Professionals Reading Bingo: Post-Canon
Jan. 30th, 2021 07:55 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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ci5hqOkay – after a hellish work week (resulting in Teh Bad) and some other complications (not all resulting in Teh Bad), I’m back with another rec for the board for post-canon.
<\lights incense to the gods of the Pros Reading Bingo in hopes of acceptance>
My first definition of “post-canon” was a story that takes off after the last episode of the series. (There are a wonderful set of stories – drabbles? - which cover the ending of each episode. I thought about covering the drabble for the last episode. And of course I can’t find the series.)
But think about it: "post-canon" could be a canon episode that opens up a new story. A canon incident that opens up a new story.
A canon idea that opens up a story? Maybe. (Though I think![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
byslantedlight may have something to say about that. :D)
So my offering is Paper Chase bymoonlightmead which springs from the second season episode, Rogue.
(And to seal the criterion deal: there’s even a reference to the infamous desk scene in The Acorn Syndrome, which is also chronologically consistent within the story. Go, Meady!)
Barry Martin made himself a thorn in the side of CI5 in Rogue - and in the end, made his own bed, as well.
It’s five years on. Martin is long gone, CI5 continues, and Bodie and Doyle have become partners in all ways. But a reminder of Martin has surfaced: an encrypted notebook of potentially incriminating information - possible blackmail fodder - that he kept. It's of interest to CI5, MI5, MI6, the KGB, and the press – at the very least.
It's known to contain notes on CI5, so Cowley sends Bodie and Doyle to retrieve the book and keep their doorstep clean.
It’s bad enough that the book targets CI5; it may also mention Bodie and Doyle specifically – and their relationship isn’t known to anyone. So they must retrieve it and prevent the contents from spilling.
Easier said than done.
Moonlight Mead wrote this fic for the 2013 Pros Big Bang. She and I used to trade ideas and beta each other’s fics, and I liked the realism in her style. Given a time in which homosexuality had only recently been decriminalized, and attitudes had yet to catch up, would Cowley be accepting of a relationship among his ranks? Even if it was known only to him? And as much as the fen might wish it, I don’t think there’s such a cut-and-dried answer to that (which she explored in more detail in her 2014 Big Bang story, Whistle Blower).
Her loss, plus the loss of a few others in the same timeframe, really left a gap in the fandom. I hope she is off in the ether, writing all the Pros fic she never got to create here.
And, with Pros Reading Bingo - I encourage folks to continue on with posting, until the grid is complete. (That’s how we’ve done it with the office Xmas party, anyway!) This has been fun, and it’s unearthed quite a few new things to read.
<\lights incense to the gods of the Pros Reading Bingo in hopes of acceptance>
My first definition of “post-canon” was a story that takes off after the last episode of the series. (There are a wonderful set of stories – drabbles? - which cover the ending of each episode. I thought about covering the drabble for the last episode. And of course I can’t find the series.)
But think about it: "post-canon" could be a canon episode that opens up a new story. A canon incident that opens up a new story.
A canon idea that opens up a story? Maybe. (Though I think
byslantedlight may have something to say about that. :D)So my offering is Paper Chase by
moonlightmead which springs from the second season episode, Rogue.(And to seal the criterion deal: there’s even a reference to the infamous desk scene in The Acorn Syndrome, which is also chronologically consistent within the story. Go, Meady!)
Barry Martin made himself a thorn in the side of CI5 in Rogue - and in the end, made his own bed, as well.
It’s five years on. Martin is long gone, CI5 continues, and Bodie and Doyle have become partners in all ways. But a reminder of Martin has surfaced: an encrypted notebook of potentially incriminating information - possible blackmail fodder - that he kept. It's of interest to CI5, MI5, MI6, the KGB, and the press – at the very least.
It's known to contain notes on CI5, so Cowley sends Bodie and Doyle to retrieve the book and keep their doorstep clean.
It’s bad enough that the book targets CI5; it may also mention Bodie and Doyle specifically – and their relationship isn’t known to anyone. So they must retrieve it and prevent the contents from spilling.
Easier said than done.
Moonlight Mead wrote this fic for the 2013 Pros Big Bang. She and I used to trade ideas and beta each other’s fics, and I liked the realism in her style. Given a time in which homosexuality had only recently been decriminalized, and attitudes had yet to catch up, would Cowley be accepting of a relationship among his ranks? Even if it was known only to him? And as much as the fen might wish it, I don’t think there’s such a cut-and-dried answer to that (which she explored in more detail in her 2014 Big Bang story, Whistle Blower).
Her loss, plus the loss of a few others in the same timeframe, really left a gap in the fandom. I hope she is off in the ether, writing all the Pros fic she never got to create here.
And, with Pros Reading Bingo - I encourage folks to continue on with posting, until the grid is complete. (That’s how we’ve done it with the office Xmas party, anyway!) This has been fun, and it’s unearthed quite a few new things to read.
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no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 06:29 am (UTC)Hope you've gotten a chance to read some of Moonlight Mead's works. She brought a lot to the fandom.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 02:33 pm (UTC)I was going to suggest the coda series, but I see
I haven't read all of
I've always think with Cowley you have to remember he would have lived and served during the war. Although the services didn't suspend the ban on gay people, they were desperate for conscripts and a kind of quasi 'don't ask, don't tell' operated. You only have to look a 'Gloria' in 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Ain%27t_Half_Hot_Mum)'.
That generation, Cowley's generation, voted in the post-war Labour landslide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_United_Kingdom_general_election), a victory often put down to the forces vote, which ousted Churchill's pre-war mindset, the sort of mindset which broke the 1926 General Strike (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_United_Kingdom_general_strike), and which would have been still fresh in memory, despite the levelling effect of the war policies, and founded the NHS and Welfare State — and which went on to decriminalise both homosexuality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_Act_1967) and abortion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_Act_1967), and liberalise the divorce laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_in_England_and_Wales). All of this latter legislation came to fruition twenty years after the war in the so-called 'swinging sixties' (they didn't swing much outside of Carnaby Street — very repressive social norms still obtained — in my view social liberalisation crept in during the seventies when the stigma around divorce dissipated and co-habiting and un-wed mothers became more acceptable).
They'd become sick of unnecessary misery (except in NI, where unnecessary misery continued for decades up to the present day).
My take on it is that Cowley would have served with men he knew to be gay, but also respected as comrades in arms and for their courage under fire. 'In The Public Interest' doesn't answer the question because, although he's been approached about gay bashing, Cowley's response is more likely to have been driven by a distaste for vigilantism. But I do suspect Cowley may have imported a little of that 'don't ask, don't tell' ethos. One of the things that makes me think this is Doyle's run in with the female martial arts devotee — Bodie explicitly states that he's checked, and the 'good news is she likes men' or words to that effect — which leads me to believe that although Bodie is happy to use 'phobic phrases such as 'cream puff', which along with casual racism were common currency at the time, Bodie didn't take heterosexual recruitment for granted.
Lesbianism was never illegal — but it carried much of the same social stigma and was subject to many of the same exclusions.
I've thought about this quite a bit, and I keep meaning to do a proper discussion of it (probably over at
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 07:38 pm (UTC)Going off at a tangent (as they say) slightly, that's an interesting question in itself! Homosexuality vs. vigilantism: what's the biggest curse or threat to society? Answers on a postcard, please. I think, apart from having his own particular set of 'principles' (which involved shooting people in the back whenever necessary), Cowley was also very much a pragmatist and so could, under certain conditions, accept homosexuality but would never accept the destabilising effects of people taking the law into their own hands. A shame really because I think for the right cause it could be great fun, but that's just me.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 08:02 pm (UTC)I swear, one of these days, I expect to read in your journal that you have stormed the barricades! 🤣
But the law isn't always right, and where it isn't, I think people have a legitimate right of protest — or indeed, where the law is not in error, but the alternative view point is equally, and perhaps more morally, valid (like the Poll Tax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax#Great_Britain)). It would be fun to explore just how far down that avenue Cowley would be prepared to venture...
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 09:48 pm (UTC)(Sorry didn't have a relevant Pros icon!)
Date: 2021-01-31 10:11 pm (UTC)George Cowley in Death Wish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Wish_(1974_film)) 13 — there's a thought!
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 03:08 pm (UTC)I miss MLM. She was a sweet person and such fun!
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 08:19 pm (UTC)I think the laws of the time are important (because we are all shaped by our times), unless you've gone off on an AU, elf-fic in space tangent! In which case, knock yourself out.
Personally, I get a bit thrown by stories where everything is viewed through a rose-tinted prism, but are still supposed to be authentically canon in vibe. But, on the other hand, it has to be remembered that gay people have always found ways to have relationships, and that not all of those clandestine relationships ended badly — even if they were career ending.
So you could have S&H or B&D drummed out of the service, but still have your happy ever after. Lots of people give up a job in favour of being with their partner. And Bodie's already on his fourth career, and Doyle his second (if you discount artist and gigolo) — and S&H do a mean mime...
Or maybe they're wiley enough to get away with it, maybe with the help of friends. There are often clandestine networks around clandestine activities — and not all of them act for ill.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-01 12:23 am (UTC)But you've worked so hard to get the only line in the Bingo card that I think you have to have this anyway. *g*
I know I've read this one, but I can't for the life of me remember it, so I shall add it to my re-read list. Cheers!
Given a time in which homosexuality had only recently been decriminalized, and attitudes had yet to catch up, would Cowley be accepting of a relationship among his ranks?
The question that launched a thousand Prosfics, that one! I'd almost go so far as to say it's at the heart of almost every canon-based Pros fic, because it really does need to be dealt with in some way if our lads are going to be together... or even get together. Every story needs some kind of tension to be readable, and that one's built in to Pros.