Reading Room Theme IV - Older Lads Fic - Fire Held High and Away by Miriam Heddy

[starlite876.livejournal.com]

Title: Fire Held High and Away
Author: Miriam Heddy
Link to story or zine/ProsLib info: at the Circuit Archive or at the Hatstand Archive or on the ProsLib CD or in The Bisto Kids zine
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle

The title of the story is explained in the first couple of paragraphs which describes how the person who holds the Olympic Torch must to strike a balance when running and holding the Olympic Torch - that the torch must be held high and away or else the torch bearer would be burnt by the fire.



The story is written entirely from Bodie's POV and begins right after Involvement when Ann has left Doyle. The story then skips forward a couple of years and now the lads are no longer part of the 'A' squad but still with CI5. Doyle is being groomed to be Cowley's successor, while Bodie is working in the training centre, having taking over Macklin's job.

Although the lads are no longer partners on the streets, there are still best friends and rely on each other both at work and off work. When Doyle is stressed and frustrated with dealing with the bureaucracy it is Bodie who tries and cheers him up. Most of the time off work they spend together in each other's company. Although Bodie is bisexual in this story, they are not lovers (at least not at the start of the story).

We see the day-to-day lives of the lads both at work and off work, and the sneakiness of Doyle to orchestrate them into sharing a flat together. The move from friendship into something more is well written and I love the fact that Bodie had absolutely no idea of what Doyle was up to.

But what works for me best in this story is the banter between the lads - sharp and witty, and seem so true to what we see of the lads on screen.

Did this story work for you?

Do you think it is possible that either one or both of the lads would/could be groomed to takeover from Cowley? This seems to be a common premise in many Older Lads stories - for example, the story in last week's review had Doyle second-in-charge of CI5. In other Older Lads stories both Bodie and Doyle are "co-controllers" of CI5. Do you think it would take both lads to do Cowley's job? Or would one lad be more successful than the other, and if so who would be more successful as controller of CI5?

I will most likely not be able to access my computer for the next 24 hours due to the time zone differences and work commitments (I'm on a training course to learn about the thrilling subject of Project Management Life Cycle *snooze* ) so please discuss amongst yourselves and I hope to be able to come back to the LJ and read everyone's comments soon.

Comments

Miriam Heddy's Take On "Bodie's Bodies"

[taverymate.livejournal.com]

Posting this as a separate comment rather than an individual reply to several folks above since it seems like a lively discussion (yay!) and I hate it when comments collapse and links get lost.

Here's where fandom longevity, a good memory (at least for things fannish *g*), and a collector's enthusiasm come in handy.

Back in 1999, Miriam posted an essay at the Fanfic Symposium called "Bodie's Bodies". It was the second essay posted at the Symposium. (The Fanfic Symposium was/is a website that hosted essays by authors on various fanfiction topics. It was active 1999-2006 and the essays remain online and available; there are over 100 essays, IIRC, and many are classics. Still highly recommended for any fan in any fandom, particularly if you are interested in how fandoms change over time.)

I'd urge everyone to read Miriam's essay for themselves, as it's relevant not only to this particular story discussion but Pros discussion in general, and fanfiction in the larger sense.

Bodie's Bodies by Miriam Heddy:
hxxp://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp2.htm

REPLACE hxxp with http - LJ is screening the comment as spam when the full link is used due to CI5hq community default settings apparently. (I need to confirm that with the mods.)


Miriam critiques the tendency that many fanfiction writers, and fen more generally, have to rewrite (on paper or in discussion) male bodies in slash so that they are thinner and ignore the physical reality of the character/actor's actual body.

Miriam's essay is relatively short, and deserves to be read in its entirety (really, it's not that long - go read!). But extracting from an excellent essay, here are a few favorite quotes of mine:

SNIP
"A man who seems familiar to us, like Bodie, falls under the spell of a slash writer, and miraculously, magically, can gets an entirely new body."

SNIP - Emphasis mine, not Miriam's!
"Maybe only thin, strong men with hard toned abs and rippling muscles are sexy. Maybe there's a correlative between taut abdomens and potency. Maybe a Bodie with a belly is impossible.

Perhaps the eroticism would come crashing down under the sheer weight of reality.

In our rapture with the written word, we might forget, for a moment, that bodies are matter. That bodies do matter. Bodies are flesh and blood, skin and bone, tendons and muscles and fat. And ink and pixels, of course."

SNIP
"Sex is more than cookie cutter bodies inhabited by voices and minds. Slash is more than Tab A in Slot B. Bodies, like characters, like personalities, are distinctive, individual, sensual, sensuous, and unique.

As are our stories."

SNIP
"There is pleasure in bodies that are soft and lush and there is an eroticism that is still waiting to be written.

There is a Swiss roll in the middle of the room, and nobody is talking about it. Until now. We may think that we can just make it go away, if we stay silent.

But some of us are ravenous, consumptive, insatiable. Some of us are hungry.

Some of us know that pleasure cannot truly be set free until bodies are.

Until Bodie is.

Until we set ourselves free, remove our stays, and taste the forbidden fruit."


I'd add that over the years, Miriam has posted a number of other excellent critiques of weight, fat, feminism, body image, and fanfiction in various permutations in her livejournal and on other forums and discussion sites. That includes the ways in which female characters' weight/body is treated, which differ significantly from how a male character's weight/body is treated. But weight/body image is by no mean her raison d'etre - Miriam is far from being a one trick pony.

And least anyone think this phenomenon of magically fitter males is restricted to Pros, it's been hotly debated since Star Trek (the original series) over forty years ago.

I'd also add that a related issues is how aging bodies are treated in fan fiction. Particularly relevant to Pros is how Cowley, as an older character with an aging body - with a canon disability - is (mis)treated by writers. But that's perhaps a discussion best saved for another post. *wry grin*

Re: Miriam Heddy's Take On "Bodie's Bodies"

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

That is really, really interesting. Thanks a lot. Now I understand your wording that puzzled me when I saw your first reply, about conflating how this author and other authors deal with it.

I think I would still maintain that people build a lot on that one swiss roll. As I said, it puzzles me why there is all the chocolate and sweet stuff in fanfic. Why not chips, or sandwiches, or meals out in restaurants? So I take it from the essay that she's deliberately making a point by using something associated with indulgence and sensuality. That aspect would probably work better for me if I actually liked chocolate that much myself! - but I do know that most people do.

But even if she is deliberately reacting against a tendency she doesn't like, I'm afraid from outside, not knowing this, it just seemed a particularly clear example of a tendency I don't like!

So the thing that strikes me there is - and I fully expect that this too has been debated to death over the years of fandom, and I'd be astonished if it hadn't - how much knowledge of the author affects how you read a story. Again, something for another day, I imagine.

Re: Miriam Heddy's Take On "Bodie's Bodies"

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

how much knowledge of the author affects how you read a story. Again, something for another day, I imagine.
Oh, please post the question one day soon, I've been pondering about this myself for a while now! *g*

Re: Miriam Heddy's Take On "Bodie's Bodies"

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for the link - and I'm glad you were able to get it into the open eventually! I shall have to go back and browse that forum, I can see interesting discussions arising... *g*

Meanwhile - interestingly, alot of the talk in various ljs/comms over the last couple of years has emphasised how much people prefer Bodie when he has got a bit of a tum on him... I wonder if it is somehow a slight fashion thing, and in 1999 the people around did seem to prefer pared-down-Bodie? Was that more general in society, or...?

I must admit I prefer the lads when they're leaner, but that's personal preference (and I also have a highly developed political sense that men and women can be adored for things other than the current media-led take on what's "attractive" and what isn't, which is generally weight-driven, and my preference hasn't always matched body-types of guys I've dated, so... yeah, I'm pretty sure it's personal preference in my case - but then perhaps everyone says that!)

I have to admit that my growl often goes another way - that whilst women are expected to be thin and thus beautiful throughout life (by women as well as men), men seem to be forgiven their "cute beer bellies" much more easily. And criticism of women in Pros is often along the lines of how "ugly" they are, whereas people tend not to comment on whether other male agents/villains/characters are unattractive (though they might be noticed if they are perceived as attractive - I've seen such comments about van Niekirk, for instance). But that too is a different discussion... *g*

It'd be interesting to compare descriptions of the lads' bodies throughout the 30+ years of Pros fandom - so much to do, not enough time...

Re: Miriam Heddy's Take On "Bodie's Bodies"

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reminder! I think I haven't thought of the Fanfic Symposium since I lost all my links two or three year ago.

"Miriam critiques the tendency that many fanfiction writers, and fen more generally, have to rewrite (on paper or in discussion) male bodies in slash so that they are thinner and ignore the physical reality of the character/actor's actual body."
" I'm hesitant to offer an explanation, as I'm sure that someone out there has the equivalent of rose-colored glasses and really does, honestly and sincerely, attempt to convey just what she sees on screen. It just happens that she can only see Bodie during that brief period of time during which Lewis Collins was quite unusually thin. She can't really help that, can she?"

Thinking of that, I would say that the advantage of fanfiction is hat we all know what/who we are talking about. Therefore there is no need of too detailed descriptions. Maybe some well known piece of clothing is used sometimes. :-)
The moment they get undressed? Hmmmmm... I really can't say that in most (modern?) stories there is a frequent use of bodily rhapsody. Of course they are lean and strong and they have muscles etc...But why not? They are fit agents! I also have heard more than once that Doyle IS teasing Bodie with his light belly. That they care for each other for being too slim after an injury.
And in older lads stories they have – due to their job – some weaknesses or even handicaps.

Maybe reading, more than seeing, depends on the reader! So if an author describes Doyle as thin/smaller/catlike/fairylike..., I still have MY picture of him in mind while I read the story!
So I can live with such a description – as long as it’s not repeated too often(twice)...

(That doesn’t work with some art, where the artist shows Doyle indeed completely wrong(for my eyes).

So bodily descriptions never have been a big problem for me - as long Doyle isn't the small elf and Bodie the bulky Hulk, and that's IMO very seldom in (modern) stories!

Maybe the symposium had something to do with that? :-)