FIC: Missed Connections

[orbythesea]

Title: Missed Connections
Rating: PG
Characters: Four and Lavinia.
Summary: Sarah Jane's like a butterfly, always on the go.

Comments

[paranoidangel42]

Go Aunt Lavinia! They're both great in this - the Doctor's perfectly Doctorish, especially trying to deliver her Christmas present in February. I love how you've fitted that in with K9 and Company.

It's actually quite sad to think about in the future when she thinks he forgot about her (apart from K9), whereas actually he's been trying to see her all this time, she's just always off chasing stories.

[swallowedbysky]

Yay! I've wanted to write something with both Four and Lavinia for ages but could never think of what, until it occurred to me that I could put them together and see what happened. I mentioned the insane idea of attempting to write Four/Lavinia (as a pairing) to a friend who insisted that I had to do it. Then I realized I had absolutely no desire to ship them and probably shouldn't attempt to do so on my first time writing either of them. I'm glad it worked:)

It is sort of tragic, though not in a strictly classical sense. The thing about School Reunion (one of them, at least) that's always fallen a bit flat to me is Ten's statement to Sarah that "you were getting on with your life." Well, yeah, that's what people do, but it begs the question of how did he know that to be the case. Now I can blame Lavinia and stop being irritated by that line. (And of course, in my head, late-seventies, early-eighties travels so much because it's too hard to stay in one place after the whole exploring all of time and space thing

[paranoidangel42]

Four/Lavinia does sound insane :)

I always just thought that when Ten says Sarah was getting on with her life he was basing it on what people do, and what he knew of Sarah. And possibly he never thought about how their lives with him affected his companions, and he just assumed they went back to their lives as if nothing ever happened.

I can totally see that she wouldn't stay put long after she came back to Earth.

[swallowedbysky]

I sort of totally want to write it now, just to see if I can.

Well, yes, and I think one of the big Hit You Over The Head With It points of NewWho is that The Doctor (and Ten especially) doesn't really have a solid grasp of consequence and, um, he probably needs to get one at some point. (One could argue that every Big Major Thing he's faced in the new series has been his own fault.) It's a brilliant thing when it's done well, and necessary, I think. Oh, and it makes sense-- why should a man who can travel through time and space, effectively changing the course of events if he chooses (and now without anyone to answer to when he does) have to worry about the consequences of his actions? He can always escape them, change them, etc. I'm not putting it very well because my brain is sort of a giant pile of mush right now, but suffice it to say I could write pages on consequences and The Doctor. I'll spare you:)

[minerva_fan]

I'm so not sure how I feel about this fic. It was very well written and in character, but considering how throat-deep I am in Lavinia's backstory right now, I find it quite hard to read. I mean, it's perfectly correct, and perfectly believable, but it breaks my heart to think that she never once mentioned his visits to Sarah.

If I were Sarah, and I'd found this out later, I don't think I would have ever forgiven Lavinia, which really...well, I don't like the feel of that. *(I just listened to Comeback again, and Sarah's goodbye to Lavinia at the beginning is just so heartbreaking.)

Sorry this isn't 100% positive, but I figured you'd prefer honest feedback.

[swallowedbysky]

Oh, I totally understand that and, frankly, would much rather hear someone's honest though not 100% positive opinion than a smiley-happy platitude, if that makes any sense (it may not, I've just spent the last four hours buried in John Stuart Mill and there seems to be a negative correlation between my understanding of Mill and my ability to speak intelligently about anything else

[minerva_fan]

Thank you for your understanding of my feedback, and your response. I, too, would much prefer to get honest feedback, but many writers do not feel the same. I am 100% sure I would not be so ambivalent about it if it hadn't been written so damned well, and if it hadn't been so perfectly in character.

I've rather fallen in love with Lavinia over the course of writing Synchronicity, and it kills me to think she would be capable of causing (however unwittingly) Sarah Jane so much pain!

[swallowedbysky]

One of my biggest pet peeves is people who can't take anything but 100% positive feedback or who feel that when posting fanfic specifically the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" rule applies. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with me/offering their opinions when dealing with them in person, why would I online? What scares me is wondering how those people who can't handle honesty online get on in the real world.

I confess that I haven't yet read it. It's a combination of knowing I wanted to do something with Lavinia and not wanting someone else's interpretation in the back of my mind and not having enough time in one chunk to sit down with a long piece and read it all in one go. This semester's kicking my ass. That being said, it's bookmarked and on the to-read list, and now that I've done a bit with Lavinia, it's simply a matter of finding a few free hours:)

[xtrue_coloursx]

Well I thought this was really well written and quite in character for the Doctor ( couldn't tell you about Lavinia), but wouldn't she have said to Sarah about his visits?
I love the icon as well ;)

[orbythesea]

Thank you:) I'm not sure she would have. That is-- we all know how much it would have meant to Sarah, but would Lavinia have known, or would it have been one of those things that just slipped her mind? Or, for that matter, would she have made the assumption that sometime over the course of the year or so that he showed up he'd managed to connect with Sarah on his own?

Yay icon love:)

[xtrue_coloursx]

Ah right I see the point there.
And icon love is good

[mousagetes]

This is so sweet and so good, and you have no idea how much I needed to read something just like this on this ugly Monday morning. As always, understated and beautiful. Thank you, I loved it!

[swallowedbysky]

Oh, yay! It's funny, I'm looking out my window now at a perfectly gorgeous evening to top of a much-needed day of nice weather and trying hard not to gloat: Then again, it's been in the 20s and wet for weeks, so I can't gloat too much.)

Thank you!

[amilyn]

Quite lovely. I enjoyed the Doctor and the interaction between him and Lavinia. I enjoyed even more the discussion of Lavinia and the impact of her potentially not mentioning these visits to Sarah. :-)

As I think about what little we've seen of her, I can see her being absent-minded enough not to mention. If she had been in England in K9 and Company, I could totally have seen it coming up when Sarah opened the crate, but since she wasn't, and since both she and Lavinia seem to live their lives in continual motion, I can see them never getting the comments about the crate and the bloke who left it said aloud...and Sarah never thinking that Lavinia would necessarily have been there when the crate arrived OR thinking that the Doctor necessarily might have delivered it personally and thus just not realizing there was something to ask after

[orbythesea]

Thank you!

Yeah, I figure that the two of them sort of circled around one another in their adult lives, never quite managing to land, as it were.

(I'm obscenely late in replying to this, for which I apologize. I took a fandom break.)