Old Longings

Fanfiction
Title:	Old Longings
Author(s):	Jane of Australia
Date(s):	September 1981
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
Relationship(s):
External Links:	online here
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Old Longings is a 68-page slash Professionals circuit story by Jane of Australia.

It was one of the earliest Pros stories to be circulated.

See List of Professionals Fanworks by Jane of Australia.

From Interview with Jane of Australia: "WHAT WAS YOUR VERY FIRST B/D STORY? I have no idea! I really can't remember! It wasn't "Old Longings," though that was one of the first opus. I just don't remember what the first story was."

Old Longings Universe

• Old Longings (circuit story, at the Circuit Archive) (68 pages)
• Russian Roulette (circuit story)
• Better to Forget (circuit story)
• Practical Demonstrations (circuit story, also in In the Public Interest) (32 pages)
• Acceptable Risks (circuit story) (41 pages)

Reactions and Reviews

1996

In 1996, the story was critically received by some members of the fandom community. One of the issues surround the story was its use of the sexual healing or "quickly falling in love after being raped" and the "I was raped by a man so I must be gay" tropes.

One member of the Virgule-L mailing list had this to say about the story:

Hey, I just ran across a story that *really* took this notion to extremes

- it's called "Old Longings" and it's by "Jane" - in this story, Doyle is raped by a guy out for revenge, and then he's taken to the hospital, and that *same day* Bodie goes to see him to help "get him over it" by talking about the rape, and Doyle blurts out the whole story and then adds that he's very upset because he experienced a climax, and is now worried that this means he must be secretly gay. Right. Okay, then Bodie takes him home *that same day* and after a little sleep, Doyle wakes up and starts in on the whole "I must be gay" thing again and Bodie then confesses to a long-repressed love for Doyle and explains that love between men can be just peachy-keen, and Doyle immediately asks him to kiss him because he simply has to know if a man can really turn him on. This leads to some love-making, after which Doyle is simply ecstatic, and bingo! our Lads our on the road to happiness.

And that was just the first 9 pages of a 60+ page novella. Frankly, I was too disgusted and appalled to want to read any further. Obviously, this story was not striving too terribly hard for realism. I'm not too sure what it *was* striving for. Yuck.

1997

As I've mentally reviewed some of Jane's stories I discovered that the "we're not gay" stuff is usually only in the stories where the B/D relationship has just begun. In stories like "Out of This World", "Catch or Kill" or "Hoodwink", where the Lads are settled and stable and very at home with their sexual relationship, the sentiment doesn't appear. In fact, you can almost watch the entire progression of Doyle redefining his own sexual identity in Jane's Old Longings stories. Very unsure of himself at the beginning, doesn't give a hoot at the end

With regard to stories that are more overtly rape stories, the top of the list [of ones I dislike] would probably be Jane of Australia's "Old Longings," which just showed up in my e-mailbox this week. Bleah. "I was raped!" said Ray. "By a _man_!" Over and over and over again. This is probably the worst sexual healing story I've ever encountered.

I love anything Jane and Kathy Keegan write EXCEPT the Elf stories and 18th century things. You might consider reading her "Old Longings" Universe... if you like major H/C. It's about 5 stories, with Doyle being raped in the first one, and you have to gloss over the "Bodie Fixing the Rape by Showing Doyle What True Love Is...." Honest! Get past that and the rest is great. Second story has Doyle going undercover as a to hook a Russian who has a weakness for curly-haired...etc. Practical Demonstrations has Doyle temporarily paralized {sic]. I'm sorry, I'm lousy at synopsis.

2008

[fanfic is a very private thing for a lot of writers] -- which is why I value a lot of the early writing in Pros, flaws and all. It has a kind of honesty and courage you don't find in the more polished, self-conscious later works. It takes a great deal of courage to put your daydreams on paper and share them with others, particularly when you perceive yourself to be violating societal norms in order to do so. Younger readers are definitely missing the context of early fanfic, and don't quite understand what a revolution slash itself was. There's a thread of Irish Catholicism running through Jane's early fics, particularly in "Old Longings", which I find interesting, and which younger readers might miss the significance of...

2009: at CI5hq

This story generated much discussion at the CI5HQ Reading Room in 2009. Not much of the discussion was about the story itself and instead on the subjects of the reception of less-than-positive comments about fics, the feminization of Doyle (and other slash characters), dated perceptions about rape, why Jane of Australia wasn't talked about in letterzines very often, were Pros fans more critical of their own fanworks than other fandoms, and do Pros fans spend too much time talking about old stories?

Some of these comments are below:

[Old Longings] was apparently written in September 1981, making it surely a very early Prosfic (I wonder what's the earliest date anyone's come across?). Thing is, Jane appears to be very Jane all the way back then too. I did wonder once, in a musing-ish post at (I think) the_safehouse whether her writing had changed over the years, but...

It's a great premise, as Jane's often are, if simple: Doyle was attacked and raped, and the story is from Bodie's point of view, showing how it's all dealt with and how they both - and Cowley - cope with the situation.

The trouble for me is that the story's written with a characterisation of the lads that I just can't see: Doyle is virtually helpless, and needs constant reassurance from Bodie that he's doing the right thing, and Bodie is the absolutely confident and much wiser partner. Doyle is also continually being described by Bodie as "beautiful" and being called pet names that actually seem rather creepy to me - rather infantalising.

We're also given various explanations of what it's like to be gay, and how it's really okay, which made me think that the author was really trying to convince herself of that, and because of the subject matter we're also reassured that rape is A Bad Thing. Unfortunately this comes just after Bodie asks Cowley "We're just talking about push and shove, not bottles or knives?" which read rather strangely to me... On the one hand I'm fascinated by the idea that what we write in many ways reflects our own attitudes at the time as much as anything else, on the other I'm left cringing at the apparent attitude...

I also read a morality in the story that I don't necessarily see in the eps: the idea that personal vengeance is fine under certain circumstances, and that the bad guy always deserves what they get - no mitigating factors ever allowed (cf Mickey Hamilton) - and that's usually a nasty death. Bodie is written as particularly vicious too, which makes Doyle's personality seem even more helpless and uncertain...

I wonder if it's because this is such an early characterisation of the lads that people seem to have railed so loudly against it and continue to do so, and sometimes seem to assume that it soaks through all Pros fic, whereas really, I don't think Doyle is infantalised nearly as often as we're led to believe. But Jane was so prolific...

There are (I believe) four sequels to this story, at least two of which were attached to the fic, so really I should read them next...

I know, I'm writing a review and I'm being really negative, and all that - but I'd still like to hear what other people think! It's such a big part of Pros fandom history... *g*

"Old Longings" by Jane is notable for being the first in a series by the same name, including "Acceptable Risks", which is a fun episode style fic. "Old Longings" is vintage Jane, with her rich phrasings, hints of the Irish ghetto, and evocative eighties images such as the "droop-snoot and gorgeous delta wings" of the now extinct Concorde. She produces an interesting portrait of a character who is both Catholic...and discovering he's gay. Though not attuned to modern sensibilities, "Old Longings" is still a nice outing from the Golden Age of slash.

I've often wondered if that's a stage a lot of fandoms went through, or perhaps just older fandoms because of the times, because there's a lot of it in UNCLE and K/S, too. Doyle or Illya or Kirk are described as beautiful and practically godlike in looks. Now, I think all three men are attractive, but none are what I would call beautiful...thank god. Anyway, maybe because you're talking about a time when slash wasn't very old, it could be that the "beautiful" member of the pairing was still being written as a stand-in for the woman—beautiful, helpless, smaller, shorter. With time, it seems to have pretty much disappeared.

Hmmn - in Old Longings Jane does actually seem to try to emphasise Doyle's masculinity in specific description, but then she adds in all these other attributes as well... To be honest I'd cringe at someone talking about a woman in the terms used in the story as well! It's very... not just Mills and Boon romantic, but very chauvenistic as well - as if looking a certain way means that someone has to act a certain way too... and have a protector... I think I mentioned above that I find it really interesting the way we seem to work through our own issues in fannish writing - another one that strikes me again and again is the treatment of rape in fic... As KSW mentions below, Jane very much gives the rapists/potential rapists what would be considered a completely indefensible argument today - Doyle is so beautiful that they couldn't help themselves. I'd be fascinated to know whether anything like that pops up in MUNCLE?

I agree with you about Doyle's characterisation. He's increadibly helpless and needy in this. I'd believe insecurity or self-doubt, especially since he got an erection when he was raped - "what does that make me?" Both the physical arousal and the post-traumatic guilt are common reactions, as Jane obviously knows. And just as obviously makes sure that we know she knows *ahem*. But I don't think he'd regress to the extent he seems to have done here.

I didn't think "push and shove" is all that bad in context of Bodie trying to deal with this sudden news, but I went pop-eyed when Cowley segued from "Doyle's been raped" to "Is Doyle gay?" for no reason except Jane wanted to get Bodie talking and thinking about how pretty/sexy/fuckable Doyle is. This is repeated a couple of times, and it sits at odds with the other things Bodie says/does, e.g. attempts to get Doyle to 'normalise' his reaction to the assault.

It's as though Jane's running 2 arguments, and the 2nd one's a bit off: Doyle is at least partly to blame for what happens not because he has an Evil Enemy (TM), but because of his appearance and inherent sexiness (and ? smallness); his assailants 'can't help" desiring him and wanting to fuck him. They aren't blameless but their behaviour is "understandable".

Jane's authorial voice is strong and it often seems as though she uses her characters as mouthpieces. Is it "Bodie as written by Jane" or "Jane stating her thoughts, values, norms through Bodie"? I'm not sure. But given she seems to know something about the impact of rape on the victim, I don't understand why she would employ the 2nd argument, let alone do it again in other stories. And I'm saying this *despite* the fact that I enjoy the occasional rape or edge-of-consent story.

I suppose it's possible that because some people read and enjoyed that style of story, she wrote more of the same. I have no idea how much criticism reached her ears.

Re. the vengeance issue - I think you can write Bodie saying "If Doyle dies...", because he has said that, and it's not a stretch to think that if Doyle dies then someone's going to pay. But she has Cowley actually incite Bodie to it, which I find hard to believe and she doesn't present that in any way that I find credible.

...people seem to have railed so loudly against it and continue to do so, and sometimes seem to assume that it soaks through all Pros fic, whereas really, I don't think Doyle is infantalised nearly as often as we're led to believe.

Yes! to this. Jane's quirks as a writer and her prolific output make it a) very hard to miss her and b) all too easy to ascribe those characteristics of her writing to Pros fandom as a whole. It's sloppy thinking - I suspect that when it's brought up it's often done for lolz as much as anything, except maybe by newbies who are genuinely puzzled by what they find.

Is it "Bodie as written by Jane" or "Jane stating her thoughts, values, norms through Bodie"?

Yes, I wondered if she was effectively being Bodie here, sort of a strange Mary-Sue...

I've got to admit that I'm not sure how much depth there is to her knowledge - I mean, I knew the impact of rape on a victim just from reading your standard blockbusters, as well as more "literary" books (!) as a teenager in Australia, but I know now that I didn't have any depth to my knowledge, and I wonder if I'm seeing something similar here with Jane? For example, she says outloud in the fic "That's a cruddy thing to say - like saying a woman with a normal sex life can't get raped, because she's used to sex!" but then the deeper attitude of the fic is (as you say) that Doyle is so beautiful/exquisite/has such a nice arse that people can't help themselves raping him... Such huge contrasts suggest to me that the author is sort of still working through the issues herself (and of course some people never get any further than this anyway)...

I can see Bodie wanting vengeance - and as you say, it's canon, but again it's the detail she has him thinking about that makes it seem odd to me - I can't see Bodie thinking in such gory detail about that sort of thing: Bodie would have hammered his front teeth out, one by one, redesigned one of his kneecaps so as to accomodate him with a life-long limp.... I dunno - I can more imagine Bodie wanting that sort of thing in the abstract, and doing it in the heat of the moment, but... but maybe that's just me. *g* And as you say, Cowley's incitation of it all is... not right.

Oh, or perhaps it's just me railing against the way she has them talking so much and describing their feelings aloud in such great detail, because I don't equate that with our lads either - they don't talk in huge long explanatory sentences!

I have no idea how much criticism reached her ears.

Hmmn, I wonder if there's any of this sort of discussion in letterzines... I wonder when the earliest letterzines were released?!

I don't think there was any inter alia discussion of her work in LOC's either although I can't be sure.

Interesting...

I wonder if there was any particular reason for that - other than fans not seeing anything to discuss about it, maybe... *g

I wonder if there was any particular reason for that [Jane's stories not being discussed in letterzines]

IIRC they generally kept to comments about the stories that had been published - Meg Lewtan, HG, Sebastian, a few current anonymice under "agent" numbers, that sort of thing.

The most controversial story published during my friend's tenure was a crack RP fic "Death on the 9:13 to Birkenhead" by "Agent 3.41/2". The author has a lj and admitted responsibility *g* some time ago but I can't find the post right now so I won't dob her in.

I think I read this once and thought ‘agh!’ and backed away. Coming back to it a second time, and I still cannot take it seriously. There are a few reasons for this. One is the characterisation – I simply do not recognise Doyle in this. Here he is written as a pretty, beautiful, fragile, blushing thing – Gilda_elise’s idea that people were perhaps still writing with the idea of one character being a stand-in for ‘the woman’ sounds very plausible, although if this were a female character it would still be sickly.

I also have to squint past over-done descriptions – Doyle being described as ‘an exquisite creature’ to me sounds like a lizard. There’s more of a nod to Bodie and Cowley’s characters but even then something is wrong. Bodie is very patronising and superior (you could argue he can be that way on screen, but that is tempered with the rest of his sunnier canon character traits – here patronising and superior is pretty much the only thing you get). Cowley prompting Bodie for revenge, no I don’t see it.

Then there is language – Jane uses the word ‘pervo’ - Doyle says to Bodie ’I never figured you for a pervo’ - to me this is pure Home and Away, and I cannot take the fic seriously beyond that, as now every time Doyle speaks I foster him with an Australian accent.

After that there is tone – or rather, the lecture – as kiwisue says, Jane runs two arguments parallel – and neither pull in the same direction, so I am left frowning at the screen. Especially the ‘Doyle is so pretty he practically asks to get assaulted’ story thread – eugh. I really detest that way of thinking, and that, coupled with descriptions of Doyle’s character compared to a ‘blossoming flower’ makes me want to run away back to some normal fic!

Finally though... when I once was a newbie, I didn’t actually stumble on Jane at all. I started at ‘A’ on the Circuit Archive, and so by the time I reached ‘J’, I was starting to skim stories that didn’t appeal too much, so these stories didn’t put me off with their wilting flower descriptions, or make me think all fandom thought the same, by then I had read enough to make me think definitely not!

I was the other way as a newbie, I wasn't at all systematic in my reading, so I used "random" and if I found a story I liked I went off and read all the other stories by that author. I did like some of Jane's fic then, including, for example, her zine "Czardas" which is a Ladder of Swords crossover - but I'm kind of scared to go back to it now, cos I suspect everything I find difficult to read about Jane now will jump out and niggle at me! I've seen alot of newbies saying though that Pros writing is a certain way, that there's a tendency to "feminise" Doyle, and it's overly-romantic and so on, and I'm not sure how much Pros they've actually read at that stage - but I wonder if that sort of rumour is based alot on people's descriptions of Jane's writing... Then again, she is far from the only one - except that then I wonder if later such writers were people who'd come in to Pros without having seen the eps (pre-dvd, but maybe even post-) and so based their characterisations on such as Jane's...

There's also the "reputation" that I've been told Pros fandom has for being hard on authors... maybe that's all that is, the fact that lots of people in Pros do like to talk about stories in public, and aren't afraid to do so critically, whereas other fandoms don't? I dunno, I don't know other fandoms at all! So perhaps some of them're more about the glee and squee and shiny, without any public discussion/critique of anything? Hmmn...

Actually, it's been my experience that this is a difficult fandom to discuss stories in/have a differning opinion. I have been both patted on the head (you're a newb and don't know any better), pretty much been told to be quiet (what do you know, you haven't been in the fandom for twenty years and we don't like your ideas on B/D anyway)or, as here, been told that my other fandom doesn't "measure up" to the Pros fandom way of doing things... It's all a bit exhausting and I've ended up feeling like it's not worth opening my mouth on the subject.

I responded to a rec Verlaine made of Ellis Ward's Trial Run saying that while I found it interesting and well written it seemed to come adrift in its plotting, with, for example, potential conflicts immediately answered. Nobody responded to my comment at the LJ, but I received two e-mails and one PM basically telling me to mind my Ps and Qs.

In the last 4 years I can only recall receiving a couple of unsolicited behind-the-scenes responses to an opinion I expressed on list/lj about stories/writing, and both were very positive. Most people say what they want to up front. Unless the discussion was on someone else's personal lj rather than a comm, in which case itmight be reasonable to take it to PM.

I must say I'm with KWS in that I've never heard of people in Pros sending private messages or emails in response to public discussions, or even discussions on someone else's lj, unless it's perhaps because they want to divert into personal territory/arrangements and so on. It strikes me as quite rude, otherwise, and I've not seen alot of rudeness in Pros fandom - again as KWS says, in my experience people tend to be pretty up front about their views, especially in a discussion context. Unless perhaps they're not on lj, and the discussion post has disabled anonymous comments. But you seem to get quite a few of these, then? I think I've seen you mention people contacting you privately with negative comments in other Pros contexts as well? Is it the same people each time, or many different people? If it's the former, and you don't have any other contact with them, I'd be tempted to block their emails through your provider - and tell them so... Actually that's one advantage of holding discussions at public comms like ci5hq and (now) the_safehouse - anyone can join in, whether they've got an lj or not. And people without ljs do, too

I have to say this story sets my teeth on edge. I'm one of those old-fashioned feminists, and the whole "oh, gee, I got raped and it turns out I like it" scenario makes me cringe. It's just as stupid and unrealistic with a man as with a woman, especially considering that Doyle actually got injured in the course of it. And I don't buy Doyle's reaction either. It's true that rape can have terrible psychological consequences - you often read of women saying that their whole lives have been changed: they're afraid all the time, they can't stand being alone, or can't stand being around people, they're constantly second-guessing everything they do, to try and head off another assault. So Doyle being traumatized makes perfect sense. But I'd see him expressing it by drinking, or fighting with everyone, or staggering out of his hospital bed to try and track down his rapist and kill him with his bare hands.

I also agree that Jane makes Bodie way too patronizing and superior - he almost seems stuffy, and that's not Bodie either. I don't have any problem about Bodie going for revenge - that's canon in several places - but it gets treated as a throw-away, and the genuine story possibilities that could grow from it are ignored in favour of more emotional stuff between the guys.

this comes just after Bodie asks Cowley "We're just talking about push and shove, not bottles or knives?" which read rather strangely to me This is one of the few things that really does ring true to me. As a mercenary, Bodie may well have been in the kind of conflict that lead to revenge-rapes or ethnic cleansing. In those situations, rape of both men and woman is often accompanied by horrific assaults with everything from gun barrels to tree branches. Given that background, "push and shove" is probably a relief.

Sorry, I haven't read this and from the sounds of it I don't think I can face it....life's too short for certain kinds of Jane fic. But someone mentioning doyle being infantalalalalaised reminds me very much of the GOM Jane stories.....or even Coming Home by Kathy Keegan where even *Murphy* (rather than Bodie) refers to Doyle as his 'bonny boy' (I swear) WTF? What is it with Jane - in some stories, not all - having Doyle being cosseted(sp?) all the time.....not to mention The Hunting, which I loved by the way, but at one stage it *has* to have Doyle blinded and extra thin and vulnerable, in need of nursing and nurturing.......

Yeah, I think that's what interests me about Jane in some ways (though not in a way that means I can read alot of her fic without cringing any more - I used to be able to...) - I wonder how much of her we're seeing through her fic as opposed to how much of the lads - I'd say at least 90%! Because I really don't see her characterisation of Bodie as "patronising and superior" or Doyle as uncertain and vulnerable in canon at all - at least not more than being a couple of percent of their characters, which is about what it would be for most of us, I think...

Cossetted is an excellent word to describe Jane's treatment of Doyle too! I mean, I like the idea of vulnerable lads but only as you'd see them on the show - momentarily admitting to it (like when Bodie was upset about Fraser's death, or Doyle about Ann's leaving), or else being worried (usually for each other) and doing something about it! We never see them cringe away from doing things, and I think that's their bravery and their strength. Jane doesn't seem to give Doyle that at all...

I liked the start of The Hunting actually, with Doyle temporarily blinded and in Bodie's power, but only until I realised that (unlike in canon) he was going to remain so extremely vulnerable throughout the whole story. Unchained Melody is another extreme example (among extreme examples like GoMM!) where Doyle is actually that most powerful of all things, a vampire - immortal and unnaturally strong - and yet he still requires cossetting by Bodie in Jane's universe... It's odd...

My thoughts were something like "that's not the impression I had, now how badly was I influenced in what I've already written?" (And thank goodness for my pimping friend's incidental comment that she thought D was really more macho than B, which acted as a bit of a check.)

It's odd how influential Jane she was, considering all the other authors I was reading. I suppose she hit my yen for intense romance. (Another friend I met later commented that her B & D were just so damned *nice* to each other.)

But thinking about it, trying to reconstruct Old Impressions, :-) I was also very fond of O Yardley and Sebastian, who both gave me the sense of a "smaller" Doyle (or perhaps reinforced it). Oh, and the very first story I read was Lily's Awakening and Reciprocity....

I really haven't read anything of Jane for a long time, so I don't know if I would accept them now as "stretched characterizations" or just say WTF. Well, Coming Home would definitely be WTF -- I remember being positively embarrassed by the whole thing. I may well have seen some shows by that time, of course.

I wonder if when we first come into Pros there is that yearning for intense romance between the lads that makes us perfectly happy to read Jane's fic... then we sort of move in with slashfic, maybe even marry it, and all the little niggles start coming out... *g* We love it anyway, but we're more like to complain about leaving the toilet seat up... *g* It seems like so many people say they love her stuff at first - or even just like it - so it must satisfy some need in us, for a while... Interesting about O.Yardley and Sebastian, I've definitely noticed and been a bit annoyed by their tendency to "the smaller man" as well - but it's not compounded by their writing styles, I guess, so it's a little less of a niggle when I read their fic. Maybe I'm so busy skimming over so many more things in Jane's fic that my skim-over-brain gives up in the end?

When I started reading Pros fic I had friends and friends of friends who'd been Pros fans in the past and I asked them for recs... the first stories that were ever recced to me were by Jane, Kathy Keegan (I didn't this was a Jane alias at the time)... and Tarot's Consequences. My initial impression was that Pros fic was all Bambi-esque Doyle and abusive/macho Bodie and partner rape (KK's Coming Home I think that's the title is definitely into rape/abuse territory as far as I'm concerned and again with Bambi Doyle and caveman Bodie). I went back to those friends and said "these stories aren't really to my taste" and was basically recced the same type of stuff. The thing that kept making me want to try to find older stories I wanted to read was, first and foremost the lad love, how many of the writers who were *currently* writing that I really loved *and* the friends I'd began to make in the fandom who were a pretty fabulous bunch of broads (I knew I had to be missing something if they loved the stories that much). I asked for more recs... again, I couldn't make a "connection." So, I took a leaf out of my mate Andy's book, stopped asking for recs and went to the archives and started systematically reading through the stories. In the process, I found lots to love and, even more oddly, a lot of those stories were by authors where I'd had one of their stories recced to me and hadn't liked it enough to read more. M. Fae Glasgow is a good case in point. You recced one of her stories to me (I can't get the Circuit Archive to open else I'd check the title, it's the one where they can hear the neighbours) and I thought it was clever but it didn't draw me. I've since read almost everything she's written that's available on line and love almost all of it, even stories like A Call of Nature that certainly isn't what I'd wish for the lads.

It sounds as if your friends do like Jane's brand of writing, which makes sense because some people must have since there are other people who write with similar (if not as extreme, I'd say) characterisations (Doyle being smaller [equals] vulnerable, Bodie being bigger [equals] confident). So I suppose it would make sense if they're recommending fic that they like that they'd rec you more of the same!

Consequences is a bit different to Jane's writing, I'd say - I don't see "patronising and superior" Bodie there, or "vulnerable" Doyle in the same way, although they're both those things too. It's been discussed elsewhere, so I won't get into it now, but I can see it being recced more as a this-is-something-that-affected-Pros-writing-hugely-for-a-while, because alot of fic took it as a basis for something that needed to be refuted, somehow. And it's well written as far as language etc goes, I'd say.

I suppose Jane's fic was more naturally "refuted" by other writers writing more canon-based characters - although I believe her Two Up had at least one direct sequel to banish the attitudes Jane had displayed. So presumably you either read and loved Jane or you read and loved other authors writing at the same time. And then of course there's always the cultural differences thing too - Jane was an Australian writing in that society, not in British society which is a completely different animal.

I don't think I recced an M.Fae with neighbours in it-I tend to rec her "Wish I Wasn't Here", or "The High Road" of hers, or perhaps "A Slow Swedish Screw"... Can't even think of one with neighbours in it right now... You'll have to remind me of that one when you can! Actually, that'd be a good thing to do today - I shall read some MFae and rec her at CI5hq, see what people say! She's another one who seems to cause strong reactions... *g*

Re. Jane: That's something that I found puzzling when I went to Zebracon in '07 - older fen there definitely seemed to regard her as a 'classic' Pros writer and spoke of her very fondly. One lady, who I think must have been well over 60 asked me who was on the ballot for Pros and when I mentioned Jane's name she said "Oh, Jane..." in a reverential tone. I felt it would be churlish of me to question her, so I never found out exactly what it was that she loved so about her stories, but I think it would be interesting to know. I do think there's a divide between those fen and practically everyone else I've met/talked to on lj or lists in the past 4+ years.

I think I *can* understand that as she's been a presence for such a long time in fandom, was a great pioneer in the concept of an 'alternative universe' and generally was a prolific writer who cast a long shadow over the fandom. And some of the stuff she wrote *about* e.g. The Hunting, if you liked that kind of story it must have been great, because for all her shortcomings, I think she could be a wonderful storyteller when she set her mind to it and was someone who enabled the reader to escape to wonderful places. Once upon a time I really loved The Hunting but, and I hesitate to say this in case it sounds patronising towards people who *still* like Jane, I did find that I grew out of her stories, a bit like a child who progresses from very sweet chocolate to dark, bitter stuff. I think the main problems I found with her work were the corny, almost embarrassing characterisations and the repetition of much of her writing, so that her stories seemed to come off a conveyor belt and were very formulaic (is that a word?). Anyway.....M Fae Glasgow is a similar story for different reasons. I once loved her work, can admire her skills as a writer, but began to find her writing style a bit tiresome - too flowery and wordy - she just doesn't Wish I wasn't Here

Wish I wasn't here]] and I've got to admit that I don't think I've read them all.

Yeah, I suppose she is a "classic" Pros writer, in that she's probably read at some point by everyone, even if they decide they don't like her work. Everyone knows who she is. She published zines, wrote alot of fic, and was around until just a couple of years ago. And what with everyone's different tastes, she's got to be liked by some Pros fans, or she presumably wouldn't have sold any zines at all!

Seems like every few months, you [[[byslantedlight]]] disinter Jane and have a go at her work. I think most of Pros fandom know you don't like her writing-word choice, characterization, attitudes, themes, the lot. She *is* a big part of early fandom, and a lot of older fans *do* like her work (as do a lot of new fans) and she *was* prolific, so if you want to "review" Pros in a lit crit sense, you do run smack in to Jane...but this is beginning to sound like a very old tune. To paraphrase a catchphrase from another fandom, "she's dead, Jim." We got it the first time.

Unless of course, you simply find it therapeutic, to go over and over the things you don't like about Jane's work? Our dog has a wooly toy, made out of a bit of old sheepskin. When he's had a bad day, he digs it out and beats the *snot* out of it. He seems to feel very much better about life after. :)

Here's a question for you: why don't you *write* more? I've read your fic; I *like* your fic. Twenty or thirty years from now, all that the fandom may know about *you* might be your fic.

It'd be a shame if there weren't more of it because you spend all your time reviewing old work. A fan once complained that she didn't like the Pros fandom because all they did was spend their time going over and over old fic. I objected, because I consider thirty years of fic to be a treasure...but now I wonder if she wasn't right-if *that's* the public perception of Pros fandom: obsessed with reviewing the past.

Why don't I write more - excellent question! Unfortunately I'm not in a very comfortable personal situation at the moment, which for me isn't conducive to writing, although I am trying. It's nothing dire, but I do find that I have to be able to concentrate, or be in the right "mood" or something to write. I've done a little, but not as much as I'd like to! Hopefully soon... And thank you, I'm glad you like my fic. It's fascinating to think, isn't it, that one day the only way people might remember us could be through our fic. And one day even that will have faded away...

I do spend time reviewing old fic too (and yes, sometimes it is easier than writing myself!) - ages ago I set up www.palelyloitering.com to list and review Pros zines and fic. When I was new to fandom the one thing I couldn't find was somewhere to give me an idea of what zines/stories I should first spend my money on, and since I wanted to learn html anyway, I decided to create my own site (this was pre-The Hatstand zines list, in fact we discussed the idea at the time). I'm still working on this project, and will be for a long long time, as well as various new ones. I'm eclectic like that... *g*

As for regular disinterring and criticising of Jane's fic - I'm sorry it somehow seems like that, but to put it in perspective, since January 2008 I've made 37 posts to CI5hq, of which 17 were fic reviews/recs. The only review I've actually made of a Jane fic is this one! I also started a discussion/asked for help compiling a list of Kathy Keegan (aka Jane) fic - that wasn't a review as such, although it was thoughts about KK fic. This post actually led to my being able to add a near-complete (I hope) list of Jane/KK's fic over at www.palelyloitering.com, which is something I'm hoping to do for every Pros writer and have barely even started yet - so Jane is currently well-ahead there, for all to see!

Jane most likely will come up alot in my reviews/recs, not because I dis/like her more than other writers, but because she was incredibly prolific in Pros. I'm not generally reviewing writers as such (although discussions often turn to the general) but individual stories. There are many authors who've written stories I've loved and others I've liked less or even disliked, and so it makes more sense to me to deal with the stories individually.

As I've said before, if you'd like to write reviews of Jane's stories that you've particularly liked, to give people another perspective, then that would be wonderful - that's the whole point of ci5hq and www.palelyloitering.com, to give people as many thoughts as possible. The more people who contribute, the better. What would be wonderful is if one day there were enough reviews by enough different people that I could list them at palelyloitering by reviewers as well, and people would be able to follow the tastes of reviewers they know they've agreed with in the past. Takes alot of people participating to be able to do that though!