The world is, well, what it is currently. Trying to delve back more into stimulating/creative pursuits (actually being able to sit down and write more than a couple of paragraphs of fic still seems to evade me, but perhaps one day.)

☆ Television: I finished rewatching the first season of She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat - a very charming J-Drama about two women cooking together and then falling in love. I'm excited to start on season 2, especially since I think I can credit this show with pulling me out of the brain fog I've been in the past few months since the election. The series is based on a manga and I want to pick up physical copies of it from my local bookstore, especially since that version is still ongoing while I'm pretty sure the show has ended.

Last night I also (finally!) started watching Twin Peaks. Did a double take when I realized that the story was actually set on February 24th as well. I am kind of kicking myself for not watching this sooner, both because David Lynch passed earlier this year and because I'm pretty sure I got spoiled at some point for who "the killer" is and I'm 80% sure I know which character it is from the jump, which lowkey sucks. The pilot was fantastic though and I'm looking forward to diving more into it.

I've also been making my way through The Great North, and while I like it I think doing it right after watching all of Central Park and catching up on Bob's Burgers is burning me out on it a little. Keeping up with Drag Race like usual, and also currently watching Abbott Elementary, Happy's Place, and Mayfair Witches week-to-week. Doctor Who is coming back in April and I'm looking forward to it even as I'm nervous for the show's future.

☆ Anime: Started getting the itch to finally start watching more Anime again. Last year I really only watched the reboot of Spice and Wolf (along with a rewatch of the original, and reading the original source material). I somehow got it in my head that now's the time to watch Trigun and I'm not gonna fight it. The question now remains whether I'll watch it while doing cardio like I'm hoping or not.

☆ Gaming: Still doing the daily grind of Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves. The other day I briefly flirted with redownloading Zenless Zone Zero but keeping up with four live service games is definitely too much especially if I wanna branch out and do other things with my free time. Hello Kitty Island Adventure is finally out on Nintendo Switch but I think I may wait for the physical version to release, especially with the weird flux state the Switch is in right now with it's successor on the horizon.

I'm gonna aim to do more periodic posts like this, especially as a way to keep my brain engaged with how I'm spending my time. As the weather gets better I'd also like to do more activities outside of media consumption and possible creation. Maybe this summer I'll achieve the romantic ideal of sitting in a park somewhere and writing.

So I haven't been in much of a headspace the past couple of months to do my normal type of writing around "event" releases - in this case the 60th Anniversary Specials of Doctor Who and the Xmas Special/First Episode of Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor.

( Spoilers for the 60th Anniversary Specials and The Church on Ruby Road, if it matters )

The TV movie has always been a source of fascination for me ever since I got into Doctor Who. For a very long time it was the only piece of televised media to feature the Eighth Doctor, and (presumably because of rights issues) its something that existed in a bit of a bubble. While New Who would reference various parts of Classic Who, the events of this film always seemed to be glossed over aside from the Eighth Doctor being an incarnation that existed. I was even aware that other characters from the film hadn't made their way into expanded media the way other characters and companions from the show's history had. So going into this I was so curious what it would be like, and if it felt like part of either Classic Who or New Who.

The long and short of it is it doesn't quite feel like either - but it also doesn't really serve as a bridge between them. While in the classic 4:3 aspect ratio, the way its shot is cinematic in a way no other part of the franchise really is, and tonally does feel like the kind of retooled American version of the show it technically was. There's plenty to like about it, but I ended my viewing with no doubt in my mind why this wasn't picked up as an ongoing series.

Unlike the Classic and Modern series, this film is not available for streaming anywhere for American audiences that I could find, so I utilized other means.

( But it was a childish dream that made you a doctor. You dreamed you could hold back death. Isn't that true? )

I haven't posted to this account in ages, mostly because this year has mostly just oscillated between me being sick, playing Genshin Impact/Honkai: Star Rail, or both.

But now that the 60th anniversary for Doctor Who is within spitting distance, I'm getting back into the headspace I need to actually make my way through the rest of the Wilderness Years content (including the TV movie) I finish the undertaking I first started back in 2017. I've also held off on rewatching much of New Who until I finish this, so I'm looking forward to doing a big rewatch of that at some point, though I don't think I'll do a story-by-story review like I did for the Classic series (though maybe I'll write something).

Haven't been motivated to write much in general. I've tried gassing myself up a couple of times the past couple of years only to further fill my files with unfinished drafts. I'd like to polish off a couple of them before the year ends but we'll see. A couple of the most promising ones, in my opinion, are for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I haven't been in that headspace at all the past year. It was also partially fueled by Tumblr, which I haven't used much this year because I'm avoiding spoilers for all the TV and anime I haven't been watching.

Twitter is dying. I made a Bluesky account but it's still invite only so not a ton of people are on it yet.

Overall in the past week or so I've managed to make serious headway with the major mental hangups I've been dealing with this year, and I'm in a much better headspace going into the fall even though I have basically no plans as of writing this. Less pressure I suppose.

Didn't end up going through my Doctor Who watch plans on the anniversary because I spent most of November sick. First because of some random fall sickness that kept me low level fatigued for like two weeks, and then shortly after that I got my bivalent Covid Booster and then, like a moron, immediately did an outside activity that worsened the side-effect symptoms considerably. I think I'm okay now, but saying as much feels like tempting fate.

I spent the past week or so rewatching a bunch of Disney and Pixar movies - mostly ones I've watched within the past couple of years. The ones where its been longer feel like they deserve more attention that being on in the background while I'm doing something else... but that's how I got through a lot of the MCU stuff so maybe I should let that go.

It's also officially December so I feel more comfortable binging Holiday stuff. I kind of let Halloween fizzle this year since I had a hard time getting into the mood and I ended up being sick that week, so it would be nice to have some Holiday cheer before the gaping maw of winter inevitably sends me into another seasonal depression.

I've given myself a couple of days to let the episode sink in, as a lot happened and there was a fair amount I was surprised by (and a couple of things that people theorized that I'm surprised came to pass). Overall I was pretty happy with it even though it suffered from some of the same writing pitfalls as the rest of the Chibnall era, but this definitely erred on the better side.

( As River Song would say: Spoilers )

I posted a couple of days ago that I haven't been sleeping well the past couple of weeks, mostly because my sleep schedule has been super off the past week especially. Last night I pulled the "in case of emergency" rip chord and took some Tylenol PM in order to force myself to go to sleep at a slightly more reasonable hour, but I still think it's gonna take some work to get fully back on track. With vacation and travel stuff starting on Thursday I need to be in better shape sooner rather than later.

I wish it wasn't so hot out? I normally don't mind the heat but its been so consistently hotter than normal that I haven't really left my apartment at all the past three weeks, and it's starting to feel like how it was during the thick of lockdown which hasn't been spectacular for my mental health (and might explain why my sleep schedule has been so off). Weirdly I'm still doing way better than I was in the winter, and I guess I just have to accept that I get seasonal depression now for the first three months of the year. So yeah... that's fun.

As far as fan stuff goes it's mostly been K-Pop for the past couple of months, but I've been trying to slowly wean myself off of it because as far as fandom goes its not a particularly great environment? Like even with the groups I "stan" being relatively low drama, it's still not great. Now that Queendom 2 is over and I went to my summer concerts, picking my other interests back up is something I'm making a concentrated effort on. If any kind of new Doctor Who news dropped that would certainly help matters a lot.

Overall though I'm excited to get into this last leg of summer and into the fall, which is my favorite time of the year. I woke up this morning actually brainstorming fall activities and I hope I can actually get some of my friends to do some of them with me.

So I feel like in a few days this entry may be very outdated, which tbh is a very exciting feeling. I totally understand why Chris Chibnall was so adverse to releasing casting info or filming in public after the number of high profile leaks that happened during Moffat's tenure, but god its nice to see so much buzz about Doctor Who and have some idea of where it's going in the future.

( under the cut is a bulleted list )

Doing these audios was never really something I considered when I was planning my watch of Classic Who, and it was only after I did my previous "lost season" watch that I realized another "season" like it actually existed. It makes complete sense that the show's future had already been charted when the BBC pulled the plug back in 1989, and these audios probably don't reflect what the season would have truly looked like the way the previous ones did, but the way they've been changed and adapted feels much more faithful to the direction the series actually did take after it was cancelled with the novels and the subsequent revival. The fact that much of it was also helmed by Andrew Cartmel himself was a major selling point for me, and upon listen I was surprised by how much of it ended up being a large, linked "season-long" arc.

However, I will say that because these stories weren't as fleshed out as the ones from the aborted season 23, they by and large feel much thinner. That's not to say I didn't enjoy them - I really did! - but they almost felt constrained by what they could do with The Doctor and Ace since so much ground has already been covered elsewhere. What they did get, however, was extremely satisfying, and this listening experience has really inclined me to look into Big Finish more once the dust has settled a bit more.

All four stories are available for purchase from Big Finish as well as on platforms such as Audible. This "season" ended up being difficult to rank due to how interconnected they each were, and its entirely possible my ordering will change after I hit publish. I should also note that I actually lost a huge chunk of this review due to hardware failure and had to rewrite it later, which means that parts of it have been written much later and in less detail than I originally gave.

( So... is that it for us? I bet you're already into other dodgy schemes, with other dodgy people. )

The past two weeks have been... fraught to say the least. I went on a really fun vacation right before then but as soon as I got back I was immediately swamped at work and had to deal with a freak power outage over the weekend, so today is the first day where I haven't felt completely burned out. So yeah, no progress on any writing or other creative projects. At this point I'm not holding out much hope on that front until spring rolls around and the weather improves, because I wanna channel whatever motivations and energy I have into getting a semi-consistent workout routine again. (In the past I've had the most success attempting it in March so fingers crossed.)

☆ Television: Still watching Drag Race, and the current regular season is starting to pick up again... which is good because UK Versus the World is really crashing and burning as it limps towards the finish line. (Right now I'm #TeamMoHeart because at least she's been killing the runway every week, but I think they're gonna end up giving it to Blu who I've felt very meh on aside from a couple of bright spots.) I'm really hopeful the upcoming season Drag Race España will be as good as the first one and inject some much-needed enthusiasm back into this sphere.

As far as regular television goes, I hit the pause button on my Golden Girls universe watch for my vacation, and ended up seguing afterward into finally finishing the third season of You, and watching the first seasons of Bridgerton and Archive 81. All three were excellent, and it's making me tentatively wanna dive into more new shows like that even though I'm not really sure I have the drive or the attention span (Squid Game is still sitting in my queue unwatched). Disney Plus is also adding all the Netflix Marvel shows in Mid-March, and conventional wisdom seems to indicate those characters will only become more re-integrated with the main MCU films and tv series, so it might be a good idea to check those off my list? I've had very mixed responses to Phase Four so far so it probably wouldn't hurt.

☆ Gaming: I bought Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Legend Arceus, but I wanna finish all of the Pokémon Sword Expansion Pass content before I officially start those. I should be finishing Isle of Armor tonight so then I can start The Crown Tundra this week, and then I'm planning on starting both of the new games simultaneously. I've also been enjoying New Pokémon Snap quite a lot, and I'm anticipating that one will have a long shelf life for me like Animal Crossing has. I have mixed feelings on the Scarlet and Violet announcement, since I really like the starter designs and the vibe, but I think the art style is veering too much into uncanny valley territory and I wish they'd done something similar to Sword and Shield.

As far as other games go, I've started Yooka-Laylee, which I'm enjoying but I never played that style of game as a kid so it's a bit of a learning curve. I'd also like to get back into and finish EarthBound, Figment, and Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, but I think taking a break from them is a nice recharge. I've still been playing Fortnite on and off but my enthusiasm has definitely waned compared to the last two seasons, and I mostly just wanna hit level 200 before the season ends so I can unlock everything.