#medium fics

Imagining the Northwest Passage

This panel posited that perception is an important aspect of imperial control of a thing. This post, while vaguely themed, is about one million percent less serious than any of the legitimately thrilling and insightful academic & theory work floated at camp, so, with my jester’s apologies, here is the connection I draw: two works about the power of naming a thing, one of which also involves a penguin. I won’t say which.

awaken ancient feelings by wildcard_47 (Fitzier, 11k)

animal spirits by attheborder (Crozier & Jopson, 5k)

Interesting and Pathetic Relics: The Franklin Expedition and British Museums

Something Rich and Strange by hangingfire (Goodsir-centric, 18k)

I am a simple man. I see the phrase “garden of forking paths” and I go so apeshit. (Is every museum not in its way that sort of garden?) Anyway, even if you do not share that inclination, this fic is both interesting and pathetic (in the root sense of being rich with pathos) and reflects on museums and evidences.

Blood on the Concrete by pointyshades (Hickeytozer, 22k)

What’s a museum but a heist waiting to happen? (Heck, a colonizers’ museum swollen with stolen artifacts, as so many of the British ones are, is a heist that already happened!)

“This is what you tell them”: Presenting what remains of the Franklin Expedition

cutting steps in the roof of the world

by

TheGoodDoctor

 (Fitzier, 4.5k)

Post-canon, on legacy, and self-determination with the devastating handicap and antagonism of Britishness. So sweet, excellent Sophia, which seemed apropos to me.

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/unwellnessweek

Because this is my made-up reclist and I can do what I want, I’m going to rec the whole of Unwellness Week, a super fun fest that produced a lot of thought-provoking and terrific fic. We’re literally presenting what remains of the Franklin Expedition, every day, mostly on Twitter, in ever more inventive manners!

The Summer of Doug: Douglas Mawson, the Construction of Society, and the Most Underrated Antarctic Expedition Ever!

Since this one’s a little harder to directly seek in Terror fic, I have honored Mertz and Ninnis’s choice of reading material with loose inspiration. (Hey, I said that it was all very loosely related. This is still true.)

contact light by threelions (Fitzier, 3k)

The Hound of the Baskervilles is, I agree, a capital novel, masterfully unfolding a character-driven and atmospherically spooky mystery. This fic is also those, and it’s sci-fi, and epistolary with an artfully crafted Crozier voice.

stiff by TomBowline (Goodsir/Hickey, 3k)

Vanity Fair is a colorful satire of Victorian social roles and the ways in which they get their hooks in each other, with a side of unromantic romance and deconstructing the artistic convention of the hero-protagonist. Just like this fic, which has the excellent logline “lonely rich spinster/handsome scheming servant but they’re both huge bitches.” Is this an admission that Hickey is like Becky Sharp, to me? Maybe a little bit.

(Bonus: I would be remiss not to link the one work in the Mertz/Ninnis tag for Their panel, so let the reclist be not technically a Terror reclist for a moment:

come rain or come shine by saltstreets (Mertz/Ninnis, 2k)

Mertz and Ninnis do not make it to those holidays. Read it and weep. Do I say that too often? Well, make the fandom stop writing such considerately heart-wrenching fics.)

Let’s Talk about Grief, Baby – The Terror, Tragic Fandom, and Anticipatory Mourning in the Age of Climate Grief

Fun fact: I live captioned this one, which is hard to do when you’re dry sobbing a little bit like everyone else attending the talk! I think I already plugged the recordings in this post but I’m going to do that again. Anyway, have some fics about trying to mourn something of terrifying scale! Trying to sleep against the howling of a ghost inhumanly old, and unable to take the final step and completely die! (They both happened to be modern horror series crossovers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

C L O S E by Mothfinder_General (SCP Foundation crossover, Little, 4k) experience, and its decay by attheborder (TMA crossover, Fitzier, 4k)

Next Door to the Promised Land: The Franklin Expedition and National Belonging from Richler to Rogers

I’ve already recced a lot, obliquely or not, about British nationalism, so let’s interpret this theme a little differently and have some tunes. 

Terror & Erebus: This 2006 ambient album themed after the Franklin Expedition is also available to listen on Spotify, and it’s great music to write fic and coldly morb to. Also, consider this post yet another appeal to AMC or whoever is stopping DK from doing it to RELEASE THE TERROR (2018) SCORE, PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU, I’LL PAY MONEY! IF YOU MADE A VINYL, I’D BUY A VINYL EVEN THOUGH I DON’T HAVE A RECORD PLAYER! PLEASE!