The other day sahiya was over and we had a media binge. I showed her two classic Treks that every Trek fan must see ("Amok Time" and "Mirror Mirror"). Then we dug in and watched one of the good Fifth Doctor serials, "Mawdryn Undead". We both agreed that we like Five just fine, and Tegan is also enjoyable, and Turlough was over-acting but also acceptably cute and red-headed. Well, I'm not sure sahiya would agree with that last bit, but that's my take on him.

What's your favorite Fifth Doctor serial?

ObWittering: Oh dear, I think that Seven+Ace seed planted in my brain months ago just decided to germinate.

ObFitness: Really amazingly sore after boxing the other day. Wow. The next time I write a Buffy training sequence, I'll have some details to use for it.

ObBuffy: I could watch the first three seasons of BtVS over and over. Season 4 as well. The rest? Not so much. Though I will rewatch some chunks of S5.

ObMeme: Snagged from spiralleds and violetisblue, which means that this one is all over fandom today: Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

Protect and Survive, by JJPOR. gen, FRT

The Seventh Doctor, Ace, Curtis LeMay, and an oddly familiar giggling man in a wheelchair. Nuclear war, messed up timelines, megadeath, and a Doctor with the cold-blooded side showing. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff, paradox, history, real stakes, twists, and the bodycount the Doctor always leaves behind himself. Seven can be dark, and he is here, and the shadows of his other selves are with him.

This is what I want from Who fanfic. This. Thanks very much for the rec, clocketpatch. I'm very glad to have read it.

Reactions to the Seventh Doctor serial "Battlefield" as we watch.

( Spoiler-iffic overly verbose reaction post behind the cut... )

Been watching more Seven, and have realized that I needz Seventh Doctor/Ace stories. I'm in search of anything with that strong affection between them foregrounded. Romantic, platontic, parental, whatever. Mentor/student relationship kink, oh how you are pinged by these two! Not quite as hard as by Giles+Buffy, but hard enough that I'm hooked on them.

I did find "Blue Touch Paper" by kiwimouse. Solid story, well worth reading if you can romantically ship those two. This one carries an adult rating.

Wait! There is a recs comm! It has tags! Oh, how I love recs comms with tags.

( The troubling story... )

( Ideas sleeting through my brain like neutrinos through water tanks... )

( Seventh Doctor watch continues... )

( Writercon Ho! )

Remix: remixredux09 author reveal tomorrow. Any last guesses? nutterbudgie and snickfic have already tossed their hats in the ring.

I think... I think I love Ace. And the snarking between the two of them.

The wit and wisdom of Mr Pedia: "These plots are good. The writing is good. It's not like the new stuff. [pause] The music is bad."

This concludes your evening Who bulletin.

The power of procrastination is awesome, my friends: I've finished two stories that have been sitting in my fic pile incomplete for months, merely to avoid working on my main summer_of_giles project. At least I'll have something to post. It is the month of genfic for me, it seems.

I am once again stopping myself from commenting on remix stories lest I accidentally reveal which one I wrote, though I keep starting to write feedback. Nobody has any guesses about the remix I wrote, which amuses me because I think it's a sore thumb. But then, we all know our own styles better than anybody else knows them. My remixee seems to have liked it, which is a huge relief and almost the only thing that matters. There's something more personal about Remix that makes pleasing one's recipient more urgent than usual. We're tinkering with each other's babies.

( Joyous fizzing about remixes and the many worlds of fanfiction behind the cut... )

Yeah, I've kinda been in a progressively better mood every day recently. Brace yourselves for more good cheer.

( Is Who costuming a spoiler? Cut just in case... )

I'm listening to Orbital's cover of the Doctor Who theme by Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire, and what I am thinking is this: Moffatt's takeover of Who production should be accompanied by a complete overhaul of the series music. Ditch the hysteria-laden orchestral crap and go back to an electronic version of the theme. As is proper. Since the first recording is such a great piece of early electronica.

Harrumph.

Mr Pedia on the topic of the latest Doctor Who special: "If you make the people on the screen applaud, it's because you haven't earned it."

sahiya on the same topic: "I hate Russell T. Davies so much."

A completely mediocre script, and a nauseating soundtrack.

I know this is all over your flists already, but I'll cut for people who don't care. ( Doctor Who casting talk... )

"The Pirate Planet" is indeed 100% delicious crack.

A long series of incredibly spoilerish yays ( safely behind a cut... )

The non-spoiler version: That was fun! Completely crazy, but fun! Can't wait until next week.

Ha, ha. Shoulda taken that left toin at Albuquerque. Get it? Get it? ( Yet another pointless opinion enclosed... )

And in conclusion, I love Donna. More, please.

I don't understand the fandomsecrets secrets about how people would jaunt off with the Doctor. This is something to keep secret? Not a natural, normal impulse that the show is supposed to awaken, at least a little bit, in every viewer? The frustrated astronaut lurking in all of us?

Not secret: Of course I'd hop a ride on the Tardis. Duh. I fully expect Mr Pedia would do the same. It would be inconvenient, but the opportunity of a lifetime, and I suspect we'd think less of each other if we didn't leap on it.

So yesterday I talked Mr P into skipping over most of our current Doctor Who season backlog, and just watching the Steven Moffat-written two-parter that concluded this weekend. "Silence in the Library" and "Forests of the Dead": ( some commentary after the cut! )

sonic_hellmouth is a Who-verse/Whedon-verse crossover ficathon run by clevermonikerr. Stories are due on June 1st, and signups are open now.

The Sarah + Giles prompt looks particularly tasty to me. Unclear I'll be signing up, though. I need to hunt down and subdue those two linked crossovers I hinted at back in November.

Thanks to sueworld2003 for linking this! I'd have missed it otherwise.

I wish to commend to your attention this Second Doctor/Jamie fanvid by vandonovan. Funny! And oh my goodness, do those two ever stop clinging to each other? TY viedma for this link, because I also cannot stop watching it.

Hilarious is The Independent's description of sudoku: "There's no maths involved. You solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic." Er, dudes, mathematics is reasoning and logic. One hundred freakin' percent.

Seventeen signups so far for Every Slayer Needs A Watcher! That's enough that we'll have a great selection of new stories to read. Yay!

Okay, now I try to convince my dubious companions that they really want to go to Highgate Cemetery.

( John Simm!Master... )

Random: Oh, gawd, Penny Arcade, how I love you.
Bonus random: Saving the Internet with hate.

( Play-by-play... )

And now we watch the TV movie of great crack.

We watched a bunch of S3 New Who tonight, from "Gridlock" through "The Family of Blood". ( Brief reactions within... )

Had sodden thought: I much prefer my Doctor to be a picaresque rogue, not a messiah. Well, at least a little rogue-ish.

Voyage of the Damned, the Doctor Who Christmas special. ( Play by play... )

There will be a certain amount of ficspam today. I'll be batching them up so I don't make a grillion separate posts, but still. There might be as many as ten posts laying waste to your friends page. To start it off, here are two with the Doctor.

For spikendru and violetisblue, who both wanted Ethan and the Doctor of Giles's youth, adventure, snark. Elements of buddy-flick and new relationship both present.

( Ethan had had enough... )

For spiralleds, who wanted Buffy friendship, a recent Doctor, comedy, snark, and a befuddled Giles.

( Giles, this is Rose. )

( Spoilers, for an 8-minute segment... )

My first Lush order in ages arrived this evening, along with my BPAL Sagittarius! The Lush included Xmas presents for sis + both nieces, so that's a nice chunk of my Xmas shopping done already. (Glittery bubble bath is a nice present for the nieces, who are both brilliant but also quite girly.)