Bruuuuuuuuuuuuce \m/

[dorinda]

In a delightful morning surprise, I've discovered that MOLLYAMORY WROTE ME A BRUCE/TONY COMMENTFIC AW YISSSSSS, to my vague and hopeful prompt! Yay yay yay wooooo freebiiiiiiiiird!

I'd always talked to molly about the "idyll" type of story, in which the characters are stuck in a peaceful, comfortable, well-stocked place, usually with some kind of swimming available (anyone remember the classic Pros story "In Hot Water: an Idyl"? That is totally the Platonic Ideal.). I adore the idyll story, although I haven't yet written one myself.

So I asked molly for an idyll--and mused about, you know, whether Tony would even find my kind of idyll idyllic. Her conclusion is No He Would Not, at least not if he were ordered to be there, because whatever you tell Tony to do he looks forward to doing the opposite twelve times before breakfast. Besides, I suspect an actual idyll for him would definitely have to involve access to his labs and equipment, and something blowing up at some point. So here I get to see Bruce being zen and making sure to get some deep relaxation in, which I think he can be very good at, having perforce developed the skill (and when he's in a place he can feel safe), and Tony being contrary and unexpectedly charmable. ♥

THANKS, MOLLY, ALTHOUGH DON'T THINK I WON'T KEEP MAKING WISTFUL EYES ABOUT YOUR UNFINISHED BRUCE STUFF. ♥ ______ ♥

Comments

[the_shoshanna]

I remember that story! IIRC, it's one of the Cowley-as-yenta genre, but that doesn't interfere with the idyllicness

And now I am off to check out this comment fic of which you speak,because YES.

[dorinda]

It's true, Cowley in that story is, like, Deep Background Yenta, serving as the force that "traps" Bodie and Doyle in the idyll. I've been wondering today why that doesn't at all detract from my pleasure in the story, which is still one of my favorites. I mean, I don't pursue the yenta trope, and in fact if someone mentions a story has a yenta, I sidle up on it with suspicion. I've read too many bad yentas in my day, and it seems to me they often serve as an intrusive author- or audience-surrogate, leapfrogging actual plot work and character motivation in order to just grab the BSOs by the scruffs and go NOW KISS--where I like my slash progression a little more organic.

At the moment, my conclusions have largely been revolving around the Deep Backgroundness of Cowley's yenta-ing. He doesn't articulate his goal as something as simple (and OOC) as "oh, these boys are obviously destined to be together and hot to trot, let me force them to have lots of languid Northern California sex!" It's not presented as him being helpful or sweet or shippy per se. Instead, the narrative seems to hang back and consider things in a larger sense--it's more about the energy crackling around them, about their dynamic as a team, which is getting turbulent and darker and less productive, hanging on a tangled thread. So Cowley forcibly exiles them Into The Greenwood, as it were, and it's not clear I think what exactly he intends, except for that turbulent, winding-too-tight energy to resolve itself.

At the end, Cowley then observes their body language, the way they interrelate--again, the energy and dynamic--and is content. The partnership didn't wind itself up too tight and implode; it resolved and became better. Now, I'm not claiming the story keeps Cowley out of the unstated but clear motivation of intimately-pairing the BSOs--his final act, after all, is to order them to move in together, again supposedly for his own workplace-bean-counting purposes. And they know that he knows. However, I suppose it frankly lets me not get a fistful of yenta right in the face, to allow it to seem a little more layered, and a little more focused on motivations that feel truer to Cowley's character.

Like, Cowley wanting/pushing his agents to fall in love just because love is grand and they deserve to be happy? Ehhh. Cowley wanting his agents to be the best team they can be for his purposes, and if that involves love and intimacy then fine he'll provide the impetus and use the outcome? Works better for me.

Not that I can absolve myself of sometimes having the Cow be enough of an inner softie to also think love is grand... I mean, I wrote Festival of Lights, after all. But in that one, he doesn't think that way first and then push Bodie and Doyle together--he sees the togetherness happening like flashfire, and his inner weakness for B and D lets him show a glimpse of positive sympathy and hope in his observation of the event. Which cheers Bodie up, which enables the solidly happy ending. (I suppose it does have a drop of yentaishness at the end, there. Maybe that indicates that I'm not as allergic to at least a touch of yenta as I think I am?)

[the_shoshanna]

Like, Cowley wanting/pushing his agents to fall in love just because love is grand and they deserve to be happy? Ehhh. Cowley wanting his agents to be the best team they can be for his purposes, and if that involves love and intimacy then fine he'll provide the impetus and use the outcome? Works better for me.

Definitely. I have no problem at all believing that Cowley thinks love is grand and everyone except the villains deserves to be happy. However, love and happiness are not as important as getting his job done/defending Britain/keeping the villains down, and he will unhesitatingly throw love and happiness -- his own as well as others' -- under the proverbial bus if higher priorities require.

[arduinna]

I love that Pros story so much. *happy sigh* Yentas all over the place (I swear, even the raccoons were trying to get them together), but I don't care. It really is the Platonic Ideal of Fanfic Idylls.

... There should totally be an Idyll challenge. *ponders*

[dorinda]

So true, so true. Cowley, Elizabeth, the raccoons, the weather, the butterflies, the ice cream, the pools. THE ENTIRE WORLD WANTS YOU TO BOINK SO YOU BETTER GET TO IT.

I've been musing about my relationship to the Yenta trope--my assumed relation, and what might be my actual relation. I pondered about it in the thread above you a bit. But it'll bear more thinking. Hmmmmm.

There should totally be an Idyll challenge. *ponders*

I for one would read the hellll-o out of that. And someday I want to write one! I mean, I love the trope so much, why not try actually writing-what-I-love, seeing if I can hit my id target?

Was there ever a Desert Island challenge, or am I just imagining it? A desert-island type scenario would fit into the Idyll category, seems to me. Although a purer idyll would make sure the desert island was not lacking food, water, shelter, and other comforts...skew too far toward the 'desert' part, with the strandedness meaning suffering, and it becomes hurt/comfort, after all.

I think that some of the Shacks took a touch of the Idyll in their approach, now that I consider it. Isolation, plus stocked-necessities, plus comfort, plus increasing intimacy. Although no one had the swimming (pool or beach or both), which, while not mandatory, seems to me to be a big feature of the classic, Platonic, ur-idyll story.

[gwyn]

I too would read the hell out of an idyll challenge. Fuck, it might even make me write.

I always think that's one of the things about Et In Italia Ego that crushed my soul so very, very much -- the perfect idyll destroyed by the facts o life, or at least, facts that seemed to exist for the characters the writer created, not necessarily how I saw those facts. I just...yeah, it would have been perfect. Could have been. But I guess that's the point of the story. Which, you know, fine, fine, I'll just be over here chewing on my arm.

I'm so glad that the whining about Bruce and Tony paid off! Now there is one more fic in the world!

[dorinda]

Yeah, Et in Italia Ego feels perfectly designed to smash readers fond of the idyll--because it takes Bodie and Doyle into the greenwood, creates such an idyll, cradles them (and us) in it for the entire story--and then at the end, the idyll is absolutely banned from moving across the borders back into daily life. NO. CANNOT HAVE. SMASH.

The thing is, the destruction of the idyll there never convinced me, if I remember rightly (although take with a grain of salt, since I haven't re-read it anytime recently). It just seemed to be taken for granted that of course it can't go with them into their daily life, and in fact it's a complete toggle-switch of a conclusion--not even a fragment of this new togetherness they've created can come with them, it has to be either All or Nothing and the story says the answer is Nothing--for no convincing reason I can discern. At least not one that fully convinced me.

That sort of approach tends to automatically be given more credence, I think--the way that Grimdark is often seen as somehow more authentic/classier than Fluff. But I think an ending that completely and almost arbitrarily crushes the possibilities like that, can be just as empty and unconvincing as any story that goes 100% the other way, like one of those Everybody's Gay And It's Okay things that pairs off every single conceivable character also for no reason. In either case, the conclusion doesn't seem to rise organically from the setting and characterizations, plus it's again that toggle-switch, that spurious, unnuanced extremism that says it's either Everything or Nothing.

Not that I can't handle an unhappy ending (although it is way not my preference). But an extremist unhappy ending that feels unsupported...that just ends up feeling kind of irritating.

...you know, I just ran into a line from a review of the story on ci5_hq (linked from the Fanlore article on the story) that seems to get for a second at my feelings here:

"And then there's the bittersweet, poignant, heartache of an ending. But really it can't end any other way. Not if it's to have the impact Sebastian is after."

So, "it can't end any other way"--not because the tragic-ending is entirely inherent in the characters as presented, not because the situation has wound itself into a certainty. But because of the effect Sebastian wants. That seems to agree with my issue of the ending not growing organically from the story, but being imposed from without in order to Write A Sad Story.

(But then, who am I, you know. *g* I'm someone who likes happier or at least more-hopeful endings. So I would think that.)

[arduinna]

I don't remember a Desert Island challenge, but it definitely sounds like something that should have happened.

I thought Shacks briefly, too, when I was thinking about an Idyll Challenge -- but that has less a sense of peaceful rest and comfort, and more haven from the elements -- cave fic with walls and a nice wood fire.

And okay, now I'm cracking up at my mental sliding scale of "Alone In Some Place" fic tropes. ... Wait, no, sliding parallel tracks.

Cavefic -> Canadian Shack
Desert Island -> Idyll

Except the second track starts midway along the first track, because in my head a desert island starts out a bit more comfortable than a cave, and an idyll is inherently more comfy than a shack, despite potential individual differences in all those things. So:

Cave  ->  Shack
      Island   ->   Idyll

All aboard the train to isolation and snuggles!

(Also I am totally copying this out into my post for today, because this is seriously amusing me. But I have more Things To Say in comments here as well, and will be back!)

[dorinda]

I like the way you think! Definitely, post about the Chart Of Alone In Some Place fanfiction tropes. :D I'm mulling over the Island -> Idyll track... I think there's a particular type of Desert Island Story in which the Island itself begins down at its end nearer the Cave, but actually moves along the track and becomes an Idyll, if you see what I mean. People are stranded there, and at first it's uncomfortable and upsetting, but over time they use the things they find and make to create their own idyll, and it's delightful and timeless and who would ever want to leave.

Like--Swiss Family Robinson, or The Black Stallion movie (I know I read the book as a kid, but I don't have a clear enough memory of the island portion to know if it goes as idyllic as the movie does). Or, of course, The Blue Lagoon, which as you might expect provides the storyline for some sexy fanfic AUs.

[arduinna]

...I have lost my mind.

Idyll Challenge