sundries

[rm]

What healthcare reform does, or rather doesn't, mean for LGBTQ Americans.

UK B&B turns away gay couple. I LOVE staying in B&B's and have recently introduced Patty to the joys of it. But I worry about this EVERY TIME.

British kids think hacking is wrong. 25% of them have tried it anyway. I blame Spooks.

Last night we went to a restaurant we always go to, where I ordered what I always ordered, but alas, somehow the place decided that a satueed chicken breast should be dipped in flour first. I thought I was being paranoid, so ate half my meal, then realized I was having stabbing pains and am now dealing with gluten poisoning. Honestly, I got off easy as I did everything I could once I realized, but I still feel awful.

On an average day last week, I paged Patty three times. Obama paged her 6 - 10. I'm this close to writing an essay about how Obama thinks they are going to the movies together on Friday night or something.

White Collar fen: the difference between plane and plain. Learn it. Love it.

I was having an excellent conversation with neifile7 the other day somewhere where you can't see it, and we were talking about the thing where Torchwood fandom is all over White Collar and what that's about.

White Collar seems to be hitting something in people other than "pretty suits" and "lying liar who lies" and I suspect it's because we see Neal getting that hand-at-the-back mentoring from Peter that I think a decent number of the folks who identified with Ianto really wanted to see Ianto get from Jack (and we don't see it overtly, like we do in White Collar, we had to assume it, and for me, in that regard Ianto had very much arrived in terms of competence by the time of CoE, so I think maybe people didn't just lose the character, they lost the dynamic they both wanted and needed him for, hence the rage in some cases). So I think it's meeting that need for a benevolent but harsh taskmaster thing as gen or as kinky as the viewers want.

Peter makes Neal a finer thing. People _wanted_ Jack to make Ianto a finer thing, but whether he did (whether he tried, whether that was the dynamic there) is far more arguable.

That's what I'm seeing anyway, as someone who wasted a lot of their 20s wanting someone to make me a finer thing and then decided no one else was really worthy or capable of the job (I am not saying this desire is jejune, btw, I am saying this desire led me to be an idiot and didn't work for me; your storybook may vary).

And I didn't watch Torchwood through that lens (I saw Ianto as someone Jack (and others in the past) forced to learn to do such stuff for himself, fast, and I appreciated the relationship for that reason. I also didn't identify with Ianto, which is separate but tangental). Watching White Collar, however, gives me a nostalgia for the desires of my 20s. I recognize, very keenly the texture of the day-dreams it evokes for me.

Every time I try to plan a shooting excursion, EVERY TIME, there's some social conflict that makes it really, really impossible. *Cranky*

I'm feeling better and better (and more excited about) the new Doctor Who series and Eleven. I worried it was going to be somehow short on the epicness and the darkness (because I feel like a lot of people are happy to say goodbye to Ten because of said epicness and darkness). But I've been watching the new trailers and it makes me tear up in that way that the Whoniverse does and I think it's going to be AWESOME. Besides, the Moff totally brings the 51st-century, so even we don't get more Jack, we get Jack context. Also: I WILL BE IN THE UK WHEN THE NEW SERIES PREMIERES.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't find it scary to be around Neal, but when I recognize elements of myself in the character, which I do every once in a while, I want to run screaming from the room. Because they aren't healthy things about me. At least I know.

And I agree, I do think a lot of the sadness about Ianto is the "we'll never know" factor (it _guts_ me). And I think I think a lot of the rage is "oh shit, but _my_ life's gonna get better, right? RIGHT?" Just, more subterranean and convoluted than that.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah -- that was my bad phrasing, I meant, Neal's personality I don't find frightening, he doesn't have the same dark places I do (or when he does he's way better at them than I am).

I'm...IDK, I'm not worried about my life getting better, my life isn't exactly stupendous and it's still way better than it has ever been, so I suppose low expectations are good for something :D But you know me, I'm compulsive and neurotic about The Story, and it is very much for me that I don't ever get to ask "what happened next?" again for that story. It's like waiting over the long hiatus for new canon and then realising, every couple of weeks, oh right, there won't be any. :/

Usually I've drifted away from a canon before it ends due to decreasing interest. I think Torchwood is the first canon since the Chronicles of Narnia that dumped me first.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm working very hard on being zen right now about how we may or may not get anything more. I'm excited for the reign of Moff on DW though, since he's all about the 51st century. I figure I'll at least be getting more context to play with.

Also, dude, you're not filled with rage. So hence you being really engaged about Ianto's death, but also not necessarily taking it personally in the same way as others do.

Many of my dark places are disturbingly like Neal's. And the one's that aren't, are like Jack's (at least lots of Jack's good qualities resonate with me too). And where those two characters overlap? Yeah, hi, right here! BADNESS.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I would kill for your mad social skills. I know how unpleasant you find the whole process, but I find it unpleasant AND am terrible at it. :D

II know that nobody killed Ianto to spite me, so yeah, I don't take it personally. Which is not to say that I'm not angry about some elements surrounding his death, but why start yelling when everyone else is yelling dumber shit and drowning me out. :)

There is no more canon for me, will not ever be. Doctor Who, yes, and I am hesitantly excited about that, but even if Torchwood airs again, and even if I thought there would be anything in it to interest me (for the record: highly unlikely) I don't trust it enough to watch it again.

So. No new Torchwood for me. Which is hard, but not as hard as watching it and getting dicked around again would be.

[rm.livejournal.com]

There's something about the nature of Jack's narrative that's been set up, that I literally have to go back to Torchwood to make it okay, even though I know it's going to hurt me again. It's sort of logical, in its own sick way.

So I'm trying to decide, who do you identify with on White Collar? Mozzie or El? ;)

Also: are we going to be seeing White Collar fic from you or what?

(also also, did I really change my icon to this pic a week before I started watching WC? Because that's cracking my shit up).

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

The thing is, at this point I don't actually trust anyone involved to make Jack's narrative meaningful. If I thought they would write a worthwhile story, I'd consider it, but I don't think RTD is actually very interested in Jack Harkness, and I don't think anyone else will be once American network television gets through with it, if those rumours are true. So for me it's not that I can ignore Jack's story, more that I think they will.

As for the rest, you know me too well :D I don't really strongly identify with anyone on the show, but someone asked me who I would be and I said realistically, Mozz. El is, believe it or not, too together for me to be her.

[rm.livejournal.com]

See for me, there's a way in which it doesn't matter what they do to Jack's arc, because Jack's deal is he keeps letting himself get hurt, because he can't not. Same here. I can put up walls, but they fall back down. If they do some shitty American Torchwood where he's straight, that I might not watch, but then, that's because that's not Jack, no matter what anyone says.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, the parallels are a little bit delicious, I have to say :D

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh re: White Collar fic, yes, probably eventually. Right now I'm putting the last scenes into a 60k+ Jack Backstory epic, which I hope will suffice in the meantime :D

[rm.livejournal.com]

Um, YES please.

I just really want to natter with someone about White Collar fic, because I'm trying to figure out what I've decided is going on off-camera when, and I haven't made that determination yet, and I want to hear what other peopel are trying to puzzle it out.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

We should natter. To be honest I haven't really looked at what's going on offscreen during episodes, but I've gone quite a bit into a Peter Mental Place fic I started a while back. I'll brush that up a bit and add you to the googledoc, good jumping-off place maybe.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Cool. Because I get Neal's brain, and I get El's process and I get Peter's conflicts, but I can't figure out what's actually going on.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Just shared it -- it's kind of messy right now, but may intrigue. :)