#like. polar expeditions I understand

[mycological-mariner]

Wa-hey, just found out I share the same birthday as ill-fated explorer Percy Fawcett

[fathermulcahyofficial]

Listening to an episode of the @antiquesfreaks podcast where they cover the costuming in The Terror and here are some amazing moments:

"But Ken, are you the only one of us that put themselves through reading the book?" "I did. Because John Bridgens was trapped inside and I had to get him out and if I read the book good enough, perhaps I could save him"

"If you don't tell these men what to wear, they're gonna look like straight up hoochies."

"As we see in the later episodes of The Terror and discipline does break down and Dundy just starts showing up to command meetings with his suspenders out! Slattern that he is!!!

"Victorian Navy: one to one analog to working at present day Target."

"I heard they flog you at Target."

"I was press ganged into working at Target."

"It's Victorian times. Everyone's wicked fucking repressed and they're about to get wicked un-repressed whether they like it or not, and they're going to show that through their clothing."

"a blur of muttonchops"

"I pre-gamed the show for 5 years with gifsets on tumblr to makes sure I would be able to tell at least the major speaking roles apart, and I still could not tell Little and Jopson apart until I figured out they had different eye colors."

"And now I'm Pilkington SpottingTM as a hobby"

calling JFJ a "fashionable boy" with his "nippies out" because he doesn't button up his coat all the way like Franklin and Crozier

The two regular hosts repeatedly comparing themselves to a delinquent class that their guest is stuck substitute teaching

"I think my character would be hitting a fat doobie right about now"

Discussing Jared Harris being obsessed with his own costuming details like all the mending on Crozier's clothes

Jopson's first appearance - "he's normal and they're normal and everyone's having a normal time here on this completely routine expedition." "It's so normal. Do you ever fall in love with your boss???" "It couldn't have been more erotic if they had just had gay sex."

Stanley and McDonald's button grouping on their uniforms to denote rank

THEY TALK ABOUT THE ICONIC JFJ GANSEEEYYY

Also Irving's Sanquhar scarf :')

"the red sweater of tenderness" sobbing screaming throwing up

"I think The Terror would have been improved if all of the marines had Boston accents for no reason"

Also marines vs normal sailors

comparing sailor's clothes to fast fashion because it's not very tailored lmaooo

The canvas overcoats being period inaccurate but still neat because they're referencing later polar expeditions like what we see on the guys in the Shackleton expedition etc

They talk about irl Goodsir's letter about clothes and the many many shirts!

Nive having to wear a cooling vest under her costume since it was real caribou fur and her coat being patched with sail cloth later.

They go into Yup'ik masks which is super cool! As well as have a conversation about the ethics of visuals/information/knowledge about indigenous artwork being shared with folks outside of those communities.

Repeated! Dan! Simmons! Roasting! As! They! Should!!!!!

Reapted! Nive! Nielsen! Praising! As! They! Should!!!!!!!!

Sophia's "oceanic color theme"

"They let the dresses have colors. The dresses have colors. The dresses have bright beautiful colors, and it's great."

"They had invented aniline dyes and they were about to make it everybody's problem!"

Lady Jane in more solids vs Sophia in more patterns

"'A woman could never possibly understand polar exploration' meanwhil Silna's up there doing it better than all of them."

Clowning on how other period pieces never use bonnets and always fuck up in the hair and makeup department

"I found Harry Goodsir's fursuit btw"

"On a scale of Calypso's Birthday to Fitzjames's Carnivale, how's your impromptu nautical drag ball going?"

"It's actually exactly like The Purge." "It's like a little Victorian maritime Purge."

"As far as metaphor and literary analysis and whatever, scurvy understood the fucking assignment."

"I punched in Scorbutic Nostalgia so that I could remember to read about it later." "I have some literature for you if you want." "Yeah fantastic! I love disease"

"CGI bear expensive"

"This episode comes with a heavy caveat of 'go to Terror Camp'" amazing.

THE DRESSTM

Tozer's Hotspur costume and Dundy's Henry VI costume and their relevance

"This is the last we see of Party!Dundy"

(About Little) "Every day he gets emails :("

Bridgler and Apollo/Hyacinthus stuff fuuuuuccckk

"Hodgepodge, my boy"

"Oompa loompa doompity dacticals, don't indulge your morals over your practicals"

"Rip Hickey you would've loved Joker"

Not a silly quote but just a really fantastic one: "That is what the best historical designers do, is they find these nuggets of information that allow them to tell a story with authenticity, both in a way that is historical but authentic to the characters as well." EXAAAACCCTTTLLLYYYYYY

"Whomst among us has not Joplarped to get through the workday?"

[qqueenofhades]

top ten non-fiction (general) books and top ten history books?

Naturally, whenever I volunteer to talk about books, I completely forget everything I have ever read, but we'll try to overcome this. Since it is impossible for me to pick them from all-time, I'll do this list from what I have recently read and enjoyed, including both nonfiction and history specifically since most of these fit that bill somehow:

Society of the Snow by Pablo Vierci. Just finished this last night, and it's the source material for the Netflix film of the same name, of the 1972 plane crash of an Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes and their incredible survival odyssey. If you've seen the film, you know how harrowing and also incredibly moving it is.

Pretty much anything by David Grann, including The Wager, Killers of the Flower Moon, Lost City of Z, etc. The Wager is his newest one, though people may have heard of Killers of the Flower Moon, but they're all good. He's up there with Erik Larson as one of my favorite writers of utterly gripping and novelistic nonfiction.

Speaking of Erik Larson: pretty much anything by, including Dead Wake, The Splendid and the Vile, In the Garden of Beasts, etc. Most people will have heard of and/or read Devil in the White City, but his other stuff is equally good. His newest, The Demon of Unrest, is a bit slower than some of the others IMHO, but it's also about the beginning of the Civil War and the crisis at Fort Sumter and is important reading in our current perilous moment.

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham. A forensic and incredibly detailed history of the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986.

A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, by Anthony Bale. This is an entertaining and readable introduction to mobility in the Middle Ages: who traveled, where they went, what they thought, and how they reacted and wrote about the other cultures they encountered, from both east and west. Definitely a good entry point for the layman who has heard the "medieval people never traveled/went anywhere" stereotype and knows it's wrong, but wants to know more HOW.

Into the Silence: Mallory, the Great War, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis. Another incredibly detailed doorstopper history book that reads like a novel, exploring 19th-century British imperialism in Asia, the race to climb Mount Everest, the Great War, and more.

Emperor of Rome and SPQR by Mary Beard. These are both incredibly accessible starting points for studying Rome, written by a renowned classicist with a knack for making her historical material and concepts easy to understand and entertaining. Don't be put off by the length of either of these, as they read easily.

The Wide Wide Sea and The Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides. The former is his newest book, about the last voyage of Captain Cook, and the latter is my favorite of his other books, about the 19th-century USS Jeannette polar expedition. He is a writer of incredible skill, thoughtfulness, and detail in handling subjects of empire, exploration, colonialism, maritime history, and adventure.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Raddon O'Keefe. A compelling, disturbing, mesmerizing, and infuriating account of the Sackler family, the creation of OxyContin, and the opioid epidemic in America.

Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo. Now, this one is a bit cheating since I haven't actually read it yet (it's on hold at the library), but it's won the Pulitzer Prize for history so I'm fairly sure it's going to be good. It's about 19th century slaves-turned-abolitionists William and Ellen Craft and their race- and gender-bending journey to freedom and anti-slavery activism.

[jamesfitzjamesdotcom]

This might be a slightly weird ask but I'm currently working on a polar exploration tattoo sleeve- I've got the photo of Endurance under steam stuck in the ice, a bit of the Man Proposes painting, Scott's "for god's sake look after our people," and currently working on expanding it with other tidbits from expeditions I'm fond of.

Thing is, I'm also the sort of person who is paranoid about getting a tattoo of something and then having something awful come out to ruin it (I have more than one friend who's gotten a Harry Potter coverup)

The next bit I want to add to the sleeve is "All well" and his jawbone, I've got a lovely spot for it to fit in, but I would just really like to reach out and ask if in all your research and everything you know, is there anything that would really make you say "hey maybe not do that"? Like yes I fully understand the white colonialism aspects of this genre of history but at the same time, I think he was a fascinating and wonderful person, and I don't know if there's anything you have that would change that perception.

I'm guessing the answer is probably no, but I still wanted to reach out and ask just for my own sanity and peace of mind. Thank you!!

You have definitely come to the wrong person to tell you that getting a tattoo of Fitzjames' jawbone is a great idea. Don't get a tattoo of human remains in general. Don't make memes with human remains. Human remains are not props from your favourite tv show. Human remains are not fun tidbits. If you think Fitzjames was a wonderful person; get an armfish tattoo, get something nautical. Many historical figures would be cancelled if they did and said what they did in the year 2025. But that's what history is; it's a different time, different moral standards, not to be evaluated by our modern ones. Shackleton and Scott were also imperialists. An in modern eyes unproblematic polar explorer does not exist.

[alabasterpickles]

Hi ! I love your style !

I wanted to know: what’s Hades and Persephone's relationship with their kids? And the kids’ with the other gods and mortals? After all, their father betrayed Zeus 🤔

SO excited to answer this one, sincerely Anon.

Persephone falls into the role of mom so naturally and easily and I think because she’s felt like such an outcast her whole life she takes extra care to make sure her children feel loved and accepted. She can be intense, and a little over protective, and she might sometimes overstep boundaries out of care, but generally speaking she’s a pretty damn good mom.

She and Zagreus are kindred spirits and so I think perhaps they get along the best — they have similar dispositions and Persephone sees a lot of herself in him. He’ll come to her with all his problems, and Persephone is more than happy to lend a patient, listening ear. When he gets older? I like to think he travels with mom on her Spring expeditions and helps out.

Melinöe is very different from Persy but admires and respects her mother very much. Persephone is what her angsty teenage brain imagines the perfect “woman” to be (a fact that Persephone finds very sweet and ironic) and so Mel often finds herself feeling insecure when she can’t live up to that. Persephone obviously thinks she’s perfect exactly as she is, so she makes an active effort to encourage Melinöe to be the best version of herself that she can be! Persephone is very supportive, even when she doesn’t always understand her daughter.

Brimos and Makaria are Persephone’s babies so they definitely get a little of that special youngest sibling treatment! And I think Persy can be a bit doting and maybe even a little too forgiving of their behavior. She’s watching her two oldest grow up so fast, she sorta wants the twins to stay her babies. 😂

In short, she loves them all very much!

Hades’s relationship with Zagreus is comedically awkward — he and Zagreus are polar opposites when it comes to personality, and as his firstborn and oldest son, Hades feels this pressure to make Zagreus like or relate to him (like how Hercules and Zeus are so similar to each other — it’s a bit of a competition thing). Hades doesn’t mean to be, but sometimes his pushiness can be bothersome to Zagreus.

He’ll go out of his way to spend time with Zag, but doesn’t have a clue on how to establish a genuine connection with his son. He tries. So. Hard. though, and Zagreus comes to appreciate that this is Hades’s strange way of showing he loves his son.

Hades and Melinöe don’t always get along, mostly because Mel is a moody teen and doesn’t necessarily want to be as much like her dad as she is. She’s a little embarrassed that she’s an Underworld goddess, and self image can be very important to her — especially since she doesn’t make friends easily. However, Mel and Hades work together incredibly well, and Hades loves his daughter immensely. He wants her to be happy and is proud of how smart and capable she’s turned out to be. Both of the girls take after him, and Mel specifically has a knack for Underworld management — the monsters and minor gods of Tartarus respect her and just generally like her better than Hades, so having her along makes his job much easier. I think she’s often surprised at how well her father understands her, and that often proves to be a blessing in disguise.

He knows how it feels to be an outcast, to be ignored and ridiculed for being different. But he appreciates all the qualities about her that she finds unpalatable and so Hades faith inspires more confidence in Melinöe, especially as she gets older. He’s very proud of all his children, even Brimos, the troublemaker.

As for the twins, they’re both pretty attached to their parents still. Now that mom and dad have got some experience under their belts with child rearing, I think they take raising Brimos and Makaria very seriously, despite the fact that Brimos has their hands full 90% of the time. He’s a USDA certified mama’s boy and usually skirts punishment because Persephone is so lenient with him and his sister. “They’re just kids, they don’t know any better” is usually her excuse 😂. Brimos shares Hades’s hot-headed tendencies but without the problem solving abilities or maturity, so dad often finds himself flustered trying to wrangle him, where Persephone does so with ease (probably because she’s married to Hades!).

Makaria shares her mother’s melancholy and her father’s aptitude for working with the dead — only the caveat is, she’s more sympathetic to the plight of the deceased, and shows less of an interest in the divvying out punishments part, and more of an interest in understanding them, or recording their stories. Makaria has a wisdom beyond her years that only Persephone seems to understand, but like her brother, Makaria feels a particular draw to one parent and it tends to be Hades. This is likely due to the fact that they both share more traditional Cthonic traits. Also, Makaria is very quiet and shy and Hades demands very little of her!

When it comes to the other gods, Zagreus seems to get along fairly well with the Olympians, his three younger siblings, however, are total black sheep. Where Zagreus straddles the line between Oympus and the Underworld (mostly thanks to mom’s genetics) Melinöe, Makaria and Brimos are almost strictly death gods and it’s evident that they don’t fit in with the higher ups. I like to think Demeter loves all her grandchildren, and the kinder Olympians are pleasant, but generally? The Hades family prefers to keep to themselves.

That’s a looootta text, thank you for the ask, Anon!

[madqueenalanna]

so i'm almost done with my "terror" (show) rewatch and just finished reading "terror" (book) yesterday so let me ramble lowkey about the differences

i do love of course the little character details of the book that couldn't possibly make it into the show. sir john's devotion to his "gentleman" status to the point that he stays dead silent during sex, for one, crozier getting jacked off in a pond for another. the book's meandering pace gave us lots of ship descriptions (agonizing) but also lots of time with even minor characters (peglar for one)

and so because of their respective mediums, i like each ending/portrayal of tuunbaq in its own way. in the book, it's a spirit created by a goddess, forced to wander the frozen north and feast. silna and people like her are psychic, marry other psychics to create their own tribe, their own people. this is not to control tuunbaq but simply to communicate; they leave it offerings, it doesn't kill them. the white men have no way to understand this, and so they trespass and are murdered. crozier leaves his identity behind to join these people, loses his tongue, has children by silna, and feels the honor in this choice. tuunbaq's appearance is ephemeral, difficult to explain, almost incorporeal. it isn't a monster, it's a part of the land in the same way winter is. very spiritual

in the show of course it's much more straightforward. it's a beast that can be injured, can eventually be killed, needs to be bound to a shaman that can control it. silna cuts out her own tongue to follow in her father's footsteps, instead of having lost her tongue as a child in this psychic group. it dies, agonizingly, like so many of the polar bears it resembles, yet another victim of british colonialism. silna is ostracized by her people for its death under her watch. crozier joins the netsilik without her, assimilating culturally if not on this secondary spiritual plane. obviously this makes much more sense to see on screen

the other big change is of course the health of the men. sure they SAY in the show the men are failing, and we see some of them, but the book, agonizingly (good), details every mile they haul sledges, every symptom of scurvy, a few violent deaths from botulism, blanky losing first part of his foot, then half his leg, then several wooden legs break and he calls its quits when the stump is gangrenous. the book is so clear that this takes MONTHS, it feels like months, hickey's mutiny is almost a minor footnote because they were all already almost dead by the time it occurs. the cannibalism is such a last resort that they're all half-dead by that point. it's slow, it's painful, so it all makes more... sense, almost. you FEEL their pain, this slow horrific death, the STARVATION

that said i love the death of fitzjames in the show. he's got scurvy and dies of botulism in the book, but i think it's just scurvy in the show. we see his battle scars, obtained in a colonial venture to asia, re-open and suppurate. in a very real, literal way, his past has come to haunt him, to poison him. he dies on another colonial mission, weakened by his former expeditions eating him alive, destroyed by this land that wants them dead

and from researching this show/book i got linked by some very helpful redditors to some very long articles detailing inuit descriptions of finding hms terror before it sank, so i'm excited to dip into those

[rpfofficial]

Hi ethan one time when i was really drunk i tried to send you a message that said something like "leiconte is kind of the stills to cookmundsen's nashby" but since i was really drunk i actually send it to another blog whose url starts with rpf and I think ive never actually said this to you so im saying it now because it feels relevant

hi Robin thank you for sending this ask because you reminded me to respond to the other asks currently in my inbox. I think i remember receiving this message from you actually because it's a familiar concept so maybe you sent it twice, once to the other blog and once to me, or maybe i AM the blog with the url beginning with rpf ... either way this is real as fuck and im glad we can view polar expeditions through an old man music rpf lense it really enriches our understanding and enjoyment of the subject

[mab1905]

Oh no guys

Oh no

I’m reading that play I talked about. And it’s about colonialism and climate change through the lives of a group of Inuit people and a polar bear family. And that part of it is really good. Like all that is very beautiful. But uh. The second act is meant to be about the Franklin expedition. And. This is from the dramatis personae:

Also no mention of the terror. Not a single name of any of the crewmen is real beside’s Franklin’s. And it takes place out on the ice after they have abandoned ship. Which we know for a fact Franklin was not a part of. And like. I totally understand the necessity of simplification in a play, especially when the play is not strictly about this expedition. So in that sense the fact that Franklin is there wouldn’t bother me because like, yeah if I’m an audience member who knows nothing about this it would be easier for me to understand if Franklin is at the head and not Crozier Bc it’s JF’s name on the expedition. Also within the purpose of the play, it does not matter which of them is leading it Bc the play is about how the expedition as a whole affected the local people and wildlife. So like. That part I totally get. But… you couldn’t do a five minute google search and find their real names? ITS SO EASY TO FIND THEIR NAMES. Every single crewman in the show is someone who we know the name of. The Erebus ice master, the boatswain, the mates, the stewards, and a few unnamed crew members. Those are the people in the show. You know, James Reid, Thomas Terry, Robert Sargent, Charles Des Voux, Edward Couch, Edmund Hoar, Richard Alymore, William Fowler, and John Bridgens. Or, as this play would like you to think, “Oliver Morshead” (ice master AND chief engineer ??), “Wickers” and “Bean” (a midshipman, and a mate), “Carter” (the boatswain). Also I’m sorry. Who the fuck is James Holloway. I don’t know him. Like the play-write knows enough to talk about Lady Janes leading the search to find Franklin but not enough to know the name of Franklin’s third in command?? Or any mention of Francis??? Even if it doesn’t matter to the overarching plot why is it so hard to give them their names? Especially when it seems like so much painstaking research was done for every other aspect of the play??

Edit: it just feels very weird and imbalanced compared to the rest of the play. And someone tagged talking about how it’s not about them and it’s kinda real that they should just say fuck it give these guys random names. And I understand that to an extent, considering the number of times that has been done to Inuit people in stories told by white colonizers. But, as a reader who is fascinated by not just Franklin as a topic in the play, but also the history of British colonialism, it’s affects on the Indigenous American people and landscape, and climate change on both a physical and spiritual level; when each of those topics except one feels so well researched and cared for, it pulls me out of the story when I see discrepancies that are so glaring.

[crownlessliestheking]

Hi, if you're the crownlessliestheking who made the Annihilation poster for this year's TerrorCamp, I wanted to thank you! Annihilation is my favourite book but I'd never considered the biologist's "becoming" in opposition to understanding, only as a means to it. Your (if this is you) comparison of her with Crozier and the idea that "they both choose to become rather than to understand" is going to be knocking around my head for days. If I've got the wrong person, well, nice lotr blog anyways!

Don't worry, you've got the right person! Annihilation (well...all of Southern Reach) is a favorite of mine as well – and tbh if I had more space in the poster I'd have loved to dissect different characters and parallel them to those in the Expedition (the biologist and Crozier, ofc; but also Control in Book 2 and Fitzjames, and Hickey and Lowry especially given Lowry's POV in the new book).

And yeah! The biologist is like...she changes, and in some ways this is going to give her the answers she wants, but for her entire life she's been so isolated and very different from other people, so to me in a way this is her surrendering and becoming who, in some ways, she was always meant to be. Or was always going to be, from the second she stepped into Area X. Crozier already knows there's no understanding what or why or how; he can only ever accept it and his failure, and so he just...becomes. Becomes Aglooka and casts off every bit of the man Francis Crozier once was, except for the grief.

Thank you so much and I'm so glad you liked the poster!! And for those who don't know what this is about, you can find my poster along with VERY cool other works here:

[jeyneofpoole]

Hi blogger ro jeyneofpoole!

If theoretically someone who had until this very moment of time resisted the lure of getting into the terror, wanted to change their mind and have some fun watching men explore and freeze, how should they go about it? I get that there's a TV series, but is it based on historical facts? Is there a book?

Thank you for your time.

hi omg ok. so there IS a book but it’s not required reading in fact i implore you to never read it never ever. its bad. the best way to do it is to watch it once and barely understand anything, watch it twice and now you know who’s who and what’s going on, and then watch it five more times for the love of the game. it’s based on the real life franklin expedition so yes its a fictional account of a true story. here’s the wikipedia article about it if you want some basic background knowledge before jumping in. thank you for coming to me with this i feel like the pythia of polar exploration.

[sail-not-drift]

Running Impressions of Polar Exploration Books

For @writemeariver42 and to help myself keep track.

CURRENTLY READING: A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by John Geiger and Owen Beattie

The first thing I read after The Terror launched me headlong into the abyss. A good starting point for anyone wanting to get into the topic, both for the overview of the major players that tee up the next 70 years, and the deep dive into the forensics. The grave exhumation chapter is incredibly moving.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

The reviews calling this one of the greatest audiobooks of all time have it right on the money. A biased, uncritical, and utterly thrilling account of Shackleton’s most famous expedition (also one of the books that made it so famous). If you don’t fall in love with Frank Worsley I fear for your soul.

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides

Compared to some of the other commanders, Delong isn’t particularly colorful or intriguing, but the amount of time Sides has us spend with him pulls out his contradictions nonetheless. He’s a straight laced navy man, but even before it gets to life and death, he just tries so damn hard to be kind. Sides does a great job weaving in his theses without beating us over the head with them. A thoroughly researched book that has a masterfully crafted third act; Sides is a great talent. This one is close to my heart.

Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey Into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton

My Roman Empire. While (as described by Sides) Delong’s command was beset by factors beyond his control, de Gerlache’s was… not that. A clown car of an expedition that was also somehow the crucible for the Golden Age of Exploration. I feel somewhat vindicated in my less than objective feelings for these guys by the fact that Sancton actually does some critical source analysis - not that you can truly encapsulate Dr. Cook otherwise. Definitely the most successful at making the explorers feel like real human beings.

Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greeley Expedition by Buddy Levy

Going from the Belgica to Greeley was always going to be like flipping to CSPAN after finishing The West Wing. You can’t expect a group of American Civil and Indian War vets to have the same color as de Gerlache’s international gang of misfits. Levy also just isn’t a strong enough writer or researcher to elevate his subjects (or speak explicitly about the imperialist overtones) like Sides does. Still worth reading, especially to understand the foundations Greeley laid for comprehending the current climate crisis; and to marvel at the fact that the highest qualifications any of them had as mariners was the photographer being from Nova Scotia.

[clove-pinks]

I'm so emotional over the Franklin Expedition daguerreotypes at auction that I don't know if I can even make fun of their 1840s hairstyles, which are more visible than ever in the high resolution images (which are better than anything SPRI ever released, as Logan Zachary pointed out).

But. Edward Couch and macassar oil and/or bear's grease or whatever product he has lmao.

I have seen this in many other mid-19th century daguerreotypes: so much styling product his hair gleams and is literally sculpted into shape. (I have also previously written about Dr. Stanley's 1840s juvenile delinquent hairstyle). Along with the low inseam and footstrap on trousers, it seems to be one of those things that rarely makes it into historical costume dramas.

The Franklin daguerreotype images are also high resolution enough that you get a better view of their wonderful black stocks tied with bows. It's an easy look but the bow gives it a certain elegance—Fitzjames and Goodsir have particularly good examples of stocks. As I understand it almost any black stock was acceptable per Royal Navy regs for a long time, allowing the 19th century officer a certain degree of fashion expression changing with the times.

I love Frederick William Beechey's portrait circa 1822 in pattern 1812 uniform (NMM):

Another great polar look! (Yes Beechey like Beechey Island, which he named after his father).

[rum-inspector]

Why is my feed suddenly full of TERROR oh the tv show is on netflix YAY but what a good excuse to talk about one of my lesser known interests, polar explorations!!! And the racism that is integral part of any type of european "explorations" during the era. Or to this day too of course.

In short, The Terror TV show is a psychological horror (pretty good, I especially like the sound design it is haunting!) is based on a fictional book that is based on a real story of Franklin Expedition to finding the northwest passage (waterway through the arctic, from atlantic to pacific) in middle 19th century. They took two ship's poorly equipped for withstanding the elements, went missing and nobody really knows in detail what happened to it - other than getting defeated by the elements and the believe in the european supremacy to conquer those elements without ever bothering to ask the actual people living there for pointers (or, not trusting them when they said it can not be done, not with huge ships and heavy boats - the boats of the locals are build very different) because what do those savages know? Sentiment of europeans at the time, not mine.

When I say "Nobody knows what happened" that is a lie. Pretty sure the locals knew of the idiots with their big ships and their attitude of meeting offers of help with hostility.

Later on Amundsen achieved polar exploration with better results by actually listening and learning from the people who live there. But even he remained his racist beliefs even after everything he is known for was only made possible by the people he believed to be "inferior" - the whole idea of "exploring the unknown" or "being the first person to reach place x" is so silly when you remember people have been in many of these "uncharted places" on a regular Tuesday. And it is simply part of european supremacy (which to this day lives on unfortunately) why those people "don't count".

Now, you did not need to know any of this to enjoy the tv show which again, is fictional and great fun if you like eerie and survival - it is just extra layer of context to add to the horror - to further understand that the monster in this story is not physical.

[nedlittle]

just had an all-timer of a dream

okay so i'm a mermaid which in this case means i'm just a person who lives under one of those big aquarium shark tunnels at the bottom of the ocean. however i do also have mermaid powers and am specifically in charge of antarctica. so we flash back to 1914 where i am 14 or 15 and have signed up for the ENDURANCE EXPEDITION as frank hurley's assistant. in my interview w shackleton i'm like yeah i sort of have nothing to live for and i love antarctica and my family sucks then there's a flashback of me having dinner with my parents at a restaurant and being sufficiently miserable. back to 1914 and shackleton is like you have the job kid. so i do endurance stuff for a while and take a bunch of photos and then i just fucking DIE on the expedition where FAMOUSLY EVERYONE LIVES!! i think i die of exposure rip but the crew mourns me and then POSEIDON himself takes pity on me like wow this bitch loved polar exploration so much i will let them live here forever. he makes me into a mermaid and gives me domain over the antarctic ocean because i am his special little birthday boy. there are a bunch of subplots with my mermaid siblings blah blah blah domestic drama. then i go on land for some reason and in rapid succession 1) use my powers to save schoolchildren from Many polar bears 2) befriend a moose 3) get engaged to CHAPPELL ROAN who agrees to live at the bottom of the ocean with me 💕. idk how i pulled her. maybe my mermaid powers. there's a bunch of stuff about her adjusting to mermaid life and then it's time to pick out clothes for our engagement gala which we do on land for some reason. this is a mistake because we get trapped in a store and then BAM it's my old shipmates who catch us. they are understandably like why the fuck are you alive what is going on??? (i have become very famous and beloved as the only casualty of the expedition btw) chappell roan and i must explain lesbianism to a bunch of edwardian sailors which is very high stakes.

and then i woke up

[tailoredshirt]

I was tagged in this book meme by @lemonlyman-dotcom and @guardian-angle22 a while back, and I'm finally doing it!

Last book I…

Bought

Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger / Trials of Life by David Attenborough

I mostly borrow books from the library these days, so I only tend to buy books my library doesn't have. I'd been really wanting to listen to Apollo 13, and it was part of Libro.fm's BOGO sale. I also added Trials of Life, which is nonfiction about animal behavior.

Borrowed

The Terror by Dan Simmons (audiobook)

I’ve had the paperback for ages, but I've been reading so much by audiobook lately that I thought that might be best, since it's so long. I had to wait quite a while for it to become available, and yesterday it finally was! 🎉 I've been reading a ton about polar exploration lately in preparation. After I finish it I'll finally be able to watch the TV show!!

Was gifted

The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon

I don’t get gifted books very often! Probably because I have too many already, and also because I mostly read ebooks and audiobooks. But it was on my wishlist (I tend to put poetry on my wishlists because I like reading poetry from physical books), and my mom got it for me for Christmas. Haven’t read it yet.

Gave/lent to someone

I usually give my mom a book for Christmas, but I don't remember what I got her last year. Unfortunately I don't have a ton of people in my life who read.

Started

Guard! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (audiobook)

I’ve never read any Pratchett (chorus of shocked gasps), so I decided to start with the first of the Night Watch books. It’s very fun so far!

Finished

Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy (audiobook)

I've been obsessed with the history of polar exploration lately, particularly the ones that went horribly wrong somehow (sorry to this man). It's a really interesting story. I found a good map of the region online and was able to track all of the landmarks and locations they mentioned while I listened.

Didn’t finish

A Murder Was Announced by Agatha Christie (audiobook)

I’ve been reading a bunch of Agatha Christie lately, mostly Poirot novels, but this would be my first Miss Marple. I just couldn’t understand the narrator. 😩 The other books were narrated by Hugh Fraser, who I’ve enjoyed. I think this one was narrated by Emilia Fox. I cannot distinguish between British accents, but something about hers was difficult for me to understand against the ambient noise of my bus ride. Two minutes in, I noped out and returned the book (via Libby). I'll probably try it again sometime when I'm at home and can hear it better.

Gave 5 stars

11/22/63 by Stephen King (audiobook)

This gave me the worst book hangover. It’s about a guy who travels back in time to 1959(ish?) and lives in the past for a few years as he prepares to try to stop Kennedy’s assassination. It’s not actually a perfect novel, but I think I listened to it as fast as humanly possible because I was so engaged. (32 hours long!) I love time travel stories.

Gave 2 stars

A Limited Run by Karen McQuestion (audiobook)

This had a Truman Show-like setup, with actors living - in character - in a gigantic enclosed 1940s neighborhood. All of that was an immediate yes for me, but the story itself was very boring and contrived.

-

Idk who to tag for reading memes, but please consider yourself tagged if you want to do it! And tag me so I can see what you're reading.

[jesslovesboats]

whats your fav historical boat and why ??:)

Hello 🙂 I'm so glad you've asked this question and I promise to be extremely normal about it 🙂

I can find something to love in almost every polar and/or nautical expedition, but nothing has captured my attention and my heart like the Karluk, the flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition.

The ship herself was a disaster. Built in 1884 as a fishing vessel, she was repurposed as a whaler in 1892, then acquired by Stefansson in 1913 for the bargain bin price of $10,000. The Karluk was uniquely unsuited for polar exploration-- she was old, rickety, and had what chief engineer John Munro described as a "coffee pot of an engine" that was so ineffective that icebreaking was out of the question. Captain Bartlett almost refused to take her north, but in the end, he acceded to Stefansson's demands. He would come to regret this decision.

In the least surprising turn of events ever, the Karluk became trapped in the pack only a month into the voyage, hundreds of miles from her destination. She remained there until she succumbed to the pressure of the ice and sank five months later, setting the stage for one of the most unbelievable survival stories in the history of polar exploration.

Why the Karluk? For me, it's that the ship was such a perfect metaphor for the expedition itself, which is not always the case! For example-- Terra Nova was overloaded and leaked like a sieve, but the expedition she supported was meticulously planned. Endurance could not withstand the pressure of the pack, but even so, her entire crew survived. The Karluk, though? A nightmare ship with a nightmare (derogatory) leader and a nightmare (affectionate) crew for a nightmare expedition. No part of this should have worked, and it's a miracle that anyone made it home. If not for the selfless actions and basic human decency of a select few crew members and the kindness and generosity of the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic, no one would ever know what happened to them.

Stefansson was simply the worst leader imaginable for a venture like this. He was smug, aloof, selfish, willing to play games with the lives of his men, and hopelessly out of his depth. He failed to adequately provision the expedition, a decision that would prove fatal. The crew he hired were a mix of polar veterans with substance abuse and/or ego problems, Indigenous people (including a family with 2 small children), untested men recruited off the docks, and inexperienced scientists not coping well with the rigors of exploration, among others. I need you to understand that these are my boys and I love them, but they were a MESS. The atmosphere on the Karluk and in the subsequent camps was a toxic sludge of fear and anger and paranoia and egos. No one here was elevated by their suffering, there was no code of honor keeping the men in line, and there were painfully few moral leaders setting examples for the others. With apologies to The Terror, survival was a nasty piece of business. To top it all off, Stefansson abandoned the Karluk and her crew after the ship became frozen in. He went on a "hunting trip" but conveniently failed to return. Leadership!

Hopefully this helps to explain why the Karluk is a perfect metaphor for this part of the Canadian Arctic Expedition. Only an old, crumbling whaler with a tiny, ineffective engine could have shepherded this disaster team to the shores of Wrangel Island. The Karluk was not the ship they needed, but she was the ship they had, and even Captain Bartlett grieved as she sank.

For more information, I highly recommend checking out The Ice Master by Jennifer Niven and Empire of Ice and Stone by Buddy Levy. I also Karlukpost regularly, and you can find my screeching in the Karluk tag.

I hope this answered your question, thanks for a fun ask! ❤️