such_heights | where do we go from here?

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where do we go from here?

I know, I know - a week ago I didn't expect my journal to still be All Torchwood All The Time either.

The Scream, by

obsessive24
Experimental vidlet. Hi, scars will heal soon.

This is a really exceptional piece of editing, for one thing. And it just feels like this one long, senseless howl, which really says it all.

A Blip In Time by

di_br
Ianto has a few things he needs to say before the end.

This is just really fucking sad. I can't watch it all the way through - god, there's this slight change in the music, and I have to hit pause and go away and do something else for a while - but I like

di_br's stuff a lot and this is very good.

And now that the dust is beginning to settle, the question I am asking myself is where do I go from here, fannishly? And I'm not sure, but I have come to a few conclusions.

Immediately after Day Five had aired, I wanted to run to greener pastures, to move right away from the thing that had hurt me. I don't want to do that now. Certain exceptions aside, which I'll get to in a moment, fandom this weekend has been amazing. You've made me smile, laugh, cry, nod along, and all in all feel so much better. It's made me realise just how attached I really am to this stupid show, and how much I want to stay. I don't want one story to take a universe away from me.

My feelings about Torchwood continues to feel like a break-up, but that doesn't mean I'll never watch again. If there is a series 4, I might watch for Gwen, because I still love her, but it'll be cautious, removed viewing. The way I watched SGA sometimes, or how I approach BSG now. I don't know if I can watch any of Children of Earth again, though. I was so happy, so hopeful with the first three episodes, and I don't know if I can bear that or not when rewatching. We'll see.

There's been a lot of talk just now because James Moran posted stepping back on his blog. Obviously, the behaviour of some fans has been appalling, the line more of a dot in the distance to them. However, much as I do understand his reaction, I feel like part of what he's saying is that even if I do feel hurt by the show, I'm not allowed to blame the writers for it. I actually don't have any interest in probing the intentions of the writers, and all the talk about RTD is/is not self-hating, etc etc etc, is not something I want to be involved in. But it remains the case that the writing hurt me; the writers' choices hurt me. I feel no desire to let them know that, but there it is.

There's also a lot of discussion also about whether or not Ianto's death is an instance of the Bury Your Gays trope. And, well.

I talked earlier in the week about how happy I was to see that relationship being dealt with more directly, more in-depth. It was being built up like that and it was being incorporated so centrally into Ianto's character because they were going to kill him. And the only reason he died was to fuel Jack's angst - he got refrigerated, a queer version of the usual trope where the girlfriend dies for added manpain. Gwen and Rhys survive, Rhiannon and Johnny survive, because they and their children are important, but Ianto is not, a terribly sad character who could be sacrificed along the way. In Day Five, that really got rammed home. What do we know about Ianto? Maybe nothing at all, except that he was gay for Jack and now he's dead.

Of course other characters suffered, of course that's only a part of an overall picture of bleakness that I still wouldn't have enjoyed if he'd survived, or even if it had been an original series. I can rarely stomach things so hopeless. But it's a thing that really stings.

Stupid me, I guess, stupid naive me. This is a show where people like me can save the world, but they can't be happy, and they can't live to see it. And I'm really pretty unhappy about that.

Look,

xtricks said it all much better than me in Bring Out Your Dead.

And I appreciate that other people feel differently about the whole thing for any number of reasons, and I understand and respect that. I am far from The Voice of queer Torchwood fans, nor do I want to be. I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me, but I'm also expecting not to be dismissed out of hand. Don't make me break out a bingo card on this, is all I'm saying.

Okay, that felt good to write. Where do I go from here? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I posted thoughts at the weekend, and they are along similar lines to yours. I don't know when, if ever, I will be able to watch CoE again, because the joy and excitement I took from the first three days will be marred by the knowledge of what happens in days four and five.

I don't think I can leave completely, though; I have given too much of myself to this show to be able to walk away. I'm not sure I agree 100% with James Moran's comments - but, on the other hand, if I'd been subjected to the same degree of asshattery as he had, I doubt I would have been able to remain anywhere near as civil.

I think for me, personally, I just need a bit of time out for awhile. I've been flicking through

torch_wood, and find that some of the reactions/discussions there just make me all agitated again, so I think I shall step back a bit, give myself time to work out how I feel, and then move forward. I'm a positive, optimistic soul on the whole; I just need a bit of time to recapture that, I think.

I think everyone's going to have their own way of dealing with this, but I think and hope that eventually the fandom will upswing again.

I'm a straight girl, so perhaps my perceptions are different, but I generally view people as people, not as labels within society.
The one aspect of the whole Gay-people-always-end-up-worse-off thing that really perplexes me is the fact that no one has even mentioned Alice. Of any character, I think she came off the worst, because she's been left with absolutely nothing. She wasn't an obviously gay character. The idea of outliving your own child, of watching your own child die? That, to me, is the most horrifying thing that could possibly happen to anyone. I'm aware that she wasn't in it much, and that she hasn't been in the series prior to CoE, but I still liked her character.
But then, I'm not in fandom (any fandom) so again, perhaps I have a different perspective.

The thing is, straight relationships are portrayed on TV in so many different ways - good relationships, bad relationships, tragic relationships, happy-ending relationships. Surely this should be the same for Gay relationships? People can be 'good' or 'bad' or simply 'unlucky' regardless of their sexual orientation. A gay character should be a person before they are a homosexual, if that makes sense. Otherwise there will never be any kind of equality.
But then, I'm also not so much of an idealist that I always want a happy ending.

Oh, I completely agree with you, Alice's fate was horrendous. So was Frobisher's and his family's. Like I said, the whole picture was incredibly bleak. Relatively speaking, Ianto didn't have it too bad - dying relatively peacefully in the arms of the one you love? For a Torchwood employee, we get the impression that's pretty be good. It's more about the writers' decision to play into the trope rather than the events of the story as they stand as a whole, if that makes sense.

And I absolutely agree that gay relationships need to be portrayed with the full gamut to be equal, and that's my point: right now, they're not. It's not that no gay character can ever die, that no relationship can end badly, it's just that so many of them do right now, especially in genre TV, especially in film - that is, when they're represented at all. There are exceptions, thankfully, but few and far between, and there is a long, long history of this kind of tragic portrayal being standard or even expected, and I was sad to see Torchwood play into it when they didn't have to.

It's like any stereotype or cliche, really - of course there will be instances when people do actually fit it, or when it suits the story. But the reason it's a stereotype it's because it's been way overdone, and really ought to be avoided.

Oh my god, I just wrote a novel and you've left such a sensible comment. I am a n00b.

But it was an interesting novel :D
I'm not ignoring it, I just don't have the time to give it the reply it deserves right now, but I'll definitely reply to you later.

It's more about the writers' decision to play into the trope rather than the events of the story as they stand as a whole, if that makes sense.

Except that, I really don't believe they were playing into any kind of trope with Torchwood. Most decent writers don't deliberately write stereotypes - the first duty of a writer is to serve the story.

It was Ianto's death that pushed Jack far enough that he chose to kill his own grandson and destroy his daughter's life. Jack made that decision because when Ianto died he lost all hope that he (Jack) could ever have a normal life, that he could ever achieve true happiness - and he blamed himself. He blamed himself for Ianto's death, for the fact that Rhiannon had lost her brother and that two children had lost their uncle. He blamed himself for breaking that family - for the death of a fantastic, intelligent young man. People greiving do odd, sometimes crazy things, and so it makes sense (in a stilted kind of way) that Jack chose to break his own family in order to save every other family in the world, to give them the normality he could never have.
If they'd killed Gwen, the effect couldn't have been the same. Losing a friend is not exactly the same as losing a partner. Jack probably wouldn't have been so broken (after all, Suzie, Owen and Tosh dying didn't kill him), and so the outcome wouldn't have been the same - or it wouldn't have been so true to the story. Sure the story could have ended differently, Ianto could have lived, Steven could have lived, but I'm not entirely convinced that it'd be such a powerful ending. The end came directly from the story - in something that leans towards being a thriller, that's kind of essential.
Jack loved Ianto - and their relationship would have gone a long way had Ianto not died, but then the whole of Jack's episode 5 story would be lost, as would the massive parallels between Jack and the Doctor (which were so clearly deliberate).
The only other character whose death might have had the same effect on Jack is Alice, but then Jack killing Steven wouldn't have worked, and her death wouldn't be integral to the story, but outside it (whereas Ianto was killed very much inside the story), so it couldn't have worked.

I just think that, in this case, it's an example of brilliant storytelling. Yes, Jack and Ianto happened to have been gay, and together, but that was sort of beside the point in terms of this show. If Jack had fallen in love with Gwen in earlier series, then it would have been her who died instead.

I think that this makes sense ^^

I've been staring at this comment box for ages! Okay, I'm going to try a different tack.

I think it's fair to say objectively that Ianto's sexuality was really emphasised right before he died, and that in the course of the story a gay relationship ended in a blaze of doom and despair. Which is the standard way that these things go.

Now, it's entirely possible that the above can be mitigated, if it's an integral part of a story that's worth telling, if the specific context makes it okay. The trouble is, because I absolutely hated where the story went in the end, I don't feel like that. Which is completely personal and subjective! But in means that not only did I get more dead queers bang in the middle of a avidly-watched show, it was in service of a story that went on to do a lot of other things I found far more horrifying to actually watch. So the context isn't exactly mitigating for me, personally.

So, for point one, Children of Earth included a trope that I really hate, and rather than it being in a context that I could accept, it was the start of a final arc that I really didn't like. Obviously I don't expect everyone else to agree with me there, but that's part of why I feel bothered by it.

More generally, I'm sad and disappointed to have lost a major positive portrayal of a gay relationship in sci-fi. It was a sympathetic portrayal in CoE but not a positive one - it wasn't motivated by homophobia or anything, but it also didn't end well, if the distinction makes sense. Nothing was positively portrayed in CoE, mind you, but nonetheless. The whole of Torchwood got taken in a really, really dark direction, and this is one of the consequences. I'm left wishing they hadn't told that story.

As I said, I'm not expecting everyone to share my feelings on it, but I think that's more or less why I feel so disappointed - it's quite tough to articulate, actually, sorry if I'm not being clear.

I think it's fair to say objectively that Ianto's sexuality was really emphasised right before he died, and that in the course of the story a gay relationship ended in a blaze of doom and despair.

Yes, it was emphasised, and rightly so. Wouldn't more people be kicking up a fuss if their relationship had been shelved to one side?
I'm perplexed because the idea of "star-crossed lovers" has existed in literature since time began - that in itself is a genre/part of a genre, and genres DO play into certain audience expectations. They have to, in order to attract the right audience. That's, like, one of the first things you have to learn when you start writing.
By the way, straight relationships have been ending in doom and despair for thousands of years. I'm fairly sure that Romeo and Juliet didn't get much of a happy ending, and actually it's arguable that such stories show how love is the most powerful of all emotions. Surely then it's a good thing to show that a gay relationship can be equally powerful?

But, I guess, if you didn't like the plot itself, that's a fair enough comment. You're certainly entitled to think that.

The objection is less that gay star-crossed lovers exist, but that there are practically no other gay romances. There are thousands upon thousands of straight happy non-dying romances on film, if I choose I could easily watch nothing but. But if I want to watch a gay romance that doesn't end in death and disease... I come up with some examples, mostly because I've spent years tracking down every one I could, but not many, not high profile and rarely done with the budget and talent to make them worthwhile.

Except that, I really don't believe they were playing into any kind of trope with Torchwood. Most decent writers don't deliberately write stereotypes - the first duty of a writer is to serve the story.

Sadly though stereotypes are still being repeatedly written, even by decent writers - they don't intend to write them, it's not deliberate but tropes slip in anyway.

And while I'd agree that the first duty of the writer is to serve the story - I think in serving the story it is important for a writer to be aware of tropes and stereotypes and social issues and what's gone before - to decide whether including those things is something that will have positive or negative impact to the story. And yes, sometimes, the right decision might be to use the stereotype but you should be aware of why.

If you're not putting thought into whether you are just retreading old paths - then you're not really giving the story everything it deserves.

I'm not entirely sure how to articulate my response to this.

Mostly because I think that Ianto's death was a decision based on the type of genre in which the show was being written. Genre is something that a writer will always be aware of, when they are working on something, because genre leads the audience to make assumptions about what they're watching. Trust me when I say that decisions to kill a character are not taken lightly - it has to work for the writer. It isn't flippant, nor is it malicious because writers do not think like that. At least, no writer I've ever met has thought like that, and I know a lot of writers.
I think that Children of Earth pushed Torchwood towards a different genre -- towards, I think, the genre it was supposed to be in the first place. I think, maybe, some people watched it without making the adjustment to the darker genre and they're the ones who got upset about it.

On a side note, out of curiosity, where the hell is this sudden overuse of the word 'tropes' coming from? I'd almost never heard it used in conversation before now.

Yes genre is an issue, but it is not the only determining factor - and it is a little disheartening to think that just because I like sci-fi, I should assume it's going to be dark or bleak or hopeless. And the difficulty is that Torchwood was never really those things in previous seasons - so the idea that we should have assumed this was going to be different this time would have been helped by there being some suggestion of that in the build up to the series. Instead in every interview and promotional item I saw leading up to the show, I was told that this was going to be the Torchwood I loved and to quote:- full of "fun, warmth, action, banter, and hot man on man action".

And so maybe I didn't make the adjustment - but I wasn't told I needed to - I didn't know that this was going to be something different until it was too late. I didn't know it was something that I wouldn't like and so I couldn't make a choice before watching whether this was a genre I wanted involvement in. And I really don't know why I need to be convinced that I should have liked it or I'm just not getting it, which has been happening repeatedly. It's my right to dislike the series and to express that and to discuss what I felt was wrong in the series. Just as it is your right to express your different opinion - and I'd like to thank you for doing that in a civilised way - not everyone has on either side of this debate. I will note, however, that there are many many reasons people didn't like COE - boiling it down to we weren't adaptable enough, is a little insulting.

Also I think genres do and should develop and change and become something new sometimes - because otherwise they can go stale. There is opportunity for endless variations within genre.

Trust me when I say that decisions to kill a character are not taken lightly - it has to work for the writer. It isn't flippant, nor is it malicious because writers do not think like that. At least, no writer I've ever met has thought like that, and I know a lot of writers.

I've never said it is or that it was done maliciously. I've killed characters in the past and I know what goes into it. I don't think the writers went into this to hurt people - I think though they have overlooked certain issues that have unintentionally hurt a large number of people. Sadly whatever went into the decision, intent is never the only thing that matters. Just because somebody didn't intend to do something, doesn't mean it didn't occur - it also doesn't mean we should just pretend it didn't happen - we can and should draw attention to these things in the hope that people will consider the issues more fully in the future.

Whatever the writers intended, whatever the needs of the story (and that is certainly debatable and is being debated thoroughly), whatever the genre - this story and the way it was told follows a pattern that has been repeated again and again not just in the mainstream media but in the stories told in Who and Torchwood. In one sense we've been lucky - the shows have provided us with an exceptionally large number of lgbt chaacters for a sci-fi show. But this doesn't mean we should ignore or forgive the fact that with only one exception every single one of the couples portrayed has ended with one partner dead or evil or both. They've made choices to create this pattern - I doubt it's what they wanted, but it is what happened.

Also I presume the word trope has become more used because of the TV tropes website - especially as that website has shown the prevalence of certain themes within media, with variable results.

With all due respect, I think your straight privilege is showing a bit. I hope we all, gay, bi, straight or anything in between, see people primarily as people and not as labels - indeed, that's always been a major goal of civil rights movements.

You make a very good point that we haven't mentioned Alice, and yeah - she did suffer appallingly. We should probably have focussed on her more. On the other hand, didn't Clem suffer appallingly? Didn't Frobisher? They all did, but they don't matter as much to viewers, rightly or wrongly, because we only saw them for a few minutes or hours over a few days. Alice in particular - I bet her screen time wouldn't add up to an hour.

The thing, gay relationships aren't portrayed in so many different ways. They're hardly portrayed at all. Especially in drama, heterosexual relationships and homosexual relationships are usually built around conflict because that's a convention of drama. However, in, say, the most-watched form of drama, the soap opera - or any drama except specifically-gay dramas like QAF or the L World, there will be far, far more heterosexual relationships than queer ones. To some extent, that is right; there are, of course, more heterosexual than gay relationships in the world. But on the other hand, it has two consequences: one, gays necessarily become more invested in the gay characters because they are so rare - we all want to see our stories told, we all want 'role models', in a funny sort of way. We want to recognise ourselves in characters (as well, as of course, learning about difference and finding escapism and everything else we get from art). The other consequence, depressingly, is that gays continue to be othered. Until recently, if a gay character was in a soap opera, it was incredibly unusual for them to be central to (or even involved in) a storyline that wasn't about them being (unhappy and only with difficulty) gay. So: promiscuity storylines, coming-out storylines, queerbashing storylines, home-breaking storylines, kids-losing storylines and, the old favourite, AIDS storylines. Gay characters in soaps hardly ever just have money worries, for example, or relationship storylines where the difficulty isn't some way predicated specifically on their sexuality (partner decides he is not gay, partner doesn't want to come out, partner gets AIDS and dies), or on cliches/stereotypes associated with that stereotype (partner is madly promiscuous and cannot commit).

The thing about COE 1-3 was that it was a BBC1 programme, on in primetime, that was not only responding to fannish desire to see Jack/Ianto together (a desire felt by many fans, queer or straight) but it was normalising a gay relationship; exploring the sexuality issues (Ianto's discomfort, people assuming they're a couple, Ianto telling his family) but in a fun, enjoyable way (Rhiannon and Ianto's scene, Jack and Ianto playing grieving boyfriends) but, crucially, creating a show that was Rhys&Gwen, Jack&Ianto. One relationship was as central and important as the other. It was normal. The BBC put out promo photos of them as a couple. Mica's friend Sian had two mothers. This was so important to me. I am female and not male, but I had never, ever, ever seen the BBC do this. And I was so proud. It made me proud of the show and of the BBC; I posted in my journal about it. I had friends - RL friends - who felt the same way.

Okay, I'm going to try to keep this short. I've already replied to Amy, so you can read that if you want -- otherwise I'm going to be covering the same ground.

1. My straight privilege? I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, but I certainly don't think I am 'privileged' because I am straight. No offence, but you kind of bit your own point in the butt then by labelling me 'straight'.

2. that was not only responding to fannish desire to see Jack/Ianto together

Wait, that's my issue. It was not responding to any sort of fannish desire. No writer can do that - they'd go mad. It was responding to Russell T Davis's curiosity about whether their relationship would be dramatically interesting.

3. Maybe they do end up disproportionately dead. But shouldn't you be chasing the writers of rom coms? What's happening is that gay relationships are emerging in drama, but they're not crossing all genres. Yet. Torchwood follows the structure of a classic Tragedy very closely, with strong elements of Sci-fi Thriller. No tragedy ends well.
Yes, I agree with you, I would like to see more gay relationships in drama ending happily. But in this particular plot, in this type of show? Not so much, because it'd read as a statement of gay rights. The real art to making a civil rights movement work is actually not to make huge statements, but to sneak in and take people unaware, and to SHOW THEM that equality can be achieved. I think that, for it's genre, Torchwood actually managed this. What really needs to happen is for other genres to follow on.

I hope I make sense. I'm all typed out. ^^

1. I would never have labelled you as straight had you not identified yourself as straight first. So I don't think I was biting my own point in the butt; I was pointing out what you might not understand or perceive because of being straight.

I'm surprised you've never heard the term 'straight privilege' before, but here are some of the privileges you enjoy as a straight person - http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~hyrax/personal/files/student_res/straightprivilege.htm .

2. That is a good point.

3. I disagree with your view on how civil rights movements should work. I think Torchwood was a very powerful statement on social equality, for example; successful because it was so clear. Yes, they do end up disproportionately dead. Why should I chase the writers of rom coms - that's a non sequitur. I think what you also mean is that gay relationships are emerging in *mainstream* drama. It's an important distinction. There are, and have been for some time, gay-based romantic comedies (some very good!). But gay relationships are rarely featured in mainstream romantic comedies; that's a whole other issue, which I'm willing to get into if you want, but it doesn't invalidate or even really affect the whole Dead Gay Drama trope. Of which, more here -- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays

But in brief, I think there are several main reasons why gays don't usually make it in couples into mainstream romantic comedies: tragedy punishes & comedy condones; tragedy can neutralise transgressive characters through death, while punishment of sympathetic characters worthy of romantic interests isn't a huge part of comedy - certainly not as a final outcome. The film & TV industries, in particular, are reluctant to include gay relationships in mainstream comedy - Bend It Like Beckham was meant to be a gay film, for example, and originally Chandler Bing was going to be the gay character in Friends. Comedy (unless it's 'adult' comedy) often, I think, has a family feel.

And I think that what really needs to happen, as well, is that gay relationships can be shown across the genres without somebody dying. I'm not sure how or when this will happen, of course, since the correlation between gay and death is also encoded in our most popular children's literature - Dumbledore and Baruch, anyone...?

But again, both the topics I'm trying to talk about - straight privilege (if you are white, which you may well not be, of course, would you accept the term 'white privilege'? ...well, if you're not white, I'm sure you would except it exists..) and the prevalence of gay death in art/literature have been covered more fully by fans, academics, activists and artists than I can hope you do. If you're genuinely interested, please do find out more.

Now, I am not the person to educate you on the Dead Gay Trope, but when Gays are in Literature they end up disproportionately Dead. They just do. It started off as a wages-of-sin thing, moved to become a novelist's last-ditch attempt to neutralise a transgressive threat and now... well, now it's just heartbreaking. And the thing is, when a heterosexual character does something (or indeed a heterosexual does something publically), it is not considered representative of, or very important to all heterosexuals everywhere. This is a privilege the heterosexual majority enjoys. And the white majority, etc. But it's different for LGBT watchers and LGBT characters/public figures. It's different for every minority; BME groups, people of colour worldwide, female politicians; you name it.

What we're asking for is more happy gay relationships. Or by 'more', 'any'. If you had no romance narratives which featured women in a positive way to watch or read, I'm sure it would bother you.

One day, hopefully, we won't need to be especially careful of our portrayals of LGBT characters, because real-life equality will have been achieved. I agree that paying special attention to LGBT portrayals can be othering - mitigating a character's fate because they're L, G, B or T. But I hope this explanation, though somewhat rambling, explains some of the queer fan's perspective, and that you don't take it as an attack - it is really not meant as one. Thank you again for the reminder about Alice - it was a timely one.

You know, the thing about the Dead Gay Trope is that EM Forster pointed it out when he wrote Maurice in 19 - frickin - 13. 1913! He said he wanted to write the book so there'd be something out there featuring a gay person 'who didn't end up swinging from a rope'.

AND OH LOOK. THAT TROPE IS STILL TRUE.

NEARLY 100 YEARS LATER.

Gah.

...sorry, I just had to swing that cat.

slasheuse, this was excellently put.

as I have no relevant icons, have some old straight men hugging JUST FOR VARIETY.

Edited 2009-07-16 13:13 (UTC)

Hi ilu.

ALSO I FOUND THE LEWIS FILMING, IT WAS IN 2ND QUAD. I saw Hobson and OUR BEAN-LIKE.

OMG first of all, that second vid. *bawls* Thanks for sharing it.

Amy you make such great points. I definitely took it all "better" the night of, when I was in the throes of the story (that tends to happen to me), but now as I step back and am feeling more detached I'm quite sad about how things played out.

You know I'm not very well versed on the Dead Gay Trope, so I'll reserve comment on it. I definitely am influenced by my bias/privilege on this one, which I can do nothing but recognize, right? Alice and Frobisher's losses hit me the most hard in the guts, and I think that's just because of my current situation as a mother of small people. When Ianto died, there was that slight element of romance (that sounds horrible, doesn't it?) but as Alice watched Stephen through the glass and when John walked up those stairs with the gun, it was 100% horror for me. Ugh. What a terrible story. Still not sure to make of the entire series.

Anyway, thanks so much for posting and I'm looking forward to finding out where we go from here with you. *hugs*

God, yes, I'm with you that Alice and Frobisher were harder to actually watch - I barely could with Steven, really. The whole thing was such a horrible experience!

Stupid me, I guess, stupid naive me. This is a show where people like me can save the world, but they can't be happy, and they can't live to see it. And I'm really pretty unhappy about that.

Perfectly said right there, and for the whole thing about Ianto. Sad and true that its really what happened to him.

But this 5 day story line has really brought out my Torchwood fic muse again. Because of his death and his character being brought to an end so abruptly I have a desire to write all I can about him to give him new life, or afterlife. I want to keep in fandom in that way at least.

and btw- oh my fucking god I see what you mean about "A Blip in Time" Why am I watching this at work? *is totally tearing* I haven't listened to the the 3 audio plays yet and now I think I really need to

Yes, I am clinging to fanon as hard as I can right about now!

Oh fanon, how you sustain us!

I don't watch Torchwood, but I've been following your reactions and the reactions of those on my flist. It's horrible that a show that's been so lauded for queer visibility would resort to something like this, and I really feel for you and the other people I have friended.

The closest thing I've experienced was when I was still watching Heroes. In season two, they did something I loved: Matt and Mohinder were living together and helping to raise a girl. Were they a canon couple? No -- and the show tried to throw a random female character at Matt to emphasize this -- but it was one of those times where I was really enjoying the subtext.

In season three, they stopped doing this. That's not unusual for Heroes, since the show wouldn't be consistent even if the fate of the world depended on it, but I was sad because it was one of the few elements I still enjoyed. I wrote a post airing my feelings, and said that as a result of that and a host of other reasons, I wasn't going to watch the show anymore. And I haven't.

But what got me was that I was told I was overreacting, and that the Matt/Mohinder subtext wasn't canon, and that I should get over it. I said that, even though they weren't in a romantic relationship, it was a positive portrayal of two men taking care of a child together, which was something that definitely isn't shown on TV every day, especially in a drama.

The point I'm trying to get to in my ramblings is that I don't think you're overreacting. And I think the

xtricks post said that better than I can; it brought tears to my eyes, to be honest. Maybe I'm expecting too much for entertainment to raise the bar in terms of awareness, but it has to start somewhere, and it's worked in the past. I know I felt better having something like Torchwood out there, and now that it's basically turned away from what it had, I'm feeling a bit of a loss. I can only imagine what it's like for someone who was invested in the show.

*hugs*

Thanks, sweetheart, I'm glad you understand!

I've had a couple of people say to me that they're sad about what's happened even though they don't watch the show. Man, this whole thing is just heartbreaking.

I broke up with Heroes myself, albeit for different reasons mostly borne out of frustration, but that definitely sucks, and non-normative families in any sense are often really hard to find in fiction.

where do you go? you could totally get involved in my giant "let's make a global movie" project
y/y?

Ahaha, that would be fabulous!

YAY! nothing set yet, but see the comments of this post - http://kel-reiley.livejournal.com/130168.html

Ha, okay, that is amazing! I am working on so many projects right now it's ridiculous, but if there's anything I can do from the UK, let me know!

Yep, I'm feeling some of this too. I'm surprised that I can still read and interact with the fannishness - surprised but pleased. Once the show had aired I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to watch the final specials for Doctor Who.

Thinking about that reminded me of something I read during the warnings debate - I can't remember who it was said it, but they were talking about how warnings benefited a writer as much as a reader because it built trust between them. And that once a writer had gained that trust, a reader who would normally avoid reading something with a specific warning might choose to read anyway because they trust the writer to bring them out safely on the other side.

And after Tosh and Owen's death, as much as it was heartbreaking, I did feel that level of trust. The deaths were tragic but beautiful and they gave us both hope in the future and Tosh's message telling us it would be alright at the end. I felt they had understood that what they were doing would hurt fans and that they had taken the decision seriously and that they were doing their best to help us.

That trust has been completely destroyed for me - not only do I feel like we were lied to about what was coming in series 3 or rather misled maybe ("Oh yes of course you're going to get Jack/Ianto development... they're going to develop into one of them being dead) - but they then just continued to slap on more and more pain and didn't even leave us with a grain of hope. I thought it was brutal for the sake of being brutal.

I know that for some people that makes good television - but not for me - and I don't feel I was adequately warned through the promotional stuff that this was the direction the series was going in - especially as it's so different from what's gone before in the show.

So now I feel I simply cannot trust anything RTD does - I don't trust him not to leave me broken at the end - and I do think that will affect how I watch the Who specials. I'm literally going to be bolstering myself up, creating a defensive emotional shield, watching from a distance.

And I hate that.

P.S. I am also still absolutely baffled by the people telling me that this a) had to happen to Jack because Jack could never have sacrificed Stephen otherwise and b) that it had to be Ianto, because romantic relationships are the only ones that matter and could hurt Jack. I feel like I've been watching a completely different Jack Harkness to them.

Also, meant to say on the James Moran thing - yes I wish people hadn't been abusive to him, nobody deserves abuse, and also being abusive generally distracts from the fact that we have a valid concern. But I AM angry at him and I don't feel the need to pander to him.

Plus I can't see his reaction without picturing him flouncing off from the internets, to pout and sulk because we don't understand his artistic vision. *headdesk*

I know that for some people that makes good television - but not for me - and I don't feel I was adequately warned through the promotional stuff that this was the direction the series was going in - especially as it's so different from what's gone before in the show.

This, so much this. It came out of nowhere, I thought. Torchwood's always been a bit dark but never anything like this.

And yes, exactly, I hate feeling so defensive about this universe now when I never used to.

I think Jack would absolutely have sacrificed Steven in those circumstances whatever else was going on, which is awful, but sort of the point, I thought. Especially after he gave up those 12 children last time. What I can buy more, maybe, is that it was a necessary part of getting Jack so broken that he had to leave Earth. Jack's done brutal things to people before and lost people before, and this was the first time it drove him right off the planet.

Yep. I really don't think the promo stuff even hinted at how dark things were going to get and usually I think it's been ok at that without being spoilerish. I'd even go as far as to say that some of what I read in advance gave me, at least, a completely different impression. Action thriller is not something I associate with the bleakness we were left with. Especially as in my experience they usually end with the hero winning, more or less.

I've been looking through old interviews tonight and stumbled across this, for example, from an interview with James Moran:

I have seen all five episodes, they sent me the DVDs. It's amazing stuff, I loved it. Obviously I'm going to say that, but I really do mean it, it's epic stuff. It's proper Torchwood, but feels new and different at the same time. It takes things to a whole new level, but gives you all the Torchwood shenanigans you'd expect - fun, warmth, action, banter, and hot man on man action. (my ephasis)

It might just be that I don't have the sense of perspective on this - but I can't look at that description especially the last words and connect it with the episode we actually got. I understand the difficulty that you can't say very much - but this just seems such the extreme opposite to me of what was actually in the episode.

I think Jack would absolutely have sacrificed Steven in those circumstances whatever else was going on, which is awful, but sort of the point, I thought. Especially after he gave up those 12 children last time. What I can buy more, maybe, is that it was a necessary part of getting Jack so broken that he had to leave Earth. Jack's done brutal things to people before and lost people before, and this was the first time it drove him right off the planet.

You might have a point there, that that's what it would take for Ianto to leave - although until I see where they take Jack, I don't know if the ending was worth it. But I 100% agree that Jack would have killed Steven, he may have hated himself, but if he thought it necessary he would have done it. The two things that I've always held as true about Jack (and the two things that make me love him the most) - is that he is a soldier, he does the necessary and that's not always nice - and that he has an incredible ability to love, he forms fast connections and I think falls deep and that he deeply values the relationships he creates with people in all their forms. Those two facts feel like they should be contradictory or at least not able to exist side by side - but they do and I think it makes him glorious and heroic and tragic in ways that are just Jack - it makes him one of the biggest bastards out there and one of the most vulnerable.

And I think that the argument I've seen frequently to excuse Ianto's death - that someone had to die and it could only be Ianto - completely denies these things I believed about Jack. And yep maybe I was wrong - but that hurts too. It feels more to me that I could accept those ideas about a generic character - sort of: logically for a normal human being to do something so terrible, he must be completely stripped of his humanity and to do that the most effective method is to kill their partner - who must logically be the most important person in their life.

But that doesn't acknowledge the individualism of a character - that they don't all have to fit that pattern and they won't all do so. And Jack is so far away from that for me...

It's like the 'it could only be Ianto' thing, I never really doubted that Jack adored Ianto (although bizarrely COE actually made me question that frequently) - but just because his relationship with Ianto differed to the one he had with Gwen - it never made me think that he loved or valued her less. If either were to die he would be devastated - just as he was devastated at Tosh and Owen's death and probably every person he's cared for.

*sigh* sorry for the extreme rambling - I've been both warmed by the large number of people reacting like me to the 'gay death' tropes Torchwood pulled - and thoroughly depressed by the arguments against it. It's been making me think we could do with something similar to this Tara/Willow article - http://www.stephenbooth.org/lesbiancliche.htm - but I wouldn't even know where to start.

This is a show where people like me can save the world, but they can't be happy, and they can't live to see it. And I'm really pretty unhappy about that.

Yes. And from a personal point of view (either if 'you' are someone who can be a hero, or 'you' as a viewer) why would you bother saving the world? why would it be *worth* saving? :(

Yeah. It's kind of dismal to watch the same old story play out again and again.

Passed by via

slasheuse and saw all your recs and OH GOD I need them.

Friends?

xxx

Very late reply here, but hi there! I am glad the recs were helpful.

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1/2, embarassingly!

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