#warning: rant

first of all, writing 10 or 20k fics seems completely unachievable for me, and i consider a 6k fic a long fic (based on my writing) so, i’m really working on making each fic longer and better than the last

SECOND OF ALL. this one is actually embarrassing. okay SO i don’t know if you can tell by my writing, but i have not experienced so much as a KISS in my life. so i feel like an imposter writing even the smallest bit of physical affection in my fics. and this is definitely not to say i’m innocent (y’all would know lol) but it’s just not something i’m totally comfortable with writing! which isn’t to say i won’t write it, i just have insane imposter syndrome.

on a related note, i love love LOVE world building and lore (rubs hands together in zombie apocalypse au) and i worry that if the story isn’t necessarily love story centric that nobody will read it

ANYWAYS. these are the main reasons i haven’t been feeling much motivation recently, but i am so back and currently cooking up my little felix fic ‼️

it's an idealistic moment, which probably never happened, and is there to serve as a symbol of 'when times were good' between the two of them.

so, taking all that into account, and in the final scene, A-Li is wearing all red, AND, she'd explicitly discussed her plans if Xiao Heng died in battle and never returned ("I'll wear my hair up like a widow for the rest of my life," she told Jiang Yuanbai.) - I absolutely read this scene as a reunion in heaven. She's in her full red, and we never see his face even as he comes charging in on a horse; white jade cat dangling from his belt.

it's a joyous reunion in death. and I hate this for them because everything in the writing was signposting as happily ever after for the couple. This ending was most definitely drawn up to get people talking, even after the show ends, but it betrays the spirit of the show so much that I'm just pissed.

you can argue that the Dai kingdom took Xiao Heng alive, and somehow, the Emperor brought Xiao Heng back for this triumphant reunion. But that would be reaching.

Textually, it's absolutely implied that Xiao Heng does not make it. Even if the overwhelming enemy soldiers do not convince you, Lu Jin and Wen Ji's death should.

Sigh.

however all good things must come to an end because it got kinda ?? bad ?? after issue 105. absolutely loved issues 1 through 105. the down time after issue 100 was definitely needed, and i totally appreciated the turtles getting time to grieve and break down and pick themselves back up during 101-105. but then the whole mutant town arc Really started and it felt like the tone of the whole comic shifted very drastically ??? i usually love when side characters get some attention for a bit but now it kinda feels like they’re getting too much attention. specially the kids, i don’t find the weasels very likable and i think lita should get just a bit less attention. specially did not like the decision to have big lita come from the future and Say Plot Points At Them (im also completely ignoring her comment about leo and koya of all people. what ??? who made this decision). and it’s been getting gradually worse from there. i’m currently on issue 127 like i said and it just feels like the comic has some downtime and then it never picked back up. commander zom literally died on issue 126 and i didn’t feel any type of way about it except “well that was underwhelming”. shredder astral projecting to whisper in people’s ears is kinda weird. what even happened !!! how did the quality of the story-telling change so drastically !!! i wish i was better at identifying what specifically i dislike, and better at articulating it and explaining myself but yeah.

about specific characters:

- what’s up with casey. he kinda sucks now. started sucking after the breakup i feel like. i don’t need april and casey to get back together or anything but i feel like his character started getting meh after that and now we never see him and when we do he’s…. uhhh

- leo and raph’s independent emotional arcs make sense, i just wish there was more going on like there used to be before. love mikey starting a radio show, more of that please (this ties back in with me wanting more of the conflict with the outside of mutant town as well). and is it just me or is donnie not doing much of anything rn ??

- jennika: i’ve seen a lot of people complain about her but i actually quite like her. i think it makes sense that she would get a lot of focus from the story right after her mutation, and that we get to see her struggling with being a mutant and splinter’s death as well. i also don’t dislike the idea of her having an older sister dynamic with the other turtles, i just hope the narrative doesn’t overstep her place in the story. like i hope the story doesn’t start treating her like she’s on the same level as the og 4, or that she’s actually their older sister or something. maybe later on but currently it doesn’t feel like she’s known them for that long or is close enough with them for the sister thing to really work. and as for the 5th turtle thing just in general i don’t think introducing more turtles in any iteration is inherently a bad idea, i just don’t think it can work if you try to put said 5th turtle on the same level as the other four. it just feels wrong. but anyway

It followed directly after Caves of Androzani. So instead of the usual practice of introducing a new Doctor after a summer of antici----pation, he barged in while most fans were still in the initial NOOOOOOOO!!! phase of the Five Stages of Grief/Loss for his predecessor.

Androzani ended with an emotional exit for the Fifth Doctor, sacrificing himself for a companion (whom we barely knew, and I confess I resented her, too, because of that). Then, Six sits up and sneers at Peri, the person Five just died for, throwing a bucket of cold water over a raw, touching moment. Subverting sentimental moments with cyncism can work, but it relies on mood whiplash for the viewer, so it must be done with care. 

Twin Dilemma starts not in the TARDIS but instead in a crappy set with wooden actors. Suspense is fine, but the contrast with Androzani is painful.

Back in the TARDIS, the new Doctor pats himself on the back to tell us how handsome, intelligent and thoroughout wonderful he is. I remember wanting to shove a pie in his smarmy face. It should be funny, but again, in context of Androzani, it’s childish and irritating.

The worst possible way to establish a new Doctor is to spit on the grave of the last Doctor while fans are mourning him. Which is exactly what Six does, mocking Five for being “sweet” and “feckless” and claiming that wasn’t his true self. He sneers at Peri for being attached to him— and so, indirectly, he sneers at Five’s fans.

Every Peri & Doctor scene is intercut with the uninspire’d B-plot’s more wooden acting, crappy sets and cheap-looking costumes, and a Who monster design nearly as clunky as the Myrka. End-of-season leftover budgets don’t serve a new Doctor well.

The Doctor dons his new costume, the much-derided technicolor nightmare coat, after  sneering at another predecessor (Two) in passing. Peri expresses what most viewers must be thinking: “Yuck.”

At least the wardrobe scene shows that some of Six’s behavior is due to regeneration sickness. Unfortunately, by depicting regeneration’s after-effects as acute, violent fits of madness interrupting his train of thought, it implies that his sneering, arrogant, narcissistic personality is his “real” one.

And of course, if we weren’t already rattled as much as Peri, there’s the infamous strangling scene. This was still a show targeted at children as much as adults. That scene seriously, SERIOUSLY terrified me, far more than anything else in classic Who history. Consider: a trusted adult, authority figure, parental figure, or best friend— the Doctor is all these things to his young audience— suddenly starts verbally abusing Peri, gaslighting her, ignoring her, and acting erratically. Then he violently assaults her, winding up straddling her in a posture disturbingly reminiscent of sexual assault. Even for children and teens who haven’t suffered abuse in real life, that sequence was traumatizing. But for young people who have been emotionally and/or physically abused, for whom Doctor Who is escapism? Devastating. We could no longer project RL fears onto fictional monsters and enjoy the fantasy of a trusted authority figure/best friend/protector. Suddenly, he was the monster. 

After the Doctor snaps out of it, his non-apology consists of dragging Peri off to “suffer” with him on a barren asteroid. Another nightmare of children: adults take you somewhere against your will, and you’re afraid and powerless, and you’re afraid they’ll hurt you.

Peri spends the whole episode whining, whimpering and bickering with him. Which isn’t any fun either. 

The first episode ends with the Doctor viciously guilt tripping Peri for wrongly assuming there’s no survivors of a nearby crash: “you would’ve left your own kind to die.” The wording reinforces the gulf between him and us.

In response, Peri finally snaps and tells him off for being cruel and self-centered.

In short, the Doctor has been transformed from a compassionate Dad or big brother figure into an untrustworthy monster who neglects and abuses his companions. At age 13, I understood that message all too well; I mentally switched him to the “dangerous adult, cannot trust” category. 

I don’t blame Colin for this fiasco. He performed the script he was given to the best of his ability. It’s largely due to his skilled voicework and physical improv that Six’s intro is so memorable and terrifying. 

I know that the showrunners were trying to do something new, different, and edgy. But. “Let’s make the Doctor as jarring and unlikeable as possible” is a dangerous way to break the mold. They needed to provide some reason to keep watching.

After Twin Dilemma, viewers had to wait over a year to see the next story, a very long time to stew over what we’d just seen. Bad first impressions had time to set like concrete.

To make matters worse, this was about the time VCRs became common in households, so many fans could rewatch Androzani and Twin Dilemma to contrast/compare.

All of which leads back to my contention that Twin Dilemma was dreadfully unfair to Colin Baker: giving him a piss-poor intro, then expecting him in the following season to win back the fans the script had driven off. It wasn’t very fair to Nicola, either.