Jeeves and Wooster

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Name: Jeeves and Wooster
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: P.G. Wodehouse
Date(s): 1915 - 1974 (books)
1990 - 1993 (television series)
Medium: Books, TV
Country of Origin: UK
External Links: P. G. Wodehouse at Wikipedia, TV Show at Wikipedia
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Reginald Jeeves is the valet of the rather dim English aristocrat Bertie Wooster in the comic short stories and novels of P.G. Wodehouse, written between 1915 and 1974. Bertie is a member in good standing of the Drones Club, a group of privileged 'eggs, beans, and crumpets' educated at select institutions (primarily Eton, Harrow, and Oxford). Many Jeeves stories involve Bertie or one of his friends falling into trouble, and Jeeves deftly extricating him or them. Others involve Jeeves extricating Bertie, willingly or unwillingly, from engagements to various beautiful young women.

The novels and stories take place in an idealized England of the 1920s and 1930s, full of men's clubs and country weekends, dashing motor-cars and 'oof,' with occasional forays to Prohibition-era USA, particularly New York. An important feature of the early stories is Bertie's failure to recognize the ways Jeeves manipulates him and his friends and family take advantage of his wealth and good nature.

Although several film and television adaptations exist, the most popular series is the adaptation by ITV as Jeeves and Wooster, starring Hugh Laurie as Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves. This series combines incidents from across novels and stories to create an alternate series of events and timeline compared to the initial stories and novels.

General Fan Sites

Jeeves/Wooster Slash

There is plenty of Jeeves/Wooster (aka "Jooster") slash as the two story protagonists spend much of their time together, and really only exist to play off each other. One of the major themes in the fandom is that homosexuality was illegal in England during this period.

The base format for a Jooster story is a more or less clueless Bertie discovering that Jeeves has long harboured carnal desires (or loving passion) for him. Variations on this theme include Bertie as sexual sophisticate or competent!Bertie.

Because their periods coincide, there are crossovers with Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey characters and with Downton Abbey. Crossovers with Sherlock or the general Sherlock Holmes fandom (particularly Jeeves and Mycroft intellectual exchanges) are also seen. Individual works and drabbles also cross Jeeves and Wooster over with the Star Trek universe, the Sentinel universe, and mythology.

Although Wodehouse limited Jeeves and Wooster's hijinks to the timeless period between the world wars, much fan fiction considers the pairing during and after World War 2. In some fan timelines, the pair lives to see the legalization of homosexuality in England in 1967. A few stories depict an elderly Bertie mourning the loss of Jeeves.

Other Pairings

Bertie and Jeeves have each paired up with various other male characters in the fandom. Bertie has been paired with Bingo Little, Roderick Glossop, Stinker Pinker, Ginger Winship, Rocky Todd, and Gussie Fink Nottle in addition to several original characters. Jeeves has been paired with Rocky Todd and other characters, including, in one notable instance, Bertie's formidable Aunt Agatha. Some Jooster threesomes with other characters (Gussie Fink Nottle or Rocky Todd) have also been posted to Ao3 or LiveJournal.

A few stories in Ao3 consider the same-sex leanings of Florence Craye or Honoria Glossop.

Bertie's cousins Claude and Eustace feature in several stories, generally as mischief makers. Prompts for challenges sometimes specifically exclude 'twincest.'

Pairings of the chef and butler at Brinkely Court, Anatole and Seppings, have also appeared.

Archives and Communities

The most active fanfic production is no longer the Livejournal community Indeed, Sir. While the community began in 2003 as primarily a discussion space, more and more fanworks began to appear. The community hosts a very funny 2-part picture posts How to Write Jooster, Part 1 and Part 2.

Initially, the community hosted several attempts at manual masterlists to the fanworks on or linked from the community.[1].

Jeeves and Wooster stories are also regularly posted to Yuletide and Queer_fest.

There was also a Yahoo! Group called Wodeslash that ran from 2001 through 2005.[2]

There was a short-lived efiction archive called Indeed, Sir that had significant numbers of links to stories and fanart.[3] The archive was a links only arrangement that culled links from the Indeed, Sir and Fry and Laurie Livejournal communities as well as the Slash Cotillion archive and other sites[4]. The archive closed later that same year, with the mod citing hosting costs as the problem.[5]

In 2009, Indeed, Sir members created a Delicious list of 964 bookmarks to fanworks primarily hosted on the Livejournal community itself. The list has not been updated since November of 2009[6]. A PDF of a backup made in 2010 is available here.

As of 2018, the old Live Journal indeedsir has become dormant. There is a new community on Dreamdwidth, indeedsir. Like its namesake, it has discussions and fanworks.

As of 2019, there is also an anonymous kink meme community, Give Satisfaction. This comm not only hosts slash and smut, but also fluff, hurt/comfort and angst.

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Fanzines

Meta

Art Gallery

Resources

References

  1. ^ posts tagged archives at Indeed, Sir, accessed August 21, 2011
  2. ^ Wayback page for Wodeslash group from May 2005, accessed August 19, 2011
  3. ^ Wayback link to mainpage, accessed August 21, 2011
  4. ^ henpecked, February 21, 2007 The Archive is Open for Business!, accessed August 21, 2011
  5. ^ Comment by henpecked, accessed August 21, 2011. There's no sign the archive ever did come back.
  6. ^ JWFics Delicious, accessed August 21, 2011
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