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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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Cherry/Lillie; cross(?)dressing
(Anonymous) 2022-12-06 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)FILL: August, 1917, Cherry/Lillie
(Anonymous) 2023-01-02 07:11 am (UTC)(link)It has been a lovely summer, bright and warm, at Lamer this year. The beauty of the green countryside is not altogether lost on me, even having traveled to such distant places and having seen such alien beauties. In truth, none of the glimmering Antarctic whiteness could evoke the same comfort as the dappled shade of the cedars and the babbling of the Lea.
I confess, however, that the emptiness of the place has taken some adjustment. On most days I do not mind the solitude. Indeed, the quietness has at last given me opportunity to relax and recover from my illness, free from the additional anxieties of being fretted over, and I find I am much improved. I am more than satisfied with my solitary long walks, and in this season the flowers smile with their bright petals, and I find myself compelled to smile back. On frequent occasions, I have the company of Kathleen, and her boy, Peter, of whom I’ve grown very fond. He is so much like his father in so many ways. He’ll never know it, of course—not if Kathleen can help it.
But this is not all days. On some mornings I wake and the solitude bears down on me so heavily I struggle to rise. I am brought back on these occasions to my four days spent alone at the Cape Evans hut. It is not a memory I recall warmly.
I am pleased to say that Denis Lillie will be visiting Lamer shortly. I will be glad to see my old friend again, after what has felt like far too long. His company during my illness was valuable beyond words, but I look forward to the time we may spend together unencumbered by my poor health. Our correspondence has been fairly frequent, but letters cannot compare to his company in person. He may stay as long as he wishes, and, with luck, may be convinced to stay longer than that.
-
Lillie arrived at last earlier this week, and at once the comfort of his presence brightened my disposition markedly. We converse so naturally it is as if no time at all has passed.
The sun was bright and the air warm. We picnicked by a stream, under the privacy of the drooping willow trees. The slanting afternoon sunlight and the murmuring of the stream entreated our attention, but all wrapped up in each others' company, our conversation soon fell to matters polar. Lillie brought up memories I had forgotten, joyful moments from our easting. He fills with such a youthful energy when he reminisces, while I can’t imagine I look anything less than a decade older.
I asked him what he thought had gone wrong. It was a disastrous accumulation of coincidences, of course—too many to conceive of. But among them, there must have been a few that could have been affected, perhaps just enough that the disaster may have been averted. I had mulled over what felt like every single factor and each link in the chain that had led to what had happened, down to the last box of pemmican. But I needed a fresh set of eyes on it.
He was silent for a long time before answering. He did not patronize me by telling me it happened for a reason, although I am sure by some definition or another, he believed as much. I wanted to be told that none of the causes of the disaster could directly have been prevented by myself. There was a horrible weight on my shoulders and I was nearly hysterical for it to be lifted. He only said, “I don’t know,” sparing no platitudes. “None of us could have, Cherry. Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps not.”
Of course, he was right. Tears welled up in my eyes, if for no other reason than the feeling of pure catharsis for simply having said anything aloud to someone who had accompanied me down south. L. enfolded me in his arms and deposited the softest kiss upon my brow. I was startled, and am embarrassed to recall produced a hiccup of sorts, which Lillie quelled with a second kiss just below my eye, and a third lower on my cheek. He drew back and the perfect innocence of his intentions was instantly clear, his face lined with concern for me, but my own thoughts, which had turned decidedly desirous, were evidently less subtle as I chanced a glance down at his mouth. Within the length of a single heartbeat, his lips were then on mine, and I kissed with an animal ferocity I hadn’t known I’d been capable of.
I was caught very much by surprise at L.’s shared passion, for I tend to consider myself something of an oddity as a man with such desires for other men, but indeed I may still be. Lillie isn’t much like any man I’ve ever known.
That evening, I invited Lillie to share my bed, and I was treated to the tenderness of his affection—I remember very little, as I succumbed to sleep almost immediately (I simply cannot hang on to wakefulness with two warm arms slung around me, I confess), but at some point in the night, I suppose I began to mutter, or perhaps even talk out loud in distress, as I have been known to do when I am asleep, to the bane and amusement of any and all who have bunked with me. Lillie didn’t seem to mind a titch, however, and woke me warmly to a flurry of kisses. Whatever nightmare had gripped me was dispelled in an instant, and sleep soon came again to find the two of us even more tightly intertwined than before.
-
The next morning, I awoke to feathery white tendrils of sunshine filtering in through the window, and Lillie standing a pace’s length from the foot of the bed, undressed and holding up a handsome dress as though assessing whether or not it would fit. It was not mine, of course—there were no women in the house but the housekeeper—it must have been Lillie’s, and it seemed brand new, by the pristine look of it. L. noticed I was awake, and smiled bashfully, and I suppose I was staring a good deal more than was polite. I excused myself—even after the intimacy we had shared, it seemed more proper to dress separately—and when I was done, I awaited L. downstairs.
Lillie descended a short while later, having evidently elected to don the dress. Later that afternoon, we strolled along the chain walk, arm-in-arm. The gown was a beautiful and formal number—a bright and rosy garment with floral detail and a demure little shawl, much better suited to the ballroom than to a stroll in the garden, but it was so flattering that L. kept it on the whole afternoon, surpassing in beauty all the other flowers along the path by far.
We came to a bench and seated ourselves, Lillie’s hand in mine as we talked and laughed and reminisced, feeling much lighter than the day prior. L. made a comment that struck home, something along the lines of I had never seemed happier than back aboard the old Terra Nova, even when I was soaked through and through or volunteering to trim the coal. My present joy and optimism felt somewhat shot through (by no fault of L.’s, I hasten to add), the observation rendering me suddenly self-conscious—but oh, what a fickle thing to feel when Lillie is one of the only living people who understands just what happened down there at the end of the world, and just what such an ordeal does to a person.
On the other hand, I responded after a moment’s reflection, I had never seen L. quite so happy as at the present moment, even when we had been on the expedition. Now, the passing years having found the two of us alone here in my garden, mirth seemed to radiate from my dear friend with almost perceptible warmth.
Lillie attempted to explain why this unlikely moment was so particularly joyful, and struggled to find the right words, stumbling over them a great deal—I regret to say, I could not quite follow, until it was laid out before me in terms so simple that even I, dense and beginning to suffer from a bout of lovesickness, could wrap my head around—“I suppose it is because I feel more like a woman than I have ever been permitted to in the past,” she said.
It may not sound so straightforward in the recounting of it, but at the moment it made perfect sense to me that being a woman was equal to joy for Lillie, for indeed I loved her like one. It is difficult, now, for me to think of her differently, although I apologize for any confusion caused by the abrupt change in how she is referred to hereafter—“she” is the very same Lillie I was hitherto addressing as “he,” rest assured.
Somewhat overcome, I drew her in and kissed her. Her skin was sun-warmed beneath my palm where I held her cheek, and warmed further with the deep blush that bloomed across her face. I could have stayed that way until the sun set.
A surge of new, resplendent joy has washed over me like a rising tide, so alien it feels as if the last time I found myself so content was in another lifetime. Lillie has her sights set on East Africa. I will be loath to see her go, but I’m not yet confident my health would permit such travel. I was beginning to entertain the possibility of welcoming her as a permanent fixture here at Lamer—how like summertime in Antarctica this old house would become, albeit a good deal warmer, with the sunshine of her company ever shining! But she reassures me of her return, and joins me in fond reverie of settling down together.
I do wish I may share this newfound joy with old friends. But for all that has been lost, I cannot bring myself to regret any more.
Re: FILL: August, 1917, Cherry/Lillie
(Anonymous) 2023-01-02 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)Re: FILL: August, 1917, Cherry/Lillie
(Anonymous) 2023-01-06 12:53 am (UTC)(link)