The Real Reason I'm Obsessed With Torchwood
[This rant is intended for all audiences, not just Torchwood fans. It is going to earn the use of this icon, so stay tuned.]
I love Dr. Who to a ridiculous degree, and I am by no means saying that Torchwood is better than its source material, or worse for that matter. It's like comparing pizza to ice cream. I get very different things out of each series.
Well, for one thing, I find all the characters irrationally endearing. Except for Gwen, I hate Gwen. But Tosh is adorable and Japanese; Jack is a glorious bastard that I can't help but be charmed by because I have a really lame weakness for his type; and Owen is like this annoying slutty little arsehole that I feel really protective over, kind of like TF2's Scout, because again, I'm really lame like that. And then there's Ianto, who I melt over every single time he speaks, especially if he's being deadpan hilarious, or even if he's just standing there with his hair all spiky with his classy suits and...okay I'll stop.
But the real reason I keep coming back is for episodes like the one I watched tonight (this morning? god it's late). It's called "Captain Jack Harkness." For those not in the know, that's the Jack mentioned above.
Brief explanation. I'm going to be a sliiiightly spoilery for this particular episode, but it's still a good episode if you know what happens so I wouldn't worry. Jack is one of those mysterious characters, but for the most part we know that he's been alive for pretty much all of the twentieth century, and for some mysterious reason he can't die or get old no matter what. In this episode, he gets accidentally sucked back to an old dance hall in 1941, where they're holding a farewell dance for the boys in uniform getting shipped off to fight. He meets a man named Captain Jack Harkness - yeah. This is the guy that our Jack stole his name from after the original Jack died. They've never met before this moment.
Okay, the VERY SECOND these two guys see each other, my slash goggles zoom in on them. The sexual tension is through the roof. I think for a minute that I'm imagining it, because I live with my slash goggles at the ready, but it's way too strong for me to be making it up. By the time I'm halfway through the episode, I've decided that if these guys don't get together by the end of the episode, I am going to personally murder everybody involved in its production. (I may have been a tad sucked in by this, yes.)
I've seen this before. Two guys on screen are very clearly more than friendly, and I automatically latch onto the pairing. The thing is, every time this happens - with Miguel and Tulio, for example, or Kirk and Spock - the text stays sub. They hug, they exchange meaningful glances, they flirt outrageously, but there is never a kiss scene.
It made me realize how meaningful a kiss is. We take it for granted in het pairings, and in slash pairings we have to just man up and write the fanfiction. But having that in-canon, in-your-face, impossible to explain away kiss scene changes everything. There's a reason every romcom ever made ends like this. It may just be cultural conditioning, but when we're shown a kiss, we know that there's been a significant shift in the relationship. It's serious now. It's real. We aren't making this shit up. (This isn't as accurate in real life, but in fiction, a kiss is almost always heavily symbolic.)
And I realized that part of the reason I find slash so much more addicting than het is that there's always this feeling that I have to fight for the slash couples. I have to write my own kiss scenes. It has very little to do with finding man-on-man hot. On the very rare occasion that there's a canon slash kiss, it feels so completely precious and right. I get this rush of euphoric relief that finally, somebody went "screw the rules" and gave these characters everything they deserve.
Which is why, at the end of "Captain Jack Harkness," when old Jack and new Jack shared one of the most passionate gay kisses network television has ever witnessed, I was clutching a pillow and going YES. FUCKING YES.
That's the real reason I'm watching Torchwood. They are not afraid to go there. I've heard about the Ianto/Jack romance, and I can't fucking wait. I don't even know. It's like divine retribution. Torchwood can be as flawed as it wants to be, but as long as it keeps going there, I'll be singing its praises.
Oh man I need to sleep. I'll probably regret this in the morning.
I love Dr. Who to a ridiculous degree, and I am by no means saying that Torchwood is better than its source material, or worse for that matter. It's like comparing pizza to ice cream. I get very different things out of each series.
Well, for one thing, I find all the characters irrationally endearing. Except for Gwen, I hate Gwen. But Tosh is adorable and Japanese; Jack is a glorious bastard that I can't help but be charmed by because I have a really lame weakness for his type; and Owen is like this annoying slutty little arsehole that I feel really protective over, kind of like TF2's Scout, because again, I'm really lame like that. And then there's Ianto, who I melt over every single time he speaks, especially if he's being deadpan hilarious, or even if he's just standing there with his hair all spiky with his classy suits and...okay I'll stop.
But the real reason I keep coming back is for episodes like the one I watched tonight (this morning? god it's late). It's called "Captain Jack Harkness." For those not in the know, that's the Jack mentioned above.
Brief explanation. I'm going to be a sliiiightly spoilery for this particular episode, but it's still a good episode if you know what happens so I wouldn't worry. Jack is one of those mysterious characters, but for the most part we know that he's been alive for pretty much all of the twentieth century, and for some mysterious reason he can't die or get old no matter what. In this episode, he gets accidentally sucked back to an old dance hall in 1941, where they're holding a farewell dance for the boys in uniform getting shipped off to fight. He meets a man named Captain Jack Harkness - yeah. This is the guy that our Jack stole his name from after the original Jack died. They've never met before this moment.
Okay, the VERY SECOND these two guys see each other, my slash goggles zoom in on them. The sexual tension is through the roof. I think for a minute that I'm imagining it, because I live with my slash goggles at the ready, but it's way too strong for me to be making it up. By the time I'm halfway through the episode, I've decided that if these guys don't get together by the end of the episode, I am going to personally murder everybody involved in its production. (I may have been a tad sucked in by this, yes.)
I've seen this before. Two guys on screen are very clearly more than friendly, and I automatically latch onto the pairing. The thing is, every time this happens - with Miguel and Tulio, for example, or Kirk and Spock - the text stays sub. They hug, they exchange meaningful glances, they flirt outrageously, but there is never a kiss scene.
It made me realize how meaningful a kiss is. We take it for granted in het pairings, and in slash pairings we have to just man up and write the fanfiction. But having that in-canon, in-your-face, impossible to explain away kiss scene changes everything. There's a reason every romcom ever made ends like this. It may just be cultural conditioning, but when we're shown a kiss, we know that there's been a significant shift in the relationship. It's serious now. It's real. We aren't making this shit up. (This isn't as accurate in real life, but in fiction, a kiss is almost always heavily symbolic.)
And I realized that part of the reason I find slash so much more addicting than het is that there's always this feeling that I have to fight for the slash couples. I have to write my own kiss scenes. It has very little to do with finding man-on-man hot. On the very rare occasion that there's a canon slash kiss, it feels so completely precious and right. I get this rush of euphoric relief that finally, somebody went "screw the rules" and gave these characters everything they deserve.
Which is why, at the end of "Captain Jack Harkness," when old Jack and new Jack shared one of the most passionate gay kisses network television has ever witnessed, I was clutching a pillow and going YES. FUCKING YES.
That's the real reason I'm watching Torchwood. They are not afraid to go there. I've heard about the Ianto/Jack romance, and I can't fucking wait. I don't even know. It's like divine retribution. Torchwood can be as flawed as it wants to be, but as long as it keeps going there, I'll be singing its praises.
Oh man I need to sleep. I'll probably regret this in the morning.