sariagray | Use It in a Sentence; Week One

Title: Use It in A Sentence; Week 1
Author:

sariagray
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Owen, John Hart.
Word Count: Between 100-200 words for each drabble; 7 drabbles.
Rating: G-PG13
Warnings: None, really. Spoilers abound until the end of S2 (specifically End of Days and KKBB).
Disclaimer: This is solely for amusement. Torchwood and all it entails is owned by men and women far better than I. They make the money. I just get to play in their sandbox.
Author’s Note: This probably has already existed out there for a long while. It probably has been done to death. But I’m new, so I still get to play. Right? Right!? Formatting this was awful, but it was the best my pathetic knowledge could muster. Apologies if it looks weird. Oh! My words can all be found here. Enjoy! Think of this as your weekly vocabulary lesson. And if anyone else wants to play, I would love to read!

Use It in a Sentence
Week One

Tendentious: Marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view. “The author’s tendentious history of the chemical company glosses over its role in one of the most catastrophic environmental accidents in history.”
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   “All of the people I love die.”
   Jack was being particularly morose one evening and no matter how hard Ianto wracked his brain, he couldn’t quite figure out why. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened; no near-death experiences, invisibility triggers, deranged ex-lovers. Whatever the cause, he wasn’t having it. Not tonight. He was exhausted, hungry, and plagued by a nastily persistent headache.
   “Really? Me, too,” he pointed out wryly.
   At first, he thought Jack was being dense, staring at him with those hollow eyes as though he couldn’t quite comprehend what the point was. He was about to explain the concept; that everyone dies, thereby….Then, Ianto understood. He made sure to fix the somber man with a pointed look before answering the unspoken question.
   “No, Jack, it’s true. Everyone I love dies, too,” he paused before continuing gently. “You just don’t stay dead.”

Supersede: To cause to be set aside; to take the place or position of; to displace in favor of another. “The special-effects technologies used in films of the 20th century have been superseded by developments in computer-generated imagery.”
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   “Right,” Jack was saying as he took a hearty bite of pastry. “So, anyway, this is outdated. Or, was outdated when I was a kid. Just a toy laser gun.”
   “I wonder if it works.”
   “Owen, don’t you dare,” Gwen warned, vainly shielding herself by holding up her hands.
   There was the distinct hum of an electrical surge as the gun charged up. Then Owen laughed and placed it back down on the tabletop.
   Later that evening, Ianto came in to tidy the room of crumbs and wrappers. Thinking someone had been too lazy to put the artifact back where it belonged, took the device to be returned to the archives.
   As he tripped on the way and felt the distinct blast of energy from the toy, his first thought was for his own safety. His second thought was for the coffee machine that now sported a gaping, smoking hole. His third thought was that Torchwood Cardiff may have to find someone else to support their incompetence.

Abrasive: Tending to wear away by rubbing; causing irritation. “Coworkers tolerated John's abrasive personality because he was also brilliant, but many privately wished he could learn to be a bit more polite.”
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   Owen Harper was a fantastic doctor. He had to be, or else he would never have been recruited by Jack. His bedside manner (if it could be called that), however, was atrocious. Actually, the words used to describe his methods varied.
   “Unbelievable,” was all Gwen had to say.
   “Appalling,” stood as Tosh’s word of choice.
   “Infuriating,” offered by Ianto, seemed to be one on which they all agreed.
   Jack tossed a non-committal “unorthodox” into the mix.
   But one thing they all eventually found out was that the more they pestered Owen back, the more they stripped away his caustic façade to find something remarkably human underneath.
   Tosh, of course, was the first to notice, and wondered if it worked both ways. Perhaps Jack had more than the obvious reasons to hire the unbelievable, appalling, infuriating, and unorthodox doctor.

Gimcrack: A showy object of little use or value. “The silver yo-yo that Jerry kept on his office desk was a gimcrack he had won as a carnival prize many years ago.”
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   Sometimes, Ianto felt not unlike the alien devices that were cast aside for being...well, not alien enough.
   Once, there was a beautiful necklace that was deposited by the rift. When it sparkled, it lit up the room with silver and gold iridescence. It was breathtaking.
   Jack took one look at it, shrugged and said, “Purely decoration.” Even the girls couldn’t be coaxed into trying it on. Ianto spirited it away from the archives and hung it from a hook over his window. Every morning, sunbeams would catch and the dancing specks of light would welcome him awake.
   Now Jack had left them all for something that was alien enough and brilliant and beautiful. Ianto wondered briefly if some poor soul would come along, take pity and rescue him from the darkness of the archives. He doubted it.

Erstwhile: In the past : formerly. “We were delighted to discover a new community garden where erstwhile had been a trash-filled vacant lot.”
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   It wasn’t as if the sex had been terrific. Okay, it had been. But that wasn’t the point. They had history.
   This new toy on Jack’s desk was as beautiful and dull as those little metal balls that click-clack back and forth; tedious, monotonous, but still shiny. And that’s what set his teeth on edge.
   He had to admit, this pretty little handmaiden probably had some tricks up his sleeve; his Jack wouldn’t be bothered with someone who couldn’t keep up. Still, he questioned whether this was his Jack. Mind-control would explain a lot.
   Stupid, simpering thing with wide, hopeful eyes. That’s what Jack had now. He took a swig of burning liquid, far too gone to recognize what he was drinking.
   “Fucking Eye Candy,” he slurred into the bottle before chucking it against the wall.

Boustrophedon: The writing of alternate lines in opposite directions (as from left to right and from right to left). “The archaeologist was quick to see that the text was written in boustrophedon.”

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   Jack was a verb. That much was so obvious to Tosh that the recognition jumped out in her mind immediately. He was action, pure and simple. A veritable whirlwind.
   And Owen could be nothing other than an interjection. The "oh!" that called your attention to something; obnoxious and loud, but important. Sometimes even endearing.
   The adjective/adverb was Gwen, who gave detail, humanity, and meaning to each instance of their strange lives. They could exist without her, but she made them better.
   Tosh herself was the noun. Hard fact. Data. But also people and places and ideals. She was a realist, if a bit of a romantic, and she was just fine with that.
   Which meant that Ianto was the conjunction, pulling them together when they threatened to go off in different directions. He kept the sentence that was Torchwood whole and sensible, kept them from running amok across the page.
   She smiled to herself and looked around before returning to more advantageous, noun-like pursuits. Jack was blustering down the stairs at Owen's frustrated "Oi!" as Gwen trailed after to offer support; thankfully, Ianto was preparing to make another coffee round.

Zeroth: Being numbered zero in a series; also : of, relating to, or being a zero. “Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's Zeroth Law for robots --"A robot may not harm humanity" -- supersedes his First Law disallowing a robot to harm an individual human being.”
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   When Gwen started, Ianto contemplated providing her with a list of rules; words to live by, things she would need to know to succeed.
   That of ultimate prominence was "Save the World." "Be Ready for Anything" also made the list. So did "Retcon only when necessary," "Do not feed the Weevils," "Do not remove alien tech," and "No matter what Jack says, there is no such thing as 'Naked Fridays'."
   Later, he realized that "Do NOT talk about Torchwood" was really the most important thing to stress. He underlined it a few times, highlighted it in neon orange, and drew an arrow inserting it at the top.
   The list didn't come across as particularly urgent, though. For his own amusement, he added "If this is your first night at Torchwood, you have to catch a Weevil" before crumpling up the paper and tossing it in the basket.

*****

Use It in a Sentence; Week One

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