#murica swap

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Character Profile - America

Character Name: USA, Murica, Alfred, Alfie-come-lately, Al. 1585-1775 - Alfred F Kirkland. 1775-???? - Alfred F Jones.

Age: 16 as of 1775, 18 in 1789, 21 mid 19th century. 25 by WW2 and still generally in that range.

Height: 6'0/183cm in 1775, 6'2/189cm after 1850ish.

Physical Description: This child was born a tungsten cube and grew into an adamantium adult. He's tall, broad-shouldered and strong. USDA Grade-A corn-fed BEEF right here. He's muscle as fuck with a good inch of fat on him every which way. Really putting the dough in doughboy. He's athletic, with the shoulders of a linebacker but is shockingly graceful and easy in his body. Arthur loved him enough that the confidence and good nature he exuded in his posture and looks are 100% genuine 80% of the time. He was an absolute cherub of a baby and grew into the kind of good looking that would really be described as more beautiful than handsome if he wasn't as broad as the baptist definition of sin.

Eye colour: Pacific, deep water navy, NASA mission blue. Dark, dark blue. Almost black, if not in good light.

Hair colour/style: Amber waves of grain. Two or three shades darker than Matt's and less red than Matt's or Jack's. Imagine all the wheatfields of America at the reaping, find the average tone, and that's Alfred's hair colour. Rich, harvest grain gold. It has a good amount of wave to it that shows even with its being short. He's generally worn it short and to one side to show off the wave he can get. Had some wicked curtain bangs in the 90s tho.

Other distinguishing physical traits: He has never worn a beard in his life, but it tends to come in redder than his hair. Aunt Bridgie's genes really start flexing there. He's got a mostly faded scar over his heart from Matt's pyromaniac-ass burning down DC. And probably more I'll have to add here later.

Personal Appearance/Style: Alfred loves looking good. The first thing Francis taught him was how good he could look and he's been following it ever since. He prefers blue suits, but he'll wear warm greys and black. He knows he looks like a ten-course meal in just grey joggers and a NASA t-shirt against those golden guns of his though. Also, the uniforms he picks are the ones that look good on him. Does he look like shit in one shade of olive drab? He's swapping it out. He showed up in Japan on the Black Ships in the most flattering cut of the Navy officer's uniform there was and it looked fucking good on him, all that dark blue with gold accents. He likes brown leather over black because the warmer colour looks better with his golden boy looks, and he knows it.

Verbal Style: He uses a neutral American or a less broad New England accent when overseas but slides in and out of any possible American accent at home. He got shot at during the Civil War because even in blue the whole goddamn time, he would slide into his original Virginia accent and have to duck rifle fire. Fucker probably sounded slightly transatlantic for a while in the 20th century. He doesn't purposefully code-switch from culture to culture; it's just automatic. He speaks several languages fluently and without an accent if he wants to, but he uses a southern accent speaking Japanese or a Kennedy Accent when speaking German. He knows it's not a jelly doughnut, Deutschland, promise! The more Arthur annoys him, the thicker his American accent gets.

Level of Education: Arthur educated him at home, got him, tutors on literally anything that Alfred fancied, apprenticed him out to any trade that interested him; printing and gunsmithing were the big ones, and then sent him to Harvard when he got bored with that. He graduated from West Point just before the Civil War and personally shot a few of his classmates who sided with the south :) but turned more to engineering, commerce and math after the war. He didn't reappear in the east until the 1880s, so he did a lot of mail-order books and self-study during that period. He also got another degree from The University of the Pacific in that period out west.

Occupation: The government is always trying to rope him into shit, but the boy's heart is in the stars, and something the government did has to be a big deal before he gives a flying fuck. His main squeeze is NASA, but he occasionally shows up to DC to steamroll some favours out of congress, especially when he has the urge to fly something experimental or a particular issue has been bothering him.

Past Occupations: Soldier, sailor, airman, astronaut, gunsmith, printing press operator, mechanical engineer, heiress, physicist, chemist, biologist, anthropologist, archaeologist, mechanic, railroad engineer, cowboy, blacksmith, cook, construction worker, gamekeeper, welder, a gold miner. The boy has some restlessness, okay? He's had many jobs.

Skills, Abilities or Talents: Alfred, even amongst nations, is quite freaky. Super strength, damage resistance, resurrection power that's faster than almost anyone. He can fly, drive, handle or otherwise operate any vehicle without training. He knows how they all work. He's also highly gifted in math and physics. He has been known to make California tremble a wee bit when he's genuinely well and fucking pissed. He'll get his ass lost on a boat or on foot, but in the air, he's possibly the best navigator on the face of the earth. But literally, he can do almost anything he sets his mind to. It's unnatural.

Admirable Personality Traits: Optimistic, idealistic, brilliant, generous, confident, fair.

Negative Personality Traits: Self-righteousness, recklessness, thoughtlessness, arrogance,

Sense of Humor: Silly, slapstick, observational.

Physical/Mental illness or affliction: He's sometimes just shy of narcissistic but usually pulls himself off the brim. Arthur's sons might be eligible for an ADHD diagnosis, but I did that on accident before I got diagnosed rifp. He's not the anxious or depressed type. He has had periods of pretty acute PTSD.

Hobbies/Interests: Computers and tech, filmmaking, archaeology, camping, hiking, adventure sports, surfing, paleontology, working out, protein foot products, star gazing, listening to audiobooks and podcasts. But, like, literally everything interests this kid.

Favourite Foods: BBQ; he can't pick a favourite style tho. Burgers, cheese fries, pizza, strangely flavoured novelty chips. Apple pie with ice cream and blueberry maple ice cream is his and Matt's favourite. Paw-paws are a very rare treat. Huckleberry-flavoured anything will make him absolutely grin.

Most important personal item: He expected to inherit Arthur's pocket watch like other sons did their fathers in the 18th century, so in 1976, when Arthur did give him the pocket watch and a very expensive wristwatch because the pocket watches had gone out of style, he has worn it everywhere since. To Mars and the Mojave, he'll wear that thing everywhere and get it repaired if it takes any damage.

Person/friend close to character: Matt's his best friend. He and Maria are also close but belligerent. Arthur is also in his top 5. Kiku, Ludwig, Tolys, Romano, Mai, etc, are all on his very close friend list. Of older nations, he and Brighid are very close, if complex.

Brief family history: He was born in 1585 or so in Virginia. Arthur said, "finders keepers," From that moment, he was the man's firstborn child. In his childhood, he mainly had Arthur and Rhys, and Alasdair and Brighid, somewhat less until later. He's never met his grandmother or her ghost. He was an only child for about 20-30 years and spent a lot of his childhood functionally an only child with Matt in Francois' care. The two youngest 'siblings' he's got he's not quite sure what to do with them. The relationship isn't precisely sibling-like, but he's pretty fond of them, and he has some trauma from being ditched in New England during the British Civil War, so he saved their asses in 1941.

Most painful experiences in the character’s past: I don't think anything can top the Civil War because he represented the Union, i.e. the United States. It took him years and years to recover, especially because he was living a rough out west lot of the post-war. He got consumption while personally marching to the sea to burn the fucking shit out of the Confederacy. :)

Their Song: Babylon by Barnes Courtney.

[ailtrahq]

Well, well, well. It’s that time of year again in the Netherlands. Not just to celebrate the second Bitcoin Conference in Amsterdam, but also the arrival by steamboat of our red caped Saint, the Holy Man himself, patron of boats, sailors, and little children: Sinterklaas. Yes, he’s the bringer of gifts in the shoes of Dutch kids and swaps a carrot or drawing for a gold ribboned package of your deepest desire. He’s the original boss, Santa's precursor (too bad Murica), and my red pill incarnate. Back at primary school, when I still ‘believed’, it was Micky, a kid from class, who burst my magical bubble. He was a funny boy and used to play tricks on everybody. For instance, he’d ask you coke or sprite, and whatever your response, he’d twist your wrist so badly you’d experience the ‘fizz’. Playing marbles with him was also a bad idea as the rules would change (in his favor) whilst playing, subsequently losing all my pretty beads. Of course it was Micky who’d break the magic spell I was under. I must not have been the only one, for he probably red pilled the entire class, but that day I understood: Sinterklaas was a scam. And I came down from my psychosis in which a bearded old Catholic pushed free gifts through my chimney as he traveled our gabled roofs at night by horse. Frankly, I didn’t take it well. I felt dumb and disappointed by my parents. How could they lie to me? What had I done? I thought I was a nice boy? Anyhow, I didn’t tell them I wasn’t a believer in Sinterklaas anymore, as I didn’t want to shame them. Also, it was nice to be on the right side of the information asymmetry, so I shut up about it. Big mistake. That year my parents rented a Sinterklaas and helpers who came knocking at our front door. I had to let them in and play along. Too late to confess. Decades later I have to listen to my parents saying how wonderful it was that I still ‘believed’ that year. So embarrassing! Damn Saint.But how real He had been, how I had believed the nonsense, and how painful the final reveal. What a cheat! I should have trusted my gut feelings around the anomalies, so Micky wouldn’t have to embarrass me so badly. Sigh.Fortunately, I have made peace again with my Holy Man. In this demythologized world, I’m grateful the pagan tradition has survived and that every autumn the old bearded red fellow still rides the roofs and cobblestone streets, chucking candy at the youngsters. He’s a trickster god, a benevolent humbug, who explains his scheme and shows the secret, to teach you a valuable lesson for adulthood with its many fake constructs grownups blindly believe. Unfortunately, in adult land, there’s nobody to wake you up. And so we keep on dreaming. Yes, Sinterklaas was very nice indeed, wasn’t he? He’s the tutorial. A free introductory course into the mechanisms of belief, deceit, and psychosis that deceive the eyes. Make no mistake, for that's Sinterklaas' greatest gift. Vanishingly few!But most grownups have forgotten his teachings. So certain are they. Hear they nothing what he says? With coco futures soaring to all time highs, even the Sinterklaas’ chocolate coins have become a better store of value compared to the euro, pound, or dollar. And yet we keep on believing; patting ourselves on the back for not trusting in myth, fairytale, or Saint, whilst blindly confiding in the world’s greatest paper fantasy. But, you must feel the scam around you. Here, between you, me, the chocolate coin, the peso, everywhere. Yes...even between the land and the steamboat.Hence the Sinterklaas experience is not just a local tradition but a metaphor for the global initiation into Bitcoin. All fiat freaks are still children in that sense. But without a trickster guardian, who's going to teach them? How will they wake up? When will they realize it is spawned out of thin air? Painful it is to admit one has been fooled. But the most agonizing thing is to be orphaned from the system. Especially when you have never been rugged, this abandonment can be too much to handle, persuading people to remain asleep.

This is why I celebrate my Saint. And I feel sorrow for the ones who have forgotten, where he's been erased from existence. But my trickster survived. He rugged me early, so I could see the rug later. And find my way...to the real.So in October, do the man a pleasure when you’re flying over to Amsterdam. Whether you’re a fiat fanatic, alt bag holder, or got your burlap sack already filled to the rim with sats; go buy some chocolate frogs, a sweet Sinterklaas effigy, or some carrot-cake flavored peppernuts at the Albert Heijn supermarket. Export his chocolate coins all over the world and inflate your sweet fiat friends till the sugar decays the enamel of their pristine white teeth. Praise the Man. Honor the Saint, the patron of gifts, tricks, and rugpulls. He wants to return. I believe in him. And am grateful to have been an early initiate. 

[michaelbranch]

2022: A Year in Review (Part 2 of 3)

Some big changes this year for the Branch family. Namely, going from a family of 3 to a family of 5 (not including the pups, Rocky & Molly). A mini van became a requirement and we've put a significant deposit into landfills with our diaper and wipes load.

So, what have we been up to? Here’s a brief look in pictures.

(P.S. Tumblr now allows only 30 pictures per post, so this will be split into three posts. This is the 2nd. Part 1, Part 3.)

Much Love,

Michael & Lauren

Michael exposed the twins to barbell work. Then for this year's Birthday challenge he combined a hike with a paddle afterwards. That's his boot after getting stuck in the mud.

Independence day celebrations! Pool time and sparklers (or as Michael called them several times, sprinklers). Murica!

Olive decided she was done being still. She started her crawling in July (her brother was about 4 months behind her, but he learned everything his sister had in only about 2 weeks)!

Babies first trip to the gun shop! Think the Mossberg might have a bit too much kick for them right now though.

To Destin with friends! Babies first vacation and our first as a family of 5. Thank goodness for our awesome nanny (Mika) and her son; otherwise that vacation would have been not so vacation-like.

Piper started back to school at Harmony Day; and had her first field trip!

We celebrated our 4 year anniversary and even had a few baby free nights out.

Vacation #2. A great, outing packed, trip to St. Louis. We did a "house swap" with another family and it worked out very well!

Michael made it outside to climb a little bit. Yay!

Our annual pumpkin patch visit is going strong. This year we added carving to the list of Piper firsts.

We thought Piper would love the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular in Louisville. We were right! A spooky fun night out with our first born.

[datsun4lyfe]

LS9 cam, LS9 valve springs, LS9 headgaskets, all new gaskets. Now what intake.....

[agent-murica]

Please accept my role swap AU where the only people who change are Grif and Simmons and Huggins and Muggins respectively. 

For the purpose of this AU, I made Muggins Huggins’ uncle and she went into his care after her parents passed away and when she got drafted he enlisted right after her which is how they both got into the SIM Trooper program.

Grif and Simmons are the only two of their species that wanted to work with the Cosmic Powers because literally no one else wanted to. They’re terrible at their job of being spies.

The last picture is the original sketches I did which is why the designs are a little bit different.

[quakerjoe]

Look Up the word SOCIALISM. Please. It has fuck-all nothing to do with guns.

I ran across this comment:

“I am for gun rights.. does that make me less socialist?”

Are you fucking kidding me? There are really people THIS stupid. This is why America is about to collapse like the Soviet Union did. It’s not because we were outspent like they were, it’s because we’re suffering under TWO pandemics right now- Covid-19 AND TOTAL FUCKERY because far, FAR too many people are just that ignorant.

As a veteran, I was trained to use firearms. They’re tools for hunting and killing. End of story. Want one? I’m all for it! Everyone who’s willing to put in the effort to train and get a license for one should have one if they really want to. I’m all in, hoss.

However, when you’re equating having a killing tool that makes it way too easy to put someone to death with alongside a political style of governance, you’re a fucking idiot. Only in #Murica do people have this issue. By my account, the 2nd Amendment should be shit-canned. It’s outdated and nobody takes it seriously anymore. How so?

“A well regulated militia...”

Let’s stop right there. When this was written, children, there was no standing army in the new USA. At best, each state was, in theory, expected to raise their own militias and even then, they owned their own weapons that they had to buy themselves (and we’re talking the same rifles they also used for hunting with). A British Regular of the time, a professional, well-trained soldier, could fire 3 rounds per minute. A yokel from some Colonial/State militia? One. Maybe two at best. Training was nothing less than lax back then and it was insanely expensive. 

To the point- if you want to join a state militia, i.e. the National Guard, then fine; own a gun. In the more modern sense, if you want to join a branch of our fine armed forces, then you’ll train and you can have a gun. No problemo. Once you’re discharged and leave, you can transfer your training creds and easily get a civilian license to own and operate one. Easy-peasy. Right?

But no. Not in #Murica. Here, people no longer read and deteriorated cognitive skills only let too many yokels retain what they want to hear, like NRA talking points on FOX fuckin’ “News”. These selfish cunts are so wound, stupid and bent on being free-range ammosexuals. What the fuck are they afraid of? I’ll tell you.

Smart people.

The whingers on the far right... motherfuckers one and all... with their bibles in one hand and guns in the other... They fail to know what hypocrisy is here. Be that as it may, they’re scared of smart people. They know that more often than not, they’re ability to have an intelligent conversation is rather stilted and smart people can kick their asses when it comes to how politics work, what Jesus actually said in that bible they never read, and how viruses work for that matter. These wank-socks need their guns to make them right in an argument.

To compound things, these knuckle-dragging, inbred, mouth-breathers are mostly a bunch of “nigger haters” and they know that the “Justice” system will continue to jail the Black Community for the most minor infractions, essentially re -instituting slavery while they can literally go into Federal property, armed, take it over, vandalize it, and then leave scott-free. Precedence has been set. They can shoot Black people with little to no repercussions. Precedence has been set.

I could go on and on, but I’d like to bring this question to your attention: What the unholy fuck does that have to do with socialism? Eisenhower was not only a president but he was a general during WWII and his policies were very socialist. By today’s standards, the man would be what right-wing fuckwits would call a “radical leftist”. So would Abraham Lincoln.

Capitalism, as it stands today, un-regulated and un-tethered, has done what for the USA? Massive class warfare and overwhelmingly unfair practices by the top financial elites? Yep. All the rules of olde that were put in place after the Great Depression that were designed to keep that from happening again have been dismantled since Reagan’s time and mostly by the GOP while the Democrats say and do little to nothing about it and they’re only getting more complacent about it. I’m not saying that Capitalism is bad; far from it. However, if it is left to its own devices, it will work like a cancer, not like a working form of governance. No system is perfect, but Capitalism is the most vulnerable, especially in a nation with a base in democracy like the republic that the USA used to have and doesn’t anymore. Once disinterest and complacency set in, the rich and powerful will swipe democracy out from under you like a table cloth without a care as to how many dishes they break or how big the mess will be; you won’t see it coming and you’ll be the one left having to clean up after. The food and drink will be gone along with the silverware, but the mess is all yours to enjoy. You know- like NOW.

Switzerland has a government a lot like ours. It’s a Democratic Republic. “Everyone owns guns!” Um, true to a point. Men do. Women do. BUT. They’re all trained. Come legal age and graduation from high school, you’re in the army, Fred. You do your bit for country and then when you get out, you keep your gun. NO AMMO. Repeat- NO AMMO. That’s all under lock and key where you, as a reservist for life, would go to train periodically.

Chicken-shit fuckwits in #Murica are too fucking scared and/or lazy to join the armed forces or law enforcement. BUT they still want their guns without having to earn the right or privilege. THAT is what pisses me off. No “militia” skills, but boy they’re fast and happy to endanger everyone else just so they can sit out in the woods with their friends, shoot beer cans and have circle-jerks around the ol’ campfire while talking about race cars and titties and swapping jokes about how many “niggers” it takes to do something.

It’s not just a redneck stereotype; it’s the real deal. Those industrial-grade gun fuckers out in Michigan who thought it’d be just fine to “occupy” the capital while armed make the rest of us who earned the right and privilege to have firearms look bad. You also know damn well that there really aren’t BLACK people acting like these infantile taint-barnacles either. You don’t see hordes of women packin’ heat on the way to the clinic for a routine checkup, do you? They ought to, especially when there are anti-abortion fucks out there ranting about shit they know nothing about, spewing their lies by twisting biblical verse when in fact the bible is NOT anti-abortion. It is only mentioned ONCE, and the verse is FOR abortion. Imagine a woman coming in for a pap, palming a .357 on her way through a crowd of these ignorant cultists who think they’re doing “the lord’s work”...

All of this shit isn’t particular to any form of government except for American-style “democracy” where uninformed opinions are now given the same merit and weight as that of a well studied, well informed fact. Anyone who wants to “make America great again” would have noticed that the policies in place that made us a world power to begin with were all backed by SOCIALIST principles, providing a regulated and more fair framework on which the gears of capitalism were attached to run like a smooth, well tuned machine. Today, that framework is shot to pieces and the whole system works more like the junk drawer in your kitchen.

Today, #Murica has a framework made of PLUTOCRACY, welded together with FASCISM and let’s not forget that it is painted in Red Socialism for the Wealthy, White Supremacy, and Blue, sunny-skies of Nationalism that keeps the masses proud of this country because of what we were, not who we truly are. Those days are far gone; days when the NRA was FOR GUN REGULATIONS and were all for proper education, safety and training, in an era where SOCIALISM built our infrastructure, rich fucks were taxed heavily to keep them from gaining too much power over the masses, and we were on the rise in industry, sciences, and education.

Today, smart people are feared, intelligence is out of fashion, and pride in how stupid and ignorant one is has become the national pastime. As a nation, its people are arrogant and endlessly selfish and too stupid to know to punch up when punching down is easier because Americans, in general, are lazy. Even worse, they’re offended by everything while BEING one of the most offensive people to wander the Earth.

Don’t believe me? Keep an eye on the comments to this post...

[smoothshift]

YouTube Channels to watch via /r/cars

YouTube Channels to watch

I'm looking for builds, rebuilds, restores, tunes, creative monsters, passion for cars in general, and general wrench turning. Alsø, alsø, wik SEMA coming up, who all has builds to watch for? What YouTube channels do you recommend?

Currently I watch these on the regular (not linking cuz I'm not sure what the rules are there... if it's allowed, LMK and I'll link it up):

B is for Build - Unique re/builds from salvage. Plays like he barely knows what he's doing, but it's clear it's all about the journey. I live vicariously through Chris. (SEMA build: Texas Speed LS swap/fire damage rebuild/car porn body kit Lamborghini Huracán)

Cleetus McFarland - Over the top 'murica but all around fun on drag builds

Rob Dahm - Pure. Unadulterated. Rotary porn. Straight up... err, I guess more like all around being rotary focused. (SEMA build: 4-rotor RX7 that's been in the works for years)

Tavarish - Exotic builds + tangible builds (SEMA build: Fast & Furious Lamborghini Murciélago fantasy restore)

Ronald Finger - This guy is just fun to watch rebuild his Fiero in an every-day/every-person fashion

Scumbag Labs - As the co-hosts were to Mythbusters', these guys are to Hoonigan. Ridiculous experiments. Lots of fun.

Comment Recommendations:

/u/doctorprawn recommends:

MightCarMods: great builders heavy into JDM and do a few other cool things on the side.

Samrac; also a cool channel, currently fixing a ferrari430 and has completed builds like salvage RS7s

HooviesGarage: is more entertainment and memes but they do a few builds.

TheCarWizard: heavy build based, he's Hoovies mechanic.

Hope you like them :)

[newshirtonlines-blog]

4th of July Murica Shark shirt

Growing up 4th of July Murica Shark shirt . one of the things I’d look forward to the most around Christmastime was the Sears catalogue. Easily the size of a phone book (remember those?), there was no greater joy than flipping through the colour-coded pages and dreaming up elaborate, imaginary wishlists. What can I say, I became a consumer VERY early on. 4th of July Murica Shark shirt, hoodie, sweater, longsleeve and ladies t-shirt

4th of July Murica Shark Classic Ladies

4th of July Murica Shark Hoodie

4th of July Murica Shark LongSleeve

4th of July Murica Shark Sweatshirt

4th of July Murica Shark Unisex Naturally, I haven’t read a catalogue in years, but according to Business of Fashion, there has been a significant renewed interest in the medium 4th of July Murica Shark shirt . “I think digital communications are starting to overwhelm people, and a well-designed piece of print advertisement can be an unexpected touchpoint,” said Colin Nagy, head of strategy at creative agency FF New York, told Business of Fashion. Apparently, a brand called Naked Cashmere invested $125,000 into a creating a 36-page catalog, which led to sales of seven time the initial investment. Yowza. If brands are able to create a catalogue that’s both accessible and aspirational, it appears they have quite a bit to gain. Print really is the new digital.  It’s that time of year again. Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and those long-lasting winter blues have finally lifted. That’s right, it’s finally spring, which means it’s finally time to swap those thick-soled boots for a pair of fresh spring shoes. No matter if you’re more polished preppy or never change out of workout wear, ECCO has you covered. Here are the 5 best shoe trends to wear this spring, as picked out by the editors of FASHION. Not since the era of Gossip Girl and The OC has the classic ballet flat wielded such considerable influence and this spring the classic silhouette is, ahem, poised to take over. Comfortable, elegant, and reminiscent of style icons like Audrey Hepburn and Kate Moss, this Parisian style is perennially chic. Whether you’re out for a bike ride or traipsing to a flower markets, ballet flats are the perfect transitional style for any occasion that calls for a relaxed and classy look. ECCO’s signature ballet flat combines ECCO FLUIDFORM™ Direct Comfort Technology and state-of-the-art leather for a super lightweight shoe. You Can See More Product: https://newshirtonline.com/product-category/trending/ Read the full article

[d2kvirus]

3/9/17 Fact or Fiction

1. Jeff Hardy will defeat the Miz and win the IC Title next week on Raw. FICTION - ...which will lead to the 78th occasion of the broken records saying this is the clearest sign yet that WWE are about to have the Broken Hardys debut, when in actual fact what they're doing is seeding a match for No Mercy in three weeks' time.

2. The John Cena/Roman Reigns promo segment on Monday’s Raw was the best segment on the show in a long time. FACT - While it lacked the investment the Festival of Friendship had, it was certainly worth watching...although not because it played out perfectly like the FoF did, but more for anthropological reasons given it was a fine example of how Vince sees the top babyfaces in the company, but everyone else sees as a pair of bullying manchildren with narcissistic personality disorders.

3. It was a mistake to have Alexa Bliss win back the WWE Raw women’s championship so soon. FACT - At this point it seems that WWE have decided that, as Sasha's over, she doesn't need the title...which they demonstrated by giving her the title and then have her lose in in short order four times in little over a year. Does anyone else see how that makes no sense?

4. Shinsuke Nakamura should be the man to defeat Jinder Mahal for the WWE title. FACT - As it seems that Cena won't be ending The Jinder Mahal Experiment for 'Murica reasons due to swapping passive aggressive insults with Roman Reigns over on Raw, that should clear the path for either Styles or Nakamura, and the booking for SummerSlam puts Nakamura ahead of Styles due to storyline reasons.

5. Enzo Amore will find big success on WWE 205 Live. FICTION - He'll be found out faster than a Peter Molyneux pre-release promise and come crashing down to earth faster than you can say "How you doin'?"

6. Roman Reigns will defeat John Cena at Mo Mercy. FACT - How many times do you think the commentators will push the line about Reigns earning Cena's respect for the three months after No Mercy - and how many times will Kevin Dunn be instructing the production truck to mute the crowd mics in those same three months?

https://411mania.com/wrestling/411-fact-fiction-wrestling-win-jeff-hardy-will-ic-title-raw/

[robotslenderman]

Wait, American here. What's happened? Why are we fighting with the Australians. Everyone knows not to fight with the Australians, they're our allies ffs. Oh god, he's going to start WW3.

G’DAY MATE LEMME SORT THAT OUT FOR YA. Scroll to the bottom for a TL;DR.

*Clears throat* #auspol, please correct me if I’m wrong on this, I’m just repeating what my mother told me and I’ve read absolutely nowhere about the Central American refugees thing, so let me know if I’ve totally cocked this one up.

Right. Before we get started, lemme tell you about Australia’s version of the Mexican Wall (detention centres! Human rights violations for everybody!), and how this relates to Trump throwing a tantrum on twitter and Malcolm Turnbull either being the most unimpressed politician ever or the biggest doormat ever, depending on who you ask.

See, the big issue in Australian politics (when it’s not the annual Leadership Spill) is the People On Boats.

Because of that whole “island nation” thing, we don’t have people fucking over here over the border because our border’s the fucking ocean, so they have to get on a goddamn boat to do it. To get on the boats, they pay people smugglers, go across a few countries, then get on more boats (possibly not in that order, I don’t know, I don’t have a bachelor’s degree in this), and then wind up here.

There’s a couple of problems with this, “AAAAAH BROWN PEOPLE!!!” from the racists in the peanut gallery notwithstanding:

Problem #1 – People smugglers know that those boats are one-way-trip only, so they give refugees the shittiest possible boats they can. Every now and then, one springs a leak earlier than intended. (Yes, “earlier than intended”, more on that in a tick.) So every now and then we’ll see on the news that the navy found an empty boat or one full of corpses or answered a distress call only to find no boat at all. Either way, refugees can and have died to get here – either as an accident, or as a tragic consequence of – 

Problem #2 – I don’t know the specifics, but the Australian navy, when it intercepts boats, is… I don’t know if they’re supposed to somehow turn the boats back, all I know is that they can’t let the refugees on board.

Unless the boat is in distress.

The solution to that? Blow a hole in the boat.

IDK if this still happens, or if this is just my Liberal mother filtering it, but what I’ve heard is that the only way the refugees can get rescued by the navy is if they’re in danger. So the refugees sabotage their own boat, and the navy has to rescue them.

As you can imagine, sometimes this doesn’t go as intended. Sometimes the navy’s too late, or someone slips – there’s families on board those shitty boats. People’s children have died.

Anyway, because of problem #1 and #2, there’s a real risk of people dying. Now, look, a lot of people who don’t want refugees here are just plain racist and could actually hardly care less about drowning refugees, and all of this could be solved by the navy just rescuing them anyway before the refugees are desperate enough to kick a hole in the hull, but fact of the matter is, there’s people profiting off the life savings of vulnerable people, greasing the wheels of corruption and putting people in danger, all the while promising that they’ll get settled in Australia if they remember to blow a hole in their own ship.

and then we stick them in a detention centre for years or more anyway.

So basically, all Australian politics ever talks about is Stopping the Boats (or not stopping the boats).

So somebody – IDK if this was the Lizard King or Turnbull’s idea, or even Obama’s. But at some point, Aussie politicians made a deal with Obama.

And, again, correct me if I’m wrong because the only source for this is my Liberal (as in, right-wing Liberal) mother, and I’m too lazy to google, and have heard nothing about this anywhere else, but – 

The idea is that we’d swap refugees. America gets our refugees, and we get Central American refugees. Two thousand, I think. I expect that’s just to start off with because I would’ve heard about it earlier if this was a thing that had been going on for a while. Either we end up with a few hundred extra refugees or it’s one for one, I don’t know, all I know is that it was two thousand on each side or less.

Anyway, this is win-win! 

People smugglers (hopefully) get less business because it’s kind of bad for business if you tell your clients they’ll go to Straya and they wind up drawing a short straw and winding up in Murica instead. (Word gets around, refugees find this stuff out so the people smugglers could only bluff for so long.)

People who are genuinely concerned about refugees not drowning are soothed because hopefully less refugees coming = less drownings.

Closet racists have to deal with brown people anyway and have no choice but to shut the fuck up or out themselves as actual racists.

People who are all for accepting refugees will be satisfied as the refugees get to go to a better life than the one they left behind anyway.

Basically the Australian government probably thinks it’ll get some peace and fucking quiet from all sides, when in reality we’ll just move on to marriage equality.

Now, again, I don’t know if this is actually what it is or not. I live in a Liberal (ie Republican, not left wing like it means in the States) household. I’ve never even seen left wingers here talk about people smugglers so I don’t even know how much of that is or isn’t true.

Whatever it is, we were supposed to ship a bunch of refugees over to the States and then the Carrot’s ass got elected, started going on about banning muslims etc and Washington DC Canberra went, “Oh, fuck.”

So! Turnbull, our PM, called Trump or vice versa to chat about it.

Then Turnbull told Straya that the deal was going ahead and that he Stood Up For Australia during this phone call. 

Australia went, “umm…. sounds fake but ok” because we’re Australian, not stupid, we got more coverage about the last US election than we do about all our elections ever combined. We know perfectly damn well that you either stand up to Trump or you get your own way, not both.

Then the Washington Post leaked what actually happened on that phone call a few days ago and now the Australian media is losing its shit.

What happened?

Apparently Trump went on about his penis size inauguration crowds, pitched a fit about the deal and how he “intended” (note the wiggle room that word gives you) to follow through on the deal, called that phone call with Turnbull “the worst” phone call he’d had that day (yes, to Turnbull’s “face”), and then hung up on him 25 minutes in out of the hour that call was supposed to take.

The Washington Post leaked it a few days later, and the Australian media lost its shit.

And after the Washington Post leaked it, Trump (ETA: oops, fixed that error, it was definitely Trump!) complained publicly on twitter that the whole deal was “dumb” and implied he was gonna try get out of it.

Australian media lost its shit again.

Now, regardless of your opinions of Turnbull – I think the guy actually did stand up to Trump. (I shouldn’t have said that out loud on tumblr, that’s like the Australian equivalent of saying “well I heard Trump petted a dog once?”) He can be a bit of a people pleaser and seems to be pretty laid back rather than go-for-the-throat. Or so I’m guessing because political news has been a lot quieter since the Lizard King was deposed.

But look, first off, we’re fucking Australians. We despise rank, it’s in our blood, our ancestors were convicts who wanted (and frequently tried) to shank their British overlords. Ranks are formalities on paper that should stay on paper. You wouldn’t even dream of the President of the US making chitchat with, say, a garbage disposal man, but in Australia if we found out our PM didn’t treat one as his equal we’d lose our fucking minds at the politician’s arrogance. Unless the garbage person was brown, because at the end of the day, Australia is p damn racist. Even the biggest doormat of a PM would have their inner Australian chomping at the bit the second Trump so much as insinuated he was more important than them. 

And come on, even people who live under rocks just know how big Trump’s ego is and how long Trump can be expected to go before he insinuates someone is beneath him even a little bit.

Secondly, the American pro-Trump media is implying that Turnbull pissed Trump off because they spun it as “well, Trump’s other phone calls went fine!”

And thirdly, I really don’t think a manchild like Trump would hang up the phone on someone unless that person was acting with a sliver of self-respect. Like hell, Turnbull could breathe too loudly and Trump’d be offended.

But then, Turnbull might’ve stood up to him and still been a doormat by our standards, because he is not telling the media his side of the story. At all. Probably because he doesn’t want to piss off Pence whoever winds up in charge after Trump goes, because at the end of the day, sucking up to the States is a sport that’s even more popular than our annual leadership spills.

Also, Australians hate politicians in general, so we’d probably call Turnbull a doormat if he bought a plane ticket and pissed on Trump’s hair personally, so.

TL;DR – Washington Post leaked that Trump humiliated our PM over the phone and now Australia’s going “Oooooh, shots fired!”

[retecool]

Trump bant lobbyisten, maar staat financiering politieke partijen door kerken wel toe

Trump bant lobbyisten, maar staat financiering politieke partijen door kerken wel toe

Ergens is de “Drain the Swamp” maatregel van Donald trump, waarmee hij het lobbyen aan banden wil leggen, toe te juichen. Zo mag er nooit meer ten faveure van een buitenlandse regering gelobbyd worden en andere lobbyisten hebben een ban van vijf jaar gekregen. Bijzonder is het dan dat hij korte metten wil maken met het Johnson Amendement uit 1954, waarmee het kerken en andere religieuze…

[what2watch2night]

LUCKY and LAST FLAG FLYING: Stories of Growing Old in America...

Or more particularly, depiction of living life while growing old as a (white man) veteran from an humble background in ‘Murica!

Old man or man getting old, is at the center of these two movies in addition to other attributes they have in common; LUCKY being the “quiet one” portrayed by Harry Dean Stanton, while Brian Cranston act as the seemingly “loud one”.  Both movies have similarities particularly as they in America that I've left her side his military with veterans having issues adjusting to real life and "just life" back home whether on the East Coast after Vietnam or the West Coast after WWII. The two films due to their narrative of time passing and observations of men getting older are also inherently tackling the concept of death and mortality in a more or less spiritual level.

LUCKY, being described on IMDB as ‘The spiritual journey of a ninety-year-old atheist.' fits the mold of quietly moving indie ...like we LOVE it ;)

Low-key with real-life-like people, the movie paints "the simple life" in a near far-west desert - it seems - where it is warm and colorful like the people living in this small town. It gives us a perfect 'spiritual indie western" that border magic realism although profoundly anchored in soft reality of Lucky's life.

Strangely, this movie proves a point that LIFE WORKS IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY as this was The late Harry Dean Stanton final performance...That is going in style and lucky to have portrayed Lucky for this last role that might earn him his first and last best lead mentions (and he better get that posthumous nomination at the Spirit or even better at the Oscar!)

Lucky is a very quiet movie is about life and Monday and leaving lawn immaculate you said alone in that lonely the story of these men living in the desert: but not that kind of dessert. It does lead to Glenn but with much warm and colorful people this is a bittersweet movie about live leave it simply. The cast is truly doing wonders, with most scenes taking place either at a diner or bar or a shop or on the same road and at Lucky’s house.

The diner and the bar have sets of people portrayed by wonderful character actors. While the diner scenes feels like a typical “American movie small town diner people” everybody plays their role accordingly. On the other side. the bar scenes are something quite different, it might be convey the same feeling/mood but they have something very “out of this world”! So no wonder why we found  a man oddly looking for a lost pet in a very “TWIN PEAK way” portrayed by a David Lynch being all in for the ride. 

One has to outlined how maybe some of these scenes seems a little bit off-ish played, but every single person in this movie “look” like a real person from a town somewhere in America where a Lucky lives!

From extras just being there at a  fiesta, to waitresses, to Lucky himself; everybody is are they are ought to be; social realism bordering magic realism indeed...

Swap the warm colour of LUCKY, a journey in small town surrounded by dry land of cactus and far-west scenery to the coldness of the North-East through snowy roads, big cities and leafy suburbs in LAST FLAG FLYING.

The movie is about A veterans meets with two of his army buddies 30 years after serving together in Vietnam to ask them to help him bury his son, a marine killed in Iraq.

The cast consist of three very solid "veteran actors” performance that will ring bells for the pundits and award watchers. While Steve Carell here, almost against type (again *remember FOXCATCHER) being the less comical and more “sentimental” character- akin to the “soft tenderness” appeal of LUCKY-, Bryan Cranston delivers the kind of performance that are traditionally classified as "great performance” by Hollywood, and last but least we have a Lawrence Fishburne exquisite in this very fitted role.

The movie is at a time hilarious and genuinely in human moving, but is fortunately liking a“special ingredient” and being a bit too deja-vu... But that's what people usually like; or majority of them anyway! 

LAST FLAG FLYING is arguably the most conventional "mainstream indie-gone-mainstream type movie" made by Linklater, and in fact if one did not know what would never guess he directed it. Nothing wrong with a change but this is miles away from the feel of his last movies, in particular BOYHOOD. His last effort lacks the softly deeply movie and precious effect the 12 years in the making had on audience for better or worse.

This film should eventually engage larger audience than a film like LUCKY for example, and although it might seem a little anti-military at some point/conceptually it also gave fitted counter arguments that balance it enough to make it seem neither  a “for or against type of movie” but just the story of its characters. 

It is in that way, a movie for everybody no matter what they think of the subject as it thrive to more or less present things in a fair-ish manner and generally sensitive (although I tad bit over-the-top at some point...Taking cue from Hollywood type!) It might also be the kind of project that is not mind-blowing but just nice enough for everybody to watch together and enjoy! Maybe that's the kind of thing we need right now....

MORAL OF THE STORY Both movie about people leaving the live differently but looking for something else a certain meaning of life whether either I just thing to life after the Elmi which is growing up and realizing that life did not necessarily go as planned specially in the character of Brian Cranston. One thing for sure, these two films deliver us with some of the finest male actor performance of the year and open the door to acclaims and more! LAST FLAG FLYING could bring a trifecta of noms for its lead and  supporting actors Steve Carell (always in the mix recently and maybe twice this year, although BATTLE OF SEXES was... Just OK-ish...) and Lawrence Fishburne. 

Surely an actor nomination for Harry that will sadly be posthumous should be announce somewhere, and Then again it would not come as a surprise if LUCKY pick up laurel at side ceremonies focusing on more independent movie, that is if it manages to build on the momentum. But LUCKY also has amazing cinematography with great attention to details in costumes and sets, and last but not least I'll bet you that they two films have script solid enough to garnered attention. 

Additionally it might have helped achieve this great embrace as much as it was pleasing that both LAST FLAG FLYING and LUCKY “adopted” the concept of diversity (well kind of!), having representation of more than one group of people (good on them!)  Of course at the center is still a white older man but we have a few female -well just a couple really, but with roles that are defined by more than a smiling wife stereotype or similar token BS!-  and added a little color... Sure. they should/could do better but bonus points for LUCKY to paint in an accurate-ish way the multitude of people that live together happily in this kind of area without digging into the negatives that are too easy...And frankly B.O.R.I.N.G.!!!

So just watch them tonight or when available in any order you wish!

[srtlife]

SOURCE: SRT LIFE

Feast your eyes on the world’s first supercharged 6.2L SRT Hellcat V8 swapped Buick Grand National! These two names have no business being in the same sentence but in the name of Murica…Meet Project Hell-National

“87 grand national real we2 car . I had the car almost a year and some change now the engine and transmission came out of a wrecked 2016 charger I am using the hellcat auto 8speed I am the first and only one to hellcat swap a gbody it was definitely a challenge I never done a engine swap before this was my first time doing something like this this car was done in a 2 car garage no lift no special tools on my back this was a car that was supposed to never happen lol it was just a idea I had in my head here is a list of stuff done to it cpp upper lower control arms Currie enterprise ford 9 rear wilwood front 6 piston brakes tesla rear 4 piston brakes Ls universal motor mounts milidon rear sump wilwood master cylinder hydroboost bmw rims custom made headers roll bar custom throttle body made by sdg motor sports Vikings shocks and coilovers camaro ss rotors efi source goldbox stand alone harness sound German transmission control harness fab work by jw fabrication in Seymour ct custom trans mount and cross member fore fuel rails snake eater performance 1500cc injectors tuned by Mike at syngarage wiring transmission icebox all installs done by Mike at syngarage Ripa tuneD upper lower pulleys ported supercharger snout ice box blower spacers bwoody heat exchanger an coolant hoses by auto plump custom driveshaft”

Make sure to like, share and subscribe to our Facebook/IG/Twitter pages for more high octane action! 

PICS:

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

#SRTLIFE

VIDEO: SRT Hellcat Swapped Buick Grand National | Project “Hell-National” SOURCE: SRT LIFE Feast your eyes on the world's first supercharged 6.2L SRT Hellcat V8 swapped Buick Grand National!

[datsun4lyfe]

LS9 cam, LS9 valve springs, LS9 headgaskets, all new gaskets. Now what intake.....

[agent-murica]

Not a day goes by where I’m not thinking about my role swap au. I need to draw more of this honestly.

[kittymonks-fanfiction]

Genderswapped Nations Review - Chapter 5

Welcome back to Genderswapped Nations, where apparently North Americans can get to Germany faster than a Brit can when a brainwashed female personification of Germany wants to win the world record for the most pointless world meeting in the history of human society. Last time, we learned that Prussia isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed if he intended to invade the UK while England was away (and yet waited until a time when it would have been preposterous for him to still be away) and that Ariana is an indestructible cartoon character. What shenanigans await us this time?

Well, if you read the closer for the last chapter, I bet you’re expecting an explanation for the World War III comment. Well...here it is.

Chapter 5: Hamburgers and Hurt

Do you remember way back in the first chapter’s review when I said that the alliteration in the  chapter titles eventually led to some unfortunate names? This is one of the worst in the entire fic (probably the third worst, if I had to rate it). Hamburgers are only mentioned at the beginning of the story and...hurt? Yes, a bunch of people do get hurt—somebody even gets put into the hospital—but the only plot relevant ‘hurt’ to be seen here is more emotional than physical. So if you’re so insistent on keeping the Hamburgers, why not make it “Hamburgers and Heartbreak” instead? Or better yet, “Hedonism and Heartbreak”? Because yes, you’ll be seeing a disproportionately large amount of hedonism in this chapter since Allison is its focus.

*NOTE: Canada's Gender swap, who was originally named 'Alexis', is now Mattie. I had forgotten Canada's human name when I wrote the first four chapters :3 *

Oh, well...that’s a way to start a chapter.

Yeah folks, I retconned a character’s name in an author’s note a fourth of the way into a fanfic. You’d have to be an idiot to do something like that to disrupt the canon when the “plot”’s about to take over.

Do you want to know the truth of that statement, though? I never forgot Canada’s human name, I just never knew it in the first place. I got all of my Hetalia-related information off of Wikipedia and Canada’s human name wasn’t listed there when I went there looking for it. How unprofessional!

America and Allison drove up to the drive through of a fast food restaurant. "I want six double cheeseburgers, four hamburgers, and two large drinks!"

Or better yet, this chapter should’ve been called “Hamburgers and Heart Attacks”. Seriously, I don’t care if America is a personification of a country, this amount of food could kill a man (even if the hamburgers are meant to be for Allison). And isn’t he an immortal country? Couldn’t he just be stealing food from his citizens at this point?

America exclaimed, his counterpart looking with starry eyes as the workers prepared their food.

It’s understandable that a McDonald’s wouldn’t have that much food just sitting around, but I’m sure it would have been more polite to pull around and wait for them to finish instead of holding up the drive-through line.

When they finally got their food, they speeded home and Allison bit ravenously into one of her hamburgers.

What is this Frankenstein’s abomination of a statement? ‘Speeded’ isn’t the right tense of ‘speed’ to use in this context (‘sped’ is) and ‘ravenously’—though it’s a nice big word to flaunt your intelligence with—gives the reader the impression that Allison was literally starving to death before she ate. Unless this is a really crappy off-handed reference to the one in six Americans who face hunger every year, it doesn’t make any sense.

"Amazing like always!" she exclaimed.

"I know, right?" America said with his mouth full.

If America’s eating and Allison’s eating, then who’s driving the car?????? *screeeech*

Suddenly, the phone rang. Tony, who had been with Allison and America the whole time, answered the phone.

Yeah, I promise he was there. He just didn’t get any food from McDonalds because he’s an illegal alien and we don’t tolerate those in these here parts. This is ‘Murica.

...I’ll go ahead and let myself out.

He held it towards Allison, implying it was for her. She took the phone from the alien's hand and asked, "Hey, what's up?"

"Hello, Allison, its Ariana." The phone said.

Oh hey, I can finally introduce you guys to my favorite character in the fic; the phone. Not Ariana, the phone.

"Everyone's coming over to Louella's house so we can talk. I'm already here, get here soon."

Allison glanced back to her fast food and said, "Yeah, I'll try to get there soon."

"Good, then." Ariana said, hanging up.

Alright, what the hell is this Twilight Zone bullshit? Why would they invite the North Americans to their meeting last when everyone else has already arrived? They know that they’ll have to wait for 9-12 hours for Allison and Alexis Mattie to show up, right?

Not to mention the fact that they’re having another meeting in Germany that could have easily been held over Skype. Seriously, why don’t they at least go to a different country this time? I heard that Japan is pretty enjoyable in the wintertime. Why not go there, if you’re so insistent on meeting in person?

Allison walked back to her food and began to eat again. "Who was it?" America asked, food in his mouth like usual.

"It was just Ariana calling from Louella's place," Allison replied in between bites. "The other counterparts are going to meet at Louella's place later."

If by ‘later’ you mean ‘right now’.

America nodded before eating his last double cheeseburger and slurping the last of his drink.

And now there’s food and soda all over the floor because both of these revolting slobs just carried on an entire conversation with burgers stuffed in their gobs. I hope they don’t plan on making the alien clean that up.

When Allison later finished her food as well, she boarded America's helicopter and flew to Louella's house.

Fun fact (which I learned just to refute this ridiculous plot point): Helicopters are not usually used for transatlantic journeys because they’re not very cost efficient (they cost three times more to ride in than a passenger plane and cost even more for maintenance), only fly 1/3 as fast as a normal jet or plane would, and are three times as noisy as a fixed wing aircraft. So not only is she causing the U.S. to lose money by choosing to arrive in a helicopter, she’s also wasting time (making everyone wait even longer for her to show up) and giving herself a headache for the sake of looking cool when she shows up to Berlin.

...Tell me again, why is she our main character for this chapter? I mean, it doesn’t last long—since of course Ariana steals the spotlight when she appears in this chapter later—but this already makes her look selfish and petty. Our hero, everybody!

Later, the helicopter flew over Louella's front lawn.

If by ‘later’ you mean ‘a full 24 hours after Ariana called’.

Allison leaped out of the helicopter with a parachute, just as Louella and Ariana exited the house. America's counterpart opened the parachute and floated safely to the ground.

Oh jeez, she’d better not still be wearing her ‘skirt dress’. She’d be flashing all of Germany then.

The helicopter flew away after she got off, and Louella asked, "Why the hell did you ride a helicopter to my house?"

"Because I'm the hero, and everyone knows the hero always rides in a helicopter!" Allison exclaimed.

Not really. Haven’t you ever watched Snakes on a Plane? How about Con-Air? I mean hell, have you ever watched any of the Superman movies? You never see Superman riding around in a helicopter. That’s just silly.

"That's a little overkill," Ariana sneered.

"No it isn't, didn't anybody else bring helicopters?" Allison asked.

I like how she asks it so innocently, as if riding in a helicopter to a casual meeting between friends is normal. It’s not, you egotistical loser.

"No, us normal people brought planes and walked." Ariana said.

Wait...walked? That’s hundreds of miles we’re talking about here! It would have taken the Asians, like, a year to show up on foot! Francisca I could almost see, but still, that’s 615 miles! It would take her eight and a half days to walk that far! And are you implying that Ariana walked over the English Channel to get to Germany??

Allison ignored Ariana and walked into Louella's house. Louella and Ariana entered soon after Allison did, and they sat down after she did. "Okay, let's count everybody," Louella said. She pointed to the other countries, and counted eight people.

These poor girls. They’ve probably been waiting for three days now.

"Who could possibly be missing?" Ariana asked.

Suddenly, Mattie flung open Germany's door and came inside, glasses lopsided and hair a mess. "Sorry I'm late, everyone, some guy on the street tripped me on my way to the airport," she apologized.

Oh man, how did I see that coming?

But that doesn’t even make sense. Unless she got totally KO’ed and missed her flight, it doesn’t make sense why she would be just a few seconds late since she was tripped on the way to the airport. That plane’s going to leave at the same time no matter what.

--MATTIE ABUSE +1

"Why?" Louella questioned.

"He mistook me for Allison," Mattie explained nervously. "Apparently she forgot to pay for a hamburger or two!" Then she laughed at her own joke nervously, before noticing everyone else was silent and staring at her, then she gradually stopped laughing and sat down, and then seemingly disappeared.

You know, I’m gonna give that two points. Why? Because oh my god. Not only does nobody have sympathy for her, but it was her sister that made this terrible thing happen to her! Why would Allison indiscriminately steal from a fast food restaurant if, as previously shown, she and America clearly have enough money to waste on some fried garbage? Is she some kind of kleptomaniac?

Not to mention, you wouldn’t be randomly tripped on the street if you stole food (from a burger place on the way from the capital building in Ottawa to the nearest airport??). You’d be arrested.

--MATTIE ABUSE +2

"Well, at least I wasn't tripped, because then there'd be no hero!" Allison shouted, standing up and pointing to the ceiling. Everybody groaned, excluding Mattie and Felicity; Mattie was just sitting in the corner of the room, with a bright red face and Felicity was talking to Louella with no response from the German girl.

Red with anger? That’s what she should be red with. But needless to say, Allison’s right. There wouldn’t be a hero if she got caught for her crime because then she’d be a criminal.

"Anyway, I thought we could discuss how it is at everyone's new homes," Louella said. "Who wants to begin?"

Is she serious right now? This was easily a conversation which could have been had over Skype, not over tea in Berlin. I mean hell, they could have easily texted each other this information! And before you call me out because ‘hey maybe texting didn’t exist in the fanfic’s time period!!’, this takes place in 2012. Texting existed and the swaps are even shown to text each other later in the fic. So why not now?

Without any sign of hesitation or raising her hand or anything, Iscah stood up. "It's very fun at Russia's place. I like to mess around with the Baltic States until they start to cry and fall down like little babies.

Oh well that’s just great. Create some more hapless butt monkeys that did nothing to deserve being tormented by crappy OCs.

But I should probably point this out right now before it becomes a thing; the Baltics have no reason to be at ‘Russia’s place’ right now. They only resided there in the original run of the anime because they were a part of the Soviet Union. Since the USSR broke apart in the eighties, there’s no reason why I should have thought it existed in 2012 unless I watched Hetalia and seriously didn’t connect the dots and think that those sketches took place in the past. It’s like Switzerland all over again, but this... was I really that stupid??

Except we've been having a lot of trouble with Belarus lately, with all the scratching at my door at night and all. She wants to destroy me and marry Russia.

I’d question why Belarus would want to destroy her brother’s genderbend and not seek to marry her as well (considering that Iscah is literally Russia with long hair and boobs), but I’m too exhausted by that Baltics thing to give that more than just an uggggh.

I tried to beat her off with a stick, but then she snapped it in half.

Uh....double entendre??

I don't know what to do."

"I got it, I could patent Anti-Belarus Spray!" Allison announced.

"How in the hell are you going to make that work?" Ariana questioned.

"Who cares? Everyone knows it will work because-"

"I'll take ten," Iscah cut in.

This almost seems like a funny joke just because of how weird it seems, but then you realize that I stole this joke from a picture I found on DeviantArt. No, I’m not kidding. Here it is:

Classy. (credit where credit is due to YoorNaymHeer, the artist of this picture and the creator of this joke. Jesus fucking Christ.)

After Iscah gave Allison money for a relabeled can of spray paint and Iscah swore eternal doom upon Allison,

And then killed her? Please? Allison has been the worst ‘hero’ ever so far. All she’s done is stuff her face, waste money indiscriminately, steal for no reason (and make sure her sister get blamed and physically assaulted for it), and cheat somebody out of at least ten dollars in a situation where receiving her product is essentially life or death. None of that is heroic; it just makes me want to throw her into a ravine.

Ariana stood up and began. "It's cool at England's house.

Well the dialogue has gotten better so it’s not as awkward as it used to be, but this seems way too casual for Ariana to say. Or too...American. I know that she technically is American, but hush, I’m trying to suppress that knowledge right now and pretend that she’s actually British. In which case, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can’t hear that obviously American dialogue coming out of a British person’s mouth.

I met this nice boy named Sealand who has a rig very close to our house. He's trying to be a country like England, but doesn't seem to like him very much at all. 

Oh god no, don’t bring him into this. Let him live. Plus these sentences have this weird thing going on that I can’t really explain, but it makes Ariana sound like she’s trying way too hard to sound British. What I can say is that all of the ‘very’s make the sentences sound clunky, though.

Anyways, England always wants to cook, though, and his food is kind of… bad. So I cook before he does, and it kind of annoys him. But he always says he's grateful after I cook, though, and comments on how well I cook British food."

You know, the stereotype of England being a bad cook comes from British food in general being bland and tasteless. It’s an exaggeration of that ‘white people don’t season their food and can’t handle spice’ stereotype that’s a part of England’s character because he himself is a stereotype. So of course it figures that Sue-riana would be able to cook this inherently bad (and not to mention completely foreign) food better than the embodiment of the fucking country itself can.

"I can cook anything better than you," Francisca bragged.

"Oh, shut up, Francisca. If you're so good at cooking, then why don't you try cooking the kind of food England has in his cookbook?" Ariana challenged.

And look, I even acknowledged that in the story! Ariana straight up admitted that England’s food is the crappy part, not his cooking. So how is she magically able to make it taste awesome?

Seriously, this instance of the conflict ball being thrown around just doesn’t make any sense. It’s based on an argument of who between two girls can cook better. Isn’t that a little...on the nose, considering that the point of the fic is to feminize some male characters? Resorting to female stereotypes this early on doesn’t bode well for the rest of the fic.

Francisca got up and pulled out a twig. Before anyone could stop her, she went over to Ariana and proceeded to smack her in the head with it, providing her own sound effects as well: "Smack, Smack, Smack, Smack...!"

That’s a reference to a sketch in Hetalia about France jumping onto the winning sides of wars to reap the winners’ benefits—France may be weak, but he wouldn’t start a war with England of all people using a twig. Besides, where would Francisca have gotten a twig from and why would she carry it around with her everywhere? The stick whapping was a metaphor in the anime!

Ariana then got angry (or as Allison would say, 'totally pissed off') and kicked Francisca in the face, sending her towards the floor in a matter of seconds.

"Holy fricken' crap, dude!" Allison cried excitedly.

Well that’s not very gentlewomanly! Gentlemanliness is one of England’s defining traits (he even has an entire character song about it!) and already Ariana’s messed it up. Who responds to being poked with a stick with a kick to the face?

I also hate all of Allison’s slang, by the way. All of these fricken’ fricks.

Ariana began to kick Francisca while she was on the ground, which led Louella to restrain Ariana while Francisca got up. Yiesha ran over to Francisca and asked, "Are you okay? Your nose is bleeding, aru..."

Francisca wiped her nose. "Yeah, that's… unrelated. I'm fine, I assure you."

Jesus Christ, what is with all of the misplaced perversion?? These girls are 13!

"You're going down, you perverted wine-loving bitch!" Ariana shouted, still kicking and flailing at Francisca.

OH FUCK! If you’ve been keeping track, this is the first time a really bad word has been uttered in this fic. Fun fact; my parents didn’t use to let me swear, so I put bad words in this fic in spite of them and prayed that they wouldn’t find out. They’re used correctly and all—they aren’t all over the place—but...I don’t know, thinking about the circumstances makes me cringe. It’s like I was one of those kids who knew they couldn’t swear but tried anyway, so they’d just whisper the swear word in the hopes that their parents won’t hear. “You perverted wine loving…b-bitch.”

"Shows what you know; I can't have wine, I'm thirteen," Francisca said. Allison noticed she had her fingers crossed, though.

Actually, young people in Europe are allowed to drink wine and the like, they’re just not allowed to purchase it. This can be chalked up to their Americanization, probably, but it still doesn’t make much sense.

This brings up a pretty decent point I’ve been meaning to get to, though; there’s a high chance that I made the girls American because I didn’t trust myself enough to do the proper research required to make them belong to different nationalities (which involved a concern that not all of them would know English). This is one of those moments where such a thing would make sense; I knew the laws in America just fine, but being a sixth/seventh grader in the United States, I had no clue what the laws in Europe or Asia were like. It almost makes sense if you think about it like that, but if I didn’t trust in my own ability to write characters of different nationalities, then I shouldn’t have tried to write this fic based on some dumb fantasies I used to have about secretly being the female version of a country.

This only made Ariana angrier, and Louella almost lost her grasp on the English girl a couple times.

"We'll help you out, Louella!" Felicity offered, dragging Kierra with her in her effort to help Louella keep her hold on Ariana.

Allison jumped from her chair and sped over to Ariana. "You're being so bad-ass right now!" she exclaimed.

Of course Allison would say that in the face of this vast overreaction on Ariana’s part and random smackdown that came about because of it. How is she a ‘hero’, again?

"Now isn't the time for that, Allison!" Louella scolded. Meanwhile, Iscah was still sitting down, giggling at the other counterparts' anger.

Mattie, who had just gotten over her embarrassment, noticed the quarrel breaking out between her friends. She went between Francisca and Ariana, just as Louella, Felicity, and Kierra lost their grasp on Ariana. "Hey, can everyone just calm-" she began, before being cut off by a swift kick to the gut that was supposed to be for Francisca. She croaked and fell to the ground, but not before groaning, "Maple-hockey..."

"Mattie!" Ariana cried, her anger melting away, while Iscah was clapping and cheering for more violence.

Because yes, this is how a Canadian person would respond to being kicked in the gut ‘by accident’ (the quotation marks are there because I think it’s almost impossible that Ariana could have overlooked Mattie’s intervention as she was breaking away from the Axis Powers and rearing back to kick Francisca). Don’t you know? That’s how all Canadian people swear.

And who are we supposed to like here, exactly? Why would we want to root for a Mary-Sue (Ariana), an inconsiderate asshole (Allison), or an implied attempted rapist who cheers for physical assault (Iscah)? Oh yeah, spoilers, Iscah gets the POV in a later chapter. Our only solace is in Mattie.

--MATTIE ABUSE +1 (BUT THIS TIME IT’S PHYSICAL SOMEHOW, WHAT THE HELL)

"What's going on in here?" Germany's voice echoed. He entered the room, and looked around to see it somewhat trashed, and every gender swap (except Mattie and Iscah) frozen from fear.

Only somewhat trashed, though it would have no reason to be trashed at all since Ariana just kicked Francisca onto the ground. You know, unless you’re counting all of the crappy OCs, who are trash themselves.

Allison became animated again, while the others were still blank.

That’s an embarrassing thing to add. I was trying to describe anime expressions.

"Dude, it was AWESOME! Ariana was all like, 'Francisca, you suck!' and then Francisca was all like 'No I don't, you do!' and then Ariana beat Francisca up and then Louella came in and she was all like 'Ariana, stop it!' and totally held her back and stuff, then what's-her-face came in and got PWNED!" She shouted excitedly.

This entire line of dialogue kills me. Not only is there the usage of such wonderful, timeless middle school slang as ‘you suck’, ‘dude’, and ‘PWNed’, but Allison isn’t even describing what happened. Ariana said she could cook well, Francisca said she could cook better, and then Ariana randomly flew off the handle when Francisca lightly hit her with a twig.

"What?" Germany questioned, aghast. "What do I tell everyone else when their swaps come home bloody?"

Whoa, when did this become Germany’s POV?! You could almost say that that italicized segment is spoken dialogue delivered sharply, but Louella’s answer doesn’t acknowledge it at all. So does the POV just randomly switch to Germany so he can share one thought?

"Yah, I'm afraid it's true," Louella admitted to Germany.

Gratuitous German? Being brainwashed to speak with an accent is one thing, but appearing to know a foreign language out of the blue is just ridiculous…even if it was just the word ‘yes’ and not something extreme like a spontaneous Scheisse.

Before Germany could scold his counterpart, his phone ringed. He left the room to go answer it, leaving the room in a silence. Felicity broke this silence, however, by saying, "I'm hungry. Louella, what kind of food do you have?"

"Well, we don't have pasta, so don't get your hopes up," Louella responded.

Felicity said, "Aw…"

Leave it to Felicity to be completely oblivious to her surroundings and only focused on food. Really, I hate how her character is handled. She could have been so cute, and yet...

Just then, they heard a shout of disbelief from where Germany had gone to answer the phone.

"What's going on?" Kierra asked silently.

"I don't know," Ariana said in the same fashion. "But Flying Mint Bunny and I will go check."

"Flying mint bunny?" Francisca questioned teasingly in disbelief.

"Yeah, don't you see him? He's right there," Ariana said, pointing to an empty spot beside her head.

What the hell? Why does Ariana only start doing and saying Flanderized England-related things when the POV is taken away from her? She’s still ludicrously Sue-y, but only now is she acting ‘in character’.

Not that POV matters much anyway, since all it does here is tell the reader what that character is seeing. There aren’t any thoughts or motivations or emotions, just actions.

While everyone commented on the absence of the magical bunny, Allison got up to go check. But right as she was about to ask Germany while he was on the phone, he hung up and walked right by Allison, heading towards the room where everyone else was. She followed after him, and sat down when he stopped in the doorframe leading to the room.

Germany looked Felicity right in the eye. "Felicity… While you were here, Italy got attacked by Prussia and a few other countries."

Holy shit, this is the beginning of a world war. I made this story get dark fast. I mean, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s something. Now all of these girls are going to get wrapped up in international war politics or something, aren’t they? Or better yet, are they going to fight in the war? Are they going to fight literal actual countries?? IS ALLISON GOING TO DIE IN THE PROCESS?? PLEASE???

Felicity at first had a worried look, before changing to a humored face. "What? Nice joke, Germany! Italy always told me about the funny jokes you used to-"

"This is no joke! Romano called me to tell me, and then Prussia called to gloat about it. I'm sorry, Felicity."

Of course Felicity would be too stupid to realize that he’s being serious, but on a side note, what? Why would Prussia call his brother, Italy’s best friend, to gloat about this? Does he seriously want to get his ass kicked? And why would he pick Italy, of all people? He loves Italy!

"He's okay though, right? He's not… dead, is he?" Felicity asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

"No, of course not. A couple other countries were able to stop Prussia halfway into his attack. He's fine, but… Romano thinks it would be better if you didn't come right now, Italy's really hurt." Germany said.

Yeah, that’s grounds to start WWIII. It’s going down just like WWI did. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after the assassination of their Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but only once they became allies with Germany in case Russia intervened to support Serbia—which they did—and France jumped in to support Russia and pulled Great Britain after them because of the Triple Entente alliance they were all a part of. But who are the ‘few other countries’ who helped a German terrorist attempt to wage war against Italy? Who are the ‘couple other countries’ who jumped in to help? These can’t be faces without names; if they’re countries, chances are good that they have personifications in Hetalia and are thus characters who need to be identified.

Allison thought for a moment she heard a small mix of regret and sorrow in the German's voice.

And...why would that be weird? His best friend just got put in the hospital by his big brother. Couldn’t the narrative have made this insightful by showing Allison’s emotions in this situation? We already know how Germany’s going to feel, but Allison’s a wild card. It would have been a lot more interesting to hear about this from her side of the story.

The tears collecting in Felicity's eyes finally overpowered her usually joyful and somewhat ditzy personality, sending salty tears running down her cheeks.

The way this is written makes it sound less sad and more gross.

Louella and Kierra scooted their chairs closer to her and put their arms around her. Allison, Yiesha, Francisca, Mattie (who had gotten up earlier, but no one noticed),

Nice potshot, even if it’s totally unfitting because of the current circumstances.

--MATTIE ABUSE +1

Ariana, and even Iscah had looks of sadness and disbelief visible in their expressions, and Germany had one to match.

They’re all just lumped together in their emotions. No individuality between them. Nobody has a differing take on things. Nobody’s demanding to go to the hospital, nobody’s blaming themselves for this attack, nobody’s in denial, nobody’s scared that such a thing will happen to anyone else. They’re just all, in unison...sad. Get used to this, because as the fic goes on, you’ll find that every individual in this group save for Ariana, Mattie, and Allison loses a lot of individuality as more and more of the plot becomes centered around them.

This is usually the part where I say something either funny, clever, or just something that needed to be said. For now, I just have this: :'(

I mean, you’ve never said anything funny, clever, or important in these notes, but thanks for not dragging out the mushy sentimentality longer than you needed to.

And that, my friends, was chapter 5 of Genderswapped Nations. It was quite the adventure, but I’m definitely glad it’s over. Luckily for us, we never have to suffer through another chapter where Allison has the POV ever again (and doesn’t it figure that the Mattie/Canada abuse counter doubled in this chapter?). Unfortunately, though, we still have fifteen chapters of this drivel left to go and Allison is still Ariana’s ‘Lancer’ in this story so she won’t be disappearing anytime soon. Anyway, come back soon for the next exciting chapter of Genderswapped Nations, where you can expect to see some classic French cuisine, asshole best friends, and past me openly lampshading the stupidity of some of the bullshit she tried to add into the fic and asking the readers to overlook it...and no, I’m not over analyzing anything or making a joke, it actually happens. Three times, in fact.

(CANADA/MATTIE ABUSE COUNTER=10)