fic: (death) for my birthday
Aug. 6th, 2015 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clockwork_hart1fic: (death) for my birthday
summary: dawn is the tardis
for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fluffyfrolicker
They can do so many things, these days. Whatever time the universe is spiralling through, those hands outside of it, reaching past the outlines and twisting into obscurity.
Weaving moonlight between their fingers, plucking hearts out of chests and sewing them into stars.
They can make a girl from a key. They can make a machine from a girl. It's all logistics.
*
Dawn falls asleep in English.
*
She is dreaming, maybe, of time passing through her like sand through fingers, clinging to her insides as she dusts herself off. She is real, or she isn't, the difference is nominal.
There is a boy.
(There's always a boy, apart from when there is a girl. Sometimes both and neither tangle. There's always a someone, anyway.)
He's a fairy story. She never cared much for those. But he touches her - God. He says things in her ear like nothing matters, like she is a gift to the universe that he intends to covet.
She takes him away to keep somewhere safe. Safe, meaning where other people can't ruin him. She wants to ruin him all on her own.
*
Dawn wakes up in math class with a novel on her arm and writing in circles like obituaries smattering her thighs.
Dawn sleeps a lot, these days.
*
She let's him drift.
She let's him pick up people and pull them apart for loving them so and doesn't care a moment.
(That's not to say she doesn't have favourites. She has favourites. Leela is an archetype of something that sits heavy in her chest, and Ace is a brat in that beautiful way only broken girls can be.
Romana is a tempest spread so thinly she hardly sparks except for when she's ruinous. She's that one - the favourite. It's a shame she's his, too.)
He picks up strays and trails them along with him and she forgets to shed tears when they drop like feathers.
Icarus never did fly for long.
Then he breaks, inside. He hurts in ways she can't soothe with adventure or comfort or long nights in the dust.
So she does what she can.
*
Dawn writes stories, sometimes. A stolen laptop when Buffy's not looking. Distractions by pulled threads in cashmere sweaters and smoke alarm-sounding fish sticks.
Dawn writes stories about a boy and a girl, except neither are really that at all.
Dawn writes a love story, then throws it in the trash.
*
She brings him flowers.
She brings him earth and the people he has been so close to, draws closest to his breast when she ducks her head.
She brings him Rose.
She drops him at the feet of a girl with universe eyes and wolfblood. She brings him what she wishes someone would bring to her.
He forgets to thank her until it's too late, but that's neither here nor there.
*
Dawn kisses Janice on the mall steps, tipping their faces together and tasting like snowcones and lip gloss.
Dawn sees flashes of gold when her fingers tangle in Janice's hair. Doesn't mention it, though.
*
She throws him at Martha with a headlong thrust.
She traipses around the lovesick fingerprints he leaves on her insides and she finds him another girl who he can't possibly break.
He manages, somehow.
She tells Martha things, though, when she's sleeping and he's off doing what he does.
She tells her she deserves the stars, and someday the universe will give them to her.
She'll make it.
*
Dawn falls asleep in the bath. Dawn slides under and then there are hands on her chest and water spilling up her throat and for a moment Dawn is as big as the room and spreading further outward, as far as she can reach.
Then Buffy is pulling at her shoulders and screaming, "Not her. Not again, fuck."
And then Dawn is as small as her body, if ever she is that.
*
Donna happens.
It's perhaps her favourite accident.
She does everything possible to give Donna what she needs, give her hope and love and it isn't him that destroys her, but she becomes destroyed anyway.
She thinks Donna might be the laughter and care she was searching for, before she lost herself to this.
They weep together, her holding him up, keeping him solid underneath her fingers.
*
Dawn goes to funerals like dogs go to the pound.
Dawn never really expects to leave, carries the ghosts inside her like a cemetery.
Dawn perhaps mourns more people than she knows, but it never seems like too many.
When they get the call about Cordelia, Dawn sets her fairytale books on fire - knowing that if princesses with knifeblades don't get happy endings, nobody does.
*
He is an idiot.
She throws him into the arms of a little girl with the grace of dead gods and he wrecks her with a kiss on the cheek returned twelve years late.
She lets Amy love him, love her. She lets the stars fall in love with themselves, thinking maybe they might save what they both so wonderfully ruined.
He's Tinkerbelle to Amy's Peter, makes her as fae as him, and Amy makes him as her.
She might ruin them both, might make them both something other than themselves. She doesn't mean to. Love is as it is.
*
Dawn falls in love as in dreaming. Dawn's eyes are tired and her hands are sleep-soft and Dawn drags her fingers down the length of Janice's skin and wonders how people are made and how they fit and break into each other.
Dawn is so old.
Dawn is new, and dangerous and terriblewonderful and Janice kisses her anyway.
*
Rory is a bigger accident.
He's nothing she ever wanted and everything she needed and is not her favourite, but could be if he asked.
He soothes the wounds of them, all three of them. He kisses Amy and cuddles The Doctor and he talks to her in the silence, like he knows how being endless feels, and knows what love can shatter.
She wants more for them. She has no idea how to give it.
She kisses their cheeks when the stars burn out.
*
The world opens under Dawn's feet and scripture can't save her, though swords might.
Girls die in Dawn's arms as the nights roll on, more so as they all drive away.
The town falls to dust, and somehow Dawn goes on. There will be other mouths for Dawn to kiss lipstick off of, other short skirts to steal. Dawn will not get another sister, though, and she sits in the school bus with Faith in one hand and Buffy in the other and forgets to wonder what is or is not real.
None of it ever has been, and yet they stay breathing.
*
She thinks about, sometimes, opening up and swallowing him.
She is more monster than he is man, but these things get forgotten. Life and death weave through her ribcage, she has always been a bigger threat than her body.
River is hers, in that way. In lots of others.
She writes herself a runaway as a gift - it’s confused that they both think that gift is for him. Forgetting she has no fingers, no mouth to spread kisses with, she gives herself a gift and then lets her slip straight from her fingers.
When River happens in confused fits and starts, she promises herself to eat him alive - and never quite works out if it’s something she makes good on.
*
Dawn’s job is a shitfest. No one likes (or asks for) the edits, and they cut her to pieces on artistic integrity. Fuck them.
A hipster with a soul patch tells Dawn she knows nothing of pain or the human condition when his poem is slid back across the desk and run through with red. And if Dawn eats out his girlfriend on top of his silk sheets, well.
It’s an occupational hazard.
*
Clara is a girl made from nothing and soul.
She can relate.
They sit side by side when he’s wrapped up in Clara’s enigma, trying so hard to work out how a girl can split in a thousand different ways, made from something utterly outside herself, and still bleed red.
Clara reads to her, aloud and soft in the spacely silence. She reads to Clara too, and is sure, somehow, somewhere, Clara can hear her.
*
Dawn might die when she’s 27, in a car crash in New York.
Then, maybe Dawn dies drowning in the bath when she is barely 17.
Maybe Dawn was never even living at all.
But there’s a second in between her breaths where she falls asleep - where her chest bursts open, clean and golden-green. She holds the universe inside herself, as a girl, as a ball of light in the midst of nothing. Then the universe gives her back, older and newer and bigger than before.
Dawn doesn’t like a single name they give her, after that. Not until he steps inside and calls her Sexy.
summary: dawn is the tardis
for
fluffyfrolickerThey can do so many things, these days. Whatever time the universe is spiralling through, those hands outside of it, reaching past the outlines and twisting into obscurity.
Weaving moonlight between their fingers, plucking hearts out of chests and sewing them into stars.
They can make a girl from a key. They can make a machine from a girl. It's all logistics.
*
Dawn falls asleep in English.
*
She is dreaming, maybe, of time passing through her like sand through fingers, clinging to her insides as she dusts herself off. She is real, or she isn't, the difference is nominal.
There is a boy.
(There's always a boy, apart from when there is a girl. Sometimes both and neither tangle. There's always a someone, anyway.)
He's a fairy story. She never cared much for those. But he touches her - God. He says things in her ear like nothing matters, like she is a gift to the universe that he intends to covet.
She takes him away to keep somewhere safe. Safe, meaning where other people can't ruin him. She wants to ruin him all on her own.
*
Dawn wakes up in math class with a novel on her arm and writing in circles like obituaries smattering her thighs.
Dawn sleeps a lot, these days.
*
She let's him drift.
She let's him pick up people and pull them apart for loving them so and doesn't care a moment.
(That's not to say she doesn't have favourites. She has favourites. Leela is an archetype of something that sits heavy in her chest, and Ace is a brat in that beautiful way only broken girls can be.
Romana is a tempest spread so thinly she hardly sparks except for when she's ruinous. She's that one - the favourite. It's a shame she's his, too.)
He picks up strays and trails them along with him and she forgets to shed tears when they drop like feathers.
Icarus never did fly for long.
Then he breaks, inside. He hurts in ways she can't soothe with adventure or comfort or long nights in the dust.
So she does what she can.
*
Dawn writes stories, sometimes. A stolen laptop when Buffy's not looking. Distractions by pulled threads in cashmere sweaters and smoke alarm-sounding fish sticks.
Dawn writes stories about a boy and a girl, except neither are really that at all.
Dawn writes a love story, then throws it in the trash.
*
She brings him flowers.
She brings him earth and the people he has been so close to, draws closest to his breast when she ducks her head.
She brings him Rose.
She drops him at the feet of a girl with universe eyes and wolfblood. She brings him what she wishes someone would bring to her.
He forgets to thank her until it's too late, but that's neither here nor there.
*
Dawn kisses Janice on the mall steps, tipping their faces together and tasting like snowcones and lip gloss.
Dawn sees flashes of gold when her fingers tangle in Janice's hair. Doesn't mention it, though.
*
She throws him at Martha with a headlong thrust.
She traipses around the lovesick fingerprints he leaves on her insides and she finds him another girl who he can't possibly break.
He manages, somehow.
She tells Martha things, though, when she's sleeping and he's off doing what he does.
She tells her she deserves the stars, and someday the universe will give them to her.
She'll make it.
*
Dawn falls asleep in the bath. Dawn slides under and then there are hands on her chest and water spilling up her throat and for a moment Dawn is as big as the room and spreading further outward, as far as she can reach.
Then Buffy is pulling at her shoulders and screaming, "Not her. Not again, fuck."
And then Dawn is as small as her body, if ever she is that.
*
Donna happens.
It's perhaps her favourite accident.
She does everything possible to give Donna what she needs, give her hope and love and it isn't him that destroys her, but she becomes destroyed anyway.
She thinks Donna might be the laughter and care she was searching for, before she lost herself to this.
They weep together, her holding him up, keeping him solid underneath her fingers.
*
Dawn goes to funerals like dogs go to the pound.
Dawn never really expects to leave, carries the ghosts inside her like a cemetery.
Dawn perhaps mourns more people than she knows, but it never seems like too many.
When they get the call about Cordelia, Dawn sets her fairytale books on fire - knowing that if princesses with knifeblades don't get happy endings, nobody does.
*
He is an idiot.
She throws him into the arms of a little girl with the grace of dead gods and he wrecks her with a kiss on the cheek returned twelve years late.
She lets Amy love him, love her. She lets the stars fall in love with themselves, thinking maybe they might save what they both so wonderfully ruined.
He's Tinkerbelle to Amy's Peter, makes her as fae as him, and Amy makes him as her.
She might ruin them both, might make them both something other than themselves. She doesn't mean to. Love is as it is.
*
Dawn falls in love as in dreaming. Dawn's eyes are tired and her hands are sleep-soft and Dawn drags her fingers down the length of Janice's skin and wonders how people are made and how they fit and break into each other.
Dawn is so old.
Dawn is new, and dangerous and terriblewonderful and Janice kisses her anyway.
*
Rory is a bigger accident.
He's nothing she ever wanted and everything she needed and is not her favourite, but could be if he asked.
He soothes the wounds of them, all three of them. He kisses Amy and cuddles The Doctor and he talks to her in the silence, like he knows how being endless feels, and knows what love can shatter.
She wants more for them. She has no idea how to give it.
She kisses their cheeks when the stars burn out.
*
The world opens under Dawn's feet and scripture can't save her, though swords might.
Girls die in Dawn's arms as the nights roll on, more so as they all drive away.
The town falls to dust, and somehow Dawn goes on. There will be other mouths for Dawn to kiss lipstick off of, other short skirts to steal. Dawn will not get another sister, though, and she sits in the school bus with Faith in one hand and Buffy in the other and forgets to wonder what is or is not real.
None of it ever has been, and yet they stay breathing.
*
She thinks about, sometimes, opening up and swallowing him.
She is more monster than he is man, but these things get forgotten. Life and death weave through her ribcage, she has always been a bigger threat than her body.
River is hers, in that way. In lots of others.
She writes herself a runaway as a gift - it’s confused that they both think that gift is for him. Forgetting she has no fingers, no mouth to spread kisses with, she gives herself a gift and then lets her slip straight from her fingers.
When River happens in confused fits and starts, she promises herself to eat him alive - and never quite works out if it’s something she makes good on.
*
Dawn’s job is a shitfest. No one likes (or asks for) the edits, and they cut her to pieces on artistic integrity. Fuck them.
A hipster with a soul patch tells Dawn she knows nothing of pain or the human condition when his poem is slid back across the desk and run through with red. And if Dawn eats out his girlfriend on top of his silk sheets, well.
It’s an occupational hazard.
*
Clara is a girl made from nothing and soul.
She can relate.
They sit side by side when he’s wrapped up in Clara’s enigma, trying so hard to work out how a girl can split in a thousand different ways, made from something utterly outside herself, and still bleed red.
Clara reads to her, aloud and soft in the spacely silence. She reads to Clara too, and is sure, somehow, somewhere, Clara can hear her.
*
Dawn might die when she’s 27, in a car crash in New York.
Then, maybe Dawn dies drowning in the bath when she is barely 17.
Maybe Dawn was never even living at all.
But there’s a second in between her breaths where she falls asleep - where her chest bursts open, clean and golden-green. She holds the universe inside herself, as a girl, as a ball of light in the midst of nothing. Then the universe gives her back, older and newer and bigger than before.
Dawn doesn’t like a single name they give her, after that. Not until he steps inside and calls her Sexy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 11:04 am (UTC)..........
no.
i knew this fic would do this to me and i still prompted it and you still wrote it
but that's neither here nor there, right
ALL THE COMPANION DESCRIPTIONS
I ONLY KNOW THE BASIC FACTS ABOUT THE CLASSIC WHO COMPANIONS AND YOU MADE ME WANT TO KNOW MORE
ROSE TYLER, NOOOOO
Dawn sees flashes of gold when her fingers tangle in Janice's hair. Doesn't mention it, though.
THIS. ALWAYS.
ALSO ALL YOUR OTHER COMPANION DESCRIPTIONS.
MARTA, WHO IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK AND HE BREAKS HER ANYWAY
DONNA IS LAUGHTER AND CARE THAT SHE IS SEARCHING FROM AND THEY CRY OVER HER TOGETHER
She might ruin them both, might make them both something other than themselves. She doesn't mean to. Love is as it is.
I AM NOT MASOCHISTIC ENOUGH TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE AMY SECTION ATM. SOME WOUNDS NEVER HEAL, OKAY
RORY. CLARA.
THE DOCTOR DOES NOT UNDERSTAND HOW A GIRL CAN SPLIT A THOUSAND WAYS AND STILL BLEED. WHAT IS THE PERFECTION OF THIS SENTENCE.
THE LAST PARAGRAPH. THE LAST LINE.
I REFUSE.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 11:25 am (UTC)i barely know the original series either i just watched a fuckton of documentaires before the 50thMARTA, WHO IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK AND HE BREAKS HER ANYWAY
IM STILL SO BITTER ABOUT MARTHA, SHE DESERVED SO MUCH MORE THAN WHAT HE GAVE HER
I AM NOT MASOCHISTIC ENOUGH TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE AMY SECTION ATM. SOME WOUNDS NEVER HEAL, OKAY
ah ha ha same why did i do this
THE DOCTOR DOES NOT UNDERSTAND HOW A GIRL CAN SPLIT A THOUSAND WAYS AND STILL BLEED. WHAT IS THE PERFECTION OF THIS SENTENCE.
TH E MOST IMPORTANT
THE LAST PARAGRAPH. THE LAST LINE.
I REFUSE.
#sorrynotsorry
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 06:09 pm (UTC)oh niceYEAH, AND DIDN'T THEY ALL IN SOME WAY REALLY BUT ALSO, MARTA MARTA MARTA, THE GIRL WHO SAW HOW LITTLE SHE WAS GETTING AND GOT AWAY. SUCH A GOOD EXAMPLE OF HOW TO DO A "GIRL RUNS AWAY" GOOD ENDING.
tvd should've learned from marta exiting the tardis on her ownOKAY I AM READY NOW TO TALK:
He is an idiot.
YES YES YES.
She throws him into the arms of a little girl with the grace of dead gods and he wrecks her with a kiss on the cheek returned twelve years late.
YES. IT WAS DOOMED FROM THE START. AND BOTH THE TARDIS AND THE DOCTOR LET IT HAPPEN ANYWAY.
She lets Amy love him, love her. She lets the stars fall in love with themselves, thinking maybe they might save what they both so wonderfully ruined.
BUT THEN AGAIN, THE DOCTOR AND AMY WERE NEVER MUCH FOR SAVING THINGS, WEREN'T THEY
He's Tinkerbelle to Amy's Peter, makes her as fae as him, and Amy makes him as her.
i love love love this, usually everyone, myself included is v. "amy = wendy, doctor = peter" oriented, and i don't think it's a bad parallel but also amy=peter & doctor=tinkerbell? BLESS YOU, THIS IS PERFECT. and because WIKI says it better than i could,
"Though sometimes ill-tempered, spoiled, jealous, and vindictive, at other times she is inquisitive, helpful and kind to Peter. The extremes in her personality are explained in the story by the fact that a fairy's size prevents her from holding more than one feeling at a time, so when she is angry she has no counterbalancing compassion. (...) At the end of the novel it is implied that Tinker Bell has died the year after Wendy and her brothers left Neverland, as fairies have very short lives, and Peter has no memory of her at all."
YOU ARE SO RIGHT ABOUT THIS PARALLEL.
She might ruin them both, might make them both something other than themselves. She doesn't mean to. Love is as it is.
GUH.
TH E MOST IMPORTANT
YOU KNOW, before i decided to write "what is the perfection of this sentence" in my original comment, in my head it was more like a voice screaming "THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING" SO WE ARE DEF ON THE SAME PAGE W/R/T THIS.
#sorrynotsorry
bless you.
you know that in that scene by the car, when doctor wants to drop amy off (i think after or at the end of the god complex in season 6) and she asks him why he's leaving her, supposedly, in the script, his original reply was because you still love me.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 06:38 pm (UTC)BUT THEN AGAIN, THE DOCTOR AND AMY WERE NEVER MUCH FOR SAVING THINGS, WEREN'T THEY
RIGHT ??
i love love love this, usually everyone, myself included is v. "amy = wendy, doctor = peter" oriented, and i don't think it's a bad parallel but also amy=peter & doctor=tinkerbell? BLESS YOU, THIS IS PERFECT. and because WIKI says it better than i could,
I'm so utterly charmed by peter pan dynamics and tinkerbelle is ultimately a slave to singular emotions and inhuman desire which, hey, eleven, I hate to break it to you...
(I once wrote a poem that mentioned how pete and tink ruined each other by learning humanity and that selfish fae-ness and i have not gotten over it since)
did i mention i had no idea i shipped amy/eleven until you?? AND LOOK AT WHAT I DO
i'm forever hoping that clara gets to finally be a real solid girl one day. they keep glancing at it then ignorring her personality to make her generic and i just. SHE'S A GIRL LET HER BE THAT.
you know that in that scene by the car, when doctor wants to drop amy off (i think after or at the end of the god complex in season 6) and she asks him why he's leaving her, supposedly, in the script, his original reply was because you still love me.
ha ha let me die in peace pls
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 07:45 pm (UTC)i mean amy will always be #1 companion but i love all of them reallyWHAT IS SAVING THINGS COMPARED TO MUTUAL CODEPENDENCY TBH
(I once wrote a poem that mentioned how pete and tink ruined each other by learning humanity and that selfish fae-ness and i have not gotten over it since)
CAN I READ IT
did i mention i had no idea i shipped amy/eleven until you?? AND LOOK AT WHAT I DO
sometimes i am so proud of myself. AND YOU TOO FOR REALIZING THE RIGHT PATH. THESE FOOLS HAVE RUINED ME FOR EVER & I HOPE THEY DO THIS TO EVERYONE.
SHE'S A GIRL LET HER BE THAT.
YES basically. tho i still haven't seen all of season 8, i have to say. BUT I LOVED the moon episode
ha ha let me die in peace pls
once you go the amy+eleven route, you can never go back
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 08:07 pm (UTC)babe if i can find it i'll pm it to you
sometimes i am so proud of myself. AND YOU TOO FOR REALIZING THE RIGHT PATH. THESE FOOLS HAVE RUINED ME FOR EVER & I HOPE THEY DO THIS TO EVERYONE.
you are my favourite kind of horrendous.
YES basically. tho i still haven't seen all of season 8, i have to say. BUT I LOVED the moon episode
i still haven't watched the last two episodes rip me
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 08:10 pm (UTC)talking to people how does one do that successfully
you are my favourite kind of horrendous.
i should get a tshirt of this. or an icon. or sth.
OH GOODIE, i am not the only one fallen behind! <3 oh the little things that make life good.
i'll probably finish it this week, but i do miss amy pond, and eleven. tho it's not that much that i miss them, as i just haven't been so v. into these last few episodes? dunno tbh.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 07:09 am (UTC)....
This is the most hateful paragraph in the history of the English language like... HOW DARE THE UNIVERSE create these things that are so beautiful and so true?
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 10:19 pm (UTC)♥
and now i have to go prompt peter pan AUsno subject
Date: 2015-08-06 04:02 pm (UTC)He picks up strays and trails them along with him and she forgets to shed tears when they drop like feathers.
Icarus never did fly for long.
Then this, more magic, trailing along the keyboard:
Dawn goes to funerals like dogs go to the pound.
Dawn never really expects to leave, carries the ghosts inside her like a cemetery.
Dawn perhaps mourns more people than she knows, but it never seems like too many.
And then there's this, broken ice and
gravepixie dust:Dawn falls in love as in dreaming. Dawn's eyes are tired and her hands are sleep-soft and Dawn drags her fingers down the length of Janice's skin and wonders how people are made and how they fit and break into each other.
Dawn is so old.
Dawn is new, and dangerous and terriblewonderful and Janice kisses her anyway.
And of course, in closing, you bring all the wonder and terror of magic together in small, ravenous pieces:
But there’s a second in between her breaths where she falls asleep - where her chest bursts open, clean and golden-green. She holds the universe inside herself, as a girl, as a ball of light in the midst of nothing. Then the universe gives her back, older and newer and bigger than before.
Dawn doesn’t like a single name they give her, after that. Not until he steps inside and calls her Sexy.
There is no one like you. But then, there can't be, because magic is whole unto itself.
Gabrielle
no subject
Date: 2015-08-06 06:27 pm (UTC)YOU ARE SO AWSOMELY NICE TO ME AND I REMAIN UNDESERVING BUT I WILL TAKE YOUR PRAISE AND BUILD IT SKYWARD
no subject
Date: 2015-08-07 01:49 am (UTC)I can't
I'm sobbing I can't
I'll be back later with a real comment but
....
You broke me.
thank youno subject
Date: 2015-08-07 10:03 pm (UTC)ngl the whole river part was written with you in mindno subject
Date: 2015-08-08 12:22 pm (UTC)This was utterly breathtakingly, beautiful angst.
I love how you captured each companion. Each ounce of pain and poetry flowing across the page like freaking fairy dust.
You make it hurt so good.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 08:02 pm (UTC)You make it hurt so good.
I try, I try
<333
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 07:03 am (UTC)...........................
Okay, I'm back.
Let's see what I can do....
Weaving moonlight between their fingers, plucking hearts out of chests and sewing them into stars.
Making this fit into canon is one of the most brilliantly shitty things you have ever done to me.
there's a reason why dawn is my faveWhat is so miraculously heartbreakingly PERFECT about Dawn is that you can canonically put her ANYWHERE. She is even more versatile than the Doctor - the Doctor has agency, he goes wherever he wants, anyone can write him anywhere because he can just want it bad enough and then boom there he is. Dawn is the created girl, she's fabricated, she's stitched into the world with words alone. She belongs to all worlds because she is of no world.I hate you.
She is real, or she isn't, the difference is nominal.
HAHAHAHA
She wants to ruin him all on her own.
There is so, so, so much about the section on the Doctor that I love. But THIS. THIS IS WHY WE ARE FRIENDS. Because fuck anyone that doesn't get that Dawn has the potential to be the most vicious, beautiful monster. That she can hurt as good as she gets - better. He is her fairy tale and so she will ruin him.
isn't she a fairy tale and didn't the world ruin her? isn't it her turn?Dawn writes stories, sometimes. A stolen laptop when Buffy's not looking. Distractions by pulled threads in cashmere sweaters and smoke alarm-sounding fish sticks.
DAWN THE GIRL WHO WAS WRITTEN IS WRITING THE DOCTOR AND THE WORDS OF GALLIFREY ARE ON HER BODY AND THE WORDS OF AMY POND ARE ON BUFFY'S LAPTOP LIKE ARE YOU ACTUALLY FOR REAL RIGHT NOW? STOP.
She brings him what she wishes someone would bring to her.
Rose/Dawn #sobs5eva I will never be over it. The Doctor is everything Dawn wishes she could be, she brings him beautiful things and longs to taste them for herself.
AND HE NEVER THANKS HER.
She tells her she deserves the stars, and someday the universe will give them to her.
She'll make it.
SHE'LL MAKE IT.
SHE'LL BEND SPACE AND TIME FOR YOU MARTHA, SHE'LL WHISPER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE IN YOUR EAR AND YOU'LL KNOW THERE'S SOMEONE FIGHTING FOR YOU.
#collapses
And then Dawn is as small as her body, if ever she is that.
*coos*
*pets Dawn forever*
*hisses at everyone*
MINE
FUCK THE DONNA SECTION. WE WILL NEVER SPEAK OF IT.
Dawn sets her fairytale books on fire - knowing that if princesses with knifeblades don't get happy endings, nobody does.
Dawn/words/fire ot3 of my soul
Set all the stories on fire, baby girl. ALL OF THEM.
and wonders how people are made and how they fit and break into each other
AMY MAKES HER WONDER ABOUT HUMANITY.
AMY MAKES HER MORE ALIEN THAN THE DOCTOR.
AMY RUINS HER THE WAY THEY RUIN AMY.
AMY CHANGES DAWN, CHANGES THE DOCTOR, FUCKS EVERYTHING UP AND LAUGHS.
AMY HAS THE GRACE OF GODS AND THE DOCTOR IS AN IDIOT.
AMY.
he talks to her in the silence, like he knows how being endless feels, and knows what love can shatter
Rory talks to her.
Rory TALKS to her.
RORY WOULD NEVER ASK TO BE FAVORITE, BUT SHE'D GIVE IT TO HIM IF HE JUST ASKED.
RORY TALKS TO HER.
She is more monster than he is man, but these things get forgotten. Life and death weave through her ribcage, she has always been a bigger threat than her body.
#wailing
RIVER
THEY BOTH THINK SHE IS FOR HIM BUT SHE IS FOR HER.
(pronouns are assholes)
THEY BOTH THINK RIVER IS FOR HIM BUT SHE IS FOR DAWN.
DAWN. DAWN WROTE HER. IN SPITS AND STARTS. TO RUIN HIM. BUT HE JUST TAKES AND TAKES.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 07:04 am (UTC)Dawn is the most gay of any girl on this earth.
There is no one more bitter and gay than Dawn Summers.
Clara being the first one to READ TO HER is just disgustingly cruel. You should be ashamed of yourself.
RORY TALKS TO HER ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
THEY ALL RUN AROUND DESTROYING THINGS AND BEING BEAUTIFUL AND IGNORING HER BUT RORY TALKS TO HER LIKE HE UNDERSTANDS AND CLARA READS TO HER LIKE SHE KNOWS THEY ARE THE SAME LIKE YOU ARE SUCH A MONSTER I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY WITH YOURSELF.
Not until he steps inside and calls her Sexy.
In Tabula Rasa Buffy gets a brief moment to be Joan and she's so pleasantly, wonderfully happy. Everything is a bad cracky fanfic and all the couples are misplaced and Buffy gets a new name and Spike gets the wrong one and then
there's Dawn
Always Dawn.
So written in stone that the monks made her a necklace with her name on it just in case she ever got lost and forgot what she was
She is the Dawn, she marks the coming of something new.
And when he steps inside and calls her Sexy she lets herself be more monster than he is man, she rises above him and throws all her wishes at him and is Sexy and makes that a purpose and isn't Dawn anymore.
I just really love you. Please never cease your amazing.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 07:58 pm (UTC)...
there's so much to reply to here but lemme start with hi i love you we're always on the same page about these things honestly
DAWN IS MY FAV MONSTER. she's a girl who is not a girl, she has that rage of adolescence mixed with the inherent terribleness of immortality. she ends where she begins, of course she is capable of destruction, destruction is who she is. being a girl is monstrous. being a god is monstrous. being both is utterly ruinous. and then they gave us dawn. (one day a book's gonna get written about a teenage girl who is god and it's probably gonna be by me and it's certainly going to be your fault)
She tells her she deserves the stars, and someday the universe will give them to her.
She'll make it.
SHE'LL MAKE IT.
SHE'LL BEND SPACE AND TIME FOR YOU MARTHA, SHE'LL WHISPER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE IN YOUR EAR AND YOU'LL KNOW THERE'S SOMEONE FIGHTING FOR YOU.
#collapses
AGGRESSIVELY GIVES MARTHA THE WORLD 5EVER
AMY MAKES HER WONDER ABOUT HUMANITY.
AMY MAKES HER MORE ALIEN THAN THE DOCTOR.
AMY RUINS HER THE WAY THEY RUIN AMY.
AMY CHANGES DAWN, CHANGES THE DOCTOR, FUCKS EVERYTHING UP AND LAUGHS.
AMY HAS THE GRACE OF GODS AND THE DOCTOR IS AN IDIOT.
AMY.
isn't amy the worst? look at how she breaks all her toys
RORY WOULD NEVER ASK TO BE FAVORITE, BUT SHE'D GIVE IT TO HIM IF HE JUST ASKED.
RORY TALKS TO HER.
rory is such a delightful anomaly i s2g. his weaknesses are his strengths: he has no faith in anything so monsters show him the exit, he dies so many times death starts fearing him instead, he's the darling submissive partner to all of them and he's so utterly fine with it so long as these charming people let him love them. i mean yeah sure he has a spine of steel but deferral is never hard for him. and of course dawn loves him, we already KNOW tardis loves him (he's her PRETTY ONE, #BLESS) but he's a boy made of plastic as much dawn is a girl made of energy and just bless these unreal kids.
RIVER
THEY BOTH THINK SHE IS FOR HIM BUT SHE IS FOR HER.
(pronouns are assholes)
THEY BOTH THINK RIVER IS FOR HIM BUT SHE IS FOR DAWN.
DAWN. DAWN WROTE HER. IN SPITS AND STARTS. TO RUIN HIM. BUT HE JUST TAKES AND TAKES.
look dawn writes herself into reality she's in no way above writing herself the perfect girlfriend, it's just not her fault everyone keeps referring to river as that dumbass's wife, okay?? and if river breaks him well?? that's what she was meant to do, sweetie ;)
There is no one more bitter and gay than Dawn Summers.
except me maybeTHEY ALL RUN AROUND DESTROYING THINGS AND BEING BEAUTIFUL AND IGNORING HER BUT RORY TALKS TO HER LIKE HE UNDERSTANDS AND CLARA READS TO HER LIKE SHE KNOWS THEY ARE THE SAME LIKE YOU ARE SUCH A MONSTER I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY WITH YOURSELF.
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE TARDIS & THE DOCTOR'S WIFE ARE FUCKING LOVE LETTERS TO THIS FIC
And when he steps inside and calls her Sexy she lets herself be more monster than he is man, she rises above him and throws all her wishes at him and is Sexy and makes that a purpose and isn't Dawn anymore.
and ONE DAY, she'll stop being a machine and start being a god and she'll name herself and the world will fall down as she laughs and laughs
we are so wonderfully terrible, let's do this forever
no subject
Date: 2015-08-14 05:41 am (UTC)(one day my impressionable young grandchildren will gather around my knee and I will hand them a book with a dedication in the front that says, who's the bigger asshole now? and they will be 100% certain that their grandmother is full of shit and this wonderful novel about monster girls def had nothing to do with her
because she is a big cinnamon rolland I will just knit in my rocker and wink)we already KNOW tardis loves him (he's her PRETTY ONE, #BLESS) but he's a boy made of plastic as much dawn is a girl made of energy and just bless these unreal kids.
you are such an unfair human being
never leave me
no subject
Date: 2015-10-06 06:20 pm (UTC)None of it ever has been, and yet they stay breathing.
I can't better - can't even touch - the comments left here by
And I haven't watched the new Who seasons either (watched some of the classic Who in college) but I know a teensy bit about them and I know who the Doctors are. But that isn't the point here, even. This just blows me away, flays me alive, crawls under my skin and soothes my brow all at once.
Then Buffy is pulling at her shoulders and screaming, "Not her. Not again, fuck."
And then Dawn is as small as her body, if ever she is that.
The way you write makes me wonder if jumping off the tower would have been a better ending for Dawn, a noble shining moment rather than the lingering on, at the mercy of writers who had no idea what to do with her and no interest in her. (This is also sadly true in the comics. She's a damsel, she's Xander's girlfriend, Spike's friend, Buffy's sister; she's snarky and smart comic relief. And that's it.)
That segment specific segment inspired a plot puppy the other day: What if Dawn had jumped in the Gift and Willow decided to resurrect her? Buffyis is in a deep blue funk grieving for both Dawn and Joyce. (She's lost so much in her life, that she tends to cling to what little she has.)
Willow might have decided that she wanted to make her best friend happy again (because Willow does care about her friends, and making someone else happy is a powerful feeling.) So she resurrects Dawn without telling Buffy (surprise!) And it all goes haywire from there.
Dawn is miserable to be back in her body; she misses that feeling of being formless and eternal that you capture so well here ( for a moment Dawn is as big as the room and spreading further outward, as far as she can reach.) She dances with boys and girls at the club, kisses RJ and Janice. Kisses Anya and Xander, makes him doubt getting married to Anya. She confuses Spike by coming on to him, testing out her limits and boundaries and soulless evil guy and just plain GUY, he responds. Buffy catches them flirting, is furious and she argues angrily with Willow that Dawn came back wrong, what did she do to her? Willow is miserable because she just meant to make things better. et cetera
no subject
Date: 2015-10-08 08:27 pm (UTC)lol none of this fic is actually about the doctors, it's about dawn, and tardis and the concept of the doctor, kind of, ish.
The way you write makes me wonder if jumping off the tower would have been a better ending for Dawn, a noble shining moment rather than the lingering on, at the mercy of writers who had no idea what to do with her and no interest in her. (This is also sadly true in the comics. She's a damsel, she's Xander's girlfriend, Spike's friend, Buffy's sister; she's snarky and smart comic relief. And that's it.)
I forvere wish she was given agency and got to contribute in a real concrete way instead of being this transient damsel character (we've SEEN what she's capable of, as a regular girl - babe can handle a sword, babe can hold onto her head in crazy situations, - babe is better than all y'all in the general).
kill those goddamn comicsThat segment specific segment inspired a plot puppy the other day
I WILL DO FILTHY THINGS FOR SOMEONE TO WRITE ME THIS
no subject
Date: 2015-10-10 06:03 am (UTC)RIGHT? I wrote a post-series fic where Faith comments "You're brave, you've got wicked sword skills..." Have you ever read Tiger Dragon's The Girls in Question series, it's Fuffy post-chosen and Dawn is their Watcher? Smart and brave and funny.
I WILL DO FILTHY THINGS FOR SOMEONE TO WRITE ME THIS
Oh my gosh then I just might have to write it myself it might be awful you're giving me ideas babe - and possibly turning me on.
Don't tell my sweetie.