![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
loyseofverlaine.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
discoveredinaljI want this year to give a little THANK YOU to people who have enriched my fan life. So, I'm going to highlight five fannish resources that I have found enjoyable and useful, and five stories that never fail to make me happy about The Professionals. On to
Resources:
1) Professional Insight. I picked up this fan publication for nothing at BistoCon 2016, and it's been both a lot of fun to read through and a very useful source of information. There are two sections: firstly an episode-by-episode blurb, and secondly, detailed analysis of just about everything you could want to know about the series. Which CI5 agents appeared in which episode? How many times Bodie did wear his blue-grey faux leather jacket? What did they eat or drink? How many flats did they each have, and exactly how were they furnished? It's all here and a lot more. There are biographies of Bodie, Doyle and Cowley, gleaned from what is revealed about them through the series; also an extensive character list, sorted both by the characters in the episodes, and by the actors who played them.
The amount of work that went into this, in the days before everything was on the net, is amazing. The fans who painstakingly put this together deserve a huge amount of credit. As far as I know, this is available only in paper, so if you're ever in a position to pick up a copy, it's very well worth it.
2) The Professionals Viewing Notes. Probably everyone has one of these by now, but it's still worth mentioning. With the new remastered DVDs, each set also includes a book with the exhaustive technical details of the making of every episode. In contrast to Professional Insight, these aren't "in-world" on Pros – that is it's not about Bodie and Doyle and Cowley. Instead they track all the minutia of how a TV series gets made: the daily shooting schedules, the script changes, and the actual places where locations were shot. In the first season's book there are also biographies of Gordon Jackson, Martin Shaw, and Lewis Collins.
I don't consider them curl-up-by-the-fire-and-enjoy reads, but if you're interested in the background of how television works, they're interesting to poke around in before or after watching an episode. Something I found truly amazing is how much out of order scenes in an episode are shot. Shooting depends on when the company can access a location site, how the weather is, how the actors are co-operating, and dozens of other things. If that means you shoot the ending first, and then work back to the beginning, so be it. It gives me a lot more respect both for the actors' ability, and the wardrobe people.
3) The Hatstand transcripts. (http://hatstand.slashcity.net/eps.html) There is a ton of interesting background stuff at The Hatstand, but what I really appreciate is this section of the site, which has transcripts of the dialogue in every episode. Another huge fan effort.
I find this particularly useful is as a reference when writing an episode related story. Many people can quote memorable lines, but when you need to know exactly what someone said in just an ordinary passing moment, it's very handy to have access right at your fingertips (especially for minor characters who many not have a lot of lines in the first place). It's also handy for a non-Brit just to understand what's being said sometimes. I've been married to a Brit for over thirty years, and sometimes still get stymied by dialects.
4) The Internet Firearms Data Base (http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Professionals_(TV_Series),_The) I am an utter ignoramus when it comes to using, or even identifying, any kind of weapon. My fallback in fiction is to refer to any firearm as a "gun", and hope I haven't made any egregious errors in usage. (My personal pet peeve in westerns or action movies is always "the gun with the infinite capacity magazine".)
This database is filled with pictures of the various firearms used in the Professionals, not just by Bodie and Doyle, but by pretty well any character in the series. It also includes proper terminology and other tidbits. There are also plenty of pictures of the lads with their various guns, which is always to the good.
5) Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library. (http://www.framecaplib.com/proslib.htm) Another great fan effort, with a huge number of screencaps. It doesn't have every episode, but it's very good for the first season, and a few popular episodes from later ones.
As a person with no technical ability, I'm always impressed by people who can clip neat, in-focus shots that really catch a person's action or character in one picture. I find this site a really useful reference when I'm working on a multi-episode story. I'll be watching one ep, writing, and looking at screen-caps of characters from a different episode all at the same time. Sometimes a still photo gives you an insight into a person that a moving picture can't.
Story Recs:
1) All the Queen's Men, by Victoria Racklyft (http://www.thecircuitarchive.com/tca/archive/13/allthe.html) My all-time favourite Pros story. It's got action and adventure, the supernatural, a deep friendship between Bodie and Doyle that develops into a deep love. It's also got a unique and involving female OC, a romance for Cowley, and wonderful courage and steadfastness by everyone.
A true bonus in this zine are the wonderful illustrations by Suzan Lovett. The cover, with its juxtaposition of Doyle and Bodie in modern dress with them as medieval knights, is stunning. I have the file saved to my computer, but when I got the chance to buy the zine in paper I snapped it up, just to be able to look at the illustrations in full-size.
2) Injured Innocents, by O Yardly. A lovely, long cozy read that just pushes all my buttons. It's a little old-fashioned, but very sweet and full of affection. Bodie and Doyle chugging along on holiday on a canal-boat forms the centre of the novel, but there's also casework, drama, high spirits and fun.
As far as I'm aware this zine is not available on the net. The copy I have is actually typed (as in on a typewriter), a sign of just how old it is. I treasure it.
3) Voice Over, by Elizabeth O'Shea. (http://archiveofourown.org/works/239887). A beautiful first person, stream-of-consciousness story, as Doyle waits at Bodie's bedside for him to wake up from a terrible injury. The flashback to their first time as lovers is by turns moving, sexy and wildly funny.
4) In A Land of Shadow, by Gil Hale. (http://thebrowsery.skeeter63.org/gilhale/tp-fiction/inalandofshadow.html). This is a gen story that's a cross-over with The Sentinel (and yes, another story where Somebody We All Know is Blair Sandburg's father). It's very well done: it combines an interesting case from both sides of the cross-over that intersects at the relationship between Blair and Doyle. Gil Hale really understands the characters, and makes all of them totally believable.
5) Breaking the Chains, by SAC. Another cross-over, this time with The Scarlet Pimpernel. Major William Bodie is part of Sir Percy Blakeney's crew of adventurers in France, and he ends up involved with Chauvelin. The author has to work a little to redeem Chauvelin, but does an excellent job of it. She also makes a wise choice in making Bodie a foil to the foppish insouciance of Blakeney, rather than a copy of him.
I believe this was archived at The Automated Hatstand, which is now gone. I have not been able to find it at AO3, or any other archive I've checked.
So homework assignment: does anyone know if this story is archived somewhere? I'll add in the link if someone can provide it.
EDIT: Thanks so much to everybody who chimed in! I'd completely forgotten Breaking the Chains was posted here.
Link: http://www.palelyloitering.com/Dialj/BreakingTheChainsGGerbil.htm
Resources:
1) Professional Insight. I picked up this fan publication for nothing at BistoCon 2016, and it's been both a lot of fun to read through and a very useful source of information. There are two sections: firstly an episode-by-episode blurb, and secondly, detailed analysis of just about everything you could want to know about the series. Which CI5 agents appeared in which episode? How many times Bodie did wear his blue-grey faux leather jacket? What did they eat or drink? How many flats did they each have, and exactly how were they furnished? It's all here and a lot more. There are biographies of Bodie, Doyle and Cowley, gleaned from what is revealed about them through the series; also an extensive character list, sorted both by the characters in the episodes, and by the actors who played them.
The amount of work that went into this, in the days before everything was on the net, is amazing. The fans who painstakingly put this together deserve a huge amount of credit. As far as I know, this is available only in paper, so if you're ever in a position to pick up a copy, it's very well worth it.
2) The Professionals Viewing Notes. Probably everyone has one of these by now, but it's still worth mentioning. With the new remastered DVDs, each set also includes a book with the exhaustive technical details of the making of every episode. In contrast to Professional Insight, these aren't "in-world" on Pros – that is it's not about Bodie and Doyle and Cowley. Instead they track all the minutia of how a TV series gets made: the daily shooting schedules, the script changes, and the actual places where locations were shot. In the first season's book there are also biographies of Gordon Jackson, Martin Shaw, and Lewis Collins.
I don't consider them curl-up-by-the-fire-and-enjoy reads, but if you're interested in the background of how television works, they're interesting to poke around in before or after watching an episode. Something I found truly amazing is how much out of order scenes in an episode are shot. Shooting depends on when the company can access a location site, how the weather is, how the actors are co-operating, and dozens of other things. If that means you shoot the ending first, and then work back to the beginning, so be it. It gives me a lot more respect both for the actors' ability, and the wardrobe people.
3) The Hatstand transcripts. (http://hatstand.slashcity.net/eps.html) There is a ton of interesting background stuff at The Hatstand, but what I really appreciate is this section of the site, which has transcripts of the dialogue in every episode. Another huge fan effort.
I find this particularly useful is as a reference when writing an episode related story. Many people can quote memorable lines, but when you need to know exactly what someone said in just an ordinary passing moment, it's very handy to have access right at your fingertips (especially for minor characters who many not have a lot of lines in the first place). It's also handy for a non-Brit just to understand what's being said sometimes. I've been married to a Brit for over thirty years, and sometimes still get stymied by dialects.
4) The Internet Firearms Data Base (http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Professionals_(TV_Series),_The) I am an utter ignoramus when it comes to using, or even identifying, any kind of weapon. My fallback in fiction is to refer to any firearm as a "gun", and hope I haven't made any egregious errors in usage. (My personal pet peeve in westerns or action movies is always "the gun with the infinite capacity magazine".)
This database is filled with pictures of the various firearms used in the Professionals, not just by Bodie and Doyle, but by pretty well any character in the series. It also includes proper terminology and other tidbits. There are also plenty of pictures of the lads with their various guns, which is always to the good.
5) Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library. (http://www.framecaplib.com/proslib.htm) Another great fan effort, with a huge number of screencaps. It doesn't have every episode, but it's very good for the first season, and a few popular episodes from later ones.
As a person with no technical ability, I'm always impressed by people who can clip neat, in-focus shots that really catch a person's action or character in one picture. I find this site a really useful reference when I'm working on a multi-episode story. I'll be watching one ep, writing, and looking at screen-caps of characters from a different episode all at the same time. Sometimes a still photo gives you an insight into a person that a moving picture can't.
Story Recs:
1) All the Queen's Men, by Victoria Racklyft (http://www.thecircuitarchive.com/tca/archive/13/allthe.html) My all-time favourite Pros story. It's got action and adventure, the supernatural, a deep friendship between Bodie and Doyle that develops into a deep love. It's also got a unique and involving female OC, a romance for Cowley, and wonderful courage and steadfastness by everyone.
A true bonus in this zine are the wonderful illustrations by Suzan Lovett. The cover, with its juxtaposition of Doyle and Bodie in modern dress with them as medieval knights, is stunning. I have the file saved to my computer, but when I got the chance to buy the zine in paper I snapped it up, just to be able to look at the illustrations in full-size.
2) Injured Innocents, by O Yardly. A lovely, long cozy read that just pushes all my buttons. It's a little old-fashioned, but very sweet and full of affection. Bodie and Doyle chugging along on holiday on a canal-boat forms the centre of the novel, but there's also casework, drama, high spirits and fun.
As far as I'm aware this zine is not available on the net. The copy I have is actually typed (as in on a typewriter), a sign of just how old it is. I treasure it.
3) Voice Over, by Elizabeth O'Shea. (http://archiveofourown.org/works/239887). A beautiful first person, stream-of-consciousness story, as Doyle waits at Bodie's bedside for him to wake up from a terrible injury. The flashback to their first time as lovers is by turns moving, sexy and wildly funny.
4) In A Land of Shadow, by Gil Hale. (http://thebrowsery.skeeter63.org/gilhale/tp-fiction/inalandofshadow.html). This is a gen story that's a cross-over with The Sentinel (and yes, another story where Somebody We All Know is Blair Sandburg's father). It's very well done: it combines an interesting case from both sides of the cross-over that intersects at the relationship between Blair and Doyle. Gil Hale really understands the characters, and makes all of them totally believable.
5) Breaking the Chains, by SAC. Another cross-over, this time with The Scarlet Pimpernel. Major William Bodie is part of Sir Percy Blakeney's crew of adventurers in France, and he ends up involved with Chauvelin. The author has to work a little to redeem Chauvelin, but does an excellent job of it. She also makes a wise choice in making Bodie a foil to the foppish insouciance of Blakeney, rather than a copy of him.
I believe this was archived at The Automated Hatstand, which is now gone. I have not been able to find it at AO3, or any other archive I've checked.
So homework assignment: does anyone know if this story is archived somewhere? I'll add in the link if someone can provide it.
EDIT: Thanks so much to everybody who chimed in! I'd completely forgotten Breaking the Chains was posted here.
Link: http://www.palelyloitering.com/Dialj/BreakingTheChainsGGerbil.htm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 07:04 pm (UTC)As for the assignment, I may have a lead. . . I R/T it in later
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 07:32 pm (UTC)I mentioned this yesterday at Firlefanzine's post here at DIAL, the AH can still be found at the Wayback Machine and hopefully this is a link to the story you want:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170306033606/http://hatstandfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=560
What a good idea!
Date: 2017-12-06 07:34 pm (UTC)lbc
RE: What a good idea!
Date: 2017-12-06 07:34 pm (UTC)Breaking The Chains
Date: 2017-12-06 07:38 pm (UTC)DiaLJ Christmas Challenge 2009 'Discovered in a Christmas Stocking'
http://www.palelyloitering.com/Dialj/BreakingTheChainsGGerbil.htm
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 07:49 pm (UTC)And as for the rest - yes! Totally agree with you about all those resources, and the fics as well! Voice-Over is still my favourite short Pros story (which means I can say that Larton is my favourite long Pros story, and not have to choose between the two. *g*) And I've even read Land of Shadows, though I don't really know The Sentinel, and keep it on paper as one of my regular re-reads.
Oddly, I'm re-reading Injured Innocents at the moment... *g*
Great post - thank you!
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 09:20 pm (UTC)RE: What a good idea!
Date: 2017-12-06 09:21 pm (UTC)Thanks - I really enjoyed assembling the list. It gave me an excuse to browse some sites again.
RE: Breaking The Chains
Date: 2017-12-06 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 09:23 pm (UTC)And thanks for the links. I've updated now - glad we have a sharp eyed crowd with better memories than mine.
RE: Breaking The Chains
Date: 2017-12-06 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 01:49 am (UTC)Lovely stories! Several of my favorites there as well. Thank you for the reminders!
no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 06:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 06:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 04:12 pm (UTC)I love too Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library, and the quality of the images is very good (I think she recaptured some episodes from the new/high definition remastered DVDs).
I also found the Professionals Viewing Notes not terribly interesting and too dry as a reading, for my own taste. Of course, they are written for the general/mainstream viewer/fan, not really for those like me/us? who are also focused on the characters meta, the slashy bits etc. 😉
Do you know how one can pick up a copy of Professional Insight? Was it published through a professional publisher?
Thank you :)
no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 04:42 pm (UTC)Professional Insight is a fan publication, and it is old - judging by the printing I'd say '90's or earlier. The copy I got was on a free for all table at Bistocon - I can't remember if I ever knew who brought it along. I've never seen it for sale anywhere. It was just pure luck I got it.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-08 07:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-14 01:50 pm (UTC)I've found myself going to the transcripts a lot, and have also found the firearms database really handy. So too, the Professionals cars database. ..How else would I know that's a Vanden Plas Princess, they trash so beautifully, in Blind Run. :D
I'd also like to read the episode technical notes, when time permits.