Doodles on the margins

“This is the big reveal that’s mirrored in the game of mahjong. Rachel draws a tile in mahjong. It’s a set-building game; it’s very much like poker, so you can draw a card that gives you the win. So Rachel draws the win, but instead of winning, she lets Eleanor have [the winning tile], and so that mirrors the dialogue because what she tells Eleanor in that moment is, ‘Your son has proposed to me, but because I don’t want him to lose his relationship with his mother, I am going to say no and in the future, when he marries someone you think is appropriate, you’re going to remember that that’s because of me.” ~ Bourree Lam, journalist

From my meta on ‘watching’ imagery, posted back in September:

At the beginning of THOB we see a news segment on Baskerville and in particular, about Henry.  Sherlock stops the tape:

SHERLOCK (to Henry): What did you see? HENRY: Oh. (He points to the television.) I … I was just about to say. SHERLOCK: Yes, in a TV interview. I prefer to do my own editing.

Henry is a Sherlock mirror, and his story is fundamentally one of misinterpretation.  Fearful and confused, he misremembers a traumatic thing that happened to him.  But this is only the beginning of Henry’s distress: the people around him take his misinterpretation and run with it, for their own reasons and their own benefit.  In this image, we see the crucial role that the press plays in this process.  They’re influencing not just how others interpret what happened to Henry, but how Henry himself interprets it, reinforcing and perhaps even extending Henry’s faulty memory.  The result is depicted very negatively: Henry feels dissociated, self-loathing, and attempts violence against himself and others.  It is only once Sherlock helps him ‘stop the tape’ of his false memories and see the real truth that Henry can move on with his life.

If I can get even more metafictional for a moment - and of course I can! - Henry’s story is a metaphor not just for Sherlock but for ‘the collective Sherlock Holmes stories and fandom’ and perhaps even for all stories with significant fan communities.

(Someone, I don’t remember who, pointed out the resonance between Sherlock’s “I prefer to do my own editing” in this scene and his line to Watson in the greenhouse in TAB “I’ve a mind to speak to your editor”.  Plus, of course, there’s the scene from the beginning of The Six Thatchers where we watch Mycroft’s colleagues literally edit footage from BBC Sherlock, something which Sherlock both calls out “That’s not how it happened at all” and is protected by.)

And then there’s this post I wrote about faith and paranoia in TLD, written right before TFP:

Smith then diagnoses Sherlock as a delusional paranoiac.  The word ‘paranoia’ stuck out to me, because we’ve seen it precisely twice before in the show. Here’s the first time, at Baskerville:

image

Relevant side note: the other results of the H.O.U.N.D. drug are  “extreme suggestibility,” “fear and stimulus,” “conditioned terror”.  Not a bad analogue for TD-12.

Irrelevant side note: while googling “paranoia” and “Baskerville” to find this image I came across this German song, Der Hund Von Baskerville, set to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid.  Enjoy!

So, paranoia is a side effect of a memory-altering drug introduced in a metafictionally rich episode where a Sherlock mirror realizes he’s misremembering his past and Sherlock himself questions his own reality (”I’ve always been able to trust my senses, the evidence of my own eyes, until last night.”)  Definitely not a coincidence that it comes up here.

Well, according to Ezekiel 1 they might look something like this…

According to Daniel 10 something like this…

According to Isaiah 6…

In Ezekiel 10… 

Again in Ezekiel 10…

Angel: “FEAR NOT.”

Shepherds: *screaming*

Angel: “I SAID FEAR NOT.”

Shepherds: *screaming LOUDER*

God: Hey now, some of those spiders eat birds.

Jesus: …Dad…

hd_holidays (Harry/Draco Holidays)

This is the biggest and most popular fest in our fandom. It has run for 6 years, with another round happening in 2011. It is widely respected for the sheer amount of quality fanfiction that gets written every round.

hd_worldcup (Harry/Draco Worldcup)

This fest was inspired by the snarry_games. Despite for only running 2 rounds, it was very hyped in fandom and produced a lot of high quality work.

big_bang_hd & hd_bigbang(Big Bang, Baby Challenge)

A few Drarry fans got together and decided to create a fest that only posted long fics. The minimum requirement for authors is that fics are at least 50k words but what is really special is that there is beautiful artwork of key scenes attached to every story. This fest has inspired dozens of spin-offs in other fandoms. Look out for a 4th round in 2011.

hd_inspired (Harry/Draco Inspired)

This fest featured themes for each round and even themed spin-off fests (hd_career_fair & hd_fan_fair) during years it wasn’t running.

hd_fqf (Harry/Draco Fuh-Q-Fest)

An old fest with 2 rounds focusing on smut. Lots of smut.

hd_smoochfest (Harry/Draco Smoochfest)

This fest is unique as a requirement is that fics must have a happy ending. You are allowed to put the boys through some angsty situations before you reach the happy ending of course. ;) So for those who do enjoy some fluff, keep an eye out for the 3rd round in 2011.

Other Harry/Draco fests: hd_birthdaybash, hd_remix, hd_parallel, hd_seasons, hds_beltane, hd_fluff.

hd_holidays was an amazing fest for many many years, but it’s no longer running. Instead, you want hd-erised. Or, for low-key HD holiday fun, with generally shorter fics and a mix of art, icons, and other stuff, you want hd_owlpost or perhaps the advent fics coming out of slythindor100.

Or, in a holiday mood that’s not H/D specific? Try mini-fest.  Or in a holiday mood (or year round mood) that’s really kinky? Daily Deviant.

And all of those mentioned above? Posting right now.

For happy endings you still want hd_smoochfest but for the pain you want to add hd_hurtfest to the mix. Or, for pairings including and beyond H/D, HP Dark Arts.

And if you want family fic, you need to check out hd_familyfest and harrydracompreg. I’m not a big mpreg fan but there was some stuff that came out of last year’s that had me totally hooked.

And for the long stuff? The bangs listed above are long since over, but harrybang starts posting in January!

Some other key fests that are missing:

dracotopsharry - as the name suggests, these are all fics where Draco tops. Did you know those only account for something like 30% of HD fics?

H/D Fan Fair - Runners of the HD Book Fair and the HD Career Fair, this comm is full of goodness. 

H/D Remix - Mentioned above and still running, this assigns authors to remix other creators’ HD Fanworks. Very cool!

Glompfest - Run by the serpentinelion comm, this fest is run specifically to fill prompts by people who don’t write or draw, but who contribute to fandom by leaving the comments that keep all us writers going.

HD Tropes - Participants get a list of tropes, number their faves, and get to making our beloved fandom tropes into the best fics they can be. See also: HD Cliche.

And since I know I must be missing some, check out Vaysh’s Calendar of H/D Fests, Amorette’s Spreadsheet of Fests, and the Potterfests list.

Before the Hogwarts Express, some young wizards and witches made their way to Hogwarts on broomsticks and in enchanted carriages

There are other fractional platforms at King’s Cross station. Try 7 1/2 for a trip to wizard-only villages in Europe. 

It took five and a half minutes for the Sorting Hat to decide whether to place Minerva McGonagall in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw

Several Hogwarts students have caused mayhem at King’s Cross by dropping suitcases full of newt spleens or biting spellbooks all over the Muggle Station.

Peeves the poltergeist caused a three-day evacuation of Hogwarts in 1876 after escaping a trap set for him armed with several dangerous weapons. 

The one exception to the general magical aversion to Muggle technology is cars. Even the Ministry of Magic owns a fleet, modified with various useful charms. 

Many wizards were unhappy with the invention of the Muggle-like Knight Bus, and refused to use it when it first hit the streets. 

Headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts can teach their magical portrait to act and behave exactly like themselves. 

Sir Cadogan’s most famous encounter was with the Wyvern of Wye, a dragon-like creature, whom he accidentally killed with his broken wand. 

Only one non-magical person has ever managed to get as far as the Hogwarts Sorting Hat before being exposed as a Squib. 

Of the Eleven wizarding schools in the world, the African school of Uagadou is the only one to select pupils by Dream Messenger, leaving a token in the child’s hand whilst they sleep. 

The 1809 Quidditch World Cup final turned into a human versus tree battle when one of the players managed to jinx an entire forest to attack the stadium. 

The Hufflepuff ghost, the Fat Friar, was executed after senior churchman became suspicious of his ability to cure the pox by poking peasants with a stick. 

Every year St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries treats at least one injury caused by homemade Floo powder. 

Before she became a teacher at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall used to work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. 

Part of the process of becoming an Animagus requires you to carry a leaf from a Mandrake in your mouth for an entire month. 

A Dark wizard called Raczidian was devoured by maggots that appeared from his wand when he unsuccessfully attempted to cast the Patronus Charm.

Any part of a person’s body can be added to the Polyjuice Potion to allow the consumer to take their form, including hair, toenail clippings, dandruff or worse…

Remus Lupin’s father, Lyall, was a world-renowned authority on magical creatures like poltergeists and Boggarts. 

It took 167 Memory Charms and the largest mass Concelment Charm ever performed in Britain to modify a muggle steam engine and create the Hogwarts Express. 

Students from the Russian Wizarding school, Koldovstoretz, play a version of Quidditch where they fly on entire, uprooted trees instead of broomsticks. 

a squib who spent her childhood pretending to magically start accidental fires with the lighter up her sleeve; who got her bemused little sister to grow her hair long overnight after a bad trim; a squib who shook all through shopping at diagon alley and who was so relieved that her parents were almost suspicious when they said that there wasn’t enough money that year to get her a new wand from ollivander’s– she’d have to take great-aunt jenny’s hand-me-down, eight and a half inches of oak and unicorn hair;

a squib who made it to platform 9 ¾, who made friends with some shy kid in the back of the express, who made it across the lake and up the stairs and through the great hall doors and by the great long tables and onto the wobbly old stool–

until the hat drops over her eyes

well what do we have here?

she’s got a forged hogwarts letter with penmanship that’s perfect down to the ink splatter; she’s got a complicated string of owls, only half of them forged, from parents to administration to ministry that’s so complicated her name ended up on the first year roll call anyway. she’s got ten arguments, four pleas, and one smothered threat on the tip of her mental tongue for why the house that comes out of this hat’s brim better not be squib

she’s got a lighter up her sleeve and an eight and a half inch wand in her belt that will never, ever work for her. 

well, says the hat, better be slytherin then

she finds the room of requirement in her second week, because she has always been a hallway-pacer, her head always ringing with i want i want i need i need i will do this. the room of requirement gives her books of muggle magic tricks, sleight of hand, chemical ways to turn ‘water’ into ‘wine.‘ 

she bribes another first-year slytherin to wingardium leviosa her feathers in flitwick’s class. her shy friend from the train, a hufflepuff and a muggleborn, buys her a new lighter for christmas without being asked. when a gryffindor finds her scrubbing at tears in the back of the library and guesses what’s the matter (he’s seen her classwork), she tells him the story, tells him what it’s like to be denied a whole world because they think different means broken– she expects him to tattle, but instead the gryff transfigures her needles for the rest of her academic career; and she whispers hints to him when his black thumb keeps making him fail herbology. 

(the first thing she’d said, when she realized he’d guessed her secret, had been ‘you should’ve been in ravenclaw’ and he had looked at her gravely until she apologized)

the room of requirement gives her books and books on potions, arithmancy, herbology– these things are not about magic. these things are not about power that lives in your bones. she knows power, knows the way sparks fly from her little sister’s wand when they take her to ollivanders, knows the way it flicks under her quill when she practices mcgonagall’s signature and sends home disciplinary letters to the parents of every student who ever bullied her friend from the train. 

she waters nightshade and re-pots mandrakes, can tell poisonous mushrooms from magical (…also poisonous) ones by a glance. she drops in just the right amount of unicorn horn powder in potions class (.025 g more than the instructions suggest) and when making sleeping draught stirs for half a stir extra. 

this is about power that you make. 

she studies and invents, schemes and lies and excels. she holds potions tutoring in the slytherin common room when her friend from the train suggests it, then moves it to the room of requirement after it gets too large and someone stains the green-and-silver upholstery. (her arithmancy sessions are much less well attended). 

she keeps her lighter, her little packets of carefully measured powder, her jokeshop tricks up her sleeve–she keeps the names of people who she can trust, who she can call on for distraction, for help, for a needed lie on the tip of her tongue–she keeps her gryffindor’s heavy wand and quick wit close at hand; keeps her hufflepuff’s steady patience closer; keeps her own bright improvisations at her fingertips. 

her bemused little sister ends up in ravenclaw, and they all eat at the hufflepuff table for breakfast because (she says) slytherins weren’t meant to follow rules and because (her sister says) how stupid is this seating thing and because (her shy friend says) didn’t you hear the hat? helga said she’d take them all, so hold your tongue, macmillian, scoot over, and pass my friends here the hashbrowns.

when she graduates, she heads for the ministry. she has plans, and she has brave, smart, true, cunning friends to back her up. 

a sad and lonely Mike Wazowski for your dashboard