I am, incidentally, not dead. I'm perfectly fine, reading everything on my friends page-- I just haven't had much to post about. Sorry.

I've finally managed to apply for my Master's degree-- the hardest part has been getting a damn straight answer out of the people at FSU. The system really isn't calibrated for students who've attended before. My latest dilemma is, do I need to log in with my old ID information, or create a new account? I haven't been able to figure it out yet, and e-mailing someone with a question might get me a response sometime late next week. Maybe. *sigh*

( Oh, and my cousin got married )

( other odds and ends )

The thing is, it would be a didactic, trippy allegory with a moral no one would want to hear. So I've got to get it out of my head. Thing is, I still don't have much consistent to replace it. Hence, no fic to post, and hence, no posting for like four months. *sigh* Hopefully I'll get more productive once I have some actual structure to my life again.

So I wrote this crossover between Doctor Who and Young Wizards. The latter's a YA book series, about wizards. Basically, it's a giant, slightly vindictive fixit fic for JE and Ten in general. Realizing that I would never actually manage to make any further changes to it, I began to post it at a YW comm, where it has been fairly well recieved. Apparently a lot of them had issues with JE, too. As I might've mentioned in earlier posts, I can't say I'm surprised. The whole philosophy of YW is pretty well directly opposed to some of the crap we've been seeing from Ten. I should post somewhere about that.

But anyway, despite the slight risk of incomprehensibility (though it's probably far, far easier to read this knowing DW and not YW rather than the other way around, given that it's got the DW characters and plot, just in the YW universe), here is the link to the last chapter with the full table of contents:

Journey's Dawn

It is apparently epic win. :D

I wonder why in the living hell it took me so long to watch Shoujo Kakumei Utena? I mean, a complex lesbian-feminist fable in anime form... You can get further up my alley, but it's not easy. Now I'm positively obsessed with the opening theme. I do that, I always have-- when I latch on to one song, I can just play it over and over and over again, for ages. Used to be the Hell Freezes Over version of "Hotel California". It's been "Viva La Vida" and "I Will Follow", too. Now it's "Rinbu Revolution". At some point I'm sure I'll move on...

..Then again, I just realized that that very song could serve as my crossover-Donna's theme, despite the fact that I finished that monstrosity long before I ever heard it. So it's possible this one's going to stick with me for a while.

Speaking of said monstrosity, I've finally divided it up into parts and started to post it, because by now, I just know there's no way I'm going to change it in any way, or try to get it beta'd like I should. It's a pretty obscure crossover, in my defense, but the only thing I was worried about was getting Donna right... Then again, she's got a hell of an excuse to be out-of-character.

Should anyone want to brave a fic that follows the rules of a fandom they don't know-- I did try to explain it as well as I could-- the first part is here. I wish you luck.

( other ramblings )

It has... been a while since I posted. ^^; Honestly, I haven't had all that much to post about, as I haven't gotten anything done. But an overview:

( Read more... )

Hopefully I'll get some actual writing done at some point, which I can then post here.

Oh, and YAY OBAMA! I don't harbor the delusion that he's the second coming, but I think he can do great things for our country, and he certainly can't do worse than some other people I could mention. ;D

So in the only DW fic I've managed to work on, I'm actually trying to be reasonably nice to Ten. The things he has done are not entirely his fault, even if he left the door wide open and begged evil to come in. I'm doing my best to leave some ambiguity.

This bit, however, might be a little mean.

( Though they say you can be judged by the quality of your enemies )

I may actually finish this fic. Astonishing, given how damn little I've been writing recently.

In other news: my grandfather's still sick in various confusing ways that the doctors outright refuse to explain (but he does seem to be on an upward trend at the moment), I now have a nametag at my library volunteer gig, and my cousin claims to be engaged.

Forgive my unromantic skepticism, but he's known the girl for two months, outside. If they actually make it to February 14th, I'll concede they've got a chance. I wish I knew what in the hell he was thinking, but I doubt I'd understand. But you never know.

Okay, I admit, I choose the DW crossovers I write based on the ability they give me to screw Ten over. In my defense, someone's got to. Most of the other fangirls seem content just to screw him.

*cough* Sorry, sorry. It's just that a well-executed Ten-roasting makes me so very happy. My last (and only) crossover, with Rurouni Kenshin, was widely regarded as unexpected but good; it seemed utterly obvious to me. In Kenshin, you've got a character that Ten could never understand and Nine would simply know without thinking. He's polite and ginger, and he's got a sword. It would almost be worth extending that one into a full-length fic.

And my most recent crossover project is working out quite neatly, too. All the pieces fit so perfectly. It works in both universes, and I have years' worth of arguments that Ten is quite clearly possessed that can finally get put to a good use.

A clip:

"And every single time-- every time I tried to tell him he wasn't alone--"

"Oh, don't be too hard on yourself," says the Lonely God. "Far more illustrious people have tried and failed. Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones, and that delightful creature calling himself the Master-- the Face of Boe whispered it to him with its dying breath, and I convinced him it was just an acronym. One of the oldest creatures in the universe! Makes a dying declaration and he's willing to believe it's just an acronym, some stupid little thing that's only going to be relevant once, for three seconds, as confirmation of something he's already realized. Some people just work so hard to make my job so easy."

Call it corporal punishment, 'cause I've finally realized: my problem with Ten was always that he was a teenager. *whistles as she wanders away*

I have yet to determine whether the doctors and staff at TMH actually have no idea what they're doing, or have simply adopted a policy of not telling the family anything. As there'd be little qualitative difference between the two scenarios, I suspect I'll never know.

For one thing, the hospital staff does make a habit of telling my grandmother as little as possible, and she has an astonishing facility for not only failing to ask the right questions, but coming up with several very inventive wrong ones. Which, as she tends to be fretful at the best of times and tends to stay up nights with Grandpa at the hospital when he's particularly ill, is fairly understandable. Also, neither of them want to hear bad news. This is of course true of everyone, but they tend to find ways not to hear it. They'll mishear it, or think their way around it, snatch sentence fragments out of context and use them to their own ends... It's a bit frustrating, but so far? You can't argue with results.

So I still don't have the faintest idea what's wrong with him, except the drugs they've given him are working a bit better now; it only hurts when he moves. From what I've heard, it's been... pretty harrowing. There've been too many theories bounced around for me to list (fracture, pinched nerve, renal failure....), and apparently there's also some thing where a culture from his nose indicated the presence of MRSA, of all things. So there's some sort of sign on his door and apparently it took them all ages to get a straight answer from them about it ("Oh, it's just what we do when we get cultures").

Basically, all the information I've gotten is secondhand and scattershot, and no one has a damn clue what's going on. But I shouldn't be surprised. That's pretty much the way it is with all the information I've ever gotten about Dad's side of the family. Ask me how many cousins I have. Apparently even my Dad's not sure. 'Course, that's connected to my uncle, and let's not get started on that guy. *rolls eyes* There's a whole 'prodigal son' dynamic going on there, and it ain't pretty.

Anyway, still here. Posting mainly because I don't know what's going on, I may never find out, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I am willing to share this with the entire internet, and yet, ask me how much conversation I made with people at the library yesterday? Next to none. I tried to, once, but I couldn't quite get myself to open my mouth. I'm a workaholic, for one, and also my mouth works on two speeds: "Off" and "Full". I'm gonna make somebody a damn good employee someday. *sigh* Been a long week.

Okay, so my previous medical practicioner was clearly a bit too lax, which was, in actuality, a disservice to me. Little as I want to, I will try to wrap my head around that, because I know it is true. As a corrolary, the more stringent practices of my current practicioner are probably much better medicine. I will concede that point too.

But must they really strip me naked every visit??

( Possible TMI warning is probably already implied )

But let's get the hell off of the medical nonsense. I got a volunteer position! Yay! 'Course, I imagine there's a lot less competition now that school's started and they've had budget cuts, but still. It's at the library, Tuesdays, 12-2. I told them I could do more days but I doubt they trust me yet. Maybe once I show up for a while, or my background check comes back, or they put out for a nametag. Did my first shift last week; mainly "bumping" (resensitizing the magnetic strips that set off the alarm if someone steals a book; we're not allowed to check them back in the system) and shelving new materials (the rest of the library's apparently done by other people). There was also some work with the reserves, bagging them for the couriers and whatnot; doesn't sound like much but it sufficed. Gonna have to wear my hair in a ponytail. Five minutes of anything even vaguely resembling work and my head starts to drip. It's fairly irksome.

I'm happy to have the motivation to get out of the house at least one day per week, and also happy for the exercise. I'm also hoping this will eventually provide me some insight as to my choice of career. Not happening yet, but I live in hope that someday a great beam of light will come down, and a voice will tell me my destiny, and suddenly it will all make sense and I will pick my course of study with a light heart. It could happen. Figuratively.

(Incidentally, if you didn't check out the vid I posted in my last entry? You might want to do that instead. ^^ Just saying.)

So, Fay's come and gone. Didn't cause too many problems, personally; a few trees got knocked down, the power flickered once or twice, the road has ruts like you wouldn't believe, and our phone got knocked out for a day. The satellite TV barely even went out. Now, Tallahassee, they had a few problems. I think the power outages are fixed, but I'm pretty sure there's still a couple neighborhoods under water. We're starting to dry out, though. It's Florida, we're a bloody marsh anyway.

'Course, they say the improbably named Gustav might be coming this way in a week or so. But they can only predict hurricanes so far ahead, so I'll believe it three days before I see it.

( more hurricane babble )

Anyway, I may post a justification for the fic I'm working on when I'm in a state of mind that allows me to not sound like an idiot while doing so. It's just occured to me that the reasons I can't stand Ten have been blindingly obvious from the start. He's rude and not ginger, and not much else. Despite that, he's got the audacity to claim he's the Highest Authority, the Lonely God, and that's where he reaches my moral line in the sand. Anything else, I could cope with, could let slide, or simply let go. But when he/they set him up as a false god-- and yes, they have been-- that's the one thing I can't abide, the one thing I feel some sort of obligation to align myself against. A declaration of war, and I know exactly what side I'm not on. That's why I've never been able to just say "ah, screw 'em" and walk away. That's why I'm crossing DW over with a fandom that has the sense to call the Devil the Lone Power. I've learned to accept a lot of things, but I will never, ever learn to accept that. I take it that seriously. Are you sure it's not that serious?

SERIOUSLY, GUYS, I DON'T ASK MUCH

Yeah, you know all that weird crap I keep trying to say about Ten? Turns out someone else managed it a lot better with some clips, a song, and three and a half minutes.

I mean, I'd already realized it was way more absurdly simple than I'd been making it out to be, but damn. This is it. This is all of it.

And yes, it's ******* brilliantly done even if you don't think Ten is Satan. Seriously, I don't pull all caps for nothing. Or, ever. PLEASE GO WATCH IT.

Oh, and here's their LJ so you can go shower them with WELL-EARNED PRAISE. I MEAN THIS.

It's been a long time since I posted something while I was working on it. This is because I once hit a block somewhere in the middle and I felt very bad about leaving my readers hanging. But, I think maybe I can lift this policy just this once for the following reasons:

• -I was like thirteen. I should probably get over it now.
  
• -This prologue actually stands very well on its own. Except for the "but, but, what, are they trapped or do they get out or WTF??" cliffhanger aspect. (And I could always just tell you.) Still, even if I never did finish the rest, it's a strange little story in its own right.
  
• I've managed to get some work done on it lately. I suspect that moderate guilt and Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" on repeat might be able to get me through it.
  
• For heaven's sake, how many readers do I have to disappoint?! Especially on LJ! (largely due to the fact I'm still too lazy to crosspost much)

So: this was inspired by a throwaway mention in wendymr's brilliant Don't Ask, Don't Tell of a time loop. Exactly how or why my mind turned that into this... I... am at an utter loss. I swear.

Nine!fic, though it's a while 'till he shows up. You wouldn't like me writing Ten. ;) Oh, and also? This goes to strange, strange places. I just hope to heaven it makes sense. ^^;
Temporary summary: Love, loss, and an endless summer. (With additional observations on the generation and maintenance of the temporal claudication, or "time loop". )

( Once you'd gone there was never, never an honest word: and that was when I ruled the world )

If I'm lucky, this will be the last time I think about "Journey's End" and the Incident at the end thereof. Well, the last time I post about it, anyway. My mind tends to worry at things.

I doubt I have much else to contribute to the Debate about the Incident (I still think the mere fact that they used that as a plot device, no matter what it technically was or wasn't, is utterly rephrehensible), but there is one more thing I want to say.

If Ten were here, there would be no debate.

( all this hedging around spoilers is getting annoying )

Only post-JE stuff I've come up with is a crossover fic, with a universe that coincidentally allows me to make Donna a wizard and Ten possessed by the Devil. The summary I've got is, Turns out, he's not the only road. There's other journeys to make, in this crossover universe. Other vehicles, other roads, and you can be the driver.

And, perhaps most importantly, in the crossover universe? There would be a court of appeals.

But I don't know how far I'll bother with it. I'm more inclined to leave Ten as the God of his bounded little world. He'll drown himself in it eventually; he already is. And I've got better things to do.

It's rather difficult working through an episode when you haven't even seen it yet, but given the reactions I've been seeing, I haven't really had a choice. (Which would imply I shouldn't be reading ahead, but I repeat, "spoilers"? There's something to be "spoiled"? Not for me, not in this fandom, there's not...) I've been doing my best not to comment because I had a feeling I hadn't yet thought it through. I think I mostly have now. So, for anyone interested in half-informed Disloyal Opposition thoughts that might surprise you,

( The best of all possible worlds )

You know what's happening on Monday? New season of The Closer. God, that's a good show. When they pose ethical dilemnas, they always do it on purpose. When a character does something wrong, we know it's wrong and understand where they're coming from and know there will be consequences and we can hold that in our heads all at once. All of the characters have flaws and know it and are still entirely awesome. Brenda is often overly dedicated to her job, which often gets her in trouble, and often leads to her job being done extremely well. It's a tradeoff, and she thinks it's worth it. Sanchez is badass, Flynn and Provenza are awesome, Tao is deeply cool, Pope is not my favorite but often truly excellent... Even the "villain" of the workplace who's been trying to sabotage Brenda from day one turns out to have occasional good intentions (and, more often, self-serving ones, but still). He's an asshole, but there's no reason to hate him too fiercely, because he does what he thinks is right (usually for himself) and has done some very good things, and everyone (including the writers) knows this. There aren't any Messiahs in The Closer. Just a bunch of good and not-so-good people solving crimes. *happy sigh* A show I can watch without feeling insulted. I'd forgotten that could happen. ^_^

So I've been reading about the S4 DW finale.

This is my best strategy for retconning Ten out of canonicity. By this, I mean specifically strategies for denying that Ten is, in fact, the person known as the Doctor, without impacting the canonicity of either Nine or the events of S2-4. (I must specify this because if you need a strategy for retconning Ten out of existence, I've already got a couple and I'd be happy to think up more for you. Also, the simplest and probably still most effective way of denying Ten's canonicity is the more direct, "What series 2?" route.) I also believe I know how recent events with Donna might be addressed within this framework. Yes, I have already thought about it. I enjoy puzzling it out. It actually makes more sense than the actual show all half the time.

Any and all help in hashing out the theory, writing a story, or forcing me to write a story would be met with genuine and heartfelt gratitude.

Right now, if you've glanced at that theory and found it in some way interesting, here's pretty much the only scrap of fic from that scenario I have:

( It doesn't look a thing like a prison cell )

I don't know if I myself can write this, but the things I've been hearing have made me want to. Thing is, I suspect my emotional divorce from the show has just about gone through again for the last time, and given how spectactularly unproductive I've been of late, I think I'd need some fury to get myself through it. I know one person who volunteered to help, but she seems to have disappeared (or have you? I know you've got my e-mail, feel free to impose if you're reading)... Any interest? Advice? Aid? Probably it's a waste of time...

Well, since they've finally sent me my diploma, I can now announce without hesitation that I totally have a bachelor's degree. In humanities. This and a dollar should get me a small fry at McDonald's. (Hmm? Job search? Yes, I have been looking for openings commensurate with my total lack of experience, and those are far harder to find than I seem to remember, why do you ask?) Well, at least I got family I can crash with.

My father somehow contrived to suddenly come down with two ear infections, a sinus infection, and a diverticulitis flareup at once, but he seems to be recovering nicely. His father, however... Oh, I can't even tell how he's doing anymore. He was hospitalized for a couple days, but I couldn't tell whether that was a sign of mortal peril or a Tuesday. He has the most astonishing facility for bouncing back from medical crises the doctors seem to think will kill him; it's either God or astonishing powers of denial. Not to slight the divine, but I know they've got the denial down pat. At this point I suspect he'll live for years and die when no one at all is expecting it, but life doesn't always make narrative sense.

Anyway, having displayed my academic achievement, I will now give my ignorance equal time by means of that book meme that's been floating around. Why not?

( Maybe I have too much time on my hands? )

So that's... 29, maybe 30? Pretty random list, too. Ah, well, at least it wasn't movies. I would probably epically fail on movies. Though I was the only one in my American History II class who'd seen Dr. Strangelove. I found that so very sad.

Came across a post-HN/FoB snippet I'd worked on. It was less damn long than everything else I've been working on, and therefore stood some sort of chance at being completed within a reasonable amount of time (despite how hard it was to get it to end properly), and it isn't too terrible, so:

Some Smothering Dreams
Summary: Martha's not talking to him and he can feel the gun in his hands.

( Or, possibly more honestly, Treatise On Why That Damned Episode Was Entirely Unacceptable )

Possibly I'll whine at some point in the near future about how everyone I know is sick and how I've only just now been reassured that I did, in fact, graduate and how the hints about Donna in "Turn Left" have changed my Horror Alert Level from "Maybe it'll be okay, but someone has notified the UK disaster authorities, right?" to "Oh, god, brace yourselves, people, if you need to vent despair or homicidal rage toward RTD I'm right here with virtual tea and blankets". But, not right now. This is probably a very good thing for all involved. :)

Mainly as proof of life, a fragment from a fic that will hopefully someday in the far-off future be finished:

( Torchwood in the Year That Never Quite Happened )

It'll take me ages to get it all down, given where I actually am at the moment (several months before this scene), but I do already know all that happens. I feel a duty to explain Owen/Toshiko, for example, despite how little I support it, and I already know how... Better than the show ever did them, at any rate. If I'm doing anything even vaguely Owen/Toshiko, I'm doing it right, damn it. I'm giving her a reason to pine after him despite no encouragement and active discouragement for weeks and months. That half-arsed "motivation" we got from the show don't play around here, no no. Lazy sods.

I'd stuff in other news and things, but I've already accidentally posted this, so... probably best to actually get some content in the accidental post as quickly as possible, yeah? ^^

I tried to watch "The Poison Sky" or whatever it was called. I'm afraid I didn't meet with much success. ( no, seriously, the cake is totally a lie. there's no cake at the end of the season. it's not there, none of it )

So I've been listening to "Pancho and Lefty" rather too much. This led to vague thoughts linking it with DW sometime in the future. Then it somehow occured to me how much better it would work like this.

Title: Kindness, I Suppose
Disclaimer: I suppose by now you've all heard that I've apparently been passed over for Steven Moffat. ;) Personally, I think wendymr got robbed... but, well, that's just me. ^^
Summary: The Doctor, the Master, and the end of the road. He hadn't expected it to end in a place like this, but maybe he should have.
Notes: Hmm, how much of what I want to say might constitute spoilers? Let's just say, NINE. There is no PotW here. Needless to say I stole only what I cared to from S3's Master (he was mostly a clone of Ten, and as there isn't a Ten yet...).
American country music isn't the most obvious of choices to pair with a British sci-fi show, but I keep coming back to it, because what other genre's dealt so thoroughly with wanderers?

( but now you wear your skin like iron )

Holy crap, my cousin's a beatnik.

( Or possibly his own evil twin from the 'Mirror, Mirror' Star Trek universe, if you accept the goatee as your only criterion )

I can relate just about any song to a fandom-- so much so that I wonder what would happen if I actually tried-- but it occured to me recently that "Hook" by Blues Traveler might possibly be the most perfect song for Ten ever. Of course, I have my biases. And I don't know every song ever written. But it even has a bit near the end where the singer talks way too quickly about nonsense. The more I think about it, the more perfect it gets. And there's your completely irrelevant opinion of the day. :)