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

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.

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

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Your analysis is eerily close to thoughts I've had regarding Doctor!Tennant and his really atrocious behaviour towards... well, people in general and Jack in particular.

The Doctor (especially !Tennant) is a very, very cruel entity indeed. And he knows it. Which I think is why I forgive him. The same way I watched Day 5 and forgave Jack for what he did.
Both are murderers. They killed with intent. Death is almost always tragic, but it is necessary. Especially in this kind of Timey-Wimey narrative.

Granted, the Doctor's actions led to far more disastrous (and far reaching) consequences than Jack.
But the Doctor is, ostensibly, the Last of His Kind and was never Human, I think he really does consider himself, by virtue of being what he is, morally and ethically exempt.
Jack, by contrast, despite being the Only One of His Kind, has a responsibility towards the Humans who will become his ancestors. He may be a fixed point in time, but he is Of It. The Doctor is not and for him the Universe is a playground.

I think it really shows the Doctor's alieness. He doesn't have the same ethics as humans, he always speaks of humans as a collective. To Jack humanity is family.
Therein lies the difference, I think.

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

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

I've not forgiven Ten for lobotomising Donna, either.

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

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

The Whoniverse (the New at least, I don't know enough cannon before Eccelston) are very blasé about the meaning of memory, both in Doctor Who and Torchwood.

Yeah... Donna... I hated him for that for a long time. As I said, I've forgiven him, that doesn't mean I'm forgetting it for a while.