Brief random thoughts from various fandoms
I've been dipping into various old fandoms. They're much safer when I'm busy than something new to me that might get out of control!
Hornblower
After finally being made captain, Bush has a meteoric rise in getting the captaincy of a 74 with only a year's seniority. Hornblower progressed up through the classes of ships much more slowly. There must have been some grumbling among the captain's list about Hornblower's favouritism of someone who many people would have known to be sturdy but not brilliant. So many of Hornblower's thoughts about Bush in the various books are about his limitations. From A Ship of the Line: Hornblower, however much he respected Bush's qualities and abilities, had no opinion whatever of his first lieutenant's capacity to make original plans. If those thoughts are representative of Hornblower's overall assessment of Bush, I wonder whether Hornblower himself thought Bush should command a 74 without Hornblower there to keep an eye on him, or whether he asked for him only because the ship in question was to be Hornblower's flagship. The other, happier option is that Hornblower's actual opinion of Bush's talents was higher than the bad-tempered thoughts we got to read.
Rome
I skim-rewatched S2 for the Vorenus/Pullo parts only. Watching it so fast brought home that Pullo had only just told Vorenus that he was bored and had thought about going back to war when Vorenus dumped his children on Pullo and took off himself (for EIGHT YEARS). Those two are one of my all-time-favourite pairings, but Vorenus is not an easy person to be a friend to.
White Collar
4x09 was right up my alley, with its conflict that we know will soon be resolved, since we can't have our leads being DONE like Neal said they were. I loved Mozzie staking his superior claim to Neal: "The answer is not assaulting a federal agent who also happens to be your second-best friend!"
Unexpected skin-to-skin contact thanks to the boxing match. "I'm trying to protect you!"
In 4x10 I laughed at how bad Neal was at staying angry at Peter, beamed at Peter explicitly telling Neal that he liked him even before they started working together, and was rather taken aback by Peter's "Who doesn't love a good shark mauling?" Ouch. Presumably in New York they don't have actual shark maulings! No West Australian would say that, with five shark fatalities here in the last year.
Supernatural
In honour of S8 starting this week, I brushed off my rote learning skills and practiced the episode name quiz. I go through them to distract myself when I'm running sometimes, but it's much more fun to do it properly on the computer. It must be an accountant thing to get so much enjoyment from filling in the little boxes. If they go to 10 seasons, I might be in trouble, but for now I can comfortably list all 149 in 11 minutes. In two days it will be 150!
Hornblower
After finally being made captain, Bush has a meteoric rise in getting the captaincy of a 74 with only a year's seniority. Hornblower progressed up through the classes of ships much more slowly. There must have been some grumbling among the captain's list about Hornblower's favouritism of someone who many people would have known to be sturdy but not brilliant. So many of Hornblower's thoughts about Bush in the various books are about his limitations. From A Ship of the Line: Hornblower, however much he respected Bush's qualities and abilities, had no opinion whatever of his first lieutenant's capacity to make original plans. If those thoughts are representative of Hornblower's overall assessment of Bush, I wonder whether Hornblower himself thought Bush should command a 74 without Hornblower there to keep an eye on him, or whether he asked for him only because the ship in question was to be Hornblower's flagship. The other, happier option is that Hornblower's actual opinion of Bush's talents was higher than the bad-tempered thoughts we got to read.
Rome
I skim-rewatched S2 for the Vorenus/Pullo parts only. Watching it so fast brought home that Pullo had only just told Vorenus that he was bored and had thought about going back to war when Vorenus dumped his children on Pullo and took off himself (for EIGHT YEARS). Those two are one of my all-time-favourite pairings, but Vorenus is not an easy person to be a friend to.
White Collar
4x09 was right up my alley, with its conflict that we know will soon be resolved, since we can't have our leads being DONE like Neal said they were. I loved Mozzie staking his superior claim to Neal: "The answer is not assaulting a federal agent who also happens to be your second-best friend!"
Unexpected skin-to-skin contact thanks to the boxing match. "I'm trying to protect you!"
In 4x10 I laughed at how bad Neal was at staying angry at Peter, beamed at Peter explicitly telling Neal that he liked him even before they started working together, and was rather taken aback by Peter's "Who doesn't love a good shark mauling?" Ouch. Presumably in New York they don't have actual shark maulings! No West Australian would say that, with five shark fatalities here in the last year.
Supernatural
In honour of S8 starting this week, I brushed off my rote learning skills and practiced the episode name quiz. I go through them to distract myself when I'm running sometimes, but it's much more fun to do it properly on the computer. It must be an accountant thing to get so much enjoyment from filling in the little boxes. If they go to 10 seasons, I might be in trouble, but for now I can comfortably list all 149 in 11 minutes. In two days it will be 150!