Fic: Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

[jjpor]

Fic: Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood

So, I was sitting down this morning to write some fic (in between watching the Grand National - my donkey didn't even finish! - and the footy). I swear that I was trying to write the next part of Battlelines; I swear. However, instead I wrote this, straight off the bat, more or less in one sitting (which is unusual for me).

You see, I've been thinking about some of the stuff I’ve written about the Time War and Romana’s part in it. And more particularly, about my own feeling that in some sense I may have wussed out a little in ignoring some of the more difficult strands of continuity in the novels and audios, in particular the whole issue of Romana III and the hardening of her relationship with the Doctor. So this grew out of that; maybe it’s an apologia, maybe just an effort to organise my thoughts on the matter. I borrow some elements here from the Eighth Doctor novels, although it isn’t set in that version of continuity, and from Lawrence Miles’s Faction Paradox universe, and must also acknowledge a debt to my good buddy clocketpatch, whose fic about Romana in E-Space got me thinking on some of this stuff again. Anyway, here it is; as always, Doctor Who and its concepts belong to the BBC and to their individual creators; in particular, the Daleks belong to the Terry Nation estate:

www.whofic.com/viewstory.php

Comments

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

I'll be reviewing this (and some of your other work) on the Teaspoon itself but I have to say that I'm so glad you had Romana chose the less ruthless path. To me she'll always be a freedom fighter rather than a politician (and RTD and co are already blaming her for the war *glares*).

I'd be able to relate more to that poem more if it wasn't so damn... forresty. We don't have natural forests in the Faroes. Now, ocean on the other hand: ''Water, water everwhere and not a drop to drink!'' That I can relate to.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoyed it. Yes, I know what you mean; hardcase!Romana as depicted in the EDAs doesn't really sit well with me, if I'm honest, on a sort of instinctive level; it feels wrong to me. I don't think blaming Romana for the war makes any sense at all; it quite clearly started sometime in the 70s; I mean, by the time of Resurrection, the Daleks were talking about assassinating the High Council, when there's no evidence in previous stories that they even knew about Gallifrey, so the Time Lords must have done something to annoy them. Not that Daleks need a reason to be annoyed. Don't get me wrong, Gallifrey was a bad place full of bad people (or painfully misguided people, anyway), apart from the Doctor and Romana of course!, but the Daleks were just bad news. It's very conventional, and I think comes from RTD too, to say the Time War goes back to Genesis of the Daleks. I think it actually goes back to Day of the Daleks; no way would the Time Lords tolerate the Daleks fiddling with history. That's my theory, anyway. :)

Ocean; we Brits are supposed to be an island nation, but not _that much_ of an island, I'll wager. There must be some great Norse poems about the ocean, them being into poetry and ships the way the were, but I'm afraid that's not my field. :D