beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I updated the Big Finish app and then had to delete and reinstall it because it thought it had deleted all the files but was still taking the same amount of disc space and adding on top when I redownloaded things. So, turns out the website advises you to log out first, ie let it delete all your downloaded files which yes it only allows you to have dled as long as you are logged in, so I reckon that was why.

I have redownloaded everything I was keeping then everything I had dled to listen to and it all fits again, but Alixion's picture is on the file named Fifteen Test Product, and every Purchased file is listed on the Purchased screen, even the ones that will not exist until 2029 (subscription to 10th Doctor audios achieved). And that is kind of nice in an upcoming attractions way but makes a lot of errors in July releases when it thinks you can download them but in fact you cannot.

Also once downloaded some files say the length of time they are but others say like '20 items' for what should be a single story. I have tried listening to one that is listed like that and it is in two minute ish pieces like the mp3 files, but with tiny gaps between playing them, and you can't use the back button on the watch to go before the start of the section. Hypothesis: some have dled as mp3 and some have dled as the other audiobook file like before. Messy. Not ideal.

But all my files appear to be there except the subscriber stuff like the website warns us, so, I guess they're making progress?

They also keep doing instructions for how to access your stuff on your phone without realising the fundamental problem is the menu will not scroll if the writing is too big for your screen. If you zoom out / hit the little A instead of the big A a bunch of times then the menu becomes useable again. But the complains are being answered with like 'click the arrow' when the arrow only appears on particularly large phones with tiny writing. Which hopefully they will figure out and fix or I may have to communicate.

Updates the user can notice are always tricky. But they have said many times they needed it to make the shop work so here we are.

I finished listening to the Further Adventuress.
I've only given it three and a half stars but I'm fairly sure that's unfair and I'm just having a distracted bad listening experience.
Also the CD isn't in my catalog and I haven't found it on the shelves so I've just logged it as a downloaded audiobook.

but

I checked the CD drawers today because I thought I was out of space and would need to decide which things to keep
and I discovered a whole drawer of empty
next to a drawer of 4th Doctor audios I haven't listened to yet
and
they weren't in the catalog.

Logically I need to recheck all the CDs
but the catalog says that is
about 750
which is so so many.

so many.

So I suspect my catalog will just continue to be mysteriously dubious.


On the plus side I have more 4th Doctor audios than I thought.

https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/fare-well-from-torchwood

Torchwood Farewell is really good
the appropriate amount of scary
and weirdly hopeful for something we know the canon ending of.

But now I have listened to All The Torchwood
all 100 audios
the end.



I shall have to hope the Legacy thing they already announced is something nice.


... I do not like reaching the end of the story. But it was a good one...

I have relistened to Charley Pollard up through Brotherhood of the Daleks.
I haven't relistened that one for ages because it was on the big computer not the app in my pocket.
My cunning plan to improve my computer with a little card and put More Doctor Who on it has more or less worked. ... it stopped working twice and started working again when I restarted the computer, but the third adventure went off without a hitch. Current theory: do not move files around while playing things off that drive, it only almost works. Shall see if that holds or if it will get stuck again later.

Brotherhood of the Daleks is nuts. Like, What If ( Read more... ). I read a few reviews and they seem balanced between being impressed at the audacity and pointing out that to understand what is going on properly you need to have watched TV episodes and listened a large handful of Big Finish, and even then it's going to try and trick you many. Getting lost in the twists seems to be the desired outcome. Also it does the thing where it goes to the credits and then continues the story, which is likely to lose you when you're trying to listen on a tiny pocket mp3 player on the bus and can't see the track length. Today I had the whole screen to see the extra minutes so that worked okay.

Charley is getting more annoying to me, as she continues to be the very attached romantic she always has been, but with ever so much more knowledge of how bad she could break the web of time. She should know better, but for all the same reasons, she's not the person who can let go.

... not a deliberate Scherzo reference but...

I did like the scene where she explained her emotions to the Doctor but the ways the story jumps out of the way of him having to react are getting annoying too.

As originally told there were years in between these episodes. Such a weird pacing issue to deal with. It's more or less working listened all in a row.

But this is not my favourite companion.



I also started to listen to a new to me story, 'The Further Adventuress', but I felt like the first episodes were just call backs and references to remind us who Charley even was, and since I just relistened I do recall. Also the bit with the gorilla was just odd, as well as being part of a stack of literary references set in Paris. The story just felt like it was Being Clever so I wandered off back to the monthly range.

... I will finish listening the monthly range eventually, but that day is not yet this one...



Long day of listening, more listening available, pretty cool.

It is funny listening to the Big Finish chatty bits where an actor says they're surprised the stories have gone on so long already
and it is a recording from about twenty years ago
and their next episode is out next month.

👋
This week I have finally got sorted out a computer task I was not managing to do for literal years. There's a few fiddly details to fix but basically I have the new computers set up and running, which was getting a bit urgent with the odd behaviour of the older computer.
Unfortunately that means I'm now on windows 11 instead of 10. All the emojis look Bad, including the one I sign my name with sometimes, which is annoying. The keyboards are slightly different including the on screen keyboard. I can't figure out how to stop it suggesting things. It keeps popping up a menu when I'm trying to type and I haven't figured out why yet. It is more than usually pants.
And it keeps trying to search things that are not my computer, thus making it less useful than any previous computer.

But it works, so, yaay ish?

... I can't fit all my files in this littler computer even though they all fit on the older version that said it was the same size. The audio shall have to go on another device. I guess Windows is just eating all the space.

So, typos will be more, typing is more annoying, I keep finding new settings to turn off, and I have nothing interesting to say Anyway.


I have been relistening to 8 and Charley and C'rizz audios. I have little memory of these, it has been a long time since I first listened, and I suspect I mostly listened on the bus on the way to or from college which is a less detailed focused listening experience. They are quite good and Charley is less annoying than I remember. The arc stories keep ending just when I am about done with them. I'd probably like them even better if I didn't listen while I had a headache but headache days are boring.

The last Torchwood monthly adventure is due out soon. I am appropriately apprehensive after the publicity they've been doing. As is everyone on the tag on tumblr. I think I shall have to listen close to when it comes out or read all about it anyway. I hope they do the good horror and not the annoying wreckage. Tricky balance.

... this keyboard is most annoying. It keeps telling me what to type and I cannot figure out why it keeps going back down or giving me the menu from the little window button in the corner underneath it. blah.

🖖🌞
see that doesn't look like llap sunshine on this version of windows at all it is all blobby.

... gifs? I have a keyboard that offers me gifs???
well that is just wrong.


okay, I shall go do something else. probably involving more Doctor Who.

https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/torchwood-everyone-s-dead-on-floor-3-3214

This was a solid 5 stars out of 5. The content warnings are well earned for something that never leaves the office. It starts out so ordinary and petty and then drops the year on you hard. It's like opening a box to find it full of jeweled beetles eating through everything, including a layer of bones. Everyone is so vividly and specifically detailed, even the dead ones. And even when I was sure something awful was going to happen it had me gripped on exactly which awful when.

This is really really good work.

And the only regular Torchwood character in it is an audio exclusive, Norton Folgate again. Who is someone you can plausibly show doing nearly anything as long as it's twisty so he's very useful to have around. But the Torchwood range covers the whole Torchwood historical era and dips in to so many lives we don't have a canon framework for so they can do anything. I've seen people complain about that because they want to revisit the characters from the first two seasons on TV but I think it's one of the great strengths of the range.

Though I can see how it is difficult to market something on the strength that you never know what you're going to get.

If you want to listen an audio where you start off thinking the corpses are going to be the horror and then learn, this audio is absolutely recommended.

... if you want a nice adventure where something gets won and it all packs neatly in a blue box in the end you want one of the other ranges...

I really liked this one. Strong story, well told, good voices.

It took me a couple of tries to listen it though because Short Trips make me sleepy, as it is Storytime. So I put it on before going asleep but then woke up to the end credits. So asleep me decided to rewind it to the last bit I remembered and have another go, only with the same result. And again. And more. And I think I spent an hour and a half listening to this half hour ish story before I actually decided to stay asleep that time.

It was good when I woke up in the morning and relistened from the beginning though.

I liked that it started as Lost Property and became Lost Person and then resolves found again. It has layers and resonance for 13 and all the things she's been through and is learning about herself. And it has something to say to this agoraphobic listener, about maybe possibly seeing the sky a bit more often. I also liked the stuff it had to say about change and not being afraid of it. And it managed to fit three savings of worlds into one Short Trip. Very well done.

https://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/v/torchwood
Big Finish audio adventures: Torchwood is on sale if you want some adventures. Ianto adventures tend to be excellent. The range is going to end soon with adventure 100 and the cover for it is proper frightening, so I look forwards to it and want to hide behind the sofa about it in equal measure, as it should be.

Mostly I have just been going very slowly at listening to Torchwood, since once I have listened them all there shall be no more to listen. Which is sad, but, how many shows get over a hundred extra episodes after they're off the TV, even as audios? Pretty awesome.

https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/torchwood-salvage-2997 is not Ianto but is by Gareth David Lloyd, and he does the voice for the AI of the SUV.

It is not my favourite of his works. ( Read more... )
So it is a story with some theme and strengths.

But I'm having a bunch of feelings about it and
mostly want to go back and relisten to more familiar audios
which is part of what the feelings is about.



I don't know how any of you would react to it.

Or what an honest review type rating would look like.


It's a story about Torchwood as we knew it being on the scrap heap and the feelings it brings up aren't the fun sort, but it tells what it sets out to and makes you have a bunch of feelings, so fair enough.



I am feeling like I'd rather go play a story where a scary monster gets put back in its box, but the ones about grief and the passage of time and facing up to difficult truths definitely have a place as well.

Today I relistened to
Torchwood The Conspiracy and
Torchwood Forgotten Lives

The Conspiracy starts the Comittee of Erebus, which is honestly a bit boring even if you throw in the possible crossover opportunities with Pathfinder's name for a layer of Hell. I don't think we really need aliens in our conspiracy theories, people trying to get rich seems like sufficient motivation of itself. The misinformation bit where they tell patchwork truth in amongst the mess so nobody will believe it later? *sigh* little bit depressing.

Forgotten Lives I relistened to because I'd started wondering if Jack in this one was actually Jack. I think he's meant to be but it's also possible Gwen got tricksed, the story Jack started as such a simplified version and then Gwen and Rhys kept adding details. So there's one spin where it wasn't actually him but snogging everyone was a good enough impression he could get Gwen to unlock classified Torchwood stashes. And there's the other one, more interesting I think, where a Jack who says he lost track of his age after the first couple of thousand is stuck in the body of an ill old man and suffering his mental decline. Nightmare time. And then at the end it is implied he's going to get swapped around between bodies being all sorts of people for an unknown length of time. But still trying to act like Jack. And the new bodies are not immortal but he got reloaded into one after the old body died, so does he reset to his own body when he gets killed and then get sent out again? He says it'll be torture but it's a story mine and a half.

I'm not sure how they think it'll work though, the redistributing society thing. I mean sure that body was in charge yesterday but why would hierarchy depend on body? I can see it being incentive to make every body live in reasonable conditions, like environmental laws and free healthcare stuff, but I don't see how it would be much different from remote working in the end.

... which is another weird comment now I think about it and a Story again.




I miss when Jack could be in the stories and I would be Deeply Displeased if they cast another actor, but they have left themselves a story loophole with this and other body swap stories.


I want the Torchwood range to keep going for as close to forever as possible, but we are not getting that kind of luck. Last few coming out. I liked how it could be stories from any time Torchwood existed, a hundred years and change of the past and thousands of years of future so far. And without the Doctor there the range of endings got really broad. It's interesting.

But to be fair it does not give the range a strong through line or specific characters to get emotionally attached to, and the characters going away was the fandom's basic problem with Miracle Day, so, I can see why it doesn't have the same draw as the Doctor Who ranges.

... if I win the lottery i shall clearly have to do something about that...


But relistening now is good.


... especially as I am avoiding listening to the last few ones on account of then they are over. Boo...

I just listened to three different Torchwood audios because after each I had a thought about the next
The Crown
Five People You Kill
Lincolnshire Poacher
and I realised that they don't fit together, for instance in how The Crown works, but, that doesn't cause messes with canon, because all three are unreliable narrator messes where someone is lying to someone with the full connivance of the soundtrack.

Which is interesting because audios that lie to the listener feel rare? Like that isn't the rule with Doctor Who audios, you're just listening to The Doctor doing things, it's not playing with truth value, so you can trust him.

But a lot of these Torchwood ones layer it up with stories about stories.

( Read more... )

Torchwood audios are unrestricted, by internal truth value. The people in them are often telling stories and those can be lies that we get a sountrack to. It's interesting.

But it's just one possibility out of many, other stories do seem to be just the audience listening in on the Whoniverse.

But add it to the layer after layer of lies, not all of them cover ups, the imitations of loved ones, the occasional spot of possession, the memory alteration with both retcon and Adam, and how many times people find out their own brains are lying to them... Torchwood audios really cram a lot of unreliable into a tiny slice of story.



Interesting sort of horror.

Today I listened to the Big Finish Doctor Who from the Monthly Range:
Harry Houdini's War.

It wasn't very good.

I have no objections to the Houdini bits, or the plot, I guess, but it did a cheat that breaks the story logic in half. Like it would work fine if ( Read more... ) So why were they acting that way? Mostly it doesn't make sense.

Either that or I needed to listen to it paying more attention and with less of a break between episodes and then it would come into focus.

I am grump now though, because the audio gives us even less than usual to work with to figure out what is going on, and then it tells a lie and you can't know that, and then I feel like my time was wasted.

Didn't like it.

Over on tumblr I used the number that time travels your Likes so I have been in 2013 seeing only things I Liked once already.
... my queue is a week long and unlikely to shrink any time soon.

I can see that this is not an unalloyed good nor an entirely productive use of my time but
I am not doing a whole lot else.


I did listen a bunch of Doctor Who audios. I am getting very close to actually having listened to all the Monthly Range. Which would catch me up to 2021, except for... all the ways it doesn't. I'm feeling sort of flat about them though so I haven't been reviewing because the main determinant of my reaction is being in that phase where I remember Doctor Who isn't Life but don't have any better ideas.

Shadow of the Daleks was an interesting collection of ideas that, for me, outstayed its welcome, by a couple of episodes. The idea of refracting characters out into aspects or disconnected incarnations is more compelling than the bits ended up being. But I liked lots of the parts and might have liked it more if I didn't listen it all in a row.

Faithful Friends did some good stuff with the Doctor and Zoe but I stalled in the middle for too long to actually get the most out of it. Exact opposite problem. I think I liked the bits with the Lupari. I'm not sure the last story really worked for me, since it sort of undid itself, but being stuck on a date with the Doctor that keeps going Doctor Who certainly had some mileage.

Alixion did interesting stuff with fears and memories and things not being as bad as fear memory made them. But I know I've forgotten most of the corners that did not involve Ace. Interesting bits, not sure about the whole.

The Halloween set struck me as very Torchwood for a Doctor Who set. Some of it was the thing where the Doctor isn't there so bad things just Happen and stay Happened. Some of it the Doctor was there for but it was families messing themselves up so he could only fix the edges where the alien stuff happened, not the messed up religion or the horrors of war. I did like the 8th Doctor adventure and the resolving things with acceptance. That ending had hope in it. The others had too many dead lesbians for one box set, to my mind. And the one with the weeping angels was messed up and dark even by Torchwood standards. ( Read more... ) So if you were looking for a proper Halloween horror it was a good box set, but I hadn't calibrated my expectations quite right and it was not quite what I was after.


Doctor Who feels like snack crisps and chocolates when I need vegetables, but I haven't found what else to do instead.



I have a plot bunny in my head that I have very nearly almost rotated into being a whole story, but as per usual it depends on epic crossover rules and is in that sliver where it's pretty out of character for named characters but too close to them to call original characters. It nearly works, if you know two editions of Pathfinder rules and care about characters from DW and DC and more. So it don't work.

I rotate it nonetheless.


And I keep not communicating. People are interesting but I mostly feel like I need a bit more sleep and I'll reply things when the words go. And then it's a new week and the words did not in fact go.


November.


Hope you all have better days.