@mudlark   Oh, I know that feeling of being yanked by the ear out of a story by a glaring mistake that you know hardly anybody else even notices!  It’s maddening, especially if the book is otherwise good — that just makes it worse.  Connie’s books, though — they mostly leave me cold, but Doomsday’s ending slew me, emotionally, regardless of wo…[Read more]

Some good stuff is coming down the pike, though (one hopes) — the concluding series of “The Leftovers” (and they’d *better* not muck it up); a new season of “Stranger Things” (likewise); other stuff, I’ve got a site bookmarked with some good possibles on it.  Will find and post.

But books — yeah, books are better.

Well.  Not “50 Shades of Y…[Read more]

@missrori  Sure!  Goodness knows, he’s earned it!

@missy  Thumbs up, then — !  Yer in.

@missrori  I guess the difference is that I see it as the Doctor *choosing* the strong possibility of a raw deal because — he’s the Doctor.  And I love him for it.

@pedant  Twilight started as fanfic. That should be warning enough.

It is, it is — who could forget?!!  But — as a writer, I have admire the passion and the inventiveness that som…[Read more]

@missrori  He decides to be the Doctor and accept Clara’s death

But I don’t think he did accept Clara’s death; he accepted being “transported” by Ashildr to the Confession Dial because he was looking for someone to punish (and perhaps to bargain with for some way to get Clara back alive); punished himself instead; took over Gallifrey *to get he…[Read more]

@pedant   There are several good sites for DW (and other) fanfic that I’ve seen (I think I linked to one here a while ago).  A forum, as in a discussion site, probably exists too, maybe several.

@missrori  On mixed resolutions rather than happy and rewarding ones:  Is it just a move by Moffat and company to make the show more realistic and sad…[Read more]

@mudlark  Yup, not much “normal” around here . . . DW selects, I think, for “bored with normal” individuals who have accordingly eclectic tastes.  In my parents’ house, was allowed to read anything I was tall enough to take down from the bookshelf.  I was a tall kid, which didn’t help when it came to “Gormenghast” or “Finnegan’s Wake” (my dad le…[Read more]

@winston   Happy to hear it.  I’ve been reading and writing about these issues for a long time now, and I think the best ways for me to get at it is through the big picture shifts.  Right now these earthquakes are rolling through, and they’re carrying whole masses of people with them: forward wave, and frightened, angry backlash, with lots of cr…[Read more]

@mudlark   Thanks for that — as an old-ish person with pretty patchy internet-nous, I only remember what an algorithm is (a sorting tool for picking out/imposing patterns in data?) when somebody else remember (for me) that the word exists.

@pedant  It is not, in principle, any harder now than trying to discern the extent to which Caesar was bigging himself up, or Tacitus et al were sucking up to the boss (see threads elsewhere).

Agreed; I wasn’t thinking of principle, though, but in terms of sheer *volume* to sort through, check, and counter-check.

@juniperfish   The historians of the future, if there is a future and it contains actual historians, often come to mind, and my first thought is, how in the hell are they ever going to disentangle the immense amounts of lying, “disinformation”, lying advertising, trolling and fake news fabrications, puffed-up “biographies” written by paid ghosts…[Read more]

@juniperfish  Yes, I’ve been more or less aware of the carryings-on you speak of — one of my husband’s law partners was a longstanding member of a chapter of the Baker Street Irregulars in Santa Fe (a smart, charming fellow I can’t speak with any more, because of political differences, or I’d be chatting with him about this).

@missy  — Pratchett?  I’ve got all his books too.  An all around good guy, gladly remembered, though sorely missed.

@missy  Thanks!  PC is my Doctor, and I don’t expect to see his like again — but on the other hand, I don’t *need* to.   He’s thrown himself into the project of growing up the Doctor with everything he’s got, and and it’s been wonderful.  Here’s a “motto” that I saw on a mammy lorry (a truck delivering goods and people, often to an open air mar…[Read more]

@juniperfish  “The Lost Special” — amazing, how Moffat and Gatiss keep creating fannish myths (some of which come true — !)  I love it.

@winston  But why not a female Doctor?

Well, I can offer a generalization derived from what I’ve seen on reddit, Den of Geek, etc.  The Doctor is still around, still the object of intense, heartfelt discussion and waspish rage, and that means the figure of the Doctor has power.  Cultural power.  And power cast consistently in male form up unt…[Read more]

Thanks for the tip.  So far, I haven’t been able to settle for “Doctor Lite”.  In all its forms, and they are many now, it’s the ubiquity of superficiality, cliche, and one-dimensional stereotyping that drives me away, maybe because books were my first medium, not screens.  Print on pages is slower; all that breathing space with time to think an…[Read more]

@missrori  That’s a good story — thanks for bringing it here!  And I’ve always wondered why the Tardis was snarky with Clara sometimes.  It never occurred to me that she foresaw where her connection with the Doctor was going.  So you posited the Doctor having this secret hybrid identity as a potentiality that would make him very close to bei…[Read more]

@missy  No, no, Billie Baggins, or maybe Wilamette.   Think, Granny Weatherwax in her youth, about to set off and gain wisdom and experience.  Saurona, the Devilish Dame?  But what’s wrong with “Spider Woman?”

People can’t leave things alone because things, and people, and times change, and so do expectations.  TV is marketed to people, so peop…[Read more]