Home (The Charioteer story)

Fanfiction
Title:	Home
Author(s):	poicale
Date(s):	21 August 2005
Length:	1318 words
Genre(s):	Domestic
Fandom(s):	Mary Renault
Relationship(s):
External Links:	archived on LJ (f-locked)
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"Home" is a short story by poicale based on Mary Renault's 1953 novel The Charioteer. It is set seven years after Dunkirk, which places it a couple of years after the war ends.

Synopsis

Laurie walks slowly home from shopping for a dinner to celebrate his anniversary with Ralph. He is greeted by Patch, a bull terrier puppy purchased five months previously. There is a letter from Andrew, who is abroad; and Ralph has news of Alec. However, they are distracted by each other.

Notes

• This story introduces Patch, who later became fanon within Ralph/Laurie fic written by some of the members of the maryrenaultfics LiveJournal community who were friends of one another.
• The story is structurally interesting. The first half opens with Laurie walking back to the home he shares with Ralph, and follows his thoughts block by block, each section separated by a header telling the reader how close he is to home. The second half of the story then takes him inside, introduces Patch, brings the reader up to date on the current whereabouts of Alec Deacon and Andrew Raynes (two other popular characters from the book), and concludes with a romantic moment.

Background

"Home" was initially intended to be a stand-alone story. However, when the author posted a "Seven Years Later" challenge to her flist for one of their Sunday Teas, she modified the story into a response to the challenge.

The Sunday Teas involved a small group of close friends on LiveJournal who wrote short romantic pieces based on Renault's books. In that context, "Home" is typical in content. However, it is rather longer and more complex than most of their fic had been up to that point.

Comments & Controversy

Initial reaction was highly favourable, with poicale's friends making such comments as:

• "I like this a lot! That 's my favourite image of Ralph and Laurie - that they are each others home. Very nicely done and completely believable and in character."—comment by cyberducks
• "Oh joy, what a lovely, cosy, intimate scene - just what we hope for *sighs*"—comment by trueriver

Reservations about Posting Link

Given their personal response to "Home", it is not surprising that at least two of the author's friends, cyberducks and baranduin, suggested that the story be posted to the maryrenaultfics community so that it might reach a wider audience. Poicale shortly posted a link there so that members could read it. Nevertheless, she appears to have felt some nervousness about doing so.

To baranduin, for example, she responded: "I just posted at the comm...I was feeling fragile about it so I didn't post right away - silly, I know." (Aug. 22nd, 2005 12:37 am (local)).

Also, to a later comment by an MRF member who read the story, she said, "I didn't mean to be hiding this, it's just sometimes "easier" to post on my journal, a little less pressure than posting on the community. :-)" (Aug. 22nd, 2005 10:17 pm (local))

Comments & Criticism

After the link was posted, most comments continued to praise the happy relationship depicted between Laurie and Ralph, and lauded the invention of Patch. Such comments after the link was posted include:

• "I love the way you've resolved all the problems, it's really soothing, after the angst ridden ending of the book..."—comment by trueriver
• "I had to tell you how right it was that Ralph got Laurie a dog! That was just plain old perfect wish fulfillment for me and Laurie. [...]"—comment by slipperieslope
• "Oh bliss, the two of them in domestic tranquillity! Love this."—comment by shezan

Nevertheless, once "Home" was made available to a wider readership, there was some unexpected concrit. This either focused on the author's use of American terms (given that the story is set in Britain) or focused on anachronisms and errors in her depiction of the period (shortly after World War II). More specific criticisms focused on the depiction of two men living together relatively openly in 1948 Britain, at a time when homosexuality would not be legalised for another twenty years and when the social climate was, if anything, hardening against homosexuals compared with the wartime years:

• "The law was so ferocious that gay couples did everything they could to downplay the possibility that they were a couple; they lived in perpetual fear of police raids. If Laurie had taken Ralph's ration book when shopping, the police would probably have been round that evening."—comment by sollersuk(Aug. 22nd, 2005 08:08 pm (local))

Poicale's response to that specific criticism was

• "Police raids! *shudders* not in my cozy (un)reality! :-)" (Aug. 23rd, 2005 02:45 am (local)).

The above exchange occurs immediately prior to the sharp deterioration in relations between holders of opposing viewpoints illustrated below.

Poicale made a few changes in response to comments (e.g. "mailbox" altered to "pillar box"). However, some sequences of comments indicate that she and her friends were less than happy to have a gentle piece of domestic fluff critiqued as if it were a major fanwork. Critics who were told that their comments were inappropriate to the genre of the story remained peeved that she didn't immediately make more extensive modifications. As they persisted in their criticism, poicale's friends became annoyed on her behalf.

The following serves as an example:

Housing was in desperately short supply after the war because of bomb damage. Many people were living in prefabricated quasi huts, and such housing tended to be restricted to married couples, particularly newly-weds; their only alternative usually was to live with the parents of one of the couple. It was assumed that a single male would, unless he had inherited a house, be living in "digs" or "lodgings" - a room in a house, no facilities for cooking, severe restrictions on guests, food provided by the landlady.

I hope you do sort the disparities out; given how extremely English a story the original is, I have difficulty understanding a sort of "mid-atlantic" fic.—sollersuk Aug. 23rd, 2005 03:29 pm (local)

Ah, but we are in the wonderful universe of Mary Renault Fanfiction! The information you have given is valuable and much appreciated (especially for us fic writers), and I hope you will share more of it.

On the writing front, poicale and I had a chat about this a while ago, and we feel the stories tend to write themselves. It's a joy to get swept up by them, even if they are not 'exact' in every detail. I would struggle writing an American piece, and the Americans would spot my Englishisms a mile off, no doubt - but most important I feel is the enthusiasm and care for the original with which a piece is written. If we were embarking on a novel we'd have a lot more time to do thorough research, but we do have love for what we are doing, and I feel that can't be a bad thing...—trueriver Aug. 23rd, 2005 05:53 pm (local)

I think I'm getting the hang of this.

You're taking characters that Mary Renault has made completely of their time and place, in a setting so completely of its time and place that altering it by a month, or even a week, would completely disrupt it, and then disregarding both.

Me personal, I either drink corree (sic) with the full caffeine blast or else herb teas.—sollersuk Aug. 24th, 2005 03:26 pm (local)

will there eventually be an end to your absolutely unbelievable unpleasantness?...perhaps you haven't noticed us all coughing politely behind our hands and staring pointedly in your direction, but you're spoiling a perfectly lovely party, and we'd all like to get back to enjoying each other's company and celebrating poicale 's fic...I understand, dear - its hard for someone as 'hideously overqualified' as yourself to mingle with the rest of us...might I suggest you have a chat with some of the other well read and intelligent folks here on how to educate without demeaning, offer constructive criticism without discouraging, and - as we all learned in kindergarten - say please and thank you...in the meantime, we'd all like to come in off the balcony and continue our fun, so *takes your drink and hands you your wrap* off to that big bloody boat (or whatever it is) of yours until you've learned your manners....—my_cnnr Aug. 24th, 2005 08:15 pm (local)

I rather think you're the one who's being rude. These ladies are trying to help poicale write the best story possible, and they could have been a lot tarter.—tiferet Aug. 25th, 2005 03:31 am (local)

this concerns one particular 'lady', singular, not ladies, plural...

I imagine help is open to interpretation, but as an educator,I saw very little help, but plenty of criticism...

a lot tarter...well perhaps, but we generally don't have people like that indoors...—my_cnnr Aug. 25th, 2005 10:53 am (local)

In short, some threads devolved rapidly. Much of the problem stems from the fact that two different standards of writing were in headlong collision: one group happily dashing off unresearched fluff, while the other preferred their stories to be historically accurate and scrupulously Brit-picked.

"Home" became something of a touchstone for differences within the maryrenaultfics community as it existed at that time.

Controversy in 2014

On 30 January 2014, Naraht posted an entry to her Dreamwidth journal, "maryrenaultfics and me"[2], describing her concerns about MRF and her experiences as a member. The post sparked a considerable discussion, much of which concerned the community as it had existed since 2010. However, some of the members from 2005 brought up their grievances from that era; and, in the context of that thread, "Home" was cited (albeit not by name) and linked to.[3]

When this information was passed along to poicale, her immediate reaction was to delete her journal. Shortly thereafter she reinstated it, but with all entries f-locked.