Wasn't sure how best to organise this, but here goes. Any suggestions for better ways to organise this would be appreciated.

An idea stolen from such_heights   - to help me keep all my fics in order. I'll try to keep it updated as I go along.

Lookee - new icon. :D

Anyway I've been really bad about updating recently and I'm not really sure why - other than my life has turned into a whole pile of doing lots of bits and bobs each day and never making much progress.

I finished university a week ago and it feels a bit weird but I've not really noticed because of the aforementioned bits and bobs and the impending trip to America - which starts in a week. Thankfully that's finally planned out and I think I'm pretty much ready. In case anyone's interested here's the itinery:

- Wednesday 21st May - Fly out to Chicago, check into hotel that was supposed to be at the airport but is apparently 9 miles away from it (headdesk), get something nice to eat.

- Thursday 22nd - Fly to Louisville (Kentucky) and start four days of insane Beatle partying.

- Monday 26th - Fly to Philadelphia, stay with my friends, play with cats, fun times.

- Friday 30th - Get the train to New York, hang out with my friends, see Jesse Malin and Les Paul (hopefully), go to a Broadway show (just can't decide which one).

- Wednesday 3rd June - Get a train to Chicago (19 hours - ouch - but it should be an experience). Meet up with friends, go to lots of outdoor concerts, go to the book fair but do not buy anything as will be skint.

- Sunday 9th June - Fly back to Manchester.

It's a bit whistle-stop - but I can't wait.

In other news, I fell over in a ridiculous, amusing and slightly horrifying way last night. I was carrying our recycling crate out and my foot missed the second step sending me crashing to my knees on the street surrounded by broken glass without any shoes on. All things considered I'm just impressed that I managed to hold onto the crate and only a few things fell out - that's a talent. Lost some of the skin on my knees, but overall was remarkably unhurt - just a little sore and aching and I suspect, by tomorrow, bruised.

May talk about Doctor Who later, but really ought to get going as I need to do some shopping and I'm supposed to be helping out at the Beatle Shop this afternoon (my complete lack of knowledge means that I'm actually just going to be standing around but oh well).

Sorry this has taken a few days to get up - I'm at home for the week and everything's been manic and still is - I need to get ready for a family meal with some visiting Canadians not to mention organising my stuff for a carboot, picking my brother up from the station and writing my last essay - but I thought I'd try to catch up a little on LJ first.

Anyway, my last super excited post. I am still super excited.

I just met David Tennant!!!!!

SUPER SQUEE!

And I got nominated for H_E superlatives - unexpected and cool.

But there is no time right now to explain properly or answer comments properly - sorry - I will come back and do so in the next few days once my life has calmed down. I promise.

I am a special happy duckling.

:D

Well aren't I excited :D (that sentence seems wrong and I don't know why) - Jon Robyns has just announced that he'll be playing Marius in Les Miserables in London from the end of June.


                                           This is him

Anyway I saw him in Avenue Q and loved him and have been looking for something I can go to see him in again. Add to that that I've had a craving to see Les Mis again (I'd been watching my copy for about a week solidly before I read the announcement) - and I'm a very happy bunny. So if anyone fancies a meet up in London to see Les Mis, probably some time in July, let me know. Otherwise I'll just have to go on my own (I know no shame). A meet up would be fun though.

In other news, uni finally started again this morning - I only have two hours a week, so I've no reason to complain but this lecture is getting hellish. I've never been so bored and unstimulated. These are todays lectures notes:-



So that's a drawing of a monster in a box of popcorn (seriously I have no idea). Next to some notes for the Torchwood fic I'm currently replotting (*head aches*). I wish I could say that the lecture got a bit more productive after that - but the only other stuff I have from the two hours are two brief notes from where I realised that he was talking about my essay project and tried to work out what he'd been saying, a shopping list and a large doodle of the name Roger (this amuses me as I don't know anyone called Roger). I'm a bad, bad student. But seriously if you're going to make me do days worth of reading for a seminar, actually let us discuss something - don't just lecture us. I have ideas, I want to express them.

At least I've started my essay - even if the books are currently very boring. They've reminded me that the worst thing about reading a book that is written throughout in three languages (as in it changes between three languages constantly, sometimes in the same sentence) is that I will generally read a line or two before realising that I am now reading Latin and have absolutely no idea what anything's saying (my Latin being nonexistant) - I fear this suggests I am not paying enough attention.

It has, however, revealed that I can even recognise slash in other languages, when I know none of the words I'm reading. As my reading today went something along the lines of "The offence of stuprum cum masculo..." "Well that's got to be gay in some way" *keeps reading* "In the army, however, male prostitution was clearly..." "Yep".

So as I’ve wandered around the Who-verse fandom, I’ve stumbled across quite a bit of anger at the Doctor, particularly in series 3 and particularly because of the way he treated Martha and Jack. I’ve heard him called a lot of things, none of which quite match the way I feel about the Doctor now, I don’t think he’s as selfish or heartless as some people may think. So I doubt this will change any minds, but I thought some people might be interested in my take on the Doctor and why he treats people the way he does.

To explain why I’m discussing this the way I am, first of all I have to explain how I see the story telling in new-Who. I think there is a story being told throughout new-Who about the Doctor’s relationship with his companions and how it’s developing and changing. Within this story I think each series has told a specific chapter or idea, or made a specific point. I don’t mean that this is the main theme of the series, it’s more like a side theme, it’s not explored in every episode – but it is there in the background.

This may sound a little over the top and pre-planned and I don’t mean that every series was planned from the beginning, it makes very little difference if there’s a long term plan or whether it’s decided at the beginning of each separate pre-production stage, it’s something that could easily emerge organically from the writing process.

But RTD has been a Who fan for a very long time, I’m sure he’d thought plenty about what he’d like to do if he was in charge. I sometimes get the impression that people don’t think there’s much forethought going into this – I can only talk for myself, but when I’m writing anything, I’m simultaneously thinking about and planning three or four things I’d like to do next. So personally I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that the Who team, who are much cleverer than I am, may be doing the same.

So with that out of the way – lets get onto what I think has been going on in the last three series and what the future might hold.

SPOILERS RIGHT UP UNTIL 4.01 – PARTNERS IN CRIME

 

Oh good lord – how did this get to be so long? I hope some of this made some sense to some people (I’m not sure I can hope for any more than that as mostly this has been rambling).

But yes – I think there has been some very deliberate exploration going on throughout new Who about both the impact of the Doctor’s relationships with his companions and the way he handles those relationships. It’s a work in progress and he doesn’t always get it right – but I think he’s getting better at it.

OK - well the dissertation has been handed in. Two days early but I'd only keep fiddling with it and I've been feeling ill for a few days - so I just wanted to get it gone. Now I can sleep through the rest of whatever this illness is.

Otherwise I've mostly been good. Filled with squee about the Torchwood finale (so sad) and new Doctor Who (so much fun, so much silly, so much love). Got an 80 for the essay of doom and some really lovely comments (he called it remarkable) - so that was fantastic.

A few down points. My sister's having a hard time. Plus I was enjoying a H_E Doctor Who love in which rapidly descended into character bashing. I don't understand why it always ends up like that.

Anyway - I'm taking the weekend off. My friends are being awarded a brick on the Cavern Wall. Which is possibly the coolest thing ever, so we're all going to have a party. :D

Now here's some long promised HP art - an old entry from a HP contest. Regulus Black drawn in inks - I was really pleased with how this one turned out even if it didn't win.

Well it's been an odd few days of up and down-ness. So just to summarise.

- Finished my dissertation :D
- Have to edit 2000 words out of my dissertation :(

******

- Hestia Jones :D

- The stuff that happened on H_E over the last few days made me really sad. But I don't want to hash it all out again. :(

*******

- Seeing Yoko Ono and dancing for peace. :D
- The Torchwood finale :( :( :( :(

********

- David Tennant and Catherine Tate on Jonathon Ross :D
- OMG - is that some sort of frog?!?! *runs for the hills*

Title: Had I The Heavens – Part 6/6
Pairing: mostly gen, but quite a lot of different pairings will be appearing throughout the story (both slash and het – consider yourself warned – although there will be nothing explicit)
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Spoilers: Set immediately after the events of 2.05 – Adam, so spoilers up until this point in the series
Summary: Adam’s stupid, but he has a talent that Captain John can use. Finally this is a way he can get back into the hub…
Author's Notes: Firstly, I honestly can’t adequately express my thanks to thebirdwoman - she’s managed to make this story about a bazillion times better and is an absolute star. I’m just going to sneak in and complete my aim of finishing this before the end of the series. It took a bit longer than expected as this chapter was a bit of a headache and needed major rewrites and grew with the telling – there were even some tears – although probably not at the bits you’d expect. So thanks for being patient with me. As I’m out tonight and going to miss the finale (silly torchwood changing the day) so I might take a while to return comments. But thank you so much for reading this and all the lovely things that have been said. :D
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the BBC and RTD – I’m just borrowing them and I promise I’ll return them (mostly) unharmed.

 
 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 

Chapter 4

Chapter 5
 

 

OK - I'm going to start this off by trying to clarify what I'm looking at, to try and avoid confusion. So here's some points to begin.

a) I believe that the Dr Sato who appears in Doctor Who Series 1 (episode - Aliens of London) - is the same Toshiko Sato who appears in Torchwood. This has actually been confirmed by both RTD and Naoko Mori in interviews.

b) I believe based on information given in Torchwood, 2.12 that she was already working at Torchwood by this  time and so is working, in this episode, undercover.

What this discussion aims to clarify is whether Toshiko is working undercover at UNIT or working for UNIT in this sequence - which I've seen around quite a lot and I think is fanon, rather than canon. I think the idea emerged, understandably, because UNIT is mentioned within the Doctor Who episode in question and Toshiko is seen working in proximity with people in outfits very similar to the ones associated with UNIT. Screencaps are my own - so sorry about the pause symbol and the like. Spoilers beneath the cut obviously.

Title: Had I The Heavens – Part 5/6
Pairing: mostly gen, but quite a lot of different pairings will be appearing throughout the story (both slash and het – consider yourself warned – although there will be nothing explicit)
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Spoilers: Set immediately after the events of 2.05 – Adam, so spoilers up until this point in the series
Summary: Adam’s stupid, but he has a talent that Captain John can use. Finally this is a way he can get back into the hub…
Author's Notes: Huge thanks to thebirdwoman for her wonderful beta services and making sure this all makes sense. Sorry that this has taken a while, writing the last two chapters have been a bit of a nightmare. I’m hoping to get the last part up before the season finale airs next week, but with a looming dissertation deadline, I can’t promise anything. Thanks for reading.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the BBC and RTD – I’m just borrowing them and I promise I’ll return them (mostly) unharmed.

 

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 

Chapter 4

 

Well I had lots of ideas about what I was going to post today but during some tedious (but useful) dissertation reading - this wouldn't leave me alone. There'll be Harry Potter art and a new chapter of Had I The Heavens soon - promise.

Title: Job Requirements 1/1
Characters: Andy, Ianto, Gwen
Rating/Warning: PG
Spoilers: Spoilers for 2.11 and 2.12
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the BBC and RTD – I’m just borrowing them and I promise I’ll return them (mostly) unharmed.
Summary: Andy asks Ianto to meet him for a coffee. Slightly cracky-madness I tell thee.
Author's Notes:

Title: Fractured 1/1
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Spoilers: Major spoilers for 2.12 - Fragments
Summary: A look at the Ianto-centric scenes in Fragments from his perspective.
Author's Notes: This is a quickly written, barely edited babble of a fic inspired by the fact that I loved this episode so much that I felt like I would burst. This was the result. Apologies for the poor quality.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the BBC and RTD – I’m just borrowing them and I promise I’ll return them (mostly) unharmed.

I think I mentioned a while ago that almost half of my dissertation needs to be re-written this month, particularly my third chapter. Anyway I've finally worked out a new plan for it that I'm happy with. To help with the rewriting, I colour coded the entire thing - Green for stuff that is fine and doesn't need work, Yellow for stuff that needs to be rewritten (sometimes completely) and Red for the stuff that needs to be researched and written from scratch.



Yep - not really making me feel better at the moment. It may not look like there's much red, but that's only because there's nothing to highlight - urrgghh, starting from scratch. It will be fine *deep breaths*.

I rather liked last night's Torchwood (2.11).


In other news, I've had my hair cut. I really like it despite the terrifying moment when it looked like I had been given a full Beatle haircut and how bouffant it looked when I left the hairdressers (I'm not sure what they'd put in my hair but I woke up the next morning with a mohican). Once I've had it recoloured I'll take some photos.

We finally got an e-mail from my missing brother (he's been doing conservation work in central America so we haven't seen him for over a year) and he's got a flight home booked for the beginning of July. Sadly he gets back two days after my graduation - he's the reason I'm at university as he helped to pay for my accomodation fees for the first two years - so I wish he could have come. But just seeing him again will be a joy. I miss him massively. I have three older brothers and sisters but as there's quite a big age gap so we've never been hugely close (we love each other but don't know or understand each other) - but I lived and worked with this brother for four months, so we've definitely more close. Of course it could still all change if they offer him more work

Title: Had I The Heavens – Part 4/6
Pairing: mostly gen, but quite a lot of different pairings will be appearing throughout the story (both slash and het – consider yourself warned – although there will be nothing explicit)
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Spoilers: Set immediately after the events of 2.05 – Adam, so spoilers up until this point in the series
Summary: Adam’s stupid, but he has a talent that Captain John can use. Finally this is a way he can get back into the hub…
Author's Notes: Huge thanks tothebirdwoman for her wonderful beta services.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the BBC and RTD – I’m just borrowing them and I promise I’ll return them (mostly) unharmed.

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

 

 

OK - so I've rewatched Torchwood 2.10 twice in an attempt to make it make sense and I don't hate it as much anymore - there are actually sparkly bits. But there are still massive problems - most of them I think are fixable. A lot of the problems are that they've over-complicated things, tried to do too much and ended up making everything not make sense (I've made pages of notes trying to make everything make sense, honestly). So this is me playing with the ideas, explaining the problems I've had and coming up with how I would have written it differently. Warning - it's ridiculously long




OK - I think, I should stop there, there's lots of other stuff that could be fixed - but those are the main four problems I've had - and this is already long enough. But yes, so shiny and could be so good.

OK, so I got up early yesterday, headed to my early lecture, not noticing anything strange on my street. Spent two hours being bored rigid (I'm really starting to loathe the Romans, where are my beautiful, damaged, complicated Greeks) - where I mostly wrote out reams of pages trying to work out ways you could actually make last night's Torchwood work.

After that I went to my meeting with my dissertation tutor - which could have been worse, but could have gotten better. In all fairness, I knew Chapter 3 wasn't working and now that we've spent almost an hour hashing it out, it's making lots more sense and looking like it could be sparkly good. The discussion itself was really rewarding as well, as it wasn't just him telling me what needs to change, it was a proper bouncing of ideas off each other. He also gave me 'the significant look' and told me that he thinks this should be a thesis, he keeps pushing me to do a Masters, but I'm not ready for that yet. He also told me he thinks there's a book in it, and he knows this guy...  Except my mind switched off at that point in horror, because I do love the topic and it is interesting but spending significantly more time talking about olive oil, will melt my mind completely.

The main thing is that now some of Chapter 2 and all of Chapter 3 needs major rewrites and I can't get any of the books I want from the library. :/ And I'm running out of time, there's under a month left and for nearly two weeks of that I'm here in Gloucester, rather than in Liverpool.

Anyway, after a frustrating trip to the library I headed home to discover my street had been cordoned off by the police, there were scary forensic people in white suits, and lots of police. Apparently there was a suspicious fire last night and a man died a few houses down from mine. It took a while for the police to work out whether I'd be allowed back into the house, but thankfully the forensics cordon started about a meter from my front door, so we were just outside the area (to try and explain there were two seperately lots of police tape, the general public one (which we were inside) and the forensics one (which we weren't - just)). Bring on a day of having to ask to be let in and out of my street and being questioned by police. The police now lots of personal details about me - like what my hair looks like, what I was wearing yesterday, that I have blue eyes and a pale complexion, that I've got a scar on my leg and a tattoo on my neck and (most worryingly) that I wax my legs and pluck my eyebrows. Really? Why do they need to know that level of detail.

After that, it was a very rushed session of bag packing, before I headed to catch my train. Other than the fact that I seem to have pulled something in my knee and it was pouring, that went alright. The first train was quiet and lovely and I managed to write much fic. And then we hit the hell of Birmingham New Street - where I managed to lose my train ticket, have an asthma attack and have a man almost throw up on me (he just missed thank god).

My train was late and heaving, so we got into Cheltenham too late for my Gloucester train, thankfully rather than have me wait an hour for the next one, my parents came to pick me up. Thankfully because it's Cheltenham Races at the moment, so the train station was filled with drunken men and (more) police. I'm not sure whether I was wrong to think that horse racing was mostly attended by posh people, or whether I should have realised that drunken posh people are just as obnoxious and boorish as drunken common people. Urggh...

Anyway, it was nice to get back to the family home and play with the cat. But I've woken up with the start of a cold, so we'll see what happens.

OK - I should be going to sleep because early morning tomorrow, but I am too awake, so I thought I would post rambly very-spoilery Torchwood stuff (how unusual and unique for me...)



Enough, enough - bed.