Whovian recs
Nov. 13th, 2013 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAlas I'm on the road again, which means no internationally broadcast Richard II for me tonight. It also means a lot of time in trains, which is why you get fanfic recs from the recent DW_Remix ficathon.
Bright Shadows (The Don't Be Alone Remix): gives us Madame Vastra and her reaction when the Doctor shows up sans Companions in that interval before The Snowmen. It's a lovely fleshing out of Vastra and her relationship with the Doctor.
News from Santiago (The Keeping Up With the Jones' Remix): this delightful story takes Jo's grandson Santiago, who showed up with Jo (that would be Jo Grant that was, aka one of my favourite Companions) in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor, and lets him report the SJA events to various family members. Which makes it sound like a recap, but the story is anything but: you get a portrait of the various familiy members, of the family dynamics, and of course of the SJA characters. It's just a joy to read all around.
Howthe Doctor Cooks (The Eleventh Time Lucky Remix): uses the MacGuffin of the Doctor trying to cook (err, none too successfully most of the time) to give us incredibly enjoyable portraits of eleven Doctor-and-Companion(s) combinations. It's a love declaration to the entire show, basically.
Consanguinitas (The Immortal Perspective) is a remix of my own story, Consanguinitas, which was about Alice Carter's relationship with her father, Jack Harkness, from her point of view. My remixer gave us Jack's point of view, and I was especially thrilled by the way she handled Jack giving retcon to Alice when she's twelve. The reason why this happens in my story is that when Alice in Day One of Children of Earth immediatedly (and correctly) deduces the reason why Jack wants to spend some time with his grandson on the very day when kids are behaving oddly is that he needs a child to experiment on (though of course at this point he's only thinking of a harmless experiment), she's not really surprised. (Nor is he that she figured it out.) Later on, during a conversation between Agent Johnson and Alice it comes across that among other things Alice is afraid of Jack. Now, obviously that's not all there is to their pre-CoE relationship. She also loves him, he makes her laugh with the "I've discovered a gray hair" crack, and when she can't reach him after the Hub got blown up, she's extremely worried for him. But to me it seemed that Alice's "you bastard" deducement in Day One and that undercurrent of fear can't all be explained by her mother; something had to have happened in her childhood. So I created what was essentially a no win situation for Jack: he gives her the retcon because she's seen something truly horrible - and which parent wouldn't want to spare their children such a memory? - but by doing so, he instead creates something more insidiously terrible: from that point on, Alice is aware that he can alter her memories - i.e. her mind if he chooses to, and that is deeply frightening on a whole different scale (especially since she has no way of knowing whether he's done it before, or whether he'll do it again).
Now, in the remix, the remixer not only gives us Jack's emotions that lead up to his retconning his daughter, but also connects them with Gray, which I thought was inspired, because of course that is the other child in Jack's life who saw monsters and could not be protected from them. Considering Alice and Jack's relationship with her has a deep impact on my own remix, I was doubly pleased my remixer chose to write this particular tale.
Bright Shadows (The Don't Be Alone Remix): gives us Madame Vastra and her reaction when the Doctor shows up sans Companions in that interval before The Snowmen. It's a lovely fleshing out of Vastra and her relationship with the Doctor.
News from Santiago (The Keeping Up With the Jones' Remix): this delightful story takes Jo's grandson Santiago, who showed up with Jo (that would be Jo Grant that was, aka one of my favourite Companions) in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor, and lets him report the SJA events to various family members. Which makes it sound like a recap, but the story is anything but: you get a portrait of the various familiy members, of the family dynamics, and of course of the SJA characters. It's just a joy to read all around.
Howthe Doctor Cooks (The Eleventh Time Lucky Remix): uses the MacGuffin of the Doctor trying to cook (err, none too successfully most of the time) to give us incredibly enjoyable portraits of eleven Doctor-and-Companion(s) combinations. It's a love declaration to the entire show, basically.
Consanguinitas (The Immortal Perspective) is a remix of my own story, Consanguinitas, which was about Alice Carter's relationship with her father, Jack Harkness, from her point of view. My remixer gave us Jack's point of view, and I was especially thrilled by the way she handled Jack giving retcon to Alice when she's twelve. The reason why this happens in my story is that when Alice in Day One of Children of Earth immediatedly (and correctly) deduces the reason why Jack wants to spend some time with his grandson on the very day when kids are behaving oddly is that he needs a child to experiment on (though of course at this point he's only thinking of a harmless experiment), she's not really surprised. (Nor is he that she figured it out.) Later on, during a conversation between Agent Johnson and Alice it comes across that among other things Alice is afraid of Jack. Now, obviously that's not all there is to their pre-CoE relationship. She also loves him, he makes her laugh with the "I've discovered a gray hair" crack, and when she can't reach him after the Hub got blown up, she's extremely worried for him. But to me it seemed that Alice's "you bastard" deducement in Day One and that undercurrent of fear can't all be explained by her mother; something had to have happened in her childhood. So I created what was essentially a no win situation for Jack: he gives her the retcon because she's seen something truly horrible - and which parent wouldn't want to spare their children such a memory? - but by doing so, he instead creates something more insidiously terrible: from that point on, Alice is aware that he can alter her memories - i.e. her mind if he chooses to, and that is deeply frightening on a whole different scale (especially since she has no way of knowing whether he's done it before, or whether he'll do it again).
Now, in the remix, the remixer not only gives us Jack's emotions that lead up to his retconning his daughter, but also connects them with Gray, which I thought was inspired, because of course that is the other child in Jack's life who saw monsters and could not be protected from them. Considering Alice and Jack's relationship with her has a deep impact on my own remix, I was doubly pleased my remixer chose to write this particular tale.
