Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Terror (TV 2018) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Francis Crozier/James Fitzjames Additional Tags: Time Travel, Men Crying, Angst Word Count: 2,057 Summary:

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.

1) what makes the story of the Franklin expedition a compelling one to tell for me, especially as it has been done in the terror, is the ideological and social framework which forms the underpinning of how and why the expedition happened and how and why it went (or may have gone since the terror is a fictional story in many ways) the way it did.

2) you can't turn the crew into "girlnavy" without tearing that fabric apart. To go into more detail on this: no situations can exist within victorian england to allow middle class english women to be on these ships as women. the gender norms and hierarchies are too rigid – I was fighting for my life with Gaskell re: the fall out of so much as Margaret's standing in front of Mr Thornton to protect him from the strike, and later her being out at dusk alone with A Man – the changes required to the society to create a special class as the one you suggest would either render it unrecognisable or create so much cognitive dissonance they'd require, at least what to me feels like, an inordinate amount of suspension of disbelief. (As an aside this is also how I feel about Bridgerton with its POC are totally accepted in society!!! stance.)

I will concede however that victorian england is an area of great interest to me, so I may be the doctor who can't watch medical shows because of the inaccuracy here 😇 we each have our bugbears and each can suspend disbelief where others can't.

All of this said, though, how you position it at the end IS indeed more compelling (on the condition one is able to suspend disbelief). However, while I have never gone out of my way to look for girlnavy stuff, 99% of what I have seen for it has been of the fanart / just take the everyone is women as given and don't worry about it variety, which for the above reasons holds the least appeal of it all to me.

CHERNOBYL (2019) → 1x02 Please Remain Calm