#and also veega's father was killed in the war

[sircarolyn]

thinking about veega and leela again... i know unity is set up as this dump at the end of the universe, but like especially as rayo gets older and its gets harder and harder to survive and more of the people who live nearby go missing or move away, why don't they?

how many hushed arguments do leela and veega have where leela tries to persuade veega that she can take them somewhere else, that she can take them somewhere better and safer? and veega puts her foot down because rayo is just a child and she won't uproot his whole world, or put him in danger, or risk their lives for some dream of running away somewhere that doesn't exist, because unity might be a dump but at least here they're safe from the war. at least here that isn't going to touch them

because leela's always been good at walking away from difficult situations, and veega's seen enough difficult situations to know that sometimes staying put is better. and at the end of the day, rayo comes first, so on unity they stay. but how much is leela fantasising about the life where she can take them away and give them something better?

#lucy speaks #tangentially to this i've been also thinking about veega's partner slash rayo's dad and how he fits into all this #because leela says he got killed by the night raiders #and also veega's father was killed in the war #(which just sparked the connection that veega now has so much dead dad trauma; both her own and her son's :) but that's a different thought #where i was going with this is #why do they go to unity in the first place? #is it shortly after veega's dad dies? and is she pregnant when they go? #how long does veega have with him on unity before he dies? #how much of his son's life does he get to see at all? #for impact i want to say none at all so when leela arrives she finds veega all alone with this little baby and imprints at once #but also i guess there's nothing except i think it would be awkward for leela to show up and for veega's partner to be there still #that's not the angle i'm taking but i also think it would be funny #and one more thought off the back of this is #how long does it take for leela to stop feel like she's intruding on their family? #to start feeling like family instead of an obligation to protect them for helping her #this is such an irrelevant thought experiment that i am fully fully writing fic about as we speak #to the maybe three people who are listening to anything i have to say about veega: i adore you <3 #unity family

[magicofthepen]

i am Extremely interested in the titles of every single one of your wips but i am actually begging you for details on 'Veega my beloved' because she is also my beloved <3 (🤝 our unity bullshit ❤❤)

Send me a WIP doc title (list here) and I’ll talk about it!

I’ve had “something Leela/Veega” on my fic idea list since Time War 3 came out....but it’s your fault that this fic has skyrocketed to the top of my priorities now, thank you so much for jumping into this sandbox with me <33

Initially I wasn’t sure whose pov I wanted to write from – we know Leela, we know her baggage going into this world and this relationship, and exploring all those internal emotions could be really interesting? But at the same time we don’t know Veega very well and so *insert “It’s Free Real Estate” gif*

So the project evolved from “something Leela/Veega” to “Veega character study” because I realized if I was writing from her pov, I wanted/needed to know what baggage she’s carrying when she meets Leela, and that means this fic has to be about her life and her backstory. 

I keep thinking about Unity as the end-of-the-line, a place people end up when they have nowhere else to go (I feel like there’s actually a quote about this but I can’t find it right now so it’s possible I made that up?) So I see Veega’s backstory as one of running, of losing one home and building another and losing that one too. There’s tragedy throughout her life, but she keeps choosing to create a home as much as she can wherever she is, and keeps choosing to love even in this universe that’s tearing itself apart. 

And since Veega’s father was a soldier who died in battle (and she references the battle by name when she’s talking to Romana, as if Romana would have heard of it), I see her story as one of running from the Time War specifically – sometimes she’s ahead of it, sometimes it catches up to her and tears at her world.

The fic is going to be structured around that idea of loss and rebuilding – I’ve kind of split it up in my head into the different families she builds throughout her life? So starting off with the family she was born into – her parents, I’ve invented a younger sibling – and seeing where she grew up and what that world and that family was like (I’m thinking maybe she originally grew up on a farm, and so there’s a ‘coming full circle’ narrative with the farm on Unity, and also she’d have certain skills and memories to lean on when she’s starting the farm on Unity later in life?). And then how that world falls apart – the death of her father and something that forces her family to run/scatter in some way (still working on this bit).

For her second family (when she’s a young adult), I have vague ideas for this group of twentysomethings all on their own who become close friends as they’re all thrown into the same work environment or running in the same direction together.....again, a lot of the details of this fic are still tbd. But I think this part is likely to be quite spaceship-based? It’ll depend on what I decide for how she got separated from her mother and sibling and what kind of work she gets involved with (Veega’s work experience/background is something I’m still thinking about).....but if the first part and next part of the fic are very grounded on a particular planet, I like the idea of telling a story here about her finding a home while hopping from place to place – there's never the same ground under her feet, but there are the people she loves around her.

And then we hit Things Get Bad, Round 2. Also very nebulous right now? In general, I don’t want to just kill of or have her get separated from everyone she’s ever loved throughout her life, but she is definitely quite alone by the time she meets Leela so.....yeah it can’t really be a happy backstory?

But I think Rayo’s father is going to be one of the people in that friend group, so there’s some continuity-of-family there? And I can get into the backstory of that relationship, and then how they eventually ended up alone together on Unity. And this is the third family – the two of them setting up this life on the farm, and Veega getting pregnant, and them preparing for this kid who they’re so ready to love and do everything they can to shield from the war.

And then, not long after Rayo is born.....yeah. (This fic really is just me continually ripping the ground out from under Veega’s feet unfortunately, but also that cycle of loss is what I want to explore – particularly because it parallels how Leela keeps losing one home and finding another one, so by the time they meet they’ve both loved and lost so much - but they still choose to love again.)

So Rayo’s father dies, Veega’s alone with baby Rayo on the farm, things are very rough.....and then Leela shows up, injured and alone, running from the city and the slavers she recently escaped from. And I’m going to spend quite a bit of time on this family (of course). The early days: Veega taking Leela in and taking care of her, Leela protecting her and Rayo (if Leela’s way of dealing with grief is throwing herself into a fight, Veega’s is throwing herself into caring for others). Them learning to communicate (bc language barrier – I could handwave it and say the Trell, who must have given Leela the ability to speak the language on that planet in Mother Tongue, left her with that ability – but I want to try exploring the idea of not having a translator?). And the eventual shock of learning that Leela’s from Gallifrey, and processing that (honestly I could write a whole fic just on that, so I’ll probably just touch on it here?). Growing into being a family, falling in love (and I know it’s from Veega’s pov, but I’ll have to at least indirectly touch on Leela’s motherhood-related trauma and initial wariness around Rayo because of it, and Leela’s complicated emotions towards Romana and Narvin and how there isn’t any closure there so it’s hard to let go?)

One thing I haven’t completely decided is the exact relationship backstory I’m going with for Leela and Romana and Narvin in this fic – it’s not something the fic will get into too much, but I’d like to know in my head? But there is a good chance I’ll end up making this fic What We Choose compliant. I want my post-Time War fic to be a WWC ‘verse fic and I want to get into Leela’s grief for Veega in that fic, so it is all nice and convenient if all the fics can co-exist in the same universe, even if the Veega fic won’t formally be part of that series? And I like the idea of there being an overtly romantic backstory there, because then I can explore how not ever ending things with or being able to talk with Romana and Narvin affects Leela re: getting into a relationship with Veega.

I would actually want to explore a different relationship backstory for those three for the Everyone Escapes Unity AU.....but that’s not an active project/as likely to actually get written, so I probably won’t let that factor into things. 

And back from that tangent: so eventually, we once again hit the Things Go Wrong times – the raids keep getting worse and worse. The shadow of the Time War is looming.

Veega gets sick.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted this fic to go right up until her death but I think it will – because I want to touch on Romana and Narvin showing up, and how Veega resents them for crashing into her life but also is glad that they’re hear because maybe Leela will have people to lean on after Veega is gone. Maybe, if they get the TARDIS, Leela and Rayo can run when they need to and continue to keep away from the war as long as they can.

Stylistically, this fic’s gonna be along the lines of knock the ice from my bones or leaned in and let it hurt, with shorter scenes spanning a (in this case very) long range of time. It’s in vague outline stage right now – I’ve got this general structure, but I’m in the process of figuring out what scenes I actually want and making actual proper backstory decisions. It has the potential to end up quite long, but I also don’t want to go overboard – there’s a lot of coloring in the lines I could do in future fics, this one is meant to sort of sketch an outline of her life? So I want to make sure I’m being selective with how many and which scenes I’m including, and if they’re each contributing to the thematic through-lines.

So this fic is gonna take a little while, but most definitely watch this space :)

#unity family #leela x veega #gallifrey audios #veega #leela #sircarolyn #thank you for sending this!! <33 i love talking about the unity family #i don't have anything written yet and i'm in the process of starting to recover from major burnout #so my writing might be even slower than usual over the next many months #but i am committed to this fic especially <3 #ramblings #asks