Just the start of it all

So, this is that thing where I rec a fic that I beta-ed, and have no shame whatsoever about it. (Well, OK, I have a tiny amount of shame; if I didn't, I'd be reccing it on three_settings while it's still free-swim. Someone else should totally get on that.)

Solace (I'm linking to the top of the post to give you a chance to check the lengthy warnings before you continue, but none of it's stuff that I consider sufficiently extreme to warn for here in the rec) is an awesome Handy/Rose fic of awesomeness. On one level, it's an astonishingly hot kinky porn fic of astonishing hot kinkiness, but it's much much more than that: it's a brilliant exploration of Handy, building on the ways in which he is like and unlike both the Doctor and Donna, while trying in an almost tragic way to be the Doctor, because that's what everyone, Handy included, expects of him.

It's written from an utterly believable Handy POV, and the sex elements (which are many, varied, and HOT AS HELL) are used to build a fantastic portrayal of the ways in which Handy's relationship with Rose over in Pete's World is based on being like the Doctor, but gradually evolving into its own thing, just as Handy becomes a separate individual. The whole thing has a wonderful sense of reality to it in the sense of being true to how people and relationships work in real life -- the ways the characters interact, even the fantastical elements related to Handy's Doctor-and-Donna origin (remember how I said it was hot as hell? the Donna/Lee flashback bits in particular are amazing), and especially the way things are not left too-neatly resolved at the end, are all utterly convincing. It's a brilliant piece of writing, and one of those rare fics that completely convinces me that it's written by someone whose handle on what's going on with the characters is not just as good as that of the canon creators, but better.

doyle_sb4's dw_femslash fic, "Someone, One Day". Absolutely gorgeous Sarah Jane/Maria a few years down the line. Gets the characters just right and is heartbreaking and hopeful all at once. It's a ship I like a lot, but have never quite been able to see working both ways at once, if that makes sense, but Doyle completely sells it. Oh, it's just lovely.

OK, so when I signed up for dw_femslash this year and mentioned Izzy out of DWM in my "people I'd like to read about list", it was pretty much a shooting the moon thing. Because I ♥ her and I want there to be fic of her and I figure that if I keep mentioning this enough it will magically happen.

And, OMG did glinda_penguin come through for me in spades with this fic here which you absolutely must read right this very second, even if you have no clue about this stuff. (And then you must go out and buy Endgame and so on, but for now: read the fic.) It's amazingly good and gets it all just right and oh wow.

Let There be Light, livii's Ace/Gwendoline fic for femslash08. Obviously Ghost Light fic is guaranteed to push my buttons, but this is amazing. That thing livii does of making everything seem slightly dreamlike works brilliantly for the setting and characters, and it really counterpoints and expands what's going on on screen. Bloody brilliant. Go read now.

One of my favourite things about sizeofthatthing is the almost alchemical way the prompts can change from what they originally seem to suggest to something amazing. In which light, you should totally read this beautiful Nine/Jabe fic that anon wrote for my "gardening" prompt. (Kink-averse people: it's not even kinky, at least not any more than humanoid/tree would be anyway. And it's really very good.) ETA: It is of course adults-only and NSFW, yes. Should probably have mentioned that to start with.

If you are even slightly interested in Doctor Who as anything more than Saturday night light entertainment, you should find the next couple of hours you've got free in your schedule and set them aside to read peeeeeeet's amazing tardis_bigbang fic, Two Smiths, which I had the great privilege of beta-ing a while back{*}.

It really is astonishingly good. The jumping off point is a reconciliation of the inconsistencies between the NA and telly versions of Human Nature, but it's much more than that (and also far, far less fanwanky than I've made it sound). It explores all sorts of links between the new series and what's gone before, delving into the Time War, the relationship between the Doctor and the Master, and much more. It's a long story (almost 40k words, and if you're like me and normally recoil from that sort of thing with an instinctive "longfic is looooooooong", then believe me that you need to make an exception here) but it still feels jam packed with ideas; peeeeeet is one of those people who do that thing I love of throwing away in an aside the sort of thing that lesser writers would use as an entire premise). It is, ultimately, a story about Doctor Who in a way that few are.

You should really read it in order, but if you're wavering, check out what he does in chapter eight (it's a dream sequence, and that's about all the context you need) tying the Untempered Schism/sound of drums stuff into the wider Gallifreyan mythology. His implication about what the Doctor heard before he ran away is brilliant in both its audacity and its simplicity. As soon as I read it it went straight into my personal canon.

But just as importantly, the characterisation is excellent. Martha and Benny in particular are fantastically well-drawn, and go from being initially at odds with each other without it feeling at all contrived to bonding over the difficulties of companionhood. He nails Seven and Ten in both their Time Lord and human forms (and without spoiling it, there's an absolutely brilliant bit towards the end that would fall completely flat without him having them spot on) and the supporting cast are all well done too.

Go. Read it now. You won't regret it.

{*} Ahem. Huge apologies to tanisafic fic for my being all FAIL on beta-ing her Mickey/Jake fic Momentum, which I do intend to read in full RSN (the bit I did read did a very good job with the ship; if you like them you should have a look at that too). I would like to blame RL, but I think we all know what I've been spending my time doing lately. Sorry.

You absolutely must read this.

(DW S3/Red Dwarf crossover fic by doyle_sb4 in which it's Martha who delivers Lister's twins during the S2-S3 gap. Proper pre-S3 Red Dwarf characterisation, lovely Martha, and fantastic feline crossovery.)

This Ace/Martha fic (PG) wishfulaces wrote for me in response to the "Ace femslash pls" part of my Christmas wishlist, which I really didn't expect anything to come from, so I am just a puddle of pure excitement and festve happiness right now. It is complete and utter awesome -- post-NA Ace meets Martha during the Year That Never Was and oh yes, it's great.

(In other semi-festive news, I still haven't finished my Yuletide fic and am running out of opportunities today to do so. This is my first year of Yuletide-ing: is it really as horrendous as they make out, trying to upload on the last day?)