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stunt_muppet at 12:24am on 30/04/2008 under bouncing ideas off y'all, college, doctor who, writing, yay!
stunt_muppet at 12:24am on 30/04/2008 under bouncing ideas off y'all, college, doctor who, writing, yay!Presentation was much less awkward than anticipated. Now all I have left to do are my research paper (which I have a topic for, yay) and four frelling enormous finals and I'll be all done!
Also, this presentation managed to make me a tiny bit obsessed with fifties pulp science fiction. I read bits of "City of the Singing Cubes" aloud before I presented to set the mood, and I just got so into it. I barely even felt nervous. And now I kind of want to fangirl this completely obscure 1950 short story, pulpy though it is. I love the stories - both the stories that were published and the stories of the magazines themselves. I love the cover art in all its sensationalist, cheeseball glory. I love the idea of cheap magazines full of cheaper fiction that catered explicitly to the genre markets. I love the unpretentiousness of it all, even when the quality of the fiction itself improved.
I get obsessed with slightly random things, yes.
Best part was when the professor broke out his own carefully preserved collection of Astounding Science Fiction, though.
Anyway. Planning on taking a few hours tomorrow to examining the five pages of backlog that have built up on my flist, but for now, as I do so often, I seek advice. Yes, on "Memory" again, the first chapter of which is almost ready, I promise. There's a certain plot development that I'm really unsure of, and it could go either way at this point. Any suggestions/commentary/discussions would be greatly appreciated.
...that got really long again. Oh well.
And now to bed. But we shall talk in the morning! Afternoon. Whatever.
Also, this presentation managed to make me a tiny bit obsessed with fifties pulp science fiction. I read bits of "City of the Singing Cubes" aloud before I presented to set the mood, and I just got so into it. I barely even felt nervous. And now I kind of want to fangirl this completely obscure 1950 short story, pulpy though it is. I love the stories - both the stories that were published and the stories of the magazines themselves. I love the cover art in all its sensationalist, cheeseball glory. I love the idea of cheap magazines full of cheaper fiction that catered explicitly to the genre markets. I love the unpretentiousness of it all, even when the quality of the fiction itself improved.
I get obsessed with slightly random things, yes.
Best part was when the professor broke out his own carefully preserved collection of Astounding Science Fiction, though.
Anyway. Planning on taking a few hours tomorrow to examining the five pages of backlog that have built up on my flist, but for now, as I do so often, I seek advice. Yes, on "Memory" again, the first chapter of which is almost ready, I promise. There's a certain plot development that I'm really unsure of, and it could go either way at this point. Any suggestions/commentary/discussions would be greatly appreciated.
Part of the premise of “Memory” is that the Third Doctor spends much of it fobwatched, thinking he’s a UNIT Corporal named John T. Smith. This happens in the very first chapter, so I hardly think it a spoiler. Since I’ve only seen the Human Nature arc on TV (I haven’t read the books), my knowledge is incomplete about how the Chameleon Arch actually works – I know that it rewrites biology down to the cellular level, and that it could, in theory, change almost everything about the fobwatched Time Lord’s physiology, including appearance (because you’re obviously going to look different if you fobwatch yourself into something non-humanoid, which I’m sure is possible even if it isn’t done. Or is it possible? Does the Arch only make you human? I’m none too clear on that point).
Anyway, the only way I’d ever seen the Arch used was to make the human Doctor look exactly like he did in his Time Lord body, so that was how I wrote it in Chapter 1 of Memory. But then someone (I forget if it was my lovely beta kayliemalinzaor someone else I showed this to) pointed out that, if Three looked exactly the same as a human, he’d be a bit old to be only a Corporal, especially given how young Benton and Yates (and, for that matter, the Brigadier) look.
kayliemalinzaor someone else I showed this to) pointed out that, if Three looked exactly the same as a human, he’d be a bit old to be only a Corporal, especially given how young Benton and Yates (and, for that matter, the Brigadier) look. I thought about moving him up a rank or two, but part of the whole point of using the Arch, in this case, was to be inconspicuous, to allow him to blend in with the rest of the UNIT personnel. If he were a Captain or a Warrant Officer (sorry, I didn’t really write down the ranks after “captain”), he’d be more noticeable – not to mention he’d presumably be in command of a section, thus naturally drawing attention to himself.
There was the additional problem of how everyone at UNIT who wasn’t Benton, Liz, and the Brig managed not to recognize him, but I figured I could handwave that with a line or two about advanced perception filters.
But then I had another idea. By necessity, the Arch must be able to change the subject’s biological age, yes? After all, any human who is the same age as the Time Lord they used to be would be really most sincerely dead. The John Smith in Human Nature wasn’t 1,000 years old, he was…thirty-something-ish, I’d say.
Well, who’s to say that the Arch couldn’t make its subject a different age than they appeared to be as a Time Lord? If we’re already rewriting every cell in the body – changing it down to the DNA in some fundamental ways – then there’s little obstacle to changing the age of the cells as well. So what if, when the Doctor fobwatches himself, he’s aged down a bit? Not too much, obviously – maybe ten, fifteen years, so he looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties – but enough for his presence as a Corporal to make sense.
This solves rather a lot of issues for me, actually. It accounts for his rank, for why people don’t recognize him (especially if he’s got paling brown or blonde hair rather than gray), and for the casual, cheerful air I ended up writing Corporal Smith with. Not to mention it makes the “Jamie being written into Smith’s artificial past” a bit more plausible (they still wouldn’t be the same age, but they’d be closer than they were). I’d have to make modifications to Liz’s descriptions of him, but since he’d still look something like the Doctor, I wouldn’t have to completely discount the strangeness of him being someone else.
(Also, this would make the Smith/Benton subtext even dodgier. Yay!)
There are problems, though. For starters, I’m not entirely certain that the Chameleon Arch can even do that. I mean heck, I’m not even sure that the Arch works for any species transition besides human-to-Time-Lord and back – it would be really strange if it didn’t, but they never explicitly states that it does, and maybe it’s because they wouldn’t have to make changes to appearance that it would only function in turning Time Lords human. Granted, that doesn’t make any sense either, because I would think if you have to go from two hearts to one, among other things, a change in eye or hair color would be the least of the issues.
-Point! But Ten does seem awfully concerned about the Family of Blood seeing him before he gets in the TARDIS. That implies that he can’t change his human appearance.
-No, he was worried if they’d seen Martha. Whom he presumably wasn’t going to fobwatch. And if he has to go to a singular vascular system from binary and completely get rid of the respiratory bypass, it seems really bizarre that the Arch couldn’t alter something as basic as bone structure.
Which brings me to my next point, which is: why not give the Doctor a completely different appearance, then? If the whole point is to hide, and the Arch is capable of making such extensive changes to appearance, wouldn’t it be more effective if he didn’t look at all like his old self? This wouldn’t completely ruin the “zomg the Doctor’s in uniform carrying a standard-issue firearm” thing, but it would make it different (and harder to write).
-But the point isn’t to “hide” in that sense. It’s to, quite simply, not be a Time Lord. The thing he’s hiding from doesn’t know what he looks like, so appearance wouldn’t be an issue.
-Yeah, but then if the TARDIS is already aging him down and changing his external appearance, why wouldn’t it just go the whole hog and give him a different body altogether?
-Same reason it didn’t change his appearance in Human Nature.
-Which would be “the BBC doesn’t want to hire a whole different actor for an entire two-parter”. Try again.
-That wouldn’t have been the case in the book.
-You haven’t read the book. I don’t think it’s really appropriate for you to retreat there for canon. Besides, the Arch isn’t even Time Lord technology in the book, so that’s a whole other can of worms to deal with. Next.
-Maybe it doesn’t want to change his appearance. Maybe it’s less work for the TARDIS to preserve as many outward characteristics as it can – that much less of the genome to fiddle with.
-Except that’s assuming that Time Lord traits are even genetically encoded at all – which they might not be – or that their genome works the same way humans’ does. Which it almost definitely doesn’t, given that humans and Time Lords aren’t on remotely the same evolutionary tree and have presumably had no contact with one another. For all we know, Time Lords might not even have DNA – they might be constructed a whole different way. And even if they aren’t, I’d bet that they’ve got a wildly different genetic structure, to the point where converting Time Lord physical traits to their human analogues would be as much work as changing said traits.
-Maybe there are certain analogues that the TARDIS knows, and can easily switch between? Like “this genetic sequence for brown hair in Time Lords” equals “this genetic sequence for brown hair in humans”? And it’s easier for it to use these preprogrammed analogues than to wing it and switch them around?
-But that works against your aging-back theory – the analogues would correspond to his current appearance, so he’d look exactly the same. You wouldn’t be able to alter ages.
-Except age isn’t in the genes, per se. The appearance of age is based on changes to the cells and genes over time. The TARDIS would have to duplicate those effects as well, which means it’d be able to set the cells at whatever age they need be. And if the TARDIS can give him a personality and memory that corresponds to wherever he’s hiding, I see no reason why it couldn’t give him the appropriate age.
-But if you’re working with the idea of appearance analogues, wouldn’t there also be age analogues in place? Otherwise every fobwatched Time Lord would end up a random age.
This generally goes on for quite a while.
So I ask: would it make sense for a fobwatched Doctor to be aged back a bit? Or does that not work with the Chameleon Arch? Could I handwave this away, or would it stick out too much in the story? Thoughts? Suggestions? Swift slaps to the face?
(There’s also the bit where I feel sort of weirdly ageist for not keeping the protagonist fifty-something (in human terms, anyway) like he’s darn well supposed to be. But since I didn’t do it for shippy purposes I can ignore that.)
...that got really long again. Oh well.
And now to bed. But we shall talk in the morning! Afternoon. Whatever.
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...girl!Four and girl!Six would be a riot and a half, though. Especially since their dress sense wouldn't change a bit. *giggles*
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And his relationship with Sarah Jane would not change a whit.
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And of course it wouldn't. She'd still pick Sarah up and haul her places if she wasn't running away fast enough, and they would still hug and grab hands and get all upset when they thought the other one was dead. :D
...dagnabbit. I have enough fic/crack!fanart ideas as it is. Why'd you go give me another?
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I was just thinking-- Sarah Jane would take gender-swap (relatively) in stride, but Girl!Four would likely have a slightly different dynamic with Adric.... Not that Four would notice.
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*stifles urge to make an Adric Has Two Mommies joke*
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Adric would definitely have a sudden realization in his first few serials. Are we making Five female, or would he stay (or rather, return) male? Adric would be sooooo confused.
I think Five should be male because, the way I figger it, Four stumbled onto a planet with Alien Genderswap Pollen which irrevokably modified his pysionomy. Regeneration would wipe all that clean. (Speaking of Alien Genderswap Pollen, wouldn't Sarah Jane be the cutest boy ever? Luckily the effect of the pollen can be reversed in human bodies, so she's clear at the end of the serial-- after having collected a few admirers.)
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I made a few promising doodles in class this morning, though. I think girl!One would look a bit schoolmarmish and would probably have her hair in a bun. And girl!Two's clothes would still be a bit too big for her, and her hair'd be all disheveled and messy. girl!Three would be in something velvety and frilly and would still be wearing riding boots; girl!Four through girl!Six would have essentially the same outfits as their counterparts, except that girl!Five would have a skirt. I'm not sure what I'd do with girl!Seven and Eight.
Do girl Doctors necessitate a girl!Master, however? I rather think they do. And that would be excellent. But she'd still be called The Master, because she's way too cool to use gender-specific titles.
Having the Doctor suddenly turn male again in the presence of three companions who don't actually know that he was ever male would be rather entertaining, if only for the confusion it would bring. However, I'm tempted to leave Five female so s/he, Nyssa, and Tegan can have slumber parties and tell girly stories. :D
And Sarah Jane would make an adorable boy, especially in her Hand of Fear overalls (which make her look a bit boyish already, I think).
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I think Girl!Five should go a whole new route, and wear a tennis outfit. With the sweatbands and everything. >P I also think Girl!Five would have a larger cup size than the others because Boy!Five seems to be a bit more, er, curvy as well. Girl!One and Girl!Four would be small chested, although Girl!Four would have wide hips
hidden under those enormous trousers. I don't know about Girl!Two-- I think the objects in question would be covered either wayuntil Jamie pulled her out of danger too brusquely one day and everything got awkward.I think Eight should have a lovely yet practical gown. ^_^ Maybe a velvet skirt-and-jacket ensemble? Then a soft, practical updo with curls spilling out all over. Random Companion!Kissing with Grace will be acceptable if this is so.
Girl!Ainley!Master would be hilarious! Imagine the costumes! In fact, I think the Master has tinkered around with the Alien Genderswap Pollen and figured out how to switch back and forth. Adric is so confused he doesn't even know where his own backside is
except when Girl!Ainley!Master wait wait not going there.Delgado!Master, I think, would be rather unsettled as a female, and tend to hide in the TARDIS until he figured out how to change back. Girl!Three would spare no chuckles at her expense. Wrestling would ensue. I don't know what Girl!Delgado!Master would wear, because she wouldn't wear the same thing, since it would fit right, I feel. I think whatever she picked out would not quite fit-- either physically or personality-wise-- and the whole affair would be rather sad
until Jo took her shopping.Girl!Crispy!Master is something of a non-issue (Girl!Delgado!Master probably already figured out how to change back) and then with Ainley!Master, everything suddenly clicks into place and s/he is faaaaabulous. No camp left uncamped! No dramatic gesture left ungestured! Fishnets for all occasions.
Having the Doctor suddenly turn male again in the presence of three companions who don't actually know that he was ever male would be rather entertaining, if only for the confusion it would bring. However, I'm tempted to leave Five female so s/he, Nyssa, and Tegan can have slumber parties and tell girly stories. :D
All of these are good points, with the addendum that trapping Adric with three women is just too cruel. :( I propose, therefore, that Girl!Four regenerates into Boy!Five, and then Boy!Five decides to becomes Girl!Five after Adric is gone. You know he doesn't explain what he's doing before it's done, either.
Tegan: Excuse me Miss, who are you? Why are you in the TARDIS?
Girl!Five: Don't you recognize me, Tegan? I'm the Doctor!
Tegan: ...oh for the love of... NYSSA!
Nyssa: (from elsewhere in the TARDIS) What?
Tegan: Where did you put the vodka?
Girl!Five: Ooh! Are we having a party? Let's play Truth or Dare!
Sarah Jane is adorable at everything but I must insist that Boy!Sarah Jane ends up temporarily drafted into UNIT. Chaos ensues.
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Jacket over a high-collared dress, I should think. Provides for the lapel situation while maintaining the schoolmistress feel. And Polly's a bit intimidated by her since she reminds her of the sort of scary schoolmarm that hits people with rulers and things but they learn to bond over their mutual love of sending Ben through small crawlspaces.
I do think girl!Two's clothes would be slack enough that the question of figure wouldn't really come up
except when she and Jamie and Zoe have all fallen into another Deeply Suggestive Cuddling Pile. Five and Six (and possibly Seven) would definitely be the curvier of the lot. And for some reason, I love the idea of Eight with an updo.Sudden realization: girl!Four would make The Deadly Assassin even sketchier than it already is. I'm completely okay with that.
Ah, see, I think we were pursuing two different trains of thought - I was working under the assumption that the Doctor and Master had always been lay-dees. Thus, I had assumed that girl!Delgado!Master would have just worn a trim, fitted Nehru jacket ensemble and a tight braid in her hair
because she'd totally be the butch to girl!Three's fem.Actual Genderswap Pollen would make things especially awkward. And I think many, many things would be done by robotic minion after that point, for specifically that reason. And if they could not, the Master would just try to pretend it was another disguise and not let anyone know who he really was - until girl!Three found out and mocked him mercilessly for it.
I fully support the idea of girl!Ainley!Master going full-throttle camp queen, though. Think every stereotyped Gothic villainess you've ever seen and then kick it up a notch. With eyeliner. And yet more subtext.
Nyssa: What do you mean, he's a girl again? I thought he said that was only temporary.
Tegan: You feel like making sense out of it, you be my guest. *takes shot* I don't know how I stand it.
girl!Five: I just thought this would make it easier to be friendly...
boy!Sarah Jane in uniform? Oooh. But do the Brig and Harry know what's going on?
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they learn to bond over their mutual love of sending Ben through small crawlspaces.
AHAHAHAHA!! And Ben notices absolutely nothing amiss. His jumper, on the other hand, grows even larger in an attempt to protect him.
I do think girl!Two's clothes would be slack enough that the question of figure wouldn't really come up except when she and Jamie and Zoe have all fallen into another Deeply Suggestive Cuddling Pile.
And then, of course, Zoe would want to discuss it.
Ah, see, I think we were pursuing two different trains of thought - I was working under the assumption that the Doctor and Master had always been lay-dees.
Oh, there's totally two different universes-- one where they are and have always been women (and Lady!Master, yes), and another where they switch-- for that one I was thinking, all is normal until Delgado!Master and Three get attacked by Alien Genderswap Pollen and are taken shopping by Jo. Maybe the Master gets switched first, and some months later doses Three with it because he's found out and is mocking her? The Doctor and the Master then tinker around and get changed back (maybe the Master needed the Doctor's help), so Sarah Jane meets Boy!Three.
Then the Master lays a trap for Four and Sarah Jane, and they get dosed with the AGP. Sarah Jane is switched back in a few serials, but Four is stuck like that until she regenerates, because the Master modified the pollen to be irreversible for Time Lords without his s00per sekrit antidote.
Boy!Five stays for a while then becomes Girl!Five-- maybe as a noble sacrifice to save Nyssa and Tegan from something? Ainley!Master has meanwhile discovered all the secrets of AGP and is possibly marketing it in handy pill form. Adric is even more traumatized following Castrovalva (Turlough might really take to Girl!Ainley!Master, though, considering how much he liked the Captain in Enlightenment.)
But in the Always Ladees universe.... tell me more about this butch!Master. ^_^
Aww, poor Girl!Five! She'd be so hurt and bemused. It may come in handy, though, when the Black Guardian tells Turlough to "Kill him! The Doctor!" and Turlough's like, "But um... who?" The misunderstanding is not cleared up for some episodes, engendering much hilarity.
I think Brig might, because after she gets dosed with AGP, they might draft him as a cover-up. Sort of a, "Here's a new private just transferred from Geneva, might get transferred away again just as quickly so don't get friendly" kind of thing. Except Sarah Jane can't not be friendly and flirty, and this causes awkward yumminess. Apparently no-one knew that Captain Yates was so open. I don't know, though-- how many people would the Brig let in on the secret?
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And then, of course, Zoe would want to discuss it.
Cue another Patented Doctor Rapid Subject Change. Oh, look! Something malfunctioned!
Jamie, of course, is surprisingly nonchalant about the whole thing
because he so TOTALLY already knew.maybe as a noble sacrifice to save Nyssa and Tegan from something?
Possibly from David Collings wearing *lasagna* on his head this time, just for variety's sake. Yes. Also, I'm still giggling over the idea of the Doctor and the Master manipulating each other's genders purely to irritate one another. Not because of any sort of mind game or trap they're involved in, but because it's the equivalent of shooting rubber bands at each other. Hee!
You do realize that this would mean Leela would travel with girl!Four. *big grin* And Adric's especially traumatized after Castrovalva because he got utterly pwned by a girl. His fragile adolescent ego can't take that yet.
In the Always Laydees universe, I figured girl!Master would probably wear much the same outfit that Delgado!Master wears - sharp black suit and jacket and black gloves. I also think her hair would be in a tight braid so it'd be out of her way - if she didn't just cut it short to make wearing disguises easier.
I couldn't decide for a while if lady!Three in the Always Women-verse would actually be feminine or if she'd wear much the same outfit as guy!Three (a sort of George Sand thing - wearing men's clothes without disguising her gender). But then i figured that, if she's already going around in satin and velvet and lace, she's going to look feminine even if she's wearing trousers and a jacket. Not to mention that, for some reason, I think of girl-verse!Three as having very long, very curly white hair, which is only occasionally pulled back when she needs to Do Skience.
And she looked awfully girly next to a sharp woman with short hair in a suit jacket who called herself The Master. Who is given to tying her up and/or having subtext-laden conversations with her.
< /does not instantly reduce all relationships to easily-definable cliches, I promise>
The misunderstanding is not cleared up for some episodes, engendering much hilarity.
*rimshot*
Probably, by the time they get to Enlightenment, the Black Guardian just has to start referring to her as "the one in the tennis outfit - YES, Turlough, that one. Yes, I'm sure. Well, kill them both, then, I'm not bothered".
I think that Sarah's enlistment would be strictly Brig-and-Doctor only information. Of course, eventually Yates or Benton would run into girl!Four, and realize that that new private looks awfully familiar...
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Anything that reduces the wait time between "Lady President Romana" and "Screw Andred; I'm running off with the Lady President" is okay with me. :D
The idea of the first episode of The Ribos Operation with girl!Four fills me with glee, by the way.
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"You're the Doctor...?"
"Well, of course I'm the Doctor. Why do you ask?"
"There seems to be some rather crucial data missing from your file, then."
"What? Oh, you mean this? Bah, minor incident on the Planet of the Alien Genderswap Pollen. Nothing serious, have it fixed in a jiffy. Come along, Romana."
Edited because I fail at spelling.
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And thank you for pointing out the book to me! I've been meaning to read it for a while now, and this saves me the trouble of actually having to find a hard copy. It's interesting so far, and I'm sure it'll be a great help.
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Anytime. There's quite a few free e-books on the BBC website, if you want to check out more. Some might be quite a shock since they offer some views that are either AU now or that might go against people's personal canon, but there's others that are quite an interesting read. My personal favourite of those I've read so far is the Third Doctor's Scales of Injustice, as I like the characterization of Liz and have no problem picturing her reasons to leave UNIT to be those described in it.
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Oh, what about poor K-9? How does he react to this? I hope he doesn't try to shoot girl!Four when she comes back to the TARDIS, that could get rather awkward.
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No worries - he got K-9 after he got hit by the AGP, and Romana left with K-9 before he got changed back into guy!Five. Of course, the K-9 that guy!Ten meets in School Reunion might have a few issues...
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Ah, I didn't know that; that's good.
Hee, poor boy!Ten might get threatened a bit! That's ok; I think he could probably use it.
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