Calufrax

Story: The Power of Cake
Author: liadt
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 2,206
Author's Summary: Two Time Lords chained to each other and covered in cake seek shelter in George Bulman's shop. George is not impressed. A cakefic crossover with the UK television series 'Bulman' (1985-87).
Characters/Pairings: The Doctor (3rd), The Doctor (7th), crossover characters
Warnings: None, unless naked Doctors really don't agree with you.

Recced because: Once upon a time there was a small but plucky Doctor Who forum called Death by Aspirin (it's still going if you want to search for it out of idle curiosity), and there, due to a slight misunderstanding one day, one of the regular posters accidentally invented a new fic meme which featured two Doctors (preferably Ten and Three, to begin with) chained to each other, one of them naked, both covered in cake. Oh, and it had to be all the Master's doing. I'm sure we've all accidentally invented fic memes like that in our time. ;)

And lo, the members of the forum thought that the meme was good and they did adopt the meme and embroider the meme and try different combinations of Doctors and other characters and ever more baroque explanations for how the chains and the nakedness and the cake became involved. Eventually, the subgenre even got its own community right here on Livejournal: http://cakefic.livejournal.com/

And then, the author of tonight's fic rec decided to write a crossover mashing up the cakefic meme with a perhaps undeservedly obscure 80s British TV series Bulman. George Kitchener Bulman was a retired police detective turned clock repairman/private eye and probably the most eccentric character in a genre full of eccentric characters. His titular series was actually a spinoff of a spinoff, strangely enough, and he was played by acting legend Don Henderson a.k.a the raw-meat-chewing, rocking-chair-appreciating Gavrok out of Delta and the Bannermen a.k.a. that bloke sitting at the table in the original Star Wars who isn't too impressed by the Death Star.

And a most amusing fic it is as well. You don't even have to be as familiar with the crossover series as I am (which is to say, only a very little bit in my hazy memories of long-ago telly) to appreciate the off-the-wall world of Bulman and be tickled pink by the idea that two Time Lords covered in cake and chains stumbling into the shop isn't the weirdest thing going on in that particular milieu. Also noteworthy is the way Three maintains his poise and essential Three-ness even in this unfortunate predicament while Seven is, of course, completely unfazed by the fact that he is not only covered in cake and handcuffs but also has somehow lost all of his clothing apart from his signature headgear. Go and read it, anyway, chuckle to yourselves and then tell the author how much you dig it and now want to watch Bulman. Worth it for the line about "despairing maniacal laughter" alone. :)


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Story: Ten Times the Doctor Hates the Daleks
Author: Derek Metaltron
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 2,871
Author's Summary: Across ten incarnations the Doctor has faced a enemy who has cost him friends and allies, planets and stars, his very home world. They are the Daleks, and these are ten tales of how he has learnt to hate them.
Characters/Pairings: The Doctors (1st to 10th), various companions and supporting characters, Davros and the Daleks
Warnings: None

Recced because: I'll admit to something of a fannish obsession with the Daleks. Not so much the Daleks as we see them most of the time on screen, but the idea of the Daleks. Because it really is a great concept, and a fantastically horrible one when you really think about it. Which I have, probably a bit too much. The thing about the Daleks, however, while I obviously reject vehemently the idea current in fandom that it's possible to see them too often in the series, is that they rarely live up to the power of the concept in their TV outings. Often they fill a role that could be played by any generic aliens and/or robots with a bit of a search-and-replace on the script. And that, I often find, is where good fanfic comes in.

Whether the Daleks obsess the rest of you as much as they do me or not (I suspect not, in most cases!), they do occupy a unique place in the history of Doctor Who, both in-universe and in terms of the lifespan of the series itself. They're the original Who monsters, and still the benchmark against which new pretenders are measured. Even the Cybermen, probably the second most iconic Who monsters, were originally an attempt to find "the next Daleks". And in story terms, the Doctor already had an ultimate archenemy - he knew it and perhaps more importantly they knew it - long before the Master ever showed up and started telling people to obey him. I'll be very disappointed if they don't play a prominent role in the 50th Anniversary story.

And this excellent fic meditates upon that idea, the pivotal and perhaps unique role the Daleks have played in the Doctors lives, through examining the way the Doctor reacts to them. I don't think it's unwarranted to talk, as the fic does, about the Doctor hating the Daleks. Look at Nine's spitting fury in the new series episode Dalek for Exhibit A. We perhaps don't like to think as fans about the Doctor hating anybody, he's meant to be better than that and to hold himself to a higher standard - and the fic explores that as well. As much as the Doctor has been subjected again and again to the Daleks' ingrained evil, their murderous and destructive deeds again and again, he still doubts that giving in to hating them, and doing to them what that implies, is something he should be doing. It's the same moral dilemma posed by the famous scene from Genesis - does he have that right? Does feeling for them what they feel for him make him as bad as they are? This fic examines that idea through the eyes of all ten Doctors extant at the time it was written, and comes back to that essential truth about the Doctor and his relationship with his greatest enemies. As much as they've done, and as much as he's seen of that, as much pain as they've caused him, at the end he is better than they are, in moral terms, so he'll always have that doubt, and always hold back, and end up always having to fight them again.

It's a fic I really like, anyway. Please go and read it, and please leave some words for the author.

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