It's been a hot minute since I've made a more casual post, and I want to start doing more of these instead of exclusively using this account for giant Doctor Who reviews or motivating myself to write fanfic.

☆ Writing: I started a bunch of fic drafts last year (and the year before) that I never got around to finishing. New mini-goal for 2022 is to finish at least some of those (and fill in more spaces on the 100ships challenge). Also lowkey wanna start writing some Fortnite fic (because I am a clown) but I'm probably gonna have to untangle the lore a little fic first even if I just end up writing about Jonesy getting dicked down lmao.

☆ Gaming: Been playing a lot more Animal Crossing and just got into the Happy Home Paradise expansion. I'm also still in Fortnite hell, and I've started playing some Indie Games on the Switch because of a sale they had towards the end of last year. So far I'm really digging Figment and Wandersong but I'm hoping to play more once I've finished with those.

☆ Television: I'm halfway through the most recent season of You, but honestly I haven't been that inspired to watch much Live Action TV the past month or so aside from Drag Race (and Queen of the Universe and Drag Race Italia were pretty big letdowns imo). I'm excited for the new US season but I really feel like I'm in a rut... which may not be a bad thing? I was consuming a lot of content for a very long time so I could probably stand to slow down a little.

☆ Movies: Encanto and Spider-Man: No Way Home were great, but - especially with the Omicron variant - my big return to watching movies hasn't really panned out. Even before that I never got around to watching Dune, and I did see Eternals but thought it was really bad. Trying to jazz myself up to watch The Matrix and Scream movies for the first time but so far no dice.

☆ Doctor Who: I really liked Eve of the Daleks, but I didn't think it was remarkably better or worse than Flux like a lot of the takes have been. (Though admittedly I guess I liked Flux more than most?) I'm currently wading my way through the "Lost Season" season 27 Big Finish audios, before I figure out how I'm gonna tackle the actual Wilderness Years content and the TV Movie. I also finally started The Edge of Reality... but the controls on Switch are kind of difficult (and it's very obvious that it was originally designed as a VR game) so I kind of haven't gotten back to it. Either way, I'm happy that I still have a wealth of content to get through considering the next two specials seem to be the only New Who we are gonna be getting for quite a while.

This is a bit late, but I wanted to get some time to digest the newest season of Doctor Who and get away from the inevitable fandom discourse in order to get some perspective on it that wasn't super clouded by external chatter. Overall, I really liked this season, and I thought this serial was, more or less, successful in what it set out to do. I also thought this was probably the strongest overall season of the Thirteenth Doctor's run, owing at least partially to not having a low-tier episode like The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos or Orphan 55 to pull down the average.

( Spoilers ahead )

So I finally did it! I completed all of the original run of Classic Doctor Who... a little over a week ago. (I've been busy). I still have a few more things to cover, but it feels really cool finishing something I started way back in 2017, when the then-upcoming Twice Upon a Time motivated me to watch all of the First Doctor's run. Now with the Thirteenth Doctor's Timeless Child arc seemingly coming to a head with this new season, it feels fitting that I now have all the (aired) pieces of the Cartmel Masterplan from the Seventh Doctor era under my belt.

Also, I'm really happy that the show went out on such a high note. While I've enjoyed the latter years of Classic Who, all the seasons past The Five Doctors have felt decidedly mixed in a way that felt weird as a norm (though thankfully each season still had at least one story that felt like a standout). Season 26, while perhaps a bit over-plotted, feels well realized, and I appreciated the attention given to the characters of the Doctor and Ace along the way. Like, I love a good bit of lore, but I personally believe Doctor Who is at its best when its truly invested in its characters. I'm really looking forward to cracking open my Bluray set for this one and exploring some of the special features.

Like the previous twenty-five seasons, the serials are available to watch via streaming on Britbox. This season was a bit tricky to rank since I think all these stories have very similar strengths and weaknesses.

( There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do! )

Usually by the second series of a Doctor's run I have a pretty good grasp of their character and what the actor in the role is ultimately aiming for, but it's not until the end of this one that I really felt like I've met the Seventh Doctor. It really highlights both how short his overall tenure is, and how the shorter season format doesn't mask the fact that there are, in fact, fewer episodes. (Seasons 24 and 25 combined is 28 episodes, which is around the length of what a single season previously was.) Suffice to say, much like last season this season feels like a very mixed bag. Though, unless it's a fluke, by the end it really feels like the show and the new head writer have found their footing. Though, in a weird way, it didn't evoke a lot of strong feelings in me as a whole, so I suspect this might be the shortest review I've written so far.

Like the previous twenty-four seasons, the serials are available to watch via streaming on Britbox. Ranking this season felt very... odd. The stories all felt very different so it was strange comparing them, though picking my favorite story in the bunch was relatively easy.

( Doctor who? Have you never wondered where he came from, who he is? )

So I decided to abandon my plans to binge all of the Seventh Doctor before I turned 30 in mid-June, and as a result watching this season ended up being more of a slow drip than I had expected. Part of this was because I had originally planned to read the companion novels in between the Sixth and Seventh Doctor eras... but I couldn't resist seeing how they would handle the regeneration at the top of this season, so I ended up diving in without a second thought. And it certainly handled the transition as well as it could have. Everything about this season is extremely transitional, perhaps even more than past "transitional" seasons like Seasons 11, 18, and 21. This season had a brand new Doctor and a brand new head writer, but still had artifacts left over from the premature end of the Sixth Doctor's era such as Mel Bush, and the continued presence of John Nathan-Turner as the series producer. The end result was a lot of new, fresh elements of the series mixed in with elements that felt out of place.

It also doesn't help that there's been a clear time jump between the previous season and this one, contributing to the sense of disorientation as he's developed a relationship with his companion which we've only seen small pieces of. That said, I think this season manages to hit the beats in needs to, and clean up storylines enough to set up for a really strong future for this era of the show. It's still early, but I've already caught a glimpse of why so many people vibed with this Doctor, especially coming off more divisive runs earlier in the decade.

Like the previous twenty-two seasons, the serials are available to watch via streaming on Britbox. I very much suspect my ranking are going to be at odds with what a lot of fandom thinks about this season, but that's life I suppose.

( The name is Pex. I put the world of Paradise Towers to rights. )

Yesterday I turned 30, and I ended up not doing much of anything (partially due to the pandemic, partially due to poor planning and foresight on my part). I did think a lot about certain milestones I hadn't hit on my fitness goals/writing/etc., but a day out it all feels just as arbitrary. Aside from the number on my social media changing it doesn't really feel like I'm in my 30s, especially since pretty much everyone agrees the past year has been a wash so I can still pretend I'm 29 if I want and society probably wouldn't judge me for it.

I didn't meet my arbitrary goal of finishing Classic Who before I turned 30 but that might be for the best, since I would have rushed through the Seventh Doctor era at lightning speed (and I'm enjoying it too much to do that). I also realized that I was so eager to see how'd they'd handle the regeneration I started Season 24 without reading those Companion novels like I'd planned, so now I think I need to go back and think about when I'm going to tackle those. (Especially since the Brigadier shows up in that and I know he pops back up in Season 26's Battlefield.)

July will be ten years since I started a particular multi-chapter fic so I think my immediate writing goal is finishing that up before anything else. I am in the midst of consuming a bunch of gay media (mostly Tales of the City) for Pride Month though so I may end up seguing into writing something more in line with that first. I have some Merlin prompts due at the end of the year that might be a good outlet for that.

So last year I bailed in a major way on Star Wars because in the fallout from The Rise of Skywalker, interacting with the property in any way was making me miserable and it got to the point I needed to divest for my own sanity. (And this was even before the pandemic lockdowns started!) However, the final season of The Clone Wars was also finally released last year, and so I decided that on May the 4th, when the final episode was released, I'd spend the day binging the whole thing (as well as the last string of episodes of Star Wars Resistance).

And I had a really good time.

At the time it had been four months since I'd touched Star Wars at that point and I think the time away did me good. I got to close out two Star Wars properties I was already invested in and they both had the added benefit of being really good. I decided that, when new content came around again, instead of getting tangled up in the day-to-day minutia, I'd save it for May the 4th and binge it then.

So yesterday on May the 4th, I sat down to watch season 2 of The Mandalorian, which I'd heard decidedly mixed things about (and that's even before taking into consideration all of Gina Carano's bullshit). And, I, uh, couldn't get into it. Like, I was never as into season 1 of The Mandalorian as other people were but I still enjoyed it, but I couldn't bring myself to care about anything that was happening in the episode or even continue on from there. The new show that premiered yesterday, The Bad Batch, is also a continuation of The Clone Wars and a prequel to Rebels, two shows I enjoyed, but I also couldn't muster up the motivation for that either.

And now a day later on "Revenge of the Fifth" I can't say I really care anymore.

So I think I'm gonna call 2021 as the year I've successfully divested from Star Wars. It had been a steady, positive presence in my life for four years (2016 - 2019) and pretty miserable presence on-and-off for another (2020) and I think it's served its purpose. I never watched it as a child so I don't have any baggage of that nature attached to it, so I'm pretty comfortable making a clean break. Now I just have to decide how much of the limited merchandise I have I'm gonna bother to keep and what I'm gonna give away.

"Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to." - Kylo Ren

Well I finally made it to the end of the Sixth Doctor era (though I honestly made it two weeks ago, but I'd been putting off finishing this review), and I'm honestly impressed that I managed to stretch it out as long as I did. Knowing this era's reputation, I was ambivalent going in, but I actually ended up really liking Colin Baker's spin on the character. I just wish his batch of stories wasn't so decidedly mixed (and it definitely had more duds than home runs). This season was no exception, though I think a lot of the blame lays squarely at the feet of the trial sequences which throw off the pacing for a lot of the serials-within-a-serial. I like the conceit, but the cracks in the production really showed this season, and despite having the same production team as the past few seasons, it has the same energy as a transitional year. As much blame can (rightfully) be laid at the feet of John Nathan-Turner, I can't say I disagree with any of the creative decisions he made on this season specifically, and I think going into the Seventh Doctor's era with some fresh blood is definitely a good thing.

After knowing about this season for years, actually watching it unfold was a mix of missed and exceeded expectations. In a way, I guess it sums up the Sixth Doctor's era. The format of this season at least allows for a peak of where it could have gone on television and where it did on audio years later, and I ultimately do thing the show is better having gone through this experimental season. It's for this reason that, while I'm frustrated this Doctor doesn't have the same kind of ending as other Doctors, it's afforded him the opportunity to revisit and grow in the role in the time since.

Like the previous twenty-two seasons, the serials are available to watch via streaming on Britbox. This season was one big story divided into four smaller chunks, which made it interesting to rank.

( Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal. )

Since I now have a rough idea of when I'll be able to get vaccinated, I'm once again attempting to get myself in a good workout routine. This time I have someone holding me accountable, so I'm hopeful this will be the time where it actually sticks. I also haven't watched any anime in the past couple of weeks so I can play catch up with that while I'm on the elliptical rather than try to force my way through Digimon Xros Wars, since at this point watching that feels like a deterrent.

I started RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 5, which means I'm almost caught up with the currently airing seasons. I'm glad because I feel like constantly binging it is making me reach critical mass, and I need to transfer my energy over to something else. Maybe I'll finally get back into audio books now that I'm making my way through some of the Doctor Who audio materials.

I'm also playing Animal Crossing on and off again which I'm pretty happy about. A big part of why is that wellfourthings recently got the game, but some of my other friends started playing again which has been nice. I preordered the new Story of Seasons game so I can always switch over to that if I feel burnt out in a couple of weeks.

Managed to finally fix my sleep schedule and get on a cycle where i don't have to drug myself to get to sleep and set six alarms to get up, but it's also coinciding with things ramping up at work so I'm still feeling a bit tense. It's been one of the few times this past year where I think I would actually benefit from being at the office.

I feel like if I can manage to get back on some semblance of a consistent exercise routine it'll do wonders I just haven't quite been able to make it over that hump yet. It's (finally) starting to get warm enough that I can walk around outside in a sweatshirt so maybe I'll try spending some more time doing that, especially now that I'm back to going through podcasts and audio productions and not just listening to the same five year old Waterparks song or Love Live deep cut on a loop for a week straight.

☆ Television: I finished Drag Race US season 11 and Drag Race UK series 1 and I think I might be burnt out on it a little. I'm almost caught up though so that's great! I can't really psych myself up to watch anything else though even though I'm behind on a bunch of anime, so we'll see how that goes I guess.

☆ Writing: It's nothing really publishable, but I'm writing snippets of fanfic again, which has been fun! Some of them have been off dw100 prompts so maybe I'll end up cleaning those up and posting them. I'm hoping I can get myself back into a headspace where I can finally finish off some projects that have been sitting in my drafts for years. Hetalia finally coming back next month should hopefully help motivate me with the fic for that.

☆ Gaming: I'm gonna try to pick up Animal Crossing again for the St. Patrick's Day event. I made a lot of progress in my BioShock playthrough last week, and I preordered the new Pokemon Snap and Story of Seasons games and I'm looking forward to taking a crack at those too. I forked over the cash for a monthly pass for Love Live All Stars but it's not bringing the same levels of serotonin as it had so I may stop that after this month.