Pros Rec Challenge -- Through the Heart by Dee

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Through the Heart by Dee.

It was a pretty standard 'first time' story. It wasn't poorly written by any means, but I've seen this same plot play out thousands of times across multiple slash fandoms. How much you enjoy this fic will probably depend on how often you've encountered this same plot before.

Comments

[roven75.livejournal.com]

I thought the beginning was ok, and I liked the writing style and the descriptions well enough. But I found after the a third of the story my interest was fading quickly - somehow the story deflates towards the middle and end, at least for me.

In addition, I usually have a problem with this "we're just good mates but suddenly I realized I love you/want to ravish you now" sort of thing.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm just tired of the formula:

1. Character A realizes he's in love with Character B

2. A agonizes over his love and hides it from B

3. A eventually blurts out an inadvertent confession of love

4. B admits to loving A all along

5. A & B have sex for the entire rest of the story

The only thing that surprised me was that Bodie and Doyle went to work the next morning. Usually, the big confession of love happens on a Friday so the characters can have sex continuously for the entire weekend.

[roven75.livejournal.com]

The only thing that surprised me was that Bodie and Doyle went to work the next morning. Usually, the big confession of love happens on a Friday so the characters can have sex continuously for the entire weekend.

Hehe so true *g*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The poor old fic was only written in 1985 - it must all have been much newer back then... *g*

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I started reading fic back in 1985 (picked up my first zine at a MUNCLE convention). Since fic had been around for 20 years already by then, I don't think that plot was all that new then either.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Lol - well, we could go all the way back to there's no plot new under the sun if we wanted, but I was only talking in Pros terms, I'm afraid, and said that it was newer...

But you're saying there was slash fanfiction as early as c1965? I've not heard that claim anywhere else - I thought slash was generally considered to have begun with Star Trek in the 1970s.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Slash did start with Star Trek, but Star Trek was on the 1960s. People didn't wait until it had been off the air for a decade before they started writing fic.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely ST was on in the 1960s (1966 I believe it was first shown?), but I've been led to believe that slashing K/S didn't start immediately, and not until (in any major way) the 1970s. Obviously we can't track the people who were doing for themselves at home, but which/where/what/when would you say was the earliest ST slash fic, then?

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

No idea. I'm not a Trek fan. But I find it difficult to believe that people were only suddenly struck by the slash a decade after they watched the show.

Ultimately it doesn't really matter. The point is that fic had been around for awhile by 1985, so fic can't be assumed to be the earliest example of a given plot just because it was written back then.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hmmn - well, it does take a while for things to come out in the open and turn into a mass-movement/sharing fic etc, and I'd guess that's what happened with ST, based on various conversations I've had with older fans who were there at the time, as well as what it says in articles in Fanlore and Wikipedia, for example. But as you say - it's unlikely that no one was doing it, it just wasn't being widely circulated even amongst friends.

The point is that fic had been around for awhile by 1985, so fic can't be assumed to be the earliest example of a given plot just because it was written back then
I quite agree - that wasn't what I was saying in my comment! I was interested in the idea that a plot which was newer (not "new") in 1985 is being read in a completely different context now, with the extra 25 years of history of Pros itself, and also the myriad other fandoms with their own stories. I was generally musing out loud that all that additional time and fandom experience means we read the older stories with different expectations, which probably won't match up to the way and reasons people were writing back then (eg, the first-second-third wave theories of slash fandom etc). Not, of course, that I explained all that in my original comment... *g*

[constant-muse.livejournal.com]

Your review interested me because I don't read in other fandoms - so this is standard fare, eh? Can well imagine it.

I agree with 1. A suddenly realising he loves/desires B, esp. when A hasn't been attracted to a member of the same sex before and has known character B for years, is too implausible.

There is some lovely wit and humour in this fic,
If Doyle were a racehorse, I'd be a Clydesdale. A good-looking Clydesdale, to be certain...,
but the major problem I had with this was the vocabulary of Bodie's narrative (since we were in Bodie's first-person POV) - he seemed to have swallowed the dictionary.
I'm all for Bodie being more cultured than the thuggish persona he puts on, but he's unlikely to think in terms like 'physical delectation'.

I lied, I do read in the micro-fandom that is Raffles the (Victorian) gentleman thief, where Moved by a faint remembrance of the necessities of the real world awaiting us on the morrow would still be a bit OTT.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

There are people writing Raffles fic? Based on the books or the TV series?

but the major problem I had with this was the vocabulary of Bodie's narrative (since we were in Bodie's first-person POV) - he seemed to have swallowed the dictionary.

That seems to happen a lot in 1st person POV fics. The character's internal monologue sounds more like the author than the character.

[squeeful.livejournal.com]

This is the internet. There is fic, somewhere, for everything. Usually porn.

[constant-muse.livejournal.com]

That seems to happen a lot in 1st person POV fics. There's a balance to be struck, obviously. I don't think I've ever read an actual stream of consciousness Pros fic, but to me the narrative at least should keep the vocab I think the character would use.

Raffles fic? Based on the books or the TV series? Mainly the stories, which are more slashy, srsly. I don't distinguish though because the TV series was close to the stories, apart from adding female characters to dilute the homoeroticism. If you're interested, there's a bijou little comm at crimeandcricket.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link.

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

I must agree. There are far too many first time stories of that kind around.
And this one doesn't stand out with an extraordinairy idea or a witty or at least convincing style... I really had problems with the first person narrative style , because that doesn't sound like Bodie.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It was apparently written in 1985 though - alot fewer of this type of story around back then, presumably... *g* I wonder if we're asking more of stories now since we have so very many to read - and it makes us extra critical of older fic, cos the ideas of then aren't what we're looking for now...

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

I don't hope so - no look, there are so many classics that are copied and rewritten over the centuries, but nonetheless they can withstand each comparison because they 'are better'. No, I don't think that the time is important here!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I expect it was alot more original in 1985, when it was apparently written... It's a scary thought, though - do we dismiss earlier fiction more easily because we've become used to plots etc that were new to them? (Not that there's anything special about this "plot" anyway, but...)

There are still some nice lines and ideas here though. I particularly liked, about Doyle:
It wasn't so much the way his body was put together, as the way he moved it around, I decided.

And gaaaargh! I know it was presumably harder to find these things out pre-internet (although this is a really obvious one), but... No "candy" shops! Sweet shops! "Candy" is one of those American words that just smacks me around the face when it's used in a Pros story. Not that the word was never used here, but not in that everyday way that Americans use it at home. I thought she'd done really well, language-wise too, up until then!

[londonronnie.livejournal.com]

do we dismiss earlier fiction more easily because we've become used to plots etc that were new to them?

And not only new back in 1985, but also new to all the present-day readers who are discovering fanfic for the first time, of course.

When I first started reading Pros slash back in 2002 I read and thoroughly enjoyed fic that had been written ten, fifteen, twenty years earlier, and I've no doubt that those same stories had already been dismissed as 'old hat' by people who'd already been in the fandom for many years. The point is, it was all new to me, and that was the important thing from my point of view.

I don't think a story should be dismissed simply because the premise isn't new. It's always going to be new to somebody!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

but also new to all the present-day readers who are discovering fanfic for the first time, of course
Good point! Exactly the same happened to me (but several years after you, of course *g*) and I can see it happening to other people who've more recently discovered fanfic too. I actually "discovered" m/m romance at the same time as discovering Pros, and it's been great fun going through the whole experience, right from this-is-new! to... well, now! *g* The reverse happens to me now too though, I am more jaded about what now seems to me the more "cliched" fic - often stories that I remember loving the first time I read them, and now wince at!

But I agree - we should be careful of "dismissing" anything on the idea of "this plot is too old/hackneyed/cliched"... or at least, we can dismiss it on one level, but not as a sweeping generalisation for everyone... which should be true of everything, of course... *g*

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I don't think a story should be dismissed simply because the premise isn't new. It's always going to be new to somebody!

Which is why I said, "How much you enjoy this fic will probably depend on how often you've encountered this same plot before." If it's new to you, you'll probably like it.

Fair or unfair, I can't magically erase from my memory the hundreds of fics across dozens of fandoms I've read over the last 25 years with this same plot and approach this one with a clean slate.