likes this song a lot" little Tommy said. "My dad likes it too!" you answered before running to your parent's car as Tommy did the same. You would start to hang out at recess. Tommy was full of energy, he had the best ideas for games. You liked hanging out with him so much. You liked to invite him for a snack after school when your parents let you. He felt more like home with you than with his own family. He had always lived in the shadows of his brother, Sam, except with you. He always wore a beanie on his head even when it was warm. He liked to eat popsicles all year long. He liked sour candies to the point he burnt his tongue with the citric acide. He brought his small collection of Hot Wheels cars to play with you on rainy days at school. You were the only person he invited for his birthday party year after year.

Year after year, Tommy and you were inseparable. Two peas in a pod that, as time passed, got into trouble all of your parents would disapprove of. Your family blamed Tommy for his bad influence, his family blamed him too. You were teenagers, you found new ways to hang out. You would go to the park in the evenings to share a conversation sitting on the swings. You would stay in the school yard to do homework, copying off each other to make up for your weaknesses. You would listen to him while he talked about his father, about his brother. He would listen to you too. You would share his walkman, alternating between who got the headphones to listen to songs you both enjoyed. It became more and more difficult to find time to hang out, you both tried. You tried so hard but it felt as though everything was pulling you apart.

Until you, inevitably, drifted. You focused on your life while Tommy struggled with his. He was getting into fights at school, he started smoking and drinking, he hung out with the wrong crowd. He was a fun and charming guy, everyone loved him. Everyone but his family apparently. It came to a point where you barely saw him at all, he got suspended from school and your parents disapproved of you talking to him even on the phone to catch up on shows you both watched on television or movies you were excited to see at the theatre. Until one day, Tommy disappeared from your life about as suddenly as he entered it. You continued with your projects and he continued with his bad ideas that eventually led him to jail. When you found out about it, you visited him. It was only for about half an hour every month, but you visited him and it felt as though things had never changed between the two of you. You brought your new CD player, the security guards allowed you to let Tommy listen to a recent U2 album you knew he would love. You had pictures developed of your small adventures, of your apartment, of the snowmen you built after a storm. You visited him around Valentine's Day, the last Valentine's Day he spent in prison, and he had bribed a guard so they would buy you a rose at the florist in town. He gave you the rose in the visitor's room and it felt like the most romantic gesture in the world. You almost never missed a visit, if you did he would know about it in advance so he would not get sad. You were the highlight of the several months he spent in jail, the years he spent there until his sentence ended.

Things were not always easy. Tommy had a temper, he had a past with actions you did not always approve of. You had to fight with your family, with the Cahills too so they gave him time to start over. You faced every obstacle life threw his way. When the news broke that his brother was dead, Tommy and you went back to your elementary school. To hang out, to try and remember what it was like to be a kid when your biggest worry was to get as many candies as possible while trick or treating. You watched him as he kicked a rock across the parking lot. You handed him the other earbud connected to your MP3, it played this same song you both loved. Through the years, you guys had held hands and kissed. Silly hand holding all sticky and grimy from a crafts projects at school, silly pecks on the lips after eating cupcakes with too much frosting. Holding hands in high school when you needed support after receiving a disappointing grade. Kissing and laughing about how it was gross to do it with a friend after going for a swing at the park. You had done all of that. But when he held your hand and when he kissed you that night, things changed for the better. It felt as though this kiss spoke for all of the years spent with or without each other, when you were so painfully in love that everyone around the two of you knew it except you.

John Kinley 💖 One Bed

I'm going full sad mode here, but funerals. He's back in America, funerals are held to one of the many men who died under his authority. You're in the family of the deceased guy. John wants to keep it low profile, he wants the focus to be on the man they're celebrating both the life and death of not on the war-hero-but-kind-of-not-heroic-at-all who helped one afghan interpreter get a better life. So he sits towards the back of the church, next to you in fact. You don't talk, it's as if he doesn't acknowledge your presence at all until you hand him you small packet of tissues because you noticed he cried. The funerals end, everyone gathers in the cemetery of endless white graves of all the other fallen soldiers. Except the sky gets dark and heavy, the clouds gather and soon enough rain pours and lightning strikes. Everyone rushes to the nearest restaurants or malls or hotels, for a place to stay dry until the storm passes.

You both end up in the lobby of the same hotel, soaked to the bone from the rain. Phones keep ringing, the computers' system crash from such high demand, the new and modified reservations keep coming in. The hotel manager is trying to calm everyone down and accommodate as best as they can. John, who had already gotten a room, spots you in the crowd. You look distressed. He goes up to you, you tell him you don't know how you can drive home in the rain. He's almost offended you're even considering the option of driving in such weather and put yourself in danger. He offers you to use his room, you can dry up with towels or take a hot shower until the storm passes. Except it doesn't pass. Now, not only are you stuck away from home but you're stuck in a hotel room with a total stranger.

Eventually, night falls and John insists that you get some rest so you can drive home tomorrow. The room only has one bed, not a big one at that either. There aren't enough blankets and pillows to sleep on the ground. John insists he can take the floor if you'd prefer, if it makes you feel safer. He doesn't mind. He's slept on worse surfaces than carpet. That's when you inquire about him. John. As in the Master Sergeant John Kinley? Yes. You feel a bit safer, if he went so far to protect his interpreter, you assumed he was not a bad guy. You both surrender and share the bed, using a decorative pillow as a separation for your peace of mind. Except, you shiver. The cold rain had gotten to you. You shiver and John cannot sleep. John has slept in worse conditions, the loudest noises or the worst smells someone can think of. He has slept surrounded by cadavres after a mission that left him stranded and waiting to be picked up. He's slept through it all (except the emotional turmoil left by Ahmed's uncertain destiny but you don't need to know that) but you shivering and shaking keeps him up. He scoots closer and closer to you on the bed. He puts the decorative pillow between your head and the headboard so you don't hurt yourself. Warmth is warmth, whether it comes from a fireplace or a body, it does the job. He coos at you when you stir in your sleep, he whispers he just wants you to calm down. He rubs your arm, hoping the friction helps your body to warm up and allows you to drift to sleep. You eventually do... John falls asleep too. Holding you, spooning you, keeping you safe.

Elwood Dalton 💖 Fake Dating

This follows the events of that one infamous fight that ultimately ended Dalton's UFC career. They were desperate to improve the public's opinion of Dalton, so people saw him as more than a murderer, so people stopped talking about how he killed Harris in the octagon that night. Many ideas were thrown around: visit an animal shelter and take photos with a funky looking dog, leak a bunch of nudes and make it seem accidental, say he's going to a rehab facility for God knows what. Anything, they considered anything. Brands had ended their contracts with him abruptly, trainers abandoned him, most friends (within and outside of the UFC) left him behind... No one wanted to be around him. No one except you.

Perhaps you were a long-time friend who knew him before he became a notorious fighter, perhaps you were someone who worked with him (assistant? social media manager? nutritionist? a masseuse? skilled trainer who could kick him across the room? professional ice bath provider? you choose). You stayed by his side and watched everyone ditch him in the dirt. His manager (or whatever replacement they got to handle the crisis since his actual representative left as shit hit the fan) came up with this great idea. A new relationship. A new narrative. A new image. After Dalton the fearless fighter, Dalton the rage-filled killer, the world could discover Dalton the loving boyfriend. Dalton could not be more against it, he refuses to drag you into his mess. Your reputation has been affected already, he can't let things get worse. He does not want any of this fake-dating story. But you... You know it would help him. You want to help him.

So you guys start to date. Photos are staged so you post them on your social media, pretending you had been going on several dates with the former fighter. Cute captions, cuter anniversary stories to celebrate months spent together and different milestones in the relationship. Appearances to random events, mostly parties or brand deals when they warm up to Dalton again as they see the traction he is receiving online. You become his arm candy. You can't lie, you appreciate the luxurious treatment but you hate that it makes Dalton so uncomfortable. You knew this fake and extremely public relationship would help him... But did Dalton want to be helped at all? The relationship eventually ends with a photograph of the two of you looking your best. No harm. No bitterness. A mutual agreement your relationship has come to an end. Dalton and you share a moment together, alone, away from cameras and people's nosiness. He tells you that he wants to disappear. That he needs to disappear. You understand and let him choose his fate now that the world sees him as nothing but a furious animal. You let him go. Maybe, eventually, he realizes he made a mistake letting you go too.

i thought i was done but then i was like "aww i didn't get dalton what if i spun one more time in case i got him". and i did get him. <3

i had to research sex pollen because i knew almost nothing about it so i needed some help (fanlore & reddit one of the comments mention this sweet talking through the effects of sex pollen, i didn't even read the whole comment i was sold right away but then i read the comment and it feels like plagiarism oh nooooooo 😭).

this was sooooo much fun! thank you again daphne! i might have girlbossed too close to the sun with the five ideas but i had many more options to pair i could have kept going forever! i love this so much.

Great, now that I have the attention of the right target audience: it's time for another SPIN THE WHEEL - Jake Boys Edition

Spin the character wheel 3 times

Spin the trope wheel 3 times

Pair your characters with the tropes however you like and share in the comments or tags. Got ideas how a combination might turn out? Great, tell us everything!

Choose your favorite trope in the poll if you like (poll under the cut)

have fun (and cheat with the spinning if you want, I won't come for you)

this was inspired by our lovely @harmonity-vibes, I hope you're okay with what I did with your idea

Shamelessly tagging the Crew (hit me up if you want me to stop annoying you):

@gyll-yee-haw @gyllenhaalstories @charliehoennam @harmonity-vibes @jennaajoseph

@billyboyblue@stephendorff @lust4life01 @det-loki @ilovedavidloki

@anunusers @frozen-hearts-club @caffeineplusmypen

The crew=every blog that comes across my dash and interacts with Jake content. If we've never talked: hi! If you want to be part of the crew, dm me. ✨🫶🏻

[sci-fiworlds]

Alien Bad Guys: A Sci-Fi Worlds Top Ten

I originally intended to conclude my loose "paranormal trilogy" in this fortnight's Sci-Fi Worlds, but since the first two installments were featured in Room 101 I thought it best to save part III for there too. So instead, since I'm writing this over the Easter holidays, I thought I'd take it easy a little with a Sci-Fi Worlds Top Ten Alien Bad Guys instead. All just my opinion, of course. Maybe people could post their own top 10 on the BoA forum.

Romulans, Sontarans, Cybermen, The Dominion, Davros and the Daleks are just some of the baddies doing battle to claim top prize as our number one villain in the world of science fiction. Read on and find out ...

10) The Romulans (Star Trek)Homeworld - Romulus and RemusAffiliation - The Romulan Star Empire

Forget the Klingon Empire it was the Romulans who should have been the main protagonists during James T. Kirk's three year reign in the captain's chair. The violent and militaristic Vulcan off-shoots giving the original Enterprise crew one of their very best episodes (if not the best) when they made their début in Balance of Terror.

9) The Minbari (Babylon 5)

Homeworld - Minbar

Affiliation - The Minbari Federation

The Next Generation had its moments but Babylon 5 is the true successor to the original Trek, inheriting some of the best Original Series writers that so obviously influenced B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski.

More casual B5 fans are probably thinking "why are the Minbari in the list? Weren't they good guys?" Yes, for the most part in the series they were, but in the best of the TV movies In The Beginning (which tells the story of the Earth-Minbari War that took place ten years prior to pilot episode The Gathering) they come within a hare's breath of exterminating all humanity in their "Holy war" against the Earth Alliance.

8) The Sontarans (Doctor Who)Homeworld - SontarAffiliation - The Sontaran EmpireRobert Holmes is often celebrated in Doctor Who fandom as the very best of the classic series writers, writing all time greats like The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Caves of Androzani and even the Master's début story the Terror of the Autons. However, it was Holmes' creation of the Sontarans that arguably had the biggest impact on the show. The cloned warrior race being the only Doctor Who monster to invade (on screen) Gallifrey, the Doctor's Homeworld.

7) The Cylons (Battlestar Galactica)Homeworld - Cylon HomeworldAffiliation - The Cylon EmpireCold and calculating. The war machines ruthlessly wiped out and conquered the Twelve Colonies of Mankind in less than 24 hours. What more could you want. (Read my Battlestar Galactica piece for more of my thoughts on the Cylons.)

6) The Borg (Star Trek)Homeworld - Unimatrix One, located in the Delta QuadrantAffiliation - The Borg CollectiveOne of those moments I was talking about above. The Borg saved The Next Generation and the whole Star Trek franchise from total extinction when they kidnapped and transformed Jean-Luc Picard into Locutus of Borg in The Best of Both Worlds.

Single-minded (quite literally, they have a group or hive consciousness) and utterly relentless in their quest for "perfection," this cyborg collective is the ultimate threat to the United Federation of Planets. In the words of the entity Q: "The Borg are the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced. They're not interested in political conquest, wealth, or power as you know it. They're simply interested in your ship, its technology. They've identified it as something they can consume."

5) The Cybermen (Doctor Who)

Homeworld - Mondas (destroyed)

Other Planets - Telos - Planet 14 - Parallel Earth

Affiliation - The Cyber Empire

The original Borg. The Steel Giants from Mondas were assimilating humans before it was cool. Enough said.

4) The Alien, also called the Xenomorph (Alien franchise)Homeworld - unknown (first encountered by the crew of the commercial towing spaceship Nostromo on LV-426, Zeta Reticuli star system)Affiliation - noneThe most realistic looking extraterrestrial species ever shown on the big screen and perhaps the only truly terrifying one. The "Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility … A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."

3) The Dominion (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

Homeworld - The Founder's home planet, located in the Omarion Nebula, Gamma Quadrant

Important Members & Allies of the Dominion- The Founders, aka The Changelings (the "Founders" and ultimate heads of the Dominion)- The Vorta (the Founders' cloned intermediaries acting as Dominion administrators, diplomats, command staff, and scientists)- The Jem'Hadar (the ultimate warrior race and shock troops of the Dominion)- The Cardassian Union- The Breen Confederacy

2) The Shadows (Babylon 5)Homeworld - Z'ha'dum, aka Alpha Omega 3 (destroyed)Affiliation - unknownAn ancient force of conflict and chaos, the very essence of evil. Shrouded in mystery and armed with technology a million years ahead of 23rd century Earth (not to mention the coolest looking ships on TV) the Shadows were easily the best alien race in what many consider the best space opera series ever made.

1) Davros and the Daleks (Doctor Who)

Homeworld - Skaro, aka D5-Gamma-Z-Alpha (destroyed)

Other Planets - 22nd Century Earth - Kembel - The Ogron home planet - Spiridon - Necros

Affiliation - The Dalek Empire

The post of supreme alien bad guys has to go to Davros and his ultimate achievement the Daleks. Brilliant but utterly lacking in conscience, without soul or pity, the mutant madman Davros created the Daleks in his own image. Programmed to "conquer and destroy" all other forms of life the metal monsters soon turned on their creator though and thus began their ethnic cleansing of the Universe.

Together, Davros and the Daleks are the ultimate Who allegory for evil. The only two Who villains to consistently have the Doctor on the ropes. The Dalek's conquering Earth not once but twice (at least) and even being responsible for the deaths of two of the Doctor's on screen companions. Not to mention the near extinction of the Doctor's own people the Time Lords.

[bluebell-wlw]

Want to take a sec to compare some aspects of all the different doctor who show runners to try and explain why I’m so excited for the return of Russell T Davies. This isn’t me trying to say that his era is the only good era or that he’s the only good writer, just why I’m excited for his return to DW.

Chibnall:

- lots of his stories are set on earth in the modern day and there is limited exploration of other planets.

-Many of his characters feel underused and one dimensional. For example, the introduction to Dan in series 13 was great and gave Dan a great personality, but then he had very little to do and was not missed when he left TPOTD after 10 minutes. He mostly served as comic relief and to ask the doctor questions.

-The timeless child story arc made very little sense and was a bad idea.

- very mixed bag in terms of monster design and use. I liked some of the Dalek stories quite a bit though

Moffat:

- his characters had interesting personalities (Clara is not to my taste but that’s just me) but they often had no backstory and very little to ground them in reality. They feel like fairytale people plucked from thin air. They do get plenty to do throughout their stories but they are always Special TM which again leaves them ungrounded.

-absolutely wasted use of Daleks and Cybermen. I loved Missy though, her character arc in series 10 was amazing.

-some of the best episodes of the show are written by Moffat. No matter your opinion of him as a show runner, he was definitely a great episode writer.

-fun alien concepts (especially the silence) and fun exploration of other worlds.

- series arcs were often confusing and a little nonsensical but they were fun and kept me watching anyway.

Davies:

- great characters with backstories, families, lives outside of their life with the doctor, and a strong grounding in reality. Compare Rose to Ryan in terms of what you know about her life outside of the doctor. She is flawed and human and not special at all. She saves the world by doing a stupid human thing and has to get saved, it’s a great scene.

- interesting alien worlds and ideas, although mostly from series 2 onwards.

- mixed bag with alien inventions but some truly great ones like the devil, the judoon, and the family of the blood. Handles classic villains well and keeps them scary by not using them too much. His version of the cybermen used to give me nightmares.

- great series arcs that make sense even if they have some slightly questionable endings.

Neither of the three were perfect and all made some entertaining TV with some fun ideas and characters. When it comes down to it I really don’t think people have stopped watching because they didn’t like a woman doctor or an old doctor or whatever nonsense. They have stopped watching because the writing was inconsistent and ungrounded. I’m my opinion Davies handles show running in its entirety the best, has characters that feel more grounded and relatable, and write great stories with great ideas without overusing classic villains. Like it or not, there is a reason his era was so popular and it wasn’t just because of David (although he is my favourite doctor). I’m hoping Davies can continue what he started while creating something entirely new with Ncuti and bringing back viewers who have left.

[true-blue-megamind]

FAN THEORY THURSDAY: Megamind’s Connections Beyond the Film

Before we get started, it’s time for the obligatory SPOILER WARNING!  

In case this hasn’t been made sufficiently obvious by the fact that this is a post about Megamind written in a fan theory series about Megamind and published on a blog dedicated solely to Megamind, please let me just assure that this article is, in fact, about Megamind.  

If you haven’t seen the film yet yet, I have to question why you’re reading this in the first place.  As well as your taste in animated movies.  I’m definitely questioning that.

Over the years I’ve heard several fan theories concerning connections between the film Megamind and various other forms of media.  Today, let’s delve into just a few.

The first one is so obvious it’s almost painful, but it has to be mentioned.  Megamind is a Superman spoof.  Metro Man is clearly based on the Man of Steel himself, with a hefty dose of Elvis Presley and a larger range of character flaws thrown in for good measure.  (He also seems to contain quite a lot of the Popular Jock archetype.)  The character of Megamind is more complex still, combining elements of Alice Cooper and a nineties Goth theater kid with several comic book supervillains. The best known of the last include alien genius Brainiac and mad inventor Lexx Luthor, but they aren’t the only ones.  Some of Megamind’s engineering and technological inventions call to mind Spiderman villain Doctor Octopus even more than Lexx Luthor, and he also shares some parallels with the mad inventor Dr. Sivana in the SHAZAM comics.

Megamind’s most notable of the latter is the similarity of attitudes toward society.  Both Megamind and Dr. Sivana started off trying to use their inventions for good—the first in the classroom and the second for the betterment of mankind—but both became bitter when people mocked and shunned them.  For Dr. Sivana, this led to a desire to conquer all of Earth while for Megamind, in a sort of microcosm, it led to a similar drive to take over Metro City.  Both Lexx Luthor and Dr. Sivana have, perhaps, the strongest connections to Megamind as share, deep down, a desire to help or protect mankind, and as Lexx Luthor, like Megamind, harbors a secret love for the reporter damsel in their respective stories.  (This desire to do good, especially in the face of corrupt officials, ties into another Megamind fan theory that I will likely discuss in more detail in a later post.)

The connection between Megamind and Alice Cooper, by the way, was extremely intentional.  The creators stated in an interview that, like Alice Cooper, Megamind’s dark, evil self is, in fact, a stage persona.  (Even their clothing, consisting largely of black leather and spikes, is similar.)  That fact is illustrated in the film as we can see that Megamind’s behaviors on- and off-camera tend to be vastly different.  Even as a villain, he is merely playing a role, although in the case of Megamind that role has begun to merge with his self-identity.

There are, however, hints within the world of DreamWorks that Megamind has other connections as well.  The first is fairly recent and intensely interesting. In the Rise of the Guardians, Jamie Bennett, a young boy who still steadfastly believes in the seemingly impossible, mentions “aliens in Michigan,” only to be scoffed at by his friends.  Because Metro City is located in Michigan, (as can be seen briefly when the Death Ray is fired from space,) many fans theorize that the “aliens in Michigan” are none other than Megamind, Minion, and, perhaps, Metro Man. 

This would indicate that the two stories take place in the same world, and that Megamind’s adventures, while well-known in Metro City itself, have been covered up and kept secret from the rest of the world.  (Imagine moving to a moderately-sized city only to discover that—surprise!—there’s an extraterrestrial supervillain in residence and, oh, by the way, if you live downtown homeowners’ insurance is ridiculous!)

The second inter-film connection is less clear, but has spawned some interesting fan theories as well.  The idea is that, like Rise of the Guardians, Monsters VS. Aliens also takes place in the same reality as Megamind.  It’s not too far fetched—after all, both films involve extraterrestrials and amazing inventions—but there is one specific theory that really ties the two together.  Consider this for a moment: Megamind is a blue alien with incredible intelligence who hails from a destroyed planet.  Does that sound like any other DreamWorks character you know?  If you’ve seen Monster VS. Aliens, the antagonist, Gallaxhar, probably springs to mind.

According to Fandom.com, Gallaxhar’s official backstory is that he “destroyed his home planet” for the implied reason that “he experienced bad childhood and unhappy marriage.”  The fan theory is that that Gallaxhar’s planet was, in fact, Megamind’s home world, and that the former created or harnessed the black hole which destroyed it.  This would explain why Megamind’s people—as well as Metro Man’s—didn’t have time to escape despite being space-faring.  You see, black holes take millions of years to develop, and even a rogue black hole would take about a million to shift and swallow an entire solar system, so if the event had occurred naturally, there should have been plenty of time to build an entire fleet of spacecraft and leave for Earth or another safe planet.  (The fact that Megamind’s parents set his escape pod’s navigation system for Earth indicates that they knew of its existence.)

Of course, despite their large heads and blue skin tones, there are quite a few physical differences between Megamind and Gallaxhar.  The first is humanoid while the second has four eyes and tentacles instead of legs.  Fan theories have explanations for that, too, however.  

There appear to be two schools of thought on the subject.  The first is that Gallaxhar was another breed of alien living on the planet, possibly a servile race different from Minions, and the second is that part of Gallaxhar’s “bad childhood” involved being experimented upon, thus giving him his bizarre appearance and his seeming obsession with experimenting on others.  (There is some disagreement in the Megamind fandom about exactly why Gallaxhar was subjected to such treatment, ranging from falling into the hands of an unscrupulous scientist to being part of an experimental medical program.  The latter fan theory suggests that Gallaxhar was both blind and paraplegic, and that his additional eyes and tentacle “legs” were meant to rectify that, but that those physical differences made him an outsider, thus leading to his unhappy life and ultimate hatred for his own planet.)

If that were true, many may wonder what, exactly, Megamind might do if he ever found out about Gallaxhar.  Well, good news!  Just like there’s an app for everything, there’s a fan theory for that, too!  I will warn you, however, that this one is, frankly, build upon pretty thin evidence.  However, it’s interesting enough to be worth relating.

There is a character in Monsters VS. Aliens named General Warren R. Monger who, on the surface, is exactly what he appears to be: a high-ranking military man.  However, there are a few things that fans point to as possible evidence that Monger isn’t what he seems.  

The first is so simple that, alone, it would be inconsequential.  Monger rose through the ranks uncommonly fast, so much so that it caused some comment among others.  The second is significantly odder; Monger claims to be ninety years old despite looking like he is in his late forties.  Now, of course, this may have simply been the character exaggerating or messing with the “monsters” under his care, but some fans say it’s more than that, and claim that Monger chose that age because he was unfamiliar with human lifespans.  Next there is the fact that Monger is so intelligent that, despite one of the beings in his containment facility. Doctor Cockroach, being a super-genius, Monger outwits every escape attempt the monsters can make.  Then, of course, there is the fact that, despite his brusque manner, Monger seems to actually sympathize with the inhuman people he is charged with containing, and even pushes for them to be given a chance to prove themselves.  There is the oddity that, although he is assigned to the secret military base at “Area Fifty-Something,” Monger seems to disappear a lot, often for days at a time.  Finally, there are a few key physical and technological attributes: Monger has some odd and incredibly energetic facial expression—including a nearly maniacal smile and a dark scowl—as well as a jet pack that he appears to have constructed himself and green eyes.

I’m still not certain I see the resemblance, but maybe there are some similarities?  What do you think?

If you’re familiar with Metro City’s resident blue alien, you can probably see where this is going.  Although it’s not a popular theory, I’ve heard it suggested in the Megamind fandom that Monger is, in fact, Megamind disguised using his holowatch.  (This is why the green eyes are significant; Megamind’s eye color is the only aspect of his appearance that the holowatch doesn’t change.  However, I feel compelled to note that the shade of green appears to be different.) Fans insist that it would have been easy for someone as incredibly brilliant as Megamind to hack government systems and forge documents such as birth certificates thoroughly enough to dupe even U.S. Military Intelligence. The two jet packs, some have contested, look different either because of the disguise or because the one featured in Monster VS. Aliens is an older model. I’ve even seen the fact that both Megamind and Monger begin with M being pointed to as possible evidence that the latter is no more than an invention of the former.

The argument is as follows: as Monsters VS. Aliens takes place in 2009, one year before events in Megamind, it’s possible that Megamind, still being a villain, created an alter-ego which he could use to help him search for and deal with other alien life.  (He is shown to be painfully lonely, and the Megamind comics reveal his desperate desire to find other survivors from his home planet.)  Upon figuring out who Gallaxhar was, and more importantly what he had done, Megamind wanted to be part of taking him down.  But he couldn’t be too open about it; he was, after all, still a “Bad Guy.”  This theory explains Monger’s frequent long absences—during those time Megamind was back in Metro City taking care of his regular business— as well as why Monger had a secret soft spot for the “monsters.”  Megamind, having always been treated like a monster himself, would naturally want to give them a chance, but wouldn’t dare behave in too overtly friendly a manner as it would have aroused suspicion.

As I said, support for that particular theory is, perhaps, a little thin, especially given the fact the Monsters VS. Aliens preceded Megamind, so character designs from the former are unlikely to have been influenced by the latter.  Nonetheless, I admit to appreciating the complexity and creativity of it.  It’s an undeniably fun theory. If they haven’t already, maybe someone will write a fan fiction about it one day.

Those are only a few of the theories out there connecting Megamind with other fandoms.  One could go on and on about the subject, but I won’t torture readers by doing that.  Nonetheless, it illustrates once again the immense love and original thought that Megamind fans put into developing their theories!  I dare say that few other animated movies have earned a following so dedicated and inventive…  But, then, any of us who love the film Megamind will tell you that it has more than earned the consideration!

[rebellum]

Every once in a while I'm reminded that I'm like actually traumatized from being mentally ill and the helplessness I felt

Like I've been okay for maybe around a year now, actually good, I'm no longer disabled

But I still have rough nights like tonight where it's like I can't help but think about it and daydream scenarios where I tell people about how absolutely failed I feel I was from the people around me

Like I did what you're supposed to do in that situation- I told multiple trusted adults about my mental health issues. And my mum helped a lot, definitely, and she did her best, I don't fault her for that, but no one else did anything either

I wish I had gone behind my mums back earlier

At 17 I knew how anti-medicstion she was (or, thought she was, it was a whole situation where she's not actually anti medication and just felt like it was best to tell me that meds wouldn't help bc she wanted to help me to feel better, esp since in her opinion I wouldn't have gotten medication while under 18)

and finally went to a psychiatrist who of course was like "oh my god yes I will help you" because she realised if wasn't fucking okay or normal for a teen to hallucinate when they get anxious and have paranoia and be so desperate for death from depression

And im. Starting to realise by typing this out that I don't think my mum did really do her best, maybe. She still should have taken me to a doctor. When your 15 year old tells you they want to die and that they think aliens are after them and that almost every day they feel spiders crawling all over them, you take them to the fucking doctor, not hope it goes away because you had a simular mental health issue that went away in your early 20s

I was just in such desperate need of help and almost no one helped me. I went to my aunt and she was basically like wow that sucks. I told my acting instructor and she, to my absolute befuddlement, told me anxiety was actually good because without it people wouldn't do things like meet deadlines. No one fucking helped me and its been 13 years since the whole thing started happening that made me spend ages like 12-21ish in absolute agony. So I guess I just get into states like this sometimes where I can't help but feel terrible that at 12 years old I literally wrote a suicide note every single month but chickened out. For years I've thought like, that's fine, 12 is almost 13 and therefore basically a teenager, and many teens have rough times, so it's actually good that I got to have 11 years of childhood

But as I get older and more separate from my past self I realise that wasn't enough

That there are 15 year olds worried about normal teens things like if someone has a crush on them, and that adolescence is actually a part of childhood, and that it was robbed by me by my mental illness. I've so far bad to spend my early 20s where other people emotionally are at teens because I straight up fucking missed a big part of my development. Of course I'm traumatized. I don't even know how to deal with it though. This times where I can't help but imagine explaining it get farther apart, at least. I haven't had one like this in months.

I think I still feel helpless. I m no longer disabled but i still struggle and I still feel like I'm under control of some monster of mental illness. And I don't even know if it's normal or not! I don't know if everyone in their 20s feels helpless like they're on a raft in an ocean because they know what they need to do and how to do it but have to deal with the idea that their body just won't let them do it. I've been in uni since fall 2016 because of mental health issues making me drop my classes, and I'm supposed to have just one year left, and I plan on doing it, and I want to do it, but an outside force may stop me from completing it on time. And yeah maybe just everyone young feels this way, like some mercurial outside force is keeping them tethered. And maybe I'm just being a baby about it. Or maybe crying about it is also a normal and okay part of it and I'm not being stupid and oversensitive.

Tomorrow will be better, I suspect, today has just been a REALLY rough day for me

[doccywhomst]

16. Who is the most human Doctor?

17. Best multi-Doctor story?

18. Best Doctor monologue?

57. In your opinion, what makes a monster good?

71. Favourite piece of alien tech?

80. Will DW age well/stay popular in the future?

81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor?

87. If you could ask the Doctor anything, what would you ask?

88. Historical figure you’d like to meet?

89. How do you think you’d meet the Doctor?

91. Historical event would you like to see in DW?

92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW?

100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do?

if you have the time for all these 👀

*cracks knuckles* HERE WE GO

16: oh, lord- okay. so, i think that they're all human and inhuman in different ways, which makes this really challenging to answer. they all feel very human, and at the same time, alarm bells go off in my brain when they do literally anything! thirteen is anxious and more skittish, twelve has physical boundaries but is very kind (like a lot of people i know), eleven is a total dad but also very not human, and it goes on and on.... it's hard to choose.

if you forced me to, i'd say that five is the most human. he radiates That's Just A Guy energy like nobody else, despite the celery.

17. do i even have to say it??

in the show: THE FIVE DOCTORS

in the audios: ZAGREUS

18. it's fuckin... fucjin THIS SCENE, IT KICKS SO MUCH ASS!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA-

these scenes are tied for a VERY close runner up slot-

57. well... funnily enough, i don't really think about the monsters in doctor who! for me, they exist to facilitate stories in which characters overcome limits, form friendships, and try new things. so, i suppose, any monster that makes the characters develop as people or face their fears is a successful one.

71. my favorite alien tech is mostly gallifreyan - the fob watch, chameleon arch, confession dial, stellar manipulator/hand of omega. i'm mostly a fan of the show because of the lore and the characters, and these devices facilitate a lot of stories! they also look dope-

80. honestly, i think we passed the point of no return a long time ago. doctor who will always be a beloved show - if not for its plots and characters, then for its endless sandbox universe of infinite potential!

81. it seems like, no matter where anyone goes, they're always on the brink of death, or kidnapping or poisoning or getting maimed or blown up or shot or- anyway. seeing this, i'd take the risk and go to an alien planet in the distant future. i want to see new things!

87. oh, jesus. if i could ask them anything?? to be fair, i'm not sure if i'd even want to know most stuff about them, since it would probably be hopelessly depressing. i guess... i would ask if they miss being a parent. then i'd finally get closure about whether or not they see most of their companions as friends or replacement grand-children. (sorry susan)

88. historical figure i'd like to meet.... probably fuckin nobody. i feel like i radiate socialist atheist leftist vibes and they'd sense it and hate me instantly. and i don't want to meet any old dudes (oscar wilde, darling, you're exempt from this), so that's like 70% of historical figures that are totally off the table. i guess... gráinne o'malley. maybe.

89. i'd meet the doctor by running towards an explosion to see if i could help anyone. when i get there, they'd probably be like, "here! hold these two wires together!" and then run off. and i'd just... hold the wires.

91. god, i'd love to have a historical joan of arc episode, but i think it would be way too dark for the show... i know that she's problematic, and that religious topics are largely a no-no, but her story is so tragic but inspiring for young girls - not in the "violence is the answer" way, but in that "standing up for yourself/being steadfast in a society that hates you for existing is a moral imperative, and if they don't see it now, then your strength and resilience will change the future for the better." same goes for civil rights stories, and the stonewall riots! GIVE THEM TO ME!!!!!!!

92. the whole bit about dancing around gender is... frustrating. because we just got our first female-presenting doctor, but so far, there's been virtually no discussion about how she feels, what she thinks, what she wants! yes, gallifreyans are beyond gender, but also, this is a brand new experience! the doctor has been male-presenting for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. regardless of how distanced the doctor is from how their body looks, i feel like there should've been... something. anything. i feel like the BBC just didn't want to deal with gender because then they'd risk angering Those Fans™️ by validating/exploring body dysmorphia and the trans experience in a way that isn't a joke.

100. i'd basically do what Stranded, or The Power of Three, or Vincent and the Doctor did! i want an episode where the doctor and their companions are stuck in a normal place and a normal time, and they have to deal with the cabin fever together. i'm not sure how well that would translate into just one episode - it would be more of a season, and the doctor would start finding aliens to talk to on earth, maybe forming a little support group for their own sanity. then, at the end, the companions and this rag-tag bunch of aliens would come together to save the world! all around, a season about friendship.

[relative-dimension]

“The Survivors”

Season 1, episode 6 - 28th December 1963

[id: The Doctor, distressed, says “We have no drugs.” /end id]

The first appearance of the most iconic Doctor Who monsters! I find it so weird that they stuck gold so quickly on alien designs - imagine if it had been the Sensorites, or something from the Keys of Marinus, that had come first. The Daleks themselves are intimidating, and the shot where their full designs are revealed is fantastic and honestly one of the best “monster reveal” shots in the show. The mysteries built up in the episode are also interesting. That being said, it does go quite slowly, as it’s a middle episode of a 7-part story and doesn’t have enough plot to move along past more than a few plot points (the TARDIS wiki summary is surprisingly brief for once)

Is it an entertaining watch: 3/5, it moves a little slowly, and the introduction of plot elements is saved for later, but it’s still pretty good!

Does the production hold up: 4/5, the Dalek designs are iconic for a reason. Likewise, the city itself is still beautiful.

Does it use its time well: 4/5, yes, there’s a bit of development of the radiation sickness plotline before the Daleks show up, then the tension of the Daleks as an enemy keeps the episode afloat until the end. Cliffhanger’s a bit crap but ah well, no episode can be perfect. I mean maybe they can, but not yet.

Are the characters consistent and well-used: 4/5, Susan gets her moment to shine, although a lot of that is running through a forest and looking scared. Obviously it’s hard for a 25 minute episode to have equal weight to all four regulars, but this does fairly well to strike a balance in my opinion.

Is there anything actually going on under the surface: 3/5, the nuclear devastation thing is still there, but the things set up here will be explored later on more than they are here.

Does it avoid being a bit dodge with its politics: 4/5, there’s nothing that bad that I can think of.

Overall Score - 22/30