World Enough and Time

My guess is that the cliches come about and become ingrained because the fan writers are reading each other's work and copying what they like, rather than trusting to the episodes and their own imaginations and interpretations for material. So things tend to become a little ingrown, as fan writers get their ideas from other fan writers and start reusing images and situations. They start thinking of the fannish characterization as a sort of standard and a secondary legend grows: the notion that Ianto was abused as a child, that Jack found him at Torchwood One, and so on.

I think the 'doing it on Jack's desk' (with or without popping buttons) comes about because the show doesn't give us much in the way of venues, and because at the end of "They Keep Killing Suzie" Jack tells Ianto to meet him in his office. If you look at his office, there isn't a lot of comfortable space for sex - guess they think the desk is better than the floor. I think these writers are forgetting that Jack's bedroom is accessed through his office, with, presumably, a serviceable bed in it.

I recently read an old Horatio Hornblower slash story of mine in which I had Pellew (tell Horatio not to call him 'sir' in bed. It wasn't a cliche in that fandom and I didn't hesitate to say it. Now? I cringe to remember.

From:

*grin* Fun, isn't it?

A few days later...

Owen: Er... Ianto? You can stop calling me sir, now.
Ianto: *blinks innocently* But you're the boss, sir.
Owen: I don't care - just stop it. It's creepy.
Ianto: Yes, sir. Would you like a blowjob with your coffee, sir?
Owen: That's it. That's fucking it! I quit.

From:

Heee! I love it - and you know? It even sounds plausible.

Well, half plausible. Owen would get the blow job first; then he would quit.

From:

The Owen in my head (one of them) is still trying to convince himself he's straight, poor thing. Hence the quitting first.

Was trying to work out whether Gwen or Tosh would end up in command, when I realised that, no, they wouldn't. Torchwood Three is now run by Committee - Gwen as President, Toshiko as Treasurer, Ianto as Secretary. Owen's back again (safe from Ianto, now he's not the boss) not in any particular capacity, but glad not to end up with more paperwork than he already has.

From:

spherissa.livejournal.com

Haven't watched Torchwood yet, but I can't help but think that if you titled this _How Ianto came to be Number one at Torcbwood Number 3_ (it is three right?) -- anyhow -- and maybe added in Gwen and... um, remember I don 't watch TW so anyone else relevant it'd be a fan with those, who like, me, adore crack fic...

From:

The Owen in my head (one of them) is still trying to convince himself he's straight, poor thing.

Also plausible; but an attempt, I think, doomed to failure. The Owen in my head (whom I seldom listen to) has a huge crush on Jack, and since Jack has shown no interest, is overcompensating in all directions.

I like the idea of Ianto as secretary, and Torchwood by committee. Gwen could get management advice from Rhys.

From:

Aaaah, there is plenty of Torchwood crackfic, some of it even on the screen.

From:

This thread reminds me of the time when I used to be in the CSI fandom, which has many different het/slash pairings. My CSI pairing happens to be Grissom/Greg, another example of "Boss fancied by everyone/young coffee boy". When I first discovered Jack/Ianto, I moaned "not again". And again I have to go through all these fannish cliches about coffee and about child abuse and...
Don't mistake me, I adore Ianto, I adore Greg, I love these two pairings. But some cliches are too much for me. Like child abuse. I hate child abuse stories. I can understand some people have rape fantasies, but I can't buy that anyone can have child abuse fantasies for himself/herself. Even "hate" isn't a strong enough word for me, I'm afraid.
And why, why all the young adults who make good coffee happen to be the victims of child abuse in the fanfiction world? Now I understand why I live on Nescafe all the time: maybe my childhood is just too happy...

From:

My CSI pairing happens to be Grissom/Greg, another example of "Boss fancied by everyone/young coffee boy".

Hmm, I think I like that pattern. I should maybe watch CSI!

Though having said that, my preferred pairing for Captain Jack is Jack/Doctor, a very different dynamic, and I very much like Jack/Jack, which has a romantic power all its own, encapsulated into one evening of time with universal implications for Jack. So it isn't just the pattern of the 'charismatic immortal authority figure and the tea boy' that attracts me, though I do like the pattern of sexual interaction.... Usually as a mentor/acolyte thing, with a dollop of curiosity and hero-worship on the part of the young man. And a streak of internal conflict is rather nice too, such as Ianto's bursts of anger in "Cyberwoman". I like the way that contrasts and emphasises the switch to love.

As for child abuse - I see no reason to bring it into the story when it isn't canonical. Ianto has problems enough! Themes like that (for me) detract from the 'real' Ianto, the one depicted on the screen; it isn't an extrapolation from what we see, it's an added invention, and I don't like that. If it were a trivial point, I'd probably not mind, but childhood abuse isn't trivial enough to ignore as a minor theme for a character.

So it just adds up to being another fan cliche. In this case, one that crosses from one fandom to another - even worse!

I should probably make a list of 'things I don't want to see in fanfic'. Another thing that annoys me in Jack/Ianto stories is having Jack (or anyone) call Ianto "Yan". Partly it's because I like to pronounce Ianto's name with a full four syllables - really, Owen's the only one who ellides the first syllable into a 'y' sound, and that's just part of his London accent and his individual way of speaking. "Yan" to me sounds totally wrong for the precise and fastidious Ianto, and it sounds more Scandinavian than Welsh.

From:

Well, the biggest pairing(and canon now) in CSI is Grissom/Sara, aka GSR:)Really there're too many ships in the bay of CSI Las Vegas...

The best and worst thing about Jack/Ianto is that neither of the two is each other's Mr.Right. Lisa is the ideal lover for Ianto, the perfect match, and always will be. As for Jack, in the domain of same-sex relations, he has serious unsolved hero-worship issues. To whom he said words like "never doubted him never will" or "there's no one"? The Doctor and the original Captain Jack Harkness, two bigger heroes he can live up to in his eyes. Ianto can be courageous, but honestly he doesn't fall in this category. Jack and Ianto just happen to be at the right time, at the right place. They both need to be connected. Ianto needs to be needed, and Jack needs to make others feel better in order to make himself feel better. If Jack ever has a Mr. Right, it's the 1940s!Jack, the ultimate brother in arms. But often we don't even get the chance to meet the Mr Right, let alone together with him. So sometimes we have to accept what the life gives to us and learn to be happy about that. Such is for Jack and such is for Ianto. I think Jack comes to terms about this in his kissing Ianto in "End of Days". It's not about second best or anything like that. It's about what you seek and what you encounter. And Jack definitely knows how to cherish what he encounters.
But this is a very traditional romantic topic...very wrong in the case of Captain Jack Harkness then.
The hero-worship issue is, anyway, an important key to the personality of Jack. Guess it's impossible for him to be the perfect lover of a young man who hero-worships him. And here we see a parallel between 9th Doctor/Jack and Jack/Ianto. The 9th Doctor whose courage was admired by a young man who self-proclaimed as coward(Jack), also called himself a coward. That's why Jack isn't among the Doctor's priorities or Ianto isn't among Jack's priorities...they're not the good match, and their relationships aren't well-balanced.
That's the problem and the strongpoint about "charismatic authority figure/eager coffee boy" pairings. They're not equals, their relationship isn't going to be stable. There're always tensions.(But when everything is as ideal as Jack/Jack we'll have nothing to write about.)And it's always fun to watch the younger figure in the pairing to gradually grow up. When the younger figure has fully grown up, he won't need an authority figure any more. He won't need the courage of the other to be his own courage anymore.
(However, my favourite slash pairing type is not "authority figure/teaboy", but "what about a little love between two best friends". Like House/Wilson in "House", Hornblower/Archie and Hornblower/Bush in "Horatio Hornblower", Duncan/Methos in "Highlander". I even slashed some pairs of good friends in Dickens novels when I was a kid...blushing. Pity there's no such pairing in Doctor Who/Torchwood, except...except...Jack and his childhood friend? Somebody should write that back story.)

From:

In the angle of slash fanfic writers, I think Jack/Ianto is easier to write than Jack/Doctor or Jack/Jack. You can hardly add anything to Jack/Jack: it's already perfect there in the series. As for Jack/Doctor, one has to deal with Rose, who is too important to them both to be excluded in a story.(OT3 then.) And when a pairing has two exotic/enigmatic/ambiguous characters, it's a guarantee to kill the brain of a fanfic writer. I know my brain will explode facing the unconventionality of these two if I ever try to write one.

There're far more cliches travelling from fandom to fandom than we realize, and child abuse is a worst one. However, Ianto doesn't seem to me a person who has this sort of experience. It's far more likely for him to have lived a basically normal life before Canary Wharf: that's why the whole cyber!Lisa thing is even greater a shock and a tragedy to him. And his attitude in this tragedy is too positive to belong to someone who has been abused in childhood. An abused child won't have such confidence in fixing things. And an abused child often learns to believe what they've got is what they deserve. If he/she is abandoned or abused by the ones who should care about them, well, that's what things are like. He/she won't be in such a fury toward others like Ianto in "Cyberwoman". This is terrible, I know, but this is a way of self-protecting for us humans.

"Yan"...luckily I' not british and not sensitive at all when it comes to different regional accents. But I've got my own reason to dislike "Yan". I'm Chinese and "Yan" as a first name in Chinese is mostly for girls. So it's weird for me, too.

From:

The best and worst thing about Jack/Ianto is that neither of the two is each other's Mr.Right.

Agreed, and I think they both know it, though Ianto might have hopes.

Lisa is the ideal lover for Ianto, the perfect match, and always will be.

I think one of the reasons Ianto has chosen Jack is because Jack is such a contrast to Lisa - male, white, secretive, and not someone who would demand or want an intimate commitment. In this way, Jack doesn't threaten or compete with Ianto's memories of Lisa. It's a way to find comfort in a lover without feeling unfaithful to her, or feeling as if he's forgetting her.

As for Jack, in the domain of same-sex relations, he has serious unsolved hero-worship issues... The Doctor and the original Captain Jack Harkness, two bigger heroes he can live up to in his eyes.

People he wants to be like, and in different ways, has taken on their personas. They are heroes and role-models to them.

Ianto needs to be needed, and Jack needs to make others feel better in order to make himself feel better.

This is true in a general sense, but it's also true in a specific sense: in loving and comforting Ianto, he can feel less guilty for his part in Ianto's pain, in that he is the one who killed Ianto's lover - however rightfully, however much she was already dead. He knows how the events of "Cyberwoman" hurt Ianto and that's something he was part of, something he'd want to heal.

If Jack ever has a Mr. Right, it's the 1940s!Jack, the ultimate brother in arms.

But ironically part of what makes him right is the fact that he died a hero, sacrificing himself for the right cause, and (even more significantly) to save his men. So part of what makes him right is that Jack can't have him, he can only have a memory of him. I suppose this plays into Jack's death issues, too: in dying, the original Jack has what our Jack can't achieve.

And if the Doctor is his other Mr. Right, he's unattainable for other reasons.

It's not about second best or anything like that. It's about what you seek and what you encounter.

No, it's more about treasuring what you have, and... in valuing all sorts of love, not just the ideal love of the soulmate or ideal, but love that you can find around you. Look at the way Jack wants Gwen to value Rhys for what he has to offer her - not exciting enough to be her ideal, but a good man that she ought to appreciate and treat better than she does.

Jack definitely knows how to cherish what he encounters.

It's one of his best traits.

Guess it's impossible for him to be the perfect lover of a young man who hero-worships him.

I think he likes the role but it isn't what he's looking for in life.

That's why Jack isn't among the Doctor's priorities or Ianto isn't among Jack's priorities...they're not the good match, and their relationships aren't well-balanced.

I'd like to hope the Doctor loves and values Jack, but yes, as you say, other priorities, and other goals. Not conflicting goals, just... different.

They're not equals, their relationship isn't going to be stable. There're always tensions.

Part of the reason they're such fun to write about, or speculate about. What happens if/when the relationship equalizes? Or perhaps the whole point is that the unstable, unequal relationship has a value of its own and extreme ideals are seldom attainable. At least in the reality of Torchwood series one, Jack can't have the Doctor, but he can have Ianto, and there's at least a temporary equilibrium there.

From:

Which Dickens pair did you slash? I like the notion of Eugene Wrayburn/Mortimer Lightwood, but I can think of other possibilities in other novels.

The main pairing of The Professionals, Bodie/Doyle, which I wrote extensively for years, was a very equal one - same with Sinclari/Garibaldi from Babylon 5. But most of mine have not been equals: Skinner/Mulder, House/Chase, Horatio Hornblower/Sir Edward Pellew, Clark Kent/Lex Luthor - not an authority figure, but Clark was the innocent farm boy and Lex the sophisticated adult urban businessman). And sometimes I gravitate to slashing enemies, like Mulder/Krycek, Gambit/Magneto, and - though I'd never write the pairing I occasionally read it - Harry/Draco.

Though Methos is one of my favourite characters of all time, I was never comfortable writing Duncan/Methos, though I tried, hard, on several occasions - and usually gave up, leaving a trail of unfinished stories behind me. I'm not sure why.

I've thought about Jack and his childhood friend. Maybe I'll write about that some day. Jack offers speculative delights in all directions.

From:

You can hardly add anything to Jack/Jack: it's already perfect there in the series.

Yes, perfect in a very literal sense. We see their entire relationship, almost everything they say to each other, almsot every moment they're together. There are no holes to fill, and no space to create a future. Not even a past in which they could have met before. Unless you go entirely AU, what you see it what you get. And it's beautiful.

As for Jack/Doctor, one has to deal with Rose, who is too important to them both to be excluded in a story.(OT3 then.)

Yes. Works for me. And I am working on a conceptually massive Doctor/Jack/Rose story which I hope will not turn out to be impossible. It's difficult, but I like a challenge. The fun of it (and the difficulty) is that each of the three relationships (Jack/Rose, Jack/Doctor, Doctor/Rose) is very different from the others.

I know my brain will explode facing the unconventionality of these two if I ever try to write one.

My brain has possibly already exploded. Or given up and gone to Blackpool for an extended holiday, leaving me to fend for myself in my delusional fanfic ambitions.

It's far more likely for him to have lived a basically normal life before Canary Wharf: that's why the whole cyber!Lisa thing is even greater a shock and a tragedy to him.

I think so. For one thing, the poignant optimism we see in "Cyberwoman", Ianto's faith that it will all turn out right and that he will be able to save Lisa - that to me implies a life in which this is the first and greatest tragedy, in which he has in the past had no severe trauma.

An abused child won't have such confidence in fixing things.

Neither such faith in himself, nor in his rashly-made promises, nor in his deep trust in other people. So I agree with all your conclusions there.

From:

Gwen could recruit Rhys. They need at least one more person so as to have odd numbers when they vote on things, and Torchwood could use someone stable to take care of them. And feed them.

From:

And to clean the oven. I have the feeling that Ianto and Rhys, though they have very different personalities, might be kindred souls under the surface.

From:

Which begs the question of why Ianto hasn't cleaned the oven already - true, it's filthy, and he thinks there's something alive in the sludge on the bottom, and the last time Owen tried to borrow it for one of his experiments something inside hissed at him, but since when did that bother him? He's Torchwood. That sort of thing's normal for them. Possibly it's just because they never used it anyway.
Rhys cleans the oven. He and Ianto share the kitchen, Rhys making dinner, Ianto making coffee, and Rhys talks - cheerful, idle conversation about nothing in particular. Football scores. Pinches of nutmeg - one or two? The mating habits of pterodactyls. This last, Ianto doesn't want to know, and says so. After this, the conversation isn't so one-sided - the first time Owen enters the kitchen to find Ianto laughing openly, he drops the cup he's carrying and is banned from the place thereafter.

From:

I love your Torchwood.

From:

Bon courage!
OP3 can be fantastic in the right hands. Even Jack/Rose is so unconventional and interesting.
I don't know why, but a Doctor/Jack/Rose story should be massive, in my opinion. Massive with all sorts of actions and interactions. Or contains hundreds of drabbles.
Maybe our fanfic ambitions should be bigger on the inside, too...

From:

I slashed mainly 3 pairs from his last 3 finished novels: Charles Darnay/Sydney Carton, Pip/Herbert Pocket, and yeah, isn't Eugene Wrayburn/Mortimer Lightwood the champion? Pity that 'our mutual friend' is somehow less read by people. I love their banters. And poor Eugene...why have I loved so many disfigured bad-luck ones? Montgomery Clift comes to mind...
Darnay/Carton is similiar to Jack/Jack in my mind: it's about another side of the mirror, about the man you should have been, and about the pure power of coincidences. That's why the obsession comes so easily. I think Carton loves both Charles and Lucie. The Darnays in his eyes are an ideal which can't be separated. And if Darnay doesn't have the same face...though Carton will still view Lucie's happiness higher than his own, I doubt he'll go THAT far. Or Lucie will even become that important to him years ago, after they first met.
I find Pip/Herbert very sweet, though this feeling might be highly personal. I remember reading the chapter in which Herbert goes to Pip's for the first time and the bag of fruits are nearly smashed under his arm when he tries his way with the door. That was a lovely early summer afternoon and my father was washing some strawberries in the kitchen. He called my name and I could smell the sweet scent of strawberries when reading about Herbert's poor fruits. I was 10, or 11. That's a genuine moment of happiness. In later life I often dream about retconing myself so I can get the second chances to read some books for the first time--but I'd like my memories about 'Great Expectation' the way they were.

From:

I hope you'll find some good ideas about Jack and his childhood friend. Really the survivor guilt issue isn't new, but it makes sense in Jack's case. And a childhood friend like this must be like home, too. And to lose him in such a horrible way, it mush be like the house in which he was born are being burned down in front of him. After this, he'll never have any place to call home. (Until the TARDIS comes...)
Jack being a torture guy, revealed in 'Countrycide', however, feels kind of flat. I don't know the problem is about the script or about Barrowman's acting. Maybe both. When I first heard it, I was kind of...embarrassed...by their efforts. Well, Jack is an agent, and an agent does dirty work. I'm just not easily convinced, I guess.
(Interesting that Jack does far more dirty work when he's supposed to be with the good guys. Time Agency. Torchwood. And he's fully aware and fully intentioned to. At the same time, except the almost genocide out of carelessness in Empty Child/Doctor dances, he seems to have a clear record in his morally worst days...)

I miss Methos. This is a guy who can convince me that he really has had a career out of torturing people to death(well, better happened a long, long time ago) and still I find him cozy. This must be some old dark magic...

From:

So very true about Ianto chose Jack because he's a contrast of Lisa.

When we first met Jack in Empty Child/Doctor Dances, he's a man who cleans his own mess. And after 'Cyberwoman', Ianto turns out to be his biggest mess. So he cleans it in his own way, his only way--sex is somewhere he feels very safe, and something he feels confident enough to give and take. If by doing this he has created a new problem is another problem...Torchwood should have a motto like 'one mess-up only each day'...

I'd say 9th Doctor/Jack seems far more equal and better balanced than Jack/Ianto. Alongside the Doctor, DW!Jack is an experienced/exotic/morally ambiguous/hard figure himself. He's learning to be a hero, yes, but he has already got all the means that a hero needs in himself. And Rose definitely makes their powers balance better.
The 9th Doctor values DW!Jack's courage and sense of humor and joie de vivre just like they should be valued, I believe. (And Jack's always a part of what makes the 9th octor human and whole, just like Rose.) Only he doesn't need these. The Doctor himself has courage, and a good sense of humor, and enough joie de vivre. What he has lost forever and therefore he needs, is the innocence. Rose is the innocence. That's why she's his fascination, his mascot, until the very end.
Jack is too much a soldier for him, a lieutenant or an aide de camp at most. He has too much in common with Jack to really care about Jack, because the 9th Doctor doesn't care much about himself, which we have already seen in 'Father's Day'.
Interesting that in DW I always identify with the Doctor and in TW I always identify with Jack. I who have hardly identified with any heroes before...

From:

When we first met Jack in Empty Child/Doctor Dances, he's a man who cleans his own mess.

Yes, and really, the trigger to his epiphany is that he discoveres in "The Doctor Dances" that he not only can't clean his own mess, he caused the mess in the first place and it's hurting everyone else. The only thing he can do is an act of expiation - take the bomb away. Take the bomb and die. But that earns him another chance at life, and a better life at that.

sex is somewhere he feels very safe, and something he feels confident enough to give and take.

A healing mechanism. A way of sharing and communicating and comforting, all at once.

I'd say 9th Doctor/Jack seems far more equal and better balanced than Jack/Ianto.

I agree, though it goes through stages. In "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", Jack is ambigous and multi-faceted, revealing more and more of himself by layers as the story progresses. In "Boom Town" Jack is a much more balanced person within himself - balanced by happiness and fulfilment and circumstance. He's relaxed (in his own hyperactive way) and free to be himself - though no doubt still rediscovering what that means, and basing his new and revised sense of selfhood on the Doctor. He wants to be a hero in that mould - a successful hero, a protector.

Torchwood should have a motto like 'one mess-up only each day'...

LOL - yes! Or make it an official part of the schedule: "On Thursday, we clean up our messes...." I can just see Ianto rolling his eyes at the notion, thinking, "I have to clean up everyone's messes all the time."

The 9th Doctor values DW!Jack's courage and sense of humor and joie de vivre just like they should be valued, I believe.

All those things. And the Doctor also likes to fix people and things. He saw in Jack someone he could fix, someone worth fixing, someone who makes him smile and gives him challenges too.

What he has lost forever and therefore he needs, is the innocence. Rose is the innocence. That's why she's his fascination, his mascot, until the very end.

Yes... and since Jack is a warrior, he can't stay in the safe environment of the TARDIS, he has to go out where there are wars to be fought and challenges to be met.

He has too much in common with Jack to really care about Jack, because the 9th Doctor doesn't care much about himself, which we have already seen in 'Father's Day'.

Perhaps he has a fear that his own guilt/agression, his aggregate problems, will infect Jack, who has his own similar set of problems - they both have a good share of survivor's guilt, and regret over decisions they have made that had disastrous results, or decisions they failed to make that had disastrous results. So while the Doctor helped Jack and made him happy and helped him to reconstruct his life, he couldn't continue to help Jack - Jack had to find his own challenges or their beautifully balanced relationships might become damaging, even parasitic. Or would simply stop being helpful to each of them.

Interesting that in DW I always identify with the Doctor and in TW I always identify with Jack. I who have hardly identified with any heroes before...

I often identify with my heroes, but these two, I identify with more than most.

From:

his last 3 finished novels

Which happen to be, probably, my favourites, though I do love Pickwick Papers (especially Sam Weller). I usually say Eugene Wrayburn is my favourite Dickens character, but I love Sydney Carton at least as much. That whole redemption-through-heroism thing.

yeah, isn't Eugene Wrayburn/Mortimer Lightwood the champion?

They are just beautiful together. Love their dialogue. Love the scenes where they are at the Venerring's dinner parties and Eugene is keeping Mortimer laughing by making rude and funny comments, and everyone thinks Mortimer is so cheerful, and Eugene so quiet.

Darnay/Carton is similiar to Jack/Jack in my mind: it's about another side of the mirror, about the man you should have been, and about the pure power of coincidences.

I must admit, when I cited Eugene and Mortimer as my slash pick from Dickens, I thought also of Darnay and Carton, so it must have been there in my head, lurking subcionsciously. "Too alike," I said to myself, but that's a strength as well as a weakness, and really, they are also a great study in contrasts.

I think Carton loves both Charles and Lucie.

He gives his life for both of them.

I am less familiar with Great Expectations and would have to read it again to say anything intelligent; I barely remember Herbert.

From: