#gwen moffat

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I always enjoy posts about women explorers and travel. Can you recommend travel books written by women or about iconic women explorers? I think you would be better qualified than most armchair enthusiasts since you are well traveled, conversant in several languages, and a rugged mountaineer and hiker. 

I don’t know about being qualified more than any anyone else. Traveling and exploring isn’t quite the same as hiking or mountaineering of course but I understand your sentiment.

I can say reading about pioneering women explorers and travelers has only inspired me to get off my arse and just go and do it. Perhaps it’s being raised overseas in several cultures and exploring those fabulous countries and regions that has always left with a travel itch to scratch.

Perhaps it’s the Norwegian or the military DNA on my Anglo-Scots side that I have a strong passion for hiking and mountaineering. These days if I do any serious hiking or mountaineering, I tag along with ex-army friends who are incredibly fit and accomplished climbers and hikers.

There are many books and each is a worthy recommendation but here are a few. It’s not an exhaustive list but a good start. I only hope they give you a sense of wanderlust as they continue to inspire me.

Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Mule from Ecuador to Cuzco by Dervla Murphy (1983)

Dervla Murphy’s adventures are mind boggling, and she makes it sound so easy. Even in the mid ‘60s cycling alone through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan was a bit dodge apart from the fact that there are mountains i.e. uphill cycling. This book is not her most famous one but it’s still worth a read. I put here because it brings memory of my time traveling with my father and elder brother and sister as a 10 year old in the Andes. In 1979 Dervla Murphy and her 9 year old daughter walked with their mule Juana from Cajamarca (northern Peru) to Cusco (far to the south) following as much as possible the Camino Real (the Inca Royal road) along the spine of the second highest mountain range in the world. It took them just over 3 months. Eight Feet in the Andes is a day by day journal of that incredible journey with all its splendour, risks and adventures. The Murphys travel light, most often camping in their small tent and not always sure where their next meal will come from. They endure blizzards, precipitous paths, bogs, heat, theft and find help when most needed and generous (if often taciturn) hospitality.

Reading the book years after I had done a similar trek I realised just how more luxurious our travel was in comparison to Dervla and her daughter who were more rustic in their trekking and hiking. That’s not say we weren’t hiking rough and hard (both my father and eldest brother did their stint in the army as officers) and so I had to keep up. But still, looking back I remember I had a comfortable bed to sleep in and I was well fed. I did have similar experiences of meeting amazing Andean people who are so different from urban Peruvians. The other thing that sticks out in this book is how prescient it is to realise that trekking 15-25 miles per day with the world's most uncomplaining 9-year old in tow would be considered child abuse today. I remember crying, getting blisters, and then toughing it out because I didn’t want to let the side down. So chapeau to Rachel Murphy for being so stoic and brave. As rough as the terrain was for them, there is undoubted warmth and humour in this book.

The Virago Book of Women Travellers, edited Mary Morris & Larry O’Connor (1994)

The Virago Book of Women Travellers captures 300 years of wanderlust. Some of the women are observers of the world in which they wander and others are more active. Often they are storytellers, weaving tales about the people they encounter. Whether it is curiosity about the world or escape from personal tragedy, these women approached their journeys with wit, intelligence, compassion and empathy for the lives of others. Because it’s a collection of women and their wanderlust, it’s not the kind of book you can read cover to cover or even in one sitting. It’s a good book to dip into as the mood pleases. As such it serves as a good introduction to how varied the experiences of women travellers and writers has been. I didn’t feel guilty about skipping certain parts because I found the writing turgid and boring, but that is the nature of an anthology, some you like and others less so.

In the introduction to this anthology, Mary Morris writes that “women’s literature from Austen to Woolf is by and large a literature about waiting, usually for love”. The writers selected here are the ones who didn’t wait: they set out, by boat or bicycle, camel or dugout canoe, and sought their own adventures. The collection covers some 300 years of travel writing, beginning with the extraordinary Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), who had just - scandalously - made the journey from London to Constantinople alone, and finishing with the American writer Leila Philip, an apprentice potter in early 1980s Japan, learning the art of harvesting rice by hand with a sickle. The range, in terms of location, style and mood, is vast.

So we meet independent travellers and those on the road with family, women on long epic journeys or more focussed trips, famous names and obscure, mountaineers and motorcyclists, aviators and anthropologists, those treading well-kept routes and brave pioneers, young women and old, but all intelligent and good writers. Many of the women were traveling alone during times when traveling wasn't very easy and certainly wasn't something many women did on their own, and they were traveling to places all over the world. The majority of the essays are about Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of the women travellers are familiar such as Dervla Murphy, Rebecca West, Beryl Markham - and the other usual suspects.

There were a few about traveling to colonial America and one about traveling to the wilds of Ohio written by Anthony Trollope's mother that was hilarious. An extract from Frances Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) demonstrates a satirical eye her son clearly inherited: “She lived but a short distance from us, and I am sure intended to be a very good neighbour; but her violent intimacy made me dread to pass her door”. Some other pieces are les scathing and more lyrical: M. F. K. Fisher brings Dijon to life through the battling scents of the city’s famous mustard, gingerbread and the fragrant altar smoke billowing from a church door; Vita Sackville-West conjures the fading light of a picturesque Persian garden at dusk.

Many of the women faced sexism along the way and had to fight to go certain places and some even face sexual harassment on their travels. But mercifully these experiences are few and far between. There were a few many wonderful writers I stumbled across of whom I’d never heard – such as Flora Tristan, Frances Trollope, Isabelle Eberhardt (whose packed and tragically short life is worth reading up on), and many others. Maud Parrish writes exhilaratingly about adventures in Yukon and Alaska, the intriguing Mrs F D Bridges (about whom we know little as she travelled in the shadow of her husband) describes nineteenth century Mormonism compellingly. Emily Hahn, I did know about as her writings I was familiar with when I was growing up in Shanghai. Hahn writes vividly about her opium addiction in China (one of a few women to focus heavily on addictions).

However uneven anthologies can be, they still can serve as a good starting place to discover further a favourite writer and traveler. And if it can do that then an anthology will have served its purpose.

Travels With Myself and Another: Five Journeys from Hell by Martha Gellhorn (1978)

Although Martha Gellhorn was principally a war correspondent but seems to have travelled widely for most of her life. Her book was originally subtitled Five Journeys from Hell, which provides a not very subtle clue about her travel experiences. It describes her journeys in China with the unnamed other (1941), the Caribbean (1942), Africa (1962), Russia (1972) and Israel (1971). She says that this is not a proper travel book – ‘I rarely read travel books myself. I prefer to travel’. And it’s clear that she spent most of her life travelling, with an impressive list of places she has visited. It’s a difficult book to categorise, and that’s perhaps also true of its author. She clearly had a strong spirit of adventure, and as someone who covered every major conflict from the Spanish Civil War to the American invasion of Panama in 1989, she cannot have lacked courage or determination.

The writing is excellent, with lots of very funny, self-deprecating, black humour, and witty observations about the pitfalls of travelling generally. Many things infuriated Gellhorn - injustice, cruelty, stupidity - but on a personal level, nothing made her more incensed than having her name linked with that of the man she was married for less than five of her almost ninety years, Ernest Hemingway. Although Travels with Myself and Another is subtitled as a memoir, the most famous of her three husbands appears in just one essay under the initials of U.C. (Unwilling Companion), probably only because he provides extensive comic relief for a writer “who cherishes...disasters” and is immensely fond of black humour.

The only trouble is that her accounts of her journeys focus largely on her feelings of boredom, fear, exhaustion, hunger, anger and so on, with rare uplifting moments between. She also seems to have little fellow feeling for the people she comes across, and there are flashes of racism and intolerance. As her companion in China says, ‘Martha loves humanity but can’t stand people’. Still Gellhorn relishes mishaps in her journeys because that is where the story lies--and since her journeys are invariably far off the map, mishaps are always there, waiting for her acerbic descriptions.

Of all the travels that she has chosen to relive, her journey to China in 1941 is easily the most hair-raising and hysterically funny. As someone who grew up in Shanghai as a girl, China in 1941 is still firmly etched into Chinese history and culture. The legacy of the Japanese war - the sheer brutality of it which many Europeans have blithely ignored - remains a ghost in the collective memory of the Chinese and is a regular staple as a setting for its many television soap operas.

Anyway, in this book, Gellhorn is determined to witness the Sino-Japanese War first-hand shortly after Japan joins Italy and Germany in the Axis. “All I had to do is get to China,” she says blithely, and as part of her preparations for this odyssey she persuades U.C. (Ernest Hemingway) to go with her. Embarking from San Francisco to Honolulu by ship, a voyage that “lasted roughly forever,” Gellhorn and U.C. then fly from Hawaii to Hong Kong, “all day in roomy comfort”, landing at an island where passengers spend the night before arriving in Hong Kong. “Air travel,” she says, “was not always disgusting.”

As a war correspondent for Collier’s, Gellhorn insists upon getting as close to the war as she can. Traveling by plane, truck, boat, and “awful little horses”, she and U.C. find the troops of the Chinese Army and their hard-drinking generals (who almost vanquish U.C. in their alcoholic prowess), Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang  (“who,” Gellhorn fumes, “ was charming to U.C. and civil to me”), and, through a cloak-and-dagger encounter in a Chungking market, Chou Enlai (“this entrancing man,” Gellhorn confesses, “the one really good man we’d met in China”). Although she and U.C. barely escape cholera, hypothermia, food poisoning, and the hazards of drinking snake wine, by the end of their journey Gellhorn contracts a vicious case of “China Rot,” an ailment resembling athlete’s foot that’s highly contagious. U.C.’s commiseration is heartwarming: “Honest to God, M., you brought this on yourself. I told you not to wash.”

On their last night, hot and steaming in the humidity of Rangoon, Gellhorn is overwhelmed with gratitude that U.C. has stuck with her through “a season in hell.” She reaches out, touches his shoulder, and murmurs her thanks, “while he wrenched away, shouting “Take your filthy dirty hands off me!” “We looked at each other, laughing in our separate pools of sweat.” “The real life of the East is agony to watch and horror to share,” Gellhorn wrote somewhat melodramatically to her mother. Years later, she concludes “I was right about one thing; in the Orient a world ended.” From Gellhorn’s sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued point of view, that ending was nothing to mourn. Gellhorn is captivating, bold, reckless, romantic, and deeply, powerfully, and hypnotically inspired to help the world despite her own personal flaws.

How to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer by Mick Conefrey (2011)

I had second thoughts about including this book but it is easily the most readable and therefore the most accessible introduction to women explorers and travellers….and yet it’s written by a man. Hmmm. Bear with me. I was given this book as a birthday gift and dutifully I read it and even I was surprised that there were some women explorers I hadn’t known about in amongst the usual suspects of Freya Stark, Gertrude Bell and Jeanne de Clisson. The book overviews female explorers and adventurers from the 1800’s through the 2000’s. It is a collection of short anecdotes, ranging between one paragraph and three pages in length.

There aren’t traditional chapters, but the book is sectioned off by different questions. The arrangement of the book makes reading straightforward and simple. I suppose there is no correct answer to questions like “why do women adventure?” and “how do women adventure differently to men?”. Conefrey is visibly careful not to generalise. However, he does compare them a lot. Some women appear only in tandem with their husbands, some feel like an offshoot of their husband and there’s an entire chapter comparing women adventurers to either their male expedition partner or the man who did the most similar expedition or adventure, usually before the woman did it. I did find myself wondering if we needed quite so many men in a book that’s supposed to be exclusively about women.

The majority of the women who appear were doing their adventures a couple of centuries ago, when vast swathes of the world were mysterious and unknown, when it was acceptable to hire or occasionally coerce fifty locals to carry your luggage or occasionally to carry you in a bath chair, when people routinely carried an entire arsenal with them, and yes, when women were doing this kind of adventuring in all sorts of skirts.

These are not then full biographies. Some names appear again and again. Freya Stark, Gertrude Bell, Mary Kingsley as well as other ones like Rosita Forbes, Mary Hall, Ella Maillart, Annie Smith Peck, and Jeanne de Clisson. Clearly bigger stories to tell about them. They went off to places women just didn’t go to in those days and did things women just didn’t do. But the book does serve as a jumping board to explore further any explorer that captures your attention. In the end it’s something to read on an idle rainy day and can be read in bedtime-reading sized chunks. Rather than a deep trek, it’s the equivalent of a well written jog through a brief explanation of the journeys and personalities of some rather interesting women.

The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland by Nan Shepherd (1977)

If you’re Scottish then you have no excuse not knowing who Nan Shepherd was - her face has been on the Scottish five pound note. As strange as it sounds, being Anglo-Scots on my father’s side, I first heard her name when living on the other side of the world. Only when I came home to see my family clan we would walk in the Cairngorms and her spirit would be invoked with reverence and awe. For a long time in Scottish arts and letters she was known only as a minor writer of the early 20th century Scottish Renaissance. Between 1928 and 1935 she published three modernist novels – The Quarry Wood being superlative - and one book of poetry. From then until her death in 1981, she published only one more, The Living Mountain. It was written during the latter years of the World War Two but, following advice of novelist Neil Gunn, left in a drawer. No publisher would take a punt on such an unusual book, he argued. In 1977, it was unearthed and Aberdeen University Press published it. This prose-poem about the Cairngorms quickly became a cult classic among wanderers and mountaineers, as important as anything written by WH Murray.

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Reading it has become a rite of passage for anyone wishing to understand the Scottish mountains, the literary equivalent of a hillwalker spending the night under the Shelter Stone at the head of Loch Avon. Both pursuits are likely to keep you up all night. From its first sentence, "Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge”. The Living Mountain draws you in with the feyness of its vision, the lucidity of its prose and Shepherd’s refreshing philosophy that mountains are more than peaks to be scaled. In writing the book, her aim was to uncover the "essential nature" of the mountains, and understand her place in them.

Nature writing these days is as much about the person as the place. Refreshingly, Shepherd is not there as a personality, rather a human presence in the landscape, complete with roving eye and senses wide open. She understood nature’s ultimate indifference (it doesn’t care who you are), yet also how much she was a part of it. She had a keen sense of ecology, an understanding that to "deeply" know a place was to know something of the whole world. Her chapters, for example, move through every element of the mountains, from water to earth, on to golden eagles and down to the tiniest mountain flowers, like the genista or birdsfoot trefoil. Robert McFarlane, one of my favourite writers today, has argued that is why she is a truly universal writer.

Nan Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the ‘essential nature’ of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. It is a very short book at around 100 pages but it can feel like a thousand when you immerse yourself in the beauty of her prose and wisdom. Bonus tip: the edition with has Robert Macfarlane’s introduction and an afterword written by Jeanette Winterson. What I love about this book is that you don’t have to travel to exotic far flung places to appreciate mountains or nature in general. For most of us it can be in easy reach from our door steps.

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell (2007)

If you follow my blog then you know I have made a lot of posts about one of my heroines, Gertrude Bell. I’m not going to rehash all that I’ve posted here. Just type in ‘gertrude bell’ into the search box.

Gertrude Bell is commonly referred to as ‘the female Lawrence of Arabia’ and that really explains in a nutshell how she’s been screwed over by history. If we could be more fair minded and reasonable, T.E. Lawrence would be called ‘the male Gertrude Bell’ and Gertrude would have the four-hour Oscar award-winning biopic that everyone would watch at Christmas time. But always no, and because of this, T.E. Lawrence is a household name and Gertrude Bell is a footnote in his story. To this day it ticks me off that Gertrude Bell gets no mention in David Lean’s magisterial Lawrence of Arabia. It’s one of my favourite films of all time but it grates that she didn’t even feature in one scene.

Suffice it to say, Gertrude Bell was one of those rare figures for whom the expression “larger than life” is too small. In an age when women were expected to stay close to husband and hearth, she explored uncharted deserts and ascended previously unclimbed mountains…in Edwardian skirts. Bell was full of firsts. She began marching to a different drummer at Oxford University, which was scarcely comfortable with women in the 1880s. A professor asked Bell and the few other female students for their reaction to his lecture. “Green eyes flashing, Gertrude retorted loudly: `I don’t think we learned anything new today. I don’t think you added anything to what you wrote in your book,'” Howell says. She was the first woman to get a First in modern history at Oxford.

As a highly respected archaeologist, she made important archaeological discoveries in an era when the methodology involved bribing local nabobs and packing a gun lest the natives not be friendly. A linguistic polymath, she translated the love lyrics of medieval Persian poet Hafiz. She was friends and colleague of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). She was every inch - and more - her colleague and friend’s equal in intellect and action. Bell was to achieve seniority in the British military intelligence and diplomatic service. The in-depth knowledge and contacts she acquired through long and arduous travels in then Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Arabia, shaped British imperial policy-making. More successful than Lawrence, she shaped the making of the modern east after the First World War. Indeed she ran Iraq when Britain, which won World War I, cobbled together that country out of bits and pieces of the Turkish Empire, which lost the war.

A daughter of the English industrial class, she fell in love with the parched landscapes of the Middle East and went native, albeit loading her caravans with fine china and formal gowns. She so mastered the language and culture of the Bedouins that members of the Beni Sakhr, a tribe not well-disposed toward outsiders, saluted her as one of their own. “`Mashallah! Bint Arab,’ they declared - `As God has willed it: a daughter of the desert,'” Georgina Howell writes in Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations.

I could easily point you to her own book, ‘Letters of Gertrude Bell’ which are cherished part of my library. But that might not be the best entry point into the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell. To date Georgina Howell has probably done the best biography of this amazing woman - Janet Wallach’s Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell is another one but Howell’s is better. Bell was constantly writing letters about her adventures, and Howell quotes them extensively throughout the book - which makes Bell much more dynamic. The scope of Howell’s book is also wider - while Wallach’s book focused mainly on Bell’s work in the Middle East later in her life, Howell seems to be trying to give equal attention to all the phases of Bell’s life

So my reservations about Howell’s book should be taken with a pinch of salt. Howell’s book certainly delves into the primary sources more head on. It’s a good book but the pity is that Howell’s literary skills are not always up to those of her subject. Yet such was likely to be the case no matter who her biographer might have been.

Howell doesn’t help herself by fretting about marginal issues like why Bell wasn’t more of a feminist. Honorary secretary of the Anti-Suffrage League, Bell organised a massive petition drive, which netted 250,000 signatures, against giving women the vote. Since Bell set so many firsts for her sex, why shouldn’t she also have been the Emily Pankhurst of her era?

Early on, Howell’s narrative gets bogged down in a recitation of Bell’s ancestors and social-set contemporaries. Many have hyphenated names bound to be lost on readers without ears trained since childhood for such aristocratic nuances. The great love of her life was Maj. Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Friends called him Dick. When they met, he was married and she was a virgin,“For Gertrude, intrepid as she was, sex was the final frontier,” Howell writes. In her mid-40s, Bell couldn’t bring herself to cross that border with her beloved, though furtive attempts were made. He went off to serve and die in Britain’s ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, carrying only a walking stick into battle against Turkish gunners. Howell also doesn’t really address why Bell would want to take her own life. Also missing from the Howell biography is Bell’s early disdainful attitude for the Middle Eastern locals she encounters.

Overall Howell’s obvious fondness for her subject hampers her ability to construct a more objective and nuanced portrait of Gertrude Bell. Readers are, however, indebted to Howell for her decision to allow Bell to speak for herself by including quotations from many of Bell’s letters. Summing up the state of Iraqi affairs in spring 1920, Bell admits that events on the ground have overwhelmed British intentions. “We are now in the middle of a full-blown Jihad . . . Which means that it’s no longer a question of reason . . . The credit of European civilization is gone . . . How can we, who have managed our own affairs so badly, claim to teach others to manage theirs better?"

Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark by Jane Fletcher Geniesse (1999)

Like Gertrude Bell, I’ve posted a lot on Freya Stark (1893-1993). Again, one can search my blog for her posts. It has to be said that Freya Stark, much like Gertrude Bell, was not the most cuddliest women one could warm to. Both could be demanding and dominant with others by having an iron will determination that their way was best. And both were friendless with other women whilst also having the most tragic luck in their romantic lives. Needless to say both were fascinatingly complex and complicated women of renown. Ex-New York Times writer, Jean Fletcher Geniesse, makes a fine stab at giving us a biography worthy of Stark’s amazing life, warts and all. Her book is excellent and offers a psychologically astute chronicle of the adventurous life of this intrepid traveler of the Middle East.

Freya Stark lived a truly remarkable life. Born in Paris to an English father and an Italian mother of Polish/German descent, she was raised in Italy, chafing under the impositions of her vain, rather selfish mother who had left her husband to his bourgeois English life. Freya was largely self-taught, learning Arabic and Persian for fun, always fascinated by the Orient. Which was just as well as she had a miserable family life. her overbearing mother had left Freya’s father for an Italian count, who would later marry Freya’s sister. Geniesse describes this suffocating domestic atmosphere in vivid detail, arguing that it helped trigger Stark’s desire for a life of picturesque adventure.

At age 13, Stark was disfigured in a horrible industrial factory accident. Stark began studying Arabic in London and in her mid-30s. By 1927 she was on a ship bound for Lebanon. Stark immediately fell in love with the Middle East, becoming “fascinated by the ancient hatreds among” the region’s different tribes and religious sects. As an Arabist proud of her British heritage, Stark was in the difficult position of justifying British colonialism to the freedom-loving natives. During WWII, she worked for Britain’s Ministry of Information in the role of propagandist. She collaborated with native groups in Egypt and Iraq, drumming up support for the Allied powers. She quickly found she was very good at her double vocation, as intrepid explorer and eloquent letter-writer, then pursued and built on these skills through two glorious decades, achieving stellar literary fame, and moved effortlessly in the company of the high and mighty.

Stark would travel on foot, by donkey or camel into some of the most inaccessible regions of the Middle East, places that scarcely saw Westerners, let alone single Western women. She would infiltrate mosques and harems, climb mountains, uncover ruined cities, live amongst the simple people of the deserts, sleeping under the stars or in Bedouin tents. When Freya traveled, she liked to stay where the local people stayed, and ate their food, drank their water, and talked to them. She learned many different languages and dialects throughout her travels.

She was a mountain climber, scaling the Matterhorn, and other peaks. Since she didn’t take any precautions with food or water, she was constantly ill, and she survived many different diseases: typhoid, dysentery, and malaria, to name a few. Contrary to what many might think she wasn’t the best organised of travellers. She would often plan haphazardly and rely on her skill and luck to be at the place she wanted to be.

She wrote numerous travel books, becoming one of the foremost experts on Islamic history and peoples. Her early books on Yemen and the ancient cult of the Assassins won her plaudits from the public and the Royal Geographic Society. Indeed the published accounts of her travels quickly became the most popular reads of the day, not only for the thrilling adventures she undertook but also for her incredible writing. Freya Stark kept meticulous notes about her travels and the lands she explored, and these were instrumental in updating the maps used by the Royal Geographic Society and the British Government. Freya was also plagued by the same concerns as her contemporary, Gertrude Bell, and wrestled with contradictory feelings as a proud British citizen regarding the government’s policies toward a region she admired and even loved.

Despite her growing fame, her personal life remained unfulfilling. She fell in love with a British colonial officer who “brusquely rejected” her. After the war, at the age of 54, she married a minor colonial official who, after their wedding, revealed he was a homosexual (or rather, she could no longer pretend not to see it). Because of her factory accident as a child, she had a desire for love and to be beautiful, which lead to intense jealousy of younger and prettier women.

It’s a captivating book about one of the great English-language interpreters of the Middle East, and one in which draws on the huge and expressive bulk of Freya Stark's letters to paint a personal and professional portrait of rare accomplishment. This biography is no hagiography, exposing Freya warts and all - her bravery, independence, sense of adventure and fun is all laid out alongside her tendency to imperiousness, her habit of using people who could be helpful to her, her neediness and desperate longing to be loved. Geniesse successfully explores Stark’s fascinating psychological makeup, her mixture of insecurity and total fearlessness. Throughout, the author skilfully details the people, places, and ideas that shaped her subject’s life. Although Stark could be amazingly kind to Iraqi Bedouins or Druze tribesmen, she took the smallest slights to her dignity as personal affronts.

Freya Stark comes across as a fascinating person, a woman who never let convention stand in the way of what she wanted, a true traveller keenly interested in everyone she came across, but somehow a woman who, whilst comfortable in any kind of surrounding, was never truly comfortable in herself. In all, the evocation of a world only sixty years back but so removed from ours in its rhythms and its concerns - with the intense letter writing, the extended visits to country houses, and the imperatives of empire - will keep the attention of the reader.

Overall it’s worthwhile, stylish, and thoroughly researched biography of a fascinatingly complex, often exasperating woman. Dame Freya Stark started traveling at the age of 22 and didn't quit until she was in her 90s - perhaps no finer example of wanderlust.

Space Below My Feet by Gwen Moffat (1961)

Gwen Moffat is little known amongst the general population but to the wider mountaineering community she has a rightful place as one of Britain’s foremost female climber in the post-war world. She has the distinction of being Britain’s first female professional mountain guide and also a prolific writer of over 30 books. This entertaining memoir roughly covers the years 1945-1955, when Gwen was in her twenties. Gwen Moffat is unorthodox, uncompromising, honest, charming, and a born rebel. Moffat was an Army driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, stationed in North Wales after the end of the Second World War, when she met a climber who introduced her to climbing in the Welsh Hills and a bohemian lifestyle. As a conscientious objector she found the army was not her cup of tea. She especially found army life too stiff and constraining the more she climbed around Wales, where she was stationed.

From that moment her entire life unfolds against a background of mountains, and she takes us with her. We follow Gwen in her hobo existence in a shack in Cornwall, in cottages in Wales and Scotland, on a fishing boat or when the money ran out, she worked as a forester, went winkle-picking on the Isle of Skye, acted as the helmsman of a schooner, and did a stint as an artist's model. To keep alive and support her little daughter in the meantime she has followed a number of other trades, all with a mountain background except for a job in a theatre: running a Youth Hostel in Wales, driving a travelling store on lonely roads in the Scottish Highlands, acting as a maid of all work in a hotel in the British Lakes.

There is no deeper truth for Gwen, just a frugal, bohemian life singularly devoted to climbing crags and mountains. Most of the action is situated in Wales and Scotland and it helps to have a rough idea of the topography as the narrative is littered with exotic toponyms referring to the innumerable cliffs, buttresses and arêtes climbed by Moffat. A few chapters deal with her climbing adventures in the Alps (Chamonix, Zermatt, Dolomites).

She is a skilled writer as she is a climber. Anyone reading her will experience a novice’s thrills during her first climbs, bare-footed, on the Welsh slabs; we go through hairbreadth escapes, and the climbing goes on: difficult, severe, very severe. When we finally part from her and her husband on the summit of the Breithorn after 12 hours on the Younggrat, she is a fully qualified guide. From time to time we are taken for exciting adventures on the Continent, to Chamonix, Zermatt and the Dolomites. To this reader however, the most fascinating parts of the book are the descriptions of the mountains Gwen Moffat knows best, the Welsh and Scottish Hills, and the enchanting island of Skye. People of all sorts come and go in the pages, but they are secondary to the main theme of a human being and her endeavours in high places.

The great attraction of Space below my Feet is the writer’s power to conjure up mountain scenes, moods and weather and her own reactions to them. This is an intensely personal book and may be frowned on by those who like their mountains to be viewed objectively. Mountains are her passion: through them she found freedom and her true self, and she feels she can best express herself climbing among them. The objective mountain worshipper is often personally inarticulate; he or she dwindles into insignificance beside the beloved object and is rather guilt-stricken about obtruding their own feelings in descriptions of climbs. Gwen Moffat though can articulate the unspoken onto the page. It’s her searing honesty and vividness as a writer that makes this book well worth reading.

Thanks for your question

[sallysellsseashellssundays]

I hate to keep being so salty about Moffat’s era b/c RTD’s first era did have some things I didn’t like but man RTD was a freaking genius at weaving so much emotion and heart into his stories while still keeping it sci-fi

I mean we had arcs for soooo many characters it’s actually kind of crazy when you think about it, and I’m not just talking about Nine, Ten/Tentoo, Rose, Martha and Donna

The companions families as well--positive and negative b/c I’m still not over how difficult it must have been for Martha’s family after their year with the Master. But Jackie and Pete had their happily ever after (and a baby), Mickey grew so much, Sylvia seemed to have a bit of a change of heart regarding Donna at the end, Wilf was fabulously Wilf (we saw their families so many times on screen!!)

Like think about how wild it is that I know Mickey was raised by his gran, I remember Martha warning her brother Leo and he was walking with a gf/wife/partner? pushing a baby stroller, Martha’s dad had a gf who I think was called Annalise and there was drama about that cheating scandal...I know so much about characters that aren’t really the main companions in comparison to, for example, Amy and Rory

We had arcs for “minor” characters like Cassandra, Harriet Jones, Adam, The Face of Boe, the Slitheen that took over Margaret, even Jake from Pete’s World

We had a connection between Gwyneth and Gwen with the explanation as to why they look the same, same for the explanation as to why Tosh was there in S1

We had what was essentially like an origin story for the Ood in S4 when they had first been introduced in S2

Jack had his own spinoff, I haven’t watched Classic Who but Sarah Jane was incredible in what I’ve seen of her own spinoff too

Even though there’s some things I don’t like about Journey’s End the reason it was so exciting to see was b/c of the culmination of so many characters that had so much backstory coming together. Come on we even had a reference to Mr. Copper from the “Voyage of the Damned” special since he funded the Sub-Wave Network! Incredible, just incredible. 

[ohmerricat]

Gwen ‘Clara Oswald’ Cooper … i need to make a web weave about their parallels but i have to finish watching the episode to the end … bring him back i am owed etc etc … dark water end of days … apparently chibnall was once again cooking so hard that moffat got inspired. seriously what happened to him between then and 2018

[cannibalisticdespair]

For all the criticism of Moffat I’ve seen, somehow I’ve still never seen anyone point out that the Rory Williams and Amy Pond dynamic and romance is a direct plagiarism of Rhys Williams and Gwen Cooper. Same franchise, literally the man has the same first initial and last name, there’s no way it can be a coincidence. I’ve seen more people call River Song a Berniece Summerfield ripoff despite actual important differences than I’ve seen people point this one out.

[companion-showdown-dot-org]

Almost/Could have been Contestant List

Who would you like to have seen become a companion?

Rules for further suggestions:

Must have met the Doctor

I know Jago and Litefoot are popular but I am not including anyone from Talons as a matter of principle

Not someone you could already call a companion (some exceptions may be made on a case by case basis)

Not necessary, but ideally someone who would have said yes in the right circumstances

There's no other restrictions on the kinds of characters to include, just anyone you wanted to come on further adventures in the TARDIS

Current List under the cut (there will be a group stage if necessary to bring this down to an appropriate number ie a power of 2, so do not worry about suggesting more)

60s

Jenny (The Dalek Invasion of Earth)

Bret Vyon (The Daleks Master Plan)

Anne (The Massacre)

Sam Briggs (The Faceless Ones)

Isobel (The Invasion)

Astrid Ferrier (Enemy of the World)

70s

Miss Hawthorne (The Daemons)

Bellal (Death to the Daleks)

Lish Toos (The Robots of Death)

D84 (Robots of Death)

Rodan (The Invasion of Time)

Duggan (City of Death)

80s

Todd (Kinda)

Richard Mace (The Visitation)

Will Chandler (The Awakening)

Chela (Snakedance)

Norna (Frontis)

Janet (Terror of the Vervoids)

The DJ (Revelation of the Daleks)

Ray (Delta and the Bannermen)

Mags (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy)

Shou Yuing (Battlefield)

Sabalom Glitz (Various)

EU

Ruby Duvall

RTD

Jabe (The End of the World)

Harriet Jones (Aliens of London / World War Three

Lynda (Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways)

Mrs Moore (Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel)

Jake (Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel & Army of Ghosts / Doomsday)

Sally Sparrow (Blink)

Timothy (Human Nature / The Family of Blood (could have his name wrong))

Joan Redfern (Human Nature / The Family of Blood)

Professor Yana (Utopia)

Chan Tho (Utopia)

Tom (The Last of the Time Lords / The Sound of Drums)

Astrid Peth (Voyage of the Damned)

Alonzo (Voyage of the Damned)

Ross (The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky)

Jenny (The Doctor’s Daughter)

Hath Peck (The Doctor’s Daughter)

Rosita (The Next Doctor)

Lady Christina de Souza (Planet of the Dead)

Adelaide Brooke (The Waters of Mars)

Moffat

Nasreen Chaudry (The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood)

Craig Owens (The Lodger & Closing Time)

Kazran (A Christmas Carol)

Abigail (A Christmas Carol)

Canton Everette Deleware III (Day of the Moon)

Rita (The God Complex)

Lorna (A Good Man Goes to War)

Madge Arwell (The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe)

Brian Williams (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)

John Riddell (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)

Nefertiti

Petronella Osgood (Various)

Kate Stewart (Various)

Madame Vastra (Various – The Paternoster Gang)

Jenny (Various – The Paternoster Gang)

Strax (Various – The Paternoster Gang)

Journey Blue (Into the Dalek)

Psi (Time Heist)

Saibra (Time Heist)

Perkins (Mummy on the Orient Express)

Courtney Woods (Kill the Moon)

Rigsy (Flatline & Face the Raven)

Maebh (In the Forest of the Night)

Shona (Last Christmas)

Cass (Under the Lake / Before the Flood)

Me (The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived & various)

Missy (Various)

Heather (Pilot & The Doctor Falls)

Erica (Pyramid at the End of the World)

Danny Pink

Chibnall

Bel (Flux)

Vinder (Flux)

Claire (Flux)

Jericho (Flux)

Spinoffs

Luke Smith (The Sarah-Jane Adventures)

Clyde Langer (The Sarah-Jane Adventures)

Rani Chandra (The Sarah-Jane Adventures)

Gwen Cooper (Torchwood)

Ianto Jones (Torchwood)

Tosh Sato (Torchwood)

[transmasc-rose]

I am an equal opportunity disliker of Doctor Who seasons. My three least favourite seasons are all from different showrunners.

Season 3: How they treated Martha and Ten's general unlikability (and not in a fun way, imo). I am generally bored or mildly uncomfortable with "oh no I like you but you don't like me" plots unless they do something interesting with it. Generally, I don't think RTDs seasons have a very strong plot, and use character arcs to make up for it, and this one wasn't compelling enough in that regard. High point: The Master was always fun, and Martha finally got to shine when the Doctor wasn't stealing her spotlight. If you like Martha watch Torchwood fr.

Season 7a: I haven't watched 7b yet but, and I say this as the worlds biggest Amy Pond fan, they should not have put her in a third season. Moffat ran out of ideas for her as soon as River was born. Please god why didn't you just let her leave on a high note. Moffat is good at bringing up concepts, even if he sucks at following through, and he didn't even bother with that in this season so What Is Left? Nothing is left. They did an arc in 6 episodes and the arc didn't exist. High point: That cowboy episode was fun. I love the Doctor pointing guns at people, it gets me every time. Doctor/Ponds family bonding moments :). Generally the individual episodes were ok but the bones were weak and, in fact, already broken.

Season 11: I was bored :( The companions didn't compel me in the way other companions have managed to do. It sort of felt like when a show wobbles around bc they can't tell if they're going to get cancelled or not and don't want to leave plot threads unfinished. So they didn't add multi-season plot threads. Thirteen's actions felt inconsistent with other nu who Doctors (ie. never bothering to deal with the systemic problems in ANY of her episodes. Ghost Monument. Kerblam!. The spider one. The other Doctors don't deal with it well usually, no, but he leaves the system broken without fixing them, not still running as is.) I've only watched a bit of s12 so I can only talk about what I've seen and Torchwood for Chibnall's writing, but I KNOW he can write. He can do it. I've seen his work on Torchwood. If he writes Doctor Who-rated Countrycide I will forgive all of his crimes. High point: I like Thirteen herself, and I like individual scenes ("That's my phone! All my stuff's in there!" "Not anymore :D"). Tardis wife <3. Spymaster wasn't in this season but I want to mention him anyways because I love him So Much and Spyfall SHOULD have been the s11 finale.

...I don't hate any of Torchwood though, so its not totally equal. I've watched two seasons and enjoyed two seasons. Gwen/Ianto/Jack is peak Weird Fucking Relationship and watching them exist absolves the show of all sins. Like, I think its lower quality than Doctor Who as a whole, but in the charming early seasons way that reminds me of the Ninth Doctor, and I love the Ninth Doctor. Congrats RTD and Chibnall, you get a pass on this one. (Special shout out to Catherine Tregenna <3 Her episodes were my favourite. I want to see her write Doctor Who.)

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 129

...And Then There Were None/The Time of Angels

"...And Then There Were None"

Plot Description: In search of Mother of All's latest monster, Sam, Dean, and Bobby run into Samuel and Gwen Campbell and fight about how to handle the case.

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: Honestly, I'm conflicted. Partly because I have no idea if that guy survived or if he got turned into a monster or what...

Guess he lived.

AWWWW RUFUS IS HERE TOO!!!!

Oh damn. I guess this IS the first time Bobby and Samuel are meeting.

Uh, DEAN? WHY DID YOU SHOOT GWEN? I know there's no real love lost between you and the Campbells, but...oh, it's whatever happened to the guys from the cannery, maybe

Good. Everyone hates Samuel, except maybe Rufus, but that's more of a Rufus doesn't give a shit about the Campbells outside of what info they have about what's going on

No, what the actual fuck. Because Samuel was DEAD. They were cutting open his HEAD. And all of a sudden he's alive again?! Because the creature that crawled in his skull activates with electricity?? Wtf is this episode even?

So now they're taking turn electrocuting themselves to prove the creature is not in them...sure.

NOOOOOOO, RUFUSSSSSS!!!!! RIP, you were a real one

Please don't tell me they lost Bobby, too....the cut to the cemetery was too obvious

"Been On My Mind...": Nope. 6...I'm pretty sure.

"The Time of Angels"

Plot Description: The Doctor tracks the last of the Weeping Angels through the terrifying Maze of the Dead.

It's the first half of a two parter, so my thoughts are probably going to be sparse. I forgot River was back this episode!!

Amy's outfits are so good.

The Doctor is the kind of guy who doesn't get something fixed in his car because it gives it character

River's a great TARDIS pilot. the Doctor's just salty

AMYYYYYY teasing the Doctor about the relationship he and River will eventually have.

My disdain for Moffat changing the rules of the Angels won't go away. The whole "that which holds the image of an angel becomes an angel" thing is terrible. And it definitely shouldn't have affected Amy. They were terrifying enough as they were

Oh. Oh no, Amy. It's starting.

Are we following these guys because they're Angel fodder? Because we really don't know enough about them for me to care about them this late at night. Sorry.

This set would be so cool to go through if I weren't also terrified of it

(I can't remember. Is the Angel calling Bob? Does Bob become an angel?)

Ah, damn...they fucking killed Bob and stole his vocal cords so they could talk to the Doctor. What the fuck.

Yeah, maybe we didn't know a whole lot about the Angels in Blink, but they've been given TOO many gimmicks.

You know...I like the Doctor and Amy like this. They're almost sibling like. He just bit her hand to make her finally believe it wasn't made of stone, and then she was complaining about his spit on it. I love this for them. I wish their relationship could have just stayed like this and not have the weird not-love-triangle but jealousy angle with Rory.

[chalten26]

Gwen Moffat

(born 3 July 1924) British mountaineer and writer

[thebraxiatelcollection]

+

[upslapmeal]

Revolution of the Daleks

Can you believe Spyfall was just one year ago? Yeah neither.

a long time ago in a galaxy far far away....

ok Chibbs no need to remind us how long ago 2019 feels we know

ah glad to see the Big Onscreen Place Names haven’t gone anywhere

and now I wish I’d actually rewatched Resolution

you should have gone to a service station for your tea mate

how did they know he would stop at the lone tea and burgers stall anyway

eyy it’s Misfits guy

(who I’m sure has been in many other things)

water pistol dalek

well I guess even daleks have to face being replaced by a robot one day

“You built this yourself?” “Yes well I was inspired by all the times daleks have invaded London”

Chibbs’ DW is definitely a Serious Drama™️ in the way that RTD’s was soap and Moffat’s was......Moffat

I do genuinely wonder if kids enjoy/follow the more Serious Drama™️ bits

but come on Chibbs give us FUN give us RIDICULOUS

FINALLY the Doctor

hi Angela the weeping angel

I would have expected Angela to be imprisoned with some sort of watching eye to stop her moving

OH WHY

IT’S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE A WEEPING ANGEL JUMPSCARE I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING

I wonder what that specific weeping angel did to make it worse than all the other weeping angels and deserving of space jail

yikes what happened to the peaceful ood

I see that the pting is in jail to atone for war crimes

The Doctor in jail feels a week bit ~when will my prince rescue me~

idk I feel as though I would have expected the Doctor to be trying to get out

I guess she’s using it as thinking time re: the whole timeless child jazz

did nobody ever notice the TARDIS house magically appearing on top of what I presume must have been some park overnight?

Detective Yaz

spider guy spider guy commits crimes a spider can

which unsurprisingly include tax fraud

Jack!

hiding things up his arse again, good to see nothing’s changed

THIRTEEN GOT A HUG

FINALLY

“we live in uncertain times” oh boy did Chibbs not know how hard that would hit when he wrote it

ey back with the human dalek puppets

“I had a suite with a cocktail lounge” I love knowing that this must have been during Nine’s time

“they took 7000 other offences into consideration” you were saying about Jack committing crimes to break you out, Doc?

“it’s been a tough few decades” yeah I know we’ve all had a rough 2020 you ain’t special

warm greeting from Graham - “you what?”

confrontational Yaz!

man genuine companion/Doctor conflict is something that has really been missing during Chibbs’ era

shame about the costume change though, Jack was right about it suiting her

Rose mention <3 </3

though Jack I think you’re giving the Doctor a wee bit too much credit with the whole immortality thing

interesting seeing Yaz choose to follow the investigation with Jack over sticking with the Doctor

“Being with the Doctor you don’t get to choose when it stops” unless you are absolute legend Martha Jones

I’m really enjoying this Yaz/Jack conversation

the sonic blaster!

.....when did that one dalek get a chance to start a clone farm in Japan???

loving Ryan and the Doc getting a proper conversation and how it differs from Yaz’s with Jack in how the 10 months has affected them

though let’s be honest 10 months is far from the worst the Doctor has done

“same Doctor, same Ryan, nothing’s changed” something something Ryan should have had a better arc something

this speech about change feels like something the Doctor would usually give to a companion

tbh Ryan things like purchase order numbers were bugging me too so I gotta side with knockoff Trump here

Doc if they managed to build a giant cloning facility from across the world then I’m sure they are very capable of getting to their casings

man I must have missed the daleks when I went through passport control this morning

“first the cyberdudes, now the daleks, no alien ship is safe from us two bad boys” 🤜🏻 “stop taking weird Graham” 👍🏿

Gwen Cooper <3

Ryan :’(

hug twooo

Graham :’(

hug threee

a bit of a weird exit since I’m sad to see them go but still feel as though I barely know them

especially Ryan

idk for their last episode I feel as though though the two of them should have had a lot more focus in the plot

got to do something big

hopefully we’ll still see them around, even if they’re not travelling

the benefit of this is we get more time rounding out Yaz as a character

Ryan and Graham, off you go to save the world

Grace :’(

Well as an episode this was perfectly enjoyable and it was good fun having Jack back but MAN if those two exits didn’t hit home how there’s just been something missing with the companions this era - let’s see how it goes next series when it’s just Thirteen and Yaz...and Dan Dan Companion Man.

[reverse-the-jellybaby]

thoughts on the rest of season 7

- as of writing this I’m up to the name of the doctor and boyyyyyyy howdy am I ready to get angry about that subplot again!

- like, not every woman has to be a MyStErY EnIgMa woman Moffat! Sometimes it can just be coincidence, like Donna, or in the right place like Rose or Martha. why couldn’t they have just made all clara’s lookalikes just descendants or something, and the doctor just keeps being drawn to her family throughout time for some other reason (like with Amy and the cracks in time). Similar to Gwen Cooper being a descendant of Gwenyth from The Unquiet Dead.

- I don’t know what my fascination with The Rings of Akhaten was back in the day but it was boooorrrriiinnngggg!! Except the last 10 minutes.

- the Crimson Horror was way better than I remembered, and I remember the scene where Eleven kisses Jenny without her consent being a big discussion topic when the episode came out. Like I know it’s just an outburst because of his sudden recovery from this disease but there’s still no excuse for sexual assault. And shamefully, I was in camp “it wasn’t assault” at the time. I now realise I was totally wrong. Jenny was right to smack him, I would’ve.

- Nightmare in Silver? More like NIGHTMARE OF THIRST!!!! I swear Neil Gaiman looked into my mind and said hmmm yes let’s write an episode to make me in particular thirsty as fuck for Matt Smith. 

- the 50th anniversary credits are definitely my favourite credits from the new series, second place would go to the season 4/Tennant specials theme. I just love all the little Easter eggs to all the previous credits sequences throughout history. Whoever created it clearly has a lot of love for the show and it’s history.

[iant0jones]

I’m not going to hack this post because I think it’s a beautifully written and valid take on the matter, but I do want to share my opinion on this, which has always been the exact opposite

The scene between Gwen and Suzie which features the stunning line, “We’re just animals howling in the night, because it’s better than silence,” has always brought me hope. I’m not sure about Chris Chibnall, but I know that Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat are both staunch atheists, which has been reflected in the way they write doctor who. This has resulted in them frequently using the theme, “There is no afterlife, and so we must make the most of the life we have in the moment.” That same message has flowed into torchwood, and as someone who has been an atheist for the second half of my life (with the exception of some recent hellenic agnosticism), I’ve always found this extremely comforting. Too many pieces of media portray atheism as a cynical belief. But it doesn’t have to be. I’ve always felt so much love towards doctor who and torchwood for approaching their beliefs the way they do. Because they really show the will to live, to really live, and to share your life with others, while you still can

[the-desolated-quill]

Why Spider-Man Leaving The MCU Is The Best News I’ve Heard In Ages - Quill’s Scribbles

Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Did you hear the news? I’d be surprised if you didn’t. EVERYONE has heard the news by now. A couple of days ago it was reported that the deal between Marvel and Sony that allowed the two studios to share custody for the rights of Spider-Man has fallen through. Spider-Man is no longer going to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Speaking as someone who is not only a big Spider-Man fan, but also a very vocal critic of the current state of Marvel and Disney’s cynical and convoluted ‘shared universe’, this caused quite a reaction when I first heard the news. I’m as happy as a man who just found out his high school crush likes him back on the same day he won the lottery. Happy, but not surprised. In fact I’m more surprised that other people were surprised by the news. The deal Marvel and Sony managed to strike was almost unheard of. Two rival movie studios in mutual cooperation. Never thought I’d see the day. But if you thought this was going to be the new norm, then I’m afraid you don’t understand this industry. I knew, or at least suspected, that once Sony had a hit on their hands, they’d cut ties with Marvel and Disney. It was only a matter of time. Now that Spider-Man: Far From Home has made over a billion dollars at the box office and now they have found success with their own non-MCU films, Venom and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, the simple fact of the matter is they don’t need Marvel or Disney anymore. So they’ve flown the coop. Yes it’s possible they could renegotiate the deal, but given how unlikely the prospect of the initial deal was in the first place, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. It’s more likely they’re going to take their ball and go home. Sony’s Universe Of Marvel Characters (despite its incredibly clunky name) is now going to be firmly built upon and expanded, and I for one could not be more excited.

Of course not everyone shares my excitement. Disney, for one thing, aren’t happy. Nor are the cast. Jeremy Renner has made his views clear, begging Sony to give the rights to Spidey back. (Perhaps he should focus more on his own character Hawkeye, considering what a mess he’s become). Die hard MCU fans aren’t pleased neither. Same goes for ‘celebrity’ fans like Kevin Smith, a filmmaker who preferred to be called a comic book expert on the Venom Blu-Ray bonus features presumably because he hasn’t actually been relevant as a filmmaker since the 90s. (it’s worth reading his thoughts just for a laugh. He honestly thinks Disney aren’t greedy, corporate bastards. ROFL). And of course the so-called ‘professional’ critics, who for years have deluded themselves into thinking the MCU is actually good, have been writing their own little think pieces about what all this means. Can Spider-Man possibly survive without Iron Man and pals to prop him up? To which the answer is obviously yes. Sony had the rights to Spidey for fourteen years before the Marvel deal. They made five Spider-Man movies, four of which were massive box office successes. They also released Venom and Spider-Verse last year. Both hugely successful and the latter even won an Oscar, which is one more Oscar than Marvel Studios have ever won (sorry Black Panther. You were robbed).Can Spider-Man survive outside the MCU? Gee I don’t know. I guess somehow Sony will find the strength to soldier on without them.

Although, that being said, there’s not as many journalists siding with Disney as I thought there would be. There are quite a few articles explaining how this split could help Spidey in the long run, which is both absolutely true and refreshing to see. Hopefully this is a sign that we’re finally turning a corner and critics are starting to use their brains again. Like how everyone worshipped the ground Steven Moffat walked on until Sherlock Series 4 where everyone realised that he’s actually shit and has always been shit. 

Spider-Man leaving the MCU is the best thing you could do for the character at this stage. The way he’s been treated since joining the Marvel clusterfuck has been nothing short of appalling. I’ve made it no secret how much I detest this version of Spider-Man and some might dismiss what I’m about to say out of hand, perhaps claiming I’m biased because I’ve said numerous times that I love The Amazing Spider-Man films starring Andrew Garfield. Two films I will go to my grave defending because they were bloody good movies. People were just butt hurt because it wasn’t Spider-Man 4. Never mind the fact that the original Sam Raimi films were never that good to begin with (seriously, have any of you actually watched Spider-Man 2 recently? Trust me. It’s not as good as you remember it). No, I promise you that if MCU Spidey existed in a vacuum, I would still hate him just as much for the simple reason that he has absolutely nothing in common with the source material. Under the watchful, Orwellian eye of Marvel, they took Spider-Man, a character most famous for being a working class everyman, and turned him into the most spoilt and privileged little bum-balloon I’ve ever seen.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was a terrible movie. Plain and simple. A cynically produced, written by committee, pile of wank that gets so much of Spidey’s character and story completely wrong, it’s almost impressive. No longer a teenager/young adult struggling to balance his superhero life, his school work, his career and his social life, instead we got a groomed Mary Sue who doesn’t have to fight for anything because everything is basically handed to him on a silver platter courtesy of Iron Man. We never see him struggle. He’s not relatable. He never has to face consequences for his actions. He misses God knows how many classes and debate group meetings and yet he never gets punished for it. Sure he gets sent to detention a couple of times, but we see him leave whenever he bloody wants to. It’s just boring. If there’s no struggle, where’s the tension? And the less said about the villain, the better. Taking an eccentric antagonist like the Vulture and turning him into the stereotypical blue collar dad trying to provide for his family has got to be one of the most uninspired and blatantly lazy bits of characterisation I think I’ve ever seen. And that’s not to mention the supporting cast. Aunt May is youthed for no reason other than to make sexist jokes at her expense with every man that comes within her general vicinity staring at her with their tongues hanging out and eyes as large as saucepans. Minor villains like Shocker and the Tinkerer have their characters reduced to unfunny comedy sidekicks. And then there’s Peter Parker’s gang of racial stereotypes. We have Peter’s best friend, the fat and nerdy Ned who has no real personality other than being fat and nerdy (and is without a doubt the most annoying character in the damn film). Flash has been racebent so now he’s the stereotypical arrogant Asian prick. Michelle has no character other than being the same sassy black teenager who don’t give a shit, a caricature so old now it’s practically been fossilised. And then there’s the love interest Liz, a character so bland and one dimensional that I had to look her name up. Oh and lets not forget that the majority of this Spider-Man’s story was nicked from Miles Morales because people are only going to empathise with his story if it revolves around a white kid, am I right?

You know, I get so frustrated whenever people slag off the Amazing Spider-Man movies and claim that these new movies are better because... well... WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I’m sorry, but I was much more invested with Peter and Gwen than I ever was with Peter and... what’s her face? Or Peter and Michelle (who I categorically refuse to call MJ because she’s not MJ, is she? They just used the initials to pander to gullible fans. They didn’t have the guts to just make Mary Jane Watson black, did they? Of course not! We don’t want to alienate the casual racists, do we? They’re our main demographic after all). The reason why Peter and Gwen worked is because they’re well-written, three dimensional characters with great chemistry and whom we actually spend a significant amount of time getting to know. So when Gwen dies at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it becomes a heart wrenching moment because we’ve grown invested in this character and this relationship. If Michelle were to die in a future movie, I honestly wouldn’t bat a fucking eyelid. Even Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst had more chemistry than those two, and that relationship was a total shambles from start to finish.

It also helps that Peter and Gwen felt like real people. I loved the scene in the first movie where Peter awkwardly asks her out because it reminded me so much of how I asked my first girlfriend out. And that’s why I love the Amazing Spider-Man movies. Because out of all the Spidey films we’ve had over the past 17 years, the Amazing ones are the only ones in my opinion that manage to capture the humanity of the character. As fantastical as the world is, the characters, their relationships and their dilemmas are grounded firmly in reality. Homecoming on the other hand is just embarrassing. Despite casting teenage actors, none of the teenagers actually act like teenagers. They act like five year olds. It’s painfully obvious that the filmmakers are trying to pander to young kids and they clearly don’t know how to write them. Again, this is where the Amazing movies stands head and shoulders above the others. They’re not treated like kids or teenagers. They’re treated like people. Real people. Same goes for the villains. (Yes, even Electro, despite wonky execution).

But the main criticism people have with MCU Spidey is that these films aren’t actually about Spidey. They’re really about the MCU mascot Iron Man.

Now to be clear, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the idea of Iron Man being a surrogate father figure to Spidey. It could work. Captain America: Civil War, despite the clunky and contrived way in which Spidey was introduced to the MCU (oh you just happened to know about a masked vigilante we haven’t seen or heard of until now Tony? Okay. What about Daredevil and Luke Cage?... What do you mean they’re not in the movie?), did a good job of setting up the dynamic. Namely that Tony doesn’t actually care about Peter or his well being, merely using him for his own ends. Unless Americans have some kind of ‘Bring Your Child To A Warzone Day’  I don’t know about. 

Despite its flaws, Civil War was good because it gave us an unsettling look at the characters we’ve been watching for years. We see Captain America consumed by his own naivety and idealism to the point where he can no longer see the bigger picture and we see Iron Man go from being an industrial capitalist to an authoritarian fascist. Homecoming could have followed up on that. Have Spidey realise that Tony doesn’t have his best interests at heart, reject him as a father figure and grow into his own man. Instead the movie seems to go out of its way to undo all the interesting things Civil War brought to the table. Of course Tony cares about Peter! Oh and his relationship problems with Pepper Potts have been magically fixed off screen and now they’re getting married! Relax people, it’s okay! Nothing morally complicated going on here! We apologise for assuming you’re actually intelligent and promise never to make you think about anything ever again!

Not only is this quite insulting to the audience, it also negatively impacts Spidey’s arc. Turns out the movie isn’t about Spider-Man becoming his own man. It’s about him proving he can be an Avenger. He’s constantly in the shadow of Iron Man and, more to the point, we’re supposed to be happy that he’s in the shadow of Iron Man.

Again, this is where the Amazing Spider-Man gets it right. The first movie is very much about father figures. Uncle Ben, Curt Connors and Gwen’s dad all play a role in Peter’s growth and development over the course of the film. He’s able to take all the lessons and advice he gets from the three and use them to become his own man. As director Marc Webb so eloquently put it, ‘it’s a story about a kid who grows up looking for his father and finds himself.’ Compare that to the current iteration of Spidey where Uncle Ben doesn’t even appear to exist in this continuity because he’s been completely supplanted by Iron Dad. Remind me again why people think the Amazing movies are shit?

The latest film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, is no better. Same problems as before only this time Mysterio gets MCU’d to death. Instead of the pathetic loser trying desperately to receive recognition for his talents, we basically get a rehash of the plot from Iron Man 3, which in turn was a rehash of the plot from The Incredibles. Mysterio is basically trying to supplant Iron Man because he got screwed over when he used to work for Stark, and it’s up to everyone’s favourite wall-crawler to stop him because there’s only room in this universe for one Iron Boy. Even when Iron Man is dead, he’s still front and centre of the fucking narrative. Here’s a bright idea. How about we make a Spider-Man film that’s actually, you know, about Spider-Man? (Oh yeah, spoiler alert, Iron Man dies in Avengers: Endgame. Not that it’s really spoiling anything because Endgame is a big piece of shit).

Here’s the thing. Everyone is blaming Sony for the deal breaking down, and okay, I’m not going to pretend that Sony aren’t cynical. As much as I love The Amazing Spider-Man movies, I’m well aware the only reason they exist is because Sony desperately wanted to keep the rights. They spent a stupid amount of money on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to the point where it needed to make a billion dollars at the box office in order to make a decent profit (a feat only achieved at that time by Batman with The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) and they crammed loads of characters and plot points into an already overstuffed movie in order to rush out their own shared universe to compete with Marvel. When that didn’t work, they went crawling to Marvel and Disney in the hopes that the MCU could bail them out of the shit. I get it. There’s plenty to criticise. But for the likes of Kevin Smith and other idiots to only blame Sony and defend Marvel is really quite galling to me because Marvel and Disney are just as cynical, if not more so.

Does anyone here actually know what the deal was? Basically the agreement was that Kevin Feige would get lead producer credit for any solo Spider-Man films and Marvel and Disney would get five percent of the cut. Meanwhile Spider-Man would be allowed to appear in any MCU film. Also, because Sony still hold the rights to the character, they get the final say on any creative decision regarding Spider-Man. Or at least that’s the theory anyway. In reality that wasn’t the case. Reportedly Marvel and Disney were so anal about keeping the plot of Avengers: Endgame a secret that they didn’t tell the screenwriters of Spider-Man: Far From Home what happens in the bloody film. And considering that the film follows directly on from Endgame, that’s quite a problem. Sony may have creative control over Spider-Man, but Marvel and Disney can still call the shots, deliberately sabotaging Sony in order to boost hype for their own films. Also Sony are actually worse off in this deal because Marvel and Disney are the ones making all the money. Spider-Man has appeared in three MCU films. Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. All three of these films made Marvel and Disney over a billion dollars at the box office. Sony meanwhile have only made two Spidey movies, Homecoming and Far From Home, only one of which has made over a billion and both of which Marvel and Disney get five percent of the profit. Now that Sony have finally got their billion dollar Spider-Man movie, Marvel and Disney had the cheek to propose that Sony share fifty percent of the profits with them. Because it’s not enough for Marvel and Disney to be making shit tons of money off their own films. No. They also want as much money as they can get out of films made by other studios that are only tangentially related to their’s. God forbid a movie studio should be allowed to keep all the profits from their movie.

So yeah, I’m glad Sony have split and are free to make their own movies again. Because Disney have got such a strangle hold on the entire industry that I’m always happy to see any studio or IP slip through their fingers. And I’m not the only one who thinks this. Do you know who else agrees with me? Stan Lee’s own daughter.

In an interview with TMZ, Joan Lee slammed Disney for their lack of compassion when her father passed away:

“When my father died, no one from Marvel or Disney reached out to me. From day one, they have commoditised my father’s work and never shown him or his legacy any respect or decency. In the end, no one could have treated my father worse than Marvel and Disney’s executives.”

She then went on to support Sony’s decision to break the deal with Marvel, saying ‘whether it’s Sony or someone else’s, the continued evolution of Stan’s characters and his legacy deserves multiple points of view.’

And do you know what? She’s right. She’s absolutely right.

While people were celebrating when Disney bought 20th Century Fox because the X-Men and Fantastic Four were finally going to be part of their precious shared universe, I was watching in absolute horror because nobody was actually talking about the ramifications of this. Disney serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when capitalism goes unchecked. Seeing this mega-corporation consume and absorb other major studios like some Lovecraftian monster is both frightening and heartbreaking for me because the industry is going to be so much lesser for it. Less studios means less movies are going to be produced. It also means less variety in the entertainment we consume. Marvel and Disney have already done their utmost to homogenise and dumb down every MCU film to the point where most of them all feel the same, look the same and have nothing unique or creative about them whatsoever. And now we’re on the cusp of seeing that potentially happening to my most favourite superhero in the whole wide world:

Thanks to the Disney buyout, plans for X-Force and Deadpool 3 have been placed on indefinite hold with people reckoning we won’t see the Merc with the Mouth again until Phase 5 (Christ, give me strength) of the MCU so that Marvel and Disney can work out exactly how to fit him into their shared universe. Naturally the R rated nature of the character makes him difficult to integrate into the PG-13 MCU. Some have suggested toning down the character. Even David Leitch, the director of Deadpool 2, said they could make a PG-13 version of the character, which just feels like such a massive betrayal. After literally years of Ryan Reynolds, director Tim Miller, screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and the fans fighting tooth and claw to get an R rated Deadpool movie green-lit, it sickens me whenever I see people discussing how a PG-13 Deadpool wouldn’t be so bad and that they just want to see him pop up in an Avengers movie.

Here’s a suggestion. If you can’t make someone like Deadpool fit into the MCU, STOP TRYING TO FUCKING DO IT! Let him be his own separate thing! I’ve got no problem with that! But no. Everything has to be connected to this idiotic shared universe, but here’s the thing, I really don’t fucking care. I couldn’t give two shits if Deadpool and Captain America were to meet in a movie. I just want to see X-Force and Deadpool 3. I just want some good fucking movies. Is that really too much to ask?

The MCU, and by extension Disney, are slowly ruining the industry with this shared universe crap and I’m getting so bloody sick of this. Not only does the premise have absolutely nothing new to offer at this point, it’s also ruining the quality of standalone movies. Instead of telling compelling stories with likeable characters, they’re just adverts for more movies to come with nothing unique to offer. Oooooh, can the Avengers stop Thanos and unkill everyone who we know aren’t really dead because they all have fucking sequels planned? Tune in next week to confirm what you already bloody know! I don’t give a fuck what you’ve got planned for me down the road in ten or fifteen movies time. Right now I’m stuck here at a service station and I’ve got no fucking sandwiches.

Off the top of my head, the only MCU films I can think of that I’ve watched in recent memory and I’ve actually enjoyed are Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther. And do you know why? Because they actually have something to say. They’re not focused on teasing the next bullshit spinoff movie. Black Panther in particular has little to no connection with the rest of the MCU. It works as its own standalone piece and has its own unique voice, commenting on how black people are viewed in society. Civil War takes elements from previous films and goes in an entirely new direction with them, exploring the faults in our beloved Avengers and questioning their role as superheroes. It offers something beyond a tease for the next film. It poses thought provoking questions about the characters and forces us to confront some harsh truths about them. But in an environment like the MCU, where everything is pre-planned by committee, there’s no room for creativity or expression, which means the few good movies get stifled. It’s impossible to continue the themes of Civil War because Homecoming exists to contradict everything. Black Panther is an amazing and impactful movie, but its impact is lessened thanks to Infinity War where we see the Wakandans reduced to little more than cannon fodder so that the real heroes can fight the baddie.

It’s frustrating to see people blindly accept and support the poisonous business model of Marvel and Disney because it’s not normal, it’s not benefiting the industry at large and it’s not even financially viable in the long term. Marvel Studios’ success revolves around one franchise. What happens when the shared universe/comic book movie bubble bursts and people eventually stop watching these films? (and it will happen because it always happens. That’s how trends work). They’re going to be up shit street, aren’t they? At least Warner Bros have Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings to fall back on. Their future isn’t entirely dependant on the success of the DCEU (thank God, some might say).

Also it’s worth noting that studios are slowly starting to move away from the shared universe format. Before the buyout, 20th Century Fox were taking risks with smaller budget, standalone movies like Deadpool and Logan. After the disaster that was Justice League, Warner Bros and DC have recently started focusing more on standalone movies to great success. Aquaman and Shazam, while still part of the DCEU, work as their own independent films. We’ve also got Joker being released in a couple of months time, which I think everyone should be paying really close attention to, because if Joker is critically and commercially successful, it could very well serve as the death knell for the concept of a shared universe. Definitive proof that you don’t need twenty movies and interconnecting stories with massive budgets to be successful. All you need is a very good idea.

Even Sony have finally learnt their lesson. They’ve taken a risk with Into The Spider-Verse and received an Academy Award for their trouble. As for Sony’s Universe Of Marvel Characters, they’re already off to a strong start with Venom. And mercifully they’re not making the same mistakes they did with the Amazing Spider-Man 2 or Ghostbusters. They’re not spending ridiculous amounts of money with unrealistic expectations of success and they’re no longer putting the cart way before the horse. They’re focusing on making a good movie first and worrying about potential expansion later. Venom may not be a masterpiece, but it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining and fulfilling than the majority of MCU films because it tells a complete story with a beginning, middle and end and it has well developed characters that we actually like and grow attached to. And if worst comes to the worst and Sony’s next film, Morbius, doesn’t do well, then they have Venom 2 to fall back on. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll still have Spider-Verse. They are no longer putting all their eggs in one basket and that’s good. That’s the smart thing to do.

Can you imagine something like Venom in the MCU? Of course not! Because Venom has its own unique tone and vision. That’s why it was so successful with audiences. Its mix of dark comedy and campy sci-fi horror made it stand out from the crowd. Marvel and Disney want us to believe that there’s only one way to make a superhero movie, when that’s simply not true. And now that Spider-Man is free to find his own unique voice again, hopefully people will begin to see just how creatively limiting and damaging the MCU truly is.

[friendly-neighborhood-wizard]

why do you hate superwholock?

ugh.

okay.

so it has come to this.

i don’t think it’s the shows themselves, per se, (unless it’s sherlock, then yes it is) and i can’t say i hate supernatural and dr.who because i haven’t watched them (though sherlock is, in my opinion, a highly overrated show that is actually hot garbage and good lord why do we keep casting the very talented martin freeman in shitshows), but i have come across a lot of superwholock in my hyperfixation with bbc’s merlin in all of its perfection and i have come to a conclusion. it’s the fandom that has never sat right with me.

i just don’t get very good vibes from the fandom in general. and honestly the intensity of many superwholock fans gives me severe anxiety. aside from the great deal of queer fetishization that goes on in the fandom, people tend to overlook bigoted views shown in the shows to idealize the show as ‘perfect’ (see, literally anything ever steven moffat has ever done and queerbaiting in sherlock and supernatural, and fans are quick to show blatant racism and even misogyny when it comes to characters who get in the way of the mlm ship, such as hate for gwen in merlin). 

it’s possible to like supernatural, dr. who, and sherlock without being problematic. but there is a line there that separates being a fan from being a problematic fan that is very easy to cross, especially when it comes to these shows.

[whilereadingandwalking]

Wanderlust: A History of Walking is a simply magical book by Rebecca Solnit tracing the concept of walking across disciplines, from philosophy to city planning to biology (how did we become bipedal anyway, and why?) Solnit discusses everything from the pilgrimage to the march, studying how we’ve conceptualized walking, wandering, exploring, from competitive drives to courting to a specific connection to a landscape to protesting and collective action. She discusses how women are fundamentally limited in their ability to inhabit and explore public space (the book also introduced me to names I didn’t know, from activist Josephine Butler to 1950s climber Gwen Moffat); without overly condemning modernization, she discusses how a car-based and suburban culture has eroded our desire and space to wander.

As a lover of walking myself, it was a joy to read and walk with this book. It spoke to my love of wandering new cities, and the chapter on the ways that the world limits women’s ability to explore hit me deep in my soul. When I go back to the suburbs, there are places to walk, but only if I drive to them. Here, I walk to work every day, and I find that people are often astounded by this even though it’s only a 30 minute walk and taking a bus would make my commute longer. I walk at least 15 miles a week, partially because I am lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with park space to roam and wide sidewalks to read-and-walk down (I wonder what Solnit would say about my reading and walking). Walking is a regular joy in my life, that I never wish to relinquish, and this book unpacks the concept’s history and tells me in many ways why I adore it so much. This is one of my favorite reads of the year so far.

[ao3feed-janto]

Torchwood High

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2veTMWU

by Pooky1234

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters used from Torchwood and Doctor Who; they are the property of Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and the BBC. I do get to play with them. I do own any character created by myself within this story.

Warnings: I will warn that there are scenes of a sexual nature, but this is Torchwood, so you’d expect that and a limited amount of violence.

There have been so many AU stories with pupils that I thought I’d do one with staff instead. The setting is Torchwood High School on the outskirts of Cardiff. There will be characters from Torchwood and Doctor Who and some of my own from other stories and some created specifically for this one. I have used episodes from Series 1 and 2 as a background to the story followed by Children of Earth so be warned. We begin with Ianto Jones first day at his new school, Torchwood High.

Words: 1778, Chapters: 1/95, Language: English

Fandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Rape/Non-Con

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper, Rhys Williams (Torchwood), Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Amy Pond (Doctor Who), Rory Williams, Vislor Turlough, Davros (Doctor Who), Canton Everett Delaware III, Adam Smith (Torchwood), Mary (Torchwood), Tommy Brockless, Beth Halloran, Agent Johnson, John Frobisher, Alice Carter, Gray (Torchwood), John Hart, Clement "Clem" McDonald, Lois Habiba, Lisa Hallett

Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Owen Harper/Toshiko Sato, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler

Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional Baggage, Original Character(s), Past Relationship(s), Past Abuse, Major Character Injury, War, Secret Relationship, Rape/Non-con Elements, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Fun, Alternate Universe - High School, Religious Discussion, Relationship Discussions, Danger, Peril

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2veTMWU