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

[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.)