Wouldn't you like some fic recs?

[eponymous_rose]

Three of my favourite fanworks - one old-school Who, one new-school Who, and one Sherlock Holmes - all deserving of the most elaborate praise you can muster. What these three have in common is that I haven't yet reviewed them, which is something of an oversight, and mostly due to the fact that I'm absolutely in awe and would probably be reduced to embarrassing amounts of keyboard-mashing and/or incoherence.

I'll be posting these three recs (and probably more) as I find time. I'd be immensely happy if you commented with a few of your favourite stories, too! The key to making it through a busy week is to take five or ten minutes here and there to do something utterly and completely relaxing, and reading (or writing) fic is one of the ways I manage it. Besides that, I'd love to see some of your favourite fics!

(And, of course, be sure let the author know if you've enjoyed the fic!)

Rec: Threads
Fandom: Classic Who (Fourth Doctor's era)
Characters: Fourth Doctor/Romana I, K-9
Author: violetisblue
Author's Summary: Romana finds that her tastes have begun to change.

(biichan recced this over at calufrax, but it's such a brilliant fic that I think the recommendation bears repeating.)

Sometimes, if you're exceptionally lucky, you find a fic that worms its way right into your view of things, and you say: "This is now my canon." With "Threads", however, you realise it's been canon all along, and you've only just now found someone who could put it into words.

The story itself is simple enough; it examines what happens before, during, and immediately following the Key to Time saga (series 16), in which the Doctor finds himself travelling the universe on an Epic Quest with his trusty robot dog - and a young, haughty, know-it-all assistant forced on him against his will by the High Council. Whether or not you're familiar with the premise, this fic does something extremely clever: it remains true to canon without diminishing the enjoyment of either series 16 or the fic itself.

The intricacies come in because the author doesn't shy away from Gallifreyan mythology, from the start to the finish and what comes between. We see the Doctor shaping Romana's personality as insidiously as any Loom, the evolution of their grudging respect for each other shifting into something more, and a new spin on the cornerstones of the Doctor and Romana's relationship - "call me Fred", the ups and downs of the Quest itself, and, of course, the regeneration.



She frowned in confusion. "The look of what?"

"Hit with a fish. You know, confused, slack-jawed, off his kilter--"

"So disoriented and staggering about, then, as if he'd been hit." She put the brush down, trying and failing to piece this curious metaphor together. "But why with a fish, of all things? It would have be a very large fish, I should think, to have that sort of physical impact--"

"Romana, the whole point is that nobody actually hits anyone else with a fish, it's the sheer absurdity of the idea and I have mentioned before how the worst possible fate to which you can subject any absurdity is to try to pin it down and explain it?" He pulled himself to his feet in agitation. "Stop trying to reason it out and just think to yourself, how utterly gobsmacked would you be if someone came along and with no warning clapped you in the face with a fish. Well, go on, try and imagine it!"

She tried for several moments to do so, and failed. "You know, Doctor," she pointed out, "your whole 'absurdity' depends on the supposition that no matter where one might travel in the universe, there's no possibility of encountering a civilization whose members really do strike each other with fish. That seems to me to be a far-reaching assumption unsupported by any evidentiary--"

"Oh, for the love of…never mind." He stomped about the room in a welter of irritation, pushing random buttons and levers on the console in a way that would have alarmed her if she hadn't already finalized their coordinates hours earlier. "Why I even bother trying, I just don't know--"

Comments

[rosa-acicularis.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I mentioned how much I loved this story when you first recommended it to me. It's absolutely fascinating.

Thanks for the rec, dude. My personal canon - it grows by leaps and bounds.

[rachelbeann.livejournal.com]

I think I saw this recced on Calufrax and just never remembered to check it out - so thanks for the repeated rec. I DO love a good Doctor/Romana story, and the excerpt is intriguing.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Hey, thank you! :-D What a lovely rec.

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

Oh, I saw this on calufrax, and I bookmarked it and everything, but I never got around to reading it for a variety of reasons. I suppose it's time to stop delaying! Thank you.