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100 days of enemy recs: 76. Dorian Red Gloria/Klaus von dem Eberbach
Oh, hey, we're finally back around to the pairing I was binging when I started this project!
From Eroica With Love is a shojo manga that started in 1976. From what I understand, it started being passed around in zeroxed copies with fan translations in slash circles back when American anime fandom was still in its infancy. It's about ridiculous cold war spy shenanigans, but in a very different way than James Bond. To start with, a much less heterosexual one.
The main character is Dorian, the Earl of Red Gloria, a flamboyantly gay British peer who sidelights as Eroica, a master art thief and doyen of European criminal circles. He has his own team of assistant thieves, who are also all, in their own ways, openly gay.
One gets the impression the series was supposed to be about Dorian's wild and gay adventures with pretty boys and prettier art, but in the very first story, a NATO intelligence agent named Klaus von dem Eberbach shows up and pretty quickly becomes the secondary protagonist. Klaus is Dorian's opposite in every way except the important ones, and is determined to bring the notorious thief to justice. Dorian flirts hard with him as the most obvious way to get under his skin, but then as they keep getting thrown together - and not always as opponents, more and more with Dorian as a trusted ally, because Dorian has skills that are also very valuable to NATO Intelligence, and neither of them want to see the KGB tip the balance of power - Dorian realizes his flirting has started to mean something other than arch antagonism, and he accidentally fell in love with the man. Has Klaus softened toward him too? Would Klaus admit to anyone, even himself, if he had?
You have several dozen volumes to find out, and they're up on mangadex for your perusal!
From Eroica With Love is a shojo manga that started in 1976. From what I understand, it started being passed around in zeroxed copies with fan translations in slash circles back when American anime fandom was still in its infancy. It's about ridiculous cold war spy shenanigans, but in a very different way than James Bond. To start with, a much less heterosexual one.
The main character is Dorian, the Earl of Red Gloria, a flamboyantly gay British peer who sidelights as Eroica, a master art thief and doyen of European criminal circles. He has his own team of assistant thieves, who are also all, in their own ways, openly gay.
One gets the impression the series was supposed to be about Dorian's wild and gay adventures with pretty boys and prettier art, but in the very first story, a NATO intelligence agent named Klaus von dem Eberbach shows up and pretty quickly becomes the secondary protagonist. Klaus is Dorian's opposite in every way except the important ones, and is determined to bring the notorious thief to justice. Dorian flirts hard with him as the most obvious way to get under his skin, but then as they keep getting thrown together - and not always as opponents, more and more with Dorian as a trusted ally, because Dorian has skills that are also very valuable to NATO Intelligence, and neither of them want to see the KGB tip the balance of power - Dorian realizes his flirting has started to mean something other than arch antagonism, and he accidentally fell in love with the man. Has Klaus softened toward him too? Would Klaus admit to anyone, even himself, if he had?
You have several dozen volumes to find out, and they're up on mangadex for your perusal!
- The Iron Mask (5935 words) by Kadorienne
Fandom: Eroica Yori Ai o Komete | From Eroica with Love
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Klaus von dem Eberbach/Dorian Red Gloria
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Blackmail
Summary:Take the standard Eroica blackmail plot. Throw in the sharp blow to the head our darling Major has been needing so desperately.
- Caress the Gun (12099 words) by Anne-Li
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: From Eroica with Love
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Klaus von dem Eberbach/Dorian Red Gloria
Additional Tags: Humor, Drama, Guns, First Time
Summary:Dorian keeps shooting Klaus, so Klaus decides to do something about it.
- Hesitation Waltz (20383 words) by cranialaccessory
Fandom: Eroica Yori Ai o Komete | From Eroica with Love
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Klaus von dem Eberbach/Dorian Red Gloria
Additional Tags: Humor, Fake Marriage, Dancing, Drama
Summary:Klaus and Dorian have to pretend to be married for a case. It goes about as well as can be expected.
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Aoike did a Sayers and fell in love with her creation. Klaus, alas, not Dorian. Klaus got kewler and kewler and Dorian became a joke. A sad comedown IMO.
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It's tricky with him anyway though, because as an out gay man he was very definitely situated in a specific place and time, so as things moved on she would either have had to directly address changes that affected the British gay community over fifty years, which wasn't really what the story was about, or freeze him into a parody of what he had been, which is sort of what happened. Which is part of why I like the fanfic so much - a lot of it does try to address that stuff. (Grumpy repressed badasses, on the other hand, are timeless.)
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The problem I have with English language fanfic is that it treats him as a real gay man in real 20th century England. That's exactly what he isn't. There's tons of slashable live action characters one could do that with instead, but there aren't that many Robert Plant clones swanning around playing spies in a fantasy world where, say, agents from east and west who get tired of being spies retire to a valley in Switzerland where nobody bothers them. It's the batshit fantasy I miss from Eroica slash.
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