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Franklin Expedition Service Records

I have finished transcribing the service records I used for my Franklin Careers project. You can find all the transcriptions on my Franklin Expedition page:

ADM 196/4/181. “Capt Sir John Franklin.”

ADM 196/4/220. “Com Jas. Fitzjames.”

ADM 196/4/373. “Lieut. Graham Gore.”

ADM 196/5/124. “Lieut. Edward Little.”

ADM 196/8/548. “John Smart Peddie.”

ADM 196/8/579. “Stephen Samuel Stanley.”

ADM 196/68/548. “Chas H. Osmer.”

Note that some of these are only officer service records. The midshipman service records are elsewhere.

These service records are all property of The National Archives, Kew, and were obtained from the digital service collection Royal Navy officers’ service records 1756-1931. Transcriptions published under the Open Government Licence (OGL) per The National Archives image reproduction guidelines.

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5-19-25

Today’s Jopson is: betrayed

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Yeah, sure, Joplittle might be a ship that’s just two guys standing next to eachother, BUT I LIKE it when they stand next to eachother.

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Living makes the hands restless; death stills them

Inspired by this fic by @meduseld.

Cross-posted to AO3.

Warnings: Death, scurvy, angst, it’s a polar expedition in the 1800s, no one’s having a good time

Summary:

Thomas Jopson is a restless man.

Looking at Jopson, one might notice that he’s in constant motion. Even when his body is still, his hands continue to move, tidying this, adjusting that. Even as his mind slips into sleep, his fingers find a way to keep dancing.

To anyone looking closely enough to notice, they might dismiss it as a simple quirk brought about by his station. A steward’s work is endless and sloth does one no favours. But in truth, Jopson has always been this way. His childhood was a whirlwind of movement, kept alive by the restlessness of living and necessity. His position at Crozier’s side simply gives him a reason to stoke it.

HMS Terror is large, but it’s also full of men. Jopson frequently finds himself becoming frustrated. Frustrated at the lack of space, the need to keep his back straight and his feet still. Frustrated at the feeling of being hemmed in from all sides.

He tells himself he’s content to let his eyes roam, darting from one thing to the next. He tells himself it’s enough during those long evenings standing at Captain Crozier’s back. It’s enough. It is enough.

But even more frustrating than the immobility is the cold. The way it slips under his skin and freezes the joints in his slender fingers. On the worst days, he finds them hard to move. Bending them is an effort, almost as if he’s aged overnight.

The absurdity of the notion is almost enough to crack the carefully schooled facade he wears for Crozier— almost . Thomas Jopson is only 30, after all, and the arctic is not known for its maturative properties.

Still, he supposes he’s grateful for it in a way. No one begrudges him a moment to stamp his feet on those long winter nights or to rub feeling back into his own hands when he slips below deck again.

When Crozier announces his plan to kick the drink, Jopson finds himself torn in two. The thought of caring for his captain stirs something in him, something he can’t quite name.

But at the idea of sitting for hours, keeping his body courteously still all the while, his unquiet soul seems to redouble its demands. If he found Terror small, then Crozier’s cabin would surely feel like a cage.

In the end, he needn’t have worried. The quarters are close, there’s no doubt about that, but there is plenty to keep himself busy with. His fingers settle themselves into a comfortable rhythm: neatening the blankets, allowing Crozier a sip of water, combing Crozier’s hair, lifting the spoon and bowl so that Crozier may eat.

Keeping the rest of the crew from disturbing his Captain also proves to be a blessing in disguise, providing him with moments to stand. He relishes in the chance to let the movement flow through him as he shields and shepherds away whoever has come knocking this time.

As the hours tick by, Jopson finds something blooming in his chest. More than a pride in his work, it softens his movements and guides his hand into the gentlest of touches. Sickness and vice are hard on the body, there’s no reason why care should be too. And so he tends to his Captain, gently and carefully and with none of the reserve his work normally demands.

The thought of a walk out does not exactly enthuse Thomas Jopson. He doesn’t know a man who would jump at the prospect of walking hundreds of miles across this God forsaken land of ice and shale. However, it is a merciful excuse to move and to exhaust himself in the moving.

At first, the burn in his legs and back is something he rejoices in, but mile by mile, day by day, he finds something in him weakening. Somewhere deep inside him, his body is losing its grip on itself.

He tries to put the feeling aside. He is merely tired, unused to the demands of such a wasteland.

But the body has a way of making itself heard. The loosening within him is growing greater by the day, and Jopson soon finds himself unable to walk any longer.

Frustration nestles itself in his marrow, curling up against that great beast the crew calls scurvy. Is this how his mother felt? How Crozier felt? Or is he alone in feeling this great helplessness?

Laying there, watching his Captain attend to him, sends shame and guilt running through him. Thick and cold, it pools in the very parts of him that ache the most. It finds a home beside the frustration, chilling him from the inside out. Laying there, he feels it guiding the jaws of scurvy to the scars on his back. He feels it watching, watching, watching as every hurt opens anew.

If the restlessness is a fire then it is surely burning low now. There are no more days in this hell he finds himself in. There is no more movement. No more Captain. There is nothing but absence and the unyielding bite of scurvy.

And then there is no one at all. The restless living have left him behind.

Even as his body fails him, Jopson continues to move. His fingers are clawing, reaching, grasping, desperate to catch a hold of his dear Captain. He can hear his torso dragging over the shale, with his legs following somewhat reluctantly behind.

The cold is biting, the movement agonising, but nothing could be worse than the misery of being still. The restlessness has become a great burning in his fingertips. The last moments of living setting him alight. Under it, something else burns—something thick and cloying.

And so Jopson crawls, broken and abandoned. He crawls and he crawls and he crawls.

He wants to scream, but he can’t. His voice seems to have run off.

Frustration gives way to fury. He’s 31, for Christ’s sake! If he could just sit up, if he could just stand, then they’d see. They’d see that he was just as restless as the day he was born. They’d come back for if only his legs would listen to him.

It’s getting harder to crawl. Hunger, or something like it, is gnawing at him. His body isn’t listening to him anymore. The burning urge to move has charred his nerves, making it hard to tell where he is anymore.

But Captain Crozier is right there. He hasn’t left him behind! If Jopson could just stand up, if he could just raise his head a little higher, then his Captain will see him. If he could just—

It’s then that Jopson finally dies. If Crozier had been watching, he might have been struck by Jopson’s stillness. The sight is unnatural, uncanny, like a marionette whose strings have been cut. His fingers are frozen in some poor imitation of movement, robbed of the fire that kept them dancing. They do not move even to tuck the strand of hair that’s escaped it’s place behind his ear and now hangs across his face.

And what a still face it is. All the living has go out of it. All the restlessness that defined Thomas Jopson has fled. Even his eyes have gone still.

But Crozier isn’t watching.

No one is.

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My favorite moment from The Terror is Jopson on the table, and I would say “everyone go watch Jopson on the table”, but the thing with Jopson on the table is that you have to build to it, and know who Jopson is, otherwise it’s just some guy dying on a table. Which is the experience I had when watching the first time because I didn’t learn a single character’s name or face

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at first i was like oh so jopson’s christian name is thomas? hm i don’t know if that suits him but okay that’s fine i guess. he’s more jopson than thomas anyway. and now i’m like did someone mention thomas my close personal friend thomas jopson who could not possibly be more of a thomas tommy boy good old tom thomasin jopson. the only thomas in the world actually

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lady of sorrows

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Here me out…. Mavuika x Faruzan. They’re both living outside their time but unlike Futuna, they weren’t around to see their loved ones grow old and die. They’re both missing a huge chunk of time but neither let this grief get in the way of their life’s work (Mavuika saving Natlan and Faruzan’s study of mechanisms and ancient texts).

I can see them letting each other info dump about their passions and their old lives in the past.

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"the lonely one offers his blade too quickly to whomever he encounters."

🦚

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Jayce and his big 5 kilo head.....

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wolf

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Faruzan headcanons

Some Faruzan headcanons because I love to yap.

Warnings: Angst, mentions of trauma, spoilers for Faruzan’s backstory

She can’t sleep during thunderstorms. Faruzan has no problem owning her fear of thunder, but she’s too embarrassed to admit that it bothers her enough to prevent her sleeping.

She can be a bit of a literary snob. Whilst she’s glad to see so many new authors on the scene, she feels that standards have dropped since she disappeared—and she’s not afraid to make her thoughts known.

She can be snobbish about most things, but much of it is just bravado to push down the grief she feels when she’s reminded of how much has changed.

When Faruzan comes across merchants trying to pass off junk as mysterious antiques, she likes to play dumb at first. The look on their faces when she reveals the truth is priceless to her.

Despite putting on a brave face, Faruzan takes students’ refusal to enrol in her classes quite personally. She doesn’t understand why no one else seems to share her passion for her field.

She hates it when people ask her about her disappearance. Not only is it a painful reminder of everything she lost, but she also resents being reduced to this one event. She’d much rather talk about her work and avoid the pity of those around her.

That being said, she does like to hear the theories people come up with. Fiction is almost always more exciting than real life, after all. Sometimes if she’s in the mood, she’ll play along with the more far fetched ideas.

Faruzan believes that prose exists to elevate a story. As such, she can’t stand to read novels that use a more utilitarian or “window pane” writing style.

She always has at least 3 books on the go at once.

She occasionally still has nightmares about the ruin she was trapped in. When she wakes up, she struggles to remember anything but the feeling of being trapped in those cold stone walls.

Exploring ruins can still be traumatic for her. The deeper she goes, the more on edge she becomes, often snapping at those with her.

She still likes to solve puzzles, but prefers to do so in the company of others, lest she become locked away again for another 100 years.

She cannot stand people who intentionally spread misinformation and will chew them out at any opportunity. It also rubs her the wrong way when people take everything at face value, but to a lesser extent.

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Finished the Viktor piece in time for his birthday!

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“My berries cluster black and thick

For rich and poor alike to pick.

I’ll tear your dress, and cling, and tease

And scratch your hands and arms and knees.

I’ll stain your fingers and your face,

And then I’ll laugh at your disgrace.

But when the bramble-jelly’s made,

You’ll find your trouble well repaid.”

~The Blackberry Fairy, Cicely Mary Barker

Thought I’d posted the finished one, but apparently not.

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Weightless

Implied JayVik? Jaybe, jaybe not. 🤭 This is pretty self indulgent, but what’s the point of a chronic illness if I can’t live vicariously through canonically disabled characters?

Cross-posted on AO3.

Content warnings: very minor spoilers for Arcane season 1

Summary:

When Jayce and Viktor’s experiments result in them floating 8ft above the ground, Viktor’s thoughts aren’t on focused on their achievement but something else entirely.

The first thing Viktor notices is not the blue glow that cradles Jayce’s face. It’s not the 8ft drop to the ground below him. It’s not even the crystal in front of him.

It’s the pain in his leg, or rather the lack of it. A dull ache still radiates through his joints, but that agonising, all consuming beast that gnaws at his bones is gone.

It’s gone.

The realisation is a wave, crashing over him, robbing his lungs of air. It forces its way into his chest. Constantly pushing outwards, it fills his soul; it becomes him.

But it’s not painful. It is joy.

Is this how Jayce feels like all the time? Is this what it feels like to be well? Is this how he felt once?

His thoughts chill him; a reminder of what was lost, what is still to be lost, what was stolen by that microscopic change in his DNA and the circumstances of his birth. However, even their icy touch is incapable of extinguishing the elation burning in his chest.

The knowledge of what they’ve done comes second. It creeps in like a shadow: scratching slowly, softly at the back of his mind.

It isn’t until Jayce sends a gear spinning across the space that it finally digs its claws in. Watching the gear warp and wobble through the crystal’s field unscathed, the thought finally solidifies.

This is not a miracle; it’s real.

Viktor has never shared Jayce’s fascination with magic, but this—this—is something he can believe in. The sleepless nights, the needle-thin cuts on the pads of his fingers, the endless push-and-pull with the council; it’s finally worth something. The look on Jayce’s face tells him he feels the same.

Perhaps it’s the triumph colouring his vision, but Jayce looks different. The soft blue of the crystal’s magic has enveloped him, washing his skin clean of the lab’s grime and stress. It pools in his eyes, twinkling where the hazel colour is normally shines brightest.

He doesn’t know it yet, but this moment changes something in him. Something deep and hidden and not entirely unwanted.

But that’s a problem for another day. Heimerdinger’s voice is floating up to him; his words just as weightless as Viktor’s body.

“Will you please stop hovering?”

“I’m not sure how to do that, sir.”

Even if Viktor was sure, he doesn’t know that he’d want to. Up here, the pain in his leg can’t reach him—nor can the petty squabbling of the council. Up here, he is more free than he’s ever been, and the very thought of coming back down feels like being robbed.

But what goes up must come down. Their descent is not nearly as groundbreaking as their ascent. In fact, it’s rather unceremonious, with the impact sending an even bolt of pain through his body as if to punish him for escaping it—even for just a moment. But the joy of weightlessness stills burns deep with him, and even the pain in his leg cannot snuff it out now.

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DAMN

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i was so scared for him