Author's Notes

Updating
I am really bad about keeping my site up to date. Fics sit for months in my LiveJournal archive before I update. My LJ is friends locked, but all my fic posts are public, if you want to friend. If you don't have a livejournal, you can view and/or bookmark my Memories section to keep up. Also, I don't always get a chance to reply, but I do appreciate the feedback people leave on my journal.

On Archie
Archie is my most favorite character ever. He's the most complex character on the show, by far. Had I not known he would be coming back in "D&D" I wouldn't have watched anymore after I got bored halfway through "Fire Ships" and turned off the movie. I now subscribe to the "No Archie no watchie" viewpoint, which also means I neither read nor write dead!Archie fic. I just don't see a reason why I should as the end of Retribution pissed me off. Most of my stories revolve around him, because he's that fabulous PTSD and all - someone who could have been the hero and all that had circumstances not have ruined things. I think that's one of the tragedies with Archie, you just never know what could have been. "Archie lives!" is definitely my favorite thing to read and write. All in all, I like to explore Archie in his own right, not some accessory to Horatio's angst or in a "I'm so boweled over by the power of Horatio's Mary Sueness and honored to be his 'wife'" way. Most of my interest in the show is centered around Archie, so if you want the other characters you should look elsewhere.

On Horatio
In and of himself, Horatio doesn't interest me. The Mary Sue reoutine got old real fast. I *like* Horatio as a person, but I guess I should say I'm not interested in what canon does with him, or *doesn't* do with him. He gets the reset button hit on him so many times that there's no fascinating character developement there. My obsession is to take his personality and try to accurately create some. He has all these good qualities, but I'd like for him to learn something and have it stick. In HH2, we came so close, until that sloppy scene at the end. Honestly, I think his being in the Navy is a tragedy in itself. It messed him up. He's so moral and honorable, but he has to silence his conscience in order to function in the Navy. There's few good people in the world, watching someone like Horatio's soul get sucked away because he's jaded and gives up and toes the line or has nothing else but the Navy is really upsetting to me. I like to toy with the idea of taking him out of the Navy. Frankly, I don't think a sweet little muffin like him belonged there in the first place. It's just my way of wanting to protect him from that miserable bastard he turns into. Is that so wrong? So if you like your Horry commanding ships and turning into book!Horatio, don't read. I only know movie!Horatio and am interested in other possibilities with his character. I like to make him suffer too *so mean*.

Clotho123 on LJ posted a quote from Lord Hornblower (which I've never read) that sums things up. "He had joined the Navy as a boy and he had known war ever since: he could know nothing of the other Hornblower, the purely hypothetical Hornblower, who would have existed had there been no war. Twenty-one years of frightful strain, of peril and hardship, had made a very different man of him from what he would have become otherwise. Hornblower was no born fighting man: he was a talented and sensitive individual whom chance had forced into fighting, and his talents had brought him sucess as a fighter just as as they would have brought him sucess in other walks of life, but he had had to pay a higher price. His morbid sensitiveness, his touchy pride, the quirks nd weaknesses of his character might well be the result of the strains and sorrows he had had to endure."

I suppose I'm interested in that "other" Hornblower. The muffin. His muffin qualities come out most with Archie - he's so kind and patient and affectionate, not neurotic at all (not to mention the moments of panic over Archie hee!). Being a lot like Horatio in many ways, I prefer to focus on this idea of his feelings for Archie bringing him out of his shell. I can relate to that and I think that's what we see. I suppose I have a more positive view of his character than a lot of people in this respect.

On Archie/Horatio
I honestly do not care for a negative portrayal of this relationship when it is a positive one. It's fascinating too, here you have this victim of trauma and this repressed/ordinarily stoic person, and somehow in the meeting of their personalities they bring out the best in each other - Horatio's patient and caring, and learns to reach out emotionally, and Archie . . . well, that's obvious :) I'm tired of dysfunctionality, nor do I see any here between them. I've tried to write something that is functional as we see it on screen, but has its issues and complications, yet still interesting - I hope! Basically, I've tried to blend the slashy scenes I write *into* the canon, rather than make some "slashverse" where things don't match what we've seen - don't get me started on how "all slash is AU" and "straight until proven otherwise" make me feel violent. Basically, I want you to believe that had the camera rolled a little longer, this is what you might have seen, if that makes sense. Of course, it's up to you guys whether or not I've succeeded :)

Why don't you write/read other pairings or hot threesomes?
In other fandoms, I'll read almost anything, any pairing. Het, slash, threesomes, orgies - it's all good. But H/A is one of two OTPs I have. There's the fact that the pairing is so moving and beautiful and complete I can't imagine an interest in anything else. It was what drew me into the show. There's also the fact that I strongly feel that Horatio's personality is such that he couldn't be emotionally functional, intimate, or in love with anyone else. Like Ioan said, it's a special relationship and nothing can come close to it. I can see Archie having sex with other people though, which is fun to read sometimes. But, in short, nothing against threesomes or multishipper people, it's simply that other pairings feel neither accurate nor appealing in terms of my view of the characters. As for why I don't usually read other stuff . . . same reason I don't watch football. Not interested.

On Pellew
I have to say, I'm terribly diasspointed in him. I really thought he was going to save the day in "Retribution" and I felt let down. He was supposed to be fair and just hero figure, but when it came down to it he was impotent, unprofessional, spineless, and amoral. False advertising. Just like a man though not to get his act together when you need him. I went from disappointed to angry at how callous he was toward my favorite character - it's ridiculous, being an Archie person, to expect me to overlook that. He greatly offended me. So, where earlier Pellew was a fun hardass big daddy figure, later!Pellew strikes me as someone I need to get Horatio away from. His blubbering about childishness was nauseating and his view that Horatio's surrender to unnecessary - key word here - corruption was something to be *proud* of just proves he doesn't love or know Horatio at all and only wants a mini-me to validate himself. Clearly, he feels no remorse and believes the Kingston verdict in the right. Had it been necessary to preserve some actual greater good, then ok, but quite frankly the court martial thing in "Retribution" is so damned illogical I could beat my head on the desk. A CAPTAIN'S GOOD NAME IS SIMPLY NOT PRESERVED BY SAYING HE FELL VICTIM TO MUTINY - that's the short version. Back to Pellew, I can only conclude he was jealous of Archie's place in Horatio's life and smug about his demise. I honestly don't think Horatio feels the same about him either as in the earlier films.

Couldn't you just fix Pellew too?
I could, but I can't understand why I should, nor do I want to. It's not a writing mess-up for a rushed end of a movie where he could not be the hero; his character has changed. HH3 proves that. I'm just writing the character the way I see him. There's also the fact that most other writers are happy to "restore" Pellew, despite having the same problems with him that I do, so I thought I'd have a go at working what came across on screen into story-form since I was so upset by it. Maybe this wasn't what the writers intended, but I wanted to point out that is what actually came across to me, and that it required a particular response from the characters, given their personalities, that just wasn't there. Fandom is all about obsessing over plotholes, after all. I just can't help it if Pellew is no longer a "hero". I know some people don't want to read that, and obviously they don't have to, but I've never been fond of putting my hands over my eyes and singing la-dee-da or shying away from complicated things. If he screwed up, then he screwed up, end of story. I didn't like it either. There's nothing worse than the corruption of a good person, in my view. Maybe it's the time I live in, with George Bush and everything gone to hell and all that, but I really have a low tolerance for unnecessary political stupidity, etc. I'm just sick of it, so I'm not going to pretend that it isn't there. I need to work off the frustration and disgust. Besides, the writers missed (by virtue of being forced by Forester estate to switch back to book canon) the great tragic beauty of what they'd done. Without Archie, I wasn't going to watch it anyway, but there's an ironic complexity to the whole thing, this idea that his obsession with saving Horatio led him astray and to failing him (and more rightly to ultimately "losing" him by allowing Mr. Honorable's dearest friend to be sacrificed). Who doesn't like daddy/son angst?

On Alternate Universe/Archie Lives!
AU is a big part of fandom. It's the fans way of taking creative control of what they love. It's the fans way of exploring things and of getting to know characters better than the TPTB. It's all about imagination. In this case, it's a way of saying that the show jumped the shark with certain of us. If we don't like what happened, why should we accept it? It's fiction, we can undo it if we want. There's lots of snotty comments floating around about how this is canon or how that *has to be* in order to be *real. That's just crap. Some of us like to have an imagination and show our love for a character/pairing in this way. I personally like to point out how Archie's survival could alter the canon, and mmore importantly Horatio. He could definitely be a salvation for him, in a way. Some people like to write first-times, I like to write LKUs. I'm stubborn and a control freak and have small patience for tragedy, not to mention that there's a whole fascinating set of issues in regards to Retribution with Archie surviving. Lots of guilt and angst. I'm just glad that so many people in fandom enjoy it.

What's this Kennedy family stuff?
Oh, that's historical. Archie's said to be the second or third son of an old titled Scottish family, so I looked up which had the name Kennedy and it was Cassilis. Interestingly enough the Earl of Cassilis old enough to be Archie's father at the time was a successful frigate captain During the Seven Years' War who got into some trouble in America and resigned. I found it interesting. Only thing I did was change the dad's name from Archibald to David since Archie wasn't the eldest son to be named after the dad.

All in all
Thanks to everyone who reads my work and takes the time to comment. I really do appreciate it :) I'm also a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, starring our dear Crumpet as "Apollo", who's terribly hot. It's a show for our post-911 world and doesn't suffer from some of the problems that Hornblower has.