u/MarcianTobay

I purchased Second Death individually, but now I see I need the bundle for the entire “Run Fast, Be Kind” because the rest of the episodes are not sold individually. When I try to purchase them, though, I am told:

“One or more items in your cart are no longer available to buy. Please remove them and try checkout again”.

Is there anything I can do here? And preferably today, since this was a surprise gift for my wife? 😅

It is so rare for there to be a male main companion, and I wasn't sure how they were going to approach him. But... holy heck, I love him so, so much. He's played brilliantly (I know you're reading this!), I love that he has the charisma that 12 lacks, and the "Entertainer who's crying on the inside" is such a remarkably perfect archetype to pair with the perpetually grumpy-but-kind 12. He's amazing, and I loved him right away.

No further discussion here. Just sharing some joy on this!

I like experimenting with different driver/vehicle combinations, but I have trouble gauging how much each factor is contributing to my stats. The details on the page are unintuitive to me.

Which one matters more? And how much so?

Hello, y'all. I just finished my second run through of the show, and something continues to confound me: Was Jenna Maroney a good actress in-universe? We know she's unstable, needy, and a lot of other things... but I don't know if we ever find out if she's considered especially skilled.

Some notes on my mind about it:

• Tracey Morgan seemed incompetent, but it was stated several times that he's enough of a comedic genius to carry TGS and make successful comedy movies whenever he feels like it.
• Dr. Spaceman seemed like a mad scientist doing bizarre things, but he often knew enough... not to mention he ends the series as the Surgeon General.
• Jack Donaghy, Competence Incarnate, ends the series by saying that he never really understood how to run the network properly. This is followed by Kenneth running it for generations.

All this is to say that the definition of "Skilled" is a wildly moving goal posts within the universe's logic. And I can't figure out if Jenna was supposed to be a good and insane actress... or just an insane one.

What do you think?

This game is so much fun. I’m clumsy as hell and kept crashing into other players… so I equipped all the gadgets that reward collisions, and suddenly I started taking high ranks.

It makes me happy that this game enables those sort of shenanigans. Thank you so much to everyone that encouraged me to take the leap. This truly is the best Kart Racer out there!

Hello! This game looks delightful and the demo made me very happy. As the game passes its first year, I wanted to ask some questions. Thank you!

1. Have they added new 2nd lap cross worlds? If so, how many?

2. How easy is it to find a fun and engaging match online? How often are matches full of real players instead of CPU?

3. With so many customization options… how balanced would you say the game is? Do the devs deploy balance patches?

4. Anything else you’d like to share?

I love Sonic and am heavily leaning towards getting it, but this felt like good due diligence. Hope you’re having a great day!

I own the game on PS5, but I thought it might be nice to smooch on the go! So. How does it play on the Switch 2?

I saw some concerns about technical issues unique to the switch. Are those ongoing?

I have a lowkey hobby of analyzing media that “doesn’t work”. Games that are poorly reviewed and shows that bombed. It always fascinates me to try and figure out what caused the gap between artist intention and audience reception.

Obviously, you can see how that’s a lead-in for Ryan Sinclair. He’s a companion that has had so little impact, he doesn’t even make the cut for discussions of “bad” companions. So, I recently became fascinated with him and what the show intended, regardless of the result. I’d encourage you to rewatch some of Ryan with these thoughts in mind.

First thing’s first: There’s little mystery to what led to him underwhelming. The show’s writers struggled to balance a 2x Size Tardis Cast, and his storylines clearly kept getting shunted off to “next week”. His opening scene introduces his physical disability, which receives only dubbed-in lip service for the rest of the run. He clearly was written off when the writers gave up on paying him off.

But why was he there in the first place?
I found the answers in “It Takes You Away” and “The Witchfinders”. In both of these episodes, Ryan does something significant and fascinating that was clearly intended to lay the groundwork for something. In both episodes, he “solves” a major mystery extremely early and is ignored.

In “The Witchfinders”, the Fam notes that they’ve never heard of the town they’re in. Ryan shrugs and says “then we’re probably in the moment it gets wiped off the map” (paraphrased). This does, indeed, turn out to be exactly the case.

In “It Takes You Away”, the Fam postulates where the child’s father is. Ryan states “he probably just abandoned her”, which is roundly rejected for being too awful… before turning out to be entirely correct.

Very importantly, these aren’t complicated deductions. Ryan isn’t a super detective, smarter than the Doctor. But he does have something few other Companions have had:

Ryan is cynical.

Over the show, most companions are optimistic, spirited, and want to believe in the best. It’s become very baked-in canon that the Doctor keeps companions in order to stay connected to his own humanity. They need to be kind and uplifting and calm the Oncoming Storm’s heart.

This optimism is beautiful, but it’s also true that the world can suck sometimes. And people can be unfair and jerks and that answers can be unsatisfying. Ryan is deeply familiar with that. He has a disability that he feels like he should be able to overcome. He has friends that have unfairly hard lives. He feels disconnected from his family (including Graham, until later). Ryan has had it rough in a way that denies whimsy and optimism. He is kind. He is loyal and noble. He is also just intimately aware that things can just…. They can just suck. They can suck without poetry or grander meaning.

And because of embracing this, he can see things the others can’t. He can deduce where the girl’s missing father is and what happened to the town specifically because those answers are very obvious when you take the stars out of your eyes.

This in my mind, could have been a GREAT balance to 13. Thirteen was a Doctor that was sincerely happy and family-oriented, unlike the coldness or 12 or the “pretending to be all laughs” of 11. 13 doesn’t need a companion to “remind her to be kind”. Ryan could, in theory, have been the inversion that kept her grounded. They could have episodes where they argued about how to properly view a situation. 13 could have opened his heart to joy while he noticed the things she didn’t. There was a lot of potential there!

Ryan has been lost to the ever-marching pace of Doctor Who, but I can’t shake the idea that a cynical and skeptical companion could have been an absolute banger. I hope Big Finish or some such finds time to give him the spotlight he deserves.

Thank you for reading.

I have a lowkey hobby of analyzing media that “doesn’t work”. Games that are poorly reviewed and shows that bombed. It always fascinates me to try and figure out what caused the gap between artist intention and audience reception.

Obviously, you can see how that’s a lead-in for Ryan Sinclair. He’s a companion that has had so little impact, he doesn’t even make the cut for discussions of “bad” companions. So, I recently became fascinated with him and what the show *intended*, regardless of the result. I’d encourage you to rewatch some of Ryan with these thoughts in mind.

First thing’s first: There’s little mystery to what led to him underwhelming. The show’s writers struggled to balance a 2x Size Tardis Cast, and his storylines clearly kept getting shunted off to “next week”. His opening scene introduces his physical disability, which receives only dubbed-in lip service for the rest of the run. He clearly was written off when the writers gave up on paying him off.

But why was he there in the first place?
I found the answers in “It Takes You Away” and “The Witchfinders”. In both of these episodes, Ryan does something significant and fascinating that was clearly intended to lay the groundwork for something. In both episodes, he “solves” a major mystery extremely early and is ignored.

In “The Witchfinders”, the Fam notes that they’ve never heard of the town they’re in. Ryan shrugs and says “then we’re probably in the moment it gets wiped off the map” (paraphrased). This does, indeed, turn out to be exactly the case.

In “It Takes You Away”, the Fam postulates where the child’s father is. Ryan states “he probably just abandoned her”, which is roundly rejected for being too awful… before turning out to be entirely correct.

Very importantly, these aren’t complicated deductions. Ryan isn’t a super detective, smarter than the Doctor. But he *does* have something few other Companions have had:

Ryan is cynical.

Over the show, most companions are optimistic, spirited, and want to believe in the best. It’s become very baked-in canon that the Doctor keeps companions in order to stay connected to his own humanity. They need to be kind and uplifting and calm the Oncoming Storm’s heart.

This optimism is beautiful, but it’s also true that the world can suck sometimes. And people can be unfair and jerks and that answers can be unsatisfying. Ryan is deeply familiar with that. He has a disability that he feels like he should be able to overcome. He has friends that have unfairly hard lives. He feels disconnected from his family (including Graham, until later). Ryan has had it rough in a way that denies whimsy and optimism. He is kind. He is loyal and noble. He is also just intimately aware that things can just…. They can just suck. They can suck without poetry or grander meaning.

And because of embracing this, he can see things the others can’t. He can deduce where the girl’s missing father is and what happened to the town specifically because those answers are very obvious when you take the stars out of your eyes.

This in my mind, could have been a GREAT balance to 13. Thirteen was a Doctor that was sincerely happy and family-oriented, unlike the coldness or 12 or the “pretending to be all laughs” of 11. 13 doesn’t need a companion to “remind her to be kind”. Ryan could, in theory, have been the inversion that kept her grounded. They could have episodes where they argued about how to properly view a situation. 13 could have opened his heart to joy while he noticed the things she didn’t. There was a lot of potential there!

Ryan has been lost to the ever-marching pace of Doctor Who, but I can’t shake the idea that a cynical and skeptical companion could have been an absolute banger. I hope Big Finish or some such finds time to give him the spotlight he deserves.

Thank you for reading.

I recall people being very pessimistic about the trailers, but I haven’t heard a lot of reviews from people who actually engaged in the event.

To those that did, what did you think?