#terrorposting

catilinas:

trochaictrimeter-deactivated202:

catilinas:

catilinas:

primal instinct to put ghosts in a rock

also here is a predictive text poem written by my phone after i typed out a note saying “ghosts are stored in the rock”:

op what kind of conversations are you having on your phone.

very normal ones at the suggestion of @annecoulmanross actually :-)

To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.

from James Baldwin, the fire next time, courtesy of @nedlittle

This is the closest I’ll ever come to filling the “Like a bad pun,” square of my @theterrorbingo card, and it’s technically only like, a week late, so I’m doing it—time is fake anyway, you know.

catilinas:

catilinas:

lucan voice marriage is a terrifyingly lasting bond unbreakable by both civil war and death and this makes it an ideal mechanism for haunting

Tags from @finelythreadedsky

Apologies for bringing this right back to the Victorians as per usual, but this is why Lady Franklin was who she became: you can’t divorce your husband when he’s the most famous Arctic ghost story the world’s ever heard (especially not when you were the one who made him that way, refusing to let him go quietly into that good Admiralty death list)

olreid:

[Transcript: As John T. Irwin eloquently summarizes, a labyrinth resembles a maze because it is “always open from the outside but appears to be unopenable from within.” End transcript]

ok i’m reading about labyrinths for personal reasons and. obsessed with thinking about narrative as something that is ‘open from the outside but unopenable from within’… can’t stop picturing someone just. stumbling into a story and getting locked in from the inside because all of a sudden the part is cast, their fate is set, and they have a role to play and lines to read… everything is up for grabs until the moment the story starts and then the ending is fixed and you’ve been buried alive inside a structure that gives the illusion of agency while leading you all the while down the only existing path toward the very center of itself, where what awaits you is death..

[Transcript: to tell a story is to align an already known set of events along an arc. End transcript]

[Transcript: They were last seen by European whalers in Baffin Bay awaiting good conditions to enter the Arctic labyrinth. End transcript.] 

Francis Beaufort: “Let due honours and rewards be showered on the heads of those who have nobly toiled in deciphering the puzzling Arctic labyrinth, and who have each contributed to their hard-earned quota.” (Kenneth McGoogan, Lady Franklin’s Revenge (2006) pg. 385)

[Transcript: The past tense is a very sturdy thing. End transcript.] 

Lady Franklin: “Dear Love, / Haven’t I always told you / there is / what happens, / and then / there is how / we choose to tell it?” (Corinna McClanahan Schroeder, “Letters to the Dead” (2020) pg. 64) 

littleastrobleme:

Me at parties after falling in love with another dead historical figure

So, we all know and love Dave Kajganich and Soo Hugh’s beautiful show, right? Of course. But it’s important to set the historical record straight, especially when there are real people’s life-stories and legacies on the line. 

(NOTE: this list is biased heavily toward upper-class individuals because the historical record does a better job preserving those voices for us. Was the real Cornelius Hickey as nasty a person in real life as he was in the show? Almost certainly not – which is why we’re given “E.C.” as a nod to the fact that we shouldn’t assume these characters represent real historical villains, even when the narrative makes them antagonists; HOWEVER, not everyone in the show was given the same courtesy as the OG “Cornelius Hickey.” Which is why this post exists – to show you the best sides of some people you might not otherwise appreciate for their full humanity. That being said, keep in mind the sources used – and, for instance, who has surviving portraits and who doesn’t.)

Thus, below the cut, I give you this list, (mostly) in order from #10 (honorable mention, only somewhat slandered) to #1 (most hideously maligned) – my list of characters from The Terror who deserved better. 

(Please don’t take this too seriously – I know there are reasons why choices had to be made in order to make this show work on television, and I do very much love the end product. But I also genuinely think it’s a good idea to remember the real people behind these characters, and think critically about how we depict them ourselves.) 

Bottom Tier – The Overlooked Men of the Franklin Expedition

#10. Richard Wall – & – John Diggle

We’re combining these two because they had a lot in common, historically speaking! Both were polar veterans, having served as a Cook (Wall) and an AB-then-Quartermaster (Diggle) on HMS Erebus under the command of Sir James Clark Ross in the Antarctic expedition of 1839-1843. Certainly we do get some good scenes with them in the show, but there was plenty more to explore there – for instance, Captain Ross was apparently so taken with Richard Wall that he hired him on as a private cook after the Antarctic expedition. (One imagines that Sir James may have regretted letting his friends of the Franklin expedition steal Wall out from under him.)

(If you want some more information on Diggle, the brilliant @handfuloftime​ found this excellent article on him – fun facts include the detail that Diggle’s only daughter bore the name Mary Ann Erebus Diggle.) 

#9. John Smart Peddie 

Now, I don’t think we should go as far as the Doctor Who Audio Drama adaptation of the Franklin Expedition, which makes Peddie into Francis Crozier’s oldest friend, someone “almost like a brother” to Crozier (no evidence of ANY prior relationship between the two existed, contrary to whatever the Doctor Who Audio Dramas would have you believe!) but Peddie probably earned his place as chief surgeon, however fond we may all be of the beautiful Alex “Macca” MacDonald, who was, in fact, the Assistant Surgeon, historically speaking. It’s hard to find information about Peddie, but someone should go looking! I want to know about this man! 

(If you want to know more about the historical Alexander MacDonald, there’s a short biographical article on him from Arctic that you can read here.)

#8 James Walter Fairholme

The only one of the expedition’s lieutenants who doesn’t really get any characterization in the show, which is a travesty! The historical Fairholme (pronounced “Fairem”) was, as they say, a himbo, and the letters that he wrote home to his father are positively precious. He loved the expedition pets (lots of kisses for Neptune!), and he needed two kayaks because he couldn’t fit into just one with his beefy thighs. Fitzjames loaned him a coat when all the Erebus officers had their portraits taken, and then called him a “smart, agreeable companion, and a well informed man,” and Goodsir singled Fairholme out as “very much interested” in the work of naturalist observations. Just a lovely young man who could have gotten some screen time, you know? 

(Also, as @transblanky​ discovered, four separate members of the Fairholme family gave money to Thomas Blanky’s widow when she was struggling financially in the 1850s, making them, combined, the most generous contributor to her subscription.) 

Middle Tier – Franklin’s Men Who Didn’t Deserve That

#7. William Gibson

Alright, I want to talk about how uniquely horrible the show’s William Gibson is: this is a character willing to lie and accuse his partner of sexual assault that didn’t happen. I get there were extenuating circumstances, but if I were a historical figure who died in some famous disaster and someone depicted me doing something like that? Let’s just say I’m deeply offended on the real Gibson’s behalf. 

What do we know about the historical William Gibson? Not much – but we know a little. Gibson’s younger brother served on an overland exploratory venture across Australia in the 1870s… from which he never returned. (God, the Gibson family had the worst luck?) This description of a conversation that young Alf Gibson had with expedition leader Ernest Giles only days before his death is VERY eerie: 

[Gibson] said, “Oh! I had a brother who died with Franklin at the North Pole, and my father had a deal of trouble to get his pay from government.” He seemed in a very jocular vein this morning, which was not often the case, for he was usually rather sulky, sometimes for days together, and he said, “How is it, that in all these exploring expeditions a lot of people go and die?” 

I said, “I don’t know, Gibson, how it is, but there are many dangers in exploring, besides accidents and attacks from the natives, that may at any time cause the death of some of the people engaged in it; but I believe want of judgment, or knowledge, or courage in individuals, often brought about their deaths. Death, however, is a thing that must occur to every one sooner or later.” 

To this he replied, “Well, I shouldn’t like to die in this part of the country, anyhow.” In this sentiment I quite agreed with him, and the subject dropped.

(From Giles’s Australia Twice Traversed which you can read here) 

Beyond that, one thing we do know is that William Gibson was probably friends with Henry Peglar – they had served on ships together before, and Gibson may possibly have been the poor fellow found cradling the Peglar Papers, according to researcher Glenn Stein. So we might imagine the historical Gibson as a much kinder man than the show’s depiction of him – this was someone who befriended the clever, playful Peglar we all know and love from the transcriptions of his papers, so full of poetry and linguistic jokes. It’s a shame we didn’t get a chance to meet this real Gibson, who actually knew the Henry Peglar whom we love so well.

#6. Stephen Stanley

Look. There’s that one famous line in James Fitzjames’s letters to the Coninghams about how Stanley went about with his “shirt sleeves tucked up, giving one unpleasant ideas that he would not mind cutting one’s leg off immediately – ‘if not sooner.’” And certainly Harry Goodsir had some mixed opinions of the man, saying was “a would be great man who as I first supposed would not make any effort at work after a time,” and that he “knows nothing whatever about subject & is ignorant enough of all other subjects,” whatever…. that means…. 

But Fitzjames also had some rather nicer things to say about him, that he was “thoroughly good natured and obliging and very attentive to our mess.” Also, the amputation comment? Very likely had a quite positive underlying joke to it – Stanley may not have been much of a naturalist, but he was actually an accomplished anatomist, who won a prize for dissection in 1836, on account of his “bend of the elbow,” which was “a picture of dissection,” according to Henry Lonsdale, who also called Stanley his “facetious friend” and “a fine fellow” (Lonsdale 1870, pg. 159). So, the real Stanley probably was rather droll, but the perpetually cruel Stanley of the show misses some of the real man’s major historical virtues and replaces them with historically unlikely mass-mercy-murder. 

#5. John Irving

Now we’re getting into the territory of characters who did get some good development, but are missing a bit of historical nuance. As I’m sure many of you know, the historical Irving was indeed very religious, but the flashes of anger (i.e. against Manson) we see from Irving in the show don’t seem terribly consistent with the Irving depicted in this memorial volume, where John seems more like a quiet, bookish, mathematically inclined young man, with a self-deprecating sense of humor and a gentle sweetness. It’s really not at all far off from the version of Irving we see with Kooveyook in the show – I just wish we could have seen more of that side of Irving. 

Top Tier – The Triumvirate of Polar Friends

So, these three DO have many good things to recommend them in the show, but because I’ve done such deep research on them, it can be quite jarring to watch certain scenes in which they behave contrary to their historical personalities, and I find myself pausing when watching the show with friends or family to explain that NO, they wouldn’t do that! 

#4. Sir James Clark Ross

First thing – we LOVE Richard Sutton. He did a beautiful job with the material given to him. (This is true of all the actors on the list, frankly, but it’s doubly true here.) But that scene at the Admiralty where Sir James tells Lady Franklin “I have many friends on those ships, as you know,” to shut down her argument for search missions? At that time (aka 1847), historically, Sir James Clark Ross was actively campaigning for search missions, planning routes and volunteering his services in command of any vessel the Admiralty even vaguely contemplated sending out. You could see this real-life desperation in Sir James’s morose attention to his whiskey glass in that scene if you’re really trying, but I think the more historically responsible thing would have been to make vividly clear that James Ross risked life and limb, as soon as he possibly could, to try to rescue Franklin and Crozier and Blanky, men he’d known and cared about and bitterly missed – and, in the case of Crozier, “truly loved.” 

#3. Sir John Franklin

The historical Franklin had plenty of flaws – his contributions to British colonial rule certainly harmed no small number of people, and we should question the way that heroic statues of Franklin are some of the only memorials that serve to honor the lives lost on Franklin’s expeditions – especially considering the steep body count of not only Franklin’s final voyage, but his previous missions in Arctic regions as well. (DM me and I’ll scream at you about counter-monuments! Is this a promise or a threat? Who knows!) With that said, most contemporary accounts agree that Sir John Franklin treated his friends, his family, and those within his social orbit with kindness, and his cruelties were systemic, not personal. In this light, the image of Sir John viciously tearing into Francis Crozier’s vulnerabilities in the show feels very off. Though there was certainly some friction over Crozier’s two proposals to Sophia Cracroft, historically speaking, there’s no evidence at all that Sir John discouraged her from marrying Francis – Sophia may have had many reasons of her own (*clears throat meaningfully in a lesbian sort of way*) for not accepting any of the several marriage proposals offered to her (from Crozier as well as from others), and we ought to keep in mind that she remained unmarried all her life. The notion that the real Sir John would have considered Crozier too low-born or too Irish to be part of the Franklin family isn’t grounded in historical fact.

#2. Lady Jane Franklin

Again disclaimer: the real Lady Franklin left behind a legacy with much to critique. Those who rightfully point out the racism of her treatment of the young indigenous Tasmanian girl Mathinna should be fully heard out. Observations of her own contributions to imperialism are important and valid. Though I tend to see her feud with Dr. John Rae as somewhat understandable – given that Lady Franklin didn’t have the benefit of our hindsight knowing Rae was correct – the levels of prejudice that she enabled and even encouraged in the writing of Charles Dickens when he attempted to discredit Inuit accounts of Franklin’s fate are inarguably deplorable. These things being said, everything noted for Sir John re: Sophia Cracroft goes for Lady Franklin as well – there’s no reason to imagine a scene where Jane would bully Francis Crozier within an inch of his life, seconds after a failed second proposal, when, historically, Lady Franklin felt the situation was so delicate that it required the quiet and compassionate intervention of Sir James Clark Ross, a dearly loved mutual friend to all parties. Tension does not imply aggression; conflict is not abuse. We know this can’t have been an easy experience for the historical Francis Crozier, but the picture is a lot more complicated than what can be shown in one small subplot of a ten-episode television show. Because of this complexity, however, Lady Franklin’s social deftness suffers in the show. (I could also write an entire essay about Jane Franklin’s last shot in the show, at the beginning of Episode 9: The C the C the Open C – TL;DR is that framing is very important, and, at the very last moment, the show reframes Lady Franklin as a mutilated corpse, a speaking mouth without a brain, which is….. a choice.)

And, at number 1, the person done most dirty by The Terror (2018) is….

#1. Charles Frederick “Freddy” Des Voeux 

Look. I’m biased here because I am fed daily information about the historical Freddy Des Voeux from @frederickdesvoeux​ so I’ve become, I think understandably, a bit attached. 

But this is very plainly the clearest cruelty the show does to a historical figure – the historical Des Voeux was a very young man (only around 20 when the ships set sail) known always as “Frederick or Freddy” to his family, and described by all parties as bright and sweet – Fitzjames said that he was “a most unexceptionable, clever, agreeable, light-hearted, obliging young fellow, and a great favourite of Hodgson’s, which is much in his favour besides,” and described him cheerfully helping to catch specimens for Goodsir. Des Voeux is named “dear” by Captain Osborn in Erasmus Henry Brodie’s 1866 poem on the Franklin Expedition (43) and Leo McClintock reported the young man’s well-known “intelligence, gallantry, and zeal” in his 1869 update to his account of the Franklin Expedition’s fate (xlii). None of this is consistent with Des Voeux’s behaviour in the show, especially in the later episodes. 

To reduce Des Voeux to an easily-detested figure, over whose death one might cheer, is not a kindness – the creation of a narrative where his death is satisfying does damage to the memory of a real person, a barely-more-than-teenager who died in the cold of the Arctic and left behind only scraps of a shirt and a spidery signature in the bottom margin of a fragmentary document. 

Television shows may need their villains, but it’s important to remember that real life isn’t like that. Surely the historical Frederick Des Voeux was most likely not a perfect person, and, as an upper class officer contributing to a British imperial project, he does bear some responsibility for the harm done by the Franklin expedition, but it’s not accurate to assume he was any less worthy of sympathy than the other officers who considered him a friend – those men whom we now venerate, like James Fitzjames. So as far as I’m concerned, Freddy Des Voeux deserves at least as much consideration, care, and compassion from us. 

dragqueenstede:

dragqueenstede:

dragqueenstede:

every day i think about building my ‘why you specifically should watch the terror’ uquiz with 21 entire different results but then i remember i’m in my last term of my degree and should probably do that

haha three people liked this and now i’m making it!!!!!!! sorry kings (all of my professors) i’ll get back to you later!!

holds this up five hours of hype-fixation later

crowleyraejepsen:

crowleyraejepsen:

crowleyraejepsen:

last episode and then i can have some hot takes!

[hickey voice] it is wednesday my dudes…

DID HICKEY EAT FITZGENDER OH MY GOD

hmshistorian:

Listen you guys, I’ve been a Starbucks barista for years and y’all have to answer me this:

What would our Terror boys’ Starbucks orders be???☕️⚓️

So! Together with guidance from the brilliant @solomontoaster,@frederickdesvoeux​, and @kaserl​, I’ve compiled a proposed scenario for The Erebus and Terror Crews Go to Starbucks: 

The Admiralty/Sir John Franklin have provided the boys with Starbucks gift cards instead of bonuses, here are their orders:

Dick Wall – Owner of the Erebus Place Starbucks franchise, thinks he’s in direct competition with John Diggle of the Terror Plaza Starbucks.

John Diggle – Owner of the Terror Plaza Starbucks franchise, doesn’t realize there’s a competition, has only ever really interacted with Wall when he’s needed to borrow supplies.

Sir John Franklin – Royal English Breakfast Tea (with milk) 

James Fitzjames – Fancy iced drink like an Iced Caramel Macchiato, no matter how cold it is; always with light ice and extra caramel syrup.

Graham Gore – Cookies & Cream Frappuccino.

Dundy Le Vesconte – One of the Refreshers, typically Strawberry Açai, or anything with Matcha, literally anything at all. 

James Walter Fairholme – Hot Chocolate. Have u looked at this beefy man. Have u heard him. Thank you goodbye. 

Harry Goodsir – Looks like he’d order a Hot Chocolate but actually just straight up chugs a Venti Americano in like five minutes. 

Freddy Des Voeux – (In the show) Black coffee. Pure bitter. Probably boiling hot. (Historically) Caramel Ribbon Crunch Crème Frappuccino or any other stupid sugary bullshit on the menu. (Both versions will, however, shill for pumpkin lattes.)

Henry Collins – Caramel Apple Spice Cider, warmed up all cozy. 

Stephen Stanley – Black coffee with Exactly™ one sugar cube’s worth of sugar, what do you mean Starbucks doesn’t have sugar cubes.

John Morfin – Anything with a lot of caffeine for him to chug along with an excedrin (for the headache). 

John Weekes – Honey Oatmilk Latte.

Edmund Hoar – Vanilla Crème. 

John Bridgens – Tall Chai Latte, nice and simple. 

Henry Peglar – Traditional little elegant Cappuccino. (Though they’re never as good as the ones John makes for him at home.) 

Thomas Blanky – One single. Espresso. Shot. At like. Midnight. Or, under dire circumstances (like having to come back to work the day after surgery), a Caffè Latte with as many shots as legally allowable. 

Francis Crozier – Black coffee, spiked afterward. (But regardless, it has to be of a certain quality; he’s a bit of a snob about blends, honestly.) 

Thomas Jopson – Cheapest blend with a little milk and/or cream, no sugar.

Alexander MacDonald – Brown Sugar Espresso. 

Edward Little – Maximizes the caffeine content usually, even if he doesn’t actually like the taste of the resulting drink, so like, typically a Mocha with an unhealthy number of espresso shots. (If he somehow has a day off – which is never – he would treat himself to a peppermint hot chocolate. You know. In theory. It’s a nice dream, at least.) 

George Hodgson – Unicorn Frap. He only managed to order one once, and it was the single perfect moment in an imperfect life. 

John Irving – Pike Place Roast with a very restrained amount of cream and sugar when it’s cold out; iced black tea when it’s not, though he’s always really wanted to order the Iced Peach  Green Tea, he can never really find it in himself to admit that. 

Solomon Tozer – Cold Brew or Nitro Cold Brew aka pretty much the only kosher coffees outside of Americanos (based on this Star-K online guide), and Sol’s not about to order an Americano. 

Thomas Armitage – Cold Brew or Nitro Cold Brew (whatever Tozer is getting), brings his own tumbler to avoid the clear plastic cup and adds cream and sugar once Tozer isn’t looking, even with the Nitro when adding your own cream does not blend well.

Tom Hartnell – Honey Almondmilk Flat White (almond rather than dairy milk because he’s grown so used to wrangling Jartnell’s Numerous Food Allergies that it’s second nature at this point.) 

Several people who didn’t get the “gift card bonus” are joining in: 

Silna – Would get a water, since she’s been dragged into the store already, but why on earth would anyone agree to pay for a plastic cup? There are better options, and she knows where to find them. 

Lady Jane Franklin – London Fog Tea Latte. 

Sophia Cracroft – Seasonal frappuccino or a Pink Drink when they’re available.

Sir James Clark Ross – Rotates through a variety of seasonal and featured drinks, but always asks for whipped cream with his order regardless of what it is.

Anne Coulman Ross – Cinnamon Dolce Latte (And she’ll steal Sir James’s whipped cream, of course.) 

Sir John Ross – Espresso con Panna, but he refuses to use the Italian name, just orders it as an espresso shot, with a Tall cup of whipped cream on the side. 

Sir John Barrow – Also an Espresso con Panna, which he insists is the same drink as what John Ross ordered, though Ross adamantly denies this.  

joplittle:

https://uquiz.com/LpWiZl

take my quiz to find out which steward from the tee vee show the terror u are