COMMENTARY | Doctor Who | Such Spirit Through the Year

[eponymous_rose]

biichan requested commentary for the set of nine 200-word drabbles that is Such Spirit Through the Year. I rambled a bit, grumbled a bit, but overall it was a fun time. Feel free to ask about any of my fanfic, if you're interested (didn't expect any takers on this meme, actually).



Such Spirit Through the Year

I'm hoping most of you got where the title comes from. Here's a hint, in instrumental form.

Yup. I'm a Vince Guaraldi fangirl (I pull out my Charlie Brown Christmas transcriptions around July, to the confusion of anyone within earshot). There's a gorgeous strain of melancholy in the song that's at odds with all the cheerful lyrics until it hits the final lines: "Oh, that we could always see / Such spirit through the year". Long story short, I wanted a fic that would be happy and festive and then sneak up on you the same way at the end.

I. New Year's Day, 1966

The general idea behind the story, before I started off on any music-related tangents, was to have something structured and a bit safe to launch the whole fic-a-day extravaganza. I like putting stories in little boxes like this - you can stack them in all sorts of different ways, and run enough little threads through the whole thing that it looks like some bizarre piece of modern art, and lots of the time readers will start to put the different pieces together for themselves in unexpected ways. It's amazing how far we'll go to find connections between things just because they're put next to each other.

So the plan was this: take the nine days (inclusive) that are Christmas Eve through New Year's Day and write a snippet for each of the first nine Doctors. And swap the order because that's the period of nine days where it always seems like we're counting down instead of up, and that seems like the sort of temporal prejudice the Doctor would just love to dispel.

It’s a cold, white world, and Ian smiles out at it, determined to be cheerful despite the rapidly growing load of snow that will undoubtedly have to be cleared at some point. His breath is fogging up the glass, but it’s creating a rather pleasing effect with the falling whorls of snow, so he lets it be. Artistry for its own sake.

I maintain that first lines and I do not get along. How many adverbs does that make in the first sentence alone? Anyway, when I have trouble getting a fic started, I just paint a pretty picture and work from there, occasionally referring back to the original image, whatever that may be.

“I’ve just realised,” Barbara says, “it’s been less than a month since we left the Doctor.”

She’s leaning against him, looking up as she speaks, and he imagines that her breath must be fogging up his cheek. “Really?” he says, attempting to inject just the right amount of incredulity into his tone.

See? I'd totally forgotten about the "fogging up his cheek" line. That's my requisite throwback, complete with a bit of a strange image. Now you know my secret.

She smirks. “Seems shorter to you too, then.”

The companions who leave must have a bizarre sense of time in general. I'm really not too fond of this section because, cuteness aside, the dialogue seems at odds with the description ("inject the right amount of incredulity") unless you're on the same page as me - that is, Barbara asks the question in the sense that she's expecting an answer along the lines of "It seems much longer than that", and Ian knows she's expecting it, so- okay, okay, it's overly complicated. Not good.

“Mm,” he says noncommittally. “A little.”

They stare out in silence at the new year, and, after a moment, her hand finds his. “1966,” she says softly, reverently. “Imagine. And all the celebrations over.”

“Just another day,” Ian says. “A new one, a little bit brighter, but nothing terribly special about it.”

I've always loved the utter mundanity of New Year's Day. All that buildup and counting down, and cheering and such and then... oh. Looks a bit like yesterday, really. It's like a yearly tradition of anticlimax. And this is Ian and Barbara, back home after all that fighting to get there.

They stand at the window, hand-in-hand, until the first few people venture out into the fresh blankness, drawing silent footprints across the new snow.

Not sure about "silent", but I do like the footprints-in-the-sandsnow image.

II. New Year’s Eve, 1000

I think this was the last section I wrote, because I wasn't too familiar with the characters (I didn't even manage to get Zoe or Victoria in here at all) and couldn't for the life of me come up with anything for them to do - and now this is far and away the most popular section of the whole thing, hee. After wrestling with varying degrees of huge celebrations, I hit on the idea of a fireworks display where no fireworks display should be.

The Doctor glances up at the half-veiled moon, trying to identify the stars overhead, and grins in recognition.

“Where are we, Doctor?”

Jamie emerges from the TARDIS, staring about as though attempting to catalogue everything around him. The Doctor grins and beckons. “Oh, Jamie, you’ll quite enjoy this!”

They stand side-by-side for a long moment, watching their breath fog in the chill air. In an absentminded gesture, the Doctor shrugs off his coat and hands it to his shivering companion.

Look, I did the "fog" again! Also: having worn a kilt on a couple occasions, both of which were extremely chilly, I couldn't not have Jamie freeze a bit. Makes for a cute moment, anyway.

“We’re just coming to it, Jamie. Wait a moment.”

Another little nod to the "countdown" feeling of the thing. In an earlier version, I had the Doctor actually counting under his breath, but that struck me as way too obvious and unnecessary. New Year's is better when you don't know just when the fireworks are going to start.

Jamie shuffles his feet, then awkwardly drapes the Doctor’s coat over his own shoulders. “Oh, aye,” he says softly.

And then, without any warning, the sky explodes.

Brilliant flares streak between clouds, setting off sparks with every contact, like jagged forks of lightning tracing impossible paths, obscuring the stars for a heart-stopping second, then receding with a low whistle, fading away into the quiet night.

Spot the requisite reference to weather! Oh yes. It's almost always there.

Jamie gapes. “What-”

The Doctor turns, shoving his hands into his pockets with a self-effacing smile. “Bit of a schoolboy prank of mine. I’ve always been meaning to see how it turned out.” He grins more broadly and shakes Jamie by the hand. “Happy New Year!”

I'm ridiculously proud of having captured Two the way I did here. He's all cheerful and a bit nervous and just childish enough, and winds up leaving Jamie totally baffled.

III. December 30th, 3989

“D’you know,” the Doctor says, waving Jo through a doorway with ill-concealed urgency, “I’d estimate it’s nearly New Year’s Day.” He pulls her to the nearby wall, just behind the door, and for a moment they’re both silent as the pursuing Karthrak’tar barge past.

I didn't want any of these days to be just ordinary - they all had to have some connection with either New Year's or Christmas. Blame the festive mood. I don't have a clue what Karthrak'tar look like - my method for coming up with alien race names is to put in a lot of consonants and the odd apostrophe (for planets I use more round-sounding vowels and add roman numerals to the end) - but they sound pretty nasty. Not sure why they've got fireworks, but I wanted something that would tie in with the second section and enhance the notion of the backwards progression.

“I think,” he adds, once they’ve started running again, “that they’ve got some interesting fireworks planned. Might be worth a look.”

“Doctor,” Jo says, then pauses as he tugs her into yet another dark enclave. “That’s just marvellous, really it is,” she adds, “but I think you’ve got your priorities out of order.”

“Do I really?” He grins as they dart down the next corridor. “Fortieth-century firecrackers are powerful enough to make excellent weaponry.” Before she can retort, he stops so suddenly that she ploughs right into him, and then she too can hear the approaching footsteps. They exchange an anxious glance, and he pulls her into the room on their left.

Running through corridors!

The Doctor taps her on the shoulder, and she turns to take in the chamber. “Oh,” she says softly. “I suppose that was all rather relevant, then.”

He beams at her. “Everything’s relevant, Jo.”

Stacked before them, floor-to-ceiling, are crates labelled “FIREWORKS”.

I'm a huge fan of the Third Doctor's era, and I think I was particularly into the serials with Jo at the time I wrote this. However, this is another one I'm not overly pleased with, because it's just sort of bland and kind of borrows the same punchline as the second section. That punchline being "UNEXPECTED FIREWORKS". It doesn't have a life of its own, but hey! Written in a hurry, etc.

IV. December 29th, 1965

Romana sighs. “And you were going to show me Christmas! We’re at least a few days off.”

I'm not sure why Four wanted to show Romana Christmas 1965 in particular, but it suits my purpose by hearkening back a bit to the first section, with Ian and Barbara. Now that I think about it, though, it'd be a bit more fun to set it in 1964, so that Ian and Barbara managed to miss an alien invasion while they were away. I'm also a bit annoyed with myself for putting two of these sections only a few days apart where there's all of time and space to choose from, hee.

“It’s complicated,” he says definitively, throwing one end of his scarf over his shoulder. “Trans-temporal potholes bumped us up a bit, that’s all.”

Romana rolls her eyes. “If you’d just let me take a look at the chrono-shocks-”

“There’s nothing wrong with the chrono-shocks!” the Doctor protests. “The old girl’s in perfectly good working order.”

“Then it’s the pilot who’s a bit off-kilter.”

“Exactly! Then it’s the pilot who-” He pauses, glares at her, and stomps off down the street, drawing strange looks from the passersby.

She sighs and falls into step beside him. “All right, then. What’s so exciting about Christmas, anyway?”

“Pah,” he says, sulkily. “It’s dark and mysterious. And wonderful. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Sort of... looming?” she suggests. “Hovering at the edge of perception, perhaps bringing people together over something bigger than them?”

“Well, that’s a bit more dramatic than I’d have put it-” He pauses, she points, and they both stare up at the flying saucer hovering over London. “Oh,” he says.

“Happy Christmas, Doctor,” she says, and they dash off to sort things out.

I adore writing banter between Four and Romana, and this was my very first attempt at it. I still find them the easiest TARDIS team to write. The fact that I've managed to draw a parallel between Christmas and an alien spaceship hovering over London is a bit bizarre, and just a wee bit (ha) reminiscent of The Christmas Invasion, for which I have a particular soft spot.

V. December 28th, 284209

“Tell me again why we’re celebrating now?” Peri queries, staring out at what can only be described as a fluorescent green, polka-dotted hamburger some three miles wide. Every now and then, it flashes a dull violet, amid bursts of loud, synthesized music.

I mentioned in the comments that I was having an awful time coming up with something for Five and Peri. My thought process ran along the lines of: "I know! Giant strobing hamburgers! IN SPACE! That's brilliant!" And then I realised I'd made still more trouble for myself, because now I had to justify that artistic vision.

The Doctor leans back against the TARDIS with a faint grin. “It’s the New Year, Peri! Plenty to celebrate for the year 284210.” He pauses, considering. “Probably.”

Peri sighs. “And I suppose I’m gonna regret asking, but why exactly are they celebrating the new year four days early?”

With a little shrug, the Doctor comes to stand next to her. “This is the Re-re-renaissance. People everywhere are picking up old Earth customs that have nothing to do with anything they know. This-” And he waves a hand to encompass the whole tacky display. “-is their closest approximation to the New Year’s Day celebrations of your time.”

Pretty much all of my exposure to the Fifth Doctor comes from the Big Finish audios, and this idea of a future civilisation celebrating Christmas with a giant strobing hamburger several days late is something of a bizarre little homage to my favourite cracktastic type of BFA.

“And the date’s as near as they could figure,” Peri sighs. “All right, then. What exactly does one do at the dawn of the year 284210?”

The Doctor pauses dramatically, stares out at the giant strobing hamburger, and finally shrugs, looking baffled. “Haven’t a clue.”

VI. December 27th, 2020 B.C.

“Hang on, Doctor.” Evelyn looks up to make sure he really has stopped, then leans down to shake sand from her shoe. “I think-”

“Don’t say it!” the Doctor warns. “Don’t even start.”

She snorts indelicately, shoving her foot back inside the shoe with unnecessary force. “I really can’t help noticing all the sand, though-”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and forges ahead through the desert; she’s hard-pressed to keep up with him, but he slows down after a moment. She notices a smile flickering at the corners of his lips, but refrains from commenting.

After a moment, he sniffs. “I suppose it is rather funny.”

Evelyn teasing the Sixth Doctor is really fun to write. Just saying.

She pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I’m sure a lot of other people looking for the famous Quebec City New Year’s Day extravaganza of 2020 accidentally showed up 4040 years early and in the wrong hemisphere of the globe.”

Should that be 4041 years early? I forget whether I actually thought that through or not. In any case, if there's not a Quebec City New Year's Day extravaganza in 2020, I'll be sorely disappointed.

Now he glances back, finally meeting her eyes. “Really,” he says dryly.

“Oh, certainly. It could happen to anyone!”

“If that’s the case,” the Doctor says after a moment, “you won’t mind waiting a few thousand years?”

She laughs. “As New Year’s celebrations go, I’ve certainly seen worse.”

Perhaps that's a story in and of itself? Again, I wasn't sure what to have these two doing, so their tale is a little bland.

VII. Boxing Day, 1997

Why 1997? Why not? I love it when companions get to visit the near future. It's the sort of thing that, for the obvious reason, works better in post-hoc fanfic than in the show itself.

Ace scowls at the retreating back of a particularly pushy shopper, then, after a moment’s consideration, sticks her tongue out for good measure. Satisfied, she turns to see the Doctor’s small form all but eclipsed in a press of shoppers, and threads her way through them to catch up with him. “Professor?”

“What is it, Ace?” His attention has been seized by a model train that’s going round and round a styrofoam mountain.

The Doctor's fascination with the train set is, of course, a nod to Jonathan Blum's contribution to the first Short Trips anthology, Model Train Set, in which the Eighth Doctor makes a bit of a mess of his previous incarnation's hobby.

“I’ve always been meaning to ask - what’s this Boxing Day thing all about, anyway? The name, I mean. I keep hearing different explanations.”

Don't know if it's the same way in the U.K., but hereabouts Boxing Day is a mysterious and confusing sort of holiday in that nobody seems to know what the name actually means.

He mutters something about folk etymologies, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the price on the train set, then scowls. “Oh, well,” he murmurs. “Could be worse.”

Ace sighs resignedly, then leans forward to regard the train set. “I dunno. It’s a bit naff, isn’t it?”

The Doctor sniffs. “Simple, maybe, but it could certainly be improved.”

“Tell you what,” Ace pats him on the shoulder, then turns to dig in her pockets for money. “You wait out here.”

“Hm?”

She winks and steps into the store. “Let someone else play Father Christmas for once, Professor.”

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a fan of reversing the Doctor-Companion dynamic wherever possible. Originally I had some sort of bizarre and overreaching plot in which Ace had contrived events ahead of time so that Seven could get the train set for free, but eventually realised that it would take far too many words. I like that a lot of these little stories could be expanded into something a bit longer with some imagination, though.

VIII. Christmas Day, 1930

Since we're coming up to the final day, I was hoping to have a bit of a feeling of foreboding and/or underlying tension to this. The R101 crashed on October 5, 1930 - this is probably a bit too close for comfort, time-wise for our heroes.

Charley leans back against the railing that surrounds the dock, taking a deep breath and staring out to sea. “This isn’t bad at all,” she says with a grin.

“You think so?” The Doctor laughs delightedly. “Look at that sailboat out there, Charley! Sailing on Christmas morning.” He tunelessly hums a few bars of I Saw Three Ships, and Charley is torn between snickering and joining in.

I had that darn carol stuck in my head for weeks after this.

“Not too long ago, I’d have loved to be on one of those ships out on the horizon, sailing out to anywhere,” Charley says after a moment.

“Not too long ago?” the Doctor prods with a smile.

She smirks. “They’ve been rendered obsolete,” she says grandly, and they laugh, and then they’re both staring up at the sky, though there aren’t any stars visible.

“Every day,” she says. “Every day like this.”

Didn't realise it at the time, but of course this echoes the sentiment of the title: "Oh, that we could always see / Such spirit through the year." All the cleverest stuff is entirely unintentional, dangit.

When she turns to glance up at him, his smile has a hint of melancholy. “Every day, then,” he says lightly. “I think that can be arranged.”

Eight's a pretty accomplished liar, and he and Charley both know it

He extends his hand, she takes it, and together they turn away from the ordinary-looking docks and step into the Nineteenth Grand Marketplace of Mai-tar IV, and from there to the future.

I'm extremely proud of this twist. The ordinary becomes extraordinary, and suddenly the danger of 1930 is galaxies away.

IX. Christmas Eve

Note the lack of timestamp. The following segment was originally a standalone fanfic, but I couldn't get anything more substantial out of it and so decided to give it a bit of a nicer home.

It’s an ordinary door, wooden and painted blue, scorched and pockmarked in places from the ricochets of improbabilities and paradoxes, but otherwise intact.

I love the unlikely language that arises due to the Time War. Ricocheting paradoxes all over the place. "Careful, you'll break a window!"

But then, every door is a passage from one world to the next, from the outside to the inside, from the draughty night to the warm hearth, from the corridor to the prison cell. Every door and every day, marking out the hours and the metres and reshaping the vast, endless sweep of infinity into manageable portions.

It's an old image, but I've always liked it, and it applies particularly well to the TARDIS doors.

He stands inside, undecided, leaning against an archway. “It’s a beginning, y’know,” he says, and his new voice is firm. “Just a start, that’s all.”

The terrible silence buzzes around him, and he turns for a moment, staring back into his impossible ship, at the scarred console and the reconfigured, almost organic construction. He wants to run a hand through his hair, but it’s close-shaven now, unfamiliar and cold.

His world hums around him, encouraging or warning or both, and he remembers, and still the emptiness rings in his mind, solid and real and terrible.

With a deep breath, he turns back to the entrance. “I suppose this is tomorrow, then,” he says, smiling in spite of himself.

I needed to have a reference to tomorrow in there somewhere - instead of moving back, we're moving forward again, counting down instead of up.

The door opens.

Back to the door-as-transition motif, and hopefully a bit of an optimistic ending.

Comments

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'm glad someone picked this one.

I feel sort of bad not realizing just how intricate this was, though - I noticed the lack of a timestamp on the last ficlet, and the poignant yet hopeful note in same, but the reversion of the order of the nine days between Christmas and New Year's is really brilliant and I'm kicking myself for missing it.

I do concur with azdak re: the adverbs, however. I think adverbs only become a problem when they're used in place of verb variety, which you're hardly in danger of. And painting a pretty picture seems a perfect way to begin a story - it captures attention, after all, and makes the reader curious, as beginnings should do.

Also, I really should listen to the Charley audios, because I completely missed all the subtextual goings-on in that ficlet, too.

Can't wait to read the rest! :)