#i've made changes

I’m glad you enjoyed it :) And I’ll definitely make note of that for future reference. I might instead change it to Korean instead as it’s more specific to what I pictured and I can see people potentially taking issue with Asian as well.

As for the second part of what you’re saying I understand where you’re coming from, but I feel the need to disagree. When descriptions are left blank in a story the reader is likely to fill them in themselves. While in fanfiction that’s not too much of a problem (given that the looks of the main characters are already established on screen) the side characters can tend to fall to the wayside.

Unless I specify otherwise I feel readers will more than likely supplement to the base archtype. The class is in Britain, if I simply say Jessica I feel she’d be presumed to be a small white girl with brown hair and brown eyes. If I’d left her unnamed, which giving her a name didn’t have a great significance in this particular story either, I doubt she would have even been pictured as a girl.

Some of the larger characters, such as Doa, I leave out the description all together as I’ve found in the past that people will literally skip over them. Quite frankly I pictured her with curly frizzy blonde hair and Capaldies eyes with Clara’s funny nose and complexion. But she’s part Time Lord so I figured have at it (no archtype for that… that I’m aware of)! If someone wants to picture her with amber eyes fiery red hair and mahogany colored skin why not? (Actually I quite like the sound of that, I’d probably add freckles though- er tangent perhaps something I’ll revisit at a later time, lots to be explored there after all).

While it’s not always a problem that people assume the most basic thing, as I think are brains are conditioned to do (after all describing every person in a crowd would probably cause information overload), I like diversity in my characters and honestly struggle with it more in fanfiction than original works where I have more free range. Plus I might visit this AU again in off-set stories perhaps Jessica should visit Jane Austen or 2098s star Gally Vermont ;)

Usually when I take the time to describe a character it’s because I’ve formed an attachment to them (which may sound weird for a one-shot but all my stories are full of head cannon which never make it onto the page). In the example of Jessica, she’s actually one of Clara’s favorite students… most of the time. The Cartakers prone to bribing her with candy to do things for him- which usually involve doing something stupid that he thinks Clara will enjoy (the natural Whouffaldi shipper in me there). She’s quite bad at math though, finds Danny terribly dull (probably explains her whouffaldi shipper influence sorry Pinkwald fans), loves poetry though. Her dad dies when she’s 16 (may be some influence from an old friend of mine there) so she gets into a bit of trouble, Clara of course notices and talks to her despite her no longer being Clara’s student. Eventually she becomes a musician. Her record company pushes for her to do K-pop because they think it’ll sell but she refuses to write anything other than folk (the real stuff to not the country twangy stuff). Twelve takes Clara to see her in concert at some point but they never actually talk again, it’s more just nice to know her student’s doing well. Andrew on the other hand is a red-headed bugger eating monster (and this is why he’s at the back of the room)… which while being more of a description than he got in the story really isn’t much of a headcannon. I literally have no idea what become of him after that conversation actually and he only has a name to balance things out (trust me it felt strange without it). But like I said headcannons usually don’t make the cut. And while the tidbit above is really just one of many, it’s not directly related and not something I’m sure people looking to read a Whouffaldi central story would be interested in.

And while I realize I am simply writing fanfiction I can’t help but hope that this attitude will spread to the writers. That if the fans ask for diversity and put diversity into their own works (even for the minor characters) that it’ll encourage others to do so as well. Perhaps someday I won’t feel the need to include descriptions for anyone, but I find the idea unlikely. On a side note if there was the space for it without torturing my reader I’d probably describe everyone and everything down to the excruciating details in my head (even this post which I keep revising because it’s gotten rather long).