Different Sort of Science -- Author's Notes

[gracie_musica]

Book cover by et_muse


First of all, huge, gigantic thanks go to my two gorgeous, amazing betas totally4ryo and katestamps. Gena, although I know you hate these types of AUs and I gave you complete and absolute grief while I was writing this, you still let me bounce ideas off of you and helped me work through writer's block through instant messaging. Mommy Kate, you still found time while juggling a household with kiddies and a husband to call me with a beta job -- I still can't believe that! -- and who turned this whole thing on its ear with one little question. You two are the absolute best, and I can never say thank you enough.

Hugs and kisses and eternal love go to both et_muse and cjharknessgirl for making me not one but two gorgeous bookends as welcome bribes and an icon to cap it all off. You did amazing work, both of you, they're perfect. Just what I wanted.

I would also like to say thank you to jill_of_fandoms who made the Harold and Gray muses sit up and take interest with an innocent comment. You made everything come together perfectly in a way I hadn't even considered it needed to.

Thank you to midassa_in_gold, who is not into the Whoniverse, but who read the AU anyway, let me expound on canon versus Different Sort of Science during Met Opera intermissions, asked all the right questions, and made me laugh by threatening to tell you all exactly what I had planned to go down.

Thanks to everyone I read before and while I was writing this, notably Gena and Mommy Kate, Auntie Teach (teachwriteslash), Caz (cazmalfoy), sam_storyteller, Waldo (thefannishwaldo, smallwaldo), Crazy Aunt Icka (ickaimp) -- who, as far as I know, doesn't write Torchwood but takes AUs, crossovers and comedy to an artform -- tanarian, and a hundred thousand others. As writers, we all inspire each other, and you're all just so damn astounding.

Of course, thanks goes to Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert for starting Doctor Who back in the day, and to Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner for bringing it back for us youngsters and giving us Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Thanks also to the amazing actors who bring the characters to life on screen, who give them a voice and an image and a soul and make all of us want to play with them for a while before returning them, only slightly damaged.

Finally, thank you so much to you, the person reading or listening to this right now. Without you, I so would have given this up a long, long time ago. Thank you for reading this monster, for nominating me for an award, for reccing me to other people, and for believing in me when, frankly, I didn't believe in myself.

... This wasn't supposed to happen! But I am so very glad it did.

Let me start by explaining how my stories work: I don't use outlines. You see, me and outlines, we don't quite get along. I'll come up with something downright brilliant, but then the characters fuck it up by doing their own thing. I get mad, there's screaming and crying and the story pitters out halfway because we're all frustrated.

Different Sort of Science came from a very basic premise in the Torchwood fandom: I wanted to write Time Lord!Ianto. I'd done it before in Change for the World, and wanted to try something different. A period piece, maybe. Something short -- ten chapters maximum -- and sweet and fluffy. And if I gave them all magic powers? Dude, that would be awesome.

As I considered alternate universe and the parallel world theory, I wondered how much I wanted to parallel canon. Then Lisa popped up, so she got written in -- something I know a lot of you were unhappy about, you Janto shippers! That, seriously, was one of the hardest arcs to write; to have Lisa come in as this honest, good woman, to have Ianto fall in love with her, and to write heterosexual intercourse (for crying out loud!) while knowing the whole time that I was going to kill her off. Twice, as it turned out.

Another element I was so enthusiastic about using was looking for quotes to throw in the front. I love relating canon to fanfiction, even completely AU fanfiction, and I could sort of set the scene with the appropriate quote. There's a book by Diana Wynne Jones, one of my favorite children's fantasy authors (I recommend the Chrestomanci books), called The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, which is a sort of tour book through Fantasyland -- fantasy stories. It mostly points out the cliches of fantasy fiction, including one entry about what she called "Gnomic poetry", poetry that makes no sense whatsoever but is at the beginning of each and every chapter. The way I set it up, it was relevant and slightly foreshadowing, but didn't give away anything.

It was after I sent off chapter six to the betas that Kate asked the big question. I can't recall the exact words, but it was basically, "Is Ianto's Primary the ability to give people what they want?"

I believe my reaction was, "*HUGE GASP*. Oh my God. Oh my God! That's brilliant!" And it was, it solved all sorts of problems that the plot was having, notably how Ianto and his family survived the Time Lord virus that Gray had created. I had the "Ianto Fucking Stops Time" scene in my head and having Ianto giving what an entire battlefield wanted more than anything was just too delicious not to use.

Thanks to jill_of_fandoms I was able to get there. The Master and Gray came in and caused all sorts of havoc -- like they do -- and threw a wrench (or a spanner, I'll go Britspeak) into the Doctor/Rose subplot.

I am also a huge Ten/Rose fangirl. That first pairing's always the OTP.

Since I am a child of the New Who, I've only seen a handful of the older seasons, I feel uncomfortable writing the Companions I've never encountered. The only older Companions I've had any real experience with are Susan Foreman and, of course, Sarah Jane Smith. The vibe I got watching the Doctor and Sarah Jane work together was very much the same one I got watching the Doctor and Rose: He loved them both dearly, but at different times in his life. The chapter with Sarah Jane was closed when he met Rose, but it didn't make either of them any less his equal. He didn't love one more than the other. So, Sarah Jane became his poor deceased wife, and Rose became a long-lost lover.

Which, of course, brings us to the Companions, the Children of Time, the Teacher-Mages of Torchwood House:

*Donna had to be the Doctor's sister, a twin to balance out the Doctor, both of them so caught up in each other and still the DoctorDonna.
*Martha and Owen were automatically Healers. That's just who they are.
*John Hart, the flighty bastard, was so an Air element, flitting about time here and there.
*Gwen's fiery spirit made her an instant Fire element. I'm not her biggest fan, but she gives as good as she gets.
*Rhys, of course, was Water, both to balance out Gwen and because the character has hidden depths to him; Season Two proved that over and over.
*Toshiko was an Alchemist. Magic yes, but more concentrated on the logical, the mathematic, the scientific side.
*The Doctor was an Earth Mage because canonly, he protects Earth, he considers it his home now that Gallifrey is gone.
*Mickey had to be the good little soldier of Torchwood House.

And here we are. Thirty chapters. And I wanted it as podfic so bad that I did it myself. You have no idea how hard it is, how silly you feel recording it, listening to yourself again and again, even using such an awesome program like I did, Audacity. And as I recorded it, I realized that I had so much to explain, and so many people to thank.

So, again, thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

Gracie Musica
2008



















PS: Okay, if you've made it this far, congrats and you deserve a little secret for all your hard work.

Yes, Virginia, there will be a sequel.

ETA: I'm doing podfic of DSoS, as I'm sure you guessed. The sequel should be up after I'm done doing podfic, hopefully around Christmas or New Year's. Podfic is done and up here!