sundries

[rm]

I'm getting better. But, UGH.

So I'm really stewing about Torchwood, series 3. I'm not ready. I'm not. So often I've gotten into something after the fact, so I've been just, you know, ready. Whatever happened had already happened, and so it was fine. But this isn't that, and while I largely don't believe the Ianto death rumours (I'm 110% certain Rhys is doomed), I'm actually scared they're true. And for me, Ianto's demise would be rather interesting. Normally it's the characters I identify with that die; not the ones the characters I identify with have a thing for. I imagine that hurts differently. And aside from all the reasons I don't want Ianto to die: the fandom flailing will be more than I can take. I suppose, if it happens, let it be a better, less stupid death than Snape got. (Snape's death was supposed to be this awesome catharsis for me, instead we got... snake bubble to the head? He was just a creepy stalker? yeah... sorry, no.)

Anyway, this hit me today, reading a fic, and me grokking why fandom is so fucking in love with the Jack/Ianto thing. Because it's not that Jack's a charming asshole and Ianto is so put upon -- nope, those fics, in my mind, get it wrong. Where it works, where it's compelling, where it's the fairytale that drags us all in is that when Jack apologizes, when Ianto apologizes -- it actually enough. There are no deal-breakers, not because they are codependent morons, but because they'll both do anything to make up for their former sins. And it's enough. It's enough. In real life, there's all sorts of things where nothing ever could be enough. That's what's compelling -- not the are they in love or aren't they question -- but the ability to absolve and be absolved. It's the loyalty. It's the trying to do better, even if they're both doomed to be fuckups. It's what's appealing about Gwen too. And Rhys. And Owen. See, this show is often a crappy piece of shit, but sometimes it's fucking beautiful.

So this is me saying, I'M NOT READY YET.

On that note, worked on EtGB last night. We're coming along. Next part soonish.

I've heard back from one of three sport fencing salles I wrote to, and will be visiting next week. Their training schedule for "beginning" fencers is far less rigorous than what I've been used to, but one assumes I'll be able to get out of rank beginner status quickly, so I can do more. Also, I could do multiple weapons at once (saber. I will do saber, and I will be good, so very very good and fuck everyone) to resolve of this, I suppose. The whole thing still feels weird to me, but this is how things are, this is what must needs be done.

It was a hard weekend. The weather in my head sucked. But Patty was great, and it was a good team-building weekend, so hey.

And OMG, redstapler just linked me to gluten-free Asian food in NYC (my last place closed). Tempura! Dumplings! WILL BE MINE.

If I'm feeling well enough, I'm going to try to write the railroad story tonight.

Comments

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I caught a glimpse of that report this morning but I lacked the context. Thanks.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I _think_ it was at one of the Hub cons, one of the "intimate encounter" things they do, which of course, makes a lot of fandom snerk. There are a lot of off-the-record and quasi-off-the-record things that make it all very obvious in retrospect, but so many people had such ambiguous interactions with so many other people and wound up trashing people for those or trying to protect people for those that it was impossible to assemble at the time.

I think if that initial slip had never been made the tone of everything leading up to it would have been pretty different.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

So do you think that lead-in discussion over spoilers affected the mourning that resulted? Would the grief occurred in a similar way or a completely different way?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I don't think it had an impact on the mourning, but I think it had an impact on the anger. I think that had that initial leak not happened that it's possible there might have been less "you guys are going to be really happy" from the creators. If people hadn't been so fucking paranoid that Ianto was going to die (which was narratively a logical eventuality), the supposed "bait and switch" would have been less necessary.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

So that it ended up being a sort of damage control effort: OMG, the fans know one of the big spoilers. We need to make them think it wasn't true. That sort of thing?

Which con (and who was it?) that the "you guys are going to be happy" came from? I seem to remember that it was attributed to Barrowman and one of the writers.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I believe it was Barrowman who said the quote you mentioned. James Moran was the writer who took most of the flack. He's been perceived by the fans at teh most pro J/I guy on staff, because he wrote the Captain's Blog for the BBC and was probably one of the people most socially engaged with fans both on and offline. Post-everything, it's also been framed as him being the guy in the room who was like "If you kill Ianto the fans are going to freak the fuck out," yet despite this, he's the guy who got blamed, even though a group of people made the decision and he didn't write the episode in question (that was John Fay who had never written SF/F stuff before and has a background as a soap writer and was FLOORED by the whole thing when we spoke at Gallifrey One). I believe he said that there would be lots of relationship development between Jack and Ianto in CoE and the fact that that relationship development took a less than hearts and flowers turn, at least in terms of clear, verbal declarations, made lots of people feel like he flat-out lied to them, and so he was the guy who got the bulk of the threats, etc in the immediate aftermath.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

Yes, re Moran. That's one of the events that I want to discuss in my paper -- the way that Moran became targeted, as much because he was the one with the most prominent internet presence. I was planning my book as I was watching it happen and knew I'd end up writing about this. I ended up printing out 9 pages of his twitter feed at the time. I plan to examine those pages of his blog as well. I would love the chance to interview him about that experience of being the flashpoint for fan anger with the authors of the show.