Wimsey fic (not mine)

[nineveh_uk]

Someone’s written a Wimsey/Torchwood crossover, which may amuse one or two people on the Flist.

Part I
Part II.

There are some liberties with canon (which are at least acknowledged and generally have a point to them), and it's occasionally a little OOC for Peter, not least (though not most) in that self-destructive as he may have been post-Barbara, it's one thing to spy in disguise behind enemy lines, and another to inform a complete stranger that you’re sleeping with your sergeant, but there you go. Given the lines I scrawled in eyeliner on a box of paracetamol and codeine last night for want of a pen and paper, I am probably not one to talk about improbabilities.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

in that self-destructive as he may have been post-Barbara, it's one thing to spy in disguise behind enemy lines, and another to inform a complete stranger that you’re sleeping with your sergeant, but there you go.

Quite apart from anything else (there are more efficient ways of killing yourself), he wouldn't take a risk like that because he'd be too conscious of how awful a scandal a la Oscar Wilde would be for his mother (Peter's discreet enough about heterosexual liasons, which were obviously much less problematic).

Given the lines I scrawled in eyeliner on a box of paracetamol and codeine last night for want of a pen and paper, I am probably not one to talk about improbabilities.

I am intrigued.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

how awful a scandal a la Oscar Wilde would be for his mother
This is very true, although I like to think that the Dowager Duchess would have got on well with the Viennese Opera Singer. And surely even Peter cares sufficiently for that bubble reputation not to want to go down in history as an absolute prize idiot.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, the natural reaction would not be 'Good God, I never thought he was one of them' but 'How the hell could he be so stupid', which is infinitely more humiliating.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

If you must, do, but don't get caught in circumstances that can't be ignored.

[tree_and_leaf]

Uncle Paul would concur!

(Or to quote Humphrey Appelby, driven to plain English: If you must do this bloody stupid thing, don't do it in this bloody stupid way!)

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Puts the sergeant in rather a shitty position, too (I'm assuming it's Bunter...) If even Gerry can keep his mouth shut about getting the lower classes involved in his sordid affairs, one would think Peter could manage, at minimum, that level of noblesse oblige.

[tree_and_leaf]

Peter emphatically does not strike me as the sort of person who thinks that the servants are fair game.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Servants in general, certainly, though in specific I feel that in that relationship it’s Bunter who might scruple at 'taking advantage' of Peter. And of course Peter, as we know from canon, doesn't tell on anybody!

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, that's probably right - Bunter knows perfectly well what a mess Peter is in and how dependent he is on him at that stage.

Peter, as we know from canon, doesn't tell on anybody! No, indeed.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

If you can't be good, be good at it.

I've read the first part, and that was my general reaction. It's a common crossover situation, however: Character A from Fandom 1 meets Character B from Fandom 2 and immediately spills their deepest, darkest, most dangerous secrets, just because...because the author knows they're both trustworthy?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Good point. I shall bear this in mind in my present LPW/Potterverse crossover: “plausible reason to break Statute of Secrecy required”

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

You can get away with a little more in HP because they can always plan on Obliviating the crossover character afterwards, though this is a plot device to use with respect--I'd only do it if I were going to make it a subplot, with the HP characters arguing over the necessity and/or the crossover character finding out and dreading it or something. The "X finds out by accident" method begs the question "If X finds out that easily, why doesn't everyone else and his brother?" (In Torchwood, of course, everyone and his granny know, they just pretend not to. Bloody Torchwood.)

Crossovers are sort of the opposite of a bulletproof kink for me--more like a tender perennial, that one special plant that you keep babying along in your garden through killing frosts and aphid attacks, even though it would probably be easier to shovel it up and plant something else.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

"X finds out by accident" method begs the question "If X finds out that easily, why doesn't everyone else and his brother?"

Because X didn't drink asphodel by midnight in the block of luxury flats now standing where Tom Riddle's orphanage once was, of course! Or didn't have shiny purple hair, silver eyes, and elf genes tucked away in the family tree.

Crossovers are the things of which I think "Ha! That would be a brilliant crossover", but am rarely temtped to write.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I am intrigued.

Me too.

Although it does remind me of the instruction that used to be given alongside how to tie a torniquet (when you were still told to tie a torniquet) - write down what time you tied it, even if you need to do it in lipstick on a shirt.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Presumably anyone needing to tie a tourniquet has quite a lot of red liquid conveniently available if necessary.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Did you have to say that?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Sorry!

[tree_and_leaf]

URGH.

I did have to find this just after coming back from lunch, didn't I? (thank God it wasn't rare steak)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

What did you scribble on your medicine then? Inquiring minds would like to know.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That would be telling ;-)

[elsane.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I hope you feel better soon.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Happily I wasn't taking them at the time, but it was nice clean white cardboard to hand.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

This is only tangentially about that crossover (I tried it, but the voices grated, and as I don't watch Torchwood, the Wimsey bits were doubly important) - I'm glad someone has been thinking about the "behind the lines in Germany" plot bunnies. I can't help noticing that while French is all over the novels, and great stress is placed on how well the Wimsey children (well, Peter and Mary, anyway) speak it and why, DLS preserves utter silence on the question of Peter's German (he must be able to speak it perfectly, if he can penetrate German HQs disguised as a staff officer). Can it be that there is a touch the Hun in the Wimsey roots, as well as the Delagradie blood?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Well, the Wimseys are very blond and Aryan (did I read somewhere that Sweden was involved?). As Peter read Modern History, perhaps he studied German fairly intensively at that time and afterwards - he has a couple of years of "virtuous probation" whilst engaged to Barbara, when surely he occupied himself in more than holding her hand whilst suitably chaperoned, and property speculation.

On a later biographical note, would the Viennese Opera Singer have spoken French or German?

On a Wimsey-behind-the-lines note, you will, I assume have read the Jeeves crossover, but may be interested in this (http://legionseagle.livejournal.com/44839.html).

[azdak.livejournal.com]

The Viennese Opera Singer presumably spoke German. Austria wasn't like Russia - there was no stigma attached to speaking German, and even aristocrats had a Viennese accent.Which doesn't preclude her being able to speak French as well (and possibly Italian, given her profession).

Thank you for the link! I'd read it, but didn't comment because it was very Torchwoody (in tone as well as content) so I didn't feel able to do it justice.

Peter's very musical, so he might be able to pick up a good accent even as an adult, but it would take a lot more than just reading German in order to be able to plough through historical documents to convince an actual live German that he was a native.

Perhaps the association with the opera singer goes back further than he lets on, and he was relying on his charming Viennese intonation to fool the Prussians. It works for me.