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war is horrible . . .
. . . but war stories are awesome.
Not inevitably awesome--Sturgeon's Law applies here as everywhere--but the good ones are.
At the moment I feel like I'm having a second childhood, reading and watching all the things I absolutely craved as a tween and adolescent but had no access to. And although it's a second childhood, it's also in a sense a first boyhood, because the last time around I was somewhat ashamed of my interest in this kind of thing and eventually suppressed it, aware that it was seen as inappropriate for a girl and not aware that it was possible I might not be a girl. (Those sorts of gendered distinctions are stupid bullshit anyway, it's just that in my case the gender wasn't even correct.)
Anyway, I'm enjoying the uniforms and airplanes and comradeship and amazing feats of survival and love in the face of death. (And because I'm mostly not watching/reading utter crap, there's also grief and fear, trauma, emotional damage, pain and disability, class distinctions, moral grey areas, and precious little glory or honor. None of which is properly speaking fun, but it makes for damn good stories.)
Still taking recs for homoerotic war stories if anyone has any. I can now recommend the 1977-78 BBC series Wings (with two caveats: first that besides the usually good war stuff, there's a deadly dull soap-operaish home front storyline [the better writers play it down, but unfortunately the series creator and main writer is not among them], and second that I haven't seen the last few episodes yet).
I'm still trying to lure more people into watching the POW drama Colditz, which is extremely well-written and well-acted, is not in any way jingoistic, pro-war, or morally simple, and also for most of its run features a beautiful often-shirtless young man. Beautiful young man has a deeply intimate friendship with another man, which is not a plot point and seldom even a matter of dialogue, but which is omnipresent in the performances once you start to look for it. (And I'm not just talking about "OMG they're standing next to each other!" tinhattery, although I'm more than capable of that, but about things like them discreetly holding each other's hands in one scene.) Let me give you an extra incentive: if you watch the show, you can read the two wonderful stories![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
halotolerant has written in the fandom. (I suppose you could read them anyway, but you'll like them better if you know the characters.)
The first series of Secret Army is also good, although bleak as hell; I found the second series less interesting (plus it starts a long slide into tedious anti-communist propaganda) and have for the moment given up watching about 5 episodes into S2.
*hopes for more recs*
It occurred to me recently to wonder why, given that male/male romance is a thriving subgenre now, its typology is so very narrow. It's all either about vampires/werewolves/elves, or about rich New York executives or Hollywood actors, or cowboys or pirates or private detectives, or occasionally it's about Regency or Victorian aristos who fall for their stable boys. War--any war--provides ample opportunity to write about love between men with all the angst anyone could ever want, and yet there don't seem to be a lot of male/male love stories set in wartime.
(NB: It is possible that I'm wrong about this. I don't actually care for romance as a genre, even when it is about two men, and I've only ever read a few male/male romances. But the impression that I get from seeing other people's posts about m/m romances, and also from a quick glance at the Torquere Press website just now, is that war stories are surprisingly few and far between. Go figure. If there were decently written, properly researched m/m love stories--I hesitate to say "romances" because of generic implications I don't care for--like that, I might well read them.)
Not inevitably awesome--Sturgeon's Law applies here as everywhere--but the good ones are.
At the moment I feel like I'm having a second childhood, reading and watching all the things I absolutely craved as a tween and adolescent but had no access to. And although it's a second childhood, it's also in a sense a first boyhood, because the last time around I was somewhat ashamed of my interest in this kind of thing and eventually suppressed it, aware that it was seen as inappropriate for a girl and not aware that it was possible I might not be a girl. (Those sorts of gendered distinctions are stupid bullshit anyway, it's just that in my case the gender wasn't even correct.)
Anyway, I'm enjoying the uniforms and airplanes and comradeship and amazing feats of survival and love in the face of death. (And because I'm mostly not watching/reading utter crap, there's also grief and fear, trauma, emotional damage, pain and disability, class distinctions, moral grey areas, and precious little glory or honor. None of which is properly speaking fun, but it makes for damn good stories.)
Still taking recs for homoerotic war stories if anyone has any. I can now recommend the 1977-78 BBC series Wings (with two caveats: first that besides the usually good war stuff, there's a deadly dull soap-operaish home front storyline [the better writers play it down, but unfortunately the series creator and main writer is not among them], and second that I haven't seen the last few episodes yet).
I'm still trying to lure more people into watching the POW drama Colditz, which is extremely well-written and well-acted, is not in any way jingoistic, pro-war, or morally simple, and also for most of its run features a beautiful often-shirtless young man. Beautiful young man has a deeply intimate friendship with another man, which is not a plot point and seldom even a matter of dialogue, but which is omnipresent in the performances once you start to look for it. (And I'm not just talking about "OMG they're standing next to each other!" tinhattery, although I'm more than capable of that, but about things like them discreetly holding each other's hands in one scene.) Let me give you an extra incentive: if you watch the show, you can read the two wonderful stories
halotolerant has written in the fandom. (I suppose you could read them anyway, but you'll like them better if you know the characters.) The first series of Secret Army is also good, although bleak as hell; I found the second series less interesting (plus it starts a long slide into tedious anti-communist propaganda) and have for the moment given up watching about 5 episodes into S2.
*hopes for more recs*
It occurred to me recently to wonder why, given that male/male romance is a thriving subgenre now, its typology is so very narrow. It's all either about vampires/werewolves/elves, or about rich New York executives or Hollywood actors, or cowboys or pirates or private detectives, or occasionally it's about Regency or Victorian aristos who fall for their stable boys. War--any war--provides ample opportunity to write about love between men with all the angst anyone could ever want, and yet there don't seem to be a lot of male/male love stories set in wartime.
(NB: It is possible that I'm wrong about this. I don't actually care for romance as a genre, even when it is about two men, and I've only ever read a few male/male romances. But the impression that I get from seeing other people's posts about m/m romances, and also from a quick glance at the Torquere Press website just now, is that war stories are surprisingly few and far between. Go figure. If there were decently written, properly researched m/m love stories--I hesitate to say "romances" because of generic implications I don't care for--like that, I might well read them.)
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And, way earlier than what you're looking for, but Rosemary Sutcliff's version of Arthurian history, Sword at Sunset, has a canonical m/m warrior couple as minor characters.
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Thanks for the recs! I've read the Lord John books and they're not quite my cup of tea, but I'll have to try the Sutcliff if I can get hold of it. Arthuriana is another long-standing interest of mine, so that sounds intriguing.
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