#but now we have ruby remembering the real world in Wish World and remembering poppy here

[green-green-grass]

girl it's because you're a demigod or a reality-breaking entity or something and your storyline isn't over girl

[nosferatufaggot]

My absolutely non-spoiler free theories about the finale MOSTLY based on Wish World.

So, Omega came back within this parallel world because The Rani brought him back. WITHIN THE EPISODE, The Rani calls Omega the origin of all Time Lords or whatever. HOWEVER, with the Timeless Child, the Doctor is ACTUALLY the origin of all time lords. And RTD has made it very clear that he is NOT just going to erase the Timeless Child. Moreso, we LITERALLY JUST SAW THE FUGITIVE DOCTOR TWO EPISODES AGO SO CLEARLY IT'S NOT BEING FORGOTTEN!

So there are these two contradicting things happening right now in Wish World. Which, by the canon, is totally fine because the Toymaker "made a game" out of the Doctor's past, thus justifying any contradictions and retcons. BUT I DON'T THINK IT'S THAT SIMPLE! Because Demidemisomethingsomething, the baby, does the little giggle. Yeah, all the gods from the Pantheon do it, but in this case I'm thinking it's a direct callback.

AND ANOTHER THING!!!!!!!! At the very end Fifteen makes a point to say that Poppy is his daughter and Poppy is real. AND IN SEASON ONE/FOURTEEN, Fifteen tells Ruby that while Susan is his granddaughter, he doesn't really have any children. But Poppy is his child. So I think in the finale, taking all these bits and bobs, it'll be VITAL to blend Wish World and the real world together BECAUSE Poppy is Susan's mother. And one of the big conflicts of the story is ensuring reality don't collapse or whatever. My major theory is basically speculating what the plot is lmao. But I have so many RED STRINGS about it that I wanted to talk about it.

Alllssssoooooo........Rogue being the Master. All within the same scene, okay? People noticed that in the score the drums are there. What I noticed is Fifteen saying "No no no no" in the same beat as the Master's drums. Another thing is that Rogue ISN'T wearing his same clothes as before but rather clothes resembling what the Master wore when the Jacobi Master regenerated into the Simm Master. AND ANOTHER THING I haven't seen talked about but I thought of. The two Ranis knew WHEN the Doctor would start having more doubt. 20:58 or whatever I don't remember. They knew the exact time. And they broadcast what's on tv. I think they PLANTED this! Because, afterall, they WANT him to have more doubt!!!!!!! So WHHHYYYY the FUCK would they choose Rogue? They don't know Rogue! They don't know about his ssignificance to Fifteen! But The Rani knows the Master. ........ And also it fills my Thoschei agenda is they kissed and the Master told the Doctor he loved him ^^ Idk I don't really ship Rogue and Fifteen so this gives me some additional happiness. A bit selfish but who cares.

I also frankly don't think Susan will be a part of the finale. I think it's build up to next season. I really want to go back and look at my theories from back when 73 Yards aired. I think I thought Mrs. Flood was Clara. Wouldn't that have been awesome?

[thelegendofsqam]

Wish World thoughts as I watch the episode

I can somewhat agree with RTD’s stance that the Rani would be up for learning everything she could about the Pantheon and the new science of the universe. The opening makes sense in that regard.

Loving the retro aesthetics. But why is Poppy the Doctor’s daughter? Also, what’s the weather like in America, Conrad? At least it makes sense for him to have the Doctor and Belinda married, especially given his comment in Lucky Day. Still makes no sense for their child to be Poppy and I hope this gets explained.

Also, if Conrad is as terrible as he is, why is he letting Belinda say “amma” instead of an English word there? Or did they decide having him be racist would make him even more unbelievable as a character?

So this is Poppy doubting? It’s not just a baby saying “no” because babies love to say “no” once they learn the word? Well now I’m doubtful.

Ruby vaguely remembering makes sense given how she vaguely remembers 73 Yards. It’d make more sense I think if all the time-travelers vaguely remembered.

He’s got at least one daughter, Ruby, we even had an episode titled as such.

Mel is wasted here.

So are they not supposed to be on Earth if they feel the need to specify that the indigenous population were human?

I love the renaming of UNIT. Not sure why. Also the redesign.

Eh I find homophobic Ibrahim to be inconsistent with how bigoted he’s trying to make Conrad’s worldview. We saw some bigotry towards the disabled in Lucky Day, but no homophobia. Why doesn’t he hate foreigners too? If you’re gonna build a straw man character, at least build him all the way.

No, saying “drum that out of her” is not a Master reference. And I won’t believe it is unless RTD says otherwise.

Also finally getting Belinda’s family and they’re not even real. Why would Poppy remember the day of her birth? Silly dialogue, at least for Belinda. Would’ve made more sense to have Ruby have it since she knows Poppy was made by a machine.

Oh boy, I sure hope that after Belinda has realized her daughter can’t be her daughter since she doesn’t remember her being born and had to go scream in the woods about it she doesn’t drink the kook aid again.

And no explanation for how the Rani survived? Disappointing.

So the Doctor calling another man beautiful is an outrage but Kate calling the Rani beautiful isn’t? Again, makes homophobic Ibrahim seem even more stupid.

Rani, you must have a TARDIS. Why are you riding a scooter made of bones?

Flood Rani, you’re the one who became obsequious as soon as you bi-generated. Makes sense for the Rani to complain, but you also did that to yourself.

Ok calling her the mistress just makes me wish we had Missy for this instead.

Hmmm so Lucky Day Mrs. Flood had already bi-generated when she freed Conrad. Interesting. I wonder what order her other cameos are supposed to be in.

Missed opportunity to say “all he does is giggle.” You’re right though, he is terrifying.

She’s not your child; she’s you. She’s right that that’s the most disgusting thing she’s ever heard, except she’s said it to herself.

“The One Who is Lost.” So pretentious. Just say his name.

Take a shot every time Ruby’s family abandons her in an alternate timeline/reality.

Why are only mugs falling when people doubt?

So is this just an interpreter or are they also disabled? Having worked with sign language interpreters, I know it’s really offensive to frame what the deaf person is saying with, “They’re saying,” instead of just interpreting. Maybe it’s different in Britain?

“We’re gonna bring down God.” surejan.gif

So is this secret doubling down on Timeless Child crap or are you about to retcon the retcon with even more nonsense?

Susan is wasted in this.

Least favorite part right here. Should’ve had Susan instead of Rogue doing thid. Way to waste Susan.

How does he even know what’s happening anyway? Probably won’t be explained and just make things even more stupid.

Ah beans, she drunk the kool aid again.

Nice to have some Rani ruthlessness.

Oh boy, what a great plan. I hope the episode has it pay off!

Playing up the threshold was a bit stupid.

RTD are you writing the Rani or the Master?

Please let that just be a ploy. Otherwise this is just Missy all over again.

Oh nice flashbacks to Kate O’Mara

“I only wanted life.” No tf you did not. You only wanted your experiments. Also, plenty of the Doctors villains wanted life, just not a good life. (Yes I am thinking specifically of the Cybermen here)

Kasterberous mention!

Yeah this is far too Master-ish. Was Michelle Gomez unavailable so we switched to the Rani instead, Russell?

“This isn’t just exposition,” yeah, no, it very much is. Making it necessary for the plot doesn’t stop it being exposition.

RIP London.

Few things: 1) I thought Rassilon created the Time Lords (or Tecteun in Chibnall’s retconned bs) and Omega created time travel, or am I misremembering? 2) We really calling the antimatter universe the “Underverse” now? 3) Why would the Rani care about Omega? 4) Why is the Fugitive showing after 13 instead of before 1 and why are we so insistent on having her be a previous incarnation while ignoring the Brain of Morbius Doctors? Even Chibnall decided to include them in the lineup.

Seriously, did RTD just write this for Missy/the Master and have to quickly change the names?

Poppy is real, but she isn’t your daughter, Doctor.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Doctor Who: Wish World (15x07)

I can't believe we're already so close to the end of this season...

Cons:

So, I did like this episode, but same complaint as last week about the Rani, and now the reveal of Omega or whatever. These are staged and presented as giant reveals, but I don't know them, ya know? I also think the bi-generation of the Rani is still pointless, it honestly would have been kind of fun and wild to have the little old lady be the one speechifying and dancing with the Doctor and reminiscing about how they may or may not once have been lovers. Why add another person into the mix? As far as I'm able to tell, it doesn't enhance the twist in any way.

This isn't a "con" so much as it is... a note, something to look out for: it was fun seeing Ruby in this episode for sure, but I wish that Belinda had had more to do. I'm hoping that somehow next week she'll have some big moments to shine, because I kind of wanted her and the Doctor to be united in their "doubts" stuff instead of her turning him in and then just apologizing for it immediately? It's a small thing, but I do want Belinda to have more agency here.

 Pros:

This was honestly a really good episode, much better than I was expecting with the kind of muddy A-plot setup we've gotten this season. It's not exactly a super original concept, this world where things seem idyllic at first glance but actually it's all a big trap - it's Orwellian, in fact, very basic stuff, but I loved a couple of the individual quirks of this. First, the idea that it all actually is Conrad's wish, and thus anybody who doesn't fit into the status quo is able to find more of a purchase in reality, on the fringes of things where Conrad isn't paying attention. I also like that Belinda and the Doctor are married, because the deep affection and admiration for each other is absolutely real, it's just the shape of that relationship that is wrong. It was so sweet, that moment towards the end when the Doctor reached for his "wife's" hand and said that he didn't have any doubts about her, even if he didn't quite know what all was going on.

I also liked how this worldview of Conrad's was explicitly a homophobic worldview, no bones about it. The moment when the Doctor is telling another man he's beautiful and then gets rebuffed for it was honestly chilling. The Doctor was legitimately afraid in that moment of rocking the boat, and it was disorienting and disturbing to see him like that, trying to keep his head down and not knowing what's going on! That moment, and Belinda running out into the woods to scream, were two excellent moments that showed how these strong and curious characters are constrained by this vision of order and peace as Conrad imagines it.

Ruby teaming up with people living on the outskirts, trying to solve the mystery, was great. Poor Ruby has already been through a couple different realities at this point, and she has spidey-senses for this kind of thing, it seems like. We didn't get a lot of progress with her but as the episode ends she's in prime position to find the Doctor as he plummets away from the Rani, so we'll have to see if they're able to connect up and figure shit out. I loved the tease of Ruby and the Doctor coming face to face when neither can quite remember the other.

I really loved the scene with Belinda and her family, and that creeping sense of wrongness as they realize they can't remember Poppy's birth. At first it seems as if this lapse is just part of the larger constructed sense of the world. But you've also got Poppy being a little contrarian, seeming to reject the premise of this world. And then the Doctor at the end, talking about how she's real... and what does it mean... this is a baby we last saw back in Gatwa's first season as the Doctor, in an episode that wasn't exactly my favorite, "Space Babies." I didn't recognize her at first! Extremely cute kid. This is a mystery I'm more intrigued by because it's within the scope of the show as I've actually seen it!

And I've been saving it for last: my heart grew three sizes to see Rogue appear on the screen, however briefly! He gives the Doctor the key warning that starts to snap him out of things, but since we know from the Rani that the doubts were part of the point, it's unclear what Rogue's motives were in warning him, if indeed he has any larger idea of what's going on! The fact that they got Groff to come do this small scene has me hoping fervently that he'll be back for a whole episode next season. I would be so, so happy. We got an "I love you" from Rogue, and the Doctor, even without his memories, says that he "really liked" the man on the TV... awwww!

I liked this episode, even though I don't like the twists coming from Classic Who just because I personally haven't seen any of it. This still compelled me just on the strengths of what was happening this season, though! Can't wait for the finale, although I'm sad it's over so soon!

8/10

[idthellyeah-blog]

A totally timely and significant review of Rancid’s “...And Out Come The Wolves”

(I honestly don’t remember when I wrote this, maybe 2015. Definitely just got jacked up on something and decided that I needed to write a track by track review of an album I loved when I was a cool punk teen. It has just been sitting in my Google Drive patiently waiting to be posted.)

 I remember the first time I ever heard/saw Rancid was when the video for “Salvation” off of their second album “Let’s Go” premiered on MTV. Such an 80’s/90’s kid thing to do, discovering a new band by seeing a music video on TV, ugh. I thought the leather clad mohawked bad boys were amazing and perfect and so cool...that I immediately tried to spike my hair using gelatin (tru punx only) and got a leather jacket (did not look that cool and was very sweaty).  When “...And Out Come The Wolves” came out the next year (1995, I’m old AF) I was totally enamored and had found my #1 favorite album of all time (that lasted for like a year until music got better).  I was supposed to go see Rancid at a big show in Omaha, I lived in a small town called Columbus that was roughly 90 minutes away from the big city...but the day of my mom didn’t let me go because I had bad math grades.  I reacted the way any entitled white teen did, by laying in the garage and crying and playing their album.  That show wound up being a huge to-do when fans tore up seats in the venue and threw cushions at the band leading to Rancid not playing Omaha for a long time.  I missed out on some cool bad-ass punk rock shit, first world problems. Fast forward to today when I decided that I, Ian Douglas Terry, needed to write out a song-by-song review of this quintessential punk album.  I’m a real music nut, and obviously very good at structured writing...so here we go!  (Rock on)

1. Maxwell Murder - Oh boy, this one starts with like a subway train sound and then the beginning of a killer/complicated Matt Freeman bass line.  That dude SHREDS the bass, and even has a wild solo in this song.  That’s tight.  Why did they stop letting him sing?  He sounded like a fun Muppet on their first album and I loved his songs.  Maybe he wanted to focus on just shredding the bass and using tons of pomade.

2. The 11th Hour - This song is great.  It is poppy and upbeat and about a woman having dreams and demanding answers.  Hell yeah.  I love good punk music that supports women and feminism and figuring out where the power lies (spoiler alert, it starts and ends with you).  Remember how Brody from The Distillers left Tim Armstrong for the dude from Queens of the Stone Age? And then he got all fat and got a beard?  I can completely relate to that, and have been there sans beard.

3. Roots Radicals - This song RULES.  I had to look up what “Moonstompers” were and who “Desmond Dekker” was.  I remember trying to relate to this like it could somehow compare to living in a town with 20,000 people and the nicest Wal-Mart in the tri-county area.  Remember how there was that Spanish language cover of this on one of those “Give Em The Boot” comps that Hellcat put out? That was real tight.

4. Time Bomb - Hit single baby!  This had a huge hand in getting punk kids into reggae/ska for sure.  Killer organ solo, lots of rude boy shit going, I loved it so much.  Tim Armstrong totally re-used lyrics from the song “Motorcycle Ride” from the previous album...which is hilarious.  Like c’mon dawg...you should know your own lyrics.  I learned how to do the solo from this and felt like a guitar god (it is a very easy solo, like almost too easy).

5. Olympia, WA - I love songs like this that are about cities that the band isn’t from...so you have to fire up your imagination (or just read the lyrics) and be like, “What went down in Olympia, Washington????”.  Turns out it was mostly hanging out on different streets in New York and playing pinball with Puerto Ricans while wishing you were with a person who you were sleeping with in Washington.  Hell yeah, just like Shakespeare.

6. Lock, Step & Gone - Songs about docks were HUGE in my youth.  Dropkick Murphy’s had like eight songs about boys on them, and this Rancid song alludes to them.  I loved all of the blue collar, working class ideology that had nothing to remotely do with my comfortable upper middle class (not sure if that’s accurate because my parents were teachers, and like is there even a middle class any more?) life. This song definitely sums itself up at then end when it says “There’s a whole lot of nothin”.

7. Junky Man - Another theme that I could definitely relate to in a town of 20,000 people with like ten people who did meth...Junkies!  This song is pretty great because the dude from the Basketball Diaries does some sick poetry in it...that movie was nuts.  I like that song that he later wrote/sang about all the people he knew who died. The only way poetry can be cool is if the person is an insane drug addict with cool/sad stories to tell. Otherwise it is just loud diary reading.

8. Listed MIA - At this point I wholeheartedly agree with this song, “I’m checking out”.  I don’t know if I ever really liked this song or if this was just part of the “I accidentally left it playing after the first four songs that I liked were over”.  Lars says the derogatory f-word for homosexuals in it, because people called him that word...that doesn’t seem cool man.  I get that it rhymes with “maggots”, but maybe give white dudes in the Midwest less reasons to sing that word out loud.

9. Ruby Soho - This is one of the best songs ever, hands down.  It is beautiful and you can barely understand what Tim Armstrong is saying but it is wonderful.  I feel like deciphering his lyrics led me to be able to understand most speech impediments, so hell yeah.  This song is about loving someone a lot but having to leave them because it isn’t working out. This song was the blueprint for every romantic relationship I’ve ever had in my entire life so it might be a gypsy curse.

10. Daly City Train - Oh hell yeah, fun Reggae drums!  Through punk and ska I grew to appreciate Reggae, but through being bummed out about that culture’s deep seated homophobia and the fact that most of it is super repetitive and boring and for dad’s on vacation.  I’m just glad that 311 taught me to love those smooth Caribbean sounds again (oh god am I joking or am I serious, I can’t tell any more please save me).

11. Journey to the End of the Easy Bay - I can still play this bass line and was very proud of myself the first time I half-way pulled it off.  It doesn’t sound as smooth and nuanced as the way Matt Freeman plays it, but goddamn it I think that was the height of my skill as a musician.  This song rules themes about needing to belong and finding a place with people who thought and felt the same as you...and then losing it as everyone grows out of it.  This was most of my early 20’s. I grew up in a scene with similarly minded people, it eventually ended and I still have contact with some of those people but that point in my life will never be replicated. I finally belonged somewhere and was part of something bigger than me.  Now I do comedy and it is bleak, entitled, and sad and mostly alcoholics talking about their dicks.  Please take me back.

12. She’s Automatic - This is not a bad song but a very confusing way to describe a woman.  I get that it means she is effortless in “the way that she moves” but maybe I’m not giving Lars any poetic license because he looks like a guy who punched books. This woman sounds great though, and I’m sure they dated for three months.  Revisiting this and that era reminds me that I almost had sex with a girl at the first X-men movie...man, being punk ruled.

13. Old Friend - Back to the Raggae!  This song is pretty great, but they really missed an opportunity of selling this to a heartburn medicine company.  “Good morning heartache, you’re like an old friend come and see me again”...that would be perfect for a commercial of a guy eating a giant plate of lasagna and making a “Oh boy, I did it again!” face.  The Transplants sold a song to that fruit shampoo, maybe this is something I can retroactively help negotiate.

14. Disorder and Disarray -  I love when punk bands have songs about “business men” being evil and the industry being bad.  Like when Against Me were part of an Anarchist collective and then on a major label putting out really bad music.  Rancid was at least on Epitaph, which while arguably not “cool” it was at least run by a kind of punk dude who is responsible for the biggest/shittiest corporate garbage of a festival, The Warped Tour.  This song has a part towards the end where they talk to each other like David Lee Roth would do in Van Halen songs, that rules.

15. The Wars End - I get that this is a song about little Sammy being a punk rocker but at this point I think they should have admitted this album was fine with 10-12 songs and maybe some of these were super repetitive and unnecessary.  It's like you’re forcing it. I can’t imagine the dude who recorded it had a lot of fun and he probably fell asleep and was startled awake and had to pretend like he’d been paying attention the whole time.

16. You Don’t Care Nothin - This starts out with the exact chord progression from Journey To The End Of The East Bay….c’mon guys. You Don’t Care Nothin about being succinct and making your songs individual expressions of art! The themes even seem like something they’ve already gone over.  I’m going to eat some soup, brb.

17. As Wicked - Is this a different song or a weird breakdown?  Oh, it’s a different song.  Well...this soup is pretty good.  Chicken Noodle, but the chunky kind.  It isn’t amazing but it is good. I should really cook more.  Maybe I’ll order Chinese later.

18. Avenues & Alleyways - I don’t really have a problem with this song because it has the “Oi oi oi” chant that the bands I was in during High School would do and we had no idea why other than popular bands doing it.  It is very catchy.  It sounds like the other two songs were just building up to finally getting your attention back. Plus it has a breakdown with people clapping, that is always fun.  This has to be the last song right? It is the perfect last song on an album!

19. The Way I Feel -  FUUUUUUUCK!  What? Really should have ended the album on that last song, it had a good “anthem” vibe and at least wrapped this up into a somewhat sensible endeavor.  This song could have been stuck in the middle somewhere, or maybe just not recorded with about seven others?  The Way I Feel about this album is that there are some parts that hold up and are still fun to listen to, but the rest of it just seems like I’m being forced to read my own teenage diary and it is boring and sad. Nostalgia is a bummer, I can’t imagine having Rancid still be my favorite band.  I’d probably still wear a chain wallet and spiky bracelet and be one of those obnoxious old drunk weirdos I see at shows that stick out like crazy sore thumbs. Bummer dude.

    Oh wow, what a journey (to the end of the east bay, am I right?)...I’m glad I was finally able to get this review out so people could finally know what this album means to me and my generation of lazy weirdos. This took me six months to write and I should be congratulated for being a journalist with tons of integrity and great taste.  True punks never die, they just eventually chill out and shop at Kohl’s.

[mattandsaraproductions]

But also, at best, Wish World and Reality War are in conflict about what they’re telling the audience about Poppy. In the former, her being recognizable to us as a space baby is part of signaling the Wrongness of the rewritten world. We know they don’t have a child together. We know this specific child is someone the Doctor met before and in fact wished he was parent to.

I don’t know what the original plan was for Poppy, either the presumed original plan Ruby-only version or the pre-reshoots Belinda version. But in the episode as broadcast, there’s a switch to “this child is real” that is unexplained in the particular sense that its narrative logic is not of a piece with the previous episode. That’s what’s jarring about the Doctor rewriting the timeline. If the episode was meant to communicate “Poppy existed prior to the Rani and Conrad messing with reality, and the episodes you’ve seen are the Doctor and Belinda’s false memories created by the reset timeline having slight differences” well sorry, but for many of us that did not come through at all. For one thing, that story doesn’t require Poppy! I mean, that story requires Belinda to have a child, but it does not require her child to be played by the child actor from Space Babies. Why make Belinda’s child into Poppy? Well right, because it’s a way of communicating the false reality of Wish World. But it’s unnecessary and confusing if the idea is that this is her real child. The narrative intent doesn’t track from one episode to the other.

Belinda knowing she’s lost something but she doesn’t know what, having vague memories of a child now erased from the timeline, and the Doctor sacrificing himself to fix it. That works. But that’s not what we got. Because it’s Ruby who remembers (that Amidala meme that’s going around points out the absurdity of this).

(that’s also why I think the original cut of this episode would have been weird in its own right. The Doctor sacrificing himself as above could work as a conclusion to the presumed original Ruby-only idea for the two series. But Ruby remembering while the Doctor and Belinda go clubbing seems off as well. So how much of this was in the first edit and how much is reshoots?)

Anyway, the All Part of the Plan people are wearing rose-colored glasses (sorry. Too soon?) about the structure of these episodes. But good lord to go from “here’s a reading of the episodes that makes them make sense” to “you’re anti-feminist mum-haters for criticizing the ending” what are we even doing here

“No you don’t understand she was always a mother”

Ok this is not communicated well in what was clearly a rushed script edit, and it is in no way the obvious reading of the episode, which

“And if you have a problem with Belinda being a mum your criticism is suspect because you don’t think of your own mum as a full person who can have a life outside of being a mother”

Jesus I never thought Tumblr would be the reasonable platform for Doctor Who takes. I suggest avoiding Twitter