Round Two Reviews - Part Fourteen
Today's Featured Stories Include:
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Not Part of a Time Lord's Vocabulary by ZiggyChaos Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Fluff
Characters: Donna, Ten
Rating: All Ages
Details: One-shot, set sometime during S4.
Why It Rocks:
It is a fact which is universally acknowledged that a Time Lord in posession of a TARDIS must be in search of...well, nothing really. Because, you see, if you are one to believe the Doctor, Time Lords don't get lost.
(This, incidentally, is much funnier when it's coming on the heels of reading Sanctuary, which is all about being lost on a much angstier level.)
Donna does not believe the Doctor. About just about anything not important, anyway. Oh, perhaps Latin sounds like Gaelic when processessed through the translation circuits, and perhaps the Ood continue to sing, even if Donna can't hear them, and perhaps Rose is lost in another world, never to be seen again....but Time Lords never, ever, getting lost, even in their own spaceship?
Now he did look at her. All innocence. "Time Lords never get lost."
Donna stared at him indignantly. "Don’t believe that! Not for an instant!"
Of course, it's probably true that Time Lords don't get lost. It's also probably true that Time Lords don't readily admit that they've landed where they didn't exactly want to go. (For one exception, see Doctor, Ninth, in Jackie Tyler and the Case of the Oncoming Slap.) Even if they wind up...taking a detour, they still always land where they need to be - even if it's not exactly where they want to be.
However. No one likes a Time Lord with an overly inflated sense of direction. Not even, it seems, the ship.
"I was just a minute," the Doctor insisted. "I just got-- well, the TARDIS did a little rearranging and I got-- well, what I mean is--" The Gallifreyan’s ears tinged pink as he rubbed the back of his neck. His gaze met everything in the room, but the redhead’s eyes.
The exasperated look on Donna’s face turned into full-fledged glee.
What's particularly funny about this is that the Doctor is telling the truth. He doesn't have to do it. Donna would be more than willing to accept an excuse of distraction, to hear that he was enveloped in a massive problem, or perhaps was tangled in some wiring. But the Doctor doesn't resort to that. He's honest. Well...as honest as he can be.
"I did not get lost! I just--" he paused, saw the expectant look on his friend’s face, then added, "--took the scenic route!"
He knows he's going to be thoroughly skewered by Donna. In fact, he almost expects it. You have the feeling, for all the protesting he does, that if Donna had merely let him being lost slide by, he'd almost be disappointed.
But that's what siblings do, you know. They torment each other mercilessly, because they can. Because it's fun. And because that's what siblings are for.
And yay for that.
In short, vote for Not Part of a Time Lord's Vocabulary. It's sweet and short and funny. It's got a mishcheivous TARDIS, a gloating Donna, and a cold cup of tea. It's a snapshot of siblings hard at work, and it absolutely deserves your vote.
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All the King's Horses by lindenharp (RobinC on Teaspoon) Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Ten/Donna
Characters: Donna, Ten, others
Rating: PG
Details: Thirteen chapters, finished, set sometime between Planet of the Ood and Sontaran Stratagem.
Why It Rocks:
There's something bittersweet and ironic about the relationship the Doctor and Donna forge. We have two people, a bit older, who haven't quite found their places in the world. The Doctor never really fit in on Gallifrey; he never stayed in one place very long.
But Donna never stays long, either - that's the whole idea of being a temp, see. You work somewhere for a few weeks, maybe a few months, and then you go. You swoop in, file the paperwork, answer the phones, save the office or world from destruction, and you're gone before you've really had a chance to settle in.
It makes the ending of JE all the more unsatisfying - the Doctor, who has found in Donna his sister-of-a-sort, has to leave her behind. It's just another thing for him to lose. In a way, it should be a comfort that only one of them will realize what they're missing, because Donna won't remember.
And herein lies the beauty of Robin's tale: this is a story about memory. The Doctor and Donna land on a planet where the alien threat is one that destroys memory: its victims forget anything they ever knew, anyone they ever loved, anyplace they've ever been. Everything that makes them them is destroyed, leaving a husk where a person used to stand.
It should be noted that the story is told with no trace of irony - no hint of what is to come for Donna. (The first chapter was posted a few weeks before JE; it was concluded in December.) And really, for the story, memory is only the vehicle by which the enemy alien destroys. Had it been written and posted entirely before JE, we would have read it and loved it and thought it a ripping good yarn.
But JE changes everything, where memory is concerned. And it's hard to read about the Doctor and Donna fighting to save the memories of an entire planetary system, without in the back of our minds, knowing full-well that what the Doctor is trying to stop now, he will willingly perform on his companion in just a few short months.
Perhaps that's what makes the story so poignant - because there is no reference, no infering, no quiet moment where the Doctor turns to Donna and says, "Your memory is too precious, I will not let you chance losing it." I can well imagine Robin, having seen the end of JE, scream in fury at the television, seeing her own story resonated in the final moments.
And I can only imagine what she must have thought after, trying to decide what to do. Forshadowing? Incorporating? Make some kind of bold choice, something that will allow a fix-it....
Robin did none of these things. She stayed resolutely on course, and wrote what is absolutely, truly, a beautiful friendship story between the Doctor and Donna, working together with no knowledge, no inkling of how this enemy will turn on them.
This is a story about memory. Not just Donna's. Not just the people of the planet in danger. It's a story about the Doctor's memories - specific memories, and how he manages to work through the pain they cause him.
In Pompeii, Donna saw people who were literally turning to stone. The Doctor is now doing a fair imitation of that transformation. All of a sudden she hates this situation, hates this world, hates the Paalgi - not because they’re a bunch of stuck-up gits, but because they’ve put That Look back into the Doctor’s eyes. The look that says he’s remembering the world that he lost and the war he never talks about.
Donna knows the Doctor better than most companions - probably better than Rose. Rose wasn't old enough, really, to understand loss. At least, she wasn't when she first began traveling with the Doctor. But Donna gets it. She's lived half her life-span, she's never had a place to settle, she still lives with her mum and her grandfather. And then, of course, there's Lance. Rose might have been the Doctor's one true love - but Donna's his contemporary, in all the other ways that count.
So Donna knows him, knows when he's being ridiculous and when he's serious, when he's hurting to be alone and hurting to be companionable. Rose might have been able to guess, Martha might have had an idea, but Donna knows.
I help him blow things up. I make him stop. I nag him to eat. Sometimes I think I keep him sane - well, as sane as an alien nutter can be. Donna smiles serenely. “I listen to him, and I tell him when to shut up. It’s a full-time job.”
This is a story about memory.
But it's also about the Doctor and Donna, just being themselves.
The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if in pain. “Thirty-one centuries of literature and history, and all you can think about is three hours of your incredibly brief life wasted in a cinema.”
“Three hours with Brad Pitt is never wasted, beanpole.”
In short, vote for All the King's Horses. It's got an ancient civilation, fairy tales, and a Tesco bag of utmost importance. It's not the least bit ironic or dark, and it's got the loveliest descriptions of loss of memory you'll read in years. It's a beautiful peice of work that is, thankfully, completely untouched by canon, and it's a story you'll want to remember for a good long time to come. It absolutely deserves your vote.
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Then We'll Go Dancing by momdaegmorgan
Category: Ficlet
Characters: Nine, Rose
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, set sometime during S1, to be read with this song (which you can also listen to as you read this review).
Why it Rocks:
One of the great things about fanfiction is how creative it can be. It's not just sitting and reading a story - it can be something of an experience.
Momdaegmorgan's fic is an excellent example of that. There's something very powerful about music, and in her fic, Momdaegmorgan harnesses that power to her advantage, to tie together a song, a story, and a scene so intimately that it's hard view any of the three independently again.
The scene is Nine and Rose, in the quiet aftermath of having yet again saved another planet from destruction. It's a familiar scene, both for them and for us.
The sound of approaching footsteps catches her attention, but she doesn't turn around. Doesn't need to. She knows who it is, can smell the scent of the universe on him from miles away. He pauses beside her, slips his hand into hers, and they stand there together in companionable silence, watching as day slowly fades into night.
The story, however, runs deeper than that. They've done this before, looking out onto the world, before heading back home. It's one of those first images we have for Nine and Rose, standing on Platform One, looking onto the burning Earth. This is familiar ground.
What isn't familiar, however - what makes this different not just for them but for us as well, is what happened before. We don't see it - but we see how it has affected Rose. Somehow, Rose seems tired - unable to speak, unable to voice her feelings. Even the Doctor, who normally doesn't bother to ask how she's doing, is somehow drawn to her, asking how she is.
Just a few short hours ago the valley was filled with chaos, death, and destruction. Now, a blanket of quiet covers the land and it's these times, the times in between, that give her heartbeat pause and cause her breath to catch in her throat.
It's shock, thinly veiled. The world could be racing around Rose and the Doctor, but she won't notice it - not because she in enveloped in the Doctor's embrace, but because she has drawn into herself, trying to re-establish center.
And here we come to the third part of the story: the song. If you're going to read this story, you must must must ensure that the song plays as you read. The song in question is "After the Bombs" by the Decemberists. Not a band I've heard of before (but I am admittedly awful about bands), nor a song I was familiar with (again, awful), but it's one that I don't think I'll hear again without thinking of this fic. What ties the song to Nine and Rose isn't so much the lyrics - although those resonate as well - but the music itself: quiet, careful, thoughtful, sad.
we grip at our hands
we hold just a little tight
after the bombs
after the bombs
subside
It's the morning after, and Rose and the Doctor are alive, almost unbelieving of that fact. And somewhere in the distance, the village that was nearly destroyed celebrates. Rose can hear the music, as she stands with the Doctor, and they slowly begin to sway together. It's not dancing, not exactly - but it's movement that slowly brings Rose out of herself, and into the world again.
we forget all our trials
while there
in our baby's arms
after the rockets
after the rockets
calm
Rose still doesn't speak. In fact, she doesn't say a word in the entire fic. But she doesn't need to - the Doctor understands her without hearing her voice. Perhaps he was just as affected as she was. Perhaps that's why he sought her out, to stand alone with her on the hilltop overlooking the valley.
No matter how much she travels with the Doctor, no matter how much she sees, she thinks she'll never really understand the universe. Not like he does.
“It's a celebration of life, Rose,” his voice rumbles through her body. “They're alive 'n that's all that matters.”
then we'll go dancing
yes we'll go dancing
won't we'll go dancing
'till it all
starts over again
In short, vote for Then We'll Go Dancing. It's a beautiful combination of words and music. It will paint a picture for you so sweet that you'll loose your breath and forget where you are. It's a gorgeous, emotional take on a quiet moment, and it doesn't waste a single note or word. It absolutely deserves your vote.
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Five Things That Never Happened to the Master by trollopfop Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: The Master
Characters: The Master (various versions), the Doctor (various versions)
Rating: Teenish.
Details: One shot broken into five very short sections, fairly dark, some slash but nothing explicit.
Why it Rocks:
Season Three, for the Doctor, was an exceptionally difficult season. It was really the season he had to grow up. He started off the season still in pain from losing Rose - and he ended the season in pain from losing the Master.
But, I hear you say, this fic isn't about the Doctor - it's about the Master, and things that didn't happen to him. Except, in a way, it is - and they did. That's the odd thing about this fic - reading it, you can almost believe these things might have happened to the Master. You almost wish they had, really.
In a way, the Master almost wishes they did too - after all, the five things that didn't happen to him are all, on some level, things he would have liked to occur. And we're almost tricked, at the beginning, into thing that what we see did in fact happen, but what the Master intends to do was foiled at the last moment.
He's too late. The Doctor's last regeneration created a poet, a scholar, someone entirely unsuited for the atrocities of war, and for it to come to this... I've come to kill a man who's already dead, he thinks.
It's only when it's over that we realize that it couldn't have happened that way. As perfectly poetic as the Master helping the Doctor to destory Gallifrey - and killing him as he did - would be, we know it didn't happen because even then, the Master was already on Malcassairo, at the end of the world. It didn't happen that way, it couldn't have happened that way. We know this.
And yet...it read so real. It might have. And in a way, the Master might have wished it to happen exactly like this, if it had happened at all.
The ways go on - five of them, just as the title says. Each of them almost the same. The Master, and the Doctor, and five situations they might have found themselves in. Five times the Master took the Doctor someplace the Doctor did not want to go - and every time, the Master finds himself in a place he didn't expect either. It's as he kills the Doctor during the destruction of Gallifrey that the Master feels it:
...he can hear the final shriek of a world as it's consumed by the forces that made it mighty, he can see the destruction on every screen in the TARDIS, but the Doctor... The Doctor's been spared this.
It's something the Master didn't expect - mercy. And yet, by killing the Doctor in the moment of Gallifrey's destruction, sparing him the horror of hearing the world end, he's shown exactly that.
It continues, with every story that Trollopfop shows us: in each instance, the Master does something he has possibly always wanted to do: kill the Doctor, drive him mad, sleep with him, win the day. And every time, the Master is left with a feeling he didn't expect: mercy, regret, silence, loneliness.
These things didn't happen to the Master - he never felt those feelings. But oh - how they could have.
It's the final story that perhaps hits closest to home for the Master: the final thing he might have wanted to happen. The final reaction he didn't expect:
Susan comes with them, bright-eyed and curious, and he is "Uncle" where the Doctor is "Grandfather", and he finds he minds this not at all....He is happy. He can't imagine being anything else.
Every single time, the Master dreams the things that didn't happen. Every time, it's he and the Doctor, and every single time, the Master still loses - because while it might be the Master who has driven the Doctor to death, to madness, to the bedroom: it's not the Master who meets him there.
When the Master wakes, the drums are pounding through his head, and the sheets are soaked with sweat.
"That never happened!" he screams into the darkness.
No, it didn't. But it could have. It might have. And perhaps, even...it should have.
Vote for Five Things That Never Happened to the Master. It's a twisty dark little tale of might-have-beens and what-ifs. It bears reading and reading and reading again (particuarly if you're coming of a glut of fluff). It's five distinct stories, with five distinct rhythms, that are enough to keep the Master awake for ages. And anything that powerful, definitely deserves your vote.
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Ten Seconds by witchofthedesk Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Mickey Smith
Characters: Mickey, Jackie
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, takes place immediately after World War III.
Why It Rocks:
You kind of have to love a fic that was written based on a prompt of "Mickey/Jackie/Slitheen". You'd expect crack, with a prompt like that. (And somewhere, I'm sure it exists.)
This is not that fic, though. (And may I say a hearty Thank God for that.) In the immediate aftermath of Rose leaving with the Doctor, following the destruction of Parliament by Slitheen, Mickey waits, as instructed, for ten seconds and Rose's return.
If she returned - when she did, he corrected fiercely - how long would it have been for her anyway? What if he was a doddering old man when she next appeared, while she was fresh-faced and breathless and not understanding what she'd put him through. Or she could rematerialise this instant, a lifetime of travelling the universe under her belt, with him not even having moved from the spot.
It's hard to be the one left behind. We saw a little of it, from Jackie's point of view, in Love and Monsters. And even then, she was used to it. Here, however, the wounds are still fresh. The scar is still brand-new. The only change between what Mickey and Jackie are dealing with now as opposed to Rose's first disappearance are that now, they know where she's gone, even if they don't know when she'll return. It's obvious to them both that promises of "ten seconds" are a lie.
Perhaps it was obvious, even as Rose said it, that it was a lie. After all, if Rose could return in ten seconds flat - why did it take her a year to come back in the first place?
Ten seconds. Ten weeks. Ten years. Tomorrow. Never.
Mickey and Jackie don't blame Rose, that's the thing. No - it's very obvious where they place the blame.
"All charm and big ideas; promising you the world on a stick,” she said bitterly, “Then one day you’re on your own with a baby to feed and rent to pay and...”
“Aw, Jacks, don’t...”
She sniffed, straightened herself. “And bits of congealed alien hanging off of the ceiling.” She shook her head. “This stuff is bloody murder to get off.”
Ten seconds doesn't sound like a lot, I know. But sit for a moment, and wait. Count it out. Watch it on the clock. Ten seconds is practically a lifetime. So much can happen in ten seconds - you can't spend it waiting, because then it becomes twenty. Twenty becomes thirty. Thirty becomes sixty.
Mickey can't wait for Rose forever. And neither can Jackie. Ten seconds have gone by - and she's still out there.
...missing someone didn’t mean you had to stop living your own life.
In short, vote for Ten Seconds. It has vinegar and cleaning spurts and rolled-up newspaper as defense strategies. It's a sweet look at a realization learned in ten seconds, and though it'll take you a bit longer than ten seconds to read it, it won't take you ten seconds to realize that it absolutely deserves your vote.
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Today's reviews were written by azriona.
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Not Part of a Time Lord's Vocabulary by ZiggyChaos Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Fluff
Characters: Donna, Ten
Rating: All Ages
Details: One-shot, set sometime during S4.
Why It Rocks:
It is a fact which is universally acknowledged that a Time Lord in posession of a TARDIS must be in search of...well, nothing really. Because, you see, if you are one to believe the Doctor, Time Lords don't get lost.
(This, incidentally, is much funnier when it's coming on the heels of reading Sanctuary, which is all about being lost on a much angstier level.)
Donna does not believe the Doctor. About just about anything not important, anyway. Oh, perhaps Latin sounds like Gaelic when processessed through the translation circuits, and perhaps the Ood continue to sing, even if Donna can't hear them, and perhaps Rose is lost in another world, never to be seen again....but Time Lords never, ever, getting lost, even in their own spaceship?
Now he did look at her. All innocence. "Time Lords never get lost."
Donna stared at him indignantly. "Don’t believe that! Not for an instant!"
Of course, it's probably true that Time Lords don't get lost. It's also probably true that Time Lords don't readily admit that they've landed where they didn't exactly want to go. (For one exception, see Doctor, Ninth, in Jackie Tyler and the Case of the Oncoming Slap.) Even if they wind up...taking a detour, they still always land where they need to be - even if it's not exactly where they want to be.
However. No one likes a Time Lord with an overly inflated sense of direction. Not even, it seems, the ship.
"I was just a minute," the Doctor insisted. "I just got-- well, the TARDIS did a little rearranging and I got-- well, what I mean is--" The Gallifreyan’s ears tinged pink as he rubbed the back of his neck. His gaze met everything in the room, but the redhead’s eyes.
The exasperated look on Donna’s face turned into full-fledged glee.
What's particularly funny about this is that the Doctor is telling the truth. He doesn't have to do it. Donna would be more than willing to accept an excuse of distraction, to hear that he was enveloped in a massive problem, or perhaps was tangled in some wiring. But the Doctor doesn't resort to that. He's honest. Well...as honest as he can be.
"I did not get lost! I just--" he paused, saw the expectant look on his friend’s face, then added, "--took the scenic route!"
He knows he's going to be thoroughly skewered by Donna. In fact, he almost expects it. You have the feeling, for all the protesting he does, that if Donna had merely let him being lost slide by, he'd almost be disappointed.
But that's what siblings do, you know. They torment each other mercilessly, because they can. Because it's fun. And because that's what siblings are for.
And yay for that.
In short, vote for Not Part of a Time Lord's Vocabulary. It's sweet and short and funny. It's got a mishcheivous TARDIS, a gloating Donna, and a cold cup of tea. It's a snapshot of siblings hard at work, and it absolutely deserves your vote.
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All the King's Horses by lindenharp (RobinC on Teaspoon) Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Ten/Donna
Characters: Donna, Ten, others
Rating: PG
Details: Thirteen chapters, finished, set sometime between Planet of the Ood and Sontaran Stratagem.
Why It Rocks:
There's something bittersweet and ironic about the relationship the Doctor and Donna forge. We have two people, a bit older, who haven't quite found their places in the world. The Doctor never really fit in on Gallifrey; he never stayed in one place very long.
But Donna never stays long, either - that's the whole idea of being a temp, see. You work somewhere for a few weeks, maybe a few months, and then you go. You swoop in, file the paperwork, answer the phones, save the office or world from destruction, and you're gone before you've really had a chance to settle in.
It makes the ending of JE all the more unsatisfying - the Doctor, who has found in Donna his sister-of-a-sort, has to leave her behind. It's just another thing for him to lose. In a way, it should be a comfort that only one of them will realize what they're missing, because Donna won't remember.
And herein lies the beauty of Robin's tale: this is a story about memory. The Doctor and Donna land on a planet where the alien threat is one that destroys memory: its victims forget anything they ever knew, anyone they ever loved, anyplace they've ever been. Everything that makes them them is destroyed, leaving a husk where a person used to stand.
It should be noted that the story is told with no trace of irony - no hint of what is to come for Donna. (The first chapter was posted a few weeks before JE; it was concluded in December.) And really, for the story, memory is only the vehicle by which the enemy alien destroys. Had it been written and posted entirely before JE, we would have read it and loved it and thought it a ripping good yarn.
But JE changes everything, where memory is concerned. And it's hard to read about the Doctor and Donna fighting to save the memories of an entire planetary system, without in the back of our minds, knowing full-well that what the Doctor is trying to stop now, he will willingly perform on his companion in just a few short months.
Perhaps that's what makes the story so poignant - because there is no reference, no infering, no quiet moment where the Doctor turns to Donna and says, "Your memory is too precious, I will not let you chance losing it." I can well imagine Robin, having seen the end of JE, scream in fury at the television, seeing her own story resonated in the final moments.
And I can only imagine what she must have thought after, trying to decide what to do. Forshadowing? Incorporating? Make some kind of bold choice, something that will allow a fix-it....
Robin did none of these things. She stayed resolutely on course, and wrote what is absolutely, truly, a beautiful friendship story between the Doctor and Donna, working together with no knowledge, no inkling of how this enemy will turn on them.
This is a story about memory. Not just Donna's. Not just the people of the planet in danger. It's a story about the Doctor's memories - specific memories, and how he manages to work through the pain they cause him.
In Pompeii, Donna saw people who were literally turning to stone. The Doctor is now doing a fair imitation of that transformation. All of a sudden she hates this situation, hates this world, hates the Paalgi - not because they’re a bunch of stuck-up gits, but because they’ve put That Look back into the Doctor’s eyes. The look that says he’s remembering the world that he lost and the war he never talks about.
Donna knows the Doctor better than most companions - probably better than Rose. Rose wasn't old enough, really, to understand loss. At least, she wasn't when she first began traveling with the Doctor. But Donna gets it. She's lived half her life-span, she's never had a place to settle, she still lives with her mum and her grandfather. And then, of course, there's Lance. Rose might have been the Doctor's one true love - but Donna's his contemporary, in all the other ways that count.
So Donna knows him, knows when he's being ridiculous and when he's serious, when he's hurting to be alone and hurting to be companionable. Rose might have been able to guess, Martha might have had an idea, but Donna knows.
I help him blow things up. I make him stop. I nag him to eat. Sometimes I think I keep him sane - well, as sane as an alien nutter can be. Donna smiles serenely. “I listen to him, and I tell him when to shut up. It’s a full-time job.”
This is a story about memory.
But it's also about the Doctor and Donna, just being themselves.
The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if in pain. “Thirty-one centuries of literature and history, and all you can think about is three hours of your incredibly brief life wasted in a cinema.”
“Three hours with Brad Pitt is never wasted, beanpole.”
In short, vote for All the King's Horses. It's got an ancient civilation, fairy tales, and a Tesco bag of utmost importance. It's not the least bit ironic or dark, and it's got the loveliest descriptions of loss of memory you'll read in years. It's a beautiful peice of work that is, thankfully, completely untouched by canon, and it's a story you'll want to remember for a good long time to come. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
Then We'll Go Dancing by momdaegmorgan
Category: Ficlet
Characters: Nine, Rose
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, set sometime during S1, to be read with this song (which you can also listen to as you read this review).
Why it Rocks:
One of the great things about fanfiction is how creative it can be. It's not just sitting and reading a story - it can be something of an experience.
Momdaegmorgan's fic is an excellent example of that. There's something very powerful about music, and in her fic, Momdaegmorgan harnesses that power to her advantage, to tie together a song, a story, and a scene so intimately that it's hard view any of the three independently again.
The scene is Nine and Rose, in the quiet aftermath of having yet again saved another planet from destruction. It's a familiar scene, both for them and for us.
The sound of approaching footsteps catches her attention, but she doesn't turn around. Doesn't need to. She knows who it is, can smell the scent of the universe on him from miles away. He pauses beside her, slips his hand into hers, and they stand there together in companionable silence, watching as day slowly fades into night.
The story, however, runs deeper than that. They've done this before, looking out onto the world, before heading back home. It's one of those first images we have for Nine and Rose, standing on Platform One, looking onto the burning Earth. This is familiar ground.
What isn't familiar, however - what makes this different not just for them but for us as well, is what happened before. We don't see it - but we see how it has affected Rose. Somehow, Rose seems tired - unable to speak, unable to voice her feelings. Even the Doctor, who normally doesn't bother to ask how she's doing, is somehow drawn to her, asking how she is.
Just a few short hours ago the valley was filled with chaos, death, and destruction. Now, a blanket of quiet covers the land and it's these times, the times in between, that give her heartbeat pause and cause her breath to catch in her throat.
It's shock, thinly veiled. The world could be racing around Rose and the Doctor, but she won't notice it - not because she in enveloped in the Doctor's embrace, but because she has drawn into herself, trying to re-establish center.
And here we come to the third part of the story: the song. If you're going to read this story, you must must must ensure that the song plays as you read. The song in question is "After the Bombs" by the Decemberists. Not a band I've heard of before (but I am admittedly awful about bands), nor a song I was familiar with (again, awful), but it's one that I don't think I'll hear again without thinking of this fic. What ties the song to Nine and Rose isn't so much the lyrics - although those resonate as well - but the music itself: quiet, careful, thoughtful, sad.
we grip at our hands
we hold just a little tight
after the bombs
after the bombs
subside
It's the morning after, and Rose and the Doctor are alive, almost unbelieving of that fact. And somewhere in the distance, the village that was nearly destroyed celebrates. Rose can hear the music, as she stands with the Doctor, and they slowly begin to sway together. It's not dancing, not exactly - but it's movement that slowly brings Rose out of herself, and into the world again.
we forget all our trials
while there
in our baby's arms
after the rockets
after the rockets
calm
Rose still doesn't speak. In fact, she doesn't say a word in the entire fic. But she doesn't need to - the Doctor understands her without hearing her voice. Perhaps he was just as affected as she was. Perhaps that's why he sought her out, to stand alone with her on the hilltop overlooking the valley.
No matter how much she travels with the Doctor, no matter how much she sees, she thinks she'll never really understand the universe. Not like he does.
“It's a celebration of life, Rose,” his voice rumbles through her body. “They're alive 'n that's all that matters.”
then we'll go dancing
yes we'll go dancing
won't we'll go dancing
'till it all
starts over again
In short, vote for Then We'll Go Dancing. It's a beautiful combination of words and music. It will paint a picture for you so sweet that you'll loose your breath and forget where you are. It's a gorgeous, emotional take on a quiet moment, and it doesn't waste a single note or word. It absolutely deserves your vote.
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Five Things That Never Happened to the Master by trollopfop Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: The Master
Characters: The Master (various versions), the Doctor (various versions)
Rating: Teenish.
Details: One shot broken into five very short sections, fairly dark, some slash but nothing explicit.
Why it Rocks:
Season Three, for the Doctor, was an exceptionally difficult season. It was really the season he had to grow up. He started off the season still in pain from losing Rose - and he ended the season in pain from losing the Master.
But, I hear you say, this fic isn't about the Doctor - it's about the Master, and things that didn't happen to him. Except, in a way, it is - and they did. That's the odd thing about this fic - reading it, you can almost believe these things might have happened to the Master. You almost wish they had, really.
In a way, the Master almost wishes they did too - after all, the five things that didn't happen to him are all, on some level, things he would have liked to occur. And we're almost tricked, at the beginning, into thing that what we see did in fact happen, but what the Master intends to do was foiled at the last moment.
He's too late. The Doctor's last regeneration created a poet, a scholar, someone entirely unsuited for the atrocities of war, and for it to come to this... I've come to kill a man who's already dead, he thinks.
It's only when it's over that we realize that it couldn't have happened that way. As perfectly poetic as the Master helping the Doctor to destory Gallifrey - and killing him as he did - would be, we know it didn't happen because even then, the Master was already on Malcassairo, at the end of the world. It didn't happen that way, it couldn't have happened that way. We know this.
And yet...it read so real. It might have. And in a way, the Master might have wished it to happen exactly like this, if it had happened at all.
The ways go on - five of them, just as the title says. Each of them almost the same. The Master, and the Doctor, and five situations they might have found themselves in. Five times the Master took the Doctor someplace the Doctor did not want to go - and every time, the Master finds himself in a place he didn't expect either. It's as he kills the Doctor during the destruction of Gallifrey that the Master feels it:
...he can hear the final shriek of a world as it's consumed by the forces that made it mighty, he can see the destruction on every screen in the TARDIS, but the Doctor... The Doctor's been spared this.
It's something the Master didn't expect - mercy. And yet, by killing the Doctor in the moment of Gallifrey's destruction, sparing him the horror of hearing the world end, he's shown exactly that.
It continues, with every story that Trollopfop shows us: in each instance, the Master does something he has possibly always wanted to do: kill the Doctor, drive him mad, sleep with him, win the day. And every time, the Master is left with a feeling he didn't expect: mercy, regret, silence, loneliness.
These things didn't happen to the Master - he never felt those feelings. But oh - how they could have.
It's the final story that perhaps hits closest to home for the Master: the final thing he might have wanted to happen. The final reaction he didn't expect:
Susan comes with them, bright-eyed and curious, and he is "Uncle" where the Doctor is "Grandfather", and he finds he minds this not at all....He is happy. He can't imagine being anything else.
Every single time, the Master dreams the things that didn't happen. Every time, it's he and the Doctor, and every single time, the Master still loses - because while it might be the Master who has driven the Doctor to death, to madness, to the bedroom: it's not the Master who meets him there.
When the Master wakes, the drums are pounding through his head, and the sheets are soaked with sweat.
"That never happened!" he screams into the darkness.
No, it didn't. But it could have. It might have. And perhaps, even...it should have.
Vote for Five Things That Never Happened to the Master. It's a twisty dark little tale of might-have-beens and what-ifs. It bears reading and reading and reading again (particuarly if you're coming of a glut of fluff). It's five distinct stories, with five distinct rhythms, that are enough to keep the Master awake for ages. And anything that powerful, definitely deserves your vote.
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Ten Seconds by witchofthedesk Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Mickey Smith
Characters: Mickey, Jackie
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, takes place immediately after World War III.
Why It Rocks:
You kind of have to love a fic that was written based on a prompt of "Mickey/Jackie/Slitheen". You'd expect crack, with a prompt like that. (And somewhere, I'm sure it exists.)
This is not that fic, though. (And may I say a hearty Thank God for that.) In the immediate aftermath of Rose leaving with the Doctor, following the destruction of Parliament by Slitheen, Mickey waits, as instructed, for ten seconds and Rose's return.
If she returned - when she did, he corrected fiercely - how long would it have been for her anyway? What if he was a doddering old man when she next appeared, while she was fresh-faced and breathless and not understanding what she'd put him through. Or she could rematerialise this instant, a lifetime of travelling the universe under her belt, with him not even having moved from the spot.
It's hard to be the one left behind. We saw a little of it, from Jackie's point of view, in Love and Monsters. And even then, she was used to it. Here, however, the wounds are still fresh. The scar is still brand-new. The only change between what Mickey and Jackie are dealing with now as opposed to Rose's first disappearance are that now, they know where she's gone, even if they don't know when she'll return. It's obvious to them both that promises of "ten seconds" are a lie.
Perhaps it was obvious, even as Rose said it, that it was a lie. After all, if Rose could return in ten seconds flat - why did it take her a year to come back in the first place?
Ten seconds. Ten weeks. Ten years. Tomorrow. Never.
Mickey and Jackie don't blame Rose, that's the thing. No - it's very obvious where they place the blame.
"All charm and big ideas; promising you the world on a stick,” she said bitterly, “Then one day you’re on your own with a baby to feed and rent to pay and...”
“Aw, Jacks, don’t...”
She sniffed, straightened herself. “And bits of congealed alien hanging off of the ceiling.” She shook her head. “This stuff is bloody murder to get off.”
Ten seconds doesn't sound like a lot, I know. But sit for a moment, and wait. Count it out. Watch it on the clock. Ten seconds is practically a lifetime. So much can happen in ten seconds - you can't spend it waiting, because then it becomes twenty. Twenty becomes thirty. Thirty becomes sixty.
Mickey can't wait for Rose forever. And neither can Jackie. Ten seconds have gone by - and she's still out there.
...missing someone didn’t mean you had to stop living your own life.
In short, vote for Ten Seconds. It has vinegar and cleaning spurts and rolled-up newspaper as defense strategies. It's a sweet look at a realization learned in ten seconds, and though it'll take you a bit longer than ten seconds to read it, it won't take you ten seconds to realize that it absolutely deserves your vote.
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Today's reviews were written by azriona.