#….for……scientific purposes…. obviously……..

[httpiastri]

idk if it's just me but... paul looks so broad and tall ??? i am just melting 🫠 i knew he was tall but idk, this is doing things to me 😮‍💨

(also his hair looks so cute & messy, i love it 🤭)

OMG!!! bestie you're so right!!!!!!

1. the height and broadness:

help? idk if it's something with the white making him look extra broad?? is that a thing???? someone pls let me know…. tbh he always looked so broad in his old white fireproofs too 🫠 and the height too omg!! he looks taller than franco even when leaning, and franco isn't short right? i've seen him look tall next to logan (who looks MASSIVE next to oscar) so………? 😭 (and he's taller than taylor too but idk how tall he is so…)

2. the hair:

omggggg 🥺 in your pic it's so cute, so fluffy and the curls are so defined 🥺 but when taking the f2 rookies pic it was so flat and pointy forwards that it looked like he was wearing a cap 😶 and pls the middle pic? he looks so funny????? the hair is so 😭 he's just a few % of humidity away from looking like albert einstein

[daniclaytcn]

i hope this new episode inspires a lot of "buck worrying about how good he is in bed and eddie oh-so-benevolently offering to help him test that" fics

[ethereal-night-fairy]

holding a gun to your head like you asked :)

Well since Hoby himself is pointing a gun at me I guess I have no choice but to write a few more thousand words today 🙄

Do I get a kiss for it at the end of the day? Or perhaps a pat on the head? I'm a bitch for praise. I need to simultaneously be told I'm doing a good job or this arrangement isn't going to work 😮‍💨.

[leggy-fish]

yes we’ve talked at length about queen ramonda’s arms but does anyone have pics of aneka’s arms

[utilitycaster]

Ok actually I'm curious, obviously this is not scientific but it might be interesting:

To elaborate, option 1 covers such options as "I want them to listen to the Arch Heart but if they made a choice to save the gods at least it's a choice and I'd prefer that to the dithering" OR "I want them to save the gods and follow the Accord's plan but I'd rather they decide to kill them now than argue for ten more episodes" and others of that nature - the existence of a clear decision is more important to you than outcome.

Option 2 is "I want them to do XYZ, and I'd rather go for another ten rounds of debate than have them decide something else quickly"

Option 3 is self explanatory

Option 4 is specifically that you were at one point watching c3 and no longer are, and you find Bells Hells indecisive and that was a factor in your choice

Option 5 is a results button.

There is no nuance button on purpose. If you stopped watching c3 for other reasons just pick option 5.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

“My therapist told me that, according to psychology, girls who often stay up til 3 am for no reason actually show a trauma response. You lacked a loving mother figure in childhood, so you deprive yourself of sleep because you weren’t taught to love yourself.” 

I came across that piece of info on social media recently, and I’d like to offer an addition: 

My therapist told me that, according to psychology, you can make up random things and pass them off as scientific… if you just put enough meaningless phrases in front of it. 

You probably caught the irony here. In fact, “according to psychology” and “my therapist told me” are completely meaningless phrases in my statement here! They make it seem like I’m presenting a scientific fact, but there’s no substance behind them. I’m just telling you my own thought. 

I did it on purpose and wanted you to catch it, but it can be more tricky to spot out there in the wild (or, well, on social media) - because intuitively, that quote up there sounds pretty trustworthy, doesn’t it? We are taught to look for a source and it conveniently provides one for us: psychology. Psychology says this, so it’s legit! 

But phrases like “according to psychology”, “my therapist says” or even “studies say” may only pose as sources. Let’s look into it a bit closer: 

“According to psychology” - Psychology is not really a source that can be quoted like that. Psychology is an immense field of study that covers lots of different areas (biological psychology, neuroscience, social psychology, behavioral psychology etc.), so who or what exactly is being cited here? A specific expert? A specific study? A specific book? 

“My therapist said” - in which context? Therapists usually give advice that’s tailored to the patient’s individual situation which likely looks different to yours (since no two people lead the exact same life), so how do you know this specific piece of information is also applicable to your situation (let alone applicable to everyone)?

The next one is especially tricky:

“Studies say” - studies can be a great source, but which study are we talking about? Who did the study? How was it done? How many people participated in it? Are the results generalizable in the way the post claims? (And before all that: is there even any specific study being cited at all here, or is this just a fully meaningless claim?) 

While we are on the topic of generalization: obviously I’m not trying to make some blanket statement that everyone who ever uses these phrases is a liar with evil intentions. Sometimes we just use simple phrases for complex concepts to make them more accessible or easily digestible, and that’s fine. 

And just as importantly, sometimes we are just human and make some thinking mistakes (such as “this connection my therapist made about MY childhood and MY behavior in adulthood must be applicable to everyone who shows that behavior. Making that connection helped me, so surely I’m helping others by posting about it!”) without any bad intentions. 

I’m just encouraging you to critically think about the information you read or share online - even beyond the basic “is there a source” check. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[madamemachikonew]

I sometimes wonder if people forget that Dottore is not actually a medical doctor. Of course he has no ethics - he's an engineer who never took the hippocratic oath. His mission was never to heal. Even he laughs in Pierro's face when he's given the moniker of Dottore.

When he experiments, he's not looking at it from the human side - his purpose is not a therapeutic one. He's has tunnel vision for the mechanical aspect of it. He's only interested in the results of how the machine parts work in a human body, not the other way around. When people whine that he experiments on humans, in his head that's not what he's doing - the experiment is a test run of the machinery and how it works within a biological host. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Obviously I'm not justifying his approach, but I think people kind of miss the point with him in that he approaches experimentation from a different and solely pragmatic angle then are all shocked Pikachu that he has no regard for human comfort. His priority will always be the research and furtherance of scientific knowledge over losing a perfectly replaceable test subject. The purpose isn't gratuitous cruelty but unfortunately it is an intrinsic and foreseeable part of his work. That doesn't mean to say that he isn't careful about use of resources and whether more data can be procured if he is able to keep them alive for longer, but for me that is the extent of his consideration for whether or not a subject survives or their body is put under strain.

[notsosaucystuff]

Here's a link to a clip of that part of the Livestream

pls explain more on the hoodie string incident

In a 2018 liveshow (starting around 1:40 in this video x) they talked about Phil undoing the bow on Dan's hoodie that he loved while he was wearing it and Dan somehow not immediately seeing this happen. So the question is what was going on that Dan didn't notice that because they certainly weren't just. casually sitting next to each other or how would he have missed Phil reaching over and doing that. Now if they were kissing when this happened...

[tanadrin]

Revised version of "polytheism vs elaborateness" religion chart. I started with a list of around 150 religions, sects, denominations, philosophies, and spiritual tendencies, whittled down to 100 based on what I could find information on and what meaningful differences would actually show up in a chart like this. Dark blue is Christianity and Christian-derived tendencies; light blue is Judaism and Jewish-derived tendencies; green is Islam and Islam-influenced tendencies; purple is ancient Mediterranean polytheism and related schools of thought; red is Dharmic/Hindu-influenced schools of thought; tan is Chinese religion and philosophy; orange is new religious movements; black is other, unaffiliated religions and movements.

Obviously, "what is a religion" is a complicated topic. Some of the things on this chart might strike you more as philosophical schools (Carvaka, Stoicism), epistemological approaches (Unitarian Universalism), or different ways of slicing the same tradition. The scholarly definition of "religion" is sort of fundamentally circular, and that's not something I'm interested in trying to untangle for this entirely non-scientific exercise.

Religions etc. are scored on two axis: polytheism vs elaborateness of practice. Polytheism is a rank from zero to 11, thus:

0. Strict atheist and materialist, denying the possibility of both gods and the supernatural, e.g., Carvaka.

1. Atheist. Denies the existence of significant supernatural agents worthy of worship, but may not deny all supernatural (or psychic, paranormal, etc.) beings and phenomena (e.g., Mimamsa).

2. Agnostic. This religion makes no dogmatic claims about the existence of supernatural beings worthy of worship, and it may not matter for this religion if such beings exist (e.g., Unitarian Universalists). It does not preclude--and may actually incorporate--other supernatural, psychic, or paranormal phenomena (e.g., Scientology).

3. Deist. This religion acknowledges at least one god or Supreme Being, but rejects this being's active intervention in the world after its creation (e.g., Christian Deism). Deism is marked with a gray line on the chart, in case you want to distinguish religions that specifically care about all this God business from ones that don't.

4. Tawhid monotheist. This religion acknowledges only a single transcendent god above all other natural or supernatural beings, who is usually the creator of the universe and the ground of being, and is without parts, division, or internal distinction (e.g., Islam).

5. Formal monotheism. This religion acknowledges a single god, usually transcendent above all other natural or supernatural beings, but who may have aspects, hypostases, or distinct parts (e.g., Trinitarian Christianity). Pantheism may be considered a special case of formal monotheism that identifies the universe and its many discrete phenomena with a single god or divine force.

6. Dualism. This religion acknowledges a single god worthy of worship, alongside a second inferior, often malevolent being that nevertheless wields great power in or over the world (e.g., Zoroastrianism or Gnosticism).

7. Monolatrist. This religion or practice acknowledges the existence of many gods or divine beings worthy of worship, but focuses on, or happens to be devoted to only one of them (e.g., ancient mystery cults; pre-exilic Judaism).

8. Oligotheist. This religion worships a small group of divine beings, who may function for devotional or rhetorical purposes as a single entity (e.g., Mormonism, Smartism).

9. Monogenic polytheism/Henotheism. This religion worships many gods, which it sees as proceeding from or owing their existence to, a single underlying or overarching force or supreme god (e.g., many forms of Hinduism).

10. Heterogenic polytheism. This religion worships many gods, who have diverse origins and/or natures. Though the number of gods is in practical terms probably unlimited, gods are discrete entities or personalities, i.e., they are "countably infinite" (e.g., many polytheistic traditions).

11. Animism. This religion worships many gods which may or may not be discrete entities, and which may or may not be innumerable even in principle, i.e., they are "uncountably infinite" (e.g., many animist traditions).

What counts as a god is naturally a bit of a judgement call, as is exactly where a religion falls on this scale.

Elaborateness of practice is based on assigning one point per feature from the following list of features:

Uses vs forbids accompanied music in worship

Saints or intermediary beings accept prayers/devotion

Liturgical calendar with specific rituals or festivals

Practices monasticism

Venerates relics or holy objects

Clerics have special, elaborate clothing

Clerics have special qualificiations, e.g., must be celibate or must go through elaborate initiation/training

Elaborate sacred art or architecture used in places of worship

Sites of pilgrimage, or other form of cult centralization

Sophisticated religious hierarchy beyond the congregational level

Mandatory periods of fasting and/or complex dietary rules

Specific clothing requirements for laypeople

Specific body modifications either required or forbidden for laypeople

Liturgical language

Complex ritual purity rules

Performs sacrifice

Performs human sacrifice (or cannibalism)

Uses entheogens

Uses meditation or engages in mystical practice

Additionally, a point is taken away for austerity for each of the following features:

Forbids secular music outside worship

Claims sola scriptura tradition

Practices pacifism or ahimsa

Requires vegetarianism of all adherents

These scores are probably pretty inexact, since I am not a scholar of world religion.

This chart is not scientific, it's just a goof based on that @apricops post.

Other fun dimensions along which to chart religions might be:

Orthodoxy vs orthopraxy

Authoritarianism/control of members. This would add some much needed distinctions to Christian sects in particular, and to the new religious movements.

Elaborateness of cosmological claims. Some religions (looking at you, Buddhism) really go hog-wild here.

Social egalitarianism. Even within the same framework/tradition/philosophy, some practices differ radically on how egalitarian they are.

[a-s-fischer]

Antisemitism and the Nazi Worldview: a Guide for the Perplexed

While most people know the Nazis hated Jews, few people understand just how integral Jew-hate was to the Nazi philosophy. This leads into many of the misconceptions about Nazis and the holocaust that regularly pop up, so it bears discussing what Nazis believed about racism and the Jews.

The Nazi conception of "race" was much narrower and "scientific" than we think of it today. The Nazi conception of race was that humans were split into subgroups with distinct traits, that set them apart from each other and gave them advantages in a great and bloody contest of the races. These races pattern on better to ethnicities, nationalities, or even language groups, than race as we think of it today, which is why it would make sense in a Nazi framework to talk about an Irish race, or a Polish race, for example. And of course in the Nazi mind, these races were a real biological reality, and not a social and cultural construct, and the strength and purity of a fit race might be lost through race mixing.

And of course races were differently fit or unfit, superior or inferior, and through the races warring against each other in a battle of the fittest, the superior race would rise above the rest, and subjugate the earth. Hitler came of age in a time of scarcity, war, and famine, and he believed there was no way to feed the entirety of the human race, so eliminating the lesser races through this perpetual struggle of races against each other was the only way for humanity to survive. It was all very Darwinian except that it completely misunderstood how the Darwinian model of evolution actually works, since the unit of selection was the nonexistent race, not the individual.

This struggle of the races was in Hitler and the Nazis' conception not only natural and necessary, but good. Conquest and the slaughter of inferior races was good. The state of the world with nation states and silly notions like laws, and morals, this was bad and unnatural. Humanity, or the strongest race, needed to do away with this system, or humans would all perish of starvation in a degenerate race-mixed scrum. The Nazis were heros, looking to save humanity from this foul unnatural state it had been tricked into adopting.

Tricked by the machinations of one race. One race had broken away from the others, and learned how to hack the system, to survive over under the rule of other races, when it should have been destroyed as a weaker lesser race. This race figured out how to lie and cheat, and live off other races as a parasite, while controlling them from within with fake, unnatural, vile concepts of laws, ethics, notions of justice and compassion, human rights, and international cooperation. And also with money. That race was the Jews.

In the Nazi mind, other races might be lesser, weaker, worthy only of a slow starvation under Nazi rule, but Jews, Jews were unique, special. Weak but cunning, only the Jews had figured out how to subvert and pervert the noble struggle of the races. The Jews were not only especially hated in the Nazi mind but they also served an explanatory purpose. The Jews were the reason humans were not in what the Nazis viewed as a state of nature, and the reason that the areas hadn't eliminated all the other races and taken over the world already. And anything that went wrong for the Nazis was of course caused by Jewish manipulation. The Jews had to be stripped of their unnatural power and control, and eliminated quickly, to keep them from continuing to undermine the strongest race, the Aryan Germans.

Early on, there was some discussion about how this was to be done. The mass slaughter of Jews under this philosophy might have been inevitable but it wasn't obviously inevitable to all Nazis. The important thing was to reduce the Jews to a state of nature, to take away their unnatural control, and leave them in the position of any other lesser race. This is where ideas, like sending all the Jews to Madagascar, to "build their own state" but really to inevidably die in the wilderness, came from. If Jews were separated from their stronger hosts, the logic went, they would just be one more weaker race and they would die just the same. This was also why so many Nazis took a special delight in simply denying captive Jews the means of survival, leaving them to starve, freeze, and die of disease in a state of nature, without the resources they had parasitically leached out of their host races.

But that process took too long. There were simply too many Jews, and too many (to the Nazi mind) Jewish controlled enemies. As Germany and the Axis' began to lose the war, and then as that loss became increasingly only a matter of time, the Nazis ramped up their efforts to kill Jews, by bullet and by gas, because if they could kill enough Jews, surely that Jewish control over their enemies would break and the Aryans among those enemies what recognize their racial interest, and join with the Germans, giving them victory. Instead the resources poured into the wholesale murder of Jews were resources stripped from the Nazi war machine, hastening the Allied victory.

Antisemitism wasn't simply one more bigotry for the Nazis to tack onto their general racism. It was foundational to the Nazi conception of how the world functioned. It was the explanitory mechanism in the Nazis' conspiratorial framework. And with this philosophy at the core of Nazism, the Holocaust became not only inevitable, but the highest calling of the Nazis, their sacrifice for humanity, or at least what was left of humanity after the strongest race had triumphed over all the others. Very little about Nazism is unique. Their militarism, their glorification of violence and struggle, their racial pseudo-Darwinianism, certainly their conspiratorial antisemitism, all had plenty of precident long before they came on the scene. It was their particularly potent combination of these existing elements that made them Nazis. And in this combination, it was the Jew-hate which held everything together and which provided the energizing force.

[jennifer-jeong]

Fluff + Slight Angst | L&DS x GN!Reader How They Comfort You

SUMMARY Headcanons on how they'd support you

CONTENT Fluff, little bit of angst, mentions their past and past traumas

WORD COUNT: 765

ZAYNE | LI SHEN

Zayne is actually very good with his words, he’s very soothing especially when it comes to academics or stress. I imagine he learned it from his time in med school both because they teach it in his classes and also because he needed to learn it for himself (med school is painfully stressful). He’s still a bit inexperienced when it comes to intimate relationships and how to communicate in them but he still does really well. He’s struggled a lot also with his nightmares and his evol, so he probably also learned a lot about coping mechanisms through that. He probably took the time to study things like PTSD, anxiety disorders, and insomnia.

He comforts you with sweet words and logical advice. If you’ve had a bad day he’ll suggest things to help you relax so you can get back to it tomorrow. He knows that life doesn’t wait for anyone and he just wants to give you a pick-me-up the best he can. He’ll make you tea, soup, and obviously also a sweet treat at the end. He’ll give you a lot of kisses and cuddles, whatever you need. He probably also encourages you to let it out and cry if you’re feeling it, he knows that it’s good for you since it’s been scientifically proven LOL. Zayne would probably have made a great psychiatrist even despite his stoic self but regardless he does make an amazing lover.

RAFAYEL | QI YU

Rafayel is just a lil guy and isn’t super good at finding the right words to comfort you with but he knows he loves you and hates to see you like this, so he does everything he can. Rafayel hasn’t had family or loved ones with him or close to him for a long time. I imagine that in his childhood, he was probably also robbed of the opportunity to learn how to communicate in a situation like this because his home was destroyed. He’s been through so much pain though and so his empathy for you runs insanely deep. He understands any pain you feel so wholly even if he can’t explain it with words well.

He comforts you with so many hugs and buys you your favorite foods. If you’ve had a bad day he’ll immediately drop whatever he’s doing and suggest you do something together. You can have a paint night, watch a movie, cook a meal, or even just put on a random show and cuddle. He knows life sucks sometimes but he knows that his life sucks slightly less with you in it and he hopes so desperately that he does the same for you. You let him know that he makes everything better though, you communicate with him both because you like using your words but also to kind of show him how you do it so he can learn too.

XAVIER | SHEN XINGHUI

Xavier is so sweet and overall just kinda goes with the flow. He’s literally an old man LOL, he has a lot of patience and loves you so much. However, sometimes this makes it difficult because you need him to be decisive with his words sometimes but he struggles with it. He’s lived such a hectic life and has already lost you once so I imagine it’s hard for him to really understand how to put things into words. Not to mention the fact that he was seemingly very protected and sheltered back on his home planet since he always had bodyguards around him.

Xavier plays dumb sometimes on purpose because he’s a silly dude but he’s extremely observant and smart. He knows exactly when you’re feeling down or stressed or anything. He’s good at reading your emotion, just kinda unsure on what to do afterwards. But upon noticing, he will always hit you with the “are you okay?” because he knows you’ll communicate with him. Even if you just say “I’m fine” he’ll know you’re not and will encourage you to do something with him until you just tell him LOL. He knows it’s something he wants to work on but he’s smart and a very fast learner, so if you come up with any sort of codes or phrases that signify certain things, he’ll catch on fast. Have a code for “I need hugs and no talking?” he’s on it, code for “I need to yap and cry?” he’s by your side. He will literally travel to the ends of the infinite universe to find you because he promised you, and you best believe he won’t ever break that promise.

|| MASTERLIST ♡ || Thank you for reading! ||

[carly404error]

WHAT I HAVENT SEEN IT I NEED PROOF

Ummm so did anyone else watch the spider-verse version with one of the doc ocks in the background using his metal arms to work out while having the top part of his suit removed???

Like I can't be the only one who got to see that in the cinema right????? Nobody is talking about him I 😭😭😭😭

[wrensgeekyvibes]

Wait, wait...WAIT

The last picture is a still from Max, but it's not from the actual scene. So...there were multiple takes (obviously?).

I'm going to need to see that footage, Max. For scientific purposes/

Because those head holds are making me feral. (gnawing the bars, chewing glass, etc etc)

[unionizedwizard]

tumblr user unionizedwizard certified #1 shadowbringers + g'raha overthinker reporting for duty

i HAVE been thinking about sphene being the exarch's foil. because it is a very obvious case to the point they had to pick him up from SHARLAYAN as an emergency Relevant Character and also allowed him to come with us to living memory (you know it's about to get serious when they let him go anywhere with the wol)

so, obviously. both sphene and g'raha (as the exarch) were thrust into a horrific nightmarish situation where they were put in charge of a entire city/state facing an umbral calamity. both care deeply about the people they're trying to protect - their people. both have undergone (willingly or not) heretofore unknown scientific operations that irreversibly changed them, using cutting-edge technology, making them immortal and fusing them with an immensely powerful reservoir of aetheric energy, all in the name of duty and preserving hope for the future; both have become a symbol rather than a person. the alexandrians needed their queen, whose mere presence stopped them from succumbing to despair; the people from novrandt forced the exarch into a similar position (even though he kept repeating he would not stand for becoming a king of any sort); himself, on behalf of the ironworks & the entirety of the post-8th umbral calamity survivors, was willing to sacrifice himself to bring back the wol - because (and this is the really important part) of the wol's status as a symbol of hope and resilience. everyone here, the wol included, is dehumanized and worshiped and used for their good, self-sacrificial qualities, as well as their unyielding willpower.

sphene's memories were altered, muddled, to an extent that nobody really understands. the scientists who managed to create the endless are all gone, the average alexandrian forgot everything and everyone they've ever known, she herself knows she's not the "original" sphene but a copy - yet she doesn't seem to mourn this loss, and indeed i don't know to which extent she conceives of it as a loss, or a violation of her bodily autonomy (which it was! she never asked to be brought back, especially not this way, which would be a more than traumatic experience for ANYONE to go through!). in the same way, the exarch's memories encompass several timelines and realities, and he spent an entire century having to hide his identity, not being able to mention his own name, much less his purpose or homeland - i'd say this self-erasure is more than comparable with sphene's experience. not to mention that both sphene and the exarch were forced into "passive", static roles - i don't know how sphene felt about this because this is the tragedy of her character, that we don't know (and she herself doesn't know) the first thing about her, as an individual with preferences and feelings and memories.

also, this all adds up with g'raha's role in the deltascape part of ultima thule - the omicrons being, as AI mechanical soldiers, the missing link between sphene and himself. there's a pattern here, interrogating the relationship between mind, body, memory, duty, freedom and personal agency & autonomy, etc. the endless in general and sphene in particular are more than reminiscent of the omicrons on this point.

all of this to say: thinking about g'raha's gondola speech, i did not think he was talking about the scions, or even the wol. i see how this is a possible (and likely) interpretation to have, but i must confess i was surprised when i saw that this is what most people had understood. to me he was talking about the people from the First, and also the people from the 8th umbral calamity timeline, especially those with whom he'd worked for, presumably, months at a time. so many people who died after the Flood (we tend to forget that he arrived right after the Flood, in the immediate aftermath), not just because of the sin eaters but also because of the sudden and catastrophic environmental changes; all the people who could never adapt to the eternal light and, presumably, went mad (it's a real thing in real life even though night does come back eventually, so i imagine it must have been that but a lot worse in novrandt). all the people who died due to lack of medicine, because all the medicinal plants and recipes disappeared in the blink of an eye, not to mention the healers themselves; all the diseases and epidemics and interpersonal violence that arose as a consequence of the severe famine and lack of basic resources that plagued what was left of the star. and the unfathomable loss and trauma of losing millenia of culture and civilization and knowledge and biodiversity and entire families, entire tribes, cities, countries, being annihilated. g'raha has lived through this for a century, combined with the post-8th umbral calamity state of the Source. we know how much he cares for the people of the crystarium, and we only see the crystarium as a fully-developed, beautiful, and harmonious city-state; we haven't seen the century of work and planning and emergency managing and unfathomable grief and pain that went into it. in the same way, we see alexandria (and living memory) as they are now, but only glimpse a few moments of utter chaos during the alexandria dungeon.

so i'm just thinking of g'raha, seeing living memory, and being the only one among the party who truly understands. who can truly relate to sphene, and understand her. he's the only one present who has personally been through not one but two calamities, and had to deal with them on a day-to-day basis (while readying a completely crazy long-term plan). how many people that he knew, loved, wanted to protect... died of "preventable" causes during the century he was on the First, while himself was immortal - so that he could keep doing his duty, doing everything he could to save them eventually? all this happened in a manner which was truly unfair, and unfathomably evil, and - possibly the worst part - he knew this was still "the better path" (as he put it himself while trying to summon the wol). the survivor's guilt that both he and sphene must be dealing with is simply impossible to really understand, i think. we've seen the crystarium. of course he'd wish for all these unfortunate souls to endure and finally know peace and happiness. and of course, he didn't have a Living Memory, but of course he couldn't help but wonder how he'd have reacted in this situation.

and i do wish we could have had him interact with sphene, actually. it made sense that she was wuk lamat's foil and all, but i think it would have been interesting..........

[mothiir]

what dog i think 40k boys would be

based entirely on non-scientific vibes and discussion with @lemon-russ. this started off kind of silly but very quickly became an excuse for me to get slightly deep with the characterisation. slight cw for referenced animal abuse i suppose?

the emperor - border collie

now, for those of you unfamiliar with dogs you may think that picking a medium-sized herding dog is a strange choice for the Master of Mankind. However, if you have ever met a border collie — specifically, a working border collie — you will know exactly where I am going with this. These dogs are ferociously intelligent, completely single-minded, and wedded to their purpose. They will not be distracted from their work by foolish things like ‘fun’ — they will herd those sheep, damn it, and they will herd them where they are meant to be. The Emperor, like a border collie, is distant with his affection, and does not allow room for negotiation: the sheep will go in the pasture, and there they shall stay. But, I hear you protest, the border collie obeys the shepherd, and the Emperor obeys no one but himself! to this I say that the Emperor is his own shepherd; his Plan for humanity is the metaphorical co-pilot here, and it is this plan that guides his fleet, furry feet.

2. malcador — poodle. specifically a miniature white one.

Look, it sounds ridiculous, but poodles are incredibly clever dogs and you’d be a fool to underestimate one — just as you would be a fool to imagine that the frail old man at the Emperor’s side is anything other than a world-destroying threat.

3. the lion — irish wolfhound

Getting into the Primarchs now. It has been said that the Lion has major cat energy — which is completely true. However, I would argue that he ultimately is a hunting hound; a knight at his father’s side, bidden to go where he must. Like a wolfhound, he is tireless, powerful — but also frail in his youth, frailer than you might think (wolfhound pups are notoriously prone to injury because of their longer legs and how clumsy they can be). It is only with age that he reaches his full potential. Also, like most hunting dogs, he likes his sleep.

4. leman russ - a wolf

Well, obviously. However, it’s a really key point that he is a wolf not a dog, because all too often those two things are seen as synonymous when they really aren’t. Wolves and dogs are separated by ten thousand years of evolution, and they rarely get on. Russ loves his family — his fellow wolves — but struggles to relate to his canid brothers, who all seem just a little distant from him. He is drawn to humans (the pull of domestication is strong, even for the wild beast he is), and clashes regularly with the Lion (hounds and wolves can work together, but never rest easy at the same fire).

5. Magnus - borzoi

I’ve said before that Magnus is definitely a borzoi, because they are such eldritch looking creatures — like they know all of the secrets of the universe and they are not planning to tell you. Borzoi are not always viewed as the most intelligent of dogs, but that’s misleading — they’re actually very cunning in their own way, just not necessarily the easiest to train (just like a certain headstrong red fool we know). Independent-minded, a little aloof, friendly to their family — Magnus is a sight hound through and through. And, of course, should he be given a reason to hunt down wolves, he will do so with the baying of his ancestors singing in his ears, and the scent of burning Prospero lodged in his nose.

6. Perturabo - Staffordshire terrier

Squat, grumpy-looking, and sometimes vicious — it’s easy to see the worst of Perturabo in the worst of the staffie. Bred to be pest-killers and dog-fighters, there’s a persistent, harmful idea that these dogs need ‘a firm hand’ when they’re being raised. However, ill-treatment only serves to make these dogs neurotic, nervy and prone to biting — raised correctly, they are soppy and sweet and just want to snuggle on the sofa with the people they love. Unfortunately, Peturabo was reared unappreciated and maltreated, and now it is everyone’s problem.

7. Angron - Old English Mastiff

Mastiffs may have a fearsome appearance, but they are actually some of the sweetest dogs around; happy, dopey drool-machines that only want to spend time glued to their family. But Angron was snatched from his mother’s teat too young, beaten and scourged and forced to bite, and the result is a warped, twisted image of what a mastiff should be: barely-champed down fury, and the sort of hatred that is born when love turns inside out and sour. Every shelter has had to make a horrible choice with certain dogs — seeing that they are too deeply damaged to ever recover, they have done the kindest thing and ended the creature’s suffering, hoping that the next world will be gentler than this one. But no one ever did that for Angron. He is locked outside his master’s house, because at least his anguished howls keep away intruders.

8. Vulkan - Great Pyrenees

Despite their fearsome appearance, livestock guardian breeds like the Great Pyrenees are actually gentle with their flock, living amongst the sheep (like the Salamanders with their human families) — grooming the lambs, cuddling up with the ewes, patrolling with the rams. They are utterly devoted to their task, willing to die for those they sleep alongside, but they love them, and are loved dearly in return. Vulkan is many times larger than his human companions, but they clamber all over him — young and old alike — and he holds them close, vowing to keep them safe from harm, even at the cost of his own life.

9. Sanguinius - Bedlington terrier

You might have to google this one, since it is a little obscure. And now that you have googled it, I probably have some work to do in order to convince you that this floofy terrier is the perfect representation of the Blood Angel Primarch. So, first of all — these terriers are strikingly beautiful. Eye-catchingly adorable — in a strange sort of way , a fey kind of cuteness that has you looking twice. They are sweet little family pets — however, the instant they catch scent of a rat their ancestry rears its head, and they turn into floofy little killers, breaking spines and crushing skulls with merry abandon. And if you need any more convincing think of this — doesn’t the terrier look like a lamb? A cutesy little lamb? A sacrificial lamb?