dyke up or die

We know her name, thanks to teacat's research on the historical Jopson family: Sarah Jopson, nee Goodfellow, born in 1794.

Like most of fandom, I imagine that Thomas got most of his looks from her - it twists the knife of his suffering just that little bit more that whenever he looks in the mirror, he sees his mother's eyes. It also pains him a little that he has no photographic record of her. You'll have to take other people's word for it that she was a great beauty, once.

She had no formal profession, but was always handy, and earned some extra money for the family through making and mending for friends and neighbours. I like the thought of her making little toys for her children, rag dolls and stuffed animals, like the one Thomas has in the picture.

In Thomas' memory, she was a saint - always patient, always calm, always able to handle his father's moody temperament with grace. She raised her children to mind their manners, do their duty and work their hardest, and to have faith that all things that happen are part of God's plan.

Of course, she wasn't a saint but an ordinary human being, with ordinary flaws (for her time period). She tended to repress her emotions and disapprove of anyone showing too much feeling, and passed that down to her children. She was judgemental of anyone she saw as idle or ungrateful. Sometimes she'd take the kids to public hangings (still very much a thing in the first half of the 19th century) as a free day out with a side of moral instruction.

Despite her conservatism, though, she did have a certain streak of romanticism in her - which is why, when her oldest son said he wanted to join the Navy and see the world instead of take part in the family business, she encouraged him. That's one more thing we get from canon, that Jopson feels guilty about having left her to go on the Ross Expedition, but she was the one who told him to go. She was so proud of having an explorer in the family; even in the throes of addiction, in the moments when she was more herself, she would ask Thomas to tell her again of the aurora and the penguins and all the other wonderful things he saw. She never left the south of England herself - his letters home were her window into the all the wonders of the world beyond.

Prompts List

Thursday, Oct 1: Customizable / Robot Maria / Romance

Friday, Oct 2: Sentience / Ash / Comedy

Saturday, Oct 3: Companion / HAL 9000 / Mystery

Sunday, Oct 4: Autonomy / Automaton Nightingale / Horror

Monday, Oct 5: Sensory Input / Jaegers / Fantasy

Tuesday, Oct 6: Labor / AM / Adventure

Wednesday, Oct 7: Shutdown / EVE / Historical

Character Prompt Guide

Robot Maria / Metropolis (1927)

In a dystopian future, the working class toils underground to operate the lavish city of Metropolis. A scheming inventor creates a machine-human in the likeness of the kind-hearted human Maria. His plan: Let Robot Maria pit the classes against each other by instigating chaos in both worlds.

Ash / Alien (1979)

The commercial starship Nostromo is returning to Earth when they encounter a grotesque alien life form. Science Officer Ash begins to act strangely, disobeying direct orders and showing uncanny interest in the creature - What is his real directive?

HAL 9000 / 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

HAL is a sentient supercomputer that controls the spacecraft Discovery One. The crew is on a mysterious mission to Jupiter, but the real danger may come from inside the spacecraft.

Automaton Nightingale / Andersen fairy tale

The Emperor of China enjoys the company of a nightingale who sings him beautiful songs. But when he receives a jeweled nightingale automaton as a gift, he loses interest in the real bird and allows the automaton to sing him to sleep every night…

Jaegers / Pacific Rim (2013)

When colossal monsters emerge from a portal on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, humanity unites to create the Jaegers, giant mecha piloted by a team that shares a mental link. Although non-sentient, each Jaeger is unique in design and as a whole, they represent hope for humanity’s survival.

AM / I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967)

During World War III, each superpower develops a supercomputer to manage weapons and troops. One of them gains self-awareness and absorbs the other two to create an entity called AM. Full of hatred for its creators, it eradicates most of humanity through a nuclear apocalypse. But its revenge isn’t over yet…

EVE / WALL-E (2008)