Adherent of the Repeated Meme

[neadods]

Snow lifting, chores getting done, Nea getting bored. So I'll do the "DVD commentary" meme: Ask me about the backstory of any of my stories, or a question about one of them, and I'll give you the DVD commentary.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I'd like a commentary on "Alternate Partings" please...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

You picked a cheerful one! The short answer is that wendymr asked me for it, or more accurately, asked me what I thought would happen if Rose and Jack's roles had been reversed in Parting of the Ways.

We know from later seasons that the Doctor was terrified of what Jack became; we know from earlier seasons that the Doctor prefers to cut and run rather than explain or say goodbye, and we know from that season that Nine was a deeply, deeply damaged man. It's probably a bit kind to think that he wouldn't have just up and dumped Rose in his revulsion and guilt, but he did know that Jack had a means of escape and would not put up with his vague handwaving, while Rose didn't and would.

And also, it bugged a bit that there were no callbacks to Genesis of the Daleks in that episode. This was supposed to be the last battle of the Great Time War. It was the time the Doctor essentially rolled over and was ready to let the daleks kill him - and he never once mentions that he could have stopped them eons before? That he had angsted over that decision? That his people were right to have told him to destroy them? RTD has been fine about one-line old-school shoutouts ("I was a dad once"). I think a good episode would have been even better if there had been even one throw-away line about "I wish I'd stopped them back when I had the chance." And yet for all the times they've shown up in New Who, no such line.

Which wanders off the point. You didn't pick a very long one, so there's not that much detail. I think I wrote it in about 4 hours; the biggest hurdle was coming up with a reason for the Doctor to not abandon Rose.

Well, not abandon her on the satellite, at least.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I found it a very thought-provoking story...

And I agree with you about the lack of a shout-out to Genesis anywhere in New Who - it baffles me that RTD didn't offer one either there or during Daleks Take Manhattan (I know he didn't write that two-parter but he still could've put it in).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I like to write thought-provoking.

Also, I should have mentioned this - the line about "trying to salute and missing" ends up in a fair number of my stories. Probably more than I should put it into, but I like the image.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Heh, I get like that about certain images, but then when I notice them, I try to take them out so I don't overdo them!

And I'm quite in favour of thought-provoking fic!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to get away with the repetition because I'm not doing it in the same fandom. The 10th Kingdom-KF TLC-Dr Who Venn overlap is pretty tiny.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Heh, yes, you probably can get away with it in those circs.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

What inspired The Sins of Adam?

(I still love that one, as you know).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Mostly, I noticed a gap in the available fanfiction. There are plenty of Adam-as-villain stories, and Jack-fully-joins-Team-TARDIS stories, mostly involving sex.

But there was nothing that dealt with what *I* wanted to think about - how someone as fiercely possessive and unforgiving as Nine was going to think about what had to seem like history repeating. Twice in a row, Rose became interested in someone who had either caused or escalated a situation that the Doctor had to undo, at the cost of a fair amount of personal pain on top of what else he has to deal with. (The sight of his enemy, the reminder that he was the sole survivor of his family.) Twice in a row, Rose asked the Doctor to bring that interloper - his competition - along. No one was doing a direct Adam-Jack comparison, and it seemed so obvious and so necessary to me!

So I wrote it.

It was originally meant to be part of a much longer story about the bonding of that Team TARDIS and did, as many stories with Jack do, originally include sex. In the end, I realized that the various parts of the story were not working well together. I dropped some bits - I don't remember those anymore - and split the rest into three separate concepts: Sins of Adam, something involving a bucket *cough*, and at one point "Knit Two Together" was supposed to be part of it too.

The bucket bit is why there's that whole section at the beginning of Sins where the Doctor is thinking about his sex life. Because the original material had all that stuff about "dancing" I felt that it still fit with the truncated story.

Someone else had the idea of Time Lord marriages only lasting for an incarnation. I don't remember who.

I have always secretly wished that someone would draw me the scene of Rose listening to the Doctor's hearts, right before she accepts it and hugs him. The image is very clear in my head.