![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
idelthoughts.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
calufraxHello! I'm idelthoughts on Teaspoon, and it's my first time reccing on Calufrax. I tend to read mostly New Who fics, but I've tried to select a diverse(ish) sampling of some of my favourites. So many of my favourites have already been recced, so it's been a challenge! I'll do my best, and hopefully there will be something for everyone to enjoy. I'll start with my favourite of the bunch:
Story: The Larks, Still Bravely Singing, Fly
Author: cyberjulie
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 2904
Author's Summary: The Eighth Doctor, recovering from an act of finality no one else could have brought to pass, finds a moment's grace in the last place he would expect.
Characters/Pairings: Eighth Doctor, historical figure
Warnings: None
Recced because: If you don't know the story of Christmas Day Truce in 1914, I urge you to read up on it. It's one of the magic moments in history where people show themselves capable of being better, in a way that the Doctor always urges us to be. It's touchingly written, and the World War I battlefield is the perfect real-world background against which to set the battle-weary Eighth Doctor. The romanticism and bleak desperation of the Great War is the most apt parallel for the Time War than I can imagine.
John Alexander McCrae is a great choice of historical figure to bring into the DW world. My favourite Who stories, especially from the Classic Who eras, are the ones that go back in time and make history live. I really enjoy didactic storytelling - I suppose it's why I have such a soft spot for YA fiction in general.
(As a total aside, and on a note of ridiculous Canadian patriotism, the one-off encounter with McCrae as a notable historic figure and the general structure of the fic reminds me of the Canadian Heritage Moments that used to run on the CBC in an effort to bolster public pride and knowledge of Canadian history. If you know what I'm talking about, then you get a Super Secret Canada Club High Five from me. And if you don't know what I'm talking about and want to have a good chuckle at Canada's expense, then go look it up on youtube. There are quite a few, but I think the most notable is 'Doctor, I can smell burnt toast!', though I also recommend the one on Sam Steele, the Klondike Mountie.)
Excerpt:
The engines of the TARDIS ground to their traditional wheezing halt, the central rotor rising and falling like the beat of a heart. He looked diffidently at the clock on the control panel, not even registering the copper embossed numbers…1914.
He didn’t need to look at the clock, as he came here often in those days. In those dark days, after the end of the war to end all wars, when friend and foe alike chased him down with the word abomination ringing in his ears, calling him the destroyer of worlds, he came to this fixed point in time and space. Different moments, of course, and he was always careful not to cross his own time stream. Sometimes he would sit and watch, remembering the horrors and travesties he had visited on the armies of the universe, feeling all too keenly in his hearts the pain brought on by the primitive but still effective weapons these humans used. Change was just around the corner…in just a few months, the horrors of poison gas would be unleashed en masse upon the battlefield and the art of dying, such as it was, would irrevocably change. Other times he would try to help, to be the man his chosen name inferred himself to be. Always trying to find some kind of solace, some kind of redemption…or at the very least, some mirror in which he could face the dark deeds he found himself forced to set into motion.
He walked slowly from the console toward the TARDIS doors, head down, shoulders slouched as if weary from bearing a heavy load. The doors opened and for the first time in ages he walked out to a sight he didn’t quite expect.
Across the field of battle, across no-man’s land, they had gathered. The constant rain of artillery shells and bullets had ceased, and Germans and Britons alike met where once the bodies of their fellow troops fell, exchanging small gifts or parcels of food. In places, groups gathered and played pick up games of football, laughing even as they remained in uniform, their guns stacked to the side as if so much kindling or cordwood, cheerfully ignored and irrelevant. Soldiers trading coat buttons, commendation badges, giving each other hair cuts, acting like long lost friends, not mortal enemies. Acting like brothers.
In the distance, he thought he heard…no, he did hear…singing. Different voices, different languages, but a single tune, one no one could possibly forget…
Stille Nacht! Heil’ge Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hoch heilige Paar.
Holder Knab’ im lockigen Haar,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
“1914,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “Ypres. And it’s Christmas Day.”
Story: The Larks, Still Bravely Singing, Fly
Author: cyberjulie
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 2904
Author's Summary: The Eighth Doctor, recovering from an act of finality no one else could have brought to pass, finds a moment's grace in the last place he would expect.
Characters/Pairings: Eighth Doctor, historical figure
Warnings: None
Recced because: If you don't know the story of Christmas Day Truce in 1914, I urge you to read up on it. It's one of the magic moments in history where people show themselves capable of being better, in a way that the Doctor always urges us to be. It's touchingly written, and the World War I battlefield is the perfect real-world background against which to set the battle-weary Eighth Doctor. The romanticism and bleak desperation of the Great War is the most apt parallel for the Time War than I can imagine.
John Alexander McCrae is a great choice of historical figure to bring into the DW world. My favourite Who stories, especially from the Classic Who eras, are the ones that go back in time and make history live. I really enjoy didactic storytelling - I suppose it's why I have such a soft spot for YA fiction in general.
(As a total aside, and on a note of ridiculous Canadian patriotism, the one-off encounter with McCrae as a notable historic figure and the general structure of the fic reminds me of the Canadian Heritage Moments that used to run on the CBC in an effort to bolster public pride and knowledge of Canadian history. If you know what I'm talking about, then you get a Super Secret Canada Club High Five from me. And if you don't know what I'm talking about and want to have a good chuckle at Canada's expense, then go look it up on youtube. There are quite a few, but I think the most notable is 'Doctor, I can smell burnt toast!', though I also recommend the one on Sam Steele, the Klondike Mountie.)
Excerpt:
The engines of the TARDIS ground to their traditional wheezing halt, the central rotor rising and falling like the beat of a heart. He looked diffidently at the clock on the control panel, not even registering the copper embossed numbers…1914.
He didn’t need to look at the clock, as he came here often in those days. In those dark days, after the end of the war to end all wars, when friend and foe alike chased him down with the word abomination ringing in his ears, calling him the destroyer of worlds, he came to this fixed point in time and space. Different moments, of course, and he was always careful not to cross his own time stream. Sometimes he would sit and watch, remembering the horrors and travesties he had visited on the armies of the universe, feeling all too keenly in his hearts the pain brought on by the primitive but still effective weapons these humans used. Change was just around the corner…in just a few months, the horrors of poison gas would be unleashed en masse upon the battlefield and the art of dying, such as it was, would irrevocably change. Other times he would try to help, to be the man his chosen name inferred himself to be. Always trying to find some kind of solace, some kind of redemption…or at the very least, some mirror in which he could face the dark deeds he found himself forced to set into motion.
He walked slowly from the console toward the TARDIS doors, head down, shoulders slouched as if weary from bearing a heavy load. The doors opened and for the first time in ages he walked out to a sight he didn’t quite expect.
Across the field of battle, across no-man’s land, they had gathered. The constant rain of artillery shells and bullets had ceased, and Germans and Britons alike met where once the bodies of their fellow troops fell, exchanging small gifts or parcels of food. In places, groups gathered and played pick up games of football, laughing even as they remained in uniform, their guns stacked to the side as if so much kindling or cordwood, cheerfully ignored and irrelevant. Soldiers trading coat buttons, commendation badges, giving each other hair cuts, acting like long lost friends, not mortal enemies. Acting like brothers.
In the distance, he thought he heard…no, he did hear…singing. Different voices, different languages, but a single tune, one no one could possibly forget…
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hoch heilige Paar.
Holder Knab’ im lockigen Haar,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
“1914,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “Ypres. And it’s Christmas Day.”
no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 06:20 pm (UTC)*HUGS*
Thank you...
no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 07:13 pm (UTC)This is one of those moments where one is never quite sure what to say. Thank you for reccing this...I'm touched beyond words that it resonated so strongly for you, and your comments above are the manna that sustain me. This story seems to have taken a bit of a life of its own on me, and...
Words fail.
Thank you once again, so much. This was so very unexpected.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 08:56 pm (UTC)