the girly who shall end all girls

tl;dr RTD made an RTD season

spoilers for this season and a certain classic story

RTD has a way of making stuff that could be great and then shitting the bed at the end. as is his way, mix of certified classics and cringy garbage.
I love the cast - Ncuti Gatwa is absolutely wonderful (while I love him getting to wear all the clothes I hate that he will be tough to cosplay and the unfairness of that - as someone who wept uncontrollably over a Doctor Who Barbie I think I have a pretty good idea of how big this is), and I'm sorry Ruby seems to be written out.
I genuinely enjoyed a lot, but I'm stuck on the stupid last episode.

because I watched the next-to-last one, said "ooh, Pyramids of Mars" and immediately did a rewatch. which in this day and age, is possible for anyone who is willing to spend five whole dollars on Amazon to stream it immediately, not just grognards with physical media collections.

1. Sutekh is an advanced alien, not a god. He's got psychic powers, robots, and a form of time travel but he doesn't have ultimate cosmic power
2. The Doctor beats Sutekh by sending him to the distant future using his own time machine. Sutekh has no physical contact with the TARDIS, only via people he's mind-controlled
3. the mind control is creepy because there's no physical change and you don't know for sure/want to believe they're okay. the only mind-controlled person who physically looks off is already dead.

like, I get that we have some Disney money now, but more isn't really more. cadaver makeup not needed. dusting people == MCU and needs to be avoided for about 20 years. the Susan thing feels like a retread of Bad Wolf and The Impossible Girl. I'm fine with them glowing up the old effects, but putting the modern cotton-candy time vortex into Sutekh's sarcophagus portal was just weird. (as was calling up the supremely confident and cold fourth doctor while the current one is having a cry every other scene)

in classic RTD fashion we have ridiculously big stakes that are completely undone in way too little time. (and wtf random spoon lady?) I wanted to love the "Ruby's mom is no-one" bit but the unresolved snow and the somehow this woman ignored a national TV search for her but was fine when Ruby accosted her over her coffee break? 🤮

what I find particularly heartbreaking is that it wouldn't have been hard to use the Pyramids of Mars story and write a plausible and scary return of Sutekh the last of the Osirans. hell, they could have even played on the last Time Lord thing (which is mentioned but not used in the way it could have been). I am not a fic writer but it's all there.

I get really tired of RTD failing on the end so that my final memory of the season tastes terrible.

if y'all come across a fix-it fic of the last episode let me know

a lot of long-awaited library holds came through for me, some wonderful and one remarkably disappointing.

i've now read all of The Murderbot Diaries series to date and they are just as good as people say they are.* there's a nice drip of character growth and mysteries solved per novella. Murderbot the self-aware jailbroken SecUnit is a delightfully unreliable narrator, not about events but about their feelings and their friendships. i like the worldbuilding (so much capitalism, itty bitty drones, bingewatching, pretending to be human is so relatable) and especially the behind-the-scenes world of ubiquitous artificial intelligence.

i have also read The House in the Cerulean Sea; where a depressed social worker inspects an orphanage full of nice people. i know that it is supposed to be heartwarming and is beloved by many but it really didn't work for me. ( spoilers and not so mild complaining )

i think i forgot to mention that i bought every Restaurant to Another World light novel that is available in English to read while we were camping in August. they are just as delightful as the anime. the books include more recurring characters, more of the culture of the fantasy world, and more about the life of the chef.


*i deeply resent that the ebook novellas cost the same as a thousand-page paperback novel so i'll still be sticking with the eternal library hold wait for the next one.
**and therefore also Christianity is real and it's the End Times?

setting aside the comics:
Tony Stark was never the only super-scientist in the MCU. even in Iron Man, it's clear that while he is objectively better than his competitors, there are competitors in the military contracting sphere and he has talented people working for him.

the films establish multiple super-scientists, and it's easily arguable that Hank Pym and Shuri (especially Shuri) are better than Tony, at least in their areas of interest.

when we meet Sam Wilson in The Winter Soldier and at no point later on is it suggested that Tony Stark invented the Falcon wings. i would argue that they weren't Stark tech when the Air Force bought them, because with the extensive montage of Tony designing and trialing the Iron Man suit, wings never come up. (we can argue that he instantly crossed them off because of weight, but if anyone lived by the Rule of Cool, it was the guy who painted his suit like a racecar and wings are cool.)

which gets me to Falcon and the Winter Soldier and some fan assumptions that really bother me. ( spoilers )

dirtbag fedex stopped by at noon yesterday and claimed that they couldn't deliver the package. no, even if somehow they didn't have a passcode (and all the services do) they couldn't be arsed to ring the call box. don't pretend you thought we weren't home, we're all fucking home.

best part? this service doesn't deliver weekends so I was never getting it on the promised Saturday delivery date.

we started getting AT&T TV (it's streaming cable channels) this year. one of the reasons was to support things we like by paying for them.

today i learned that the DVR part of the service only holds content for 90 days and my carefully hoarded shows to watch when i felt ready have been silently disappearing. cue still-relevant xkcd

Amazon has baskets of umbrellas in all their buildings. It's a nice idea to encourage people to walk between their buildings regardless of weather. They're bright orange and white...and they're golf sized. They are a fucking menace on the sidewalk, blocking sight lines and nearly impossible to pass.
But today? Some bitch was under one of those umbrellas while also standing under the bus shelter, taking up the space of four people while the rain fell. I know that she was a solitary asshole, but those distinctive umbrellas aren't doing anything to improve the reputation of Amazon's employees.

since the Bay is showing as many Oscar nominated films as it can, i finally took myself to see Little Women. i'd heard raves about it, but i'd also heard that there were some changes beyond breaking up the linear timeline of the book.

actual text conversation as i was walking home:
C: So. Are you angry?
Me: Yes

( a sort of minor thing, and the thing that made me angry - spoilers for the adaptation and the public domain book )

and just, in general, i felt like Gerwig's agenda made an adaptation that didn't represent the substance or the spirit of the book. based on the critical response, it must be better if you don't know anything going in. i'd shelve this adaptation with Peter Jackson's The Hobbit.

(funny, i thought having more free time would mean that i would post more. i'm actually less likely to touch the computer right now. i must punish myself because Puritan Work Ethic.)

i had multiple interviews last week. mostly i've been getting phone screens, but Wednesday i did a panel call with one set of hiring managers, and an in-person with another hiring manager at a different place.

this week i wait to find out how those really went. i don't actually know, because i am fundamentally an optimistic person but when i have anxiety issues it isn't about things outside my control - it's about how i Made The Wrong Choices and Ruined Everything. but i am also not fully prepped for rejection because i am aware that i do this thing.

i had my mandatory checkin with a state "employment specialist" on Thursday. it wasn't entirely useless, she did meet me at an appropriate level, but i am mostly angry. i had to write up an action plan on the spot, which i must execute on or have my benefits curtailed. i learned that it is basically impossible to negotiate a salary under unemployment since you are not permitted to refuse a "legitimate" offer of work ( i understand where this comes from but it's hard enough negotiating while female that losing the option to walk away is particularly vile). i also found out that i literally get too much unemployment to qualify for a transit discount. i've been paying into the system since i was 18 years old, and this is the first time i've been on unemployment ever, and the first time i've had any break in employment since 2002. it's not like they give me enough money to actually pay my bills. if i didn't have severance i would be in real trouble...and still paying full price for the bus.

i gave myself the day off from job hunting yesterday to run errands. today i sat down and hated every listing i saw. i'm hoping a walk with the dog will recalibrate me.

the more I think about ( spoilers for the Doctor Who special )

I think Chibnall has used up the last of my goodwill.

I have a comically common name. My dentist's office has two of us. Between that and a retirement and remodel, our records are muddled.

Twice now I've gotten up early for a cleaning appointment, to be turned away. (I should feel glad, I guess. My doppelganger needs implants.) I really don't want to find a new dentist office, but they have one strike left.