TW Fic: Five Ways Ianto Got Back Into the Good Graces of His Friends and Colleagues ...

[nancybrown]

Title: Five Ways Ianto Got Back Into the Good Graces of His Friends and Colleagues Following Major Career Fuckup Number Three
Author: nancybrownFandom: Torchwood

Comments

[tymewyse]

Reading this was a perfect way to start off my Wednesday. I love this 'verse because the [need for] honesty is dialled up to eleven. Once you've come back from the dead, there's no going back. Unless you forget, which also happens here. Best? worst? of both worlds.

I love the integration of musical themes. This entire story-verse has a score in my head. Discordant and blatantly uncertain early on, both clarity and harmony evolve over time and begin to resonate beautifully. Still not what you'd call a melody, but a very listenable movement; one to which you pay close attention to catch every nuance, because even similar passages contain subtle differences as time goes on.

"No, you're musical." She tries to explain, her hands gracefully tracing notes through the air, how Jack is like horns, like a jazz ensemble. He overpowers her with the enormity of his pressure on the timestream, like a radio turned on full blast. "We met that way," she says, her own voice falling into soft humming as she speaks of her time working in A&E, someone made of magic walking through the door to check up on Gwen's latest injury.

"You are like," she considers, "a guitar strumming slowly." Of course he is less than Jack. He's known that for years. That's not what bothers him.

"It must be discordant when we're together."

"You'd think so. But I quite like the harmony." She places a cup of tea in front of him.

This, exactly. Brilliantly composed. I can actually hear it. The whole segment of Ianto observing Pol was really fascinating.

The conversations between Ianto and Gwen and Ianto and Jack felt genuine and heart-wrenching. Ianto's putting the ball in Gwen's court while still retaining some semblance of control over how many truths he would have to choose from was exactly what I think he would do under the circumstances. The revelation of all the little tests over the years makes perfect sense when looking at character holes in canon. Love it.

I always love your take on Ianto and Jack, no matter which story-verse I'm reading. You know your characters so well that they feel real no matter how differently they evolved in each different version of themselves (even when their evolution happened mostly apart from each other and they meet up later! or ... earlier! or something.) This conversation felt starkly real. The progression from joking to allay the rising tension, which seems to naturally accompany the request for a promise or favour, to the very rational conversation about fear and loss and forgiveness had me crying real tears into my cold coffee.

And then you saved the day with Albert and the alien mistletoe. *giggle* And THEN - you added the comfy blanket and cuppa tea that is Ianto finding a way to make everyone happy. Made my Wednesday. Already. *grin* Thanks.

[nancybrown]

I love this 'verse because the [need for] honesty is dialled up to eleven. Once you've come back from the dead, there's no going back. Unless you forget, which also happens here. Best? worst? of both worlds.

*glee* I'm so glad you liked it! Yeah, so much of this storyverse is predicated on the idea of, "Hey, you're back from the dead! And things still suck. Now what?"

I love the integration of musical themes. This entire story-verse has a score in my head. Discordant and blatantly uncertain early on, both clarity and harmony evolve over time and begin to resonate beautifully. Still not what you'd call a melody, but a very listenable movement; one to which you pay close attention to catch every nuance, because even similar passages contain subtle differences as time goes on.

That's very interesting. Normally, the things I wrote have a mental soundtrack, but this storyverse never did. Apparently the music stayed internal?

The revelation of all the little tests over the years makes perfect sense when looking at character holes in canon. Love it.

ALL THE HOLES, OMG. Nothing about his backstory is consistent, unless you assume he really was lying about everything ever. (For my next trick, I'll rectify how Owen managed to have three different birthdays. Torchwood canon, we hardly knew ye.)

The progression from joking to allay the rising tension, which seems to naturally accompany the request for a promise or favour, to the very rational conversation about fear and loss and forgiveness had me crying real tears into my cold coffee.

Aw. :) *tissue* I probably should have played up the source of Jack's fear slightly better in that scene, to be honest. He's still worried that Ianto and Steven are going to pack up and vanish.

And then you saved the day with Albert and the alien mistletoe. *giggle*

Good God, that scene was what held this fic up for like, four months. I had all the other parts written, and could not figure out how on Earth Ianto and Albert worked things out. And then I read the mistletoe kiss trope, and suddenly, the angst-fest becomes a comedy. :D (Which is good because the original structure had Albert's part be the real Part 2, so we would have ended with the conversation with Jack, and TOO MUCH ANGST.)

And THEN - you added the comfy blanket and cuppa tea that is Ianto finding a way to make everyone happy.

*wide grin* I am very happy that part works.

Thanks so much for dropping back here to read! :D :D :D