#he’s THE personification of a time bomb

[stressed24seven]

ooh he’s angry (this is a cry for help)

[beardedhandstoadshark]

TP Link really is the guy ever.

My man‘s a goofy horse girl who loves goats, sumo wrestles gorons, makes soup for Yetis, collects insects for a girl roleplaying princess parties and holds dogs and cats like puppies, yet almost the entire fandom makes him a brooding edgelord because the color palette of the game is kinda muted and he‘s technically a werewolf.

You can howl songs in this game and he always does a little spin at the end. He plays hide and seek with a town full of cats. He lives in a treehouse and has pictures of goats framed on the walls. You can pet the goats and play fetch with the castle town doggies. He‘s so happy over a cave full of pots to break that they placed the "Happy Link“ Miiverse stamp in said cave. He loves to go shopping in Castle Town. He sticks lit bombs onto arrows to shoot them, and somehow makes it work. He carried a whole barrel of water across half the country with his hands because a Goron was sweating. He sumo wrestles goats, too. He’s a bit of a show-off. If you do any of the sick sword moves he learnt from his dead skeleton gramps and press a, he does a fancy sword sheathing move with a smirk because he feels so cool. He likes to scare the castle town guards as a wolf. He befriends a chicken lady and her flying head son via dungeoncrawling. He set a building full of bombs on fire because of a bug inside. He’s got literal puppy eyes. He let himself get shot off a canon, twice. And got carried away by a giant monster bird, also twice. One of those times was for a minigame where you collect fruit. He eats bee larvae and jello from the ground. He goes snowboarding with the Yetis on a frozen leaf. That he obtains by rolling headfirst into a tree. He shows kindness to strangers as helps out his companion way past what she asked of him even when she was pretty mean because he knows it’s the right thing to do. He defeats the personification of a dead gods‘ anger with a fishing rod he got from his adoptive little bro who wants to be just like him.

TP Link is the guy ever.

[thedeathdeelers]

im still kind of obsessed with the use of colours to represent sunjae and sol.

blue and yellow

two complimentary colours that are directly opposite each other in the colour wheel (considered as harmonious colours)

a colour that represents the sun, warmth, summer- a joyous colour representing positivity and hope: a colour that sol often dresses in, house surrounded by sunflowers, the colour of her umbrella- the colour sunjae probably associates with Sol (as well as her sunny disposition and bright smile). not to mention her name referring to the personification of sun in roman mythology

PLUS WHENEVER SHE GOES BACK IN TIME ITS ALWAYS IN THE SUMMER

and then the other one that represents the sky, water, the cold, winter- and often seen as a colour that portrays sadness and melancholy - a colour and emotion that aptly describes sunjae, especially before sol walks into his life. swimming, his bedroom, his umbrella- heck even the gate to his house. and the fact that he has always had this metaphorical cloud over his head following him around because of his injury and the ticking time-bomb that is his swim career

and whenever he dies it’s in the winter

but when u bring them both together, mix them together, u get a colour that represents life, spring — a colour for new beginnings, regrowth and renewal

which is what we see whenever sol and sunjae get together in any of their timelines, and also when they get engaged

their love symbolises spring and the soft fluttering of cherry blossom petals that comes with it

and honestly maybe that’s why whenever sunjae tried to confess or propose to sol by artificially creating a spring-like mood (ie inhyuk throwing petals during the summer), it never worked out

it wasn’t their time yet, sol wasn’t ready- still too stuck in her own “season”, in her own head and only seeing sunjae as her bias rather than a boy who was desperately in love with her. they still had ways to go until they could meet in the middle for it all to fall into place

[azaprocky]

┃ pairings ➣ 〔 ❛ platonic f1 drivers x reader ❜ 〕

┃ summary ➣ 〔 ❛ in which (Y/n) (Y/l/n) gets called out for being a player. ❜ 〕

┃ face claim ➣ 〔 ❛ Nailea Devora ❜ 〕

┃ warnings ➣ 〔 ❛ four timing, sexism❜ 〕

your.username posted a story

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f1rariupdates

liked by your.username, feri(y/n) and 356,958 others

f1rariupdates ‎ ‎ ‎ Abu Dhabi Grand Prix press conference with Ferrari's (Y/n) (Y/l/n) and Charles Leclerc, Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, and McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris.

tagged your.username, charles_leclerc, scuderiaferrari

view all 3,768 comments

feri(y/n)‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ another episode of (Y/n) slaying again

leclercf4n‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ "She's cheating on all of us with each other" — Daniel Ricciardo, 2022

kur00mi‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ my fav press conference ❤️

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"this question is for Ferrari's (Y/n) (Y/l/n), being one of the few female formula 1 drivers what are some things to expect for girls who also wanted to have a proffesion like yours?" The interviewer asked the Ferrari driver who seems quite impressed to the asked question, she had been waiting for this question for far too long now.

"Hmm, some things to expect are sexism and dating rumours, like tons of it! " the audience and her fellow drivers had laughed on what the 23 year old driver had said "Hey it's true though, Sexism is expected since you have a career in male dominated industry, people will doubt you, hate on you and will analyze whatever you are doing, even if you are getting so much hate from everyone don't let it get in your head." mutters surrounded the room as the Ferrari continued to answer the question

"Dating scandals or rumours will be your doom while being a female formula 1 driver, you cannot be seen hanging out with male drivers it will automaticaly be a headline on many news outlet, like look at these gentlemens I had been reported to either be dating or being engaged to these four which is unfortunate for me" The girl had her palm point to the drivers seating on her left side, Lewis had whispered something to Daniel's right ear, which causes the Australian to speak on the microphone

"oh okay cheater, actually everyone, she's four timing us" The female driver fake gasped "oh my gosh, how did you know!, my secret is revealed." the girl exclaimed putting a hand on her mouth pretending to be shocked

"we saw your schedule, lewis occupied your Monday and Tuesday, Charles occupies your Wednesday and Sunday, me and Lando occupies your Thursday, Friday and Saturday, you player." The Australian pretending to count on his fingers,

"Like how can you do that to your husband of 2 years" Lewis pointed to Daniel "your fiancé, me" "and your boyfriend and ex for 3 years" the British pointed out to the two who are now giggling like little girls "See they're now backstabbing you"

"I swear she can star as the player on one of the sza's song called, what is it called again?" Lando suddenly spoke to his mic in which the Mercedes driver answered

"the weekend, My man is my man, is your man, Heard it's her man too" The Mercedes driver sang a verse from the song clearly singing it to the 23 year old driver who's rolling her eyes

"And...AND out of all things you can replace on my behalf you chose a personification of a Greek god, a seven time world champion and has a whole three season of a Netflix show dedicated to him. I. Cannot. Believe. This." The Belgian driver acclaimed as he looks at the audience pretending to cry "this is why we don't fall in love people." Lewis announced to the audience while 'comforting' the younger McLaren driver.

"especially when it's a 23 year old female Ferrari driver who adopted a Maltese saying she can take care of it but in fact she can't even take care of herself " Charles finally spoke up, dropping the biggest bomb, in which the drivers and people laughed except for the 23 year old Ferrari driver

(Y/n) had thrown a middle finger to her older friend "Girl shut up nobody cares, anyways to all little girls who are watching this and dreaming of becoming a formula 1 driver, not just dream it make it real, and if you ever see this men like here don't be afraid to cuss them out"

"shush your mouth, actually everyone (Y/n) is actually dating one of us and it's the fella right he—" before Lando could even speak (Y/n) had thrown her shoe to the McLaren's driver "No, I'm not interested in dating someone right now, before this could escalate more deeper, everyone next question please!" The female driver pleads

the crowd erupts in a flood of laughter clearly enjoying the skit that happened in front of them, as the laughter dies down, another question had been asked.

your.username

liked by emmachamberlain, maya_hawke and 1,906,257 others

your.username ‎ ‎ ‎ Ladies and gentlemen, it was lovely to have you this year. See you next year, or not.

view all 75,890 comments

emmachamberlain‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ all for me?

your.username‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ yes

y/nnem‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ another episode of 'are they dating or just friends'

liked by creator!

landonorris‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ four timer

danielricciardo‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ player

charles_leclerc‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ cheater

lewishamilton‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ homie hopper

your.username‎ ‎ ‎ www.idontgiveafuckyourmomslovesmemore.com

carlossainz55‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ #teamy/n4ever

landonorris‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ cheater apologist — Daniel, Charles, and lewis

f1rariupdates‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ no thoughts just Charles, Lando, Daniel and Lewis not moving on from the press conference that happened 1 week ago

your.username‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ they're just insecure cuz I will always choose yuki over them

charles_leclerc‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ⁉️

scuderiaferrari‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 🫶

danric_‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ the last picture 😭

miko_148‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ so pretty for what

mirakase89‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ (Y/n) with grills will be the death of me

f1enthusiast‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ so hot

h0e4y/n‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ the princess and her 20 princes

luvf1‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ the fifth picture omg, I love them so much

[raconteur-wanpi]

ONE PIECE 1123

Dear lord I have so many thoughts I don't even know where to begin. This was a pretty short and lower stakes chapter compared to all the chaos and the bombs that came before it, but I think despite that, it gave me more revelations and thoughts than some of those ones did. It's all vague stuff like, it's soup in my brain but it just keeps getting more interesting.

Starting off with S-Snake continuously showcasing normal human behavior. I really like the insistence of the story of honing in that the Seraphim are, in fact, people. They are children. Their existence is horrific and it IS supposed to make you feel uneasy, especially comparing them to the rest of MADS' history of experiments. I do think, in a story about freedom, that these authority-chip-ridden-kids will eventually seek out their own freedom and independence to be people instead of weapons. Alber himself was a victim of MADS' experimentation, so was Kuma, Sanji, Mocha, every victim of the Smile fruits, hell- Bonney was a victim of the science of the Gorosei / Saturn. It's very interesting to continuously see Stella's role in all of this, and how Oda showcases that you could put the nicest guy alive into the same system as the most wretched monsters, and they will produce the same results. Which does bring me to this realization moving forward:

Sanji is in fact the person that was closest to the events of Vegapunk's death. He is specifically chosen out of all the strawhats to be the one to grapple with Vegapunks decision and sacrifice, and he is the only member of the strawhats to have experienced the horrors of MADS firsthand. I find that very interesting, it's looking at that dilemma of morality again. How do you judge a person who has spent years creating weapons of war, even if it's been the result of his naivete? How does a person who realizes what he has done, redeem himself? Death? Sacrifice? Admitting you can only throw your life away to undo the damage, to the face of someone who you know understands the horrors of such science? I don't know, it's interesting.

Going back a bit however, I think my favorite page in the chapter, is this. My god. Luffy thanking Emeth, full of joy, smile across his face in his Nika form, juxtaposed to the Iron Giant's dark unresponsive face. It's so moving and joyful and sad, genuinely. The brightness of the sun against the shadow of a sacrifice. Emeth in his "death" looks somehow both content and saddened. Luffy's recognition and gratitude towards him. OK. I'm fine. Damn.

Back to Vegapunk, this has been wild to see said textually when I've seen many people, myself included, discuss it. "Evil" and "Greed" being the two things Stella ended up leaving behind, despite his best efforts to do good. He recognizes greed was his downfall, his desire to continue building and discovering, without thinking about the consequences of it; just what we discussed earlier. It's also interesting that they all suspected Lilith at first, but she turned out not only to be innocent, but also a valuable ally in the battle and the only other survivor. Lilith leaving the garden, Stella being the forbidden apple (of knowledge) that brought about the downfall, the Gorosei being demonic entities that entered that space, it definitely is all very biblical. I wonder if Lilith will see a path towards becoming a more complete person, rather than, as Stella says here, a compartmentalized personification of "Evil". Similar to what I hoped for earlier with the Seraphim and Kuma (or even the Vinsmokes if you want to go there), a manifestation of full (rather than artificially partial or removed) personhood.

This is something I've been thinking about the entire time as well! Is Vegapunk really dead? Is it just his body? What does it mean to be able to keep your consciousness separate from said body? Within other people, even? Is he really dead as long Lilith and York are around? Is Stella himself, still in there, in Punk Records? Could you bring him back? Much to think about.

Aaaand closing in with my second favorite moment from this chapter. The confirmation we're going to Elbaf! Usopp being help up by the giants! His arc begins! I am so so giddy. I know I'm biased considering he's, well, my favorite One Piece character but, god. I am as nervous as hyped. I am so, so excited. This is delightful, he deserves this!

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Hey, here's a crazy thought;

The people of Devildom: The Realm-in-its-entirety must have an incredibly different image of Mammon than the people of Devildom: The Capital City.

Because they're gonna know Mammon as the Personification of Greed, the Second Most Powerful Sin, Lucifer's Right-Hand Man & one of the rulers of their entire Realm. They're going to watch or read interviews of Mammon or they're going to see his photoshoots and they're gonna see this:

He's serious. He's cool & calm. He's got a resting bitch face. He's eloquent. He's got good ideals. He's an almost completely different person than we get to see from MC's PoV.

Then skip to Devildom: The Captial City and they've seen him trip over his own feet while working customer service at Hell's Kitchen. But they've also seen him chase down & help apprehend the witches who set off the bombs during the Rose Queen's Ball. They've seen him easily detain bank robbers. But they've also seen him get excited about water fights. They've seen him dig around in garbage. They've seen him work an ice cream stand and they've seen him return a lost kid to their parents. They don't know him, but they know him. He's friendly and loud and goofy and he's dangerous. He's so expressive that you'd never realise he's got a resting bitch face. He's caused trouble along their streets but he's done as much, if not more, to protect them. They don't know him, but they know him enough to realise their absolute disaster of a Second has somehow managed to carve out a soft fond spot in their hearts (until the next time he causes trouble and then they're cursing his name to the skies again until things eventually settle down again and the cycle repeats)

Then skip to The House of Lamentation and now we know him. He gets emotional while reading Cinderella because her family is abusing her, he cries while watching nature documentaries and he tells his brother to talk to the flowers to help them grow better. He gets excited about snow even though he doesn't like the cold. He thinks panda bears are adorable and if any of his brothers' break out the words "big brother" he immediately folds to their whims. He's scared of horror and ghosts but he doesn't mind other types of gory movies. He's loud and annoying and he has trouble falling asleep. He's rarely ever serious or cool or calm. His resting bitch face is almost never seen. He stutters and blushes and swears and yells and he forgets words and goes on rants that start with one subject and end on another. He's kind but he'll also sell his brothers' shit for a quick buck.

I'm going insane and the change from this -> before the interview, while with his friends and family:

to this -> during the interview, while he's in front of an audience

is going to be a big part of what finally pushes me off the edge.

*everything mentioned in this whole post is from some form of canon, be that the main story, events, devilgrams, anime or manga*

[anonymous-dentist]

Also, since we're talking My Little Pony tonight, let me give my two cents:

Pony Roier- Pegasus, Very Fast Pegasus, prefers not to fly these days after getting injured in a race against his friend Pony Spreen that he was rigged to lose

Pony Cellbit- Unicorn, survivor of the Pony Hunger Games, is convinced that his Cutie Mark means that he was born to be a killer but it really means he's very very good at solving murder mysteries

Pony Bagi- Unicorn, Pony Cop, has been trying to court Pony Tina for MONTHS but keeps being shot down before anything can become official

Pony Tina- Changeling, runaway Changeling Princess, has been voted Ponyville's Best Dressed for five years running

Pony Pac- Pegasus, lost a wing because of Pony Cannibalism in Pony Alcatraz, pointedly doesn't look at Pony Cellbit's Cutie Mark every time they run into each other

Pony Fit- Earth Pony, prosthetic leg thanks to Pony 2B2T, claims that his nuclear bomb Cutie Mark is just a mushroom and is pretending to be cottagecore with his "roommate" Pony Pac

Pony Mike- Unicorn, sometimes gets possessed by the personification of the Element of Creativity (aka his wife Mine), has a matching Cutie Mark with Pony Pac

Felps- Felps, is just straight up Felps, doesn't seem to realize he isn't a Pony

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

Hello! Could you explain the flux?

Adding to that. Could you also explain Swarm and Azure? What species are they? Why were they imprisoned?

What was the Flux?

The Flux was a wave of anti-matter unleashed by the Division with one goal: to obliterate the entire universe and eliminate one specific target—the Doctor. The Division had decided, in their infinite wisdom, that if they couldn't control the Doctor, it would be better to wipe out everything and start fresh in a brand-new universe. This is a bit like deciding to burn down your entire house because you don't like the curtains, but hey, ho.

⚛️ How It Worked

The Flux was like a giant hurricane made of antimatter, or perhaps more realistically the biggest bomb of antimatter ever created, similar to Davros' Reality Bomb. Every particle it touched was ripped apart or destabilised - as it tore through the universe, it indiscriminately wrecked everything in its path, creating pure chaos in a universe of reason.

1️⃣ The First Flux

The First Flux event wiped out a lot of the universe, leaving Earth at the centre of a battlefield. The Daleks, Cybermen, and Sontarans all fought for control of the remaining fragments of existence, leading to intergalactic war. The First Flux also damaged the Temple of Atropos, causing a temporal chaos known as the Great Disruption to accompany all this.

2️⃣ The Second Flux

The Division planned a Second (and Final) Flux, intending to finish what they had started and bring the universe to its ultimate end, but the Doctor managed to prevent it from completely destroying the Universe by using some old forbidden Dark Time tech and a bit of bants. Unfortunately, the Doctor couldn't bring back what the Flux had already destroyed, leaving large swathes of reality forever erased from existence.

🌠 The Aftermath

Entire galaxies, civilisations, and histories were wiped out, leaving a much less interesting universe to explore. Even now in newer incarnations, the Doctor really isn't over it. He rationalises that because the Division targeted him specifically, the entire tragedy of the Flux was entirely his fault. But that kid's always been dramatic.

Who are Swarm and Azure?

Swarm and Azure were members of an ancient species known as Ravagers who lived in the Dark Times of the universe, and worshipped the eternal embodiment of Time.

They first got a bit uppity when the ancient Time Lords decided to make the Universe a more organised and less dangerous place, which involved the imprisonment of the personification of Time and some Mouri gal pals in the Temple of Atropos. The Ravagers obviously saw this as heresy.

⛓️ Imprisonment

The Ravagers' dislike of the Time Lords' actions led to a fight known as the Founding Conflict. During this, Swarm and Azure were involved in what's become known as the Seige of Atropos, where they took control of the Temple of Atropos and all the Mouri within it, whom the Time Lords had so carefully placed. The Doctor, then part of the Division, defeated them.

Following their defeat, the Division deemed that Swarm and Azure were too dangerous to be left to their own devices. Swarm was imprisoned in a containment chamber at the Burnished Rage battleground, while Azure was hidden on Earth, her identity erased, and her true nature suppressed under a human guise. Why be simple when a more convoluted solution would do?

🏃‍♂️ Escape and the Flux

Thanks to the head of the Division and part-time evil adoptive mother, Tecteun, Swarm escaped and then liberated his sister. They then decided that instead of the Division using the Flux to wipe out the Universe, they would use the Flux to wipe out the Universe, because religion makes that totally different. This all, of course, failed, and the very person they'd been worshipping for so long killed them both for their 'failure'.

Related:

What does the Web of Time look like?: Overview on the Web of Time and its relevance.

Is there such a thing as vampire Time Lords?: If vampire Time Lords exist and the murky world of cults.

How might the Celestis digest?: How the Celestis might digest, highly theoretical

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[chronicsinner]

The HeadCanon's of ChronicSinner - Greed (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

Hiya! I kind of wanted to post more of my original works on this account but unfortunately most of them have been deleted. Luckily though, I do have a lot of them stored else where, so here is one of my old works, edited a little so the writing is less shitty lmao. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

Greed will look at attractive girls when they walk by, he can't help it! I mean after all, he is the personification of Greed and his cupidity runs deep within his core. Despite his vices, however, he would never actually cheat on you. He wouldn’t trade you for the world

On the same token, he is also the jealous type. (What, Greed being jealous? Who would've thunk' it!) He doesn’t like other men flirting with you and isn’t afraid to tell them off. He might even use the Ultimate Shield as a scare tactic.

Greed sometimes wishes he was human so he could grow old and experience things only humans can with you. He won't ever tell you this though, he wants you to view him as confident and he struggles with being vulnerable.

You are one of the only people he is willing to share things with. He may still be hesitant with certain things but he will eventually give in. "Hmph, fine go ahead.." he would sigh, handing you the item.

Greed likes to tease you, He will photo-bomb your selfies and will give you rabbit ears. He may also surprise you by sneaking up on you as the Ultimate Shield.

Greed is a big spoon and loves taking you into his arms. It comforts him knowing you are all his.

He calls you babe and doll as pet names.

Greed isn’t used to being romantic, struggling with it at times but he tries his best to show his affection. "Here, I found some flowers down at the supermarket. I thought you might like them."

Greed is very hesitant to say he loves you. He finds sappy stuff like that embarrassing. Its one thing to lie to seduce woman but its incredibly daunting to say something vulnerable and actually mean them. Despite his shyness, he absolutely ADORES you.

If He is caught blushing or being anything that makes him feel exposed, he will make a hasty excuse out of embarrassment. He will get even more agitated if you tell him you find this cute.

NSFW HeadCanons:

As previously touched on, Greed loves to tease you and he loves to make you beg.

Greed is a rough and sloppy kisser.

While Greed does lean more toward the dominant side of things.. This homonculus is a SWITCH, no doubt about it.

When Greed is dominant with you, he leans more into the dynamic of being a soft dom. Biting and sloppily kissing your inner thigh, whispering things as you fuck like "You are doing so good for me, doll.. Taking all of me like t-this.."

Because he is the embodiment of Greed, he can be possessive and isn’t afraid to leave hickeys or bite marks on you that take days or even weeks to heal. He will complain if you try to cover them up with clothing or makeup, wanting the world to know you belong to him. He doesn't mind if you leave marks on him, though he doesn't like it when other people notice.

Greed can become impatient if you tease him. Seeing what he does to you is a huge turn on. He loves seeing how much he can get you hot and bothered.

He will get annoyed if you refuse to sleep or flirt with him in his carbon form. He wants you to be into him both as a human and a monster. If you find him attractive in his Carbon form, it will give him a sense of pride when you two are intimate like that.

Greed loves it when you beg for him or even just express the simple desire for his attention; it fuels his ego. "Oh? Does my little doll need her man's affection? How cute."

[stephensmithuk]

His Last Bow

Originally titled in full "His Last Bow. The War Service of Sherlock Holmes" and later "His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes", this was originally published in 1917.

It is the final story in His Last Bow, the final short story in the canon covered by Letters from Watson and agreed by all the key chronologists to be the final canon appearance of Holmes and Watson.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had openly supported British entry into the First World War in 1914.

The story came about after a visit to the Western Front in 1916; asked by a French general what Holmes was doing, Doyle had responded that he was too old to serve. He then decided to write this story as a means of boosting morale.

To put it mildly, the British public had gone a bit spy-crazy in the lead up to the war; fearing "Teutons serving them croutons" i.e. Germans living in the UK acting as intelligence agents for the Kaiser.

The Riddle of the Sands is one such work of popular literature on this theme, which is the subject of Letters from Carruthers coming in September.

There was also the fantastical works of William Le Queux, who started off with the French and Russians as his enemies before switching to the Germans; he also had his works serialised in the Daily Mail, a British middle-market tabloid that was founded in 1896 and has been happily engaging in right-wing sensationalism since to the point Wikipedia has banned them as a source. Le Queux for his part believed the Germans were out to get him for exposing their spy networks - he hadn't, they weren't and the Metropolitan Police refused him protection.

The Benz company had produced the first practical motor car in 1885; they of course later merged with Daimler to become Mercedez-Benz. I cannot find a 100hp example of their vehicles.

The German Chancellor in 1914, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, was a moderate, who reluctantly went along with many German policies like unrestricted submarine warfare and tried to initiate peace proposals on a number of occasions in the war before being ousted in 1917.

Flushing is the historical English name for the Dutch port of Vlissingen; it had a ferry connection to Sheerness until 1994.

At the outbreak of war, diplomats on both sides were allowed to return home unmolested, after locking down their embassies and burning anything sensitive they could not take with them.

Britain, France and Prussia had signed a treaty in 1839 guaranteeing the neutrality and independence of Belgium. The German invasion of the country on 3 August gave the UK justification for war and moved a Cabinet divided over the matter to firm unity.

There was a fear of Irish civil war at this point; the Liberal government, reliant on Irish and Labour support for a Commons majority after the two elections of 1910, had passed legislation creating a devolved government for the island, called Home Rule. This was vehemently opposed by Ulster Protestants and both sides were receiving weapons - from Germany in fact - in preparation for a fight as Whitehall tried to arrange a compromise. The Germans in fact believed the British would be distracted by a civil war, but in fact the Home Rule legislation was suspended for the duration and both militias decided to support the war effort. That stopped things... until the more radicial Irish Republic Brotherhood launched the Easter Rising of 1916.

"Window-breaking Furies" refers to the suffragette movement that sort votes for women, some of who engaged in direct action like breaking windows and also planting bombs or arson, although they made sure the latter was done when the buildings were empty to avoid killing anyone. These tactics were as controversial at the time as the tactics of modern-day groups like Just Stop Oil. When the war broke out, the suffragettes stopped their militant actions and supported the war effort; their imprisoned members being released as part of an amnesty.

John Bull is a national personification of the UK, typically a stout middle-aged man in a Union Jack waistcoast, frequently seen in cartoons at this time. He rather fell out of popular use post-war and is rarely seen today, unlike Britannia, who remains a widely used figure.

The Rosyth Dockyard was built from 1909 for refitting Royal Navy ships and submarines; although now privatised, it retains that role and is currently building the five Type 31 frigates.

Carlton Terrace was the home of the German Embassy until 1945; after the war, the property and its contents were sold off at auction. The Federal Republic of Germany set up at Belgrave Square in 1951 and remains there to this day.

Junkers were the land-owning aristocracy of Prussia, who exercised considerable political power up until 1945, at which point most of their holdings ended up in the USSR, Poland or what became East Germany. The land was broken up, usually ending up in collective farms; accused of war crimes, those Junkers who ended up in Soviet hands frequently ended up in NKVD camps or even executed. Their descendants did not get them back after reunification.

The King's English is another name for Received Pronunciation, the "standard" dialect and accent of British English.

Tokay or Tokaji is a sweet wine from the Tokaj regions of Hungary and Slovakia, the designation being protected under EU law in a similar way to Champagne. Imperial Tokay, which was the highest quality Tokaji Essencia, was reserved for the Austrian imperial cellars, often being passed to other European monarchs as gifts. This stuff is still drinkable after over 200 years and even the relatively new stuff isn't cheap.

A naval flotilla would be based at Harwich in both World Wars.

The reference to Holmes being sixty here is where the common estimate of 1854 being his birth year comes from.

Portland is a prison and young offenders' institution in Dorset. Notable past inmates include George Edalji (whose miscarriage of justice was exposed by Doyle), John Babbacombe Lee ("The Man They Couldn't Hang") and the controversial comedian Roy "Chubby" Brown.

Fratton is an area of Portsmouth.

In reality, the Home Section of the Secret Service Bureau, later MI5, had managed to identify the key German agents by monitoring their postal correspondence. The police then rounded them up in August 1914 and once the cross-sea cables were cut, contact with any agents in the UK became close to impossible. Little intelligence of any use came from them in any event; the Germans seem to have not even been aware of the British Expeditionary Force being sent to France, which was hardly a small event. Gustav Steinhauer, head of German naval intelligence's British section, got subjected to a rant about his agency's incompetence from the Kaiser that lasted the better part of two hours.

Twelve German spies would be executed during the war, eleven by firing squad at the Tower of London, which hosted its final execution (also of a spy) in 1941.

Skibbareen is a town in County Cork, now in Ireland.

The final speech by Holmes at the end also featured in the 1942 Basil Rathbone film Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, based on this story.

So Holmes and Watson drive off into the sunset. What happened to them after that? All we know is that both survived the war and at some point Dr Watson stopped writing about his dear friend. They deserve to have had a long retirement.

I will be doing these for the individual chapters of the novels next year; I have already done ones for the first two chapters of A Study in Scarlet that I will repost.

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

Venom Snake and Paz: Loss, Guilt and Identity

A while back, I promised I’d upload the complete Paz storyline with the cassettes included, and while I was originally going to attach this to that, the little essay below got too long.

This is a companion piece.

Thus, I’m posting the essay now as a separate entity and I will attach a link to it when I post up the video, as well. This ‘meta’ is a bit messy, as it’s meant to go in conjunction with the video.

Paz has an odd place in Phantom Pain because she doesn’t exist, except for deep within Venom’s head.

Diamond Dog Soldier: “Boss keeps disappearing to that wing under construction a lot lately.”

Her storyline is singular to him, and him alone, and it comes with more than one theory attached.

As we know, in this story, Venom encounters ‘Wandering Motherbase Soldiers’ who each carry photographs from the MSF. After he finds the first soldier and comes back, he wanders into an empty room on the Medical Platform only to be greeted with an ‘amnesiac’ Paz-who still thinks it’s 1974 and she’s little more than the Highschool girl she was pretending to be, and that Peace Day is just days away.

It's always sunny in this room, by the by, regardless of what time of day it is.

In this, he also has ‘Kaz’ and ‘Ocelot’ explaining the situation to him. ‘Kaz’ explains that she was rescued, and ‘Ocelot’ explains the amnesia and tells Venom that the ‘medics’ believe she is suffering from a type of ‘dissociative disorder’ and ‘dissociative identity disorder’.

Of course, the truth is that none of this is real. Paz is still very much deceased, and neither Kaz, nor Ocelot are actually there. Venom’s brain hallucinates this entire scenario, both as a deep manifestation of the Medic’s underlying guilt for not saving her, and the one having identity problems himself-not Paz.

I’ve seen the theory about her being there because of the Medic’s guilt and the identity theory in unison. I think that both are true, but the identity one holds just a touch more weight in my mind.

I say this, because the story line only concludes after the Truth Mission, when Venom is given the truth about who he is, and the glass castle hallucination of Paz crumbles. Leaving him not just with the truth that she died after all, but that she ‘needs to let him go’.

And with her, he has to let himself go as well. A choice that was taken from him when Zero decided the sacrificial tableau he left for Big Boss was a perfect opening to make him a body double.

Paz is dead, and so is the Medic.

I’m admittedly a little bit unsure about the guilt factor being his real driving force. I can see him feeling guilty about it. Because we know from the way Big Boss talks, “He was always the best man we had”, that this was a man with skills. Skills good enough to be on the Ground Zeroes top secret black mission to begin with, and skilled enough to perform a rapid-fire surgery with a very literal ticking bomb on board in a chopper. But I feel that the Medic also would’ve lost patients before. He’s not just a Medic, but a combat medic for a PMC. His skills, and the environment he’s in isn’t quite the same as a hospital.

What I do find telling is how the Medic interprets Paz in his sub-conscious. He does not for lack of a better word, ‘manifest’ her as a spy, or even a grown woman. Instead, his mind has conjured up the idealistic imagery of a nearly saccharine peace-loving schoolgirl. An almost extreme version of the personification she gave herself on her mission to infiltrate and spy on the MSF.

Paz has a tone of pure innocence and wonder when she speaks to Venom in these hallucinations. Only ever interrupted with more of her ‘true’ character when timelines conflict, or information as the story progresses puts a dent in the façade.

An example of this is when her wound reopens, with ‘Ocelot’ explaining to Venom that, “Well-Miller did go and tell her that Skullface was dead. If anyone should want revenge on him it’d be her, but..”

One notices that Kaz and Ocelot present strange in these hallucinations as well. They always seem just slightly out of character. Granted, that’s a tricky thing to say because ‘character’ is so subjective to a person’s interpretation, but they just feel distinctly well, ‘off’.

All of this culminates in the heartbreaking conclusion. As it all fades away, Venom watches Paz ‘die’ for the second time, and the room and everything in it fades away. I haven’t touched much on identity, just yet, but of course this only happens once Venom has come to learn the truth.

A reason I say this is because the soldiers around after the Truth Mission begin saying things like, “Boss, whoever you are, I’ll follow you no matter what.” And things of that nature. Venom-or the Medic, I’ll say for the moment, is a man who had his entire identity and sense of person-hood stripped from him by Zero and Ocelot. Once he was in that chopper and threw himself in front of Big Boss, he died. Maybe not in the most physical sense, but in the literal sense of death that we can muster up. Who he was, what he did, the choices he made, all of them gone. As he was erased and given a new face, new identity, and new memories.

All of which belonged to another person.

Paz, or Paz Ortega Andrade, wasn’t a ‘real’ person. She was a character created by Zero to fulfill a single purpose. Like say, Eva before her-we don’t know who she really was. There were other ‘Paz’s’ that failed Zero’s test, and there would’ve been others after her, should the Paz we knew fail as well.

Like the Medic, Paz wasn’t given much of a choice. She was given a job. And with that job she invented a backstory, a personality-everything she needed to slip into the MSF and achieve her goal. The only ‘Paz’ Venom/Medic and others around her knew was the spy.

Again, not unlike Eva in MGS3.

Now, there’s a whole other meta about how identity is such a warped, messy concept in the entire series a whole, but I’m going to focus mainly on Paz and Venom in here for the sake of it all. Even though there’s an argument to be made about how both of them are just fellow victims of the identity crisis many face within the series. Metal Gear has a huge commentary about identity that is present throughout the series I’d love to delve into properly sometime. The TL’DR here is that the only Paz is the one she showed them.

In that same vein, we know very little about who Venom was before he was given the Big Boss makeover. We know only what we’re told by Big Boss himself, and Ocelot and Zero’s assumptions of the man.

Big Boss: “He was always the best man we had..but.”

Ocelot (to Big Boss): “9 years ago he threw himself in front of that chopper. That day, the man you knew died.”

How this comes to mean, ‘therefore Zero decided a man willing to sacrifice himself for you would be fine being you’ I don’t know. I don’t think Zero cared much beyond, ‘I have a convenient extra body here to make use of while Big Boss is comatose.’ Either way, this is all we know about him. We know he’s in photographs with Big Boss, Morpho and Kaz. We know that he was trusted enough to be on the Ground Zeroes mission, and we know that he was a damned good medic and soldier.

And that he was born in California, USA, in 1932. That’s it. That is all we get. (And real quick, I understand that the player inputs Venom’s details themselves too-because he’s also meant to serve the role of player insert, I’m speaking strictly of the character outside of this. But for the hell of it, I’ve always called my Venom ‘Charlie’.)

Does jumping in front of the chopper for Big Boss give us a clue?

Maybe. If anything, one can imagine that Venom was under the same hypnotic spell the rest of the MSF (and later Diamond Dogs) were in that Big Boss becomes the entire world of his soldiers. They live and die for him. Much like the soldiers who go willingly when Venom has to shoot them in the head (not that every soldier does this, but it’s an interesting parallel isn’t it?)

And a bit cultist but again..another meta, that.

We can infer that Venom cared about his Boss, and his role in all this. And we can imagine that maybe if Zero asked him up front, “Would you like to be Big Boss” maybe he’d have said yes. But Venom is never given the chance to consent. It’s all placed beyond his control. When he’s put in his medically induced coma in 1975, everything that follows after is fully out of his hands.

I've said it before, but it's so eerie how Venom (Medic at this point) is sort of being ignored by everyone until Kaz brings light to him being there at all.

There's a good chance this is the last memory Medic has that's his own. Terrifying. When he is hallucinating Paz, and Ocelot is telling him that she’s suffering from identity disorder, is that not Venom’s brain trying desperately to tell him that’s what’s going on with himself? (I am not the first person to suggest this, it’s summed up a little on TVTropes but it’s a pretty good argument, or at the very least, suggestion, in my opinion). As the moments between them progress, and Venom recovers little ‘parts’ of her, is he not also recovering some parts of himself, or desperately trying to?

He's in a way, telling this to himself, through Paz.

And after all-she is permanently embedded within him, thanks to the fragments of bone and teeth.

Which is both a bi-product of the explosion, and a symbolism so un-subtle I think Kojima might as well have said ‘SHE IS ALWAYS PART OF VENOM’ in as many words.

Which, to be fair, is exactly what Paz does say in her final ‘tape’ to him.

There’s a deep undercurrent of sadness to it all. Venom has to realize (and I imagine he does) that there is no more going to back to ‘Medic’ than there is Paz coming back to life. It’s estimated that Venom accepts his place, whether willingly or not, and that perhaps, in its own way, this is a private type of mourning for him.

Not just for Paz. But for himself, too. And what tiny fragments of his former self might lie beneath. He couldn’t save her, he couldn’t save himself, and he has no choice but to be okay with that. And move on.

Let it go, they’re dead. Buried.

Whatever his personality may be come his final death in Outer Heaven in 1995, there’s an 11 year difference between the moment of him on the platform, alone and grieving, and the moment of him staring himself down in the mirror before he marches to his death.

Sacrificing himself, yet again, for the Boss he was unwittingly made into.

*As a quick note, I’m not stating that as a pure victim piece. Venom isn’t innocent and there is plenty of blood on his hands. The statement I make here is very much a sort of ‘in the moment’ one. Like so many others in the series there’s the cyclical tragedy that underpins it all, and the issue of Venom’s person hood and consent being stripped away is, in this particular statement, separate to the crimes he commits and the things he does.

[easy-revenge]

Well, now I'm curious. Why do you think Angel had deeper feelings for Aki? Go crazy

ahahah ur wish is my command ~

now bear with me a lot of this relies on things that are up to interpretation so brace urselves for me reaching and being maybe a tiny bit delusional thanks

so, i will deliberately not talk about the very popular moments that akiangel has, i can do a separate post about them at some point, but i want to focus specifically on angel.

meaning: scenes where their feelings and actions are reciprocated like saving each other, helping each other live longer etc will not be mentioned in this post.

lets take this chronologically:

- bomb devil arc

angel is the personification of duality. we know he exists as an oxymoron. from his name all the way to his personality.

this for me is the core of what i think angel is as a character. however i wont get into analysing angel's whole internal conflict rn.

(i have a post talking about angel's feelings, the grief and remorse he must feel with no recollection of what brought them on. I'll talk about that in depth some other time bc even though it plays into this part, we'll stray from the subject. i thought it was worth mentioning briefly though)

that's not what i wanted to talk about in this scene. i want to focus on the second part, which happened after reze's death.

in that scene, makima had ordered angel to bring aki with him to the scene. angel disregarded that order and came alone, which led to makima "accusing" him of being kind for sparing aki from the task of killing a girl. angel replies to this with "i am an angel after all".

what gets me the most about this beautiful scene is that as we now know, makima is the control devil. her word is law. even when she's not actively making ppl obey her will, we know her commanding aura makes it difficult for anyone to stray from her orders. despite that, here is angel, casually going against a direct order to keep aki from doing sth he doesn't want to do.

this might not seem like much, but follow my thought process here.

the infamous scene. contrary to popular belief, im here to talk about the first picture rather than the later two.

the moment between aki letting go of angel's shirt and grabbing his hand, angel gets a flash of the human he was in love with before makima found him.

i used to believe he got that flash bc he thought he was finally approaching his own death (still a valid interpretation), however here rolls a very popular theory about makima's power.

we know who she can control has to do with status, who views her as superior and whatnot. however, at the very end of part 1, we have power breaking her control as she thinks about her moments with denji. in that scene, power is still afraid of makima, so why is makima unable to take control of her?

a lot of ppl have interpreted this as a "weakness" to makima's power. more specifically, that strong feelings have the power to break her control over someone, at least briefly.

rolling with this, we can assume this is what happened with angel in this scene. for just a second he gets to access the memories that makima has locked away. the next question is, what are his strong feelings about in that moment?

we know that angel isn't afraid of death, he's been waiting for it. taking that into consideration, I don't think it was the feelings about his impending death that made makima's hold on him loosen.

i think it was aki. being saved. being cared for. being cared for so unconditionally, by someone who doesn't have two months of his life to spare. by someone who by all means should not care about angel at all.

immediately afterwards, angel is held. held protectively over a chest, against a storm. we don't know how long it's been since angel has been in a situation similar to this but we can assume it's been a long time.

in my potentially delusional opinion, that feels powerful enough to shake makima's control even for a moment.

you might have guessed where im heading with all this.

- gun devil arc:

here. in this very scene. we see the shock on angel's face as aki gives himself up. the horror of what it can mean, the trigger of memory of what it had meant for him in the past.

in this scene, angel regains all the memories makima took from him, without her permission.

makima doesn't seem swayed by this, but she does comment on it, indicating it wasn't her doing at all.

following my previous logic, strong emotions is once again what pushes makima out of angel's head. this time, quite literally kicks her out. even for a little while.

considering makima's power, how easily she takes complete control of him right after anyway, we can only imagine how strongly angel felt about aki losing himself to her in that moment.

now it's up to anyone to interpret this as whatever they want. it's up to anyone to call me crazy and completely disregard this whole thing since it's thriving on subtext and theory along with analysis powered by hyperfixation.

i personally cannot shake the feeling that there are at least romantic undertones here. there are so many akiangel scenes i didn't talk about in this post, so many very blatant hints that akiangel's bond was never friendship. there was tension from start to finish and there's no other explanation for it.

as for angel specifically, since this post is about his feelings, we know he's been in love before. with a human nonetheless. we know he has the capacity for it. I don't think im reaching to think that caring so deeply and wholeheartedly for a human again could mirror these feelings.

i dont think its too unlikely for him to be in love again. but that's just me.

i was asked to go crazy and crazy i went lmao. my asks are open for more prompts for me to analyze. i have sm more to talk about if anyone wants to hear it.

thanks for the opportunity to get this off my chest heheh <3

[pocketramblr]

Ask Game : How about an au in where Manual is a Todoroki (Any type of relative)

oh, you mean like when i said Fuyumi should adopt Manual as her brother? Or when we just made Manual the oldest todoroki sibling here, here, (and then...) here? or the separate fic where he's the oldest sibling and also the personification of water and the water cycle itself? Or the series where Tensei and Masaki are Vampire Fuyumi's scions and they're members of the Todoroki clan?

Just kidding, im sure everyone who saw the family tree reblog knows which one i'll talk about here.

1- Masaki, eldest Todoroki Himura child, does not have the quirk his father wanted. He also did not have an ice quirk useful to the Himura family. But he is the eldest, and an eldest son at that, so he's still trained and included by the family. Growing up though, Masaki knows that he's not quite right, not quite what people wanted of him, and tries hard to overcome it. He trains, a lot. He studies the family tree the Himuara clan is so proud of, and then branches out more, as if that'll earn their approval. (he knows most of the whole chart ehehe)He trains to the point that he doesn't just have the ability to manipulate water, but create it too, as his parents create fire and ice. Unfortunately, he can only do this by drawing on his body's stores, so he ends up out of breath and dehydrated too easily when he tries, and wielding large amounts of water is terrible for finesse. Touya, a bright firecracker of a second son, is trained instead. He hurts himself in training too, but can keep going, unlike Masaki. Masaki eases off, still training, still going to be a hero, but giving his little brother more of a spotlight. He's satisfied with what he has. But his brother and father aren't.

2- Masaki stops caring about training with overwhelming power, and focuses on learning how to move small amounts of water with better grace. He dives into the detective part of the job, even as Enji largely neglects passing this on to Touya. He uses his weird knowledge of his family tree for connections- why does he keep getting invited to such high level meetings, missions, and parties?? oh well, you see, Captain Celebrity's sibling married one of Masaki's mom's siblings, so they're in-laws-in-laws, and Ryukyuu's uncle married another one of CC's siblings, so of course Masaki got an invite. He isn't even bragging about his connections, or using them for ill, he just shows up and if people ask why, he says it so matter of fact that they're like 'oh yeah of course, i mean if Manual were my cousin's cousin's aunt's neighbor i'd invite him too, cmon in man." It's amazing how most heroes are more likely to know how they and Masaki are connected than to be aware of the fact that Masaki is straight up Endeavor's son. He doesn't need to be networking this hard. he's doing it anyway. He likes, after all, to be treated normally. He just has a skewed view of normal- but i mean, so does Fuyumi! they're just different skewed views.

3- Sadly this is not a Tensaki au for the simple reason that on one of Endeavor's parent's side, Masaki is distantly related to the Iidas. Now that would not be a problem for literally anyone else, but Masaki took the advice of "if you know how closely you're related, you're too closely related and applied it to his life, not thinking that most people do not in fact have a full knowledge of all of their relatives up to tenth cousins four times removed, and a partial knowledge up to fifteenth six times removed. Tensei is bemused when Masaki asks him how the crawler vigilante is doing, since they never officially partnered, and even more so when Masaki explains "Oh, no, it's just that he's been mentored by my uncle Oguru, has my grandparent's speed quirk and he's like, sixth cousins with your mother, only three or four times removed, so i thought maybe he might have mentioned it to you. But i hope he's doing alright, seems like a good guy and i know that bee bombing thing last month was rough."

4- Masaki dyes his hair brown to look more normal, and because he feels like his natural pink hair clashes with his costume too much. (Hey wonder if all that sexism in the family maybe impacted his view of it too. He very much disapproves of Touya's actions and words but maybe he doesn't want a girly pink hair color either.) Anyway, he also didn't stay at his father's agency for clear reasons. Once his own agency is set up, Fuyumi asks him if he'd consider taking in Natsuo- because he's completely neglected by their father, mom's in the hospital still, touya's dead, and Fuyumi's busy with school, Enji, and Shoto. Masaki agrees, and Natsuo ends up going into school for logistics with a science minor, still considering med school later.

5- "hey uh pocket is dabi not touya here" well that chart was made before the reveal. by not a whole lot of time lol. So, MASAKI doesn't think Dabi is Touya. After all, Touya is Dead. and Dead People do not attack school camps and set trees on fire. Dabi is, therefore, infinitely more likely to actually be Masaki's half uncle- he's pretty sure there are other kids on the fire side of the family, and it gives him a reason for hating Endeavor and his kids so much. Masaki stands by this even as his other siblings start cottoning on to the true identity of the arsonist. He's too normal to believe Dabi could possibly be Touya. After Jakku, he gets a call from Tensei like "hey man, i just heard about the news and i'm so sorry, you know you helped me a lot with my brother and family mess so i'll help you with your brother and-" and Masaki goes "OH THANK YOU i know other things like Eraserhead cutting off his own leg are more important, but i cannot believe my uncle would steal my dead brother's identity like that, with that awful dance-" and Tensei is like 'ah, right.' and just... lets him rant a bit to feel better, before he sniffs and goes 'its actually touya, isn't it.'

[meowunmeow]

Undead Unluck Chapter 199 Spoilers!!

Every lore drop is like an atomic bomb

They both can't swim oml (just like me fr) yet Haruka still dived in to save him regardless. I love these two I wanna put them in a microwave and watch them spin. At least Julia's there for the rescue

WHOAAA ANDY CAMEO 🤯🤯 (literally a dot)

Ooh their neutralisation is in the form of their seat dissipating.

Who the hell stitched up Sick 😭 did he do it himself because the others won't stop laughing at him or something. Or did Rip turned off Unrepair by accident. (I double checked and he's been like this since chapter 191, apparently)

MR. BEAST???

VII (Time/Past/Fade) saying 1:34am... Gonna assume he's saying in terms of location and not that Brazil Time is Universal Time (although that'd be funny lmao)

Now then, Death being represented by a nun felt weird to me back then but the fact that she also prays makes it even stranger. Is it because religion has a tendency to try and explain what happens after death? Her saying about "rest in peace" makes it sound like there is an afterlife, when we already know there's not any in their world.

Her, despite being the personification of Death itself, seem to not have full control of it at all. We already know about the soul chain thing but what exactly is her limit of control? Really curious about her.

Wow bro got back to the roundtable right after Beast died what a drama queen

What does Soul mean by a "validated world"?

He really is not like the other girls lmao

UMAs are double edged swords... They were made to bring downfall to humanity yet are also the ones being used.

I know it's probably design reasons but what exactly is that necklace he's wearing?

HECK YEAH BIG ASS WORD CONFIRMATION!!

"transcends physical boundaries to relay information" and "trigger to accomplish" then I suppose that means that without death of the said physical boundary, information cannot be relayed. Because Juiz and Victor never died for 100 loops, they couldn't accomplish it, hence withholding information.

Goodness no wonder Change is always pissed. Her rule is what makes growth and improvement of humanity happen.

Adding on, Juiz and Victor are also the first, having a limit on what they could achieve, similar to Feng's conundrum with Unfade. Victor because he literally cannot die and Juiz because she took on the responsibility of looping.

GUYS THAT'S MY WIFE THERE GUYS OMG MY

Also yay again for the big word confirmation!!

That's formal introductions to Sick, Beast, Language, Soul, Death, Change and Luck and informal on War, Time/Past/Fade and Justice so far.

What does he mean by this. Considering he's the first UMA ever, as well as the one that completely relies on an individual's belief in him existing, he gets to be a spectator just like Luna.

This is a good showcase of their personalities. Death, VII and Justice stayed sitting while War, Change, Sick and Luck prepared to open fire. They're the ones who are easily irked while the first three stayed calm.

Part 2 here

[hubristicassholefight]

Hubristic Asshole Tourney Round 1 Part 1b

Gale of Waterdeep (Baldur's Gate 3) vs Sinbad (Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic)

Propaganda below cut (Spoiler warning)

Gale

Tried to steal ancient very dangerous magic to give back to his lover, the goddess of magic. Did not work. Now has a bomb in his chest; Didn’t like him at first. Then I found out he’s implied to be a victim of grooming and then I was like. Ah. That’s why you’re like that

Unintentionally) upset Mystra (the Goddess of Magic) by bringing a piece of raw magic to her to prove his love. He didn't realize it was the Karsite Weave, and as a result she dumps him without explaining this to him. The piece of magic embedded itself into him, and began to eat away at his magical ability. He has to consume magic from magical items or else the Netherese Orb would destabilize and would ultimately detonate with enough power to rival a nuke. He later believes he can use the Crown of Karsus to ascend to godhood, most likely as a means to cope with his inferiority complex, and possibly to get back at Mystra. In his bad ending, his ascension causes so much chaos that he’s doomed himself and the rest of the world. In his good ending, he learns to accept his place in the world as a mortal man, returns the crown to Mystra for safekeeping, and she cures him of the Netherese Orb. He also comes to accept that she never truly loved him and that he was just an object to her; ES. So, Gale may come across as arrogant but he’s not downright impolite. He seems to hold a great deal of guilt towards his actions. However, in his bad ending where he becomes the God of Ambition, his mother (who he loved dearly and had a very close relationship with) and his familiar (who had helped him through some of the toughest times of his life, and pulled him out of a depressive rut) both say that he’s become completely unrecognizable. Mystra (I believe she says this? I might be mistaken) also warns that he’s bound to abuse his power as a lesser god and suffer HUGE consequences for it, as gods are forbidden from directly intervening in the lives of mortals. Raphael, a (very powerful) Cambion, also warns that the chaos caused by Gale’s ascension grants him the unforeseen opportunity to try and take over the Material Plane. Also, the BG3 wiki sort of says Gale tries to help people achieve their ambitions with his godly powers, and while that isn’t entirely untrue, he seems to be a very chaotic and arrogant god and it’s clear that he’s just as terrible and flawed as the rest of the gods in the Forgotten Realms—which aren’t unlike the Greek Gods.

This man was dating the literal goddess personification of magic and went, "Hey I found a missing piece of your magic Weave so I'm gonna grab it for you!" Except it wasn't her magic at all. Actually it was the opposite. So she dumped him and he has a potential nuclear weapon in his chest and lives alone with his cat. Despite all this the moment he finds another magical artifact he says "THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT!" and wants to take it so he can become a GOD in his own right. Sir last time you almost died; He's also a dork who likes his cat and books and really needs to stick with that instead of constantly trying to grab divine power.

He hubrised his way into a situation and then decided he could totally hubris his way out. He found and used a tome of dangerous, unstable magic to try to convince his goddess/lover to grant him access to knowledge and power beyond mortal ken. The unstable magic almost killed him, took away his wizard powers, and turned him into a walking bomb. He couldn't leave his house for a year due to trying not to blow up, after the goddess became his ex-lover and cast him out of her circle entirely. Then plot happened to him and he ended up encountering an even more powerful dangerous, unstable magic item, which made him go, "I could use that to ascend to godhood. And if I did, I would be way better at being a god than the current gods, who are all cold and unconcerned with mortal life. I'd totally retain a mortal conscience and use godly powers for the good of all if I had it." If you get the ending for him where he pursues this, he does in fact become a god--but in the very way he sought to circumvent, turning into a mockery of his former self as he becomes the god of ambition and exhibits all the coldness and moral ambivalence he'd objected to in the established gods; He uses the word hubris to describe his own first category five hubris event, and then backslides. Gale himself literally tells everyone the historical story about how the guy who made the magic items that he used to meddle in magic beyond his understanding almost destroyed the world and his empire fell out of the sky. And then he goes and does it again like "RIP to Karsus but I'm different."

Sinbad

Sinbad can see the flow of destiny, because of this he is quite arrogant and believes he is unbelievably special compared to everyone else (to be fair he is exceptional considering he has 7 metal vessels but is more his attitude about it and the way he looks down on other people). His hubris can be seen throughout the series, but I think it is at is greatest during the last arc where he reviles his plan to use the Sacred Palace to rewrite the Rukh into his vision of a perfect world. He believes that because he could see the flow of destiny he has a right to be the one making these big decisions and being the singular ruler of the world. This all comes to a head in a big final battle with the main characters (sans Morgiana for whatever reason) where he dies (?). There’s more to it than that but I really don’t want to reread the series to get the facts exactly right. Long story short, this he tried to become god and kill everyone, which is a pretty big asshole move; I’m really bad at explaining things, but he is a very interesting character that started out as very idealistic and optimistic about the world. He had big plans on how he could help to make the world a better place and make his own country. He’s always been seen as a singularity, he was the first person to conquer a dungeon and then went on to conquer six more (he only stopped because the Djinn decided 7 metal vessels was way more than one person needs). After all he experienced he became less naive and understood that if he wanted to realise his dreams he would have to get his hands dirty, unfortunately he took this lesson the worst way possible and became more underhanded over time. Even during the prequel his arrogance and pride is still very present, it’s just a bit more well meaning. At one point he bets everything on him winning a gladiator battle (something he was explicitly warned agains) and has the shock of his life when he looses. It is a very important part of his arc, and he nearly gives up on his dreams altogether when he thinks he has become a horrible person after doing something a bit underhanded while trying to help people. Ja’far, always the voice of reason despite being like 12 here, tells him is a less than kind way that he is being stupid and that believing he could build a whole country without doing a few dirty things way unbelievably naive, if Sinbad ever truly stays from the right path and does become the type of person that they’ve been working against he will kill him. What a good friend. It gets to a point in the last arc where Ja’far, his closest friend, tells him to his face that he is being dumb and needs to stop worrying about the distant future and whatever wars might break out then, because they aren’t in that future and they never will be, that’s for the people of the future to sort out. Sinbad hears this genuinely good advice looks over to his friend and says ‘oh yeah you’re right I was being so silly’ and they have a happily little moment together. Then when he’s alone Abra pops up and asks Sinbad if he’s going through with the plan and he obviously responds with yes, because who cares if you lie to your oldest friend and then immediately betray them. I don’t want this to just sound like I’m hating on his character, I’m not I thing he very complex and interesting, but I am still a bit mad at his terrible life decisions and the fact that the last conversation Ja’far and Sinbad ever had was a complete lie, but in the last chapter Ja’far is still waiting for Sinbad to come back. He did not deserve that that, he was so loyal to Sinbad, that was his entire world for 20 years and it ended in the worst way possible. That’s a bit off topic, but also slightly relevant since it does show the lengths Sinbad was willing to go to for the sake of his arrogance. Also he always looks so smug and I find that annoying.

[weirdestbooks]

Secrecy and Deception Chapter 6

The Tests (Wattpad | Ao3)

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Event: Operation Crossroads-Test Able

Location: NE Lagoon, Bikini Atoll, The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, United States of America

Date: July 1, 1946

America was incredibly nervous. Today was the day of Test Able, the first of three nuclear tests he would conduct on Bikini Atoll. He needed to understand the weapon he had created. America knew the A-bomb was a powerful weapon, but how effective was it? 

How could he use it properly? What effect did it have on military equipment? Would these bombs make the Navy obsolete?

“Will it kill us all and doom the world?” James commented unhelpfully.

“I’m ignoring you,” America snarked quietly before returning to his thoughts, hearing a small amused laugh from Rebecca.

With America’s concerns about Soviet and what he is up to, America needs to have more power than him. He wasn’t going to have a nuclear monopoly for long, so America needed to take advantage of the time he had now to understand the A-bomb better than any other nation.

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands had been nervous about the tests, fearing their effects on her land. New Mexico, the only friendly personification to experience the bomb, had agreed to keep her company and quiet her nerves.

They would be watching the tests in a different room, as several countries had come to watch them, and America didn’t want them to find out about New Mexico, even if they were aware of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands’ existence.

“Can’t we tell Father now that we’ve disowned him? It’s his family, too, and he deserves to know!” Rebecca insisted.

“We won’t!” James snapped.

“Now is not the time, guys. America needs to focus and not talk to us. There are eyes watching.” Unorganized Territory said. Sending a quiet mental thanks to his daughter, America looked around the room, scanning the countries present. Britain, Canada, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Egypt, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, and, much to America’s horror, the Soviet Union. 

America knew Soviet was taking advantage of these public tests to find more about the bomb so he could create his own. That might be a reason why many of those nations were here. 

In any case, the tests were public, so it’s not like America could do much about their presence here. In fact, he thinks it had been DC to tell him it was the most observed and talked of scientific test in all of human history.

No pressure or anything.

The first test, the one that America would be watching today, was called Test Able. It would be a test that was similar to the way he had bombed Hiroshima. A plane would be dropping the weapon onto the ships, where it would detonate. 

Then, after Test Able, they would have two more tests. One would be a nuclear bomb that was detonated at a shallow underwater depth. The second one would be a deeply submerged explosion. 

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was especially concerned about the underwater ones. She was afraid that the people they moved off the atoll would not be able to return to due to radiation. Several nuclear scientists had also said the same thing, that there could be severe radioactive contamination. Other critics said that the tests were too provocative.

Despite the concerns, they were moving on anyway. America needed to understand the power he had at my disposal, and he needed to know how to use it. What’s the point in having a powerful weapon if you don’t understand it?

“I just wish you weren’t hurting people in the process,” James murmured.

“Trust Territory will be fine,” Unorganized Territory said. James sighed but said nothing else. While America recognized James’ concerns, the tests had to be done. They were dangerous and risky, but they were necessary.

“America!” he heard Soviet’s unwelcome voice call.

“Hello, Soviet,” America responded as the taller country approached him.

“I’m very interested in seeing what your new weapon can do up close.” He said.

“Because you want to make your own?” America questioned. Soviet laughed.

“Who doesn’t? Those bombs are full of a lot of power. Any self-respecting country will be after that power.” He responded. America smiled, stepping away from him to walk over to his father, Canada, and Australia.

“But only one of us won the race, and I made it first,” America pointed, taking note of the irritation that flashed across his face. 

“Yes, you did win this race. But don’t let that victory go to your head,” he said. America almost laughed. A young country like Soviet was trying to give him advice? That was very amusing.

“Tamper your pride lest it blinds you,” Caleb said in a sing-songy voice.

“I won’t,” America responded before ending the conversation, walking over to sit next to Australia.

“Hello, Uncle America,” she said, greeting America with a small grin. 

“Hello, my favorite niece,” America replied, causing Australia’s grin to widen.

“I knew you picked favorites,” Canada said. America flipped him off, causing him to roll his eyes. His father sighed.

“You are all so childish. America, when will the bomb be dropped?” He asked, muttering the first sentence.

“That’s barely childish!” someone protested.

“Soon, any moment now. The plane had just taken off when I came in.” As he did so, America said, spotting the plane, “See, look, there it is, you impatient man.”

America’s father scoffed slightly before he nodded at America, eyes turning to focus on the plane.

“Still rude as ever,” James said.

“America was rude first,” Rebecca pointed out, ever the defender of Britain.

America wasn’t sure if he should be annoyed but sighed and returned to watching the plane. Moments after his eyes went back to the plane, he saw the bomb drop.

“Here we go,” America muttered.

The bomb exploded above the ships. There was the bright light and the mushroom cloud, which were all watched by the observers with laser focus, and the analyzing gaze that many nations had become distinct for having. 

“That’s bright,” Australia commented lightly.

“That’s…powerful,” Dad said, sounding like the words hurt him to say.

“Don’t think he likes the reminder that we have more power than him,” James commented.

“Well, now that the first test is finished, I should go find the scientists, see what information we got from the tests, and make sure Trust Territory’s alright,” America said, standing up. 

As he walked out of the room, he noticed that Soviet was still staring out the window. He must be very intent on learning all that he can about the bomb. America would have to keep an eye on him for the rest of the time he spent here. 

If he was a threat, America needed to keep this weapon out of his hands for as long as possible.

———————

Event: Operation Crossroads-Test Baker 

Location: NE Lagoon, Bikini Atoll, The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, United States of America

Date: July 25, 1946

“I’m nervous,” Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands told New Mexico as America and his people were preparing for the second atomic bomb test.

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands had been watching the waters of the lagoon, where she knew the atomic bomb, Helen of Bikini, was. Her nerves about Test Able made her interrogate New Mexico for hours about the test and how it was for her. 

“I know. It's nerve-wracking, waiting for it to explode and just not…just not knowing what’s about to happen. At least I was fighting for most of it. I only got called back ‘cause they wanted to see if it hurt countrypeople,” New Mexico responded, moving to stand next to Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and putting a hand on her shoulder. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands sighed.

“I’ll just be grateful when these tests are over,” Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands said. New Mexico nodded.

“So will I. I understand why Dad and his people feel they are needed, but they are…” New Mexico said before trailing off with a shrug. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands understood what she was trying to convey. Despite mixed feelings, the tests were happening for a reason. As much as Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands wished she could stop them, she knew she held no power in that choice.

She knew she was lucky to be alive, after what America had done to her mother.

“Well, hey, at least it is only three tests, and we’ve already completed the first one.”

“Yeah, it could be more. I just hope that I’m not going to be a permanent testing ground. I don’t want all nuclear tests America ever does to be tested here.” Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands said. She didn’t want to become a testing ground. She…she had people that needed the land more than America did.

“Dad promised that your people would be able to return to this atoll. So testing here definitely isn’t going to be permanent.” New Mexico pointed out. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands nodded.

“You have a point there,” she said, remembering when America moved her people to Rongerik Atoll. America and his military had built them houses, and all of them had seemed confident that they would be able to come back. 

“See? The tests aren’t forever. Just for July and August. I think. It might depend on how much information Dad gets out of these tests. Not that he’ll test more! Just that he might take longer than August to get all the information!” New Mexico said, stumbling over her words. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands laughed.

“Thanks, Xico,” he said. New Mexico smiled and opened her mouth, most likely to respond, before a man opened the room door. 

“The bomb is going to be set off in two minutes.” The man informed them. New Mexico nodded.

“Thank you for letting us know,” she said. The man nodded and left.Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands exhaled a shaky breath. New Mexico sat in the chair next to her and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here if you need it.”

“Thank you, but I’ll be fine. I just…this is my home, and I don’t want to see it destroyed,” Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands said, releasing her hand. Every second seemed to tick by excruciatingly slowly as the silence in the room became deafening. 

Then it happened. A giant bubble of water broke the lagoon's surface, and a colossal wave began rolling over the ships and heading toward them. 

“That’s way more destructive than Able.” New Mexico muttered.  

“At the very least, it looks that way. Although tidal waves might form from that.” Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands muttered, thinking of all the ways that could hurt her. 

After a while, although Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands couldn’t be sure how long, as her focus wasn’t on the time passing, the wave subsided, and she could see several ships were gone. 

“Well, that’s the second test down.” New Mexico commented. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands snorted. 

“Wish it was the last one,” she said. She wanted her atoll back, and she wanted her people to be able to return.

She just wished it would all be over soon.