*insert "Hornblower" and "seamen"-based puns here*

[donnaimmaculata]

Last week, I drove out to a friend who lives in the German Wuthering Heights (well, "heights"...) to go hiking. My two hiking companions - let's call them Butch and Hank - were two manly men: the kind that know about engineering and wouldn't touch a costume drama with a 10-foot pole.

But because the German Wuthering Heights are neither heights nor particularly extensive, the following conversation occured:

Butch: ... blah blah... and so I realised that we can't fill three days with hiking.
Butch: But look what I've got!
Butch: The Hornblower DVD box!
Hank: Let's watch it now, let's watch it now!
Butch: We've waited for you 'specially.

And so, instead of dragging myself and my cold across the moors for three miserable days, I spent three happy days sitting on Butch's sofa with a cup of tea with lemon and ginger, watching Hornblower.



Which, of course, is the slashiest slashfest ever.

Butch and Hank, what with being very manly and very, very straight, waited until the second episode until they started to openly slash the characters. It was naturally agreed that Horatio (Hornblower) and his friend Archie are totally in love and that Matthews and Styles are totally married ("These two are so sweet!"). The guest stars were obviously flirting with Horatio, and when that one character who dies died, everyone was very happy when the replacement arrived ("Aww, thank god he's found a new boyfriend!"). And you can imagine our joy and delight when Horatio snaps at the French fop (the real Willoughby - Greg Wise - in his best dandy mode): "I've shared a berth with lieutenant Bush, and I considered it an honour!" Of course you did, darling.

Unfortunately, I had to leave before we could watch the final episode. I will have to watch it tonight. However, after being very good about not shoehorning the Plucky Girl or the Love Interest of the Week into every episode, the show did introduce a love interest in the end, who, as I'm informed, eventually uttered the immortal sentence: "Oh, Horry, can't you forget about your ship for one day?"

No, love, he can't. The ship is full of seamen whom he so much likes.

Comments

[ellensmithee.livejournal.com]

My husband is a licensed skipper, and he LOVES Hornblower and Master and Commander (that's the movie he always takes to other people's DVD parties to make them watch it). I think all slashiness went completely over his head, however.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

We had to watch Hornblower with subtitles, due to the navy lingo. Thus, as Butch said, we still didn't understand what they were talking about, but we knew what exactly we didn't understand.

The slashiness is so obvious! They don't even try to hide it. I was very pleased that Butch and Hank went on with it.

[ellensmithee.livejournal.com]

My husband was probably in denial. Just like when his hero Eric had gay sex on True Blood. It just didn't happen!!!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

But everyone knows modern vampires like both girls and boys (as do seamen)!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I couldn't. I have to view them as asexual (especially Hank), because anything else would be gross!

Come to think of it, I think they slashed themselves. There was something about how they would have to share a bed, and Hank said to Butch: "You're so fluffy, it'd be like sleeping under an eiderdown."

[eryaforsthye.livejournal.com]

Hello, sorry I'm quite the lurker and though I follow your journal avidly I rarely have the courage to comment. That said, I love Horblower and can't help but comment today. :P Apologies for the randomness.

I wouldn't be *quite* so bad if it wasn't blatantly obvious that he doesn't romantically love said Love Interest in the slightest. :P Poor girl.

Also, that does sound like a very awesome three days. :D

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Hi, how nice to see you here! It's always nice to speak to people you've seen around for ages but never actually interacted with.

I haven't watched the final episode yet, but they so didn't have any chemistry in the penultimate episode. He certainly didn't seem interested at all; all he wanted to do was hang out with Lieutenant Bush (and share his lodgings with him) and go back to his ship. Story-wise, there was no build-up to their "romance". Horatio had had tons of chemistry more with the duchess/actress in The Duchess and the Devil (not to mention every friend or enemy sailor he's ever interacted with).

It was a brilliant three days :-D

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

That lack of interest in The Love Interest was canonical! Really, I am very cross with Horatio for having handled it as he did, and when I start going AU as a proper Live Kennedy Universe requires, I have a MUCH better solution to how he handles the quandary she presents. BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP, duckies. No damage to anyone's reputation then, and no dimwitted wife or harpy mother-in-law!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I have only just started to read the Hornblower novels over Christmas (starting with "Hornblower and the Atropos"), and have already been given an insight into Horatio's marriage with Maria. I'm going with LKU, too, seeing as character death is an easily fixable problem.

It's a shame, though, because I really like Julia Sawalha, and she usually plays such spirited & spunky characters. I had great hopes when she first appeared - I knew nothing about how the relationship would progress.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I read the books after I watched the movies as well, and was interested to see that the book canon supported what I'd assumed from every movie interaction starting with Horatio's "oh God what have I done" expression right after he proposed.

I even have a way to make my ghost!Archie fic compatible with LKU. I've decided it was his fetch!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

"The Atropos" starts with Horatio and Maria on a canal barge and it abounds in wonderful (well, "wonderful") husband & wife interaction. I kinda like the fact that Forester didn't give his hero some kind of stunning Mary Sue wife, though. And seeing as Archie is strictly film canon, I can widely disregard Maria and stray away from book canon (I probably won't read all Hornblower novels anyway).

I've decided it was his fetch

Surely, there can only be one!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I got tired of the books about halfway through because Horatio's internal monologue is so self-loathing. It's very tiresome, especially after having grown used to the company of Jack and Stephen (another thing where I adore the source material but don't feel the need to write fic very much. Maybe about Clarissa Oakes).

As for the fetch - at least in stories I know, when someone is very near death, their fetch can appear to someone they love. Often enough they don't speak, sometimes they carry a message of affection.

Horatio interpreted the manifestation as a ghost. It was actually Archie's fetch, because he WAS that near death... but he recovered. So VERY tempted to enlist Stephen Maturin's help in that matter. I need to go back and check the early books & see if there's a plausible time, because I know what Stephen was doing during most of the Peace of Amiens, but it's the months just before that are most critical.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I have heard a lot about Horatio's self-loathing, and it actually helps me along when I write him, because I can make him unwilling to believe that Archie would fancy him - which leads to more delicious angst.

I'm sure you can tweak canon a bit and your readers will not mind. Casual fans won't know what Stephen was doing then anyway, and most fans are happy to accept slight canon incongruencies for the sake of a good crossover.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

In the storyline eternaleponine and I worked out, Horatio was just entirely oblivious until Archie confessed himself. Horatio doesn't really understand WHY Archie fancies him, but there it is, and no arguing with it. We get more angst out of Archie not being entirely sure that Horatio fancies him back and isn't just humoring him.

I fully intend to tweak canon if I have to, but if there's an actually plausible time-window, I'm going to use it. You're speaking to someone whose Snape/Evan Rosier was canon-compliant through Book 5 (6 and 7 weren't out yet) to the point of NOT USING PRONOUNS FOR BLAISE ZABINI, because they hadn't been specified yet.

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

Mmm, Hornblower. It is a lovely way to spend a few days, going through all those DVDs. *eyes them* Or maybe I should find some nice Horatio/Archie instead of wearing them out further!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I haven't dipped into Hornblower fanfiction yet, but something's been telling me Horatio/Archie might be a popular pairing *g*

I like Lieutenant Bush, personally. I think he'd be good for Horatio. And when Horatio invited him to spend the night stay at his lodgings, he called him by his Christian name for the first time...

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can't disagree there. As usual I'm ridiculously easy on pairings. I think the only one I've written (just short for a challenge, nothing interesting) was Horatio/Clayton. Someone on my flist gave me a lovely collection of recs a while back, I may have to dig them out.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Oh, please do! I love Clayton. He was my favourite in the Duel episode - I mourned his death deeply. In my scoutings for Hornblower slash, I was rather surprised he didn't figure more prominently.

Also, rather disappointed at the lack of Archie/Simpson non-con fics! I would have thought fandom abounds in them. The HP fandom would!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

*shudder* It's my impression that the Hornblower fandom is rather softer-hearted than the HP fandom (where I used to play) and we're content to leave the non-con implied as it is in canon and NOT go into detail!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

That's my impression, too. I have, however, been in the HP fandom for so long that my tolerance (and sanity) levels are completely off. Which is why, when I wrote my Archie/Simpson non-con, I felt like I violated the fandom!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The worst part was, it made perfect, horrible sense. I'm inclined to put it in my headcanon. You can assume that it happened just the way you said when you get to the part in my fic where... you'll see!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

As fluffyllama said, if someone intended their interaction to be interpreted differently, they really failed very badly! But then, Llama is a HP alumnus, too, and we're sick ;-)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The abuse is so heavily implied it's pretty well canon - Jamie Bamber believes it! It's the dub-con aspects of your story that aren't necessarily inevitable, but horrify me enough that I believe it.

I need to get finished uploading the rest of my old HP fic to AO3. What I have of it, anyway. There's a big epic Snape romance that I want to preserve.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I wanted to make it as horrifying as possible, even though I squicked myself.

Oh, I've been uploading my old fics to AO3 these past few days, and I revisited some of my old fics in the process. It's fun, and if you have a good epic Snape romance, you don't want to lose it. Plus, fandom will certainly appreciate it.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Rather like the way I squicked myself good and proper writing the firstie!Snape/Prefect!Lucius in the early chapters of Immortal Beloved. It had to be there, and it wasn't even explicit (implied or offscreen) but it was one of the hardest things I ever wrote.