I figured I should actually be using this. So I decided to put up some of my original fiction. Not like anybody's going to read it, but hey.


I also need to figure out how to make a new icon.


Those Cold Unfeeling Stars



I was watching some reruns when his absurdly long and skinny arm snaked out with the remote. The hero and his love interest flickered and died with a quiet implosion of sound.

I turned, irritated. "I was watching that!"

"It's recorded," he said quietly, and I realized that he was miserable for some reason. It's often hard to tell, because he doesn't act belligerent or choke up or anything. I looked at him now. His long, skinny limbs were all folded up, like a spider. He was sitting in a rocking chair, and it was rocking slightly, back and forth, back and forth. Apart from this motion, he was eerily still, eyes wide and staring at me.

"What is it?" I asked, concerned.

He carefully placed his book on the coffee table after dog-earing his page. He did this without ever taking his eyes off me. After a moment he spoke in his usual calm, measured tones. "Do you ever wonder if we're alone in the universe?"

I laughed, not unkindly. "What's brought this on?" I asked.

He just kept staring at me, kept rocking.

I sighed and stood up. "Shove over." He complied, and I sat next to him on the chair, put my arms around his shoulders. "Tell me what's up."

He looked at me desperately. "Don't you ever think about it?" he pleaded. "About the stars, those cold unfeeling stars. Which would be worse, to know there is nothing out there and we are all alone in the vast dark void, or to know that those stars are full of light and warmth and life and we are denied it!" His voice was thick with unaccustomed emotion.

For a moment I just sat there, stunned. He never talked this much, even with me. I'd told myself we had an unspoken connection, that there was no need for speech because we knew each other so well. Apparently not.

But it was only a few seconds before I found the words he needed. I pulled him closer. He felt cold. I wished, suddenly, that I could tell him that he was everything to me. Teacher, student, husband, lover. I wished I could tell him that I wanted to be with him forever. I wished I could tell him how much I loved him. But I knew, instinctively, that that wasn't what he needed right now.

I swallowed.

"No, I don't think much about the possibility of life on other planets. That's because I've looked around, and this planet is more than enough. It has infinite variety, infinite splendor and vastness, it is covered in light and warmth and life. And it is covered in people, too! Good people, most of them, interesting people, intelligent, creative people! Poets and architects and scientists and heroes and parents and lovers. And I'll tell you this: there is one thing those stars definitely haven't got, and that's you, beautiful you." I looked deep into his eyes. "Understand?"

He nodded, and smiled, ever so slightly.

"Excellent." I kissed his forehead. "Now go to bed. It'll all look better in the morning."

"What about you?" he said as he stood up obediently, long legs unfolding.

I grinned. "I want to finish my show. He's just confessed his undying love to her, and-"

He rolled his eyes as he disappeared downstairs.

I didn't turn the TV back on. Instead I went out onto the balcony. The night air was sharp and chilling on my skin. I looked up. The stars were there, unfriendly distant points of light. Those cold unfeeling stars...

I shivered, and went back inside.



***



On my way to bed, something caught my eye. It was his book. Involuntarily I reached out and snagged it, pages ruffling. I glanced at the cover. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke. The book fell open onto the dog-eared page. On sentence jumped out at me, probably because it had been circled in pencil by a careful and conscientious hand.

I smiled and tucked the book under my arm as I went to bed.



***



The stars are no place for Man.

Perhaps it's just because I'm a teenager, and therefore overly self-obsessed, but I am seriously freaked out by mortality, and so I would accept immortality like a shot, no questions asked, no stopping to read the fine print. What would I do with my time? Well, I'd probably have to spend a lot of time forging passports and birth certificates and stuff like that. Also, it would depend on how old I stayed, or if I kept on aging until I was shriveled and wrinkled like that guy in the Greek myth who turned into a cricket. I would like to travel all over the world, see everything, everywhere. And then I'd try to build a time machine so I could meet Oscar Wilde.

Who cares? I don't. I'm a teenager with the political awareness of a head louse, and I'd like to be a Communist when I grow up. And move to Australia.

A hero is someone who finds self-sacrifice hard but does it anyway. Ex: people like the Doctor or Superman aren't heroes, because they're weird aliens who don't value their own lives anyway. People like Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are true heroes because they're actually afraid of dying.


And yes, this shows how much of an obsessed fangirl I am. Yes, I need to live in the real world more. I'm trying. But the fictional world's just so much more fun. :D

Just something I've been scribbling. Got no idea where it's going.

                The picture stared back at me with dead eyes.

                It was a black-and-white photograph, with the occupants dressed in uncomfortable early-twentieth century styles. Two girls and a dog. It was probably supposed to be a heartwarming image, but something about the eyes struck me as incredibly creepy.

                I replaced it carefully on the dusty shelf. The edges of the metal frame made a dull thunking sound.

                “Could we please hurry up with it and then get the hell out of here? I think I’m getting goose bumps.”

                “Oh, please,” Alexander replied disdainfully. “It’s nowhere near sunset. Don’t tell me you’re turning into a wimp.” He continued ransacking the kitchen, methodically going through every dusty cupboard. “Aha!” he cried, straightening up, brandishing a small metal object. “A replacement can opener! Finally! What the frick is it with can openers? This is the first house in a week that’s had one!”

                “Maybe you’re just bad at looking,” I suggested, running my hand along the keys of the ancient piano. I tried to press one. Plunk. The keys were sticky.

                “Well, maybe if you helped a little…”

                Obligingly, I followed him into the kitchen. “You’ve got to admit it, though,” I remarked thoughtfully as I stuffed jars of preserves into my backpack. “This place is, like, totally the poster child for all those stupid haunted houses from corny eighty horror flicks. I keep expecting to hear the bogeyman groaning.”

                He eyed me with disbelief, running a hand nervously through his clumpy, once-blond hair. “I cannot believe you. You’re scared of a house? When we’re living in a horror movie?” He tried the tap at the sink. A thin trickle of rusty water came out, and he started to fill up his water bottle. “There’s nothing in here to be afraid of.” The stream of water slowed and stopped, and he turned the tap again with a scream of rusted metal. “All the scary stuff’s outside.”

 

                We looked through the medicine cabinets in the bathroom. We didn’t find any aspirin, but we’d given up on that long ago. There were a couple of tubes that seemed to contain pain reliever cream, but I wasn’t sure. Alexander put them in his bag anyway. Like he said, we could always have Goggle test them, and any kind of pharmacy drugs were hard to come by in this world. There were also some jars of shampoo, but they had congealed. Alexander scoffed at my desire for personal hygiene.

                I examined the bathtub. “Look, this thing’s got feet! With claws! What did I tell you about the haunted house thing?”

                Alexander glanced at his watch, looking nervous but trying to hide it. “If we could hurry up…?”

                “See, you think it’s creepy, too.”

                “No, I just want to be back before sunset, okay? I really don’t want to have to spend the night in this place.”

                I made a face at that, and we moved on to the basement. It was really awful in there. The place was made from cold, dank cement, and lit by a sole flickering dim light bulb. “God, of all the things I miss, I’d never have thought of fluorescent lighting,” I said. Alexander didn’t deign to reply, just pitter-pattered down the rickety stairs on a wave of false bravado.

                I prudently hung back. “Anything interesting?” I called from the relative safety of the top of the stairs.

                “Might help if I could actually see anyth- aaagh!”

                “Alexander?”

                Silence.

                “Alexander!”

                More silence.

                I tore down the steps in wild abandon, tripped over something small and hard and pointy, and crashed to the cement floor just as the incandescent light bulb flickered and went out.

                I couldn’t help myself. It shames me to say it, but I have to admit, I screamed like a little girl. I shrieked. I yelled my lungs out. After a few seconds of wordless vocals I switched to imploring every deity I’d ever heard of and a few I hadn’t. I started to see my life flash before my eyes. It was a depressingly short and unimpressive life. I started screaming again. I’m surprised I didn’t wet my pants. This might have gone on for a while, if I hadn’t, while taking a brief gasp of air, heard a very annoyed voice coming from in front of me. “For god’s sake, Sam, shut the frick up!”

                I shut up as ordered, but only for five seconds or so. Then I cautiously ventured, “Alexander?”

                “Of course it is, moron! Who else would it be? Geez, just like a girl to freak out when she accidentally hits the light switch!”

                “Just like you to be sexist in a dangerous situation!”

                “Oh, the basement’s soooo dangerous! The bog monster’s going to jump out and eat us!”

                There was a sudden, contemplative silence. The temperature seemed to drop a few dozen degrees. I lay very, very still.

                Eventually Alexander whispered, “Did you check and make sure it was empty?”

                “The hell I did! You were the one at the foot of the stairs! I came in after you, because you were stupid enough to trip over a toy racecar!”

                “You fell over it too!”

                There was a creaking sound, and I froze. The sudden absence of Alexander’s breathing suggested he had frozen, too.

                “Probably just a creaking floorboard or something,” I whispered reassuringly, although I confess I was not quite sure who I was trying to reassure. “Haunted house, remember?”

                “Or it could be one them, hiding inside the basement during the day,” Alexander whispered back, teeth chattering.

                “Look,” I told him, trying to inject some logic into our thought processes, “that was a creak. The basement is cement. There’s nothing that goes creak. Now, I’m going to stand up and go turn on the light again.”

                “Thanks, Sam,” he whispered.

                “Anytime,” I replied, fumbling for the switch on shaky legs. The darkness seemed oppressive, trying to suffocate me. I had to grab the fear and force it down. It was hard, though, especially since I knew my fear was not irrational. It was a survival instinct.

                Finally, I found the switch, and the basement was flooded with yellow light. Or appeared to be flooded, anyway, and after that pitch black a candle would have looked like a bonfire to us. I looked around nervously, but it appeared to be without danger. Alexander sat up, blinking, and rubbed the back of his head. “Ow,” he said distractedly. He seemed pretty much all right; as all right as he ever was, anyways. He sat up, and I noticed he was holding something in his long, thin, bony fingers. “I seem to have hit my head on this,” he remarked. “Frick, that hurt.”

                I sat on the steps, regarding it. It seemed to be some kind of mechanical thing, with long spidery limbs and a golden shimmer. In fact, it really did remind me of a spider, except that it seemed to have nine legs instead of eight, and have a triangular sort of body.

                “Wow. Can I see it?” He tossed it to me, and when I caught it, I was surprised by how smooth and cold the metal felt. I turned it over, examining it. There seemed to be a lot of gears and buttons which I couldn’t make head nor tail of. I sighed. “The Professor will like it,” I said.

                “Heh, probably.” He shook his head. “Useless piece of scrap metal, I think.”

                “Hey, you never know, it could be an ancient scientific artifact that’ll help us battle the forces of evil.”

                He looked at me like I was insane. “Battle the forces of evil? Sam, we don’t battle. We run away.”

                “I know, I know,” I said wistfully. “Just a thought.”

Hmm. Rather unusual for a Russel T Davies episode. Wonderfully depressing, the end of the world handled much better than last year's, Donna proving once again that she is a refreshingly three-dimensional companion, and Rose apparently having gained some much-needed maturity.

Well done, RTD.

Sadly, I suspect the next two episodes are going to get rather wildly out of hand. So I will enjoy this nicely muted, personal story whilst I can.

Regarding the next episode...

Daleks? Oh, PLEASE. Davros? Oh, NOOOOO!

It's not my fault! I was framed!

Seriously!

I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! It wasn't my fault a, uh, freak hurricane deposited all those bank notes at my house! I'm totally innocent!

Unlike all you losers here at the Jovian Penal Colony.

I've gotta admit, it ain't too bad here. The food sucks, yes, but at least it's better than Europa, right? I hear the poor buggers there have to cut up chunks of ice all day. Stupid, really, when it would be so much faster just to use lasers, but I suppose I'm missing the point or something. Maybe freezing your fingers off builds character.

So anyways. What was I saying.

Oh yeah. I was saying about how Jupiter's not too bad. Yeah. See, the wardens here are pretty cool. They let me bring all my Beatles albums.

Yeah, nother bit of my insane Doctor Who ramblings... please don't be alarmed if the style seesaws madly, it's more fun that way...

August 31st, 2021 A.D., the Doctor's universe

She's beginning to think something's wrong. He's still standing at the door of the TARDIS, reading that message he got.

    "Dad? Are you coming?"

    He looks up, his usual lopsided grin firmly in place. "Told you not to call me that."

    Rolls her eyes. "All right, Doctor, are you coming?"

    He looks back down at the print-out. "Just a sec. I need to make sure the dimensional transcendence circuit's working right, this close to the rift." He steps back inside the police box, closing the door firmly. Fred waits, arms crossed, tapping her foot. Her bag feels heavy, so she's put it down. The trouble is, it's much harder to read this version of the Doctor, and she imagines she knows him better than anybody. He looks so young, not more than a decade older than Fred herself, but his inhumanly perfect features and emerald eyes completely mask the emotions inside. She sometimes wonders if he has emotions. He covers it all with a vaguely good-humored and knowing smile, as if the joke is perpetually on you. She purses her lips. True, he probably is the most intelligent and knowledgeable humanoid in the universe, but he doesn't need to be so... flamboyant about it. She sighs. She never had this problem with his last body.

    There is a wheezing noise that she hardly ever hears from the outside. The TARDIS is dematerializing. The difference in pressures caused by a dense object dropping out into another plane of existence causes a heavy wind that blows her short brown hair back and gets her scarf all tangled. She stares, unable to believe what's going on. When the blue box is no more than a pale outline, she comes to her senses and reaches for her sonic screwdriver, but by the time she has it out the only trace the box was ever there is a faint, dying breeze. She just stands there, screwdriver limply held, stunned. He just... left her here. Stranded in the twenty-first century. Why-

    "I hate you!" she screams, enraged. "I hate the way you act so smug, the way you talk down to me, the way you're so sure you can fix the world, the way you never see things my way, the way you don't let me visit Aunt Martha, the way you never tell me about where you're from, and, most of all, the way you won't tell me a thing about my parents! I don't even know what species I am! Or what species you are! You've raised me since I was a baby and you've never told me that! I hate you!"

    There is no answer.

    She sighs, and picks up her bag.

I guess this is the place to post some of my fanfic that's just too weird/incomplete for FFN... so, without further ado... here is a fragment of a... well, I suppose you'd call it a fanfic universe that's gradually crystallizing in my brain... it's Doctor Who, and involves the future Doctors, especially Twelve for some reason... but pretty much brings in everyone...


May 15th, 2022 A.D., Pete's World

There was a flash of blue light, a glimpse of the vortex, and then suddenly four new people were standing in the control room of Torchwood Hub, otherwise known as Canary Wharf. Rose stepped back, startled. “What the hell?” she exclaimed.

The leader of the new arrivals, a tall, thin man in a tight spring-green suit and a wild mop of blond hair, said in a business-like tone of voice, “Ace? Readings.”

“Neutral,” replied the other adult, a sturdy woman in her early thirties wearing a bomber jacket. “We're safe.”

“But not for long,” said a third person, a boy of maybe eighteen with a dark, handsome face. He exchanged a glance with the fourth member of the party, a girl who couldn't be over fifteen, with large, expressive eyes. Those large brown eyes were unfocused, and she stretched out a hand as though feeling an invisible wall.

“What is it, Fred?” asked the tall man with concern in his emerald eyes. “Are you alright?”

The girl blinked. “They're here,” she said, in an ordinary, everyday tone of voice, with just a hint of panic around the edges. “Mum and Dad. They're here.” She turned to face him. “What're we gonna do, Doctor?”

Rose felt the bottom of her world drop out and turn itself upside down. She dropped her laser gun. “Doctor?” she whispered.

“We have to stop them,” the tall man said authoritatively. “Somehow.”

“But Dad!” cried the boy, and Rose felt her knees go weak. “How can we possibly do it? There's only four of us, and they've got the TARDIS!”

“We've still got my bike, though,” said the woman called Ace. “Although how we'd manage to all fit on it I don't have a clue.”

“Wait a second,” Mickey said weakly. “Excuse me- are you the Doctor?”

The tall man grinned insanely, and Rose knew it was him, for all he looked so different. “Mickey!” he cried ecstatically. “Long time no see!”

“Yeah,” Mickey said harshly, “fifteen years.” His face was grim. “You just show up now? When the earth's been invaded? What about all the people who've already died? What about Jake? You could've saved him! You could've stopped them!” He turned to Rose. “What about her? She almost died, she could have died!”

“I'm sorry,” said the Doctor, “it's complicated, they're not just ordinary power-crazed nutters, they're Ti-”

Rose stepped forward. He still hasn't even looked at me, she thought. “Doctor!” she yelled.

He turned, but his eyes still glanced away. “Ah- I- er-”

She walked to him and pulled him into a hug. He hugged her back. It didn't matter, she thought, that he had a new companion (wife?) and a son (with who?) and whoever that girl was (daughter?). It didn't matter (only to me) because she'd promised forever (never say never), and that's what she was going to get (even if it had taken fifteen years). “You're back,” she whispered.

He pulled out of her embrace, and looked at her with sad eyes. “No I'm not,” he said quietly. “Not the man you knew.”

“Doctor!” the girl said, panicked. “They're coming! They know we're here! They want to kill you! Well,” she amended, “Mum does, I've never been too certain about Dad, he seems to be particularly insane when it comes to you.”

“Then let's move,” he said firmly. “I've only got the one spare life left, I'm not too keen on using it.” He turned and shouted orders to the others. “Ace, recalibrate the vortex manipulator. I've juiced it up, but there's still only enough left for one trip, if we all go. Get us to that bike. David.”
“Yes sir?” asked the boy.

“I know Ace's been teaching you how to use that Nitro Nine she always carries about. Get some from your bag and set the fuses for ten minutes. Hopefully you'll be a bit more accurate than her.”

“Oi!” Ace called cheerfully.

“Shut up, you were always getting my coat singed. Fred.”

“Yes?” said the girl.

“Set up a psychic link, there's a good girl. Only work with us three, of course, but you can't have everything, and then we can help you block your parents out. Mickey boy. If there's anyone else in the building, tell them to get out, then grab all the hardware you can find.” He finally turned to Rose. “You should get out. Go to your dad's place.”

“The hell I will,” she said.

“This could be dangerous.”

“You're letting Mickey come,” she pointed out. “And those kids, you're exposing them to danger.”

“They're not kids, and the danger's much greater to you,” he said seriously. “Our enemies, they'll try to use you as leverage. They think we...” He trailed off.

“Well, apparently they thought wrong,” she said. “I'll go get some stuff we might need.” She headed for the storage bin, trying not to cry. This was not how she'd imagined their reunion. “Guess I thought wrong too,” she whispered.

When she came back three minutes later, the Doctor was standing by the girl. “Fred, are you sure you're all right?” he said softly, tenderly.
The girl clutched her head, pulling at her soft brown hair. “The drums,” she whispered. “The drums, the neverending drumbeat, it's coming, closer and closer and closer...”

“I didn't foresee this,” the Doctor said angrily. “I should have expected side effects from that kind of psychic bond...”

Fred grabbed his long green coat. “Not your fault,” she whispered. “There's someone else. She helps me from the drums. Makes them quiet. Can't make them go away, not yet, she's not strong enough. But oh, she's so pretty, Doctor. All shining light. Beautiful.”

“Who is it?” asked the Doctor sharply.

Fred smiled. “Bad Wolf.”



Yes, I know. Insane. But if anyone is actually reading this, and actually figures out anything... kudos to you!

Alzarianfox out.

just feel like rambling, I suppose... my problem is, I compose lengthy journal entries in my head, then can't seem to care enough to write them down...

I'm starting to build up quite a universe of future Doctor Who episodes, which it might be useful to sort out here.

The Tenth Doctor, after the events of Voyage of the Damned, travels with Donna and later Martha. I've ignored the rumors that Rose is set to come back at the end of the fourth season.

After Donna and Martha leave, he meets future companion Bethany and gets shot, regenerating into the Eleventh Doctor.

Damn- can't get my files from this computer. Will post later.

It's struck me that since no one else is going to be reading this, probably, I might as well use it to get my rants out.

Right now the subject of the rant is Rose Tyler of the Doctor Who fandom. Or rather, the ship of Rose/Tenth Doctor.

Wait a sec while I copy and paste my stock rant on here.

Why I'm becoming an anti-shipper:
 
1.Season Two. My least favorite so far, mostly due to a complete lack of
character exploration, especially in Rose. In Season One she was brilliant, in
Two she was old. She never has to make hard decisions, she just hangs out with
the Doc and goes, 'OMG! So cool!'
 
2.Doomsday. 'Oh, by the by, you're going to have to go off into this parallel
universe and never see me again.' Don't you think he looks a bit... flippant?
 
3.Still Doomsday, what I've dubbed the OMGSoulmate!Scene. Tearful goodbye.
Confessions of love. Yuck. And the feeling that Rose is going to be woefully
unprepared for her new job. I mean, come on. I haven't seen Torchwood, but do
you seriously think Rose could last a day there?
 
4.Dumb Blonde Rose. Yes, she is. Dropped out of high school, shopgirl, really
can't figure things out on her own.
 
5. Reinette. WHY DOES EVERYONE JUMP ON REINETTE? She was a brilliant,
beautiful character with a beautiful, tragic relationship with the Doctor, she
was his total equal, and yet people call her a 'French Tart'. Why? Rose! 'OMG,
poor Rose, the Doctor's so mean, Reinette's a bitch!' OK, now think about HER
life. I'd say SHE'S the one who got the short end of the stick, ay? Rose lost
her beloved Doc for five and a half hours, Reinette lost him for six years and
then died! (And you don't insult a Steven Moffat episode to my face, not if
you want to live.)
 
6. Martha. The Doctor is so mean to her. Fans are so mean to her. The
Master's so mean to her. Everyone's always comparing her to Rose, and then
somehow thinking Rose is better. It's like ading two and two to get five.
Martha is smarter, braver, more motivated, more self-sacrificing, and more
empathic than Rose. Rose's one claim to fame is Bad Wolf, but come on! she
didn't even know what she was doing! Think  she could have survived the Year
That Never Was? 
 
7. Reunion fics. A good thing in moderation, but there is such a thing as TOO MUCH! Martha has about ten percent of all
fics on here, and Rose has eighty-five percent! I wonder what Freema Agyeman
would think!
 
8. The sheer number of Rose/Ten shippers. They need some opposition. Also the
way they so easily turn into rabid shippers, who light up the torches and
sharpen up the sporks.
 
9. The way she dies her hair and wears way too much lipstick.
 
10. The way she and Ten are so lovey-dovey in the second season. I much
prefer Season Three ten, he has so much more depth! FOr a long time I greatly
preferred Nine, because he was just more interesting than S2 Ten. In S3 he
even SOMETIMES MAKES MISTAKES (GASP!)

12/09/07

I do not feel the pressing need to post my innermost feelings at this time.

I have, however, developed a habit of writing nasty reviews to other people's badly punctuated fan fiction.

12/8/07

6:46


Whee, first post! Cool, except no one's gonna read it.

Anyway, how lame was that movie? They get all the effects just right, make it look and sound perfect, and then go ahead and give the script to some writer who obviously wasn't a fan of the book.

(rant rant rant)

Anyway.