quigonejinn: (hornblower - once lieutenants together)
[personal profile] quigonejinn
Yes, this LJ could basically be called, "WM BUSH IS TEH KEWLIEZIST."



- The opening stuff of Bush is characterization: can't get interior dialogue in the movie, so get characterization by footage. They move the introduction of Bush back -- first shot isn't of Horatio standing on deck -- instead, stuff of Bush in the boat, going out to the ship. Everything in order, the crew working quietly and steadily, Bush not saying a word and alone.

Notice, too, how they lay the groundwork for him being obervant -- he's looking everywhere, and nt in a kind of crazy, thrashing about OMFG! AH'M GOING TO SEA! kinda way, but steadily, neatly. He looks in one direction for a while, studies and figures out what he needs to know about that direction, then moves to looking in another direction.

I love the emotional moment, though, of the Renown appearing out from behind another ship. It's one of the few scenes shot near Bush eye-level and from the POV that he'd get, so I can only assume that the little rush where we get to see the ship that he'll be working on is supposed to be the rush that he gets, too, with the wee little swell of the music. Awww. <3 Lookit him checking out his new girl, and how he only has eyes for her now that they're drawing up close. <3 It's the best kind of arranged marriage. <3

- Presence of caution: clearly, this dude know his way up an entry-port, but he's still going up with two hands, still looks at the rope in front of his hand. Takes a good look down to make sure he doesn't stumble over the side. Oh, Bushling.

- Who does Bush lift his hat to? Just a ritual for officer first time he comes aboard ship? Answered!

- Big difference: Hornblower has his back turned to Bush, so shot of Bush, studying Hornblower for a second before saying, "Morning." Paul McGann's voice. *_* *_* *_*

- So far, nothing all that remarkable -- a bit more of cautious, ship-loving Bush than we get in the original intro, and we get a stronger sense of his reserve since we only see hte outside, but it's pretty much by-the-books. Nothing to be seriously interesting yet.

- Where it gets interesting: No tackle in the books, and Bush is much frostier in the beginning in the movie than in the book. Partially, maybe tackle -- he's put effort into a dignified arrival, dammit -- and this is highly irregular, but there is that little twitch of a smile (OMG) when he's laid out on deck.

- Note: he takes Hornblower's hand before he reaches for his hat. Desn't put any weight onto it, just presses it there, then leans back with his hand to get his hat and get the business of standing up started -- we don't actually see Bush putting weight on Hornblower's hand. That shot, it's all about the greeting and the contact of horny hands on beautiful fingers.

Hi, Flying Colors Bush. ^_^

- Hornblower wants to help dust him off. Bush won't let him. That hand fending him off. "Nothing damaged but my priiiiide." That little geture says volumes about this Bush -- the Bush and Hornblwoer in this start off much more distant with each other, something that isn't much helped by Bush doing his little suckup bit, and Horry looking a step or two short of murderous.

- By the way. I'm going to take those dusty smudges that we suddenly see appear on Bush' shoulder as he comes through the entry port to them having to shoot the tackling scene multiple times, as I don't think they're there in the bit where Bush is going out in the boat, and I can't imagine that Bush would let himself meet his new ship that way. Look how much time the script directs him to spend brushing himelf off. Whenever he has a chance, it' with the dusting off and the <3 <3 <3.

- But the thing, really: Hornblower baaaaaaaawling out Hobbs, partially becaues of the irresponsibility of Hobbs, and then! Then! Best part of all! Bush being like. "Well, maybe if they were better supervised." T__________________T The fact that he waits so long to make a comment makes it seem like he's saying that in response to Hornblower's handling of the accident, and not the fact that the accident happens itself.

This really, really, really wouldn't be the case with book!Bush, who "feels like everybody is better" after a good verbal thrashing and has no objection to Hornblower yelling at totally innocent people on pretexts. And I know that in the books, yes, he thinks that Hornblower is a firebrand in that initial scene, but there isn't particular opprobrium attached to it -- it's just like, "Ah, I'll be working with a total hottie guy with a temper!" The wariness only comes when he sees how Hornblower is playacting.

- And then the (mild, really, when you consider how honestly excited most people would be to work with Sawyer) sucking up. The bit TOTALLY different from the way that Bush gets introduced in the books -- Sawyer semi-chewing Bush out, Bush very consciously not saying as much as he wants to, the stuff about being brought up in a hard school. And of course, Hornblower's total >:/ to the sucking up when he's actually kind of trying to help Bush in the book.

And of course, the little conflict with Kennedy, who so isn't jealuz of Hornblower speaking to other men. The HH/WB porn is pretty much gone -- no companionable twinkling/soul-deep staring into each other' eye, no companionable little chat, no bit where Hornblower helps Bush/gives Bush a bit of a wise-up about the ship, etc.

In summary: movie Bush is much less likeable off the bat than book Bush. He's a good bit more distant, more formal. Substantively, they're still the same person in a way that the Hornblowers aren't -- movie!Hornblower is NOT book!Hornblower -- but there're a major difference between the Bush that we see at the start of LtH and the one we see in Mutiny. Our immediate impressions of bookBush are that he's obervant, tough, and practical; our immediate impressions of movieBush are that he's observant, careful of his dignity, and since we're coming into this in the mindset of HH and AK, something of a suckup.

ETA: FUCKING LIVEJOURNAL. STOP FUCKING WITH THE STYLESHEETS AND SHOW MY LJ PROPERLY.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 06:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neotoma.livejournal.com
I have to be careful reading your LJ now. I don't need to wind up with another fandom, especially not an Age of Sail one that would get me reading all sorts of things for 'research purposes'.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 07:51 pm (UTC)
cleverthylacine: a cute little thylacine (Default)
From: [personal profile] cleverthylacine
hahahahahahahahahahha.

I remember when I said that.

(Do you know how much age of sail stuff has ended up informing LW and WWL? Too much. Er, not enough. Er, something like that.)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 08:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
You really should come play in the HH fandom, though. XD It's so much fun after Star Wars -- even if you're only getting into the Forester and not the historical element, the canon is something that you can really sink your teeth into and respect and puzzle out. Forester's brain >>> George Lucas's.

And the fandom is lovely, too. It feels like it's in a bit of an upswing on LJ these days.

Also, lots of fiber arts people. XD

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 07:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dastier.livejournal.com
movie Bush is much less likeable off the bat than book Bush.

personally, i found the movie Bush a pleasant diversion from the too strict version of the books, where Forester leaves him only so much space to move outside of his usual role. [no, i don't believe in Bush the captain, although he nominally exists :/]. in the series, he's, admittedly through McGann's rendering, more...self-contained. distanced, yes. and thus more a challenge to write, since he's maybe a step closer to being HH's equal. ok, in other aspects than what's usually Hornblower's forte, but still.

and yet, with that said, i've seen only one part of the series and don't intend to see more. very logical, eh ^^

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 07:13 pm (UTC)
ext_8683: (Bush better than a wife)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
I love the open-mouthed look on movie Bush when he sees his new girl. <3

And that little smile when Hornblower is rolling off him on the deck does nothing to dissuade me of the rightest of the HH/WB love. XD

In Making of HH2 McGann says that he didn't read the books.

And yeah, they doff their bicornes as a ritual, although we all know it's a gentlemanly salute to the latest wooden lass 'o his heart, the Renown.

Overall the movie!Bush intro has small threads of the book!Bush -- ship love and the 'don't touch my uniform I hardly know you' moments with the brushing off, etc., because ya know -- the shame at being messed up and here comes your new Captain. But yeah, he is much more formal and so much more upper class in feel and not enough of the tough seagoing bastard of the books when he first shows up.

The suckup thing I didn't like at all in Mutiny because that just felt all wrong especially as you said, book Bush comes out of that 'hard school' and knows that it's always best to not expound when a good "Aye Aye Sir" fits every occasion.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 07:28 pm (UTC)
ext_8683: (Bush hands with telescope)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
That "hard school" remark is one that always stuck with me, wondering what if it meant something untold. The Navy is a 'hard school' for just about everyone -- so why say it as if it was a special circumstance. Bush's philosophy of life is that life IS a hard school. I always thought it was a little 2 word invite for someone to write a backstory fic.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 11:37 pm (UTC)
ext_8683: (Default)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
*damn glad to hear that*
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
Yeah. Between the much, much more upper class portrayal, the fact that McGann has such a fine facial structure, and the sucking up (which I can understand them throwing in to create a nice little drama between him and Kennedy, but which nevertheless left me FLAILING in impotent burning shame that they'd have my boy do something like that), it took me a while to get into Mutiny!Bush.

The little smirk when Hornblower s him to the deck was pretty hilarious, though. "It's Hornblower falling for Bush OMG! Yes, dry-humping is how we welcome second lieutenants on board!" And I guess that the witty remark afterwards to show that he was trying to hide the fact that he liked Hornblower? But yeah. That sentence was another :/ for me because it struck me as something that book!Bush wouldn't say.

That whole bit about Bush and injustice is fascinating, yeah. In particular, it makes me wonder whether he was that way before he got to sea and the life of the RN. It also reminds me of Doughty and that line Forester has about how the class that the ratings came from cnsidered blows as something you shrugged off, that they were part of life -- there's a connection, I think, between that and how Forester has Bush thinking that rough words/injustice is just part of life. Since I knew (and still know) absolutely nothing about the class structures of that time, that was the moment when the light bulb about Bush's background totally lit up in my head, and I started thinking about how the "philosophical" way he takes things might be a product of his environment and not just, you know.

A Bush trait along with pricking his ears to catch names, tilting his head, and marking his captain territory.
From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_oggy_/
yeah, the movieBush is so much more upper class than bookBush. i've chalked this up to actors/directors not doing the appropriate research. i have no idea what anyone did to prepare for the movies, but if i were to jump onto a movie with enough knowledge of early 19th history to be dangerous, i would assume that officers are upper-class dudes. especially when they reply "only my pride" to being jumped by an inferior officer. mcgann admitted that he never read the books, maybe that would have changed his facial expressions and voice tones. (lines we can blame on writers). i'm a big fan of mcgann, but i wish he would have found the time to read the book.
ext_8683: (Bush blue facing right)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
I do too. You would THINK that working on a project like this with such a well known character as Bush you would want to like, ya know ... read the canon first. *G*

Maybe that explains the script as well. LOL!!!!

I swear there is a special place in hell for the writers who did not give us fruit baskets, lemonade, and head-tilting, drunk as a skunk Bush, SINGING to his boyfriend as he was carried back to his cot for sex. *G*
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
Win the Powerball, my friend. Win it. And then buy the rights from A&E and pay McGann and Gruffudd an obscene amount of money because yeah. The singing part is what gets me because it's not just any song -- it's "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow."

dkjgdfghdf. I mean. Holy GOD. I hope Hornblower remembers that dinner as one of the more successful ones of his life, too.

I also hope that someday, someone writes porn about that scene because oh, holy God, the notion of how the singing stops is pretty goddamn hot, too.

From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_oggy_/
gorramit i wish i could write that kinda stuff!!! aagghhh! all i can offer is a contrived archaeological site of the Bush family residence.
ext_8683: (Bush amputation lovely stump)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
Dude, that will be the greatest thing ever. Ever.

And I'm in the same boat. I must depend on the kindness of strangers as I can't write a goddamn thing.
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
Damn my own fat mouth. *couldn't help self and wrote it*
ext_8683: (Bush queue)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
I think there is very much a connection between Bush's philosophy of life and the backstory we don't know. There has to be. Injustice was a part of life if you weren't one of the better sorts with the money and connections to make the road smoother.

Even the people at the top of the food chain -- like a book Edrington -- knew about the toughness of life. Of course they generally weren't on the receiving end. *wry*

I wish there was a way I could explain handily the social structure of the time and the cultural way it plays out but it's an enormously complex, organic animal that has historians waving their hands about madly and writing books with 239042378 pages that still don't explain it well.

While the society was rigid it was still permeable in some ways. The Naval ladder being one of those examples.
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
Not that I've got TIME TO READ ANYTHING THESE DAYS, but do you have any recs for social histories? I've got a big thumpy book somewhere about the economic history of England during that time period, but any others that you can throw out would be fascinating.

Dammit, also, just becaue I'm brooding about Caudebec tonight -- I wonder whether any of Bush's sisters ever married or had a child, a la Gerard's sisters. I mean, man, the notion of one of them writing to Admiral Hornblower and asking him to remember the son of his old, dead friend's sister is *_________*

OMG ICON!!!

Date: 2006-02-15 04:12 pm (UTC)
ext_8683: (Bush Sheerness)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
These are the big 3 standards of social history for the era:

Stone, Lawrence, 1977. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper and Row.

Trumbach, Randolph, 1978. The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Academic Press.

Ray Porter. 1990. English Society in the 18th Century.

The Porter? DYNAMITE. So very very readable. Entertaining even. *G* You can get an excerpt of it on Amazon HERE.

Just by reading the excerpt I think you'll recognize Mr. Bush. *G* And going through the Porter book especially, I think you will see the different lens that Hornblower is looking through when he looks at Bush. That whole bit in Commodore with Bush yelling for the rope to have a hanging and HH being all squicked out? Bush is SO John Bull at that point. So typically 18th century English. But modern readers ain't gonna get that unless they've done a lot of reading of English cultural history. It just comes off as Bush looking like a bloodthirsty asshole, when in fact HH is the one outside the cultural norm of his country and time. Which has an interesting benefit as a point of view (once you sift through the crazy).

*rambly*

Date: 2006-02-15 04:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
I've got the Stone, but man oh man, the Porter looks divine. French dogs! ^____________^

Hornblower comes off as kind of as an oddball in his own time,s yeah. Were you the one who was talking baout how Hornblower is totally a modern man sent back in time? Because he really is. I don't claim to know very much about the culture of that time, but there are pints in the books where HH is explicitly thinking about how he wishes he could be all tough and with-the-times like Bush.

Something else class-related that struck me jut now about Bush and Hornblower: they have very different, most likely class-related attitudes toward food. Hornblower is such a picky bitch -- he doesn't like heavy meals, he wants tea and not beer at breakfast, he likes coffee and fresh fruit. The one other bit in the book where we really see another character's food preferences is with Lady Barbara and her craving for fresh milk and vegetables, and so yeah.

HH shows all the signs of someone who's used to having choices about what he eats; he eventually learns to have classy tastes like port-and-cheese, whereas Bush always just seems happy to get whatever he can. Good food is cause for celebration -- COW TONGUE! FRESH BEEF! :D :D :D -- while bad food is just another discomfort to be endured.

And yeah. Icon. Nothing is ever going to persuade me that Hornblower didn't buy Smallbridge so that he could drive out and see the boyfriend. NOTHING. The thirty mile distance mentioned in the extra chapter of Commodore was so totally Forester being like, "Fine, bitches. You want me to write a happy ending? You want me something that's more commercially friendly? I'LL DO IT SINCE YOU'RE THE ONE CUTTING CHECK, BUT I'LL ALSO THROW IN THIS MAJOR HINT TO THE FACT THAT HORNBLOWER NOT NLY FUCKED AROUND ON HIS WIFE WITH OTHER WOMEN, BUT ALSO HIS VERY MALE BEST FRIEND. :D :D :D"

OMG it's another diatribe *tells self to STFU*

Date: 2006-02-15 06:10 pm (UTC)
ext_8683: (Bush blue facing right)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
Porter is terrific. He wrote a crapload of stuff on the 18th century including all sorts of shit about medicine and insanity.

French dogs! Of course. *g* And tons of blasphemy. XD

I don't know if I was the one talking about HH as a modern figure, but it's a tight fit. HH comes off as if he was raised like a veal in so many spots. As if the culture of the world he lives in is a big whopping surprise. There's also this whiff of the Englightenment about him but how far that goes I haven't really paid enough attention to, or if I'm just making all that up, which is a huge possibility. XD

And there is some sort of nexus that I've never been able to articulate properly about the English pov towards the French and the fledgling USA that makes no sense for the classes of folk like Bush who have had a hard road in life because of the way English soceity is structured. You would THINK (flaws and excesses and failures of the systems aside) that you would see more sympathy for the basic Republican ideologies of the French Revolution. Maybe it's because the English got their asses spanked by the colonials in league with the French, or maybe something else entirely to do with the national cultural consciousness and the sort of particular type of English xenophobia coupled with the self-love that Porter points out so well.

And there is definitely some sort of different class thing going on with the food. That is a fact. And I think it's in LtH that CSF points out that Bush is a fast eater -- like a dog that wolfs down the food because you have to get it when you can.
From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_oggy_/
more of that dog imagery, eh?
the food stuff is so much fun. there's a lot of material out there, archaeologically, about the differences of upper and lower class foodways. historically, it's mostly upper class discussion. and after having tried to put together a decent bibliography on the subject for my dissertation, i find the historic materials to be very disappointing. a lot of them are, um, silly. while i was specifically looking for american stuff, i did expand to the atlantic world a bit. i might be able to pull up some things, or at least suggest where to go. for certain, i have a couple articles and know of some decent books on food and naval ships. i've also got some interesting stuff on coffee and coffeehouses.
bush/hornblower eating habits are v. interesting, but i keep trying to tell myself that forester wrote it and may not have been that well read in early 19th century eating habits so i shouldn't go all anthropological on its ass. however, it's still massive fun!

The whole world is one big dogpack to me

Date: 2006-02-15 07:11 pm (UTC)
ext_8683: (Mitzi)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
I'd love some suggestions on foodways stuff particularly the food and naval ships sort of thing.
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
From LtH, right before we get back to England again and that black frosty day made better by bumping bits with your former 5th lieutenant:
That was something [Bush] had never experienced; in his earliest youth he had entered the navy as a midshipman —- the peacetime navy which he could hardly remember -- and during the nine years of the war he had only known two short intervals of leave.

I'm such a moron for not noticing this before. *FACEPALMS*

And yes, there's a definite whiff of the Enlightenment around Hornblower with his love of mathematics and rationality and tendency to value institutions insofar as they're useful to him/humanity. He also has that Enlightenment urge to conquer the world by knoweldge -- like, that thing where he likes prepping for the geographic area that he's going to be in?

He's also got that crazy Romantic love of the sea and freedom, though ahaha. :D I know there's a book where he totally talks smack about Byron.
ext_8683: (Bush in hammock)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
Which of course throws my master's mate theory out the window because of the word 'mishipman' XD, although I still can't make all this math add up without it. Which should surprise NO ONE.

England at war in the 2nd half of the 18th century:
1756-63
1775-83
1792-1815 (with that little blurb of Amiens in the middle)

Bush gets his commission as Lt. in 1796. So he had to enter the navy, according to the passage, somewhere between 1783 and 1792.

*counts on fingers and toes*

The ever popular FC, of course

Date: 2006-02-16 04:53 am (UTC)
ext_8683: (Bush silhouette gun deck)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
Finally, with some assistance because I have smoked too much HH crack, I have the passage with reference to Bush's age.

End of ch. 17 in FC (the source of all that is right and good):

Hornblower remembered the prediction that the war would end in 1814 -- promotion would be slower in peace time. And Bush was ten years older than he, and only just beginning the climb.

Re: The ever popular FC, of course

Date: 2006-02-16 05:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
Fuck! CSF sucks so hardcore that it's not even funny -- I mean. *counts on fingers*

I know I've done this calculation before, but in Lt, which happens in '00, Bush has been in for ten years. So he came in as a middie in '90, and gets his commission after the minimum six years. That makes sense.

However, if we take the ten year difference, that means Bush was twenty-four when he entered the Navy, which makes no goddamn sense. Particularly -- though I guess this is seriously nitpicky -- if we take it that he got his commission while he was on the Superb becaue the third Superb was wrecked in 1783 and the fourth didn't launch until 1798.

Randomly. Bush dies in 1814, right? Ten years older than Hornblower at that point, which means that he died at the age of FORTY-EIGHT. How many forty-eight year olds in the year 1814, iron constitutions or not, who have lived their entire adult lives on ships with shit nutrition and minimal health care and now have peg fucking legs have the vitality to lead a night-time raid on an enemy magazine?

Re: The ever popular FC, of course

Date: 2006-02-16 05:40 am (UTC)
ext_8683: (Bush God help sailors)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
I love that sort of nitpicky myself, because ya know, the Superb didn't exist when he was sailing on her in the Mediterranean. *G* And that's sorta weird that CSF would screw that up what with all the effort he put into the Temeraire and her tentacles reaching through the books.

And Bush going into the Navy at 24 as a midshipman? *shakes head in denial* That doesn't qualify as 'in his earliest youth'. And in LtH CSF tries to realign his age more closely with HH, so even if you clip off say, 8 years, and have him being born in 1774, that still made him 16 when he entered as a midshipman, which isn't 'earliest youth' either.

And some of this I just have to chalk up to suspension of disbelief because the chances of a peg legged captain in command of a 74 in wartime is not the most historically viable scenario. *g*

Re: The ever popular FC, of course

Date: 2006-02-16 05:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
the chances of a peg legged captain in command of a 74 in wartime is not the most historically viable scenario. *g*

HEY! HEY! ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE THROUGH LOVE. OR SOMETHING.

But yeah. You're right. I don't think that there's any way that we can square the ten year age difference with the stuff we get in LtH, and the Superb doesn't work -- even if we take the ten year difference, that would mean that at the very latest, even with a geography change, Bush was a lieutenant against rules at 17. *____*

For my personal CSF love, I think I'm going to pretend that he picked the Superb despite the chronology problem because he wanted to tell us a little story about Bush through the ships he served on sans-Hornblower. I mean, you can read it as kind of an underhanded, symbolic way of telling us that Bush is a hell of a guy independent of Hornblower -- Hornblower is so hard on Bush, and yet the names of the ships that Bush served on independent of Hornblower mean "excellence," "rash bravery" where the rash bravery leads to famous, brilliant feats, and "unparalleled, incomparable, or unrivalled."

Man. I wonder what prize ship Bush had command of at Trafalgar. *________*

Re: The ever popular FC, of course

Date: 2006-02-16 06:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
And you know. If you want to take the listing of Bush's ships as being intentionally not-accurate, the fact that Bush couldn't possibly have gotten his commission on the Superb might be a hint to take a closer look at his other HH-independent ships.
ext_8683: (Bush Chichester)
From: [identity profile] black-hound.livejournal.com
The concept of an extended family for Bush -- it's a good one. We know there is an uncle, so high probability there are also cousins. And yeah, just because we don't hear about any of these sisters getting married doesn't mean they didn't.

*fangirls [livejournal.com profile] _oggy_ in advance*
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
It's easy, I think, to write the modern obsession with the nuclear family back onto those times, but from what I've read of that time and my own experience of family outide the modern context, um. Not true, particularly in the time before before easy, cheap transportation.

Or maybe it's just the notion of a whole family tree full of solid, stolid of Bush makes me giggle. :D I can only imagine how noiy family gatherings were.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 07:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nolivingman.livejournal.com
Who does Bush lift his hat to? Just a ritual for officer first time he comes aboard ship?

Saluting the quarterdeck. A ritual.

Happy Valentine's Day to you and your fictional Lieutenant boyfriend.

but I like you, m'sieur boosh. :(

Date: 2006-02-14 10:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
I wrote an entire rant elsewhere about how proudly I would take my peg-legged boyfriend along to firm dinners and pack him mutton-and-mustard sandwiches in case he didn't like fancy hors d'oeuvres. :(

And thankee for the information. Happy Valentine's Day to you too!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 10:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nolivingman.livejournal.com
Aw, you two would be so happy together.

I said somewhere a few weeks ago that I wanted to take my uptight repressed boyfriend home and make him soup, while not forcing him to endure hugging, and never ever making him discuss his feelings.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-14 10:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
*dying* You'd also have to pretend to be seasick sometimes, just so that he could feel superior -- I mean, I'm given to understand that Bush's stubborn refusal to ever get sick was the real reason why your boyfriend and my boyfriend broke up.

rambling as usual

Date: 2006-02-14 10:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randomalia.livejournal.com
I'm so retarded, I couldn't find the 'post comment' button. *panic*

I really, really want to watch Mutiny again now. I still feel like we get something like an unreliable narrator syndrome here because we're already in their mindset of HH versus the world most of the Renown and anyone who sides with Sawyer. They all have a dislike to the way Bush says he's honoured to be serving with Sawyer blah blah, but Horatio and Archie went and partied just because they got that transfer.

One bit I remember liking: when Archie is berating him for not speaking up to save Wellard, Bush holds Archie's gaze and speaks to Horatio instead. Tells him to pull his friend into line, barely even blinks. I think he had been very observant not only of the working of the ship but the working of the crew, to the point that he played that one perfectly, without having to disturb his own dignity or do anything except inhabit his rank as a senior Lt.

In conclusion, Bush.

Re: rambling as usual

Date: 2006-02-15 05:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
My new LJ layout drives me nuts these days. Damn you LJ for fucking with CSS. :/

One bit I remember liking: when Archie is berating him for not speaking up to save Wellard, Bush holds Archie's gaze and speaks to Horatio instead. Tells him to pull his friend into line, barely even blinks.

This, by the way, is why I have a mad fandom crush on you, you know that? You see things that nobody else sees, and you explain them so wonderfully and crisply and beautiful, and damn you, now I want fic about the dynamic between Bush and Archie, because. There's some fascinating stuff there -- the serious friction between them when Bush is trying to play the straight-and-narrow, how that eventually becomes the three of them jumping off a cliff together, and how, from there, Bush ends up "taking care" of Hornblower.

And like. Bush is the one who's in the infirmary with Kennedy. He's the one who's lying in bed and listening to Archie die, basically, so I wonder what passed between them.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-15 10:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randomalia.livejournal.com
Ahaha, well the feeling is entirely, entirely mutual. I was reading through your post going...how did I MISS this stuff? Must watch Mutiny again! All I seemed to remember was the tackle. Really, he could have shouted a warning, but it's best to inspect someone with your entire body before greeting them.

And YES, the infirmary scene really gets me. They MUST have discussed it, and I can't imagine how that conversation went. I mean, that whole thing is about Horatio, but at the same time, it's just something that is between Bush and Archie, and afterwards, no one but Bush knows what that was. And as you say, Bush is the one to look after Horatio from there.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-02-15 11:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quigonejinn.livejournal.com
You know, given the way that Hornblower is, if Archie doesn't tell Bush about Simpson/Spanish prison/Muzillac, Bush'll never know about them. Which is O.O.

And. You know. I wonder whether Bush's OMFG MUST PROTECT CAPTAIN urges in Loyalty have anything to do with the conversation that he had with Archie. I mean, I'm sure he would've been protective of a captain as good as Hornblower depsite the instructions, and he's certainly good enough friends with Hornblower at that point to be protective of him over friendship alone, but man oh man.

When Bush basically turns a blind eye to Pellew's command so that he can ride in and save Hornblower's bacon? It really makes me wonder what Archie told him about how much Hornblower hated being a prisoner.

I wonder, too, what Archie thought about how clearly Bush sees that Hornblower is the dominant one in that relationship.

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