Equivalential ([info]equivalent_t) wrote,
@ 2009-06-17 07:55:00
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If you're using the 18th century British Royal Navy as a highly disciplined, sexually repressed social space where no buttsecks ever happens, I believe you're using the wrong setting. You may wish to consider Victorian London.

Yes, well, you wouldn't get to use Pirate!Arthur, but surely Mr.Darcy!Arthur is just as good?

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[info]twistedsheets10
2009-06-17 01:17 pm UTC (link)
...I'm almost afraid to ask what brought this on...

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[info]equivalent_t
2009-06-17 01:21 pm UTC (link)
It's just those time-travelling badfics where modern!America meets Pirate!Arthur, and the latter is so completely uptight he makes tsuntsun!Arthur almost coquettish. I mean, modern!Arthur can be coquettish, yes, but not when he's in tsuntsun mode?

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[info]twistedsheets10
2009-06-17 01:36 pm UTC (link)
WAT. But isn't Pirate!Arthur more of an Elizabethan thing and-and well, pirates were generally FAR from uptight?

...England is quite O_o when he's in tsuntsun mode. Hardly coquettish. XD

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[info]equivalent_t
2009-06-17 01:43 pm UTC (link)
WELL. Said Pirate!Arthur can often be seen wearing a 17-18th century Navy uniform (in fics, that is), and I believe people confounded the privateers with the Navy for some reason. But honestly, ANY ship on the high seas back then would have some amount of buttsecks on it. Sign of the times.

I've read fics where Pirate!Arthur talks exactly like 20thCenturyEmpire!Arthur, and it was kind of wat. Decent themes, that, but er..........Piratey Era =/= British Empire?

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[info]twistedsheets10
2009-06-17 01:55 pm UTC (link)
As Churchill (allegedly) said: "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash." ♥

That's something I've always been a little O_o about: the British Empire = Pirate!England...because as far as I rknow, at the peak of the Empire, Arthur's pirating/privateering days were over or was at least dying down.

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[info]equivalent_t
2009-06-17 02:54 pm UTC (link)
I read that as 'rum, sodomy and slash'. Which gives this image of sailors giggling about secret navy periodicals on gay sex. Somebody help save what remains of my het fangirl brain.

Yeah...IIRC, Arthur starts hunting pirates down in the early 1700's? And there are sites that got that part right. Others still, though, seem to be confused between the Navy's own piratical activities and the actual pirates. So yes, the Royal Navy preyed on French ships during the 1800's, that doesn't mean they're pirates! Heck, they weren't ever, in the technical sense.

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[info]harosketch
2009-06-17 09:16 pm UTC (link)
As prim and proper as Victorian England seemed, it wasn't really. The Victorians on one hand wanted everything to be done properly and all that you associate with them, but on the other hand they turned the other cheek to many things which would at first sight seem to not to match with their ideas, like opium. My family considers them to be contrary. So I think buttsecks is as likely to happen in those times.

Both of my grandmothers have a Victorian-esque attitude. Seeing as they survived the war, it's hardly surprising. Attitudes didn't change until the 60s really.

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[info]equivalent_t
2009-06-17 09:21 pm UTC (link)
Yes, buttsecks and other depravities happened in the Victorian era. (Hello, Mr. Wilde!) It's a highly repressed age, and when you get highly repressed people you get broken rules everywhere. I mean, seriously, isn't that the subject of ALL of Dickens' novels? XD That's not the point, though----the point is that the ficcer(s) in question wanted a 'rigidly disciplined and sexually draconian' society, where someone would balk at open talk of buttsecks, which the 18th century Navy was so totally not. Want uptight!England? Victorian's your best bet.

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[info]harosketch
2009-06-17 09:24 pm UTC (link)
I have this image of Victorian!England talking in hushed tones and daring not to mention anything remotely near to buttsecks, then turning a corner and getting fucked up a wall.

Yeah, 18th century isn't really your best bet if you're going for that effect. Not sure that was so well thought out...

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