Tag Archives: doctor who

Reading Together

Recently I discovered several new Blogs through different circumstances, like Clue Writing from Saturdays post. This comes in quite handy as I am currently quite occupied with the Advent Calendar. I feel that it is easier to pick up someone else’s idea instead of focusing on my own (far too long) ToDo-List (see the side-menu on the right for a small look at it).
The thing I’m picking up today is a mutual project by the Blogs Weltenwanderer and Schlunzenbücher called „Gemeinsam Lesen“ (Reading Together).
Each Tuesday one of them asks four questions, with the first three always being the same about the book one is currently reading and the fourth a new one by either of them. All questions below are obviously translated from today’s German post.

1. Which Book are you currently reading and which page are you on?

I’m currently reading „Doctor Who – Das Rad aus Eis/The Wheel of Ice“ by Stephen Baxter, one of the many novellas telling further stories of the Time Lord.
This is in fact the book that my local library acquired after I asked them about Doctor Who books when I was there to place my piece of paper in a Torchwood novel for Bad Wolf Day (2013). Recently I actually got the Torchwood book and this one to read them.
I’m currently on page 179 and I’m hoping to finish the remaining roughly 300 pages before Monday, as I have to return it to the library by then.

2. What is the first sentence on your current page?

Der Seitengang war gerade so hoch, dass Zoe sich aufrecht darin bewegen konnte, allerdings enger und gröber behauen als der Hauptschacht.

or in English:

The corridor was just high enough for Zoe to move upright in it, yet it was still more narrow and less smooth than the main chamber.

3. What do you desperately need to tell about your current book? (Thoughts, Feelings, a Quote, whatever you want!)

I don’t think I desperately want to tell this, but I do have some thoughts on it, that I’ll probably reuse when I’m writing the proper review.
This novel is a Second Doctor novel with Jamie and Zoe as companions and as I’ve already noticed while watching „The Seeds of Death“ and „The Mind Robber“ do I quite enjoy this combination.
I’m really looking forward to seeing more of them.
What bugs me most about reading this book is, however, its layout. It’s a Hardcover version and therefore quite large as it is. Still, the pages have a lot of space around what is written in a rather large font, thus creating rather short pages.
So you have this giant book, with little content to actually read on one page.
This feels especially weird when you’re sitting in the bus and to everyone else it looks like you’re reading a children’s book…

4. There are uncountable numbers of series in our Book-Jungle – are you a fan of series? Which one is your favourite?

I’m not really a fan of long running series, as it’s quite a hassle to keep track of what books you have/have read/still need to get/read. This is made even more complicated by the fact that German publishers have the ridiculous habit of splitting one English Book into two German ones.
Besides if you started buying/reading a series in one language, you don’t really want to switch to the other for the books that aren’t (yet) available or split, because it would look weird in your shelves.
I own a couple of series and one with which I have exactly those problems.
Short series aren’t that bad (three – seven books) though, as it is easier to know the things above.
Good thing I’m co-writing a Trilogy and have another project that might become one as well, if not longer…
So, in general if I buy a new book I try searching for clues if the book is part of a series and if it is, I wont buy it. But accidental buys still happen at times.
I do believe the Harry Potter books would qualify as my favourite series. They had a huge influence on me while growing up and I still enjoy learning new stuff surrounding the world Rowling created (see The Pottermore Experiment) and am going to indulge in it again one of these days as part of BiblioSmiles‘ Summer Book Challenge (and yes it states Summer, but I don’t always manage to read when I would like to, but I’m nearly half way through 🙂 ).

Additional thoughts

You can obviously participate in these questions by either using my translated or the original German version.
I don’t know if I’ll be participating again next week or some other week, but maybe I’ll do. It seems interesting and could be another regular post beside my Weekend Guess.
Other than that would it also give me a way to talk about my current read without adding a Goodreads Widget to my sidebar.
We’ll see.
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the cover, the quote and the banner belong to their rightful owners.

Questions upon Questions…

As I again am struggling to work on any of the proper posts I still need to finish, I’d like to get some thoughts/questions out of the way about stuff I recently watched. Needless to say the following contains Spoilers and probably doesn’t make a lot of sense if you haven’t watched the stuff yourself.

Doctor Who – Kill the Moon

For some reason I simply can’t get over this quote from the episode:

„My gran used to put things on tumblr“
(Lundvik)

Let’s look at the facts for this statement:

As „gran“ means „grandmother“ the astronaut Lundvik is the granddaughter of someone that used tumblr.
tumblr has currently (in our time line in 2014 or the Whoverse equivalent about 2014ish) a growing number of users.
The episode is set in 2049 which makes this 35 years from now.
Lundvik looks like she is in her late thirties/early forties, with a lot of squinting she scratches at the late twenties.

Everyone on tumblr is excited about the mention, but I am wondering if no one has done the Math, because all these information lead me to the following conclusion:
Her grandmother was at least in her late twenties when she used tumblr – assuming the grandmother was 16 years old when having the mother/father, who in turn was 16 years old, when the daughter is now 30 years old. While this would be according to the user statistics, it would make less and less sense if the ages of the generations where to rise. E.g. grandmother: 24; mother: 18; daughter: 42 would mean the grandmother was in her late forties and this would make it highly unlikely that it was the gran who used the platform and not the mother.
If she had said „mum/mother“ I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
Though, I haven’t read from anyone else yet, who was bugged by this, so it’s probably just me anyway…
Other than that is this episode a bit retconning to the events of „The Seeds of Death„, a Second Doctor serial that I’ve actually managed to watch already, that is also set on the moon in a time the humans don’t want to go into space any more. This serial, however, takes place in the late 21st century, a time that according to the Twelfth Doctor is past the moment humanity decides to explore the stars again, which gives the episode a lingering taste of wrongness…
But this is not the only continuity thing that is kind of strange…

Supernatural – The Song Remains the Same

As I have recently caught up with the show and am currently working on a season-summary for The Extremis Review I again came across this conversation:

MICHAEL
You’re my true vessel but not my only one.
DEAN
What is that supposed to mean?
MICHAEL
It’s a bloodline.
DEAN
A bloodline?
MICHAEL
Stretching back to Cain and Abel. It’s in your blood, your father’s blood, your family’s blood.
(The Song Remains the Same)

What we have here is the reference to a bloodline that according to the Archangel Michael goes back to the beginning of humankind.
The bible tells us, that Cain and Abel where the first sons of Adam and Eve and became „The First Human Born“ and „The First Human Murdered“; it also tells us that Cain had tons of kids, while Abel died young. Therefore the bloodline supposedly started from Cain. The Supernatural-Cain we meet in Season Nine, however, doesn’t seem to have any offspring whatsoever, which makes this a bit more complicated.
So, if neither of the brothers had children in the shows history, we have to look at their parents again. Though, as all humans derive from them, it would mean that pretty much every older brother(/brother-pair) on the planet would be suitable as vessel(s) for Michael (and Lucifer)…but hey, the Winchesters are the main characters, so they are the true ones for reasons! (Yes, I know, I have serious problems with main characters and one of these days I will reflect on them…)
But if they are chosen because of said „bloodline“ does that mean the angels are somehow involved in that line as well, to be able to call them their (true) vessels? Would Michael and Lucifer have been able to possess Cain and Abel respectively? (Judging from Cain’s tale in First Born, I guess they would.) And whose bloodline is it really?

Supernatural => Destiel?

When I started to watch the show I was well aware of the Fandoms love for Destiel(, which is the Shipping portmanteau of the pairing Dean/Castiel). I’m generally not the slightest bit interested in fanmade pairings, but this one made me curious enough, to see for myself, if it was really as obvious as the fans claim.
While I can see a deep (or profound as Castiel called it) bond between the two characters – and I kind of feel bad for writing this – can I not see any romantic feelings that would be displayed by them…
Even as a more or less casual viewer I am aware that they would do a lot for each other – especially Castiel, who is sacrificing quite a bit for Dean – as either has become quite important to the other over the seasons. I realize that they deeply (want to) trust each other and feel utterly betrayed when something happens against that trust.
I see two man who have found some kind of soul mate in each other and that don’t want this connection/bond to break and are therefore willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary. Dean is a character that doesn’t trust easily, but if he does it/the person he puts his trust in means everything to him. Castiel is someone who trusts easily, but has found something special and precious in the returned trust from the Winchester that he doesn’t want to lose. I think they’ve done pretty well with the Dean-doesn’t-want-to-be-alone-theme in Season Nine and losing Cas has become nearly as bad a thing for the hunter as losing his brother is.
I can see all that, but I just don’t see any romance involved…
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy their dynamic and the majority of their characterization, I just don’t see that spark we saw with the other couples in the show. The only time I can think of, where there was a minor spark, was when they apologized for disregarding the others trust, but that interaction can just as well be seen as the re-kindling of a deep friendship.
Besides if they where to become officially canon, the only problem I would have with it, would be the fear that the people responsible would make it too cheesy, which is kind of doubtful as they would probably rather over-emphasize it due to Deans brash nature. Guess we’ll see what the new Season has in store for this.
For some odd reason do I feel bad for not being able to see this, as the Fandom eagerly tries to show people the little things pointing at the pairing, but if I watch those scenes in the context of the episodes, all I can see is the deep friendship/familiar relationship between those two…
But maybe I’m just too rational(, maybe even too cold-hearted?) to understand it, as I pretty much have the same problem with a romantic view on JohnLock (Sherlock/John, especially from the BBC Sherlock).
Why can’t two people just share a deep/profound friendship/bond without being romantically or otherwise involved?
Anyway, let’s move on from time line and shipping strangeness to something entirely different.

Jack the Giant Slayer

The movie with X-Men and About a Boy star Nicholas Hoult in the titular role is a fun watch, if you don’t pay too much attention to details that is.
When I first watched it a couple of weeks ago I was already bugged by the far to modern looking leather jacket of the hero, but when I re-watched it yesterday with my mum, I noticed something even more strange:
Jacks shirt has a skull print in the chest area.
I highly doubt something like that would be possible to make in the portrayed time period, let alone affordable for a mere farmer boy. Were they planning on emphasizing the Slayer part or did they not have any grey print-less shirts during production? >_<
It’s not like a golden full plate armour or a seemingly equal human-giant tug-of-war makes more sense, but I’ll just leave it at that until I might write a separate review about it.
Well, now you know what kind of things I ponder while watching/reflecting stuff and hopefully now that this is out of my head I’ll be able to finish my other writings…
PoiSonPaiNter
P.S. If the above portrayed opinion is to induce hate or other kinds of negativity towards myself, I shall release my inner Cyberman and delete the offensive comments without further warning.
© I don’t own the rights to the quotes and am just using them as illustrative material.

Flipping Unicorns…

As I just noticed something again, after I had forgotten about it for a while I thought I might as well rant a bit about it. It’s not like I was already trying to sleep and this topic kept creeping back into my mind…
Unicorns are common in different mythologies and stories, yet I don’t even really like/care about them, but for some odd reason they still cross my path time and time again…
Probably the first unicorn I ever came in contact with was the one that was meant to be captured by The Valiant Little Tailor. A ruthless beast that tried to pierce him with its horn, but ended up stuck in a tree.
The other one was obviously The Last Unicorn, the beautiful lost creature that was turned into a human to save it from a ruthless king and his brutal Red Bull. Back when I still regularly played the accordion in music classes we frequently played the titular song. It wasn’t easy and quite long, but worth it.
While I never replied to the unicorn thread in The Forum its portrayed style, that I picked from the get-go is indeed called the „Unicorn Style“, which also uses motives displayed in the movie.
I didn’t think about it much when I wanted to have a more vicious version and ended up adding a black one to my short storiy „Wissen ist Macht“ (Knowledge is Power) and gave it a rather nasty role…
For quite some time I did not really notice any unicorns until one faithful day at Wacken last year, when DarkFairy called out:

„Look he has a…Pony with Horn…a Unicorn!“

If you remember my story about Karl the Moose, who was supposed to be a Pony with Horn you might remember that if it hadn’t been for simple coincidence I would now have a plush unicorn head hanging from my wall…
Again some time past, but the more festivals I attended this year, the more people in unicorn or brownie costumes I saw running around (some of the full-costumes I mentioned here) and it got even worse when Anice and I where at the Gloryhammer concert during the Rockharz and they started talking about

„Undead Unicorns of War“

As I had fun back then I listened to their album „Tales from the Kingdom of Fife“ (which I am going to review one day) and the refrain of the song you can find in the video below became a long running „earworm“ (Ohrwurm; a song that is stuck in your head) for me soon after.

Nearly all throughout my stay at the Book Hotel in July did this line never leave my mind:

„The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee“

I don’t know how many times I told my mum these five words during that weekend, but it was often and I’m still doing it when I’m around her and they are stuck again.
Recently I had a conversation with both Anice and, I think, Unmei (the girl from the bus) about Pottermore and somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered something about my wands core.
Three guesses as to what it is? Well, you probably only need one, as it is in fact Unicorn hair…
Which is quite interesting as my wand wood is Laurel and their abilities seem to be quite contradictory… (Unicorn: Faithful, Laurel: Easily swayed when the user is too lazy for the wands liking).
Anyway, I just re-discovered this and thought I might as well ramble a bit about it, before finally hitting the hay.
Honourable mentions also go to the unreal unicorn from Doctor Who’s Agatha Christy story „The Unicorn and the Wasp“ – with my favourite companion Donna – and In Extremo’s singer „Das letzte Einhorn“ (The Last Unicorn).
I’ll probably remember more unicorns when I try sleeping again…
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the quotes and the video from „Tales from the Kingdom of Fife“ lie with Gloryhammer and Napalm Records.

Doctor Who: 30 Days Challenge – Part 3

On my Tumblr page I participated in the Doctor Who Tumblrs 30 Days of Doctor Who Challenge and I thought I might as well give you the collected answers here as well. These are the third ten answers, you can find the first ten here and the second ten here.

The official Tumblr Gif

Day twenty-one: Name a planet that you’d like to visit in the TARDIS. Maybe you’d like to go to the planet the planet of slightly over-inflated beach balls, let us know!

Just like I said it would be the room, I spent most time in the Tardis on Day 18, would I definitely not mind visiting The Library before the Vashta Nerada invaded it. I’m not sure if I even want to go into Earth’s future, as that would also show me what will become of my planet after I have long passed and that would be kind of creepy…
Other than that, do I not have definite plans for any planets and would be grateful for every world I’d be visiting and curious to explore them.

Day twenty-two: What songs would appear on your Doctor Who playlist? Make us a mixtape!

The songs I associate most with the series are the theme songs, the title music and „500 Miles„.
From the music I usually listen to can I only think of one song that at least has anything to do with space: Rhapsody of Fire – I belong to the Stars.
Guess the mixtape would consist of those songs.

Day twenty-three: What would your Time Lord name be? The Magician? The Carpenter?

I’m not sure if I even want to be a Time Lord as that title brings a lot of responsibilities and stuff…
But to choose a name it would probably be something like The Thinker or The Creator/Writer/Storyteller as I like to think up stories, write them down or share them verbally with those, who want to listen to them.

Day twenty-four: Take a picture with something irl that you think could be from Doctor Who?

Again the picture „with something“ that I skipped.

Day twenty-five: What’s your favorite Doctor Who art? Make sure to give the artist credit if it’s not yours!

As I have no idea which of all those many brilliant things out there I skipped this one too…

Day twenty-six: Show us your best Doctor Who cosplay but you can only use things you can find in your closet.

I don’t (have a) cosplay to show, so I had to skip again…

Day twenty-seven: Who is your favorite Doctor Who-related tumblr that isn’t us?

And another skip as I don’t know that many Tumblr who fit the bill…

Day twenty-eight: Write an episode summary for Series 8! What do you think the Twelfth Doctor and Clara will have to face?

If I knew the character of the new Doctor better this probably wouldn’t be much of a problem, but an episode like this would be interesting:
The Doctor and Clara strand in a desert and stumble upon a group of researchers. Together they find the way into a buried ancient city. Setting out to explore it they find prove that other people have discovered this before them and that none of them had made it out again.

Day twenty-nine: Who is your favorite Time Lord other than the Doctor? The Rani? The Master?

The Master is quite fun in a strange kind of way, especially John Simms version. From what I saw of the old Master – the Roger Delgado version – does he seem even stranger than Simms, as they had the hypnosis part still in his character and the shots of that looked rather silly. Other than that have I not seen that much of other Time Lords like the Rani. The most I know about her and a couple of others is from the the story „The Ten Doctors“ by Comic artist Rich Morris.

Day thirty (20 July): Make a TARDIS out of things you find in your room!

I thought about doing this, but unfortunately I don’t have fitting materials nor the patients to actually build a TARDIS I’d be satisfied enough showing…
I had fun doing this challenge and I hope you at least enjoyed it a bit as well.
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the Gif lies with BBC America and the official Doctor Who Tumblr.

Doctor Who: 30 Days Challenge – Part 2

On my Tumblr page I participate in the Doctor Who Tumblrs 30 Days of Doctor Who Challenge and I thought I might as well give you the collected answers here as well. These are the second ten answers, you can find the first ten here and the last ten will be covered later.

The official Tumblr Gif

Day eleven: Name a who-ism you use irl! Do you like to run around saying allons-y? Do you tell people not to blink?

As the majority of people I’m around wouldn’t get who-ism’s as such, I rarely use any. Though there is the occasional „Allons-y“ or Cyberman/Dalek-quote around those that do get them. But the most quoted phrase is „Are you my Mummy?“ as the festivals I attend, usually have at least one booth selling gas masks…

Day twelve: Come up with a name for a Doctor Who recipe! Something like Davros donuts or Prisoner Zero pizza.

I barely cook/bake/etc. anything and you expect me to name a recipe? No, sorry, this task is too challenging for me…
Besides it probably wouldn’t be more creative than „Fishfingers and Custard“ anyway…

Day thirteen: Who would be your ideal Team TARDIS?

Puh…I liked the combination in Journeys End and it’d be interesting to see something like that happen with other companions, but I am of the belief that there is no such thing as an ideal Team TARDIS. If the combination fits, it doesn’t matter who is occupying the space ship, either as Doctor or as companion.

Day fourteen: Mods are asleep! Anything goes!

Well, if anything goes then I’ll be using this day to advertise a bit for the Doctor Who-posts on my Blog.
Instead of posting one for the series in general, my first post was about the Bad Wolf Day in 2013 and where I subsequently „hid“ the slices of paper I had prepared in a fit of nerdiness.
The next ones were then a couple of months later for the 50th anniversary and a review for The Day of the Doctor special.
Still the one that would become my most viewed post was still to come.
In the beginning of this year I wrote an analysing tale for the Elevator Meme that seemed to be interesting for quite some people and has a huge presence of the Eleventh Doctor, but when I posted my post about the 2048 Doctor Who Edition, the clicks came in like for no other post before that (by now more than 1500 have looked at it since April). The fact that the latter post is higher than the Kasteborous version in the Google search for the topic, is still quite creepy…
Anyway, I am pretty sure there will be more Doctor Who related post (excluding the posts with the collected answers for this challenge).

Day fifteen: Which regeneration of the Doctor would you most like to meet and why?

From what I’ve seen so far I am pretty sure that each Doctor would be interesting to meet. They all have their own interesting stories to tell and their own unique way to share them. You’d have seriousness with the First, Second and Ninth (and War), lots of research and technical developments with the Third and Tenth, silliness with the Fourth and Eleventh, compassion with the Fifth and Eighth and more interesting character trades with the the Sixth and Seventh. Meeting either of them would be fascinating, but it would most likely also mean that I’m in big trouble. So, I’m not so sure if I even WANT to meet the Doctor. 😀

Day sixteen: Which episode or scene made you feel all the feels?

There were several episodes of the new era that made me go emotional, but most of all The End of Time Pt. 2 and again Journeys End, that I also mentioned as one of my favourite episodes with day five. Vincent and the Doctor also had a strong emotional grasp on me, but more for how they helped Van Gogh and not because of what happened in the episode like in the other ones.

Day seventeen: Name a crossover that you’d love to see.

Crossovers are something I really enjoy if they are made well and Doctor Who has the potential to be combined with many other series/movies/books/etc.. The one you most come across is probably (Super)WhoLock – the Tumblr-Trinity so to speak. While it sounds fun, I am not sure how that would actually work. I tried thinking up a setting regarding the semi-popular Elevator Meme where not just those two (three) meet up, but also several other Fandoms.

Day eighteen: The TARDIS has a near infinite number of rooms including a swimming pool, a library, and a swimming pool inside the library. Which room would you like to spend time in?

So many, many rooms to choose from… Aside from me wanting to explore every last one of them would I probably spent a lot of time in the library. Who wouldn’t want to have a look at all those different books?

Day nineteen: What’s your favorite Doctor Who-related youtube video?

I’m not that much of a Youtuber, but I enjoyed the 500 Miles cast video and its fan made answer. I also like the self-made trailers and crossovers, so many incredible people have created.

Day twenty: Think of the last movie you saw. Would the protagonist be a good companion? Or maybe they’d be the villain?

When I first read this question the last movie was X-Men: Days of Future Past and I doubt the mutants would make either good companions or villains, simply because there abilities are too different to what exists in the Who(ni)verse and the whole setting would be quite strange…it would be one of those Crossovers that wouldn’t really work without much thought put into it.
The actual last movie I’ve seen is „The Intouchables“ and I guess you could put Driss and Philippe in a setting with The Doctor as one time companions. It’d probably be one of their strange adventures, in a way like „Vincent and The Doctor„, and I can see that one happening better than the X-Men one.
In ten days you will get the last set of answers for the challenge. If you want to get them on time just follow my Tumblr page: Poisonpainter
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the Gif lies with BBC America and the official Doctor Who Tumblr. I also do not claim any rights for the song and video.

Doctor Who: 30 Days Challenge – Part 1

As one challenge isn’t enough I also participate in the Doctor Who Tumblrs 30 Days of Doctor Who Challenge on my Tumblr page and I thought I might as well give you the collected answers here as well. These are the first ten answers the other twenty will be covered separately.

The official Tumblr Gif

Day one (21 June): Who was your first Doctor?

For this one I’d like to simply quote my Post for the 50th anniversary of the show:

The first ever episode that, I think, I watched was “Tooth and Claws” with David Tennant as The Doctor. I decided to watch this episode because it had werwolves in it and as I am actually not that much into Sci-Fi and more into Fantasy stuff I just wanted to see how they did that. Needless to say I was pretty confused by it and didn’t watch more of it for quite a while.
But as I still also had enjoyed watching it and some other snippets from flipping through the TV channels and I later wanted to know what all these quotes and pictures on Tumblr pages were about, I gave it another try.
And what can I say? I’ve been hooked ever since.
Christopher Eccleston‘s Ninth Doctor with his grinning in the face of danger just made me keep watching. It’s a pity he’d only been with the show for one season, but it was a fantastic season.

In short: Even though Tennant was the first I actually saw, do I consider Eccleston to be my first Doctor, as he was the one that got me hooked on the show.

Day two: Who is your favorite companion, either full time or one off?

As I still haven’t seen that much of the classic series can I not include every companion in my consideration, but from the new series my favourite companion is definitely Donna. I not just like her comebacks and attitude, but also the fact that she is an everyday woman with a none-en-vogue stature (aka not skinny). It’s also quite nice to see someone disagree with The Doctor in such a fun way and so often. Of course the other companions argue with him as well, but so far none of them made it to the „Donna, Human, No“-Level she set. Her leaving was a horrible moment for me and I really like the fanmade ending where The Doctor one day returns her memories, when she is about to pass away.
Other great companions that I like include the highly underrated Martha and of course Sarah Jane, as beautiful bridge between the old and the re-newt series.
Recently I watched a couple of classic episodes and from them and some other stuff I am pretty certain that Ace will become a character I probably like nearly as much as Donna. Just like Jamie and Liz also seem to become some of my favourites and Zoe, whom I already admire for her skills.

Day three: Invent a new feature for the Sonic Screwdriver. We know it doesn’t do wood, but can it clean up spilled drinks?

As I’m not that inventive and far too logic driven, I guess the new feature would be one that actually had something to do with emitting sonic waves. It would be good for sending understandable messages to species that use those to communicate and not for destroying their ear drums. 😉

Day four: Who has been your favorite historical appearance? Was it Madame de Pompadour? Maybe Winston Churchill?

There were so many interesting ones already that I don’t really want to decide. Though the one that got me emotionally the most was Vincent Van Gogh. It was just such a brilliant moment when The Doctor and Amy brought him to the exhibition in the future and the curator said all those wonderful things about him.
My other favourite appearances would be William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens as I really enjoyed their episodes; especially the „Expelliarmus„.

Day five: What’s your favorite episode?

There are so many great episodes that I like to re-watch on occasion and that I always enjoy, but I think my most favourite episodes are „The Stolen Earth“ and „Journeys End“ due to all the companions participating and saving the day together with the Doctor. The feeling I get from those episodes is also present in the incredible anniversary special „Day of the Doctor„. I guess I just like it when different aspects of a story come together. Other episodes I like include „The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances„, „The End of Time„, „Midnight„, „The Eleventh Hour“ and „The Lodger„.

Day six: If you were the Doctor, what would your catch phrase be? Ahoy, mateys? To infinity and beyond?

As I don’t want to be the Doctor I can’t imagine having any kind of catch phrase, I don’t even have a phrase I regularly say in everyday conversation and even if I had one I’d probably be annoyed by it after using it a couple of times…
Surprisingly the Doctor’s catch phrases never bothered me while watching the series, it’s rather the overuse within the Fandom that’s bugging me.

Day seven: Take a selfie in front of a TARDIS! It could be a poster, a toy, a drawing, anything! Just make sure to tag it with #infrontofthetardis!

I skipped this one. Apart from the fact that I don’t have a Tardis nearby, do I generally not post pictures of myself online.

Day eight: What’s your favorite Doctor Who audio adventure? If you don’t listen to the audios, click here tell us which summary you think sounds exciting!

I’m not that much into audio books, but I guess the one that would interest me the most would be „The Light at the End“ as anniversary story.

Day nine: Which Doctor Who alumni would you like to bring back? This could be either a character or an actor, your choice!

I wouldn’t mind if The Doctor would meet some more of his old companions, like he did with Sarah Jane, Liz and the Brigadier. It is so very unfortunate that we will never see Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney reprise their roles as Sarah Jane and the Brigadier again…
It’d be interesting to see if they recognized each other and how they would interact. I’d also like if some of his newer companions would return again, like Martha and Jack for example. And of course Donna, as she is – like I wrote for Day Two – my favourite so far.

Day ten: What’s your favorite piece of music from the show? Did you like Vale Decem? Or perhaps Rose’s Theme?

The theme for Eleven (I am the Doctor) was fun and exciting, as it always started when the action was about to climax, but in general do I not really know the names of the themes and simply enjoy them. Though the song that stuck with me most beside that theme was „I can’t decide“ by the Scissor Sisters that was ordered to be played by the Master in „Last of the Time Lords„. It was just so fitting and fun to watch.
In ten days you will get the next set of answers for the challenge. If you want to get them on time just follow my Tumblr page: Poisonpainter
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the Gif lies with BBC America and the official Doctor Who Tumblr.

Bad Wolf Day 2014

As I just noticed – through increased clicks on the post – today is again Bad Wolf Day, so have a look at my post from last year.
I do not participate this year – as I just noticed it – and am not really sure if it even is today or now officially on the 11th as I haven’t read anything about it, but I thought a reblog could still be interesting to some.
If you’re interested: I haven’t had any replies from the papers I’ve „hidden“.

May Madness

For some reason this May keeps getting in the way of me writing anything proper for this Blog, not to mention my lack of muse and energy to do so.
In the first week of May there was in addition to my dad’s birthday also the Walpurgis Night (both still in April) and also May 1st and my last rant-post. All this talk about change and new beginnings didn’t really pay off as I was too busy being distracted by all kind of other things.
As I mentioned in that post above was I on a Bela B. concert in the second week of May, but that wasn’t everything I’ve done that week.
It also included my mom’s birthday and the Free Comic Book Day.
I will be covering the concert and probably also the FCBD in separate posts, if I find the necessary ingredients to do so.
Speaking of ToDo’s: I have added a list of posts I am going to finish one of these days in the menu on the right, but I guess the possibility of more being added is higher than one of them being written…
Well, I guess I at least managed to get my May post for The Extremis Review done, though I vastly exceeded my word count and wasn’t completely satisfied with it for quite some time.
What I wasn’t completely satisfied with either, was the organ recital I spontaneously attended last week. It was interesting to hear what notes the organ could create, but the songs the organist had chosen weren’t the best ones to actually bring about a proper atmosphere. I have heard way more impressive organ melodies than what he had played, but at least I got some more ideas for my dwarve storie/s.
Speaking of impressive: Remember my post on the Doctor Who Edition of the 2048 game? More than 1.000 (!) people have viewed the post by now and if you google „Doctor Who 2048“ my post is above the semi-official post from Kasterborous, which is a bit creepy.
On the other hand is the attention nearly completely focused on that post and the other Fandom related ones (*click*, *click*) – I by the way am thinking about adding a new Category „Fandom“ for these kind of posts – and my normal posts are mostly being ignored; not that there are that many „normal“ posts to begin with…
As we already are talking about Fandoms: Four of the Series I’m watching had their season finale this month and the third one from the Tumblr Trinity (SuperWhoLock) – that I haven’t watched since Season 1(?) – provides a fifth today I guess. This, however, gives me time to catch up with other series and I’ve already started doing that with nearly the first two seasons of „Being Human„, though the things I remember most about it are „Alonso’s“/“Henry’s“/“George“s'(Russel Tovey’s) butt and screeches, that man reaches frighteningly high notes…
Anyway, what I’m actually trying to bring across with this post is:
I doubt I’ll manage to write anything else beside The Weekend Guess during May, as I still need to do a couple of things until I drive off to the Out&Loud-Festival next Tuesday.
I’m pretty sure the festival is going to be quite interesting, as the whole thing starts by me picking up DarkFairy in Bamberg in a monastery, where she is visiting a befriended monk, but it gets even more absurd:
Two black clad Metalheads with different beliefs, that are co-writing a book containing religious elements, meet up at a catholic monastery and then drive off to a Metal festival in a truck stop area in the mostly catholic Bavaria in a car with the Number of the Beast on the licence plate to camp in the Fanclub area of a band that has such lovely songs as „Catholic in the Morning, Satanist at Night“, „Saturday Satan“ and „Cardinal Sin“ and refers to itself alternatively as „The Holy Wolf Brigade“ or „The Preachers of the Night„.
Yeah, I think that festival is going to be interesting…
Guess I’ll be seeing you in June, shortly before I’m then off to the Metalfest.
PoiSonPaiNter

2048: Doctor Who Edition

Some days ago a link was spread across social networks that advertised a game called „2048: Doctor Who Edition“ published on usvsth3m.com. The link was usually accompanied by a taunt „I reached the X*th Doctor! Can you beat me?“ (*X being the number of a Doctor).
I believe I do not need to repeat myself about what Doctor Who is, let me just tell you this: My natural curiosity of course got the better of me and I tried it myself.

What is the games‘ goal and how is it played?

The game gives you a four times four grid and two starting tiles with usually the lowest possible pattern.
The goal of this game – and its original versions, to which you can find links below the Doctor Who Edition – is to combine the tiles with similar patterns using your arrow keys to get up to the highest possible pattern.
In the DW case you combine the tiles with the pictures of each Doctor to reach the Eleventh, while in the normal 2048 you combine numbers to reach the eponymous number (don’t worry you follow the binary numbers starting with 2 and don’t go up from 1 to 2048).
But only the direct predecessor allows you to create a higher tile (Two First Doctors create a Second Doctor tile, two Second Doctors create a Third Doctor and so forth).

Are there any strategies involved?

As it is a kind of logic game there are of course many possible strategies.
I tried several things myself, like randomly moving the tiles around to make them fit, keeping everything on the left side or keeping everything on the right side.
But the one I used after repeatedly playing it for a couple of times was to try to keep the bottom line(s) more or less static and only work with shifting the tiles from left to right, after I established a line. Every time it could not be avoided to make an up and down movement or a space was empty I would try to regain the static line again.
In these lines I would secure the higher Doctors and have the lines above them to create similar ones to upgrade the ones in the static line, while also filling spaces with lower tiles.

What was my own progress?

When I first saw the link to the game the poster claimed that he had only managed to get to the Eighth Doctor, so I took it upon myself to reach the Ninth. Surprisingly as I played without a proper strategy I did indeed manage to get up to Ten in the first try. (Using the strategy mentioned above my first try on 2048 got me to 1024)
Though as soon as I started thinking about the movement of the tiles as soon did I not manage to reclaim that small victory. After some more playing getting to the first Nine became more and more easy (I had the Seventh or even Eighth in a couple of moves) , up to the point where the second one would follow suit and create the first Ten.
Getting the second ten however was not an easy feat and it took me several more tries and probably a lot of luck to get it when the tiles even lay so perfectly that I could not just make the second Ten, but also combine them one final time:

Prove that I beat the game! =)

Unfortunately you can’t continue to play after you made the final combination. I would have liked to try how far I would have managed to go with that game.

What did I learn from playing this game?

For one: This game is highly addictive. If you don’t reach your goal, you will try it time and time again until you’ve done it.
For another: Without creating some kind of strategy for yourself you will be hopelessly lost quite soon as the tiles pop up randomly and don’t give you that much of a chance to arrange them properly. (Mine is only an example, use whatever you think suits you best!)
At long last: I like that I managed to put up that strategy for myself. Moments like these give me hope that I am not too bad/stupid for my chosen profession as I still manage to make logical conclusions – just as I did with the buses on Thursday.

What are my other thoughts on the game?

I really liked how the pictures used for the Doctors were black and white until the Fifth and then turned into colour starting with the Sixth and his ridiculous coat. It kind of reminds you that the show has had it’s 50th anniversary last year. Though it was a bit unfortunate that they only took random out-of-character pictures for Eight, Ten and Eleven.
At some point you will even stop thinking about them as characters or people and more as numbers that you need to combine, at least that’s how it was for me.
It’s a fun and also strangely relaxing game, where you don’t really have to think that much after you’ve established your strategy.

If this gave you inspiration to try the game yourself or you have already tried it:

How well did you cope with the game? (Which Doctor did you reach?)
What was your strategy?
I’m curious about your replies. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the game and the pictures used within it belong to their respective owners.

The Elevator – Relaunch?

After I published my post about the Elevator-Meme (the one with certain characters from different Fandoms being stuck in the same elevator, read the link to know which one I’m talking about), quite a lot of people read (or looked at) the analysis and its accompanying One Shot that I had published on both Fanfiction.net and Animexx. I got some interesting and lovely responses so far (I even inspired someone to make a challenge out of this! o.O) and well, what can I say…the mind keeps wandering back to it…
Several people have asked me if I will continue the idea, but at that time I didn’t have any idea how to.
The biggest problem being that I don’t know the majority of Fandoms as well as would be necessary to properly write such an enormous „Fandom soup“ (as a reviewer put it).
But as I said: The mind keeps wandering…I am more and more inclined to add more story to what I already have, to include scenes of everyone receiving the invite to get to the conference, to add some more thoughts and descriptions in certain moments and to simply continue where I left off.
As the Doctor Who Fandom is the one I feel most confident writing about, it his highly likely that the solution of the problem I created (As a reminder: The universes merged and they met up to figure out how that happened and how they can reverse it) will be solved with the help of The Doctors companions (including Jack/Torchwood, River Song and the Ponds to some extend).
Though I see possibilities to also include „The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.“ and other Marvel researchers and possibly heroes as well. A mentioning of the Star Trek people is kind of inevitable , but I’m afraid I know too little about them to actually make that work beyond receiving and acting on orders. (If anyone wants to help, let me know how you would include them in my setting.)
Another thing I would need to worry about would be:
How do I include the other characters?
I have a rough idea what they could be useful for like the Holmes brothers for the planning, House for assembling and coordinating medical teams, Sheldon doing the same with „normal“ researchers, but that still leaves the question:
What am I supposed to do with the pirate and the angel? o.O (And the possibility of characters from their respective universes running amok…)
So you can see still a lot of thought is necessary to even get the characters to properly work for the sake of the story.
Regardless of that another important topic still needs to be contemplated:
How the hell did all that happen? Who caused it and how could the assembled people actually stop and reverse it?
The setting I created is quite Sci-Fi-y and as I said I’m most comfortable with Doctor Who, therefore my current thought is that the classic DW villains, the Daleks, caused it.
We have seen them mess with universes through their Reality Bomb, who is to say they would not create something that would merge universes, making it easier for them to kill everything in one go?
Quite overused probably, but the only thing I feel adequate to write about.
But long story short: The possibility that I re-work what I wrote to simply prove my points in the analysis and widen it into a more complex story with more details and an actual solution, becomes more and more likely.
It is just a matter of time until I find the missing pieces to start writing, I suppose. But you are more than welcome to join me in my musing. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter