More Torchwood
Apr. 9th, 2023 04:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethToday ish I reread Pack Animals and relistened Rhys and Ianto's Excellent Barbecue.
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/torchwood-rhys-and-ianto-s-excellent-barbecue-2146
The book was quite good, did an adventure, had fun doing bigger fx and more kinds of monsters than an episode has a budget for, used each character in a distinctive way that connects to a particular moment in their story. Owen has triuble with physical aspects of his job because of his newly changed undead status. Toshiko is very competent when she has to deal with attacks that get really close, and how the story resolves kind of shows her channeling her fear into her work and using it to win. I like the Gwen and Rhys banter, it manages to sound very normal couple in the middle of the abnormal things. And Jack and Ianto go on a date.
... it is not a fun date. too much Torchwood. messy and painful.
Ianto does spend quite a lot of the book naked, but for plot reasons, which isn't the most interesting.
The thing is though the contrast between the style of the books, bouncing along flipping between so many characters having adventures full of messy death and never giving people time to truly connect, and the style of the audios, where you get just a couple of characters and it builds up to some emotional moment... I really do like the audios better for specific reasons. Character focused emotional moments are what I miss when the other sources try and do something bigger.
This one with the barbecue, trigger warning for discussion of suicide in the audio, but dealing with the grief after. So you get two characters put together who wouldnt usually, you get a contrast between how they try and make friends, something as simple as wine vs beer turns into a whole conversation about basically toxic masculinity and how Ianto feels got at and excluded when people object to the color pink, and then it turns out that this bbq with the lads is Rhys trying to mourn, and not exactly knowing how to start, and Ianto has at this point Much experience with mourning, so, connection and feelings happen.
And none of that paragraph mentions the actual Torchwood ish bits that give it a metaphor layer, one which the chattery afterwards bit connects to them all recording this in lockdown. So the characters in the story are trapped in a bubble and having a barbecue in the garden partly because that was a shared experience for the people working on it at the time.
But also the way the bubble closes them off from the world and fighting it just makes things worse is a pretty good grief metaphor already.
And then with how Rhys' friend died it's about trying to get men to talk about their feelings before they actual die of them, with this sci fi metaphor of being trapped out of phase of real time passing or contact with the rest of the world with only this one person you dont really know, but trying to deal with why the person you did know is dead, and having to dismantle things you'd built together to save what you still have.
It's just got a lot of clever and emotional layers on, plus, it's Rhys and Ianto trying to get along at a party that Ianto had not precisely been invited to when Ianto doesn't know that. So it's relatable, then funny, then Torchwood, and sad, and touching, and if it doesn't make you cry at some point you're just not a crying at stories person.
With two main characters and another on the phone, and a whole disc to do a story, you can focus in real tight on the emotions.
And the books just aren't doing the same sort of thing.
I end up liking the audios much better.
Torchwood deals with some real difficult stuff, but it's not just shoving the story in the dark and leaving it there, it's showing people getting through it.
Together.
It's good stuff.
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/torchwood-rhys-and-ianto-s-excellent-barbecue-2146
The book was quite good, did an adventure, had fun doing bigger fx and more kinds of monsters than an episode has a budget for, used each character in a distinctive way that connects to a particular moment in their story. Owen has triuble with physical aspects of his job because of his newly changed undead status. Toshiko is very competent when she has to deal with attacks that get really close, and how the story resolves kind of shows her channeling her fear into her work and using it to win. I like the Gwen and Rhys banter, it manages to sound very normal couple in the middle of the abnormal things. And Jack and Ianto go on a date.
... it is not a fun date. too much Torchwood. messy and painful.
Ianto does spend quite a lot of the book naked, but for plot reasons, which isn't the most interesting.
The thing is though the contrast between the style of the books, bouncing along flipping between so many characters having adventures full of messy death and never giving people time to truly connect, and the style of the audios, where you get just a couple of characters and it builds up to some emotional moment... I really do like the audios better for specific reasons. Character focused emotional moments are what I miss when the other sources try and do something bigger.
This one with the barbecue, trigger warning for discussion of suicide in the audio, but dealing with the grief after. So you get two characters put together who wouldnt usually, you get a contrast between how they try and make friends, something as simple as wine vs beer turns into a whole conversation about basically toxic masculinity and how Ianto feels got at and excluded when people object to the color pink, and then it turns out that this bbq with the lads is Rhys trying to mourn, and not exactly knowing how to start, and Ianto has at this point Much experience with mourning, so, connection and feelings happen.
And none of that paragraph mentions the actual Torchwood ish bits that give it a metaphor layer, one which the chattery afterwards bit connects to them all recording this in lockdown. So the characters in the story are trapped in a bubble and having a barbecue in the garden partly because that was a shared experience for the people working on it at the time.
But also the way the bubble closes them off from the world and fighting it just makes things worse is a pretty good grief metaphor already.
And then with how Rhys' friend died it's about trying to get men to talk about their feelings before they actual die of them, with this sci fi metaphor of being trapped out of phase of real time passing or contact with the rest of the world with only this one person you dont really know, but trying to deal with why the person you did know is dead, and having to dismantle things you'd built together to save what you still have.
It's just got a lot of clever and emotional layers on, plus, it's Rhys and Ianto trying to get along at a party that Ianto had not precisely been invited to when Ianto doesn't know that. So it's relatable, then funny, then Torchwood, and sad, and touching, and if it doesn't make you cry at some point you're just not a crying at stories person.
With two main characters and another on the phone, and a whole disc to do a story, you can focus in real tight on the emotions.
And the books just aren't doing the same sort of thing.
I end up liking the audios much better.
Torchwood deals with some real difficult stuff, but it's not just shoving the story in the dark and leaving it there, it's showing people getting through it.
Together.
It's good stuff.
Previous reactions
Date: 2023-04-09 04:21 am (UTC)Rhys and Ianto's Barbecue
https://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/1596145.html
Pack Animals