rusty_halo

I wrote up this thingy for

jolielaide in an attempt to get her into Doctor Who, and thought I'd repost it here for anyone else who may be interested. It explains the basics of my two favorite Doctor Who slash ships (with YouTube links) and then links to some good fic.

(This is "why you should be into Doctor Who because the slash is hot," not "why you should be into Doctor Who in general." Also it's completely spoilery.)

First, you must understand that the Tenth Doctor (played by David Tennant) is super hot. (Here's a bunch of people trying to prove David Tennant's hotness.) The Doctor is all angsty and alone because he had to exterminate his entire species (the Time Lords) in order to save the universe from these bad guys called Daleks. Apparently he thought he'd die too, but instead he was the only one who lived, while everyone he's ever loved is gone. So he's lonely and slightly insane. (And tries to distract himself from teh angst by traveling around the universe having adventures and helping people, which is what the show is ostensibly about. But we know it's really about the homoerotic subtext.)

The slash ships I'm interested in are Doctor/Master and Doctor/Jack. Doctor/Master is my favorite; it's one of those "best friends turned mortal enemies" ships. (I don't know much about the best friends part, but apparently they were in school together.) The Master is the only other surviving Time Lord, and also happens to be a violent sociopathic megalomaniacal lunatic who runs around doing evil things in an attempt to get the Doctor to pay attention to him, but the Doctor loooves him and just wants to fix him.

The first time I saw this, I thought it must be a photomanip. They're pointing their screwdrivers at each other!

Here's the scene where they have phone sex.

And then the Master captures the Doctor and keeps him as a pet for a year. Seriously. He makes him eat out of a dog food bowl, and then keeps him in a bird cage. I'm sure you can imagine the fic.

And then the Doctor decides to cure the Master by marrying him. This despite the fact that the Master has spent a year tormenting the Doctor and his friends and murdering half of the human race. And the same Doctor who has always refused to ever settle down for ANYONE is just leaping at the chance to spend eternity taking care of the Master.

As I'm sure you can also imagine, there is a ton of fic about the Doctor and the Master running away together.

But this happens instead, and it is angsty and awesome. *sob*

(If you want to see the whole arc, Netflix season three disc five, or download 3x11, 3x12, and 3x13.)

Oh and here is where the Doctor refers to the Master's wife as his "beard." Just in case anyone in the audience missed the subtext.

As for fic...

versaphile gives really good (and dark) Doctor/Master. Here's her fic masterlist. The Second Glass series is awesome.

omphalos wrote a great big Doctor/Master epic called New Dawn Fades which tries to come up with a plausible happy ending for the two of them. It's very plotty and dark, and the sex is hot.

There's a zillion fics out there full of kinky sex and psychic links and psychological mindplay. Here's a good one. And another. And plenty that throw canon out the window and just go for the kink.

Speaking of kink, Time Lords "regenerate" into new bodies when they're about to die, so there is an entire ficathon called the the sickathon which features death and regeneration during sex. Mostly guilty-pleasure badfic, but some of it is actually good.

Even the funny Doctor/Master fic can't resist the hot sex part. See here.

The other big slash pairing is Doctor/Jack. Jack is canonically omnisexual and has a huge crush on the Doctor. They're friends, so their relationship is more buddy slash. But it's also got tension, at first because they're both competing for Rose's attention, and later because the Doctor inexplicably abandons a newly immortal Jack on a space station full of dead bodies in the future, and Jack has to spend hundreds of years trying to find him again.

Here is Jack's goodbye kiss as he goes off to die saving the universe. Unfortunately it's the Eccleston Doctor, but he's about to regenerate into Tennant, so you can pretend.

Later Jack keeps the Doctor's severed hand as a memento. Shush, it's romantic.

And here's where the Doctor finally explains why he abandoned Jack and why Jack can't die. It's super slashy. In the commentary it's explained like "the only way you can get men to open up to each other about their emotions is to put them in a frantic life or death situation and then separate them with a huge door."

I haven't read as much Ten/Jack, but there's tons of it out there.

versaphile's is good. After seeing that new Torchwood clip, I'm going to have to seek out more, because I'm increasingly convinced of Barrowman's hotness. (Anyone have recs?)

Oh, and the big Who archive is here.

And if you're new to Who/just saw that Torchwood clip and want the quick backstory on Jack:

Jack is played by John Barrowman, who's not the greatest actor on the planet, but he has charisma.

Jack first shows up in Doctor Who 1x09 and 1x10: The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. (That's season one, disc three, if you're Netflixing.) He's a charming omnisexual time traveler from the 51st century running a con during World War II. He used to be a Time Agent but he quit because two years of his memory are mysteriously missing. He flirts with everyone and then he joins the Doctor and Rose on the TARDIS (the Doctor's time-space-ship-thingy). An OT3 is born.

He's in the next three episodes (season one, disc four) before he dies at the end of the season. Here's his goodbye kiss again, because damn, it's awesome. That would be that, except Rose accidentally brings him back to eternal life, and then she and the Doctor abandon him on a space station full of dead people. (Admittedly they are busy with the Doctor dying and regenerating, and Rose not really remembering what she did.)

He's not in Doctor Who season two, but that is where Torchwood is introduced. If you want to understand what Torchwood is, you should watch 2x02 (Tooth and Claw) and then 2x12 and 2x13 (Army of Ghosts and Doomsday). Basically it's a creepy secret government organization that exists to aggressively fight aliens using whatever alien technology it can pick up. Even good aliens. It fucks up badly and screws up the Doctor's life, so he kind of hates it.

Then Torchwood the show happens. In which Jack is the head of Torchwood and he tries to make it less creepy. Or something. To be honest I can't really stand the show, but I'm going to give the new season a chance because John Barrowman is hot.

And then Jack comes back to Doctor Who in 3x11, 3x12, and 3x13 (season three disc five) and is awesome, and has ho!yay with David Tennant, and finally figures out what happened to him and why he's immortal. (Once again, the big slashy explanation scene). The new season of Torchwood is going to be picking up after he comes back from this crossover, so you should totally watch it. Also it's awesome. (Except the yoda!Doctor part, but ignore that.) Oh, and Jack spends almost a whole episode in chains. The slash just writes itself.