The Doctor falls to earth like Icarus ♥♥♥ Yes. I love you so much for that parallel.
how he greets Amy and Rory and River at the picnic in Utah before younger River kills him (for real in your AU). Ah, that was my problem—I was wondering if I should clarify the AU. The premise I had in mind for it was "a world where River doesn't exist" because it doesn't only influence him in terms of their relationship: River not existing brought on the fact that it was the Doctor trapped in a burning TARDIS and unable to control her in any way, and it also makes his death feel all the more looming in a way, if that makes sense… He can hold on to calling his friends to that time, ending with them, but besides he's just surrendering to a foreign and hostile enemy instead of accepting death from the hands of a person he loves and who is also a victim. (Not looking for Melody = not learning as many things about the Silence, not seeing them in person, mostly. I haven't fully developed in my head the exact way his death would take place then, nor the way he learned about the Lake Silencio date, but it is a set point, it can come from another source.) Plus he knows that there is nobody else who can pilot his TARDIS after he's gone—even if River couldn't have guarded her much better than he could, it still means his dying means leaving her behind completely. So all of those gave good psychological reasons to enormously increase the existing trauma/fear, hence that terrible decision. I tried my best to imply River's absence with his being trapped in the TARDIS, the fact it was Amy rescuing him, the never mentioning her but mentioning Amy and Rory, and the song and water as a symbolism of what eludes him in the end—but it was hell getting a traumatized POV character to imply the absence of something that had never existed for him ;) So maybe I should just state it outright in the AN—I did wonder about that. What do you think?
ALSO THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT FEEDBACK. I just went off on my tangent and almost forgot, lol, but your praise means a lot to me—and you know I love your writing and the way you handle the Doctor's connection to the TARDIS especially, so that was all the more precious :)
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♥♥♥ Yes. I love you so much for that parallel.
how he greets Amy and Rory and River at the picnic in Utah before younger River kills him (for real in your AU).
Ah, that was my problem—I was wondering if I should clarify the AU. The premise I had in mind for it was "a world where River doesn't exist" because it doesn't only influence him in terms of their relationship: River not existing brought on the fact that it was the Doctor trapped in a burning TARDIS and unable to control her in any way, and it also makes his death feel all the more looming in a way, if that makes sense… He can hold on to calling his friends to that time, ending with them, but besides he's just surrendering to a foreign and hostile enemy instead of accepting death from the hands of a person he loves and who is also a victim. (Not looking for Melody = not learning as many things about the Silence, not seeing them in person, mostly. I haven't fully developed in my head the exact way his death would take place then, nor the way he learned about the Lake Silencio date, but it is a set point, it can come from another source.) Plus he knows that there is nobody else who can pilot his TARDIS after he's gone—even if River couldn't have guarded her much better than he could, it still means his dying means leaving her behind completely. So all of those gave good psychological reasons to enormously increase the existing trauma/fear, hence that terrible decision. I tried my best to imply River's absence with his being trapped in the TARDIS, the fact it was Amy rescuing him, the never mentioning her but mentioning Amy and Rory, and the song and water as a symbolism of what eludes him in the end—but it was hell getting a traumatized POV character to imply the absence of something that had never existed for him ;) So maybe I should just state it outright in the AN—I did wonder about that. What do you think?
ALSO THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT FEEDBACK. I just went off on my tangent and almost forgot, lol, but your praise means a lot to me—and you know I love your writing and the way you handle the Doctor's connection to the TARDIS especially, so that was all the more precious :)