#this is my first time writing fitzjames as the pov character

[bro-stoevsky]

my heart says SEVEN A TECHNICALITY

you know i love a technicality! idk if you wanted 1600 words of sir john barrow making james fitzjames feel bad but that’s what we’ve got here today at the ole victorian fanfiction cafe. 

A Way Out

Pairing: honestly this is gen but you must know its context is Fitzier

Rating: G 

In which Fitzjames is offered a way to get his career back on track in a very hot room. 

Sir John Barrow leaned back with his brandy, comfortable and controlled as he had ever been, installed in his study. Nothing had changed in the room since Fitzjames had last been there, making plans for his expedition. He had been fascinated then by the dip circle on the desk and a walrus’s tusk on the mantle. Barrow had changed even less, for a man who was constantly complaining that he was about to die he had a remarkable vitality and authority. Fitzjames had admired him for this easy mastery, but he had never before been on the wrong side of it.

“I’m sorry, my boy, but it won’t do,” Barrow was saying. “You have made it out with your life, let us celebrate that. You must be more than content with such a miracle.”

They were sitting by the fire with brandy, and the combination had become unbearably hot. “I was to be knighted and made a captain,” Fitzjames replied. “You were to take my part. Sir John, you were unmistakable. I remember your words perfectly, ‘Return, and I will see you with a ship of your own and a ribbon besides.’ Well, I have returned, sir.”

Barrow’s white eyebrows lifted at this forthrightness, but he did not so much as straighten his back. He sipped his brandy. “Come, you surely understand my position. Even if such a thing were within my gift—it is not—I could not do it. You must rebuild your future now. You may take up a governorship, now what say you to that? A hot climate, I think, would be suitable.”

“I beg your pardon but I cannot let the matter lie,” said Fitzjames. “You gave your word, sir, that should I return—”

“And what can I do?” Barrow cut him off without effort. “You have not found the Passage. But beyond that there are the most obscene rumors—your men turned cannibal on your dead, sir, men of the British navy. Every day it is in the papers. You have brought your country very low.”

Fitzjames felt the fire’s heat on his face. “They were mutineers—”

Barrow held up his hand and hissed him silent, roused beyond their pretense of easy friendship: “You had better breathe no further acknowledgement, you fool. Think you that it matters a whit, once the story is about, who was what and when and how? You cannot lawyer rumors.”

“It is the truth, nevertheless.”

“Then you are finished. Never mind your honors, how will you like to live out your days in ignominy? But I want an answer, sir, how would you like that?”

“I cannot change the truth,” said Fitzjames, with an effort to speak lightly even if his words were horribly stiff. “So if you say my career is at an end, then it must be so, whether I like it or no.”

Barrow sighed and picked up his glass. “That was not my meaning. I only want to make the stakes very clear to you, but still—come, my boy, of course there is a way out. A way that you may remain in the navy and even receive those honors you are so keen to remind me you desire.”

“So what must I do?”

“You must exonerate yourself. You cannot debate speculation, but neither must you be pulled under by it.”

Fitzjames remembered his brandy and took a sip of it. Barrow always had the same kind—proper brandy, enormously expensive, which Fitzjames had hoped to buy one day himself. The possibility still flickered on his horizon, tangible or lost with every minute. “I’m afraid I don’t see how that may be done.”

Barrow leaned forward and met his eyes. “Publish your own account of the tragedy. In this you must not shrink from the scope of the calamity which befell you, or indeed the worst details of the worst days. Only it must be clear, throughout, that it is Francis Crozier’s shoulders on which we must yoke our blame.”

“Sir?”

“You must make it known to all that through his decisions—through his incompetence, his indifference, and sullen unconcern—Captain Crozier alone allowed good honest English sailors to thus debase themselves. You must demonstrate beyond contention that this was done despite your protests and complaints. You must say that it was not English mutiny, but Irish unworthiness, behind this sordid incident.”

Fitzjames felt his humiliating physical reaction before he properly understood the words. The room tilted. Blood rose in his throat and gripped him there. 

“That is every word a lie.”

Barrow laughed at him, riled again. “You are over-punctilious, sir. Unless you have mined gold in the polar ice I very much doubt you have the means to keep yourself in dignity if you step off the ladder now. A life can be longer than you have ever imagined. You must publish as I bid you, if you are to have any future,” he paused, skilled old orator that he was, to let Fitzjames feel the weight of his arguments before he struck his final blow: “If you are to make anything of your name.”

“At the cost of Crozier’s.”

“Come, what is left of that? He has done enough of his own destruction. It will be no effort at all to complete it.”

Fitzjames searched desperately for composure and found only heat—from the fire, the brandy, and his scorching shame. “And this, truly, is what you think of me? That I am capable of such a thing?”

Barrow did not take his meaning. “I think you will do what you must to save your skin, James. It is only a little brazenness, and I trust you well enough with that.”

“It would be the worst betrayal I can imagine. Betrayal of a man who could not possibly deserve it less. Who is my friend, who—” Fitzjames stopped as he heard his voice begin to rise. He hauled himself back in check by slow degrees, making corrections to the expression on his face, the posture of his body and the position of his hands, until he could look at Barrow again. “I cannot do it, sir.”

“If Crozier were here in this room he would agree that only one career may be salvaged. To throw away two is extravagant waste.”

“You have asked me three times to disown him. I cannot do it, even if he asked me to. I will not.”

Barrow’s eyes flashed. The glass in his hand did. “This is not the Bible. You will do what is needful, sir, if you have any sense left to you.” 

Fitzjames flinched. “It is clear I have lost your good opinion. I am so sorry for it. I had better go, and leave you to more pleasant evening.” 

He stood and turned to leave.

All over the walls were familiar paintings of ships, voyages of discovery more successful than his own. He recognized Terror in one, carrying sail and riding high on a wave. It was impossible that she had not been done in by the ice by now. A loyal instrument, lost and abandoned—it was a monstrous subject for decoration.

“James,” said Barrow, before he reached the threshold. “Please do not think I will ever turn you away, should you come to call. Should you consider your position more fully.”

“I thank you,” Fitzjames replied, unable to turn around and show his face, and sought somewhere cooler.

[titleleaf]

I saw that you anti-recced The Terror, and I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how good it is, so I was wondering if you’d elaborate more on why you don’t like it? I haven’t seen it and now I’m curious bc this is the first I’ve heard of someone disliking/hating it

I should be clear that my beef is with the novel! The series does a lot of work to deal with some of the novel’s weaker points, and it’s generally pretty successful at taking the fun interesting parts of the premise and scrapping everything else. The series still has flaws, but I would (and do!) definitely recommend it to people, which I wouldn’t really do with the novel. 

The tl;dr version is that I found the book to be racist/sexist in ways that the supposed narrative purpose did not remotely warrant, and also just straight-up badly written. (If anyone on this internet is a valiant Simmons defender and this is their favorite novel, it’s ok to stop reading now, my feelings from here on down are unilaterally negative.)

It seems to be a pretty broadly well-liked novel in terms of its atmosphere -- it has some elements I enjoy, and scenes I think work pretty well, but from a literary pov, oof, not a book I ever want to reread. It wasn’t compelling enough as a horror novel or a historical disaster narrative to justify how long and just how grindingly... ugh it is. It’s fully possible to make unpleasant, stressed-out, flawed characters still interesting to spend time with, as a reader if not an actual person, and when your novel is almost a thousand pages long, an author needs to do that. Simmons just doesn’t. 

Apart from more serious issues I have with the text, I’m annoyed by the way Simmons characterizes his Erebites and Terrors as Ohoho Unenlightened Victorians who all single-handedly and individually manifest the worst of Victorian imperialism and bigotry. (Except Fitzjames, who’s low-key Tiny Tim. And... Irving? Who is an absolute fuck machine.) There’s a lot of historical research about the individual Franklin expedition sailors that’s only become available since the publishing of Simmons’ novel in 2007, but Simmons just... does the straight-up worst with what he had at the time of writing, and as a result fucking none of his characters are interesting or likeable. He’s trying to write a big beefy 19th century novel but he doesn’t have the chops and I just could not give a fuck about anyone. Simmons does not miss a fucking chance to shoehorn in a stereotype (about Irish people! about women! about gay people! about Indigenous people!) and the result isssssss baddddd. The prose is bad! The pacing is bad! The way it handles its themes is bad! But above all, the experience of reading it is bad. 

In terms of more serious, non-stylistic stuff, I think Simmons’ handling of his characters’ racism and sexism extends to a degree that becomes itself racist and sexist. This is a subjective one, but Simmons himself seems to be a marked right-wing asshole, so I’m not really inclined to cut him any slack. I don’t think depiction is the same thing as endorsement, but it just hits a point where it’s like “okay, Dan, is this for something, or are you just luxuriating in this?” It sounds like Drood and The Abominable��are pretty similar in this department, but my desire to give them a try and find out

Simmons has a sexism problem in his own right, even independent from characters’ thoughts and attitudes -- I don’t think it would be impossible to write a character with a plot arc like book!Silna’s, or book!Sophia Cracroft’s, and have the end result still be on the whole a serious and enjoyable book with few but well-rounded women characters, but he does, uh. Not do that. At all. I don’t need a book about an all-dude expedition to be a feminist masterpiece but I do need it to actively suck less, and to take fewer detours for the sake of random sexist potshots at tangentially related historical women. I don’t have the background to really unpack the issues with his treatment of indigenous, First Nations, and Inuit characters but my instinct is that it’s also not great, with the same blurring of lines between enthusiastic POV treatment of period racist attitudes/blithely racist depictions with no excuse of a narrative filter to offset them. 

Simmons’ treatment of gay characters/male-male sexuality is also at best chronologically shaky (he gives one character, designated good gay(tm) Bridgens, the most generic 19th Century Uranian mishmash backstory because he doesn’t apparently give a shit that his novel is set in 1845-1848 and not, like 1885) and at worst... actively bad (again, making its human antagonist Hickey a serial sexual predator who rapes boys and cognitively disabled men just because he’s very very evil and also gay. And also circumcised?) The show does a fair amount to remedy this and the above sexism, including massively revising Hickey’s character and plotline, but the book wears its bullshit on its sleeve and it’s just tiresome. So that’s, I guess, my beef with The Terror as a novel -- it’s racist, it’s sexist, and it’s fucking tiresome. Even if the series were as straight-up insufferable as the book, which thank God it isn’t, it’s only a single ten-episode series adapting that plotline; I listened to the novel in audiobook form and it’s nearly 30 hours long. I was ready to gnaw my own arm off.

There are well-written Neo-Victorian novels that use ye olde imperial bigotry to make a good point, and there are well-written horror novels that use polar isolation and maritime traditions to create atmosphere and dread (for the latter shout-out to Elizabeth Lowry’s Dark Water) but they all have to be well-written first and this novel is not. 

[zipegs]

i’ve been toying around with the idea of posting a fic rec list for a while, and finally decided that if i do, it might be nice to focus on newer and/or underrated fics in the fandom! some of my absolute favorites are on this list, and i highly suggest checking them out (and leaving the lovely authors some comments and kudos!)

this got pretty long, but it’s organized alphabetically by ship name (including gen) and then by length inside each ship!

blanky/little

Trysails by saltstreets  /  2k, t

“I know I can’t do much,” Blanky said, “but you can always talk to me. If you’re so inclined.”

A (very late!) offering for Tender Tuesday, "a friend in need".

okay!!!!!! okay!!!!! hear me out on this one!! this fic is wonderful. i’m a sucker for fics dealing with edward’s suffering during the worst of crozier’s captaincy, and this one is so good. blanky is so wonderful in this; i feel like his tender, kind side frequently gets overlooked in favor of his bigger, bolder attributes, and this fic truly delivers on everything i’ve been missing! it’s really gentle and sweet and i urge you to give it a read!!!!

bridglar

in the low lamplight by stelleri  /  338, g

It’s endless freezing rain outside, but the house is comfortably warm.

short and sweet! a really lovely little slice-of-life modern au

state of grace by aes3plex  /  860, m

He doesn’t mean to see it. He never does.

bridglar may be the most featured pairing, but this is told from irving’s pov and also contains irving/little and references to hickey/gibson. really sad, conflicted little peek into irving’s mind (and some nice, soft bridglar as well!)

passer iagoensis by greenery  /  3k, g

Night falls on the Beagle and Henry Peglar has just finished reading his very first novel.

Set in 1832.

this piece is so good!! it has some really beautiful (sad) foreshadowing of the franklin expedition, and is just... so soft, with some wonderful romantic tension!! and it’s funny! darwin and fitzroy are wonderful in this, and i’m always here for fic that deals with peglar learning to read (which this does!!!).

cracroft/crozier

the beggar’s opera by pyotr  /  990, e

for all of his usual anger and surliness it was almost fun to fluster francis, to rile him where he could not retaliate. sophia had spent all her life under the thumb of some man or another; she loved francis in part because she always had the upper hand.

sophia is my queen and that’s all i’ll say about that. seriously though, this piece is just... *chef’s kiss*

fitzconte

A Cheetah Never Changes His Spots by onstraysod  /  1.2k, m

Being the particular friend of James Fitzjames has its drawbacks, as Henry Le Vesconte learns during the expedition's first carnivale. But it also has its advantages, as Henry learns once the carnivale is over.

Written for Day 1 (A Special Disguise) of the 12 Days of Carnivale.

on beechey island, fitzjames reveals clio’s cheetah to the men. or... something like it! this piece is really a blast; fitzjames is in rare form, francis is glaring form the sidelines, and le vesconte is an absolute champ. and the ending is wonderfully witty and racy!

fitzier

wake me up, wake me up my darling by norvegiae  /  1.4k, g  /  mcd

James Fitzjames feels like a new man.

The old James Fitzjames lies on the cot in front of him, cradled by the man he wishes he could have had more time with.

set during 1.09, this fic is a really poignant, heartwrenching piece in which james comes to terms with the reality of his death, and of his life, as he watches francis grieve. very sad, and wonderfully written!

what the stars give us by WetSammyWinchester  /  1.7k, t  /  implied death

"They may know space, James, but you know what it means to truly fly."

70s scifi (space program!!!) au. really great translation of the terror; the mood in this is so good!!! and the little flashbacks are fantastic. it’s pretty sad, but it hurts in a good way.

fitzrossier

Take Your Turn, Take A Ride by courfairyac  /  7.5k, e

Francis agrees to accompany his friend to a masquerade, and stumbles onto something quite unexpected.

In short: Festivities! Voyeurism! James in a dress!

listen... fitzrossier is my new weakness, and this is a really fun, hot, canon-universe (pre-expedition) au.

gen

salvation by scribomania  /  250, t

The Concordia brings them survival, but not salvation.

featuring hodgson and little, and jopson. for a survival au, this little piece hurts!!! it’s so short, but it packs a punch. really, really good.

but no one remembers yet by disastermovie  / 885, t

“From the mutilated state of many of the corpses and the contents of the kettles, it is evident that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource—cannibalism—as a means of prolonging existence.”

—excerpt from Dr. John Rae’s report on the fate of the Franklin Expedition to the Secretary of the Admiralty (written from Repulse Bay on July 29, 1854)

sad little epilogue concerning sophia and lady jane dealing with their grief

the weary world rejoices by disastermovie  /  1.3k, t

Fitzjames goes to his first Christmas party after the survivors are rescued. It doesn't go well.

this!!!! fic!!! i can’t even do it justice, it’s just so good. the slow build of james’s panic, the caroling and gaiety as a backdrop... it’s just so painful in the best way. i’m incoherent; pls just read it,

la belle dame sans merci by drowninglovers  /  1.7k, g

Nobody is quite sure who the first one to start making her clothing is, but one day she scampers over the shoulders of the ABs as they line up for lunch wearing a tiny shirt to match her pants. It’s nothing special, no fancy detail, navy blue like most everything else they wear. Whoever made it must have cared a great deal, to make sure it fit her perfectly.

this is incredibly fun!!! just some good, wholesome fic about boys dressing up their favorite lady. 10000/10 would recommend.

Come Here, Fellow Servant by whipstitch  /  1.9k, t

The sea is dangerous, but so too is the open sky. And in that case, Cornelius determines, a friend is an unexpected boon.

okay, i made a rule that i wasn’t going to include wips on this rec list,  but i had to put this guy on here. it could be read as a stand-alone, actually, which is what i used to convince myself to include it. peglar realizes that hickey has no fucking idea what he’s doing, and tries to help him, kind, caring sweetheart that he is. this is a really, really nice little piece—i love everything about it.

lie alone by greenery  /  2k, g

He turns the page. And maybe this is it. Maybe writing a letter to young Tom Hartnell is reason enough to leave the berth.

really nice oneshot featuring two good boys (hodgson & hartnell) and their wholesome status as pen pals

the crooked kind by darrenjolras  /  2.3k, m  /  non-consensual voyeurism

“You and I, Jopson,” Hickey says, and Jopson startles at those words alone, turns an affronted gaze his way. Hickey bathes in the glacial blue of it. Like being thrown overboard. “You and I aren’t so different, you know.”

Based on that Hickey/Jopson scene. You know the one.

the terror bingo fill: court martial

not totally gen, but also not really hickey/jopson? twisted, but very much in character; hickey is his delightful self in this, and his verbal sparring with jopson is very well done and quite fun to read!

gibson/hickey

Touch Her Not Scornfully by skazka  /  2k, e

Stolen moments down below.

this fic is just... really fucking good!!! it’s a fantastic look at the very early days of gibson & hickey’s relationship, and an intriguing little venture into billy’s head.

goodsir/mcdonald

And That is How it Starts by Intrepid_Inkweaver  /  1.2k, g

It starts with a handshake and a warm smile at their introduction at Greenhithe.

a really sweet, lovely canon-divergent piece. written in 2nd person pov. these two are just such a good, wholesome pairing and this fic really does them justice!!

hartving

let loss reveal it by disastermovie  /  1.6k, t  /  mcd

Tom could never quite see himself taking a wife.

this shit fucking hurts!!!!!!! it’s a beautiful glimpse at irving & hartnell’s relationship, told through hartnell’s introspection, and is written really, really well. also did i mention that it fucking hurts???

Lookout Blues by ClockworkCourier  /  2.1k, g

John and Tom Hartnell talk about the future while they wait on a new shipment.

hello??? 1920s au??????? the world-building is so tangible in this, even in such a relatively short piece. it’s a really lovely little conversation between the brothers, and i absolutely loved their little discussion of irving.

we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet by drowninglovers  /  6.3k, g

If this is to be the last time they interact (and it likely will), Tom wants it to be memorable.

survival au survival au!! tartnell runs into irving at john’s grave, and convinces him to stay with his family until new year’s. it’s kind of bittersweet, with some really great flashbacks (and discussions of said scenes!), and oh man is it soft!! just! really beautiful and tender, and the ending is just so cute!!!!!

hodgson/hickey

the chaos moves by itself by bluebacchus  /  1.3k, e  /  violence, mcd

Hodgson's mind cracks and the heavens flow in.

(Written for Day 7 of Halloween TerrorFest: A disquieting metamorphosis and posted separately because I don't want to taint my main post with borderline vore)

fair warning... this fic is fucked up, but in the best possible way! the religious imagery!!!! the philosophy!!!! just!! god.

hodgson/little

Allegro, B Flat Major by whalersandsailors  /  5.3k, g

George is freshly moved from his childhood home, ready to tackle the school year and his newfound independence all at once.

Too bad he's lonely, miserable, and homesick.

He turns to music when adulthood becomes unbearable, and when someone knocks at his door and leaves an anonymous note, George discovers another music lover not too far away.

have i mentioned i love george hodgson? because i love george hodgson. this fic is a beautiful modern au featuring our own georgie playing his way through his feelings (literally). the buildup to the reveal of george’s secret admirer is wonderful, and had me rooting for them from the start! really sweet, stunning fic for a pairing i’d never considered before!

joplittle

get out of the wind by Cicadaemon  /  1.6k, e

Edward Little is smitten with a certain bartender.

modern au. really lovely, wholesome, and happy; just what these boys deserve!

The Thylacine by Gigi_Sinclair  / 1.7k, t 

"Thylacines. That's what Sophia called them, all those years ago in Van Diemen's Land. Dogs with tiger stripes, cats with pouches. They stretch their jaws at him, as Francis struggles to sit. The movement makes his head spin. He pushes the discomfort aside. He has no time to entertain it; he must escape."

also features cracroft/crozier. this is a really clever, funny piece set during francis’s withdrawal; poor francis is a bit muddled in the throes of his fever, and gets caught up in a memory from van diemen’s land. i absolutely loved little and jopson’s reactions in this, and especially jopson and crozier’s conversation the next morning.

Prelude in D Major by scribomania  /  2.7k, t

Hodgson is very fond of the musical apparatus in Terror's great cabin; Edward is not.

For the Terror Bingo square "denial".

i’m a big big lover of terror lieutenant nonsense, and this fic absolutely delivers! just absolutely delightful.

When the Lights Go On Again by Gigi_Sinclair  /  4.1k, t

"Edward Little's ancestors were Naval officers, almost to a man. Nevertheless, from a young age, Edward's eyes turned to the sky rather than the sea.

He longed to fly, as high and as frequently as possible. In the Royal Air Force, he got his wish. He was happy there, thriving, rising in the ranks apace and doing what he always wanted to do. Then came the first of September, 1939."

wwii au. edward is a squadron leader in the royal air force, and jopson is a corporal working for group captain crozier. i’m weak for wwi and wwii aus to begin with, and this one is done beautifully. while it doesn’t hand-wave the trauma and heartbreak of war, it doesn’t hit you over the head with it either, and the result is a really soft, bittersweet, hopeful piece.

lozer

a lily for my love by whalersandsailors  /  3.7k, m

Solomon never thought that soul-signs were real, and the stories he heard about them made soulmates sound more like a prison sentence than any fairy tale romance. It is not until he finds a soul-sign on the skin of a very dear friend that he realizes their importance, as well as their undoing.

this piece is!!! beautiful!!! very poignant, and really had me feeling for solomon. i love what’s been done with the soulmark conceit—it’s not just a simple “we have soulmarks, we’re soulmates!!!’ au (which i’ll admit to enjoying too), but a really thoughtful take on the trope. the slow way tozer puzzles everything out is wonderful, and i love the glimpses we get into several of his friendships & relationships. 

morfin/weekes

to help you remember by whalersandsailors  /  1.2k, g

An anniversary, during which Weekes presents Morfin with a gift, and Morfin struggles to remember why.

do you ever just get clotheslined by a pairing you’d never even considered before? because that’s what this fic did to me

[heyktula]

Fic Breakdown for Closer, Chapter One (aka, the DVD Extras)

So, chapter one of Closer, the first installment in Somewhere in Canada (the Terror kink AU)... went up today! And let me tell you what, I am hype because this is my very first longfic in the Terror fandom, and it's centered around a subject very near and dear to my heart—BDSM. It's a love letter to power exchange, the sheer joy of kink, conventions, and sex education.

Like other fic breakdowns I've done, this'll be in three parts—technical notes (like POV and stylistic choices), story notes (like characterization and kink info), and then, instead of the editing section I usually include, I'm going to talk about specific lines at the end.

I blame Edward for the line notes, tbh. I love him, but he's a himbo, and many things went unobserved in the course of this story.

(Okay, fine, it's not entirely his fault. Some of it is that he's just so steeped in kink that he doesn't think twice about a bunch of the stuff going on.)

Technical Considerations

Inspiration: So this fic is a love letter to kink, and kink education, and conventions, which in my experience can be life-changing opportunities to meet people with similar interests, and also to be able to do some exploration of your own and figure out what makes you tick. I'm pretty sure there's an AU version of me that makes their living off kink education and the convention circuit, but (un)fortunately, in this particular universe, I am a fic writer (and, occasionally, a paid one as well).

Closer is also a love letter to rough physical play. I remember sitting in my very first workshop on the topic, and just being wide-eyed that a) this is a thing, b) it looks fun. (It is, actually, fun.) There's a ton of reasons I love it—and hopefully, after Closer concludes, you'll be able to see some of the reasons why—but I also love that physical play doesn't have any financial barriers to entry. (The irony of Edward "rich boy" Little being heavily into it has not escaped me.)

Timeline:  Hilariously, I actually started this verse for a Fitzier fic—it takes place six months from Closer, at the winter version of the conference—but while I was working my way through the Fitzier setup, I was like 'fuck it, I should write a quick one-off joplittle to establish the verse', and lo and behold, my "quick one-off" turned out to be sixty k, and it runs parallel to a Tozer/Irving that I  have yet to write, but which is visible in Closer if you squint. So, uh, oops.

So this story fits into a very specific space in the timeline—that is, it's prior to Fitzjames and Crozier having met, but it's after the (second) Cracroft/Crozier breakup. (If you were wondering if that's why Francis isn't running his own damn booth, yes, that's why. He's very likely depression drinking in London at this very moment.)

Setting: I wanted to stay true to the spirit of the whole, you know, boatload of white men going to Canada and being confused, but I wanted them to go for better reasons. It's so rare that we get shows set in Canada, you know? And I feel very passionately about our winters here, in that I complain about them while they're happening, but I do also kind of enjoy the challenge, in a really fucked-up sort of a way. So I set the fic in Canada too, and then, because I was explicitly setting it here, I also got to lean into a bunch of Canadian stereotypes (like Goodsir living his best life in plaid and denim and the inevitable Tim Horton's jokes) and I actually had a lot of fun doing it, so I guess that was something I learned about myself.

Story Considerations:

Primary Kinks: So most people involved in BDSM have a "thing"—you know, the thing that they care about more than they care about any other things. And one of the most fun things for me about creating an AU like this is going through the characters and figuring out what everybody's niche is. Like, it makes sense to me that Hickey would be that edgeplay asshole that's in the kink scene specifically so he can fuck with people. Tozer having a military fetish (and also being a bit of a kink snob) totally fits with his whole "now what the bloody hell do people think that means?" speech.

If you've ever been to a fetish convention, you've seen guys like Blanky, who have been in the scene forever, and made their name handcrafting BDSM gear. They're easy to talk to, and will totally tell you about that time they ran an entire scene using only items found in their kitchen. You've seen women like Sophia Cracroft, who have a cluster of people surrounding her at all times, and who is never short of someone who will bring her tea if it looks like she's thirsty. And you've also seen guys like Ross, who are reasonably famous in their areas of expertise—the kind of guy that you see across the hall, and you're like "shit, is that James Clark Ross?" (And it is! Holy shit!)

Canadian Kink: So! I live in the prairies, and it's as conservative as hell out here. That means there's some specifics to kink culture that I'm not sure translate to other parts of Canada—and they definitely don't translate back to England. For example, every public event I've ever been to (by which I mean every event that wasn't being held in someone's house) has mandated that penetration cannot occur during the event. No toys in orifices, no bits in other bits, no mucous membranes touching, no oral, no fingering, no handjobs, no intercourse, all that kind of stuff. I'm not convinced that you couldn't have sex in a dungeon in, say, Vancouver, or Toronto, or any of the other bigger centers—but that hasn't been my experience in the prairies, and I kept those restrictions for plot purposes in Closer. (Sorry, Jopson. I promise I still love you.)

Canadian weapons laws being what they are also means that some of the gear that's totally okay in other places (like butterfly knives) is totally illegal in Canada (sorry, Tozer. No apologies for you, Hickey.). The sap gloves that Edward is mourning are, unfortunately, one of the items that get lost in the shuffle. Sap gloves are pretty neat—they're leather gloves which are weighted with lead on the knuckles/backs of the hands. They make your punches harder, but they also protect your hands—and, for somebody like Edward, who does a lot of punching when he plays, that protection is definitely beneficial. Plus, they're a bit of a signalling thing—having a set of sap gloves hanging off your belt makes it very clear what kind of things you're into, and I think Edward is a bit bereft not having that this weekend, because he's not used to having to make those introductions cold.

Edgeplay: There's sort of a, er. Spectrum of what is and isn't considered to be "acceptable" kink, even within the kink community. Some kinds of kink are seen as more publicly acceptable, and some kinds are relegated back to the fringes and the dark corners. In the context of Closer, that means Tozer, Hickey, and Little are our resident edgeplayers. This isn't a judgement on the type of play they do (well, it is a judgement on Hickey, but we don't have time to go into *gestures* all that), but it is a statement about the way that type of play is perceived. Sophia Cracroft can, with very little finessing, put photographs of her in rope suspension onto her various social media accounts, and as long as she's clothed, it's perfectly acceptable content to just have out there, and people are going to call it artistic and Instagram-worthy. Tozer, on the other hand, ain't getting any recordings of interrogation scenes he's run posted anywhere except to Pornhub.  (The less we say about Hickey's knife-play, the better.)

Similarly, because the rough physical play that Edward does looks fairly intense from the outside (and is pretty intense from the inside), he gets to live in the not-that-publicly-acceptable area of kink. The area of kink where they usually put the crash mats at the far end of the dungeon, because that way, if you don't want to watch two people whaling on each other with their fists, you don't need to see it. This "stigma" is important in Edward's conception of himself, because on one hand, we see in his conversation with Goodsir that Edward absolutely knows his shit and, hero-worship of Crozier aside, has the knowledge base to be a fantastic educator in his own right—but we also see the subtle kinkshaming coming from both Hickey and Tozer about where Edward's place is in all this. That is to say—Edward's place is with them, in the dark shadowy spots, and not in the "socially acceptable" circles that Crozier's circle of people (Jopson included) are perceived to be running in. (There's a sense, coming from Tozer, that there's no point in Edward pursuing getting onto the org committee for the conference itself, because they won't want someone like Edward there—but, again, that's some pretty insidious kinkshaming coming from Tozer, and we could all just let that go and be better for it. Goodsir clearly doesn't feel like Edward's presence would be a detriment.)

So, yeah. I'll excuse Tozer's kinkshaming bullshit temporarily, as he needs to sort himself out. I don't think he's trying to drag Edward down so much as he just thinks Edward's being a bit delusional, and wants to save him the disappointment when Jopson invariably rejects him for being way too kinky and intense. (If Edward is moping around all weekend, he'll be in the hotel room, and how's Tozer supposed to get his dick sucked by random hookups then? "Yeah, come on back to mine, don't mind my roommate, he's a moody bastard and won't participate even if we ask." Not winning any prizes there, lads.)

I won't excuse Hickey's kinkshaming; he's definitely trying to make Edward feel like shit on purpose. I could speculate as to the reasons, but they're probably gross. (I mean, I know the reasons. Hickey's gonna Hickey.)

(There's a whole entire essay I could write about incorrect assumptions that literally everyone is making about the type of play Thomas Jopson must be into, based on his nice hair and nice eyes and nice smile, but I'll just let Jopson handle those corrections on his own, as he's very capable of doing so.)

Concerning the Chapter Title: If you were gonna take a risk, Neddo, the social was the time to do it—and you done fucked that up, sweetheart.

Tomorrow is another day. Give it another shot then, yeah?

Line Notes:

Edward looks across the hall again, cringes. “No, fuck, that’s—no, I think that’s Sophia Cracroft, Sol, I’m not—Christ. Sophia Cracroft, Jesus.”

I will never not find this introduction to Edward Little fucking hilarious, because he comes off as so competent from Jopson's POV when he's arguing with Hickey in the parking lot, and yet the moment we see Edward in his own POV, he's just a mess. I love him very much, but he's a mess. This was one of the deciding factors in the dual POV as well—I knew going in that the brunt of the story was going to be from Edward's POV, but weaving in those occasional Jopson bits lets us see how Edward looks from the other side.

(Also, Tozer three hundred percent knows exactly who Sophia Cracroft is, because he demonstrates that, like, two sentences later, meaning that he’s literally just winding Edward up here, and it goes right over Edward’s head. God.)

It’s the older guy across the hall that’s laughing his ass off, but the cutie is standing right next to him, looking down at his phone, his ears charmingly pink. 

As a reminder, Edward is wearing a white tank, and just stretched his arms out behind his back. The nipple piercings are very obvious, Jopson was three hundred percent staring, and Blanky definitely caught him and is laughing his ass off about it.

“…I know what this is about,” Tozer says, tying an orange bandana around his left bicep.

The orange bandana is a hanky code thing—which, yes, it's dated, and it's not really in use anymore, but Tozer seems like the kind of guy that would tattoo his kinks on his forehead just so everybody could see them if they would all fit. Failing to find any way to gracefully do that, we instead have the orange hanky ("anything goes") on the left arm ("top").

(Older guy, thankfully, is wearing a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. Cutie isn’t. So there’s no obvious problems there.)

Jopson not wearing a ring indicates literally nothing about whether or not he's available, but I guess whatever makes Edward feel better about himself is fine. He's right with his assumption about Jopson, in this case, but it's literally nothing more than a wild guess, and the mental hoops he's jumping through only exist to make him feel better about himself.

(Esther usually attends these events with Blanky—but somebody needed to hold down the fort in London this time, and so she's in London at present. It's for the best, she can check on Francis every so often.)

[Hickey] sticks his hand in the pocket of his latex cargo shorts...

I won't take criticism on this fashion statement, constructive or otherwise.



So, that's it for this week! Chapter two, Aware, goes up next Friday! See you then! And if you have questions or anything in the meantime, you can always drop me an ask on tumblr or Curious Cat!

[succession]

"the world now is breaking" + 2, 5, 6, 9

For those who don't remember, this is my Westworld AU, Hickey/Irving fic. Because if there is a will there's a way for me to wedge our cold religious boy with our stabbity lad.

@somdomite

2: What scene did you first put down?

The entire idea stemmed from the Hickey POV ficlet I wrote based on a simple prompt: Westworld AU. Everything came from his gleeful destruction. In terms of this fic, the first section was the first bit I wrote. I began with “John found the place decidedly Wrong,” then his description of the dust-covered suit followed by his death. It didn’t have the flow I wanted; it only came together when I emphasized the repetition of his words and actions: He dreamt of things that could not be. I love repetition and cycles and tend to return to them over and over in my fics. 

5: What part was hardest to write?

I won’t say anything was particularly hard to write in this case, but I needed to align a John who was growing aware that their world didn’t particularly hold any meaning with his actions and his faith. His sense of self. He a believer, but not out of his own choices, but because of programming. If all of his actions were predetermined, then why continue? What punishment exists for a man who knows he will only return? There’s no heaven, no hell, only what he’s locked into. So what is stopping a man who was killed over and over for others’ pleasure from lashing out onto those who are manufactured for the same fate? Only himself, but who was he?

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

It is the first fusion I’ve ever done. I’ve done other fics where characters experience different lives (specifically a Band of Brothers Liebgott fic where I, the author, actively change and manipulate his lives and write and re-write his past and futures. If anyone’s interested, let me know I’ll toss it on Ao3 or something).

I wouldn’t say it’s special or different, but I truly loved writing it. You and I have come to the conclusion that John is entirely uncertain about himself, impotently wielding his authority. To put that man into a world and a situation where he truly understands nothing felt right...other men like Crozier and Fitzjames realized who they were in the end. Here John found the same though the reasons are wildly different. This time he uses his knowledge for himself, it selfish, but for the first time he could be. He’s allowed. 

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Yes! The ending was going to be different, much less hopeful.

It involved John releasing Hickey into the real world, Hickey’s world by telling him there was going to be a rebellion and he needed to leave. Hickey pushed John from his chains; he’d return the favor for the other man who was out of time and space. John would return to the ice knowing who he was, unfulfilled and ultimately trapped. But that broke the entire theme of finding yourself and writing your own life and fucking fate. The ending I went with and published let John achieve what he set out to do on his own terms, hand in hand with the only person who understood him.