Review
Oh, wow!
I got another review! For " Dangerous Games" again, but this time by cot_reviews, given that this fic is nominated at the Children of Time Awards.
You know how in my previous post, I felt the reviewer had missed the point of the plot, and that is why I put forward my own response?
No need here. This reviewer read my fic properly, thought about it and most importantly, they actually get it. Hoorah!
Category: Dark; Jack Harkness
Characters: Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor, the Master
Rating: R
Details: Single-part fic, with bondage, torture, voyeurism and possibly dubious consent.
Why It Rocks:
Okay, disclaimer: I don’t normally read BDSM or anything with sex where there’s less than full consent. I’m not knocking it; it’s just not my thing. But this... well, there’s dubious consent and there’s secretly wanting it but having to pretend you don’t because of who's watching. And that, essentially, is what this story is about. On the surface, anyway. It gets a lot deeper than that, and that is why it rocks.
Televised episodes glossed over the Year that Never Was, not surprisingly. The set-up was nothing short of horrific, and if we’d been shown on-screen the full horror of life on the Valiant the episode would have had to be shown at well past the watershed. That, of course, is what fic is for: to fill in those blanks, to show us what it could have been like living under the rule of one of the most sadistic villains ever to be seen in New Who.
The Master is a master of psychology, apart from anything else. He learns his victims. He knows what makes them tick, what’s going to make them do things and what’s going to hurt them more than anything else. His main target is, above all, the Doctor. We saw in those final two episodes of S3 that, for the most part, he wouldn’t directly hurt the Doctor. Take him prisoner, yes. Age him, yes. Keep him in a kennel, and later a cage, yes. Actually cause him physical pain? Not so much. The pain was caused to everyone else. After all, what would hurt the Doctor more? Shooting him, or making him watch Martha be shot, as almost happened in Last of the Time Lords?
And so it is in Dangerous Games. The story’s written from Jack’s point of view, and Jack’s no fool: he knows exactly what the Master’s up to in his games. The story starts with Jack anticipating the nightly ritual, and the signs that it’s starting are all based on sound:
The familiar squeak, squeak, squeak of chair wheels and the padding of footsteps approaching, the same sounds he hears every night.
Other than these and later sounds as Jack is tied in place, and the non-participating watcher shifts around in a chair, and the sound of blows from a leather belt and Jack’s hisses, what’s so noticeable about the story is the silence. Nobody talks. Not a word, apart from just one sentence that’s whispered halfway through the ordeal.
"I'm sorry about this... I'm so sorry, Jack." The Doctor's voice is soft in his ear, full of sorrow and regret.
And that, for this reader, was the biggest shock: it’s the Doctor - rejuvenated nightly for this very purpose - who’s hurting Jack, who’s tied him up and is beating him and is about to have sex with him.
Is it rape? The Doctor thinks so, clearly. The irony of it all is that Jack likes it, loves it even - because he’s always wanted the Doctor. Jack thinks he’s getting the better of the Master, that he’s the winner. But I can’t help wondering if the Master knows this anyway, and that it’s this that makes it an even better game for him: that the Doctor is the only one suffering here, night after night, believing that he’s torturing and hurting his friend over and over, when all the time both Jack and the Master are getting off on it. Does this make Jack complicit in the Doctor’s torture?
It’s dark and deeply psychological, this story, and for me that’s what makes it worth a read, worth a vote: because it forces us to look deeper than the surface, to ask awkward questions about pleasure and pain and suffering and just what is acceptable - and, in a world where two people know how the game is played and one doesn’t, just who is torturer and who is victim. It’s an uncomfortable read, and it should make you think.
What a fabulous, well-written review! I'm utterly thrilled! *Bounce*
(Three days left to vote...)
I got another review! For " Dangerous Games" again, but this time by cot_reviews, given that this fic is nominated at the Children of Time Awards.
You know how in my previous post, I felt the reviewer had missed the point of the plot, and that is why I put forward my own response?
No need here. This reviewer read my fic properly, thought about it and most importantly, they actually get it. Hoorah!
Category: Dark; Jack Harkness
Characters: Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor, the Master
Rating: R
Details: Single-part fic, with bondage, torture, voyeurism and possibly dubious consent.
Why It Rocks:
Okay, disclaimer: I don’t normally read BDSM or anything with sex where there’s less than full consent. I’m not knocking it; it’s just not my thing. But this... well, there’s dubious consent and there’s secretly wanting it but having to pretend you don’t because of who's watching. And that, essentially, is what this story is about. On the surface, anyway. It gets a lot deeper than that, and that is why it rocks.
Televised episodes glossed over the Year that Never Was, not surprisingly. The set-up was nothing short of horrific, and if we’d been shown on-screen the full horror of life on the Valiant the episode would have had to be shown at well past the watershed. That, of course, is what fic is for: to fill in those blanks, to show us what it could have been like living under the rule of one of the most sadistic villains ever to be seen in New Who.
The Master is a master of psychology, apart from anything else. He learns his victims. He knows what makes them tick, what’s going to make them do things and what’s going to hurt them more than anything else. His main target is, above all, the Doctor. We saw in those final two episodes of S3 that, for the most part, he wouldn’t directly hurt the Doctor. Take him prisoner, yes. Age him, yes. Keep him in a kennel, and later a cage, yes. Actually cause him physical pain? Not so much. The pain was caused to everyone else. After all, what would hurt the Doctor more? Shooting him, or making him watch Martha be shot, as almost happened in Last of the Time Lords?
And so it is in Dangerous Games. The story’s written from Jack’s point of view, and Jack’s no fool: he knows exactly what the Master’s up to in his games. The story starts with Jack anticipating the nightly ritual, and the signs that it’s starting are all based on sound:
The familiar squeak, squeak, squeak of chair wheels and the padding of footsteps approaching, the same sounds he hears every night.
Other than these and later sounds as Jack is tied in place, and the non-participating watcher shifts around in a chair, and the sound of blows from a leather belt and Jack’s hisses, what’s so noticeable about the story is the silence. Nobody talks. Not a word, apart from just one sentence that’s whispered halfway through the ordeal.
"I'm sorry about this... I'm so sorry, Jack." The Doctor's voice is soft in his ear, full of sorrow and regret.
And that, for this reader, was the biggest shock: it’s the Doctor - rejuvenated nightly for this very purpose - who’s hurting Jack, who’s tied him up and is beating him and is about to have sex with him.
Is it rape? The Doctor thinks so, clearly. The irony of it all is that Jack likes it, loves it even - because he’s always wanted the Doctor. Jack thinks he’s getting the better of the Master, that he’s the winner. But I can’t help wondering if the Master knows this anyway, and that it’s this that makes it an even better game for him: that the Doctor is the only one suffering here, night after night, believing that he’s torturing and hurting his friend over and over, when all the time both Jack and the Master are getting off on it. Does this make Jack complicit in the Doctor’s torture?
It’s dark and deeply psychological, this story, and for me that’s what makes it worth a read, worth a vote: because it forces us to look deeper than the surface, to ask awkward questions about pleasure and pain and suffering and just what is acceptable - and, in a world where two people know how the game is played and one doesn’t, just who is torturer and who is victim. It’s an uncomfortable read, and it should make you think.
What a fabulous, well-written review! I'm utterly thrilled! *Bounce*
(Three days left to vote...)