And the rest of the weekend
Jan. 7th, 2007 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayToday has mostly been spent doing French course work (must make sure that I'm well ahead to make up for the weekends lost to conventions next month) and reading f-list stuff. I may have also been on the hopeless seach for good Jack/Ianto fic. And good Jack/Ten fic. When are all those good writers on my flist who I can see have been watching Torchwood going to start producing their magnificent opuses? Opii? Whatever?
I think the problem for TW fandom so far is that it's still in the initial squee phase of a new fandom. Everyone is finding their feet, working out their interpretations of characters and choosing their ships. The early writers, with a few exceptions, don't really worry about doing any of that so we get a glut of dross. It was a similar situation with Atlantis, where the dross to good ratio for the first six months was around 99.9:0.1. After that, the good writers were ready to go with their characterisation sorted and wonderful additions like plot and we started to see good fic. The ratio went down to around 90:10, in keeping with Stugeon's law, and we got some great stuff. I remember moaning loudly about the lack of really good novel-length Atlantis fic in that period and pouncing on anything with coherent sentence structure that was longer than 2,000 words. Now there are a writers out there doing good things with lovely long plotty, slashy fics. Sheppard/McKay being so easy to pair does have its advantages :-)
Hopefully Torchwood will be moving out of this phase reasonably soon. In fic-writing terms (leaving aside all other concerns) it's got a great set-up and no pairing is denied by canon. Hell, we've got canon slash pairings! Or at least, enough on-screen evidence to build cases for those slash pairings and plenty of room for people to write the backstory. We've got all the characters being bi in canon, we've got some fairly intense relationships grown over the season and there's even lots of mileage from certain guest characters. Yes, we have one or two issues to overcome from the final three minutes of the last episode but fandom has always had these issues and it's never stopped anyone. In canon, Xena died at the end of S6. Hasn't stopped lots of post-S6 Xena/Gabrielle fic being written. All of our characters are still alive, so we don't even have to overcome that little blip (although if you want to kill of Owen, be my guest *g*). Hopefully at least a few writers are going to start writing really good Torchwood fics over the hiatus and make me happy. If you want to writer Jack/Ianto, I'll be even happier :-)
I'll start moaning about the lack of really good Ten/Jack fic in the summer. Gotta give people time to actually seem them together on screen first, even if we do already have plenty of individual on-screen characterisation to work with :-)
This weekend report turned into a rather fannish discussion. Huh.
I think the problem for TW fandom so far is that it's still in the initial squee phase of a new fandom. Everyone is finding their feet, working out their interpretations of characters and choosing their ships. The early writers, with a few exceptions, don't really worry about doing any of that so we get a glut of dross. It was a similar situation with Atlantis, where the dross to good ratio for the first six months was around 99.9:0.1. After that, the good writers were ready to go with their characterisation sorted and wonderful additions like plot and we started to see good fic. The ratio went down to around 90:10, in keeping with Stugeon's law, and we got some great stuff. I remember moaning loudly about the lack of really good novel-length Atlantis fic in that period and pouncing on anything with coherent sentence structure that was longer than 2,000 words. Now there are a writers out there doing good things with lovely long plotty, slashy fics. Sheppard/McKay being so easy to pair does have its advantages :-)
Hopefully Torchwood will be moving out of this phase reasonably soon. In fic-writing terms (leaving aside all other concerns) it's got a great set-up and no pairing is denied by canon. Hell, we've got canon slash pairings! Or at least, enough on-screen evidence to build cases for those slash pairings and plenty of room for people to write the backstory. We've got all the characters being bi in canon, we've got some fairly intense relationships grown over the season and there's even lots of mileage from certain guest characters. Yes, we have one or two issues to overcome from the final three minutes of the last episode but fandom has always had these issues and it's never stopped anyone. In canon, Xena died at the end of S6. Hasn't stopped lots of post-S6 Xena/Gabrielle fic being written. All of our characters are still alive, so we don't even have to overcome that little blip (although if you want to kill of Owen, be my guest *g*). Hopefully at least a few writers are going to start writing really good Torchwood fics over the hiatus and make me happy. If you want to writer Jack/Ianto, I'll be even happier :-)
I'll start moaning about the lack of really good Ten/Jack fic in the summer. Gotta give people time to actually seem them together on screen first, even if we do already have plenty of individual on-screen characterisation to work with :-)
This weekend report turned into a rather fannish discussion. Huh.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-07 09:06 pm (UTC)Xena died at the end of S6. Hasn't stopped lots of post-S6 Xena/Gabrielle fic being written.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt :) Post-TPM there was more fic with Qui-Gon still alive than there was with him dead. Not that I'm complaining :)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 10:29 am (UTC)It's scary out there :-) Nobody's doing exactly what I want (although what I want is a rather nebulous feeling rather than a specific thing), but a few people are writing some interesting fics. It's just terrifying to work through the rest in search of those interesting fics :-)
Post-TPM there was more fic with Qui-Gon still alive than there was with him dead.
I was wracking my brain for the big examples and that one escaped me - thank you! But it does rather prove that the way the last episode ended doens't need to be the end for Jack/Ianto writers :-) In fact, I'd be quite interested to see what they can come up with for how to get Jack back to Torchwood...
Do you get the feeling that I just really want good Torchwood fic no matter when in the run it's set? Hmmm... ;-)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 08:22 pm (UTC)Hence the reason I'm not :)
But it does rather prove that the way the last episode ended doens't need to be the end for Jack/Ianto writers :-)
It doesn't have to anyway. Since they can't have a series 2 without Jack, that means he must come back somehow, sometime (relatively speaking) and then maybe he'll want comforting...
I like your icon, it's a bit freaky.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 08:49 pm (UTC):-p~~~~~~~
Since they can't have a series 2 without Jack
*nods* There's comfort fic to write, there's lots of time to write how Jack returns to Torchwood, there's missing scenes, theres the story behind why Jack got to snog Ianto in End of Days, I'm sure the stop-watch hasn't been exhausted totally...loads of things to write! What I'd really like is a nice long plotty Jack/Ianto fic set post-End of Days positing ideas on how Jack returns and how Ianto greets that return ;-) If a bit of action/adventure could be added to the mix, that would be perfect.
Hmmm. I seem to have identified what I really want from a Jack/Ianto fic after saying that I only had a nebulous idea eight hours ago. Huh. Although really, if it's good fic then I'll be happy with anything. Except if Owen has siginifican screen time or, worse, sex.
I like your icon, it's a bit freaky.
Saw it the day after watching The Empty Child and couldn't quite resist adding it :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-08 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 10:00 pm (UTC)I like the short fics, don't get me wrong, because there have been a few good ones already. But I like something that I can get my teeth into and be absorbed by for a while, rather than reading in ten minutes. Even though some of those short ones stay with you for a long time afterwards, they don't really keep me intensly glued the way longer, well-written things do.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 11:01 pm (UTC)Er, which now I've read the second paragraph was exactly what you said!
Yay, TW fandom!
Date: 2007-01-08 07:10 pm (UTC)Which season of TW was best? The early Raymond Baxter years, or the mid period with James Burke and Judith Hahn ... or are you a late period person with Adam Hart-Davis and Roger Black?
Ah, Tomorrow's World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrows_World), now *there* was a good series ... and I'm glad to see they're bringing it back (as short segments in the BBC Breakfast programme, according to the opening segment I saw this morning!)
(oh wait, maybe you don't mean Tomorrow's World, but some other minor derivative series ... big grin! Certainly if I see a videotape around my house with TW on the spine, I know which show *I* put on it!)
Re: Yay, TW fandom!
Date: 2007-01-08 07:51 pm (UTC)*g* Starting to see where this got confusing...
Although Phillippa Forester/Kate Humble slash could have some potential ;-)
Certainly if I see a videotape around my house with TW on the spine, I know which show *I* put on it!)
:-p~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~