Wish I wrote fix-its...

[shivver]

Grump and ramble...


All right. I've been sitting on that little story, and there's just no way to make it good. I'm not sure what I was even trying to accomplish with it, well, other than trying to write anything for the "Blaze" prompt. But, I need to stop trying to make it worth anything and go on to work on things I'd actually enjoy, so I posted it and now it's out of my hands. I'm not even going to post it to dw_fiction.

I did come up with an idea today, to fix series 7.2. This is what the series should have been. As it is, the problem with that series was that it had no purpose. We had two episodes with glimpses of Clara fragments, which were fantastic and made her very intriguing, and then a bunch of unconnected adventures with the real Clara, in which her character flopped back and forth in personality to whatever the episode needed to move it along. Meanwhile, every episode, at the end, the Doctor would muse, "I wonder what's up with her?" A couple of episodes did stem from the Doctor investigating possibilities (I believe "Hide" was one of them), but he finds out nothing. Thus, we, as the audience, got no hint about what was going on, nothing to make us think and imagine, until the sudden reveal at the end of "The Name of the Doctor."

I think they missed the opportunity to do something very different from anything any other companion ever did and craft a beautiful storyline in the process. The season should have consisted of episodes in which the Doctor is traveling alone, but each time, he lands somewhere and finds a Clara fragment there. He is of course getting more and more intrigued by her, and as he encounters her, he learns some hints about what's going on (but very cryptically) from the events of the episode. Also in each episode, to either a large or small extent, something must get in the way of the Doctor solving the problem, and the Clara fragment has to avert it - this is, after all, what the Great Intelligence went into the Doctor's timestream to do, and what Clara followed him to prevent. Then, in the penultimate episode, the Doctor finally meets the real Clara, who has no idea what he's on about, and then in "The Name of the Doctor", she sacrifices herself for him. (And she doesn't survive. That's what makes the sacrifice meaningful! Curse you, Moffat, who kills characters for melodrama but always brings them back!)

That's the story arc I'd like to write. It would allow for each appearance of Clara to be completely different in looks and personality, and the season would be full of adventure episodes across all of time and space, which is really what Doctor Who does best. And then after the big reveal, you could look back at the entire season and see how it all fit together. Unfortunately, that would be a bloody huge undertaking, involving a character I really don't like. But there it is. That's my AU series 7.2.

Comments

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Bless, honey...if you want to do a fix-it, write it!! By all means. Maybe it will help you to like her a bit better and maybe it will be one of those epics that Fandom will adore for a long time to come!

*HUGS*

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I've really never written anything AU, because I so love the canon and expanded universe. But it really is a compelling thought. Oh, but writing so many episodes would be a huge project.

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

That AU does sound fantastic—and though I won't complain about having Clara still alive, I completely agree with you that dramatic sacrifice with no consequences whatsoever is just incredibly cheapened ;) Reviving characters… oh dear. I'm fully expecting they'll do that with Danny—once more, I like Danny alive but if you're going to kill him, then he ought to bloody well stay dead!!!

Only inconvenient is that this Clara would have to sacrifice herself for someone she barely knows—but when cleverly handled, it could work out, people can very well put their life on the line to try and save someone else, or for another ethical reason…

I'm sorry you felt so frustrated with the story you just posted, that's always a really unpleasant feeling. ♥

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I am completely expecting that Danny is going to get resurrected. He's not going to push that "Delete" button, and then somehow, the Doctor will get him out. I really, really hope I'm wrong. But Moffat really hates sad endings.

You're right that it will be difficult to make a character who doesn't know the Doctor well decide to sacrifice herself for him, especially in such a horrible way (I'd think that to a person who doesn't understand the temporal mechanics of that universe, getting scattered through time would sound terrifying). I'm sure there's some way to do it, though. Ahhhhh plot bunnies!!

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I rather agree. The "Delete" button is just one of those cliffhangers you KNOW won't come true, lol. Then again, end-of-episode cliffhangers usually do that, but Moffat… is another story entirely =P

I'd think that to a person who doesn't understand the temporal mechanics of that universe, getting scattered through time would sound terrifying
Quite true…

Plot bunnies just won't stop tormenting our brains! :D I want to write ALL THE FANDOM THINGS these days and yet NaNo is staring me in the face going "Nope. I am your focus right now and for an undefined amount of time even after November" ;P

[tangotabby.livejournal.com]

YES!!! I so wish you *would* write this :-) That would have been SO much more interesting than what we actually got. As you said, her character flopped back and forth in personality to whatever the episode needed to move it along.

(I have to admit that I'm relieved to hear someone else say a character I really don't like. I did want to like her, but she so often comes across as smug, whether as Oswin or Victorian!Clara or as current!Clara, and I really hated how she treated Eleven most of the time. Maybe if you wrote Interesting!Clara then I *would* like her ;-))

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Argh! The more I think about it, and the more people say I should try it, the more I want to do it! Except for how long it would take me. :) I suppose I could do many of the "episodes" as short(er) stories, rather than big, long, grand episodes. Ha, I just realized that I would want to write the last two stories with Clara in-character, but I don't actually know what that character is.

I am really sad that I don't like Clara and that I'm looking forward to her leaving at the end of this season (or the Christmas special). Like you, I tried to like her, but she's just gotten worse and worse.

[tangotabby.livejournal.com]

I am really sad that I don't like Clara and that I'm looking forward to her leaving at the end of this season (or the Christmas special).

Same here. I'm really hoping that the rumors of her leaving aren't just rumors :-/

And also hoping that maybe the season finale will explain some things or otherwise give us some sort of payoff for this season!

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this a lot more, trying to figure out what I would actually write if I did this, and I discovered one of the main problems is that I don't know what Clara's base personality is like, because she's always all over the place. I *think* they were trying to go for confident and bubbly and perky, but I think they overdid it. And I think that they never really established her underlying motivations - you know, the way that we know Amy and Rose were obsessed with the Doctor, Martha was in love but also was ambitious and very concerned with people and health, and Donna had a strong moral compass and was very compassionate. "Confident and bubbly and perky" isn't enough to draw a character. I'll think about this some more.

[tangotabby.livejournal.com]

I think you've nailed it right there. I think her base personality, at least with Eleven, is "I was born to save the Doctor", which unfortunately didn't actually give her any real motivation of her own, and ended up meaning "blank page to be rewritten to whoever/whatever we need this episode". She was/is defined by the Doctor (and now by Danny as well), whereas Amy and Rose and Martha and Donna and River actually had distinct personalities.

But hey, if she's a blank canvas you can do whatever you want with her, just like the writers have done ;-)