Z is for Zero and Zabini

A to Z Challenge - Z

The last day of the challenge!  It's been a lot of work but also a lot of fun.  I've enjoyed discovering a lot of new blogs and meeting new people.  But I'm also going to enjoy not worrying that I don't have a post for every single day! :)  But the challenge isn't over yet - one day to go, so on that note...

Z is for "Prisoner Zero"
I'm going to claim this as being a quote, even though (like K) it is the name of a character rather than a proper line in the show.  Prisoner Zero is in Matt Smith's first episode The Eleventh Hour and was (as his name suggests) an escaped prisoner.  He was a shape-changing alien that could take on the appearance of anyone unconscious, and when in his real form was a giant worm/snake/thing that always lived just on the edge of perception.  In true Stephen Moffat fashion, Whovians were now scared of things on the edge of perception - those movements that happen in the corner of your eye, yeah those are a giant snake thing.  Happy dreams!  Anyway, the prison guards came looking for Prisoner Zero and decided it was easier to blow up the Earth rather than recapture their prisoner.  Matt Smith stepped up into the role of the Doctor (with a very different costume-choosing segment) and saved the day.   The Eleventh Hour also gave us a legendary quote, that I couldn't fit in to this alphabet (not without loosing a quote I like more).  Well, it's more of a thing than a quote: fish fingers and custard, which the 11th Doctor determines is his favourite food.  If you have a look on the net, there are a number of videos and blogs dedicated to people trying this rather disturbing combination (this from the girl who loves Vegemite and honey sandwiches).  Matt Smith swore for years that he actually had to eat fish fingers and custard.  You know what they say, the Doctor lies (another fantastic quote): turns out it was sponge cake with a cheese sauce - which is just as disgusting-sounding.

Z is for Blaise Zabini
There are actually two characters in Harry Potter whose names start with Z: Zacharias Smith (a Huffllepuff student who was in Dumbledore's Army) and Bliase Zabini.  I choose Blaise mainly because he was the first character I found, but also because it gives me the chance to talk about Slytherin.  Blaise appeared in Half-Blood Prince, as one of the potential Slug-Club initiates.  He was the stereotypical Slytherin - stuck-up, selfish, self-centred, power-hungry, nasty.  It's my mother's biggest complaint about the Potter books - that all the Slytherins were nasty, and how that's not very realistic (I think we need to have a talk about how magic's not real...).  However I don't think that's the case.  Yes, as Ron says "there not a witch or wizard who went bad that wasn't in Slytherin", however that's not the same as saying that every witch or wizard in Slytherin is bad.  The Sorting Hat (who knows all) describes them as "cunning folks" and "those of great ambition".  There are Slytherins such as Sirius' brother Regulus, who turned on Voldermort and tried to destroy a horcrux; or Narcissa whose great aim was to protect her son.   And let's not forget Snape.  There are many readers, fans, members of Pottermore who are very proud to be Slytherins, who wear their green and silver with pride.  I'm not one of them (I'm Ravenclaw), however I think if I had been sorted into Slytherin, I would have been happy too.

Come back tomorrow to see the completed Doctor Who cross stitch piece, and my review of my time in the A-Z Blog!

Y is for Yana and Yaxley

A to Z Challenge - Y

The penultimate post - the second to last post in the A to Z challenge.

Y is for "You Are Not Alone"
Today's Doctor Who quote has two different (albeit related) meanings.  There are **spoilers** for season 3 of Doctor Who, but I'm assuming the Whovians have all already watched that.

Firstly: These were the last ever words of the Face of Boe, and come from the episode Gridlock.  According to legend (or at least the legend of New Earth). The Face of Boe would reveal his greatest secret to one like himself, a wanderer without a home, a lonely god, i.e. The Doctor.  His greatest secret was "You are not alone" which all made sense about 7 episodes later in the penultimate episode to the series finale (more on that in a bit).  The Face of Boe was a great big head in a jar, and believed to be billions of years old.  In The Last of the Time Lords (series 3) it's revealed that Jack Harkness was once known as the Face of Boe (he was a model on his home planet, or something like that) so he may be the original incarnation of the great big Face of Boe.  It's Doctor Who - these things can happen.  My favourite theory I've found  about the Jack/Boe relationship (written by fans on-line sharing ideas/stories/what-ifs)is that he was beheaded by the Headless Monks (from series 6) and that's why he's a head in a jar.  I enjoyed the Face of Boe - it was great having a character older than the Doctor in the series, and as for the link with Jack - I admit it, I squealed and screamed.  I'd love for Jack and/or the Face of Boe to reappear in a future episode so that this link can be more firmly established because it was never entirely confirmed.  Besides, more Jack is always good :)

Secondly (for the meaning of the quote) is the acronym for the quote: Yana, which is who the Face of Boe was warning the Doctor about.  Professor Yana was in the episode Utopia (series 3), trying to create a spaceship to transport the last of the humans to Utopia at the end of the world.  Only it turned out that Yana wasn't actually a mild mannered professor, he was the Master, another time lord and the Doctor's arch nemesis.  This was the Master's first appearance since the revival of the series and man was he creepy!  The Master regenerated, stole the TARDIS, travelled back in time to about 18 months before the Doctor first met Martha, set himself up as Harold Saxon (remember him from the S post?) and was elected as the British Prime Minister (all in the minute gap between the end of Utopia and the start of The Sound of Drums - time travel, remember?).  He then goes on to try and destroy the world, leading Martha to finally step up to the plate and save the day (hurray!).  It's complicated, it's time travel.  The Master is one of those characters we just can not get rid of, a bit like the Daleks.  He returned in David Tennant's last two episodes, and then again in series 8 with Peter Capaldi.  From the looks of the posters for series 9, the Master will be back again.  In New Who, the Master has (so far) been fantastically played by Derek Jacobi, John Simm and (**MAJOR SPOILER for Series 8**) Michelle Gomez.  Each one has been deliciously evil in their own way.  I only wish we could have had more of Derek Jacobi as the Master rather than just as Professor Yana.

Y is for Yaxley

The Death Eater Yaxley is today's Y - again, the only character I can find in the series who starts with a Y, and one I don't know much about.  So let's talk Death Eaters instead.  The Death Eaters are Voldermort's loyal followers, either because they enjoy the opportunity to torture and terrorise people, or because the genuinely hate "mudbloods" (muggle-born wizards) and muggles, and believe in the power of "pure blood", despite the fact that Voldermort himself had a muggle father (I don't think he shared that fact around a lot!).  It's hard to feel any empathy for the Death Eaters: like Bellatrix, most of them were two-dimensional characters who were just portrayed as the 'bad-guys'.  However, the Malfoys did wind up with some depth and redeeming qualities, in particular Draco (who I mentioned here) and his mother Narcissa who ended up betraying Voldermort in order to save her son. 

One day to go!

X is for seXy Xenophilius

A to Z Challenge - X

X is for "I think you call me sexy"

Yes, I had to cheat for this one.  If you know of a quote from Doctor Who that starts with the letter X, I'd love to know!  But I think this is a worthwhile cheat - it's such an awesome line.  It's another line from The Doctor's Wife - seriously, if I could put the entire script for that episode into cross stitch I would, it's so cleverly written by the great Neil Gaiman.  This line is said by Idris, the human incarnation of the TARDIS.  Idris was fantastically crazy, loopy, biting (literally), engaging and, yes, sexy.  Her chemistry with Matt Smith was spot on and it was great watching the Doctor and his TARDIS interact on a verbal level.  The Doctor does have a special relationship with his TARDIS, talking to her frequently, yelling at her, even stroking her, as described in the series 2 episode School Reunion:

Sarah Jane Smith: Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?
Rose: Yes, he does! I'm like "do you two want to be alone?" 

X is for Xenophilius Lovegood

I love JK Rowling - she has a character for every letter - no cheating required!  Xenophilius is Luna's father, and inventor/creator/producer/editor/writer/publisher of The Quibbler, the tabloid newspaper in the world of Harry Potter.  To be honest, I don't have a strong opinion of Xenophilius - he appeared so infrequently in both the books and the films that I always just thought of him as "Luna's Dad".  He is beautifully crazy and loopy and the perfect father for Luna. 

Only Y and Z to go :-)

Happy Stitching!

W is for Wobbley Weasleys

A to Z Challenge - W

This post also features my April Finish for the ALYOF challenge.

W is for "Wibbley wobbley timey wimey"

Another quote from the awesome episode that was Blink.  Time, acording to David Tennant's Doctor, is not a strict progression of cause to effect, but rather "from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbley wobbley timey wimey... stuff."  This quote/description is another one that has entered Whovian-fandom-legend and is written on t-shirts and mugs and now in cross-stitch.  So famous is the timey-wimey description that it even made it into the 50th anniversary episode, albiet said by Matt's Doctor not David's:

11th Doctor: "It's a... uh... timey wimey... thing.

War Doctor "Timey what? Timey wimey?

10th Doctor: " I have no idea where he picks that stuff up.

W is for The Weasleys
Today I'm doing something a little different - rather than an individual Harry Potter character, I'm focusing on a family; and rather than share their individual character piece, I've decided to share the family portrait I just (as in yesterday!) finished stitching.  This finished piece serves two purposes - it's my WIP piece for the A Lovely Year of Finishes challenge, as well as being my swap piece for the #Hogwartsswap2015 over on Instagram

The Weasleys.  Still needs to be washed and framed, but it's finished!
Pattern available from www.fangirlstitches.etsy.com

I know - Ron and Ginny have already had their own posts, and I mentioned the Twins when talking about Lee Jordan, but I couldn't not include them in the family portrait.  I love the Weasley family.  They are a down-to-earth, grass-roots, loving, welcoming family who take Harry in and treat him as one of their own.  They're not rich ("red hair and hand-me-down robes, you must be a Wesley"), but they happily share everything they have.  They are a large, rumbling, messy family, free to express themselves however they wish (although I do think Mrs Weasley wishes the twins would express themselves a little quieter).  Molly and Arthur are the strongest (living and sane) parental figures throughout the book series and Molly's line "Not my daughter you bitch" has gone down in movie history. I was very glad when Bill finally made an appearance in The Deathly Hallows films (given that his wedding was the scene of a crucial plot twist, the movie would have been a bit odd without him), and I'm only sorry we never got to meet Charlie in the films, although he was mentioned in The Philosopher's Stone. 

For a long time, however, Percy was my favourite Weasley.  I related to him in many of the same ways I related to Hermione: he was smart, he was law-abiding (to the point of irritation), he was logical, he was irritating, he was 'good'.  And then the worm turned and all those characteristics that I had quite liked about him made him side with the Ministry instead of his family.  I think for Percy it got to the point where he knew he was wrong but his pride wouldn't let him admit it - I've been in that spot more than once!  I was very disappointed in Percy, and I don't think I cheered as hard for any other moment as when Percy turned up to fight beside his family in The Deathly Hallows and admitted he'd been wrong - go Percy!  Interesting fact - you have to watch pretty carefully, but Chris Rankin (Percy) does actually appear in the final battle scenes in The Deathly Hallows Part 2 wearing a green suit - hence my colour choice for the stitching below.  Charlie is all my own imagination.

(**spoiler alert**)

As for what happened to Fred.... I still sob when I read those pages and watch that scene in the film.

Percy, Arthur, Charlie, Molly and Bill Weasley.

Do you have a favourite Weasley?

3 days to go!!  Happy Stitching!

V is for Vote Voldermort

A to Z Challenge - V

V is for "Vote Saxon"
Season 3 of New Who (the David and Martha season), we repeatedly heard about a mysterious Saxon.  Sort of like "Bad Wolf" from the first season.  It eventually transpired that Saxon was the enemy/alien/bad guy for the finale, and it was a very exciting surprise for the loyal fan base (but you have to wait until Y to hear all about that).  I loved the tapping pattern that went along with the Vote Saxon theme - a series of four taps that got stuck in your brain.  I really enjoyed the finale episodes for this series - it gave Martha a chance to shine and showed her value as a companion - travelling the world for her own on a year, evading capture and spreading the Doctor's story.  More than anything, it's about the only quote I could find that starts with a V. :)

V is for Voldermort

He-who-must-not-be-named, You-know-who, The Dark Lord, Tom Riddle.  Lord Voldermort went by a lot of different names.  JK Rowling gave us an arch-villain with depth and power, a smart man with a loyal following.  Ultimately, however, Voldermort was evil and had no redeeming qualities.  Unlike Umbridge, however, he was fun to read, fun to hate, and never put me off the books.  Voldermort was played by 5 different actors throughout the film series - Richard Bremmer in the Philosopher's Stone (Voldermort's face on the back of Quirrell's head), Christian Coulson in Chamber of Secrets (Tom in the diary), Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (young Tom) and Frank Dillane
(teenage Tom) in The Half-Blood Prince, and most famously Ralph Fiennes (Voldermort) in Goblet of Fire onwards.  Ralph Fiennes was fantastically evil and creepy, however my favourite incarnation was Christian Coulson.  It's my teenage self getting the vote again (I was 17 when the film came out).

As you can probably tell from their names, Ralph Fiennes and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin are related - Ralph is Hero's uncle.  Although it helped that there was a resemblance between the two actors, director David Yates has officially said that it was not their relationship that landed Ralph the role.  After watching Half-Blood Prince I believe it - Hero is dark and disturbing and extremely creepy and perfect for the role.

Happy Stitching