:) I run into this same problem a lot, which is why I end up replying to many, many stories with "I really liked this!" and hoping the squee got through.
I'm very glad you liked it, and thanks for the tweet. ;)
You are a genius. It's that simple. How you can take that totally bizarre, I-could-never-follow-it cracky plotline from the last season of Doctor Who and make this out of it. Absolutely brilliant.
the same toothpaste and shampoo brands
Oooh. Now that's a lovely use of detail. Plot-wise, it shows how something ordinary like that would be something a person needing to disappear would forget, and it also shows how intimately Jack knows Ianto. *shivers*
And OMG, Steven giving Alice the flowers - that's the bit that completely broke my heart and left me in tears. 100% real kids, I tell you!
Aw, thank you. :) With the shampoo and toothpaste, Ianto isn't trying not to be himself, he's just trying to find an identity to be someone new. He's another Rift refugee, minus the time displacement. The reason he uses Rhiannon's birthday is to give himself an extra couple of years to bolster the claim that he has a ten year old son. (I never did figure out how to work that smoothly into the text.) And yeah, Jack knows enough of the little details to put the picture back together from the back side of the puzzle. ;)
OH man. I really thought you were going to kill him there. This story was unsentimental enough for that to happen. You know how some stories telegraph their happy ending by suggesting that the basic justice of the world has only temporarily been interrupted? This story did not do that. The most compelling part for me was Ianto's relationship to Steven - it was so sad, so ambivalent, with Ianto feeling obligated but also convinced that he was only hurting the kid by keeping him. The saddest part was when they're staying with Richard and Steven says "I want my mom and dad." That whole sequence felt so real to me, the situation so desperately irreparable. Ianto's sense of being trapped and at the end of his rope was really vivid, the feeling of the trap closing around him at the end, wow - I was sure it was going to end like La Jetee. Anyway, brilliant story, thank you.
GMTA -- the series of "snapshots" at the climax totally made me think of La Jetée, especially with the sudden shift to Martha's POV. Layering that distancing effect with the perception-filter ploy was brilliant; by then, you've fully immersed the reader in Ianto's frustration, his sense of the veil between himself and the world.
Clever you, having the two "manhunts" converge in this way, and as noted, there's real artistry in how far you leave the reader in doubt about the outcome. Steven's plight is also beautifully rendered. I especially admire how you've made his bond with Ianto a fragile and imperfect one, where neither really gets what he wants. In fact, this entire story wins the internets for subversion of fandom cliché.
I am culturally lax and have no idea what the two of you are referring, sadly, but when I was revising, I realized belatedly I was rewriting "The Plague Dogs," which is why it got the shout-out. (That story had two endings, the ambiguous one, and the happy ending added in later editions.) The story very nearly did end with the last "Click" without the epilogue, since that's where the plot ends, but I thought people would kill me, and Fide said go with the extended ending. :)
You may possibly have noticed by this point that I have a big recurrent theme about created families, and negotiating the non-traditional relationships you find in them. It was so much fun figuring out who they were and how they'd play off each other, given the situation and the need.
Really worth checking out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056119/ It's certainly one of the influences on Plague Dogs, and more directly, the source for 12 Monkeys. Simply one of the most amazing visual films ever.
The created-families theme does leap to the eye, yes. :) And you do an amazing job of showing how they contend with the pressures of "natural" familial expectations, both from within and without. All of the Rabbit Hole, really, but I was thinking especially of Season of Grace. :)
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I'm very glad you liked it, and thanks for the tweet. ;)
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the same toothpaste and shampoo brands
Oooh. Now that's a lovely use of detail. Plot-wise, it shows how something ordinary like that would be something a person needing to disappear would forget, and it also shows how intimately Jack knows Ianto. *shivers*
And OMG, Steven giving Alice the flowers - that's the bit that completely broke my heart and left me in tears. 100% real kids, I tell you!
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Clever you, having the two "manhunts" converge in this way, and as noted, there's real artistry in how far you leave the reader in doubt about the outcome. Steven's plight is also beautifully rendered. I especially admire how you've made his bond with Ianto a fragile and imperfect one, where neither really gets what he wants. In fact, this entire story wins the internets for subversion of fandom cliché.
Reply
You may possibly have noticed by this point that I have a big recurrent theme about created families, and negotiating the non-traditional relationships you find in them. It was so much fun figuring out who they were and how they'd play off each other, given the situation and the need.
Thanks so much for reading!
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The created-families theme does leap to the eye, yes. :) And you do an amazing job of showing how they contend with the pressures of "natural" familial expectations, both from within and without. All of the Rabbit Hole, really, but I was thinking especially of Season of Grace. :)
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