more CoE: random stuff and have some plot bunnies

[rm]

So, cried at least twice today, but am starting to settle into a nice place with it all, and, you know what? Hope for a series 4. But you people who want a series 4 that involves Ianto coming back to life? Do you think that's going to break your heart less? Because if he does, all of us will be torn apart when he exits again. I'm sure of it. So just, think on that.

And, actually, totally looking forward to doing this as one 5-hour watch with DWNY tomorrow.

Not wanting to wait until next year's Gally to cosplay after this, I'm thinking I'm going to be a bad pro and if my schedule allows, role up my guest ribbon under my badge and bring the coat down to Drag*con and cosplay for one day of it, or at least, one of our evening bar outings.

I am eating something that should not be eaten with chopsticks with chopsticks. I blame copperbadge, and if you've read a certain fic in question, you know why. It's making me feel better.

The ads for the airing on BBCA are on like EVERY SINGLE BUS here. And that's breaking my heart a little.

At one point in IHNIIHBT Jack and Ianto have a conversation about what if Ianto is the last person Jack manages to fall in love with, because Jack is scared his immortality is making him less and less human and able to connect with others. I keep looking at that, and looking at CoE, and smiling, just a little to myself -- because I don't think it's true, but I think canon Jack and our Jack were on the same page with that fear, and that pleases me.

Here, have some plot bunnies:
- if Ianto ever confessed to Jack about the master tailor thing, I'd love to see that scene.
- there's no way Torchwood didn't sleep for five days -- what were the nights like between episodes?
- Ianto and Jack in the car after the block of concrete rescue
- the six months for Jack before he meets Gwen on the hilltop (I may do something with this, but you should do something with it too)
- the political fallout from CoE: does earth get a clue or does it become more bleak and horrifying? Are the events of CoE when everything changes?
- why wasn't the Doctor there, and how bad is the confrontation going to be the next time Jack and him run into each other?
- What if Jack had stopped the 456 by offering them himself and his endless lifeforce? Sure it doesn't really make sense, but neither does the shit they wrote -- this is a seriously dark Jack torture fic sort of thing, but is a great excuse to write altered consciousness and evolution into Face of Boe (this is also something I might write, but am happy to see others tackle).
- Fix some of the shitty science -- why did it have to be kids?
- Bring Ianto back to life with a Risen Mitten. That never goes entirely well -- what's the price this time?
- Bring Ianto back to life in a manner that doesn't involve the Risen Mitten or Jack's kiss. Yeah, I've no idea either, but fucking figure it out and write it ;)
- Jack finds the Doctor and demands he fixes thing, but the Doctor can only mess with the timeline so much, and Jack can't save both Ianto and Stephen, what does he do?
- What if Ianto's Day 4 death wasn't permanent and he was there when Jack uses Stephen to save the planet? How does that go down? What happens between them after?
- Jack leaves earth in grief, and runs into John Hart: does he go with John and drown his sorrows in the wicked ways of his past? tell John to fuck off? or does some sort of third option emerge.
- Jack's leaving earth, and he needs a new name....
- Jack and Alice's mother -- I'd love anything I can get on this. Was Jack there when Alice was born? When did he first see Stephen. What did he think of Alice's husband before he left? What really frightened Alice about her dad in the specific as opposed to conceptual abstract -- what did she see him do as a child or teen or adult that so terrified her?
- Ianto's family, piecing their understanding of him together. Does Jack help, send some info?
- Ianto's childhood -- fuck we have a lot to work with now!
- things that branch AU from any one of the days of CoE. Because apparently Torchwood got Gwen pregnant ;)
- things that branch from the radio plays (I'm doing one for each).
- Songs that need vids: When I Grow Up by Garbage (Ianto!), My Mind is a Box by Pretty Balanced (retcon!), Lake of Tears by L'ame Immoretelle (Jack/Ianto), Our Lies by Raputina (kinda anything).

And of course, things that branch from the earlier two seasons, the books, and anything else. All times are now, multiple fix-its exist, and in DW/TW/SJA canon more than any other, you can throw out huge chunks of canon material and still be playing within the bounds of time and space.

Comments

Just checking in.

[garylapointe.livejournal.com]

Usually I just read you in my feed reader, today I came specifically to see how you were doing after days 4 and 5...

Re: The Doctor - He can't be everywhere. He can only be where he is, there is a lot of space and time for him to be in. Loss of life was minimal actually (for an "invasion"), besides when the 456 killed everyone in the building, most of the violence was ours. And most of it was just to cover someone's ass.

I'm really hoping for a season 4. Or maybe a few more mini-series. Maybe an additional Torchwood with Lois or Johnson or Bridget. With Rhys communicating with pregnant Gwen.

And as a final note. They should have released the video.

Take care,
Gary
http://GarySaid.com/

Re: Just checking in.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks, man. It's... I've never seen anything like this -- either from inside my own head or across fandom or even in the media reviews in general. It's both gutting and pretty cool. But yeah, it's been real hard.

And you're right.

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

- Ianto's childhood -- fuck we have a lot to work with now!

I have a little fishy swimming around my head asking me this:

What if Ianto's father had been queer?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Dude, go for it....

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I am getting to a zen-like place with it. And I do think there will be a season four. Depending on what it is, I will watch it. There is tons to do with the concept. I wouldn't even be averse to seeing how Jack moves on and allows himself against all better judgement to let people in and love people fiercely, again. Because he must. He's only just beginning, after all.

As for plot bunnies, yours have much promise. The only one I conceived was me trying to be outlandish to cheer myself up:
http://mellacita.livejournal.com/676903.html#cutid1

[better-late24.livejournal.com]

OK, I guess there is still hope for good fic from this...some of those ideas were very intriguing. Write some! I'd do it, if I could.

[melebeth]

Actually from a science perspective I'm willing to believe that pre-pubescent kids make several sorts of chemicals post-pubescents do not (because they do, or at least different ratios of chemicals). Chemicals you couldn't synthesize another way? Probably not, but if you're an alien a nice self contained drug manufacturing device might seem like a win win.

[madambackslash.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I might actually have to write Earth scientists saying something along the lines of "Well you're evidently crap at chemical synthesis, so tell us what you need and we'll make it for you, oh, and leave our damn kids alone."

I said to my co-watcher "They can do all this, but they can't synthesise chemicals?"

[kaydeefalls.livejournal.com]

Bring Ianto back to life in a manner that doesn't involve the Risen Mitten or Jack's kiss.

Already working on it. And I'd like to see a bunch of those other prompts play out, as well.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to ask: awhile back you mentioned writing a Jack/Xas (though maybe not slash in that sense) fic set around The Angel's Cut. I've got a bunny for that pairing, but it would be set in the far future. I wouldn't be stepping on your toes if I wrote that, would I?

I was pretty satisfied with the ending. Seeing that little kid die gave me some severe nightmares, though. And don't you love it when canon slots neatly in with fic completely unintentionally? :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Not stepping on my toes at all, since my bunny for it is ENTIRELY different and not that high on my ever growing list. So I'd love to see what you do.

I have to say, as gutted as I am and frustrated by some of it, you know, I also have my head pretty high from a lot of this -- people have been giving IHNIIHBT the love and it's helped ease the pain a lot.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Seriously. Because are either of them willing to own that in the midst of non-trauma?

[luckyn02.livejournal.com]

am crushed for time so I'm sorry if this isshort and somewhat abrupt but I just wanted to say;

-LOVE your plot bunnies, doitdoitdoooo'emmmm.... :-)

as for '- Bring Ianto back to life in a manner that doesn't involve the Risen Mitten or Jack's kiss. Yeah, I've no idea either, but fucking figure it out and write it ;)' ?? <- dude. I'll be the happiest fen in teh whooolee wide worrld forEva if you used Highlander: The Series 'immortals' as a template for this. pretty please with cherry on the top?


*puppy eyes*

much fen-luff,
toodles!

[oncomingscone.livejournal.com]

Loving the fic ideas. I think you will enjoy my story Amends. It's 10,000 words and I wrote it in January this year. It's partially set 1000 years in the future and deals with a future Jack and a post Exit Wounds Ianto who's brought to him as a gift by The Doctor.

It also deals with Jack feeling like he lost his humanity. Perhaps bookmark it when you have time. It was my first fic (other than short PWPs) so it's far from perfect but I'm actually freaked out by how canon it could actually be.

Here it is: http://oncomingscone.livejournal.com/5443.html#cutid1

[alba17.livejournal.com]

Great ideas. Glad I'm not living in NYC to see the buses, that would kill me.

What if Jack had stopped the 456 by offering them himself and his endless lifeforce? About 3/4 through Day 5, I wondered if this was what was going to happen.

I'm feeling like I could watch an S4 now. After Day Four, I wasn't.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

i will take your plot bunnies

I am eating something that should not be eaten with chopsticks...It's making me feel better.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Pass the nah.

Re: I am eating something that should not be eaten with chopsticks...It's making me feel better.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

It does help. Peace and Love to you.

Why does it have to be kids?

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

In advance of the whole season, children are neurologically unfinished:their brains are still growing.And not as cluttered with content.

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

- Bring Ianto back to life in a manner that doesn't involve the Risen Mitten or Jack's kiss. Yeah, I've no idea either, but fucking figure it out and write it ;)

I'M NOT A WRITER. I CAN'T EVEN GET MY TERM PAPER POUNDED OUT. YET AN IDEA FOR THIS HIT ME HARD. DAMN IT.

Don't know if it'll ever get done, but I'm outlining it and maybe poking it tonight. But I know I don't understand the characters nearly enough, so we'll see how this goes. *pouts* Damn you. ;)

[moljn.livejournal.com]

- the political fallout from CoE: does earth get a clue or does it become more bleak and horrifying? Are the events of CoE when everything changes?
- why wasn't the Doctor there, and how bad is the confrontation going to be the next time Jack and him run into each other?

Like garylapointe said, the number of deaths were relatively small, but yeah, it doesn't really make sense that no one would try to contact the Doctor, unless they really didn't realize the scope of the threat (Sarah Jane, Martha et al, probably had no way of knowing about the 10%, but you'd think controling all the world's children would seem threatening enough).

I wonder if this might be a fixed event. Even without the TW recordings, people could put two and two together well enough to at least get three (the children giving the numbers to equal 10% of each country's kids, the governments then rounding up those 10% (and did it happen simultaneously? Because, say, in the States it would have been early in the morning), Frobisher killing his family rather than have them 'innoculated', and probably more I can't think of right now). I could see this toppling a few governments and that might have enough of an impact that the Doctor couldn't/wouldn't interfere.

[threewalls]

Sarah Jane has a child of her own, a child who would be chanting like all the others-- not to mention his friends doing the same. I'd love to see a story about what she was doing while all of this was going on-- it can't have been nothing.

[shadings.livejournal.com]

Oh, these plotbunnies are cool. :D

- Jack leaves earth in grief, and runs into John Hart: does he go with John and drown his sorrows in the wicked ways of his past? tell John to fuck off? or does some sort of third option emerge.

The moment I finished watching S3, I knew I had to write that fic. It's gonna take me a while to work out where I want it to go, but... hopefully I will manage to write it well.

And then, once I finish that fic, I'd love to look into bringing Ianto back somehow.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

I wonder if John Hart was the one who beamed him up at the end. Maybe a long, stupid vacation would do Jack some good at this point.

Part one of two (includes impassioned rant against Ten)

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's anything one could do with Jack meeting the Doctor and expecting to have his own guilt and self-loathing met with hostility and finding that instead the Doctor has reached a place where he can finally admit just how much of Jack's (and Earth's) disasters were due to the Doctor and have the Doctor asking for Jack's forgiveness instead? Look at the course of events:

1. Nine picks up Jack in the course of The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. Jack at this point is a renegade Time Agent with two years missing from his memories (a point still requiring explanation and perhaps of use if trying to sort out the events of CoE: how about Jack hires his younger self - as a strictly commercial proposition - to save Torchwood and preserve Earth from the 456 and then wipes his memory to avoid messing with timelines?) and a huge, unexplained grudge against society. Jack turns into a much better man under the influence of Nine to the point that he is prepared to - and does - sacrifice his life to save others. That was supposed to be the happy ending; the redemption and sacrifice of a scarred and damaged man.

2. Vortex!Rose revives him and curses him with immortality, setting him up for a pattern in which his sacrifice is both required to be repeated - on an endless loop - and can never be enough.

3. Ten - as soon as he realises what has occured - bolts for the other end of the Universe and spends the next 140 years avoiding Jack. As a shitty thing to do, this has got to be up there in the top ten. Avoiding someone for having - partly as a result of your own actions - contracted an incurable condition which you are the only person in the Universe capable of helping them manage, knowing they were in a fragile state of recovery from being despairing and damaged just before they caught it and having no better reason than their condition squicks you for refusing to help is vile behaviour.

Re: Part one of two (includes impassioned rant against Ten)

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Avoiding someone for having - partly as a result of your own actions - contracted an incurable condition which you are the only person in the Universe capable of helping them manage, knowing they were in a fragile state of recovery from being despairing and damaged just before they caught it and having no better reason than their condition squicks you for refusing to help is vile behaviour.

I've always thought that... and then seeking them out when their condition is useful to you?

part two of two, in which Ten, having fucked up Jack, turns his attention to Britain

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

4. Practically the first thing Ten does post regeneration is to wipe out an event which Nine had referred to almost as if it were a fixed point, namely, The Golden Age of Harriet Jones, PM. Sorry to bang on about this, but his actions here are not only inexcusable but are directly responsible for:

1. the removal of the only politician of integrity we have seen in the entiriety of Nu-Who;
2. the removal of the only PM who appeared to know about Torchwood's weapons capacity;
3. the removal of the only politician who could, perhaps, have moved Earth sensibly into being a fully functioning member of an inter-galactic community, rather than a confused and hostile bunch of savages;
4. the creation of a power vacuum exploited by, among others, Harold Saxon and Torchwood One, in which no period of recovery or reconstruction after the loss of the entire previous cabinet and most of earth's alien technology specialists to the Slitheen is permitted.

At the end of CoE I felt gutted and brutalised, but enormously proud of the level of artistic, narrative and characterisation integrity everyone concerned in the project brought to it. By contrast, at the end of the Christmas Invasion I felt gutted and dirty; the destruction of Harriet Jones was a bit of petty points' scoring from someone who became, at that moment, a Doctor of the moral standing of Six or even lower in my estimation.

5. But, having made damn sure that the 21st century is when everything changes (because he'd changed them himself) Ten then turns his attention to the 19th. His and Rose's arrogant, childish and frankly idiotic behaviour in Tooth and Claw (leading to yet another good man having to sacrifice himself, though only once turns out to be needed, thankfully) is not only what leads to Torchwood being set up in the first place, but the nature of the institute - outside the Government (and hence outside any form of demoncratic accountability) and regarding the Doctor as its natural enemy not as its ally.

6. And then, as would inevitably happen, the wandering, fallen, damaged Jack comes within Torchwood's orbit and the scene is set for the perfect storm.

Re: part two of two, in which Ten, having fucked up Jack, turns his attention to Britain

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

My god. This is simply damning. I'll never be able to watch Nu Who series 2-4 again without thinking of your analysis.

finding that instead the Doctor has reached a place where he can finally admit just how much of Jack's (and Earth's) disasters were due to the Doctor and have the Doctor asking for Jack's forgiveness

This shouldn't be fic, it should be canon.

[madambackslash.livejournal.com]

At one point in IHNIIHBT Jack and Ianto have a conversation about what if Ianto is the last person Jack manages to fall in love with, because Jack is scared his immortality is making him less and less human and able to connect with others. I keep looking at that, and looking at CoE, and smiling, just a little to myself -- because I don't think it's true, but I think canon Jack and our Jack were on the same page with that fear, and that pleases me.

I wrote one line in one fic (http://madambackslash.livejournal.com/7068.html) that's been haunting me ever since I saw Jack kiss Ianto and then die...

"You'll go in after him, but it won't work. It never works."

And I don't think I'll ever write anything that's more... true, than that. I feel like I got something right, and it's both awesome and frightening.

[madambackslash.livejournal.com]

(I feel I should add that you might find that fic hard to read, just now.)

[eleish.livejournal.com]

Bring Ianto back to life in a manner that doesn't involve the Risen Mitten or Jack's kiss. Yeah, I've no idea either, but fucking figure it out and write it ;)

I have an idea!
The 456 breathe poison (for us), how they manage to put the children they have taken in 1965 and connecting with them without killing them before? Maybe they poisoned them before with a gas emanated by their glands: the infamous virus, wich isn't really a virus but something powerful enough for paralyze life in creatures that live of oxigen, or something like that. When the children were "dead" and connected they have been dosed with the antivirus and "revived". (Nobody have thought of that during the actions because they haven't had the time to analize the corpses, and they had been too scared?)
Jack, or the Doctor, or both, could figures this out, maybe not with the idea of saving Ianto but for prevent future problems with this specie.
And then turn out that Gwen, with all her compassion, didn't buried Ianto but keep him in a refrigerator cell hoping for a miracle. They try, it will be difficult because months are passed, and then they are successful. *insert reunion scenes, hugs, kisses and sex here*

Ok, this could be cliché and (a bit too) awfully romantic, but also bittersweet beacuse even if Ianto lives none else of the other victims can do that because they are already dead and buried for too long. *insert obligatory angst here*


I can't write a fanfiction for saving my life, so if someone like my idea feel free to use it :) (and sorry for my english, I'm barely awake)

[madambackslash.livejournal.com]

That's one hell of a plot bunny, and I'd take it and run with it if I could, but... I'm not sure I'll ever be up to writing Ianto resurrection fic.

I hope there's someone out there who can.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I want a Ianto fanvid of "Working Class Hero" preferably by John Lennon because Dude... that is His Theme Song!

[cookiedough.livejournal.com]

Hello, new reader, got here via CleoLinda posting your entry..

In between Day 4 and Day 5, I became rapidly obsessed with the idea of Mica Davies. She's quiet and blank and I imagine her growing up just like him, barely remembering him and people being obsessed with her and protective of her because of it.. Rhiannon, Gwen, and Jack when he returns. And as she gets older, she gets obsessed with her uncle and learns about him and he becomes this figurehead in her life. David will be just like Johnnie - loud and brash and good, and maybe one or the pair of them will work for Torchwood.I clearly like pain or something, cause I want to read this in a story so bad, even though it will make me cry. I can see the whole thing but I can't write fiction AT ALL.

[sefkhet.livejournal.com]

Jack's leaving earth, and he needs a new name...

Oh! I see what you did there! This would be bizzarely appropriate in the Doctor ex Machina fix-it that has been spilling out of my brain for the last two days and that I'm becoming convinced I will actually have to write.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Oh, hooray for the plot bunnies! :)

At one point in IHNIIHBT Jack and Ianto have a conversation about what if Ianto is the last person Jack manages to fall in love with, because Jack is scared his immortality is making him less and less human and able to connect with others. I keep looking at that, and looking at CoE, and smiling, just a little to myself -- because I don't think it's true, but I think canon Jack and our Jack were on the same page with that fear, and that pleases me.

I wrote a story, post Exit Wounds, in which Jack leaves the team for time away. He agrees to meet John Hart but he goes early, to get away. To DEAL with things after the tremendous losses and pain.

And I do admit I was pleased to see that JACK DOES THIS.