ext_17576 ([identity profile] ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] calufrax2009-08-22 01:03 pm

five times liz shaw and the brigadier saved the world by vvj5

I thought I'd do a couple of slightly longer recs to finish off, for leisurely weekend reading. Here's the first:

Story: Five Times Liz Shaw and the Brigadier Saved the World
Author: vvj5/[livejournal.com profile] lost_spook
Rating: All Ages
Word count: 5592
Author's summary: Season 7 without the Doctor. Surprisingly, the world doesn't end.
Characters/Pairings: Liz/Brig
Warnings: None

Recced because: This is a glorious AU, little snapshots of what might have happened if the Doctor hadn't turned up in Spearhead. Things don't change that much, but everything's that little bit more difficult and hard-won without him around (well, except in the case of Inferno, which becomes somewhat simpler!), but in the process Liz and the Brigadier become closer than they did in canon. The characterisation's done with a wonderful light touch even amongst the occasional grimness; take this exchange, for instance:

"If you need help, you may have as many of my men as you need -."

"I don’t need anyone to clutter up the room and break things, but when I do, I shall be sure to take you up on the offer."

What I find particularly interesting is the way [livejournal.com profile] lost_spook deals with the fall out of not having the Doctor present (you can see some of it in the quote, with Liz's attitude to the idea of helpers rather similar to the Doctor's initial attitude to her, but the most interesting one to me is the discussion at the end of the second chapter, which acts as a distorted mirror of the Doctor and Brig's falling out in the Silurians, but surprisingly it's the Brig whose arguments are closest to the Doctor's in the original version, because of the different experiences he has; it's a great bit of characterisation that undercuts a lot of fannish clichés).
ext_3965: (Dr Liz Shaw)

[identity profile] persiflage-1.livejournal.com 2009-08-22 12:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Great rec! I adore this story - read it quite a few times, in fact!

[identity profile] fly-to-dawn.livejournal.com 2009-08-22 01:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, thank you for reccing this - I adored it.
thisbluespirit: (BrigLiz)

[personal profile] thisbluespirit 2009-08-22 02:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, you've just made my afternoon. Not only a calufrax rec, which is always something to sing about, but such a lovely reasoned rec taht made me blush a lot.