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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3280 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 11, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Haven't seen the movie so can't comment, but the Aubreyiad is a great, fun series which apparently is catnip to a lot of non-cat girls as well (I'm seeing a ton of fanart for it on Tumblr even this long after the movie). O'Brien manages to pull off all the hearty naval stuff for the boys and introduce the main relationship, which is the friendship of Stephen and Jack, which draws in the girls as well. He had me laughing at bad 18th century jokes and while I remain as ignorant as Stephen about the workings of a ship, the rest of it all held my interest too.

I have read the first book and seen the movie. I think the movie is great, but it was one that got better on repeat viewings for me as I came to appreciate the characters and setting more. As in the book I have read in the series, the movie is more about the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin, and being an interesting depiction of life at sea, than it is about the plot.

The running plot, such as it is, throughout the books is good but it's mostly "the Napoleonic Wars at sea" so unless you're absolutely fascinated by the minutiae of naval campaigns, the real interest is "ooh so this was what life was like on a ship at that time" and then it's "will Jack advance his career, will Stephen ever have a happy relationship, never mind they're best bros and we all love learning natural history".

There are just so many great lines (everyone's favourite is this one) (warning: TV Tropes link):

Stephen acquires a sloth in South America, and it immediately befriends everybody aboard. Except Jack, who for some inexplicable reason gets rebuffed- the poor thing cried when it first saw him. When he finally resorts to feeding the sloth bits of ship's biscuit soaked in rum, he soon wins its friendship but ends up turning it into an alcoholic. Thus leading to a line found nowhere else in literature: "Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

But Stephen is like me - all the nautical terms and explanations just go right over my head and don't lodge. Gluppit the prawling strangles, indeed!

Stephen: The moment you are afloat you become pragmatical and absolute, a bashaw —do this, do that, gluppit the prawling strangles, there—no longer a social being at all.

You start off reading for the "Napoleonic Wars at sea" but then you sort of forget about that and treat it like 'Stephen's Big Natural History Expedition' and 'Jack climbs the ranks' so that the great world-shaking events become background, almost, to the little dramas played out in their world.

From what I've read, the movie tried to compress the stories from several novels into one, which causes it to jump from scene to scene awkwardly.

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