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So I'm writing a Jack/Ianto "how they got together (and beyond)" fic. Mainly because I've been (gradually) re-watching season 1 of Torchwood with a particular emphasis on trying to make sense of their relationship - because I've been writing Jack for 13 years, role-playing him for 11, and playing him against a fantastic Ianto for around nine of those years, and yet I realised I still didn't actually have a personal canon for how - and when, and why - they actually got together.
There's so desperately little in the actual episodes that it's no wonder that on first watch of S1, when I wasn't in the fandom, I totally missed the relationship altogether. I understand that there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes on the Torchwood website (now sadly gone) but from what I saw on screen, I got to the end of S1 without even knowing Ianto's name, let alone realising he had something going with Jack!
Then I got involved with the fandom and the J/I shippers did what the Buffy/Spike shippers had done for me previously - went way overboard and completely turned me off any prospect of liking the ship. Until I found my wonderful RP Ianto who gave me my first inklings of what Jack might actually have seen in Ianto and made me see him in a whole new light.
But I realised recently I still didn't have a personal canon for the details of how and when they got together, and it really would be useful to make a decision on that, because I do like to be consistent with things like that, in my fics and RP threads!
Hence the rewatch, and also I've been reading through some old threads and episode reviews from the actual time (which is fascinating reading with hindsight!) and it all seems to have finally fallen into place. For much of S1, because there *is* so little there on-screen, I can still make it work in any number of ways if I want to, but I think I've worked out a personal reading of it that makes sense and I can support emotionally and with facts, and that is such a relief!
As for what it is? Well, hopefully this fic (which tbh is more of a character study than a fic, like a lot of my stuff) will be done in a few days and you can find out then! :-D
There's so desperately little in the actual episodes that it's no wonder that on first watch of S1, when I wasn't in the fandom, I totally missed the relationship altogether. I understand that there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes on the Torchwood website (now sadly gone) but from what I saw on screen, I got to the end of S1 without even knowing Ianto's name, let alone realising he had something going with Jack!
Then I got involved with the fandom and the J/I shippers did what the Buffy/Spike shippers had done for me previously - went way overboard and completely turned me off any prospect of liking the ship. Until I found my wonderful RP Ianto who gave me my first inklings of what Jack might actually have seen in Ianto and made me see him in a whole new light.
But I realised recently I still didn't have a personal canon for the details of how and when they got together, and it really would be useful to make a decision on that, because I do like to be consistent with things like that, in my fics and RP threads!
Hence the rewatch, and also I've been reading through some old threads and episode reviews from the actual time (which is fascinating reading with hindsight!) and it all seems to have finally fallen into place. For much of S1, because there *is* so little there on-screen, I can still make it work in any number of ways if I want to, but I think I've worked out a personal reading of it that makes sense and I can support emotionally and with facts, and that is such a relief!
As for what it is? Well, hopefully this fic (which tbh is more of a character study than a fic, like a lot of my stuff) will be done in a few days and you can find out then! :-D
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Are you going to be taking into account any of the backstory from Fragments or writing it purely from a S1 PoV ?
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But it's definitely got me thinking about them and I think it's fairly likely that it may inspire some snippets of specific action fic in the fairly near future. (Currently vying with Jack/Giles in my head for priority!) :-)
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Oh yes, I'm taking Fragments into account - all the canon that we see on-screen. Fragments helps a lot in that it actually shows definitively how things actually began between them, i.e. that Ianto began it all by coming on to Jack, even if it was just to get Lisa into the Hub. :-)
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https://iantos-desktop.livejournal.com/
There's so desperately little in the actual episodes that it's no wonder that on first watch of S1, when I wasn't in the fandom, I totally missed the relationship altogether. I understand that there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes on the Torchwood website (now sadly gone) but from what I saw on screen, I got to the end of S1 without even knowing Ianto's name, let alone realising he had something going with Jack!
I just sort of look at this and boggle... Went back through my old entries, and by ep 6 (Countrycide) was annoyed and wrote this:
- Ianto. Why is he there? I mean he appears to hate everything, so why hasn’t he left? I’m sincerely hoping they’re going to give him some sort of reason for hanging around - because currently he’s just annoying me. He’s obviously ‘the outsider’, doing a bit of ‘telling, not showing’ when the need arises. Please, please let him have a crush on Jack...
Then after They Keep Killing Suzie:
Although of course I *loved* the ending! I'd never thought a stopwatch could be used for innuendo, but there you go. Very effective. Of course it makes no sense continuity wise, what with Ianto's evil robo girlfriend of only 4 episodes ago, and the whole "You're the biggest monster down here!", but if we choose to dismiss that sorry mess as some sort of dream I think it could work rather nicely! :)
And this was my post after the finale:
"IantoFic will one day rule the world with coffee and angst."
Although as for a personal canon of how they ended up together, then I think I have read so much great fic that I'm not sure I could ever settle on one take. However, I shall probably be reading yours to add to my collection! ♥
/random rambling
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To be fair, S1 aired towards the end of my son's first year, and started around the time I went back to work from maternity leave, so I still very much had baby brain/sleep-deprived brain at that point - perhaps that had something to do with it! Also, I was at that point only watching as a viewer rather than a fan, not paying any special attention, not making notes, not even really thinking about it much between episodes, you know? You definitely lose the continuity that way, or at least I do.
And obviously I must have noticed Ianto in Cyberwoman, but I didn't like Cyberwoman and then he's hardly in most of the other episodes. Even in, for example, TKKS, he's mostly just there with the rest of the team making the odd one-off innuendo. He doesn't get any major storylines, just like Tosh didn't, and I don't think I really knew her name either. Anyway, Ianto definitely didn't make an impression on me as more than a bit part in S1 - so it was a real surprise when I entered fandom and found that *everything* was all about Ianto!
And thank you for the links - I shall take the time to explore and enjoy those later! :-)
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Oooh I hear ya. And if it was just 'Stuff to watch' then even more so.
so it was a real surprise when I entered fandom and found that *everything* was all about Ianto!
I think... it might partly have been because he was in the background so much? He was a mystery for the viewers to dig into? Like, he was the quiet tea boy, except he had his half-converted cyber-girlfriend in the basement? AND might be flirting with Jack? He had Potential. And fandom loves nothing more than Potential. ;)
Enjoy the links, presuming any of them still work...
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I think... it might partly have been because he was in the background so much?
Yeah, I get that. And if I had been involved in fandom I obviously would have been aware of the relationship much earlier and might have come at it from a very different angle. Saying that, though, Ianto is very much not my type. I'm drawn to dominant or powerful personalities and, generally, men (or occasionally women) who are as old as or older than I am (and I was 33/34 in 2006) so Doctor, yes; Jack, yes; everyone else, no. Pretty boys like Ianto have never interested me very much. So yes, he's got the snark and the cute curly smile, but in S1, especially with all the angst that was Cyberwoman, he just wasn't the sort of character that interested me. I know now that there's a lot more to him and I am rather fascinated by that, but at the time he just gave off (to me) waves of quiet, pretty, angsty boy, so didn't draw my interest, unfortunately!
Oh, and the links still work and I am having a fascinating time looking back through the website stuff and your links, so thank you very, very much for those! :-)
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As for character studies, nowt wrong with them! My current fic is 11k words of not an awful lot happening...
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It's even more annoying when you have a pushy muse or two from another verse giving their opinions on it as well as what you see on screen. - Methos, right? I remember your Methos!verse :-)
As for character studies, nowt wrong with them! My current fic is 11k words of not an awful lot happening...
Yeah, I know, I just wanted to pre-empt anyone thinking they were going to get a nice long sex scene or something! :-D
What's your 11k fic about?
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And congratulations on finding an Eleven voice. I've never really found one (I think I've written him once?), mainly because I just never liked him that much. I like quite a lot of his episodes, but somehow I have no desire to delve too deeply into that particular Doctor.
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As for longevity, I first started writing that ofc immie back in 1998, I think, in my Trek fics which were almost my first attempts at fanfic (there was a Blake's Seven one done when I was at school that is officially my first but has luckily vanished from the face of the earth as it was awful).
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And wow, 1998. That is longevity!!!!
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Good luck with your writing!
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