*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

[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.