Heroes for Sale

[tinturtle]

I'm currently reading Night Moves, a 1988 Professionals fic by Courtney Gray in which Bodie is an expensive prostitute and Ray a CI5 agent. This kind of AU doesn't immediately appeal to me, but it's a recurring trope in Pros fandom and several people were quoted on Fanlore speaking highly of this particular story. I also thought it might be interesting to compare it to another fic written the same year: Rainbow Chasers by HG, in which Doyle is a prostitute and Bodie is a CI5 agent. (There's another one, Partners by Nina Boal, in the 1993 zine Leather and Blue Jeans in which both of them are prostitutes. I'm thinking about buying that zine. Perhaps if I do, and if the comparison of the two 1988 fics proves interesting, I will read that one, too.)

This trope is not as common in Man from U.N.C.L.E. fandom, which I suppose is true of most types of AU. In that fandom, you more often get either outright prostitution or specialization in honeytrap missions, or both, as part of Illya's backstory. (ChannelD has written a lot of fics like that, of course, but there are some others as well.) I've never encountered a story that has Napoleon selling sex in either past or present.

So...nothing, really. Just some ramblings while I take a break from reading.