Rugby (Union) and fannish thoughts

[nineveh_uk]

In the previously-mentioned universe in which Harriet Vane’s detective novels are made into a TV series (hopefully more faithfully than your average Christie adaptation), someone will have to be found to play her detective, Robert Templeton.

[Robert Templeton] was a gentleman of extraordinary scientific skill, combined with almost fabulous muscular development. He had arms like an orang-utan and an ugly but attractive face. She took conjured up his phantom before her in the suit of rather loud plus-fours with which she was accustomed to invest him, and took counsel with him in spirit.

I can now announce that that man is French rugby union player Sebastian Chabal. If this was Harriet’s vision of the archetypal great detective, no wonder it took her a while to reconcile herself to fancying Lord Peter Wimsey, who undoubtedly spent his first two terms at Eton having his head stamped into the mud every time he was forced, white knees trembling, out on to the field.

Still perfecting my Yuletide sign-up plans. Question, if twenty-one people have already volunteered to write Wimsey fanfic, why the hell aren’t they doing it the rest of the time?

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

You may be right about the perceived lack of an audience. I've not come across crack_van, but it looks like a good idea. It will also spur me to finding some free wireless (rather than the Maths dept) to check adultfanfiction.net, which is a bit of a gap in the archive.

I'm not sure about Harriet looking down on her readers for liking RT - the clothes are because she doesn't know about them (I wonder if he gets a makeover once she has Bunter and Peter to ask), but she does seem to try to do what she does sincerely.

Ah, so fragile Peter is in fact quite good at rugger, and thus gets beaten up off the field for showing up the big kids who look as if they ought to be better than he is? But his finding his salvation in being good at cricket does not suggest to me much liking for muddy contact sports.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

crack_van is a multi-fandom reccing community. Any fandom that can muster up enough fans and writers to keep reccing stories month after month can become a regular, but they also have a Featured Small Fandom option, where very small fandoms can post lots of recs in the course of a single month. It has a very wide readership, so it should glean some attention.

Isn't it Harriet who's thinking of RT as being fabulously muscley and looking like an orang-utan, though? That suggests she has a sense of the absurd as far as her creation goes. Or perhaps she only starts thinking of him in critical terms once she's met the real thing.

I took the being good at cricket as shorthand for general athletic skills, and assumed it was his salvation because being really brainy and keen on art didn't go down too well at public school in those days. Whereas being good at sports made you a god, and cricket was the king of sports. But of course it could well be that Peter had a general preference for not getting his head stamped in the mud, and hence was considered absurdly fastidious.

[tree_and_leaf]

I could just about see Peter as an old fashioned fly half, the nippy, small, devious kind (those being the days where you could find a place for every body shape in the team, rather than just going for big (if fast) hulks, but I have trouble seeing him having much fun at rugby.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Whereas Denver would have ADORED it.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I bet Denver played the wall game, too.

Popping home at lunchtime enabled me to check a bit of transcribed Thones, Dominations MS and the news that Denver's prime use to his little brother was preventing his being molested in the showers (I paraphrase a bit). I see Peter as holding up his own on the sports front at prep school, bolstered by being good at cricket and otherwise happy to run about kicking things as much as your average 9 year old, but coming a cropper faced with a gang of hefty Eton adolescents who actually take the whole thing seriously, and before you know it he's been knocked down a couple of times, made some unpopular remarks, and is Flimsy Wimsey.

My sister is a very slight rugby player, so it can be done, but she is also tall, unconcerned about filth, and was pulling doors off their hinges aged four.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Denver's prime use to his little brother was preventing his being molested in the showers (I paraphrase a bit).

Ho yuss, I definitely detect some paraphrasin' goin' on there.

Does Flim come from Flimsey? You learn something new every day. Makes perfect sense though. Okay, I'll buy it. As long as I am allowed to imagine that that Flimsey Wimsey took a Stalky-esque revenge on all molestery rugger buggers and face stampers.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I'm not paraphrasin' that much; courtesy of Uncle Paul "I fancy, too, he had escaped the grubbier manifestations of schoolboy sexuality - there at least his brother's fists would have been willing and able to protect him". Though one notes that if we thereby rule out one side of fagging, there may be scope for voluntary interest, esp. if one takes a Bill Clinton-ish view.

I like the idea of Stalky-esque revenge - a thirst for justice beginning with the rescue of some unhappy first year, pursual of the culprits, and a clever payback...

[azdak.livejournal.com]

"I fancy, too, he had escaped the grubbier manifestations of schoolboy sexuality - there at least his brother's fists would have been willing and able to protect him"

Wow! Good old DL, telling it like it is. I'm impressed (or was that JPW?)

there may be scope for voluntary interest, esp. if one takes a Bill Clinton-ish view.

You mean "I didn't inhale, and she didn't swallow"?


I like the idea of Stalky-esque revenge

Preferably involving a dead cat.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

DLS - it's in one of the bits that JPW left out.

You mean "I didn't inhale, and she didn't swallow"
I can only say "unk". But 17 year old Peter seems pretty much untouched by human hands as far as anything significant goes (17 1/2 yr old Peter, of course, being up for grabs).

Dead cat request noted.