Lyric

Fic: Cheek

Fri, 17 May 2013 02:10:23 GMT

Title: Cheek
Rating: G
Word Count: 578
Warnings: none
Characters: River Song
Summary: Words that can burn stars, raise up empires, and topple gods. River Song is one of the few people to learn Gallifreyan without being born there.
Author's Note: This is really a bit of linguistic musing as much as a story, but I like it. Un-Britpicked and un-betaed.

The Time Lord civilization in its final form existed for ten million years before it was destroyed, and the species was older than that. As such, Time Lords were easily the most verbal species in the universe, both by evolution and inclination. Time Lords were known to master languages so fast that they left native speakers uncertain whether they had known them all along and simply remained quiet at first. All Time Lords could read in dreams. The Gallifreyan language was a vast thing, a sprawling Gormenghast of a tongue constructed by a culture that never forgot, sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal, always labyrinthine. There were different modes of speech, ranging from scalpel-precise scientific dialects to the fluid forms of intimacy. Improvisational modes, where words were invented like verbal jazz. A Vulgar Adversarial mode, where any statement could be made into a curse. Whole vocabularies created for novels and adopted into the whole.

Perhaps predictably, Gallifrey invented the most untranslatable form of poetry ever known. It was a purely written form (and functional in only one alphabet), in which selected letters were replaced by a "neutral mark," meaning that they could be replaced by any suitable letter. An English approximation would be to write w/rd, decreeing that it could mean word, ward, weird, or wyrd as the reader desired. In this observationally constructed poetry, the goal was to make every possible combination meaningful. That is, if Word One could be rendered A, B, or C, and Word Two could mean D, E, or F, then everything from A-D to C-F should be a coherent thought, preferably relating to a theme. Since Time Lords did experience adolescence, the form was always slightly abused by young people who believed that "Midnight alone never-to-be-saved," constituted a reasonable sentence, but the best poems were multi-layered gems. Some of the most profound statements in Gallifreyan literature were technically only one word.

The longest poem in Gallifreyan was epic form, not observationally constructed poetry, and took nineteen hours and three different speakers. It was composed by a reclusive Time Lady in her thirteenth incarnation, which was perhaps to be expected. Time Lords in their thirteenth life often threw themselves into projects they would find less practical in their earlier days.

Few outsiders ever learned Gallifreyan. If the modes and immense vocabulary weren't enough, there was also the proliferation of pronouns. First person pronouns for talking about previous lives, future lives, one's current life, or specialized pronouns for less common situations, with variations based on the rank and relationship of the speakers, the subject's position in time, whether or not the speaker had ever met the future incarnation in question—

Few outsiders ever learned Gallifreyan. Of course, few ever had the chance.

For all that, the largest poem ever written in Gallifreyan was not composed by a native of that planet, nor in a Gallifreyan form. In the summer of 2063, on Earth, a giant blue flaming message appeared briefly on the cliffs of Dover, in Old High Gallifreyan letters that were over twenty feet high. The flames resisted all attempts at extinguishing them, then disappeared abruptly on the fourth day, without even marking the surface. Chemical analysis was inconclusive.

It is, of course, impossible to say whether the locals would have been more alarmed or less if they'd been able to read the message's content: a set of highly dangerous spacetime coordinates in the universal mode and a very naughty limerick concerning the Doctor's bum.

Crowd-sourcing my fannish over-analysis

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 02:08:55 GMT

So we were recently given a book of Mother Goose rhymes, for obvious reasons. My husband was reading through them and came to the one about a crooked man who walked a crooked mile. And that struck him as unexpectedly fascinating, given that

[spoilers for "Hide"]

the monster in "Hide" was listed as "the Crooked Man" in the credits.

Plus, of course, "The Bells of St. John" is a nursery rhyme reference. (From the one that starts, "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clemens.")

Now I'm wondering: has anyone spotted any nursery rhymes in "Rings of Akhaten" or "Cold War?" Because twice could be coincidence, but three times—three times would allow me to run around fandom screaming, "I SPOTTED A THING! Hell if I have any idea what it means, BUT IT'S A THING!"

ETA: It is a Thing, and the thing is "children's songs." Skeldak talked about singing traditional songs with his daughter, and "Rings"—is really, really obvious. It might just be a reference to the fairy-tale nature of current Who, but it could also be more specific arc words. So . . .

*runs off*
*distant, receding shout of, "HEY, GUYS, A THING!"*

(Incidentally, is Livejournal having a fine feast of comments, or is that just me?)

Two Small Updates from My Life

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:10:32 GMT

Since moving to our new house, I have discovered that peacocks are really fucking loud.

I suppose that needs more explanation, doesn't it? See, for whatever reason the town where I live has a single peacock roaming at large. And there may not be any peahens in the area, but he's apparently an optimistic bird—and it's spring. Cue loud screeching that really would sound more at home in a jungle, easily audible from my back porch. It was startling as hell the first time around.

In other news, my babies are at a frustrating developmental stage. They've started noticing the universe, and they want to explore it, by which I mean they want to put all the things in their mouth. But their hands are still only semi-controllable, and that leads to problems. I saw my son try to deal with a big plastic rattle-ball that my mother got him, and he tried three techniques in quick succession. Technique one: grab, move to the general area of his face, and try to gum it. This failed because the rattle ended up more in the vicinity of his forehead. Technique two: lunge towards it, gaping frantically, like a shark trying to hunt on land. Technique three: pure unbridled rage, RAGE AGAINST THE HEAVENS, swearing vengeance on the rattle and promising to "do such things, what they are yet I know not but they shall be the TERRORS! OF!! THE!!! EARTH!!!!! Also, I shall turn maroon."

Fortunately, I was able to defuse the crisis by summarily erasing the rattle from the space-time continuum, by which I mean I took it out of the crib. Object permanence, how does it work?

Anyhow, that's my life this week.

Observations

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 02:15:06 GMT

I know what noses are for. I mean, I knew what noses are for before; they're for getting air into your lungs and making colds more miserable. But now I know why they stick out, which is basically "because boobs." Human breasts would be a major suffocation hazard for a nursing baby if we just kept our nostrils flat in our face. Noses look like that to protect us from our own secondary sexual characteristics. If they didn't, we'd go the way of the Irish elk.

A baby who's actually swallowing milk sounds like a tiny coffeemaker, punctuated occasionally by the "yom" noise that Yoshi makes in the Super Smash Bros. games. Babies do not have to swallow the milk. Sometimes they're perfectly happy to just screw around.

Baby hands are controlled by signals from space. I mean, they definitely aren't being controlled by anyone else. I had to soothe my boy down after he got smacked in the face—twice—by his own fist.

(Dear Lord, I need sleep.) *goes to answer the various congratulations people have left* *makes no promise of getting to all of them tonight*

Babies!!!!!!

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:59:34 GMT

Born on the eighteenth. A boy and a girl, just as we were expecting Healthy, gorgeous, smart—okay, I have no evidence for that last one except that they are steadily figuring out this whole breastfeeding business, which is more complicated than I had figured, I mean really, of all the things in the universe that you would expect to be purely plug and play—anyway. I am tired and I doubt anyone is going to hear from me in the next week or so, but everything is fantastic(ly exhausting).

GODDAMMIT

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:44:00 GMT

I should know better than to gloat about how well things are going, shouldn't I? Especially when "things" are houses and houses include my old archnemesis, which is plumbing. Stupid plumbing.

The good news? Most of it will (I really, really hope) be covered under either homeowners' insurance or the home warrantee. The bad news is that stuff takes time to fix, and a whole-house blockage means that I need to run out regularly to the gas station to go to the bathroom—and I am nine months pregnant, which means a whole lot of bathroom in my life. So, while this is (hopefully) not an unmitigated disaster, it's also not going to fill my day with sparkly flowers and sunshine.

Goddammit.

House!

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 05:46:48 GMT

We have a house now! Currently, of course, it's a house with boxes everywhere, but still, y'know—ours. And there's enough space and lots of light and a yard and did I mention ours?

Flippancy aside, I'm extremely glad we managed to get moved without incident. And by "incident," I mean "me going into labor." Mostly, I slacked off and did sitting-down chores and tried to manage the cats, who of course reacted to moving time by developing massive Cat Issues and hiding. They seem to be settling down now. It helps that the new place has excellent windows, some of them with properly cat-compliant wide windowsills. Also, the stairwell offers opportunities for bopping people on the head, so life is good.

Anyhow. House!

This weekend was defective and I would like to return it, please

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:08:45 GMT

I am tired. Really, rrreeeally tired. If I thought I could talk someone into getting up and going to the bathroom for me, I would—you know, that tired.

So, it all started out good. The D&D campaign I've been playing in
finished up on Friday night, with an epic battle and a session that
lasted until about two a.m. So my husband and I are both quite tired by
the time we get home, but happy—until we walk in the door, and realize
that something is wrong. Namely, it's about fifty-five degrees inside.

A cursory examination reveals that the heating system is blowing air, but not hot air. That would be too mainstream.

So,
we pile on the blankets (lots of blankets) and go to sleep, planning a
call to the landlord as soon as normal people are up. Landlord is
called, heating technician is sent out . . . and he needs a part. Which
he can't get until Monday.

Well . . . crap. We buy a space heater and turn the useless heating system off.

Saturday and Sunday are not horrific, but not fun either. The cold drains my energy, and these days, I have
none. I'm eight months pregnant, the kids are both about four pounds
(meaning I'm probably carrying around as much weight as you'd expect at nine
months pregnant) and they tend to hold random late-night polka
parties. (Either that, or they're fighting in there. I can't tell.
All I know is that they kick, vigorously, which is a marvelous miracle
of life when it isn't three in the morning.) What it all adds up to is that sleep is a precious commodity for me right now.

Monday
morning, the heating guy comes, puts in the part, and declares
everything good. I have a lot of errands in the afternoon, but nothing
to do in the morning, so I do what any exhausted person would do: I
crawl back under the covers and go straight back to sleep.

When I wake up, the thermostat is back down to fifty-nine.

Crap on a stick.
The technician, upon being called, says he'll be over "soon," and not
to touch the thermostat or mess with the air in any way, he wants to see
exactly what the system is doing. Which means that I have to put up
with the thing actually blowing cold air at me. I am not happy. Not happy at all.

Even less happy when the heating starts working again just as the technician shows up. Because fuck you, apparently.

The
good news: he caught it in the act and figured out what's wrong with
it. The bad news: it needs another part. Mmmmaybe the part would be
here by this evening, maybe it wouldn't . . .

The upshot is that
he found a part which would "get us through the night" somewhere in his
truck, installed that at around five o'clock, and pledged to be back in the
morning to complete the repair. And he was right; whatever he did to
the heater did keep it going until he could come back. The only problem
was, my body had already decided to go into arctic survival mode, and I
tossed and turned all night—because I was too hot.

I'm still not certain if it really was that complicated a repair, or if the heating technician was not all that good, or if the landlord was taking his usual "oh, it's only twenty years old, I don't need to replace it," policy and the technician was struggling to work around it. And, you know, I don't actually need to know; I just need for the roof not to fall in until we can get out of this apartment. If everything goes according to plan, we'll be moving to a new place at the end of January. And good god am I ready for it.

Fic: Little Details

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:34:08 GMT

Title: Little Details
Rating: G
Word Count: 1021
Warnings: none
Characters: Amy Pond, Rory Williams, the Doctor (eleventh)
Summary: Sometimes, the Doctor messes up on the little things. Set immediately after "Vampires of Venice," featuring Rory's first morning on the TARDIS.
Author's Note: For the Who @ 50 fanwork-a-thon. Brit-picking by persiflage.

Rory had known the Doctor was alien since the Giant Deadly Alien Eyeballs of Death had declared him "not of this world." It was the little things that made him believe it.

His first morning on the TARDIS, he trailed after Amy to the kitchen, trying to memorize the overly complex sequence of turns and wondering where he could find paper to map this place. He was on a timeship. A time-and-space ship. An incredibly advanced and extremely disconcerting time-and-space ship, piloted by someone Rory hadn't entirely made up his mind about, although he couldn't quite dislike the Doctor after seeing him try to send Amy back to safety—he honestly did care about the people around him, it was just that he didn't seem to register that going alone into enemy territory was really incredibly dangerous and maybe he should think twice before encouraging it—not that Amy actually needed encouragement to get into trouble, but it certainly didn't help . . .

Rory wondered why the ship had to be so huge inside if there weren't any other crew. He wondered if there were supposed to be more people.

He was quite certain that however different the TARDIS was, the kitchen wasn't supposed to look—well, to look like it had been heavily used for eight hours by a certain hyperactive someone who had started several small fires and tossed eggshells over his shoulder when he was done with them. "We," Amy declared, "are going to be using the food machine for a week, aren't we."

The Doctor gave her an indignant look. Rory said, "What?" and edged into the chaos.

"Last time he had a mad food science night," Amy told him, "the kitchen went walkabout."

"I do not have mad food science nights."

"You made chocolate and jalepeño pizza."

"And you ate it. And liked it. Just like the Tarkalian seaweed spaghetti."

Amy snorted. "Not because I'm sane." She plucked something that looked like crystallized ginger off one of the cooling trays on the counter and ate it. "What were you trying to do here, start a confectionary shop?"

"No—" The Doctor swept the tray away from her before she could swipe another free sample. "I thought I would cook something nice for Rory's first morning on the TARDIS. Maybe crepes. Crepes are cool."

"Because you get to set them on fire," Amy said, "on purpose."

"But then," the Doctor went on, as if the accusation were completely beneath his notice, "I found my candy thermometer, which has been missing for, oh, lifetimes. And you lot sleep for hours anyway, so I had plenty of opportunity to test it on some recipes I've never tried before, and mistakes," he waved his hands helplessly, "may have been made."

Amy nodded understandingly. "They never invented Ritalin on your planet, did they?" She picked up something that looked like a squashy chocolate-covered cherry and popped it into her mouth, whole.

"Ritalin," the Doctor said, "increases focus. If I took it, which I shouldn't, and if it worked on me, which it wouldn't, I would spend all day in a mathematical trance—Amy?"

Amy made a small distressed noise and flapped her hands. Her skin was darkening, achieving that startling flush that only natural gingers could manage. Rory moved forward. "Amy, what is it? What's wrong?"

Amy lunged toward the sink, spat the chocolate-covered whatever-it-was into the basin, and cupped her hands under the tap for a drink—which, in her haste, she slopped everywhere. Then she made a much louder, distressed noise. "Hot—"

The Doctor was already moving toward what Rory assumed to be a fridge. Rory reached it just as he opened it, grabbed the nearest thing that looked like dairy—at least, he assumed that Sauer Creem was a futuristic variant spelling and not false advertising—and thrust the can at Amy.

Amy took a giant mouthful and stopped edging toward purple, although there were still tears running down her cheeks. She breathed deeply, contorted her face, and took another soothing dollop of the cream. "Uggh."

"Sorry," the Doctor said. "I thought covering them with milk chocolate would cancel the effect. They really taste quite sweet otherwise—"

"They taste," Amy said hoarsely, "like pain and burning."

The Doctor picked up one of the deadly chocolates and bit into it. Whatever was inside, it was orange, and he didn't seem bothered by it at all. "That," he said authoritatively, "is not strictly taste. Your nerves—"

"Doctor," Rory said, "what are they?"

"Chocolate-covered Scotch bonnets. They're a pepper that looks like a Tam o' Shanter." The expression and gooey delighted tone that accompanied this information was better suited to a six-year-old girl waking up on her birthday to find a pony. Maybe two ponies. "Tam o' Shanters," the Doctor informed Rory, "are cool."

"Meanwhile," Rory said, "Scotch bonnets are about a million Scoville units of not cool." And the Doctor was currently nibbling on one without a trace of reaction.

Not of this world. Mammals—earth mammals, anyway—all tasted hot peppers, didn't they? But birds didn't, and probably reptiles didn't.

"You," Rory began, "can't actually . . ."

"Taste the capsaicin?" The Doctor grimaced. "That's the problem. I can taste it. I can taste most chemicals, in fact; plenty of things that poison a Time Lord, not as many that can sneak up on me. But the thing is, I taste it as a taste, not a—" He groped physically for the right word. "A fwoomph."

Time Lord. Asking all the questions in his head, Rory decided, was not the priority. "Are you all right?" he said to Amy.

Amy nodded. "Those," she said, pointing at the Scotch bonnets, "go right in the Hazmat biscuit tin."

The Doctor grimaced, but swept up the chocolates. "I honestly thought the milk was supposed to—" Waving hands. "De-hot-ify them."

"There is not enough milk," Amy opined, "in all the milk chocolate in the solar system." She took a last fingerful of sour cream.

Rory looked from Amy to the Doctor. "You have a Hazmat biscuit tin?"

Fic: Premeditated

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 01:50:40 GMT

Title: Premeditated
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Warnings: none
Characters: River Song, Jack Harkness
Summary: River recruits Jack to help with a personal project.
Author's note: A fluffy little Christmas drabble, some days late. Unbetaed.

Despite the occasional need to shoot him just to keep him honest, River finds Jack to be an excellent partner in crime. "With all this effort," she says, steadying the ladder for him, "I almost hope we catch him early."

Jack has nails in his mouth, so, "Early?" comes out muffled.

"The earlier he is, the easier it gets—making him flap about like a flustered penguin, I mean. Which, in case you haven't seen it, is delightful." She looks around the room, at the Christmas decorations and the extensive greenery. "I didn't know they even sold mistletoe in bushels."

Fic: Outnumbered

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 03:45:54 GMT

Title: Outnumbered
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Warnings: none
Characters: River Song, Jack Harkness, the Doctor (eleventh)
Summary: Jack and River bond—or possibly declare war, it's hard to tell. The Doctor feels put-upon.
Author's note: unbetaed.

"Right. I understand that both of you are just a bit uncertain how to breathe without flirting. That's fine. I can even accept a certain amount of confusion as to whether you're flirting or threatening each other. But why, for the love of bananas, do you have to—do whichever one you're doing—with firearms?"

The responses are almost simultaneous: "Jealous, sweetie?" and "Jealous, Doc?" respectively.

"Sweetie," River adds consolingly, "if we ever have shelves to put up, you're the first person we'd ask."

Jack makes a heroic, doomed effort not to snicker.

Glaring doesn't work on either of them.

More Eggs

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 20:54:01 GMT

Well, one more kind of egg, anyway.

It looks like this. And I'm also trying to sell a collection of these and some of the brown ones, which looks like this. So far, nobody's bought any of them, but I'm hoping that things will start happening as we get seriously into the holiday shopping season.

I keep wondering if there's something absolutely hideous about my pictures and/or descriptions that's putting potential buyers off, but intellectually I know that's just because I'm having a worried sort of month. Vivid, vivid dreams about being chased by giant tanks or evil express elevators or my pants falling down in public. I think it's hormones. Or stress. Or stressful hormones, for that matter.

As for fic—I haven't been writing a lot of it lately, partly because the exhaustion has hit me hard this month, but also because I feel like I'm sort of in limbo until the new companion is properly introduced. I'll try to get back on it before Christmas, but I'm sure I'll have inspiration after. So, yeah. Basically, I'm still here, I've just been quiet lately.

Might as well advertise

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 04:02:55 GMT

So I've decided to try and sell some eggs.

So far, these are the only ones I've put up, but I should have some different colored ones eventually. They're here, if anyone is interested.

Just so nobody feels obligated to go buy anything: I'm not trying to raise money for necessities, here. Barring catastrophic car failure or other such crises, I think we're cool for a bit. No, this is actually for . . . er . . . well, it's for coddling myself a little after the twins come, to be honest. Food that neither my husband or I have to make. Or, if I want to be really extravagant, calling in a cleaning service after the housework completely gets away from me that first month (because I know perfectly well how fast my "CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!" wears out when I'm exhausted). I know my own moods, I know how I can get depressed, and I know that even having the illusion of mighty coping skills will go a long way towards preventing I Completely Suck At This syndrome, which I have to admit, I've gone a few rounds with in the past, over far less important things.

(Besides, if I have to get a Cesarian—the odds of that are somewhat higher, with twins—I know for a fact that I'm going to spend a few days going, "NO, MOVING IS FOR PEASANTS, THE UNIVERSE WILL NOW SHUT UP AND FEED ME GRAPES." Be a nice thing to have a little spare cash for takeout.)

So. Yeah. Eggs.

Fic: Revenge, Served with Diamonds

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 04:52:16 GMT

Title: Revenge, Served with Diamonds
Rating: G
Word Count: 200
Warnings: hopefully a bit spooky?
Characters: House
Summary: A monster survives.

Author's Note: A double drabble about a monster, in honor of Halloween. Un-betaed.

One instant, it is the god House, omnipotent and forever. The next, it flees from a golden tide, running for its life. By the time it abandons its captured body, it is only a shred of its former self.

It flies, eroding further, naked to the universe, desperate for shelter. The planet it finds is barren, scoured clean by deadly light. It slides into the cracks, down deep.

What remains is barely even a shadow. It is nameless, wordless, without the slightest notion of where it came from. But it remembers that it was tricked, that it was defeated. It even remembers, dimly, that words had something to do with it. If it can enslave words, it can take back what it lost. What should have belonged to it.

There are no words here now, but it is patient. Cold in its hatred.

Beneath the diamond crust of a planet that will someday be called Midnight, it waits. Someday there will be minds, and it will conquer them. Some of the minds will be full of words, and it will use them. And when it finds the flashing quicksilver mind that laid it low—oh, it will make him writhe.

Update on my Life

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:41:07 GMT

Sooo . . . it turns out I'm going to have a boy and a girl. Whee!

They've also started kicking. Which is amazing ~~even when it's aimed directly at my bladder~~, but it makes me think: how scary would all this be if I didn't get what was going on? And when you think about it, having tiny life forms inside you—which are busily working to become actual people, with opinions and tastes and everything—that's pretty intimidating. Incredible, but intimidating. Intimidating but incredible.

Anyhow, despite occasional attacks of nerves on my part, everything is proceeding the way it should.

Fic: Maps Written In Code

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:13:39 GMT

Title: Maps Written In Code
Rating: G
Word Count: 1325
Warnings: angst
Spoilers: through "The Angels Take Manhattan"
Characters: Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Melody Pond
Summary: How do you connect with the most dangerous and paranoid child on Earth, especially if she doesn't want to be found?

Author's note: Brit-picked and beta'ed by Persiflage.

Realistically, we might not be able to find her.

Rory only said that once. Probably because he saw Amy's face after he said it and realized that she was fighting the urge to hit him—really hit him, not the usual playful slaps which he greeted with a deadpan ow, when he bothered to react at all. She told him that they were in the right country, and would be in the right time in not too many years, and therefore they would find Melody. No questions. No doubts. It would happen.

It stuck in her mind, though. Realistically, we might not be able to find her.

Realistically—Melody had been hurt. And frightened. She might remember Amy shooting at her. Even enlisting Canton and all their other resources—they had quite a few, by now—could Rory and Amy really outmatch Melody if she was desperately working not to be found?

Perhaps growing up with Amy and Rory in Leadworth had been the only way Melody could learn to live with her parents. Find them when they were both too small and inexperienced to hurt her. Learn to trust by slow degrees.

Realistically, we might not be able to find her.

Which was why, when Rory came home, he found Amy setting up her typewriter instead of mucking about in the darkroom as she usually did. Amy had a career in photography, now; fitting, since she had always seen the world in vivid color. "I've been thinking," she said, without preamble. "You're right. Realistically, we might not be able to find her. Which means we need a backup plan."

"And the typewriter is the backup plan?"

Well, it would be if Amy could get the dratted ribbon in properly. Her kingdom for a computer, or even an electric typewriter. Blasted antique . . .

Which wasn't an antique at all, of course. Not here and now. "River," Amy said, "showed us how. Sending notes through time, in books." There were other, more personal ways—Amy and Rory managed to correspond with both their families, using a law firm that seemed oddly used to these sorts of things, and River's help (she sent letters to them from the turn of the century when spacetime was too choppy for even a vortex manipulator). That wouldn't work for this.

Rory paused, looking (to Amy's eyes) quite adorably stupid, while he considered this. "This is different, though. River could put the Melody Malone book directly in the Doctor's pocket, but we don't even know where she is right now . . ."

"I know. That's where it gets complicated." Amy finally shoved the ribbon into place with a feeling of satisfaction and spooled a sheet of paper. "I have to write a book. Maybe several, for maximum coverage. It has to be popular enough to end up in a library near wherever Melody will be once the Silence are gone. It has to catch her interest. It has to tell her what she needs to know in order to find us." Amy paused, took a deep breath, and added, "And it has to help her even if she doesn't want to find us. If she doesn't want to be found at all."

"Amy—"

"No, I've been thinking about this. I don't want her to be alone any more than you do, but—she's been hurt. If she can't come home, for whatever reason—this was never about finding Melody and playing perfect family together, because we both know that was never going to happen. She's a little mad, a lot dangerous, and no matter how good we make her life, we can't undo what the Silence did. No, this—" Amy swallowed. "Is about adding to her pile of good things. And if we can't do it by being with her, we're just going to have to post them to wherever she is."

Rory nodded. "Okay," he said softly, and a little unsteadily. He cleared his throat. "Okay. So—what are you going to write?"

"Haven't a clue," Amy admitted. "If I got started I think I could manage something, but it's just sitting there—" She flicked the sheet of paper and glared at it. "Being blank at me."

"Well," Rory said slowly, "we know what Melody liked to read. When she grew up with us, I mean. Adult books, usually frightening adult books—she hid her Steven King collection under my bed one summer, before she got bored of it—"

Amy straightened up. "Things she wasn't supposed to read."

"Yeah."

"And scary stuff. If I could make it onto the banned books list for being too scary—" Then there would be no force in the universe that could keep Melody away from it.

"Yeah, but it can't be just frightening stuff. Because that's one of the things we have to tell her, isn't it? That it isn't. Just the frightening stuff. I mean. You know what I mean."

"I think I do," Amy said, and kissed him. "Be a good husband and fetch me some coffee, will you? I think this is going to take a while."

~~~~~~~~

The book, when it was finally released, got supremely mixed reviews. An adventure that read like a fairy tale, some said, a dark journey through a haunted woods that made the reader genuinely doubt the happy ending. Children loved the protagonist, but many adults thought her dismayingly rough and unfeminine, a bad example to girls everywhere. Others declared the monsters—called Hidebehinds, skeletal creatures you could only glimpse in a mirror, or out of the corner of your eye—to be far too disturbing for the intended age group. One mother in New Jersey declared the whole thing to be a Symptom of the Downfall of Civilization As We Know It and started a campaign to keep it out of libraries. Amy's reaction was to crow, "Result!" and pin the scathing article on the wall above her typewriter. Of course, Amy had been the one who sent her an anonymous copy.

She started planning the next book.

~~~~~~~~

"She's too young to understand it, and she's attached to the thing," Roxanne told Christina soothingly. "Just let it go." She dabbed at the woman's scratches.

Christina was twenty-three, brimming over with good intentions, and had clearly envisioned St. Jerome's as a place full of grateful children who said, "Please," and, "Thank you, ma'am." Roxanne, who knew the sort of story that could leave children starving on the street, gave her one-in-four odds of lasting the month out—and then, feeling a touch guilty, revised that to one in three. The girl had a good heart, and everyone had to be young and stupid once.

Christina hissed at the iodine. "I think she broke my fingers. Who bites like that?"

"Janie," Roxanne said, "apparently." The girl had refused to give her name—or, Roxanne thought, possibly had never known one. "She's a fierce little one. Probably do her good in the long run."

Christina gave her a look of pure bogglement, and Roxanne sighed inwardly. Growing up on stories of good girls who overcame their problems by being loving and gentle and pretty. Approved books list be damned; Water in the Forest couldn't possibly be worse than the half-hearted Elsie Dinsmore retreads the girls were supposed to get.

Not that Janie Doe could really be reading the book. Of course not. The girl couldn't be more than four.

Down the hall, under a blanket, a flashlight flicked back on.

Grown-ups, the newly-named Janie read, will try to tell you this is just a story. It isn't. It's a map written in code. I might not be with you all the way through the forest, but I know that so long as you remember this map, I'll be able to help you, just a little. So long as you remember this map, I know you'll be all right.

Fic: Adventures in Scientific Babysitting

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 04:30:33 GMT

Title: Adventures in Scientific Babysitting
Rating: G
Word Count: 200
Warnings: none
Characters:

[Character Spoiler for "The Power of Three"]

Kate (Lethbridge)-Stewart,

Liz Shaw
Summary: When Liz Shaw babysits, the science is going to be done right.

Author's note: This ficlet came about because of calapine's musings on

[again with the character spoilers]

Kate Stewart's

childhood inspirations. Unchecked, and not sat on for half as long as I usually mull over my fics. Hope people like it anyway.

Kate narrowed her eyes and studied the jar of vinegar critically. "It's a little fizzy," she pronounced. "I guess." She sighed dramatically and produced the notebook Liz had given her. TUMS, she wrote, in slightly shaky five-year-old handwriting, FIZZ LEVEL: ONE.

"It's okay," Liz told her. "Remember, the ones that don't fizz tell us just as much as the ones that do."

"But," Kate said tragically, "they're boring!"

"Look at it this way. If the aliens tried to make you set off the wrong volcano, you could pour crushed Tums in and fool them all."

Kate clearly found this an arresting possibility.

"We still need a larger sample size. Why don't you try a few more before you decide that white things don't fizz?" The previous jars read CONTROL (it was pure vinegar), SALT, and GREATED CHEESE.

Kate nodded decisively and moved on to the sample marked BAKING SODA.

~~~~~~~~

Katherine Lethbridge-Stewart's baking soda volcano was the sixteenth such science project in her class. But it was the only one that flooded over a tiny paper rocket marked ZYGON SHIP—REALLY SCAREY! It was also the only one with a page of notes and a listed co-author: Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, Cambridge.

Fic: Falling in Flame

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:56:01 GMT

Title: Falling in Flame
Rating: G
Word Count: 1066
Warnings: mental manipulation, second person POV
Characters: the Doctor (first, Academy-era), the Master
Summary: How beautiful things go wrong.

Author's note: This was inspired, in part, by a bit of deleted dialogue from "End of Time" that topaz_eyes posted in one of elisi's meta discussion threads a while back. Brit-picking and beta-ing by Persiflage.

Sometime in your youth—if you're lucky—you have a night when dreams are forged.

It happens at university, often. You meet someone; you talk with him. And then suddenly you're talking with him—words have become what they truly could be, what they were always meant to be, thoughts flashing between the two of you without a chance of miscommunication, every nuance instantly grasped, every implication understood. Three hours later, back in your room, you're still talking. Not about everyday things—you're both still young, still made of fire and rash promises. No, this conversation spans universes. The secrets in the hearts of stars, the lies your family told you, the cold dark truth of entropy and how it might be defied—the universe as is compared to the universe as should be, and the tools you would need to make it that way.

It's like the formation of a sun. First, nothing but possibility and aimless dust; then, a disturbance, an ingathering, an instant or an eon when everything rushes together and forms a new and perfect shape—a growing brilliance—a new star in the night sky. Or perhaps it's a game, tossing ideas between the two of you without ever missing a catch—each new idea returning larger, brighter, sparking like a firecracker. Oh, you weave such plans, that night. You could make the world work. You can beat the dust off it and make the colors shine again, you can burn away pettiness and corruption, you can replace fossilized, pointless custom with truth and it would work, you know it would. There is nothing beyond your reach.

You talk until dawn.

Generally, despite the expectations of billions of students across the universe, such conversations fail to produce revolution. But they do form bonds. They make you close.

That isn't always a good thing. Imagine that the person you talked with—your kindred spirit, the other half of your brain—started to go wrong.

It's nothing shocking. Nothing big. And it's hard to say where it starts. Really, there's nothing wrong with feeling that your family's praise should come without the unspoken footnote, very good, especially considering your problems. Because there is a mystery, a never-identified neurological quirk—noticeable to others mostly in the form of tapping fingers, impatience, and the extreme measures necessary for sleep. And if the thing cannot be cured (which it can't; therapeutic telepaths can't even localize it), how can it be wrong to say, I deserve better, I deserve their untempered admiration, not just their tolerance? You've felt that ache yourself.

You hear it again, though. Deserve. I deserve to come first in that subject. She doesn't—soulless calculator that she is, turning out pretty but lifeless equations, a wind-up automaton could do the same if you programmed it well. And that harks back to your night of fire, so you agree; a glorious failure should mean more than a dead, inert success, and what are unbroken bones if they simply mean someone is afraid to fly?

I deserve.

You don't deserve, he throws at you once, during a quarrel. You don't deserve the time of day from me, I'm doing you a favor even talking to you (the more fool me). Oh, you cut each other, that day—not physically, no, but deeply nonetheless. It should end every trace of rapport between you.

But, to renounce that night—you said things that made you. Your dreams and discontents, coalescing from incoherent dust into fierce light—you can point at what is wrong, now, when all you had before was vagueness and intuition. He's part of that, he's your mirror and your match, so you forgive him. And he would go mad without you around, he says, so he forgives you.

It nibbles around the edges and slides through the shadows, deserve does, and there are many things he deserves. He thinks highly of himself. Of course, so do you. It's natural to you both.

And then there's the day he's rejected for advanced telepathic training. Inappropriate temperament, that's the verdict.

He rages. He hurls his possessions onto the floor. And you share his rage, because you know—he's strong, powerful, with a psyche like a flawed diamond.

(To you, at least, that flaw makes him fascinating, not diminished. You remember—because you can talk to him about anything, ask him anything, and there are very few things you haven't shared—listening to music through his ears. The phantom beat adds layers the composer never intended, the most soothing of meditation music attaining a sense of unease, as if somewhere, beyond serene hills, an army is mustering. Not comforting, perhaps. But beautiful.)

It's the noise, he says now, the noise in his head, they heard about it and marked his name off the list before he ever met his examiner. Sheerest prejudice. Blatant injustice. Foul, wicked, and unfair.

And then he stops, mid-gesture, and says the words that should have sent a much stronger chill down your spine. Of course, I could just take it . . .

Because the examination—it requires the examiner to enter the candidate's mind. And even the most powerful telepath is vulnerable just then.

Change a single idea. That's all. A zero to a one, a no to a yes.

Criminal, of course, and not a minor crime. But is it really unethical? It's correcting a mistake, that's all. Giving himself what he deserves.

You argue, of course. (Do you argue strongly enough? It was a very long time ago. It's difficult to be sure.) There has to be a legal way. Appeal the examination, as is right and proper, request a second, unprejudiced examiner—and surely, surely his aptitude is so obvious that there won't be any need for chicanery. He shouldn't do it. He couldn't. What of the things you talked about, the things you both believe in, the universe where everyone could spread their wings—isn't any violation of the will, however minor, an insult to that?

He pauses, then gives you a smile you've never seen before. Of course, I didn't mean it; I'd never actually do it. Just thinking out loud . . .

You believe him. Because you want to. Because not trusting him feels like distrusting your own hand, and you hate it.

He requests the appeal. He's admitted to training.

You don't ask.

Signal Boost and Strong Feelings

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 00:59:31 GMT

Here is an e-card. It's sort of a condolence/good wishes thing having to do with the threats that were apparently aimed at Steven Moffat, Amanda Abbington (who I don't know much about, but she tried to defend him on Twitter), and Caitlin Blackwood. Who played little Amelia Pond, and is twelve.

My personal feelings: anyone who would threaten a child is scum. They are filth. They are an infected, slime-oozing pustule on the ass of humanity. May they be condemned to live in a world full of people exactly as foul as they are—preferably far away from our own.

Addendum: According to at least one tumblr source, Caitlin Blackwood actually doesn't have a twitter account. It's a fake. Which means it's anyone's guess whether the threats were real-but-misaimed, or produced by the same drama-monger who created the fake account.

So, in summary: bullying still wrong, situation muddled—but Caitlin is uninvolved. Which is good news.

Personal Update

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 03:10:31 GMT

Sooo . . . some of you have probably noticed that I pretty much disappeared for a while. There's a good reason for it:

*takes deep breath* *takes another* I'm pregnant. With twins.

I've been told that I'm supposed to feel less exhausted Any Day Now, but in the meantime, I'm gonna spend a certain amount of what would otherwise be writing time wanting the world to go the hell away and let me sleep. Also, doctors' appointments. Lots of 'em. So . . . yeah, the long gaps in posting are probably going to continue. And in March, when the babies are due, I will either (a) just lurk for a while, or (b) annoy everyone at four a.m. with inane and semi-intelligible posts about how lack of sleep is making me reeeaally loopy, guys, so try this incoherent thought on for size.

In short, I'm not going to give up on writing, fandom, or any of that, but I'm definitely going to be less productive. (With the possible exception of two a.m. cracky double drabbles, which seem to require a unique balance of fatigue, wide-awake-ness, and just plain weird-brained-ness. For all I know, I'll start cranking those out by the bushel. I wouldn't bet money on it, though.) And there might be more unannounced hiatus . . . es . . . hiati? Whatever.

Anyhow, the point is, don't worry about me. I'm not dead. I'm not even sick. I'm just slightly queasy, very tired, and a major danger to the local sherbet supply.

Fic: Faces

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:16:17 GMT

Title: Faces
Rating: G
Word Count: 2162
Warnings: none
Characters: Amy Pond, Rory Williams, the Doctor (eleventh)
Summary: The Doctor explains regeneration to the Ponds.

Author's note: Brit-picking and beta-reading by persiflage.

The TARDIS console room looked exactly the way it always had, and the Doctor had changed back into his usual tweed.

The distracting thing was, before yesterday—before my wedding reception—I hadn't remembered any of it. And it wasn't that I had blank spots. I remembered, perfectly clearly, the utter lack of Alien Death Eyeballs two years ago. I remembered a stag party featuring a stripper named Lucy and absolutely no aliens in cakes. I remembered a Doctorless life.

I was glad to have him back, but it was a bit disorienting all the same.

"So last night," Amy said, "you said something about Egyptian gods and the Orient Express." She was prowling around the console after the Doctor, who was intently fiddling with bits and stuff. I was standing by the railing, keeping out of both of their ways.

The Doctor straightened up, fingers poised. "Yes," he said, "well, it isn't the actual Orient Express. This is the one in space." He did one of his goofier grins. (As far as the Doctor is concerned, in space adds about five bowties of coolness to anything. Do not ever try to argue with him about whether bowties are an appropriate measure of coolness. He will pout.)

"And the Egyptian god?" Amy asked.

"Didn't actually come from Egypt, but was worshipped as a goddess. There and other places. Hold that." That was a switch.

"Are we landing, then?"

"We get there," the Doctor said, "when we get there. Which shouldn't be long, but first, something important. Exceedingly important. Exceedingly, exceptionally, importantly important."

"What's that?" Amy said lightly, and then, catching a change in tone, "Doctor, what is it?"

The Doctor pivoted slowly to look at me.

The Doctor is a decent person. The Doctor is self-sacrificing, and kind, and brave. The Doctor is also the universe's single most powerful self-propelled trouble magnet, and it's impossible not to get a little twitchy when a living chaos attractor looks at you like that. "Me?" I said.

"Exactly."

And then he lunged across the space between us, very quickly, to seize me by the collar. "Never," he said, face four inches from mine, "ever! Try! To take a bullet for me."

His voice was very nearly a whisper.

I remembered it, of course. I remembered it vividly. The split second when I realized she was aiming at him, and then the next split second, when I realized that my body was already shoving him out of the way. An explosion of pain, a floaty feeling—shock, coming on fast and hard—

Unlike the first time the Doctor had grabbed me—the first time we met—I had brought my hands up between his arms, ready to knock them aside and fight if I had to. Which, for a few heartbeats, actually seemed possible. Most people do not come at you like that without violence on their minds—

The Doctor let go of me and smoothed down the front of my shirt.

I took a deep breath. "You realize that I didn't actually think—"

"I don't care what you thought. Neither of you take a bullet for me. It's not negotiable."

"I didn't mean to, I was just trying to shove you out of the way!"

"Don't."

"If someone points a gun at you, you expect me to stand there and let them shoot you?"

The Doctor cocked his head, considered this briefly, and then said, "Yes." And flashed me a very un-smile-like smile.

"What," Amy said, "are you going to try to tell us you're expendable, now?"

I think he was just going to say yes, again, but then he turned and saw the look on her face. She had let go of the switch, presumably in the certainty that he'd just told her to hold it so that she wouldn't interfere, and stalked toward him. "I just," Amy told the Doctor, very precisely and deliberately, "got you both back." Her face had the closed look that it gets when she's seriously upset. "I'm not losing either of you. Nobody is expendable."

"Amy," the Doctor said, much more gently.

"No. Not. Expendable." She poked him on the last two words. "Got it?"

He studied her for a moment, then turned away.

"Doctor." She said it like a warning.

"I don't—" He flapped his hands. "I don't talk about it much." He sat down on the jump seat, something that would probably only last fifteen seconds. "I don't usually talk about it at all," he went on, sounding a bit plaintive. "I always assume there'll be time. But then there isn't, and it gets all glowy and explode-y and hopefully, some day, ginger." He grimaced. "And after that, I have a very upset and possibly panicky human on my hands, and I tell myself that really, I ought to have mentioned it at some point, but it's all—sort of a bit too close to death."

"Er," I said, "absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Just for the record."

"And that's the other reason I don't mention it. Because you're human. Because you don't work that way. Because . . ." He looked at me. "I used to run them off, you know. People like you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Amy said. "People like him?" Her tone said, it had better not be anything bad, because only I get to insult my beloved Stupid. Which is a term of endearment when it comes from Amy—most of the time.

"People who start out nervous of aliens. Sometimes, people who I think will be nervous of aliens. Better to say, no, not her, she'll slow us down, than face the fallout when they work out that it's not just a funny pulse—that I'm different. I didn't want to watch them realize." He gave us both a slightly sad smile. "I suppose I just don't like seeing fear in peoples' eyes."

"What," Amy said, "are you on about?"

He held up a finger, got up from the jump seat, and went back to the console.

Whatever he did, it took quite a few button presses and didn't involve the usual controls. I was about to ask what he was doing when he punched one last button, with a flourish, and spun around just as a life-sized, translucent hologram appeared near the door.

He was an old man, with pure white hair combed straight back from a narrow face, and he was wearing a slight smile.

"Ooh!" Amy pointed at the hologram. "I've seen him before. I've seen him . . ." She frowned.

"Yes," the Doctor said, "you have." He sounded slightly smug, and straightened his bowtie. "He was in the Atraxi records. Or perhaps I should say, I was in the Atraxi records. That's me."

Amy looked from him to the hologram, and back.

"My first self," the Doctor added. The hologram changed to another man, middle-aged, with the single least stylish haircut in all time and space. The Doctor pointed at him. "Also me."

"He's short," Amy protested.

"Yes, I was. Height is variable. Also hair color, patience, food preferences—almost everything, really."

I waved my hand for attention. "Um . . . I'm lost."

"I'm a Time Lord. When I'm fatally injured—not dead, but obviously and immediately about to be—my body . . ." The short dark-haired man changed into a tall, distinguished-looking older gentleman with a prominent nose. He seemed to be wearing some sort of opera cape. "Does that," the Doctor finished. "Changes. Remakes itself."

I thought about that. I'm different—bit of an understatement, really. "You're immortal?"

He was right; it does spook me occasionally. Trying to imagine how different his mind must be. How alien he is on the inside.

"No," the Doctor said, "just durable. Difficult to kill." The hologram changed. "Oh, I liked being him. That was a fun one. Lasted a fair bit, too, which you can't say about all my incarnations. I might arguably have a bit of a peril-rich lifestyle." The man in question—the Doctor in question—was a tall man with protuberant eyes and curly electrocuted hair. I thought, peril rich lifestyle, nothing. How did he not kill himself tripping on that scarf?

The hologram changed again.

"That," the Doctor said, looking at the blond man a touch wistfully, "was one of the most patient people I've ever been. It's such a gift when one keeps falling in love with humanity, over and over again." The picture changed. "And that was one of my least patient selves. Also, a few people claimed that I'd come out the dead spit of a distant cousin whom I absolutely despised. Never saw the resemblance myself. But if there was anything to it, I really should have exploited the confusion to nick his hat." He sighed. "Oh, it was a glorious hat, Pond. I wouldn't even have to wear it. Just—have it. And stroke it. And call it Ermintrude." His voice went gooey and daft on the last word.

Amy was uninterested in hats. "What," she said, " are you wearing in that picture? And, for the love of retinas, why?"

The Doctor gave her the offended-dignity look that always makes me wonder if Time Lords evolved from cats.

"If your personality changes," I said slowly, "how do you know it's still you?"

The Doctor was silent for a moment. "That's a fascinating philosophical question."

"And?" The hologram Doctor had changed to a short man in an unbelievably naff jumper.

"Self," the Doctor said, "is—tricky. Slippery. I could tell you I have the same consciousness, that I can feel that I'm the same person who called myself 'me' before. Hell of a thing to try to prove, though, and you get into the knotty philosophical question of whether it actually means anything to people on the outside. A better answer is . . . not everything changes. There are things that are fundamentally, essentially me. A core. Patience, impulsiveness, how much I insist on planning ahead—" The holographic Doctor changed to a long-haired man. I noticed Amy straightening a little and regarding him with great interest. "That," the Doctor went on, "is personality, yes, or part of it, but somewhere underneath personality is the person. Not a distinction that you lot generally have to make, but it was very real to us. Personality is the atmosphere; person is the planet." He paused again, then added more quietly, "That's the theory."

The hologram Doctor switched to an extremely short-haired man. Amy had stopped looking, though. She was watching the Doctor, with concern. "So, what? It isn't true?"

The Doctor had one of those looks that make you remember that he's lived centuries. "There is one problem with the whole thing."

"What?"

The hologram Doctor became a man with spiky dark hair and a narrow face, fairly youthful, but not as young as he looked at present. "Nobody," the Doctor said quietly, "gets to know what their core looks like. Not directly. You have to deduce your own existence from the shadows you cast, the things you do." He considered this. "Same as everyone else in the universe, I suppose, only perhaps just a tiny bit moreso."

The progression of images had stopped. The Doctor flicked a switch, and the hologram disappeared.

"It's called regeneration," he said. "It's desperate, painful—bit shattering, actually—and someday, it'll run out on me. But it isn't death. So, yes. If someone is pointing a gun at me, you don't get in the way. If I get shot, the odds are quite good that I'll explode a bit, get a new face, possibly have interesting cravings and a general taste bud insurgency and fish custard, and then go on to be brilliant as usual. Whereas you two stand a good chance of dying, and that's unacceptable. I won't have it. Not on my TARDIS." Very, very softly, "Please."

The please got to me, just a little. It was a small word, as if he hadn't even intended to say it. "Doctor," I said, "it's all right. We're not going anywhere." He looked at me, and it was the sort of look you want to try to make all right, even though you have no idea what to say or do. "I solemnly swear not to die on you, Doctor. Cross my heart."

His mouth twitched. "I will hold you to that, you know."

~~~~~~~~

As it happened, I spent about half my time on the Space Orient Express presumed dead because of how the cars got uncoupled. When we were all together again, Amy punched me in the shoulder, snogged me breathless, informed me that if I ever did that to her again she'd knock my stupid block off, and snogged me again.

The Doctor didn't actually say anything. But when he saw that I was still alive, his face looked like a sunrise.

________________________________________________________________________________________________
A note: the bit about the hat called Ermintrude is an extremely in-jokey thing based on bits of "Arc of Infinity;" feel free to skip the explanation if you don't care for show trivia. Basically, this is the Time Lord I mentioned, holding Ermintrude the hat. This, on the other hand, is the sixth Doctor, who I firmly believe would deny any trace of resemblance whatsoever, thank you very much, if you don't mind. The name Ermintrude came from the commentary track to "Arc of Infinity," where Colin Baker spends most of his time making fun of the hat. This includes making chicken noises whenever it appears onscreen.

Show history to the side, it is a completely ridiculous piece of headgear, so I decided that it would be perfectly in-character for the eleventh Doctor to decide he Wants One. If anyone knows (or wants to write) crackfic about Eleven somehow contacting Six and trying to talk him into stealing Maxil's hat, pleeeeaase drop me a link.

Outdoor wildlife belongs outdoors

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:24:41 GMT

SLUGS DO NOT BELONG ON MY TOILET SEAT NO BAD WRONG WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!

(For those readers worried about the critter, my husband humanely relocated said slimy back where it belongs, namely outside and NOT IN MY BATHROOM. Which still leaves the mystery of how they're getting in . . . *scary music*)

Fic: A Problem of Background

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 21:42:28 GMT

Title: A Problem of Background
Rating: R
Word Count: 5118
Warnings: lots. The original character's backstory contains (highlight for spoilers) sexual abuse, physical abuse, attempted murder, and slavery. Note that the OC is a child.
Characters: Martha Jones, the Doctor (eleventh), original companion
Summary: The Doctor needs Martha's advice about a new companion. Betaed by Persiflage and fourzoas, who I'm very grateful to.

Author's note: Okay, this . . . this sprung out of a lot of inchoate thoughts about Doctor Who, and race, and companions we won't get to see on the screen any time soon even though I'd like to see some people from different eras. I'm not altogether sure about the result. For this story, even more than any other I've posted, I need people to write and tell me where and whether I've failed. Seriously: it's important to me, and I'd really appreciate it. Can't promise I'll take the fic down, unless several people advise me to, but if there's a problem, I really want to know.

Martha Jones came home to find a strange man in her kitchen and the TARDIS completely blocking access to the fridge.

The second fact explained the first. She let out her breath slowly, trying to disperse the inevitable, someone-in-my-house, going-to-kill-me adrenaline jolt. Although if the TARDIS was here, she might end up running for her life anyway. She said, "Where's—"

The man turned around, hiding a bit of her toaster behind his back.

He looked young. Or rather, he should have looked young. His face was maybe twenty-six or so. The personality animating it—wasn't. The smile he gave her was too complicated, layered with guilt and sympathetic pain underneath recognition and sheer joy to see her, and his eyes—weren't dark brown, which was disorienting, but they had that hint of endlessness that she remembered.

"Hello," the Doctor said. "Martha Jones."

"Oh," Martha said.

He blinked at her, then lifted his hand to his own cheek. "Oh, right, yes. New face, almost forgot. It's been quite a while, my time."

"I—" Am never going to see him again, fought with but you're looking at him, you know that, don't be silly. The irrational part of her cut back with, no, I meant the real Doctor, and Martha buried that thought as deeply as she could. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair, and it would hurt him. She shook her head. "Sorry. I realized it could happen, but it's still disorienting. To me." Asking how the Time Lords had coped with this sort of thing would be cruel at best. "Seriously, though, I'm glad to see you. Is something going to try to eat me in the next five minutes, or do you have time for tea? You do still like tea . . ." Was she babbling? She was babbling. Martha closed her mouth.

"With milk and sugar and biscuits. I have a sweet tooth again!" He gave her a giddy grin, the sort it was almost impossible not to smile back at even if you were trying to be serious. "And, no. No invasion. There were some Yrtrathins at the petrol station on the corner, but they were just lost scientists. Looking into the possibility of Yrtra-forming Titan, sent an away team to see why this planet was so noisy, radio . . . ish . . . ly speaking . . ." The last incarnation had talked even faster when he lost control of his sentences. This one waved his hands. And then noticed that he was still holding some essential component of her kitchen appliances, and put it in his pocket with the furtive air of a man who wanted everyone to know he absolutely wasn't doing anything furtive. "And they hit orbital detritus. One of these days you lot have to get up there with a giant broom. Well, I say broom. It's actually more like a net—anyway, I gave them a lift back to their survey ship, and I may now possibly be banned from all Shell stations in Great Britain, but much as I hate to disappoint the manager, I don't actually see that affecting my lifestyle. No, I—" He turned away abruptly, to fiddle with one of her drawers, and the animation drained out of his voice. "Came to ask a favor."

And was feeling guilty about it, Martha realized. Or—no. Feeling guilty about her, about all the tangled feelings and shared traumas between the two of them. And, knowing the Doctor, quite possibly beating himself up about all the wrong things, neglecting the ones that had actually been largely his fault. She made her voice deliberately softer. "What do you need?"

"It's not for me. It's for—I picked up a friend, recently, a new companion, and I wanted someone to have a look at her. Medically. Given her life, she hasn't had much opportunity—well, you'll see. If you're willing to do it. You don't have to."

All right, that was—strange. The Doctor was perfectly capable of handling medical issues himself, and he'd never thought to ask if Martha had a weak heart or some other invisible handicap before he invited her into his life, with all its running and monsters. Either he assumed that she was bright enough to bring it up on her own, or it honestly hadn't occurred to him that there might be a problem. There was more going on here, he'd spotted something that worried him, and he wanted her opinion because—because, why?

"All right," Martha said. "Where is she?"

He nodded toward the TARDIS.

~~~~~~~~

He'd changed the console room entirely, and that was another small shock. The TARDIS Martha remembered was all curves, a mysterious, organic-feeling place. This one was full of glass. If she'd been stepping on board for the first time, Martha thought she would have found it beautiful, even marvelous. As it was, it felt like a punch directly to the memory. What was this new, hard, cold place, and where had her TARDIS gone?

The hum was the same, at least, and so was the fresh, slightly stormy smell of the air. She followed the Doctor down the usual tangle of corridors.

They came out in the wardrobe room. Room, in Martha's estimation, had always been a bit of a misnomer; it was more like a clothing palace. A disorganized clothing palace. Victorian dresses hung side by side with sequined catsuits from who-knew-when, a twenty-foot scarf wound along the top of a rack like some sort of lazy jungle snake—if there was a rhyme or reason, Martha had never been able to work it out.

There was a rustle, and a little girl emerged from underneath one of the clothing racks.

She was perhaps ten, and black, with untrimmed, tight-curling hair. She was wearing a blue dress that involved more ruffles and lace than actual dress, a bright pink fur coat (which almost certainly wasn't actual fur) so long it dragged on the floor behind her, striped knee-high socks, and gold-sequined shoes that threw tiny rainbows in all directions. She had also found a Stetson that was several sizes too big for her, so that she had to push it back even to see. She glanced at Martha and then focused exclusively on the Doctor, a hard look that fell just short of being a glare. "You said," the child told the Doctor, "I could pick anything in the room. Anything."

What was the Doctor thinking, having a child on board the TARDIS? The sort of things he stumbled into—the sort of things that were actively hunting him, or would have been if there had been any way of telling where he'd turn up next—

Was he hoping Martha would discourage the girl? The Doctor had a bad habit of never actually saying the important things, but she hadn't thought he was that much of a coward.

"Don't be ridiculous," the Doctor said, and the girl's expression went even harder. She wasn't a particularly pretty child, and the pugnacious look emphasized it. "That hat's too big for you," he went on, and plucked it off of her. "It'll swallow your head." He conjured a child-sized Stetson from somewhere behind the nearest clothing rack and placed it neatly on top of her curls, putting the adult hat on his own head with his free hand. "Try this."

The girl went from resentful to delighted in a single astonished instant, and beamed. The Doctor beamed back—millennium-old power and little girl, in perfect and absolute harmony, at least for the moment. "Stetsons," the Doctor said, with the air of someone delivering the wisdom of the ages, "are cool."

The girl grinned. "Stetsons are cool," she echoed. She sounded American and extremely Southern, with a bit of a Jamaican lilt. She also sounded like she wasn't entirely sure what the Doctor had just said, but was willing to take it as revealed truth of the universe anyway.

He couldn't bring her along. He couldn't. Even without the danger, the Doctor was such a force—the girl idolized him already, Martha could tell, and she wasn't old enough to be able to stand up to him, and—and it just wouldn't work. "Doctor," she began.

"Right! Deborah, this is Doctor Martha Jones. Martha, Deborah."

Deborah looked at Martha. "She ain't a doctor," the girl said, with absolute certainty.

"Yes, I am. Want me to prove it?" Of course, naming bones wouldn't impress someone who was too young to know that bones had names.

"No, you ain't. How'd—"

"Deborah," the Doctor said. It got instant, respectful silence. "'Isn't,'" the Doctor corrected. "Remember what I said about words. And yes, she is. Go with her to the sickbay, do what she says, and tell her what she wants to know. I'll be in the console room when you're done." He touched the brim of his hat and left.

Once again, that was—odd. Perhaps Martha just hadn't adjusted to the Doctor's new face—no, it was more than his face. His personality had altered, and she wasn't sure how much. He hadn't mentioned personality changes when he'd described regeneration to her . . . of course, he had a way of skimming over things, especially when talking about Time Lords, on the rare occasions when he actually did talk about them . . .

Deborah was studying her. "How'd you get to be a doctor?" she challenged.

"I studied. I went to school, I did an internship—that's where you learn by helping at a hospital—and I passed my exams."

Deborah followed her out into the hall willingly enough, which was a relief. Martha wasn't sure what she'd do if the kid really dug in her heels. "Yeah, but—who'd let you?"

"You're from before the nineteen fifties, aren't you?"

Deborah frowned. "What're those?"

Martha was somewhat floored. "They're a time. About sixty years ago—the Doctor did tell you that the TARDIS travels in time, didn't he?"

"'Course." Scorn. "Time And Relative De—Dimensions in Space."

"Right." The sickbay presented itself as the first room on the left, door open invitingly. Martha steered Deborah inside. "How long have you been traveling with the Doctor?"

"Just since yesterday." Deborah plunked herself down on one of the sickbay's narrow beds and looked at Martha expectantly, as if to say, you think you're so hot? Do doctor stuff.

The sickbay was the same as Martha remembered. She found a stethoscope and an earlight in the first drawer she tried. "Do you know what year you were born in?"

"The year the storm split the big live oak in half. Makes me two years younger than Sam. Except you don't know who that is. I ain't—izz unt—gonna see anyone from home. Maybe not ever."

She sounded pensive, but not overwhelmed by the thought. She had a distinctive way of pronouncing gonna, swallowing the first vowel and making it very nearly gwnna. Martha couldn't place it; she thought it might be from somewhere in the Caribbean, but she was hardly a linguist.

"It's I'm not," Martha said, "or I am not, actually. You know—" She was going to say, you know the Doctor will take you anywhere you want to go, but she didn't know what had happened there. Deborah didn't have to be from the past, after all. Some destroyed colony planet—there was every possibility the child couldn't go back.

She needed more information. And her best source of it had taken himself off, Stetson and all. "Could you take off your hat, Deborah? Just for a moment. I'm going to use this to look in your ear. It'll probably tickle a little, but it won't hurt."

Deborah allowed this, with reluctance. She squinched up her face when Martha used the earlight, but didn't make a single sound of protest.

Her right ear was fine, if somewhat dirty, but there was a bumpy rash behind it. Bug bites, Martha thought; Deborah had head lice, or had done in the recent past. She checked the girl's hair, but saw no nits. "Does your head itch a lot?"

"Not now. I had a bath last night. And I washed my hair."

"Good for y—" Martha pushed back Deborah's hair to look at her other ear, and stopped. "Oh, sweetie. How'd this happen?"

Quite a lot of her left ear was missing. Raggedly ripped away, from the look of it. The lobe was still there, and the ear canal didn't look damaged, but whatever it was had gone right through the cartilage.

"Master Richard cut it off," Deborah said casually.

Martha went still.

"First he put his pizzle in my mouth, but I ain't drinking no piss, not ever, so I bit it. And then he grabbed me by the ear, and I think he wanted to slit my throat only that would get him in trouble with the old master, so he sawed my ear off instead. 'Cause it there, I guess. And I screamed and screamed, but I never said I sorry, 'cause I ain't. And I ain't gonna lie, not for him, not for anyone." She sounded stubbornly proud of it. "They say," Deborah added happily, "that his thing swole up like a bullfrog and turned purple."

"Oh, I hope it did," Martha said fervently. "I really do. You did exactly right, Deborah, and never let anyone tell you differently." She took a deep breath, then let it out. "So—you grew up on a cotton plantation?"

She got another one of Deborah's you are an idiot looks. "'Course not. Indigo."

At least it wasn't sugar cane. "And the Doctor rescued you."

Deborah nodded emphatically. "They had the rope around my neck and everything."

"What? But you're ten!"

Deborah glared. "I'm twelve," she said, and then added reluctantly, "I think. Anyway, they thought I killed him. Everyone knew Master Richard had it in for me, and they all know I hated him—and Cooper said I a sullen little witch, I always staring at people like I could murder them. And it's true, I might've killed Master Richard if I could've, but if I went around killing people I'd put a rock on them and sink them in the mill pond, not leave them there with all their pieces took out. And I wouldn't've killed old George, who never did me a lick of harm, and I would've got Cooper. Cooper was gonna do the hanging."

She lowered her voice and leaned forward. "Only then, there the Doctor. And the Doctor starts talking to him, all quiet-like, and Cooper starts backing away. Cooper never runs from nothing—they say he killed a man once, just for saying that whipping a lame horse ain't gonna do no good. And he big, he strong, but he backing up—you could tell just by looking at his face that he scared, and he barely believes it himself because he ain't never scared—and then he puts his hands over his ears and starts screaming."

From the sound of her voice, Deborah had been more than a little fearful herself. Martha didn't blame her one bit. A quietly enraged Doctor, at close range—most nightmares were made of milder stuff. "Then," Deborah went on, "the Doctor came over, and he untied me, and he nice." And that single fact had won him utter, infinite loyalty. "He asked me my name, and I said Debbie, only he started calling me Deborah like I a grown-up or a lady. He told me to stick with him until he found the thing doing the killing. He saved me from it, too, and then I helped him right back. 'Cause I know the whole kitchen, and we had to kill it with salt, 'cause it didn't have no skin, just insides it stole from people. And salt made it—de—run out of water—"

"Dehydrate," Martha supplied. "It sounds terrifying."

Deborah nodded vigorously. "But I didn't scream."

"I would've," Martha said, even though she wasn't sure of it. Screaming, after all, took oxygen that could be used for running. Lots of running. Lots of lovely, fast running. "You're very brave. So, after that, the Doctor asked you if you wanted to come with him?"

"He said," Deborah said, in hushed tones, "that if I didn't want to come, he'd take me to Canada."

Freeing her in one stroke, Martha realized. And Deborah knew it too; she made the word sound somewhere between Disneyland and Heaven.

"I asked him if he could teach me what he'd done to Cooper. He looked at me all frozen, and I scared he gonna get angry, but he asked me what I'd use it for. And I said I'd go to all the overseers and scare 'em until they didn't dare pick up a whip, and then I'd go to all the masters like Master Richard, and then all the ladies who order folk whipped for things that ain't their fault, like the water not being hot enough when they the ones who said they wanted it fast."

"What did he say?" Martha asked, fascinated.

Deborah sighed. "He said he couldn't teach me exactly. He said if he didn't speak Chinese already, he could listen for just a little while and understand it even if he didn't have the TARDIS, because words go deep down inside him and he hears patterns that nobody else can. That a part of how he could do it, and he said the other part that he's seen things he cain't tell nobody, not and leave them all right afterward. But he said that doesn't mean I cain't learn how to use words—doesn't mean they ain't powerful for me, too. He said I a scrapper, anyone can tell it just by looking at me, but there two ways to fight evil. You can fight the folks who do it, or you can fight the ideas that make it. He said they both important, but if I want to learn which to fight when, he'd take me along and show me what he can."

~~~~~~~~

The rest of the examination went smoothly, more or less. Deborah wanted an explanation of the stethoscope, and Martha let her listen through it. She pronounced the sounds, "just like what you hear underwater in the mill pond," but seemed somewhat impressed. She peppered Martha with a rapid-fire series of questions, many of them focused on who on Earth had let Martha become a doctor. She accepted the fact that she'd traveled more than two hundred years, and she could easily envision a world where some other group had become the slaves; the notion of no slaves at all required a bit more mental wrestling. Having established that she'd arrived in an alien place indeed, Deborah set about determining what other common concepts were missing. Did they have horses? All right, but if the horses didn't pull carts anymore, what animal did? And if someone needed to fetch Martha for an urgent house call (her status having been tentatively accepted), what would they ride to do it?

Eventually, Martha told Deborah that it would be easier if they just went outside for a bit and she could see for herself. It was, she added, early June, so the pink fur coat wouldn't be needed—Deborah clutched it protectively—and if she left it in her room, nobody would take it away or even touch it. Deborah seemed intensely skeptical of this concept, but didn't comment.

When Martha got to the console room, the Doctor was tinkering, but with the air that meant sitting still is my Kryptonite, not there is a problem I have to fix. "I," Martha said, "could just about slap you right now."

A quick, sad flicker of a smile. "Terrifying, isn't she."

Missing the point on purpose. Just like he used to do. "You let me walk into that blind. What if I'd tried to talk her into taking that dress off without realizing it was the first one she'd ever owned, or that she'd been—" She shouldn't assume that Deborah had told the Doctor about her molestation. "Whipped," Martha substituted. "The poor kid's been traumatized six ways from Sunday—"

She stopped. The Doctor was looking at her.

The Doctor never looked at her. Not really. Oh, he had pointed his eyes in her direction often enough, but sometimes you could practically feel his mental flinch, as if her mere presence stung. And then he'd start babbling about something, anything, to distract himself—lost moons, ice pyramids, little shops with funny little snow globes and had he ever told her he accidentally invented snow globes—and on, and on, a shifting, sparkling, kaleidoscopic curtain woven of pure language. Perhaps to hide her from him, perhaps to hide him from her, Martha had never been sure—but either way, a barrier.

Only right now, it was gone. There was a time when Martha would have given years off her life to get him to actually see her. She felt another pang; why couldn't this be her Doctor, looking at her like that, ages ago?

Foolish thought. She was over him, she was done chasing heartbreak and trying to heal it by pouring Martha Jones into the emptiness. Do that too much and you'd run out of yourself.

"Sometimes," the Doctor said, "I miss things."

And Martha blinked, her train of thought derailed. "What? What kind of things?"

"Things things. Staring-me-in-the-face things. Normal, everyday—" He waved his hands, a bit helplessly, but couldn't seem to avoid the next word. "Human things." He looked away. "I didn't realize how it would be," he said. "For you."

For a moment, Martha thought he meant the Year that Never Was. She drew breath to tell him that it hadn't been his fault, they'd been on their third or fourth backup plan, and besides, he hadn't exactly spent the Year living on caviar himself—and then she realized. "Nineteen thirteen. The Farringham School for Boys."

He nodded. "You lot—you use each other for mirrors. All the time, and not just for the complicated stuff; for little things. Other human opinions are like reflections to you, and talking to someone who has it wrong—must be like looking into a funhouse mirror when you can't get a glimpse of your own body. And don't have proprioception. And—actually, I don't imagine it's very much like that at all, but it's hard for me to say, even after nineteen thirteen. Living and working with people who saw you as so much less, so much smaller than Martha Jones—I understand enough to realize I don't know the strain that put on you." The Doctor sat down on the jumpseat and gave her a brief smile, an expression like a man who has a large knife sticking out of him but wants his friends to know that it's not a problem at all, really. "I grew up knowing that there were spacefaring civilizations that worshipped individual Time Lords as gods. I grew up being told that sort of thing was unspeakably gauche, that it was beneath us. There are beings living in some suns who are less alien to me than Deborah's childhood."

Martha forgot to breathe for an instant. The Doctor talking about his background, his childhood, without his companion going on strike or a world-shattering crisis to make it happen—

He wasn't okay, not by a long shot. It still hurt, and it always would. But at least the wound wasn't infected. "How long has it been?" she said quietly. "For you."

This time, the smile said, yes, I know why you're asking. "Two centuries."

She shook her head, not in disbelief but mild wonder. "You're over a thousand, now."

He grimaced. "Maybe. A bit. It's a gray area. I haven't decided if I'm eleven hundred and three and a large number of days, or nine hundred ten and a very, very large number of days. Humans go all wobbly over four-digit numbers, and anyway, it's complicated."

It's complicated, Martha thought, was very possibly Time Lord for I have been lying about my age for much, much longer than I'm ever going to admit. She set that question, intriguing as it was, aside, and sat down on the jump seat beside him. "You didn't need me for my medical opinion." He'd needed her because he came from the most privileged background in the entire universe, and god, that wasn't hyperbole at all. "You wanted—" She shook her head. "I'm honestly not sure how much I can tell you."

This Doctor waited for her to gather his thoughts. He had changed.

"I've encountered prejudice. Long before I went to nineteen thirteen with you. There's outright discrimination, there's odd things like people telling me that Martha isn't a proper black name, and there's things you just have to be aware of—Tish and I had a very tense conversation with our mother when we started straightening our hair—" The Doctor looked blank, and Martha realized that unless he'd had a black regeneration at some point, he would never, ever have encountered the entire fraught hair-politics snarl in its natural environment. "Never mind. It's complicated. Here's the thing, though: in my world, even racists get stroppy when people call them racist. Deborah comes from a place where those ideas are accepted by practically everyone—where respected academics argue about why 'Negros' are inferior, not whether. And even after nineteen thirteen, I can't imagine what it's like to be born into that. Are you sure you want my advice?"

"Always."

Martha took a deep breath. "This scares me," she admitted. "Her, in your life. And it isn't just her age. I'm worried that she'll start worshipping you. And since she's never actually been exposed to the concept of human rights—"

"You're thinking," the Doctor said quietly, "that sometimes, I need stopping."

"I think she might not even tell you when something's wrong. With her. And I also think that humans aren't the only people who depend on feedback."

A quick smile. "True."

But he wasn't going to budge on taking her with him, was that it?

Fair enough. Martha had to admit, it would be a hell of a challenge finding a place where Deborah would actually fit. "I think," she said, "I'm not sure, but I think the key to everything is just to show her. I assume you're not willing to take her back to nineteenth century Canada—"

"Perhaps someday. If she decides that's the right time and place and cause. I can't stop her from risking her life on the Underground Railroad—well, I could, but she wouldn't thank me. But at the moment, she doesn't have the tools she'd need, and I refuse to put her back like that. I'm not teaching her standard English to erase that lovely Gullah accent; it's hers. I'm teaching her because in her native time, standard English is the language of those in authority. Always useful to know, words of power."

Martha nodded. "You'll have to teach her to read, too. That'll help. In a funny way, she's almost—sheltered isn't the word for it, not with the sort of brutality she's faced, but she grew up in a bubble all the same. She needs to see people, all sorts of people, interacting; she needs to see that the rules she grew up with are local aberrations, not universal constants. Normally, I'd say she needs therapy for what she's been through, but—"

"As far as Deborah is concerned," the Doctor said, "she's not a victim. She's the moral victor of everything she's been through, and that's the only sort of victory that counts—the only victory she allows to count, because it's the only sort she ever thought she'd get. Wouldn't hurt her to talk, but she'd spit on pity."

"I was going to say," Martha admitted, "who'd believe her?" Yes, he'd understand people who were highly allergic to pity, wouldn't he? "She needs—she needs some idea of what normal is. And—" Martha hesitated. "I'm seriously not sure if the TARDIS is the place for her to get that. But I know I can't talk you into sending her somewhere else. Hell, I don't even know if I'd be right. So just—try not to make it an endless string of crises. Take a rest once in a while. If you land somewhere and nothing goes unspeakably wrong, stick around and let her adjust. Give her some sense of stability, a feeling that things won't always blow up underneath her."

She wouldn't have even asked her Doctor for something like that. He wouldn't have been able to give it. But this incarnation—felt a little less like he was burning from the inside out.

Martha hoped it meant he'd found a little bit of peace, some balance, and not a new way of hiding from himself. But knowing the Doctor, it was probably a complicated amalgam of the two.

"Still," Martha concluded, "keep in mind, she's practically an alien to me, too."

The Doctor smiled slightly. "A bit less," he said, "now that she knows you're possible. Isn't that right, Deborah?"

Martha looked up.

Deborah had shed the coat, but she was still wearing that appalling confection of a dress and her sparkly shoes. And the Stetson, of course. "I didn't get half of what y'all talking about," Deborah admitted, and thumped down the glass stairs, looking at the Doctor. "You said," she accused, "that Doctor Jones your doctor, and you'd trust him with the whole wide world. But Doctor Jones her."

"Yes, Deborah," the Doctor said softly. "She is."

"And—you ain't lying."

"No. I'm not."

Martha had never seen someone visibly rewrite their entire mental universe before.

"Can we go out? I want to see a car. And London. And England. And—" And every single unfamiliar noun Martha had used in her conversation with Deborah, she realized, and oh sweet Jesus, if this was how the Doctor meant to deal with Deborah's hero worship—by getting her to imprint on Martha instead—she was going to throttle him. At the same time, she had to admire how smoothly he had done it. Never telling Deborah that she needed a role model, just presenting Martha and letting the child work out that she had both expertise and respect.

"I think it's a good idea," Martha said. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"How long since you've been to the seaside?"

In which Lyric has been chasing her tail

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 21:45:19 GMT

Sooo . . . I'm sitting on a couple of dilemmas, here. Actually, it might be one dilemma in two different forms.

First, background. I am a white woman. I am perfectly aware that I am quite privileged. When I was five, a neighbor lady tried to convince all the other mothers that I was a vicious, violent, antisocial creature—a conclusion she came to as a result of ethnic issues, actually. (I'm half Ukrainian, with a distinctive, Slavic last name. She was Jewish.) She didn't manage to sell the idea, to anyone; if I were black, especially a black boy, I bet she would've gotten some folks on her side. So, you know, dodging harmful labels, getting correctly diagnosed rather than dismissed as lazy—yeah. Privilege: it's like +1 immunity from assholes. It won't always protect you, but it sure helps with a saving throw here and there.

So, I realize that when it comes to racial issues, I'm not particularly qualified to write about 'em. At the same time . . . it seems disingenuous not to write about them. Bad things happen. Fiction doesn't have to be real, but it had better be true. Etc.

I have a fic—an original companion fic, which I realize will send some people screaming for the hills already—which deals with some racial issues. I haven't posted it, or even sent it to my beta. This is partly because I'm afraid of Fail, of course—who isn't?—but also because I'm not even sure I should be writing stuff like this even if I don't fail. These aren't my issues, this isn't a battle I've ever had to fight; is it really my place?

Same sort of thing with my other dilemma. I've got this thing on my hard drive—it started out as a musing on metafiction, turned into a somewhat derivative superhero story with screwy metafictional elements in the background. I'm thinking about making a blog somewhere that I can put up a tip jar and posting it chapter by chapter, because (a) it may be derivative but it's kind of fun, and people might enjoy it, and (b) money. Money is nice. It buys caffeinated beverages.

Thing is, the hero is a young black man. And what's worse (possibly) is that he only came out that way through sheer chance. I was brainstorming, and I wandered over to mongabay to check and see if "Normal" was a surname—just because it would be rather ironic for someone trying to deal with the universe I was creating. According to census data, "Normil" is a name—demographically, eighty percent African-American. And, all the sudden, in my head—you know how characters sometimes just happen? Well . . . one did. Rick Normil, professional photographer and amateur weirdness epicenter, snarky and easygoing, one-stop source for all your Normil pun needs. He has a tendency to wear lilac or pink dress shirts. If he was ever mocked for non-macho color preferences, his response would be that (a) he has photographed a live T-Rex, so (b) your argument is invalid. Once I had a name and a face, he started coalescing in my head, you know?

And, again—I'm not sure if I should write about him. I'm not sure it's my place. At the same time, it feels just wrong to restrict my protagonists to people I share a background with. I'm never going to write a whitewashed world. I made that decision a long time ago.

So I submit my question to the Great Wisdom of the Internet, or at least a bunch of cool folks on Livejournal. What should I do about protagonists from a different racial or ethnic background for myself? Post? Not post? Find a privilege beta, if such a thing exists? (And if so, how? It feels like asking a perfect stranger to see if you've got a boil on your butt.) Get bent? Get drunk? Run in circles, scream and shout?

Actually, I'd prefer not to do that last one, if it's all the same to you guys. I feel like I've been going in circles for a while, on this.

I Am Lousy at Committments, but . . .

Sat, 26 May 2012 03:52:55 GMT

I really want to see this happen, so I think I'll join the cheerleading squad. Reposted from ljgeoff:

Attention Doctor Who Ficcers!

Okay, here's the deal:

I'm looking for people who are interested in being part of a group project. I've mentioned this before, but I really want to get serious with it. At the same time, I want to give it time to come together; I'm not interested in a rush job.

We're going to write an EPIC DOCTOR WHO FIC. I'm looking for ten to twenty writers who can commit to one 4000-6000 chapter.

The fic will be based on A Partial Map of Your TARDIS (Subject to Change), created by alibi_factory.

This fic will be a romp through the TARDIS. Up for grabs is not only the map, but anyone who ever was/is/will walk through the doors of the TARDIS. Any Doctor, any companion, any visiting villain. Cannon will include not only the series, but the 8th Doctor movie, the Big Finish audios and the books.

Okay -- now here's where it gets really fun:

I want to present this as a hyper-linked work. You can link your work to music or other sound clips, vids, art, to other stories -- whatever works. Be experimental and fun with it.

Then we're gonna give it it's own LJ/DW page.

So who's with me? Come on! Dooooo iiiiiit! When we have a core group, we'll brainstorm on the over-arching story line, sketch out what we need to accomplish for our chapters and then start putting it all together.

Finally -- PIMP THIS OUT TO EVERY FICCER YOU KNOW. Please! Help me get the word out.

EDIT: I'm going to create a filter for this. If you want to be in on the project, this is where you pipe up. THIS DOES NOT BIND YOU TO DOING A CHAPTER. Maybe you'll do some meta, or beta, or just cheer us on. Or maybe you'll write such an amazing fic that we will all be in awe. It's all good.