FIC: Torchwood (drabble) - "Jack's Heritage"

[fajrdrako]

Title: Jack's Heritage
Challenge: challenge: heritage
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of the BBC.
Notes: Cross-posted to my LJ and tw100.



Jack's Heritage

Jack's first life was light-years away and millennia in the future. His second was that of the Time Agency: a created universe, twisted, magnificent, ultimately worthless.

Then Earth, World War II, and the TARDIS, followed by abandonment, loss, Victorian England. He picked up customs and manners quickly, from people, books. Then there were the motion pictures; the talkies; technicolor; Gary Cooper, Richard Burton, Harrison Ford. Jack drank it up eagerly, studying every nuance. The film industry made his past out of bits of light and sound.

Celluloid heritage: it served him well, for a life he could call his own.




~ ~ ~

Comments

[damalan.livejournal.com]

You must be touching off thoughts with this one, as it made me think of Jon and Vangelis, The Friends of Mr Cairo:

Silent golden movies, talkies, technicolour, long ago
My younger ways stand clearer, clearer than my footprints
Stardom greats I've followed closely Closer than the nearest heartbeat
Longer that expected-ther were great-
Oh love oh love just to see them
Acting on the silver screen, oh my
Clark Gable, Fairbanks, Maureen O'Sullivan
Fantasy would fill my life and I
Love fantasy so much
Did you see in the morning light
I really talked, yes I did, to God's early dawning light
And I was privileged to be as I am to this day
To be with you. To be with you.

I would say we all construct and reconstruct our past, selecting the building blocks, consciously or unconsciously. Jack has a whole lot more time to do his, and in truth a whole lot more reason. I wonder what he recalls, when he thinks of his past?

[P.S. sorry I've not been in touch recently - RL got busy, some good,some less so]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Excellent quotes - yes, the same idea entirely, and the same mood.

I would say we all construct and reconstruct our past, selecting the building blocks, consciously or unconsciously.

Yes. Jack would have to pick and choose what he wanted to keep from the 51st century, and what he wanted to hide, and what he wanted to discard. It's interesting that there are some things he clearly has kept - such as his attitude to sex, which he sees no reason to change. If I want to be optimistic about our world, perhaps it's because he knows the 21st century will soon catch up to his perecptions?

So the reality in which Jack lives isn't the same as our reality, because he has seen the past (both from a random taste-test and living the slow path), and has experiened the future - he knows what is going to happen. It must give him a very different perspective on everything he sees. Like Ianto showing the people from 1953 around a supermarket in 2008 - Jack has seen the content of supermarkets into the distant future. So to speak.

Looked at another way: he has the big picture, what he had to learn was the little picture, the minutiae of day to day life decade by decade.

And Jack being Jack, he's never just a passive observer of life - he affects those around him, he makes a splash, there are things he wants to do and ways he wants to change things.

I wonder how the Time Agency handled this, training Time Agents to blend in. Assuming they even tried.

sorry I've not been in touch recently - RL got busy,

I'm glad if it wasn't just that you got bored and didn't want to talk to me any more. I missed you - but didn't feel I knew you quite well enough to poke and say "where are you?" You seem to be able to spark ideas from me - trains of thought - I love it! Besides, you're interesting and you have good taste in sexy heroes.

some good

Excellent

some less so

Oh dear. I hope that part goes away and troubles you no more.