Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who
Gosh…it's been a while.
I know this won't be the message a lot of you wanted to see…or perhaps it is. In any case, I thought it would be better to give this message sooner rather than later. I know I said that I planned to eventually finish the stories I have put on hiatus, but the truth is, I don't think that I can : (.
My muse has entirely moved onto other things, and my interest in Doctor Who has flagged with the hiatus and the less than stellar quality of the recent episodes. I don't have much hope for the upcoming series, whilst I will possibly give the first couple of episodes a watch, it may be that it isn't a show I'll ever watch as regularly as I once did. I will always consider myself a Whovian at heart, and I don't regret enjoying what was once a fantastic, exciting show with characters I felt invested in…it's just that the investment, for me, has run its course.
I ought to be focusing on real life more than on fanfiction (at least a little bit ;) ) and having to do not one, but two rewrites (Consequences and Alterations) of a show that I no longer have any real passion for, would be time consuming, boring and unsatisfactory. It would affect my writing and your enjoyment. I have decided to cancel both my Doctor Who fanfictions, and I apologise profusely for the inconvenience.
For my cliché 'self-insert plus a friend' fanfic, Alterations, I have received 41 reviews, 14 favourites, and 22 follows. I am grateful for all of them and I'm sorry to anyone who began following the story between when I stopped writing it and this.
For 'The Doctor's Wife AU' series, as a whole, I have received 562 reviews, 231 favourites, and 172 follows. Once again, I am grateful for all of them and sorry for the inconvenience and disappointment.
Instead, allow me to explain what I had planned, as little as it was, for these stories:
Consequences
1 – Ashildr would have chosen, in the end, to remain on Earth for the same reason as in the episode – to deal with the aftermath of the Time Quintet's, mostly the Doctor's, interventions.
2 - The Corsair would have regenerated in 'The Zygon Inversion' whilst saving Flavia from an attack. I planned to have him regenerate into the Shopkeeper from the Sarah Jane Adventures (rest in peace Elisabeth Sladen) because Neil Gaiman and Russel T Davies both had a headcanon of sorts that the Shopkeeper is the Corsair. The new Corsair would have done a much better job at wooing Flavia, who would have finally agreed to try starting a relationship.
3 – I planned to replace Sleep No More (the dud of series 9) with an original chapter involving the Corsair and Flavia tying up loose ends after he realises who he is now, and getting a pet parrot. Parrots are cool (I had to do that).
4 – Rather than Clara taking the chronolock from Rigsy, Emily would insist on taking it. She would have believed herself safe due to simply being able to regenerate, only to discover that there was a high possibility the regeneration wouldn't occur. She would refuse to let any of them watch; the Doctor would run out at the last minute, only to find that she had disappeared. He would angrily confront Ashildr about where his daughter was, but she would protest that Emily was just gone and there was nothing she could do.
5 – The Doctor would still end up trapped in the Confession Dial, whilst the others would be taken directly to Gallifrey. After losing her daughter and then her husband, a grieving Romana would do anything to get either of them back. She, Flavia and the Corsair would plan to find a way to rescue the Doctor from the Confession Dial, and find out where Emily's body could have gone.
6 – They would eventually figure out that they needed to prove there was no Hybrid, or if there was, that it wasn't the Doctor. I never got as far as figuring out exactly how they'd do that, but they would. A thoroughly pissed off Doctor, released from the Dial, would proceed to kill – not exile, simply kill – Rassilon (because sometimes you just can't let your enemies live) and rescue Emily the same way he rescued Clara in canon.
7 – Much like Clara, Emily would be stuck between heartbeats, on the line between life and death. Things would play out much as they did in the episode, but with the Corsair stealing a TARDIS for himself and Flavia. Rather than having to forget Clara (who at this point would be at home, waiting for news), the Doctor would end up having his memories of his time in the Dial removed.
8 – Emily would return to her place of 'death', and with a bit of timey wimey trickery, they would slow time around her so that she was still gone when the Doctor's past-self came out. To their surprise, she actually does regenerate (into a ginger, much to her father's mild annoyance) and insists on leaving straightaway, now far less willing to take risks with time or with herself, after what she inadvertently put her family through.
9 – They would reunite with Clara, and Emily would persuade her to build a life on Earth, that they wanted her to be safe and it could have easily been Clara who died, and she wouldn't have come back. Naturally, Clara would have been sad to see them go, but reluctantly agreed to leave the TARDIS behind. She still wanted them to drop in every now and then for dinner, and they agreed.
10 – After discovering that River had a habit of nicking the TARDIS for her own convenience (much to the Corsair's amusement), the Time Quintet would bid a final goodbye to her; then the Doctor, Romana and Emily would go off in his TARDIS, whilst the Corsair and Flavia would begin adventures in their own TARDIS (which still has a working chameleon circuit).
How to Raise a Time Tot
The only chapter(s) I had planned for this was a suggestion by jg16395, to have the Time Quintet take a trip to Terminus, to meet Nyssa so that Flavia could have a hearts-to-heart with someone who knew what it was like to lose their home planet (apart from her fellow Time Lords/Lady, obviously). I really liked the idea and whilst I never got around to planning it out fully, there would have been fluff ;).
Alterations
Not much would have changed – the girls would have gotten home at the end of The 50th special, after the War Doctor used the 'same software, different case' trick to set his TARDIS to search for their home universe centuries before he actually met them. It would finish a couple of centuries before he met them as well. There would have been an original chapter of them dealing with the aftermath of being away for almost a year.
/
So there you have it, folks. I'm glad that you enjoyed this ride whilst it lasted, and I wish it hadn't ended, but life goes on and things that we thought would be part of it for ages fade away. I enjoyed writing what I did, and I want to leave on a positive note. So thank you so, so much for your reviews, follows and favourites, for your support and your understanding…and once more, for perhaps the final time, vworp on, Whovians.