A little bit of this and that...

[elisi]

So, I have 4 fics and two essays vying for attention in my head. This is rather tiring. So this morning I shall point you towards two good things, and chat a little about a third.

1) Short fic rec: How Xander Got Fired From That Phone Sex Line by gabrielleabelle. Hilarious!

2) Vid rec: Bachelorette by obsessive24. Absolutely *brilliant* vid looking at gender roles on Buffy.

3) Con reports. *flaily hands* kalichan and rm have notes from GDL's panels (One, Two and Three. Spoilers for COE obviously.)

Darn I wish I could go to these things:

GDL talking about the evolution of the Ianto/Jack relations. "Didn't know I was going to be the leading man's man until probably about episode 5 or 6." "Amazing, I'm going to be kissing the leading man, you have to give me more lines!"

All italics from the notes above.

CoE question: would Ianto have made the same choice Jack made about Stephen if the issue had been his niece or nephew? THIS IS THE BEST QUESTION EVER.

GDL says Ianto would have had to. Said it would have destroyed Ianto more than it did Jack... as Jack has had time to develop an ability and a hardened shell to deal with those sort of choices. But it would have utterly destroyed Ianto.

That really *is* a fantastic question, and I could see Ianto doing a Frobisher. And about the death:

They hated first draft of death scene. Read badly on purpose so they got it changed. Sounds like there was I love you I love you too in the original version. [...] GDL says he wanted the death scene to be as unremarkable and wasted and real as possible. He didn't want it to be sweeping. didn't prep a lot. Wanted it to be pointless. Confirms the mutual I love yous were the problem with the first draft.

This! This, exactly, is how I feel.

q: "do you think Jack can continue to be heroic without Ianto there to be that balancing influence.
a: "No."
q: "What influence do you think Ianto's had on him?"
a: "I think Ianto taught him about love."
audience: awwwwwwwwwwwww
a: "Ianto's death took him to a place where he head nothing left and without that love in his life he's cold enough to do what he needs to do. He's gone off into space to see if he can find the ability to love again."
q: "I'm really glad you say that, I think Ianto was all about unconditional love and you rarely see that on TV."
a: "I agree"

::meeps and crawls into corner to mourn dead 'ship::

(This totally confirms my own thoughts and actually ties in with one of those essays I mentioned. Also, one of the evil bunnies might be a fix-it. Shut up. It's not what you think.)

*****
One other thing I've been pondering is Harriet Jones. There is of course the 'If the Doctor hadn't deposed her, things would have turned out differently', which is most probably true. However, I was struck by another thought - the fact that the Sycorax were going back to the stars with a message from the Doctor, and Harriet shot them down. What if she hadn't? Would the Doctor's warning have reached the 456, and would it have had any impact on their actions?

We'll never know.

Anyway, I have children to look after...

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

One other thing I've been pondering is Harriet Jones. There is of course the 'If the Doctor hadn't deposed her, things would have turned out differently', which is most probably true.

The thing is, I can't see how Harriet Jones would have been PM by the time the 456 arrived even if the Doctor had handed her flowers and congratulations at the end of The Christmas Invasion instead of saying those seven words. Had Harriet been at the height of her popularity and in power when the Master came to Earth, he'd simply have assassinated her (by proxy, most likely) because becoming PM was essential to his plans and he wouldn't have led something like a popular PM stand in his way. He probably would have been the first to hold heartfelt speeches about her martyrdom and get elected as her avenger, or something. Which still would have meant Brian Green as PM later on.

[elisi]

That is a good point, thank you.

(I still wonder if the 456 would have heeded the Doctor's warning. Of course he didn't show up so... *throws hands up* Might-have-beens are tricky.)

Oh! Since you're here, you've seen hollywoodgrrl's 'Marble House', right?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I still wonder if the 456 would have heeded the Doctor's warning. Of course he didn't show up so... *throws hands up* Might-have-beens are tricky.

They are. I've seen it argued that a reply would be unfair as the DWverse cheats by not bringing the Doctor in these type of situations to begin with, except that it does. (He doesn't always win the day, though he does more often than team Torchwood, that IS the nature of the show; and sometimes he does have to kill innocents, not "just" the guilty, to save more innocents. Ask the citizens of Pompeii. The difference is that we did not see the event where he had to do it to family members on screen, to wit, the Time War.) What is a difference in the conception of shows is that DW more often than not allows the human spirit to be a crucial factor in winning the day; situations like Midnight or the revelation about who the Toclafane are - and thus how humanity will inevitably end up - are the exception, not the rule.

Another thing: while "telling the villain not to pursue evil course of action" IS a Doctor trope, he usually has a plan B because most villains aren't like the Vashta Nerada and actually listen to his warning. So, for example, when he offers the Empress of the Raccnoss and her children a lift from Earth to some uninhabited planet and the Empress declines, he already has the control units he picked up from the Santas with him which allow him to drown the Raccnoss after she says no. When he tries to talk the new Cyberuler, our woman in red, out of things in The Next Doctor, again he has the instrument to destroy her already with him after she declines. The offers are always genuine - he doesn't go after the Vashta Nerada after they accepted it - but he usually has something up his sleeve if they say no. (Even if he's planning on dying in the process if they don't accept his offer, as with the Sontarans in s4. If Luke Rattigan hadn't substituted himself for the Doctor at the last second, the Sontarans still would have been blown up, just along with and by the Doctor himself.) Jack and Ianto, otoh, made the mistake of going in and giving the big talk WITHOUT a plan B in case the 456 aren't bluffing. Which presumably the Doctor would not have done.

...all of which is assuming he'd have intervened, and this wasn't one of those "fixed" events. A category which going by the trailer whatever happens in "The Waters of Mars" will also fall under, which is something new because it takes place in the future. The show has done the "this is an historic event we CAN'T change" a couple of times, starting with One and the Aztecs, and One and the massacre of Bartholomew's Eve, but they always picked events that were historic for the viewing audience as well, not events that are in the future/present for us, if not for the Doctor.

To go back to the 456: we're deep into speculative country here, but going by their insistence on "you yielded before, you will do so again", part of why they returned to Earth was because, they had already succeeded with their, as Gwen put it, protection racket once here. (And because they knew Earth tech wasn't comparable to their own.) If their mentality actually was typical for protection rackets, they might have backed off when faced with someone they knew had an Oncoming Storm record. Otoh, we're talking about drug addicts here. Rationality is not their strong suit.

[elisi]

though he does more often than team Torchwood, that IS the nature of the show
Indeed. And I'm still thrilled that they took 'Torchwood = Adult Doctor Who' and actually went with it.

What is a difference in the conception of shows is that DW more often than not allows the human spirit to be a crucial factor in winning the day
Yes, very much so. And the Toclafane are really not human anymore (much like cybermen), and in Midnight panic and terror were the driving forces. The monstrousness of the people in CoE was very different.

Jack and Ianto, otoh, made the mistake of going in and giving the big talk WITHOUT a plan B in case the 456 aren't bluffing. Which presumably the Doctor would not have done.
*nods* And it also showed the difference between humans and Time Lords - the Doctor can [almost] always pull a solution out of thin air, because he is quite simply that clever and knows that much. Humans are far more limited.

...all of which is assuming he'd have intervened, and this wasn't one of those "fixed" events.
I think it probably was - something that big, on a global scale, strikes me as very much 'fixed'. (And Alex' words confirm that, I suppose, when looked at in that light.) I'm actually going to tackle that in my fix-it fic that I'm currently working on! *g* ('Fix-it' being somewhat of a misnomer, since there are of course some things that *can't* be fixed.)

If their mentality actually was typical for protection rackets, they might have backed off when faced with someone they knew had an Oncoming Storm record. Otoh, we're talking about drug addicts here. Rationality is not their strong suit.
Indeed. I liked one fic that suggested that the 456 had blocked all communication from Earth, which strikes me as very plausible.

Also, I got Kathy to make me this nifty icon. Very sharable if you want to snag! :)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you! Very nifty indeed!

Indeed. I liked one fic that suggested that the 456 had blocked all communication from Earth, which strikes me as very plausible.

*nods* Same here. I also liked the story which theorizes that Jack's "fixed point in time"-ness also means that any historical development he's involved in can't be altered, i.e. he's part of the original trade, so it can't be reversed, and CoE can't be reversed, either.

[elisi]

Oh thank you! Very nifty indeed!
I know she hates to animate stuff, but I begged very nicely because I'd had this really good idea. :)

I also liked the story which theorizes that Jack's "fixed point in time"-ness also means that any historical development he's involved in can't be altered
Ah - that works very well too. (There's just too much to work with! *g*)