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It's very obvious I've been hanging at tumblr recently, because my first instinct was to make three different posts. I'm going to embrace the blog format and just put it all in one.
***
I mentioned I'd probably blog a bit more broadly here than I do on tumblr, and since the Doctor Who series 11 just ended, I'll start with that. For starters, being Finnish Doctor Who isn't in any way part of my cultural background, but I immediately loved the new Who when it begun in 2005 (I think?). I fell out something like season and half into Eleventh Doctor, the things that annoyed me got so pronounced all the good no longer balanced it out. I understand that a lot of what annoyed me got better during the Twelfth Doctor's era, but I never managed to pick it up (I might yet, but I'm in general a fairly sporadic watcher, so my list of should watch stuff is long).
With the new Doctor I did get over the lingering indifference, and I enjoyed the latest season a lot. It wasn't perfect, but as we know, perfect is the enemy of good, and seeking it damps down enjoyment a lot. So, I definitely enjoyed. I really liked Jodie Whitaker as a Doctor, and the choices she and the writers made for her character. Also how her adjustment was portrayed, in that there's the early settling in like after all the regenerations, but it subtly continued forward, with her sometimes clearly having to stop and readjust. I also very much liked the new team (fam! :D), I liked that there was a group of companions instead of just one (or a situation where despite there being more companions, one is clearly the "main" one). I also liked all of them as individuals.
I also liked the individual episodes and the variety in them, there wasn't a single one that I would consider a failure. Although I have to say none of them struck me as especially brilliant either, even when they were consistently solid. What I would have liked more is connective tissue between the episodes, and more development of the relationship between the Doctor and the companions, because that stayed fairly static throughout. I wonder if they were playing it a bit safe, considering a lot of people did consider it a risk just to have Jodie as the Doctor.
Looking forward, for the next season I'd like them to take more risks and push the very steady ties of relationships. I'd like to have the companions to really see the Doctor as this ancient being, and understand how scary she can really be.
***
The fandom migration discussion and all of its threads are very interesting, and I'm glad there are individuals making the effort to look into the federated and p2p networks, and figuring things out for the rest of us with less spoons for such. Obviously there are still issues that need to be solved, like the accessibility and hosting, which will require a larger share of coding oriented people than something like tumblr does, as well as how to find stuff. But I do know fandom is resourceful, and there certainly is will to move forward with this, so I'm hopeful.
Looking at the ready made platforms, if my interest toward the federated networks was very positive, my interest toward what's happening on Pillowfort is very cautious. At the very least I think they're in need of a very sharp learning curve when it comes to their content policies, looking at the recent change in TOS. Unfortunately the rules about underage content at the very end seem to boil down to the opinion of the moderator, and whether the image gets reported, which not only can never be fair and equal, also opens them up to a lot of questionable reporting. It seems there's maybe a good intention to it but not thought through.
Same could probably be said about their no callouts rule, which on surface might look good, because there's certainly a fairly distasteful callout culture grown on tumblr, and if it prevents unreasonable dogpiling happening, that's great. On the other hand, we do know from fandom history there are individuals that have literally hurt others and keep moving to new fandoms, and the rule would prevent from warning against those individuals. Then the only hope would be to report to moderators and hope they'll do something, which they might not.
So, while I like a lot of the things they're about at Pillowfort, including the attitude of just getting along and not trying to bring in huge profits, I'm still cautious and not signing up for now.
***
Moving forward to things to write, which obviously is something I talk about all the time, but this is about other stuff than fics. I'm similar to Bucky Barnes in that I have a serious heartboner for Steve Rogers, and (I think in 2016) I meant to write a meta series of Steve in MCU, about his character and arc as well as why I liked him so much. I never did, but maybe I'll dust that idea off and actually write about it here. The sort-of-essay format would fit a journal site like this much better than tumblr. I'm leaving it to stew at the back of my head for now, all my writing energy is claimed already for the rest of the year. Maybe I'll get them out before Endgame.
***
I mentioned I'd probably blog a bit more broadly here than I do on tumblr, and since the Doctor Who series 11 just ended, I'll start with that. For starters, being Finnish Doctor Who isn't in any way part of my cultural background, but I immediately loved the new Who when it begun in 2005 (I think?). I fell out something like season and half into Eleventh Doctor, the things that annoyed me got so pronounced all the good no longer balanced it out. I understand that a lot of what annoyed me got better during the Twelfth Doctor's era, but I never managed to pick it up (I might yet, but I'm in general a fairly sporadic watcher, so my list of should watch stuff is long).
With the new Doctor I did get over the lingering indifference, and I enjoyed the latest season a lot. It wasn't perfect, but as we know, perfect is the enemy of good, and seeking it damps down enjoyment a lot. So, I definitely enjoyed. I really liked Jodie Whitaker as a Doctor, and the choices she and the writers made for her character. Also how her adjustment was portrayed, in that there's the early settling in like after all the regenerations, but it subtly continued forward, with her sometimes clearly having to stop and readjust. I also very much liked the new team (fam! :D), I liked that there was a group of companions instead of just one (or a situation where despite there being more companions, one is clearly the "main" one). I also liked all of them as individuals.
I also liked the individual episodes and the variety in them, there wasn't a single one that I would consider a failure. Although I have to say none of them struck me as especially brilliant either, even when they were consistently solid. What I would have liked more is connective tissue between the episodes, and more development of the relationship between the Doctor and the companions, because that stayed fairly static throughout. I wonder if they were playing it a bit safe, considering a lot of people did consider it a risk just to have Jodie as the Doctor.
Looking forward, for the next season I'd like them to take more risks and push the very steady ties of relationships. I'd like to have the companions to really see the Doctor as this ancient being, and understand how scary she can really be.
***
The fandom migration discussion and all of its threads are very interesting, and I'm glad there are individuals making the effort to look into the federated and p2p networks, and figuring things out for the rest of us with less spoons for such. Obviously there are still issues that need to be solved, like the accessibility and hosting, which will require a larger share of coding oriented people than something like tumblr does, as well as how to find stuff. But I do know fandom is resourceful, and there certainly is will to move forward with this, so I'm hopeful.
Looking at the ready made platforms, if my interest toward the federated networks was very positive, my interest toward what's happening on Pillowfort is very cautious. At the very least I think they're in need of a very sharp learning curve when it comes to their content policies, looking at the recent change in TOS. Unfortunately the rules about underage content at the very end seem to boil down to the opinion of the moderator, and whether the image gets reported, which not only can never be fair and equal, also opens them up to a lot of questionable reporting. It seems there's maybe a good intention to it but not thought through.
Same could probably be said about their no callouts rule, which on surface might look good, because there's certainly a fairly distasteful callout culture grown on tumblr, and if it prevents unreasonable dogpiling happening, that's great. On the other hand, we do know from fandom history there are individuals that have literally hurt others and keep moving to new fandoms, and the rule would prevent from warning against those individuals. Then the only hope would be to report to moderators and hope they'll do something, which they might not.
So, while I like a lot of the things they're about at Pillowfort, including the attitude of just getting along and not trying to bring in huge profits, I'm still cautious and not signing up for now.
***
Moving forward to things to write, which obviously is something I talk about all the time, but this is about other stuff than fics. I'm similar to Bucky Barnes in that I have a serious heartboner for Steve Rogers, and (I think in 2016) I meant to write a meta series of Steve in MCU, about his character and arc as well as why I liked him so much. I never did, but maybe I'll dust that idea off and actually write about it here. The sort-of-essay format would fit a journal site like this much better than tumblr. I'm leaving it to stew at the back of my head for now, all my writing energy is claimed already for the rest of the year. Maybe I'll get them out before Endgame.
