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X-Men Mamma Mia au

“Casting” is below the cut. vvvv

Donna- Scott Summers

Sophie- Rachel Summers

Sky- Betsy Braddock

Sam- Emma Frost

Bill- Jean Grey

Harry- Madeline Pryor

The Dynamo’s are coming up soon, so stay tuned!!

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My glasses always being dirty is a cool YA character trait and NOT something that annoys me all the time.

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i fucking hate when people attribute a lot of the good stuff about indigenous culture to some inexorable Race Quality.

as if having a sustainable, beneficial, harmonious relationship to the land is due to some sort of Magic Race Genes. I mean it's a continuation of the idea that indigenous people couldn't have possibly done all this cultural stuff themselves so it must be hardwired into their biology.

its literally just racism and essentialism.

it's so gross and yet i keep seeing people make this mistake

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Mandible NgLj-2:226

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I'm reading a book about how they found HMS Terror and they're talking about all the artifacts the Inuit found and they keep mentioning silverware. Like multiple engraved silverware and other sets. I feel like it's such a strong symbol of these imperialists clinging to the concept of "civilization" that they would lug around these heavy and useless sets of silverware.

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The thing about the “for our economy” scene with Silna and Goodsir isn’t just that he’s complacent in the colonialist violence he is guilty of, it’s that he’s resigned to it. I think he’s aware of the bleak absurdity of trying to explain to a woman from the other side of the world that strangers arrived and murdered her father for the potential that someone else might maybe make some more money some day, I think he feels it it is inevitable. Surely he knows that even if he’d stayed home, someone would be there explaining this to her or someone like her because The Empire was set on Expanding Forever; that’s the nature of colonialism and its bestie capitalism. Certainly he is much more jaded by the end of the expedition than he is at the beginning, but I don’t think he jumped on the ship a twinkle-eyed idealist, naive to violence. Maybe he believes the expedition is for The Greater Good, the way Adventure and Discovery are so often romanticized in the western world (which is of course itself a product of colonialist propaganda a la Manifest Destiny and The White Man’s Burden etc etc and shouldn’t go unexamined), but he’s not, ya know, stupid.

The thing about Goodsir is that he is an anatomist. He’s cut up 20 dead people. Doubtless he’s watched the autopsies of many more. In order for him to do his work, which I think most of us would argue is important and justified, people have to die. Maybe illegal autopsies and anatomy lessons performed on stolen bodies were for the greater good but they were still exploitation. Maybe an autopsy is done for the good of the living (making sure the crew won’t get sick from a yet undetected illness) but it comes at the cost of a life (David Young, afraid to die, begging to go to his grave in one piece).

Goodsir feeds Jacko (who is a symbol herself of colonialist disruption and theft) the tinned food knowing it will kill her if it is indeed contaminated but he knows that she will die either way if it is, regardless of if she eats or not. If the crew succumb to lead poisoning and there is no one to care for her, she will still die. He makes that calculation and chooses to risk her because then at least he’ll know. And he does it kindly, sweetly even, but he still does it. He covers David Young’s face but he still cuts him open. He loves Silna, but he was part of the party that killed her father. There is no unalloyed good in his world.

He makes the same mercenary calculations later when he chooses to kill himself. He knows he likely isn’t going to live for much longer and makes the choice to take as many mutineers with him as he can for the good of the other party. Once again his work can’t be done without exchanging death for life. As he dies he doesn’t picture other people, he pictures specimens in isolation buuuut they aren’t just any specimens: he pictures a flower, a crystal and a shell - things that grow. They don’t embody “life” the same way one might initially think of life, but they do grow. They can be studied without gore or loss. A flower on a pure white table is the idealization of scientific discovery, a bloodless fetishization of academic examination. He’s fantasizing about animal, vegetable, and mineral in blank isolation; beautiful and simple and uncorrupted and clean. This idealization is a balm, juxtaposed with the imagery of Goodsir: the bathing himself in poison, cutting easily corrupted flesh, bleeding out on a dirty bunk in a dark and dingy tent.

Now what I’m NOT saying is that medical science and colonialism are the same thing and that doctors are the same as The English Empire or whatever - what I’m saying is that I think Goodsir is a way more compelling character if you consider that he is aware of, on some level, the evils of the expedition he is on and makes the calculated choice to participate anyway because he is resigned to exchanging loss for progress. And maybe that doesn’t justify his actions, but it does feel a lot more complicated and interesting than just assuming he has no idea of what he’s participating in. I think he’s much like a lot of western white people, making calculated choices while living on occupied land under the thumb of capitalism, resigned to the reality that we alone can’t stop The Machine: aware but guilty of participating anyway.

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“The place where a young boy once asked me if I was strong enough to shatter the very stars.”

(Well look at me, being productive.)

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Ignoring my own pains and struggles by reading about someone else’s pains and struggles (polar explorers)

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Just finished The Terror, I understand Hamilton fans now

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some of my favorite online resources for nautical/maritime/age of sail things - this is a longish post full of links and i spent a bit of time putting it together from my various bookmarks and collections!! please enjoy!

this blog (christine demerchant) and its many lists of terms and informative pages, for example: sails & rigs & sailing, hull & construction terms, anchors & anchorage, types of boats & ships, points of sail - at the bottom of every page there is a list of books on the topic as well!! this blog is INVALUABLE and has basically everything, and if it doesn't have something it certainly has a link to another blog or a book that has what you need. there's also lot of interesting articles about the author's adventures in making her own sails and building boats and experimenting with sailing. the site is a little difficult to navigate but the information on it is incredible and all very experience-based!!

there's also this blog (roland's model ship building) which is SUCH a delight - it is mostly model ships as the name would suggest but it is an incredibly close look at the little complicated parts of ships and a great resource for the more "how does this look" aspect if a little less "how does this work". my favorite page is the process of building model HMS surprise - it's SO fascinating and even just a quick look through makes visualizing and understanding the physics of it all easier. this in particular is a very good drawing resource for tall ships!

the ever-famous shipindex.org is a completely invaluable resource as well. pretty much anything you want to know about a specific ship can be found here, or at least it makes a spectacular jumping-off point!

another famous resource is falconer's marine dictionary, or: "A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine; Being a Copious Explanation of the Technical Terms and Phrases Usually Employed in the Construction, Equipment, Machinery, Movements, and Military, as Well as Naval, Operations of Ships: with Such Parts of Astronomy, and Navigation, as Will be Found Useful to Practical Navigators" by william falconer and expanded by william burney - the whole text is here online but it can be a little hard to read and understand so i would supplement with the other resources here!

there is also the oxford companion to ships and the sea which i do not have a copy of nor do i have online access to the full text, BUT you can search and find keywords and it will show you excerpts which is surprisingly helpful!! especially good if you don't have time to read the whole dictionary trying to find one specific term.

in the same vein is the oxford encyclopedia of maritime history - same deal as the above and i do not have access to the full text but this is SO useful for looking up specific people and places and ships and battles and such!!! there's TONS of information in this one.

also, a super interesting primary source: digital collections of midshipmen's letters and journals in the united states naval academy!! these are hefty, each link contains a ton of stuff:

Richard Mueller Nixon Letters (1926-1930)

Henry Mylin Keiffer Scrapbook (1907-1911) (one of my favorites of all time, absolutely worth at least a cursory glance)

John Porter Merrell Johnston Letters (1932-1937)

William Frederick Durand U.S.S. Mayflower journal of practice cruise (1879)

Roscoe C. Bulmer Journal (1894-1896)

Josiah G. Beckwith Letters (1853-1855)

this is not my whole collection but it is a fantastic set of jumping-off points and i tried to include the widest & most general databases that i could. if you have a great online resource to add please let me know, and if you have book recommendations i would appreciate those too!!!

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99% of captains abandon ship right before they’re freed from the pack ice. KEEP OVERWINTERING 💯

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Happy Pride Month!! 🌈 And happy birthday to Rictor 💚

Look at my super HOT commission done by @jxthics

He's so gay his first appearance was on pride month ⬇️⬇️

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'The Tempest'. Michele Tedesco. 1888.

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extremely niche fanart time again since jono canonically listens to siouxsie and the banshees

ft rana from #71 of generation x

(original album cover under the cut)

this is one of my favorite album covers(and albums!)

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That specific sickly, weird, mottled green color that appears when two mirrors are reflecting each other into infinity is so fucking beautiful… I love you weird nasty green of the aether….