#1: not american 2: it wouldn't be less based if it was american 3: why do you hate fun

[mircalla]

why are people angry about some non existent war against christmas when there's a very real war against halloween? i have an exam due PLUS another deadline

#also idk if this happens much anymore but when i was young some people were very against it #like 'i REFUSE to participate in this stupid american holliday!!!' #1: not american 2: it wouldn't be less based if it was american 3: why do you hate fun #why isn't halloween an official holiday with a day off? why do only the christian holidays where u spend time with family get that? #how about the gays get something for once

[thatdeadaquarius]

-vine boom

I probably sent a lot of these now im so sorry lmfao 😅

You mentioned in one of the asks that some countries are like a prototype/based of our existing countries, like Germany=Mondstadt, Liyue=China, Inzauma=Japan....

So even though the language is more or less identical for you to make heads and tails in a conversation or writing in a book, the reverse side does not.

Creator!Reader who knows a couple of languages (plus points if they're atleast fluent or have a understanding of it despite not being able to speak said language) and being born from a country that doesnt have the same language as the countries Teyvat based off. Basically Spanish, Italian, Filipino, Scandinavian languages that also have their own way of writing.

Imagine feeling homesick and the only thing that keeps you occupied is the notebook and pen you have while the others converse in a meeting or in a hangout. You started writing in your tongue and re-reading it to relive memories.

Zhongli, AlHaitham, Albedo, Jean, maybe the Berry bros too (Diluc & Kaeya) get curious only to have a double-take and immediately thinks that maybe there is a forgotten land in Teyvat that has this language, I mean Morax stayed faithful to Liyue and Barbatos blessed his country with abundance of supplies and freedom. Teyvat gods and archons played favourites, so why wouldn't you as well? (Bonus: Khaenriah flashbacks) (also I know these arent enough characters but how should I know? I only have a handful of them and I ran out of Primos😭

The people from Akademiya though? I mean they went hard on theorizing and picking apart the language of their creator. Have you seen Matpat's descent to insanity the more FNAF continues to push out LoRe? Thats basically them because Teyvat doesn't have a country based on Creator's birth country. They're grasping nothing but air and dead ends and the only lead they have is you, but couldnt ask because you look so down and they cant bear to see Creator sad....

(NEW BANNER TOMORROW AND I DONT HAVE ENOGH PRIMOGEMS HALP---)

Rip Vine boom no primos 🙏 hope u got some more by this time bc i was so late to reply lol - DUDE IM SO READY FOR THE GORG KAVEH <333

BERRY BROS!! Thats it, thats the only way im gonna refer to them now.

Not super long to add onto ur bc UR SO SMART AND SUCH A GOOD WRITER VINEBOOM U SHOULD ALSO WRITE STUFF SO I CAN GO OBSESS OVER UR WRITING WITH A MILLION FERAL COMMENTS-!!!

(Cute owl house gif is like, metaphorially u and zhongli in this lol)

EDIT 8/23/23: So this may be inaccurate/not that good to my Hispanic Readers out there! Sorry about that, I'l make sure to do better in the future.

EDIT 1/1/24: Unfortunately there are even more issues here, and I'm really sorry about that. I expanded on it more in my Eldritch fanfic post in Part 2, but it was exoticism of me to use the word "Huangdi". I have since replaced it with "Emperor", and don't intend to just erase the mistake like it never happened. But I did change it in the headcanons for better readability. Again, I'm genuninely sorry about this, and will absolutely be watching out/doing better in the future. I hope you understand.

THIS SOUNDS SO SAD, LIKE THIS COULD DEF BE ANGST, ESP SINCE U HAVE NO FAMILIAR-ISH CULTURE TO TURN TO-

tbh im american and i def dont think theres a u.s. country- oh god at least I hope not, damn but im also familiar with mexican culture so i wouldnt miss the united states, but id miss mexican culture…

BUT!!

You have a lot of amazing people who care about you in Teyvat, so they won’t let you stew in ur homesickness for long

like random said, i could see it being small stuff

ok so imma just-

LATINO! READER TIME BABBYYYYY

(i do this bc its just the culture/language im more familiar with, but dont let that discourage anyone from requesting other cultures! I will def do my research, or ur welcome to tell me all about it so i can write it better! <3)

THAT BEING SAID IM MOSTLY WHITE PLS LMK IF SHIT IS WRONG/SPANISH IS WRONG BC IM STILL A BEGINNER MY BELOVED LATINES!

<3 YOU GUYS

♡

you’ve been in the game-turned-life world of Genshin Impact for nearly 6 months now, turns out time isnt wonky as hell like it is if you were playing the game, half bc u bribed Albedo with answers to his many questions about you if he figured out the time difference, and half bc of ur internal clock

people would notice the cuss words first lmao

like Xiao hearing u stubbing ur toe on the million and one steps up to Wangshu Inn, hijueputa!

or Keqing pointing out the words you coo at the dogs hanging out by the bridge outside the harbor,

un perrito tan buenoooo!! :’)

while most would just, " hmm, maybe a dialect of one of the other countries we havent heard…"

but Zhongli? he’s been ready for centuries in case the prophecy came true within his lifetime, afterall, many things changed while he’s been alive, not crazy to him that you might descend randomly

While everyone else was unprepared, bc u were like… the oldest deity, more legend than history, so ppl just thought Morax was a little overly faithful …so when it actually happened,, Morax was just smirking as he watched ur golden shooting star streak the night sky… while absolute pandemonium consumed the mortals and adepti in liyue lmao

(like that scene of Regina George in Mean Girls watching the student body break out into an all out brawl just smirking 😭 pls god look it up if u dont know what i mean- )

So Morax- Zhongli, has been ready for you, just in case, to pay attention to what kind of person you’d be, learn your favorite clothes/colors/offerings, see what things you’d like to talk about with him (hopefully for hours) etc.

He was observant, and with his memory, he practically gave himself headaches sometimes with how aware he was,

on one of those days he was overwhelmed by the mortal crowds, the smells, the market yelling, and all the change from what he thought he knew-

Zhongli noticed you in your own melancholy, and curious, he began to stroll just behind

You sit at Wanmin restaurant, still somber, and ask Xiangling to

“please try out these recipes? they’re from my world, and id really love to have something like them again..”

a true experimental chef as always, Xiangling quickly takes up your offer, and u follow her into the kitchens in the back (the restaurant is much more real than in game, they have gorgeous inside seating, all shades of red coloring the walls and lots of pretty latticework-)

Zhongli takes a seat finally, he has a usual table at this point he comes in so much coughtorunintoyoucough the staff know it's his and give him tea pretty quickly

the food, and the looks, makes it your favorite restaurant in Liyue, the Liuli Pavilion a little too fancy for casual dining, afterall, Zhongli would know

He’s tried to keep track of your favorite places to be in Liyue too, and kept his near full attention on what you say when he asks after your stays in Liyue (he hasn’t felt the need to pay that much attention or felt that much interest in conversation partners in… decades?)

So when you come out of the kitchen, throwing your head back and laughing, "Sí, sí! It all tastes so close Xiangling! Gracias, thank you!"

He wants… to know.

to know what those strange, but delicious looking, foods are all balanced on two big dinner plates

Xiangling carrying whatever you couldn’t just behind, a pitcher of white liquid, it smells, like cinnamon?

He raises a hand, and offers the extra seats at his table, (when did his tea go cold? he only just sat down, he couldn’t have spent that long thinking about you…)

You notice and look over, a giddy grin lighting up your face (…hmm, perhaps he needs to transform into his Exuvia form and let off some steam, his chest has warmed too much right now for him to just be sitting here…)

You plop into the seat beside him, but not before carefully placing the plates in front of both you and Zhongli

You scootch around until you’re turned towards him, as always, Zhongli looks… actually kind of, happy?

a small soft smile pulls at his lips, his eyes half-lidded as they meet yours, his usual red eyeliner framing his monolids perfectly, he looks like he’s been,, well, sculpted from stone, an artwork come to life

“…My Emperor? Could I trouble you to tell me about the dishes before us?”

the geo god’s pleasantly smooth and deep voice felt so soft asking you that, like he didn’t want to push you one direction or the other

“Oh! Right! Sorry, these are from my home country, back in my world, or at least, as close as Xiangling and I can get to them!”

Your smile brightens your face once more, clearing away any leftover stormclouds from your mood earlier, and as you launch into explaining (Xiangling had to get back to orders, so it’s just you two now)

You list it all, the quintessential: quesadillas, empanadas, tamales, chorizo (you had to combine at least 5 different spices to Mondstadt sausages to get anywhere close to the real thing) the dips obviously, salsa, queso, guacamole, and the easy street tacos, and finally the horchata, but also all the weird fruits Teyvat has with chile, like Sunsettias mixed with Harra from Sumeru or Lavender melons with Wolfhook berries… all surpringly pretty good

(the Sun-Harra combo tastes like mango, a sort of deeper taste of pineapple/kiwi and a sort of light orange taste? all with the nice addition of chile flavors, the Lavender melons and Wolfhooks helped imitate chamoy enough that your heart was satisfied)

…you realize you’ve just been talking about the last meal you had with your family/friends instead of the food after a bit, and Zhongli hasn’t said anything…

you trail off and look back over your shoulder (u were practically about to get your shirt in the imitation guac u were leaning so far over the table to point and talk)

you’re about to sheepishly apologize for taking over the conversation, and ask if he wants to try anything (Zhongli can handle spice so u dont have to worry abt that at least)

but as u finally see his face, u just stop, and dont end up saying anything

He’s just, looking at you.

his smile's not huge, but big enough to make his eyes look happy, and Zhongli’s just… looking at you.

You can’t describe the look he’s giving you, but you suddenly feel… a wave of shyness wash over your heart in your chest, because he’s looking almost like, maybe like, he’s sort of, waiting for you to keep talking, his tan skin warm in the golden rays of the sun beginning to set, you don’t know why you’re noticing any of these things, and he gently, slowly, makes a move to lean into your space a little

almost above your armrest, head inches from your shoulder, he finally moves to stop looking at you-

He looks like a painting as he looks down, his eyelashes almost sitting on his high cheekbones,

you have to move your head to looking at the table too as he moved so close,

you feel your shoulders reflexitively hitch upwards as you brushed the hair on the side of his head as you turned away

He looks around, and then moves his head, not his body, he’s still leaning toward you, to look you right in the eyes again

“Why did you stop? I haven’t said much, I apologize, but it’s only because I wanted to hear you without anything interrupting you.”

You cough a little strained, “Oh! Oh I get it now yeah, thanks-”

“I want to hear you more,” his black eyes begin to warm with gold, you can vaguely see the shape of his diamond pupil revealing itself, “I want to hear about… everything, if you’ll tell me? The language, the food, the drinks, your family, your dances, your country, I want to hear it all. Won’t you please let me hear your voice some more?”

♡

GOOOD LOOORDDDD, ITS SO LONGGGGG IM SO SORRRYYY 😭😭

OKAY IM MOSTLY SORRY THAT THIS SCENARIO HAPPENED??? IDK WHERE ZHONGLI CAME FROM- GOD IM SUBCONCIOUSLY IN LOVE WITH THAT MAN I GUESS, SORRY RANDOMANTICS-

uh, hope somebody got anything out of this, sorry abt the length, again,

also pls somebody tell me if what i said about culture/food was alright! If not I’ll def change it, pls dont let me keep it up if its inaccurate/wrong!!

Safe Travels you guys,

💀♒️

.°•.☆.•°.

♡ the beloveds ♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk

#fuck my tags ♡ #im so tired of putting them #idk why but my heads emptied of all i need to put <3 #UR HAVE SUCH GREAT IDEAS RANDOM!!! #i meant what i said before the gif! #genshin impact #genshin sagau #ask box open #sagau #my asks #genshin imagines #gender neutral reader #genshin isekai #genshin god reader #zhongli imagines #zhongli x reader #genshin impact sagau

[tanadrin]

Does Dan McClellan ever explain how he's a Mormon? I started listening to Data Over Dogma the other day, thanks your regular comments about it, and I'm absolutely boggled that this dude can say this shit and then go to church on Sunday.

he talked about his biography in his Mormon Stories appearance. he converted as an adult, around 19 or 20--he describes himself as feeling kind of aimless in life, having social connections through friends and family members to the mormon church, and being drawn to it that way. inferring a little bit from the context, he seems to have landed within a pocket of mormons that were either pretty pro-lgbt or not strenuously anti-lgbt--enough that that didn't put him off, given his agnostic and not particularly conservative background.

he's an interesting case, for sure! he explicitly avoids talking about his personal beliefs, so i can only guess what his exact though process was. but the impression i get is someone who 1) was strongly drawn to the social aspects of organized religion (and mormonism is very tight-knit socially), 2) was willing to suspend judgement on the more out-there elements of doctrine (the really off-the-wall historical stuff), and 3) isn't too pressed about the truth claims element of religion, or doesn't personally find that the most important part of religious experience and feeling.

and yet it is still kind of strange to me to listen to someone who is very thoughtful about the cognitive science of religion, who deeply understands the textual history of religious scripture, and who understands why you can't use faith-based arguments as part of any coherent methodology in the analysis of that scripture, to try to mount a defense of religiosity in general. i mean plainly people can do it. but i can't imagine how, unless there is some deep cognitive dissonance at work. i think that even if the truth claims of religion aren't the most important part of religion to you, they're plainly incredibly important when it comes to, like, how religious traditions are differentiated--if the truth claims don't matter, there's much less reason to be mormon vs episcopalian vs baptist.

i could see salvaging out of all that some kind of general moral therapeutic deism, or ultra-reformed judaism, or other spiritual-but-not-dogmatically-religious worldview--but belonging to an avowedly dogmatic, hierarchically organized religious institution, with the kind of internal discipline that means members like dan are (let us be charitable) less than entirely open with their criticisms less they face larger-scale social consequences--a problem not even modern Catholics face--and one which is nonetheless built on an unusually recent, and unusually disprovable set of truth claims like mormonism is--like, idk. it's really hard to imagine someone who knew all the stuff he knows about biblical history being drawn to mormonism if he had learned that stuff first. and if that's true that feels kind of like an indictment of the religion? like it really is mostly contingent features we don't care about in any deep way.

that makes more sense for ethnoreligions like judaism, and out of all american religions, mormonism is probably closest to being an ethnoreligion itself. it's pretty culturally insular compared to mainline protestantism. even most flavors of fundamentalist evangelicalism. the closest analogue is maybe the primitive baptists? and they're a tiny denomination. but if it was really a self-sustaining culture it probably wouldn't need a centralized hierarchy that excommunicated dissenters who got too big a public profile for criticizing the church.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

1.0, Big Brother (0% technophobic)

These are tech bros and billionaire executives, the kind of people who push for AI facial recognition, data tracking, and mind reading technology (metaphorically, until actual mind reading technology becomes viable, in which case, literally). If you give them an email address you haven't touched since 2006, in less than a day they'd have a file full of your personal information thicker than the FBI's and NSA's combined. Down here, you have guys like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and most politicians (especially after 9/11. Can you say USA PATRIOT Act?)

1.1 - 3.2

Here, you'll find the fanboys of the above. Guys who are really into NFTs and crypto. Influencers and blue checks who crave attention and show off all their 4 figure phones, 5 figure workout equipment, and 6 or 7 figure cars. The kind of rich assholes who think they're tech savvy because every appliance in their home connects to the internet and requires a subscription service in order to not vent deadly neurotoxin through their air ducts. These are all small fish who aspire to be big fish; the 1.Xs will throw themselves under the bus to protect the 1.0s, while the 2.Xs will get thrown under the bus involuntarily.

3.2, True Neutral (50%)

Because this is a log scale, the actual center is 3.16227766 (the square root of 10). 3.2 represents Average Joe American, the type of guy who doesn't care about the state of technology one way or the other. He probably doesn't own an Alexa or Ring camera, only because he's never thought of buying one (3.1) or thinks it would be too much of a hassle to set up (3.3). If facebook asked him for a 3d scan of his head to try out a new memoji, he'd upload it without hesitation. He thinks cops shouldn't need a warrant to spy on the Bad Guys™, and recently voted for politicians who wrote the Let Cops Decide Who is Good and Who is Bad With Impunity Bill (though he will never connect dots between his actions and their consequences). "Why should you care if you have nothing to hide?" This guy buys his friends and family $100 send-in-your-spit DNA tests for Christmas.

3.2 - 5.0

I'd say most of the people reading this fall somewhere around here, though they think they're much higher. Hell, I'm probably a mid-4, but until I actually started plotting out this scale I would have guessed I was a 6 or a 7. High 5 at least! 3.Xs don't know how to pirate things and begrudgingly subscribe to some or all the major streaming services. 4.Xs don't use facebook anymore, but are still on twitter because that's where all the people they follow post from. These people are vaguely aware of how bad things could potentially be, but have no clue how bad they really are; if you suspect you're in this range, please know that every single service you've ever given your email address to is connected to your name in a database somewhere, even if you faked all the rest of the info you gave out. If you signed up to a grocery store value card, advertisers immediately know every single item you've ever purchased, and can even make assumptions based on the purchases of people you are in close proximity to every day (your phone is close to this other person's phone from 9 to 5, so you're probably co-workers, or they're close from 6pm to 6am, so you live together, etc.)

5.0 - 6.0

A little healthy skepticism to help shield your brain from the fact that you live in an Orwellian surveillance state. You use adblocker and VPNs, you don't carry your phone with you 24/7, you use burner emails for every different website (though it won't make much difference because they're all being accessed from the same device, so it wouldn't take any government entity more than a couple seconds to figure out they all belong to the same person). If 3.2 is blissfully ignorant, 5.2 is in living hell because they KNOW what's up and are powerless to do anything about it.

6.0 - 8.0

These are the REAL tech savvy people who don't use social media, have zero smart appliances in their homes, and rely heavily on physical media. We should all strive to be here. In the upper 7s you get privacy activists who know deep down that the system will never be able to fix itself but still hope against hope that it will.

8.0 - 9.9

These people scare me, not because they actually get shit done but because they have delusions of grandeur and TALK about how much shit they'll get done. Most libertarians think they're up here, but really they're down in the 4s and 5s with the rest of us. Real 8s and 9s are batshit Tyler Durden wannabes who think they can change the world by planning terror attacks "in minecraft." They never do anything because they either get caught or chicken out because it's more fun to plan for the singularity or the collapse of the grid than to actually carry out said plans. These are doomsday preppers and dude-bros who are little different than qanon nutjobs (except that qanon supports Big Brother)

10.0, Full Kaczynski (100%)

You are Theodore John Kaczynski, you live in a shack in the woods and you mail bombs to universities. NEVER GO FULL KACZYNSKI. You'll never succeed in hurting any substantial 1s or 2s, just innocent 3s and 4s. In reality, Ted cared more about industrialization and the environment than computers and the police state, but the internet didn't exist in the 70s. The modern world is built upon man made horrors beyond his imagination.

I guess I subscribe to a lopsided horseshoe theory; instead of both sides being equally bad at the extremes, the lower end is worse because it is much more powerful and influential. There are more 1.Xs than 9.Xs, but you'll hear about the 9s in the news a lot more often. You're more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark, or by a cop than an undocumented immigrant, but we all know that quantity isn't what gets reported on, now is it?

I dunno, take this scale with a grain of salt. It's all subjective.

#ted kaczynski #kaczynski #Technophobia #log scale #never go full kaczynski #technology #big brother #big brother is watching you #orwellian #surveillance #surveillance state #police state #privacy

[utopians]

Hey James! Feel free to not answer if you don't wanna, but I'm a non-American very confused by the concept of "majors" and "minors" in American university.

Over here, a university degree only offers classes directly related to the degree subject - there's no such thing as a major, because what you'd "major in" is just the subject your degree is on. EG you said Psychology and History; over here, if you were taking a Psychology degree, the only way you could also do History would be either by waiting for the Psychology one to be over and then returning to university to take a separate History degree, or by paying for non-university or online university courses during the Psychology degree. But these wouldn't count at all towards the Psychology degree if you did that - all your university course classes would purely be psychology-related.

I think it's why our degrees are shorter? An undergrad degree course is 2-3 years here, depending, coz they're only on the 1 subject.

How do majors and minors work? Do you need a minor in order to pass your major? What's up with that?

happy to answer! just to preface, there is a lot of variation within american schools, and a lot of places have specialized programs that are a lot closer to your experience -- I'm just going to be talking abt the more common model that's present most schools, including the one I attend. this got long as hell so it's all under the cut :-)

essentially, in american universities, you can take classes in any subject you want and a 'major' is just the topic you've chosen to specialize in. in order to graduate with a major in a specific topic, you need to take the specific courses the university considers essential to understanding it, and you need to take enough courses in that topic to fulfill the university's credit requirement (the amount of 'credits' a course is worth is based on its difficulty); for example, I'm a psych major, and these are my university's requirements for a major in psychology. some people also do a 'double major' where you graduate with a degree in two topics by fulfilling the major requirements for both.

the way that the american system generally diverges from others (and the reason that it generally takes 4 years for a degree here when it takes 3 in most places) is that there's a minimum credit requirement for graduating that's unrelated to your major -- for example, my university requires 120 total credits to graduate with a degree at all, even though earning the psychology degree itself only requires about ~40 credits worth of psych classes. the remaining 80 credits worth of classes are filled by classes you take Just For Fun as well as gen-ed requirements, which are subjects that all students are required to take regardless of major: foundational math, english, history, arts, and physical + biological sciences. these are required even for students who have no intention of pursuing these fields because they're thought to provide a more 'well-rounded' education. most students finish their gen-ed classes within the first two years of college.

a minor is essentially just a recognition of experience in a particular subject that also gets tacked on to your degree; it doesn't mean as much as a major to employers or grad schools, and it's generally a topic you have a personal passion for or think would help in your chosen field but don't want to devote your whole academic career to. not everyone does a minor, but it's definitely common. you pursue a minor the same way you do a major, but the requirements are a lot less intense -- for example, to get a psych minor at my university, you just need to take 15 credits worth of psych classes (which is just 4-5 classes).

when you fulfill the credit requirement to graduate university, you get a degree in whatever you majored in with the minor also listed. a lot of people don't like the system because it's less focused than a 3-year program, and I definitely get that (I think that gen-ed requirements can be pretty superfluous), but I think that the opportunity to branch out and take classes in any subject is a massive plus -- I've had the opportunity to take some extremely cool classes and learn a lot that I never would've been able to if I was restricted to just psychology :-)

#asked and answered #I HOPE THIS IS COMPREHENSIBLE I'm not sure it is but it's pretty hard 2 explain in a straightforward way </3

[twinhood-2dot0]

Gen Z slang

One of my favourite parts of internet culture is the linguistics of it (surprise, suprise). So, since you live under a rock, I thought I would go over some of my favourites. 1. YEEEET/ YOINK verb Throwing/Snatching GEN Z

"Yeet that thing to hell"

(yes I'm writing like a dictionary idk why)

2. -ussy suffix

Denoting a crevice

"That's a paperussy."

I shared a screenshot of American Dialect Society crowning -ussy the word of the year but I held back the meaning because NSFW, but I'll explain it with a little less NSFW. You know that thing we call kitty cats? It's also vulgar slang for something. Remove the p and we get -ussy 3. W / L noun W for Winner/ L for Loser.

"W gamer"

Not very notable but check out this wholesome video for why I included it:

4. Stan noun

An obsessive fan

"A K-pop stan"

Stan verb

Be an obsessive fan.

"I stan BTS"

Either 'stalker' + 'fan' or Stan from the Eminem song which is about a hyper obsessive fan.

5. Cap noun For 'joke' or 'lie'. "I have a Bugatti" "Cap" "I call cap on that" "Best movie I ever watched, no cap"

Cap verb

"They're capping about that"

From TikTok, where a cap emoji is used to call out people

6. Simp noun

People obsessed with a romantic interest, crush or internet personality.

"A Pokimane simp"

Simp verb

Obsessing about a romantic interest, crush or internet personality.

"He's simping for her"

7. Rizz noun

Proficiency in flirtation

"Damnn he got rizz."

Rizz verb

Flirt

"She rizzed them up"

8. Living rent free in one's head phrase

Being unable to not think about a topic or person.

9. Slap verb

Used for when something is exceptional

"This music slaps"

10. Sus adjective

Suspicious

"He's acting real sus"

10. Karen adjective

Obnoxious person with conservative views or inconveniencing workers in places such as a supermarket or restaurant.

Karen noun

Blond, white, middle-aged woman who calls for the manager in every establishment they go to archaic

An obnoxious person

11. Slay verb

Be beautiful or strong, used generally for women

12. L+Ratio phrase

Used to signify that the internet post is not based.

"Billie Eilish is actually pretty good" "L+Ratio"

From L meaning loser and ratio, a term originating from twitter, used for when a tweet gets more likes than the parent tweet.

13. NPC noun

A person who does not have opinions of their own, follows the majority or is gullible. Often used as "Oblivion NPC", from 2006 video game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

From gaming meaning non playable character denoting pre-programmed characters in video games.

Okay, those are the new ones I've encountered recently and are on the Wikipedia page for Gen Z slang and you probably don't know already, and now, onto the fun part.

Alex here missed the last post, and you know what we do to uh people-who-miss-posting, WE PUNISH THEM! So, for your punishment, I have thought up something very painful (hopefully). You have to find absolutely terrible lyrics, maybe like 2 or 3, and make them Shakespearen. You can maybe look at idk top songs of the 2020s, or check out Megan Thee Stallion, I've heard one song because internet culture and it had despicable lyrics. Her other titles look horrible too so I think that'll be a nice fallback if you can't find anything. David Guetta also has some weird lyrics in 'Hey Mama' and 'Sexy Bitch', I know he probably doesn't do lyrics but they make me cringe nevertheless. I listen to music for the melody so I wouldn't know too many lyrics, let alone bad ones, so I hope you can find some and entertain us. - Alia

#linguistics #gen z humor #gen z funny #gen z vs millenials #gen z kids #english #language #etymology #tiktok #dftba #internet slang #english language #why am i even posting this #why am i adding so many tags when no one is going to read this post anyways #Youtube

[sirfrogsworth]

First, we had FREEDOM fries and FREEDOM toast... because French people can suck it. They know what they did.

But now BIG TECH is censoring EVERYTHING. You can't say a damn thing if you are a conservative in the US. At this point, why even bother posting on social media?

I mean, look at top-performing link posts by U.S. Facebook pages in the last 24 hours...

1. Fox News 2. Ben Shapiro 3. VOA Burmese News 4. Dan Bongino 5. Peachy Sunday 6. Fox News 7. Diabetes Awareness by GreaterGood 8. Ben Shapiro 9. VOA Burmese News 10. Dan Bongino

FACEBOOK IS SILENCING RIGHT WING VOICES! AHHHHHH!

So we need another dose of freedom.

We need...

THE FREEDOM PHONE!

The Freedom Phone is a new business venture started by Eric Finmen—the world's "Youngest Bitcoin Millionaire."

Wasn't he adorkable?

You see, his folks gave him $1000 to invest when he was 12. He bought a bunch of Bitcoin. Naturally. And when he turned 18, it was worth over a million bucks. By 21 he had 2.3 million dollars and was the pride of capitalism.

So obviously that makes him a $BUSINESS GENIUS$

And not *INCREDIBLY LUCKY*

And because he is a business genius, he has decided to start a new chapter of his life as an entrepreneur. Because we definitely don't have enough of those.

His first entrepreneurial BIG BOY IDEA is selling the FREEDOM PHONE.

Let's check out the specs on this bad boy from the actual website.

Large storage, you say? 6 inches of screen??? GREAT CAMERA!!!

Well, with specificity like that, I'm sold.

People get way too caught up in the gigahertz and megapixels anyway. You don't need to know that stuff. He says it is "affordable, yet fast" and I choose to believe him.

I'm sure it is on par with every other $500 phone on the market—all while being made in the good old U.S. of A.

Because you wouldn't call it a *FREEDOM PHONE* if it weren't American-made.

That would be dumb.

"In fact, Freedom Phone appears to be a simple rebranding of a budget phone called the 'Umidigi A9 Pro,' made by the Chinese tech company Umdigi. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Finman confirmed that the Freedom Phone was manufactured by Umdigi, but couldn't say immediately which Umdigi phone it was based on.

The Freedom Phone's $500 price tag would represent a substantial markup on the A9 Pro. The phone is available on Chinese retail giant AliExpress for $120—less than one-quarter of the price of a Freedom Phone."

— The Daily Beast

Oh.

Ummmmmmmmmm...

Is there anyone out there who can put a positive spin on this? Because I'm failing to think of anything at the moment.

EXACTLY! The OS is chockfull of FREEDOM and that's what really matters.

Real AMERICAN developers toiled over the FreedomOS to make sure it was as free as humanly possible. I'm sure this OS is built from the ground up and that extra $400 expense is due to the extensive R&D needed to create this marvel of digital liberty.

SEE! IT'S BASED ON FREE SPEECH!

Annnnd... it is BASED on something called GrapheneOS, apparently.

Okay, so full disclosure.

The FreedomOS developers may have used an already developed Android fork and skinned it to look more... Freedom-y. You saw the cool flag wallpaper, right?

Truthfully, licensing that wallpaper was the bulk of the development cost. They may not have done much beyond aesthetic tweaks.

That is... except for the UNCENSORABLE APP STORE!!

*patriotic fanfare*

*eagle caws in the distance*

*someone is shot in a hunting accident*

This is where that extra $400 of value comes in. No apps will be censored. EVER. You can get your Gab and your Parler and your Gettr. And you never have to worry about those apps being unavailable because Zuckerdumb said NO.

Okay, full disclosure again.

99% of the apps banned in the iPhone and Google Play stores are due to things like malware, viruses, and illegal activity. So for every Parler that goes uncensored—so does the app that looks just like Parler but is titled "Parler Totally the Real One" and is full of viruses ready to steal your banking information. And an app store without restrictions could also end up being a haven for child pornography and illegal drug sales.

But hey... PARLER, AMIRITE?

Soooo... what happens if you don't like this incredible $500 phone worth $120?

Good news! There is a *stellar* return policy.

You get the box. You stare at the box. You DO NOT open the box.

And if that experience is unsatisfying, you can return that box within 30 days.

If you get the box. Cut a hole in that box. Stick your freedom in that box.

Well... hopefully you like it.

In conclusion, it's hard to put a price on freedom.

Sure, this is probably a giant grift.

And this conservative Bitcoin douche doesn't seem to mind grifting his own political brethren.

Because capitalism is his mistress and loyalty is fleeting in the whitest rightest of wings.

But if you want FREEDOM in your smartphone, you should definitely pay this clearly trustworthy bleach blonde, scruffy chinned lottery winner $500 for a cheap Chinese Android phone that will fill up with viruses faster than you can boot up the phone (because it is made with inferior hardware and booting probably takes a while).

#long post

[dangerousstrawberryshark]

Love in a Hopeless World

A/N: Hello, my 🍓Little Strawberries🍓! I’m back with another fic for you! This was one of the options given to me.

Pairing: Chris Redfield x Male reader

Requested: @evansphnx12

Rating: Mature

Warnings: NSFW, smut, bottom male reader, sir kink, degradation, creampie, size kink, Choking kink, breeding kink, masturbation, and all characters are above the age of 18+

Word Count: 2355

Summary: Its turns out there weren't that many supplies in the old abandoned campus. So, you and Chris have to go deeper into the city to find more but during the little scavenge, Chris began to dirty thoughts...

I hope you enjoy it! Sorry if it’s bad! And sorry for any errors that are found!

If you like what I write, how about check out my masterlist?

Keys:

M/n: Male name.

«••••••••••••••»

[1]

[2] YOU ARE HERE

DISCLAIMER!: I never played or watched any gameplay of the resident evil series. And this doesn’t follow any of the resident evil timelines, it’s on its own.

«⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕»

MINORS DNI. FEMALE READERS… I’LL ALLOW YOU TO READ MY FICS BUT DO NOT FETISHIZE ANY OF MY STORIES

«⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕»

Previously...

Then y'all had another round of hot steamy sex. And the others at the base had a hard time sleeping that night.

«••••••••••••••»

Your eyes twitch at the unpleasant light hitting it directly. 'It's morning already?' you moved around only to feel wet sheets. 'What happened last night?'

Then you felt a body move and a muscular arm grab you, pulling you closer. You could feel the warmth, and muscular chest pushed against your back.

'Oh! That's right!' now you remembered why you were all sticky and sleeping against Chris. 'I had sex with my superior! But he felt the same.'

Then you felt Chris move around and waking up. "Hey, baby boy," Chris said with a raspy and deep voice. "Morning." you pressed your lips against his.

"If you continue, we may have to repeat what we did last night, baby," Chris growled as pulled back, gripping your waist. You smirked before getting up.

"Come one, we have to get ready. We have important business," you said. "Ugh, can't we just sleep in and have some... Fun?" Chris complained.

"I know you haven't had sex in 5 years but we need to go get those people. We'll have fun at the end of the day," you said stressing your muscles and popping your back.

The bed creaked meaning he finally got off his ass to get ready. "We need to go get those survivors. And scavenge for more supplies," you said putting your armor on and fixing it up.

After you both got your gear and weapons, you both walked into the main area with all the others.

Everybody looked at you both and immediately looked at way. There was awkwardness in the room. 'They must have heard me last night!' Hell! maybe the whole city heard it is quiet

"Uh,- sir... We have a situation." one of the soldiers said. "shot." Chris said. "Well... it turns out there weren't that many supplies found on the campus. We need more supplies if weren't gonna go get those survivors." the soldier said

You heard listening but your mind began to wonder. You still couldn't let go of the past, you remembered one of your siblings was accepted into MIT. This was 3 months after the Raccoon City Incident.

You would see on the news- Raccoon City survivors being discriminated against by the American people. "Hey, what do I keep saying?" Chris said next to you. His conversation was done.

"Stop thinking about the past, it's long gone," you replied, mimicking his voice. Chris laughed, "Okay, baby. But we need to go get those people."

You nodded but kind of chuckled at the fact that he didn't want to do anything today but now wants to do business.

"Come on, M/n! We have to get going. EVERYONE, protect the base at all cost." Chris commanded. "YES SIR!" they all said at the same time.

You, Chris, and a few others left the confines of the base. Even though it was morning, the sky still had a grey color to it. You open the door to the back seat and closed it.

"We should be there in 20 minutes or less." the driver said starting the engine up. "Alright, let's go." the armored car pulled out before driving down the messy road.

It wasn't long before you reached the waterfront. You could see the skyline perfectly, most buildings were on the verge of collapsing. Others were burnt to where the wall showed the skeleton.

Up ahead, you saw a bridge leading into Cambridge was destroyed. 'Longfellow Bridge.' You have been to Boston before and got to explore everything before the world went hell.

The ride continued for a while. There was nothing or anyone in sight. You could see the freeway ahead but like all other ways leading into Cambridge was destroyed.

"We're closing in on Bunker Hill. They said they are taking refuge by the monument." one of them said.

And wouldn't you know it? In the distance, you could see the tall granite obelisk peaking out. It kind of looked like the one down in D.C. but this one is still standing.

What you meant by "This one is still standing" is because the capital was hit by a nuclear warhead, along with other cities across the US.

The President and other government officials were evacuated and the countries important documents were evacuated as well. So, the legacy of the US would still live.

That means the President is still alive and is in some remote area devoid of zombie life.

"I see some people! They appear to be walking around." one of the soldiers said. And the people seem to notice us because they were waving at us.

"Stop the car," Chris said, the car stopped. He and others got out. Two of the survivors looked familiar? Like you have seen them before. They both were tall and had beards.

They walked up to y'all. "Please, are you here to rescue us?" one of them pleaded. "Yes, we're here to take you to our temporary base," Chris said.

They all smiled and some hugged each other. Chris ordered the soldiers to help some things and you approached the two survivors. "Why do you two look familiar?"

One of them laughed and smiled. "Well...- are you fan of Captain America and Thor?"

Your jaw dropped and your eyes widen. "No. Way. You're Chris Evans and Hemsworth!" you were lost at speech. "I thought y'all was dead! I- how-"

"Well, we survived! I'm not too sure about the others though..." Chris H said with that thick Australian accent. You both were just talking, unknown to Chris R was glaring holes into your head.

After y'all returned to MIT Dorms, you still talked with Chris E and H. You didn't even acknowledge Chris R's glares.

He was getting more and more jealous. 'I hate those two!' Chris yelled in his mind. They were taking your attention from him.

"We have to go M/n! We need to find supplies." Chris yelled at you. 'What's wrong with him?' you thought to yourself. "Bye guys!" You waved at the two Chris.

"He was fun to talk to." Chris H said and Chris E agreed.

«••••••••••••••»

TIMESKIP (To Supermarket)

«••••••••••••••»

You and Chris arrived at the market. There were some abandoned cars in the parking lot. "Come on." You both walked to the doors and opened them.

The place was absolutely trashed. Lights flickering, aisles tipped over, some cans on the floor - also money, which was useless-, and the roof caved in on the left side.

"Look for non-perishables. Canned food would be good and find any water- if there is any that is." you nodded your head before going down one of the aisles.

There were some canned foods but no water. The smell of a rotting corpse filled the air, you could hear flies buzzing. "Ugh." you covered your nose and looked at the rotting corpse. "Poor bastard..."

Meanwhile, Chris was looking for the same stuff, but he was still bitter about you talking to those guys. And completely ignoring him. He could already imagine your punishment.

He could imagine you begging for more, feeling the tightness of your ass wrapped around his cock. 'Shit.' Chris was getting hard. His cock was feeling restricted by the tight pants.

"Hurry up, M/n!" Chris yelled from the other side of the store. "Okay!" you finished gathering anything you could find. 'Why are we leaving early? We have few more places to loot/raid.'

You left the aisles and made your way to the front doors. "Come on, we have to go." you both we made went to the vehicle and drove back to base.

You had found some supplies. 15 canned foods, and some water as well. It wasn't much, but it's something.

«••••••••••••••»

TIMESKIP (Arrival at the base.)

«••••••••••••••»

You and Chris arrived at MIT. You were gonna go talk with Chris E and H, but Chris R wasn't having it.

"Hey-" Chris grabbed your hand and began to rush to the room. Everyone knew what was gonna happen. 'Ah, shit- there gonna go at it again.'

At the room, Chris pinned you against the wall and latched his lips onto yours. The kiss rough, his much larger body pushed against yours shows the difference in size.

His tongue pushed against your teeth telling you to open them. You slowly pushed your mouth, Chris immediately pushed his tongue and invaded your mouth.

"Mmm-" you moaned into the kiss as Chris began to grip your ass. "Up." He growled into your ear. You wrapped your legs around his waist and continued to make out.

He lifted you and carried you to the bed. He slammed you onto your back before pulling away and attacking your neck. "A-ah!" Chris found your sweet spot.

"You belong to me, M/n! I claimed you that night we had sex last night!" Chris growled. "Strip." he quickly removed his clothes, leaving him in his boxers.

You could see the outline thick meaty cock. "You got hard from just kissing me?" you laughed. "You don't talk me like that! You're the slut here." Chris growled as he gripped and slapped your thighs.

You whimpered under the touch. "Look at you, whimpering under me. And your pathetic cock got hard from me hitting you. But let's see what this ass has to say." Chris said as he put your legs on his shoulders

You then felt his thick slicked fingers at your entrance. One finger slips in, your muscles immediately clenched at the invader. "M-mm." you gripped the sheets as his finger pushed deeper.

Then a second finger went in. You clench even more as it did a scissor motion. "Aagh!" you felt his fingers touch the bundle of pleasure. "You're ready."

Chris pulled his fingers out to see your hole doing a grabbing motion. 'Fuck... that's hot.' Chris threw his head back while jerking his cock. "Can't wait to pound this slutty boipussy."

You felt his fat tip push past your tight ring. "Mmm... C-Chris!-"

Smack

"YOU DON'T CALL ME THAT! You didn't learn from last time? You. Call. Me. Sir. You got that?" Chris growled/yelled. "Y-yes, Sir... It's just that... You're so big..." You whimpered.

Then with one Thrust, Chris pushed his entire cock inside. "See? You're taking all 12 inches of me! Fuck, so tight..." Chris groaned. His cock was touching your prostate.

His thick meaty cock filled your insides perfectly. Like you were made for each other. "Y-you're... splitting m-me... in two!" you moaned as you felt it throb and twitch.

"P-please... fuck me... make me your slut." you begged. Chris smirked before snapping his hips.

He began pounding into you. His big cum-filled balls smacked against your ass as he thrusts harder. "S-sir! Y-you feel... s-so good!" You moaned as you threw your head back and gripped the sheets tighter.

"You think those guys can fuck you like I do?! Only I can give you this pleasure, only me!" Chris growled as he thrust harder, hitting your prostate repeatedly.

You used the last of your strength to get up and wrapped your arms around Chris's neck. You clawed his back as he thrust more, you were sure those were gonna leave marks.

"Maybe those guys can give me more pleasure," you smirked at your fake statement. You heard a deep growl as Chris dropped you on the bed and flipped you onto your stomach.

"You fucking slut! Only I can give you this much pleasure! Those guys don't deserve you. Bet their cocks aren't as big as mines." Chris growled as he gripped your hips.

Sounds of skin-slapping and balls slapping against your ass filled the room and the others in the building had to hear it. The walls weren't soundproof.

Your cock was twitching, ready to release a load. "You're about to cum without me touching you! Well, I'm -FUCK- about to cum too." Chris groaned as you tighten around him.

"P-please... give me... y-your load!" You moaned as you arched your back to give Chris more access. "Want me to fill this slutty ass with my cum? Gonna... cum... soon!"

After 5 more thrusts, Chris reached his breaking point, and so did you.

"FUCK! I'M CUMMING! CUM WITH ME!" Chris groaned, he wrapped his hand around cock stroking it before you released it all over his hand. That was enough for him.

"FUCK!" you felt his cock twitch before pumping his hot load inside, filling you up to the brim.

*Breathing intensifies*

Chris collapses onto the bed right next to you with his cock still inside. You felt him pull out with his cum leaking out. "I'll never leave you for those two. My heart only beats for you," you said sincerely turning over to face him.

"I'll never leave you too. We'll be together until our time runs out." Chris said pulling you into a kiss filled with passion and love.

'There is still Love in a Hopeless World.'

THE END.

«••••••••••••••»

A/N: Finally this is done! I hoped you enjoy this, by 🍓Little Strawberries🍓!

#x male reader #male reader insert #male reader imagine #male reader #chris redfield x male reader #chris redfield #chris redfield imagine #resident evil #resident evil fanfic #chris redfield x reader #requested #sorry if it's bad #i hope you enjoy #sorry for any errors

[sanstropfremir]

swf anon here! this episode was… :(

(also just gonna rant again but the reaction of jay park was so 😵‍💫 them calling him a dancer and all, praising him when i’m pretty sure he hasn’t been an active b boy in a long while. feel bad for the girl idols who were shred to pieces and used by mnet for evil editing…)

not going to include the performance links here again because u talked about them already. below are the comments made by the judges:

1. holybang - judges really praised their routine, esp boa and how she shared she wanted to join their crew. mentioned how they hit every beat and that they were cohesive as a group, pointing to how their outfit choices helped in that aspect.

2. prowdmon - crew mentioned how they focused on the melody of the song to choreograph. and switching gender roles and expectations as their crew concept for this mission. judges shared that their performance was v deep, boa specifically sharing that this was distinct to prowdmon to push beyond the simple mission of a co-ed performance. and how they wanted to show a lot but said that it might be hard for the public audience to understand + resonate with.

3. ygx - lee jung, their leader, was the one who decided to concept. and it was ‘pretty’ ‘young’ and ‘handsome’. (lol the other members of the crew weren’t sure what she was really going with). judges praised them sharing that it felt like the cliche american high school movies they watched. however they also said that something felt lacking and that their performances throughout this show has been v similar thus far (and so they expected it).

final rank (based on judges scores): 1. coca n butter 2. holybang 3/4. hook and lachica (same scores) 5. prowdmon 6. ygx

after video views/likes were factored in, prowdmon was ranked last and was eliminated immediately. ygx and lachica were ranked 4 and 5 and battled - ygx lost and was eliminated.

-

i honestly don’t know how to feel… like idt coca n butter’s performance was the best? similarly w holybang, rewatching the performance this episode and seeing mnet’s weird up close shots showed how messy some of the dancers were… i guess prowdmon’s performance didn’t resonate well; i know for each mission it’s based solely on that performance and not a reflection of everything that’s been done throughout the show but it’s sad because they were the most promising crew imo. honestly it’s all up in the air now. i never thought coca n butter would make it this far because they’ve been consistently ranked towards the bottom. and idt this performance was enough to push them to the top.

(hope all this made sense! used my phone to write this pls excuse any errors 🥲)

PROWDMON ELIMINATED!?!??!?!??!?!?!?!?!? I-

jesus fucking CHRIST what a rough round. i can't believe they got rid of their best and most interesting crew, yeesh. i shouldn't be surprised because i knew it wouldn't resonate with domestic audiences but subconsciously i forgot because that routine would have ate if it was on a western show. i really dislike how this show seems to be punishing people taking risks.

ALSO. excuse me???? the holybang routine was second????????????? are you kidding me???????? the girls did good but the guys were SO sloppy, they were nowhere NEAR good enough to be on stage with those girls, much less be 'cohesive' with them.............

i don't really like the coca n butter routine but i think in absence of prowdmon being high in the rankings i guess i could see why it got bumped up? i really thought hook would rank higher too but i guess a middle tie with lachica works. i also did not really expect ygx to be eliminated but they also haven't really done anything that eye catching for the entire show so it was inevitable. i read this last night and i still haven't processed the reception to the holybang choreo like.........................jay park did not make that routine good. no one made that routine good. i feel like i woke up in an alternate universe. at least there's only one (? or two, not sure how they're formatting the finale) left....

#street woman fighter #swf #swf reviews #the misogyny is really no surprise but also damn........he's not at all worth it #he's also not that good!!! the bboys ygx had were better!! #anyways i gotta stop thinking about this for rn im gonna give myself a headache #prowdmon eliminated.....right before the finale where they would have done something really cool..............im going to burn down mnet #text #answers

[guigz1-coldwar]

"The House of the Rising Sun" : New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"The House of the Rising Sun"

Chapter Summary : Bell, along with Park & Sims, is flying to the New Orleans for their mission against Remy Duvall

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +3100

Warning : Little NSFW content !

--------------------------

Three of us on Remy Duvall....the other three on Amram Rabalwi. The first group is going to the New Orleans to take care of a corrupt politician while the other one is going right in the middle of the Iran-Irak War to kill an important irakian general. I think it was the only better choice to do, we couldn't let one of them escape if we had our focus completely on the other one. I thought that Adler was going to send right in Irak but instead and unexpected, he decided to send me, Park and Sims to the US......a pleasant surprise, I can say !.....

He assigned Sims to be the one in charge of the group and since we were going to act on the US soil, he was a good choice from Adler. After we have finished our briefing and discussing on our new plan to take care of these two Perseus agents, Sims has started to pull out some calls to Washington and to a CIA agent based in New Orleans that will help us to set the scene to act against Duvall while Park also make some calls to London, updating them of the situation but the CIA is going to be our only support in the New Orleans...just them.

While they were doing that, I decided to prepare me & Park's equipment for our mission as we were going to stay in the US for a while until we got rid of Duvall. We needed to take the minimum as the CIA were going to supply us at the safehouse Sims's contact is preparing for us but also because we couldn't risk to transform the city in a warzone, we are directly acting in the United States and I think that no one want to see that happening at all. We got the american city....Adler, Mason & Woods got the warzone in the Middle-East.

They were the first group to leave the safehouse after one hour as their preparation were quite easy as us, we needed more of it and after 2 hours, we were finally ready and we were out of the place, going to the plane that were going to make us fly to the US. Instead of using an usual cargo plane, it was more like an private jet that we're going to use...thanksfully.....It was going to change from the last time I took a plane.....and also, I have started to have enough of West-Berlin, still staying in that safehouse for days and having for some days only rain to fall.

We finally left behind the city and we were pretty quiet during the flight as we preferred to let ourselves rest a little, allowing me to have some peace to think. It wasn't a direct flight as we had to make a stop in Lisbon to refuel the plane before taking off again to reach Miami as our second and final stop before New Orleans. It was weird for me to see from the skies and from afar the Europeans coasts....it was my first time, since I woke up almost a month ago that I left Europe to go to America and I was wondering if I did go there for Perseus or not.

3 hours to go from West-Berlin to Lisbon.....and more than 8 hours from Lisbon to Miami. It was pretty quiet but damn long with that weird silence in the plane. We all had something to do except for talking : reading a book for Park & me....she gave one to me as she wanted me to do something instead of looking outside for hours and for Sims....well, he was sleeping....He finally awake suddenly when we were going approach Miami.

"Did I miss anything ?" It was the first thing he said, breaking the long silence in the plane, putting back in place, his baseball cap he used to hide his eyes as I start to look at him.

"We're going to land soon in Miami, the pilot just make the announcement two minutes ago." Park answered, lowering her book to look at Sims. She was siting in front of me as Sims was at the other side of the plane. "We have at least 2 mores hours before we're finally in the New Orleans at 1900 approximatively." She added, getting her book inside her own bag,

"2 hours ?" I exclaimed nervously as I was feeling to be on that plane for days, we left West-Berlin at 1 PM and we're going to arrive in Louisiana at 7 PM "It's like 11 hours that we're on that place."

"Jet lag, Yirina...Jet lag...." Park scoffed, having saw me nervous before she rolled her eyes in a lovely way.

"Are you giving me a lesson on how the time work ?" I asked to her, narrowing my eyes in a joking tone

"By seeing Park, I guess it's a yes..." Sims replied, almost laughing before Park put her eyes on him, faking a curious and confused look. "What ?" He shrugged his shoulders in incomprehesion before she smiled at him.

"Joking, Sims." She breathed "You should take some rest again." She added as in me, I start to feel weird in a second, remembering something that happened a lot to me,

"You know....it's something that I heard by a lot 3 years ago." I told them, getting our attention on me, very curious.

"About rest ?" Sims asked, I nodded

"At that time, each time I was asking about some gasps on my memories, you were all like 'Take some rest, Bell, you're looking tired !' or 'You might work too much, get some sleep.'" I said as it was the thing I remembered, it was always like that, almost everyone told me that at least once.

"Hey, it was true !" Sims defended, getting comfy in his seat and his voice, as I raised an eyebrow to him as the same time as Park. "You worked too much." I gave him a look that could say 'it's true !'

"And to talk about my memories, I worked too much ?" I asked, changing my look, narrowing my eyes to him now.

"Well...." Park started, taking a breath by talking of that "At first, the CIA would have liked to 'put you in their ranks' but I forced them to have you 'join the MI6'"

"Meaning ?" I turned my eyes to her

"Since you were now in the MI6, we had no choices but to limit the memories that Adler could give you." Sims was the one to speak. "Only memories about Vietnam was given and everything else was put into a bin." He explained, giving me the reasons of why 'Bell' only had memories of Vietnam.

"Adler has...well....considered the option to have part of my memories in you but...." Park whispered, not sure of telling it as it was sounding like a big secret to hide. "I wouldn't want that to happen, fearing that it could have break you..."

"It would have allowed you to not be harassed by me with all these questions about my past." I tried to joke but why joking about that I was brainwashed ? I could maybe laugh of that but not in these times.

"Yes but if we had did this, your real memories would have been gone and I didn't wanted to do that." Park admitted as inside of me, I was relieved that she didn't do it. "Even if some saw you as an enemy, some care about you and they wouldn't wanted that too."

"Having Adler and my memories in you was risky...." Sims said, making me realizing that Adler's memories wasn't the only one I had in head "Having Park's ones would have been deadly to you."

"That could have killed me ?"  They nodded at me

"With what you have faced in a short time, you would have freaked out the day you woke up." Sims added, readjusting his cap, refering to what happened between the day I was captured by the CIA and the day I woke up as 'Bell'...a day I can't even remember ! As he was finished, we started to hear some noises....it was the pilot going to speak.

"We'll land in a minute in Miami !" He announced in the speaker before hanging out as I looked outside to see that we were above the city, soon arriving at the airport for our stop for a short time. I was wondering something when I removed my head from the porthole.

"Did I go to the US before ?" I asked, looking at Sims & Park.

"Well, you were there..." Sims started to reply "Not freely in reality, Adler got you and brought you in Langley."

"Guess you don't have any memories or recalls that said to you that you came here before ?" Park added, looking curious

"I don't know, I was working as a cryptographer in the KGB at the Lubyanka for Perseus and also as a field agent but.....I couldn't tell." I responded, giving in short, what my old life was exactly. "Guess I will find out soon." I added before the plane lowered itself as it was landing.

"Well..." Sims looked at me, smiling. "Welcome back to the USA....freely !" He greeted, making me laugh a little as the plane finally landed.

We didn't step out of the plane as it was just a little stop to refuel the plane enough to make the flight to the New Orleans. It was weird now to be in the US-of-A for me after everything that happened to me. What a life ! We only stayed for a least 20 minutes to let the maintenance crew to get the fuel in the plane before it finally take off again, leaving Miami and Florida behind us to join the Louisiana, the New Orleans.....'The Crescent City' as I heard, it was like its little nickname and it was quite....good.

During the 2 remaining hours we had in flight, we didn't talk too much again and if we have talked, it was just about Sims telling us the good things they had in the US, explaining it like if we were tourists in a trip. Finally, we were arrived at 7:50 PM in the New Orleans at the airport as we had just finished to eat and we could finally move from our seats, getting our bags on us and leaving the plane, allowing me to set foot on the 'New World' by my own will and not forced and tied up by the CIA.

But no time for us to play the tourists....well, we're spies...Sims led us to a car that the CIA left for us and he took the wheel, driving us to the safehouse we were going to use for the following days....at least a week for Sims as Duvall is not an easy target to deal with. It took us more than 5 minutes less to arrive at the safehouse that was in a well-keep house just at the city's outskirts. Sims was the first to get out of the car as a man was waiting for us at the porch's house.

"Hey, Wolf !" Sims waved at the guy that was leaned against a pillar before he start to move to get to Sims.

"Sims, my man !" Wolf exclaimed as the two shook hands, making an friendly acolades "Hope that the flight wasn't so disturbing !"

"Nope at all, I slept all the way to here." Sims replied, giving him a friendly tap on the shoulder before Wolf looked at us, getting out of the car with our bags.

"So, is this your team ?" Wolf asked, Sims nodded.

"This is Helen Park from the MI6 !" He pointed at Park where the two shook hands before he looked at me "And this is Yirina Grigoriev, she's a russian defector working with us." I could see Wolf, getting a little bit confused before he smiled at me, offering his hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both." He told us as we finally shook hands

"So, this is our new place ?" I asked, looking behind him.

"Yeap." Wolf simply answered

"Wolf is going to help us with dealing with Duvall, he's the one in charge of this safehouse." Sims added, crossing his arms before he looked at him "You got the necessary material for us ?"

"Of course, there's still things missing but tomorrow, we will have everything to start working on Duvall's case." Wolf responded before slowly walking inside the house "Let's get inside before you all catch a cold." He added as we started to follow him.

We took our bags in hand and then, we entered the safehouse that was going to be our little home for days before we are returning to West-Berlin, it's gonna change from the rainy weather from the german city, that's for sure. It was more going to be sunny and hot in here, it's what I wanted really. Wolf start to show us the basics of the house : the kitchen and the bathroom before we arrived in the living room that was in fact, our operations room with an dashboard, looking like the same as the one in West-Berlin.

"Damn, the CIA is well equipped !" I said, almost loudly as I saw multiple equipment all around the room, like listening devices, radios and also guns.

"Well..." Wolf started, scratching the back of his head "All of this is coming from the FBI, stole it to Webster's brigade !"

"You stole from your own countrymens ?" Park asked, amused by that fact.

"We had no choices, we're likely making an illegal CIA operation on the US soil and we have to use our own means....including stealing." Sims was the one to reply, already looking aware of that. "It's just the four of us with a part of CIA against Duvall." I then started to move near the dashboard, full of intels about Duvall.

"Duvall has big means, I can see...." I looked at everything on it, discovering what Duvall can do and what are his hobbies.

"Politician but also radio host who has an big support from the New Orleans high society." Wolf explained behind me. "A big asshole leading the America First Party."

"So, when do we start ?" Park questioned as I looked around to face the others again.

"It's better that we start tomorrow, we need to have everything in place before we can start to make our moves and scout out to eliminate Duvall." Sims replied, leaning on a couch. "You might need to rest, Yirina....as well as you, Park." He joked, refering to our discussion we all had 2 hours ago, making me rolling my eyes around.

"I'm going to show you your rooms !" Wolf said before waving to us to follow him and we complied. "We got 4 four rooms, each one for us." He added as we were getting up the stairs with him....well, we're not sleeping in a dorm but damn....I would have liked to be with Park....

He presented to her the first room we came across and she took it, getting inside before she closed the door with a small grin on her face before Wolf led me to the second room that was just next to hers. It was kinda small but at least, it was better than the dorm itself back in West-Berlin. After showcasing me the room, he left me alone, allowing me to install myself in that temporary bedroom as I had a view on the city skyline. Once I was finished, I sat on the side of my bed, blank stare in front of me.

I was thinking all the way about Park and only her. I was happy to be with her, to love her and to be at her side and I thought that we were going to sleep in the same room for once....on the same bed but no, we were separated and it was normal since the other don't know of us. I removed my jacket.....before I decided to leave the room to join hers. I arrived in front of it, hesitating before I finally knocked.

"Come in !" I could hear her through the door in a low voice and I opened it, discovering her, sit on the side of the bed. "Yiri..." She smiled at me as I closed the door behind me and locked it.

"So, how do you feel ?" I asked, staying next to the door.

"Well, we're in the New Orleans, changing from West-Berlin and it's better !" She responded before getting up to move next to the bed's end. "About you ?" She asked back

"Same thing, can finally walk in here without been tied up." I joked as I moved to face her, looking around before our eyes finally met.

"Yirina...." She whispered before we both moved at the same time to kiss each other on the lips, getting our arms around each other and then, we fall on the bed still kissing passionately before I withdraw to take some air.

"Can.....Can I ?" I asked, looking at the scarf she had around her neck, wanting to remove it and surprisely, she took it off herself, revealing to me her scar that didn't change over time....still highlighting her beauty. I then leaned forwards to slowly give her kiss along her scar, making her to do silent groans, her hands posed on my back.

"Oh.....fuck...."  She tried to speak, losing her own words as she was getting pleasured by me, I was moving my hands along her curves, still kissing her neck before she looked at me. "Remove them, we're doing this !"

"Your clothes ?" I asked, naive and she rolled her eyes in a lovely way.

"Yes....fuck the others, we're doing this now !" She repeated before she redressed herself to remove her own jacket, helped by me. She then started to remove her shirt too as we were both getting lost ourselves, doing the same thing for me....just loving each other, revealing to her the white bra I was using....and her red bra she was using.

"You're so gorgeous, Park !" I said, amazed by her body before I moved to give her kiss, starting by her neck, going down slowly before I reached her pants that I start to remove too.

"Yes, you're my world, Yiri." She whispered, making me remember my memory with her in the Dark Room as I was finished to remove her pants that I threw on the ground before I moved next to her underwear. She then get her bra off her, showing me her breasts. "Please, it's time to catch back our lost years !" She didn't move her eyes away from me.

"You're my world too." I breathed as I move her underwear to the side, showing me her clint, finally happy to have a moment that we should have done years ago. "I love you so fucking much, Helen Park !" I looked at her before I start to slowly lick her clint with my tongue, she start to be taken over by all the lust and pleasure, groaning at the same time, happy with me, and finally feeling free,

"My god....Yiri !"

#black ops cold war #bocw #call of duty cold war #cod cw #cod black ops cold war #cod cold war #fanfic #fem!bell #helen park

[punkscowardschampions]

Jac & Amelia

Jac: So, you got your room 🙌 What other wins did freshers bring you? 😄 Amelia: Yeah, thank god Amelia: it's been full on enough without adding travel sickness Jac: Never going to fly when class starts either Jac: it's just slightly more inventive than coming down with the 'flu' every Monday morning, but not enough Amelia: bit intense to start crashing on my new friends floors too, I don't want to be THAT gay Jac: 😂 Jac: I doubt they'd mind Jac: but having a base that isn't totally covered in crochet decor is a plus Amelia: now that freshers is over and they're going to 🤞 they never see those hook ups again maybe Amelia: still, not the first impression I'm trying to make Jac: Oh God, tell me about it Jac: I am not trying to have people I've got to avoid for the next 7 odd years Jac: not trying to make it like home like that Amelia: very relatable Amelia: even though I have no need to count that high Jac: Is your course 3? or 4? Amelia: depends if I want to go to Canada, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Sweden, USA or the UK for a year Jac: Oh wow Jac: 🦪 Amelia: that emoji is the gayest Amelia: so yeah probably Jac: Very O'Keefe of you Jac: can't give up the 🎨 quite yet? Amelia: 😂 Jac: I've met THE perfect girl for you, oh my GOD Amelia: because I'm going to travel to Edinburgh for 🦪 after dodging a 3 hour commute Jac: She's American, you could convince her Cork has a lot to offer beside 🦪 Jac: but actually, she is UNBEARABLE, and I'm trying very hard to be nice and give everyone a chance rn Jac: she does Art History, despite the fact she seems to know less about art than I do Jac: doesn't stop her 🔊 Amelia: 💔 you put your mean girl years behind you too soon, I'm SO proud though Amelia: and I'm sure Savannah appreciates it just as much Jac: 😏 I can feel the sincerity Jac: I know though, talk about completely crazy Amelia: if you want sincerity I can totally believe she'd follow you there as if nothing happened Amelia: are you okay? Jac: I think the prestige probably beat the off-chance I'd also be there but I appreciate the belief Jac: Yeah, actually, I am Jac: it went well, better than I could've or would've imagined before Amelia: alright, that's a relief Amelia: not that it's been playing on my mind or anything since the ✨ livened up my feed Jac: I would've got in touch sooner Jac: It did cross my mind, that you'd see Jac: I also didn't wanna encroach on your freshers' experience at all, that idea won out Jac: It must've been a shock for you and all Amelia: I get it, because likewise obviously Amelia: plus you seemed like you were coping, and it's not the same as before, you have people to go to now if you aren't so Amelia: I don't know, it seemed too dramatic to come at you all !!!!!! Amelia: which is why I didn't Jac: I wouldn't have bitten your head off Jac: but I see and appreciate that logic Jac: not to mention previous experience would say I actually would so Jac: She's changed a lot too, in those 2 years Amelia: good Jac: Yeah, turns out she had a pretty rough time of it too Jac: which, obviously, but I wasn't really in a space to think too much about that back then Amelia: was likely to be more 🥀 than 🌹 living with her dad, and everything that happened with her mum Amelia: I'm not surprised even if I couldn't be very sympathetic then Jac: I can't believe I was zoned out Jac: I didn't even know about her mum Amelia: you had loads of your own shit going on, it'd be more unbelievable if you were tuned into hers Amelia: I didn't know how bad it was, or didn't want to hear it, whichever Jac: Jess made it sound like the world and his wife knew Jac: I feel awful Jac: but her mum is doing better now, and they're trying to mend their relationship, so, that's positive Amelia: it always feels like that in my 🏠 but I would've told you if I'd realised Jac: It isn't your fault remotely Jac: like you said, sympathy about it wasn't at the forefront of your mind Jac: and you can't be blamed there Amelia: I'm genuinely glad things are getting better, the last thing she needs is to feel like shit for leaving her mum again if they aren't Jac: I know you are, you aren't a monster Jac: even if you and Savannah had your differences, and the obvious situation from there 'til now Amelia: that's enough sincerity though, the last thing I need is Savannah Moore trying to be my friend again Amelia: you can keep her Jac: 😂 Alright Jac: about that though Jac: things have changed, between us too Amelia: okay Amelia: what does that mean? Jac: Well, I told her, this time Jac: that I'm not straight Jac: and neither is she Amelia: she really has fucking changed Jac: She hasn't also come out, there's no label on it or anything Jac: but she likes me back Jac: you deserve to know, and would, regardless of where we were in our relationship Jac: I'm sorry if it's not what you want to hear though Amelia: thanks, I guess Amelia: for not waiting for the 💍 announcement Jac: Things haven't moved quite that fast Jac: although, yeah Jac: I know Amelia: It's still Savannah, I doubt she's had a TOTAL personality transplant Amelia: you probably wouldn't like her if she had Amelia: so I'll keep an eye out for that post and put my congrats on it Jac: No, she's still her Jac: and I doubt her plans include a 💍 that could be bought on a student budget Amelia: true Amelia: I'll send some 💐 she'd NEVER put in the 🗑 Amelia: just the 💌 I'll actually bother to write, you know, like a normal person Jac: There goes the mystery Amelia: because of course you wouldn't recognise my handwriting Jac: I've checked your homework over enough times Jac: I doubt anyone else is rushing to send us a bouquet so Jac: process of elimination Amelia: there you go then Jac: but I have told my brother and that Jac: on the off-chance you catch him and he's dying not to bring it up Amelia: bit rude of him not to try and gently break the news Jac: Assumedly either thinking I've imagined the whole thing all over, or it'll all fizzle out before there's any need to go there Amelia: or I'm thriving so hard there's no need to bring me down 1 week in Jac: Obviously that too Jac: but you know that wasn't my intention, yeah Amelia: it's obvious you're not thinking about me, don't worry Jac: Okay Jac: do you want me to leave you now? Amelia: Why would I want that? Jac: Plenty of valid reasons Jac: to process, to not, you just don't feel like talking to me at this precise moment Amelia: what's to process? the bit about her not queerbaiting you the entire time is new, the rest isn't Jac: That's not nothing Jac: it changes the whole thing Amelia: not for me Jac: Alright then Amelia: you were hung up on her every second, what's changed for you is that was a least a bit mutual Amelia: I don't need to process any of that, it doesn't involve me Jac: It's still new information, that's all Amelia: not really Amelia: I probably should have guessed anyway Jac: If I didn't, I don't see how you could've Jac: she didn't even then so Amelia: too late to become a 🔮💎💫 gay, I hear you Jac: 🕵 is definitely a better idea Amelia: maybe I'd just really love to be able to say 'it's just a phase, mum' about something Jac: You've had plenty Amelia: name one Jac: [that boy band I said they liked lol] Jac: for starters Amelia: that wasn't a phase that was me lying that I cared Jac: yeah, okay Jac: you knew all the lyrics 'cos you cover was so deep Jac: no need to lie, they had some tunes Amelia: I knew all the lyrics because there was about 5 lines repeated over and over Jac: uh-huh Jac: you had badges all over your school bag Amelia: because you've never fully committed to a lie, oh wait Jac: There's no need to be a bitch Amelia: 😂 Jac: No, I'm not super ready to laugh about that time in my life, as it goes Amelia: okay Jac: I'm going to leave you to it now Jac: Good luck with your first proper day, hope it all goes well Amelia: actually wait though Amelia: I didn't mean that Amelia: I'm sorry Jac: Alright Jac: I know you're upset, or pissed off Jac: but being a better person doesn't extend to being a punching bag for you to get that out Jac: you can feel it, obviously, but that's just unproductive for you, and not gonna happen from my end Amelia: I know Jac: and I know that's what I did to you Jac: so it probably seems fair, or justified at least, that you get to now Jac: but it wasn't right, and an eye for an eye, you know Amelia: no, it's not fair, I wasn't being, that's why I'm sorry Jac: You don't need to stoop to my lowest Amelia: I'm trying, okay Jac: Yeah Jac: and I accept your apology Amelia: thanks Jac: should I not have told you? Amelia: I think that'd be worse Jac: I thought the same Jac: unless you were going to block me on the sly, then you would have seen Amelia: maybe I should now, I don't know Jac: If you want to Jac: to take some time Jac: or more permanently Jac: it's up to you Jac: obviously my offer of being friends still stands but I understand Jac: as I said, this changes things Amelia: yeah, if we let it Jac: You can't help how this makes you feel Amelia: but why should I let her take everything again? Jac: Savannah isn't actively doing that Jac: but if you want to keep trying, so do I Amelia: we worked hard at getting here, me and you, that's not about her Jac: True Jac: You don't have to be friends with her now, that's not it Jac: just accept that she's my girlfriend, and a big part of my life Amelia: does she know? Jac: About what happened between us? Jac: No Jac: she doesn't know a huge amount about those two years, for me Jac: I plan to tell her everything Jac: but it's a lot to throw at her in a sitting, especially unasked, you know Amelia: it'd really fuck with her freshers, for sure Jac: Right Jac: all for having the hard but necessary conversations Jac: but there's a time and a place Jac: I don't want her to feel like I'm trying to make her feel bad for me, either Jac: like 'look what YOU did' because nah Amelia: too 🥀🥀🥀 Amelia: it can wait, neither of you are going anywhere Jac: That's my logic Amelia: she'll get why you waited Jac: I hope so Amelia: come on, it'll be harder for you to say than it'll be for her to hear, she's a LOT of things, but she won't want you to go through that before you're ready to Jac: You're right Jac: it just feels like secrets, and that feels like 10 steps back Jac: but it isn't that Amelia: I'm sure even she hasn't had time to tell you everything, she'd need to be chatting non stop Jac: True Jac: if you're ever done talking about yourself and your life, that's gotta be a sign you need to get out more, right Jac: there's always more to say Amelia: right Amelia: stop being so virgo-ish about it and give yourself a break Jac: 😂 okay Jac: I just need lectures to actually start Jac: so I can freak out on that instead Amelia: same Jac: are you more 😁 or 😱 Amelia: 😕 Amelia: over 😣 Jac: You'll be fine Jac: let me know how it goes though Jac: I'm interested Amelia: okay 🤓 Jac: Well there's a lot of overlap Jac: obviously, you can usually do them as a double discipline but I wanted to go pure Psych Jac: doesn't mean I'm not 🤔 Amelia: yeah Jac: 🤏🤓 fine Amelia: we're not strangers Jac: I remember Jac: so, what are your new mates like then? Amelia: great, obviously Jac: It's a good thing you aren't taking English Jac: that description leaves a lot to be desired Amelia: what do you want me to say? Jac: Isn't there anyone in particular? Amelia: there's a whole course full of people Jac: Yeah, I like one of my profs, he's really cool Jac: but I don't know anyone on my course that well yet either, they all seem nice enough though Amelia: of course you do Jac: it's so refreshing in comparison to the teachers at our school Jac: even if he acted like a base level human, it'd be a step up Jac: but he knows his stuff, and he's down to help me get ahead, what more could I want Amelia: literally nothing Jac: But I'm still not into dudes so I won't commit that cliche, don't worry Amelia: a real weight off my mind Jac: sure Amelia: 😏 Jac: I've already done loads of prep Jac: can basically chill in his class this whole term Amelia: you can but you won't Amelia: 🤓🏆⭐ Jac: we're not strangers Amelia: maybe we are 🤏 because reading's the only prep we were given but I've already done it Jac: Not really Jac: you just pretended you weren't 🤓 Amelia: no, I just actually wasn't 🤓 about school Jac: plenty of other things Jac: you can't hide the 🤓 Amelia: it's not 😳 I literally can Jac: not from me Amelia: that'd be 10 steps back Jac: try 10000 Amelia: no thank you, that sounds exhausting Jac: you've got a 🛏 Amelia: yeah, I don't know who's more thrilled, me or my dad Amelia: getting to pretend he's allergic to pets for another year at least Jac: result Jac: won't have to fake seduce him on your behalf either Jac: I'm most thrilled Amelia: Savannah is Amelia: undoubtedly Jac: Yeah, that ain't something I ever want to explain 😂 Amelia: she'd be less understanding about it Jac: None of us are understanding that Jac: sorry to your father Amelia: 😂 Jac: I think your mum would snap Jac: go full psycho Amelia: probably Amelia: they're very 😍🥰😘 right now Jac: that's nice Jac: bit gross but good Jac: she won't call you every 10 minutes Amelia: she can try but I won't answer Amelia: the friend I like best will be here soon Jac: Sounds promising Jac: I'll leave you to it for now, for real Jac: you better get ready Amelia: you're so Amelia: you Jac: what does that mean? Amelia: I don't need 👗👠💄 Jac: what's that, a humblebrag? Amelia: hardly Amelia: it's a compliment for you, you're cute for caring Jac: It's not cute, I just like to look nice Amelia: oh so you don't think I look nice? Amelia: rude Jac: everyone looks better for effort Jac: that's simple facts Amelia: anyway, I meant it's cute you care about my social life this much Jac: because I really need you being a loner to worry about Jac: no tah Jac: obviously I'm happy for you Amelia: you don't need to worry about me whatever happens Jac: It's not optional Amelia: okay Jac: I never stopped Amelia: you can stop now Jac: That's just what being friends is Amelia: I'm no expert Amelia: have to take your word for it, if anything Jac: I know you care about me too Amelia: but you're thriving so I don't have to worry Jac: I guess Jac: it's not just for the bad times though, is it Amelia: I hope not Jac: it's not Jac: come on Jac: pull yourself together and at least do 1 out of 3 👗👠💄 Amelia: fine, I'll put shoes on Jac: that's what I like to hear Amelia: 🙄 just because I'm ignoring my mum there's no need for you to take over from her Jac: I still can't do any handicrafts so unlikely Amelia: Savannah is unlikely to wear a homemade 🧣 so I think you're fine Jac: she loves anything thoughtful but I ain't gonna start there still Amelia: 💐 Jac: Naturally Jac: both our rooms look like a florist already Jac: makes up for the shabby walls and carpet you can't do much about Amelia: any time you'd like to fully lean into the 👵 I'll do you an embroidery hoop or something Amelia: very chic Jac: they do sell a lot of that sort of thing in the charity shops Jac: I'm sure your 🎨 will be better than whatever the actual 👵 decided to do 🖼 Amelia: SUCH a compliment, I have no idea how I'm not 😳 Jac: Charity shops are in Jac: I'm not going to call it thrifting, I'm not even half-American, wouldn't be able to take myself seriously Amelia: good, please don't Jac: vintage, upcycling, all acceptable Amelia: for my mother Amelia: I'll take how 'modern' my room here is Jac: I suppose that does make a change Jac: I love the buildings though, the architecture Amelia: 🎨 Amelia: yeah, would be inspiring if I had any time Jac: Is Cork by the coast? Jac: I know nothing about that area Jac: I'm like NEXT to the beach, it's incredible Amelia: it's one of the largest natural harbours in the world, if that doesn't make you want to come and visit me, well ?? Amelia: it has it's own lovely architecture Jac: You should work for the tourism board, honestly Jac: good speech, that Amelia: 🤷🏻 Amelia: I'm here for the 🤓 and you're already interested in that Jac: I'd go to Italy, if I were you Jac: but then, Denmark might have the most interesting criminal practices and laws, so that's a good choice too Amelia: you'll visit me there then, yeah? Jac: I forgot about Sweden, but those three are the real ones to consider Jac: and we can sort visiting when we're even a bit settled Amelia: okay Jac: we've only just left Amelia: thanks for that obvious reminder Jac: 😏 Jac: you know what I mean Jac: give me a chance to get my diary in order before you're saying I'm avoiding you or whatever Amelia: give you a chance to miss me, you mean Amelia: you've got one right now, because I have to go get ready Jac: Oh, if we had to wait for that, you'd never see me again 😉 Jac: have fun 👠👠 Amelia: 💔 Amelia: bye

[fapangel]

Unless the US resorted to an all out nuclear attack, there is no way that we could be certain of taking out all of NK's nuclear weapons. Any such all out attack would result in many millions of casualties in both North Korea and South Korea and almost certainly in Japan, China and Russia. Due to the fact that those US nukes would have to be detonated on the ground, in order to destroy widespread and deeply buried underground fortifications, as airbursts wouldn't be effective against deep bunkers

the resulting radioactive fallout would be particularly nasty and widespread. Not only would all of Japan (With a population of 130 million) be at risk for lethal levels of fallout, so would all of the West Coast of the USA (Alaska, Washington State, Oregon and California), as well as the coastal areas of western Canada and Mexico. Additionally, all of the Pacific fisheries would become poisoned due to the fallout and would be rendered toxic and unusable for decades to come.

Then there is the issue of sparking off a direct nuclear conflict with China and Russia. Once again, the simple reality is that the USA does not have conventional weapons that are capable of taking out all of the NK military/nuclear fortifications in one single surgical strike.

Without diving into a full argument in favor of counter-force strike, allow me to illustrate just how incorrect these misconceptions are. This isn’t your fault - everything you typed I have seen expressed, verbatim, by journalists, academics, and other people who should damn well know better. 

You have been lied to, deliberately and consistently. 

Lie #1: 

US nukes would have to be detonated on the ground, in order to destroy widespread and deeply buried underground fortifications, as airbursts wouldn't be effective against deep bunkers

Not if the B-61-12 is used, the latest modification of the B-61 nuclear freefall bomb to make it a precision-guided, earth-penetrating, low-yield bunker buster. The precision guidance (GPS/inertial) alone makes it far more effective, as doubling the accuracy of a weapon increases its destructive potential eightfold (a simple consequence of the inverse-square law.) The earth-penetrating ability increases the “shock coupling,” i.e. the kinetic energy transferred to the earth (to collapse deep bunkers like an “earthquake bomb” does,) and of course, the low yield greatly reduces the collateral damage and fallout effects. The only publicly disclosed data on the Mod-12 puts the maximum yield at 50 kilotons, but based on prior configurations of the B-61s “physics package,” the weapon probably has a variable yield ranging from 0.3kt to 50kt. On its lowest setting, the bomb will only have a yield of three hundred tons. A sub-kiloton yield. Especially at such low yields, the earth-penetrating nature of the weapon is likely to reduce fallout, especially when hitting hard rock (less loose soil to be blown into the air; only rock actually vaporized by the very small nuclear fireball would be put into the air.) This is hard to gauge, as no declassified equations exist for working out fallout from a shallow sub-surface detonation. In fact, the excellent nukemap.com cannot calculate fallout even for a surface burst, as its equations only cover detonations of a kiloton or over. 

It should be noted that the B-61-12 is in qualification testing as we speak - the weapon is finished, and given the urgency of the current crisis, could reasonably be rushed into service in low numbers.

Lie #2:

Then there is the issue of sparking off a direct nuclear conflict with China and Russia.

Even ignoring the existence of the B-61-12 described above, this claim completely ignores the bomber-based leg of the American nuclear triad, which still operates the AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile (variable yield of 5-150 kilotons) and the B-83 freefall bomb (variable yield up to 1.2 megatons,) both delivered by the B-52 strategic bomber - some of which are based on Guam (and have been since the early days of the Cold War.) The B-52 has had an unescorted deep-nuclear-strike penetration mission ever since the AGM-28 Hound Dog debeuted in 1960, a massive nuclear-armed cruise missile designed to simply vaporize SAM sites and entire Soviet fighter bases so the B-52s could reach their targets and deliver their heavy freefall bombs. The modern incarnation of this would involve B-52s carrying ALCMs or B-83s internally, and carrying MALD-J decoys and/or JASSM-ER stealth cruise missiles on their external pylons to jam, confuse, and outright destroy North Korea’s painfully antiquated air defense network before moving in to deliver their nuclear strikes. And this is without escort or assistance from fighter-bombers and/or OECM aircraft based in Japan, Okinawa or South Korea, which they would have. 

It is possible - though extremely unlikely - that Russia or China would panic and assume that a low number of incoming ICBMs/SLBMs from America’s direction were actually aimed at them, and decide to commit suicide by launching a massive retaliatory attack even before the tracks of incoming warheads had been “firmed up” by radar (even though China doesn’t have a “launch-on-warning” policy.) It is not possible that they will interpret lumbering Cold-War era bomber aircraft a legitimate nuclear threat to their very capable, modern, and dense IADS - even the ALCM is a dated, non-stealth design. Even if they should construe these aircraft as “attacking them,” by sheer dint of their numbers and possible kiloton yield per aircraft alone it’d qualify as a tactical useage of nuclear weapons, not a strategic one demanding immediate massive retaliation. 

There is absolutely no credible argument for the employment of tactical nuclear warheads against North Korea leading to a full-on strategic nuclear exchange between Russia/China and the United States, and anyone telling you such is a lying bastard trying to play on your emotions to avoid making a real argument. 

Lie #3:

Once again, the simple reality is that the USA does not have conventional weapons that are capable of taking out all of the NK military/nuclear fortifications in one single surgical strike.

The hell we don’t. 

Meet the AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface-Standoff Missile), a fully stealthed air-launched cruise missile that also has an ER variant (a full 600nm range) and a penetrating warhead variant for hardened targets. 

The B-1B “Lancer” can carry 24 of these weapons in its internal bomb-bays. The B-1B is an intercontinental capable bomber (with suitable tanker support.) 1/3rd of the currently active US fleet (20 aircraft) can thus deliver 480 of these weapons - in a non-stop round trip direct from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, as they have done many times in sorties to Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Estimates of DPRK Transporter-Erector-Launcher numbers range from 150 to 300. Even if every single one was located inside its own dispersal bunker, the JASSM would be more than capable of destroying it, as their penetration ability is enhanced by the ability to conduct a guided attack (i.e. a 90-degree dive with full engine power to enhance the kinetic penetration prior to detonation.) This is indeed the worst case scenario, as any TELs located in large facilities under mountains can be interdicted simply by collapsing the tunnel entrances with similar weaponry - a TEL cannot fire a ballistic missile though a hundred feet of solid rock, after all. This vulnerability is almost certainly why the DPRK is observably building individual dispersal bunkers in close proximity to probable (and in one case, identified) under-mountain SRBM facilities. 

Note I have not touched on the TLAM-D Tomahawk and its Tactical Tomahawk Penetrator Variant warhead (which put those neat holes in the hardened shelters at Shayrat AFB,) which is carried in copious numbers by the warships of 7th fleet (and by the four converted Ohio-class boomers, each mustering a staggering 154 weapons, for a total of 616 Tomahawk missiles deliverable with complete surprise,) nor the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber (capable of delivering a pair of the uniquely powerful 30,000 pound GBU-57 “MOP” bunker-busters, among other weapons,) or B-52s (both capable of inter-continental attacks as well,) or utilizing F-35s and F-22s in the strike role (with the F-22 lobbing Small Diameter Bombs, themselves capable bunker-busters in their own right,) nor any of the tactical fighter-bomber assets already in-theater, including US Air Force F-16s and F-15s in South Korea, or Navy/Marine Hornet/Super Hornets in Japan and Okinawa, all of them capable of delivering standoff cruise missiles and the JSOW glide-bomb with either a submunition or BROACH penetrating warhead. 

Even if one assumes utilization of in-theater airpower is limited by the need to hide preparations from espionage, it is foolish to claim that the United States does not have an overwhelming capacity to deliver ordinance in a SURPRISE, surgical attack, even against extensively hardened targets. The only real limit on the United States’s ability in this regard is locating the targets, but given the massive superiority in ISR assets deployed to the peninsula - including U-2S spy planes and RQ-170 stealth drones capable of operating in DPRK airspace with relative impunity, combined with the relatively compact dimensions of the Korean peninsula, this is hardly an insurmountable obstacle. 

And then there is the simple fact we needn’t intercept every single missile launcher and/or WMD warhead before launch, as South Korea and Japan will both be defended by a tested, multi-layered ABM shield. South Korea is covered by the SM-3 (late exoatmospheric intercept), THAAD (very high altitude endo-atmospheric intercept,) the SM-2ER/SM-6 (mid-atmospheric terminal intercept) and Patriot PAC-3 MSE/ERINT (medium to low altitude terminal intercept.) Japan won’t benefit from THAAD, but has several of its own destroyers armed with the SM-3 and can thus provide more for its own defense - and North Korea has far fewer MRBM/IRBMs capable of ranging Japan in the first place, and they’re larger, easier-to-find targets to begin with, making it very unlikely they’ll preserve enough assets through the initial strike to overwhelm even our limited ABM capacity as it currently stands. 

It Is All Bullshit, My Friend

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Much, much, much more goes into planning a war than just this; there’s logistics, turnaround time, the need for redundancy (multiple weapon strikes for a single target, weapon duds, necessary re-strikes, Bomb Damage Assessment, the difficulty of coordinating Time on Target, communicating with/preparing one’s allies without telegraphing the blow, and so on,) but that just goes to show the most basic claims against counter-force strike that you’ve been fed by the media and the academics outright ignore known, tested military capabilities. This goes beyond saying “we can’t find TELs because we couldn’t do it 27 years ago in Desert Storm.” It requires ignoring seventeen years of hunting down elusive enemies in the mountainous and heavily-tunneled terrain of Afghanistan. This level of ignorance is willful and deliberate. When the existence of entire classes of weaponry and indeed, the staggeringly vast power-projection/deep strike ability of the United States is flatly and out-right ignored, one may well ask if a deliberate attempt to influence public opinion via lies (of omission or otherwise) is underway. 

None of this means that I am right, of course - that argument will have to stand on its own merits. But I can assure you that the arguments you’ve been fed are laughably, blatantly wrong. 

[politics-and-philosophy]

Ok, so I know that I'm supposed to be weirded out by the fact that this person clearly created a random brand-new tumblr just to message me anonymously, but honestly, I'm honored.

Look, this tumblr is straight-up blank, aside from the header photo. Is that a homemade handgun btw? It looks like it. Honestly though, I just feel kinda honored. Because this person is either scared enough of me to want anonymity (I can't see why) or scared enough of the reprisal they would face on their main blog (this one makes more sense).

So, again, let's go point-by-point.

I don't think the government should have control over who owns a gun in the same way I don't think the government should have control over who lives and dies. I think that gun ownership should be restricted constitutionally, by removing and replacing the second amendment. In this new amendment, I want only three types of individuals to be allowed to own guns:

1. Those in remote areas who require guns for survival.

2. Collectors of historic guns who can only load and fire them on shooting ranges.

3. Active duty military personnel deployed in foreign soil, and domestic soil only during a foreign invasion.

This list notably excludes cops, active duty military on domestic soil, security details, sport hunters, and everyone else. I have said all this before though.

This would not give a monopoly on power to the government, in fact, it would significantly stymie the power the government already has over people by removing the threat of firearms.

Personally, I think this would stop almost all gun violence, not just mass shootings. The majority of gun killings are committed with guns which were once legally owned (the US is a net exporter of illegal firearms, mostly to Mexico, due to our lax gun laws). Furthermore, while 4 in 5 gun homicides are committed with a gun not owned by the perpetrator, that's not the end of the story. 30% of those guns are stolen, but of those 30%, over 4 in 10 are not reported stolen until after a crime is committed, and 44% of gun owners whose guns were stolen did not respond to attempts to be contacted by police. Of the other 70%, reported lost, in 62% of instances, the legal owner of the gun was unaware of where or when the gun was lost. That is a staggering number of people who are reckless with firearm safety.

A large part of this is due to shoestring purchases, where someone who passes a legal background check will go and buy a gun for someone who wouldn't, or to then go and sell it at an upcharge on the black market, only to claim it lost or stolen when it shows up at a crime scene. The legal gun market directly supports and enables both gun crime and the illegal gun market. Making it more difficult to legally get a gun will make it exponentially more difficult to illegally acquire a gun. More on this later.

Mass shootings are a small percentage of total deaths, but these deaths are unique in how horrible, violent, and early in a person's life they come. They are always the direct result of hate, and are a uniquely American problem within the developed world. Unlike robbery murders or even homicides motivated by passion, mass shootings don't target a specific individual. They seek to kill a group of people indiscriminately. Essentially, they're a violent hate crime, almost always motivated by a right-wing view of society and a belief that violence solves problems.

It's also laughable that the ownership of a gun somehow puts you on even footing with the government. Do you know how much firepower the government has? Even military grade weapons are useless against an actual military.

Ok, here's Oxford's definition of a civil right:

Please go read this. Civil rights are rights of society and politics. They are things such as voting rights, marriage rights, freedom from religious infringement in your life, right to exist in society and politics. Gun ownership is no more a civil right than is the right to smoke crack.

America has a gun violence epidemic, compared to the rest of the world, and even compared among the states.

Here's a fun graph comparing gun violence and gun ownership among first world countries.

Here's a graph comparing gun violence and gun regulation within the United States:

Ok, finally, on to fascism. So, let's start from the top and work our way to different outcomes. We have our first decision at "Is the current gun violence rate and mass shooting epidemic within the US worth fixing?" Personally, I think yes. If you think no, I invite you to tell that to anyone who lost a family member in a mass shooting and see if you don't get punched.

Having resolved yes, we move onto what to do. There are three real solutions.

1. Increase of law enforcement

2. Increase of surveillance

3. Regulation of firearms

Notably, mental health reforms is left off this list. I've addressed that several times in other posts. In summary, mass shooters don't seek mental services and the majority of perpetrators aren't mentally ill, they're disillusioned with society.

Now, as a liberal and specifically a social liberal, I hate fascism and think that among the political ideologies out there fascism and authoritarianism are a special kind of evil. In general, I see it as better to have a large government which serves the people instead of a small government which oppresses the people. A lot of conservatives, especially anarco-capitalists, think that a small government is necessarily less oppressive, but that is not true. Governments can be large, but if they are beholden to a citizenship, they'll obey said citizens. Small governments who are isolated from the populace easily turn towards oppression.

But I digress. Let's start with the first choice, and see where it takes us. For this exercise, we'll be assuming that when the government is given control over a certain aspect of our lives, they'll want to increase that control. So, we increase the law enforcement in all major metropolitan areas, meaning armed guards at malls, churches, movie theaters, schools, etc. And even though mass shootings still occur when armed guards are present (Parkland) or when police arrive on scene within the minute (El Paso), it's okay because we get to keep our guns, everybody has a gun so everyone is safe. This is basically a police state. The scary thing is conservatives have actually proposed this. Sean Hannity said on live TV that we need to place armed guards at every public area. And if you don't trust the government, how the hell could you trust the armed guards they have stationed outside the grocery store.

Next solution is increased surveillance. If access to guns is to remain unrestricted, then we need to be able to find the killers before they kill. What do all of the mass shooters have in common? An internet history rife with extremism and alt-right views. So, screen everyone. And go ahead and start censoring people who have those views too, just to be safe. But once we have a suspected shooter, how can we know when they're about to commit murder? You can't arrest someone for fitting a profile. So, you start tracking them, looking through their purchases, making sure they aren't trying to get someone to buy them a firearm, following them, watching them. Even if all they did is post on the internet with no intent, now the government knows their every move. And suddenly, the small minor infractions that everyone commits daily start to add up. So, one agent decides to hell with it, let's just bust him early for something, anything we can make stick. This isn't a hypothetical, either. There are countless stories of cops falsifying evidence just to make the arrest because they believe an innocent person is guilty.

Finally, firearm regulation. Now here you might think that if you lose your firearm, you lose your safety. Ignoring for a moment that I specifically advocated for law enforcement to not have firearms, if you genuinely think you are safer with a gun than without it, you are wrong. The mindset that, without your gun, there's nothing to stop the government from trampling your rights ignores the fact that even with your gun, there's nothing really stopping the government from trampling your rights, because the government has a lot more guns than you and they're a lot bigger. Now, perhaps you think that having an armed populace means a resistance or insurgency is possible. Ignoring that the government could squash any insurgency within the US, who even says the insurgents are on your side politically? What's stopping them from rising up right now? The same thing that's stopping the government from killing any dissidents: the fact that we live in a society and without it the government would collapse. Often times people speak as though the government is some separate entity when in reality in America every single person who us eligible to vote or pays taxes is a member of the government. We are the power base of the government, and to distinguish between the citizens of the US and the government if the US is a real gray area, because the government can't exist without the economic base that is our society. You called us sheep but we aren't sheep, we're the golden goose and you never ever kill the golden goose. The government won't come to put us all in camps because they'd wake up broke the next day. And even if they did, your gun wouldn't stop them, it just means they'd kill you.

When you arm everyone, you arm EVERYONE. Not just the lawful responsible owner, but the mass shooter, the murderer, the rapist, the insurgents on both the right and the left, the domestic terrorists, the gang bangers, the government sympathizers, the government itself, everyone. And while obviously it's not every gun owner, it could be any gun owner. And any realistic way to distinguish the difference between a responsible individual looking to own a gun and a mass shooter arming up is with a level of invasiveness that should make you incredibly uncomfortable. This is what I mean when I talk about surveillance.

Let's come to a conclusion here, because this post has gotten quite long.

The idea that you could amass enough firepower to resist the government is not reasonable. What protects you from the government is not weaponry but anonymity. Currently, our system has both, but having both allows criminals and murderers to readily access firearms and kill people. So, since the weaponry isn't protecting us anyway, might as well get rid of it and save some lives.

EDIT: The blog that sent these messages no longer exists, and I don't have access to them anymore, so I'm glad I screenshoted when I did. Kinda confirms my suspicion that they just wanted to anonymously harass me. Oh well, nothing as predictable as a coward.

[sherristockman]

Is Your Sweet Tooth Setting You up for a ‘Sugar Crash’? Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola “Sugar Crash,” a documentary, details the havoc that excess sugar consumption is causing for the people of Ireland, a country that ranks No. 4 in sugar consumption worldwide. On average, the Irish are consuming 24 teaspoons of sugar per person daily, whereas the World Health Organization recommends limiting it to 6 teaspoons a day to protect your health.1 For comparison, in the U.S, the No. 1 consumers of sugar worldwide, the average American consumes 31.6 teaspoons of sugar each day. The start of the film details the perils of tooth decay, with children just 4 and 6 years old requiring numerous tooth extractions. Sugar was blamed as the definite culprit, starting from the time the children are infants chewing on sugar-laced teething biscuits into later childhood when sugary juices became the drink of choice. There are more than 50 different names to describe sugar on food labels, which means if you’re trying to remove it from your diet, you’d better become well-versed in the many pseudonyms. Even savory foods like pizza and pasta sauce have added sugars, as do popular condiments like ketchup and salad dressings. Sugary drinks alone can contain 10 or 11 teaspoons of sugar in one can, which puts you well over the recommended limit for the day. While the documentary focuses on Ireland’s sugar habit, it’s one that’s shared through much of the developed world, with devastating repercussions on global health. How Did so Much Sugar Creep Into Our Diets? Ireland was the thinnest country in Europe after World War II, and the increasing weight that occurred during the ‘50s and ‘60s was seen as a good thing. However, average weight caught up with the rest of Europe by the ‘70s and continued rising, such that Ireland is slated to become the fattest country in Europe by 2030. Expanding waistlines are again blamed largely on diet. As occurred in the U.S., food manufacturers and health agencies alike began to vilify fat, removing it from foods starting in the ‘70s. Without fat to make food taste good, food manufacturers turned to other less-healthy additives, namely processed salt and sugar. Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of California in San Francisco (USCF), explained that sugar was added in such a way that it made the food irresistible. If you find it difficult to stop eating sugary foods, or find that the more you eat them, the more you want them, it’s because sugar is addictive. Sugar stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in many important pathways, most notably the mesolimbic pathway.2 The way dopamine affects your brain in this area changes with addiction and spikes your perception of motivation or pleasure. In fact, evidence in humans shows that sugar can induce reward responses and cravings that are comparable to those induced by addictive drugs, which may “explain why many people can have difficultly … [controlling] the consumption of foods high in sugar when continuously exposed to them.”3 Even if You’re Thin and ‘Healthy,’ Sugar Could Be Devastating Your Health Sugar makes you pack on excess pounds and prevents your body from burning body fat. It’s been implicated as a foundational cause of obesity as well, but even if you’re not overweight, it’s very possible that sugar is damaging your health. “Sugar Crash” documents the story of one family, including a couple in their 40s who aren’t overweight but admit to eating sugary treats on a regular basis. They have no outward indications of health problems, but MRI scans revealed they both had fat around their abdominal organs (visceral fat), which is linked to an increased risk of diseases like heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and stroke, along with imbalanced cholesterol. They cut down their sugar intake significantly and were able to reduce their visceral fat and improve their cholesterol, as shown later on in the film. Sugar Crash also features an interview with documentary filmmaker Damon Gameau, from “That Sugar Film,” who conducted an experiment during which he went from eating a low-sugar diet to consuming about 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. What makes the experiment even more surprising is that he got to 40 teaspoons not by feasting on candy and soda but by eating supposedly “healthy” foods like energy drinks, fruit juice, cereal and yogurt. After 12 days of ramping up his sugar intake, Gameau had gained almost 7 pounds, the majority of which went straight to his abdomen. In a month of eating 40 teaspoons of sugar per day, he added 2.75 inches (7 centimeters) to his waistline. Beyond weight gain, Gameau began displaying signs of fatty liver disease within three weeks. "By the end, I'd developed pre-Type 2 diabetes, I had heart disease, I had 11 centimeters of visceral fat. But the big one was, the nonalcoholic fatty liver disease was almost in a full-blown state," said Gameau in a news article highlighting his film.4 What Excess Sugar Does to Your Liver Researchers have known since the 1960s that your body metabolizes different types of carbohydrates, like glucose and fructose, in different ways, causing very different hormonal and physiological responses that absolutely may influence fat accumulation and metabolism.5 Unlike glucose, which can be used by virtually every cell in your body, fructose can only be metabolized by your liver, because your liver is the only organ that has the transporter for it. Since all fructose gets shuttled to your liver, it ends up taxing and damaging your liver in the same way alcohol and other toxins do, particularly if you consume excess amounts of it. In fact, fructose is virtually identical to alcohol with regard to the metabolic havoc it wreaks. According to Lustig, fructose is a "chronic, dose-dependent liver toxin." And just like alcohol, fructose is metabolized directly into fat — not cellular energy, like glucose. His findings were published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, where he explained the three similarities between fructose and its fermentation byproduct, ethanol (alcohol):6 Your liver's metabolism of fructose is similar to alcohol, as they both serve as substrates for converting dietary carbohydrate into fat, which promotes insulin resistance, dyslipidemia (abnormal fat levels in the bloodstream) and fatty liver Fructose undergoes the Maillard reaction with proteins, leading to the formation of superoxide free radicals that can result in liver inflammation similar to acetaldehyde, an intermediary metabolite of ethanol By "stimulating the 'hedonic pathway' of the brain both directly and indirectly," Lustig noted, "fructose creates habituation, and possibly dependence; also paralleling ethanol" “We keep alcohol out of the hands of children, but we don’t think twice about giving them a glass of soda or orange juice,” Lustig says in the film. “Children are getting the diseases of alcohol without alcohol, because sugar is the alcohol of the child.” While childhood obesity is a growing problem, it’s also true that lean children who eat a high-sugar diet may be metabolically unhealthy, even though it’s not obvious from looking at them. On a global scale, massive sugar addiction is responsible for not only obesity and diabetes, but also heart damage and heart failure, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension, stroke and shorter lifespans. Big Sugar Similarities to the Tobacco Industry U.S. Dietary Guidelines only recommend limiting calories from added sugars to no more than 10 percent each day, or 12 teaspoons, for a 2,000-calorie diet. Most Americans eat far more, but why wouldn’t U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which are intended to protect public health, recommend a far lower amount? In fact, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) did recommend that Americans reduce their intake of sugar-sweetened foods and beverages. However, this was followed by a flurry of activity from sugar industry groups who, using tobacco-industry tactics, attempted to sway the dietary debate in their favor. It’s common knowledge that senior leaders in the food industry seek to influence science, politics and public health recommendations in their favor. Several tactics were revealed, according to a Critical Public Health report, including:7 Influence on evidence generation and summation, such as the food industry generating its own evidence by directly commissioning the work and using external organizations to do so Highlighting the limitations of non-industry sponsored research to raise doubts in science Exerting influence over scientific bodies and medical associations by seeking key leadership roles in such organizations and using their positions to direct debate and discussions in their favor Using academic contacts to guide global debate and advocating “broad-based collaboration with government and key opinion leaders, and involvement in nutrition-related government reviews of the evidence base” American taxpayers have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to sugar subsidies,8 which is why the Sugar Policy Modernization Act is seeking to eliminate all direct and indirect subsidies that benefit the production or export of sugar. The bill has yet to be passed, and many members of Congress receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sugar industry, so it’s unknown whether the subsidies, which occur in the form of “loans, price guarantees, import restrictions and government promises to buy surplus product,”9 will ever fully disappear. In the film, it’s even suggested that labeling similar to that required on tobacco products may be necessary to help people understand the health risks of excess sugar. How Can You Reduce Sugar in Your Diet? Cutting back on sugar isn’t as simple as skipping dessert or a morning doughnut, because added sugars are found in virtually every processed food at your grocery store. In addition to ingredients that contain the word “sugar,” such as beet sugar or date sugar, you’ll know a food contains added sugars if you spot any of these on the label:10 Blackstrap molasses Buttered syrup Cane juice crystals Evaporated cane juice Caramel Carob syrup Fruit juice Honey Fruit juice concentrate Brown rice syrup Corn syrup solids Florida crystals Golden syrup Maple syrup Molasses Refiner’s syrup Sorghum syrup Sucanat Treacle Turbinado Barley malt Corn syrup Dextrin Dextrose Diastatic malt Ethyl maltol Glucose Glucose solids Lactose Malt syrup Maltose D-ribose Rice syrup Galactose Maltodextrin Castor The film recommends looking for “reduced sugar” foods, but in reality the best way to avoid sugar is to eat real foods. Following a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet like the one described in "Fat for Fuel" is an excellent guide, which will help you reduce not only your fructose intake but also your net carbs. Sugar is metabolized as a carbohydrate in your body, spiking your blood sugar and insulin levels. Your net carbs are calculated by taking the total grams of carbs and subtracting the total grams of fiber. By keeping your net carbs below 100 grams per day, and for a healthier diet as low as 50 grams per day, you will reduce your cravings for sweets. Eating healthy fats like grass fed butter, avocados and coconut oil, will keep you satisfied to help you avoid the urge to binge on sweets. Fermented foods are another great dietary addition, as the sour taste squelches sugar cravings. For processed foods you do purchase, scour the label for ingredients that represent sugar to evaluate the total amount. Remember that the less sugar you eat, the less you’ll crave. Avoid swapping sugar for artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which are toxic in their own right. On occasion, you can try Stevia, an herbal sweetener I use in my recipes, as a sugar alternative. Finally, if you’re finding it difficult to overcome an emotional addiction to sugar, the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is another great option, which has been shown to significantly reduce food cravings and increased peoples’ ability to show restraint — even after six months.11 If necessary, start slowly by removing some of the biggest high-sugar offenders from your diet then gradually cutting back from there. And remember, the more you cut back on added sugars, the better for your health.

#VitalityPath