Fic amnesty meme
Several days ago honorh and dameruth did a meme posting snippets of unfinished fic. It's been a LONG time since I finished any DW fic, but I want to show that I've been writing (sorta, intermittently, skipping between too many stories, and in small chunks). Because my idea muse is hellishly productive but the muse in charge of actually putting words into sentences and sentences into story structure is a lazy, uncooperative bitch, some, perhaps most, of these will never make it to posting stage. However, some will eventually see the light of the internet (ex-Girl Scout's honor!). Hopefully the snippets will prove entertaining on their own.
First, the next Illyria story is entitled "All Thy Pride." It's long, and it has a long way still to go. Sorry, gentle readers. It's plotty, hopefully a bit scary at times, and full of corsets and a bit of dancing. Here, however, is a bit of banter between Rose and the Doctor without a whole lot of relation to the plot.
“Hey, no musical criticism from the man with the most extensive collection of eighties pop I’ve ever seen,” I countered.
“I have a huge amount of music from all ages of human history,” he said, crossing his arms in a defensive posture.
“Yeah, but somehow every time I wander into the control room when you think I’m busy doing something else the stereo is blasting something like ‘Tainted Love,’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star,’ or ‘Hungry Like the Wolf.’ Don’t you dare tell me the last one was just research about our mystery catch phrase, because I saw you doing the little shoulder wiggle dance thing while you were working on the console.”
“I’m not bound by your petty human standards of hipness,” he claimed.
“I’ve got nothing against the eighties. I’m just saying, listening to ‘Time After Time’ that much isn’t natural, even for a Time Lord.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Next, the story that has forcibly set up camp in my brain and occupied a fair chunk of my time over the past few days is a Doctor Who/Heroes crossover. It occurred to me that Nathan!Sylar after the season finale was a lot like a fobwatched Time Lord, and now I seem to be writing an encounter between the Master and Nathan!Sylar set early in the Year That Never Was. In this passage, the Master is ordering Nathan's help in tracking down the rest of the Petrelli family and other people with powers who are proving troublesome to his regime. Heidi, Nathan's ex-wife, is on hand as a hostage. Here, Nathan puts his foot down--or, more precisely, up.
“OK, I'll tell you where they are. Claire’s organizing an army of cheerleaders to save the world. Ma’s napping in the sock section of some department store, dreaming of you slipping on a banana peel and dying. Peter’s in the fortress of solitude, growing weapons-grade bangs. Tracy’s somewhere chilling. As for me, I’m just hanging around.” Nathan rose a few inches off the ground, just enough to be able to smirk down at the Master.
For a few seconds, the Master just stared, eyelid twitching and lips pressed into a thin line. Then he burst into laughter so raucous it made his whole body shake.
“I like you, Nate. You’ve got spunk. Too many people lose their capacity for humor just because of a little bit of genocide and torture going on. I just can’t wait to hear what clever thing you’ll have to say when my spherical friends rebreak your wife’s back.”
I am trying really hard to convince my muse that this is the only Heroes crossover it needs to produce. Heroes is a show that hasn't been particularly good since its first season, and the fandom is a strange place where some seriously dodgy pairings enjoy considerable popularity. I prefer to stay within the DW 'verse. Yet the plot bunnies keep speaking. "Jack/Claude would be FANTASTIC," they say. "Don't you think Hiro's reaction to the TARDIS would be the cutest thing ever?" the bunnies whisper. "Hey, just netflix a few classic Who DVDs to brush up on Romana. That idea with her and Sylar will totally be worth it!" one particularly devious bunny begs. I need a friggin' Holy Hand Grenade to fend off these bunnies.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Next, a bit of post-JE crackfic with the working title of "Mindwipe, Death, or Shag?" Donna realizes the problem with being a human/Time Lord metacrisis and what the Doctor intends to do about it prior to the trip to Pete's World, while Rose and Jackie are still on board the TARDIS.
He didn’t even attempt to dodge. Donna's palm made a very satisfying smacking sound against his cheek.
“Ooh, you’re good!” said Jackie with the admiration of one expert for another. “Any occasion for that, or just on principle?”
“Donna’s human body can’t handle the Time Lord consciousness,” the duplicate Doctor explained. “He’s going to try saving her life, but to do that he’s going to block that Time Lord consciousness out of her memory along with all her memories of travel with me…him…us…oh, bugger.”
It was unclear to Donna whether the “oh, bugger” was because of duplication-related pronoun confusion or because he realized what Jackie was about to do.
“Ow!” He rubbed the red mark on his cheek. “Why’d you slap me? He was the one who’s planning on wiping her mind.” He indicated the brown-suited Doctor.
“Maybe so, but you certainly seem to be going along with his plan. ‘Sides, you were closer,” said Jackie.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Next, a bit of fluff where Nine, Rose, and Jack go out for cinnamon rolls before stopping by Raxacorricofallapatorious after "Boom Town." This is the beginning of the story.
Rose Tyler woke up and immediately regretted the mistake. Her head hurt fiercely.
After a moment’s consideration, she decided that the mistake was not waking up but allowing Jack to get her quite so drunk the previous evening. Waking up to another day of TARDIS travel was a treat so long as she wasn’t dealing with the aftereffects of too many cocktails with bright colors and surprisingly high alcohol content.
Shuffling grumpily into the bathroom, she remembered that the drinking wasn’t the real mistake either. Getting drunk had been necessary after that fight with Mickey. You couldn’t NOT get drunk when you find out that your boyfriend-ex-boyfriend now, she supposed-is going out with some manatee-faced girl he doesn’t even like. Listening to a lot of horrible accusations from him-even more horrible because they were partly true-absolutely demanded alcohol. Jack’s skillful use of the TARDIS’s well-stocked bar had been therapy.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The idea for this one perhaps becomes more understandable if you know that it occurred to me while hiking up a hill in some rather insane winds and without a water bottle. "Hey," I thought to myself. "You know what would be a GREAT crossover pairing? Donna/Spike! Yeah! I should write that." By "great," I clearly meant "insane," but nevertheless my hard drive contains a file titled "Donna the Vampire Slayer." If I have any sense I will abandon this project, but for now I have this passage where Donna presents her family with an explanation for her missing memories post-JE.
“Just listen. I know it’s hard to believe-would’ve said anybody claiming this was crazy a few months ago-but it’s true. Vampires and demons are real.”
“What?” asked Sylvia, shocked.
“Really?” asked Wilf, suddenly looking intrigued.
“I’m almost certain of it. All these crazy things that have been going on over the past few years that people have been blaming on aliens-it’s demons, either directly or by causing mass madness. Most of the demons just want to eat you, but a lot of them have special powers. They can make you able to read minds, or possess you, or all sorts of other things. Maybe even burst into song, though I’m not sure I believe that report. Some of them can cause amnesia. It could also be some sort of magic spell, since those seem to be real as well.”
“That’s preposterous,” harrumphed Sylvia.
“Do you know how many people die every year of animal bites to the neck and catastrophic blood loss, but with only a few drops of blood on their clothes? Bring chocolate to the coroner’s office twice a week for a month and he’ll tell you. It’s a lot.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Last, during one of the many times "All Thy Pride" has stalled out, I started another Illyria story just to get the ol' muse in the mood. It might never get finished if "All Thy Pride" and the hypothetical other stories in the main Illyria story arc keep coming, but who knows. This story asks what would happen if the Sycorax attack from "The Christmas Invasion" occurred in Pete's World with Rose and alt!Nine to fend them off. In this passage, Rose and the Doctor have come home for a visit and just realized that they accidentally landed on Christmas Day.
The Doctor rubbed his temples when we found out the date. “I suppose this means that I’m expected to come in for Christmas dinner,” he said with a long-suffering air.
“For someone who claims to not do domestics, you’ve got a pretty good knowledge of how these things work,” I teased.
“I’ve got pretty good knowledge about how to handle lots of things that that I’m better off not doing,” he said. The shadow that passed over his face with that statement was gone so swiftly it might have been my imagination, but I knew it was real. That was his thinking about the past face, but it didn’t last. The Doctor continued with a sudden wicked smile, “Like lancing boils on the giant rancid land squid of Moigrot.”
“Oh, God! I told you never to remind me of that day!” I protested, screwing my face up at the memory of the stench.
“Maybe your mother would like a pet rancid land squid for Christmas. They’d get along splendidly. I can go and get one for her while you have a nice family meal without me.”
“Now that you’ve made your point about preferring to spend time with the stinky squid than with my family, let’s quit the token protest and go inside.” I took his arm and starting walking.
First, the next Illyria story is entitled "All Thy Pride." It's long, and it has a long way still to go. Sorry, gentle readers. It's plotty, hopefully a bit scary at times, and full of corsets and a bit of dancing. Here, however, is a bit of banter between Rose and the Doctor without a whole lot of relation to the plot.
“Hey, no musical criticism from the man with the most extensive collection of eighties pop I’ve ever seen,” I countered.
“I have a huge amount of music from all ages of human history,” he said, crossing his arms in a defensive posture.
“Yeah, but somehow every time I wander into the control room when you think I’m busy doing something else the stereo is blasting something like ‘Tainted Love,’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star,’ or ‘Hungry Like the Wolf.’ Don’t you dare tell me the last one was just research about our mystery catch phrase, because I saw you doing the little shoulder wiggle dance thing while you were working on the console.”
“I’m not bound by your petty human standards of hipness,” he claimed.
“I’ve got nothing against the eighties. I’m just saying, listening to ‘Time After Time’ that much isn’t natural, even for a Time Lord.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Next, the story that has forcibly set up camp in my brain and occupied a fair chunk of my time over the past few days is a Doctor Who/Heroes crossover. It occurred to me that Nathan!Sylar after the season finale was a lot like a fobwatched Time Lord, and now I seem to be writing an encounter between the Master and Nathan!Sylar set early in the Year That Never Was. In this passage, the Master is ordering Nathan's help in tracking down the rest of the Petrelli family and other people with powers who are proving troublesome to his regime. Heidi, Nathan's ex-wife, is on hand as a hostage. Here, Nathan puts his foot down--or, more precisely, up.
“OK, I'll tell you where they are. Claire’s organizing an army of cheerleaders to save the world. Ma’s napping in the sock section of some department store, dreaming of you slipping on a banana peel and dying. Peter’s in the fortress of solitude, growing weapons-grade bangs. Tracy’s somewhere chilling. As for me, I’m just hanging around.” Nathan rose a few inches off the ground, just enough to be able to smirk down at the Master.
For a few seconds, the Master just stared, eyelid twitching and lips pressed into a thin line. Then he burst into laughter so raucous it made his whole body shake.
“I like you, Nate. You’ve got spunk. Too many people lose their capacity for humor just because of a little bit of genocide and torture going on. I just can’t wait to hear what clever thing you’ll have to say when my spherical friends rebreak your wife’s back.”
I am trying really hard to convince my muse that this is the only Heroes crossover it needs to produce. Heroes is a show that hasn't been particularly good since its first season, and the fandom is a strange place where some seriously dodgy pairings enjoy considerable popularity. I prefer to stay within the DW 'verse. Yet the plot bunnies keep speaking. "Jack/Claude would be FANTASTIC," they say. "Don't you think Hiro's reaction to the TARDIS would be the cutest thing ever?" the bunnies whisper. "Hey, just netflix a few classic Who DVDs to brush up on Romana. That idea with her and Sylar will totally be worth it!" one particularly devious bunny begs. I need a friggin' Holy Hand Grenade to fend off these bunnies.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Next, a bit of post-JE crackfic with the working title of "Mindwipe, Death, or Shag?" Donna realizes the problem with being a human/Time Lord metacrisis and what the Doctor intends to do about it prior to the trip to Pete's World, while Rose and Jackie are still on board the TARDIS.
He didn’t even attempt to dodge. Donna's palm made a very satisfying smacking sound against his cheek.
“Ooh, you’re good!” said Jackie with the admiration of one expert for another. “Any occasion for that, or just on principle?”
“Donna’s human body can’t handle the Time Lord consciousness,” the duplicate Doctor explained. “He’s going to try saving her life, but to do that he’s going to block that Time Lord consciousness out of her memory along with all her memories of travel with me…him…us…oh, bugger.”
It was unclear to Donna whether the “oh, bugger” was because of duplication-related pronoun confusion or because he realized what Jackie was about to do.
“Ow!” He rubbed the red mark on his cheek. “Why’d you slap me? He was the one who’s planning on wiping her mind.” He indicated the brown-suited Doctor.
“Maybe so, but you certainly seem to be going along with his plan. ‘Sides, you were closer,” said Jackie.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Next, a bit of fluff where Nine, Rose, and Jack go out for cinnamon rolls before stopping by Raxacorricofallapatorious after "Boom Town." This is the beginning of the story.
Rose Tyler woke up and immediately regretted the mistake. Her head hurt fiercely.
After a moment’s consideration, she decided that the mistake was not waking up but allowing Jack to get her quite so drunk the previous evening. Waking up to another day of TARDIS travel was a treat so long as she wasn’t dealing with the aftereffects of too many cocktails with bright colors and surprisingly high alcohol content.
Shuffling grumpily into the bathroom, she remembered that the drinking wasn’t the real mistake either. Getting drunk had been necessary after that fight with Mickey. You couldn’t NOT get drunk when you find out that your boyfriend-ex-boyfriend now, she supposed-is going out with some manatee-faced girl he doesn’t even like. Listening to a lot of horrible accusations from him-even more horrible because they were partly true-absolutely demanded alcohol. Jack’s skillful use of the TARDIS’s well-stocked bar had been therapy.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The idea for this one perhaps becomes more understandable if you know that it occurred to me while hiking up a hill in some rather insane winds and without a water bottle. "Hey," I thought to myself. "You know what would be a GREAT crossover pairing? Donna/Spike! Yeah! I should write that." By "great," I clearly meant "insane," but nevertheless my hard drive contains a file titled "Donna the Vampire Slayer." If I have any sense I will abandon this project, but for now I have this passage where Donna presents her family with an explanation for her missing memories post-JE.
“Just listen. I know it’s hard to believe-would’ve said anybody claiming this was crazy a few months ago-but it’s true. Vampires and demons are real.”
“What?” asked Sylvia, shocked.
“Really?” asked Wilf, suddenly looking intrigued.
“I’m almost certain of it. All these crazy things that have been going on over the past few years that people have been blaming on aliens-it’s demons, either directly or by causing mass madness. Most of the demons just want to eat you, but a lot of them have special powers. They can make you able to read minds, or possess you, or all sorts of other things. Maybe even burst into song, though I’m not sure I believe that report. Some of them can cause amnesia. It could also be some sort of magic spell, since those seem to be real as well.”
“That’s preposterous,” harrumphed Sylvia.
“Do you know how many people die every year of animal bites to the neck and catastrophic blood loss, but with only a few drops of blood on their clothes? Bring chocolate to the coroner’s office twice a week for a month and he’ll tell you. It’s a lot.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Last, during one of the many times "All Thy Pride" has stalled out, I started another Illyria story just to get the ol' muse in the mood. It might never get finished if "All Thy Pride" and the hypothetical other stories in the main Illyria story arc keep coming, but who knows. This story asks what would happen if the Sycorax attack from "The Christmas Invasion" occurred in Pete's World with Rose and alt!Nine to fend them off. In this passage, Rose and the Doctor have come home for a visit and just realized that they accidentally landed on Christmas Day.
The Doctor rubbed his temples when we found out the date. “I suppose this means that I’m expected to come in for Christmas dinner,” he said with a long-suffering air.
“For someone who claims to not do domestics, you’ve got a pretty good knowledge of how these things work,” I teased.
“I’ve got pretty good knowledge about how to handle lots of things that that I’m better off not doing,” he said. The shadow that passed over his face with that statement was gone so swiftly it might have been my imagination, but I knew it was real. That was his thinking about the past face, but it didn’t last. The Doctor continued with a sudden wicked smile, “Like lancing boils on the giant rancid land squid of Moigrot.”
“Oh, God! I told you never to remind me of that day!” I protested, screwing my face up at the memory of the stench.
“Maybe your mother would like a pet rancid land squid for Christmas. They’d get along splendidly. I can go and get one for her while you have a nice family meal without me.”
“Now that you’ve made your point about preferring to spend time with the stinky squid than with my family, let’s quit the token protest and go inside.” I took his arm and starting walking.