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- Something I've not even talked about on Tumblr, I don't think: I've started (obliquely) following the manga One Piece through watching review / discussion channels on YouTube. I totally avoided being intimidated by the length, by not giving a flying whatsit about starting at the beginning. I got into it when my one of my favorite sea shanty / folk bands did a cover of the English translation of Bink no Sake, and I wanted some context for the madness. So I just dove into the fan wiki, and, out of curiosity, looked to see what the current manga chapter/anime episode was at the time. And I've been following along from that point on ever since. I don't have to worry about missing necessary context or plot developments from the beginning, because for the fans who make the videos, drawing connections between almost 30 years of story details is their favorite hobby.
- A deepening pet peeve: Foods being sold as "Healthy Substitutes for [X]," for whatever the health kick trend of the day is, instead of just being celebrated in their own right. It leads people to expect a different flavor / texture than what they get, which leads them to decide that a food tastes disgusting, but if it were in a different context, it would be delicious. And then, worst of all, when that particular trend is no longer trendy, that perfectly good food practically disappears from store shelves, and the price skyrockets.
- A case in point: I've recently discovered nutritional yeast. It's sold and promoted as "A Parmesan Alternative for Vegans." It's good. But it's not Parmesan. I'd say, if I were to put in in a family tree of flavors, that it's a first cousin to Parmesan cheese (rather than its twin) on one side, and, on the other side, a cousin to those instant Raman noodle flavor packets (with a lot less sodium than either). It doesn't work at all as a binding agent the way the cheese does, though. I like to sprinkle it on salads already tossed in dressing (so that it will stick), to add some protein and umami.
- Lately, I've been haunted by a Grimm's fairy tale that I've tried (three or four times) to rewrite / fix during my NaNoWriMo Days (which I have since disavowed completely, due to that organization's embrace of generative A.I.), and been thoroughly demoralized by each time, at the end. I don't know if I'm really drawn to try again, though, or if my mind is just retreating back to it as a distraction from other, real-world stressors I'd rather not think about.
- At the end of last year, and the start of this one, I decided to get back to my love for the character, and murder mystery stories of, Lord Peter Wimsey. I'd watched the 1970 TV adaptations by the BBC on Masterpiece Theater as teen, and subsequently read a bunch of short stories. But there's a whole lot I never read. Back in January, I started reading the third novel, Unnatural Death, over at Project Gutenberg. But real life rudely interrupted me in the middle of Chapter Two. And I'm just now getting bak to it. Anyone want to join me in a read-along?
It was snowing this morning. It's dropping a cold rain down, now. And I can't decide if the dripping I'm hearing is falling inside the house, or outside (no matter where I go in the house, the sound seems to be coming from "over there," which is worrying. OTOH, I can't see any wet spots or puddles, inside, so... maybe I'm hearing rain dripping from one of the eaves, just outside a window).
Anyway, if I catalog my woes, I'll only be giving them more power.
So that means it's Doctor Who Tiem, Boys and Girls!
Ever since I posted this clip, from An Unearthly Child, to commemorate Doctor Who's 47th, it's been rattling around in my brain.
The only other time (I know of) where the Doctor explicitely mentions his past or his family, the way he did in the first ep., was when he consoled Victoria in Tomb of the Cybermen when she worries that she'll never get the image of her father being killed by the daleks out of her mind.
[insert a long passage of time, where I try to find a clip of that scene, on YouTube, fail, and get sucked into watching long stretches of the whole story via someone's playlist, realize I'm hungry, and my feet are cold, so I go eat some reheated pizza, and heat water for tea, and come back to finish this entry while the tea is steeping]
(My icon is cut from that scene, anyway).
Anyway, from that first clip, (viewed through the instant hindsight of watching it after seeing later stories first, which is, I admit, probably unfair. Except that All's Fair in Love, War and Fanon) I got the impression that at that point in time, (From the Doctor's P.O.V.), he and Susan were newly on the run, and that he still feared that those who were the cause of their exile were still hot on their trail. Of course, what may be a short time to a grandfather could very well be a lifetime to the granddaughter, and she's tired of running and hiding with only him for companionship, so she pressures him to let her go to school there when they land on Earth, etc.. And in that first serial, he's willing to kill a wounded man, just to prevent their getting captured -- in that story (and for several others to follow?) it's Ian who represents the powers of Intellect and Romance over Brute Force and Cynicism, rather than the Doctor. The Doctor is just a bundle of mistrust and anger in that story. That's what makes me think the Exile he speaks of is relatively recent in his personal timeline.
Replaying those two scenes in my memory, superimposed over one another the way you can with memory, and I can't help but wonder what happened that drove him into exile -- especially when he says he has to "really want to" in order to remember them. Did his family turn against him, or did they, like Victoria's father, die horribly, and that's why the Doctor lets their memory sleep?
[aha! I just remembered a different set of keywords to use, to search for the second Doctor's scene. here it is.]
I know the Doctor's family and their fate is a subject for a metric buttload of fan speculation and bickering. But pondering his family's fate has got me wondering more about the wider society the Doctor comes from. You can't be exiled without a wider society to be exiled from.
Also, I'm sticking with my private fanon that Susan is the reason Earth is his favorite planet. It was the planet she chose to make home, and for the Doctor, "Home is Wherever Susan Is (or was)".
*nods*
Also, after seeing some of the clips of Eleven, it's really easy for me to go from Two straight to Eleven, and skip all the in between steps (maybe it's the whole Hobo-Raggedy vibe). So if all of his companions are surrogates for his granddaughter (more or less), it puts a whole new spin on that scene from the season 5 dvd people have been posting -- the extra scene between "Beast Below" and "Vampires of Venice."
Oh, and while I was searching for that Tomb of the Cybermen clip, I found this Patrick Troughton Interview on NJN (NJN was the local pbs station that aired Doctor Who when I lived back in New York).
Enjoy!
Anyway, if I catalog my woes, I'll only be giving them more power.
So that means it's Doctor Who Tiem, Boys and Girls!
Ever since I posted this clip, from An Unearthly Child, to commemorate Doctor Who's 47th, it's been rattling around in my brain.
The only other time (I know of) where the Doctor explicitely mentions his past or his family, the way he did in the first ep., was when he consoled Victoria in Tomb of the Cybermen when she worries that she'll never get the image of her father being killed by the daleks out of her mind.
[insert a long passage of time, where I try to find a clip of that scene, on YouTube, fail, and get sucked into watching long stretches of the whole story via someone's playlist, realize I'm hungry, and my feet are cold, so I go eat some reheated pizza, and heat water for tea, and come back to finish this entry while the tea is steeping]
(My icon is cut from that scene, anyway).
Anyway, from that first clip, (viewed through the instant hindsight of watching it after seeing later stories first, which is, I admit, probably unfair. Except that All's Fair in Love, War and Fanon) I got the impression that at that point in time, (From the Doctor's P.O.V.), he and Susan were newly on the run, and that he still feared that those who were the cause of their exile were still hot on their trail. Of course, what may be a short time to a grandfather could very well be a lifetime to the granddaughter, and she's tired of running and hiding with only him for companionship, so she pressures him to let her go to school there when they land on Earth, etc.. And in that first serial, he's willing to kill a wounded man, just to prevent their getting captured -- in that story (and for several others to follow?) it's Ian who represents the powers of Intellect and Romance over Brute Force and Cynicism, rather than the Doctor. The Doctor is just a bundle of mistrust and anger in that story. That's what makes me think the Exile he speaks of is relatively recent in his personal timeline.
Replaying those two scenes in my memory, superimposed over one another the way you can with memory, and I can't help but wonder what happened that drove him into exile -- especially when he says he has to "really want to" in order to remember them. Did his family turn against him, or did they, like Victoria's father, die horribly, and that's why the Doctor lets their memory sleep?
[aha! I just remembered a different set of keywords to use, to search for the second Doctor's scene. here it is.]
I know the Doctor's family and their fate is a subject for a metric buttload of fan speculation and bickering. But pondering his family's fate has got me wondering more about the wider society the Doctor comes from. You can't be exiled without a wider society to be exiled from.
Also, I'm sticking with my private fanon that Susan is the reason Earth is his favorite planet. It was the planet she chose to make home, and for the Doctor, "Home is Wherever Susan Is (or was)".
*nods*
Also, after seeing some of the clips of Eleven, it's really easy for me to go from Two straight to Eleven, and skip all the in between steps (maybe it's the whole Hobo-Raggedy vibe). So if all of his companions are surrogates for his granddaughter (more or less), it puts a whole new spin on that scene from the season 5 dvd people have been posting -- the extra scene between "Beast Below" and "Vampires of Venice."
Oh, and while I was searching for that Tomb of the Cybermen clip, I found this Patrick Troughton Interview on NJN (NJN was the local pbs station that aired Doctor Who when I lived back in New York).
Enjoy!
My comments on that RTD interview from The Daily Mail (As ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lizbee noted, the link is spoilerific).
Most people on my f'list who've noted this, have focused on his comments about Martha, but my eye latched on to this bit:
"The chemistry between the Doctor and his assistant is the emotional dynamic of the show, with the flamboyant sexuality of Capatain Jack ... as a disruptive axis."
Funny, when I was watching the show, in Old School, the emotional dynamic was all about saving the planet, galaxy, or universe, from the Baddie. That's what I watched it for, and I learned from that, that love of the world (however big that world is) is just as important as love for each other. And love was more than "flamboyant sexuality" -- it was teaching Leela about "Big Box little, Little Box big," and teaching Jamie to read, and helping Tegan with her nightmares, and goading Sarah Jane to overcome her fears, and appreciating the Daisiest daisy, and locking out your own granddaughter, to let her find her own independance, even though it near breaks your own heart, and...
Yeah.
alto2 suggests that we watch Season 20, next year, instead. I, personally, think that's a wonderful idea...
lizbee noted, the link is spoilerific). Most people on my f'list who've noted this, have focused on his comments about Martha, but my eye latched on to this bit:
"The chemistry between the Doctor and his assistant is the emotional dynamic of the show, with the flamboyant sexuality of Capatain Jack ... as a disruptive axis."
Funny, when I was watching the show, in Old School, the emotional dynamic was all about saving the planet, galaxy, or universe, from the Baddie. That's what I watched it for, and I learned from that, that love of the world (however big that world is) is just as important as love for each other. And love was more than "flamboyant sexuality" -- it was teaching Leela about "Big Box little, Little Box big," and teaching Jamie to read, and helping Tegan with her nightmares, and goading Sarah Jane to overcome her fears, and appreciating the Daisiest daisy, and locking out your own granddaughter, to let her find her own independance, even though it near breaks your own heart, and...
Yeah.
alto2 suggests that we watch Season 20, next year, instead. I, personally, think that's a wonderful idea...
