My website is 20 years old!

About a year ago I was looking through my old blog posts when I came across My website is ten years old! published on September 19, 2016.  The ten years was based on a visitor counter, but I can’t remember if I had it from the start, or if I added it on in the first week or so.  So my website is at least 20.  I think not too long after that post the counter stopped working, so I don’t know how many people have visited it in these twenty years.

I think the biggest change in the last ten years is how in the last few years I’ve debated keeping the website.  It costs money to have it, and I don’t think it makes me any money.  I don’t have the numbers for this, but I suspect my occasional book sale comes either from some social media account or someone actually coming across one of my books at random.  But I do like having a website because it is the one spot that either has my stories or links to them.  So it will probably continue for another ten years.  Assuming the techbros and their AIs don’t destroy the internet in the next few years.

My idea for the next Avatar

Some sequels are just the first thing again, but with a higher budget.  Some sequels expand on the original story and take it in new and interesting directions.  And some sequels try to be too different and end up falling off a cliff.  It must have been about a year or so ago when I saw some rumors about Seven Havens, the new Avatar series.  To be honest, my knee jerk reaction was it seemed like they were flirting with falling off a cliff.  But I said I would give it a watch before making up my mind.  Of course I don’t have a Paramount+ account, but maybe they have a free month trial version.  So I’ll probably watch it someday, but it probably won’t be for some time.

Anyway, after I heard these rumors, I started to wonder, Well, what would I do if I had to write the story of the Avatar after Korra?  After some thought, I came up with an idea.  I figured I should write it up, but then other stuff happened, and I kind of forgot about it.  But when the trailer for Seven Havens came out, I figured if I was ever going to write it up, I should do it now.  So here’s my basic idea for what I would have done if I was writing a series for the Avatar after Korra.

First off, who is the villain of the series?  There isn’t one.  My idea is that the various nations have grown tired of war, and with the Air Nomads working to keep the peace, there isn’t much room for the Sozins and Kuviras of the world to start.  There are still minor disagreements and wars, but they are much smaller.  The result is the Avatar showing up just seems like an escalation.  Do we really need to go nuclear over a couple of small islands?  So there aren’t that many human reasons for the Avatar to get involved.

There are still natural things the Avatar can get involved in.  If there’s a hurricane or a volcanic eruption, the Avatar will show up to either try to disperse it or to save everyone they can.  Which is great, but what about the boring day to day?  What does the Avatar do then?

I imagine that at some point Varrick invents VarrickVision or something, so most people in the world would have some version of a TV.  So I imagine the Avatar having various shows.  Like they could go to locations in the world/spirit world and host historical/nature documentaries.  Or they could have a show going around and talking with people with rare bending abilities, or try to find people with new bending abilities.

So it would have just been … worldbuilding the series?  I’m sure some personal drama could be figured out.  Like maybe the Avatar has a younger sibling who, at first, is excited to be that close to the Avatar.  But they grew up with stories of Aang and Korra fighting armies and mechs, and they get upset when the realize they’re related to the “boring” Avatar.  I imagine this Avatar’s “Team Avatar” would be more … corporate.  There would be one to oversee the media accounts of the Avatar, and one would handle any legal issues.

That was my idea.  Would it have worked?  No.  If, somehow it had been greenlit, it would have been canceled after a season.  Instead of battles and high drama it would have just been exploring new areas of this world.  The point would be that not every Avatar needs to deal with the end of the world.  Or perhaps we could just be setting things up for the next Avatar.  Like things seem peaceful, but maybe the series ends with some unknown secret society succeeding in assassinating the Avatar.  What then?

 

An idea for Doctor Who

I don’t remember when I first heard about Doctor Who.  But I think it was sometime in the 90’s when I found out the PBS station aired Doctor Who at, like 1AM on Sundays.  With that I was able to watch, I believe, all of the Seventh Doctor.  And sometime I watched the Eighth Doctor’s movie, but I can’t remember if it was before or after the revival with the Ninth.

My favorite Doctor is Ten, and my favorite companion is Martha, with Donna as a close second.  So those two seasons are, in my opinion, peak Doctor Who.  Not to besmirch Eleven, Amy, Rory, Clara, etc., but while they had good episodes, it seemed like the great episodes were becoming fewer and fewer.  And this has just continued since then.  Some years ago, I did a rewatch of New Who, but just of the “good” episodes.  So the Martha and Donna seasons I watched almost in their entirety, but I think I only watched like three episodes from all of Twelve’s run.  I’m not saying everything was bad, it’s just, again in my opinion, most episodes were just okay.  By the time we get to Thirteen, I barely remember any of their run.  The writing wasn’t as good, and I ran out of steam.

Then we get to Fourteen, which I found a bit … desperate.  It was an interesting idea, but I didn’t think the writing was up to it.  Then comes Fifteen.  Their arrival was interesting, but again I didn’t think the writing was up to the task.  It almost seemed like they were given the choice, “Do we write really compelling stories, or do we write so-so stories, but with a stunt?” and they picked the stunt.

Then came Sixteen.  No offense to Billie Piper, but really?  As I said, bringing back David Tennant for Fourteen was a bit … desperate, and bringing back a familiar face again so soon seemed to just scream desperation.  I believe I groaned when she appeared because, to me, it indicated the future wouldn’t be compelling stories, just stunts.

And now the future is … who knows.  Several months ago, I read some speculation that Piper might only do one or two specials before regenerating into a brand new Seventeen.  Now I’ve read speculation that she might not even come back, and if Doctor Who does continue, there might be a time jump, like from Eight to Nine.  But I had been thinking of a way for Piper to have a short-lived role as the Doctor without completely wiping it all away.  I started typing this up before all the latest news, and I figured I might as well finish this now before it becomes even less relevant. 

My Christmas/Easter/Arbor Day/Whatever Special would start with PiperDoctor saying something like, “This is interesting.” She’d then start picking out an outfit.  But before she settles on something, the TARDIS jerks and rushes off. 

We then see a group of women late at night in some university dorm.  They’re probably having some makeshift party, and it’s possible one of them has some alien artifact they’re hiding from the others.  Then the TARDIS lands which is very surprising. 

PiperDoctor – in parts from like six outfits – steps out and starts with the frantic, weird stuff is going on Doctor speak, that’s also to calm them from seeing a blue box appear out of thin air.  The women introduce themselves, and one is introduced either with a nickname, or something like Mary, or something odd happens just before they get to say their name.  The reason is I’d like this woman’s real name to be hidden for as long as possible, it being Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.  The reason her name might be given as Mary or whatever, is because either she was sent to school under a false name for her safety, or this was her first mission to track down reports of alien objects at the university.

Whether Kate introduces herself or not, there’s still something odd that happens.  And that is the Doctor … changes.  It’s not a regeneration, but either because of all the odd regeneration stuff lately, or there’s some weird field being emitted from some alien artifact, or more likely both, the Doctor’s cells aren’t settling into a final form.  Which means PiperDoctor is gone after five minutes, replaced by XDoctor.  But the thing is still happening, so after another five minutes or so, we get YDoctor, and so on.  Probably, the time between changes speeds up, so we could have twenty or thirty actors play the Sixteenth Doctor.  In the end, they might only appear as the Doctor for a few seconds, which would be a great time to throw in some easter eggs. 

The idea I had for who could be XDoctor, is Idris Elba.  I think a decade or so ago there was talk of him playing the Doctor, and this might be a fun way for it to happen.  Also, my idea is this takes place in a woman’s dorm, and – I don’t know how English universities handle these things – but there’s probably some, upperclassman, or matron, or someone who makes sure nothing gets out of hand.  And this one has a rule of “No men after dark.” And with the TARDIS appearing and everything, these women are getting a little loud so the matron or whatever comes to investigate, and now there’s a man in their rooms.  So they shove ElbaDoctor into the loo, but the matron knows that trick and demands them to come out, with ElbaDoctor giving a falsetto, “Give me a minute.” But fortunately, it’s been about five minutes so ElbaDoctor changes into YDoctor, played by some young actress, so the matron leaves in a huff.

With so many actors playing the Doctor, but only for a few minutes, I thought we could have some fun.  Like I’m sure there’s some child actor that’s big in England, who would be thrilled to be the Doctor for three minutes.  Another possibility would be an actor who’s an amputee.  I imagine the Doctor looking at their arm stump for a second or two, then shrugging and continuing on.

The way out of this, is probably the one woman turning over the alien artifact, and the Doctor needing various bits of things to rebuild it into something that would fix their form.  As they’re finally getting all the pieces together, the Doctor is changing every few seconds, so it’s up to Kate to make the last connection and hit the big red button.

We are then left with Sixteen’s final form, which I’d say maybe played by an English actress with Japanese ancestry.  There are hugs and maybe this is when Kate either gives her full name instead of the nickname, or reveals what her real name is.  And Sixteen is like, “I should have known,” or whatever.  Sixteen then gets in the TARDIS and flies off to the present-day Kate.  When Sixteen steps out, Kate is like, “I have waited so long to see you,” and they share a laugh.  You could even have the Doctor take a scarf or something from young Kate and include it in Sixteen’s outfit. 

Would this have stunts and fan service?  Yes.  But I think – if handled correctly – it could also be fun.  And what more could we want from Doctor Who?

Writing in these dark times

I’m trying to write more microfiction stories.  For one, I can post them on Mastodon or Bluesky making them a nice way for people to find out about me (here is a page with all the ones I’ve published) and two, I’m slowly working on a collection of 1,001 microfiction stories, and it takes some time to write that many.  Last week I came up with an idea dealing with the current state of the world, when I ran into a wall, and I haven’t quite figured out how to move on.

The idea for the story is pretty simple.  Some guy is at home on the couch when someone bangs on the door – instead of using the doorbell – and shouts, “ICE, open up.” The guy gets up, starts recording on his phone, and opens the inner door.  Outside the screen door is some masked asshole in camo, but before he could say anything, the owner says, “Fuck off.  I don’t want any of your Fascist Scout Cookies.” He then slams the door as hard as he could.

I came up with the idea, and hoped it would bring a smile to someone’s face.  And then I ran into the reality wall.  Because, as a white guy from Pennsylvania, I – possibly – could get away saying something like that to the Istapo.  But Juanita from Puerto Rico?  She’d probably be pulled through the screen door, or maybe just shot. 

I live in the middle of nowhere, in a very red part of Pennsylvania.  So there’s little chance I’ll have a run in with ICE.  And I’m broke, so I can’t really support financially those that are standing up to these goons.  For the longest time, I thought my role would be writing stories making fun of the fascist assholes, or stories set in a better world that we could aspire towards.  That’s great and all, but it really feels like it’s not enough.  Or worse, what if the next ICE execution video we see is someone saying, “I don’t want any of your Fascist Scout Cookies,” before slamming the door as the goon goes into hyper-rage.  That would destroy me. 

And that’s where I am right now.  I want to write to help the cause, but I don’t know what I can write that could help.  And my normal stories of aliens and time travel just feel, at best, pointless and at worst, a distraction. 

A Stranger Things prediction

My plan had been to wait until early December then start my Stranger Things rewatch doing an episode or two each day so that I would get to the final episode just as it came out.  But I ended up starting early because I wasn’t feeling well and just needed to watch something.  I believe I was watching the end of Season 2 when the first part of Season 5 came out.  Since then, I’ve caught all up and watched some reactions to Season 5 as well as some theory videos.  While some of the theory videos I’ve seen have gotten close, I haven’t seen anyone actually predict this.

First off, at some point during my rewatch of Season 3, I wondered how the show would end and where would the characters end up.  And I had the idea of there being a bit of a time jump and we’d see what the characters were doing in a few years.  For example, we’d see Will going to college.  He meets his roommate, who is impressed with Will’s art or something, and then, somehow, we figure out the roommate is gay, and we’d be left with the idea that Will may have finally found someone. 

But after watching the first part of Season 5, I’m pretty sure Will is going to die.  Because I think either El or Will have to die for the show to show that it’s serious.  I think they are the only ones that could do that.  Killing anyone else – Steve, Joyce, even Mike – I feel would just be killing a character just to kill a character.  Like, Steve dying would wreck Dustin, but I don’t really see that as a big enough series changing event.

The reason I think it’s going to be Will, is I’m not sure Will is gay.  I think it’s possible Will only loves Mike.  Possibly not even in a sexual way.  I don’t want to try to label what Will is, because I’m sure Will doesn’t fully understand it, and it’s possible he could have met someone later in life that he could have developed similar feelings for.  But what I think will happen is Will will basically take a bullet for El, not so much to save her, but to save Mike the heartache of losing her.  I think that something that Capital T Tragic is the right amount of bitterness the show needs for a proper ending.  It ticks the box of a major character dying to show things are serious, and it’s a death that will affect a lot of people in different ways.  It will hurt Joyce and Jonathan the most, but then Hopper has a more or less stepchild’s death to deal with, Mike and El will have to deal with what he did for them, and Robin will have lost a burgeoning friend.  And if his death is somehow witnessed by the kids of Hawkins, they’ll have to deal with how they bullied this kid who still went on to save them.

Or, a better/worse than death way to do it, is they discover that to truly end everything, someone needs to seal the worlds off from one another.  And it can only be done from the Upside Down and whoever does it isn’t coming back.  El is going to do it, but while she and Mike share what they think will be their last embrace, Will rushes past and start closing it.  Possibly even singing, “Should I stay or should I go now?  If I go there will be trouble, And if I stay it will be double.”

Or maybe everyone dies.  I guess we’ll know in a few weeks.

Thoughts on Doctor Who

In the past year or so, I’ve gotten into “First Time Watching” videos on YouTube.  Basically, some 20-something will film themselves watching The Terminator, or Iron Man, or whatever and post a half-hour long video of their biggest gasps or reactions.  What I find appealing about these, is they will be watching a favorite movie of mine, but one I haven’t seen for a decade, and it’s like I’m watching it again with … not a friend, but a person I vaguely know who has no idea I even exist.  Also, I forget how many people I’ve seen shocked at the “chest burster” scene.  That’s fun. 

There are twenty or so of these reactors I follow on YouTube.  And recently, four of them have either started watching Doctor Who or I just found them.  So I’ve been seeing the highlights of these … not old-old Doctor Who episodes, and since season … whatever just ended, I figured now was as good a time as any to write up some of my thoughts on the show.

First off, back during the time of the Tenth Doctor, if you had asked for my Top 10 TV shows, Doctor Who would have made the cut.  Now, I almost need to be reminded it exists.  For me, I’d say the Tenth Doctor was peak, and it’s been going down – sometimes faster, sometimes slower – since then.  If you asked why I thought that, I’d say I think the writing isn’t as good.  But if you then asked for concrete examples, I could only shrug.  Because it’s all subjective.  For example, there is an episode that started strong, I thought had an interesting premise and I was eager for the mystery to be solved.  And then the episode kind of petered out and ended.  So it’s an episode that I do not care for.  But, the one First Time Watcher who is far enough ahead to have seen it, loved it.  And I think when it first came out the “consensus” was that half the people loved it while half hated it.  And I was just in the hated half.  And that just seems to be where I always end up.

I understand that no book, song, TV show whatever will be loved by everyone.  That’s … life.  But the more I thought about it, I think what happened with Doctor Who is it’s not just they have more episodes I dislike than like, but they keep going back to the episodes I dislike.  There will be an episode I don’t care for, but instead of letting me move on and forget all about it, four episodes later, that villain comes back and is just as lame and uninteresting.  Or next season there’s a sequel episode, or two seasons later this character I’ve completely forgotten about comes back to play a super important role and I’m just confused trying to remember who they are.  And while there are some characters I’d like to see return, I would rather have more new stuff with less callbacks. 

If, somehow, the people at Doctor Who see this, all I ask is they do more new stuff.  New, good stuff.  Stories where the villain isn’t one dimensional, or the mystery is “solved” in a satisfactory way instead of just petering out in some artsy-fartsy way.  And if you do bring things back, maybe do them in a way where we don’t need to have watched fourteen episodes over the last fifty years to know what’s going on.  You have all of time and space to work with.  Do something new, that’s also good.

An interesting history YouTube channel

I have an interest in history.  There’s the standard WWII and ancient Rome, but also the history of spaceflight, technology, and anything dealing with the hundred or so other minor interests I have.  As such, I follow I don’t know how many YouTube history channels.  But for this post, I want to talk about one in particular: Cambrian Chronicles, the “number one Welsh history channel on YouTube.”

It was probably about a year ago, I was on some video and I scrolled down to read some comments, when one of the recommended videos on the side caught my eye.  I forget what it was, but it was probably something like “The Lost Welsh Kingdom.” I’ve never taken one of those DNA tests to see where I’m from, but growing up I heard my family was mostly German with some Irish and English.  So there’s probably some Welsh in there as well.  And for some reason, at the time the idea of a lost kingdom or whatever sounded interesting.  So I checked out the video, enjoyed it, and followed a new channel.

I would say that a “typical” Cambrian Chronicles video would be there’s a manuscript from the year 750 that names a dozen Welsh kings.  We have “good” historical records for ten of them.  Here’s the best evidence/theory for the other two.  And we go through five or six other ancient manuscripts to piece together how something was likely mistranslated or the truth is likely right out in the open, but nobody noticed.  A good actual video is The Royal Title that No One Can Remember.  Basically, there’s a list of a dozen or so people with a “title” that can’t be translated.  We don’t know why these people were called it, or why other similar people weren’t. 

All of this is interesting, but why talk about it in a blog about writing?  For one, someone could easily write a story where that Royal Title just meant that they were aliens, and nobody could argue about it because the historical record doesn’t say otherwise.  But more importantly, hearing about kings or kingdoms that – a thousand years later – we only know existed because of some scraps of parchment, is a reminder of how … temporary our existence is.  Hell, given enough time, Shakespeare will be forgotten.  I believe most people know that, on some level, but few have come to grips with that reality.  And right now, too many people are ignoring reality for all our detriment.

Daredevil: Born Again theory

During episode 6 of Daredevil: Born Again, I thought I noticed something a little odd about a character.  After some thought, I came up with a theory.  Now, I do watch a few YouTubers who discuss the show, but I haven’t heard this theory.  While there is a good chance my theory is wrong, I figured I should at least write it down so if, somehow, I’m right, I can at least brag about it.

I guess there will be some spoilers for the show, but if you’re not watching the show, why are you bothering to read this?

The character in question is Powell, the cop who has had a few run ins with Matt.  First off, in episode 2, I thought it odd that he didn’t just shoot Hector when his partner died.  I mean, he could have just said, “This guy attacked us and killed my partner.  I shot him in self-defense.” Nobody would have questioned it.  At the time, I figured it was because, really, the train should have stopped and there would be witnesses that Hector had his hands up.  I believe in the show they just have the train continuing on, which seemed odd to me.  But it could just be that the effects people messed up. 

Anyway, in episode 6 there’s the scene where Fisk starts his task force.  And there were a couple shots of Powell looking around at the other cops.  I don’t know why, but there just seemed to be something odd about it.  Why are they focusing so much on him?  This led to my theory: Powell is working with the FBI to get into the corrupt cop gang.

This would explain why he didn’t just shoot Hector in episode 2, he’s undercover, but not a murderer.  It also explains why he doesn’t know who killed Hector because he’s not far enough into the group.  And in a series all about how those – apparently – on the side of the law aren’t always good, while those outside the law aren’t always bad, having this “Are they a good cop that’s only acting bad for good reasons?” would be yet another shade of grey.

But what about when he put the gun to Matt’s head in episode 2?  That was a problem.  But then I thought, what if Powell’s plan was to put the gun to Matt’s head, but then say something like, “You’re lucky too many eyes are on me right now.  Otherwise, it would be easy to kill you,” or whatever.  And then he could have hit Matt with the gun.  Maybe Powell just wanted to scare Matt without breaking cover.  And he could have gotten away with it, except Matt let the devil out.

So that’s my theory: Powell is a good guy trying to take down the corrupt cops.  We’ll have to see if that is the case.

Typing

Something happened to my left, middle finger.  There’s a chance it’s just arthritis because I’ve been having issues with it for some time, but last week something else happened and it hurt to bend it.  So I jury rigged a splint out of half a popsicle stick and a couple of band aids.  It stopped my finger from bending, so that worked, but the stick either slipped or dug into my finger.  Then I realized I could just put a band aid around my knuckle, which was enough to keep my finger from bending too much.  It doesn’t hurt as much as it did, but if I bend it too much it hurts.

Anyway, the first day I used the stick, I thought things were going well, until I went to type up something.  I could bend my finger enough for the letter “d,” but I couldn’t hit “e,” let alone “c.” But do you have any idea how many words have the letter “e” in them?  I actually had to be typing, and when it came time to hit “e” I’d move my hand to hit it with my index finger.  It was clunky, but it didn’t seem to slow me down that much.  If I had kept at it – instead of seeing it as a day to take things easy – I might have learned how to type without using a finger.  Which is a skill I hope I never need to have.

But this got me thinking about typing.  Not to show my age, but I learned how to type in high school on a typewriter.  I was about to say my typing skills are probably fair since I’ve typed so much over the years, but then I remembered there are tests you could take.  I just took one and I typed 65 words in a minute with a 95% accuracy.  I guess the average typing speed is 40-55 words a minute, so I guess I’m above average in something.

I didn’t really have a plan for this blog.  It was just something vaguely writing related.  And really, I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about typing.  If you sat me down at a desk and asked me the order of the keys on a keyboard, it would take me a minute to figure them out.  But I just typed out the alphabet about as fast as you’d sing the alphabet song and only made one mistake.  (If you’re wondering, I somehow hit “x” instead of “s.”) I’m actually a bit worried that if I started to think about typing, I’d forget how to.  There’s probably a lesson there.