#british hubris

[kattidiot]

Quillsh Wammy/hardtack stimboard

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[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I really love the Lodgers, their designs are so varied and fun. I'm planning on drawing the rest of them as well, they're really good as a warm-up. Cantilupe is probably my favorite here, out of everyone we see she gives me the biggest Classic Mad Scientist vibe (barring Frankenstein and Hyde I think)

Misc thoughts under the cut because I love this comic

I love thinking about what the Lodgers are doing while all the primary plot is happening. Like, Jasper would probably hang out with Lavender and Cantilupe a lot for work stuff since they're cryptozoologists as well. Which is a delightful image to me, because he is an extremely mild-mannered werewolf kid hanging out with two very nice women who have the most deranged job in the world. Lavender is very sweet and all, but I don't believe for a second that you become the caretaker of Cthulus and Leviathans without being a little bit terrifying yourself. If not in personality certainly in skill.

Drawing so many of these guys in a row really made me appreciate some of the subtler design features of the whole cast. Like, almost all of the lodgers I've seen have some sort of protective eyewear on their person. The only one here who doesn't is Helsby, but he wouldn't need them, all of his research would be conducted through other types of equipment that you can't exactly carry around (like the diving suit we see him in just before the exhibition!) All the scientists that work with chemicals or other dangerous substances have rubber or leather gloves. Then, when I was looking at the icon of Arythusa's blog, I realized that we haven't seen Jekyll wear those goggles in the comic. Which makes perfect sense. During the events of the story Jekyll is so preoccupied with the social navigation of keeping the Society running that he doesn't have time to do his own experiments. The only times we see him actively brewing something are spur of the moment, like the cough suppressant, or when he's incredibly sleep deprived like in the flashbacks. That missing element from his design also visually aligns him with Lanyon more than any of the lodgers, which is very neat to me. I don't even know if all of this was on purpose, but it's cool regardless.

[perenial]

Hello just wanted to say I work in a public library and am doing a cold weather reads display this month and I did put the terror on it solely bc of your posts. This is your legacy

absolutely howling over this ask. imagine walking into ur local library and there's a table set up with paper snowflakes and books on like meteorology or something and there's dan simmons' door stopper of a hate crime off to the side staring at u like a ghoulish little easter egg for some guy in australia who will never see it. anon i think im in love with u

[bpdjennamaroney]

i think enough time has passed that we need to be honest. some of the dialogue in succession is wonky. not in a stylistic way. just in a wonky way.

[stevethehairington]

fuckin LOVE a good story about the hubris of man

[hey-scully-itsme]

me when tragic things happen in the tragedy:

[msclaritea]

Now, I see why trolls wanted to keep Robert Downey Jr and his Iron Man character in nonstop rotation, for over seven fucking years. It's because they knew the Goodwill could be used in favor of the film, Oppenheimer. This is pure bullshit, that the CO-STAR OF OPPENHEIMER IS DOING MORE CAMPAIGNING THEN THE LEAD. I hope Downey isn't looking forward to keeping all of that goodwill, after this. It's clear who is running the trolls on Twitter, also. Any other Superhero film gets trashed. Only the Avengers era gets a pass, slipped in Jew JOKES AND ALL!

[pesticine]

British: God save the king.

French: Because we won't.

[melisusthewee]

Me sending out vibes into the universe that now that The Terror is on Netflix, the algorithm will tell people to also watch Society of the Snow.

Especially when the photo used for the Netflix listing looks like something out of 1993's "Alive" which is fucking hilarious to me.

[play-now-my-lord]

FOOD HUBRIS BY COUNTRY america: believes their shitty local burger chain is a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience because their mayo includes onion paste canada: if your poutine tastes better than the styrofoam plate it comes on you will discover the cold rage that lies under the canadian's polite exterior united kingdom: despite thriving and unique fusion cuisines spreading from the UK to the rest of the world in recent decades, when asked to think of 'british food' the average UK citizen will start a fight over whether cold beans with a modest side of white bread is haute cuisine france: McDo Ortolan Bunting italy: extremely mad about american versions of italian food. blissfully ignorant of what happens in brazil brazil: if the scientific genius applied to making cronenbergian pizzas were applied to anything else, brazilians would all be commuting to jobs on the moon. They have pizza that can feel pain russia: obviously mayonnaise is the perfect topping for all foodstuffs, this is solved. The question is what to put on top of mayonnaise, and it might never be answered germany: less a joke than a fact: the single most produced numbered Volkswagen part is a standardized currywurst

[sashasienna]

Haven't seen much about it on Tumblr so I want to yell a bit about Hollows because I'm super excited for it and I think a lot of you nerds will be too.*

*assuming you like two or more of boss fights, TTRPGs, horror, hubris, fun and brutal digs at the british class system

In Hollows, you play hunters who trawl hollows, fucked up zones of surreal horror - falling and trying again and falling and trying again - until you finally manage to defeat the Lord: the source of all the hollow's pain, fear and general Messed Up Shit.

Full disclosure, I am one of the possible stretch goal writers of a whole new Hollow, but that's not why I'm psyched about this game. After coming on board, I tried a playtest version of the game and had a massive grin on my face the entire way through. And I didn't even get to see my own character inevitably succumbing to the very inner darkness they use to fight, becoming a new Big Bad in the process!

It's from RRD, the same folks who did Spire, Heart, Die and Eat the Reich so you know it's gonna be good and annoyingly beautiful. Look, it's just a great game, OK? Maybe check it out on backerkit if you like good things.

[synesindri]

well ok what do i make of the hickey tongue removal

most directly and most importantly, attempted cultural co-option

imperialistic impulse (i would argue specifically in a way that aims to divorce him from the british empire ("our empire is not the only empire") — that does not seem successful even in theory to me but that does seem to be part of the motive anyway)

on a similar note, general rejection of british society/humanity in general? he spent the whole show trying to get to the top of the naval food chain (so to speak), then succeeded and adorned himself in an officer's coat to prove it, but then he takes that off (along with most of the rest of his clothes) thereby removing that symbolism — he has won that game already, in his mind. his speech rejects monarchy, society, and religion. most of his power has come from his silver tongue (as it were), and by removing his literal tongue he cuts himself off from his to-this-point power over humanity because he does not expect to have to affiliate with other people anymore.

same point different angle: he never really shows signs of physical suffering but presumably everybody was by then. and like, idk, if one has spent that long under incredibly awful physical conditions — and longer being socioeconomically disadvantaged and humiliated, even if most of his non-structural social woes he brought upon himself — it's kind of an understandable impulse to be like "i'm over people and i'm over being a person"...his villain speech has a definite "i have never been valued as a person" tone woven through the hubris and cynicism ("bugger [litany of people] — none ever wanted nothing from me")

castration metaphor: mirrored in the literal castration aspect of irving's murder, and supported by the widespread understanding of the mouth as an erogenous zone that the story leans into for hickey specifically (orally consuming a lover, the technical definition of sodomy as including oral sex, the implication i've seen some people suggest that irvings genitals might have been consumed post-removal, etc). i don't have a conclusion about this one but i couldn't resist the freudian siren song of inspecting it RIP

something about the inversion of human flesh consumption...i'm running out of distinct points to make but there's something interesting about a guy who removes and consumes pieces of others' bodies voluntarily doing that to himself

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I came in making some REAL confident statements about the Lodger designs and these guys are just proving me so wrong lmao. I still love them though

I still stand by some of my points about the goggles and gloves? In that it makes the Lodgers uniquely science-y. I also still think that the various states of protective wear tells you something about how each of the Lodgers works. But I don't think it's as important as I had previously thought. Still, in the interest of overanalyzing for fun and because this is just how my brain works, on with the show! I have to remind myself that I'm doing this for fun and because I love this comic and art, not because I'm any sort of expert in design philosophy. Which to be clear, I am extremely not. I'm just a massive nerd. I'm overthinking this

Having gotten farther into the cast, I'm noticing three rough categories that you can put the Lodgers into:

Goggles/Gloves. At least partially geared up for their work.

Aprons! They maybe don't have any specialized equipment on them at the moment, but they do have some coverage.

None of the above! Helsby, Bryson, Flowers, and Luckett apply here. Helsby and Bryson make sense, their work doesn't happen within the Society itself, so they don't need to have any of their gear on them, if it's attached to their person at all. Bryson also has the consideration of being a parody of a pre-existing person, and you don't really want to change up the iconic look too much at risk of losing the joke. Luckett is kind of the same way I think, in that he's a homeopathic scientist. Literally the point is to use as little as possible. Though he should probably invest in some fireproof duds. Not entirely sure about an in-universe reason for Flowers, I think just putting in more detail would've made her feel overstuffed and busy. Sometimes you just gotta go with what looks best on the page!

I keep giving the female Lodgers really fun dynamic poses and then remembering that I have to cover it with their massive skirts lmao

I don't think Luckett is as irresponsible as him flicking fire into who-knows-where implies but I thought the pose was cute, alright? Also the thumbs up is definitely in response to someone asking what he was doing. He did not hear the question, his ears are still ringing. This will continue for at least the next 15 minutes.

Between the umbrella and the rosy cheeks and the candy I feel like Doddle is what would happen if Mary Poppins took over for Willy Wonka. Step 1 is implementing a billion child safety measures and making this madhouse OSHA compliant. But like, in a fun way

[slavicafire]

today at work I fumbled a very simple sentence in the stupidest of ways in front of my slightly flabbergasted british coworkers. fumbling the past participle of "to fly" so bad that it led to me commenting upon someone's hubris in the words of "he fucked a bit too close to the sun"

[follows-the-bees]

Ned Low not only uses the violin as the instrument of torture but he uses humans as well. He strung the violin with the guts of his brother. And he uses torture — his victims — as "music."

Stede observes everything and learns not only about Ned but the crew (mercenaries) he hired.

We see both Stede's strengths and how his way of piracy is always superior then the old ways: in this case: Ned's way. This is something we've seen over and over again and through the crew: Jim's story at the end of S1 to make Fang feel better, the crew showing kindness and mercy to Izzy, etc.

First, Ned comes in and plays with Ed's hair, touching him without his permission, just like several others have done: Izzy and the person at the French party.

During this, Ed uses his experience and starts to get down to the root of Ned: family issues. We see how nonchalant Ed is (whether it's out upon or not), this is not the theatrics of Blackbeard, but rather Ed reacting to another pirate — one we also know he egged on by beating his record. (There's an argument to be made that those raids are also a love letter to Stede., but that's another thread.) He tries to protect Stede just like during the British squad, and earlier when the cannonball goes off.

When they are on deck again, Stede uses all of his strengths. Taking what Ed learned and his own observational skills. He first uses the disgruntled crew to turn against Ned. They bond and even tell personal things about themselves.

This is strike one of using humans — Ned's first instruments of torture — against him. He no longer has mercenaries but he also no longer has the Cat Bandits to torture.

The second strike comes when Stede throws the fiddle at Ned, sending him into the dark depths of the sea. With no humans to torture, the instrument could be useless, but Stede uses it to turn the torture around on Ned. No longer a victim but taking charge of his bullies. It's different than the Badmintons, who came to their own demise by accidental means, instead Ned's comes to his demise but his own hubris and Stede's decision to take his first kill.

This is similar to the French Party, when Stede uses the high societies not-so-classy secrets against them. The same thing happens, they set their own ship on fire. But Stede's reaction after both events is different. He has Ed to be there for him after both though.

I love this scene because we are the strengths of both Ed (not BB but Ed) and Stede together. How besides trying to protect Stede from physical harm, Ed is happy to let Stede take the lead, knowing that he's "got this." He knows from past experience (the French party) but he also trusts Stede and Stede's way of piracy.

[fatehbaz]

The link between warfare and technological innovation has been well documented [...]. World War II was a particularly intense crucible of technological change, and the repurposing of military technologies and industries in the forging of a new post-war consumer [economy] is crucial [...]. Processes of technological bricolage turned the machines of war onto the natural world as global powers competed to cement their economic and imperial hegemony. In Great Britain’s post-war “groundnut scheme” in its East African territories (1946-51), this collision of nature, military hardware, and technical expertise was part of efforts to both produce more fats for the British diet and to demonstrate to the world (most importantly the United States) that, through a newly energized science-led developmentalism, British colonialism still had a “progressive” role to play in the postwar world.

The aim was to produce millions of tons of peanuts across Tanganyika using the latest methods of advanced scientific agriculture. The environmental conditions in the north, where the scheme was to begin, were known to be especially trying, not least the dry climate [...]. But faith in the power of mechanized agriculture was such that any natural limits were thought to be readily surmountable.

The groundnut scheme was to be, as its Director put it in an interview with the Tanganyika Standard, a “war” with nature, and an “economic Battle of Alamein” waged over some three million acres by an army of colonial technicians - many recruited from military ranks - and local laborers, for many of whom the scheme represented their first entry into the wage labor market.

But it wasn’t just the rhetoric of war that was repurposed.

Lancaster bombers were kitted out to survey and discover “new country” in East Africa for agricultural development. [...] [T]ractors and bulldozers from military surplus stores in Egypt proved unable to tackle the hard ground and tough vegetation, so the planners turned to a novel solution: repurposing surplus Sherman M4A2 tanks. The Vickers-Armstrong factory in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne set about rearranging key elements of the tanks’ construction [...]. The tractors, christened “Shervicks” for their hybrid origins, were [...] thought to be particularly suited to large-scale earth-moving and to the kind of heavy duty “bush clearing” that was required in Tanganyika.

Officials sought to dismiss concerns that large-scale bush clearing would have wider environmental consequences, using the well-worn colonial trope that any observed changes in local climate or erosion patterns were due to the “primitive” agricultural practices of the locals, not to the earth-moving practices of the colonists.  [...] As the plants continued to wilt in the sun, [...] [t]he stakes were high. As [J.R.] of the Colonial Development Corporation put it in a letter: “Our standing as an Imperial power in Africa is to a substantial extent bound up with the future of this scheme. To abandon it would be a humiliating blow to our prestige everywhere.” The only option left was to try and bend the weather itself to the scheme’s will, by seeding the clouds for rain. [...] “Balloon bombs” (photographic film canisters tethered to weather balloons) and a repurposed Royal Navy flare gun were used to target individual clouds [...]. The scheme itself has survived as a cautionary tale of governmental hubris, but it is instructive too as a case study of how technologies of war have been turned against other foes.

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All text above by: Martin Mahony. “The Enemy is Nature: Military Machines and Technological Bricolage in Britain’s ‘Great Agricultural Experiment.’“ Environment and Society Portal, Arcadia (Spring 2021), no. 11. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. doi:10.5282/rcc/9191. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Images and their captions are shown unaltered as they originally appear in Mahony's article. Public Domain Mark 1.0 License for images: creativecommons dot org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/]