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annecoulmanross · 4 years

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Thoughts on “Terror of the Arctic” (2005), aka, “I listened to the Doctor Who audio drama episodes about the lost Franklin Expedition so that you don’t have to!”

Alright terror-friends, this was not how I expected to spend my day, but I have now listened to all eight episodes of the 2005 Doctor Who Audio Drama series “Terror of the Arctic,” featuring all of the ~ familiar ~ icy ~ boys ~ meeting the infamous Doctor.

With arguably more horrifying sexist/racist content than the 2007 Simmons novel, this audio drama actually predicted a lot of the tropes that Simmons popularized, including ship-board conflicts that escalate to stabbings, the appearance of supernatural creatures from Inuit oral traditions, and even a squick-y romance between Crozier and a much younger Inuit woman.

To clarify, I do not recommend you listen to these episodes. They’re a hot mess, and a really jarring departure from the beauty of The Terror (2018).

HOWEVER I highly recommend you look below the cut for episode-by-episode notes about the first Franklin Expedition adaptation that has well and truly driven me up the wall. So, welcome to the world of “Terror of the Arctic” (2005), featuring:

Crozier, (pronounced "Crow-zee-eyy,”) a polite door-mat of a captain with an agonizing lack of snark and minimal personality beyond “the only white man who can magically fix racism.”

Fitzjames the “proper English officer” who has every prejudice you can imagine – and a couple more you can’t.

Le Vesconte, the irrepressible lad with an inexplicable American accent and extreme boy-scout-gone-crazy energy.

Sgt. Tozer, who has a bad habit of punching people in the face even though his superior officers haven’t yet told him he’s allowed to do so.

Also featuring: Cybernetic Tuunbaq aliens! Complete breakdown of shipboard protocol! Expected amounts of cannibalism! And more! (spoilers, obviously)

Episode 1

– We start with a mandatory brief appearance from the Doctor and his companion Christine. I don’t (initially) hate this iteration of the Doctor – he’s very paternalistic and old-fashioned, but at least the voice actor’s competent. Christine’s voice, tragically, is high-pitched beyond all reason and laced with a variety of odd dialectical features. Some quick research reveals she’s supposed to be a 15 year old from medieval England. She sounds neither like a teenager nor a medieval person. From the very beginning, her character seems very infantilized, and plays into a lot of the Born Sexy Yesterday tropes, even if she and the Doctor aren’t a thing.

– Next, we have Sir John Franklin giving the “we’ve been stuck in the ice for nine months, here’s what you missed” sum-up.

– Sir John’s voice is gravelly 👏 as 👏 fuck; also, I don’t think that the phrase “to sugar-coat it” was a common 1840s expression? Correct me if I’m wrong history folks.

– Crozier shows up to give his “we should start walking out now” speech, minus any passion or conviction whatsoever; he bends immediately to Franklin’s whims. Crozier’s voice is quite high-pitched, and Sir John pronounces his name “Crow-zee-eyy.” (Update: everyone pronounces it this way!!! Uhmmm!) Though I struggle to judge accents, Crozier’s Irish accent sounds... leprechaun-ish. It’s not Jared Harris by a long mile.

– Not gonna lie, I kind of love how much Fitzjames sounds like a posh bastard. He immediately gets into a one-sided shouting match with Crozier and has to be reprimanded by Franklin.

– Lieutenant Irving appears on the scene; I don’t know what Irving’s accent is, but it sure is something.

– All of the officers seem to currently be on the same ship for some reason but I don’t know why. We’ve met Sir John, Crozier, Fitzy, and Irving, and Gore’s been mentioned, as have doctors Peddie and Stanley. And they’re all in the same boat. Guess we’re just ignoring Terror for now?

– Franklin begins narrating as he writes in the log-book: “11th June, 1847.” Oh BOY guess what day it is!!

– RIP Franklin (surprise, surprise). We have no real idea yet how this has happened.

– Fitzjames, talking to Sir John’s mysterious corpse: “Captain, what could have done this to you?”

– Fitzjames: “We have a killer loose on this ship” (Fitz gets ALL the best lines, apparently. Do they make sense? No. Are they hilarious? Yes.)

– Irving is shockingly nonchalant when the Doctor and Christine appear from nowhere out on the ice. Why is Irving so chill when he thinks that these two people are the lone survivors of a DIFFERENT failed expedition?

– Fitz apparently has refused to let Crozier start the walk-out after Franklin died. (Um, that’s not how the chain of command works?)

– We learn that Beechey-boy Braine apparently died of sudden-onset-scurvy. What is sudden-onset-scurvy, you ask? We do not yet know.

– Irving, happily describing their recent course of action: “...Ignoring the advice of our ships’ ice masters...” Oh god Irving don’t sound so happy about that. Blanky’s going to take an ice-axe to your head. (Tragically, Blanky does not appear in this show.)

– Lieutenant Gore has ALSO died of sudden-onset-scurvy. RIP Graham Gore.

– Is the Doctor going to focus on the existence of sudden-onset-scurvy? No, we’re gonna hyperfixate on the high officers-to-crew death rate! And he’s going to infodump about officers’ privileges TO Irving, an officer, and muse about how odd it is that more officers than crew are dying when the officers get all the best food!

– Fitz, the “proper English officer” apparently has managed to get about half the men to refuse to follow the orders of their expedition commander, because he happens to be Irish. Babe, this is a really bad look!

– Irving, our good Christian Irving, just swore “By Jove” in a weirdly sexy voice.

– Tozer has Extreme Deep Voice.

– Irving: “There’s something odd about them I just don’t trust.” Why on earth wouldn’t you trust two strangers who wandered up to you on the ice and asked if you were “human,” John Irving? What’s “odd” about that?

– The Doctor only remembers that he does actually know the events of the Franklin expedition after he reads the entire Victory Point Note.

– Irving has suddenly decided to threaten to shoot the Doctor and his companion. Irving promptly gets attacked.

* jarring transition to triumphant Doctor Who music *

Episode 2

– The ~mysterious~ attack on Irving has left weird wounds on Irving’s neck. I’m calling it, Ice Vampires!

– We have an Edward Little appearance! His voice is so sweet and gentle! And then... “I’ll have Sergeant Tozer shoot you both where you stand!” Okay, maybe not... (Update: Little is, in fact, very awful to several people. As we will see, all of the lieutenants and marines swing between weirdly nonchalant dudes and trigger-happy maniacs.)

– Tozer just punched the Doctor’s lights out, unprompted.

– Crozier: “Good old John Peddie... he’s like a brother to me.” Well THAT’S not a friendship I expected.

– So Dr. Peddie has brought a young Inuit woman in to Crozier’s cabin to have a “lovely chat.” Awkward book!Crozier/Silna energies. The woman’s name is Liak. She speaks with a vaguely Spanish and/or Italian accent.

– Liak: “I have been with my tribe. They would not allow me to come back to see you.” / Crozier: “Why? It’s not because of Fitzjames is it?”

– (It’s not because of Fitzjames. It’s because of evil spirits, obviously.)

– The Doctor, once they get back to the ships, explaining to the higher officers what’s happened: “Mr. Tozer got all excited and could no longer restrain his Neanderthal-like impulse to start clubbing things.” Boy this by show is NOT for Tozer fans. (Note: Tozer is standing right there? In the room? When the Doctor says this?)

– The Doctor just dropped an f-bomb?????????? And not as an expression of shock, but a hard-core sexual use of the f-bomb. Literally, he said “you can let Tozer fuck me again” – did I mishear this????????????

– Irving’s dying words: “I was attacked by a large silver creature with claws!” Wait did Dan Simmons rip off a fan-made 2005 Doctor Who Audio Drama?

– RIP Irving, first confirmed victim of “Tuunbaq the First.”

– Fitzjames is SO racist, throwing around a lot of “savage” and “barbarian” words. Why are you letting this man walk all over you, Crozier?

– Crozier: the first person who has the correct reaction to two weirdos appearing on his boat (aka shock and surprise, rather than worrying nonchalance followed by unprompted extreme aggression.)

– Fitzjames literally laughed after being informed that Irving is dead. (Like Crozier’s bad Raft of the Medusa joke, but SO MUCH WORSE.)

– RIP Ice Master Reid, actual first confirmed kill of “Tuunbaq pre-Tuunbaq,” several weeks ago, apparently??

– Okay so Fitz here is obviously meant to be a horrible person, but I have to acknowledge that he’s making a few good points: (1) the Doctor has admitted that he has a “sailable” ship, and it’s pretty rude of him to not even explain why he’s unwilling to help these dying men, and (2) it’s been bothering me the whole episode that the Doctor hasn’t been calling officers by their titles, and frankly, I do think Fitz is within his rights to demand the Doctor call him “Captain Fitzjames” rather than “Mr. Fitzjames” on Fitz’s own ship. Like, it’s not that hard.

– The Doctor’s first example of “ways the Franklin crew could mess up the time stream” is the insane scenario: “what if one of them married the mother of Winston Churchill.”

– The “Tuunbaq: The Prequel” can talk!!!!!! “Hello meat!!!” it says, gleefully.

– Tozer is just the fucking most. He punched the Doctor AGAIN.

– Crozier just “Mr. Fitzjames”ed Fitz!! And Fitz backed down! Crozier finally grew a spine! Just in time to decide to commandeer the Doctor’s ship.

– The Doctor’s ship inevitably disappears before it can be commandeered. Because of course. (Things and people disappear and get transported to different places and later times all through these episodes for timey~wimey~reasons.)

Episode 3

– A conversation between the two named female characters (Liak and the Doctor’s companion Christine)! What will they talk about? ...Their dead fathers. Ah. Hmm.

– This show is not sophisticated enough to handle a “white man’s disease killed my father” subplot. And yet, Liak’s father died of TB he contracted from the white men. I’m *worried*

– To help Liak overcome the superstitious antagonism of her “tribe” after her father’s death, Crozier apparently gave a bunch of food to the Inuit, which is an... interesting take. (One Irishman’s grand gesture fixes racism!)

– Magical Inuit shaman powers are only inherited through the male line (The racism and sexism in this is palpable.)

– So “Tuunbag Episode I: Revenge of the the Tuunbaq” is actually a larger coalition of aliens, run by a being called “Matriarx.” Can we decide whether woman are powerless victims or power-hungry monsters, please? Both is just greedy.

– RIP Strong (another tragic case of the triple threat: sudden onset scurvy, lead poisoning, AND Tuunbaq attack)

– Wait WAIT the Tuunbaq gave Strong the lead poisoning AND the scurvy by biting his neck and sucking his blood, stealing nutrients and leaving lead in their place: Ice Vampires!! I called it!!!

– Groups of people Fitz has verbally degraded: the Irish, the Inuit, all women, and now “common folk.”

Episode 4

– Le Vesconte’s first lines! He sounds like a Boy Scout, by which I mean he sounds about 16, and has an American accent? Also, Fitz pronounces his name “Leh-vay-cont”

– An AB named “Seeley” is writing an account of the events that are happening, perhaps as this show’s version of Bridgens and/or Peglar? Also Fitz is REALLY opposed to Seeley writing this, because Fitz hates “common folk” that much, apparently?

– RIP Seeley, we hardly knew ye.

– Major episode events: the walk-out begins, leaving Terror and Erebus just as the boats slip into another dimension because of alien reasons (this didn’t age well, now that we have the shipwrecks). Also, there’s an Inuit woman who is in league with the cybernetic-alien-Tuunbaq-vampires.

Episode 5

– As soon as the walk-out begins, the cybernetic-alien-Tuunbaq-vampires begin attacking.

– Boy Scout Le Vesconte: “I have an idea! If bullets won’t stop them maybe an axe will!” I mean, this is stupid enough for our Dundy, but he follows it up with “Murderers! I’ll hack you to pieces!” and rushes them like a child and has to be rescued. (Also Crozier is way WAY more concerned for Le Vesconte than Fitz is, though Fitz leaps into the rescue effort and Crozier... does not do that. He’s doing a lot of standing on the sidelines and bemoaning his dying men.)

– Peddie is basically just Crozier’s all-purpose lieutenant at this point. Little and Hodgson whomst?

– Le Vesconte, Fitz, and Tozer get struck by lightning WHILE fighting the Tuunbaq, and some Frankenstein stuff seems to happen, because Fitz now has the munchies. But like, the ominous munchies.

– Le Vesconte’s in something like a coma. The dumb boy-scout.

– While explaining why the Netsilik have legends about these aliens as “evil spirits,” the Doctor implies that errors in the historical record happen “especially” in oral traditions. Can we stop insulting the Inuit oral historians please?

– The cybernetic-vampire-aliens can mind-control their victims sometimes. Calling it now: Fitzjames is under the mind-control already.

– Liak is revealed to possibly be in cahoots with the aliens, because she has a necklace that her sister gave her that’s actually an alien tracker.

– Fitzjames, upon learning that Liak may be in league with aliens, attempts to physically kill her with his bare hands, and has to be restrained.

– Crozier hears murmurs about mutiny, and assigns this poor Marine named Hopcraft to find out more about the mutiny and report back to him. Next morning: RIP Hopcraft, first victim of the “we’re knifing each other” stage of events (aka this show’s Irving.)

Episode 6

– Lieutenant Little, who got separated from Fitzjames and Crozier, tries to comfort ship’s boy Chambers, whose use of the term “panic attacks” is a little anachronistic; a small gripe in the grand scheme of things.

– The Tuunbaq-aliens attack Little’s camp and wipe them all out, leaving Little to the last. Edward Little, a British Christian naval officer in the 1840s, gasps out “I’ll see you in Hades” as his dying words. (Someone write me Little/Irving neo-pagan fanfic for this mess?)

– The Doctor is playing detective, trying to solve Hopcraft’s death. He finds footprints, and both Liak and Tozer are missing.

– The Doctor calls attention to Tozer’s “enormous feet.” Weird.

– We have our first cannibalism! Perpetrated by Tozer, and uhhhh oh great we’re eating Dr. MacDonald for dinner tonight.

– Le Vesconte woke up from his coma just in time to brain Tozer to death.

– The Doctor: “There were no women’s bones at any of the sites [of the lost expedition remains]” that’s a hilarious comment given that one study suggesting as many as four female skeletons.

– RIP Le Vesconte, from his wounds, offscreen!! Nooo!!

– Tozer (and Fitzjames, and a few others), because they all got struck by the lightning, now have Frankenstein’s cannibalism curse. They all hunger for human flesh.

– Fitzjames is now a sneaky murderer-cannibal who manages to gain Crozier’s trust before turning around and trying to butcher him. As least my evil boy is smart?

Episode 7

– The big bad reveal: it’s Liak’s secret evil sister! (Just like Season 4 of Sherlock!) She’s been helping the Tuunbaq-aliens the whole time because she hates white men! Because they gave her dad TB and one of them broke her heart! Thanks, it’s bad!

– The Tuunbaq-aliens eat Liak’s sister anyway because they do not care.

– Liak, Crozier, the Doctor, and Christine are left to defeat the Tuunbaq-aliens.

– Fitz feels a little bad about eating people I guess? Also Fitz is “weak” and can’t resist his hunger and all those fun tropes.

Episode 8

– Fitzjames gets a redemption arc via heroic self-sacrifice narrative, complete with death via horrid gurgling. “He sacrificed himself in a last act of humanity.”

– The Doctor agrees to give Crozier a lift to somewhere a bit further south, on the assumption that Crozier will settle down with Liak and live with some “tribe” of other Inuit people that neither of them have ever met.

– There’s a parting joke about Crozier enjoying drinking wine that did NOT age well.

And that’s all, folks! Hope you... enjoyed?

#the terror #the terror amc #terrorposting #not putting a dw tag here #because im being really mean about this #and if you're a fan of the dwad i'm sorry #not my jam but whatever makes you happy #franklin expedition fictions #just to be safe #cannibalism cw #murder cw #sexism cw #racism cw #fitzjames abuse cw #they butchered my boy

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xx-obliviousfantasy-xx · 4 years

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Step one: Buy the lego pirates of Barracuda set

Step two:

Make the one who looks like Asami, Captain. Step three, give the one who looks like smee with a blue cap, second in command.

Three: Make Asami character fall in love with blonde with green vest lego piece. They are gay. They rule the seas together and live the bisexual pirate dream

The one who looks like Asami is named Elenore Elizabeth. The blonde one is named Karoline but they call her Kara.

In fact, all of them are gay except the one with a shovel. Their name is Steve. They are aro and best friends with the one who looks like smee who is also non-binary.

Wait I explained that wrong

Steve is is agender

And The one who looks like smee is gender fluid

Anyways

The topless one is bisexual and named Rogelio and falls in love with a beautiful merman.

The one with an axe is named Steve. He's the second steve on the ship. He's dating Aswin, the one who looks like smee.

The one with a parrot is actually just the the supportive dad of the blonde girl. He's cishet but this ship accepts everyone His name is Dan.

The one with the map is pan and enjoys swords. He used to belong to a different crew but then they left him to die. So now he's here. His name is Cesar.

All of them listen to the Torture Dance song on repeat. They do the dance at least once a day.

They also enjoy We've Got Scurvy which P!nk sang and You are a Pirate from Lazy Town.

#pirates life #pirate #pirate ship #lego #legopirates #legos #bisexual pirates #lgbtq #lgbt #headcanon #obliviousfantasy633 #obliviousfantasy

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entwinedmoon · 4 years

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John Torrington: Redshirt

(Previous posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

“I'm expendable. I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove the situation is serious.”

–Guy Fleegman, Galaxy Quest

After the exhumations of Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine, and the subsequent publication of Frozen in Time, there was a fresh wave of literature inspired by the photographs and findings from Beechey Island. Novels, short stories, and poems either attempted to recreate what had happened to the expedition according to the latest findings or incorporated this new information in some other way. Some feature Torrington, while some just use certain aspects of the findings, such as the remarkable level of preservation or the lead poisoning theory.

I have read only a handful of the many literary works about the Franklin Expedition that have been published since the exhumations on Beechey Island, so I can’t speak for every novel, poem, or other form of literary composition that has come out since then. For the purposes of this post I decided to focus only on works that feature Torrington himself, and even then, I haven’t had a chance to read every work that does. There may be some that have a completely different take on the story and depict Torrington in a way not seen in the works that I will be discussing, but those will have to wait for another day. For this post I can only focus on the fraction of Franklin-related literature that I have been able to read so far, and if I leave out something that people think is a must-read, I apologize. But feel free to let me know what it is, because I love reading new interpretations of the expedition’s story.

(Unless you’re here to tell me about the Marvel comics character Pestilence, a supervillain who is actually Francis Crozier, preserved in ice for over a hundred years. He’s still alive but he’s gone mad and has magic for some reason. And he can possess other people. Pestilence was first introduced in 1986, and yes, him being frozen in ice was obviously inspired by the exhumation of Torrington. Now, let’s never speak of this again.)

I’m going to start with the various novels that have attempted to tell the story of the Franklin Expedition. FYI, there will be some spoilers, but mostly the spoilers will be about Torrington and other crewmembers dying, which shouldn’t really be a spoiler at this point.

Before I get into the specific books, though, I’ve noticed that there are certain themes in many of these stories, particularly involving Torrington. As his illness and death is a known point during the timeline of the expedition, he inevitably gets a mention in many of these works, but since he died so early in the expedition, he rarely has a major role in the overall story. Not only that, Torrington’s characterization is typically absent altogether. He’s generally depicted as a variant of the Victorian waif—pale and thin and doomed to die—and rarely does he get any dialogue or development. He’s first blood, a harbinger of things to come, but almost never a character on his own. He’s simply there to die, like a redshirt in Star Trek.

I have often flipped through books to see where Torrington comes in, wondering if he’ll be given something to do before he passes, and more often than not I have been disappointed. His death is always included because we know he died, and if it were left out it could be seen as callous at worst or inaccurate at best, yet his inclusion sometimes feels more like the author simply checking something off a checklist. Enters Lancaster Sound, check; winters at Beechey Island, check; Torrington dies, check. Sometimes there might be a funeral, where the main characters speak of Torrington as if he’s been there the entire time and wasn’t just first mentioned only two paragraphs ago, perhaps with Franklin orating the first of many eulogies (“We have lost one of our own today, a fine sailor named John [looks at smudged writing on his hand] Turlington…”).

But one thing that Torrington usually gets is a brief mention of his burial clothes. Since we know what he looks like in death, there’s often a description of him in his coffin, perhaps a mention of his youth, small stature, and wasted appearance. His illness usually gets a mention too—and sometimes he gets berated postmortem for going to sea while sick.

Of course, since Torrington dies only seven months into the expedition, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t have much to do in most stories, but I do wish he could at least have a little more of a role before taking his final bow. It would make his death more meaningful if he was a known character and not just a name in a long list of people who are about to die.

For a deeper dive into how Torrington is typically depicted in novels about the Franklin Expedition, I’m going to start with the most mainstream of the books I’ve read—and also the most inaccurate. That would be The Terror by Dan Simmons, a story that posits what if, rather than starvation, scurvy, illness, and lead poisoning killing off the crew, there was also an evil magical bear bent on their destruction. The book was recently adapted into a television series on AMC, and I watched the show first. I loved the show—it was very well done, despite the evil bear—so I read the book. The book…well, it had some good parts to it, but also some incredibly ridiculous parts and some incredibly offensives ones too. I won’t get into a full review of the book, though—I’m just here for Torrington.

Torrington doesn’t get mentioned until his death in The Terror. In fact, the sentence introducing him is “John Torrington, stoker on HMS Terror, died early this morning.” His slow decline from consumption is described, while also saying that he had obviously been in the advanced stages of the disease when he signed up for the expedition. There’s an aside about how ironic it is that Torrington’s doctor had told him going to sea would be good for his health, something that isn’t based on a known fact about Torrington, but getting away from Manchester and into fresh air may have been part of Torrington’s intent when signing up. Judging by the state of his lungs, he probably had difficulty breathing in the thick smoke of industrial Manchester, so it’s not so far-fetched to think he may have wanted a change of scenery to improve his health.

The dressing of his body for burial, descriptions of the clothes and bindings we know so well from the exhumation pictures, and a brief recap of his funeral get described in just a few pages. The image of him in his striped shirt sticks out in the memory of Dr. Goodsir (who is writing this down in his diary), an image that anyone who is familiar with the Franklin Expedition would know very well. But that’s about it for Torrington in this book. His name does pop up a few more times, though, because Captain Crozier has a habit of going over the names of the dead to himself, assessing how many men he has lost at different points throughout the book. Torrington as part of a list of the dead is mostly how we see him in The Terror.

In the TV adaptation, Torrington doesn’t appear at all, because the show picks up after the ships have left Beechey. The men who died at Beechey are mentioned a few times, usually as a group—referred to as “the men on Beechey” or some variation of that—with only John Hartnell being mentioned by name. Torrington, however, does get a visual sort of reference when one of the ship’s boys, David Young, dies in the first episode. During his burial, his coffin accidentally comes open, and his burial clothes look very reminiscent of the famous photos of Torrington.

Alfie Kingsnorth, the actor who plays David Young, looks a lot like Torrington, making this image extra eerie. In fact, I started watching the show because I saw a screencap of the burial and thought it was Torrington. When I realized that Torrington wasn’t in the show, I was disappointed, but I ended up loving the show anyway.

The next book I want to discuss is a novel that tried to do what The Terror did but without the monster. Robert Edric’s book The Broken Lands tells the story of the Franklin Expedition from the point of view of Commander James Fitzjames of the Erebus, third-in-command of the expedition. Fitzjames seems to be a popular point-of-view character since another book I’ll be discussing in this post is also from his perspective. Fitzjames is an interesting historical person, particularly if you’ve read Battersby’s biography of him, although that was published long after The Broken Lands came out. Being from Fitzjames’s point of view, however, means that the story focuses mostly on what happens on Erebus, which means Torrington, leading stoker on Terror, wouldn’t have had much of a role no matter what.

At least in this book Torrington does get mentioned before his death, but only just. When the ships are wintering on Beechey, it’s mentioned that two men become ill, Torrington and John Hartnell. Since Hartnell died only a few days after Torrington, they would have been ill around the same time. However, rather than showing signs of tuberculosis followed by pneumonia as the killing blow, Torrington and Hartnell suffer symptoms that get mistaken for scurvy but then are assumed to be some form of food poisoning. Torrington dies while Terror’s doctor, John Peddie, sits with him, but there’s not much to the scene. He and Hartnell get buried on the same day after a snowstorm delays their burials. Hartnell gets more attention here because of his autopsy, and there’s no mention of striped shirts and bound limbs.

But that’s not the last we hear of them. In the next chapter, it’s discovered that some crewmembers had been pilfering from the canned food supply. William Braine gets flogged for his part in the scheme, and he starts showing symptoms similar to Torrington and Hartnell. Braine then confesses that Torrington and Hartnell had also been involved in stealing canned foods, and the doctors jump to the conclusion that the canning procedure must be responsible for the illness and deaths of these three men. So instead of going with the known causes of death of tuberculosis and pneumonia, in this version of the story the Beechey Boys die of lead poisoning and only lead poisoning. That bothers me not only because it completely ignores the actual cause of death, but because it makes Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine criminals, stealing food from the ship’s stores. I guess this was Edric’s attempt at explaining why these three men had such high levels of lead so early on in the expedition, but this explanation doesn’t work for me because it ignores a lot of other things in a struggle to make certain puzzle pieces fit. I admit, I got a little overprotective when I saw Torrington being accused of something like this and started ranting about it to my sister—despite the fact that I have no idea what sort of person he was actually like, and he’s been dead for over hundred seventy years, so he doesn’t really need me to protect him from purely fictional accusations. But still…

The other novel from Fitzjames’s perspective is North with Franklin by John Wilson. This is set up as a lost journal written by Fitzjames, using some of the known letters and journals written by the real life Fitzjames as a jumping off point. In these fictional journal entries, there’s a mention of a man in sickbay with signs of consumption in August, and there’s an aside wondering why he didn’t inform anyone about his illness prior to setting sail. However, since this is the sickbay on Erebus, this must be a reference to Hartnell, not Torrington. But it’s a hint at what’s to come for both of them. An update on the consumptive man in November confirms that it’s Hartnell, his condition getting worse, and then it’s mentioned that the leading stoker on Terror is suffering the same. Again, Fitzjames wonders why Hartnell and Torrington didn’t mention their condition before setting sail, calling their weakened lungs a “death warrant” in the Arctic. There’s another update in late December about their worsening condition, until they both succumb. Out of the three books discussed so far, this is the most that Torrington has been mentioned pre-death, but he says not a single word.

Torrington’s death, taking place on New Year’s Day, brings down the happy celebrations of the crew. Again, it’s mentioned that Torrington should never have undertaken the journey with his illness, as if it hasn’t been driven home enough that he and Hartnell had probably been showing symptoms when they first boarded and should have reported it. Torrington’s burial clothes get an overview, with his short, emaciated appearance being compared to that of a child. He gets a funeral, with Franklin presiding.

The repeated mentions of how Torrington and Hartnell should have declared their illnesses before sailing on the expedition almost comes off as blaming them for their early demise. Realistically, of course, they probably had noticed some early symptoms before leaving England. But how bad were those symptoms? Were they enough to make them think they had a disease that would prove fatal? Did they realize that they wouldn’t be coming back, or did they shrug it off as just another cough? Torrington had bad lungs anyway, so maybe he didn’t notice when his black-lung-coughing changed into tuberculosis-coughing.

John Wilson wrote another book about the Franklin Expedition, this one for young adults, called Graves of Ice. This book is from the point of view of one of the ship’s boys, George Chambers. Chambers was assigned to the Erebus, so the main action happens on that ship once again, which means Torrington barely appears. Again. William Braine, however, befriends Chambers and gets far more dialogue and development than Torrington or Hartnell in any of the previous books—or this one—combined. Braine actually gets to defend his actions by saying his lungs had always been weak, and he thought the cold might do them good, explaining why he didn’t bother declaring any illness before setting sail. In real life, Torrington probably felt the same way, but he doesn’t get to stand up for himself here. In a prime example of dramatic irony, Braine calls Torrington an idiot for signing up while sick.

Torrington and his illness get mentioned the same day he dies, just shortly before Dr. Peddie informs Franklin of Torrington’s passing. His death gets called a bad omen among the crew. His burial gets a brief mention, but there’s no lingering on the image of his body in its coffin, or any mention of it even. He has no lines once again, nor does George Chambers ever meet him. At least one crewman admits that there are many men on board with lungs as bad as Torrington, as if to soften the accusation that Torrington should have known better, but it doesn’t soften it by much.

In all four of these books Torrington has had zero lines of dialogue. He gets sick, he dies. That’s it. There’s another book, a self-published one that came out this year, that I had hoped may do better by him. That would be Toward No Earthly Pole by Jonathan Schaeffer, which is from the point of view of James Thompson, the engineer on Terror. Being the engineer, Thompson would have interacted with Torrington a great deal, so I’d hoped I would get to see Torrington fleshed out more as a real character, but sadly that was not to be. Torrington does get mentioned more before his death than in other books, but it’s mostly in superficial interactions where anyone could have stood in instead, such as Torrington pointing out a polar bear.

Near the beginning of the story, Thompson gives a rundown of each stoker, giving Torrington a less-than-stellar description as a weakling, saying that, “He comes across as an old man resigned to his lot in life.” But Thompson does remark that Torrington is handsome, which isn’t really that important, but it is mentioned multiple times in the text. I guess the point was to emphasize that Torrington was cut down in the prime of his young, handsome life, but it comes off as a little awkward.

Torrington apparently has no friends in this interpretation of the story, and only Thompson seems to visit him when he gets sick. The day before he dies, Torrington, in a delirium, says some incomprehensible sentences, ending on an ominous “…do not belong here,” a phrase that Thompson initially interprets as meaning that Torrington realized he didn’t belong there, but that over the course of the expedition Thompson comes to think means the entire expedition didn’t belong there. Torrington gets the usual drawn-out illness coverage, unsurprising death, and a mention of his burial. He also becomes an omen that gets mentioned again as the situation grows worse. Even though Thompson would have been one of the crewmembers to interact with Torrington the most, Torrington still doesn’t get much development as a character.

However, there is one retelling of the Franklin Expedition that gives Torrington quite a bit of development. That would be Kristina Gehrmann’s graphic novel Im Eisland (or Icebound in the English version). I previously discussed Im Eisland in my last post about Torrington in art, but now I’d like to focus on the writing rather than the artwork. Torrington is actually introduced as if he’s going to be a major protagonist of the story, and for a time he does play a large role. We get a glimpse of a sweet little romance between him and his fiancée (we don’t know if Torrington was engaged to anyone, but there’s no evidence that he wasn’t either), and he develops a warm friendship with Thomas Evans, one of the ship’s boys, whom he teaches to read. Torrington comes alive as a real person here, and while yes, he does inevitably become too ill to work and dies, as he did in real life, he’s much more than just the first victim of a tragedy. If you’re looking for some good Torrington fiction, Im Eisland is an excellent choice.

But not all Torrington-related literature is a retelling of the expedition. There is a famous story by Margaret Atwood, “The Age of Lead,” which appears in her short story collection Wilderness Tips. I should say upfront that this story is not about Torrington himself. Atwood described her use of him as that of an extended metaphor, as his death is juxtaposed with that of another character’s in the story. But the story still delves into the pathos around Torrington’s death. In mourning for her friend, Jane, the protagonist, mourns for Torrington in a way too. As Jane remembers sitting with her dying friend, she ponders about who may have sat with Torrington in his final days. His half-open eyes are described as “the light brown of milky tea,” and they look back at Jane as she watches a program about him on television. It’s a touching story that asks some emotional questions about Torrington’s death—did he have anyone to comfort him as he passed, so far from home? Did anyone on the ship mourn him, love him? The story might not be about Torrington in the end, but he makes for a powerful centerpiece, and this story treats his humanity as far more present than many of the novels discussed above.

The last piece of literature I’d like to discuss is “Envying Owen Beattie” by Sheenagh Pugh. In a poem that gives Seamus Heaney a run for his money, Pugh lovingly describes the exhumation of Torrington’s mummified body. She compares Torrington to Snow White by describing his being cocooned in ice as “asleep in his glass case.” The reason she envies Owen Beattie is because of an anecdote Beattie had once told that Pugh recounts here, of how when Beattie lifted Torrington out of his coffin, Torrington’s head lolled onto Beattie’s shoulder, and they stared eye-to-eye at each other, Beattie holding his frail, limp body. This leads Pugh to conclude her fairy tale metaphor by saying “how could you not try to wake him with a kiss?” I have to admit that if I had been in Beattie’s place, I probably would have dropped the body, but Pugh romanticizes the moment instead.

While many of the novels that I’ve described above treat Torrington as just another milestone to get through in the story, Pugh brings far more emotion and love to his depiction in so few words. Torrington looks so very much alive, like a princess under a sleeping spell, so why can’t a kiss break that spell and bring him into the present? A sweet sentiment tinged with the sadness that we know he can’t be awakened by a kiss, because it’s no spell that’s put him asleep. He’s too far beyond fairy tale dreams to come back. The tragedy of Torrington’s death gets swallowed by the larger tragedy of the Franklin Expedition’s demise in the full-length novels, but in shorter pieces such as Pugh’s poem and Atwood’s short story, Torrington’s death is given greater thought and respect. Torrington, after all, was no redshirt on Star Trek but a human being. He wasn’t just a name, a check on a checklist, but a man who suffered and died at too young an age. But the tragedy of the individual is easily lost among the tragedy of the group.

Next: My final post, a personal reflection as I ponder just what fascinates us about him after all these years.

<<Back | Next >>

Torrington Series Masterlist

#john torrington #franklin expedition

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pianodoesterror · 5 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Commander James Fitzjames & Lt Henry T. D. Le Vesconte Characters: Commander James Fitzjames, Lt Henry T. D. Le Vesconte, Captain Francis Crozier, Various Crew Additional Tags: Trauma, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Survivor Guilt, Guilt, Scurvy, Developing Relationship, Gentleness, Implied Sexual Content, Illnesses, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Fix it?, Missing Scenes, THE DRESS, Period Typical Attitudes Series: Part 3 of let the river rush in Summary:

The spark of fear had been in his blood and it made him want to run, but there was nowhere to run to. There was only Erebus, where the weight of duty was spreading him thin, or the ice, which was waiting to kill him. No, not waiting, the pack was not some malevolent force, it was simply doing as it had done since the dawn of time. It was they who were unnatural and abhorrent.

James Fitzjames is straight up not having a good time.

#fitzier #james fitzjames #francis crozier #fitzcroz #my fic #the terror amc

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brooklynislandgirl · 5 years

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💿[pirate]

Notes in a Quiet Room || Accepting

Mother, Mother Ocean, I’ve Heard Your Call

Johnny Home || The Musical BladesPirate’s Plea || The Musical BladesHaul Away Joe || The Jolly RogersBeliever || Imagine Dragons

The Devil’s Reach || The Jolly Rogers

Monolith || Twelve Titans Hoist the Colours || Hans ZimmerConquest of the Sea || Peter Crowley

Irish Party in 3rd Class || Gaelic StormWake Me Up || Simply Three

**Bonus**This Jolly Roger || Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew

#Mahalo!Crow <33 #THERE. Round 1. LOLOL #Salt in my Bones|Billy Bones Manderly #Black Sails|Verse #nolegacies

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jilliancares · 7 years

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You’re My (First) Mate

Summary: In which Dan and Phil are pirates and the only way to escape a giant squid monster is to go through the Isle of Marriage, which one cannot sail through unless the captain of a ship is married. Cue forced marriage aboard a pirate ship between two boys that hate each other.

Word Count: 3.7k

Genre: Smut (but with plot ygm. smut just happens to happen at the end)

read on ao3

read on wattpad

Naturally, it hadn’t been their first plan. In fact, they’d had several plans that had come before this one, it was just that so far, none of the others had worked.

“What are we going to do?” Peg Leg Rivers demanded, staring at the captain. Phil looked stressed, his hair a mess from how often he’d run his hand through it. Dan resisted the urge to huff—they wouldn’t be in this mess if Phil had just listened to Dan’s suggestion in the first place. But then, Phil never listened to his suggestions. Honestly, the only reason Dan was first mate was because he was the only one competent enough to not get Phil killed while in the position. Phil definitely wouldn’t have chosen him if he’d had a better crew for this journey.

It’d been months now. Dan hadn’t walked on solid ground for many moons, not that he minded very much. He loved the sea, he was made for it, though of course, that wasn’t the deal for everyone. At night he could hear men whispering and complaining down in the barracks, grumbling that the captain didn’t even seem to have a plan anymore, that he was just taking them in endless circles. Dan was beginning to fear a mutiny, in which case he was obligated to take Phil’s side, being his first mate.

But Phil was being ridiculous. Originally, they’d set out to… erm… secretly obtain… King Robert’s famous golden chalice. Sure, they wanted the money they could get from selling it, along with the glory they would receive from actually being the ones to steal it, but there was more to it than that. It was said that those who drank from the golden chalice could obtain what their heart most desired, and to scrounge up a crew, Phil had promised any member who joined him on his dangerous journey (and lived) would get to take a sip.

He’d come to Dan’s door last, and rather reluctantly, after realizing that he’d obtained barely any experienced pirates and was likely to have a much, much smaller crew by the end of his mission.

“What do you want?” Dan had snarled, after opening the door to what most wouldn’t actually call a house. More like a hut. Built on land he hadn’t paid for. In secret.

Phil had swallowed his pride (and hatred for Dan) and asked for him to come on the journey. Dan hadn’t been inclined to say yes at first, but Phil had offered to give him, along with a sip from the chalice, a share of the gold. The mention of treasures had made Dan’s fingers twitch, as they always did, and he’d found his traitorous mouth agreeing before his brain had quite finished thinking everything through.

And now he was here. He was first mate and still sleeping in the barracks like a common crew member. He was first mate and his captain was still refusing to take his advice into account. He was first mate and it was very, very possible that he was about to eaten by a giant fucking squid.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly a squid, but… it had tentacles. And sure, there were razor sharp rows of teeth along every tentacle, but what else was Dan supposed to call a giant sea creature with this many slimy legs? Or were they arms?

As Dan watched Phil struggle to come up with some sort of solution, a tentacle snaked up the side of the ship and snatched Two Toed Sam, who screamed once before being plunged underwater.

“We’ll have to fight,” Phil decided, and Dan groaned as Rivers nodded, his mouth now set into a grim line. And Dan knew he wasn’t supposed to argue with his captain, especially not after he’d given a command, and definitely not in front of a crew member, but honestly! Phil was going to get them killed!

“Phil,” Dan said sternly. “We have to run.”

“Captain Phil,” Phil corrected, and Dan rolled his eyes. “And I guess that’s how you’ve lived so long, is it? You run from everything that scares you?”

Dan growled. “If you try to fight this thing, you’re going to get us all killed.”

“I am not—”

Right then, Scurvy Joe was eaten by a tentacle masquerading as an abandoned piece of rope on deck, screaming the whole time.

“I know it’s not my place, Captain,” Rivers said, looking at the bloody boots left behind from Joe, “But maybe your first mate is right. Maybe… maybe it is time to run.”

It was better that it was Rivers saying this than some random other crew mate, as he was second mate and held a little bit more standing than the others.

“And just where would you two suggest I run?” Phil demanded. “This… this thing could easily chase us if we headed back through the open sea, and even I’m not sure we could squeeze between those cliffs,” Phil said hotly, gesturing towards the sea behind them and the narrow cliffs before them.

“The isle of marriage,” Dan suggested.

“We’ll never make it through there,” Phil scoffed. The isle of marriage was, well, kind of exactly what it sounded like. Ship captains who were married were allowed to guide their ships through there, as it was believed that a married man was more likely to be on an honorable mission, that he had a wife and children and just wanted to get home safely. Dan had heard all sorts of stories about dishonest ship captains trying to sneak through the isle of marriage only to be smote by the gods. Ships were found wrecked near the entrance and exit all the time. Crews of those ships never came back.

“We will make it through there,” Dan assured. “You just need to marry someone first.”

“You want me to ruin the rest of my life to maybe escape this creature?”

Smelly Beard Stu screamed as a tentacle flailed onto the ship before knocking him overboard. Dan just raised an eyebrow at Phil.

“There are no women on this ship!” Phil snapped.

“The gods have let queer marriages journey through this isle before,” Dan pointed out. It was near, too, only a little ways past the rocky cliffs. It would look like a dangerous path to an unwed man, but to a husband…

“And who do you suggest I marry?” Phil snapped. “Parrotless Pete?”

“Of course not,” Dan answered. “He fell off the boat ten minutes ago.”

Phil groaned in annoyance.

“Just take your pick,” Dan insisted. “It’s your duty to do whatever you can to make sure your crew survives.”

And suddenly, Phil’s eyes glinted mischievously, his mouth spread into a wicked grin. “Alright, fine.” He said. “Marry me.”

Dan felt his face pale. “Not—not me!” he exclaimed. “I meant someone else!”

“Ah, but it was your suggestion,” Phil said wisely. “And if I have to suffer through a marriage I don’t want, so should you.”

With that, Phil was climbing the pegs on the side of the main mast while Dan stared after him, horrified.

“Listen up!” Phil shouted. Amongst the running and screaming and pitiful sword-swinging, Phil’s crew members turned to look at him. “We’re escaping this beast—we’re to sail through the isle of marriage!”

“But Captain!” Peewee Clark piped up. Phil glared down at him. “You’re not married,” Clark pointed out.

“Not for long,” Phil said. “First Mate Dan has so graciously offered to marry me to assure our safety.”

A loud cheer went up at that. Dan considered pitching himself overboard.

“How are we even supposed to get married?” Dan hissed, once Phil was back by his side. He’d ordered a crew member to start steering the boat towards the isle of marriage. “You can marry crew members, and I can marry you, but who could possibly marry us?”

“There are three men who can officiate a marriage on a ship,” Phil answered, and Dan stared at him incredulously. He’d never heard of a third crew member being able to marry people. “It’s less heard of, of course, but if the captain were to marry the first mate, the second mate can officiate it.”

“Buckle up, buttercups!” Rivers said joyously. “It’s time to get married!”

All in all, it was a horrifying experience that Dan should’ve known better than to get himself into. They didn’t say any vows, didn’t exchange any rings, and just listened to the marriage speech Rivers read off a piece of paper before being told to kiss. Dan only managed to wrinkle his nose in disgust before Phil was planting a sloppy wet one on his mouth, the rest of the crew cheering as he did.

And Dan was right. They did make it through the isle of marriage alive, though he sulked the whole time.

That night, as the significantly smaller crew made their way to the barracks, Dan headed after them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Rivers demanded, and Dan stopped short behind him.

“Going to sleep?”

“You’re a married man now!” Rivers roared. “You belong in your husband’s bed!”

With that, the crew mates cheered and rushed back up the steps. A handful of them thrusted Dan onto their shoulders, Dan protesting the whole time, and marched him to the back deck where Phil’s bedroom was located. They were shouting and whooping and bursting into Phil’s room, where they then threw Dan onto the bed despite his protests.

The crew left the room, all laughing heartily, and moments later Phil emerged from the bathroom, patting his face with a towel.

“So that’s what all the noise was about,” he commented. Dan jumped out of the bed, his face red with embarrassment and anger.

“They’re just being dumb,” he said. “I’ll sneak back to my hammock when they’re all asleep.”

“That’d make me look like a bad husband,” Phil pointed out. “You’ll stay here.”

“Phil—”

“Captain Phil.”

“I’m not calling my husband captain,” Dan snarled.

Phil stepped around the bed and closer to Dan. “Never?” he whispered in his ear, his body suddenly pressed against Dan’s. He felt his breath hitch—but only because he’d been starved of any kind of sexual contact for months, not because it was Phil. He shoved his captain away.

“Fuck off,” Dan muttered. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood in the middle of the room. Phil simply shrugged and went about his nightly activities. How dare he pretend like he wasn’t affected by this? Like… like he wasn’t unsettled! Or weirded out!

They hated each other and now they were married. What the hell were they supposed to do?

Dan ignored Phil. He studied the odd little nicknacks Phil kept on his shelves and desk, slowly making his way around the room and being nosy about everything there was to be nosy about.

“Blow out the candles when you come to bed, alright?” Phil said, making Dan jump. He’d almost forgotten he was even in here, he was so quiet. Dan spun around, before making a sound in his throat that maybe sounded somewhat like a squeak. Phil was wearing nothing but his underwear.

“Where are your clothes?” Dan demanded.

“You wear clothes all day and they become filthy—you really expect me to sleep in my own filth?” With that Phil crawled under the covers of his bed. “You want the wall side?”

“Fuck off.”

“Alright, I’ll have the wall side.”

Dan turned around and glared at Phil’s desk. He couldn’t sleep here, honestly! It’d be too weird.

Making up his mind, Dan blew out each of the candles in turn and carefully crept out of Phil’s room, assuming him asleep.

Dan creeped about the deck, not wanting to wake those below with his footsteps, and made his way to the main mast. Dan had never been a fan of heights, but he didn’t have any better ideas. So he took to climbing the mast, his hands slippery on the metal rods protruding from it, acting as a downright terrifying ladder. He had to chant to himself not to look down, not to look down, until he made it to the top and into the small crow’s nest. Normally a lesser crew member would sit up here during the day and keep lookout for storm clouds, sea creatures, and other ships, but it was unoccupied now.

Dan curled up in the very small space. Up here, the rocking of the waves was amplified. He felt like he was swinging back and forth, almost dizzyingly, and Dan thanked the gods he had a strong stomach. The stars seemed to be spinning above him, and Dan closed his eyes, praying for sleep.

In the end, he only slept for an hour or two. The stars and moon were still high in the sky when he opened his eyes, his body aching from the cramped position. Dan wondered if that’s what had woken him up.

“Dan!” someone whisper-yelled.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Dan leaned over the edge of the crow’s nest and looked down, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat when he saw how far down the deck was. And stood somewhere below him was Phil, his skin scarily pale under the moon’s light, though not quite as white as his boxers.

Phil seemed to be looking all around for Dan, peering behind barrels and under nets. He even seemed to be considering going down into the barracks.

Dan sat back down, his head spinning. God, he was high up. And the rocking of the ship wasn’t helping. His stomach felt like jello, and his muscles and neck ached from the position he’d been sleeping in.

But Dan couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to sleep in the same bed as Phil. He didn’t want to take off his clothes because sleeping in his clothes in a clean bed was gross. He didn’t want Phil to act like he wasn’t disturbed by the fact that they were united for life when it was, in fact, disturbing!

“Dan!” Phil said again, louder this time, and annoyance crept up to Dan’s ears.

“What?” he hissed back. Phil paused.

“Where are you?”

“Up here,” Dan answered, leaning over the edge again. He watched as Phil looked up at him, his mouth dropping open.

“Most people consider the crow’s nest a punishment,” he commented.

“I can see why,” Dan groaned. He honestly hadn’t thought he would get sea sick up here, but… Dan groaned again.

“Come down.”

“I can’t.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Dan rested his head on the sun-worn edge of the crow’s nest.

“Too high,” he admitted. “Might fall.”

“I’ll catch you.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Come down.”

In the end, Dan only complied because he wanted to, not because Phil had told him to. And also because everything in his stomach felt like it’d been jumbled around and tossed into the sea before being returned to his body.

Going down the ladder was even worse than going up. His hands were sweating on the rungs, his legs shaking as he carefully, carefully stretched one down, gasping as his toes met metal. By the time he made it back to the deck, he was covered in cold sweat and panting as quietly as he could manage.

“Done freaking out now?” Phil asked. Dan glared at him before shoving past him and back into his room. There, he stripped off his outer garments, purposefully left on his undershirt, and climbed into the bed. He clenched his eyes shut and held his body unnaturally still and pretended to be asleep already.

He said nothing as the bed sunk with Phil’s weight, crawling past him. He said nothing as Phil climbed under the covers, his foot accidentally bonking Dan’s knee. He just held himself so still that it hurt. For what seemed like hours, he held himself still, until he finally drifted off to sleep.

—

Sleep had been a horrible idea. After all, sleep meant lack of consciousness, and lack of consciousness meant not knowing better than to snuggle up with your enemy-turned-husband.

Dan woke up pressed completely against Phil’s side, his hand splayed over Phil’s naked chest and his right leg thrown over Phil’s hip. Upon realizing where exactly he was, Dan gasped quietly. Slowly, carefully, he tried to extract himself from the other man, tried to untangle himself from him.

“I never knew you were a cuddler,” Phil commented, his voice sounding completely awake. Dan froze, slowly looking up. He realized then that Phil had been awake the whole time, had witnessed Dan return to consciousness and subsequent attempt at removing himself from Phil’s body.

Dan scrambled away from Phil, his cheeks flushed. He realized that his shirt was hiked up and he bare stomach was showing, and Dan yanked it back down as he noticed Phil looking at the exposed skin, crisscrossed with nicks and scars left over from his many adventures on the sea.

Dan spun around, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sitting stiffly. He had to admit that he was panicking slightly, his hands clenched into fists in the sheets underneath him, his breaths seemingly fighting their way in and out of his lungs.

He could feel Phil shifting on the bed behind him, and then suddenly there was a hand resting on his lower back, and Dan stiffened even more.

“We could make the best of this, you know,” he said smoothly. His voice was like a low rumble behind Dan’s ear, and it sent shivers down his spine. Dan didn’t want to acknowledge these shivers, didn’t want to acknowledge that voice. Because then he’d have to acknowledge the way he’d been staring at Phil for a few months now, wondering how it would feel to have his lips on his skin, his hands on his body. Obviously being forced to marry him was punishment for having these feelings in the first place.

Phil shifted even more, so that he was sitting directly behind Dan, his legs extending off the bed on either side of him. Dan could feel Phil’s chest against his back. He rested his chin on Dan’s shoulder.

“This doesn’t have to be so horrible, you know?” he murmured. “I mean, either one of us could’ve been married to… say, Boot-Faced Charles. At least we’re both attractive.”

Dan huffed out a laugh. “You just called me attractive,” he pointed out.

“Did you think I thought differently?” Phil asked. Dan didn’t answer. “You’d have to be blind not to see it.” Dan still didn’t answer. “I didn’t just choose to marry you to annoy you,” Phil said, his lips moving against the back of Dan’s neck. “I also did it because we’re obviously the best suited for each other on this ship.”

“How so?” Dan breathed. His voice was soft and shaky, mainly because Phil’s lips were doing something to the back of his neck, making goosebumps rise all along his arms. Phil’s tongue suddenly darted along the shell of his ear, and Dan gasped.

“Well, I can’t imagine our relationship was all hatred,” Phil admitted. “I always wondered if maybe we were just hating each other to cover up something more.”

One of his hands was resting, splayed, over Dan’s thigh. The other one was hot on his side, his pinky finger having somehow managed to slip under Dan’s shirt.

“Maybe,” Dan admitted. At this, Phil’s hand slid further up his thigh. Dan realized that his hands were no longer clenched in the sheets but digging into Phil’s thighs, and when had that happened?

“Can I?” Phil whispered, hot in his ear. Dan gasped, tilting his head back. He nodded, his eyes half-lidded, and Phil’s hand slid under the waistband of his boxers. He took Dan in hand, who shuddered. He leaned back heavily against Phil’s chest, and Phil chuckled quietly, his hand moving slowly over Dan’s cock. He thumbed the slit, making Dan’s breath stutter, his nails leaving crescent marks on Phil’s thighs.

Dan lifted up, using his hands to tug his boxers down this thighs before kicking them off. Taking off his shirt was too much work, but he pulled it up his chest and Phil’s hand chased the bare skin, caressing Dan’s chest and stomach, thumbing lightly over his nipples.

Phil’s hand picked up speed then, pumping Dan faster. Dan was panting, his head thrown back on Phil’s shoulder, his hips jerking up into Phil’s hand.

“Good?” Phil murmured, and Dan moaned an affirmative. He twisted his head, searching for lips, and Phil granted him. It was much better than the kiss he’d bestowed on Dan the day before. His lips were soft, his tongue insistent, and he kissed Dan so wonderfully that it make him dizzy.

Still, Dan couldn’t kiss him for long—he could barely breathe, his body shaking and trembling and Phil’s hand moved over him faster and faster, until Dan’s breath was catching, and he was trying to tell Phil through panted breaths, trying to warn him that—

Dan didn’t make much noise when he came, practically silent except for the small “ah!” that escaped his lips, quickly quieted by Dan clamping his lips back together. He was trembling all over, his body hot and sweaty, Phil’s hand still moving leisurely over his spent cock. Dan finally pushed him away, too sensitive, and sat up a little bit straighter. He could feel Phil’s cock, hard against his back, and he turned his head to look at Phil.

“Do you even have a plan to get the chalice?” he asked. Phil snorted.

“I’m not sure I still want it,” he admitted. Dan raised an eyebrow. “I’m no longer sure what it would give me,” Phil admitted, and Dan felt his face go read.

“Fuck off,” he said, but he was grinning widely. Phil grabbed him and rolled them over on the bed, kissing over his face and neck.

“Maybe it’d give me you,” he said. “You covered in chocolate.”

Dan laughed as Phil began demonstrating what exactly he would do in that situation.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #pirate au #jilliancares #alright so #this happened #yes #i will not deny it #i hope you guys like it oml #it was actually super fun to write?l #like really refreshing #i had a grand time #wrote it in like a half hour lol #and then was locked out of my hosue all day and couldn't post it nice

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punk-chicken-radio · 7 years

Video

youtube

captain dan and the scurvy crew - it’s all about the booty

-ax, ~PM~, and TOS

#Let's Make Love and Listen to Death Butt Awakens #pcr

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savetopnow · 6 years

Text

2018-03-30 10 MUSIC now

MUSIC

Brooklyn Vegan

tours announced: Cut Copy, Ty Segall, June of 44, RTJ's DJ Trackstar, more

FYF Fest announces 2018 dates (are My Bloody Valentine playing?)

Wax Idols share "Mausoleum" from new LP 'Happy Ending,' touring

Caleb Scofield (Cave In), RIP

Jack White playing SNL with host John Mulaney (who has a new Netflix special)

Consquence of Sound

Eddie Vedder covers Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” in Brazil: Watch

Win a Ready Player One Prize Pack, Including 4DX Theater Tickets

Mark Lanegan to Jesse Hughes: “It fucks my heart to see how far off the rails you’ve gone”

Margot Robbie is a cold-blooded neo-noir killer in the Terminal trailer: Watch

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doomhammersupposeserroneously · 6 years

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#Captain Dan & the Scurvy Crew #pirates #rap

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kyperformancemonthly-blog · 7 years

Text

Kentucky Pirate Festival

SHOW ME THE BOOTY! Now, I know what you’re all thinking. HOW INAPPROPRIATE! Well yes, but only if you’re not enjoying the Yo ho yo ho pirates life for me! That’s right. Pirates. Pirates, wenches and scoundrels, oh my!

On February 4th of 2017, Allwhere Entertainments, LLC held it’s very first and unique Kentucky Pirate Festival at the Tim Faulkner Gallery in Louisville. With a target audience of those who want to have a day of fun and aren’t afraid to let themselves be drawn into the atmosphere a little, The Kentucky Pirate Festival teamed with vendors selling pirate themed goods, musical acts playing sing along sea shanties, and other exciting entertainment to make sure there was a bit of fun for everyone. Volunteers and friends of the KHRF made sure to have activities that catered to both adults and children. With an adventure filled scavenger hunt, learning how to paint a pirate ship, 2 stages filled with musical talent, costume contests, and even pirate themed speed dating, every guest was smiling all night long.

Photo By David Vail

Now the big question is who could possibly think of something so unique? The two best pirates that I have had the pleasure to meet, of course. Phillip McGuinness and Captain Amos Muirhead, the two founding members of the legendary musical act, Drunk & Sailor. When interviewed, these two famous pirates told me that the idea for the Kentucky Pirate Festival stemmed from their original “February Faire Withdrawal” show that they play at the Bard’s Town.

Selfie By Phillip McGuinness

Phillip and Amos have been to other festivals quite a few times. When talking to these scurvy gents, they said that about 100-125 people showed at Bard’s Town at one of their shows, and some had to be turned away due to space issues. At that point, Phillip made the decision that more space will be needed from then on. So last year, they tried the Tim Faulkner Gallery and around 150 people came, and 50 gallery people came, approximately 200 in total, and they had room to spare. The space was so perfect for all of Drunk & Sailor’s fans and supporters, it was only fitting that the idea of the first Kentucky Pirate Festival was born.

About 6 months prior to the event, planning began. They made websites, social media pages, went out in public with posters, promos, did a TV spot, and even a radio show. “We have promoted so much, and pushed so this could be as big as possible.” Amos said. “With 8 other entertainments, volunteer acts, a decor crew, vendors, and our 1st time working with sponsors, it’s a big step up from our usual Pirate show.” And that’s exactly what it was. A big step up!

“Credit for this festival goes to Phillip” Amos says. “He wanted a bigger event, and people already come to the February show so we thought we’d invite other acts from Michigan and Florida to come perform with us. We spoke with event owners we have worked with, and got some advice and gave it a go!”

When speaking with Phillip, he made the intent of this festival very clear. “First and foremost, we just want everyone there to have a good time. That is our benchmark for success. We’d like the festival to draw more people into our local pirate community.” Tons of crowd participation, people singing and dancing, pirates meeting other pirates, and even people being introduced to the pirate scene for the very first time. I’d say they hit that benchmark.

Photo By David Vail

With that successful turn out, both Phillip and Amos have high hopes for the future of this Festival. With a spacious venue such as the Tim Faulkner Gallery, there is plenty of room for growth, and the idea of a full weekend festival has been mentioned. We can only hope to see more from Allwhere Entertainments and their amazing plans to continue with the development of the hopefully annual Kentucky Pirate Festival.

Photo By David Vail

By special request, Phillip McGuinness wants to give a few special shout outs as a thank you for all the help with this festival.

“When we hatched this plan we got a lot of great advice from our friend Jonathan Zook, who has been running the Michiana Renaissance Faire and the Indiana Pirate Festival for the past several years. Tim and Margaret at the Tim Faulkner Gallery have been very helpful as well, giving us advice and arranging parts of the event for us. Whitney Christiansen has taken it upon herself to handle all the children’s activities, for which we are very grateful.”

I’d personally also like to thank all the musical talent and entertainers who came out to this festival as well. So a big thanks to Kracker Dan, Band of Pirates, Drunk & Sailor, and Knotty Bits!!!

For more information on future endeavors of the Kentucky Pirate Festival, or if you want to follow the shenanigans to be had, there’s a few websites you can visit listed below.

Kentucky Pirate Festival - www.kypiratefest.com https://www.facebook.com/kypiratefest/

Drunk & Sailor - https://www.facebook.com/drunkandsailor/

#drunkandsailor #knottybits #pirates #festival #kypiratefest #krackerdan #bandofpirates

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