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Personality hire

A collection of time travel humor text posts, not censored by me.

time travel humor text posts,

not censored by me.

'fragging' is the colloquialism for troops attacking their superiors in the vietnam war (not just officers, but just as often NCOs or even just peers they disliked). it was called that because it would typically be done with fragmentation grenade, but not usually during a battle or anything. that wasn't exactly very reliable, plus it didn't exactly leave you with an isolated target

rather, it was the use of fragmentation grenades *on base*; your classic fragging consisted of rolling a fragmentation grenade under the door into the latrines at night after your target went in. this was enabled by the fact that firebases (the typical field base used by americans in the vietnam war) would have crates of fragmentation grenades easily accessible, as the response to hearing something rattle against the barbed wire at night was to simply throw a grenade at it and wait until morning to see if you got anything rather than risk being lured out. so it was a very good anonymous tool for assassinations.

the scale and fear of fragging had an enormous cultural effect on the united states. in the military, it contributed to degrading morale and a variety of programs to counter it, including the first-ever anonymous tip phone line for soldiers to complain about officers. the realization that soldiers would simply kill their superiors if pushed seriously degraded effectiveness in a war where the primary tactic was to go out into the bush and deliberately pick fights. its a huge part of why the US military switched to a volunteer model.

when stories of fragging made it home, it was an immense culture shock for midcentury america, and cemented itself into the news and media. through the 70s and 80s, there was a *lot* of US media about the Vietnam War. the stuff in the 70s was largely extremely critical and extremely cynical, largely made by people who opposed the war, but in the reagan era you saw an uptick in war action movies which... while not typically set in the Vietnam War, were largely concerned with refighting and 'winning' it in the narrative, creating big, stupid action movies like the rambo sequels

this sort of dumbass action movies, along with heavy metal and the satanic panic, heavily influence early first person shooter games. Kevin Cloud, one of the artists on the original Doom, used 'frag' as a term to distinguish killing players from killing Doom's monsters. Doom was built as a single player game first, a cooperative game second, and a multiplayer versus game third, so the language of 'you fragged X' was ported from the cooperative game (where it was used to indicate you'd killed a friendly, idiot) into the multiplayer deathmatch.

from there, it made it to Quake and Unreal, the big arena shooters of the late 90s, and remained the term pretty much until all First Person Shooters were subsumed into the increasingly military-propaganda-y Call of Duty games post Modern Warfare. i have no proof of this, but i suspect it was a term that CoD wanted nothing to do with as they became increasingly reliant on connections to the military-industrial complex, so the term was carefully kept out of marketing and slowly killed it among gamers.

they really have been ruined :(

Look at both of these pictures separately and tell me.

Which one would you say visually resembles the king of hell more?

Now, I know that the collective perception of Hell = lava and fire plays a role here but I know for a fact that most of you would have instinctively picked Dante. And funnily enough, I have reasons to believe it's not just because of the colour scheme. In fact, I think it was the designers' intentions all along.

We have Vergil.

His body is sleek and smooth, protective armor points downwards and he holds his wings close to his back. Everything about him is perfectly poised, even the energy he emits holds shape, bending physically to his will. He looks like his whole body is meant to cut.

Vergil's whole body is a weapon taken shape.

And then, to contrast all that we have Dante.

He does not hold himself at the ready and still. His body isn't sleek. He looks like the power within him is rippling, trying to escape by any means possible, tearing him from the inside. His body isn't built to cut across space in a blink; it's meant to take up space.

His body is an exertion of dominance.

Now, we could look at all that purely through the control lens; Vergil has always been more in touch with his demon side than Dante was. Of course his SDT form would be more controlled, while Dante's would be more beastly.

But I think there's a deeper reason for it to be found.

Throughout his life, Vergil never wanted to rule. He wanted to have control over himself, enough so that nothing could ever hurt him again. That's why his SDT looks like a blade manifested, instead of the immovable powerhouse that Dante is. Secretly, he never wanted to be the strongest; he simply wanted to be a master of himself.

And as for what Dante wanted his whole life? To be a shield for those he was close to, so that no one would ever have to die because of him again. But for that, he had to be strong, stronger than anybody else out there really is. And the only real form of power that demons respect is the loud, overconsuming one.

Their forms mirror each other in many ways but this one is the one that neither wanted. And I think that the biggest visual evidence of that specific mirror are their horns.

Almost his whole life, Vergil has pretended that he wants to be a king; ultimately, he is a knight.

Dante has never wanted anything more than to be a knight; in order to be that, he needed to become a king.

mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters

Tucker: Yeah?

Danny: What time is it!? Is it past 6!?

Tucker: Yeah dude it's like 9:00 pm

Danny: Oh no. Oh no. Oh. No.

Tucker: Dude, what is it?

Danny: I forgot to do a entire module for my class this week.

Tucker: What?

Danny: I ussually do them on the weekend since I'm so busy and the professor wants the assignments turned in on Friday at 6:00 PM. But this week really kicked my ass, and I completely forgot to stay a week ahead. What do I do?!

Tucker: How many assignments were in this module?

Danny: Five. The zeros are already in. I went from a 98 to a 63.

Tucker: *pain hiss through teeth* Okay it's time to send a really pathetic, really desperate, and professional email begging for a extension.

Danny: You don't understand! Professor Todd will never go for it. He's strict as hell. Nothing I could say would be believable!

Tucker: Nothing? Not even say, a near death experience?

Danny: What?

Five hours later

Steph: Thanks for bring me dinner Jason. The ER has been non stop and I haven't even gotten a chance to get a break

Jason: No problem, I was just going to do some grading today anyway.

Steph: It was really sweet of you to bring the other nurses some food too. I'm pretty sure almost all the nurse station is in love with you.

Jason: Well shit, get some numbers. You never know. You're future in-law could be on payroll with you. ;)

Steph: Ha ha nice try. That is more stress then its worth. You're like that college kid, desperately trying to write five essays between codes.

Jason: Damn! He coded!? What kind of professor doesn't offer an extension in the face of that? Those deadlines can not be that serious.

Steph: Yeah. Its-

Danny walking by in a hospital gown using speech to text: Hello Professor Todd, I hope this email finds you well. I apologize to ask for this but would it be possible to get a extension on Module 4? Im in the hospital and I have apparently died four times but I am working on those essays between each-

Steph: That was him

Jason: He died four times?!

Steph: Yeah but we got him back-

Random nurse: CODE! CODE IN ROOM 209!

Steph: Damn it! He has got to stop working on those stupid essays! The stress is messing with his heart!

Jason: HE'S DYING RIGHT NOW?!TELL HIM HE HAS HIS EXTENSION, TELL HIM PROFESSOR TODD IS COOL WITH IT.

Steph: YOU DID THIS TO HIM!?

Danny looking so pathetic and pained. All the electricity *hurts*. Not to mention the chest compression. He is bruised and sore. Probably has at least one rib displaced. Jason just stood there looking at his student and feeling so guilty. Steph glaring at him to fix it.