Doctor Who season 15

 The second, and already last, season of the Doctor under the Disney umbrella (hoozah), starring Ncuti Gatwa as the doctor.

 

And while a short season numbering 8 episodes, let's go and watch this classic franchise! 

 

It kicks of after the christmas special from 2024, Joy to the World, when a nurse, Belinda Chandra, is kidnapped from her home by robots and brought back to a planet carrying her name.  Here they have enslaved the human population, as it turns out it is ruled by her ex-boyfriend who got there due to a fracture in time.  The Doctor saves her, but the TARDIS is unable to land on her moment of departure in 2025, so they have to take a detour.  They land in Miami in 1952, investigating the disappearance of 15 people in a cinema, who where taken by the God of Light.  

 

After overcoming Lux, they arrive on a planet in the far future, investigating a mining colony that went silent due to a monster hiding in the shadows of people.  The Doctor realises this is the planet formerly known as Midnight, and he encountered the entity before, but the strange thing is nobody ever heard of a planet called Earth.  We then meet up with Ruby again, who has a new boyfriend, Conrad.  However, he is out to expose the Doctor and aliens and all as fraudulent news, but after Conrad is put in prison Mrs Flood appears again and sets him free.

 

They travel to Lagos to boost the signal of their device to get back to Belinda's time, as well as going to the intergalactic Song contest, but they learn in the end that Earth ended on the day Belinda was taken.  Mrs Flood, somehow also present at the songfestival, bi-generates, revealing her to be none other then the Rani.  She sets out to start her plan of destroying Earth and creating an alternate future, all to bring back the Timelords and Gallifrey by releasing Omega, it's founder.  The Doctor manages to restore reality by triggering his regeneration deliberatly, but at the cost that he will regenerate, and now looking as his former companion Rose Tyler...

 

But how that pans out, we will have to wait a while, as the whole BBC / Disney deal unravelled and it will take about 2 years apparently before a new season will be released... luckily, time is a timey-wimey ball... 

Fantasy Anime League Fall 2025: the results

 So another season of predicting which anime will perform well has gone by, but how did we do after the solid performance of the Summer season?

 

Well, let's have a look at the week by week steps and how the series I picked performed.

 

From my starting five, My Hero Academia performed by far the best, ending 1st by a wide margin in the overal season ranking.  For the rest, the results can all be seen below:

 

My Hero Academia: 1st place, almost thrice the points of the second place contender...

Tomodachi: Bit of a let down, coming in only at spot 23

Saigo ni Hitotsu: A solid 2nd place, this yielded a good points haul as well

Watashi wo Tabetai: Solid midfielder whom brought home an 11th spot

Ranma 1/2: Swapped out in the final week, the series ended in the 6th place

 

And my initial bench pickings came in with the following results, in a course to end within the top XX % of this edition:

 

Gintanama: a good on and off anime for this season, which ended 12th during the whole run

My Status as an Assassin: Swapped in pretty early once it aired, it ended 4th, only dropping out of the top 3 in the final week

Disney Twisted Wonderland: Never having to use this, it also stranded on a lowly 40th place due to it's late airing time within the season

 

 On a weekly performance, my trajectory this FAL edition went as followed though

 

Week 1: 115054 pts, 395 th place, succesfully aced My Hero Academia

Week 2: 299396 pts, 466 th place, succesfully aced Saigo ni Hitotsu

Week 3: 259616 pts, 255 th place, swapped Tomodachi for Gintanama, 

Week 4: 743041 pts, 226 th place, swapped Watachi no Tabetai for Asassin, succesfully aced Assassin

Week 5: 882916 pts, 276 th place

Week 6: 995752 pts, 360 th place 

Week 7: 1291141 pts, 307 th place 

Week 8: 1465692 pts, 173 th place, succesfully aced Ranma

Week 9: 1725586 pts, 129 th place, swapped Gintanama for Tomodachi, succesfully aced Tomodachi

Week 10: 1993931 pts, 271 th place 

Week 11: 2106014 pts, 331 th place 

Week 12: 2386646 pts, 251 th place , swapped Tomodachi for Hitodenashi, succesfully aced Hitodenashi

Week 13: 2963150 pts, 244 th place,  swapped Ranma for Gintanama, succesfully aced Gintanama

 

So, we strand within the top 1% this run, quite a nice result, mainly achieved thanks to the swapping and acing game this quarter.  Something I did notice though against the regular trends, are that sequel series performed really well, not only My Hero Academia, which was a no-brainer to take.  Anime's like Kingdom or Uma Musume really scored high this quarter, while usually there is a drop-off in the sequels, and why I steered clear of them mostly.  

 

But, a solid perfomance, and while the next contest isn't for the winter season, we will definitly be back once a new FAL is announced! 

The Haul Report 428: a time to be merry

 Time for another Haul Report, and this time we are having a look at the gifts that where received over the holiday period.

 

Because the season of giving was upon us, and I managed to obtain some nice additions to the collections.

 

But let's start it off with a little christmas present to myself hehehe, because -20% is always a good thing...

 

It has been a very good gifting season though, starting out with the House of Repelsteeltje for my Efteling display, complete with lights and everything

 

The mancave will get some new decoration as well, as my "Displate cherry" has been popped, after all, every geek needs to have one of these in his personal space after all.

 

I also got some nice equipment for personal care, with the Lawnmower from Manscaped.

 

As well as the Raging Slayers deck I still lacked in my collection of Underworlds decks. 

 

A trip to the first edition Bobbejaanland Wintert brought back a pin of one of the most legendary attractions there, El Paso Special! 

 

And the family suprised me with some more Efteling sets for the collection, thanks everyone! 

 

So that was a lovely christmas period for sure, and my collections smile happily at the expansions, many thanks everyone! 

 

 

Star Trek Section 31

 Okay, so it took a while before I wrote this down, as my eyes needed to stop bleeding first...

 

Following the exploits of  Philippa Georgiou in Discovery, she received a spin-off series that then became a movie which in all honesty just ended as a huge trainwreck...

 

It begins in the Mirror Universe, where a young Georgiou passes the trials to become the new empress of the Terran Empire.  Jumping to our universe, agents of Section 31 are send to Baraam station, where Georgiou now rules after leaving the Discovery.  She is recruited into the team to track a weapons dealer.  When one of the team is killed, she recognises the weapon as the "Godsend", something she ordered to be developped in the Mirror Universe.

 

As she gets to know the team better, including the background that the leader Alok hails from the 20th century Eugenics Wars, they hunt the dealer Dada Noe and question him, learning he also comes from the Mirror Universe.  They learn the Godsend is to be used for the Terran Empire to invade and conquer the Prime universe.  It turns out one of their team is an infiltrator, and that San, a shadow from Georgiou's past in the Terran Empire, is the masked man that has been following them and causing obstructions to their mission.

 

During the confrontation, the Godsend is activated as Georgiou overcomes San, who dies in her arms, and the vessel containing the Godsend is send back through the wormhole into the Mirror Universe, ending the threat.  Weeks later the remaining survivors of the team are contacted for a new mission...

 

What a pile of rubbish, Suicide Squad style Star Trek just doesn't work, and the mystery surrounding Agent Sloan and his Section 31 pale to what they made of this.  Not to mention the age issue this movie creates for Rachel Garrett, the future captain of the Enterprise C, which would make her at the time of Yesterday's Enterprise almost 150 years old. 

 

For long, the fifth movie ever made, The Final Frontier, was known as the worst Star Trek movie in history, but it is by FAR redeemed with this one... 

What I won in 2025

 Well, we are going to have a change this year, as I'm stopping down on the crane games.

The costs of import are getting to high, so I'm only focussing mostly still on You Tube / Instagram etc give aways for wargame contests and we'll see where we get.

 

 

Kicking off the year, I won the Underworlds tournament back in january, Mines of Alost.  This resulted in a 25 euro voucher, whom I converted into the Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl card pack.

 

And also some goodies like the acryll charge tokens and special (edition 1) cards, as well as the Glass trophy.

During the 39th Artisan Contest on Chaos Dwarf Online, I was the lucky winner of the random entrants draw, which gave me this lovely monster for the collection.

 

 

Playing in the third Underworlds tournament organised by the Halle community, we got some lovely 3D printed stagger tokens, while ending in second place got me a nice little certificate and a book on Beer and Cheese.  Because we are Belgians after all...

 

 

The next event was the Mines of Alost II tournament in june, and here I took home a back to back victory for this event, this time a Nemesis format.  We got a sprue of models for participating, some lovely promotional material and as the winner I took home some sleeves, the trophy and the alternate art playboard, as well as a limited edition model as price support! 

 

At the Benelux Clash III two weeks later the results where less impressive, but none the less I brought back another set of alternate art cards for the game as well as some tokens, always handy. 

 

In september, the third edition of Mines of Alost came along, and winning it again, scoring a perfect hattrick, I got some dice in a colour I didn't yet have.  Added to that, we got the cardbinder from Warhammer Crusade and a Space Marine sprue for participating. 

 

End of october, it was an Underworlds event taking place in the local Warhammer store, which I won.  We all received the alternate art cards, and the win also yielded me thr trophy and also some sleeves and the limited art Hidden Aid which I still didn't have. 

 

The Artisan Contest XL over at Chaos Dwarfs Online saw me end third, yet gain the silver price over the second place finisher, who was an organiser.  To that end, I scored this awesome unit of 3D printed Bull Centaurs from Highland Miniatures. 

 

The final Underworlds event of the year, Wagtails at Halle, yielded a token sheet for Warcry, a 15% coupon with the sponsor and a 3 D printed model for ending 3rd, as well as an awesome T-shirt as the community had voted me without me knowing as "Best Underworlds Player in Belgium 2025". 

Total value for the year: 225.00 euro

Lord Ipsqueeck's Adventures: Bobbejaanland Wintert

 Hello everyone, here I am again with a tale of frosty adventures!

 

Because past saturday, we went to the special Bobbejaanland Wintert openings, the first year the park does a special opening period during the winter time.

 

And also the first time daddy was flashing his Diamond Pass around like a real dandy *sigh*.  Yeah dad, I know you have a yearpass, you told me, a million times...

 

It was a nice wintery day (nothing nice about cold I say though),  as it hovered around the 3 degrees all day and all the small ponds where even frozen over.  The large lake wasn't though... otherwise I would have returned there and then and let those old peeps shivver their teeth out!

 

As we arrived around midday, daddy decided it was first time for coffee!  Or fries, as I don't drink coffee yet.

 

Not every attraction was open in the park to start with as a section has been closed for renovations, and some opened later due to the weather.  But El Paso Special, that legendary interactive western dark ride shooter was open, and I love myself some fun dark rides!  So of we went for a trip through the wild west!

 

 Daddy had read that if it was your birthday, you would get a special treatment.  So after waiting in line for 20 minutes, she got this cool button, look at how happy she is with it!  (Word from dad here: we found out later that if you show your ID on the actual birthday, like Noshi's was, you are allowed free entrance.  Something we need to remember for next year).

 

But then in the afternoon the best attraction opened, the boat ride, so I went in immediatly... twice in a row, as the lovely lady allowed me to sit for an additional tour!

 

The Winter Parade passed by, and it had some very lovely figures.  We even saw it pass by twice as we took the lake pontoon to the other side and saw it again.  The fun thing is some even recognised me later in the park due to my Mickey Mouse hat!  So fun, and I shared a lot of high fives and fingertip connections.

 

The "Dromers van Droodal" was a great storytelling moment, and they even performed magic with lighted up fingers, certainly a show I followed really attentively! 

 

In Santa's Village, I did some special missions with the elves, like calling the reindeers, spreading christmas magic and go on the picture with Selfie the Elf, though dad really insisted he joined me for some reason.

 

And then I got to meet none other then Santa Claus himself!

 

It was then time for the big spectacle of the day, as the christmas tree will be lighted in the park.  In the Santa Fe village, a huge tree stands at the center, and the Lord of Light himself comes to illuminate it for everyone to enjoy! 

 

The park was decorated with over 500 smaller christmas trees as well, and a very lovely gangway full of lights and minor touches all round to make it look wintery.   The fact it wasn't to busy at all made it extra cosy, and a fun afternoon out, we spend about 6 hours there and did a few attractions, but mostly enjoyed the shows and parade which where specific to this event.

 

And daddy grabbed a pin as always, this time going for the El Paso Special one as I love the ride so much.

 

So that was the trip this year to Bobbejaanland Wintert.  Will we be going back next year?  Dady and mommy will for certain, I'm personally still considering the fact if it is that cold that I want to come outside, as I really don't like these temperatures... I'm a beach boy okay!