#rowanrants

[daddyellis]

I really need to rant.

serious notp for me is Frick, Francis/Nick, whatever you want to call it like---- i don't yuck anyone's yum but it does nothing for me i literally cringe whenever i see it and it's so frustrating because for some reason, my dash seems to believe the opposite and is torturing me. I just wanted to rant, it's not the physical dynamic of the ship its the social one I just think Francis is an idiot and Nick doesn't seem like the kind of person to spend time with anyone who isn't mildly intelligent for any extended period, and Francis seems like someone who takes their idiocy seriously, wears it pridefully and isn't interested in changing--- i'm happy for him about that, i enjoy that aspect of his character, it's okay to be a himbo, it's okay to be willfully dumb, but I just don't see the ship dynamic between him and Nick, I feel like Nick would suffer him without any meaningful affection and that's just not my toxic old man yaoi ship----

And before you come at my like 'but your otp/3tp is Nick/Ellis (Keith)' excuse me let me introduce you to the concept of a 'hick genius' and level up your comprehension.

Country people are side eyeing you folks that make Ellis an idiot. He's not meant to be read that way. it's funny how that's the kind of education we're talking about in this instance, and I don't see Nick loving Ellis because he's book smart, it's street smart, chaos with accuracy and the guts to take a chance.

Francis just negs everything and enjoys life that way. I just can't see it. Nick complains with motivation, like he's interested in promoting changed behavior without saying it directly, it reads into a submission for his own self loathing and I think Francis would just reinforce that. I think he'd make Nick depressed. And that literally makes me sad.

I also get frustrated in a similiar way about Nick/Coach but a lot of people handle that dynamic sooooooo much better than Frick. I just hate it. I'm mad at my dash for showing it to me. I'm happy for the people who create it their art is amazing and I hope they're having a wonderful time like truly, no judgement. Just needed to vent about my own headcanons.

I just want Nick to be able to be who he is without being subjected to bullying. Is that so much to ask?

[rowanthestrange]

Look, it’s just killing me, because THAT was the point to have the Doctor snap.

You have this golden moment where your finale episode is going to air, BUT then you have another one in three weeks.

You have to leave the Doctor likeable. You have to leave her whole and intact.

But that episode right there? You could have snapped her so hard it damages her. Because you get to fix it in a few weeks time. Get your “Resolution”. Leaving her in a bad way that you should never do, to rebuild her on New Years.

Say she snaps in the Special - which she should do, but I dunno anymore, my expectations of good writing may be too high - just say she does. Firstly, you can’t have her break as hard as you could have in that last episode. She has to be usuable afterwards. She has to exist in people’s imaginations for over a year. Whatever you do (particularly this Doctor with the BBC’s knife to her throat), she has to remain ‘functional’ in the downtime, just in case.

And secondly, it means the Doctor snaps because of the Dalek. The Dalek that was unexpected, and shows a side of the Doctor that their companion hasn’t seen before. Murderous and dangerous and traumatised and volatile.

But we already did that episode. It was called ‘Dalek’. It was very good, but I don’t need a carbon copy of it for Thirteen. There are a thousand stories you could tell, a thousand ways to show the Doctor at breaking point. If you can only think of using a Dalek to do it, damn it that’s just lazy. And at this point, frankly plagiarism. I had enough of that with Darth-Sha, so don’t take Nine.

Which means we are in a pickle aren’t we? Because either she snaps and it’s deja vu and comparative gifsets and a subtle feeling of disappointment because we already know this story and deep down know it could’ve been more scary, or she doesn’t snap and we fight the urge to set things on fire. For a year.

[daddyellis]

gotta say, having a weird funk homies.

like yesterday, i just, had a break down because i'm convinced ellis hates me

he's... not able to hate me. and i'm not saying the like introject i have of him in my system. Nope. Actual, fictional, left4dead Ellis, for no other reason than a feeling I had that spun out in a ridiculous amount of pointless thoughts and internal commentary that *system Ellis helped me with*

dfkghsdkghsdfhg

i'm loosing my goddamn mind. Or just probably having a bad week. I tend to freak out when it's cloudy for days and then the sun doesn't set twice in a row it just gets dark and light and dark and light and CHRIST ALMIGHTY PLEASE CHANGE THE WEATHER i would be happy if it snowed, i would be happy if it poured cats and dogs, i'm tired of wind and clouds and a tiny patch of blue sky right before sudden nightime. what the fuck man?

I would like to uninstall these skyboxes please, it's driving me crazy.

[rowanthestrange]

Reasons To Be Mad At Kerblam #5479

That girl was all about having never gotten a present, right? Establish excessive gift buying as a standard part of the culture - makes sense, it’s an Amazon rip. Now it’s a thing that the exploding gifts are mostly for kids. That kids are the ones who fiddle with bubble-wrap. ‘Kerblam!’ gift-wrap the damn boxes.

And finally, get the Director to realise that “But that's not a weapon, it's a toy.” should have had 50x the emotional impact it actually had, which is to say none.

[rowanthestrange]

Writing the alternate finale (and I’m still not promising anything until it’s posted), but I realised that I basically have nothing to guide me here, because I actually kind of hate nearly every finale Doctor Who has ever done.

Series One: Actually really like this one, only gripe is the kiss - look, I’m sorry, but all these years later and it’s still too much of an age-gap between actors for me not to be hurtled out of the moment going ‘nyeeeeh’ like Joey Wheeler.

Series Two: The sheer volume of ‘Feel damn you, feel’ is enough to force me to do the opposite, and is the start of RTD attempting to smother me with a pillow while the sound of ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ plays tinnily in the background for the rest of Ten’s entire goddamn run.

Series Three: Yana - Good. Sound Of Drums - Great. And then you solved it all with Floaty Jesus Doctor. And more crying. The Last Of The Damn Whiners. 

Series Four: Towing the Earth home. No. The finale Chibnall liked so much that years later he’d use so many bits of it he’d be forced to lampshade that fact, and the finale Moffat hated so much he devised an entire companion’s arc just to show his fanfic of what should have happened to Donna Noble.

I don’t know if we’re counting the finale to the specials, but that you didn’t follow up with the Time Lord Victorious stuff and I only had five minutes of an actually fascinating Tenth Doctor that I didn’t want to slap in the face, kills me. You could have brought that character back for me right there with proof that all this had been leading up to a perfect storm of character flaws, but no. Eff you.

Series 5: Can’t even pinpoint why I don’t like this one, but I don’t. Logically it hits all the right buttons for me, and yet. Meh? More complicated than complex perhaps. Or maybe it’s just that you blew up the TARDIS and I was filled with a mix of both grief and ‘I know you’re going to have to fix it so just get on with it’.

Series 6: The only one where I don’t feel like I can even do a synopsis for it. Doctor dies and now don’t feed the pterodactyls in Hyde Park? Definitely more complicated than complex. Like the themes are built up to, but the actual realisation of those themes (world turns into Wonderland etc), eh, not so much. And once again, I know this has got to be fixed, so there’s no drama here.

(Is this my problem? Because I like Moffat’s specials and regeneration episodes and all of those have both drama and uncertainty and the payoff? I’m allergic to the stories where we know the problem has to be fixed, or we can’t continue?)

Series 7: Somehow doesn’t feel like a lot happens, but I’m not sure this even can count as a full finale because it’s to lead into Day Of The Doctor. It’s alright. I prefer River whenever she isn’t with the Doctor because then she becomes more deified and less fun. And I’m sorry, but the line was clearly supposed to be “Look at that. I’m the Impossible Girl after all”, because look mate, no-one got your souffle metaphor, and no-one got the fact that ‘the impossible girl’ was supposed to be a subversion because he self-fulfilling-prophecied the thing.

Series 8: Fine, but relentlessly depressing whenever there’s no Missy on screen. Whether that’s a deliberate choice to bond us with the character, I dunno, your mileage may vary. I hate how much is never explained - how are you uploading dead people’s consciousnesses? Why does this concept turn up no less than three times in your run but you don’t do anything to tie it together? Where’s Missy’s TARDIS? Who is the peppy pseudo-demon dude? And why don’t I see more of The Good Place cus no I don’t have to, but I want to see what she did.

Series 9: ...Good. The billion years thing was a bit much, because it makes such a huge scale my mind can no longer wrap around the concept and therefore ditches it and any further implications about it, but good.

Series 10: I’m traumatised. Like, I feel like that might have been a good finale, but I’ve never been able to watch it again, so how could I really say?

Series 11: *New Chibnall pulls off his mask to reveal he was Old Chibnall the entire time except this one had finally got around to watching Star Wars*

[daddyellis]

according to my targetted youtube music adds, I have clinical depression, endropancreatic insuffiency, schizophrenia and diabetes.

what do they know that i don't know

i'm not treated for any of these things (some adjacent maladies but i get adds specifically for these ALL THE TIME CONSTANTLY)

i have the names of these drugs memorized because of how much they are pushed at me

its fucked

[rowanthestrange]

More FB: TCoG spoilers, sorry my dander’s up now

Like she knew she was getting another movie when she wrote the first one.

So why the absolute goddamn heck would you write out all your characters when you KNEW you’d just have to WRITE THEM BACK IN AGAIN.

And she didn’t even write them back in!

Jacob gets his memories back and goes through all that and the Queenie bit off-screen ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

You’re not writing fanfic damn it!

And I know you wanted the Auror back, because Newt has to be straight, and you really wanted a self-insert character - BUT SHE DOESN’T NEED TO EXIST. She barely goddamn exists at all! It’s two movies in and I couldn’t tell you a single character trait about her besides ‘doesn’t like the idea of her sister and the muggle together only for some reason that’s informed and not really shown on screen despite it being an amazing source of conflict that would bring the themes home and actually help justify Queenie’s otherwise bizarre actions’.

The Auror whose name I don’t even remember has so little character because she’s the only one who doesn’t exist in the ‘organic’ version of the story, and Rowling had to consciously try and create her wholesale - bet you that’s what happened. That’s what happens when I try to forcibly put something in a story it doesn’t belong in, just cus I want it - it comes out flat, 2-dimensional, no depth. But at least then I have the goddamn sense to take it back out again.

[rowanthestrange]

Some FB:TCoG spoilers

What the heck was up with Puff the Fly-Killing Dragon?

What was it doing in there? Why did Grindelwald name it? Why did it seem to try to help with the blood-curse-bond thingy?

Like sure he yeeted the little whippersnapper (which would be an excellent name for a magical creature hit me up jkr i’ll fix your movies too while i’m here) but why would I assume that would kill what looks like a mini dragon-beast?

I get that she crowbarred this in during what passes for editing because she realised that she hadn’t made Grindelwald hate animals yet because that shows he’s bad and opposite to Newt (even though it’s a garbage trait for Grindelwald to have, making no sense for a person who thinks magic makes you superior, and is literally just her trying to turn him into Voldemort with a nose). And how else could she have Newt comment on Grindelwald’s ‘ignorance of what doesn’t seem valuable ie. critters’ at the end of the movie - despite the fact Newt shouldn’t think this as - unlike us - he never saw this scene and in fact only saw Grindelwald for about ten minutes, in which out of all the stuff you could pick up from him, that lesson wasn’t one of them, even when he was robbed by a Niffler that he didn’t ignore, but literally didn’t notice, and seriously why are you turning him into Voldemort when the entire point should be that he does notice the so-called insignificant things and people, that’s where his power-base should be, he’s a goddamn hitler analogy you upended duck.

*cough*

By which I mean, I understand the narrative reasons for the creature existing, even if I feel like it’s incredibly poorly executed. But in a non-meta sense, does anyone want to explain it? Have I missed something obvious? Are we literally going with ‘he’s so silver-tongued he can make dragon-beasts love him and this is absolutely in no way setting up reasons for why it isn’t dumbledore’s fault for not going after him between that and the blood-magic cus god forbid he should have responsibility for anything he is a good white wizard just trying his best’.

Like where did you come from, where did you go, where did you come from cotton-eye dragoh.