#percy yells at cecil scott

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I've been thinking about how to push Hornblower to his breaking point recently and I think the best way to do it would be to put his compassion and his duty in conflict in a way where he could either be a good person and put his naval career in jeopardy, or be a tyrant but maintain his position. I think that these often come into conflict in the narrative, but he always finds some sort of loophole and manages to worm through without having to sacrifice either ideal. I think that it would be really fun to push him into a corner and make him choose, though. I can see both scenarios leading to interesting results.

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*Goes to a therapist and hands them the entire Hornblower series* Read these and then I'll have whatever he's having

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I know that I just finished Hornblower and also that I took so much psychic damage from it and complained the whole way but I need to reread it so badly actually

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HORNBLOWER REPUBLICAN ARC WHERE ARE YOU

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Very funny how neither CS Forester nor Patrick O'Brian were buried in England. Guys really said yeah I'll write about it but I don't like it that much

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Also minor and likely underinformed complaint but for all that I absolutely love the dynamic in "The Frogs and the Lobsters" I do think it completely erases and simplifies the politics of Brittany at that time and place

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Haven't taken enough psychic damage recently maybe I need to read more Hornblower

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been thinking more about the Hornblower amputation thing & your tags. It's an increasingly weird storytelling decision the more I think about it, to give your hero such a fear & then *never have it happen to him*. Chekhov's bonesaw. I suppose it gets deflected onto Bush. ... Especially weird given elements of Hornblower's career/peculiarities are ~loosely based on Nelson, famous for leaving bits of himself all over. Hornblower is, like, NOTICEABLY unmaimed. What's with that? Theories? Thoughts??

Ohhh yes I think I've had similar thoughts - honestly, I think that's part of the narrative frustration of Hornblower is that there are multiple Chekhov's bonesaw moments and they drive me up the wall. I do think that the mention of his fear of amputation was setting up for it to happen to Bush, not him, but I don't think that that was honestly the greatest decision on Forester's part....and then again I tend to be extremely mean to Forester so maybe other people will disagree with me. That's super interesting thinking about Nelson though, because Forester seems to like and want to buy into the "fragile but brilliant man" archetype but I do think that the getting beat up and battered is possibly a necessary corollary to that?? Who knows though, real naval history people feel free to challenge me here.

Honestly the best theory I have for the lack of Hornblower maiming is that Forester really likes putting Hornblower in the torment nexus by making him experience his worst fears through the people around him, which I think on some level is worse for him - he's very empathetic (or rather, he is more empathetic than he thinks a Good Navy Man should be), so while he'll throw himself under the bus for no reason at all, seeing other characters thrown under the bus is actually a miserable experience for him. I do think that if it had been him who had lost a leg (instead of it happening to Bush) there would have been much less fuss over the whole thing, so I do think that was a good narrative decision of Forester's part. I think there's also a similar thing with people who he loves dying around him - he has a death wish and wouldn't care if he himself died, but instead he's left to sit there dealing with the weight of their deaths on his hands and the weight of moving on after that. I think that this is what Forester was (sort of) going for - especially taking into account his interest in the psychology of independent command, which this partially plays into (he can't develop meaningful relationships because people keep dying, thereby isolating him Worse) - but I disagree with how he chose to resolve it, and don't think that it can be considered a "happy" ending as-is (mostly because I strongly disagree with some of the character arcs and also with Hornblower and Barbara as endgame as they are in the books, without addressing any of their main conflicts - speaking of Chekhov's bonesaws....)

But none of that excuses the fact that Hornblower escapes from everything unscathed. Literally give the man some battle wounds or something idk - no wonder he feels like he lives in another world, he's literally untouchable :')

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This is probably Bush and also Pullings's native dialect (though I have many MANY doubts about what exactly the methodology being used here was)

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I did kind of enjoy the first chapter of Parkinson's Hornblower "biography" because it offered some things that I had either been wondering about or which I thought were delightful little headcanons, but I have to say that since then it has just been making me hate Hornblower an unbelievable amount and/or occasionally go he would not fucking say that

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🌹!

From a fic in which I throw Hornblower, who has learned to play piano by rote, in with one of Stephen and Jack's music sessions, and everything goes swimmingly, as you can tell by this very congenial start:

Hornblower, who had already decided that he disliked Aubrey immensely, baulked at the invitation, but he could not find it in himself to refuse it, an action which he felt would be very much like surrender.

Thank you very much! <33

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I am picturing hornblower timeloop as some sort of clockwork device with a crank handle, and him inside, and I am eagerly turning the handle to make it go, that’s how in favor of hornblower timeloop I am

Yes! Throwing him in the manual-crank washing machine until he finally comes clean! Someone take that man for a spin!

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JUST STARTED WATCHING MUTINY THIS GOES SO HARD

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Ill-advised list of projects to finish this semester:

Hornblower/Aubreyad musical evening crossover event

Hornblower genderflu fic

Hornblower the Tank Engine and the Even Chance

Solomon a Gaenor extensive Solomon-lives AU first installment

Intro post w/ pictures of the four central DK characters (including actual names for them and actual clothes for them and a better understanding of their role in the narrative)

Girl don't say anything else or they're going to have to put you down

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Pictures of Muzilheg/Muzillac (Brittany) showing the squares, churches, estates, and inhabitants

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wip words... perhaps sword, swill, and swear?

Ohh that's a delightful set of words!

Oddly enough though they are all very rare in my fics, but two did show up in Hornblower Time Loop so here they are (this is still in rough draft phase so the passages themselves might end up looking wildly different if I ever get around to finishing it):

SWORD:

There was no trick. They took her just the way he remembered the day before, and the day before that as well. The guard boat coming out to intercept them; boarding her; the sound of swords clashing through the smoke of gunshots; and then on to the Flame, where the mutineers awaited them.

SWEAR:

“We ain’t looking to hang, sir--not for the last bad business, nor for this one.” This was an older seaman with a long pigtail who Hornblower had spoken to earlier. He was a sensible man, Hornblower had thought--knew the ways of the Navy, and where to draw the line.  “I swear I will not let you,” he said.

No matches for "swill" alas, but now that it's at the front of my brain who knows what might happen :0

Thank you for the ask!