#ghost and pals gives me so much nostalgia | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

echo-three-one · 3 years

Text

Whatever It Takes : RELOADED

Abducted in a decent hotel room. That's the summary.

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter : Lurking in the Shadows

Chapter 19 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

forgive the piccrew ;-;

Vlad the Janitor

Samantha Coleman

Happy Traveler Inn - Room 240

Moscow, Russia

"Room Service!" Someone knocked at the door and something in Russian followed. Samantha assumed it's the same thing but in Russian. She carefully eyed the three men whom she knew were secretly armed. They were members of Shepherd's secret force, the one he calls "Shadow Company".

She's tired of being held hostage, she just wanted to live a normal life. And if Alex was correct, she can't believe that she chose to forget him just to get another shot at a normal life. She felt stupid. And she actually missed him. Even with all the jumbled and altered memories, her heart reacted to his presence.

The three abductors looked at her threateningly as the janitors entered. She knew she wasn't supposed to act suspicious or she's dead.

"We don't need cleaning!" One exclaimed as he shoved the janitor to the door, out of surprise the two janitors immediately grabbed mops and brooms and began fighting the abductors.

Samantha described it as a scene straight out of the movies, the trio worked together, hitting enemies until they were knocked down by severe hits in the head. They quickly disarmed and bound the abductors.

The tall janitor approached her, his eyes felt familiar but Samantha was reluctant to accept help. She eyed his name tag which said "Hello I'm VLAD"

"Thanks, Vlad?" She guessed, Vlad quickly removed his hat and face mask.

"Aw come on, Samantha. It's me!" Alex smiled, behind him, Roach and Soap stood and looked happy to see her.

Samantha's heart skipped a beat. She was right. He did go to the ends of the world for her multiple times. That meant that whatever they shared back on her memory lapses were far too significant for him. She hugged him tight and he reciprocated it quickly. She wanted to kiss him already but in their situation, it was better to keep it for later.

"Here you go, Alex." Soap tossed him the abductor's uniform as they quickly changed from janitors to bodyguards as they escorted her back to safety.

"Ghost this is Alex. The package is secure. Prepare for exfil."

"Roger that, pal." He replied as they effortlessly exited the hotel, leaving a message to Shepherd that he should not mess with them.

The elevator ride was the most awkward place for Samantha. The tension between her and Alex were reaching new heights. Their eye contacts felt more intense and small grazes from their hands felt like small jolts of electricity. Her heart raced so fast that she bit her lip.

"Thanks for saving me guys. For a second I thought you were never going to find me." She breathed as Alex slowly locked his hand on hers. She felt her cheeks warm up as his touch sent her on an ecstatic feeling. Was he really like this to her?

"You're still our priority, Samantha. Disbanded or not." Roach grinned as the elevator dinged upon reaching the Parking lot. In front of them was Price, driving the van and Ghost slowly sliding the door open.

"Welcome back, Samantha." The masked man greeted them as they entered the vehicle.

Safe House 110197

Brazil

Alex somewhat expected familiarity or nostalgia from Samantha, but all she remembered was the name of the safehouse. The number combination was somewhat familiar. She felt guilty and frustrated once she stepped foot on the house, as none of the items rang something from her memory while Alex took effort in recalling everything they did during their stay there, things that Samantha didn't expect she'd do but wanted to feel all over again.

Amidst the stress of the things happening around them, Maxine and Francine were getting along as they prepared a little feast once they heard that Samantha's on the way here. Maxine cried as she hugged her best friend and Samantha couldn't help but also shed tears.

"I missed you. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" She asked, those same words also came out of Alex's mouth earlier, guess she was that important to the two of them?

"I'm fine, Max. They didn't hurt me or anything. Shepherd was actually out to use me as a bargaining chip so that my Dad would help him." The room fell silent. This was what they needed to hear. Intel.

Before lunch was even served, they already gathered around the dinner table. Alex finally sat beside Samantha, and that meant Ghost was the only one without a partner.

Samantha discussed the case at hand. How Shepherd would give Nero an IP Address in exchange for blueprints of an EMP Nuke. He'll then use such machinery to combat Nero's assault as well as avenge 30,000 of his defeated troops in Afghanistan. He also has his own elite troop called Shadow Company, which were trained the same way as the 141, but they had strength in numbers.

The rest of the evening was devastating. Now that they had information on Shepherd, Price and Jack started to call in some favors and prepared for the best window to fight back. Ghost got a text from Agent Ryder of interpol that she was too late to stop the trade of funds and now Shepherd has put the remaining 141 as most wanted people. Laswell also called Price that the initial plan of creating a task force was not going to work considering they're already fugitives and they should be more careful outdoors. Everyone else looked like they saw this one coming, they already knew the risks of the things they've done and proceeded to live their lives.

Samantha caught a glimpse of Max and Roach sprinkling each other water while washing the dishes, Soap and France arguing about how the word 'whimsy' was supposed to be used in a sentence and Ghost was always on his command center. She felt that she was never gone.

"How are you holding up, Love?" Alex plopped beside her, giving her a glass of water. Samantha smiled and raised her eyebrows.

"I don't remember you calling me that." She questioned, as she noticed the faint smell of Alex that she began to admire.

"Of course you don't. That's why I'm helping you." he grinned, tucking her hair behind her ear. She giggled and inhaled once more.

"You smell good today… Are you still trying to win my heart? I thought you already did." She mused, blushing as she ran a hand across his strong inked arms. She was always scared of heavily tattooed men, but this guy was an exception to the rule.

"Well, I wore clothes from two different people today… so… but nevermind that reason. Is it working? To you…? Are you… smitten?" He wiggled his eyebrows in an attempt to be seductive and Samantha just laughed. Was it possible to fall in love with a guy whom you already love? If so, then she's all for it.

"I can't say for sure, Vlad." She teased as he quickly fished his wallet, revealing a letter inside a small ziploc container. He gave it to Samantha as she uncrumpled it and started to read the contents.

"What's this?" she asked, looking at her own writing, she started to feel scared and nervous about the letter.

"You left that note to me before you forgot me… I tried to keep it for as long as I could, to the point that I almost wanted to throw it away." he held her hand while she held the letter.

"My Dearest Alex…" She spoke softly. Her hands began to tremble as he gently tightened his grip on her, making her feel more at ease.

"...In a span of three weeks, you managed to make me feel love once again. You allowed me to realize that even after a horrible loss, I could still open my heart and feel the joy of falling in love." This was clearly her creation, she slowly turned to Alex as he smiled and nodded his head to continue.

"...I always told myself that no matter how painful it is, I'll never forget your face, your smile, your eyes and all those memories we shared together. I actually convinced myself that we were a happily married couple back in that safehouse, an illusion I made because my heart felt like it. It was a good feeling, and I want to thank you for it." She leaned on his shoulders, looked at him once more and mouthed "Sorry".

"It looked like I forgot…" tears started to well on her eyes and Alex smiled. He wasn't the crying type but his eyes were already starting to get wet.

"I can't help but think about a lot of things, one being that if we were destined to meet and not end up together, it would be better if I don't meet you at all. I'm sorry to say this but I do love you so much and I know I promised, but I think my heart couldn't carry the idea of you existing and not within my grasp. It's utterly heartbreaking." she sobbed, hot tears fell from her cheek and Alex immediately wiped them off with his thumbs as she continued reading, her voice was shaky.

"So, your office offered me a chance to alter my memories of meeting you, along with the memory that made Nero look for me. You were on a briefing and I wanted to talk to you personally, maybe feel your warmth one last time. I'd want to kiss you too, but I guess the world didn't want that to happen." She looked at Alex one more time, then their lips met, it was a small peck, their lips immediately parted upon contact. She looked back at her letter"

"So I took the offer, and by the time you read this, I'm already on my way home to resume the life I've lost. I'm sure Maxine misses me right now...

I know you'll agree to this because I feel you always want what's best for me. If our paths would cross again, I hope you'll remember me the way I remembered you before I take this operation, A good memory that's supposed to last forever.

Apologizing in advance if I don't remember you anymore.

Don't you dare forget about me,

- Samantha" Teardrops splattered across the paper as she folded it and reached for Alex's mouth, this time they went all out. Like teenagers who shared their first french kiss, sloppy, needy yet satisfying. They didn't care about their surroundings. All they both cares about was that they were within each other's grasp after a very long time.

"I guess you kept my word. You never forgot me…" She exhaled as they broke the kiss.

"It's because I can't… and I told myself that I won't." Alex replied as they kissed once again. This time, they could hear Maxine and Roach cheering in the background.

"Geez! Get a room you two!" A loud Scottish yell was heard from the distance. But despite all the noise, the two of them didn't mind.

Samantha was brushing her teeth when Alex snuck up from behind, wrapping his arms around her. She remembered how she admitted to the letter that they acted like a married couple, maybe this was always their thing for weeks. She was happy as they both swayed harmoniously, looking at the most handsome man in the world, hugging her.

"Do hmm haa hoo heemmmi hoo?" She mumbled while her hands brushed her teeth.

"We don't. But if we had one what would you think it'd be?" Alex mused, turning to her. He already knew what she meant despite it being inaudible. She spat the contents of her mouth and finished brushing her teeth before turning to him, all while still under his warm embrace.

"Have you heard of Way Back into Love?" she asked, Alex's reaction was a very wholesome smile.

"Like from that movie? Yeah." he chuckled, minty breath traveled to her nostrils.

"All I want to do is find a way back into love…" she sang softly, her singing voice made Alex smile.

"I can't make it through without a way back into love…" Alex sang or more specifically, said the words near the tune. Samantha giggled as they swayed to their little song.

"And if I open my heart again

I guess I'm hoping you'll be there for me in the end" They sang together, Samantha doing it in tune while Alex sounded like he's narrating the song. They both were spinning around on the small area in front of the sink, enjoying the moments that they were together once again. Samantha wishing that she'll never get separated from Alex ever again.

Next Chapter : Undying Admiration

Notification Squad my Beloved

@enderio @whimsywispsblog @beemybee @samatedeansbroccoli @smokeywhalee @ricinbach

#horrayfic #john soap mactavish #john price #simon ghost riley #alex echo 3 1 #gary roach sanderson #whateverittakes #I LOVE THIS CHAPTER SO SO SO MUCH

18 notes · View notes

datarevived · 4 years

Text

-- Ⅰ : ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀsᴛ ᴄɪᴛʏ

The Last City.

The final bastion of humanity.

Surely, it was a sight to behold.

Mouth parted in a quiet gasp as the ship flew across the staggering city beneath, the Awoken sat eagerly against the window as various colors and sounds ignited to their surroundings. The smells of fuel, surprisingly becoming more and more masked by other scents -- food? Firewood? As ricochet bullets and fireworks cracked beyond that of ones' aircraft jets, a distant training grounds that could be spotted below sporting several teams of Guardians who seemed to be going at it fist to fist.

Even in the mist of war, it seemed those who strove to survive were none short on their livelihood.

The Tower which sat in the distance, its' mass quickly becoming larger by the moment, had also been decored in life. Ample bodies walking about the perimeter, with armed guards treated at every corner. Guardians -- she knew these for fact, based on the various armor and attire verses that of the civilians, seemed endless. Those presently docking their own crafts, while those who had objectives departed with haste. She could feel her seat shake at each revel of ones' hyperjump, their ships cracking the sounds of wind as they blasted off.

" Welcome to the Tower, “ a mans' voice greeted. One of the Hunter's from the patrol unit that had helped her out of the sinkhole, his coated frame standing in the doorway of the pilot pit. His features, unknown to her ability as he dawned in thick fabric and armor head to toe - leaving his voice in a set reverb to ones' helmet. " You ready? "

" Mm..mhm. "

As soon as bay doors began to crack, the suction of air catch her off guard as she stumbled back a moment. The setting sun illuminating the scene in a beautiful glow, the immediate noise of people flooding into her ears. Already, she could count over four discussions going on - automatize tones that belonged to machine, tinier voices that belonged to plenty a Ghost -- inquiries to none in particular, but any who would listen or required the necessary help to do so.

It was so... alive.

Almost overwhelming in a sense, the scenic overlay causing her head to dizzy once more. Was it natural for all Guardians to start off so unbalanced? She'd have to ask, once getting more comfortable with the place.

The Hunter on standby was waiting at the bottom of the airlock, giving the Awoken a moment before he waves a gentle hand for her to follow. Leading her through the open roof of the Tower, stairs downward into more secluded life. At one point, by-passing what could have been used as a garden, all left with a single tree that seem to bloom in the center of the small courtyard. As robot-esq humanoids sat along the floors, tinkering with their own guns and devices - others merely stood in place, sweeping a broom back and forth.

Yet there was one building in particular that caught her attention as they walked. Perhaps due to the scent, or mayhaps the loudness of ones' patrons - a small hole-in-the-wall shop that served hand-crafted noodles by the bowl. Its' stall nearly cramped from occupation as several people sat and stood around the countertop, laughing about their stories and ringing up another round of beverage. The smells of the broth and multiple spices trapping her nose like some sort of chain, her throat watering in brief nostalgia before picking up her feet to gain ground with the other.

" I'd recommend it, " the Hunter chuckled, turning a view over his shoulder as panicked footsteps tracked to his backside. " S'good. Even if it is a hobby now n' days. "

This time, he leads her to another set of stairs. Upward and fairly brief -- leading to a balcony in which a woman presently stood. A makeshift bird stand rested next to her arm, with massive hawk perched in view as it turned its' attention to the approaching duo. A click of its' beak in greeting as the woman turned in welcome.

" Back so soon Hunter? Don't tell me you lost the other two already. "

" Nah. They're still on route, but, had to make a relay before we finished, " the man explained, siding an arm toward the other present. " Got ourselves a new Light. Figured you can fill her in. "

At the mention, the Awoken fidgets a bit. A hand raised to her opposing elbow, gripping at the torn cloth of her shirt in nerves. A struggle to rest eye contact with the other woman, attention bouncing between she and the hawk. So much socializing so soon... it was uneasy.

" New Light, huh? Explains the civilian look, almost had me hopeful for more company on my side of the field, " the woman grins, crossing her arms at her chest. " Don't worry, I got it from here. Get back with your team before they get too far ahead. I don't need Cayde breathing at my back because I lost a set of his boys. "

" Eh, he doesn't own us, " the man laughed, waving a hand in farewell. Offering the Awoken a gentle pat on the shoulder before turning his guard, making it half way down the stairs before pausing in a hunch, " Oh - and when you're done giving her the tour, drop her by the shop. Can take the payment out of my share. Call it newbies' welcome. "

An exasperated huff, the woman parts one of her arms from her chest briefly, shooing the man away before turning back to her newly company with a smile.

" So... the Traveler's still got it. The Vanguard will be pretty happy to hear there's still a chance of new Light's like you. We haven't gotten many since the blackout. How're you feelin'? "

" I feel... fine, I guess, " the Awoken answered hesitantly. Fluttering irises sheepishly making out the details of the others' face and wares now that it was just the two of them. She didn't look like the rest of the Guardians... yet her presentation sat all the same confidence. " Still... kinda grasping everything. "

" It's a lot to take in, " the other nods. " Don't stress yourself too much. It'll all sort itself out in due time. Always affects people a little differently, so I've noticed. You want any water or anything? Something I can help? "

" N-No.. that's not necessary. Thank you, though... uhm... "

" Suraya. Suraya Hawthorne, " the woman grinned. " But most here just call me Hawthorne. "

" Hawthorne... ah... thank you, for.. y'know, " the Light stumbles upon words, self grip upon her arm shuffling in thought. It was so hard to speak. " Are you a Guardian as well...? "

" Me? Nah, " Hawthorne shrugged, uncrossing her arms now as one extends to reach a finger under the Hawk's neck. A satisfied purr ruffling its' feathers in the attention. " I'm just a glorified nobody. Most here consider me the bridge between humanity and the Guardians - sayin' that my leadership is what's helping those without the Traveler get by. But ever since coming to the Tower, I guess I've also become the therapy necessary for transitioning Lights like you. You know, tailoring between both worlds, sorta thing. "

In some matter of speaking, it was relieving to hear, coming from another. That not all Guardians' where up and att'em moment they revived -- that a transition was by all means necessary. Either that, or it was just the others' aura that seemed gentle and honest. The beginning to a long stretch that would be the Awoken's trust in the people of the City and its' Vanguard.

" Speaking of which, where's your little guy? Or gal - no judge, " the woman questioned, a brow quirking at the quick altercation as her finger left the nudge of the Hawk.

" It's... he -- "

-- " Here, here! Sorry - sorry, I seemed to have gotten caught up in all the networking since getting close to the city, " blinking into existence, the Ghost rattled its' shell in frantic speak. Its' shell zooming in between the space that lingered between the two women, then hovering particularly aligned with the bird in staring. " It's just so... much! Too much, a lot to take in right away. Did you know there was over ten passcodes to enter the City's network? Over ten! "

" Got yourself a chatty one, didn't you? " Hawthorne laughed, tilting her head some as she examined the Ghost. " Firewalls, pal. Necessary to keep the bad taillights outta the bags of information. I'm sure someone here can catch you up to speed once you pass the Vanguard's evaluation. Then there'll be no more passcodes. "

" The Vanguard? " the Awoken blinked. " Who is...? "

" The Vanguard are the head-honchos' of this place. The gears that keep the City going - one of them being right over there, " she points, directing attention at another woman on the lower floor. " Ikora Rey. One of the best, if not the best, Warlock there is. Definitely one of the more mentally sound of the bunch. Then there's big blue, Zavala - you might've seen him when you flew in if he's at his usual perch. Can usually find him overshadowing the city off the Tower's edge. There's a lot of strong Titan's out there... but powered by his sheer determination to protect the people, he gives' people a run for their money. "

" What about the Hunters...? Or is that where you come in? "

The question leaving little to be answered in the matter, the womans' brows anchor upward in jest as she shakes her head, a laughterous tone to her words, " Nah, not me - no way. I can't keep up with those maniacs. Though it is a wonder if they'd be just as reckless with a different mentor on the field... " a sigh, though not in forfeit. " Cayde-6. Best shot around, but plenty of screws loose. He's a... pretty eccentric guy. "

Well, that didn't sound good.

Between the several named, all in which felt completely out of her league, the Awoken shifted in her step. A secondary glance at the woman below, hands running through several piles of paperwork that were scattered along a hand-crafted table. She was unfamiliar with that of Warlocks and what they inherited... but by the sounds of it, it seemed only reasonable to seek that Vanguard through its' calmest mind.

" And their evaluation.. process.. " she speaks, eyes returning back to Hawthorne. " Some sort of test? "

" A test of character, really. Consider it more an interview than exam. If you haven't realized it yet, most Guardians have this affinity for seeing others' light. The Vanguard are particularly precise in that merit. Can tell a good taillight from bad taillight, " Hawthorne nodded her head side to side as she spoke, declaring the differences between the two. " I can get you and the Misses' downstairs acquainted if you like. "

Gotta start from somewhere, right?

" I.. would like that, yes. "

Another smile, Hawthorne then turns to the hawk at her aide, giving its' neck another tap before walking alongside the other. " Eyes on the sky, Bird. And watch for the turbines, will ya'? "

" Its' name is Bird? " the Light repeated, her tone perplexed.

" I'm not good with names - too many of'em to keep track of, " Hawthorne admitted, leading the way back down the stairs of the small hall. " Just makes things easier, y'know?... What about you? You got a name? "

A name.

How odd -- she hadn't considered her own name til now, even through the mental capacity of trying to learn every other. The Hunter on the ship only addressing her as ' new Light ', and her Ghost -- as well nameless -- a ' Guardian '. Each name sitting upon title and lacking the personalization of character.

What was her name...?

. . . . .

. . .

" ...I'm Selene. "

" Selene? Nice to meet you, Selene. "

#✦ ᴏʀɪɢɪɴ / drabble #d2 short-story #d2 story #destiny 2 #destiny 2 rp

2 notes · View notes

cozycosmos · 5 years

Text

✨Pick-a-Pile Reading: Feminine Energy Communication✨

Hello, friends!

As of very recently I have fallen in love with an oracle deck I purchased called “The Literary Witches Oracle”.

This oracle deck uses powerful females in literary culture (the witches) and their materials/objects to guide the interpreter (me!) to answers or information regarding people and/or situations.

Since it is very much so a “girl power” deck, I decided to do a Pick-a-Card reading based off of WHAT YOUR FEMININE ENERGY IS TRYING TO TELL YOU! This reading consists of ONE witch and TWO materials/objects for clarification.

This reading is meant for guys, gals and non-binary pals- we all have feminine energy that we can tune into in attempt to improve our body, mind and soul!

While I picked these cards through intuition and with love, they may not apply to all of you! Please take away whatever resonates with you. I would love to hear your feedback no matter what!

✨THE CARDS✨

There are six piles. Please pick one; whichever really speaks to you!

Pile 1 (JASPER), Pile 2 (CHRYSOPRASE), Pile 3 (ANGELITE), Pile 4 (SMOKY QUARTZ), Pile 5 (MALACHITE) and Pile 6 (LABRADORITE).

Alrighty, have you picked one? Great! Let’s get down to it.

✨PILE ONE (JASPER)✨

About your Witch:

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was a prolific writer of intense, dark-themed poetry. She held a deep anger toward men in her life and focused heavily on death within her writings. She suffered with intense depression and ultimately took her own life.

In Terms of the Cards:

Sylvia Plath is representative of THE DARK. Her sub-categories are LIVING IN THE DARK, INTENSITY and FURY.

The objects pulled for her were APPLE and WILDFLOWERS. An apple is symbolic of THE SENSES, HUNGER and SEX. Wildflowers are symbolic of RENEWAL, ROMANCE and AWAKENING.

✨What your feminine energy wants to tell you:✨

Your feminine energy desires a physical change. Some part of your routine has grown stagnant. Maybe you hadn’t realized, but a lack of passion within your every day has led to life feeling... well? A little dull. Your energy invites you to explore new interests; to seek out new sensations. What makes you anticipate the start of a new day? What sort of activities or objects do you take enjoyment in? It is craving for something new and exciting to open your eyes to what could be a more fulfilled, enriched life both physically and mentally. Essentially, find ways to fall in love with your life!

✨PILE TWO (CHRYSOPRASE)✨

About your Witch:

Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) was a ground-breaking Iranian poet. Her writings centered around nature, sensuality and sexuality. Societal norms condemned her for both her lifestyle and poetry topics.

In Terms of the Cards: Forugh Farrokhzad is representative of REBELLION. Her sub-categories are INDEPENDENCE, BARRIERS and ISOLATION.

The objects pulled for her were CHICKEN and GHOST. Chicken is symbolic for THE CACKLE, ANCIENT PAST and LORE. Ghost is symbolic for MEMORIES, WHAT HAUNTS YOU and UNFINISHED BUSINESS.

✨What your feminine energy wants to tell you:✨

Your feminine energy wants you to realize that there is something from your past that is severely holding you back. This was an event or series of events that affected you deeply, scarring your thoughts and inherently your actions. With this ball-and-chain relationship, you have effectively trapped yourself in a negative feedback loop. Your energy encourages you to break away from these bonds that you have created; healthily work through and let go of the anxiety you hold onto. Accepting your past and moving forward is key; forgive yourself for feeling held back and the doors will open for you. Free yourself!

✨PILE THREE (ANGELITE)✨

About Your Witch:

Angela Carter (1940-1992) was a feminist writer who focused on violence, sex and femininity as a whole. She created mystical fairytales that sometimes contained a bit of a psychosexual twist.

In Terms of the Cards: Angela Carter is representative of IDENTITY. Her subcategories are INVESTIGATING IDENTITY, ROLES and WHO YOU ARE.

The objects pulled for her were KNIFE and PEACOCK. Knife is symbolic of INTENTION, CONFLICT and RESOLUTION. Peacock is symbolic of SPLENDOR, THE DIVINE and CRAVING.

✨What your feminine energy wants to tell you:✨

You seem to have been asking yourself a lot of important questions lately. Perhaps you have recently underwent a big change, such as a new job or school; the ending of a relationship or a shift in dynamic. Your feminine energy detects your stress as you attempt to navigate these new changes and question how you personally fit into them. This is a great time to analyze yourself: who were you then, and how does this change affect you now that you are no longer in that time of your life? Are there aspects of your personality that you love? If you don’t have an immediate answer, explore what makes you “you”. Maybe there are some negative qualities that you have been itching to rid of- now is the time. Give yourself the space to understand who you are- be proud and love yourself! All of these changes are pulling you onto the path you are meant to be on.

✨PILE FOUR (SMOKY QUARTZ)✨

About your Witch:

Mirabai (questionably 1450-1547) was a princess who wrote devout poetry to the god Krishna instead of being a traditional ruler/wife. Harsh feelings rose within the royal family which eventually led to her disappearance.

In terms of the Cards: Mirabai is representative of DEVOTION. Her sub-categories are WORSHIP, PASSION and THE SUBLIME.

The objects pulled for her were BRAID and SKULL. Braid is symbolic of IDENTITY, SURVIVAL and OPINIONS OF OTHERS. Skull is symbolic of TRANSITIONS, REALITY and GRIEF.

✨What your feminine energy wants to tell you:✨

Your feminine energy urges you to stop valuing the opinions of others over your own as frequently as you do. You may have a history of being called “sensitive”, whether personality-wise or over certain issues. You may also have been made to feel small at times due to your beliefs or passions. It is time to speak up for yourself; letting people walk all over you is not very empowering for your feminine energy now, is it? Finally you have the inner-strength to speak up and speak out for what you love and what you believe is right. You are allowed to transition from something small to something big. You are powerful!

✨PILE FIVE (MALACHITE)

About your Witch:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was a popular social critic and is most famously known for “The Yellow Wallpaper” which commented on the disgusting “cures” women were prescribed for their ailments. She challenged women’s roles in society her whole career.

In terms of the Cards: Charlotte Perkins Gilman is representative of FREEDOM. Her sub-categories are OPPRESSION, WHAT FREES YOU, and THE SYSTEMS AT WORK.

The objects pulled for her were CAT and LION. Cat is symbolic for THE UNTAMED, SELF-OWNERSHIP and WATCHING. Lion is symbolic for SHINING, MASTERY and STRENGTH.

✨What your feminine energy wants to tell you:✨

Have you been waiting for the perfect opportunity to achieve something great? Have you had an idea that you are passionate about, but you’re not sure how to go about it? Unsure of if it’s the right time to do something you’ve been wanting to do? Your feminine energy wants you to know that the time is now. Whatever it is you’ve been holding off doing (starting a new hobby, working on something that’s difficult either physically/emotionally, kickstarting a business/project) you now have the freedom and the skills to do it. You are the key player in the decision to make your visions a reality-or, to not act on them at all. Perhaps you have felt like you don’t have what it takes to succeed with this idea; your feminine energy says otherwise. Take charge of your dreams! You can attain them.

✨PILE SIX (LABRADORITE)✨

About your Witch:

Eileen Chang (1920-1995) led a troubled youth in China due to drug-addicted parents and a mistreated illness. During her adulthood, she wrote fiction that easily mirrored her life’s woes.

In terms of the Cards: Eileen Chang is representative of FATE. Her sub-categories are OUTSIDE FORCES, EVENTS FALLING INTO PLACE, and ACCEPTANCE.

The objects pulled for her were HOUSE and MILK. House is symbolic of STABILITY, STAGNATION and FAMILY. Milk is symbolic of NOURISHMENT, PARENTS and NOSTALGIA.

✨What your feminine energy wants to tell you:✨

Something in your life is about to click into place. Your feminine energy has been looking out for you, providing feelings of calm and comfort. This maternal energy has pushed you to nurture your thoughts and feelings; to truly listen to yourself when it comes to what you want and need. You’ve noticed a shift in how you feel; a little pep in your step. The universe has been making sure that whatever tools you need are right in front of you. Whatever trials and tribulations you’ve experienced that have halted your successes have been diminished by your determination to make things better for yourself. You feel strong, powerful, independent and confident. If not now, very soon!

✨Thank you guys so much and please let me know if you enjoyed this reading!✨

39 notes · View notes

adulthooliganism · 4 years

Note

Hi! I’m also twenty (he/they), and I love TWRP! Their music is so groovy and I end up stimming to music a lot! Are there any other bands/artists you like! You seem super cool and I feel like I could never tire of your interests! Have a happy Monday! :D

this is a very wholesome and gentle ask and i hope u know i love u

as for music . i listen to a lot of things! i know it’s super mainstream or whatever to be like “oh i like anything” but it’s true! there’s a little bit of like. certain kinds of country and specific metal that i’m not super into but even within those genres there Is a lot that i like

if you’re looking for twrp-esque music, to be totally honest i don’t really have a good alternative? twrp is really kinda one of a kind for me and, aside from groove crusader and lord phobos (which are literally the twrp boy’s other music projects), i don’t really have anything in a super similar vein

[deep breath]

however,

my artist of the decade on spotify was jukebox the ghost, an indie power-pop/piano-rock band. they are very queen-esque and are absolutely fucking phenomenal. jumpstarted is probably one of their most intensive songs, there’s so much going on in it and it’s just incredible. fred astaire is maybe my favorite song by them? beady eyes on the horizon is good for that like. dystopia the world is going to hell and there’s nightmares in the sky vibe which leads to

narc twain! this is a music project lead by the guitarist from jtg. very uh. anarchist-inspired fuck-the-government-they’re-hiding-things-from-us rock. super good. same shit and no connection are both absolutely amazing.

enough jukebox talk i’ll move on

i always have to mention my pals over at minimall! they actually have a new single coming out soon?? they do like. indie pop-rock? i think? my mom thinks they sound like the cranberries which i disagree with but i see where she’s coming from on don’t tell me specifically. they have a super cute music video for their song static! you should check them out! (my friend wynne, the one who plays trumpet in the static music video, also just started their own music side project called pisces seeking! please go give them a listen they deserve it)

hozier! everyone knows him, everyone loves him. all his music is so good but wasteland, baby as an album is beyond. that’s the kind of music you lay on your bedroom floor dissociating to. i speak from personal experience. can’t forget jackie and wilson, though.

imgaine dragons. listen. hear me out. hell and silence has my favorite song literally of all time, selene. night visions fucking rules and nobody will tell me otherwise. smoke + mirrors had a couple bangers but was overall pretty okay. evolve is some of the raddest shit i’ve ever heard, and if it weren’t for my nostalgia for night visions it would be my favorite album. origins doesn’t exist. i will defend this band to my grave. you loved radioactive when it came out. don’t lie to yourself.

aside from these few bands listed here, i listen to a wide range of things and very rarely am like. Into bands specifically? i’ll add a song here or there from their music but i generally don’t just listen to One Band’s stuff. here’s my spotify playlist of a lot of my music that i listen to, and here’s a sort of condensed version of that without the like. spam of Every Song by a couple bands. my friends and i will occasionally do listen-alongs and whenever i come across a song i like, i throw it here.

i listen to a lot of game soundtracks, but mostly anything by toby fox and then the celeste soundtrack. i also put on a lot of those like lofi hip hip studybeats streams, and recently started getting into electro-swing?? caravan palace is a trustworthy place to start with that.

this is a very long post but i hope you find at least something you like here! have a wonderful day!!!!

#god i love. talking about music #if you want me to elaborate on anything/have a specific genre/vibe you want #send another ask and i'll see what i can do!#anon #answered #long post //#twrpanon

2 notes · View notes

richsretroreviews · 5 years

Text

Crash Team Racing Review

Release Date: 20th October 1999 EU, 30th September 1999 NA, 16th December 1999 JP

Developer: Naughty Dog

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Crash Team Racing is better than Mario Kart 64. There. I’m getting that out of the way now. Even though I played CTR when I was 7 and didn’t get to play Mario Kart 64 until I was, what, 20? 21? And Double Dash when I was 12. You could argue I’m looking at it with nostalgia, but that is definitely not the case. I’m an adult now with critical thinking skills! I’ll get to Mario Kart 64 another time but I’m going to gush over why CTR is one of the best kart racing games I’ve ever played.

Now this was one of the first Playstation games I ever had and played when I got the console for my 7th birthday. And it was such a huge leap from playing the SNES to playing a Playstation. The controller felt bigger and the games visually felt bigger to me. My mind was blown yet again.

In CTR you get more than a few game modes; you get adventure where you get to race around the tracks multiple times to win trophies, CTR tokens and relics, time trial mode which is obvious, arcade where you can do single races or cup tournaments of which there are 4, VS and battle mode for up to 4 players. Overall there are 16 race tracks plus 2 unlockable ones and 5 arena maps.

You get 8 initial characters to play as at first; Crash, Cortex, Coco, Tiny, Dingodile, N.Gin, Polar and Pura with a further 7 characters to unlock, one of which can only be unlocked through a cheat code; Peta Penguin, who’s probably the fastest character in the game, the little guy is ridiculous but perfect for time trials. He’s only this fast in the PAL region however.

In adventure, and the plot of the game, Nitrous Oxide travels to Earth where he searches for a racer faster than he to give him a challenge. If he loses he’ll leave off but if he wins he’ll take over the world turning it into a parking lot.

You get to choose one of the 8 characters to race through adventure mode. You have to race all 16 tracks and obtain all 4 boss keys to race Oxide the first time and then collect all CTR tokens and relics and gems to face him a second time. Yeah, you have to face him twice. When I was a kid and beat him the first time and the credits rolled I thought I was done completely and with the end credit scene of him testing you further to get all relics and gems I thought that would be for a game another time. But nope. You have to go through the tracks all over again twice over.

But the tracks are so damn fun and the game plays so pleasingly it’s not a chore at all and always fun to race through the tracks multiple times.

Of the gem cups, complete each one and you can unlock the bosses! Ripper Roo, Komodo Joe, Pinstripe, Papu Papu and no Nitros. He was too big to play as apparently which always got me wondering as a kid as to how to unlock him.

Additionally you can unlock N. Tropy by beating his ghosts in time trial mode.

Or if you can't be assed, there's cheats to unlock them all!

Of the 16 tracks, they’re all based on themes from the levels in the previous Crash games as well as relative to each character. Crash has Crash Cove, Coco has Coco Park, N.Gin has N.Gin labs, Tiny has Tiny Arena and Tiger Temple (or would that be Pura’s?), Cortex has his Cortex Castle, Dingodile has Dingo Canyon, and Polar’s got Polar Pass. There’s also Mystery Caves designed from the dino levels in Warped, Blizzard Bluff, Sewer Speedway modelled after the sewer levels in Crash 2, and the unlockable Slide Colosseum and Turbo Track.

Additionally there are stages set for the bosses of the game; Ripper Roo is the first you face on Roo’s Tubes, Papu Papu on Papu Pyramid, Komodo Joe in Dragon Mines, Pinstripe on Hot Air Skyway and finally Oxide on Oxide Station.

The tracks are basically large, fun playgrounds to zip around in and with how well the karts and characters handle it’s a blast to boost around the tracks, jumping off ramps and discovering short cuts. In each boss track you get their portraits posted all about as well as tracks like Cortex Castle and N.Gin Labs you get their portraits posted about too. It’s fun to look around these tracks to see just what’s going on in these levels.

And speaking of the tracks being playgrounds, there would be days where my sister and I would spend half an hour on Tiny Arena just playing around in the mud. Oxide Station’s speed boosts all over is a perfect reflection on Oxide’s character being the “Fastest Racer in the Galaxy” and makes for great fun to zip around the track as fast as possible given the slide boosts to add to it.

Which!

Mario Kart 64 had its own slide boost mechanic, but Crash’s is far better. You jump with either R1 or L1, turn, and the gauge on the bottom right fills up. When it’s red you hit the opposing jump button (so if you used R1 now you use L1) and you get a quick speed boost and you can repeat this up to 3 times in a single slide.

This makes the racing gameplay move by so much faster and smoother and more entertaining and makes turning corners more enjoyable. Later racing games implemented this, including Double Dash!

In lieu of the release of Crash Team Racing Nitro Fuelled, I thought it fun to look back at the original. The game that started off my love for Crash and kart racers. The game that showed me how fun games can and will become and what stapled Playstation, to me, as my console of choice. Essentially.

This game still stands strong, even against its remake counterpart and stands stronger against other kart racing games that have come out before and after it. It set such a precedent for kart racers that even its sequel, Nitro Kart, influenced Mario Kart with anti-gravity tracks and karts.

It’s fun, plays so well, it’s colourful, its design is sublime, and its soundtrack and sound design is vibrant and joyful. There’s no reason to not like this game.

Where To Purchase:

Playstation Store: £3.99/$5.99 (PS3, PSP, PS Vita)

Ebay: £20-70/ $20-(31/07/19)

Amazon: £20-50/ $7.25-$200 (31/07/19)

#crash team racing #playstation #rich's retro reviews #review #games #video games #nitro fueled

1 note · View note

tisthenightofthewitch · 6 years

Link

It’s been an eventful past year, to say the least, for singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tobias Forge.

Up until recently, his band, Swedish occult-rockers Ghost, had been operating under a shroud of secrecy, with the multiple masked instrumentalists referred to only as Nameless Ghouls, while Forge, as frontman, assumed the role of Papa Emeritus (and Papa II…and Papa III), a sort of anti-Pope.

Over the course of three albums, Ghost rose to become one of metal’s hottest bands, with successful records (2016’s Meliora hit the Top Ten on the Billboard 200) and sold-out tours, multiple awards (including a 2016 Grammy for the Meliora track “Cirice”) and a worldwide fanbase that includes the likes of Dave Grohl, Phil Anselmo and the members of Metallica.

But in early 2017, the anonymity that seemed so vital to their story and music got stripped away when four former Ghouls filed a lawsuit accusing Forge of financial misconduct. As the suit became public knowledge, so did the identities of the parties involved, revealing Forge as the mastermind of the operation.

But rather than harming the band, this public unmasking seems to have only made Forge stronger. In addition to a new Ghost album, the excellent Prequelle, Forge (now in the guise of new frontman Cardinal Copia) and a new group of Ghouls are back out on the road, and the stages and theatrics have only grown bigger. Rather than pulling back, Forge has regrouped and redoubled his efforts.

“That was the point all along,” Forge says, speaking to Guitar World the morning after a show in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Ghost’s U.S. headline tour—their first ever in arenas. “I mean, I am following my plan that I’ve had years before any of those guys were in this. So why would I change? That would be stupid. I swam way too far out. My whole life, my family’s lives, we’re all so invested in this and have sacrificed so much and are depending on this. Why would I sacrifice that for a bunch of fuckups? No way.”

Indeed, one listen to the new Prequelle makes it clear that Forge will not sacrifice his vision for anything or anyone. Not only has he not lost a step, but he’s continuing to push out on the Ghost sound and story. To be sure, there’s still plenty of vintage-hued metal to be found on Prequelle, including the riffy, anthemic first single, “Rats,” and the stomping and shreddy “Faith,” but there’s also swelling, string-laden piano ballads (“Pro Memoria”), poppy, disco-metal confections (“Dance Macabre”) and a pair of incredibly catchy instrumentals, one of which, “Helvetesfönster,” features flute and nylon-string guitar (the latter played by Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt ) and the other, “Miasma,” that builds to an explosive saxophone-solo climax.

And Forge is only getting started. “The agenda has always been very rigorous and there’s always been a lot of ideas and concepts, and I still have not realized half of it,” he says. “I still have a lot to accomplish in the years coming. Believe me, there’s a lot in the pipeline going forward.”

The anonymity of the musicians in Ghost always seemed so important to the overall concept of the band. But now that the veil has been pierced, you seem almost reinvigorated.

Well, this is the thing—it was never like I was just waiting to be unmasked and then I was going to do this as per normal. Never. I don’t want to do Ghost as a normal, unmasked band standing around in, like, denim jackets. That was never the plan, regardless of whether people knew who I was or what size shoe I wear. So it doesn’t matter. For me, it’s the show that’s important. The make-believe part of it.

As far as the “make-believe” side of things, each Ghost album seems to revolve around a theme. When we spoke at the time of the release of Meliora, you said the album was about the “absence of god.” What is Prequelle about?

The return of god. And, for lack of a better way to put it, the day of doom, when god’s hand sort of reaches down upon the people. Like the Black Death. I wanted this album to have a sort of doomsday theme. But then it’s also themed around the idea of mortality and survival through turmoil, where you’re being judged and a doom has been cast upon you. How do you maneuver out of that?

When you’re composing songs, do the lyrics or the music come first?

The music comes first. Final lyrics are usually written very close to recording the vocals. It’s always been like a pulling-teeth situation for me, where some songs are definitely a knife to the throat on the day of singing. Like, “I need a lyric to this…now!”

Was there anything like that this time?

There are things like that every time. It’s endless. Because I always want to change things. But I usually come up with the important bits when I first begin writing. Like with the song “Rats,” I knew that was going to be the title and there was going to be the part that goes [sings riff] “Rrrats!” And from that it went through a lot of different shapes. But I very rarely start a song just with a riff. It’s usually a melody, and then it’s, “Here’s the verse, here’s the chorus.” And once I have that sort of transition, that’s when I have the song. Then I write riffs around that. That way there’s this steady melodic base. I might also write it with some bullshit vocals, and then I have to find my way with the lyrics around that. It’s varying degrees of pain.

You’ve hinted in the past that, even though you’re surrounded by Nameless Ghouls onstage, on the studio albums you play the majority of the instruments.

At some point or another I’ve played everything. But then to give you an example, you have heard the new album—I can’t play saxophone. But I can hum how I want a saxophone solo to be played. And I’m an able drummer, I can play Top 40 rock okay, but I can’t record hard-rock drums in a studio situation. That would be a waste of time. So I had a real drummer come in to do that work, even though I wrote the drum patterns. And that goes for all the records and all the songs. Even the songs that were co-written, I always played all the instruments at one point. So, when you hear Ghost, it’s my drum style. It’s my bass style. It’s my keyboard style. It’s my guitar style.

Are you playing all the guitars on Prequelle?

Yes. I performed all the guitars and all the bass. With one exception—in the song “Helvetesfönster,” there was a nylon-string part. I originally recorded it with electric guitar but it sounded weak. It didn’t sound cool. So I wanted it to be played with a nylon string. Now, I stopped playing nylon string when I was seven years old, so I called a friend of mine, Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth, who is very good at playing nylon string, to do it.

What was your guitar setup on the new album?

We did four rhythm tracks on everything. On one side we had a Les Paul gold top with P-90s that went through an Orange amp, and also a white [Gibson] Explorer from, like, ’82 or something like that—that typical James Hetfield sort of guitar—that went through an old Marshall rack amp from the early Nineties. And then on the other side it was a mid-Seventies Les Paul Black Beauty 20th Anniversary through one of those old Laneys that Tony Iommi used and an early Eighties [Gibson] Flying V that went through another Orange. Then I had a Seventies Strat for a lot of the leads, and I think I did overdubs mostly with the Explorer. So it was quite simple.

There are so many different styles that come through in your playing. Who were your influences as a guitarist?

There’s always a lot of classic rock—the old Sixties behemoths to, I guess, lesser-known stuff. And absolutely the heavy metal giants—Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, that sort of stuff—into the hard rock of the Eighties, the big arena rock. And then also underground death metal and black metal, and punk to a certain degree. I’m really trying my darndest to make this music as timeless as possible, even though it’s, to use an ambitious word, archaeologically going back to earlier music, especially Seventies hi-fi rock.

There is a definite vintage feel to Ghost’s music, but not to the point where it just sounds completely like a nostalgia trip.

Yes. I mean, it sounds different than your average sort of Black Sabbath rip-off sludge band. Because most of those bands that rave about Black Sabbath, the only songs they’re raving about and copying are the heavy songs. It’s never Black Sabbath’s more harmonic and grandiose tracks, like the ones you hear on Sabotage and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, these albums that have ballads and really beautiful, humane thoughts. And that is the sort of Black Sabbath I am tapping into. That’s the sort of Black Sabbath I am inspired by. That sort of mid-Seventies period where they found orchestration.

In addition to the heavy stuff, you also have things like “Dance Macabre,” which has a dancey, pop element to it.

It does, yeah. I had the riff that starts the whole song, that was just a riff that got stuck in my head. I didn’t think of it as a Ghost thing at first. Because I heard the riff in a slightly more “synth-y” sort of way. But I showed it to some songwriting pals of mine and they were like, “That’s a Ghost song!” Oh, okay. I didn’t hear it that way at first. But it then it was, “Let’s make a Ghost song out of it…”

“Faith” has some great lead guitar playing in it. Clearly, you can shred if the part calls for it.

I can do it if I need to. But I guess that’s an ability thing. But one thing that sort of separates my way of learning to play guitar compared to a lot of others is that I sat with my guitar and my amplifier and I played a lot to records, but I usually came up with my own stuff over them. I never learned the actual solos. So in a cock-measuring contest where it’s about playing licks and playing fast techniques of others, I would definitely lose. Because I only know how to play my own shit. My ability maps my own writing. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time biting licks from the really quick masters. That’s why I’m not very good at that sort of super-fast, shreddy sweeping.

So I’ve never considered myself a traditionally good fast-playing guitarist. But I can do it, especially when I’m recording. With “Faith,” the solo called for an intense, aggressive part where I was like, “This needs to be aaargh!” I wanted to have that sort of attack you hear when you listen to something like [Metallica’s] “Hit the Lights,” where after every drum thing there’s this insane, quick, aggressive guitar bit. I wanted a piece like that but that sounded more evil. And I was able to do it.

In the past, did it ever bother you that because the band members were anonymous, you weren’t getting recognized for your writing or playing skills?

Yes and no. At the time I didn’t think of it as a negative. Because since I am the spokesperson for the band I’ve always been the one that had a full-time job with it. I was working all the time, writing, doing every sort of business thing you could imagine. It was very much a full-time occupation for me. Whereas it definitely wasn’t that for the others, who spent a lot of time just, you know, getting paid retainers. So I always felt from a positive point of view that I was given enough attention. I was given enough pats on the back to not bother with taking credit for everything.

However—when a lot of things were said and done and all of a sudden people were trying to rewrite the story of Ghost and sort of waving a flag for having done something they hadn’t done, that’s where I become a little like, “Wait, wait, wait—are you kidding? That was not your guitar. That was not your style. And if that was your style, write a record. Write a record that sounds like Ghost. You can’t.” That’s where I become a little childish. I didn’t bother to spell it out all these years, and I was fine with people basking in it or whatever. It’s fine. But don’t fucking lie about it. Don’t come out and, you know, aggressively claim that it was yours. That makes it a little bit difficult.

Have you ever had the desire to play the instruments onstage? Just grab a guitar and shred for the fans?

Well, over all these years when people have played it wrong, definitely I’ve wanted to be like, “Give me that god-dang…” [laughs] You know, there’s a lot of nuances in the recordings that I feel sometimes over the years have been missed. But, I mean, this is the thing. As I was saying, I am the director of the play. I just happen to play a part in it. But I’m also orchestrating it. So I don’t demand credit for every little smartass move everywhere, because I know where it all comes from.

As far as where it all comes from, what was your original intent with the sound of Ghost?

I wanted it to sound like the most gelled-together, intuitive band ever. And to sound like a band that plays just the right amount of stuff. Because whenever you have a band where you have phenomenal players, they usually overplay and they don’t really leave enough room for someone else. I mean, for a long time I always thought Frank Zappa had these amazing jam musicians. And then, haha, fuck me, little did I know that he wrote everything and that it was all totally scripted. But it sounded like it was, you know, this band just standing there, all flowing with it. So I guess that’s a little bit of my approach as well.

You want Ghost to be a band—even if, behind the scenes, you’re the one responsible for most everything that’s being put out there.

Yes. I’ll gladly give away the applause to someone else. That’s completely fine. I just want everybody onstage to have fun. And I want everybody in the crowd to have fun. And to believe.

#Tobias Forge #Cardinal Copia #Ghost #The Band Ghost #Ghost Band

215 notes · View notes

tumblunni · 5 years

Text

Okay I know that kingdom hearts has a bad reputation for sticking crucial plot information on obscure spinoff games but HOLY SHIT I just finally watched a lets play of the fuckin digimon tcg game and found out it ACTUALLY HAS A GODDAMN CONCLUSION TO ANALOGMAN FROM DIGIMON WORLD 1

like 90% of the damn game has no plot whatsoever let alone indicating its a digimon world sequel! and then suddenly in the last battle without being foreshadowed whatsoever analogman returns and gets possibly the best boss battle ever IN A GODDAMN TCG GAME

holy shit his whole fight is framed as ‘this is literally the same guy from digimon world 1, hacking another game’, the interface wigs out and a bunch of fake command windows pop up with rapidly scrolling code of the game supposedly falling apart. And then his boss battle flips the entire gameplay system on its head by giving him fourth wall breaking special moves that pull overpowered effects by “hacking the engine”, with cool animations to fit. Fuckin badasssss!!

and it also fuckin FINALLY EXPLAINS THE DAMN PLOT LIKE GEEZ

digimon world’s conclusion was so rushed, you never even meet the villain until the final battle and it ends all weird with just “something” going wrong that causes him to get sucked into a portal or something while screaming dramatically in weirdly high resolution terror faces??? the tcg game confirms that this was him attempting to flee back to the human world after you defeated him, but one of the stray attacks from the battle damaged his machine and it caused him to essentially commit accidental suicide when he turned it on.

and HOLY SHIT MY FUCKIN OBSCURE HEADCANON IS TRUE????

the game had some sequel bait hints that maybe analogman is somehow still around and that the portal explosion just turned him into “corrupted data” so he can never return to the human world. and i always thought it would be super ironic if he actually got turned into a digimon aka the thing he hates more than anything

WELL OKAY I GUESS CRITICAL LORE IN A TCG GAME IS OKAY WHEN ITS A BIG YES BUNNI U THEORY BE CORRECT

he appears in this game as a malomyotismon who does a damn good vexen face during the fight, lol. And he’s all “gahh that stupid kid ruined my plans but this accursed body at least improved my hacking abilities!” Tho its implied that his corrupted state is more like a bodyless cloud of data that can possess/copy different digimon, which would be REALLY FUCKIN CRITICAL to explaining the goddamn plot of Digimon World Next Order!

Seriously wtf is up with this series? Digimon World 2 is not the sequel to Digimon World 1, all the numbered games are entirely separate individual stories with wildly different genres from pet sim to roguelike strategy. The real sequel is fucking DIGIMON THE CARD GAME THE GAME and then Digimon World Next Order a bazillion years later for the ps4. In which i am STILL REALLY SALTY that they have a FUCKIN RAD remix of analogman’s boss theme yet he doesn’t appear in the game. The added context of this damn tcg game confirms once and for all that the Ambiguous As Fuck Ending actually WAS him appearing in the game, this unexplained “oh wait the villain was good all along and he was just possessed by an evil virus” was supposed to be corrupted-digi-analogman and seriously WHY DONT THEY JUST FUCKIN EXPLAIN IT!!! this tcg game wasnt even released in europe!! and even american fans probably had no clue it was linked to this entirely separate subseries! You have to friggin piece it together with context clues like the battle music and the fact analogman’s signature mon was machinedramon. I mean vjesus christ Next Order is a litera; sequel with the grown up version of Digimon World’s protagonist as a badass home ec teacher who still defends the digital world in his free time yet you couldnt spare ONE LINE OF DIALOGUE mentioning the name of the villain?? and summarizing the fuckin tcg game everyone missed??? AND CONFIRMING THAT THE VILLAIN IS INDEED MAKING A REAPPEARANCE POSSESSING THIS GUY??? oh god everything makes SENSE, thank you terrible card game adaptation. ehh but i do still love Next Order for making Hiro/Mameo’s canon partner Mamemon, he’s even more badass as this big tough bishie version of himself with a tiny adorable pal that can shoot rocket fists through space and time. (its funny tho cos the DW1 intro movie showed metalmamemon and metalgreymon and the american boxart flipped a coin and decided metalgreymon must have been the one the protagonist was using in that scene. Whoops!)

anyway even with the added context that IT WAS INDEED GODDAMN ANALOGMAN, the final boss fight in Next Order was as terrible as the rest of the plot. So I’m glad trash gramps got a suitably badass boss fight after all, even if it was a CARD GAME VERSION! lets all celebrate the awesomeness of this obscure fuckin spinoff game’s obscure fuckin intercontinuity cameo with the boss fight music that other game wasted

youtube

seriously fuckin hell the biggest challenge in that final boss was that i was so distracted by SHEER OFFENDEDNESS at the cool music not matching it that it was hard to keep focused

its not just a great boss theme for a terrible boss, its a really fuckin EMOTIONAL song for anyone whose childhood was fuckin defined by the first game!!!

and look you had a PERFECT FUCKIN EXCUSE for a REALLY GOOD boss battle against MY MAN GRUMPY GRANDPA OF THE COOL DAMN NAME. Seriously guys analogman was THE FIRST digimon villain! digimon world came out before the anime, digimon world was the BETA FOR THE ANIME! this was the first place they had the ideas for file island, so much of the areas in the game are awkwardly mistranslated versions of stuff that would later appear in the anime in a different form. before this digimon had never been anything more than a fuckin 2-bit graphics tamagotchi and this was (after the manga) only the second goddamn time these monsters had an actual full colour character design! all of those charmingly janky 90s gross out show styled tcg illustrations? that was concept art that this game was working from! fuckin hell this game thought up the idea for metalgreymon’s changed design that ended up becoming the iconic partner of tai in the anime. (you can also see beta tai in the manga with a beta veemon as a partner instead! o_O)

SO LIKE...

JUST....

I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT ANALOGMAN OKAY!!! he’s a badly written guy with only like five sentences across all the videogames but fuckin hell he was such an Iconique part of the development of this series that they named him fucking ANALOGMAN

like dude you could have SO EASILY made me scream at my tv in a more positive way by bringing him out as the surprise villain and showing us wtf his deisgn is even supposed to look like cos god all we have is a blurry faceless early ps1 model buried under the glow filters of Mt Infinity’s funky background effects.

AND FUCKING

IF IT IS CANON

THAT MY FUCKIN

STUPID THEORY

IS CANON

slap a fuckin O on this man and LITERALLY LET ME BEAT HIM UP

like dont even give him a team or anything, just let me fight THE MAN HIMSELF

you canonically fuckin said he’s a digital ghost now and basically the same as a digimon

let me beat the shit out of a regular businessman in a suit and tie while he pulls his badass ‘i’m hacking the game i’m in’ bullshit from the GODDAMN TCG GAME THAT WAS MORE CLIMACTIC THAN YOUR SHITTY CASH GRAB FAKE SEQUEL

man god i didnt expect a fuckin TCG GAME to revive my righteous fury from back when i first played that piece of shit. i hate it cos Next order is so pretty and its gameplay is so good and i really loved my twin digis but there were SO MANY bugs and cut corners and missing content and really bad writing and GOD it made me so sad that the dub team really really tried, they tried so hard that they got fuckin renamon’s original voice actress back even though the renamon in this game has nothing to do with the anime one. THE DUB WAS REALLY GOOD BUT IT COULDNT SALVAGE THAT SCRIPT!! THE MUSIC WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE ART WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE DIGIMON THEMSELVES WERE MY BEST DAMN FRIENDS FOR THAT MONTH OF MY LIFE BUT THE GODDAMN FUCKIN SCRIPT!!! the postgame was MORE FUN because FINALLY everything opened up like the sandbox of the first game and you could just fuckin hug u digis without being distracted by constant cutscenes butchering your childhood nostalgia

man i wanted to write a fic/draw a comic about my headcanons on how to fix it but i never managed to do it cos holy shit it was basically “throw everything out and make a different game geez” I COULD RAMBLE FOR HOURS ABOUT THE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SEQUEL THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN!! and a fuckin!! tcg game!! was closer to that sequel!!!

and fuckin MY THEORY WAS RIGHT AND MY BETTER GAME IDEA ACTUALLY WOULD WORK IN CANON

fuck it im gonna do draw myself decking business gramps in the face

oh! and the female protagonist design! thats another rare good part of that thing! i loved the pixellization effect on her ponytal, way better than the male equivelant having a very ordinary costume design just with a pixel corner taken out of his jacket. also why did the plot never actually make a thing out of that? like you’d think that ‘unlike every other digimon tamer i’ve got this scar of my digitization’ would be a plot point. like they didnt give everyone else a cool pixel squares mark! they could have at least used it as an excuse why the protagonist is the Only Chosen One who can do all this plot shit. or if it was me i would have made it early foreshadowing for the Return Of Business Gramps, like you were partially infected by the Oooo Mysterious Unexplained Digi Virus (seriously why did they not just have ONE SENTENCE explaining its the fuckin original villain returning????) during the prologue and i dunno somehow that gives you powers to break analogman’s control on the digimon he possesses. or maybe the pixel thing is like a tracking device he put on you? or just give that cool design trait to the protagonist of digimon cyber sleuth instead, whose entire plot is that theyre a digimon human hybrid with literaly the power to pixellize themself into computers.

ALSO!!! actually do something!!! with mameo!!!

they really fuckin hyped up in all the prelease materials that the digimon world 1 protagonist was gonna be in this game and he’s all grown up now. and then he does NOTHING in the plot except babble exposition and stand around your home base. and has one line about how he’s a badass teacher now and his partner is mamemon but hey we made a bullshit excuse for why his digimon is sealed away and he never gets to fight :<

give me an actual cool teamup of new protag girl and her cool teacher dude beating the shit out of business trash with their bare fists and also their digimon’s bare fists while THE BEST DAMN MUSIC GOES UNWASTED

...fuck i sure do Feel Intensely about nostalgic games lol. i wonder if i’ll be so rambley when i play kh3? maybe itd be a really shitty lp, aaagh...

#no gramps shall go unappreciated in the bunni house

2 notes · View notes

apocryphist · 6 years

Text

@vault11overseer asked me to rank all of Palpatine’s looks, which was probably at least 40% a joke. Joke’s on them, I’m doing it anyways, starting with the absolutely most wretched of them:

The classic throne room look

Yeah, I know -- this is The Palpatine Look, the one that defined our mental image of withered old bastards forever in Return of the Jedi. It’s a classic. But looking at it with the nostalgia goggles off, first doesn’t always mean best. There’s nothing regal about this look, nothing that screams Emperor, just a decrepit old man in his comfy clothes.

Sure, it’s real menacing when the fabric kind of blends into the shadows, but when he’s just walking around? It looks like he’s wearing evil cotton bathrobe. Even Dooku knew that if you were going to take a nap, you’d better be doing it in black silk pajamas. Next to Palpatine’s other looks, this one’s clear that he’s not trying too hard.

Which, of course, is the point -- Luke Skywalker sure didn’t expect the bathrobe man reclining in his Death Star Lay-z-boy to summon fucking lightning from his fingertips. That, and Palps just doesn’t have anyone to impress at this point. Who the fuck does he need to dress himself up for? Nobody, that’s who.

That said, this outfit has an unsung hero -- the cut of that hood. The way it’s draped like that, basically putting his head inside of a triangle, is way more evil than some round hood would be. Seriously, that hood is the reason we remember this look so well.

Final Verdict: 6/10, a respectable showing in many ways, but his other outfits often take what’s good about this one and do it better.

Next up...

Pantene-patine

Yeah, that’s not a great pun, but this guy clearly loves having hair a little too much for his own good. It’s like he saw male pattern baldness coming for his colleagues in the Senate, and thought “oh man, they’re all gonna be so jealous when they realize I can still style my hair like Nicholas Cage.”

But it also gives him kind of the air of a doddering politician. Between the taditional Naboo clothing, unflattering haircut, and the particular brand of politeness he employs, this Sheev Palpatine can blend into the background until it’s time to let his actual personality shine through and steal the space presidency out of nowhere.

Still not going to save it from a mediocre score, though. 2/10.

Space President, President of Space

Ol’ Palpy’s moving up in the world, so he can trim the weird wings off the sides of his haircut and stop wearing medium blues and purples to look nonthreatening. He doesn’t want to come on too strong, so there’s no hood or whatever, but he takes advantage of the opportunity to wear black and runs with it, only offsetting it with a brown top and sash. Palpatine can afford to look a little evil now; he’s space president. If he wasn’t at least a little evil, what would he be doing in politics?

But the ruffled brown-gold...sweater...? That’s not doing him any favors. 5/10.

Revenge of the Sleeves

This one’s pushing it, Pal. This outfit might not quite scream evil, but it's at the very least stage-whispering it. All-red color scheme? Shoulder pads like an evil wizard? Sleeves wide enough to hold entire folders in the upper arm?? Also, now that he’s in animation, it’s a little hard to hide the fact that he looks like an evil puppet, but what the hell. The Senate voted him enough war powers that shit shouldn’t matter.

All of that evil looks good, but those sleeves really do lose this outfit a lot of style points. Still, I guess he just had to do it to em. 4/10

The murder machine

We all have days where we want to cut lose and just be ourselves, right? Well, this is what Palpatine wears on rare occasions when he can put aside the busy schedule of leading both factions in a galaxy-spanning war, and just be what he is in his heart: a goddamn Sith Lord.

This doesn’t just scream evil, it screams evil and loving it! He spends his time in this outfit doing two things: cackling, and styling on absolutely everyone he encounters. It’s got that same classic comfy cut as his original Return of the Jedi look, but with a little more class. The texturing is great, the balance of black and red is on point, and it’s got a nifty sith clasp thing. Also, accessorizing with two lightsabers is a risky choice, but it really works out here.

Honestly, this look is hard to beat, a great combination of old and new. 9/10.

Leather car upholstery from the 90s

You know, this has a lot going for it. The cut of it is great, with angles seamlessly transitioning into round forms in a way that kind of suggests a business suit. This really says Space President in a way most of his looks don’t. That said -- this texture is just too much. Space leather is nice, but this is just distracting.

Also, I just noticed this, but -- are those loafers? Fucking evil loafers? Sheev, come on.

It looks good in darker lighting, though, so I’m gonna give it 7/10.

The Coronation Gown

Motherfucker shows up like “okay, the Jedi tried to kill me, gave me some weird scars, but i’m good. Don’t even pay attention to those scars, I’ve got this sick red robe aND A NEW EMPIRE, SEE YA DEMOCRACY WE’RE GREAT.”

Also? This is a fucking sith robe. Dude’s just wearing it in public because he knows he’s eliminated the only people who would know what he’s doing. What a fucking power move.

Is this a little too regal? Maybe for day to day wear, but come on, let Sheevy have his day to wear crushed velvet and unholy symbols of the dark side. 8/10

Classic 2: The Sequel: Redux: Fresh New Emperor Edition

What’s old is new again. right? Mostly. While this is a good look, it’s not as striking as the look he sported in the Clone Wars, and it’s not as creepy as his original look, either. Also: he gets flipped over a chair by Yoda.

Surprisingly underwhelming, 6/10.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

Is it cheating to count two looks as one? Probably. But the juxtaposition of his original Space Satan look with Kindly Old Grandpappy Palpatine was fucking incredible.

You never forget that he’s a bad guy, but you understand the Empire a little better just looking at Hologram Palpatine -- this is the face he presents to the public, a charming and diplomatic wartime leader turned the greatest champion of peace in the galaxy. It’s a hell of a trick.

Plus, the animated version of the costume is a little more put together than the 1983 version, while still maintaining everything that made the original great. 10/10.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Is this our old pal Sheev? No, technically not, it’s a recording of him being projected by a droid after his death.

Still, I like to think he picked this look out for the Sentinel Droids. Red leather, poofy sleeves, classic Sheev Palpatine material. Also, the faces on top of droids? Very spooky, very necessary, and very Palpatine. A post-mortem message isn’t quite the same with your dead boss staring you in the face.

However, I’m sorry to say, these sentinel droids look cooler without Palpatine’s face being projected in them.

They have a really neat look all of their own, and a dead dictator in a fishbowl doesn’t really add much. 7/10

So classic you don’t even know it’s classic

This is how Palpatine appeared in the original release of The Empire Strikes Back, before Ian McDarmid was even cast in the role. And, if I may say so, this is clearly Sheev’s best appearance. Big spooky hologram, lighting so dark you can’t tell where the shadows end and the black clothing begins, eyes that are probably sunglasses with putty on them -- need I go on?

No. No I don’t. Sheev was facetiming Vader from the fucking Coruscant runway where he was showing of his Sheevy Collection. Everyone else in the galaxy, eat your heart out, you’re never gonna look this good. 1,980/10.

...That applies to everyone except Lando. I can’t even joke about that, the man wears capes as fashion statements, and can turn the most painfully 1970s look into something acceptable. Sorry, I don’t make the rules; that’s just how it is.

#sheev palpatine #palpatine #star wars #original trilogy #star wars rebels #the clone wars #text #misc. apocrypha

244 notes · View notes

surrounded-by-superheroes · 6 years

Text

The Poisonous Cure Ch. 3

Click here for chapter two!

Summary; Loki runs into a young girl on his morning walk and is shocked to learn she’s more than just a minor selling herself on the streets. Her web is more tangled than perhaps even his, and she certainly holds as many secrets. He swears to find more about her, but does he really want to?

Author’s Note; Comforting Loki is my favorite Loki. Next Chapter on Wednesday!! I hope you all are liking it!! Reblogs and comments meant the worlds to me!!!!

Warnings; Language, mentions of abuse.

Words; 2,181

Chapter Three

Gal Pal

Tony’s breathing is labored as bends over, yet still manages to stare at me angrily. “When I said kick I didn’t mean me and I didn’t mean in my jewels! Damn!” He shouts and I would usually be at least slightly frightened, but watching Loki contain his own laughter belies any fear that may try and rise to the surface of my mind.

“You were in the way! What do you expect is going to happen when you hammer my knee and stand right in front of me?!” I ask just as passionately. A hand lands on the small of my back and panic shoots through my veins in a second, but I almost instantly calm when the touch turns frosty.

“Are you going to recover?” Loki asks with a barely concealed grin. Tony turns his irritated glare to Loki, but stands and comes back over to me.

“I guess you’re junkless down there like a Ken doll, right? That’s the only explanation for your apathy.” Tony gripes and puts gloves on, then ties a rubber thing around my arm so he can take blood. Loki’s eyebrows furrow.

“I am not familiar with your expression.” He responds and I shake my head at Tony before he says another word.

“He’s surprised at your lack of empathy, trench coat.” I translate for him without Tony’s colorful embellishments, but that just seems to make him more confused.

“Really? I thought it was perfectly obvious I have no heart.” Loki quips and gets a begrudging chuckle from Tony. I just roll my eyes and flinch when Tony sticks me.

“Perhaps you have been slipping in more ways than one, brother.” Thor enters with a big smile on his face and as soon as he’s beside Loki, his frigid touch leaves me. “We both know how much you adore your older brother.” Thor teases Loki and I can’t help but smirk at the clear irritation on his face. “How is our little witch of questionable morals?” He asks and I laugh.

“Fine, but just refer to me as the witch. I don’t belong to anyone.” Lies. My subconscious whispers in my head at the end and I huff. Although, I feel just a little satisfaction at seeing the corner of Loki’s mouth turn up at my words. Thor absorbs this and nods, instantly accepting the change.

“So be it. Have you been asked any questions yet?” He asks as Tony removes the needle full of my blood, replacing it with a cotton ball and bright green band-aid. Appropriate.

“No, I’ve mostly just been poked and prodded by Mr. Science guy over here.” I gesture to Tony who is now putting drops of my blood into multiple containers in multiple places.

“Friday, run a full diagnostic of this and get back to me when you have a hit.” Tony requests and puts the rest of my blood into a tiny fridge under the concrete counter to the right of where I’m sitting. “You can get down now. She’s all yours, gentlemen.” He waves us away and looks intently into a microscope. I hop off the counter and bounce on the balls of my feet.

“Alrighty, gods of Asgard, where to?” I look between the two of them and nearly roll my eyes at how their chests puff out at their titles. “Geez.” I breathe and head out in front of them, deciding if they weren’t going to do anything then I’m going to explore. They’re quick to catch up and flank me, but I instantly move to Loki’s left side to give me some more space.

“Was anything discovered by Stark?” Thor asks Loki more than me, so I continue peeking into each room we pass.

“She has an extremely elevated body temperature, reflexes far faster than average, the strength of a full-grown warrior, and a very poor attitude.” He pokes fun at me and I shake my head then turn into what looks like a kitchen.

“Thank god, food.” I mumble and walk straight to the bread to make a sandwich.

“Dinner’s going to be here in ten minutes.” A soft female voice drifts over to me and I perk up at the sound. After tucking the opening of the bread underneath its body, I turn around and go on my tiptoes to see over the L-shaped bar. A lovely red-head is sitting on the couch lazily scrolling through her phone.

“Ah, hello black spider!” Thor greets her happily, but when she looks up and sees Loki her gaze turns to ice.

“Hi.” She greets Thor and looks back to her phone. I decide to talk to her. There’s no reason for her to hate me, right? It’s been forever since I’ve met a girl that can’t instantly hate me. Quietly, I walk over and sit on the couch beside her lounging on a chase looking thing.

“You’re Natasha Romanoff, right? Uh, hello.” I greet her shakily, unused to the nervousness in my gut.

“You weren’t this nice when you met us.” Loki accuses as Thor pouts.

“That’s because men are usually assholes. Shut up.” I turn and scold before once again giving Natasha my attention. It seems I now have hers as well and there’s a small smirk on her lips.

“Just Natasha. You’re the one who froze Aries over there, huh?” She asks and I clearly hear Loki’s sigh of annoyance at being called another name.

“God of mischief and tricks, not war and whatever the hell else.” He corrects her quietly and her smirk grows a tad. I nod the affirmative and she sits up straight to appraise me.

“Good one. Now, is there any way you could make him stop talking forever?” She teases and even Thor chuckles this time, which earns him an elbow to the gut from Loki. “How about you eat with me tonight? The best cure for idiocy is a girl’s night.” She suggests with a small glance at the two men still standing in the doorway.

“She still needs to be questioned.” Thor points out and she shrugs.

“I’ll do it. No problem. What do you say?” Her eyes are steady on mine and I can’t help noticing they’re just a shade lighter than my real skin tone. Giddy with the thought of having a friend that’s a girl, Ghost included, I accept almost instantly.

“I’m in.” The corner of my mouth lifts and I immediately trail after her when she hops up and heads out the door, ducking under a man who walks in with a mountain of pizzas in his arms.

“Go to Steve Rogers with the bill!” She shouts over her shoulder after grabbing two off the top of his stack. We go up a floor in silence and enter her room that looks practically identical to mine. She could leave and no one would ever know she was here. Except for the various pictures of the team scattered around in strangely candid photos. They look as if they were taken without their knowledge which makes me admire her just a little more. She sets the pizzas down on the coffee table and I sit across from her. In a smooth motion I almost don’t notice, she pulls out a gun from the couch cushions, then sets it down on the table. “So, I need answers quickly and without elaboration. Unless I specifically ask for it. Are you in any way affiliated with Hydra?” Natasha asks succinctly with her eyes burning intensely into mine.

“No.” I answer coolly, knowing I can freeze her quicker than she can pull the trigger. Hopefully, anyways.

“Do you have any intention of hurting anyone on this team?” Her next question is just as quick as my answer and I know she’s going down a list in her head.

“No.”

“Why are there no records of you being on this earth until you were twelve?” She asks and I hesitate, my lips parting to answer then pausing.

“Because I don’t think I was.” I answer the best I can and watch her fingers tap her jean clad knee.

“Elaborate.” She commands with furrowed brows. After a few tense breaths and a staring contest, I try to answer.

“Uh, well. I’m not so sure I’m…uh…human?” My statement comes out as more of a question after her eyes quickly scan me warily. “I just remember waking up in a place called London next to a man promising to help me. He took me back to the states and gave me a place to stay, food, drink, everything.” I tell her in my calmest voice, but it gets hard. Mentioning him makes me feel guilty and dirty, since I threw all that back in his face. Her eyes soften and she nods, but there’s a sharp edge in her eyes that screams uneasiness.

“Strike.” She confirms and I flinch just at the name. “All those things didn’t come without a price, did they?” Natasha asks with a surprising amount of understanding in her eyes and a softness in her voice. I shake my head.

“I had to pay rent like everyone else.” I state factually and shrug. She takes this moment to hand me a piece of cheese pizza. Well, at least I earned food, right?

“People usually just pay with money.” She points out and I roll my eyes.

“And how was I to earn that? At least all I did was sleep around; I could’ve gone down the street and murdered people for cash instead.” I sass. The uneasiness in her eyes fades a little and I briefly wonder what I said to reassure her.

“So, at least you were moral about your immorality?” Natasha questions and takes a piece of pizza herself. I smile slightly.

“Exactly.” I confirm and eat my piece of pizza as she watches.

“So, what do you remember from twelve and below?” She asks and finally leans back against the couch, relaxing a little more in my presence. I finish my pizza and move to another piece, honestly, I don’t remember the last time I had pizza. It’s fantastic.

“Uh, not much actually. I remember tall trees. Trees taller than the buildings here and a sky that’s pink and yellow constantly swirling together.” I sigh in nostalgia and shake my head. “That’s it.” She nods slowly, already on her second piece of pizza like me.

“Alright. We’ll talk to Thor later, maybe tomorrow. For now, how about you change into sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, then come back and we’ll watch a movie.” Natasha suggests and stands, getting out her own olive sweatpants and brown baggy shirt. My brows furrow at the mere concept. She pauses and examines my expression, then nods her head once in understanding. “Listen, I’ll be frank with you if you’ll be frank with me.” She speaks again and tosses the clothes on the couch, perching on the arm gracefully. I nod once. “I understand more than anyone else here what you’ve been through, at least…on this earth. The whole ‘you always have to look good’ is bullshit. You look how you want here. Got it?” Natasha tells me in a firm voice that somehow reminds me of a parent. After a second I nod and stand, grabbing another slice on my way out. When I get to my room and change it feels weirder than it should. I don’t look horrible in this, but it’s my first time in a long time that I’m not dressed to impress. Ghost isn’t here, but he ate all his food so I’m not worried about him. I slip back up into Natasha’s room without being seen and find she’s laying on the couch with her feet propped up on a pillow.

“This means we’re friends, right?” I ask jokingly, but my tone is a little serious. She smiles and gestures to the chair across from her with a little foot rest and a blanket thrown over it.

“Why? Not too many friends in your past line of work?” Natasha asks lightly and I smirk. I’m glad to have someone who can take it lightly instead of looking at me horrified like the guys did. I sit and cover up with the blanket.

“Being the boss’s favorite has its drawbacks.” My reply is short and sober, but it catches her attention.

“I’m sure it does.” She responds weightily without taking her eyes off the television. “Alright, any movies you haven’t seen, but wanted to?” Natasha asks and starts searching through Netflix on her flatscreen. Eventually, we settle on Mean Girls since I’ve never seen it and Natasha insisted. We get to where Gretchen Wiener yells, “You can’t sit with us!” when we hear a, surprisingly high-pitched, man scream. We meet each other’s eyes and Natasha pauses the movie. It happens again and we’re both up and running to the source, the handgun from earlier in Natasha’s hand. We both sprint down a flight of stairs and follow a string of shouted curse words back to Tony’s lab.

“Aw, shit.”

#loki #Loki Laufeyson #avengers #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #loki and daughter #adopted daughter #loki and adopted daughter #sweet #cute #caring #daddy loki #loki friggason #parent avengers #the poisonous cure #the poisonous cure chap three

13 notes · View notes

potionsmasters · 6 years

Text

mightymiez replied to your post “I haven’t even seen the inside pages of a copy of Cursed Child and I...”

Well if you could afford it you really should see the play instead of reading it... Otherwise i would recommend for everyone to get their own opinion on this. Watching the play was really really good

I respect your opinion, but at this point it’s a matter principle for me. I have begun to despise companies’ mentality around the Harry Potter franchise. It’s so obvious what they’re doing and it’s painful to see people falling for it (I’m not immune either). They’re so obviously manipulating HP fans into giving more and more money because now most fans have grown up. It’s about nostalgia and the wish to relive the wonderful feelings we all had when we first read Harry Potter.

The fact that what they produce is pure garbage is irrelevant at this point, because HP fans will still go nuts over it, will buy the merchandise, tweet and cry about it. I think I was actually the only one of all my friends to like Fantastic Beasts. And I knew why I liked it - it was Harry Potter. If I weren’t so soft and sentimental for this series, I’d have realized that the movie itself was nothing special, another ‘meh’ riding on the coattails of a masterpiece. But I love the HP series and I miss it so, so much. But even with this afterwards I felt like ‘is this it? is that all there is?’ because in the end it was not Harry Potter, it will never be Harry Potter. The momentary weakness of heart, a yearning for a part of yourself that experienced the magic for the first time, is what this is really about.

Cursed Child was bad. It was a weak, wet fart of Harry Potter’s ghost. It had too many plot holes, bad mischaracterization, it crushed under it’s own weight of what it was trying to be, it was so obviously not written by JK Rowling. The fact that countless fans brush these things aside, still eat it up because ‘The play itself was good!!!’ or ‘The story was great. :))’ shows that these opinions come from yearning and nostalgia and avoiding criticizing a story that’s so fundamentally flawed. Because it’s Harry Potter and your brain knows you like it and wow we’re back in Hogwarts this is where we grew up!!!!!!! w o w!!!!!!!

Harry Potter has already been milked dry, but companies know very well that teary eyed fans will buy their shit until the day they die. We will eat up anything, no matter how bad it is, because we love the series. At this point they could make a 10 movie series on fucking Harry Potter Puppet Pals and people would still buy it, still go to the cinema, still feel their heart beat faster the moment familiar music starts. It’s pathetic, really. It’s just so pathetic. I will hold on to the last of my dignity, the last of my soul still not completely sold to this franchise that’s been touched by others’ dirty hands, and not see Cursed Child in play, should I for some reason get the chance.

#mightymiez #anti cursed child #anti... people who keep producing harry potter related shit ???

22 notes · View notes

briangroth27 · 6 years

Text

Ready Player One Review

I went into Ready Player One with polarized preconceptions. Several friends loved the book so I was initially excited, but in the run-up to the film's release hate exploded online and I saw all manner of spoilers and scans of troubling chunks of the novel, which made me much more wary. I still liked the story’s idea so the trailers’ focus on nostalgia didn’t bother me, but I didn’t know what to expect going in. I was pleasantly surprised: it’s a fun roller coaster! There are several strong ideas at play, even if they aren't fleshed out as much as they could've been. It definitely seems like most of the book’s problematic stuff has been excised, making for a fast-moving, enjoyable film with a strong, important message.

Full Spoilers…

Tye Sheridan was solid as Wade Watts/Parzival, a generally good guy obsessed with OASIS’ virtual playground and the quest to win control of it. Sheridan was awkward and geeky enough to sell a classic nerd persona without being so overbearing or unlikable that it's unbelievable Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) would fall for him (or that we would root for him). An altercation in the real world with Wade’s aunt’s (Susan Lynch) boyfriend (Ralph Ineson) was a nice moment for Sheridan to show Watts’ vulnerability and fear, giving a glimpse of how differently he reacted to challenges outside the OASIS. I would’ve liked to see more opportunities for that in the script, particularly after Art3mis meets him for real. While I was glad Wade was toned way down from what I’ve heard he is in the novel, I think he’s written a bit too safely. He’s likable, but he’s so much an everyman that he lacks conflict. I don’t think genuinely good characters are boring, but challenging their beliefs is a way to make goodness interesting and this film doesn’t do a lot of that. That could’ve been easily remedied by playing up a few aspects of the movie version to give him a stronger arc. For example, Wade’s poor and wants to win the contest so he can live a life of luxury (winning comes with a huge payday). Why not use that selfish—if understandable, in a world consumed by severe economic decline no one cares about because they all escape to the OASIS—instinct to spark more conflict with Art3mis, who wants to better the world with her winnings? Why not have Wade argue that it’s easier to play in the OASIS than to endlessly fight and maybe really die for people who don’t care about the real world? Maybe even let the promise of relaxation, safety, and an end to financial worries tempt her a bit so her values are challenged as well. When she beats that temptation to carry on with her crusade, Wade could also realize there are more important things than his own comfort.

Also, Wade declares his love for Art3mis way faster than anyone could reasonably love someone, somewhat undercutting the “take chances with your heart” lesson he learns later, so I wish the script had given him time to find out what real love is. He could still be intimidated by the enormity of real love, necessitating that lesson when actual feelings are on the line. While I don’t think their love story is any shallower than in the average film, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been deepened. Lean into Wade’s instant “movie love” and have it mess up Art3mis’ quest by making his help a hindrance for a while. His eagerness to connect with her does destroy his real life, but the movie only comments on how foolish he is to reveal his real name, not that his infatuation is the cause. I also wish there was much more reaction to Wade’s family being murdered; it radicalizes him to Art3mis’ cause (making his aunt into yet another woman in a refrigerator, unfortunately) and Sheridan is good at conveying the loss for the few moments the film lets him live in it, but beyond that it felt like the loss got forgotten somewhere. Even when Wade and his friends intercept villain Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) as he’s exiting the OASIS and trap him in a simulation, Wade’s rage at his aunt’s death seems to be mostly an act, because he has a totally cool head as soon as he leaves Sorrento’s presence. Had the movie presented this as an example of how disconnected players had become from people in their real lives (even if they do make friends with people online), it would’ve been a strong, compelling rebuke of the OASIS. If that’s the intention, it needed a vocalized realization and a moment for Sheridan to explore it.

Olivia Cooke was awesome and driven as Samantha Cook/Art3mis, who—like others have pointed out—had a stronger plot and motivation than Wade did. Since her father died a debtor worked to death by the evil corporation IOI, she was out to prevent them from winning the contest and (in the book, so I’ve been told) wants to use her financial winnings to better the real world. I wish that end goal had been clearly articulated in the movie, because while I like the idea that the world is so bad that the only thing worth fighting for is an escape from it, the huge sum of money the players were competing for could make a real difference. Also, it might have been interesting for Art3mis to be out to shut down the game altogether. There's a literal "delete the OASIS" button—which I kinda wish was designed to look like the Ghostbusters’ Containment Unit—introduced at the end that's never referenced elsewhere, so why not tease it earlier as part of Art3mis' mission? Shutting down the game (and reimbursing everyone for their virtual loot) so that people would be forced to focus on bettering and living in the real world would’ve been a logical goal for her. That's where you could play up Wade's reverence for James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and his OASIS by making him argue for the importance of a game, leading to them compromising with the "close the OASIS on Tuesdays and Thursdays" idea at they implement in end.

Samantha immediately shutting down Wade shortening her real name to Sam after they met in the real world was a nice beat; it was a small moment, but it’s cool that she got to assert her chosen identity in the real world as well as online. I loved that she was weirded out by Wade saying he loved her so quickly and that she called him out on not really knowing her, instead only seeing the parts she wanted him to see. Those both felt like realistic reactions and smart commentary on internet (and real-life) interactions as informed by movies where all romance is a speedy fairy tale. I do wish they'd continued to subvert and expand on those ideas, however. They could've played up her insecurities about her real self beyond being embarrassed by a birthmark, which would've been a nice contrast to Wade's confidence in the OASIS vs. his considerably more fearful real-world persona. It also would've been nice if more than her birthmark had thrown Wade off. Props to him for not caring about her physical appearance, but that's a really low bar; why not include some personality traits he doesn't like? Different tastes in pop culture? Are there things about Wade or his interests she doesn’t like? At the very least, her rebellion could've fueled conflict between them and created much more drama than her apprehension about her birthmark did. Her drive could've been too much for him at first, since he just wanted a cozy life and she's putting her real self in danger. Now that I think about it, playing that up could’ve been a reference itself to Han and Leia in the original Star Wars. While conflict and challenges would’ve generated more sparks and, eventually, a stronger bond, both Sheridan and Cooke sold what they got and I liked them together. While I appreciated that they were drawn as more or less equally capable in the contest (and Samantha was definitely more capable in the real world), I didn’t need her to tell Wade she knew he'd win: it seemed less supportive and more like it undercut her own skills to nod at him being some kind of savior. She does get a lot to do in securing Wade’s access to the final challenge from behind enemy lines, though, which was cool and made winning a bit more of a team effort.

I liked Wade’s best friend Aech (Lena Waithe) a lot and the reveal that the male avatar was controlled by a woman was cool. It was also a nice touch that her mechanic skills weren’t received with shock once her friends knew who she was (and that she didn’t need to explain how she was such a good mechanic!). Waithe was good with what she got, but I wish they'd used her to explore the idea that the OASIS lets you be anyone and anything you want a bit more. Wade gets confidence, Samantha gets beauty and the power to strike back, and Sho (Philip Zao) gets respect beyond his years, but letting Helen articulate exactly what she gets out of the OASIS could’ve been a powerful moment and an argument for its positive aspects. I’m glad the movie at least nodded at her being a lesbian (by having her avatar enjoy making out with the Shining ghost (Gem Refoufi)) instead of ignoring that altogether, though that’s the perfect example of something that could’ve been expanded upon by giving her a moment to say the OASIS allowed her to acceptably live her truth. I wish we’d gotten to know Wade’s pals Sho and Daito (Win Morisaki) better as well. They could've at least had varied goals; rather than seeking control and fortune, maybe one of them could’ve just been down to complete the challenges like a trophy hunter in today’s video games. In general, I would've liked to see more of Wade's competitors before he brings everyone together at the climax. TJ Miller’s I-R0k is a great counterpart to Wade, given he comes off as a much more problematic nerd than Watts does, but he’s still essentially an IOI stooge rather than a player with his own agenda. Are there rebel Gunters Art3mis works with that do extreme things she doesn't approve of? There's only so much screen time, of course, but after the first leg of the Egg Hunt it felt like only the High Five and IOI were invested in the quest.

Mendelsohn was good as the evil businessman in charge of keeping IOI's profits up. That he wanted to monetize the OASIS by putting ads all over it and wanted to charge for its use made him a good avatar for both Hollywood leaning on nostalgia instead of creating new things and for the forces opposed to net neutrality, since this tech should be for everyone. The fact that he was greedier than outright mustache-twirling evil (until he started killing people) was a smart choice that kept him human. At the same time, that greed quickly led him down a "who cares" path: he has no concern about zeroing out everyone scrambling for the Easter Egg, which would bankrupt everyone against him (I hope Wade restored those players' coin counts!), and that was good character progression. I also liked his fake geek scene: being fed trivia to convince Wade they were the same (and his general exasperation with geek culture) was a good way to make him markedly different from every other character in the movie, particularly the younger generation. I also liked the change in his response to confronting Wade as an “inferior” geek and Wade as a competent rebel threat. I've seen it jokingly pointed out that a rich white guy like Sorrento just admitting he's a criminal and giving up at the end is the most unrealistic thing in the movie, but I think that's foreshadowed by Wade confronting him with the "gun." Nolan respects the gamers when they show the capability to end his life; as soon as they're willing to play by his rules, he takes them seriously and backs down almost immediately. Like Wade’s online courage and offline weakness, Nolan has an “avatar” of strength in the real world around people he believes are less than him.

Contrasting with Sorrento, I really liked that the IOI researchers (Turlough Convery, Joe Hurst, Eric Sigmundsson, James Dryden, Danielle Phillips, Rona Morrison, Khalil Madovi, Morris Minelli) were truly invested in the outcome of the game and (eventually) watching Wade win it. Their glee at the success of the hunt and the purity of the final challenge added a lot of texture to them. They may have sold out to IOI (or simply been forced into working with them because of debt or promises of riches), but they weren't just heartless drones. While I appreciated that depth, I was a little confused about the power IOI wields in general in this world. One of their divisions seemed to be a (virtual) privatized debtor’s prison and I would've liked to see what that was like when not engaged in the egg hunt (assuming it existed before Halliday's challenge). That seems ripe for the potential to program nightmares into prisoner’s minds when the only crime was falling behind on their debts. I've been told that in the book, IOI's Sixers are more like indentured servants and I could see that spin in the film (particularly through Samantha's dad), but some clarity on what their actual power level and place in society was would've been appreciated, because it certainly looked like Samantha had been arrested by them. It was also a little odd that IOI could blow up part of the Cleveland Stacks and no authorities cared or even showed up until the end, unless that's a comment on the classism of this society. Despite that lack of clarity, "the common people vs. a corporation with too much power" is a solid theme and the movie plays it well. I also appreciated that Sorrento’s real-world muscle was headed up by a woman, F’nale Zandor (Hannah John-Kamen). She could’ve easily been a guy and most movies would’ve gone that way, but making her a strong, dangerous woman who didn’t like Sorrento that much was a cool choice. It would’ve been nice for Samantha, Sho, and Daito to be able to defeat her instead of Wade (who was focused on the OASIS during their fight), though.

I liked Halliday and his quiet sadness in the wake of the important lesson about connections he'd learned too late. He seems much more likable and understandable than what I've heard about his book counterpart. I'm pretty quiet in real life, so I could definitely relate to his difficulty opening up to people. The fact that his quest to know his favorite pop culture is really a quest to appreciate the game and the world outside by connecting with real people (first Halliday, then people in your real life) was an awesome twist. Whether Halliday is really dead or not doesn't matter to me; either way, he is free of his creation and has found a successor who can do what he couldn’t. Halliday’s programmed self leaving with his childhood self was a perfect exit from the story for him. Simon Pegg gave a solid, unexpectedly subdued performance as Halliday's former friend Ogden Morrow that I liked a lot. He had a good bit of tragedy to him over falling out with Halliday and I liked how he figured into the OASIS world. Serving as the docent of the Halliday museum felt like a cool way to honor his friend and preserve his memory while potentially trying to figure out exactly what drove them apart. I’m glad that the fact that Halliday was in love with Og’s wife wasn’t played to make anyone look bad—rather, it was treated as just something that happened—and the real tragedy was that they fell apart over something Og probably would’ve forgiven Halliday for had they just talked about it instead of Halliday bottling it all up inside (another lost connection).

I liked the references in Halliday's virtual world—I love 80s/90s pop culture—but almost none of the cameos stunned me. They were more like set dressing selling the idea of a nostalgia playground and that’s all they needed to be. If they were the real characters instead of players using avatars, we'd lose focus on Wade, Samantha, etc. and their struggle. While we do get glimpses of interests beyond the 80s/90s—the Adam West Batmobile, King Kong, mentions of steampunk, and disco music (bizarrely referred to as "old school"...all of this is old nowadays, not to mention to teens in the 2040s)—as others have noted it would've been nice to see more diverse fandoms represented by the Gunters, even while they were engaged in cracking Halliday's 80s/90s-focused challenge. It would've brought more variety to the characters. As for the contest itself, I loved the race and The Shining test a lot. The race for the first key, through a twisting and turning New York, was a great adaptation of racing games that made me think of Split/Second. It also featured two of my favorite cameos in the movie, Rexy from Jurassic Park and King Kong, because those “were” those characters. The Shining challenge for the second key featured an excellent recreation of Stanley Kubrick's movie before morphing into pretty much exactly what I'd imagine a bombastic video game version of that film would be, which was cool. That adaptation being hated by Stephen King was also a nice tie to Halliday becoming disillusioned by what people were giving up to use his game. Jack Torrence’s fall and attempt to destroy his family also feels like a pretty perfect (if extreme) parallel to Halliday feeling he’d betrayed his best friend by secretly loving his wife and cutting him out of the company. The chaotic melee leading up to the final key was fine, but full of players I didn't know or care about so it fell flatter than it probably should have (one of the "real" characters thrown into that battle gets a great moment, though). On the other hand, the final challenge was a nice, quiet moment that fit the film's theme and Halliday's lesson. It felt right to bring it all down to one player connecting with the designer of one game. The actual final challenge was perfectly personal too, but they totally missed a chance to homage The Last Crusade by having Halliday’s wizard avatar say “You have chosen…wisely.”

I liked the ideas behind this world quite a bit. It’s definitely prescient to showcase a world in love with distractions and games to the point where they stop interacting with real people or doing something worthwhile with their lives (who among us hasn’t gotten distracted by Twitter or Facebook and put off doing something we should be doing?). They did a great job of showing how much people were wrapped up in their virtual lives, spending real money (even their mortgage money!) on virtual trinkets and upgrades. That real-world financial connection made the stakes high enough to carry the film for me. It's true Wade and the High Five are only fighting for a recreational toy (even if it has other applications like education) without having goals for their lives outside the OASIS, but in the dystopia they live in (and in our real world), people need a release and escape: our lives can't just be work/school, food, bathroom breaks, and sleep. That's why we go to movies and play games in the first place. It's why people shouldn't police what people on food stamps use them for; existence should be more than just existing. At the same time, remembering the OASIS is just a game, not the pinnacle of your existence, is a great message and the movie walks the line between these seemingly at-odds lessons very well. To that end, I wish they'd said the High Five were going to use their enormous winnings to make the real world somewhere people would want to explore too.

I'm interested to see if the novel expands on what you can do in the OASIS beyond playing. I did miss the first minute or two—I came in as Wade was introducing his treadmill/haptic suit—so perhaps some of these elements were referenced and I just missed it. I've heard kids go to school inside it and that's an interesting opportunity for students to be exposed to any facet of history/science/whatever in a tactile way through VR. I'd be interested to see how much work is done online in conjunction with OASIS applications, if any. Do people buy their food with OASIS coins? The more real-world things are wrapped up in the program, the more crucial it becomes to save it from a corporation that wants to eventually price people out of vital services. On a more personal level, seeing more people experimenting with how they present themselves to the world would've been great. If they can literally be anything or anyone, a lot of personal freedom is also at stake. Aech and Shao touch on this freedom, as does Art3mis with her idealized appearance, but I would've loved to see more, particularly with today's political battles over transgender rights. In terms of how people in this future interact with each other, I found it disheartening that even 30 years from now, in a world where everyone is constantly online playing in the OASIS, Wade still has trouble believing a girl—even the famous Art3mis!—could be an expert at trivia. This very modern problem doesn't come up much in the movie, but the Slappers Only line stood out to me. Wade and Samantha test each other on Goldeneye 64 knowledge, which is fine, but it's obvious by what she says that she'd know what Slappers Only is without Wade mansplaining it.

From the look of trailers, I never would've guessed Steven Spielberg directed this. However, he brought his trademark heart and humanity to the CGI elements and video game structure; even in unfamiliar trappings, it felt and acted like a Spielberg movie. Despite areas where the characters could've been fleshed out to create more conflict or explore the personal freedom of the OASIS, Spielberg's touch and the strength of his performers kept them likable and engaging. He also maintained a quick pace: this didn’t feel like a two and a half hour movie at all. I thought the CGI looked good, given this was supposed to be a video game with game graphics. Since it intentionally looked "off" from reality, it wasn't jarring to have anime-inspired avatars or constantly shifting geography. I liked that the score had touches of film scores from the 80s in it; those bits of nostalgia did get me. From the excerpts I've read online, most of the novel’s problematic elements were removed for the adaptation. Wade doesn't show any transphobia—Aech brings up the idea that Art3mis could be a guy and Wade denies it, but seems to accept that possibility anyway. They're worried Art3mis is a guy who’ll steal Wade’s coins, not that he’s a guy who wants to date him. There's no "masturbation manifesto,” no super-long lists of everything Wade has studied (partially because they can just show us all the references and partially because the movie has a more personal egg hunt). Wade's attempts to make Art3mis like him are also toned down or cut altogether, though I wouldn't have minded including one or two and subverting them to teach him that real love isn't like in a movie where grand gestures and "persistence"/stalking will get you everywhere. Unfortunately, it did seem like there was still a noticeable lack of content by female and minority artists, though. Thriller gets a shoutout, but only as a costume Wade considers wearing. As I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, there was also a lack of 80s content that was geared toward girls. Why not have Jem and the Holograms playing the club Wade and Samantha go to or something? This section of the OASIS is curated to Halliday’s tastes, sure, but if we’re going all-in on the 80s and 90s, largely ignoring minority and female artists is a pretty huge oversight.

I don’t think my critiques here are about movie-ruining problems, just areas where a good, solid film could’ve been exceptional. Even if its characters could’ve been expanded to make more of an impact and statement, Ready Player One is definitely worth seeing! It's an exciting adventure with heart and a great, relevant message. I had a lot of fun and I recommend it!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

#ready player one

4 notes · View notes

mysteriouslyzealouspandalov-blog · 5 years

Text

50 Micro Warning Signs Your Relationship Is Going To End Soon

New Post has been published on https://relationshipguideto.com/must-see/50-micro-warning-signs-your-relationship-is-going-to-end-soon/

50 Micro Warning Signs Your Relationship Is Going To End Soon

http://bit.ly/2BEEWbe

Cataloged in Romance

50 Micro Warning Signs Your Relationship Is Going To End Soon

January Nelson Updated December 30, 2018

These non-obvious, early warning signs from Ask Reddit will let you know whether your relationship is doomed.

1. If you keep asking them to hang out or make plans for something but they ignore you, they stop responding to your texts, start calling you crazy because you got mad for their lack of communication, knowingly lie to you and or conveniently hide things from you. Won’t make time for you but expects you to be available for them anytime.

2. When the communication slows to a trickle. When you look up one day and realize ya’ll haven’t had a conversation beyond what to have for dinner or what movie to watch. It’s much more obvious when communication dies altogether. But when it slows to a trickle, when you notice it’s going, that’s when you should pay extra attention. But when you put in your best efforts to get the conversation flowing again, and they don’t reciprocate, that’s when the relationship is in real trouble.

3. When instead of getting excited to see their messages you get annoyed and/or feel smothered.

4. When you realize the most meaningful conversation you’ve had recently was “What’s for dinner?”

When in the last year, you’ve had the same amount of sex as a nun.

When you force a smile and pretend everything is okay in front of everyone.

When you realize if it wasn’t for the kids, you probably would have already left.

When you no longer care whether they notice you’re avoiding any free time with them.

When you find yourself “accidentally” falling asleep on the couch while watching TV so you don’t have to go to bed.

5. When you feel like you have to make excuses about your SO to others. (Why they do what they do. Why they said what they said etc.)

6. Knowing that your SO is physically in the room with you, but feeling that mentally, they are very far away from you…

7. Even fights are one sided. The other person just stops trying to resolve the issues.

8. When your SO seems totally disinterested in talking to you. You try to start a conversation and they just give you one word/one sentence answers.

9. When he/she no longer bothers to get upset or angry with you. It shows they have checked out and think of you as a stranger.

10. Being with them feels like an obligation, their quirks drive you away from them subconsciously, you’re only trying for the sake of keeping up a social veil of perfection.

11. You feel strongly about something but you don’t want to talk about it because you know it’ll just become an argument that won’t be resolved satisfactorily.

12. When they become non-commital on plans, especially those that involve reservations.

When the conversation seems less full than it used to be, as if you are just going through the motions of asking how each other’s day was.

When deep, personal conversations either remain more superficial than before or stay mired in prolonged unresolved conflict.

When they ask if you ever think about dating other people (not non-obvious, but how on Earth I missed that one is beyond me).

When their five-year plan changes vastly, seemingly out of the blue.

13. When one keeps finding a reason to leave the house … run non imperative errands, etc., without the other. Pretty much means they don’t want to be home… and or, in your company.

14. If something happens that you want to discuss with someone (get advice, share good news, sympathy for something, etc) and your SO is not the first person you want to go to, then the relationship is on its way out. Not necessarily if it happens once or twice, but if it happens frequently then they are not the person for you.

15. Eye-rolling when the partner talks; cutting them off in conversation; dismissing with sarcastic generalizations (“oh, as if you’d ever…”); belittling the partner when in the safety of groups. All these things are signs that the iceberg is dead ahead.

16. Indifference, even the possibility of breaking up doesn’t seem to phase them. They stare at you blankly as you cry your feelings of hurt out. Extreme defensiveness, and never offering a “real” apology, if any.

17. When you don’t see each other for a few days, and you’re not excited to get back together.

18. When you’re spending time with them and you’d rather be anywhere else. When conversations with them become dry and boring, that’s a big one too.

19. Just hanging out becomes a chore more than pleasure.

20. You find yourself not wanting to sleep next to them. You resent them and have things you want to resolve but know it won’t be well received. They skip out on things important to you. They expect you to care for them while sick, but when you are sick they do nothing for you. They don’t make you feel wanted or appreciated. You feel used and taken for granted. Sexual attraction dicipates. One of you starts sleeping on the couch randomly and often. You have a hard time getting the other to talk about anything. You feel a constant tension in the house. You start feeling like you live with a ghost that is haunting you and you can’t communicate with it.

21. You feel like there is nothing between the silence and the sex. You find yourself fighting and making promises far more than sticking to them. When you do something for your partner, you feel resentful rather than happy.

22. When their quirks that you used to find endearing now make you want to commit violence.

23. If you can’t be yourself or have hobbies that don’t include them. Run.

24. Looking forward to him being away/at work etc. Or me not looking forward to coming home.

25. Our sex life became less active, with both of us making excuses about being tired or stressed or otherwise not in the mood.

26. When one of you starts calling the other by their real name instead of the normal pet name. Usually an indicator of a loss of affection.

27. When they stop being interesting in conversations, don’t go too far out of their way to talk to you or show any care about your life, etc.

28. When your SO is happier when he’s with other people than when he is with you.

29. Friends generally pick up on it before the people in the relationship. When your pals can’t say anything nice, or shut up when your girlfriend/boyfriend walks in, or they are having pointed conversations questioning your judgement for dating this person, then that’s a bad sign. One friend, that might just be a fluke. Multiple friends, and you’re in a bad relationship.

30. When you get home from work at the end of the day and your spouse doesn’t want to hug you or even talk to you.

31. You’re the one initiating conversations, meetings etc. a lot more than your partner.

32. When your partner is often suspicious/accusing of you.

33. When breakup songs start making more sense to you than love songs.

34. When others talk about your SO to you, and you get a little exasperated, or a little wince/groan on your face when they say their name.

35. They start comparing you with past failed relationships.

36. When you start checking their Facebook account to see what they’re up to.

37. They stop saying the L-word.

38. Cute messages that feel obligatory.

39. Less physical contact.

40. When you start feeling nostalgia for the relationship you’re currently in.

41. Often, but not always, for romantic relationships is a difference in sexual preferences. For example, your partner wants sex less often than you and seems to avoid having sex/makes excuses, whether they are valid or not.

Along the same vein, avoidance in general. They always seem to have something that’s keeping them busy. Or they have previous obligations. They won’t answer their phone very quickly, or at all.

42. When you come home from work and instead of getting out the car right away you want to stay in your car longer.

43. When it starts to feel like a bottomless pit. No matter how much effort you put into it, things don’t improve and you get less and less back every day.

Alternatively, when you realize that you can’t problem-solve for shit when the two of you are together, even simple tasks that require nothing more than open communication. Relationships require work, but they also need to be functional. If basic incompatibility keeps the two of you from working together as a partnership, it’s fucking doomed.

44. Short replies and longish reply times.

45. If they start “bettering” themselves – going to the gym, taking classes, dressing more sharply. in a healthy relationship this is a wonderful thing obviously, but if things have been pretty grim for a while, this can be a pretty bad sign.

46. Only having sexual attraction when you’re drunk.

47. Silence and lots of it. When you start texting/calling each other less, it usually means your SO found someone new and exciting to talk to.

48. The brief terrifying, numbing thought of “is this going to be the rest of my life.”

49. When you take a trip together, and argue the whole time.

50. She didn’t want to put her name on the house we were about to buy. She still gave me money to help me get it, but she wouldn’t put her name on the mortgage. I forget the reason, but it went in one ear and out the other. It should have been a red flag, but I was naive. We were divorced one year later. She didn’t want that house with me because she was already thinking about leaving me.

Image Credit: Marius Held

is cataloged in Breakups, Relationship red flags

Time To Change Your Life

Over the past few years, Brianna Wiest has gained renown for her deeply moving, philosophical writing. This new compilation of her published work features pieces on why you should pursue purpose over passion, embrace negative thinking, see the wisdom in daily routine, and become aware of the cognitive biases that are creating the way you see your life. Some of these pieces have never been seen; others have been read by millions of people around the world. Regardless, each will leave you thinking: this idea changed my life.

Click Here

Time To Change Your Life

Click Here