i have this silly little undeveloped au in my brain that's just like. tedependent but it's the sarah jane adventures. sort of. not literally in the doctor who universe necessarily but like. local intrepid reporter trent crimm investigating weird shit except the local neighborhood kids will not leave him alone.
i have so many thoughts about this but none of them are coherent enough for a proper fic i think:
i just think trent being good with kids, generally. go mentor figure trent! (what this has nothing to do with my thesis what do you mean)
trent, like sarah jane pre-series, having a sort of reputation in the neighborhood (or in general, since i'm also incorporating his actual canon vibes/story) as to being standoffish, aloof, cold, etc., and generally anti-social, keeping to himself. and as the kids keep dragging him into things kicking and screaming he might also be dragged kicking and screaming into a community <3
if his daughter is essentially luke does that mean he adopted her under Strange Alien-Related Circumstances? absolutely it does, yes.
see i've got two great ideas for ted/tedependent. on one hand, although in the context of SJA/nuwho i'm not so much one for sarah jane and the doctor as a Thing, ted playing the role of like. someone from trent's Mysterious Past who he won't talk about who set him on this path? someone who was kind and wonderful and changed his life but then--at least it feels like to him--abandoned him? someone who made him a better person--from doing whatever journalism he used to do to this--someone who he's still kinda in love with... but trent can no longer even really talk to......until he shows up again? that's some good shit, not gonna lie. although i'm jimmying that into a happy ending somehow, goddamn it.
ALTERNATIVELY. henry being one of the Neighborhood Kids (as if we're using "canon" kids, we've got limited options) and ted being an oblivious parent. trent is trying to get these kids to STOP POKING INTO DANGEROUS ALIEN NONSENSE PLEASE THIS IS HIS JOB PLEASE STOP BREAKING INTO HIS HOUSE but they're stubborn and smart and they may or may not have saved his life once or twice and oh GOD THIS IS SO IRRESPONSIBLE but he can't just TELL THESE RANDOM NEIGHBORS about ALIENS. but like anyway this just painful secret identity-esque nonsense where ted knows henry's taken a shine to that nice journalist down the street and his daughter but does NOT know that henry is getting into Shenanigans(TM). this could lead into all sorts of drama about, you know, his kid being in danger... or, alternatively, ted has worked with some unit/torchwood-esque place before and is like OHH you know what? this explains that time i thought i heard you speaking an alien language. cool, cool. and trents like. .....WHAT
etc. i'm not wording this well but i think you get the idea.
if you really really wanted to make it complicated you could do both, considering the doctor's whole thing--either a fob watch or a regeneration--but honestly, i don't want to do that, so i won't
some of the adults do definitely get involved though. keeley either clocks that shit right away or thinks she's clocked it but she's actually clocked something entirely different. she's like i know you're mi6 babe ;) and he. is not. meanwhile roy having ten freakouts in a row and then being like nvm i'm fine with this. (is not fine with this, but will be eventually). jamies like yeah aliens. everyone knows about those. and they're like what?? no they dont?? and so on.
is beard an alien? genuinely no one's sure. he's not telling.
HOLD ON can i give trent k-9???? can trent crimm get a robot dog?????? yes please i think he deserves a robot dog
also see the trickster episodes? bet you could do something real fucked up with those.
i feel like i had more when i started this post but i don't remember
this not well thought out at all and i have no idea where everyone would fit in
anyway my point is. trent crimm, intrepid journalist, running around trying to stop alien shenanigans while Those Meddling Kids keep following him around. trent crimm doin a little Breaking And Entering. scooby doo shit. and he has such an interesting mix of seeming suave and badass and then immediately doing something embarrassing. trent crimm--via shenanigans and also Those Meddling Kids dragging him into their lives (aka he tries to keep his distance SO badly and only is involved when dangerous shit is going down but like then it's all. child knocking on his door like IT'S AN EMERGENCY OPEN UP and hes like WHAT WHAT IS IT and theyre like can you help me with my homework :( and hes like. fuck. yeah fine what do you want help with. (some subjects he's very helpful on others he's VERY not) until they're like okay but you're coming to this bbq right. and he's like? no? and they're like you're coming to this bbq right. and so on) ANYWAY the point is they keep dragging him into their lives and now oops! trent actually knows his neighbors and has to go through the mortifying ordeal of being known. but that also means that when he gets badly hurt or sick he's used to the empty hospital room but now he actually gets people showing up and forcing baked goods on him and shit and i'm just feeling a lot of things about this extremely hypothetical au based on my already existing feelings about trent gaining a community in s3/post-canon,
wait does this mean trent gets sonic lipstick? HELL YEAH IT DOES
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“Even if it’s not my fault, it’s still my accident, it’s still my mess. It’s still something that - exists, because I do” oh. and he just doesn’t know another way to help, either, because all his life has been screwing up without helpful direction in order to meet impossible standards, and so there is no other way than to bleed himself dry. for the cause, for a friend in need, for anyone he doesn’t know. especially for the problems that he himself creates, because to him his pure existence has always been the problem, because the elders were fucked as hell and traumatized him to no end - so even causing problems is a sin. a single mistake is a sin. it always has been. and it’s rough trying to learn anything other than that mindset - but Jay and Chip won’t let him struggle alone.
and it’s like - that’s what comes with being raised the way he was. punished for imperfection, but there’s no guidebook, no definition of perfect. and so perfect is never good enough anyway. it’s a trap and there is no winning, so there’s nothing else to do but take the blame and bear it, and internalize it. and it makes actual failure and actual mistakes that much more painful. of course responsibility needs to be taken for your actions - but when you’ve been taking responsibility for everything, up to and including the literal fate of the world, all of your life, every outcome is your fault. and guilt only builds, and resentment only festers. of course he hates the elders for how they treated him. of course he hates himself.
he’s grabbing his own destiny and making his own choices - but the thing about making your own choices is that there are so many of them. there’s no destiny to blame anymore. and all you can do is the best you can. and it’s not always going to be good enough. he’s learned plenty about failure, but with Jay and Chip around, maybe he’ll learn about second chances, and self forgiveness. maybe he’ll learn that accidents aren’t always met with extremes. and that he’s not the only one left to deal with a mess if he slips up and breaks something.
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Hey y’all! I was a little flippant in the post about the salt yesterday, and it occurred to me some people might want to know how I actually got diagnosed with POTS (and other salt problems) so I’m putting it below the read more. It’s long, has a lot of medical jargon, and briefly mentions some medical unpleasantness. Also: I am not a medical professional. This is me talking about my experience with taking eight years to get a diagnosis, not medical advice.
For me, POTS started as a teenager when I got mono and strep throat at the same time. I’d already had doctors tell me I needed to up my salt intake and drink more water, but being sick took me from “gets dehydrated easily” to “resting heartrate of 140 bpm and severely dehydrated”. I was basically on my mom’s couch for a month and a half, had to quit my job, and ended up on a heart monitor for a month while they tried to figure out what the heck was happening.
They didn’t.
Over the course of the next year or two, I gradually got better. Once I was physically capable of it, being in a musical (3+ hours of dance rehearsal 5 or 6 days a week in an old theater with a faulty AC) and starting Krav Maga (a, uh, very intense martial art) helped a lot*. I was still more sensitive to heat and dehydration than most people, but I was more or less functional. I had fairly severe muscle spasms and migraines sometimes, but I could handle it, and after going to several doctors I pretty much gave up on getting a diagnosis for a few years.
Then my family moved, and I started going downhill fast. I developed severe seasonal allergies that started as occasional hives and turned into what the allergist called “the worst hives she’d ever seen” and then anaphylaxis like clockwork the end of every June. There was a fire season like any other fire season, but my cough didn’t go away, and I dislocated a rib coughing and got diagnosed with asthma. During all of this, my POTS was getting worse and worse. My blood pressure was rarely above 100/60, and my resting heart rate was never below 100 and rarely below 120, but I couldn’t get any answers. My heartbeat was always perfectly regular, just fast, so the cardiologist called me a “medical mystery” and sent me home. (Somewhere in here is when the allergist suggested I had mast cell problems)
By the summer of 2019, I could barely walk and couldn’t stay awake through the day. I was sleeping at least 10 hours a night and needing a two or three hour nap every afternoon. I saw a post by thebibliosphere about POTS, and brought it up at my next cardiologist appointment. He didn’t have a tilt table**, but did the test where they take my heart rate and blood pressure while lying down, sitting down, and standing, and I was like textbook perfect POTS numbers. He offered to surgically cauterize part of my heart to slow it down.***
I said “can I try salt pills first?” and he said “Sure. Can’t hurt. Might help!”
Salt pills made a HUGE difference. I could stay awake! I still couldn’t walk far and got tired easily, but the brain fog lifted a little and I could think and plan again, so I asked my primary care doctor for one more referral. The neurologist and endocrinologist hadn’t found anything****, but surely the way salt affected me would mean something, right??? He gave me a referral to a nephrologist, who did some tests and told me my kidneys were fine but that based on how dramatically salt affected me I had “salt wasting syndrome”***** and put me on fludrocortisone.
That brings us to today! I do not have answers for what, exactly, is wrong with my adrenals. Something very clearly is, and multiple doctors have said that. I’ve been tested for all the dangerous options and all the more common options, and I have none of them. I am extremely, extremely lucky; I have very weird versions of every single health problem I have, but the weirdness makes them less dangerous. My POTS is hypotensive, meaning that while I can’t take beta blockers or anything to slow my heart rate and am at a higher risk for passing out, I will not have long term health problems from high blood pressure. My heart rate is also always regular, no arrhythmia, which means I am much less likely to have heart problems later. I have asthma and can’t use rescue inhalers, but it’s weirdly never affected my blood oxygen levels or lung capacity. I have severe allergies, but weirdly very slow ones, so I have time to take benadryl before I reach the dangerous stage (it can take like 8 or 9 hours for me to go from “first symptoms” to “requires a hospital”, instead of the near-instant reactions some people have).
Even with all the medications and lifestyle changes I’ve made, I am still very very sensitive to heat, pollen, and dehydration, and some days are better than others when it comes to things like “being able to climb stairs” or “being able to stand for long”. I still need to avoid my food allergies, and will probably never be able to drink alcohol of any kind. It would be very, very difficult for me to live on my own, but my life is so much better now than it was back in 2019 before my diagnoses. I know more people are getting POTS and long covid now, and while long epstein-barr virus isn’t quite the same, I think the path ahead of you might be similar to the path I’ve had to take? It sucks. It sucks! It’s long, and exhausting when you’re already the most tired you’ve ever been, and it seems like there is no end and no help and no hope sometimes, but things can get better. “Better” might not ever be what you used to be able to do, but there will still be so many things you’ll be able to do, and so many new hobbies and places and stories and people to love.
If you have POTS, and want to talk about it or ask questions, my inbox is open. If you don’t have POTS and have questions about it, I’ll answer those too. Also, if you don’t have POTS and are organizing an event, please, PLEASE make sure there is somewhere to sit, water to drink, and air conditioning or at least shade if it’s hot. Heat makes POTS much, much worse.
*this may or may not be because my adrenals don’t work right, and high intensity exercise seems to help me a LOT with adrenaline.
**my understanding is that this is like the gold standard POTS test
***that would have been Very Very Bad for me. My heart rate is high, but any time I take any medication to lower it, my blood pressure drops like a rock. I’m talking 70s over 40s. Can barely stay conscious.
****they both told me I “might have anxiety”. So did more than one urgent care doctor I went to for severe allergic reactions. That’s both supremely unhelpful, obvious, and very clearly not the answer. As far as I understand it, stress will not make your resting heart rate reach 160 bpm unless something is very wrong with something else in your body
*****This...isn’t actually a diagnosis. It could mean two things: SIADH or cerebral salt wasting syndrome. SIADH gets worse with additional salt and water, not better, and cerebral salt wasting syndrome is very short term (like weeks at most) after head trauma or surgery so it’s kind of a non-diagnosis? It got me the fludrocortisone, though, and every single one of the many things that could be wrong with my adrenals are treated with fludrocortisone, so it kind of doesn’t matter.
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