Sleep? Who needs sleep when the art bunnies attack?

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

No, no, little bunnies. I only have to be up tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM, of COURSE I have time for you, my little friends. What's that you say? You want me to draw a picture of Bertie's parents? Well, then, why not!!

As you can see, fanart50 has consumed my better judgement.


Title: A Lucky Catch
fandom: Jeeves and Wooster
Characters: The future Mr. and Mrs. Wooster, parents of one Bertram
Prompt: 41. Lucky
Rating: G
Notes: I know, I know, neither Bertie NOR Jeeves are in the following picture. But I HAD to draw Bertie's parents, I just HAD too!! And I get to have the elbow-in-the-rib pun humor of having Bertie's dad not only catch a falling vase, but a wife. Indeed, quite a 'lucky catch' after all! /end bad joke.

But on a serious note, I am unbelievably fascinated with Bertie's parents. I haven't read many Jeeves and Wooster stories, but what I've gathered so far from Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit has got my plot bunny brain in a tizsy!

Of course, it all started back in the roaring 90's...


And of course, as it is the nature of these sort of things, comments are greatly appreciated and inspirational.

Comments

[gaffsie.livejournal.com]

I like your take on the Wooster parents. It makes sense that they would produce a child like Bertie.

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

*heaves a sigh of relief* Glad to hear that. I was worried that in my musings, they would feel like a cheap shot or something. I wanted it to be very apparent that THESE are Bertie's parents, but I didn't want it to be...whatits...you know, like you take Bertie and just slap him onto two new faces? I want it that they were their own characters, with bits that Bertie would learn and get from them.

If that makes sense.

[gaffsie.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense. For what it's worth, I think you managed to live up to that. You created two complete characters, each of them with some resemblance to Bertie.

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

AWWWW!

Thank you for this! It's very, very adorable.

You don't even want to know all the fanon I've made up for myself about both Bertie and Jeeves's parents. Damn it, it's all just too mysterious! There are only a few little hints, in all of canon! Of course it's required that I obsess.

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

Oh, believe you me, you aren't the only one cracking it up. In Jeeves and the feudal spirit there are all SORTS of tantalizing hints of Bertie's childhood, But NOT ENOUGH, NOT NEARLY ENOUGH. Some recollections of him mother, but not of his father (grrh)

Oh silly Plum!

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

I think the only real mention Bertie's father gets comes in Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, when Dahlia mentions to Bertie that the reason his middle name is Wilberforce is that his father, just prior to the christening, had won a packet on a horse of that name. At least it's a fairly revealing mention, character-wise. He was probably one of the younger sons of the large and semi-looney Wooster clan - aside from Dahlia and Agatha, sibs included Sir Willoughby (eldest son and head of the family), George (former man-about-town, marries the ex-barmaid), and Henry (Claude and Eustace's father, skeleton in the family's closet because he was dotty, obsessed with rabbits, and eventually put into an asylum).

Fanon tends to give Bertie's mother the surname Mannering-Phipps, because in the very first Bertie story, "Extricating Young Gussie," Bertie talks about being the head of the Mannering-Phipps family. (This is more or less fanwank, because in all likelihood what happened was that Plum decided to change Bertie's name. But it's a fun wank, because it's a perfectly good name and also suggests maybe some distant family connection between Bertie and Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps.) That's the one where Aunt Julia appears...but she's not a blood relative, she's a former actress who married one of Bertie's uncles and became ten times the terrifying grande dame of any lady born to leisure.

As for Bertie's mother herself, aside from the "well, that doesn't mean anything. My mother thought me intelligent" line, the mention I remember best is the one where he describes her trying to push him into doing recitations when they had company over, saying "Bertie recites so beautifully," in contrast, he says, to actual obvious fact. XD

I tend to think they were both rather sweet, goodhearted people. And he really never gives any info on when or how they died, but it has to have been after he started school, but before he really hit his teens, because after that point all his stories are about staying with various aunts and uncles.

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

Good to know! There are definately bits you've brought up that I hadn't know, like the origin of Wilberforce and the possible maiden name and that Julia married in.

I agree that they were probably sweet and kind folks. There's a sense that Bertie is the way he is half because he's well, Bertie!, and half because of how he was raised.

I have a pet theory that his parents died while he was at the prep school Mavern House. We know his mother was at least still alive when he was "seven or thereabouts", making him recite for guests (the thought makes me squee so! Of COURSE his mother would think his reciting simply marvelous. :-D) There's just something about the way he describes Uncle Tom doing the "right thing by him" by sending him postal orders sometimes as much as 10 bob. It just FEELS like there's something deeper there, a touch sadder than he's allowed to let on.

Oh, look at me go and make angst where there isn't hardly any. ^_^ But that's the thing about Bertie. Say he was to fall into a melancholy pondering about past times. For all that he wears on his sleeve, he's much too much about keeping a brave, chipper face forward. I think that the fact he DOESN'T mention his parents much, or that we really know nothing about them speaks volumes itself.

But that's just my two crack bunny induced cents.

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm in total agreement with your crack bunnies, then. (Weird Images R Us, there) One of the most notable characteristics of Wodehouse is that it's an angst-free zone; anything that might be angst-producing is danced around so that you have to really kind of think about it to notice it's missing: sex, death, war, etc. Even poverty is more an occasional plot point than a real problem.

I tend to think of Bertie as being quite like Plum in this regard - after all, he's the one narrating the stories, so he's the one deciding what gets discussed. And he's just so determined to see the world in a particular way that that's what we get to see, as readers. Of course he wouldn't go near anything as potentially ouchy as his parents dying when he was little.

You'll have noticed that I'm nowhere near as opposed to teh angst. ^_^

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

Ah, all those delicious things lurking under the text, all the things that are left unspoken and allow for some corkingly good angst fics.

I wouldn't have it any other way. XD

[truly-bohemian.livejournal.com]

So adorable! I know I haven't spoken up until now but I've loved all the fan-art you've been posting. I adore your style.

You know, I've interested myself in Jeeves' past, the impact of the First World War in our heroes' lives, and their futures, but this is the first time I've really thought about Bertie's parents. Wow, I love the goings on outside of canon.

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

So glad you've been enjoying them so far! Good to hear it, in fact. ^_^

But yea, those are definately things I've mused myself. I think any J&W lover has at some point or another. Right now I'm ebroiled with trying to figure out how many siblings B's dad had: so far I have five for certain (Henry, George, Willoughby, Dahlia, and the old battle ax herself, Agatha) and two extra that I donno (Aunt Julia and there's an Aunt Charlotte mentioned in the series, but whether they be Woosters or the unknown matralinear side of Bertie's half, I can't say)

*sigh of contentment* I LOVE this fandom.