stunt_muppet

My uncle, who I previously thought loved me and wanted me to be happy, sent me a link this afternoon.

The detail text on the link was as such: See if you can spot the difference between the two pictures! Can you find all five differences? Be sure to turn your sound up before you do this - if you get it right, you'll hear a "beep".

Now, my uncle normally sends me at least amusing (and sometimes fantastically geeky) links, so I figured this would be something fun, like finding five differences in a Hieronymous Bosch painting or 'spotting' really comically obvious differences. I had, of course, completely forgotten that it was April 1st. 

I should have seen this coming. But I didn't.

So I turn my speakers on (they're normally off), click the link, and started scouring the two innocuous-looking pictures for differences.

I looked in vain, because it turns out there weren't any. The whole thing was just a clever ruse to ensure that I was staring right at the screen when a bright red bloody grinning demon face thing suddenly filled the screen and started pulsing in and out. And to ensure that I had the sound up when a combination of roaring and screeching came pouring out of my speakers.

This all sounds very tame now that I write it down, but it REALLY WASN'T when I wasn't expecting it. Which is how I justify my reaction, anyway - I screamed, slammed my laptop shut, and then continued screaming when THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE SOUND GO AWAY.

And then the image went away and a SpongeBob laugh started playing.

Once my pulse went down, I managed to call him and demand what the fuck he thought he was doing. He laughed at me. 

Oh, but just you wait. Next year, he's getting The Subliminal Adventures of Captain Howdy. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW.

I've got three ideas so far, and I kind of want to write all of them:

1) Curse of Peladon AU. Jo ends up agreeing to marry King Peladon to save the Doctor from execution. As their wedding day approaches, the Doctor is quickly running out of ideas for how to stop the wedding without wrecking diplomatic havoc - but there is one thing that might work...

...the question is, who would believe that a princess and a diplomat could maintain a secret marriage?

2) Prison in Space AU - although technically not an AU, since the story was never made. Jamie and Zoe have both been hypnotized by the Skeery Alien Feminists, and now Jamie's about to become the bride of the Queen (yes, bride). Only the power of Gay Marriage in Space can save him now. (I love this idea, but I really don't think I could write it well.)

3) Susan and David's wedding was going so well until that cosmic paladin she forgot she was engaged to showed up. Grandfather may not be able to fix this one...(Again, I like it but I very much doubt I could write it, as I have no Susan-voice.) 

It's not my favorite of the prompts, and there are several others I'd rather have done, but most of the prompts I really like I feel like I'd end up making into Srs Fic, and  churchontime's all about the crack. I'd love to write the wedding between Liz and the Brig, for example, but considering that this would involve the Brig leaving his wife for Liz I don't know if I could play it for laughs in good conscience. And the Three/Jo AU where she didn't marry Cliff? I'd be all over that, but I couldn't write crack for it. I feel positively guilty writing crack for it, because I don't want to become one of Those fen who transform the series into "Newlyweds In Space". I want to take the emotional complications and sheer impossibility of the Doctor/Companion relationship seriously, I want to acknowledge the alien-ness of the Doctor, and the vast mental and emotional gulf between human and Time Lord...

...and yet at the same time I don't. I want to make it crackish and fun and lighthearted. But I feel like I shouldn't. Does that make any sense?

Alas, Who!fic. You instill doubts in me that I never have while writing for crime dramas.

(Now the "all ten Doctors crash Barbara and Ian's wedding" prompt, I could definitely write crack for. And I'd claim it, too, were it not for my lack of practice writing any Doctor who isn't Three, Four, Nine, or Ten. Someone please claim it. It needs to be written. Yesterday.)

A PSA, now: if you write for the fandom, kindly get yourself over to churchontime and claim a prompt. Because this promises to be a month of insane matrimonial who-am-I-marrying-again LOVE.