a cumbersome bird

terror?

Henry Collins doll I’ve made for @schestokryl BD ✨

Head, hands and buttons are from oven baked polymer clay, body is plush, clothes removable.

@lieutenantfest

Wednesday - Hodgson

@lieutenantfest day 6: Thomas Jopson + haunted doll

there is a reason the (english) women aren't there on the expedition and it matters that they aren't. the terror isn't a show about gender-based oppression; however, it is very much so a show about what it means to be A Man in an Imperial Navy, and masculinity, manhood, does not exist without reference to femininity and what it means to be a woman. a victorian english woman does not adventure. she is (meant to be) a caretaker, a daughter, wife, mother; she is meek and obedient, she needs protecting and guiding, and she keeps a loving home to which a man can come back after a long day and find rest. and thru these qualities she both enables and necessitates the male striving.

because you see, the colonial, imperial mindset -- and violence -- is linked with and mirrors the rigid hierarchies enforced and embraced at home. for instance, a man rules over his own family, for their own good, because it's the natural order of things, because he knows best; the navy travels, captures, and pillages rules over far away 'uncivilised' lands for reasons similar. put differently, to each their own, but you can't turn the crew into "girlnavy" without ripping apart the entire societal and ideological fabric which informs who they are and why they are there, and in my opinion, makes the show interesting, and the story worth telling, in the first place. just to give one further example, it is important that silna is a woman, albeit not an english one, and fascinating to watch the men weigh that against her inuit-ness.

On one level, the appeal isn't that deep. Genderswap/rule 63 is a fandom staple. Lots of people like thinking about their faves as hot women in uniform. And it's fair enough to say "not for me, thanks" to that. (I would be a hypocrite to tell someone off just for disliking or not getting something that's popular with wider fandom, as anyone who's heard me talking about Joplittle will understand...)

But you raise some interesting points about the Terror's themes of imperial masculinity, and I would like to suggest that it's not strictly fair to say that girlnavy erases that. I think the "girlnavy" trope specifically, as opposed to other AUs where they're modern women or 19th century civilians, isn't ignoring but is in dialogue with those themes.

Broadly speaking, fandoms on Tumblr are majority afab. Terror fandom is notable for how many of the fans are lesbian, non-binary and/or trans masc. On the rare occasions someone posts het "character x reader" fic it goes largely ignored (I always feel kinda bad for the tiny handful of fans who are into it). With the girlnavy stuff, as well as modern AU, genderswap it's notable how often the characters are depicted as butch - I've never seen that in any other fandom.

The Terror is, as you say, about masculinity amongst other things. That is, I think, part of the appeal, in general but also with girlnavy. Women and afab people have historically been barred from participation in war and exploration unless they successfully disguise themselves; the appeal of girlnavy is the fantasy escapism of imagining that isn't the case, that there could be a special class in Victorian society of women allowed to act like men do. There are hundreds of stories about men on adventures and absolutely fuck all representation of butch women.

You could argue, quite fairly, that this is a fantasy with serious flaws. Diversity win: these colonists are lesbians!

But I think there is also a lot of potential to be explored in that "what if". If I have a critique of girlnavy it's that it's often limited to fanart or porny one-shots - there is a huge opportunity for world building to really dig into what situations could allow for a "girlnavy" to exist, how these women would relate to civilians/male colleagues/the empire, and how their sex/gender would affect how they handle the challenges they go through.

Fairholme cake for Fairholme Friday @lieutenantfest

Bonus:

please excuse any rigging and colour inaccuracies, i went off a moodboard of various sources for erebus's shapes and colours, as well as a layperson's eye for what i can only describe as many big ropes. there were so many ropes. i don't understand all the ropes.

sailors woolworks (or woolies) were embroidered tapestries that those at sea wove to pass the time and capture the likeness of their vessels. here's a good article if you're keen to read more about them. but the tl:dr; is that they showed ships broadside, full sail. in embroidery terms, the lack of dimensional detail makes them a surprisingly good project for a beginner!!

as i said to a pal, there's something that feels very beautiful and democratised about creating folk art now, in a time when we've put art, and access to it, on such an expensive and exclusionary pedestal.