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aestriiea · 3 days

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is that SONG YUQI? oh, no, that’s ARTEMIS “MISTY”, a TWENTY - THREE year old PRODUCER / ASPIRING SINGER/SONGWRITER who uses SHE/HER pronouns. they currently live in LAS TIERRAS DEL SOL HOUSING in QUILPUE, and the character they identify with most is STAR GUARDIAN TALIYAH from LEAGUE OF LEGENDS. hopefully they find their own little paradise here in el país de los poetas!

basics

⠀full name⠀⠀ji yifan . artemis .

𓏲𝄢 ── her full name is undisclosed unless stated otherwise .

⠀nicknames misty , ari , temi , em .

⠀stage/pen name⠀⠀sunkis’d .

𓏲𝄢 ── her former stage name was fanfan .

⠀birthdate⠀⠀december 21st, 2000 .

⠀zodiac⠀⠀ sagittarius, year of the metal dragon .

⠀gender⠀⠀cis female (she/her/hers) .

⠀hometown⠀⠀pudong, shanghai, china .

⠀residence⠀⠀las tierras del sol housing , quilpué .

⠀languages ⠀fluent mandarin (wu dialect) . advanced korean, english . conversational japanese, spanish .

⠀career⠀⠀freelance producer . singer/songwriter .

⠀education⠀⠀bba in business management — yonsei university

𓏲𝄢 ── minor in vocal music .

⠀sexual orientation⠀ heterosexual .

vocal claims: lexie liu, maggie lindemann…

prod claims: lucidbeatz, key kelly…

𓏲𝄢 ── in terms of the vocal claims i plan to use for her; while she has released some tracks, these are not being used on a rolling basis for lack of better word — i.e. if lexie liu releases a new track it doesn’t necessarily mean that artemis would’ve as well. however, it’s safe to say the produced tracks have all been released !

⠀personality

⠀alignment⠀⠀chaotic good .

⠀temperament⠀⠀sanguine-melancholic .

⠀virtues⠀⠀inquisitive, sincere, idealistic .

⠀sins⠀⠀scatterbrained, materialistic, guarded .⠀

⠀personality type⠀ entj-t .

⠀+ extroversion (e), intuition (n), thinking (t), judging (j). the commander .

⠀her past⠀⠀is the first step to redemption .

misty comes across as a generally bubbly person and to an extent she is just that; more extroverted than introverted, her outgoing and sociable personality either draws in onlookers or sends them as far away from her as possible. also considered what some might know as airheaded, misty is quite scatterbrained, quick to fly from idea to idea and plan to plan, still trying to put as much of herself into her projects as possible. despite her outgoing nature she’s still very deeply contemplative, often found lost in thought as she grapples with her emotions and the weight of the secrets she’s keeping. she often feels as though she’s a fraud and it’s only through music that she’s able to shed the skin she adorns as artemis to let yifan see the light once more no matter how fleeting the moments are.

⠀loosely based on⠀⠀taliyah + seraphine ( league of legends ), marcille ( dungeon meshi ), aquamarine ( aquamarine ), daphne blake ( scooby-doo ), jonah simms ( superstore ) . . .

hobbies: playing bass, watching anime + reading manga, producing tracks, collecting cans of monster energy, getting body mods (piercings + a number of small tattoos), playing board games, reading grim fairy tales, redecorating her space according to passing fads, collecting vinyls, scrolling xiaohongshu. . .

aesthetics: chewing on pencils, the low hum of a motorcycle, laughter like sodapop, leaving the sheets untucked, the chaos of a lively city, the first bloom of spring, secrets held close to your heart, pocketing shiny rocks that reflect the moon and its stars. . .

background (tw! fleeting mention of exploitation and depression)

born in shanghai as ji yifan, misty knows that she's someone from the moment she's able to form a sentient thought. her mother and father make it so she wants for naught. whatever yifan wants she gets.

she takes her privilege in stride, her private schools surrounded by those in all but the same tax bracket as her. there's no need to feel out of place.

her youth is uneventful, biyearly trips to foreign countries with her father. him conducting business while she enjoys the perks that come with never needing to worry about what additional costs room service might accrue.

popping into her mother's law firm and basking in what the attention of numerous adults trying to keep her busy while her mother finishes whatever important meeting was slotted for that day.

the tutoring sessions she never much cared for, tossing languages and numbers at her until something stuck.

only caring for thursdays, when she'd meet her music tutor. her parents would've never let their little girl do anything less than stellar. their standards encompass choir and her lessons while anything but rigorous are fun.

she likes singing.

she discovers korean pop on accident. a fellow thirteen-year old in her class shows her an INFINITE song. she likes it... a lot. the following thought comes easy.

i can do that

but she's not korean and she's bound for better things in life. she's barely able to make a case before it's shut down.

still her mind's made up, month after month she whittles away at her father's resolve. how could he tell his only baby no?

finally the no molds into a yes. huffed remarks telling her this is her bed she must lie in it fly in one ear and out the other.

it only takes a few pulled strings to land her an audition. one she aces, of her own volition she'd like to think. yet, this isn't the pristine big three company she'd had in mind.

it's b-list at best seeking youth fresh talent to use ready to forge their legacy in the girls blood.

it's not like yifan knows or cares though, she just trains. classes take a backseat to her life as a trainee. until studies all but fall from her mind.

her work pays off and at fifteen, after a year and some change of training she's one of four girls chosen to debut in LUVRZ.

they have no creative control but the concept is tolerable, sugary-sweet. fanfan could do that.

no amount of raw talent could make up for the colossal failure that was their debut. battling with fellow new groups and comebacks from companies people actually cared for sent them careening to the bottom of melon's new tracks list.

perhaps in some years time their discography would be dug up and given it's rightful flowers but for now they'd lost the lottery.

damage control takes form in a concept change, it's the era of femme fatales after all.

yifan is only sixteen and prideful. she knows the half-cut leather ensemble being toted as a stage outfit isn't needed. they're talented.

she was talented. main vocal, lead dance, visual and the youngest. she thought herself a prodigy. her opinions had to matter, they've always mattered.

they didn't. so she puts it on. her pride shriveling and hiding away they only needed one hit.

it doesn't come. the songs get more provocative, the stage outfits lose layers, the fans get older. yifan is running out of patience.

she's done. she says as much. they bring up her contract. seven years of her life signed away to them. threats of lawsuits if she even tries to abscond.

yifan phones home. her mother swiftly takes care of the issue.

the threats leave but the defamation follows suit. swifty. her face plastered across webpages, sources confirming that the "nepo baby" just couldn't hack it.

the seventeen year old can't stop reading the comments left in the netizens wake. her talents, race, height, voice, accent, the very fiber of her being is torn to shreds and placed beneath a microscope.

the depression is silent but swift, her indomitable spirit broken. her parents gently suggest she throw in the towel. 没关系，你试过了. (it's alright you tried)

she could always go back to school. music management was an option. plus her father knew a guy.

the decision is made in a haze but she stays in korea. running away was something she couldn't do not again.

yonsei is a notoriously difficult university. fond of exchange students and legacies her seat is secured.

natural book smarts pale in comparison to work she puts into her degree. her minor is an afterthought of sorts, a mistake even.

she'd expected more focus on an industry one she could work to repair from within but the 'vocal' minor is as literal as it gets.

her business courses peppered with vocal training reignite the fire within her. she doesn't care about the whispers that follow after a group partner enviably looks up her name. too many actual success stories frequent the university for everyone to not be looked up.

she grows used to the stares, pouring into her craft. picking up the bass, learning to produce off of videos and pure will.

yifan doesn't have to fight to do well in her music courses, she doesn't have to beg her produced tracks to go viral. music makes sense. she can't give up.

degree in hand she makes yet another case to her parents. they're not fond of the idea in the slightest. haven't you learned your lesson?

she evidently hadn't. the fight boils over stress pulling her from work, pushing her into the arms of her then boyfriend until he tears the rug from under her.

the breakup is sudden unexpected. she's broken once more. unwilling to wait for her parents to bend as they always do she recalls a particular class about the budding music scene in Chile.

she's done with korea. they win. finally she runs.

it's only when she's landed do her parents give her a response but she doesn't care about that. any further arguing would only destroy the relationship they had.

unwilling to lose the only people that love her, she let's them think they've won. yifan is in korea job searching of her own volition.

artemis is becoming somebody. out of reach of "nepo baby" headlines her true name is never spoken. misty is born.

her rainy day fund... also known as a trust fund lay there untouched for now. instead her rent is paid with money she's earned for once.

selling trashy pop beats might've brought up questions about her integrity but it also kept her lights on.

a beat takes off on tiktok sending droves of people to her spotify. amid the slowed + reverb versions of the 1:43 beat. there's a song.

it draws attention, people are intrigued. perhaps another song is in order?

sunkis'd heads their command. there's something to work with... a springboard. a winning ticket.

and misty gets to work.

#⊹ 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑦 ๋࣭ ⭑ ( 𝗈𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝗎𝗉𝗈𝗇 𝖺 𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾 : 𝗂𝗇𝗍𝗋𝗈 )#LEGGO!#took me wayyyy too long to lock in omfg #if it doesnt make sense.. i know :pensive:#edits coming to a tumblr near you!

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bardicdream · 8 months

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I know I already posted about this but they just announced that if we hit 2 million Jonny simms will read the statements provided with the core rule book as adventures in character as the archivist and we’re only 50 k off let’s GO PEOPLE

#tma #the magnus archives #the Magnus archives rpg #tma rpg #the magnus protocol

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crypticlem · 6 months

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the dark pictures directive 8020 trailer details

i'm really excited for this game so i just wanna point some things out and expand on little stuff we got in both the teaser trailer and title!!

so we all know how the vampires in house of ashes came from the moon, that's why they're so sensitive to sun, and light in general. and we know that all the dark pictures anthology games are connected, shown in house of ashes where we see rachel and eric in little hope in that short flashback. this game is probably connected just as the others are, and i think we will be seeing the vampires again.

you can hear the sounds of the creatues in the teaser trailer, which sound a lot like the same vampires from house of ashes. it also makes me think, how would they be able to counteract the vampires in this game? due to the fact they're in space and on the moon, where the vampires are most safe from the light, and are used to the sources of light there due to it being their habitat.

at the start of the trailer, you can see in the bottom left corner there is text saying "cetus constellation" which is an actual constellation, and is also known as "the whale" in english. while rachel is dying from the infection in house of ashes, salim says that the vampires originated from the cetus constellation, as he found the information in the scientist mary's notes.

about the title aswell, directive 8020 was an actual mission of nasa, which was cancelled. the mission was originally about controlling biological contamination from outer space.

in the bottom left corner of the trailer, you can also see the words "coc cassiopeia". coc could stand for certificate of competency, to show that the people going on this mission are verified and have the abilities to perform the mission safely. cassiopeia is also an actual constellation, it was named after the queen in greek mythology also known as mother of andromeda, and the constellation is also known as the w constellation due to its shape.

i think the spaceship is named cassiopeia, and the dead astronaut we see in the teaser is commander stafford, recording the broadcast outside of tau ceti f, as he said at the end of the trailer that's what he'd do, and then it focuses more on the planet that i'm assuming is tau ceti f.

with the dialogue "something's wrong with simms. she's trying to kill me!" i think simms got infected, like rachel, clarice and joey did in house of ashes. but by this point of dialogue, i don't think they've found the vampires yet or know of their existence.

"our next broadcast transmission will be broadcast from orbit around humanity's future home." most likely means that they are also on a mission to find a new planet for humans to stay that is capable of keeping them there, which could have vampires and even more creatures we don't know about yet there.

in the teaser trailer they also mention "tau ceti f" which could be the same planet they're trying to get human life onto, as it is a real exoplanet that is hypothesized to be able to support real life. currently it probably doesn't hold any real life on it due to the planet still being in its early stages, which could mean this game has a big time skip forward to when it's able to. i also like the idea of it having a big timeskip, as we could see the concept of future technology and how it's utilised in a game like this.

there are also possible easter eggs/references of directive 8020 in other games. in little hope there's an article about the apollo landing in a newspaper. in the devil in me there is a memorial of the ship "ss cassiopeia" which says:

"in memory of the victims of the great storm of may 1st 1907, in which 187 lives were lost.

the crew and passengers of the ss cassiopeia

which crashed into the rocks at the base of these cliffs."

the ship was an actual ship in service of the us navy in world war II. another one in the devil in me was the last paragraph in the second page of erin's anxiety book, which is a quote about a rocket being able to be launched from the nerve center. and the last one i found was a magazine in the devil in me titled "future vision: count down to mars" which could mean they tried to keep life on mars but it didn't work, or that's what they instead try doing in directive 8020.

it's also important to note that after directive 8020 was cancelled by nasa, they replaced it with directive 8700 which was a success, there could possibly be a successful mission after the main events of the game.

a lot of this could be wrong or right, it's just details i found interesting from the teaser trailer and title. i haven't taken a look at the teaser picture you can find in the devil in me, i'm not sure if there's any more info in that but i'll take a look eventually!! this was so long i am a yapper😪

#the dark pictures anthology #the dark pictures little hope #the dark pictures the devil in me #the dark pictures house of ashes #the dark pictures man of medan #the devil in me #tdim #house of ashes #hoa #tdp #tdpa #little hope #man of medan #mom #lh #directive 8020 #supermassive games #smg

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sourcreammachine · 6 months

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Doctor Who episodes ranked let’s go

(o’th’ revived era. and eight’s movie because i’ve seen it)

and two-parters are counted as one, but i get to define what a ‘two-parter’ is. this is because i’m in charge not you

9.11 Heaven Sent aka the stars align and somehow Moffat manages to pull an incredible script out of his arse after being stuck up there for so long aka Capaldi is the new Atlas from carrying his entire era aka now you understand why i’m splitting up some two-parters and not others aka ahaha 9.11 lol

3.8/9 Human Nature / The Family of Blood

1.9/10 The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

3.10 Blink

2.4 The Girl in the Fireplace

4.12/13 The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End

1.6 Dalek

6.i A Christmas Carol

3.11 Utopia

4.8/9 Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead

7.v The Time of the Doctor okay hear me out first thing is i’m an absolute sucker second thing is why couldn’t season 7 have actually seeded any of this with actual thought and subtly rather than mystery-box hackery it literally makes me think of how much better his era could’ve been if Moffat wasn’t so up his own arse

2.8/9 The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit

7.iv The Day of the Doctor

4.11 Turn Left

3.4 Girldick

1.12/13 Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways

7.iii The Night of The Doctor aka my boi Eight finally gets done justice

4.10 Midnight

4.6 The Doctor’s Daughter

3.2 The Shakespeare Code

3.i The Runaway Bride

2.12/13 Army of Ghosts / Doomsday

2.3 School Reunion

6.11 The God Complex

4.1 Partners in Crime

10.11/12 World Enough, and Time / The Doctor Falls (look, i’m a sucker i know, and i couldn’t give a shit about Gomez and Simm, but fuck you Moffat actually figured out how to write human emotions. Talalay’s finest hour. Lucas’ finest hour. Moffat did not deserve a swan song but he got himself one somehow)

5.2 The Beast Below

8.8 Mummy on the Orient Express (despite the awful, horrible ending, see below (very far below))

4.7 The Unicorn and the Wasp

4.2 The Fires of Pompeii

7.12 Neil Gaiman’s Good Episode

1.1 Rose

5.1 The Eleventh Hour

2.7 The Idiot’s Lantern

10.1 The Pilot

5.10 Vincent and the Doctor

4.i Voyage of the Damned

6.4 The Neil Gaiman Fanfic Hour

3.1 Smith and Jones

4.4 The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky

6.10 The Girl Who Waited

1.2 The End of The World

5.12/13 The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang

2.i The Christmas Invasion

6.7 A Good Man Jumps The Shark

5.6 The Vampires of Venice

4.3 Planet of the Ood

7.ii The Snowmen

1.11 Boom Town

3.12 The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

1.7 The Long Game

7.7 The Rings of Akhaten

8.6 The Caretaker

5.7 Amy’s Choice

9.7/8 Zygons. you can basically hear Capaldi’s back cracking from him carrying it

4.v/vi The End of Time, Parts 1 & 2

10.6 Extremis, the most underrated episode fuck you

4.ii The Next Doctor

8.5 Time Heist

6.1/2 The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon

2.1 New Earth

10.3 Twelve Decks a Racist

9.ii The Husbands of River Song (yeah i’m a sucker, the ending gets me)

6.3 Curse of the Black Pearl spot, fuck

11.1 The Woman Who Fell To Earth (based on how it made me feel in 2018, looking back yeah the warning signs were all there)

5.4/5 The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone

5.11 The Lodger

1.3 The Unquiet Dead

7.4 The Power of Three aka Chris Chibnall Shits Himself on Live Television

2.5/6 Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel

7.9 Hide

10.5 Oxygen aka La Problema Es Capitalismo

8.1 Deep Breath

2.2 Tooth and Nail claw, fuck

1.8 Father’s Day

11.3 Rosa (bring back Blackman as an episode writer, she wrote Noughts & Crosses, she can do it)

7.11 The Crimson ‘Orror

6.8 Let’s Kill Hitler

6.5/6 The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People

4.iv The Waters of Mars

7.6 oh no it’s clara

9.10 yaay clara’s dead

5.8/9 The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood

12.5 Fugitive of the Judoon (again, based on how i felt watching it for the first time. it was a good episode and an interesting mystery box, just one filled with shit)

1.4/5 Aliens of London / World War Three

7.5 The Angels Take amy lol

2.11 Fear Her

8.4 Listen, aka the first episode that Capaldi carries, despite Moffat being himself again

10.ii Twice Upon a Time (ugh we could’ve had a brilliant trilogy to see out Capaldi, but instead we get Moffat masturbating on live television for an hour. look, The Doctor could have had an actual character arc - they feel like they’re on borrowed time after their resurrection on Trenzalore, after the events on Gallifrey they feel like any sort of feelings of ‘duty’ as last of the time lords (as errant and fleeting as such feelings might’ve been) are resolved, and after failing their BIG MASSIVE SEASON 10 ARC with Missy and getting stabbed in the back, and BILL [redacted for spoilers], they’re happy to accept their death - and that’s where the season ends. yuletide 2017 could’ve ended this arc, they’re taught the love of the universe again, they see the goodness they bring to all life - Clara, i am a good man. and when they sit down to die, those words ‘maybe just one more go’ could’ve had the weight of the universe behind them, it could’ve been the greatest who line ever written, had that line actually had weight on its shoulders. Moffat is a hack. mystery-boxing is hacking, end of story. Capaldi, the finest actor ever in the role, was done dirty by scripts with no weight and planning. Grand Moff lives up his own arse - that power gives him the ability to write incredible episodes such as Heaven Sent and everything he ever touched under Davies - but it makes all series, arcs and continuity fall apart into a pile of shit. this episode is the finest example - a universe of potential, reduced to one hour of self-congratulatory masturbation)

6.9 Night Terrors

11.9 It Takes You Away (the one with the frog god)

7.10 Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

9.12 Heaven Sent Part II: Whoops

8.9 Flatline

7.3 A Town Called Widowmaker

4.iii Planet of the Dead

9.1/2 The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar

6.12 Closing Time

3.7 42

13.i Eve of the Daleks (the aisling bea one)

8.3 Robot of Sherwood

9.5/6 Maisie Williams

6.13 The Wedding of River Song

5.3 Victory of the Daleks

8.11/12 Dark Water / Death in Heaven aka i’m sorry Gomez but not even you can carry this

3.6 The Lazarus Experiment

11.i Resolution (…of the Daleks)

10.2 Emoji Robots

8.2 Into the Dalek

10.5 Knock Knock. Who’s There? Yer mum

7.13 The Name of the Doctor aka the Biggest Waste of Richard E. Grant until Rise of Skywalker

7.2 Dinosaurs on a Plane

10.8/9 The Pyramid at the End of the World / The Lie of the Land

Doctor Who: The Movie!

11.6 Demons of the Punjab

7.1 Asylum of the Daleks

7.8 Cold War aka i’m starting to think Mark Gatiss might be a bad writer actually

3.4/5 Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks

11.5 P’ting

9.3/4 Under the Lake / Before the Flood aka the Biggest Waste of Peter Serafinowicz since the Clone Wars didn’t bring him back. also a deaf person falling in love with their interpreter is the most toxic thing ever. and it’s 90 more minutes of season 9 tedium ugh

2.10 Love and Monsters. yeah this high up

8.7 The anti-abortion episode. and it’s not just for that fact alone nonono, The Doctor is such an unbelievable unforgivable cunt this time. at least Clara calls them out in that brilliant final-ish scene BUT they’re still unforgivable AND they get forgiven anyway next week?? literally they take the way Clara’s character arc was going and throw it all in the bin

8.10 In The Forest of the Shite

11.7 Kerblam!

10.9 Empress of Mars aka i’m starting to think Mark Gatiss might be a bad writer actually

9.i Last Christmas aka remember how they reset Clara’s character arc after Mummy for literally no reason???? THEY FUCKING DID IT AGAIN!! she’s literally put in limbo for an ENTIRE SEASON, after they gave her TWO good offramps and apparently chickened the fuck out from using them?? and expected me to care when she (spoiler)? also the episode’s like really boring. bonus points for the absolutely perfect casting of Nick Frost tho, very nominative determinism

10.i is my hatred of Doctor Mysterio unwarranted? probably. but i still hate it

12.8 The Haunting of Villa Diodati, the most overrated episode fuck you. no it is not ‘the only good episode of season 12’ - it’s just as bad as the rest. The Doctor is unnecessarily unlikeable. the villain boy is nonsense, uninteresting and unlikeable. and worst of all - i don’t want to have violent sex with any of the people in this villa

12.4 Nikola Tesla’s Tower of Terror

11.8 The Witchfinders

9.9 Sleep No More aka i’m starting to think Mark Gatiss might be a bad writer actually

13.2 Flux Part 2: War of the Sontarans (oh yeah like they don’t do war normally, that’s like saying the fucking ,, toasting of the toaster or something)

7.i The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe (it’s only Chibnall from here on out let’s goo)

12.1/2 Spyfall. literally how the FUCK do you waste both Stephen Fry AND Lenny fucking Henry how the fuck. also The Doctor basically committed a nazism right

12.3 Orphan 55, the second most underrated episode - a lot of people say it’s Chibnall’s worst but i think there’s worse

12.i Revolution of the Daleks (the priti patel one)

11.2 The Ghost Monument

13.4 Flux Part 4: Village of the Angels

11.10 The Battle of Rashhcjxjshog s Kjalapados

12.7 Can You Hear Me? (that was the one with the finger guy. no i don’t mean jonathan banks)

11.4 Spiders in Sheffield

12.6 Praxeus

12.9/10 how did they let chibnall get away with it. isn’t there supposed to be oversight. aren’t there supposed to be safeguards. how did they let him get away with it

13.1 Flux Part 1: The Halloween Apocalypse

13.ii Legend of the Sea Devils

13.3 Flux Part 3: Once, Upon Time

13.iii The Power of the Doctor aka thank fuck, it’s finally over

10.5 Flux Part 5: Survivors of the Flux

10.6 Flux Part 6: Fuck You Chibnall

#196 #doctor who

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darksideofparis · 25 days

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Olay additional questions now. Random orders.

1). How will Missy feel about Alex? What about other incarnations of The Master (John Simm in World Enough and Time and Sacha Dhawan in Spyfall)

2). How does The Toymaker feel about Alex?

3). What is in Alex's room in The God Complex?

4). How will Alex feel about Division, The Timeless Child and Tecteun?

5). How does Alex feel about 15 and having a more openly queer Doctor?

6). What happens in The Wedding of River Song now?

7). When will Alex meet Jenny? And when will Jenny meet Jack?

8). Will The Doctor and Alex go to Sarah Jane's funeral now that 15 has confirmed she has died?

9). Is Alex's Time Lord ancestor Romana? Or The Corsair?

10). Why does Alex not like Danny Pink?

And finally

11). Can we write snippets and short stories based in The Alex Locke universe, weaving in our OC Sky and the brother you created Johnny, and post them here if we give credit?

Great questions!

I don't want to say too much about Missy's feelings towards Alex out of fear of spoilers, but I will say Missy does care about Alex and doesn't want to see her harmed. Same goes for Sacha Dhawan's Master and, to a lesser degree, John Simm's Master.

To the Toymaker, Alex is a delightfully useful toy in his game against the Doctor. The Toymaker never would have guessed that the Doctor he first encountered would fall madly, passionately in love, so Alex is a new puzzle he tries to use to his advantage. And he does. We will see that in Alex's version of 'The Giggle'.

Not a swimming pool, I will say that much. Or anything related to her fear of water. Hopefully, the fear that is in Alex's room will make sense when we get to it.

Alex will hate the Division, Tecteun, all of it. They just might topple Kovarian and the Silence from their top spot on the list of things/people Alex hates the most.

Alex is more than okay with a Doctor who is more open about his sexuality, because she knows that while the Doctor might acknowledge certain people as attractive, she is the one he finds the most attractive, sexy, beautiful. . . Really, the list goes on, and 15 could easily go off on a monologue on his amazing wife (and probably does, much to Ruby's amusement).

Hehe, so much. I will say lots of characters (some canon, some OCs) will pop up and we'll get a lot of answers regarding Kovarian and the Silence's plans towards the Doctor, Alex, and River. You'll just have to wait and see!

Alex will meet Jenny sometime during the first half of Series 7. What I currently intend on doing is adapting one of the audio stories featuring Jenny ('Prisoner of the Ood') and having it take place in Bristol, while Alex is visiting Marigold and Lacey. Jenny will meet Jack also during the first half of Series 7, but she doesn't start a relationship with him right away as she's traveling with her dad and Alex on the TARDIS (plus, the moment the Doctor sees the obvious attraction between the two, he's anxious to keep the TARDIS from landing anywhere near 21st century Cardiff).

They will go to her funeral, yes. I'm thinking of having it turn into a wild Arrow-verse like event, where some big alien invasion happens while everyone's gathered at the funeral and the grieved mourners defiantly defending the Earth just as Sarah Jane would have done, but we'll have to see. Either way, it will be pretty rough for the Doctor and Alex. When exactly it will take place, I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards during 13's era.

Oh, wow, that would be awesome if Alex's Time Lord ancestor was Romana! A bit full-circle, lol, since I've got my version of Eleven admitting he was attracted to Romana. It would also make sense, with Alex and Romana both being clever. Also would be interesting if her ancestor was the Corsair, but we'll have to wait and see who, exactly, it is (if it is one of those two!).

Alex mainly doesn't like Danny because of his immediately hostile attitude towards the Doctor. She also doesn't like how Clara feels tempted to lie to Danny all the time, something she points out to Clara constantly ("Wouldn't you rather be with someone you feel like you can trust?"). Aside from that, she has no particular dislike of Danny; she just feels he and Clara aren't compatible (and she's right).

Absolutely you can! Just give credit and tag me in the posts!

Thank you again for the questions! Keep them coming!

#firefly-collective #alex locke #alex locke series

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veraynes-blog · 6 months

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3 & 19 for the ao3 ask!

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Hmm, at the moment The Game, based solely on how much effort was spent working out the minutiae of making that dumb AU work 😅 Also possibly The Nature of Sorry, because I think it might be the most pitch perfect I've ever gotten character dialogue. Crowley took the wheel, for that one.

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

Ooh good question. It's very basic of me, but I have to say Saxteen (ie, Fourteen and Simm!Master). I know we've all got our clown makeup on right now over them both, I very much doubt we'll get what we want, so I will instead be fervently clinging to their coattails through fandom.

Oh, and moving fandoms, I'd also quite like to try my hand at something for BG3. I'm thinking Gale/Astarian? They're both a bit insane in very different ways, which always makes for a fun match. 🙃💕

Thanks for the ask! 😊

#ask meme #verayne answers #verayne writes #ao3 wrapped

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scotianostra · 2 years

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Happy Birthday Stephen "Dougray" Scott born on November 25th 1965.

In my opinion Dougray is one of the most underrated Scottish actors, with his broad Scottish brogue he oozes Scottishness whenever he speaks in his native tongue.

After attending Auchmuty High School in Fife trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he was named most promising drama student and took the his stage name from his grandmother's surname, "Dougray

Scott's early work was in Scottish national theatre and television, first appearing in the series Soldier Soldier as well as on the stage in the Tim Fleming directed production of Wallace. Early television credits to follow included The Rover, Taggart: Nest of Vipers, Lovejoy, and Soldier Soldier. Scott followed this up with impactful turns in the films You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Black Beauty, and Another Nine & a Half Weeks. Shortly thereafter, Scott could be seen opposite Drew Barrymore in the hit film Ever After, opposite Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, and Vanessa Redgrave in the film Deep Impact, as well as the second installment in the hit Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible 2.

He also starred in a film I mentioned the other day, alongside Dougie Henshall, This Years Love, look out for it, it is very funny and full of Scots, but set in London.

Scott also appeared opposite Kate Winslet in Michael Apted's Enigma as well as the 2002 film Ripley's Game, opposite Ray Winstone. Starring opposite Jennifer Connelly in the 2005 film Dark Water and the 2007 film Hit Man, Scott soon appeared in US television for the first time in the ABC miniseries The Ten Commandments as well the Hallmark TV movie Arabian Nights.

Other film roles have included the hit film Ever After, opposite Drew Barrymore Then with Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, and Vanessa Redgrave in the film Deep Impact, as well as the second instalment in the hit Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission Impossible 2. Scott also appeared opposite Kate Winslet in Michael Apted’s Enigma as well as the 2002 film Ripley’s Game, opposite Ray Winstone. In 2006 Dougray appeared in US television for the first time in the ABC miniseries The Ten Commandments as well the Hallmark TV movie Arabian Nights. US television audiences next saw Scott in the NBC series Heist as well as the hit series Desperate Housewives. He followed these impressive turns with the BBC miniseries adaptation of the cult classic novel The Day of the Triffids .

He was also been seen in the critically-acclaimed movie My Week With Marilyn, the hit Netflix series Hemlock Grove, and the Cinemax series Strike Back. On this side of the Atlantic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was great as well as another film was New Town Killers, set in Edinburgh, and in an episode of Dr Who with Matt Smith. He was also in the TV series, Snatch, based on the film of the same name.

During the last few years playing Colonel Jacob Kane in the series Batwoman. The series was cancelled after 3 seasons. He has also appeared in La Cha Chis a dark comedy which also stars the excellent Rhys Ifans, it was written and filmed in South Wales in four weeks over the coronavirus lockdown.

At present you can find Dougray in the Irvine Welsh series Crime, where he platys troubled detective DI Ray Lennox. I’m really looking forward to the second installment, which will see the excellent English actor John Simm join the cast.

In the second season Ray is ready to return to the fray at Edinburgh Serious Crimes, keen to prove he is fully recovered from his breakdown, I’ll say no more in case you haven’t watched series one, please go do it! Dougray has one a Scottish Bafta for his portrayal and just this weekend in the 50th International Emmy Awards was also awarded Best Performance by an Actor. Vigil, set in Scotland won the Best Drama Series

In a post on social media, Welsh congratulated the Hollywood star, who he claims “battled for years” to play the lead role in Crime.

Dougray will also be in the Sky series A Town Called Malice about a family of petty thieves from South London who decamp to Spain to profit from an unexpected windfall. I’m also looking forward to the film, Irena's Vow telling the true story of Polish nurse Irene Gut Opdyke, who was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal for showing remarkable courage in her attempt to save Polish Jews during World War II. The film is based on the Broadway play of the same name. It is set to premiere next year.

#Scotland #scottish #actor #theatre #television #film #fifer #happy birhtday

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bearsimz · 2 years

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Nicole Simms

Active, Mean, Materialistic

Bodybuilder aspiration + Astronaut career

Choose any base game aspiration and career you feel you haven’t fully explored

Live in Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, or Newcrest

Cannot marry or have children with a townie from a Game or Expansion pack (eg no one from San Myshuno)

#nicole simms #simms lepacy #simms lepacy gen1 #ts4 lepacy challenge

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hms-tardimpala · 4 months

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For the AU game (if I remember correctly you also reblogged that post): modern AU FPA? What would Fetch be doing? What would the other characters be doing? How would this big underlying conflict translate into a modern world?

Yes I did, thank you for the ask!

(Now is the time to remind you I'm not concise)

Oh my, a Modern AU. If it has supernatural elements, then the difference is simply the time period and technologies available (since the FPA is set loosely in a fantasy 20s-40s). If it doesn't, then it's a completely different story and the magic disappearing has to be replaced with another world-altering event, and other communities must be chosen to stand in for the Magum and humans.

I'll assume you mean the first case, because I don't have the brain power to figure out all the implications of the second right now.

I don't think it would be all that different, to be honest. The cars would be faster and the guns would be a given, but what would change...?

I think a post-Coda Archetellos with social media would be even more of a horrible place. I don't trust our current political climate to handle something as complex as the Coda well, I think the hatred on all sides would make things incredibly vicious and ugly. Although that situation - the Coda - and the precarity (of health and of work, for example) it implies for the Magum could be used interestingly to mirror our western societies' inequalities and the deepening wealth chasm between social classes. It could also be used to comment on our treatment of minorities and on health-based discrimination (disability is already a prominent theme in the FPA).

Man-for-hire doesn't sound like an occupation in a modern world. I think Fetch would be a struggling vet-turned-PI living half on the street and who doesn't have access to modern investigative tools, sticking to old methods, which is why his only clients are old ladies who lost their dog. I think Hendricks would be an old-money european diplomat who took him all over the world. With an international press system like ours, Fetch's history with the Opus and Human Army would be more publicly-known, and that would prove difficult for him.

Maybe Amari would be in a coma in a hospital bed and what little money Fetch has would go into keeping her on life-support.

I believe that Simms would hang on as long as possible being a cop in a corrupt system, but that she would leave like Richie eventually. Maybe the uprising in DMIAD would be the final straw.

Niles would be much less likeable as a capitalist in this world. He would have to work really hard to improve Sunder and give his employees the best benefits ever in order to be palatable to us.

In this world, I think Eileen would thrive or at least have a more important role. She's queer, works two jobs including one that's a disregarded public service she gets no funds for, she's book-smart, she cares about moving on and the future. She would be at the forefront of social justice fights, a militant who gets shit organized.

I'm not into Modern AUs generally speaking, but I think something could be made with the FPA and modern activism.

I hope this long and vague answer is satisfactory, thank you again for getting my brain going! <333

#ask game #answered #fetch phillips archives #Nara

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richardthurman544 · 1 year

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The Top 5 Football Tipsters of Today

The Top 5 Football Tipsters of Today Football is one of the most popular sports in the world. It’s also one of the most unpredictable, with every game a chance to make or break a team’s season. This makes it hard for even the best tipsters to get a leg up on their competition. That’s where the following article comes in. In it, we take a look at the top 5 football tipsters of today and what sets them apart from their competitors. From analytics to customer service, these tipsters have mastered various skills that put them ahead of the curve. Read on to find out how you can become as successful as these experts. https://www.tipspaul.com/

Tom Hornsey Tom Hornsey is a professional tipster and has been successful in winning betting competitions and earning money for himself. He started out as a football analyst and pundit, but his real passion lies in tipping. He has developed a system that has helped him win more than $1 million in cash prizes. Tom Hornsey's system is based on statistical analysis of past matches and form data to make predictions about the next match. His tips are confident and well-researched, ensuring that his clients are always guaranteed to win money. He first gained recognition when he won a £100,000 betting competition with his tips. Since then, he has continued to amass a fortune from gambling by predicting matches successfully. Pete Prisco Pete Prisco is one of the most respected and debated football analysts in the business. He has been covering the NFL for more than 35 years and has worked for several prominent media outlets, including CBS Sports, ESPN, and SI. In this article, we'll take a look at Pete's predictions for the 2017 season and see how they stack up against those of other top tipsters. Looking at last year's results, Pete was right on target with his picks. His average final score was 7.9 points higher than the betting average (excluding props), which means he made money on 73% of his picks. This percentage ranked him 3rd among all professional football tipsters (excluding props). Here are his top 10 tips for the 2017 season: 1) Oakland Raiders will win the AFC West 2) New Orleans Saints will finish as NFC South champions 3) Green Bay Packers will make it to the NFC Championship game 4) Atlanta Falcons will make it to the Super Bowl 5) Pittsburgh Steelers will go 11-5 in 2016 but falter in 2017 6) Cincinnati Bengals will rebound from their early-season struggles and be near division title contention by December 7) Cleveland Browns will be a playoff team but not win a single game in January or February 8) Buffalo Bills will finish last in their division and miss the playoffs completely 9) Kansas City Chiefs should be considered a playoff team despite poor late-season play so far John Harvin 1. John Harvin Harvin is a top-tier NFL wide receiver who can absolutely devastate defenses with his speed and strength. He is always one step ahead of defenders, which makes him extremely difficult to cover. 2. Nathan Zuerlein Zuerlein is one of the most accurate kickers in the NFL, and he's also incredibly powerful. His ability to hit either field goal or extra point makes him a valuable asset for any team. 3. Ladarius Green Green is an explosive wide receiver who can take the ball the distance anytime he touches it. He's able to use his quickness and agility to avoid defenders easily, making him a dangerous player on the offensive side of the football. Chris Simms Chris Simms is one of the most well-known and respected football tipsters in the business. He has been tipping for over 20 years and has built a reputation as one of the best at predicting the outcomes of games. Some of the things that make Chris such a successful tipster are his ability to read and understand game situations, his ability to make quick decisions, and his knack for knowing which teams will be playing well on any given day.

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rmpmw · 2 years

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What this group does, is turns off all of your services, to use you as a "Slave", for their game, Wizard of ID, a SIMM Game, & Saw Movie Producer, Suffolk County Water Authority Oakdale Based, since 1985

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spaciousreasoning · 2 years

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Streaming Again

Just in time for our return home, there’s some new entertainment to report on, helping keep us occupied while we await the monsoon entertainment that has failed to reach our neighborhood in any decent quantity.

“The Old Man” stars Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow and is based on the 2017 novel by Thomas Perry. It airs weekly on FX and is available a day later via Hulu. It’s a gripping political thriller, and I might want to add Perry’s other works to my reading list.

“Dark Winds” is based on Tony Hillerman’s series about Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, portrayed in this adaptation by Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon. It airs on AMC, and we’ve purchased the series through Amazon Prime. It has already been renewed for a second series.

On BritBox we’re enjoying “Grace,”a series based on the Roy Grace novels by Peter James. The first series was based on the first two books, while the second series consists of three episodes. A third series of three has already been commissioned. John Simm portrays the title character.

Before taking off on our journey, we took in a couple of episodes of “Joe Pickett,” based on a C.J. Box series about a Wyoming game warden. New Zealander Michael Dorman stars in the title role, which debuted a year ago on the Spectrum service. It has moved to Paramount+. A second series has already been ordered.

We also checked in to “Obi-Wan Kenobi” on Disney+. The Jedi Master is played by Ewan McGregor, who is joined by Hayden Christensen and James Earl Jones reprising their earlier work as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. This has also been renewed for a second series.

This is so much better than the old days, when all the TV series on broadcast channels when into hiatus during the summer and other options were not as numerous.

#streaming

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guerrerense · 2 years

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'Unusual Chess Game'? - Two Kings and a Castle! por Kenneth Simms Por Flickr: Back in time again.....to the Great Western Society's (GWS) Didcot Centre, South Oxfordshire in April 2011 6023 King Edward II (in Blue Livery), pictured far left, is one of three GWR Collett designed "King" Class 8P 4-6-0 preserved locomotives. Two are based at GWS Didcot - the other being 6024 King Edward I (in Green Livery) - pictured centre - where they are both seen resting between duties. 6023 was first steamed publicly, since its restoration, on the weekend of 2nd and 3rd April 2011. This picture was taken three weeks later on Saturday 23rd April 2011, during their Easter 2011 Steam Gala, when 'uniquely' both locomotives were running. Built at Swindon works in 1930 it was withdrawn in 1962 and sent to Barry for scrap - where it was stripped of all valuable components. Later it was derailed in a shunting accident and rather than re-rail the locomotive's driving wheels were cut through with an acetylene torch. Despite being considered a hopeless preservation project it was rescued in 1984 - initially being moved to Bristol - where it was stripped down and repainted. Thereafter, it was purchased by the GWS and moved to Didcot where its restoration continued in earnest. Quite a remarkable achievement some 27 years on! Far right is GWR Collett designed "Castle" 4073 Class 7P 4-6-0 No. 5051 Earl Bathurst.

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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Anonymous asked: I loved your fantastic account of the battle of Waterloo and how each nation came to define the rest of the century for all the European countries in different ways. However what are your thoughts about the battle itself? Did Wellington win it or did Napoleon lose it? What were the turning points that you think determined the fate of the battle?

Thank you for reading and liking my previous post on Waterloo. I did heavily lean into studying ancient classical warfare when I was studying Classics but I only got into Napoleonic warfare because of a father who was (and still remains) big Napoleonic warfare military enthusiast. Through his keen eyes as a former serving military man, I also looked at the battle as a soldier might as well putting on my academic critical thinking cap. It’s a popular parlour game not just in Sandhurst but also in the officers’ mess (where those regiments actually fought at Waterloo) and around dinner tables - in my experience anyway.

I’ve always seen such speculative and counterfactual questions as an amusing diversion. I’ve never seriously looked at the detail until I came to France and unexpectedly interacted with Napoleonic scholars as well as soldiers (the cultured and historically well read ones at least) that forced me to think more about it. I’ve always been of the ‘if the Prussians hadn’t arrived in time to save Wellington’ school; and this was always enough to get me by in any conversation.

But my vanity was stung by interacting with one of my downstairs neighbours, a high decorated retired army general, with whom I played a weekly game of chess over a glass of wine during the Covid lockdown in Paris. He didn’t spare me as he knew so much detail about the battle. But a typical failing of French thinking is to pontificate around generalities rather than specific reasons. So for him it came down to pooh-poohing the generalship of Wellington (the rain saved him) and lauding the emperor (he had haemorrhoids and thus a bad day at the office). So rain and haemorrhoids were the decisive factors in determining the outcome of the battle of Waterloo.

It was clear I had to raise my game. So I’ve been reading more when I could.

I had recently finished reading a wonderful book ‘The Longest Afternoon: The 400 Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo’ by the Cambridge historian Brendan Simms. The book came out in 2015 but it’s been lying on my shelf for these past few years until I actually took this slim book to read on my one of my business trips.

The idea behind this short book is so superbly useful. It places to one side the huge, cinematic panorama of history and instead concentrates on one particular farmhouse, on one particular day: 18 June 1815. History is vivified, lifts itself off the page and into the mind, when a historian of Brendan Simm’s immense stature zooms in on the details - and here the details are compelling.

For the course of one day, 400 soldiers, wet, cold, in some cases hungover, who had bivouacked for the night in an abandoned farmhouse at La Haye Sainte, near a crucially strategic crossroads, found themselves staring down the massed barrels of Napoleon’s vanguard – and held them off. On June 18, 1815, Wellington established his position and sent one battalion and part of a second to the farmhouse under the command of Major Baring. Napoléon’s initial attack was a direct assault that surrounded the house and came near to breaking Wellington’s line; but it held, and the legendary charge of two British heavy cavalry brigades drove back the French.

This is a detailed account of the defence of La Haye Sainte, a walled stone farmhouse forward of Wellington’s centre. Its defenders were the King’s German Legion, which (despite the British army’s penchant for oddball names) was genuinely German. Britain harboured many German expatriates who detested Napoléon, a number augmented in 1803 when he occupied Hanover and disbanded its army. That very year two ambitious officers recruited the first members of the King’s German Legion, which grew into a corps of some 14,000 men and served with distinction at Copenhagen, Walcheren and in Spain before its apotheosis at Waterloo.

Ordered to capture the farmhouse, Marshal Michel Ney - commanding Napoléon’s left wing - obeyed but became preoccupied with his famously unsuccessful cavalry attack. Reminded of the order two hours later, he dispatched infantry that reached the house and set it on fire. The men inside controlled the blaze and continued to fight until Ney took personal charge of a furious assault that succeeded only when the defenders ran out of ammunition and withdrew, having held out for six hours. Had they not defended it so stoutly and if the farm had fallen any sooner then Napoleon would have been able to get at Wellington’s troops before his Prussian reinforcements arrived, and in all likelihood Waterloo would have been a French victory instead; it would now be the name of a train station in Paris rather than London.

I doubt there is a definitive answer to this question which is why certain people love arguing about it because it’s so open ended in terms of cause and effect. You can pick on any episodic event and hail that as the decisive turning point. It’s one reason why we are so fortunate to have so many well researched history books on the battle of Waterloo to replenish the issues for a newer generation to argue with past generations.

If I were to go beyond the ‘if the Prussians hadn’t arrived to save Wellington’ line then I would point to ten decisive turning points which in themselves might not have changed the outcome but taken together certainly influenced the final outcome of one of the most important and iconic battles in history.

Napoleon gives Marshal Davout a desk job

6 June 1815 – All commanders need a good chief of staff to ensure that their intentions are translated into clear orders. Unfortunately for Napoleon – as what is arguably one of the most decisive battles in European history loomed – his trusted chief of staff, Marshal Berthier, was no longer available. Berthier had sworn an oath of loyalty to Louis XVIII – and then fallen to his death from a window – so the job was given to Marshal Soult.

Soult was an experienced field commander but he was certainly no Berthier. Napoleon’s two main field commanders were also far from ideal. Emmanuel Grouchy had little experience of independent command. Michel Ney’s heroic command of the French rear-guard during the retreat from Moscow led Napoleon to dub him “the bravest of the brave”, but by 1815 he was clearly burnt out.

Worse still, when on 6 June Napoleon ordered his generals to assemble with their troops on the Belgian border he chose to leave behind Louis-Nicolas Davout, his ‘Iron Marshal’, as minister of war. The emperor needed someone loyal to oversee affairs at home but the decision not to take with him the ablest general at his disposal would deprive him of the one commander who might have made a difference.

Constant Rebecque ignores orders

15 June – In June 1815 Napoleon assembled 120,000 men on the Belgian border. Opposing him were 115,000 Prussians under Field Marshal Blücher and an allied force of about 93,000 men under Wellington. Faced with such odds, Napoleon’s best chance of victory was to get his army between his two enemies and defeat one before turning on the other. On 15 June his army crossed the frontier at Charleroi and headed straight for the gap between the two allied armies.

Wellington was taken completely by surprise: “Napoleon has humbugged me” he said. Uncertain what Napoleon’s intentions were, he ordered his army to concentrate around Nivelles, over 12 miles away from the Prussian position at Ligny. This would have left the two allied armies dangerously separated but fortunately for Wellington, a staff officer in the Dutch army, Baron Constant Rebecque, understood what was actually needed. He disregarded Wellington’s order and instead sent a force to occupy the key crossroads of Quatre Bras, much nearer to the Prussians.

D’Erlon misses the show

16 June – Two battles were fought on 16 June. While Marshal Ney took on Wellington’s army as it hurriedly tried to concentrate around Quatre Bras, Napoleon led the main French force against the Prussians at Ligny. Blücher’s inexperienced Prussians were given a severe mauling but despite this they managed to fall back in relatively good order.

This was partly due to a disastrous mix-up on the part of the French. Confusion over orders saw General D’Erlon’s corps instructed to leave Ney’s army at Quatre Bras and join the fighting at Ligny only to be recalled as soon as they got there. The result was that 16,000 Frenchmen who could have intervened decisively actually took part in neither battle.

Blücher stays in touch

17 June – Wellington succeeded in beating back Ney at Quatre Bras but Blücher’s defeat left the British general with a large French army on his eastern flank. He was forced to fall back northwards towards Brussels. The Prussians were retreating as well. Normally a retreating army tries to withdraw along its lines of communication (ie the route back to its base). Had the Prussians done this they would have headed eastwards. The two allied armies would then have been even further apart and Wellington would have been overwhelmed. But instead of doing that, the Prussians retreated northwards towards Wavre. It was to be a crucial move. The two allied armies stayed in contact and on 17 June Wellington was able to fall back to the ridge at Mont St Jean, and prepare to make a stand there until Blücher’s Prussians could come to his aid.

The weather takes a hand

17 June – The night before the battle was marked by a thunderstorm of biblical proportions. Rain lashed down, turning roads into quagmires and trampled fields into seas of mud.

It was a night of tremendous rain and cloudbursts. Wellington said that even in the monsoons in India, he’d never known rain like it. To wake up cold and damp, wet and terrified, then you have this slaughter in a very small space. By evening there were over 200,000 men struggling to kill each other within four square miles.

Private Wheeler of the 51st Regiment later wrote: “The ground was too wet to lie down… the water ran in streams from the cuffs of our Jackets… We had one consolation, we knew that the enemy were in the same plight.” Wheeler was right of course – the rain would inconvenience all three armies, not least the Prussians as they struggled along narrow country lanes to link up with Wellington.

It’s often said that Napoleon delayed starting the battle in order to allow the ground to dry out but the chief cause of the delay was probably the need to allow his units, many of whom had bivouacked some distance away, to take up their allotted places. Napoleon enjoyed a considerable advantage in artillery at Waterloo but this was lessened by the fact that the mud made it difficult to move his guns around and that cannonballs, normally designed to bounce along until they hit something, or someone, often disappeared harmlessly into the soggy ground. Macdonnell closes the gates

11:30am, 18 June – On 18 June the two armies prepared to do battle. Most of Wellington’s troops were sheltered from enemy fire on the reverse slope of the Mont St Jean ridge. The position was protected by three important outposts: a group of farms to the left, the farm of La Haye Sainte in front and the farmhouse of Hougoumont to the right.

At about 11.30am the French launched their first attack – an assault on Hougoumont. This soon developed into a battle within a battle as the French threw in ever more men in a bid to capture the vital chateau. They nearly succeeded: led by a giant officer nicknamed ‘the Smasher’, a group of French soldiers worked their way round to the rear of the chateau, forced open its north gate and burst inside.

James Macdonnell, the garrison commander, acted quickly. He gathered a group of men and they heaved the gate shut again. The French inside the chateau were then hunted down and killed. Only a young drummer boy was spared. Hougoumont was to remain in allied hands all day and Wellington later commented that the entire result of the battle depended on the closing of those gates.

Ney loses his head after his cavalry founders

1.30pm – The infantry of D’Erlon’s corps finally saw action as they attacked the left wing of Wellington’s army. As they reached the crest of the ridge they were met by the infantry of Sir Thomas Picton’s division. Picton, a foul-mouthed Welshman who rode into battle in a civilian coat and round-brimmed hat, was shot dead but his men stopped the French, who were then driven back by Wellington’s cavalry.

The next major French attack was very different. Ney unleashed his cavalry in a mass frontal attack, and thousands of Napoleon’s famous cuirassiers – big men in steel breastplates riding big horses – thundered up the hill. But Wellington’s infantry stayed calm. Forming squares, they presented in all directions a hedge of bayonets that no horse could be made to charge.

Ney needed to call the cavalry off or support them with infantry but he lost his head and threw more horsemen into the fray. When he abandoned these fruitless attacks, Wellington’s line was still unbroken, two hours had been wasted, and the Prussians were arriving in force.

The Prussians arrive

4.30pm – Blücher had promised to come to Wellington’s aid, and kept his word. Napoleon had detached nearly a third of his army under Grouchy to prevent the Prussians joining up with Wellington but Grouchy failed to do this and, by mid-afternoon, the first Prussian units were in action on the battlefield.

At about 4.30pm they launched their first attack upon the key village of Plancenoit near the rear of Napoleon’s main position. This savage battle would rage for over three hours. Faced with this, Napoleon was forced to send many of his remaining reserves to shore up his position – leaving him with precious few troops to exploit any success his troops might enjoy against Wellington.

Napoleon says no, and von Zeithen turns back

6.30pm – At about 6.30pm the French captured La Haye Sainte. Posting artillery and skirmishers around the farm, they unleashed a storm of shot, shell and musketry into Wellington’s exposed centre. The regiments there suffered horrendous casualties, but Wellington’s line held – just.

Ney asked for reinforcements to press home his advantage but Napoleon refused. Instead he sent troops to recapture Plancenoit which had just fallen to the Prussians. Von Zeiten’s Prussian I Corps arrived on the scene. These much-needed reinforcements were set to join Wellington when a Prussian aide de camp rode up with an order from Blücher instructing them to head south and support his troops at Plancenoit. Von Zeiten obeyed. Realising that Von Zeiten’s troops were desperately needed on the ridge, Baron von Müffling, Wellington’s Prussian liaison officer, galloped after Von Zeiten and pleaded with him to ignore this new order and stick to the original plan. The Prussian general turned back and took his place on Wellington’s left, enabling the duke to shift troops over to reinforce his crumbling centre. The crisis had passed.

Napoleon’s last roll of the dice ends in panic

7.30pm – With Plancenoit back in French hands the stage was set for the final act in the drama. At about 7.30pm Napoleon unleashed his elite imperial guard in a last desperate bid for victory. But it was too late – they were hopelessly outnumbered and Wellington was ready for them. His own troops had been sheltering from the French fire by lying down but when the two large columns of French guardsmen reached the crest of the ridge Wellington ordered his own guards to stand up. One British guardsman describes the scene: “Whether it was (our) sudden appearance so near to them, or the tremendously heavy fire we threw into them but La Garde, who had never previously failed in an attack, suddenly stopped.”

Meanwhile Sir John Colborne of the 52nd Light Infantry wheeled his regiment round to attack the flank of the first French column while General Chasse ordered his Dutch and Belgian troops forward against the other. Soon both French columns had withered away under the deadly fire. Their defeat led to widespread panic in the French army: amid cries of “La Garde recule” (“the Guard is retreating”) it dissolved into a disorderly retreat mercilessly harried by the Prussians. “The nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life,” as Wellington described the battle, was over.

This isn’t an exhaustive list but it will do.

Waterloo was a watershed moment for Europe, and indeed the world. The end of the Napoleonic Wars heralded a peace in Europe which was not broken until the outbreak of World War One in 1914. In the century following the Battle of Waterloo an increased respect developed for the figure of the soldier. True the Battle became mythologised in the nineteenth century and is now embedded in our cultural memory as one of the great British success stories.

We still celebrate Waterloo because it was a great British victory - even if we had a little bit of help from the Prussians. It embodied the British bulldog spirit and marked the moment we finally overcame Napoleon and his empire after a decade of being at war.

The ramifications from Waterloo and the Napoleonic Wars are still felt today in contemporary European politics. I think because of this the battle continues to fascinate and to court intense discussion and disagreement.

No doubt my French neighbour the retired army general and I will continue to stubbornly argue our differing viewpoints until the wine bottle empties. But we both agree that we would enjoy having dinner with Napoleon and talk about his military campaigns. I admire Napoleon a little more having read more and for living in France. He’d be a very amusing and stimulating companion.

In many ways, he was also an enlightened and intelligent ruler. His Code Napoleon is an extremely enlightened law code. At the same time this is a man who had a very, very low threshold for boredom. I think he was addicted to war.

General Robert E. Lee, at Fredericksburg said, “It is well that war is so dreadful, otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”

Napoleon would never have agreed with that. War was his drug. There’s no evidence that Wellington enjoyed war. He said after Waterloo, and I believe him, “I pray to God that I have fought my last battle.” He spent much of the battle saying to the men, “If you survive, if you just stand there and repel the French, I’ll guarantee you a generation of peace.” He thought the point of war was peace. And he sure gave not just Britain but also an entire European continent some respite from the spilling of blood on a battlefield.

Thanks for your question.

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