Calufrax

This is the rec missing from Wednesday. (I have some bug taking vacation in my system, so I'm feeling particularly slow.)

Story: The Torchwood Girls
Author: laurab1
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 36880
Author's Summary: While Jack Harkness and millions of others serve in WWI, and suffer the consequences of doing so, Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire and some more very smart women save the world from aliens.
Characters/Pairings: Jack Harkness, Joan Redfern, Harriet Derbyshire
Warnings: None

Recced because: This is an historical piece, set in Torchwood immediately before and during World War One. The emphasis is on the home front, with the ladies taking over because the men are overseas. We do, however, see a good bit of Jack and how he responds to The First Great War. I love Torchwood historicals and this is one of the better ones.

( Excerpt )

Enjoy! And review.

Story: No Mercy
Author: Otrame
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 14,089
Author's Summary: When two aliens are delivered to Cardiff via the Rift, the species is completely new to his team, but Jack has seen them before, and what he knows about them will lead to drastic action. Crossover with Alien Nation.
Characters/Pairings: Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness, Original Characters, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato
Warnings: Explicit Violence

Recced because: I love crossovers. This one takes a race from another show and drops them in Torchwood. There, we find that the universe doesn't always give happy endings, and we just do the best we can.

Enjoy! And review.

Story: Conversational Japanese, Plus Frogs
Author: James
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 6,832
Author's Summary: Ianto and Tosh have been kidnapped. This is how they cope.
Characters/Pairings: Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato
Warnings: None

Recced because: First, because I love Ianto/Tosh friendship fics. Second, even though the situaton they're in is serious, there's a lot of light-heartedness in it. (And the ending is delightful.)

( Excerpt )

Story: Never Say Never Again
Author: robling_t
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 38,434
Author's Summary: Jack's in trouble. Yes, that kind of trouble. What's a pregnant guy to do when the employee handbook says "no guns at the baby shower"?
Characters/Pairings: Torchwood Team, Martha Jones, The Doctor (10)
Warnings: Crack!fic, Mpreg, Baby!fic, Kid!fic

Recced because: I decided to close out my week of recs with my favorite piece of fanfic candy. This is crack!fic on steroids, and I reread it to give me a smile.

It's the third story (second long one) and my favorite in a series, Yours, Mine, and Ours, all set in this same universe. It departs from our universe after season 3 of Doctor Who/season 1 of Torchwood, but canon events in Torchwood still have an effect on the story. There's also a good bit of timey-wimey goodness as well.

But, ultimately, the reason to read this story (and the rest of the series) is simple: it's fun!

I've enjoyed being your reccer for this week and I hope you've enjoyed my selections.

Story: Shades of Ianto
Author: sarcasticchick
Rating: Adult
Word Count: 34,165
Author's Summary: Ianto is more than just a teaboy.
Characters/Pairings: Ianto Jones, Jack/Ianto
Warnings: Muddled/dubious consent in chapter 4.

Recced because: This is an alternative view of Ianto Jones: his family, his heritage, his past and his abilities. It was written before Doctor Who Season 3 and Torchwood Season 2, so the information we discover from those wasn't available. I was, quite frankly, shocked that it hadn't already been recced.

In general, although there are exceptions other than this story, I don't enjoy Ianto protrayed as anything but a standard human with, at best, a middle class background. It is his humanity that I enjoy most about the character.

Shades of Ianto, however, although there's quite a bit of exceptional in both his background and heritage, keeps him "human"; he's still just a man in exceptional circumstances. He's not immortal, not overly powerful; he struggles with dealing with Canary Wharf, with Lisa, with Torchwood, with Jack. And it's those struggles that make the story.

I first read this story elsewhere, in which it was formatted as one long story. Here on Teaspoon, it's formatted as three; I've linked to the first "Prologue". There are two "Seasons" after that, but it is designed to be read as one story. The whole story is over 200,000 words.

Story: Innocence Bound
Author: Danse Macabre
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 15,616
Author's Summary: AU of my story 'Return To Innocence'. The machine that converted Ianto mysteriously breaks.
Characters/Pairings: Ianto Jones
Warnings: N/A

Recced because: This is the first story in a series also called Innocence Bound. It is also an AU of the author's previous story, from the end of chapter 21, in which the deaging machine doesn't work.

I enjoy this story because it is fluffy (although some of the later stories in the series are darker). We get to see the youngest member of Torchwood behaving as a child, with all of the delights, aggravations and horrors that that involves.

And we get to see Tish, who is a Whoverse minor character whose story I would have enjoyed seeing continued (at least a little bit); here, you see how the Year That Never Was affected her and is still affecting her.

And, since Ianto's memories aren't gone, we get a paternal Jack who knows there's a pretty good chance he'll get his lover back, along with additional time (even if it is watching the child grow up.)

Essentially, this story puts a smile on my face.

Story: The Children of Time Will Gather
Author: RobinC (lindenharp on Live Journal)
Rating: All
Word Count: 14,082
Author's Summary: After the events of Journey's End, the Doctor's friends and companions gather together to remember the past and to prepare for the future.
Characters/Pairings: Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Mickey Smith, Wilfrid Mott, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Luke Smith
Warnings: None

Recced because: Although this has the feel of a Journey's End fix-it, it isn't one. What it is is a look at how the people we see in Journey's End cope with the aftermath and with a threat to Donna. We see a wonderful friendship building up between the different characters that I truly wish were (shown in) canon.

Although I enjoy the entire story, my favorites are probably the UNIT officer's description of the events on the Valiant and what he calls the principal players and Wilf's role in the "performance" (because we need more Wilf).