After the Storm (3/6), Post JE, Rating Gen: Donna, Wilf, Sylvia, Jack, Tenth Doctor, Martha

[catsfiction]

AUTHOR: 
sensiblecat

WORDS: 4885

SPOILERS: Up to the The Next Doctor.

CREDITS: picture by fizzling_wizbee

The idea of Donna leaving Sylvia a letter about her travels with the Doctor comes from the BBC DW novel "Beautiful Chaos" by Garry Russell. Italicised extracts are his work. I have taken a small liberty with chronology - in the book the letter doesn't

Comments

[catsfiction]

Like you, I find Martha much more interesting and likable in fiction, both spin-off professional and fan fic, than I did on-screen. I've come to the conclusion that being with the Doctor diminishes her and she shines brightest without him. Most of the good fics I've read about her do separate them for at least some of the time. I think FA's acting range might have been an issue, too.

I struggled with the Jack and Doctor confrontation precisely because everybody wants Jack to call out the Doctor on something. It's difficult to stop him turning into a mouthpiece for the things we all feel like yelling at the screen. So I tried standing that on its head a bit, and making it into a bit of a testosterone-fuelled standoff as in "Dalek" with Nine and VS, and that worked once I used a watching female's POV.

Talking of female POV you're right, nobody ever wants to write Sylvia as anything more than a harridan. Personally I think she's been through a lot - she's been widowed, seen her daughter's wedding end in disaster and never really had an explanation for it, fairly recently lost her own mum, since Wilf's clearly a widower, and then had all the alien stuff to take on board, and (I suspect) a certain amount of bottled-up financial insecurity as well. Enough to make anyone a bit sharp-tongued really. The unusually nuanced portrait of her in "Beautiful Chaos" inspired me to have a go at writing her.