#alexis.exe

[moonlitlex]

also frankly i'm sick of this chibnall revisionism just because rtd2 is ass. "chibnall era was always so good and you guys were haters" no. no it wasn't and it still isn't.

even if rtd2 is worse than the chibnall era (i'm not sure i agree with this, at least not yet) that doesn't make the chibnall era good. 13 is still extremely out of character. the "fam" is still made up of cardboard cutouts of people. chibnall still introduced dhawan master, supposedly placed him after missy in the timeline, and undid a 3 season long character arc for the master in one fell swoop. the politics in chibnall's era were still dogshit. two writers can be bad at writing at the same time. two different creative teams can fumble the bag on doctor who.

there isn't one "villain" of doctor who. i know it would be easy if there was. but there isn't.

it's been a while since chibnall's era but you chibnall fans need to understand that even if you personally enjoyed it, it was still shit. the pro amazon episode and revealing the master's race to the nazis scene and "actually graham trying to comfort you about your cancer makes me feel kind of weird so fuck you" scene all still happened. this is out of character writing. that's not the doctor.

[moonlitlex]

[moonlitlex]

hi crisis mode can yall please please please help me pay my overdraft fees at my bank

i wasn't even overdrawn initially so they charged me for nothing at first and it takes several days and like 50 bucks to do the bank transfer from my other bank (its an international transfer) and they add 5 more dollars in od fees every single day and i really really need to get out of the negative please help a girl out 🙏

paypal - [email protected]

EDIT: CRISIS MODE OVER THANK YOU TO THE WONDERFUL PEOPLE WHO PAYPALLED ME!!

[moonlitlex]

I personally also dislike billie and David coming back as new doctors. Maybe its because I wasnt around when their season was on television. But also David can come back as 10 anytime. Could literally make up a reason to follow him in the 14 specials, like the newly generated doctor is missing and 10 has to find him. Having David as 14 to just seems redundant. And with billie i just know rose will be a plot point and I just want something new. And ncuti was so fun its sad to see him go and even if he chose to quit regenerations used to be big events and this one was not and it got overshadowed by billies return. And this sours billie returning too cause I want to keep ncuti.

yeah, i agree with you. bringing david and billie back was 100% a "shit, we're losing viewers and we don't know what to do. quick, come up with some nostalgia bait that will drum up engagement".

but the thing is, this kind of casting decision can only do so much for a show that is suffering because of bad writing. and i also think it's a sign that the people at disney/the bbc/whoever else i need to blame just really don't understand the doctor who and casual, non-fan audience dynamic.

i've already spent years harping on the bad writing so i won't touch on that right now. but there's this thing with brits and doctor who where doctor who was kind of a cornerstone of their childhood for a lot of people. but not all of these people grew up to be doctor who fans. so, it's still something they recognize and care about to some extent, but it's not enough that they'll follow the show. these are the people who watch specials and if they feel intrigued enough, they'll start actually watching the show too.

these are the people who came back to doctor who when they announced david's return. but david's return was 3 "anniversary" specials that didn't really celebrate the history of the show and did nothing to keep them. they just wanted to see david tennant on screen again, maybe because they remember when he was the doctor and they remember liking him. and the 20 minutes of screen time gatwa got did absolutely nothing to sell him to the audience. it still feels like a david tennant doctor story, and ncuti gatwa is just also there. so casual viewers weren't really sold on the new doctor.

it's likely going to be the same with billie. i've already seen several people talk about how their casual viewer friends and family are so excited to have billie back because they loved rose. but it's going to be the same thing. casting billie will appeal to the casual fans who just like rose, but it's not doing anything to keep them around.

but like.... even if they're nostalgic for 2005-2009 doctor who, recognizable faces is not what made them fans in the first place. they weren't huge household names back then and they would not have been a draw to most people. casting david was even a controversy because he was too young and hot. billie had literally only been in a handful of things before doctor who. i know chris was already well known, but i don't think he was the draw. the draw was "doctor who is back, guys!" and the show built a larger fanbase based on its own merit, not based on name recognition.

the horrid thing to me is they're kind of destroying the show right now focusing on trying to appeal to people who are only mildly interested in doctor who. instead of us, the actual fans of the show, who will be watching even if they cast complete unknowns as doctor and companion.

like.... what did david being the fourteenth doctor even add? why couldn't he just have been the tenth. hell, why couldn't we have had a different type of 60th anniversary altogether? i know both jodie and ncuti were unavailable for filming, but they weren't the only two options! we could have done a multi-doctor story with no incumbent doctor. we could have just brought david and catherine back anyway and set it sometime in season 4. there are so many previous doctors and companions who are still alive and willing to come back to the show for specials. do that instead.

and that way, you aren't literally bending the rules of the doctor who universe to allow a third david tennant doctor. especially a third david tennant doctor right before you introduce ncuti gatwa, your first incumbent black doctor. and he doesn't even regenerate normally. david tennant splits down the middle because rtd is that allergic to killing this man (seriously— first with tentoo, then with ten's actual regeneration, and now with "fourteen". twice can be a coincidence, but three is definitely a pattern). and we just did the same thing with billie piper now.

i don't really care if she's going to be the doctor or not. the fact is that first and last stories before/after regeneration are a big deal. and both of ncuti's were overshadowed by rtd's favourite white people from his 2005-2009 run. it would be terrible for literally any doctor, but the fact that it's the first incumbent black doctor leaves a particularly sour taste in my mouth.

ncuti barely got to make his mark. the writing he got was horrible. and he didn't even get to stay the full 3 seasons as is standard for nuwho doctors (and yeah, i know he chose to leave, but i think anyone would choose to leave when you don't even know if the show is renewed or not. you can't leave your career in limbo like that). but he brought good energy to the role! he could have been such an interesting doctor but he barely even got to be the doctor. rtd was constantly writing fifteen to be out of his depth and have bizarre morals. and instead of trying to make the show good he just fell back on nostalgia bait again.

i genuinely can't keep watching this show right now. i said this after the pro genocide eurovision episode too, but if there was any doubt in my mind, reality war totally destroyed it. and if it wasn't the rest of that episode, regenerating into billie piper 100% would have destroyed it. doctor who is eating itself. it's gone from bringing back old enemies to just showing you things you recognize and hoping it'll make you happy. bringing back a 2005-2009 actor once was bad enough, but i let that slide because i was hoping an actually good show would follow. this, after the garbage writing we've had for two seasons? i'm just not interested anymore. i don't care. i will come back after they replace rtd as showrunner (but not if his successor is pete mctighe lmao). until then i just really don't fucking care what kind garbage rtd is vomiting onto a paper and calling a script.

[moonlitlex]

i can't believe we're having the was nico good rep or important rep conversation in the year of our lord 2025 i thought we resolved this when hoh was released and gay people across tumblr went why the FUCK did riordan have to write the most traumatizing forced outing scene possible for nico

[moonlitlex]

it's weird i really didn't have "rtd reframes martha's story as a masterclass in character writing by character assassinating belinda" on my bingo. but that did happen

[moonlitlex]

ok i'll actually talk about reality war now. but that episode was so bad and had sooooo many fucking problems that i'm not even going to touch on everything or go into detail because we'll be here all week. and none of us want to have to think about reality war for that long

that plot was stupid as fuck ended halfway through the episode and then focused on poppy for absolutely no fucking reason. i don't even have anything to say about that. it's just bad writing.

villains:

that is not the rani. that is the master. unfortunately flood escapes so this stupid shit isn't even over yet. also giving archie panjabi (the brown rani) fuck all to actually do and then having her eaten by omega is both unsatisfying from a writing perspective and also racist.

that is also not omega. and killing omega with lasers is literally the same plot as last season's finale.

protags:

literally everyone is out of character, maybe except for ruby. the doctor treating ruby like she's fucking crazy because she remembers something no one else does is stupid and he would never do that. kate saying they're all his children because he saved him is stupid and she would never say that.

i can't even express in words how much belinda's treatment in this episode pissed me off. like, this woman started off the season as a headstrong and independent nurse. and all those crumbs of characterization are slowly stripped away from her until she's worse than a piece of cardboard. her entire previous personality gets 100% overwritten just to be "mother". mother to a child she didn't chose to have. she has literally never even expressed a desire to BE a mother before. and then she LITERALLY gets fridged for half the episode in the fucking zero room. and THEN all of reality gets rewritten to take away all of belinda's autonomy and turn her into a housewife (yes i know she's still a nurse, that doesn't change the taking away all her autonomy to turn her into a housewife thing). she doesn't even have any memory of her actual life. the one she lived. it's all rewritten so she always had a daughter. you know, the thing wish world was SUPPOSED to be criticizing, because it was conrad's 50's inspired dystopia. but no, we're doing that for real now. this part of the episode is genuinely fucking horrifying and 15 AND the episode treats it like its wonderful beautiful amazing and bittersweet at worst. because at least belinda gets to be a mom! you know, something she never expressed a desire to be. with a child that was literally invented out of thin air for the dystopia. and the doctor just leaves here there like that. horrifying. also this is just racist. he did the martha thing AGAIN except at least martha got to have autonomy and leave the tardis on her own terms and save the world (through something stupid) in her finale. belinda didn't even get that.

and oh, you thought poppy was going to be important or relevant? no :) poppy ends up just being belindas child with some fucking guy that she didn't want. she's not even relevant to the PLOT. fucking. hello? this is ass backwards writing. more than half the episode was about poppy. poppy who is irrelevant and does fuck all except make belindas life a horror story. and why does she resemble poppy from space babies? we don't know.

let's talk about the other callbacks, hm? this episode has the same desire to do callbacks that end of time did. but end of time was the finale to a good era of television.

anita. okay, i get why she's here. i get why she works at the time hotel (plot stuff + cooler version of the job she was already doing). why is she pregnant? why does she keep denigrating her awesome job and time key with "i just work in hospitality"?

conrad. literally did not have to be him. could have been any incel. and he gets a happy ending too. unlike belinda.

joy from joy to the world. unnecessary

there's probably more i've missed but i can't be fucked to think about it

lore/background stuff?

timelords are sterile. why? so that the plot of this episode can happen. that's it. not so that we can explore what that means, but so we can give the rani a motivation for this extremely stupid finale that doesn't make any sense they come this close to saying looms but they don't

omega is a god now? because wish world something something becomnig myths something something. just don't think about it too hard

is bigeneration explained now that's it's happened twice? no

misc stuff

susan????? hello????? 2 seasons of teasing susan just to do fuck all with it

TIMELORDS LITERLALY CAN HAVE KIDS REMEMBER JENNY FROM SEASON FOUR HELLO

rogue??? and why was he skying the doctor from hell?

ruby isn't even mentioned again?

why is rose noble even in this episode?

i hate any mention of thasmin personally because they were very poorly written

but thirteen was still my favourite part of this episode as someone who hates thirteen.

bringing billie back is just the straw that breaks the camel's back. it's plain nostalgia bait. that's it. it's creatively bankrupt. russell has been doing a "greatest hits" of his first run as showrunenr since he came back. this is just the final hole in the coffin.

frankly i don't care what the justification for bringing billie back is. it was already paper thing with david and it shouldn't have happened again. it should especially not have been the bookend to the first black doctor's tenure on the show. it just undermines ncuti's doctor.

this is the end of fifteen. and what a fucking terrible shit garbage horrible ride it has been. i didn't once feel like fifteen was actually characterized AS THE DOCTOR. ncuti had potential but it doesn't matter now because he's gone. rtd gave chris a better character arc in 13 episodes than he gave ncuti in 18. the white blond 19 year old companion was better characterized than the fucking doctor and the brown woman companion.

i genuinely can't watch this show anymore. if interstellar song contest didn't solidify that deal then this episode would have. doctor who used to be good. it's not the nostalgia. go back and watch pre-2018 doctor who right now. go and watch rtd1. for all its faults, it used to be a good show with good writing and interesting characters. they need to fire rtd. they need to retcon this entire era. they need to put the show on hiatus for another 20 years. i don't know. something needs to change. because this is genuinely the worst episode of television i have ever watched. rtd is so obsessed with nostalgia baiting and fanservice that he isn't even pretending to write anymore. and doctor who, a show that is fundamentally built upon constantly changing and evolving and looking to the future, cannot carry on like this.

[moonlitlex]

i'm not like. an annotation style elitist. but genuinely the way some of these booktokers annotate their videos confounds me.

you'll see someone with extremely detailed annotations with like 500 sticky tabs in the whole book and it makes you think wow there's so much going on here. and then the annotations are just OMG! and they've highlighted 90% of the book and they've underlined everything. everything they write are just various reactions like omg! cute! wow! i gasped! hot! etc.

it just screams "i want my book to look like a serious reader owns it" but they straight up just don't understand the purpose of annotating. i don't even understand the use case for this type of annotation because like... are you really not going to know it was a cute scene on a reread unless you highlight the entire 5 pages? is this something you need to draw attention to?

it's just like. wild. to see these books with every single free space covered in annotations. the way someone writing a thesis about that book would do. but then you look at the content of the annotations and it is confusingly just someone's immediate reactions to what they've read.

which is like. it's good. that's definitely a part of annotating. but annotation is a tool to understand and analyze a text. and this is not what is going on.

and what is MORE confounding is when people who annotate like this SELL THEIR ANNOTATED BOOKS???? FOR MONEY??? THAT PEOPLE BUY ON PURPOSE????

GIRL LISTEN TO ME YOU DO NOT NEED SOME OTHER RANDOM BITCH SCRIBBLING HER FIRST REACTION ALL OVER A BOOK WHY DO PEOPLE BUY THESE WHAT THE FUCK