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goodathart, from the DVD commentary meme!
Sep. 16th, 2008 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thecopperSorry this has taken me ages... the sad thing is I've had it done and simply hadn't posted it!
This is a good introduction to my obsession with angst. I’d like to blame it entirely on Exit Wounds, which I can still not watching without turning into a sobbing pile of goo. It was a response to the “third wheel” prompt at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
justprompts.
The Cardiff night rests heavily over the city.
I think I broke a cardinal rule in writing. I started with the weather! Bad me. But I didn’t really know where else to start, and when I finished it didn’t seem right to change it.
The cold whip of the rain trails across Gwen's skin, like an icy finger, like death tickling down the curve of her neck.
She shivers.
I liked this image. I thought it really set the mood for what the team is experiencing. For Gwen, Tosh and Owen’s deaths were a real wake-up call to the fact that they aren’t invincible. Now she realising death is kind of hovering over her shoulder. I hadn’t planned for there to be rain, but it sort of seemed like a good way to personify what she was feeling.
The rain washes the streets, the puddles ripple beneath the remaining drops that fall. Ahead of her, Jack and Ianto trot, buried deep in the warmth of their jackets. They lean into one another now and again, brushing their arms together and swerving around puddles.
This was another image I knew I wanted to establish early… the view of them, Ianto and Jack ahead, walking in sync, with Gwen struggling behind. Jack and Ianto share a bond, and even though Gwen is close to each of them, she still is kind of the outsider because of Rhys. They all have a companion that they can turn to, but Gwen’s companion is still, very much, on the outside of it all. She continues to hover between the invisible line between Torchwood and the Real World.
Gwen struggles against the biting air, and the two figures seem to move further ahead.
She wonders how they feel the absence. For Gwen, there should be footsteps beside her, the overwhelming splash of boots through street water. There should be the shouting of five voices through the rain and night air, all laughing and tripping and joking.
I wanted to really illustrate the absence here. There’s a definite loss there, like a phantom limb. From what I remember, this was a difficult part to write, because I wanted to illustrate that loss without going overboard. I imagine it’s the simple things that are missed the most, the things you never really think about and grow accustomed to and then it’s a whole new adjustment when that’s gone forever. The little things you’ve never noticed before start to stick out.
Instead, now and again rises a mutter she can grasp between the two ahead, and a word or two here and there that loses its meaning in the wind.
And I really liked the idea of Gwen not being able to hear Jack and Ianto’s conversation. Not in the way that they are hiding things from her, or deliberately leaving her out, because it’s not about that. It’s outside forces, but it’s just another thing that makes her feel like she doesn’t quite belong.
She says nothing.
I feel like a did a lot of this in the story: short actions or inactions. It’s a short enough story I felt like I could get away with it and it not get annoying. It’s like a little bit of parallel structure, and the single line paragraphs trail along like Gwen. When I reread it, it gives me a feeling of isolation, too.
They have each other. She has them, sometimes, but mostly it is quiet and lonely, the cups of coffee cooling on the desks and muted whispers across halls. She always sits on the opposite side of the boardroom table from them. It was never deliberate. Just how things worked out.
This is my favourite paragraph. I think it encompasses everything the story is trying to say in a few short images. It shows it’s not deliberate, and not hurtful, on the part of Jack and Ianto. It’s not such much about Gwen being left out so much as her perceiving a sudden lack of balance. In a way, she’s now fulfilling a role Tosh filled for a while; being the odd man out. Only it’s intensified because we’re down to three.
A splash on the street grabs her attention, and when she looks up, Jack beckons to her. "Come on, Gwen!" he shouts, he smiles, and she smiles back. She trudges through the forming flood, her trainers soaked, her jacket wrapped taut around her body.
It was important for me, and for Gwen, to have this moment where Jack turns back. He’s reaching out for her, giving her a small effort because, I think, they are all insightful enough to know what’s going on. Not consciously, mind, because I think if it were conscious Jack would be more disturbed by the discord.
He turns back to Ianto, his lips forming lost words.
"I'm coming," she offers, and it is stolen by the wind.
She never quite catches up.
I really liked this ending. It felt like the right place to end it, and I knew I wrote what I was trying to translate; the physical act of her being unable to catch up representing her inability to really be a part of this. I imagine I could go on; and really, I am sure that the team, in some way or another, would find balance again eventually. But at this time, there is a lot of sadness, and I think they would choose to cling to the people closest to them. Gwen very much would become the “third wheel,” I think, because Jack and Ianto’s bond has only grown over the years, while her bond with Ianto is very fledging. Her bond with Jack has, in a way, been slightly stunted by her marriage, and she hasn’t yet reassigned him to a new status in her life.
This is a good introduction to my obsession with angst. I’d like to blame it entirely on Exit Wounds, which I can still not watching without turning into a sobbing pile of goo. It was a response to the “third wheel” prompt at
justprompts. The Cardiff night rests heavily over the city.
I think I broke a cardinal rule in writing. I started with the weather! Bad me. But I didn’t really know where else to start, and when I finished it didn’t seem right to change it.
The cold whip of the rain trails across Gwen's skin, like an icy finger, like death tickling down the curve of her neck.
She shivers.
I liked this image. I thought it really set the mood for what the team is experiencing. For Gwen, Tosh and Owen’s deaths were a real wake-up call to the fact that they aren’t invincible. Now she realising death is kind of hovering over her shoulder. I hadn’t planned for there to be rain, but it sort of seemed like a good way to personify what she was feeling.
The rain washes the streets, the puddles ripple beneath the remaining drops that fall. Ahead of her, Jack and Ianto trot, buried deep in the warmth of their jackets. They lean into one another now and again, brushing their arms together and swerving around puddles.
This was another image I knew I wanted to establish early… the view of them, Ianto and Jack ahead, walking in sync, with Gwen struggling behind. Jack and Ianto share a bond, and even though Gwen is close to each of them, she still is kind of the outsider because of Rhys. They all have a companion that they can turn to, but Gwen’s companion is still, very much, on the outside of it all. She continues to hover between the invisible line between Torchwood and the Real World.
Gwen struggles against the biting air, and the two figures seem to move further ahead.
She wonders how they feel the absence. For Gwen, there should be footsteps beside her, the overwhelming splash of boots through street water. There should be the shouting of five voices through the rain and night air, all laughing and tripping and joking.
I wanted to really illustrate the absence here. There’s a definite loss there, like a phantom limb. From what I remember, this was a difficult part to write, because I wanted to illustrate that loss without going overboard. I imagine it’s the simple things that are missed the most, the things you never really think about and grow accustomed to and then it’s a whole new adjustment when that’s gone forever. The little things you’ve never noticed before start to stick out.
Instead, now and again rises a mutter she can grasp between the two ahead, and a word or two here and there that loses its meaning in the wind.
And I really liked the idea of Gwen not being able to hear Jack and Ianto’s conversation. Not in the way that they are hiding things from her, or deliberately leaving her out, because it’s not about that. It’s outside forces, but it’s just another thing that makes her feel like she doesn’t quite belong.
She says nothing.
I feel like a did a lot of this in the story: short actions or inactions. It’s a short enough story I felt like I could get away with it and it not get annoying. It’s like a little bit of parallel structure, and the single line paragraphs trail along like Gwen. When I reread it, it gives me a feeling of isolation, too.
They have each other. She has them, sometimes, but mostly it is quiet and lonely, the cups of coffee cooling on the desks and muted whispers across halls. She always sits on the opposite side of the boardroom table from them. It was never deliberate. Just how things worked out.
This is my favourite paragraph. I think it encompasses everything the story is trying to say in a few short images. It shows it’s not deliberate, and not hurtful, on the part of Jack and Ianto. It’s not such much about Gwen being left out so much as her perceiving a sudden lack of balance. In a way, she’s now fulfilling a role Tosh filled for a while; being the odd man out. Only it’s intensified because we’re down to three.
A splash on the street grabs her attention, and when she looks up, Jack beckons to her. "Come on, Gwen!" he shouts, he smiles, and she smiles back. She trudges through the forming flood, her trainers soaked, her jacket wrapped taut around her body.
It was important for me, and for Gwen, to have this moment where Jack turns back. He’s reaching out for her, giving her a small effort because, I think, they are all insightful enough to know what’s going on. Not consciously, mind, because I think if it were conscious Jack would be more disturbed by the discord.
He turns back to Ianto, his lips forming lost words.
"I'm coming," she offers, and it is stolen by the wind.
She never quite catches up.
I really liked this ending. It felt like the right place to end it, and I knew I wrote what I was trying to translate; the physical act of her being unable to catch up representing her inability to really be a part of this. I imagine I could go on; and really, I am sure that the team, in some way or another, would find balance again eventually. But at this time, there is a lot of sadness, and I think they would choose to cling to the people closest to them. Gwen very much would become the “third wheel,” I think, because Jack and Ianto’s bond has only grown over the years, while her bond with Ianto is very fledging. Her bond with Jack has, in a way, been slightly stunted by her marriage, and she hasn’t yet reassigned him to a new status in her life.
