All right, I need some fandom
Aug. 19th, 2012 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve11Didn't get much writing of the WIP done this weekend. I did do some reading; I am currently through the first four chapters of Scientific Method In Practice by Hugh Gauch and found chapter 3 especially helpful. It's not exactly a science book so far; but a philosophy, history, and methods book that gives a broad picture and is designed to help scientists understand better the foundations of science and the mainstream criticisms, and to help them become better scientists. Currently I'm a little bit worried about the simplicity of the hypothesis testing scheme that Gauch is setting up in chapter 4: scientific reasoning and models are getting more and more sophisticated these days.
ANYWAY,
How about a meme? 500-word DVD meme? snurched from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
astrogirl2: Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of 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.
Or, snurched fromladymercury_10: Give me a character and I will answer:
* why I like them
* why I don’t
* favorite scene/moment
* brotp
* totally random but possibly awesome non-canon ship
* head canon
* unpopular opinion
ANYWAY,
How about a meme? 500-word DVD meme? snurched from
astrogirl2: Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of 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.Or, snurched from
ladymercury_10: Give me a character and I will answer:* why I like them
* why I don’t
* favorite scene/moment
* brotp
* totally random but possibly awesome non-canon ship
* head canon
* unpopular opinion
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 02:45 am (UTC)"Fantastic! Open your eyes."
She opened her eyes and found herself pointing directly down to the bottom of the bowl. "Oh my god," she said, "I'm like a homing pigeon."
"That's the gradient at this point," the Doctor said. "The direction and strength of change. What you feel here is very strong. Likelihood is gravity, pulling you toward the mode, steepest along the gradient. And the wall at your back is telling you what events take you farther away. What isn't supposed to happen. Go too far in that direction, and you're bound for trouble."
"That's how you know?" Rose asked, amazed. "How we don't get turned around? You can feel this, every time we land?"
"Every time. It's hard to get lost on the side of a bowl, isn't it?" He took a step along the steepest downward path, Rose following behind. "The gradient will always get us back to our stable mode. And toward the bottom where the gradient is weaker, we have the reflection of the walls to guide us."
"But Doctor," Rose said, surveying her position with a critical eye. "There's another way we can go, isn't there? Without getting closer or farther away."
He paused, and looked back at her with glee. "How do you mean?" he encouraged.
"I know the gradient goes this way." She pointed down toward the mode, and then turned to her right and took a step, tracing out an arc along the side of the bowl. "But there's no steepness at all in this direction. No change; it's completely flat."
"Level curves!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Brilliant."
"And what are they?"
"The best direction in which to meddle," he said, leading her along the level curve. "Change of events, without changing the likelihood. And it's easy to find this direction too, if you know the gradient."
"It is?"
"'Course it is. You did it, didn't you?"
"I did? I mean, I went--" she stopped, snapping her fingers and trying to think of the word. "Perpendicular! Ninety degrees to the direction of the gradient. Yeah?"
The Doctor turned around. "Rose Tyler, you've no business being afraid of maths. You're a natural. Now, do you fancy something a bit more dangerous?"
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 03:28 am (UTC)Rory
Why I like him: After everything he's seen and done, he is still a genuinely caring person. He is the straight man and the closest that Doctor Who can come (I think) to a truly introspective companion with quiet faith in the goodness of others, and inner strength. In spite of all of this, he is not portrayed as an "atypical male" nor (with the exception of some very early clunky writing) does he come across as "emasculated" even though Amy is much more forthright.
Why I don't like him: He started off as being too insecure for the characterization above to ring true. But I think that changed, eventually. I don't like that he becomes the damsel in distress and keeps getting killed.
Favorite Rory scene/moment: Well, for straight humor I love the line "Did he just save the world from aliens and then bring all the aliens back again???" line from The Eleventh Hour. Overall, in The Girl Who Waited: "Are they happy?" and the Doctor's reaction to him.
Brotp: So like, a Rory-and-someone buddy relationship? I like Rory and Eleven of course... possibly in a more than bromantic way, *sighs*. Rory and Mels, on the other hand--that would be a fantastic "bro-mancy" pair, in the sense of a really bad buddy movie. Except Mels is a girl.
Totally random but possibly awesome non-canon ship: Rory/Hex? (Hex Schofield from the 7th doctor audios) They have too much in common to be bromance-y buddies but they could totally give each other some comfort loving in mutual commiseration of their lives being overturned by the fact that their dream girls are hell-bent on adventuring in the TARDIS.
Head canon: Okay this is sappy but: Amy confides in him at night in the non-bunk beds, completely and sincerely. They are both stronger for it.
Unpopular opinion: He's not really my type? So I don't really get all the 'unf'-ing over him.
---------
The TARDIS.
* why I like them: She's sentient but completely alien, stalwart, true, temperamental, strong, magic, and the touchpoint that keeps the Doctor going (and what would the universe be without the Doctor?). She's mysterious and dangerous, and would shatter the universe if she was destroyed.
* why I don’t: Oh, something about the TARDIS that I don't like? Um, um... Well, she was portrayed way too much like a jealous wife in Zagreus, and that ticked me off.
* favorite scene/moment: "There's an instruction on the bottom. What's it say?.... And what do you do?" But for the TARDIS as a TARDIS...Um, Ten's look when he fell against her in The Satan Pit. The capture and rescue of her in the BF audio The Singularity (and taleya's awesome AU story Bereft).
* brotp: TARDIS and River? Gotta be. Or maybe Idris, River and Romana adventuring through the universe.
* totally random but possibly awesome non-canon ship: Sorry, there is no other ship but the TARDIS and the Doctor. It is the one true ship.
* head canon: The TARDIS sees in measure theory. It has a timeless element to it that is conceptually interesting. The TARDIS knows the base measure of the multiverse; the uniform distribution over infinite infinities that is nonetheless proper. She is an information scientist who speaks in conditional probabilities. She talks to the Doctor in metaphors, though she's not very good at compressing information into chunks that are processable by the relational structures of humanoid brains, even sophisticated Time Lord ones.
* unpopular opinion: I liked "The Doctor's Wife", but I don't think it was as much of a tour de force as apparently the rest of the Whovians do. I was disappointed by her death scene at first view. And kind of devastated that the Doctor asked "are you there?" at the end, although superficially I did smile at the end of the scene.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 04:14 am (UTC)I don't remember how I got the idea of level curves in there; I actually wrote this story very quickly, in only a few days. I was free associating here, not really planning anything out, and I'd thought that I wanted to say something about level curves, but this is one of those rare occasions where it felt like the character was telling me what was going on. Specifically, Ten told me that level curves were "The best direction in which to meddle," and I ran with it.
This whole story is a rather imperfect metaphor; but I quite like the idea of level curves. There is a relationship here to conditional expectation and granularity, but I think I won't try to go through it all, as it's also rather muddled.
I was writing very quickly, but I wanted to make sure that Rose sounded genuine, and that I could get the character of her speech through without explicitly writing an accent. I don't like explicitly written accents.
In some places I see this story as an old-fashioned dialogue, like the philosophical kind. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't boring.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 04:40 am (UTC)I'd believe you could teach gradients and level curves intuitively if your student had done geometry and trig. I mean, it's not like they'd be doing multivariable calculus tomorrow, but that's most of precalculus and it's not that hard to generalize the idea of slope to 3D. My math professor explained level curves to us as being like "when you walk around on the side of a hill," and then every time after that when I'd be on uneven ground my brain would automatically go "level curve," without even thinking about what that meant. :P
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 05:32 am (UTC)...I love you.
<3
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 12:01 pm (UTC)* why I don’t: Well I don't like her ending, that's for sure. I don't like when they play up her "feminine wiles" for laughs in the Jenny episode. As a character... well, I don't know that she and I would be very good friends, unless we both liked the same sci-fi TV show or something.
* favorite scene/moment: Funny scene: "You. Are. Bonkers." That, and The Runaway Bride, the very beginning ("That's not even a proper word!"), and "Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs? Trying to help..." OH and the scene from my icon, the silent conversation across the windows. Favorite dramatic scene, when she tells the Doctor he has to save someone from Pompeii.
* brotp: What better brotp than the Doctor and Donna? I would love to see Donna and Eleven in action. Donna and Ace? Well that's not fair, Ace and anyone is automatically awesome.
* totally random but possibly awesome non-canon ship: Oh, oh, oh, how about Donna/Fitz? Could be May-December or it could be when Fitz is more her contemporary age. She loves hanging out with her friends and listening to him play his guitar in bars. He loves that she takes his "guy" sense of humor in stride and gives as good as she gets. They go on backpacking holidays but with a healthy dose of resort towns in between. They leave each place better in some way or another. (ETA: damn, I think I actually have to write this now)
* head canon: Eventually, Donna's Time Lord brain figures out a self-repair, but it takes her a few years to sort past the grief and betrayal she feels toward the Doctor. When she finally finds Eleven, it's just in time to brilliantly rescue him from aliens taking over the world, and though he anticipates a slap in the face all she does is hug him.
* unpopular opinion: I have no quarrel with the "bolshy shout-y" aspect of her character, and truly no idea why that turned so many people off in the Runaway Bride. Perhaps it's a cultural thing; I'd also never seen Catherine Tate before she turned around in her wedding dress and went "oh!" at the end of Doomsday.
I understand the feminist critique of agency or lack thereof at her ending, but I don't think that, truly given the choice, she would have chosen to die instead of get her memory wiped. I also don't think that is a character flaw. I still hate that the Doctor felt like he had to do that.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 12:45 pm (UTC)* why I like them: He is brash, brazen, unapologetic and yet ultimately still wise and kind underneath all of the bluster. Many in the multiverse have decided that he needs to be taken down a peg; very, very few have ever managed to do it.
* why I don’t: I don't like when he is intentionally mean, but I also don't think that happens very often, and I'll chalk it up to bad writing on the show's part.
* favorite scene/moment: I love in the BF audio Davros, when they're being all secretive and hiding, and then as soon as the Doctor realizes what's going on, he storms out of their hiding place incredulously yelling "DAVROS!?" Like, "you have got to be fucking kidding me!" I love all of The One Doctor to Pieces, but especially "another tour around the English language" quote from Banto Zame. I love his quiet reflection and need for solace in The Wormery (steamrolled by Iris Wildthyme). I love the end of The Holy Terror when he admits he can't help everyone.
* brotp: Six and Frobisher? Six can be a bit of a stuffed shirt at times; and Frobisher plus anything is completely zany. Can you imagine a road trip movie with the two of them? ... ... Hm. Neither can I, but it has to be awesome.
* totally random but possibly awesome non-canon ship: Six/Dorothy Parker could be epic.
* head canon: Six is a romantic at heart. That's where his passion and grandeur spring from. He will always be a scientist, philosopher, problem-solver like all the other incarnations, but he also keeps trying and failing to write novels, deciding not to publish them in any era, for one reason or another. He genuinely feels that there is not enough time in the universe to know all of the things he wants to know and do all of the things he wants to do, and so he has no qualms with not wasting his time with things that aren't worth it. So in spite of his outer shell, in some ways he is far less cynical than the new Doctors.
* unpopular opinion: Sadly it's just that Six is awesome, isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 05:35 pm (UTC)Always found this scene intriguing:
"Doctor!"
A new voice. Someone needed a doctor, and he had a sinking suspicion it may have been him. He blinked his eyes open. He didn't remember closing them. A man with short, spiky hair was kneeling in front of him. The man reached for him with bare hands and he cried out in alarm. "Don't! Don't touch, please--"
To his surprise, the man listened. His hand hovered and fell.
"Doctor, it's all right," he said. "The dampener's working. I won't hurt you. I mean--I wouldn't anyway. Not a telepathic bone in my body, remember?"
Doctor. That was him; he was the Doctor. "I don't . . . I've forgotten something, I think. What's your name?" He sniffed, trying to relax his muscles and control his shock response, but all that did was reassert a stabbing pain in his shoulder and he grimaced, letting his head fall forward.
"Just hang on," the man said. "Amy's getting a key to the handcuffs."
The man reached out a hand again, brushing the Doctor's forehead. He shuddered involuntarily, but it was just a warm touch. He let the man smooth his hands across his forehead, carding his fingers through his hair. Thoughts skittered around his head and he was having a hell of a time chasing them down. Amy. Amy and . . . "Rory?" he asked, looking up.
"Yeah, it's me." Rory smiled. "Hello. Sorry the revolution took so long."
A lanky redhead appeared at Rory's side. "Key," she said, waving it triumphantly, and stopped in her tracks. "Oh my god, Doctor."
"It's all right," he said, looking past her as she recovered and set to freeing his hands. There was a woman a few steps away, helping another one to her feet. Names fled; he couldn't keep them. That one was a terrorist and the other one was a torturer, or maybe it was the other way around. They should have been angry. Violent. But for this moment at least they were just staring quietly at each other's hands, their fingers touching.
"I think," the Doctor said, leaning heavily against Rory and the other one as they helped him up. "I think we've won."
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 07:06 pm (UTC)I love so much of your answer here. I think I agree with a huge amount of it. Except I have, sadly, not listened to all of the BFAs you mention and don't know much about Dorothy Parker. But if you feel led to write that, I would read it. Six!!
I especially like your "Six is a romantic at heart." I always think that a big part of his bluster is to cover the fact that in some ways he cares just that bit more than some of his other incarnations. And I like the contrasts then in writing him - that you can be OTT and then stop and pull back... He is awesome. We shall just pity those who think otherwise. :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 02:21 am (UTC)Ah, this is part of my story Balance of Power, which is a strange story as at least I can see it... I had the very beginning of the story (up to the line "Quite a lot of trouble") written for a while and in a kind of anomaly from my usual writing process, I didn't know what to do with it. Then there was a meme request for an evil villain trying to break poor Eleventy in the worst ways imaginable, and epic rescues and general hurt/comfort kind of stuff, like the Doctor being so hurt he was lost for words.
And well, being me, I said, "I think I could do the whumping part anyway. Likely not the epic comfort afterward though." And I took out the beginning of this story again and mixed it with a tiny bit of an interrogation scene I'd abandoned, added a species of telepathic absorbers, and ran with it. The rest of the story came out much, much shorter and in a different POV (and thus style, I think) than the first part.
The part you quote is my nod to the C of H/C. It's as close as this story gets! It's also virtually unchanged from my original rough draft; only two minor tweaks.
"Doctor!"
A new voice. Someone needed a doctor, and he had a sinking suspicion it may have been him. He blinked his eyes open. He didn't remember closing them. A man with short, spiky hair was kneeling in front of him. The man reached for him with bare hands and he cried out in alarm. "Don't! Don't touch, please--"
To his surprise, the man listened. His hand hovered and fell.
Eleven's attitude toward pain and confusion is extreme annoyance. His brain never stops working, even when it's been put through a blender. But he's certainly not a stoic by any means.
"Doctor, it's all right," he said. "The dampener's working. I won't hurt you. I mean--I wouldn't anyway. Not a telepathic bone in my body, remember?"
Originally I had "the dampener worked". Makes more sense if it's a continual thing though.
Of course Rory's going to be the one to tend to the Doctor when they storm in and rescue him. Rory has a total of five lines in this story; the dialogue has to go a long way. So I tried to write him as gentle and a little hesitant, just tried to listen to him in my head, I guess.
Doctor. That was him; he was the Doctor. "I don't . . . I've forgotten something, I think. What's your name?"
I think this one and Rory's hello are my favorite lines of this section. In my head Eleven definitely asks this last bit with Six-like authority. Like it's a puzzle he's trying to figure out. Like the way Ten asks Donna "What's your job?" in Runaway Bride.
Thoughts skittered around his head and he was having a hell of a time chasing them down. Another deliberate Eleven description. Any other Doctor and I would have described that without the mild curse but Eleven likes to say eg, "what the hell" despite the sensitive ears of the kiddies.
"Yeah, it's me." Rory smiled. "Hello. Sorry the revolution took so long."
Like I said, the dialogue has to do a lot because the story's so short. I just see Rory as being brave and a bit self-effacing here, now that they're relatively safe.
There was a woman a few steps away, helping another one to her feet. Names fled; he couldn't keep them. That one was a terrorist and the other one was a torturer, or maybe it was the other way around. They should have been angry. Violent. But for this moment at least they were just staring quietly at each other's hands, their fingers touching.
"I think," the Doctor said, leaning heavily against Rory and the other one as they helped him up. "I think we've won."
The other minor change is that at some point I had the end of the second to last paragraph as "staring at each other's hands, amazed. Touching." And that didn't work because it sounded to me like it could have been sarcasm on the emotion, like "Oh, yeah, how touching." But I don't know how well that last sentence works as it stands either because it's missing something else. I like the start of that paragraph though, and the notion that the roles of the two are interchangeable in his mind. Because they may have won, as he suggests, but nothing is quite so pat.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 02:29 am (UTC)Oh, well, you should absolutely listen to the One Doctor, and The Wormery, and the Holy Terror; those are some of the absolute best BFAs around :)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 02:35 am (UTC)Where is that icon from? It's so hilarious; is it a calendar or something?
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 04:04 am (UTC)It's from one of his calendar shoots, yep. I oh-so-skillfully added in the text. Phil's calendars are phenomenal. He stopped doing them, though. :(
ETA:
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 04:07 am (UTC)...I mean, that would be very lovely if you did, and I would definitely read the shit out of it.
I agree with all of your thoughts here! Especially the shouty bit. I was thrilled Donna was coming back after the Christmas episode.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 07:44 am (UTC)Oh, I've listened to The One Doctor and The Holy Terror - they're among my favourites of all the BFAs, especially The One Doctor. I have not, however, listened to Davros and The Wormery. Which reminds me: Six and Frobisher the Road Trip. Why have Big Finish not made this yet?? When are they going to make it? Or can they only make it if they kidnap Rob Shearman first and force him to write it?
:-)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-26 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-27 12:43 am (UTC)