AHAHAHAHAHAHAH :D DUDE. YOU ARE ASKING ME TO TALK ABOUT BUSH AND, YOU KNOW, TALK ABOUT WHY I WRITE WHAT I DO. HOW COULD I TURN THIS CHANCE DOWN?
And yeah. I've gone back and forth about this issue -- in the beginning, I was like, "Dude, no way he'd ever do it regularly because, you know. DEATH. AND THE ARTICLES OF WAR. AND GENERAL SOCIETY >:/ ABOUT THE GUY WHO TAKES IT." Hence, in Undertow, the recurring theme where Bush tells himself that no, he hasn't committed sodomy with Hornblower, yes, he was willing to commit it, but it didn't actually happen, and the notion that they only actually broke the rule once.
But I've recently swung around to the idea that Bush doesn't have a literalist notion of Navy discipline. Sure, he loves her. The discipline of the ship is what he builds his life around, but remember the part in LtH where Sawyer is reading the Articles on mutiny? And Bush is like T_T I hadn't realized they harped on death so much T____T when, you know. If you've ever even skimmed the Articles, that fact is amazingly apparent. He's been hearing this EVERY SUNDAY for the past ten years of his life. If the words were really all that important to him, he'd know the text by heart.
We also know that Bush isn't the biggest reader, that the abstract isn't nearly as important to him as what he sees before him and works with and does every day. He has a proper sailor's contempt for sea lawyers and their tricksy words. XD
Consequently, I'm starting to think that it might be coherent to have a Bush who loves the Navy but doesn't have the abstract, word-based Articles scribed on his soul -- instead, for him, the Navy discipline might be a set of social rules about what you do on a ship, what you don't do, how you treat your wooden girl, how you protect her, etc.
I mean, Bush is such a social creature, in a way. The degree to which he's a product of his environment is supposed to be a contrast to Hornblower with his modern tendencies and his love of the written word, right? And what constitutes Proper Navy Life for Bush might easily be the business of a properly run life and ship, not what he hears once a week while standing on deck, staring up at the spars, and pretending to pay attention to the captain drone on and on while he's actually thinking about how to shave another half-second off getting the rigging in. The social rules not more breakable becaue they're not written -- in fact, it's the other way around. They're unbreakable precisely because they are his everyday life.
So yeah. If we can imagine a Bush whose conception of Navy discipline is a social rather than legal/literal one, if there's then a social rule that says quiet, discreet buggery that won't harm ship's discipline BECAUSE THERE IS NO WOODEN GIRLFRIEND FOR EITHER OF THEM *SOB* is tolerable?
Then I can imagine that he might be pretty OK with the fact that he wants to bugger his best friend -- particularly if it's the other way around. He pretty much thinks that Hornblower is Admiral Nelson and Jesus Christ in a single body, so that even if Bush wouldn't put it in so many words, I imagine that there's a certain "captain, oh my captain" element to it. And once he decided to go on a course, from seeing the way he handles things with Buckland in LtH, I'm inclined to think that reluctance drops away from him quickly, so little angst once the act is begun.
Or so I tell myself because I want to write insane amounts of filthy porn. XD
Also, possibly, out of sheer, irrational contrariness to all those fics with awful Bush characterizations in which he's also like :( :( WOEZ I AM BREAKING ARTICLE 29 :( :( and I'm like AHHHHHHH YOU BITCHES WHAT IS THIS BREAD PUDDING IN A FIRST LIEUTENANT'S UNIFORM YOU ARE PRESENTING TO ME AS LIEUTENANT BUSH?
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branchandroot
argh, typos.
Date: 2006-02-20 08:25 pm (UTC)And yeah. I've gone back and forth about this issue -- in the beginning, I was like, "Dude, no way he'd ever do it regularly because, you know. DEATH. AND THE ARTICLES OF WAR. AND GENERAL SOCIETY >:/ ABOUT THE GUY WHO TAKES IT." Hence, in Undertow, the recurring theme where Bush tells himself that no, he hasn't committed sodomy with Hornblower, yes, he was willing to commit it, but it didn't actually happen, and the notion that they only actually broke the rule once.
But I've recently swung around to the idea that Bush doesn't have a literalist notion of Navy discipline. Sure, he loves her. The discipline of the ship is what he builds his life around, but remember the part in LtH where Sawyer is reading the Articles on mutiny? And Bush is like T_T I hadn't realized they harped on death so much T____T when, you know. If you've ever even skimmed the Articles, that fact is amazingly apparent. He's been hearing this EVERY SUNDAY for the past ten years of his life. If the words were really all that important to him, he'd know the text by heart.
We also know that Bush isn't the biggest reader, that the abstract isn't nearly as important to him as what he sees before him and works with and does every day. He has a proper sailor's contempt for sea lawyers and their tricksy words. XD
Consequently, I'm starting to think that it might be coherent to have a Bush who loves the Navy but doesn't have the abstract, word-based Articles scribed on his soul -- instead, for him, the Navy discipline might be a set of social rules about what you do on a ship, what you don't do, how you treat your wooden girl, how you protect her, etc.
I mean, Bush is such a social creature, in a way. The degree to which he's a product of his environment is supposed to be a contrast to Hornblower with his modern tendencies and his love of the written word, right? And what constitutes Proper Navy Life for Bush might easily be the business of a properly run life and ship, not what he hears once a week while standing on deck, staring up at the spars, and pretending to pay attention to the captain drone on and on while he's actually thinking about how to shave another half-second off getting the rigging in. The social rules not more breakable becaue they're not written -- in fact, it's the other way around. They're unbreakable precisely because they are his everyday life.
So yeah. If we can imagine a Bush whose conception of Navy discipline is a social rather than legal/literal one, if there's then a social rule that says quiet, discreet buggery that won't harm ship's discipline
BECAUSE THERE IS NO WOODEN GIRLFRIEND FOR EITHER OF THEM *SOB*is tolerable?Then I can imagine that he might be pretty OK with the fact that he wants to bugger his best friend -- particularly if it's the other way around. He pretty much thinks that Hornblower is Admiral Nelson and Jesus Christ in a single body, so that even if Bush wouldn't put it in so many words, I imagine that there's a certain "captain, oh my captain" element to it. And once he decided to go on a course, from seeing the way he handles things with Buckland in LtH, I'm inclined to think that reluctance drops away from him quickly, so little angst once the act is begun.
Or so I tell myself because I want to write insane amounts of filthy porn. XD
Also, possibly, out of sheer, irrational contrariness to all those fics with awful Bush characterizations in which he's also like :( :( WOEZ I AM BREAKING ARTICLE 29 :( :( and I'm like AHHHHHHH YOU BITCHES WHAT IS THIS BREAD PUDDING IN A FIRST LIEUTENANT'S UNIFORM YOU ARE PRESENTING TO ME AS LIEUTENANT BUSH?