ext_2694 ([identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] crack_van2009-12-31 07:47 am

London 1917 by Atropos (NC 17)

Fandom: LORD PETER WIMSEY
Pairing: Bunter/Peter
Length: 3,400
Author: [livejournal.com profile] atropos_lee
Author Website: [livejournal.com profile] atropos_too
Why this must be read:



Today's rec is a "more than" fic par excellence. It's slash – and explicit slash at that, which makes it a rare beast in Wimsey fandom – but it doesn't only subvert canon by imagining an illicit sexual relationship between master and man. Set in 1917, it shows us what happens when Captain Wimsey and Corporal Bunter encounter each other on temporarily neutral ground, away from the inflexible hierarchy of the army and of English society. I know of no other fic that more thoroughly shakes up Sayers' version of Bunter, giving us a complex psychological portrait of a politically aware, defiantly proletarian soldier, violent, hopeless, and yet searching in his own way for beauty and meaning amidst the squalor of war. It's a fascinating glimpse into a new world, told in a literary style very different in tone from most Wimseyfic, but non-slashers venture into it at their own risk.

Footsteps approaching on the gravelled path. A man, alone. Outline of cap and coat through the veil of fog. An officer. He had a few seconds yet to turn aside from the path, into the murk, and pass unseen.

And yet,

An officer, here, on this path, in this area, in the twilight, loitering, as he was, just the way to attract the right kind of attention.

Now he knew what he wanted. The greater risk, gamey, richer in taste, but soft too, once peeled of his armour of class and rank and service pistol...

Before the thought was fully formed, the familiarity of the tubular figure, peculiarity of gait, the flash of a single eye glass, stopped it dead.

Bloody hell. Not just an officer – that sodding officer.

London 1917

[identity profile] nineveh-uk.livejournal.com 2009-12-31 10:24 am (UTC)(link)
So glad that you persuaded [livejournal.com profile] atropos to finish this. It is such an original take on Bunter, whilst being entirely canon-compliant.
Edited 2009-12-31 10:25 (UTC)

[identity profile] nineveh-uk.livejournal.com 2009-12-31 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I love this kind of fanfic, that gives you an entirely new perspective on canon, and this one is so inventive.

I am also enjoying the thought of DLS turning in her grave at the suggestion of Bunter having a Jewish family, and weighing up whether she would find it more Wrong than the slash.