I don't know The Dark is Rising

A request by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2013-08-30 22:57:00 UTC Reply

Would anyone be willing to beta a little Doctor Who/The Dark is Rising crossover I wrote the other day? I set it after Silver on the Tree for Will and post-Donna for the Doctor.

It's short enough to copy-paste into a message on here, so if someone wants to, I'll just put it in my answer to them.

Thanks!

-Aila

I can beta that. by Huinesoron on 2013-08-31 18:33:00 UTC Reply

It's been a while since I read The Dark is Rising, but I can probably remember enough. I'm assuming you're using the Tenth Doctor?

hS

Yes, I am. by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2013-08-31 18:59:00 UTC Reply

The circumstances (memory-lossed friends, last of their kind, etc) sort of matched up.

And thank you, so much. Here it is.

-------

Will recognises the sound from the Book of Gramarye, but it takes him a moment to place it, time enough for the blue box to finish materializing and eject its occupant, messy-haired and babbling at the speed of light.

“ -- You wouldn’t have felt it, of course, Donna, but anyone time-sensitive would have noticed the disturbance, I mean, a whole race -- ”

He sees Will and stops, startled. “Old One,” he says, after a pause.

“Time Lord.” He inclines his head slightly.

“And this is Donna. Donna, meet -- ” He glances to his left and visibly deflates. “Oh. Right. Gone.” His smile is brittle now, broken. “Alone again.”

His eyes are sad, Will finds himself noticing, old and sad and heavy with the weight of the universe. He has never met the Doctor before, but he has heard tales, and the echoes of the Time War made their way even here, for all those sensitive enough to hear it. The Old Ones didn’t interfere, Earth-bound and preoccupied with their own, more understated struggle as they were.

At last Will says, uselessly, “Our battle with the Dark. That was the disturbance you felt. The Light and the Dark, and now they’re all gone and no-one remembers.”

“So you’re the last, then, too? All alone in the universe, just like me. At least your people left by choice.”

“Who is Donna?” he asks tentatively.

“A-- a friend. My best friend. She was brilliant.” The grin wavers helplessly, and then shatters. “She saved the world, you know. The universe, even. And then she had to forget, to save her life, and she can’t ever remember or she’ll die.”

“Simon and Barney and Jane and Bran -- none of them remember,” he offers, trust for trust, story for story. “And Bran, he chose to forget, to be human, and so it hurts the worst, with him.”

A bitter twist of his lips. “They always leave, in the end.” And then what Will now knows to be a mask slips back over the Doctor’s face, and his grins widely, invitingly.

“Well, Old One, what do you say? Fancy an adventure?”

----

Thanks again!

-Aila

I don't know The Dark is Rising by Hieronymus Graubart on 2013-09-02 10:06:00 UTC Reply

and I know about the Doctor only from cultural osmosis, but for whatever it's worth: I liked the story.

Concerning SPaG, the second to last sentence sticked out to me. Shouldn't it be either

... and he grins widely, invitingly.

or

... and his grin (does whatever) widely, invitingly.

I'm surprising myself. Not beeing a native speaker seems actually to help in spotting these things.

HG

Oh, thank you for spotting that. by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2013-09-02 19:12:00 UTC Reply

*goes to fix it*
Â“stuckÂ” and Â“beingÂ” by Hieronymus Graubart on 2013-09-02 10:33:00 UTC Reply

Note to self: Don’t ignore spell check because "it is obviously set to German". Just set it to English, stupid.

HG

Beta'd by Huinesoron on 2013-08-31 20:27:00 UTC Reply

Well, I'd forgotten the memory-loss in Silver, so it's a good thing you made it obvious that's an actual thing...

We'll start with the easy SPG-type stuff, and there isn't a lot of it. You might want to lowercase the very first letter of the Doctor's first line - that '-- You' - to give the feel of an ongoing run-on sentence. And in his later line, 'So you’re the last, then, too?', the 'too' is redundant with the (more informative) 'just like me', so could be cut. And... that's all I'm spotting.

On the characterisation: the Doctor is spot on, I think. I like the way his mask keeps slipping on and off - it's very well done (and accurate).

Will... not so sure. It's that 'and now they're all gone and no-one remembers' line. Like I say, it's been a long time, but... at this point, is he that maudlin? Later you justify it with 'trust for trust', which is a brilliant line, but that first one - I don't know. It's a good line, but I don't know how good a fit it is for Will Stanton. The rest of the line is perfect, it's just that final clause I'd recommend a second look at. And on the flip side, the 'all gone' nature of the line is actually a reply to the Doctor, in a way, so maybe it does work...

The style, because this story has a very specific style: it works. I like the terse description ('A bitter twist of his lips'), and the frequent lack of names or dialogue tags. I don't think it would be sustainable over a long story, but at this length, it works very well.

And now we come to my main, indeed only, issue with the piece: the Doctor's first few lines. We just recently rewatched Partners in Crime, which starts with the Doctor in exactly this situation - he's in the TARDIS, babbling about something science-fiction-y, and then he stops, because there's no-one to listen.

But I don't think he would fall into the depths of illusion you seem to be writing. Here you have him not just absently babbling to Whoever, but full-on believing Donna's right there - to the point of trying to introduce her to Will. I just... can't see it.

Maybe I'm wrong, and there's something in... what was next, Planet of the Dead?... that shows he would do this. But barring that, I don't think it works.

Well, the first line can probably stay as it is. Dropping a name in there isn't too much of a problem. But the introduction... actually, I'd just cut it down to 'And this is...', and then the glance. Thinking specifically about Donna (rather than about the disturbance) would trigger the memory. And you only lose half a line.

Finally, the plot: I love the plot. I love the idea of the TARDIS being in the Book of Gramarye (and I'm assuming you've checked that spelling, because I can't). I love the idea of those two meeting. And I love the notion of Will Stanton as a temporary Companion for Ten. They would be a perfect mismatch of personalities.

hS

And again, THANK YOU SO MUCH by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2013-08-31 23:05:00 UTC Reply

That was wonderful and detailed and very, very helpful. (As well as flattering.)

I have taken all your advice, and am currently trying to figure out a way to redo that sentence without making Will seem maudlin. Because he definitely isn't. I was thinking instead of 'and now they're all gone and no-one remembers,' I could put something like 'and I stayed behind to be Watcher.' Maybe.

When I was writing the bit with the Doctor's babbling, I was actually thinking of the prequel to the Narnia-inspired Christmas episode, when Eleven was talking to an empty TARDIS as though Amy and Rory were still there. *shrugs* It appears he does that a lot.

Also, about the TARDIS in the Book of Gramarye. I sort of figured that, what with his interfering tendencies and human favoritism, a certain Time Lord would have gotten himself noticed. He's not exactly subtle, after all.

Thanks!

-Aila