Journal of Whills

 Forgot to logout of tumblr on the other comp so had started scrolling before I remembered. Logged out and have clicked the link again four times. Finally moved the bookmark out of the way.

We finally managed to drag our sorry tailfeathers into the forest and promptly found some weird drow lady with a cart full of goodies. So many goodies and so few coins to spend! I managed to snag myself a tanglefoot bag and some painted rocks. The rocks seem like kind of a strange thing to be mixed in with all the more magical stuff, but if Malice (and isn't that a name to inspire confidence) thought there was anything to them she didn't say. Let me get them and the bag for the coins we got on the battlefield. Well, plus chipping in for some catstink. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you. Especially when you can't remember if anyone is supposed to be chasing you.

Ah well, there's a good fire going thanks to the frogfolk, and I and way overdue for some shuteye.

((Testing this out as a way of getting in character and keeping track of info for my D&D character, a Rogue Ravenfolk with amnesia.))

Came to in the middle of a battlefield. Never a good sign. At least the fighting seemed to be over and the handful of other survivors weren't trying to kill me. Adding to the problem is that I have amnesia. Can't even remember my name or what I'm supposed to be doing. Seems like the others don't, either, which is pretty suspicious if you ask me. Assuming they're telling the truth that means that something must have put an awfully big whammy on us. I'd like to avoid encountering whatever it was again before it comes back to finish the job. Right now, however, my new (new?) companions seem to be set on loitering among the dead bodies that are getting deader under the heat of the day.

I checked a few bodies, but didn't find anything interesting or informative. Well, other than the fact that hacked up bodies are disgusting. I had better luck with my own supplies. A couple daggers, a hidden stiletto, and some lockpicks and tools. Whoever I am I seem to be on the shady side (and boy could I use some shade right now). I also had a Plague Doctor costume, which seems like a bit of a weird choice. I mean I assume it's a costume and I'm not an actual plague doctor, but you never know. Maybe I should wear the hat to help keep the sun off until the band of boneheads decides to find shelter. I also had a spare set of clothes, a tinderbox, a bedroll, a bag of caltrops (WHY??), a whole lot of string, and a treasure pouch. The gold teeth clearly aren't mine. I'm not sure if the signet ring is, either. Maybe I'll try it on later to confirm. A nice pearl necklace and some coins rounded things out. At least I should be able to get a few provisions if we ever hit living civilization again. The cane bangles on my left ankle and right wrist are a little on the plain side, but I like them. They feel right.

I'm not sure what to make of my companions yet. They seem to be pretty mixed. Very mixed. There's a catfolk lady and some kind of halfbreed catfolk guy, maybe. Not sure I trust them, but we'll see. The halfbreed did manage to find a cart full of medical supplies, so he's not totally useless, even if his clothes are on the fancy side. He has a shiny silver tankard and a nice gold ring. Funny how stuff glints in the sun. Weapon-wise he has a dagger (not as good as mine I bet), a rapier (fancypants), and a crossbow. Might make him good in a fight. He also has a harmonica that he seemed proud to discover. I hope he doesn't try and play it.

The catfolk lady (some kind of tiger) has a warhammer, if you can believe that. Definitely not someone to cross. She knows her herbs, though. Went through the medical stuff like she knew what she was doing and even found some wake-up herbs for me. Not as good as coffee, of course, but it'll do for now.

There's also a frogman in some kind of shaman's robes or something. Lots of pretty dangly bits hanging off his belt and his staff has beads and feathers, too. None of them better be mine. He has a collection of teeth, too, but none of them are gold like mine. He also has skulls. And a slug. He has magic in him, too, given that he made a sparkly yellow firework appear. Maybe he'll come in handy. He has a hand crossbow, too, sized just for him. Huh.

Next is a tall elf type, judging by her pointy ears. Her dagger is very fancy (gotta be an elf thing). She has a fancy book, too. And a fancy white ferret. Because of course you're gonna venture into a battlefield with your trusty pet fur noodle. Her bracelet is a fancy silver model with fancy gems in it. Elves. Lots of coins, too. Dunno why I feel like money is important, but it is useful for buying things I guess. She's also sporting a blue bandana, which matches with half of the dead army around us.

The halfling has green and red stripes on his arm and face, which marks him as part of the other half of the dead army. Lots of leather things and cooking supplies, so when we get tired of travel rations he'll be good at a cookfire. He also seems to think he's some kind of jokester. Maybe he lost his jester hat in the melee.

I wonder why us? How come we got spared? We're a very random selection, whatever we are. Is there something that ties us together? Ugh. Even with the herbs I'm still exhausted. All I want to do is find a place to roost and recuperate. I'd ditch the others but that doesn't seem like a safe move right now. And I'm curious dammit. What the heck is going on here? Why can't I (or we I guess) remember anything? I know I was crawling between bodies with a dagger at some point but that isn't really useful information. NOTHING seems useful right now. Maybe if I can get some sleep I'll dream up some answers. Or at least get some rest. Everything hurts. Even my beak. Ugh.

I've decided to make a tumblr. Dunno how much I'll use it. I don't think I quite understand what I'm doing with it and I mostly only made it so I could pester other people with questions without being a damn Anon.

Account name is feelingstabby. Make of that what you will. ;)

Dreamed about zombies again. Wasn't quite as fear-inducing this time because the setup seemed to involve me setting up someone else's zombie nightmare. With real zombies as the actors Yeah. My sentiments exactly.

Problem was that the schedule we were on got scrapped or something so we had to call it off. This involved me telling the twin girl zombies who had crawled into an outhouse's toilet that they needed to get out and go take a break or set up for the next scene or whatever.

First zombie girl came out no problem, but the second one had been down in the sewage tank or something. It was extremely disgusting. Anyway, she finally got out, but all that time sitting in sewage had dissolved her skin so as she was walking down the road her belly opened and the entire contents of her body spilled out. HUGE MESS and, with her being a zombie, most of what was left was black and green rather than red. I was in a bit of a panic because I was having trouble getting someone over to clean her up and the set she was on was needed for an upcoming scene. Less fear this time, but more stress. And I definitely did not want to go anywhere near the girl to help her. She was a nice enough girl, if a bit shy, but dealing with rotting guts wasn't in my job description and anyway you had to be careful around the zombies because sometimes they forgot not to bite the staff.

Three dreams, two of them unpleasant and one just weird.

First dream: I'm some kind of princess (I know, right?) who doesn't want to marry some creep of a prince. My mom, the queen, knows this and had a dark sorcerer create some kind of double of me. The double was a bit strange. Based off mermaid DNA or something and with a penchant for eating birds. I objected to the idea of being replaced by a dangerous double so got the little plastic wrapper thing (like a wrapper for a mini Reece's) and tossed it in the woodstove (from my home). Mom told me I shouldn't have done that and REACHED INTO THE FIRE to retrieve it. I was completely horrified. Mostly because Mom had gotten horribly burned because of something I'd done but also because of her indication that this whatever-thing was that necessary.

Second dream: Some kind of... basketball person, I think, fails to show up for some even and I lead an increasingly large group of people running around trying to find her. We check various NBA games and then I should "WNBA!" And we all run off to some women's basketball thing (the person we were looking for may have been female). The game, naturally, is taking place in a high school-sized gym and is packed to overcapacity with eager fans hoping to see... whatever. I have a cluster of people around me who are watching eagerly to see what I'll do next. Which was kinda creepy. Someone managed to get the person on the phone and we all cheered and he panned his camera around so she could see just how many people were eager to see her. Never did see how that ended. There was a later bit about a group of kids wanting to vandalize the principal's care and looking to me for approval and me threatening to beat the crap out of them if they touched the car. They went away.

Third dream: Zombies. AGAIN. I don't know why my brain has fastened on these as a means of horrifying me, but the stupidity of it- and how greatly I'm affected by the damn things in the dream- is really frustrating. This time around the setup was familiar. And by familiar I mean that in the dream I knew exactly what was going to happen because I had "just been" through the same scenario. There were a couple of elements that had me wondering if my dream self/character was stuck in some kind of game. Except things were different from the "first time," whenever that was. The guy I was with also knew we were stuck in a loop. The first time around he'd petted a strange dog that bit him, giving him the virus. This time he knew not to pet the dog but another girl showed up (with another dog) and wouldn't listen to our warnings not to touch the stray dog. Predictable things happened. I walked away from it and the guy kinda faded from my awareness at that point.

I was walking along a wooden pathway built into a cliffside along a harbor. I was approaching the marina when I saw the Friendly Caretaker hail be from farther down the path. I knew he was in the early stages of infection and turned around to avoid him, but he followed me anyway. One of the dogs also showed up, so I hopped over the railway onto the cliff and climbed up a narrow trail of boulders to try and reach the steep path leading up to the snobby peoples' homes. I could hear Friendly Infected Caretaker shouting for me below but I REALLY REALLY didn't feel like dealing with zombies again, so I kept climbing, grabbing onto slips of beach grass and... broccoli-like plants to try and haul myself up to higher ground. I didn't think this would actually save me, but I was hoping it would at least give me time to find somewhere to hide until the scenario reset itself. Or at least give me a different story to follow. I woke up trying to figure out WTF the broccoli things were and what they were doing mixed in with the beach grass.

Finally there is an episode of Doctor Who that gets full passing marks complete with little hearts and rainbows.

Neil Gaiman was the writer and the episode was, indeed, very Gaimany. I've actually seen some complaints about that stating that it was "very Gaiman" but "not very Doctor Who." Personally I thought it WAS very Doctor Who, but maybe a bit more old school than some are used to. Granted, I haven't seen a lot of the old stuff, but I still felt it slotted in very well with the general spirit of Who.

I also felt that Gaiman gave us the best representation of Eleven that we've had since his regeneration. I've never entirely warmed to him, mostly because he hasn't gelled for me as a character. He's too all over the place and too busy spouting nonsense for me to get a real feel for him. In "The Doctor's Wife" I saw the Doctor I didn't know I wanted. He's still essentially Eleven with Eleven's quirks and some of his mannerisms, but now he's GROUNDED and COHERENT and he slows down long enough to catch some ACTUAL DEPTH. It was... glorious. And I'm going to miss it like hell. *sigh*

Rory, too, got treated like a real character with real depth instead of being relegated to the comical sidekick as usual. I'm going to miss that, too. Damn you, Gaiman. ( Read more... )

If I had one complaint about the episode it's that it was only ONE episode. I wish it could have been expanded to a whole, old timey arc of 3-4 eps. What we got was as nicely compacted as it could have been, but with more time we could have learned SO MUCH MORE about EVERYTHING. And there was a lot I wanted to know more about, too.

I really sincerely hope that Neil Gaiman gets to write more episodes. This was a joy to watch and hearkened back to the classic days of yore, which I felt even though I haven't watched much of those classic days. I feel regrettably certain that the rest of the season will pale in comparison to this and that, as wonderful as it was it will probably only serve to highlight all that is wrong with the current direction of the show. *sigh*

This is quick and dirty because thanks to a frakking Firefox glitch I lost my previous post (LJ couldn't save it because the script was blocked- fucking new computer BS).

Did I like this ep? No. Here's why. ( Spoilers )

It's really tough to be a straight guy on Doctor Who, particularly if your girlfriend is the Doctor's Companion.

We all remember Mickey, right? Sweet, lovable Mickey who loved Rose more than anything and who was treated like dirt by her the entire time they were together. Mickey, who had smarts of his own but was rarely allowed to show it because his being stupid and blundering about was far more entertaining.

He loved Rose so much that even though he wasn't keen on the Doctor- whom he KNEW his girlfriend was infatuated with- he agreed to go along for the ride because it would allow him to be closer to Rose. Rose, who was annoyed and petulant about his joining and who did her best to ignore him whenever possible.

I loved Mickey. My heart really went out to him, not only because he was a nice guy but because he was treated like crap by both Rose and the writers. Any chance at comic relief probably came at Mickey's expense and no matter how much he loved Rose she clearly had eyes only for the Doctor. It's a terrible thing to watch a good, loyal person be so terribly mistreated and it's even worse when that person allows the mistreatment to continue because they're so good and loyal.

Mickey was, in essence, only there to be the Plucky Comic Relief. He was an example of the world Rose wanted to leave behind; the boring, mundane world of reality. He was a little dull-witted and a lot in love and his whole world revolved around Rose. Without Rose he was nothing; he spent his days moping about, pining away for his missing girl and keeping a keen ear out for the familiar sound of the TARDIS in hopes he might be able to get a glimpse of her. His musing about being the "tin dog" of the group wasn't far off the mark except I think even K9 got more respect than Mickey did.

Mickey DID finally manage to move past her and go on to get a life of his own... in a new reality. Offscreen.

Add a couple of years and another regeneration and we've got Rory. Rory has a lot in common with Mickey; he's written to be slightly dull-witted and ridiculously loyal to his girlfriend- who is now his WIFE- and more often than not he's only there to be the Plucky Comic Relief. He's had his moments; great, glorious moments, but most of the time his moments are cut off or blunted by a ham-fisted attempt to make it funny. Because a soul in torment just screams "laugh at me."

I never liked Amy's infatuation with the Doctor. Not only because GREAT GODS, NOT AGAIN a Companion was in love with the Doctor but because she already had a boyfriend. A husband-to-be, in fact. While I'm hopeful that Amy & Rory will actually wind up staying together ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY'RE MARRIED I see a lot of Mickey in him. Rory puts up with a lot of abuse and humiliation, too, and he's still trailing after his Doctor-obsessed WIFE like a lovesick puppy. He guarded her for 2000 YEARS and the woman STILL brushes him off in favor of the Doctor. Rory may be the one who's written to be a bit naive, but if you ask me Amy is the real idiot! Some of the worst stuff has cropped up in the two-part S6 premiere. ( spoilers for Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon )

On the other side of things you have Captain Jack, who is big and bold and clever and has brass ones that would rival the best of them. He's awesome, he's a great Companion and he's also a great stand-alone character. He joins Rose and the Doctor NOT because he's hopelessly crushing on either (or both) of them but because it seems like a great adventure. He's loyal to the Doctor and loves him, but not in a love-starved puppy kind of way. He's also bi. Or omnisexual, as I usually call him. ( more spoilers for Day of the Moon )

What I'd like to know is where are all the smart, ballsy straight guys? Where are the straight guys who are in it for the adventure and not because they're trailing after their girlfriends? Where are the straight guys who are just as smart- or smarter- than the girls and who aren't afraid to stand up for themselves and others? Where are the straight guys who take pending death with a smirk instead of a whimper?

Doctor Who is supposed to broaden our horizons a bit, right? So let's start by having more female Companions who aren't in love with the Doctor and more male Companions who have a brain and a will of their own. Come on, Doctor, if you try hard enough I'm sure these types can't be THAT hard to find! It's a big universe!

EDIT: Just to clarify, I don't have any issues with the gay/bi/omni characters on Doctor Who; they tend to be universally awesome and I love them, but I'd also like to see the straight characters get some of the same backbones of awesomeness instead of being left to waffle after their girlfriends or be blindly crushing on the Doctor the entire time they're around.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single fan in possession of a good most brilliantly awesome thing EVER in the history of awesomeness show, must be in want of a fight. ( Fandom rant ahoy! )