Saturday 30 March 2013

Clara 'Oswin' Oswald

If you're reading this and my view of my reader is anywhere near accurate, then you've already watched the Dr Who episode "The Bells of St. John" (that's today's for those of you to stupid to think (which is of course non of you, but I have to be prepared for muggles to come along now and again)) If you haven't then go fucking watch it! Both to avoid the spoilers and so what I'm saying makes sense... Ok are we all caught up now? Good, let's proceed.
No wait, one more thing before we do. Do you think because Matt Smith is the youngest Doctor ever that someone high up decreed that the companions must be younger and hotter than ever before? I mean when they unveiled a leggy redhead in a policewoman's uniform I was pretty certain that was not to be topped, but then, well... this happened:
I mean seriously! She is properly hot. The only reason Jenna Louise Coleman is not on "the list" is because she's on both my father's and brother's, if there was ever something that you shouldn't share with your family, it's list entries (find the post "the Lovell list" to explain that)
Anywho, now I actually am going to get to the actual timey-wimey, nerdy-wordy things I came here to say. To avoid (or possibly create) confusion We'll be using this system from here onwards:
Clara=Victorian
Oswin=Dalek
Jenna=This episode (and series, but that's not relevant yet) (yes I know that's the actress's name but what other option do I have? "Oswald"? No, that's an old man's name! Don't be so silly)
The most obvious question the writers have made us ask is "Are Clara, Jenna and Oswin all the same person?" which obviously leads on to the more interesting "If yes, how is she resurrecting?" or "If no, what connects them?"
I know I came here to express my theories and thoughts about these questions, but I can't answer the first of them. She's met the Doctor for the first time 3 times now, but she never knew him beforehand. So this means that surely they're not one person being resurrected, otherwise Oswin and Jenna would remember the meeting Clara had with him wouldn't they? So they must be different people surely?
However, it seems that knowledge is passed between them. Clara is in the past and not a genius, Oswin is in the future and she's able to hack a whole dalek prison at will. Jenna, at the start of the episode, knows nothing about computers, she then gets uploaded, downloaded and all the other sorts of loaded (that sounds rude now I write it) and becomes a total screaming genius but modest and a tiny bit sexy, much like Oswin is. That implies some sort of consistent conciousness that allows knowledge to be passed down on a linear timeline. So maybe they are the same person but why is knowledge passed and not memories?
Besides, there are a few subtle differences between the 3 of them. Oswin's first name was, obviously, Oswin, Clara's middle name was Oswin, but then Jenna didn't recognise the name. How can a name flit in and out of the timeline for a person/people?
Let's be honest, I've answered nothing have I? I've just listed all the options. Well to quote Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jean Valjean "Sometimes, one must be content to love the questions themselves." "The truth is given to us all in our time, in our turn." So put the kettle on, put your feet up, and watch the pretty woman and the mad man in a box.

Tuesday 19 March 2013

Strangers on the Internet

This is going to rambley, I can feel it. Try and stick with me on this... Yes of course rambley is a real word, why would you even question that? Anyway, to business.
I'm not a fan of naming fandoms, in fact I'm not a fan of the word fandom itself, but I concede that they do make things neater. Especially on (the main focus of this post) twitter, where everything is neatly condensed into tiny snippets of  information. It does make life easier to just look and see Belieber, Directioner, and all that other shite and just sit there going "nope nope, oh wait! Nope!" I'm sure plenty of them are good and interesting people deep down... well some of them, maybe, but if they care enough about awful music to make it that obvious, I'm not going to dig that far before giving up. Anywho, I came here to extol the virtues of these people (Fandom people, not beliebers) not complain.
I see people complaining about boring and generic tweets on a daily basis, but I never see the original problem. I got bored of pointing out that you only see boring shit from the people you follow, if you stop following them it all goes away. Related to this is people who feel obligated to follow everyone they know in the real world, I hate most of the people I know in the real world! I can see why people would want to avoid real world people on the internet, I only occasionally have to deal with Kelly questioning my... *sigh* fine I'll say it, Helenaist nature. If I had that shit on a daily basis I'd do what I know at least one other person I know has, get another account to be me on, and just be Marshall on the one I have now. I say at least one as the point of the second account is it stays away from people from the real world, so maybe there are plenty of them are out there.
Right, we may as well get to the point in the title now shall we? I follow 127 people on twitter and I'm followed by 102 (at least while I'm writing this) only 30 people (well 29, 30 accounts) are on both lists. This is because I follow people who I find interesting, whether someone follows me or not has no impact on my choice to follow them or not, even if they get pissy about me not following back. About 6 of those people make up well over 3/4 of my interactions. I've only met 2 of them and can only tell you what 3 of them look like, that is because the other 3 all have pictures of Helena Bonham Carter as their icons (The other one I don't know is Katie... We don't talk about why she's in my interactions). Now finally I get to  make a genuine point! It doesn't matter that I may never meet these people, that isn't important. We share interests (no, not just Helena, not always) and the whole point of twitter is to connect to people you share interests with, not people you know. I spend a ridiculous amount of time on twitter and essentially none on facebook, because I'm much more interested in strangers I share interests with, than I am in acquaintances I don't give a shit about.
Basically, there is no reason to complain about what people tweet. There are so many accounts out there that you can have a perfectly full timeline that all interests you. Just unfollow the boring people and follow interesting strangers in their place.