Helo I would absolutely read your essay on Ianto Jones

The people have asked so the people shall receive - here's my 2000+ word essay on Ianto Jones through episodes 1-4. I have another in progress for episode 6 and the audio Broken, which I have not listened to but I have read several different summaries of it.

Ianto Jones's official role in Torchwood Three is the Archivist. However, he acts as general support, receptionist, butler and crime scene cover up in addition to this role. Prior to the episode Countrycide, he remained in the Hub during field operations, however the sixth episode of the first series saw him in his first on-screen field mission. At 23 when the show begins, he is Torchwood's youngest member, however he is far from its least experienced.

Before joining Torchwood Three (Cardiff), Ianto was employed at Torchwood One, the London branch whose downfall is shown in the Doctor Who episodes Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. He originally worked there as a junior researcher, however he also took on the job of Yvonne Hartman's personal assistant. He spent a short time as a junior field agent before returning to work as Hartman's PA. Whilst working there, he met and fell in love with Lisa Hallett, whom he started dating. This becomes significant after One's fall, upon which Ianto becomes one of 27 Torchwood London employees to survive the events, out of over 800. Having grown up in Cardiff, Ianto returned there and convinced Jack Harkness to hire him at Torchwood Three.

Despite being qualified, Ianto had to ask three times on three separate occasions before Harkness eventually gave him the job. By the time the program begins, Ianto has been at Torchwood Cardiff for three months. For the first three episodes he has very little screen time, appearing last out of any Torchwood Cardiff employee. He is first seen when Gwen, the protagonist, arrives at the Torchwood Hub for the first time. In this scene he is acting as a receptionist for the tourist office that is run as a front to the Hub. He is completely separate from the other employees, isolated even within the 5 person team. Rather than introduce him as the archivist, Jack chooses to say "he cleans up after us and gets us everywhere on time." This introduction paints the picture of him as a butler or lower-level employee, rather than someone with five years of experience within the organisation.

This image of him continues, with him appearing in the second episode to provide the team with food and then assist Jack when a prisoner escapes. Other than this, he remains either off screen or in the background, a lonely figure about whom the audience knows very little. He is never presented as one of the team, nor does any member of the team make an effort to include him. The only times in which he is seen in this episode is when he purposely draws attention to himself, something which he only ever does occasionally. He remains in the shadows, not a character who the audience is meant to focus on. Given the constant action and his rare appearances, it is easy to forget that he is ever there, something reinforced by the bold and full personalities of the other characters.

The third episode highlights his role within Torchwood. During the major action scenes, he is nowhere to be found. When they are desperately failing to find Harris, nobody even thinks to call Ianto and see if there's anything he can do at the Hub. He appears almost as comedic relief at some moments, with the "Splott/Sploe" comment being the most notable. He is seen only when he chooses to be, forgotten once more due to the high stakes, fast moving action and dynamics between the other characters. The only hint towards what sort of relationship he has with any member of the team is the tiny tidbits of flirting exchanged between him and Jack on two occasions. Even this tells us next to nothing about he and Jack's relationship, since one of Jack's most renowned characteristics is his constant flirting with any and all adult characters, including robots.

However, the scene that speaks the loudest about his character's role is the very end of the episode. Having understood the full, terrible potential of the Ghost Machine, Jack has Ianto lock it in the secure archives. This would be a tiny thing, considering the fact that Ianto's domain is the archives, if it weren't for the way that he is told to do it. Jack simply says his name and holds it out in Ianto's general direction. He never looks at him, responding only with a nod when Ianto asks "Secure archives?". He treats him not like an archivist, or a survivor or even an employee, but like a servant, someone he pays to do menial tasks for him. He does not see Ianto as someone who he needs to show respect to, and none of the others question it. The entire team is present, but none of them have any reaction to the way that Ianto is treated. Not a single one of them sees a problem with the fact that he is being treated as lesser, or being disrespected. For Gwen, this is understandable since she is dealing with the grief and guilt of being part of a man's death, however Tosh and Owen just act as if this is normal, which leads to the assumption that this is a regular occurrence. Different versions of that interaction must have occurred multiple times over the short period that Ianto had worked there.

Which brings us to Cyberwoman. The very first scene mirrors the end of Ghost Machine - Jack handing something to Ianto without acknowledging him, before immediately turning his attention to someone else. Ianto is left behind whilst everyone else goes out, he is always the outsider, the other. At this point, it is revealed that he has been hiding the remnants of Lisa in his basement, half converted and in pain. Ianto had no way of knowing that Lisa was not still herself, she spoke and acted like any human would if they were injured and dying. Somehow, Ianto was able to smuggle a full conversion unit/life support system and Lisa herself into the Hub without anyone noticing. Whilst he undoubtedly took many precautions to avoid being discovered, the fact remains that he could not have done so if any member of Torchwood Three had paid him any attention. All of them were perceptive, intelligent and presumably able to recognise a cyber conversion unit, this presumption coming from the fact that Owen recognised it, who is neither a tech expert nor the longest serving agent. The only one who wouldn't have been able to identify what it was was Gwen, who wasn't part of Torchwood when Ianto brought Lisa into the Hub. Once more, Ianto was ignored by the rest of Torchwood, fading into the background immediately after the worst event of his life, surrounded by the only people he knew who knew the truth of the "battle".

Later in the episode, Ianto still remains loyal to "Lisa", even though the Cyberwoman no longer has any part of her left. This is what the team, specifically Jack, blames him most for, telling him to "stand as part of the team". However, prior to this, no effort has been seen to involve Ianto as a member of the team, allowing him to become invisible. He was constantly undervalued; they used him as a dogsbody. Lisa had seen him, relied on him and loved him. If they had been thinking logically instead of acting emotionally, they would have realised that there was no reason for Ianto to choose to stand with them and every psychologically based reason for him to try and save Lisa. He lost everyone who could have provided him with support after Canary Wharf at Canary Wharf. Due to the secretive nature of Torchwood, Ianto could not legally tell anyone about the horrors that he experienced there; and the only people who knew shut him out completely. The only person he had left was dying and in agony; and she leaned on him so heavily that he could not lean on her.

Another point to consider is that the way Jack acts around Ianto is entirely based on what suits him. He allows Ianto to become unseen when he has no need of him, but orders him to be part of the team when he is faced with the reality of his treatment of Ianto. This demand is done with Ianto on his knees and a gun to his head. The only motives that Ianto would have had for agreeing were fear of execution and planning a future betrayal. In this scene he is filled with too much rage to be afraid of the threats; and he never had any wish to betray Torchwood Three, his only goal was to heal Lisa. To assume otherwise directly contradicts his actions in future episodes.

What can be considered the cruellest action towards Ianto is the use of Myfanwy to attack the Cyberwoman. Ianto came to the Hub with Myfanwy, named her and was the one who fed her and cleaned her nesting area. For Ianto, Myfanwy would have been something of a very large, dangerous, untamed pet. Something else that he cared about ripped away from him just as brutally as in London. However, what's almost worse than London is that she remains present, still exactly the same but completely different to him. Her existence for Ianto will forever be tainted by the memory of her attacking the Cyberwoman who bore Lisa's face. Such a minor loss at the time compared to Lisa, but nevertheless something he cares about also taken from him.

As if the episode did not already cause Ianto enough emotional anguish, one of the most emotionally charged scenes had not yet come. After Myfanwy’s attack, Ianto attempts to enter the Hub again through the tourist office. Before he has a chance to enter however, the other four members of Torchwood catch him up, leading to him pointing a gun at them and stating that he has “nothing left to lose”. Jack is able to call his bluff and disarm him, pinning him against a wall with a gun to his head once more. What follows is a furious exchange in which Jack demands that Ianto enter the Hub again to execute Lisa if she was not already dead and Ianto refuses, saying that “I won't do it, you can't make me”. His only attempt to defend himself is minor struggling when he is first pinned to the wall, after which he remains still. He has no way of knowing whether or not Jack will actually follow through on his threat “you execute her or I'll execute you both”, meaning that he is fully prepared to die rather than comply. At this point, Ianto has been completely stripped of his humanity - threatened with a deadly weapon, defenceless and being forced to choose between killing what he still sees as the love of his life and dying in defiance, which would do nothing to prevent the Cyberwoman’s execution. He doesn't know if she is already dead, but chooses death over pretending to comply then running or taking the chance that he will not have to shoot her since she could already be dead. He eventually is submissive and goes after her, however it can be safely assumed that his intention was not to kill her but to attempt to save her again. He goes in alone and could easily have run, but he chooses to cling to what he has, the remnants of Lisa.

A dreadful scene awaited him within. The body of Lisa with chunks of flesh torn away from the bones lies in a pool of her own blood; and an unknown woman stands before him. A bloody line is drawn across the woman’s forehead; and she recognises him. She calls to him, revealing the horrific truth of the Cyberwoman's actions. This woman has the body of a young pizza delivery girl, one that Ianto had called here, and the cybernetically modified brain of Lisa Hallett. The bloody line is from where the Cyberwoman had opened her skull, performed a brain transplant and fused the skull pieces back together. This moment truly annihilated any hope Ianto had left, forced him to see that there was nothing of Lisa left in the most brutal of ways. Ianto raised his gun but could not pull the trigger, whatever this monster was still had some of Lisa's memories. By talking of the times Ianto spent with Lisa, the Cyberwoman poisoned those memories. He had lost so much, now even his happy memories have been destroyed for him. Lisa Hallett died at Canary Wharf, but that was the day that her lover’s soul died with her body.

speaking my truth: when the actor is billed as main cast and used in every piece of promotional advertising for 10+ years they are a main character

the chunin exams arc was so interesting for how it portrayed sakura's potential and how people in her life influenced it. kakashi lying about the team-based enrollment criteria because he thinks sakura would be likely to sign up only to appease sasuke, and being genuinely surprised when she shows up anyway. naruto being completely oblivious when sakura was upset preceding the exams and also after she cut her hair in the forest of death. naruto literally dreaming about saving sakura from enemies, being the hero to her damsel-in-distress. sakura moulding herself into a perfectly feminine lady because that's what society demanded and what she thought sasuke would want. versus sasuke calling her out for focusing too much on romance instead of her skills like she should be doing. sasuke picking up that she was upset because she felt inadequate and reminding her of what she was best at -- maybe even better than him -- and never begrudging her for it. ino hacking into her mind because she was sure, not a single doubt in her mind, that sakura would know the answers to the impossible questions on the written exam. ino and sasuke both stepping in to save her during her fight with the sound nin, but only after being spurred on by the brutal beating she took. ino and sasuke getting frustrated with naruto when he commented on how her haircut looked because it made sakura trivialize her experience and offer a fake explanation about women being fickle. the flashbacks revealing to us that ino affirmed that she would one day bloom into a beautiful flower. ino and sasuke serving as a catalyst for sakura to get stronger before pt 1 and pt 2 respectively. idk do you see what i'm seeing

The thing I love about Reigen Arataka is that he chooses to be this way. He’s naturally charismatic and can read people *really* well. He has drive and ambition and has shown that if he wants to he can be a successful business man, regardless of the business. He can clearly pick up skills quickly and well, since he’s good at a lot of (non-psychic) things. He’s a master of photoshop. Yeah he’s self-absorbed and a jerk, but the man is by no means delusional or unaware. It’s not even like he has a penchant for creating chaos. Reigen Arataka could do anything with his life and he’d be successful at it….and yet every day he wakes up and chooses to be a stinky bastard on purpose because he has nothing better to do.

This is everything

cr: @hellfiresbyers

gotta love a guy who is. just unknowable. 💖

no you don't get it. i literally love stories where they dive into people's hearts/minds (literally or figuratively) sm it's my favourite type of storytelling.

Hey, Star Trek Writers... -taps the glass-

why are so many adventure time fans just straight up stupid. about how stories work. and i dont even mean kids i mean like adult fans just with the absolutely dumbest takes

Finally catching up on the Horizons episodes I missed 👍

corruption arc

How evil is arlecchino and what is she cooking

As of 4.2, I’m really curious what they’re planning with Arlecchino as a character, especially as a villain/antagonist/morally dubious character, and how far/which direction they may go with that

Intuitively my impression is we’ll see her do something way more “villainous” than she presents herself as being for majority of Fontaine’s AQ in front of us right—(which isn’t a surprise given that, you know, Arlecchino nor the House of Hearth have never been presented as 110% ethical LOL) but I find myself not being in complete agreement with most analysis or speculation threads I see about Arlecchino’s morality and the like, level of sinister people seem to ascribe to her.

Idk how to put it, especially in regards to her children I do agree they are not a wholesome found family, that Arlecchino is not above pulling strings or using them for her own ulterior motives, but I kind of hesitate on the idea she only cares about the Hearth children as a means to the end/things she can control and there’s nothing else going on with her characterization wise there. I’m not saying that impression seems remotely unreasonable or unfounded, but just that it feels there’s something intentionally missing in how we are supposed to conceptualize her as a person

My main reasoning for this hunch is the fact they have not elaborated on Arlecchino and the previous Knave—who Arlecchino is stated to have taken over the position from by force. The extra tidbits I think about are that 1) Arlecchino was previously an orphan in the Hearth 2) the previous Knave is described as way, way crueler to the children of than Heart than Arlecchino was from when she took control of the House

Often, people’s major indicators that the House of the Hearth is kind of super fucked up are the NPCs we meet in world quests who are part of it and clearly suffering. But one thing I haven’t ever seen people mention w this that i think is a very interesting detail is, in The Very Special Fortune Slip Inazuma worldquest, where we stop this House of Hearth guy (Efim Snezhevich) from manufacturing tension between Watasumi/the Shogunate to restart the war with his other Hearth subordinates, at the end of the quest we get this dialogue that reveals he had been acting under the previous Knave’s directives:

It’s also mentioned he’s employing this plan in an attempt to “rebuild the prestige of the Knave” following Signora’s death, iirc? Now, see, the dialogue itself says that this is “assuming our captive is telling the truth” so who knows what’s really going on, but I find this a really odd/interesting thing to highlight. I’m a bit fuzzy on other world quests with Hearth members, and am not saying none of them were acting and subsequently being treated poorly by our Arlecchino, but like, this gives me a lot of questions especially when paired with implications this previous Knave seemed to be way worse

Like, what drove Arlecchino to take over? How unexpected and controversial was this within the House? Assuming the above information is all true it definitely says something this guy went rogue and acted on what the previous Knave would want and didn’t think our Arlecchino would greenlight it, which does feel consistent with the previous Knave being described as basically worse & crueler than our Arlecchino. It also makes me question how much house of hearth things we’ve seen outside the main story are the work of our Arlecchino or if there’s a bigger divide of loyalty. Heck, I could be wrong but it doesn’t even seem like we know if the previous Knave is dead or not

This isn’t me saying Arlecchino couldn’t possibly be treating hearth children worse than she wants us to know, especially ones who aren’t her “favorites” the way the fontaine trio seem to be, but I really don’t feel sure about making a solid conclusion of her exact level of malice the way ppl r generally understanding it rn when it feels there’s going to be more about her. Just the idea of she, as a Hearth child, clashed with the previous leader who was known for being cruel, overtook their position and took on less harsh methods of leading that made at least some members with more power/possible closer proximity to the previous Knave go rogue and try to commit atrocities in the previous Knave’s name…I feel this leaves a lot of room to suggest there’s more going on with how Arlecchino is as a person

I don’t mind if she’s just very evil and deceptive bc if she totally had me fall for thinking she was less evil than she actually was that’s fun tbh. But I feel people suggest that’s all her character could be with no degree of like, “sympatheticness” or deep grey morality and that if her character did go there it would be automatically poor writing and genshin walking back on making a truly evil woman when IDK. I feel you can claim at this point they have left it open ended and it’s never been completely confirmed she’s pure evil. Also sometimes I just get a hunch and feel cautiously confident in Genshin executing certain characters well. Not all characters, just certain ones. Especially given Fontaine’s character writing being very good and a character like Lyney feeling very solid to me when any development with Arlecchino would likely involve him and his siblings as well, I honestly feel open to the idea of Arlecchino being satisfyingly written to be both villainous/morally dubious but “sympathetic/likable as a person” in ways outside of just her ruthlessness if that makes sense

If I’m wrong/they drop the ball with it more than I anticipate I’ll eat my hat but I am pretty excited about her character and which way they decide to go with it. I will say the only potential impression I have of where they’ll go with her has been wondering if it will go in a “cycles of abuse” direction—I’d be surprised if they ever elaborated on Arlecchino’s character especially in how she feels about things and her also growing up as an exploited child of the hearth wasn’t relevant

hey guys does anybody know whats the date today

(Another ramble incoming - this one I’ve been sitting on for a bit. But it’s about Bebou & the French. And the jail incident. And also bla bla bla this is about the characters)

I might be wrong but I really think that if some of the french agree with q!bbh about the government being bad/anarchy being good thing… it’s not because Bad managed to convince them that q!forever is some horrible dictator with his wily demon cunning and manipulative silvertongue or something. it’s because. they just. agree with his views and sympathize with him. Like they just sometimes think Bad has a point, is the thing. Now I know Bad likes to spread misinformation but he rarely does it in a way that can really be taken seriously, or have any big effect (with a few… exceptions).

Bad likes to jokingly blame Forever for like anything and everything but if anyone actually presses him about it (I’m pretty sure pierre, antoine, and etoiles all have to varying degrees) he’s pretty quick to emphasize that he trusts Forever’s judgment and moral compass.

Or he used to. Until he got pushed into a cage trap. It’s clear he lost a significant amount of trust in Forever and everyone else who was involved with that. And he suspected Forever (or Cellbit) of framing him, but I’d say that’s relatively reasonable considering, from his perspective, they jumped to a conclusion with no proof. He doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t hear him out, so he’s looking for a reason. And he’s telling other people not because he’s trying to spread misinfo but because that’s just what he believes and usually, he’s telling people because they’re asking him.

Anyway, Pierre didn’t really steal the waystones because he automatically believed everything Bad said about Forever being a dictator immediately and with no hesitation. If he accepted or encouraged what Bad said, it’s because he probably already agreed to some extent. Pierre, Antoine, Etoiles - they’re smarter than blindly accepting the truth from badboyhalo the Chronic Gossiper. And at least 2/3rds of them are also convinced that Bad and Forever are dating - so they’re not taking what Bad says about Forever that seriously.

If you ask me: Pierre did it because he was probably already more politically aligned with Bad’s anarchist ideals than he ever was with Forever’s and, most importantly, because he witnessed Bad get jailed unfairly with his OWN. TWO. EYEBALLS. LIKE HE SAW THAT. HE WAS THERE.

How did he know Bad was framed? He TALKED TO HIM. He went to his base and had a conversation with him and of the two (count it with me - TWO) people that actually heard Bad out that day (Foolish and Pierre) both of them came out of the conversation believing he wasn’t the culprit. Wouldn’t you know it - communication solved that conflict pretty fast, but Bad didn’t get a chance to communicate to Forever or anyone else because they almost immediately dogpiled him. And Pierre saw that happen.

And I’m pretty sure he also saw Forever hold a vote and then accept that Bad was guilty of a crime. A crime. That isn’t illegal. That he didn’t even do in the first place.

So. I’m sure you can see why Pierre might feel the urge to defend Bad - maybe even from Forever specifically, and of his own volition. Although I can’t say stealing all the waystones and rearranging them into a pentagram above Forever’s house was a particularly reliable method of doing so, nor can I say Bad really needed the protection - Forever had no malicious intent and was fully trying to be fair. (can you tell im a q!forever apologist? because if you can’t: he did nothing wrong. Maybe one day I will make a giant post about how much of a q!forever apologist i am).

Am I making sense. At all. It’s 2am. And I’m getting the sensation that I’m missing something with this one but I’m too tired to correct it so I’ll look at it later.

Hello! Fan of your blog for a while now, and I've been meaning to scream about Billy Batson to you for some time, too.

I'm curious, what are your favorite personal headcanons for Billy Batson? And what D&D class do you think Billy would take/fall under?

Oh hi!! I'm a huge fan of your blog too, I love the Billy content <3

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One headcanon I am constantly rotating in my brain is the whole "Billy is immortal and Captain Marvel doesn't age" concept. Because we all love Billy for his special power of Kid Turning Into Adult but also kids do that anyways after enough time so him dealing with adulthood and immortality is just.... so good....

I LOVE the communal Twitch Chat AU the Billy Batson fandom has created. The idea of all these gods just constantly yelling at Cap is so funny this poor guy cannot catch a break. I also like the "the Wizard put a magic filter on Billy" headcanon specifically for the surprises the League gets when a depowered Billy is suddenly swearing like, every other word. What do you mean you usually talk like that? What do you mean "A Wizard did it??"

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I'm going to be honest. Despite being part of a ~2 year long D&D campaign (we're really bad at scheduling, it really shouldn't be this long), I know like... nothing about D&D. One moment I'm going to google some stuff.

Okay, so after a quick skim of the D&D Beyond class page, here's my Billy class headcanons:

Cleric: Because "A priestly champion who wields divine magic in service of a higher power" seems pretty spot-on to what Billy does in like. Base canon

Ranger: "A warrior who combats threats on the edges of civilization" would be accurate for a Billy who's more focused on the supernatural side of things (as opposed to the Punch Alien side of things). Especially one that focuses on honing the magic in his mortal form and not just relying on his Captain Marvel form to get out of trouble.

Rogue: "A scoundrel who uses stealth and trickery to overcome obstacles and enemies" would be great for a less magically-inclined Billy who has to deal with all sorts of bullshit on the streets. Especially if he's of the "I shouldn't become Captain Marvel for anything but the most morally correct of causes" because then he has to like. Pickpocket or steal food and run away from cops all the time.

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And now, for a reverse Uno card... What are YOUR favorite Billy headcanons? Who's your favorite CM supporting character?

Vecna’s plan requiring Mike to leave for California means nothing. The number 1 following Mike cryptically at the airport means nothing. Them barely giving us Mike’s perspective the last two seasons (despite him being the original protagonist) means nothing and it isn’t setting up his POV to be revealed in s5 bc the entire audience is completely comfortable with where Mike stands as a character in regards to his deeper feelings/motives. No confusion there so no need to address that. Mike saying How will I survive a whole week without you guys at the start of s4 wasn't foreshadowing his fate at the end of said week. Mike standing in front of exit signs 3+ times in s4 is probably just a coincidence. Mike being associated with gaping mouths in multiple moments spanning the entire series, even going back to his very first line on the show, means nothing at all. Nancy’s vision about her family (Mike) dying was mentioned at the end of s4, but it didn’t happen so probably won’t ever happen, even though there’s still another season left set directly after the events of s4. Will calling Mike the heart and how without heart they’d all fall apart, was not in any shape form foreshadowing something happening to Mike and them all falling apart, bc Mike is definitely just a prop and everything in relation to his story only holds meaning on the surface or for other characters arcs and couldn’t possibly be hinting at something deeper that’s being saved as one of the many surprises for the last season.