#soldier fortune black ops

[masoncarr2244]

[michael-j-dean]

[nesiacha]

The Dark Side of Victor Hugo: His Fervent Support for Colonization

Warning: at one point there are shocking writings about the atrocities of colonization. Sensitive souls should refrain.

Here is the greatest shadow in Victor Hugo's legacy: Algerian colonization. I'll share some of his writings with you. Here's what he said in 1830 (he was a royalist at the time and had not yet become the leftist man, the fierce opponent of Napoleon, and one of the few writers to defend the cause of the 1870 Communards):

"Algeria. Military colonization must cover and envelop civilian colonization as a wall covers and envelops a city. Military colonization is a living wall. What better continuous barrier than a French camp? Put the soldier in front of the settler as you put iron at the tip of a spear." (Ocean, note dated by René Joumet between 1835-1840 in Victor Hugo, Complete Works, Robert Laffont, Bouquins collection, Paris, 1985, vol. Ocean).

He continues to advocate for colonization during this period, saying: "I believe that our new conquest is something fortunate and grand. It is civilization marching over barbarism. It is an enlightened people going to meet a people in darkness. We are the Greeks of the world, it is our duty to illuminate the world."

Of course, he strongly disapproved of Louis-Philippe I's decision to imprison Emir Abdelkader. But he remained a fervent supporter of colonization. Sure, there is a brief note expressing his outrage at the treatment of the colonized, but he did not make it a public stance, unlike the other causes he held so dear (such as opposing Napoleon III's authoritarian drift, the death penalty, and supporting the Communards). So, it does not seem that he considered this issue very important compared to his other causes, and he refused to see the core issue: colonization. However, I will share this excerpt with you: "The army made ferocious by Algeria. General Le Flô told me last night, October 16, 1852: 'During assaults and raids, it was not uncommon to see soldiers throwing children out of windows, which other soldiers below would catch on their bayonets. They tore earrings from women’s ears along with their ears, and cut off their fingers and toes to take their rings. When an Arab was captured, all the soldiers he passed on his way to execution would laugh and shout: cortar cabeza! The brother of General Marolles, a cavalry officer, speared a child on the tip of his sword. He at least has this reputation in the army and failed to adequately justify himself.' Atrocities of General Négrier. Colonel Pélissier: Arabs smoked alive." (Victor Hugo, Choses vues, op. cit., vol. History).

In 1862, he said in Les Misérables, if I’m not mistaken: "Algeria, too harshly conquered, like India by the English, with more barbarity than civilization, the betrayal of Abd-el-Kader." A condemnation that, in my opinion, remains discreet and especially inconsistent with what he would say later. For example, on May 18, 1879 (by which time he had become the left-wing figure remembered by history), he stated: "Asia has its history, America has its history, even Australia has its history, which dates from the beginning of human memory; Africa has no history; it is shrouded in a vast and obscure legend […]. The two colonizing nations, which are two great free nations, France and England, have seized Africa; France holds it from the west and the north, England holds it from the east and the south. Italy now accepts its share of this colossal work. […] In the nineteenth century, the White man made the Black man a human being; in the twentieth century, Europe will make Africa a world." He then willingly lies, claiming that colonization is peaceful: "Peoples! Take possession of this land. Take it. From whom? From no one. Take this land from God. […] Where kings would bring war, bring harmony. Take it, not for the cannon, but for the plow; not for the sword, but for commerce; not for battle, but for industry; not for conquest, but for fraternity."

And let's not forget that he once referred to the colonized as "Bedouins" in one of his speeches. No comment needed for this racist remark.

Now, don’t think I’m saying this to bash Victor Hugo. He should be seen with both his qualities, such as his fight against the death penalty, poverty, his opposition to Napoleon III and Thiers, and his rare support for the Communards, and his flaws, like his colonialism tinged with racist overtones, his bad faith, and his lies about colonization — especially when other figures, such as Eugène Mourot, Louise Michel, Jean Allemane, and others, publicly defended the Algerians.

It’s similar to George Sand, whom I mentioned in my post here. Although she called herself a socialist, she fully supported the repression of the Paris Commune and displayed absurd bad faith. Nevertheless, she cannot be judged solely through that lens; she must be viewed in her entirety, such as her public support for the 1848 revolt or her confrontation with Napoleon III over his authoritarianism.

[raindrop-on-a-spiderweb]

Appointment in Samara is one of my favorites ever. I think about it a lot. It’s incredibly well written, and to this day, I’m still in awe of how you managed to make a blowjob far more frightening than what they did in chapter 8 or before and after that. I've never felt such paralyzing fear before, and I dare say they were being mild about it, at least compared to that sick film they did to her. It felt like I was truly there, and I could feel the men's jeans against my skin and hear their distant conversations. 

What made you write AIS? Who's your favorite character in it? 

It's totally alright to just ignore this. I hope you are well, and congratulations!!💛💛

It's really touching that you sent this. I always felt that gustatorial sensation is better than any other way of getting emotions across. In the moment, you aren't considering your emotions, just going off synapses and sensations. Being viscerally frightened is a very biological reaction, as is being very happy, or deeply angry. And honestly, sometimes it's the implicit threat that is more frightening than the threat carried out. There is nothing worse than something heavy hanging over your head in which only your mind can complete. Show, don't tell, is my shibboleth.

I have always had a general interest in geopolitics, as well as general black-ops and undercover work. I had been considering an espionage story set in the USSR for a long time before I switched ideas, and some of its elements were incorporated into Appointment in Samarra. But the general hectic lifestyle of a mercenary lent more of a flexible plotline and plot twists, and so I pivoted to something more modern. Soldier of Fortune magazine, Frederick Forsyth, The World's Most Dangerous Places (this one mainly, Coskun Aral is an incredible war journalist), and about a thousand documentaries were some of my inspirations. Things didn't exactly go as planned–I had started with a grand, world-spanning adventure diluted with espionage, political intrigue and backstabbing, but as it went on It gradually became less of a world spanning adventure and more of a contained emotional drama.

I like Tatiana, honestly. She's just a normal woman roped into a scheme way beyond her comprehension, and who even when she gets an inkling of the danger she’s in, she is still ready to throw down for the sake of her friend. I wrote her character before I met my Russian fiance but it's kind of funny how accurate it is lol. Russians tend not to make friends easily, but they're very loyal friends towards the ones they have.

Conna and Fox too–I like how Conna's backstory unfurled and how her character bloomed as the story went along, and Fox's shady backstory and unstable temperament.

Also, I unironically have a soft spot for the Romanian hooker. I love her bile and honesty and kind of wish I'd written more scenes with her. 

Thank you so much for your ask, it put such a smile on my face and I absolutely loved answering it. I hope to finish Samarra soon!!

P.S. for those who liked the Moroccan arc, this is a really good example of lodgings in North Africa, tiling, bedding, decor.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/zmxPNsjKfnzcU6k96

[cyberpunk-20xx]

On Johnny’s trans journey

cw for internalized and externalized transphobia, lesbophobia, alcohilism mentions, canon-compliant violence

Yeah so one day (this is my hc in my CP15 AU where Johnny doesn’t get to stay with the Aldecaldos the whole time between summer 2013 and the 2020s and instead goes back to Kerry NC, thus leading to a Reunion Tour that gets Victor hired by Samurai’s label), there's yet another quidproquo between Victor and him.

In a panic, he suckerpunches Victor rasping "I'm not a fucking tranny [unsaid: like you]"

And something clicks inside Victor's head (probably their chrome thinly-veiled skull rebuffing against the impact) and everything falls to place. As comprehension sets in, their response is instantaneous:

"Well fuck, damn you stupid bitch, I didn't say you were, but now I know you are!!"

And they look at him in disbelief like he's pulled the biggest bit they've ever witnessed, there's a blank where Johnny is pale as a fucking sheet, looking like a ghost that got killed twice more, starting to hyperventilate as he stares at them, and they righten themselves, rubbing and cracking their jaw back into place (that's also when Johnny understand how borged out they secretly are), and they look at him, eyebrows rising, and whistles out,

"Fuck, that explains so much."

—

Johnny once fell upon an entire fortune. Literally. While raiding an abandoned house the enemy forces had been hiding out at, the poor kid had collapsed right onto some corpse of a guy still clinging to a wad of cash. Johnny did what any shellshocked underage impulsive teen soldier would have.

He pocketed the money and hid it, the stress and fear of being caught with it making him sick. He had to get rid of it and quick. And he couldn’t waste it.

He’d gotten the whole premium package: he’d already had a medium shit quality T implant, so he got a mammectomy he paid a fortune for, a scrotum and penis transplant, and a few months later, he got back to the clinic using the rest of the cash plus the little military credit and health care he had for cosmetic surgery that erased his chest scars, rendering him unidentifiable as trans to the naked, cis gaze.

Robert Linder died for good with Johnathan Nauman, and he was a pre-op trans man hopeful for a future that had more colours to it than just reds and blacks and maroons.

—

Only Kerry and Denny knew. Kerry only did because he was himself a semi-closeted trans man. And Johnny acted with such disgust toward the subject anytime he’d brought it up, unless it was about himself and then suddenly it was fucking magically fine (it made Kerry feel special, so he did not question it- if only he’d know just how special he actually was, so special to Johnny that Johnny had to resort to violence to deny himself another chance at loving a man the way he wished he could-) and Kerry’d always just assumed it was just yet another Raised in The Bible Belt thing.

He’d not been entirely wrong.

Denny on the other hand, knew about it because one day, she’d been the only one semi-sober– to this day she does not understand how nor why it had to be her of all people to learn this about their cryptical, aggressive frontman.

He’d been curled up in a corner and mumbling to himself, which wasn’t unusual but rare, but he was also sobbing and clutching his head. 

That, was not normal. It was fucking bizarre actually, and she felt even more mortified see this much from him than she’d been the first time she’d gifted a bouquet to a girl she liked (her name was Natasha, she had long auburn hair and a face like a gentle doll, lips pink like fruit) who’d then looked at her up and down and spat,

“I’m not a fucking lesbo.” 

As if just the thought had soiled her.

Well somehow that was worse.

And yet she’d approached him, and kneeled beside him.

Now, everyone in Samurai knew about Johnny’s horrid war-induced C-PTSD, and the first rule of thumb about Johnny’s horrid war-induced C-PTSD: You don’t talk about Johnny’s horrid war-induced C-PTSD.

If it needs to be brought up, Johnny is more than capable enough doing it himself and then by gods he’ll only stop when he’s done talking about it.

Many-a-one jaws and noses and ribs and walls and chairs and tables and car windows had beared the testimony of what happened if you broke that rule.

So they didn’t talk about it.

Then the 2013 raid happened. And it somehow got worse.

But let’s not get sidetracked.

Denny had sat next to Johnny, and a decade later she wonders if she wasn’t on some acid trip after all, when he’d not only not slapped her hand off of him, but collapsed against her chest, in the most uninterested way, and wailed just a tad louder, a tad clearer, about some guy he’d stolen everything from, the man who’d taken a bullet from him, and how he was a fraud and one day they would all find out, how he could only keep lying to himself for so long, he’d always just be the delusional bitch his older brothers said he was.

She had not even thought it was possible for Johnny Silverhand to have brothers, much less plural, much less ones that would have abused him and won.

More things were said. Garbled and disjointed, but Denny knew how to speak tongues with men who’d been swallowed by the bottle.

Oh, everyone assumed she was so patient with Henry because she was naive and stupid, but what they didn’t want to understand is that she just knew better. She knew that beneath the violence and the smell of chemicals lied terrified boys who’d grown into broken men, begging for anyone to just understand.

Her father had been such a kind man before the incident.

And so, she’d learned a secret Johnny hadn’t told anybody else, not even Kerry, and that was when she knew.

It was bad. She could never fucking mention it to anyone.

But Denny was used to taboos, and one more didn’t shake her. She just kept on drumming, taking out her rage at the world for burdening her with the pain of everyone around her by beating the shit out of her drumset and making bank off it.

She just knew some things were better left unsaid. Sleeping dogs lying and all that, y’know?

—

And then Victor had to go and fucking ruin it, making Johnny have to come out and say it.

And Johnny’s fists could barely scuff their face, it only broke the skin and bled but nothing underneath got any real damage, so, seemed they were all fucked.

They were gonna have to talk about it. Or at least put words on it, thinking about it, now.

Johnny hated them even more for that.

(That must be why he slept at their place, in their bed, for the next few weeks following.

Sometimes, Kerry would stay over so they could work on their songs, Victor keeping themselves busy with what the fuck ever it was that their imp ass did during their free time, and he’d sleep into bed behind him, or as the little spoon when Johnny felt small like humouring him.

Victor would stay on the same side of the bed and latch onto him one way or another, kissing his scalp softly, and he’d fall asleep, and if he were lucky, he dreamed of cocoa butter scented hair tickling his face, strong lanky dark skinned arms around his frames, two sets of dogtags clinking together softly under the rustles of the sheet.

Sometimes there would be blonde hair falling in a halo around a pale figure, but most of those dreams ended up as nightmares, so that’s not what we’re talking about if we’re talking about the times Johnny got lucky dreaming.

And when he’d wake up, there would be no blood. No screams. 

Just Victor’s stupid little hanging charms chiming softly as the AC droned on.

Just Kerry’s snoring against his neck.

Just peace.)

[dizzy-pixels]

Starship Promise Lore

_________________________________________

Backstory

So basically it was a time when more and more sentient beings were entering space and the humans saw this and wanted to establish diplomatic relations with them as well as explore the galaxy for more. They established the Union for this purpose. But soon what started as an endeavor for exploration quickly turned to colonization and exploitation. This resulted in the Colonial Wars. During the war, a faction rose to challenge the Union's rule, the Empire. While the universe is in a state of disarray, some try to take advantage of the chaos to establish themselves and gain great wealth resulting in the Underground where fortune hunters, bounty hunters, space pirates, arms dealers, and other shady deals take place. Sometimes either faction of the war may secretly use their services to gain an upper hand over the other.

_________________________________________

The Union

The Union's official name is the Union of Democratic Star Systems. It was started by humans for space exploration and diplomacy with other alien planets and those it established diplomacy with entered the Democratic Star Systems. But the Union's benevolent image is propaganda which conceals a history of unlawfully occupying planets, seizing their assets, and oppressing their native residents. This resulted in the Colonial Wars and a faction that split into what would become the Empire. The Union's military is ruled by a collection of admirals and runs on representative democracy. Because the Union was started by humans, most high positions are filled by humans. Aliens may be faced with prejudice when attempting to rise the ranks. Admirals in the Union are dressed in pristine white uniforms with shiny gold trim on their uniforms. Underlings wear the same style of uniform, but colored in earthy tones.

• Admirals: Sol, Mirra, Vyrnas, Evander • Lieutenant: Aquilla • The Fire Falcons: The Fire Falcons was a Union Fighter Pilot Team. Atlas was once a part of it. It's now inactive as most members of this squadron have died. • Mechanized Forces Team: Constructed under Project Bahamut, The Union develops powered mech suits which include functions such as speech commands, flight, ammunition, and a shoulder cannon. These mech suits are only given to the Mechanized Forces Team which is led by Tyrian Aquilla. However, under Operation Echinemon run by Admiral Vyrnas, he implanted a chip in the robots. It's a failsafe in the suits the team members are unaware about where the Union can control whoever is wearing it by overriding the person and shutting off their feelings. Turning them into essentially killing machines.

_________________________________________

The Empire

The Empire's official name is The Galactic Liberation Front. It's goal is in the name, to liberate the Galaxy from the colonization of the Empire by fighting back and then establishing themselves as ruler and protector of the galaxy. However they too aren't immune to using force to accomplish this goal, such as taking planets by force to expand their reach over the Union and believe the end justifies the means. For example, in order to keep their military supplied, they sow disorder in the colonies they rule over and leave them rundown so that they can get more recruits trying to leave poverty and join their military for a better life. Their military is ruled by its Emperor and his heir, Imperial Princess Vespira. The Empire consists of humans and aliens alike working together for liberation. Though there are sperate cells in the Empire who have conflicting opinions on how to reach this goal and don't agree with the current way. Officers of the Empire wear black uniforms fairly dripping with gleaming gold accents. Officers often wield "beam sabers," and can use them to deflect blaster fire.

• Commander: Bazirg, Fox, Petros • Admiral: Fairchild • Empire Black Ops: The Empire Black Ops was a small elite force of empire soldiers. However, it soon became a corrupt branch of the Empire military that participated in crimes. The group was disbanded after all its members were dishonorably discharged. • Super Soldiers: Dr. Xendalia often works commissions for the Empire. She herself is working on an army of Super Soldier clones. They are referred to with Greek letters. There's Alpha (aka Nova), Beta, and Gamma. • Super Weapons: Besides super soldiers, the Empire puts its resources into creating other super weapons. The main one was the creation of a super weapon named Ragnarok. The superweapon was intended for fighting smoke aliens. However, since they also used it to destroy smoke-infested planets while people were still living on them and not evacuating first, the Starship Crew destroyed it. Another superweapon was the creation of a nanobot swarm called Fenrir. They planned to use it on the Union.

_________________________________________

Human MC

Human MC grew up on the Union Colony of Olympus-7 her whole life, never even seeing other systems or planets until the story starts. She worked as an engineer until people started coming after her, and she's capable of quite a lot of technological wizardry. While some routes focus more on her hacking and programming skills, other routes showcase her talents as an inventor. The story (for the original Promise Crew routes) always begins with Human MC making a discovery which draws the Empire to come hunting her, but the nature of that discovery is different in each route. She can be described as smart, quick thinking, but awkward and have a habit of talking to herself and saying things out loud. Her chain of thought bounces around like a ball in a pinball machine, lightning-fast but very easily sidetracked onto irrelevant tangents. But she's truly a genius engineer able to hack, build, and fix anything. She has the ability to solve what was thought to be unsolvable theoretical physics problems. Her other greatest quality is having a big heart. Her abilities cumulates to her saving the world.

Alien MC

Alien MC was a overachieving accountant major, studying at a big-name university when she fell in love with a private investigator. They became partners, both work-related and romantically. She dropped out of university to work cases with him full-time. On their first major job together, her partner sold her out. A professional and romantic failure. With no degree or other skills, she decided to stick it out as a PI on her own, but the scars of that failed relationship still linger. Not getting proper closure weighed her down more than she'd like to admit. MC's mom doesn't know she's a PI and thinks she thinks she's an accountant consultant. While not a genius like the Human MC, the Alien MC is still a gadget nerd and can repair her tech when it's broken as well as make some small modifications. She modified her wrist tablet on her arm that also has a built in universal translator. She also has great observation and critical thinking skills. She knows how to shoot a blaster, but doesn't know how to fly a ship. Her personality is being married to her job as she basically threw her life into her work after her first love betrayed her. She is more serious and want to be the best PI she can be.

_________________________________________

The Evil Force

The smoke creatures that show up across various route are aliens of unknown origin who move from planet to planet, consuming all life and then moving on. They have the ability to evolve to the point where they have glowing red eyes in the midst of their dark, swirling masses. They can even maintain a form that can impersonate people (though their eyes are still red) allowing them to assimilate among people. Their weakness is bright light or particular crystals. The potential invasion of the smoke aliens is the overarching plot arc in the first few Promise Crew routes.

_________________________________________

Colonies

Space colonization allowed the Union to use outer space for permanent habitation as extraterrestrial territory. They set up colonies on space stations. These colonies have controlled gravity, oxygen, and weather. They are typically named after places of paradise.

_________________________________________

More:

[mudaship39]

Character Bio of the Afro Asian Native Human with Fae Elvish, Goblinoid, & Giantkin Spellcaster, Gunslinger, & Swordmaster Part 5

Training:

He/she/they were the apprentice, initiate, aspirant, and squire of two knight commanders. He/she/they were a knight, a knight corporal, & a knight sergeant. 

He/she/they were a knight sergeant, a knight lieutenant, & later a knight captain. 

He/she/they were a paladin, a star paladin, & a grand paladin. 

He/they were then the knight and paladin chapter master. 

She/they were an elder of a paladin and knight order. 

He/she/they as a fighter were a mercenary, bounty hunter, & private soldier of a mercenary company Timber Wolf that worked jobs all over Esisio. 

She/they is a warlord who is in control of a city state for territory. 

He/she/they graduated from the guild academy as a B rank adventurer and an A rank guild member. He/she/they as an adventurer of an adventuring guild and guild member of a guild order are a magic user and fighter. She/they is an arcane swordsman and esoteric gunslinger as a fighter. 

He/she/they started out as an independent B rank adventurer and an A rank guild member after leaving their own guild order and adventuring guild that he/she/they joined as a C rank member. He/she/they were looking to start his/her/their own guild order of guild members to go on quests for missions. He/she/they were also looking to start his/her/their own adventuring guild of adventurers going into dungeons during raids for loot.

He/she/they as a fighter was a black ops and spec ops soldier for the Federation of Aehinara military. He/she/they as a fighter was a general of the Human Federation military.

He/she/they were the apprentice of a grand sorceress and a grand magician. 

He/she/they had many apprentices as an imperial alchemist traveling the giant planet Kaishi. 

He/she/they as an arch mage and master wizard worked at a magical tower The Mysterious Spire that was home to the magical council and magical government of magic users. The magical tower has an extensive library of parchments, scrolls, tomes, & grimoires.

He/she/they as a great warlock and supreme witch also worked at the magical tower the Brilliant Obelisk that is home to an entire magical community of magic users. The magic tower has an immense laboratory for alchemists to brew, concoct, & stew elixirs, potions, antidotes, brews, & concoctions. 

He/she/they as a S rank magic user are a tenth circle magic user specializing in tier zero to tier five magic. 

Norwood Family: 

His/her/their noble and old family of Norwood is a noble house who made their fortune in magic. Their trade and interest is in magical research, creation of magical tools, mage schooling, selling of magical items, & forging of magical equipment (weapons, armor, & shields). His/her/their family’s alignment is good and neutral. Their resource limit is 100,000 gold. Their membership is eighty nobles. The heraldic symbol of the House of Norwood is of a Hellhound. The colors of the noble house are sapphire, gold, & silver. The Noble and Old House of Norwood has large land holdings. Controlling a large domain of land means power, control, influence, assets, and stature. The  family seeks to increase their land holdings and reclaim lost land from rival families. The family has several heirlooms such as a sword that was a gift from an ally sovereign, a wand passed down from the first magic user in the family’s bloodline, the remains of the family’s first elder, & letters and ledgers. Heirlooms are an important part of a family’s power base. So reclaiming and protecting lost heirlooms is an important priority. 

Attributes: 

Active:

Passive:

Perks:

Magic attacks: 

Concussion Beams: Release beams of solidified magic.

Expanding Magic Bolts: Project magic that expands rapidly on contact with an object.

Formulated Magic Blasts: Release blasts of magic in the form of a creature or object.

Hand Blasts: Release magic blasts from hands.

Magic Ball Projection: Create and launch spheres of magic.

Magic Bolt Projection: Release low powered projectiles of magic.

Magic Bullet Projection: Fire in short sequence over a wide area.

Magic Breath: Discharge magic blasts from the mouth.

Magic Burst: Create a burst of magical energy.

Magic Cutting: Use magical energy to cut opponents.

Magic Infusion: Empower and energize anything touched or used (usually a weapon) with magic.

Magic Pillar Projection: Project magic pillars.

Magic Spike Projection: Project magic spikes.

Magic Vision: Emit magic from one's eyes.

Magic Vortex Creation: Create spiral/vortex of magic.

Magic Wave Emission: Send out a wave of magic and that repels everything.

Magical Beam Emission: Release concentrated beams of magic.

Magical Bomb Generation: Create bombs/explosions of magic.

Mystic Blast: Release magic over a specific target area.

Omnidirectional Magic Waves: Send out a wave of magic in all directions.

Overpower: Pulse of magic is released, overloading powered devices in an area.

Reflective Attacks: Release attacks that can bounce off of any surface.

Scatter Shot: Release magic blasts that split into multiple fragments.

Sword Beam Emission: Release magic blasts from swords and other such bladed weapons.

Wave Motion Blast: Launch a massive wave of magic.

Zap: A tiny short release of magic to cause pain or discomfort, usually too low-powered to be destructive.

Powers: 

Magically enhanced physiology, Mystic Human Physiology, Homo Magi Physiology, Mage Lord/Mage Lady Physiology, Transcendent Mage Physiology. 

Abilities: 

Magical energy absorption, Magical reflection, Magical unification, Magical regeneration, Magical communication, Magical constructs, Magical energy manipulation, Magical object manipulation, Magical Telekinesis, Magical Telepathy, Magical Teleportation, Magical Flight, Magical Energy Manipulation, Magical Energy Generation, Mana Manipulation, Magic empowerment, Magic combat, Magic aura, Magic channeling, Magic concentration, Magic conversion, Magic detection, Magic extension, Magic generation, Magic invisibility, Magic portal creation, Magic replication, Magic Adaptation, Magic Bestowal, Anti Magic, Magic Immunity, Magic Creation, Magic Destruction, Magic Negation, Magic Intuition, Magic Lordship, Magic Unification, Magic Weaponry, Spellcasting, Spell amplification, Spell creation, Spell destabilization, Spell mixture, Spell negation, Potion creation, Potion amplification, Energy circle combat, Force Field Generation, Mystical Healing, Elemental Control/Elemental Manipulation, Energy Construct Creation, Energy Projection, Mystical martial arts, Adaptive magic, Leyline Manipulation, Esoteric Energy Manipulation, Omni Magic, Power Absorption, Personal Domain, Personal Enchantment, Eldritch blast, Mind Control, Mental Manipulation, Emotional Manipulation, Precognition, Reality Alteration/Reality Warping, Astral Projection, Cosmic Awareness, Dimensional Travel, Immortality

Personality:

Strengths: Active. Adaptable. Admirable. Adventurous. Agreeable. Alert. Amiable. Appreciative. Articulate. Aspiring. Athletic. Attractive. Balanced. Benevolent. Brilliant. Calm. Capable. Captivating. Caring. Challenging. Charismatic. Charming. Cheerful. Clean. Clear-headed. Clever. Colorful. 

Flaws:

Virtues: 

Vices: Drinking magical alcohol. Using magical drugs. Gambling in magical card games.

Weaknesses: 

When still mortal and before being turned into a fae elvish god/goddess of magic, a giant kin god/goddess of smithing, & a hobgoblinoid god/goddess of technology.

His/her/their weaknesses were:

Anti magic attacks

Attacks from dragons.

Possession from demons. Possession from angels.

Being revived by necromancers. Being revived by lich kings

Being turned into a zombie by the undead. Being turned into a vampire. Being turned into a lycanthrope by a werewolf.

Mind control by mind flayers. Mind control by beholders.

Being possessed by spirits like ghosts, wraiths, ghouls, or spectre.

Being mummified by mummies

Venom from giant ants, giant bees, or giant spiders. Venom from driders or arachne.

Venom from fire basilisk. Venom from hydras.

[inland--empire]

Well, more like, because Black Mesa had Gordon and Adrian and other potential protagonists in the form of Barney, Gina and Colette, but Other Research Facility wasn’t fortunate enough to have anyone adaptable enough to clean up the mess Race X were making, so Trinity was sent out to do the job instead. Trinity is… pretty scared of all of their superiors, as most would be if their species made a deal with an organization of nigh-omnipotent beings and they were suddenly carrying out military operations for them in hostile universes. As such, G’ decides to spare Rin his constant presence and lets them clean up on their own, as he always found them capable and trusted them. Rin does their thing at Other Research Facility with a squad of actual, human Black Ops soldiers, though many of them die before they can get too attached. The only one they really end up getting to know is a sniper named Adam (yes, HDTF Adam). They successfully suppress the Race X portals overrunning Other Research Facility together, but then something goes wrong and both get stuck in harmonic reflux, eventually getting teleported to Black Mesa…

Ok, I see! You sound like you've really got this

[silverjetsystm]

"Don't worry about it." Getting shot at was in the job description. Shots land. He figured the gun issue was a matter of getting their weaponry from some contractor instead of making them in house. Someone assumed McCoy didn't need a weapon or those models were specifically incompatible with paws. Technically, he didn't. Moon Knight knew the decision was bigotry at its core.

McCoy did save the day, as bitter the victory seemed to personally be. Evident by flexing paws, tension radiating from the way he carried himself. He squinted at the setup -- clothes truly did help making Grant distinct from himself, Lockley with the mustache and cab different from the businessman. Where was it going? The punchline, "That time vested in vestments makes a fine investment," kept him from eyeballing the wound. Instead, he repeated the phrase under his breath, tasting the ts, vs, and is. A burst of undistorted and warm laugh with the stretch of a cloth covered grin. "I'll remember that one."

Instrument drawer involuntarily tensed his shoulders, jaw set, like a trapped animal regarding The Process rather than McCoy's touch and analysis. Gentle mist wafted over the affected area, leaving a tingle, then peace. No needle, no pill. Suspicious. He tilted is head through the explanation, concerned and catching a hint of … He wasn't going to touch tone. Oh joy. Were they still in the trial phase? Was this an experimental treatment?

"Good to know I won't put a forklift through a wall." Or, likelier, the angelwing through a building. He settled into the table as much as he could. Judging by the instruments, they were going to be here for a while, delicately stitching his leg back together. "Is it habit forming?" Such a clinical phrase. He had no desire to upgrade his substance use.

He watches muscle and skin knitting before his eyes. The not unpleasant tingling sensation of the tools and McCoy's paw on his leg was likely his mind filling in the holes. Beat what he would have access to alone. The limp may have never abated. "Guess I didn't have to worry about a wasting another pair of pants." Clearly, the correct choice. Maybe he'll be almost better by tomorrow.

'Illustrious' was quite a word for a black ops team. They should be shrouded in darkness lest what they have been doing get out. He even had a night-colored suit specifically so they didn't see him coming.

Cap's morals were usually steadfast, good intentions. Spector had been another angry kid raised on Jewish admiration for Cap. And wasn't that the problem? The SRA had been FUBAR without his 'help.' Marc had his own problems to deal with then. Was making a comeback (like now? for better, not the blood he spilt before), was not to be trusted. He recognizes most of their team yet hadn't spent any true quality time among their numbers. Asking why he was here was fair, considering the rumors and headlines over the past few years.

He snorts. "GSW and all, it's still worth it." Amused look at the leg, a snicker at the unintended pun. "I'm." A pause, debating how candid he wanted to be. "Off of probation. Cap saw I cleaned up my behavior and wanted my talents." Valuable checkered resume of disgraced Marine, resigned CIA operative, soldier of fortune who grew a conscience for the type of assignments Cap had them doing. "Consider it my third chance." Becoming Moon Knight had been the true second chance. And now? Spray paint instead of carving foreheads with a crescent moon. Even as Spector. Even alone. There was a line he wasn't going to cross again.

"What brought you here?"

"Of course. I feel as though it's partly my fault you took the hit to begin with." Not that he'd been the one to take the shot, of course, but . . . well. Wasn't it just so very like Hank, that he'd made a big old song and dance about not being able to shoot a gun because he had paws (a lie, and one that he was frankly surprised anyone had bought), but the instant Steve had whipped around and told him to create a weapon of mass destruction, he'd had it done in a jiffy?

Unbidden, he thought back to the Skrulls. Hadn't it been just as easy then? He wouldn't rend head from neck, hated to draw blood, but something as quick and efficient and scientifically satisfying as a bioweapon, oh, he could do that.

'Your conscience is one of the things I value about you, Hank. Really. Never stop challenging me on things like that.'

His paws flexed again. His knuckles were turning powder blue the memory was making him so blindingly, so instantly, so powerlessly furious. He forced himself to unfurl his fingers as he moved with Moon Knight over to the examination table, exhaling through his nose in a noise that he supposed approximated a snort at the man's grousing about wasting time putting on fresh pants. Joke. Make a joke. Christ, Hank, lighten up or you're going to break another table. "Speaking as someone who finds nowadays that clothes so often maketh the man out of the beast, I don't believe it's possible to waste time getting dressed. One might even say . . ." His lips quirked. Was it funny? Funny enough, he supposed.

"That time vested in vestments makes a fine investment."

Even as he delivered the truly cringeworthy pun, Hank's fingers were as smooth as silk as he removed the bandage and peeled back the dressings to examine the first aid he'd performed, critiquing his own work. Not bad, though done in a hurry, and thus immediately improvable now that he had time. A press at the drawer of the table next, and out popped a dazzling array of instruments designed for the healing of the human - and mutant, and alien, and Inhuman - body. A dose of carefully formulated designer painkillers was the first point of call, a needle-less hypospray delivering a warm, painless bliss to the affected area.

"Since I know it's often a concern with pain relief - " And the paranoid types, which, if you don't mind my saying so, you seem like you might be in that category. " - if you're worried about your concentration, focus, or general state of mind, you needn't. Once what I just injected you with has a label, it'll inform you that you're still more than capable of operating heavy machinery." Next, cellular regeneration stimulator, and the sub-dermal micron suture. This was going to be very fine work.

"So. If you don't mind my asking. What brings you to our illustrious band?" They had rather skipped the introductions when the team was assembled. Val, James, Steve, these people he all knew - but Ms. Carter, Nova, and Marc? Less familiar. Reputations, rumour, ruminations, were all he had to bring to bear. He might at least make small talk while he all but fondled the man's leg in an attempt to fix the finer nerve and muscle damage he'd endured.

"I should hope reasons that make getting shot in the leg worth it, but you never know. You could just be here for kicks."

He glanced at Marc's leg.

"Pun unintended."

[patgavin]

Monster Jam 2018

Royal Farms Arena, Baltimore, Md

[association-of-freed-people]

I’ve never heard this story before.

I assume it’s because it’s embarrassing to the corporate press.

Jack Idema was an eccentric conman who blended into the chaos of Afghanistan in the early 2000s posing as a black ops contractor. He was your stereotypical soldier of fortune wannabe chud, an egocentric persona awash in 1980s Hollywood action kitch and bravado.

He became a widespread media personality and commentator on the Afghan crisis who would produce film and documentation of “terrorist activity” that he would sell to eager press outlets engaged in bidding wars for his material. It was fake.

As we’ve seen documented more recently, as with Juicy Smollette, A Rape on Campus, ivermectin overdoses, Russiagate, or numerous other examples of fake news, the press will suspend disbelief and any responsible journalistic standards to produce the content required to support a predetermined narrative and agenda.

He was permitted to operate by the US govt to the point of establishing a private prison compound where he was torturing “suspected terrorists”.

This is a wild and dark story worth your time if you haven’t seen it before.

IMO when the media creates and platforms cons like Jack Idema or Micheal Avanatti, they bear some responsibility for the criminal acts they engaged in.

[that-blue-vault-dweller]

hiiii! could you do companions (plus maxson if possible?) reacting to f!sole being apart of specials forces before the war, like. black bar over face and voice changer type special forces

i love your writing style by the way! its nice to read and i hope ur having a good day and you arent too overwhelmed or anything <3

Hi! 😊🥰 Aww, thank you so, so much!!! 🥺💙💙💙 I am so glad you enjoy my writing style! I’m having a pretty good day. I’m pretty stressed from life stuff and from running two different blogs, but things are pretty good right now. 😊💙

Thank you so much for the request, and I hope you’re having a good day, too! 💙💛💙💛💙💛

Cait - Does not totally understand at first. However, when F!Sole explains it, she thinks it's pretty awesome. She is quickly asking about F!Sole's best fights, and if she has any tips to help Cait improve her fistfighting. Fortunately, F!Sole has quite a few pointers.

Piper - Is really fascinated and with great interest, questions F!Sole quite a bit about classified missions. Fortunately, now that pre-war times are long gone, F!Sole is able to talk about everything she's done. However, she tries to leave out the more gruesome tales, but Piper says that she would never think less of her even if she had to do some bad things.

Curie - Finds herself a little worried about what F!Sole had to do and how it could have affected her from a psychological standpoint, but she is very interested nonetheless. She actively listens when F!Sole speaks about it, and Curie even discusses some of her knowledge on the subject.

MacCready - Thinks it is really awesome when he hears about it and he asks her if she did any work as a sniper. He is very pleased to hear that while she did not personally do any sniping, she had a friend on her team that did. She recounts as many stories as she can remember, and MacCready just watches and listens quietly, taking it in excitedly.

Deacon - Is really excited when he hears this and he is really curious about the more spy-oriented parts of the job. When he hears about the voice changers, he thinks it is even more awesome and he asks her if she could figure out how to make one of those since he could definitely use it for Railroad missions.

Codsworth - Already knew that she was a part of special forces, but he is very happy to hear more about her job now that she doesn't have to keep secrets. He is enthralled with her tales, and listens carefully, leaning in a bit as the action escalates.

Hancock - Is extremely interested and he tells her that she must have some real guts and seen some pretty crazy things. He asks for her best stories and they end up having a few laughs about some of the practical jokes that her and her military friends played on each other sometimes.

Danse - Is extremely enthralled and asks her tons of questions about it, wondering what it was like to be in such a prestigious militarized group. He makes some comparisons to the Brotherhood and he actually even says that he wishes the Brotherhood could adopt some of those strategies for themselves.

Preston - As soon as he figures out exactly what it is, he tells her that is incredible. He knew she was an amazing fighter but he had no idea that she was an elite soldier. He actually now thinks that she is somehow even more qualified to be the General of the Minutemen.

Valentine - Finds himself pretty surprised, but he's impressed with her abilities and the experience she has had. He asks her about the job, knowing it could not have always been an easy one, and he offers to talk with her about some of the worse sides of it if she wants.

X6-88 - Is quite impressed and he now understands why she has such incredible battle prowess. He believes that she is exceedingly talented and her time in special ops could only help her talent grow. He feels that she is an even greater asset to the Institute now.

Strong - Does not understand and even after she explains it, he's pretty confused. So she ends up just simply telling him that she and her team were some of the best fighters from her time. As soon as he hears that, he is much more interested and wants to know how she smashed enemies.

BONUS:

Maxson - Immediately is very pleased and interested. He asks her quite a few questions about the work, and once those are answered, he even asks her if she would like to teach Brotherhood soldiers some of the strategies and techniques that F!Sole learned during her time in the special forces.

[michael-j-dean]

Killer Elite Soldier 🪖 Of Fortune Mercenary

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Anonymous asked: It’s great to have you back! You’re one of my favourite blogs on art and culture but with a thoughtful conservative twist. I really missed your posts and the thought you put into each one. I especially enjoy the posts where you share some of your own personal thoughts. As one would expect you put out posts commemorating those who died in the first and second world wars. I was especially taken by your post with your poppy and regimental pin with a quote from Rudyard Kipling. I found the Kipling quote moving and full of pathos. However I was a disappointed by what you wrote in your personal reflections by dismissing those who died in the Great War and identifying instead the poppy to veterans of the Second World War. Isn’t that disrespectful? I must say I found it all the more surprising coming from a military veteran as yourself. Have I misunderstood you or have you fallen to narcissistic navel gazing of the woke intellectual? 

It’s good to be back from my hiatus from tumblr. A time I don’t regret in the least as I spent that time traveling, and re-connecting with family and friends I haven’t been able to see in the flesh because of the Covid restrictions on travel.

Let me say at the outset I don’t take offence by your words, after all I’m not a snowflake. Instead I want to thank you for raising your concerns as it forces me to re-think my thoughts.

No, I wasn’t being disrespectful to the war dead of the Great War. It was actually a lament on memory and how History works against us. Please re-read my post. I was actually going to do a long post on memory and commemoration of past wars - because as a trained historian I find such questions intriguing - but your question is good as any way to discuss all this.

I’m sure we can always find another way to articulate what we want to say in a more nuanced way that gets close to the truthful meaning behind the thought. But I have sincerely thought about it and on reflection I think stand by my original thoughts.

I believe that not only have we all but forgotten the war dead of the First World War but we’ve also buried the war dead of Second World War at the back of our minds. Like Halloween, once a year we resurrect the war dead as ghosts to haunt us at the appointed hour and then we move on. I think my millennial generation will be the last one to have any physical contact with the generation with that fought in World War Two. Some are fortunate to have had grandparents that live to a ripe old age and therefore available to listen and learn from their experiences. I’ve been fortunate in that regard with my own family with my grandparents. But more so, coming from a strong military family I’ve been around soldiers since I was in nappies (diapers).

As an army officer during my service I’ve had the immense privilege to know much older veterans - such as the Chelsea Pensioners - and spending many a thoughtful time chatting and having a good laugh with them. Or getting tipsy and joshing with military veterans at the various gentlemen clubs dotted around Pall Mall that I’m a member of. When I was about 18, my grandfather, my father and my brothers, would take me to their clubs, especially the Cavalry & Guards Club and the Special Forces Club, where you would hear amazing stories direct from the horse’s mouth about vintage SOE and SAS operations and other ‘fun stuff’ (or in popular jargon ‘black ops’).

Within my own regiment as a combat pilot we traced our lineage back to the Glider Pilot Regiment of the Second World War; I have to say it was a privilege to meet very old veterans of such iconic battles as the Normandy and Sicily landings, Arnhem, and Pegasus Bridge etc at different times of the year whether it was in the officers mess or to commemorate regimental landmarks. Hands down, a truly humbling experience.

My point is the war dead of the Second World War have more meaning to me. I remember them because it was made real to me through such flesh and blood encounters.

For the next generation to come when they come to remember the war dead I’m sure they will have the Vietnam era as well as the Gulf and Afghan Wars (or the so-called 9/11 wars or the War on Terror) at the forefront of their minds more than they will think about the war dead of both the world wars. Obviously if they don’t have direct relatives who fought in these wars, they will know someone in their peer groups who has or it will be saturated within popular culture. If they think about the two worlds wars it will inevitably be in a more abstract and a philosophical way, but with no less respect it has to be said. I don’t think there is any argument here.

My wider point would be to say this is inevitable. Deep down we may feel guilty about it but as I said before History is against us. Sure, at first sight, British remembrance of war has changed little over the last century. The Cenotaph and the Two-Minute Silence date from 1919, the Poppy Appeal from 1921. Yet the continuity of ritual masks profound changes in British attitudes to remembrance. To explore these changes takes us into broader issues of national identity of how we see ourselves. Now as a civilian working in the corporate world and far removed from the battlefield (notwithstanding the board room which these alpha male CEO civvies like to think of as a battlefield) I notice these vicissitudes of society more than I did as a serving officer.

The Great War was the deadliest in Britain’s history, with nearly three quarters of a million killed. It was impossible to bring such a large number of bodies home. Indeed many soldiers had been literally blown to bits by shellfire and their remains were never found. So the dead were interred and commemorated along the battlefronts in nearly a thousand cemeteries and monuments constructed by the Imperial War Graves Commission in one of the biggest public works projects of the 1920s.

You mentioned Rudyard Kipling. What many people forget is that his famous refrain from his poem ‘lest we forget’ was also about the loss of his son.

Among the missing was Jack Kipling – only son of the celebrated author Rudyard Kipling – who was last seen stumbling in agony across the battlefield of Loos in September 1915 with half his face blown off. Jack could have got a medical exemption because of short-sight but he and his father were gung-ho patriots. After 1918 Kipling threw his energies into the war graves project, like the architect Edwin Lutyens and the administrator Fabian Ware. Too old to fight, these were men consumed with grief and probably guilt about the young men who had been sent to their deaths.

During the war itself the public knew little of the gruesome reality of modern industrialised killing. Press reporters were strictly controlled and there was virtually no film footage of combat or bodies. But during the twenties, the veil was partially lifted in veterans’ novels and memoirs. Particularly powerful was the play Journey’s End by RC Sherriff. Set in a gloomy dugout on the western front, it depicted British soldiers bickering and drinking as they psyched themselves up for the next German onslaught. The 1928 play had little action but it proved a runaway West End success, praised for its ‘realism’ in bringing alive the horrors of the trenches. The author JB Priestley called it “the strongest plea for peace I know”.

As the thirties progressed, this link between peace and remembrance tightened. Many people felt that the dead would not have died in vain if 1914–18 proved, in the cliché of the time, ‘the war to end war’. In other words, peace would be the truest form of remembrance. By the mid-1930s Britain had the largest peace movement in the world. Over a third of the population – 11.5 million people – signed the so-called ‘Peace Ballot’ of 1935, with an overwhelming majority registering support for the League of Nations and for an end to the arms trade. And, as war clouds gathered in 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his own bid for peace in a desperate deal with Hitler at Munich.

Chamberlain was another of the generation who was too old to fight. He had never recovered from the death in action of his younger cousin and closest friend, Norman. But on 3 September 1939 Britain was at war once again with Germany: all the peace-talk and peace-making had come to nothing.

This new war was profoundly different from the last. All through the Great War there had been a western front, but in 1940 the fall of France in four weeks left Britain fighting on alone. Unlike 1914–18, the country was heavily bombed and menaced by imminent invasion: 1940 became immortalised in Churchill’s celebrated phrase as Britain’s ‘finest hour’. And this war, unlike the last, ended with Germany’s unconditional surrender and complete occupation by the Allies, by which time the utter bestiality of Nazism had been revealed in camps such as Belsen and Buchenwald. This seemed clearly a ‘good war’ – and it had been won at half the human cost of the last for Britain.

In the 1920s and 1930s the British continued to refer to 1914–18 as the Great War. But after 1945 they adopted American terminology, and spoke of ‘the First World War’ and the ‘Second World War’. This accentuated the sense that 1914–18 had been an inconclusive opening round, which needed another round to finish the job.

After 1945, both Armistice Day on the 11th of November and the Two-Minute silence fell out of fashion. Instead, the dead of both world wars were honoured on the nearest weekend, known as Remembrance Sunday. In the 1950s and 1960s the British seemed obsessed with Hitler’s war – commemorating, even celebrating it, in more than a hundred colour movies showing squared-jawed, stiff-upper-lipped heroes such as Jack Hawkins and Richard Todd fighting evil Nazis in films such as The Cruel Sea and The Dam Busters.

Preoccupied with the era of Churchill and Hitler, the British paid little attention to 1914–18, but the 50th anniversary brought the conflict alive for a new generation. The blockbuster BBC TV series The Great War screened hitherto unseen footage of the trenches in surreal black and white. And the meaning of the war was questioned in books such as Alan Clark’s The Donkeys, which popularised the phrase that British Tommies had been ‘lions led by donkeys’.

This theme of innocent soldiers sent to their deaths by bone-headed upper-class generals was dramatised in Oh! What a Lovely War – an experimental play that mushroomed into a West End hit and a global movie. The tragedy of the soldiers is played out in front of a news panel displaying headline points about the fighting, such as “November… Somme Battle Ends… Total Loss 1,332,000 Men…Gain Nil”. At one point, Field-Marshal Haig (played by John Mills) asserts with aristocratic insouciance: “The loss of, say, another 300,000 men may lead to really great results.”

In fact Oh! What a Lovely War revealed more about sixties’ attitudes to class and country than about what actually happened in 1914–18, but its impact has been enduring.

This was also the decade when the British discovered the ‘War Poets’. Some 2,200 writers published poetry about the Great War between 1914 and 1918, 25 per cent of them women and fewer than 20 per cent men in uniform. Yet since the 1960s, thanks largely to 50th-anniversary anthologies, a handful of ‘soldier poets’ have become the true interpreters of the war for generations of schoolchildren through the English literature curriculum. Supreme among them was Wilfred Owen, whose poems evoked the ‘pity of war’ and whose death in action a week before the Armistice seemed to sum up its futility.

Recently some revisionist military historians have contested these sixties stereotypes of the generals, insisting that the British Army learned from the disastrous first day of the Somme, developing into an efficient war machine that combined infantry, tanks, artillery and aircraft to deadly effect in the autumn of 1918. But this ‘learning curve’ was greased with an appalling amount of blood: whether such a costly education can be justified remains a matter of debate.

It was in the sixties that British remembrance of the Great War set firm, heightening the contrast with the positive remembrance of 1939–45. All the belligerent countries, I would argue, see 1914–18 through the lens of 1939–45, but the refractions vary from place to place.

Consider two examples. In France, for example, a country I now live in, ‘La Grande Guerre’ remains a noble sacrifice to rid the country of German occupation, whereas 1940–44 is remembered as ‘the dark years’ – humiliating defeat in 1940, and then shameful collaboration with Nazi genocide.

In West Germany after 1945, there was no denying the crimes of Nazism, even if these were initially blamed on Hitler and a criminal few rather than acknowledging the complicity of the population as a whole. But until the 1960s, Germans still thought of 1914–18 as a necessary war of defence against Russian and French encirclement. But then the writings of leftist historian Fritz Fischer persuaded many Germans to see 1914–18 as the forerunner of 1939–45, with both wars as episodes in a long story of militaristic expansion since the days of Bismarck.

And so in France and West Germany, like Britain, the two world wars were interlocked in cultural memory. But, unlike Britain, both these countries found a way of escaping from the prison of memory. In 1957, together with Italy and the Benelux states, they signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community. In effect, the EEC represented a peace treaty for western Europe, drawing a line under not only the Second World War but also the grim cycle of Franco-German wars that stretched back before 1939 and 1914 to the days of Bismarck, Napoleon and Louis XIV.

For France, Germany and their neighbours, European integration has offered a way out of their darkly entangled history, transmuting pained remembrance of the past into bright hope for the future.

In Britain this exit strategy has never had much appeal. Not until the British empire had largely been liquidated did Britain, in 1973, join the European Community but the country remains an ‘awkward partner’, frequently at odds with majority policy. Our distinctive patterns of war remembrance are, I think, an important part of the explanation. The First World War, costly yet inconclusive, left troubling questions about whether Britain should have intervened on the continent.

The Second World War – in which Britain triumphed with the help of the ‘English-speaking peoples’ of the Commonwealth (especially British India) and the United States – accentuated that sense of distance, so that the Atlantic often seems narrower than the Channel.

For Britain the last third of the 20th century stood in marked contrast with what had come before. With the retreat from empire, compulsory military service was abandoned. Apart from the Falklands, foreign wars seemed a relic of the past. But over the last quarter-century, war has returned to our national agenda, in the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. The deaths of young soldiers today give new life and meaning to stories and poems from Britain’s greatest war. The two-minute silence has gained new resonance, likewise the Poppy Appeal.

Yet what is being remembered is largely the sixties version of the Great War – a story of mud, blood and class conflict, a cultural memory that is stuck in the trenches and trapped in Poets’ Corner.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. War is not something that happens ‘out there’ but it can be also ‘brought home’. All of us who are recent veterans who have fought Gulf and Afghan Wars especially, bring the war back home with us to our families and our communities. War is total. War affects all society whether you see its effects or don’t directly experience it.

The classical historian in me thinks perhaps by developing a broader sense of conflict based on our own direct and indirect experience of our own wars (we are the children on the War on Terror) and how such things influence the intense socio-economic and racial debates the shape of how we want our societies to be will lead us to appreciate the past.  

In this sense in remembering long forgotten past wars, I hope we can recognise that the home front matters as much as the western front. Perhaps we shall appreciate the impact of the war on women as well as men, not least in breaking the bitter deadlock over female suffrage and how far women have come (or regressed if you believe the radical feminists). We might also grasp the conflict’s global nature – its impact on countries such as India, China and Japan, its effects on the Middle East, which endure to the present day in Syria, Iraq and Israel/Palestine.

Above all, after the catharsis of the Great War, maybe we shall start to move on from remembrance to understanding. After all, no veterans are alive today who served in the conflict: quite literally, no one can ‘remember’ the Great War. In fact, we are now as far from the men who marched away in 1914 than they were from the Redcoats who fought Napoleon at Waterloo.

Of course we should honour the dead but I believe we must also try to understand the Great War as history – history that still casts a long shadow across the world today. Shadows by nature can feel darkly cold, but understanding illuminates and enlighten. Who knows it may even bring us empathy - an individual and collective quality sorely lacking in all that ails us in our current state of across western societies. 

Thanks for your question.

[grinchwrapsupreme]

the nature of Me is always mapping out a The Baker!AU for every piece of media I get invested in.

So anyways, here’s The Baker!AU for BBC Ghosts:

The Captain is a special ops soldier whose work is starting to really destroy him mentally and physically, so when his old MIA partner, Havers, reappears with an Intent To Kill he calls in a favour and retreats to a friend’s abandoned bakery in a small village where he assumes the pseudonym “Captain” and does his best to lay low

By running the bakery

Which he isn’t very good at

While trying to bury the last bit of evidence of his former life in a remote field he gets hit in the head and blacks out

Fortunately there happened to be a scout troupe nearby and Scoutmaster Pat puts his first aide badge into action, taking the Captain back to his house and taking care of him until he wakes up

Naturally the Captain is very suspicious at first, but this Pat guy seems Extremely trustworthy and they quickly form a friendship that teeters on the brink of something more

But as with all small towns, gossip spreads fast, and Mary, who happened to see the Captain burying his service revolver before he got knocked out while she was tending her crops the next field over eagerly shares the opinion that this “Captain” may be some kind of secret agent or hitman or something because she googled the gun and it’s definitely not civilian issue

Some of the other townsfolk take this idea and run, building it up to the point they believe if they can figure out the secret code the Captain will kill the people they don’t like

George Button orders a chocolate cake for his wife, Fanny, and, by sheer coincidence, she falls out the second story window of their home the next day (and survives, but the damage is done) and tells everyone he’s cracked the code

Next thing you know everybody’s ordering chocolate cakes for everybody and a few unfortunate accidents only confirms their beliefs

The Captain, unaware of the rumours, is just enjoying the sudden jump in business and making some really bad cakes

Business is so good, in fact, that he hires local girl Kitty to help him and with her assistance he actually starts to get quite good

Between Kitty and Pat, the Captain is actually becoming quite contented in his new life even as chaos is rapidly building among the community

Unfortunately nothing lasts forever and eventually Havers turns up

Things happen and everything comes to light - the Captain’s past, the chocolate cake hits, everything he didn’t want getting out - and in turn he learns that Havers believes the Captain betrayed him on some previous mission in what was actually a massive misunderstanding brought about by unrealized feelings and trauma

With the town defending him, the Captain is finally able to explain himself to Havers and, at last, put things to rest

The Captain officially retires from the armed forces and puts his full efforts into the bakery and he and Pat fall in love everyone gets a happy ending blah blah blah

The End

[lunaekalenda]

Heya An 💕🥺 I hope when you see this you are doing good!! First of all congrats and I checked out your event (which is so creative btw and I love it) and here is my request! (I hope it’s not complicated omg-)

💖, ❓, can it be in the aot world? Like she joined the survey crops and she is really skilled, smart and really tough and that caught Levi’s attention and he has a crush on her :,). After a mission battle she almost risked her life but Levi saved her. It got her by surprise and she tells levi why did u save me out of all ppl and Levi decided to confess his feelings first time to the person he loves and he gets all nervous and shy. (Like he just says randomly “will you be my girl?”) and hes all blushed up. And the girl is all surprised but accepts it and she brags abt it to all her friends that Levi is her man and he lowkey is rlly happy abt that 🥺 (fluff scenes of him holding her hand and all that to FINALLY show off he has a girl and he’s so cute and happy abt it 😭). Thank you and have a great day ✨

ofc!! i hope you like it <3 and thanks for participating! <3

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

romance + strangers + canonverse feat. Levi Ackerman

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“Nice one!” Hange says approaching you. You land on the floor and smile to them. They look to the tall tree you just escalated in a very short time. 

“I wanted to try a trick that Rico taught me.” you say. Hange nods, excited.

“The one with the little tumble to turn faster and begin the descent with propulsion?” you nod.

“Yes! It’s pretty useful.” you say. You’ve been friends with Hange for a while now, but you spend most of the time with the cadets of your promotion, specially with Eren.

You have just joined the corps this promotion, training with Eren, that’s what made you two so close. You’re also friend of Mikasa and Armin. 

“Hange.” Levi calls them. He’s walking towards you two, loosening his shirt collar with a bony hand. “Erwin is calling us.” He looks at you, as if he had just noticed in your presence. He knows you, he recognizes your face though you two never talked. You made the salute to Levi, after all, he’s your superior. He nods quietly. 

He of course knows you. You’re that one that uses the ODMS as if you were executing a ice skating routine, so graceful and pretty. Hange waves a hand towards you. Levi walks fast in front of them. 

“You’re too obvious.” they say. Levi grumps.

“Shut up.”

Erwin called them to let them know there’s a mission the next day. One of the squads that went for a recognition a week ago has not arrived yet, and they want to search them. And to know if all of them are alive. Hange says they can call their squad, where you are listed. Levi nods, knowing he has to call his new Special OPs Squad. You talk to Eren to ask him if his squad also goes on the mission when Hange tells you you have to be prepared to fight tomorrow. Eren nods.

“Yes. Captain Levi told us earlier. So, I guess we have to go for that...” he says. You nod and say bye to him after you two end having dinner. You enter your bed and prepare yourself for sleeping, trying to recover energy for tomorrow’s mission. 

It is too early in the morning to be talking about titans, but Erwin is giving his discourse before you all leave. You listen to him, trying to avoid unintentional yawns. Once he has assigned every squad to each part of the army, you start to walk. Casually, Eren’s squad is next to yours, on your left. He smiles at you. Behind him, Levi Ackerman looks as awesome as usual, up in his black horse. 

The way is silent in your group and kinda uncomfortable. Some soldiers are crying and some others are screaming that they want to go back home. You try to not listen to them. You also want to go home.

No, you don’t. You’re here because you want to help humanity. If stay away from home and risk your life will help your family to live in better conditions, with no more fear, you’ll risk it every day.

A red light is seen, and you know what that means.

“Titans!” Hange says. “I wonder what amazing ones will we find today...” Once you’re near enough to them, you take your blades and swing between the trees. 

Levi saw you do that hundreds of times, but seeing your body elevate quietly, all the grace in every movement, from your side is another story. His grey eyes follow you, as if the battlefield was now a stage and this was a kinda strange ballet, in which you were the main dancer, and he only one of the public. 

He looks around, blushed. He has to center himself in the battle. Giving a couple orders to his squad, he easily finds an enormous titan. He goes all way up a tree, searching its weak point. You do the same a couple trees to his left, fighting. There’s a weird titan between the two of you, and Levi cannot predice its movements. He seems to be interested in you, but at the same time, he looks at Levi, as if he was about to attack him.

Unfortunately, you were it’s prey.

The titan runs towards you, his mouth open and his hands ready to catch you. You didn’t see him coming, you were too centered on the one you were attacking. The titan caught you off guard, taking one of the strings of your ODMS, making you scream. Levi hears that.

“Y/N!” He goes as fast as he cans near the titan, seeing your blades moving fast towards the enormous hand that was about to cage you. He kills the titan you were trying to kill, the one that had his mouth ready to eat you from his colleague’s hands. Then, he turns over himself, attacking the other one’s neck, the one that is squeezing your body so hard that you’re even screaming of pain. He never saw you screaming of pain. Never.

That’s when he realized how you’re suffering. You feel how the hand around you loses all strength and you fall. You fall because your body feels weakened. Levi catches your body in its way to the floor. You feel his warm body surrounding yours, his calm breath and his voice it’s the last thing your senses catch before you pass out.

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The first thing you feel when you wake up is a fluffy bed under you, followed by a softly touch on your leg. You open your eyes quietly, trying to adapt to the light of the room. Levi is there. You blush.

“Captain Levi?” you ask in a whisper. He looks at you.

“Y/N, you’re awake.” he says. He offers you a glass of water. You thank him and drink slowly. 

”What happened?” you ask. You don’t remember exactly how you ended there, but you were surprised to find Levi by your side.

“You got squeezed by a titan three days ago.” he says, looking at the marks in your legs. “I came here with you as fast as I could and took care of you.” he says. His hand feels soft and hot against your skin. 

“You? You took care of me?” You ask. He nods.

“For all the days you’ve been here, in this bed, with your eyes closed.” he says, his voice going down and his gaze showing what he feels: tiredness.

“Have you been sleeping here, Captain.?” you ask. He nods.

“In this chair.” adds. You take air heavily, but it makes your ribs hurt. He looks at you concerned.

“I’m ok, I’m ok.” you say. “But you should get some sleep.”

“No.” he says.

“Why?” your tone is concerned now. He looks at your bed, but never at your eyes.

“You need someone to take care of you.” He simply answers. His hands play with your leg quietly, making sweet caresses on too of the wounds. You look at his hands dancing on your skin. It feels really good... Levi has been taking care of you for days. He saved you and then took care of you. You thought that the one that will be Levi's partner will be so lucky...

“Can I ask you why did you save me?” you ask, out of nowhere. His hands stop its caresses and he looks at you. His grey eyes are fixated on yours, making a quick scan all pver your face. Your plump lips that he dreamed to kiss for a long time, your cute nose, your blushed cheeks and your beautiful eyes.

“Cause I like you, and i was hoping you could be my girl, y/n” he says.

Wow. You weren't expecting that. He said it so directly, as if it was the simplest thing to say. As if it was easy as breathing. You looked at him, but he was serious.

"Be your girl?" you ask. Levi nods.

"I've been watching you. How strong, beautiful and powerful you are. All those things make my mind a mess, full of you. Your voice. Your body. Everything about you is invasive in my head." he says.

You were totally speechless, analyzing every movement he makes. How his adam's apple goes up and down nervously, how he plays with his hands. You find it kinda cute, how a captain of the Survey Corps is nervous to tell the girl he likes his feelings. After all, Levi took care of you. You felt an attachment, a bond that pulled you closer to him as magnets. You smiled.

"We'll give it a try." you say. He looks at you again, blushed. You smile. His hand searches yours quietly, and you let his fingers tangle with yours. He smiles.

"Y/N, I prom..."

"HOW'S MY FAVORITE GIRL EVER DOING?" Hange asks, entering the room. They didn't pay attention to your tangles hands. A shy Eren and a concerned Historia are behind them. "Oh, you look less like a zombie." they says. "I'm sure that Captain Levi has been taking care of you really well, if you know what I mean." they winks. Levi clicks his tongue, but he keeps your hand caged in his. That makes your stomach be full of butterflies.

"I saw you were in danger, who helped you?" since Historia wasn't called to that mission, she didn't knew what happened. Rumors are fast but, the 99% of the times, false.

"Yeah. Fortunately..." you look at Levi. How his eyes shined when he told you he wanted you to be his girl. "... fortunately my man was there for me." you smile and Levi almost choke on his saliva, but his acting skills were really worked. Historia smiled and Eren blushed.

"Oh Goddess, you two are now a couple?" she asks. You nod, smiling, and Levi blushes after being caught looking at you.

"Why did the little brat blush?" Levi asks. Eren coughs.

"It's just that is weird... My bestie and my Captain..." he says. You blush as well.

"It isn't!" Historia goes on your defense. "It's really beautiful. How the two of them..."

"... are wishing to be alone and we're here. Guys, head to the dorms, our girl is being treated." Hange says. Levi raises a brow and you let out a little laugh.

"Your jokes are pitiful." he says. They close the door behind them and Levi sighs. You smile at him.

"Then... About what treatment was Hange talking?"