#mike and psmith

[dickensianenglishbulldog]

Psmith runs past Mike on the street.

Mike: Psmith? What on Earth? Why are you running?

Psmith: Comrade Jackson! The disruption of my usually stately demeanour may be attributed not to a wish for exercise but to flight!

M: Eh?

Bertie Wooster, Oofy Prosser, Monty Bodkin, Bingo Little, eggs, beans and crumpets (shouting):“Stop him! He’s got the club brain cell!”

[fictionadventurer]

I don't have ideas for a full-fledged Psmith superhero AU, but I do think that Psmith should have "ghosting" powers. Able to phase himself/others/objects through other solid matter. Which allows him to literally throw intruders through the window and hide the shoe literally inside the chimney.

[aceredshirt13]

one thing i love about p. g. wodehouse is that the answer to "didn't wodehouse write a short story where heteronormativity is framed as the villain?" is "which one?"

[isfjmel-phleg]

🧐

[poniatowskaja]

For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must be, to a very large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a label attached. The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator, but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard bungler. We should simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes, how...?" and all the rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did. It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the humdrum round of life without having to measure footprints and smile quiet, tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he thinks naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods. Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and had thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but, now that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled to admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of Watson's inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard, he thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant Collard, to detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the crime. As he brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor Watson increased with every minute, and he began to feel a certain resentment against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir Arthur to be so shrewd and infallible about tracing a mystery to its source, but he knew perfectly well who had done the thing before he started!

P. G. Wodehouse, 'Mike and Psmith'

[incomingalbatross]

I don't know you (yet) but I followed you solely based on the blog name from one of my favorite books ever o7

Looking forward to getting to know you :)

Someone of taste and culture, I see! Welcome!

I don't post very often about Psmith, I must admit, but I'm very fond of him and Mike and I have to thank him for an incredible tagline. ;P

[someitems]

Dear Yuletide Author 2024

Happy Yuletide! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Do not wants/dislikes: Please no PWPs (with one exception, discussed below), no unhappy endings, and no pet/child death even in the background. If a character is injured or hospitalized, please tag for it even if it's a minor character and even if it spoils the plot.

What I like: Characterization is my favorite part of fic, and all these fandoms have been chosen because I love these people so much. What makes them tick? What do they like about each other? I enjoy reading about both romance and friendship, and the way romance and friendship intertwine. I love it when opposites attract and two characters can't resist each other despite seeming totally unalike. Most of all, what I love is when a writer brings their love for and delight in canon into their work - if you focus on what makes the world and the people in it so special, I know I'll love whatever you write!

My requests:

Mimi wo Sumaseba | Whisper of the Heart (1995)

Tsukishima Shizuku, Amasawa Seiji

One of my favorite movies of all time! I love the sweet, gentle atmosphere of this movie, the way nothing super important happens in the grand scheme of things but it's all so crucial to the characters, the portrayal of what it's like to be an earnest, creative teen burning with ambition. And I love Shizuku and Seiji's relationship and the way they support each other's ambitions, and how their love for each other powers their art. A fic exploring where they go after the events of the movie, both in their relationship and their art, would be wonderful. What's it like for them when Seiji is in Cremona? How do they handle the growing pains of teenage love? What's the next step for Shizuku's creative writing? Feel free to include any of the other characters in the movie, but keep the focus on Shizuku and Seiji. And please don't age them up any older than early 20s - I want them to keep their youthful earnestness!

Persuasion - Jane Austen

Admiral Croft, Sophia Croft

The Admiral and Sophy are among my favorite married couples in all of literature, and I've always wanted more about them. I'd love fic that expands on their story in some way. Maybe you take us back in time to their courtship, their first meeting, or the early days of their marriage. Maybe you hop us forward to some more of their adventures after the events of the novel and the ways their lives intertwine with the other characters. All I ask is that the fic be primarily focused on the two of them and their relationship - while you can include other characters, and of course the events of the novel can come into play and be part of the story, I don't want a fic that just retells Anne and Captain Wentworth's romance from the Crofts' POV.

A Marshmallow World - Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra (1967 Dean Martin Show Performance)

Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra

Watching this drunken, goofy performance of "A Marshmallow World" has become a holiday tradition in my family, and every time, I think, "They had to have hooked up either right before or right after this performance, right?" I'd love fic about that hookup - how it happens, when it happens, what's behind it all. It can be simple and straightforward or full of buried feelings - up to you! This is the exception to my "no PWPs" request, due to the nature of the canon.

Psmith - P.G. Wodehouse

Mike Jackson, Rupert Psmith

I'm a latecomer to the world of Psmith, but I love it with all my heart and soul, and I especially love the relationship between Psmith and "Comrade Jackson". Psmith is such a funny, chaotic whirlwind of a character, and Mike is the perfect foil to him. I'd love a story about their relationship and further shenanigans together, especially one where Mike is in a sticky situation and Psmith helps him get out of it. Up to you whether it's shippy or just about their friendship - I would be happy with either! Anyone from Psmith's world is fair game to include as supporting characters. Please don't set it during their school days, though. I prefer reading about them as adults.

[noandnooneelse]

oh he's lying. he's absolutely lying, of fucking course he's lying. mike is suspected and nearly found guilty of painting the teacher's dog red so psmith takes the blame and confesses to ensure mike isn't thrown out of school, mike's father lost his money and now he has to work at a bank so now psmith is making up a story about why he, too, has to be at that exact bank working right next to mike. "Psmith had a way of treating unpleasant situations as if he were merely playing at them for his own amusement" yeh no i do not fucking believe him for one second, he is totally, absolutely lying, and he definitely cares

[funnuraba]

Lying in my sickbed, I have assigned myself to craft some official, wieldy and helpful Wodehouse ship names. Also, make sure to mask up in an N95 or better respirator for the ongoing Covid pandemic, and get some sealed safety goggles for the incipient H5N1 pandemic!

Bertie/Jeeves: Beeves

Aunt Dahlia/Uncle Tom: Dom

Aunt Agatha/guy she marries: Worplesgatha

Gussie/Madeline: Gusseline

Gussie/Emerald: Gusserald

Spode/Madeline: RodMad (not Basspode, which is Spode/Sir Watkyn)

Bingo/Rosie: BingBanks

Florence/Stilton: Fl'Orcy

Stilton/Daphne: Cheesehead

Florence/Percy: Florringe

Tuppy/Angela: Don't ship this

Stiffy/Stinker: Stiffstink Pinkbyng

Bingo/Pongo: Bongo, Pingo, Bingpong, possibilities are endless, idk if they ever speak though

Ashe/Joan: Marlentine

Joan/Aline: Only F/F Ship or Jaline igss

Ronnie/Sue: Fishbrown

Hugo/Millicent: Carwood/Threepmody

Tipton/Veronica: Ronton

Wilfred/Monica: Millsop

Gally/Dolly Henderson: Golly

Baxter/Lady Constance: Baxtance, yeah that's right they get a real one because they are #Real

Gally/Uncle Fred: Gallifred

Lord Emsworth/Uncle Fred: IckenEm. scraping the bottom of the Blandings barrel to find something gay

Sir Gregory/Maudie: Parslie

Ukridge/Corky: Stankoran

Psmith/Mike: Mīth

Psmithian polycule: my Covid induced brain damage can't handle this

[gaytobymeres]

cos i have so much uni stuff to do rn i can't risk reading a new book incase it becomes too much of a distraction so maybe its now time to reread one of the mike and psmith stories

[fictionadventurer]

It is now time for Relatable Introvert Moments with Ulysses S. Grant.

Here I met for the first time Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee. He delivered a speech of welcome. His composure showed that it was by no means his maiden effort. It was long, and I was in torture while he was delivering it, fearing something would be expected from me in response. I was relieved, however, the people assembled having apparently heard enough. At all events they commenced a general hand-shaking, which, although trying where there is so much of it, was a great relief to me in this emergency.

This has been Relatable Introvert Moments with Ulysses S. Grant.

[dtolemy]

{ KEDAR WILLIAMS-STIRLING, 19, CIS MALE, HE/HIM } Is that DARIUS PTOLEMY? A SOPHOMORE originally from PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, they decided to come to Ogden College to study BUSINESS on a ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIP. They’re THE HOMEGROWN HERO on campus, but even they could get blamed for Greer’s disappearance. 

pinterest | spotify | spotify+ (warning: bubblegum pop and the gummy bear song)

WHO?

full name: darius ezekiel ptolemy

birthday: october 25, 2003

pronouns: he/him

personality: exuberant. galvanizing. insatiable, imprudent, impetuous. insert other sat words he uses incorrectly to sound intelligent, which he is capable of being strictly in the contexts of sports and the pizza prices of every take-out place in a statewide vicinity. where he remains oblivious to his faults, darius thrives, and where he is forced to confront them, darius falters, snaps back with something stolen from the climax of an academy award loser, and goes back to thriving. he’s a personality, a figurehead, a trophy that needs to win itself more trophies. he thinks of getting people to like him, love him, hate him, focus on him, in any way, to be just as important as getting good grades. despite this, he’s anything but a hard partier, and claims designated driver like it’s his eternal duty. no better way to make people fall for you than by being a goody-two-shoes, right?

appearance: darius’s wardrobe is a miscellany of colors, thrown over a toned body with a meticulous dishevelment that takes more time in the morning than his three showers. his stature is asserted to be 6’0 but more accurately 5’10 with the help of high top sneakers, while its presence is mostly felt in him darting about campus with an agility only achievable through years of training and an abject inability to read maps properly.

WHAT?

sports & extracurriculars: tennis, diving & swimming, table tennis

tropes: homegrown hero. if anything’s to thank for his rise to the top and unaccountable social claustrophobia, it’s the prestigious town of portsmouth, new hampshire. | small name, big ego. but also, his success is sort of totally, entirely his doing. even if said success isn't quite that recognized outside of the country. | mr. vice guy. pride, lust, relating to holden caulfield, etc. he didn’t pay much attention in sunday school, honestly. | | attention whore. no point in doing anything if nobody’s around to post a fancam of it. | the nicknamer. because having a coherent contacts list is for losers.

relationship to greer: greer’s recruit.

Maybe it was because he was playing with some of the finest New Hampshire had to offer, or maybe it was because his attention was thoroughly divided between warming up and making the varsity team warm up to him, but Darius put more effort than ever into preparing himself for the life of an Ogden student. Specifically, the life of an Ogden student in Greer’s inner circle. He sought her time with a dogged determination that could only be dampened by explicit refusal, analyzing every letter of her posts (which were probably drafted by a PR team with more experience than a lifetime in the industry could merit, but a man could dream, and dream he did) as well as reading Cosmopolitan magazines behind his textbooks. Thus, freshman year was filled with professional, totally subtle butt-kissing and a whole lot of scampering around campus to spend his old rackets’ insurance on… whatever it was that Greer liked, anyways. He knew he wanted, needed, to become like her other friends, a shiny thing out of reach from anyone below their level, but how?

hobbies: cycling, yoga, taking selfies at inappropriate times

inspirations: randall “pink” floyd (dazed and confused), jeff sadecki (yellowjackets), mike jackson (the psmith novels), emily cooper (emily in paris, i promise i can explain)

WHY?

tl;dr: ambitious, discontent, and brilliant at acting like he’s neither of those, darius was born to the most mind-bogglingly middling family ever to throw their name in the genetic lottery in the most average neighborhood to have ever been built. his father an electrician and amateur pastor, his mother an insurance agent, and his grandmother a dispenser of morally dubious advice from her rocking chair, he took the burden of being an interesting person onto himself at a young age, idolizing the grand slam GOATs of television and desperate to become one of them. he and his coaches molded him into the underdog of his hometown’s dreams, but now that he’s been thrust into a world where people actually go places for vacation and expect better than the best of him, he doubts he can keep up without some elbow grease.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION…

connections: tba! aside from the suggested connections for the skeleton, however:

platonic. sports buddies, role models, study groups, fitness friends, ride or dies with a probable emphasis on dies

antagonistic. rivals on the court, mutual jealousy, academic opposition, bad influences, competitors in popularity

romantic. fleeting flirtationships, unrequited crushes, awkward dating app matches, friends with benefits, enemies with benefits

plot summaries: tba!

thread tracker: tba!

headcanons: 

hates table tennis and sucks at it big time but continues playing under the incorrect pretense that he will improve. either misses the ball entirely or hits it with so much force that whichever surface the poor thing lands on will be permanently scarred.

most active social media is linkedin. he is aware that this is humiliating but mentally maintains that he will be nothing without an internship to one of the many, many insurance companies whose employees he texts night and day.

favorites:

books. adventures of huckleberry finn by mark twain, losers take all by david klass, a separate peace by john knowles, winning ugly by brad gilbert, looking for alaska by john green

movies. fast times at ridgemont high, napoleon dynamite, sunday school musical, big time adolescence, teenage mutant ninja turtles (1990)

music. lecrae, nirvana, daft punk, weathers, sue sylvester’s super bass cover

[isfjmel-phleg]

Why I like it: Psmith in the City

After I read and enjoyed Mike and Psmith, I interlibrary-loaned the rest of the series and read them in rapid succession.

And honestly, my greatest appreciation for this book came during rereads and the need to overanalyze the text for annotations and conversations with a very longsuffering Allie.

Mike and Psmith's friendship comes about in the first book, and we get to see how much Psmith is willing to sacrifice for his friend, but their connection really comes to the forefront during Psmith in the City.

There's something delightfully escapist about these two friends rooming in Psmith's luxurious flat, braving the drudgeries of their shared misfortune of working at the bank by day, and living it up in Edwardian London by night. It's a setting that feels very real--and it was! Wodehouse peppers the narrative with real locations, and when I was in London, I was able, using this information, to take a little private walking tour of Psmith's part of town and experience it. Even with the reality of the locations, though, there's a certain glamorization. Thanks to Psmith's father's money, the boys are able to afford an experience of young adulthood and a first job that isn't available to most people, either then or now. And perhaps there's some glamorization of the friendship too.

Because it isn't easy to be Psmith's friend, and this starts to be evident. Psmith is a jerk in a lot of ways in this book, more so than in the others--even in his interactions with Mike. But these moments are easily brushed aside, and the friendship never really suffers. This is a Wodehouse novel, so we can be confident that when things get really bad, Psmith will come through as the good friend that he really is, and he'll find a way to save the day for Mike. The worst of his behavior vanishes by the last part of the book, never to be seen again in how he treats his best friend. Not especially realistic, but it is compelling. A real-life Psmith would be absolutely dreadful to put up with; the page, however, allows us a distance that assures us that despite it all, his intentions are good and he himself is good at heart.

And on the whole, he is. We know this because he really does care about Mike, because he's capable of dropping the flippant mask to show compassion when the situation requires. He's just...a complicated mess here. He's under a lot of stress that he hides most of the time. He's angry at his father and taking that out on his awful boss. He's an arrogant rich kid with more money than is good for him. He has one (1) and only one friend whom he's clinging to like the only thing keeping him afloat in life. (Psmith's got attachment issues, I'm starting to realize. That may be another post.) He's a very complex character, not just the comic relief or the trickster archetype, and because of that, he goes beyond hilarity to being interesting, even if he's not always easy to like.

Mike is still the everyman, perhaps even more so because his story is such a relatable portrait of what it's like to be eighteen, fresh out of school, and having to take on for the first time an adult world that you're unequipped for. Mike's classical education and cricket skills aren't particularly useful now that he has to make a living. The former class clown and jock is now an awkward mess of social anxiety. Wodehouse pokes as much fun at Mike as he does anyone else in the story, but he also takes Mike's struggles and pain seriously--because much of it was probably his own. Mike's grief at losing the glorious future he was promised, his increasing frustration and despair at being trapped in a dead-end job that stifles his talents and personality--they're very real, and poignant.

Mike and Psmith may inhabit a glittering dream world in their version of London and maintain a desirably close friendship that would have probably fallen apart eventually if it existed in the real world. Their shenanigans are sheer comedy with no grounding in reality. But the heart of the story is two eighteen-year-olds on their own in the adult world for the first time, with no support system but each other, trying to figure out life and often failing--and this is what makes the story resonate, because we've all been there.

And sure, their ending is a fairy tale, down to the final lines in which Mike imagines his future as pretty much perfect from now on (which will not turn out to be the case!), but...well, when you're a twenty-something in your first non-college job, taking the bus, feeling incompetent, dealing with difficult coworkers...a fairy-tale ending alongside a true friend is pretty appealing.

[talesofsorrowandofruin]

Hi tales

Can you give me a metaphor to describe each of your blorbos?

Hmm, this is tricky! I know I've used metaphors about my blorbos, but for the life of me I can't remember any 😅 So, since I've been reading P. G. Wodehouse lately, I'll quote some of his metaphors (and similes, etc.) to describe some of my OCs instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Abi when she finds out about the zombies:

"She came leaping towards me, like Lady Macbeth coming to get first-hand news from the guest-room." — Joy in the Morning

Diarnlan in general:

"... the glimpses I had caught of his face from the corner of the eyes had told me that he was grim and resolute, his supply of the milk of human kindness plainly short by several gallons." — Jeeves in the Offing

Konstantine when he meets Rusudan:

"Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812 and said, 'So, you're back from Moscow, eh?'" — Mike and Psmith

Yo-han at the end of Silver Glass:

"He was rigidly truthful, where the issue concerned only himself. Where it was a case of saving a friend, he was prepared to act in a manner reminiscent of an American expert witness." — Mike and Psmith

Máté in general:

"A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle." — The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

[doyke]

expunge from your mind jeeves and bertie wooster, or psmith and mike. The most profound hidden romance of the wodehouse oeuvre is between wodehouse and the word inexplicable.

[incomingalbatross]

Perks of doing a lot of lit research for finals on Internet Archive:

Free

Accessible

Unexpectedly reminded me of the Mike and Psmith Summer Camp AU