ily, menswear guy

I genuinely can't fathom the mindset of someone who thinks clothes can't have political meaning, when French revolutionaries specifically wore pants to show their allegiance to the lower class.

The least usual positions...

...in each of the Successor States' military forces:

I like the idea of the Coward-In-Chief. Given how the DCMS treats people of "impure" lineage, I'd guess that this job mostly falls to people with some FedSuns or Lyran ancestry, just to make their scapegoat that much more effective for propaganda.

Hammerhead

The Hammerhead is a medium Clan BattleMech designed as a skirmisher by Clan Sea Fox. Designed to loosely resemble a hammerhead shark, the design is intended to be aggressive with its opponents, yet also built around the concept of never getting knocked off its feet. Despite its merely adequate weapons array, the Hammerhead has achieved great success as a shock trooper, wading though enemy formations to brawl with opponents twice its size at close range.

Becoming somewhat of a signature 'Mech for Clan Sea Fox and its touman in amazingly quick fashion, the Hammerhead is also sold and exported to any interested Clan buyers, with Clan Ghost Bear greatly enamored of its strength and unyielding qualities. The escalating conflict between Clans Jade Falcon and Wolf in the lead-up to the ilClan era would result in heavy orders from both sides as they faced the opposing Hammerhead in increasing numbers.

The only issue of note with the Hammerhead is complaints from non–Sea Fox MechWarriors of occasional glitches in various systems in exported production models. The Sea Foxes attribute this to the divergent and conflicting software requirements of so many different buyers and the problems are minor enough not to have significantly impacted sales of the 'Mech.

Intended for close-in combat, the Hammerhead has 15 tons of hardened armor to help resist damage. Unlike most Clan Mechs, this one is intended to allow inexperienced pilots to survive their first engagements and learn from the experience. With the assistance of leg-mounted actuator enhancement systems, the 'Mech's heavy armor helps its pilot keep the 'Mech standing, further assisting newer MechWarriors.

Not heavily armed, the Mech's arsenal consists of medium and close range weapons. The main gun is a Series 44h large pulse laser, while a Series 2b ER medium laser and Type VI Streak SRM-6 allow the Mech to handle an opponent once the Hammerhead closes in to short range.

The 'Mech is built on a SFAM endo steel skeleton and is powered by a Firebox 270 XL extralight engine, which gives the it enough power to support the weight of its hardened armor and still move at a top speed of 86.4 km/h.

For all that armor, I suppose it still does some solid damage, meaning you could still get your money's worth by just forcing enemies to punch through the Hammerheads while your real damage dealers hammer away at range. But man... I just wish it did a little more damage.

Marauder II

First built in 3012, the Marauder II is a successful attempt to take the firepower of the Marauder and combine it with the reliability and ruggedness of an assault chassis.

In 3010 officers of the famous Wolf's Dragoons mercenary unit contracted with Blackwell Industries of New Valencia on the project of modifying the highly successful 75-ton Marauder into a 100-ton assault 'Mech. Working from existing plans the design phase proved to be very short, the process of reinforcing the Marauder chassis turned out to be easier than expected, enhanced by the removal of the finicky and temperamental General Motors Whirlwind Autocannon for a much simpler Large Laser. First appearing with the famous Zeta Battalion before spreading to Alpha Regiment, the Dragoons' enemies soon learned to fear the appearance of Marauder IIs as foreshadowing a major advance, as for the remainder of the Third Succession War it remained the exclusive property of the mysterious Dragoons.

This changed after the Fourth Succession War when Colonel Jaime Wolf authorized Blackwell to increase production and allow outside buyers access, on the provision that each sale had to be approved by the Dragoons.

Though customers like Barber's Marauder II would help drive the considerable interest and demand for the powerful assault 'Mech, they would also damage its seeming aura of invincibility following their ignoble destruction by Clan Jade Falcon on Koniz in June 3064. Seeking to rekindle interest in their flagship 'Mech following its disastrous showing on Koniz, GM/Blackwell noted the Vicore Industries triggered refresh of "classic" designs to develop a more powerful and visually refreshed model. The resulting MAD-4S variant was the first widely available Marauder II, Wolf's Dragoons' easing of sale restrictions partly motivated by profit but also as a means to punish the Lyran Alliance for the theft of the Blackwell developed light fusion engine, as of 3067 selling the 'Mech to all interested parties save those the Dragoons were fighting against in the Chaos March; the Word of Blake and the members of the Trinity Alliance.

The demand for the Marauder II would only increase in the Jihad following the Blakist destruction of GM and Blackwell's production facilities for the 'Mech as part of their vendetta against the Wolf's Dragoons, with many salvaged examples in use among the nations of the Inner Sphere in a large number of variations following the Blakists' fall, the most notable being the MAD-6D developed by the Federated Suns and shared with the Republic of the Sphere.

As the Dragoons' Marauder II factory on Outreach didn't survive the Jihad, Irian BattleMechs Unlimited purchased the design plans from the Dragoons and, after retooling their Awesome lines on Irian, began producing the newly acquired design. During the Dark Age Era, the Republic of the Sphere ordered Irian to shut down many of their 'Mech production lines, including the Marauder II - however, they never ceased producing them.

With the Marauder already a powerful and popular 'Mech, the Dragoons' goals with the Marauder II were to enhance its abilities by strengthening its chassis to carry a much heavier armor and weapons load. The 'Mech was then armored with nineteen tons of Valiant Lamellor armor, giving it protection that rivals that of the Atlas and fitted with thirteen additional heat sinks, a total of twenty-nine, to allow a more ferocious rate of fire. Retaining its progenitor's Vlar 300-rated engine, with the MAD-5A built around an extralight fusion engine to save more weight for weapons. To make up for the reduced mobility, the Marauder II was outfitted with three Chilton 600 jump jets that give it a jumping capability of up to ninety meters.

Retaining only the two Magna Mk II Medium Lasers, the 5A variant of the Marauder II carries as its primary weapons a pair of Magna Firestar ER PPCs in its arms which give it a powerful long range punch compared to the 4A. The ER PPCs are backed up by a right torso-mounted Mydron Excel LB 10-X Autocannon which gives the Marauder II the tactical flexibility of using both solid and cluster rounds. Curiously the 5A is built with CASE only in its right torso, yet its three ton LB-X Autocannon ammunition bay sits in the left torso, leading some observers to suggest another projectile weapon field kit variant was being contemplated.

The variant with dual ERPPC's and a Gauss rifle is great, but the Marian Hegemony's slapdash variant with 280 FUCKING ROCKETS is still my all-time favorite.

Is it good? Nah. But dead fuckers aren't in a position to run their mouths, now are they? And when it runs out of rockets, it still had ERPPC's.

The remake reboot prequel sequel industrial complex is killing me but the good thing is I don't have to watch any of that. I can just think "that sounds boring or otherwise doesn't interest me in any way" and do something other than watch it

"They're making a willy wonka origin story with timothee chalamet," you might say to me. "They're doing a live action the last airbender again, didn't you love avatar?" I don't find it necessary. This is nothing to me

#my ability to not watch something is unparalleled

ok but an aside Wonka was actually really good

I saw Wonka in theaters with my girlfriend, since she was choreographing a children's Willy Wonka play that month. We actually enjoyed the hell out of it.

new recruit whose confused as to why there aren’t any other male mech pilots. on an unrelated note, his chest had been aching ever since he left the chassis.

"They're puttin' estrogen into the air supply and TURNIN' OUR MECHWARRIORS TRANS!"

"THEY ALREADY TURNED KARL STEINER INTO KATRINA, AND YOU ALL THINK THIS IS A JOKE! MAXIMILIAN LIAO, YOU DEMON, I KNOW YOU'RE DOING THIS!"

Sounds like a buddy of mine who works for BAE's shipyards. He's told me some stories about the fuckery he's had to deal with. He's also told me some stories that I'm not entirely certain are true about our military's capabilities, but which I won't repeat because he clearly told me not to.

Battletech Compendium: The Rules of Warfare Cover Art by Doug Andersen

Looks like a Timberwolf with... what is that, an Urbanmech that's been hittin' the gym?

I was reading something about Whitestown, Indiana and my eyes nearly popped out of my head thinking it was one of THOSE comically racist towns. Nice to know, at least the name, wasn’t that.

Racisttown, named after the abolitionist Stopbeing Racist,

That's nothing. Check THIS shit out

WHAT THE HELL

Doctor Gay Hitler. Let that sink in for a moment. There was a time, including THE ENTIRETY OF WORLD WAR 2, where you could've gone to this town, made an appointment with the local dentist, and been met by Doctor Hitler.

Oh, but don't call him that. To his friends, he's just Gay.

I don’t WANT my laptop to be the Thinnest Model Yet

I want a battery that will outlast the sun, a screen big enough to blind the person behind me, more USB slots than there are apple fanboys in the bay area, a fucking disc reader/writer

i will pay extra for it to be heavy enough to bludgeon someone to death

I know this is meant to be a joke about covid but like. There are several very high profile serial killers who avoided capture because of this logic.

Like. This is a well documented phenomena. The response to the poor and sick and vulnerable is the same as it always has been.

The LAPD genuinely used the code NHI for "no humans involved" on crimes where the victim was a sex worker, migrant, drug user, gang member, ETC for decades and just ignored those cases

A very sad example of this is Robert Pickton, a Canadian serial killer. He may have killed as many as 49 sex workers and the cops didn't give a fuck until the number of missing women became astronomically high.

Man, the Last Podcast on the Left episodes about that case are excellent. Marcus Parks gets fucking FURIOUS when he details how horrifically the Vancouver PD fucked that entire invedtigation, and how callous and incompetent the judge was.

Yeah, girl, I got some cauuuuustic fuckin' pussy juice, like, seriously. I got black hair but my pubes are all blonde. i'm for real, like, it's so brittle down there i-

[pulls phone away from ear] Huh? Oh, yeah, i would like my sandwich toasted. Thank you ma'am

For some reason, I'm imagining this as a corrosion-based supervillain robbing a Quizno's because she got hungry, and is just dialing up her Tinder date to say some lurid shit in front of the terrified staff.

Where's the guy from the other day who was saying Taiwan should 'just stop antagonizing China' or some such nonsense?

China is gonna have a rough time prosecuteing the billons across the globe prepared to give them the finger over this.

What does "giving them the middle finger" entail? Is there anything more we can do than talk smack? What actions can we take?

This is so cool! But what country are they from? “Africa” is really vague.

Their names are Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, and Bello Eniola and they’re from Lagos, Nigeria. There’s a neat video about them here.

#when will people start giving names to young non-white scientists??#bc that shit is getting old

boost the fuck out of this, and make sure you include their goddamn names and country of origin.

Again: that’s not disrespect, that’s journalism. That’s how headlines work. The goal of a headline is NOT to be a substitute for the entire article. It’s to tease the article itself, and generate enough interest and intrigue to get clicks. You only have so much time to capture attention in a headline. If you only have a few seconds and a handful of words to snag someone’s news-scrolling gaze and get across pertinent facts, then you try to make those facts as simple and accessible as possible.

If you started a headline with 4 names no one has ever heard before, most people won’t even read all the way to the pertinent information in the headline, let alone be intrigued enough to click on the article itself. And more people know where Africa is than where Nigeria is. I’m not making a value judgment there, it’s just the truth. It’s a funnel approach: you start by appealing to the broadest or most culturally relevant possible demographic in the headline so people will click on it for more information, and then you start going into detail:

In less than 2 sentences we have names and a location. 

I checked another article about the same thing, with a similarly catchy and vague title: 

And again: names (and this time even ages and pictures) and a location within the first 2-3 sentences of the article, immediately following an eye-and-attention grabbing, snappy and easy-to-digest headline.

This is a basic journalism thing. They ARE named, and in fact their praises being sung–you just have to be willing to read more than a headline before you start judging the content. 

Also, does anyone else find it creepy how the commenters were taking ownership of these girls? “My people are so bomb”? “I love my people”?

These aren’t “your people”. They live half the world away, and have as much in common with you as any Brazilian or Indian with dark skin. Stop trying to take credit for other people’s work.

Today Tumblr user noblepeasant is learning about “ethnicity”

Acting like you have a connection with someone just because you share an ethnicity, even when you live in entirely different societies, is a stupid thing to do.

Deadass

You know, I know of one group that spends a lot of time claiming credit for the positive things done by their ethnic groups.

White Nationalists.

It’s literally their go-to thing.

Just gonna point out that I lokked this story up, and it's from 2012. And a lot of articles I found about it pointed out that the system, which breaks down urine into hydrogen, then uses the hydrogen to produce electricity, uses more energy than it produces. And, y'know, last I checked, nobody powers their house with piss these days.

dont forget warhammer where the dwarfs beheaded an elf king for mocking our beards

>our

To be fair, it was far beyond just mocking their beards- the fucker actually forcibly shaved a high-ranking Dwarven ambassador, which the Dwarfs considered such a vile insult that they basically declared an eternal jihad upon all elf-kind. The resulting War of the Beard basically broke both empires, leaving the Old World open for humanity to prosper.

Also, if memory serves, the whole incident was at least partly Malekith's fault, that snow-covered bitch.