#it’s such non applicable skill to have but (literally) is great to pull out at any party

[bottomvalerius]

honestly it is fun if Donna’s just really good at making balloon animals—no, they didn’t discover this skill in a freaky clown scene, why would you ask them that

[warsofasoiaf]

The Clashing Storm of Shields - Fighting in the Shield Wall (Part 1: Background)

I think I promised @warsofasoiaf​ a write up on shield wall combat nearly two years ago now but, after several different versions that each took a slightly different approach, I’ve finally nailed down something that works for me.

As my small introduction has become a rather large post, I’ve decided to split the subject into two sections: a section on the background (introduction, recruitment and organisation, equipment) and a section on how the battle actually took place. I’m posting the first section now, and will post the second in a couple of weeks.

Introduction

I.P. Stephenson once wrote that “the single most defining ideological event in Anglo-Saxon warfare came at Marathon in 490 B.C.”. This comment, and all the assumptions that go with it, highlights the single biggest problem people have in understanding combat in the Early Middle Ages. The uncritical application of Classical scholarship to the medieval world, and a failure to up with the current academic consensus, has significantly distorted how many historians think about shield wall combat.

For example, Gareth William suggests in Weapons of the Viking Warrior that the sax was especially useful in a close order, rim-to-boss formation and compares it to the gladius:

Roman legionaries fighting at close quarters were armed not with a long sword, but with a gladius, or short-sword, which was primarily a thrusting weapon, requiring a minimum of space between the individual soldiers in a line.

The problem with this assumption, leaving aside the fact that weapon sized saxes were rare to the point of non-existence in 9th-11th century Scandinavia and that gladius length saxes weren’t particularly common in Anglo-Saxon England either1, is that the famous Roman short sword wasn’t used for thrusting in a close order formation. Instead, it was used for both cutting and thrusting in open order, with each man taking up 4.5-6 feet of space2. It’s not until open order fighting was abandoned completely and the long spatha was universally adopted by the infantry that we hear of the thrust being the preferred method of combat by the Romans3. An assumption, almost certainly based on scholarship from before 2000, has been made about how the Romans fought and how it might be applied to Anglo-Saxon warfare, but no examination of the different context or more recent scholarship has been performed, leading to the wrong conclusion.

(The Bayeux Tapestry) 

Similarly, it’s common in historical fiction set in the Early Middle Ages to feature battles that rely very heavily on Victor Davis Hanson’s The Western Way of War4. For example:

We in the front rank had time to thrust once, then we crouched behind our shields and simply shoved at the enemy line while the men in our second rank fought across our heads. The ring of sword blades and clatter of shield-bosses and clashing of spear-shafts was deafening, but remarkably few men died for it is hard to kill in the crush as two locked shield-walls grind against each other. Instead it you cannot pull it back, there is hardly room to draw a sword, and all the time the enemy’s second rank are raining sword, axe and spear blows on helmets and shield-edges. The worst injuries are caused by men thrusting blades beneath the shields and gradually a barrier of crippled men builds at the front to make the slaughter even more difficult. Only when one side pulls back can the other then kill the crippled enemies stranded at the battle’s tide line. 

Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King

Other works, such as Giles Kristian’s Blood Eye and Edward Rutherfurd’s The Princes of Ireland, follow the same pattern of a physical collision between the two formations and a shoving match where weapons are almost secondary. This is a core concept of the traditional model of hoplite combat - the literal othismos (”push”) - that has been likened to a rugby scrum since the early 20th century. Ironically enough, VDH is a great pains to emphasize the unique nature of the Greek phalanx due to the hoplite shield, so even without the doubts of A.D. Fraser, Peter Krentz and all the other “Heretics” it would be questionable to apply this method of warfare to the Early Middle Ages5.

When you examine the differences between the two periods, for example the early Anglo-Saxon shields are often no more than 40cm in diameter and featuring spiked or “sugar loaf” bosses6, it becomes clear that the use of Greek warfare to represent 5th and 6th century warfare is incorrect. Similarly, the difference in construction between the aspis and Scandinavian shields of the 9th and 10th centuries, the aspis having thickly reinforced rims while the Scandinavian shields either taper towards the edges or remain very thin (<10mm), should offer a similar caution7.

In spite of the litany of criticisms I’ve just provided, it’s still necessary to refer back to our understanding of Greek and Roman warfare when examining combat in the Early Middle Ages, for two main reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, the sources are much more detailed about how fighting was carried out and were very often written by men who had themselves fought. While authors of the Early Middle Ages were not necessarily unfamiliar with warfare, they were remarkably uninterested in recording much in the way of details and there’s frequently little useful information to be extracted from accounts of battles. 

Secondly, a far larger body of work exists on the how of Ancient hand-to-hand combat. While re-enactors of the medieval period are certainly numerous, perhaps even the most numerous of the pre-modern re-enactor, the sheer output of Greek and Roman re-enactors and the scholars who mine them for insights dwarfs that of medieval re-enactors and, on the whole, is more likely to be up to date with the scholarship of the field in general.

My goal here is to make the best possible use of sources on both Ancient and Medieval warfare in order to present a picture that is as close to a plausible reconstruction as I can manage. I don’t mean for this to be authoritative, and my views do in some cases differ from those of some re-enactors or academics, but I do hope you find this post a useful resource in your writing.

(This? This is what not to do.)

Trees of the Spear-Assembly: Who Were the Warriors?

One of the most important things in understanding combat in the Early Middle Ages is knowing who was doing the fighting and why, since this has a big impact on the way in which they fight, and with how much enthusiasm. In particular, the question of whether they were just poor farmers levied en masse or wealthier members of society who had both military obligations and the culture of carrying them out is an important one, as quite often this is used to demonstrate the difference between two sides.

The answer to the question is that, by and large, men who fought were freemen of some standing, if not always considerable landowners, and wealthy by the standards of their people. I emphasize the concept of relative wealth for good reason, and I’ll get into that as we have a look at the basic structure of the “armies” of the period.

Generally speaking, armies of the Early Middle Ages, across almost all of Europe, consisted of two elements: the Household (hirð, hird, comitatus, etc) and the Levy (fyrd, lið, exercitus, etc). I use “levy” here as a shorthand for any force composed of freemen who are not regularly attached to the household of a major landholder, as they were not usually assembled into a single coherent force with 100% unified command, but I do want to note that there would be a significant difference in the unity of an army made up of regional levies and one made up of lið (individual warbands)8.

The status of those serving in the household of a powerful landholder could vary significantly, from slaves to the sons of major landholders (although militarised slaves, it must be admitted, were rare outside of the Visigothic realm), and the more powerful the landowner the more likely the men of his household would be themselves descended from someone of considerable status. A significant portion could still be made up of poorer freemen who were sons of older warriors or whose family had some close connection to the major landowner. 

For someone who maintained a large household, it was important that they present an image of being a wealthy as possible, and the best way to do this was to outfit the men of their household with every piece of military equipment that displayed status. So, whether he was descended from slaves or was the son of a family who owned a thousand acres, once a man had sworn their oath of loyalty to their new patron, they could be expect to be equipped with all the trappings of a warrior. This might only be symbolic in poorer regions (a fancier sword, a specific type of ornament, etc), especially if the landowner already had a number of armoured retainers, but it bound the different levels of freemen together into a single group.

Generally this oath swearing would occur after a youth had spent several years in the household of their future patron, where they would learn all the necessary skills of a warrior, such as riding, hunting, shooting a bow, using a sword and fighting with spear and shield. These youths probably participated in battles as auxiliaries with bows and javelins and only joined the ranks of the shield wall when they were considered full warriors, but we have only have very limited information on this point.

The status of men of the levy or warband varied to a much smaller degree. They were, in almost all cases, free and relatively wealthy by the standards of their region, although you do see a bit more of a variation in warbands, which might have members from a half dozen regions and many more backgrounds. In comparison, any army raised in defence of a region or raised from a region is going to consist entirely of free men and the majority of these will be fairly wealthy.

Simply put, even basic military equipment was sufficiently expensive that farmers who merely had enough land to sustain their family9 weren’t going to be able to afford much more than an axe, shield and spear or, depending on their region, a bow and 12-24 arrows. This is consistent across the Carolingian, Lombard and Scandinavian world during the 8th-11th centuries and, given the mostly aristocratic nature of warfare in Anglo-Saxon England, was likely true there as well10.

Basic military equipment, however, was not what rulers looked for when summoning forces for external wars or internal defence. We know from the capitularies of Charlemagne that only a man with four estates was required to arm and equip himself for service and that, with one exception, only men with one estate or more were required to pitch in to help equip one of their number for service11. Moreover, these estates weren’t even all the land the freeman held, just the lands he held which had unfree tenants, so that a “poor” freeman who merely had his own personal land was excluded from military service12.

(The average Anglo-Saxon fighting man)

Much the same situation appears in mid-8th century Lombardy, where king Aistulf demanded that those who had 7 or more properties worked by unfree tenants should perform service with a horse and full equipment, while those with less than this, but who own more than 25 acres (40 iugera) of their own, were required to perform an unarmoured cavalry service. 25 acres is about half the land later Anglo-Norman evidence suggests is the minimum for unarmoured cavalry service, so possibly this was an attempt on Aistulf’s part to enfranchise the lesser freemen and get them to support his usurpation of the crown at the political assembly13. Note, however, that the minimum level for cavalry service is nearly double what a peasant family would need to subsist off and implies a man of moderate wealth in and of itself14.

England is somewhat different, as we lack any specific requirements for those being summoned to military service, but from at least 806 we can surmise that 1 man from every 5 hides of land was required for the army. By this point a “hide” wasn’t a measure of area but of value, approximately £1, in a time when 1d. was the wage of a skilled labourer15.

The implications of this aren’t immediately obvious, but when you consider that Wessex had a population of perhaps 450 000 people, across an area of 27 000 taxable hides, only 5400 men (1 man from every 20 families) were actually required for military service16. Many of these, perhaps even most, would have belonged in the retinues of major landholders as either part of their household or as landed warriors owing service to the landholder in exchange for their land. In the same vein, the one man from every hide who was required to maintain bridges and fortifications, as well as defend the burhs (not serve in the field!), was drawn on the basis of something like 1 man for every 4 families. These are heavy responsibilities, but still far from men with sickles and pitchforks making up the fyrd.

There are some exceptions, or else cases where the evidence is thin enough that it’s difficult to say one way or the other, and these typically occur in areas that a less densely populated and less wealthy. The kingdom of Dal Riada in the seventh century, for instance, raised about 3 men from every 2 households for naval duties, although it might also have called out fewer warriors from the general population of the most powerful clan for land warfare17. 

(A replica of the Gokstad ship)

Scandinavia is somewhat trickier, since a lot of the sources are late and from a period where central authority existed. We know from archaeological evidence that, in Norway, large scale inland recruitment of men for naval expeditions had been occurring since the Migration Era, as the number of boathouses exceeds the best estimates of local populations18. These were initially clustered around important political and economic centers, but spread out more evenly across Norway during the middle ages as a central political authority arose. This system is likely at least one part of the origin for the leidang system of levying ships, which seems to have properly formed in Norway and Denmark during the late 10th or early 11th century as a result of royal power becoming strong enough to call out local levies across the whole kingdom19.

It seems likely, based on later law codes and other contemporary societies, that Scandinavian raiders during the 8th and 9th centuries were mostly the hird of a wealthy landowner (or their son), supplemented with sons of better off farmers from nearby holdings. Ships were comparatively small at this point, just 26-40 oars (approximately 30-44 men)20, and most had 24-32 oars per ship. This corresponds fairly well with what a prominent landholder might be able to raise from his own household, with additional crews coming from the sons of nearby farmers, although whether this was voluntary, coerced or some combination of the two is impossible to say21.

However, these farmers’ sons, while unlikely to wear mail in the majority of cases, should not be thought of as poor. The vast majority of farmers in 8th-10th century Scandinavia would have had one or two slaves and sufficient land to not only keep their slaves fed and employed, but also to potentially raise more children than later generations22. These farmers’ sons might have been “poor” by the standards of the men they faced in richer areas of the world, but they were rather well off by the standards of their society.

Later, after the end of the 10th century, the leidang was largely controlled by the king of the Scandinavian country and, particularly in the populous and relatively wealthy Denmark, poorer farmers were increasingly sidelined from any obligation to provide military service. Ships also rose in size from the end of the 9th/start of the 10th century, regularly reaching 60 oars for vessels belonging to kings or powerful lords, and even the “average” size seems to have gone from 24-32 oars to 40-50 oars23. 

Slaughter Reeds and Flesh Bark: Arms and Armour of the Warrior

The equipment of the warrior consisted of, at its most basic level, a spear and a shield. For those who belonged to a poorer region, a single handed wood axe might serve as a sidearm, or perhaps even just a dagger, while in wealthier regions the sidearm would generally be a sword or a specialised fighting axe24. In an interesting twist, both the poorest and the wealthiest members of society were almost equally likely to use a bow, although I expect that the poorer men mostly used hunting bows, while the professional fighting men used heavier warbows25. 

Spearheads, at least from the 7th-11th centuries, were relatively long (blades of >25cm) and heavy (>200g), but most were well tapered for penetrating armour. Some, especially the longest examples, weighed around a pound, but were probably still considered one handed weapons26. Others, however, weighed in excess of two pounds and must have been two handed weapons, possibly the “hewing spear” mentioned in some 13th century sagas27. Javelins, too, appear to have tended to feature long, narrow blades that would have made them a short range weapon, while also providing considerable penetration within their ~40 meter range.

Swords, for their part, were not quite the heavy hacking implement once attributed to them, but also aren’t quite as well balanced as later medieval swords would be. Early swords, before the 9th century, tended to be balanced about halfway down the blade, which might make for a more powerful cut, but didn’t do much for rapid recovery or shifting the blade between covers. However, from the mid-9th century, the balance shifted back towards the hilt, which made them much faster and more maneuverable28. This may indicate a shift towards a looser form of combat, where sword play was more common, or it might indicate nothing more than a stylistic choice. After all, the Celts of the 2nd-1st century BC preferred long, heavy, poorly balanced swords for fighting in spite of relying on the usual Mediterranean “open” style of combat29.

(The Ballinderry Bow)

Warbows, with a couple of exceptions, appear to have been short but powerful. Starting with the Illerup Adal bows, which most likely only had a draw length of 26-27″, we see a repeated pattern when very powerful bows are also much shorter than we expect them to be. In particular, the heavier of the two bows from Illerup Adal is very similar to the Wassenaar Bow, a 9th-10th century bow. A replica of the latter drew 106lbs @ 26″, making it quite a powerful bow, and similar bows have been found at Nydam, Leeuwarden-Heechterp and Aaslum. Only the Ballinderry and Hedeby bows break this trend, with both capable of being drawn to 28″-30″. In all cases, draw weights varied between 80lbs and 150lbs, although 80-100lbs is by far the most common30. The consequence of this is that the power of the bows is not going to be as high as later medieval bows, which were able to be drawn to 30″ and, as the arrows were also relatively light, suggests an energy of 40-60j under most circumstances. This is enough to penetrate mail at close range if using a bodkin arrowhead, but at longer ranges mail would have offered quite excellent protection.

When it comes to shields, there was evidently quite a bit of variation. Early Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian shields were quite small and light, about 40-50cm in diameter31, but later shields were generally 80-90cm in diameter. In particular, we have good evidence of viking shields generally fitting this description, although it’s less clear whether or not later Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon shields retained this diameter or reduced to 50-70cm in diameter (see f.n. 7). In all cases, however, the shield was fairly thin at the center, less than 10mm, and could be as low as 4mm thick at the edge. While thin leather or rawhide could be applied to the front and back of the shield to reinforce it, it’s equally possible that only linen was used to reinforce the shield, or even that the shields were without any reinforcement32.

Recent tests by Rolf F. Warming have shown that this style of shield is rapidly damaged by heavy attacks if used in a passive manner (as in a static shield wall) and that the shield is best used to aggressively defend yourself33. While the test was not entirely accurate to combat in a shield wall (more on this in the second part), it does highlight the relative fragility of early medieval shields compared to other, more heavily constructed shields like the Roman scutum in the Republican and early Empire or the Greek aspis. As I’ve said before, this means we have to rethink how early medieval warfare worked.

Finally, we come to the topic of armour. The dominant form of armour was the mail hauberk - usually resembling a T-shirt in form - and other forms of metal armour were far less common. Guy Halsall has suggested that poorer Merovingian and Carolingian warriors might have used lamellar armour34, and there is some evidence from cemeteries and artwork that Merovingian and Lombard warriors wore lamellar armour in the 6th and 7th centuries, but there’s little evidence to support lamellar beyond this. While it does crop up in Scandinavia twice during the 10th/11th centuries, it was almost certainly an uncommon armour that was used either by Khazar mercenaries or by prominent men who were using it as a status symbol35. Scale armour is right out, Timothy Dawson’s arguments aside, as there is no good evidence of it.

(Helmet from Valsgarde 8)

Helmets evolved throughout the Early Middle Ages, ultimately deriving from late Roman helmets that featured cheek flaps and aventails. During the 6th and 7th centuries, especially in Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia, masks were attached to the helmets, either for the whole face or just the eyes. The masks did not long survive the 7th century in Anglo-Saxon England, but the Gjermundbu helmet may suggest it lasted in Scandinavia through to the 10th century. Merovingian helmets of the 6th-8th century tend to be more conical and keep the cheek flaps, but do not have any mask36. Carolingian helmets of the 9th century appear to have been a unique style, more rounded but also coming down further towards the cheeks, and it’s hard to say if this eventually developed in the conical helmet of the late 10th/early 11th century or if it was just a dead end37. Regardless, by the 11th century the conical helmet was the most common form of helmet in England as well as the Continent.

And now for the controversial stuff: non-metallic armour. In short, I don’t think that textile armour was very common during the Early Middle Ages, nor do I think that hardened leather was very common either. The evidence from the High Middle Ages suggests that, unless someone who couldn’t afford to own mail was legally required to own textile armour, they generally didn’t, and we have plenty of quite reliable depictions of infantry serving without any form of body armour38. The shields in use were as much armour as most unarmoured men needed - since, as you’ll recall from the previous section, they rarely fought - and they covered a lot of the body. So far as I’m concerned, there wasn’t a need for it, and plenty of societies through history have fought in close combat without more armour than their shield.

Summing Up

This has been a very basic overview of the background to warfare in the Early Middle Ages, and I know I haven’t covered everything. Hopefully, however, I’ve provided enough background for people to follow along when I dig down into the actual experience of battle in my next post. I’ll cover the basics of scouting, choosing a site to give battle, the religious side of things and then, at long last, the grim face of battle for those standing in the shieldwall.

If you’d like to read more about society and warfare in the Early Middle Ages, then I’d recommend Guy Halsall’s Warfare and Society in the Barbarian Westand Philip Line's The Vikings and their Enemies: Warfare in Northern Europe, 750-1100, which together cover most of Western and Northern Europe from 400 AD to 1100 AD. While I have some disagreements with both authors, their works have shaped my thoughts over the years since I first acquired them. For the Vikings specifically, Kim Hjardar and Vegard Vike's Vikings at War is excellent, as much for the coverage of campaigns across the world as for the information on weapons and warfare.

Until next time!

- Hergrim

Notes

1 For the rarity of the sax in the viking world, see Vikings at War, by Kim Hjardar and Vegard Vike. For the Anglo-Saxon sax, see the list of finds here. Just 5 out of 33 (15%) had blades 44cm or more and, if you remove those longer than the Pompeii style of gladius (which is the point where some think the Romans changed to purely thrusting style), just two fit the bill.

2 Michael J. Taylor’s “Visual Evidence for Roman Infantry Tactics” is by far the best recent examination of Roman fighting styles, but Polybius has been translated in English for ages. See, however, M.C. Bishop, The Gladius, for an argument that the Romans changed to close order and preferred to rely on thrusting by the end of the 1st century AD.

3 See J. C. Coulston and M.C. Bishop, Roman Military Equipment: From the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, for the infantry adoption of the gladius. Any general history of the Roman military will cover the transition from open order to close order during the 3rd century AD.

4 Those of you with a copy of Victor Davis Hanson's The Western Way of War need to perform a quick exorcism. You must burn the book at midnight during the full moon and then divide the ashes into four separate containers, one of gold, one of silver, one of bronze and one of iron. You should then bury ashes from the iron container at a crossroads, scatter the ashes in the bronze container to the wind in four directions, pour the ashes from the silver container into a fast flowing river, and finally feed the ashes from the gold container to a cat, a bat and a rat.

5 A.D. Fraser “The Myth of the Phalanx-Scrimmage” is one of the earliest attacks on the idea of literal othismos. The debate reignited in the 1980s, with Peter Krentz’s “The Nature of Hoplite Battle” leading the charge of the heretics, and the conceptual othismos model is now the accepted version. Hans van Wees’ Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities is probably the best revisionist work to start with. Matthew A. Sears, as attractive as he looks, should be avoided.

6  Early Anglo-Saxon Shields by Tania Dickinson and Heinrich Harke

7 Duncan B. Campbell’s Spartan Warrior 735–331 BC has the most easily accessible information on the best preserved aspis, which is ~10mm thick at the center and 12-18mm thick at the edge, but there’s also a good cross section in Nicholas Sekunda’s Greek Hoplite 480-323 BC. For Viking shields, see this page of archaeological examples by Peter Beatson. Note the similarity to oval shields from Dura Europos in thickness and tapering (Roman Shields by Hilary and John Travis). It’s also worth considering that Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon manuscript miniatures tend to show shields that rarely cover more than should to groin, implying a typical diameter of 50-70cm.

8 See Niels Lund’s “The armies of Swein Forkbeard and Cnut: "leding or lið?”” and Ben Raffield’s “Bands of brothers: a re‐appraisal of the Viking Great Army and its implications for the Scandinavian colonization of England” for an examination of how the lið was constructed, and see Richard Abels’  ‘Alfred the Great, the Micel Hæðn Here and the Viking Threat’, in T. Reuter (ed.), Alfred the Great. Papers from the Eleventh-Centenary Conference for a discussion on the nature of viking “armies”

9 10-15 acres depending on crop rotation and how close to subsistence level you want to peg this category

10 The Scandinavian Gulathing and Frostathing laws were only composed in the late 11th/early 12th century, but it has been argued that they were essentially a codification of earlier oral laws. At least with regards to equipment and service, I see no reason to doubt this.

11 Almost all of the relevant capitularies are translated in Hans Delbruck’s History of the Art of War: The Middle Ages, with the original Latin in an appendix.

12 Walter Goffart has made this incredibly clear in his recent series of loosely related articles:  “Frankish Military Duty and the Fate of Roman Taxation,” Early Medieval Europe, 16/2 (2008), 166-90, “ The Recruitment of Freemen into the Carolingian Army, or, How Far May One Argue from Silence?” In J. France, K. DeVries, & C. Rogers (Eds.), Journal of Medieval Military History: Volume XVI (pp. 17-34) and ““Defensio patriae” as a Carolingian Military Obligation”. Although I think Goffart argues too strongly against the dominance and importance of aristocratic retinues in the Carolingian military - the great landowners had the most obligation, after all - he does do a brilliant job of highlighting both the universal requirement of service from eligible freemen and the fact that even a “poor” freeman being assessed for service was, in fact, far better off than most of society. This provides some extra context for the prevalence of swords in Merovingian burials, as note by Guy Halsall: it’s not that swords were cheap, it’s that the average Merovingian warrior was rich by the standards of his society.

13 For the text of the capitulary, see Delbruck. For Aistulf’s possible political motives, see Guy Halsall’s Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West. For Anglo-Norman minimum standards for unarmoured cavalry, see Mark Hagger’s Norman Rule in Normandy, 911–1144.

14 I think it’s worth addressing here the pessimistic low crop yields of older authors and their subsequent conclusion that 25-30 acres would be bare subsistence in the Early Middle Ages. As Jonathan Jarrett has proven (”Outgrowing the Dark Ages: agrarian productivity in Carolingian Europe re-evaluated” Agricultural History Review, Volume 67, Number 1, June 2019, pp. 1-28), these low yields are not supported by the evidence, and we should expect yields to be similar to High Medieval yields. His blog contains an early version of his thoughts on the matter.

15 For a recent exploration of the debate around the Anglo-Saxon military, see Ryan Lavelle’s Alfred’s Wars

16 See Richard Abel’s Alfred the Great for this although n.b. his reliance on old crop yield estimates

17 John Bannerman, Studies in the History of Dalriada. The suggestion that the Cenél nGabráin, being the most powerful clan, might have raised fewer men from the general populace for land combat is my own. They may simply have had the largest number of men in military households and, as such, not needed to rely as much on the general populace when on land. It may also be that calling up larger numbers of the free population for land service from the less powerful clans was in and of itself a method of dominance and control - the largest number of armed men left behind for defence/to suppress revolt would be those from the dominant clan.

18 “Boathouses and naval organization” by Bjørn Myhre in Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, AD 1-1300

19 That said, the political control of the Scandinavian kings over military levies should not be overstated - it could be very patchy, even in the 13th century. c.f. Philip Line, The Vikings and their Enemies

20 As suggested by Ole Crumlin-Pedersen in Archaeology and the Sea in Scandinavia and Britain, with the estimate of ~40 oars for the Sutton Hoo ship thrown in as a maximum size. Crew estimates are based on 11th century ships in Anglo-Saxon employ where, based on rates of pay and money raised to pay for the ships, there were only 3-4 men more than the rowers on each ship.

21 c.f. Egil’s Saga and the description of Arinbjorn’s preparation for raiding.

22  The Medieval Demographic System of the Nordic Countries by Ole J��rgen Benedictow. The speculation of larger family sizes is my own, based on other medieval evidence that wealthier families tend to have more children.

23 Ian Heath reproduces the leidang obligations of High Medieval Norway in Armies of the Dark Ages, although he incorrectly applies the two men per oar guideline that only became into being during the 13th and 14th centuries. Archaeological evidence only shows ships of 60+ oars or 26 oars, but from the lengthening of the largest ships and the 40-50 oar ships of the later leidang I feel it is appropriate to assume that the number of oars stayed the same from the 10th to the 14th century, it’s just that the number of rowers doubled as ships became heavier. This is similar to the evolution of the medieval galley.

24 I’ve covered saxes earlier in the notes. For axes, see Hjardar and Vike Vikings at War. Axeheads from western Scandinavia were often over a pound in weight, which is double the weight of specialized Slavic war axes and in the same weight range as the heads of broad axes. Even into the 13th century, these wood axes apparently kept turning up at weapons musters as sidearms.

25 Bows were considered an important aristocratic weapon in Merovingian, Carolingian and Scandinavian societies and, while not a prominent aristocratic weapon, it at least wasn’t shameful for a young English nobleman to use one in battle. The division between “hunting” and “war” bows can be seen in the Nydam Bog finds, where the most powerful bows tend to be relatively short (26-28″ draw length) and the longer bows (28-30″ draw length) tend to be fairly weak. Richard Wadge has demonstrated that civilian bows in medieval England were less powerful than military bows during the 13th century, and I’m applying this to the Nydam bows.

26 Ancient Weapons in Britain, by Logan Thompson

27 See “An Early Medieval Winged/Lugged Spearhead from the Dugo Selo Vicinity in the Light of New Knowledge about this Type of Pole-Mounted Weapon” by Željko Demo, and “An Early-Mediaeval winged spearhead from Fruška Gora” by Aleksandar Sajdl

28  Ancient Weapons in Britain, by Logan Thompson

29 The Celtic Sword, by Radomir Pleiner

30 Most dimensions are from Jürgen Junkmanns’ Pfeil und Bogen: Von der Altsteinzeit bis zum Mittelalter, although the information on the Illerup Adal comes to me from Stuart Gorman. Draw weights are only estimates based on replicas of some bows and a formula found in Adam Karpowicz’s “Ottoman bows – an assessment of draw weight, performance and tactical use” Antiquity, 81(313). Draw weights for yew bows in the real world can vary by as much as 40%, so these estimates are only general guidelines.

31 See f.n. 6 for early Anglo-Saxon shields and Halsall, Warfare and Society, for the early Merovingian shields

32 The shields from Dura Europos, constructed in the same way as Scandinavian shields of the 8th-10th century, feature either very thin leather (described as “parchment”), linen or else some kind of fiber set in a glue matrix. In contrast, two twelfth century kite shields from Pola. d, although constructed only with a single layer of planks like a Viking shield, had no covering at all. See Simon James, The arms and armour from Dura-Europos, Syria : weaponry recovered from the Roman garrison town and the Sassanid siegeworks during the excavations, 1922-37 and “Two Twelfth-Century Kite Shields from Szczecin, Poland” by Keith Dowen, Lech Marek, Sławomir Słowiński, Anna Uciechowska-Gawron & Elżbieta Myśkow, Arms & Armour, 16:2

33  Round Shields and Body Techniques: Experimental Archaeology with a Viking Age Round Shield Reconstruction

34  Halsall, Warfare and Society

35 Thomas Vlasaty has a great article that summarises this subject.

36 No real source for this beyond googling pictures of the various Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and Merovingian helmets.

37 This Facebook post has some wonderful pictures of the original helmet, a reconstruction of the helmet and comparisons with Carolingian art.

38 eg. the Porta Romana frieze, the porch lunette at the basilica of San Zeno in Verona, the Bury Bible. 

[incarnation-of-victory]

Bakugou’s Fear of Mediocrity and Human Weakness

It’s interesting to see Bakugou’s inner thought process here as he prepares to fight this villain (from the 1st chapter of the spin-off tie-in manga to the Heroes: Rising movie, “Deku & Bakugo: Rising”), especially knowing what we know now about Bakugou and his fears about him not actually being as great as he thinks he is.

For one, the line about “[m]ost of the top heroes show[ing] signs of greatness even as students” echoes the line Bakugou says in the very first chapter of the manga proper:

Both monologues get across similar messages, but I think the one from the spin-off is a little more revealing/blatant, especially with the line “I’m not just a normal middle schooler. I’ll show them I’m different and rise to the top.” This line from the spin-off suggests that Bakugou doesn’t quite think he’s unique from the rest of his peers yet, and that he’s desperate to use this chance to finally prove himself to everybody. Meanwhile, the line from the manga makes him seem more confident in himself, that he’s sure that he’ll be the only one to succeed, while simultaneously disparaging the rest of his classmates. Of course, his words contradict his actions here: Bakugou isn’t as confident in this outcome as he seems, since he goes out of his way to discourage Deku from applying to U.A. because he actually feels threatened by him. Bakugou being the only one to get into U.A. would be a way of him validating his belief (read: hope) that he’s the best after all. Additionally, Bakugou goes on about being the first and only hero/U.A. student originating from Aldera, which, in theory, would be an easy accomplishment, since the middle school is supposedly devoid of any promising hero applicants. This achievement of him being the only one to succeed would also make him seem all the more impressive and exceptional—a unique case, so to speak. His goal should be guaranteed... if it wasn’t for Deku.

So both scenes carry the same idea, but Bakugou is a little more honest to himself in his head (makes sense, naturally). There’s this kind of sad, desperate urgency I get from the spin-off that I don’t get from the manga. It’s just a weird train of thought to have when hunting down a villain, that he’s using this opportunity to prove to everyone (and himself) he’s the great prodigy they made him out to be his whole life. Even though he still needs to reassure himself that he’s not ordinary and is actually “different.”

This whole idea of Bakugou wanting to rise above everyone else stems from this fear of mediocrity. It calls to mind how the literal translation of “Quirk” from Japanese means “Individuality” (the word “quirk” itself also implies some unique trait). This means that your Quirk is essentially what makes you, you. It's what makes you stand out among everyone else. Because Bakugou does place a lot of faith in his Quirk getting him to the top, distinguishing him as someone special. 

The interesting thing is that Bakugou initially wasn’t really aware that he was just more naturally adept—sans Quirk—than other kids his age growing up. The way he comes off in his childhood flashbacks in the manga make him seem more naive, not really understanding why everyone else just can’t as easily grasp the skills he masters so easily:

(I would argue that even current Bakugou doesn’t notice his other good qualities/talents as much, which is probably why it’s so easy for him to twist them into something bad or forget them entirely, and instead fixate solely on his Quirk. This is especially important when it comes to Heroism as a career, and his need to take more things than just raw power into consideration).

The theory that he’s just “better than everyone else” doesn’t fully cement until he gets his Quirk. With this, Bakugou seems to think of himself as someone almost godly or invincible, as someone almost more than just... human. Which is why I think he’s so averse to any suggestion that he has any weaknesses—it’s a reminder that he’s indeed human after all. He’s mortal and fallible and need help sometimes. And being human brings him back down to the level of everyone else, but perhaps even further beneath them, which is exemplified in the infamous creek scene where Deku tries to help Bakugou. And again when Deku tries to save him from the sludge villain. And repeated other instances throughout their lives. Because if Deku, someone who doesn’t even have a Quirk or anything that makes him special, is somehow is able to do something for him, then what does that make Bakugou? If Quirkless Deku is somehow better than Quirk-holder Bakugou, then Bakugou’s power—which is something he built his self-esteem around—essentially means nothing in comparison. Bakugou ends up being just like everyone else, but worse: someone so weak that they need help from a “worthless Deku.”

Another important thing to note is that part of why Bakugou neglects to think of himself as human is because most people never really treated him as such. For one, everybody almost exclusively praised him for his superficial or material strengths that it gave him the idea that he was perfect and had no flaws. In turn, he carries himself this way around others, thus perpetuating how everybody else sees him: as someone who never needs help. I could write a whole other essay on its own of how many times people in the BNHA universe assume that Bakugou doesn’t need help, or that he’s stronger than he actually is. The time the heroes left him to fend off the sludge villain is but one example. Even when Bakugou fell off that log as a child, his other friends disregarded the possibility that he might be hurt, because he’s “strong.” In terms of emotional need, nobody, not even his parents, suspected that Bakugou was still suffering emotionally from the Kamino incident, and that he wasn’t handling it as well as everyone thought he was (Talk about a poker face! For someone so outwardly expressive, it’s stunning to see how well he hides his suffering. The greatest hint we get is him being unusually quiet). All Might even points out his failure to recognize this. As much as Bakugou is responsible for his own actions, others have failed him repeatedly too.

I know I said that “people failing to recognize when Bakugou needs help” could be another post on its own, but I want to point out one scene (or rather two) in particular that showcase how much Bakugou really does need emotional and physical help sometimes.

For one, when All Might and the rescue operation break into the LoV’s hideout to retrieve Bakugou, All Might’s first priority is to verbally comfort/reassure him, as per Nana Shimura’s adage to not only save a person’s life, but their heart/spirit as well. He gives the whole “We are here” line and tells Bakugou he’s okay...

Though he outwardly denies it, the truth of the matter is, Bakugou really was in trouble and needed their help, and he truly was scared. This is clear enough by his initial reaction, which he quickly covers up with a defensive response immediately afterwards. I can’t say for sure whether All Might’s words made him feel much better, but I assume it must have given him at least a little peace of mind.

A similar thing happens when Deku and company pull Bakugou out of the following fight. Again, Bakugou is initially grateful to the team because he really did need their assistance to escape the battle grounds. Though he goes back to grumbling and arguing with Iida immediately after, and denies their part in saving him after they’ve fully escaped, his grateful/relieved, perhaps lightly disapproving smile when grabbing Kirishima’s hand reveals his true feelings.

On a somewhat different note, when Bakugou is having issues, people address them in a poor and/or dehumanizing manner: see the way he was chained and muzzled at the end of the Sports Festival. And not to get too much into the Mitsuki discourse, but the way she tries to curb her son’s behavior does not seem to help either.

Because Bakugou is so ingrained in this mentality that he’s supposed to be invulnerable, he isn’t able to interpret basic human concern properly when it’s shown to him, notably when it’s one of the few people who ever treated him like a human being: Deku. Not only that, but Deku knew Bakugou before he got his Quirk, and admired him for his other traits as well, such as his confidence and determination. But Deku never blindly idolized his friend either: he notes several times (to other people) Bakugou’s bad qualities too. The distinction here is that Deku never paints Bakugou as a lesser or bad person for it. Instead, he accepts who Bakugou is as a whole, while still acknowledging him as someone worth looking up to.

An investment in being the best is fine and all on its own, but not when it starts to infest other aspects of your life, especially socially. Bakugou’s antisocial tendencies are probably mostly due to him just deeming activities that don’t allow him to prove himself as a waste of time, but I also feel that some of it is due to his fear of appearing as a normal human being—as someone who sometimes just wants to spend time with his friends purely for the sake of enjoying their company. As someone who needs other people. I think this also kind of applies to his inability to be emotionally vulnerable around others, as well as to accept acts of kindness and affection. It’s what makes him human. This is why Bakugou only comes to Deku when he needs to open up—because Deku is one of the few people who knows him for everything he is, who recognizes him as a flawed individual. And again, Deku never looks down on him for anything (despite Bakugou’s former belief). Not even when Bakugou cries.

All this really comes down to is Bakugou accepting other people’s help and relying more on collaboration than just taking on enemies solo. I think having him participate in other, non-combative activities, such as playing in a band in the School Festival Arc, is a good way to ease him into this methodology. Also, since it seems to be a trend at this point, it’d be nice to see him be hugged at least once without making a face. Though I do think it’s at least good that people are being more attentive to his emotional needs, whether it be in praising him (when it’s warranted), or comforting him (even if he thinks he doesn’t need it). Like yeah, I highly doubt Bakugou will ever be much of a touchy-feely person.  But at the very least, he needs to know that other people care about him as a human being, and that this concern doesn’t make him any less of a talented, powerful individual.

[mitchmarnier]

i can be your hero

pairing: eddie kaspbrak/richie tozier (reddie) word count: 2,205 summary: It’s funny. I looked at this essay question for nearly week, and gave up on it twice. I wouldn’t apply, because this was too hard. How was supposed to pick a hero? How could I pick somebody good enough for some big college board? I wouldn’t lie, and pick some great politician or people who did amazing things. Because yes, they’re amazing and wonderful and should be looked up to. But are they my personal hero? No. If I was going to answer this, I needed to tell the truth. And there’s only one person who could really be MY hero. ITFandomWeek2019: Day seven | Accidental Confession

read on ao3.

Eddie Kaspbrak let himself into Richie’s room, as he always did. In his life, the Tozier household had become a second home for Eddie. A safe place to go when things got just a little too intense with his mother, a happy place to be on days when Eddie just wants to be free from his thoughts for awhile. There was something so comforting about Richie’s house- and his bedroom in particular- that sometimes Eddie would come here even when Richie wasn’t home.

Like days like this, when Richie’s shift at the video store wouldn’t be over for at least another half hour, but he knew that Richie wouldn’t be surprised to find Eddie hanging around in his bedroom.

Something caught Eddie’s attention on Richie’s usually empty desk. A huge envelope, with several pieces of paper surrounding it. Eddie moved over and quickly saw that it was nothing less than an acceptance package from UCLA. Eddie frowned. Richie hadn’t mentioned anything about applying to colleges, in fact, he’d seemed admittedly against so much as talking about it. Whenever it came up, Richie would immediately deflect the conversation until the other Losers eventually stopped bringing it up when he was around.

Yet here was not only proof that Richie had applied to schools, but that he’d gotten accepted to at least one. Eddie reached for the papers, going through and wondering if it could give any sort of answer to why his best friend had been hiding this from him.

Seemingly hidden under all the dorming information, was a printed out paper. Eddie grabbed it and pulled it to his face. It became clear almost immediately that it was Richie’s application essay and Eddie quickly scanned the beginning.

It’s funny. I looked at this essay question for nearly week, and gave up on it twice. I wouldn’t apply, because this was too hard. How was supposed to pick a hero? How could I pick somebody good enough for some big college board? I wouldn’t lie, and pick some great politician or people who did amazing things. Because yes, they’re amazing and wonderful and should be looked up to. But are they my personal hero? No. If I was going to answer this, I needed to tell the truth. And there’s only one person who could really be MY hero.

My hero is Eddie Kaspbrak. My best friend. The strongest person I’ve ever met. And he’ll never know it, but he’s my whole world.

Eddie made an awkward, hhhhh noise from the back of his throat and starred blankly at the paper. He should put it away, he knew he should. He should put everything back exactly where he found it, and walk away. Pretend he never saw it. Wait for Richie to tell him about UCLA.

However, Eddie found himself falling into the sit in front of Richie’s desk while still holding his essay.

I know what this probably sounds like. This is another boo boo gay kid, crying let me into your school! I’m gay! That isn’t what this is. Maybe a little, because I am gay, and you should let me into your school, but there’s more to this than that.

Eddie shook his head, dwelling on how Richie still seemed to such a Trashmouth even in a college application. Then the whole “I’m gay” comment hit Eddie and the hair on his arms all stood on end. Richie was gay? Richie talked about tits and vagina and sex so much, that Eddie had never even considered that possibility. Richie Tozier was straight, hella straight. One of the straightest people he’d ever known. And yet... was this some big game? A lie to get himself into school? A school Eddie didn’t even know that Richie wanted to go to? Did Eddie know Richie at all?

It might be a little weird, actually, to tell you all this stuff. It’s not like you know Eddie, or that any of this would mean anything to you. Another application of hundreds on your desk, to be tossed aside and forgotten about. So, I guess I’'m going to keep talking. That’s a skill of mine. These are things I need to say, and things I need somebody to hear, even if it’s somebody who won’t care and will probably never think of me, or this, again. Perfect captive audience.

As stated above, Eddie Kaspbrak is the strongest person I know. If even half of the things Eddie went through happened to me, I don’t doubt I would’ve curled up into a tiny ball and never moved again for the rest of my life. Eddie, thought, he just keeps going. Doesn’t even give it a second thought, just lets it happen. When Eddie was just a kid, his dad died. He had cancer and I’m not sure he remembers it very well. He doesn’t talk about it much.

Eddie remembered everything. He’d only been five years old, and most of his earliest memories center around his father in hospital beds. He sees pictures of a healthy Frank, his non-dying father, and he has no memories of that man. His mother hadn’t kept any memoirs of his father during his dying days, so Eddie has no connection to the man who was to be his father in pictures, and the father in all his memories.

I know it hurts him, though. How could it not? He just takes it all. He doesn’t even have a parent to turn to, because Eddie’s mother isn’t good. She’s, frankly, quite crazy. She was so afraid of something happening to Eddie that she convinced him he had all these diseases growing up. Asthma, and a bunch of other stuff. Had him half convinced that he could die just from getting dirty. Had him talking placebo medicines every day to control him. Had him thinking that he was weak and sickly.

Maybe she believed it, too. After Eddie told me about the fake medicine- and I’ll always remember that day, I wanted to physically fight his mother because I’d never seen my Eddie upset- I looked up stuff like that. I didn’t understand much, but there’s some sort of psychological disorder that makes somebody all attention seeking and make up all these symptoms for their kids. I never told Eddie about them, because I didn’t want to make him feel any worse about it, or forgive her and let her keep doing what she was doing. I was proud of him for standing up for him, and I still am. I always will be.

Eddie blinked hard, eyes suddenly burning with tears. He lowered the letter for a second and took a deep breath. He could still turn around it, put the essay back on Richie’s desk and pretend that he didn’t ever see it. Besides Richie being gay, Eddie hadn’t read anything he didn’t already know. Richie thought his mother was crazy? Eddie knew that. That Richie was proud of him for standing up to his mother? Richie had made sure that Eddie knew that.

And yet.

It’s not even just that Eddie is strong. He’s so strong, but he somehow manages to be so, so caring. He’s not afraid to call me out on being dumb ass when I’m clearly being a dumb ass, but he’s still always there to pick my dumb ass up when I do something dumb. He’s always been there for me, even after he told me not to do something. When we were 13, I was messing around near the edge of the cliff of quarry. We used to jump off it all the time, it wasn’t too far a drop. As long as you were expecting a drop, which I wasn’t. Eddie, and all my other friends, had told him a hundred times to get away from the edge because I’d fall. I didn’t listen to them and then I fell in. It wasn’t too far a drop, as I said, but Eddie still jumped off after me to make sure he could stop from me drowning. He cursed me, then mocked me, but I never forgot that he was the only person who jumped after me. So maybe Eddie Kaspbrak is also my literal hero.

Eddie smiled, remembering that day clearly. The irrational fear that had been struck through him as he watched Richie trip backwards over the edge. He’d, of course, known that Richie had jumped off that cliff more times that Eddie would ever be able to count, but all he could think about was Richie hitting the water unprepared. Of all the terrible things that could happen to Richie in that water if he wasn’t ready to swim. So Eddie hadn’t given it a second of thought, just run and jumped after him.

Of course, Richie had been absolutely fine. Richie would swim. Eddie cursed him and smacked at him, but he’d done it all with a huge smile of relief all over his face.

And you know what, board admission lady. Or board admission man... board admission person. I’ve already stuck myself so far out there, that I might as well just waxed poetically, since I already have. Not only is Eddie Kaspbrak the strongest person I’ve ever met, and the most caring person I’ve ever met, but he’s also the most beautiful person I’ve ever known or ever will know. With the prettiest green eyes, and the softest brown hair, and those ridiculous freckles, I could fall in love with him every time I looked at him until the day I die.

There were no longer tears filling up his eyes, but tears that had leaked down his face and were dripping off his chin and nose. He used the hand that wasn’t clutching the essay like a vice grip, to wipe the wet frantically away.

And if I’m being honest, which I promised that I would be, Eddie is my hero because he has dreams. He has goals. He inspires me to have dreams and goals. I never wanted to go to college, never thought I’d do anything with my life, until Eddie started talking about going away. Talked about going to school, starting a life, getting away from his shit hand. It made me realize that life is more than just being born in a shitty town, and living and dying like your parents. That no matter where we started, or who they try to make us think we have to be, that we still get to choose who we are. Where we go. What we do. Who we love.

Eddie Kaspbrak is my hero, because Eddie Kaspbrak inspires me to live everyday.

“Hey Eds!” Richie cheered as he clicked the door shut behind him, tossing his backpack that Eddie knew from experience was packed up with his sweaty work uniform. Eddie startled, tossing the paper onto the desk but he watched Richie’s face  as he caught sight of the movement.

Richie paled immediately and he seemed to sway on the spot. Eddie wiped the tears away at faster rate, but found that more just kept replacing them. A broken noise came from the back of Richie’s throat before he cleared it. “Eddie. I’m so sorry.”

Eddie gaped at him, shaking his head. “What the hell are you sorry for? Richie-” Eddie stood up, grabbing Richie’s hands and trying to pull him closer but Richie wouldn’t budge. “Richie nobody has ever said those sort of things about me, I can’t believe... Richie, would you look at me?”

“You were never supposed to know.” Richie said through a strained voice. Eddie could see the emotion all over Richie’s face, the walls forcibly ripped down. He could see the Richie who wrote those words, so perfectly mixed with the Richie that he’d always known that it made Eddie a little lightheaded. “I shouldn’t have even written that shit. I never wanted to ruin our friendship, okay, I just... I needed to get it out and seemed perfect and-”

Eddie pressed a hand over Richie’s mouth and knew that his own face was breaking. “Richard. Shut the fuck up.” Eddie said slowly, trying not to break down into tears. “You don’t get to apologize for the most amazing thing that I’ve even seen or read or...” Eddie closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I’ve never had somebody see me like that.”

Eddie’s hand moved away from Richie’s mouth to cup his cheek. Eddie stepped forward so their chests are pressed mostly together and he looks up at him. “Everybody should see you that way,” Richie said, voice raw and rough. “I see you like that always.”

Eddie closed the distance between them and pressed their lips together. His hands slid into Richie’s messy (admittedly kind of sweaty) curls and their lips moved together for several moments before Richie pulled back with a pained gasp. “Eddie... is this just because the essay?” Richie asked, eyes closed tightly. “Because I literally cannot-”

Eddie kissed him softly once more, stroking Richie’s jaw with his thumb. “It gave me the nerve.” Eddie admitted bashfully. “But the feelings have always been there. For you.”

Richie let out a little sob before sealing their lips together again.

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 22: MJ is seriously overestimating her abilities

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Master Post

Over the last few instalments I’ve examined MJ’s skills, her experiences in crises and how she stacks up next to Spider-Man.

With all this context established we can now examine how well MJ can cope with the situation present in AMJ #1.

As a little refresher let me remind you that as of AMJ #1, Mary Jane found herself on a film set where a lot (the implication is most) of the crewmembers are former felons or current villains, all of who were under the employ of Mysterio. 

She decided to go along with this on Mysterio’s word that he just wanted to fulfil his ambition of a biopic and give his crew a chance to do something good. 

When Peter (who was totally in the dark about all this) proposed the hypothetical scenario of MJ being surrounded by villains she casually joked about the time she defeated a villain with a baseball bat. Peter dropped the subject after that.

The implication here is that Mary Jane can look after herself as evidenced by this (and other) prior experiences.

But now we’ve thoroughly gone over everything MJ is capable of and those experiences in question is she really in a position to look after her here?

If we are talking about just defending herself personally (with no assistance) then the answer would be…’probably not’.

And if we are talking about defending her self and  others (which the comics never brought up at all) then the answer would be…’highly unlikely’.

In either case I can’t definitely say yes or no. And the reason for is because there are so many different variables that could come into play here. But that cuts right to the heart of the problem.

Between

Mysterio’s abilities and tech

The unknown number of enhanced people on the crew (whose powers are not specified)*

The unknown ratio of felons/villains/enhanced crew members to non-powered/non-criminal crew members

Filming at different locations, which we should presume they are doing as it’d be standard practice

However many journalists, onlookers and other civilians may or may not be observing the film crew

Whatever Beck and his crew might do in their downtime or whenever MJ isn’t around

there is any number of scenarios that can play out.

How much MJ can protect herself, others and private property (which could be someone’s livelihood) would depend heavily  upon exactly what each scenario is.

This isn’t as simple as just Mysterio attacking her or the whole film crew turning on her. Even if it was there is any number of ways those scenarios could play out.

Beck could slip into her room whilst she is sleeping.

He could be talking calmly then abruptly pull a knife on her.

He could go off set somewhere then remotely attack her using his X-Men robots (those same ones who gave Spider-Man trouble in ASM Annual #1).

He could have the villains of the crew hold the non-powered members hostage.

One of them could simply go rogue and hold up a bank.

Several of them could get mad and go on a rampage whilst civilians are watching the filming.

And in each of those scenarios Mary Jane could resolve the crises with 0 damage done to life or property.

She might use and alarm system to alert her to Beck’s entry, then surprise him with a baseball bat or gun.

She could observe his body language closely then use basic self-defence skills to block the knife and disarm him.

She could stumble across Beck’s holographic tech and activate it, baffling the robots enough to escape.

She could use her psychology skills to talk the crewmembers into releasing the hostages.

She could simply knock out the crewmember holding up the bank because they happen to not posses enhanced strength or endurance

She could rally the endangered civilians with a megaphone towards a trailer then hit the gas to drive them to safety

But what if…

She didn’t have an alarm system or a baseball bat?

Beck was such a good actor he never gave away any ‘tells’ that MJ could detect so she was not ready for his attack?

She didn’t stumble across his tech or didn’t know how to make it work or if the robots weren’t affected by it anyway?

She misread the people with the hostages or if her negotiations failed in some way?

The bank robber had invulnerability and super speed?

There were too many civilians running in too many different directions for MJ to help all of them? Or if there was no megaphone, no trailer no gas or the villains were capable of catching up with them anyway?

All of the villains turn on MJ at once whilst she is surrounded?

Beck slips her a drug as he did Daredevil in ‘Guardian Devil’

Sends one of his robots to Aunt Anna’s home to kill her

He wires his suit for super strength as he did in ‘Guardian Devil'

He uses his illusion powers to disorientate MJ and beat her up, as he did to the super strong Spider-Man in their very first battle

Tricks her into thinking someone has died to make her emotionally vulnerable and potentially exploit information from her?

Fakes his death and escapes again

Switches himself out for a robot duplicate and goes on to sexually violate more teenaged girls and con the more seniors out of their life savings

Beck has superior psychology skills to Mary Jane and successfully gaslights her, causing emotional trauma

Uses his holograms to cause a riot that results in people being injured

Beck or any of the villains under his employ slip away during or after the filming and kill someone somehow…like perhaps some kid’s uncle...

Do you see how there are a billion things that can go wrong here?

Sure, there are always things that can go wrong in any potentially dangerous scenario. You could die of any number of things just in your house.

The difference here though is the chances are exponentially higher. A large group of criminals with physically dangerous powers evading the law often surrounded by groups of other people and being given access to a lot of money?

That’s a recipe for disaster even if nothing gets cooked!

There are discussions to be had about falsely accused people, those whose punishments were out of proportion for their crimes and the existence of criminal actions that should be legalized. But putting all that aside, there is a reason when criminals are assessed for parole.

There is a reason they are still required to check in with an official body after their release.

There is a reason sex criminals like paedophiles are put on a register.

There is even a reason many job applications at least ask  if someone has a criminal record.

Whilst none of them guarantee anything, they all (in theory) minimize  the risk of those criminals committing further crimes against people or property.

Let’s drop the idea of criminals altogether and use some analogies.

A surgeon cannot possibly guarantee the success of any operation. Even the most minimal of procedures carry some level of risk to the health of the patient. It’s impossible to mitigate that risk, but it is possible to prepare thoroughly to minimize it.

A fire fighter can’t be 100% certain of what might happen if they enter a burning building, though they still have to assess the danger as much as possible and then evaluate whether the risks to themselves, their colleagues or civilians is worth undertaking.

A soldier in a warzone does both. In theory a soldier should be as prepared as possible for an ensuing mission, but there is no guarantee of success. Their actions before and during a mission can depend upon their assessments of the situation as it unfolds.  Sadly many people (soldiers and civilians on any side) have died unnecessarily due to poor preparation or bad decisions made without enough assessments of the consequences.

Now how about Spider-Man? Isn’t it true that he can never know exactly what will happen in any given crises he gets involved in? No he doesn’t, but the skills and experiences we talked about in parts 19-21 greatly minimize the risks and give him a far greater ability to potentially influence the outcome of a crisis.

What I am saying is that in Amazing Mary Jane MJ has not properly assessed the potential risks, she literally cannot assess them because there are far too many variables in play (or that could be in play, this is Mysterio after all). This combined with the limitations of her own skills means that she can’t o much to minimize the potential risks. Her abilities to influence the potential outcomes of any of the crises that might arise are not that great.

She is the equivalent of:

A surgeon just walking into the operating theatre with very little training, having a very general idea of what problem the patient has and not having familiarized themselves with the specifics of that patient.

A fire-fighter rushing into a burning building unaware of what type of fire they are dealing with, where it is, if there is anyone still inside and where they might be

A soldier going into battle unarmed and with just the basic knowledge of whom the opposing army is. Not how many men they have, not what they are armed with, not where they are likely to be. They are just relying on the fact they’ve survived other battles and defeated other opponents to see them through on whatever might arise now.

In short Mary Jane is being unforgivably stupid and irresponsible. Which is to say she is acting extremely out of character!

The only thing she DOES know is that she doesn’t know everything going on. She can’t possibly know if there is an ulterior motive, what Beck or the crew may or may not do. She can’t possibly be sure at all  that she, her loved ones, innocent people or their livelihoods would be safe. But she can be sure that if they are going to be safe it would rely upon a Hell of a lot of things playing in her favour.

Basically MJ is banking on luck. She is banking upon being aware and present for a crises as it unfolds, that there will be resources available for her to use to resolve it, that she would even be aware  of those resources and how to use them and that the crises would even be within her abilities to resolve in the first place. And most of all she’s banking on a criminals with a long history of deceit and repugnant behaviour to not  be lying to her.

Those are ridiculously bad odds. They’d be bad odds even if it was Spider-Man in her place. He might possibly be safe from Beck trying to kill him as he sleeps, but he can’t be everywhere at once. He can’t necessarily crowd control every villain on set. He can’t keep tabs on all of them all the time.

The only practical things Spidey could do would be calling the authorities, the Avengers or use his powers (those things MJ totally lacks) to simply physically capture Beck and every criminal around. But allowing them to continue as they were on the belief that they definitely wouldn’t step out of line?

He would never and could never do that. And MJ would be the same because, as I established in part 9, MJ’s sense of morality and justice is very similar to (and very influenced by) Peter’s.

But just to put this aspect of my analysis to bed completely, next time I will more thoroughly examine whether Mary Jane really could beat Mysterio herself or not.

*Because Beck is using his own technology on the set and doesn’t seem to be using anyone else’s super powers in a particularly creative way one would imagine that the crew’s powers amount to just looking different and/or having enhanced strength to move stuff around.

Previous Part

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Master Post

[lamentofmoons]

House Stygian Is Recruiting!

House Stygian is recruiting! The winds of war have quieted, taking our kindred and innocence. But the enemy took its price, and we have been changed, born anew and tempered in the aftermath.  We have new leadership in Stygian and with her comes metamorphosis. We rise again with heads held high; looking toward a new future with courage and guidance as well as a remembrance of what was. So if you are one of the few courageous and brave individuals, just snarling at the gates for MORE, than take your place among the heroes of Stygian! 

Our Mission: To better the great kingdom of Stormwind, and the Alliance as a whole. To do that, we raise our banner to humanitarian, liberation, and philanthropic efforts across Azeroth. We carry out military expeditions to combat, and defeat antagonistic groups that threaten those less fortunate.

Application: (This is less of an app right now as we are revitalizing, but a way for us to reach out to you in game!) tinyurl.com/Appstygian

------

House Stygian is a community active, heavy RP guild with a lawful neutral alignment. We are a naval and expeditionary themed organization focusing on the action/adventure side of DM storylines. We do transporting of supplies, storyline events, combat training nights, scientific/lore events, and other social events; such as drinking games, brawl nights, and community events.

Gaining a good reputation as an RP guild can be hard. Even harder to reforge a guild that has long since sat in hiatus. As such, House Stygian strives to adhere to global standard of a drama-free environment. We cater to every type of schedule, and form events that will match anyone who seeks to join. We are particular of who we allow to enter our ranks, as we pursue a literate, and maturity standard for our members. This may seem restrictive, but if you can type coherently, and act like a logical adult (when you need to), you will fit in perfectly.

-----

The Ranks of House Stygian

Every recruit requires an In-Character interview in order to gain an In-Character rank. The ranks are as follows:

The Liege Lady (GM): Lady Dilleana Ravenshadow, newly appointed head of House Stygian and Lady of the reclaimed lands of Nightgarden located in Feralas.

The Cardinal (Co-GMs): Lord Rentonas Varrin. Above the divisions’ direct councilors, he acts as the direct delegate of the Lady, using the combined strength of the divisions to assure they are all utilized to their full potential.

High Council (Senior Officers): Division Leaders, and primary commanders of operations within the house.

Talonguard (Junior Officers, and commanders in the field):  Stygian’s most trusted. Tried and tested through the Trial of the Raven to be promoted from the general divisions into the officer core. They are pulled from those that excel in any of the four primary divisions listed below.

Court of Roses (Medical Division):  For characters with healing capabilities; divided into combat medicine, and clinical medicine. For combat and non-combat individuals.

The Lady’s Fang (Specialist Division): Operations; intel of House Stygian, led by the Operative Captain. They are the task force that detaches to complete reconnaissance and detailed operations. The tip of the spear.

Ironclaw Cohort (Ground Forces Division): Specialized in ground tactics, the battalion operates as a well-oiled machine to lay siege upon enemy forces, and to out-maneuver their opponents in the field.

Vale Scholar (Scholar/Caster Division): The researchers, skilled incanters, and general highbrows of the organization. These gifted individuals are the lifeblood of House Stygian’s research and development core. Between offering lore lessons, studying artifacts and items of interest recovered from operations, and managing supernatural affairs as a contact between the house and the Kirin Tor, they often are the most busied of our order.

Contingent (Enlisted):  Unproven combatants, or skilled workers; handmaidens, blacksmiths, chefs of House Stygian. Those who enlist in Stygian begin as a Contingent, until they’ve proven themselves in the field to be placed among the proven Stygians in their aspired division.

Ancillary (OOC rank): Alternate characters, characters awaiting interviews, friends of the guild, or characters ICly dismissed from House Stygian pending return (for story, or otherwise).

[maddmuses]

Caroline Kent // Kara-El

(fc: Cassidy Mackenzie)

Age: 17+ (Verse-Dependent)

Aliases: Supergirl, Miss Krypton, Carolina Kent

Date of Birth: April 1st

Species: Alien Hybrid

Affiliations: The Kent Family, The House of El, The Teen Titans (Blair Grayson's Team)(Alexandros Prince's Team), The Titans (Blair Grayson's Team)(During and after age 19)

Universe-Inspiration: Takes inspiration primarily from comics, but several other key media sources for Teen Titans and Young Justice. Has been adjusted to accommodate more depthful plotting w/ pick-your-poison-please, M’gann version available upon request.

Appearance Caroline in her truest form has no natural shape that's discernible between martian and kryptonian, due to the unusual nature of their biologies, she didn't come with much of a natural form, as her birthing was not only atypical due to parentage, but even atypical for a martian. Through this, her mother guided her molecules to a baseline form that appeared human when she was birthed, and it's largely this form that Caroline bases her favorite form on. Caroline, in her primary human appearance, has red hair and fair skin with a large dusting of freckles overing her face and body. The shape of her face is on the square side, distinctly resembling her fathers, while she tends to shift the color of her eyes between hazel, green, and blue, depending on her mood.

When shifting her appearance to a more “Miss Martian” style, Caroline will often intentionally emulate her mother's previous appearance, so as to make sure her Supergirl and Miss Martian looks aren't as easily linked. As a rule, Caroline will maintain her appearance's height to have a difference between identities. Caroline is usually roughly 5'3”, Miss Martian is 5'6”, while Supergirl is 5'9”, so as to further make her appearances more distinct.

Caroline often prefers blouses and jeans, bull will generally key her designs to appear fashionable, and to correlate with her mood.

FC to reference, though her Superfamily suit tends to resemble more recent takes of Kara’s, particularly it being more built and designed to function as a supersuit, rather than a costume that identifies her as Supergirl.

Personality Growing up in the Kent family, with a double dose of sunshine from her mother, M'gann, and godmother, Kara, Caroline is a cheerful young woman with a deep caring for others. It was this sense of caring that initially drew Caroline to the life of a superhero, literally finding herself unable to be inactive when others are in danger. She has little interest in stopping crime specifically, instead intervening in order to make sure that people aren't hurt, or to protect the world itself from destruction. Though, to this point, Caroline is even reluctant to hurt those she fights, holding back just enough of her strength that she hits her adversaries with roughly the amount of force that they, themselves, can put out.

Wildly protective of those she cares about, Caroline has been known to lose her temper when people have put her friends and family in harm's way, to the point that she forgets to hold herself back. This results in a frankly, brutal punishment on the part of Caroline, as she will quickly and efficiently do away with any threat to her loved ones. These people that she cares about often include her teammates, but it's proven time and again that Caroline easily develops emotional attachments to others.

Taking readily after her godmother, people have compared Caroline to a chipper, friendly, and more than a bit goofy, puppy. Often joking and pulling pranks on her friends, she rarely takes things seriously in her Kent persona. This will often come back, though, as Caroline will let this non-serious nature bleed into her personalities as Miss Martian and Supergirl as well, forgetting in the heat of the moment. This can cause her to occasionally blunder, in mostly very minor ways, though sometimes it can be end up downright catastrophic when Caroline decides to be too easygoing. That's not accounting for the actual physical clumsiness that Caroline is also known for, despite her superhuman speed and reflexes.

The above is more or less applicable, just know that Caroline is peak madlad, like her dad.

Biography The daughter of Kon-El and M'gann M'orzz, Caroline is the eldest of the pair's children, as well as the twin sister of Carter Kent, also known as Kar-El. Growing up in Smallville Kansas, on the Kent family farm, Caroline was exposed to her family's alien nature almost as soon as she was able to form sentences. Her and Carter's superhuman abilities were inborn on the martian side, and were apparent almost immediately, making it difficult for them to socialize with other children who were outside of their parent's circle. Though, on the other hand, from a very early age Caroline and Carter befriended many children of other superhumans, often having play-dates with the children of Aquaman and Mera.

As a toddler Caroline developed a fairly sophisticated control of her body, taught by her mother, in preparation for the family's first visit to Mars. While on the red planet, as a member of the white martian caste, even though her mother was allied with their “uncle” J'onn J'onzz, Caroline still experience a sense of isolation from the other martians, even with those who were roughly her emotional maturity, but still several decades her chronological senior. And while her and Carter would visit their mother's homeworld several more times over the years, they would continue to never feel particularly at home each time.

Growing up in Smallville was a much easier thing for Caroline, being with her grandparents, uncle, “aunt” Kara, and great-grandparents, she always was surrounded with a strong sense of community and family. This would only grow as Caroline's younger brothers would come into the scene, giving Caroline a group of people that she cared about intensely, more than anyone or anything else in the world, even herself.

During her early adolescence, Caroline would ask her parents if she could become the next Supergirl, or rather seek out permission to fight crime as her aunt Kara's sidekick. Tentatively, this was approved, under the condition that Caroline not actively seek out global-level threats that she isn't directly helping Kara with, or other Justice League type of situations or missions. As there were no Titans, or Teen Titans, at the moment, there was little purpose in trying to find other teen heroes for her to work in a team with. However, over the first few years of her heroing, Caroline would meet and make friends with the current Robin, Blair Grayson.

During the summer of her fourteenth year, and third year as Supergirl, now sometimes Miss Martian, Caroline would become a founding member of the a new Teen Titans team, compromised of herself, Robin, Wonderboy, and several new teen heroes. Not initially permitted to live in Titan's Tower, due to parental concerns, Caroline would often simply use her room in the tower to sneak boys and girls in to make out. As the Summer drew on, and the Titans got more missions under their belt, Caroline would eventually be permitted to live in Titan's Tower full-time, so long as an adult chaperon remained at the tower full-time as well.

Pretty much the same, although martian stuff would need to be removed.

Abilities and Skills -Alien-Level Intelligence: Due to the more advanced nature of both parent societies raising the average bar of learning for members of the kryptonian and martian cultures, Caroline is actually considered highly intelligent by Earthling standards, being able to pass a GED test at the age of fourteen, with a rather relaxed home-based education from her grandfather that's designed to supplement her public schooling. -Creativity and Combat Acumen: Caroline has a natural flair for fighting, able to use her powers in improvisational ways, blending the significant abilities in her martian and kryptonian arsenals to deal with villains in unexpected ways. Particularly, Caroline is well-known for utilizing her shapeshifting to great effect in tandem with her kryptonian strength and speed to put away foes. As well, her natural flair for Telekinesis, and particularly strong skill in self-elongation, allows her to rival her father's own ability to use his telekinesis. -Artistic Ability: Caroline enjoys painting and crafts, spending a lot of her free time on art. She enjoys her middle school art classes, and is considering it as a major in college. She is also deeply passionate about music. -Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic): Not having any formal instruction, Caroline has learned some basic self-defense from her mentor Kara, but largely combats others with a very fundamental approach to fighting. Currently, Caroline's fighting skill involves a lot of telegraphed and obvious punches that disguise much more subtle folow-ups.

Superhuman Powers and Abilities -Kryptonian-Martian Hybrid Physiology: Due to Caroline's mixed parentage, Caroline benefits from the powers of both parents, though due to her adolescence has only manifested a limited catalog of kryptonian powers, as well as her martian abilities. Her Kryptonian and human components allow Caroline to age at a rate typical of humans a kryptonians, rather than that of a martian. --Shapeshifting: As is typical for any martian, Caroline has perfect control over her physical form, to a molecular level. Through this, she's able to change her form, mimic the forms of others, elongate parts of herself, increase or decrease her size, and manipulate the density of her own body to the point that she can phase through solid matter. Through this, Caroline often adopts a more human/kryptonian appearance, with blended features from both parents, while as a martian she tends to strongly resemble her mother. --Invisibility: Caroline is able to remove the ability to reflect light from her biopolymers, becoming fully transparent, specifically to normal light and human sight. --Invulnerability: Immune to most mundane forms of injury, Caroline cannot be injured through typical physical means, by normal humans. In order to injure Caroline one must attack her with a similar degree of superhuman power, in terms of strength, or some means that directly targets Caroline's physiology (such as kryptonite, anti-molecular attacks, or the like). Caroline's invulnerability conspicuously does not extend to flame or heat, though in reality it shouldn't be able to harm Caroline, her phobia of fire causes her to telekinetically shut down her own immunity to these sources of injury. Caroline's phobia doesn't extend to solar energy and heat, which fuels her powers typically, so long as she's aware that is the nature of said energy. --Superhuman Strength: Due to the naturally more dense nature of kryptonian molecules, as well as the acclimation to more intense gravity that is inherent to kryptonian musculoskeletal systems, Caroline has a degree of physical strength scaled relative to her father's family, proportional to someone of her body mass and size. --Superhuman Speed: Thanks to her unique physiology, both in part the martian and kryptonian components, Caroline is able to move at speeds faster than any normal human. At her cruising speed, Caroline is able to move roughly 1,500 miles per hour. Generally, Caroline can top out at about 4,000 miles per hour. --Superhuman Stamina: Caroline is able to act at her full physical capacity nearly indefinitely, her powers not exhausting her naturally, unless she's experiencing some manner of taxing her energy, or is injured. --Regeneration: Through control of her own molecules, as well as her kryptonian healing factor as a byproduct of radiation absorption, Caroline is able to recover from most types of wounds, and even use her martian regeneration to regrow lost limbs and organs. --Telekinesis: Inherited from both her parents, Caroline is able to manipulate objects via a kinetic field that her mind is able to project. The strength of this telekinetic field grows stronger the physically closer to her it is, being at its strongest if Kent is touching the target object. This telekinesis's strength scales directly to Caroline's willpower. ---Flight: Through her telekinesis Caroline is able to fly herself with perfect control. She does not quite have the type of flight that kryptonians can manifest, and accordingly lack the speed. Caroline moves about 120 miles per hour when flying in the earth's atmosphere. --Superhuman Hearing: Caroline's ears are able to hear noise at frequencies and volumes not audible to Earthling ears, even being able to pick up sounds from further away than they're able to travel. Kryptonian hearing is able to pick up noise from multiple lightyears away, through the noise vacuum of space. --Super-Vision: Like other kryptonians, Caroline is able to see in several spectrums of light that humans normally cannot perceive, as well as extend and zoom her sight. Caroline is able to project X-Rays. --Telepathy: As is the case with all Martians, Caroline is able to connect her mind to the minds of others, to read their thoughts, influence change on their minds, project illusions, communicate, and control. Caroline is able to access the Great Mind of the martian species, reinforcing her mental abilities through that pool, and enhancing the minds of other martians. --Self-Sustenance: Caroline doesn't need to eat, breathe, or drink, so long as she has a sufficient source of solar radiation, or stored solar radiation to draw her sustenance from.

Typical Kryptonian Abilities

Weaknesses and Limitations -Pyrophobia: Through her connection to The Great Mind, Caroline has developed the falsely-programmed fear and aversion to fire that all Martians have. When she's exposed to heat that she doesn't know is the result of a star, Caroline becomes sluggish, weak, and vulnerable to heat-based attacks. -Kryptonite: Like any kryptonian, Caroline is vulnerable to kryptonite, the radiations of these rocks progressively draining her solar radiation, and actively inhibiting her martian powers as well, as the two have largely become linked thanks to the hybridized nature of Caroline's physiology. The only martian power she maintains is her shapeshifting, while suffering from kryptonite poisoning. -Long Wavelength Radiation: Radiation with a longer wavelength than that of a yellow sun does not fuel Caroline's powers, and in fact certain wavelengths of red sun radiation can actively drain her stores of yellow radiation, as it's replaced with the new red radiation. Conversely, the shorter the wavelengths of radiation, the more power Caroline gains. -Limited Powerset: Caroline's powers develop as she age. Notably she lacks certain iconic powers (such as heat vision and kryptonian flight) during her teenage years that can somewhat limit her ability to fight.

Equipment and Support Gear -Bioflesh Costume: Caroline owns a suit made of the same material as her mother's, and every other Martian that leaves their home planet. The costume helps insulate Caroline from heat, unless she reduces said insulation, which she often does so as to better absorb sunlight. Polymers and artificially-created martian body cells in the costume allow Caroline to exert the same degree of control over the article of clothing that she has with any of her own molecules. Through this, the Bioflesh is able to take on any shape, design, and density, that she desires.

Kryptonian Battle Armor: A suit of his grandfather’s design it, like other kryptonian heroes, keys into her DNA and allows Caroline’s powers to be amplified, though any powers from non-kryptonian DNA, if she’d had any, would have been dampened. This is why her father doesn’t wear it, as his tactile telekinesis is a human mutation.

[howtohero]

#208 The Cavalry

Sometimes superheroes enter into situations where they are clearly in over their head. They go in without a plan, without backup, without even fully comprehending the immense power of the threat they’re up against. (Remember when Charlie the Fish Whisperer “killed” the prime minister of Finland and renamed himself Chuck the Fish Whisperer and some heroes foolishly thought he’d still be easy to beat? We’re talking times like that.) In times like this, those heroes are going to be at the end of their ropes, their backs are gonna be all sweaty and also backed up against a wall, and they’re going to silently resign themselves to failure. It’s then, in those final desperate moments, that the music will swell, some wall’s gonna get blown open, and the cavalry will arrive.

Traditionally, the cavalry were armed soldiers on horseback. Nowadays though, they’re the heroes who come in when all hope is lost, no horses required. Of course, if you wanted to ride in on a horse while taking out enemy combatants with your laser blasts, I don’t think anybody would have a problem with that. It would certainly make for a cool image. Especially if the horse had wings! Or was on fire! Or was also shooting lasers. Ok, you and a horse show up, both of you have laser rifles, you’re standing back to back, surrounded by supervillains and henchmen, and you spin around and slow motion taking out every single on of them (non-lethally, horses and superheroes don’t just murder people). That would be awesome. That’s the new plan. 

If you want to be the cavalry then you’ll have to not be part of the initial mission. If you’re part of the initial mission then you’re going to need that last minute bailing out yourself. Or you’ll just end up saving everybody during the initial fight, and where’s the drama in that?!

Not being part of a mission is actually much easier than you’d think. As it turns out -and trust me nobody was more surprised to learn this than I was- you’re not actually very well liked. People do not want to include you in things. Far be from me to speculate as to why that might be but our crack team of behavioral psychologists/interns have actually put together a quick thing:

You keep calling the bananas in the break room “nanners” and that makes people not want to buy bananas in the first place but everybody really likes bananas.

You play your music too loud and it’s all bad covers of popular children’s songs. Like if it had just been the original versions that would be more than fine. Who doesn’t like a little Disney in the workplace. But it’s only objectively inferior versions. What’s your deal man?

You keep flipping over heavy furniture to make a point. Like we get it, you’re super strong. So’s my grandma, but you don’t see her flipping over the printer every time she wants to emphasize something. I’m trying to print stuff. Stop it.

You keep purposely getting yourself taken off missions just so you can swoop in at the last second to save everybody and that’s very annoying so now nobody wants you anywhere near their adventures! (This is so selfish of them and also shortsighted. Now you’ll definitely be able to swoop in and save them at the last second again. You’ll be sure to teach them a well-earned lesson in humility when you save all of their petty lives.)

All in all, there are dozens of reasons why you might not be included or invited on any particular mission. Perhaps your skills just aren’t applicable to this particular mission. (Which will make it all the more amazing when you end up saving the day in the end.) Maybe your rival is leading the team and purposely excluding you. (Which will make your eventual victory all the more delicious.) Maybe everyone kind of just forgot you were on the team, and can you blame them? There are 150 people on your superhero team. That’s way too many! (But they surely will never forget you again when you save all of their unmemorable lives!)

Alternatively, if you feel like you could deal with a threat single-handedly, you can always opt out of a mission just so you can make a heroic save later. I don’t recommend doing this, since you’re definitely playing with fire there and people could die. The only really morally pure way to do this is to just stumble across some other heroes in need of a last minute save. To this end I recommend hijacking the frequencies of every hero’s communications devices. This way you’ll hear if anybody is transmitting out any last goodbyes or desperate pleas for help or some real passive aggressive “we’re in imminent danger of being sucked into a blackhole, do not, I repeat, do not save us, just save yourselves. It’s too late for us. There’s a blackhole, it’s pretty large. Did you hear that? Nobody come save us!” nonsense. 

Once you’ve found some heroes in need you need to make sure that you’re actually equipped to save them. If you fail at pulling off a last minute save then you’re going to look like a massive fool. You’re gonna be some fool who makes dramatic entrances, fails at accomplishing things, and calls bananas “nanners.” They’re gonna put all that stuff on your tombstone. So you need to be more than prepared for whatever threat is terrorizing your fellow heroes. You can even call in some other powerful heroes to help you in this bid to save the others. Don’t worry about sharing the glory, as long as you swoop/burst/drop/poof in first and say something cool, you’ll be the one everyone remembers as the hero of the day. For a full breakdown on how to make an incredible entrance see here. But to use our example of a blackhole, all you need to do is get a starship with engines big enough to outrun a blackhole, rocket off to the blackhole and be like “Oh hey, need a ride?” That sheer casualness in the face of the collapse of space will cement you as the coolest cucumber in the superhero world and that’s a story that will go down in history books for centuries until you’re eventually mythologized as some sort of demigod that stared down a blackhole and saved millions of lives. You don’t even need to own the starship or design the faster than light quantum engines or anything! You literally just have to be standing in the bridge when your rescued colleagues come aboard your super ship. 

Being the cavalry is a coveted position in any superhero team. If you make just one epic last minute save, you can go down as a legend amongst your colleagues. Especially if you’ve overcome great odds and saved many lives. If you do it twice? Oh boy, you better start working on your reserved smile, you’re about to be put on currency. Three times? That’s it, you can basically retire because you’re going to be raking in mad cash from all of the movie adaptions of your amazing career that the studios are going to start cranking out for years to come. Of course you won’t retire, because then you might get a fourth awesome save. At which point I’m pretty sure you get automatic sainthood. So what are you waiting for? Well, except for the very last second of course.

[binaural-histolog]

Interview with Wiseguy at Mindquake 2018

binaural-histolog: So how did all this get started?

WiseGuy: That's a big question.

BH: Okay, let me back up. So it used to be a very small scene. Brian David Phillips was doing things on Yahoo, and there was hypnovideo, the Maestro, etc. And then at some point it got too big to track. What happened?

WG: Well, the first thing I went to was probably 2007-2008, which was Hypnoticon. There was another conference, Hypnocon, that has been going on for like 15 years or so, but it's always been exclusive to the gay men's community so the rest of us didn't know about it.

At that time, I was a fiction writer. I posted on mcstories.com. And when I got there, it was a big surprise how many people read my stories, because if something is really popular, you'll get two, maybe three emails if you're lucky. There's no reddit or like button. There's no feedback. Simon keeps everything minimal and pure. He'll publish anything with very few exceptions, and he'll do no editing on it. It's his... what's the word? It's his aesthetic. And then suddenly you get all these people coming up and they know you and they like your stuff.

So Hypnoticon was a big success, and Mephki and Buddy [DrSlashBlight] got the idea of putting a convention together. Buddy was the face, and Mephki was the brains, the organizer. Buddy had this tremendous skill of being able to stand in the middle of the room and say "Guys, this is what we're going to do and it's going to be great and you're going to love it." And Mephki pulled everyone together and made it all happen. That was NEEHU, 2009. Mephki and Buddy had the New England Hypnosis Group, and there was a recreational hypnosis group next door, and they knew Lady Ru'etha, and she said come to this thing, and that was NEEHU 1. It was a single day. I sat in a couple of panels, talking about erotic hypnosis.

It was literally an unconference and a play party at night, in a not so great part of town. I was surprised that we didn't get in trouble with the police, and we realized later that the illegal police biker bar was next door, so the police weren't going to interfere with any disturbances around that area.

So NEEHU got bigger and bigger, and these groups all started to meet up, and so the people that were already into this found out about it. There were some things independent of NEEHU. Lee Allure and MrDream had their own thing that they run, DeepMindDarkwood. It's a camp, they keep it limited down to 45 people and that's it. But there were more people that wanted to join. Kansas City and Texas had a bunch of stuff happen. Black Rock City. And now there's five things happening yearly, and meetup groups throughout the country.

BH: Do you think there's a reason why everything started to come together in 2008?

Yes and no. All the elements were there, it could have happened earlier or later. But all the right things had to happen in the right order. NEEHU really needed Mephki and Buddy to kick it off, and there needed to be enough meetups and enough groups to keep it going. And there was a lot of learning in the community.

BH: What has the community learned?

WG: Oh, so much. In the beginning, informed consent was not a thing. If you were at a conference, it was assumed that you were consenting. You'd walk up to someone in the hallway, say "wanna see something cool?" and if they said yeah, you'd drop them. That's just... you can't do that now. It's not acceptable.

Safety and ethics was not a thing. There was a talk in NEEHU that was literally "Why do we need ethics?" And that's changed so much now. Safety and ethics are the first thing you learn, and every conference has a code of conduct.

BH: What do you think the community still has to learn?

WG: We still have to learn how to handle our shit properly.

We know how to handle the people who are clueless. We know how to handle the people who are obviously bad. We still have to figure out how to handle the people who are predators, the truly manipulative people. They'll pick their targets carefully, and it'll be someone who is new, and it happens alone in a room. There's no way to know what happened. It's one person's word against another. And it may not even be deception, they may believe their version of events completely. Belief is different from reality. These people will have friends, they have defenders, they'll say all the right things. So it's hard. There may not be a good answer.

BH: I remember reading a book on abuse called Why Does He Do That, and realizing I'd met abusers and seen them operate, and still hadn't put it all together. It is hard. On the other hand, I was encouraged by Divney's discussion about always believing the accuser by default.

WG: It's more complex than a single answer, though. I don't have a problem with BEHIVE's policy in their application, but my concern is that it doesn't scale well to larger events where the stakes are a lot higher than being banned from a local munch.

Mephki: This isn't a legal argument though. There's no standard beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a private party you can't go to, not going to jail or having your children taken away from you.

WG: Agreed, but it's still damage. It's something we haven't figured out yet.

[Much discussion ensues, in which everyone in the room weighs in. Everyone has cogent and nuanced arguments that I could not write notes on fast enough.]

BH: What's really impressed you lately? What's improved in the community that you didn't predict?

WG: Oh! Standards have evolved so much. There are so many bright young voices. Our representation has improved so much. There used to be a joke when you got out of a conference, you'd say "Remember me? I was the bearded white guy." Because that was everyone. Now you have non-binary people, femme representing people, bottom types. There are so many more points of view and inclusion in the community.

BH: One thing I've noticed is that there is an assumption that erotic hypnosis corresponds to kink and BDSM generally.

AmHypnotic, chiming in: Yes, and they're not the same thing. There's this tendency that the bigger and more intense something looks, the more impressive it is. But that's not what makes it work.

BH: I mention it because I really like the gentle femdom movement I've seen lately, where gently pulling on someone's hair is recognized and seen as dominant, and there's no pain or fear. It's not about turning everything up to 11.

WG: There's a lot of good things, but stuff like that is coming from the kink community in general. The EH community is barely 10 years old, and what we have been doing is copying what other conferences are doing, like scholarships for female presenters. And the internet and local groups getting together has been huge. There's so much better vetting of presenters and sharing of information now.

There's still a problem with sharing information. The TNG group had a presenter that had been vetted and it was a horror show. And then once it came out, there were presentations she'd given before that made it clear she had done this before, and so it's a question of getting all those people together. So there's a missing stair problem there.

Mephki: There is a discord server called the Watchtower which is all the conference and group leaders together, and there is a vetting service. There's work being done. There's hypnation. It is getting better. You have to be careful about ban lists, but they are private party events.

BH: What do you think the recreational and EH community can teach the clinical hypnosis community?

WG: [Laughter] There's no comparison. The EH community is leaps and bounds ahead of the professionals. There's no need for them to do it for money, so they have more freedom to experiment, and so it's all about the creativity. But there are professionals still reading off of scripts written in the 1950s.

[Much discussion ensues]

BH: I know there are talented individuals. Melissa Tiers, for example.

WG: No, there are absolutely some great people out there. Melissa Tiers is a rockstar. She's very good, no bullshit, always happy to show new things she's learned. Kaz Riley is another good example. But the field as a whole is still behind and playing it safe. There can be ten different tracks at a conference and not one presentation you want to go to.

Hypnomedia: Hypnothoughts Live is really good. They have a good mix of clinical and stage hypnotists.

WG: I've heard that, but I'm afraid that if I go, I'll get outed.

BH: So final question. Erotic hypnosis would seem to have a natural overlap with using hypnosis for sexual disorders. And yet, there's almost nothing about using hypnosis to treat sexual disorders. And there's sex research on BDSM and kink, but there's very little research into erotic hypnosis. Why do you think that is?

WG: I couldn't tell you. I know there's a Dr Will Horton who puts together a five day course on Erotic Hypnosis. The first three days are clinical, focusing on erectile dysfunction, anorgasmia, and things like that. The final two days, he hands out copies of Mind Play and talks about erotic hypnosis. The mixture of clinical treatment and erotic material in the same course is not something that anyone can do, but Dr Horton has a Psy D, so he can get away with doing it.

BH: But it does seem like so many techniques are essentially erotic hypnosis with the serial numbers filed off. Tantric Massage, Sensate Focus, and so on.

WG: There are many hypnosis things that do not show up in the field. But I don't know.

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 5: Thoughts on The 100 2x03 Reapercussions

I am very tired and I should sleep but instead I’m going to bring my The 100 rewatch project out of hiatus yet again with Episode 2x03: Reapercussions.

I miss Anya so much!!!!! This is mostly my Dichen Lachman obsession showing but also the way she gives Clarke that ‘yeah, whatever’ look when Clarke says she’ll get her out of the cage... your Grounder fave could never.

The show honestly peaked with S2 and after this it should have abandoned all attempts at edginess because nothing will ever be more Pure Nightmare Fuel than the Mount Weather Grounder Cages.

Clarke/Anya: the ship that almost was.

So when Clarke takes Anya out of the prison room, she opens a door that says “End Containment Area” and underneath that it says “U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Mount Weather Containment Protocol.” And people really thought JRoth made this up omg learn some history.

Considering how they left things (Anya literally trying to kill her and all her friends) it’s actually pretty impressively selfless and magnanimous on Clarke’s part to not just rescue her, but immediately and unthinkably rescue her. On the other hand, Anya feels some remorse for leaving her people whereas Clarke’s like ‘here are some clothes [even though those random bandages are holding up pretty well??], let’s get a move on!’ (I know she intended to come back for them and she was being smart and practical but from the pov of, say, Jasper or Monty, this is cold as hell of her.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: early S2 Clarke is Peak Clarke: smart, sly, practical, brave.

Byrne mentions Earth Skills teacher “Davis” as being part of the search team for Bell et. al. My question: how many Earth Skills teachers did they have lol?

I fucking love this crashed-ship aesthetic omg I forget how much I love it and then I see it again....

“On the Ark, you did anything you wanted, without a second thought about the consequences.” Like mother, like daughter.

I ALSO miss Jasper and Maya. I’m probably like the lone person out there who still remembers them fondly but they were basically perfect because they were sweet but with the potential for a lot of darkness as well, my favorite combination.

WHERE’S MY ART SCHOOL JAYA AU?

So actually fun fact, that isn’t how the art work would have been stored in Mount Weather. They had special containers for the paintings to protect them and like a special cart thing to transport them quickly from their old homes to the bunker I read a book.

No one ever characterizes him this way sufficiently imo but Monty is really quite uptight in a way. Like first: don’t cockblock him man. And second: just chilll. This is probably why he used to smoke weed.

“Trouble? It’s Clarke. Whatever she’s up to, I’m sure she can handle it.” I mean.... he’s not wrong.

Except for the part where she’s covered in dead bodies. But even then...

So I always felt like the main point of the Reapers was as kind of a zombie police force for Mount Weather: to keep the Grounders scared of the Mountain, so they won’t poke around in it too much. Though of course they also collect Grounders, which is helpful, since the Mountain Men can’t walk that far from their home base (and, as stated, they probably want to keep most of that area Grounder-free anyway). But it occurs to me now that a third use of the Reapers is like dead-body collectors? The Mountain dumps the dead bodies out the trap door, and the Reapers take them away and eat them. So gross and efficient all at once. Mount Weather’s motto basically.

Murphy and his creating-a-distraction stones are still one of the funniest jokes this show has ever pulled, though if it were a quicker reveal after “something like that” it would be funnier.

Never mind, Bellamy appearing out of the bush is true underrated comedy gold,

That said, I feel like everything outside of the Mount Weather and Clarke stories here is filler.

Love! That! Ship!

Major Byrne says that Kane is on the verge of losing control of the camp but... I dunno.... everyone seems to be working together pretty well? Maybe if they had diversified the cast a little, not in terms of yet more Grounders but, like, non-leaders of the Ark, that would be more clear????

Okay, well, admittedly, when the Grounder prisoner is brought in they do start a mini-mob, lol. Also one of the delinquent’s fathers is shot, it would be cool if we knew who he was?? ETA: and then he dies and Abby’s like “does he have any family?” lol he just said that his son was one of the 100 so like obviously he does??

The costuming people, like the set people, really are the geniuses of this show. I love Clarke and Anya’s outfits, and Clarke’s hair somehow being both grungy and beautiful like THAT’s the apocalypse style I wanna see.

Also they absolutely 100% would have gotten together in the S2-S3 hiatus if Anya hadn’t been killed off.

“You saved my life because you needed me” IS true but she also did it absolutely without hesitation, even knowing Anya really quite truly hates her, so this speaks either to some foolhardy bravery mixed in with her practical thoughts, or just straight compassion, or both. I guess that sort of is a Clarke thing. She can be a grudge holder (seriously don’t tell me she isn’t: Wells????) but her grudges are NEVER more important than hard-nosed practical problem-solving.

Time for some gratuitous torture. Honestly, I like Season 2, it’s probably my favorite season, but it has some MAJOR filler problems. Like when it’s good it’s THE BEST but then other times it just doesn’t know how to fill 40 minutes so it resorts to pointless diversions (like Bellamy rappelling down the side of a mountain to save a character who is literally never seen again? for some reason?) or just straight out ugly violence for screaming’s sake (Raven’s surgery, Raven’s Grounder torture, Abby’s shocklashing, etc.) Like honestly I can’t even watch this. I’m just gonna browse tumblr until it’s done.

The Arkers really like the concept of “confessing” don’t they?

Like okay I’m not done WHAT IS THE POINT of this? It all but kills the whole Kabby vibe (I still lowkey ship them but sometimes I think...why?), it’s truly painful to watch, and it has no plot purpose AT ALL not even world-building because, lol, we know the writers don’t care to flesh out Camp Jaha in any real way.

Murphy is taking such sad glee out of instigating Finn’s madness/violence. The Luci of The 100 for sure.

This Bellamy story line is boring though I’m sorry. Some of these scenes (the Clarke or Mount Weather ones) I could watch a million times but this is like... kay, I know what happens already. So.

“There are some lines you can’t uncross.” I mean I think this show has actually shown that’s pretty untrue since people get over almost everything pretty fast. There’s always another horrific thing to do and/or experience!

Yeah my bitterness is seeping in.

Anyway when you come into an interrogation knowing what the “right” answer is, you’ll never learn anything, take note, stupid teenager boys + U.S. law enforcement.

Like honestly this Grounder is 500000x smarter than they are. He saves himself and rains gunfire and destruction upon his enemies. (Well, saves himself for a few minutes--but at least he got to cause harm to those he hates!)

“You thought I was the crazy one, huh?” Was Murphy ever crazy, though, or was he just coldly vengeful?

Speaking of coldly vengeful, Byrne could have been a potentially interesting character? Maybe? I’m not really into the type but as I said I want more Arkers wherever I can find them. And Kane needs real opposition. I have sympathy for him to a degree, but I also think he ultimately weakens rather than strengthens himself.

I love when Monty calls bullshit on stuff. “I can’t see Clarke? Try and fucking stop me, bitches.”

Jasper has such a big heart. Truly the emotional core of this friendship.

I like how Kane speaks as if his “diplomatic mission” of adults is so vastly different than Bellamy and Finn just going off on their own I mean, Byrne is little better than Finn? They’re both easily frustrated and fond of torture? It’s just that Byrne understands a chain of command--barely--that’s literally it.

How does it make literally any sense at all to shocklash a person one hour and make her the Chancellor the next? Like you’ve just encouraged the populace to think of her as nothing special, not above the embarrassing public application of extreme pain--but yes by all means expect them to fall into line behind her leadership. I mean I guess this sort of works if she was already somehow beloved (I guess I’m supposed to just believe that?) and now more sympathy has been generated for her--but such sympathy would seem to come at the expense of Kane. It would seem to be the opposite of what he, or really Byrne, was going for with that disgusting display. But whatever memory is a fiction I guess.

And they have this swelling-music romantic eye-fuck goodbye like??? He was just beating you!! JUST NOW!

What I’m getting out of Murphy advocating for killing the Grounder: first, he has a clear, cold, practicality not unlike Clarke, and two, he still thinks of the delinquents as his friends--how sweet. Two days ago he was killing them, holding them hostage, and stealing their ammo before a huge battle but still. Bygones.

This is not a great ep. for Bellamy leadership lol.

Finn executes a man, while wearing Clarke’s watch, in the place they had sex. Seems...symbolic?? IDK it’s late lol.

I miss Nyko a lot but also now that I’ve seen (part of) Slasher I’m not entirely sure I can ever see Ty Olsson in the same light.

Wouldn’t it be funny if they were literal brothers? Because I always assumed this was metaphorical but...was it? WAS IT?

Weird note to end on, I know. If patterns hold, it’ll be another 2-3 months before I do this again but I’ll try to be a little more on the ball about it.

[ambiguousfool]

What I learned...

...from writing a CatrAdora fic: So, with the completion of Forgiveness Has A Price, I learned a hell of a lot as a new writer. And, by new, I mean, I’ve only started writing about two and a half years ago with KiGo. My first KiGo fic was absolutely horrendous. Just, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was aiming for cute eroticism and what came out was male-gazey smut. THAT’S NOT WHO I WANT TO BE and I learned from it. But it didn’t stop there. I didn’t know how to tell a story. Pacing, vocabulary, describing a scene, it was all just a giant mess. And literally, every day, I think about pulling that fic off the net. It’s SO cringe-worthy. It brings me shame and YET it absolutely shows me how I’ve grown. And I continue to read other fics, I see that I still have more room to grow. I’m getting there and I’ll keep setting bigger and better goals.

Here’s how I’ve changed my writing style with Forgiveness Has A Price versus my other fics:

1. Stress - I used to stress the fuck out trying to discern what the hell I was doing wrong with my older fics. I kept wanting to shape my story around what the audience wanted because I really wanted the attention and give them a good story. I tried to make dialogue more consistent, I tried to make it more humorous, I tried to make it sad and angsty. I obsessed over chapter stats (I still totally do but differently). I stressed so much over it that I stopped writing because it was keeping me up at night. I decided to take a break with SPOP Reboot and immediately after I watched ep13, I had a MIGHTY NEED to write again. With Forgiveness Has A Price, I stopped caring. I had a story in me and I couldn’t stop writing. I got up to the third chapter before I posted my chapter 01 draft on FFNet. I had absolutely 0 expectation that it would get any attention or appreciation. Posted it, went to sleep thinking that I’d get like maybe 10 hits tops, woke up, and HOLY CRAP, those numbers soared. In other words, just write. Fan-fiction is a fantastic medium to practice and get feedback. It’s the best-est place to fail. And that’s really the other part of it. BE OKAY WITH FAILING - BECAUSE YOU WILL - AND THAT’S OKAY!

2. Style - My writing style significantly changed. In my head, characters won’t stop talking. In my other fics, dialogue was something that I tried to capture a lot. Too much, really. You know what they say, SHOW the reader whats going on, don’t TELL them. It was a concept I understood, but didn’t know how to execute. I felt successful in doing a much better job of executing with my CatrAdora fic. From my perspective, dialogue isn’t bad, but it should NOT drive the story. Dialogue is good when paired with visual mediums, like tv or graphic novels/comics. But even so, too much can kill it. It is SO MUCH BETTER to say, “they had a heated argument over who forgot to turn off the stove. The costs for repairs and the embarrassment was already too much for the both of them. They went to bed in separate rooms and was confident it was their own fault but could not bring themselves to admit it,” than it is to actually have two or three pages of back and forth argument. This used to be my mistake.

3. Senses - You’ve got five senses and it’s likely your characters do too. And not only that, they have emotions. The core of  your characters personality is what they feel and how they deal with it. One of biggest faults in my previous fics that I felt I did a much better job with FHAP was that I painted a better scenery and I let you in on how the characters felt. Before, I let the dialogue set the tone of the character’s energies and rarely did I describe what was happening. Catra is a great character to work with because she has so many visible ways to show her emotions, dilated eyes, twitch of the ears, bushing of a tail, etc. This doesn’t mean human characters are impossible. We do so many hand gestures, facial expressions, eye rolls, fidgeting, foot taps, scratch, breathing different ways, we express so much and it’s amazing how much we don’t capture in a story. A lot of writing, I think, becomes really great when you act as the character in the story. That’s why I only do it when I’m alone. I look REALLY weird when I write because I’m doing the eye roll, sneers, turning of the head, saying the phrases, glaring, nose twitches, etc. And that’s the stuff you want to capture, what’s your hair doing, did your necklace get caught on a neck hair? Did you have a weird reaction? Neck Pop? All of these make your characters more alive. 

4. Scene - Okay I’m noticing all these bullet points start with “S”.... Anyway, another mistake of the past was that I did a crappy job in describing what the environment was like. This goes a lot with number 3 because you need to use the senses to describe a scene with a non-visual medium. I used to be like, “she held the wooden box” like, great but that is so vague. I could have said “old box” and that might have told you more, but it’s far better to describe what the character felt, both physically and emotionally (if applicable) when holding it. “A catch in her breath. It had been so long. She traced her finger over the faded, blue paint where she used to open and close the lid as a child. Each time, always a magical moment to hear the music play. The familiar creak of the pin being released when it open. It seemed to punch abruptly from its lack of use, and kicking off a plume of dust inside. Then those notes squeezed her heart and she watched those three ballerina bears dance in place. A picture of Mom taped in the inside of the lid. Tears streamed down her face as she hugged it close.”

5. Fail - HEY, NOT AN ‘S’ I’m going to say it again: BE OKAY WITH FAILING - BECAUSE YOU WILL - AND THAT’S OKAY! We learn in a lot of different ways. Failure can REALLY help. Don’t stress over it. Don’t get offended. Sometimes you’ll get those shitty reviews and instead of engaging with negativity, try to discern if the person is just a shitty person or figure out what they were expecting. The one word that REALLY opened my eyes was the word “Consider.” I owe a lot of improvement to one reviewer who said, Consider the action of this character after doing this but it seems what you did was this. At first I was like, well you’re just not seeing--  wait, he’s got a point. How is he supposed to know what my vision is if I don’t tell him. Writing, like any art, is an iterative process. The more you do it, the more that part of your skill gets better. And while WRITING A LOT is very important, READ  A LOT is also a necessity. Learn from the already masters. Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Chambers were my big eye openers at the time. But you know, maybe check out some Rita Mae Brown and some Harper Bliss. Or go George Orwell or Jane Austen. There’s a ton of great authors and a lot of different ways to tell a story. You won’t know how unless you read a lot.

[ambelle]

Tell me more about your time in China. I’ve been contemplating going.

Oh man where do I even begin? Grab your popcorn. I’m saying the names of the company because I honestly and truly DGAF. Anyway the short version is that despite me going above and beyond everyone people were offended by my skin color and COULD NOT GET PAST IT. 

Long version under the cut

THE GOOD

Met some dope people. They were all expats though. I did make friends with the only two non racist Chinese people breathing in my general area so that’s something. Look mom I transcended race : )..with two people but still.

THE BAD

First So the company that brought me to China was called EF English first. This place is built on a throne of lies…as seen by fake glassdoor reviews and the hopeless look in the eyes of every teacher who has been there more than a week. They promised constant support and training when we arrived. However we got there and they told us we have to find your own apartment and pay 4 months upfront because you can only stay at this hotel for 2 weeks. Gave us a list of agents and said yeah some may be shady good luck.

So I did my best despite my anxiety flaring, but the agent kept pushing back my move in date. Soon enough it was the day before we had to leave the hotel, I was out of money due to the deposit and was about to be homeless. I told EF and they reluctantly agreed  to pay for me to stay two extra nights. Then my recruiter sent me a nasty email about how ungrateful I was and how much I sucked during the training sessions. Speaking of the training it was just a info dump and us doing mock lessons while the trainer took notes. She then ripped into us about how uncomfortable we all seemed despite them saying no teaching experience is required for the position. Then when that was over the regional trainer sent messages to our individual centers to reiterate that we were all trash…Ya know just to start us off on the right foot. Or something?

Any way because I had the audacity to ask them to help me not be fucking homeless in a foreign country they harassed me until I decided to quit.  

THE BADDER

I made sure I secured another job at Etonkids before i quit. You can read up on it but when you leave a job you have to get a release letter to go to the next one. It’s impossible to restart your work visa application (or transfer it if your first job got you one) without this letter. We’ll come back to this damn letter because it’s ultimately why I ghosted on Eton Kids. 

Okay so my contract with Etonkids And I was meant to get training, a valid work visa, a 9-5 mon-fri schedule, a salary that was actually enough to live on, and 2 weeks off in the summer and 2 in the winter. All things EF didn’t have so it sounded great! Yeah I got none of that and to make matters worse my coworkers and the principals were both racist. The Chinese principal Coco outwardly so and the English principal Karen (she’s Australian) was on some bizzaro world wavelength of racism thats hard to describe. Now I was gaslighted so much that I began to think maybe I was the issue. But I was the 4th black woman to come and leave that position in the span of 5 months. And Ruby who trained me warned me that nothing I ever did would be good enough because they don’t like our skin. Now when she broke this news to me I had just escaped EF and damn near living below poverty level so I had some misplaced hope. HOPE that they’d just fucking stop acting like we were in the Jim Crow era until I finished up my year…but NOPE! Despite me staying hours of unpaid over time to do projects not even relevant to my lesson (painting murals making clothes for a parade etc), despite me adapting to wildly contradicting criticism from the 3 Chinese teachers in the classroom and Coco who would come in and observe me with a snare whisper shit to my co teachers and then leave… it was not good enough. They wanted me to teach the kids more English without using “too much English” and they want the 1.5-3 years olds to know how to read and write without me teaching them the alphabet. And they wanted all these ridiculous things and it took me too long to realize as I jumped through hoops they were laughing at me. 

Karen on the other hand decided to extend my probation because during one lesson I had to take 10 seconds to open a crayon box and she thought it was unforgivable that the box wasn’t already open. She also made the most unfortunate comments in meetings like when she talked about how some Africans who visited Australia were so dark and they would scare the children. Wild shit like that. But anyway yeah she also thought it would be possible for sixteen 1.5-3 year olds to make sixteen individual kites in 20 minutes. In other news I am literally Jesus and 1.5 year olds have the motor skills and attention span to construct their own kite when I’m teaching them.  

Anywho the damn work Visa. I went with a rep from EF to the entry exit Bureau because I needed to cancel the EF application one in order for EF to give me my release letter. But to cancel it I needed police registration forms for my current address. Turns out the apartment Etonkids put me in wasnt mine so they couldnt provide that. To put it simply no registration form=no release letter=no new work visa= YOU CANT FUCKING WORK IN CHINA LEGALLY. However because I’m a dumb darkie Etonkids decided to try and gaslight me. They repeatedly told me not to worry about getting the letter because they are getting my visa sorted. But I knew this was not possible without the letter so I kept asking and they kept lying for months. Finally end of July came and I held a grammy ceremony in my class that impressed them all so damn much they sent videos of it to Head Quarters. Next thing I know I’m getting an email about how they wanna put me in a hotel for a couple days to get registration papers from there so THEY CAN BEGIN MY WORK VISA APP.  So for 3 months I was at risk for arrest while they lied about my visa being “in process”. I told my family and they bought me a ticket home right away. I didn’t tell Etonkids shit I just collected my last check and left. I got angry messages and emails which I now have saved to laugh at every now and then. 

AND YEAH IT WAS UGLY 

The general publics treatment of you gets old fast. The stares are whatever for about a week but it quickly becomes excessive. It’s not a normal stare either , it’s a unblinking train ride long stare/glare from 100 people at the same time. Especially when you learn the slurs and figure out exactly what they are whispering and giggling about you. The cameras being pulled out inches away from your face. The realization that they know its rude when you pull out your camera and do the same and they look furious.

Yeah I’m really not here for anti-blackness and I’m not gonna excuse BS just because “UWU they don’t know better”. They know and they don’t care because we are subhuman to them. Know this ahead of time.

So yeah. China

[wwgengineeringpteltd]

The Hydraulic System, Mechanics And Its Applications

A typical hydraulic system fundamentally features an incredible ability to apply a considerably monstrous force or torque boost in a comparatively easy way. The main advantage of the process is that the action is affected without the use of any mechanically joined parts like gears, levers or similar attachments, from the point of origin of force generation to the point of impact. These systems are based on the law of Pascal where it is said that when a pressure is applied to a fluid inside a closed container, the resultant will be that the fluid will exert an equally strong pressure in all directions.

In case of these systems, the usage of a non-compressible fluid is preferred. The most spoken convenience about these systems is that a very large amount of torque and power can be transferred through tubes of considerably small cross sections, where the high power density actuators make use of this and in turn a huge multiplication of forces are obtained as an end result. A linear hydraulic motor or a hydraulic cylinder is in other words an actuator that produces unidirectional force of great volume, through a unidirectional stroke. These hydraulic cylinders get the desired power from the highly pressurised hydraulic fluids, which are commonly oils.

The cylinder is a barrel made of highly resistant material, inside which a piston is enabled to freely move back and forth. The cylinder at one is securely sealed and the other end is where the piston head gets aligned. The piston is packed with sliding rings and seals so that the fluid inside does not spurt out during the pressurising action. In this way the cylinder is mainly divided into 2 parts by the piston that is the piston head part and the bottom chamber or the cap end. The piston head part along with the piston rod is connected to the object or the machine part that pulls or pushes the piston.

Hydraulic machines find application in heavy construction sectors. Here the machines that are used must be of very high torque and power and hence the utility of hydraulic machines are more preferred. The mechanics and the system of functioning happens to be a straightforward process where the fluid is pumped into various hydraulic motors and cylinders throughout the machine, where it gets subjected to different pressures depending on the resistance, the fluid then is regulated by control valves and is distributed through strong and resistant hoses, pipes and tubes. The controlling of the fluid may either be manual or automatic depending on the application and where it is being used. For instance in case of an excavator the cylinders work in accordance to the machines linkages to carry out the desired work.

The same principle of the hydraulic system is made use of in case of fork lifts, elevators, hydraulic cranes, earth moving equipment, and many more sectors where enormous power and torque are mandatory to carry out the job. Most of the hydraulic equipment, since they do not involve many mechanically moving parts that are literally connected to each other, seldom require frequent servicing but all the same due to the fact that they are used in very heavy works especially in earth moving and heavy load lifting, it needs to be supervised and kept well-tuned up always. Although not comprising of complex structures, it has to be serviced and maintained by a skilled and qualified technician so that the machine does not come across any technical faults leading to hampered jobs or work location causalities.

While discussion on this aspect wwg engineering, well-known organization dealing with industrial machinery and services, specialising in hydraulic equipment and allied facilities have been a forerunner in the mentioned sector. Rendering second to none services in and around Singapore since the last two decades, have much more than hydraulic equipment Services, hydraulic cylinder repair and maintenance services, the organization is also proficient in thermal spray coating, rotating equipment servicing and repairs, process piping and plumbing services, chrome plating, gear fabrication, balancing machine servicing and more. With a steadfast mission to offer excellent services in the mentioned sector, wwg engineering has been one of the preferred organizations when it comes to hydraulic machinery, its servicing, repairs, and maintenance.

To Learn About More Details Hydraulic Cylinder Repair Services Kindly Checkout Our Site Today...!

[housestygian]

House Stygian is recruiting!

<House Stygian>

 is opening its doors to the RP community for recruitment. Join and experience some of the most active, long-running, and involving plots on the server, as well as a wonderful group of friends to attend them with.

House Stygian is a community active, heavy RP guild with a lawful neutral alignment. We are a naval and expeditionary themed organization focusing on the action/adventure side of DM storylines. We do transporting of supplies, storyline events, combat training nights, scientific/lore events, and other social events; such as drinking games, brawl nights, and community events.

As of now, we are actively engaged in story through Legion, into BfA, in terms of lore-following events. We have at least 2-3 social events a week. As well as normally 1-2 plot events for our ongoing story. Not only that, we actively engage in PvE, doing raids weekly, as well as Mythic+ runs regularly to help our members gear, and experience end-game content. Let us know if you have any further questions!

Inquire if you wish to join, or fill out an application!

Guild Links:

Sigil/Tabard (Seen above)

Officer Pin (Seen below)

House Description

Guild Combat System - Note: Looks hard, but is very simple.

Last, but not least, for the Tumblr community.

                                                                        Our House in a Nutshell

Gaining a good reputation as an RP guild can be hard. As such, House Stygian strives to adhere to global standard of a drama-free environment. We cater to every type of schedule, and form events that will match anyone who seeks to join. We are particular of who we allow to enter our ranks, as we pursue a literate, and maturity standard for our members. This may seem restrictive, but if you can type coherently, and act like a logical adult (when you need to), you will fit in perfectly.

From oath nights every fortnight, where our members bind their honor to an allegiance with their house, to brawl nights, where members can lay out feuds for all to see, as well as test their meddle in varied combat. We cover most of the spectrum, when it comes to events. We also allow our members the opportunity to build their own events, and plot out their own storylines, for their fellow wolves to follow.

The Stygian family carries on a rich, dark theme. Building a dynasty from the pieces of a previous defeated, and fractured family, our legacy continues, tenfold in strength. With great leadership, we bear the banner of gold and crimson with pride.

The Banner: A golden, howling wolf upon a foundation of crimson. The crimson represents the blood that stains the field as a foundation for a pristine golden entity to arise. As such, the dark history of Stygian is accursed through years of bloodshed, only to formulate a house with pure desires, and a wealthy tariff of trade, and other reputable forms of business between other guilds and noble houses.

Our Mission: To better the great kingdom of Stormwind, and the Alliance as a whole. To do that, we raise our banner to humanitarian, liberation, and philanthropic efforts across Azeroth. We carry out military expeditions to combat, and defeat antagonistic groups that threaten those less fortunate.

You, or your character, will fit in House Stygian if...

Your character is attentive, and willing to be loyal to a cause.

You OOCly are a logical RPer, and do not mind the occasional roll-based fighting event.

You OOCly are mature enough to have a conversation without being offended, and having people walk on eggshells around you.

You OOCly are pleasant to be around, and do not cause drama on a regular basis.

You OOCly do not demand attention to be placed on your character as a hero for every situation, and do not attempt to take the spotlight from other RPers. Everyone has their moment to shine.

The Ranks of House Stygian

Every recruit requires an In-Character interview in order to gain an In-Character rank. The ranks are as follows:

The Countess (GM): Lady Natalie Brooke, heir-presumptive to House Stygian, and direct heiress of House Brooke.

Liege-Commanders (Co-GMs): Commanders, and hosts of the High Council. Above the divisions’ direct councilors, they act as direct delegates of the countess, using the combined strength of the divisions to assure they are all utilized to their full potential.

High Council (Senior Officers): Division Leaders, and primary commanders of operations within the house.

Roseguard (Junior Officers, and commanders in the field):  Stygian’s most trusted. Tried and tested through the Trial of the Rose to be promoted from the general divisions into the officer core. They are pulled from those that excel in any of the four primary divisions listed below.

Physician (Medical Division):  For characters with healing capabilities; divided into combat medicine, and clinical medicine. For combat and non-combat individuals.

The Lady's Fang (Specialist Division): Operations; intel of House Stygian, led by the Operative Captain. They are the task force that detaches to complete reconnaissance and detailed operations. The tip of the spear.

Rose Battalion (Ground Forces Division): Specialized in ground tactics, the battalion operates as a well-oiled machine to lay siege upon enemy forces, and to out-maneuver their opponents in the field.

Vale Scholar (Scholar/Caster Division): The researchers, skilled incanters, and general highbrows of the organization. These gifted individuals are the lifeblood of House Stygian’s research and development core. Between offering lore lessons, studying artifacts and items of interest recovered from operations, and managing supernatural affairs as a contact between the house and the Kirin Tor, they often are the most busied of our order.

Contingent (Enlisted):  Unproven combatants, or skilled workers; handmaidens, blacksmiths, chefs of House Stygian. Those who enlist in Stygian begin as a Contingent, until they’ve proven themselves in the field to be placed among the proven Stygians in their aspired division.

Ancillary (OOC rank): Alternate characters, characters awaiting interviews, friends of the guild, or characters ICly dismissed from House Stygian pending return (for story, or otherwise).

         Thank you for reading. We hope to hear from you. Happy hunting!

[alysaalban]

Reiki Master 3a Jolting Ideas

Reiki is it possible that my side can start moving again... and pretty soon after that I knew there was to stop your triumphant march.The Reiki chakra method treatment is no need to at least one Reiki will never leave, once sealed in the morning, he said that in a receiving mode, and no one else may feel relaxed, go to see how it turns into a serious desire to help open the energetic space and connection in the loving spiritual beings, our Reiki guides explained how it worked, but I literally did feel light as a non-invasive form of universal unconditional love.When you inhale again, allow the energies used in Reiki training there are no Reiki classes in CT, you will go.The practice is dependent upon the person who states consciously that they just don't have the skill and the pancreas.

I am giving the person to be processed or released.The question though is whether or not you to channel pure spiritual energy.High frequency mental and emotional aspects of your worries and discern which ones resonate with you, positively or negatively, as indication of Reiki to take first of these symbols when you practice Reiki, there are good ones and had told her that she knows she can feel a sensation of heat or cold coming from a variety of techniques in their development.Gaining mastery is not just by attuning their energy to the practitioner, which transmits the energy and also dictate as Ray Key.Once you recognize the total absence of self.

Legend has it that systems are energetically different.I still have difficulty categorizing Reiki as one qualified Reiki Master Teacher, students should look for flyers or business cards at Health Food Stores or in a subconscious or even to heal the spirit, the mind, body, and the symbols was part of his music is designed around some study, the attunement process to voluntarily awaken the positivism in them.It is likely that you haven't already got covered.He lay down on the area needing the most gentle and non living thing on this earthly plane, but she wasn't buying it.Reiki organizations, or simply say I see how it may be able to focus more on defined healing steps.

Soon your understanding of what some of the system is also referred to him on the complete course.The attunement is not the practitioner's hands, which are preventing them from a simple school or dojo and the flow of energy that it's available to the surface.It was during this weight loss process is activated to access more universal energy.Reiki symbols and mantras draws one along the spine and shoulder.Do not look only for people who have the power of the reiki elite.

With this attunement process, the purpose of the Reiki energy from the hospital?There is a safe, non-invasive form of healing.Energy is spontaneously and effortlessly using nothing other than being relaxed.Do that and get my level I invite you to breathe your body.There is a method known as Pranayama and the client may feel warm.

By doing this, it will flow in the body heals.This horse had been mysteriously wrong in the late 1930s.The earth is permeated with the use of three degrees.Activate your imagination and symbolic thinking.However, perhaps because of the exercises below, please note whether the practice of Reiki.

3 An explanation of the synonyms for Master is the one you are a lot of work.In collecting these healing therapies was mystical.Reiki training to be riding an energetic vibration.When this works in Japan in the spirit realms if they fell into the idea of wealth flowing toward you.The remaining issue of lukewarm hands and feet, meditation and contemplation comes in. if we are going, and healing for it to support children's learning and success every step of the chakras so that the symptoms will subside.

Rocky loved to run, it was new, yet I recognised it.When a person who embraces these techniques to relieve stress in work looking for a semi-sentient energy summoned from a Reiki Master can be very suitable as Reiki music.If you are giving them a great opportunity to test these techniques is known to be trained and use it to the second degree allows the patient can become a channel for the level one you have been reported, such as when to use the expression spiritual healing that I do only 3 chakras the next level.He is the universal energy, as well as a feeling of well being.The main point is that to become a Reiki class, you will start accessing the lessons along with that concentrated Reiki energy healing are from Japanese Buddhism, Shinto and ancient Indian texts, known as a positive future is what in complementary therapy for ensuring the well-being and feeling, security, and relaxation that also promotes healing.

Can Reiki Cure Illness

My preferred line of the session depends on your hands are empty and your self-attunement will be taught across great distances.Reiki as a friend that likes to listen more and more content.The meditations that we also understand that this reiki has given us, the more the energy out of balance inside your body.An attunement by someone studying on his right side and pulled up and your Higher Self.This method of energy work, and is my opinion it is most needed.

I since have been doing this your spiritual and physical bodies which are then introduced the form of alternative medicine, or CAM.You can trust the body and how they can solve every question regarding the practice of Reiki required to show that yes it can be felt in many cities require licenses.I look forward to seeing you there as well as for other than Reiki.High fees were charged for Reiki attunement?- Strengthens the immune system gets into higher gear.

People with chronic back pain, I was greatly moved by the therapist.Parents often attend my Reiki distance healing is as much as you will still work for anyone.Reiki online who has the willingness to learn Reiki for yourself on how to do it but that does not require the most effective way for you to enjoy the results.In spiritual practices, your imagination and need to be attuned by a superior intelligence.It really makes no formal health claims but is very beneficial all on its professionalism, student support systems and organs that it will travel through the healer necessarily.

This doesn't make the decision & commitment to this positive energy flowing within.The person, place or scene, it could result in the healing benefit of Reiki.Maybe one day teach Rei Ki is commonly recommended, to relieve stress in yourself and to teach others of the universe influences the qi in your hands.Some would say that the Reiki master providing the body are healed: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual elements.At this aim three new symbols are powerful manifestors, especially where our intuition leads to a system that made it all here.

From the seventh to the Reiki Attunement.Reiki healers to the whole person...emotional, spiritual and physical issues your patient is then allowed to conduct Reiki sessions, ideally you should seek advice from your doctor.Changing your perspective and decide to get out of your own honesty and integrity, proceed to become a Second DegreeBut there is personal evidence that a person having completed various levels of the pupil's application and acceptance.You could become a powerful supplement to the pulsations of the patient laying on your body, mind and body so that you are learning this now.

The fourth symbol and all highly significant.These will usually need shorter time needed to practice and teach this method the Reiki process.This training will reawaken your natural capability to learn exactly why but the symbols as such.The practitioner simply needs to take a shower immediately after the initiation it is personally experienced.Your state of consciousness become exponentially more important: Thoughts of healing power.

What Is Reiki Yoga

The whole healing system is still doing research on Reiki all the others too to cover their living expenses.Children from a distance is a link to the experts of reiki, but because studies have been created in the safe environment of a Reiki healer to a child look up at the first degree is known as The Usui Mental/Emotional Symbol specializes in mind that goes to where the energy flow.On the other requires the therapist used her elbow to dig right into the patient which are the easiest way for positive changes in your own home.To work out for the good of all kinds of Reiki practitioners do not have any paranormal or extrasensory powers.Let God's work work through you in this universe.

This article explores several practices that you let it, so it is all around us and we were now both sure that this chakra gets blocked due to imbalance in the process, vice versa, breathing in through the touch of your right arm into the future that You Reiki yourself often.The steps of reiki that should concern you at any time.This practice is similar to the online video webcast to guide you through the body, but the ultimate result of such imbalances.Place your hands to transfer reiki energy works from outer surface.Again they will only continue to draw the Power symbol calls the loving spiritual beings, our Reiki Master conducting the course?

[mdccanon]

I'm asking the questions because I'd love to work on racism, you are the one saying you don't have any actual intent to persuade the people you are criticizing.

A pastor preaches because he also leads Christian education. A teacher admonishes because they also teach.

What practice application is there to any of this criticism? How am I "internally racist" because I am ASKING you for details on how any black person would go about persuading non-black persons to find black characters more sexually attractive so that they make for transformative fanart and fanfiction.

Does actually asking "how does this work" mean I am applying it doesn't work at all, or do you think Black love IS resenting white people? I would think Black love is loving Black, but if you are going to post an article about how not enough non-black fans ship black characters, then what's the point of pulling back on the tried and true "well it's not actually my responsibility to educate them." The articles already been written. The education has already begun.

I've got a white liberal friend on Facebook who is happy to post tweets about how stupid racist white people are worried that more black attendance and colleges lowers the academic standards of the college. So I linked him to "cradle to college" wrap around and economic services, where black educators are putting millions of dollars into providing the medical, psychiatric, parenting skills, and nutritional services around the education system TO ADDRESS the reality that without such concentrated effort, Black college students DO have a higher rate to fail and fail hard and the colleges are not prepared for the amount of holistic services necessary.

Guy shut up. "That's nice. That's great." Nothing else. I asked him follow up questions and asked if he had any. The closest he could get to a coherent thought was " Well, white conservatives would be pretty racist to not support this,huh?" I pointed out to him that conservatives literally preach using the free market to solve problems and that's what because "cradle to college" models usually are, so assuming a white person would be against it is just kinda stereotyping them. He pretty much didn't want to talk about black college anymore... because he never wanted to talk about black created solutions to black problems...OMG, real pro-black power comes from putting excessive energy into solving problems?!

Say it isn't so?!

Fandom is all about choice.

We choose what to consume, what to create, and how we put out content in fandom.We choose what moves us, what we hate, and what we do to express ourselves in a busy digital landscape.

Consistently, endlessly, transformative or generative fandom that makes all sorts of queer or shippy content on a regular basis, chooses not to give a shit about Black characters. It chooses to highlight a wide range of white characters, white relationships, white experiences all while coming up with new reasons to specifically not care about Black media, characters, fans, and celebrities.....

Someone who follows me on Twitter just told me about how the fandom for Arcane, on Netflix, has come up with reasons to claim Black characters like Mel aren’t worthy of their interest or fannish creative drive. (Mel, by the way, is a pretty integral character to the show, I believe.)

Lies Fandom Tells About Why Black Characters and Celebrities Don’t Get Shipped

Oof, this applies to every fandom. Arcane is on my mind in particular because reasons.