Analogies, Sparrows, Gods, Readers and... Taco Bell: thinky thoughts on Torchwood.

[fictional]

After many days to cogitate, here are my thoughts on yaoi Torchwood, RTD, the whole shebang.

Dear Mr. Davies,

You like analogies, right? Many writers do. Here's one for you:

Imagine that I'm a fan of sport-- track and field, to be precise. And I've come to watch a patricular relay race. I like races, I may (or may not) be a runner myself, but I'm very familiar with them, and this race is particularly special, because I know that the baton (that this particular team I'm rooting for is carrying) is especially shiny! In fact, it was handed down from another relay team that I particularly like, so I'm excited, you know, weight of tradition and all. It's quite an honor. This baton has the name of the new team emblazoned on it; in fact, all they've done is switch the letters around. Instead of my beloved "Park Lamb" this team's called "Lampbark."

Okay, great. So I'm settling in to the bleachers now, excited, anticipatory, ready for whatever comes. The first runner comes on, and you know, they're not the best runner in the world -- a little overweight, maybe, and not great form -- but oh, man, have they got heart. So even though they look a little silly, from time to time, I'm okay. I'm there, still happy, still cheering. The second guy takes the hand-off, and he starts out pretty well, a bit too flash and full of himself maybe, but still, gets me rising to my feet, yelling, "go on! go on! yay!" And then, omg, just as he's about to hand off, he takes a tumble and FALLS. Not just a little stumble either, but full on face-plant. He struggles to his feet, though, and even though I'm wincing for him with that road rash all over his face, and I don't even want to look anymore because, whoa, gross! and I'm pretty sure they've lost the race now, right? Even then, some sense of tenacity makes me hang on... I mean, this guy had heart too, right, and hey, if you're gonna fall, do it with gusto and panache, eh?

And then, somehow, he manages to make the hand-off. I look at this next runner, and I think, okay. Great, good, perfect. Because he's beautiful. I know him of old (he used to anchor my beloved "Park Lamb") and I'm all like, oh, god, yes. Because this guy can run. AND he has heart, I think. No one else comes close. Now we're gonna fucking knock this baby out of the park.

AND THEN, he takes the shiny baton, runs a few feet with it on the track, and THEN SWERVES OFF WITH THE BATON AND HEADS OFF TO TACO BELL. And I'm like, wait, what? Meanwhile, around me, some people are also aghast with shock. Others are muttering, "well, but his form is so gorgeous. Look at the way he holds that baton! You've got to admire him," and I'm like, flabbergasted and stunned, and saying "well, okay, maybe, though I can't actually see his form very well since he's, you know, OFF THE TRACK, and who cares anyway, because it's not the RACE ANYMORE SINCE HE DECIDED TO BREAK FOR A GORDITA! Gordita! Relay! NOT COMPATIBLE." And it's not like I'm OPPOSED to Taco Bell per se, (although, I do think that there are better ways of having Mexican food!) but not when I came to watch a race. And the fucked up part, is that he's run off with the baton, and now the fourth guy is all, "uh,...wait...uh,... well, thanks for that, asshole!"

Maybe he'll come back with the baton, maybe he won't. But as a fan of relays, regardless, I think I'd have a perfect right to be pretty pissed.

Let me be perfectly clear. For the record, I do not think that killing Ianto was a bad idea. You respected Ianto. Jack respected Ianto, on screen. I don't think you were doing the tarantella of glee on his grave. I don't think that's what made the thing go off the track and head for fucking Taco Bell. I don't think ANY of the death was unjustified, necessarily, and I don't think that Jack running off for parts unknown was bad either. It was perfectly in character, and in universe.

Here's the problem. Basically, it boils down to Myfanwy.

I know, I know. You're thinking "crazy fangirl" now. But hear me out. Okay, I get that you wanted to blow up the Hub. I get that you wanted to take everything away from Jack, so he could leave. I get it, and it's fine.

But here's the thing. People loved her. And when you were writing, you didn't even know what happened to her. You didn't think about it at all! When asked, you said, "I think (big laugh) she must have been blown up in that blast."

Neither did you know or care that it made no freaking sense for the gang to not call Martha, it made no sense that Jack would react so NOT AT ALL to the fact that the brother he "saved" in the freezer was now dead, it made no sense that Jack the great con-man would need theft lessons from Gwen, that Lois could get passwords like that with no clearance, that humans would dismiss the military option out of hand, like anyone would do that, that THE DOCTOR'S UNIT who in previous episodes was ready to blow up the earth rather than have the human race enslaved, would not even try anything aside from handing over the children, like, wtf? IT WAS STUPID. (for the record, IT WAS EXACTLY AS STUPID AS THE STUFF PEOPLE POINT TO WITH TORCHWOOD SERIES 1 & 2, like for instance, "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang" which is many people's favorite episode, and didn't make sense either! But that one, you squinted, and said, hey, it's Torchwood, it doesn't have to make sense, it's so great, John Hart is so awesome, the acting's fabuluous, it looks beautiful. "Children of Earth" was so unconnected to all that came before it, and I hear people saying "oh yeah, he showed great form!" BUT HE DIDN'T. If you're going to hold it to a higher standard (Torchwood, but REAL SCI FI), then do so! It still doesn't work.

You know what it reminds me of? Original fic writers! Who decide they want to get more hits on their webpage, so they throw in a little Gwen, a little Jack Harkness in order to get more attention. That is not looked upon so fondly in the fandom... shouldn't canon have an even higher standard?

But okay, even here. I give. So you wanted to depict the bleakness of humanity. You wanted to showcase the terrible reality that nothing can save us from our own worst selves. Fine. Okay, great. That's certainly been a feature of Torchwood, I'm okay with it. I think, like all other TW episodes, it could have been done in a more sensical fashion, but okay, fine.

It is fine for you to kill Torchwood and then regenerate a Torchwood 2.0 from the ruins. Or not. You do not need permission, or approbation. It is your privilege. Perhaps it is even demanded of you, if that is the story you feel you must tell. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply stupid.

Death happens. Not all stories end well, especially some of the most beautiful ones. I accept this. But, let me digress for a moment. There's an author by the name of Sara Douglas, and despite being into doorstopper fantasy, I made it partway through one of her books, and then was unable to continue. And this doesn't happen to me much. Once started, I pretty much almost always finish. One time I googled her, and found the following and then I understood why I couldn't, questions of writing quality aside.

Why did I kill/maim/be cruel to 'x' character?

I am going to use Ray Feist's answer here: "Because I bloody well could". Because I'm the author and because it felt good for me and for the integrity of the novel at the time. I don't particularly like happy endings, and novels where no-one gets hurt occasionally makes for bland reading. Tension requires that the characters which readers get emotionally sympathetic with must occasionally die. Badly.

[...]

Is Faraday ever going to have a happy ending?

I would dearly like to squash her under a huge pumpkin studded with rusty twelve-inch nails so that she dies a lingering, painful death from blood poisoning and a badly leaking belly, and I reserve the right to do so any time I feel like it. (Of course, by the time you get to the end of "Crusader" you'll see that that is not quite the fate I've given her ... nevertheless, I've been nasty enough ...)

Do I like my characters?

Sometimes, sometimes not. As is apparent in the above question, I have never liked Faraday very much, and other characters I get seriously annoyed with... (Source.)

What I ask from a writer of meaningful texts, and tragedy, is very simple. I ask that you love your characters and your world. I ask that you be them, though they are not you. I ask that you mourn with me when they die, because you love them, and because it hurts you to do this to them as well, but you will, only because you must. If we use the divine metaphor, where you are the god of this world you've created, I demand that you be the kind of god that cares for the fall of a sparrow as much as for the death of a star. Or a person.

I do not respect you if you kill these things and experience no pain. I think, then, that you are a coward. And one that has no understanding of stories and their immense power.

I also do not respect you if your method of justification involves cutting down the community around you, and other writers and other stories. Your fans, many of them, are writers too. And not just of fanfic (though that is not a value judgement.) Also, they are scholars, artists, activists and most importantly readers. They too fight. They too think. They too are geeks in a mainstream world, curved in a world of straight lines. Their typing is not fundamentally, essentially different from yours. In quality perhaps. In quantity perhaps. But you don't always come out on the right side of that balance, and in the end, it's simply a matter of degree.

Respect them. Sure, there are the crazy ones. What lover of something isn't a bit mad? And some more than others. Even then, they just might have a point. They might make you better. They might keep you grounded.

Be a reader of your own work, with them. It might remind you...

...you are not alone.

Love,
Kali

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's so weird, because in every other discussion we've had about this, I don't totally or even particularly agree with you, but I totally agree with this (perhaps I needed the metaphor, perhaps merely, yo quiero taco bell, except, you know, like NOT).

I would argue though, that it is also, I'd argue regrettably, anyone's perogotive not to do what is wrenching or difficult (in this case, love). Of course, I know the counter argument, which I believe as an ideal, and I know is untrue as a fact, which is when you choose to make, you gotta sign up for the rest of it, whether you want to or not.

I will be very curious to hear over the next year or so, about how various pros I know (who aren't part of the Whoniverse empire) find interacting on the subject of CoE with RTD. I wonder how his brain is going to emcompass the pros, the peers who feel as you do, or even as others with far more rage on the subject do. Because they're definitely out there, and less easy to dismiss as "mere".

Finally, in a wink, wink, nudge, nudge moment, I offer you merely this: pirates!

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

*grin* We've definitely had differences of opinion in this whole thing, but I think, as ever... we're still at least in the same book, if not the same page.

And never more than here:
I would argue though, that it is also, I'd argue regrettably, anyone's perogotive not to do what is wrenching or difficult (in this case, love). Of course, I know the counter argument, which I believe as an ideal, and I know is untrue as a fact, which is when you choose to make, you gotta sign up for the rest of it, whether you want to or not.

BUT I CAN STILL JUDGE THEM. *grin*

I will be very curious to hear over the next year or so, about how various pros I know (who aren't part of the Whoniverse empire) find interacting on the subject of CoE with RTD. I wonder how his brain is going to emcompass the pros, the peers who feel as you do, or even as others with far more rage on the subject do. Because they're definitely out there, and less easy to dismiss as "mere".

I too will be fascinated. I think of the other fan-pros we know & like (as opposed the ones we, erm, don't) who don't feel that even though they've bridged the divide, they have to say loudly how much fic is "training wheels" and sucks, as opposed to proudly owning it. Ahem.

Are there wafflehouses in Minneapolis?

[thaddeusfavour.livejournal.com]

After watching CoE, I didn't cry right away. I did, eventually, have a short, sharp sob on my husbands shoulder and felt better immediately. After all, as much as I loved the show, I love my husband and the rest of my life even more. But, I did say one thing to my husband. I said that I leveled no blame, but that I would like to know why. If there was one question I could ask, I'd ask Mr. Davies, "Why did you do it? What reasons did you have?" Thinking immediately of Countrycide, I told my husband that I felt like Gwen confronting that cannibal.

My husband made the connection as well, and told me he suspected the answer would be, "Because it feels good."

That said, you have put managed to express my own feelings better than I could. Thank you for this.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

It wasn't Day 4 that got me. It was Day 5, and realizing that nothing about the Torchwood I loved was going to matter.

That said, I'll probably still be there for Series 4. If it has Jack.

Thanks for reading my tl;dr post. =D

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

...that THE DOCTOR'S UNIT who in previous episodes was ready to blow up the earth rather than have the human race enslaved, would not even try anything aside from handing over the children, like, wtf? IT WAS STUPID.

It was great if you've never seen Torchwood or Doctor Who but just sort of...heard of them. CoE was well-directed and engrossing, but there were a ton of plot holes.

Can't really disagree with a thing in your post, except I do think the amount of death was gratuitous (Steven - or is it Stephen?) would have been enough, I think. Ianto? We just lost Tosh and Owen. There's hardly anyone left.

If we use the divine metaphor, where you are the god of this world you've created, I demand that you be the kind of god that cares for the fall of a sparrow as much as for the death of a star. Or a person.

It's weird, I think, to create characters from nothing and then take glee in killing them off for the sake of drama, when there are more interesting ways of doing that.

Guess the problem is that we loved them more than Rusty did.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Guess the problem is that we loved them more than Rusty did.

Yeah. Sigh.

CoE was well-directed and engrossing, but there were a ton of plot holes.

See, the thing is, I pretty much always thought TW was well acted, and well directed, especially in the main cast. So this didn't seem much of an appreciable difference, and when it didn't cure the plot holes, I couldn't really see the VAST IMPROVEMENT that everyone was talking about. It was better directed, I think, and the writing was more... I dunno, even? But I could only forgive the plotholes as long as it was Torchwood and not this other new thing, which hadn't earned my love and forbearance, y'know?

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

I think you may have put your finger on part of what was bothering me. That I want the people making up the world's I love, to love it at least as much as I do.

anyway... thinky thoughts are always appreciated. of course now I also want a taco. :0)

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

*grin* yo quiero taco bell, indeed!

But yes, that's the takeaway, I think, from this whole tl;dr post. Thanks for reading it.

[electro-club.livejournal.com]

ILU.

I agree with your every word and I am so glad that someone's written this, because I obviously never could. Right after CoE ended I was completely heartbroken and very confused, because in a way I did like it very much, but there was something very wrong and twisted about it all making me grrr. The more I think about it, the more I find many things about it stupid, the more mistakes and plotholes I find and the more senseless CoE seems.

It wasn't Torchwood! It was TW for maybe two episodes and then it went somewhere else entirely and didn't care to send a postcard. I can understand some of the decisions made, and I can perfectly well see it as the end of TW. But why? I think it needs to have a reason, and I think it was cruentum talking to someone twitter who said that a story that's written only for the author and doesn't speak to an audience isn't a good story after all. That's not exactly the thing here, CoE does speak to its audience - but how? And to which audience?

Just today I saw an interview with RTD someone at torch_wood had and, you know... I think I might've lost a bit of respect for him. It's not that I don't respect him as an author and a creator. I do love the show he's made and I do love the characters he's created and I'm thankful for the ride. But he talks wish such a contempt for public opinion... I understand he wants to defend his pov, and that he obviously thinks what he's done is great and plausible in every sense, but I couldn't help but read his words as pure arrogance and 'I'm brilliant, you don't get to question my work'. We're fans, you know. And we do have the write to question his work. It's not in our position to tell him what to do, but if he knows people are seriously hurt and confused and even angry with what he's done, I don't think it would take him a lot of effort to just... You know, be nice, instead of acting like a fucking diva.

Nothing disgusts me more than the 'too sexy for my shirt' kind of attitude, and that's how he's showed himself so far, IMO. Too far up on his heels to mind his audience. It's like when you have an idol and you get to meet this idol, but it turns out he/she is a total obnoxious ass? It's what I feel like. Not that RTD was my idol anyway, but I was very disappointed with his attitude. He's not so good he can't be questioned and his series wasn't that bril that he can't take the criticism.

What I ask from a writer of meaningful texts, and tragedy, is very simple. I ask that you love your characters and your world. I ask that you be them, though they are not you. I ask that you mourn with me when they die, because you love them, and because it hurts you to do this to them as well, but you will, only because you must. If we use the divine metaphor, where you are the god of this world you've created, I demand that you be the kind of god that cares for the fall of a sparrow as much as for the death of a star.


Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Thank you.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

♥ ♥

I totally feel you. I don't think kindness should have to be earned! Sigh.

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

This may well be the best post I have read on this to date and I doubt I'll ever read a better one.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thank you so much, really. It took me a really long time to figure out how to express all these crazy emotions I was feeling as something comprehensible. I, er, wish writing them had exorcised them, but sadly... no.

[neifile7.livejournal.com]

And thank you for that eloquent statement. I can accept much tragedy in the name of a good story -- many of my favorite things are broken, as a wise couple of writers I know put it. I can also accept that a good writer needn't spare beloved characters suffering. But I have a hard time accepting a writer who loves playing God more than he loves the characters, more than he loves the world he's made them inhabit, and more in fact than he loves the story he's claiming to tell. (Loving the audience needn't even enter the equation, although it doesn't hurt to credit them with some intelligence.)

I share your sense of absolute wtfuckery about the direction this series took (and while we're passing out love bombs, will give due reverence to your perfect choice of analogy), and that's not inconsistent with admiring a number of things about it. And that too is RTD's prerogative, I agree. He's also within his rights to want to make a gigantic ratings success to help launch his foray into US TV -- writers have to make a living like everyone else, right? And I can't altogether fault him for showing some glee over how well he seems to have succeeded, at least in the short run; that's only human. Or even for dismissing the naysayers, although a little tact never comes amiss.

Where I think he can't have it both ways are his claims to have told an important story, told it supremely well, and to have shed some light on Real Issues about the World We Live In. Either we take that for the marketing spin that it probably is -- in which case we can ask exactly what sort of bill of goods we've been sold, whether the jerk-your-last-tear, haphazard storytelling delivers as promised -- or we take those claims seriously, in which case there is a lot to interrogate here. Rusty, I think you have to choose: either be the God of your TV universe or be a good artist and/or a storyteller with a sense of social responsibility. I don't think this package entitles you to all three. And I would mind less if you would be a little more modest, a little more honest, about your rights as a writer -- one who claims to love your characters and your audience.

ETA: can I link this to my own reaction post, where I'm collecting the most thoughtful and useful discussions I've found?

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Of course you can link! And seriously, your comments here practically put the post to shame. You've really nailed it. I agree with everything you say, like, Rusty, honey, you have to pick a POV. You don't get to have both all three.

And I would mind less if you would be a little more modest, a little more honest, about your rights as a writer -- one who claims to love your characters and your audience.

This. Although, I note he claims to love his audience less and less lately. But as you also point out, that isn't even the point.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

Yeah.


I've kept quiet about a lot of this stuff but . . . I thought CoE was just idiotic. Ianto's death seemed about the only thing that did make sense in the context of the plot . . since the whole team was behaving in such a blustering, swaggering, bullshit manner it was no wonder someone was going to get killed. Did Jack and Ianto think that storming into Thames House and asking the psychotic alien to "No, seriously, for reals this time, cut it out" was going to do anything? It didn't make sense.

For most of Torchwood, I've basically put up with how silly the writing was and how bad the acting was because I liked the characters and found the actors playing them to be likable, if not 100% competant as actors. Tosh and Owen were often the show's saving grace for me, and without them the whole thing was just a fallen souffle'.

But CoE . . it was dumb. It was bad writing. The writers didn't follow the rules they themselves had set down in previous episodes. It was just . . lazy and gratuitous.

Also sad to say it, but I feel similarly about the new Dr. Who, except when it comes to episodes written by Stephen Moffat.

Anyhow, sorry to rant in your journal. I feel like I care a lot because I really wanted it to be better. And it just wasn't.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hahahah. I pretty much agree with your rant 95%, and it sounds like exactly what D.'s been going on about the whole time, especially this:

For most of Torchwood, I've basically put up with how silly the writing was and how bad the acting was because I liked the characters and found the actors playing them to be likable, if not 100% competant as actors. Tosh and Owen were often the show's saving grace for me, and without them the whole thing was just a fallen souffle'.

But basically, a resounding, yes THIS. (Although not about New Who, which i love with a terrifying passion. Still, I suppose we can both say, Bring On The Moff & Series 5!)

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

Yes. Thank you for expressing it so well.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading this whole tl;dr rant! I was saying upthread to quinn22 that I wished this had excorcised some of this for me, but I still don't feel it's out of my system. Am I going to have to burn some sage and do a cleansing ritual or what? Jeez.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

When a favorite mystery author who I knew back in the day when I was still involved in mystery (Dana Stabenow) chose to kill off her main character's partner (because, interestingly, her POV character was getting dangerously content--Kate kinda reminds me of Jack), people went ballistic. They ranted and raved to her, wrote her letters, emails, cornered her at cons...but in the end, all seemed to settle down, and the fans understood, and Kate is still out there solving mysteries in her unique self-contained, damaged way. I understood too, willing to accept the author's choice and reasoning as to why it had to be done. Why?

Because she cared and mourned too, and it was a hard, very hard thing to do. What a difference an attitude makes.

(am so with you on Sara Douglas! and now what you have shared just cements it--I won't try her works again)

Great post.

[di-br.livejournal.com]

(here from torchwood_three)
I love you for writing this.
It makes me want to delete my angry rant-post (ok, not so much, I needed to rant hehe).

I do not respect you if you kill these things and experience no pain.
This is what angered me the most about RTD's interviews. He just didn't seem to care!

[dil-deal.livejournal.com]

'What I ask from a writer of meaningful texts, and tragedy, is very simple. I ask that you love your characters and your world. I ask that you be them, though they are not you. I ask that you mourn with me when they die, because you love them, and because it hurts you to do this to them as well, but you will, only because you must. If we use the divine metaphor, where you are the god of this world you've created, I demand that you be the kind of god that cares for the fall of a sparrow as much as for the death of a star. Or a person.'

WORD
Here via torchwood_three. Thank you for putting into words so beautifully what I feel. How could I respect you if you don't respect the world you created?

[planet-taters.livejournal.com]

this is an excellent analogy. thank you for so wonderfully putting into words what many of us are unable to. it is greatly appreciated.

[takenatwork.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. It was weird watching the death of a show I loved, inside another TV show. And his arrogance is breathtaking, quite literally.

[lunachickk.livejournal.com]

It was weird watching the death of a show I loved, inside another TV show.

Yes, it was and this was how it felt.

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this, for that wonderful analogy, because it says exactly what I was trying to say to a co-worker who is not a Who fan but watched: the form might have been great, but this wasn't the relay race we came to watch.

I'm in the Harry Potter fandom as well as the Whouniverse, and there were deaths in several of the books there, deaths of popular characters, and yes, there was grief and denial, but one thing stuck out in my mind that was different from the deaths in Torchwood.

JK Rowling said that she cried as she wrote the deaths, particularly of the first major character to die. She lived in that universe, loved the characters, and mourned their deaths with all of us.

I don't think RTD did. I think he did it exactly because he could and felt nothing over it.

[snaxcident.livejournal.com]

In CoE, Jack asks Frobisher for "a moment of grace".

I wish the writers, producers, those who enjoyed TW3, etc. would be kind. People loved that damn show. If fans are upset about what happened to it, let them be upset. What's done is done.

It strikes me as ungracious to get pissed off at your fans because some of them dislike you on the internet. Stay classy, RTD.

[lunachickk.livejournal.com]

Here's the problem. Basically, it boils down to Myfanwy.

YES!!! You have so eloquently said pretty much what has been swimming in my head for two weeks. So much just didn't make sense to me.

At times it was even like a different story/world with a few Torchwood characters thrown in to get viewers.

I'm still processing.

Thank you so much for this.

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

Nothing to add, just thanks for a thought-provoking post.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

oh, honey...
taco bell is not mexican food

also, ILU :D

^that's my internet wife, kids! isn't she awesome?

[thaddeusfavour.livejournal.com]

Hey, I forgot to ask, do you mind if I link this in my flist? Since you wrote the post of my inner thoughts, now I don't have to!!! :)

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

^what she said

[xandra-ptv.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I feel like I've been going around for weeks trying to explain to others why I'm so angry about COE and trying not to be rejected outright in my idea because my favorite character was killed. In the end it wasn't about day 4 but day 5 and the grand canyon of plotholes it neglected to clear up.

I also maintain that any tv/movie story that is told with and extended period of time with the heroes sitting around watching others through a camera who are watching the main events through a camera, is not anyway decent writing.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

I also maintain that any tv/movie story that is told with and extended period of time with the heroes sitting around watching others through a camera who are watching the main events through a camera, is not anyway decent writing.

!!!

i mean, yes, this
Audience: Shouldn't you be-
Gwen: Shh! They're just getting to the good part. *eats popcorn*

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I agree with you. I've been going around for the past couple of weeks - first I was numb, then I was OK to think about it again, then I was resigned to it, and now I'm so pissed at RTD I could scream. He doesn't like his audience, he doesn't like his characters - he likes his own voice, and he likes breaking his toys.

What you said, and what my friend telesillasaid, over here.

And what drives me crazy, of course, is that I love so much of his work.

Also, I love Taco Bell.

[mickfish.livejournal.com]

Oh I do like your friend! That's a great letter. And although I am mourning Ianto, I also have come to terms with it and with each day that offers distance and more perspective, I really am slowly getting to be ok with it.

But like her letter said...give us some respect. And yes, my questions and thoughts exactly...when the Hub exploded, what did happen to, well - everything? My first thought was Myfanwy, and then...ew, the bodies..Suzie, Grey..the others! Where there bodies all over Cardiff Bay? All along the shore line? What?!

I just wish RTD would stop fucking around and tell us if Jack will be back in a year or two, either on a new series or a new version of Torchwood.

[blue-fjords.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I think this summed up a lot of what I've been feeling since I watched CoE. I don't expect RTD to make the same decisions I would make on the direction of his show (though ZOINKS! that would be so wicked awesome), but I think my biggest gripe is now with his attitude. He's been dismissive, rude, childish, and an asshole. These are precisely the attitudes the crazies demonstrate which get people to paint all of fandom one color and invalidates our opinions.

Also, dude, he had well over a year on just five episodes, and he couldn't fit in a shot of Myfanwy flying free from the rubble?

Anyhow, thanks for writing this and allowing all of fandom to link to it!

[(Anonymous)]

He forgot Myfanwy ever existed. I think we should be grateful he managed to even remember the names of the remaining TW staff that weren't Gwen!

[amalthia]

Well said. I also want to know it hurts the writers to kill off a character.