#bttfdoctober

Welcome to the fourth installment of the BttF fandom's Doctober event! This is a Doc Brown-themed prompt list, but the challenge is open to any and all BttF characters, timelines, AUs, OCs, what have you. Consider it an autumn-flavored McFly July. :)

Rules/ FAQ!

Tag your stuff with appropriate warnings.

You can make whatever you want: art, fic, edits, videos, animations, color palettes, mood boards, pictures of things that loosely remind you of BttF, etc.

You can start/ finish this challenge whenever the heck you want!

You can mix and match prompts from different days!

AGAIN: just because the prompts are Doc-themed doesn't mean all your creations have to solely focus on him! Write about George and Lorraine! Draw a picture of Lester (Wallet Guy)! I saw the guy that sold Doc his fire insurance in the DeLorean Manual was named Herbert E. King — write about that dude! So long as it's BttF, you're good!

From Time to Time (Doctober 2025) (250 words) by Bookworm Chapters: 1/31 Fandom: Back to the Future (Movies) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Emmett "Doc" Brown & Marty McFly, Emmett "Doc" Brown & Jules Brown & Verne Brown, Marty McFly/Jennifer Parker Characters: Emmett "Doc" Brown, Jules Brown, Verne Brown, Marty McFly, Jennifer Parker Additional Tags: Doctober 2025, Prompt Fic, Wordcount: 250, One Shot Collection, Time Travel, Slice of Life, Pre-Canon, Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, Alternate Universe, Fluff, Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary:

A collection of 250-word vignettes for the tumblr challenge Doctober 2025!

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Welcome to the third installment of the BttF fandom's Doctober event! This is a Doc Brown-themed prompt list, but the challenge is open to any and all BttF characters, timelines, AUs, OCs, what have you. Consider it an autumn-flavored McFly July. :)

Welcome to the third installment of the BttF fandom's Doctober event! This is a Doc Brown-themed prompt list, but the challenge is open to any and all BttF characters, timelines, AUs, OCs, what have you. Consider it an autumn-flavored McFly July. :)

August 5, 2000

“It looks like you’ve gotten yourself a little shadow, Emmett,” Clara says, only barely managing to stifle a laugh at Ellie who is now barrelling down the hallway, half-wearing Emmett’s grease-smudged lab coat.

It is far too big for her to be wearing—with their comparable size difference, it practically swallows her up, making wearing it more of a hazard than anything else, but Ellie, determined and persistent, refuses to let the very obviously ill-fitting clothing impede her from her task. The lab coat all but swallows her up and there is more of it trailing along the ground sweeping the floor behind her than there is actually on her body. One sleeve, half-on and drooping off her shoulders, flails as she runs down the hall, waving Emmett and Clara down.

“I was starting to wonder if you’d hung new mirrors up around the house and forgot to tell me,” he says with a slight teasing, yet no less affectionate tone as he looks down at the young lady who’d now firmly attached herself to his leg, half-disappearing in a flutter of fabric. 

“Look, Unca Doc! Now imma scientist too!”

Emmett chuckles. “Yes, you certainly look the part. But where did you find it? You didn't sneak into the lab to get it, did you?”

Ellie manages to look positively affronted by the accusation that she would do something like that—something she knows would upset her favourite Uncle when he has made it clear time-and-time again that the lab is Dangerous And Off Limits, especially if he’s not there—and widens her big blue eyes in abject horror. 

“No!” She shakes her head vigorously. “I know I'm not s'posed to be in there. I didn't sneak! You left it on the chair, Unca Doc, so I fig’red you wouldn't mind ‘cause you weren’t usin’ it.”

Emmett’s lips round out in a surprised ‘o,’ and now that she mentions it, it explains why he hadn’t been able to find it anywhere in the lab earlier despite his thorough searching. Clara’s chiding look says it all.

“I found this”—Ellie lets go with one hand, fighting with the oversized lab coat to roll back the sleeve and dig her hand in the pocket—“in your pocket.” After a slight struggle, she emerges victorious, holding up a slightly crumpled, quartered sheet of paper that Emmett recognises immediately. “And you sounded real annoyed about it, so I thought I could help! You always wear this when you’re doing your es—espeerimints—”

“Experiments,” Clara corrects gently.

“Experiments,” Ellie repeats, nodding. “So this will make me good at science too, right?”

It’s quite an impressive leap in logic, Emmett thinks, and not at all correct, but he can understand how, to her mind, the two things would be connected. The delighted smile on her face stays his tongue and Ellie unfolds the paper—his latest schematics for upgrades to the Time Machine’s computer systems—that now bears several new, heretofore unseen markings that Emmett knows couldn’t have come from him, even at his most exhausted. 

Clara casts her husband a look of mild concern but the lack of urgency on his face—he’s more amused and surprised than anything else as she proudly presents her additions, like a young doctoral student presenting their thesis—immediately settles her concerns that Ellie has somehow gotten ahold of something she wasn’t yet old enough to see.

“I fixed it, Unca Doc! And I can tell you how I did it, too.” 

“She’ll be quite the little scientist yet,” Clara says, earning herself a toothy smile from the young scientist herself.

“I’d love to hear how you figured it out, Ellie. Why don’t you go sit down at the kitchen table and I’ll meet you there to discuss?”

“Okay!” Ellie stuffs the paper haphazardly back into the coat pocket and takes off at a run. 

“Oh, Emmett, weren’t those important?” 

October 27, 1985A

No. 

That one single word repeats on a loop in Emmett’s head, drowning out his capacity for rational thought. It is a mantra, a curse, a promise, the culmination of all the anger and desperation that has suddenly seized both his heart and his mind, grinding both to an abrupt halt as a biting chill freezes him from the inside out.

Every word of caution he once spoke loses all meaning, for there is only one option available to him now. 

Abusing this could have potentially universe-shattering repercussions.

Were he thinking rationally, Emmett might have been concerned with how readily he throws caution and concern to the wind, infusing the words let it with all the cynicism and damning finality he can muster. 

Any universe that allows this to happen is better off undone.

This isn't what it was invented for.

The Time Machine was not meant to make him God, able to interfere with the lives and fates of those standing beneath him with their eyes glued to the pulsing lights hovering over their heads, just out of reach, but just this once, he will allow himself to break every single one of his rules and consciously rewrite the past for his own selfish gain.

He has already done it for you. 

If there is some higher being, Emmett both curses and challenges Them in the same breath, daring Them to intervene. 

Only the DeLorean speaks, rumbling her support.

His hands move independent of his conscious mind, inputting a new destination time on the keypad. In mere moments, this will not have happened, will never happen, existing only within the confines of memory where it will serve as another cautionary tale for the future.

A reminder. One he will not forget, as if he needed further reason to see the destruction of his life’s work through to its conclusion.

June 18, 1987

“Oh, Emmett, I’m not sure.” Clara crosses her arms across her chest, throwing a wary look at the family car looming in the driveway. There were only so many clever ways she could postpone what felt like the inevitable and she was already certain that Emmett had figured that out by the third time and yet still allowed her to keep pushing it off. 

A firm no would have shut down his attempts for good, for he’d never force her to do something she didn’t want to do, yet she had always chosen to skirt around this particular issue rather than tackle it head-on.

Why that was, she wasn’t entirely sure herself.

“It’s not as difficult as you think. Once you wrap your head around the concept, it’s quite simple. You’ve driven the Train before and operating that is far more complicated than anything they could put into one of these cars. Even Twenty-First Century cars.” Emmett smirks, his expression saying it all. 

We’ve seen the cars of the future and you know I’m right.

“Those were extenuating circumstances and you were still there to guide me through it.”

“And I’ll be here to teach you how to drive, too.” Clara presses her lips together and gives the car another long, thoughtful look. “It’s a useful skill to have, even if you don’t use it again until an emergency.” 

Before Clara can even raise her brows and question just what calamity Emmett may foresee on the horizon, he continues, scattering the half-formed question to the wind. “Most importantly, you’ll have your ID and that's really what I'm the most concerned about.

“And if you decide you absolutely hate it, we’ll leave it at that and I won’t ask again.”

She’d learned to ride horses when she was much younger than the age the kids are learning to drive these days, and though she wouldn’t deny maintaining a vehicle had its own set of challenges–heaven only knows she’s seen Emmett struggle here and there with repairs, bringing out a rather nasty side of her usually well-mannered husband–drivers of this day and age didn’t have to worry about their their vehicle’s temperament or various idiosyncrasies. 

The car wouldn’t fight you for twenty minutes in the morning because it didn’t want to be saddled up and leave the barn.

She had grown accustomed–enough–to the things over the last two years, had absolutely no reservations about getting in one with Emmett or Jennifer or Marty, employed public transportation whenever it was necessary, so what was it that held her back?

Emmett was right. She’d piloted the Train successfully when it mattered–if ungracefully, but nobody was injured and she hadn’t damaged the Machine at all–even with the flying circuits engaged. She was inexperienced, but not incompetent. Driving a car should be no more complicated.

—But in the sky, there were no other unpredictable variables at play, and suddenly everything clicked into place, flipping the proverbial switch.

How many reports of devastating crashes had she witnessed on television or read in the paper? Drivers gravely wounded, some killed, cars overturned, crumpled—

Even just going into town with Emmett had shown her that the drivers of this day and age were hardly the conscientious sort, prone to distraction or just a general lack of consideration and in the case of the younger kids, wild and reckless behaviour. 

And if, God forbid, she’d been behind the wheel at the time with her family and something should happen—

Fear. It was fear for all the possibilities well beyond her control.

Now that she knew that, could she really keep denying herself the chance to learn because of what other people might do?