lindenharp | FIC: The Guard's Tale (Valiant Tales)

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FIC: The Guard's Tale (Valiant Tales)

Title: The Guard's Tale
Series: Valiant Tales. Read them in order here.
Rating: PG
Characters: The Master (Simm), other characters
Genre: drabble
Spoilers: Minor spoilers for The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords.
Summary: A series of drabbles about the people who lived, worked, and suffered on the Valiant during the Year That Never Was. 100 words according to MS Word.
Disclaimer: The sandbox belongs to RTD and the BBC. I'm just playing here, in the corner, making little sand-TARDISs.

It’s the best job ever. Lots of chances for fun, just don’t touch the Master’s pets. Put a finger on the old guy – you die. The Freak is invitation-only. I’d love to watch a session. Techs are all off-limits. Pity. Turner in engineering looks like a poof who’d jump if you gave him a hard look. We can’t even talk to the admin staff. There’s one real hottie -- snobby university bitch, but I bet I could make her moan. Maybe she’ll make a mistake, piss ’im off. A bloke can dream, yeah?

Nobody calls Jimmy Stone a loser now.

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owwww! what happens to Jimmy Stone after The Year that wasn't?

That depends on who winds up dealing with him. If it's UNIT, disposing of one of the Master's junior thugs... just prison and retcon.

If it's the Doctor... he might be too emotionally weary to do anything other than toss the little bastard to UNIT. (See above).

If it's Jack... I don't want to think about that. If he discovers that the Master's sadist-in-training is also the delinquent who messed up Rose's life... burial alive? Pteranodon kibble? Weevil bait?

What did Jimmy Stone do to Rose?

What did Jimmy Stone do to Rose?

We don't know. He's mentioned briefly in the first episode of Series One of the new Doctor Who. Rose is talking to Mickey about her job prospects, and she says, "I dunno. It's all Jimmy Stone's fault. I only left school because of him, and look where he ended up."

That's most of what we know. RTD wrote a background article about Rose's life, and said that he was a 20-year old musician, she went to live with him, and when she broke up with him, she came home unhappy and in debt.

Entire fics have been written (by other people) about Jimmy Stone. Some speculate that he was physically and/or emotionally abusive to Rose; that he had a drug habit; that he had some kind of criminal career.

The one thing we can be sure of is that Jimmy Stone was Not a Nice Boy.

I think burial alive. Jack doesn't have the time to watch the guy get torn limb from limb as weevil bait.

what did the guy do to Rose?

Jack has the time for anything -- for everything.

My other idea was to lock Jimmy into TW's cold storage alive.

Might as well shoot him in the head, and save the trouble of carting him to Cardiff. From what I've read, freezing to death is one of the easier ways to go. You just start to drift off to sleep.

Also, though Jack is certainly capable of abusing his Torchwood authority for personal reasons, I don't see it happening in this case. As I think I said in another comment, he'd probably just beat the SOB to a bloody pulp before turning him over for retcon and prison.

Not only are your writing skills remarkable, but you're inventive and clever - and curious about the very world you've created, as evidenced by the twists you have decided to employ. Bravo for seeing exactly the kind of person who'd do well under The Master.

Thank you! Most of the guards are of the tough military variety -- competent, obedient, and good at maintaining security. And then there are the thugs, who are fun to have around, and very useful for certain purposes.

My mood reads "surprised" because I did not know the name of this guard until the very last minute. The lightbulb flashed, the choir sang, and I slapped my forehead and proclaimed my amazing ignorance.

And, if it isn't too rude to give concrit to a review, your last sentence should begin with "Brava". I am female. :-)

Not a problem - one is never too old to get more concrit!

Just catching up on this series, and it's absolutely amazing. I think I'm in awe of how many unique stories and voices you fit in just 100 words each. You're weaving a whole tapestry out of little snippets, and I look forward to any future ones.

Thanks! Switching into needlework geek mode for a moment, I think it's a quilt, rather than a tapestry -- individual squares, each a complete design in itself, but adding to the overall pattern.

The stories are also starting to intertwine a bit. The "university bitch" that Jimmy wants to shag -- or to be honest, rape -- is The Aide. Turner (the tech he'd like to beat up) is the one who's been getting sleeping pills from The Medic. (And Turner is a central character in one of my long stories.)

I think it's a quilt, rather than a tapestry
LOL. You'd think I'd pick on that analogy myself - in RL, I design and sell quilt patterns.

Love the rest of your comment. It's neat to see a who's who... (I picked up on Turner, but not the aide :)

n RL, I design and sell quilt patterns.

Cool! I've only done a few small projects -- crazy-quilting and basic patchwork.

If you're curious, check me out at Four Paws Quilting (http://www.fourpawsquilting.com/) (If this is inappropriate, just delete it please...)

Links with cats are almost always appropriate. :-)

I'm owned by two, myself. Liath (pronounced Lee-ah) is a 16-year-old gray tabby. Emily is a 7-year old tortie with mountain-cat tendencies. She naps on the bookcase, and occasionally leaps onto the top of the bathroom door.

Okay, so from where do you know Irish? (Liath = grey, for anyone wondering...)

Edited 2008-10-01 02:56 (UTC)

I am a third-generation American. Half of my ancestry is Irish, from Kilkenny.

My late husband was also partly Irish (his grandfather was born in Cork), though he usually described himself a "British Isles mutt, with a dash of Abenaki Indian." When we adopted the first kittens of our married life, it was a no-brainer to give them Irish names. So there was Liath and her sisters Briana and Shannon. Later, we adopted a pair of sisters (also gray tabbies), and named them Kilkenny and Cork, for our respective ancestral counties.

Emily was a foster cat from my mom, who moved into an apartment building that did not allow pets. By the time she was in a house where she could have a cat, it seemed too late to start uprooting Emily from a place where she felt at home.

We had decided to visit Ireland for our 20th anniversary, and I was inspired to borrow a basic Irish language tape from the library. I didn't get very far, but I did discover that we'd been mispronouncing Liath's name for several years. Fortunately, cats do not come when called, so only the humans were confused by the change.

We did manage the trip to Ireland -- a self-drive trip that took us in a semi-circle roughly along the southern coast, from Shannon Airport to Dublin. It was a very interesting trip, all the more so because we landed at Shannon on September 10, 2001.

That was certainly interesting timing... Lovely drive, though. I know a lot of that coastline very well.

I'm actually Irish by birth and upbringing - grew up in Dublin and only moved away (to the UK) at the age of 24 for a job. So, as Irish is compulsory for the whole of primary and secondary education, I grew up learning it - yet still can't actually speak it. So much for language education!

So, Shannon for the river/airport, but Briana?

Incidentally, I don't know how long it's been, but my sympathies on the loss of your husband. :(

So, Shannon for the river/airport, but Briana?

Shannon for the river.

I mistyped. Brianna. Feminine of Brian. I think we were going through a baby name book.

Incidentally, I don't know how long it's been, but my sympathies on the loss of your husband. :(

Thank you. It's been 5 years. We were married for 22 years. David was a DW fan, too. His mom -- a lovely lady who is still family to me -- knit me one of those scarves years ago. It's a mere 10 feet long, as I am shorter than Tom Baker.

Wait a minute. Is this Rose's Jimmy Stone?

Yeah. Surprised the heck out of me when he introduced himself. I had a completely different last line planned, and one that did not include a name.

Whew! I'm really hooked on these. The last line of this one was a great twist. The previous one, about the journalist, made me shiver.

Friending you, if that's OK.

MM

Thanks for the kind words.

The last line of this one was a great twist.

No one was more startled than I was. At one point, I was playing around with an opening line, something like, "I haven't had this much fun since me and Jimmy Stone [robbed a small store and beat up the elderly proprietor just for the heck of it]."

It was not a conscious decision on my part. Hey, wouldn't it be interesting to make the narrator Jimmy Stone? I had written the whole drabble (150 words in the first draft), and Jimmy just spoke the last sentence to me.

Oh, and friending me is fine.

Ooh, nice twist. And I like the little links you make between the characters.

And I really want this one to get his comeuppance.

And I really want this one to get his comeuppance.

Feel free to write it. :-)

Ooh, them's challengin' words... :-)

Ooh, them's challengin' words... :-)

I believe your next line is "And this hand is a writin' hand!" :-)

And I even have a satsuma prepared, just in case... :-)

And if I may direct your attention to:

http://community.livejournal.com/dwfiction/1692149.html

I know I'm repeating myself but I hope you don't mind - this is great!

*blushes* Somehow, I think I can bear up under the strain of repeated compliments. ;-)

Thanks for taking time to comment.

Absolutely brilliant. The perfect finishing touch, too.

Referring back to your comment on a previous one of these drabbles, and not to sound patronising (I hope I don't!), you don't need to aspire to be anyone when you grow up. You're already more than a master at your art, and I think a lot of us here wouldn't mind being you ;)

I'm loving these drabbles, even if I don't have time to comment on many.

Some of you folks may want to click back and read something else, not because this is getting personal or private, but because it's going to be long and possibly uninteresting. Despite being a woman who has developed a reputation as a drabble writer, my natural style -- in conversation and in writing -- has much in common with the Mississippi River. It is lengthy. meandering, and sometimes murky.

Wendy, I don't think you sound patronizing, and I hope I don't sound fawning, because I certainly don't mean to. I don't truly want to be you -- but I do envy some of your writing skills. Your gift for bringing characters and relationships alive -- especially the OT3 -- in simple, lovely language, stirs envy in my soul. High on the list is Dimensionally Transcendent, especially the first four chapters.

You are not the only writer I envy, I confess. DameRuth's ability to describe the Doctor's essential alien nature in just a few words is wonderful, Glass Houses being my favorite example.

There are others, but it's 2:00 in the morning, and my mind is not as clear as it might be. I should mention that I'm talking about authors whose writing skills I envy -- there are many others whose work I enjoy and admire, but I don't particularly want to write like them, because it doesn't fit my style.

Some of this feeling is for reasons I've alluded to in email, after you've beta-read a chapter for me. Let me see if I can explain it coherently. I sometimes have trouble writing about the process of writing.

There have been some chapters that I was not sure of. They seemed dull, or lacking action or suspense, and yet you found them exciting. Or a cliff-hanger which seemed fairly predictable to me, left you startled. Because I trust your honesty, and your judgment as a writer, I have to believe that this is so.

So, it comes down to what I call "authorial blinders". It's hard for me to have a clear perspective on my own work. The surprise at the end of the chapter isn't much of a surprise to me, since I've written it, re-written it, and read it three dozen times over. I can appreciate a nice turn of phrase or a clever bit of dialogue in my own fiction, but I see them "through a glass darkly". Then I read someone else's story, and it's all fresh and new, and the language jumps out at me, and I think, Wow! I want to make people feel like this when they read my fiction. Apparently, some people do feel like that when reading my stories. The paradox is that I can't read through their eyes.

I'm not sure there's a solution, short of taking some retcon just before reading my own story.

I don't know if this makes much sense, but I wanted to say it. And although it was Wendy's comment that triggered this meandering epic, anyone else is welcome to jump in and discuss the author/reader paradox.

So, it comes down to what I call "authorial blinders". It's hard for me to have a clear perspective on my own work. The surprise at the end of the chapter isn't much of a surprise to me, since I've written it, re-written it, and read it three dozen times over. I can appreciate a nice turn of phrase or a clever bit of dialogue in my own fiction, but I see them "through a glass darkly". Then I read someone else's story, and it's all fresh and new, and the language jumps out at me, and I think, Wow! I want to make people feel like this when they read my fiction. Apparently, some people do feel like that when reading my stories. The paradox is that I can't read through their eyes.

You've captured so perfectly here the feeling I think just about any writer has, both in respect of their own work and of the work of writers they admire. I can name off the top of my head several writers whose work makes me react like that:

dameruth,

dark_aegis,

rallalon (particularly with her At Thirty Paces series), to name just a few. And, of course, yourself.

And, no, we can't see our own work in that same light. The element of surprise is rarely there because, of course, we tend to know what's coming. We know if character A will be a villain, or if character B is going to make a decision that will shock readers (even if it makes perfect sense to us, because we've laid the threads leading to that decision, but often in a way that only makes sense to the reader in retrospect).

I think this could be a really interesting discussion and, with your permission, I may post about it on my own LJ :)

I think this could be a really interesting discussion and, with your permission, I may post about it on my own LJ :)

Please do. I half-considered posting this -- or re-posting this -- as a separate item on my LJ, because I think it may be lost amongst the other comments which are story reviews. I think it's an interesting meta-topic, and I'd love to see what other writers think about the issue. It doesn't matter where the discussion takes place, and you have many more writers on your Friends list who will see it and perhaps join in.

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FIC: The Guard's Tale (Valiant Tales)

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Of cats and culture

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Re: Of cats and culture

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Rambling about writing and writers -- LONG

Re: Rambling about writing and writers -- LONG

Re: Rambling about writing and writers -- LONG