There was ice this morning. Ice. Brrrrrrrrrrr...

[clocketpatch]

Because being egotistic is good clean fun for the entire family, I've stole this memeage from jjpor :

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 500 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

www.whofic.com/viewuser.php


... if you really want to you can grab one of the ones on my lj that hasn't made its way over there yet. But beware, for they are not organized at all.

Comments

Damned word limit strikes again!

[clocketpatch]

Rose smiled and hugged him and bounced out of the console room. The Doctor leaned heavily against a support strut. While Rose had been reading his mind had been playing tricks, replacing Rose with another blond, a natural one; a smaller woman with more delicate features and an aristocratic bearing.


He always did go for the blondes…


The face of a princess. The face of a ghost.


Hmmm… I think I might have overdone it a bit with that sentence.


He remembered the feel of her hand in his. The flitting smell of Paris in springtime. The pride in his heart, and the sorrow when she disappeared into E-space, the joy when she came back… He remembered hiding in the back balconies of the Panoptican when she accepted the presidential sash. A petit form bowed down by purple velvet, ideals, and a sparkling smile staring down a million years of stagnation and corruption. She had refused to wear a collar since she was a free agent and a new beginning. Never had he been so proud of her.


Yes, I’m going with the spin-off canon that Romana came back and became Lady President. I think I recall seeing somewhere that RTD confirmed this; he also said something along the lines of “And she totally started the war yo” which annoyed me. Because if anyone started that war, it was Four making the Daleks aware of the Time Lords but not destroying them, and then waiting until he was Seven and the Daleks were spread across half the universe to BLOW UP THEIR PLANET and make them angry. Ahem (and yes, I did grab most of my Dalek canon from your fics JJ, it’s such tasty fodder to the thoughts).

Also, I need to find reference to the word I’m putting in Rusty’s mouth. Apologies to him if I’m just quoting y imagination.

His Romana.


He’s rather possessive of his companions…


He remembered her cracking voice over the TARDIS phone telling him that all was lost and he must be the one to pay. Telling him with brave words that everything withered in the end. That was life. He shouldn't be afraid - she always knew when he was lying.

And then static had overtaken the line and she had gone. Forever.

Damn, this bit was hard writing. The actual words flew out pretty quick, but the meaning behind them hit hard a second later. It’s funny that you picked this one, and lost_spookpicked the other, because both come from my “Doctor/Romana, end of the Time War’ period of writing. I think there are one or two others with the same basic message. That moment right there is what the Doctor heard when he held the Key to Time.

That right there is why Nine is so harsh to Cassandra, and where he got the words to damn her. The words that Ten keeps repeating. That he keeps trying to reaffirm in some feeble justification that everything’s okay, and he’s fine.


But still alive in his memories, gold as ever. The present came back into focus slowly. The memories slow to loose their grip. The Doctor raised his eyes to where the phantom had stood. He could hear Rose humming and laughing in the hall, and he swore that he would never let her go without telling her how much he cared.


I had to make it a bit lighter after that, to bring back the thing that the Doctor nearly forgot; maybe everything withers, and everything dies, and maybe nothing gold can stay, but there will be tomorrow, another day, and always the memories of what’s passed.

That said, I’m not sure this is the ending I’d put on if I wrote it now. This was published WAY before Journey’s End aired. It was meant to be a bittersweet comment on how the Doctor always forgets to do that one little thing, even though he thinks it, and feels it. He has now though, I guess that’s one of the few good things that came out of the whole Handy debacle. *shudders yet gain at the thought of Rose and Handy tongue*

Urgh, that is one mental image that all the brain bleach in the world cannot erase.

But moving on, I hope you enjoyed the commentary, because I’m really quite fond of this fic. I like the world, and the way it turned out, even if the actual resolution was a bit slapdash.

Re: Damned word limit strikes again!

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for taking the time to do such a detailed and considered commentary (instead of just spewing out a load of random waffle like I did! ;D). I really like this fic, as I think I said when I first read it; the alien world and its inhabitants and the nature of the threat are both really well-thought-out, and the bit where Four is all possessed and naked and gone-native is a little bit terrifying, to be honest. But the clincher for me was this ending part, it hit me hard, sappy Romana-shipper that I am, and as I've said before led me directly to put some of my own thoughts about the Time War etc. into writing (for which I am very grateful to you!)

And if you think about it (to go off on a tangent), the idea of the Doctor both starting and ending the Time War (and of things like Genesis and Resurrection and Remembrance actually being Time War stories even if nobody realised it at the time!) is just too perfect; sorry RTD, but it's true! ;D

Re: Damned word limit strikes again!

[clocketpatch]

Oh, there be waffle in there. Lovely 3AM unspellchecked waffle...

Naked Four is terrifying under any circumstance.