Round Two Reviews: Part Two
Today's featured stories include:
*
In Another Life by sam_storyteller
Category: Novel
Rating: PG-13
Characters: TenII, Rose, Ianto Jones, alt!Jack, a surprise villain, others
Details: Seven chapters, post-JE.
Why it Rocks:
In another time, another country, and another fandom, Sam was probably one of my favorite authors. Actually, I'd say he still is. When chances come to rec HP fanfic, Sam's Stealing Harry is generally near the top of the list. Quite frankly, I'm something of a sucker for anything that guy writes.
Which is why I was awfully excited to see that Sam has become another HP refugee to the DW fandom, and what's more, brought his incredible writing talent with him. There's something about the way Sam tells a story that humanizes it. He makes his characters so perfectly accessible, likable, and flawed, in what are absolutely real ways. You can't help but like them; you can't help but read even the most mundane aspects of their days, because if Sam's telling it, it's not mundane. It's utterly fascinating.
Now, take what appears to be one of Sam's first DW fics, In Another Life, which chronicles Rose and the Doctor's life in the parallel universe. In most fics, one of the first orders of business is to give the Doctor a name, since you can't exactly go about life without one. But Sam, being Sam, has done the opposite, and left it for very last. Not because it's not important - but because it is.
This fic isn't just about a name - it is all about a name. it's about knowing who you are, what you're meant to do and be and say and think. It's about being comfortable in your own skin, even if it's the only comfortable thing you've got. All of this, wrapped up in the simple decision of a name - and it's why the Doctor wisely puts it off, puts it off, because it's something he can't quite do yet. Not while he's new - not while he still has yet to learn who he is.
And most importantly, not while he still lacks confidence in not only himself, but Rose's feelings for him.
Even her Doctor -- but he was her Doctor -- but there was another...even the Doctor she'd first known had never been this vulnerable. Not in front of her.
Because while Rose runs through names for him, the Doctor still can't reconcile himself to the fact that he isn't exactly the same as the man she fell in love with. He can't give her time and space, he can't even get through a night without nightmares. In a way, he's stopped dead by the thought that there is so much to do, and so little time to do it in, that he cannot do anything at all. Nor can he quite believe that Rose is with him for him, because there was, in that moment on the beach, a second in which she turned away, to look back to where the TARDIS stood. This moment is etched into the Doctor's mind, and in time, becomes something greater than what it was. It becomes proof that what Rose wants isn't him at all. It's that Other Him, the better, Time-Lordy one.
And perhaps this is why the Doctor refuses a name. To choose a name is to embrace humanity. To embrace humanity is to reject the part of him that is Time Lord. To reject the Time Lord is to abandon Rose.
I love you, I love you, I love you, as if that would anchor her to him, as if it would make her believe he was her Doctor, as much as he believed she was his Rose.
But in refusing a name - the Doctor doesn't refuse to live. Actually, it's exactly the opposite. He's timid at first - he's overwhelmed by the newness of it. But once he gets going, he really gets going. Once Rose and Ianto manage to push the Doctor out of his first-days-funk, he's off like wildfire, choosing a wardrobe, arranging shopping lists, creating havoc in the laboratory, trying to create a sonic screwdriver. He bonds with Tony and leaps into a game of cricket, he meets an older Captain Jack and gives almost as good as he gets in terms of innuendo.
He does, and relishes it. He lives.
"What was I doing, really? Banging around in a galactic camper-van. Couldn't do anything for my people, my people were gone, and before that it wasn't like I ever thought much of them to be honest. I should have...picked something to do. Something that'd make me useful."
"You did," Rose said, taking the books out of his hands before he let them slip and fall. "You picked us."
But there's always this one thing eluding him - a name. He can create for himself a place in Torchwood; he can create a life with Rose and friends in Ianto and Mary Ellen. He can give himself a role. But he can't give himself an identity. Not just yet.
"I'll never be normal," [the Doctor] said. "But I'll never be ordinary enough for Earth, either."
Almost without meaning to, the Doctor, in the span of seven chapters, finds himself. He probably didn't even realize that it needed to be done. And it's only at the end, that having found himself, he learns who he is - and only then that he can accept his name, and let it fit. And with the acceptance of his name - comes, as he feared (and no longer is it fearsome), letting go of what he once was.
"You were always meant to go. And now there's somewhere for you to stay," she added. "Go on, sweetheart. It's okay. Just remember that I loved you. I did love you."
And, as simple as that, he's not the Doctor anymore. He's himself.
In short, vote for In Another Life. It's funny and sad and sweet. It has a Jack so funny you won't be able to wipe the smile from your face. It's got bananas and Armani jackets and library cards, glass rods and burglars in the night and Ianto Jones. It will captivate you and weave a spell, and leave you smiling through tears. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
They Came to Norway to Eat Our Brains by doyle_sb4
Category: Other Characters, Mickey Smith
Rating: PG
Characters: Rose, Jack, Mickey, Rose the Terrier
Details: One-shot, seriously AU, post S3.
Why it Rocks:
Some fics are just fun. They serve no purpose but to make us laugh, and cheer in their absolute absurdity.
And with a title like this, how could we expect any different?
Rose and Mickey have been living in the parallel world for three years, when a mysterious (dead) body drops down from a rift opening in Norway. At least, the Torchwood Team in Norway thinks it's dead. Right 'til the moment it sits up on the mortuary table.
"...I assure you, until the moment he sat up on the autopsy table - and we’re going to need a new mortuary nurse, by the way - there was absolutely no prospect that life remained.”
“That’s Jack,” Rose said softly. “Full of surprises.”
Because, really. Who else can it be, but Jack?
Of course, it's Mickey and Rose to the rescue - to save Jack from the incompetent and slightly murder-prone clutches of Torchwood-Norway. Both Rose and Mickey are excellent here - Rose is quick and brilliant, and Mickey is wry and clever. Both are more than competent to handle rescuing Jack - even if he doesn't believe it.
“This is plan B? A disguise?”
“Plan A was setting the building on fire,” Mickey pointed out.
The fic moves fast, and still manages to paint a descriptive portrait of Rose's life in the parallel world, as well as the circumstances of Jack's arrival, Rose's feelings for the Doctor (who otherwise doesn't make much of an appearance), and Mickey's current standings not only with Rose, but with Jake as well. And it's all done with as much snarky commentary as anyone could possibly wish.
Also, references to zombies.
"I’m not totally convinced you’re not a zombie, by the way, so if you’ve got plans for eating mine or Rose’s brains, just remember I know where they keep the chainsaws downstairs.”
Some fics, you just have to love for the sake of loving them. Some fics aren't meant to be serious. But even then - some fics have a touch of it.
“You don’t have to try and guess what I want you to say,” she said. “I just... think about [the Doctor] sometimes. And when I do I hope he’s still travelling, still finding amazing places, still saving planets ten times a week, and that he’s not on his own, and that he... thinks about me sometimes as well. Just to remember.”
“Then he’s all right,” Jack said softly. “He’s fantastic.”
And somehow - you know that Jack and Rose will be fantastic, too.
In short, vote for They Came to Norway to Eat Our Brains. It's short, sweet, impossibly funny, and it has a distinct lack of zombies. It's got Jack being Jack, Mickey being Mickey, and Rose the terrier doing what terriers do best. It'll make you laugh out loud if your eyes don't roll first, and it very much deserves your vote.
*
Most Likely Kill You In the Morning by HotelMontana Link goes to Teaspoon
Categories: Rose Tyler
Characters: Rose, Mickey, TARDIS, a few incidentals
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, AU, post-Girl in the Fireplace.
Why It Rocks:
Someday, I'm going to do a count of GitF fics. Because I swear, it'll number in the thousands. Easily.
And yet - there never is "just another GitF fic, is there? It's a fandom standard, but every one of them is different, and special, and wonderful in their own way. Montana's story is no different, because it's one of those special breed of Doctor Who fics - a fic with no Doctor in it.
Once again, Rose and Mickey have been left behind while the Doctor goes off to save Reinette. Except this time, he doesn't return. Five hours, five days, two weeks....and still, no Doctor appearing through the fireplace. Rose and Mickey are left to wait, at first fairly patiently, playing word-games and taking naps. And then not-so-patiently, moving into the TARDIS, to learn that they're not the only ones waiting.
The TARDIS vibrated in a way that felt like consolation, but if it had answers, it didn’t offer them. And, though Rose waited, the engines remained quiet and still, and no holograms appeared with apologies and explanations.
Mickey's form of waiting is to move, to do something. He seems to find kin in the TARDIS in this - they play hide-and-seek, the ship sets up elaborate mazes for him, games of scavenger hunting and the like. He disappears for three days, and returns almost triumphant.
Rose, however - Rose's waiting is quiet, sitting silently in the console room. She's almost mourning, really, even if she doesn't know it.
For Rose, who was unused to being left behind, the wait was a burden, gnawing at her innards like hungry rats.
We don't like to think of Rose as waiting. We don't like to think of her sitting silently, her hands in her lap, eyes focused on a door that isn't going to open. And really, neither does anyone else. But, as Rose tells the TARDIS, she's just a "stupid ape". She'll think of something, eventually. It'll come to her. Maybe in the morning, it'll be all right.
It came upon her suddenly, the monster under the bed, late one night while she was tidying the console room. Mickey’s jacket, left draped over the console, slipped out of fingers gone suddenly numb.
In the end it wasn’t madness or sinister ghosts. It was much worse. It was the full-body tackle of a long-denied hard truth.
“He’s not coming back, is he?” she said aloud.
And quietly, Rose begins to do something about it. With the TARDIS's help, she learns to fly the ship, to take her and Mickey home. She studies the manual, she makes copious notes, she lines the pages with sticky-notes. And on the day, with Mickey cheering her on, she takes a last look at the manual:
At the bottom of the illustration was perhaps the most helpful note in the entire manual. In her own Doctor’s penmanship--rounded, like her second Doctor’s, not spiking capitals like her first’s--was the note, “Every pilot finds their own way to fly.”
It takes a lot of mornings for Rose to learn her own way of flying. She spends a week with her mum, and is restless. She tries to find 18th century France, and is nearly killed. She bounces around the universe, she and the TARDIS both trying to find the lost threads of the Doctor, always just missing him, always a moment too late.
It's almost inevitable that she find Gallifrey, in its last moments. That the woman who opens the TARDIS door, to find Rose inside, is looking for the Doctor too. Everyone looks for the Doctor, it seems. He's never anywhere to be found.
Rose tells the woman, knowing where she is, knowing why time is stretched like a bubble about to burst - she tells her that the Doctor misses them. It's her only chance to do something good for them, really.
The light from the room beyond turned the woman’s hair into a shroud of fire. “He’s lucky.” She gripped the edge of door, resting her head on its solid frame. “It’s quite something, you know. To miss.”
“To be missed is something, too.” [said Rose]
“No, it’s not,” she said, moving quickly through the door. “It’s really nothing at all.”
Rose flies the TARDIS, or maybe the TARDIS flies her, away from that Doctor-trail, looking for another. She finds her own way to fly. She misses the Doctor, or the Doctor is missed, and it's actually quite something, or maybe it's nothing at all.
Does Rose find the Doctor? Yes. And No. And Yes. Because whether or not Rose finds the Doctor is immaterial. It's not the Doctor who needs to be found.
In short, vote for Most Likely Kill You In the Morning. It's about waiting, and flying, and finding what you didn't realize you were seeking. It's about a girl and a ship and a trail gone cold, and it's about the loveliest thing I've read in a very long time. It's about the pilots we all would like to be, and it absolutely, 100% deserves your vote.
*
Command Performance by karaokegal
Category: Jack Harkness
Characters: Jack, Donna
Rating: OMG Adult
Details: One-shot, smutty-smut-smut.
Why It Rocks:
Okay, people. All I have to say is this: wiggiemomsi is going to be a very happy girl tonight. Especially if she reads this.
Of course, that's the smut - and yes, if you read the Characters line correctly, you'll note that it's all Jack/Donna. Although, really, it ought to be Jack/DoctorDonna, because that would be more accurate.
Because, you see, we all know that Jack wants the Doctor. Except that the Doctor doesn't want Jack - well, maybe he does, but that's beside the point, because as the Doctor told Jack at the end of the world, looking at him hurts. He's a fixed point in time. The Doctor doesn't like fixed points in time.
Therefore, unless the Doctor suddenly gets into masochism (and I'm absolutely positive those fics exist), we're never going to get Doctor/Jack.
Except...for Donna. Or more specifically, the DoctorDonna.
"I’ve got his thoughts, but not his cells. All I see when I look is you. Now are you going to stand there jabbering, or do I get to find out if the reality lives up to the legend?”
Now, finally, Jack can have his moment with the Doctor. Sort of. In the body of a ginger-haired woman, but that's not the very important thing.
Jack, see, despite all his talk, isn't always on the prowl. His feelings for the Doctor don't run just to the physical, but more. And yeah, he'd probably like to shag him rotten, but it's not shagging that Jack really wants, in those moments in the console room, after they've saved the world and are trading hugs all around:
For once there might even be time to talk to the Doctor. Really talk, without a reactor about to blow up or something chasing them. He had different questions this time, things he’d thought about while he was stuck underground in those moments of clarity that came between blessedly long deaths.
It's a nice image, really - Jack and the Doctor, sitting around sipping brandy or something vaguely alcoholic out of rounded glasses, their feet propped up on the coffee table while they talk about Life, Death, and the Meaning of Bananas. You want that for Jack. You want him to get that moment of clarity, one which isn't immediately followed by yet another death. You want him to be able to ask the questions, and find peace.
But, of course, there's never really time for that. And as nice an image it might be for Jack - for the Doctor, sitting around chatting about nothing and everything would be pure hell.
...he caught sight of the Doctors talking to each other. The two figures, both the man he’d longed for over light-years and centuries.
Jack had said “I love you” to many, even married a few and while he might have meant it at the time, on some level it would always be a lie, except when he said it to the Doctor.
But the Doctors can't have Jack interrupt them - and it's only on the second read that I think I began to understand why. Think about it - everyone together, and the Doctors are discussing. Are facing each other, saying words that Jack cannot hear. And we all know what happens to Handy. What do you think they're talking about?
Later, when Jack asks Donna what will happen to Rose, she deflects the question. He can't know, because Jack loved watching the reunion between them, even knowing he couldn't interfere. It's entirely possible that Jack is a bigger Doctor/Rose shipper than Donna, really. And so he can't know, can't possibly have the idea of what will happen to Rose, where she'll be left, and who won't be left with her.
If you were Jack - wouldn't you stop it from happening?
And so, distraction. In the form of Donna. Who is, coincidentally, also the Doctor. And let's face it - for all his introspection....Jack is still Jack.
Friction was friction, love was love and they were all right here, along with an amazing pair of breasts.
In short, vote for Command Performance. It's got Horny!Jack, Thoughtful!Jack, Shippy!Jack, and Donna. It's got Doctors knocking on the door, a TARDIS only too willing to assist, and a lovely bittersweet ending. It's just another reason to be pissed off about how Donna ended up, and out of respect for her, it totally deserves your vote.
*
We Know Who You Are by wendymr Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Other Characters
Characters: Harriet Jones
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, second-person (mostly), through The Stolen Earth.
Why It Rocks:
One must think that of the people who brush against the Doctor, Harriet Jones has the most to regret.
You should have had a Golden Age. It was meant to happen, but one man and six words stole it from you.
Sally Sparrow found love. Queen Victoria found purpose. River Song found her beginning. Reinette might have longed for him, but she didn't regret knowing him. And even Elton made out okay, in the end.
But Harriet Jones? Should have had a Golden Age. And didn't.
You never stop wondering: was he right? Were you wrong to order that attack? But what if he was wrong and they came back? Could you have that on your conscience? Could he?
Harriet Jones (MP) was punished by a very alien being for what even she realizes is a very human reaction: to protect. And that's really what she was doing, when she had Torchwood fire upon the retreating Sycorax ship - she was doing what she thought was the right thing, to protect the Earth. It didn't matter that the Doctor had appointed himself Earth's Defender, because it was Harriet Jones who had been elected, and therefore, Harriet Jones who had to answer to the people.
Fear is a strong, strong emotion. Fear is what made Harriet fire on the Sycorax: fear that they would return, and the Doctor would not be there. And in a neat twist, fear is what the Doctor used to bring Harriet's downfall: fear that Harriet really was tired, and would not be able to meet another crisis head-on.
You know what's stronger than fear?
You’ll keep doing what you believe is right, because you know that you were right: one day danger will come and the Doctor won’t be there...One day you’ll be needed. You might have been voted out of office, but your obligation to do your duty, to save your country, doesn’t finish at the ballot-box.
Conviction, courage, bravery, belief. It's all the same in the end, really. It's the ability to wait, to know the right moment, that Harriet has. Because, of course, she's right. The world is ending, and the Doctor isn't there to save it. The world is ending, and only Harriet can make it stop.
Think of Harriet as the Wedge Antilles of Doctor Who. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Wedge is the pilot who shots the Tie-Fighter that's trailing Luke Skywalker. Had Wedge not done so, Luke's X-wing would have been shot out of the sky, the Death Star would never have been destroyed, and the Rebel Alliance (as well as the rest of the franchise and George Lucas's bank account) would have collapsed. Therefore, one could make the argument that Wedge Antilles single-handed saved the world.
Is Harriet Jones any different? If Harriet had not set up the sub-wave network, given new hope (NEW HOPE!) to the Doctor's companions, and arranged for a single phone call, the Doctor would never have known how to find the Earth, would never have defeated the Daleks, and the Earth (as well as the franchise and Russel T Davies's bank account) would have been destroyed.
Seriously, people. Harriet Jones = Wedge Antilles. Think about it.
But back to the story at hand. The main difference between Harriet and Wedge? Wedge lived. Harriet doesn't - and more so, knows she doesn't. She knows the Daleks are coming for her, "but that's not important right now." She knows that her time is limited, but spends the last few moments ensuring that everyone else is safe. She never gets to know if the phone call works. She never gets to see the Death Star destroyed.
She stands tall, at the end, with her courage and her hope and her prayers that a man who brought her downfall will rise up to save the day. She is human, and she knows it. He is alien, and she knows it - and she just has to hope that's enough.
This is your legacy, Harriet Jones. Your Golden Age. Others will be remembered for doing it, but the world could not have been saved without you.
In short, vote for We Know Who You Are. It's human, and true, and deeply satisfying. It's a eulogy to a woman in her last moments, and it's how she should be remembered. Yes, Harriet Jones, we know who you are, maybe better than you do yourself. And that's why, 100%, this fic deserves your vote.
*
All of today's fics were reviewed by azriona.
*
In Another Life by sam_storyteller
Category: Novel
Rating: PG-13
Characters: TenII, Rose, Ianto Jones, alt!Jack, a surprise villain, others
Details: Seven chapters, post-JE.
Why it Rocks:
In another time, another country, and another fandom, Sam was probably one of my favorite authors. Actually, I'd say he still is. When chances come to rec HP fanfic, Sam's Stealing Harry is generally near the top of the list. Quite frankly, I'm something of a sucker for anything that guy writes.
Which is why I was awfully excited to see that Sam has become another HP refugee to the DW fandom, and what's more, brought his incredible writing talent with him. There's something about the way Sam tells a story that humanizes it. He makes his characters so perfectly accessible, likable, and flawed, in what are absolutely real ways. You can't help but like them; you can't help but read even the most mundane aspects of their days, because if Sam's telling it, it's not mundane. It's utterly fascinating.
Now, take what appears to be one of Sam's first DW fics, In Another Life, which chronicles Rose and the Doctor's life in the parallel universe. In most fics, one of the first orders of business is to give the Doctor a name, since you can't exactly go about life without one. But Sam, being Sam, has done the opposite, and left it for very last. Not because it's not important - but because it is.
This fic isn't just about a name - it is all about a name. it's about knowing who you are, what you're meant to do and be and say and think. It's about being comfortable in your own skin, even if it's the only comfortable thing you've got. All of this, wrapped up in the simple decision of a name - and it's why the Doctor wisely puts it off, puts it off, because it's something he can't quite do yet. Not while he's new - not while he still has yet to learn who he is.
And most importantly, not while he still lacks confidence in not only himself, but Rose's feelings for him.
Even her Doctor -- but he was her Doctor -- but there was another...even the Doctor she'd first known had never been this vulnerable. Not in front of her.
Because while Rose runs through names for him, the Doctor still can't reconcile himself to the fact that he isn't exactly the same as the man she fell in love with. He can't give her time and space, he can't even get through a night without nightmares. In a way, he's stopped dead by the thought that there is so much to do, and so little time to do it in, that he cannot do anything at all. Nor can he quite believe that Rose is with him for him, because there was, in that moment on the beach, a second in which she turned away, to look back to where the TARDIS stood. This moment is etched into the Doctor's mind, and in time, becomes something greater than what it was. It becomes proof that what Rose wants isn't him at all. It's that Other Him, the better, Time-Lordy one.
And perhaps this is why the Doctor refuses a name. To choose a name is to embrace humanity. To embrace humanity is to reject the part of him that is Time Lord. To reject the Time Lord is to abandon Rose.
I love you, I love you, I love you, as if that would anchor her to him, as if it would make her believe he was her Doctor, as much as he believed she was his Rose.
But in refusing a name - the Doctor doesn't refuse to live. Actually, it's exactly the opposite. He's timid at first - he's overwhelmed by the newness of it. But once he gets going, he really gets going. Once Rose and Ianto manage to push the Doctor out of his first-days-funk, he's off like wildfire, choosing a wardrobe, arranging shopping lists, creating havoc in the laboratory, trying to create a sonic screwdriver. He bonds with Tony and leaps into a game of cricket, he meets an older Captain Jack and gives almost as good as he gets in terms of innuendo.
He does, and relishes it. He lives.
"What was I doing, really? Banging around in a galactic camper-van. Couldn't do anything for my people, my people were gone, and before that it wasn't like I ever thought much of them to be honest. I should have...picked something to do. Something that'd make me useful."
"You did," Rose said, taking the books out of his hands before he let them slip and fall. "You picked us."
But there's always this one thing eluding him - a name. He can create for himself a place in Torchwood; he can create a life with Rose and friends in Ianto and Mary Ellen. He can give himself a role. But he can't give himself an identity. Not just yet.
"I'll never be normal," [the Doctor] said. "But I'll never be ordinary enough for Earth, either."
Almost without meaning to, the Doctor, in the span of seven chapters, finds himself. He probably didn't even realize that it needed to be done. And it's only at the end, that having found himself, he learns who he is - and only then that he can accept his name, and let it fit. And with the acceptance of his name - comes, as he feared (and no longer is it fearsome), letting go of what he once was.
"You were always meant to go. And now there's somewhere for you to stay," she added. "Go on, sweetheart. It's okay. Just remember that I loved you. I did love you."
And, as simple as that, he's not the Doctor anymore. He's himself.
In short, vote for In Another Life. It's funny and sad and sweet. It has a Jack so funny you won't be able to wipe the smile from your face. It's got bananas and Armani jackets and library cards, glass rods and burglars in the night and Ianto Jones. It will captivate you and weave a spell, and leave you smiling through tears. It absolutely deserves your vote.
*
They Came to Norway to Eat Our Brains by doyle_sb4
Category: Other Characters, Mickey Smith
Rating: PG
Characters: Rose, Jack, Mickey, Rose the Terrier
Details: One-shot, seriously AU, post S3.
Why it Rocks:
Some fics are just fun. They serve no purpose but to make us laugh, and cheer in their absolute absurdity.
And with a title like this, how could we expect any different?
Rose and Mickey have been living in the parallel world for three years, when a mysterious (dead) body drops down from a rift opening in Norway. At least, the Torchwood Team in Norway thinks it's dead. Right 'til the moment it sits up on the mortuary table.
"...I assure you, until the moment he sat up on the autopsy table - and we’re going to need a new mortuary nurse, by the way - there was absolutely no prospect that life remained.”
“That’s Jack,” Rose said softly. “Full of surprises.”
Because, really. Who else can it be, but Jack?
Of course, it's Mickey and Rose to the rescue - to save Jack from the incompetent and slightly murder-prone clutches of Torchwood-Norway. Both Rose and Mickey are excellent here - Rose is quick and brilliant, and Mickey is wry and clever. Both are more than competent to handle rescuing Jack - even if he doesn't believe it.
“This is plan B? A disguise?”
“Plan A was setting the building on fire,” Mickey pointed out.
The fic moves fast, and still manages to paint a descriptive portrait of Rose's life in the parallel world, as well as the circumstances of Jack's arrival, Rose's feelings for the Doctor (who otherwise doesn't make much of an appearance), and Mickey's current standings not only with Rose, but with Jake as well. And it's all done with as much snarky commentary as anyone could possibly wish.
Also, references to zombies.
"I’m not totally convinced you’re not a zombie, by the way, so if you’ve got plans for eating mine or Rose’s brains, just remember I know where they keep the chainsaws downstairs.”
Some fics, you just have to love for the sake of loving them. Some fics aren't meant to be serious. But even then - some fics have a touch of it.
“You don’t have to try and guess what I want you to say,” she said. “I just... think about [the Doctor] sometimes. And when I do I hope he’s still travelling, still finding amazing places, still saving planets ten times a week, and that he’s not on his own, and that he... thinks about me sometimes as well. Just to remember.”
“Then he’s all right,” Jack said softly. “He’s fantastic.”
And somehow - you know that Jack and Rose will be fantastic, too.
In short, vote for They Came to Norway to Eat Our Brains. It's short, sweet, impossibly funny, and it has a distinct lack of zombies. It's got Jack being Jack, Mickey being Mickey, and Rose the terrier doing what terriers do best. It'll make you laugh out loud if your eyes don't roll first, and it very much deserves your vote.
*
Most Likely Kill You In the Morning by HotelMontana Link goes to Teaspoon
Categories: Rose Tyler
Characters: Rose, Mickey, TARDIS, a few incidentals
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, AU, post-Girl in the Fireplace.
Why It Rocks:
Someday, I'm going to do a count of GitF fics. Because I swear, it'll number in the thousands. Easily.
And yet - there never is "just another GitF fic, is there? It's a fandom standard, but every one of them is different, and special, and wonderful in their own way. Montana's story is no different, because it's one of those special breed of Doctor Who fics - a fic with no Doctor in it.
Once again, Rose and Mickey have been left behind while the Doctor goes off to save Reinette. Except this time, he doesn't return. Five hours, five days, two weeks....and still, no Doctor appearing through the fireplace. Rose and Mickey are left to wait, at first fairly patiently, playing word-games and taking naps. And then not-so-patiently, moving into the TARDIS, to learn that they're not the only ones waiting.
The TARDIS vibrated in a way that felt like consolation, but if it had answers, it didn’t offer them. And, though Rose waited, the engines remained quiet and still, and no holograms appeared with apologies and explanations.
Mickey's form of waiting is to move, to do something. He seems to find kin in the TARDIS in this - they play hide-and-seek, the ship sets up elaborate mazes for him, games of scavenger hunting and the like. He disappears for three days, and returns almost triumphant.
Rose, however - Rose's waiting is quiet, sitting silently in the console room. She's almost mourning, really, even if she doesn't know it.
For Rose, who was unused to being left behind, the wait was a burden, gnawing at her innards like hungry rats.
We don't like to think of Rose as waiting. We don't like to think of her sitting silently, her hands in her lap, eyes focused on a door that isn't going to open. And really, neither does anyone else. But, as Rose tells the TARDIS, she's just a "stupid ape". She'll think of something, eventually. It'll come to her. Maybe in the morning, it'll be all right.
It came upon her suddenly, the monster under the bed, late one night while she was tidying the console room. Mickey’s jacket, left draped over the console, slipped out of fingers gone suddenly numb.
In the end it wasn’t madness or sinister ghosts. It was much worse. It was the full-body tackle of a long-denied hard truth.
“He’s not coming back, is he?” she said aloud.
And quietly, Rose begins to do something about it. With the TARDIS's help, she learns to fly the ship, to take her and Mickey home. She studies the manual, she makes copious notes, she lines the pages with sticky-notes. And on the day, with Mickey cheering her on, she takes a last look at the manual:
At the bottom of the illustration was perhaps the most helpful note in the entire manual. In her own Doctor’s penmanship--rounded, like her second Doctor’s, not spiking capitals like her first’s--was the note, “Every pilot finds their own way to fly.”
It takes a lot of mornings for Rose to learn her own way of flying. She spends a week with her mum, and is restless. She tries to find 18th century France, and is nearly killed. She bounces around the universe, she and the TARDIS both trying to find the lost threads of the Doctor, always just missing him, always a moment too late.
It's almost inevitable that she find Gallifrey, in its last moments. That the woman who opens the TARDIS door, to find Rose inside, is looking for the Doctor too. Everyone looks for the Doctor, it seems. He's never anywhere to be found.
Rose tells the woman, knowing where she is, knowing why time is stretched like a bubble about to burst - she tells her that the Doctor misses them. It's her only chance to do something good for them, really.
The light from the room beyond turned the woman’s hair into a shroud of fire. “He’s lucky.” She gripped the edge of door, resting her head on its solid frame. “It’s quite something, you know. To miss.”
“To be missed is something, too.” [said Rose]
“No, it’s not,” she said, moving quickly through the door. “It’s really nothing at all.”
Rose flies the TARDIS, or maybe the TARDIS flies her, away from that Doctor-trail, looking for another. She finds her own way to fly. She misses the Doctor, or the Doctor is missed, and it's actually quite something, or maybe it's nothing at all.
Does Rose find the Doctor? Yes. And No. And Yes. Because whether or not Rose finds the Doctor is immaterial. It's not the Doctor who needs to be found.
In short, vote for Most Likely Kill You In the Morning. It's about waiting, and flying, and finding what you didn't realize you were seeking. It's about a girl and a ship and a trail gone cold, and it's about the loveliest thing I've read in a very long time. It's about the pilots we all would like to be, and it absolutely, 100% deserves your vote.
*
Command Performance by karaokegal
Category: Jack Harkness
Characters: Jack, Donna
Rating: OMG Adult
Details: One-shot, smutty-smut-smut.
Why It Rocks:
Okay, people. All I have to say is this: wiggiemomsi is going to be a very happy girl tonight. Especially if she reads this.
Of course, that's the smut - and yes, if you read the Characters line correctly, you'll note that it's all Jack/Donna. Although, really, it ought to be Jack/DoctorDonna, because that would be more accurate.
Because, you see, we all know that Jack wants the Doctor. Except that the Doctor doesn't want Jack - well, maybe he does, but that's beside the point, because as the Doctor told Jack at the end of the world, looking at him hurts. He's a fixed point in time. The Doctor doesn't like fixed points in time.
Therefore, unless the Doctor suddenly gets into masochism (and I'm absolutely positive those fics exist), we're never going to get Doctor/Jack.
Except...for Donna. Or more specifically, the DoctorDonna.
"I’ve got his thoughts, but not his cells. All I see when I look is you. Now are you going to stand there jabbering, or do I get to find out if the reality lives up to the legend?”
Now, finally, Jack can have his moment with the Doctor. Sort of. In the body of a ginger-haired woman, but that's not the very important thing.
Jack, see, despite all his talk, isn't always on the prowl. His feelings for the Doctor don't run just to the physical, but more. And yeah, he'd probably like to shag him rotten, but it's not shagging that Jack really wants, in those moments in the console room, after they've saved the world and are trading hugs all around:
For once there might even be time to talk to the Doctor. Really talk, without a reactor about to blow up or something chasing them. He had different questions this time, things he’d thought about while he was stuck underground in those moments of clarity that came between blessedly long deaths.
It's a nice image, really - Jack and the Doctor, sitting around sipping brandy or something vaguely alcoholic out of rounded glasses, their feet propped up on the coffee table while they talk about Life, Death, and the Meaning of Bananas. You want that for Jack. You want him to get that moment of clarity, one which isn't immediately followed by yet another death. You want him to be able to ask the questions, and find peace.
But, of course, there's never really time for that. And as nice an image it might be for Jack - for the Doctor, sitting around chatting about nothing and everything would be pure hell.
...he caught sight of the Doctors talking to each other. The two figures, both the man he’d longed for over light-years and centuries.
Jack had said “I love you” to many, even married a few and while he might have meant it at the time, on some level it would always be a lie, except when he said it to the Doctor.
But the Doctors can't have Jack interrupt them - and it's only on the second read that I think I began to understand why. Think about it - everyone together, and the Doctors are discussing. Are facing each other, saying words that Jack cannot hear. And we all know what happens to Handy. What do you think they're talking about?
Later, when Jack asks Donna what will happen to Rose, she deflects the question. He can't know, because Jack loved watching the reunion between them, even knowing he couldn't interfere. It's entirely possible that Jack is a bigger Doctor/Rose shipper than Donna, really. And so he can't know, can't possibly have the idea of what will happen to Rose, where she'll be left, and who won't be left with her.
If you were Jack - wouldn't you stop it from happening?
And so, distraction. In the form of Donna. Who is, coincidentally, also the Doctor. And let's face it - for all his introspection....Jack is still Jack.
Friction was friction, love was love and they were all right here, along with an amazing pair of breasts.
In short, vote for Command Performance. It's got Horny!Jack, Thoughtful!Jack, Shippy!Jack, and Donna. It's got Doctors knocking on the door, a TARDIS only too willing to assist, and a lovely bittersweet ending. It's just another reason to be pissed off about how Donna ended up, and out of respect for her, it totally deserves your vote.
*
We Know Who You Are by wendymr Link goes to Teaspoon
Category: Other Characters
Characters: Harriet Jones
Rating: PG
Details: One-shot, second-person (mostly), through The Stolen Earth.
Why It Rocks:
One must think that of the people who brush against the Doctor, Harriet Jones has the most to regret.
You should have had a Golden Age. It was meant to happen, but one man and six words stole it from you.
Sally Sparrow found love. Queen Victoria found purpose. River Song found her beginning. Reinette might have longed for him, but she didn't regret knowing him. And even Elton made out okay, in the end.
But Harriet Jones? Should have had a Golden Age. And didn't.
You never stop wondering: was he right? Were you wrong to order that attack? But what if he was wrong and they came back? Could you have that on your conscience? Could he?
Harriet Jones (MP) was punished by a very alien being for what even she realizes is a very human reaction: to protect. And that's really what she was doing, when she had Torchwood fire upon the retreating Sycorax ship - she was doing what she thought was the right thing, to protect the Earth. It didn't matter that the Doctor had appointed himself Earth's Defender, because it was Harriet Jones who had been elected, and therefore, Harriet Jones who had to answer to the people.
Fear is a strong, strong emotion. Fear is what made Harriet fire on the Sycorax: fear that they would return, and the Doctor would not be there. And in a neat twist, fear is what the Doctor used to bring Harriet's downfall: fear that Harriet really was tired, and would not be able to meet another crisis head-on.
You know what's stronger than fear?
You’ll keep doing what you believe is right, because you know that you were right: one day danger will come and the Doctor won’t be there...One day you’ll be needed. You might have been voted out of office, but your obligation to do your duty, to save your country, doesn’t finish at the ballot-box.
Conviction, courage, bravery, belief. It's all the same in the end, really. It's the ability to wait, to know the right moment, that Harriet has. Because, of course, she's right. The world is ending, and the Doctor isn't there to save it. The world is ending, and only Harriet can make it stop.
Think of Harriet as the Wedge Antilles of Doctor Who. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Wedge is the pilot who shots the Tie-Fighter that's trailing Luke Skywalker. Had Wedge not done so, Luke's X-wing would have been shot out of the sky, the Death Star would never have been destroyed, and the Rebel Alliance (as well as the rest of the franchise and George Lucas's bank account) would have collapsed. Therefore, one could make the argument that Wedge Antilles single-handed saved the world.
Is Harriet Jones any different? If Harriet had not set up the sub-wave network, given new hope (NEW HOPE!) to the Doctor's companions, and arranged for a single phone call, the Doctor would never have known how to find the Earth, would never have defeated the Daleks, and the Earth (as well as the franchise and Russel T Davies's bank account) would have been destroyed.
Seriously, people. Harriet Jones = Wedge Antilles. Think about it.
But back to the story at hand. The main difference between Harriet and Wedge? Wedge lived. Harriet doesn't - and more so, knows she doesn't. She knows the Daleks are coming for her, "but that's not important right now." She knows that her time is limited, but spends the last few moments ensuring that everyone else is safe. She never gets to know if the phone call works. She never gets to see the Death Star destroyed.
She stands tall, at the end, with her courage and her hope and her prayers that a man who brought her downfall will rise up to save the day. She is human, and she knows it. He is alien, and she knows it - and she just has to hope that's enough.
This is your legacy, Harriet Jones. Your Golden Age. Others will be remembered for doing it, but the world could not have been saved without you.
In short, vote for We Know Who You Are. It's human, and true, and deeply satisfying. It's a eulogy to a woman in her last moments, and it's how she should be remembered. Yes, Harriet Jones, we know who you are, maybe better than you do yourself. And that's why, 100%, this fic deserves your vote.
*
All of today's fics were reviewed by azriona.