Comments | cupidsbow: Torchwood Meta: For Different Values of Love by cupidsbow

cupidsbow

Torchwood Meta: For Different Values of Love by cupidsbow

Jan 22, 2009 18:45

You've probably all noticed that I've been watching Torchwood and reading the fanfic lately. What you probably haven't yet realised is that I think I've... um... sort of... fallen into fannish love ( Read more... )

discussion, torchwood, writing

Comments 110

trobadora January 22 2009, 16:45:24 UTC

What I overwhelmingly found, however, were all these Oh-my-God-make-it-stop angsty schmoopfests in which Jack is hurting poor Ianto by slutting around. Or, even worse, they are married and shacked up and monogamous, as though that's the only way they could be happy together. And that's just... so wrong. It's so simplistic and so, so wrong.

Oh God, so much YES.

I'm coming at it from a different angle since I'm not interested in Jack/Ianto - my OTP in this 'verse is Doctor/Jack. But yes, absolutely, YES - I find it really painful to watch the fandom make Jack monogamous, or vilify him for not being monogamous.

transcendancing January 23 2009, 00:55:11 UTC

Hell yes!!!

Doctor/Jack for the win!!!

:)

There needs to be more Doctor/Jack in my life - any recs you could suggest offhand?

trobadora January 23 2009, 22:55:14 UTC

Hmmm, I don't have links on hand right now, but versaphile or vail_kagami , dameruth or smithy161 come to mind. dune_drd and wendymr have also done some very good fic.

The wintercompanion Doctor/Jack challenge comm, which I co-mod, has some great participants.

transcendancing January 24 2009, 00:08:40 UTC

Wendy and Dameruth are awesome :)

I think the OT3 story I mentioned reading might have been a Wendy story. Not sure. Have yet to find time to look :)

Thread 15

vipersweb January 22 2009, 17:28:54 UTC

I think you bring up a lot of really good points. As a TW fan, I think a lot of people go for the true love-monogamy-fluff thing as a backlash against Gwen. In my reading of canon, Owen and Tosh don't look at Ianto or Jack as potential sex partners; this means Gwen, a minor character, or an original character for your fic. But Gwen, IMO, is set up for the monogamous relationship, despite her tendency to cheat on Rhys. This, in turn, gives a Jack/Gwen OR a Jack/Ianto perspective, because Gwen would not allow for anything but monogamy in her relationship. Whilst we could see a Jack/Ianto/Gwen relationship, Gwen has never shown any interest in Ianto ( ... )

thornsilver January 22 2009, 17:42:06 UTC

One of the problems of writing Jack/Ianto is associating themselves with one or the other (I favor Ianto), in which case the character gets a lot of values and motivations that the author would have had.

I have to say that the only reason I can see Jack being monogamous if he thought that that would please his current partner (say Ianto). I don't see him seeing sex itself as all that important or personal. I can even see him cheating on somebody in a monogamous arrangement, if he was certain that he will not get caught, because he considers 21 century morals limiting and foolish.

Ianto, on the other hand, I can see assepting wide variety of behaviors from Jack, especially once he is sure that Jack means to stay in a relationship with him, but I don't see him bendy enough to see Jack in a "comparable" relatinship with someone else.

I suspect that for them both Jack/Ianto relationship is priority, with other activities negotiated on the case-by-case basis.

starstealingirl January 22 2009, 18:49:31 UTC

OMG YES THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS ( ... )

tigercheetah January 23 2009, 09:13:14 UTC

But on the other hand, I think some fic writers see Ianto as being comfortable with poly relationships because it suits them, not because there's any evidence for it. The idea that Jack sleeps around whilst Ianto is mostly faithful isn't something they want to think about because it makes them uncomfortable and the relationship one sided. There's no evidence in either the tv series, the official books or in interviews that Ianto is a character who'd be part of a poly relationship. I'm ok with the idea that Ianto started sleeping with Jack whilst Lisa was still alive because Ianto wasn't able to be a lover to Lisa once she'd been partially converted. He was affectively her carer ( ... )

doctorinchains January 22 2009, 20:23:58 UTC

The issue of what Jack/Ianto want out of their relationship is indeed a tricky one, as the stories themselves consistently present us with numerous different Iantos and Jacks to consider. Each writer presents a slightly different take on the relationship. This can been seen in the episodes and yet again in the hand of the person who pens the 'Captain's Log' portion of the TW website. In the log, (especially in S2) the way Jack writes about Ianto suggests a far greater investment (and affection) than the episodes themselves often reveal ( ... )