#cia genuinely <3

[magnoliamyrrh]

hearing my professor say "sex workers" in class after and while literally and explicitely talking about nonwestern victims of sex trafficking using those terms like. im gonna eat my own tongue. im gonna scream so loudly and so silently it will burst my lungs. im going to become a black hole.

in general i find that term to be so fucking offensive bc it can only maybe apply to a very very small minority of well off economically privileged women who "choose" to do "sex work" (and even many of them talk abt feeling exploited - almost like prostitution is inherently expolitative wow) but. you know sometimes those "sex workers" are the only ones ppl rly picture, they dont picture street prostitution, hitckhiker hookers, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, that the averege age of entering prostitution is 14, drug addiction, pimps, constant violence, etc

but. dear lord help me. in the context of literally taking explicitely about victims of "sex" trafficking in relation to poverty. to still have this postmodern god forsaken fucking nightmare so dug into your hear you say SeX WoRkErs;;; I ;;; I. Honestly im so offended. Its so fucking offensive. Like i almost wanna fucking cry. And she aint even white lmao shes indian like maam as a fellow immigrant please stop parroting the western bullshit i beg you. its so god damn fucking offensive and this bullshit is passed off as progressive and right and parroted by professors and taught as a given and preached and taught uncritically and then parroted by students and then. someone posts it online and some idiot reads it tells it to another idiot who tells it to another idiot. And then this insanity affects the whole westenrn "FeMinIsM" movement. And then, not only do I personally have to deal with a bunch of fucking idiots who have the gull to tell ME how the fuck I cant or can speak and how I should fucking feel when they dont got a single damn clue, BUT ALSO. this sort of cultural fucking idiocracy leads to real life impacts. Ala, western european states legalizing prostitution, thus the horrid rise of sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, child pornography, etc, of mainly balkan, roma, refugee, immigrant, poor, etc etc women. Ala, there was this article written by a Romanian prostitute in spain. She was complaining about how because of this sex work narrative now even more men come to prostitutes bc theyve bought this bullshit narrative of the "happy sex worker" so. now, they have to put all this extra fucking emotional effort into pretending like theyre enjoying what these men are doing to them and like they want it and all this shit. Which, let me tell you, its a whole lot easier to just dissociate when you get used to being regularly raped than it is to have to pretend like you fucking want it and enjoy it too. Something along the lines, these men want your soul not just your body, and this much worse...... And how, because of this, they also have to invest more in makeup and shit to look "well" which fuether just sinks them into the whole cycle which is quite hard to get out of. So. So.

As far as Im concerned. All the god forsaken postmodern nonsense that is propagated in western social sciences academica - has real life fucking effects. It has. The things written, the things discussed, the things professors say. Ive said before, that maybe postmodernism has some academic value (though we didnt need french people to be like, yo dude did you know multiple perspectives on life exist? inssne!). But. It doesnt fucking stay in academica. None of this bullshit stays in academica. And apart from this sort of bullshit not even being "feminism" and being inherently detrimental to the unity needed for social movements, inherently complacent, inherently antirevolutionary, inherently fucking REEKING of western individualism and selfishness up the fucking ass,,,,,,,,,it has real life fucking affects.

Westerners whove never fucking been through any of this shit sit in universities coming up with all these fucking theories but who pays the price. Who pays the god damn fucking price? Who? For their thought experiments? For these societal experiemnts? For these bullshit western ideas of freedom and progress and feminism? We do. My people do. We do. God fucking damn it

#Im gonna eat glass #Im not going to stay in academia but if i was. I think theyd kick me out of the anthropology department #before i got my phd #fuck this shit #Someone needs to fucking do something about it. Someone needs to fucking critique it form the inside #which i can actually say i did lmao because i <3 showed up at office hours <3 and uhh #said my peace. #which im sure she wasnt expecting but. im also genuinely glad she listened. i guess #its a big harder to just cancle someone or tell them to shut up #when they tell you frankly tat they were sex trafficked as a child and come from one of the sex trafficking #capitals of the world #like. <3 sorry lol i have more a right to speak then you! lovely! great! #i didnt direct it at her in particular lmao i went a roundabout way of critiquing what i called privileged western bullshit #but im sure she also got that I was biting back against the sex work thing while speaking abt fucking victims of sex trafficking #AND lmaoo i did go on a very short but well put together quip abt postmodernism being inherently individualistic #and detrimental to movements and literally funded by the CIA in class lmao SOmEONE NEEDS TO SAY SOMETHING #just enough to get people looking and curious and wanting answers and QUESTIONING THIS SHIT #i came back to this country after being back home having none of this shit dkdkd #............. how you can even be from india and admit you've seen the horrors of street prostitution and still propagate the sex work shit #in the same breath is beyond me #it really is #and how you can propagate these western narratives of individualistic ChOiCe #while also teaching abt nonwestern concepts which view equality and freedom in nonindivualistic terms #...... maaam...... how is the cognitive dissonance not hitting #...... this was some weeks ago but like. idk thinking back on it its like #again lmao. its so fucking offensive. its........ how fucking deep do you have to be to explicitely speak about sex trafficking victims #stricke by poverty and call them sex workers #..................... #... #like maam. maybe youve been in this country too long. maybe youve been in westenrn academica too long. its time to wake up a bit

[lucysgraybird]

whoa...part 3 of modern!university!coriolanus x fem!reader, and it's 18+? who is she. anyways part 1 here, part 2 here

warnings: mdni, oral (f&m receiving), p in v (unprotected), blood mentions (minor), religious imagery (minor)

The summer between junior and senior year comes and goes, as does the first semester of your last year in college. It's filled with internships and grad school applications, but you're still going strong with Coriolanus. You get through the most unguarded you've ever seen him – the weeks leading up to the release of LSAT scores. You're actually unaware that it's coming up because he's been so private about the whole process until you get into a screaming match in the Snow apartment with him about something you can't even remember now. When you threaten to leave if he can't be polite, he breaks down crying – something you didn't even know he was capable of. He apologizes and explains himself, and though you suspect his tears aren't genuine, you catch him in a hug and hold him on the couch until he falls asleep. 

A week letter, his score comes in the mail: a perfect 180. The celebration is quiet – just you, his family, and his boss, who Coriolanus is closer with than you knew. He's an interesting man – his name is Strabo Plinth, and you learn that he's the CEO of a company that manufactures weapons for the government. You want to tell your boyfriend that such a job may not play well on his resumé at the polls, if that's where he wants to end up, but it's not your place and you're sure he's thought about that. 

All in all, by the time the spring semester rolls around, your futures are beginning to take shape. You both get into your dream schools, him for law and you for intelligence analysis. When that letter comes in, Coriolanus teases you up and down about being the stereotypical academic recruit into the CIA, but you care more to understand these agencies than work for them. You won't attend school together anymore, but it's not more than an hour by train to visit, and there's been no indication of the end of your relationship nearing. In fact, when your parents come down for parents’ weekend, Coriolanus spends about forty minutes talking to your father away from you and your mother, and when they rejoin the group, your father claps you on the shoulder and tells you that you found a good man.

There's a brief, blissful period at the end of the year before graduation when everything's been turned in and you can just enjoy the sunshine and new warmth. One of these days finds you and Coriolanus lounging on the quad on a blanket. Your head is in his lap as he plays with your hair, working his fingers through the small tangles that the early May breeze has created. It is quiet, and you are bored.

“Oh, Coriolanus,” you say, opening your eyes to lock on his. The midday light turns them almost white, like his eponymous snow. It takes a lot of willpower not to pull a face. 

“Yes, darling?” A nickname he's picked up in the last month or so. It made you laugh in shock the first time he said it, but now it feels lush. 

“I got an email from the dean the other day. I made valedictorian,” you say with a toothy, cruel grin.

You're hoping for a reaction, maybe a flash of anger. It dances across his features for the barest fraction of a second, enough to work a little adrenaline through your body, and then you get a neat smile and a cock of his head.

“Congratulations.”

“You're not mad?”

“Why would I be? You've worked hard, you deserve it. I'm not going to get upset over a silly title.”

You sit up and turn to stare at him. “What do you mean, silly?”

Coriolanus rolls his eyes. “Don’t be like that. I mean that I decided it wasn’t important to me anymore, now that I’ve gotten into law school. I thought you had gotten over it too, but since it’s important, congratulations.”

He’s deflecting, obviously, and you tell him as much. 

The corners of his mouth quirk up and he shrugs. “Okay.”

“No, you are! What, did you get salutatorian? Since when are you fine with second place?”

“Since first place wouldn’t have gotten me anything, darling. You’re ruining this for yourself, okay? I’m glad you got what you wanted.”

You’re left with nothing to say, searching his face for any mark of that brief rage from earlier before flumping back into his lap. He laughs. 

“I’m sorry, baby. You don’t need to pout. I would’ve said something else if I had known it was going to upset you like this.”

“I’m not upset.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’m not,” you say, giving him a gracious smile, having found a new mate-in-one. “Whether or not you wanted the title anymore, we’ll always know who’s smarter.” 

Your face says teasing – your tone has teeth. Coriolanus’ eyes narrow. 

“That’s not what this means.”

“It’s what it means to me. And you clearly don’t care about that, so it should be no problem if that’s how I’m taking it.”

And ooh, you know it’s petty. You know this is possibly the most childish conversation you’ve had with anyone in years. But he doesn’t reply, opting instead to settle back on his hands and stare across the quad. There’s a mean tension in the air now, blooming hot, fizzy pride in your sternum. It’s nearly suffocating, but you breathe through it until it’s just another triumph. 

Graduation goes as smoothly as anything run by the school can – which is to say, too long and a bureaucratic clusterfuck – but you give your speech and get your diploma and take about forty pictures of Coriolanus onstage, and it feels like the perfect punctuation on this chapter of your life. After seemingly endless festivities and photoshoots with various family members, you’re dropped back at your apartment. There is no work to be done, for once: nothing to write or study, and your lease doesn’t end for another month, so nothing to pack. For the first time in your memory, you are truly idle, and you’re learning that it is not a feeling you enjoy. You pick up your phone and call your boyfriend.

“Hi, darling,” he says when he picks up. His voice is brighter than usual, a sure sign that he’s been drinking. “Did you get home okay?”

“Mhm. Did you?”

“Just laying in bed now.”

“Oh.” You try to keep yourself from sounding too disappointed, but from the huff of laughter on the other end of the call, you know he’s picked up on it. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to come over, but if you’re in bed, then nevermind.”

“Come over, like–”

“If you want.” You have yet to go this far with him, but tonight seems like as good a night as any. 

“Um, okay. Yeah, I’ll be right over.” 

The line goes dead, and you have to laugh. For all his airs and poise, he is still just a man. 

The benefit of today being important is that you’re already pretty done-up: your makeup is still perfect, though your lipstick gets a reapplication, your hair looks good, and you have matching, nicer undergarments on. Honestly, you’re not really sure what you’re supposed to do for this, not with him, and the confidence you had calling Coriolanus is fading fast. 

Unfortunately, it’s too late to be having those thoughts, because within twenty minutes, he’s knocking on your door. You let him in. He's still in his button-down, tie, and slacks from graduation, though he's shed his suit jacket. He leans down to catch you in a quick kiss. You wrap a hand around the Windsor knot in his tie, though whether it's to steady yourself or pull him closer is a mystery even to you. Not like it makes a difference; it elicits an electric, low groan from him anyways, his mouth opening over yours and deepening the kiss. He tastes like champagne, sweet and shimmery and young. It is a contrast to the way he grabs your waist with a heavy hand and presses his tongue in to fight yours, which feels like whiskey; all heady, stinging heat. You have not had anything to drink: you are starting to wish you had. 

When he pulls away to catch his breath, his lips are swollen and slick and stained with your blood-red lipstick and finally, finally, something alights in your chest and in your stomach and even lower, a ball of fire sitting in the cradle of your pelvis. You release his tie and drag a manicured thumbnail under the line of his bottom lip, smudging away the rouge you left there.

“Pretty,” you murmur, though you're not sure where that comes from. He is pretty, though, especially like this; undone and imperfect and desperate (you can tell as much by the way he's pressing into your hip), all for you. 

A growl releases from Coriolanus' throat and his hand goes to the belt of your dress, deftly undoing the buckle. He is desperate, but desperate for you to know that you haven't made him weak. You can only have from him what he is willing to give, he will take from you anything he wants. Or, at least, that's how he thinks as he starts dragging the zipper of your dress down, crowding you against your apartment wall.

“I have a bed, Coriolanus,” you protest weakly, the complaint dying on your lips as his latch onto your pulse point. He scrapes his teeth over the tendon in your neck, and you recall how he smiled at you when you were first dating, like he wanted to eat you. You realize he could now, if he tried, open his maw wide and sink sharp canines into the side of your throat, pierce the carotid artery and stain perfect teeth red with blood. Tipping your head back against the wall, you shiver and give him better access.

“Let’s go, then,” he murmurs, not stopping his ministrations on your collarbone, where he's working a bruise into the hollow between your clavicle and the muscle of your shoulder.

You shove his head back gently and lead him to your room, which is tidy save for your desk, which is still scattered with papers from exams. Coriolanus doesn't seem to care, just crowding you back towards your hospital-cornered bed. Once you're down, he's crawling over you and returning to suck marks down your shoulders and chest as he tugs your dress off your body. When he gets to your bra (a small, silk thing, meant to lay smooth under the dress you wore today), he just stares for a moment, tracing a finger over the fine fabric. Just as you're about to tell him to do something, Jesus Christ, he latches his lips over your nipple and mouths at it through the cloth, sending sparks down your spine and a wavering moan up your esophagus. When he switches to the other side, the wet patch is exposed to the air and the sudden chill is almost more electric than the warmth of his tongue. You wonder if he could push you over the edge with just this; it certainly feels like he could. Then he shoves a hand under your back to release the clasp and tear your bra off, and the two seconds his mouth is off your skin gives just enough reprieve that when he returns and bites down, the rush of pleasure drops straight to your core with an ache that has your hips canting up. This inspires a breathy, warm chuckle from Coriolanus.

“Impatient,” he teases. 

You swallow hard. “It's not my fault you're…”

“Good at this?” He says, dipping his hand between your legs and dancing his fingers over the gusset of your panties, eliciting a whimper and an honest nod from you. 

“You don't know the half of it, darling,” and he hooks his arms under your knees to drag your hips forward until they're nearly off the bed. He's knelt between your legs like he's taking the Eucharist, ready to devour the blood and body of all that is holy. You watch his blonde head through fluttering lashes as he licks a line up the inside of your thigh before biting down right where it meets your hip. He breaks the skin, soothes the little wound with his tongue as he works your underwear down your legs. The way he stares at you – all of you – while he's still fully clothed, no mark of the past half-hour except his loosened tie and lipstick-marked mouth, makes you squirm. He braces your hips down with a strong forearm and looks up at you with a hunger in his icy eyes that is yet unfamiliar to you.

“Pretty,” he whispers like the beginning of a prayer, echoing your earlier utterance, and collects your wetness on his index finger as he runs it through your folds. 

The foreign feeling makes you whine. Coriolanus’ tongue flicks out over his lips like a snake before he dives into your cunt like a man starved. When your hand shoots down and grabs his hair, the groan that he lets out against you has you jerking like you've been electrocuted. He only grabs the fat of your hips harder, the pads of his fingers pressing in so hard that you're sure you'll have little dotted bruises there in the morning. It's almost embarrassing how quickly he works you to orgasm, your body trembling and your breath stilted as you teeter on that peak. His eyes flash and one hand releases you. Before you can ask what he's doing, he plunges two fingers into you and curls them up right as he sucks your clit hard, and that pain-pleasure of the sudden intrusion combined with his mouth has white-hot flames engulfing your body as stars explode in your vision and your legs very nearly go numb. His tongue and fingers don't stop until you're coming down and pleading with him in a broken voice, an orison to the congregant turned deity drunk on newfound power. He acquiesces, though, crawling up your body to kiss you and lick the taste of your pleasure into your mouth. Underneath it, there's the bitter, sanguine taste from his bite to your thigh, a reminder of the vulnerability necessary for that blessing. 

Legs still shaking, head still a little fuzzy, you use his determination to kiss you breathless to flip the narrative so you're straddling his hips, his growing need heavy and hard against you through the fabric of his dress pants. One eyebrow twitches up as he grins, though it wavers when you shift on him. 

“My turn?” He asks as he smooths his hands down your thighs, and you know he can feel the way your muscles twitch and jump under your skin.

“Your turn,” you reply, and shift so you can undo his belt. 

The metal of the buckle is cold in your hands, your skin still feeling a little like it's been set aflame, but you get it off and shove your hand into his boxers, unceremoniously pulling out his cock. He lets out a choked groan at the speed, and you think his eyes roll back in his head when you slide down his body. You allow yourself a moment of hesitation, having never done this before (or even really thought about it) before taking the head in your mouth and swirling your tongue around it. The moan he lets out is primal, raw, and you are determined to get another from him as you hollow your cheeks and sink down further, minding your teeth enough to let them just graze the shaft. He shudders and jerks upward, hitting the back of your throat, and though it makes you gag, there's a certain pride in knowing you're breaking his composure, so you hold him there for a moment until he whimpers and slides a hand into your hair and you know you've taken the power back that he stole from you a moment ago. You swallow around him there before slowly moving back up, flattening your tongue against the underside before licking over his slit and sinking back down as far as you can bear, and his voice cracks around a moan as he cums down your throat. 

When you pull off him and swallow, he has an arm thrown over his eyes as he catches his breath.

“Where did you learn to do that?” He asks. His hair is tousled, sweaty strands stuck to his forehead and you grin, toothy and mean.

“Beginner’s luck,” you say as you take his softening dick in hand and watch how quickly he sits up.

“What are you-” he starts, but cuts himself off with a whine as you slide your hand up and down a couple times, trying to work him back up. “Stop, stop, that-”

Another moan, and you watch, pleased, as he starts to harden again in your grip. To be honest, you don't know where you're going with this, or what you expected to happen, you just wanted to see what other reactions you could get from him, how far you could take your regained power. 

As it stands, not very far, because he's hissing as you slide your thumb over the tip and flipping you over again so his elbows are braced next to your head.

“You're on the pill, right?” He reaches down between you to swipe his fingers over your clit.

You nod and buck your hips up into his hand, and with a breathy chuckle, he takes himself in hand and starts to guide himself into your entrance. There's a slight sting - he's bigger than anyone you've ever been with before - but he takes it slow, an uncharacteristic tenderness.

That is, until he's buried to the hilt and staring down at you, then snapping his hips in a way that should hurt but doesn't. It feels full and close and warm, his skin sliding against yours, sweat and other fluids mingling. You sneak a hand down to your clit and rub quick and hard, the way you do when you're alone at night and just need to get off and go to sleep. You're determined to reach your release before he does and you succeed, catching him in a kiss just as you cum, muffling your moans against his lips. The way your walls clench around him has him going rigid and giving you the most raw, tearing groan as he spills deep inside you, clearly not having expected to get there as quickly as you forced him to. He doesn't pull out immediately, opting instead to kiss you again, and you're not sure where you end and he begins, every bit of you mixed, in some way, with every bit of him. You stroke over the tense muscles in the back of his neck and he lets out a shaky breath onto your skin. Somehow, you know you've won this round, taken a weakness from him that he never meant to show you. When he rolls off you and tugs you into his side, you close your eyes, sleepy and sated in more ways than one.

#this...this was fun #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow imagine #coriolanus snow fanfiction #coriolanus smut #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus snow #coriolanus x you #coriolanus fanfiction #coriolanus snow smut #coriolanus snow x you #coryo #coryo x reader #coryo snow #tom blyth fanfiction #tom blyth #tom blyth x reader

[youremyheaven]

Mrigashira: The Truth Is Subjective?

This is part 3 of my Mrigashira trilogy (here's part 1 & part 2)

I had previously explored the Mrigashira tendency to speak the truth and often be considered crazy for it. I thought I'd expand on this nature for this post as well.

Being truthful can mean many different things. The truth is also context-bound and what one exposes can differ based on the circumstances.

Dalai Lama- Mrigashira Mercury conjunct Rising

He has been at the forefront of the Tibetan independence movement, He has spoken up about nonviolence and his work includes a focus on the environment, economics, women's rights, non-violence, inter-faith dialogue, physics, astronomy, Buddhism and science, cognitive neuroscience, reproductive health and sexuality. He's literally one of the most admired people in the world and is considered a Bodhisattva. Being truthful or bringing attention to the truth is a big part of his life. This is not to say he isnt shady tho

He is also a very complicated figure. He used to get a personal income of over $1 million every year from the CIA for about 2 decades between 1959 and 1974?? He inappropriately touched Lady Gaga when they were on stage together, there is also a video of him asking a young boy to "suck his tongue" 🤮🤢

sometimes the truth isn't really the truth. whatever you believe to be true is what is true to you even if it does not have any basis in reality. one terrifying example of that is the Aum Shinrikyo cult leader Shoko Ashara

Shoko Asahara- Mrigashira Moon

He was the leader of the infamous cult Aum Shinrikyo, that carried out the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack and several other attacks. Asahara declared himself as God and led his followers into believing that the end of the world was coming. Its a bizarre mix of new age conspiracy theories, religious syncretism, enlightenment, doomsday mentality and pure sadism.

He and several other leaders of the cult were executed in 2018 after more than 2 decades in prison.

It goes to show how "truth" is very subjective. Shoko was a megalomaniac who was fcked in the head, yet he managed to convince manyyy people of his teachings and even got them to do whatever he wanted them to do??

Donald Trump, Mrigashira Sun conjunct Rahu, popularised the term "fake news". it is so interesting to me that a man generally known as a liar will have Mrigashira of all naks and esp have it conjunct Rahu, the planet of illusion. Astrology is funny like that sometimes. He was very forceful in spreading his truth, even though that truth was bigoted, racist, classist and misogynistic. And in one way, he helped expose people who supported him bc what is worse than being known as a Trump supporter? That is enough to gauge someone's character and nature.

Idi Amin- Mrigashira Moon

mrig nakshatra is actually present in the luminaries of many dictators/fascists/terrible leaders. Idi did not really have any specific ideology, he was a brutal narcissist who got a kick out of murdering people even at the expense of his nation's well being.

Ryuho Okawa- Mrigashira Moon & Venus

He was the leader of a cult called Happy Science and declared himself to be God. one thing that stands out to me with mrig natives is how since Mrigashira nak represents the fall from heaven, i.e, the beginning of life on earth in some ways, its natives tend to be obsessed with truth telling, I had explored more positive manifestations of this in part 1 but this tendency can be manifest in very bad ways as we see from these examples as "truth" is very subjective. Okawa was telling his truth bc he genuinely believed he was God but does that make it right?

Jennifer Lawrence, Mrigashira Moon

JLaw has always struck me honest, maybe a little too honest but that's what made her so likable initially and unlikable later on. I had mentioned this in part 1 as well about how the presence of a Mrig native often triggers other people or makes them feel threatened. part of it is the fact that Mrig has serpent yoni and subconsciously we sense the energy of other people's yoni animals and react a certain way in their presence. people with predator yoni animals strike us as intimidating. most people hate snakes and will probably kill them if they see them bc it could be dangerous and this is honestly how society reacts to a lot of serpent yoni women. So many sex symbols have serpent yoni in their big 3 (Pamela Anderson, Marilyn Monroe, Angelina Jolie, Brooke Shields etc) society seems enchanted by them but is also quick to tear them apart. people feel deeply uncomfortable with these natives is what I have noticed. JLaw's reputation suffered after she had been exposed as a try hard "cool girl". but tbh, there are celebs out there who are far more annoying and done far worse things, how come JLaw's hated for being the "cool girl"?? part of it could be that we all see our collective shadow in her, the hot sexy talented woman who seems to be a messy clumsy loser and is also "one of the boys". JLaw grew up on a farm with 2 brothers, its only natural that her personality is a little brutish and unladylike, it gets old really quick bc it seemed gimmicky but it is interesting to me how someone can be ripped apart for something so small??

Sandra Bullock, Mrigashira Stellium

Sandra plays these unladylike but blunt and honest characters a lot (While You Were Sleeping, Two Weeks Notice, Miss Congeniality movies etc)

Sonam Kapoor- Mrigashira stellium (sun mercury & mars)

Sonam is known in the Indian media for saying whatever comes to her mouth lol, that means she makes a lot of dumb comments (she once said her being a nepo baby was the result of good karma from past lives lol and that people think you're a good actor if youre not good looking which is basically implying that she isnt considered a good actor bc she's too good looking lmfao) but she does have moments of radical no bullshit honesty, like the time she wrote an essay talking about body image

Monica from Friends always called out everyone's bullshit. She was played by Courteney Cox who is Mrigashira Sun

Leah Remini Mrigashira Sun

she exposed the dark secrets of Scientology through her memoir and docu series. this is another form of Mrigashira truth telling. exposing the darkness, evil and injustice in this world.

North West, Mrigashira Stellium (Sun & Rising)

North exposing her family is a bit of a running joke, she revealed she has dyslexia on IG live which pissed Kim off and in general she's known for her bluntness and calling out her mom esp. Kim even said that North is her "lesson" and that North "intimidates her" and how North is Kanye's twin (Kanye is also Mrigashira Sun)

Tupac Mrigashira Sun

honestly watch any interview and you can see how honest and sincere Tupac was (sidenote: isnt he sooo handsome??<33). i cant pinpoint to specific moments but Tupac was so young and sooo beyond mature?? idk if anybody in their early 20s has this kind of articulation anymore.

Paula Abdul- Mrigashira Sun

this is a bit of a strange case. Paula claims to have been in a plane crash in 1992 which left her with a spinal cord injury and forced her to take about 10 years off before she restarted her career as a judge on American Idol. she has talked about this many many times in the last 2 decades. except of course that there is zero evidence of this plane crash. obviously, she could just be lying but why lie about something that could so easily be proven? i think sometimes Mrig natives have a tendency to delusionally believe what they say. i have no doubt that Paula is convinced that she was in a plane crash and that it ruined her music career but its not objectively true.

Donald Trump & even Kanye West (both Mrig Sun) are other examples of celebrities who talk about wildly stranger things that they believe to be true.

Ewan McGregor- Mrigashira moon

In the movie The Island, Ewan's character discovers that everything about his existence is a lie and that he and the other inhabitants are human clones.

I feel like this trope of realizing lies and "waking up" is tied to Mrigashira's nature.

in the movie Passengers, this happens in reverse, JLaw wakes up and then learns the truth

The Truman Show, starring Mrigashira Moon, Jim Carrey is another example of a Mrig native realising everything is a lie.

i think its a common and unfortunate pattern in the lives of many Mrig natives to suffer abuse and I feel like the reason many of them do is because they falsely believe the lies they are being fed is true :(( it takes them time to "wake up" to the truth (ex: Mrig Sun Brooke Shields who always defended her abusive mom who made her pose nude for playboy when she was a kid??? among other things, its only recently that she has started to admit that those things werent okay)

thats it for this post!!

#vedic astro notes #sidereal astrology #astrology observations #astrology notes #nakshatras #vedic astrology #astro observations #astro notes #astrology #astroblr #mrigashira #mars

[ggukkiedae]

pairing: prince!chenle x pirate!reader

warning/s: sword fighting, jumping off of high places

wc: 757

notes from cia: remember when i said i’d start writing idol x reader stuff? here’s the first one! bc we have a lack of chenle fics on this app 🤧

“Eyes up, Your Highness. Your opponent’s eyes can tell you their next move.”

The sound of metal sliding against metal filled the room as you two sparred, one calculating and one determined. Swords met high in front of your faces before you twisted your blades, bringing his down with yours. A harsh yet sudden burst of pressure was all you needed to push onto his blade for him to stagger backwards.

His back hit the wall, and you maintained your distance while waiting for him to gather his bearings. He looked up at you with a smirk before correcting his posture and crouching in preparation to lunge. “Nearly got me there, Princess.”

With all the speed he could muster, he rushed forward and held his sword up, aiming to lay it against your neck, but you caught the blade with yours, parrying it out of his hands and onto the floor alongside your own. The sound of swords clattering echoed as something else sharp was placed against his jugular, your faces inches apart.

“Correction,” you smiled innocently, a tilt to your head, “I did get you. And I’m not actually a princess. Unlike you, Your Royal Highness Prince Chenle, second-in-line to the throne.”

“And yet the Seven Seas continue to address you as such,” he smiled at you, more genuinely this time. “I yield for this round. Tea?”

“You royals are the strangest of creatures,” you took a step back with a laugh, bending down to pick up your swords after sheathing your dagger back in its hidden holster. You turned around, handing his rapier back to him and accepting the tea he presented you with.

He raised his eyebrows at you. “How so?”

“You pride yourselves in the art of fencing, but a real blade in your hands and you barely come to any use.”

“I would take offence, My Lady,” he pulled a seat out for you, “but I have seen you in battle. Yet, the style you use in a match against me is different. Why is that?”

You took the seat. “Because you and I aren’t on opposing sides. And I hope we never meet the day you turn to my ways.”

He nodded at her. “When do you set sail again?”

“3 days off,” your body slumped forward in exhaustion, remembering the mission assigned to your ship. “My father wants to make sure the fleet arrives well-received. Promadere is probably the only trading capital where pirates can roam freely, and apparently I am the best choice to maintain that status.”

“Daughter of the King of the Seven Seas, feared by many and respected by all,” the full title rolled off of Chenle’s tongue.

“Feared by your father and all kings,” you added on with a snort, “Despite the fact that he isn’t actual royalty and that my father complains at the sight of herbs near his food and enjoys collecting miniature animal figurines.”

“Yes, it’s a shame they don’t see his soft side that his daughter brings out.”

“I presume you find yourself funny, Your Highness,” you raised an eyebrow.

He raised his cup to you in a false cheers motion. “Only the best quality humour to come out of a royal's mouth, My Lady. Staying for the night?”

“I’m afraid I cannot stay,” you smiled sadly and stood up, walking to his window. “While I do enjoy seeing your eyes light up hearing my awesome adventures, you have your mundane princely duties to return to, and I have a crew to prepare.”

He followed you to the window, watching as you stood on the sill. “You’ll return before you set sail, yes?”

“Relax, you’ll be eating my blade once again tomorrow evening. With that, I bid you adieu.”

You saluted him and let yourself fall backwards. He rolled his eyes, but looked over the edge to ease his worried heart more than anything. He watched as you gracefully fell into a dive and safely landed in the water, a feat that would injure tremendously anyone else who tried the same. Flashes of your white blouse caught his eye as you fixed the circlet around your head and swam to your boat. You looked up, giving him one last wave before beginning to row away.

Chenle waved back and watched as you sailed back into the distant fog towards the cove that even he had no idea the location of. Where the ship you captained waited for you. He sighed.

One day, he’d get out of his duties and sail away with you. His older brother would be king anyway.

© ggukkiedae

#chenle x reader #chenle #zhong chenle #nct dream #nct dream x reader #nct

[bokettochild]

what are your favourite headcanons for all the boys? (also hi mama lava we havent spoken in a while oopsie hah,,hope ur doing well <3)

I'm doing quite well, m'dear! Mnetally at least LOL

The body hates fall and the changes in the air, but the rain makes me happy and the leaves are going CRONCH so I can still smile! Also, it is now cider and cocoa wheather! (I really need to finish that darn Ravio scarf now LOL)

Okay! Headcannons!

Time: He has no clue what's happening ever. Time is hard for me to relate to or even work with, so I don't tend to mess around as much with headcannons for him, but I love the idea that he is masquerading as an adult all the time and genuinely is confused by almost everything. As someone who was left in charge of see stinkers with no clue on how to handle them, it makes him relatable and easier to write that way :)

Warriors: His dark form is a dragon. Even prior to TotK I liked the idea that certain people could/would become dragons, and considering there are some who ship him and his Zelda and they come before Flora, that would mean it runs in the family LOL. It also really suits him for REASONS and I like playing with it

Sky: His eyes flash silver when he's angry, and lightning will crash even on a sunny day when you piss him off. He killed a god, let this man be an unhinged BAMF eldrich hero!

Hyrule: Navi is his mother. I like the idea of him growing up hearing stories of the Hero of Time. i like the idea of him setting out on his adventure not just because Impa asked him too, but because that pig sounds a lot like the sucker who killed his big brother and their family doesn't go down unavenged! He totally had a few words for Ganon in that last fight, and even if it was the last thing the king of evil thought, he knew he was killed on behalf of a hero, not just by one.

Twilight: He's a white girl. It's really a personal gag for me, but he likes horses and stupid romance stories and ridiculously sweet drinks and he can't hold his whiskey for the life of him. Okay, like, he can, but why would he drink whiskey when he can have something strawberry flavoured? He just... he's a big rancher and scary wolf, but he will willingly wear pink and be a barbie is what I'm saying. And yes he'd enjoy it! (although he'd prefer pants please, he's still a man Barbie, okay? Not a Ken, a man Barbie)

(I have others for Twi, but this one makes me happy to ridiculous levels and gives the seratonin <3)

Wind: He's Warriors' grandfather. I know it;s less about him and more about Warriors, but the idea of him shaping and guiding the next hero, preserving that hero's childhood and protecting it as long as he can, makes me happy. there were totally calls to adventure long before Cia, but Wind said "heck no, he's underage, ain't happening" and either stopped that shit or dealt with it himself. He made sure to teach Warriors everything he wishes he'd known, or heard the others say they wished they'd known when starting: starting a fire, wayfaring, tracking, hunting, fishing, map making, how to make gear and supplies last, where to find valuable things, all that sort of stuff. he didn't know what sort of trouble the hero after him would face, so he made sure to provide help and leave supplies in every way he could think of (some of which, incidentally, lasted all the way to wild's time to help him).

Wild: He's Other. He's not quite right and he's more than just slightly screwed up, but not in the pretty, Fae like way it's often pictured. Wild is Other like a twisted and mangled tree that scrapes across your window in the night, keeping you awake but keeping the monsters cowering under your bed in fear. He's other like a too wide smile, like a sigh of relief when he feels Death's touch lingering on Legend. He's Not Quite Right in a way you have to know him to see, but you can't ever stop seeing after. (It's okay. Flora is too and she feels safer being with someone who's the same)

Legend: Personal hc I never get to share! Legend is the personification of Balance! He straddles light and dark both as a rabbit and in his fifth adventure. He's kind of died twice (OoS manga & a personal theory about Koholint) yet he's still alive. He kills in order to preserve life and lives in order to kill that which threatens it. He represents the balance in Hyrule and preserves it, hence why he tends to fill any needed role (watching the backs of the heroes throughout LU, taking the lead in Sunset, acting as a middleground/middle sibling in Sunrise) in order to prevent things tipping out of balance. legend is the middle ground between extremes, and a walking contradiction.

Four: I will do the colours as well, but I adore them being remembered, even though Four thinks he won't be. he comments in the comic that he's glad to at least have done well enough that no one needs to worry about his enemies, hence why they don't talk about him anymore, but I like the idea that Malon taught Time to read by reading him parts or stories about Four, but he got to impatient to wait to find out the ending, so he forced himself to figure it out as fast as possible to get there even if she wans't there to tell him. I like Legend hearing stories of him and growing up admiring him, of spending his first few adventures trying to be like him because that's what heroes who win are like. I love Four being remembered and adored. He deserves it! (And if he maybe got sealed away long enough to come back and meet some future heroes, well, I love that too!)

Red: Is actually the most dangerous of the colours when he's mad. He will wreck your shit, he will burn you alive. Do not try him.

Blue: He's fond of patterns and artwork, and knitting helps keep him calm. He's the crafter of the colors, and the only one if you disregard smithing. Also, he's the mom friend.

Green: He likes drawing. I don't know why, he just does. Also, outdoorsy boy. He hates shoes, hates floors, and will sit in the grass drawing trees and chatting with minish for hours if nothing stops him.

Vio: Loves cats. Despite Four as a whole having a fear of cats, and the other colors also sharing that fear, Vio's sense of self preservation sort of flew out the window with the trust the others had in him when he joined Shadow. Vio can look at any animal that should reasonably be able to kill them and actually will try and determine if he can just... touch it. he doesn't want to even be friends, he just wants to see if, since a dragon will let him, will this giant wildcat also? He adores Wolfie more than even Red. The others think there is something wrong with him that he likes terrifying creatures so much.

#asks and answers #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu legend #lu warriors #lu twilight #lu wild #lu four #lu time #lu sky #lu hyrule #lu wind

[8-rae-rae-8]

CUDDLES 141 ANON AGAIN,,,,, TYSM ILY I AM NOMMING YOU (/pos)

May I request a little,,, sleepy puppy Alex and cg Farah? Or itty sad Farah and cg Alex? 💖🙏🙏💖💖

IM DONE ANON

it takes 1.2K words for the sleepiness though i will be honest

BUT ITS VERY SWEET

you get pup alex :3

2.6k words

For the longest time, it was voluntary. Regressing was something Alex planned. Though, as he grew steadily more comfortable around Farah and her soldiers, some things began to itch at that side of his head. The whistles of affirmatives and readies had Alex constantly turning his head like a dog searching for his owner. 

Part of him wanted to be scared of how easily that reaction came to him, but he just couldn’t be scared. He was surrounded by people that now thought of him as a brother. Someone to lean on, and Alex could lean back on them for support as well. He was lucky enough not to feel the edging dread over any kind of situation like this.

In field training, a weapon in hand, he could keep his focus. Even with the whistles that unknowingly urged him deeper and deeper into his headspace. It taunted him, pulling at his chest. From where he laid, it all felt too big, especially the weapon in his hand. Alex was meant to be training on the rifle, it wasn’t his strong suit. Tech was what he knew.

His eyes wandered. A dangerous decision that he hadn’t given any thought. Directly to his side, Farah was there. Stood as if she was protecting him, even if they weren’t truly fighting against anything at the time. It settled his head just enough to allow himself to lower the rifle. 

“Farah.” Alex’s voice came out slightly strained, his eyes finding something else to focus on. He still held the idea that he didn’t have the ability to pause training for a brief second. His time in the military and the CIA had him trained like that. With Farah’s army, the commander always at least listened if someone genuinely needed to stop. The field wasn’t like that, they all knew. It was already engrained in the large majority of them since childhood. Which is why Farah would pause for them. They all deserved someone to help. 

They all leaned on each other for support. Their work almost flawless, much more smoothe than most ops Alex had been apart of. Farah’s people actually listened, unlike the unruly military men Alex served next to.

“Alex.” Farah responded, her eyebrows knitted as she followed Alex’s gaze. Nothing got past her. And especially not with Alex. The man wasn’t the best at hiding things like this. He would stop focusing completely, get quieter, and look so very pleased when someone told him he did a good job. Just like a dog with a wagging tail.

“Help?” One word sentences also seemed common the more ‘off’ he felt. That fuzziness in his head, calming but bothersome at times. Alex blinked up at Farah, letting his weapon rest on the ground as he extended a gloved hand for assistance getting up.

Their hands connected as Farah pulled him up with relative ease. Alex stumbled as he made it to his feet. Part of standing upright just felt wrong at the time, then again, it would be odd if he didn’t.

“You need a break.” Farah said, not giving Alex much of a choice in the matter. It sounded more like an order than a request.

Who was Alex to say no? He needed the command as much as he wanted it. It seemed Farah recognized this as well. The orders to give Alex just an ounce of much needed guidance and support. When he slipped around her, an arm was around him in a second. Keeping him afloat when he just needed to let go. 

She knew. After all she’d seen, she knew many ways other would cope. None she’d ever judge. 

Their training nest was packed up in just a minute or so. But Alex had his eyes on a small, deflated basket ball in a bush of thorns just a twenty feet away. A toy he desperately wanted to play with if it wasn’t filled with holes from the thorns.

A whistle got his attention. Everything was bundled in Farah’s arms. It didn’t cross his mind that he was probably expected to help. Instead, his head tiled just a tad. A pup in search of direction. Orders.

“Come, Alex.” Farah called, signaling with her head where they were going to go. Just next to their training post, a nice place to take a breather. They didn’t have a lot of places that weren’t ruins at the training ground, but there were some places that were mended just enough to take a break in. 

There wasn’t much of a reply, Alex simply nodded and followed Farah’s lead. The steps were a bit faster than her normal pace, but Alex easily kept up. Even a little smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

The inside was now clearly a small home, fixed up with boards. It was much cooler inside than in the blistering heat. Alex thought american summers were bad, but it wasn’t as bad as Urzikstan, he noted. A red patched couch was along the back wall, even fit with two pillows. Matted carpets were covering the dusty ground, no doubt from the previous owners. 

As Alex wandered the small place, Farah found a place to set their items. A desk to the left corner of the room. She neatly laid their items out, before her attention was turned back to Alex. Who was trying to tug off his gear in the incorrect order. 

Farah gave a small tsk at that, as if it would help Alex.

“Alex. Alex.” She repeated to him, her hands reaching up to loosen the straps on the bag he wore. Being fully geared up for training was something that kept him grounded, all the weight on his back from his bag, then the pressure on his chest from the plated vest. But sometimes Alex just couldn’t get it off when he felt this way.

It frustrated him, but then Farah was right there. Guiding him along as she helped undo his bag from his gear. A small whimper fell from his lips, unable to control it like he wanted. He was comfortable with Farah. He could lean on her when he needed to. 

“That’s it, Alex.” Alex heard her say, the same as many times before but with a softer tinge to it. The tension eased from him as each piece of gear was removed and put with the rest of the stuff they’d used for training.

“What do you need?” She patiently asked. 

Alex’s gaze dropped to the dusty ground. It felt too far even though his feet were firmly planted on the ground. He responded with a very small grumble.

He just needed someone to tell him what to do.

“Go sit, okay?” Farah told him gently. 

The seating options weren’t the best, and somehow Alex picked a worse spot. The floor just in front of the couch. He was lucky there was a rug there. His head tilted back against the couch.

A wave of sleepiness hit him like a brick. It suddenly felt too hard to even pick his head up. Too sleepy, and without Farah next to him. Alex latched onto her more than anyone else. Sure, he felt safe with others, but not in the same way. He could unwind, and sleep around her.

A small whine escaped him as his eyes scanned the room for her. So close, but too far for his liking.

“Tired, Alex?” Farah asked, her head turned in his direction. So much for a small break with training. Alex was far too tired to do more.

With a huff, Alex nodded. Steps drew closer, then there was warmth right next to him. The couch creaked under Farah, but she sunk into the cushions regardless. His head immediately pressed against Farah’s leg, sort of using her as a head rest.

Her hand brushed through Alex’s sweaty hair. Combing through it, any knots being gently tugged out. There were no complaints, even if it hurt just a bit. He softly breathed out as the heat began to fade off him. The dim room keeping a slight chill to the air.

“You did good today.” Farah sweetly told him, head tilted down to watch the way Alex nuzzled into the side of her leg. The training grounds weren’t the best place to rest, especially not with the others that needed to train. Alex just looked so tired. Too sleepy. 

Alex acknowledged her words with a content rumble, deep in his chest. One of his arms wrapped around the back of her leg, holding gently. So so sleepy, yet his eyes just would not close for more than a second or two.

“Alex, do we need to go home?” A little worry slipped into her tone. 

The downtime sleepiness usually hit Alex after any kind of work. For him to be regressing as well was new, at least for Farah to deal with. A sleepy pup could get to be a handful.

Alex was proving that.

Instead of simply agreeing because he knew he needed it, he whined in protest because he didn’t want to get up. Sleepy blue eyes met Farah’s, hardly even able to keep them open.

“Tired pups need a bed to rest in, not the floor.” Farah spoke firmly, trying not to give Alex much of an out as she moved the leg he was leaned on.

When Alex dared to give a growl, he was immediately hoisted up off the floor. His arm not tight enough to actually hold to her leg. And far too caught off guard to realize he was being picked up until it was too late. He was quickly reminded that Farah is much stronger than she looked.

“Just because you’re tired doesn’t mean you can growl at me.” She countered with roughness to her tone. Easily enough to make Alex whine like he’d been kicked. 

His head leaned onto her shoulder, whimpering and whining at that interaction. Alex knew better than to growl, he really did, but everything was far too fuzzy, almost glazed over in his vision. Too tired. 

Farah sighed softly, arms wrapping firmly around him. 

“You’re exhausted, Alex.” She breathed out as Alex tried to wiggle into a comfortable spot at her side. Hunched over more than he possibly should be, just to cuddle into her side.

Alex kept trying to get out of going home. That would mean having to take care of big Alex problems. He wanted to crawl instead of walk. He wanted to curl up instead of shower. Wanted to bark rather than speak. At least here they wouldn’t be found, or even expected to be.

Even though Alex held his ground, he didn’t exactly fight when Farah stood and pulled him into her arms. Alex hardly fit at all to be carried in such a way. Being carried at least was better than walking, Alex decided. Carefully, he tucked his head against Farah’s shoulder, while his arms wrapped around her neck. 

Farah whispered soft praises to him for being good about her carrying him, holding him tightly so he couldn’t slip from the grasp. 

The words were lost on him the second Farah began to walk. Like a baby in a stroller, or on a car ride, the movement soothed him. The walk to the inside of their base didn’t take so long, at least not that Alex noticed. He was practically asleep in her arms, a light doze.

The next thing he noted was the softness of a bed underneath him, but Farah’s warmth dissipating as the cooler air filled the space instead. 

Alex whimpered the loudest his body possibly let him manage. Wearily, his eyes opened. Sitting up was the hardest next task that he even attempted. His head spun as he sat up.

He couldn’t see Farah. His eyes flickered around the whole room. They were in Farah’s room. Decorated with matching colors, lots of soft yellows and greens. A lot of things had to be gifts though, the room would definitely not be so nicely decorated if they weren’t. 

His heart sank as he looked around. No Farah. Fear was quick to snap through him. Alex stumbled poorly out of the bed. Not walking, no, he crawled. Like he swore he needed to, or he’d be sick. He couldn’t walk when he felt so not human.

Alex sat himself in the middle of the bedroom floor, legs tucked up to his chest with his arms resting between them. Sad whimpers coming from him. He didn’t want to be alone. He was so so sleepy…

His head rested on his knee. Just for a second, he closed his eyes.

Then he felt himself be scooped up again. How she managed to do that so easily, Alex had no clue. He began rapidly blinking to try to clear his foggy vision. And make sense of the situation.

The hands were small, rough but treating him like he was a delicate pet. Something that could break if moved the wrong way.

Farah.

Alex deeply exhaled. 

“Calm.. That’s it.” She encouraged, taking a few steps. 

They reached the bed. Farah didn’t make the mistake of letting go of him again. Instead, she sat and laid Alex down next to herself. A hand still resting on him, finding it’s way into his hair to softly brush through it.

“You’re exhausted…” Farah muttered, her thumb brushing over the dry skin on Alex’s forehead. Soft and gentle.

He gave a pitiful whine in response, blearily looking at her through his eyelashes. Alex only slightly moved enough to nudge himself up to her side.

Neither of them cared about how they both certainly needed a shower. Alex was way too pitiful and sleepy to even attempt to wash off. The last time he had help, he flipped out because he couldn’t handle not being in control of how he washed. There was an order to do it in that could not be changed. 

“Sleep, pup.” Farah certainly tried her best to say what Alex needed to hear after she had learned from Alex, and his behavior. It always helped him, even if she still had some underlying confusion about it.

Alex whined softly. A hand brushed against Farah’s side in a pawing motion. Closer. He wanted closer. 

“Come…” She whispered to him, beckoning him closer. There was only a moment’s hesitation before he firmly pressed himself to her side. He did shift further down the bed until his head was in her lap like a proper pup.

“Good boy, Alex. Close your eyes.” 

Very gently, she guided Alex through the process of getting him to sleep. Blankets tucked gently around him as he began to drift into sleep. Her hands tangled in his knotted hair. One by one brushing out all the knots with gentle hands. The touch was delicate in his hair, never pulling, never tugging. 

Minutes blurred into each other as the tick of the clock was replaced by a quiet humming. A sweet melody washing away any remaining tension in Alex’s body like waves. Deeper and deeper relaxation until his shoulders no longer trembled, breaths replacing the movements of his shoulders. There was nothing to protect now, no big problems to be had. It was just him and Farah. Alex let her take the reins as he drifted off.

Alex curled up next to Farah, in a way that would probably hurt in the morning. The soft hums didn’t stop until Alex was well into sleep. Even then, she didn’t leave. Taking a protective stance over the regressed one. 

He slept much like a rock. Not moving, not making a sound. Yet he looked so comfortable all the same. Farah softly continued to pet him.

Her own stress fading away as she did so. The motion repetitive and soothing. Though she didn’t sleep, she rested alongside Alex.

Protecting the pup, even without active threats.

#cod agere #call of duty #cod #call of duty agere #sfw little post #faralex #cod alex #alex keller #farah karim #puppy regression #petre

[woodaba]

We Wouldn't Have Alan Wake II Without Quantum Break

Remember Quantum Break? The first game announced for the Xbox One? The link between cult classic Alan Wake and surprising studio-saving hit Control? That prominently features Lance Reddick, the much-missed actor who was frequently one of the most electric screen presences of our time?

Don't worry, I barely do either, and I played the game yesterday.

So, a refresher. Quantum Break, announced in 2013 alongside the Xbox One and released three years later, is a third-person shooter starring Shawn Ashmore aka Iceman from the X-Men movies as Jack Joyce (and not Jake Joyce as I constantly remembered him as. In my defense, it's a better name, if only because then his superhero name could be Quantum Jake...), who, after being turned into A Remedy Entertainment Protagonist after a time-travel experiment gone wrong, battles against fellow Remedy Entertainment Protagonist Aidan Gillen aka Doctor Pavel I'm CIA as Paul Serene, over what to do about an imminent apocalypse after Time starts Breaking because of the aforementioned time-travel experiment.

As a rehabilitating former Doctor Who obsessive, I'm particularly open to this kind of time-travel nonsense, but Quantum Break is frustratingly unwilling to capitalize on its own premise. Interesting things happen, sure: people get stuck in causality loops, confront and become acausal time monsters, and live entire second lives in the past after time-traveling, but almost none of it occurs to Jack Joyce: he just spends his time just shooting guys in a series of warehouses and offices. Quantum Break is a potentially interesting story that we don't really get to see anything of, instead anything compelling in the narrative is relayed to us second-hand, by the myriad emails and documents scattered throughout the gunfights, or over the radio, and, of course, Remedy's now-signature multimedia ambitions.

In between acts of the video game Quantum Break, you'll be treated to episodes of the TV show Quantum Break, a live-action c-tier circa-2009 network TV production starring some of the big(ish) names that headline the game Quantum Break, but mostly follows a cast of extras who navigate around the events of the game while working for baddie Paul Serene's Evil Corporation, Monarch.

It's in the TV show that what Quantum Break actually is begins to take shape. Remedy, as a studio, has always been interested - and unusually adept at - pastiche, whether it's the noir comic stylings of their still-astonishing Max Payne duology or the rickety but deeply charming Stephen King love-in that is Alan Wake. And here, they do a genuinely stellar job at replicating the look, feel, and sensibilities of a 2008-2013 network TV Lost/Fringe rip-off that gets canceled after one season.

That may sound backhanded, but I assure you it isn't. I've long been a fan of Remedy, in spite of, or perhaps because I don't think they've made a truly great game since Max Payne 2. In a medium that often pillages relentlessly from Film and TV, Remedy set themselves apart from their competition with the depth of their understanding of the production of film, bringing into games a deftness of set construction and filmic pacing that blows their contemporaries out of the water. Even more-lauded names like Naughty Dog and Rockstar come up short against Alan Wake's hauntingly gorgeous misty woods, best illustrated with Rockstar's Max Payne 3, which matched Remedy's cinematographical flair in the cutscenes, but fell far short of their level design chops and breadth of influences.

Quantum Break is, in aesthetics and production, a genuinely extremely well-considered pastiche of this period of sci-fi television that is now comfortably in the rear-view mirror, the time since its release having given it a real nostalgic charm that would have been dulled at the time of release. It really reminded me of the years I spent watching shows like Heroes, or Flash/Forward, shows that may not have been very good, but are intoxicatingly emblematic of their time and place, hiding just beneath the floorboards of the shows that would actually get to be remembered.

It's a shame, then, that it just fails to really compel on any level beyond appreciation for the pastiche.

Much like the gameplay, the TV episodes of Quantum Break feel almost ancillary to another, better story that we never get to see. The stars of the game feel wasted here - particularly Lance Reddick, one of my favorite actors, who steals the show every time he appears, but is given vanishingly little to do in comparison with a group of wafer-thin characters that struggle to manifest a single dimension, with relational at best connection to the concerns of the narrative. It looks like a particularly budget-strapped episode of Warehouse 13, sure, but it doesn't really feel like one, as the episodes - until the last one, which is a noticeable improvement - are shockingly paceless and devoid of the arcs that would make a singular episode of television compelling. They are, ultimately, primarily dreary, overlong, and constantly highlighting the fact that they are largely interstitial filler.

It would be wrong to accuse Remedy of not having their heart in Quantum Break, as there is too much evident passion to discount, but I do feel like they struggle to find a core to this idea, something that they truly want to explore. Whether I'm playing the game or watching the show, QB leaves everything on the surface, with nothing to really find beneath the surface. It's notable that the game is absolutely filled with constant allusions to Alan Wake - including a full-blown trailer found on a TV moments after starting the game that bears startling resemblance to the eventual plot of this year's Alan Wake II - and that the game started life as a pitch to Microsoft for Alan Wake II: one suspects that they would much rather be making that game at this moment in time than Quantum Break, or that the game is a test-bed of ideas for the studio's future, the act of throwing a thousand darts at a quantum dartboard, and seeing which ones find their mark. It's just that for this effort, precious few of them do.

And yet, the surprise is that by the end, I truly felt like Remedy was genuinely onto something with the spirit of Quantum Break's ideas, if not the execution of them. The television show is the thing that makes Quantum Break live, that marks it out as something worth remembering in a sea of slick third-person shooters with cinematic ambitions. It is the icon of the foundational belief of the Xbox One, that the future of games lay in a synthesis with television, a dead-end future that had already worn out by the time the game was actually released. What remains is little more than a gimmick, sure, but it is one that, by the end, is oddly compelling, even if most of it is terrifically boring to actually experience.

There is a genuine thrill to seeing characters in both video game graphics and live-action forms, shifting between the two seamlessly thanks to some genuinely well-realized digitized actors that still look good today, a shift that blends well with the time-space bending of the plot. Do I care about Jack Joyce, as a person? Not even slightly. Did I still grin when I saw Actual Shawn Ashmore briefly appear in the TV episodes after controlling Virtual Shawn Ashmore? Absolutely. It's the same kind of shallow thrill you get from Cheers allumni showing up for a visit in Frasier, or when the Torchwood crew talk around the presence of Mr. Doctor Who, Esq, but as something that works with what the game is doing rather than distracting your attention elsewhere.

The gameplay portions represent time breaking down with (genuinely cool, if shallow) shards of space and glass and stuttering loops of physical time, but the collision of the Real and the Virtual feels so much more effective in communicating the idea of time and space shattering and colliding into one another. I just wish it played in this space more, focusing on Ashmore, Reddick, Monaghan, and Hope, rather than the cast of goons and extras who feel wholly separated from the game until the final mission.

I'd like to say that I'd love Remedy to take another crack at this idea, with the lessons they've learned from Control and Alan Wake II, but that already feels like a fool's hope. The ballooning costs of video game development make the idea of filming an entire TV mini-series alongside it feel laughable. Sure, Control's live-action segments were plentiful and superbly produced, but they were also far more restrained than Quantum Break, focusing on short segments with one non-big-name actor each in a couple of highly reusable sets. With both this and its open-world, side-questing structure with plenty of loot and upgrades to collect, Control is something largely in line with the realities and productions of modern game development

Quantum Break isn't rooted in reality for even a second. It's a time-locked instant, the most 2015 game ever made, which makes it all the better that it came out in 2016. There's no future in what Quantum Break envisions. It's a failed experiment, something to shrug at and move on. And yet, it compels me regardless, despite the fact that I don't really like it.

We need games like this, I feel. Historical curios like this show that the shifting landscape of the medium isn't a straight line, it splits off into splintered fraying timelines, some leading to nothing, but others spilling back in unexpected ways. After all, Courtney Hope, who played Beth Wilder here, returned for the starring role in Control, and that game feels so keenly like the product of lessons learned from QB, with everything from the live-action segments, the document-reading, and the combat feeling like a progression from Remedy's previous work. In particular, my complaints about QB's narrative taking place almost entirely off-screen evolves into a hugely compelling aspect of Control, with the genuine highlight of that game being reading the endless documents detailing the horrors and nightmares of America transcribed into corporate mundanity.

And while I've only played a taster of Alan Wake II, there's no doubt in my mind that that game, a bona-fide critical darling the likes of which Remedy hasn't had since Max Payne 2, owes a great debt to QB. Not least because its engine provides the framework for the game, but also because, well, it's been in there, this whole time.

Waiting for The Return.

#video games #remedy entertainment #alan wake #alan wake ii #quantum break #control game #Youtube

[marielle-heller]

I just really think Sam Axe is the character of all time. he was a Navy SEAL, his wardrobe is 90% Hawaiian shirts, he’s a lowkey functioning alcoholic, he jumps from sugar mommy to sugar mommy, he’s so fucking horny and canonically so good at sex that women spoil him for it, he’s so friendly he’s got buddies in almost every government agency, the CIA fucking hates him, he’s been a hostage multiple times and one of those times he critiqued how the kidnapper hit him, he pays for 1 out of every 10 dinners with his lady friend because he’s poor but he cares, he’s Michael and Madeline Westen’s best friend, he’s pretended to be Fiona’s partner undercover more than Michael has, he refuses to change his cover ID, he’s skilled at forgery, surveillance, wiretapping, hand to hand combat, marksmanship, throwing a fit in public, and wearing suspenders, he consistently breaks the law for good reasons, he was forced to retire for doing the right thing and he greymailed his way into keeping his pension, the whole situation started because he accidentally fucked a superior’s wife, he has a 12-3:30 PM nap time, he’s a grown man who once told someone he was trying to explode them with his mind, he’s still legally married, he brags about being a boy toy and is genuinely a caring, affectionate, helpful boyfriend despite going after rich women, he loves snacks and mojitos and strung a bunch of FBI agents along to do his best to protect Michael while protecting his own pension, and was like “they buy me lunch when they think they’re getting something good : )”. he is simply the perfect man!!

#sam axe #burn notice #bruce campbell #i just think it's insane how utterly perfect he is like thing about it #i'm not even done the show yet #i will say also that the fact he doesn't fucking tell michael to go fuck himself so much more often... #like sam is SUCH a good friend #cause bro @ michael sometimes you take sam for granted and 24/7 you are making bad choices

[dappydaffer]

WW Normal Album Analysis (pt. 4(?)) 💜

Back at it again, people!

I've been wanting to do this again for a while, since I haven't in actual months. And since @interfacefox 's request won, here I am again because even after almost a year of liking Will's music, my fixation refuses to cease.

If you know what's going on, then you know my whole normal album theory, but if not, here's a link to my last few posts where I analyzed the normal album and puked my thoughts out for people to see:

- Part 1: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/733190401716027392/this-rant-im-about-to-go-on-will-probably-not?source=share

- Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/733737259322474496/ww-normal-album-analysis-pt-2?source=share

- Part 3: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/734550698381950976/ww-normal-album-analysis-pt-3?source=share

• • • • • • • • • •

I'm not only doing this because of interface, but this is a song I have been itching to do for a while, despite how lengthy/complex it seems, and the song I'm going to be analyzing is...

Black Box Warrior

(I am, however, splitting this up into parts. This shit is waaaay too much for me to analyze in one sitting, so you get the chorus and first (maybe couple) of verses for now-)

• • • • • • • • • •

Although I've heard the song was simply just a challenge for Will lyrically and musically, there is a theory I strongly believe about this song, and that it's an allusion/reference to the illegal human experimentation program, MKUltra, which started in 1953, and continued until 1973. The experiment itself was run and designed by the CIA and its sole purpose was to test means of psychological torture, effects of drugs, and even brainwashing in order to force confessions out of people.

(I mean, hell, even the title is a spinoff name of the experiment itself - "OKULTRA-")

(Read more about it here, it is genuinely interesting as hell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra)

• • • • • • • • • •

In bits and pieces throughout the song, starting with the first verse, the lyrics have convinced me the song is either a doctor describing the horrid side effects a now-deceased patient endured due to the means of getting confessions out of them, or an unknown narrator is making it seem like the victim/patient's side effects was this nonsensical, psychedelic adventure, when it reality, it was far much worse.

Lyrics that either allude to the side effects or hint at this possibility at all within the first verse and chorus include:

"Trojan Horse'd his blood brain barrier and raised the LD-50.."

I belive the trojan horse invading the "brain barrier" is a metaphor relating to the obliviousness of this particular victim, or MKUltra patients in general, to the psychologically damaging actions being inflicted on them, and the effects they are yet to bring on them. The trojan horse tale tells of greek invaders successfully tricking the Trojans into letting them in, making it seem as if a giant wooden horse were a gift. The victim could also be seeing, or being told so by doctors inflicting them, that these experiments are for the greater good, when it really is just a heap of psychological torture and abuse in disguise, slowly and surely going to attack and seep in once it gets past the patient's defenses. Instead of immeadiately attacking, I believe that's where the LD-50 part of the metaphor kicks in. LD-50 is a term that refers to the amount of chemicals given, which causes 50% of the deaths in a group of test animals (usually before releasing the chemical to public) - Not only does this imply that patients are simply just treated like disposable test objects before they officially solidify these means of interrogation/testing as part of the criminal justice system, but it also shows that once the patient's defenses are downed/weakened, the LD-50 (lethal dose) can be further pushed to see how far the testing can go until the patient confesses or succumbs to the side-effects of the torture.

"- the Black Box Warrior, He skipped this town and headed straight down history-"

While I'm certain black box could be a reference to something else, I believe it not only refers to how CIA Director, Richard Helm ordered evidence of the project to be destroyed before the public was informed about it in 1975, but also alludes to how it adds confidentiality to the patient being referred to and personifies him as a stastistic or another case to destroy and rid of in the eyes of those in charge. Him "heading straight down history" could also be an allusion to how he simply just forgotten and/or killed off so easily and quickly, joining others who passed, and waiting for new patients to join him who will only get treated the same as he did, due to the abuse and effects inflicted by doctors.

"Roman candles at both ends in his synapses"

Burning both ends of the candle is a common phrase that exaggerates or tells that oneself is overworking or doing too much or burning themselves out, etc. Whilst synapses are spaces between cells that transmit nervous impulse (correct me if I am wrong). The patient in question having roman candles at both ends of their synapses is what I believe to be physical sensory overload or the "LD-50 being raised" far too high to the point of his nervous system going haywire. LSD was a common psychoactive drug used in MKUltra and when one takes LSD, the nervous system can be/is heavily effected (depending on how heavy the dosage) and from what science can conclude; since synapses, a part of the nervous system, facillitate communication between neurons via transmission of signals in neurotransmitter forms, and therefore play vital roles in the brain functioning properly (perception, memory, emotions, etc.), burning metaphorical roman candles at the ends of this patients' synapses implies that a scary, damn near lethal dose of LSD has been injected into the patient by doctors working for MKUltra.

"Shields himself from reason in a Kevlar baby-blue Tuxedo"

I believe here the song is panning to the doctor and a 3rd person point of view of what his intentions/thoughts are. Scrubs that doctors wear are typically a shade of "baby-blue," and kevlar is a material commonly used in bullet proof vests. With the doctor wearing a metaphorical baby-blue bulletproof vest, it could symbolize that the doctor may have a heart to at least barely acknowledge that what he is doing is wrong, however, it is his job to do so for the project, therefore he may be rationalizing and hiding behind his status as a doctor (hence the tuxedo metaphor, as I view tuxedos as a sign of high social/financial status) in order to dodge the bullet of actual reason (hence, the kevlar reference).

"If it was going to kill you boy, it would have by now / There's no more looking back, it's looking up or looking down"

This piece of the chorus really feels like a "ride or die" statement towards the alleged patient. The song (or what I assume is the doctor) almost mockingly, or non-chalantly tells the patient that despite everything he has been put through, it wasn't enough to kill him and even though they have far enough pushed him past his physical and mental limit, he (the doctor) almost encourages this patient to continue on and comply with their experiments. This really shines a light on how little regard the higher ups of this program beared for the victims that were unfortunately involved. As for "looking up or looking down," I believe it is the doctor still telling the patient to continue on, until he dies, and either looks "up" to heaven, or "down" at hell. There truly is no more going back. The patient has to keep pushing and not only burn both ends of his synapses with the aforementioned metaphorical roman candles, he has to burn himself out physically and mentally until his body gives into the effects of the torture and LSD.

• • • • • • • • • •

Thank you for coming to my TED talk....holy shit, that took way too long-

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this, and if you have your own Black Box Warrior/Normal Album/Will Wood theory, I'd love to hear them.

I promise I will add more to this analysis with a part 2, however, I may do other WW songs in between that time =)

• • • • • • • • • •

#my hands are in agony #the brainrot is real #will wood #will wood and the tapeworms #the normal album #black box warrior #will wood analysis #“is this shit enough proof for you?” #dappy rants #music analysis

[genericswordsmaiden]

OH MY GOD I LOVED THIS. It's like each one of these movies progressively gets better than the previous, even though I still like Ghost Protocol very much.

Rogue Nation just kept me on the edge of my seat for two hours, that's something few movies can do. And the fact I only made three posts instead of four for this entry in the series is proof of that, I think. Solomon Lane is a great villain and it's definitely an improvement from the paper thin one we got in MI4. He's basically Ethan's nemesis, the other side of the coin. A cool concept to play around for sure!

I loved the Benthan moments (the "I'm staying" speech had both me and Ethan speechless lmao) Actually, I think Simon and Tom should star in a sitcom together but that's a story for another day...

Let's talk about REBECCA FREGUSON OH MAN SHE'S SO COOL and I absolutely dig how they didn't make Ilsa a love interest for Ethan. In the end they hugged because they saved each other (pure gratitude ughhh <3) and that was it. I wouldn't mind if they got together in later movies, I just love when romances grow organically.

Now let's talk about Alec Baldwin. I think the casting choice for him was stellar. Hunley is, well, he's a bit like Kittridge in the first movie, in the sense he's just technically doing his job but for obvious reasons he can't see the bigger picture - and when he does, he just does what is right, recognising his mistakes.

Luther is growing on me, and I am so so glad he's still around. He's been in all movies since the beginning, he's like a constant... a familiar face, even though he seems to have a smaller role than the other characters. I like his humour a lot and the way he's so protective of Ethan ;-; (see: the scene where Brandt tells him about the CIA hunting Hunt down - pun intended)

Benji is precious. At this point I think I can say he's my blorbo. Not only he has what I'll call (quoting the title of a Pegg blog here on tumblr) the shelter dog rizz, but he's so genuine and sweet and brave and just... Human. I actually think him and Brandt are the most relatable ones, like, they're not necessarily an archetype of a certain character like Ethan is ("The living manifestation of destiny" sounds so fucking epic tho ngl)

Also, about Brandt, legends tell that he still can neither confirm nor deny details of any operation without the Secretary's approval.

#claire liveblogs m:i #mission impossible #mi5 #mission impossible rogue nation

[youreobsessedwithtoomanyfandoms]

Don't Let Me Go (Part 3)

Words: 1660

Warnings: language, talk of alcohol/alcohol consumption, regret, Leon being a dick but for a kinda good reason, people may be mad at reader cause of what she does but whatever idc this is my fucking story, maybe ooc characters and probably bad writing

Resident Evil Masterlist Main Masterlist Join My Taglist

This also was originally written for my OC Tiffany (Whose info on her/original story will eventually be available on this account @imnotobsessedwfictionalchracters )

Leon and Hunnigan are PROBABLY OOC (as I suck at not being able to keep them from being OOC)

Actually find it fucking insane how long this thing is all together

This is it in multi-part form: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

This is it in one part form

Reader and Leon are partners with their job (have been since 2004/2005) and is insinuated to be around the same height as Leon

Not Proof-read and I think it can be seen every once and a while (I know you can see where my brain couldn't function how to write the scene so I just guessed and hoped for the best)

Can be read as its own story or as a sequel to You’re About To Lose The Best Damn Thing You’ve Ever Had

Losely has themes from the songs Never Say Never by The Fray, No Surprises by Radiohead, Afterglow by Taylor Swift, and Look After You by The Fray

Anywho, enjoy

Love Z <3

March 9th of 2009

Y/N's POV

Beeping. That was all she could hear. Her entire body was sore, feeling like she had been dropped from the top of a building. After a few moments of trying, she finally was able to open her eyes. But she instantly regretted it as the bright fluorescents welcomed her. She groaned as they tried to adjust to the brightness. She looked around and suddenly realized that she was in a hospital. That was the reason for the beeping as she realized how hooked up she was. 

Her throat felt dry and like something had been pulled from there. She moved her head to the side and let out a shocked gasp when she saw who was by her. She thought she had been dreaming. That the fever she knew she had from the infection that she knew had happened from the terrible keep of her cut had made her imagine he was there. That he had been the one to save her. 

She felt her hand move to reach out to him, but she dropped it when she heard the sound of the door opening. A lady, probably around her grams’s age, walked in. She had a soft smile on her face when she looked at Y/N and walked closer to her. Y/N watched as the lady began fiddling with one of the bags that she assumed was liquids to keep her from getting dehydrated. 

“You’re very lucky that boy got to you when he did.” The lady turned to her, “He’s a keeper, that one. He hasn’t left this hospital except for the one time me and another nurse forced him to get a hotel and sleep properly.”

“He’s just my partner--no, wait, he...I don’t know.” It hurt to speak, it felt like she hadn’t used her voice in years.

The lady raised a brow, “I doubt whatever he did will last long. You’ve been here a week and he’s had chances to go back to DC, but he’s stayed here.”

“Where is here? And what day is it?”

“You’re in Vancouver, it’s March 9th. Do you know the year?”

“2009?”

“Good, who’s your President?”

She genuinely had no idea. Graham had ended his Presidency a few months ago and she still had to learn the new guy's name. Only did she know the Vice-President. “I haven’t learned his name yet, but the Vice-President is Adam Benford, he used to be the CIA Director.”

“Hm, I guess that works.” The nurse chuckled, “You sure know a lot about him.”

She looked at Leon, “Yeah...the two of them are friends.”

“I should have expected that. Well sweetheart, we have you on a morphine drip to--”

“I-I can’t have morphine in large doses. It affects me worse than dilaudid.”

The lady took a look at her file and sighed, “Well I be damned, the nurse who did this completely ignored that it says no morphine.” She looked at Y/N, “I’m going let the head nurse know and we’ll get you switched onto, dilaudid you said? It works with no issue

“Yeah, every time it’s worked in the past it's been with no issues.”

“Alright.” She wrote something down, “I’ll be back in a few.”

Y/N nodded as that lady walked out of the room. Her eyes went back to Leon, who was still asleep in the chair, but she noticed how one of his hands was sitting on top of the bed, like he had been holding hers while she was out.  She gently took it in hers and brushed her thumb over the top. She wondered if Hunnigan ever found a loophole for them to work. If she ever found a way that she could use to show Leon they could have worked.

She watched as he stirred, his eyes slowly opening and blinking to adjust to the bright lights. He groaned before looking at her and she watched as he straightened up and took her hand in his own. She watched as his usual emotionless face turned to one full of emotions.

She gave him a soft smile, “Hey Lee.”

He moved the chair to be closer before he ran a hand over her, moving hair from her face. “Hey beauti--Y/N/N.”

She moved her hand to go back to rubbing the top of his, “You can call me beautiful. You got me out of there after all.”

“You scared me, y’know? I thought I had lost you there and I wouldn’t be able to tell you how sorry I--”

“Don’t, please. Just...just don’t. I don’t want to think about that. You’re here, that's what matters. That shows that you really care, even if you can be annoying about showing it.”

He gave a small smile, “Yeah, but I really am sorry for not...talking to you. It was fucking Stacey who walked in and he threatened to expose us. I just didn’t want your life to get fucked over.”

“Why would mine?”

He sighed, “Hunnigan said that unfortunately, STRATCOM would rather lose you than me. So if they had found out, they would have displaced you. Put you in another department or place you with one of the other offices. But we wouldn’t be able to see each other anymore.”

“And you were scared I would argue and say it was nothing.”

“Yep.”

She looked over to the other side, “I hate when you’re right.”

She heard him chuckle, “It’s a rare feat, but one that can happen.” She looked back at him and smiled, but the smile fell as she began to think. “What’s wrong?”

“Why did you call for a new partner?”

He let out a big sigh, “Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing your broken face everyday. Be right by you, pretending to be a supportive friend while you move on.”

She scoffed, “Yeah, me moving on would’ve taken a lot. Trust me. I even asked Hunnigan to find loopholes in the rules for us to be together.” She sighed, “I guess she never found one cause she never told me.”

He laughed awkwardly and she raised an eyebrow, “Well...that’s not necessarily true.”

“What?”

“She found the loophole after you went dark.”

“And she told you?”

“So I might have come in drunk one day, felt bad because I did that because I drove drunk, and asked her to drive me back to my apartment. It was like I could hear you in my head getting mad, not because I showed up drunk, but because I drove drunk. So while she was taking me to my place, I might have spilt that I fucking hated what I did to you and wished that there was some fucking way for us to work and she might have told me the way it could. The small loophole that you asked her to go looking for.”

“What is it?”

“A lifetime commitment that we both said we weren’t ready for.”

“Kids?”

He snorted, “No. Not that.” He moved and dug in his pocket before handing her a small dark blue velvet box. She felt her heart in her throat. “Yeah...that’s the commitment.”

She opened the box to see the ring. It was simple, not over the top. Two diamonds with a sapphire in the middle on a silver band. She let out a shaky breath before looking at him, “When did you get this?”

“Um...a while ago actually. Last summer, I believe.”

She laughed slightly, “That was why you asked me what my ring size was.”

He laughed as well, “Yeah, I expected you to catch on.”

“But...that was before we talked about marriage.” She looked at him, “That was why you asked me, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged, “I realized that I would rather have a possible answer than make you uncomfortable.”

She smiled and for some reason, she leaned over to him and kissed his lips softly. “Why don’t you ask me now.”

“What?”

Her voice was soft, “Just ask that four word question.” She brushed some hair out of his face, “My answer won’t be dependent on it being the only way for us to be together and work together.”

He smiled, “Y/F/N, will you marry me?”

She smiled, “Yes.” She kissed him again, “Y’know, I would have said yes if you had asked me at Christmas.”

“Really?”

She nodded, “Mhm, that was around the time that I realized that even though marriage is a big commitment and we both have our issues with commitment, I was sure I would be able to fully stay with you. Was it partly because you’re the only guy I’ve ever been with that can handle me when my brain can’t function so I just shut down? Possibly. But it also had to do with the fact I can’t see myself with anyone else but you and every time I imagine a future, you’re always there.”

Now it was his turn to brush hair from her face, “So we could have avoided these past few months if I had just looked at the handbook for a loophole?”

She nodded, “Yep. But that doesn’t make me love you any less.”

He laughed, “Good.”

She closed the box and handed it back to him, “Hold onto it for me until we head back to DC.”

He took it and placed it back in his pocket, “I love you, you know that right?”

“I questioned it for a while, but yes, now I do.”

He laughed, “Good.”

They were silent for a few minutes until she looked him dead in the eye, “Can you promise me one thing, Leon?”

“What is it?”

“Never let me go, please? Promise me if you ever start to get insecure with anything in our relationship that you will tell me and we work on it.”

He smiled and kissed the top of her hand, “I promise.”

She smiled, “Good.”

#leon #s #kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #leon s kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy imagine #leon kennedy imagine #leon s kennedy angst #leon kennedy angst #leon s kennedy fic #leon kennedy fic #resident #evil #resident evil #resident evil x reader #resident evil imagine #resident evil angst #resident evil fic #x reader #imagine #angst #fic

[spectralarchers]

I hope this doesn't come off rude, I mean it genuinely.

Is there an actual plot to Call of Duty? I always thought it was just pvp battlegrounds, but does the game have a storyline or single player mode? I tried to Google this, but the results are ambiguous. I've see your fic for it and just wondered if the greater universe is a fanon construction.

Thank you!

Hi Nonnie!

Never be afraid to ask questions, there are no silly ones. Especially when it comes to my current hyperfixation, lol!

There is an actual plot to Call of Duty! The one I'm currently obsessing over is the "reboot" version of Modern Warfare which started with now has Modern Warfare I (the 2019 game), Modern Warfare II (the 2022 game) and Modern Warfare III (the 2023 game).

The obsession with Soapghost came from the Modern Warfare II (2022) game where those two idiots are hopelessly in love share a lot of scenes together and their banter is absolutely delicious.

There is a storyline and a singler player mode, where you play as different characters and do different missions.

Here's a list of links to the different "single player" games that contain most of the plot that fandom abides by (no commentary, so you just sit and watch someone play the game for 3+ hours):

Modern Warfare I 2019

Modern Warfare II 2022

Modern Warfare III 2023

Each of the games have smaller expansion packs that are also single player called seasons (which give a little background info). They're not absolutely necessary for the comprehension of the greater story! (I couldn't find playthroughs, but I know they exist).

The Call of Duty lore is a bit like Marvel though in that there are different games (Call of Duty: Ghosts is one, Call of Duty 4 is actually Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1 from 2007 and Modern Warfare 2 from 2009 is-- anyways, you get the gist, lol!)

Fandom have taken some characters from the different franchises and storylines (like Roach, he's from 2009 and hasn't been in the reboot series, but we love our gremlin boy) and never let them go.

Most of the characters Modern Warfare focuses on is Captain John Price, the leader of task force 141, Sergeant Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, Sergeant John "Soap" MacTavish and Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley. There are other characters (Kate Laswell who is CIA (also canonically has a wife!), Alex Keller, also CIA, Farah Karim, Urzikstan Rebellion, etc.) that we all love, but those are the main couple of characters.

Characters like König, Horangi, Krüger & the others are from multiplayer mode and do not appear in the main single player campaign. Most of the traits from those characters are fanon or fanbased, taken off what little information we have from them in their audios or operator bios.

Hope this helped, otherwise don't hesitate, I'd love to give more info ♥

#call of duty #people ask christine stuff #if you'd told me a year ago i'd be explaining call of duty meta to someone i'd have laughed at your face #and yet here i sit at my laptop answering this ask wearing a call of duty hoodie with ghost on it

[gaykarstaagforever]

MOVIES I AM SURPRISED I HAVEN'T SEEN

Predator (1987)

This is weird to me, because I love the Predator(s) as a monster, and I've seen a bunch of terrible Italian and Hong Kong movies that were shamelessly ripping this off. And I love Arnold more than I should. But I was 5 when this movie came out, and by the time I was old enough to see it without it giving me terrible nightmares, I didn't have an older brother or cousin to illicitly show it to me (which I'm pretty sure is how most people around my age saw it). Plus it was immediately eclipsed by all of the "Xtreme" 90s action movies it inspired, many starring Arnold, so it kind of immediately got lost in the shuffle of that VHS world.

Going into it without nostalgia and only an eye-rolling regard for most of the other movies in the franchise (most of which I also don't remember seeing more than bits of), I can say that it is a better movie than it has any right to be. But it is also kind of a mess. Basic B-.

The performances are pretty good. Carl Weathers (RIP) is fantastic as always, and Arnold is Arnold, though he seems like he's playing three different characters at various points. Which makes sense, because this feels like it is at least three different movies edited together.

One is a serious war movie about big men killing in a jungle, because they got tricked into doing it by the CIA. Another is a goofy macho over-the-top action blockbuster parody, where Arnold does one-liners and everyone else is hamming it up with random sex jokes and wacky character beats. Then the third is an action-horror movie where a lone desperate man is hunted and hunts a murderous alien monster. Accompanied by a score from a hypothetical Steven Spielberg movie about toys coming to life to save Christmas from a mean old troll.

No part of any of this gets to work on its own for more than 3 minutes, before another part of one of the other movies, or the godforsaken score, elbows its way in to throw it off. There is absolutely no tonal consistency. Which isn't automatically a bad thing, but kind of is here. I'm supposed to care about these characters enough that I care they are being murdered by a Space creature; but I don't, because I'm too distracted by which movie is doing what to them right now. If I was 14 I probably wouldn't have cared, but as an adult, I just can't get into it.

Especially not with that score. Oh my god. It's a good score, just for a totally different movie. This story needed some incidental drums and maybe a synth hook as a theme for the Predator. What it gets is a full orchestral score that has to scream the intended emotion of a scene at me like I'm not paying attention. It is unbearable and ruins everything, constantly. I very nearly watched the last 20 minutes on mute. It is just...stop. Leave me alone, inappropriate string section.

Another highly unnecessary thing is the stupid "Predator vision" sequences. The Predator is only on screen for like 15 minutes of the hour, 47 minute runtime, but I swear it feels like 45 minutes of this movie is eye-straining incomprehensible fakey thermal vision POV shots from the Predator's helmet cam.

Was this exciting new technology in 1987? It must have been, because why else would there be so much of it? And no, it doesn't build tension or reveal anything notable about the Predator. It serves no structural purpose. It just wastes valuable time that would be better used actually showing the Predator. There is exactly one cool shot using it, and that shot would have been just as cool as a regular camera shot:

As for the legitimate good, the special effects - the practical Predstor costume, his invisibility shield and weapons, all of the gory killings and explosions and gunfire - are great. As I said, Carl Weathers is the only character who is tonally consistent throughout, and I have no doubt that is mostly due to his skill as an actor. It is a genuine shame he isn't the one who survived long enough to force the Predator to rage-quit.

The last 20 minutes are the absolute best part and should have been most of the movie, where Arnold is unarmed, caked in mud, using the jungle and improvised traps to confuse and abuse the Predator. It unfortunately raises questions about how skilled the Predator actually is at the one thing he does, since with all his advanced alien tech, he can't see you if you're muddy for some reason, and he also won't kill you with a gun unless you have a gun, even if he's been hunting you and you've been seriously wounding him with sticks for like 2 days. I realize he has to folllow these kinds of rules to make the fight fair. But it also makes me wonder if the Predator is just a big narcissist whose hubris makes him a shitty hunter. You're whole thing is hunting sentient creatures in swamps, you boob. Probably get mask goggles that can see them when they get dirty?

Especially when the movie makes it clear that he, or other Predators, have been doing this shit in this exact area for decades, at least. Like, figure it out already, guys. You have interplanetary space flight, but Earth mud kills your laser / nuclear advantage? Please.

Also, how does the "fair fight" crap apply when you're strapped with both an advanced first aid kit AND a suicide vest? Those are a perpetual unfair advantage. Being weird about things because the prey dropped their gun or ran out of ammo seems arbitrarily pedantic.

Also also, you as a species are 8 feet tall, can leap from tree to tree, and have massive punching daggers mounted on your wrists. Tossing your own gun to wrestle a tired human man isn't being fair, it is cheating a little differently. Why bother? What do you gain by this?

Especially when you know that if you lose, you're going to explode, and take several surrounding acres out with you?

It is still a cool premise and a cool monster, and the movie overall is way, way better than it could have been. It has parts that are good, and lots of fun, idiotic 1980s action movie lines that we have been rightly quoting for 37 years. It is gratuitous fun, and that feels like all it intended to be, so good on it. But it's no RoboCop or Total Recall or anything. Paul Verhoeven always nails the hambone tone of these kinds of things, even when he's making something awful like Showgirls. That's hard to do, and Predator doesn't quite manage it.

I think a lot of the intense love for this movie is simple nostalgia. And that's fine. But that doesn't make it a great movie.

#arnold schwarzenegger #carl weathers #predator 1987 #movie review #movies i am surprised i haven't seen

[subuwu-dyke]

wait i wanna hear your chuck opinions/headcanons

YES oh my god. Yes. Okay. So if you have the kind of ingrained deep memory of this show that I have you'll know how often Chuck is perceived as feminine in the show, and while it *could* come across as your everyday average homophobic/transmisogynistic patriarchal insults geared towards "less masculine" men, and was almost definitely written with that intention, to me there's a genuine-ness that is really hard to ignore when characters mention his "delicate features" and constantly remind him to literally "butch it up" like Morgan tells him during that car bomb episode. Chuck isn't ever offended by these remarks, he doesn't feel the need to change his behaviors, even when he has crises of identity in a sense he's really only trying to become more *heroic* or *courageous* and his biggest role model as well as romantic interest is Sarah. Sarah is a clear trans narrative to me, with the fact that we never find out her birth name, she's used many names in the past, her childhood and teenagehood are things she's desperate to keep to herself, etc. I read her character as someone who views herself almost from a third person perspective, she doesn't want to allow herself a sense of identity or interiority because she is simply a weapon. Chuck is the first person to really draw a sense of desire and hope and selfishness out of her - she wants something for herself, for once. Even her desperate longing pipe dream for the life of an ordinary woman feels like a trans narrative to me. I understand her character as transitioning really early, and she in hindsight understands it as a way of helping out in her dad's cons - after all, a cute little blonde girl getting hit by a car evokes instant sympathy from bystanders. Really I think her dad was just really accepting and didn't mind her presenting however she wanted, she just has a hard time in the present understanding herself as ever having truly pursued something for herself and having a genuine sense of self at all. As a teen, she was "recruited" (blackmailed) into the CIA and her entire life, presentation, everything is controlled by a separate entity and I feel like she has a hard time acknowledging any kind of trans identity for herself. In the show, she's always as envious of Chuck as he is of her - while Sarah is a highly skilled highly competent heroic figure for Chuck, Chuck represents everything for Sarah that she wants for herself such as honesty, a sense of self, family connections, relationships of any and all kinds bound by mutual trust. Chuck I think starts to think of herself as a trans woman sometime shortly before the show starts, but she doesn't come out until around season 2. Her coming out radically alters Sarah's understanding of herself, and she only becomes more envious and admiring of Chuck, wishing that she could assume a trans identity for herself as well but not feeling like she deserves that much autonomy. Chuck doesn't know Sarah is also a trans woman until sometime around early season 3, since Sarah is not only protective of her past and personal information but has a hard time identifying herself with transness because of how much she admires it and wants it for herself, despite the fact that she's been socially transitioned since she was around 6 and has been on hrt for years. I think Ellie is accepting when Chuck comes out but a little confused and nervous about the whole thing and tries a little too hard, causing some problems between them. Devon is just like that's awesome!

Morgan is a trans guy but he's super annoying so nobody cares 😑

[chuiko]

I know I've made a post like this before but now that I'm seriously revisiting the series (with the specific intent of figuring out a timeline) this is how I'd plot things out.

This is gonna be long, I'm not sure how to best organize it. Some important stuff is in later points.

• First, s03 is getting sent to 2015-2016, not 2019. It's impossible for Obama to have been president during s01 if s03 was three years later. I completely understand the real-world decision (it was released in 2018, likely as a lead-in to the 2019 presidential campaign), but it just isn't going to work here.

• A Hillary Clinton-like figure is seen at the G7 meeting, so I'm going to have Vasya's reinstatement (in order to unify Ukraine) happen in (early?) 2017.

• The initial election of Goloborodko is in the pre-Maidan election year of 2015, March 29th if we're going to be specific. This is because Yanukovych wasn't ousted—in fact, he wasn't even President. And Vasya's predecessor clearly didn't run away, likely because Chuiko convinced him not to.

• Speaking of: Chuiko's existence is a HUGE difference between SotP and OTL (our timeline). He's been an institution of power for 25 years (in 2015) with an amazing eye for keeping things stable. The Orange Revolution obviously still happened, and so did the Euromaidan, but in this tl I'm going to have him be instrumental in smoothing over Russia's geopolitical anxieties. Just imagine Yuri's smooth assurances to a frenzied Kremlin official that no, there was no CIA coup, he's even still the Prime Minister, everything is still in place, it's fine.

🇷🇺 Russia stuff:

• s03 references Russian occupation, but it wasn't referenced in previous seasons (to my knowledge). I'm going to say the Crimea gambit happened after Yuri and Vasya were both out; it was being planned since Yuri's arrest, but it was Vasya leaving that really sealed the deal. Luhansk and Donetsk weren't little-green-men'd until Ukraine balkanized in s03. Why not right away, like IRL? Well...

• I'm going to make Surkov the Russian president. IRL, rumor has it he was behind the Crimea thing (which was almost entirely bloodless) but had conflict with the L/DPR leadership (specifically Girkin). After Ukraine balkanizes, though, they become Russian protectorates.

• Prior to becoming president (at the end of s01, the phone call), he was the Russian Ambassador to Ukraine (hence why Vasya knows him). This is because without the Orange Revolution freaking out the Kremlin in 2004, his responsibilities were different than OTL and overall he wasn't targeted by as much Kremlin insecurity. AFAIK the Russian MFA strongly prefers career diplomats to political appointees, and this is seen by some as a move by the Kremlin to keep an eye on the MFA, or at least keep its neighbor under a tight watch by giving the position to a Kremlin loyalist.

• Khodorkovsky returns to Russia when Surkov becomes president. He's a minor character, a former-oligarch with some of Vasya's ideals (and stubbornness)

• He's VERY different from Surikov, but for that window where Surikov's president (and when he was PM) if someone says one name people will often be like "which one?!"

• Also, Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov and Sergei Viktorovich Mukhin. This causes some amusement among diplomats who've naturalized to the patrynomic system. Speaking of diplomats...

🇺🇸 US Diplomacy

• The US is studiously not mentioned. This means I can get away with lots :3

• The US is generally treated as a partner more powerful but also much more distant than the EU. Nonetheless, I'm going to have its diplomats behave a bit better and more interestingly than how the EU is portrayed.

• Quick timeline stuff: in 2015-2016, the US is mainly dealing with the Middle East (ISIS, the Iran Deal, Israel diplomacy). It was also investing a lot of effort in fighting international money laundering/corruption. For this reason, the FBI (through the Kyiv Embassy) is going to be working with Mika. I genuinely don't know if the SBU has the ability to access the info to implicate Surikov in freezing Yuri's bank accounts, but I'll have US intel give Mika a hand, or at least corroborate info.

• Bill Burns will be appointed US Ambassador to Ukraine a week or so (bc of Congressional authorization) after Goloborodko is elected. [He served as Ambassador to Russia from 2005-2008, and then as the Under Secretary for Eastern Europe, and then as Deputy Secretary, working on the Iran Deal.] Slightly awkwardly, he retired in Nov. 2014... so he would have come out of retirement in March/April 2015 to be appointed (does that make him a political appointee?). It's clear this wasn't a routine promotion but a specific choice.

• He's chosen to keep an eye on the situation and report back. Both on the internal situation in Ukrainian politics, and also what the Russians are saying/doing. In my timeline 2014 didn't boil over, but it's tense and making watchers in the US nervous.

• US diplomacy remains publicly very distant—no high profile visits during Vasya's brief tenure. This is to everyone's benefit. Obama does like Vasya and empathizes with having a shit congress. Perhaps once Vasya deals with enough of the Horrors he'll meet Barack on equal(ly fucking exhausted) terms and they'll hit it off.

• Burns, however, listens very intently to what the Gang of Five (Oksana, Sergei, Olga, Mika, Ivan) tells him.

• Burns is dismissed as Ambassador by President Surikov, who doesn't trust him getting along well with Vasya + crew. Publicly, to avoid drama, he resigns his post "of his own free will." The Embassy, however, will work just fine without him :)

• Burns recognizes the character flaws of Vasya and his cabinet but still highly recommends them. He's a reason Pres. Clinton works w/ the G7 to reinstate him. Russia (still under Surkov) is also supportive of his reinstatement because the whole thing's an absolute clusterfuck. However, everyone agrees that Yuri is also necessary; he and Vasya are both missing something vitally important by themselves. China, working on its Belt and Road Initiative, also wants the country to not be in pieces.

• Every time Vasya or someone in his cabinet (probably Sergei) stand up for themselves, US diplomats are more comfortable with them. Sycophants are deeply untrustworthy. It's easy to predict what someone will do if they genuinely want the best for their country; purely selfish motives are much less easy to negotiate with.

💸The Oligarchs💸

• Nemchuk kicks off everything with his suggestion the oligarchs stay out of the remaining 2015 campaign. He's also the least contentious of the three. If anyone is going to see the utility of addressing corruption in order to have more stability & contact with Western corporations, it's going to be him. He's also the most like Khodorkovsky's businessman past-self and will get along with him (and thus Russian Pres. Surkov) the best.

• 50/50 chance Burns (maybe along with the Russians) is part of an Iran Deal backchannel. Not only would this piss off some government officials, but Roizman and Mamatov would probably get in another hissy fit, unless Crimea Tatars are Sunni factionalists enough to be on generally bad terms with Iran (the main Shia superpower). Although I wouldn't put it past either Roizman to say something generalizing and Mamatov to get heated. Nemchuk is just done with everyone's shit.

• Nemchuk saw the Khodorkovsky arrest back in 2003 and went "abso-fucking-lutely not."

One last thing:

• After Goloborodko's IMF speech, John Oliver made a video about the IMF's predatory policies.

#sluga naroda #servant of the people #this is so long. thats what she said

[whentheynameyoujoy]

"Would you rather take her?" "Honestly, yeah." Kaplan studied him for a while, eventually shaking his head in resignation. "I know what you're going to do. You're going to milk her for what she's worth, wring her out until she's a dried-out husk, then dump her on the side of the road. But I know she'd rather go with you. It didn't take much for you to indoctrinate her against me."

Yeah, brain, ok, here's the deal—you may hold the cheese and order broccoli on our pizza instead but we absolutely aren't shipping the 22-year old aimless college dropout with the 40-year old douchebag CIA agent who's like 97% confirmed as having done torture.

He looked at her and for a moment, he was the old Sol, the man abusing his power wearing an expression that said, I am going to make your life hell. Then, his features relaxed. "You know it's because I'm just jealous. "Of Kaveh?" she asked, smacked by the sudden and confusing implication. "Both of you in some ways. I didn't get into Columbia."

Fucking smooth, totally saved it.

"He was piggybacking off my PTSD diagnosis, decided he wanted to cure it." At this, Sol shot her an alarmed look.

Sol's look of concern only intensified, and he turned back to the road ahead. "You can't cure PTSD."

"I mean, are you just fucking with me? With this whole, like... 'you will always be broken' thing?" "No," he said, his lip curling in offense. "Do you really think that little of me? I wouldn't joke about that."

Finding out I'm apparently the only one even googling Kaplan/Cora fanfic, proceeding to kill myself.

The shock wave came as the noise abated, not through the air but through the ground, rippling like a wake in water, sending little plumes of dust into the air and destabilizing everything, including the police trailer, which started to sway like this was an earthquake. Sol grabbed Cora and pulled her tight, and she grabbed him in turn, as much out of fear than for physical stability.

"Come on!" said Sol, breaking the embrace and grabbing her by the hand. She followed him without question, just as ignorant as to how dangerous it was to stay put as everyone else in the crowd was.

I haven't been this ashamed of myself ever since that week in spring last year when I genuinely feared I was about to go for Homelight.

"I'm sorry." He said it with a gentle tone she'd never heard from him before. He leaned toward her, leaned like he was about to hug her. "Don't you fucking touch me," she spat, recoiling. "Don't you dare fucking touch me." Sol looked at her, stunned, and then drew away from her. The gentleness he'd exhibited for the shortest of moments vanished.

"He didn't get me reassigned. I left." He just stood there, his back to her. She hardened her jaw, forced the tears back. "But you still did those things." Sol moved like he was about to turn to face her, but instead stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, and left. As soon as he was gone, she wanted him back. Not because he comforted her, but because he disgusted her.

Nah, fuck this, it's not my fault the fascinating morally grey deuteragonist got pushed aside by a perfect one-note exercise in blandness boring Gary Stu. Of course I instead went for the 40-year old douchebag CIA agent who's hinted as 3% likely not to have done torture. Of course.

#truth of the divine #axiom's end #lindsay ellis #with the way kaplan is a tertiary character and strongly hinted as 'having something else going on with him' #do you even comprehend the amount of shit I've been able to project onto him? #do you? #and to reiterate this would have never happened had kaveh not been a walking embodiment of a medium article