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The reason I love these stories is: I’m a sucker for H/C Bodie, and a sucker for older lads who survive into retirement. In AtNaH, an ill-tempered, recuperating Bodie, is frustrated with Doyle’s hovering and over-protectiveness. APAtG, is the “thirty year timestamp”.
In both stories, Callisto gives us lovely imagery of the lads relationship throughout the years. In the early days, their tempers almost get the better of them. Until of course, they come to understand their love for each other. This is not done in an overly sappy way, with flowery language that you can’t fathom coming from the lads mouths. It’s a subtle but profound, almost silent, awakening that deepens post active agent status.
There are bumps along the way, of course. They are equal in stubbornness and irascibility.
“Over time Doyle had learned to keep his head down and leave him to it.”
Bodie’s pov: “They were simply wired differently and he had had to learn to 'speak Doyle' as he once joked, to read the signs and relax.”
They are also equally tender and caring in the exact way that they know the other needs them to be. Summed up beautifully in this passage;
“So it was not the kiss that stilled Bodie's world and held the anger and frustration in his throat. He knew it was the hands, the unexpected sweetness of those hands holding his face like that. The strongest, softest, safety-net in the world. This was Ray Doyle after all, a man not given to such moments of easy tenderness. A thumb stroke on the side of each cheek and Bodie's eyes stung.”
I like this representation of the boys and their life together. Sequels don’t always work for some stories, but APAtG is well done. Stories that you can come back to and enjoy as much as you did the first time you read them.
I won't be able to reply to comments tonight, since I will be at work. I'll catch up with everyone tomorrow. Enjoy!
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Amid the Noise and Haste by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-22 06:40 pm (UTC)I have to say upfront that I usually like Callisto's stuff, and I like these two in particular, so my opinions may be a trifle (more on this later) biased. However, I've tried to be as impartial as I can.
So, to my niggles. I'm always a little dubious of the dismissal of concussion 'leaving Bodie...with two broken ribs and a concussion. Neither injury was particularly serious', the narrator is omnipotent and therefore knows if the concussion will prove to have serious repercussions or not, but I always like to hear a medical opinion upon the subject. Or at least an acknowledgement of the risks being dismissed.
Exactly as we get a few paragraphs later: 'Doyle took his chance..."Sorry, mate, know I'm breaking about ten rules of first aid here"'.
The occasional sentence construction threw me, '"Leave it!" It was cold out, "it suits you," was what he said, too late, aware from the glare burning his way that he had indeed just returned to a lit firework', I suspect being disunited by some variety of common tongue is probably the reason for the hiccough.
And finally, the 'trifle'. The word is used perfectly within context '[Mrs Henderson]...had clucked and tutted over Bodie with an entire range of desserts...Even at his very worst, Bodie managed to eat and keep down the trifles she had made'. But situated as it is, in proximately to the word 'desserts', my mind insists on conjuring images of Dream Topping (http://www.birdscustard.co.uk/range/dream-topping/) and sponge fingers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifle).
So that's it, three very small niggles about a story I loved from the minute I read it. That's as impartial as I'm going to get :0).
RE: Amid the Noise and Haste by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 08:34 pm (UTC)I am with you on being a bit thrown by Doyle's disregard of first aid rules in his panic - 'cause of his training - but oddly I like it, because it makes the scene so intense and vivid.
I love both the fics to distraction, overall - especially as a pair - and have them together in one file on my kindle, where I periodically revisit them to make sure they are still as lovely as I know them to be *g*
RE: Amid the Noise and Haste by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 09:50 pm (UTC)I remember Dream Topping and hundreds and thousands with some nostalgia, bit like Bodie's sentiments with respect to Doyle's perm, but I don't expect Mrs Henderson would have given them house room!
RE: Amid the Noise and Haste by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 09:05 pm (UTC)Otherwise, she's an author I often look for when I want to read.
Re: Amid the Noise and Haste by Callisto - as a nurse
Date: 2015-10-23 09:47 pm (UTC)I'm in the fortunate position of not having any genuine medical experience to offend, so I can shut my eyes to a lot. In my own writing I use research and personal experience when it comes to B&D, even so, I'm sure I make gaffs obvious to people who know what they're talking about.
With Illya and Napoleon you can be a bit less rigorous because of THRUSHs formulas and hypnotising machines etc. and when it comes to the Enterprise crew, you only have to sound plausible within the story. Even the medicine doesn't have to play by the rules.
I'm sure you're right about television trivialising the consequences of head injuries. Leaving out getting infected by viruses of possibly alien origin (and being dead quite a bit), I was always concerned by the number of times Fox Mulder got bumped on the head. Nigh on nine seasons worth of being knocked unconscious can't have been good for him!
As Perennial As the Grass by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-22 06:53 pm (UTC)Apparently, 'written for the "Discovered in Thirty Years Time" challenge on the discoveredinalj livejournal community'. An idea which appeals to me and with which I may be tempted to play myself. But as difficult as I find this to comprehend, this isn't all about me; so to business.
I like this story even better than 'Amid the Noise and Haste'.
Having discovered it, I was a voracious reader of 'older lads' fic and don't remember stumbling across one I didn't like. However, the untimely death of Lewis Collins, coupled with some personal events, meant I found the stories too hard to read for a long time. My thoughts are still with Mr Collins' family.
However, it would be a criminally sad thing if Bodie didn't live on and it is in that spirit which I read these stories now.
And, as impartial as I'm trying to be, I can't find a niggle to record. So instead, here are some of my favourite bits:
'The old tablecloth Doyle had given Bodie to spread out and work on was rolled up and under his head as a pillow. He had his glasses weighting down his papers, a bee hovering over a half eaten sandwich beside him, and Bertha in a graceless terrier-sprawl over his left knee. And that, thought Doyle, as he dried his hands, is about my lot in life'.
I'm not really a 'happily ever after' sort of person, but this sentence probably comes as close to describing happiness as anything I've ever read.
'Bodie's hair was no longer the army cut of old...[nor Doyle's] own shoulder length hair, which he refused to cut and/or perm, no matter how nostalgic and sentimental Bodie got when he was plastered'.
Although I'm wedded to the idea that Doyle is both predominately blue of eye and naturally mop-headed, I was really quite taken by the notion that he'd permed it, and that Bodie missed it.
'...happy and maudlin with it. [Bodie] solemnly presented Doyle with the most battered roses he'd ever seen, and a soaking wet puppy from the bins behind the pub'.
When people ask me what my idea of romance is, this is the sort of place my head goes. (My heart doesn't go anywhere, it's made of stone, which is why they ask :0))
In addition, I loved the idea of a ''worry wart', Doyle' cornering Bodie 'with Vicks and eucalyptus'. And the implied frustration, patience and love in 'He had a problem getting hard sometimes but judging from the pulse and confinement he was feeling down in his jeans, today was not one of those times'. Because we are not told that Bodie has the same problem, and Doyle is a proud and sexually confident man. There's probably a story itself in the first time Doyle realised that his body had run out of alibis, and that he couldn't put it down to drink, or illness, or fatigue. That, from now on, making love would also involve making compromises, and that, unlike Bodie, he could never again guarantee to 'Stop making a happy man very old' in all the ways he had before.
And finally this:
- "Enjoy that did you, Constable?"
- And just like that the years fell away and they were back in that room, at that desk, smiling into each other's eyes for the first time and ready to save the world.
Because whether your goggles are 'Gen' or 'Slash', and mine are bifocal, it says it all.
RE: As Perennial As the Grass by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 04:01 pm (UTC)RE: As Perennial As the Grass by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 06:30 pm (UTC)Thank you very much for your kind words :0)
But really I think the honours belong to nypagan for picking such a lovely couplet of pieces and especially to Callisto for creating them in the first place.
RE: As Perennial As the Grass by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 06:46 pm (UTC)I agree with you about Doyle's eye color. The hair, I'm not sure. Sometimes, as people age, their hair changes naturally. Curly can become straighter, especially if it goes gray. (My stylist told me this.) Medical conditions and medication can cause changes as well.
I found it interesting that in AtNAH, that Bodie was portrayed as the more 'romantic' one, and was dismayed that Ray didn't say those three magic words often enough for him. In the eps, we can see that Bodie is indeed demonstrative and flirtatious, and Ray apparently is not. But we are shown that he is, in his own way. Causes speculation for what made each man this way in regards to their emotions and relationships.
RE: As Perennial As the Grass by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 07:55 pm (UTC)I know I've seen endless back stories to account for their respective personalities.
My own take is that neither man is shallow, that they both have their complexities. I think Doyle is flirtatious, but I think he tends to be flirtatious to a purpose, whereas Bodie flirts whether he intends it to go anywhere or not.
Interesting about the hair. I shall bear that in mind :0)
RE: As Perennial As the Grass by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 08:25 pm (UTC)Age can make a difference as well, having to do with chemicals/hormones the body is or isn't making. My spouse had incredibly straight hair as a wee thing, incredibly curly hair when I met him in our teenage years, and for the last twenty or so now it has been relaxing. You'd call it wavy now, not curly. No clue if his going grey on the early side had anything to do with it or not.
Eye color can also shift over time. Blue and green eyed people seem prone to this, judging from my own family. My mother had blue eyes when I was growing up; they are gray-green now. My own eyes were a much stronger blue as a kid, but they have a lot more grey tones these days.
Nothing stays the same! :-)
RE: As Perennial As the Grass by Callisto
Date: 2015-10-23 10:15 pm (UTC)My friend's little boy's eyes changed colour quite a bit and didn't really 'settle' until he was around eleven. As a group of friends we used to discuss it regularly.
I was born with black hair, like my mother. But unlike my mother, I didn't keep it.
My anti-depressants affected my hair, including the colour. I've been managing without them for a while now and it seems to have settled back to something I recognise. Only now it's going grey - a whole new adventure in colour!
As for eyes, it's not uncommon in my family for the colour to shift with emotion. I don't suppose they change colour in reality, but strong emotions seem to affect the visibility of different shades within them, emphasising colours which are usually less obvious.
I know science has anecdotal evidence for this, but I'm not aware of any proper studies. It would be great to find out what causes the effect.
And, of course sunlight bleaches hair out, as do chemicals, and eyes can look one colour in daylight and another under artificial light. It's all very complicated!
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Date: 2015-10-22 08:20 pm (UTC)I loved rereading, so thank you for suggesting these two - and thank you even more, because for the life of me I don't recall ever reading the second one, and it's a delight.
I never fail to enjoy Callisto's writing - she writes the lads the way I see them; as you say, she has a way of writing them that's not done in an overly sappy way. And again, I so agree, sequels sometimes fail to deliver but this one is perfect and balances the first story perfectly, adding to it rather than detracting.
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Date: 2015-10-24 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-24 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 04:32 pm (UTC)I count myself among Callisto's fans - she writes with such poignancy but gets it perfect - no mush, just lush. I love her characterization of Bodie and Doyle and the way she portrays them together. She doesn't always write them in a way I expect, either - Bodie's irritability in this one, for example - but in her words I can see it fleshing out and becoming real... He *would* be that way in that situation on that day.
I think the moment that remains and echoes in me is the moment in Cowley's office, when "something warm and as welcome as sunlight stretched through him," when he understands finally, and they can see it in each other eyes when they meet... "in that mundane moment there in Cowley's office, Bodie knew that he loved Ray Doyle with a singular passion he would have to endure all his life."
Also, the humor is perfect, and used perfectly - I am thinking of the candlestick!
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Date: 2015-10-24 02:26 pm (UTC)I think Bodie being irritable from the pneumonia, along with the broken ribs and concussion, is pretty well in character. It's obvious he hates being seen as vulnerable, and doesn't want to be fussed over by Ray. This is shown in both stories.
Glad you enjoyed the stories. Thanks for your comments!
no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 10:07 pm (UTC)I put a couple of little thoughts in my reply to fiorenza ::looks up-screen:: - but I did what to acknowledge that
a) I utterly love this pair of fics with a great and abiding love, and
b) oddly enough, there's one little thing that nypagan particularly likes but which I particularly dislike (e, as ever, we love our fics with different loves! *g*): that business with the hands. This seems to be something constantly on our screens in het romance scenes of one kind or another, and it's clearly something a lot of writers - and a lot of readers - like very much indeed, but it's fingernails on a blackboard to me! Possibly in part because it's something I personally loathe in real life, possibly because in mainstream het film and fiction it always strikes me as a nasty little power-play-dressed-up-as-romance (without any of the honesty of actual kink b&d, for example) - I just can never see this particular little detail in the positive and loving light that is clearly intended.
Ah, but this, this though -
(To strike perhaps the most incongruous note possible - it's a grown-up equivalent of the eternal Hundred-Acre Wood, always and forever as fresh as sunlight.)
For me this is one of the most moving, beautiful, perfect moments in any fic anywhere.
Hundred-Acre Wood
Date: 2015-10-23 11:24 pm (UTC)By 'that business with the hands' did you mean the passage where this appears?
'Although rarely outside of four walls and never in public, Bodie had been kissed many times by
Ray Doyle and with far more passion and urgency than this. So it was not the kiss that stilled
Bodie's world and held the anger and frustration in his throat. He knew it was the hands, the
unexpected sweetness of those hands holding his face like that. The strongest, softest safety-net in
the world. This was Ray Doyle after all, a man not given to such moments of easy tenderness. A
thumb stroke on the side of each cheek and Bodie's eyes stung.'
In which Doyle effectively shuts Bodie up?
Because if you did, I can see where you're coming from with that. It doesn't annoy me here because B&D quite often shut each other up, without, it seems, either party feeling diminished. To me, this just seemed like another play in their endless game of one-up-man-ship. My personal theory is, that this isn't corrosive in their particular relationship because (gen or slash) it's underpinned by a genuine respect, each for the other, of which each is aware, but neither gives voice to.
So, in this instance, Bodie is behaving contrary to his own best interests because he's fed up of being fussed over. Doyle behaves boorishly because he's still scared for Bodie's health. They meet in the middle with a kiss. To me, this was more about Doyle reminding Bodie that he has a right to fuss, than about Doyle dismissing Bodie's ire at being fussed.
But I've also seen canon Napoleon employ the same trick on this week's maidenly innocent, to stop her going on about being scared, or left alone, or anything else he doesn't have time for, and then it does seem dismissive because there's no counter balance of respect or relationship. It's not a move in a game between equal players, it just one person controlling another.
In that respect I'm not sure the kiss is any different to a punch, it's just a gentler form of violence.
RE: Hundred-Acre Wood
Date: 2015-10-24 02:40 pm (UTC)I agree with this interpretation. My reason for liking the scene is that Doyle is not being hard and fast, he is being soft and tender. He is trying to get Bodie to realize exactly how much he loves him not only by the kiss but by the touch.
Actually, for me, the ending of APAtG was a little flat. I was expecting a little more. I don't exactly what, but the ending left me wanting.
RE: Hundred-Acre Wood
Date: 2015-10-24 04:08 pm (UTC)I don't exactly what, but the ending left me wanting.
Wanting more, perhaps?
It's an old axiom of the theatre that you should always leave the audience wanting more.
For me, it was the perfect ending because it isn't an end, just a sweet remembrance of the past and a promise of the future :0)
RE: Hundred-Acre Wood
Date: 2015-10-24 04:47 pm (UTC)And (e.g. re canon Napoleon) yes, you understand exactly why - generally speaking - this gesture pushes all the wrong buttons for me! I do agree that the lads' relationship is not like that at all, but it's a gesture that needs a lot of redeeming for me to overcome those association.
However,
It doesn't annoy me here because B&D quite often shut each other up, without, it seems, either party feeling diminished. To me, this just seemed like another play in their endless game of one-up-man-ship.
you've kind of just about done it! *bg* They do play one-upmanship a lot, don't they, and they do respect each other. This definitely helps me dislike this moment less, which is a good thing as I like the story as a whole so much! *g*
RE: Hundred-Acre Wood
Date: 2015-10-24 05:31 pm (UTC)dislike this moment less
I'm glad, because it is a lovely little story :0)
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Date: 2015-10-25 11:44 pm (UTC)And then I almost wondered whether or not to post at all, cos I guess it's my turn to be a somewhat dissenting voice about these stories... *g*
Which isn't to say they're well-written, readable stories, with some nice characterisation, but... but I do have a couple of buts.
The first is to do with the style in which some of it is written - all the flashing backwards and forwards to things that have happened/are happening/were once happening/are happening now... it's not that it can't be a useful technique, it's just that for such short stories, whole chunks were flashing back, and I must admit it jars me a bit. There's two big flashbacks in the first one, and a couple of shorter explaining-what-happened-in-the-past paragraphs, and then two substantial explaining-what-happened-in-the-past paragraphs in the second fic. I end up feeling a bit as if I've read a summary of a story, rather than the story itself - which is a shame, because Callisto writes some lovely moments, and I want more of them in the story that I 'm ready now... *g*
The other thing is that I felt a touch sideswiped by how wonderful Bodie was - suffering beautifully-and-yet-with-a-rough-edge, vulnerable-in-his-very-toughness, and every so slightly too worshipped by Doyle (and I rather like it when Doyle worships Bodie, just... I want to see it more than hear it.)
Actually I fibbed - maybe three things. I found myself wondering where the tv camera was hiding by the end of the first flashback about Doyle finding Bodie - Don't you fucking dare [die]! and I'm not giving you up to pneumonia... (which could have been "a bullet", "a fall" etc. etc.) - just a bit dramatic-Hollywood-film-moment rather than a bit Doyle. A bit cliched...
But there are some lovely moments too, and I think that's why this almost makes me more cross than a story where I just don't like the explain-y style or whatever. Doyle mouthing love you to Bodie before everyone shows up to rescue him, the whole crocheted blanket (*vbg*) and camera, Bodie insisting Doyle get under the blanket with him, and Doyle giving in... the cosiness of Bodie sitting in the "weak sun of a May afternoon" while Doyle's whistling in the kitchen... See - it's not that I didn't like it, it's just that I thought it could have been so much better, if only it'd told the whole story rather than dotting around bits in odd orders... it could have been really wonderful...
Late, late, late
Date: 2015-10-26 08:03 pm (UTC)If it's any consolation, I've only just made a start with 'Dear Author'.
Clearly, I didn't have any of these niggles (interesting what lights some people's candles and not other's - because I have a whole list of them for Legacy - although ultimately I found the story an enjoyable read).
For me, the switching of time frame gave the story more interest that it would have had if told in a linear fashion and I didn't feel at all short changed by the length of either fic.
To me they were sweet little vignettes.
It's funny that you picked up on Don't you fucking dare [die]!, because Bodie says something similar to Doyle in 'Till a Bullet Stopped His Song' also by Callisto, and it's the one discordant use of speech I find in that story.
I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting Callisto, so I wonder if it's a pattern in the author's speech exerting itself?
RE: Late, late, late
Date: 2015-10-27 03:16 pm (UTC)Having thought about my original comment that I felt there was something missing from the story and that it should have been longer/full length, I realise that actually the opposite is also true, and perhaps more so - it could just as well have improved the story (imho) to make it much shorter too - basically cutting out all those bits that explained what happened to get the lads to where they were then. It's a story about Bodie under a blanket, and how much Doyle loves that - we don't actually need to know any of the backstory to it in such detail (and once we do, then there needs to be more to make it "real"), so it comes over a bit as explanation/telling rather than showing, despite it not being written in that style...
Don't you fucking dare [die]!
Yes, having read it in other stories (as well as it being a tv show trope) may well be another reason this grated on me a bit. We all have our things as writers - I know I have several that I consciously realise I'm repeating! (and sometimes include them anyway *g*) - this may well be one of Callisto's. I think if, in real life, she had occasion to speak like that herself often enough for it to be a pattern, I might worry about her... *g*
Re: Late, late, late - patterns in those tastes
Date: 2015-10-27 08:05 pm (UTC)I think I've spotted a penchant for Pros slash in yours...maybe...just a tad? :0)
I wonder what mine are?
I had a bash at one of those 'take the first whatever' things on MFU a little while ago. In this instance it was the first line from the last ten things you'd written, irrespective of fandom.
I couldn't see a common thread, but other people could. Funny to see what you do through other folk's eyes :0)
RE: Re: Late, late, late - patterns in those tastes
Date: 2015-10-29 09:39 am (UTC)Well I hope that isn't too much of a surprise, considering this is a Pros slash forum! It's gen-friendly, but it's based on Pros slash, which is why the vast majority of us are here... *g*
Re: Re: Late, late, late - patterns in those tastes
Date: 2015-10-29 10:33 pm (UTC)It's gen-friendly, but it's based on Pros slash
I think you may just have encapsulated Pros fandom, full stop!
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Date: 2015-11-26 05:55 pm (UTC)