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beccaelizabethJust had a sudden urge to write 10th/me fanfic.
Had to lie down until it went away.
Because everybody thinks the what-if-I-was-the-companion story, but that doesn't mean anyone wants to read it.
Thing of it is, it is really a story about why I love the series, the setup of the 'verse. So I can put that in a list of meta.
vaguest of spoilers for DW and Torchwood, including the sekrit reason I find this icon funny.
You get a lot of stories, many of them with Star in the title, where there's some kind of elite group going out there and taking on the universe. Maybe they've got a ship, maybe a gate or teleporters, very often all of the above. But they've almost always got guns. And the blurb might say they're out there to find things out, but the things they want to find are shiny metals or technology or at best allies. They're out to get something. Or swap for something. Or maybe look at things and poke them until Science happens.
I was thinking about it, and my thought is, I don't particularly want to go into space. True, I spend most of my life in two relatively small rooms, so I could adapt to a starship pretty well. Though the download lag would be a killer if lightspeed limits were factored in. I'd have to hope they had a lot of stuff ready in the computer.
But the thing is, stars are, on the whole, far away. They look like tiny tiny little points of light. They're very far. And mostly they stay that way, looking star like. Plus you can only see them through glass anyway. I mean, generally, if there's no glass between you and deep space, you're in rather a lot of trouble. That being the case, you may as well use a telescope. Or just lie outside at night some time. Technically then there's air in the way, but that just makes them twinkle, which is quite pretty.
If you do get close enough the stars aren't tiny shiny any more, they're suns. And they have worlds around them. And the worlds have people.
Which is cool. I like people. I admit, I personally tend to like people via the medium of the computer screen, but on the whole I do agree that liking people in person is a worthwhile endeavour.
But there's rather a lot of people right here. I haven't exhausted the possibilities of all of them yet. In point of fact, I haven't really begun to, on the whole. The basics of talking being a new and shiny realm lately. So, going very very far to go talk to people when in fact there is no shortage here seems a bit... shortsighted, somehow. Or technically farsighted, I guess, the bad way, where you can't see what is right in front of your face.
And then, I have to admit, this is a recent way of thinking for me. I used to want to go up there so bad it almost hurt. I used a telescope and studied science and had these grand ideas. But then I got to thinking about the math of the thing. There's a very long line of people trying to get a very, very, few places. And here I am - short and fat and shortsighted, and all kinds of travel sick, and not, in fact, very interested in science, when you get right down to it. Let alone the shooting people part that stories have in them. All those vaguely military elites? They only take the best.
So I sigh, and think up a new dream.
*BUT*
If I said that out loud in front of the Doctor?
He'd be so *fierce* telling me elsewise.
*He* only takes the best, and he'd take me with him in two heartbeats.
(It better be two - two hearts, so only one beat would be somewhat unfortunate.)
All the tech skills in the world, all the military might, it isn't what he's looking for. The main and sometimes only qualification in his companions is they care. Skills can be taught. But you try teaching someone to care about anything.
But that's what I do. Sometimes. When I actually get things written. It's the alchemy of art, the magic of it. We might not have telepathy, but we can make pictures in the minds of others. If we're either very good or very lucky, maybe they'll like them. Maybe something will get through in that story, that picture, that song, that clicks with the audience in such a way that suddenly they *get* it. They see the thing you care about and now, maybe for the first time and maybe just all over again, they care too. And all the hard things - all the times your heart breaks, all the things that seemed too hard to carry at the time - they go in the stories, and when the real alchemy happens, they become *beautiful*. They're ways of being human, and if you show them just right, then maybe you can teach someone to care. Even someone who hasn't seen the things you've seen, or been the places, or been through any of it. Because you've been there and back, or you're somewhere in the middle sending messages home, and just maybe, you can show them.
The Doctor doesn't just take warriors. Sometimes it's journalists too. And when he meets writers he is such a fanboy there is no doubt he *gets* it.
So that teaching-to-care thing, that's what the TV show does too. And it doesn't just teach people to worry, or to care about people that look exactly the same as them. Yeah, there's alien invasions, but there's other stuff too. Friends in high places, you could say. Not least of them the Doctor. And sometimes they come back to Earth, and yeah, usually there's an invasion or something to follow them. But then there's the other moments, the ones where you see it all with new eyes from having seen so much of the other stuff. Like you see the world beginning, glowing clouds and rings of dust, and then you come back home and know you're walking in that. All that beauty, it made you, and you made it know itself.
Alchemy, magic, and new eyes.
And this is what genre work is for - fantasy and science fiction. Sometimes it's for distance, put things behind the metaphor and deal with them that bit easier. But sometimes it's because the world is that magical, if you look; it can wake your sense of wonder just like all this glowy handwavey magic can.
And I think that I was missing that in Torchwood, just a bit. We got a speech right at the start about how Earth only gets the shit, and if that stayed true I don't think I'd find much in Torchwood to go back to. But as you go along you get the moments. Scary, yeah, all over the place. But also human, and the kind about new eyes, and connections - in ways that couldn't happen without the dash of magic that the SF allows.
... and I'm sitting here suddenly actually liking 'Random Shoes', which is a case of new eyes indeed. Different stories for different moments, that is.
I like stories about saving the world. And I like stories about why it is a world worth saving. And Torchwood... can get a bit worrying on that front, actually. But. I reckon taken as a whole, the season has some of that too. Even if it is for just the one kiss, or dance, or perfect moment, it's worth the risk.
Of course it's also fun seeing how utterly screwed up the wrong risks can make things, and sometimes I'm very much in the mood for that too. Which Torchwood has considerably more of.
But if it were all that and no sweetness? Don't think I'd stay.
There's a reason I love Jack/Ianto that's a bit more meta than just teh hawtness. And why I wouldn't like Gwen/Rhys breaking up that has absolutely nothing to do with OTP shipping.
Thinking about Jack, that's a case of teach-to-care. That was his story. He starts out with it all a joke and him being out for money, but gets his heart woken up again. And then gets to be the hero of his own story - so how cool is that?
... Miserable often apparently lonely hero, so there's some bugs in the process. Because caring means having heartbreak rather often. And yet, still up there saving the world a lot. Gotta be worth something, if it earns that.
... Which would be the *other* reason I don't like suicidal!Jack, or suicidal!anyone come to that. Risking the loss of something you want in the cause of the greater good is heroic; endeavouring to attain the loss of something you do not want in a way that coincidentally manages to be good for others is not. I want Jack to feel so alive coming *back*, not risking the dark. Back and seeing all this to keep playing for is what living is about.
But having enough problem that the dark seems tempting is a monster that surely do need fighting, and you have to set it up that way first. So. I can read Jack's story in a bunch of ways so far, and some of them I like.
There needs to be more episodes. I feel like the first 13 barely got through stating the problem. Building a solution would take the other half of the series.
Yes, I think in US 22ish season lengths.
... I think other things other times.
See, now I've written all that, I want to put a story in front of it. Because that's just me being all passionate about fiction, really. It feels a bit like not getting dressed.
... Actually, I don't usually get dressed. So why should that bother me?
Naked thoughts inside the cut! Written at 4 in the morning after a day of emotion bungee! You have been warned!
... And also, it might not make sense.
I feel I should probably have that as a subtitle on my LJ somewhere.
Had to lie down until it went away.
Because everybody thinks the what-if-I-was-the-companion story, but that doesn't mean anyone wants to read it.
Thing of it is, it is really a story about why I love the series, the setup of the 'verse. So I can put that in a list of meta.
vaguest of spoilers for DW and Torchwood, including the sekrit reason I find this icon funny.
You get a lot of stories, many of them with Star in the title, where there's some kind of elite group going out there and taking on the universe. Maybe they've got a ship, maybe a gate or teleporters, very often all of the above. But they've almost always got guns. And the blurb might say they're out there to find things out, but the things they want to find are shiny metals or technology or at best allies. They're out to get something. Or swap for something. Or maybe look at things and poke them until Science happens.
I was thinking about it, and my thought is, I don't particularly want to go into space. True, I spend most of my life in two relatively small rooms, so I could adapt to a starship pretty well. Though the download lag would be a killer if lightspeed limits were factored in. I'd have to hope they had a lot of stuff ready in the computer.
But the thing is, stars are, on the whole, far away. They look like tiny tiny little points of light. They're very far. And mostly they stay that way, looking star like. Plus you can only see them through glass anyway. I mean, generally, if there's no glass between you and deep space, you're in rather a lot of trouble. That being the case, you may as well use a telescope. Or just lie outside at night some time. Technically then there's air in the way, but that just makes them twinkle, which is quite pretty.
If you do get close enough the stars aren't tiny shiny any more, they're suns. And they have worlds around them. And the worlds have people.
Which is cool. I like people. I admit, I personally tend to like people via the medium of the computer screen, but on the whole I do agree that liking people in person is a worthwhile endeavour.
But there's rather a lot of people right here. I haven't exhausted the possibilities of all of them yet. In point of fact, I haven't really begun to, on the whole. The basics of talking being a new and shiny realm lately. So, going very very far to go talk to people when in fact there is no shortage here seems a bit... shortsighted, somehow. Or technically farsighted, I guess, the bad way, where you can't see what is right in front of your face.
And then, I have to admit, this is a recent way of thinking for me. I used to want to go up there so bad it almost hurt. I used a telescope and studied science and had these grand ideas. But then I got to thinking about the math of the thing. There's a very long line of people trying to get a very, very, few places. And here I am - short and fat and shortsighted, and all kinds of travel sick, and not, in fact, very interested in science, when you get right down to it. Let alone the shooting people part that stories have in them. All those vaguely military elites? They only take the best.
So I sigh, and think up a new dream.
*BUT*
If I said that out loud in front of the Doctor?
He'd be so *fierce* telling me elsewise.
*He* only takes the best, and he'd take me with him in two heartbeats.
(It better be two - two hearts, so only one beat would be somewhat unfortunate.)
All the tech skills in the world, all the military might, it isn't what he's looking for. The main and sometimes only qualification in his companions is they care. Skills can be taught. But you try teaching someone to care about anything.
But that's what I do. Sometimes. When I actually get things written. It's the alchemy of art, the magic of it. We might not have telepathy, but we can make pictures in the minds of others. If we're either very good or very lucky, maybe they'll like them. Maybe something will get through in that story, that picture, that song, that clicks with the audience in such a way that suddenly they *get* it. They see the thing you care about and now, maybe for the first time and maybe just all over again, they care too. And all the hard things - all the times your heart breaks, all the things that seemed too hard to carry at the time - they go in the stories, and when the real alchemy happens, they become *beautiful*. They're ways of being human, and if you show them just right, then maybe you can teach someone to care. Even someone who hasn't seen the things you've seen, or been the places, or been through any of it. Because you've been there and back, or you're somewhere in the middle sending messages home, and just maybe, you can show them.
The Doctor doesn't just take warriors. Sometimes it's journalists too. And when he meets writers he is such a fanboy there is no doubt he *gets* it.
So that teaching-to-care thing, that's what the TV show does too. And it doesn't just teach people to worry, or to care about people that look exactly the same as them. Yeah, there's alien invasions, but there's other stuff too. Friends in high places, you could say. Not least of them the Doctor. And sometimes they come back to Earth, and yeah, usually there's an invasion or something to follow them. But then there's the other moments, the ones where you see it all with new eyes from having seen so much of the other stuff. Like you see the world beginning, glowing clouds and rings of dust, and then you come back home and know you're walking in that. All that beauty, it made you, and you made it know itself.
Alchemy, magic, and new eyes.
And this is what genre work is for - fantasy and science fiction. Sometimes it's for distance, put things behind the metaphor and deal with them that bit easier. But sometimes it's because the world is that magical, if you look; it can wake your sense of wonder just like all this glowy handwavey magic can.
And I think that I was missing that in Torchwood, just a bit. We got a speech right at the start about how Earth only gets the shit, and if that stayed true I don't think I'd find much in Torchwood to go back to. But as you go along you get the moments. Scary, yeah, all over the place. But also human, and the kind about new eyes, and connections - in ways that couldn't happen without the dash of magic that the SF allows.
... and I'm sitting here suddenly actually liking 'Random Shoes', which is a case of new eyes indeed. Different stories for different moments, that is.
I like stories about saving the world. And I like stories about why it is a world worth saving. And Torchwood... can get a bit worrying on that front, actually. But. I reckon taken as a whole, the season has some of that too. Even if it is for just the one kiss, or dance, or perfect moment, it's worth the risk.
Of course it's also fun seeing how utterly screwed up the wrong risks can make things, and sometimes I'm very much in the mood for that too. Which Torchwood has considerably more of.
But if it were all that and no sweetness? Don't think I'd stay.
There's a reason I love Jack/Ianto that's a bit more meta than just teh hawtness. And why I wouldn't like Gwen/Rhys breaking up that has absolutely nothing to do with OTP shipping.
Thinking about Jack, that's a case of teach-to-care. That was his story. He starts out with it all a joke and him being out for money, but gets his heart woken up again. And then gets to be the hero of his own story - so how cool is that?
... Miserable often apparently lonely hero, so there's some bugs in the process. Because caring means having heartbreak rather often. And yet, still up there saving the world a lot. Gotta be worth something, if it earns that.
... Which would be the *other* reason I don't like suicidal!Jack, or suicidal!anyone come to that. Risking the loss of something you want in the cause of the greater good is heroic; endeavouring to attain the loss of something you do not want in a way that coincidentally manages to be good for others is not. I want Jack to feel so alive coming *back*, not risking the dark. Back and seeing all this to keep playing for is what living is about.
But having enough problem that the dark seems tempting is a monster that surely do need fighting, and you have to set it up that way first. So. I can read Jack's story in a bunch of ways so far, and some of them I like.
There needs to be more episodes. I feel like the first 13 barely got through stating the problem. Building a solution would take the other half of the series.
Yes, I think in US 22ish season lengths.
... I think other things other times.
See, now I've written all that, I want to put a story in front of it. Because that's just me being all passionate about fiction, really. It feels a bit like not getting dressed.
... Actually, I don't usually get dressed. So why should that bother me?
Naked thoughts inside the cut! Written at 4 in the morning after a day of emotion bungee! You have been warned!
... And also, it might not make sense.
I feel I should probably have that as a subtitle on my LJ somewhere.