Subject: DIA piece #2 is out!
Author:
Posted on: 2023-07-25 01:00:46 UTC
Been a few months, but here's Time Crash, featuring an formerly up-for-adoption character that might be written into an actual mission in the future. Hope you like it!
Hey, I’m sorry I took so long before reading this. I kind of let myself get absorbed into home chores for a while there, but your story was always in the back of my mind to read!
Aw, poor Ocotillo! The narrative laws are really after her, aren’t they? HQ just isn’t built for a dragon, and neither is the DIA manual . . . but I love that she still keeps trying to do her best, self-sabotaging voices aside! And I love her sense of duty, as well, wanting to clean up the TARDIS even though it isn’t her job.
I find myself both frustrated by, and sympathetic to, Matterhorn. I wouldn’t want to be around someone who’s so casually rude to the people around him, but I also understand his impatience with wanting to get his job done without being slowed down training the noobie, and how disquieting Melpomene’s blank aspect is. I’m glad that, in spite of Ocotillo’s lack of self confidence, she still stands up to Matterhorn when he crosses a line.
And speaking of Melpomene, daaaang. I’ve seen the film adaptation of CATS, and while it was the film adaptation of CATS, it definitely contained a non-zero amount of acting. And if Mel is from the stage version of canon, she ought to be even more in tune with her inner thespian! Let’s have some dancing or something, girl!
A new phrase you taught me: “made a moue,” which sounds like spontaneous cow generation, but oh well!
A couple minor errors:
In the author’s note, you have a sentence that never completes: “Matterhorn’s home continuum belongs to”
And there’s an extra space between “He” and “walked” in the sentence: “He walked over to the still-smoldering TARDIS, scrutinizing the wreck.”
Also, the Nightshade gets mentioned in a couple spots, but I have a feeling those were meant to say the Tiger Lily instead . . . maybe take a peek and double-check?
—a doctorlit is not a dog
And don’t worry about time or anything - not like there’s a deadline for feedback, and home chores are important.
I’m pretty happy Ocotillo and Matterhorn are coming across the way I intended too - in their earliest drafts they kind of just felt like a weak rehash of Charlie and Jiwon’s dynamic (and the weaker, early-mission form of that dynamic to boot), so I wanted to fix that. Nice to see that it worked!
Melpomene was… interesting to write. I tried to get some theatrical elements in with her fancy clothing, but I didn't want to shift her personality too far from her original state. Maybe she'll soften up as time goes on?
Also the 'moue' comment gave me the strangest sense of deja vu, and I had to check something - it turns out this isn’t the first time this word’s been commented on in a PPC work I’ve written, who knew?
Matterhorn's continuum sentence was left unfinished as a sort of joke, since I… never fully decided where he was from. Could remove it, if it doesn't work. It's not really important to the plot or anything.
And while I was looking for that extra space, I found an entirely separate double space in another sentence! Got a two in one, there. Managed to get the Nightshade mentions fixed too, while I was at it. Wouldn't do to keep them there at all. Thanks for the help!
Now that I know the joke, I find it quite funny! I would vote to leave the floating sentence as it is!
—doctorlit, on matters of Matterhorn