beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Said I should probably do something else, didn't.
Listened to Dead Line.
It is still good.
Ianto's speech is sad but good.
And Jack tells him he'll never be just a blip in time.

Thing is though I saw on tumblr someone calling Jack/Ianto an example of a healthy relationship, and I have to wonder about their criteria. I mean Ianto canonically and sadly spent their whole relationship thinking Jack would kite off to see the universe without him and Ianto's one mortal life would never be enough time to really matter. And Jack gets a relationship made of immortality angst, survivor guilt, and stacks of guilt over doing his duty in ways that hurt people. And they're still compelling and beautiful, but, you just want to shake canon until you can get them one day of actually understanding what they mean to each other *and* both being alive at the time.

I mean, there's words I'd pick for them, but...

I do keep reading fixits.

So much audio and so little chance it'll ever change the status on that one.




Also having listened to Jack in the something Among Us audios from Big Finish I feel like he needs a long conversation and a good cry, and possibly a talking to. Like, I get the impression he's genuinely grieving, but he's also rejecting new relationships because they're not from the get go what it was like on the best days of a relationship that lasted years, so, that's a bit not good.

But he's like that because audios have to put the toys back the way they found them, and they found them very sad.



I like the ones where they're both alive but
I know where it's going.

I listened two Torchwood radio dramas, the not Big Finish ones so I had them on a different app.

I have a headache so I do not have big thoughts
but
they're set after Owen and Toshiko die, and the team are down to Jack, Ianto and Gwen.

... my first thought on Lost Souls is that everyone has got so much better at audio acting since then, but they were given a lot of technobabble to get through, so, fair enough.

I dont much relisten to Lost Souls so I hadnt lately thought of how it makes House of the Dead look.
There's some bits about grief and guilt and how the whole team are putting on a brave face for the whole team.
I feel like it doesnt fit well with the monster of the week though. Like there's something about grief draining you and making you vulnerable, yeah, but a tragedy of false hope just sort of sits there.
Until HotD I guess.


Asylum has a good speech from Andy about alienation, how it's part of feeling human to feel alien sometimes. I remembered that, that was good.
I hadnt remembered this seems to be when he finds out what Torchwood is about.
Like, Gwen is trying to hide it from him, but tada, aliens.

Not sure that fits with Big Finish writing a friendship between him and Owen... unless someone retconned Andy after it, which was threatened often enough in Asylum.

Alternatives are that Andy lies convincingly (really?) or that he'd been through all that spooky with Owen and just still remained surprised by aliens.

The Owen and Andy audios are great btw, I'm just turning the stories around in my head a bit and not sure the edges match.




I'll do more thinking when the headache makes space.



Had a nice day.

I am now caught up with Torchwood again, all the audio ranges, so the only ones I havent listened to dont have Torchwood in the title ie Captain Jack and Captain John.

Despite the fact the Among Us story continues ranges arent giving me what I want from Torchwood, I am not pleased with the idea of running out of Torchwood.

The Among Us set I just listened to, though, did not annoy me. They did some good interesting stuff. Didnt love them, still not attached to the new in audio characters, but I can see what they're doing, and they're doing it pretty well.

I just want something else entirely, is all.

Been listening to Torchwood God Among Us. Have listened to two out of three boxes so far.

It has some interesting going on but it's still pretty bleak.
( Read more... )



I keep deleting these as soon as listened to them, because plots dark, but, I'm wanting to go back and collect Jack moments this season, which I didnt want from Aliens Among Us. So that's something.


I dont think these are fun to listen to though.

Dont know what I'm looking for but these arent it.

So I sat down to read this and then got the this is familiar feeling and searched up my previous review
https://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/2982519.html

and yet I finished reading it anyway.
... bit of a waste of time I reckon.

It is a story that cares very much about showing us vehicles crashing and weapons in detail and gruesome child deaths, but not very much about... I don't know, painting a survivable world at the end of the day? It is an unrelieved pit of human misery.

Which is boring and pointless.

Also, usually I would complain because in 400 on my ereader pages there were... only three named women if you count a nickname? I think one survived the story. And you got more sentences about one man's silly name than you ever got sentences from all but one woman. Thing is though, adding anyone else would have just added to the body count, so they're better off out of it.

It did not strike me as a book featuring people, it was just a whole lot of murders strung together, with a dash of paradox.



Maybe this time I will remember having read it and not read it again.

Today so far I relistened to Big Finish Iceberg and Gooseberry, then listened to Launch Date for the first time.

I think the compare contrast gave me hopes that were not fulfilled, and now I'm cranky about it.

With Owen on the cover I got two stories that give you a lot of Owen minutes and new insights into Owen's character, as well as dragging you through some devastating emotional territory with varying amounts of reaching a hand out to help each other through. They're excellent and involving stories. Strong stuff.

Launch Date was a sort of nice sort of rom com for the characters it followed around, but Ianto was a bit peripheral. There was a Torchwood story happening but the main characters mostly didnt know it. And it was clever and made of people and all that, but not what I wanted from an audio today.

We do learn a little more about Ianto: ( Read more... ) But I wasn't left feeling I'd spent a whole cd with Ianto and it turns out that's what I wanted today.

This story would probably be appreciated better if I were in the mood for it.

But right now I'm a bit cranky instead.



The chatty bits at the end had a couple nice comments worth a listen though.

Big Finish audio again. Andy and Rhys and a new killer app. Speed dating gone wrong. Slight but fun, kind of doesnt feel like Torchwood because it doesnt suddenly plunge you into Horrible Implications or deep psychological trauma, you have to think of those bits yourself when the story stops.

I liked it, but I dont anticipate relistening much.

I have been thinking
about Torchwood

the first time I watched and read, I noticed that there were actual queer people in actual queer relationships, and they saved the world a lot.

This was not a thing that happened. So it was shiny. And I liked it.

(and I nearly stopped watching at Greeks Bearing Gifts, because I noticed this other bit too...)

This time I watch and read and listen, and I mostly notice that there is a lot of misery and a lot of death, and it gets connected to the sexuality in a way that... might be processing trauma through horror, but, also makes me want to read a different genre.

One where we save the world a lot
and get to be happy.



So, back to fanfic I go.



... that said, it is starting to creep me out how many Children of Earth fanfics focus on saving *Ianto*. Like, there was very much another problem in that story. We could fix that one more often? Even in the Ianto tag.

I have read some very good and subtle minimum intervention fixes, I have read some excellent and emotional Day Five with Ianto still in it, but I... would fix more. Than some of these.




I mean, we're authors, we can just be like, hmmm, needs a child? remember when the TARDIS youthed that Slitheen? And the TARDIS loves Jack, see every time he dies. Deus Ex big blue Machina...

granted it's not very satisfying that way but if I found CoE satisfying I wouldnt be reading through the fixit tag.

The thing with this reread is, I know I read these when they first came out, but I appear to have retained almost nothing, so it is all once again a surprise. I found this plot to be twisty. Which is either vaguely embarrassing, or neat.

Also it had me *cackling* with laughter at random lines.

It bounced along proper briskly, the new character was interesting and distinctive, Jack, Gwen and Rhys got plenty to do, Ianto got plenty of homophobic insults tossed at him in a vaguely Victorian idiom while being mistaken for the tea boy again.

... Ianto could have been used better.

Almost every scene Ianto is in is part of a running joke where he may make excellent coffee but he makes terrible tea. But in the end ( Read more... )



The thing that comes through the rift is a properly mounstrous big scary. It wrecks the Skypoint tower, which is a very unlucky building in Torchwood world.

Also there's a student thinking how a year ago when she moved to Cardiff she couldnt afford a flat anywhere, and now they'd probably even rent the Skypoint apartments to her, because recession, and, like Skypoint mentioned, so many flats had gone up so quickly already with no one thinking who wanted them.

Torchwood takes time to add local flavor to its alien invasions that way. It's distinctive. I like it.




Anyway, I have the kind of headache where I just caught myself knocking on my forehead to make it go away, so I think I'll stop trying to wring out any clever thoughts and just say I rather liked this one, on balance, but the books are still not doing the deep emotional stuff the audios can get into, even with the team down to three.

... time for a paracetamol and a lie down.

Today 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 ( Read more... )

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.

I have decided the way I want Ianto brought back
is Jack (looking like JB does now, therefor everso Older) arrives with Ianto (looking like GDL, so he has also been Doing Things for years)
and Gwen (aged linear here) is all !!!
"How???"
"He cheats. He always cheats." Ianto grins.



Nothing else needed, very efficient, get on with reintroducing the characters.

Maybe setting up a new Torchwood London with a welshman in charge, maybe sending Jack into the field, maybe Gwen gets London and Ianto takes Cardiff for a while.

Don't know, don't care.


Can also get Owen back (time travel plus radiation absorption) and Toshiko (cryo preservation plus future nanogenes) and just... stop killing everyone, that was no fun.



But I think it'll be fine as an explanation to say
he cheats.

I have been stuck reading Jack/Ianto, mosly post CoE fixit fic, lately.
(stuck as in I did not decide to focus on this particular variety but I cannot steer my attention for toffee)

It's good because there's a Lot of over ten thousand words not an out of universe crossover finished fic to read
but
a lot of it had the same ideas.

And they're great ideas! Yes, obviously Ianto should travel to the 51st century and meet both younger and older Jack, acting like a sort of reverse three ghosts, that's an excellent idea. And starting at the most bookmarked fics, it is also an idea I have read repeatedly already. I can also see the appeal of making Ianto immortal, by any means necessary, and making him a Time Lord, possibly with a stopwatch for a fob watch, works grand too.

But I am at that point in reading fic where I'm all
yes, like this!
... but not this.

I can't figure out exactly what differences I want either.

I mean the fic where Jack raises Ianto's baby in the far future is an excellent one, but, do I want to read another one?

I know I *don't* like the ones where the two of them leave Earth together after CoE. God knows they need a holiday, but it just doesn't feel plausible to me, knowing how they choose duty over and over. And of course having seen them choose duty, and on one memorable occasion vote screw it, we want them to get their freedom and their happily ever afters... but I just feel strongly that they'd manage a holiday for... maybe whole numbers of weeks, if it were a busmans holiday like the Doctor always manages. And after that they'd need to know Cardiff was okay roughly like you'd need to know if you left the cooker on.

I love the ones where everything gets declassified and everything changes.
It's perpetually frustrating that, in order to stay relatable and one step around the corner for new and young viewers, DW is just not going to do that.
Everthing resets instead.



I get tired of the tragic endings. Yes, the story can lead us through satisfyingly cathartic dark places, but, anyone can set it up and then leave it in the bad bit. Stories should figure it out and fix it too.



I've seen recent pictures of GDL and quite a large part of what I want is for Ianto to also have the chance to keep up. Live as long and look as good. It feels important more people get a turn at that.



Happily ever after isnt a childish ending. Leaving it in the dark seems teenage. Like you get scared and hide in a dark corner, but the good bit is figuring how to get out.

And it isn't really immortality angst when you get upset about having to watch everyone die
if they die like, every year. Every couple of years, tops.
That's just regular horrible trauma.



... give Jack the highly specific trauma he deserves, after spending the rest of the century watching Ianto grow old with him!

Ianto is such a classic character though. He's got that whole well organised butler sinks into the background thing going on, and then suddenly everyone has to *see* him and notice there's been wells of desperate passion driving him all along. And then he goes back to quiet competence? As you do? And getting underestimated, over and over. And that time he had to shoot Owen because both of them were absolutely certain they were doing their duty, that is good stuff. And just in general, the way Ianto will make a straight line plan starting where he is and going where he needs to go, and just do it, and you think he is therefor Fine, but he is having all the feelings, loudly, actually, and just getting everything done Anyway.

That's a kind of guy who could age in such interesting ways. Because maybe he continues to find someone to Follow, and Serve, and Look After. And they continue to wonder what they did to earn that. Or maybe he sort of grows into himself, and becomes the kind of highly competent leader who also knows how to get his people whatever they need. He could keep on trying to keep his feelings on the inside, or he could have his feelings out loud where actual other people can see them on a more frequent basis. And if he does, either way, it could be about growing out of insecurity into confidence, or he could keep that flaw of thinking he has to hide his needs in order to get a sliver of what is needed. Plenty of good story!

I do kind of want to see him as a parent, but not so much in the ways kidfic mostly covers, where there is A Cute Accessory that lets us see how much they Care. More like... for those of us who are not Immortal and unaging, there comes a day where someone else has to look after us, because they are more capable than we are today. Or than we will be anymore.

I think Ianto would have some Adjustments to make, to be the recipient of care.

And then his kids grow up a bit and want to work, want to *serve*, and how is he going to adjust to that? Send them elsewhere or set them up in Torchwood? Keep them where he can keep an eye on them, but everyone will know that's what he's doing?

(Not to mention the teenage years where the kids go all Sarah Jane Adventures but Ianto is very aware that the stakes are always Torchwood and his reality has no plot armour.)

They wouldnt have to be his biological kids for a lot of this to apply, obvs. Just, there keep being people who are Younger. Now what?

So the interesting bits about getting older when your partner doesn't, those would include watching him keep doing the same things the same ways, and you can't anymore... but maybe your kids can. And that is going to feel a whole heap of ways.

And Ianto admires James Bond so being a field agent seems like the height of glamor, but what if you hit the height of skill, and yet the rest of you doesn't keep up?

Kind of like Owen and Andy are doing in the audios, where Owen just can't risk getting any more broken, so then Andy gets hurt, and nobody is happy about that.

But instead like, an older Ianto has Jack as a model, someone to look up to and admire, and that includes a tendency to be the one throwing himself into danger. Yvonne didnt flinch from throwing other people in harm's way, and I feel Not Being Yvonne is going to be a legit priority in Torchwood future. But at some point you just arent the best option for the mission. It's time to send someone else.

I want to see someone adjust to those sort of long term changes.

TV isn't the format for that, unless you set up parallel stories, or giant flashbacks.

Fic can have it covered though.




Anyways, food delivery arriving, these are just some thoughts.

I listened to both parts of Double today.

It was dark in a grimy politics way, the classic Torchwood bit where sure aliens are bad, but at least they have a reason for inhuman behaviour.

I liked the plot, twists and all.

But I did not like the central character. Writer said something in the chatty bits about wanting to explore neurodivergence, and women never getting to play characters like Sherlock, or something like that. So I can see what they were doing but I find the type insufferable. The acting did a lot, there's layered feelings, its got plenty going on, I see how it's skillfully done, I just... do not like it.

So.

Lots of good plot and setting and characters, plenty of interesting thinky things, but.

Not for me.