Round Two Reviews - Part 23
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Today's Featured Stories Include:
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New Discoveries by rosie_not_rose
Category: Fluff
Characters: Rose Tyler, Duplicate Doctor, the Tyler family
Rating: PG
Details: Single-chapter, set in the parallel universe during the Duplicate Doctor’s first Christmas.
Why It Rocks:
There can be a temptation, in post-JE fic set in the parallel universe, to assume that half-human means all human, or at least nothing not-human that makes any difference. This story doesn’t make that assumption. The Duplicate Doctor is still Time Lord in many ways, some of them quite important - and one of those is culture and upbringing.
You don’t move to another country and expect that traditions and cultures are the same as where you came from. I’ve found that out for myself twice, and each time I moved to a country where they spoke the same language as I do. There are differences in vocabulary. The same words can even mean different things. And everyday habits and expectations differ. If no-one tells you what the differences are, how can you possibly know?
And so it is for the Duplicate Doctor, now living as a human with the Tyler family and learning not only the cultural traditions and expectations of the parallel universe - which Rose herself has had to learn - but human expectations. Because, after all, he’s a Time Lord in every way that counts.
“This is your first Christmas here,” she said to the Doctor, forgetting that she was meant to be irritated at him. A happy beam spread across her face.
The Doctor looked agitated. “Yeah, um, about that… what am I supposed to do, exactly? I haven’t properly celebrated Christmas in a very long time… is there a ceremony, some kind of ritual, what?”
Rose thinks he’s being a bit silly; after all, he spent Christmas with her mum and Mickey a couple of years ago back in the other universe. But, he reminds her, he was unconscious for most of it and really was only there for Christmas dinner. She’s a bit flippant in response:
“Well, don’t worry, you don’t have to dance around with sticks wearing nothing but a toga, or anything.” She smirked at the thought. “Although some traditions are a bit different than back on my Earth.”
She doesn’t tell him what these differences are, and this is really the underlying theme of the story: they’re not communicating with each other, not telling each other about these cultural differences and misunderstandings, and it’s causing a bit of resentment, much as they clearly care about each other, and share hugs and affection in every way, just as they did on the TARDIS:
He’d been here two freaking months, and Rose still didn’t know if he actually wanted… anything. Which meant that she couldn’t do anything for fear of being rejected. Which meant that her extreme feelings of lust and love and god knows what else were going… nowhere. They were bottling up, and Rose was rapidly losing control. Either he did something, or she would. She hoped it would be the former, to avoid intense embarrassment.
So we head into Christmas Day with these issues unresolved. The Doctor, because it’s been a long time since he celebrated Christmas properly with a family, hasn’t bought anyone presents, except Rose. Rose hasn’t warned the Doctor about a tradition in this universe, that if a man gives a woman more than one present she has to reward him with a kiss. The previous Christmas she’d ended up having to kiss two men she disliked, who’d given her two presents deliberately in order to engineer that precise result.
Christmas proceeds, and we have presents, Jackie giving the Doctor flowers he’s allergic to, the Doctor getting drunk on eggnog and kissing Rose - and finally, this:
“You just stopped me kissing you, Rose Tyler!” The Doctor prodded her.
“Yeah, because you’re drunk.”
“Am not! I’m just fine.” He paused. “Time Lords never make the first move.”
“Excuse me?” This conversation had lost all sense to Rose.
“Time Lords! They’re rubbish, Rose. Rubbishy rubbish. They always need someone else to make the first move, because they’re rubbish. See?”
A smile spread across Rose’s face. “So what you’re saying is - you actually want something to happen, but basically you’re a chicken?”
See? Cultural differences. In the Doctor’s world, it’s not up to him to make the first move. He was waiting for a signal from Rose that she wanted something more than friendship. And Rose, used to human expectations - and 20th-century expectations at that, not even 21st-century - was waiting for the Doctor, the man, to make that first move.
Christmas. It’s a time for new beginnings in every way, and in this story there’s definitely a new beginning and a sharing of cultures for the Doctor and Rose. That’s what makes this story special. It’s heart-warming and fluffy, and definitely shows that humans and aliens might have some challenges learning to understand each other - even when they speak the same language. And that’s why it deserves your vote.
*
With Her Own Wings by Branwyn Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Martha Jones
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, others
Rating: All Ages
Details: Single-part, humorous fic told entirely in dialogue in which, as the author describes it, where once Martha was the Doctor’s maid, now he appears to have become her secretary
Why It Rocks:
Because it’s hilarious. Seriously.
At the end of S3, Martha left her mobile phone with the Doctor. She got a new phone, of course, but how long did it take for all her friends and family to get her new number? As we saw in Smith and Jones, Martha’s a popular woman. She gets lots of calls. So hands up who knows what happens once the Doctor has her phone?
Exactly.
The Doctor, Lonely God of avoidance, Lord President of I-hate-domestic, Oncoming Storm of dumping and running, starts getting phone calls from Martha’s family.
The first call takes him by surprise; he assumes it’s Martha calling for help, and he’s happy enough to take it, even to the point of assuming that the dictates of causality mean that he was supposed to get interrupted at that point. It’s only when he asks for coordinates that he realises he’s actually talking to Tish Jones. Who is not particularly impressed at the Doctor having her sister’s phone:
"Oh...well, I hope you're giving her back part of the cost, if you're using her mobile to make calls from the Horsehead Nebula or wherever."
Being lectured by a Jones isn’t that new for the Doctor, but it’s when Tish starts talking about things that sound dangerously like consequences and aftermaths that he gets very twitchy. Yes, the family’s okay, just about, despite everything. Yes, Martha’s fine, but she had to get a new flat after it, y’know, mysteriously blew up. When Tish offers the Doctor Martha’s new land-line phone number, he suddenly remembers another appointment and hangs up.
Not at all abruptly, of course. He is a Time Lord, after all, and Time Lords don’t do that sort of thing.
For me, the most hilarious phone-call is the one in which the Doctor becomes an agony aunt uncle. Martha’s friend Vicky calls - twice, the first time leaving a voicemail and the second time getting the Doctor:
"Thing is, Vicky, you shouldn't waste any more of your life on someone who needs a swift kick up the arse before he pays proper attention to you. Because it's possible, you know, that he always noticed you, that he always knew you were a brilliant, lovely, brave, magnificent sort of girl. It's even possible that he fancied the pants off you, but he didn't say anything about it, because he knew you'd be better off without him.
There’s more in similar vein, and no prizes for guessing just who the Doctor is actually talking about. It’s as if he’s finally saying what he wishes he’d said to Martha when she gave him her reasons for leaving. I just wish I could’ve seen Vicky’s face!
"Vicky?"
"I'm...going to hang up now."
"Right. Sorry.
Funny as this story is - and it is hilarious - it’s also about aftermaths, and the Doctor’s discomfort in being confronted with them. We all know - Nine made it perfectly clear - that he doesn’t stick around once the bad guys are defeated, everything’s back how it should be, the enemy’s retreated and the Earth’s in its proper orbit once more. He doesn’t just walk away; he runs. No helping Mickey to rebuild his flat after a Slitheen invasion. No picking up the pieces on Satellite Five. No checking on Immortal-Jack just to be sure that he’s not falling apart after what happened to him and, you know, being abandoned. No quick visit to see that Sarah Jane is okay. No making sure that Martha and her family will be all right after the Year that Never Was.
Francine: "Martha's doing very well, since you didn't ask."
The Doctor does finally speak to Martha - though, note, he doesn’t ask anyone to pass on a message for her to call him - and all’s well that ends well, with Martha telling the Doctor that there’s a slave-trade business on a holiday planet that needs overturning and admitting that she might just have developed a taste for revolutions.
And:
"I'm sorry, did you think I wanted to go on holiday with Jack?"
"...don't you?"
"I'd as soon go on holiday with Leo's golden retriever."
Right. Do you really need any more reasons why this one deserves your vote?
*
From a World More Full of Weeping, by Azar Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Crossover
Characters: Susan Pevensie, Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Details: Single-part story; a meeting between two people who have far more in common than they at first realise. Crossover with Narnia.
Why It Rocks:
It’s a crossover I never once imagined being workable, until this story showed me why it absolutely works. These two people have both lost entire worlds, and have no-one left who understands the first thing about what they once had, no-one to share memories with. It’s the perfect chance encounter.
If you’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia, then chances are you were upset by the fate of Susan, who we are told in the final book is no longer a Friend of Narnia. She became too interested in clothes and make-up and boys, we’re told, and is thus excluded from the final reunion. I won’t comment on the moral lecture being given by CS Lewis here, nor on the message that sends to women as a whole. That’s not what this story is about, apart from anything else.
It’s about what happens to Susan next.
And this is it: she’s working in a shop, folding clothes and, we discover, not popular with the other employees. They think she considers herself above them, that she sucks up to management and she enjoys jumping on them for the smallest mistake. She’s lonely and grieving, though, and the others don’t know how to react to that. Nor does Susan herself, really. The train crash that brought her family back to Narnia orphaned her and left her completely alone in the world:
She had company enough in the persons of her ghosts. Friends were only losses waiting to happen.
What we realise, too, as we read on, is that the situation’s even more heartbreaking: Susan has persuaded herself that all those years in Narnia never happened. They were nothing more than childhood games:
It wasn't what they thought of her that shook her; that she'd known for a while now. It was the words themselves: ...who died and left her queen?
No, she scolded herself fiercely, fighting the thought that threatened to bubble to the surface. There was no way she was going to let one careless remark drag her back down into a morass of childhood fantasies, the selfsame fantasies that had cost her a relationship with her siblings and them their lives. No, it wasn't real.
And then she’s almost knocked over by a man in a brown pin-striped suit and overcoat, carrying a bow and arrow and chasing what looks remarkably like a dragon. He’s insane, of course, she thinks, and this entire situation is impossible. Dragons don’t exist, and anyway he’s a completely terrible shot. But then he notices her:
"There seems to be something rather temporally odd about you, too. This may sound weird, but have you been this age once before?"
Susan's heart almost stopped and she could feel all the colour drain from her face. "What?"
"It's just, when I look at you, it's as though part of your life was rewound and started over," he answered, still frowning.
It was at that precise moment that the idea of a Doctor Who/Chronicles of Narnia crossover made perfect sense to me. Susan’s lived two lives. She’s gone backwards and forwards in time, and travelled between universes. Why wouldn’t the Doctor run into her?
And, too, she and the Doctor have both lost everything they ever held dear. They’ve lost their entire families. They were each the outsider, in a way, and increasingly so as they grew older. They’re the ones left behind, left to mourn a world that must sometimes seem as if it turned its back on them. Who better to understand Susan Pevensie than the Doctor? Who better to understand the Doctor than Susan Pevensie?
It’s when Susan snatches the bow and arrow from the Doctor and lines up a perfect shot to do just what’s needed to hit the Vortisaur - because it’s not a dragon after all - that she finally starts to accept who and what she really is, and her legacy as Susan the Gentle, Queen of Narnia:
That was the truth she'd been hiding from. But in doing so, she'd given up the memories of a lifetime and allowed herself to lose her family not just once, but twice.
This is a beautiful story, a lovely ‘fixit’ for Susan, and also the beginning of a new friendship for the Doctor, alone and companionless in this story. It begins slow and sad and poignant, a lonely life told in a minor key, until suddenly it’s not so sad any more. Visualise the Doctor ineptly shooting arrows from that bow he was carrying in Blink, and imagine the regal, lovely Queen of Narnia showing him how it’s done. Imagine Susan stepping inside the TARDIS, the Doctor expecting the usual ‘it’s bigger on the inside’ line, only to hear this instead:
"Yes, I suppose it is. But then, my sister once found an entire country in the upstairs wardrobe."
and then imagine the Adventures of the Doctor and Queen Susan that lie ahead of them. That alone is enough to petition RTD to write Susan as the new companion. It’s also enough to show why this story absolutely deserves your vote.
*
Dangerous Games by never-more-fics
Category: Dark; Jack Harkness
Characters: Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor, the Master
Rating: R
Details: Single-part fic, with bondage, torture, voyeurism and possibly dubious consent.
Why It Rocks:
Okay, disclaimer: I don’t normally read BDSM or anything with sex where there’s less than full consent. I’m not knocking it; it’s just not my thing. But this... well, there’s dubious consent and there’s secretly wanting it but having to pretend you don’t because of who’s watching. And that, essentially, is what this story is about. On the surface, anyway. It gets a lot deeper than that, and that is why it rocks.
Televised episodes glossed over the Year that Never Was, not surprisingly. The set-up was nothing short of horrific, and if we’d been shown on-screen the full horror of life on the Valiant the episode would have had to be shown at well past the watershed. That, of course, is what fic is for: to fill in those blanks, to show us what it could have been like living under the rule of one of the most sadistic villains ever to be seen in New Who.
The Master is a master of psychology, apart from anything else. He learns his victims. He knows what makes them tick, what’s going to make them do things and what’s going to hurt them more than anything else. His main target is, above all, the Doctor. We saw in those final two episodes of S3 that, for the most part, he wouldn’t directly hurt the Doctor. Take him prisoner, yes. Age him, yes. Keep him in a kennel, and later a cage, yes. Actually cause him physical pain? Not so much. The pain was caused to everyone else. After all, what would hurt the Doctor more? Shooting him, or making him watch Martha be shot, as almost happened in Last of the Time Lords?
And so it is in Dangerous Games. The story’s written from Jack’s point of view, and Jack’s no fool: he knows exactly what the Master’s up to in his games. The story starts with Jack anticipating the nightly ritual, and the signs that it’s starting are all based on sound:
The familiar squeak, squeak, squeak of chair wheels and the padding of footsteps approaching, the same sounds he hears every night.
Other than these and later sounds as Jack is tied in place, and the non-participating watcher shifts around in a chair, and the sound of blows from a leather belt and Jack’s hisses, what’s so noticeable about the story is the silence. Nobody talks. Not a word, apart from just one sentence that’s whispered halfway through the ordeal.
"I'm sorry about this... I'm so sorry, Jack." The Doctor's voice is soft in his ear, full of sorrow and regret.
And that, for this reader, was the biggest shock: it’s the Doctor - rejuvenated nightly for this very purpose - who’s hurting Jack, who’s tied him up and is beating him and is about to have sex with him.
Is it rape? The Doctor thinks so, clearly. The irony of it all is that Jack likes it, loves it even - because he’s always wanted the Doctor. Jack thinks he’s getting the better of the Master, that he’s the winner. But I can’t help wondering if the Master knows this anyway, and that it’s this that makes it an even better game for him: that the Doctor is the only one suffering here, night after night, believing that he’s torturing and hurting his friend over and over, when all the time both Jack and the Master are getting off on it. Does this make Jack complicit in the Doctor’s torture?
It’s dark and deeply psychological, this story, and for me that’s what makes it worth a read, worth a vote: because it forces us to look deeper than the surface, to ask awkward questions about pleasure and pain and suffering and just what is acceptable - and, in a world where two people know how the game is played and one doesn’t, just who is torturer and who is victim. It’s an uncomfortable read, and it should make you think.
*
Doors We Never Opened, by the_magpye
Category: Donna Noble
Characters: Donna Noble, Lee, Rose Tyler, Sylvia Noble, Wilfrid Mott, Mickey Smith, Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Details: Nine chapters, post-Journey’s End, set in the Doctor’s universe.
Why It Rocks:
In the course of reviewing for Round 2, I’ve read many, many post-JE Donna fics, some of which can be described as fixits, some of which find ways of demonstrating Donna’s brilliance without ever giving her back her memories or reuniting her with the Doctor. This story does both, and it does it in such a twisty, clever way that it took my breath away. Who’s the most unlikely person you could think of who could figure out how to get Donna’s memories back? And imagine Torchwood there as backup, and Donna meeting the perfect man: Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word.. Throw all of that, and more, into one story, and that’s why this is brilliant.
The story begins with Donna, back to the way she was before she ever met the Doctor, rebuilding her life. She’s looking for a decent job, and there’s such a poignancy in the opening section, with everyone except Donna (including the reader) aware of what she’s lost. Even Sylvia, we feel, wants to believe that Donna can still be brilliant, but there’s a sense that the two of them are too trapped in their old habits to change towards each other:
Donna could feel eyes boring into her from the kitchen window as she shoved the car into gear. She glanced over, and there was her mum, stirring the tea and watching her like a hawk.
"Still a disappointment," she muttered to the emptiness, pulling out of the drive and starting down the road. "Well. I'll show her."
At the junction, she turned left.
Thus far, though, there’s nothing to distinguish this from any other Donna-focused post-JE story. Except that Donna’s new boss is Rose Tyler.
But, of course, Donna has no idea who Rose Tyler is, although we the readers are already wondering what’s going on. All the same, something sounds a little bit off about the way Rose talks about ‘back home’, and Donna has to question this. Rose’s answer isn’t as practised as the rest of her spiel:
"Oh... I am, born in the Powell Estates. My dad's just... working away at the moment. Somewhere in Tanzania. Or Taiwan. Or Taipei. Something beginning with 'T', I can never remember the name. We stay in touch over the phone."
The stuttered answer was nearly rivalling Lee the security guard. Donna considered being suspicious, but Rose didn't come across as an overly secretive kind of person.
So, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Donna accepts the job. And there’s another good reason to feel pleased with life: the building’s security guard, a really sweet bloke with a stutter, likes her. Likes her a lot.
Though there are some strange happenings, too. Why does Rose’s ‘partner-in-crime’, a tall bloke with brown eyes and wild hair, look familiar? Why do her mum and granddad look shocked when she describes her new boss to them? Why is she getting headaches again, and why is her family talking about her behind her back?
"What. On. EARTH. was that all about?!?"
And there she went; Donna Noble, shouting at the world, even if it wasn't listening.
And strange things keep happening. Her boss is having meeting behind closed doors with strangers, and the little bits Donna overhears aren’t all that reassuring:
"Rose... We aren't going to stop you - you know we'd never want to - but haven't you thought about the consequences?"
A quiet sigh.
"We talked about it before I left, and he was sure that if I was careful, everything would turn out fine."
Silence reigned, but something must have happened because Rose spoke again, sounding much brighter.
"Well, I'm glad that's the end of that. You can go back to Jack and tell him that I've not come to foreshadow the end of the universe as we know it. Oh, and ask him why he didn't have the guts to come and see me himself as well. Maybe he thought I might usurp his position as captain of the innuendo squad?"
At this point, the reader is almost as confused as Donna. So Rose is from the parallel universe, and the Duplicate Doctor seems to be aware of what she’s up to, but neither Torchwood nor the Doctor from this universe are. And that’s one of the things I really loved about this story: we’re not given all the information at the beginning. We’re dumped into the story at the same point Donna is, only because we know more than she does we’re asking far more questions. Just what is Rose up to? What’s she hoping to achieve, and isn’t she risking making things far worse? What will happen when this universe’s Doctor finds out what she’s up to? And the_magpye keeps us waiting for the answers.
Just when Donna’s already bursting with questions, she starts dreaming.
She wonders why she's crying, because for the life of her she can't remember what could possibly have caused this horrible anguish searing her insides, blooming like a flower and settling, an uncomfortable lead weight in her chest. It blocks her lungs, her throat, her tongue - she can't speak, but she can listen, because there are voices around her, so many voices that she can barely tell one from the other. It's a cacophony of noise and mystery and music, wild, singing music, and her head is spinning, flaming with the same pain as that bloody recurring headache and now she has to squeeze her eyes shut against it or maybe she'll burn out, fizzling away like a spent star...
And the dreams continue, and the headaches get worse, until the only comfort in Donna’s life is that Rose seems to be an understanding boss and Lee likes her. We know something has to give, and it does - but I’m not going to tell you what. The suspense-building and twists in this story are too good to spoil by giving away the plot. And there are twists, including some I would never have imagined. All I will say is that the explanation for everything - including Rose’s presence in this universe, where she’s come for the sole purpose of giving Donna her memories back without killing her - even fits into canon perfectly, explaining a moment that was never properly explained in S4. And Rose did it because the Doctor she left behind in her original universe desperately needs a friend.
In the end, everyone gets a happy ending. Yes, everyone. Just because televised DW has to be full of angst and sadness doesn’t mean fic has to be like that too, and the_magpye manages to give us a thoroughly rewarding ending. Even if she did just about break my heart again first by her description of the Tenth Doctor’s face when he sees Donna:
His eyes... they were so empty. Lost. Yes, he was gaping like a fish, but it wasn't a funny thing to see.
It was painful.
All colour was missing from his face. He was thinner, if that was even possible, and she wondered if he would snap in two if she hugged him. His cheekbones were prominent, his features gaunt, and the guilt...
Oh, the guilt.
Happy ending. Remember that: happy ending.
Vote for Doors We Never Opened because it really is ingenious, twisty and a darn good read. It has both Donna and Rose being clever, Mickey and Jack being macho and flirty, and Lee being sweet. It really is the cleverest post-JE story I’ve read, and it does wonderful justice to all the characters, whether they’re there throughout the story or just appear in cameo. It’s brilliant and it thoroughly deserves a vote.
*
Today's reviews were written by wendymr.
Today's Featured Stories Include:
*
New Discoveries by rosie_not_rose
Category: Fluff
Characters: Rose Tyler, Duplicate Doctor, the Tyler family
Rating: PG
Details: Single-chapter, set in the parallel universe during the Duplicate Doctor’s first Christmas.
Why It Rocks:
There can be a temptation, in post-JE fic set in the parallel universe, to assume that half-human means all human, or at least nothing not-human that makes any difference. This story doesn’t make that assumption. The Duplicate Doctor is still Time Lord in many ways, some of them quite important - and one of those is culture and upbringing.
You don’t move to another country and expect that traditions and cultures are the same as where you came from. I’ve found that out for myself twice, and each time I moved to a country where they spoke the same language as I do. There are differences in vocabulary. The same words can even mean different things. And everyday habits and expectations differ. If no-one tells you what the differences are, how can you possibly know?
And so it is for the Duplicate Doctor, now living as a human with the Tyler family and learning not only the cultural traditions and expectations of the parallel universe - which Rose herself has had to learn - but human expectations. Because, after all, he’s a Time Lord in every way that counts.
“This is your first Christmas here,” she said to the Doctor, forgetting that she was meant to be irritated at him. A happy beam spread across her face.
The Doctor looked agitated. “Yeah, um, about that… what am I supposed to do, exactly? I haven’t properly celebrated Christmas in a very long time… is there a ceremony, some kind of ritual, what?”
Rose thinks he’s being a bit silly; after all, he spent Christmas with her mum and Mickey a couple of years ago back in the other universe. But, he reminds her, he was unconscious for most of it and really was only there for Christmas dinner. She’s a bit flippant in response:
“Well, don’t worry, you don’t have to dance around with sticks wearing nothing but a toga, or anything.” She smirked at the thought. “Although some traditions are a bit different than back on my Earth.”
She doesn’t tell him what these differences are, and this is really the underlying theme of the story: they’re not communicating with each other, not telling each other about these cultural differences and misunderstandings, and it’s causing a bit of resentment, much as they clearly care about each other, and share hugs and affection in every way, just as they did on the TARDIS:
He’d been here two freaking months, and Rose still didn’t know if he actually wanted… anything. Which meant that she couldn’t do anything for fear of being rejected. Which meant that her extreme feelings of lust and love and god knows what else were going… nowhere. They were bottling up, and Rose was rapidly losing control. Either he did something, or she would. She hoped it would be the former, to avoid intense embarrassment.
So we head into Christmas Day with these issues unresolved. The Doctor, because it’s been a long time since he celebrated Christmas properly with a family, hasn’t bought anyone presents, except Rose. Rose hasn’t warned the Doctor about a tradition in this universe, that if a man gives a woman more than one present she has to reward him with a kiss. The previous Christmas she’d ended up having to kiss two men she disliked, who’d given her two presents deliberately in order to engineer that precise result.
Christmas proceeds, and we have presents, Jackie giving the Doctor flowers he’s allergic to, the Doctor getting drunk on eggnog and kissing Rose - and finally, this:
“You just stopped me kissing you, Rose Tyler!” The Doctor prodded her.
“Yeah, because you’re drunk.”
“Am not! I’m just fine.” He paused. “Time Lords never make the first move.”
“Excuse me?” This conversation had lost all sense to Rose.
“Time Lords! They’re rubbish, Rose. Rubbishy rubbish. They always need someone else to make the first move, because they’re rubbish. See?”
A smile spread across Rose’s face. “So what you’re saying is - you actually want something to happen, but basically you’re a chicken?”
See? Cultural differences. In the Doctor’s world, it’s not up to him to make the first move. He was waiting for a signal from Rose that she wanted something more than friendship. And Rose, used to human expectations - and 20th-century expectations at that, not even 21st-century - was waiting for the Doctor, the man, to make that first move.
Christmas. It’s a time for new beginnings in every way, and in this story there’s definitely a new beginning and a sharing of cultures for the Doctor and Rose. That’s what makes this story special. It’s heart-warming and fluffy, and definitely shows that humans and aliens might have some challenges learning to understand each other - even when they speak the same language. And that’s why it deserves your vote.
*
With Her Own Wings by Branwyn Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Martha Jones
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, others
Rating: All Ages
Details: Single-part, humorous fic told entirely in dialogue in which, as the author describes it, where once Martha was the Doctor’s maid, now he appears to have become her secretary
Why It Rocks:
Because it’s hilarious. Seriously.
At the end of S3, Martha left her mobile phone with the Doctor. She got a new phone, of course, but how long did it take for all her friends and family to get her new number? As we saw in Smith and Jones, Martha’s a popular woman. She gets lots of calls. So hands up who knows what happens once the Doctor has her phone?
Exactly.
The Doctor, Lonely God of avoidance, Lord President of I-hate-domestic, Oncoming Storm of dumping and running, starts getting phone calls from Martha’s family.
The first call takes him by surprise; he assumes it’s Martha calling for help, and he’s happy enough to take it, even to the point of assuming that the dictates of causality mean that he was supposed to get interrupted at that point. It’s only when he asks for coordinates that he realises he’s actually talking to Tish Jones. Who is not particularly impressed at the Doctor having her sister’s phone:
"Oh...well, I hope you're giving her back part of the cost, if you're using her mobile to make calls from the Horsehead Nebula or wherever."
Being lectured by a Jones isn’t that new for the Doctor, but it’s when Tish starts talking about things that sound dangerously like consequences and aftermaths that he gets very twitchy. Yes, the family’s okay, just about, despite everything. Yes, Martha’s fine, but she had to get a new flat after it, y’know, mysteriously blew up. When Tish offers the Doctor Martha’s new land-line phone number, he suddenly remembers another appointment and hangs up.
Not at all abruptly, of course. He is a Time Lord, after all, and Time Lords don’t do that sort of thing.
For me, the most hilarious phone-call is the one in which the Doctor becomes an agony aunt uncle. Martha’s friend Vicky calls - twice, the first time leaving a voicemail and the second time getting the Doctor:
"Thing is, Vicky, you shouldn't waste any more of your life on someone who needs a swift kick up the arse before he pays proper attention to you. Because it's possible, you know, that he always noticed you, that he always knew you were a brilliant, lovely, brave, magnificent sort of girl. It's even possible that he fancied the pants off you, but he didn't say anything about it, because he knew you'd be better off without him.
There’s more in similar vein, and no prizes for guessing just who the Doctor is actually talking about. It’s as if he’s finally saying what he wishes he’d said to Martha when she gave him her reasons for leaving. I just wish I could’ve seen Vicky’s face!
"Vicky?"
"I'm...going to hang up now."
"Right. Sorry.
Funny as this story is - and it is hilarious - it’s also about aftermaths, and the Doctor’s discomfort in being confronted with them. We all know - Nine made it perfectly clear - that he doesn’t stick around once the bad guys are defeated, everything’s back how it should be, the enemy’s retreated and the Earth’s in its proper orbit once more. He doesn’t just walk away; he runs. No helping Mickey to rebuild his flat after a Slitheen invasion. No picking up the pieces on Satellite Five. No checking on Immortal-Jack just to be sure that he’s not falling apart after what happened to him and, you know, being abandoned. No quick visit to see that Sarah Jane is okay. No making sure that Martha and her family will be all right after the Year that Never Was.
Francine: "Martha's doing very well, since you didn't ask."
The Doctor does finally speak to Martha - though, note, he doesn’t ask anyone to pass on a message for her to call him - and all’s well that ends well, with Martha telling the Doctor that there’s a slave-trade business on a holiday planet that needs overturning and admitting that she might just have developed a taste for revolutions.
And:
"I'm sorry, did you think I wanted to go on holiday with Jack?"
"...don't you?"
"I'd as soon go on holiday with Leo's golden retriever."
Right. Do you really need any more reasons why this one deserves your vote?
*
From a World More Full of Weeping, by Azar Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Crossover
Characters: Susan Pevensie, Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Details: Single-part story; a meeting between two people who have far more in common than they at first realise. Crossover with Narnia.
Why It Rocks:
It’s a crossover I never once imagined being workable, until this story showed me why it absolutely works. These two people have both lost entire worlds, and have no-one left who understands the first thing about what they once had, no-one to share memories with. It’s the perfect chance encounter.
If you’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia, then chances are you were upset by the fate of Susan, who we are told in the final book is no longer a Friend of Narnia. She became too interested in clothes and make-up and boys, we’re told, and is thus excluded from the final reunion. I won’t comment on the moral lecture being given by CS Lewis here, nor on the message that sends to women as a whole. That’s not what this story is about, apart from anything else.
It’s about what happens to Susan next.
And this is it: she’s working in a shop, folding clothes and, we discover, not popular with the other employees. They think she considers herself above them, that she sucks up to management and she enjoys jumping on them for the smallest mistake. She’s lonely and grieving, though, and the others don’t know how to react to that. Nor does Susan herself, really. The train crash that brought her family back to Narnia orphaned her and left her completely alone in the world:
She had company enough in the persons of her ghosts. Friends were only losses waiting to happen.
What we realise, too, as we read on, is that the situation’s even more heartbreaking: Susan has persuaded herself that all those years in Narnia never happened. They were nothing more than childhood games:
It wasn't what they thought of her that shook her; that she'd known for a while now. It was the words themselves: ...who died and left her queen?
No, she scolded herself fiercely, fighting the thought that threatened to bubble to the surface. There was no way she was going to let one careless remark drag her back down into a morass of childhood fantasies, the selfsame fantasies that had cost her a relationship with her siblings and them their lives. No, it wasn't real.
And then she’s almost knocked over by a man in a brown pin-striped suit and overcoat, carrying a bow and arrow and chasing what looks remarkably like a dragon. He’s insane, of course, she thinks, and this entire situation is impossible. Dragons don’t exist, and anyway he’s a completely terrible shot. But then he notices her:
"There seems to be something rather temporally odd about you, too. This may sound weird, but have you been this age once before?"
Susan's heart almost stopped and she could feel all the colour drain from her face. "What?"
"It's just, when I look at you, it's as though part of your life was rewound and started over," he answered, still frowning.
It was at that precise moment that the idea of a Doctor Who/Chronicles of Narnia crossover made perfect sense to me. Susan’s lived two lives. She’s gone backwards and forwards in time, and travelled between universes. Why wouldn’t the Doctor run into her?
And, too, she and the Doctor have both lost everything they ever held dear. They’ve lost their entire families. They were each the outsider, in a way, and increasingly so as they grew older. They’re the ones left behind, left to mourn a world that must sometimes seem as if it turned its back on them. Who better to understand Susan Pevensie than the Doctor? Who better to understand the Doctor than Susan Pevensie?
It’s when Susan snatches the bow and arrow from the Doctor and lines up a perfect shot to do just what’s needed to hit the Vortisaur - because it’s not a dragon after all - that she finally starts to accept who and what she really is, and her legacy as Susan the Gentle, Queen of Narnia:
That was the truth she'd been hiding from. But in doing so, she'd given up the memories of a lifetime and allowed herself to lose her family not just once, but twice.
This is a beautiful story, a lovely ‘fixit’ for Susan, and also the beginning of a new friendship for the Doctor, alone and companionless in this story. It begins slow and sad and poignant, a lonely life told in a minor key, until suddenly it’s not so sad any more. Visualise the Doctor ineptly shooting arrows from that bow he was carrying in Blink, and imagine the regal, lovely Queen of Narnia showing him how it’s done. Imagine Susan stepping inside the TARDIS, the Doctor expecting the usual ‘it’s bigger on the inside’ line, only to hear this instead:
"Yes, I suppose it is. But then, my sister once found an entire country in the upstairs wardrobe."
and then imagine the Adventures of the Doctor and Queen Susan that lie ahead of them. That alone is enough to petition RTD to write Susan as the new companion. It’s also enough to show why this story absolutely deserves your vote.
*
Dangerous Games by never-more-fics
Category: Dark; Jack Harkness
Characters: Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor, the Master
Rating: R
Details: Single-part fic, with bondage, torture, voyeurism and possibly dubious consent.
Why It Rocks:
Okay, disclaimer: I don’t normally read BDSM or anything with sex where there’s less than full consent. I’m not knocking it; it’s just not my thing. But this... well, there’s dubious consent and there’s secretly wanting it but having to pretend you don’t because of who’s watching. And that, essentially, is what this story is about. On the surface, anyway. It gets a lot deeper than that, and that is why it rocks.
Televised episodes glossed over the Year that Never Was, not surprisingly. The set-up was nothing short of horrific, and if we’d been shown on-screen the full horror of life on the Valiant the episode would have had to be shown at well past the watershed. That, of course, is what fic is for: to fill in those blanks, to show us what it could have been like living under the rule of one of the most sadistic villains ever to be seen in New Who.
The Master is a master of psychology, apart from anything else. He learns his victims. He knows what makes them tick, what’s going to make them do things and what’s going to hurt them more than anything else. His main target is, above all, the Doctor. We saw in those final two episodes of S3 that, for the most part, he wouldn’t directly hurt the Doctor. Take him prisoner, yes. Age him, yes. Keep him in a kennel, and later a cage, yes. Actually cause him physical pain? Not so much. The pain was caused to everyone else. After all, what would hurt the Doctor more? Shooting him, or making him watch Martha be shot, as almost happened in Last of the Time Lords?
And so it is in Dangerous Games. The story’s written from Jack’s point of view, and Jack’s no fool: he knows exactly what the Master’s up to in his games. The story starts with Jack anticipating the nightly ritual, and the signs that it’s starting are all based on sound:
The familiar squeak, squeak, squeak of chair wheels and the padding of footsteps approaching, the same sounds he hears every night.
Other than these and later sounds as Jack is tied in place, and the non-participating watcher shifts around in a chair, and the sound of blows from a leather belt and Jack’s hisses, what’s so noticeable about the story is the silence. Nobody talks. Not a word, apart from just one sentence that’s whispered halfway through the ordeal.
"I'm sorry about this... I'm so sorry, Jack." The Doctor's voice is soft in his ear, full of sorrow and regret.
And that, for this reader, was the biggest shock: it’s the Doctor - rejuvenated nightly for this very purpose - who’s hurting Jack, who’s tied him up and is beating him and is about to have sex with him.
Is it rape? The Doctor thinks so, clearly. The irony of it all is that Jack likes it, loves it even - because he’s always wanted the Doctor. Jack thinks he’s getting the better of the Master, that he’s the winner. But I can’t help wondering if the Master knows this anyway, and that it’s this that makes it an even better game for him: that the Doctor is the only one suffering here, night after night, believing that he’s torturing and hurting his friend over and over, when all the time both Jack and the Master are getting off on it. Does this make Jack complicit in the Doctor’s torture?
It’s dark and deeply psychological, this story, and for me that’s what makes it worth a read, worth a vote: because it forces us to look deeper than the surface, to ask awkward questions about pleasure and pain and suffering and just what is acceptable - and, in a world where two people know how the game is played and one doesn’t, just who is torturer and who is victim. It’s an uncomfortable read, and it should make you think.
*
Doors We Never Opened, by the_magpye
Category: Donna Noble
Characters: Donna Noble, Lee, Rose Tyler, Sylvia Noble, Wilfrid Mott, Mickey Smith, Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Details: Nine chapters, post-Journey’s End, set in the Doctor’s universe.
Why It Rocks:
In the course of reviewing for Round 2, I’ve read many, many post-JE Donna fics, some of which can be described as fixits, some of which find ways of demonstrating Donna’s brilliance without ever giving her back her memories or reuniting her with the Doctor. This story does both, and it does it in such a twisty, clever way that it took my breath away. Who’s the most unlikely person you could think of who could figure out how to get Donna’s memories back? And imagine Torchwood there as backup, and Donna meeting the perfect man: Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word.. Throw all of that, and more, into one story, and that’s why this is brilliant.
The story begins with Donna, back to the way she was before she ever met the Doctor, rebuilding her life. She’s looking for a decent job, and there’s such a poignancy in the opening section, with everyone except Donna (including the reader) aware of what she’s lost. Even Sylvia, we feel, wants to believe that Donna can still be brilliant, but there’s a sense that the two of them are too trapped in their old habits to change towards each other:
Donna could feel eyes boring into her from the kitchen window as she shoved the car into gear. She glanced over, and there was her mum, stirring the tea and watching her like a hawk.
"Still a disappointment," she muttered to the emptiness, pulling out of the drive and starting down the road. "Well. I'll show her."
At the junction, she turned left.
Thus far, though, there’s nothing to distinguish this from any other Donna-focused post-JE story. Except that Donna’s new boss is Rose Tyler.
But, of course, Donna has no idea who Rose Tyler is, although we the readers are already wondering what’s going on. All the same, something sounds a little bit off about the way Rose talks about ‘back home’, and Donna has to question this. Rose’s answer isn’t as practised as the rest of her spiel:
"Oh... I am, born in the Powell Estates. My dad's just... working away at the moment. Somewhere in Tanzania. Or Taiwan. Or Taipei. Something beginning with 'T', I can never remember the name. We stay in touch over the phone."
The stuttered answer was nearly rivalling Lee the security guard. Donna considered being suspicious, but Rose didn't come across as an overly secretive kind of person.
So, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Donna accepts the job. And there’s another good reason to feel pleased with life: the building’s security guard, a really sweet bloke with a stutter, likes her. Likes her a lot.
Though there are some strange happenings, too. Why does Rose’s ‘partner-in-crime’, a tall bloke with brown eyes and wild hair, look familiar? Why do her mum and granddad look shocked when she describes her new boss to them? Why is she getting headaches again, and why is her family talking about her behind her back?
"What. On. EARTH. was that all about?!?"
And there she went; Donna Noble, shouting at the world, even if it wasn't listening.
And strange things keep happening. Her boss is having meeting behind closed doors with strangers, and the little bits Donna overhears aren’t all that reassuring:
"Rose... We aren't going to stop you - you know we'd never want to - but haven't you thought about the consequences?"
A quiet sigh.
"We talked about it before I left, and he was sure that if I was careful, everything would turn out fine."
Silence reigned, but something must have happened because Rose spoke again, sounding much brighter.
"Well, I'm glad that's the end of that. You can go back to Jack and tell him that I've not come to foreshadow the end of the universe as we know it. Oh, and ask him why he didn't have the guts to come and see me himself as well. Maybe he thought I might usurp his position as captain of the innuendo squad?"
At this point, the reader is almost as confused as Donna. So Rose is from the parallel universe, and the Duplicate Doctor seems to be aware of what she’s up to, but neither Torchwood nor the Doctor from this universe are. And that’s one of the things I really loved about this story: we’re not given all the information at the beginning. We’re dumped into the story at the same point Donna is, only because we know more than she does we’re asking far more questions. Just what is Rose up to? What’s she hoping to achieve, and isn’t she risking making things far worse? What will happen when this universe’s Doctor finds out what she’s up to? And the_magpye keeps us waiting for the answers.
Just when Donna’s already bursting with questions, she starts dreaming.
She wonders why she's crying, because for the life of her she can't remember what could possibly have caused this horrible anguish searing her insides, blooming like a flower and settling, an uncomfortable lead weight in her chest. It blocks her lungs, her throat, her tongue - she can't speak, but she can listen, because there are voices around her, so many voices that she can barely tell one from the other. It's a cacophony of noise and mystery and music, wild, singing music, and her head is spinning, flaming with the same pain as that bloody recurring headache and now she has to squeeze her eyes shut against it or maybe she'll burn out, fizzling away like a spent star...
And the dreams continue, and the headaches get worse, until the only comfort in Donna’s life is that Rose seems to be an understanding boss and Lee likes her. We know something has to give, and it does - but I’m not going to tell you what. The suspense-building and twists in this story are too good to spoil by giving away the plot. And there are twists, including some I would never have imagined. All I will say is that the explanation for everything - including Rose’s presence in this universe, where she’s come for the sole purpose of giving Donna her memories back without killing her - even fits into canon perfectly, explaining a moment that was never properly explained in S4. And Rose did it because the Doctor she left behind in her original universe desperately needs a friend.
In the end, everyone gets a happy ending. Yes, everyone. Just because televised DW has to be full of angst and sadness doesn’t mean fic has to be like that too, and the_magpye manages to give us a thoroughly rewarding ending. Even if she did just about break my heart again first by her description of the Tenth Doctor’s face when he sees Donna:
His eyes... they were so empty. Lost. Yes, he was gaping like a fish, but it wasn't a funny thing to see.
It was painful.
All colour was missing from his face. He was thinner, if that was even possible, and she wondered if he would snap in two if she hugged him. His cheekbones were prominent, his features gaunt, and the guilt...
Oh, the guilt.
Happy ending. Remember that: happy ending.
Vote for Doors We Never Opened because it really is ingenious, twisty and a darn good read. It has both Donna and Rose being clever, Mickey and Jack being macho and flirty, and Lee being sweet. It really is the cleverest post-JE story I’ve read, and it does wonderful justice to all the characters, whether they’re there throughout the story or just appear in cameo. It’s brilliant and it thoroughly deserves a vote.
*
Today's reviews were written by wendymr.