Ok now I get it but also, Rex Stout is trolling

[cimorene]

Ok, I've started Too Many Cooks, and Archie's thoughts and actions around the lovely young woman, and then his teasing Wolfe about it, are fairly unbelievable. I mean so far it's essentially 'She's too hot: better pretend to be married' followed by 'Get it? The joke is that I wouldn't want to quit or get a more respectable job or marry someone! It's just too ridiculous!' And Wolfe goes from the "menacing murmur" of 'You're lying' to knowing the truth with one look at his face and blusters in relief.

If you take canon as truthful, then so far their relationship reads as asexual, maybe queerplatonic, unequal and maybe a bit power-dynamic-kinky; but certainly committed, satisfying, comfortable, profoundly attached and intimately trusting. Still assuming you don't read sexuality or romance into it, you could call that friendship instead of queerplatonic, but the scale of everything is more like partnership or found family.

A romantic queer reading isn't super far out there, and I see the appeal of the ship, but, as is all too often the case, find it less interesting as standard sexualized romance than as an asexual or queerplatonic or even just platonic relationship (or, to put it old-fashionedly, smarm). People hardly ever want to write those.

Comments

[stranger]

I like "queerplatonic." It's definitely a found-family dynamic, shown but never discussed.

[princessofgeeks]

Yes, what Stranger said.

I don't know if there's all that much Archie/Nero slash out there, honestly. I think it was mostly Archie/Saul but it's been a while since I looked for fan fiction.

You have some of my favorites coming up! The Red Box, and the one about the prize steer whose name I forget.

[vass]

There's a bit. There was an email list called Milk and Orchids back in the day, which had a few very dedicated Nero/Archie writers doing longfic.

[cimorene]

No, I read the The Red Box the day before yesterday. I'm on Too Many Cooks, but I spent a long time building bunny cages yesterday and didn't finish it in one day...

[princessofgeeks]

I thought the Red Box was really interesting with a great antagonist. Also it showed Saul's talents. It's one I reread.

[cimorene]

I know that there is a small amount, not entirely negligible... basically a Yuletide fandom plus one person who incredibly determinedly wrote like twenty or thirty things. Not uncommon for a rare pairing though. As to whether it's good, or how it compares to the slightly larger quantity of Archie/Saul, I couldn't say. I take your word that the canonical foundation for Archie/Saul is there, but I haven't got to it yet.

Since what interested me most here is a non-romantic relationship, platonic or familial - that's essentially canon with a bit more emphasis on the relationship... so it's not mutually exclusive with pairing Archie romantically with Saul or anyone else. It's more the fact that there's very little fandom interest in writing gen and friendship fic and so on. It's so much easier to project all the depths of emotion onto a sexual and stereotypically romantic scale.

[princessofgeeks]

Yes, I have seen that in all fandoms.... many of us are mostly here for the porn!!! :D

But case fic or other types of fic that are not romance are wonderful and as time has gone on I find myself looking for them more and more. Like really good tie in novels!

Friendship fic can be super.

[cimorene]

Yes, and I can sympathize too... even though there are some relationships that I really prefer to read as platonic, there have been plenty of times when I was there for the romance instead.

And it's easy to understand why people prefer romance to 'friendship fic'; the idea is so broad that it doesn't really require that the connection between the two characters is the theme or focus of the fic, and if that's what you want, romance is far more likely to do it. Plus if they haven't added a romance to the formula, a lot of gen is dangerously close to just the author's attempt to continue canon, and if they haven't got a twist to take your mind off it you're free to be dissatisfied by all the ways it isn't canon, and conclude you might as well just read canon anyway.

Gen doesn't have to just be an attempt at pastiche of course, and there's some great gen that isn't - as I've mostly discovered much more recently, because when I first arrived in fandom I was entirely ship-driven! - but the risk is there.

So it's hard to blame people for not having written what I would like to read when it's something I likely wouldn't write myself and have rarely read. I feel like the term and concept "found family" have gained a lot in recent years though, so perhaps that will be a focus for a subtype of gen...

[princessofgeeks]

Found family is indeed a wonderful concept.

I got into fanfic for the porn and have broadened my tastes. But there is nothing better than fanfic that really "gets" a certain character, esp a character one loves who is a small part of canon.

So many avenues.

[cimorene]

I just finished Some Buried Caesar and I had to keep stopping from glee. Archie is so affectionately long suffering and he loves watching Wolfe demolish people do much! The introduction of Lily Rowan was so unexpected and delightful in many ways! And I love when she's introduced to Wolfe and they charm each other and ignore Archie.

[princessofgeeks]

Lily is awesome and recurs often.

I am so glad the author included her.

[cimorene]

It occurs to me now that I could start a tally of times I had to pause in my reading from excess glee, but the sixth book is a bit late for that.

[princessofgeeks]

Not in my book. Start wherever! So many memorable quotes. I know I will reread. Unless Kindle deletes them from my account. I have, like 41 of them on my Kindle.

*blushes*

[cimorene]

Makes sense. I have the complete Jeeves & Wooster and the Philo Vance omnibus on my phone at all times in case of comfort rereading.

[vass]

Yeah, subtly kinky asexual queerplatonic relationship in which Nero is sex-repulsed and touch-averse and they're agreed that Archie can go elsewhere for sex and dancing. Also, Nero is autistic.

[sara]

I generally concur with this take but also think that bad shit happened to Nero in Europe in the 20s and there's a lot of trauma in the background that he's absolutely not going to process in any way because he's a man and it's the middle of the twentieth century.

[vass]

Yeah, that's fair.

(Just to make it clear, I'm not only basing my "Nero is autistic" contention on deficits or aversions. I am also thinking of his likes, his strengths, his interests.)

[cimorene]

Yes, it seems pretty evident that he is to me, although less certain how aware of that Stout was. He's clearly familiar with someone or someones with the personality traits in question to various degrees, at least.

I think from what I've seen thus far that it's unlikely they ever make an explicitly articulated agreement on that subject, unless Archie felt it necessary and goaded or manipulated Wolfe into it, but he's capable of presenting his questions and plans indirectly and reading the answers from Wolfe's reactions.

[cimorene]

But also yes, this is exactly how I read it thus far.

[cimorene]

The more of these books I read the more I am astonished that I haven't seen any fic like this - I went and hunted down the pre-AO3 stuff via Fanlore, including the archive of the mailing list you mentioned, yesterday - because it seems so obvious. But maybe it's that 'queerplatonic' is not a commonly understood concept now, the way asexual wasn't fifteen years ago... and of course, the fandom seems to have been most active around the run of the last tv adaptation, which was well before asexual was generally understood in fandom...