By Slanted Light

It's been an odd day so far, due to a late night working, and I've been feeling completely thrown off. I wanted to start posting Seventy Days of Summer posts the other day too, but didn't manage it so now I feel like I've missed my chance cos we're two days past solstice (but I'll make myself start today instead), and just... blargh!

And then - look what popped into my inbox today, just in time to cheer me up and start me feeling summer-y again! The lads on a perfect day out. *g* It's posted from ProsLib (thank you hagsrus!), which I hope everyone's signed up for, because how fab is it to have Pros arrive in your inbox, and just sit quietly gazing at you until you take some time off to read? *g*

It's a lovely story - the lads away in the countryside together (naturally together, who else would they be with? *g*), wandering peacefully around, and taking us with them. Beautifully written of course, as expected from our f_m_parkinson, so that I could feel the air of the countryside around me, all clear and calm up on top of the fort, and the green grass beneath, and... Well, you should read it, it's a total tonic. *g*


(the pic's nothing to do with the story, except that it's another lovely moment between them in the countryside. *g*)

So I might be setting myself up for a fall here (ha! autumn? fall? Geddit? *g*), especially since I've already really missed the first day, but... I'd been thinking for ages about posting a month of autumn, and/or posting a lead-up to Halloween, and I think I'm still going to do it! I've just been feeling a bit dreggy lately, and like I said the other day week, autumn is my favourite season, so... Right. Gonna do it. *g* (And still do icons, too. Get better at doing my icon posts, cos I got behind there too. I'm nothing if not optimistic... *g*

So - every day in October is an autumn day, from now on! And it's also a lead-up-to-Halloween day, because I like spooky things, and I miss eldritchhobbit's Halloween Countdown, which I know is still over on DW, but I hardly ever go there, and adding one more thing to my list of stuff to read... well, it'll either hold up work even more, or won't get done. I wish there was a programme that brought together all the different forums you wanted to read, and let you comment from there too (like lj flists, but for all blogs and forums that you sign up to...)

Poetry for October
“I am made for autumn. Summer and I have a fickle relationship, but everything about autumn is perfect to me. Wooly jumpers, Wellington boots, scarves, thin first, then thick, socks. The low slanting light, the crisp mornings, the chill in my fingers, those last warm sunny days before the rain and the wind. Her moody hues and subdued palate punctuated every now and again by a brilliant orange, scarlet or copper goodbye. She is my true love.”
- Alys Fowler (who is a gardener).

Pictures for October
Autumn's only just thinking about it round this way...
This house is the exception around here, not the rule! Pretty though. *g*

Really it's looking more like this.



Just a glimpse of flashing red, or a haze of turning-yellow amid the late summer flowers.

Prosfic for autumn/October!
I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I do like our lads around the supernatural - it's the contrast I think, like sending them on holiday. We know what they do in their normal, everyday lives in London (or England or the UK, come to that), but what happens when you take them out of that comfort zone..? *g* So - I started out by looking at this list of stories and randomly picked....

All in a Name by callistosh65.
This was written for the Discovered in the Fallen Leaves challenge at discoveredinalj, all the way back in 2007 - wow, 12 years ago! It's technically based on the supernatural, but not really, so it fits, but only in a made-you-giggle kind of way. Perfect for the first of October. *g*

Okay, this last bit was just cos I wanted there to be more lads in my post - some autumn-coloured lads! *g*

A Beach to Walk On by ET is one of my favourite zines for re-reading, and is really a bit of a comfort read. It's absolutely, perfectly slash, and it's angst and partner-worry and partner-comfort and most importantly just the right amount of those things rather than tipping into soppiness and unlikelihood!

It's set after Mixed Doubles, and the lads are actually given the two weeks off that Cowley has promised them. Bodie decides that what they need - what Doyle needs, but what he needs too - is some time away from the job together, where they can just be themselves with someone else who understands them. So he hijacks Doyle, who's having trouble coming to terms with those dum-dums, and they head off down to the Dorset coast.

( They both try... )

...with added fic rec! This pic makes me think of the lads reading fic - coming across a slash zine somewhere - and then that makes me think of this particular story, which was written just after the Nattercon in 1999 (say the notes - Nattercon was a Pros con that was held for some 20 years before sadly fading to black).

A Weekend by the Lake by An Anonymous Observer.

I know I've read other lads-crossed-with-fans/fandom/Pros-cons fic too - can anyone remember any? (what I wouldn't give for a good Pros fic index, where you could look up all the wee bits that you remember... *g* Every now and then I think that I'd really like to put one together... but how? Where? Hmmn..!)

Oh! Had a thought of how it could be set up so that anyone could contribute! But is anyone else interested in helping out with something like this? The kind of index I mean is one where there'd be a master list (the index itself) of words that people might associate with various Pros fics. So for instance:
- Africa
- conference
- fox
- drunk
- Derby

That sort of thing! So if you're racking your brain thinking I swear they went to Iceland... you could go and look up "Iceland" and get a list of fics that mention it.

Okay, an eternal project, but I know I'd find it useful - it took me half an hour to find the fic I wanted to rec above!

( More lovely lads... )

Also, my latest read has been Nell Howell's The White Cloth, in Roses and Lavender 3, and I'd forgotten how much I like that one! It's unusual too, because there's quite alot of Cowley, and although he's interesting enough, I don't usually want to read Cowley-heavy fic, because it's Bodie/Doyle I'm interested in - but it works really well here, because although we get some backstory for Cowley too, even when it's his pov we're mostly thinking about Bodie/Doyle. *g* There's also lots of lovely angst and bleakness and melancholy, partner-worry, hurt/comfort... and very nicely written too. *g*

Anyone else reading Pros fic?

Ooh, I do like being on a roll with an author - here's another rather fab fic by Gil Hale, that I've only just read (though I thought I'd read it before cos I recognised the picture, and it's by Roven even though the story was apparently written in 2003, so I suspect I'm forgetting some recent history there... *g*

Anyway - A Pugnacious Angel takes the lads (and Murphy - always bloody Murphy...) away to the seaside on a case, except that it's Christmas time, so it's a cold, wet and blustery seaside, and they're squeezed into the last bed and breakfast on the block, far away from the bright lights of The Splendid and other such establishments. They're helping out MI5, but this isn't really the focus of the story - the focus is our Doyle, and things that have happened recently, and how Bodie is noticing... It's gorgeous - there's some h/c, lots of partner-worry, and a wee bit of Bodie's-past-come-back-to-haunt-him at the end, and I really really enjoyed it. And again - she just doesn't know that it's slash... *vbg*

There are some authors I don't read very often cos they label themselves "gen", and while they might think that they are, sometimes such authors are writing Pros exactly the way I see the show, just not getting around to the actual sex bit. While I like the sex bits perfectly well (*g*) it's our lads' relationship that I like best of all, and I don't need to see the sex every time in order to know that it's a part of what's there... It works the other way around, too - I don't like fic that's just an excuse for writing sex, and doesn't show me anything about an actual B/D relationship. So...

So this lunchtime I read a couple of stories, and Gill Hale's While the Dust Settles, which is a quick wee read, was the first! It's the lads post-Stirring of Dust, when they've been bollocked all through by Cowley, where Doyle's been bashed and tied, and where Bodie deals with all that in the way Bodie does - by going home with Doyle. See the slash already? *g*

(Pic from sunray45's Great ProsWatch post - see our poor, disconsolate lads wot need to cheer each other up? *g*)

I know I've recced this before, elsewhere, but it came up while I was randoming at Circuit Archive over coffee, and I still like it alot... *g*

Daring the Sea by Bistokidsfan

I love that it's a story for grown-ups too - Bistokidsfan doesn't tell us anything, she shows us all the way, and although it doesn't get into complexities we know that everyone concerned is dealing with proper, grown-up situations and emotions and psyches...

Sentinels by Castalia

Just because I haven't posted a rec, or even about Prosfic for ages (or at least that's how it feels, not counting over at Reading Room) - I was sorting out my google docs and found a list of older lads fic I'd collated for Palelyoitering.com (gosh, which really needs updating now that marking's over, doesn't it...) Anyway - I flicked down and clicked on Sentinels, and loved it all over again...

It's rather a comfort story, somehow without the hurt being too close, but it's more than that too, because it's an understanding story, one of my favourites where it's done so simply, without belabouring, and I love them both all the better for it...

*sighs happily for Castalia fic*

As I was writing my other post at work today, I had the most fab email, and it was from our Jojo, and she's actually written me a ficlet as a present, and it's the bestest wee ficlet, and it makes me very very happy, and I think it's the first ever ficlet I've ever been given, so that was just even more fab! *g*

And she's said I could post it here, so... Yeay! *vbg*

Bound in Leather
by Jojo

Bodie stretched his legs out and put them on the coffee table.

A small child holding a large yellow bag wandered in front of the widescreen TV. She looked at Bodie suspiciously. Then at the TV.

Bodie smiled. “Waiting for the cartoons,” he said.

“Out of there!” a parent snapped. The child’s arm was jerked and the bag crackled. The small and perfectly-formed living-room fell quiet. Bodie’s eyes strayed to the empty bookshelves and then back to the fake TV.

“Kramfors,” a voice said somewhere behind him.

Bodie smirked to himself. “Nah. You’ll only get three on here.”

A cuff. “It’s leather. You’ll like it.”

Bodie leaned his head right back. It was not a bad view, Doyle upside down with his reading glasses on the end of his nose. “You know,” he said. “I think you’ve said that to me once before.”

Doyle rounded the end of the sofa and sat down next to him. He threw the catalogue on to the coffee table and shifted closer.

“The buckles were a bloody nuisance.”

“Mmmm. You looked good though.”

“Felt pretty good too.” Doyle laid a hand on his knee. Squeezed it.

There was a pause.

“So,” Bodie said. “Kramfors.”

“Nah,” Doyle responded. “Only get three on there.”

-ends-

Just... how brilliantly perfect is that? *sighs happily* Doyle with reading glasses on the end of his nose. *sighs very happily* Bodie being accosted by suspicious children. *vbg indeed*

In other news - I might not take my lappie with me at all for the hol... We might go totally unplugged. Eeeeeeep! I shall print out my new fic and take it to cuddle!