Clothes make the man

or, beccaelizabeth extrapolates an entire society and personal history from one outfit.
spoilers for 2-05 Adam and reference to a deleted scene from the first season.

Jack is the big mystery at the heart of Torchwood. His own team spend large parts of their time trying to figure him out. And even his own team start with the clothes. Period military is not the dress code of a straight man.

So... ( Read more... )

So there's probably a billion other ways to explain the same stuff.

But I'm awake at 2 in the morning and this is the way I just typed up.

(no subject)

Apparently it has been 10 years since the invention of Viagra.
... using this as a ficathon prompt could be, er, amusing...

Being Human

Had this on disc all week, finally got around to watching.
Sound blipped at 05:45ish. That's just... I can't put up with it, I can't demonstrate it to the shop, they can't fix it unless they find it, and the more it happens the more I think it might be box+TV rather than just box, for they couldn't find it and it happens every damn time with me.
That aside:

I can see why everyone's really liking this one.
And I can see why people are saying 'more'... but I kind of can't see what the 'more' would be. Which probably says a lot about the kind of stories I write.

I mean, it's not like Buffy. There isn't a threat of the week. Except the three main characters.

It would be a whole series of Man Vs Himself, and I don't actually know how to write that and keep it interesting.

And, yeah, there's an external menace, in the form of cooler than thou vampires.

I liked the look of the flatmate vampire BTW, he had a hint of cool and your traditional black but he was also just enough of a mess. You know, more style as lived than style in the movies? Kind of like someone you'd see around college (briefly, late, probably getting coffee with sunglasses on). The three of them were very real seeming because they weren't so very polished. Seemed very British to me.

But the vampire thing... it isn't about what they're going to do. It's about if he can stay on the wagon or if he'll join them. Deciding who his friends are.

If the thing progresses so they've got this vampire menace and he chooses being human and tries to stop them, it has changed the focus, the kind of conflict it's about. And, okay, after that point I know how to write it, but it wouldn't be the same story.

This one? All psychological. Some physical threat, but... mostly the focus was on the psychological struggles, the trying not to be a threat. And the central turning point was the agoraphobe finally leaving the house. Usually in supernatural horror it takes a big complicated fight and it's all grand forces. This time it was someone finding the courage to turn a door handle.

Speaking as someone who barely left the house for ten years? Win.

There were fascinating ways the three connected and did not connect. Helped each other and didn't help. Needed and didn't need.

I like all that... but I wouldn't know how to make a second story from it that said anything different or deeper or more than this one has.

On the flip side, I'm seeing in all that the difference between 'vampire movies I like' and 'vampire movies I can't even remember if I've watched'. I don't much care if some dude with fangs is a threat to Our Heroes and they stake it. But I care a whole lot about that tension between being human and sliding into the powerful and attractive mode of monster.

... come to think, that's rather what Torchwood is about too. Huh.