When Even the Ashes Have Faded Away

[holdingoff]

Title: When Even the Ashes Have Faded Away
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Rhiannon & Johnny Davies, Unidentified Female
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Coda, Children of Earth
Notes: For the Series 3 Challenge at

Comments

[vipersweb]

oh! This is... you've managed to turn the sourness I feel about COE into something better and let me feel something that isn't disgust at what happened to Ianto.

Ianto's fatalism is just so him. I'm glad he told Jack the truth of who he is. I love how Ianto is always thinking and planning for the future and how realistic he is about Torchwood and what it brings. Such a nice contrast to Gwen's continue naivety. I like the bits and pieces of the past you show us as well as the future and memorial at the Hub. Very nice to see Ianto's legacy lives on. I like the quiet romantic nature of the Jack/Ianto relationship and that even 1000 years in the future, Jack wants to carry something of Ianto close to him as well as giving a part of him to the Hub. Nice scene with Rhiannon.

Lovely fic all the way around - and something nice to read right before bed. :)

[holdingoff]

As the old saying goes, if you don't get the resolution you want, make it yourself. I'm sure I've said it plenty, but as a viewer I was insulted at the lack of resolution we got regarding Ianto. You don't have a character for three series and give the audience nothing. Well, unless you are the arrogant schoolboy named RTD.

Tiny hints have floated around that Ianto has been simply ticking over, waiting to die, so I decided that rather than roll over and accept, he would accept and plan.

[vipersweb]

Tiny hints have floated around that Ianto has been simply ticking over, waiting to die,

*nods* I think after surviving Canary Wharf, Ianto realized how precarious life actually was with Torchwood. Perhaps if he had gotten out afterwards, he would have been different, but since he needed to save Lisa, he stayed in. Then, within a few short months of arriving, Suzie kills herself; his effort to save Lisa fails and people die; he almost gets eaten by cannibals; Tosh almost dies; Jack does die and then comes back and then leaves them - and that's all in the first season. Series two is not any kinder to him. And he won't leave Torchwood, not now. So yeah, I agree, he knew he would die and die young.

[holdingoff]

the big hint i thought was "To The Last Man" when he and Gwen were looking at the old Torchwood team photographs.

that was probably a relic of the original plan to kill Ianto off in Series 2, but it did make it obvious that he expected to die sooner rather than later. even the 'scene' in The Dead Line had a hint of 'I know it will never happen.'

but RTD must want happy, happy for his future because he's now gotten rid of all of the real characters (broken) and left himself with the delusional always-get-her-way Gwen. Hope that works for him, 'cause it sure doesn't for me.

[vipersweb]

but RTD must want happy, happy for his future because he's now gotten rid of all of the real characters (broken) and left himself with the delusional always-get-her-way Gwen. Hope that works for him, 'cause it sure doesn't for me.

I love broken characters - Ianto, Kara Thrace from BSG, Daniel Jackson from SG-1, John Sheppard from SGA, Jack in DW, #6 from the Prisoner, etc... The thing is, when everything goes right for a character - like Gwen - it's just not interesting or exciting tv anymore. I like complicated relationships and emotional connections. Or at least the hints of it, since both SG-1 and SGA are crap tv, if not entertaining and with a ton of flaws, especially in their Earth-centric snobbery.

Ah... it angers me. More so because I *should* be excited to see a strong female character like Gwen on television. Except that she's everything I hate and it doesn't work.

[holdingoff]

Broken is realistic. No one has everything go their way all the time. That's what makes Gwen such an obviously false character and is likely the reason most people are turned off by her. Every single episode of TW where something bad was happening to Gwen was resolved or undone. Basically, she was unscathed and that just isn't real.

But, if you haven't seen it already, RTD is relocating to Hollywood, so a Series 4 of Torchwood is unlikely.

[vipersweb]

yeah. I read the article earlier today. *shrugs* I doubt I will end up watching anything else he creates, unless it is recced to me by people I trust. It will be interesting to see what his future holds.