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crack_van2004-11-27 11:22 am
justacat.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2004-11-27 11:22 am
Entry tags:
Voice-over, by Elizabeth O'Shea (PG)
Fandom: THE PROFESSIONALS
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Author on LJ: No
Author's Website: No
Why this must be read:
Most of the stories I'm reccing here are stories I've read countless times - the zines or printouts sit on the table by my bed (which is about to collapse under their weight), and I turn to them again and again. Tonight, though, I'm reccing a story that I read for the first time just today; it just appeared in Proslib (and now on the Circuit Archive).
Voice-over is a story within a story: Bodie lies in a coma, and Doyle is exhorted by the doctors to talk to him, "let him hear your voice." Doyle, though he feels a bit self-conscious about the whole thing, obeys, but after three days of telling witty anecdotes and reading the sports pages, he's run out of standard "happy" material. So he decides to talk about one of the best nights of his life: his and Bodie's first night "together." It's a story Bodie knows, obviously, but that doesn't stop Doyle, lucky for us, because oh, it's a killer of a story, sweet and moving and hilarious in its own way, filled with Ray's meandering asides about what was going on in his head at the time and what he's thinking and feeling now.
The entire story, then, consists of Doyle "talking" to Bodie. This is a difficult device to pull off well, but the author not only makes it work, she makes it work brilliantly. The flow and pacing are amazing; the asides and interjections and interruptions feel so natural and so real, as Ray bounces between fond nostalgia and a kind of desperate effort to stay positive and avoid despair in the face of Bodie's continuing unresponsiveness. The characterizations and voices - for both characters - are as close to perfect as I think I've ever read, the author captures their mannerisms and inflections and their trademark bantering taking-the-piss from each other so well it's almost uncanny. These are the lads I know and love so well, the Bodie and Doyle who live in my mind.
And the feeling ... this is a story that makes you feel. The story Ray relates is such a lovely depiction of the tentativeness and hopefulness of new love, of two men trying their best to maintain cool and macho fronts (they're guys, after all!) but pretty much failing, because they are just so irredeemably, undeniably in love. And though it's (sort of) a "first time" story that Ray recounts, the way they deal with how things go so almost humorously wrong that first night serves to illustrate that this is a bond that has its roots in something much deeper than surface attraction and romance. You can see that bond, and the depth of their feeling, in Ray's monologue; while the story of their first night is a happy tale, the telling of it paradoxically makes him all the more aware of what Bodie means to him and what he stands to lose. Again he attempts to keep up the CI5-agent front, but it's a bit of a half-hearted attempt, and you can so clearly see the depth of his emotions as he struggles not to give in to fear and hopelessness - the love in his voice, no matter what the actual words, shines through so clearly it makes you ache.
This is a gorgeous, heart-warming, masterfully-told story, by an author with great talent and skill. If your tastes are anything like mine, it'll make you weepy, it'll make you laugh, it'll make you smile, and it'll make you long for more.
Voice-over
(Originally published in the zine Roses and Lavender 3, Allamagoosa Press, 1999)
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Author on LJ: No
Author's Website: No
Why this must be read:
Most of the stories I'm reccing here are stories I've read countless times - the zines or printouts sit on the table by my bed (which is about to collapse under their weight), and I turn to them again and again. Tonight, though, I'm reccing a story that I read for the first time just today; it just appeared in Proslib (and now on the Circuit Archive).
Voice-over is a story within a story: Bodie lies in a coma, and Doyle is exhorted by the doctors to talk to him, "let him hear your voice." Doyle, though he feels a bit self-conscious about the whole thing, obeys, but after three days of telling witty anecdotes and reading the sports pages, he's run out of standard "happy" material. So he decides to talk about one of the best nights of his life: his and Bodie's first night "together." It's a story Bodie knows, obviously, but that doesn't stop Doyle, lucky for us, because oh, it's a killer of a story, sweet and moving and hilarious in its own way, filled with Ray's meandering asides about what was going on in his head at the time and what he's thinking and feeling now.
The entire story, then, consists of Doyle "talking" to Bodie. This is a difficult device to pull off well, but the author not only makes it work, she makes it work brilliantly. The flow and pacing are amazing; the asides and interjections and interruptions feel so natural and so real, as Ray bounces between fond nostalgia and a kind of desperate effort to stay positive and avoid despair in the face of Bodie's continuing unresponsiveness. The characterizations and voices - for both characters - are as close to perfect as I think I've ever read, the author captures their mannerisms and inflections and their trademark bantering taking-the-piss from each other so well it's almost uncanny. These are the lads I know and love so well, the Bodie and Doyle who live in my mind.
And the feeling ... this is a story that makes you feel. The story Ray relates is such a lovely depiction of the tentativeness and hopefulness of new love, of two men trying their best to maintain cool and macho fronts (they're guys, after all!) but pretty much failing, because they are just so irredeemably, undeniably in love. And though it's (sort of) a "first time" story that Ray recounts, the way they deal with how things go so almost humorously wrong that first night serves to illustrate that this is a bond that has its roots in something much deeper than surface attraction and romance. You can see that bond, and the depth of their feeling, in Ray's monologue; while the story of their first night is a happy tale, the telling of it paradoxically makes him all the more aware of what Bodie means to him and what he stands to lose. Again he attempts to keep up the CI5-agent front, but it's a bit of a half-hearted attempt, and you can so clearly see the depth of his emotions as he struggles not to give in to fear and hopelessness - the love in his voice, no matter what the actual words, shines through so clearly it makes you ache.
This is a gorgeous, heart-warming, masterfully-told story, by an author with great talent and skill. If your tastes are anything like mine, it'll make you weepy, it'll make you laugh, it'll make you smile, and it'll make you long for more.
Voice-over
(Originally published in the zine Roses and Lavender 3, Allamagoosa Press, 1999)
no subject
To take us into this amazingly intimate space, to recreate Doyle's voice so perfectly, to ride the edge between humor, despair, past and present so effortlessly...
That says it *exactly*. It touches you on so many levels - that sweet smile is a killer, and Bodie's first words ... reading this story gives you that feeling of laughing and crying all at once. If I weren't already obsessed and madly in love with them, this would do it for me - as it is, as you say, makes me fall in love all over again ... This is a rare piece of writing, something to really treasure; it brings to life the relationship my little slashy heart longs for in a way that few stories do.