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mellicose · 4 years

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Doctor ... WTF?

An impassioned rant about the steady decline of Doctor Who, the trajectory of the Thirteenth Doctor, and the righteous indignation after The Timeless Children, not only as a Whovian, but as a woman-

I love how certain people are spinning The Timeless Children as being good, yet the BBC has released (2)TWO statements basically telling fans the following:

“Doctor Who is a beloved long-running series and we understand that some people will feel attached to a particular idea they have of the Doctor, or that they enjoy certain aspects of the programme more than others. Opinions are strong and this is indicative of the imaginative hold that Doctor Who has – that so many people engage with it on so many different levels.

We wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers and we feel that creating an origin story is a staple of science fiction writing. What was written does not alter the flow of stories from William Hartnell’s brilliant Doctor onwards – it just adds new layers and possibilities to this ongoing saga.”

Creative freedom, huh? Ask Joe Hill about it. Or Gaiman. The writers, including Chibnall, are only free to do what the Beeb and the other show investors tell them.

They go on:

“We have also received many positive reactions to the episode’s cliff-hanger. There are still a lot of questions to be answered, and we hope that you will come back to join us and see what happens, but we appreciate that it’s impossible to please all of our viewers all of the time and your feedback has been raised with the programme’s Executive Producer."

Uglylaughing.gif

There is a huge, monumental difference between 'not being able to please everyone all at the same time' and basically making a whole fandom, New and Classic, young and old, come together with the same level of disgust and disappointment.

I also find the people arguing "Canon? What canon?" about the Doctor now being the Lord and Savior of the Shining World of the Seven Systems to be foolish at best, and disingenuous at worst.

No canon?? So what have I been steeping myself in for years - a vague approximation of a tale? Please. Of course, writers have embellished and alluded, but tampering with the unspoken but well-known 'no touch' rule about the Doctor's origin is ... well, it's canon, in and of itself...

...which Chibnall completely wrecked, and I can't imagine why. Hubris? By all accounts, he was a fan. I thought Moffat was a dick for bringing back Gallifrey, but now, to me, my disappointment then vs now is like comparing a fart to a shitstorm.

Please excuse the scatological references, but I'm using it deliberately. It is a swirling turd, which I and many others wish we could flush down and forget forever.

In another RadioTimes article - which basically is the BBC - amongst the usual apologetics, Huw Fullerton drops this little gem:

“The glory days of David Tennant et al were in a different TV landscape, and if the Tenth Doctor touched down now it seems unlikely he’d command anything close to the ratings he did over a decade ago.”

Yeah, you can all take a break to have a hearty laugh. Or throw up. Whichever. Did they just hint that, basically, the incarnation of the Doctor who continues to get as much love (if not more) than Four, who still consistently gets thousands of butts in seats in conventions worldwide, and has made the BBC hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling in merchandising “wouldn’t command the ratings he did in 2008?”

As Gary Buechler of Nerdrotic said in his response to this article: “Actually, if David Tennant had been given as many chances as Jodie Whittaker, it would’ve had Game of Thrones-level ratings.”

And I agree. Not because I’m a Tenth Doctor stan, but because it’s just ... categorically true. His seasons consistently got average rating of 7.5 to 8 million viewers - and this in a time before BBCiPlayer, so 7-day catch up ratings meant nothing. It was butts on sofas then, which, to me, speaks of a massive, sustained interest.

But Huw goes on to say that such things mean nothing. And that the huge, telling sink in both overnight and 7-day ratings between the 11th and 12th seasons, and the dismal 4.69m 7 day ratings for The Timeless Children - the lowest for a NewWho finale since its reboot - shouldn’t be taken as a loss of interest from the fandom.

Then, pray tell goodman, what does it mean? Does it mean that fans are following the Thirteenth Doctor’s adventures in spirit? Ratings are tanking. Outside of the precious few who blindly tweet and write articles about the show solely based on its now female protagonist, people are notoriously furious, especially after the execrable season finale.

Yet BBC’s Piers Wenger, who once produced the show, says “I don’t think it’s been in better health, editorially. I think it’s fantastic and I think that, the production values obviously have never been better.”

Right. Okay. So, putting Tom Ford makeup on a pig makes it haute couture, huh? The writing is appalling, and after two excruciatingly painful to watch seasons, the Doctor has failed to appear - all I’ve seen is borderline sociopathic navel gazing from an ‘alien’ wearing a pastel duster.

How dare you besmirch the unfailingly cool reputation of the long coat, Chibnall? Jodie? How??

I will not let someone piss on my head and call it rain ... ‘because it’s a woman.’ Assuming I’ll accept it just adds insult to injury. Who do they think we are, as female fans? I will not cosign garbage to further an agenda that is ultimately damaging one of my favorite things ever, Doctor Who. I agree that politics, and a positive moral, have always been a part of DW, but at it’s best the writing was so good that it only added to the entertainment. Now, the BBC is feeding us all the bitter pill, without the kindness to hide it in a piece of tasty cheese. It gives the impression that they believe we are already so indoctrinated that we no longer need artifice!

Well, not only am I not indoctrinated, but I refuse to ingest.

I refuse to allow people to silence me because the Doctor is now a woman, and so am I. That, I shouldn’t say anything, or complain, because it’s an act of rebellion on womankind, not only in entertainment, but in general. Well, to that I say ... er ... I disavow.

Disavow. Disavow.

And this from a woman who once criticized Peter Davison for saying that casting a woman was “a vital loss of a role model for boys,” taking it as a sexist comment when in truth, it was just a relevant narrative concern about gender-swapping the traditionally male-presenting Time Lord. Just changing a character from male to female doesn’t do anything but demonstrate a tone-deafness about the emotional and physical differences between men and women, which exist whether we want to address them or not. This is why genderswap reboots are terrible. They are trying to further the feminist agenda, while surreptitiously painting traditional, every day femininity as weakness, and something to be avoided at all costs. I reject the modern Hollywood representation of what a ‘strong woman’ is meant to be. I can be clever, yet sensitive enough to comfort a friend when they confide their fears about a cancer relapse. I can be funny, and not at the expense of the man in the room. I can be brave, but not at the expense of my friends. The mind boggles as to why they thought their current tack with the Doctor was going to be any good. The Doctor is a woman, but more importantly, she’s a Timelord. Where are they? Is the alien that we’ve known and loved for the last 60 years truly gone away, and Thirteen is from a whole different timeline? If so, I don’t want to know her.

And it breaks my heart.

Why continue to support a corporation who thinks of me, the fan, as no more than a heartless, thoughtless consumer? A drone? A sheep who has no conscious idea of what I like or need?

I’m done. It’s been two seasons of absolute dreck, with absolutely no sign of a course-correction due to the overwhelmingly negative response. I may be many things, but I’m no masochist - even in the name of love. And Chibnall, knowing that many fans would go back to the classic stories to cleanse ourselves, went back to the beginning and took a giant shit there too.

Oh, the cleverness! the absolute schadenfreude of not only tampering, but rewriting the Doctor’s origins! I suppose that tells me he truly was once a fan. But no longer. Even if it turns out that the Master is as full of crap as Chibnall and it’s all an orchestrated lie, I don’t care anymore. Every inexplicable, terrible thing that happened before has already exhausted my patience with the narrative.

As veteral DW writer and script editor Terrance Dicks said:

If you’re concentrating on putting forth a political message, rather than on doing a really good show, I think there is a danger, maybe, you can do both but it would be hellish difficult, and I think that there’s maybe a danger that the show wouldn’t as be as good as it could or should be, because you’re not looking at the right aims.”

It seems like all that has been lost in time. Big corporations are buying up beloved science fiction properties, and systematically destroying them by trying to mix their politics into the mythos. [see ‘the fandom menace’]

I say, don’t support things that make you unhappy, in the name of nostalgia. That’s how they continue to upset us, while lining their pockets with our hard earned money. Complaining amongst ourselves, writing emails, or making angry Youtube videos no longer works anyway. Now is the time to just ... let it go. No more special edition DVDs, novelizations, or pretty action figures. Hit them in the pocketbook. We will still have fond memories of better times. I will not let them hijack, retcon, and retool them too.

There is a telling paragraph hidden in the depths of the article, which makes my DW fangirl sink:

It’s not as simple as “the ratings are down so Doctor Who will be cancelled,” as for the publicly-funded BBC there’s an interesting question about exactly what ratings are for beyond bragging rights. Obviously they need to make TV that people want to watch – but which people?

Not us, Huw. That’s who.

#dw #doctor who #doctor who season 12 #doctor who season finale #tenth doctor #dw negativity #the timeless children #or as I call it:#the timeless sham #issa no from me dawg #that little comment about dt really made me snort #i really hope he heard about it and had a long knee-slapping laugh #oh dear #the bbc really are deluded #they are truly drinking a koolaid whose potency boggles the mind #like can they see how off the mark they are?#do they have friends?

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altik-0 · 6 years

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For the Kids

As promised, here is the follow up to my previous post with more historical context. If you didn’t read the previous post, I’d recommend going back to at least get the details for what is going on, because I’m going to move on from here assuming you have the basic introduction. However, if you don’t want to read the whole post, feel free to disregard it, because honestly I think this one has much more important info anyway.

Part 3 -- Questionable History

When I began describing this incident in my previous post, I mentioned it being entangled with Gamergate and chantrolls, which probably makes no sense. The rest of the details suggest this was a public scandal that WotC addressed by instituting their new background check policy. To a certain extent, that is exactly true -- but the specific details around that public scandal are the important point for the rest of this post.

First let me introduce you to our primary character. Jeremy Hambly, otherwise known as MTGHeadquarters and Unsleeved Media, is a YouTube personality who makes videos primarily focused around Magic: The Gathering commentary and current events. You can find his channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIeZClsD9f0KlRsT1CBpDw

Specifically, on Christmas Eve of 2017, Jeremy posted a video entitled “Predators in the Magic Judge Program?”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp7EtTwRecc

In summary, the video talks about a discussion thread on a Judge IRC channel where a concerned parent asked whether the Judge Program performs criminal background checks. He expressed concern about the safety of allowing his teenage child to attend tournaments, and was upset to learn that the Judge Program didn’t perform some kind of criminal investigation on their personnel before certification. Jeremy agrees with this conclusion, highlighting another recent incident of a prominent L3 recently being decertified due to allegations of sexual misconduct. He concludes the video by petitioning the Judge Program to immediately perform these checks in order to protect children, and also requests his viewers begin sending him private information to an email address he registered: “[email protected]”

Over the next several weeks, he continued posting more videos on the topic, getting more specific and disturbed with each one. A few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nC0cpPomGM&t=36s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xagPfJq6E0Y&t=21s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTP4ShIzXdQ&t=150s

I’m not interested in breaking down the details of these videos, but I do want to highlight something I hope stands out as odd if you watch these without any other context. If you’ve watched the videos, you’ll have likely noticed a few odd things. He’s mentioned a few times that there are judges who are harassing him, and he expresses frustration that there is no action taken against these judges. He has a sign in his background saying “Days Banned: “ and a sideways 8, I’m assuming intended to represent an infinity symbol. Even the email address of “[email protected]” implies a certain level of vengeance in his tone. What is that about?

The answer to that question takes us another month back in time. On November 24th, 2017, a prominent Magic cosplayer, Christine Sprankle, posted on Twitter that she would be leaving the community due to harassment she received from MTG Headquarters and Unsleeved Media. I would link to the tweets, but Christine has locked off her account to avoid continued harassment. Instead, you can see a related video article about the incident here:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36232_Christine-Sprankle-Leaves-Magic.html

The news came over Thanksgiving holidays, so Wizards was unable to react immediately, but they made a public statement decrying the harassment being seen online, and on December 7th made a follow up statement re-iterating their position, and also silently issued a permanent suspension to Jeremy Hambly, and several other affiliated people, from being able to participate in Magic tournaments.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36232_Christine-Sprankle-Leaves-Magic.html

https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2017/12/jeremy-hambly-aka-mtgheadquarters-suspended-dci-mtg/

The specifics of Jeremy’s posts to Christine are largely private and unknown, but from the general information she shared -- and backup from other female Magic community members who experienced similar harassment from Hambly and his followers -- describe messages threatening rape, physical violence, disgust at her appearance, stalking, and other serious attacks. So pardon a brief moment of personal opinion, but I think it’s safe to say this is cut-and-dry unacceptable behavior, and given the prolonged nature of these attacks, a permanent suspension does feel a proportionate and necessary response.

And I want to draw attention to this situation, because it helps explain Jeremy’s state of mind entering December 24th when he posted his original video about sexual predators in the Judge program. Jeremy had been publicly shamed by much of the community for several weeks, then forcibly removed from the game he’d been playing for several years. His videos describe the situation as a “Witch Hunt” against him, and culminate in a video entitled “PRESS F TO PAY RESPECTS”, and a thumbnail that reads “BANNED FOR LIFE (NO APPEAL)”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opNYgHoSYsc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f79efv_AQYY

And at it’s most extreme, Jeremy even shared his story with Breitbart, and broadcast what he had dubbed as “Magicgate” to the public at large (or at least the section of the public that pays any attention to Breitbart):

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/12/20/delingpole-magicgate-the-ugly-story-of-how-social-justice-warriors-ruined-an-innocent-collectible-card-game/

In other words, for months now Jeremy has been engaged in building a narrative of antagonism towards the Magic community -- which he describes as being infested by authoritarian SJWs engaging in a witch hunt -- and Wizards of the Coast -- which he describes as an oppressive corporate overlord that unfairly punished him with no hope for appeal. And it’s important to remember that it is only a narrative. Although Wizards of the Coast DID suspend him from play and in effect confiscated his Magic Online collection, this was not a spontaneous action done from malice -- it was a reaction against him due to blatant and extreme violations of their terms of service and community standards. The purpose of his suspension was at least in part to demonstrate Wizards’s solidarity against cyberbullying and the sort of behavior that Hambly has now been trying to defend for months on his YouTube channel and Twitter account.

With that context, these videos of concern about pedophilia in the ranks of the Judge program take a dramatically different light. These are not the concerned posts of a community member looking to build a safer space for children -- it’s a paranoid exaggeration to continue propping up his narrative that Wizards is corrupt and uninterested in defending the community. “Look, they’re even hiding pedophiles now!”

And as a final jab that I feel clearly demonstrates Jeremy’s true intentions, on January 4th, Jeremy posted a public Google Doc containing the name, home city, and DCI number (unique identifier used for enrolling in / judging Magic events) of all Level 2 and Level 3 judges in the program. His original tweets, which have been since taken down, encouraged his followers to begin checking names and locations on the sex offender registry “since WotC and the judges won’t do anything.” On the surface this may sound fine enough, but keep in mind the repercussions of this action for affected judges. Because DCI numbers are used for registering as a judge in tournament software, it is now very easy for anyone to impersonate any of these judges at future events. And since the context behind this post was CLEARLY one of targeted attacks, even if only a handful of people act on Jeremy’s request, it is frankly very likely that at least one Judge will experience this fallout. Combined with the fact that proper criminal background checks are complex (turns out that there are frequently multiple people with the same name in the same area), siccing an angry mob against the Judge program is effectively tantamount to an open attack against any completely innocent member of the community (which, realistically, is effectively everyone).

Part 4 -- Reframing the Narrative

So, with that context behind us, I hope it’s apparent what the intent behind these actions were. That said, Jeremy’s intention shouldn’t have any impact on the viability of WotC’s decision, right? Even if an idea is proposed for bad reasons by bad people, that doesn’t make the idea invalid.

And this is where the discussion becomes by far the most frustrating, and also by far the most nuanced. It’s true that trying to invalidate an argument because the person making it has questionable morals is an ad hominem attack. However, my intention is not to claim that background checks in general are a bad idea because Jeremy Hambly recommended it -- I’m saying that the specific decision to create the policy that WotC did, at the time that they decided it, with the context surrounding this ongoing situation, plays straight into Jeremy’s narrative of corruption. Furthermore, given WotC’s deliberate language choices that direct responsibility away from themselves and towards the Judge Program, Jeremy’s attacks against Judges are not only disregarded, they are outright validated.

That support of the narrative is an important problem point in WotC’s decision, because that is ACTUALLY the objective that Jeremy cares about. It’s abundantly clear that he doesn’t care about the quality of the Magic community -- if that were the case, he wouldn’t have engaged in harassment in the first place. No, his objective is to reframe the discussion around unfair bias against him and his followers, and to normalize and justify the actions they have taken. By supporting his narrative, WotC is in effect created a policy that might proactively address a handful of horrible future incidents, but has actively reinforced horrible behavior that currently plagues the Magic community.

Part 5 -- Moving On

To my non-Magic friends (who actually read this blog), I hope this provides some context around the frustrations I’ve felt for the last several weeks. I’m now hoping to just move onward and cope with the reality I find myself in, but I can’t quite shake the anger I feel at the injustice of this whole situation.

It does not help to try and put things into perspective for myself: in practice, I already know that I will have basically zero impact from these policies. I have a simple background that will not find any criminal history, and enough report with local stores that I expect little to no fallout. Hiccups introduced by this policy will be ironed out over time, and eventually I expect it will evolve into an actually very positive part of Judge certification.

However, this perspective is purely one of privilege. Not all Judges have the good fortune I have, and not all players have the option to simply ignore bullies the way that I do. I don’t want to be idle when my friends are actively being attacked by those around them, yet I feel utterly powerless to help them. So I make this post, as modest and short reaching as it may be, in hopes that it will at least live on as a reminder of why people like Jeremy Hambly are so toxic to a community.

#magic #mtg #drama #not happy fun times #rants about security theater #personal stuff

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