Ok, I've definitely cheated a bit here. I only have Part 1 ready to go for the smith_n_jones 1969 Ficathon, because I've managed the special skill of being both slow and verbose. So many apologies, and Part 2 should be up within the week.


Title: Gimme Shelter -- Part 1/2
Characters: Ten/Martha
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine.
Word Count: 3,673
Spoilers: Through Blink
Summary: On their first night in 1969, Martha and the Doctor meet the previous inhabitants of Wester Drumlins.
Author’s Note: Written for the smith_n_jones 1969 Ficathon. foxmonkey requested happy 'old-married-couple' -ishness, domesticity, and neighbors/coworkers/friends -- I'm pretty sure I've covered at least two out of three! Many thanks to hollywoodgrrl for making a very key request and being an enthusiastic beta, and to ohmarianne for permitting me to spam her with installments.

Wanna guess? It's not the controversial treatment of Martha's world-saving and departure, it's not Tinkerbell, it's not the giant reset button, it's not Martha's fam and their inability to do anything interesting, it's not geriatric!Doctor, it's not itty-bitty!Doctor, it's not the BSG rip-offery, it's not the trite political satire, it's not the tragic absence of John Barrowman, it's not the amateurish production design, and it's not the off-putting anti-humanistic message that mankind's seemingly irreversible destiny is to transform themselves into killer Magic 8 balls.

God, what's even left?

( The Master, that's who. )

Because the only way to come to terms with Deathly Hallows is...to write Doctor Who fanfiction. Apparently.


Title: Pendulum
Characters: Ten, Martha, Rose, Master
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine.
Word Count: 2,398
Spoilers: Through end of Series 3
Summary: He may travel in a police box, keeping order, or what passes for it in these timeless times. But inside his own mind, order is exactly what he’s out of.
Author’s Note: A character study. The Doctor, his companions, out of time and out of place. Lightly shippy across the board for everyone, and hence a little unclassifiable.

Thanks to ohvienna  for encouragement and hollywoodgrrl  for the extensive beta-ing and all the ensuing arguments!      

---

( Humans must insist on marking time, counting time, spending time as if it were a currency. )

There are plenty of things I want to say about Deathly Hallows, and I think I've finally given myself enough quiet time to ferment some thoughtfulness. So while beginning to put together a review, I thought I'd better work off some of my excess silliness by doing a drive-by post dedicated to SHAMELESS GLOATING. Because I may have failed rather spectacularly with my Chapter-A-Day analyses, but I can totally retcon my original mission statement and claim that what I really wanted to prove was that the entire seven-book plot, its thematic significance and moral weight, is entirely contained within the pages of Sorcerer's Stone, hence I restricted myself to examining only that one book. So ha. My failure looks clever in retrospect, much like Dumbledore letting Draco disarm him on the Lightning-Struck Tower.

So below you can find excerpts of some of the things I got right. Ah, the value of hindsight -- I get to leave out my theories on the Ford Anglia's return, the boa constrictor from the zoo in Book One taking on Nagini in a snake duel, and, well, anything I may have said that cast blame on Snape. And as for my chief theory and fannish call to arms, I leave that for my icon to memorialize. No more strikethroughs for when I talk about Harry-being a Horcrux, hooray!

From Chapter One:


From Chapter Five:


From Chapter Twelve:


And my real coup, I think, which is the entire analysis of Chapter Fifteen, "The Forbidden Forest":


Holy cow did I get that one right! So much so, that Rowling heeded my advice and pointed everyone back to Book 1, Chapter 15 by naming Book 7, Chapter 34 "The Forest Again." I ROCK!  

No spoilers, promise.


( The deed is done. )

The New Companion.

( You Must See To Believe )

My faith is restored. Thank God/Floaty Blue Doctor. Now I can go read Deathly Hallows in peace, without having to worry about my show going on the short bus to nowhere.

Dear World,

Doctor Who is over, having ended with a whimper instead of that other thing. But at least I have made a startling discovery that needs to be shared -- Doctor Who's storytelling strategy has been cracked by yours truly! Well, you know how this series has basically been a long hard slog through misery, total goofiness, more misery, emotional perversion, actual perversion, miserable buckets of liquid misery, wonky moral gray zones, ambivalent religiosity, and all those miserably sad bits that made David Tennant dissolve into miserable tears of woe? Well I've figured out why we keep on watching besides the obvious reason that we all be masochists.

The reason is as follows: every few episodes, we, the long suffering audience, are appeased by getting to watch David Tennant cuddle an adorable creature.


See? You may have just watched a series about how love is dead, sanity is dead, good people go unappreciated, and lonely people must either enslave crazy people to be their friends or else be lonely forevermore -- but all you remember is that DAVID TENNANT CUDDLES CUTE STUFF.

Next series: David Tennant cuddles a Welsh corgi! Move over Russell, I can run this show!

Today we're covering the first three chapters of Chamber of Secrets: "The Worst Birthday," "Dobby's Warning," and "The Burrow" are their names, victimizing Harry and then gloriously rescuing him is their game. Sound familiar? Well it should. It's the plot of the opening of Sorcerer's Stone.


79 days remain in our countdown! Next up, Weasley on Malfoy violence, Lockhart impresses us all with his dazzling teeth, Harry and Ron steal a car for no reason that makes actual sense, and Snape gets to have a very good day for at least a little while...

Well look at that, with 84 days to go, I have finally finished Sorcerer's Stone. This only puts me two-and-a-half books behind. Does this mean that when the Potter Apocalypse® rolls around and judgment day dawns, I am doomed to be grouped with the throngs who weren't as into Potter as they should have been?  I'd better behave myself from now on, or the Hogwarts Express (of Doom!) may  leave me behind...

Anyway, I make it up to you with a massive post on Chapter Seventeen, "The Man with Two Faces." In which Voldemort reminisces about Godric's Hollow, Dumbledore redefines the word "lie," and Neville comes through in the clutch (not for the last time either).



So that's it! Now we've passed our exams and we move on to second year. And take note, I'm going to change the way I handle these recaps for later books -- instead of chapter-a-day posts it's going to be more like three-chapter posts, so that I can get this runaway train back on track. So stay tuned: next time we're going to be taking Harry through his miserable summer at Privet Drive, getting him into hot water courtesy of Dobby, and then depositing him safely on the doorstep of The Burrow -- all in one go!
   

Domestic

International

So you're interested in hearing my well-reasoned thoughts on what these trailers indicate the filmic experience of Order of the Phoenix may be like? My remarks are as follows:


GUCCI SUIT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

Wow! Apparently some clever, fannish soul has found a way to get his hands on a copy of Deathly Hallows. His thoughts, brief and to the point, but really, what else is there to say: “Just wait until you read Book 7...[unintelligible little noise of glee]…I cried!”

Said reviewer prefers not to be named (but if you must, he answers to Doctor…)

Heh heh. I know, this is already really old news, but if I’m back on the old LJ, you know it needs to be said. My fandoms done saved the world together. It is like Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frGVZdl4q2Q

Well done, BBC! 

PS: My favorite part is definitely the running away. That just sells it. Poor Martha doesn't know what she's getting into. 

Scholastic announced today that Book 7 will be printed on lovely recycled paper and that it will be 784 pages long. If they're not playing games with font size (see Order of the Phoenix, which if printed in the normal Potter font would have been over 1000 pages long), this makes Deathly Hallows the second longest Potter book -- it is 50 pages longer than Goblet of Fire, 100 pages longer than Half-Blood Prince, and because of the aforementioned font size hanky-panky, some indeterminate length shorter than Order of the Phoenix. To the point, the book be long. But can it ever -- ever -- be long enough?

Anyway, who wants to make a bet with me that something EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT happens on page 777?  That's seven pages before the end -- SEVEN.

 ...brain...exploding...

Chapter 16, "Through the Trapdoor." There's so much to say about this I hardly know where to start. So when in doubt, ask a Doctor. In his immortal words:


Well, that was a productive exercise. The point that I’m trying to make is that tempting as it is to give J.K. Rowling this much credit, to actually believe she hid her entire plot in this chapter is a very silly thing to do. But part of being a Potter fan is to come up with nutty theories, so kudos to you, fans. Those are some nutty theories. Not nearly as convincing as Harry is a Horcrux, but nobody’s perfect.

Still 131 days to go!

Chapter 15, "The Forbidden Forest." In which Harry meets the future, and knows that it is bad.


Harry dies in 131 days... Holy crap.    

Chapter 14: Aragog. I mean Grawp, sorry. Wait, which of Hagrid's monsters is this? Oh, yes, it's "Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback." He is different from all the other big beasties in that he is from Norway and drinks brandy. Ok, ok, he's cute and Hagrid's cute and everybody's cute and this whole book is rather cute, but...

 
Was that harsh? Is it glaringly obvious that this is the shortest piece I've written? Am I a bad Potter fan if I don't really enjoy Hagrid all that much? But how could any of these questions be important when Harry is about to venture into the Forbidden Forest and meet his destiny? And some centaurs. And Voldemort. And a unicorn. Voldemort + unicorn = I don't even know what but it holds my interest, that's for sure.

134 days... 

Chapter 13: Nicolas Flamel. In which we return to business as usual -- Snape has what appears to be another nefarious plan, Neville takes some advice to heart, and Harry performs a nearly-superhuman feat of eavesdropping. For real, how does anything in this school ever stay secret if you've got Harry with his ultra-keen, Forbidden Forest-proof hearing and mad broomstick skills?


135 days! Up next, the plot gets hijacked again, this time by Hagrid's misguided adoption scheme.

Before we get into the Agony of Chapter 12, I just wanted to share the fact that today I saw not one, but two different people reading Chamber of Secrets, which if you're doing chapter-a-day until July 21, is exactly the book you should be reading right now. So there you go, there are others like us. I wonder if I'll be seeing lots of Azkabans, Goblets, Orders, and Princes as time goes by... Certainly post-Potter Apocalypse® I'll be seeing plenty of Hallowseses, er, Deathlies.

But down to business. Chapter 12, The Mirror of Erised. My favorite chapter of the book. Definitely one of the very best chapters in any book. It has it all: Weasley twins chucking snowballs at Voldemort, Dumbledore in a flowered bonnet, and Harry seeing his parents for the very first time and promptly losing his mind. To quote one of the early reviewers of the Order of the Phoenix movie:


Intrigued? Well, guess what, you'll be understanding Dumbledore a whole lot better in 136 days...

Chapter 11: Quidditch. In which we learn the three-headed dog's name, that there are seven hundred way to commit a Quidditch foul, and that Snape is up to no good. Because he commits Quidditch fouls. For shame.


Potter Apocalypse® in 139 days and counting! My favorite chapter of Book One is up next!