March Prompts

[sanguinity]

Each month, we'll post a trio of prompts -- a theme, a quote, and a trope -- for you to use as a jumping-off point in whatever medium pleases you. Anything goes, fiction or meta, from drabbles through dissertation chapters on textual analysis. Fic, art, photo-essays, vids, and more are welcome.

• For March, the theme is Love. Is that love of a person or love of one's honour? Is it agape, eros, phillia, or storge? You decide.
  
  
• The quote is from the 1952-53 CBS radio show, The Adventures of Horatio Hornblower:

  A meeting which, as things turned out, had lifelong consequence for both of us.

  
  
  
• The trope is Master Actor -- the ability to convincingly play a role. Examples include Hornblower playing the adoring husband to Maria (Hornblower and the Hotspur) and Kitty Cobham playing the Duchess of Wharfedale ("The Duchess and the Devil").

Mix and match the prompts, or use just one! Discuss in the comments, or come back and share what you made!

Comments

[tgarnsl]

I used the theme of love as a jumping off point for a short drabble, which I figured I'd publish instead of letting sit around on my hard drive doing nothing.

I love Bush, and I love boats. What more needs to be said?

--

Enthralled

William Bush was not a man who loved easily. He was too stubborn for that, too set in his ways to ever give thought or voice to fanciful notions like love. He loved his country and his king as any good Englishman should, loved his mother and his sisters as any good son ought to, if pressed he might even admitted to having loved Hornblower after a fashion, but love — true, encompassing, earth-shaking love — was not a sentiment he was familiar with. But like the landlubber who cannot sense the squall lurking over the horizon until it plucks him from the deck of the ship, Bush did not anticipate love until he was already well within its thrall. She captured his heart the moment he laid eyes on her; she was proud and graceful, unlike any other ship in the harbour, and the moment he set foot on her deck and ran a hand against her polished wood he knew that while she was his in name, he was hers, in body and in soul. It was the love a man might spend his whole lifetime searching for, and in the end it would be the truest love he’d ever know.

[sanguinity]

Oh, lovely! Is this the Nonsuch we're speaking of? Enthralled is such a good word for what you've drawn here: I love the moment of him stroking her wood, and knowing that he belongs to her.

And such a bittersweet note, right at the end: that his ship would be the truest love he'd ever know.

(And if you'd like to make this a new post of its own, please do! More people will see it that way.)

[tgarnsl]

Yes, it's Nonsuch! I just love the idea of Bush finally having his own command. God knows he deserves it.

And I'm sorry for bittersweet. I'll write some happy fluff some time, I promise. But ships really are loveable, and there often is a tangible connection between ships and people. (If you ever want to cry over ships, listen to 'The Last Watch' by Stan Rogers. If there's a musician who can make a person emotional about ships, it's Stan Rogers.)

(And good idea, I will.)

[colebaltblue]

Oh! Simply gorgeous! Thank you so much for Shari g that with us.

[tgarnsl]

Thank you so much! :)