Prosfic Bingo: Illness/Injury

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

I suspect I am not going to be the only one to choose a story for this square that has the same warning (under cut).








Major character death.

"Un Seul Etre Vous Manque" which I translate as "You Miss Just One Person" by Airelle, is also an Older Lads story, at https://archiveofourown.org/works/311620

They're together. After CI5, they ran a consulting firm, and Bodie starts to be really dogged by fatigue. They see many specialists before finally getting a diagnosis that many modern readers may expect given the fatigue and weakness. I was happy to see that there was a clear diagnosis since it is actually more frank than was common in that era of "don't tell the patient." I dunno, that might have been an interesting scene or two, though I suppose their relationship might not have been recognised by the doctors either.

Anyway, their doctor starts to plan a course of treatment, and Bodie hates the idea of the side effects especially since the treatment will probably result in not much longer survival than treatment with painkillers only. There is not much time spent on these details. The moment I read the name of the course of treatment, I knew what was coming, though I wonder if I would have caught on when the story was new. Anyway, the story does not dwell on the illness' effects (fairly uncommon in the fics I have read that contain drastic injury). Bodie is not ill for very long. This is not a grief story either.

What this story is, is delicate. The prose is direct, clear, without the sharpness of some Pros fiction, but it does not allow us to wallow in either Bodie's suffering or Doyle's grief. As the title quote says, the absence of just one person renders the world empty. This isn't the only B/D story to point that out, but it is still true.

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

*puts comm mod hat firmly on head*

SPOILERS!!!! Please either edit your post and revise the spoilers so that they're not spoilers, or else put that part of your post under a cut, or under a spoiler cut.

It's fine to include spoilers in a story discussion/review, because that's what a review/discussion is by definition, but PLEASE don't force people to be spoiled by doing it outside a cut - we should all have a choice!

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

I'm so stupid about spoilers that I still can't see where they are here. I'll add the lj-cut and try again. Is it a spoiler to give the warning that is on the story? Maybe if I say it's the warning? Under the cut?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I'm so stupid about spoilers that I still can't see where they are here
The first sentence said that it's a death fic - that's a spoiler!

I do appreciate you've put it under the cut now, but I must admit that I'd still be peeved to open the cut and see the warning at the top of the post. It's one thing to read a review and be spoiled, but anyone opening the cut will be immediately spoiled by that warning on a separate line, because they can't avoid seeing it whether they choose to read the review further or not.

What I'd suggest is just giving a link to the story, with no information about warnings on your own post, because anyone going to the story will see the warning there. You really don't need to warn for things in a review, because people will go to the story. That way people who want warnings and want to be spoilered can choose to be, but people who don't want to be spoilered via warnings etc. won't be.

(In fact as it is now, people can't even go to the story through the link without being spoilered for it first...)

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I love Airelle's writing and had no idea this was up at the Archive so thanks very much for bringing it to my attention.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!