CI5 hq

I'm wondering, is it always a mutual thing or can it be a feeling only one of them is experiencing?

Great photos.

Edited Date: 2021-04-15 12:44 pm (UTC)

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To be honest I was assuming it was only one of them, because if they both felt it and required it then presumably it would be resolved quicker... *g*

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I was thinking the opposite, that it rarely gets resolved quickly and that's what makes a story. But then I wondered if it could be just one person in which case it might fall into the unrequited love category. Just to muddle things a bit more...

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Hee — I'm definitely muddled... which is probably one reason why I thought yearning made more sense to me, whether it's one or both of them. Trouble is, my mind has gone blank (not helped by the fact I should have been working... *headdesk*) I just know that if I nipped into Circuit or somewhere and started re-reading I'd find loads of yearning fics, but I don't dare while I still have to finish work... *sighs*

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Me too! This is the trouble with thinking/musing aloud on paper - it commits you to something when you're not, really ready to commit but are still at the stage of just thinking/scrabbling around/striving to decide on what is meant. I thought when you wrote 'pining for each other' that you were thinking it was a mutual thing but then I took it a stage further and wondered about stories which had one doing the 'yearning' (good alternative) while the other one wasn't. Sort of. But deep down they're always both yearning, aren't they?!

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But deep down they're always both yearning, aren't they?!
Well that's what makes any Pros story a good Pros story for me! I mean, what else is a B/D story about?!

Okay, except for the ones where they're settled down together and wake up all warm and happy beside each other every day and deal with things together, which is a whole other vibe that I also love... *g*

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Yup, 'established relationship'. Quite a few of those stories.

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sc-fossil.livejournal.com

We just had that tagging discussion and of course, if this is UST, it's not tagged that way. It's tagged h/c. Redemption - Of a Sort: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11464173

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We just had that tagging discussion
You mean the one I linked to, or another one?

I guess you were the author of this fic, so you could tell me - is the story based around one of the lads yearning for the other? *g*

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sc-fossil.livejournal.com

I would say yes but then I'm bad at labelling! You don't have to add it, that's for sure.

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Well that's the trouble with "labelling" things — people don't see them the same way, so then the labels don't fit for everyone anyway...

But the important thing here is that you think it's about yearning, as the author! *g*

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tinturtle

Aftermath by gwyneth rhys
Ninety-Nine Yew Trees by Corvidology /

draycevixen
Screwged: or, Nanny's Christmas Carol by M. Fae Glasgow
Maybe Siren by Sebastian

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I couldn't decide about the Siren series myself, because it's requited pretty early on, but on the other hand there's still great lashings of yearning... *g* So I cheated and included it under Freezing, which is definite yearning. *g*

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tinturtle

I was thinking of the fic Siren in particular, rather than the whole series. I mean, it does include Doyle making Bodie cry by being so unattainable.

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Lol, that's true - I'll include it separately as well. *g*

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tinturtle

Ninety-Nine Yew Trees doesn't appear to have made it onto the master list.

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ella-caramella.livejournal.com

Love you for this post. Thanks 💕

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Hope we end up with a few you've not read! *g*

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tinturtle

Also...
Brass Tacks by Gloria Lancaster
Concatenation by

sineala

And, not quite in the usual way...
Altruism by Marrie
Burning Bridges by PFL /

msmoat
The Greatest Song I've Ever Heard (and sequel) by

jj_minerva *
The Last to Know by PR Zed /

przed

* I kept moving this one back and forth between the first and second groups.

Edited Date: 2021-04-16 11:59 am (UTC)

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I need to catch up with adding links — it's not forgotten, just mid-week overwhelmed by work! I know I'm here now replying, but if I get into a proper job like the links I'll lose more time than I'm allowed to just now. Later today though!

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tinturtle

Has anyone else noticed how much fics in which Bodie is pining after Doyle outnumber the reverse?

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I have. I don't know why... or wait, the Bodie-yearning fics seem to be the ones with lots of sex-kitten!Doyle too. Maybe by Doylw-fancying writers.

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tinturtle

If Doyle-fancying writers generate yearning-Bodie fics, then I'm not surprised that there are more. Almost everyone who expresses a preference seems to fancy Doyle more.

Yet I think it might be that, in canon, Bodie is much more transparently attached to Doyle than Doyle is to Bodie. Since Doyle is less demonstrative, it's easier to imagine him appearing unattainable.

Edited Date: 2021-04-21 10:22 am (UTC)

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Almost everyone who expresses a preference seems to be more attracted to Doyle.
Wow — so not my experience of people in Pros fandom, ever since 2005! The vast majority of people openly said they preferred Bodie, and every now and then there were discussions where people said they were unusual because they preferred Bodie and then everyone else jumped up and said oh-no-they-did-too, and said that in-the-past-Doyle-seemed-to-be-most-popular but now it was Bodie. I was one of the few people who said they liked/empathised with Doyle more than Bodie...

Since Doyle is less demonstrative
This is something else I've argued against in the past - I'd say Doyle is less obviously demonstrative, but actually there are lots of eps where we see him more subtly reaching out and touching Bodie etc. Bodie just makes a bigger deal of it. *g* I began doing a lads-touching-each-other series of reviews at

the_safehouse — I wonder if I can find a link... nope, spent way too much time looking, but my posts don't seem to have been tagged with anything (those

safehouse tags really need sorting out so we can find stuff more easily...) Anyway, what I saw was that Doyle actually reached out to Bodie alot more than people thought he did....

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tinturtle

Almost everyone who expresses a preference seems to be more attracted to Doyle.
Wow — so not my experience of people in Pros fandom, ever since 2005! The vast majority of people openly said they preferred Bodie...I was one of the few people who said they liked/empathised with Doyle more than Bodie...

Doyle is more like me, but Bodie has qualities opposite to some of those I dislike about myself, so I like Bodie better. That's my theory, anyway. He may also appeal to me because, being less like me, he is more puzzling.

My impression that most people are more attracted by Doyle's physical charms (not necessarily his character), comes from reading fic and from attending the Pros watches since last fall. I haven't seen much discussion on this topic, although I've read the report of a small survey that the Prosfanfic gen group conducted in 2003. In that survey 12 of 20 respondents preferred Doyle. There was some demographic information included in the report, but with such a small sample size, I am skeptical of its value. (I could download and send you the report if you haven't read it and would like to.)

Edited Date: 2021-04-21 06:49 pm (UTC)

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Yes, always interested in reports like that, and I'm not interested enough in the gen stuff to have delved into it very far (though I did eventually join that group, because there are a few "gen" authors who write true enough to the eps that I see what I see there *g*). And yeah, 20 people isn't exactly statistically significant, but I think you'd have to have pretty high numbers for this kind of question to be meaningful anyway. *g* And even then I'm not sure it would mean much, because a preference is just a preference... *g* But still - yes, thanks!

The US ProsWatch gang is a pretty specific group of people, and I think it includes most of the Doyle-fans that I was referring to with "one of the few people" *g* But it also includes more "cor, look at his arse in those tight jeans" than I'm fussed about, and I'm not sure that translates to the kind of fic preferences we're talking about. The gen group is a very different set of people, and I don't know anything about them (I was always put off by their often aggressively anti-slash comments, which is why I didn't join for so long), so can't comment there.

The vast majority of the I-prefer-Bodie crowd have vanished into the non-lj world, and I've no idea whether they're in fandom on other forums, or have just moved on. Things sure have changed here on Cowley's mountain.... (*sighs*)

I tend to be a bit put off by people declaring themselves "Bodie babes" or "Doyle dolls", because I'm really interested in both of them together. I can read just-Doyle-fic more easily than I can read just-Bodie-fic, because I'm more interested in how Doyle's head works - Bodie's much less interested in thinking about stuff in canon, shrugging through Doyle's questionings, and I'm always left a bit cold by that sort of attitude. Like I said, I empathise more with Doyle, and the way he thinks about wider issues, and I like the way he's prepared to take action (e.g. his sports club "mainly for the black kids in my area" in The Rack) rather than just talk about it. And he's not hard on the eye. *g* But I need all of that, not just the way his bum looks in tight jeans, to be interested.

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tinturtle

it also includes more "cor, look at his arse in those tight jeans" than I'm fussed about

That is not really my scene, either. Bodie and Doyle are both very much not my type, IYKWIM, and I don't really go in for that sort of thing, even in other contexts.

I'm not sure that translates to the kind of fic preferences we're talking about

No, although I still get the impression from reading fic that more people find Doyle physically attractive. If I had a dollar for every time I've run across the phrase "fallen angel face," well, I'd be able to buy myself a large dinner, at least. And Doyle does have an animal grace that even I notice.

I was always put off by their often aggressively anti-slash comments, which is why I didn't join for so long

Yes, I tend to find strict gen-only groups a bit scary, honestly. (See above.)

I tend to be a bit put off by people declaring themselves "Bodie babes" or "Doyle dolls", because I'm really interested in both of them together.

Indeed. It's the relationship that appeals to me. I sometimes say that my favorite genre is "doing something that matters with someone who matters to you." All of my favored fandoms have that pattern.

Edited Date: 2021-05-26 10:18 am (UTC)

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lots of sex-kitten!Doyle too. Maybe by Doylw-fancying writers
Take that back! I fancy Doyle but I'd never write him as sex-kitten!!

I think there was a period when Doyle was written more as sex-kitten/smaller man/delicate/sensitive etc., and I often wonder if most were by authors who hadn't actually seen Pros at the time, but were riffing off other people's Pros fic and so exacerbating the mis-writing. I was amazed to find that people write in fandoms where they've never seen the canon/eps even once (never mind lots of times, which I thought was basically the definition of being a fan), but turns out it was (and still is) common...

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It boggles me, too, especially when you can see Pros on Youtube! Why not?

In Starsky and Hutch, a new writer posted a story focused on "The Fix," probably the most popular episode. She described the set in a way that wasn't consistent with the ep. I pointed that out, and she replied that she hadn't seen the ep and didn't care what was in the set. It was her story, dammit! I backed off, but yeah, I don't see how you are writing FANfiction if you don't care what is in the actual media thing.

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tinturtle

Yes, writing fanfic in a fandom where you are unfamiliar with the canon seems very strange to me. On the other hand, I have sometimes read fanfic in fandoms where my acquaintance with canon was very slight. (I've only seen a couple episodes of Merlin, for example, and looked at summaries of some others, but I've read a number of Merlin fics.) Thus I can confirm that fic and canon do have independent existences. I suppose that what people who write fanfic without direct knowledge of canon are doing is writing fanfic for the fanfic they have read.

(I also read Master of the Revels without ever having seen Facelift, though I did read the Hatstand transcript and watch a clip of one of the musical numbers.)

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I eventually read some Pros cross-overs before I saw the other canon, because it was hard to get hold of, but I always felt that I was probably missing nuances that I would have caught if I'd known both fandoms (The Pros/Sentinel cross-overs are probably good examples). But reading fic and writing it are two very different things, with two very different results depending on whether you know the canon or not!

An example in Pros might be Asymphototropic's Pros stories - she's a competent writer, but I could never work out how she was seeing CI5 as a quasi-military organisation that spoke in a somewhat old-fashioned military-clique language among themselves. It turned out she'd seen a few Pros eps when she visited the UK years previously, and her stories were based on those vague memories and where her imagination took her. I betad a story or two for her, but even when I explained that such-and-such didn't exist for the lads in England at the time, let alone in canon, she was adamant about including it. So her Pros fics have entirely independent existences from canon - and I find them hard to read for that exact reason. Same with fics where the authors make the lads too soppy, or too broken to be in CI5 to start with (Angelfish became more and more an example of the latter).

I'd say Master of the Revels was almost entirely independent of Facelift anyway (and so much better!) — but if you're interested in seeing the film as a whole, let me know...*g*

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tinturtle

Same with fics where the authors make the lads...too broken to be in CI5 to start with

I can think of a number of examples of this type in MFU fandom.

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Yes. Poor little frail, vulnerable Illya. Um. In the alternate universe where those adjectives have any connection with him.

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tinturtle

Well, there is also the one where he was experimented on as a child in order to turn him into an soulless assassin completely devoid of empathy and given to extreme violence. But most of them are about frail, vulnerable Illya, yes.

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tinturtle

(He now mostly suppresses his soulless tendencies.)

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Especially in regard to Napoleon.

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