Round Three Reviews - Part 21
Today's Featured Stories Include:
*
Return to Gallifrey by pacejunkie
Category: Doctor/Donna
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Ten, Donna
Rating: All Ages
Details: The Doctor must deal with the fact that the TARDIS has landed him and Donna on Gallifrey right before the Time War. 6500 words.
Why it Rocks:
Our story opens with a seemingly ordinary day on the TARDIS, deciding where to go next. After so much travelling, Donna finds that she's actually a bit bored with the idea of another beach, or crystal cave, or pleasure planet. Little does she know how unusual their next destination is going to be. When the TARDIS suddenly goes berzerk, it is all Donna can do to assume crash position. The author's description of the action here is brilliantly done.
The room spun and she felt herself being pulled from one end to the other. She screamed, then she heard the Doctor shout and they fell together in a tumbling heap, all arms and legs, bouncing about on the rattling floor. They were still moving, shaking so badly she couldn’t see straight, but she knew enough to know something had gone horribly wrong. It was a sensation of falling, but in every direction at once, like being pulled apart.
As soon as the Doctor can get up off the floor and look at the monitors, he is beside himself with shock and fear. The readout clearly indicates that they are on Gallifrey, and the impossibility of that scenario is almost more than he can bear. He throws himself into a sort of horrified mania.
“It must be a mistake…” he began pacing round the TARDIS, muttering wildly, running his hands through his hair until it stood on end, “Gallifrey is gone, and if it’s not gone that means it’s here, and if it’s here that can only mean one thing and that is that we’ve gone into the past but I can’t be here in the past because this planet’s history is timelocked and what’s more it’s my own history which makes it my own timeline and I can’t be here, I simply can’t… I can’t risk it…anything could happen, anything at all….”
Donna is very cautious with the Doctor, very tender and understanding, but at the same time she pushes him a little. When he wants to turn around and leave (the TARDIS doesn't let him anyway), Donna urges him to take a peek outside. She draws out of him the fact that he wants to see his planet, if only for a moment. Finally, they cautiously step out of the TARDIS.
Donna had never seen anything so breathtaking. The sky was orange like flame, and the trees on the hilltop shimmered with silver leaves, breezes blowing through them creating a sound like gentle wind chimes. She had to shield her eyes from the glare of the sunlight, which reflected off the trees and caused everything around her to glow. The earth in the valley below them shone in furious golds and reds.
The Doctor's reaction to seeing and hearing his planet again is heartbreaking. And by "hearing," I mean he hears the minds of the people in the citadel below, in the Academy. But soon the quiet reflection is interrupted, and the Doctor is arrested for being a Time Lord on Gallifrey out of his own time. Donna must fight through layers and layers of bureaucracy just to see the Doctor, which seems very fitting for the stodgy old Time Lord society. His trial and sentencing happen quickly, but before the sentence can be carried out, mayhem ensues. An intelligent race of carrion birds that feeds off the remains of dead worlds attacks the citadel, killing people, feeding, and carrying off everything they can get their claws on.
The Doctor knows this never happened, so he eventually does what he does best - he gets to the bottom of it. And herein lies the timey-wimey explanation for how the TARDIS came to be on Gallifrey in the first place. I have a weakness for a good time paradox, so this was pleasing in the way that cracky science explanations on the show sometimes are.
At one point, the author addresses the fact that for someone who didn't particularly like being on Gallifrey before the Time War, the Doctor certainly waxes rhapsodic about it now:
“I was always a traveler, always searching.” He looked around at the ruined street and frowned. “I was never content with this place, never appreciated it really.”
“To hear you talk about it now, I find that hard to believe,” Donna observed.
He looked at her with a sad smile and a voice that seemed to speak with the wisdom of the ages, “You never know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it.”
Of course in the end, things must go back to the way they were before. Gallifrey must cease to exist, its past forever timelocked and inaccessible. The Doctor is stoically sad, but Donna's presence is a healing balm for him. In the wake of the Time War, having companions to care about him is that much more important to the Doctor, and in light of where we have seen of him in "Journey's End" and in the two 2009 specials thus far, the ending of this fic is that much more poignant.
*
Your Mission, Should You Decide to Accept It by karaokegal
Categories: Slash, Dark
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: John, Jack in flashbacks
Rating: R
Details: One-shot that takes place pre-Torchwood. Slash, implied mostly (the graphic stuff is of the blink-and-you-miss-it variety).
Why It Rocks:
Jack Harkness is missing two years when we meet him first - and he's missing the two years yet. We have not a hint of where they've gone or why - but Karaokegal has given us an idea of who might have taken them.
The story is told from John Hart's POV - and actually, while it's about his relationship with Jack Harkness, Jack never appears except in flashback. Moreover, neither are called by their names - which, when you think about it, makes some degree of sense. Jack probably wasn't known by "Jack" in his Time Agent days - or at least not exclusively. And very likely, neither was John.
Somehow, though, it doesn't seem to matter. It's easy to get lost when writing (or reading) about two men, in a sea of "he"s. We don't lose focus while reading this, though. We know who is thinking, and who he is thinking about, the entire story.
He’d gotten close. Too close. That’s when things had started going wrong. Not that they’d ever been completely right, even when his beautiful recruit actually believed what the Agency was selling.
Seeing Jack through John's eyes is like seeing someone entirely different - for both men. Jack, we see as the strong one, with his head screwed on straight and wise beyond his years. And yet, John calls him a "kid", finds him getting into trouble and asking too many questions about things he really shouldn't know about. He sees Jack as something akin to an excitable puppy, too willing to throw himself into any job that comes his way, without holding back:
Never saw a man so happy to inflict pain in the name of the greater good. Someone had a few demons that the psych testing had missed. Added a whole roster of delights to their personal life as well, just when the possibility of boredom had been setting in. All kinds of fun to be had with handcuffs and electrodes.
It's telling for John, as well. By the time we see John, Jack has definitely mellowed. He's no longer a kid, he's not excitable and he thinks before he leaps. John, on the other hand, rides with the wind, bends to the will of those stronger, and seems to get off on causing others suffering.
Except for here, in the past, as a Time Agent. John, the elder of the two, is still the mentor. He's still the moral touchstone:
He tracked him down with the wrist-strap and found him violating several Agency rules, the ones they actually cared about. Using Turing’s algorithm so he could hack into Agency archives? Brilliant. Using the strap as a power-booster, not so much.
“This is wrong.”
Oh bloody hell. Moral convictions? It made him sick, mostly with worry.
It would be interesting to read this, and then watch the John Hart episodes again. I suspect there would be nuances to the character I hadn't picked up on before. As it was, it's ridiculously simple to imagine James Marsters moving to these words, saying these things. It explains so much about them both, really - and if this was their previous relationship, how charged and changed that reunion could have been.
In short, vote for Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It... It's an amazing look at two characters from very different points of view; it's a twisty-turny history of a kid we haven't seen in years. And oh - yes - there's a mission here, and there's an explanation for the two years. But far be it from me to tell you what it is. Read, and find out - and then you will agree that this story entirely deserves your vote.
*
Passing Through History by The Carlisle Cooperative
Categories: Classic
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Nine & Rose
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, takes place sometime in the first half of S1.
Why It Rocks:
It's hard to imagine Nine taking the slow path - in some ways, he was just as manic as Ten, if not more so. But surely, there were quiet moments for he and Rose as they traveled - in fact, we know there were. Walking on Woman Wept. Sitting on the TARDIS, as Rose tells him about her dad. Joking about the milk.
The Carlisle Cooperative has sadly been on hiatus recently (although there is word they might return shortly), but for some time they have been a mainstay of the Whoniverse world, churning out hysterically funny fics on a fairly regular basis. I'll say up front that Passing Through History is not one of those side-splitting works of crack - instead, it takes a look at what a journey with Nine and Rose might have looked like, had they not been running for their lives. You know, just a normal, boring, every-day trip in the TARDIS. If they existed (and surely they must have done), then certainly they existed like this.
His eyes had shuttered-a look she knew well, and one that she knew it was her job to try to relieve. “Isn’t it?” she asked. “Golden age-how much better can it get?”
“A golden age is only golden in comparison to the disaster that comes after it. Golden ages are a fancy way of saying ‘beginning of the end.’ In a few decades’ time, this place will be overrun with war and famine and poverty and disease.”
Rose looked at him for a second. “Well,” she said, softly, “everything has its time, right?”
The Doctor took a breath and then smiled at her. She returned it. “Right,” he said.
You see, the Doctor, particularly Nine, probably didn't much like the quiet days. If he was manic, it wasn't without reason - the faster he moved, the quicker he ran, the easier it must have been to forget the empty spaces in his head, the missing planet in the sky. I wonder, really, how long it took before Rose had picked up on that inherent sadness that drove the Doctor to run - the second episode? The third?
Either way, she knows it here - knows it almost instinctively. It doesn't matter if this is pre- or post-Dalek - she knows the Doctor has sorrow, and she knows her role as Companion is to help him forget.
So she lets the Doctor show her around an ancient Egyptian city, as he plays something between history teacher and tour guide. He slips her into the secret places, and tells her the legends of the time. Their quiet day stays quiet, somewhat miraculous for them, and in the quiet, Rose and the Doctor are able to simply be. Somehow, the conversation turns to the story of the lotus blossom - and how according to Egyptian myth, the world was created from one.
“Where did the first lotus come from?” [asked Rose.]
The Doctor shrugged. “Where does the first anything come from? You lot just make it up as you go along, don’t you? Something had to be the first something of all time, and why not agree that the first something was a lotus blossom, and agree not to think any harder about it?”
Rose paused. “Is that what we do?” They were closer to the bustle of the markets now-she could hear the noise of the bartering increasing as they approached. “Make up something and then...decide not to think about it anymore?”
Because isn't that how it goes? Not just for humans, but the Doctor as well. He has decided to race around the universe, to keep his mind off Gallifrey. And so it is: his mind is made up, and he does not think about it anymore. He will take Rose with him, and he does not think about it anymore. He will stop the Slitheen from selling off the Earth as scrap goods, and does not think about it anymore. This is logic, isn't it, at its purest form? Decision made, there is no discussion.
Just one other thing I'd like to share from the story, before I conclude. A day like this of course cannot go unmarked, and Rose decides to purchase something for the Doctor, as a keepsake. She looks at various figures, but her eyes keep landing on a specific one:
“The hedgehog. Symbol of protection...or courage.” The man picked up a small figurine and held it towards Rose. The piece was an intense shade of blue that reminded her of the Doctor’s eyes, and she felt something click inside her.
One wonders - protection for who? For the Doctor? Or from him?
And courage for what? For moving onward, in the storms to which he's sure to guide them? Or the courage he would need for days like this one, in which he might sit and reflect on what's no longer an option?
Golden ages might not last forever - but the gold that gilts them does. The Egyptian city of Tanis, much like the planet of Gallifrey, is gone, but its little hedgehog - and the Doctor - remain.
In short, vote for Passing Through History. It's history in the now, the past as the future, and a botany lesson of sorts. It is a quiet day that ought to have happened, and it will leave you as contented as Rose is with her purchase. It entirely deserves your vote.
*
The Song of Yarru by Kalleah Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Doctor/Rose
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, OCs.
Rating: Adult
Details: Eight chapters and an epilogue, Explicit Sex - Action/Adventure, Drama, Het, Romance, Series
Why It Rocks:
One of the true joys of fan-fic is the fact that, unlike the writers for the real show, we're not constrained by available locations and makeup and budgets and a shooting schedule. We can use our imaginations to create things that we may or may not ever see on screen; we can give backstory and depth to even minor characters with relative ease. We can even create an entirely new world, new species, new culture, if we want to.
And this is one of the ways we separate the wheat from the chaff in fan-fics, because only the very best writers can world-build effectively enough to put us there into the world they've created. Only the most talented and skilled can make not only a few characters, but an entire planet, come alive for us.
Kalleah is one of them.
Yarru is a "city" on a heavily-forested planet whose dominant species is much closer to their primate ancestors than we are to ours-nearly human-sized and bipedal, but furred and with prehensile tails. It's built in the trees, created not so much by the work of their hands as by the work of their Tree Singers over the course of generation. Their current Singers are twins named Anahit and Aiku, who use their inborn (and extremely rare) abilities to Sing the trees into the shapes they want. In fact, they can Sing the world into whatever shape they want-their power is that great-but they do not, for their Gift is to work with the natural world, not against it. Rose watches them:
[Rose] swayed, like a snake in a basket, and saw with astonishment that the branch in Anahit's hand was doing the same. It traced upward, into the Singer's palm and along the underside of her wrist. It thickened and spread as she drew it upward and back, directing its growth. Leaves sprouted along the whole length of the branch. All around them, crotalistria flowers furled and unfurled, danced and waved, released shimmering pollen into the air.
The Doctor brings Rose to visit these gentle people, and the two of them are welcomed as guests. But there's more going on than meets the eye here. (Isn't there always?) For there are human scientists in orbit, observing the Yarruni from space (unbeknownst to them, of course); and while the scientists may be benign in their desire to watch and learn, the military men who come on their own mission are not. And when the Singer Aiku is kidnapped by these military men, the Doctor and Rose volunteer to help rescue her. The Doctor explains to her twin Anahit why Aiku was taken:
"Your song stimulates biological matter," he said without emotion. "You can prompt a single cell to divide or to expand. You can cause a brain to release a flood of hormones or neurotransmitters. You can coax a tree into doubling its growth rate and control the direction of that growth. That means you can overwhelm it, too. You could make the tree grow so much it couldn't sustain that growth. The brain could release the wrong neurotransmitter and stop a heart. You could make internal organs rupture."
She's been captured with the intent of turning her into a weapon. Not only has their world been put in danger-for if the humans get away with capturing one by stealth, they will not hesitate to invade en masse in the hope of capturing more-but the rest of the Galaxy is in danger as well: in danger from Aiku's gift in the hands of military men for whom winning-or control-is all.
While several of Kalleah's other chaptered fics-most notably The Calm Before the Storm and Voyages of Discovery-have focused on the relationship between the Doctor and Rose, this one is much more broadly character-driven. Their love relationship is an important part of this story (and is illustrated, most effectively, by an incredibly hot sex scene in chapter 4), but The Song of Yarru is primarily that of the Yarruni and their world. I have a crystal-clear image in my mind as to what Yarru, and the Yarruni, look like; what it's like to live there, what it's like to visit there.
And this is where my geekiness shows: I adore stories where the author puts a lot of work into his/her world-building, because suddenly, it's not just a fan-fic any more. It's a story unto its own. It's the ability to write your own creations as well as play in the BBC's sandbox, and to blend them together effectively, and it takes immense amounts of talent and work. There are many out there who have created their own worlds this believably. Kalleah is among the best.
In short, vote for The Song of Yarru. It has an alien world, fascinating OCs, and prehensile tails. It's got adventure and danger and perhaps the hottest sex scene I've ever read. It's got bad guys and good guys, knowledge and wisdom; and at the end, love and courage overcome heartlessness and greed, just as it should be. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
Once Upon A Time by atraphoenix Link goes to Teaspoon
Categories: First Doctor, Ficlet
Fandom: Classic Who
Characters: Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright
Rating: All Ages
Details: Complete; 1200 words; Het; Romance; Standalone
Why It Rocks:
It shows the deep effects that Ian Chesterton's childhood love of fairy tales has on his life, despite him becoming a scientist, and how they affect his idea of love and romance.
Ian Chesterton is a science teacher at Coal Hill School where he works with Barbara Wright, a history teacher. The two of them become the Doctor's first ever human companions, travelling with the Time Lord (who is then in his first incarnation) and Susan, his granddaughter (whom they both taught at Coal Hill School).
Ian provides the TV series with an action-oriented figure, someone who's able to perform the physical tasks that the elderly Doctor could not. His greatest concern, however, is usually for the safety of the TARDIS crew, and in the early stories he often takes issue with the Doctor for his habit of placing the group in harm's way merely to satisfy his own curiosity about the places they visit.
Barbara Wright is a strong-willed woman who provides a maternal figure to Susan, and is often the only person who's able to stand up to the First Doctor when he becomes particularly cantankerous (which that incarnation was prone to do, as the Tenth Doctor reminds us in Time Crash: 'Back when I first started at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you're young'). In the serial The Aztecs Barbara was hailed as the reincarnation of the ancient high priestess Yetaxa by the Aztec civilization and, despite the Doctor's protests that she could not change history, she attempted (unsuccessfully, in the end) to turn the Aztecs away from their practice of human sacrifice.
The chemistry between Barbara and Ian is pretty evident, although the show didn't go in for the endless kissing of New Who, so the nature of their relationship is never made explicit in the TV stories. Ian is fiercely protective of Barbara, however, even going on a lone mission to rescue her from Saracens in The Crusade (during which story he was knighted by King Richard I of England as "Sir Ian of Jaffa").
'Once Upon a Time' takes the on-screen chemistry between Ian and Barbara and shows us how Ian's childhood love of fairy tales coloured his way of seeing not only this world, but the entire universe, and drew him to her:
Barbara wasn’t Rapunzel, trapped in her tower, or Little Red Riding Hood, skipping through the dark forest. She didn’t need rescuing, and he was no Prince Charming at any rate. It didn’t really matter. Everything worked wonderfully well when they were just being themselves.
[…]
Barbara Wright might have been a million miles away from the fairy princesses of Ian’s youth, but it didn’t matter, since they were a million miles away from Earth in any case. She was braver, and more beautiful, and more intelligent, than anyone he’d ever read about.
Ian was forced to reshape all of his views while travelling in the TARDIS, and this included his views on love.
He didn’t get to play the hero all the time. He managed it occasionally, of course, but Barbara and the Doctor took on the role just as often.
For Ian love is a natural force, like gravity - and he believes that there's no real way to avoid it, nor does he seek to - he just assumes he'll fall in love one day.
During his time aboard the TARDIS Ian realises that life isn't much like fairy tales, but it can be an adventure if you're hurtling through Time and Space in a bigger-on-the-inside blue wooden box. And then he and Barbara end up back home, admittedly two years after they left (which obviously causes comment, just as their sudden disappearance had done), and he realises he had never really considered what happened after the happy ending, but all of a sudden, he found himself living there. Which is a bit of a shock, but what's an even bigger shock is when he learns that Barbara has intervened to prevent a robber getting away from the Post Office.
Barbara had found it difficult to adjust back to an ordinary life. It was hard to carry on being an ordinary person - a teacher, of all things! - after saving the world, and playing the hero, so many times.
She seized the chance to relive that life, even for the brief of moments, without a second thought.
Unsurprisingly, Barbara's actions unnerve Ian and he goes to find her in the staff room, half wanting to remonstrate with her for worrying him:
"I just worry about you."
[…]
"There’s no need, Ian," she said, looking at him with the faintest trace of amusement in her eyes. "You know I've dealt with worse."
"That was different."
She cocked her head at him. "How was it different?"
Because it wasn’t here and now, on Earth, in our time. Because it was during our adventures with the Doctor, and, although it was very real, it seemed less so.
"Because I’m supposed to be the hero. I'm supposed to be the one who rides in one a white charger and saves the day…"
He stopped, his words fading away as soon as Barbara took his hand in hers.
Perfectly natural. Uncontrollable.
"You are."
With those two words and that gesture, Ian realises that even if he's not Prince Charming, and even if Barbara's not a damsel in distress, romance isn't dead and love is perfectly possible.
Vote for this fic because it's a clever interweaving of science and fairy tales to make a romance that's sweet, lovely and beautifully done.
*
Veritas Liberatus by dark_aegis / Gillian Taylor Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Dark/Angst
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Nine, Rose, Jack
Rating: Teen for swearing, violence
Details: Four chapters, set sometime during S1, vaguely OT3.
Why It Rocks:
The idea of the Ninth Doctor or Jack Harkness shirtless very rarely strikes fear into my heart, but Gillian has managed to do just that in the setup for her story Veritas Liberatus. When shackled together with many other captured alien males on a forced march across the desert, unable to speak to each other without getting whipped and with no idea where Rose has been taken, you know that this particular adventure is not going to be one filled with fluffy bunnies and lots of giggles. And it’s not. This entry into the dark/angst category is very firmly in the right place.
With their arrival at their destination, an enormous fortress, the Doctor and Jack are given one explanation. They are to fight in gladiatorial style games against each other. The winner will be given what to both of them is a very important prize: Rose Tyler. It is their first inkling that Rose is still alive, is still on the planet with them, and hasn’t fallen to a fate worse than theirs and been sold off world. There is no time for rejoicing, though, as Jack realizes that:
He’s surrounded by instruments of death. His death, if he lets it. Thing is, he can’t. If he just stays here, lets the Doctor ‘win’ and take Rose out of here, it won’t work. The announcer told him as much as he was led to this particular trap. If he doesn’t make it out of this place within a given amount of time - helpfully indicated by the chronometer projected on the other wall - everyone dies. Rose and the Doctor included.
Clever of them, actually. Prevents too much self-sacrificing. Same thing goes with just letting the other fighter win. It’s got to look good, keep their ratings - apparently - up. And then whoever wins - that is, kills their friend, because apparently these people are sadistic - gets the girl. But there’s a problem with that. They said the winner gets the girl, but what happens after that? He would prefer to presume the winner and the girl get set free, but given these people’s actions so far he doubts it.
Unable to speak to the other, each man decides that he will find a way to believably sacrifice himself rather than kill his friend, but it can’t be an obvious sacrifice. If they don’t truly fight each other the trio will still be put to death. First they each have to escape a challenge and are given only one tool each to do it with. The Doctor has his sonic screwdriver and uses it to knock out the vicious animals he is up against. Jack has his Vortex manipulator and is simply able to teleport out of his spike-filled, shrinking pit.
Once able to face each other they are able to communicate and the Doctor makes it clear that Jack is the one who must appear to survive, for the Doctor can easily fake his own death…or come back from it if necessary. Rose, who has been watching on a monitor, is horrified when her beloved Doctor is felled at the hands of her other best friend. It means, of course, that Jack and Rose are safe for the moment, but as the reason for the whole set-up of events becomes clear, they are positive that they will not stay that way.
Rose’s overwhelming loss of the Doctor leaps off the page as does her anger at Jack, who she blames for the Doctor’s death, even though rationally she knows he had no choice.
She still can’t speak. It hurts too damned much to even think about speaking right now. Because if she speaks, if she does anything, she’s going to break. Shatter into a thousand pieces right here, probably on the televisions of this entire planet, and damn the consequences. She won’t be able to put herself together again. The only one who can is gone. Forever.
Jack cannot tell her that there is even a chance the Doctor is alive or their captors will know. With no easy means of escape and, with the revelation that the bodies of the losers are immediately burned, no hope of rescue, Jack must push Rose through her grief and get her to help him foment a rebellion amongst the other winning gladiators and their women, but that’s easier said than done and the outcome is never obvious or assured, because the lightness and strong sense of hope in most of Gillian’s fics is totally subsumed by angst here. The reader is left on a knife-edge of uncertainty as to whether or not any of the trio will survive the story.
Is the Doctor really dead? Will Rose and Jack somehow manage to escape? Can anything be done to put a stop to this awful sport and this planet’s exploitation and murder of the tourists who land there? I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to read the story to find out but I can promise you it is well worth the read and it is also well worth your vote.
*
Today's Reviews were written by:
unfolded73: Return to Gallifrey
azriona: Your Mission, Should You....; Passing Through History
aibhinn: The Song of Yarru
persiflage_1: Once Upon a Time
amberfocus: Veritas Liberatus
*
Return to Gallifrey by pacejunkie
Category: Doctor/Donna
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Ten, Donna
Rating: All Ages
Details: The Doctor must deal with the fact that the TARDIS has landed him and Donna on Gallifrey right before the Time War. 6500 words.
Why it Rocks:
Our story opens with a seemingly ordinary day on the TARDIS, deciding where to go next. After so much travelling, Donna finds that she's actually a bit bored with the idea of another beach, or crystal cave, or pleasure planet. Little does she know how unusual their next destination is going to be. When the TARDIS suddenly goes berzerk, it is all Donna can do to assume crash position. The author's description of the action here is brilliantly done.
The room spun and she felt herself being pulled from one end to the other. She screamed, then she heard the Doctor shout and they fell together in a tumbling heap, all arms and legs, bouncing about on the rattling floor. They were still moving, shaking so badly she couldn’t see straight, but she knew enough to know something had gone horribly wrong. It was a sensation of falling, but in every direction at once, like being pulled apart.
As soon as the Doctor can get up off the floor and look at the monitors, he is beside himself with shock and fear. The readout clearly indicates that they are on Gallifrey, and the impossibility of that scenario is almost more than he can bear. He throws himself into a sort of horrified mania.
“It must be a mistake…” he began pacing round the TARDIS, muttering wildly, running his hands through his hair until it stood on end, “Gallifrey is gone, and if it’s not gone that means it’s here, and if it’s here that can only mean one thing and that is that we’ve gone into the past but I can’t be here in the past because this planet’s history is timelocked and what’s more it’s my own history which makes it my own timeline and I can’t be here, I simply can’t… I can’t risk it…anything could happen, anything at all….”
Donna is very cautious with the Doctor, very tender and understanding, but at the same time she pushes him a little. When he wants to turn around and leave (the TARDIS doesn't let him anyway), Donna urges him to take a peek outside. She draws out of him the fact that he wants to see his planet, if only for a moment. Finally, they cautiously step out of the TARDIS.
Donna had never seen anything so breathtaking. The sky was orange like flame, and the trees on the hilltop shimmered with silver leaves, breezes blowing through them creating a sound like gentle wind chimes. She had to shield her eyes from the glare of the sunlight, which reflected off the trees and caused everything around her to glow. The earth in the valley below them shone in furious golds and reds.
The Doctor's reaction to seeing and hearing his planet again is heartbreaking. And by "hearing," I mean he hears the minds of the people in the citadel below, in the Academy. But soon the quiet reflection is interrupted, and the Doctor is arrested for being a Time Lord on Gallifrey out of his own time. Donna must fight through layers and layers of bureaucracy just to see the Doctor, which seems very fitting for the stodgy old Time Lord society. His trial and sentencing happen quickly, but before the sentence can be carried out, mayhem ensues. An intelligent race of carrion birds that feeds off the remains of dead worlds attacks the citadel, killing people, feeding, and carrying off everything they can get their claws on.
The Doctor knows this never happened, so he eventually does what he does best - he gets to the bottom of it. And herein lies the timey-wimey explanation for how the TARDIS came to be on Gallifrey in the first place. I have a weakness for a good time paradox, so this was pleasing in the way that cracky science explanations on the show sometimes are.
At one point, the author addresses the fact that for someone who didn't particularly like being on Gallifrey before the Time War, the Doctor certainly waxes rhapsodic about it now:
“I was always a traveler, always searching.” He looked around at the ruined street and frowned. “I was never content with this place, never appreciated it really.”
“To hear you talk about it now, I find that hard to believe,” Donna observed.
He looked at her with a sad smile and a voice that seemed to speak with the wisdom of the ages, “You never know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it.”
Of course in the end, things must go back to the way they were before. Gallifrey must cease to exist, its past forever timelocked and inaccessible. The Doctor is stoically sad, but Donna's presence is a healing balm for him. In the wake of the Time War, having companions to care about him is that much more important to the Doctor, and in light of where we have seen of him in "Journey's End" and in the two 2009 specials thus far, the ending of this fic is that much more poignant.
*
Your Mission, Should You Decide to Accept It by karaokegal
Categories: Slash, Dark
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: John, Jack in flashbacks
Rating: R
Details: One-shot that takes place pre-Torchwood. Slash, implied mostly (the graphic stuff is of the blink-and-you-miss-it variety).
Why It Rocks:
Jack Harkness is missing two years when we meet him first - and he's missing the two years yet. We have not a hint of where they've gone or why - but Karaokegal has given us an idea of who might have taken them.
The story is told from John Hart's POV - and actually, while it's about his relationship with Jack Harkness, Jack never appears except in flashback. Moreover, neither are called by their names - which, when you think about it, makes some degree of sense. Jack probably wasn't known by "Jack" in his Time Agent days - or at least not exclusively. And very likely, neither was John.
Somehow, though, it doesn't seem to matter. It's easy to get lost when writing (or reading) about two men, in a sea of "he"s. We don't lose focus while reading this, though. We know who is thinking, and who he is thinking about, the entire story.
He’d gotten close. Too close. That’s when things had started going wrong. Not that they’d ever been completely right, even when his beautiful recruit actually believed what the Agency was selling.
Seeing Jack through John's eyes is like seeing someone entirely different - for both men. Jack, we see as the strong one, with his head screwed on straight and wise beyond his years. And yet, John calls him a "kid", finds him getting into trouble and asking too many questions about things he really shouldn't know about. He sees Jack as something akin to an excitable puppy, too willing to throw himself into any job that comes his way, without holding back:
Never saw a man so happy to inflict pain in the name of the greater good. Someone had a few demons that the psych testing had missed. Added a whole roster of delights to their personal life as well, just when the possibility of boredom had been setting in. All kinds of fun to be had with handcuffs and electrodes.
It's telling for John, as well. By the time we see John, Jack has definitely mellowed. He's no longer a kid, he's not excitable and he thinks before he leaps. John, on the other hand, rides with the wind, bends to the will of those stronger, and seems to get off on causing others suffering.
Except for here, in the past, as a Time Agent. John, the elder of the two, is still the mentor. He's still the moral touchstone:
He tracked him down with the wrist-strap and found him violating several Agency rules, the ones they actually cared about. Using Turing’s algorithm so he could hack into Agency archives? Brilliant. Using the strap as a power-booster, not so much.
“This is wrong.”
Oh bloody hell. Moral convictions? It made him sick, mostly with worry.
It would be interesting to read this, and then watch the John Hart episodes again. I suspect there would be nuances to the character I hadn't picked up on before. As it was, it's ridiculously simple to imagine James Marsters moving to these words, saying these things. It explains so much about them both, really - and if this was their previous relationship, how charged and changed that reunion could have been.
In short, vote for Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It... It's an amazing look at two characters from very different points of view; it's a twisty-turny history of a kid we haven't seen in years. And oh - yes - there's a mission here, and there's an explanation for the two years. But far be it from me to tell you what it is. Read, and find out - and then you will agree that this story entirely deserves your vote.
*
Passing Through History by The Carlisle Cooperative
Categories: Classic
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Nine & Rose
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, takes place sometime in the first half of S1.
Why It Rocks:
It's hard to imagine Nine taking the slow path - in some ways, he was just as manic as Ten, if not more so. But surely, there were quiet moments for he and Rose as they traveled - in fact, we know there were. Walking on Woman Wept. Sitting on the TARDIS, as Rose tells him about her dad. Joking about the milk.
The Carlisle Cooperative has sadly been on hiatus recently (although there is word they might return shortly), but for some time they have been a mainstay of the Whoniverse world, churning out hysterically funny fics on a fairly regular basis. I'll say up front that Passing Through History is not one of those side-splitting works of crack - instead, it takes a look at what a journey with Nine and Rose might have looked like, had they not been running for their lives. You know, just a normal, boring, every-day trip in the TARDIS. If they existed (and surely they must have done), then certainly they existed like this.
His eyes had shuttered-a look she knew well, and one that she knew it was her job to try to relieve. “Isn’t it?” she asked. “Golden age-how much better can it get?”
“A golden age is only golden in comparison to the disaster that comes after it. Golden ages are a fancy way of saying ‘beginning of the end.’ In a few decades’ time, this place will be overrun with war and famine and poverty and disease.”
Rose looked at him for a second. “Well,” she said, softly, “everything has its time, right?”
The Doctor took a breath and then smiled at her. She returned it. “Right,” he said.
You see, the Doctor, particularly Nine, probably didn't much like the quiet days. If he was manic, it wasn't without reason - the faster he moved, the quicker he ran, the easier it must have been to forget the empty spaces in his head, the missing planet in the sky. I wonder, really, how long it took before Rose had picked up on that inherent sadness that drove the Doctor to run - the second episode? The third?
Either way, she knows it here - knows it almost instinctively. It doesn't matter if this is pre- or post-Dalek - she knows the Doctor has sorrow, and she knows her role as Companion is to help him forget.
So she lets the Doctor show her around an ancient Egyptian city, as he plays something between history teacher and tour guide. He slips her into the secret places, and tells her the legends of the time. Their quiet day stays quiet, somewhat miraculous for them, and in the quiet, Rose and the Doctor are able to simply be. Somehow, the conversation turns to the story of the lotus blossom - and how according to Egyptian myth, the world was created from one.
“Where did the first lotus come from?” [asked Rose.]
The Doctor shrugged. “Where does the first anything come from? You lot just make it up as you go along, don’t you? Something had to be the first something of all time, and why not agree that the first something was a lotus blossom, and agree not to think any harder about it?”
Rose paused. “Is that what we do?” They were closer to the bustle of the markets now-she could hear the noise of the bartering increasing as they approached. “Make up something and then...decide not to think about it anymore?”
Because isn't that how it goes? Not just for humans, but the Doctor as well. He has decided to race around the universe, to keep his mind off Gallifrey. And so it is: his mind is made up, and he does not think about it anymore. He will take Rose with him, and he does not think about it anymore. He will stop the Slitheen from selling off the Earth as scrap goods, and does not think about it anymore. This is logic, isn't it, at its purest form? Decision made, there is no discussion.
Just one other thing I'd like to share from the story, before I conclude. A day like this of course cannot go unmarked, and Rose decides to purchase something for the Doctor, as a keepsake. She looks at various figures, but her eyes keep landing on a specific one:
“The hedgehog. Symbol of protection...or courage.” The man picked up a small figurine and held it towards Rose. The piece was an intense shade of blue that reminded her of the Doctor’s eyes, and she felt something click inside her.
One wonders - protection for who? For the Doctor? Or from him?
And courage for what? For moving onward, in the storms to which he's sure to guide them? Or the courage he would need for days like this one, in which he might sit and reflect on what's no longer an option?
Golden ages might not last forever - but the gold that gilts them does. The Egyptian city of Tanis, much like the planet of Gallifrey, is gone, but its little hedgehog - and the Doctor - remain.
In short, vote for Passing Through History. It's history in the now, the past as the future, and a botany lesson of sorts. It is a quiet day that ought to have happened, and it will leave you as contented as Rose is with her purchase. It entirely deserves your vote.
*
The Song of Yarru by Kalleah Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Doctor/Rose
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, OCs.
Rating: Adult
Details: Eight chapters and an epilogue, Explicit Sex - Action/Adventure, Drama, Het, Romance, Series
Why It Rocks:
One of the true joys of fan-fic is the fact that, unlike the writers for the real show, we're not constrained by available locations and makeup and budgets and a shooting schedule. We can use our imaginations to create things that we may or may not ever see on screen; we can give backstory and depth to even minor characters with relative ease. We can even create an entirely new world, new species, new culture, if we want to.
And this is one of the ways we separate the wheat from the chaff in fan-fics, because only the very best writers can world-build effectively enough to put us there into the world they've created. Only the most talented and skilled can make not only a few characters, but an entire planet, come alive for us.
Kalleah is one of them.
Yarru is a "city" on a heavily-forested planet whose dominant species is much closer to their primate ancestors than we are to ours-nearly human-sized and bipedal, but furred and with prehensile tails. It's built in the trees, created not so much by the work of their hands as by the work of their Tree Singers over the course of generation. Their current Singers are twins named Anahit and Aiku, who use their inborn (and extremely rare) abilities to Sing the trees into the shapes they want. In fact, they can Sing the world into whatever shape they want-their power is that great-but they do not, for their Gift is to work with the natural world, not against it. Rose watches them:
[Rose] swayed, like a snake in a basket, and saw with astonishment that the branch in Anahit's hand was doing the same. It traced upward, into the Singer's palm and along the underside of her wrist. It thickened and spread as she drew it upward and back, directing its growth. Leaves sprouted along the whole length of the branch. All around them, crotalistria flowers furled and unfurled, danced and waved, released shimmering pollen into the air.
The Doctor brings Rose to visit these gentle people, and the two of them are welcomed as guests. But there's more going on than meets the eye here. (Isn't there always?) For there are human scientists in orbit, observing the Yarruni from space (unbeknownst to them, of course); and while the scientists may be benign in their desire to watch and learn, the military men who come on their own mission are not. And when the Singer Aiku is kidnapped by these military men, the Doctor and Rose volunteer to help rescue her. The Doctor explains to her twin Anahit why Aiku was taken:
"Your song stimulates biological matter," he said without emotion. "You can prompt a single cell to divide or to expand. You can cause a brain to release a flood of hormones or neurotransmitters. You can coax a tree into doubling its growth rate and control the direction of that growth. That means you can overwhelm it, too. You could make the tree grow so much it couldn't sustain that growth. The brain could release the wrong neurotransmitter and stop a heart. You could make internal organs rupture."
She's been captured with the intent of turning her into a weapon. Not only has their world been put in danger-for if the humans get away with capturing one by stealth, they will not hesitate to invade en masse in the hope of capturing more-but the rest of the Galaxy is in danger as well: in danger from Aiku's gift in the hands of military men for whom winning-or control-is all.
While several of Kalleah's other chaptered fics-most notably The Calm Before the Storm and Voyages of Discovery-have focused on the relationship between the Doctor and Rose, this one is much more broadly character-driven. Their love relationship is an important part of this story (and is illustrated, most effectively, by an incredibly hot sex scene in chapter 4), but The Song of Yarru is primarily that of the Yarruni and their world. I have a crystal-clear image in my mind as to what Yarru, and the Yarruni, look like; what it's like to live there, what it's like to visit there.
And this is where my geekiness shows: I adore stories where the author puts a lot of work into his/her world-building, because suddenly, it's not just a fan-fic any more. It's a story unto its own. It's the ability to write your own creations as well as play in the BBC's sandbox, and to blend them together effectively, and it takes immense amounts of talent and work. There are many out there who have created their own worlds this believably. Kalleah is among the best.
In short, vote for The Song of Yarru. It has an alien world, fascinating OCs, and prehensile tails. It's got adventure and danger and perhaps the hottest sex scene I've ever read. It's got bad guys and good guys, knowledge and wisdom; and at the end, love and courage overcome heartlessness and greed, just as it should be. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
Once Upon A Time by atraphoenix Link goes to Teaspoon
Categories: First Doctor, Ficlet
Fandom: Classic Who
Characters: Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright
Rating: All Ages
Details: Complete; 1200 words; Het; Romance; Standalone
Why It Rocks:
It shows the deep effects that Ian Chesterton's childhood love of fairy tales has on his life, despite him becoming a scientist, and how they affect his idea of love and romance.
Ian Chesterton is a science teacher at Coal Hill School where he works with Barbara Wright, a history teacher. The two of them become the Doctor's first ever human companions, travelling with the Time Lord (who is then in his first incarnation) and Susan, his granddaughter (whom they both taught at Coal Hill School).
Ian provides the TV series with an action-oriented figure, someone who's able to perform the physical tasks that the elderly Doctor could not. His greatest concern, however, is usually for the safety of the TARDIS crew, and in the early stories he often takes issue with the Doctor for his habit of placing the group in harm's way merely to satisfy his own curiosity about the places they visit.
Barbara Wright is a strong-willed woman who provides a maternal figure to Susan, and is often the only person who's able to stand up to the First Doctor when he becomes particularly cantankerous (which that incarnation was prone to do, as the Tenth Doctor reminds us in Time Crash: 'Back when I first started at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you're young'). In the serial The Aztecs Barbara was hailed as the reincarnation of the ancient high priestess Yetaxa by the Aztec civilization and, despite the Doctor's protests that she could not change history, she attempted (unsuccessfully, in the end) to turn the Aztecs away from their practice of human sacrifice.
The chemistry between Barbara and Ian is pretty evident, although the show didn't go in for the endless kissing of New Who, so the nature of their relationship is never made explicit in the TV stories. Ian is fiercely protective of Barbara, however, even going on a lone mission to rescue her from Saracens in The Crusade (during which story he was knighted by King Richard I of England as "Sir Ian of Jaffa").
'Once Upon a Time' takes the on-screen chemistry between Ian and Barbara and shows us how Ian's childhood love of fairy tales coloured his way of seeing not only this world, but the entire universe, and drew him to her:
Barbara wasn’t Rapunzel, trapped in her tower, or Little Red Riding Hood, skipping through the dark forest. She didn’t need rescuing, and he was no Prince Charming at any rate. It didn’t really matter. Everything worked wonderfully well when they were just being themselves.
[…]
Barbara Wright might have been a million miles away from the fairy princesses of Ian’s youth, but it didn’t matter, since they were a million miles away from Earth in any case. She was braver, and more beautiful, and more intelligent, than anyone he’d ever read about.
Ian was forced to reshape all of his views while travelling in the TARDIS, and this included his views on love.
He didn’t get to play the hero all the time. He managed it occasionally, of course, but Barbara and the Doctor took on the role just as often.
For Ian love is a natural force, like gravity - and he believes that there's no real way to avoid it, nor does he seek to - he just assumes he'll fall in love one day.
During his time aboard the TARDIS Ian realises that life isn't much like fairy tales, but it can be an adventure if you're hurtling through Time and Space in a bigger-on-the-inside blue wooden box. And then he and Barbara end up back home, admittedly two years after they left (which obviously causes comment, just as their sudden disappearance had done), and he realises he had never really considered what happened after the happy ending, but all of a sudden, he found himself living there. Which is a bit of a shock, but what's an even bigger shock is when he learns that Barbara has intervened to prevent a robber getting away from the Post Office.
Barbara had found it difficult to adjust back to an ordinary life. It was hard to carry on being an ordinary person - a teacher, of all things! - after saving the world, and playing the hero, so many times.
She seized the chance to relive that life, even for the brief of moments, without a second thought.
Unsurprisingly, Barbara's actions unnerve Ian and he goes to find her in the staff room, half wanting to remonstrate with her for worrying him:
"I just worry about you."
[…]
"There’s no need, Ian," she said, looking at him with the faintest trace of amusement in her eyes. "You know I've dealt with worse."
"That was different."
She cocked her head at him. "How was it different?"
Because it wasn’t here and now, on Earth, in our time. Because it was during our adventures with the Doctor, and, although it was very real, it seemed less so.
"Because I’m supposed to be the hero. I'm supposed to be the one who rides in one a white charger and saves the day…"
He stopped, his words fading away as soon as Barbara took his hand in hers.
Perfectly natural. Uncontrollable.
"You are."
With those two words and that gesture, Ian realises that even if he's not Prince Charming, and even if Barbara's not a damsel in distress, romance isn't dead and love is perfectly possible.
Vote for this fic because it's a clever interweaving of science and fairy tales to make a romance that's sweet, lovely and beautifully done.
*
Veritas Liberatus by dark_aegis / Gillian Taylor Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Dark/Angst
Fandom: New Who
Characters: Nine, Rose, Jack
Rating: Teen for swearing, violence
Details: Four chapters, set sometime during S1, vaguely OT3.
Why It Rocks:
The idea of the Ninth Doctor or Jack Harkness shirtless very rarely strikes fear into my heart, but Gillian has managed to do just that in the setup for her story Veritas Liberatus. When shackled together with many other captured alien males on a forced march across the desert, unable to speak to each other without getting whipped and with no idea where Rose has been taken, you know that this particular adventure is not going to be one filled with fluffy bunnies and lots of giggles. And it’s not. This entry into the dark/angst category is very firmly in the right place.
With their arrival at their destination, an enormous fortress, the Doctor and Jack are given one explanation. They are to fight in gladiatorial style games against each other. The winner will be given what to both of them is a very important prize: Rose Tyler. It is their first inkling that Rose is still alive, is still on the planet with them, and hasn’t fallen to a fate worse than theirs and been sold off world. There is no time for rejoicing, though, as Jack realizes that:
He’s surrounded by instruments of death. His death, if he lets it. Thing is, he can’t. If he just stays here, lets the Doctor ‘win’ and take Rose out of here, it won’t work. The announcer told him as much as he was led to this particular trap. If he doesn’t make it out of this place within a given amount of time - helpfully indicated by the chronometer projected on the other wall - everyone dies. Rose and the Doctor included.
Clever of them, actually. Prevents too much self-sacrificing. Same thing goes with just letting the other fighter win. It’s got to look good, keep their ratings - apparently - up. And then whoever wins - that is, kills their friend, because apparently these people are sadistic - gets the girl. But there’s a problem with that. They said the winner gets the girl, but what happens after that? He would prefer to presume the winner and the girl get set free, but given these people’s actions so far he doubts it.
Unable to speak to the other, each man decides that he will find a way to believably sacrifice himself rather than kill his friend, but it can’t be an obvious sacrifice. If they don’t truly fight each other the trio will still be put to death. First they each have to escape a challenge and are given only one tool each to do it with. The Doctor has his sonic screwdriver and uses it to knock out the vicious animals he is up against. Jack has his Vortex manipulator and is simply able to teleport out of his spike-filled, shrinking pit.
Once able to face each other they are able to communicate and the Doctor makes it clear that Jack is the one who must appear to survive, for the Doctor can easily fake his own death…or come back from it if necessary. Rose, who has been watching on a monitor, is horrified when her beloved Doctor is felled at the hands of her other best friend. It means, of course, that Jack and Rose are safe for the moment, but as the reason for the whole set-up of events becomes clear, they are positive that they will not stay that way.
Rose’s overwhelming loss of the Doctor leaps off the page as does her anger at Jack, who she blames for the Doctor’s death, even though rationally she knows he had no choice.
She still can’t speak. It hurts too damned much to even think about speaking right now. Because if she speaks, if she does anything, she’s going to break. Shatter into a thousand pieces right here, probably on the televisions of this entire planet, and damn the consequences. She won’t be able to put herself together again. The only one who can is gone. Forever.
Jack cannot tell her that there is even a chance the Doctor is alive or their captors will know. With no easy means of escape and, with the revelation that the bodies of the losers are immediately burned, no hope of rescue, Jack must push Rose through her grief and get her to help him foment a rebellion amongst the other winning gladiators and their women, but that’s easier said than done and the outcome is never obvious or assured, because the lightness and strong sense of hope in most of Gillian’s fics is totally subsumed by angst here. The reader is left on a knife-edge of uncertainty as to whether or not any of the trio will survive the story.
Is the Doctor really dead? Will Rose and Jack somehow manage to escape? Can anything be done to put a stop to this awful sport and this planet’s exploitation and murder of the tourists who land there? I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to read the story to find out but I can promise you it is well worth the read and it is also well worth your vote.
*
Today's Reviews were written by:
unfolded73: Return to Gallifrey
azriona: Your Mission, Should You....; Passing Through History
aibhinn: The Song of Yarru
persiflage_1: Once Upon a Time
amberfocus: Veritas Liberatus