calufrax

Story: In the Moment
Author: JJPOR
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 6,924
Author's Summary: He has been lying about his age for so long now that it is hard to remember exactly how old he is, but however many years it is, he is feeling every one of them today.
Characters/Pairings: Four/Romana II, K-9
Warnings: None

Recced because: The author calls this "shameless Four/Romana" love, but personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. "In the Moment" is charming, with spot-on, sparkling dialogue between Four and Romana II as they spend a lazy day picking out clothes and relaxing in a park. There's also unexpected emotional depth here – the Doctor's reminiscences of his early life on Gallifrey and what drove him to leave, and the two Time Lords' acknowledgement that they're running away together not just out of love, but out of fear of the future. If you're a Four/Romana II fan, I can't recommend this story highly enough.

philosophercat.livejournal.com

Title: Walking the Labyrinth.
Author: LilacFree.
Characters/Pairings: 4th Doctor, Adric, K9, Tegan Jovanka, the Master (Ainsley).
Rating: All ages.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 3419.
Summary: Doctor who? Has any one else ever walked into the TARDIS without having met the Doctor? This story is an attempt to walk in Tegan's high-heeled shoes. It follows canon from the 4th Doctor episode 'Logopolis' fairly closely, with a couple of additions.
Follows my story 'First Step' and is part of the same series. It also draws from the drabble 'He Laughs'.

Recced Because: Taking a couple of scenes from Logopolis where not much happens other than Tegan exploring, getting lost and frightened, in the TARDIS before she has met the Doctor and turns it into an effective character study. I like to see this both as Tegan working through her fears but also as a study of the Doctor by means of the TARDIS. The author makes use to two meanings for the labyrinth: meditation tool, and location for the Theseus and the Minotaur myth, with the Master as the Minotaur.

thisbluespirit

Story: An Old Cliched Joke
Author:A Moment In Subtext
Rating:All Ages
Word Count: 316
Author's Summary:How many Doctors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Characters/Pairings: K-9, Rose Tyler, Tegan Jovanka, The Doctor (10th), The Doctor (1st), The Doctor (2nd), The Doctor (3rd), The Doctor (4th), The Doctor (5th), The Doctor (6th), The Doctor (7th), The Doctor (8th), The Doctor (9th)
Warnings: None, but absolutely not to be taken seriously…

Recced because:How about a joke for the middle of the week? Okay, then: how many Doctors does it take to change a light bulb?

Frankly, anything would be quicker than all ten of him. It’s a short, daft fic but the sly humour at the Doctors’ expense makes me grin every time I read it. It’s completely silly, but it works and I keep sneaking back to it when I need cheering up.

mysticalchild_isis

Story: The Good, the Bad, and the Hovercrafts
Author:

eponymous_rose
Rating: All-Ages
Word Count: 1814
Author's Summary: In which various alien entities get held off at the pass, the Doctor and Romana take up jogging, and K-9, to everyone's horror, tells a joke.
Characters/Pairings: Four, Romana I, K-9
Warnings: K-9 tells a joke.

This is one of those brilliant, funny stories that reads just like one of the classic episodes. From the banter ("Rather clever bits and bobs?" Romana echoed, and narrowed her eyes. "You just dropped the sonic screwdriver in the works, didn't you?"), to the angry aliens of the week, to Romana's choice in footwear- it all scans perfectly.

clocketpatch

Hi I’m Clocket and I’ll be your assigned reccer for the next seven days. Hopefully I’ll be able to give you a nice selection of lengths and eras with a good crack-to-angst ratio. Since I’m swamped with school this week I wrote most of these up a good month in advance so here’s hoping no one steals the recs.

Story: To the Rescue
Author: dbskyler
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 1381
Author's Summary: Sarah Jane is in Aberdeen! Help is on the way.
Characters/Pairings: Sarah-Jane, Jack Harkness, K-9, Jo Grant, Romana II, Harry Sullivan
Warnings: probably best not to be drinking anything that might wreck your laptop when reading this

Recced because:
Mondays need a bit of humour, therefore I bring you this wonderful and highly plausible fic about what Sarah-Jane did after getting dumped in Aberdeen. Did she weep and angst in a corner, a helpless little maiden in distress?
– of course not! She’s Sarah-Jane!
The Doctor, however, is set on the notion that she must be rescued, and sends various companions to do the deed; the results are predictably hilarious as Sarah-Jane rolls her eyes at each in turn and gets on with her sight-seeing (this involves wild misappropriations of UNIT funding).

( Brief snippet: )

mysticalchild_isis

Story: La Vie Boheme
Author: Doctor Tam
Rating: All-Ages
Word Count: 2075
Author's Summary: A non-linear character study: "He composes a symphony for accordion and dog whistle, goes pike fishing in the Thames, and gets a sunburn on his nose. After all, the universe isn’t his responsibility."
Characters/Pairings: Four, The Brig, Harry, Sarah Jane, Leela, Romana I, Romana II, K-9
Warnings: None

It's not too hard to scratch the surface with Four (teeth & curls, scarf, jelly baby, hello!), but he's always seemed to be one of the more difficult Doctors to get beneath the surface with.

This story not only goes deep, but also provides a lovely illumination of Four: his fears, his hopes, his motivations, and his interactions with his friends and companions. Even the non-linear nature of the story is perfectly suited to the Fourth Doctor (and the sections are scattered to great effect).

fearlessfirefly.livejournal.com

Story: There's No Way Out Of Here
Author: MrWhat
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 1060
Author's Summary: When you come in, you're in for good.
Characters/Pairings: The Doctor (4th), K-9, Romana I
Warnings: None.

Recced because: This is one of the first Fourth Doctor-era fanfics I ever read, and even now it brings tears of laughter to my eyes. It is side-splitting hilarity told in diary format, and to say any more would spoil the fun, so go on and read!

Current Mood: awake

ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com

Story: Dread Pirate Roberts
Author:

biichan
Rating: Teen
Word count: 3000
Author's summary: If you fall in love with someone pretending to be someone else, are you in love with them or the person they're pretending to be? S3 AU.
Characters/Pairings: Martha/Romana, Seven, K9
Warnings: None

Recced because: For some reason, Martha seems to be the new school companion shipped with the most old school characters. And one of the popular femslash pairings for her (along with Martha/Ace, which I could easily have recced an entire week for by itself, to be completely honest) is with Romana.

biichan's take on it (again from this year's

dw_femslash ficathon) is lovely and does something very interestingly different: it's an alternate S3, with the alternateness coming from Romana having been the one to survive the Time War, not the Doctor. What follows from there is a really clever set of inversions of and counterpoints to canon, not just Martha's journey in S3 but all sorts of other bits as well. It's a succession of fantastic moments, by turns funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking and inducing pure punch-the-air fannish glee. A wonderful fic.

jinxed-wood.livejournal.com

Story: 17 Reasons Why Romana is (better than) the Doctor
Author:

calapine (Carmen Sandiego on Teaspoon)
Wordcount: 1165
Rating: All Ages
Author's Summary:Cause she is, y'know.
Characters/Pairings: K-9, Romana II, The Doctor (4th)

Recced because: I know you all know about my unshakable belief that Romana pawns the entire multiverse - whether my proof for this theory is sound is another story! The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere between Shrodinger's cat and Newton's apple tree... this wee story shows 17 of the steps between.

akashasheiress.livejournal.com

Story: Sixteen Degress
Author: Melengro
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 627
Author's Summary: Cold hands, burning heads, boiling stomachs.
Characters/Pairings: Doctor/Romana, K-9
Warnings: Nuclear fallout stuffs, genocidal angst

Recced because: Because it should have been recced a long time ago. It's basically this beautiful, feverish mesh of alieness and Time Angst and Sehnsucht.

( Excerpt )

akashasheiress.livejournal.com

Story: Alien Abduction
Author: JJPOR
Word count: 43269
Rating: Teen
Author's Summary: UFOs! Men in Black! Psychedelic Hippies! Tentacle-Beasts from Dimension X! New Mexico, 1968: Evil lurks beneath the Diablo Mesa as the Doctor and Romana take on the might of the Military-Industrial Complex; the Military-Industrial Complex probably ought to be very scared.
Characters/Pairings: Fourth Doctor, Romana II, K-9
Warnings: Explicit violence, drugs, hippiness

Recced because: This story might as well be a Classic Who serial. It has suspense, creative aliens, entertaining tertiary characters, not to mention delightful Four/Romana chemistry.

( Tiny excerpt of cuteness )

ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com

Story: Remnants
Author: katuah
Rating: All Ages
Word count: 2200
Author's Summary: What does the Doctor do when his current Companions are asleep? How does he explain his life to them? Does he think often about the ones who were with him before? What about the things they leave behind in his TARDIS - or in his heart?
Characters/Pairings: Leela, K9, Four/SJS
Warnings: None

Recced because: Leela as a character, and Four/Sarah Jane as a ship, don't get enough attention in my opinion, but here they're both done very well indeed (in particular, Leela's background is used very well, without demeaning her, and the treatment of the ship strikes me as perfect for all Doctor/human stuff). And it makes good use of the TARDIS, which always gets two thumbs up from me.

biichan.livejournal.com

Story: Gaze into the Abyss
Author: JJPOR
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 22, 811
Author's summary: She wanted to make a difference; she wanted to do good. She wanted to be able to say that she had done something more with her life than simply watching. Most of all, she wanted to be like him, to please him. Events dictated otherwise.
Characters/Pairings: Various Doctors/Romana II, Leela/Andred, Davros, K9, Fourth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, Eighth Doctor, Jacobi!Master, Daleks, and various assorted Time Lords
Warnings: Sad and long. Bring tissues. Also, explicit violence (but then it is a war story.)

Recced because: Tonight you get two Calufrax recs from me! I've already recced the short one; this is the long one. Believe me, it's worth every sentence.

Gazing Into the Abyss is, without a doubt, my favorite Time War fic. It's written from the perspective of Romana and through her JPOR does an excellent job of showing the horrors of war. We begin with Romana in all her youth and idealism, wanting to do good and finding the role of President as the perfect way to accomplish this and we end at the end of Gallifrey herself, the final hour. It's sad and heartbreaking, but the writing is beautiful and there were moments reading this where I forgot that it isn't actually canon. I cannot recommend this one more.

Current Mood: enthralled

carawj.livejournal.com

Story: Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons)
Author: eponymous_rose
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 2260
Author's Summary: Four seasons with the Doctor, with the TARDIS, and with the impossible.
Characters/Pairings: Fourth Doctor, Harry Sullivan, K-9, Romana II, Sarah Jane Smith,
Warnings: None

Recced because: Four snapshots that beautifully capture TARDIS life, using the most gorgeous, evocative language. The characters are all wonderful, with brilliant Sarah Jane and Harry, and it's particularly notable for having an absolutely perfect Fourth Doctor voice, which is often difficult to find in fic. This one is really all about the way it's written, because it is just spellbinding.

silly-cleo.livejournal.com

(Second post to make up for missing yesterday. Apologies!)

Story: Seconds Ticking
Author: Biichan
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 908
Author's Summary: Of course they had a back-up plan. No one said that it was sensible.
Characters/Pairings: Leela, Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, K-9, Romana II, Braxiatel, Narvin, Jackie Tyler, Rose Tyler, Pete Tyler
Warnings: None.

Recced because: I love pocket-watch stories and I love Big Finish and this story manages to combine the two fantastically. Awesome, awesome theory and it's incredible how many good lines are packed in to so few words. I really sort of wish this were canon. Everyone's voice sounds just right, especially Leela's. This one's a must if you like the Big Finish series Gallifrey but is still heaps of fun even if you're not familiar with it, I think.

netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com

Story: Then Sleep the Season
Author: Cherry Ice
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 1954
Author's Summary: The TARDIS is not her home, and she is more a stranger here than she has ever been. Romana, last of the Time Lords.
Characters/Pairings: Romana, Mickey Smith, K-9
Warnings: N/A

Recced because: The very idea of an AU where Romana is the last of the Time Lords with Mickey as her companion is of course fantastic, but it's the execution that really makes this fic. The characterisation is superb, Romana's guilt over the war and how ill at ease she feels in the Doctor's TARDIS is both painful and wonderful.

netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com

Story: Scent on the Wind
Author: icebluenothing
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 1241
Author's Summary: Big Ben ruined, a crashed alien spaceship in London -- the call has gone out for alien experts. But one of them finds a reason to stay home ....
Characters/Pairings: Sarah Jane Smith, K-9
Warnings: N/A

Recced because: When Sarah was first reintroduced in School Reunion she was carrying the broken K-9 around in the boot of her car and at first glance this fic is the tale of how K-9 came to break down. But it also ties beautifully into series one and is a lovely look at the affection Sarah feels for K-9.

( Snippet )

biichan.livejournal.com

Story: Threads
Author: Vali
Rating: All Ages
Author's summary: Romana finds that her tastes have begun to change.
Characters/Pairings: Romana I/Fourth Doctor, K9
Warnings: none that I can think of (unless you want me to warn for Classic Who)

Recced because: Of the two Romanas, Romana I definitely gets the less play in fandom. Is this because Romana's first incarnation was so standoffish? Less blond? Less overtly shippy with the Doctor? Probably the most likely explanation is that while fic with Romana II has her whole life ahead of her to play with, Romana I only really had the Key To Time Arc. Whatever the reason, it's rare to find well-written fic with Romana I in it and the fact that "Threads" is so very much more than just well-written makes this fic a joy to rec.

Vali takes Romana as we first meet her--a prissy young know-it-all straight from the Academy--and shows how she grows and changes over the course of the search for the Key To Time. It's a character study, but it's also a love story--or, rather, a falling-in-love story--between Romana and the Doctor. We see him through her eyes, nothing more than a crazy old vagabond at first and something altogether different at the end. There's also a good deal of commentary on Gallifreyan society, which sheds some light on why Romana might have chosen to regenerate at the start of S17.

In short, "Threads" is a real treat to read.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See

reccity-rec-rec

calufrax is sleeping in your mind. One day, it may be brought back in front of your eyes.

April 2018

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A rec comm for A Teaspoon And An Open Mind

Entries tagged with companion: k-9

rec: In the Moment

rec: Walking the Labyrinth by lilacfree

rec:An Old Cliched Joke by A Moment In Subtext

Rec: The Good, the Bad, and the Hovercrafts

To The Rescue

Rec: La Vie Boheme

rec: There's No Way Out Of Here

rec: dread pirate roberts

(no subject)

rec: sixteen degrees

rec: alien abduction

fic rec: remnants

REC: Gazing into the Abyss

rec: le quattro stagioni (the four seasons)

rec: seconds ticking

rec: then sleep the season by cherry ice

rec: scent on the wind by icebluenothing

REC: Threads

reccity-rec-rec

Links

April 2018

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