Okay, I've got a game for you all to play at home.

I'm going to give you some segments from slash fics, and some from non-slash fics. I want you to try and tell the difference, okay? Bonus points if you can name the story and author.

Okay? Here we go:

Number 1:
Egon flipped the channel to an old movie, possibly as a delaying tactic, then he set the remote on the coffee table. "If I had died down there, would you have been able to forgive me?"

Oh dear. Peter hesitated only a second then he gave Egon the most honest answer he could. "Yes." It was true, although there would have been residual anger, a natural part of grieving, because it was the way Peter dealt with emotional pain. But it would never have been the overriding feeling. Then words came out that surprised him because he hadn't consciously planned them. "It would have been myself I couldn't forgive."

They stared at each other, each of them recalling the near miss of that afternoon, realizing how close they'd come and how badly each of them would have taken a fatal outcome. Peter saw understanding in the eyes that gazed into his and knew an equal understanding was reflected in his own. They knew each other thoroughly and it showed.

"You would scarcely have been at fault, Peter," Egon said quickly, clutching the pillow tightly against his chest.

"I know. But I'd have been thinking of you, trapped, waiting for rescue, knowing we'd find you, realizing we'd been too late." He saw Egon flinch and added hastily, "But it wouldn't have come to that. We'd have rescued you even without the ghost, once the dogs led us to the Stone mausoleum and couldn't pick up another trail. You know that, Egon. You have to know we would never have given up." He reached out and grasped Egon's wrist. "We're a team, Egon. We work better as a team than any of us do apart. We need you."

"It appears you understood the ghost's motivations before anyone else did," mused Egon.

Number 2:
The next morning, I met Mrs. Venkman. Peter had gone up to fetch her, and I waited beside my car in the front. Half an hour passed, and then they came through the automatic doors. Peter was pushing her wheelchair, making race-car noises, and his mother was laughing in a gentle contralto.

"Petey, you crazy boy, your friend is going to think you're mad!" she said, and ruffled Peter's hair. He protested loudly, but winked at me. Mrs. Venkman shook her head at her son, and then subjected me to a fierce scrutiny. It was obvious from whence much of Peter's genes had come, the pale skin and dark hair were much the same. And her eyes…a lighter green than Peter's, but with the same piercing clarity. She was thin. Too thin, perhaps, but that was probably due to her illness. Peter handled her with gentle care, as if afraid she would break.

She smiled and held out a slender hand. "You must be Egon. I'm so glad to meet you, although I do wish it was under better circumstances." I smiled and would have continued with standard introductions, but Peter, fretting that the cold would cause a relapse of her pneumonia, bundled us both into the car.

Number 3:
"Egon?" Ray stood in the doorway, watching me with knowing eyes. "It won't separate us this time. We're going to get it for sure."

I was afraid and Ray knew it. Ray always knew. And when one of us was frightened due to particular aspects of a bust, it seemed to inspire a rather Peter-like recklessness in Ray, so fierce was his determination to capture that which had done the unforgivable, and upset his friends. I realized with increasing trepidation that we were going into this bust in entirely the wrong frame of mind to deal with it. All three of them would be overly focused on keeping me safe. Ray would be more difficult to rein in and Peter would be more than ready to throw his own life away if he thought it the only means of preventing a repeat of the CPR he'd had to perform on me.

A unmistakable recipe for disaster; but we could not let the Nine roam free. I had to trust that our skills as a team would come through if the bust got rough again.

The factory grounds were still deserted, the chain link fence hung with a heavy lock. Ray withdrew the keys the owner had given us, and we walked the cement path to the entrance in a tight knit group, throwers unsheathed and ready. The factory interior was still cool and dim, and I shivered at the familiar sight of the silent machinery. The place was as quiet as before, apart from the subdued echo of our footsteps. The Nine, however, had moved soundlessly, and we knew that we had to rely entirely upon the meter--and sight--if we hoped to catch it before it caught us.

I checked the meter, a quick glance, reluctant to take my eyes from our surroundings even for an instant. Peter, beside me, bumped his shoulder to mine. "We know it's here, Egon," he whispered.

"I just wanted to be sure." I hook the meter to my belt. "There are no other entities. I get one strong reading. Only the Nine."

"Only the Nine." He snorted. "Hardly worth the trip out here."

"Indeed," I rejoined, amused by his tone. "I was hoping for two or three Eights and perhaps a Ten."

Winston, walking ahead of me, threw an exasperated look back at the both of us. "Ever hear the expression, 'be careful what you wish for'?"

"No," Peter replied with an utterly innocent face. "How does that go, again?"

Ray laughed, turning to regard us with a grin. "Hey, Peter, remember that bust with the bunch of Twos, and the Three, Four, Five, and Six?"

"Of course he does, Raymond," I interjected calmly, settling my thrower in the crook of my arm as we reached the main corridor of the factory along which ran a suite of offices. Here, we could see some distance, in all directions but down; and I paid sharp attention to the likelihood that the Nine could emerge through the floor again. "That was the bust which inspired all the poker jokes."

"Yeah," Winston grunted. "Wasn't that the one with the nearly unanimous vote to lock Peter in the car?" His glance shifted reproachfully to Ray.

Number 4:
Ray shuddered and immediately felt Peter put his arm about his shoulders. "It must have been terrible for you, Egon," Ray murmured.

"Yes, well, all that's over with now," Egon soothed.

"Not quite," Winston spoke up. "First thing in the morning, we have to notify the proper authorities that Ray is alive."

"Hey, that's right. Have to call the credit card companies, Social Security, the works. Renew his Captain Steel subscription, give back his season ticket to the Mets..." Peter commented.

"But I was only gone for an hour, two at the most," Ray protested in stunned disbelief.

"An hour for you," Peter said quietly, "but it's been six weeks on this side."

"Six weeks?" Ray couldn't believe it. When he'd come back, his bed was as he'd left it; Dopey Dog faithfully watching over his Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, his pajamas still lying on the foot of his bed. Nothing had been disturbed. Then he knew why. His friends had wanted it so because they loved him and had never stopped loving him. He hugged Peter tightly, tears running down his cheeks. Egon moved over beside him and encircled the two with his arms. Winston joined them, completing the circle. Ray was back and the team was whole again.

Number 5:
"Bunch of hard hearted…," I grumbled as I levered myself up off the couch. "See if I ever empty traps for you again."

"Hell," Winston responded, "I'd like to see you empty a trap for us for the first time, much less again."

I pulled a mock scowl in his direction, snatched a cookie from the bag to fortify me for the trip and headed down the stairs for Ecto and the traps. "Mop the floors, Cinderelly," I muttered. "Empty the traps, Cinderelly." I yanked the traps out of the back of Ecto, looped the heavy cables around my hand and made for the containment unit in the basement. I hadn't made it half way down the stairs when the lights went out, leaving the basement pitch black except for the blinking green light on the front of the containment unit…the green light that within two seconds turned into a red one accompanied by an earsplitting wail that turned your spine to ice with the speed of a tornado siren. It was the sound of an impending containment breach. And that was a hundred times worse than any tornado. "Holy shit," I breathed, making my way rapidly the rest of the way down the stairs by feel. What the hell happened to the back up generator?

I dropped the traps on the floor and followed the virulent red light to the unit. I put my hand against the metal and sucked in a breath. It was vibrating. This was not good. This was not good in the way the bubonic plague is not good. Jesus Christ. I turned to yell for Egon and Ray when a white hot beam of light speared through the darkness from the top of the stairs.

"Peter?" It was Egon's bass behind the light. "Are you all right?"

Winston's voice came right on his heels. "What'd you do now, Pete?"

"Hey!" I protested. "I didn't do anything. I didn't even make it down the stairs before all the bells and whistles went off."

Egon and Ray had already pounded down the stairs to my side. In the beam of the flashlight I could see Ray's eyes widen at the sight of the vibrating metal.

"Egon," he said urgently, "it really is breaching."

Winston peered over Ray's shoulder to groan. "Oh man, you're kidding, right? I do not want to be ground zero at the world's first equivalent of a ghost atomic bomb."

"Actually," Egon commented absently, "it wouldn't be the first, but that is neither here nor there. Raymond, quickly. Help me with the generator."

The two of them moved to the generator in the corner while Winston and I more or less twiddled our thumbs in the reflected glow of the flashlight. "Did the lights go out all over?" I asked him. "Or just in the firehouse?"

"From what I could tell running past the window, all over," Winston confirmed. "One big mother of a blackout." Then he chuckled. "'Course Egon 'bout ran me down making sure the containment unit didn't eat you so it was kind of hard to see."

"Wonderful," I grunted. "A blackout and our brand new generator decides to take a nap." Egon and Ray were working rapidly on it, but as fast as they worked the faster the containment unit shook. The red light flashed like a strobe. The alarm wailed nonstop. It was all very Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and on my last nerve.

"Damn it," I muttered. "Where's the friggin' off switch to this thing?" Winston's had clamped on my shoulder and pulled me back as the metal of the unit began to scream. Oh man.

"Uh…guys?" I said warningly. "You think maybe you could speed it up?"

"Certainly, Peter," Egon said grimly, hands almost a blur. "We were going as slowly as possible to heighten the sense of drama. But if that bothers you…."

Number 6:
One stream wouldn't hold the darn thing. We got it in two streams once, but not for long enough. And all the time it was making strafing runs at whoever was handy, dripping ectoplasmic goo everywhere. Somehow, all four of us managed to stay unslimed. That must have used up most of our luck… Anyway, it finally seemed to miscalculate, popping up in a large, high-ceilinged room only sparsely occupied. Well, sparsely for the size of the room, anyway.

Still, it moved awfully fast, and we were still having trouble getting more than one stream on it quick enough to contain it. Egon spotted a door on the other side of the room, and found out from someone who knew the building that there was an easy way to get around to that door so he could come in behind the ghost while we kept it occupied.

We'd been watching the ghost pretty close, you know, and I think it was Pete who first connected the dots. The way it had approached that young woman hadn't looked anything like the strafing runs we'd seen since.

I can still see it. The ghost escaped my stream just before Ray's hit it, too. Pete had an hysterical teenaged girl hanging onto his arm, so he was trying to dislodge her without hurting her, keep his eye on the ghost, and keep track of Ray and me - all while watching for Egon to come through that door. The ghost headed straight for a crying toddler crouched under a chair right near the door. It was not a strafing run.

Like I said before, Pete had a split second to decide what to do. Egon wasn't visible, the ghost was going to get that little child… He fired at the ghost. It didn't stop it in its tracks any more than any other single stream had before, but it did deflect it from that baby girl. Only Egon chose that second to come through the door.

If I close my eyes and replay it, I think if Egon had stayed where he was when he realized what was happening, he might have been okay; but, instinctively probably, he dove for cover.

Pete's stream hit him, just for a second, because Pete cut it off immediately with a cry of dismay, but Egon's dive turned into an uncontrolled flight and he hit his head on a table leg. A solid mahogany table leg.

Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets...

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"Welcome to Britain. We have prevailing south-westerly winds and 52% of our days are overcast so as a nation we are infused with a subtle melancholy -- leading to eccentricity, binge drinking and casual violence." - Bill Bailey.

Honestly, I still want to start watching it and see for myself. I just never seem to come in at the start of the rerun cycle, and I'd rather see it in order than come in halfway through. I've actually been on a bit of a DW nostalgia hit lately; I did a joking "Filmation GB Fritz" drawing inspired by Doctor #8, and that in turn has led to a design for Professor Ulforce I'm happy enough with I'm going to finally release it.

I did catch part of the Cyberman story, and the episode where Rose left. The Cybermen seemed pretty awesome, though written perhaps a little more like Dalek replacements than the old Mondasian/Telosian Cybermen.

And honestly again, when I sit and think about it, the Doctor showing signs of a sex drive really doesn't bother me; there are people who think Egon Spengler shouldn't have one, after all. But again, please remember, the Doctor did have a granddaughter, implying he had at least one child back on Gallifrey. Some of the novels and such have tried to explain away Susan Foreman, but I don't count that--and, ironically enough, I understand some recent episode have had Doctor #10 mentioning having previously been married and having kids. Unless the TV show explicitly has him say "Well, Susan wasn't really my Granddaughter" I'm still assuming she is.

Still, some longtime fans have vented some frustrations on Godawful.net. I'd link to the thread, but it doesn't do any good since you have to be a registered member to view the forum. It's in the Godawful Television forum and called "The TARDIS--No entry unless you want the Doctor's Time Sperm" or something like that.




On that, I will admit you are correct.



For the record: Mrs. Stantz has not been established yet, but she will finally be named in the upcoming Chronicles of Gozer Book Six. And canon issues involved here were considered very very carefully. There was agreement by more than one writer that this was an area of some flexibility, as Elaine Fuhrman only appeared in one episode, early in the series, and was never even referred to since--but it's still not impossible that she's Mrs. Stantz after all.



Heh...Check out The Timeline Thread...



Glad to see I did something right today...

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Yeah, but there are sex drives, and there are sex drives and right now, the Doctor is one horny time-travelling alien! Maybe he's just catching up on lost time? I don't know, but it actually does bother me quite a bit. I'm surprised he can get any time-travelling in amongst the rampant snogging he's getting up to!



Yeah, I know. When I meant he had no sex drive, I actually meant he had almost no sex drive. Or something. I don't know what I mean, quite honestly. I think maybe I'm saying that back then he wasn't the timelord equivalent of Austin Powers, and now he is. He must at one point have fathered a child (despite the whole controversy over pods, or something), but I still think his behaviour towards the lay-dees at the moment is odd...

I'm trying desperately to avoid spoiling, honestly I am.



Yeah, I've seen it. It's quite hilarious, but it's true. It is a bit frustrating at times, and I must admit it's putting me off the show a bit.



Goodie. I'm glad I haven't missed out on that one. It's one of the great fanfic mysteries of our time!



Well, like I say, much as I dislike the J/L pairing, I would have missed out had you not written the stories you did. I liked the fact you wrote them. You took them to places no-one else had the guts to, and proved everyone who loved the pairing wrong. It didn't work, and that was what ultimately mattered. In the end, it brought Egon and Janine together, really. Who knows what would have happened had J/L not got married, or had Egon not discovered that they were married, and had things not turned out as they ended up doing. We probably wouldn't have had Forever, would we?



Hey, you do everything right, man! I'm just being an insufferable arse as usual.

_________________
"Welcome to Britain. We have prevailing south-westerly winds and 52% of our days are overcast so as a nation we are infused with a subtle melancholy -- leading to eccentricity, binge drinking and casual violence." - Bill Bailey.

Maybe we're just fighting back!



I have seen some clean slash fics too. But I still can't stand them!
What I really hate is pairing the characters off with someone who they never were with in the canon.
I didn't grow up watching Peter & Egon having a romantic relationship or Ray & Winston for that matter.
I grew up watching Janine & Egon together. Peter coming on to almost every woman that they met. And Ray & Winston being interested in women as well. That's the characters I know & love.
I hate seeing the characters I grew up with being twisted into something they were not just so someone else can have their little fantasies.
I'm not against OCs. There are some brill ones that Fritz, EGBFan & Vincent Belmont etc have created. Maybe Ray's wife isn't canon, while Elaine Furhamn is, but Elaine was only in it once as was the majority of women Peter liked. So Ray & Winston are fair game as far as romance goes as long as they don't act OCC.
What I really dislike are the ones who are a terribly written characters & when are introduced everyone falls all over themselves to help them! Especially those Egon ones! Some fantasies should best be left in the mind!
Since Dana was in both GBI & GBII & Peter's feelings for her seem to have not changed, indeed they grow even stronger in GBII. Plus her appearences were of major signifigance in the GBU so I consider her to be the one that Peter really loves & therefore should be with her.

When exactly has been it been confirmed that Susan was the Doctor's real granddauther anyway? Yes she called him grandfather, but she could easily be a human who he adpoted.
I'm not crazy about the way Doctor who has gone recently.
The writers & producers (Gary Russell is one, he used to work for DW magazine & wrote some of the Docor Who: New Adventure novels which I liked) of New Who seem to be having to cater for today's audience who seem to crave sex in Who instead of or more than the Science Fiction aspect of it as it was in the old, classic days of Who. Maybe the majority of audiences are teens, I don't know.
Tegan so obviously had a crush on the Doctor, but he never seemed to notice & nothing ever developed between them. I was fine with that. I thought it was cute that she had that crush on him, but I would not have liked it if he hadv'e reciprocated.
Of course also bearing in mind that Doctor Who was originally created as a fun way of edjucating children about history. He was never meant to have a romantic relationship with his companions. While I realise people can change I don't believe they can change that much.
I also disliked in "School Reunion" how they implied that the Doctor & Sarah-Jane Smith had some kind of romantic relationship. That's not the way I remember it. She admired him, respected him & liked him & he was fond of her in return, but that's how all the old school Doctor & companion relationships were.
I don't like the new Master much. He's piss poor compared the great Roger Delgado & Anthony Ainley. Those two were gods! They were deliciously machiavellian, dark, fun & had great evil laughs. They made a Master you loved to hate! The new Master was so annoying! I was like kill him already, he's getting on my nerves! And yes the idea of the Doctor getting together with the Maste repulses me to no end!
I don't care who Jack jumps into bed with, as long as it's not the Doctor!
The day the Doctor starts having relationships like that is the day I stop wacthing DW.
Oh and I like David Tennant, he brought some fun back to the Doctor which was missing when Christopher Ecclelston was in it. Christopher's Doctor was always bagging the human race, while David's loves it! I know the Doc sometimes got annoyed with humans, but Chris' was always being negative about them.
And though I like Martha, I can't stand Rose. Neither can my Mum! Rabid rose fans would proabably jump down my throat for it, but ever since Doctor Who started everyone has had their favourite Doctor & companion & their most disliked.
My favourite... Sylvester McCoy & Ace. What a great paternal relationship they had. He always felt the need to protect her, while at the same time he helped her to come to terms with her shattered past. Ace considered him, I think, to be the father her's never was.
That's the way I'll always see Who, the Doctor & the friends who travel around with him, writing wrongs, stopping bad guys etc. They seem to have lost sight of that.
Sigh!

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Cherish the past, embrace the future.