#its almost impossible for me to ever pick One thing from any resi subject i like most unless were asking favorite character

[doomednarrative]

this might be a weird/dumb question but those are my specialty so *adjusts clip on tie* what’s your favorite re virus? in terms of what it’s done in universe, what it has the potential for, your favorite to write, etc. not a specific monster, the specific virus. hope that makes sense lol

Keep in mind I'm still playing thru all the games and reading up on virus lore when I say this, but I think it kinda has to go to either the Progenitor virus for the fact that its the literal building block of most of the viruses in universe, or to Las Plagas because of how Versatile it is.

Progenitor is cool from a lore aspect because of how the biology works and the fact that its like The reason a lot of the other virus strains even exist because its an ancient RNA thing that by the time they found it it just ended up killing humans, and so they had to learn how to adapt it in lab conditions. Its had far reaching effects over the Entire series so I think it's neat for that reason alone, a lot of stuff just wouldnt exist if that didn't come first.

Las Plagas meanwhile is definitely the one I have the most fun writing personally and not just because of my own au shit with Leon but like, the fact that theres so many Varients of it, from the Verdugo to the Regenerators and the Novistadors and all that. Its just neat from a design perspective (and sad because of how fuckin cruel they are) how many different versions of this One parasite exist and how it can affect different things.

I'm also really partial to the idea of stuff that can just like. Lay dormant in your system and basically make you a walking time bomb for the horror factor of it all so t-Phobos is pretty interesting for that reason too tbh.

I know thats like three different answers but I'm incapable of chosing just one tbh they all have a lot of possibilities and room to be creative with both in canon and fan works so I like a lot of them for vastly different reasons~

[paulinedorchester]

So, guess what?

Mills, Jon. Within the Island Fortress: The Uniforms, Insignia & Ephemera of the Home Front in Britain 1939-1945. No. 4: The Mechanised Transport Corps (MTC). Orpington, Kent: Wardens Publishing, 2008.

I am extremely grateful to Roger Miles of Home Front Collection for putting a copy of this up for sale at a much more reasonable price than previous examples that I’ve seen and helping me through a technical glitch during the ordering process and to Ronald Thomas of the U.S. Postal Service’s Henry W. McGee Post Office for solving a last-minute delivery snafu. (Heartfelt thanks also to @peonymoss, for humoring me through my discovery of some Tumblr technical stuff that I’ve used in this post.)

This 36-page, A4-sized book is probably the closest thing we’ll ever have to an official history of the MTC. Mills has done a vast amount of research, including examining this and more than a dozen relevant files in the National Archives. He even mentions Resy Peake, OBE, the MTC’s second Corps Commandant - who died 14 years before this book was published - in his acknowledgments! Mills structures his description of MTC paraphernalia around a capsule history of the MYC itself, with the result that there is a tremendous amount to be learned about both subjects from reading this book. Some of what I’ve picked up here, though, has sent me into a bit of a tizzy. Here’s a sampling:

Lesson learned: as important as old newspapers are for historical research, they don’t always get the facts right. For one thing, a widely syndicated item from 1942 stated that the given name of Mrs. G.M. Cook, OBE, was Gertrude Muriel, while Mills gives her first name as Grace. Armed with Mills’ statement that Mrs. Cook was "second in command of the [Women’s] Legion in France during the First War [sic]” (about which, more momentarily), I was able to confirm that he is indeed correct:

I hereby acknowledge having made bad assumptions or drawn incorrect inclusions about many, even most, of the MTC uniforms, badges, etc., whose images I’ve posted here. Clearly, I need to repost them all with corrected information. (<sarcasm>Aren’t you all just thrilled?</sarcasm>)

My imaginary account of the MTC’s early history in When Thou Goest Forth to War, cooked up almost three years ago with little information in hand, is so far from historical fact that I’m now experiencing a very strong urge to rewrite that story, along with Sam’s Christmas reminiscence in Someone You Know and possibly parts of other stories as well. Here’s a sampling:

Mills explains that the MTC emerged from the Women’s Legion, whose founder, the Marchioness of Londonderry, relaunched it in 1934, to train potential officers for any such future force [of women volunteers] and to provide trained, experienced drivers for government service from its MT [mechanical transport] section. This new force was given limited recognition by the War Office. ... Mrs Grace Cook ... now set up and commanded the Legion’s MT Division in London. In September 1938 the Legion was dealt a blow by the creation of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) ... When Lady Londonderry asked if the Legion might have a role in this new War Office scheme, she was told that none existed and that she should encourage  younger members to join the ATS. Lady Londonderry wrote to Mrs Cook: ‘If we stay in the Legion there is no certainly of our ever being deployed, but you are perfectly at liberty to run an independent organisation under another name.’ Thus the MTC - originally the Mechanised Transport Training Corps - was born in February 1939.

On top of this, we learn from Mills that the MTTC was active only in and around London when the war broke out, and apparently personnel were sent to France many weeks or even months before companies were set up elsewhere in Britain. “By the end of May 1940,” Mills writes, “membership of the Corps exceeded 700 with several units established outside London.” That leaves us wondering how long before May any of those units came into existence. (May 1940, of course, is when Foyle’s War canon begins. The earliest announcement of regional recruitment that I’ve found comes from mid-July 1940, in Birmingham.) In any event, the implication seems to be that Sam would have had to go to London for MTC training, and would then have served there for some months before moving to Hastings.  

But wait, there’s more! I’ve been unable to find a linkable image of the 1930s Women’s Legion service dress uniform, but Mills includes a photo of a Legion unit on parade in 1938, and it clearly shows that their uniform - Khaki officer’s tunic, matching skirt, leather belt, and peaked cap with what I’ve been calling a “pie crust” crown - was essentially identical to that of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and was adopted more or less wholesale by the ATS (which substituted a fabric belt for the leather one) and, of course, the MTC - which likewise introduced a variation, at least for most personnel: Those who transferred to the MTTC from the Legion continued to wear the Legion’s style of cap (recognisable by the gathered material above the headband) and simply exchanged their cap badge for that of the MTTC. By early 1940 a unique new MTTC cap modelled on a ski cap and available from the London sports outfitters Lillywhites had been introduced for new members. Since Sam wears the Women’s Legion cap (much more flattering, IMHO), the implication is that she spent some time in the Legion prior to joining the MTC. This isn’t impossible: an item in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer for September 10th, 1938, notes that the Women’s Legion Mechanical Transport Section was recruiting women between 18 and 40. I’ve posited that Sam was born in 1919, so that would work. But that, too, requires a rewrite of my fic. (Seriously, I’ve been thinking about this for a while.)

Mills also tells us about the MTC’s financial crisis in the wake of the fall of France (they had to abandon a great deal of equipment during the retreat), which is something that I hadn’t come across before. He reproduces the cover of a fundraising brochure from that period; it carries a list of members of the MTC’s council, and it’s a tad dispiriting to learn that most of them were men.

He also goes at least part-way towards clearing up the mystery of why it often appears that not all MTC uniforms were the same color: beginning in 1942 large numbers of MTC personnel were seconded to American troops (who couldn’t cope with driving in the blackout, apparently), where they earned far higher pay than they could get doing anything else. Many of them splurged on new uniforms in US Army regulation olive-drab. While Mills acknowledges that many MTC members could easily afford such an indulgence, he also includes a fascinating newspaper clipping from June 1939 that I haven’s seen elsewhere, showing recruitment and preliminary training of two MTC companies in Streatham, London - not a neighborhood likely to produce many debutantes!

There are a few frustrating omissions. We read not a word here about the MTC’s crisis of August 1943. It would be nice to know more about certain peculiarities laid down in the MTC’s rules: why one’s superiors were to be addressed as Madam rather than Ma’am, for example, or why married MTC personnel were allowed to wear either wedding or engagement rings, but not both. And Mills never mentions the one-piece, apparently lighter-weight version of the uniform that we see here. (It also shows up in that 1938 Women’s Legion photo that I mentioned.) Nevertheless, this is a terrific book for anyone interested in this subject, and if you find a copy for sale I’d encourage you to go for it. (As I write this it appears that Home Front Collection has another copy for sale ... )