#i mean. there is no defence for this but. arguably she is the WORST when it comes to men.

[ssaalexblake]

okay so i never Did bother to watch cm after i could eventually dl it because my urge to see it was entirely stemming from fomo specifically stemming from not being Able to watch it 

turns out the fear of missing out doesn’t count when i have the power to not miss out, i just don’t care. 

i like to have control over not watching things i guess

[tyrdda-bright-axe]

One thing that really annoys me about the Dragon Age fandom is how a lot of people can simultaneously hate on Celene fans (and not just Celene in general! Hate whichever character you want)  while not holding Maric, Cailan, King!Alistair and *even* Loghain who famously sold elves into slavery to fund his war effort, fans to the same standard.

(Not really covering Anora since I don’t really see her mentioned much at all by most people, and she’s mostly covered by what Alistair does anyway since mechanically there is no difference in their rule)

Characters who all also MASSIVELY failed their elven citizens and did *nothing* to help improve their rights, and in fact stood by while things like Alienage purges happened. Just see Vaea from the comics, who lived through an attempted purge that was only stopped because Ser Aaron was there, not because it was illegal or anything! And was shocked that Ser Aaron was trying to get her knighted- who really did not think she would get the Knighthood even with a note from his deathbed. And Alistair had been king for more than a decade at that point.

Seriously, I am totally open to any canon source that shows that the Ferelden rulers did anything to help elves in the long term. Maric and Loghain are arguably the worst since elves fought alongside them to regain Ferelden! (and if you want to accuse anyone of an elf fetish Maric is right there, rather than Celene, who in the whole series has been shown to only be romantically interested in one person who happens to be an elf.)

Just to cover Alistair and/or Anora:

The retconned(?) Origin Epilogue shows that elven riots have to be put down in the Denerim Alienage even when Shianni is made the Bann of the Denerim alienage, a position mind you that literally only applied to the elves in the Denerim alienage, and none of the elves outside of it. And Sera’s codex entry implies that canon was not much better. (I mean, let alone the whole situation there where she couldn’t really inherit because she’s an elf and it was pretty much all seized during the Blight anyway) Alistair would have okayed them putting down the riots, because that is what a medieval ruler does. It also was in Denerim proper, the city he rules from, so he likely would have been there in person. Is it moral by our standards? No. Do people condemn people who are fans of King!Alistair? (Not that I’ve seen)

Elves can’t even wield weapons in Ferelden- which highly limits their chance for social advancement in Ferelden’s martial culture, let alone the self defence implications of that. (ie being made knights and climbing up the social ladder to gain land and other titles)

They’re all medieval rulers who have medieval moral values- why is it only liking Celene an indication of your overall morals? Being a lesbian doesn’t change how she was raised, nor does being a woman. It doesn’t magically give her modern moral values. She's no different than the other rulers (other than, you know, she tried to advance elven rights in a way that still fits in her medieval POV) Of course its going to be backwards and wrong by our standards! She does later admit that she didn’t more as fast or decisively as she could have, so there is at least growth!

But anyway, my point is that villainizing people based on liking one character isn’t right. Particularly when it's not even applied equally. Though if you’re a person who hates all fans of the rulers in Thedas more power to you. My main issue is the double standard.

[bruciewayne]

ask him to ask you

stevetony, fluff, highschool au, mutual pining

Tony’s things clatter onto the table and Tony himself follows, practically collapsing opposite Steve.

They’re in the diner they’ve been going to for the past few years every Friday after school. Steve can’t tell if he hates that Bucky calls it date-night, or if he wishes that it was.

“PhD finally beat you?” Steve teases.

Tony glares at him, offended, “No.” He drinks his coffee as grumpily as he can until Steve asks him what’s wrong. Steve definitely shouldn’t find this as amusing as he does.

“What happened?”

“Turns out,” Tony starts, dropping his cup on the table and turning to Steve (occasionally, Steve gets a headrush from Tony’s full attention, the overwhelming intensity of it, all focused on him. Today is one of those times. Most days are, if he’s being honest.), “I’m not allowed to go to prom!”

Steve’s mouth is too full to answer properly, so he makes a suitably shocked face.

“Because my attendance is shit! Apparently I’ve been ‘classed as a student’ even though everyone knows I’m a TA and I’m in college half the week. AND they said it was all fine at the start of the year. But I guess not!”

Steve knows how much this means to Tony. Not prom specifically, just the whole ‘normal teenage experience’. And because of how important it is to Tony, and because he’s spent far too much of his life finding loopholes (which only got worse when he met Bucky in kindergarten and then Matt, in freshman year), he says quite possibly the worst thing he could to the guy he’s maybe, a little, (definitely, a lot) in love with.

“Be someone’s plus-one, no attendance rules against that,” he suggests, even as everything in his body and mind screams at him to shut up.

He tells himself that it’s worth it when Tony lights up and calls him a genius as he whips out his phone, fingers flying over the keypad.

“Bucky, help me--”

“Is it Tony related?”

“Maybe.”

Bucky sighs and nudges Steve with his foot until he hands him the popcorn bowl.

“Well,” he says, once he has his mouth full, “what stupid thing did you do?”

“Um. Well, you know how much Tony wanted to go to prom?”

“Sure.”

“The school said that he couldn’t ’cause of his attendance, so we found a loophole and long story short I told him to ask someone to prom,” Steve says, trying as hard as he can to not look at Bucky, because he knows that he has his ‘You’re so goddamn stupid’ face on.

“Someone who isn’t you?”

“Someone who isn’t me.”

Bucky’s silent for all of three seconds. “Why did you ask him to prom?”

“Oh yeah, why didn’t I ask him in a crowded diner and lose both my dignity and one of my best friends in the span of five seconds?” Steve says, sarcastically, throwing kernels at Bucky.

“Even if he did say no, he wouldn’t be a dick about it--”

“He’d think it was a joke,” Steve grumbles.

Bucky hums and concedes his point. “Yeah, but he wouldn’t be a dick about it.”

“Buck.”

“Steve.”

“He’s gonna find the love of his life and if not for prom, then probably at college, if he hasn’t already and it’s not gonna be me,” Steve says in a small voice, in a rush.

Bucky tugs him into a rough hug, saying more than he ever properly could.

“Buckaroo! Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Steve freezes when he hears that, just a couple feet in front of him and Sam crashes into him. His heart drops straight out of his chest when Tony drags Bucky out of the lunch line to the corner of the cafeteria, out of earshot of everyone.

“He’s not gonna ask him to prom,” Sam says, confidently.

“I know that,” Steve defends, even as he focuses on Not Looking at them.

“Bucky already has a date.”

Steve grins, despite himself, “Oh yeah?”

Sam smiles back, “Yeah.”

“About fucking time.”

Watching Sam and Bucky pine after each other in the absolute dumbest, most ridiculous way possible, in the way that only those two could, for at least the last two years (or maybe even longer), had been a small hell on his part, so he’s happy for them. Hopefully, it’ll mean that he’s no longer playing the middle man for them.

“I wasn’t stealing your man, just looking for advice,” Tony says when they rejoin the line.

“And you went to Buck?” Steve says, incredulously, masking the (stupid, dumb, irrational) hurt. He gets a punch in the arm and a glare for the trouble.

“I’ll have you know that I can be very advisable.”

“You once told me to taste different paint to see if the colour changed the flavour!”

Sam looks between the two of them, “You ate paint because you thought it was flavoured?”

“He told me to!” Steve accuses. In his defence, he had been curious.

Tony tries, and fails, to hide a laugh, “Now, Steven, if Bucky jumped off a bridge--”

“You’re spending far too much time with my mother,” Steve grumbles.

“No such thing,” Tony says, simply.

They get their food and Steve pushes anything to do with prom and Tony to the back of his mind in favour of poking fun at Sam and Bucky.

“-- I’ll make sure that he doesn’t suspect a thing, honey, yeah, okay, have a good day, sweetie.”

“Make sure who doesn’t suspect a thing?” Steve asks, dropping his bag on the floor and kicking off his shoes as his ma hangs up the phone.

“I thought I taught you better than to eavesdrop, and I know that I taught you better than to leave your shoes like that,” his ma says, pointing at his haphazardly thrown shoes, barely a foot away from the rack. Steve rolls his eyes but he goes to righten his shoes anyway.

His ma gives him a quick hug, “How was your day?”

Steve shrugs noncommittally, following her into the kitchen. “Eh. Nothing new, prom stuff, college stuff.”

“You wanna go?” She asks, turning on the oven and pulling a dish out of the fridge. Steve takes out plates and cutlery and starts to set the table.

“Prom? I don’t have anyone to ask.”

“What about Tony?” His ma asks, innocently.

“What-what about Tony?” Steve asks, matching her innocence, looking up from where he’s sitting.

“Steven.”

“Ma!”

“I’ve seen the way that boy looks at you, and the way you look at him.”

“I told him to take--”

“Someone else? Yeah, James told me about that.”

Steve groans and lets his head drop onto the table, “Does everyone report to you?”

“Only when you’ve forgotten your common sense.”

Steve resists the urge to bang his head on the table, just barely. His ma sets the timer and then comes to sit beside him.

“Steve.”

“Yeah.”

She brushes his hair back, “You two are gonna be fine, I promise.”

Steve lets out a long, high pitched whine, mostly muffled by the table.

Later, when he’s ready to go to sleep, he fiddles with a Rubic’s Revenge cube, twisting it so all the colours jumble together and then twisting it back to organisation.

--

“I don’t know how to fix it,” Tony, the boy who’s so much smarter than them all, the boy who can go head to head with highschool seniors, despite being half their height, says to him, handing him the cube, still all mixed up.

“You don’t fix it,” Steve replies, twisting the cube and swinging his legs, feet barely brushing the tarmac as Tony watches, enthralled. “You solve it, like a maths thing.” He shows him the side he just solved, red. His best record is one and a half sides, but his ma can do all the sides.

“Like a puzzle?”

“Game.”

“My father says that games are a waste of time,” Tony mumbles. 

Steve hands him the cube, rejumbled, “Tell him it’s one of those maths things.”

On his birthday, Tony gives him a new cube, a four-by-four one, called Rubic’s Revenge, because Steve told him to keep the other one. It took him until the summer to solve one side and then until he was in the fifth grade to do all.

--

“Hey, uh, Mrs. Rogers, Sarah, I’m just, um, calling, well, leaving a message, messaging? Anyway. Um, the stuff, for Steve, I have it, well, I still need to fix a, uh thing in the thing but it’ll be done by tomorrow, by Friday. And, uh, thanks, for all of this, really. Um, goodbye. Thank you.” 

Tony hangs up the phone and re-focusses on the cube in front of him, moving the magnifier above a tiny little mechanism. It’s an almost-replica of a Rubic’s Revenge, made of wood, when Steve solves it, it should open to show ‘Will you take me to prom?’. Keyword being should.

He solves it, of course he does, and then spends half the night convincing himself not to destroy it and tell Sarah that he made a mistake. Bucky told him that if he didn’t ask Steve to ask him to prom, he would do it for them himself. On the school intercom.

He spends the other half convincing himself not to down an entire bottle of Daniel’s. Sarah, Bucky, Steve and he himself would never be able to forgive him if he asked Steve out hungover. He doesn’t know if the fact that at least four people refuse to let him ask Steve out hungover is a blessing or a curse.

He works on the Riemann hypothesis until he can barely keep his eyes open.

The next day he’s half-awake in college. The professor tells him he’s happy to see him sober.

“PhD finally beat your ass?” Steve asks, pushing a muffin and a mocha towards him after he drops his many, many bags.

Tony takes half the muffin in his mouth, “You sound like Bucky,” he says, though it sounds more like ‘mmm mmmf mmf mmfmm’.

“I’ve sounded like Bucky for as long as you’ve known me,” Steve retorts, grinning at him over his hot chocolate.

Tony fakes a look of shock. “How have I just realised?” 

If this were a date, Steve would say something like ‘love makes you blind’, and Tony would maybe laugh and then lean over the table to kiss him and he’d smile. But it’s not. So he says, “‘Cause you’re an idiot,” instead.

If this were a date, Tony would say something like ‘your idiot’, and Steve would maybe laugh and then lean over the table to kiss him and he’d smile. But it’s not. Yet (hopefully, so damn hopefully), anyway. So he says, “Started a PhD before most people got their college acceptance letters,” instead.

“Selectively appearing brain cells,” Steve says.

Tony outright groans at that, “You’re lucky that Bruce isn’t here.”

“I don’t need biology to know that I’m right.”

“Sound like Bucky!”

“Arguably not a bad thing.”

Tony gives Steve a look. “I will survey everyone who’s ever had to come into contact with Barnes.”

“I’ll ask my ma.”

“Cheater.”

“He’s your best friend!” Steve says, in a sing-song voice.

“Rhodey might have a problem with that.”

Steve just shrugs and they lapse into a comfortable silence, drinking their drinks.

“I have something for you,” Tony says, suddenly, putting down his cup and rummaging around in one of his bags. He hands him the cube, hand shaking slightly.

Steve turns it in his hands. A wooden Rubic’s Revenge. “You made it?”

Tony nods, nervous. “Solve it.”

“Time?”

Tony nods again and looks at his watch. “Go.” He watches Steve’s hands fly over the cube, fast and gentle at the same time. “A minute-twenty,” he says, smiling back at Steve as he places the solved cube on the table, grandly. He’s exactly on par with his personal best, and the look on his face quells some of the nervousness Tony feels, just hoping that the little, tiny mechanism works.

The cube folds out into a long line of six squares. WILL YOU ASK ME TO PROM?

Steve smiles, so Tony takes that as a good sign, “Before I ask I gotta know, is it because you want to go to prom or ’cause you like me ‘cause--”

“I’ve liked you since you told me to lie to my father, and I’ve probably loved you since you gave me that damn Rubic’s cube and I’ve known that I love you since you punched Beck in fifth grade.”

Steve stares at him, “Will you go to prom with me?”

“I’d love to.”

Steve does what he’s wanted to do for the past few years they’ve been going to this cafe and lunges across the table to kiss him. It’s a little awkward, and he thinks that he hears Angie, who runs the cafe, yell finally!, but honestly, he’s not paying much attention to anything or anyone who’s not Tony.

“I, uh, love you too, have done for too long to remember what’s it like not to, to be honest,” Steve says, when they pull away.

Tony drags him back into another, then another and again and again until Steve’s lightheaded in the best way possible.

(Three years later, after his graduation, Steve hands him a wooden three-by-three. When Tony solves it, it springs open and there’s a shining, silver-coloured key.)

((And two years after that, Tony gives him a two-by-two cube, and when Steve solves it, and when it creaks open, there’s a ring, gleaming. He says yes.))

-

for ‘promposal’ on happy steve bingo

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 19: MJ is NOT a super hero

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Mary Jane is an incredibly gifted woman who you don’t want to mess with. But do those gifts really make her a hero, one who could take on Mysterio?

I was initially planning on looking at Mary Jane’s combat record in this post. However, before doing that there needs to be a dash more context to really put things into perspective.

I could simply cite Sen v2 #32 to prove my point. In this issue the Parker family are on the run since Peter unmasked and opposed the Super Human Registration Act. At her wits end MJ contacted Sue Richards for guidance.

During their conversation MJ opens up about how stressed she is. She even refers to Sue and other heroes as ‘you people’, clearly demarking a difference between them and herself.

Sue basically tells MJ to toughen up, referencing herself, Jessica Jones and Storm, the (then) wives of Reed Richards, Luke Cage and Black Panther respectively.

However, at the end of the conversation MJ points out the difference between herself those women was that she didn’t have powers to fall back on.

There you are. MJ herself acknowledging she has no powers and is not a super hero.

End of discussion.

Well no, because we can dive much deeper.

Let me start with this irrefutable statement: Mary Jane is a bad ass.

She truly is.

Mentally, emotionally, physically, she’s pulled off some truly impressive things.

But the thing is those things she’s pulled off…they wouldn’t be that impressive (if at all) if say, Wonder Woman did them. Or She Hulk. Or Mockingbird. Or Batgirl/Barbra Gordon. Or you know…Spider-Man himself.

So why do fans gravitate towards these things, these feats of heroism, self-defence and protection of others?

Because they are impressive considering Mary Jane is NOT a super hero.

You see it’s all a matter of scale.

The Chameleon is a trained and experienced mercenary but doesn’t possess any super human powers beyond the ability to change how he looks. In what has become one of her most iconic moments, Mary Jane defeated him with a mere baseball bat. This occurred when she knew what to expect, when Chameleon was underestimating her and when he was unarmed. That is  impressive no doubt.

But were the situation the same but Batgirl was substituted for Mary Jane it wouldn’t nearly be as impressive because Batgirl, even with just a baseball bat, is at worst on a similar power level as the Chameleon. But in all seriousness is almost certainly his superior in terms of combat proficiency. She’s thoroughly trained in various forms of hand-to-hand combat, strategy, thinking on the back foot and highly experienced.

And experienced against people who’re actually much more physically dangerous than the Chameleon, such as Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy or the Joker. When you remove Chameleon’s stealth and weapons you are left with someone who is highly violent and could kill the average civilian if given the chance…but ultimately not someone as dangerous as most of the famous super villains from Marvel or DC.

If anything arming Batgirl with a baseball bat would be needlessly excessive, she could defeat Chameleon with just some punches or kicks.

Now apply that same scenario but substitute in Mockingbird, who can dent steel with her bare hands and has an accelerated healing factor and arguably superior fighting skills to Batgirl. Or how about She-Hulk, someone with vastly more strength, an even better healing factor and immensely more durability. And as Wonder Woman…she is literally a millennia old demi-goddess with divinely empowered durability, strength and speed, fast enough in fact to easily deflect bullets. *

If you were told any of these  women defeated the Chameleon with ‘just a baseball bat’ would you  be impressed? Would you feel that’s a huge accomplishment for any of them?

Of course not.

Because on even an incredibly rudimentary power scale common sense would clearly define for you that Chameleon wouldn’t be a physical threat to any of them.

Because they are actual super heroes wit either physically enhanced physiologies or advanced equipment or highly practiced expert level combat training.

The reason MJ dispatching the Chameleon has been celebrated for over 20 years is because none of that applies to her.

Let’s unpack exactly  what MJ does and doesn’t have in her arsenal.

Mary Jane lacks any bona fide super human abilities or advanced combat training.

She has experienced being targeted directly by criminals or being caught up in criminal encounters. But these are intermittent experiences resulting from either her association with people the criminals have a grudge against (typically Spider-Man) or plain bad luck. She does not regularly  in her day-to-day life deal with such things nor does she even deal with them on a weekly basis in her life. If she does they are likely the result of simply living in Marvel’s version of New York city, which thereby means most of her experiences are the same as the average resident of the city.

Apart from these intermittent experiences (and exempting her seeking help from others) the traits she possesses that might (in one capacity or another) be applicable in a dangerous situation are as follows:

She is a physically fit woman approximately aged between 24 and her mid-30s. But nowhere close to being Olympic athlete levels of fitness. 

Excerpt from ‘The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Spider-Man 2004’

In terms of conventional/stereotypical beauty standards she is generally considered to be stunningly attractive. She is 5’8” and weighs in at 120 lbs. Her outward appearance then could potentially be used to make her would-be assailants underestimate her or even be dazzled by her beauty as a distraction

Mary Jane is not blind to the harsher realities of life and has developed proficient street smarts. But it’s not like she knows where to find stool pigeons and how to go about shaking them down for information, nor the inner workings of the criminal underworld.

She is a skilled actress particular practiced at adopting the façade of a seemingly carefree and simple party girl

She is at worst rather experienced when it comes to flirtation. Arguably we could extrapolate this into her being decent at general seduction but that’s debatable

She has good at improvising

She is exceptionally skilled in social interactions

She has a pretty decent ability to read people’s personalities, but is not a fully trained psychologist or any similar field that’d make her an expert at reading people very quickly and taking advantage of them as a result

She has certain basic self-defence skills gleamed from classes most people can attend

She has had at exactly one basic training session with Captain America, where the focus was more upon mental discipline and focus. The session never implied he taught her any practical self-defence moves and the session was geared more to instructing Peter  not Mary Jane.

She has demonstrated/developed certain basic and unrefined (albeit often proficient) self-defence skill. These primarily consist of using melee weapons (typically objects not actually designed for such a purpose, like baseball bats) and to a lesser extent firearms, and to an even lesser extent hand-to-hand attacks. Mary Jane for instance has never been shown to practice using a handgun, although she does know how. She can slug someone in the jaw, but she’s never been shown to have trained how to do that, you see what I am getting at.

Technically speaking she possesses a pair of bracelets that are modified web-shooters, along with a set of regular web-shooters. 

The former have a limited amount of web-fluid and are designed to stall a target, with the aim being for Mary Jane to surprise her assailant and buy time to escape, not engage in an outright fight. She has been shown to rarely carry either of these on her person though and there is no implication she has them in Amazing Mary Jane #1. Additionally since she is on set it would be unlikely that she’d be allowed to wear them as they wouldn’t be part of her on outfit for the movie.

Along with most of New York she has possessed identical powers to Spider-Man (in addition to organic based web-shooters) for less than 24 hours, during which time she displayed a proficiency in using them (due to bad writing, literally no one struggled to adjust to the use of Spider-Man’s powers). She has never possessed these powers again since, and this includes in AMJ.

On a handful of occasions she has piloted various different advanced armoured suits designed by Tony Stark. These have chiefly included his rudimentary MKII armour and the Iron Spider armour originally designed for Peter’s use. 

In both she demonstrated proficient defence skills. It is not clear how easy the armours are to use so whether MJ’s proficiency was due to a natural skill or due to the armour’s design is debatable. Regardless there is no indication she regularly has access to this technology and certainly not in AMJ.

MJ possesses incredibly strong willpower and understands the need for self-sacrifice, demonstrating in her time a willingness to give something of her self for the good of others. This could be important in regards to protecting other people.

As you can see MJ’s skillset is impressive for a civilian.

But some instances (like the Stark armours she’s donned) make the depths of her skills unclear. The most advanced equipment she has access to are her web-shooters but she is shown to only use or even carry them on occasion. In both cases she is not shown to have access to either in AMJ. Her other skills are things anyone in real life could hypothetically possess and in fact several other civilians in the Marvel universe either do possess or could possess.

What I'm saying is Mary Jane is, by any metric, a civilian.

A civilian who knows how to use a gun, has had cause to defend her self dozens of times and is very good at thinking on her feet. But a civilian nevertheless.

She has the spirit to cut it as a superhero but not without powers, training or access to advanced equipment like Iron Man’s armour. None of which she currently possesses or has access to in AMJ.

When you get right down to it the reason we fans celebrate whenever Mary Jane triumphs or survives or even just pulls off some good moves against a criminal or super villain is because we understand she is ultimately the underdog.

We grasp that it’s innately more impressive for someone in the featherweight division to even hold their own for a little while against someone in the heavyweight division because normally they wouldn’t stand a chance and we are naturally inclined to be sympathetic towards them.**

This isn’t exclusive to Mary Jane by any means, underdog stories date back to the Bible itself with the classic tale of David and Goliath.

To use an example closer to home though, in ASM #229-230 Spider-Man had to stop the Juggernaut, a villain whose strength and durability had given him a reputation as unstoppable. He regularly tangled with the Hulk and was over all far beyond Spider-Man’s weight class. The story is widely regarded as one of the all time best in Spider-Man history, primarily because  it is such a shining example of an underdog story.

Such stories are fairly common in super hero comic books, but so too is the popularity of civilian supporting characters that contend with outright super villains and criminals.

Alfred Pennyworth is utterly beloved within the Batman fandom with his attempts and successes at dealing with Batman’s infamous rogues celebrated. The same goes for Edwin Jarvis, sometimes celebrated as the bravest of all the Avengers. Jarvis’ popularity is such he was in fact the main character of the milestone 400th issue of the Avengers. And to use a closer equivalent to MJ, Lois Lane’s moments of skill, toughness and bravery in the face of danger are celebrated within Superman circles.

NONE of these characters are super heroes. Even Alfred, who (in most modern incarnations) has some military history, is still a more elderly gentleman thereby accentuating his vulnerability and making his victories all the larger.

With that out of the way, we now have the appropriate context to start examining some instances of MJ defending herself.

* And what about Spider-Man himself? Has he not tangled with Chameleon often? Is it not usually impressive whenever he defeats him? Indeed it is…but rarely whenever Spider-Man physically  over powers him. 

Because we readers are very aware that Spider-Man is physically stronger and faster than the Chameleon and his other powers give him yet more physical advantage over him. 

In fact a poignant Chameleon storyline entailed Chameleon (in disguise) tricking Spider-Man into removing  his powers and thereby rendering him vulnerable.

Even then, the Chameleon opted to hire muscle (mainly muscle with super powers) to take on Spider-Man rather than fight him personally.

Chameleon’s awareness of Spidey’s superior might is arguably the reason he recruited physically powerful Kraven the Hunter in ASM v1 #15 (Kraven’s debut and Chammy’s second outing). 

Spidey’s victories over Chameleon are impressive or cathartic not because Peter overpowers him physically, but does so mentally. This is in fact showcased in the very same storyline that Mary Jane famously took a bat to Chammy’s cranium; specifically Spec #243.

In this story, Chameleon (in the guise of Doctor Kafka) uses drugs and makeup to trick Spider-Man into believing he is someone else. However, drawing upon his will power and affection for his loved ones Peter breaks free of Chameleon’s trap.

**And I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that a part of that for at least some fans is the fact that Mary Jane is a woman doing such things, and a female love interest to boot.

Stereotypically women aren’t superheroes or action heroes, and stereotypically love interests are the ones in need of saving, not the ones saving themselves or others.

For some fans this appreciation of stereotypes being subverted can come from a bad place. “Mary Jane just beat a super villain even though she’s a chick!”

For others the appreciation can be viewed as empowering. To perhaps reveal a stereotypical view of my own, I imagine female readers would constitute the majority of this category, although in theory anyone who feels like an underdog or perhaps vulnerable could resonant with MJ’s victories.

Finally there are definitely some readers who appreciate these examples because they are just plain refreshing.

And of course some people might just like Mary Jane in general so seeing her shine in some capacity could do it for them.

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[theelliottsmiths]

Helloo! I just love to read your blog, it’s my favorite! I’m kinda new in the rammstein fandom and i would really like to hear your opinion on Rosenrot music video? What it says to you?

Oh welcome home friend.

This got very long, I would apologise but that implies I feel bad and will try not to do it again and they would be lies.

Depending on how new you are you may or may not know about my undying love for Rosenrot Till, especially in the Making of. I promise I won't rant about him but I can't just not say at all that he's the second love of my life. Somehow, my favourite Till look is him looking the most like a regular person.

Sidenote: Were ignoring that it's based on stories by Goethe and the Brothers Grimm because I have not read them.

So. I love Rosenrot. This is clear, I feel. Say what you want about Zoran (and I regularly do), but most of his art is fucking beautiful. We don't talk about Links 234 in this house. I really like that it starts almost with the vibe of one of those missionary films or racist documentaries you see.

My favourite thing about the story of Rosenrot itself, I think, is that it's never made clear how much is reality and how much is in his head (at least, I don't believe it is). You can pick and choose what you think was the truth. You're pushed a little through the colouring and framing and all that to believe certain scenes are fake and others aren't, but it's never completely clear, especially not when Flake kisses her at the end.

There's an inevitability about it, especially when he's hiding under her bed; It's like he can see himself going in that direction, knowing what he's going to do, but he can't see a way to stop himself. Arguably he hasn't had much practice, being a person who likely became a priest at a young age, even though they're meant to be experts at denying themselves.

When he's under the bed it's almost like he's in a confessional, but the person he's confessing to (not counting us) is the young girl: At one point when he's under her bed he sings "Sie will es und so ist es fein, so war es und so wird es immer sein" which this site translates as "She wants it and that's fine, so it was and so it will always be". I know that they don't necessarily try to match story and lyrics in their vidros but I mean, obviously Zoran did.

Basically, he's rationalising by saying that's what she wants too, which works no matter how much you think is just in his head. It's like he's telling her she wants it and is confessing that he'll give her it because he's helpless, which is actually very common in offending paedophiles: they tell themselves and their victims themselves that the child in question wants it and they're simply doing what they have to do. They'll often say the kid was acting provocative or "gave them the look".

He also sings "The boy climbs the mountain in torment, he doesn't really care about the view. Only the little rose is on his mind. He brings it to his sweetheart" when she strokes him with the rose, which is probably him proving to himself again that she must want it. It's a sweet romance, you see, where he's risking himself (implying he does know it's wrong and that it's his life on the line if they're caught, hence the murders) for her and he's at the mercy of her love.

It's really hard not to feel bad for him because the innocence and moral ambiguity is so well played. That it's Till and he looks amazing probably makes me biased but I can't really do anything about that besides admit it. He's never shown as genuinely malicious, and his face after the murders speaks volumes. Across from that, the girl (who by the way? Wonderful actor, very well done) is played both as an innocent child and an Evil Seductress type, which again is something paedophiles often use as a defence: it's not my fault, she came on to me, I am but a helpless 40 year old virgin (assuming he, as a priest, is a virgin, which seems to be the implication)

The thorns were a super interesting choice, I think. Played against the flagellation scene, during which Till looks completely unmoved (no idea if that was a choice he made it just his genuine reaction), it gives the impression that his own brain is punishing him in his dreams way more than the traditional holy flagellation thing could because I think part of him feels guilty enough that he doesn't think he deserves the... Is the word I'm looking for absolution? Recompense? I did not grow up religious.

Anyway

He knows he doesn't deserve forgiveness even though he's confessing like a Good Priest should. It's also, in my opinion, why he doesn't really fight back then they're beating him up.

I choose to believe Zoran meant for it to be like that.

This would be where I put a cool religious metaphor or something but my partner tells me it was not in fact the devil in the burning bush saying eyy Jesus do a sin so that's ruined. I'm not suited to this. I could drag in Jesus and the thorny crown maybe? Fuckin... Stigmata but it's rose thorn injuries.

I also really like the way the other religious visitors turn on him so quickly and completely, and the hints early on that they're no more holy than he is. You can see the maliciousness in their eyes: they're fucking revelling in it. Who is worst, them or him? Him or her? If you take it all at face value she tempted him, convinced him to murder her parents, and then got him murdered. If you believe absolutely all of it was a delusion then she was a child an older man preyed on and centered his delusions around.

And no, before someone asks me again: I don't think burning people alive is a good solution! You know who you are.

I hope this is what you were looking for

[cat-scarr]

So...we all remember “Max Out”, right?

One of the most heartbreaking episodes due to the fact that it left Max’s fate “unknown” to the audience, as well as our main heroes at the time. Ben particularly was shown to be very affected by the events which unfolded during the end of that episode because he was under the impression that he had just lost one of the most important people in his life. 

If the point of being a hero is to save lives, imagine how he must have felt to watch what he thought was the death of a close relative and not be able to do anything about it. 

A similar thing happened in “Secret of the Omnitrix.” Only, in those circumstances, it was Gwen who was the one who was thought to be lost. And that immediately crushed him. 

So, at this point in the series, Ben has already gone through both of those experiences. He’s been exposed to how fragile human life is when you’re constantly surrounded by danger. And it’s probably shown him that no matter how many aliens he has available to him, no matter how powerful they may be, sometimes even that isn’t enough to prevent fatal outcomes. 

It’s no wonder he takes it so hard when a mission “fails” because he probably feels that, because he is the one wearing what is arguably the most powerful device in the universe, it is his responsibility to prevent those fatal outcomes. 

Not to mention, when people choose to go into work which deals with circumstances such as these, they always get training to prepare them for situations when worst comes to worst. They are taught about conflict and stress management so that they would be ready for when disaster strikes, or at least be aware that it is always a possibility. 

Ben started doing this type of work when he was only ten years old. Even at the age of fifteen, although he might have been armed, he was unprepared for the emotional trauma coming his way. And losing Max, the only experienced adult he had nearby, is even more devastating because now...who else is there to go to? 

Aliens are still a secret to the rest of the world, and his parents didn’t know about the watch just yet. The rest of his team stick together and look out for each other, but, realistically, they are no more prepared than he is. They aren't therapists. All three of them are teenagers. 

During this time, Ben gets together with Julie, who is quickly let in on Ben’s secret. This should mean that he now has a significant other who should support him while he is still dealing with all of the above. And, at first, she was written doing just that such as in the episode “Save the Last Dance.” 

However, if you didn’t know...their first argument happens before “Voided”, where Max is revealed to still be alive. And if you realize what it was they were arguing about in “Pet Project”, it might strike you as a little insensitive and slightly ignorant on Julie’s part. 

I bring this up because many people blame Omniverse for the downfall of Benlie, when their disconnect had unfortunately begun before Ultimate Alien was even a thing. It’s too bad because this could have been reversed with some mutual understanding. If you’d like to argue in Julie’s defence, then you could say that it is unknown whether Ben had ever told her about what he had gone through before they started dating. 

But, then again, since these topics are still very fresh wounds, do you think he would want to?

I mean, he did have a hard time opening up to Rook about the Feedback situation (which is understandable). 

I have done a whole analysis on “Pet Project” before, but, for context, the main reason they are arguing is because Julie (who is unarmed) wants to go with Ben and his team to save Ship from the Forever Knights, while Ben does not want her to come for her own safety. 

Ben: “And we’re not talking because?”

Julie: “Because I am upset with you for being upset with me about Ship.”

Ben: “Julie, we aren’t talking about a Poodle from the local pound. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

Julie: “Yes I do! I’m dealing with a person who is incredibly mean to poor little Ship, and who obviously does not trust me!”

Ben: “This isn’t about trust!”

What gets me the most is Ben’s silence - something that was probably quite overlooked by a large portion of the audience, and seemingly the other characters as well. When he has no words to say what he is really feeling, due to how much is truly affects him, it says way more than any words could. 

Ben: “But why would the Forever Knights want to steal Ship?”

Kevin: “Please. It can turn into anything it touches. It’s like a cup of instant weapon.”

After this exchange of dialogue, the screen cuts to this shot of his expression before moving forward with the story.

This is where I’d like to remind you that this episode takes place before “Voided” - where Max is revealed to be alive. 

They wanted to stress the implication that Ben was struggling to come to terms with the idea of Max being gone so much that they even added this scene in to the first Ben 10: Alien Force video game, where he is shown beginning to talk about Max and then trailing off and going silent:

Do you really think there is no connection between how Ben feels about almost losing his cousin, still being under the impression that he had lost Max in the name of saving the world, and now having to deal with his naive girlfriend who doesn’t seem to understand when she is putting her own life in danger?

A portion of the fandom had actually accused Ben of being unreliable and sexist in this episode, claiming that his team had to practically “twist his arm” in order to help his girlfriend. In reality, it was Ben’s reasoning and traumatic life experience that was undermined in order to make him seem like a bad boyfriend. It seemed more like he would do anything to prevent harm from coming to those who can not defend themselves properly, even if it jeopardizes how “desirable” he is as a boyfriend to some people.

Being a good boyfriend means being reasonable, not agreeing to everything just for the sake of being compliant and obedient. 

[lhs3020b]

Boris And the Baddest of Bad Weeks

I promised an expanded entry on what’s going on at the moment in our national meltdown, so here it is...

Allow me, if I may, to walk back an earlier comment of mine. Some time ago, I was distinctly skeptical about the idea of an early general election. However, the situation has evolved. You see, there was one thing I didn't count on. I never imagined that Boris Johnson would be stupid enough to force nearly two dozen of his MPs out of his party.

That's right: I over-estimated his intelligence. Umm, whoops.

In my defence, what he did may well have been the single most utterly-stupidly self-defeating maneuver ever in British politics. The only sense I can make from it is that he's having a narcisistic breakdown. Actually, viewed in that very narrow light, perhaps it does make a little sense. If you've ever had the misfortune to have a narcissist in your life, you'll be aware that the thing they just can't cope with is any sort of rejection. The "no"-word tends to summon a meltdown - and of course BoJo faced a pretty major series of "nopes" from Parliament this week.

The other thing I didn't count on was that apparently yes, there actually are some things that some Tory MPs just won't do, even if the consequences of Not Doing The Thing runs to damaging their personal careers. This did come as a surprise to me - I'd assumed that blind partisanship and the desire for salaries would ultimately trump - or perhaps, Trump - all other concerns. But no, credit where it's due, it turns out that for at least 21 of them, there was a floor on the greed after all. Admittedly it's taken us three years of accelerating chaos to find it, but it was there.

The next factor that I didn't count on was that the opposition parties got their act together. Bluntly, there was no hint of this over the summer. The speed with which it happened has left me a little dazed. The earlier failure to call a Vote of No Confidence, the weird shenanigens over ludicrous Governments-of-National-Unity, the generalised infighting and chronic myopia ... just two weeks ago, it was not looking good. I was basically starting to quietly accept that we on the pro-Remain side were finally defeated, and worst of all, we'd been defeated mainly by our own allies.

Then the prorogue happened.

It's fair to say that it's already backfired. The obvious cynicism of the strategy, the naked contempt for all the institutions of British government, the sheer gall of it all - it was meant to energise the pro-Brexit crowd. Instead, it appears to have driven everyone on the soft-Brexit/pro-Remain aisle into a state of thermonuclear rage. And if there's one thing that can bring unlikely allies together, it's a common enemy. By pursuing his grandiose "oh look at me being so Brexity!" cock-strutting routine, Boris accidentally made himself into exactly that enemy.

The other factor was that the prorogue has imposed a sharp time-limit. Consequently, Continuity!Remain just doesn't have the luxury of descending into factional infighting. The deep irony is that putting us on a tight deadline has actually helped us. It's imposed a focus that just wasn't there even 10 days ago.

Meanwhile, as for the wider country, well, Boris's walk-about up north yesterday seems to have been a complete disaster. Random people were basically coming up to him to tell him that it had all gone wrong. Then there was that bizarre speech he gave in front of a captive audience of police recruits. It was just weird - proper delusion territory, and entirely-incoherent. I'd like to compare it to Trump, but at least Trump can manage a consistent theme. Johnson was just rambling. There was nothing there, except possibly a desperate plea for attention. A lot of the political journalists I follow are openly-speculating about whether BoJo was on drugs during the speech.

(And wouldn't that be the ultimate post-2016 banter-timeline twist? If the Prime Minister - the Prime Minister! - got busted for snorting crack?)

Meanwhile, BoJo's narc-meltdown has accidentally undone Theresa May's one significant achievement.

Contrary to what many people think, Theresa May did manage to thread one single needle. That was, she (mostly) managed to keep the parliamentary Conservative Party together. Granted a few MPs jumped ship to Change UK earlier in the year, but it stayed in single digits. There was no big split - and, significantly, the Change UK crowd got wet feet about no-confidencing her. The advantage of this was that Theresa May avoided having the Tories fall into what we might call the 1922 Trap. Here's what I mean by that: in the late 19th Century, the old Liberal Party was increasingly-split on the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. The tensions only got worse as time went on. Then Asquith went and delivered the First World War and precious little else of value. (He was notably-slimey on votes for women, and seemed uninterested in doing anything about the property qualification that 40% of men still faced. The cynic might note that Nick Clegg's behaviour is not entirely new.) Lloyd George tried to put the party back on its feet, but the damage was done. During the 1920s, the Liberals were openly-split. At elections, Liberals ran against each other in numerous constituencies. Because of the way first-past-the-post voting works, in practise this meant that Tories or Labour got elected instead. (A constituency has - say - 46% of the vote for any Liberal candidate, but two run. Each of them gets 23% of the vote. A.N. Other Party takes 24% and gets the MP's seat.)

Theresa May's political strategy - yes, she actually did have one - was predicated on avoiding having Tories run against other Tories at elections. Given their divisions, it was a narrow needle, but she mostly managed to thread it. Boris Johnson has gone and exploded that. You see, of the 21 MPs he's sacked from the party, several are saying they'll contest the next election as independents.

It's hard to know just how big a problem the 1922 Trap will be - but, their vote is already split with the Brexit Party. And even the most optimistic opinion polls have the Tories around 10pts down on where they were in 2017. They're already in minority in the House - how many votes can they afford to lose, really?

Meanwhile, there's a further problem. The Tories' drift to the political right may have taken them too far. They assume that their friends at the Times, the Sun, the Telegraph and the BBC can plaster over the cracks for them - but, can they? The media was full-throated for May in 2017, and she still lost her majority. The newspapers are hysterical and shriekier than ever - but, who reads them? I can't remember the last time I bought a physical copy of one of the main papers. I suspect that's true of many other people too. There are signs that the socially-liberal/financially-conservative chunk of voters are starting to decamp to the Lib Dems. Again, it's not clear how big this movement is - but, as I said earlier, how many votes can the Tories afford to lose? It's possible that they could be facing the nightmare scenario of a general election where the right-wing vote is split three ways (four, if you count UKIP's still-slightly-tembling corpse, though they're close to a rounding error now). If the next election was still certain to be in 2022, all this would be somewhat academic. Two and a half years is a long time, they could find a way to turn things around. All things being equal, I expect they would.

But then BoJo had his narc meltdown, didn't he?

The so-called government is now in absolute minority in the House. While their opponents can't currently agree on an alternative prime minister, nonetheless the anti-BoJo grouping now has a majority of 43. They can stop him doing anything. No legislation is going to go through this house. Finance bills are basically dead on arrival. I really can't see how he could pass any kind of Budget. And also, if he does anything at all to irritate the Opposition, they can no-confidence him any time they feel like it. Quite simply, he's on death row.

My guess is that they'll leave him be during the prorogue period. The logic here is obvious enough - let him twist in the wind. He's doing a great job of destroying himself, so let him get on with it. This way, when Parliament returns late in October, they can do the deed and it will look like a mercy-killing rather than a gang-land execution.

Hypothetically, there are four ways Boris could get off the hook:

1) He could resign. This would arguably save him some dignity, and just perhaps it might leave a little room to revive his future career. But, he won’t take this option. He’s a narc. They don’t voluntarily quit. (Plus, uh, much as I’d cackle if he was forced to quit, it just leaves his successor with the same set of problems that he failed to address.)

2) He could try to simply ignore the anti-hard Brexit law. The problem here is, it would give the opposition a prima facie grounds for an immediate Motion of No Confidence. He might get some love from the rightwing press, but the ultimate result would presumably be his removal and a new Prime Minister. It would be the most pointless constitutional crisis ever.

3) He could arrange to lose a motion of no confidence in his own government. This would arguably be constitutional, and might be a way to trigger an early election. But, it would a) look utterly-absurd, b) be an unprecedented thing to do and c) would also require him personally to face the House telling him to fuck off. I’m not sure that a narc is capable of that. Also, there’s the issue that, as we saw in 2017, there’s no guarantee that he could win a general election. I’m absolutely not sanguine about the risks of an early GE but a) that’s democracy and b) if he runs his campaign the way he’s running being PM then he could well end up roasted.

4) He could reverse the prorogue. On the one hand, un-proroguing Parliament would buy him some extra legislative time. On the other hand, his opponents have control of the House, and a wobble on the prorogue would make him look weak. There’s not much upside for him here, though it’s the most “conventional” of the four options.

Basically the TL;DR is that while he has some choices, none of them are good and all of them could cause him considerable personal pain. The opposition have set up a proper four-pronged Morton’s Fork for him. Which tine will he impale himself on?

As for Brexit? Well, one interesting detail is that the underlying political question seems to be open again. It hasn't quite gained mainstream traction yet, but apparently people are starting to ask whether Brexit is going to happen at all. The Labour Party's position has moved visibly toward hard-Remain, albeit grudgingly. The Lib Dems are having their time in the sun again (though, I suspect that glomming up Philip Lee may help them less than they seem to hope). I don't know that I think it's going to happen, but I can now imagine a situation where at the end of October, the anti-BoJo constellation No-Confidences him then pushes a quick revocation bill through Parliament. (The "party line" here would be, "We wanted a second referendum but this man's scheming hasn't left us enough time.") Again, not saying this is at all likely, but I think it is now a possible outcome.

And if nothing else, BoJo's supposed golden hour is turning out to be quite the nightmarish turkey - and isn't that just delicious?

[pip-personalispolitical]

𝖙𝖍𝖊  𝖑𝖆𝖘𝖙  𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖌𝖆𝖗𝖞𝖊𝖓

The last female characters in the show have essentially been reduced to three houses; Stark, Baratheon, Targaryen. These houses hold considerable power by themselves, coupled with their remaining matriarchs (because let’s face it, Jon isn’t running anything other than away from his feelings) they’re a pretty formidable bunch.

Disregarding the pitting of powerful women against each other in a totalitarian struggle for the throne in the vein of oh so trendy, female power, this week’s episode was rife with misguided notions of women, power and madness. Patriarchal tropes clung to the once fierce and pragmatic women, altogether terrifying and brilliant, and reduced them to poor plot twists and insanity.

It was predictable, and awful, highly entertaining and I hated it. I hated it because this has a massive audience that has huge influence on Western society, it should be commented on, especially when the fanbase is so intelligent and loyal and when it’s such a huge part of our soecity (Sorry, it is.) 

𝔩𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔩𝔢 𝔡𝔬𝔳𝔢

I’m gonna get right into it. Full fledged, partially feminist but mostly just pissed off review of this episode and continuing storyline for The Mother of Dragons. 

Sansa and Ayra are the only two female leads left unscathed by bouts of madness. They remain in the show, they are quiet and astute, or emotionally void and impossibly silent. Above all else the crucial performance of their femininity is intact, they are well-mannered and unobtrusive and that is seemingly why they are still there. Some of their power steams from utilizing the tropes of femininity to ensure they have stability and respect and maintain the little power they have.

Sansa is not only playing the Game of Thrones but the tiresome Game of Patriarchy. Seemingly internalising her struggles and extending gratitude to traumatic abuse as a means of betterment seems, at the least, in poor taste and at most, horrifically ignorant and damaging. The implications are that because of what a man did to her, she is a better person for it. I think she is better, and not “still a little bird”, only because of what the show keeps telling us is that she’s smart now, not showing us. You might even go so far as to say that Sansa is only granted trust and smarts because she learnt it from a male peer.

Sansa Stark has swallowed internalised misogyny down with her favoured lemon cakes; yes, she has learnt how to manipulate those around her and use her strengths to gain favour, all whilst being very pretty and very quiet. Except when it allows heror her family more access to power. You all know what I’m talking about - snitches get stitches, little dove. All the while claiming The Dragon Queen is an untrustworthy threat (Jon asked you to keep how many secrets? One? The same one your Father kept for...how many years? Oh. Yeah. In the words of Sandor Cleagane, fuck off.)

Thus, leading me - a rabid feminist and Targaryen loyalist - to believe that unless you play by the rules in Westeros, whatever you want is unattainable and you are unworthy and frankly, too damn emotional. The only way for these characters to survive is to shut up and play along.

And let’s keep in mind that all of these characters are white, the people of colour on the show can be the sweetest, most benevolent characters in the universe and they still get decapitated. Characters who aren’t “nice” or “good” and are people of colour are portrayed as savages, emotionless killing robots that are above all dispensable and grateful to their white saviour. Someone who spoke about this more eloquently and in depth is Raine (SP – my apologise I can only guess at it based on phonetics), who wrote into the Pod-Cast: A Cast of Kings (S8E5, 7 minutes in.)  

Dany simply doesn’t play by these rules.

Being a Targaryen at heart, I wondered what it was that Dany was doing so differently to be considered such a threat, or a borderline mad queen, chasing after the impossible affections of the inhabitants of Westeros. Dany plays by Targaryen rules, she plays with fire and blood. Their trump card of entitlement (a hereditary bloodline that has mostly held male monarchs) that condemns her as power-hungry but serves male claimants as entitled.

Her overt assertions and unfiltered desire to reclaim this birth right, as many before her have, is suddenly chased by the idea of being deserving, a prerequisite that eludes the patriarchal figures in her family. This leads me to think it’s not what she’s asking for that is so unconceivable, but howshe’s asking for it that is so outrageous. Apparently, even Khaleesi can face issues of likeability[i].

𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔱𝔬𝔰𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔞 𝔠𝔬𝔦𝔫

These rejections of arguably patriarchal rules and the strong emotions of a woman are tediously wrapped up with notions of madness and hysteria, and prove disappointing for one of the most well written female characters in fantasy.

While we have to take into account the budget and time of the show, it feels breathless. The otherwise thoughtful and complex plotlines have been twisted to deliver shocking twists with little substance.

Dany’s previous actions in the show haven’t led to the web of whispers surrounding her, there is no reason for people to expect her to act like a mad queen up until this very last moment. To deny these people were doing so and lying to her face about it would be further gaslighting, so Tryion, in my book, did the right thing. Dany’s decisions have constantly been ridiculed, along with her sanity and emotional state.

In a defence of her actions, she has fought endlessly, scraped her way to the throne, sacrificed her time, her armies and her children to find herself left alone at the last moment? (Who can relate?) Her powerful allies have fallen, and those that claimed they would serve her do very little of what she asks. Seriously. Jon, you just couldn’t shut the fuck up for a second?! Starks and their honour, SMH. It is maddening.

Aside from it making no narrative sense (she has always avoided bloodshed and taken warnings about the mad king, her father, to heart) it just sucks seeing two of the best women reduced to Motherless tropes. Because Seven Hells, what is a woman if she is not reproducing? Insane!

As if the coin had been tossed and landed face down - Dany loses it within a split second. Hats off to Emilia Clarke because she sold it and the storm of emotions that ran across her face in milliseconds. This black and white contrast seems unfitting for a character that has faced each loss, personal and political, with tenacity, she has learnt from each of these losses. D&D have taken a survivor that has been gaslit, abused, groomed and baited and “made her mad with ambition.”

Additionally, it lends to the idea that women’s emotions are incomprehensible and irrational. We are told that in expressing anger we are inhibiting the ability to be heard - hello tone policing. This bout of madness is signalling her downfall, her failure to comply with a more docile femininity. Any woman with too much power will not be able to handle it and if she can she is mad and must be stopped. Period.

They failed to give her the credit she so deserved as she tried (and arguably failed) to grasp the politics of war. Worst of all, the scene played out so poorly that the audience had to be told this was her moment of “choosing violence,” like Cersei. The only way this was credible was thanks to Emilia’s performance and explanation in behind the scenes footage.

She explains how hurt Dany is, how angry and alone she is, and these feelings have culminated at a time she has gotten exactly what she wanted, and realised it’s not what she thought it would be. With liminal time, Dany grieves. Her grief is sorrow turned anger, anger turned dragon fire, dragon fire turned ash. It looks different to any other characters on the show and she has allowed it to kill her. And when you put it like that, it’s fucking traumatic.

It’s not like it’s nothing that pushes her over the edge, but in diagnosing Dany with madness, her agency is stripped from her. Dismissing her actions by saying it’s in her blood is implying it’s inevitable despite the great character growth and progress she has made. While the books clearly hint at this, the show does not...well, not successfully. It’s feasible and I’m not at all against the idea of her going mad, but the connotations of it seem reductive.

Daenerys could have been the most beautiful mad queen we’ve seen since Maleficent, reigning her vengeance on us with fire and blood, but D&D wrote off her brilliance with 30 minutes of relentless slaughter. Her power has always been something to fear, she plays the game she need not play to gain favour and credibility as a leader, and when playing by their rules fails her and she doesn’t feel like playing anymore (as it’s gotten her nowhere – does this remind you of anything? Patriarchy? Internalising misogyny?) she’s crazy.

The most irritating aspect of this all is that it has been written to further the narrative of do-gooder MoodiBoi of Westeros, Jon Snow. To add insult to injury, her sacrifices are motive for madness while Jon’s make him a martyr; an unwilling hero bound by the same strain of honour that has gotten both him and his uncle killed. Like, I’m bored?

𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔬𝔩𝔣 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔤𝔬𝔫

It’s undeniable, Ayra is a badass. She killed the fucking Night King. But for some reason, Daenerys isn’t granted the same nuance she is. Ayra is unforgiving and gritty, she is cloaked in darkness and weaponry and this darkness is welcomed. While Dany’s darkness is terrifying - perhaps simply due to the scale of devastation she is capable of - whereas Ayra’s is welcomed and accepted. Maybe it’s just too easy for Dany to sit the throne with dragons and is considered unfair? Like, I dunno, any white-het-cis man trying to attain a position of power and control.

Perhaps it is because Ayra’s power is overtly masculine, her power is demonstrated solely in her physical skills and capabilities, whereas Dany’s overt power is dragon fire, and flows, sometimes in reverse, between decision making, politics, emotions, bloodlines and betrayals. This is a character arc, it isn’t a clean narrative and that is why it’s so compelling. (Sidenote: let’s not disregard the ability to raise, bond with and fly fatherfucking dragons.)

Ayra undergoes numerous inescapable traumas, all early in life, but so does our darling Dany. The only difference is Dany strays from physical demonstrations of power. Her focus is not individualised, it’s pinpointed to political hotspots.

No, not all female characters have to express their power and emotions in the same way, nor should all female characters be powerful, but in a show with dragons, is it so far-fetched to have more than one successful female ruler?

𝔄𝔷𝔬𝔯-𝔞𝔥𝔟𝔶𝔢 

It seems as though the show has room for only one type of ‘empowered’ woman: the power hungry one. Whether she uses cunning, childless violence or fire and blood, they all seek power. Enough to hold what they consider their claim, two of them have already paid with their lives for their loud and unrelenting anger, the third is most likely going to sit the throne, quietly, thankful for the years of gaslighting and abuse. Looking at you, Sansa Snarky.

The only praise I can sing is that this is actually a testament to her power and great restraint, it has taken 8 seasons of abuse, disbelief, dehumanising, control and betrayal for her to reach this point and use this force that she could have used moons ago. Which, judging by everyone’s shitty ideas and plans, she should have done anyway.

While Daenerys Stormborn isn’t perfect (er, hello white saviour/messiah complex) she is compelling and pivotal in the series. This woman isn’t inherently good or bad. The character is made of grey, shifting uncertainties and wavering moral, struck by tragedy and bloodlines - she is simply made of magic - Dany is, after all, the Mother of Dragons, and she deserved better.  

𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔰

1] Likeability: I define Likeability as a set of performances that are highly gendered, and ensure the maintenance of the feminine by condemning behaviours exerted by non-males; typically being loud, having a sexuality (lol seriously) opinionated, successful and ambitious. I believe likeability sits on the axis of heteronormativity and femininity; or rather within the heterosexual matrix. They rely on each other for their respective maintenance. The highly feminine woman is more respected and well liked. It is a social currency women have to pay in order to attain certain things, such as respect or power. 

2] https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/its-time-embrace-feminisms-anger

3] https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/09/how-pop-culture-tells-women-to-shut-up/502187/

4] A Cast of Kings: Available on all streaming sites. S8EP5 Review. 

[feheroestips]

So legendary banner no.5 is apon us, anyone else hard to believe its been 5 of them now? Well it is and despite this we got a couple of shake ups, first they skipped Shigure as the dancer unit, don’t worry I’m sure it’s just a space thing, though brave Lucina replaced him, a unit on this banner before, the same applies to Lyn who kicked the last colourless unit, Mist, skipped, aka they missed Mist. I’ll state as a disclaimer now, more than likely next banner we’ll get brave Ike and brave Roy on the next banner, that’s just my prediction though.

Anyway as normal your rates are here for solo summoning;

Red = 9.09% 

Blue = 10.34%

Green = 14.29%

Clear = 10.71%

Basically only red has seen a change due to Morgan M becoming a 4 star unit. But note this is just summoning on one colour stone and assuming something appears each time, doing full summons is just a 2% for each colour. Basically about 50 orbs will nab you a 5 star when solo pulling. Green is the best with about 30 orbs normally nabbing you something. 

You can find every units summon rate for this banner here

Anyway if you’re still unsure if these units are worth pulling for, here’s my thoughts on each colour.

Red

Red houses Legendary Ike, who is a solid enough unit and the second best Ike but he’s also free. He’s mainly there for warding breath fodder, which is amazing for units like Fjorm, Dragons, Dorcas etc Zelgius is the best unit in the red pool, offering an amazing armour unit along with fierce stance fodder. Finally Halloween Nowi is pretty decent, she has a niche as the only red mage flier in the game and also has hone fliers and a neat legendary tome. However she’s arguably the worst mage flier (don’t get me wrong all the mage fliers are super good). Overall Red is a really good colour however I think what holds it back is that either you can get a free version, or very similar unit to them, aka everyone has BK or at least had the option to buy him, and Halloween Nowi is the only one I can justify pulling for because seasonal. I rate red 3/5, 4/5 for units but generally you don’t need these units if you’ve played from day one.

Blue

Blue has Fjorm, another free unit with no real desirable skills bar drive attack. She’s a decent wall especially if fed a breath skill. Brave Lucina is frankly a very scary lance unit with bulk speed and power, and a very solid offensive support unit for a team. However a lack of unique skills for her to give is not so nice as Tailtiu offers drive speed at 4 stars. Finally Lute is in the blue category and in my opinion the best of the 3. She’s essentially Arvis but a better colour, stat spread and debuffs which help her. She’s an amazing unit and f you enjoy a unit like Arvis or Gunnthra she’s worth pulling for. She also offers res ploy as well which is nice. Overall a 4/5, Lute is the main objective, the other two are super nice as well.

Green

So Gunnthra is here and she’s basically a gimmick character, if you pair her with Lute and Arvis *cough* see above *cough* she’ll jump tend fold. Then we have the summer units. Summer Tiki rocks one of the highest base attacks in the game. Pair this with a brave axe or slaying axe and she can wreck havoc on unsuspecting units and with axebreaker be a nice Hector counter. She also have Axe valour which is very nice for training units and close defence. Summer Elise is basically Nino but with a few points swapped. Her main advantage over Nino is the option of Hibiscus tome for support sets off the bat but its not that huge. Nino is better for Merge and availability reasons though. Still incredibly powerful unit with a blade tome. Overall green is pretty solid, on board with blue at 4/5.

Clear

I’ll save our new god till last, but Brave Lyn returns and I really shouldn’t have to talk about her. She’s a S+ unit. Halloween Sakura is in a weird spot, she was the best magic dagger tank but Since Felicias refine she’s stolen that spot back. She’s still incredibly viable and kitty paddle is a very nice weapon for dagger units like Spring Kagero. Warding stance is also nice too.

Robin F (Grima)

So we don’t know much about this Grima but in my book she is a 5/5 and Makes colourless the best colour to pull. She comes with dragonskin, a better iotes shield, cancel affinity which removes her weakness to raven tome units and res smoke is amazing. Oh and she flies, is colourless and a dragon. Her main flaw is probably a lack of special advancement like breath skills, though she might be able to use heavy blade well. From what we we’re shown in the trailer, she fought a level 40 Horse Chrom (Evident by his Hp being 41 but could be one or two levels lower but it’s generally the same) and from this combat we can deduce that she has 40hp/48 atk with Expiration/ 32 without/?Spd/30 defence~/?res which leaves her 64 points allocated when comparing her to Myrrh the other flying dragon., I’d assume she’ll have 25-30 spd and 30 or so res. though she might not be level 40 in the trailer so hey could be higher. But we know minimums. Basically she has everything she needs to be good and buffs both flier and dragon teams more. Oh and she gives speed with her earth bonus, which means it stacks with Ikes attack boost, which makes them a nice combo.

Final verdict

Overall I feel Clear stones are the no brainer followed by Blue/Green then red

Green and blue are interchangeable, blue is better arena units, green is better for training.

I’m personally not planning to pull, but good luck if you are.

[sharkiegorath]

hi, i identify with Finn because i too am a condescending control freak who struggles to distinguish fictional drama and morality from real-life politics.

1) In the past I’ve criticised Finn because of what I viewed as, for lack of a better term, too much positivity, and refused to retract what I said when others disagreed in his defence. I don’t expect anyone to dig through several tag pages and my memory of it is fuzzy; it’s entirely possible I didn’t do it well enough. So I’ve tried to be mindful of downplaying the severity of a casual misogynist who’s complicit in institutional racism and instinctively sticks his head in the sand as a response to police brutality. Earlier this year I went on a rant against a DigitalSpy article that claimed Finn was the only interesting character and the sole reason why people watched. I think characters like Inglis and Tony are underrepresented on my blog and fic. But I know, yeah, boo hoo me, I’m one of the people who makes Finn so prominent in the fandom in the first place. Should I go to fandom confessional and beg for forgiveness for how I spent multiple depressive episodes soiling this 3 year old miniseries with low viewership?

In the finale, Liz demonstrates empathy and forgiveness towards Finn, which I loved, because for all its darkness Babylon is ultimately a humanist satire. In-universe, this morally grey, money-minded white girl you might idealise is canonically attracted to institutionally powerful men who make terrible decisions in every aspect of their life (Richard and possibly Granger) and unapologetically stans for them (Richard), without the narrative punishing or judging her for it - so why the fuck ‘shouldn’t’ I do a portion of that when it’s fiction? And even if you single out het relationships as The Big Thing that impairs Liz’s judgment, that’s brushing aside her privilege and general personality flaws combined with a multi-prejudiced public institution she’s completely new to. Does this arguably ‘dangerous’ fictional woman get leeway while I don’t?

EDIT: I realise a probable counterargument is that my reaction towards Finn is in real life, so it can’t be compared to Liz’s fictional attitude towards men. Okay, but that means that if fictional characters are automatically influential to such an extent, stanning for Liz would be almost as bad. Based on what I listed above, I’d be influenced by a worse version of what I do for Finn plus the shit below.

2) Liz isn’t significantly better than Finn. Yikes. She’s not a caricature or near Finn’s level, but she is definitely emotionally unstable (which isn’t a moral judgment on my part, but it affects her decisions) and a strong criticism of white feminism. She lies and backstabs to get what she wants, even at the expense of other women. She has cleaner conscious intent and gets better results than Finn, but she is still self-centered, hypocritical, hilariously impatient, impulsive, and bluntly exploits social justice causes. (One could point out the worst is for 'survival’ - but then, why is her slightly-over-two-weeks-long position at Scotland Yard much more important than Inglis’ or Sharon’s careers/reputations, or their own, likely deeper grief over Richard? And if you somehow think Inglis is more of a Bad Guy than Liz is, what does that make her decision to support him?) 

I mean, to save her own job, Liz  works her ass off to push Sharon to run against Inglis, who’s an obvious contender for Head Commissioner:

Sharon: But not over Charlie? I mean, not… Not that angle… That’s… That’s a really strong angle.

Liz: He’s black. Yeah. There’s no getting around that. He just is. And they like that. Everyone likes that. It looks great…it is, everyone thinks it’s really great. But the first female Commissioner? That’s huge.

followed by the look on Inglis’ face in the finale when Sharon runs on a pitch about integrating POC, while he previously said he can’t mention his race PR-wise because he knows it’ll be interpreted as tokenism. 

I’m not dismissing Liz or morally equating her with Finn. I think she deserves audience support and sympathy because she never loses her idealism despite the cynical undertones, then overcomes her pride and selfishness in the end, not because she’s a fundamentally good person surrounded by much worse people.

Brit Marling repeatedly said Liz fascinated her because of how incredibly flawed she is while having good ideas and a degree of purity in her intent. (She also brought up Liz’s relationship with Finn twice, possibly thrice if that was the ‘romance’ she referred to; but sure, frame interest in this sort of dynamic as a tragic fandom-exclusive phenomenon, whatever.) The concept of an ~amazing strong woman~ largely countering straightforward evil would be reductive and boring in their specific setting. I try to present Liz/Finn as an extension of Liz’s complexity. Maybe I fail. At least I try. Despite what it may look like now, from the start I put more thought into it than “there’s so much hate, it must be love!” But I’ve seen enough on Tumblr to know that the actual act of explaining my thought process to someone who already disagrees will be taken as proof that my thought process is wrong. 

I don’t care if you’re critical of Finn, the ship, or even the fandom. The thing is, you put this in the main tag without blocking me; the start of your critical tags are visible as a default so it’s not like I was ‘looking’ for trouble. Jumping to call internalized misogyny whenever women ship a female protagonist with someone you hate is patronizing and, imo, also lazy in terms of interpreting women’s motivations, both fictional and in real life. While it probably wasn’t your intention, I take it as a soft accusation or, worse, an armchair diagnosis. I’ll determine what hang-ups I have and how they manifest, thanks. For all you know this could be the result of my internalized racism or my layers of trauma or my hereditary mental illness, or everything.

Nice gifset, though! Plus it did take almost three years for someone on Tumblr/Twitter to criticize the Liz/Finn ship and I was curious to see what that would look like, so honestly, I appreciate it. It was underwhelming. 

[magicmalcolm]

SO @theflyingromana asked me for an update on my progress through Pokémon Sun and...uh...I may have overdid it a bit?

Warning: Behind the cut lies Pokémon Sun and Moon spoilers.  And a LONG post as I talk about my Pokémon and stuff.

OKAY so I've just arrived at the fourth island, and I find out Seafolk Village is made up of houseboats shaped like Pokémon which is JUST THE BEST THING.  It reminds me of Raftfleet from Suikoden 5, which was also an awesome location in that game filled with awesome people and had boats with dragon figureheads and IT WAS AWESOME OKAY.

Seafolk Village also has some RANDOM stuff going on.  Like, there's this one random girl in a random houseboat that just randomly gives you a Level 40 Aerodactyl?  For...no discernible reason?  FOR FREE?  What is this MADNESS?  And this other guy just gives you the Magmarizer and the Electirizer for free too!  Like...who would have thought talking to people would bring such profits!?  (I also fished up a Wailmer named "WailOfATime").

Right now my vague mission objective is to find Hapu, the little girl who we’ve met around the Islands with her Mudsdale.  This sounds like the next Trial is gonna be Ground Type, so time to think of a team for that one!

(Also who would have thought the SEEMINGLY benevolent Aether Foundation were actually a front for a MADWOMAN WHO HAS NO PROBLEM HURTING NEBBY HOW DARE)

TEAM MAINSTAYS

POLARIS the Magnemite > Magneton Level 39 (Caught at Level 6 on Route 1) Type: Electric/Steel Ability: Sturdy (cannot be 1-Hit KO'd) Nature: Quirky (Neutral Nature) Moves: Tri Attack / Electro Ball / Thunder Wave / Flash Cannon

Getting a Steel Type so early in the game helped out a LOT.  I've always loved the mighty 'Mite family and even though I've used them TONS of times throughout the Generations, Polaris has just been so consistently useful that I've had a hard time benching it for long.

Sturdy isn't an amazingly useful Ability, and hasn't come into play once throughout this playthrough.  Mostly because I've kept Polaris FAR away from Fighting and Fire types.

Now I just need to find Alola's version of the Magnetic Cave it needs to evolve into Magnezone.  It's SOMEWHERE on Poni Island, so I'll soon have my Electric UFO.  SOON.

BUZZBY the Cutiefly > Ribombee Level 38 (Caught at Level 10 on Route 3) Gender: Female Type: Bug/Fairy Ability: Shield Dust (blocks the additional effects of attacks) Nature: Adamant (Attack +, Sp. Attack -) Moves: Pollen Puff / Dazzling Gleam / Acrobatics / Psychic

This tiny flutterbee singlehandedly took down Kahuna Hala's Grand Trial thanks to Bug Types resisting Fighting Type moves and Fairy Types being Super Effective against Fighters.  A speedy lil Special Attacker.

Adamant Nature is a poor fit for Buzzby (all it's Level Up attacks are Special Attacks), but it won't go completely to waste thanks to learning Acrobatics through TM.  Bug/Fairy/Flying/Psychic covers quite a bit of ground (although ironically not Ground).  Shield Dust is situational, but it's a far better ability than Honey Gather.

Evolved from a Cutiefly into Ribombee at Level 25, and that's apparently the final Evolution for that family.  It now has a cute little brown scarf!  

Pollen Puff is Ribombee's signature move, a 90 Power Bug Type Special Attack that will hurt an enemy but will heal a targeted ally in Multi-Battles.  Not bad!

ROBIN HOOT the Rowlet > Dartrix > Decidueye Level 45 (Starter Pokémon) Gender: Male Type: Grass/Ghost Ability: Overgrow (boosts Grass Type moves when low in health) Nature: Quiet (Sp. Attack +, Speed -) Moves: Steel Wing / Leaf Blade / Acrobatics / Spirit Shackle

Robin's biggest problem for the longest time was his moveset.  He still had Tackle and Astonish until just recently.  TACKLE. AND. ASTONISH.  So I felt it was time to splurge some Pokébux to try and help fix this.  Both Shadow Claw and Steel Wing are available to buy (Shadow Claw in Konikoni City, and Steel Wing in Malie City), and they helped carry Robin until he evolved into Decidueye and learned his Signature Move.  I then immediately taught him Acrobatics as Robin could only learn that as a Decidueye.  Not as a Rowlet or Datrix when he would have had STAB with it, oh no...

A Sp. Attack boosting nature is useless for Robin as he only learns Physical Attacks through Level Up...but Speed is already Robin's worst stat, so losing points in that isn't going to matter much.

MUNCHIE BOX the Munchlax > Snorlax Level 37 (Mystery Gift) Gender: Male Type: Normal Ability: Thick Fat (halves damage from Fire and Ice Type moves) Nature: Lax (Defense +, Sp. Defense -) Moves: Body Slam / Brick Break / Rock Slide / Giga Impact

Munchie has been a pretty great Physical attacker so far, great for taking out randomons in the wild.  Solid, if unspectacular Party member for all seasons.

The main goal was to get him Giga Impact to use with his Snorlium Z.  Normally using Giga Impact causes you to skip a turn, but activating it with Snorlium Z...hoo boy.

PECKSILLA the Pikipek > Trumbeak > Toucannon Level 36 (Caught at Level 3 on Route 1) Gender: Female Type: Normal/Flying Ability: Keen Eye (cannot have her accuracy lowered) Nature: Lax (Defense +, Sp. Defense -) Moves: Drill Peck / Thief / Brick Break / Beak Blast

Pokémon Sun & Moon's version of the early game Flying Type has also been a pretty solid Physical Attacker, and thanks to TMs has some nice type coverage at her disposal (Flying, Dark and Fighting is a nice spread).  This versatility will help her out for a while longer.  Beak Blast is an interesting Signature Move, it always goes last and if the opposing Pokémon makes contact with it then it automatically gets Burned.  Pecksilla is a VERY slow bird anyway, so chances are it's going last regardless of what move it uses, so it's essentially a free Burn on top of a powerful STAB move.

Also for a while she had both Pluck and Thief, making her the ultimate Plunder Bird.

DEAN AMBROSE the Alolan Rattata > Alolan Raticate Level 38 (Caught at Level 6 on Route 1) Gender: Male Type: Dark/Normal Ability: Gluttony (will eat held berries quicker than usual) Nature: Jolly (Speed +, Sp. Attack -) Moves: Crunch / Shadow Claw / Hyper Fang / Super Fang

For those playing along at home, Alolan Rattatas ONLY evolve into Raticate at Night, so if your Rattata is close to Level 20 you'll have to hang fire till after dark.  

Also definitely try to capture a Rattata with Hustle as it's ability, as Gluttony does absolutely nothing for them.  (Hustle increases the Attack stat of a Pokémon by 50% at the cost of lowering the Accuracy of Physical Attacks by 20%.  You can always give them a Wide Lens to hold to help with the debuff).

Any Sp. Attack lowering nature is perfect for Raticate although I'd rather the bonus went to a different stat than Speed, which is already Dean's highest stat.  He'll probably never be the hardest hitter on the team, but STAB Crunches and Hyper Fangs will be useful for a while longer.  Right now he's beginning to fall behind my other physical attackers, which may spell the end of his run.  Super Fang will be handy for capturing Pokémon though, since it can't KO.

FERGROWL the Growlithe > Arcanine Level 43 (Caught at Level 8 on Route 2) Gender: Male Type: Fire Ability: Flash Fire (powers up Fire Type moves if hit by a Fire Type move) Nature: Mild (Sp. Attack +, Defense -) Moves: Bite / Extreme Speed / Fire Fang / Wild Charge

The Sp. Attack boost is a bit of a waste, and the Defense down nature means Fergrowl is going to be one Hell of a glass cannon...much like his namesake, actually!  

I brought Fergrowl into the team for the Fire Type Trial on the second island, since Flash Fire nulls Fire Type moves completely.  Stuck around since the very next trial was Grass Type.  Then just stayed because I love Growlithe and haven't actually seriously used one since Gen I.

Move Set wise...Growlithes don't really learn anything useful for a good few levels after Take Down at 23.  Flame Burst isn't a good replacement for Fire Fang on a Growlithe, he's fast enough without Agility and Take Down is more reliably useful than Retaliate.  So I made an executive decision to use a Fire Stone on him the second I found one, learned Extreme Speed and I can always use TMs to fill in the gaps later.  I could have held fire until Fergrowl learned Flamethrower at Level 34, but I can teach him that by TM when I find it.

BUFFLET the Rufflet Level 37 (Caught at Level 11 on Route 3) Gender: Male Type: Normal/Flying Ability: Sheer Force (raises the power of attack moves with additional effects by 30%, but the additional effects are nulled) Nature: Careful (Sp. Defence +, Sp. Attack -) Moves: Rock Slide / Slash / Steel Wing / Hone Claws

When Pecksilla was nearing her final Evolution, I decided to swap in Bufflet for a bit.  Having a Rufflet early in the game is somewhat of a novelty, and Sheer Force boosted Rock Slide makes him a good Anti-Air unit.  Sheer Force also boosts Steel Wing, so why not?  Rufflet's other usual ability is Keen Eye, so I lucked out here.

You may notice Bufflet has no Flying STAB moves...well, that's because he actually has pretty limited options there.  There's Fly...or Sky Drop...or arguably the best option, Aerial Ace.  I decided Slash was a better option than those three moves, and he'll learn Crush Claw eventually...which is ALSO a Sheer Force boosted move.

RUFFN'TUMBLE the Rockruff > Midday Form Lycanroc Level 38 (Caught at Level 10 at Ten Carat Hill) Gender: Female Type: Rock Ability: Keen Eye (cannot have her accuracy lowered) Nature: Timid (Speed +, Attack -) Moves: Stealth Rock / Bite / Rock Slide / Brick Break

Most of the newer members of the team were brought in to take on the Fire Type Trial since most of my main party at the time (Magnemite, Ribombee, Dartrix) were weak to fire.  RuffN'Tumble wasn't the only Rock Type I had access to, but Rockruff was by far the cutest and therefore took priority.  A TIMID LITTLE ROCK PUPPER (even if Timid is a horrible Nature for a Rockruff).

Rockruff's evolution actually differs in each game.  The Evolution level is 25 in both games, but in Sun they evolve during the day into Midday Form Lycanroc and in Moon they evolve at night into Midnight Form Lycanroc.  The stat spread for the two forms is different (Midday Form is quicker, Midnight Form has better defensive stats) and they learn a different move upon evolving (Midday Form learn Accelerock, Midnight Form learn Counter).

RICKY! the Lillipup > Herdier > Stoutland Level 37 (Caught at Level 12 on Route 4) Gender: Male Type: Normal Ability: Sand Rush (boosts Speed in Sandstorms) Nature: Brave (Attack +, Speed -) Moves: Crunch / Take Down / Rock Tomb / Retaliate

Excellent, Ricky! ended up with an Attack boosting nature.  In a perfect world I'd have gotten an Adamant natured Lillipup with Intimidate as its Ability instead of the horrendously situational Sand Rush, but a slightly lowered Speed won't hinder Ricky! too much.

The Lillipup family were a great asset to my teams in both Pokémon Black and Pokémon White 2 (especially White 2 where you get both Lillipup AND the Return TM extremely early).  Subbed him in for a bit after Munchie fully evolved, and will probably trade places with him depending on which one is lower leveled.

FERGULL the Wingull > Pelipper Level 36 (Caught at Level 6 on Route 1) Gender: Female Type: Water/Flying Ability: Drizzle (automatically summons the Rain weather effect when entering a battle) Nature: Lonely (Attack +, Defense -) Moves: Scald / Air Cutter / Echoed Voice / Thief

Another Pokémon brought in especially for the Fire Trial, Fergull was also useful for the Grass Trial that followed it.  Drizzle seems to be a really random ability for Pelipper of all things to have, especially when you think that it was Kyogre's signature ability once upon a time (the only other Pokémon that can have Drizzle as an ability?  It's Politoed's hidden ability).

Pelipper's main problem now is that it's not going to learn anything useful from levelling up for a LONG time.  Scald will probably be sufficient for a while yet (especially boosted by Drizzle's Rain effect) but it's not going to get anything better than Air Cutter for ages.  She's also beginning to fall behind stat-wise, sadly.

WYATT the Mudbray > Mudsdale Level 39 (Caught at Level 14 on Route 4) Gender: Male Type: Ground Ability: Stamina (Boosts Defense stat when hit by an attack) Nature: Docile (Neutral Nature) Moves: High Horsepower / Heavy Slam / Double Kick / Stomp

Another Pokémon brought in for the Fire Type Trial.  Since Ground is Super Effective against Fire, I thought I'd give this new Pokémon a try.  The irony of having a Docile Natured Donkey Pokémon is not lost on me.  As you might expect, it's a strong Physical attacker that's pretty damn slow.  It also has an interesting movepool...currently covering Ground/Steel/Fighting/Normal.  Just waiting for Earthquake now, really.

CYAN the Alolan Meowth > Alolan Persian Level 39 (Caught at Level 8 on Route 1) Gender: Female Type: Dark Ability: Technician (Boosts the attack power of moves of 60 base power or lower by 50%) Nature: Bashful (Neutral Nature) Moves: Slash / Bite / Hidden Power (Ghost) / Power Gem

With Dean fully evolved into Raticate, I thought I'd try the other early game Dark Type out for a bit.  Technician is such a great Ability to have early-to-mid game.  Cyan started out with Bite, and Technician boosts that to a 90 Power STAB attack with a chance of flinching.  Alolan Meowth's are more balanced towards Special Attack, so I immediately checked what it's Hidden Power Type would be at Paniola Ranch...Ghost was completely fine for this purpose although Dark would have be nice for STAB, the two are easily interchangeable...so with Technician that gives Cyan a 90 Power Ghost Type Special Attack.

OTHER NOTABLE POKÉMON

SKARMONY the Skarmory (Level 38, Steel/Flying, Rock Slide / X-Scissor / Fly /Steel Wing)

Skarmory is one of my faves!  Named Skarmony as for the longest time I thought that's what it was actually called and wondered why it didn't learn Sing.  Like Bufflet, Skarmony suffers from a lack of good Physical Flying Type STAB moves, but Fly will do for now.

BUBBLE-HEAD the Dewpider > Araquanid (Level 37, Water/Bug, Scald / Leech Life / Infestation / Bite)

First of all, Araquanid might be my favourite new Pokémon name in this Generation.  That's a solid A+ pun right there.  It's Ability actually lowers the power of Fire Type moves used against it and prevents the Burn status effect.  Handy!

Also, holy drain the life of our enemies Batman, Leech Life got a HUGE buff in this Generation.  Remember when it was a piddly 20-Power move?  It's now an 80-Power move.  AND IT'S A TM THIS GENERATION.

CASSANDRA the Absol (Level 44, Dark, Psycho Cut / Slash / Swords Dance / Night Slash)

ABSOL!  My absolute favourite Pokémon, so of course it's getting used.  Right now I'm switching between Cyan and Cassandra to try and keep even leveling.

BOUNCEE the Bounsweet > Steenee > Tsareena (Level 40, Grass, Razor Leaf / Trop Kick / Stomp / Teeter Dance)

Got this one in an In-Game trade, right before the Water Trial on the second Island.  Another Physical orientated Grass Type.  Trop Kick is it's Signature Move, a 70 Power Physical Grass Type move that also lowers the targets' Attack stat.

ANTACID the Salandit > Salazzle (Level 41, Poison/Fire, Flame Burst / Venoshock / Nasty Plot / Toxic)

Only Female Salandits can evolve into Salazzle, so be cautious when catching one for yourselves!  Salazzle's an interesting one, it's a Fire/Poison type with the  Ability Corrosion which allows her to Poison Steel and Ground types.  Seems to be a counter to Steel types in general?  It's design kinda creeps me out though, but she's a solid speedy Special Attacker.

(Other Pokémon caught but not really used: Ash-Greninja, Pinsir, Aerodactyl, Luminescent the Finneon, Not!Kirby the Igglybuff, WailOfATime the Wailmer, Sandra Dee the Sandile, Pancham, TeeVee the Eevee, Retreevee the Eevee, Brooklyn the Crabrawler, GDI Whitney! the Miltank, TuffN'Rumble the Stufful, O.Ghost the Gastly, Praying the Fomantis, Red Ranger the Ledian, Pentagon Jr. the Staryu, PrinceDiglet the Alolan Diglett, Treacle the Slowpoke, Magmite the Magby, Elias the Drifloon, Mallardy the Psyduck, Pixie the Goldeen, 2 Carbinks)

WONDER TRADE GOODIES!

Alolan Sandshrew > Alolan Sandslash (Level 37, Ice/Steel, Slash / Leech Life / Icicle Spear / Iron Head)

OUCH, that typing gives it two 4x Effective Weaknesses.  A pure Physical Attacker, which doesn't give it a lot of options for Ice STAB but Iron Head is a great Steel STAB move for it.  More happy to get it since it's a Moon Exclusive Poké, and I'm playing Sun.

Alolan Grimer > Alolan Muk (Level 47, Poison/Dark, Gunk Shot / Toxic / Poison Jab / Crunch)

Grimer/Muk REALLY benefited from gaining that Dark sub-type.  You can catch Alolan Grimer absurdly early on and they are REALLY good Pokémon this Generation.  I am kicking myself for missing out on them early-game, because this Muk has been a beast ever since I got him.  Not much Move Type variety, but does VERY well with the moves it has.

Popplio > Brionne > Primarina (Level 46, Water/Fairy Hyper Voice / Sparkling Aria / Hidden Power (Ground) / Moonblast)

Honestly, getting the other Starters has been made so much easier thanks to Wonder Trading.  So many people trying to breed a perfect Starter, and just tossing away the failures.  I will happily take these kind of leftovers.  Primarina came along as part of the Rescue Lillie from the Aether Paradise segment.  No idea why I taught her Ground Type Hidden Power?  I’m sure past-me had a good reason?

(Also even though I can't rename her, she's totally called Belladonna)

Alolan Vulpix > Alolan Ninetails (Level 47, Ice/Fairy, Extrasensory / Hex / Moonblast / Ice Beam)

I LOVE Alolan Ninetails' redesign.  This Ninetails also has it's Hidden Ability, Snow Warning...which automatically makes it Hail when he enters battle.  I wanna keep using him, but I want to try and keep everything relatively evenly leveled.

Litten > Torracat > Incineroar (Level 40, Fire/Dark, Thrash / Flamethrower / Swagger / Darkest Lariat)

IT'S CATTERWALL!  The last of the Alolan Starters I managed to get, hence why it's the lowest level.  Will probably swap places with Fergrowl depending on which is lower leveled.

(Also received on Wonder Trade but not really used: Surskit/Masquerain, Alolan Geodude, Dhelmise, Trapinch, Jangmo-o, Mimikyu, Honedge, Grubbin/Charjabug, Spinarak, Machop, Mareanie, Axew, Gible, Poliwag, Fletchling, Snorunt/Froslass)

[monstersarealwayshungryrpg-blog]

Congratulations Tasha! You have been accepted as The Hanged Man! (FC: Lindsey Morgan)

This was an incredible app, wonderfully written and perfectly capturing what we hoped to see for The Hanged Man. Emerson’s past especially was beautifully detailed and heartbreaking. We all honestly can’t wait to see what you’ll do with her next! Make sure to follow the checklist and send us your account within 48 hours! WELCOME TO THE ARCANA RING, TASHA. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY.

Out Of Character Information

Name: Tasha Pronouns: She/Her Age: 19

In Character Information

Skeleton Applying for: The Hanged Man Faceclaim: Lindsey Morgan, Caitlin Stasey Character’s Full Name: Emerson de la Rosa Age: Twenty-seven Gender and Sexuality: Cisfemale & Bisexual

Character Bio:  ( tw death, murder, drugs, mentions of blood )

t h e  p a s t .

“they say that love makes you blind, but that’s not the case for me. if anything, my love is understanding. my love is clarity.”

ink bleeds through the pages of her storytelling medium, another line engraved with the handwriting of a failed author, pagination stained not only with penned words but with the lingering marks of spilled tears. writing had always been one of her multitude of aspirations, a jack-of-most trades who’d been told from the start that her purpose in life was clear; that success was a road paved by the trailblazers of tomorrow, and emerson de la rosa was raised to believe she’d be an innovator of her generation, destined to accomplish all that which her family had failed before her.

but perhaps that wasn’t the case, call it fate or karma or even the universe conspiring against her, but emerson’s life quickly became riddled with the trials and tribulations of love. of one woman in particular, nestled now in her cot, one whose bloodstained hands mosaicked porcelain sheets with dried crimson drawn, as she so claimed, from revenge.

unlucky for her, emerson was nothing like her characters, the levelled head on her shoulders couldn’t be matched by the shrill beating of her yearning heart, enticed by the very same anomaly of emotions which drove her father to become a conspiracist, constantly searching the globe for the young child’s mother, who had, by some unnatural force of enigma, vanished seemingly into thin air.

years later, when france police would finally uncover a body, floating along the bank of la seine, father would refuse to believe it. though he was a native brit with no knowledge of how france works he’d still claim it to be nothing more than a rouse of the monarchy staging a kidnap and “reprogramming” (as he’d so fondly call it) as a homicide, he’d abandoned his daughter in a foreign city in pursuit of the truth, only to repeat the cycle of disappearance, never to grace emerson’s presence again.

that’s when she met her, the woman in her bed, the one who’d offered her salvation in welcoming arms and cared for her for five years. hers was the spark which ignited emerson’s passion for writing, the muse for her relentless inspiration, and though she’d ignored all the warning signs and the foreshadowing ever evident even in her real life, emerson would soon find that the reverse hangman led to martyrdom, and that, it seemed, was the true destiny for those in the life she’d been granted.

but emerson was loyal to a fault, willing to sacrifice even her own happiness for the sake of love, and so when the mysterious woman confided in her the truth of her origin, that she, in fact, was in hiding from france government under a new alias not only for the crime of identity theft but, in fact, for murder, emerson didn’t bat an eye. her love would be a life reborn through sanction and safety, whereas emerson would blindly dial the police station, prepared to find herself behind bars, until it came to light that this one murder was not actually one murder but rather a string of murders, that the woman in her bed was a serial killer they’d been searching for years to find and finally, they had her. the very same woman who’d murdered emerson’s mother.

once the truth came out, the woman disappeared, and with it, any chance emerson had of redemption. because she’d already confessed to one. now the rest were implied, and her fate had been sealed.

but emerson knew nothing of criminal minds nor how to become one, and she knew even less about how to save herself, so she’d emulated the solution of the one she’d once loved and fled, too. before the police could arrive at her home and take her, ruin her. but that didn’t stop the news, nor the media, nor the stories of her apparent violent and psychopathic nature.

t h e  p r e s e n t .

that’s when emerson became emerson and was no longer rosalie martinez, when she’d learnt to master the art of identify theft and took it upon herself to immerse herself into a new life. a drug dealing life. truly, she had nothing left to lose, and though rumours of the great Red Rose Killer (as they so kindly referred to her these days) ran rampant through the cobblestone alleyways of paris, emerson never could quite fathom the ability to take someone else’s life. but she had the quick mind for dealing, for secrecy, sneaking, darting under the radar of the law.

hers was the time of resurrection, when twenty five year old girl would learn how to stay alive in a time of corruption, no longer the naive, innocent child riddled with the complexities of infatuation and yet she can’t help the way her heart tugs for something more, calling out for a love to replace the one she thought she had. now, though, it’s been two, loveless years, an era dedicated to the distribution of illicit substances and the furtherance of her criminal agenda, of acquiring some bit of wealth to draw her out of poverty and starvation. finally, she’d found solace under the guise of criminal intentions and is determined to prove herself worthy to The World, the one who’d picked her off the streets and gave her a life after the death of her prior self. maybe now she’s not completely the same, but. she’s a survivor. and after all, that’s really the most she can do anymore.

t h e  p e r s o n a l i t y .

loving is easy and natural, emerson claims, though she tends to throw herself prematurely into connections with those who could fatally harm her. she wants nothing more than to succeed in this new world of crime, just as she had some years ago, and desperately seeks the world’s approval as the mentor her father should’ve been. she’s determined, cautiously optimistic and quick on her feet, though she’s been hardened from some time on the streets she refrains from resorting to violence unless completely necessary. her heart is pure though recently her morals have become quite fluid, but she’s learning to adapt and can be quite versatile. however, she’s arguably still naive in many respects and has a hard time letting go of the past traumas that may haunt her. emerson definitely lacks self confidence at times, albeit she’s anything but defenseless. she’s competent enough to protect herself, though usually relies heavily on her quick wit to get her out of tricky scenarios. all in all, she’s just a lost girl desperate to survive, seeking homes in the form of people and eager to prove to everybody that she’s much less than the girl who ruined her life for someone who could never love her in return.

Extra: i don’t have photoshop so i usually refrain from making graphics and the like, and my character’s tag will come if i get accepted and as i play/get a feel for her character more! however, i have a few headcanons i can list;

i imagine her father had always been a conspiracist, though this hobby grew into an obsession following his wife’s disappearance. part of why emerson is so well-read and adaptable is because he was constantly prepping her for the worst case scenarios, all these fantasy possibilities in his head that would require for her to survive, and though emerson never believed them to be true, she always had an overactive imagination and, as a kid, entertained herself by reading shelves full of her father’s conspiracy novels.

she keeps a knife and pepper spray hidden somewhere on her person at all times, though she’s never used the former before, the pepper spray definitely came in handy one a few too many times. she refuses to keep a gun consistently with her, though, because she has no trust in her ability to utilize it properly, and is too petrified of fatally wounding someone under the guise of self-defence.

for the most part, emerson tries to use as many all-natural, cruelty-free products as possible. this is especially the case in her hobbies, where she will craft her own pastels and paints for artwork, as well as scavenging for recycled papers to use for writing. anything to help the environment in some form or fashion, even given her financial status and limited accessibility to resources.

emerson’s family owned a ranch back in england, and she had a black shire horse named acacia, a massive horse who she’d insist on riding despite being so young and small. following the discovery of her mother’s body, they sold the ranch, and emerson was forced to abandon her horse, but she keeps a picture of the two of them together in a keepsake box with some other belongings.

along those lines, emerson was an independent child growing up, and refused to participate in group curricular. instead, she took much more to horseback riding and archery. in fact, she’s still a very skilled archer to this day, though she doesn’t quite flaunt it, and only dabbles with archery as a means of both focusing as well as directing her concentration

Anything Else: i think that’s about it, lovelies! i hope everything okay, and of course, contact me if there’s anything you’d like clarification for! thanks so much for your consideration, and the roleplay looks amazing, you guys should be super proud! <3

[willidleaway]

Doctor Who, series 12, mid-series thoughts

In short: series 12 right now is looking like a real mess, but I’m honestly not sure if in a good way or a bad way. Chibnall has been bringing back a big chunk of RTD-era elements (and seemingly destroying a few Moffat-era ones), after the decidedly continuity-nod-averse series 11. It was fun at first but is now starting to look like Chibnall could end up amplifying the worst excesses of RTD and Moffat’s tenures.

In the span of a single episode, we have gone from ‘god I hope Chibnall doesn’t mess up the space rhino police’ to ‘god I hope Chibnall doesn’t mess up the entire show forever and ever’, because the arcs that he’s set up ... well ...

Moffat may have implicitly threatened to reveal the name of the Doctor in The Name of the Doctor, but to his credit he knew not to actually show that card. Chibnall, I suspect, feels too clever to show such restraint. What he’s getting up to may well permanently ruin the character of the Doctor for me, and I don’t think I’d be alone.

Spoiler-filled further thoughts behind the Read More break.

Overall thoughts on where series 12 is going: Boy do I not know where it’s going, but I know where it needs to not go.

OK, so thinking about where series 12 is going basically requires thinking about Fugitive of the Judoon. We get two major mystery points set up:

Captain Jack (who I am not entirely sure I’m glad to see back) has this warning about the Lone Cyberman.

Jo Martin plays an incarnation of the Doctor that cannot possibly exist.

I say I’m not entirely sure I’m glad to see Captain Jack back not because I don’t think his character is delightful or because John Barrowman is older, but because of the way he seems to solely exist to pull the companions out of the interesting story and set up this mystery point.

One of my problems with Moffat-era Who was all of the Doctor worship—and perhaps in retrospect it’s really unfair when it was RTD with his series 3 finale (a key example of RTD’s mixed legacy in terms of the direction RTD took new!Who in his later years, and the ways in which I genuinely think it encouraged a lot of trait that Moffat gets so much flack for in the fandom) and all the Oncoming Storm-type stuff that really started the show on that train. But in my defence, Moffat treated Clara as a living MacGuffin for much of her tenure—with a central plot point being innumerable split existences that revolve entirely around the Doctor—in a way that RTD never treated any of his era’s companions.

With Chibnall at the helm, I had hope that perhaps we’d return to compelling, active companions—especially after Moffat gave us series 10 with Bill and Nardole—and the series 11 premiere looked quite promising in this respect. But series 11 ultimately had at best mixed success on this front, partly because Bradley Walsh is in such a different class from the other two that it doesn’t even make sense. And series 12 so far has simply reverted to a group dynamic where the Doctor has all the answers, Graham has all the quips, Ryan has none of the dyspraxia, and Yas (Yaz? never sure about that one) has nothing.

And when it feels like the companions are doing nothing or even getting in the way of the narrative rather than actively driving it—to the point where you have Captain Jack literally scooping them away from the main thrust of the story—then something’s not right with this show. Why even have a companion, then, let alone three?

All that aside, let’s talk about Ruth!Doctor, who I’m going to assume is actually an incarnation of the Doctor, rather than the Master or the Rani or the Meddling Monk or some other Time Lord simply disguised as the Doctor. Having ‘Introducing Jo Martin as the Doctor’ in the closing credits sure seems to dispel that alternate notion—but certain past show runners have definitely taken part in circulating falsities!

First off, no matter what happens: Ruth!Doctor needs her own EU material. Books. Radio plays. Overpriced cheaply-made replica props. Yes. All of it. We’ve only gotten a couple dozen minutes of this Doctor so far and yet I am already utterly convinced.

Second: has post-RTD Who just completely forgotten about parallel universes? I mean, pocket universes, sure—Gallifrey was in one for a good while. But the Turn Left-style parallel worlds? The kind of parallel world seen in Rise of the Cybermen? Sure, the latter ep sets up the fact that the Time War fallout made it impossible to travel freely between parallel worlds, but with Gallifrey returned (well, before Chibnall burned it all down again), you’d think that would have changed. It doesn’t even seem to occur to 13 that Ruth!Doctor might be a parallel existence, which strikes me as astonishingly odd.

Third: if Ruth!Doctor is an actual incarnation of the Doctor in the prime timeline, then where does she fit? Pre-1 is the actual worst idea, because the TARDIS is already shaped like a police box and only like a police box, and Moffat already showed the TARDIS being stolen by 1 in capsule form. Granted, maybe the Doctor was captured by the Time Lords at some point, regenerated into 1, and stole another TARDIS that also had its chameleon circuit fried, but it seems needlessly complex.

I like the Season 6B idea a little better—the 2/3 interregnum—and maybe Ruth!Doctor is an extra regeneration granted by the Time Lords as reward for 2′s services to the CIA or whatever. One other possibility is simply that Ruth!Doctor had her memory altered—but this is possibly the least interesting idea and thus the least likely, because Chibnall clearly wants to provoke rather than catch a breath and be actually thoughtful with all of his twists this series.

Whether Ruth!Doctor fits in before Hartnell or after Troughton, it will represent a major shift in lore. Moffat was competent enough to make 8.5 work, arguably making better use of RTD’s Time War than even RTD ever did. But we are on shakier territory where Chibnall isn’t really building on anything. And if Ruth!Doctor is the Zeroth Doctor, and Chibnall really wants to provoke, well ...

Part of the fun of the Doctor, at least for me, is that at the end of the day, the Doctor really is a mad man in a box, an idiot that wants to be kind and help out along the way. They’re a Time Lord, sure, but amongst Time Lords they don’t have some overriding power that does not arise from their own initiative. For all of Moffat’s faults, I think he knew this to be at the core of the character. If he didn’t always show it, he at least always tried to tell it, even alongside all of the most egregious Doctor-worship.

And the Doctor’s origins are vague, even mysterious, but only because the Time Lords as a whole are rather mysterious. Their social psychology is eccentric, to be sure. Their control of time and space is unparalleled. But we’re not sure whence they arose and that’s fine. It’s not necessary, because the show was never about the Doctor, but about how the Doctor affects those around him. Much of Moffat-era Who had maybe a more Doctor-centric tilt to this, but nonetheless it was never quite all about the Doctor!

Meanwhile, in the Chibnall era, now we’ve got the Master talking about the Timeless Child and lies about the history of the Time Lords, and Captain Jack scooping the companions out of the way so that we can get all this new Doctor lore set up. And, well ... forget RTD’s Oncoming Storm. Forget Moffat’s literal origin of the word ‘doctor’. I think we’re about to see Chibnall elevate the Doctor to being literally the Genesis of the Time Lords, and it makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Hmm, I do wonder if we will get an episode actually titled Genesis of the Time Lords, only I want it to be about Gallifreyan prog pop-rock.

Additional thoughts, episode by episode:

OK, so I already said my bit on Spyfall and the latest ep. So that leaves two.

—Orphan 55: I think everyone’s had their curb-stomp on this one. I’d just like to say that it was particularly disappointing because Ed Hime’s previous contribution to Doctor Who was ‘It Takes You Away’, by far one of the most brilliant episodes of Series 11. It was ambitious and witty, and the characters were interesting and compelling, and basically it succeeded so well at everything that Orphan 55 fails at so badly.

Orphan 55 is like Midnight except the villain all along was man. It just feels like Ed Hime was playing a bunch of Metro games and then Chibnall told him to write a Very Special Episode about climate change, and everything suddenly clicked together. At least someone thought it did.

Was it really that bad? I’d say it was no less messier than Fugitive of the Judoon, honestly. I think with time, people will either look more kindly on it or completely forget about it, because frankly its reputation can’t get worse. The fact that Orphan 55 did not have the blockbuster Who-lore reveals and twists of Fugitive of the Judoon will be either the reason it becomes forgotten or the reason it becomes more favourably looked upon.

—Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror: My main qualm with this story is the over-romanticisation of Tesla. The show acts as if Wardenclyffe was this amazing proto-Wi-Fi apparatus that would have worked if only JP Morgan hadn’t pulled his funding, when in fact it was the epitome of this big wireless tech bubble and a folly in the most literal sense of that word. They mention the Gilded Age right near the start of the episode and somehow view Tesla as this pure-minded inventor and almost a human Doctor for the 20th century, rather than someone who basically lived off of Gilded Age capitalist money, and a shrewd man knew how to game the press and public opinion in his time.

Don’t get me wrong. Tesla was legitimately wronged very badly, both by Edison and by Marconi, and he seems to have had a real intuition for electrical engineering in ways that few in his time did. But intuition is not the same as scientific enquiry, and that seems to me to be no small part of why Tesla after Wardenclyffe never enjoyed the success and admiration that he did before, and why he was rather badly forgotten for so long.

And then Edison seemed a bit too softened??? Caring for his workers at some level, sure, but surely he would absolutely never be the sort of person to offer Tesla a job with him ... ?

That said, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better actor to cast in the role of Tesla, and generally I found the episode pretty good. I believe others have sufficiently pointed out the mild hypocrisy of the Doctor’s criticising the scorpion!Racnoss for stealing technology (still can’t be bothered to remember what they actually were, sorry), but I generally found it more amusing than problematic.

[bigbearpartners]

Creating Culture by Design; What I Learned from Attending Culture Amp’s First Culture First Tour in London

“Brand is a promise to a customer. Culture is how you deliver on it.” Didier Elzinga, CEO, Culture Amp

As a newly anointed member of The Pioneer’s consulting team, an innovative management and cultural design company – I was invited to come along to Culture Amp’s first inaugural Culture First Tour in London.  I’ve attended a number of events around culture and work in the past – but this was something else entirely.  Held at London’s BAFTA headquarters on Picadilly, Central London – I walked through the doors and was immediately greeted by several beaming smiles of Culture Amp team volunteers who guided me to the venue’s operational hub – where I slugged down a latte and headed straight into the grand auditorium for the first keynote address.  

JD Peterson – Culture Amp’s Chief Growth Officer gave an enlightened presentation on “Why Culture First,” to warm up for the keynote speaker, Beth Gschiel Clutterbuck – The VP & Global Head of People at Deliveroo. Beth outlined succinctly what challenges her company was experiencing. 650% year-over-year growth in disrupting the food delivery market by digitising the entire supply chain – from restaurant to your doorstep – with now 1,200 employees who seemingly grew out of nothing back in 2013 to arguably one of the most vaunted and loved portfolio companies within Index Ventures’ family of investments (and just received a $385 million investment in September 2017). Capturing and creating a ‘culture by design’ such that they never lose that entrepreneurial edge as they mature and grow at speed is one of her most critical missions.

Beth said that culture was a combination of “How you are experienced, how you communicate and how you behave,” as the core to how a workplace culture expresses itself.  But to codify that, and lead the intention of your cultural design – you need an ‘invisible scaffolding’ that underpins and supports your desired cultural state.  Those elements were ‘Values, Purpose and Strategy.’  Determining those elements requires some powerful soul searching and pretty clever discussions to land ultimately on the right foundation from which to create the employee experience (and the resulting customer experience) that you intended to create, and want to curate as you continue to grow and mature.

As Beth explained, you need to reinforce those experiences, communication channels and desired behaviours with digital tools that create a seamless, unified and ubiquitous collaboration that, through its use – illustrates what sort of company Deliveroo wants to the known as, and how they prefer their employees to engage.  Beth mentioned the use of tools such as Workplace by Facebook as an example of their commitment to connecting everyone around the enterprise – but more importantly, that what gets communicated, shared and experienced through that platform isn’t always sweetness and light. Sometimes it’s downright uncomfortable, awkward and controversial (yet no doubt reasonably professional).  “We want to amplify the kernels of goodness within Deliveroo – but we also need to listen to people, and engage with a company-wide conversation by setting the standard that you are trusted to share, and we won’t be monitoring or limiting your behaviour because our transparency and your opinions matter,” said Beth in describing critical evidence of Deliveroo’s culture in action.  This sets the tone for the employee experience, communicates the employer brand and hopefully creates a freedom for expression, a listening post to capture greatness and a channel to ensure everyone contributes to Deliveroo’s mission.  It was awe inspiring to see incredible cultures operating so effectively – to ensure, as Beth indicated, the focus is always on Attracting, Developing and Engaging the people who work there as they continue down their path to success and achievement.

The next powerful experience I had was listening to Matt Grimshaw – one of the founding partners at The Pioneers – who, in my humble estimation, is one of the most gentle, yet compelling presenters and ideators I’ve had the pleasure of working with.  He launched his breakout session with a seemingly cheeky ask for volunteers from the audience to participate in a group comedic improvisation session ala the famed British TV Improv Comedy, Whose Line is it Anyway.  I was immediately confused about where this was all heading, and fearing the worst as there is nothing worse than four strangers from disparate walks of life being thrown together on stage (and it was a grand stage that would strike fear into the hearts of the most accomplished comedian, much less conference attendees whose last thought about the upcoming day would involve making an unsuspecting audience laugh), and hoping it wouldn’t all end in awkward tears. Further – what the heck did this have to do with culture in the first place?  

Matt instructed the first four ‘volunteers’ that their vignette would involve a President Donald J. Trump announcing his new Cabinet appointee for Secretary of Defence. Unpredictably, a wonderfully sporting gentlemen, proudly wearing a full beard and likely the most ethnically Muslim looking of the group was assigned, ironically, the role of Donald Trump, with another being the Whitehouse Press Secretary (yes, she was blonde), the Chief of Staff (a woman in this instance), and hysterically the most suited and booted participant taking on the role of the newly appointed Secretary.  I neglected to mention, was told he was actually a goat.  Not the metaphorical goat as likely is the case in Trump’s real life presidency, but rather – a real goat.  Bless him – he immediately dropped to all fours and proceeded to ‘Naaay’ his way around the stage whilst the estimable Trump character proceeded to laud his excellent choice in picking this illustrious goat as clearly the best possible Secretary of Defence the world has ever seen.  I was in tears of laughter in about 60 seconds.

Prior to this improvisation kicking off, Matt outlined that there were three critical rules that each member of the team needed to remember and embrace to make this successful; first was to suspend judgment – there are no mistakes, the second being to ‘build on what the other people were saying,’ and the last was to ‘make the other people look good.’  

In total, there were three such improvisation teams (who arguably were almost being forced to the stage in the end), each of whom performed with equal hilarity and frivolity – as not to be believed they weren’t actually professional stand-up comedians masquerading as conference attendees.  What a smashing hit this was as both an ice-breaker and a powerful illustration that – when you operate in an environment where no judgment, supportive engagement and a belief that making the other people look great was at the heart of the mission – you really couldn’t help but out-perform.

Matt then asked the entire audience to break into groups of 4-5 and huddle around various pedestals – set up in groups of two, set slightly apart from one another – dotted around the stage and stage floor areas.  He then produced a massive volume of Lego building blocks, the likes I’ve only ever dreamt of owning as a child. And we were all asked to share our memories and stories about our most favourite bridge.  Say again?  I mean, I like bridges as much as the next guy – but seriously – where was this going?

Fast-forward and we, each of us strangers to one another, were suddenly thrust into a minimum viable product ideation/storytelling exercise, that then engaged us with design work, prototyping and delivery of our fanciful Lego bridges to other groups – who arguably were some of the most ardent evangelists of their particular brand and feature/function description of their bridges I’ve ever seen!  They would have put Steve Jobs to shame!  

And then came the brilliant wrap up – where Matt outlined for us that, in order to set the right conditions for sharing, honesty and creativity – suspending judgment, building on everyone’s ideas and making the others look good was essential.  It brings out the best (and importantly the most natural) in all of us, and permits us to open up, share our inner ideas and work together as a team where the collective greatly outweighs the contributions of us as individuals.  Matt then illustrated how we all just engaged with a classic human-centred design process to build impossible bridges, full of fascinating artefacts, built from the heart and created in less than 15 minutes from toys we played with as children – and there wasn’t a heavy heart in the room as there was nothing but laughter, chatter and playfulness the entire time.  Without knowing it – because we were too busy having fun more than likely – Matt had taken us all on a journey of discovery and deep learning about creating the conditions for success – and I actually had FUN doing it! It was all a bit magical, thoroughly educational and wildly entertaining.

The key message was that, if you’re going to build cultures that respect, engage, honour the individual’s contributions, but amplify the best ideas for all involved – then build trust, communication and commitment to one another – and you can build a bridge the closes any chasm.  That’s the essence of a highly effective culture.

When talking to employees in companies such as those represented yesterday, I’m deeply touched by their level of focus, commitment, drive and dedication to making something incredible happen.  Even in the face of severe adversity and everyday challenge – there is an overriding sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, being ‘in the mission’ to win and a brotherhood/sisterhood of connection with their peers that is undaunted by trivial bits of contrary evidence that they will prevail against all odds.  That is, of course, unless something happens that conflicts directly with their own value system (often an un-coded, sub-conscious set of values acquired over a lifetime of trial and error, punishment and reward).  And it’s in disruptive moments such as these that having an intentionally designed cultural architecture can save the day.  

An undefined set of cultural norms (behaviours deemed acceptable and likely to help you succeed based on consistent perceived evidence, rewards, recognition, punishment and treatment of your peers), will default to what senior leaders are actually doing every day.  If senior leaders are behaving in the right way, leading by example and illustrating the values they’ve all agreed to – under every circumstance, but especially when times are tough – then you’re in with the best shot at winning as a company.

But, however, if your senior executives are misbehaving, operating against or even askew of those agreed values – or being permissive in any way in allowing their managers or staff to behave in opposition to those values – then you have a serious mess on your hands.  And this is NOT the time to challenge the integrity and personal values of your staff – not when you’re just hitting your stride and killing it in the market.  

Defining a culture by design – that is shaped and based on the best of an organisation’s people, supported by deeply held values that resonate with almost everyone there, and are evidenced daily by senior leaders, regardless of the circumstances are what helps future-proof that company’s ability to scale, to sustain growth, and to succeed over time, in spite of the odds.  

Jeff Wellstead is a Partner at The Pioneers – a management innovation consultancy based in the UK.

The Pioneers is the go-to consultancy for leaders who want their people and culture to be a source of competitive advantage.  Our vision is to create a consultancy that has a reputation for providing a fresh perspective and insightful advice, based on cutting edge scientific research.

Contact us at www.thepioneers.co.uk, or email Jeff at jeff.wellstead@thepioneers.co.uk to find out more about how we can help you architect talent strategy and cultural design that will ensure your vision comes to life – and stays that way no matter what.

[andnogimmicks]

The UK General Election of 1964

Warning: This post contains a racial slur, quotes from racist letters to a local newspaper, and a description of racist rhetoric.

NB: This post draws heavily on the consummate scholarship of D E Butler and Anthony King's The General Election of 1964. If my dependence on their work feels like a limitation, then I have no defence. Their account of this event is masterful, and I highly recommend the book.

Update: This post was edited on 2017-10-18 to add more documentary evidence for my claims, and a brief assessment of the Conservative campaign, and on 2017-10-21, to embellish the section on Smethwick.

Front page of the Daily Mirror, Thursday 15 October, 1964. Above is a fascimile of a black-and-white tabloid frontpage. The headline is ‘LET’S ALL VOTE TODAY’ in huge letters. A subheading reads, ‘AND VOTE FOR OUR FUTURE!’ On the left, there is a close-up photograph of Harold Wilson looking serious and confident. On the right, there is a cartoon of Conservative MP Quintin Hogg grimacing inanely with a halo above his head. Beneath him, the text reads, ‘Let us show ‘HALO’ HOGG just how many of us are ‘Stark, staring bonkers!’ This comment refers to some choice words of Hogg’s about Labour voters during the campaign.

A bit of background for the uninitiated: the United Kingdom (UK) is a state, and arguably a nation, comprised of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. UK general elections select candidates for membership of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament from local geographic divisions called constituencies. Each constituency returns only one member: the one who receives the most votes. Candidates generally belong to a political party, and a party with a majority of 'seats' (that is, more than half of the members) in the Commons forms the Government. In this post, I will give a summary of the results of the 1964 UK General Election, discuss the main events of the campaign, and focus on the election in the constituency of Smethwick, where extensive use of racist rhetoric around immigration produced a notable result.

The election took place on Thursday, October 15th. That evening, Harold Wilson's political secretary, Marcia Williams, bet that the incumbent Conservative Government would survive with a small majority.1 In the event, the competition was close, and the final outcome only became clear very late, on the afternoon of Friday the 16th. For much of the night, the results suggested a considerable swing to Labour, but this diminished over time, and the party suffered significant disappointments on the second day. The party only received confirmation of its majority with the result from Brecon and Radnor, a huge rural constituency in central Wales, at 2.47pm on Friday.2 It was not until 3.50pm that Wilson was politely invited to Buckingham Palace. At 4pm, he went to see the Queen and gain permission to form a Government.3

Image by Mirrorme22. Retrieved from Wikipedia on 2017-09-18. Above is a cartographic representation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, divided up into House of Commons electoral consituencies as used in the General Election of 1964. Each constituency is coloured with the official colour of the party which won there. Labour is red, the Conservatives are blue, and the Liberals are yellow. The map is mostly blue, as the Conservatives tended to win in the larger, rural constituencies, but the winner is Labour, which has won the urban areas of London, central Scotland, Tyneside, most of Wales, and a vast crescent of constituencies stretching from Birmingham, through Coventry, Derby, and Leicester, to the Northern industrial conurbations. Northern Ireland is entirely Conservative. The Liberals have won only nine seats, mostly in the far reaches of Scotland.

Parliament returned 630 MPs. By convention, the Speaker does not vote, meaning that only 629 seats were politicised. At the final count, Labour had 317 seats. This gave them an working majority of only five MPs, although the prospects of Liberal-Conservative cooperation were low, making defeat a less immediate threat. Labour had had traumatic previous experience of a small majority in the 1950-51 Parliament, when that administration had been tired and divided. Now the party had momentum, but it was clear to the leadership that another election would be required soon to cement the new Government's position.4

For Labour, the picture was mixed. Their 317 seats were garnered from only 12,205,814 votes, their lowest count since 1945. Turnout had decreased slightly to 77.1%, from 78.7% in 1959, but this was actually up from 1945's 73.3%, and the total number of votes cast was not much lower than at previous elections. Labour only managed 44.1% of the vote, which was up from 43.8% in 1959, but significantly less than its victory in 1945, and its losing results in 1951 (when it reached an all-time high of 48.8%) and 1955.5 Wilson had won, but only by a slim margin against a discredited regime with elderly and aristocratic leadership. Notably, Labour’s new MP for Buckingham was a Czechoslovakian-born businessman named Robert Maxwell.

The Conservatives also had their worst outcome since 1945. They won 12,000,396 votes, 43.4% of those cast. Thus the most startling result nationally was the diminution of the party duopoly which had been unassailable since the War. This was most visible in the performance of the Liberal Party, whose vote swole to 3,092,878, some 11.2%.6 This was their best result by vote share since 1929, although they had had more seats until 1950. They came second in 54 seats, which was up from 27 in 1959.7

The General Election gains and losses are updated on the scoreboard at the Labour Party HQ in Transport House, Westminster, back in 1964. Unsourced. Retrieved from BT Pictures on 2017-10-16. Above is a black-and-white landscape photograph of a large, old-fashioned election scoreboard, on which results are displayed manually, by moving paper cards around. A young woman on the right, in a smart chequed suit jacket, smiles as she adjusts Labour's net gain total. The photograph was taken very late on election night. So far, 124 results have been declared. Labour has 74 seats, the Conservatives have 49, and the Liberals have only one. So far, Labour has made twelve net gains. This trend was to continue into the morning.

As a consequence of uncertainty about the timing of the election, the campaign had been long. The popularity of the Conservative Government began eroding in 1961, when the Chancellor, Selwyn Lloyd, had introduced controversial measures designed to counter high inflation and a balance of payments deficit, including a 'pay pause' for wages.8 With inflation above 3%, the pause was in real terms a cut. The unions refused to cooperate, and drew public favour. After thirteen years of Tory rule, voters now rushed to support a more progressive vision of politics, from a party which had long been out of vogue. But their movement was not, at least initially, to Labour. Instead, it was the Liberal Party who performed handsomely at several by-elections, and rose from 8% to 20% in the polls.9 In March 1962, the Liberals stole the safe seat of Orpington from the Conservatives, and gained a 7,000 vote majority.10 Support for the Conservatives collapsed from 46.5% in early 1961, to below 35% halfway through 1962. It was in this context that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had sacked seven Cabinet ministers in one day in July, in the so-called 'Night of the Long Knives'. His new Chancellor, Reginald Maudling, drastically reversed Lloyd's policy by offering an expansionary budget in 1963 in order to stimulate growth. Production increased and unemployment fell, but it was a temporary fix; the budget required that £58 million be drawn from official reserves, and an unsustainable gap in the balance of payments now began to grow.11 12

In January 1963, French President Charles de Gaulle indicated that he would veto Macmillan's application for Britain to join the EEC, and Labour's leader, Hugh Gaitskell, died suddenly. In February, unemployment, which had been consistently low since 1947, reached 3.9%. Labour, now led by Wilson, was beating the Conservatives by some 15% in Gallup polling. It had averaged 43% support in 1962, but achieved 49.5% over the following year, as the Vassall, Profumo, and Philby revelations followed.13 His reputation in tatters, Macmillan resigned soon after, though officially on grounds of ill health, and was replaced by Alec Douglas-Home in the traditional Conservative way, under advisement from his predecessor, and without democratic input.14

Alec Douglas-Home on a day of shooting in 1964. Photograph unsourced. Retrieved from the Daily Mail on 2017-10-16. Above is a black-and-white portrait photograph of a slender, white, middle-aged man on a country estate, in plus-fours and shooting jacket, with a huge shotgun slung over his arm. It is Conservative Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home.

Labour's campaign was focussed around the personality of Wilson. Soon after his election as leader, he flew off to see world leaders, and appeased his party's flanks by criticising the Polaris programme as wasteful without committing to unilateral nuclear disarmament.15 During the campaign proper, he gave daily press conferences with himself as the star. He was noted for his wit in the House of Commons and in media appearances. He attempted to draw parallels between himself and the charisma and rising cultural liberalism of US President Kennedy, who he had met in spring, 1963,16 but according to Butler & King, his campaigning style was much closer to Theodore White's famous analysis of Richard Nixon's methods: solitary, demagogic, and consciously phased according to an intuitive rhythm only the leader understood.17 As in the 1959 election, when Labour had been dominated by Gaitskellite (i.e., Labour right-wing) revisionists, they made little mention of socialism, except insofar as it was being re-fashioned into technocracy, and no explicit attack on capital.18 Instead, Wilson stuck to his themes of efficiency and modernisation, and ridiculed the Tories for being out of date. Home, who had given up his title as the 14th Earl of Home to become an MP, was lambasted as 'an elegant anachronism', and 'the 14th Earl'. After photographs were published of Home grouse-hunting in woollen plus fours, Wilson relentlessly mocked his 'grouse moor conception' of statecraft. The Prime Minister didn't take this meekly. For him, Wilson was 'the 14th Mr Wilson' and a 'slick salesman of synthetic science'.19 Labour's manifesto, with its promises of greater social security spending, became 'a menu without prices'.20

British Labour politician Harold Wilson with his wife Mary, campaigning in South London, during the General Election, September 19, 1964. © Getty Images. Retrieved from Huffington Post on 2017-10-18. Above is a colour portrait photograph of a gathering outdoors. The camera points towards the sky. In the bottom of the frame, many people, including Mary Wilson, look towards Harold Wilson, speaking atop a plinth in the centre of the frame. He has a red rose in his buttonhole. He speaks into a microphone. The plinth is covered with a Labour poster of Wilson’s face.

The Conservative riposte, titled, in almost Wilsonian language, Prosperity with a Purpose, was launched on September 18th, 1964, but it announced few new ideas, and received lukewarm media attention. The Government hoped to be judged on the strength of its record in office.

Home's natural strength was foreign policy, and he made his main theme the nuclear deterrent, on which a Gallup poll found that public opinion sided with the Conservatives by 37% to Labour's 21%. But in the same poll, only 7% of those surveyed felt that defence was the most important issue of the election.21 Labour largely avoided the issue, although Clement Attlee was wheeled out for a television broadcast in which he claimed that his Foreign Secretary, Bevin, had never felt he needed the nuclear deterrent as backing in foreign negotiations, continuing, 'then of course Ernest Bevin was a great personality'. The clear implication was that Home was not.22

The Prime Minister's biggest problem was Wilson, who was coming to dominate the media. For this reason, he resisted invitations from Wilson and the BBC for a televised debate.23 His second biggest problem, the Secretary of State or Education and Science, Quintin Hogg (formerly a member of the House of Lords known as Hailsham), was less shy of media attention. At a meeting in Birmingham days after the Conservative manifesto launch, Hogg rather overstepped by comparing Wilson's economic planning strategy to a 'military operation', and insisted, 'demand for a military operation is the theme song of the dictator from time immemorial'.24 Just before the election, Hogg was to make another mistake, again at a public gathering. Answering a heckler who shouted, 'what about Profumo?', Hogg fumed, 'If you can tell me there are no adulterers on the front bench of the Labour Party you can talk to me about Profumo.' In Labour circles, this was taken, very hotly and with some embarrassment, as innuendo in reference to rumours of an affair between Marcia Williams and Harold Wilson. The rumours existed largely in elite press and political circles, and had never been published, except in oblique reference to a comment by Barbara Cartland in the Sunday Telegraph. Senior Labour figures believed that public accusations could blow up the whole campaign. Wilson defused the situation deftly, by implying to the press the next day that he had no need to respond, saying only, ‘one can naturally assume that the leader of Mr Hogg’s party will of course be making a statement.’25 The final word on Hogg went to Attlee: ‘it is time he grew up. He should know that when he has met with a rude interjection he does not lose his temper. […] Mr Hogg acted like a schoolboy. […] This man is a cabinet minister.’26

Cartoon by Cummings for the Daily Express on 1964-09-18. Retrieved from the British Cartoon Archive on 2017-10-02. Above is a black ink cartoon of senior Conservatives running to stop a colossal rocket-powered bomb from launching. The bomb has come loose from its moorings, and is ready to fire. It has been made to look like Conservative MP Quintin Hogg, and has Hog Bomb, with a large H, emblazoned on the front. Great puffs of hot air spurt from Hogg's mouth. Alec Douglas-Home and Rab Butler are grimacing and pointing to the rocket. Beside them, Reginald Maudling is throwing a lassoed lifesaver in vain. Together they shout, 'Good Heavens! Our Doomsday Weapon has broken loose!' Hogg was an effective anti-Labour mobiliser, but made himself a spectacle during the campaign, on account of his temper and unpredictability.

Even the reprisals of a well-loved elder statesman were not enough to stop Hogg. The following video was filmed at a press conference on the final Monday before the election, just after Hogg had dismissed the Liberals as an insignificance. In it, you can hear him celebrating the much-reviled recommendations of cuts to the railways made by Dr Beeching, pronouncing 'loss' apparently with an r in it, as only a reactionary, anachronistic aristocrat can, and calling Labour voters 'stark, staring bonkers':

Labour's front bench could err too. It emerged in the Sunday Express that the the Deputy Leader, George Brown, may have suggested that interest rates on mortgages be dropped flatly to 3% under a Labour Goverment. The Tories seized the opportunity, asking how much this new policy would cost. Labour was forced to issue climbdown statements, simply saying that they wanted to lower the cost of housing. The incident ended up being understated, but it followed feverish expectation of damaging outbursts from Brown in the press and the Conservative Party.27

Cartoon by Illingworth for the Daily Mail on 1964-09-21. Retrieved from the British Cartoon Archive on 2017-10-02. Above is a black ink cartoon of Alec Douglas-Home and Reginald Maudling smugly grinning from inside a building. They watch from the window as a blank and unknowing George Brown walks by with his coat and briefcase. Home is holding a newspaper. The headline is 'QUINTIN HOGG IS LABOUR'S SECRET WEAPON'. He looks over his reading glasses and says, 'AND IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN, THERE GOES OURS'. If Hogg was embarrassing the Conservatives as a fulsome reactionary, Brown, a known alcoholic prone to emotional displays, was also a liability for Labour.

Wilson himself made only one significant gaffe in the whole campaign. With a fortnight left before the election, the motor component manufacturer Hardy Spicer was hit by industrial action. Uncalled stoppages at the plant endangered the production chain elsewhere in the automotive industry, suggesting that the Leader could not competently manage the unions. Labour was down slightly in the polls. Wilson suggested that the action may have been politically motivated, prompting mockery from the Government. Maudling memorably joked, 'I must say that's a rum one: Tory shop stewards sabotaging Mr Wilson's election! Really!'28 More broadly, criticisms were made of Wilson’s presidential style, and tendency to eclipse his senior colleagues on the Opposition front bench. He was characterised as a ‘one man band’ by his enemies in the press, but his supporters had grievances, too. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, at this time secret speechwriter and confidant to Wilson, grumbled in his diary just ten days before the election that 'he is certain that he is the one that is winning the campaign for us single-handed and I don't think he quite believes that he can be doing anything wrong.'29

Cartoon by Illingworth for the Daily Mail on 1964-09-29. Retrieved from the British Cartoon Archive on 2017-10-01. Above is a black ink cartoon of Harold Wilson clandestinely handing news of the Hardy Spicer strike to a dissheveled, quizzical George Brown. Wilson whispers, 'They're all in this Tory plot George - Hardy Spicers, Goldwater, Mao Tse-tung AND the Meteorological Office.' Wilson's suggestion that the Hardy Spicer action was conspiratorial drew much derision in the election campaign. Trade union officials are not known for their loyalty to the Conservative Party. Mao Tse-tung, the Communist Chinese premier, was frequently linked to conspiracy theories at the time. Barry Goldwater was the right-libertarian 1964 Republican candidate for the US Presidency, known for his virulent anti-union stance.

The Tories were in for more missteps. In an extended interview broadcast on the BBC, while discussing his proposal for a supplementary payment to older pensioners, Home called the payment a ‘donation’. Critics of the Government saw this slip as symptomatic of a wealthy, condescending elite which resented the less privileged.30 But perhaps the most decisive reason for the Conservatives’ loss was the most critical issue of the election: competence in the management of the economy. On the 30th of September, figures were released showing that the balance of payments deficit had ballooned to £73 million. The painful repercussions of Maudling’s gamble were now plain to see. Attempting to needle Labour on economic management, their traditional perceived weakness, Maudling’s predecessor Selwyn Lloyd insisted they promise not to devalue sterling to balance the deficit, as they had done in 1949. Lloyd claimed that in that year, Labour had been ‘faced by a similar crisis’.31 So a senior Tory, and a former Chancellor, conceded implicitly that Britain’s economy was now in crisis. It was a coup for Labour.

Despite the mistakes and the national narrative of loss, there were victories for the Tories in the election. In several constituencies, they diminished Labour’s majority, or defeated them completely. In Eton and Slough a 0.1% majority for Labour became a 0.1% majority for the Conservatives. In Birmingham Perry Bar, Labour lost their 0.5% majority to a 0.8% Tory one. The Labour vote also diminished from a 5.4% to a 4.7% majority in Southall. But the most spectacular coup of all was the Tories’ unseating of a member of the Opposition front bench in Smethwick. Shadow Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker lost his majority of 9.4%, and the Tories won by 5.0%, or 1,774 votes. The reason for these apparently unexpected outcomes is simple to relate. Slough and Southall are on the suburban outskirts of West London, and Perry Bar and Smethwick are part of Birmingham. Greater London and the urbanised West Midlands were very densely populated areas, and they had the largest immigrant populations in Britain in 1964. In these constituencies, in the context of rising house prices and growing housing shortages, local Conservative candidates ran coded campaigns, often insinuating offensive slurs or alluding to stereotypes, and designed to appeal to racist white voters anxious about housing and poverty. It worked.32

Smethwick, which at the time was technically in Staffordshire, was a suburban town which employed workers in the metal-working and car part industries. By 1964 it had a major housing shortage, and many local residents had faced redundancies, contract terminations, or real-terms pay cuts, due to foundry closures.33; 34; 35 Smethwick had been represented in Parliament by Labour MP Oswald Mosley from 1926 to 1931, before his conversion to fascism. Smethwick contained an estimated 4,000 to 7,000 immigrants, who were mostly from India or the West Indies, and moved to Smethwick to work in the foundries.36 (In 2017, Birmingham is still home to a large Indian-descended Sikh population.) In the 1960s, growing racism had led to the institution of ‘colour bars’ (bans segregating the use of services by race) in pubs, societies, and shops in some areas. In Smethwick, the tendency was particularly strong, and local authorities had taken to charging double the normal deposit for renters of colour. Even a local Labour Club was operating a colour bar.37 In July 1961, 610 council tenants on Prince Street, Smethwick, had refused to pay their rents in protest at the routine housing of a Pakistani family in a new maisonette, after their previous house was demolished in slum clearances.38 39

The Conservative candidate for Smethwick was Peter Griffiths, a headmaster at a local primary school since 1962, who had been heavily involved in local politics before the election. He had become a councillor in 1956, and had run for the seat unsuccessfully in the 1959 General Election.40 His signature demands were a total ban on the immigration of unskilled workers, repatriation of people of colour who had been unemployed for six months, and segregation of schooling for immigrant children until they had reached an arbitrarily designed, ‘reasonable command of English’. Local feeling was deeply divided. According to the Times, the Smethwick Telephone, a local newspaper, gave over 1,650 column inches to the topic of immigration in 1963. The same report in the Times quoted two typical letters printed in the Telephone in that year:

With the advent of the pseudo-socialists' 'coloured friends' the incidence of T.B. in the area has risen to become one of the highest in the country. Can it be denied that the foul practice of spitting in public is a contributory factor?

And:

Why waste the ratepayers' money printing notices in five different languages ? People who behave worse than animals will not in the least be deterred by them.41

To those who had been paying attention, Griffiths' victory in the seat was no surprise: his campaigning, fed by this rhetoric, had recently brought the local council under the control of the Conservatives.42

Peter Griffths campaigning in Smethwick, 1964. © Express & Star, retrieved from The Telegraph on 2017-10-16. Above is a black-and-white landscape photograph of four white people laughing in front of a terrace of brick houses. On the left is a young, boyish man in a suit, wearing a suit and a rosette. The other three are much older women. The man is Peter Griffiths, Conservative candidate for Smethwick in 1964, a headmaster with a sideline in barely-masked racial hatred.

Griffiths’ style at political gatherings was notable. After claiming that he had actually intended to speak at the event on other issues, but was being forced to clarify his position by those attempting to discredit him, Griffiths would speak at length about 'immigration', a dogwhistle codeword used to disguise the speaker's racism, and advocate repatriation.43 He would earnestly protest that he was opposed only to squalor and violence against (white) women, leaving his audience to make the unspoken link between these iniquities and the presence of people of colour in the neighbourhood. Racist politics, in 1964 as now, are a matter of the greatest cowardice and cynicism. They are often communicated implicitly, or by allowing others to speak for you. Griffiths refused to condemn the slogan which became associated with his campaign: 'if you want a nigger for a neighbour - vote Labour.'44 In an interview with the Times in March 1964, he defended its use, saying, ‘I should think that is a manifestation of the popular feeling. I would not condemn anyone who said that. I would say that is how people see the situation in Smethwick. I fully understand the feelings of the people who say it. I would say it is exasperation, not fascism.’45

Patrick Gordon Walker, the Labour incumbent in the constituency, was an academic, and an advocate of closer relationships with other Commonwealth member states. He lived in the leafy and spacious Hampstead Garden Suburb, and had neglected his constituency in recent years. His image was very much that of the liberal elitist, and the local Labour party was complacent and disorganised. Rumours circulated in the constituency that he had married a black woman, or that he had married off his daughters to black men. His seat was ripe for the taking.46

In the end, Labour’s victory was slight, but it was still a victory. After being named Prime Minister, Wilson wasted no time. The first of his Cabinet appointments were announced that evening:

George Brown would be Minister for Economic Affairs, and First Secretary of State, to demonstrate his position as deputy to the Prime Minister;

James Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer;

Patrick Gordon Walker became Foreign Secretary, even though he had lost his seat and was no longer an MP;

Denis Healey was now Defence Secretary;

and Herbert Bowden would be Leader of the House of Commons.47

Wilson had surrounded himself with rivals from the party's right wing. In this he had had little choice; the senior Cabinet positions were elected by the party. Privately, though, he was thinking of the future. In July, he had promised Wedgwood Benn a position as Postmaster General. But this was not a Cabinet role. He stressed that 'this was only for eighteen months.'48 This new Prime Minister, who had swept into Number 10 after not even two years as Leader of the Opposition, and defeated the most electorally successful Government in a century, was already planning his next date with the polls.

Harold Wilson toasts members of a working men's club in his constituency, in 1964. © Getty Images. Retrieved from BBC News on 2017-10-01. Above is a black-and-white landscape photograph. A group of people is applauding and cheering in a working mens' club. In the foreground, turned away from us, Harold Wilson raises a pint of bitter in celebration.

Defeat didn’t spell the end for Home. He would go on to serve again as Foreign Secretary throughout the four-year Heath administration. For the most part, he had found it impossible to compete with Wilson’s rambunctious campaigning, and he had been vulnerable to Labour’s caricature of the Tories as outdated gentleman amateurs. But there are those who defend his legacy. Douglas Hurd offers a flattering perspective in his short biography of Home. As he sees it, during the brief year of Home’s leadership, the Conservatives had climbed from oblivion in the polls, to fighting a very close race. They had moved on from several very damaging scandals. With his calm manner, Home, the honourable man, had gained ground on the scheming and cynical Wilson.49

Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson (London: William Collins, 2016), p. 317. ↩︎

D E Butler and Anthony King, The British General Election of 1964 (London: Macmillian, 1965), p. 289. ↩︎

Pimlott, p. 318. ↩︎

ibid, p. 319. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 303. ↩︎

ibid. ↩︎

ibid, pp. 293-4. ↩︎

Kenneth O'Morgan, Callaghan: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 192. ↩︎

Clive Ponting, Breach of Promise: Labour in Power 1964-1970 (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 13. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 13-6. ↩︎

O'Morgan, pp. 172-3. ↩︎

J. Foreman-Peck, 'Trade and the Balance of Payments, in The British Economy Since 1945, ed. N. F. R. Crafts and Nicholas Woodward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 168. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 14-20. ↩︎

Ponting, p. 14. ↩︎

ibid, p. 11. ↩︎

Pimlott, pp. 282-5. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 75. ↩︎

David Coates, The Labour Party and the Struggle for Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 97. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 23. ↩︎

ibid, p. 110. ↩︎

ibid, p. 129. ↩︎

ibid, p. 131. ↩︎

ibid, p. 95. ↩︎

ibid, p. 111. ↩︎

Pimlott, pp. 314-6. ↩︎

Butler and King, p. 120. ↩︎

ibid, pp. 113-4. ↩︎

ibid, p. 115. ↩︎

Tony Benn, Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963-67 (London: Arrow Books, 1987), p. 150. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 112-3. ↩︎

ibid, pp. 116-7. ↩︎

A. W. Singham, ‘Appendix III: Immigration and the Election’, in Butler and King, pp. 360-1. ↩︎

The Times, Friday March 23 1962, p. 10, News in Brief: Workers Return (London: Times Newspapers, 1962) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1962-03-23/10/13.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

The Times, Friday March 24 1962, p. 5, Cyle Works Closing (London: Times Newspapers, 1962) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1962-03-24/5/4.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

The Times, Friday July 13 1962, p. 21, Improved Current Trends (London: Times Newspapers, 1962) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1962-03-24/5/4.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

Singham, p. 364. ↩︎

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Griffiths, Peter Harry Steve (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-16) http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/108299 [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

The Times, Thursday July 27 1961, p. 6, Smethwick Rent Strike Fails (London: Times Newspapers, 1961) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1961-07-27/6/11.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. This content is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, and can only be accessed by Times subscribers. ↩︎

The Telegraph, Peter Griffiths - obituary (London: Telegraph Media Group, 2013), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10479104/Peter-Griffiths-obituary.html [accessed 2017-10-19]. ↩︎

The Times, Monday March 9 1964, p. 6, Issue at Smethwick: Labour Accusation of Exploitation (London: Times Newspapers, 1964) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/page/1964-03-09/6.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. This content is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, and can only be accessed by Times subscribers. ↩︎

The Times, Monday July 24 1961, p. 10, Council “Will Stick to Guns” (London: Times Newspapers, 1961) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/page/1964-03-09/6.html [accessed 2017-10-21]. This content is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, and can only be accessed by Times subscribers. ↩︎

Singham, pp. 364-5. ↩︎

David Olusoga, Black and British (London: Macmillan, 2016), p. 512. ↩︎

BBC News, Powell's 'rivers of blood' legacy (BBC: London, 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7343256.stm [accessed 2017-10-19]. ↩︎

The Times, Monday March 9 1964, p. 6. ↩︎

Butler and King, pp. 364-5. ↩︎

Ponting, pp. 15-6. ↩︎

Benn, p. 131. ↩︎

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Home, Alexander Frederick [Alec] Douglas- (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-16) http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/60455?docPos=1 [accessed 2017-10-21]. ↩︎

[feheroestips]

Quick overview

So we’ve come full circle, for anyone here from the beginning you’ll know Tiki was the first guide I posted, and I think I was lowkey mad at everyone saying she was the worst summer unit when she’s actually one of the better ones. While no longer an actual dragon, She comes with a pretty good base kit and the ability to deal tons of damage both offensively and defensively. Overall I think Tiki is one of my favourite special units in terms of usability and her art as well. Plus this guide can hopefully do her more justice now.

Base kit

So Tiki comes with the melon crusher, a weapon which grants +2 to all stats if at 100% but then takes -2 damage after combat. It’s essentially a free mini fury when at full and considering Tikis defences you can always heal back up with something like renewal if you gave it to her. The weapon stacks beautifully with her A slot, close defence which grants +6 to both defences when attacked. This overall when attacked at full hp puts her at 40 defence when attacked. Sol isn’t the best skill out there but at least she can use it to heal back up to full. Finally axe valour has no arena use but its a good training skill.

If you want to maximise her defensive options, quick riposte or renewal should be considered with her base kit, one allows for more doubles, while the other increases her longevity. Reposition and swap are also valid options for a defensive playstyle.

Pros + Cons

+Amazing attack stat, 36 at base is amazing

+Amazing defence as well, 32 can let her be a wall

+Solid base skills make her somewhat easy to build.

-Her speed is in the no mans lands where increasing does help but not enough to survive higher tier threats.

-Being limited means you never know when she’s available

-Lowish res means she’ll find it hard to live even blue mages.

Partners

Tiki mainly cares about attack, so Linde and Delthea are the go to options thanks to dark aura, they can provide a +6 buff and another buff as well. This means Tiki with +atk can reach as high as 59 on initiation with a brave axe. Other atk buffers like Sanaki, Siegbert and V Lilina are also solid choices to boost the team. You can also use defence tactic users like L Ike and Shiro to help bolster her defence for defensive sets.

Suggested set(s)

BURN BABY BURN

Suggested ivs: +atk -hp/res/spd

Brave axe+, reposition, bonfire/draconic aura

Slot A = Death blow

Slot B = Axe breaker, desperation*

Slot C = Any C skill

Sacred seals: Atk+3,  brash assault*

The basic brave axe set does wonders, she can hit nearly as hard as a unboosted Cherce and thanks to tactic skills can now receive +6 atk buffs herself.  The main choice you have to make is the B slot, you can argue that brash assault and desperation make a great combo which they do but in general axe breaker is a safe option which allows you to deal with units like Hector, Sheena, C Lissa and Amelia and you can tank a hit at full most of the time.

Beached Dragon

Suggested ivs: +atk/def-res/hp

Melon Crusher/Slaying Axe/ Sack o’gifts / Giant spoon/ Handbell+,  reposition, bonfire/ignis

Slot A = Close defence, steady breath

Slot B = Wrath, quick riposte

Slot C = Any C skill

Sacred seals: close defence

Weapon refinery: Across all the weapons +def is probably enjoyed the most but +spd and +atk can change certain match ups.

So Tiki makes a great enemy phase unit and whats more you don’t have to give up her weapon to do so, though there's plenty of options, I will say Giant spoon is the best option but its only against 1 or two more units, which are red arguably something you’d be avoiding. Still any of them with close defence is pretty decent. If you have wrath she’s a excellent choice for it, otherwise quick riposte gets you pretty similar results. So weigh up your budget plans. Ignis is prefered most of the time, if using quick riposte but bonfire + steady breath + slaying axe means she can proc the special whenever hit, which in this case she’d be at 49 if +def or 46 is +anything else. Like I said the best part is that she comes with close defence and Melon crusher, you won’t have to worry about premium skills unless you truly adore her.