mistress of pemberley

DW time travel fic: A Stitch in Time (Martha-365)

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:37:07 GMT

Title: A Stitch in Time
Author: pandacineaste
Characters: Just Martha and the teleporter.
Rating: G
Spoilers: 3x12, 3x13
Length: about 1800 words

Huge thanks to writeangel for beta reading this story. ^_^

As Martha materialized in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a whirring sphere whizzed past her, narrowly missing her ear. She yelped and hit the ground, and several more Toclaphane sailed through the empty space where her head had just been. Around her, none of the human workers batted an eye: Archangel reception was strong here, and they were all busy welding rocket parts and carting around boxes of supplies.

This factory, with its cookie-cutter warehouses and the spires of hundreds of identical red-and-white striped rockets receding into the distance, could just as well have been in China or Russia or India. Nothing distinguished its location except the sight of the Manhattan skyline in the distance, over the East River. The Master's face gazed down at her from several Chairman Mao-style banners draped over the low-slung warehouses. Pure egotism. Those little gestures of his had multiplied over the past year as his plan drew closer to completion. It was as if he had started to get bored with his total domination of Earth, and needed to keep thinking up inventive new ways to muck with people's heads and lives... maybe if he got bored enough someday, he'd just give up. Heh.

A disposable cell phone - a burner - on the ground began to vibrate. Martha looked down and quickly picked it up, before it had a chance to draw attention to her. "Hello?" she answered, then mentally kicked herself.

"What time is it?" The voice was eerily familiar. It was the voice from her own voice mail message.

"Wait a second, are you me? How can that be? Where are you? Isn't this a paradox?"

She heard herself sigh on the other end of the line, a too-familiar, impatient sigh.

"Yes, I'm calling you. This is me from the future. That is, farther along in your timeline, but only by a few hours. Except I'm in the past right now, running some errands. I planted this cell phone for you to pick up. Now, what time is it for you right now?"

"It's 11:10am. How are you doing this?"

"I'm calling you on our phone -- the one the Doctor fixed up with universal roaming? Look at the caller ID."

Martha quickly looked down and checked the caller ID on the burner. That was, in fact, her mobile number. She felt for her own mobile in her pocket: it was there, and still off - she generally kept it turned off these days, to save on batteries and stay off-grid.

"OK, the caller ID checks out. But isn't this a paradox?"

"How should I know?" snapped the woman on the other end of the line. "All I know is, a couple hours ago, I got this call from you. Er, not from you, but you know what I mean."

"But if you and I are talking to each other... doesn't that mean the universe is going to dissolve into a blob of gooseberry jelly now? Or at least, the minute I switch on my mobile?"

"Well, all I can say is, I didn't switch it on, and the universe didn't dissolve. But don't let me stop you; you can try it if you like. Go ahead. I dare you."

Martha reached for her mobile, felt a pang of fear, and drew her hand back. The voice on the other end of the line hooted: "Told you you wouldn't! You big chicken!"

"Well, I figure it's like the Doctor said," said Martha defensively. "Timey wimey stuff. Doesn't pay to mess with that sort of thing."

"Sure, sure, whatever" allowed the voice. "But tell you what. I need you to do something. I need you to come back in time to where I am, and then run some errands. I don't know why yet, but I think they're important."

"Alright then," Martha agreed, suddenly suspicious, "but how do I know you're really me? Prove it."

"Sure, I can prove it. Ask me anything."

"Our lucky pair of knickers."

"The red ones, with silvery stars - but the Master might know that, you know. He has surveillance cameras. Can't you think of something better?"

"Don't be coy! You know whatever it is you're about to say next. Whatever information convinced you, that's what you should say to me."

"Okay, fine! After the Doctor falls asleep, we like to stay up a little longer and count his freckles!"

"And how many of them do we think he has?"

"Oh, I don't know, three hundred-odd? We keep losing count when we get past, er, you-know-where."

"I sure do!" Martha crowed. "Quite right. Now, then, what was that you needed me to do again?"

And then she went and did it.

*

That evening, Martha sat cross-legged in the ruins of a school gymnasium, telling the story of the Doctor to a rapt circle of dockworkers and manual laborers. She did find herself yawning a little, from being several hours older than she normally would have been - a sort of time travel jet lag that she never could get used to. (The yawning certainly wasn't because she was bored with that speech. She wasn't bored at all. She had only told it three hundred and fifty times or so.) Eventually she got to the end.

". . . . so, pass it on. Spread the word, so that everyone will know about the Doctor."

A young man in a baseball cap, standing up in the very back of the crowd, called out. "But, that's just thinking. How can thoughts possibly do anything?"

"Good question," she stalled. "What's your name then?"

"I'm Alex."

"Well, Alex, our thoughts can change the world. It was by controlling our thoughts that Saxon came to power, and it's our thoughts now that can bring him down. Trust me. It's the only way."

"That's your explanation? To trust you? Why should we trust you?"

Martha wondered who Alex had been a year ago, before Saxon. Maybe a college student or an office worker. His young face was weathered now, from a year of hard labor. The floor he stood on was cracked and tufts of grass were sprouting through it.

"I'm sorry, Alex, I can't tell you any more than that. I just can't. You know how the Master has spies everywhere." At the crowd nodded. "But it can't hurt, can it? Just give my plan a try."

Alex smiled, shrugged, and settled down on the floor. In the balmy June weather, people were glad to have an evening together. Their spirits were indefinably lifted by the new hope they'd been given. They relaxed and started chatting about the good old days, before the Master and the war. Martha was still sitting in the center of the circle, set apart from all the others. She was used to that. She had learned to enjoy sitting by herself and quietly listening to the happy voices around her.

Suddenly, a mechanical screeching shook the air, followed by the crisp smell of ozone. The Toclaphane! Quickly, Martha slipped on her TARDIS key, rendering herself invisible to the Archangel network. A split second later, the windows of the gymnasium shattered as two Toclaphane smashed in and flew directly to the center of the court, hovering directly over Martha's head.

"Martha Jones must be here," piped the first Toclaphane in a childlike voice. "The Master's informant said so."

The second one chimed in. "But we can't see Martha Jones. Martha Jones is invisible."

"So let's kill everything that we can't see!" concluded the first Toclaphane. A fine white mist started to spill from the two hovering spheres. Martha started to cough, and found herself unable to complete the cough or even raise her hand to her mouth. Weakened, she flopped over on her side and lay there helplessly, eyes fixed on the Toclaphane. The mist spread slowly through the gymnasium, paralyzing everyone it touched. Hovering a few feet away from Martha, the two Toclaphane unfurled their knives and started to chop the air.

In the back of the gymnasium, Martha saw a blur of motion. It was the young man, Alex, who'd tied his shirt around his mouth and jumped up. He ran toward Martha, reaching blindly for her, trying to pull her out of the center away from the knives.

"Alex! Don't do it!" Martha tried to scream, but her lips wouldn't move. A jet of the paralyzing mist pulsed out from one of the Toclaphane and caught Alex square under the jaw, knocking him out.

Suddenly two cell phones on the floor rang once, in tandem, and stopped, drawing the Toclaphanes' attention. Each of the Toclaphane picked up a phone and listened to it. Nothing. "Proceeding to clear the empty area," shrilled the Toclaphane in chorus. Knives flashing, they spun in widening circles, closer and closer to Martha as she lay paralyzed on the floor.

Martha thought back to the instructions that she had received and followed:

Jump back five hours into the past. Obtain three burner phones: let's call them A, B, and C.

Using your universal roaming phone, call burner A so that it will ring at 6:52pm today. Hang up after one ring. Then call burner A again for 6:54pm today. When the phone is answered, place your TARDIS key on the receiver for a full minute. This will transmit the Archangel-damping signal over the line. After the minute is over, you can hang up.

Now follow the same exact steps for burner B. Plant both of them in cracks in the floor of the gymnasium, a few feet away from where you'll be speaking.

Burner C is for you. Plant it right where you will be emerging from the teleport. Now call it at 11:10am. You know what to say.

If Martha could have smiled, she would have. The two phones rang once more; once more, the two Toclaphane answered. As their knives continued to whirl, each Toclaphane heard the subliminal hum of the TARDIS key -- and then saw the other Toclaphane disappear. Martha and the rest of the crowd watched as the two Toclaphane spheres crashed straight into each other, tearing each other to shreds, and then fell to the ground.

After what seemed like an hour (which was, by Martha's reckoning, only ten minutes) the paralytic gas wore off and she started to cautiously lift her fingers and toes one by one.

Alex stirred, opened his eyes, and then laughed out loud. "The famous Martha Jones, saving the day again. How do you do it?"

"I'm pretty lucky," Martha beamed. "I get to work with the best."

state of the boards

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 05:16:27 GMT

What really happened in ep 3x13. Some very funny scenes were omitted, apparently...

Another amusing scene: what happens when Donna catches the Doctor trying on her dress.

new companion opinion

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:34:32 GMT

I like the dress but I hate the actress. Still, it's just what he deserves for letting a gem like Martha slip through his hands.

exercises

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:46:04 GMT

Tonight my DH lent me John Gardiner's The Art of Fiction, which contains the aside: "Except to examine new techniques, or because of personal friendship, no serious apprentice should ever study second-rate writers." (Guilt.) Anyway.

Exercise 1. Write the paragraph that would appear in a piece of fiction just before the discovery of a body.

* 1

Lucy could smell the smouldering bonfire ahead of her, in the darkness as she picked her way over the boulders in her red heels. But any crackle from the pyre was drowned out by the crash of the waves. The air smelled of salt water and ash - his ash, she thought, atoms breathed in on who-knows-how-many planets scattered through time and space, released from Gallifreyan molecular configurations that would never occur in nature again.

* 2

A rustle from the direction of the bedroom made the Doctor look up from his morning paper. "Is that you, love? I've got a pot of coffee on: you can help yourself, if you like." A deep groan was all he heard by way of reply, and then a rumpled glimpse of pale skin and morning beard crossing the doorway on the way to the bathroom, and then the sound of the door creaking open and shut again. The sound of the water running, and then a loud crash and the water stopped. "Everything okay in there?" No answer. He knocked on the door, even though he never usually knocked. No answer. He opened it.

last of the timelords - 3 bases for icons

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 02:48:11 GMT

Because old habits die hard... please feel free to snag :)

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I love fic, I loves it

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 02:06:36 GMT

dwseason4 - a journal devoted to alternate DW storyline fic

I dare you to wear white - hilarious Doctor/Master fic

fandom > RTD

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:26:02 GMT

Mendelian Inheritance: an awesome fic by fahye that reminds me of Kelly Link.

Also: I keep rewatching this Master/Lucy, Doctor/Martha vid by writeangel. It has over 2k views so far so I think maybe I'm not the only one.

FLOUNCE

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:01:19 GMT

So series 3 of New Who is over and it was almost as retarded as the ending of season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. I give up. I have no desire to make icons. I will just stick my fingers in my ears and pretend that the season finale didn't happen.

Off I go now to watch Coupling Season 4. I'm voting Moffat.

HMPH.

my first fanfic (drabble): Doctor/Master

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:28:46 GMT

Title: 2 x 2 = 69
Author: pandacineaste
Length: About 100 words.
Rating/Warnings: R. Doctor/Master slash. Sort of abstract, gimmick-based. If someone else has already done this gimmick (and I have the sinking worry it's been done before, even though I haven't seen it) - oh well, here's hoping.

*

2 x 2 = 69

Locked into enmity, they rage and fight across the skies, but in the pauses between the fighting, sometimes, they make love. Like right now. And in the symmetry of their favorite sexual position the Master feels oddly comforted and at peace. Rare as it is, it's what they do best together.

(I am inside the Doctor, he thinks, and at the same time the Doctor is inside me. His goodness and my wickedness, coiled into each other like a yin-yang.)

They deliberately aren't breathing. Their lungs are stilled. The silence is almost complete, except for one thing. Each can hear the music of the other one's hearts mixed with his own, four heartbeats staggered by just a fraction of a second: the drums.

Da-da-da-dum.
Da-da-da-dum.

round-up from the boards...

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 02:54:45 GMT

Master/Doctor fic: The Master stiffens, anticipating pleasure, pain, touch, but the Doctor merely fumbles in his pocket and emerges with his laser screwdriver.

Doctor/Master fic: Clothing is in the way and he pauses, grabbing the Master's shoulder in a bruising grip as he fishes for the sonic screwdriver. There's a setting for fabric and it shears through the suit easily.

Gordon Brown defamed on wikipedia

Sound of Drums lolicons

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 05:51:48 GMT

Icons made using roflbot. Feel free to snag, copy, modify, etc. with credit. If there are certain ones that appeal to you more, pls comment and let me know which numbers! thanks, xoxo 1 2 3
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fandom = great

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 04:05:44 GMT

Best Sound of Death macros so far... (rating: R)

Sound of Drums - thoughts

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 02:12:22 GMT

* For a sandwich episode, not bad.

* The Doctor is getting less and less likeable... I think at the end of the episode, he is as low as he is going to get this series!

* It took me DAYS to figure out what the rhythm of the tapping was cribbed from, even after I read some fan discussion where they described the Master as "haunted by the theme of an old sci-fi show". Doh!

* Master/Martha porn fics. I tried writing one, failed, but luckily others have stepped up to fill the void, so to speak: [1] The button slides open with a resounding ‘pop’. [2] The Master came with load roar.

* And here's a hilarious Saxon macro

fandom ftw

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:30:52 GMT

Utopia, as re-enacted by kitties. Love it!

"The Reevers are all BUFFET"

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:49:59 GMT

the adventures of captain jack harkness: utopia. An adorable-hilarious screencap recap from crunknwj

what time is it?

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:23:58 GMT

time for some outrageous & unrepentantly dirty LOLwho!

renewed hope for the last two episodes...

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 01:55:44 GMT

Series 3 started out on a high note, Smith and Jones, which suggested that the old, flippant Doctor who laughed in the face of danger would be able to survive Rose's loss; but by the end of episode 9, my affection for the Doctor had hit an all-time low. In episode 8 the Doctor had been distilled into an unappealing human persona - an inhibited creature of habit who treated Martha as a second-class citizen - but even restored to himself, the reconstituted Doctor we see in episode 9 is no better. Instead of rewarding Martha's loyalty with a deeper level of intimacy and communication, he silently embraces her. Instead of attempting reparations to the English villagers, the Doctor carries out a joyless and pointless series of revenges against the aliens that decimated them.

Reintroducing Jack Harkness in episode 11 was a breath of fresh air. In the face of Captain Jack's warmth and generosity, the Doctor's inflexibility becomes comical. Where the Doctor is helpless without his TARDIS (as in episode 10), Jack's willingness to spend the entirety of episode 11 lugging his worldly possessions on his back vividly demonstrates an alternative way of life, characterized by joy and spontaneity. In the new context that Jack creates, Martha's caring for her travel companions doesn't seem pathetic, just entirely natural and deserving of reciprocation. And the Doctor's discussion with Captain Jack about the fate of Saint Rose, so easily rewritten, makes it clear that his grief over Rose is no longer rational and is likely to be one of the factors behind his creeping calcification. I'm afraid that his ability to rely on Martha while still taking her for granted - the fact that in their partnership she gets to take on emotions, logistics, gruntwork, leaving for him the more sterile and scientific tasks - may be a factor as well.

If Captain Jack is a breath of fresh air, the Master is a hurricane of the same. Doctor Yana was more joyful, creative, and intelligent than John Smith, if less honest and less loving; and in his regenerated sprightliness, the Master is more alive and (I think) more appealing than the present state of the Doctor.

So I guess the question is, what does all this bode for the end of the series? Presumably the Doctor, helpless again, is going to have to rise to this new challenge by borrowing Captain Jack's nimble time machine, and hopefully some of Jack's attitudes along with it. He won't be able to pick on the Master the way he picked on the Family of Blood, either - maybe this will make him grow as well.

I still like the Master better, though. RTD's challenge in the next couple episodes will be to win me back.

now, THIS is the kind of TV i'm talking about...

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:35:49 GMT

Utopia was fun - surprisingly good, even. Yawn, shipping the Doctor is so series 2.

I totally ship the Master now! Master/Martha, Master/Doctor, Master/TARDIS, John Simm = win!

utopia icons (18)

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:14:45 GMT

Free for the snagging. Feeling lazy today, so many of these are just bases - the bases can be snagged/reused without credit. If you see a pic you like, let me know what # it was? P.S. I just made the "VOTE SAXON" icon from today's trailer and it's eminently snaggable too. xoxo, panda-c

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THE SHADOW IN THE NORTH!!!!

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:43:42 GMT

OMFG I just found out that there is a film adaptation of The Ruby in the Smoke with Billie Piper playing Sally Lockhart and JJ Feild (of Tulse Luper fame) playing Frederick Garland?! Holy CRAP! I don't care about the terrible ratings, this one is going straight on my netflix.

blink LOLicons

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 03:32:24 GMT

Icons from Blink made with roflbot. Wasn't that just the greatest episode ever?

Please snag, distribute, etc. If any of these particularly strike you, please comment and let me know which #s? Thank you so much! xoxoxo, panda-c

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UPDATE: Two more latecomers:
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BEST EPISODE EVAH!!!!1!!!!

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 01:27:34 GMT

"Blink" was the best episode of series 3 - even better than Smith & Jones! My favorite Steven Moffat episode ever (if you don't count Coupling). BOUNCE! BOUNCE! BOUNCE!

My faith in Doctor Who is revived and rejuvenated! (As are, hopefully, our two stars, - now that they have had some time off)

Plus, plenty of great clothes and nice boots for all the women, and how adorable is D.I. Shipton?! Oh I love it!

dab of narcissism (completely unrelated to DW/DT)

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 21:25:51 GMT

Because I've been reading so much Jane Austen lately, here's a Regency-era-style riddle for you:

My first eats bamboo in the wild;

My second is French for "cinephile";

Together, they try to make you smile.

mathfic!

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 21:14:38 GMT

a clever fic involving math posted on Lost Luggage ...

found (lol)poetry

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:08:44 GMT

More loldoctorz by spastasmagoria, but in this one #2 is far and away my favorite, almost poetry:

I'm too little to watch Torchwood so I
watch from here,

where mummy can't see me. I love
Cap'n Jack, sirs. I love him.