quigonejinn | light-headed at the touch of this stranger's hand.

In my mailbox this morning, from

black_hound who's been telling me about it for a while.:

The following is adapted somewhat from an e-mail that I sent to

black_hound over this, and OMG. That picture is so deeply amazing and why I love Cranky Bitch/Archiekins Replacement.

Uniforms. The righteous hotness of their military uniforms. I'd be into the slash in this fandom if only for the fact that the men are tricked out in gold and decoration and it all looks SO GOOD and GOD, how undressing a Navy officer that looks as good as Bush must be like unwrapping a glorious, glorious Christmas present.
The fact that Bush got up with Hornblower and got dressed with him and walked him down to the pier and stayed there when he has NO OBVIOUS reasn to be down there except to offer moral support. *weeps* My OTP is ridiculously supportive.
The fact that Hornblower, the tricky bitch, has large-scale body language that indicates he's looking at the Hotspur and acting all delighted, but o ho ho ho. Look at his eyes. That smile don't reach. The eye that's in the light, sure, yeah, that almost kinda looks like he's smiling with it too, but the eye that's a little more hidden? He's trying to gage Bush's reaction and nervous as ANYTHING and trying to hide it, too.
But Bush isn't having ANY of it. OMG. He's so excited. He knows what's going down. Ship! Pretty pretty girlfriend! Hornblower and his funny body language! Just back from a conversation with a Commodore who loves him omg, and Bush trying to hide his glee from HH too -- notice the one-sided smile, and he's obviously biting on his lip becaue of the glee.

Bush is totally the girlfriend who's just sighted the little velvet box being slipped into the picnic basket next to the magnum of champagne.
And, man. Above all, the fact that this totally just whips by 0.0001 seconds flat, and you wouldn't notice it or even see any of it if it weren't for the screencap. I LOVE CANON THAT DOESN'T SUCK. I LOVE CANON WITH SUBTLETY. HOLY FUCK, I LOVE CANON THAT I CAN RESPECT AND THAT HOLDS UP TO MORE THAN FIVE SECONDS OF THINKING. *WEEPS*

Annnnd in conclusion, I'm a big pathetic sap, and since it's now April, it's also now time for me to pull my twice-a-year fic hiatus. I'll do my

ioan_ficathon piece, and I'll be around, but no more fic, no more meta posts, no more researchy bits. Not until May.

Fic in progress

- genderfuck (aka: Five Things that Never Happened to William Bush: Horatia)
- Five Things that Never Happened to William Bush: Marriage
- Five Things that Never Happened to William Bush: Peace (Smallbridge, fishing boat, the two-wheeler by the pier)
- Five Things that Never Happened to William Bush: Resurrection (Marie, no Admiral Hornblower, staying in France, riding jaunts by the reiver)
- Sheerness grand theme to "For the Widows in Paradise"
- Preggers Marie.
- from

randomalia, Hammond/Bush, Bush and Wellard, Hornblower guilt if going with the Northcote Parkinson story of how Sawyer kicked the bucket. Bush and Hammond getting it on before Hammond gets assigned, and post-Loyalty aftermath.
- Orrock and Hammond. Second-person. Post-loyalty.

Speculative fic ideas

- HH taying in France during FC and never going back to England. Fallout? Stry of Richard Arthur coming to France to see his father or somethign.
- Venice. Rewrite of Crisis.

Other

- Brotherhoood vid of Jean-Francois. Set either to Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" or Dopplebanger - Clint Mansell v. Usher - Reqiuem for Usher. Bring on the incest.

Scene list

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Every time I kind of start to think that maybe I'm just projecting my rage on behalf of Maria and Bush, who loved HH too much to ever leave him on his ass, that maybe I should just learn to like Barbara because everybody else seems to think perfectly well of her, I think about Richard Arthur.

And my blood just boils. I still can't believe that she had the hump to steal Maria's baby, name him after her brothers, and then get pissy because people think the kid is hers.

Dude, I can make a fucking laundry list a mile long of the things that piss me off in regards to same.

Ya know, the people that deeply, unselfishly loved HH all end up taking the big dirt nap. The one left standing? Not of the same. I see a sharp demarcation line there. Razor sharp. And all the talking in the world ain't gonna convince me that HH got the brass ring in the end.

Maybe he's gonna talk himself around to the fact that he's happy and he has it all and "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" and all that, but I don't think at the end of 11 books there's any other conclusion, than -- be careful what (you think) you wish for. You just might get it.

And all the talking in the world ain't gonna convince me that HH got the brass ring in the end.

I don't share the Barbara rage at all, but even I would never make that statement. Because IMO he made a choice with Barbara based on what he thought somebody like him should want and need, and while I think he did love her, IMO he loved the idea of her, and the image of her, as much as the actual Barbara. And she is so much like him in being reserved that it's safe for him to be with her in the way that it was not with Marie.

And just look at the thing in Admiral H where she tells him he's the only one she ever loved and how outta control happy that makes him. That is not a healthy reaction, even by CBB standards. All that time they've been married, and the fact that HE loved Marie during their marriage, and slept with other women (the Countess and who knows who else?) and he wants to own her all to himself? That's not a healthy love.

There's an interesting comparison to be made, I think, between the scene where Bush comes drunkenly staggering in to give news of the trasure fleet and The Last Encounter. They're both Hornblower at home, in front of the fire, with the family, fairly content. They're also both "weird person comes in and says craaaazy things." And man.

They're so different in both tone and style and, like. Everything. In the scene from Hotspur, Hornblower is reading the Chronicle with the fire and being his usual muttery cranky self and getting it awn with his wife while the baby sleeps and the mother-in-law is away, and then his delightfully drunk friend shows up and HH gets to grin about that. And then, he finds out there will be babies! And true to HH form, he feels all weird about that. It's warm and cozy and full of the crazy.

Even if you account for the fact that CSF had to take a bit of a different tone because he wants to give us an overview of where HH is in his life now/doesn't have 1834234 chapters to work with as scene-setting -- man, that Last Encounter setting feels so stiff and formal and cold. The big image that we get of Barbara in that story through HH isn't of the smiling, sweet wife in his arms, her face quite transfigured with happiness -- but, you know. Of her whipping her reading glasses off so that she won't be embarrassed in front of visitors (which is kinda cute, but suggests distance, watching, and is so different from what he has with Maria) and, also, the fact that the President/Prince of France has sent her sapphires to match her eyes.

Totally different worlds. Totally. And I guess it says a lot about me that I'd rather have the first, with all of the crazy and the less-than-perfect-happiness than the second, even though it is, literally, the one with the fairy tal ending.

the one with the fairy tal ending.

By the Brothers Grimm.

And to seal the deal a steamtug with the name Temeraire? *woe*

What is that you're saying? I do remember, though, there's an episode in Hornblower in the West Indies where they see a steam tug named Temeraire, and Hornblower tells one of the middies to go down and fetch Captain Bush because ahahah, well, he's going to want to see this? :>

And yeah, the HH plotline reminds me a lot of the Brothers Grimm with a dose of Hans Anderson heartache.

light-headed at the touch of this stranger's hand.

i need a t-shirt that says barbara wellesley is a ho.

Re: i need a t-shirt that says barbara wellesley is a ho.

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Re: i need a t-shirt that says barbara wellesley is a ho.

Re: i need a t-shirt that says barbara wellesley is a ho.

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