#fun fact john franklin was famous for having eaten his boots

[bomberqueen17]

wildly unexpected fandom overlap

so i admit i'm working on a fic maybe, because i let myself hyperfixate while i was sad/tired about things, as one does, and at one point i was like

aha this timeline aligns (sidebar to laugh hysterically at the aubreyad timeline. five books occur in the repeating year of 1813. one can do what one wants forever. but since i am bad at linear time and in fact that's where i'm mildly hung up in the witcher stuff, i do like to try to impose some rigor onto things, and while actual dates may not work, they're a good starting place)

ahem the timeline aligns such that a character who is not "on-screen" in the books happens to be out of the picture for the entire run-up to , and event itself, of the Battle of Trafalgar, and I thought, oh! I can put him there!!!

So I went through the wikipedia pages of all the ships in that action (yes i am normal and no i am not having some sort of adhd event why do you ask) and I settled on the Bellerophon for various reasons I'll get into later probably. Not least that her crews universally could not pronounce her name (named for some warrior who rode Pegasus? something greek, they got it out of a dictionary) and so she was generally called Billy Ruffian. Which is fucking adorable.

Anyway. The Battle of Trafalgar is notable for many reasons, not least that Nelson fucking bit it. (I did find it odd that in a series where so many of the characters are obsessed with Nelson there is absolutely no attention given to the fact that he fucking cops it right in the middle of the third book. Like.... I can see how news wouldn't reach them at the time but at no point does anyone bring it up!) But another famous thing about this battle is that Nelson, a wordy and pretentious motherfucker, immediately preceded the battle with this incredibly long and complicated signal, and I immediately was like oh I need to devote at least a little screen time to the characters reacting to this "wait he's hoisting MORE shit?" developing situation.

I shit you not this shit was twelve hoists to convey exactly zero useful information, and it had to be repeated by the signal ships, and he had to do it quickly so there was time to actually relay the battle instructions immediately afterward. It took four minutes for the series of hoists. I love this. (I'm not saying Nelson didn't know what he was doing, it seems to have motivated people and has undeniably Passed Into Lore, but it's funny to imagine it in the heat of the moment. Nelson's second in command is on record as having reacted to the beginning of the signal with some impatience.)

Anyway so. I was like. I bet I can find out who the signal midshipman was on the Bellerophon because I bet that shit is recorded. And sure enough. he's right in the ship's Wikipedia page.

I clicked on his name and was like wait I know this motherfucker. why is his name familiar.

John Franklin. No fucking way. No fucking way!

It's that John Franklin. He was nineteen at the time.

Anyway I was inspired to write this up and post it by seeing this post which is largely incomprehensible to me because I have not watched The Terror but I get it and think this is amazing.