#bc the master just has no fucking agency in their own story. NONE. and it’s soo painful

[screamingay]

started ranting about doctor who to my gf and realized i actually have a lot of opinions (which start off summarizing hbomberguy's takes from the sherlock video but it was kind of a revelation for me) so if u want to hear them ive copypasted and edited them a bit for u guys under the cut <3

so like to set up how bad steven moffat is he explains why doctor who was so bad when moffat was the showrunner in a way ive been trying to articulate for years

basically he's a decent writer who was good at individual episodes that make reference to the doctors history but when it came to actually writing that history and the big events that would become the doctor's history he sucks so so so badly

like in the empty child he was amazing, he prioritized the story of the episode while giving the doctor an air of mystery and references a long and complicated backstory without compromising any charm or humor

but in the very first episode where he had reins on the entire show and its storylines he resorted to just a monologue from the doctor about how cool and special he is and that trend continued the whole time he was in charge. the entire universe suddenly revolved around the doctor

like. chibnall was clearly trying to subvert that by only using brand new aliens during his first season and having extra companions (three of them jesus christ) but he didn't address the heart of the problem and somehow made it even worse. the charm of the doctor was always that they were just a traveler bouncing around the universe and helping people or having fun or whatever

and of course there was always the tragic backstory and the genocide and being the last of his kind and all that but that always came second to the humans he loved!! the first time the master came back in tennant's run it was martha and her family and jack that saved him!! and chibnall tried to do that with yaz but it just didnt feel as impactful bc of how overpowering the master & timeless child plots were (dont even get me started on the timeless child shit retconning the entire history of the show to make the doctor quite literally the most important being in the universe)

moffat on the other hand went all over the place with it and wrote in intergalactic cults deadset on killing the doctor and when he did try to make companions special and important he completely took away their agency in the process

to me clara was a decent companion and had some great moments for me until she turned out to be not real or a metaphor or forgotten or dead or somehow retconned into existing since the show started in 1963 it was all so WEIRD and misses the point of making a companion important. it made her so important she lost her humanity imo

and then there was bill who also died and was mutilated beyond recognition and it just makes me think about how rtd never did that to companions. they were special not because of time magic or destiny or fucked up deaths but because they were just humans. with families. martha got to go back to her family. donna had to forget but she was happy in the end. rose was supposed to live out her life in the parallel universe with her own mortal doctor, and she did, but moffat STILL found a way to bring her back as a metaphor because his desire to deconstruct female companions into concepts and tragedies was just too strong

that's not even getting into what he did to river. or amy...

none of this is to say rtd is perfect of course, i'm really nervous to see how he deals with everything that's been thrown at the show in the past couple decades but considering he plans on staying for a while i really hope he manages to put a better twist on all of it. honestly the thing im most curious about is the special effects.. the show has been leaving very heavily on cg lately but chibnall did introduce a few decent practical effects and puppets so i hope rtd pushes for more of that. im getting off topic tho

that's all i have for now i hope u enjoyed and if u wanna discuss anything pls feel free although that's all the brainpower i have for today come back tomorrow <3

#the thing about doctor who is that it's still doctor who even when it's bad. which presents a dilemma to every new showrunner #in that they have to find a way to either incorporate the previous canon into their canon or find a way to discard it. in canon #how funny would it be if rtd started and immediately said all the timeless child bs was a fever dream

[tortoisebore]

what do you think the girls and regulus would study?

these guys are characters that i don’t feel like i know as intimately so bear with me here i’m just spitballing

reg is a tough one i genuinely have no idea what he’d want to do & idk if he would either. in a world where he did eventually get to leave home and make his own decisions, i think he’d either pursue something that helps other people (social work, maybe a public defender, etc.) or something purely selfish that he just thinks he would like and be fulfilled by (like….idfk what if he went to culinary school or something) (or maybe music school bc he grew up playing violin or cello & found he enjoyed it outside of his parents’ expectations)

ugh i feel like lily could go a million places too. i like her as a lit/english major bc i think she’d be a lot like remus in that her childhood was a little lonely and books kept her company. but i also love the idea of corporate titan lily running shit and being In Charge. or like being a partner at a law firm or something. like that’s hot & i think she would be a great leader & her employees would love her idk. now that i’m talking ab it Hot Businesswoman Lily is rly doing it for me

marlene is an artsy girlie!!! she has impeccable style!!! and amazing taste!!!! of course she’s a graphic designer!!! she comments on font choices on the menu at every restaurant. she takes pictures of albums at the record store for design inspo instead of buying them. she has a subscription to a vintage advertising site and wins free old posters & plasters them all over her walls. she hates the idea of working for an agency so she finds some hole in the wall business to design for in-house after graduation (no of course i am not projecting) (not even a little)

i love literature girlie dorcas. i think she’d be a really phenomenal writer and have a book of poetry and short stories published by the time she got to college. like she’s been hired by local musicians & bands to write songs for their new albums. she performs at poetry readings at a little bookstore a few blocks from campus & her gf records it and posts it to tiktok, where she has several thousand followers & shares drabbles & new poems & updates about her next book. none of us are as cool and interesting and talented as dorcas & we just have to be okay with that

i feel like i know the least about mary than anybody else in this list ugh. in my head she’s extremely eclectic with her personal style & would either go to fashion school or just say fuck it & start her own line while getting a business degree. like maybe she’s got her line as a side hustle that she wants to be her full time gig eventually, but in the meantime she’s getting a BA in marketing & then a masters in business so she knows how to make it successful

#u ask tortoise answers #anon #my hcs are so specific #i feel like the majority of university aus i read follow a similar formula #so idk #tortoise writes a novel ab an ask for no reason

[grandadtwelve]

ik the big finish audio dramas aren’t considered completely canon but

the “master” audio drama w/ sylvester mccoy that tells us that, when the two of them were children, the doctor murdered their childhood bully but then made a deal with literal death to change his own memory and the masters memory to make them both think that the master was the one who killed the boy? and then the guilt of that first murder was actually what drove the master insane?

like, first of all, holy shit that is so dark. of course it’s a seventh doctor audio drama. but, second of all, ?????? well done, i will now always hope for the masters reception because that’s the saddest and most fucked up thing i’ve ever heard. it’s just that “the master is everything dark in the doctor” thing but you’re just like oh.. he actually is. he was literally forced into being the doctors dark side. through no fault of his own, not in the justifying his actions “he had to do it” way but like he literally did not do it. the doctor did, and was so incapable of coping with his own guilt that he forced it onto his best friend, the person he had been trying to protect in the first place. okay. what the fuck.

and again, ik not everyone considers it canon but i can’t get it out of my head. bc what an insane layer to add to ten and simm’s interactions, to tens overflowing guilt. how frustrating does that make twelves attempt at missy’s rehabilitation, that he made her what he’s now trying to unmake. and oh my god does it make watching dhawan and thirteen’s dynamic feel like seventeen consecutive punches in the face :)

#I will never not pull for the masters redemption #not in that ‘oh they’re magically a good person’ way but in the ‘finally understands why they’re like this and can separate themselves from #their crushing self hatred and guilt’ way #bc the master just has no fucking agency in their own story. NONE. and it’s soo painful #thoschei #master audio drama #the master #beevers!master #seventh doctor #simm!master #tenth doctor #missy #gomez!master #twelfth doctor #dhawan!master #thirteenth doctor #doctor who #classic who #dw related media #big finish #dw analysis #mios #torvic #dw audio dramas

[glittercracker]

Kingkiller Crap

So, I’ve never really posted much here that involves my own thoughts. There are a number of reasons why, but whatever. I feel the need NOW to post some thoughts, and having no working independent blog (yet!) I suppose this is the place to dump them. PSA: none of this is about anime. None of this is frivolous or fun. TW for sexual abuse. You have been warned! So. I’ve been rereading the Kingkiller Chronicles. aka “Name of the Wind” and “The Wise Man’s Fear” and “That Other One That Shall Not Be Named.” This reread was, at the beginning, almost an afterthought. A way to keep my 13 yo happy on a 7 hour car ride. Except, he could not have cared less, and I got sucked back into the story (and okay, if that is how all our audiobook car rides go, meh? At least it keeps me sharp!) I raced through book one, and bought book 2 on audible with an eye to my upcoming surgery and recooperation. Book one was problematic in the places I remembered, but also as generally engaging as I remembered. And then book 2 happened, and surgery happened, and I have had weeks to lie in bed listening to this bloody interminable sequel, and I find myself lost in a morass of, “WTF was I ever THINKING?” Namely, how did I ever love this book enough to pine for the next? It’s been hard to put a finger on exactly what is making this time through book 2 both a slog and also vaguely, creepily uncomfortable, but if you’re interested, my rather stream-of-consciousness ramble of thoughts ensues. First, the male gaze that rears its head at times in book 1 predominates here. But while I don’t love the way Kvothe describes women, I also have 2 degrees in literature, and I’m beyond that being a reason not to read an otherwise engaging book. Second, Kvothe is a Gary Stu, for all of Rothfuss’s protestations to the contrary. Again, so far, so much traditional high fantasy. But while, say, Aragorn is content to just quietly be Awesome At Everything, Kvothe is a braggy little shit of a Gary Stu: the person you hated for announcing their perfect scores in that hs class you could never quite master. I could fill several pages with examples, but for some reason what really made me want to kick him in the head was not Felurian’s disbelief of his virginity (though really, jfc, REALLY?) Nope, it was the end of his time w the Ademrae (sp may be off, remember, I’m listening not reading!) when he crows about having learned the history of his sword 2 days earlier than expected. Why does this stick out? Oh, idk. Maybe bc he sucks so hard he can’t even get past the first obstacle in his practical final exam? Yet he still has to tell us how fucking awesome he is for remembering 6000 names of previous owners.

I know, I’m supposed to forgive his teenage idiocy. The internet sympathists (no pun intended!) keep telling me this. And I suppose that I would, IF this were a simple first-person narrative - but it isn’t. Let’s repeat that, and really think about it. This story is being narrated by an older and presumably wiser Kvothe who has lost everything - whose abilities have been expunged to the extent that he can’t open his own chest of Cool Stuff. He shows humility in his actions, mostly. And yet when discussing his 16 yo self, the humility evaporates, and he speaks with no kind of perspective or lens of accrued wisdom. He still compares women to instruments waiting for the “right” player (i.e. him) and defends this choice of words by saying, essentially, “You aren’t a musician, you don’t know!”

Interesting assumption for an innkeeper in a medieval-esque world. Interesting assumption if this is in fact authorial interjection, too, because I suspect the majority of this book’s audience *are* musicians to at least an extent, and I also suspect that the majority of us (yes, us - I own several beloved instruments, including a harp custom made for me as a wedding present from my husband) would not equate a human lover to even the most beloved of instruments.

But all of this is well-trodden critical ground. As far as I can tell, though, my third issue isn’t: although it’s perhaps the most glaringly tone-deaf example of all of Rothfuss’s excruciatingly tone-deaf portrayal of his world’s women. Namely, the two girls kidnapped and gang-raped by the fake Ruh.

Almost all of the criticism I’ve read on this section of TWMF concentrates on Kvothe’s treatment of the girls’ abusers. What’s interesting is that no one ever seems to write about Kvothe’s treatment of the girls themselves. Yes, he treats them kindly. He tends their wounds, he feeds them, he tries (and succeeds, of course) to draw Ellie out of her shocked stupor. 

Yet what he never once does, from the moment he takes control of the situation, is ask their opinions on any of this, including what their next step should be. He just decides to bring them back to their families - families who, in this type of society, might well disown them for being “ruined”. And the girls themselves, namely the intelligent and savvy Krin, seem to go blindly along with what he says. Why? Would Krin at least not question this, or object to his making decisions for her, when a group of men had so recently and brutally taken away all of her agency? Would she not question whether being brought back to her family is the best thing for the catatonic Ellie?

Okay, apparently not. So they return to their apparently very forgiving town. Kvothe stands up for the girls against the village shithead: thank you, Kvothe, bc I’m sure Krin could not have said those words herself. He assures the reader that they are with people who will love and care for them despite what has happened to them: thank you, Kvothe, though it’s stretching my credulity a bit that you would assume that no one will take issue with their deflowering. But then he “gifts” the girls the spoils of his slaughter: the horses, the valuables, the wagons. And I was about to give him a (grudging) pass for being decent about this, EXCEPT: he goes on to say that these goods are meant for the girls’ dowries. Specifically, to make them worth enough financially for potential husbands to overlook their loss of virginity. He even tells Krin not to settle for a less-than-lucrative marriage.

And suddenly, I was outraged. Why? Because a man who had witnessed the full extend of these women’s abuse brought them back to a backwater town believing that he was being magnanimous both in doing so, and in giving up whatever share he might have taken of the spoils of the debacle to make them financially lucrative marriage prospects. Because he never asked these traumatized girls if they might rather cut and run with the money than use it to make some man overlook their abuse in order to make them his property. He never even questions the idea that they will be grateful to submit to marriage contracts that will no doubt require them to have sex with their husbands, even though these women have been abused to the extent that they cannot sit a horse for *two days* after being rescued. And the worst part is that 20-something frame-story Kvothe doesn’t question this either; he just goes on to gloat about people singing songs about his daring rescue. Maybe I was just ready for a straw to break my benefit of the doubt. Or maybe this really is as outrageous as it feels. Either way, I can’t help being angry at Rothfuss. As a writer, I am very well aware that character and author are not the same thing; that authorial intent is not the same as authorial beliefs. But there are moments in some books when I have to wonder if that line is blurring, and this is one of them. Kvothe has literally JUST left a female-dominated country full of independent women happily doing their own thing. He has given these girls the means to find themselves a situation that will never require them to be beholden to a man again - even houses ffs, in the shape of those 2 wagons, should they want them. There are so many options beyond marriage: I can’t, for instance, think of a medieval society that didn’t have its version of a convent. Or, for Krin at least, why not the University? For that matter, why not marry her himself, and then set her free to do as she likes under the awning of a respectable marriage? 

Instead he returns them to their fathers, and likewise gives their fathers the means to marry them off with no argument. Who, after all, holds the reins of the horses at the end? Why does Kvothe assume that these families will actually use the wealth even in the dubious way that he recommends?

And in this, I think, I am justified in giving Rothfuss the stink-eye. This is one more instance for Kvothe to play the hero with no real attention given to the consequences. Kvothe himself, I think, would be appalled. He has suffered so much deprivation in his life, so often been marginalized, scapegoated, powerless, how on earth could he so easily consign others to that fate? How could he think, loving Denna as he does, having heard her words to the beaten girl in Severin, that buying these girls husbands who will “overlook” their abuse for the sake of wealth is anything but a wretched life sentence for them?

Sigh. There was a time when I desperate awaited book three. Now, given the other women’s lives at stake in this series, I’m not so sure I want to know.

#kingkiller chronicle #kvothe #patrick rothfuss #wise man's fear #Kingkiller chronicles sexism #kvothe gary stu #kkc sexism

[glasscomets]

4 months later i still seethe when thinking about the got final season

bruh every character got assassinated

sansa: d&d seem to think to be a Strong Woman (TM) you must become a stone cold bitch with no emotions. sansa was very one dimensional in that respect. a few of her worst moments this season:

- her saying to the hound that she’d still be a little bird if she wasn’t abused and raped by sansa and joffrey. lolll, yeah, because it takes abuse to grow as a person. lets all thank ramsay and joffrey for their kindness in that regard :)

- her openly defying dany. sansa’s whole arc is her learning from the best political players and outmaneuvering them all. she stayed alive in king’s landing while feigning devotion to joffrey. what good does it do to openly defy dany? if jon didn’t murder dany, sansa would be dany’s first target bc of how openly sansa opposed her. it’s like her lessons went out the window.

- sansa doing nothing to reassure her people in the crypts and instead using that time to bitch about daenerys. during the battle at blackwater she was in this position and learned to rally those not on the battlefield to keep them calm. she used none of that knowledge here, did not even address her people. she looked like a horrible ruler here

arya: another victim of stone cold bitch syndrome. closest thing there is to a mary sue in the whole show. apparently she’s so good an army of white walkers can’t hear her move...even tho she was only training as a faceless man for 1-2 yrs at most?

- arya had nothing to do with the long night plot, she should not have been the lone savior. i think she should have been a part of the victory along with dany, bran, and jon, whose storylines were much more involved with the white walkers; particularly the latter 2. 

- her decision to fuck off at the end of the series goes against everything she stands for. for years she tried to reunite with her family, she stresses that the starks have to stay together, then she goes lol jk never coming back. i can buy her saying good bye to sansa (the sibling she always clashed with the most) and bran (an emotionless vessel), but not jon!!!! that doesn’t make any sense to me. that’s her most important person and she’s saying bye forever just like that

dany: where to even begin. haven’t been a dany fan for some time but jfc.

- her descent into madness occurred over the course of 2 episodes in an 8 season long series. what the absolute fuck. they did not build up to this at all. there have been hints she is unstable: burning the tarlys, crucifying the masters, feeding a possibly innocent master to her dragons. but the leap from that to genocide is....rather large. dany has been shown to have a good heart - characters we trust have repeatedly told us that, the show itself has shown us that (fighting against slavery, putting an end to khalasars’ rape, locking up her dragons when one of them burned a single child, etc). INSTEAD of burning civillians in KL, it would have been much more believable if her losses drove her to burning the red keep & cersei out of rage for those she lost. 

- they did her SO dirty after her death. nobody really mourns her, aside from greyworm’s illogical search for justice + an offhand comment from yara (and like, where were you bitch?). jon is obviously broken but doesn’t even really get to talk about the fact that he murdered his own blood/lover lol. going from the heartwrenching dany/drogon scene to the worst scene in the whole fucking show, which might as well have a laugh track behind it--WHO HAS A BETTER STORY THAN BRAN THE BROKEN?--is a huge slap in the face.

bran:  they turned him into an emotionless robot. what else is there to say. guy is fucking useless. had one purpose: defeat the night king, still did jack shit in that episode. who has a better story than bran the broken? literally every other character in the whole show

jon: i could write an entire essay.

- both of his main story arcs have such pathetic conclusions. 

1, the white walkers: he has nothing to do with killing the nk aside from knocking him off his dragon with dany. we don’t even get a confrontation. fuck your surprises, i want good storytelling. building up his prowess with a sword, focusing on multiple NK staredowns, with no payoff is INFURIATING. he didn’t need the final kill, but he should have at least fought the NK!!!! had something to do with his death!! or even at least fought a fucking white walker.

2. R+L=J. so the whole point of this shit was just to make dany go crazy? i thought this would matter moreso for ending the long night, “a song of ice and fire”, the prince that was promised is to come from aerys’ line, etc. but nope. then it has nothing to do with the endgame king, because he gets shipped off to the nights watch. so the core mystery of the show all ends up being fucking WORTHLESS. surely there must be more to this in the books?????? 

- WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIS CHARACTER??????? he becomes dany’s pet. jon speaks his mind against authority figures. he stood up to stannis. he stood up to alliser. he stood up to dany herself LAST SEASON in the throne room when she was belittling him. he refused to bend the knee for her. after that, ... man lost all agency. even after she COMMITS GENOCIDE, he’s like “oh lol well cersei left her no choice”. bruh, i know you love her, but the jon i know would never defend someone that far gone.

- they gave him a dragon for 3 episodes then killed the dragon off without even showing a reaction from him. that’s just fantastic, d&d

- he saves the realm from daenerys, unites armies against the WWs, and is rewarded with a sentence to the NW by his own brother. this show is fucking shit. 

tyrion/varys: from the political masterminds of the show to cock jokes. varys in particular was absolutely massacred. he survived all those years under aerys, joffrey, etc. while plotting behind their backs, yet openly plotted treason + sent out ravens announcing jon as the rightful heir before dany even did anything horrible lmao

jaime: i’m undecided on the jaime/cersei storyline. i don’t LIKE that it didn’t end up being a redemption arc, but it’s not necessarily bad that he was unable to escape his cersei addiction.... that can be interesting.

what’s really shit is him saying he doesn’t care about innocents. it renders one of the best moments in the show useless - the bathtub scene with brienne, where he tells her he killed aerys to save his father and the citizens of kings landing. it makes me wonder what the hell the point of his storyline was. so guy is back at the beginning, then? gives no shits about anyone but cersei? it’s unsatisfying. i feel like i watched him grow throughout these years for no reason, in the end

cersei: done dirty as fuck, had nothing to do all year. what is there to even say, when her only screentime was her sipping wine and looking out a window