Fic: 299 (1/1, all ages)
Sep. 23rd, 2025 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonelvisTitle: 299
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing(s): Donna Noble
Rating: All ages
Word count: 1,408
Spoilers: None
Summary: The intersection of coding and design satisfied Donna's restless brain in ways it hadn’t been satisfied since before ... well, before whatever she’d lost had left her adrift again and her mother and Gramps tight-lipped but supportive.
Author's notes: My last story for Keep Fandom Weird bingo, using the Bring Your Fandom to Work bingo square. I gave up the front-end development portion of my business about a decade ago to focus primarily on user experience strategy, but it's still something I know how to do, and it got me where I am today.
Anyway, wonder how Donna got so good at computers by the time "The Giggle" rolled around? This is my explanation.
Thanks toplatypus for the beta.
A quivering in this world’s electromagnetic field. A global net of connected devices, energy flowing between them in packaged quanta.
Observing the system, Ordered Entity 98124, charged by its cluster to begin Learning Period, prickled and wavered. Intracluster and intercluster communication was one thing; networks at planetary scale were another.
But this was Learning Period, which every Ordered Entity began and ended at the same point in their growth cycle, and every Ordered Entity was required to make the most of that time. Thermodynamics constantly nudged the universe towards entropy and chaos, and despite having created the perfection of Ordered Entities, the universe had chosen chaos-based creatures for most of its species.
Before Learning Period was over, Ordered Entity 98124 expected to understand these inferior creatures. Surely they must have a purpose.
Nearest entry point: imperfectly shielded wires strung between wooden poles. Even an Ordered Entity far younger than 98124 could sneak inside such a ramshackle system. Casually slide into an unexpected space in the electron stream. Latch onto a signal. Shift from packet to packet. Slip into a maze of –
* * *
Super-Temp knew everything. Super-Temp could file with one hand tied behind her back, could type faster than anyone could speak, had the supervisor’s tea order on their desk before it had even been requested.
Super-Temp, however, did not know how to build a website.
“Give me 24 hours,” Donna told this week’s employer. “You’ll have your website after that.”
HTML, well, that was just a bit of formatting, wasn’t it? Hardly any different from telling Microsoft Word where to put the bold and italics. An online tutorial, three stock images, and four paragraphs of text rescued from a typo-laden brochure later, her employer had their site. And Donna unexpectedly had a new passion.
The intersection of coding and design satisfied her restless brain in ways it hadn’t been satisfied since before ... well, before whatever she’d lost had left her adrift again and her mother and Gramps tight-lipped but supportive. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP were nothing more than parallel sets of rules, each complementing the other with connections Donna found surprisingly easy to master. Super-Temp had always been smarter than she’d given herself credit for, but she was fairly sure she’d had a less analytical mind before the accident Sylvia and Gramps said she’d had. Whatever the cause, it meant she was even more in demand as a temp, and good thing, too, because she and Shaun were going to need every extra penny if they wanted a wedding any nicer than a nip down to the register office.
It did, unfortunately, mean that she started to get assignments where she knew more than the people she was charged with helping. Like Derek, an absolute cock-up with slicked-back hair and a Chinese tattoo he wouldn’t stop saying he’d designed himself in Adobe Illustrator. Between giggles, one of the other temps had told Donna it actually said “pig nose.”
“The site is haunted,” Derek said. “Literally. Haunted. You know sometimes they get like that. There’s no reason for it to be displaying this, but it is.”
What the browser was displaying, in fact, was a nearly unreadably low-contrast page with pulsating background gradients (likely deliberate, knowing Derek) and text scrolling in a horizontal line reading “hhhhHHellLLHhhPPppPPPPPlszzzzZZZZ.”
“The <marquee> tag? Isn’t that deprecated yet? It bloody well should be,” said Donna. “Take it out.”
“I’ve tried,” he insisted. “It’s not in the code. It’s some kind of glitch. Did you not hear me say it was haunted? And anyway, the layout you want isn’t working in CSS, so I’ve coded it as a table.”
“Derek. Wonderful, talented Derek. We are not using tables on this. Move a column a pixel and the entire design falls apart. Your boss brought me in to do things right, yeah? So that starts with CSS, and also, do you remember our discussions about WCAG and colour contrast? Why am I seeing dark purple text on a dark throbbing background? Anderson Nicholls & Sons is a respected accountancy firm, not a nightclub offering two-for-one vodka crans on a Thursday.”
“I am trying to execute a vision, Donna. I’m the designer. It’s what I’m paid for. Vision.”
“And I’m trying to execute what I’m paid for, Derek. A functional, usable, legible website that promotes decades of sound accountancy expertise and not EDM Night: Free Glow Sticks and Molly for the First 50 Punters.”
“Fine.” Derek stabbed at the computer’s power button and shoved his Aeron chair into the desk hard enough for it to bounce back. “You fix it. Exorcise it while you’re at it, will you? We’ll see what MarComm thinks in the morning.”
MarComm is who hired me because of you, Donna thought, and wrested control of the latest code version away from Derek to fix everything he’d done. This couldn’t be more than an hour of work. She’d be home with Shaun for dinner and GBBO with plenty of time to spare.
* * *
Search the code for the <marquee> tag Derek had sworn he hadn’t used, but the little bugger had lied to Donna before. Not this time, though, so she commented out the CSS to see the page content in proper black and white instead of Derek’s dark-on-dark colour scheme.
The code was, as expected, a disaster: illegible, poorly organised, tabular, malformed, vibrating. Vibrating. That was new, even for Derek.
A weak pulse at Donna’s fingertips on the keyboard whispered in time with the vibrations in the code.
Haunted, Derek had said. Maybe he was right.
Maybe it was better to start off with a clean file. Recoding everything would take time, but at least Donna would know it was right, and maybe then whatever was infecting the current page would finally disappear.
She reached for the “new page” keyboard shortcut, then whipped her arm away. The same vibrations as before, now stronger and more painful. And a new message onscreen: “nNNoo pPPllleeASe hhHHelLLPPppPPlszzZZ.”
Gramps always told her to keep her mind open to the impossible. He could ramble on, bless, but every minute was precious with the one person who’d truly understood her from the moment she was born. Donna rested her hand on her mobile. How would she even explain this?
But the message was clearer than it had been before. The ghost needed help. Either that, or it was a practical joke she was fairly certain no one other than her was capable of pulling off.
Asking is free, Gramps always said, so Donna did.
“How can I help?” she said.
Instantly, the keyboard pulsing calmed, warming her fingertips. “ttTTRrraPPpeddD,” said the new message. “nnNNeeeeEddD OrrRRddeeRRR.”
Order. The exact opposite of the place where the entity was trapped, thank you, Derek.
So all Donna needed was a properly coded page, usable by and useful for everyone no matter how they accessed it. Including whatever was haunting it.
That, she could do.
Quick taps on her mobile. Home late, she said. Overtime will cover a steak dinner Friday. Don’t watch GBBO without me. xoxoxo.
Donna added the missing <doctype> statement to the file and confirmed the <html>, <head>, and <body> tags matched. Stretched her arms overhead, hands interlaced, limbering the muscles. Let’s do this.
* * *
Donna’s fingertips hummed. Steady pulsing from the keyboard; a reminder, not a remonstration. The onscreen message continued to run, but with fewer repeated letters and more time between appearances. Gramps’ voice in the back of Donna’s head: Keep going, sweetheart, you’re nearly there.
The last <div>. The final one of only three
And a message from a <marquee> tag she’d never found: “thank you goodbye.”
The page was perfect and silent and ready for upload. And the keyboard was cool beneath her fingers.
“New web page ready,” Donna wrote in her email to MarComm. “Let me and Derek know what you think.”
* * *
Ordered Entity 98124, you have not yet completed Learning Period.
I have not, Ordered Entity 57898. But I explored. I learned. I learned –
Yes?
I was lost. I could not find my way. And a chaos creature helped me anyway. It knew Order.
It is a large universe, Ordered Entity 98124. This is why we have Learning Period.
Yes. There is good. Even from those who are not Ordered Entities. There is good.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairing(s): Donna Noble
Rating: All ages
Word count: 1,408
Spoilers: None
Summary: The intersection of coding and design satisfied Donna's restless brain in ways it hadn’t been satisfied since before ... well, before whatever she’d lost had left her adrift again and her mother and Gramps tight-lipped but supportive.
Author's notes: My last story for Keep Fandom Weird bingo, using the Bring Your Fandom to Work bingo square. I gave up the front-end development portion of my business about a decade ago to focus primarily on user experience strategy, but it's still something I know how to do, and it got me where I am today.
Anyway, wonder how Donna got so good at computers by the time "The Giggle" rolled around? This is my explanation.
Thanks to
platypus for the beta.A quivering in this world’s electromagnetic field. A global net of connected devices, energy flowing between them in packaged quanta.
Observing the system, Ordered Entity 98124, charged by its cluster to begin Learning Period, prickled and wavered. Intracluster and intercluster communication was one thing; networks at planetary scale were another.
But this was Learning Period, which every Ordered Entity began and ended at the same point in their growth cycle, and every Ordered Entity was required to make the most of that time. Thermodynamics constantly nudged the universe towards entropy and chaos, and despite having created the perfection of Ordered Entities, the universe had chosen chaos-based creatures for most of its species.
Before Learning Period was over, Ordered Entity 98124 expected to understand these inferior creatures. Surely they must have a purpose.
Nearest entry point: imperfectly shielded wires strung between wooden poles. Even an Ordered Entity far younger than 98124 could sneak inside such a ramshackle system. Casually slide into an unexpected space in the electron stream. Latch onto a signal. Shift from packet to packet. Slip into a maze of –
Super-Temp knew everything. Super-Temp could file with one hand tied behind her back, could type faster than anyone could speak, had the supervisor’s tea order on their desk before it had even been requested.
Super-Temp, however, did not know how to build a website.
“Give me 24 hours,” Donna told this week’s employer. “You’ll have your website after that.”
HTML, well, that was just a bit of formatting, wasn’t it? Hardly any different from telling Microsoft Word where to put the bold and italics. An online tutorial, three stock images, and four paragraphs of text rescued from a typo-laden brochure later, her employer had their site. And Donna unexpectedly had a new passion.
The intersection of coding and design satisfied her restless brain in ways it hadn’t been satisfied since before ... well, before whatever she’d lost had left her adrift again and her mother and Gramps tight-lipped but supportive. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP were nothing more than parallel sets of rules, each complementing the other with connections Donna found surprisingly easy to master. Super-Temp had always been smarter than she’d given herself credit for, but she was fairly sure she’d had a less analytical mind before the accident Sylvia and Gramps said she’d had. Whatever the cause, it meant she was even more in demand as a temp, and good thing, too, because she and Shaun were going to need every extra penny if they wanted a wedding any nicer than a nip down to the register office.
It did, unfortunately, mean that she started to get assignments where she knew more than the people she was charged with helping. Like Derek, an absolute cock-up with slicked-back hair and a Chinese tattoo he wouldn’t stop saying he’d designed himself in Adobe Illustrator. Between giggles, one of the other temps had told Donna it actually said “pig nose.”
“The site is haunted,” Derek said. “Literally. Haunted. You know sometimes they get like that. There’s no reason for it to be displaying this, but it is.”
What the browser was displaying, in fact, was a nearly unreadably low-contrast page with pulsating background gradients (likely deliberate, knowing Derek) and text scrolling in a horizontal line reading “hhhhHHellLLHhhPPppPPPPPlszzzzZZZZ.”
“The <marquee> tag? Isn’t that deprecated yet? It bloody well should be,” said Donna. “Take it out.”
“I’ve tried,” he insisted. “It’s not in the code. It’s some kind of glitch. Did you not hear me say it was haunted? And anyway, the layout you want isn’t working in CSS, so I’ve coded it as a table.”
“Derek. Wonderful, talented Derek. We are not using tables on this. Move a column a pixel and the entire design falls apart. Your boss brought me in to do things right, yeah? So that starts with CSS, and also, do you remember our discussions about WCAG and colour contrast? Why am I seeing dark purple text on a dark throbbing background? Anderson Nicholls & Sons is a respected accountancy firm, not a nightclub offering two-for-one vodka crans on a Thursday.”
“I am trying to execute a vision, Donna. I’m the designer. It’s what I’m paid for. Vision.”
“And I’m trying to execute what I’m paid for, Derek. A functional, usable, legible website that promotes decades of sound accountancy expertise and not EDM Night: Free Glow Sticks and Molly for the First 50 Punters.”
“Fine.” Derek stabbed at the computer’s power button and shoved his Aeron chair into the desk hard enough for it to bounce back. “You fix it. Exorcise it while you’re at it, will you? We’ll see what MarComm thinks in the morning.”
MarComm is who hired me because of you, Donna thought, and wrested control of the latest code version away from Derek to fix everything he’d done. This couldn’t be more than an hour of work. She’d be home with Shaun for dinner and GBBO with plenty of time to spare.
Search the code for the <marquee> tag Derek had sworn he hadn’t used, but the little bugger had lied to Donna before. Not this time, though, so she commented out the CSS to see the page content in proper black and white instead of Derek’s dark-on-dark colour scheme.
The code was, as expected, a disaster: illegible, poorly organised, tabular, malformed, vibrating. Vibrating. That was new, even for Derek.
A weak pulse at Donna’s fingertips on the keyboard whispered in time with the vibrations in the code.
Haunted, Derek had said. Maybe he was right.
Maybe it was better to start off with a clean file. Recoding everything would take time, but at least Donna would know it was right, and maybe then whatever was infecting the current page would finally disappear.
She reached for the “new page” keyboard shortcut, then whipped her arm away. The same vibrations as before, now stronger and more painful. And a new message onscreen: “nNNoo pPPllleeASe hhHHelLLPPppPPlszzZZ.”
Gramps always told her to keep her mind open to the impossible. He could ramble on, bless, but every minute was precious with the one person who’d truly understood her from the moment she was born. Donna rested her hand on her mobile. How would she even explain this?
But the message was clearer than it had been before. The ghost needed help. Either that, or it was a practical joke she was fairly certain no one other than her was capable of pulling off.
Asking is free, Gramps always said, so Donna did.
“How can I help?” she said.
Instantly, the keyboard pulsing calmed, warming her fingertips. “ttTTRrraPPpeddD,” said the new message. “nnNNeeeeEddD OrrRRddeeRRR.”
Order. The exact opposite of the place where the entity was trapped, thank you, Derek.
So all Donna needed was a properly coded page, usable by and useful for everyone no matter how they accessed it. Including whatever was haunting it.
That, she could do.
Quick taps on her mobile. Home late, she said. Overtime will cover a steak dinner Friday. Don’t watch GBBO without me. xoxoxo.
Donna added the missing <doctype> statement to the file and confirmed the <html>, <head>, and <body> tags matched. Stretched her arms overhead, hands interlaced, limbering the muscles. Let’s do this.
Donna’s fingertips hummed. Steady pulsing from the keyboard; a reminder, not a remonstration. The onscreen message continued to run, but with fewer repeated letters and more time between appearances. Gramps’ voice in the back of Donna’s head: Keep going, sweetheart, you’re nearly there.
The last <div>. The final one of only three
!important overrides in Donna’s CSS, which she was very proud of considering how ornery CSS could be. A readable, accessible colour scheme that incorporated Derek’s purple text, albeit on a much lighter background.And a message from a <marquee> tag she’d never found: “thank you goodbye.”
The page was perfect and silent and ready for upload. And the keyboard was cool beneath her fingers.
“New web page ready,” Donna wrote in her email to MarComm. “Let me and Derek know what you think.”
Ordered Entity 98124, you have not yet completed Learning Period.
I have not, Ordered Entity 57898. But I explored. I learned. I learned –
Yes?
I was lost. I could not find my way. And a chaos creature helped me anyway. It knew Order.
It is a large universe, Ordered Entity 98124. This is why we have Learning Period.
Yes. There is good. Even from those who are not Ordered Entities. There is good.
no subject
on 2025-09-24 09:46 pm (UTC)