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Polar Explorer RPF - Prompt Post 1
This is for prompts for all things general Polar Explorer RPF.
If you've filled (or started filling) a prompt, please make sure to link it in the comments of the Fills Post. And if you would like to cross-post your fills on AO3, here is the collection!
Under this umbrella you can prompt:
Prompts in line with adaptations of Heroic Age stories can also fit here, for example if you want to specifically prompt Hugh Grant!Cherry from The Last Place On Earth getting wrecked (which someone really should).
No blorbo too obscure for this post! EXCEPT: NO PEARY ALLOWED. God I hate that guy.
Rules:
Regular view: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html
Regular view, last page: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/925.html?page=999#comments
If you've filled (or started filling) a prompt, please make sure to link it in the comments of the Fills Post. And if you would like to cross-post your fills on AO3, here is the collection!
Under this umbrella you can prompt:
- Historical versions of Franklin Expedition(-adjacent) guys (Rossier, Gore/McClure, etc)
- Madhouse at the End of the Earth/Belgica Expedition
- Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration - Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, Mawson
- Andrée Expedition
- Karluk Expedition
- etc
Prompts in line with adaptations of Heroic Age stories can also fit here, for example if you want to specifically prompt Hugh Grant!Cherry from The Last Place On Earth getting wrecked (which someone really should).
No blorbo too obscure for this post! EXCEPT: NO PEARY ALLOWED. God I hate that guy.
Rules:
1. Be fucking nice. YKINMATO/KINKTOMATO at all times.
2. This meme is CNTW (Choose Not To Warn) but warnings are highly encouraged.
3. Prompts should use this format in the subject line: [SHIP], [DESCRIPTION]
e.g.
Mertz/Ninnis, sex crying
Solo gen can be prompted as well alongside (a) character name and description
e.g.
Gen, Emil Racovitza, discovering a crazy new fish
4. Fills should use this format in the subject line: FILL: [TITLE], [PAIRING], [RATING], [ANY WARNINGS]
e.g.
Fill: The Very Next Day, Cherry/Birdie, E, cw self-harm
5. One prompt per comment please.
6. Multiple fills for each prompt are welcome!
7. You don't have to be anon for your prompts or your fills but we do encourage it because of the vibe. You're also welcome to deanon your stuff by posting on AO3/Tumblr as you please!
8. Feedback on prompts and fills is AWESOME; please take longer conversations to the discussion post.
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Gore/McClure, anything, any rating
(Anonymous) 2022-10-30 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)FILL: Gore/McClure, gen
(Anonymous) 2023-01-06 08:30 am (UTC)(link)Graham sketches. Only his gaze travels back and forth between the horizon and its image. He has no small measure of talent as an artist, but the finished drawing holds less interest for him than the process of its creation. The pleasure lies in the technical challenge of recreating the world on the page.
The ship’s cat winds around his boots, causing his hand to slip. “Run along now,” he says, without glancing down. He does not dislike cats — he respects a fellow hunter — but nor is he sentimental about animals. Not like that poor doleful fellow on his last ship, who looked ready to weep at the sight of any four-legged beast. He reminds himself that he must respond to McClure’s letters. He must respond to everyone’s letters. But he is always in motion, save for rare moments such as this, when he is able to trick his body into stillness.
He seldom spares a thought for that past Graham who spent months in the ice, any more than he dwells on the future Graham who — he has already decided — will not remain with the Modeste. Still, he finds that, in a moment of abstraction, he has scrawled a small pointed face. Curious black eyes look out from the page, ears alert for danger carried on the wind. “What a dapper little gentleman,” Robert McClure would say. “Do you see him, Gore?”
The cat continues to press against his legs, demanding his attention. “Run along,” he tells it, more firmly. But he is in error, for he glances down and sees that no cat is there. He is perplexed, for a moment, and then he returns to his sketch. Only somehow it no longer pleases him. In some way that he cannot explain, the mood of the afternoon has changed; it is like a false note played on his flute.
Graham charms. Wherever he goes, he wins the good opinion of others, and this seems as natural as the movement of the tides or the migration of birds. He works hard. He is not given to grudges or introspection. For him, unhappiness is a pulled muscle, an indifferent meal, or an unlucky shot. Contentment is a good day’s hunting and a shared joke with friends.
He enters his thirtieth year whilst serving on the Volage. In this past year, he has seen action. If he did not care for the experience, he does not say so. He has never been a man to revisit and edit the previous chapters of his story. He acts, without feeling the need to narrate his own actions. He gets his promotion, at least, and that is something.
His curls are still dark. With the passage of time, he acquires new experiences and connections. With them, the afflictions of early middle age: occasional stomach trouble and nostalgia. He asks himself, where next, and he thinks, why not Australia. His parents must be getting older, as is the way of parents. Australia, then. He feels a lithe animal form brush against his ankles, but he has learned by now not to bother looking down.
With the Beagle, he surveys the coast of Australia. He finds new sights to sketch. He is busy, too busy to answer letters. He injures his hand shooting birds. Captain Stokes thinks him a sportsman. He hopes for promotion.
He chooses not to consider whether there will come a time when his ceaseless onward motion becomes a kind of urgency. His curls are still dark. In his cabin at night, he sometimes feels a weight upon him, as though a small animal has chosen to nestle between his shoulders. People like him, although he is bad at answering their letters. He dreams of something kneading his back with its paws. Do you see me? it asks him. Do you know that I am here? Captain Stokes recommends him for promotion on their return. Old friends are pleased to see him. It is strange, to be on land. He does not get his promotion.
Graham moves on. Albion, Terror, Modeste, Volage, Beagle. These — and not a succession of houses lived in — are the chapter headings of his life. Erebus. It is not quite the closing of a circle. In returning to the Arctic, he hopes for advancement. They all hope for advancement. One of the other lieutenants intends to marry when they are back in England. He is going — he says — to marry the dearest little girl in all the world. What about you? he asks, but that is a larger question than Graham knows how to answer.
He hopes that he will leave the sleepless nights behind him when they sail. He never used to lie awake. But on the first night after the ships’ departure, he feels the familiar weight at his back. It clings to him, as it always has done. See me, it says. Know that I am here. He thinks, half in jest, perhaps I should call you Robbie. He feels a heaviness settle upon him, like a grief that he will not be the one to feel.
Re: FILL: Gore/McClure, gen
(Anonymous) 2023-01-08 12:01 am (UTC)(link)The repetition of 'His curls are still dark' made me feel fucking crazy, symbolic as it was of Gore's insistence on the obedience and constancy of his physical body (even when,e.g., his parents age - devastatingly observed btw, the mild way he thinks 'Australia then' about a matter of pretty major significance!!!)
I loved the cleanness and tautness of your sentences, which suited the rigorous (even rigid) care Gore takes to not look back, not regret, not anticipate, just look firmly for his path. Such a fitting, brilliant use of style, but also very exact with what you're portraying - it's not that Gore is simple but that he exercises consistent control, and I can feel that very control in your prose.
And of course... lol... I'm so demented about the little cat ghost of McClure's projected desires. Writing endless letters and never getting them answered! The McClure Curse. I'm going to have to return to it because I can't think about it without honk honk honk honk honk honk but the subtle eroticism of the paws kneading his back when he's trying to sleep, the weight of another being when there's no one there... Gore being a little complicit in this projection, perhaps even wilfully imagining it... HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK...